MY FRIEND JOE wrote this most disturbing blog today. He's living in Angola at the moment and writes about how his western perceptions- on personal space, say, or the value of human life- don't meet up anywhere with African ideas.

I read that and then immediately read a story about a 101-year-old British man who plans to run a marathon this weekend. He says when he's done he'll do what he always does, have a fag and a pint (I assume he means a cigarette and a beer, rather than a boy-butt and some milk).

Another friend, Krystina, used to write the most wonderful blogs about her adventures in New Orleans and then Egypt, but sadly that is now defunct and I can't find it anywhere. Even her most dull day in the Big Easy included a run-in with several transvestites and a conversation with Gabagoo, the mentally retarded gentleman who lives next door to them (and is so named for the only word he says: "Gabagoo!!"), not to mention her sometimes-successful attempts to add to her skeleton collection. This mainly involved finding a small dead animal and leaving it in a shoebox off her front porch to watch the process of decay, generally until some larger animal ran off with the corpse.

Evan does not blog, and this surprises me. He writes regularly for himself. He has plenty to discuss: he's also a neighbor of Gabagoo, recently ran for City Council in New Orleans, was in the Navy, is subversive, and can regularly be found in the places one least expects him. I once ran into Evan at a victory party for the new governor of Louisiana (we had both snuck in) and once passed out on the floor of the Dragon's Den at about five in the morning. My father, I am sure, has legally filed the paperwork to adopt him, and dad regularly came down to New Orleans when Evan and I both lived there in order to take Evan (not me) out to dinner. Every Thanksgiving when dad gets together a wine from each guests' year of birth, Evan's is opened first. Were it socially acceptable, I believe they would wed.

What was my point? Did I even have one?