2005-01-12 - 11:54 a.m.

Last night I went to see �The House of Flying Daggers�, which I also, like VD yesterday, thought was a resolutely OK film, though not as good as the martial arts film I plan to make, which will be the timeless story of the kung-fu fighting wife of a Rolling Stones frontman impersonator, protecting him on a quest for the ultimate hair colouring to perfect his act, and will be called (ahem) �The Spouse of Dyeing Jagger�s�.

That�s comedy bronze, right there.

I cross the Thames every morning on the way to walk. Using a bridge, I mean. Despite several eyeballs full of pleasing scenery available to all who do the same, in fact, the vast panorama of pretty much all of central London, I see lots of people simply peering over the edge into the cold, unforgiving, smelly river. They have no business looking down there into the grey sludge. I can only imagine that they are scouting for floating corpses so that they can appear as an eyewitness on the local TV news, even though they must know that bodies are always discovered by people walking their dogs � i.e. by dogs.

I enjoy the snippets of conversation that you hear from people walking in the opposite direction. This morning, though, I was privvy to the following puzzler: Two young-ish women, dressed for the office, one saying to the other: �There�s absolutely nothing for it�I�m simply going to HAVE to stop licking my biscuits.�

�?

I don�t know. You tell me.

I wouldn�t mind, but it was her utter, unabashed conviction. It�s not even that cessation of the biscuit licking is an option at this point. It is the obvious, unavoidable course. The woman has reached the end of her licking tether. That tongue / confectionery interface cannot happen any more. The principal organ of taste must not meet chocolate digestive, Jammy Dodger or even Rich Tea Finger.

I can�t come up with any viable scenarios in which this might be an imperative plan of action. Even imagining the most lurid, tenuous, auto-erotic euphemism doesn�t really help, though it is a diverting exercise.

I do think I�m going to adopt it as my motto to live by for 2005, though.