2000-10-31 - 10:15:11

�Well when you�re sitting there, in your silk upholstered chair, talking to some rich folks that you know�well, I hope you don�t see me in my ragged company, though you know I could never be alone��

He only wanted a pound. It was a scam, obviously. Money for a �train ticket home.� But you get asked for a pound 300 times a day in London, and I said I was sorry, but I didn�t have any cash. I stood outside the tube station smoking. He asked for a cigarette. I said �Fine� and gave him one. Then he snatched my glasses. Textbook school bully tactic. �Feel vulnerable? Because that�s how I feel every day.� I had to agree. �Let�s go to the cash machine�you get out �10 and I�ll give you this change. Or I could just smash your glasses.� He�s Nelson, I�m Millhouse. We go to the machine, he politely hangs back out of camera shot. I give him �10, and reach for my glasses. �It�s still not enough.� �But you have�� �DON�T MAKE A FUCKING SCENE. I�M ON DRUGS,� he added, helpfully showing me his medication. Great, I�m being held up with a pair of glasses and a bottle of anti-depressants. �Get another �10 out�my wife�s waiting for me. She�s pregnant. And�crying.� Well, I�m a sucker for a sob story�whilst I�m withdrawing once more, he tells me, �I don�t usually beg for money�I sell property in the south of France.� I compliment him on a sound career change. �Don�t fucking laugh at me, glasses boy.� I thought about arguing the semantics, since technically, HE was the glasses boy at that precise moment, but thought better of it. He gives me the glasses. �Can I take an address so that I can send the money back to you?� Oh please. Are we still going through the charade that I�m lending you money for a train ticket? I write down Sherlock Holme�s address, curse the day I ever moved to this town, and duck back into the tube.

It�s been a GREAT week.

�I�ll be in my basement room, with a needle and a spoon, and another girl to take my pain away��

We�re having freak weather in our southern regions. The floods aren�t as exciting as the unending news coverage would have you believe � I think a couple of people in Kent have had to replace their dining room carpets (probably for the best as well) and some kids had to go to school in a boat, but it�s hardly the Noah-esque torrents that the media would have us believe. (I remember at college, there was an earth tremor that failed to wake most people up, though one local allegedly spilled her cornflakes. The local paper the next day ran the headline �Quake City�.) The rail network is, of course, in chaos, but when the fuck isn�t it? That�s what you get for living in a country who�s climate can summed up as �Rain, with sunny spells�.

�Take me down, little Susie, take me down�I know you think you�re the queen of the underground��

Todays special guest