I blog drunkenly yet again (alcohol like water in these islands):

I had a completely unexpected and undeserved reward tonight for getting off my ass and going out instead of sitting in my hotel room brooding on the wrongs I have been done. I hauled my middleaged and maternal ass to Bethnal Green for Grant’s Night of 1000 Chicos. I was having a perfectly nice conversation with Ian and Rod, explaining about riding Irish cobs in Hyde Park, when my eyes deceived me and I thought I saw a young Fraser Wilson walking through the door.

But it was a present-day Fraser Wilson, miraculously unaged. I may have squealed, though a dignified mama of two would not have done so. We hugged and kissed for a considerable amount of time. We held hands and babbled for an hour. It was very very hard to tear myself away; only the prospect of a flight back to my husband and daughters could have made me do it.

Fraser! It was like meeting a fictional character, or a dream. He left California before I met even Salome. He is still so beautiful and brilliant.

The whole week’s been like that; getting to spend proper time with Grant and Kirst and Jo and Mia and Jess and Mark and Chris and Cait. My friends are so smart and interesting and gorgeous! Completely unlooked-for blessings. It was hard to get on the plane to come here, and it will be almost equally hard to leave. That’s a rare and priceless thing, to have so much love in so many places.

I am more grateful than I can say.

For Ada Lovelace Day, I celebrate my geeky girlfriends, who kick my ass and keep me honest. I wouldn’t be in San Francisco happily nerding my head off if the generous, the visionary Kate Crawford, Rosanne Bersten and Rosie Cross hadn’t published my earlier, crappier work. They saw the me I wasn’t yet. Mia Ridge turns relational databases into time machines and Bobigail Grahame and Rose White can program orbiting supercomputers by tapping out binary code with their knitting needles. Written on the body? Quinn Norton could hand Jeanette Winterson her skinny ass. Liz Henry, Skud and Sumana Harihareswara are hyperconnected nodes; through them I feel directly connected to the great world where women are taking up keyboards against their oppressors. I owe Cheryl Traverse the incalculable debt of a mentee to her mentor. And there are others, of course, many others, so many that I can never do justice to them all.

May I say, though, that I love the next generation best of all?

I was fairly miserable about coming to London so I made myself arrange various social commitments so I wouldn’t just sit in my hotel room and sulk. So far this has worked beyond all expectations. Sumana and I had high tea in the British Museum, then powerwalked past all my favourite Greek art. Back to the hotel for a nap – I told myself to wake up at six and I did, to the minute – then out to the Isle of Dogs for dinner and a play with the fabulous Miss Kirsty. I debriefed her on Racefail, she asked all the sensible questions and made me think hard about my answers. There’s very little that’s more fun than drinking wine and having a long passionate conversation with a highly intelligent friend. So glad I got off my butt.

Bellboy

Noah

Zoom right in and you’ll see them.

Army Dreamers, Kate Bush, 1980

Golden Brown, The Stranglers, 1981

Your Woman, White Town, 1997

Her Morning Elegance, Oren Lavie, 2007

Is it just me, or do these sound like they belong together? Could almost throw Tori Amos’s Cornflake Girl in there too. And tremble at my agedness: apparently my taste in pop was set in stone twenty-nine years ago.

Source: FDIC Failed Bank List. We’re closing more banks per month than we used to in a year. 2009’s already worse than previous low point 2002, and it’s only March.