I know, I know......

But I can't face this. Bloody weather. At least we have Valencia in September to look forward to. Days of 23C! How will we cope?

On a brighter note, John's going down!!!!! And my self-imposed exile may be over. Maybe I should have used my years in the wilderness to write a book, or at the very least a pamphlet. If Maxine McKew wins John Howards seat of Bennelong, I will send her flowers. I loved her when she was on the ABC.

In other bleeding-heart liberal news, I am abandoning my inherent dislike of Australian Male Cultcha and going to see Damien play his last football match tomorrow. Here is the team list (seriously):

South London side:

FB: Marty Chadders Jezza
HB: Conrad Dicko Scotty
C: Birdman Speersy Chocka
HF: Naughto Saundo Crabs
FF: Youngy Matesy Hollers
Rucks: Benny E Pos BJ
Bench: Patty, Frank, Oli, Goody, Lukey M, Sac

I am pretty sure that Lukey M and Frank are only on the bench until they can come up with decent nicknames. This will be the third year running that Damien is playing his last game, so I am slightly sceptical, but we will be having a picnic and (possibly) drinking white wine, so it shouldn't be too unbearable.

So a bit of a catch-up is in order, I have been slack, for various reasons too mind-boggling uninteresting to go into here.

A few interesting things (well, interesting to me, if you don’t find it interesting, you can leave this blog now J ) have happened the last few weeks. Miss Bernie was on a three-week trip to our sodden shores. I was lovely to see her - she is always such fun, and is always generous with her hair. Paul, Bernie and I went for fish and chips (and champagne! How louche.) at the Golden Hind. Bernie revealed that Lucy has been frequenting the Golden Hind. I was stunned – Oi Knowles! Hands off! It’s our restaurant, not yours! Paul, myself, and Simon and planning on reclaiming it next week.

We also had a big night out with Miss B in London’s so distressed it’s trendy East End. A big group of us met up at The Commercial. It’s a pretty cool pub – more bar than pub, but I really liked it. I suppose that’s not all that surprising as Maria who runs the ‘Friendly Society’, also owns the Commercial. And it’s very Fitzroy. Lucy and Brock were there, as was Mark, Jari, Stuie,and Simon. We ended up in some random curry-house for dinner, then hit a few more bars. Paul and I ended up sharing a taxi home in the wee hours with Lucy and Brock, after standing in the rain for 20 minutes (note to self: must always carry umbrella).

Last Saturday saw my contribution to the Summer of Food ^{tm reg}. We met Damien and went to Hakkasan. It was lovely. Really good food and the fitout is very sexy…. We then went to a party in London’s what-do-you-mean-it-was-bombed-in-the-blitz-it-looks-like-it-was-bombed-30-minutes-ago East End. The party was fun though.

Brighton Pride was on - it is responsible for changing my opinions on both kilt-wearers and blackberry users.

We did our normal beachside lunch, then went to the park. We amanaged to get an earlyish train back to London, then Paul and I set about cutting Damien's hair. I reckon we did allright.