But I've Been Seen With Farrah

Today I missed an appointment with the dead, and embarked on a relationship with a movie star. Nothing much else to report.

A little blue, after drinking too much - for shame! - and half a night of contorted sofa sleep I resolved on the train to drop in on Miles, C R (dec'd). What this involves, as I have discussed elsewhere, is visiting the small Catholic church hidden behind Liverpool Street and lighting a candle for him. The church and the candle are props, really, Prospero's baseless fabric, or what you will, which allow me to access that part of my subconscious occupied still by the rather more Falstaffian figure of my father. Whilst I am aware that nothing real happens, when I stare hard into the flame I can kid myself that some kind of communion is taking place, if only in my mind.

Reader, I failed him. Various factors, among them the time difference between Uttar Pradesh and London, kept me from the altar. I am fortunate that my father is an affable angel in the Henry Travers style, because, let's face it, you don't want to mess with one of those Old Testament dudes. I'll go tomorrow and I'll light two candles.





Her name is Meredith MacNeill and she's the best thing to come out of Canada since, um, maple syrup Leonard Cohen Larry Nelson Larry Walker Margaret Trudeau and The Tragically Hip.

We're taking things slowly. Like Lee Majors, I'm not the type to kiss and tell, but I think that she digs me. Or acknowledges me. Or could pick me out of a line-up from behind a two-way mirror.

I'm being falsely modest, of course. We are on smiling terms, as of today. She gave me a little, shy, Mrs Gaskell sort of smile which wrongfooted me somewhat. When I saw her later I gave her the old Hungover Lost Boy Wince. If you're female and you know me you might recognise this as a variant of the Drunken Lost Boy Simper.

I have since analysed these two incidents with Derridan vigour. She smiles at me because she walks past my shop two or three times a day (the shop is between her home and the tube station) and I'm invariably standing around acting nonchalant. I smile at her because she's beautiful - here I don't discriminate, I smile at all the beautiful women - and because I believe that she is within spitting distance of superstardom.

So, another resolution for tomorrow. I'm gonna talk to her and tell her I'm her number one fan.

Keep your fingers crossed for me.