Wanker

Dinner tonight with Steven from the UK. Britain. England. The lads across the pond. However you want to say it.

Dinner with anyone from the same town as one of the members of Duran Duran is always going to be good, but in Steven's case, it's even better. Because he's Steven, and he's funny as hell.

I actually got to hear him use the term "wanker" to describe someone tonight, and that alone is worth several hours of giggling. I love that, and it's so much better to hear it from an actual Englishman. It loses much in the translation from English to American. Yes, there is a definite difference between English and American. As Steven puts it, we've had quite a few years to f*** up the language, and we've done a fine job of it.

Steven is a good guy, and he's very genuine. You know exactly what you have with him the instant you meet him. I think this is why he and M get along so well. Good guys recognize integrity in other good guys, and they connect.

He had a ton of great stories, as he always does. These mainly revolved around his 50th birthday, which apparently has become quite the year-long celebration. Stories of his best friend from the age of 5, who is now head of police in London or someplace and who was responsible for security for our president, wandering about drunk in Steven's yard at his birthday party. Steven's a bit of an audiophile (okay, he's a HUGE audiophile), so for his party he asked his closest friends to come over and each bring a disc with about 8 songs of his or her own choosing. The disc was to be marked with the songs and the artists, but with no indication of who created it. The night was filled with great music and lots of guessing as to whose mix was whose. Doesn't that sound like a blast? One CD, from his friend Richard, had everything from Metallica to Pavarotti.

We also got to see a few snaps of Steven's birthday trip to Greece, planned by his lovely wife, Kate. We have an open invitation from Steven and Kate to come visit them, and I would love to tack on a couple of days to our Ireland trip and take them up on that offer. He said that sounded like a fine idea ("You're due for a holiday, Mike!" were his exact words). He recommended June over May though, for better weather.

He also promised to take me to see at least part of a cricket match, which is their version of baseball but, according to his description, is actually nothing like baseball.

So, here's to Steven, and cheers to Manchester United...may they kick some Liverpool ass when you go next month! (No offense to Kate, who is apparently a huge Liverpool fan...I just have to go with the only side I've been told, and that's from a Manchester United fan.)

The pic above is from this evening. There's M on the left, obviously, and Jeff, who is M's old Magpowr boss (the good boss, mind you, not the solid-line wanker he was also forced to report to...Jeff also falls in the aforementioned "good guy" category, which means, of course, that we love him) in the middle, and Steven on the right. Not a wanker in the bunch.