The stalking potential is just overwhelming. Click http://www.geomobiles.net/ and type in the number of someone you want to find to within about 50 metres, a bit like Google Earth only in 1984 style.

I've never been very good at talking to people about things. I'm very secretive, and in the past this has got me into all sorts of misunderstandings and trouble. In the same way I've never used the internet as a confessional: I've always found it rather distasteful, like you're putting your emotions on display to see how many comments you get. Some of my friends have livejournals. Someone I know detailed at great length a break-up that she had, and got comments from all sorts of sympathetic people the world over, ready to hand over their cyber -pathies and dead-shot criticisms from behind the safety of their avatar. The LJ community freaks me out for its intensity and narrow-eyed cliquiness. I hate cliques.

I rather wish I could do that, the confessionals, the angry shrieks into space that are said exactly as you wish because you're typing rather than speaking and your brain is free to think as fast and hard as it can. But there's nothing to say, really. How can you? I made a point of keeping my MySpace as free of "Oh, today I went to the supermarket with karen, we had a great laugh, I got FUCKING HAMMERED!!!!!!" blogs as possible because they're a) quite boring to read and b) I don't want cyber friends, I want people I can network with and bounce off. Not literally. That would be odd. Although the guy sitting opposite me on the 149 yesterday could have volunteered. He was reading Eragon. I'm covering the premiere of that soon and have very little idea what's in it apart from a dragon, although, I quite like dragons so that's pretty much all I need to know.

Is this the most ridiculously cute set of pictures ever? Um, mostly yes. At least, since the tortoise and hippo at any rate.

So, Robert Altman's officially dead. The four minutes before he was were quite skin-pricklingly exciting in a weird way. Meh.

You can't take it with you. If you buy cheaply, you pay dearly. Haste makes waste. It's a good horse that never stumbles. Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
Once bitten, twice shy Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. History repeats itself.
If you're in a hole, stop digging. There's no time like the present. Even a dog can distinguish between being stumbled over and being kicked. It's a poor job that can't stand at least one supervisor.
Hawks will not pick out hawks' eyes. From Isle of Beauty by Thomas Haynes Bayly Scritching like a Whitnick Give and ye shall receive. - Jesus Christ The pitcher goes so often to the well that it comes home broken at last. This is often misstated as the proof is in the pudding.
A good surgeon has an eagle's eye, a lion's heart, and a lady's hand. Blood will out. Hunger makes good kitchen. New broom sweeps clean.
Keep a thing seven years and you will always find a use for it. You will not rise to the occasion, you will default to the level of your training That I have no time for Like father like son. Keep no more cats than catch mice

Some spam I was just sent.

As someone who managed to entirely miss the Jordan Eurovision entry, it gives me great pleasure to watch the wonderfully bewildering video to her duet with Peter Andre on 'A Whole New World'.

NOOOO!

*cries*

Have just had a phone call from upstairs. I pitched a load of names to Empire's Where Are They Now section, one of which was the little Brody kid from Jaws. Now, Jaws changed my life. It was the one film that made me realise what films were, why they were great, the power that they had, and, more importantly, my parents rented me all four of them by the time I was 8. Basically, Jaws is not just my favourite film, it's a film I hold on a pedestal. I see its imperfections, but it got me into film, cemented that in fact.

So, imagine my joy at finding out Nick had manage to track down this guy. And then imagine how annoyed I feel when I realise that I'll be driving up to Glasgow when he wants me to do the interview.

Rubbish. My ancient mood ring just broke. It cost about £1.99 and doesn't even work anymore, but I loved it. Now my middle finger is bare for the first time in four years and I feel all off-balance. Hmm.

When I come back from bankrupting myself in Scotland seeing The Singer this weekend, I might go and cry on someone and see if they can find me a similar ring. Some of my friends are becoming Important. I don’t mean in a Neo/Bono/Jesus sort of way, rather that employers have seen fit to give them responsibilities that would ordinarily require several pounds of Valium and a Russian mistress to cope with, so I think finding a mood ring wouldn’t exactly prove a trial.

It’s lovely to see friends you’ve known for a long time getting what they deserve. If you don’t agree with that, then either you’re jealous and impotent, or they’re not really your friends. Of course that works the other way. I hold grudges very rarely, mostly because my temper is so explosive that I’ve usually forgotten about it within half an hour, but there are a couple of people who I could quite happily, coldly watch fail, based purely on actions done years before.

It’s not a mature attitude to have, which most likely goes someway to explaining why I am not a head-hunted opera singer, teaching the world-runners of the future at Eton, telling businessmen how to run their companies, or running the internet. Then again, if I were told to go and do any of those things I’d probably throw myself off a bridge screaming, so that’s all for the best.

Film Joe has recently become one of these sorts of very important people, and last night I went round to doss at his work before we trooped off to see a late screening of The Return (commonly known as fog, or Fuck Off Grandad, screenings after Empire’s Dan Jolin had a kid and couldn’t stay out late anymore). Dossing around meant I got to check my MySpazz in one of MySpazz’s headquarters which is just hilariously absurd. More excitingly, Film Joe got to meet Tom at the weekend. Yes, that one, your first friend. He’s not a fable, kids and they didn’t nick some dead man’s school photo.

“What’s he like? What’s he like?” I asked, nearly choking on the charitable important-person-to-poor-person fag that Joe had given me. “Has he proved he’s the second coming for emo kids, or did Rupert Murdoch have him crucified already?”

“American. Looks American. Speaks Americanly. He’s very Americanish,” said Joe, considerably more excited about superheroes and the fact that News International’s building has little paper-carrying robots running around everywhere.

We talked about Neko Case and played on Guitar Hero 2 with his ridiculously attractive co-workers. Whoever said working on the internet attracts ugly people was clearly lying, although the brocade wallpaper in Joe’s office probably makes people 99% more seductive. (Why else would you have wallpaper so expensively stiff you could walk on it? I find the concept of office workers having Donald O'Connor moments in unison charming but unlikely.) The wallpaper in the boardroom where they’d set up Guitar Hero was black and covered in mirrored silver swirls. Joe said it reminded him of me. If this is true then I am Quality Street incarnate so I punished him by blitzing 'Message In A Bottle'.

We sloped off to Yo! Sushi for some expensively decorated ventures into fish. I still don’t quite get sushi, but I bought RBT a cucumber roll flash drive for his birthday so it’s alright I suppose. Our waiter (of such heavy accent and flamboyance that he’d probably escaped out of someone’s Eurotrash nightmare) was obviously a VIP manqué. His being wound up tighter than a mechanical corset suggested success was eluding him. “When I am waaaalking, I am beezy,” he flounced at one of the lesser waiters. If you’ve ever seen Singin’ In The Rain rip-off America’s Sweethearts, think Hank Azaria wanting to go to the “hoooonket”.

While I snacked off the conveyor belt weighing up the likelihood of there being food at the screening (and, joy of joys there was), Film Joe ordered proper food which never turned up, and eventually we nicked some off the chef. After 15 minutes, Hank Azaria traipsed back and set down chicken katsu curry with the patronising smile of Mother Teresa feeding unfashionable orphans. Joe gave it back and apologised. Hank Azaria’s face slid down into a sneer of annoyance.

“Neeev'r mind,” he sighed airily and stalking off. “Aaay am sure it wasn’t your fault.” (At this point Joe and I made the fatal error of catching each other’s eye and collapsing into the sort of incredulous giggles you get when your auntie’s sat on something awful and hasn’t yet noticed.)

“Teeem!” called Hank Azaria imperiously as he flounced away, in tones that suggested Teeem was in for a serious bollocking.

“I’m sure it wasn’t his fault,” I said, shaking.

“There’s no I in Teeem,” Film Joe whispered and we fell off our chairs. There's no room for being important on Poland Street, innit.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/IDcards/

OK, so the ones for the Intrepid Fox and the Astoria didn't achieve what was hoped, but if it makes you sleep at night, then here you go.

(And a spiel from Empire's Helen O'Hara...more lawyery than I can write.)

It's a petition to stop ID cards which, as a bit of research will show, are illiberal, ineffective in combatting anything they're meant to combat, and expensive. It probably won't do anything to stop the government investing in the damn things and turning this place into a police state, but I'd feel better if I felt I'd passed it on, so here you go.

Boo to Desert Orchid dying, that's quite sad. Classic FM's racing bloke said an awful lot of crap about his being equally popular with punters and housewives. Well, not really, they'd probably rather have Rod Stewart, but it's a nice idea. He died aged 27, as all good icons should. I wonder if I'll be an icon when I'm 27. I'm already predicted to die before I'm 40, I'm already set for an early death. On the bright side, my idol status is set with this: it looks like I can quit learning the guitar and still write songs. Brilliant, and at the same time, oh. :(

Am listening to the new Jarvis Cocker album. He's ditched his surname in some sweet attempt to become an anti-brand. It's not very enjoyable yet, although that might be because my ears are still damaged after having 'The Best Kids Christmas Album In The World Ever, Ever, Ever' inflicted on them this morning. Ow...

In other news, Spiderman 3 looks set to be AMAZING. Spiderman 2 was one of the best films, never mind blockbusters, I've ever seen. Watch the trailer to 3 and see what you think.

I've never finished a short story before now. I hope it's not shit. It doesn't have a title because yesterday I called my interview with Jet's Nic C 'Can You Guess What It Is? Jet!' and so I don't trust myself to call anything anything anymore. There are no hidden meanings. Give advice please.

THE BEGINNING

Richard had delusions of grandeur. Admittedly, he liked the way that sentence sounded rather than actually understanding what it meant, but since the only person who’d know was himself, that never posed much of a problem. He liked rolling the words around in his head, thinking it made him sound philosophical. Arch even.

He also liked living with Liz. He liked that a lot. She wasn’t exactly pretty, but she had a good figure and his mates were impressed. “God no, we’re just friends,” he’d say, mock-disgusted with them for even suggesting such a thing. But he was pleased that they did. It all went with this new lady-killer writer image he’d been slowly cultivating over the last year. No more clerking for him once the book deal was sealed.

Cradling whisky which Sally had given him for his birthday, he leant back in the chair, swirling the glass around so the liquid glinted in the lamplight. He didn’t much like whisky, but if he was going to be a writer he figured he’d better cultivate some kind of eccentricity, and he loathed getting fag ash on his laptop. He smiled across at her now, curled up in the armchair: good old Sally, tiny and frowning with concentration, engrossed in his book. With her blonde fringe falling into her eyes she looked like some kind of urchin Dickens might have dumped on his doorstep. Richard frowned again. Ooh, good that. Might use it for something.

He closed his eyes, luxuriating in the warmth of the flat and thoughts of reviews in the TLS and prominent shop floor displays. Pyramids of his book there’d be, surrounded by female English students in awkward skirts. Oh yes, they’d be hunched over copies which, being £18.99, they couldn’t afford to buy, so they’d keep coming in each afternoon for the next fix. Yes, that would be good. Richard smiled, and took an invisible sip of whisky, grimacing in what he hoped might pass for a manly fashion, then settled back to his book.

“Richard!”

Instantly, the pyramids disappeared.

“You twatty shit, don’t you DARE fall asleep.”

An A4 folder splayed through the air and hit him sharply on the temple.

“Ow,” Richard winced, rubbing his head and reaching out to pick up the paper that had fallen out, “that hurt.”

Sally glared at him, and rescued her melting gin and tonic from the table.

“I should bloody think so. Managed five pages before I realised there wasn’t enough gin. What were you thinking, inflicting that self-indulgent crap on anyone without proper warning.”

Richard’s eyebrows slid down towards his nose in martyred disappointment.

“I worked really hard on that,” he protested hotly, “I was going to send it off to people tomorrow.”

Sally snorted, uncurled her legs and leant towards him, waving her glass around for emphasis. The ice cubes had caused the gin to overflow. That’d teach her to be a greedy dipso, Richard thought distantly.

Slosh. (Ha! thought Richard.) “If there was any way I could get out of this without causing you mental distress, I would,” said Sally. She took a large swig and exhaled violently. “Probably. But there isn’t. You can’t write for shit.” Slosh. She glared at him again, the gin now aimed at Richard like a bayonet. “You remember when I went through that Danielle Steel phase when I was seeing Jo?”

Richard nodded.

“Worse than that.”

Richard recoiled. “Fuck off!”

“Seriously. Your metaphors are pure teen poetry and I like adjectives too much for you to abuse them in such a cack handed manner.” She sank back in her chair, flourishing her glass in exasperation. “Do you actually have any idea what happened in medieval France? Because it doesn’t seem like it from this.”

Stung, Richard took a larger mouthful of whisky than he’d intended and spluttered violently.

“Loads! I spent bloody months on that book and you don’t even bother to read beyond the first five pages. Seriously, what the fuck?”

Keys jangled faintly through the hall and heels clacked inside.

“Hello-o!”

Richard got out of his chair and stalked off into the hall

“We’ll talk about this later.”

She rolled her eyes and groaned limply. “I can’t wait.” Then, leaning out of her chair she called, “Just don’t make me wait in ‘hours garnished with aching silences’, is all.”

Richard fumed to himself. Bloody Sally, of course she’d laugh, he should never have shown it to her.

“Is everything OK?” Liz poked her dark head around the kitchen door, over-balancing slightly as she kicked off her boots. Richard relaxed. He’d always liked Liz, she always seemed to know how to make him feel better. One day he’d ask her out. Maybe. He had a sneaking feeling that she might say yes.

“Hmph.”

“Ah. Did Sally not like the book?”

Richard’s lip curled. “She only read the first bit, then she threw it at me and said it was crap.”

“Ah. Oh well, never mind eh?” She hugged him affectionately and turned to hang up her coat on the coat rack in the kitchen. Richard paused.

“Liz, do you think my book’s crap?”

“God noooooo!” floated back to him. “I just had no idea you were so into the whole Cadfael in France thing. Shit!” Sound of tripping over abandoned shoes. “We really need to move those. No, really Richard, it’s really impressive.”

Richard leant against the wall awkwardly, feeling slightly less wounded. Liz came out of the kitchen beaming.

“There! Now come on you, let’s go and patch things up with Sally. You’ve known each other too long for this shit to hang around.”

Richard let her take his hand and pull him back into the living room where Sally was staring into the bottom of her now empty glass. She looked up at him innocently: tiny, blonde, butter wouldn’t melt.

“Sorry I said your book was shit Richard. It is, but I’m still sorry.”

Still basking in Liz’s compliments, Richard ignored her and turned to pick up his whisky. Liz mouthed something furious at Sally, who was now refilling her glass, and bustled up to Richard sweetly.

“Look, go and get that nice bottle of red Dave dropped round the other week and we’ll get some Thai from Ari’s. Oh hang on, we drank that. Why don’t you pick up some of that Rioja from next door?”

“Ok.” Richard obediently grabbed his keys from the table and went out through the hall. The front door clicked.

Liz dropped her frown, and went over to the armchair. She slipped her hand into Sally’s, massaging the knuckles with her thumb.

“You could have been a bit kinder you know. He really values your opinion.”

Sally pouted, leaning her head on Liz’s shoulder.

“Nah, I’ve known him too long. And it really was awful.”

She took another slug of gin. Liz felt the gulp and smiled inwardly.

“It’s more than that now anyway,” Sally said irritably. “I know he thinks you’re a-maz-ing and stuff, but I’m getting fed up of him thinking he’s going to end up with you.” She poked her fondly to punctuate. “This is all your fault for not dating anyone since you moved in. He probably thinks you’re pining for him.”

Liz laughed, pulled Sally to her and kissed her.

“Well. We’ll have to tell him then.”

The door slammed.

“They didn’t have the Rioja so I got some of that other stuff we had!”

In the living room, Liz leant her forehead against Sally’s and kissed her again, twisting her lips into a smile. “You know, it might take his mind off the fact his book’s so shit.”

THE END

It's still far too early to watch YouTube videos this explosively bouncy. The Singer is bad for MSNing me such links. "It's strangely hypnotic," says she. No. No it's really not. It's horrible and sounds faintly like that 'Vindaloo' single, just with Orlando Bloom saying "We're taking the Hobbits to Isengaard" over and over again.

7000 views on MySpace. If I were a band, this would mean I were quite popular. As it is, it means it's lots of bands going "Oh, you're a journalist, maybe if I send you spam you'll become our most slavish follower" which is significantly less interesting and liable to make me cry rather than think positive thoughts about the Sunday Times reading my blogs and hiring me as a columnist in three years time.

I interviewed Nic Celesti from Jet a couple of days ago. He did the expected "Oh I don't read reviews" spiel on the Pitchfork fiasco (which was the only thing he really could do without screaming "WANKERS" very loudly), but the best quote came from talking about groupies: "It’s always safe to say that at the end of most shows there will be ladies making sexual advancement on band members but let’s face it it’s not always the stunners that makes themselves available."

RBT: "I didn't realise you were interviewing Bernard Manning."

I have been 24 for five days now and I am still not dead. Considering tha massive panic attack strop I had coming home at some silly hour the night before after squealing at the Butlins red coat unconvincingly playing a sexy ghost-type person in Phantom of the Opera, this is quite impressive.

I don’t know what it was. Maybe it was the combination of feeling totally Lilliputian having just returned to a theatre I hadn’t been in since I was about a foot and half shorter, but the idea of turning 24 made me flip out. I know people who are older than 24 who are cool, sensible, not-dead (as opposed to undead, natch) people. One of my best friends is 27. But somehow she carries off being 27. I, on the other hand, was unable to think of anything other than harp-playing hero Joanna Newsom, on her second miraculous album at my age. Or last year’s culprit, Brandon sodding Flowers, who’s had to have a new metal invented to describe his albums because platinum’s getting too cheap. I’ve never gibbered before, but I was fairly sure I was gibbering when I got home.

I opened some presents that my mum had sent me home with a few weeks ago. Nice to see she’s picking up my own thrifty habits, as they were all wrapped in paper that I’d originally bought for my brother’s birthday in August and had since been used (twice) for my Dad’s. Softly nestled in layers of tissue paper, was a plastic funnel.

“Is she trying to get you pregnant?” asked my housemate, rusty from lack of The L Word.

What do you do with a funnel? Well, yes, funnel stuff, but to my knowledge turning 24 hasn’t affected the several thousand pounds worth of reconstructive dental work currently enabling me to chew my own food. Anyway.

On the actual birthday, somewhere in between wide-eyed panic and cake, I went to Dans Le Noir in Clerkenwell for supper with the Random Birth Twin. The premise is you eat in the dark, served by partially sighted waiters.

I was saved from jumping off a cliff in misery at being old, by Film Joe’s sage words: “You’re the same age as Jack Bauer, and Jack Bauer kicks ass.”

Practical Fishkeeping's website beat all of the people I work for and more at the EMAP awards on Friday. With stories like this, you can understand why. Oh my God, and also, this.

I wrote a blog once about something particularly embarrassing that happened to me at a film premiere. The good news for you is that something even more embarrassing happened this week and it involved Ben Affleck and Adrien Brody. The bad news is that I didn't fall over, so you can't schadenfreude me any.

Thanks to my ridiculous collection of jobs, I get to interview a lot of film and music people and have absolutely no compunction about getting autographs for my friends. The scrawls of the terrifyingly vulpine Kirsten Dunst and perfume-ad incarnate Hugh Dancy are lovingly nestled in my flatmates's bedrooms – Hugh wasn't keen to sign, in fact he looked slightly scared – and that makes them happy, so that in turn makes me happy and slightly less mindful about the fact I have just debased myself to someone half my size.

Talking to people you admire is cool - in most cases you accept the fact that they're made of flesh rather than angel kisses - and I've only asked for an autograph for me, twice, once from Richard E Grant and once with Meatloaf, which should be a mandatory part of being a music writer or something. Oh, and the Harry Potter cast, but that was Film Joe's idea and we did it for legitimately cynical eBay purposes.

On Monday though, I had such a narrow brush with disaster that I thought "Fuck it" and threw my principles to the floor. Having turned up on journo time to the Hollywoodland screening at the LFF (PRs always want you locked in an hour before anyone turns up, with the result that most people tend to saunter in five minutes before) I was greeted by harried PRs who proceeded to whisk me past the hacks lined up by the Haagen Dazs stand and upstairs to the bar. This let off cold sweaty alarm bells in my brain as it meant face to face interviews. Now, ordinarily, face to faces would be a great coup. When you haven't seen the film, however, you have Hugh Grant's Horse and Hound moment all over again.

My plan to ring Helen in a blind panic and ask for HELP failed when I realised my shiny new fucking phone hadn't carried my numbers across. I rang Sam. Nothing. Film Joe? Hadn't seen it. Eventually I got a number from someone and gabbled down the phone to Helen who did her impressively calm ex-barrister schtick, normally saved for prosecution witnesses and particularly tiresome Empire forum members.

"…so yeah, they think he probably killed himself," she is saying. Something blonde and PR-shaped walks into the corner of my eye.

"Kat? This is Bob for you."

Holy mother of God, it's cheerily bald gangster icon Bob Hoskins, and he's being ushered into the chair next to me. I gabble something to Helen in the Language of Shit and fumblingly drop my phone on the floor. I've had to do a lot of red carpet line-ups blind, which I don't like as it makes you look like an idiot and means you can't ask exciting questions. Interviews are only fun when you actually know what you're talking about, although when they involve sharing airspace with Adrien Brody, you get over it. By the time I made my first fuck up ("How was it filming with Ben, Adrien?" "Actually I didn't at all.") I was too bombed to care, and got two of what Seth Cohen termed the 21st century autograph on my phone.


Lover


Husband

What all this end-of-Wednesday nonsense is creakingly, slowly building up to, is that today I was so star struck I actually blushed. I was on the phone to the person at the time which is just beyond rubbish, but it was DR KARL OFF NEIGHBOURS so I should be excused. Technically he's in a band, which meant I was technically (I'm really pushing the meaning of technically here) allowed to interview him for the Aloud Gig Guide.

I hadn't been this excited since I got Richard E Grant to sign my copy of Withnails, at which time I blushed so hard that my face became camouflaged by the Rex's red plush seating. I would have had him autograph both breasts and my face I was so excited.

This is Dr Karl.

You've had sell-out shows in the UK over the last year, were they there for the band or Dr Karl?
We couldn't believe it, we had no idea how people were going to receive us, it was a full on adoring rock crowd right from the start. A lot of kids came to see the gig because they were coming to see Dr Karl, they had no idea what the music was like, but every one of them loved it. Kids were coming up to me and saying "We thought it was going to be a bit sad, but actually it was alright," and that's very flattering. It's great to attract people, but there's a difference between people coming just once and coming again.

Who'd win a Battle of the Bands – Waiting Room or Rogue Traders (Sony-signed dance outfit with Izzy in it)
I think Rogue Traders would blow us away simply because of the strength of Natalie's upfront performance. When they did an exhibition gig it was just incredible. Man, she's got it all.

You performed together in a charity Rocky Horror you both organised, will you duet in real life? And will it be as good as Kylie and Jason?
I shouldn't think so, I don't think Sony would let that happen! Nobody's going to beat that Kylie and Jason one. Actually Natalie's just done a duet with Shannon Knowles, runner up in Australian Idol who's gone on to become one of Australia's most successful recording artists. It's called 'Don't Give Up'.

You've said in the past you'd quite like to play Glastonbury. Has Michael Eavis been in touch yet?
He hasn't yet, I'll have to send up another beacon.

As well as your own songs you do a lot of covers in the band. Are there any new bands you've heard recently that deserve the treatment?
I really like The Kooks and The Feeling and I heard a terrific song by The La's last night, I wrote it down actually I liked it so much. (Sound of rummaging down phone line. Fails to find paper.) It's very 60s, the sound at the moment, you can hear that in bands like McFly. In the next set we're doing the Foo Fighters's 'Best Of You'. It's kind of still doing Kaiser Chiefs, we have been doing 'I Predict A Riot' which I think is one of the best songs in the last ten years, and now we'll be doing 'Na Na Na Na Naa'. We also do five originals just to keep the interest in Waiting Room.

Back to Izzy, how did Karl fail to realise what a horrific cow she was?
More to the point how did he not work out the maths on the baby? Although there's something coming up with Sky and the maths is a bit off again. Shocker, poor dear. When you've got a bloke who's almost 50 whose the lover of Izzy, you're not going to ask a lot of questions you're just going to count your lucky stars, blinded by the whole thing. What was interesting was that although he desired her and she's very beautiful, there was a big part of him that was desperate to get away. He needed to get away after the Susan thing, but was so quickly trapped by the pregnancy that he wasn't entirely comfortable. But she was very good at hiding things.

She's a conniving Jezebel.
Well, the audience has to cut Karl some slack, they could see things that he couldn't.

Are Karl and Susan meant to be together?
Absolutely. They're right on the brink but there was a shocking incident on Tuesday where Karl accidentally slept with Izzy again, not quite sure how that happened. He needs to get an eye test, he needs a good night sleep! That's a good little story and it shows what an excellent woman Susan is. They want to be together, but you can only bring them back together when the audience believe that she can have him back. You can't jeopardise the Susan character.



How proud would Karl be that Billy is now a doctor working alongside Hugh Laurie?
I think he'd be over the moon, constantly ringing up him with autograph requests for Hugh Laurie! 'House' is my favourite TV show, it's wonderful to see him having such fabulous success, partly as I know he remains completely unchanged by this success, he's just a good honest Aussie bloke.

Were you upset when Cassie the sheep died? We were.
That was a very important moment for Karl and Susan, and helped bond them back together again. Both of them were there for the funeral, and of course they had a moment where they saved a little lamb from a snake and brought them back together for one night. The writers wrote it very poetrically… (Ed - we think he is being serious. It is quite hard to tell.) Casserole was the same sheep all the way through the show: just one thing about sheep is that lambs get big very quickly and Cassie was massive. Sheep in the backyard isn't really going to work.

Who, out of all the cast, is a liability on a night out?
They're all pretty good. Some of them are very seasoned night clubbers: Blair McDonald (ex-Neighbours, played Stuart), we've been partying in London together. He's a professional, knows where he's going, never gets messy. The cast so a lot of partying: we had the TV awards last night, Jackie, Natalie, Blair - we stayed til the death. We're no slouches, us from the colonies.

What would be your fantasy storyline for Karl?
The one I'm pushing for is that everyone in Ramsay Street finds out that he was never qualified and he gets covered in shame and ignominy. I have actually suggested this, s that we find out he never passed his final exam and he has to take it again. Seeing as the man can cure leukaemia, do brain surgery, works in a hospital and as a GP to every single member of mankind, I think that'd be quite cute!

How long do you plan to stay in the show?
You can't call the future, my contract runs til the end of next year so I'll still be on UK screens well into 2008. I love playing Karl, I love playing music but I would happily see the two walk hand in hand.

British people love Neighbours. How strange are they?
The weirdest one was when a fan came all the way from UK to Melbourne airport and announced that they were there to live with the Kennedy family so we looked after them for a bit then sent them home. Most people are very happy, friendly and supportive. I haven't had any really strange ones.

Why are people so obsessed with the show?
The writers are good at crafting good characters and the casting people get great talent. Make no mistake, a lot of people who've gone through Neighbours have gone on to success at higher levels. Also, there's a light touch to it, a lot of comedy. Not slapstick but ironic humour. Australians always look for the opportunity to bring something down a notch, so none of the characters will get too big for their boots. Paul Robinson is the epitome of evil and manipulates everyone's lives in Ramsay Street, but he still gets pulled down a few pegs every now and again!

And finally, is it true that all the Ramsay Street postboxes are actually full of funnel web spiders?
Well, you wouldn't stick your hand in any of the letterboxes, but that's the law in Australia. The good old backyard spider is very common, but you don't run your hand through the woodpile without giving it a kick first!

___________________________

Whaddaguy.

(In other news, my flatmate is taking me to see Phantom tonight. We haven't been since we were 7. I am so excited I feel like I'm having a stroke.)

Greatest news ever (if far too late for me and my dreams of party shoes / working as a maid in a Victorian house. No, I don't much understand that one either)

Jim'll Fix It's coming back to the telly!

One thing I was never able to comprehend about grown-ups as a kid was why they chose to eat such shit cereal. My way of thinking was that once you're old enough to choose what you eat, you can eat all the Frosted Wheats, Coco Pops and Weetos you like. (Lucky Charms are pushing it a bit – much as I crave their magically delicious marshmallows, you can only get them in cybercandy and £5.99 a box is fucking ridiculous.)

This is what I thought would happen anyway and as usual, it turns out that I was a very naive child. At lunchtime, foraging in the dishwasher for a bowl to wash and put soup in, I remembered that my sarky cynical side is counterbalanced by occasional flights of relentless optimism, and this was one case where I'd overstepped the bounds of flight.

I don't know whether it's people in the media specifically, supposedly caring about their figures while they sit on their arses in front of a monitor all day, but eating what looks like a bowl of shredded glass can't be good for you, whatever the packet says. Alpen. Porridge. Special K. All Bran. (Actually, I'm lying, nobody eats All Bran.) Anyway, when you come to wash it up it's just a load of beige bits washing miserably around the side of the bowl. If they'd had Coco Pops, this wouldn't be an issue. They're so delicious you eat them all. Do you scrape every last speck from a bowl of Alpen? Do you fuck, it tastes of boredom and gives you all the thrills of a 2p piece.

What annoys me even more about this obsession with 'healthy' breakfasts is the queues that start for the microwave. If you want a cup of tea, you have to fight your way between four women (it's always women, the boys get toast, or organic porridge from Crussh) lining up their porridge bowls. Last year it was worse because the Empire kitchen is the size of a small box, and as we shared it with Sneak, there were more ladies with health food regimes to squabble with. At least the Aloud kitchen is big enough to dance in.

I went on a health food regime once. I'd been on one before, but that was when I was forced to by my mum after she went through a phase of taking me to nutritionists and acupuncturists to see what was wrong with me (I was depressed, but apparently also deficient in copper, magnesium and something called radium). This regime was different because I chose to do it, and it was accredited by the Sunday Times Style section which is my blissful place of happiness.

Anyway, being pre-GI and written by nutters, it was based entirely around juice. I'm not sure if you've ever tried to live on juice before, but once you've forced a beetroot, carrot, lime and root ginger through a bargain bin juicer, you've worked up an appetite, and juice doesn't do it. It also failed to give me the skin of a 14-year-old princess. I have good skin anyway – or at least I do when I'm not living the drawn-out London season change – and I failed to get any bounce, vitality or joy from living on juice.

I lasted about four days on this ridiculous diet before giving up and buying a fish pie from Safeway. 99p vs many pounds. No brainer.

A mere year after he started doing it, I've found out that the Random Birth Twin does a music and nonsense podcast for Stylus. It's very good, the bastard. Do yourself a favour and subscribe to it here: http://stylusmagazine.com/stycast/archives/category/little-ole-wine-drinker-me/feed/

Nice things I've got in the post recently:

- Cheque for £100 for ghostwriting flight column
- Magazine containing said column
- Truly AWFUL homemade t-shirt from the wonderful Errorplains, whose music is much better than their arts and crafts.
- The new PJ Harvey Peel sessions CD

I went home to my parents this weekend for a birthday dinner involving drink, food, two fights and Armagnac, which smells like poppers but tastes less corrosive. I’ve never really got the hang of spirits ended in –ac, or –y, preferring to stick to ones ending in –ka and –in, but this was very alright.

Having a day to flop around before being expensively fed, I played with the dog and wandered into the kitchen garden (it’s filled with vegetables and is next to the kitchen) to have a look at my mother’s latest treasure. Here I must state that my mother is neither mad nor prone to buying horrendous garden ornaments, because Eric the Regency Gardener is something so awful that the 70s would run away from him screaming. A proud figure, one foot resting a-top a garden spade, he’s the dandy Adam Ant would have been if he’d been made of stone and had less sex.

Mum phoned me a couple of months ago in rapture.

”I’ve bought something for the garden!” she screamed down the phone. “His name’s Eric and he’s a gardener.”

“Are you retiring?” I asked, adjusting the volume on my mobile to Ma-level. (It’s a stereotype that all middle-classes mothers screech on the phone. My mother was the prototype.)

“Nononononono,” she explained. “he’s a statue. It’s a silly bit of fun. We’re bringing him home tomorrow.”

Sadly, Eric met an early death when the builders lifting him out of the van dropped him onto the ground and smashed him into many tiny pieces. The garden centre had another one – crap Regency garden statues obviously being hot tamale in Hampshire this summer – but one that hadn’t been weathered in yet.

This became painfully apparent on inspecting Eric – a figure so camp you couldn’t imagine him going anywhere near a garden unless there was champagne in it – who glowed with an almost iridescent whiteness fresh from the garden centre’s mould. What my mother forgot when placing him tenderly in the kitchen garden, is that she stood him right on top of the graves of my brother’s hamsters and my goldfish, whose corpse I brought down from Durham in a fag packet in 2002. Eric might be sod all use as a gardener, but he makes a significantly better tombstone than the lolly stick crosses we had before.

Heading back to London, two happily mad things instantly reminded me why my mother’s sudden interest in crap garden statues can be forgiven. A German family of tourists were standing along the platform at Waterloo deeply engrossed in a poster of Badly Drawn Boy’s new album ‘Born In The UK’. This isn’t a particularly interesting poster, but that didn’t seem to stop the dad - a bald man in his 30s clutching a city umbrella - from giving his patently uninterested daughter an English lesson.

Every time he pronounced a syllable (“Bad! Ly! Drawn! Boy!”) he’d bang the upturned umbrella against the wall for emphasis, his chest so puffed out with exultant importance that he looked like a Christmas robin with a crew cut. My German is limited to two stock phrases (one of which suggests a retard from the 1900s, the other being of no use whatsoever unless I have a pressing need for stamps) but it soon became clear that English was moving on to Geography.

“The UK,” blasted Herr Dad in ringing tones, “is made up of England” bang “Scotland” bang “and Ireland.” Bang. He forgot Wales, as a lot of silly people do.

The child stared gormlessly into the wall, fingering something in the pocket of its stripey raincoat, while its mother gazed off at an advert on the station wall. Herr Dad, having run out of useful information to glean from the poster, sheathed his umbrella under his arm with the proud air of one who has just imbued Youth with the rich gravy of Learning, and the family dutifully pushed off along the platform.

The second thing was two cheery teenagers walking down Charing Cross Road, guiding between them a small child with an open purple suitcase covering its entire body.

“She’s shy,” said one of them simply. From inside the suitcase, the child giggled hysterically.

I am hardcore. I know this because I got a bus from Streatham to Brixton this morning and nobody shot me. This, considering the wanton abuse of handguns on Brixton Hill recently, means that I must therefore possess the aura necessary to getting around South London without being mugged.

It's not like there aren't enough theoretical people to do the mugging and killing in London, indeed there are plenty of kids who'd like to fool you into thinking that, instead of heading off for double geography, they're off to do someone in with a baseball bat and indulge in some light burglary. I sat behind a 15-year-old on the bus yesterday who was wearing a baseball cap with the label still on it (the dress equivalent of clutching your mobile and using it as a stereo). This apparently insinuates that he's nicked it from the shop and is therefore Well Hard, which instantly marks him out as a Johnny Try Hard because, clearly, no self-respecting shoplifter would need to bother.

What topped off this prime example of Being Very Hard were the kid's sunglasses. Now, obviously he couldn't fit his sunglasses under his cap (because if he didn't keep it jammed on someone might nick it) so, brilliantly, he'd hung them under his chin like some kind of delirious stethoscope. He is so hard! Fucking hell, he's nearly as hard as me.

I was swapping mugging stories with lovely usedtobecool last night over enormous glasses of wine and drum n bass folk, before suddenly remembering that none of my mugging stories actually belonged to me. I've managed to get through over a year in London without even a sniff of physical aggression and, quite frankly, this makes me nervous because it means my number will very soon be up.

UTBC Dan has a friend who is the Mugging King – not of nicking stuff off other people, but of getting out of it. He's talked people out of mugging him, fought them off, been too poor to actually be worth robbing and, simply, run away. "Nobody could catch him you see, he runs like the devil," said Dan, eyebrows raised in the universal sign of admiration.

Or In Rain got mugged in Brixton once. Rather than doing what I think I would do in the eventuality of being mugged in Brixton (burst into tears and find a policeman immediately), she did what I fantasise I would do: kicked off her boots and sprinted after the fucker, screaming like Boudicca. The image of someone quite small doing something so cool is an impressive one (sadly she didn't catch him), which is why I think such effort should have been rewarded instead of returning to the station only to find someone had made off with her boots.

I admit to being fairly lax when it comes to walking anywhere sensibly at night, and am starting to think that this perhaps is my subconscious hurrying the mugging along so we can get it over with. I do stupid things like walk home "the short way" through dark roads while listening to my iPod (actually, fuck the fear, I'm clearly such a moron that I should be beaten up and left to die in a ditch.) Part of the reason I think I'll get away with such provocative behaviour are the twin weapons of my being 6'2 (and, as cinema has taught us, all people over 6' are either henchmen or proficient in martial arts) and, secondly, having an unattractive travelling face once described as "a murderer eating lemons".

With this inevitability awaiting I've become a bit jumpy lately. When shadows start coming up behind me quickly at 3am, I turn round to make sure whoever behind me isn't clutching a chloroformed sack. I've started doing this in the mornings too which is a trifle extreme. I very much doubt any mugger would want to mess with commuters at before 9am.

Still, it's quite hard not to come up with some kind of escape plan when, as a kid, your mother drills it into you that people on the internet can see into your brain, and that talking to strangers is equivalent to writing "ABDUCT ME" on your forehead. I was about 18 before I actually had a conversation with a stranger on a train, an old man who'd fought in the Falklands. This could have opened whole new doors to the gleaning wisdom from older passengers, but came to an abrupt end when a father of two lunged at me in the Norwich station taxi queue after sharing conversation on the train from Peterborough. Let it be said that no good ever came to anyone at Peterborough train station.

What it boils down to is that I live in a slight cuckoo land where I don't believe much bad will happen until it does (I still keep bags and precious things very close though, I'm not fucking Pollyanna). I love dipping into Brixton. I love the green space in front of the cinema, the hidden away cafes, and the fact that you can get a barbecue and music for a fiver from the Windmill on Sundays. I don't want the fact I like it to be tarnished by being mugged, which is why I treat it with the sort of respect you give to tetchy cats.

If I have to be mugged anywhere, I would much rather it be Camden.

"The Cancer Bats have come to destroy. Fueled by a burning desire to rage harder, play louder and have more fun than any other band, Cancer Bats mix hardcore, southern metal and rock into a lethal rock and roll explosion."

Seriously, where do they get these names...

'We are happy to announce that Rainydayfuckparade are set to finally release their 4-song mini album “Meridian” through Midmarch Records.'

And, by God, so am I.

Things that aren't bands called Rainydayfuckparade that are cheering me today:

- Avenue D
- Rebellion (Lies). Again and again and again.
- The Presets. Ditto.
- Terry Pratchett finally writing a good kids book in Wintersmith.
- The fact that I am entirely unbothered by paying 80p for two slices of toast when it tastes as good as it does.
- The prospect of watching a shit film being righteously mocked by Robin Ince this evening.
- All the goodies I was sent this morning. Even if one of them was the New Rhodes album.
- The mental image of one man single-handedly rescuing art from a flooded basement.

'The Sunshine Underground will be doing interviews on Friday 20th October "before lunchtime"'

Inverted commas. Why?



(This is today's favourite video. MissYOUlikeNOThavingAholeINmyHEADif I hadONE by The Errorplains. So cute and yet so ANGRY.)

Should you be one of the terrifyingly numerous people who rang up suicide hotlines when Take That split back when I was 12, then the news of their new single should fill you with joy. Unfortunately, it's crap. Listen to it here if you haven't already and absolutely must.

My little brother has just been asked to go to the Caribbean with his West Coast lover.

While this is excellent news for my brother and his rapidly fading tan, it's making me start thinking of pissing off somewhere, with or without someone. Another trip to Berlin should be on the cards soon - oh yes indeed.

There’s some curious gene that rouses itself in Autumn, making previously agoraphobic people want to wrap up in scarves and plaid skirts and aim for the nearest green space to go for long walks. (Lesson to all of you: just because it’s green doesn’t make it nature.) Anyway, it makes them feel like romance can happen, which is nonsense. Romance can never happen in plaid. As Blaine Harrison from Mystery Jets pointed out in the Observer yesterday, “I have never felt love with someone walking hand-in-hand through a field of bluebells” and that goes double for grown-ups walking through piles of leaves.

Maybe it was growing up unhappily in the countryside, but I get horrendously agoraphobic when confronted with sunny Sundays. It’s like having a particularly aggressive gym teacher banging on your door and saying “Come on, you shouldn’t be locked inside on a day like this.” Au contraire dear Mrs Eaton, it’s on days like these that you can delight in locking yourself away from good weather. It’s Sunday, the day that was made for hiding away, the one day of the week you can be as lazy as you like and nobody will argue with you because it’s the way life is. You should chuck the key away just to show how much you’re going to enjoy luxuriating in the fact that you could be outside, but you aren’t because it’s 6pm and you’re still in your dressing gown.

If I were famous, Sundays would be paydirt for the paparazzi. Yesterday, I went to the shop in dressing gown, coat and flip-flops to get the papers, looking like Jade Goody’s less-attractive hobo sister. That’s what I do on Sundays that haven’t got plans in – I like to luxuriate in being entirely off-duty from having to faff around with eyeliner or nice clothing. It’s ritualistic and glorious, and entirely why going for bracing walks in plaid have absolutely no place in my weekend life unless it’s Saturday or I’ve somehow ended up in a Beatrix Potter book.

Hiding away yesterday meant that I got to catch up on all the crap television I’d failed to watch throughout the last week so let’s have a great big cheer for whoever invented BitTorrent and thus TV at American speed. And then a big boo for Gilmore Girls singularly failing to be even vaguely entertaining in its season opener. (“It’s an axis of evil contrived entirely by televisual witches,” protested Film Joe when I ditched his internet-self to watch it. Well, yeah, but anything that has a script 20 pages longer than any average television programme of the same length, and with more pop/culture references than your average cartoon earns my respect and love. Especially over seven seasons.)

More telly. Grey’s Anatomy, still not annoying enough to stop me watching it. America’s Next Top Model, needs more mentals in it. Yes, more. Still, at least it’s not the British version which made me want to poke out not only my own eyes, but those of everyone who had anything to do with it. I passed Lucy, the iD-a-like one, on Friday. She is tiny and not a supermodel. Studio 60 is utterly brilliant. Matthew Perry – we only lost faith for a few years, but you are now re-loved again with all the peak-Chandler passion of another time.

Before the television marathon began, RBT and I recovered from Saturday’s exploits by watching Happy Days (the Chachi sells his soul episode) and Melinda and Melinda which was just dreadful. Not even dreadful in an enjoyable car crash way, but in a “Oh God Radha Mitchell, I’d rather put the last half hour of Silent Hill on repeat than sit through this horrible film ever again” way. Woody Allen, sort it out. You had a fantastic cast and you still made another crap film you utter fool.

This made us all marginally more receptive to the new Robin Hood which, FYI, is like the BBC put their heads together and went “Hmm, what ratio of indie boys to tight outfits would be the most likely to give Kat an excuse to dribble all over herself.” Every other man in it looks like he’s just fallen out of an indie club. Guy of Gisborne broods like he’s just spilled JD on his Converse, the Scarlet boys look so surly that their eyebrows stand out a good three inches from their foreheads. It’s a sea of dark haired, skinny, unhealthily pale boys and that, ladies and gentlemen, is precisely what I want to be locked in the house with on a Sunday afternoon.

More useless linkage today. Oxford Street is currently having its numerous sins washed away by a downpour of hitherto untapped torrential proportions and nothing interesting has happened to me of late other than the site I edit almost-but-not-quite winning an award, drinking lots of free booze, being hit on by someone I was 104% sure was gay, getting the same window seat during last orders at the Chandos for the third time in a row (crazy magic), eating some soup, watching Borat, Russell Crowe in film, more soup, ice cream. You can't observe anything on that. Christ I need to get out more.


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Drunk bear captured near elementary school. Seriously. Watch the video - that's 20,000 calories worth of fermented apples sloshing around inside that bear...

Having spent all of yesterday listening to the new Jet album on repeat while writing the Q podcast script (very very Beatles, very very nicked from everyone else ever, strangely addictive when listened to 15 times in a row) today got me a delicious musical recompense in the form of Lebanon/France/England pop tart Mika.

I was supposed to be interviewing him at either 3.20, 12.30, 2pm or 3pm depending on Universal's everchanging press schedule, but that all got shot to shit and canned to some as yet un-named day. This matters not because I've spent pretty much the whole morning and most of the afternoon grinning inside and fighting an urge to sing along to the yodelling bits and cartoony gloriousness of it all. 'Relax, Take It Easy' is like a considerably better version of how the Scissor Sisters might sound if they covered the Bee Gees covering The Cure, while 'Grace Kelly' just makes me terribly, terribly pleased. It sounds all Kinks-ish at the beginning which is rather wonderful.

Think Prince, Freddie Mercury and Jake Shears having a fight to see who's the most flamboyant and you're pretty much there. OUTSTANDING pop music from someone who is going to go absolutely mahussive if Radio1 pays the proper attention. Check out some tunes here