I have sinned and I will go to Hell

I had the most bizarre day yesterday. For many reasons I had decided that I had had enough with my role at the company I work at, which I only joined just under three months ago. To cut a long story short I handed my notice in, totally expecting it to be accepted without compromise. But compromise was actually what I got - infact much more than that. I have another meeting with the owner of the company tomorrow morning to iron out the finer details, so I'm saving an explicitly detailed blog post about my recent work woes until then.

In the meantime I have a confession to make. A couple of weeks ago I told you that my friend Lindsay had, in turn, told me that my current hairstyle makes me look like Charlie from Busted. Again, I don't look like Charlie from Busted at all, but I'm getting off the point here. A good couple of years ago my friend Nathan, who worked at teen gossip magazine "Sneak", sent me a promotional copy of Busted's debut CD.

Now I know what you're probably thinking - "But surely, Christopher, you binned it? You did bin it didn't you?"

Er, no. I downloaded it onto my iPod. And apparently I listen to it. A lot.

Last night, while culling some of the stuff I never listen to from my iTunes library in order to make more room on my paltry 15GB iPod, I noticed that I have listened to "What I Go To School For" a total of 84 times. To you give you an idea of the gravity of this situation, I have only listened to my "official" favourite song, "Glory Days" by Bruce Springsteen, a total of 37 times.

If anyone knows of any way in which I can effectively cleanse my poor eardrums (and my mortal soul) please let me know. Ways in which I can do this involving hot gay sex with Charlie Busted are particularly welcome.

(Has anyone ever noticed that the spell checker on Blogger doesn't recognised the word "blog"?)

Christopher is...

Today I could write a post about how I hate my job with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns. But I'm saving that for a day when I'm really, really unhappy with my job, because on that day not only will I have some really kick-ass, jump through hoops, take me down, oh yeah, right down to China Town blogging material but my anger will also, singlehandly, be able to provide an infinite (and enviromentally friendly) power source for Earth and for the human race, forever more.

Instead, here is something fun, stolen from David's blog. Apparently it's called "Googlism" - go to Google and in "Advanced Search" write "[your name] is" in the "exact phrase" box and see what it comes up with. This is what I got:

Christopher is right

Christopher is a pseudonym for Samuel Youd, a prolific author whose full bibliography runs to around 70 novels under seven different names

Christopher is a modern day Time Lord

Christopher is credited with discovering the New World

Christopher is the writer young readers turn to when they're looking for fast-paced, action-packed sports novels

Christopher is proud to introduce the Koh Young precision 3D solder paste inspection system

Christopher is now encouraging that more people "get the vision"

Christopher is in search of poor Gulliver Bear

Christopher is a precocious 3-year-old with a sly smile and a big heart

Christopher is a saint still venerated by Orthodox Christians

Christopher is a true genius who can lead us to new enlightenment as well as a state of vibrant health

Christopher is advised to get a job in the war office, but instead ends up at the front in France

Christopher is another personality inside me

Christopher is mostly heterosexual, but with the amount of time he spends around women, deep conditioning treatments, and glossifiers, his feminine qualities can't help rising to the surface

Christopher is still not potty trained, he wears a pull up all the time and rarely will he go use the toilet

Christopher is impulsive, and his impulses are often violent

Christopher is mindful of his position as heir to the Armestronge lands and sergeant of the Austhwaite garrison

Christopher is probably a charming, heroic young man

Christopher is worthy of the Bond villain mantle [how much do I love that one?]

Christopher is perfectly capable of carrying on a conversation

Christopher is chairman of the National Security Subcommittee

Christopher is impetuous and trigger-happy

Christopher is tax deductible

Christopher has the cool reserve which some of his contemporaries lack

Christopher is your hot candy

Cool shit (if you are so inclined)

Some of you know that I am a bit of an aviation geek. A while ago I posted the above picture on my Flickr pages with the intention of blogging about it. Then I thought that it might be a bit boring and didn’t. But then yesterday I noticed that a whole bunch of people had checked it out and had commented on how cool it was. Some of them had some questions as to exactly what it was. So I am guessing you all might be interested too. No? Well bugger off then and come back tomorrow.

The picture is an award winning photograph of a US Navy F-18 Hornet Fighter Jet, taken off the Coast of Pusan above the Pacific Ocean. The egg shaped cloud of vapour at the tail of the vehicle, which remains formed for only a fraction of a second, is called a Prandtl-Glauert Singularity.

There is much speculation over what causes a P-G Singularity. Many like to believe that it represents the point at which a jet breaks through the sound barrier. However, this is not actually the case.

These types of clouds only ever form for one reason - the air closest to the jet has cooled to the point where water vapour present in the atmosphere is forced to condense. In aviation, air flows around the fuselage and the wings change the temperature and the pressure of moisture in the air. That’s partly the reason why some jets leave cloudy tracks behind them in the sky – the pressure of air at high altitudes combined with the effects of temperature changes created by the aircraft are two of the factors involved in creating a slowly dissipating trail of vapour.

The only reason that planes can actually take off is because of the lift created by differences in air pressure on the top or the bottom of the wings and fuselage. Infact the pressure really varies from point to point in a flow around an object – that’s why you can also see a mini P-G Singularity at the rear of the pilot’s cockpit.

Anyhoo - pretty cool, n’est pas?

Lindsay is 30

Last night I went out with a bunch of my old friends and extended "family" to celebrate my friend Lindsay's 30th birthday. The drinking went on into the early hours of the morning and was followed by a few glasses of champagne in Wimbledon this afternoon. I'm too hungover to write anything really coherent, so here are some pictures - before it all got out of hand...

The birthday girl (it took several attempts to get a shot she was even mildly happy to approve)


Ben, Helen and James (Ben and James are actually twins. You can tell them apart because one of them is called Ben and the other is called James)


My housemate, Vix, basking in the light of Christopher


Helen and yours truly


Tim, Dan, Ads and Burnsy (who plays Nathan Barley, in Nathan Barley)

Dynasty

Patricia...



...met Arthur...



...and together they had a daughter, Rosie.



Rosie went on to meet Richard...



Rosie and Richard...



...went on to have two sons - Christopher...



...and Stephen.



You know when a close member of your family dies you're always told that you shouldn't feel too sad because they carry on through you? Well that's part of the reason I've posted these pictures up. It's really incredible to me that the features my parents and my grandparents carry in those photographs truly are part of me. Literally, their combined DNA is my DNA - it's my blood, my hair, my eyes - everything.

I know it's obvious, but the more you think about it and the more you look at pictures like these...well, it's really quite profound, don't you think?

In brief...

...today was a really special day for lots of reasons. I'll write about it a bit more when I get back to London later tomorrow. I also have some really cool pictures to show you (not of the funeral - unlike the gazillions who were taking pictures of the dead Pope in St. Peter's Sq the other day! How morbid is that?) It's just that Mum's lime Green iMac is running on a very ancient operating system and I feel as if I am sat here hammering away on some kind of grail with a chisel.

As if it couldn't get any worse...

Apparently my Mum and my Aunt got into some kind of fight last night about the funeral and my Aunt was all like, "Well I don't know if I'm even going to go now anyway."

I would have paid Mum real money if she'd told Sue to at least have the conviction to make good on her obviously idle threats. For what kind of person stamps their feet by threatening not to go to attend their own father's funeral? Idiot woman.

Anyway - Mum has made a further concession to Sue. There is an extra song.

*deep breath*

"No Matter What" by Boyzone.

This evening my housemate and I downloaded the song and we listened to it while imagining ourselves in the setting of a crematorium. We are both of the opinion that tomorrow may be a sad day for two reasons.

Because aside from the fact that my Granddad's funeral is taking place, tomorrow may also be the day that I die from intense, squirming embarrassment.

Comedy or tragedy?

You decide...

On my mother's side, in particular, my family is more than a little bit pikey. As they live in the West Country they speak with the kind of accent and intonation which Alice Tinker, the simpleton verger on The Vicar of Dibley, uses. The best way for me to help you understand what I mean by all of this is to describe my Auntie Sue (my Mum's sister) and her husband, my Uncle Alan.

Sue is what you might call a bit of a silly cow and likes to antagonise Alan at every opportunity. For example, a few years ago Alan staggered into his house with a piece of broken bone sticking out of the side of his leg (he'd somehow managed to fall out of his knackered VW van) and rather than call an ambulance Sue proceeded to lay into him for being careless while not having any accident insurance. Now, if I tell you that Alan is the sole provider in their household and is self employed you might be able to see her point of view. But still. Bloody bone stump sticking out of leg. Hello?!

Sue and Alan eat chips. A lot. They smoke 20-30 Royals a day and have a Jack Russel called Jack (inspired) which is deeply sexually attracted to my leg. Christmas buffet at my Aunt and Uncle's place usually consists of a combination of Melton Mowbury pork pies, Tesco tortilla chips and high-fat dips. And maybe a bottle of Blue Nun. Their house is teeming with an abundance of ceramic nick-nacks (doubtlessly ordered from the back of the Radio Times), overflowing ashtrays and copies of the Sunday Sport dating back to 2001. But perhaps the best way for me to illustrate this picture of chaos is with, well, with a picture:



OK, admittedly I am perhaps being a huge snob, but I work in PR and I probably always have aspired to scale to a height slightly above my station. A sentiment my bank manager would almost certainly agree with.

On Saturday Mum told me that she had not been able to get any sense out of Sue and Allen as to what the format of Granddad's funeral service should be (as he was not a particularly religious man, it's going to be a simple service at the local crematorium.) She also told me that no one else in the family was going to give any readings because they are all afraid that they might break down. We'd already agreed that I would read out the Gibran passage, so she wondered if I would choose the music which would intersperse Mum's readings before I did mine. She also wanted me to compose a flow - a term we use in PR for a "run of show". "Sure!" I told her. As you all know, I have organised many a fashion show / celebrity photocall. How hard could it be to organise a funeral?

So I devised a flow, peppered with what I thought were neutral and appropriate music choices which would represent the precise mood of each section of the service:

1) "Winter, Movement 3" by Vivaldi (Granddad was born in November) plays while Guests take their seats

2) Mum talks about the early part of Granddad's life

3) "Nocturne in E Flat" by Chopin

4) Mum talks about the latter part of Granddad's life

5) "I Could Write a Book" by Frank Sinatra

6) Christopher reads from The Prophet and closes the service

7) "Vide Cor Meum" - a piece of opera composed by Patrick Cassidy using words from Dante's "La Vita Nuova" sonnet (it's about how death doesn't rule out the idea of life remaining)

Beautiful huh? Underplayed, simple, respectful, not too sad, not too uplifting. To use another adjective, classy.

I talked Mum through it on the phone and played her some of the music and she loved it. So I burned off a copy of the music and printed off the flow and popped it in the post so that she could show the rest of the family what we had decided upon.

Mum called me this afternoon to tell me that Sue and Alan had read the flow and listened to the CD. "What did they think?" I asked her, fully expecting her to tell me how proud they were of their clever, sensitive, gay nephew.

"They didn't really like it. They've chosen some different music and moved some of the remaining music around."

I won't beat about the bush. This is the new flow:

1) "Spring, Movement 1" by Vivaldi plays (Granddad died in the Spring) while Guests take their seats

2) Mum talks about the first part of Granddad's life

3) "Pie Jesu" sung by Sarah Brightman

4) Mum talks about the latter part of Granddad's life

5) "I'll Never Get A Scrumpy Here" by The Wurzels

6) Christopher reads from The Prophet and closes the service

7) "Nocturne in E Flat" by Chopin

I don't even know where to start with this complete and utter nightmare farce.

Ok, I'll try...

A) If you have a CD of Vivaldi's Four Seasons to hand please put it on right now and listen to the first movement of Spring. This is really not intellectual snobbery now. I defy you to listen to that and tell me you think that is suitable for a funeral!

B) Pie Jesu - in essence I don't have a problem with this, except that it is being sung by Sarah Brightman who is the Sinitta of the opera world. She also married Andrew Lloyd Webber, the ugliest, most neo-Nazi fascist composer ever to wave his arms about in the West End of London. "So Sarah Brightman, tell us; what was it which first attracted you to multi-millionaire, Andrew Lloyd Webber?"

C) The Wurzels - first of all I thought Mum was joking when she told me this, but she wasn't. Words...can't...describe... Therefore another picture to illustrate:



D) Finally, the Chopin - totally not the right piece of music to listen to while watching Granddad's coffin slide off through the curtains and into the hereafter.

I took the news with good grace. I wanted to stamp my feet and make a fuss, but I didn't. After all he was my Grandfather and not my father. I have no power of veto over what my Aunt and Uncle want and what my Mum has conceded to. After all, it's not my funeral (although I tell you, if anyone plays The Wurzels at my funeral they'd better be prepared for some pretty fucking scary poltergeist shit.)

But what I do have power of veto over is the wreath which I am helping to buy with my cousin and my brother. Andrew, my cousin, also called me yesetrday evening. He wanted us to buy a wreath that reads, in orange flowers:

G-R-A-N-D-D-A-D

I'll let you guess what my answer was (which was prompted not least because of the cost of an eight word wreath.)

The lesson in all of this? You can take the pikiness out of the boy, but you can't take the boy out of the pikiness. Apparently some old geezer died over in Rome at the weekend and the funeral is on Friday. Maybe they'd appreciate my event management skills over there?

Because I can't think of anything better to write about today...

Stolen from Nafai's blog:

YOUR PORN STAR NAME: (name of first pet + mother's maiden name):
Bartholomew Penner

YOUR MOVIE STAR NAME: (name of your favourite snack food + your Grandfather's first name):
Walkers Gerald (Although Walker Gerald sounds better, me thinks)

YOUR FASHION DESIGNER NAME: (First word you see on your left + your favourite restaurant):
Callen Criterion

SOCIALITE ALIAS: (Silliest Childhood Nickname + Town Where You Were Born):
Gaylord Bradford on Avon

"FLY GIRL" ALIAS (a la J-Lo): (First Initial + First Two or Three Letters of your Last Name):
C-Kin

ICON ALIAS: (Something Sweet Within Sight + Any Liquid in Kitchen):
Cadbury Balsamic

DETECTIVE ALIAS: (Favorite Baby Animal + Where You Went to High School)
Puppy John of Gaunt

BARFLY ALIAS: (Last Snack Food You Ate + Your Favorite Drink):
Crackers Dr.Pepper

If this isn't an admission...

...then I don't know what is.

Well, I guess "Yes I am" might be more of an admission, but that clip is doing it for me in the meantime.

God, I love him.

"Fa-fa-fa-fa-fashion. Oh, bop, do do do do do do do do"

[as David Bowie once famously sang]

My lovely friend Marv and I have been having a little discussion about fashion, as she mentioned on her blog just the other day.

I don’t know where my passion for fashion comes from. Some of you might say that because I’m gay it may well be part of my genetic make up. But I know some deeply unfashionable gay men (none of them my friends, I might add. Phew!), so I’m not so sure about that.

Still, I have a degree in Fashion and much of my career in PR has focused on fashion or has at least been related to the subject. I have attended and helped organise countless fashion shows, fashion shoots and many of my friends are fashion stylists. So, yes, you could say that I have more than a passing interest!

Quite a few years ago now I was sat in a pub at home with my best friend Helen and her friend Jill. At the time I was questioning the value of my career choice and whether I should be doing something more “worthy”. Jill said something to me, which I have always remembered, which was that while there are certain professions where it easy to see the benefits that they have on people’s lives, fashion is something that, rightly or wrongly, makes a lot of people very happy.

I made a lighthearted joke in my comments section the other day on how the love of family or friends is nothing next to a great haircut, dress or beauty treatment. Clearly that’s not true. But how many of you, during the times when you’ve felt a little low or blue, have been out and spent money on an item of clothing which made you feel attractive? I know I have. And most of the time it works. Sometimes it’s only a short-lived fix. But it helps and that’s not a bad thing, right?

Clothes play a big part in my personal value system (I’m sure a few of my old psychologists would have a field day with that!) If I go to work having paid a bit of thought about what I’m wearing – whether the colours compliment each other, if the cut of my jeans is right, if my jacket is accommodating enough for the thickness of my sweater – it helps me feel good all day long. But if I don’t pay enough thought to the selection process in the morning and I realise later that my sweatshirt isn’t quite long enough to fall over the waistband of my hipster jeans, I guarantee that it will affect my mood all day. I’m not talking about manic depression, but just a small, added irritation - the feeling that something is not quite right. Of course no one else really notices. Which leads me neatly on to my next point.

Regardless of what you might think, I don’t just dress for other people. I’d say it is a 70/30 split, leaning towards me. This will sound like the most conceited kind of shit, but ... every now and then I catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror somewhere and I see myself in a way that I don’t normally see myself. And the times when I like what I see make me feel really good. As I have gotten older those occasions are becoming more and more frequent, but I think that’s because I understand more now about what looks good on me.

One of Marv’s comments made here the other day was that the overall advice proffered by Trinny and Susannah is all a ruse to make women spend more money on clothes. Sorry Marv honey, but I don’t agree with that (although I think you just said that to rile me!) Trinny and Susannah often work on women who already spend a fair bit of money on clothes, but who pick items which simply do not work with their body shape, hair or skin tone. As Darian rightfully implied, sometimes it can be as fundamental as a bad bra (you know, I don’t even wear bras, but even I know that you can’t beat a good Marks and Sparks!) With a bit of aggressive woman handling Trin and Suze help these women to understand their bodies and clothes in general so that they can, in future, purchase garments that make them look and feel great. Another thing to remember is that they hardly ever get these women to buy expensive designer clothes. In fact what they very often do is to assign a strict budget and encourage their “victims” to buy fewer items that work with other items in any number of combinations. Now that’s really clever dressing! It’s great when a friend compliments you on an item of clothing, which you know they’ve seen countless times before.

Dressing well is actually not very hard to do and it really doesn’t have to cost a lot. But at the risk of sounding like afore mentioned scary wenches, you have to understand the shape of your body; regardless of whether you are a man or a woman. For example, I have blue eyes and fairly pale skin, so pastel colours, on their own and on the whole, do not suit me. They wash me out. But they do work when I pair them with vivid colours. I’m also fairly skinny and would like to have a bigger build. Many other skinny gay men wear very tight T-shirts, which actually just accentuates their skinniness. But what I’ve found is that if I wear a T-shirt which is fitted without actually being skin tight, I can actually create the illusion that I have a slightly bigger build. Of course that illusion is lost when I’m at a club and the top comes off.

There was a time when you did have to spend a fair amount of money on garments to create a look that worked and flattered your body shape, but with the proliferation of clothes retailers who offer really great fashion at affordable prices this is no longer the case. For example, proper tailoring is available in nearly every high street fashion store. If you’re a guy with a big frame you can actually make yourself appear thinner by wearing shirts that taper in from underneath the armpits and then flare out again towards the hem. And you can buy those kinds of shirts in H&M! Whoo hoo!

It’s true that we live in a very image obsessed society. But human beings have always been, and always will be, seduced by the visual side of things. So why should we not have some fun with it?

The other important thing to remember is that clothes are quite often the best way to make a brilliant statement. The T-shirt is probably the best example of this. Anyone remember the Vivienne Westwood naked cowboys? Or Katherine Hamnett’s “58% Don’t Want Pershing”? And fashion also defined really important periods in history. Would punk or the hippy movements have happened without fashion? And in a weird kind of way I think that shoulder pads did a lot for helping women to be both fierce and sexy at the same time.

To close this rather lengthy post, I’d like to say one last thing. I’ve talked a lot about fashion here and ironically fashion is a word that I don’t really like that much, but it’s a general descriptor and known phrase, hence my using it. Coco Chanel once said “Fashion fades, but style lasts forever.” As I’ve entered my thirties I’ve been trying to apply that philosophy to my sartorial sensibilities more and more. That’s not to say that I don’t buy the occasional expensive, sexy boy top, which I’ll only ever be able to wear three or four times. But I get a kick, now more than ever, when I buy something that I can make work for me in a number of ways and hopefully over a number of years.

And Marv – I have a feeling that you and I may never see eye to eye on this one. I do really love you the way you are, but still, if you do ever happen to feel the urge, I will happily be your wingman for the afternoon and together we’ll do an extended tour of The Bullring.

Aw!

First, thanks for all the kind emails yesterday! You kids are just too nice!

It's a bit of a weird one, because while I obviously loved my Grandfather very much, I didn't see him as often as I would have liked. Also knowing that he had cancer I also knew that his days were numbered, so I'm not hugely bereaved if that makes sense. That sounds awful. Obviously when something like this happens you feel a little sad, but the old guy had a good life and was lucky to be with family and some of his friends during his last days.

Anyway, the funeral is next Thursday afternoon and my housemate has kindly lent me the use of her little VW Golf to drive back to Bath in (British Rail - London to Bath = £55.00!!!)

While the funeral will be sad, I'm looking forward to seeing all of my family in the same room - a very rare occasion. After the cremation we're having a knees-up at The Mill in Rode, which is one of my favourite pubs. (Incidentally, when Mum told me that the knees-up would incorporate a finger buffet I was reminded of that Victoria Wood sketch in which she verbally illustrates the differences between English funeral proceedings and those of other cultures. For example, in a country such as India a widow will throw herself onto her husband's funeral pyre in a display of profound grief. In England we'll have a very British "wake" and the bereaved widow will tap her best friend on the shoulder and say, "22 baps Connie. You slice, I'll spread.")

So it'll probably be a bittersweet kind of day. But yesterday afternoon I made the stupid mistake of telling Mum about that Gibran passage that I posted up here yesterday and she was all like "You should read that out at the service!" Normally I would jump at the chance to grandstand, but usually in the context of a friend's birthday party ("Look what I can do with this fish fork everyone!") or something. A) I don't know how serious I can be and B) I don't know if my voice will be up to expressing the emotive qualities of Gibran's words.

Also, I have the feeling that certain members of my family will be all like, "What dreaming beneath the what?"

Bye, Granddad!

A little sooner than expected, my Granddad decided to do a runner over to the other side last night. He was never the most patient man.

Seriously though, I'm actually really ok, just a little bit dazed. None of us were expecting it to be quite this soon. Although when I saw him at the weekend and saw how frail he was, there was a question mark in my head over whether it would really be quite as long until the end as the doctors had projected.

Mum had been working at the Home all day and my Aunt and Uncle had both paid visits, so he'd not been on his own at all, which is good However, Mum went home for a couple of hours, after her shift ended, to get changed and have something to eat, before coming back to sit and spend the evening with him and he passed away literally five minutes before she got there. She said that she would have liked to have been there at the end, but I told her that he did have a fairly important appointment to make, so she shouldn't be too cross at him.

While of course I am sad that he has gone, I also have to remind myself how lucky I have been. Not only have I known each of my Grandparents but I also knew one Great Grandparent as well. And I still have two very healthy ones left.

My housemate was just reminding me about The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran and that there is a passage in the book relating to death. I just found it online and was reminded how beautiful that book is. So Granddad - here are some beautiful words in honour of a beautiful life. Have fun up there!

"On Death" - The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
Then Almitra spoke, saying, "We would ask now of Death."

And he said, "You would know the secret of death. But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life? The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light. If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life. For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one. In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond; And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring. Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity. Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour. Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king? Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling? For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered? Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then shall you begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance."

Astrobollocks

When I moved to NYC, from the moment I stepped off the plane, I would be asked a specific question a lot:

American - “So tell me buddy - what’s your star sign?”

Me - "Libra." Pause. "Can I have sex with you now?"

Infact, I was asked so frequently and in every type of situation (at work, in bars, in the police station holding cell) that I started to question how my star sign hadn’t featured more prominently in my US visa application.

This morning, in a cab on the way to a meeting with a magazine journalist, my exec Gillian asked me what star sign I was. ”Libra*/**,” I told her. “But I don’t actually take heed of such nonsense.” She asked why, so I explained.

Think about this – astrology is based on the position of the planets and stars in the night sky, right? Well, for a start we all know that the stars we see no longer exist. What we see is just light which has taken literally millions of years to reach us. By the time we see the light the poor star has given up all hope of being noticed and has imploded on itself and for a moment created a black hole which was followed by nothingness. Or maybe something. I don’t really know. I’ve never seen it happen. But spare a thought for the star - once a supernova, never a heavenly body. Poor thing. And so much competition and size issues to deal with. Some stars, such as our Sun, are very smug because the world revolves around them.

There is also the fact that, because of their position, species 505ZA, who inhabit Versace Prime in the Spottiswoode system (approximately 578.26 trillion billion gazillion miles due south-west of Earth), have a very different perspective of the night sky. No Dipping Spoon or Great White Porcupine for them. So, presumably, there are no 505ZA Scorpios?

But does that mean that they have a completely different set of astrological signs? Maybe they do. But then who really cares when species 505ZA are more famous for eating their toenail clippings than for being guided by celestial bodies (you know I was once told that I have a celestial body, blah, blah, blah...)

Finally, what about all these extra planets that keep being discovered every few years? How do they fit in?

In summation I told Gillian that basing ones personal quirks and foibles on a random pattern which...

a) technically isn’t there anymore
b) shifts depending upon ones position within our solar system and in the Universe

...is to me a little astro-illogical. Then, of course, there is the other fact, which is that I am the most contradictory Libran to ever walk the Earth. I am not at all indecisive and I can be incredibly undiplomatic. But I am an incurable romantic and I am a stickler for surrounding myself with beautiful, graceful things. For example, all of my friends are extremely beautiful and graceful. Well, except for Drew, who is always breaking his jaw and stuff.

Eventually I finished my rambling small rant and Gillian looked at me and nodded in such a considered manner that I knew she had completely understood and now agreed with me. Finally! I had enlightened someone to the inherent ridiculousness behind astrology!

“Christopher, do you think the journalist will be interested in featuring teacups in the magazine?”

So often I am brutally reminded that cerebral thought of any kind is resoundingly absent from my chosen profession.

*September 27th. Should any of you wish to send me cash donations I would be happy to email you my bank details. Er...please?

** Here’s a little factoid to help you make friends and generally be a better person – Libra is the only astrological sign to be symbolically represented by something non-sentient (scales). The jury is still out as to whether Crabs are sentient, but I once heard that they “scream” when dropped in boiling water, so perhaps they are. Or was it Lobsters?

I know...

...that when I eat something with garlic in it my pores literally belch odours of the stuff for most of the consecutive day.

Why is it then that after drinking two litres, daily, of Volvic A Touch of Fruit mineral water I have yet to smell of strawberries?

Tube Incident - No.173.5

I’m not normally a mean person. In fact I’m really quite pleasant and mild mannered. No, really I am. What? Do you want to start a fight or somefink?!

Yesterday afternoon I was riding the tube to my gym in Bank. Even though it was a bank holiday and the carriages were fairly busy I did manage to get a seat next to a young woman who was sat next to her husband who in turn was holding their infant sprog on his lap.

After a couple of minutes of my being sat there the mother turned her head towards me. While at this point I wasn’t looking directly at her I could just about see that she gave me the briefest but filthiest of glares. Then she stood up and moved across to the other side of the carriage and sat in one of the empty seats where she did several eyeball rolls and head nods in my direction for the benefit of her husband, who probably hadn’t understood why she had moved.

As soon as she moved I knew that the reason was because the volume on my iPod was up too high. While I like to listen to my music loud I also know how annoying it can be for other passengers on the tube, so usually I’m good about turning it down especially when it’s busy. But yesterday I just forgot. Either way, in this instance I’m sure it suited her just fine to make such a dramatic statement by refusing to sit next to me rather than politely asking me to turn it down, which I would have done. So I didn’t particularly feel the need to do her any favours. And she was kind of ugly, anyway. And her husband was a weed. And he was wearing socks with sandals. I guess you could say that they weren’t exactly commanding my respect.

For the rest of the journey – a good six or seven stations – the bitch literally could not stop staring daggers in my direction. Every now and then she’d stop and turn towards her husband and the two of them would lean in towards each other and mutter something conspiratorially. Then she’d stare at me again.

By this point I wasn’t feeling in the least bit charitable and any tiny notion I may have been toying with, that I may have kindly turned down my music, was thoroughly put to bed. Instead I projected an outward look of complete indifference. I smiled sweetly and looked around the carriage as if I was just a really happy soul, thoroughly jolly from listening to Bruce Springsteen crooning over shattered dreams and the stench of soul destroying failure in the redneck heartland of small town America. Because everyone knows that there is nothing more annoying than being supremely pissed off with someone when that person looks like they couldn’t give a shit.

Now, while all of this was going on I was also munching away on a rather yummy Starbucks Oatmeal and Raisin cookie. When I’d finished the cookie I rolled the wrapper up into a ball and absentmindedly plopped it on top of the air-con vent, behind my seat.

Eventually the train started approaching Bank so I hopped up and made my way past bitch face and her short, painfully thin husband and sprog and continuing with the “I’m a bit vacant” airy expression I waited by the doors.

After a second or two of standing there I saw, out of the corner of my eye, that the husband was mouthing something to me. So I took out my headphones. “Sorry! I couldn’t hear you. My music was too loud!”

“You forgot to pick up your rubbish,” he said, pointing in the direction of the screwed up paper bag.

Before I continue with this story let me explain to you my personal approach to littering. First, I never ever litter in the countryside – not ever. This is, amongst other things, because I worry that a squirrel or an antelope might accidentally choke on my abandoned Coke can and die.

In urban areas I almost always hold onto my litter until I can find a bin to put it in. For a long time there were no bins anywhere on the underground system because of the threat of the IRA hiding bombs in them. But these days there’s not a really legitimate excuse as there is usually a plastic bag tied to a pipe or something (classy).

But occasionally, if it’s something like a small, empty, rolled-up, brown paper bag that has only ever been in contact with a relatively innocuous cookie anyway (i.e. not still containing the carcass of an roasted, seasoned chicken) I won’t really lose any sleep over leaving it behind. Perhaps I should, but when did English Heritage designate the Northern Line an area of outstanding natural beauty?

Back to the father's comment - clearly he didn’t really care about the littering element in this instance but was just making some passive/aggressive statement in relation to my loud music.

I looked down the carriage at the small rolled up brown paper bag and nodded, “Oh yeah!” And then I rolled my eyes as if to say, “I’m such a forgetful clutz!” So I set off back to my seat, retrieved the offending item and walked back toward the door.

And I really was going to take it with me. Really I was. But as the train pulled into the platform and the doors slid open I heard the hateful, evil hag quite audibly say to her husband, “Some people!”

You…fucking…uptight…bitch, I thought to myself. I casually turned around, looked her straight in the eye, held my arm out and dropped the paper bag right at her feet before giving her the most insincere parting smile (think cute Japanese school girl – konitchiwa!). As I finally stepped off the carriage I hear the mother semi-yell “Asshole!” at me.

“No. I’m a clever asshole,” I yelled back through the passengers getting on the train. “You two are just regular assholes.”

I know what you’re thinking – that I was actually a bit of an asshole. But here’s what I say to you ... they pissed me off!!!

However, I learned my lesson. I will never listen to my music loudly on the tube again and from now on I will always take my litter with me.

*sulks*

I *heart* girls

I love my girlfriends.

For instance this evening, freshly washed and aching from the gym, I knocked on my friend Lindsay's front door and quickly ruffled my still slightly wet hair. Eventually, eventually, she answered and before I had the chance to say anything she practically collapsed into peals of laughter.

"What?!"

"It's just so, er, so...cute! Chris, you look like Charlie from Busted!!!"

[Charlie from Busted]


The thing is I don't look anything like Charlie from Busted, but regardless I love her for saying it. My boys, despite being gay, would still rather playfully punch me in the arm than pay me such a brilliant compliment.

My Grandfather

The other day Maggie Hambling’s sculpture of Oscar Wilde became the unfortunate victim of vandalism when the vandals sawed off the offending fag. I know what you’re probably thinking, but no. This was not an act of homophobia. He was not vandalised because he was a famous bummer, but because the sculpture depicts him smoking. The vandals removed the cigarette he was holding in his hand!

A few weeks ago a French magazine airbrushed a Cartier Bresson photograph of Jean Paul Sartre appearing in the publication – a familiar practice in modern publishing, only this airbrushing procedure was to remove the cigarette from between his fingers.

I couldn’t help but wonder what both Wilde and Sartre would have said if someone had told them that there would be a point in the future where society would be more concerned by each ones lack of regard for their own health than for their “depraved, amoral, scandalous opinions and actions”? I’m pretty sure they would have found it highly amusing. In a way I suppose it’s a pretty good, if not ironic, indictment of how society has started to get it’s priorities right.

On a not entirely unrelated note, after having smoked for 60 years my 86 year-old Grandfather has finally quit. It would be a misnomer to cite his quitting as a good health measure as the cancer that is riddling his chest is gonna be taking him down pretty soon anyway. I saw him yesterday and congratulated him. With a wry smile he quipped, “Well, it was never doing me much good.”

A few years ago I worked on the Department of Health’s anti-smoking campaign. One of my roles was to organise publicity for an ad that Christy Turlington had appeared in for the NHS Smoking Helpline, in which she talked about losing her father, Dwayne, to smoking related lung cancer. During the media tour to publicise the commercial Christy, my boss and I had a lunch, over which we discussed some of the things that no one tells you about lung cancer. She said that while nursing her father the thing that struck her most was the smell of the cancer in his lungs. She said it wasn’t in itself an unpleasant smell, but for her it literally was the smell of death.

Prior to yesterday the last time I saw my Grandfather was at Christmas. He was diagnosed with having lung cancer back in October last year, so I was aware at Christmas that he had it, but he’d actually appeared to be fairly healthy and in fairly good spirits. When I saw him yesterday (he moved from my aunt’s house to the nursing home that my Mum works at last week) I was really, really shocked at how quickly he had deteriorated. He’s very, very thin now, almost skeletal in fact, and he has very little strength (for example, we have to leave the bathroom door open in his room because he can’t turn the handle). But what really bought it home to me was the smell that Christy had described. Before, when she’d mentioned that smell, there had been a part of me that had thought she was perhaps being a melodramatic supermodel. But sure enough there it was, enforcing me to visualise the cancer slowly, but surely, encroaching on his lungs.

At the very best he probably has about six months left. He knows that, although it isn’t really discussed. The thing is, he really wants to go back to my Aunt’s house, but it’s not a good idea as he has to climb the stairs to his bedroom and he isn’t really strong enough any more. Also, if he deteriorates any more while staying at my Aunt’s, he’ll end up having to spend his final days in an overcrowded ward at the Royal United Hospital in Bath. He’s able to stay where he is now and while he may not be able to close his bedroom door and while he may not have his family around him all the time (although as Mum works there, so he’ll see a lot more of his family than many of the other residents), he will be able to stay there until the end and it’ll be a lot more dignified and comfortable than the alternative.

The hardest thing for my Mum and my Aunt has been having these kinds of discussions with him without actually really referring to the finality. They’ve been doing their best, but they tend to get very emotional when talking to him, as he himself gets quite upset and tearful. So part of the reason that I went over to see him yesterday was not only to pay him a visit but because my Mum wanted him to receive another voice of opinion, to help him make a well informed decision as to what to do and where he wants to be.

I’d already told Mum that I wasn’t going to be softly, softly with him, because he’s already getting that from her and my Aunt. So I went in by myself and sat down next to him and for a while we talked about the football (clearly, being gay and knowing nothing about football, I talked a lot of crap). Then I began to steer the conversation onto the subject of his care.

I began by telling him that I didn’t like the colour of the walls in his room and that I was going to bring in some pink paint and a ladder so that he could decorate, which made him laugh (how my Grandparents haven’t clocked on to me yet, I will never know). Then I talked to him a bit more seriously. I told him that I wasn’t going to patronise him by beating around the bush. I asked him what the doctors had told him about his prognosis and he told me that they had said it would be a case of a few months (which I already knew). Then I said in that case I thought that going back to my Aunt’s wasn’t maybe the best thing to do and I explained all the reasons why he should maybe stay put - that it would be easier, more comfortable and that at the most important time he would have a greater degree of privacy than he would in a hospital.

We didn’t actually talk for very long, but he didn’t get upset which I was pleased about. I told him that he didn’t have to decide right then and there, but that he needed to tell Mum and my Aunt in the next day or so, so that they could prepare for him coming home if needs be. But I told him if he did decide to stay then we’ll bring him his TV and DVD player and that I’ll send him some DVDs. I asked him what movies he likes, fully expecting him to cite Gene Kelly movies, so I was a bit surprised when he said “Die Hard”.

When I dropped Mum off at the home this morning I popped in to see him for a few minutes and he told Mum and I that he thinks he has decided to stay put, which is good news. Apparently my Uncle had a similar conversation with him last night, so maybe together we’d convinced him. Anyhoo – it looks like I’m off into town soon to buy the Die Hard trilogy.

I wonder if I should sneak in a copy of Moulin Rouge or The Birdcage as well?

Hate something. Change something.

I am at home in Bath for the weekend, taking it easy, putting my feet up, eating cute Easter chicks. Real ones.

If I want to have the use of mum's car for the day I have to get up at 6am and drive her to work. After I dropped her off this morning I decided to take a little detour so that I could make the most of the early morning sun and empty roads (beautiful, beautiful).

As I ambled along the country lanes around Westbury and Dilton Marsh, my wandering hand found a CD in the door pocket of Mum's car. It was the promotional CD for Honda's "Hate Something" ad campaign. Only some of you will have seen this ad, but it features a diesel engine bouncing about primary coloured meadows as little animals and smiling flowers look on in awe.

With vaguely curious interest, I popped the CD on fully expecting it to be full of shite Dire Straits B-sides (chosen by some 60 year old Honda brand manager). I was delighted to discover that it was actually a great compilation of eclectic, classic sing-alongs including "ABC" by the Jackson 5, "I Love Your Smile" by Chanice and "Dream a Little Dream of Me" by The Mamas and the Papas.

But right at the end of the CD, the bestest, most brilliant song ever to, um, feature in a car TV commercial.

"The Grr Song" by Be Nice to the Pigeons - the one which features in the Honda ad itself! Download it here!

It was glorious. Mum's little car bounced along the roads, I sang badly using my broken vocal chords, little rabbits in the fields I passed by stopped shagging each other for a second so that they could fully take in this jolly, musical, speeding, tropical blue little fun wagon.

I had become the living embodiment of a car ad. And all was right with the world. Who'd have thunk?

I just read something...

...which made it very clear to me exactly why I need to take down my Gaydar profile.

In other news, it would appear that my agency won the car marque. Apparently they loved all our ideas.

I never doubted it for a second.