The Secret Diary of WikiLeaks' Julian Assange, Aged 42 and a Bit

August 16th, 2012

Yipee! I'm off to Quito!

Got out my well-thumbed Boden catalogue as I prepare for my life in the tropics but still can't find the must-have black-on-black Hawaiain shirt that I yearn for to impress the senoritas in my new homeland. Settled for a No Pasaran! T-shirt that I saw one of the sister's from Pussy Riot modelling on the way to a Moscow court. Unlike me, she's probably going to jail.

That said, I had a big shock earlier. Heard the sound of running feet on the landing outside my bedroom and feared it was the British Stasi come to haul me off to face the biggest injustice since Pontius Pilate stitched up the Jewish guy from Nazareth.

Fortunately it was only the charge d'affaires who hasn't quite recovered from the upset tummy he contracted at the crazy party they had at Ecuador House to celebrate their Olympic success. Apparently, he is being punished for one too many burritos and mojitos. Whilst I am Olympian in political deed those athletes also have something to offer humanity - though not as much as me obviously.

Yesterday was very awkward. Jemima Khan came round asking about £20,000 she'd put up for my bail on the condition I didn't do a runner -which, ahem, I promptly did. I told her the best I could do was give her 30 krona and the £6.19 that's left on my Oyster Card. But she curled her lip, told me to "fark off" and accused me of "pulling a fast one".

This morning, I felt quite depressed at the prospect of returning to Sweden. Put on my old Abba greatest hits CD to cheer me up. Felt a lot better after listening to Mamma Mia! and Fernando and distracted myself from the thought of becoming a globally venerated digital martyr by ruminating over who I'd rather snog - Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Agnetha Faltskog. Blondes have more fun that's what they ... but then I'm such a misery-guts, probably because I've got the responsibility of truth and justice on my shoulders (Memo to me: Try and smile more).

I was just getting into Dancing Queen and belting out my fav line ".....young and sweet, only 17..." when there was a sharp knock on the door.

It was the Ecuadorian ambassador looking none too pleased. He has been cross with me ever since my friends in Anonymous hacked the website of the Ecuador Tourist Board and accused him of murdering Lonesome George the giant tortoise and turning the Galapagos Islands into an eco-Disneyland for fat American tourists.

I smiled - well I tried to anyway, thinking about those sexy senoritas again - but he just muttered under his breath. I thought I heard him say something like 'hijo de puta' - why can't he just speak Swedish? He severely upbraided me - which I thought was very rude considering probably only Nelson Mandela stands above me as a fighter for freedom and justice - for playing my music too loud.

I felt like saying "Insult me but never say a bad word against Benny, Anni-Frid, Agnetha or Bjorn" but I bit my lip. Nor did a mention that he kept me up half the night practising his flamenco with a young lady whose details he found on a card in a phone box in Soho. Apparently she's very good at whipping her clients into shape, or that's what it said on the card anyway.

Okay, I admit that he has provided me with a sanctuary from the Goliath-like forces of evil against me, a 21<sup>st David with only my laptop as my sling - but, hey, I'm a living legend, who wouldn't want to be part of the Greatest Story Ever Tweeted, right?

I closed the door silently but not before he said something very strange. As he gently stroked his upper lip with index and forefinger he said: "You know, you're not the first man wanted in Europe who has fled to South America." How strange these Latinos are - wasn't Dali one of them and he had a moustache?

I went back into my room and as the crowds outside chanted football-style: "Julian Assange, Julian Assange You're a ..." the last word got lost in hubbub of the Knightsbridge traffic but it sounded like "anchor". I smiled to myself (how easy that is to do, unlike when I'm with real people). Obviously, the masses see me as the sole steadying force of humanity in the seething tempest of crypto-totalitarian global oppression.

I flipped open my trusty Mac (memo to me: must send thanks to Steve Jobs for the freebie because I'd heard he'd not been well). The ambassador's strange comment was reverberating around my giant brain. Quickly, I Googled "sanctuary" and "South America" but the only names that came up were Mengele, Eichmann and Barbie - what can he have meant?"

(... as transcribed by Julian Kossoff, Managing Editor of the IB Times.co.uk)