Please pardon the extended interruption in service. Somehow, I ran out of things to say and the pressure of the URL was too great a burden to bear. Fortunately for any of you who still check this address, the situation was not permanent. I’ve been itching for a good rant fairly regularly of late, so we hereby resume your usual – not to say normal – service.

That is all.

Bad food is pretty easy to come by these days – on every second corner there’s a fast food chain or a Kebab shop selling something the colour and/or texture of which can’t be found in nature. It’s pervasive, but it’s mediocre. And mediocrity is boring, people.

What I find really impressive is food that is superlatively bad in some way – flagrantly stinky with no attendant taste, for instance. Or, more to the point, today’s lunch.

Purchased at the office canteen (yes, yes, I should know better, but obviously I don’t), it consisted of a few industrial spoonfuls of macaroni and cheese, and a handful of sad-looking leaves of red lettuce. The lettuce was fine – inoffensive and still somewhat crisp, if unnervingly warm. It’s the macaroni that I wish to discuss. It looked tasty and comforting – with nice brown bubbly cheese melted on the top and appealing looking specs of what appeared to be some sort of seasoning. And based on the texture, it contains a truly dangerous amount of cheese and possibly cream – I can actually feel my arteries hardening while I eat it. And yet it has no flavour at all. None. It’s not that it’s underseasoned, or too sweet or needs a pinch of salt. It’s that it tastes of exactly nothing. It tastes like it’s got texture and that’s about it. Which I find remarkable – commendable even. Heart attack on a plate, but stealthily.

That is all.

1.
I finally got round to seeing The Squid and the Whale, Noah Baumbach‘s latest. I spent a lot of the film thinking, hey, this has a pretty strong Wes Anderson vibe about it – but then again, the two have a lot in common, both in their characters and in their wry self-consciousness. But silly me, I didn’t realise until the closing credits (were there opening credits? I don’t think there were) that Anderson produced this film, and I didn’t realise until today that Baumbach wrote The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Ahaaaaa, it all becomes clear.

Anyway, the film was great. I’m not sure whether my friend who went with me enjoyed it as much as I did, though I know he liked it – I think there’s a bit of a cultural disconnect for anyone who didn’t grow up in the 80s in the States. There’s a particular brand of dysfunction that we experienced, it seems – if not in our own families then in those of our friends or classmates – that didn’t exist anywhere else. And Baumbach captures it beautifully. I hate using words like “poignant” to describe films, so I won’t. I’ll call it evocative (hang on a minute, that’s even more pretentious, isn’t it? Damn). I didn’t live with these characters (at least not directly), I didn’t grow up in this neighborhood; but they took me to the moments of my teenage years just the same – that sense of weirdness and general discomfort – the itch that you can’t pinpoint closely enough to scratch. And it took me there in a wrapper that was close enough to my own experience – the school-appointed counsellor, the museum afternoons, the intellectual snobbery – that I found myself responding in completely unconscious ways. Which is not an easy thing to convey. Which is of course what really good movies are supposed to do.

Baumbach’s come a long way since Kicking and Screaming, but there’s clearly a lot of autobiographical crossover: one of the themes in TS&TW is Walt struggling with the disparity between how he imagines himself to be (largely based on potential that he seems to have no intention of fulfilling) and the reality of life. Pretty much all the characters in K&S are stuck in that same place. It’s nice to see Walt’s story moving on. And Baumbach’s too.

2.
I bought a house. Well, subject to contract but still. Good god, what am I thinking?

I’ll tell you what I’m thinking: it’s beautiful, and it’s going to cost me the same every month (ok, every month for 25 years but still), and I love it. That’s what I’m thinking. I’m also of course thinking oh sweet jesus, what have I done??, but that’s OK, right?

3.
Damn. I’m still stuck on 2. Never mind. Let’s just leave it there.

As some of you may know, today was an important day in broadcasting history: it marked the first ever live HD broadcast in the UK, and the first ever global HD World Cup broadcast. And we were here to see it.

It was a momentous occasion. There we were, lined up in front of the massive HD Plasma screen, oblivious to the blinding sunshine outside the window, when the opening ceremonies began. With dancing. In lederhosen and dirndls. And men humping gigantic cowbells.

I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house.

I’m now in a panic because I’m going to The Mansion this weekend which will presumably dictate the wearing of skimpy clothing and perhaps even a [gasp] bikini. And what with all the roast dinners I’ve been eating and the lager I was guzzling right up until the weekend, my belly has developed a style of movement all its own (a la Santa Clause) and I’m bulging out of all but my most elasticated clothing like a bountiful tub of top-quality lard. Or perhaps duck fat. I don’t suppose it’s possible to lose a stone in a week, is it? No, thought not.

So, plan B: spend the entire weekend in a voluminous silk Kaftan or Muumuu (what is the difference, really, anyway?), turban and ginormous shades, carrying a telescoping cigarette holder in one hand and a martini in the other, channelling Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell or the 40s Hollywood Diva of your choice.

Does anyone know where I can get a muumuu, stat?

I have these moments every once in a while, when it feels like I’m there, wherever there is, and I get how it all works, at least enough for now. These often bring to mind cinematic moments that impressed me when I was a teenager – there’s a very precise feeling about those scenes where a bunch of people are sitting around having a good chat and a good laugh that always made me think, “I want to be like them when I grow up.” Why were these moments so compelling? (They still are, yes, in case you were wondering) It’s not because everyone in them is usually pretty and they’re well lit and they have lots of booze (although these things are generally helpful) – it’s because everyone in them seems to be completely immersed in where they are. They’re at ease with themselves and with each other, genuinely enjoying their moment without a thought of what came before or what’s next or even what’s immediately outside their cocoon of laughter. Which is of course why they’re there – it makes the impending breakup or tragic death or murder-by-axe-wielding-maniac that much more powerful.

All of this is by way of saying that I’ve had a weekend brimming with those moments. I’ve spent big chunks of time with some of the people I love the best, I’ve met new folk and exchanged glances across shoulders and engaged in lively verbal sparring matches and resisted the urge to be mean to evil little actresses and had people round til 4 in the morning and laughed while we waited for the snogging new couple to come out of the bathroom and eaten more enormous delicious roast dinners than should really be allowed. And I’ve still got an afternoon/evening of cosy domesticity ahead of me, complete with fuzzy little joy-bundles to get in the way of my cleaning. I haven’t made such good use of a bank holiday weekend in quite a long time.

What’s best about all this is I feel like I’m getting it again – getting into a good rhythm, getting what it takes and what it means to be happy in the world and in my life, like I’m getting the balance right between new and known and what makes me comfortable and what makes me nervous, after a rather rocky bit.

It’s hard to write about being happy without sounding like an idiot, isn’t it?

So that’s that.

On a totally unrelated note, I would like to mention how very much I have enjoyed the abundant and vicious criticism of The Da Vinci Code. I realise it hasn’t hurt its box office performance but I don’t care. There’s something about reading cruel reviews with which one agrees completely that’s deeply, deeply satisfying*. The only blip in this otherwise unbroken radar of joy is that some of my favourite critics seem to be struggling a bit with the subject matter. I get the sense that there was simply too much awfulness to attack all in one go, too much to tear into confetti, to fit in the usual space. I can only hope that somewhere David Foster Wallace is writing a nice long essay even now.

* This isn’t entirely fair – I haven’t seen the film (and intend to see it only once it’s out on rentable DVD, and even then only to see Sir Ian and scoff at the rest). But I did read the book, and I have borne witness to the attendant hype and bloat, and it’s all been really rather offensive so I’m happy to take this criticism and sort of extend it backward over the whole sordid experience.

Maybe this is my intellectual snobbery talking again, but is anyone else disturbed by the news that a DaVinci Code-inspired television game show is being shot in the British Museum? Particularly odious was the following quote from this article:

The show was devised by Justin Scroggie, who was behind Treasure Hunt and loves museums, but the idea came from the very different reactions of Roy Ackerman, the executive producer, who claims he hated museums. “I just felt these were the junk shops of the ancient world … this series is trying to see if we can push the buttons of an audience who couldn’t normally be dragged across the threshold of a museum.”

The junk shops of the ancient world. How charming. Presumably, following this logic, if museums were more like Tesco Superstores or Wal-Mart, they’d be more popular. Popular with whom, I shudder to think.

Last year, when they moved us out to W12 from W1, my commute doubled. Or rather, I was now forced to get up early to make it in on time – I used to be able to walk to work in only 15 minutes more than it now takes me on public transport. As a result of many similar stories, the area in which I work is referred to by staff, around 90% of the time, as “Fucking White City“. But then again, where else can one see the festive parade of humanity that one sees under the big top of the London Underground? There are certain people you see over and over again, so often you almost think it’s weird you’re not friends. Into this category falls the Fabulous Afro Lady, who’s got (obviously) amazing hair and great fashion sense and is moreover very friendly. We smile at each other when we wind up on the same train, and though we’ve never spoken I still think maybe sometime we will. Extra 80s Girl doesn’t inspire quite as much affection, though you’ve certainly got to respect her devotion and attention to detail. She looks to be about 18, and she’s embraced the 80s resurgence with unparalleled zeal. One day she was sporting the pink pumps, the flashdance top, the asymmetrical skirt, the headband and the leg warmers. I was impressed.

Anyway, today I was treated to a new character. The coffee vendor outside the Bethnal Green tube station (he’s told me his name, but I’ve forgotten it – he hasn’t forgotten mine, though, which makes me feel a bit more guilty with each passing day – but what if I ask him again and then forget again? Oh, never mind) knows most of his regulars and their orders. He also knows a good many of the Local Colour, including one I’d never seen before. I think the guy has Cerebral Palsy, but that’s not the point – he’s also clearly nuts. I mean, I suppose plenty of people go around in full jungle camo as a matter of course, but they’re mostly members of the Michigan Militia, right? Still, the real neon flashing crazy-person-indicator was the Vietnamese cone hat. After standing around nodding and laughing at the middle distance for a few minutes, off he went down into the station. By the time I got my coffee and went downstairs, he was gone.

On the platform, I spotted Fabulous Afro Lady, but was quickly sidetracked by a bizarre fashion choice. Now. I can understand the need to mix contemporary styles (hoodies, for instance) with traditional garments (say, saris). And I get (cognitively – God, I’m a snob) that there’s an appeal in hoodies emblazoned with the names of cities and their sports teams or educational establishments, both real and imaginary. But what I don’t get is the appeal of one emblazoned with CHICAGO SURF SCHOOL. Was it chosen for its colour? One hopes not: it was a lurid teal with purple lettering. Was it chosen for its irony? Lost on me. Chicago is, for the geographically challenged, exactly nowhere near any ocean. And though it is equipped with a large and lovely lake, I can assure you that the waves at the southern tip of Lake Michigan are never big enough to surf. And surely, surely no Chicago institution would choose those colours. I’m at a loss here, people. Maybe 80s girl could help me out.

That seems as good a place as any to stop blathering.