"PERHAPS YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THE SECOND LARGEST BALL OF TWINE ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH, WHICH IS ONLY FOUR SHORT HOURS AWAY?" Julia and Kelly arrived safe and sound after some pretty long haul flying - yesterday we just hung around the house and took it easy, Jess cooked and we all caught up. Its fun to have them here - only ever spoken to Kelly on the phone before so it was great to finally meet her and I guess it must be three years now since Julia and I last saw each other. Damn. So today we gotta sort out some Eurostar tickets so the girlies can shoot off to Paris for a few days - last night it was going to be Edinburgh but I think we're pretty settled on Paris again now - lots of aggravation trying to get the right tickets though... Today - no real plans as of yet. Everyone else is still asleep - just me and the cat prowling the house. Its an interesting time to come visit here I guess, the whole Jubilee thing, extra-long bank holiday and all the football crap. I need to get some work done today so I�ll probably hang around the house - Wednesday is a double deadline for me - I gotta get some writing in for Aruna and get something prepared for the talk up at Goldsmiths on Wednesday night. Need to ring Alex and confirm that that is still on... So Aruna sent me some of the now published work that I did last year for her and it was nice to see it there in black and white. I totally forgot that I wrote some of the pieces under a pseudonym and when I first opened the envelope I was all "Who the fuck is Fay Merryfield and why is she getting credit for my stuff?" Then I remembered I had invented her - ha - 'Fay' came from the little cat we had that died and 'Merryfield' from the cat that is sat looking at me right now... Ok so I need to have a word with Paula and Laura (hey that rhymes) - I love getting email from people who enjoy the site/blog whatever and its cool to hear that someone has been reading the nonsense that I stick up here and enjoying it. It was cool to find out that you guys found me through Diarist.Net who registered my site a while back (forgot to mention that) and my ego really enjoys all the compliments that you heaped at me but can I make one simple request? If you are going to send me photographs (and this is to everyone out there - especially the guys) please try and leave your fucking clothes on. I never thought I'd be asking young women to do that - damn I must be getting old... but 1. I don't find it too titillating and 2. you're gonna get Jess coming after you with a fucking axe. Keep the mail coming but lose the bath towels - preferably after you've put on your cheerleader outfits or something... just not the whole nude/semi-nude thing... sheesh! I never thought running a tiny website and blog like mine could be so much fun and so much hassle all at the same time... I know a friend of mine is being watched a little too closely at work because of his own blog... sigh... as I said to him wouldn't it be nice for employer to respect creativity (or in a fantasy world actually reward it) rather than coming down hard on people... but then again I don't really have a boss at the moment so maybe that says a lot too... Gotta go ring Eurostar... Mike is blogging to: Play More Music by Consolidated