Yesterday, Ken Turan wrote in the Los Angeles Times:

"So for people who were discomfited by Brokeback Mountain but wanted to be able to look themselves in the mirror and feel like they were good, productive liberals, Crash provided the perfect safe harbor. They could vote for it in good conscience, vote for it and feel they had made a progressive move, vote for it and not feel that there was any stain on their liberal credentials for shunning what Brokeback had to offer. And that's exactly what they did."

It's cynical, but I can't help but see that there is at least a grain of truth there. It's totally conceivable.

I've never been one to moan about my lot, where being gay is concerned. I love everything about being gay and my first reaction to Brokeback Mountain was to be grateful at how lucky I am to be able to be who I want to be, in this country and to have never, ever felt real fear or oppression.

But then I have only ever been gay in London and New York. That makes it so easy for me.

Manscaping: do's and don'ts

Because I am a responsible gay man I like to keep my nether regions in a good state of repair.

On Saturday evening, in advance of a night out on the tiles (and because I hadn't been laid in exactly three weeks) I decided to do a bit of man-scaping, most particularly around my sack and my crack, but not my back because, well, I don't have any hair on my back.

For the uninitiated amongst you, there are four main reasons for removing excess hair from your or your partner's man-bits:

1) General trimming back to a grade two or three (maximum) will make your equipment look bigger. And it doesn't matter if your equipment is already pretty big. After all, you can never have too much of a good thing.

2) General shaping will help make your lower abdomen appear more defined and means that there is less risk of your sexual partner accidentally flossing while he / she is downstairs.

3) The sensation of having no hair on your balls or around your arse feels very, very wrong ... but oh-so right!

4) Incorporating all of the above into your sexual repertoire can be fun!

There are, however, a few caveats:

Only ever use an electric trimmer and never, ever a pair of scissors.

Only ever use a safety razor and never, ever a cut-throat razor.

If you do use a safety razor make sure you or your partner has a clear field of vision (even using a mirror can be dangerous.) For that reason it is advisable to use a male depilatory cream around the sack and crack areas. This also helps to reduce itchy stubble!

That is unless you have been taking a course of steroids for two weeks, which will have left your skin extremely sensitive to various chemicals, especially to calcium thioglycolate, which is the active ingredient used in most common off-the-shelf depilatory creams.

Doing this can cause burning and blistering.

Which is what I discovered on Saturday night.

Which is why I have not been laid now in three weeks and two days.

My friend (and right now I use that term loosely), Marv, left a comment on my blog, yesterday, referring to some other ugly famous person that she thinks I look like (I amended the comment, so don't bother looking.) I don't actually know which hideously deformed celebrity she has in mind and to be honest I don't really want to know, especially as I am still smarting from previous comparisons to David Cameron ...


... and Christopher Biggins ...


Last night, over dinner with my account team, I bought up the conversation of my doppelgangers, hoping to get a misleading objective point of view from people who don't know me incredibly well yet.

The general consensus of opinion, and this is without prompting (and I always get this from strangers) is that I look like David Arquette.


Spooky!

Ok, this I can live with.

Marv darling: while I might seem to possess the outward constitution of a hardened ox, I am actually quite a sensitive soul, not unaccustomed to going to see Harley Street surgeons about having my cheeks "reduced" (I'm not joking.)

Oooh! I must write about that incident.

Anyway, anymore horrible celeb comparisons and you will be on the receiving end of my almighty wrath. I will also be sending you the substantial bill for my cosmetic surgery, you little minx.

They are, apparently, four Tesco's in Inverness in Scotland, which is surely unnecessary? The independent village grocery store where I used to work when I was at school (before I, er, worked at Tesco. It was either that or Bowyers, the local pork farm, ok?) is now a Tesco Express.

And now Tesco has plans to conquer America.

So this is a boycott I heartily approve of.

My first step on the path to supermarket revolution has been canceling my weekly internet grocery order with Tesco and moving it to Sainsbury. When I called up yesterday to tell Sainsbury why I had done this the lady in the customer services department said that she would send me a free voucher for twenty pounds!

I love being socially disruptive. You get free stuff.

Double-0 Shut Up

Many things have been playing on my mind this week. Most of them I will go into in more detail tomorrow or on Friday.

In the meantime, this is particularly silly.

Now, you are all probably aware of the fact that during the selection period I was firmly on the Clive Owen, um, camp. But for whatever reason, Daniel Craig was perceived by the powers that be to be the cheaper better option. The deed is done. Daniel Craig was offered and accepted the part.

The main problems that the media and the people behind that absurd website seem to have with Daniel Craig is that he is not very Bond-like. One critic in last Saturday's The Sun compared this "disappointing miscasting" to another potential cultural spectacular: losing the Great British Pound to the Euro (which, by the way, I don't particularly care about either. Would the new money have the Queen's head on it? Am I bothered? Can I still spend it? Yes. Ok then. Silence!)

These are, apparently, the main reasons that Craig has been miscast:

1) He got two teeth knocked out by an extra while rehearsing an action scene.

2) He doesn't like guns.

3) He got seasick when delivered to the casting announcement on a furiously quick SAS raft thing.

4) He's blonde.

For crying out loud.

I don't remember anyone complaining when Sigourney Weaver was cast as Ripley in Alien (the fact that I was six at the time is beside the point) because she didn't have any real life experience in kicking xenomorphic butt. I also don't remember anyone complaining about Tom Hanks being cast in Philadelphia because he didn't actually have AIDS in real life. And I don't remember anyone complaining about Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal being cast in Brokeback Mountain just because they're not gay off screen (and for those of you who might be thinking, but why couldn't they get two gay actors to play those parts? I say to you, would it have been the same if it had been Rupert Everett and Sir Ian McKellan going at it on the range? No. I don't think so.)

Getting back to Daniel Craig. I think people are forgetting some very salient points.

First and foremost Daniel Craig is an actor. He doesn't do the things he does in movies in real life. In real life he's like anyone else.

Well, he's like me, anyway. He's probably not much like you.

Secondly, does anyone seriously think that the makers of Casino Royale will be keeping in the bits where DC hesitantly picks up his Walther PPK between his thumb and his forefinger? Or that they'll keep in the bit where he projectile vomits over the edge of his Sunseeker yacht after a high speed chase down the Nile? And that the bit when the Bond Girl slaps him round the face and leaves a really nasty hand print won't end up on the cutting room floor?

And as for the blonde hair. Well cause, you know, like that's so important. I can just imagine it ... people leaving the movie theatre, muttering things like, Well, I thought the bit where he saved The Houses of Parliament from being destroyed by that nuclear weapon by cutting the wires while riding it and jumping off at the last second before it blew up over a field would have been so much more believable had his hair been slightly more, I don't know, "burnt chestnut"?

Because of the films that I have seen him in, I think that Daniel Craig is a more than proficient actor and will be able to conjure up just the right amount of grit, darkness, brooding, menacing and sex-appeal to play 007 more than adequately. I am sure that he will make me suspend my disbelief long enough for me to enjoy the two or so hours of iconic opening credits, catchy theme tune and mindless, popcorn, formulaic action sequences and wanton destruction.

And lets not forget one other critically important thing about Daniel Craig.

He looks damnfine in a tight pair of beach shorts:

Pablo

I've just realised that I promised you all three boy stories and so far I have only really delivered on one.

Ok, the last is Pablo and is in actual fact, probably the least interesting.

Well, aside from the fact that he looks like Gael Garcia Bernal:


[That is Gael, in case you were wondering, not Pablo.]

So here's the lowdown:

Pablo is a 24 year-old Argentinean, living permanently in London.

We meet at Crash where very minor flirting (but no actual touching) is consistently protracted through the night and then onto Beyond (and beyond .. ha ha!)

As I'm staggering walking through Beyond to the cloakroom to get my things in order to go home Pablo grabs me and quickly persuades me pretend to be his boyfriend so that some guy I know called Allen will stop molesting him. I happily agree. After all, Allen once gave me the cold shoulder and I still harbor some considerable bitterness and resentment towards him for that incident.

As Pablo and I create our own super-hawt gayboy version of ...


... Sharon Stone's "let's really piss off Michael Douglas" lesbian dancefloor get-down in Basic Instinct, I notice with enormous satisfaction that Allen is looking really out of shape these days. Awesome!

Half an hour or so later Pablo and I leave and spend the rest of the day napping, eating, talking and having lots of hot pash. It's very nice because, you know ... he looks a lot like Gael Garcia Bernal.

The next day Pablo emails me to tell me that he would like to see me again, but that I should know that he is currently living with his boyfriend who he doesn't have sex with anymore. They are, by all accords, "splitting up."

I tell Pablo that I don't really want to get involved in that kind of situation but that I wish him all the best anyway.

Naturally we still keep calling each other anyway and texting each other anyway and making plans to see each other anyway, for almost a month.

One Sunday afternoon (um, er, literally five minutes after Andy dumped me) I call Pablo to say "Hi!" By an odd coincidence he was just leaving Later (yet another Vauxhall afterhours club) which is very close to where I live. He agrees to come over to mine for a booty call. I crack open a bottle of wine.

The booty call turns into a well-orchestrated, major bout of rumpy-pumpy, followed by me cooking dinner, the two of us watching half a movie on the sofa (half a movie, because I kept putting my hand down his pants), more le hot sex and eventually a cuddly sleep over.

In the morning, after he had left, he sent me one of the nicest, sweetest, semi-broken English texts EVER in the history of nice, sweet, broken English texts.

Something like, "You nice. I really like. Ass sore. xxx"

Followed by total silence for almost a week.

Followed by calling and texting and making plans and breaking them anyway. But not quite as much as before.

Oh, and he's still living with his boyfriend who he sleeps with, but doesn't have sex with, etc etc.

Why do we do it to ourselves?

Why do I do it to myself?!

Is it just because he looks like Gael Garcia Bernal?

Is attempting to understand the whys and wherefores of men dating men harder than trying to understand and then explain String Theory?

Nah.

It's definitely just the Gael thang.

Fabio

So I just finished writing this really long epitaph in memoriam of my doomed, fledgling relationship with Fabio. I got to the end and started to re-read and it suddenly began to dawn on me that I can't actually write anything about him.

The reason is that he is a fairly well-known name on the UK and European gay club circuit (for various professional reasons) and some of your British readers especially will totally know who I am talking about.

So sorry about that. Sometimes I really regret not having been anonymous on this blog.

But it's all ok really because there are, after all, other things to blog about:

Takeout
last night I ordered twenty pounds worth of Chinese takeout from Deliverance and when it arrived it was cold. I called to complain and they resent the order again, but this time with dessert and totally free of charge.

But when it arrived the order was stone-cold again. So I called again (incandescent with rage) and got the order resent again, with a promise that it would be with me in less than 20 minutes and with a twenty pound voucher for next time.

So, to recap, even though I had to wait almost three hours for my food, I eventually got one hot meal with a free dessert, two free meals (both of which are now in the freezer) and one free voucher for twenty pounds.

Awesome.

Dry cleaning
Spotted on the Fulham Road. Is this perhaps the best dry cleaner in the world?


Tales of the City
I'm sure many of you have read the Armistead Maupin books, but some of you won't have watched the Channel 4-produced TV show. There were actually three series made from the first three books, but the first is by the far the best, not least because Marcus D'Amico and Bill Campbell, who play Michael and Jon, are both smokin' hot.


See?

I watched half the series last night (in between the great, cold takeout debacle.) Best bit: when Jon helps Mouse to rollerskate properly and Michael says, meaningfully, "Let me know if you're going to stop."

Actually, before I get onto Fabio (as so to speak) I read in yesterday's paper that women are more attracted to men with deep voices.

For those of you who don't know, I have an extremely deep voice (moreso at the moment, what with my post surgical traumatic woes.) And the girls ... they love it. On my one day in the office last week, Susan, another of the directors, was flirting outrageously, getting me to say things like "Susan, you've been a very bad girl."

She was probably touching herself under the desk. How revolting.

Last night, during a phone conversation I told my friend Romain about the news story and asked him if he thought that the same was true for gay men as it was for women, that they also prefer men with deep voices.

"I don't know," he said. "Let's find out. Say something from a porn film. Yeah, you like that, dontcha?"

"Yeah, you like that, dontcha?"

"Do it again. Something else."

"Yeah, harder. Bring it home, fucker."

"Yeah, that definitely works."

"Ew! Did we just have phone sex?"

So I now I can provide expert witness that I have a certain Jeff Stryker like quality. Unfortunately it doesn't come with the matching appendage (although, I hasten to add, to date no one has ever complained!)

Andy - part two

So two months goes by.

While on holiday in Thailand Zach talks about his new boyfriend, Ricky, quite a lot. I'm sure he won't mind me saying this, but Zach doesn't really do relationships. He moves around quite a lot and I think his priorities are sometimes skewed or set too high (no different to most of the rest of us, then.) That said, despite the fact that Ricky was being quite keen (to my chagrin he bought Zach a PSP for Christmas) Zach was, for the most part, enjoying being with him and was putting aside more time and making more of an effort than was normal for him.

So this got me to thinking: if Zach could overlook the little things wrong in his relationship with Ricky, then perhaps I could have overlooked the little things that weren't quite perfect in my (week-long) relationship with Andy.

When I got back to the UK I texted Andy (the fact that I hadn't deleted his number from my phone when I dumped him should be telling), "Hey! How are you? x"

The response I received was, "Who is this?"

Yes. He had deleted my number from his phone.

To cut a long story short we spent the next few weeks busily texting and reacquainting ourselves. We spoke on the phone a few times too. Not quite so often as the texting, but when we did we would talk for a good hour at a time.

And something strange began to happen. This vacuous, superficial 21 year old model was becoming a much more attractive proposition. For example, I began to see that the designer clothes provided him with a sense of security. I realised that he actually had a really brilliant sense of fashion (this is a guy who wears Plein Sud winklepickers and Mulberry cloaks to Beyond) and an even more brilliant sense of humour. In between me dumping him and getting back in touch he had scored himself an internship at my old PR agency. He seemed to be doing well and from the way that he spoke about the job I could tell that he was being very dilligent in his duties.

Following on from what I said, we actually texted each other and spoke on the phone for about three weeks before we actually saw each other again. Perhaps therein lies the secret - instead of having le hot sex we were actually getting to know each other. Wow! Who'da thunk?

When we did meet up again it was at Beyond and again we were both trashed. He did come back with me to Wayne's hotel room for a chill out, but there was to be no rumpy pumpy because there were four non-sexual friends there. He left early because he had to go to a friend's birthday party.

The second time we saw each other was at Family the weekend before last. He wasn't supposed to come along, but I called him at the last minute and he dropped his plans. A sure sign, I thought at the time, of his deep and abiding love for me.

Now by this point we had been back in contact for almost a month and a half, but had actually only seen each other twice. I leave you to imagine just how horny I was by this point. No, actually I'll tell you. I was SOOOOOO fucking horny I could have almost exploded in a mass of pink, sweet-flavoured, sexy Creme Egg-style fondant.

But it wasn't to be. Although he came back to our friend's house for an hour, after Family had ended, he made his excuses (something about another friend's birthday the next day) and left. But not before he promised me that we would go to see Munich at the movies the following afternoon. Because I was so very, very horny I texted him several times on the way home, telling him that if he wanted to he could stay the night at mine after we had seen the movie.

In retrospect, probably not my smoothest seduction move.

The next day I checked the movie times (6.30pm) and left him a message on his voicemail. He didn't actually call me back until about 4.30pm, informing me that he had only just woken up (which, by the way, was one of the other reasons I had dumped him in the first place ... because 21 year olds sleep ... a lot!)

To cut a long story short-er he didn't waste anytime telling me that he was still in love with his ex-boyfriend (transparently a lie, as any of us over thirty and have used this line, like a gazillion times, can tell you) and that he didn't think he could really date me anymore. He also told me that he was still smarting a little from me dumping him the first time around (transparently the truth.) I had to say that I understood, but I didn't admit to him that I was completely gutted. Because now I really, really liked him.

[Aside - this all happened two days before Valentine's Day. A small irony is that I had been gloating to Drew that I would have a date on Valentine's Day. Drew met someone that Saturday night at Family and ended up having the best Valentine's date while I sat at home and cried.]

Anyway - here's the moral to this story.

The first time around Andy really liked me. The second time around I really liked Andy. Which just goes to show that the most important factor is usually timing. It's not the fact that he is 21, or sometimes vacuous, or that he mumbles from time to time. It's the fact that we weren't in the same place at the same time.

So that's Andy. One down, two more to go.

Next - Fabio.

Andy

My friend Bill emailed me a while ago to complain about the lack of boy talk on my blog. Usually I don't have an awful lot to say, boywise. But upon reflection, the last few months appear to have bucked a trend.

I met Andy at Beyond (a massive Sunday morning after-hours nightclub in London's Vauxhall) at the tail end of last October. The first thing I noticed about him was that he had very pouty lips, unusual messy hair and a slightly pointy nose - but all in an attractive way. It wasn't long before I'd got around to alerting him that I was kinda interested (by snogging him) and after that it wasn't long before I had alerted him to the fact that I wanted to take him home (by putting him in a taxi with me.)

Once the effects of Beyond had worn off and we were finally able to speak in something resembling English, I learned that Andy (for that was his name) was an out of work model, for the most part living off of his parents and spending most of his daytimes at the gym.

I also learned that he was 21.

Now I have nothing against fucking 21 year-olds. After all, there's twenty of them. [Ok, sorry, that was a BAD joke.] I have nothing against 21 year-olds, but this particular one reminded me ENORMOUSLY of myself when I was in my early 20s. Scarily so. I could see that there was a mind there, somewhere, lurking at the back ... but at the forefront was an unhealthy obsession with designer clothes, intense vacuousness, a propensity for fast mumbling about utter rubbish, no respect for his parents, no respect for himself, etc, etc.

Nothing like the Christopher you know today. Nothing! *shakes fist*

HOWEVER, the sex was frikkin' awesome! He was totally up for anything and I really mean anything. Well, apart from that. Well, he might have been up for it, but I wasn't. That's never gonna happen anywhere near me, thankyouverymuch.

And naturally, because the sex was so awesome, I decided that it might not be out of the question or too ridiculous for me to pursue a relationship with him. Because after all was said and done, despite the vacuous, mumbling, lack of respect-edness, Andy was a hot 21 year old model who was really into me (he said so after the second date) and with whom I could have regular, mind-blowing sex.

On Wednesday (day three and a half) I received a text from him which read, "Are we ok?" Neediness alarm bells sounded. But I quickly silenced them because, hey! Hot sex with a 21 year-old model!

Saturday (day six and half) came around and we agreed that he would come over after work (he got a job at a designer clothes store during the week) and I would cook him dinner. He was supposed to be at mine by 7.30pm.

By 10pm I had called him several times and left several messages consisting of various tones ranging from amusement, to concerned, to pissed, to an anger burning with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns. By the time that he arrived at 10.30pm, exactly three hours late, I was practically incandescent with rage and anyone who has seen me that pissed off will tell you that it is a very, very amusing spectacle.

And, for some reason, didn't think it was funny and couldn't have been more apologetic. He even bought Krispy Kreme donuts as an olive branch. Think about this for a second. A model. Buying Krispy Kreme donuts. That's pretty fucking intense.

And for a few hours it worked. I calmed down, salvaged something from the chicken parmesan I had so lovingly prepared and settled down with him to watch a movie (which didn't get watched, really, because we kept getting distracted by putting our hands down each others pants.)

For some reason, the next morning, I woke up feeling very different and very grown-up. Andy slept softly and soundly next to me. He looked so sweet. And then I knew then that I could no longer date him. I pretty much know what I need from someone in a relationship and a 21 year-old, despite how genuinely good-natured he might be, was never going to be able to offer me any of the things that matter so much to me (besides a great horizontal repertoire.) So when he woke up I made him breakfast and then gently told him that it was over.

I looked out of the front window and watched him walk down the drive and around the corner and finally out of sight and for some reason I felt a pang of sadness, which was unusual because usually when I dump someone I feel intense relief.

At the time I didn't pay it too much attention ...

My funny Valentine

Even though the thought of you no longer makes my heart do somersaults,

Even though I can finally smell cK Be without feeling like you're in the room with me,

Even though at last I can listen to "Milkshake" without getting a lump in my throat,

Even though I no longer feel guilt when I hook up with someone else,

Even though the idea of you with your new boyfriend doesn't make me feel sick,

Even though I have stopped waking up in the middle of the night feeling crippled with guilt over what I did to you,

Even though we're separated by over 3,000 miles of land and sea,

Even though we broke up almost two years ago,

I still love you.

And I would be with you,

If you asked me to be,

In a heartbeat.

Tom Ford has been annoying me a bit.

For example, there was no real reason for him to appear on the cover of Vanity Fair with Keira Knightley and Scarlett Johansen (although it's claimed that Annie Leibowitz told him to jump in because Rachel McAdams wouldn't get her kit off).


He really didn't need to pose with identical male triplets for W magazine.


It was also really unnecessary for him to tell everyone that the cheese fondue I made the other night was, like, totally bland.

This evening, over dinner, I told my friend my theory, which is that Tom, for all his genius, seems to be displaying all the signs of possessing an over-sexualised God complex. She nodded in agreement and said, "Also I hear that he has his anus bleached."

Once I had pondered upon this new news for a second or two I decided that I didn't actually think that such an action was necessarily a bad thing. I explained to my friend, "Look, put delicately, a gay boy's anus is likely to receive more visitors than your average heterosexual man or woman. So I think that it's kinda nice that someone would want to make sure that their own looks nice and pretty."

My friend took a moment to consider what I had said. "Yes," she nodded, contemplatively. "I suppose you have a point."

And then we continued eating our shared spicy duck with Chinese broccoli.

Anyone who keeps a blog will know that to do so requires a certain amount of good housekeeping. By that I mean that you need to post about four or five times a week to keep it relevant and to keep your readers coming back to read more.

Last week I read an article in the Evening Standard which talked about how blogging was a useful tool in treating anxiety and depression: it provides a conduit through which to "unload" or "rant" and encourages the owner, or author, to be organised.

I had never really considered this before and my immediate reaction was to dismiss it as another piece of make-believe about the miracles of the blogisphere. But the more I thought about it the more I began to see that it was actually probably true, or at least it is for me.

When I started my blog, back at the tail end of 2003 I wasn't in a very good place emotionally and you can probably tell that from my writing: not just in the style, but in the content. I was in a really great city, but the wiring was all wrong.

Although I stopped for a few months it wasn't until I returned to England that my blogging really came into it's own. I hope this doesn't sound immodest, but I can see for myself that my writing got better, I learned which parts of my life would be the most interesting to write about, I discovered my humour. And I discovered that when I feel passionately about something I can be very committed.

I think it would be a misnomer to imply that it was entirely my blog which encouraged me to use a formula which enabled me to turn my life around. But there is definitely something in the fact that the two most important years of my life so far ran parallel to my writing a daily journal. I think there is something there that shouldn't be ignored.

Christopher in 2006: I have a really, really great job, albeit ones with challenges, I have a wide circle of friends whom I love very, very much, I have created a routine which I follow almost to the minute. I feel like I have come into my own and I quite like saying it.

Of course I am still rubbish with money, but getting better. I still tend to cane it for a few more hours than I should do on a Saturday night, but I'm not a drug addict or an alcoholic. Hey! I even gave up smoking! I don't have a boyfriend, although for the first time ever, the acquisition of one is not the most important thing (and I don't think will be, ever again. Or at least not until I have one.)

I think you'll agree that this is all good stuff. Things are pretty good.

The problem is: it doesn't make for a very interesting blog.

This week I wrote and presented two new business pitches. I lost one and won the other. I had to make a difficult decision relating to the career of someone I work with. I didn't go out once during the week preferring, instead, to work late. I had my hair cut (just a trim). I drove a nice car on a dirt track. I helped my housemate with her college project. I went to the gym five times (today for an hour!) I drank a lot of protein shakes. I knocked back a lot of creatine. I quite like the way my shoulders and arms are shaping up. I had some holes put in a belt.

I actually considered stopping this thing. But to do so seems akin to having something put to sleep.

If I'm honest (and I think most regular bloggers will agree with me) one of the reasons that I have tried to post so frequently is because I don't want people to forget about me. I don't want my site traffic to decrease. It's totally ego, so there you go.

But then I realised that actually site traffic is so unimportant. This is going to sound like the biggest load of mush / cliche / whatever ... but in many ways my blog has been something of a friend. A blank tablet on which I could write whatever. If I didn't have a stat counter and a comments function I wouldn't even know that anyone visited anyway.

I have had a point all through this post, which was to let you know that I might not post quite as frequently as five or more times a week from now on. But I will post. And sometimes it might be five times a week. But probably not. And that's not sad really. It just means that this thing helped me realise what a great life I have and that perhaps I should devote some more time to it (and that for some peculiar reason, you all seem to think that it's one worth reading about!)

There has always been something about The Blue Man Group that I haven't liked but I've never actually been able to put my finger on exactly what it is.

Then last night, when I saw a poster for the current show on the tube, I realised ...

I don't like their shade of blue.

Day Five - Reasons to like Tom Cruise

Ok, perhaps I have been a little bit mean towards Tom Cruise this week.

As Anna Wintour once said, "There is always something to like. Even if the entire collection is horrendously dull, try to find a shoe or even a button and write about that. Quite literally it means that next season you won't be relegated to the third row."

Here are some reasons to like Tom Cruise:















Well, what a rollercoaster week it has been. I do feel like I have purged his insignificance from my system. From this moment on I will never blight this blog with his name again.

Unless I ever let him fuck me, in which case I will divulge all the juicy details, natch.

Day Four - Yet another reason to hate Tom Cruise

Imagine if you will:

Tom Cruise, while Googling the words "Tom Cruise", discovers my blog (because surely I have written the words "Tom Cruise" enough now to ensure that this blog is among the first to appear on Google), sees that I am inciting hatred towards him and immediately picks up his phone, calls his lawyers and instructs them to slap a Cease and Desist order on me.

Now normally the victim of such heavy-handed legal tactics would be scared to death and would immediately throw in the towel. But not me. When his lawyers call me I will absolutely tell them "No! I won't be gagged!" I'll also categorically, eloquently and in no uncertain terms tell them exactly what I think of their client ("And anyway, Tom Cruise is just a big stupid-head!")

Naturally the whole incident will become a MAJOR freedom of speech / human rights debacle and will be covered heavily by the international media with my blog's URL appearing in leading publications and on broadcast outlets the world over, dramatically increasing my traffic.

I will eventually have to go to court and while wearing a Hedi Slimane for Christian Dior suit I will be overcome by the magnitude of the situation and weep openly.

Despite the fact that the public will have rallied behind me, I still end up going to prison for six to eight years for being so unrelenting and fierce in my campaigning against Mr. Cruise. His lawyers are that good!

And when I'm in prison, deprived of the normal day to day things that we all take for granted, like the sound of a bird in a tree or the sensation of sunlight falling on my face, when all I ever smell is disinfectant and the rancid stench of old cabbages, when I am the bitch to some 47 year-old, massive, hairy, convicted drug-dealer called Viking, I will curse Tom Cruise and really, really hate him.

And as they sit there in their billions, diligently writing their letters to Amnesty International, demanding my release, so will the world!

Day Three - One reason to hate Tom Cruise

If I were ever presented with the opportunity I would let him fuck me. And for that (making me drop my pants and my integrity) I hate him.

And so must you.

Day Two - Three reasons to hate Tom Cruise

1. The Last Samurai
2. Vanilla Sky
3. The Firm

There may be others but these three, in particular, are patently not up for discussion.

Day One - 10 reasons to hate Tom Cruise

1. Modest
2. Self-effacing
3. Altruistic
4. Humble
5. Self-aware
6. Witty
7. Conscientious
8. Open-minded
9. Tolerant
10. Tall*

Tom Cruise is none of these things.

* Shortness is only unattractive if you are a mega-star with an "alleged" 50ft personality

Two things made me cry today.

The first was this, which is not entirely surprising.

The second was this.

This bit especially:

"In the last day or so lovers will have been taken, jobs will have been won and lost, novels begun, tears shed at funerals, new life conceived and, when asked can you remember when that happened, we can answer: I remember it well, because it was that day. The day a whale sailed through the middle of London; and the people of the city, rather than trying to hack it to death, came in their thousands and lifted it and tried their hardest to sail it back."