2004-05-05 - 4:12 p.m.

Every day at the tube station, there are tens (perhaps hundreds � I don�t have time to hang around with a clipboard taking down numbers. Actually, I do, but that�s besides the point) of orthodox Jews going up and down the escalators with huge suitcases. Where they�re going, or where they�ve come from is a mystery beyond the reckoning of all who survey this wondrous migration. Although you could just ask them, I suppose.

Yesterday, one of them, a young guy around my age (how much longer will I be able to use the phrase �a young guy around my age�?) was struggling with some particularly large suitcases at the top of the escalator, and asked me to help him with one of them. In the spirit of philanthropic generosity and the insatiable urge to find out what the fuck these people were doing every day, I agreed, and hefted the behemoth of the luggage world onto the escalator as he went before me with some kind of easily portable petite knapsack arrangement. It was a once in a lifetime chance to find out more, and I started to make seemingly moronic comments like �Must be going on quite a holiday there!� and �Jesus (whoops�), are you transporting all your worldly possessions?� in the hope of gaining some tiny clue as to what the cargo was. The guy ignores me. All the way to the bottom of the escalator. And it�s only as we dismount and I�m thinking there is either something very secret going on or this chump is the rudest guy since Moses that I notice the hearing aid.

Feeling the immediate guilt that only a lapsed Catholic can feel, I prepare myself to struggle on with the case, happy to atone for my unkind thoughts. I was even happy to can the prying, never mind that I can�t even sign �hello�, let alone �what are you secreting in your hand baggage?�. But no, he takes the case off me and very politely says �Thank you� and heads off to the platform, case in tow, with consummate ease. So he just needed me to move that case SIX INCHES onto a moving staircase? How intriguing to these people want to be?

After that I met my friend Bruce at the ICA and we saw that documentary about Ch@rles Bukowsk1, which was amazing, and only spoiled by testimonies from rubber johnnies like that limpid prawn B0no, who read out an amazing poem in a way that made you want to eat your own hands.?

I had big Saturday night plans that fell through and now I feel like doing something spontaneous somewhere random. If you feel like inviting me for a drink chances are I will come.