2003-02-19 11:28 pm

Goodnight

Today: strange, orange snot. Perhaps I have been smoking too much? Not true - in the past I have smoked more and it has not resulted in orange snot. Something must be different.

It's not the haemorrhoids - those have gone, thankfully. They have retreated. And they do seem to retreat, dwindling in size and finally slipping back into my bottom, like the demons shrinking to fit into the soldier's knapsack.

A South African boy who works on the other side of the office has fallen in love with me, but I am almost certain that he has nothing to do with orange snot.

What are these weird ramblings for? I don't care about orange snot or South African boys!

Am I trying to develop something? Am I just trying to pass the time? Am I trying to get attention from invisible eyes, or approval from nice comments in my guestbook?

Yes, all of the above.

An audition looms on Friday. Hamlet, of all things. I would rather boil my own head than play Hamlet. Luckily I'm up for Horatio or Polonius - Horatio, I think. I'm too young for Polonius.

What will it be like to be old? Playing an older character gives you no hint, not even from having to move about clutching everything for support. Not even from speaking in an older voice. Such things come naturally to an old person, and however good the actor, he cannot actually NEED to clutch onto everything. He can only trick himself into needing it by shifting his centre of gravity, which is not the same thing.

The anxiety caused by the Iraq crisis now effects me on a daily basis. I feel tired, exhausted, irritable. The mental space it demands is of course overwhelming - how can it be otherwise? Massive issues are being wheeled out to buttress one argument or the other. Contradictory information is flying around from equally respectable sources. Do the Iraqi's actually want the war to take place? Yes, says Blair and most of the Iraqi citizens who have been forced to leave the country. But R., my friend who works with the refugees and knows many Iraqi's, say they do not. So who is telling the truth, and why should I believe one more than the other? And my better instincts tell me that the war is being justified using arguments which at best only exist as words in print, but do not seem to have any bearing to any real or known situation. If it is a moral crusade to stop Saddam Hussein, then why now and not 5 years ago? If it is about stopping Hussein from supplying terrorists with WOMD, then why now and not 5 years ago? Is it because he is in violation of a UN clause? He clearly is, but it is only the opinion of the US and the UK that the UN must enforce this clause or be poo-pooed by the international community. The fate of the UN will be far worse if it is seen to be nothing more than a lap dog to the US, however. Is it because the weapons inspectors weren't doing their job? No - they were destroying weapons left right and centre. Presumably Saddam Hussein has become more dangerous? Well, he hasn't.

The only argument I've heard that makes me think twice is the argument that the Iraqi people are suffering horribly. Comparisons to Germany in the 1930s and Suez are interesting but essentially nothing more than an intellectual exercise. Will they suffer more during a war, or less? I don't know. But I don't think we have the right to take that risk, and then do to them what we're going to do to them.

If the war is quick, good. If not - well, our venerable leaders better take a good hard look at themselves in the mirror.

I'm tired. Good night.

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