2004-08-25 - 1:03 p.m.

I�ve been anxious about what I might do for a living in both the near, medium and far future, so was overjoyed the other night to have a dream where I attended a creative careers seminar where pottymouthed intellectual film maker David M@met was giving a speech. Seminar attendance = tedious dream subject but free inspiration, I thought. I was all keyed up for some great insights, but sadly, Davey boy�s keynote address centred around him extolling on his grandmother�s recipe for boiled cabbage before he turned into a goldfish of some kind, and I even forgot the recipe, so no good came of anything at all.

That very night, I had been to see the �film� Before Sunset just to get out of the rain. There didn�t seem to be so much a script as two chronically bad actors making something up live on camera, leading up to the most vomit-stirring ending I have perhaps ever witnessed. Is inane, clich�-filled chatter between two of the least sympathetic characters you have ever met passing for cinematic achievement these days? I didn�t like it very much.

Before Sunset? Manure Bumshit, more like.

(It�s this kind of mature, academic critical analysis that guarantees me a lifetime of rewarding editorial work)

As I left the cinema, I was at least heartened that the evening could get no worse. I traversed Leicester Square, through the usual mob of tourists � the ones who are apparently willing to pay about eight quid to eat what�s nothing more than a sneeze on a pizza base � when suddenly I heard a scream, felt something in my eyes and found myself blind and lying on the floor.

I�m no stranger to random attacks on the street. Missiles lobbed at me from high rise apartments, drive-by snowballings, being held up at cashpoints with my own spectacles, good old fashioned beatings for no reason � these I have learned to deal with, even expect to some degree.

This was a new one, though. Some screaming adolescent banshee in a miniskirt and a right drunken state had freed herself from the alcopop-drenched herd of her hen night, and seen fit to run up to me and unleash the contents of her aerosol into my eyes from around one inch, before ducking into their hagmobile of choice, a waiting stretch limo.

Lucky for me, it was �only� silly string and not, say, hairspray or some kind of mustard gas derivative, but a) it was still a shock, and b) that stuff is adhesive, and takes a while to get out, especially when you spend several moments wondering what just happened.

And the reaction from passers by as I reeled from the attack? Clutching my ocular orifices and gasping for breath (not that I breath through my eyes, but I was panicking)? Not, oh, that person has just been violently assaulted (albeit with a recreational accessory) and needs our help. Oh, no. More, oh, look at that man and his silly string! How much fun must you be having if you have silly string coming out of your EYES?! What a wild and crazy party guy!

And you have never known lack of dignity unless you have pulled yourself, staggering, up off a major thoroughfare trying to pick luminous strands of liquid glue out of your eyes whilst a gang of teenage reprobates cackles loudly and zooms off in their ridiculous lengthy chariot. Try pulling that one off with a shred of self-respect. I�d rather be in the next Richard Linkl@ter film.