Post Secrets

My sentiments exactly. More at www.postsecrets.com

Life without J

Life without with J is not, as you might assume from earlier posts, about getting dumped by someone called J - or even losing a few friends whose names start with J - although it may come to that.

No, Life without J is life without the letter J - 10th in the alphabet, 8 points in Scrabble, a commanding, centre-court position on your average QUERTY keyboard.

Except, after some six months of last gasps and other signs of torture, my letter J has finally died. It is no longer reponds to either gentle touch, aggressive tapping or any of the encouraging techniques I've developed to encourage its presence on the page.

I have looked at my J in the raw. I have cleaned it. I have begged it. But no dice. Or no 'oy' as my keyboard now puts it.

Initially I thought this would be disastrous. Life without J. I simply couldn't imagine it. I rang up Sony - yes, as I thought - it will take over a year and some 3000 euros to get it fixed.

Their answer was: Live with it; live without J.

And in fact it's surprisingly easy. My newly-patented keyboard shortcut (Ctrl + K) takes care of Word and website software. Cutting and pasting (from the new, handy "J" text file I've created) takes care of most other J needs.

But friends called J are going out the window. Too much bother. And a disproportionately large number of PokerStars colleagues who also seem to start their names with J (eg: 'ohan, 'ohn, 'emma, 'o, 'an, 'ens, 'ules etc) are going to have to go too. Or they're going to have to write first and I'll 'ust hit reply and forget to say hi.

In fact, my J has been on the point of death so long, it's not even that hard a transition. A recalcitrant, petulant J is actually worse than no J. My dying J was like a crap boyfriend - promising to turn up, even looking like they might turn up - and then 'ust not.

So J - you unnecessary, useless letter of the alphabet. I will survive without you. You're history. It's over. I ust don't need you anymore.

Five Minutes of Electrical Rest

I did it!!! Five minutes of electrical rest!! Although I did accidentally leave the heating on max. and turned the lights off in the wrong order so was marooned in my office and couldn’t find the front door.

But apart from that it all went swimmingly. Headed for my local bar (lots of heat and light) only to discover they too had a social conscience and were busy turning everything off (including the cigarette machine, at a most inconvenient moment). Some people argued that we should be allowed to keep the telly on as we were half-way through a Chelsea-Blackburn match, but then some other people argued that it was a repeat anyway, so the telly went off too.

So anyway, we sat in the gloom, humming Koombaiyah and crowding round an energy-saving candle and watching enraptured as the whole town followed suit and plunged into darkness.

This gave both visiting and local thieves plenty of opportunity for bag snatches, break-ins, till grabs etc and also gave TV Maricel a much-needed lead story for tomorrow's broadcast which otherwise would have been a repeat about the municipal fuck-up in Calle Angel Vidal.

But oh what fun we had. Just like the 70s but with fewer records by Art Garfunkel and Leo Sayer. Or was that the 80s?

And I feel so worthy. Combined with my recycling of the whole of last weekend's Sunday Times, tonight's activism puts me at the very forefront of eco-terrorism. Kisses from the frontline

What Five Minutes of Electrical Rest looks like

A letter of thanks to Superman

I was absolutely fuming this morning because yet again, the postman had left me a note in the communal postbox telling me to pick 'something' up at the post office.

It's always a bloody parking ticket and I was fuming because the lazy bastards (postman) never actually ring the bell and deliver my fine into my hands, but find it easier to leave a note meaning I have to hack down to the correo, queue for half a millenia and then have a row in Catalan only to discover, as per usual, that's it's not a bottle of champagne, box of chocs or similarly welcome gift from mystery admirer but just another "multa" from the ayuntamiento for my one single tiny parking transgression committed 8 months ago on my moped (and who says I'm not disabled anyway!).

So imagine my surprise and delight to discover - not a demand for 40 euros - but a ten-strong pile of back issue PokerPlayer magazines!!! Apparently more than one edition of PokerPlayer is too heavy for the postman to deliver himself (work-shy wanker) but never mind. All fury gone. No parking fine - just hours of pleasure to come.

So, the mag is great, hilarious. I am working my way backwards so have kicked off with February 2007.

I have already (obviously) framed p.47 - the cut-out-and-keep poster of Rick Dacey as "Superman" - and put it on my bedside table alongside the picture I took of Mike Matusow when I was stalking him at the WSOP last July. (Tamar has now banned me from stalking The Mouth or indeed making any verbal or physical contact with him whatsoever although I am allowed to smile at him coyly as long as I maintain 100 yards distant. This mean, in smaller casinos, that I have to smile at him from the car park but never mind.)

My favourite line in the mag so far (and by far) is the description of the mighty Paul Cheung on p. 27: musclebound and hyper-aggressive - aaaah, bless him.

So, thank you Rick Dacey, Superhero. Give Cheung a kiss for me. Give yourself one too. This was the best "package" I've seen in a long time (geddit!)

Rick Dacey as Superhero - a convincing portrait