Rich in New York

I got paid! WOOHOO! It only took them six weeks. Actually, they were meant to make this payment in January, but the contract got held up, and blah blah blah... so it was only four months late, or six weeks, depending on how you look at it.

New York was fantastic. I have to put that as things change so fast in my head, and I forget no one else knows. I spoke to someone yesterday who asked me if I was OK in NY. Was it really bad? Huh? Oh, my last post! People still keep up with me on this thing! I forget other people read it! Maybe I should put some effort into writing my blog instead of keeping it all for screenplays and journo stuff!

I was working on a piece for The Fix so the first thing I did, after crashing out all Wednesday morning from the red-eye, was wander down to Brooklyn to meet Joe Schrank and see The Loft. If you're rich and you're an addict and want to get sober, go to The Loft. If you're poor and you're an addict, you get some shit community center, styrofoam cup of coffee and an asshole with man boobs preaching the Big Book at you. Williamsburg has changed so much. I lived off Bedford, near Marcy Avenue, in the Hasidic neighborhood in 2005. Now - where are all the Jews?! Where are the Hispanics? It's just white hipsters, fancy restaurants, and clothing stores. I mean, I love it. But it's like the East Village or SoHo and the rents are ridiculous now. And I miss the Jews. Thankfully The Bagel Store still sells toasted French-Toast bagels with cream cheese ("You have eyes like a wolf" the bagel man tells me), the Sally Army is still there, and Marcy Avenue remains foul and untouched, still selling single cigarettes for 50 cents. Which reminds me, I am a month into quitting cigarettes and loving optimum yoga health again.

My four days in New York was taken up with paying off two credit cards, an outstanding plumbers bill, the major works charge on my flat in London and a variety of other enormous charges levied upon me by homeowning. Fun! I briefly considered opening a savings account for the paltry amount of ages left, rejected this idea, then wandered over to Mud for coffee, went shopping around the East Village afterwards, ate at Lucien's, hung out with gay friend and mooched around the SoHo and the West Village. I paid a pilgrimage to the studio where I did my first ever yoga teacher training, and discovered my favorite Brazilian cafe, right by my old apartment on Houston and Mott, is now closed. I rediscovered another one when drinking submarinos with my favorite travel writer and the guy who inadvertently got my ass to New York all those years ago - by making me into his intern!

It was the first time, since I've been back sober, that I felt at home in New York again. Before I guess I was haunted by something, the ghost of Mimi, something. But coming back - sober, sentient, happy, money in my pocket, four journalism articles and one screenplay commission lined up - I felt good. I think at some point I'll be back in New York for a six month - year stint again. Venice and New York have become my heartlands. I need both to feel whole.

I'm now in London, staying with the amazing Johanna, whose kindness and tolerance knows no bounds. I spent Easter Sunday eating roast lamb in the sun and walking around Kew gardens with her family, yesterday stuck at the computer for 14 glorious hours of researching an article and interviewing a bunch of amazing scientists - and about 10pm, I got a call from an agent called Bob Bookman at CAA.

And it was then that I knew everything was going to be OK.

Broke in New York

How come every time I go to New York I'm waiting for a payment?! This will be the third trip in a year when I've arrived totally broke. I thought a payment from March was going to arrive and compensate for the huge sums I spent on evicting evil tenant. Guess what? The money's still not been paid out!

Being freelance really sucks. Last time I got paid was January. Why are there no penalties for people who don't pay writers within a week of signing contracts? Screw thirty days. A person can die of hunger in that time. I just hope the money arrives by Sunday as I'm meant to be flying into London and at this rate I'll be begging in Heathrow, unable to leave, by Easter Sunday....

Any tips on how to enjoy four days in New York with only fifteen bucks?!

New IRS Program

This is also genius. Besty and I drove home from West Hollywood the other night having an increasingly paranoid, conspiracy theorist convo about how the world is controlled by corporations. And then we realized this conclusion was no longer the realm of will o' the wisps and nutters driving cabs obsessed with magic numbers - it was public knowledge. Ouch. I'm glad I spent three years not earning enough to pay tax! Maybe I should move to Monaco with Lisa Vanderpump et al.

Hey!

Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in TARP money, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes? Yeah, me neither.

LANDLORDS BEWARE: Simon Longo - Worst Tenant in Britain

Let's imagine you are renting an apartment. You receive TWO MONTHS NOTICE from your landlord to vacate. You ignore it. Only a few days before your lease ends, you tell your landlord you have no intention of leaving.

You seem surprised when your landlord initiates court proceedings against you, even though you've been told this will happen if you break the lease and ignore the Section 21 eviction notice. You argue when you're told you will be held liable for the court costs - it's not fair - even though you've been told that your actions will have this result.

You demand your full deposit back, even though you still haven't left the flat, you've barred your landlord from entering the property, and you've made clear that you don't consider contracts legally binding. Not only do you demand your full deposit back before you've left, when the court sends you a nice email informing you to bring your good self along to a Repossession Notice, you tell the landlord that actually, you will leave on April 13th (two weeks before the court date) but only if you receive 400 pounds, IN CASH, before you've vacated the flat, and before it's been inspected!!

Tomorrow the worst tenant in the world is meant to be leaving my property. I have refused to give him any money, because I don't think it's right to reward such behavior and my solicitor and the government deposit people have told me not to give him anything until he's out and the locks are changed - plus I simply don't have any money left. Having spent a grand on solicitors and court fees and argued long and hard with Camden Housing Office, having suffered twelve months of abuse, sexual harassment and intimidation from this nasty little man, I don't expect him to leave easily. I'm 6,000 miles away and I still feel like it's not far enough. I've warned my lovely estate agents, Olivers, to have the police on speed dial as we have no idea what he's going to do next. He's already tried to get money out of my retired GP father!

Supposedly unemployed Simon Longo has a huge variety of websites online which detail his occupation as a freelance sound artist. This is a man who claims 866.67 pounds a month in Housing Benefit for a flat he occupies only six months a year (the other six he's "caring for a disable relative in Italy"). This is a man who has threatened me with legal action because I asked him to keep the boiler ticking over to prevent corrosion while he takes another six week holiday. A man who forbade me from entering my own flat. A man who asked me on a date and got so offended I said no he told me I couldn't enter my property in his absence in case I 'stole' his 'extremely expensive sound equipment'. This man, thirty-something, able-bodied, university-educated, having claimed benefits for well over a year, living alone, his only pre-school aged son in Italy with his mother, having had sixty days to find alternative accommodation, chose instead to stay in my flat for as long as he wished.

This man today, 24 hours before he is meant to leave, having had Camden, his solicitor, my estate agent, myself and my father explain to him that his deposit cannot be refunded until the flat is vacated, inspected and the locks changed - tried his luck, and went on The Deposit Protection Scheme website to try and get his FULL deposit back. Despite the fact he's been made aware MULTIPLE TIMES he's now liable for my court costs, the cleaning fees, whatever other damage he's caused and the cost of having the locks changed on the flat.

Landlords, BEWARE THIS MAN. Simon Longo must be one of the worst tenants in Britain. He seems like a nice, charming, down-on-his-luck musician, but as this experience has taught me, he's a total chancer who seems to think he's entitled to everything for free. DO NOT LET HIM IN YOUR PROPERTY. Yes, he - oh, I mean, Camden council - will pay his rent on time every month, but you will never be able to get rid of him without a costly legal battle.

Anyone in the UK have advice on restraining orders to make sure pests don't come near you?

Funny

I used to be Lisa Vanderpump's Personal Chef in Fontvieille, Monaco when I was a wee thing of 23 working on Rich People's Private Yachts. Needless to say, those were the days when her adopted kid Max didn't resemble Lurch, and she had no immobile fluffy dogs. She did, however, harbor an obsession with pink, lilac, polar bears, carb-free fare and possess an extraordinary pillow collection.

Oh those were the happy, happy days of providing cheap, menial labor to the tax-free Mega-Rich. Lisa was an alright boss. It's funny how someone with an undeniably good heart - adopting a foster kid takes guts and love - didn't seem to see her staff as well, people. I doubt the lady even knew my name in three months of working for her and having daily arguments about why, precisely, it was impossible to make a creme brulee carb-free.

Scary Politics

There's some scary things afoot in US and UK politics right now. I'm glad they've reached a deal of sorts which apparently won't touch Planned Parenthood, but the implications of this budget agreement are tremendous and scary. The Tea Party is like the Republican's darling kid, who turned out just as they planned - and eventually turns around and stabs its proud parent, just as they start to realize they've raised a monster.

It's funny to be over here completely depressed about the cuts in federal funding, and then look at England who need a far less bureaucratic, money-wasting public sector but lack the right kind of direction to achieve that. It makes me so mad that the US, this wonderful country I've called home for six years - is so fucked up politically and socially, and that England have the essentials exactly right: great holidays (six weeks a year), unemployment and other benefits, decent standard of schools, and of course, the amazing NHS - but don't know how to maintain it.

Brits seem to take all this wonderful stuff for granted - because otherwise why would they have supported massively over-expanded higher education which has led to useless degrees and given the Tories the perfect excuse to raise fees on universities? (And who started charging for Higher education? The Labour party in 1997 - fucking hypocrites).

Why would the left be up in arms about the NHS being used for non-essentials: cosmetic surgery, multiple IVF treatments for, until very recently, women over the age of forty, even - and shoot me down and call me a Republican - gender reassignment surgery? Excuse me?

I'm a Liberal who thinks everyone should have free health care but if you want a nose job, a boob reduction, a sex change, and yes, even a baby and life has sadly deemed you one of the unfortunate few who can't bear children naturally - suck it up, pay for it yourself, and feel grateful that the doctors and nurses who cure your cancer and provide you with pre and post-natal care for nothing (min. of ten grand in the US, even with insurance) are well rested, well paid and have no gripes.

Until you've lived in a country like the US without health insurance, where the uninsured buy antibiotics on the black market and live in fear of even minor ailments, you are incapable of realizing how important it is to preserve the integrity of an institution like the NHS. To do that, you need to pay its staff well and make sure it's used for the good of the nation's health.

Ironically, I found out you can't receive sessions with a shrink or a chiropractor on the NHS - I don't see anyone complaining about this, but for someone like me, both are pretty damn essential to my mental and physical health as a nutter with scoliosis. Guess I'll have to suck it up and find the money. So will the couple who need IVF, the man who wants to be a woman, the girl with the big nose. Fortunately, the dad of three with Prostate Cancer will be OK, as will the woman with Cystic Fibrosis, the kid with Leukemia, and the old lady with severe Bronchitis. The point being - calm down Britain. I hate the Tories but they're not getting rid of your NHS. No one's stupid enough to get rid of your NHS, I guarantee it. Even Thatcher wouldn't have done it. So shut your whining, and until they cut doctors, nurses, GP's and cancer wards, I'd concentrate on the terrible truth that corporations are not being taxed enough and the mega-rich continue to receive tax breaks. That there is absolutely mindbogglingly shit. It's awful. It makes me want to cry. And Britain - be grateful your government doesn't come to a standstill over federal funding for Planned Parenthood - an institution which doesn't actually use federal funding to 'fund' abortion, as the right wing claim, but provides uninsured and insured women and men with essential health care and contraceptive advice for as much or as little as you can afford.

I wish America was more like Britain and its welfare state. I wish America had six weeks holiday a year, health care for all, cheaper-if-not-free higher education, more jobs, better schools and I wish they taxed corporations and the mega-rich, the same way they tax regular people. And I wish Britain would learn that they have the foundation in place, but it's getting tired and old. If the last thirty years of government had cared for it a bit better, instead of coming up with stupid expensive ideas which cost money and don't create jobs or nourish the NHS or education, they wouldn't have given the goddamn ConDems exactly the excuse they were waiting for to sweep in with their machete to cut off a vital limb.

It's appalling that higher education now costs so much money. This, undoubtedly, will lead to universities becoming more and more elite. But I think it's a good thing that kids no longer receive the EMA. I mean - fuck off! I had to work in bloody Tesco's through Sixth Form! Are we really disillusioned enough to think that everyone claiming that money would otherwise be condemned to dropping out of school, a life of low paid menial work ahead of them, their wings cruelly clipped just as they spread them, ready to fly away from the council estate and its undereducated vagrants? For fuck's sake. If you want it bad, you'll find a way - like working in a restaurant or bar, like I did, and millions of others did.

Life is hard, and the struggle to get what you want is just as much the point as the getting. If you want something, you work for it, regardless of background or parental income. This is not Victorian England, where children are taken out of school to earn a living for alcoholic, slovenly jobless parents. Doubtless these few evil people do exist - and they'll be claiming a huge amount of benefits already, according to The Daily Mail, an argument I'd like to refute but Simon Longo has turned me into a hater on that matter - but not to the extent that Britain would have us believe. Wouldn't it have been better to have spent EMA money on training nurses, or on teachers and primary schools, on maybe ensuring universities don't have to charge fees to students? If Britain now turns into America, with its overpriced college system, it will be an absolute fucking travesty.

It seems so ridiculously obvious to state that America and Britain should be taxing the big companies and the mega-rich. I hesitate to say merely 'the rich' as we seem to think of posh people who inherited Daddy's money as the problem, and they're not. Difference and disparity and unfairness exist, Liberals. It sucks that you and I have no savings and will never own a Chanel bag and will spend thirty years paying off a mortgage on a shit property. But hating those who own outright their three storey townhouse and have a walk-in closet full of Birkins and party at Mahiki's and vacation in Mustique - this isn't the issue. They may have a nicer life than us. Let it go. Be happy for them. We need them on our side. Believe me, the rich - the millionaires - are small fry compared to the mega rich - the billionaires. It's the mega rich and the big corporations paying minimal or zero tax while federal funding is cut in the US, and libraries are shut in the UK, which makes me so damn sad.

BTW, just as a side note - let's remember who deregulated the banks and paved the way for the last few painful years. The Democrats in the US and the Labour party in the UK. You guys suck. You're inept, untogether, fiscally irresponsible, weak and directly responsible for the world financial mess, the Tea Party in the US and the ConDems in the UK.

Get it together you fucking weaklings.

I'm going to watch Godzilla now.

A Night Out With Daisy '06

Daisy found a picture from this night! Funny. RIP Kiki the dog. You were adorable even if you didn't move much.

Las Vegas, NV

We drove North on the 15, through Diamond Bar, Barstow and Baker, stopped off for In-N-Out, drove some more, and then the light started to go down on the desert and all you could see ahead was the luminous glow of Primm in the evening sky. Fake Vegas, I always think of it. You see the lights and think you're nearly there but you still have a ways to go. We arrived on the Strip at around 9pm, and it was wintery and empty. Even though the lights still sparkled they lacked luster and sheen, instead seemed tired, faded, on the point of extinction. It felt like arriving to the party a week too late and finding only the corpse of other people's fun, the whisper of laughter, a sad sigh.

The same could be said of The Sahara. The elevator, stripped of advertisements, stinking of pee and stale cigarette smoke, creaked and whined uneasily when it took us up to check in. It wasn't a good sign. This is my mystery location of glamor and beauty. Fucking Vegas. Not only that, a dying hotel, only a couple weeks to go before it gets closed down forever. My feelings of gratitude towards Paul for rescuing me from the stress of evil Italian tenant hell rapidly gave way to simmering resentment. Then I saw the fat people sitting at the slot machines. This was fat that six years in the US had not prepared me for. This was fat whose mean value was probably more than a fucking house. This was fat that threatened to seep across the torn, frayed, stained, smelly carpet, crawl under my skin and infect me too. This was fat covered in gray skin smoking forty a day and chugging another beer as it wasted your life savings on another lot of plastic tokens for Roulette.

Depressing as all hell. I felt sure our friendship could not survive. We'd been happy that day, driving in the sun, but now all I could think was, "When can I fucking leave?"

We wandered around the Luxor, the Mandalay and Excalibur, looking for food. It was eleven, but everywhere was shut. The only tourists left were fat white men in shorts holding bongs of fluorescent cocktails, and Mexican families pushing strollers full of mewling, sticky children who seemed distressed. I thought we'd hit a low when we went into the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner: we hit a new one when they turned us away and suggested Denny's.

In Denny's. "We have a big, big problem," says the Orca Whale behind me, and her three Obsese sisters nod their head and chins in agreement. "We still don't have the Deep-Fried Mozzarella sticks on the table". Oh tragedy! I changed my order from Pie to Grilled Chicken Salad (the half portion) and wondered whether In-N-Out was the dizzy descent to an ass like a Fire Engine. We went back to The Sahara about midnight, and played a listless game of Roulette. I won 75 bucks on the first two tries, and felt so depressed I thought of giving it away to charity. Fortunately I pulled myself together, pocketed it, and slept long and deep, dreamt about smiling corndogs leering at me from the side of the freeway.

Paul wanted breakfast at Hooters because he'd never been there before. Our server was Ashley. She wrote this down on a paper napkin, with a heart, in case we forgot. Paul forgot. Ashley looked like she'd rolled out of bed with a hangover and a meth-pipe, wiped the cum from between her legs, ignored the supine, nameless dude sweating fumes under her duvet, and headed to work without looking in the mirror. I admired her chirpiness in the face of disaster (her own), but Hooters wings for breakfast made me want to puke so we left and headed over to Circus Circus.

Circus Circus was busy. From nowhere, families had sprung up, grimly determined to hunt down fun, viciously harpoon it lest it might wriggle out of their grasp and head for Hollywood. Paul lined up for an hour to check in, and I slept on the floor, surrounded by large Hispanic families, until he woke me up, forced me reluctantly into the fairground section. And there... We had fun!

Circus Circus is the kind of place which makes me cringe and want to hate-screw a rich white man in the Bellagio. And then I saw hook-a-duck, and I knew that I too, could win the stuffed hamburger, and I felt complete. Everyone in Circus Circus was smiling. Everyone in the Sahara looked like they'd been exhumed earlier that day. That whole 'family entertainment' bullshit does tend to translate in my head as obese middle-Americans with man-tits straining to roam free from their 'I love boobs' t-shirts, sporting beer breath and a semi as they stroll down to Crazy Horse after a night with Barry Manilow. And yeah, that's part of Vegas, and I'd be lying if I said it didn't disgust me, because I'm a liberal snob. But then there's the absolute childlike wonder that plastic crap, a few bright lights and going upside down can create. And that's Circus Circus. I think I'd kind of forgotten the consummate professionalism of Vegas because I was so distracted by watching the Sahara rot and die in front of us. And going to see Absinthe afterwards was perfect.

Absinthe was like The Box - except with fat white people in the audience, as opposed to skinny, trendy, name-dropping New Yorkers. One Spiegel Tent, several burlesque dancers, breathtakingly weird acrobatic acts, two crazy comedians MC-ing everything, tightrope walkers, a chick in a balloon, and a bar throughout it all for regular Diet-Coke top-ups.

We left in a happy daze, and went to a bar in Caesar's Palace to meet my old stripper friends Daisy and G-Cup and record some video for Paul's column.

For those of you who were wondering, here's my pre and post stripping pics. It was hilarious and fun meeting Daisy and G-Cup after so long away from clubs. I'm still a mani-pedi, bikini-wax, make-up girl, but tend to slob out in yoga clothes and Bare Minerals these days. No more fake blond hair, spangly g-strings and pancake slap for me. Plus the short hair was a definite post-strip indulgence for me - I'm sure there are guys out there who dig it, but they never walked into any stripclub I ever worked at.





Paul and I crawled back to Circus Circus that evening at midnight and stayed up until 2am, eating Krispy-Kremes and drinking coffee, passing the laptop back and forth to write the HuffPo piece. I think the definition of happiness is caffeine, sugar and talking to a fellow writer deep into the night in a hotel in some strange city. I guess, even with only 75 bucks from a roulette win to your name, you can be happy anywhere. I love Vegas.

Vegas

I'm over here at the moment. A sandy start in the dying Sahara, was made up for by Circus Circus, which is loadsa fun. More soon.

True Story

Last night - SoHo House West Hollywood for a birthday party. Virgin Margaritas laced with Chantix. Dyke boots and slinky plastic trousers. I'm the only size zero in the room and resemble a fourteen year old anorexic going through a gender identity crisis. Get talking to Croatian lead actor in Brangelina's directorial debut. We're walking down a corridor when he grabs me, pulls me by the hand into the photo booth, sits there, looking at me awkwardly, puppy-like. Then he jumps me, tongue a-flailing. I scream, but you said you're married! and Zach Galfianakis pops his head round the corner, grins, and says; "This sounds fun! Can I join in?".

I go back to the party and sit listening to A tell me about how last night she met Tom Cruise with her Mad Man boyfriend, and my boyfriend just gets cooler by the minute! Tom Cruise! (yawn) and Ella and I slink off to sneer, and talk about how growing up in a family of actors (her not me) and living next to Robert Downey Jr. and having a different movie set film on your street every other day means you're immune to celebrity and completely unimpressed by it. And then Zach G walks in the room, waves at me, and we both swoon OH MY GOD IT'S THE GUY FROM THE HANGOVER!

Oh.

Stress-stress-stress

Exhausting. Evil tenant's rent was paid for the month of April by the DSS. So he's not in rent arrears, but he is in breach of lease and I filed the repossession notice and got a court date. This obviously scared evil tenant as he agreed to leave on April 13th - and then demanded I pay him his DSS rent back.

Firstly, he owes me nothing. I lost a tenant because of this guy, they lost a place to live, and I'm fronting huge court costs and solicitor's fees because of his refusal to leave on March 28th.

Secondly, I don't have his bloody rent as it automatically goes out my account to cover the mortgage. Think I have spare cash lounging in my account Simon Longo? Think again cockface. I have about ten dollars until my next freelance paycheck because of you, and you ain't getting your hands on my coffee money! What next? Sell my eggs to fund your lifestyle?

Thirdly, if any rent were owed back - which it's doubtful it is because of the massive costs incurred by this idiot - it would be owed back to the DSS directly, NOT Simon Longo. I've told him this, my solicitor has told him this, Oliver's Estate Agent has told him this - he says we're trying to defraud him. The guy with a second home in Italy who claims Housing Benefits in the UK claims I am trying to defraud HIM!!

And the one person who needs to tell him all this, the one person nasty little Italian tenant might listen to - Rhonda Clarke at the Housing Office - has gone on vacation. And for some reason, despite the fact I spoke to her replacement multiple times this week on the phone and have emailed his (government appointed) solicitor and they all confirmed that my solicitor was correct - I should not pay any money to Simon Longo - they won't put it down in writing, nor tell him direct, and shut the aggressive little fuck up.

The guy is sending me increasingly erratic and volatile emails saying he wants money transferred else he won't move out. That's blackmail folks.

I'm so tired of this whole bullshit shenanigans, I'm literally at the point of calling the mortgage company and saying "Here, take my crappy flat. You deal with this prick."

In the last twelve months I have spent about 8k GBP on this flat: major works charges, service charges, estate agents fees, solicitor's fees, and now covering this twat's costs as the DSS money no longer covers the mortgage. I just don't think it's worth pouring money into a property anymore. I'd rather never own anything ever again. There's such a huge emphasis on owning property in the UK - not so much the US. In the UK it's a coming of age thing, something everyone must do, quickly-quickly-quickly. Get on the property ladder! Validate yourself as an adult! A mortgage means you've made it! Do it! Standard Variable or Fixed Rate? Mummy and Daddy fork out for the deposit and the furnishings, everyone's happy.

And then you're stuck there, paying huge, extortionate amounts of cash to nameless companies for a place you don't even want that much, but just thought you should get, because it's what you do, in the UK.

Fuck that shit. There's so many ridiculous cultural caveats that come with being British. This is one of them. Why not have a good life and avoid debt and stop feeding your money to your corrupt local council and the banks? My local government, Camden, has fleeced its leaseholding residents of thousands of pounds of cash this year. And for what? Does Camden look clean, feel safe, have great amenities, provide us with 24 hour concierge service, someone who picks up the garbage on time, maintenance in every building? Do we even have great schools in Camden?

I don't fucking think so.

What does eight grand get you in Camden? It gets you a local council who send you letters every week for two years even when you tell them time and time again - and send the bank statements to prove it - that you can't pay them the thousands they want off you, on top of your mortgage and council tax and service charge (and thank god I don't pay income tax in the UK) to 'improve the area'.

It gets you a local council who can give Simon Longo a free solicitor, free advice and his rent paid for 12 months, but can't do the same for you - because as a landlord, even one who's trying to sell property because you can't afford it - you're classified as the person who pays for the person who doesn't want to pay.

I was talking to friends over breakfast this morning. They own property in Westminster (No, they're not Tories). Their service charge for a one-bed which is smaller than mine, better located, more facilities and security, on the fifth floor of an ugly building (just like my flat!) is 30% less than mine. Would I rather live in Westminster than Camden? Hell, yes. And what the hell does that say about the UK and the fuck up going on over there? That a Liberal, left-wing voting, Obama-campaigning flake, suddenly finds that no party says what you believe, or acts on principles you recognize, or puts into affect policies you admire? No party embodies the principles you believe in. On the one hand, Labour spends a ridiculous amount of money expanding the public sector on useless civil service jobs which are wasting taxpayers' money and decreasing the amount of money going towards the core of the public sector - doctors, nurses, teachers. Then you have this sodding coalition government making necessary cuts - and yeah, they are necessary. But they're making them in the wrong areas. Completely the wrong areas. British politics is like watching the final of the World Cup - between two teams you totally hate. That fucking sucks.

I'd like to say it's been a ridiculous year, but it's been a ridiculous decade. Drama! My friends took me out for dinner at Via Veneto's last night to cheer me up with a birthday thing. It was wonderful and awesome and kind and fabulous. But I'd quite like to take them out for a change, pick up the tab for other people, be the person with a sofa to give out to the refugees. The refugees who are not, of course, the Simon Longos of this world.