2001-09-10 - 2:50 p.m.

�My. Brother. Knows Karl Marx. He met him eating mushrooms in the People�s Park. He said, �What do you think about my manifesto?� �I like your manifesto. Put it to the testo.�

I don�t often eat in posh nob restaurants, for social as well as, of course, economic reasons. I find it hard to take snobbery from waiting staff. I have nothing against waiters, I just hate ones that have superior attitude dripping off their miserable tip-sniffing snouts like so much self-hatred that they�re serving up food whilst secretly they yearn to be in toothpaste commercials or publish a coffee-table book of serial killers. That kind of snobbery. Er, you didn�t have any hand in creating the food, or building the restaurant, or even getting me in here, so quit smirking at my inability to navigate the wine list and please get on with carrying plates from one end of the room to the other without tripping over your own cynicism, is what I usually think of saying the next day. For much the same reason, I hate going into designer stores. The looks of rabid distaste as you reach to look at something obviously whizzing around outside the Earth�s orbit of your price range in Plutonian dimensions. The condescension of the hasty �May I help you, SIR?� Well, yes, you could. By acknowledging that when all�s said and done, you only work in a fucking shop. SIR.

Honorific terms are only ever used sarcastically any more, don�t you find, my esteemed ladies and gentlemen?

�Eat natural foods. Bathe twice daily. Fill your nostrils up with gravy. Don�t drink tea and don�t drink coffee. Cover your chin in Yorkshire toffee.�

In any case, I was treated splendidly to such an occasion by an already much-missed partner in crime at the weekend, and with pleasant waiters to boot. The post-dinner liqueur had a bit of a string in its tale, much the same as ingesting a snifter of laboratory grade ethanol, but aside from that it was most enjoyable. It was followed up by a trip to a Cuban bar. You could practically smell the authenticity as �Feeling Hot Hot Hot� was followed by that famous one by The Gypsy Kings � just like in old Havana! The delicate illusion was further spoiled by some guy drunkenly meandering around the bar with a rose protruding phallically from his flies, sidling up to all the ladeez in the vain but albeit original hope that prosthetic floral genitalia would be something of a turn-on. Well, I guess there could be a woman in the world who that might do it for, but she certainly wasn�t in the bar that night. I�m sure this sort of thing doesn�t happen under Castro.

Bu thanks for a wonderful time, you.

�Dancing at the disco bumper to bumper. Wait a minute. Where�s me jumper?�

Today�s special guests