I have the flu. Not a snotty, coughy, running eyes "cold", which people often incorrectly name "flu", but actual flu. By this I mean aching limbs, shivering fits, sore throat and headaches. I have had the central heating on constant and the fake coal gas fire in the living room set to "flame thrower".
However, there are some benefits to being ill. I wrote about it here once before, but being ill for me means that I can heavily indulge myself in the kind of guilty pleasures that I normally berate myself for. As the old adage goes - "A little bit of what you fancy does you good!"
I little bit of what I fancied was spending the majority of Saturday night and Sunday daytime lying under a duvet on the sofa drooling over Adam Brody and Tom Welling in back to back episodes of Smallville and The OC. Who says being ill sucks? I did venture out of the house for a few hours with Wayne in the evening to go and see Closer, but in order to stop shaking enough to button up my jeans I had to heavily dose myself up with paracetamol. I probably should have stayed in really, but Clive Owen was seductively beckoning me. About half way through the movie (which I LOVED) I began to feel like crap again and by the time I had got home I was shivering so much that I was a bit like a vibrator. Um. Only not.
Anyhoo, if I'm honest, for the time that I was suffering on the sofa I wasn't being completely faithful to Adam and Tom, as I was also checking out the archives of some of my favourite blogs. One of the posts I came across was this one. You should go and read it now and then come back because it will make the rest of this post make sense and help you understand the coincidence.
You're back? Brilliant, hilarious and cringe worthy huh? Now where was I?
Oh yes. This morning I felt a lot better which was quite fortuitous as I had an 11am job interview with a small PR agency in Soho. When the interview was over I started walking back down towards Leicester Square tube and on the way passed Prowler, a kind of upmarket gay sex shop. "Sale!" and "50% off!" signs were plastered all over the windows which appealed to me for a couple of reasons. The first was because I am currently financially insolvent. The second was that I have been recently lamenting the fact that my porn collection has become a little tired. Just like any movie, watch it too many times and it all starts to get a bit samey. I did borrow some good stuff off a friend, but I had to give it back.
So I ventured forth and quickly decided to purchase this one. It might surprise some of you that while I will, without compunction, discuss the most intimate and intricate details of my sex life at great length and depth (length and depth - tee hee!) I do come over slightly coy when having to buy porn or other "objets de sexe" from total strangers. I know it's completely irrational, expecially when you consider that the person you are buying it from spends their entire day selling the stuff, surrounded by enormous latex phalluses, standing directly underneath a giant plasma screen featuring muscle-bound guys endlessly going at it.
Anyway, the deal goes through without hitch (and without my having to make eye contact with the assistant) and soon enough I am on the tube excitedly riding back to Clapham in order for me to view my new purchase.
When I get back home, I pop the disc in the player, set myself up all nice and comfortable on the sofa and press play. The video opens with the two main characters chatting and walking into this building and everything seems to be going smoothly. As with all gay porn, the script is quality and the acting, award winning.
The initial build up is nice and quick and soon enough the first scene is well into full "swing". Only, to my dismay, there was a problem - certain repeated physical movements are, er, rather rapid. More rapid than they are supposed to be. There is this thing going on with the screen where everything is jarring, kind of like I've speeded the movie up. So I jumped to the next scene and sure enough, the same thing. So I ejected the disc, wiped off any dust and tried it again. Still, the same problem. So I eject the disc once more and try it on my iBook. Yeah, you guessed it.
Now I was in a quandary. By this point I had seen enough of the movie to want to draw things to a, er, conclusion. But I didn't know whether I could manage getting to that conclusion without being supremely irritated by the fact that everything was jumping about. And not jumping about in a good way.
Somehow I managed.
Anyway, in more financially solvent times, I may have been inclined to just bin the offending item. But as I am poor, I can't justify being quite so frivolous with my money (and for those of you who say that it could be considered more frivolous to buy porn while on the breadline ... you have obviously never been a red blooded gay man! Besides, it was on sale, remember?)
So while it won't be quite as soul destroyingly embarrassing as Faustus's experience, I will have to take the DVD back tomorrow and explain the fault and ask for an exchange. I hope they don't ask me to explain the fault ("Well you know when they, like, do stuff? Well, there is a fault in the picture quality that makes the stuff seem faster than it should be.")
But what if there is a problem with the batch of the movie and I end up having to take it back again? Maybe I should just pick another title. Only there wasn't another title I wanted that was on sale.
Oh, sod it.
In other news, Clive Owen won the Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe for Closer.
I've loved him ever since I saw him years ago in Close My Eyes. Who needs porn when there are pictures of Clive?
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