Friday

Well, the date on Wednesday went well, and was good fun. Met up in The Old Dispensary on Camberwell New Road, which is pretty much the ideal place to go for a date in Camberwell. Dimly lit, lots of candles, paintings that look like someone actually paid for them, and lots of mirrored surfaces. Oh, and amazing wallpaper.

Of course all this bling shit comes at cost – and you'd be better of getting an appointment with your bank manager prior to eating stroke drinking here, and perhaps arranging some kind of loan; it aint cheap, put it that way. In fact, with prices like these, their annual turnover would probably rivals the GNP of several small African states if they could get enough punters in. As it is it seemd quiet-ish, and somehow I can't see it attaining the critical mass Funky Munky does on a Friday. Which is a good thing, by the way.

So good date, though not sure if it's really got legs, or especially long ones anyway. I always wonder what to do in these kind of circumstances. Ach.

Well, the Inland Revenue finally sent me a missive, further to my telephone conversation with a geordie lassie over the phone last week. Rather than send me the necessary form to set up a direct debit for the weekly self employed NI contributions for the coming year, they decided to invoice me for £120.80 unpaid National Insurance from last year instead. Which I have paid, incidentally. OH YEAH, I have paid.

*sigh*

Anway, all sorted now, hopefully.

Reading 'Where You're At' by Patrick Neate at the minute, which is one man's personal quest to discover the state of Hip Hop today, across the world; and it appears to be either dead, or in rude health, depending on your perspective. His description of Japanese 'B-Boys' obsessive appropriation of Hip-Hop's superficial trappings, e.g baggy jeans, over anything of substance will amuse anyone who's seen the ubiquitous posse of Japanese style hounds camped outside the Bathing Ape store in Soho in the morning, (all for the opportunity to buy some £300 quid trainers or something. Bathing Ape is wack, guys). It's also got a shout to my friend Sam at the beginning, man that dude gets about.

Still trying to work out what I'm doing really.

Did anyone see George Galloway on CBB last night? Man, I usually avoid that shit like the plague, but had the misfortune to catch it last night – and 'catch it' is right.. I actually feel unclean having watched anything that cringeworthy. For anyone who missed it (you lucky people) it involved George 'look at me' Galloway pretending to be a cat, while being, urg, stroked by some Z league actress whose name I think I'll make a point of not learning. Man, there have been ocassions where I've embarassed myself, usually after a few drinks, but George, you're teetotal mate, and on live TV, and an MP.

Respect, George, respect.