And Now We Go Over To Our Norwegian Correspondent, Erik Joenssensensen-Sensensensenssen

"Thank you, Gordon. What the latest reports are telling us from the bureau in Kristiansand, is that police have issued a drunken moose alert in southern Norway.

Elsewhere, shock as a terrier called Conan robs a petrol station.

And finally, while the nation pauses to ponder the significance of Norwegian youths being in dangerous proximity to Michael Jackson, Oslo is planning a sewer safari park.

I've been Erik Joenssensensen-Sensensensenssen. Back to the studio."

Bandage

By which I mean the state of being in a band. With the Homewreckers due to play a gig under an assumed name (they're barred from the venue), but sanity not really reigning within, I haven't been back to any rehearsals for a while.

However, the planned London-based three-piece is getting more likely. We are (at least at the moment) called Five Chord Trick, and the first song is called Competence Is For Losers -- an in-joke so obscure I think there are only three other people who will get it, none of whom are in the band. Okay, I know only three other people will get it.

And Up Again.... Maybe

Well, I just had a very promising-seeming job interview. It seems my only rival for this full-time job is one of my former classmates.

"I've just got one girl I've yet to see," said the interviewing woman as I left, "She's in Switzerland at the moment."

"Her name's not Nicole, is it?" I said.

She couldn't remember. But she did remember something about a university ladies' football team. So it is, indeed, herself.

As for James' birthday -- I'm a good brother again! I didn't get him a rubbish present. No! In desperation, I was on the net at looked at the Big Howard-Little Howard Show website. Howard Read is a comic I saw at last year's Edinburgh Fringe, and just happens to be from my hometown of Hitchin. Little Howard is the world's only 6-year-old animated interactive stand-up comedian. The whole thing was just as funny - if not more so - than last time. The amount of rehearsal Big Howard must do to be so in synch with his animated characters is mind-boggling. Good stuff - try and see it.

Anyway, then James and I met Henry and Paul, who were very drunk (Paul was in the "no, no, seriously, listen" stage of inebriation; Henry was hiding it a bit better). Then we got drunk.

Happy Birthday, James!

I was working on Sunday. Quite slow. The only thing of note was when I had to lead a Russian concert pianist and a gaggle of Canadians (they take the same group noun as geese, right?) on a hunt for the green room, where the pianist had left his stuff. This was difficult, as I'd never been upstairs in the concert hall before.

Then I came home and played yet even more FIFA 2004. Obviously.

I've Swallowed The Little Book of Calm.

The Shanghai book will take years to get published. My vague contract-based job offer seems bound to go nowhere. I still haven't got James a birthday present. I'm ill, but I can't afford not to work. I hate my job. (Actually, that's not true, I just hate all the customers.) I'm not in China. The electricity bill is due. At this rate, Nacthmusik 2, Terrorism and Ex Libris are never going to get made. I barely spend any time at home.

Bloody hell.

Who in God's name would bring a half-eaten eight pound jar of Hellman's mayonnaise to a public meeting?

Or in other words, I'm reading Bonfire of the Vanities. It's pretty good so far.

The weekend was a thing of beauty -- and, as such, a joy forever. On Saturday afternoon, I met Lydia at the Odeon Covent Garden. We'd planned to see SPELLBOUND (the spelling-bee thing, not the Hitch classic), but it turned out to be on an hour later than we thought, thus rendering it incompatible with my oh-so-hectic schedule.

Dismissing the other offerings with summary execution -- "That's about a middle-aged woman, not interested; that looks like a French film about nothing in particular; that's totally boring; that's about a horse." -- we ended up seeing BLIND SHAFT at The Other Cinema.

BLIND SHAFT tells the heartwarming story of two guys with a scam. They find a naive out-of-work miner and sign on at a new mine pretending he's the relative of one of them. Then they kill him, make it look like an accident and collect the family compensation from the mine boss as a pay-off for them not telling the authorities.

This sort of goes wrong when they next mark is a schoolkid without enough money for study fees, whom one fo the men is reluctant to kill. It's good, though the lack of music makes it a bit soporific (it could do with being about twenty minutes shorter). For those of us who speak Chinese, the accents are alarming more than anything else, but I'd say on the whole it's worth watching.

After that, I went to Ascot for Tom Jeatte's birthday party. The house was vast, I didn't go to sleep, I have no idea what I was doing for about five hours of my life. These things happen.
The next day, the best film ever made was on TV.

So, what do you do? I think.

Had my interview/meeting thing at the think-tank just now. I seem to be on the company books, so to speak, the whole thing being very vague. Well, it is consultancy, after all. Vague is its whole thing.

I have finally bought a duvet cover.

I have received more emails about the Immortal Piano.

We had a bomb alert at the restaurant, and basically got paid to go to the pub for two hours. Which was good. I then went out with some people after work, returning home at 4 a.m., which was also good. What was bad was managing to lose a 7-day travelcard on the first day of having it.

True Crime: Streets of L.A. is really a rather fun game.

I am not going to see MATRIX REVOLUTIONS. I think I'll see THE FIVE OBSTRUCTIONS instead.

[Expletive deleted], why the [expletive deleted] do I have no [expletive deleted] money? [Expletive deleted] it.

So, anyway, my job-hunting is leaving my feeling rather... dejected, I guess. It's probably time to throw all my efforts into the Shanghai and China books, plus think about making that film about terrorism.

I really, really hate this whole situation.

In other news, Nachtmusik 2 now contains vaguely more jokes. And yet, still no plot! Who'd have thought it?

I ended up calling the new character Crazy Dave. How utterly inspired, eh?