It was supposed to be a cultural evening. My friend, who I shan’t reveal the identity of because I’m a sensitive man, asked me to meet her at some photographer’s gallery near Leicester Square. She wanted to see a video of some British photographer who had taken photos of a few South Americans singing along to songs from the album “The World Won’t Listen” by The Smiths. The video was excruciating. Karaoke is a glorious pursuit, but you have to be well-disposed towards the people you’re watching crucify classic pop moments. Not being acquainted with the woman and her child who wailed along to “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out” in some hitherto unknown musical key, I clutched my head in despair and asked my friend if she wanted to see anything else at the gallery. “Not really,” she said. So we left. So much for culture.

We went to the Coach and Horses to briefly toast the ghost of Jeffrey Bernard. Over a drink, my friend told me how her father had recently had a stroke at the age of 69; he’s feeling much better now, fortunately, but while she was at the family home keeping her mum company, she was sorting through some papers and discovered that her mum – who she thought was 68 – was in fact 78. She thought it was a mistake, but then she thought about it, and various things started to make sense. The strangely early menopause. The fondness for wigs. (I’m not talking about my friend, now, I’m talking about her mum.) Suddenly, my friend’s childhood made a lot more sense. She asked her mum about it; she replied that it wasn’t the done thing to marry a man 9 years ones junior. So she lopped a decade off her age. A decade! My sister has an annual gag on her birthday of deducting 3 years off her age, but if she ever tries upping that to ten, I’ll know that she’s considering marrying an 18 year old boy.

Today it’s the 50th anniversary of Kruschev’s speech denouncing Stalin. The full text of the speech was 26,000 words long, and apparently took 4 hours to deliver. Now, I’m no expert at public speaking, but having done a few radio programmes and delivered a scintillating speech to students at UCL, I know that if I write 1500 words, it’ll take about 8-9 minutes to read it out. And not gabbling, either, no, that’s reading at a steady pace, with pauses for breathing, expansive gestures and mildly-diverting conjuring tricks. So what was Krushchev playing at? By my reckoning, he should have had that speech sewn up within 3 hours, MAX, and that’s allowing for pauses for audience laughter, toilet breaks and, of course, some mildly-diverting conjuring tricks. Maybe Russian words are a lot longer than English words. They’re certainly more difficult to read, all that weird Cyrillic alphabet nonsense. That’ll be it. A hint: never hamper the delivery of your speeches by having them written in a non-Roman alphabet.

I played a gig in Brixton on Wednesday evening, taking the stage alongside Green Gartside and other members of Double G and the Traitorous 3. A prominent LiveJournaller, who shall remain nameless, thought that I’d joined Milli Vanilli. What a hilarious comedy mix-up.