The hand of god and we ain’t talking Maradona

Last night I met up again with Argie boy, Seb, and still the Belgrano has not sunk. There is hope. There is also a man overboard here. Lost in a sea of things called emotions, I believe, about someone, who seems not only like a good man but a good fit. I want to lose the cynical edge, tone down the sarcasm, get back to basics and my hopes up high but I dont want them shot down by a five foot 11 smiling Juan Peron. Anyway, who does?

So I sit in the black leather armchair of Mastermind: Specialist subject Sebastien Carro. “You have sixty seconds, your time starts now”.

Q The youngest of four children who live between Buenos Aires and Iguazu Falls, what did Sebastien’s parents do?
A Married once before, his mother, 69, owned a newspaper where his father was a journalist. Both Peronistas, the paper, along with their savings, was expropriated by the Government after Juan Peron’s party was ousted in 1955 and sent to Spain. The dictatorship, which took over, lasted until 19something or other and then she returned north in the early 70s where Sebastien was born. His father died when Seb was a child.

Correct

Q To where did Seb’s mother flee to save her family?
A Patagonia

Correct

Q Name Sebastien’s three ex partners.
A Fernando in Argentina, was a doctor, now a politician. I hate him. Christian and Alex, who was French and split after three years last year (I hate him too) on account of Alex’s different views of marriage to Seb’s more traditional ones and his looking down on Seb for having given up economics to become a chef. I am Jewish. We like our food. The fact that he can cook will put him on the same level as Moses.

Correct

Q What did Lee feel uncomfortable about on the date, which challeneged his bucket load of insecurities and neuroses?
A Firstly, he is very photogenetic. He could drink 15 pints of Guiness and hang upside down in the curtains and look like a soap star. I blink and I look like someone killed Frankenstein with a hot wet flannel. Plus, Lee is not the kind of bloke who wants to be fed tripe with someone else’s chopsticks in front of a crowded and possibly watching chinese restaurant, or have his hand taken walking in Knightsbridge or kissed INSIDE Leicester Square tube station near the police officers.

Correct

Q Why did Seb get suspended yesterday from BMI?
A Because his manager stabbed him in the back and said he was responsible for violating airline regulations by allowing a child under 14 to sit in the window seat next to the wing exit. The kid moved back there as the plane was taking off. He was suspended. It is as ridiculous as it sounds.

Correct

Q How did Seb earn $5000 at the age of 19?
A He got the money after posing in Levi jeans for a magazine article, which went around South America. I think his buttocks have travelled. Apparently they are sublime.

Correct and just in time.. at the end of that round, you have 23 points. I want to get to the final.

Word up Ché

Last night, I planned to go to see the Brit romcom/80s nostalgia trip Starter for Ten with a handful of workfriends. What I had not really bargained for was the agreement of new tactile and enthusiastic Argentinian cyberfriend Sebastien to come as well. Like a high profile football transfer, I wanted to keep my cards close to my chest regarding Sebastien, you know keep the papers away to stop other “clubs” expressing interest or out-bidding me at the last minute. Not only that but I hate dates. I just say “yes yes yes” (like the Winston Churchill bulldog in the TV ad) “yes, you are right, oh yes, you are not wrong,” drink, look at my watch, drink some more, and slam my mobile on the table in frustration over not getting my emergency phone call to get me out of there. I needed that after the unemployed opera singer from Barnsley. He, however, was happy to come to a group outing, a little too happy when he was there, so much so James thought the never-ending smiles were a result of prozac.Once El Nino swept into town with just three minutes to spare before the film (I considered it rude not to show my frustration with missing the trailers, which I prefer to the films. Mini movies. I can fill in the blanks myself and are often better) Lee’s temperature also started wreaking havoc, not helped by 4 layers of clothes in a bitterly cold Islington.

For once, he actually looked like his picture, was full of beans (not literally) and could talk and smile simultaneously. Something I have not managed. Ever. In fact, if I had a nickel for every word he said, I would have a lot of useless coins in the UK. After the film, which has a tremendous soundtrack including Teenage Kicks by the Undertones, not to be confused with Wheatus, which I did, and even the Argentinian didn’t. Sorry even Seb didn’t. I must personalise him with a name. My poor memory and eyesight must be rectified soon before I become a vegetable. That is a very serious problem. Anyhow, we all proceeded to a local pub called the Crown, where I was, ironically, just weeks before with the Scouser Paul, whom I thought was also pleasant and friendly when I met him there at his local. No panic attack ensued and despite the pressure of a group format and ten beady hetero eyes scrolling over his inches, he performed magnificently, like an enthused and almost extinct seal.

Despite my polite protests, he started a tab on his card, bought a round of drinks, two plates of chips and had the audacity to ask for cigarettes from James. He could only do this once he recovered his wallet, which he left at the cinema and proceeded to dart back at 100 mph to retrieve it. I mean, at that point, I thought “I have heard some excuses in my time, even from the guy, who said he had left his oven on, but this was extremely dramatic”. A few pints and plates of chips later, we left the others for an Italian meal (which I now bought) at La Porchetta where I pulled out his printed website profile and read it aloud. Scouring through the pages of information about what he was like, looking for, hoping for, dreaming of, his checkered career and equally checkered love life, like I was checking the Trade Description Act. Since he was a chef, I thought it wise to ask the differences between a head chef, a sous chef, a chef de partie and a commis chef, which is apparently not a communist nutter in the kitchen yelling “no soup for you.” Working for BMI long haul, Seb spends a lot of time with his head in the clouds, feet on the ground and with greateful elite business passengers, different from his days as an economist, banker, freelance journalist, all of which were a “lie” as he wanted to be good with his hands. Carpentry or cooking. His heros were Jesus and Jamie Oliver. That leaves me limited options for fun role play so its either the Mary and Joseph film next or a cook book. That’s if his mouth is not drowning out air traffic.

If you are still awake and care and are trying to work out if I like him. I do.

Where are the normal people?

After watching the rather interesting Al Gore lecture on Global Warming and how all the rivers will recede, all the soil will dry up and the sun’s inability to escape (should let my mother near it, those rays will be in outer space before you can say chicken soup), I went to the pub with 12 poofs from here. In the Duke of Wellington , I was chatting to a drunken Geordie, a features editor at Attitude Magazine, when this Clark Kent lookalike turned to me. He was being chatted up by an older gentleman in his 60s and wanted to escape. Instead of saying “I think we are at different stages in life, I am not interested”, he asked if I would “go along with his plan”.

Reticent, to say the least, I told him that would depend on what it was.

The scenario unfolded that we both pretended to work as lawyers at the same firm (although it emerged I was the inferior one) and I was to urge him to go back and complete a deal at the office as a made up woman called Sandra was expecting him. I was stellar. You would have been amazed. I was almost as Bollywood as you. Only English. I should have been in acting never mind “law”, I told Clark after.

Before the old man disappeared and my guilt levels rose, the drunken Geordie decided to wind me up further. “You never told me you were sleeping with someone else, you bastard” he cried as my face contorted into disbelief.

“What are you doing to me honey” I yelled.

The Benny Hill farce evaporated with my self esteem to the offer of drinks and more by both of them. I give up.

Where are the normal people?