2001-06-24 - 10:53 p.m.

"If you make me look bad, I will never ever talk to you again. Ever."

The blind Polish psychologist that I kind of know became even more of an eclectic character the other day when I saw him busking in the street outside the newspaper office. He was playing bongo drums. We chatted for a while (I always wonder if buskers begrudge chatting - no-one throws coins if you�re just stood around HOLDING a guitar, after all) and I caught myself talking LOUDER (the double whammy of being foreign AND blind) and felt like an idiot. Hey! Let me be patronisingly offensive in two ways at once!

"Just look like we are a married couple, *spanning time*!"

He was also at a barbecue (from the Spanish �barbacoa� : to instil food with the flavour of lighter fluid) I went to last night. I didn�t mean to turn up drunk, but Bermudan Rum goes down surprisingly well, and my pre-party aperitifs kinda sneaked up on me � at least, the tube ride was a little more woozy than it maybe should have been. There was a Spanish magician there (as opposed to an Egyptian Magician) and although he was quite squat and malodorous in a kind of overly-swarthy way, the ladies were flocking round to observe his shuffling technique, let me tell you. It caused more than a smattering of jealousy between us non-conjurers, and I entered into a sophisticated and illuminating argument with one of my fellow guests, our general hypothesis, delivered at high volume, being that �David Blane must get laid every night of his fucking life!� Ah, the thrill of the cut and thrust of intellectual debate.

"We are a couple that doesn't touch."

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