One. Of. These. Days.

I think I might have anger management issues. I am liable to do some really ill thought out things as a result of being on the receiving end of genuine stupidity, irrationality or poor service.

The other day I went to an appointment at the hospital to see a consultant about this. Upon observation the consultant told me that while there is still every chance that it will go away by itself, it might be worth operating on anyway.

"Rosie?" he called out to the nurse working at the station opposite our booth. "Can we fit Christopher in for an [insert name of unpronouncable surgical procedure here] this afternoon?"

The response was in the negative, so my consultant wrote me up an appointment request and sent me back to the main reception desk to get myself booked in for another day.

Imagine my consternation and frustration upon being told that the next available appointment would be on Tuesday, September 27. I told the receptionist, in no uncertain terms, that this date was totally unacceptable to me, not least because September 27 is my birthday and I'll be buggered if I'll spend the day having my eyelid splayed, scraped and sewn back up again. But more than that, five minutes previously my consultant had been under the impression that appointments in this place were so freely available that procedures could be carried out as quickly and easily as by calling out to the nurse in the station opposite.

This line of approach didn't really get me anywhere. The fact that the receptionist was a gay man with really bad highlights probably didn't help. No doubt my own gorgeous hair made him feel inferior.

Anyway ... I kinda lost it.

To cut a long story short I caused such a fuss over having to live with this hideous deformity barely noticeable lump for three and half more months that I managed to get the receptionist to agree to leave his post in order to discuss the situation with my consultant all the way back at the booth.

After a short, heated exchange I realised that the only way I was going to get these fuckers to concede to my demands was by threatening to go private - because clearly the possibility that I might unburden myself from an already overcrowded NHS waiting list would surely put the fear of God into them.

Cut to me walking out of the clinic with no appointment and very little dignity.

There was a time when losing your rag actually got you somewhere. Even if you made little or no sense, people would be so keen to get rid of you and your ranting that they would bow to almost any demand you made.

I can reliably inform you all that those days are gone. These days you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't.

Dumbass chicken agreement

Yesterday I accepted an invitation from someone at work to attend a brainstorm to think of media ideas for what was cited as "a breakthrough in snacking!"

This morning I learned that the breakthrough was nothing to do with potato chips which make people thinner or chocolate chip cookies that increase emotional empathy. No. The breakthrough is pre-packed, pre-cooked chicken pieces.

Aside from the fact that the likes of Tesco, Sainsbury, Asda, Marks & Spencer, et al, have been selling similar products for two or three years it is not an easy task to concoct credible story hooks to encourage the tabloid press to write about chicken pieces (which, incidentally, taste like processed cocker spaniel chunks. And yes, before you ask, I do know what cocker spaniel tastes like) unless you’re prepared to pay for Abi Titmus to wear a bikini made out of them.

(Which is, actually, not such a bad idea.)

But get this - I actually had to sign a confidentiality agreement to prevent me from talking about this unbelievable revolution in cooked chicken outside of work! Apparently it has never crossed anyone’s mind that by making me sign a confidentiality agreement for a new processed meat it might actually encourage me to talk to people about it.

Existential question

Why is it that even though orange cordial tastes nothing like real oranges, we still know what it is supposed to be? The same goes for almost every other* flavour of cordial: blackcurrant, lemon, apple, strawberry and especially fruits of the forest, which is actually how Radox Essence of Peach** shower gel might taste if you licked it off a Formica work surface.

The thing with orange cordial - is it because it looks kind of orange in colour and the bottle tells us that it is orange in flavour that our senses are convinced? Is it all another example of corporate conditioning and deception?

Either way, I am assuming that I could, hypothetically, concoct a brownish coloured, watery blend of charcoal and twigs and call it “Chair Leg Squash”.

It’s pretty profound, really.

* With the exception of Passion Fruit. Anything that has been artificially flavoured to taste like Passion Fruit, does indeed taste like Passion Fruit. Think about it! It’s true!

** Actually smells like Yardley April Violets eau de toilette***

*** Actually smells like old ladies****

**** Actually smells like Yardley April Violets eau de toilette*****

***** I think I’m in a K-hole

Fashion stock is down

For the last two days Sam, the account executive who sits opposite me, and Rachel, one of my fellow account directors, have been ploughing through various style websites in order to find out what “the” fashion item will be for Autumn/Winter 2005/2006.

Never missing an opportunity to demonstrate my extensive sartorial knowledge I have been helpfully reeling off trends such as “Big! Big! Big!”, “Ethnic” and “Capes!”

Now I should point out that neither Sam, nor Rachel (especially Rachel) are the types of cosmopolitan women who realise that metropolitan gay men are, quite simply, the frikkin Oracle when it comes to sound fashion advice. Sam and Rachel both live in Croydon. Nuff said. Therefore my advice has been met with mistrust, poorly disguised as surprised graciousness.

This morning Sam presented her final list of “must-have” items to Rachel. Cue lots of cooing from Rachel - “Oh, yes! Lovely, oh lovely!” – while I sat there and gnashed my teeth.

Finally Rachel gets to the bottom of Sam’s list and screams in delight, “Absolutely yes! Ponchos! Yes! Everyone is wearing them!”

I very, nearly spontaneously combusted.

The very point of a must have fashion item for Autumn/Winter 2005/2006 is that no one in Summer 2005 is wearing the bloody thing (which they aren’t, actually.) Also, ponchos had their time, which, with those in the know, finished at the close of winter in 2004. Ponchos have evolved … INTO CAPES!!! I said that, remember??!!

And if that wasn’t enough I just logged onto vogue.com and saw that Anna Wintour, the frikkin arbiter of conservative, yet deeply fashionable taste, wore this monstrous Vera Wang “thing” to the CFDA Style Awards in New York:



Still, all is not lost. Linda Evangelista still looks as damn fine as ever. Just look at the way she brings her left foot in at that perfectly jaunty angle. Perfection!



That was quite a gay post. I'm off now to chop some wood.

New vocation

At the weekend, because it was my friend Lucy's birthday, I went up to Birmingham to accompany her and my other friends to the dogs - a British expression for going to see greyhounds race around a mini-stadium, chasing an electric rabbit.

I discovered three important things about myself at the dogs:

1) I am not a born gambler I put down a total of £17.00 on the various races and I won a total of £0.80. So actually I didn't win anything. I lost £16.20.

2) My new favourite dogs are greyhounds. They are, apparently, very loving and contrary to popular opinion, don't need that much exercise. So my two bedroom, narrow, 1st floor apartment is the perfect living environment.

3) I am naturally gifted at sports photography. Look at the picture, below - see how I communicate the great speed of the greyhounds by not actually capturing them while in the frame. Cunning, huh?

The verdict

Ages ago, one of my friends said to me, "What if Michael Jackson is telling the truth? What if he didn't do anything?" I considered it for a few moments and then brushed the idea away. After all, grown men simply do not share their beds with young, unrelated boys.

This evening I'm asking myself a different question.

Have we all become really cynical? If he really, truly is not guilty, which is what we should now believe, I guess, then I suppose I should feel a little guilty for judging him. Although I'm not sure that I do.

Another thing struck me this evening for the first time. Not guilty. It doesn't have quite the same ring as "innocent".

"You're a drunk and a bad mother!"

A little while ago I heard on the radio that a Hollywood studio is going to make an all-star feature movie of Dallas. Fortunately it won't follow on from where the series and the three abismal TV movies left off and will start afresh, using just the basic plot and original characters.

Dallas was the first TV show I religiously watched as a young-un. A few years ago it was repeated on BBC 1 on Saturday mornings and you could watch three episodes back to back. I think over the course of six months my housemate, Alison, and I watched every single episode. I remember feeling a pang of something kind of like brotherhood upon realising that Pam and Bobby's offspring, Christopher, my namesake, was infact, when compared to John Ross Jr. ("Swellen" and J.R.'s sprog), a little bit poofy, even if he was only about 8 at the time.

The other day I was checking out the IMDB message boards for the movie and I saw that someone had put together a "dream team" of actors who they thought would be perfect in each of the roles. This got me rather over-excited and for the past few days I have been paying very careful consideration as to who I would cast in each of the infamous roles. Bear in mind that I have tried not to be influenced by who played the character previously. Because that's what good casting is all about, dontcha know?

Dallas - The Movie
casting by Christopher [cue theme music]:

John Ross 'Jock' Ewing, Sr.
Paul Newman


Eleanor Southworth Ewing
Gena Rowlands


John Ross 'J.R.' Ewing, Jr.
Brad Pitt


Bobby Ewing
Christian Bale


Sue Ellen Shepard Ewing
Amber Valetta


Pamela Barnes Ewing
Catherine Zeta Jones


Cliff Barnes
Matthew McConaughey


Digger Barnes
Richard Gere


Ray Krebbs
Luke Wilson


Lucy Ewing Cooper
Elisabeth Harnois

I am not having a good day

I have fallen out with my mum over something really stupid which is, at the same, time rather complicated and serious.

Some of my friends are annoying me, which is a really unfair thing of me to feel, because they’re all actually good people and they're not trying to intentionally bug me.

But more than all of that I have written “5. Biggs” in my work day book and I can’t, for the life of me, remember why.

I just know that someone, tomorrow or later on in the week, is going to say “Blah, blah, blah, Biggs,” and I’ll suddenly remember what it referred to and it’ll signal the beginnings of an almighty catastrophe.

You know when you were young and your parents said to you that the years spent being a kid are the best of your life and you thought, “Yeah, right!”?

Oh, the pathos!

I love living in London right now...

... but when I hear that one of my friends in NYC might be watching Madonna's new tour documentary at a private preview with Ingrid Casaras and that this morning he saw Leo and Giselle smooching outside his apartment, I can't help but feel a little pang of "homesick-ness".

Throw Christopher from the train

A word of warning: never, ever get into an argument with me. I’m not necessarily saying that I’ll beat you, but either way it’s guaranteed that I will drive both of us a little bit crazy. I will, with no compunction, argue that black is white, especially when I feel that I am being dealt the short end of the stick. I will often lose all logic and sensibility to try and bring the situation round to my favour. Sometimes it works but most of the time it doesn’t.

Take yesterday for example…

On weekends and the occasional bank holiday Monday the various companies who operate the trains which run on the miscellaneous tracks which used to constitute the British rail network collectively run this offer whereby for an upgrade fee of £10 you get to travel First Class. On a Silverlink train this means that you get to sit in the partitioned section of the second carriage, separated from the plebs by a swing door that may / may not work depending on the efficacy of the vandals operating in the Willesden and Harlesden areas of North London. On a GNER or a Branson run Virgin train you get lots of leg room, very likely a table unit to yourself, a free sandwich, a cup of tea or coffee, biscuits and a copy of The Daily Telegraph or The Times if you are travelling under the steam of Mr. Branson

Because I have ideas above my station (Station! Ha-ha! Geddit!?) if I travel by rail at the weekend I almost always pay the upgrade and travel First Class. After all, £10 isn’t much money for afore mentioned luxuries.

This past weekend I went home to Bath to see my family and friends and to teach my Mum how to use her new Mac Mini (which in itself is worthy of a lengthy blog post.) Yesterday, at about 6pm, Mum dropped me off at Bath station and I hopped onto the train that would take me back to London.

As usual economy was packed, so I hauled my ass down to the First Class carriages and proceeded to make myself at home by taking over four seats and a table with my iPod, mobile phone, book, newspapers, sweater and hand luggage.

Not long after the train pulled away from the platform the ticket inspector entered the carriage and started asking us passengers for our tickets. Eventually he got to me and I produced my normal economy ticket and my Solo card and asked for the weekend upgrade.

Before I go on I need to explain, for the benefit of my non-British readers what a solo card is. How shall I do this? Oh, ok...

American Express Centurion = Versace*
American Express = Jil Sander
Mastercard = Miu Miu
Visa = Gucci
Switch /Maestro = Urban Outfitters
Solo = Target / George at Asda

* Because wealth and good taste do not always go hand-in-hand

Now, I should point out that I have, at various points in my personal life and career, been in possession of all of the above credit cards, except for the Centurion, which I am working on. I have even had a Coutts business account credit card which would have gotten me upgrades and access to premium class lounges at airports worldwide, but I had to give it back two weeks after I received it, because I resigned from my job.

The reason that I currently only have a Solo card is because when I lived in America my British bank account went stagnant or putrid or whatever the correct banking terminology is for an account which has stopped operating. As a result, when I returned to England, I was only allowed a Solo card and not a normal Switch card because the bank needed to see healthy account activity. Healthy meaning that my account should not go over the agreed overdraft facility. I’ll leave you to deduce why, after twelve months, I am still in possession of a Solo card.

Back to the story:

Inspector - “Sorry sir, but we don’t accept Solo. Do you have a Switch card?”

It was an affront to me that he was even insinuating that I would actually choose to pay by Solo if I was, indeed, in possession of a Switch or any other type of card for that matter. Also I immediately realised that I was facing the very real possibility that I was going to be made to do the walk of shame – ejected from First Class to Cattle Class, because I couldn’t pay a measily £10.

So I did what any gay man worth his salt would have done in the same situation.

I completely over-reacted.

Christopher (completely aware that hardly anyone or any company accepts Solo) - “But that’s completely ridiculous that you don’t take Solo! Besides, I’ve paid by Solo countless times before.”

Inspector - “You can’t have done sir. We’ve never accepted Solo.”

Instantly I realise that he’s completely correct and that, previously, I’ve always paid using one of my credit cards, all of which I recently cut up in the effort to streamline my life.

Fuck.

Christopher (out and out lying now) – “Well that’s just as ridiculous, because I paid for a train ticket by Solo just last week. Here, I have the receipt in my wallet."

As I search through my wallet for a non-existent receipt which proved I paid for a non-existent journey with a payment card that the company didn't accept I realised that I had pretty much lost my mind, but much more importantly, the argument.

I looked up at the inspector.

Christopher - "I'm going to have to move to economy, aren't I?"

He nodded.

Making the most almighty fuss I collected my belongings and slumped back off to economy where I was forced to sit next to some chav who was, while being scum (naturally), deeply attractive in a chav-y kind of way.

Eventually the same ticket inspector made his way up to Saddo Class and asked for my ticket. I knww that the bastard did this on purpose because his smile showed that he recognised me and he had already stamped my ticket when I was in First.

It took every micron of restraint I could muster to stop myself pouncing out of my seat and deftly cutting his throat with a quick swipe of my Solo card.

Nude

When I was younger I would do almost anything to avoid being alone. I was actually deeply insecure about it. Occasionally I would have these visions – really, really vivid waking dreams where I would be in the present but after some kind of apocalypse had taken place and I would be the only person in the world - completely alone.

That was a long time ago. As an adult, especially in my thirties, I really value the time that I get to spend by myself. The house that I live in is very conducive to being by one’s self. It’s homely and warm – alive. Maybe that’s the key – although I know I’m alone I feel that I am in the company of my home?

One of the things that I like most of all about being by myself is that feeling when you realise that you haven’t spoken out loud for hours and hours.

Last night I took the state of being alone one step further. While I am by no means a prude, I am not (always) comfortable with being completely naked (note the importance of the previous parenthetical!). Even if there is no one at home, I will generally put on some underwear before venturing from my bedroom to the bathroom to take a leak.

Last night I found myself at home, alone, wearing just a pair of tracksuit pants. For some reason I decided to be bold and took everything off to, you know, see how it felt, to see if I could just get used to the idea of being nekkid, without any sexual undertones, without feeling overly self-conscious or stupid.

So I “disrobed” and watched some TV and for a while I did feel kind of stupid. So I decided the best thing to do was to not just lie on the sofa, sans clothing, but to do stuff around the house.

So I tidied my room and hung out my washing (fortunately we have an indoor clotheshorse) and sorted through some of my clothes.

After that I was really completely oblivious to the fact that I was in my birthday suit. I decided that I would do the washing-up. So I stood there and washed the dishes and happily sang along to Fleetwood Mac.

As I finished cleaning the last dish I looked up and saw the guy who lives opposite us, stood in his kitchen window, staring directly at me. For a moment our eyes locked. And then we both scurried away with that unique brand of acute-embarrassment that is very poorly disguised as some sort of vacant absent-mindedness.

Needless to say I was somewhat mortified. So I went and put my tracksuit pants back on.

And a yashmak.

You know technology has a lot to answer for ...

... when you get invited to your friend's wedding by text!

Back in the saddle again

So the boy from DTPM and I … hold that thought. I need to give him a pseudonym. Ok, how about DT-boy? Yeah, that works.

So DT-boy and I have been rampantly emailing and texting each other for the past 48 hours. Already he has complemented me on my abs and my dress sense (which is extraordinarily perceptive of him, given that for most of the night I was only wearing a pair of Abercrombie cargo pants and a stupid grin.) As we all know, this is a sure fire way to my heart (and my loins.)

And just a few minutes ago he wrote (1% paraphrasing) “I remember enough about you to know that I definitely want to see you again.”

Phew! I haven’t been “pursued” for ages! Not since Jake! This is great!

Unfortunately we’re both incredibly busy boys and the soonest we can see each other is next Tuesday. Which is actually kind of good because it means that things are forced to move slow.

There is a small problem though.

I can’t remember what he looks like.

A novel way to deliver groceries

Quitting smoking has given me the impetus to make other changes in my life - some of them small, some of them big.

One of the bigger ones is to start eating properly in order to be more healthy and to spend less money - i.e. not constantly ordering from Deliverance and making my own lunch as opposed to buying it from Prêt.

London, geographically, is not hugely dissimilar to Los Angeles. It's a vast, sprawling city, with many boroughs and towns, albeit with a fairly workable public transport system. Still, without a car (I can't rely on using my housemates) a weekly shop without recruiting a taxi-cab can be a bit of a nightmare and when your local supermarket is in Brixton it is actually an experience to be avoided at all costs.

Last week I decided to try online grocery shopping with Tesco (interesting tidbit - when I was a student and but a lowly checkout cashier, I was the fastest "scanner". We'll forget the fact that, as a result, your groceries were pummeled as I threw them into the packing bin at supersonic speed.)

Now there is a cost to online grocery shopping - the £3.99 ($7.27) delivery fee. But still, that's a small price to pay to have them delivered straight to your door. And if that wasn't good enough, the system remembers what you ordered from previous weeks so all you have to do in future is click a box. It's amazing and almost arouses me sexually. Almost.

Last week was the second week that I ordered my groceries online. Saturday was extra special because I had ordered the ingredients to make Oatmeal and Raisin cookies, Mama Christopher style. So, imagine my excitement when the front door buzzer went.

Sorry, before I continue, I need to tell you that I live on the first floor (for my American readers, that's the second floor) of an apartment block. To get into the building you have to buzz up at the front door and when I've answered I press a button and you're allowed in. Except that our front door is currently broken and whenever someone wants to come up one of us has to go downstairs and let them in. It's most annoying, but apparently no one in the building can be bothered to let the building managers know about it. Including us.

So I answered the buzzer.

"Hello?"

"Delivery."

"Ok. The door doesn't work, so I'll come down and open it."

As I am only wearing a pair of tighty-whities I desperately run around the apartment trying to find a pair of PJ pants. While I am doing this I can hear the delivery guy hammering away at the door downstairs, trying to get in.

Miraculously, in about 15 seconds I am halfway decent. I lift up the intercom phone again and repeat. "Don't try and push the door open. It doesn't work. I'm coming down right now!"

I open the front door run down the stairs, arriving in the hall at just the right moment to witness the delivery-man literally kicking the door down!

"What are you doing?"

"The door wouldn't open."

"So you thought you'd kick it down? I told you it didn't open and I was coming down."

"No you didn't."

So instead of getting into an argument I collect myself and calmly try to explain why kicking the door down is not acceptable behaviour from a Tesco delivery-man. But in the back of my mind I remind myself that this is only the second week I've used to service so maybe it actually is.

Either way, my calm, rational approach did not go down well with the very argumentative and belligerent delivery fuckwit. In the end I conceded to his point of view and just grabbed the computer sign-y box thing and gave him my autograph for the groceries.

As he leaves I decide that actually I'm not going to take this crap lying down so I call out to him. "Hey! What's your name?"

"Peter Jones," he shouts over his shoulder. I immediately doubt this, not only because the man is black and sounds like he comes from Jamaica, but because Peter Jones is the name of a famous London department store.

I went back to my apartment and called the customer service centre. The representative I spoke to was appalled and shocked at the story I told her. Clearly she was used to people complaining that all their eggs were broken or that they had received a 200g of Tesco Economy Mature Cheddar as opposed to the Demi Pont L'eveque that they actually ordered. Oh and she also confirmed that my order was actually delivered by a man called something not at all like Peter Jones.

We finished our conversation with me understanding that the representative would talk to her supervisor and decide how the situation could be addressed and resolved to my satisfaction.

That was Saturday morning and it is now Tuesday evening. Has anyone called me back? What do you think?

Someone at Tesco HQ is going to get a right earful tomorrow morning. They were going to get an earful this morning too, but I forgot to call them.

It's good to gloat.

I just had to record this here for posterity:

Last night I went to DTPM and ended up kissing the same guy I kissed the last time I went. Only this time he asked for my number. We've spent the majority of today on our respective sofas, texting one another.

I just got this:

"Well u are a handsome guy, but u have the most incredible abs...I couldn't stop touching them last night!"

Me! Abs!!! Bless him! No one has ever said that about me / my stomach before!

Clearly he made out with someone else last night.

Which of these scenarios is the worst?

A) Walking past a busker who is playing guitar and singing "My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion, thinking Ooh! That's not a bad rendition!, yet not offering the busker any spare change.

B) Walking past a busker who is playing guitar and singing "My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion, thinking Ooh! That's not a bad rendition!, not offering the busker any money, then finding and listening to the song on my iPod.

C) Having "My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion on my iPod.

Hmm...

Hayden Christensen's sexuality is drawing an unprecedented amount of people to my blog.

Suckers!

Christopher's Choice

If I were a superhero I would very probably be a sinister Tim Burton-esque type character. I would call myself something like Grosslyunfortunateboy, for example. In the past year I have suffered from a broken jaw, vocal chord paralysis, strydor and a blocked salivary gland. The latter, if you recall, required "milking".

*shudders*

On Saturday I went to a pub in my old stomping ground, West Hampstead, to watch the FA Cup Final with Lynda, Alison, Robbie and Richard. Actually I did less "watching football" and much more "getting in the way of the big TV screen", much to the irritation of the local punters.

At one point during our conversation, Robbie (who is going to be a father in two weeks time) starts to look strangely at my right eye. "Do you have a sty?"

"No!" I tell him, and, irritated, touch the "offending" eyelid with my finger.

What I find is not a sty. I've had many a sty before and they are not like what I found this time - hard and not painful. A lump, basically.

Great. Cancer.

I start to wonder if I'm going to have to have my eyelid removed. Will I have to wear an eyepatch, Darryl Hannah / Kill Bill style? It has not escaped me that whenever faced with a crisis that will affect my appearance (you may laugh, but if you are a regular here you will know joke I most certainly do not) my first thought is, "But will boys at DTPM want to kiss me?"

(I can reliably inform you that in the instance of a wired-up broken jaw, the answer to this particular question is, "no.")

This morning I went to my doctor. My doctor is, quite simply, the best freaking doctor in the entire northern hemisphere, nay, the world. I know this, because by lightly touching my eyelid for a fraction of a second he knew that the lump was not malignant but actually a simple Meibomian Cyst.

Amazing.

My doctor told me that I have two options. The first is that I rub the cyst with a warm flannel every night, for five minutes before I go to bed for the next month. He clearly doesn't know me very well. If he did he would have understood why I could barely suppress my mirth for, oh, about ten minutes.

The second option is that I have surgery to remove it. "Most people don't elect for this option, because it's not a very nice procedure."

Oooh! Surgical gross out! I lean forward and excitedly, and slightly conspiratorially, whisper, "Why? What do they do?"

"Well," he explains, using that incredibly patronizing I'm a medical professional and thus very clever - I have your eyelid life in my hands tone. "It's not a general anesthetic procedure. You receive a local anesthetic and you can see everything they do to you. Or at least you can see the surgical implements coming towards your eye. Most patients who have a Meibomian Cyst elect for the non-surgical option."

I think it over, but it doesn't take long to come to a conclusion. DTPM plus Meibomian Cysts. Hmmm.

No prizes for guessing what I opted for.

Up in smoke

I have been a smoker since the tender age of 18. I started when I was at art-college, because it was a way to hang out with Craig Piercy in his car in the campus car park. Craig was and probably still is one of the most beautiful men I have ever been acquainted with – all baby blue eyes, eyelashes like elegant spiders and long blonde hair. He majored in pottery, so he was always dirty looking. There’s definitely something about a guy in jeans and a white, clay-streaked T-shirt, especially when that guy is hotter than, dare I say it, Hayden or Clive, both sweating and standing directly over the Equator.

Sadly, my relationship with Craig did not progress further than deep, post-pubescent tête-à-tête’s. My relationship with Marlboro Lights, however, proved to have substantially more longevity.

As most of you know, five weeks ago I had surgery on my throat. To cut (har-har!) a long story short, the surgery was not as successful as I was hoping for and in actual fact seemed to be detrimental to both the quality of my breathing and my voice.

Three weeks ago he accompanied me to Brighton to another consultation with my throat surgeon. During the consultation my surgeon asked me if I had given up smoking, to which I regretfully responded by telling him that I had not. In no uncertain terms he told me that if I was going to have any chance of getting better I had to stop smoking. No question about it. I just had to stop.

So immediately following the appointment Drew frog-marched me to W.H Smith and made me buy Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Stop Smoking, which three of my friends, Drew included, have read to successfully quit smoking. I actually bought it myself a couple of years ago, but in retrospect I don’t think that I was actually ready or prepared to stop smoking, so it didn’t work. I’m also not a big proponent of self-help books, or of therapy in general, having stumbled around under it’s “jurisdiction” for many, many years.

Not only because of my own health, but seeing how smoking induced lung cancer had recently consumed my Granddad, this time I was ready. In essence, the way the book works is by deprogramming you, while making you smoke at the same time. It forces you to challenge and re-evaluate all the subtle lies you, as a smoker, have told yourself over the years. One of the most fundamental of these is the concept of “giving up” smoking and understanding that this phrase is a total misnomer, because in actual fact you are giving up nothing and gaining everything – health and money to name but two of the obvious benefits. The book was so effective that by the time I was half way through I knew that I was already a non-smoker. Every cigarette was a nightmare and painful to smoke. By the time I reached the last chapter and was told to smoke my last cigarette I was relieved to say the least.

That last cigarette was two weeks ago today. Two weeks might not seem like a long time to you, but consider this – that is the longest I have voluntarily not smoked for eight years when I last attempted to give up, using the old fashioned willpower. That last time I was literally gagging to smoke for most of about four weeks.

This time has been completely different. I am quite simply a non-smoker now. One of the things the book tells you to do is to not avoid the situations where you would normally want to smoke, because the successful ability to get through these situations, during this withdrawal period, will provide the impetus for continued success.

Since I became a non-smoker two weeks ago I have been clubbing four times, been on two major benders and have been out for four dinners. I have had only one “moment” – two days after quitting while waiting in the queue for Ghetto with this man. Fortunately he refused to give me one of his, which I am glad about, because I would have been so mad at myself and probably would have killed him.

I cannot exaggerate what an achievement this is for me! Anyone who has known me for any amount of time will tell you that there was every possibility that I would be a smoker until my smoking-catalyzed dying day. The other thing is that I find myself noticing smokers so much more than I did when I was a smoker and I’m regarding them with pity. There is something about someone walking down the street, puffing away on a cigarette that is so NOT attractive - they are in fact a drug-addict. I can see now what all my friends saw when they looked at me and I have to say that I’m a little embarrassed.

So – me … a twenty a day smoker, now smokes zero a day, with no pangs at all and I keep finding myself smiling or giggling at the thought of how ridiculous I used to be.

Now, I wonder if Allen Carr has written an Easy Way to Control Your Crack Habit?

Hayden, he no gay - part deux

As you may recall, I recently embarked on a small mission to uncover the truth about those Hayden Christensen "gay" rumours.

It has always seemed to me that gay men, in particular, are extremely willing and eager to believe the rumours about Tom Cruise / Richard Gere / Brandon Routh / Kevin Spacey / Matthew McConaughey / Hayden Christensen / Robbie Williams / et al.

The thing with a rumour is that is all it usually is. In the absence of a truth or a fact, a rumour will always be a rumour. I get to work with many entertainment reporters from newspapers, magazines and TV shows alike. These people get sent picture evidence of celebrity un-doings all the time, but many of those pics are unprintable because they are just too far over the line. One of my journo contacts at Heat magazine (the British equivalent of In Touch) told me that she once received pictures of a certain British supermodel unconscious at some party, with a hyperdermic syringe still inserted into a vein in her arm. She told me that in the UK or the US, that type of picture, 99% of the time, would never get printed. It's one step too far. But she told me that what definitely would get printed is a picture of Robbie Williams kissing his boyfriend on a sunlounger at the Sunset Marquis. Except, she told me, she has hardly ever received a picture of a celebrated man or woman kissing or embracing their respective boyfriend or girlfriend.

This does not, of course, mean that there are no gay celebrities working in the entertainment industry today. Like, duh! But it would be naive of anyone to think that Tom Cruise publicly outing himself would have either little or no negative impact on his box-office stock. With that in mind one can assume that any A-list actor working in Hollywood today would go to desperate measures to cover up the truth about his or her sexuality.

But consider this - these stars are followed and photographed constantly. People slip up, all the time. And when you consider how easy it is, these days, to take photographs of anyone in any situation, incredibly discreetly, it seems "moderately" inconceivable that there is still no picture evidence of any of this apparently rampant celebrity gayness.

It's not really surprising that many gay men (myself included) want the likes of Tom Cruise to be gay. After all, we have so few role-models (although I'm not sure Tom Cruise is really worthy of anyone role-modeling themselves on. Shagging, maybe) in the entertainment industry. I have to wonder though - would Tom Cruise be quite as desirable if he were out? Isn't the allure in the fact that we don't really know for sure?

Regardless - however damning the rumours appear to be, in the absence of afore mentioned truth / fact, 100% of the time I will always regard any kind of rumour, whether it relates to a celebrity or a close friend, with reservedness.

But I'm allowed to have my suspicions. Mr.Christensen - I am not convinced about you. I certainly don't believe the tabloid rumours that Hayden is currently pashing Kevin Spacey - a hug is, in my eyes, not damning evidence. But when I saw this clip of Hayden and Ewan McGregor sharing a "moment" outside the London premiere of Revenge of the Sith, I couldn't help but wonder.

In this instance my gaydar is not screaming to me that Ewan is gay. But he is, by his own admission, very metrosexual. In real life and in his movies (anyone seen The Pillow Book?) he appears to be the type of guy who is both old enough and secure enough in his heterosexuality to not have a problem with kissing a man on the lips.

Hayden, however, as far as I am concerned, does not have the relevant case history. How many 24 year old, heterosexual men do you know who would feel comfortable kissing another man on the lips for a good second? A second is actually quite a long time in heterosexual-men-kissing-each-other-on-the-lips terms. What do you think?

Ok - you've probably guessed that I really want to believe this one particular rumour. Regardless of the truth, sadly I have to face that fact that even if Hayden is gay, it is unlikely that he will ever be my boyfriend. *sniff*

Still, no harm in extendedly briefly looking upon him and feeling vaguely weak in the presence of his beauty.

Hayden? J'taime.