dinner at da paolo (holland v) with the kirtland family and greg dickson, an exchange student from virginia here to study south-east asian politics at nus. i haven't seen the kirtlands for over a year - they were as warm and funny as always, with interesting stories to tell of singapore and virginia, and the kirtland girls were riposting with the characteristic effrontery of teenagers, much to everyone's mirth. dinner was very good - my first time at da paolo's - i had a delicious salad of panfried duck liver on mesclun and thinly sliced apples, followed by penne with crab meat and tomato, and finally creme caramel with a generous serving of sugared pistachios. katie, the younger girl, who was sitting opposite me, gave me a great deal of amusement with her squid ink pasta, so intensely thick and black that after one mouthful her lips were coated in dark paste - she only needed the bloodred nails to go to a goth party.

the girls were volunteers for the new york olympic bid delegation during the recent ioc voting in singapore and got to meet ian thorpe: "such a.handsome man" and hilary clinton. chew-mee told a delightful story about how, newly-married, she had moved into gordon's bachelor apartment and decided that she must reorganise gordon's filing system. this was how she came across his uva transcript, and was, when he returned from work, still sitting shell-shocked on the floor. gordon had a C average for his first two years of college, and chew-mee said her first thought was: this person is going to be the father of my children! and said that if she had bailed out at that point she would have been totally justified - and every other chinese person would agree. and gordon told of some landlord of his who wouldn't come and fix this or that in his san francisco flat but once gordon was married he would say to the guy, listen, you're chinese, my wife is chinese, if you don't come and fix this she won't stop nagging me. and the guy clucked understandingly and came right away.

afterwards i got a lift to woollerton park to bother addy, sit on her ikea snake, insult her watson's dog (with square feet and no name) and we spent the rest of the evening looking at her name cards (directorate of strategic analysis sounds better than international organisations, and analyst sounds better than desk officer! poor yeen teck.)