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."

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?

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):



Me:



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?

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?

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 ...

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



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



... tears ...



... drunkenness ...



... dancing ...



... amusing chalkboard alterations ...



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

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



(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.

(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.

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.)

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.

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.)

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.

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!

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



... or ...



Discuss.

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.

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.

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.

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.