Q & A

Reflecting further on Favourite Words and the Guardian Weekend magazine's Q&A feature, I have realised that the depth of my vanity is not confined to the "favourite word" question. In fact, whenever I read a Q&A articles like these, I think about how I would answer the questions.

So, in an exercise of shameless self-indulgence, here are my answers if the Guardian were to ask me:

Q&A with Parvenu in the City

Parvenu in the City, a little-known pusillanimous egocentric, is an American living in London way out of his economic and social league. When not skulking around airport lounges, he spends much of his time thinking up creative ways to waste time, scribbling incoherent prose, and insulting small children.

What is your greatest fear?
Confinement.

What is your earliest memory?
Discovering hidden Christmas presents (before Christmas) when I was a toddler.

Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Paul Krugman. He is one of the few journalists who has consistently demonstrated the courage to tell the truth, however unpopular that truth may be.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Laziness and envy.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Fundamentalism (of all persuasions).

Your most embarrassing moment?
There are far too many embarrassing moments to mention, most involving a wee bit of drink.

Aside from a property, what's the most expensive thing you have ever bought?
Turkish rugs from Istanbul

What is your most treasured possession?
Three beautiful tortoiseshell cats, although in truth they actually possess me.

Where would you like to live?
I would like to spend some time living in California.

What do you most dislike about your appearance?
I am too fat.

Would you rather be clever and ugly, or thick and attractive?
Thick and attractive.

Who would play you in the film of your life?
Jason Alexander.

What is your most unappealing habit?
Interrupting people.

What is your favourite word?
Schadenfreude.

What is your favourite book?
The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (OK, you've got me). Truthfully, I have enjoyed so many of the books that I have read that I cannot say any is the favourite. Of the books I've read recently, The Savage Garden by Mark Mills and Brick Lane by Monica Ali particularly stand out.

What is your fancy dress costume of choice?
Gorilla suit.

Tell us a joke.
A horse walks into a bar. The bartender says, "Why the long face?"

What is the worst thing anyone's ever said to you?
I’ve repressed all memories of people saying bad things to me (although people do frequently tell me to f--- off).

Cat or dog?
Cat.

Is it better to give or to receive?
Receive.

What is your guiltiest pleasure?
Schadenfreude.

What do you owe your parents?
Everything.

To whom would you most like to say sorry, and why?
To most of the people involved in the endless list of embarrassing moments.

What does love feel like?
Delirium.

Which living person do you most despise, and why?
George Bush. He's done his best to ruin America. Luckily we're resilient.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
"How hard can it be?"

What is the worst job you have ever done?
Picking up litter in parking lots. (British translation: picking up litter in car parks.)

If you could go back in time, where would you go?
Ancient Greece to the time of the philosophers.

When did you last cry, and why?
Last weekend, watching a Disney movie.

How do you relax?
Reading and watching hours of crap television.

What keeps you awake at night?
Reading and watching hours of crap television.

Who would you invite to your dream dinner party?
Karl Marx, Adam Smith, Mahatma Gandhi and John Maynard Keynes.

What song would you like played at your funeral?
I do not want a funeral.

How would you like to be remembered?
"I guess he wasn't a total asshole."

What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
You can achieve anything.

When were you the happiest?
Now!

Where would you most like to be right now?
Having lunch on the Gritti Palace terrace overlooking the Grand Canal.

Tell us a secret.
I'm thinking about thinking about writing a book.

Steak & Culture. . .

. . .with hash browns and creamed spinach.

It's great to spend a few days back in New York to see a concert at Carnegie Hall and visit three steakhouses.

Thursday night was Smith & Wollensky followed by the Palm on Friday night.

I did take a break and eat fish on Saturday, but for Sunday lunch it's off to Gallagher's on the West Side before I head back to the UK fat and happy.

Life is good!

Headlines!

The New York Post has been polling its readers to pick their all-time favourite headline. They have tallied the votes from the first round and my all-time favourite has made it to the final four.

This headline ran in 1982 just after I moved to New York and I have always remembered it as the best ever. I am pleased to see that the rest of the Post-reading population thinks so too.

In fact, someone has actually made a virtually unknown film based on this headline, with the headline itself as its title.

If you want to vote for your favourite of the finalist headlines, you can do it here.

What I'm Reading

You may have noticed that I've added a new sidebar to the blog titled What's On My Nightstand. In case you are interested (I know, but some people might enjoy it), here you can see what I'm currently reading, getting ready to read, or thinking about thinking about reading.

It's powered by a site I found called LibraryThing. This site allows you to catalogue your library online and interact with other members of the site to share recommendations and do other book-nerd type stuff.

This site looks great and I think I'm going to like it. If I ever get the motivation, I hope to use this to catalogue my entire book inventory. That's a big job, so if it happens, it will happen over time. In the meantime, I will keep it updated with the current reading list. Enjoy!

Trendy Hotels Redux

My experiences with trendy hotels continue, this time in New York. I am staying at The London NYC for the next couple of nights (I will refrain from commenting on the absurdity of travelling from London to New York to stay in a hotel call "London").

I cannot really find fault with this hotel. In fact, this place has everything I like in a hotel. The staff provides friendly and discreetly efficient service, the bed is comfortable, the room is spacious, the price is reasonable (by New York standards) and there's free wireless internet.

So why did they ruin the experience by filling the room with silly furniture? This sofa is so weird I cannot even sit on it. Trust me, it is truly as uncomfortable as it looks.


And what's the story with these lamps?

More Words

While discussing our favourite words (sad, I know), a friend told me about a great website called Free Rice. It's a vocabulary quiz where for each word you get right, they donate 20 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program.

This site works for me on so many levels:

1. It's fun.
2. Hungry people get food.
3. It tells me how smart I am.
4. I can show others how smart I am.
5. It teaches me new words.
6. I feel socially responsible and morally superior.

Try it!

Favourite Words

Each Saturday, the Guardian's Weekend magazine features a Q&A with a moderately well-known person. One of the questions asked is, "What is your favourite word?"

Reading this always makes me think about what I would say if someone asked me to name my favourite word. In fact, choosing a word has been more difficult than I thought it would be, and so far I have not yet picked one favourite. I have, however, narrowed it down to five (in no particular order):

1. Schadenfreude
2. Robust
3. Serendipity
4. Onomatopoeia
5. Bollocks

How about you? I am very interested in what words our readers pick as their favourites. Please share your favourite words with us in the comments.

Exhibition Road

I am very pleased to see that the Kensington & Chelsea council are following my advice and continue to adopt the clean streets approach advocated by Hans Monderman, albiet in slow increments.

The Evening Standard yesterday reported plans for a major makeover of Exhibition Road, home to some of London's top museums. According to the article:

. . .traffic and people will share a York stone and granite surface stretching the width of the street. . . designers will mimic the "naked streets" design in Kensington High Street where roadside railings, unnecessary white lines and signposts were removed to encourage motorists and pedestrians to share the road.

This is great news and I hope they achieve their goal of making the area an "inspiring destination." I applaud every effort to remove the visual cacophony that currently blights London's streetscapes.

Subprime Explained

While the financial world melts down around us, you might enjoy this Subprime Primer on Google Docs.

Dubya's Wold

I Asked You Not to Tell Me That

Yesterday, for really no reason that I can recall, I found myself thinking about "Get Smart," the 60's US spy-spoof sitcom created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry. The series starred Don Adams as Maxwell Smart and Barbara Feldon as Agent 99, both agents for the super-secret spy agency "Control."

Specifically, I remembered the cone of silence (invented by Professor Cone of course), a device intended to keep secret conversations secret, but really only managed to keep Max and the Chief from hearing each other.

I found a brilliant website dedicated to the show called wouldyoubelieve.com, where I spent far too much time laughing and remembering the funniest parts of this show.

One of my favourite recurring gags typically went something like this:

Max: You think you've got me, but at this very moment there are 100 Control agents surrounding this building.
Villain: I find that hard to believe.
Max: Would you believe 50?
Villain: No.
Max: Would you believe two girl scouts and a pocket knife?

And of course the classic exchange:

Max: Don't tell me he's dead?
Agent 99: He's dead Max.
Max: I asked you not to tell me that!

And finally, my favourite: The Craw.

Boo, Boo, Boo. . .

. . . what a load of rubbish!

Giant-killers Barnsley have knocked Chelsea out of the FA cup with a 1 - 0 win today. And worse, they even deserved to win. They outplayed Chelsea for the entire match and shut them down completely.

This comes after Avram (Dracula) Grant has spouted off about how his team will focus on playing attacking and imaginative football, and demeaning his predecessor's focus on achieving results over style. I guess that's going well.

If Grant keeps up with this version of imaginative football, he better start imagining himself without a job.

I know that I said that cheering for the little guys is fun, but it hurts when they beat your team.

I hope this isn't Karma's revenge for my glee over the trouble Barnsley gave to Liverpool in their Cup match.

A True Believer?

I'm truly enjoying the American Republican presidential primary race, especially now that John McCain has emerged as the certain nominee. It's fun to watch the neo-cons and Fox "News" commentators fall all over themselves denouncing him as not truly conservative.

An organisation called the American Conservative Union compiles statistics on senators' and representatives' voting records and rates members' conservatism based on their votes. John McCain scores more than 82% favourable "conservatism rating." In contrast, Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama both score in the single digits.

Actions speak louder than words and the actions of this self-styled "maverick" say conservative almost all the time. He consistently supports the positions of the current administration: a true loyal Bushie.

The cynical me thinks that the far right's harping about McCain is really a ploy to make him palatable to moderate voters in November. The logic being that if reactionary poster children Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter detest him, maybe he's not so bad.

Voter beware! While it's nice to think that McCain takes independent positions and delivers "straight talk," the American electorate needs to exercise caution to avoid falling into the bait-and-switch trap of the 2000 election, when George Bush masqueraded as a mainstream moderate to get elected, then lurched to the right after taking office.

Remember "compassionate conservatism?"

Eat to Live

The Guardian newspaper recently published a insert describing The Mount Athos Plan, subtitled "Lifestyle secrets of the world's healthiest people." According to the article, The Mount Athos community of Greek Orthodox monks enjoy an extraordinarily low rate of cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer's.

Basically, a series of rules and principles govern this diet, "centred on a philosophy of strict moderation." In essence, if you eat a diet of fresh, natural ingredients consisting mainly of fruit, vegetables and fish, don't gorge yourself, exercise and live a low-stress existence, you will live longer.

No real surprises here, and you really don't need to live a cloistered monk's existence to achieve this, although this would undoubtedly help those with self-control issues like me.

In general, I suppose that moderation is a good thing - as long as you don't overdo it. For me, I'm still contemplating the merits of the coffee, cigarette and lettuce diet.

Dining With the Fishes

A great week for extraordinary dining experiences continued tonight in Valencia, Spain.

The restaurant at L'Oceanografic, the city's beautiful aquarium and marine park located in the spectacular "City of Arts and Sciences" complex, features a dining room surrounded by a huge aquarium. Thousands of fish swim past the tables as diners enjoy delicious local specialties.

I wonder if it is considered bad form to eat fish in such a setting. At the very least, it may draw some disapproving looks from the spectators. Luckily, we had paella that contained no actual fish, only chicken and mollusks.

I Lurve the Louvre

Tonight, I had the priviledge of attending a private dinner at the Louvre in Paris. Although we did not have the opportunity to view the art, we did enjoy a fabulous dinner in a unique and splendid setting. And of course, being in France, the food. . . magnifique!

Drac's Back

A huge banner of Avram Grant looking his most Draculesque greeted the fans arriving for the Carling Cup final between Chelsea and Tottenham at Wembley today.

Unfortunately, the Prince of Darkness' black magic had no ill effect on Spurs: they won 2-1 in extra time. Maybe we need Boris Karloff on the staff as well.

What's Opera, Doc?

Some people believe that I am culturally deficient because my limited knowledge of opera comes almost entirely from watching crap television.

I must confess that this is true. The core of my education on the subject comes from a couple of Seinfeld episodes based on The Barber of Seville and Pagliacci, but I have also learned a lot from Bugs Bunny cartoons. What's Opera, Doc? based on Wagner's Ring remains a classic (who could possibly forget Elmer Fudd singing "kill the wabbit!"?) and The Rabbit of Seville gets its inspiration from. . . well, it's obvious isn't it?


However, the source of my knowledge does not invalidate its worth. Television has filled a gaping whole in my cultural education, for which I'm eternally grateful. It has allowed me to learn about opera without actually watching or listening to an opera (a major plus).

In fact, it's not only opera that I owe to TV. I have also gained an appreciation for classical music in general from listening to the scores accompanying Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies cartoons. I may not know the piece or the composer, but I can easily recognise many of the important works from watching, and listening to, these cartoons.


Because of television, I can participate in conversations about opera and classical music without immediately giving myself away as the complete parvenu that I am. For me it's all gain, no pain!

Although, do you think perhaps it is too much that my entire knowledge of Shakespeare comes from 10 Things I Hate About You, Shakespeare in Love and a Doctor Who episode?

Here's to the Minnows

Today, Chelsea host League One side Huddersfield Town in an FA Cup tie. The chance for small clubs from the lower leagues to compete against the big guns in this competition remains one of the great traditions of English football.

For Americans, this would be like the Akron Aeros of the AA Eastern League playing the New York Yankees for the chance to play in the World Series.

Cheering for the little guy against Premier League teams is great fun (come on, who wasn't hoping for Luton Town to beat Liverpool), especially when they win. Huddersfield has already beaten Premiership side Birmingham on their way to Stamford Bridge.

Don't get me wrong, I will support Chelsea in full voice today and hope that we crush Huddersfield 5-0. I just like it when the minnows beat the other guys!

UPDATE: Liverpool 1 - Barnsley 2

Liverpool continues to struggle against lower-league teams.

Order from Chaos

I have long thought that efforts to control traffic on London streets have been over-engineered beyond effectiveness and actually make traffic flows worse rather than better. In fact, one can easily see that they do not work simply by observing the overwhelming congestion every day. The overuse of humps, chicanes, raised islands, lane narrowers and painted road markings has made traffic flow a nightmare. Perhaps it is intentional, but it is certainly mis-guided.

Normally, I do not drive in London. I do not own a car but I do occasionally travel by bus and taxi. Besides, even I am smart enough to figure out that exhaust fumes increase dramatically when traffic stands still.

The sheer volume of road markings and signs caught my attention one morning when I noticed a freshly re-paved road in Fulham Broadway. The work crews had just laid new asphalt the day before and the street remained refreshingly unadorned by lines, cross-hatching, arrows, bollards and other often unintelligible markings and structures. How nice it would be, I thought, if the street could remain like this, un-scarred by the blight of paint and superfluous steel and concrete.

It turns out I'm not the only one who thinks this. Dutch traffic engineer Hans Monderman, who died last month, had long advocated stripping roads of signs and markings and letting traffic, both vehicle and pedestrian, flow naturally. "If you treat road users like idiots, they act as idiots," he was quoted as saying.

His theories proved successful in the Netherlands, and Kensington and Chelsea in London has also begun to embrace his ideas. Kensington High Street is better and safer since "safety" equipment like guardrails, white lines and signposts have been stripped out, although they still have a ways to go in the rest of the borough and cannot seem to put down the paint can.

Monderman proposed that we manage traffice in ways consistent with other approaches to dealing with complex systems. You cannot control them, but you can achieve a desired outcome by allowing them to organise around "attractors." Complex, interactive systems prove remarkably adaptive and self-organising, and order truly does arise from chaos.

His ideas:

1. Remove signs: The architecture of the road - not signs and signals - dictates traffic flow
2. Install art: The height of the fountain indicates how congested the intersection is.
3. Share the spotlight: Lights illuminate not only the roadbed, but also the pedestrian areas.
4. Do it in the road: Cafe's extend to the edge of the street, further emphasizing the idea of shared space.
5. See eye to eye: Right-of-way is negotiated by human interaction, rather than commonly ignored signs.
6. Eliminate curbs: Instead of a raised curb, sidewalks are denoted by texture and colour

These ideas make great sense. Not only do they work, eliminating the unsightly clutter of paint and signs makes the streetscape more appealing. I can only hope that the people responsible for managing London's roads get the message. Are you listening Transport for London?