How am I expected to sleep?
It's only partly the food, which was a mistake. This I had learned by 2:30 am, when dangerous internal movements finally took a decisive turn.
Odessa Street was tonight more like the "cour de miracles" of old than Picadilly Circus.
Part of the colourful, multi-cultural throng attended the opening of yet another restaurant, this one Lebanese.
Observing from our nearby pavement table, resident veteran Tony commented that were it an art gallery, the event should be described as a "vernissage", but all I could see in common was an abundance of alcohol, clearly on the house.
I met Lee for the first time. She was kind enough to open a door for me while I was trying to remember the new code.
Since it seemed unlikely she was anybody else, given a current high incidence of "coincidences", I did just make sure: "Are you Lee?"
Then I introduced myself. We didn't chat long, because for her it was clearly a time for lugging heavy objects down and up numerous stairs and then rushing off.
She's as nice as her place on the Net. While she used the word "weird" for our unplanned encounter offline, it wasn't as odd as too many things which happened this week, so I put it down to serendipity.
zzz
At Journalized, Mike Little made the best comments I've seen on the balloon being floated about a new flag for the Brits (he links to a Beeb story and one vision of what it might look like).
While having a pee, Tony voiced his contempt for the notion with a single vulgar word. To put black in the UK's corporate banner, he then said, would "contribute to the "aggressive nature of much flag-waving, which is, after all, what the damned things were first mostly invented for."
Going by some of the comment on that BBC page, I find I'm not alone in seeing something -- certainly unintentional -- neo-fascist in Nigel Turner's proposal.
zzz
The "Matrix Reloaded" sent Tony to sleep.
This was among the more original statements on the most written about film of the year.
At Blogcritics alone, they're still arguing the toss, laying claim to more than 30 articles from all angles (this list is only the half of it).
As Tony slumbered lightly, I spotted two new details in a plot which my friend found "absurd from start to finish", where he followed it at all.
Not that he regretted seeing the best part of it, he added, peppering a sparse commentary on a 'cultural phenomenon' with nouns like "archetypes" and "anti-clichés" ... "but I was waiting for the 'human element' that never came along and then I lost interest..."
That's a fair point. If you've missed the Matrix hype, had just a quick briefing and find yourself cast into what, on second viewing, even I found too long, I readily concede that it could be less than engaging.
Tony was exercised by the homonymous Blair's latest bids to re-engage the attention and regain some esteem from a public largely turned off by all the nonsense about the motives for that war.
This week, the fellow managed two interesting moves:
For dragonthief (via Tom's plasticbag, thanks), it's "about bloody time" Tony Blair "revealed a renewed thirst for radical constitutional reform (...) when he swept aside 1,400 years of history by abolishing the post of lord chancellor and setting up a new US-style supreme court in place of the law lords" (both quote from the account of all this in the 'Guardian'.
For me, it's also about bloody time Britain sent troops, even if only a pitiful few, to join a force for the DR Congo. I've rarely heard such "not our concern" and "we have no interests there" bullshit as was broadcast from parliament in London.
Similar rubbish went up at Instapundit. I'd show more respect for an assault on "how the United Nations is, and has been, screwing up in the Congo" had its writer, Glenn Reynolds, not made his case by judiciously selecting what suited it from the original article by Maj-Gen.Lewis MacKenzie (former commander of UN troops in Bosnia) in Canada's 'National Post'.
There's supposedly a blogosphere rule about not bothering to quote people simply to flame them, but one I'll break when the widely read Instapundit opts for such slanted comment.
If you have anything to say about the DRC, Rwanda and what MacKenzie correctly points out to be "the collision point of the old French and British colonial empires in Africa", then you could read and represent your source's views as a whole.
MacKenzie may be right to consider UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's appointment of General Maurice Baril as a DRC envoy an error. But his argument about how these UN figures were central to a failure to tackle the Rwandan genocide of 1994 ignores the equally important role played by three key permanent members of the UN Security Council -- Britain, France and the United States -- in refusing to respond either militarily or financially to the crisis when warned.
To blame Annan and Baril for not playing the right tune is to lose sight of the pipers who pay for the United Nations and use it as no more than a tool for their convenience. As Washington and London did when it came to Iraq.
zzz
That took me a long way from the Street.
But I might get back to sleep for hurling a brickbat or two. Tony worked for one arm of the UN -- UNESCO -- for years enough to have more sensible things to say about its flaws and weaknesses than anybody passing on disinformation spooned out by governments and their witting or unwitting spin-doctors.
zzz
Anyway, it would have been difficult to stay asleep when the Street tonight also brought me "my" wildcat.
Yes. I might say "red in flesh and claw", but it wasn't like that at all!
It wasn't a total ... surprise. After all, I'd been told late last night of her arrival in town by 'phone calls describing her progress into the strike-bound city, until she was cut off in some tunnel.
Nor was I surprised by the absence of further calls throughout Friday 13, until at least five in the afternoon, when mine was silenced just to vibrate against my thigh (the cellphone I mean) while Tony slumbered.
I never said she was predictable!
She didn't linger. But then, she rarely does. Despite the thumping in my chest, she denied me the right to so much as kiss her. On the grounds that she would worsen My Condition with her "ear, nose and throat infection."
'Mon oeil!' as they say on the Street. What she really didn't want to catch was what I've got.
None of it, bodily or otherwise. ;)
The pizzeria we happened to outside must now consider us "regulars". The new man who simply gave her a chair when she prowled up was swiftly over-ruled by la patronne, who knew that a table was required.
But then what did the wildcat do?
She took one look at her salad and decided, correctly, that it was not fresh. This occurred to her at the same time as Tony and I realised there was also something seriously wrong with the sauces on our respective main courses.
In French fashion (now second nature to me but still shocking to friends when I do it in England), I questioned la patronne about this sudden decline in standards. I suggested that perhaps there was a problem with the fridge or the sauces may have served for too many days... and even remarked that the wildcat could not be sure of the reliability of normally impeccable pizzas.
This achieved nothing but some hand-wringing. With further apologies at the end of the meal. (And the return, later, of something I've been spared for two whole days!)
 The wildcat had already rejected my proposal of a decent crêpe (also abundant on the Street) and other ideas, and instead taken herself off to somebody who would cook her a "proper meal".
Not without warning me that should she see me tomorrow (i.e. today), "I will have a thing or two to say to you!"
I can scarcely wait!
But then again, I probably can. After all, it is but an extension of many months of waiting.
Hope. Man's greatest strength and most serious flaw. As the A. more or less says in 'Reloaded'. Along with those two other qualities...
Tony was well into a new tale by the time I confessed that he had lost my "undivided attention".
"Ah." Well, he'd thought as much.
"My heart's still pounding," I admitted.
"Yes," he sympathised. "You do have a problem. Now I've seen why!"
"Is she 'just' very pretty or absolutely beautiful?"
His answer to that would bring blushes.
What struck him most, however, was a "rare quality": the sheer "grace" of the woman (not, of course, the armful of shopping bags thrust into my brief care).
Sweet dreams, wildcat. Tonight's moon might leave the almond blossom on the pillow.
4:16:11 AM link 
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