Sunday, February 05, 2006

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!)

Sunday, January 29, 2006

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.

Friday, January 27, 2006

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.

Thursday, January 26, 2006

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!

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

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.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

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.

Monday, January 23, 2006

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."

Friday, January 20, 2006

Clearly I still have a lot of latent anger towards Tom Cruise. I think that I need some sort of conduit through which to vent. Therefore I declare that next week will be "Anti-Tom Cruise Week."

At least it will be here at Everything is Not Real.

Have a great weekend people. Unless you're Tom Cruise, in which case, you and I, outside, right now!
Tom Cruise is once again flexing his considerably sizeable litigious muscles.

I have an idea! How about, from this point on, we boycott his movies?

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

In a clear indication that my current employer won't be sacking me on January 31st, which is when I complete my three-month probationary period, I received a brand spanking new Apple Power Book G4. It's silver and when I look at it's surface, if I squint hard enough, I can kinda make myself out (and no, I do not see David Cameron staring back at me - see footnote.)

My new PowerBook is Bluetooth enabled. And so is my mobile phone. So for the first time ever I was properly able to view and disseminate the pictures I had taken ever since I bought the phone back in July last year. Cue an afternoon of much techno-fun and no work. Whoo!

I found an old picture of Drew which I took on the escalators of Tottenham Court Road tube station, en route to Fiction for his birthday. I decided to email it to him.

"I just learned how to get pictures off my phone! You're so 'moody'! And Katy [our friend] doesn't even look like Katy!"

He responded:

"Um, I think that's because that's Amy [Drew's flatmate]..."

Oh. So that would, er, be why then.

Footnote: I have reached a ceasefire with Lizzie. From now on I will be known as "The Man Who Looks Like David Cameron's More Attractive Younger Brother, TM"
A couple of weeks ago I was rudely interrupted from watching culturally important television by a picture message from my friend Lizzie. She was at a party where David Cameron was in attendance. The text which accompanied the visual read:

"I'm sorry, but you do."

Can I put this to bed (to coin a phrase) once and for all?

David Cameron (courtesy of Lizzie):

David Cameron

Me:

CIMG2021

Now trust me when I say that Lizzie will be dealt with appropriately but in the meantime, before she has that little accident is given a thorough ticking-off, would anyone else like to agree with her?

Friday, January 13, 2006

Last night, while aboard a commuter-packed Northern Line train travelling slowly and tediously toward Clapham South, I felt something brush up against my crotch. I ignored it to start with, assuming that it was someone's bag or something. Besides, who am I to pass up the opportunity of receiving an accidental crotch rubbing?

But then it happened again. I looked down the pole that some large breasted woman in a really horrible green Principles (probably) suit was pressing me up against. First I saw my hand holding onto the pole and then, underneath, another hand also gripping the pole, but with the index finger outstretched and gently, yet purposefully, brushing ... erm ... little Christopher, through my jeans. I looked up to discover that my assailant was a ratty-looking, late thirty-something male with an unattractive nose piercing, purposely and intently staring in the opposite direction.

I was literally shocked into silence. There was absolutely no-way that he didn't know what he was doing, so I moved my mid-section away as far as I could until we reached the next station at which point I used the opportunity to move away from the perv and stand at the other end of the carriage.

When I surfaced from the Underground at Clapham South I immediately texted my nearest and dearest to tell them that I had just been sexually abused.

Helen was the first to text back. "Violated or aroused? I take it he wasn't cute."

And therein lies the sad truth. I don't know if this is a gay "thing", a human "thing" or a Christopher "thing", but the fact remains that had he looked like this then it is not out of the question that I may have encouraged the behaviour and even, perhaps, returned the favour. But the fact that he didn't means that I felt shocked, appalled and violated.

But then I thought, am I allowed to have it both ways?

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

I am still suffering from The Worst Jet-lag Ever Ever Ever (TM). Or, at least, I think I am. I conferenced the proven medical journal, Wikipedia, and it would seem that I am, indeed, suffering from the following symptoms:

Fatigue
Disorientation and / or grogginess
Nausea and / or upset stomach
Insomnia and / or highly irregular sleep patterns
Dehydration and loss of appetite
Irritability
Irrationality

Apparently I have to allow one day to recover for every time-zone I flew through, which is eight. Therefore I should be normal Christopher by Thursday.

Until then ...

Monday, January 09, 2006

Even though the occasion (that being Helen's imminent departure) was serious ...

CIMG2298

... there was, yet, laughter ...

CIMG2299

... tears ...

CIMG2300

... drunkenness ...

CIMG2292

... dancing ...

CIMG2275

... amusing chalkboard alterations ...

CIMG2295

(well, it seemed it amusing at the time, anyway)

... and, of course, the lady herself ...

CIMG2235

(Doesn't she look ever-so-slightly like Sigourney Weaver, circa 1978?)

So, until she leaves these shores on Saturday next, here's to the lovely Hels and all those who sail in her. Bon voyage, etc.

Saturday, January 07, 2006

(I don't even want to think about the grammatical correctness of this post and neither should you)

I could say, fairly, that (thus far) today has been the worst day of the year for me. But instead I choose to learn a lesson from it and see the whole debacle, in retrospect, as a huge fucking learning curve.

Having had no sleep whatsoever I went to work where I spent almost an hour-and-a-half doing things like looking for carrier bags and getting salary advances and then forgetting what I was doing mid-task. For obvious reasons it is never good to forget to arrange a salary advance. Or not find a carrier bag.

When I (and my team) realised that I was as much use at work as a one-legged dog trying to bury a poo on a frozen pond the decision was made that it was for the best that I go home sooner-than-immediately as I was clearly suffering from the worst jet-lag EVER EVER EVER.

But, on the way home, because next weekend Helen, my best friend (the same one who hates the Eiffel Tower), is leaving the country to live in South Africa, where she will help people not to get HIV and AIDS, is having a party this weekend in Birmingham to celebrate (kind of) her departure, on the way home I picked up the VERY expensive car (which I do the PR for) from the garage, so that I could drive it up to said city, tomorrow morning.

[sharp intake of breath]

My housemate was in when I got home. This was fortuitous, as my arrival was supervened by an emotional breakdown of monolithic proportions. Over a cup of tea I managed to pour my heart and my tear ducts out big time. Oh, yeah! Apparently the "insignificant minutiae of the only slightly less-than-great things about my life" did not, collectively, feel quite so insignificant after all.

Much later on in the day (by which point I was feeling only slightly better) Vix asked me if I could help her take her bags out to her car as she was leaving to spend the weekend with her boyfriend, Ben, in Tunbridge Wells.

As I walked across the road towards her car I called out to her, "Let me just check that the [insert name of $100,000 car here] is ok," before looking around the corner to discover an empty car space.

Cut to right now with lots of swearing, panicked running, much relief that the $100,000 car had simply been impounded for being parked in the wrong zone (whole other contentious subject, at least from my point of view) coupled with the payment of a two hundred pound release fee and a housemate with a lonely boyfriend in a Streatham bowling alley ... [another sharp intake of breath] ... in-between.

In summation, today I was reminded of a very simple principle, which is that life is all about perspective.

This morning I had none.

This evening I have much.

Because when all is said and done jet-lag and an impounded car which technically doesn't belong to you is far better than a pointless, worthless life and a stolen car which technically doesn't belong to you.

Friday, January 06, 2006

I clearly have much to update you on, post my recent jaunt to Thailand, but I have been slightly run off my feet since I returned the day before yesterday and have not had time to even call my parents to wish them a Happy New Year.

Actually, that's not entirely true. I prioritised other things higher than calling my parents to wish them a Happy New Year. Other things, like going out with the sole purpose of buying a birthday card for an ex-work colleague whose birthday isn't for another two weeks.

Anyway. There was a point to this specific post, which is that is (as I type) 4.57am and I have not slept a wink. I have insomnia. Although I fear it might just be that my body clock is in another time-zone.

Either way, I had forgotten how wretchedly awful it is to be lying awake, staring at a darkened ceiling, hearing the wind whistling outside my window, catastrophising endlessly about the smallest, most insignificant minutiae of the only slightly less-than-great things about my life.

Not being able to sleep SUCKS!

(Note to you boys: I did try "that", just in case you were wondering. About an hour ago, actually. It didn't work.)

Sunday, January 01, 2006

First thing first - HAPPY NEW YEAR! Sore head?

Now, moving on let me warn you that this might all seem a bit boring to begin with but please bear with me.

I understand statistics. For example, the statistic "90% of women have faked an orgasm" would have been gleaned from a survey, but all surveys are caveated by the admission that there is a margin of error. I'll admit to actually quite liking statistical factoids. They allow me to think of things in numbers. This is also fortunate considering my career. Although I don't really want to think too long about the amount of throwaway coverage I have gained for clients on the back of some stupid survey.

That said, I hate probability. Whereas statistics are gathered from actual polling or research evidence, probability is always just a hunch. And probability is often used as a smoke and mirror device for arguments that need slightly more substance in order to make them slightly more credible. It seems to me that politicians use statistical evidence far less than they should do.

Because here's the thing: when you get down to business there is only one mathematical probability and that's 50/50. Either something will happen or it won't. When you flip a coin the odds of it coming down heads or tails are 50/50. It will either be heads or it won't. When you roll a six sided dice the chances that you will get a three are 50/50. You either will get a three or you won't.

What got me thinking about this was my lottery numbers. I use the same numbers every time I enter the lottery, which until a month ago, when I subscribed online, was not all that frequent. Prior to subscribing my dilemma had been what if I don't participate one week and my numbers come up?

But then I started to think back to ten years ago or whenever it was that the UK lottery was first commissioned. Prior to that there was no lottery, so no probability. After all - the future has no memory of the past and every second is a new opportunity. At the first lottery draw, back in 1994, every possible number equation had an equal chance of being the right combination of numbers to be the jackpot.

Now, I feel almost embarrassed to admit this, because it is so improbable, but because I've just spouted on about how I don't believe in probability I'll just come out with it ...

I have won the lottery every Saturday for the last three Saturdays. Granted, I only won ten pounds each time, but still. I'm a bit freaked out and it leads me to believe only one thing.

There is a glitch in the Matrix.

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

There is one day between my return to the UK on January 4 and when I return to work and I was thinking that I was going to be spending the whole of that day in a tanning salon. So it is with some relief that I can inform you that that particular occurence will not be happening. The sun came out. Lots. And I am now tanned. I know how concerned you will all have been so you breath a collective sigh of relief.

In other news I learned to scuba dive and yesterday I got my PADI certification. Without explaining why, in any great detail, if you ever get the chance to learn to scuba dive, then do it. It is one of the most awesome things that I have ever experienced.

If I don't post again this year, have a great celebration evening and don't do anything that I wouldn't (naturally that gives you license to do pretty much whatever.)

Thursday, December 22, 2005

I've actually been able to blog for almost five days now, but I've felt that to do so would make me feel like I was working on holiday. Yet here I am. I have yet to decide if I'm a geeky loser.

So I'm staying with my friend, Zach, at a resort on Ko Phangan, which is a small island in the Gulf of Thailand. The resort is called The Sanctuary and is seemingly populated entirely by 40-something British hippies. I can't help but feel supremely more culturally relevant when I see them attempting to dance (swaying is a better descriptor) to Slave to the rhythm on the beachfront veranda. However, I do feel slightly uneasy with the fact that I am reading The Insider by Piers Morgan while all around are reading The Road Less Traveled. I'm wondering if I would have been better off holidaying in Magaluf.

I am getting on very well with Zach, which is a relief. Not that I thought I wouldn't, but Zach is one of my best friends and two weeks in the company of a close friend can be testing at the best of times. We are actually having lots of interesting and sparky discussions about celebrity, the human soul, American politics and the fact that Dawn French is NOT a lesbian (like, DUH!?) Thankfully our (my?) more knowledgeable friends are not here to challenge some of our (my?) more outrageous statements.

There is one small problem and that is that the weather has been pretty mixed. While there have been pockets of sunshine and I have managed to begin to obtain the beginnings of a tan, most of the time the sky is completely overcast and I am often finding myself wearing a sweatshirt. When deciding upon Thailand as the destination of my winter vacation back in the summer I had been unaware that December can be severely unpredictable, weatherwise.

Because there is absolutely no-way, no-how that I am returning to the UK in just over a week and a half only slightly paler than I was before my departure, tomorrow Zach and I are going to scour the internet for a "Plan B". Fortunately flights to other Far Eastern destinations from close-by are incredibly cheap, so we have already discussed relocating to Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia or Vietnam. Or just simply returning to Bangkok and spending the days by a hotel pool and the nights in the gay bars in Pat Pong.

Oh yes. I chickened out on doing the fast (which, incidentally, involved the colonic irrigation). I hadn't realised that not all of the occupants of the resort would be fasting and that some would be being normal (i.e. drinking alcohol and eating). So while Zach sits with in a tent, drinking herbal broth with hard-core hippies with names like Moon, Sunbeam and Whale Breath, I can been found eating (organic) cheeseburgers and sipping Pina Colada's in the restaurant.

The other night, while we were both half-asleep, Zach knocked something into my hair which I then collected in my hand and threw across the room. It wasn't until the next morning that we established that the "something" had been a small gecko.

This would not have happened had I had hired a cottage in the Cotswolds.

Saturday, December 17, 2005

Au revoir!

Well mon petit blogeurs ... it's now time for me to say bonsoir. It's doubtful that I will have access to sophisticated technology over the next two and a half weeks so I'll wish you all a very merry Christmas and an extremely happy and prosperous New Year right now.

In the meantime, a little gift from me to you: a beautiful, blonde pole dancer!

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Ok, quieten down already. I have important beachwear purchasing decisions to make:

speedos

... or ...

Product_Boardies_Hawke

Discuss.

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

In little over three days I will be jetting off for a tropical island in the middle of the Gulf of Thailand where I will spend two and a half weeks sunbathing, reading, getting drunk, playing volleyball with hot straight men, listening to my iPod and having hosepipes stuck up my ass.

Thank you. As you were.

Saturday, December 10, 2005

First things first:

Marv: you look like Ann Widdecombe

Lizzie: you look like Christine Hamilton

*wipes hands*

I was so upset by the David Cameron comparison made by those two afore mentioned "friends" that I almost posted pics of myself not wearing very much, lying on a bed, with a come-hither expression on my face, juxtaposed above a picture of David Cameron: just to show that I DO NOT LOOK LIKE DAVID CAMERON!!! However much I fancy him.

But I decided that it was unfair to showcase such a scintillating picture of moi next to a clothed pic of Davey. And his office won't respond to my request for naked pics, so basically that whole idea went out of the window.

I did, however, still need to reassure myself that I don't look like David Cameron so I decided to pose the question to a bitchy queen who would never intentionally pass up the opportunity to make me feel like crap.

This morning, at the gym, I asked my bitchy queen friend, "Do you think I look like David Cameron?"

"No!" he replied, rolling his eyes. "You look as much like David Cameron as I look like Robert Mugabe." [before you ask, my friend does not look like Robert Mugabe.]

I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Besides," he continued. "David Cameron is sexy."

So now I have affirmation that I don't look like David Cameron. But this knowledge is coupled with the possibility that gayers think that he is more attractive than me.

I hate everyone.

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

I have a horrible, horrible confession to make.

I find David Cameron strangely attractive. For the Americans among you, this is kinda like fancying Ari Fleishman (I would provide reference points for all other nations too, but I can't be bothered. Canada: Celine Dion?)

Someone please shoot me.

Monday, December 05, 2005

As of today all gay men and women who permanently reside in the UK are legally entitled to marry their partners in civil ceremonies. These partnerships will afford them all of the same legal privileges and rights as their heterosexual counterparts.

I am now surely doomed to a lifetime of jokey (but actually very serious) "Why aren't you married yet?" style questioning from friends, relatives and acquaintances.

This is a disaster.

Friday, December 02, 2005

I have lottery fantasies.

I dream about being able to buy fast cars and designer clothes until they come out of my ears. I want houses in London, New York, East Hampton and Rio. I want to be able to travel first class and work out at The Third Space and get reservations at Annabel's just because of who I am. I want to be able to take hot guys on tours of the National Gallery. When it's closed. Because I'm one of it's biggest benefactors.

Needless to say, twice a week, I am disappointed.

This morning, on the way to work on the tube, I was reading a Times article, written by Annie Lennox, about the millions and millions of people in Africa who are suffering with HIV and AIDS, and dying, and how the governments of the richer nations, such as the one I live in, have pledged support over an eight year period. And how they absolutely must stay comitted to this goal.

One of the kids she spoke to on a recent trip to Africa was dying of AIDS. But before he got sick he lost his mother, father, brothers, sisters and pretty much everyone else he cared about to the same disease. He was totally alone in the world. With no hope. And certainly no dreams of fast cars or a nice comfortable house, anywhere. And that shit isn't even near the important stuff.

There are approximately 6,450,000,000 humans on Earth.

Most of them are not 33 year olds who have careers which afford them access to guest lists to the best clubs and bars the city has to offer. They don't have friends who will stick with them no matter what (and slip them Jil Sander dress shirts every now and then.) They don't have housemates who have Thai cuisine prepared and ready to eat when they arrive home.

They don't have comfortable beds to sleep in at night.

6,450,000,000.

When I think about it I kinda did win the lottery.

About 33 years ago.

Wednesday, November 30, 2005

The other day I admitted to a gay friend and his boyfriend that I have, of late, been downloading and watching lesbian porn. I also admitted to quite enjoying it. While they thought that the idea of watching pneumatic, blonde pornstars go at each others lady bits was kind of a kinky thing for a gay man to do, they didn't seem to be that bothered by the overall concept.

However, the straw that really broke the camels back was when I admitted that I have also been thinking that I would like to try having sex with a woman, just to see what it was like. I made it very clear that if this was to happen I would want it to be pretty dirty and certainly not lurve making. Regardless, this was apparently too much for them to handle. My friend told me that he didn't know if he could accept me as a straight man or even a gay man who had sex with women from time to time. Or even once.

Gayers: am I alone in the lesbian porn thing? Do none of you find a woman's body even slightly arousing? And do any of you ever consider having sex with a woman, just for hell of it?

Discuss.

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

My housemate, Vix, after having had the bathroom refitted is on something of a house restoration spree. The current project is having the windows and doors sanded down and repainted.

Paul, the guy who is undertaking the job is a friend of Dave, the guy who did the bathroom. Today was his first day.

I've just got home to find the entire house, literally every single surface, COVERED in paint dust. It is EVERYWHERE. The air is actually hazy with the stuff. It turns out that Paul, the complete moron that he is, used a power sander to sand the doors and windows down but didn't cover a single surface with a dust sheet or even open a window.

The long and short of it is that we are going to have to get a professional cleaner in for at least a day to clean the whole place up, which will cost at least one hundred pounds. However, because my housemate is so nice I can't trust her to deal with Paul effectively: i.e. basically tell him that the cost of the cleaner is going to be offset against his fee, which was only three hundred pounds. So I'm having to stay back at the flat with her in the morning so that we can deal with him together.

My personal opinion is that we should just sack him, as my question is if he made this much of a bodge with the sanding, what's he going to be like with painting. And dried paint on floorboards is a whole different matter than dust on surfaces. But Vix is uncomfortable with the idea of sacking him. She thinks it is mean.

I am bristling with anger.

And I'm asthmatic.

So If I don't ever post again, you'll know the reason why.

Friday, November 25, 2005

The other day, on a train journey back to London from a meeting in the Midlands, I got bored and decided to go through my Palm address book and do some tallying up:

I have 38 close friends *

I have 109 good friends **

I have 472 amiable acquaintances ***

I have 7 enemies ****

* These are the people who I would phone immediately if I were to find out that I had a brain tumour.

** These are the people whose death from a brain tumour would make me ineffably sad.

*** These are the people I would hope could recover from a brain tumour.

**** These are the people I would generally hope could recover from a brain tumour, but if they didn't then I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.
So this email goes around today introducing us all to some recent new recruits. I reached the end of the email and was struck by the last joiner - not only was he awesomely hot, but he also had oodles of professional experience and was clearly really, really clever and very, very funny. Where does this guy sit? I thought to myself. I must date him.

And then I realised I was reading about myself:

unknown

Name: Christopher

Current Job Title and Team: Account Director, XXX

Sits: Opposite J, between A and S, on the third floor

Background:
After studying Fashion in Southampton I began my career in PR as an intern at XXX in 1996 (H was my first boss!) I stayed with the company through its merger with XXX in 1998 and at the end of 2002 I transferred with the company to New York, where I spent the best part of two years. I returned to the UK towards the end of 2004 and since then I have freelanced for a number of small and large London-based consumer PR agencies. I have a broad communications experience from having represented a diverse range of brands - including XXX, XXX, XXX, XXX, XXX, XXX, the XXX and XXX.

Likes:
  1. Notes and lists
  2. Logic
  3. Kindness
  4. Brushing his teeth
  5. The European Union
  6. The O.C.
  7. Right-angles
  8. Walks along the beach
  9. Vintage T-shirts
  10. Men who aren't afraid to cry
  11. Hilary Clinton
  12. Winning the Lottery
Dislikes:
  1. Ignorance
  2. Meanness
  3. Tardiness
  4. Scientology
  5. Losing stuff
  6. Fatalists
  7. Bad personal hygiene
  8. Junkie-rockers
  9. Crap show tunes
  10. Tom Cruise
  11. Littlejohn (columnist in The Sun)
  12. Not winning the Lottery
Yeah. You wanna make out with me right now, dontcha?

Thursday, November 24, 2005

This morning I was thinking, God! This work thing is taking up all my creative focus! I can't blog! And then this evening I thought, God! I should blog about how work is taking up all my creative focus!

I am coming to the end of my fourth week at work and things are going swimmingly. For a long, long time I have been forced to work with crack-whores and utter nincompoops, most of them neurotic women as well as the odd (being the operative word) gay man. In all cases they have sapped all my confidence and stunted my creativity.

But no more. All of my board directors, bar one, are straight men (believe me when I say that in PR this makes all the difference) and my immediate boss is just the most coolest, chilled-outest gurl ever, ever. And everyone is absolutely cool with me taking the lead and no one second guesses any of my decisions.

*knocks on wood*

Something else. A couple of weeks ago my line board director told me that there is no point in attempting to pursue a work / life balance, because in our line of work it's just not possible. That might seem absurd / obvious depending on your own line of work or point of view, but this has been a revelation to me. I know it's still early days but I'm just not getting in a state about doing long hours - either coming in early or going home late.

And then there are the perks. You already know that I am having to take my motorbike test soon (January!!!!) and that I get to ride any of the bikes whenever I want. But what you don't know (and what I didn't know until a few days ago) was that I get to drive this whenever I want too:



Isn't it beautiful?

Yes sir. Things are pretty good right now.

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

It has just dawned on me that the colours that I purchased the pashminas in are exactly the same colours as the title of my blog!

Which, of course, means absolutely nothing.

Sunday, November 20, 2005

McConaughey Tops Sexiest Man Alive List.

What does it say about me that when I first read that title on the IMDb homepage my sub-conscious skipped the last word?

Or perhaps the question should be: what does it say about Matthew McConaughey that he made my sub-conscious do that?

I'm a bit concerned that I'm becoming a little too gay. Last weekend in Paris I bought two pashminas. My purchasing rationale was that viewed objectively pashminas are only large rectangles of fabric and with no inherent characteristics that make them "feminine".

And this would be true, except that the two pashminas I purchased are lilac and turquoise.

That said, there is no reason why a confident man cannot wear those colours. I just made sure I wore the pashminas in the normal man-scarf manner: i.e. wrapped around the neck in a bunch and not draped around the shoulders.

At least that was until Wednesday when I draped the lilac one around my shoulders because I was cold.

But if you think all of that is bad enough, then consider this:

Pashminas are so 2003.

Something sinister is afoot.

Thursday, November 17, 2005

This afternoon, during a random conversation about Star Wars with my board director, I said something which made him laugh so hard that he choked on his sushi:

"Sure Jar Jar Binks was annoying. But think about how irritating R2-D2 must have been to parents watching the original Star Wars movie back in the 1970s. Viewed objectively, R2-D2 is like a dwarf holding a Simon."

While he did finally recover, I couldn't help but wonder: is it bad form to inadvertantly kill your boss with humour?

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Merde!

As you know, this last weekend one of my best friends, Helen ...

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... and I ...

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...went to Paris ...

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.

Over supper at Kong, Helen, with practically no warning, announces to me that she hates the Eiffel Tower. "It's ugly," she tells me. "It's like a giant radio transmitter."

The fact that the Eiffel Tower, amongst other things, actually is a giant radio transmitter is by-the-by. I almost choked on my food. It was kind of like the time that another of my best friends, Jemma, told me that not only did she own Margaret Thatcher's autobiography, but had she been of legal age in the 70s, she probably would have voted for Thatch as well.

(Hi Jemma!)

Once I had accepted my repulsion over the fact that I had been friends with someone who hated the Eiffel Tower for quite so long, I tried to explain to Helen why not only was she very wrong but that she was also, very probably, dead inside. Hating the Eiffel Tower, to me at least, is like hating puppies.

"The Eiffel Tower is a testament to the human spirit. It signifies what we can achieve when we focus on solidarity, on working together," I passionately ranted at her. "For that reason not only is it a French symbol, but an international symbol. It gives us hope. It reminds us of what we can do when we focus. It is functional. It is beautiful. Remember, that it was supposed to exist as a temporary feature for the Paris Expo, yet over a hundred years after it was built it still dominates the Parisian skyline, strong and proud. At night, on the hour, every hour, for five minutes, it sparkles like a hyperactive Christmas tree ...

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"... and all of the time a searchlight penetrates the night sky ...

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[Aside - photos taken from the window of our hotel room! Do you have any idea how much I've always wanted a hotel room with a view of the Eiffel Tower?]

"In fact there is only one problem with the Eiffel Tower. The view of Paris, as seen from it, is missing one essential feature: the Eiffel Tower."

Finally I summarised: "The Eiffel Tower, after all is said and done, is a quite outstanding erection."

The next day I made her walk down the Parc du Champ de Mars so that she could take in its full glory.

This was her reaction:

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Does anyone know whether or not I can legally emancipate a best friend?

Friday, November 11, 2005

I'm off to Paris for the weekend today with my friend, Helen. When we get there we're meeting up with someone else I know and her friend and then the quatre of us are going hors sur la ville! (out on the town.)

We're, like, totally gonna have a riot!

Boom-boom!

See what I did there? Paris? Riot = fun / street violence? Boom-boom = punchline / petrol-bomb exploding? Yes, I know but it's funny!

Oh just forget it.

Thursday, November 10, 2005

One of the only reasons I would like to be extremely famous is so that I get asked to do those celeb Q&A thingys.

Fortunately I am aready EXTREMELY famous on this here blog of mine, which means that I get to do the Evening Standard magazine's Q&A:

Christopher: My London
The self-congratulated PR lounge-luvvie is a Clapham townie who would get taxis everywhere if only he could afford to.

Where do you live?
Clapham. I love it here - Abbeville Road is just around the corner with all it's restaurants, cosy pubs and high contingent of DILF's, the Common which is great in the summer and two rubbish but good gay bars on the high street.

How long have you lived there?
About a year and a half. Prior to living in Clapham I had always lived north of the river, so this is all pretty new to me. I am surprised that "south of the river" is not as pikey as I have always been it is.

What was the last play you saw in London and did you enjoy it?
Whose Life Is It Anyway. It starred Kim Cattrall as a hospitalised woman paralysed from the neck down as the result of a car accident. The play is a dark comedy telling the tale of how Cattrall's character tries to obtain a Habeas Corpus so that she can go home and commit suicide. Cattrall played the part pitch-perfect, with just the right amount of sadness and good-humour. I thought it was tres bon.

What have been your most memorable London meals?
Long Sunday lunches in cosy pubs with good wine and good friends. I also love eating at Criterion in Piccadilly Circus. Even though it's a Marco Pierre White restaurant it's comparatively inexpensive, so every now and then I can afford to eat there with a friend. It's also very opulent with the most incredible, gold, mosaic covering the whole ceiling.

What do you miss most when you're away from London?
Aside from my urban family, the incredible views: Parliament Hill on Hampstead Heath, Primrose Hill and practically any of the views from any of the bridges which stretch across the Thames (especially the Waterloo Bridge.)

What is your life philosophy?
Think big and be brave.

What items are in your winter wardrobe?
Lots and lots of very colourful, very long scarves, a bunch of thick, warm socks and a black, heavy-knit, Nehru-collared, three-quarter length coat from All Saints. It's all about the warmth, especially as this winter is supposed to be one of the coldest on record.

Which aftershave do you wear?
For the last eight years I have worn Sander for Men by Jil Sander. It's the fragrance which most of my friends would associate with me. But I always like to have one or two others on the go as well. At the moment they are Rhubarb Sherbet by Comme des Garcons and John Varvatos by John Varvatos.

What are your current projects?
Being good in my job. Finding a nice man to settle down with. Saving enough money for my holiday in Thailand.

What were the last books you bought?
Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx and Lunar Park by Brett Easton-Ellis. These days I almost always buy my books from Amazon. I feel like I'm missing out on the bookshop experience.

What is in your secret address book?
Some very valuable mobile and home phone numbers, including a national newspaper gossip columnist, an American supermodel and an extremely famous British actor.

What is your earliest London memory?
Visiting the Whispering Gallery up in the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral when I was nine years-old. It's very, very high up and I had to crawl on the floor of the balcony because I was so scared of falling over the edge.

What advice would you give to a tourist?
In a thunderstorm don't do what two Japanese tourists did a couple of years back - stand under a tree . You get electrocuted and die. In fact this is not only dangerous in London, but pretty much anywhere else in the world when there is a thunderstorm.

What do you listen to on your iPod as you travel around London?
In a perfect world it would be a bracing winter morning and I would be walking in the opposite direction to the throng, in the middle of the city, as Carly Simon lets rip on the opening chords of Let The River Run.

What would you do if you were Mayor for the day?
I would extend the Congestion Charge to every square millimeter of road within the M25 and then pump all the revenue into the Tube so that it could, you know, work properly from time to time.

Where were the last three places you went on holiday?
Rome with my Mum, then Paris to see a friend and before that South Beach in Miami to see my friend, Zach.

What was the last album you downloaded?
The Back Room by The Editors.

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

As you all know, my housemate, Vix, is a total pushover a rare British flower of exquisite kindness, polite manners and overall gentility.

Last night we had a discussion about why I leave my vitamins on the kitchen counter as opposed to putting them away in the cupboard. I explained to Vix that if they are hidden in the cupboard I will inevitably forget to take them. That's why I leave them out. And that's why it annoys the crap out of me if she puts them away (which she does ... all the time!)

Vix then proceeded to explain to me that the reason that she puts them away is because my vitamins are ugly and spoil the overall look and feel of the pretty kitchen (apparently our kitchen is listed and changes have to be approved by the Duchy of Clapham.) In particular she pointed out that they are currently ruining the design aesthetics of the Phillipe Stark lemon squeezer:

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Well, ok ... she has a point. That juxtaposition is slightly jarring.

But hey! Better that than yours-truly at 60-years-old, all creaky-jointed and depressed because in my youth I kept forgetting to take my Cod Liver Oil capsules and Vitamin C tablets with added Zinc.

This morning I sleepily entered the kitchen to discover this somewhat unsubtle message scrawled on the kitchen blackboard:

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The next time her boyfriend, Ben, stays over I'm going to sneak into her room when they're asleep and put her hand into some warm water. Because everyone knows that it totally makes you pee the bed. And then the next morning Ben will wake up, see that she's a bedwetter and that is awesome!

Perhaps it's time for me to live by myself?

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Last week I watched the last ever episode of Six Feet Under.

[spoilers ahead]

I have been totally addicted to the show ever since I saw the first episode back in 2001. Everything, everything about it is so rich: from the intimate depictions of the moments before someone's death, to the title sequence, to the intricate and specific characterisations. It's so rare to watch a TV show where you care about each of the characters absolutely the same amount.

The last five minutes of the final episode were among the most moving and lasting five minutes of TV I've ever watched. Those of you who have seen the ending will know that it features clips of Clare driving through the desert, interspersed with vignettes of each of the main characters lives and their ultimate demises - all set to an appropriately epic song called Breath Me sung by Sia.

One of the reasons that this segment was so affecting for me was because it showed the young Clare next to her increasingly elder-self and finally as an old woman with cataracts and white hair, literally about to die. Again, as anyone who has watched Six Feet Under will know, whenever someone dies the screen fades to white and their name and their significant dates appear for just a moment.

Seeing those dates for each of the characters that, over the past four years, I have grown very attached to and fond of was a really moving experience ... for the most part because it served to remind me that the only certain thing about life is death. Now I am not a fatalist. I don't believe that there is some mystical guiding force behind my actions or my life in general. I know that I am absolutely in control of a great deal of my life and that the remainder is subject to a series of random coincidences and events.

But, again, the one absolute certainty is death. There are no sketchy statistics regarding that. 100% of everyone and everything will die some day.

I write this as a 33-year-old man who was born at 4.20am on Wednesday, September 27, 1972. And as I write this there is a point in the future which will mark the moment that I will die.

That moment is 7.32pm on Sunday, March 17, 2058.

Ok, it probably isn't. But when you think about your life in such literal terms, if only for a moment, it has the effect of bringing everything into focus. It doesn't even have to be a depressing thought. It's just black and white. It reminds you of how absolutely irrefutable and definite death is and it makes everything else seem so important. Even the small things.

It makes me want to squeeze as much into my life as possible.

And when did TV get so good?

Sunday, November 06, 2005

I HATE YOU, TOM CRUISE!!!

*waves fist*

From IMDb:

Tom Cruise is terrifying film-makers on the set of Mission: Impossible III, by insisting on carrying out his own death-defying stunts. The superstar actor has refused to allow a stunt double to take on the dangerous high falls necessary for his part as secret agent Ethan Hunt in the sequel - and his willingness to push himself to the limit even scares legendary stunt coordinator Vic Armstrong, who is working on the film with him. Armstrong tells Total Film magazine "He did a 70 foot fall for us last week. He's amazing. He did about seven takes. It absolutely terrifies me - I can see the headlines! What a way to finish a career."

Most of you already know this, but I hate Tom Cruise SOOOOOOOOO much. Seriously, his current mid-life crisis thing is really nauseating. It's like he thinks that performing his own stunts will convince me, personally, that he's straight [as an aside, I will admit to finding the whole Katie Holmes pregnancy debacle most vexing. Or at least I did until someone reminded me of that miraculous turkey basting device.]

Anyhoo, if I was the stunt coordinator on Mission: Impossible III I would be all like, "So you wanna jump that 1,000 foot-wide precipice on a BMX? Sure! Knock yourself out." And then , under my breath, "Die! Die!"*

Of course, you know that if I ever had to work with him on a high-falutin' PR project I'd be all like, "Tom! It's so nice to meet you. Can I get you a cup of tea?

And then, under my breath, "Please touch my face!"

*If, at some point in the next few weeks, Tom Cruise dies performing a 1,000 foot jump on a BMX for Mission: Impossible III, I will feel really, really bad. For five minutes and then I'll probably get over it.

Saturday, November 05, 2005

Ten things that happened to me this week ...

  1. I have been incredibly inspired by my new board director (after four days of him scaring the crap out of me)
  2. I worked alongside people I last worked alongside eight years ago
  3. I attended a party where George Clooney was present
  4. I learned that an inverted fork provides a better ride (!)
  5. I went to two tres, tres expensive restaurants for lunch
  6. I got to buy expensive desk furniture
  7. I was given a really cool pair of black leather biker boots
  8. I was twice told I am much nicer than my predecessor (although it should be noted that my predecessor was sacked for embezzlement)
  9. I was told by my first ever boss (who, after nine years, is my boss again) that I am like a completely different person
  10. I had sex five times with the same person (and I still really like him!)

Friday, November 04, 2005

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

So now that I'm a motorbike petrolhead, does that mean that I get to date guys like these?

Pic1

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Saturday, October 29, 2005

Even though I come from a family of motorbike petrolheads (my Mum, Dad and brother each have motorbikes) I have never, ever been even slightly interested in them. Motorbikes all look the same to me. Then there's also the fact that they are very, very dangerous.

At least that was what I thought until this morning, when my new account manager, Bill (who I took out for an introductory breakfast) informed me that the motorbike brand we will be representing will be paying for me to take my motorbike test. And not only that, but the brand lends us actual, real, shiny bikes to take to show the press and we're TOTALLY allowed to look after them in the interim!!!

After breakfast Bill and I stopped by the office and I picked up a sales brochure for the bikes. As I flicked through I still found myself having trouble distinguishing each model from the next - two wheels, handlebars, seat, yadda, yadda, yadda.

So I asked Bill, "If [motorbike] was a car, what would it be?"

"An Aston Martin."

And so in the moment that followed I became a baby motorbike petrolhead.

Friday, October 28, 2005

Last night I dreamt that I was working on a publicity stunt for the new Harry Potter movie, where J.K. Rowling, herself, would drive the Hogwarts Express into King's Cross Station.

In my dream I was standing at the end of the platform, the furthest end away from the front of the station. As the train motored past me with J.K. at the wheel, waving to all the children lining the platform, I thought to myself, She's not paying attention! She's going too fast! She's not going to be able to stop in time!

Sure enough a couple of seconds later there was a huge explosion and lots and lots of steam. Suddenly I was surrounded by hundreds of TV crews and reporters screaming and yelling at me, "J.K. Rowling is dead because of you! Who's going to write the final book now!" And then all the kids who had been in the station started to bawl and cry.

It was a MESS!

In fact it was so realistic that it actually woke me up.

Is my subconscious trying to tell me something about my PR / Event Management / Celebrity Liaison skills in advance of starting my new job next week?

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

While I was at home I berated my Dad for not having set aside the first weekend in December for coming to London to see his number one son, in advance of Christmas (when I will be in Thailand) as he had agreed he would do over three months ago.

Dad emailed me yesterday suggesting that perhaps, instead, he could come up from Bath one evening, take me out for dinner and then drive home afterwards. I emailed him back and agreed to the evening and time.

I received this email back from him:

Great! It's a date! x

This is WAY too exuberant for my Dad who usually responds with a singular "OK" or a "Good" and NEVER with a kiss. I mean we only started hugging about two years ago and even that feels forced and uncomfortable.

Of course it's made all the worse by the fact that I have been told that I am going on a "date" with my Dad.

I feel nauseous.
Today I met Jess, an old friend from my last company, for lunch.

Jess had recently been dumped by a long-term ex-boyfriend, shortly before they were supposed to move in together. Apparently he got cold feet. Last week he asked to see her because he thought that he had made the wrong decision.

By this point Jess was pretty sure that she didn't want to get back together with him, but agreed to meet up with him anyway to hear exactly what he had to say.

After a few minutes with him she was reminded what an ass he is and it cemented in her mind exactly why they were not meant to be together.

She told me, "You should have heard me! I was brilliant! I said to him, 'Do you want to know why there is more chance of Hell freezing over before the two of us get back together? Because there is more chance of Hell freezing over before the two of us get back together.' He didn't really have anything to say after that."

She crossed her arms, pretty pleased with both herself and her fait a'complit.

After a pause, I said, "Well I'm not surprised he didn't say anything. What you said doesn't actually make any sense."

"What do you mean? I was saying that there is no way we're getting back together."

"Well, it seems to me that what you actually said was that the seemingly high chance that Hell will freeze over before you get back together means that you do actually think you'll eventually get back together again. That is providing the Hell Ice Age occurs before you both die. Either way, the high-chance of Hell freezing over doesn't in itself validate the high chance of Hell freezing over, before you and Mark get back together. To be honest I don't really know what you said."

She responded with a frosty stare and I reminded myself that a good friend just nods sympathetically. Always.

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

I went home to Bath this past weekend so that I could help my brother, Stephen, my Dad and my Aunt scatter my Grandma's ashes.

After my Granddad's funeral, which was earlier this year, my Grandma told me and my Grandpa that she wanted her ashes scattered by the brook in Holt which she and her brother would play in when they were both kids.

This might sound a bit silly, but we were all a bit unsure how to actually go about scattering someone's ashes. Like, what do you actually do? In the end we all took it in turns to take the urn and the whole thing turned out just perfect and, weirdly, not at all sad.

Here is my Grandma's view ...

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In other news ...

My Mum has just had an extension put onto the back of her house and on Friday morning she got up extra early to paint one of the walls in the extension white. Before she left for work she gave me one very simple instruction:

"Don't let Henry into the extension, because the wall is still wet!"

In my defense she told me this about 0.5 seconds after she had woken me up. Needless to say, I forgot. While Henry didn't seem to be that bothered by the subsequent incident, Mum certainly was:

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Finally, please give it up and put your hands together for yours truly, as I am pleased to announce that I have bagged myself a hawt new job with a really cool PR agency just off Oxford Street. I am going to be directing the UK PR for a famous motorbike brand and a famous SUV brand. I start next Monday. Even since I left my last permanent job, back in April, I have been freelancing and while it has paid well, it has not provided regular-work "security". I cannot begin to tell you what a weight it is off of my mind that I now have a steady income to look forward to, again.

Friday, October 21, 2005

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.

Gay_penguins_NY_Zoo

(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!!)

Thursday, October 20, 2005

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 ...

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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].

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

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.

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

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%.

Friday, October 14, 2005

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.

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

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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.

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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.

Thursday, October 13, 2005

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.

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Morph: 1977 - 2005. RIP.

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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.

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

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.

Monday, October 10, 2005

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:

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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.

Friday, October 07, 2005

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.]

Thursday, October 06, 2005

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!)

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

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.

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

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:

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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.