reunited and it feels so good...

if your typing skills are as hit and miss as mine, you could discover that it's very easy to type reuntidied instead of reunited. i quite like the idea of being 'reuntidied' - it sounds a bit like letting your hair down or going crazy. this weekend i am going to be totally reuntidied!
anyway, just picked up my work emails (as you do at 8.17 on a Sunday morning, even when the clocks have gone forward so it's actually only 7.15!) and i've been sent a note from Friends Reunited informing me that there are new classmates of mine on the site.
i duly log on to have a look at who they might be, and i've never heard of any of them. then i go through the list of people who left in 1983 (how old am i!) and come across my own name.
next to it is written 'became a great grandparent'.
now, security issues apart (i certainly didn't update it!) that's pretty hilarious and would make me at least 46!

no, not that one!

when i moved back from a year out in Spain (it actually ended up being almost a decade), i was amazed to read in the paper that a certain Jonathan Woss was interviewing a certain Jordan on TV that evening (I'm going back a while).
'gosh,' i wondered to myself, as i am wont to do, being an inquisitive type 'i wonder what she is doing now, and why on earth is the spiky-haired one now on a mainstream chat show?'
of course, for me (and you, i suspect, for none of us are getting any younger) Jordan was (along with Cat Woman Sue) one of the original punks and wused to work at Sex, Vivienne Westwood's achingly anarchic King's Road shop back in the day (aka 1976/1977).
Googling Jordan I noticed that she is now actually cat woman and looks after a whole bunch of them in Streatham.
As to catwoman Sue, who knows?
i can't help but think though, that she might have made a more interesting interviewee than old Katie P.

hole in the wall

today i took £100 out at the cashpoint.
'would you like an advice slip?' the cashpoint asked before it dispensed my money.
i normally turn down its kind offer but today, feeling a little lost and fuzzy (read hangover) i thought a bit of friendly advice might be just the thing. So, out pops my 'advice' slip. I was hoping for something useful or inspirational along the lines of:
'Get your haircut'
'Be nicer to your boyfriend'
'Always stay two drinks behind your client'
'Don't wear those jeans with that cardie'

instead i got a piece of paper saying 'withdrawal £100'.

now, is it just me, or is that definitely not advice!

tubular hell

apparently, people who work on the Tube call the woman who does the announcements Sonia.
because she gets on ya nerves. geddit 's on ya' nerves.
pu huh (that was the noise my twin sister used to make when she laughed at a joke she didn't understand and has now become family parlance for funny. also for not funny, weirdly)
anyway, Sonya is this week's object of disaffection. you see, i get the Northern Line to work of a morning. it used to be called the misery line because it was so bad compared to all the others, but now that all the others are equally dreadful it has been robbed of than moniker.
so, each morning i get the Northern Line. 'The next train terminates at Morden via Bank' announces Sonya merrily, unaware of her dreadful grasp of English (there is no such place as Morden via Bank) before announcing 'The next train terminates at Paddington via Charing Cross'.
which is plain wrong not just on the grammatical construction but also because the Northern line goes nowhere near Paddington.
Poor old Sonya has got her Kennington mixed up with her Paddington.
I wonder if she has a little teddy bear at home that loves Marmalade and comes from Peru that she calls Kennington.
hey ho

book 'em Danno

viewers of a certain age (actually we're all 'viewers' now. according to the multimedia experts, 'readers' is v v v 20th century. that's not entirely true. my mate Damian Barr is still a reader. in fact he is set to become the world's first Reader in Residence at the Andaz hotel. 'book' him and he will come and read to you in your room! how amazing is that? i wonder if he will pat my bum too, like my nan used to. you can also reserve him for a literary lunch or supper or call him for book advice, which he calls bibliotherapy. he's even holding a 'book-in' at the gaff. find out all about it at guestservices.londonliv@andaz.com or call 020 7618 5061).
anyway, viewers of a certain age might remember Johnny Ball, father of wild child Zoe and erstwhile presenter of Think of a Number. i saw Johnny Ball on the Tube the other day. DOING A SUDOKO! which you just couldn't make up.
so, if you remember Johnny and Think of a Number you may remember a piece of wisdom he once imparted. it went: 'a man with a watch knows the time. a man with two is never sure.'
i was reminded of this yesterday as i made my way from deepest WC2 to bright and oh-so-gay W1. every clock had different variations on a theme. in fact most of them were right, give or take a month or two.
my watch read 6.20pm.
the clock on st martin's in the field read 3.20.
the clock on the swiss centre was stuck at 4.12.
i arrived at my date mystified. was i early? on time? a week and a half late…