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For the past couple of days someone called Viv has been leaving messages for Darren on my answering machine. What started out as a wrong number has now turned into an answering machine soap opera. We’re up to episode III now and me and mrs e are transfixed. We’re also seem to never be in when she calls.

In tonight’s message Viv’s gave Darren the brush off. “Yeah Hi Darren, listen I really can’t see you tonight, I’ve, um, got a friend I’ve got to go and see”.

Is she playing hard to get, but really being fooled by Darren’s apparent aloofness? What if I’m in when she rings next? Will they ever get it together? What if things turn ugly? I’ll let you know.

So we’ve the most drugged up, fattest, drunk, fornicating, violent teenagers in Europe… And yet we’re the most watched nation on earth thanks to CCTV. The paradox is uncanny, as Newsnight pointed out this evening.

Which made me think of this.. The other day, while mrs e was away, I watched Gillingham’s Brazil which was on late one night on BBC2. Watching it again I thought it more true now than when it was made. It’s one of the few films that deserves the ‘ahead of it’s time’ tag line, and what a cast! . The culture of fear, the paperwork, the terrorists, the mess!

Told a woman off on the train again this morning for littering.. It’s almost become funny. Here’s a smart girl on her way to work, who drinks a coffee and then just leaves the cup. After all , someone else will clean it up right? Train home, three hooded youths playing music from two of their phones, at the same time.

I’m reminded of a passage in Jeremy Paxman’s book on the English, he says a defining characteristic of being English is the heartfelt belief that the country is going to rack and ruin… I wonder if after this week’s announcements on everything from global warming to the fraying of the very fabric of society it really is?