2001-11-25 - 4:24 p.m.

� I ain't happy, I'm feeling glad, I got sunshine, in a bag, I'm useless,but not for long, The future is coming on��

I suppose I should have stayed in last night, but random bouts of excessive drinking don�t stop for us poor saps lolling around at home with the flu, oh no. So I dosed up on as much strong medication as I could persuade the chemist to sell me (like from Seinfeld � �I need maximum strength! Just take whatever amount will kill me, and then back it up a little.�) and ventured south in search of the tapas bar where several of my friends and foes were gathering to celebrate ex�s b�day. It took so long to get there that I could feel the heady drugs cocktail wearing off and perhaps unwisely decided that industrial amounts of red wine would make an effective substitute. Unfortunately, I was imbued with such a sense of drunken invincibility by the time the food arrived, that diving straight into the Patatas Bravas, I quickly found they were a little TOO bravas, and I can now add a scalded mouth to the list of usual hangover pains. Red wine, sadly, is not known for its cooling properties, no matter how much you quickly gulp down. Still, I reached a satisfactory state of numbness not long after.

At some point I was cornered by some guy telling me about Christian Fiction in great detail. Most of it just seemed to be like the bible, but with more car chases. Plus, God wins in all of them, so it�s hardly a white knuckle ride of suspense and intrigue.

And speaking of questionable literary endeavour, I�ve just had the weird experience of being quoted on a book jacket. A review I did for a really obscure magazine a couple of years ago was somehow picked up by the publishers of this book. A friend spotted it, and I checked it out, and it�s me. I can�t imagine that the general book buying public are going to be overly impressed by seeing the vaguely pompous declaration �Buy this book, unless you happen to be in it � Pablo�. I mean, it�s hardly Roland Barthes, but still. And I can�t help but feel I should be getting some kind of royalty-linked fee, or hordes of sexually available admirers, or something.

�I brought all this, So you can survive when law is lawless, Feelings, sensations that you thought were dead, No squealing, remember, that it's all in your head��

One of the girls in the house left a women�s health magazine lying around (sample headline: �How to beat bloating for good!�) in the kitchen and as I absent-mindedly skimmed through the features about coping with pelvic inflammatory disease and exercises for healthy eyes, I noticed that there was a whole industry that I�d been previously unaware of � that of modelling the physical symptoms of various maladies. There are all these really attractive women faking migraines and lower back pain with varying amounts of realism, and I just thought that the photoshoots for this must be quite bizarre. You can just imagine the photographer with the model: �OK baby, clutch your hands to your stomach�that�s good�now give me mild indigestion�yeah�slight grimace�good�OK, let�s try period cramps�double over in cloying discomfort a bit more�.oh yeah baby�really work that pain now�.crank it up�give me some of that gastric flu / food poisoning action�.excellent�oh yeah, it�s really hurting�give me that really searing, immobilising agony�yes, yes�ok�and now give it all you�ve got�even more�..we�re talking burst appendix�YES�.intestinal tumour�.OH BABY�and into your death throes�and�perfect! OK, you can relax now�� I wonder how you find out that this is your niche?

�I ain't happy, I'm feeling glad, I got sunshine, in a bag, I'm useless, but not for long, My future is coming on, It's coming on, It's coming on, It's coming on, It's coming on, My future is coming on��

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