Today, while attempting to learn what homosexuality is on Wikipedia, I discovered the most amazing and simultaneously heartwarming and heartbreaking thing ever!

Gay penguins!

(I'm not going to post a direct link to this information, because that would ruin the impression that I am something of a gay penguin expert, which for the purposes of today's post, I am.)

Meet Squawk and Milou, a pair of gay Chinstrap penguins. They are one of several pairs of such penguins kept at the Central Park Zoo in Manhattan.



(Squawk is looking rather flamboyant in that picture. I bet he's a bottom.)

Like their heterosexual counterparts, gay penguins mate for life. However, while the strong instinct for raising and co-operating in caring for a brood is still very much present, obviously gay penguins cannot have babies. Therefore once they have mated and built their nest together, gay penguins often use a stone as a replacement for an egg.

A stone! Seriously! Is that not the cutest thing?! There's something almost Dickensian about it. Like when I was little boy all my parents would give me for Christmas (because we were poor) was a lump of coal or a log (not entirely the truth) and I was always happy. Just as I am sure Squawk and Milou are with their stone.

A few years ago the gay baby Jesus (albeit in the form of some meddling, but well-intentioned zoologists) shone down on another pair of gay penguins at the same zoo. Silo and Roy's rock was replaced with a fertilised egg which they continued to incubate. Once the chick had hatched they raised and nurtured it as if it were their own.

Or at least that was what happened until Silo left Roy and their adopted chick for a female penguin.

I think the interesting point about all of this is not the proof that homosexuality is valid and accepted in other forms of existence, but that there will always be some utter bastard just itching to break your heart and abandon both you and your children.

That particular instance also just goes to prove that bisexuals are tossers (just kidding!!)

I've just got around to putting Just the Way You Are by Billy Joel onto my iPod. While the short-term analysis of the song could be that it is a criticism of perfection, albeit in the best possible way, it's still pretty much the perfect love song. It says exactly what you would want to hear from your partner: that they don't want you to change your hair and they don't wish you were smarter and they don't want you to go trying "some new fashion". To them you are perfect. They couldn't love you any more than they do.

Billy Joel wrote Just the Way You Are about his then-wife and manager, Elizabeth Weber (who he then went on to divorce, four years later). He's saying that he loves her because she's not perfect and that he could never leave her in times of trouble. The fact that they didn't stay together seems to make the song even more poignant.

When I got back from New York I was nowhere near being over my ex-boyfriend, Will (we had broken up just before I left.) Shortly after I moved in with Vix I asked her to look after all the little notes, love-letters and emails Will had written to me when we were together as I had a tendency to wake up in the middle of the night, read them and make myself really upset.

It took me almost a year to properly get over Will. It was in February of this year. I knew when I received an email from him and for the first time ever my heart didn't flip - I just loved him as a friend. That feeling of emotional release is such an amazing sensation. For so long I thought that I was never going to get over Will, that I would never meet anyone like him and that I would always love him from afar. Then suddenly I realised that I had moved on.

Yesterday I remembered those notes and decided to ask Vix for them back, lest they got lost in the annals of time! Aside from a Valentines Day card and a couple of emails, the notes mainly consist of musings that he would have written before leaving for work and then left on his pillow for me to find (he is a nurse and often starts at around 6am.) Obviously I'm not going to write them all out for you, because they're private, but one of them that I looked at yesterday read, simply:

No morning is a bad morning when I wake up next to you. I love you. W.

In his book Sex, Lies and Cocoapuffs, Chuck Klosterman talks about how songs like Just the Way You Are make him think about all of the perfectly romantic emails and notes he has written over the years for various girlfriends, each of them proclaiming his profound and enduring love.

Like him, in a way I hate the fact that those notes and emails that I penned for Will are still out there somewhere. Not because I didn't mean them when I wrote them, but because I meant them when I wrote them.

The good thing is that they are all a reminder that I have felt love and that I have been loved and that very possibly I'll feel it all again some day.

I can't think of anything particular to blog about today, so how 'bout some gratuitous man action instead ...



His name is Will Chalker and he's originally a builder from the east of London. He makes me feel all swoony and weak in the knees [insert crude joke here].

Today I went into town without a coat and for the first time in months I seriously regretted it. It was COLD! As if that wasn't enough, by the time I got home at 6pm it was almost dark. In fact as I type this it is pouring with rain outside. It's beating down so loud that I can actually hear it.

I kinda have the winter blues.

To try to cheer myself up I have been reminding myself that in eight weeks time I will be spending almost three weeks here with four other fabulous gayers, for the whole of the Christmas and New Year holiday.

It would have worked if it weren't for the fact that the occupiers of the apartment below us are playing Unchained Melody on a loop and so loud that it is almost making the room shake.

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?

I would like my future husband, whoever the sorry bastard is, to be:

1. Anally retentive about having clean bed linen on the bed at all times.
   
2. Really diligent about opening mail as it arrives.

You may have already guessed that I am completely rubbish at both of these things. This weekend I actually undertook three major tasks, two of which relate to the above. The third I will discuss in tomorrow's post. But for now:

For some reason I can sleep in the same bed linen for up to three months (disgusting, yes, but it has been known) and after that time it neither smells nor sticks. This is good, because I HATE HATE HATE changing bed clothes - to the extent that I will do almost anything to avoid doing it. You know, you have to picture it: Christopher, standing on his bed, violently shaking his duvet into a cover which refuses to fit. It's an absurd image, isn't it? Yes, it is.

Yesterday I changed my bed linen. It took only five minutes, but those moments felt like an eternity and were the most intolerable since, well, the last time I changed my bed linen. And I'm not telling you when that was. Anyway, to recap, I changed my bed linen. Round of applause, please.

For the past six months I have been placing all of my mail in a neat pile in the corner of the living room. I really hate opening mail. It's not like I get bills that need to be paid. All of my debts and bills are paid by Direct Debit or standing order and utilities are covered in my rent which, again, is paid by s/o. My problem, and this is a general problem, is that boring things get me down. Especially glossy leaflets from my bank featuring pictures of heterosexual couples, all happy and smiley, standing in the rain, underneath a huge umbrella, basically glorifying fixed-term mortgage schemes with a free ISA / PEP / Unit Trust. They make me want to kill myself.

Today, over lunch, my friend Louise told me a horror story about her boyfriend and a pile of mail which he had "filed" in the back of his wardrobe and she had found while snooping through his stuff. As he is currently in Barcelona for work she decided to organise his life in the UK, in preparedness for his return. While sorting his mail she happened to discover that a debt collection agency had become so infuriated by his non-compliance at offering payments to a loan of like 50p or something ridiculous, that they were about to send around the bailiffs.

The idea of bailiffs arriving at my front door freaked me out more than the idea of, you know, opening my mail. So this evening I sat down infront of the mountain of post and started to plough through it.

Now, as there was six months worth of correspondence to go through this was never going to be an easy task. So I applied a bit of logic. I figured that as my credit cards and bank cards were still working (for the most part) I could assume that there was nothing in any bank correspondence that needed addressing. This effectively culled at least 50% of the mail, which made the job much more manageable. The rest of the mail was just random receipts for internet purchases, hospital appointment notes that I had already diarised, etc, etc.

Then something brilliant / potentially horrible happened. I opened a plainly addressed letter from my bank, returning a State of New York cheque for last year's tax return, amounting to $490 (about 250 sterling!) The reason for the bank returning the cheque (or check for you Americans) was unclear, but I do know that banks, from time-to-time, do send foreign cheques back unpaid, so ultimately I could still cash it and get the money.

The potentially horrible thing is that the cheque is dated May 2004, which could mean that it is so out of date that it can't be cashed anyway. This is bad for two reasons:

1. It means I cannot fund the purchase of additional items to my new A/W 2005-06 wardrobe.
2. It further illustrate to me that it is WRONG to open mail.

If you are an American with expert knowledge on cheque expiry dates, especially those written by tax executives for the State of New York, I would be most appreciative if you could let me know if I might still be able to go shopping next weekend. Your payment will be a nice pair of winter socks from Marks & Spencer (maybe.)

This evening I went to the movies to see Annie Hall. I forgot how much I love that movie. And I'd never noticed that neither Alvy nor Annie actually say "I love you." (I just read the trivia section on iMDB.)

I don't consciously consider myself to be a Woody Allen fan, but I must be, because Annie Hall, Sleeper and Manhattan are three of my all-time favourite movies. I also really like Everyone Says I Love You. The scene where Goldie Hawn jumps and majestically sails up into the air, right next to the Seine, is one of my favourite scenes in a film.

Anyway, on the way home I decided upon something: I think I am a male Diane Keaton. I seriously think that she subconsicuosly inspired me to buy that waistcost a few weeks back. And the car that I often drive like a maniac is a VW. Proof, surely?

Just because I'm a PR extraordinaire with my finger on the pulse of popular culture doesn't mean that I'm not, from time to time, completely infallible.

Six months after it broke as a news story this morning I noticed that Smarties have stopped being sold in their traditional round tubes.

I agree with Val Oliver from England:

"Smarties in a box? Yet a further erosion of our national identity. What next, white Marmite?"

The apocalypse is surely upon us.

Last Wednesday night I met up with my friends Lara and Jon. We met each other in 1991, when I was studying at Swindon College of Art, the year before I went off to university.

As can be expected, much has happened to the three of us over the years. These days Lara lives just outside London with her boyfriend of 10 years, Toby, and works in a law firm. Jon did live in London for a long time, but now lives in Marlborough with his boyfriend, James and is a PA at an environment agency.

We each have remarkably different lives from each other now than we did in the days when we were at college and we would skip class, drive out to a remote hill overlooking Bath, listen to The Smiths on my car stereo and get really, really mashed from smoking cheap weed sold to us by Stoner Leo in life drawing. These days Jon likes nothing better than potting orchids and walking his dog, Moshi, over Wiltshire fields while Lara DJ's for fun once a week after transvestite bingo nights at her local S&M club.

And me? Well, you know. I do my thing.

But despite all of this, however much we've each moved on, however much water has gone under the bridge, however infrequently we see each other, all of those things ... within four hours of meeting up in Soho Square the three of us had got really drunk, been complained about by fellow customers for being too loud in a posh restaurant, tried on hooker shoes in a sex shop, looked at kinky sex pictures in an Erotic book cafe and taken stealthy pictures of cute boys in a gay bar.

I was nineteen when I met Lara and Jon and I'll be 33 at the end of this month. I've met a lot of people and made a lot of other very good friends since meeting the two of them. And I still have a lot of fun, a lot of the time. But every so often it's good to have 19 year-old fun. And to be reminded that while, yes, you are a bit older, you're not always a lot wiser.

Because who wants to be old and wise if it means that you can't accept your friends sticking paper napkins up your nose without seeing it as a sign of affection?

Yesterday afternoon I was trawling through the IMDb message boards for Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction (I feel that I should point out that I wrote my university thesis on film noir and how the genre had evolved from its hey-day in the 1940s and its revival in the 1990s, using Double Indemnity and Basic Instinct as examples. That's the only reason I was interested and not because I wanted to see any more gratuitous leg-uncrossings.)

On my travels I happened to come across what must surely be the most hilarious plot translation in history. If this film is anywhere near as good as this translation it is going to be a critically acclaimed blockbuster of massive proportions!

(If there are plot-spoilers in this then they surely went over my head.)

I quote:

"You minds on whichever thing, on your erections, yours want matta to sweep to me. When tasks to fottermi, like the images? I know that you cannot answer to me, but thinks to us. As you would want to sweep to me."

There is some statistic in existence that says that after the age of 25 you are 75% likely to meet your life partner through your place of work. What with being asked out by lesbians and the like, it would appear that I am amongst the remaining 25%.

For a while now (two and a half weeks) I have known that Paul, the breathtakingly cute, pocket-sized account manager who sits opposite me, is straight. But this has not stopped me having un platonic crush on him: i.e. whenever he asks me something I, ever so slightly, lose my professional cool. Also, he is incredibly private and never ever talks about anything aside from work. This is good because it has allowed me to elaborate upon the notion that he is single and therefore desperately lonely and could very well be tempted over to the dark side.

My delusions were shattered this morning when, in an unprompted and spiteful manner, he practically vomited forth the information that yesterday his girlfriend had some hair extensions put in. His girlfriend.

I hate her. Hair-obsessed bitch.

Upon further reflection (and after having watched three more episodes of The OC) I realised that being asked out for a drink by a lesbian is exactly the kind of thing that might happen to Seth Cohen, which made me feel much better.

And then I remembered that I had been asked out for a drink by a lesbian and I felt depressed again.

Last week I bleached my hair to within an inch of its life, but, as is the usual story, I soon decided that punky-blonde probably wasn't befitting of a soon to be 33 year-old, professional publicist. So last night I dyed it back to its usual dark brown colour.

This (coupled with the fact that I watched six episodes, back-to-back, of The OC on Sunday night) encouraged me to try out a new look, which I am sporting today - cute / intellectual / preppy. Basically an older Seth Cohen. I'm wearing old scuffed-up, white Adidas Superstar trainers, faded blue jeans, a fitted white cotton shirt and a navy-blue pinstriped waistcoat. I did try accessorising with a neck scarf, but decided that it was a bit too dandy and opted to just wear my specs instead (usually only worn in front of the computer or when I'm watching TV.)

I think that the effect is really quite devastating and my new, shiny mop of chocolate brown totally hits the mark. The result is that I have already been asked out for a drink by someone I work with.

Unfortunately that person is a 22 year-old lesbian called Grace.

I'm so depressed.

This weekend, in the changing room of my gym, I unfortunately bore witness to a pale, unattractive, naked man lift his leg up onto a bench and apply a stick deodorant to the whole of his undercarriage. He was not being discreet.

The only logical reason that I could think of as to why he was doing this was that he was expecting someone to be paying a "visit". Obviously I had to think about this some more and I couldn't decide which would be the worse - Sure 24 Hour stick deodorant, or the general funk of, er ... well, you know ... the other.

So, when I got home I licked my roll-on deodorant on decided it would be the former.

Yesterday I received a group email from a friend in NYC, giving instructions on how to help out with Hurricane Katrina relief effort at the American Red Cross Centre. Given that I now live a few miles out of town I found myself limited as to how much help I could provide. This morning, after having read more horrifying newspaper reports of the situation, I made a donation.

I'm ashamed to say that making charitable donations is not something I do very often. I generally mean to, but I never quite get around to actually doing it.

However, there was a time when your favourite, superficial and vacuous PR luvvie was a tad more conscientious. As a university student I started spending time with my friend Clare, this woman and their other female university buddies. Any of them will provide expert witness that prior to knowing them I was shockingly ignorant about, well, pretty much everything. I would often be harshly berated for making various un-pc comments, such as, "I think Sharon Stone's character in Basic Instinct is a positive depiction of bisexuality." Clare would actually dub my visits "PC training."

Clare and her friends encouraged me to read the newspaper and to stop reading The Sun (even though I do still scan it for work purposes. Er, um ...) For many years my newspapers of choice have been The Guardian and The Observer: the two publications at the furthest-left of British newspaper reporting and social commentary.

As I began to understand issues such as the world domination by *copies from PC dictionary of 1992* capitalist societies through rampant consumerism (Ann shopping at Liberty) Clare and Co. began to invite me to political street marches. Soon after I took their lead and joined Amnesty International and wrote letters to the leaders of oppressive regimes on behalf of prisoners of conscience such as Aung Sang Su Chi. I even sold Socialist Worker newspapers. Once. For an hour on a rainy Saturday afternoon. In fact all I really did was just stand next to the guy selliung them. Although I did once carry aloft a Socialist Worker banner that Ann and I found on the side of the road during the Criminal Justice Bill march of 1992. We thought it would make cute male demonstrators notice us more (they didn't.)

But I think my fondest memory of personal charity was when I was a final year university student. I lived in the red-light district of Southampton with my gay friend Anthony and my girls of the time, Nikki, Vei and Karen. During the infamously harsh winter of 1994 we would often make cups of tea for the hookers working on the pavement just outside our front door. They were always very nice and very appreciative (not too appreciative) and would tell us shockingly salacious stories involving their dirty-old-man clients. I remember there was one hooker though who was rather tight-lipped (to coin a phrase) and would never disclose anything interesting at all. We didn't make tea for her for very long.

An sad indication, perhaps, that true altruism doesn't really exist.

Last night I drove to the supermarket to buy a whole host of healthy foodstuffs for consumption over the course of the next week. I spent a good forty five minutes working the aisles, being seduced by everything from pineapple and coconut juice, bramley apple pork sausages and chilled rose Zinfandel.

While I was loading my groceries onto the conveyor belt I overheard the assistant inform the customer in front of me that her bank card had been declined. The customer, looking rather embarrassed, turned to her partner and meekly asked him if he would pay for the bill on his credit card, which he did and without complaint, but not before planting a gentle kiss on the top of the woman's head.

Despite the man's obvious affection towards his girlfriend / wife, I couldn't help but feel slightly smug over the fact that I really didn't need a partner to foot my bill.

That was until about five minutes later, when my bank card was also declined.

I have never felt lonelier in my entire life.

On Sunday, because I was going clubbing later that evening, I decided to buy myself a session on the tanning bed at my gym.

On the way to the gym I stopped by the pharmacy and got distracted by the vast array of tanning products on the shelf in one of the aisles. One product that particularly caught my eye was called Solarimax. It was a smallish sized pump spray containing an attractive mixture of orange and yellow coloured oils that promised to "provide a supplement to the effects of an artificial tanning session - for a long-lasting, healthy looking glow."

When I got to the gym I went to the tanning room, locked the door, disrobed and sprayed the Solarimax all over my body before lying down on the sunbed and pulling the top down. Twenty minutes later I admired myself in the mirror - I did indeed look browner than I normally look after a regular tanning session. Solarimax was indeed a miracle. I couldn't wait to tell my friends all about my discovery.

Two hours later (and three hours before my friend was due to come to collect me to go to The Fridge) I began to realise that my skin colour was gradually turning from "long-lasting, healthy looking glow" to one-shade-off-tomato. I didn't even need to look at my face in the mirror to know that this was happening. I knew because my skin was prickling like I had been stabbed all over with a hundred small, but extremely spiky, cactuses.

Panicking, I retrieved the bottle of Solarimax from my gym bag to read the instructions, in detail (for the first time.) I was especially concerned that the label read "good for ten applications", especially as I had used almost the entire bottle in one.

So I did what any calm, rational, disintegrating homosexual would do, three hours before he was about to go to a club where the chances of him taking his top off were greater that 99%. I emailed my ex-boyfriend who is an ER nurse at a large uptown Manhattan hospital, telling him what had happened without, er, telling what had actually happened, i.e.:

"I fell asleep in the sun and now I'm sunburned and I'm going clubbing this evening. How do I stop being burned?"

Fortunately he was at work and happened to be near a computer so I got a reply within a matter of minutes.

"Girl, break out the Covergirl Matte Finish foundation."

Not the surgical answer I was hoping for. And anyway, I only own a Jean Paul Gaultier Le Male concealer pen and there was no way that was going to paint down my entire torso, shoulders, arms and face. So I Googled "sunburn remedy".

One of the websites I found suggested using everything from cold tea poultices to aloe, direct from the leaves. I didn't have time to chill some tea and my housemate doesn't grow aloe plants so in the end, with time seriously running out, I broke down and did a face and body mask using fresh Greek yoghurt straight from the refridgerator.

And believe it or not, it actually worked. It really did. And I even had enough left to have a small snack before my friend arrived.

Of course, what I hadn't actually considered during this fiasco, was that it is so dark in the club that I was going to I could have been a fluorescent shade of beetroot and still no one would have noticed.

The important thing, of course, is that I experienced this so that I could pass this knowledge onto y'all. Greek yoghurt, kids! Miracle cure, I'm telling you.

Next week on Everything is Not Real: cure herpes with raw egg yolks (and make a tasty, high-protein omelet with the leftovers!)

As you know I'm not exactly a huge fan of Tom Cruise. I was absolutely delighted when I read about Tom's marriage proposal to Katie Holmes in the Evening Standard for the simple fact that it gave the editors the chance to run the headline, "Tom Proposes to Katie in Gay Paree!" Ya' gotta love a clever, yet subtle, non-litigious character inferance.

I have just spent the best part of two and a half hours watching Mission Impossible: MI2. Previously I'd only seen it once when it came out at the cinema. This was during the days when I had little opinion of Tom one way or the other.

What struck me watching it again, is that, yes, while Thandie Newton is undeniably very, very beautiful, the main crux of the movie is not actually to entertain the viewers at all, but create as many opportunities as humanly possible, within a 180 minute window, to make Tom look as virile and handsome and clever and sultry, all in slow motion, than you could possibly begin to fathom. On second view all that this epic vanity project served to do was to irritate me beyond belief and I even *gasp* even began to hate Tom more than I did prior to switching on the TV. I mean I really, really hate him! And it also made me hate the fact that he is, in all likelihood, a fellow 'mo. He makes me want to become an anti-gay, right-wing Christian fundamentalist.

Now you might argue that it could be considered slightly odd that I have this opinion when I admit that I would certainly not pass up the opportunity to have le gay sex with him.

But I am, after all, a bit of a slut with very few morals, so it doesn't actually mean anything.

Ok, so it's a few weeks after the fact, but would you like to see some pics from the trip I took to Rome with my Mum? Yes? No?

Well you're going to see them anyway.

To set the scene, here is a picture of me and my Mum, so you know what she looks like:


Almost every time we got someone to take a picture of the two of us she would only remember after the picture had been taken that she hadn't removed her sunglasses. Almost*.

This is a picture of me in a Christopher-has-a-halo thang goin' on, with the occulus of the Pantheon above me:


Directly below the occulus, which is literally a hole in the dome, is a hole in the floor, presumably for the rainwater to drain away through.

Mum: "Hmmm ..."

Christopher: "What?"

Mum: "Why don't they just put in a proper stainless steel plughole?"

Christopher: "What?"

This is a picture of a traditional Italian ice-cream:


We ate a lot of these. Now, if you ever visit a Roman ice-cream parlour you are more than likely to be completely befuddled by the vast selection of every flavour and colour under the Sun and in the rainbow, respectively. I mention colour, because regardless of the fact that the flavour might actually be prawn, the pinky colour can be deeply seductive. Anyhoo, I can reliably inform you that the perennial pistachio flavour is still the best. Despite the fact that the colour looks like mould.

One time, while we were eating something like our twenty ninth ice-cream, my Mum turned and said to me, "Do you think Italians really eat ice-creams? Do you really think they eat pizza and pasta?"

Christopher: "Er, well ... I don't know. I imagine so, because they're Italian, aren't they."

Mum: "Well, do you think they're just for the tourists? I mean the British don't all eat fish and chips, but that's what we're famous** for."

Christopher: " ... "

This is a picture of my Mum and I inside the coliseum:


* Almost every time.

After looking around for about twenty minutes my Mum turned to me and said, "The Romans ... they were a lot like the Greeks really."

Christopher: "Why do you say that?"

Mum: "Well, you know. Because of Hercules."

Christopher: "I don't think you've really thought this through properly."

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not a horrible person. I love my Mummy very, very much. Hell, on Friday she put £200 in my bank account! But sometimes, just sometimes, I really question my parental / genetic authenticity.

But I will give her this. As a nurse / hairdresser, she may well have missed her vocation, because it was she who was responsible for taking this awesome picture of me sitting on the base of a column (!) at the front of the Pantheon. Marvel at the long-exposure setting! The composition! How cute I look!!!


** Someone please tell me that us Brits are not only famous for our fish and chips.

I'm not particularly into comic books, but I'm really into Superman. It was the first movie I ever saw at the cinema. So I'm highly anticipating the new Bryan Singer Superman movie, which is coming out on June 30th 2006.

This is a link to one of his video blogs - I think it features CGI prep for the flying sequences in the actual movie, but I guess it might also be for the video game. Not sure. Either way I have goosebumps.

But seriously, how HOT is Brandon Routh?

He's *this* hot .

Or maybe he's *tttthhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiissssss* hot?

Mercy.

This morning, at approximately 9.30am, I began to receive wafts of what seemed to be the most putrid case of halitosis, ever, in the history of history.

Now usually it's not possible to smell your own breath (unless you do that "lick forearm, wait ten seconds and sniff" thing.) However, because the team were all out at meetings and the nearest person was sat over 20 feet away from me, I could only deduce that it was indeed I who was responsible for manufacturing this revolting odor.

For the next two hours, as I ploughed through a beautifully prepared, 80-page document featuring statistical information garnered from an omnibus survey company, I felt mortified that I, the freaking self-appointed arbiter of good grooming, had developed a case of bad breath that would no doubt be sought after study fodder by the British Dental Association.

After I had completed my analysis of the survey information I closed the document and lifted it up to put it on the opposite side of my desk. As I passed it underneath my nose I received a great torrent of the afore mentioned foul-smelling effluvium and I instantly discovered that it was not myself who was emitting the breath-smell of a doddery, 80 year-old vicar, but the heavily lacquered document! You can only begin to imagine my relief.

Nonetheless (and because I always like to err on the side of caution), the incident has prompted me to book an emergency appointment to see my dental hygienist. It has also prompted me to make a mental note to never, ever use that particular survey company again, for no other reason than they actually made me doubt my grooming skills.

Yesterday that man and myself were sat in Soho square, with another friend, having lunch.

At one point he offered me a [insert name of round confectionery made by international chocolate conglomerate] which I readily accepted and chowed down on with much satisfaction.

However, after I had thoroughly enjoyed the small chocolate treat, I felt that it was both important and necessary for me to harshly berate him and make him feel guilty for buying the confectionery in the first place, as everyone knows that its parent company promotes and sells its powdered baby milk to mothers in poverty stricken countries for extortionately high prices. By the time that these mothers have run out of money to buy the product, it is too late for them to breast-feed their babies which, as a result, often die.

Of course my decision not to disclose the fact that this company is currently a client of mine was very important. Had he been aware of this information my argument would surely have fallen flat on its face.

Two weeks ago I bought my third iPod. I lost the first one in a fairly gay manner: I left it underneath a copy of Vogue that I discarded on a plane. Oh how I cursed Anna Wintour for not making that edition a collectors issue.

The second iPod, which I replaced last week (not enough room for my vastly-expanding music collection), did not receive such a odd fate (being found by some American Airlines cabin cleaner who will, no doubt, by now be singing along badly to Busted's What I Go to School For.) Well, perhaps it did. I don't know yet. With pure benevolence I gave it to my friend, this man (but not before discovering that I was not going to make more than twenty pounds by selling it on eBay.)

Before I continue it is important that you understand that prior to my bestowing upon him the afore-mentioned second-hand illustrious tune-playing gadget, he had always rolled his eyes any time I ever happened to drop it into conversation (which was, admittedly, fairly often) and had firmly resisted any attempt on my part to get him into the Apple store to, you know, check out the graceful, industrially-designed interior (not to get him to buy one, you understand.)

Of course, like so many people who have always declared loudly and proudly that they "never want children", he has taken to "parenthood" like Michael Jackson to [insert inappropriate analogy here]. Just the other day he proudly informed me that he had memorised the track numbers for a variety of Coldplay and Damien Rice ballads, and I admit to having felt slightly proud. (I also admit to having felt slightly smug over the fact that he had been so easily seduced by the iPod's sleek, shiny white facade.)

In addition to this I can now rely on him to email me, first thing in the morning, with the latest iPod news or hot tip. I'm sure you'll all think that this is quite sweet, which it is. But it also forces me to think something else ...

iPods have so had their day.

Anyone who visits my little blog with any regularity will know that I'm not very good at picking up threads from previous posts. From now on I'm going to try to be a bit better at doing that.

I haven't posted yet about my Grandma's funeral because I haven't really known what to write. After all, it's was a funeral. Unlike celebrations funerals are only ever, overarchingly sad. I managed to read that section from The House at Pooh Corner without sobbing, although my voice did falter on a number of occasions when I happened to glance over at my family for a just moment.

Anyway ... it was a funeral. 'Nuff said.

Over the past few weeks I've been doing a lot of thinking about Grandma. The main thing I can't get my head around (and I guess that this is true for everyone who is left behind) is the fact that for as long as I live I will never, ever see her or speak to her again. It's so obvious, but when someone has been a part of your life for over 30 years it's really quite hard to get your head around.

We all know that death is the only certain thing about life. So why is it almost always come as such a surprise?

At last ... it's official! Mark Feehily, the gay one from Westlife, is officially gay! I'm so glad because I always fancied him and clearly now that he is definitely a 'mo I am in a much better position to have a long-term relationship with him.

A question though ... is it "brave" to come out just as your star is irretrievably dipping out of sight on the horizon? In the meantime, I'm off to listen to "Against All Odds" and imagine that he's crooning to me.

There was a time, not so long ago, when I was sat on the upstairs bench infront of the Genius Bar in the Apple Store on Regent Street feeling as cool as fuck.

A few minutes after writing yesterday's blog post my iBook spontaneously expired infront of the technician and I was instantly down £180 and over a year's worth of photos, documents and really, really good porn, Godamnit.

Today I am sat in a a dingy, basement internet cafe in Soho, which smells like catpiss and furniture polish. I am wearing a pair of jeans which are too long and keep getting caught underneath my trainers and a T-shirt with a hole under the armpit. I am sipping from a lukewarm bottle of Volvic. I am writing my blog on an ancient "blueberry" iMac, which is, no doubt, secretly laughing at the fact that it has outlived my sleek, white iBook, by several years.

I want to kill someone.

* Not retrievable, unless I am prepared to pay £1,500 to have my old hard drive broken open and cloned.**

** If anyone would like to do this in exchange for sex, email me.

There was a time, not so long ago, when the idea of sitting and waiting for my computer to be checked over by a techno-geek would fill me with intense feelings of dread and uncool paranoia.

This morning I am sat on the upstairs bench infront of the Genius Bar in the Apple Store on Regent Street. I am wearing a vintage purple T-shirt, camouflage Abercrombie combats and Calvin Klein flip-flops. I am leisurely sipping a Starbucks mocha. I am writing my blog on my iBook, using the store's free wireless broadband.

I feel as cool as fuck.

My Mum and Dad were very young when I was born and didn't have an awful lot of money, so both often had to work during the day: my Dad as an engineer and my Mum as a hairdresser. Subsequently, Grandma, from only eight weeks after I was born, used to look after me, and a couple of years later, my brother a great deal.

When I was very young (you'll see what I did there in a moment!) one of my favourite things was to be read to, and one of the books I would always take to Grandma's house to be read to from was The House at Pooh Corner by A.A. Milne.

At Grandma's funeral on Tuesday I am going to do a reading. At my Granddad's funeral, a few months ago, I chose to read a chapter relating to death from Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet, which, as an adult, is one of my favourite books. Obviously I can't read the same section out again and I really don't want to read out one of those Hallmark-sentiment, copyright protected standard funeral readings, either.

So this week, while I was at home, I dug out my old copy of The House at Pooh Corner. The very last page is what I have decided to read on Tuesday. It seems kind of appropriate for more than a couple of reasons.

********

Christopher Robin, who was still looking at the world with his chin in his hands, called out, "Pooh!"
"Yes?" said Pooh.
"When I'm, er ... when I'm ..."
"Yes, Christopher Robin?"
"I'm not going to do Nothing any more, Pooh."
"Never again?" said Pooh.
"Well, not so much. They don't let you, you see."
Pooh waited for him to go on, but he was silent again.
"Yes, Christopher Robin?" said Pooh helpfully.
"Pooh, when I'm ... you know ... when I'm not doing Nothing, will you come up here sometimes?"
"Just me?"
"Yes, Pooh."
"Will you be here too?"
"Yes, Pooh, I will be, really. I promise I will be, Pooh."
"That's good," said Pooh.
There was a short pause and then Christopher Robin said, "Pooh, promise you won't forget about me. Ever. Not even when I'm a hundred."
Pooh thought for a little while.
"How old shall I be then?"
"Ninety-nine," said Christopher Robin.
Pooh nodded. "I promise," he said.
Still with his eyes on the world Christopher Robin put out a hand and felt for Pooh's paw.
"Pooh," said Christopher Robin earnestly, "If I ... if I'm not quite ..." He stopped and tried again, "Pooh, whatever happens to me, you will understand, won't you?"
"Understand what?"
"Oh, nothing." He laughed and jumped to his feet. "Come on!"
"Where are we going?" said Pooh.
"Anywhere," said Christopher Robin.

So they went off together. But wherever they go and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.

Just a quick post to say thank you for the messages and emails you have sent to me over the past couple of days. They have been very much appreciated.

I will admit that it's slightly surreal to think that, during times like these, there are people, all over the world, who are thinking about you. But it really means a lot to me and I am really touched.

Despite having been blessed with a healthy dollop of intelligence, I am not always the sharpest tool in the box.

For instance, you might think that because I have been sunburned on a number of occasions in my life, one of those occasions being so severe that I had to go to hospital, that I might be more than just a bit clued up on sun-protection.

But, no ...

Today my friend Helen and I went to Studland Beach (real name - even has a gay nudist beach!) to catch some rays, except that our plan was thwarted by an overcast sky that did not diminish as the day wore on. Regardless of the fact that I knew from first-hand experience that you can still be burned through cloud, I rebuffed Helen's lotion-ed advances and chose to lie out, au naturel, as it were.

Several hours later and I am forced to sit upright, cross legged, in the middle of the floor because I can't bear for the skin on my back to touch anything.

The only fortuitous thing about all of this is that I have just finished watching the pilot of Lost and I would have been on the edge of my seat anyway.

What's that expression? Something about not raining, but pouring?

I actually had, for the most part, a really lovely weekend in Rome with my Mum, but my relaxed mood was kinda ruined the moment I stepped off the plane. Shortly after switching my cellphone back on I got two calls.

The first was from one of my recruitment agents. I haven't blogged about this yet, but last week I accepted a job with a PR company which, for all intents and purposes, offered a working environment and a position that seemed to be the perfect match for me and my experience. The call from the recruitment agent was to tell me that the company had retracted the offer. It turns out that when the managing director informed the rest of the company that I had been hired one of the members of staff enquired why they hadn't been given the opportunity to apply. The long and short of it is that they ended up placing the internal candidate in the role and dropped me.

To say that I am mad is an understatement. On the one hand I am angry because I turned down second interview opportunities with a couple of other potential "suiters" as well as a couple of interim freelance placements. I was supposed to start work with this company on Monday. I am now without any kind of work for at least the next two weeks. And cash is not exactly abundant at present.

On the other hand I am relieved that I am not going to work for a company that does not understand basic professionalism, such as being really sure about the situation your company and your staff are in before offering someone a permanent job.

The second call I received was from my Dad telling me that my Grandma had died earlier in the day. It turns out that she had taken a turn for the worst over the weekend and what with everything that has happened to her over the last three weeks her body just couldn't handle it anymore and shut down.

I had pretty much already accepted that this would happen the last time I saw her. She was really, really not very well and I knew with 100% certainty that she wasn't going to make it. You know when you just know? So Dad's news wasn't as shocking as it might otherwise have been. The really sad thing is that because she died as a result of an accident, from falling over and hitting her head, there has to be a post-mortem examination, which means that the funeral can't held until next week sometime.

The good thing in all of this is that because I had accepted that job I was never supposed to be working this week, which means that I can spend a bit of time with my family.

Small mercies and all that.

I won't be blogging for a few days because I'm off to Rome tomorrow morning for a long weekend.

It should be an interesting trip, primarily for the reason that I'm going there with my Mum. When she received her inheritance from my Granddad I originally agreed to go on a two week holiday with her, to someplace exotic (I had my eye on Rio - no prizes for guessing why.)

However, I soon came to realise that two weeks in my mothers company would lead to either one of two eventualities: a) the murder of my mother at my own hands, or b) me, going insane.

So as a compromise I agreed to go on a mini-break with her. I'd like to say that we mutually decided upon Rome because I have had a life-long interest in the ancient Etruscan empire and because my mother would like to see, firsthand, where ecclesiastical bureaucracy bought about la Rinascimento.

But the real reason is that we have both read Dan Brown's Angels and Demons and we want to see the alcove in the Vatican where the anti-matter was placed.

As you know, a couple of weeks ago my Grandma had a nasty fall and had to have brain surgery.

In the subsequent 16 days since she had her accident, we, her family, are as much in the dark with regards to her overall prognosis as we were at the very beginning. Now clearly where brain injuries are concerned you have to allow for a greater degree of overall uncertainty than you do with other injuries or illnesses.

Admittedly, the fact that Grandma now has MRSA complicates things. Infections are not conducive to great lucidity at the best of times, especially in an 85 year old woman who has recently encountered major head injuries.

That said, I simply do not buy the "we don't know what is going on" spiel that the doctors are feeding us. But the most annoying thing is that we only receive that spiel after we have asked several times to speak to someone. In the past two and a half weeks we have only been able to speak to the doctors on only three individual occasions.

I feel really guilty for dissing them because I do genuinely think that they do a good job, but the doctors really need to be more forthcoming with information, especially when the patient concerned is not able to ask the pertinent questions. In their professional opinions there must be a number of avenues they can expect Grandma to go down, each with their own varying degrees of recovery / deterioration. All we want to know is what those avenues are, so that we are just a little bit prepared. My Grandpa especially needs to be prepared. He is currently deluding himself that she is going to make a full recovery and it is clear to the rest of the family, even with our lack of medical knowledge, that this is not going to happen.

One of the things about being gay is that you tend to forget that it's not out of the question that the opposite sex might find you attractive.

This afternoon, while I was working out at the gym, I happened to notice that the very attractive tall, blonde woman, doing bicep curls on the adjacent Swiss Ball, was checking me out. (Seriously! I was as surprised as you are!)

I have to admit that while I was most definitely flattered, the notion that she may have been having even the mildest of lewd thoughts about me did bring on a feeling of slight awkwardness.

Is this how straight men feel when they catch us gayers checking them out in the changing room? I guess the difference is that an advance on my part is coupled with the risk of being messed up real bad.

Whereas the worst the afore mentioned attractive woman could have expected to get from me would have been a slight knock-back, but accompanied by the feel-good factor of my telling her that she looked fierce in her hot pink Baby Phat velveteen track pants and white Calvin Klein sports vest.

The other day my housemate told me that the previous weekend she had plucked up the courage to tell her boyfriend that she was in love with him. However, she quickly added that she wasn't ready yet to say "I love you."

This confused me greatly. I asked her what exactly it was she had told him.

"I said to him, "I'm madly in love with you.""

"Not, "I love you"?"

"God, no! I'm not ready to say that yet!"

What followed was a very lengthy and annoying conversation about the differences between saying "I love you" and "I'm in love with you". Apparently all my life I have been completely oblivious to the fact that the latter is much less intense.

I'm still not entirely convinced that there is a difference between the two at all, but it's hard to argue the semantics of amour with an opponent who thought she was Pippi Longstocking as a child and as an adult models herself on Ann of Green Gables.