Julie is working for the police

Kathryn, aka Rhode Island Red, regrets that she "forgot" that we were supposed to be having a night at the pictures watching Into The Abyss by that master of central European comedy, Werner Herzog. People do forget things, and we know we're not after one another, so I've suggested Le Havre on Monday instead.

Why am I so pleasantly tolerant to her and so horrible to the Prof?

To my friends' attractively messy house, with a dirty kitchen from which an almost entirely enjoyable meal was produced.

He's a psychiatric nurse, a kind, long greyhaired biker type, one of those blokes who get passed over for years by women who turn to him when they want to complain about the poor boyfriend choices they've made. Finally, he's met a curvy gothy girl from Northumberland, who dresses in pleated black miniskirts and platform thigh boots and says "fillim" for "film". They clearly like each other. It's not made up.

One should try, when one is a guest. But even by sight, I turn from beef. I slathered it with large spoonfuls of horseradish sauce and struggled through half of it, but I was beginning to retch, trying hard to turn my mind into the conversation and away from the foul physical and psychological feeling of stringy bits of bottom caught in my teeth. The rhubarb and ginger crumble with clotted cream was a purifying, tart conclusion. I only wish I'd taken some dry sherry rather than Leffe; Leffe and rhubarb don't marry. But we drank it all anyway.

The other guest, a mutual friend, was telling us about his squatting days when he lived in the house in Hampton Wick which was a cynosure of Operation Julie, the regrettably successful police operation to break up one of the world's largest LSD distribution rings

Him and a fellow squatter-- neither of whom were involved in the trade--went up to the attic one day to find the entire floor space ankle deep in LSD tablets. My friend said "Let's get our rucksacks and pinch some!" "You do realise, Tom, that the police are recording this conversation?" He's adrift after the woman he was with for twenty-seven years died a couple of years ago. "I feel like I'm crawling along on all fours."

At home, I turn the computer on. Someone "likes me" on the website and I am pissed off. How can you like someone without words, a drink? On Friday, Mel went to the bar. Watching the attractive switch of her arse, I pulled her chair a few inches nearer to me so that she'd be closer to me when she came back. That's liking. I can feel my drunken impatience.

Such is the mediated nature of modern attraction. Fucking relax lad. Don't start getting arsy again with women who show an interest.

I look at her profile. A sentence about Meccano which she deftly turns into a self-mocking awareness of how that will come across. Brown hair hairgripped up, looking a bit quizzical, honest, not putting anything on, aware of the artificality. All I can manage after all that Leffe is "Bloody hell, nice hair. But why, H, why?

Next day she writes back an email which ends with "Oh... and I'm aware I've not told you why I liked you. Well, [first,] because of the way you looked [...]."

Because of the way you looked. Thank fuck for that.