So I go to Fiction with my friend Matt, where I meet a really hot guy. We call him Dan. While Dan was a little on the short side, he was what I thought to be a dead ringer for Tom Ford, albeit ten years younger. He even had the same hairline. Result.

So we eventually hooked up and we ended up spending the rest of the next day in bed, chilling out, doing a lot of the fun naked stuff and having those great little chats that make you think, "Click!"

Aside from my making a quick pit stop at my place to shower and change, Dan and I carried on like that. We went out clubbing again that evening with some of his friends who were all, also, really great and friendly. After the clubs we went back to his again where we cooked, drank wine, talked and spooned infront of the TV.

Later, before we went to sleep, for the umpteenth time that weekend, we had sex. In the middle of the sex I felt the condom break.

After a quick, "I'm, er, 'ok'. Are you 'ok'?" chat and a moment of awkwardness Dan smiled at me and said, "Well, we could carry on anyway? If you're cool with that?"

I told him that I was not really cool with that. And then I asked him, "Is that something that you do often?"

"Well, not 100% of the time. I guess 80% with, 30% without."

After he said that I kinda lost respect for him. I will admit to the odd careless slip-up when I've been really, really drunk or whatever. None of us are infallible and when it has happened I've certainly not felt great about it. But it's never happened so frequently that I could actually offer up a statistic like that.

And then there is, of course, the important fact that I am not going to spend my everafter attached to a guy who thinks 80% and 30% equals 100%.

On Wednesday I went to see the new Rachel Whiteread exhibit in the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern.

For those of you who haven't been to the Tate Modern, the Turbine Hall is the huge space that you walk into as you enter the gallery, which itself used to be a power station. The space is enormous and to completely fill it is an equally massive challenge. The most impressive installation I have seen to completely fill the space was the Anish Kapoor exhibit, over two years ago. The picture, below, only shows a third of it. Apparently it was actually physically impossible to view or photograph the whole piece at once.



The Rachel Whiteread installation, while much smaller than the Anish Kapoor, is completely amazing in a totally different way.



The work was inspired by an old, worn cardboard box that Whiteread found in her mother's house shortly after she died. Whiteread remembered the box from her childhood as it used to be kept in her toy cupboard.

For the installation itself Whiteread filled a number of different sizes of similar boxes with plaster. She then peeled away the exteriors, which left her with perfect casts, each recording and preserving all the bumps and indentations on the inside. To retain their quality as containers, they were refabricated in a translucent polythene.

The title of the installation, Embankment, refers to the riverside location (the Tate Modern sits on the Thames) as well as the nature of the installation's construction, with the piles of boxes forming barriers which you can walk around. Looking at it from above I was reminded of piles of sugar lumps, but when you start walking amongst them it's kind of like being in a maze, with lots of branches and dead ends. Then right in the middle is this huge towering structure, which makes you feel really, really small.



The thing that really affected me was how empty the installation made me feel. I don't know if that was Whiteread's intention, but I kept reminding myself that these boxes weren't actually boxes at all, but impressions of the nothingness inside boxes that themselves really existed. It was really profound.

I love stuff like this. For me, this is what art is all about. Anything that make me feel something: even if that feeling isn't necessarily good, or even comfortable.

If my housemate, Victoria (we would usually call her Vix, but Victoria serves us better for today's tale), was a literary character she would probably be something of a cross between Cathy from Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights and Fanny Price from Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. Fiery passion trapped within a romantic and sensible young woman. Looks-wise, she's very "English-rose" with long red hair framing an almost heart-breakingly beautiful face. She is a gentile lady in every possible way. However, I have not known her to run around Clapham Common, brandishing a parasol, calling out, "Heathcliffe!" at the top of her lungs.

Well, not yet, anyway.

Now that you know my housemate intimately and understand her deepest motivations, let me share with you the following discussion that I just overheard her having with the scaffolders who are currently noisily constructing outside our bedroom windows.

Victoria [remember now ... gentile English lady]: "Erm, hello! Hello! Oh yes, hello. I was, um, wondering how long you're going to be building out there for."

Scaffolder: [loud, rough, gravelly, Dartford accent. Americans: watch an episode of Eastenders on BBC America and notice how the men speak]: "Wot's that my luv?"

Victoria: "Er, I was just, er, wondering how long you would be building out there for."

Scaffolder: "Well for a start we're not builders now, are we darlin'? No, we're scaffolders. But don't you worry! We'll be finished by four, my luv!"

Victoria: "Oh, lovely. Sorry! Sorry for bothering you."

Scaffolder: "Yeah, we'll definitely be finished by four my darlin'. We 'ave to be 'cause I've gotta get dahn Soho way latah to get the missus a pair of them rubber knickers."

Victoria: "Oh!"

(The other scaffolders laugh)

Victoria: "Well, maybe she might like some nice underwear from somewhere else as well."

Scaffolder: "Yeah, well. She likes them rubber knickers don't she! Yeah, she loves 'em, she does! But not as much as I love 'em when I'm doin' 'er from behind, ya' know, doggy-style, like."

(More laughter from the other scaffolders)

By this point I knew that the conversation had reached an critical impasse and that it was up to me to save whatever was left of Victoria's purity. I dove into her bedroom and gently spirited her away from the window.

She looked at me quizzically. "Did you hear that?"

"Oh my God! Er, yes!?"

"Rubber knickers? Isn't that a bit unhygienic?"

She's ruined. Ruined, I tell you.

Morph: 1977 - 2005. RIP.

Clearly I have been otherwise occupied as I have only just learned of the demise of Morph, who burned to death in a fire during the early hours of Monday morning. A part of my childhood is dead.

Obviously when something terrible like this happens one has many, many spiritual and philosophical questions to ask. For example:

What does happen to Plasticine when you set it on fire?

Because if it just melts then surely that means that Morph can be resurrected. I remember that he would always get into scrapes where he would melt and shit and then he'd just pop back up and be all fine and make that noise that sounded like,"Mnupel!"

I fear I may have to let go.

Last night I went out to dinner with my friend Anthony who I haven't seen in, like, forever. Anthony and I used to live together when we were students at university and at the time his nickname was Sonic, due to his blue Mohawk. But these days he's all suited and booted and strangely attractive, in that "Ew, I would never go there," kind of way.

Anyway, we met at Piccadilly Circus and couldn't decide where to eat. So we wandered around for a while before finally settling on The Stockpot, which is an ultra basic restaurant directly opposite the theatre on Panton Street. It serves a three course meal for about seven quid and a bottle of wine for about eight quid. The food is very school dinners - processed but comforting.

So we sat there and ate and drank for about two hours, catching up and reminiscing over old times. Meanwhile, like any well-trained gay boy, I simultaneously checked out the uber-hot waiter (unfortunately not designated to our table) all the while not missing a word of what Anthony was saying to me.

Now this waiter was seriously hot. I know I mention hot guys on my blog a fair bit, but he was hot in a "I've just celebrated my 18th birthday and I'm pretty sure I'm gay cause I once fooled around with my best friend and I think I liked it so maybe you'll show me the ropes," kinda way (I know what you're probably thinking if you're straight, but this is actually a pretty standard and ageless gay fantasy.) Blonde / mousey spiky hair, tall, gangly and lean. But the best bit?

He was French!!! Speaking English!

Sacre bleu!

So eventually we finished the wine and decided to move on. As we left our table we said goodbye to our waitress and then, in the most non-sexually aggressive but nicest manner possible, I smiled and said "Bye," to Le Hot French Waiter.

To which he responded by folding his arms, before huffily looking in the opposite direction. In the manner of a spurned lover. Which would have been hot, had it actually been the case.

Anthony and I spent the next however long attempting to deduce why I'd pissed the waiter off. In the end I decided that it was either:

a) He was indeed a spurned and forgotten lover who I'd picked up at G.A.Y. several years ago and I hadn't called him since

or

b) Our eye contact had been badly synchronised and he had actually been trying to get my attention for the entire time I had been there.

At which point Anthony said that I was being really self-involved and it was more than likely just because he was French. Which is even more hot! For crying out loud! Le Hot French Waiter, being all French with me! "J'taime Le Hot French Waiter!" etc.

The other explanation, of course, that neither Anthony or I dared to broach, was that Le Hot French Waiter was actually Le Hot French Straight Waiter and Anthony had been too queeny (because while I was admittedly wearing a huge pink knitted scarf over a cowboy shirt, I naturally give off a devastatingly masculine and heterosexual vibe) and had pissed him off.

Le Hot French Straight Homophobic Pissed Off Waiter. In a f**ked up way, that's so hot that it doesn't even register on the scale.

For a number of reasons I'm feeling a bit down in the dumps, so to help lift the funk I decided to moisturise my hands using the very expensive efficacious Anthony Logistics for Men Glycerin Hand & Body Lotion that my friend Richard bought for me for my birthday.

As I picked the lotion up my grip failed and the tube began to fall to the floor. As I went to catch it the sharp corner hit the palm of my other hand and inflicted this:



It looks like a superficial wound, but it totally bled out and it still hurts like a mofo.

Hand, injured by hand lotion. My life sucks.

My aunt and uncle, my mother's brother, have been married for about 20 years. Rather than starting a family each chose to pursue careers. My Aunt is a barrister and my Uncle owns a surfboarding shop. They live on a farm in the New Forest on which they breed horses.

I have always thought that they were one of the few couples in my family who were genuinely happily married and in love with each other. That was until my Mum told me the following story.

The other day my Uncle visited my Mum in a bit of state. My Aunt, for one reason or another, had become cold towards my Uncle and out of loneliness he turned to a friend, a married woman, for comfort and the relationship eventually grew into a fully fledged affair which lasted for just over two years ago.

About a month ago my Uncle and the other woman decided to leave their respective partners and live together. As he drove home to break the news to my Aunt he received a phone call from another friend to tell him that the woman he had been seeing had just had a heart attack and was critically ill in hospital. She died later that night. She was only 36. (My Uncle would later deduce that the heart attack had occurred before she had the chance to tell her husband that she was leaving him.)

My Uncle immediately made the decision to never tell my Aunt the truth about his adultery, his decision to leave or about the death of the woman he had fallen in love with. He realised that he would never meet anyone like the woman who had died and couldn't bear the idea of a life alone. For him, the prospect of a life spent in a cold marriage was better than the alternative. He also knew that the combined circumstances of his adultery combined with his grieving, would put my Aunt in an impossible situation and would more than likely break her own heart in an entirely different way.

When she finished telling me the story my Mum took a pause before saying, "I don't think that honesty is always the best policy."

I agree and I think that my Uncle is one of the bravest people I know.

[Addendum - my Mum is the only member of my family who knows about my blog. I asked her first if she was ok for me to write about this, which she was. As for my Aunt and Uncle, they probably don't even know what a blog is.]

At school I was something of an academic underachiever. Actually, that's not entirely true. I was always very gifted at the arty subjects such as English, Literature, Art and Drama, but when it came to the boring stuff, such as Sciences and Mathematics, notsomuch.

Just under a year ago, while I was still seeing him, my psychologist suggested that I take a standard intelligence test as apparently some behavioral characteristics and traits can be associated with certain levels of intelligence. At the time I was a bit loath to do that simply because I had been such a pleb at school, at least where the "logical" subjects had been concerned and I didn't want conclusive proof of such. But in the end I agreed and I took the test.

My final score was so high that it puts me in the top 0.01 percentile. Upon further discussion my psychologist reasoned that one of the reasons that I may not have excelled at those afore mentioned subjects was due to concentration and attention. He suggested that in retrospect it is very possible that I suffered from and to some extent may still suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder. In an instance such as that a predisposition to being very distracted will naturally impact on one's ability to apply logic to and thus solve certain problems. Maths and Sciences bored me so I didn't pay attention and so I got rubbish grades. In other ways I was often times irrational and therefore other things also suffered, as a result.

While on the one hand I was delighted to have achieved so high a score, I also felt somewhat ashamed and actually kind of embarrassed. It had turned out that I could have been as capable, if not more capable, of achieving similar or far better results than some of my peers.

To this date I have only told about five people about that IQ test, but even so over the last year I have started to become more comfortable with what it means to me and has actually made me a lot more confident in myself.

About four weeks ago I went to a business meeting at MENSA, during which my colleagues and myself all took an IQ test (for fun.) Upon completion, each of our tests was scored by an invigilator and my final result was almost the same as it was when I took that test before (it was one point lower, but I attributed it to being distracted by the guy we were meeting with, who was tres handsome!) Out of the four people from my company that I went to the meeting with, I was the person who scored the highest. I know this simply because I was the only one of us to subsequently be offered admission to the society.

Aside from the fact that I was mortally embarrassed by the fact that out of all of my colleagues I was the only one to whom the offer was extended (including the owner of the company, who is generally known to be as smart a mind as there is in PR) my bashful side was all like, well, bashful and I shied away from the idea.

That was until a couple of days later. This might sound a bit strange, but I have always considered myself to be something of an outsider and the more I thought about it the more attractive the whole prospect appeared to be. For lots of silly reasons it's taken me a long time to acknowledge that I have gifts, so I thought that perhaps this was something I should really learn to love and embrace a whole lot more than I have to date. After all, I didn't have to brag about it. I could do it just for myself.

Last night I went to my first MENSA meeting at a pub in Pimlico, fully expecting to be surrounded by the most gifted and brilliant minds around. I was expecting to learn about quantum physics, discuss Nobel Prize winners and discover how mathematics, science and logical reasoning would provide the solutions to all of the world's problems.

What actually happened was that I spent the best part of two hours with three other men and three women, all of whom were over 40, discussing the merits of practically every private school in London, whether or not climate change would make the UK a profitable producer of sherry and whether or not Lulu's new album was any good.

Suffice it to say that I am not going to be attending another meeting. This afternoon I will be embracing my inner pleb, by going to see The 40 Year Old Virgin.

(If you must know what my final score was, do a Google search for Sharon Stone's IQ. Ours are the same - a small fact which, as you can probably imagine, has delighted me to no end!)

I have only ever ordered one thing from Amazon that could be considered "gay" and it was this, last Thursday.

Apparently Amazon saw my order and thought "Fag!" because now my "recommendations" consist solely of gay cinema.

As I huffily browsed through the titles that I had been stereotyped against, I realised, with a pang of disappointment, that us gays still have so much work to do in terms of changing peoples mindsets about what we do and what we like.

And then I saw this and was taken aback by how breathtakingly cute the lead is.

I am hoping that it will arrive before the weekend.

Closing ceremony

The week of birthday celebrations is officially over. While I had a lovely weekend with equally lovely friends at tapas restaurants and rubbish gay clubs I was extremely disappointed with the lack of fireworks in the sky over Clapham South last night.

Seriously. Just look at the disappointment on my face:

I just discovered that a guy I dated a couple of years back is working as a hooker.

I'm trying to tell myself that in this day and age I should view this information with an open mind. After all, one could say that using one's sexuality as a commodity is the ultimate form of liberation.

So I shouldn't feel sad for him.

But I do.

Last night I flew a stealth bomber, with pictures of my family stuck onto the controls of the cockpit, to see my great uncle. My great uncle, after having been diagnosed with brain death, had been admitted into a sanatorium. As I was landing the stealth bomber there was a bit of a scary moment when I thought that I might crash it, but in the end, even though I should really have had a co-pilot with me, I bought it down ok.

In the grounds of his new home I played fetch with my great uncle. It was very annoying because all he would do was run after the sticks I was throwing and then stand over them, refusing to bring them back. It must have been because he was brain dead.

While I was playing with my brain dead great uncle a nurse from the sanatorium bought over another person who was visiting. This person turned out to be none other than Freddie Prinze Jr. He claimed to be the son of my great uncle which, of course, would have meant that he was my cousin.

It was at this point that I knew that I was dreaming. There is no possible way that after starring in that awful movie (you know, the one with the supermodels) that Freddie Prinze Jr. would have the gall to claim that he was related to me.

The jackass.

First, thank you for all your kind birthday wishes yesterday! Forthwith, I will now be 23 33, every day, for the next 365 days. Probably even longer.

I had a great birthday pardee last night at The Langley in Covent Garden, attended by a whole bunch of friends - old and new.

However, there's a small problem with parties that are for me - they make me incredibly, unbelievably anxious. Prior to the party starting I had managed to work myself up into such a state that not only was I craving beta blockers but I was actually physically sick. And then, about an hour after it had started, I had to step outside for a quiet moment and a cigarette. Not great especially as, if you recall, I gave up smoking some months back.

But I'm glad to report that I did chill out in the end and had a great time. I even stopped drinking alcohol after a while and stuck to soft drinks. No hangover for Chrissy this morning!

I did take photos, but I'm saving them for a birthday montage. I'm going to Birmingham at the weekend for a birthday dinner and no doubt there will be some more outrageous antics to document (and hopefully none that involve smoking or vomiting. Well, maybe vomiting.)

33 today ...

... and this much I know:

1. If you live in London you should own a small umbrella and carry it with you at all times.
2. Mona in Tales of the City was right: I too would rather have six really great friends and no partner, than have a partner but no real friends.
3. You only need two pairs of shoes: one brown pair, one black pair. And you only need two pairs of sneakers: one white pair and one pair for the gym.
   
4. People who notice shoes should stop looking at the floor as much.
5. When I was a child, nine times out of ten my parents were right.
6. My parents have yet to learn that as an adult, nine times out of ten, I am right.
7. There is no shame in not knowing something and asking for an explanation. It's much more shameful to pretend that you do know and then get caught out.
8. Lying to a PR is a waste of time: don't bullshit a bullshitter.
9. It's PR, not ER.
   
10. The expression "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" is a highly subjective metaphor.
11. The expression "a rolling stone gathers no moss" is a great metaphor.
    
12. It is absolutely not possible to party non-stop for 24 hours and not feel like ten shades of crap the next day.
13. Putting the hand of someone who is sleeping into warm water does not make him or her pee the bed.
14. Good taste is highly overrated.
15. Other people don't annoy me. I allow myself to be annoyed by other people.
    
16. I always know what is best for me. I'm just not very good at doing it.
    
17. Morecombe and Wise were comic geniuses.
18. Russ Abbot was not a comic genius.
19. Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder: some people just dig unattractive people.
20. Isabella Blow may be as mad as the hats that she wears, but she is massively responsible for helping to put British fashion on the map.
21. For some obscure reason my friends see something in me.
    
22. Posing with big cats in official portraiture only works for Jackie Collins and Siegfried and Roy. And as Roy will attest to, not all of the time.
23. Rent is the worst musical I have ever seen.
24. You can't do anything you set your mind to. I will never be a dancer for Madonna on one of her world tours.
25. I have a finely tuned instinct for things that do not directly relate to me.
26. Inappropriate or politically incorrect jokes are usually the funniest.
27. Nothing is ever as bad as it seems.
28. My sex drive does not decrease as I get older.
    
29. You can succeed without talent.
30. You should be proud of your porn stash.
    
31. When a musician is described by critics as being a "poet" it generally means that they are talented at communicating in unintelligible rhetoric which they would be hard pressed to explain. Applying this logic, Pete Doherty is a poet. Eminem is not.
32. It is necessary to back up your hard-drive.
33. I've learned the hard way that life isn't like a movie or a book, but more like a photograph. Stories don't always have a beginning, middle and an end. It's about taking hold of the moment and enjoying it, if you can, without thinking too much about what happens next.

Although I was born on the 27th of September, I am not actually 33 until 4.20am, tomorrow morning. That means that you each have 16 hours birthday present shopping time betwixt now and then.

Lost for inspiration? Lets see if I can help:

Table 39 at Nobu


Right in the middle of the famous Mayfair restaurant, this is the table that Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts dined at in Notting Hill. The waiting list for table 39 is between three to six months, but fortunately I reserved it over eight months ago, you know, just in case.

A Magnum of '98 Dom Perignon


Most London dining and drinking establishments have been waiting for over eight months to receive their orders but you only have to pop down to Harrods or Selfridges to grab a bottle. But bear in mind that a case is only 1,350 squid, so it might make better sense to buy it in bulk.

A cleansing and decongesting facial at Eve Lom


If it's good enough for Cate Blanchett, Gwyneth Paltrow, Rupert Everett and Elton John, then it's good enough for me.

A life soundtrack consultation with Allessandra Nerdrum
During an hour-long session, Allesandra will quiz you on everything to do with how you feel when you're driving to what fragrance you use. With the answers as her inspiration she will go away and create a playlist of two hours worth of songs and music to download straight onto your iPod.

An Aston Martin DB9


Please don't have it delivered with a giant red bow wrapped around it. That's just tacky.

A labradoodle


I'm not as allergic to dogs as I am to cats, but they can still make me a bit sniffly. Therefore the labradoodle, a cross between a labrador and a standard poodle is the perfect choice pour moi. Apparently Brad and Jen bought one shortly before they split up which in my mind just increases it's stock.

That should do for now. I haven't put prices here, because I feel that just really spoils the point of giving. And it really is just about giving. I'm actually thinking of y'all and not myself.

A few weeks ago I ordered this T-shirt online. I thought it would be kind of quippy and ironic. I imagined myself wearing it and people looking on, whispering, "Look at him! All quippy and ironic!"

With hindsight, this was clearly not one of my finer purchases.

I don't know whether or not Kate Moss is a drug addict, but what I do know is that she has not deserved to be on the receiving end of one of the most vitriolic and rabid character assassinations I have witnessed in the media for a really long time. These stories have been written by a group of "journalists" who apparently regard themselves as bastions of healthy sobriety and good, clean morals. They think that drug taking is bad.

Are you kidding? I have worked with journalists for over nine years now and I would be highly surprised if not all of them have at least tried coke and that not only some of them use it as much as they are claiming Kate Moss does. This whole gnarly debacle just reeks of bitter, sanctimonious, shameless hypocrisy - from the hacks writing the stories, to the companies culling her contracts. And now Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair (the head of Scotland Yard), has apparently made it his mission to make an example out of Kate. Clearly he would be much better advised to attend to more pressing (but less glamorous) matters, such as ensuring that his police force are able to tell the difference between innocent members of the public and suspected terrorists.

Taking drugs is illegal and I accept that. I'm sure Kate Moss does too. I, personally, would like to see drugs legalised and properly regulated. The problem has never really been in the consumption of drugs. After all, most people who take drugs are not addicts, just as most people who drink alcohol are not alcoholics. The problems, for the most part, lie in the production and the deployment of drugs. But for significant changes in the law to occur people would be required to open their eyes to the real issues and to listen to the real facts. But because drugs still is such an emotive issue for most people, it is unlikely that this will happen any time soon.

Here's why I think I feel sorry for Kate Moss. She is one of the few celebrities who actually goes out of her way not to court media attention. To my knowledge she has only been officially interviewed on four occasions in a career that has spanned well over sixteen years. That's not to say that she hasn't made some really questionable decisions in her personal life, which have been picked up extensively by the media (anyone mention Pete Doherty?) I'm pretty certain that she didn't want people, across the land, to see her snorting cocaine in a private recording studio, late one night, alongside her boyfriend and a few of his mates.

Oh and as far as the issue of her suitability as a parent goes, all I know is that I have friends who use drugs recreationally and are still really great parents. There is of course the fact that Kate Moss doesn't look after her child for most of the time. The baby's father, Jefferson Hack, does and apparently always has. It has not been in the interests of the media to report this, as it doesn't help to facilitate the "bad mother" angle.

Overall, the story "fashion model takes drugs" is not one worthy of this kind of media attention. And if she really does have a problem, again, Kate Moss certainly does not deserve this kind of media attention. I will concede that some of it may prove to be her savior, but it still doesn't excuse the overall behaviour.

I admit to occasionally using drugs for recreational purposes. I don't think I could write all of this and not fess up to that. But then I am no different to hundreds of thousands of other middle class Londoners. I personally think that taking drugs is neither cool, nor uncool. But like Kate Moss I've made some pretty awful decisions in the past that I am in no way proud of. For those reasons it would be really inappropriate for me or, for that matter, anyone else who has ever taken drugs or fucked anything up, to judge Kate Moss.

What I really hope is that she receives all the best help that she needs, in whatever form that is, from people who genuinely love her and really have her best interests at heart.

Praise be to the gay baby, Jesus. And to Ang Lee.

First, is it wrong to want a baby just so I can put it in this?

Secondly, here is an order of words that I never thought that I would write:

Ozzy Osbourne used to be cute.

Into my closet

This post was inspired by my friend Marv's post of well over a-year-and-a-half ago, in combination with this weekend's culling of any clothes which I haven't worn for over 12 months (this is the third major task I referred to in yesterday's post.)

I'm largely assuming that you're all interested in what I wear / have decided not to wear, as well as some of the bittersweet memories or tales behind some of my favourite garments.

So, without further ado:



These are a pair of ridiculously tight, 70s style, Hawaiian surf shorts. I like the idea that one day I might actually wear them on a beach, let alone on a surfboard. I'm holidaying in Thailand for Christmas and New Year, so we shall see. They were given to me by an ex-boyfriend who actually surfed at home in LA.



I recently showed this vest to a friend and his response was, "Please, dear God, no." Regardless, this was my favourite top to wear to homosexual dancing establishments when I lived in NYC. It was bought for me by my friend Adam who I think was trying to convert me into being some big gay wrestling stud. Silly boy. I stopped wearing it because I started to become afraid that I would be asked to "double clutch" and I wouldn't know what to do.



This is a limited-edition, deep-V, Karl Lagerfeld sweater for H&M. The stripes are actually supposed to be white, but last Christmas my 4 year-old cousin knocked a glass of wine on it and it stained. So I tie-died it purple to, you know, match the stain. The effect is kind of Joan Baez circa 1971 and I highly doubt that I will ever leave the apartment with it on. Shame, because it makes my pecs look really good.



You either really love this shirt or really hate it. It's black cotton with a sewn on white satin sash, designed by Helmut Lang. I really love it because it was the shirt I was wearing when I first met Will. He later said that he knew we would end up dating because anyone who would intentionally make themselves look like a horse jockey had to be game for a laugh.



Until yesterday I had forgotten all about this shirt. As you all know, my Grandma died a month ago. This was her present to me, last Christmas. At the time I didn't really like it, but now I think it would work well underneath a cool T-shirt with some big gaudy print on it. The Seth Cohen look. Bubby would be proud.



Here is a selection of my accessories. From left to right (skipping out some): the scarf on the left is a really cool silk neck scarf by Ermenegildo Zegna and looks great worn with a T-shirt or underneath a dress shirt. The blue silk scarf is by Matthew Williamson and is grey on the reverse. Again, it looks great with a T-shirt, dressed with a suit jacket or even a mandarin collared biker jacket. The pink belt is a pink belt. The red silk-backed, navy, pinstriped tie was a freebie from a Tommy Hilfiger catwalk show I attended in Bryant Park in NYC. The gold sequined scarf was a present from Lindsay for my birthday last year and I only wore it once. Big surprise. And the scarf on the far right is the one that Trinny and Susannah complemented me on, hence it's appearance in this picture.



This sweater is perhaps one of my favourite items of clothing and was a gift from Lincoln. It's by Armand Basi and features a huge leather flash on both of the sleeves. I rarely wear it because it provokes such grown up remarks as, "Flash! I love you! But we only have 14 hours to save the Earth!"

Idiots.



I LOVE this sweatshirt. It's a basic marl-grey, raglan-sleeved sweatshirt, but it's really special because it was made especially for me by my ex-boyfriend, Nick. It's not brilliantly constructed and there isn't actually a right-way-round to wear it, but it's really comfortable. He also wore it to bed for a week before giving it to me and I've never washed it. Just like my bed-linen.



Everyone should have a winter fleece and this is mine. It's a really tight fitting, electric blue / black DKNY fleece sweater. It's almost nine years old, so I guess you could officially call it designer vintage and was actually my first designer purchase. It was 1996 and I was on holiday in Italy with my friends Tim and Jemma. It only cost something like ninety pounds (probably about six million lire!) but Tim and Jemma were absolutely scandalised that I could be so "frivolous" with money. They learned pretty quick.



This is a sleeveless denim shirt that I have never worn because it's a size large. For me, to wear something fitted, shirts need to be a size small. I bought this a few months ago because I thought that with my current excessive gym-going I would fill into it. But that would require me to grow exponentially and short of taking steroids, that currently looks unlikely to happen.



This is a really great top by BDg and I bought it in an attempt to channel some kind of stylish (yet masculine) vibe from the ghost of Jean Seberg. In reality all that I channeled was a lot of anger and a less than flattering overall visage, courtesy of horizontal stripes.



This is a Gucci scarf and was a present from Vidal Sassoon and his wife, Ronnie Sassoon. I'm including it here, you know, just to demonstrate that I have been bought clothes as presents by famous people.



In the absence of a real boyfriend, every night (except when he's in the washing machine) I go to bed with Adam Brody.

What?