Lost in London

Final destination

2010-04-05T13:34:00.004Z

What better way to round off the blog than one of those pointless memes that pretend to be probing and revelatory but in fact uncover precious little about you other than you like 'red' or something equally inane? Ah well, come on, what did you expect? Something deep and meaningful to close off the last five years? Don't be silly. I told you my last post would be an anti-climax.

If I were a month, I’d be December. Cold mostly, but with exciting times to come.
If I were a day of the week, I’d be Tuesday. I was born on a Tuesday. Tueday's child is full of grace, apparently. I would go along with that. My mother may not.
If I were a time of day, I’d be 6.15pm. I was born at this time. It's a good time of day, too. Work is over and the evening stretches ahead of you.
If I were a planet, I’d be Mercury. Small, just that little bit too close to the Sun.
If I were a sea animal, I’d be a seahorse. Well, I didn't want to be cliché-tastic and say 'dolphin' or 'fish'. Seahorse. Yeah, why not?

If I were a direction, I’d be west. Life is peaceful there.
If I were a piece of furniture, I'd be a footstool. I can be comforting. And reliable. And a walkover.
If I were a liquid, I’d be Plymouth gin. Not quite the same as all the other gins. And depressive. Haha.
If I were a gemstone, I’d be one of those glass beads on QVC. Why? Because I'm not remotely precious, in any sense of the word.
If I were a tree, I’d be a sycamore. Because I like the way it is spelled.

If I were a tool, I’d be George Lamb (ho ho ho). I mean, what are you supposed to say here? Hammer? Drill? Circular saw? I don't know any other tools. DIY to me is something entirely different and involves broadband and a darkened room.
If I were a flower, I’d be a violet. Because it's just one 'n' away from being aggro.
If I were a kind of weather, I’d be drizzle. You know that type that gets you wet-through? And is persistent? Yeah, that's me.
If I were a musical instrument, I’d be a harpsichord. Ancient, yet tuneful.
If I were a colour, I’d be purple. The colour my face turns in a rage.

If I were an emotion, I’d be worry. I'm an overthinker. What can I say?
If I were a fruit, I’d be a raspberry. Not only tasty, but can be used to insult someone.
If I were a sound, I’d be the entirety of Into The Groove. Only when I'm dancing can I feel this free.
If I were an element, I’d be iron. According to Wikipedia: 'a lustrous metallic with a greyish tinge'. Yeah that sounds about right.
If I were a car, I’d be a Nissan Micra or something equally nondescript. I don't 'do' or particularly 'get' cars.

If I were a food, I’d be a risotto. Looks healthy on the service but packed with all the bad, tasty stuff.
If I were a place, I’d be a market town that's seen better days.
If I were a material, I’d be cotton. I really couldn't bring myself to be a man-made fibre. Nothing good ever comes of them.
If I were a taste, I’d be bitter.
If I were a scent, I'd be, er, smelly?

Thank you to those who have read the blog over the years. It is not 'the end'; I am using the excuse of a new broom to hotfoot it over to WordPress and start anew with a fresh outlook.

It has been a pleasure.

Alone

2010-03-22T19:05:00.005Z

Most days my life just plods on and on, with little to report; the personification of a cosy local newspaper, reporting on lost dogs and garden fetes. Very occasionally, it can be exhilarating, with moments of madness and fun and laughter. And sometimes everything I touch turns to dust. Kingdoms fall, lives are ruined, spines cracked and stiff upper lips liquified as yet again I manage to turn from quiet observer to king destroyer. For a short time last month, it felt like the end of days: as if there were no possible way out. No light at the end of the tunnel, no calm following the storm, no peace.

There is, however, almost always a light at the end of the tunnel, and this case was no exception. And so it is after a tumultuous couple of months I find myself no longer as I was. I'm now living in my own flat and I'm single, staring back at the end of an eight-year relationship.

I won't write too much about the break-up itself as this is a blog, not a diary hidden underneath my bed, but it has been amicable and, at the same time, extremely sad. My former other half was truly that — the other half of me. We did practically everything together, had the same group of friends and got on better than any other relationship I have had. That he is no longer in the same space as me 24/7 will be hard to get used to. Although we have moved to the same area and will probably see a lot of each other, it will be different. We won't be together. It was an end that is right and true, but that is scant consolation for either of us.

Looking for a flat has never been a favourite pastime of mine. Letting agents and landlords alike tend to stress me out and there's nothing quite so soul-destroying as being shown yet another ghettoised shithole and being assured that this is all that is available in your price range. Househunting is an endurance test like no other. Obstacles fling themselves in front of you and days alternately last for ever and whizz by, clocks ticking and counting down the time when you will have to box up your life and throw it in the back of a van. Sorting through your crap is in turns cathartic and devastating. Every till receipt, coffee cup and tea towel transforms from an everyday object into something that, at some point, had great significance. This receipt is from the time I was overcharged and didn't want to cause a fuss; that coffee cup is the one he bought me that day when… and so it continues.

It's not just my dog-eared books and kitchen utensils that I'm sorting through and leaving behind. Looking back over the blog is like reading a childish manuscript and it's probably time to wrap things up. I'm not who I was. I'm neither lost, nor a boy, and while I am still in London, seeing it through single eyes is certainly going to change things.

And so this is my penultimate post on this blog. My swansong — which I am determined will be a HUGE anti-climax, just like everything else in life — is to follow shortly.

Me against the music

2010-02-10T14:27:00.002Z

I have had an MP3 player of some description for the last six years. I've been through about 3 iPods and am currently on an iPhone. Some of my songs have been on my iPod so long that I only have to hear the first millisecond before I know what it is. Whereas pre-MP3 I wouldn't have dreamed carrying around a 'Discman' or its tape-playing equivalent, the iPod and its fellow MP3 family members have made music accessible and instant and, unfortunately, easier to get sick to death of.

When I was a child, which wasn't that long ago (er, really? - Ed) unless you had a record player you didn't really get to hear the tunes you wanted. Listening to your favourites was restricted to half an hour of Top of the Pops and then snatches of the radio. Radio 1 was a dreadful old MOR bore for most of the early '80s and commercial radio had too many ads. Nevertheless, I could be found once or twice a week with my finger hovering expectantly over the record button, ready to tape Kylie's latest opus or a selection of T'Pau's back catalogue.

Now, of course, there are 17,045 (or something) radio stations and once a punter hears a song they might like, they have to do little more than head to YouTube to stream it, or go on countless music blogs to download it illegally or, if they're a bit boring, go on to music streaming sites like Spotify and hear the song over and over and over again. And they don't even have to rewind the tape, desperately trying to stop it at the right place to avoid hearing Bruno Brookes and his hilarious anecdotes which you'd accidentally recorded. Even children with no internet access can find music via their mobiles, whether it's downloaded or bluetoothed to them by a light-fingered friend.

Much like Heat and Closer and their stablemates giving us access all areas to celebrities has downgraded the value of being famous, so too has the ease of which music can be obtained make it less important. For many in their teens and early twenties, paying for all your music is an alien concept. While iTunes has revolutionised paid music downloads, it's still de rigueur for a large number of music lovers to seek out their favourites for free first. Now that you can get your hands on a track as soon as you've heard it, true 'event' singles and albums are a thing of the past. Who now would queue round the block for Oasis's Be Here Now? Nobody. They'll have all downloaded it from a filesharing site two weeks ago and heard for themselves how dreadful it was, at no cost to themselves save for their bleeding ears.

Attention spans are shrinking to such a degree that a song which would usually be played to death for a good couple of months is old hat after three weeks or so, thanks to permanent rotation on music channels and the repeat button on an iPod. As a result, the majority of my music library has now overstepped the mark and wandered from familiarity into contempt. Songs that were previously milk chocolate to my ears are now stale spotted dick and cold custard.

I love my MP3 player, and I love the fact I can listen to what I want, when I want. But I do desperately miss the feeling you get when you *finally* get to hear your favourite song on the radio. That and the excitement you get as, trembling in case you miss the intro, you gingerly press down the record button on your tape player so that the song is yours to keep for ever. Or at least until you get bored. Or your tape gets chewed. Stupid fucking tapes.

Daddy uncool

2010-01-23T12:42:00.003Z

I was absolutely horrified to read this article in The Times the other day. I don't have any problem with anyone who decides to 'change' their sexuality (if such a thing is even possible), but I don't really like the way that the newly-straight Patrick Muirhead is so quick to deride his one-time gay comrades. Now that Patrick has decided that he's into women, civil partnerships are "are little more than theatrical shams involving men making a point in matching wedding cravats, of embarrassed grandparents and monstrously camp multi-tier cakes" and he winces when "gays describe boyfriends as 'husbands', subverting a solemn institution created to provide stability for child-rearing". It seems that as well as a new-found predilection for vaginas, Mr Muirhead has acquired a new line in bigotry and thinly-veiled homophobia.

The catalyst for Patrick's switcheroo was a touching moment between a father and son in a barber's shop. Right then, he decided that he simply *must* have a child of his own, so that someone would love him unconditionally. Perhaps if he were a nicer person in real life, people would love him. But no, as if selecting a Gucci handbag, Mr Muirhead decided he needed a child. Not for him the long fought for gay adoption rights or artificial insemination which he describes as a "snook to the system of nature"; despite the fact there are millions of unwanted children in the world, Patrick is adamant that he should procreate, and it doesn't seem to matter who it's with.

He has been flirting with a woman in his local pub. No doubt she will be flattered to have been selected for impregnation by a former gay who has now decided at the drop of a hat to have a child. What about meeting someone and falling in love and letting nature takes its course? It's not gay parents defying nature, Patrick. It's you. There's nothing natural about the way you think that being homosexual is abnormal, simply because the majority don't practise it.

Patrick's attitude is coming across a bit like someone who's just given up smoking or split up with their lover. While you were puffing away on your cigarettes, polluting the air of everyone in the vicinity, smoking was the best thing ever and you don't care what people think. Once you've stubbed out your last fag, they suddenly become the work of the Devil, eliciting disgust and sanctimonious bleating to the smokers who still like to cram a B&H into their laughing gear. Now that Patrick has 'dumped' his erstwhile sexuality, it repels him. He no longer understands it. he fears it. He thinks it is wrong, especially now that he doesn't do it any more. What a guy.

Good luck to you with your new arrangement. Just don't kid yourself that life is going to be any more fulfilling because you've taken the 'normal' route.

I'm over '09

2010-01-10T18:58:00.001Z

2009 was the worst year of my life. I have no doubt about it. As a superlative, worst/ best X of one's life is over-used, especially by Simon Cowell on The X Factor when speaking about a very average audition. I'm not sure anyone who says that something was the worst experience of their life ever really means it. But I do. Here are nine things about 2009 that have been on my radar.

Katie and Peter
What was a thoroughly depressing and hideous partnership has now been transformed into a tiresome, excruciating break-up. Thanks to that, we've had to endure more Katie Price on TV, Peter André singing, the creation of Alex Reid, the takeover of ITV2 by afore-mentioned dunderheads. These are the last words I'll ever write about them. I hope other writers follow my lead.

Fearne meets...
Fearne Cotton is a multimedia migraine. Her radio show is shit, her adverts are shit, her various TV shows are, invariably, shit. It's not personal, but as a broadcaster she horrifies me. Everything is 'amazing'; her interview technique consists of scratching her head and going 'sooooooo...'; her voice makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and not in a good way. The pinnacle of her TV career has to be her ITV2 show (fucking ITV2 again!) where she 'met' 'celebrities'. The edition with Peaches Geldof was like watching two insane badgers eat, then regurgitate and then re-eat their own faeces. I use the word sparingly, but Peaches Geldof is undoubtedly one hell of a dumb cunt.

Losing my job
I was made redundant in April. I'd been at ITV for two years and thought it wouldn't be too hard to get another job. I thought wrong. I'm freelancing now, but summer was not a great time, except for the fact that I was as brown as a berry thanks to loafing around all day.

Being mad
Thanks to the above, I then went nut-nut and was diagnosed with clinical depression. Amazing, as Fearne Cotton would say. I am now on these bonkers drugs that make me not care about anything, which isn't as perfect as it sounds. I am 'OK' now but I do miss my old mind; we used to be so close.

MP expenses furore
The actual scandal didn't annoy me, it was the way it was reported as if it were an EastEnders plotline. I got very bored by it extremely quickly. Along with the bankers' bonus bollocks and people starting to like David Cameron, this really was the news nightmare of the year.

34
I'm thirty-four now. How the hell did that happen? To 'celebrate', my body decided to give me four coldsores for the big day. I am singlehandedly keeping Compeed (purveyors of coldsore patches) afloat.

Flying
I flew on planes FOUR times this year. That is quite an achievement for me. As for carbon footprint concerns, I didn't fly for a decade so I think I'm in credit there. Things I learned from flying: EasyJet sells raffle tickets; Air Malta food is nice; fat people like to sit next to me; passengers seem to save their smelliest shits for being airborne; I hate children.

Long hot summer
It was hot, it was long, it was summer. Before I went mad, I ran every day for miles and miles, sweating and panting like an overweight rapist. It was brilliant.

Festival
The Edinburgh Festival was brilliant this year. I drank enough pear cider to sink a battleship and saw some great acts.

2009, it's been emotional, but I am elated to see you finally fuck the hell off.

Leave your hat on

2009-12-08T12:49:00.000Z

The weather has been teasing us lately, in London at least. By rights it should be absolutely freezing but on stepping outside, it's become necessary to disrobe in the middle of the street, shedding layers of hoodie, scarf and jumper and thrusting them into my ever-bulging manbag. It won't last for ever of course, and when the cold really sets in, it's time to think about hats.

Hats and I have always had a very odd relationship. When I was a child I had a grey corduroy flat cap but growing up in a part of the country where wearing anything that didn't come from BHS was seen as outré, I was relentlessly mocked by my 'peers'. Reader, I cared not a jot outwardly, but inside I knew that hats are bound to get a reaction one way or another, so best to avoid them if you're not feeling up to defending your sartorial choices.

The biggest decision you have to make when thinking about shoving a hat on your bonce is whether you are willing to sacrifice having a hairstyle for the sake of style and/ or warmth (does anyone actually care about warmth over style? Surely not). Sadly, in the majority of cases, hat hair does not a good look make. There comes then the quandary: do you get a hairdo that won't look like a birds' nest every time you take your hat off, or do you brave the elements and miss out on an amazing accessory because you simply can't part with your Jedward mega-quiff?

For the last two years, I've had to go hat-free, as my barnet has got in the way. Long before those impish Irish twins were murdering pop classics on TV every week, I too had something of a quiff, held in place by ozone-hostile hairspray, industrial strength gel, wires, scaffolding- I'm sure you get the picture. Endless backcombing, primping and product application went into producing that hairstyle, and I was darned if I was going to see it crushed like Jedward's X Factor ambitions just for the sake of a tatty old titfer.

This year, however, my statuesque hairdon't has gone and has been replaced by a much more hat-loving style. I can neither confirm nor deny that this is due to short hair making one look younger, but I digress. I had a train driver style cap a few years ago when I had neck-length hair, and they're great, but when you've got short hair, those hats make your head look like a little pea rolling around your shoulders.

The answer then is the trusty flat cap. While I'm unlikely to ever recreate the amazingness of my childhood grey corduroy number, I'm looking forward to planting one firmly on my head and then, of course, whipping it off in full confidence that I don't look like I've stuck my fingers in a plug socket. Hats off to winter, indeed.

It's a Royal knockout

2009-12-02T11:50:00.003Z

For possibly the first time ever, I feel a little sorry for the Queen at the moment. Usually she's quite dour of face and looks like she wouldn't be a great deal of fun, but I suppose if the world and his wife is intent on documenting your every move, past and present, before you're even dead, then you probably wouldn't have much reason to smile.

Channel 4 is currently running a series of 'docudramas' (cringe) about Her Maj, interspersing a load of people who aren't really pretty enough for telly waffling on about things that have happened with highly-fictionalised scenes from the Queen's life played by actors.

It's an odd show. Obviously, despite the red tops' headlines about her, the Queen herself is a relatively private person. Not for her the confessional autobiographies, tell-all tabloid freakshow or breakdown on her own reality programme. The writers have had to rely on third, fourth and probably fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth-hand accounts of what actually went on. And it shows. Boy, does it show.

I missed the first one which dealt with the oft-trodden path of Princess Margaret's scandalous affair with a divorced man. When drama The Queen's Sister tackled this, they wisely left the Queen out of it, instead opting to have her opinion out across by way of a highly-dramatised Prince Philip. The second one, dealing with the kidnapping attempt of Princess Anne in the 1970s, was my first glimpse. I suppose it could have been quite an interesting subject: the ridiculous audacity of the potential kidnapper and also the high drama that went with it. Channel 4, however, chose to pad out the story with Princess Anne and the Queen having little heart-to-hearts as if they were EastEnders characters chewing the fat not in the smoky confines of the Queen Vic but in the hallways of Buckingham Palace and in full view of about 100 servants. I'm not saying that the Queen talks like she's making a speech 24-7 but the pure soapiness of it all beggared belief. Even more incredible was a later scene that saw the Queen doing the washing up while Harold Wilson dried the dishes! What next? Camilla Parker-Bowles shouting 'I love you!' at Charles during his wedding? Perhaps the Queen could reveal at a state banquet that Philip is not Anne's father, or that she has been having an affair with the President of France, while everyone else has been eating Christmas dinner unawares.

Movies like The Queen and Frost/Nixon have accelerated the trend for 'real life' dramas. Fantasy and fiction aren't enough any more; nobody can be bothered trying to connect to new characters unless they can read about them in the paper every day. In order to survive, drama has had to follow the path beaten by gameshows and reality TV before it. Ordinary, average Joes don't pull in the viewers any more and with new celebrities being created at a rate of knots, it's easier than ever to fill a house or a jungle with a load of Z-listers or populate primetime gameshows with famous contestants.

And now it's drama's turn. Now film-makers don't even have the grace to wait until their subjects are dead before trivialising and soapifying their lives. The episode which documented the rift between Margaret Thatcher and the Queen was preposterous, more akin to a bitchfight between Alexis Colby and Krystle Carrington than a major constitutional sticking point. And beyond a wig, the actors don't even try that hard to be like the people they portray. We've heard the Queen speak, right? Are we really supposed to believe that once the cameras are off she lapses into a Home Counties brogue? Perhaps they thought that as long as they sounded 'a bit posh' they'd be OK. Team that with the clumsy dialogue and you've got an episode of Corrie that's dripping in jewels.

We are not amused, chuck.

Oh Christmas tree

2009-11-24T19:20:00.001Z

My Christmas tree is up. News of this has been met with mixtures of amazement, derision and gentle ribbing by my friends, but this is actually quite late by my standards: I once put the tree up on Hallowe'en. It looks great. Lots of red and gold and a bit of ribbon and new lights.

I am quietly looking forward to Christmas. I have no idea why: it'll be my poorest one since I was a student and, being a freelancer, any time off is not only a break from work but also a break from earning. My Christmas shopping plans have been scaled back to a level of extravagance that would have a battery chicken rolling its eyes and the train journey back to Yorkshire is costing me an arm or a leg. And yet... I can't wait.
Perhaps it's something to do with having a bit of a weird year.

I've surprised myself at how much I've been enthusiastic about the festive season. Usually I spend the preceding weeks pacing up and down shopping areas all over London, whingeing and cursing at the crowds of people and sneering shop assistants. I also be,oan the fact that my birthday is at Christmas, therefore stealing from me the feeling of having a birthday that people actually care about. But now, I think I'm finally over it.

This year, I actually went to watch the Christmas lights in the West End being turned on. And I made an 'ooh' noise when they were! I grinned like a fat bloke who's just bought a Mars bar when the seasonal red cups came out at Starbucks and have indulged in more dark cherry mochas than my purse strings would usually allow. What a capitalist pig I am!

Call it going soft in my old age, or desperately trying to find something positive, but I'm 'up for' Christmas in a way that I'm finding strange yet exciting.

This Christmas might just be the merriest yet.

The future's so bright, I've got to wear shades

2009-11-21T18:04:00.001Z

I have never wanted to be famous. I can't understand what the attraction is. Loads of people you don't know loving or hating you, or even worse being aware of you and totally indifferent to you. While I don't want to *be* famous, I quite like *feeling* famous. Now, short of going on Big Brother or murdering someone, I'm not likely to be catapulted into public consciousness, but there is a really easy way to get that 'celeb feeling': wear sunglasses when you don't need to.

Yeah, I know. You run the risk of people mocking you or thinking you love yourself but so what? At least they're noticing you, right? Lots of people think celebrities are up themselves for wearing shades whatever the weather, but there are actually three very good reasons for doing so. First of all, a picture is worth less if you can't see the eyes. Secondly, your eyes can let you down on a photo. If you blink or roll your eyes, you look drunk or stupid or both. Finally, it's practical: with all those flashbulbs going off in your face, your little peepers need all the protection they can.

Another extra little bonus is that it's a scientific fact that everybody looks around 45% hotter in sunglasses. If your eyes are a bit wonky or too small, just bang your shades on and voilà! You're a sex bomb.

Of course it's important to get it right. I don't care how fashionable they are, but wayfarers only work in summer. I also happen to think wayfarers are a load of shit and make the wearer look like an ugly fashion victim but hey, each to their own, right? Bright colours are also out unless you want to look like a fat American fresh off a flight from Florida. Keep it understated and effortlessly cool. Aviators are timeless and a celebrity favourite. They look good on almost everybody (if your face is too thin, avoid them or you'll look like a fly) and work in any weather system. For extra celebrity sparkle, a gold-rimmed pair are just the ticket. People will ask for your autograph.

As for the lenses, mirrored are not a good look. Think of it from the celebrity angle: flashbulbs would reflect in them and make your eyes look like torches. Not great. Your lenses need to be tinted just enough so that you can almost but not quite see the eyes. This allows you to check out the hotties without being discovered.

The only time the shades need to come off are:

- indoors
- at night
- when it's raining

Wearing them in a bar is OK during the day as long as there are big windows letting in light. At night, you just look like a twat. Or Stevie Wonder. Wearing them on the tube is OK. Why not? At least then you don't have to pretend not to make eye contact. Stare as much as you like! Sporting sunnies when it's raining is social death: you don't want to spend the entire day wiping off speckles of drizzle with a tissue like a nerd. Oh and don't wear them in the house. Even Victoria Beckham doesn't do that.

Let them laugh, let them stare. You look fantastic. Like a superstar.

Ribbed for my pleasure

2009-11-17T22:59:00.003Z

Corduroy. A band. A material. Something I hadn't considered for years.

I've been getting a little sick of the monopoly jeans have over my lower half. Sure they come in different colours and go with pretty much anything, but as anyone caught in the pouring rain on Saturday will tell you, the feel of wet denim clinging to your nether regions is neither pleasurable nor practical.

Although I've avoided corduroy for quite a while now, being told that for a new job I couldn't wear blue jeans in the office posed a bit of a problem. Sure I could wear my aubergine or grey skinnies, but they're a little bit 'nightclub' and not so much 'I am a responsible person and you were right to give me this contract'. I went into central London yesterday with the idea of buying black jeans to solve my problem, but only encountered more difficulties.

Black jeans only seem to exist in two distinct types. First of all you have your superdark, never-washed black jeans. They're not unfashionable, but look ever so slightly like formal trousers hanging loose at the weekend. You know the type, the 'cool, up-for-it dad' who wears a suit at work all week but really likes to chill out in his immaculately ironed ebony denim. Then you've got your distressed/ faded side of the family. Unless you're buying them from quite an expensive retailer, they just never look right. Either they've been so distressed that they look like you accidentally spilled bleach on them or they are so ridiculously faded they appear to have been hanging in a shop window since Prince William's christening. What can look so good on blue jeans can look so bad on their darker cousins.

So the avenue of black jeans was a cul de sac. I wandered around the shops dolefully, bemoaning not only my lack of imagination when it comes to buying trousers but also the stupidity of clothing manufacturers unable to read my mind and run me up a little something that would be ready by the time I stepped off the tube. Just as I was about to admit defeat, I spotted out of the corner of my eye some cords. Cords to me always conjure up memories of a particularly unlovely pair I had when I was eight. They were aubergine-coloured and were made out of really jumbo corduroy material. I had a growth spurt soon after their purchase but was forced by my mother to wear them anyway: a look that now graces almost every street corner in London, yes, but half-mast trousers was social death when I was growing up.

I picked the cords up and looked at them. They were a very nice grey colour. A kind of mid-grey with a touch of silver. Could I? Should I? I resolved to try them on. I then spotted their neighbour, another pair of cords but this time blue. Navy blue. Slim fitting. Navy blue cords? Really? I picked them up and then picked the next size up as well, just in case I had put on weight thanks to that dark cherry mocha I'd had earlier.

I tried on the grey pair first. You have to be careful with cords at my age. Jeans, for most people, have an air of cool. They're the rebel's uniform, look better ripped and tugged and beaten. They're wild nights out in scuzzy bars, crumpled fivers and triple vodkas. Cords to me evoke buzzwords like 'geography teacher', 'reformed sex offender', 'just one more cup of Ovaltine' and 'comfy'. I looked at myself in the mirror. I looked good. Next came the navy pair. Also good. I turned round. Ass looked good. All seemed to be in order. Reader, I bought both pairs.

Today was my first day in corduroy for about seven years, when I finally threw away two pairs of bootcut monstrosities (one black, one brown) that I'd worn for work, an act which came two years after throwing out more brown and black pairs (skinny fit this time) for being too vile for words. Teaming them with a pair of desert boots and a polo shirt in a fetching shade of aubergine I made my way to work and I have to say, I kinda liked it. For the first time in a long time, maybe ever, I felt very much my age but, even if I do say so myself, still looked OK. Pretty good in fact. I'm fine with that.

The pipe and slippers, though, will have to wait.

How the other half live

2009-10-21T09:52:00.002Z

TV presenters poking their noses into the lives of Joe Public is nothing new. From telling them what to wear to noseying through their worthless heirlooms via picking apart their home decor and repainting everything in terracotta, the fascination with telling the viewing public what to do has been a staple of mainstream TV for years.

Recently, however, this has taken a new turn. Now we see a worrying trend where the super-rich are being encouraged to have a prod and a poke at some of the country's most unfortunate citizens. A few years ago, politician Michael Portillo attempted to 'raise' a family on benefits for a TV experiment. He was followed by fellow MP Ann Widdecombe raking through the 'lifestyles' of prostitutes and other unfortunates of society.

These invasive shows have now moved up another gear, with Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, slumming it on an estate in Hull and nodding and smiling in all the right places as decades of desperation and misery are laid out in front of her. Last week saw iconic soap bitch and notorious Concorde and Champagne devotee Joan Collins commissioning a Bentley and zooming down to Plymouth to inject a bit of glamour into the tired lives of three women. It was hard to tell whether Joan's facial expression was due to bemusement or the years of surgical assistance her line-free visage has enjoyed, but as she quizzed drunk locals about their tattoos, I got the distinct feeling Joanie was out of her depth. Joanie's prescription for glamour seemed to involve going to Primark and picking out outfits she wouldn't be seen dead in. La Collins freely admitted that she shopped in M&S occasionally, but when pressed by her charges into revealing her other favourite shops, she had to confess they'd be more likely to line Bond Street than be found in a gloomy shopping precinct.

Just a week after Joan's relatively harmless crusade to wring glamour out of a New Look cardigan, TV is at it again. '7 Days on the Breadline' takes four famous faces and uproots them from their various bases in LA or London and plonks them in the middle of some of the roughest areas of Leeds, a city I know quite well.

Spice Girl Mel B, fashion fascist Trinny Woodall, rugby player and Strictly Come Dancing twinkletoes Austin Healy and, er, bon viveur Keith Allen have all taken up residence in council estates across the city for a so-called social experiment. Mel has been left in charge of a family of five with just benefits to see her through. Trinny has been paired up with a remarkable elderly lady who sleeps on the sofa as she can't manage the stairs. Austin is with a smaller family who seem to be relatively well-off, but the elder son smokes dope. Finally, Keith Allen is head of the household with a slew of boisterous boys (and one girl) to look after.

We're only one episode in, and this opener was mainly taken up with the celebs meeting their new 'projects' and being shown round their modest abodes. Trinny's pensioner, fantastically, didn't have a clue who she was which knocked the wind out of the style guru's sails. Trinny's not doing too well at fitting in: she was a liability when taken to the local bingo hall and she gasped in horror at the 'all you can eat' Chinese buffet she was taken to afterwards. To her credit, she did unflinchingly empty a commode- albeit down the kitchen SINK rather than the toilet; my mother would have been HORRIFIED- and seemed to genuinely feel empathy for her buddy. Perhaps her 'journey' will be the most revealing.

Elsewhere, Mel B sported an array of lurid tracksuits so she could stand out even more, endured endless catcalls from passing cars and bizarrely seemed to think that free gym memberships for all the brood would help lift them out of their doldrums. That Mel has been in LA too long was clear to see. She asked the extremely reticent children for hugs and spouted forth about 'getting to know each other' and forced family meals upon her squirming, embarrassed charges. All very admirable, but totally alien to your average Leeds youth.

Keith walked around his new home in abject horror, fighting a losing battle to clean and tidy it. The teenagers in his family cause trouble at school so they get sent home. They say they want to join the army. Keith doesn't quite know what to say so re-arranges the kitchen. A shopping trip to Asda is excruciating as Keith peers at every food's origin or fat content before putting anything in the trolley, pushed by a resentful teen who'd rather be in bed.

Austin's faring a little better so far. His works has thus consisted of gruffly calling in the teens for dinner and then having big manly chats about 'cannabis' over the meal, the awkwardness of his words ringing off the walls like a pealing church bell.

But why do we need these programmes? Do we need famous people undergoing a culture shock to make serious social issues more appealing, more entertaining? Would a hard-hitting documentary be roundly ignored?

Are these shows really highlighting the plight of the 7 million people who live below the breadline in the UK and bringing it into the wider consciousness? Or are we enjoying a little bit of poverty tourism, where we can watch in horror at the celebrities picking their way through dirty washing, thanking our lucky stars that we can afford our little luxuries? Before switching off and thinking about something else entirely.

The great pretender

2009-10-17T11:34:00.003Z

I generally think of myself as someone as devoid of bad habits. If anyone asks me what my worst habit might be, I say something really boring like "Oh I can be really untidy" or similar.

Of course, I have thousands of bad habits, but I prefer to think of them as quirks. I mean, what does actually constitute a bad habit? It's something you do regularly that other people might think is, er, bad. Right? Whereas you think it's perfectly fine. While I no doubt share some of my habits with others- nose picking, bottom-scratching that kind of thing- one of my 'worst' habits is also one of my favourites and I know I can't be alone in doing it. Put very simply, I always- and I mean ALWAYS- pretend I haven't seen someone when I have, in fact, spotted them ages ago. In any occasion. Let me explain.

Scenario 1: I have arranged to meet a friend at a pre-designated spot. If I arrive first, I will wait patiently. As I see them approach, I will stare into middle-distance. If they wave madly enough, I *may* break at this point and allow a flicker of recognition- if only to stop them making utter idiots of themselves- but usually I will wait until they are practically on top of me before I acknowledge their presence. If I am second to arrive, I will march ahead determinedly toward our meeting spot, even if they attempt all manner of waving, jumping up and down, calling out (which makes me cringe as I hate being hollered at in the street) or- God forbid- whistling. I do not flinch until I am relatively close and even then offer only a small smile of acknowledgement. I don't know why I behave like this. Sometimes I get a tiny wave of pleasure as I look impassively at their vain attempts at attracting my attention. It's not normal, is it?

Scenario 2: I am 'out and about' and see someone I know. If I am in the street, walking past them, I will usually let them go by (unless it's a good friend; I'm generally talking about acquaintances here). I will try my best to avoid eye contact and do my good old middle-distance peering at some non-existent point of interest way off beyond their shoulder. If they stop me, well, that's all well and good, but if they don't, I don't and we float on and get on with the rest of our lives. If I'm at a party and I arrive, I will pretend I've not seen the host- or indeed anyone else of interest- until they come right up to me. If someone arrives 'fashionably late', in other words shamelessly attention-seeking, I will simply look the other way or become particularly engrossed in whatever conversation I'm having until it becomes unavoidable, whereupon I will call on my best acting skills and act surprised to see them.

I suppose this quirk is now too ingrained in me now and I will never be free of it. I'm sure that everyone does it at some point or another, if not with my startling regularity. If you do happen to see me in the street, don't feel you have to say hello; I can hardly blame you. Just so long as you know that I have seen you. And I saw that you saw me too.

41 things

2009-10-12T21:17:00.003Z

I have not done a meme for what seems like an eternity. Lubin Odana did one and urged me to do the same. I have to say that a lot of my answers would have been very similar to his, so in those cases I chose another answer to make it more 'interesting' for the 3 people and 17 spambots who glance at this blog de temps en temps.

1) My mother once: told me to leave my hometown as soon as I was able. It was sound advice
2) Never in my life: will I understand tax
3) When I was five: my hair was bright golden blond
4) High school was a: Grammar School where I come from. I hated every second.
5) I will never forget: the feeling of leaving home. Horror, excitement, fear, scheming
6) I once met: the Cheeky Girls
7) There's this person I know who: is a rampant Tory. I really like her but it disturbs me intensely. I fear Tories.
8) Once, at a bar: I had my first drink. I kind of wish I hadn't bothered.
9) By noon I'm usually: weary.
10) Last night I: drank a bottle of prosecco and ate olives
11) If only I had: not been quite so cautious when I was younger
12) Next time I go to church/temple: I will be at yet another bloody wedding
13) Terri Schiavo: I don't know who this is
14) I like: bread but it doesn't like me
15) When I turn my head left, I see: my kitchen. I think officially it's a 'kitchenette', but sadly that word has died out, it would seem
16) When I turn my head right, I see: my a lamp I paid £2 for from Asda
17) You know I'm lying when: I'm overly enthusiastic
18) In junior school: I should've hit back more
19) If I was a character written by Shakespeare: I would be scenery
20) By this time next year I: will be almost 35, which I find in turns amusing and horrifying
21) A better name for me would be: something else beginning with J. No-one ever used to get my name right when I was a child
22) I have a hard time: a lot of the time
23) If I ever go back to school, I'll: ditch Spanish and English Literature A-levels and do the ones I actually wanted to do
24) You know I like you if: I start being affectionately rude to you
25) If I won an award, the first person I'd thank would be: Mummy!
26) I hope that: the Tories never 'get back in' again
27) Take my advice: don't bother smoking. It really stinks and make you look UGLY
28) My ideal breakfast is: porridge, no sugar, no honey, no nothing
29) A song I love but do not have is: yet to exist
30) If you visit my home town, I suggest: Valium and blinkers
31) Tulips, character flaws, microchips and track stars: Is this a lyric?
32) Why won't anyone: instantly 'get me'? Getting to know people is boring and hard work
33) If you spend the night at my house you'd have to: not bitch about me drinking decaffeinated tea. Seriously, Starbucks is >>> that way if you're one of those dullards who needs caffeine to inject a bit of verve into you
34) I'd stop my wedding: I actually wouldn't start my wedding
35) The world could do without: parsnips, fennel and celery
36) I'd rather lick the belly of a roach than: not be right
37) My favourite thing is: out there somewhere
38) Paper clips are more useful than: Angelina Jolie and any magazine she graces the cover of
39) And by the way: If I want your opinion, I'll give it to you
40) The last time I was (really) drunk: I woke up feeling absolutely fine
41) My grandmother always: adored me. Both of them did. Much to the consternation of my cousins. I still smile about it now. Ha.

I got you babe

2009-10-03T10:24:00.003Z

Like loads of other people too tight or anti-Murdoch to get Sky, I had to retune my Freeview box the other day. It’s said that some viewers may have been confused as to how to do it or might forget, but I find that hard to believe, given that every time I turned the TV on or changed channel, a reminder would flash up. It still flashes up now, even though I’ve already done it. Match that with alarmist stories in the press about Freeview boxes blowing up and very patronising news reports where a journalist would stand in a Currys (I wanted to write Rumbelows there for creative effect, but it doesn’t exist any more does it? Sounded better though) giving a slow, step-by-step guide on how to press two buttons on your Freeview remote, and surely everyone was in the know.

Since retuning, I have noticed only two differences. A few channels have switched themselves around, moving down a few ‘doors’ in some kind of telly channel house swap. The other thing I’ve noticed, and it’s difficult *not* to notice, is that there are now FIVE channels in a row dedicated to a usually devastatingly-unattractive female rubbing her minge on a pillow. Yes, I now have Babestation!

I’ve seen Babestation before, many years ago. I used to share a flat with a guy for whom masturbation was the only sexual option he was ever likely to have. He had two boxes of Kleenex by his bed and his last girlfriend was such a distant memory, all his photos of their time together were sepia-tinted. He was the first person I’d ever known who had ‘Sky Digital’ as it was then called. I would come home from work or doing something much more interesting to find him watching Babestation. It then consisted of two women reading out texts from pathologically lonely bank tellers and deputy managers of leading supermarket chains. Occasionally they’d lick their lips or plump their (always blond) hair. And that was that really. Endless hours of waving to ‘Gary’ or ‘Steve’ in a tight top. I admired the girls in a way. It really was money for old rope.

Fast forward ten years later and Babestation is a different animal. In fact, animal is probably the best way to describe it. As I’m working late evenings at the moment, I’m getting in at around two-thirty in the morning, so perhaps it’s not quite so bad at other times, but at that time of the morning, Babestation has gone on to the next level. And it’s not an upward journey.

There’s a lady. Oh she’s got no top on. She’s got two or three tattoos. Her boobs are VERY round and look like they’ve been stuck on. Her hair extensions are a bit frazzled. Ooh look she’s on the phone, but I can’t hear her speaking. She’s lying on her back and humping the air in the sheerest, flimsiest of thongs ever. I can see bits of her that even she’s probably not investigated in any depth. Oh where’s she putting her hands? Oh no is she going to put them insi… hmm no she’s not she’s just putting them ‘tantalisingly’ close to the band of her ‘panties’. Now she’s turning over and is on all fours. Her boobs look like huge oranges. They look quite painful actually. The skin is stretched over them like a bad facelift. They’re straining to escape. Now she’s lying flat and, oh, she’s having sex with a pillow with mad, forceful thrusts. Now she’s stopped. Now she’s thrusting again. Now she’s stopped. A lick of the lips. She’s just put her boob in her mouth. It appears that she’s not some bored housewife entertaining herself while she’s holding the line to the British Gas call centre: there’s someone on the phone telling her what to do. As she replies to the mystery caller, her face contorts in what I imagine she thinks are sexy expressions but in fact she looks spiteful, as if she’s telling him what a small penis he has. I wonder what her voice is like. Strong, dominating, persuasive and sexy? Husky and sensual?

I soon find out. After a few calls, the gyrating lady will be tossed a microphone which allows her to speak to us, in order to entice more viewers to call her. She sounds like the woman who does the tannoy announcements in a Stockport Asda. “Yeah hi guys I’m Stacey and I’m really lookin for-wood to talkin to you. Call me now for some sexy chat.” If you get bored of the Stockport senorita, you can always ‘flick’ on to the next channel to watch a slightly thinner girl with huger breasts or a more curvy girl with extra tattoos. The last couple of babealicious channels are in fact Babestation imitators with what viewers might think are less attractive ladies- they don’t have hair extensions and their bodies aren’t like melons glued to a pencil.

At the moment, while the girls are topless and thrusting, nothing particularly sexual is happening. I’m already desensitised to the sight of Stacey rubbing her knock-off Janet Regers on velour cushions, so to her regular viewers it must be as sexy as watching Corrie. Eventually, perhaps with the promise of an extra fiver, the knickers will have to come off and then, perhaps a year or two down the line, God knows what will be going God knows where.

I’ll have to check back on them in 2019.

You old bag

2009-09-14T17:36:00.000Z

I have to admit: I haven't been particularly environmentally-friendly in my life. As a teenager I would look out of the window on endless car journeys through identical country landscapes and long for the glowing light of a Sainsbury's or McDonald's to break up the monotony. In my twenties I would gleefully throw everything away as soon as I was bored with it, even if it wasn't broken, and glass bottle after glass bottle would be chucked merrily straight into the bin without nary a thought.

In the last few years or so, though, things have changed. Along with the extra fine lines and the greying sides, I'm growing something I never thought I'd see. Yes, I think I'm getting a conscience.

It started slowly. I started to stack bottles by the side of the sink to be taken to the recycling point. I would agonise about what kind of product to get based on whether it had too much packaging or not. And now my attentions have turned to bags. Plastic bags, the scourge of the supermarket. Being anti-bag is nothing new. Various newspapers have been campaigning against them for quite a while and checkout staff have long been trying to put off patrons from loading up their solitary onion in a thick, glossy shopper by a) charging for them and b) offering loyalty card points for bringing your own. I have quite a few of these 'bags for life' as they like to call themselves. When I forget to take them to the supermarket I mentally flagellate myself to a degree that would make an Opus Dei devotee wince. If I forget the bag whe I pop over to the 'local' supermarket- a three-aisle nightmare with queues that stretch to the Norfolk Broads and only one type of everything, all premium brands with sky-high prices- I refuse a plastic bag and play a dangerous game of avoiding A-road traffic while balancing 'ingredients' in my arms, biting my lip in concentration as they wriggle and jiggle like a coughing baby. It's like being on an 'extreme' version of Ready Steady Cook.

Not everyone shares my bag guilt. I went into a well-known supermarket the other day and bought a small, plastic bottle of water (plastic! Again! Why *do* I hate Mother Earth so?) and was offered a free bag for it. This is the same chain that, in other branches when I am buying an obscene amount of groceries for over-inflated prices, charges for bags even if you have no choice but to have one. This isn't just any old double standard, this is a 'world-famous brand' double standard.

The harsh reality

2009-08-28T09:56:00.001Z

The demise of Big Brother has gained a large amount of coverage in the press. Channel 4's decision not to renew the show's run beyond its 11th series in 2010 seems to have been portrayed in various media outlets as a victory for quality programming and the death knell for the so-called reality TV genre.

In fact, Channel 4 haven't 'axed' Big Brother as such. They've just decided that when the current contract runs out, they won't be renewing. The lights in the Big Brother house won't be dimming for the final time until this time next year, so it's hardly the whipping off the airwaves that some would have you believe. The reality genre has mutated many times during its lifespan. From a gentle start filming families and workers going about their daily business, to the artificial environments created by shows like Big Brother and I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here, the genre has made heroes and villains out of a cast of thousands, has been going strong for the last 40 years or so and shows no signs of stopping, despite Big Brother preparing for its swansong.

I never really saw Big Brother as a reality show. Despite its early insistences that it was a social experiment, it was essentially a gameshow, at best a personality contest. The first two series did have a factor of the unknown about them: in the first, nobody thought so many people would be watching; in the second, nobody truly thought anyone would bother to watch it again. As production teams, sponsors and TV executives got wise to the revenue-generating power and PR potential of the show, the format was tweaked, contestants manipulated and the editing process polished to sway the viewing public. The role of playing God moved after the fourth series from the viewers themselves to the producers.

Even people who don't watch Big Brother have something to say about. Remember John Humphrys's frankly embarrassing tirade against Big Brother and the reality genre in the McTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival back in 2004? Denouncing the show as damaging, he was forced to admit a little later that he was not a regular viewer of the show. Most of the show's detractors don't actually watch it and the loudest calls for its removal from the airwaves are often from those who are already doing something better with their time when it's on. I stopped watching it three series' ago when the casting stopped being to my personal taste. I've seen three episodes of the current run and and am a little glad I haven't tuned into the whole thing, although I still found myself intrigued by the goings-on. It's quite an investment of time and energy and I don't think it's worth it to me any more.

That said, it does have an audience and is a massive hit with the 18-22 age group. As new generations grow up with Big Brother, there's still mileage in the brand and the potential cast is getting bigger and bigger. That Channel 4 has decided to have a creative rethink and focus on making dramas that the 18-22 year-olds currently glued to that slot will avoid is a brave move. Much braver than deciding not to renew a show that still generates revenue. Only time will tell if they've made the right decision. Five and Sky have so far denied that they have any interest in producing the show, but I doubt we've seen the last of Big Brother. Someone, somewhere is watching and waiting and when the time is right, he'll be back.

I lift my cup

2009-08-25T18:15:00.003Z

I am usually late to any party, be it a mix and mingle at the neighbours' or the figurative kind. One particular party I'm rather glad I wasn't on time for was the viral video phenomenon that is 2 Girls 1 Cup. Friends have been banging on about it for years and I had always resisted watching it. Last night. however, I had something in a lull in my sanity and decided to premiere it in my very own living room. I won't 'spoil' it for anyone who's not seen it yet, but it does involve poo. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, but go on YouTube and search for reaction videos: you'll get the general idea from the looks on the faces of the millions who've taped themselves watching it. The internet really *is* a load of shit, on this occasion at least.

I have always had a very weak stomach. As a child I would have to stand outside butchers' shops as the smell of dead animal sent to me into convulsions. Dog poo on the shoe- an all-too-frequent occurrence- would leave me speechless with fear and even the scent of a lemon meringue made me lose my breakfast all over the dining hall as 7-year-old. There was a boy who lived on my street for whom a weak stomach was simply not an issue. He, allegedly, had no sense of smell or taste; or if he did it was severely impaired. He had no fear, giving the bullies of the area ample fodder. All manner of dares would be batted his way and he would take part in them without flinching. This will of iron apparently extended to him putting faeces in his mouth, lending him the nickname of 'Shit Eater'. Being so young at the time, I can't remember if I ever saw him actually doing this, but the image has stayed with me. And every time I think of it, I heave. Watching 2 Girls 1 Cup brought it all flooding back. Ugh. Although I must admit a sadistic pleasure in watching my other half view it for the first time; I laughed for about a decade. And filmed it. What's wrong with me?!

And don't even get me *started* on 2 Girls 1 Finger. I don't think any amount of therapy will mindwipe that monstrosity.

When extra toppings go bad

2009-08-13T21:47:00.001Z

When you eat out, getting a little bit extra is always good. A bigger portion is always a nice surprise, but when your added bonus has dropped from the chef's head, the fun factor decreases significantly.

While in Edinburgh (I was in Edinburgh last week; did I mention it?), I stopped at a cafe for lunch with my other half and a friend. Unless you're laying out £££ for a spendy meal or in a half-decent restaurant, Edinburgh's not that great for food, especially lunches. When I lived there, hours would be spent counting off places to eat on our fingers as we dismissed every bar and cafe in the city because of some previous horrific experience. Either that or we would trudge around sulking at the lack of decent eateries and bemoaning the fact that we had had dreadful lunches from one end of town to the other. Things aren't much better in London, but at least we haven't exhausted every place just yet.

So we sat down and after waiting a while to be seen, we ask for menus. I liked up and down the menu with trepidation, picturing in my head as I read the words the limp-lettuced salads, greasy paninis and uninspiring burgers. Having plumped for a chicken burger, I was most surprised around three quarters of the way through it to find a coarse black hair poking out of the bun and waving at me. I closed my eyes and opened them again. Hair still there. More blinking ensued, but my burger refused to lose its burgeoning toupée. I started to feel a bit awkward. There was no way the burger was going anywhere near my mouth again, but I'd eaten quite a lot of it already. If I complained, would they think I was trying it on?

I bit the bullet and complained, as quietly as possible so as not to alert other diners of the possibility of finding something furry in their lunch. The waitress didn't seem to be that bothered. I said I'd like it taken off my bill. She went away and returned some minutes later saying they wouldn't take it off the bill but would make me another one. As we were with a friend, I didn't want to make a scene. I had something of a dilemma here. If I refused the new burger and demanded it be removed from the bill, it would embarrass my friend. If I refused the burger and paid for the hairy one, it was (to me) and admission that I had been trying it on and had put the hair in myself. If I took the new burger, I would have to eat it. I took the burger. I wish I'd complained now; the second one was even ranker than the first and just came on its own as they'd thrown my fries and salad away with its hairy predecessor.

I'm not a serial complainer but I do hate being ripped off. Was I unreasonable on asking for it to be removed from the bill? Should I just let it go and move on? Yes, I think I should.

The gentle touch

2009-08-12T13:25:00.002Z

When I was in Edinburgh, I read an interview with comedienne Laura Solon where she said that people-watching wasn't a good way to get the basis for a comic act, as people don't tend to do very much when out in public. I couldn't agree more: people-watching is fun for the very first few minutes, but beyond that, you're just watching people walk past you.

What struck me about the article wasn't Ms Solon's observations, but the fact that throughout the article, she was referred to as a 'comedian' or 'comic'; the word 'comedienne' didn't get a look in. It's becoming increasingly common to ignore the feminine variants of roles these days. Actresses prefer to be called actors and even waitress seems to be slipping from favour.

I seem to remember reading some years ago that these words have been dropped as they're seen as sexist and women prefer not to have the gender distinction made. I'm not a woman, so it's not for me to say what they should and shouldn't be called, but as someone who loves words, I have to say that I would hate to see the death of comedienne, actress and waitress and all their fellow feminine words. Not only do they look better written down, they also sound more interesting and exotic when you say them out loud. If you put the emphasis on the second syllable of actor, it sounds almost sneery, mocking. Say it. Act-or. Act-OR. Not particularly affectionate, is it? The word actress, however, doesn't take any shit. You just can't mock it.

I speak French and one of the things I love about the language is that it has masculine and feminine words. In English we say 'calculator', which, if you translated directly into French using the rule that 'or' = 'eur', would make 'calculateur'. This version of the word does exist but the French prefer to girlify the common old calculator and now she's a 'calculatrice' and thus, if you want to be all literal and turn it back into English, 'calculatress'. A calculator plods its way through your mathematical problems: it's dependable but functional and essentially a dullard. Your calculatress, however, tears her way through your logarithms, destroys your algebra and polishes off your myriad multipications without so much as breaking a nail. She's the Alexis Carrington of the mathematical world.

While I accept that roles which define men and women may be a barrier to gender equality, I dare say lexicographers nationwide are going to miss those lovely ladies.

Stresstival

2009-08-10T19:24:00.000Z

I have just got back from a short break in Scotland. I spent a few days in Carnoustie with my dad and his wife, but the rest of my break was taken up with the very serious business in doing as much of the Edinburgh Festival as possible. I have had a strange relationship with the festival over the years: I lived in Edinburgh for a few years from the late nineties and used to find the festival something of an inconvenience. Save for the odd show, the only goods I'd get out of the festival would be the extended opening hours of bars and clubs and, er, getting to know the strangers in town for the event. Edinburgh really is consumed by the festival throughout August: the population swells and the whole city is unrecognisable, transformed from a grey, proud capital into a fun, boisterous place. Dour grannies make way for enthusiastic performers and the place is all the better for it.

It is more or less a tradition for permanent residents of Edinburgh to hate the festival, at least outwardly. The influx of RP accents and bright young things prancing around in Victorian clothes or full theatrical make-up doesn't really endear the event to the Edinburghers. Many Edinburgh folk are turfed out of their flats by landlords who want to move in more-moneyed temporary residents for the month of August, prices seem to shoot up out of nowhere, taxis become scarcer than unicorns and the quantity of amateur bagpipers increases tenfold. Secretly, though, I think they love it. Venues spring up in the most unusual of places and the city seems surrounded by a warm aura that you don't get during the remaining dank months of the Edinburgh calendar.

This year, I managed to see 8 shows and missed around 10 more that I would have liked to have seen. Eight shows in 3 days may not seem like a lot, but going to see performances is extremely time-consuming. First of all, you have to pore over the umpteen festival guides to find shows you may be interested in. You have to then spend half an hour cursing that the show you really want to see has just finished 10 minutes ago. You'll then forget to see it the next day. Then it's time to queue for your ticket. For a full festival experience, your show should be sold out after you've queued for aeons. Once you do get your tickets, you need to get your drink to take in with you (the venues are notoriously hot *and* some shows are so bad they can be much improved by inebriation.) You think you're finally at the main event, but no: you have to queue up again, this time to get in the venue. Once you're in, you're in for at least an hour and then when you're out, there's the obligatory drink in the bar to dissect what you've just witnessed. And then the process starts again.

When I lived in Edinburgh I probably saw a maximum of 3 shows for the entire three weeks. I never bothered with the main International Festival, which was usually lots of opera, high-brow dance or Shakespeare. The Film Festival didn't really appeal, either, what with films being much longer than live shows and there being all that festival quaffing to do outside the darkened auditoria. So it was the Fringe that I would frequent, although my experience of it all was mainly confined to the various bars that pop up here, there and everywhere. Now that I'm an Edinburgh ex-pat, however, I try and fit in as much as I can in the few short days I have there. There's some great stuff to see, but, man, there's a lot of dross too. Going as we did this time in the first week meant that not many shows had been reviewed or seen by anybody else, so it was hard to get a feel for what was good and what was absolute bobbins. Last year, we went in the third week and got a much higher hit rate. You do pay less for tickets in the first weekend, though.

And now it is over, and here I am back, feeling a bit blah. I was quite proud of myself for managing to fly there and back (my heartfelt thanks to Diazepam for making this possible). I know that this makes my so-called carbon footprint considerably larger but, come on, I didn't fly for ten years until last year so I reckon I'm due a little bit of aviation experience. I have also come back hopelessly addicted to Kopparberg pear cider. I don't think I could have got through some of the shows without it. So all-in-all, a marvellous festival fuelled by tranquilisers (for the flight only, I assure you) and pear cider. See, you don't need 'Glasto' for rock and roll.

Up the junction

2009-07-28T12:16:00.001Z

My unemployment rages on. The problem with not having a job is that you're exposed to far fewer humans than everybody else. Some may say this is ideal, as in many workplaces colleagues are dreadful bores who are forced upon you, much like lecherous relatives or rude checkout assistants. I am, however, starting to miss interaction that doesn't involved friends I've know for years and my other half. I miss the whimsy and dreaded 'watercooler' moments that you just don't get if you're not trooping into a workplace every day.

The highlight of my unemployment has undoubtedly been attempting to get state benefits. I have signed on twice before: once when I was 'on hiatus' from college and then again just after I graduated. I was on the dole for precisely one week, both times. I don't remember it being nearly as difficult or stressful as it was this time, but perhaps the mists of time have clouded my judgement. I was quite surprised, despite having worked solidly for the last 10 years, to be refused Jobseekers' Allowance. Apparently, there was mix up and they thought I hadn't made enough National Insurance contributions. It's taken two soul-destroying trips to the JobCentre with my P60 (they lost it the first time) to prove I had paid enough. The money, such as it is, is now starting to dribble through.

The most awful bit is signing on itself. The whole process is designed to upset and annoy. You have a fixed time you must go but, without exception, you'll be kept waiting a good 45 minutes. The heat and desperation go hand in hand and every time I'm in there, someone is shouting at a member of staff. Nobody says 'hello' to you: you are just told to sit down. Nobody even looks at you. It's strange. I can't understand why anyone would behave like that, but most of the people who work there do.

The scariest thing is that potential jobs are becoming scarcer. I see around 3 a week that I may just be suitable for. I always used to get an interview when I applied for jobs. Recently it's been a hit rate of 1 in 10. I shine and dazzle in interviews and the potential employers nearly always love me, but the gig goes to someone else at the last minute. Such is life.

I'll stop now before this turns into an employment-related version of those misery novels about harsh upbringings in Ireland. Perhaps I should write one myself called 'Please Recession, Don't Hurt Me' or similar.

Baby one more mime

2009-06-30T23:27:00.000Z

I went to see Britney Spears in concert the other week. Well, I think I did. A blonde pranced about on a stage for a couple of hours as some of Britney’s CDs played in the background so I can only assume it was actually Miss Spears. I only went because I managed to get £5 tickets on the day so thought that anyone was worth seeing for a fiver and dragged along my other half to the O2 where the world’s most famous hick was holding court.

I’d heard that she was miming the entire set, which I find unacceptable in any live act. Had I paid full price for my ticket, I’d have lynched her and paraded her head on a stick past the endless chain restaurants that encircle the arena. I once paid- well, twice actually- a small fortune to see Madonna and was horrified at rumours she’d mimed some of it. When did that become OK? Anyway, we pitched up at the O2, arriving amid a flurry of bunny ears, tutus and cheap perfume, before taking our seats. I’d been misinformed at the time Britney would be on stage and so had to sit through the support acts. First on was R&B also-ran Ciara, who had boundless energy but was a little swamped in the middle of the huge, round stage and, sadly, did a minimum of singing over a thudding backing vocal. The girl next to me asked if I was excited about seeing Britney. I had to admit I wasn’t that bothered and had only come along for the cheap tickets. I’d meant it to be a kind of joke, but the girl- I say girl, she was in her mid-twenties- took considerable offence and switched seats, which caused me no end of amusement.

When Britney finally appeared on stage, the crowd went wild and while the show had plenty of spectacle and the music sounded good, she mimed the whole thing, which no doubt wasn’t a problem if you were stageside but those of us up in the Gods had difficulty connecting with her, knowing that she was twirling around to a tape. She occasionally ‘spoke’ to the audience but knowing her she probably lip-synched that too. It was a bit like watching one of those dolls with a string hanging out of her back that you pull to make it talk. I wonder who does hold Britney’s strings these days. She did her fair share of dancing, despite performing the first three songs being dragged in a shopping trolley, but to me live should mean live, and I almost felt sorry for the Britney maniacs who come back night after night, spending all their wages watching her move her mouth.

As usual, I drank too much and managed to piss off the two girls at the end of my row with my constant trips to the bar. The actual highlight of the concert wasn’t related to Britney at all. Four girls who’d got £5 tickets and were sitting near us were approached by a member of the production team to see if they wanted to sit in a better seat. They naturally agreed, and were shown to luxury couches at the very edge of the stage, where they would be nose to nipple with their idol. Absolutely free. Watching them whooping it up, screaming and generally losing their shit at their good fortune totally made my night and was much more compelling than the dead-eyed pop princess strutting her stuff.

Jungle fever

2009-06-15T20:32:00.000Z

I am supposed to be preparing a presentation for a second interview that I’ve got in 2 days and, as inspiration is not forthcoming, I have been doing anything but what I should be doing.

I’ve managed to catch some of the new US version of I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! and have found it wonderfully bizarre. Firstly, you don’t really have to be that famous in America to get on it. Janice Dickinson, runner-up in the UK a couple of years ago, is back for more here. While she is relatively entertaining in her other million reality shows, she doesn’t really shine in this format, whingeing and looking increasingly like she’s been left under the grill too long. She’s supposed to be rough and tough but welches out of challenges at the drop of a hat. I can’t believe she’s agreed to do the show again; her pay packet must be huge. The main highlight has been my introduction to Heidi Montag and husband Spencer Pratt. I’ve never watched The Hills, the show that propelled them to fame, but from what I understand it is a ‘scripted reality’ show. I think that means its participants are pretending to be in a docusoap but are actually faking it, the kind of behaviour that would have you hauled over the calls on an anti-sleaze ticket in the UK, but is absolutely fine in the US. Imagine if Ken and Barbie found God and you’d be halfway there with the Montag-Pratts. They’re in turns bouncy and clinically depressed, facing every hardship with utterings of prayers. Heidi, a wannabe popstar, was asked to sing a song from her album for the jungle crew. The resulting tuneless warble was met with derision from Janice, who received a dressing down from hubby Spencer who urged a bemused Janice not to make him ‘spence out’. Sadly, the shiny-toothed pair have now left the jungle thanks to Heidi contracting a vomiting bug. As stick-thin Heidi only usually vomits after a meal, the bosses figured something was up and the world’s worst advert for evangelical Christians slipped off our screens, much to the relief of the other also-rans. I hear that Heidi’s sister Holly has taken her place, so I’ll be tuning in to see if she’s just as jelly-brained.

I’m just half-watching that Giles Coren and Sue Perkins show where they ‘live’ in a different decade and eat food particular to that period. In this edition, somewhat pointlessly, they’re tacking that bygone era that is, er, the 1980s. Watching them ooh and aah over foods like Stella Artois, potato waffles and the like feels like a very empty experience. Unless you’re about 15, the menus don’t have the ‘ick’ factor that previous series would have done, thus rendering the programme a waste of time as no teenager would want to sit and watch this middle-class drivel. One scene had Giles going into Pret A Manger, for fuck’s sake. Gosh, nobody does that these days, do they? How odd!

One more TV gripe before I pretend to get on with some work: Andie MacDowell. Aside from these endless L’Oréal adverts, where she plugs anti-ageing cream (I wonder if it dials the plastic surgeon for you), does she actually do any acting? How would she find the time? She must film a new one every day.

Killer queen

2009-06-02T20:56:00.005Z

Formidable retail ogress Mary Portas is back on our screens with her Mary Queen of Shops show, but instead of haranguing provincial boutique owners into ditching the leatherette jackets in favour of the latest trends, she's taking on the mild-mannered volunteers who staff the nation's charity shops.

Charity shops' heyday seems to have been and gone. Students are more likely to be clicking their way to a secondhand bargain online than rummaging through the flower power fabrics down at Oxfam. That eBay has usurped charity shops as a place for getting rid of unwanted possessions seems to have passed Mary by in her new show. I was practically shouting at the TV as she repeatedly expressed her bemusement that nobody was donating their best bits and bobs in the midst of a recession. "They're flogging everything online, Mary!" I wanted to yelp. "Log on and see for yourself." In the days where anything older than two seasons is 'vintage' and snapped up by ironic haircut-sporting trash enthusiasts with their own market stall, charity shops are being left with the sodden rugby boots, poo-stained knickers and crispy cardigans that would otherwise languish at the bottom of the dustbin.

Mary's steely approach usually works when she's lambasting a poodle-permed clothes shop owner in Cheadle, but when up against a silver-haired volunteer in Orpington, Mary looked less like the saviour of modern retail and more like a grimacing care worker, tweaking the cheeks of the obstinate grannies and giving them nicknames that for the first 89 years of their lives they managed to do without.

Mary's main hindrance was the hapless area manager of the Save the Children store that Mary was charged with rescuing. Clueless, grasping and powerless, Nick tried valiantly to persuade Mary that he was of some use, but la Portas was far from convinced. A stand-off in the shop over the state of the stock room left the area manager mourning the loss of his balls. A key part of Mary's masterplan was to turn the kindly volunteers into salespeople. One scene at a market stall, where Mary had charged the white hair brigade with flogging designer cupcakes made for slightly uncomfortable viewing as Brenda, a longstanding volunteer, thought of every excuse possible not to have to talk to customers or handle the goods. There was a positive outcome as Brenda turned into a market trader in a matter of minutes (in the edit at least), but it seemed that Mary, no doubt the very opposite of a wall flower most her life, didn't seem to want to accept that some people, especially little old ladies, prefer the shadows.

Even if Mary's retail rottweiler act seems a little at odds with the superannuated sales crew, it's fantastic to have her back on telly. I can't remember the last time I left a charity shop with anything other than paperback novel or maybe at a push a semi-interesting tie; can Mary's rag and bone revolution sweep the country? At the end of the first episode, there were a few tears from Mary, although she may have been peeling an onion under her desk; I couldn't quite see.

Winging it

2009-05-30T19:55:00.000Z

My fear of flying has reared its ugly head again. I'm flying alone to Malta in July for a friend's wedding. I haven't flown since we went to New York last year, which is just long enough for the dull anxiety to start creeping back in. I have dallied about booking it for months, with the excuse that I couldn't book it until I knew if I had a job or not. As the job situation isn't really looking up (I'm freelancing to keep my head above water) I very uncharacteristically threw 'caution to the wind' and booked it last week.

Although I am looking forward to seeing my friend get married, I can't say I'm excited by the prospect of spending time in Malta. It's not a holiday destination I would've chosen. Most people I know have pulled a face when I've told them where I'm going. My dad went there on holiday once and said it was the dullest 10 days of his life. And he lived in Catford for a year.

Are you being served?

2009-04-29T17:14:00.003Z

I'm not beautiful. I'm never going to be stopped in the street and offered million dollar modelling contracts and passers-by do not salivate as their gaze falls upon my face. I am passable: I have good days and bad days and generally look OK. I have good haircuts and wear nice clothes and am clean and that helps. On the whole, I feel pretty good about the way I look. That is until I go shopping and enter the surrealist retail experience that is Abercrombie and Fitch. I first went in there with my other half as we killed time before a dinner reservation in the pop-up restaurant they had in the Royal Academy. I had heard of A&F before- tales of bare cocks and homo-erotic poses in catalogues had reached my ears- but I wasn't quite prepared for what I would find inside.

Clothes are somewhat secondary, indeed almost unnecessary, to the A&F experience. As you enter the store you'll be greeted by a man with no shirt on. Well, I say man, but you don't often see men who look like this in real life. They usually belong in comics or aftershave adverts. A tummy so flat you could iron on it, defined pecs and ripples in all the right places. Toned, tanned and what you would probably call handsome if you liked your men to look as if they were created in a scientific experiment, this man's job is to stand in the doorway in a pair of jeans. This is his job. Sometimes, he will have a female model next to him. She will have perky breasts, porcelain teeth and a healthy glowing tan. They really are there; this is not a mirage. Mostly, however, no-shirt man will be alone, save for hysterical German teenage girls hanging off them having their picture taken. No-shirt man carries a Polaroid camera for this purpose. Acting as doormen will be two shop assistants, the very definition of all-American teens. Inside, pounding and tacky Europop thuds hypnotically as you try to make your way through the store. The lights are turned down to stop you noticing how boring the clothes are: Gap-style sweats and miserable polo shirts in every washed-out shade you can imagine. But nobody is looking at the clothes. It's the shop assistants who catch you eye. Every single one of them is perfect. Perfection doesn't necessarily mean that they are all blessed with model looks. Even those with quirky teeth and squished noses look perfect, as if they were meant to look that way.Whereas a big nose can look like a deformity on the 'outside world', within the confines of A&F, and when teamed with silky-smooth skin and an A&F polo shirt, it looks like a large hooter was God's plan all along.

I've been back a few times, which makes me feel unbelievably voyeuristic, but I can't help myself. There's something quite comforting about the kind of hotness on display at Abercrombie and Fitch: it's not threatening or derisory in any way. It makes me wistful, both for the youth that I did once have and the striking good looks that, sadly, I didn't. I can't bring myself to feel envious because, when all is said and done, they are working in a shop that sells shit, overpriced clothes to idiots and have to flirt and smile at ugly bastards all day when really all they want to be doing is... well, I don't know, but I imagine it's something else. They may be beautiful, but I never feel particularly attracted to any of them: they're oddly sexless in a way that very precisely perfect people often are.

If you ever find yourself at the end of Savile Row, why not pop in and see for yourself? You don't even have to pretend to be looking at the clothes; they know what you've come for.

NB: There are actually a few ugly ones, but even they have really good skin, nice hair and great 'bodies'.

Scot the difference

2009-04-16T10:19:00.001Z

I’m on a train on my way back into England after spending a week in Carnoustie, Scotland with my dad and his wife. Being unemployed has given me a brand new luxury to enjoy: time. So with all this time to spare and very few jobs on the horizon able to fill it, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to head up north and do my duty as a good son and visit both of my parents. I’m on the way to Mum’s now.

I lived in Scotland for quite a few years so I don’t get any particular ‘culture shock’ when I go up there. My dad moved to Carnoustie about two years ago from Dundee (shudder) and he really loves it. It’s not hard to see why. There’s a great beach which I ran on every day (this may seem like I’m a healthy person but I had to do this to overcome the guilt of eating nothing but big, huge dinners every day), people are, on the whole, friendly (even the teenage binge drinkers on the street corners!) and everybody seems a bit more laidback.

On my morning runs, I was most surprised to find everybody I encountered smiling and saying hello to me. Most of my runs took place quite early in the morning and not everybody had a dog with them so while I was deeply suspicious about what such people might be doing on the beach at that hour, I appreciated the sentiment.

Golf is the big thing in Carnoustie and it’s quite hard to get away from. Naturally, I am allergic to anything remotely sporty so I didn't play myself but it was quite nice to see both young and old having a round together. God, I must be getting old.

A visit to the shop with my dad was quite an experience. He was on TV recently and most of the town seemed to have seen his appearance. Greeted at the local Spar like Paris Hilton, the women behind the counter sat rapt as my dad very patiently went through the ins and outs of his brief brush with fame for what must have been the hundredth time. The fact you can’t deny is that in Carnoustie everybody knows everybody. I like visiting Scotland, but I couldn’t live there again. I like the anonymity and ‘glamma’ that only London can furnish.

I head now to Yorkshire where things are decidedly different. Where my mum lives, strangers do not say hello to each other and there is nary a strip of green to run on. I’d probably be mugged, anyway.

Shame shame shame

2009-03-25T21:23:00.005Z

Channel 4 is halfway through showing the latest series of Shameless, it’s sixth I believe. I struggle hard to think of a show worse than this one. Like its C4 stablemate Skins, it is a wild fantasy about a certain demographic. Whereas Skins holds a microscope up to a wildly unrealistic group of teens, Shameless turns its gaze towards society’s other big, bad wolf: the working classes.

When Shameless first began, reviewers in the broadsheets fell over themselves to heap praise upon it, congratulating its creator, Paul Abbott, on his depictions of a working class family on a rough estate in Greater Manchester. This was no warts-and-all portrayal, like much of Abbott’s other work, this was a comedy drama, with petty crimes, drugs and violence interspersed with jokes and slapstick situations. Despite the fact I’d grown up on a council estate, I couldn’t identify with it at all. Earlier series may have had a certain charm, but six years down the line and the show has descended into a ridiculous parody of itself. It’s hard to believe that anyone who writes for the show even knows where their nearest council estate is, let alone visits it in the name of research. Just as Dynasty and Dallas told us that all there was to running an oil business was walking in and out of palatial rooms wearing shoulder pads, Shameless appears to be trying to say that all there is to living on a council estate is fucking someone, getting fucked on drugs or getting fucked over by someone.

Its depiction of large families pretends to give it heart, but in fact there’s something quite snide about the whole family dynamic. Women in the show are mainly scripted with contempt: they’re playthings for the men or bad mothers or loudmouthed harridans, while the majority of the men have a ball and do what they like. Perhaps this is a reaction to the prevalence of ‘strong women’ in British soap operas, maybe writers of northern working class drama feel it’s time for men to have the upper hand but when the women are as two-dimensional as this, it feels like a very empty evening up of the scores. The matriarch of the main family, the Gallaghers, was absent for the first couple of series having abandoned her brood to the care of her eldest daughter. So far, so normal. On her return, with her lesbian lover (of course!) she has wavered between a saintly Mother Earth and the whore of Babylon. One minute she is devoted to her husband (a drunk loser) the next she is using sexual favours in return for getting her car fixed. Her most recent exploit was to have sex with a social services inspector in an effort to prevent her family being broken up, on the misunderstanding that her husband had asked her to do this. His reaction on realising what she’d done was horror and disgust, despite him having been nuts-deep in a practical stranger in the pub toilets only a few scenes previously. Scriptwriters will probably argue that they’re complex characters; I reckon someone’s got ‘mother’ issues.

The show that claims to hold a mirror up to council estate dwellers was even reported by most newspapers to have been imitated by the real deal: Karen Matthews and her family were rumoured to have been inspired by a kidnap plot on Shameless when concocting their own futile plan involving young Shannon. Whether this turned out to be the case, I don’t know, but the reactions of newscasters reporting on the story from the sink estate in Dewsbury that the Matthews family called home betrayed what they were thinking: 'these people are scum'. Whither the hilarious antics of Frank Gallagher now, eh? Not so much fun once you get into the thick of it, I suppose. No cutaways to someone downing three pills and a bottle of Thunderbird to rescue you from the harsh realities of non-fiction.

Sex plays an important part in the way the programme is desperate to show us what a great time the working classes are having. In earlier series, there were the obligatory couple of bedroom scenes per episodes. Fast forward a while and Shameless is obsessed with it. Barely a scene goes by without someone disrobing. Cock seems to have taken the place of plot, satisfying all those chav and scally fantasies of the broadsheet readers under the guise of primetime drama. Well, everyone likes a bit of rough, don’t they? Don’t they?

Despite my misgivings, the show remains fairly popular across most demographics. Perhaps Jarvis Cocker was right when he sang about Common People that just “dance and drink and screw, because there’s nothing else to do”. There certainly isn’t much more to Shameless, that’s for sure.

Shop local

2009-03-13T15:30:00.000Z

You see some odd things on breakfast television. It’s news, but not as we know it. Whereas news or current affairs programmes shown later in the day seem to be serious and stern and hard on facts, breakfast TV news is heavy on gossip and light on evidence, coherent argument or, indeed, point. I understand that in the morning people don’t want to be bombarded with the full misery only a proper news bulletin can bring, but when you’re watching the televisual equivalent of a Daily Mail annual it can become quite disturbing.

I watched with interest the other morning as one of the programmes featured a story about parking spaces. The premise was that while we were being urged to ‘shop local’ to save the economy, councils were making this impossible thanks to the distinct lack of parking spaces or, for those spaces that were present, astronomical fees to use them. The article used Bournemouth as a case study. Having lived near enough in the past to Bournemouth to visit it, I couldn’t see why anybody would want to drive there at all. Surely you’d want to delay your arrival as much as possible? The reporter stood stony-faced in front of ‘local’ shops like, er, JD Sports and Topshop decrying the local council for not turning vast swathes of the town into parking spaces. Talking head after talking head said that the only way to stimulate the beleaguered economy was to slash parking prices. The ‘action’ then moved to a retail park some way out of Bournemouth, filled with gleeful shoppers parking their gas-guzzling planet-murdering wagons in a plethora of free parking spaces. Among the shops were the usual Boots, H&M, Next and Wallis that you see on the high street.

I found myself confused. I thought the big idea now, as well as shopping locally, was to take public transport. Congestion charges, fuel taxes and non-stop lobbying on programmes like this very breakfast news I was watching, have all indicated that driving is evil and is causing the downfall of Earth. Now, when the ability of some git to transport his Debenhams carrier bags home safely is at stake, the very councils who try to discourage cars coming into town centres -by making parking difficult, for example- become the demons.

Lugging shopping home can be a pain in the arse, yes, oh people of Bournemouth, but if you can’t get a parking space why not take the bus? Either that or shop really locally and buy everything from your corner shop.

You're fired

2009-03-05T15:15:00.002Z

So the credit crunch- or recession as I like to call it, that being its name and all- has caught up with me at last. Yesterday, along with about 600 others, I was told that I was to be made redundant. I suppose I had steeled myself for the possibility, but as I made my way into work under the glare of TV cameras (filming what I've no idea, our HQ is hardly the Hollywood sign; it could be bloody anywhere), I had an impending sense of doom.

As my entire department is to close, a great many people who I work with are in the same boat. There was a weird feeling, a kind of nervous excitement, the type you get when you’re watching a drama where somebody is about to be offed by an unseen assailant. You know it’s coming, but your hapless fictional character doesn’t. As reports came in detailing the extent of the doom and gloom, I glanced around my desk and various paraphernalia that has allowed me to do my job for the last two years. Hard to imagine that soon I won’t see any of it again.

The rest of the day had a numb, dreamlike quality. We were allowed to leave early, so at about 2 I started the autopilot and made my way home, stopping only at the Tate to see if a little bit of ‘culcha’ would whitewash what was happening in my head and make things seem a bit clearer. In reality it was teeming with Eurotrash of all ages screaming at each other with mouths full of crisps and chocolate. Peaceful sanctuary it certainly was not so I made my way back out onto the South Bank.

The next few days will rumble on and on and then I will be gone and my career here will be over for now. It’s a sobering experience scrolling through job sites as there’s fuck all there of interest; I even half-considered a job at TfL. Hopefully someone somewhere will realise my 'talent' and I’ll be whisked off my feet and into the arms of a new employer soon. Either that or I’ll go on the game.

Lent boy

2009-02-24T16:50:00.002Z

So it’s Pancake Day, or Shrove Tuesday as we were forced to call it at school (I still call it that now, really). I have gradually honed my craft over the years and now manage to whip up a pretty decent batter. Shrove Tuesday would be a lot more fun if it weren’t for the fact it is associated with ‘giving things up for Lent’.

No sooner are the dull, predictable millstones of failed New Year’s resolutions starting to fade into memory, than a new, mealy-mouthed stick with which to beat yourself comes into view. I had always thought it was just the religious types that observed lent but on the radio this morning, I heard a group of DJs who sounded like they’d never given up anything that was bad for them listing what they were abstaining from for Lent. It seems we’ve moved on from half-heartedly pushing chocolate to one side for 40 days and 40 nights; one of the presenters was challenged to give up high heels while another promised to refrain from clubbing.

It seems as a society we’re living in extremes: one minute we’re ramming 50 tequilas down our throat, the next we’re self-flagellating and eating only pills made out of seaweed to detox. Whether we try abstemiousness just so that we can be total hedonists the rest of the time or simply because we think it makes us look good to others, I have no idea. It appears that we almost enjoy denying ourselves so that we can enjoy feeling smug. I’m no better than anybody else: I run screaming from chips into the loving arms of a salad so that I won’t beat myself up later about being unhealthy when really, if I want a chip, I should just have a chip. ‘Everything in moderation’ is one of the most dour, humourless, crease-down-the-front-of-jeans phrases in the English language but I think I’m finally starting to get it.

Bog off

2009-02-16T17:39:00.002Z

I’m always reading that British people are obsessed with the toilet and bodily functions. I can assure you I am not, but I do have a morbid fear of being spoken to in a toilet. By anyone. Let me explain.

Picture the scene: You are male. You are at work. You go to the toilet and stand at a urinal and pull out your ‘junk’ and start to liberate your copious amounts of water and endless cups of weak tea. Seconds after you begin, a colleague enters and pitches up at the adjacent urinal. Said colleague then attempts to engage you in conversation as you urinate. You look down. It looks like you’re staring at your penis. You look up and stare at the wall. You have no option but to look at your colleague, member in hand. Colleague will start talking about a work matter as you widdle. You cannot escape. The horror.

I have never understand why anyone wants to talk while they’re taking a leak, or indeed doing anything else. What could possibly be so important, so life-changing, that it needs to be said while you’re having a piss? Discussions over the minutiae of working life belong by the water cooler or kettle or outside in then smoking area, not midflow at a pseudo-pissing contest. Suffice to say, I always ‘go’ in the cubicle. And I always wait until all the showboating urinal-users have cleared the place before I step out to wash my hands. I don’t really want to wash my hands to the gurgle of a colleague’s wee.

It’s not just work toilets that give me the fear. Pub loos also have an effect on me. The urinals are always too close together and the cubicle contains either someone doing drugs with their girlfriend or all the turds that have ever been shat out in the history of the universe gathered together for a convention within its sole toilet bowl. Not only that, but should you go in there for a number one only to find there’s numbers two, three, four, five AND six waiting for you, should there be another potential occupant lingering outside, the finger of guilt for leaving the loo in such a sorry mess will point firmly at you.

Add to that the following: people hacking up green phlegm and then depositing it into the urinal; manky buckets under urinals in lieu of drains, full of decade-old piss; the inevitable fart of the guy standing next to you, which lasts longer than all episodes of Return To Eden put together and smells like London during the Black Death; the huge queue of people pretending they need to defecate but in fact want to use the cubicle to have sex or put something up their nose or arse; the tragic, misspelled football-related graffiti; the hand dryers containing all the wind power of a fruit fly’s belch; the brown, stained and, for some reason, crusty hand towel that smells like wet dog. I could go on.

There’s nothing else for it: I’m going to have to start wearing nappies when I go out. I just can’t face any more public toilet-induced stress.

The white stuff

2009-02-03T13:09:00.004Z

It’s been quite interesting to watch people lose their shit about the recent snow. I don’t usually get excited about weather, but there was something about this snowfall. As it started to come down on Sunday night, we wrapped up warm and went out to watch the flurries around Tower Bridge. It was pretty brutal out there but loads of fun. Watching it really come down late on Sunday night made me feel about 6, when the mere sight of three snowflakes would send you into a frenzy, wellies prepared by the door and gloves warming on the electric fire so you could get out there and be in amongst the snow.

Sadly my excitement was not shared. I’d quite enjoyed trudging down to Argos to buy some fishing wellies and then slowly plodding my way to work along the South Bank and across the Millennium Bridge, but by the time I got home and turned on the news, the pretty, white snow had caused a lot of red, angry faces. “It’s disgusting how badly prepared we are,” exclaimed one woman. “How can our infrastructure just collapse?” howled another. Well, it’s quite simple, I thought, it has been snowing like fuck out there. It’s indeed true that the snow had been anticipated for a week or so, but I wondered what kind of measures the general public was expecting? Snow shoes left on every doorstep befroe sunrise? I watched the gritters out on Sunday night, but there was just too much snow. It simply wouldn’t have been safe for buses to negotiate the mid-roadway snowdrifts. I was amazed anyone was actually trying to drive and lost count how many cars I saw stuck in the snow. The news presenter I saw was hauling the head of Transport for London over the coals for not being adequately prepared for a weather phenomenon that occurs every couple of decades. I’m sure the same presenter would have plenty to say were TfL to spend a fortune on snow ploughs and anti-snow systems that we use every 20 years ago at the expense of, er, more tubes and better buses thatw e could use every day, right? I couldn’t believe how many bigwigs were queuing up to apologise to this bunch of whingers. Imagine what they’d be like in a tornado: “I’m outraged that we don’t have a special bus that teleports us to Monte Carlo when the wind starts getting a bit frisky!”

I wondered how anybody had the temerity to slate the politicians and large organisations when they couldn’t even get it together themselves: I counted oodles of inappropriate shoes and was witness to plenty of falls. I may have looked like I was lost and looking for Emmerdale, but I was quite pleased with myself inside my colossal green wellies and layers of cashmere socks. I must say that for all the anger spewed on the TV, most people I bumped into (at times literally) were in good spirits.

Although I wouldn’t want the snow to hang around for ever, I’m glad it popped in for a visit.

Licensed to ill

2009-01-30T16:53:00.002Z

I ended up being off work for 4 days, with today being my first day back.

It’s weird being home ill for an extended period. I realise some people spend months, years even at home sick but for me 4 days is an unprecedented spell under the cosh of illness. My other half was home for 2 of the days, but for the other 2 I was alone. You’d think that time would drag with nobody to talk to, no human interaction to enjoy, but in fact it raced away from me. My eyes started to crinkle from internet fatigue (there’s only so much F5-ing on Facebook and posting crap on messageboards you can do) and the TV is so shockingly bad that you start dreaming up ways of murdering your neighbours just for something to do. The house starts to take on an odd smell too. Recycled breath and unwashed cups and bed socks mixed in with germs, unbrushed hair and boredom.

My first steps out of the house yesterday afternoon to nip to my local Sainsbury’s were momentous. Such was their significance, I half-expected to see bollards erected and buoyant crowds lining my three-minute walk to the shop, cheering me on and waving old blankets with my face or messages of support scrawled upon them.

On starting my shopping, I saw a great magazine cover, featuring Jordan aka Katie Price. The pull quote headline was “I think rapists should be raped, the death penalty’s great and Obama’s not fit!”. Pictured was La Price draped in an American flag. What a wonderful headline. It was a bit like reading a toilet wall. I’m not particularly surprised that Jordan has these opinions (although, “the death penalty’s great”? Really? How? On toast? As a draught excluder?), more that she gets asked about them. What with messageboards, communities, forums, blogs, feedback forms, feeds, status updates etc, we’re being asked our opinion on a continual basis. Rather worryingly, I think I’m running out of opinions. I need new ones. Do I think Obama is fit?

Being outside again had a profound effect on me. Having brought no list, I wandered around the supermarket’s three aisles like a Stepford wife for about half an hour, oohing and aahing at products I’ve seen a thousand times before. Naturally, I left spending more than I had intended and forgetting half of what I went in for.

Do I know you?

2009-01-27T16:03:00.003Z

It is interesting to watch Facebook begin to be usurped by Twitter. Just as Facebook crushed Friendster, Ringo and (to a certain extent) MySpace, now it too is having its ‘All About Eve’ moment. I’ve been a member of Twitter for a while, but have thus far failed to see much point in it. The status update function isn’t one I use on Facebook often (it all just seems like blatant attention-seeking to me) so this reduced functionality doesn’t work for me personally, but Twitter is a useful tool for getting a snapshot of what people are saying or thinking about big issues.

I have set myself a few rules when it comes to using Facebook. It’s easy to see how it can all get out of hand, especially when someone pops up in your news feed every 10 minutes with zinging statements like A N Other is… as a status update (do any of the people who type that think they’re being truly original? Or mysterious? Or Zen?) or you arrive home from an evening out to discover photos capturing the event or already on display. Firstly, profile pictures aside, I don’t add photos of myself or events I’ve been to. If other people want to do this, that’s fine, but I’m much too faux-modest to expose myself to the public in this way. Secondly, I try and keep status updates to a minimum. True, I demi-bragged about going to New York and Paris in my status updates, but fucking hell, I never go anywhere, and it can’t really be compared to ‘XXXX is guna hav a bath n go to bed’ (sic), can it?

Also, I don’t accept friend requests from or contact people I have never met (with one notable exception- hello Caress!). I can’t understand why some random in Dunstable wants to be your friend because they ‘like the look of you’.

Additionally, I try not to accept invitations to ‘events’, especially when I have told the inviter face-to-face that I will be there. I find the diarising of our lives and the ease in which we can be followed on Facebook a bit disturbing. When I first joined Facebook, I never write on people’s walls and discouraged it on my own and I wonder if I should go back to this. Perhaps I should delete the whole thing anyway. It’s really handy for keeping in touch with people but there’s something so odd about it, at times distant and yet at others a too-much-information overload.

Once cause for concern is that I am being ‘collected’ by former schoolmates. I say schoolmates in the loosest sense of the word: I hated practically everybody at school. Now, however, I’ve attained that level of popularity that I’d foolishly assumed would be the answer to all my problems at 13. People who I spent many years alongside in the school room, yet barely spoke a word to, are seeking me out and asking to be my friend. Occasionally a genuine pleasant surprise will spring forth but usually they’ll be the kind of person I would rather leave in my past. Some kind of ‘good manners’ switch that I have no control over kicks in and I gracefully accept their friend request and exchange a couple of polite messages with them. I’m cautious not to mention very much about my life unless they ask and even then I answer in a very vague, off-hand way.

I have always believed that for the most part the past should stay where it is. Although I have resolved to eventually ‘defriend’ (which sounds very futuristic and sci-fi horror or high school movie-like) the bulk of these people once I think they won’t notice, the constant updates, comments and photos from these newly-acquired ‘friends’ allows me the glimpse into what life is like when you don’t have the chance to get out of a shithole like my hometown. I’m in turn grateful and horrified.

Sick boy

2009-01-26T19:32:00.000Z

I have been off work ill all day today, something I very rarely do. I hate being off work sick: I get racked with guilt about not being there. I especially hate calling in sick on Mondays; it always seems so fake and I am paranoid that workmates will think I’ve been out getting drunk or doing class A drugs all weekend. However, ill I am and I was in no fit state to go to work this morning.

I look and feel like shit. I have a colossal coldsore that reaches out from the left corner of my mouth into the wilderness of my pallid, crumpled face and my blue eyes have faded to cloudy pondwater grey. The few wrinkles and- as the cream adverts say- fine lines have been accentuated by my health malady and I look like I’ve had the tube map engraved across my face.

The coldsore is being pathetically covered and supposedly cured by a Compeed patch. They usually work well but the progress of this set of patches has been hampered by my 2 hour search for a new one yesterday. Sunday is, by all accounts, the day when chemists and pharmacies disappear into thin air, my central London location offering me nowhere to go to buy my medication. And so it was I trudged about searching for new patches. In my desperation (I start to get a bit wild-eyed and panicked when I can’t find exactly what I’m looking for), I went into Guy’s Hospital to see if they knew of the nearest chemist. They did not. The man on reception helpfully said “I’ll look on the internet”, which he then did. I don’t think he’d ever seen a computer before. He made small gasps of excitement as each page loaded. He then told me he’d found 3 pharmacies, all closed. I thanked him and decided to see if there was one onsite. There was, but it was closed. As I walked around Guy’s Hospital, I was quite surprised at how clean it was. There seems to be a TV programme on every 10 minutes telling you how hospitals are bug-ridden death pits but Guy’s was quite nice. I couldn’t buy medication, but I could’ve bought a latte or a croissant at the coffee bar. That’s progress. In the end, it was big nasty corporation Tesco who finally provided coldsore patch relief. Capitalism, sometimes I adore thee.

I have achieved precisely nothing today. When you’re ill there isn’t anything to do. I have had a Skype conversation with my father (I am a recent convert to Skype and feel compelled to blog about it at some point) and watched lots of TV online but apart from that and stumble to the kitchen to forage for vitamins in any form, I have done zero of any import. I have also plumbed new depths: I’ve wiped my nose on my T-shirt at least twice today. My mother would never forgive me.

The French resolution

2009-01-16T11:31:00.004Z

I was lucky enough to spend New Year in Paris. It was my first time there since I went with my very last girlfriend in 1999. Nine and half years later, I finally felt ready to enjoy Paris. My last visit had seen me fractious and tense and so I was glad to return feeling a lot more comfortable with myself.

I was feeling in an outlandish holiday mood as we were leaving. Despite re-popping my flying cherry on my trip to New York I took the Eurostar to Paris. I hadn't been on it for years and remembered it as being relatively hassle-free. We stopped for a drink in the 'longest Champagne bar in Europe' in St Pancras, which is really just a load of tables joined together in a long line. As it is practically outside, it is freezing, but we were thrilled to find heated seats and thick tartan rugs available to cover our knees. It is never too cold for champagne.

The train journey was uneventful. My carriage smelled like unwashed people and someone blatantly had a fag in the toilets on the way over. The whole carriage was craning their necks and sniffing the air accusingly to find the culprit. Isn't it funny how odd it is to smell cigarette smoke indoors these days?

Paris was cold and beautiful and smelled at times wonderful. I ate loads of Frenchness like foie gras, coq au vin, ratatouille, crepes and that kind of thing. The butter was heavenly and the wine cheap and sloshed silkily down my throat like nectar. I couldn't stop taking photos. Churches, street corners, Métro signs, shops; you name it, I photographed it. I like to be in photos but never know what to do. There’s something so funereal about standing next to a famous monument, so I attempted to liven things up by doing high kicks and jazz hands instead.

For New Year’s Eve itself, I got into my head that a perfect thing to do would be to go to the top of Montmartre by the Sacré Coeur and watch the fireworks over Paris. When we arrived it was quite busy, but not uncomfortably so. For some bizarre reason, we’d opted not to bring any alcohol with us and so watched sober and jealous as ‘revellers’ stood with champagne bottles poised. In the event, there was no big countdown, no gongs, flashes of light or searing lasers to signify the dawn of 2009, just a group of German tourists counting down in their mother tongue. We stood trembling with anticipation (and cold: it was -4 or something) and as the midnight hour arrived… nothing. A complete dearth of fireworks or indeed any sign that a New Year was occurring left me puzzled. Slowly the crowd seemed to realise that 2009 had arrived and faint, polite ripples of noise spread like a Mexican wave. Through the freezing fog the Eiffel Tower glimmered a bit. Then people started letting off fireworks in the crowd and waving sparklers in each other’s faces and I felt old and boring and kept 'tsk'ing so we made a sharp exit.

It actually made me realise that it’s only really since the millennium celebrations that London has started going OTT on the firework front. Although I went to Paris expecting an explosion in the sky, I guess to Parisians it’s no big deal. I think I prefer it the Parisian way.

The object of my affection

2009-01-06T22:30:00.002Z

Purely by mistake, I am watching a TV programme (on further investigation it's an oft-shown repeat) about various women who are in love with buildings or other inanimate objects. One of the subjects of the documentary, a champion archer, is married to the Eiffel Tower and has in the past had an affair with her bow. She also has her own piece of the Golden Gate Bridge, which she plans to have sex with in the hope that the bridge can feel the, er, passion.

Another woman is in love with a guillotine and a bit of banister, while another claims to be infatuated with a fairground ride.

I will probably need Botox or fillers when the show is over, as my brow has been furrowed in confusion throughout, especially when one of the ladies started 'making out' with the Empire State Building.

I have been watching and wondering what it is about buildings or, um, guillotines you can fall in love with. I've seen the shows about the mega loners who buy weird dolls and dress them up, pretend they're on dinner dates with them and then fuck them in their nostril, but even after all my years on the planet, I am struggling to comprehend why someone would want to fuck a building. A building! Is it like when a man buys a car and talks to it like it his ideal woman, stroking it and kissing it goodnight? Is it the next step from a bored, tranked-up '70s housewife clambering on the washing machine during a spin cycle?

I've been flitting between feeling weirded out that someone might want to shag the dodgems as well as a touch vanilla because I find it alien. I also feel quite sad for whatever horrors in their past has led these women down a road which takes them further from human affection.

As I type, the Eiffel Tower's wife is getting it on with a red fence. I must check my tea: I think someone may have put acid in it.

Mother nurture

2008-12-29T15:39:00.000Z

I am on a train from Yorkshire to London. I spent most of my journey at a table with a child and her two parents. The daughter was around six or seven and the parents were probably in their late forties to early fifties. Like almost all children on trains with just a few stuffed animals for company, she was bored. She wriggled, groaned, sulked, played, went to the toilet and kicked me, all in an effort to pass the time. Finally, when I reached for a sandwich from my bag, she decided she was hungry and relayed this to her parents. Clearly, the child had been told she could not eat until their arrival in Peterborough, as when the mother appeared to relent and motioned to get something from the rickety trolley making its way through the train, the father peered over his designer frames and said “Now we agreed on nothing until Peterborough and we must stick to it.” I then noticed he was reading a text book for therapists and that his wife’s bag was a free one you would get from a conference- in this case a family therapy convention. Suddenly, the girl’s educational toys, violin and loquaciousness fell into place.

I saw the girl’s eye fall on the table directly opposite and my gaze followed hers. By sheer coincidence was another girl of slightly younger age, with two younger parents both clutching cans of Carling. The child was contentedly playing computer games on a colossal laptop as her guardians laughed dirtily and took long gulps from their cans. My original youngster glanced at them sadly and then turned back to her more serious elders, her mother swathed in paisley and knitting a beret and her father wearing a hundred neckerchiefs and engrossed in his textbook. There are a million ways to bring up a child, I reckon, and yet the outcome can be just as unpredictable. I wonder which one of those girls is going to get the most GCSEs? And which one will be the happiest? Hard to say.

The ghost of Christmas present

2008-12-26T14:16:00.003Z

Ten questions I have been asking myself this Christmas:

- Is it worse to spend some of the big day online rather than lying prone watching the TV?

- How much is too much to spend on Christmas presents?

- When is it too late for the 'Christmassy' feeling to start?

- Is it wrong to check work emails on Boxing Day?

- Is it going to take my stomach actually exploding before I stop eating?

- Will a year go by when somebody doesn't write 'Happy Birthday' in a Christmas card (it's on the 23rd)?

- Did I hide any disappointment well enough?

- Will my little sister ever seem grateful enough?

- Why does everyone go on about Christmas telly?

- Are the sales that amazing that people need to almost get crushed to death outside Selfridges (I watched the chaos from the comfort of the sofa: I was not there!)?

- Will my voice hold up for a round of Singstar Abba?

They're all pretty much rhetorical, but any insight gladly appreciated. Merry Christmas.

Consider yourself at home

2008-12-12T16:43:00.001Z

Despite my middle class pretensions (buying olive oil, watching BBC4), I imagine I will always be working class at heart. I was working away this weekend and working away usually necessitates staying in hotels. I'm fortunate enough that I don't have to stay in manky Travelodges, and therefore avoid passing sleepless nights trying not to listen to insurance salesmen trying in vain to find the po**ography channel on a tinny portable. I usually stay in quite nice hotels and although I am almost 33, I never quite get used to it.

No matter how many times I stay in a hotel, I always feel that mild apprehension as I approach the check-in desk. There’s either a queue, which makes me feel gangly and exposed as I feign patience and loiter awaiting my turn, or there is nobody manning the desk, leaving me frantically looking hither and thither out of the corner of my eye like a menopausal shoplifter in John Lewis, desperately searching for a uniformed human to come and tend to my needs. Or there’s a supercilious ogre stationed behind the desk, eyes wide and mocking until I approach the desk where they narrow partly to intimidate and partly because a fixed grin has forced them closed.

The hotel on Friday night in Leeds was quite painless at check-in. They found my details quickly and I was about to head off to my room when the porter insisted on carrying my very meagre bag up to my room for me. Silent minutes stretched ahead like hours as we waited for the lift, got in the lift and then waited an aeon for the lift doors to open. As we entered the room, he insisted on checking that the bed had been turned down and clicked on every light, babbling about guest directories and room service. I had never had someone forcibly bring my bag up to my room before. I felt like a country bumpkin on his first visit to Memphis. I gaped searchingly at my friend who had met me from the station. Would I have to tip? Would he ever leave? My hand stayed firmly in my pocket and he left without hesitating. Of course you don’t tip; it’s not the 1930s.

As I always do when I arrive at a room for the first time, I inspected first the tea-making facilities (in this case kettle and espresso machine!), followed by the bathroom where my friend and I cooed over the Bulgari toiletries, lifting them all up to the light as if they were precious jewels and then collapsing in laughter at how provincial we were behaving. While my friend demolished the complimentary pastries, biscuits and fruit, I peered into wardrobes and enthused at the wooden shutters.

I was sad to leave the hotel the following day, after enjoying the free shoe-shining service and marvelling at the fact you could borrow a Wii or Playstation to use in your room. You could even make sue of a pre-filled iPod of contemporary tunes. I didn’t take them up on the offer; I had visions of it being chocker with Dido and James Blunt. After settling my bill, including an astronomical £20 for a below-par breakfast, I left ready for the day ahead.

The next night was an entirely different experience. My next stop was a well-known hotel in Manchester. Let’s call it The Lowry. On arrival, I approached the check-in desk, impressed by the sparkling lobby. I was asked if I’d like to leave an imprint of my credit card in case I wanted ‘extras’. I declined (life’s too short to drink from a minibar) and was warned that ‘everything’ would be blocked and any extras would have to be paid cash. I started to wonder what constituted an extra by this point. As I watched a slightly rotund businessman carefully steer a tottering woman modelling the make-up counter at Debenhams toward the lift, I began to get a better idea.

When I finally found my room, after wandering the corridors for an eternity, I entered to find it large, sparse and freezing and, most horrifying of all, no kettle for making tea. I frantically searched the guest info for details on how I could make a cup of tea. It seems I could order a latte from room service for £6.50, but that was my lot. And then hidden away, I found details on how to get your own ‘complimentary tea tray’. You had to ring room service and ask for one. ‘I bet nobody does that’, I thought. I decided it was time someone did. I suppose the scores of footballers who stay there to spit roast pneumatic blondes don’t have much call for a cup of Mellow Birds. The tray was brought to me 20 minutes later with a sarcastic flourish as if it contained caviar and Cristalle, not a travel jug and sachets of Illy coffee. I sipped my coffee like I was tasting it for the first time.

Bittersweet goodbye

2008-11-21T10:44:00.004Z

I’m finding the current spate of celebrity divorce coverage very depressing and boring. One of the ‘headlines’ today has concerned itself with the news that Guy Ritchie is not expected to attempt to walk away from his marriage to Madonna with any of his wife’s fortune. The showbiz reporter was practically salivating like a bulldog eyeing a steak as she stood knock-kneed and clueless outside the High Court with that lawyer woman who’s always on telly whenever someone gets divorced. You know the one, looks a but like Vanessa Feltz.

Once they had finished deconstructing Madonna’s 7-year marriage into a soundbite they started on another ‘celebrity’ divorce, this time some guy who owns Formula 1 and his wife, who I wouldn’t be able to pick out of a line-up even if she were wearing a name badge. Apparently Bernie Ecclestone is worth a zillion trillion dollars and his wife stands to gain, er, some of it thanks to some trust or another that is set up in her name. As this useless information was imparted to me, I stood agog, incredulous that there is anyone alive who cares that two people who I can not place are splitting up. I love a bit of trashy celeb goss every now and again, but this story was so witless and point-free, I wanted to kill my television. As the presenter, by now highly excited by the prospect of yet another divorce hearing to flick her bean to, concluded her piece to camera she zinged “Now that’s what I call a showbud, um, showbiz divorce!” I turned away from the TV in disgust.

It’s interesting how Madonna has been portrayed throughout the coverage of her split. Humourless, fastidious, and sexless, Madonna has suffered the modern-day equivalent of being dragged through the village green to the stocks. The trouble is, it’s all so believable. She comes across as such a macrobiotic android in interviews, it's hard to imagine her being fun. The tone was set on the day the divorce was about to be made official. A showbiz reporter from a leading tabloid appeared on breakfast TV and said how Guy was the kind of bloke you’d love to go to the pub with. He then went on to use the words ‘bloke’ and ‘pub’ in reference to Guy a further three or four times. The message here is “Guy’s just like us, everyone!”, along with “Madonna’s a miserable old cow!”. I realise it’s the done thing in the press these days to hate women and blame them for everything that goes on in their lives and, believe me, my days of Madonna fandom are long dead, but I can’t help but feel the tarring of Madge as a superannuated witch who kept free spirit Guy under lock and key is a little too obvious, convenient and indicative of the press’s attitude to famous women. We’ll probably never know the truth but, as John Sergeant will tell you, it really does take two to tango. I’m sure even an old heartless harridan like Madonna is more than a little sad that this particular dance is over.

I want to hold your hand

2008-10-28T18:00:00.001Z

I hate queuing, especially in the little Sainsbury’s near my house. When the shop is busy, the queue snakes down past the chilled alcohol, along past the ready meals and down another aisle with frozen pizzas on one side and red wine on the other. The aisles are so tightly packed there’s nothing to look at while you queue and if you want to buy anything on the shelves adjacent to the queue you have to deal with lots of ‘excuse me’s and accusatory stares.

Last night I found myself in such a situation. Having already begun queuing, clutching some mushrooms and peppers, I realised I wanted white wine too. The queue would eventually take me past the white wine, but I would have to physically step out of the queue to get the wine and then attempt to regain my original queuing place. I looked behind me and surveyed my fellow queuers. It wasn’t hard to imagine them brandishing pitchforks and toppling some kind of dictatorship, so I didn’t fancy my chances arguing my way back into line. I settle on red wine and waited patiently.

The queue was mainly quiet save for a couple a few spaces in front of me. The female had auburn hair and a prominent chin and was wearing a floaty skirt with huge hulking Nike Air trainers. Lily Allen devotee? More likely that she didn’t like walking to work in slingbacks. The male was utterly plain and devoid of anything interesting or distinguishing. Were he to be found murdered (no doubt by his increasingly agitated spouse), his nearest and dearest would be hard push to identify him. I couldn’t hear their conversation but the queue was dull and I decided they should be the focus of my attention while I waited. They seemed to be having a well-worn debate about what to buy. He made two further trips out into the shop while his other half waited in the queue. She kept making dry comments like ‘Hurry up, I’m just about to be served”, even though she was ten miles from the checkouts. When this part of their shopping trip was over, the female seemed to want some attention. The couple started kissing each other on the mouth (no tongues) and making really squelchy sounds as their lips parted. They did this about five times. I started to feel my face changing involuntarily into a pained expression. The male started to turn his head away as his partner continued to come in for the kill. She was not deterred and planted kisses on his neck. I began to feel like a virgin aunt. Why, of all places, pick a supermarket queue to show your undying love for each other? Why do it so loudly? Eventually, he moved away from her completely, at which she protested and then started to sulk. ‘Thank fuck’ seemed to be the general consensus of the queue.

I don’t really understand public displays of affection. I’m not an android, but I don’t get why anyone would want to kiss anyone in the queue for a supermarket. I get it when pissed people slobber over each other in clubs and I just about understand people walking hand in hand (although I wish they’d get the hell out of my way) but all the necking in the street and walking down the road with your hand in the back pocket of each other’s jeans like you’re hot young hipsters in some French movie and not two drudges in filthy underwear from Godalming is totally alien to me. My other half has often protested about my reluctance to hold hands in public, but aside from the fact I don’t want to be disembowelled by a gay-hating neo Nazi, I just don’t want to do it; it doesn’t come naturally; it is not me. I like having both hands available at all times. You never know when you’re going to need a firm grip.

NYC 101 (2)

2008-10-23T21:57:00.002Z

OK, here's the rest if my 101 whimsical observations about my trip to NYC.

53. That we were from London caused no end of fascination in shops
54. Call it jet lag, getting old or just being lazy but by Saturday night I was unbelievably tired. Desperate as I was to go out and sample the ‘party atmosphere’, I was too whacked and in a cab home by 12.30, much to my other half’s annoyance
55. Downtown New York is a bit like London except more exciting. Even a dead end side street has more life in it than one of Soho London’s main thoroughfares
56. If you like shit rock music, then almost every New York bar is for you. MOR crap was spunking out of the speakers of practically every hostelry we visited, save for one that I remember in the East Village
57. The Empire State Building has to be done really. If you need to go at the weekend, go early on a Sunday to get up there with minimum hassle
58. Go on a clear day, though. It was fog central for us and we could ‘only’ see for around 10 miles or so
59. Nervous of lifts? Hold on to your hats in the Empire State lifts then. They’re as rickety as Cher on stilettos and twice as frightening
60. Go to a deli and order a turkey cubano Panini. Paninis aren’t as shit as they are in the UK
61. Everything’s got cornichons in it. I learned to love them
62. It is de rigueur for bars to offer brunch with unlimited champagne or Bloody Marys for a small surcharge. Clearly this is because New Yorkers don’t really binge drink. British ex-pats must spend their entire Sundays pissed
63. I had Eggs Benedict 3 times in NY. It’s on the menu everywhere you go
64. One of my favourite things was just going to a ‘deli’ (we should have those here) and helping myself to a coffee and being charged a mere dollar for it. No waiting for a barista to piss about necessary
65. That said, I found service in restaurants and delis to be less than brilliant. At times I wondered if I’d have been better off wearing a fluorescent green headdress and full drag, such was the difficulty in being noticed and served
66. MoMA is the Museum of Modern Art and kind of NY’s version of the Tate Modern. Except it shits on the Tate from the Moon. I mean, seriously, it really brings home to you how bad the Tate is when you rock up at MoMA. I mean, I know Tate is mainly free and MoMA charges but the Tate really needs to up its game
67. I’m normally allergic to art galleries but I found little sign of my usual art fatigue when it came to MoMA. The art was so magnificently presented that I forgot to be bored
68. It seems New Yorkers will have a parade in recognition of just about anything. While we were there, there was some parade which seemed to be in honour of a Polish general
69. I have never seen such lacklustre majorettes
70. The Meatpacking District seems to be full of British designers. It’s a bit like Shoreditch pre-90s boom. I did not spot any ironic haircuts
71. Chelsea is a predominantly gay area. I didn’t really find any of it remotely appealing, but it had a good branch of American Apparel
72. It also had masses of folically-challenged men. Masses!
73. Arriving at the west side of Greenwich Village was pretty special. It has a lovely square and was full of people chilling out and reading
74. There’s no privacy in ‘restrooms’ in bars or restaurants. Urinals are spaced a millimetre apart and cubicle doors have an inviting ten mile gap betwixt door and wall allowing the world and his wife a view of your ‘junk’
75. I started to feel a bit sad about leaving on Sunday evening, as were due to fly out the next day. I haven’t felt sadness like that since I was much younger; probably, when I think about it, on leaving London when visiting long before I lived there
76. The sushi was brilliant. We forgot how fat Americans are and ordered 3 sushi roll combos. A MOUNTAIN of sushi arrived- nearly 40 pieces I think
77. I don’t drink beer and haven’t for years but it felt like the right thing to do in New York. My tipple was Sam Adams and drinking just two gave me a hangover to rival one of Amy Winehouse’s
78. Our last 2 days were spent in beautiful autumn- sorry, FALL- sunshine. It was roasting so I can only imagine what it’s like in summer
79. The last day of a holiday is pretty rubbish. Waking knowing you have but hours left to enjoy New York is torture
80. Next time I’ll book a later flight. It’s an odd feeling, wandering around in limbo when you have to set off for the airport at 2
81. Decaf coffee inevitably comes to your table cold because nobody drinks it and it sits in a coffee pot all day
82. If you want to complain about said coffee, it’s no use sitting there looking like you’ve sucked a lemon- you’ve got to be VOCAL!
83. When other people around you are eating brunch and being served brunch, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you can order brunch. Waiting staff will deny brunch is still available. They’re bored. It’s quiet. They want to fuck with you
84. Our banks finally cottoned on that we were away on our last day and thus cancelled our cards. I spent about a million pounds on the phone getting my card unblocked so I could withdraw $20, $10 of which I came home with
85. God this is more of a mission than I thought it would be
86. I mean, seriously. I think I’m missing loads out though
87. Things I didn’t do that I wanted to do: Visit the Guggenheim and the Metropolitan Museum of Art; see more of Central Park. I think that’s it. Not bad, eh?
88. Typically, we missed the boat when it came to advantageous exchange rates. Hardly anything was a bargain
89. I brought a half-empty suitcase and left with one which bulged with sweets and toiletries bought from Duane Reade, my favourite fag and frozen food-selling pharmacy
90. Buying tickets for the right overland train line is more complicated than trigonometry. Kind of
91. I’d heard all kinds of horror stories about US airport officials being horrible on the way out but they weren’t at all. Check in was crap though
92. We arrived far too early at the airport and I spent far too long wandering around the different lounges with very sore feet
93. I was a little anxious about the flight home, but resisted Valium
94. We sat on the runway for an hour before taking off, which wasn’t great
95. Mercifully, the flight home is 2 hours shorter than going there, thanks to winds or something. Amazing
96. The one film I wanted to see wasn’t actually working.
97. Braised beef for dinner and a dodgy Barbie-sized croissant for breakfast
98. Landing bleary-eyed at 7am, we were thrilled to be out in the fast track queue at passport control. We were through in about 30 seconds
99. The tube journey home wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be
100. I missed New York as soon as I stepped foot inside the flat
101. Same time next year? Let’s hope so.

NYC 101

2008-10-20T21:50:00.002Z

I just got back from a long weekend in New York after taking my first flights in nearly ten years. I decided to write 101 things about the trip. It's taking me longer than I thought so I'm bunging up the first half now; that's the kind of mood I'm in.

1. I was so scared about flying that I went to the doctor and got some Valium. In the end, I didn’t take it at all
2. Terminal 4 is long overdue a refit
3. There’s a certain smell that airports have that I can’t describe. I think it’s recycled air
4. Watching all manner of planes take off successfully before your flight is strangely soothing
5. You can’t take hot drinks onto a flight, although you can be given them when you’re on the plane. Why? Is it in case you scold a stewardess on the way in?
6. That you could get up and go in the overhead lockers pretty much any time you like didn’t occur to me at first and I tried to keep all my ‘necessary things’ with me, despite there being absolutely no room
7. If you’re afraid of flying, sit in the aisle or as close to the middle of the plane as you can; you might as well be on a big bus
8. The landing gear making a crunch as it retracts following take-off does not instil confidence
9. It really is time to bring Concorde back: 8 hours on a plane is boring once the fear subsides
10. Outward inflight movies included Baby Mama (shit), The Corpse Bride (shit) and a plethora of bad and good American TV shows. Only 30 Rock was any good. I watched it twice
11. I played Solitaire on the inflight entertainment system about 200 times
12. Aeroplane toilets are quite frightening and badly lit. I find it hard to believe people actually have sex in them
13. Every single steward on my flight was a homosexual. And my flight was all the better for it
14. When you’re offered ‘beef or chicken’ on a flight, always go for beef
15. Although I could hardly bear to look out of the window during the flight, my stomach lurched with glee when the Empire State building was pointed out to me as we began our descent
16. There is nothing worth seeing or doing in New Jersey. And it smells like the bottom of a skip in a hot July
17. Americans don’t seem to care about signage. I mean, seriously. Misleading arrows and a dearth of any relevant info on where you should go to get where you are going seemed to be the order of the day
18. Caffeine-free Diet Coke is actually nice in America
19. I have never seen so many flavours of chewing gum in my life
20. Ditto toothpaste
21. Favourite flavour was kiss-me-mint flavour, which tastes like minty Ribena and is amazing
22. Before I’d even ascended from the subway and seen Manhattan above-ground, I knew that I loved it
23. That the traffic drives on the right takes a little bit of getting used to
24. For the first two days I was punch drunk from the sheer brilliance of it all
25. That you have to leave a $1 tip for every drink you buy, no matter how much of a cunt your ‘bartender’ is, irked me. Luckily, most of them are lovely. One of them was not, however, and leaving those extra dollar bills on the bar as a congratulation for being surly really smarted
26. New York really is the city that never sleeps. The noise level doesn’t dip that much at night
27. It was the famed vice-presidential debate the first night we were there. Not many New Yorkers seems to rate Sarah Palin, funnily enough. Most newspapers seemed to be calling it a draw the next day, despite the fact that Palin seemed to be evading questions and reading answers off the back of her hand. Apparently, they thought she was going to be much worse
28. There seems to be no shortage of political satire shows on the TV. I’m not really sure who watches them. I suspect it may only be the inhabitants of the eastern seaboard
29. I got up at 7 on the first morning and went out to get coffee and have a nose around. On my short walk around the block, I stumbled upon the site of the World Trade Center and- perhaps more excitingly- a homeless man pissing into a bottle in the street
30. Go to a diner for breakfast and you will get potatoes with almost every menu option
31. There’s always somebody there to ‘take your order’ or help you in shops or restaurants in the US but no-one ever listens to you. When you order something you should not necessarily expect it to arrive, as the server may forget
32. I’ve heard a lot of people say that being in NYC is like being in a movie. I think that’s bollocks: I’ve yet to see a movie that would do it justice
33. Life would be a lot easier in London if our streets were laid out in a grid system
34. Grand Central Terminal is more like a museum than a train station; it’s really lovely
35. NYC’s reputation as a shopping Mecca puzzles me somewhat. There are loads and loads of shops going on for ever and ever selling everything you can imagine, but clothes-wise, unless you’re buying high-end designer ‘gear’, there’s nothing you can’t already get in the UK. Aside from the European stores and American Apparel, they’re clueless when it comes to ‘high street’
36. Food, though, is another story
37. No limp salads or curled up sandwiches for the Americans: sandwiches have towers of tasty filling and there’s nary a shred of browning iceberg to be seen on their scrumptious salads
38. For some reason, whereas UK branches of McDonald’s masquerade as coffee shops and are all ‘wood panelling this’ and ‘sofa cushions that’, American branches are decorated in clashes of horrific bright colours unseen since the early 1980s, like some kind of light and colour therapy for the mentally impaired
39. The subway takes a bit of time to get your head around. Just when you think you’ve cracked it, a train suddenly becomes an express and you’re ten stops further down the line than you wanted
40. The NYC subway also likes to remain enigmatic. There are no displays on the platforms telling you how long the train will be à la London. Oh well, a bit of mystery never did any harm
41. The Staten Island ferry is free and takes you past the Statue of Liberty and gives you a good view of the Manhattan skyline
42. I’m a big fan of the I love NY design and have been for years. This was good news for me as there is I love NY merchandise everywhere in varying degrees of quality, colour and price
43. I don’t really eat sweets but the sheer choice of ‘candy’ out there had me reeling: there are more varieties of Starburst, Skittles and M&Ms than necessary. I had to try them all
44. Chocolate-flavoured skittles have to win as being the oddest, most pointless sweet in the world. I found them strangely compelling
45. The Brooklyn Bridge is a great walk and slightly hair-raising as you negotiate a wooden walkway over the cars. Endless photo-taking ensued
46. There are only so many photos you can take without being bored of pulling the same expression. After a while we started doing stupid ‘thumbs aloft’ poses or pretended to squish buildings between our fingers
47. In Brooklyn, a mad woman called Ruth ‘befriended’ us as we perused a streetmap and very kindly showed us to the promenade and pointed us in the direction of the main street in Brooklyn Heights. She was very American and enthused about our accents. She thought Sarah Palin was a prostitute and was concerned that all British people must think American people were mad for electing such idiots. I told her, yes, we did
48. The only way to see Manhattan is by walking around taking it all in. My feet have never been so sore. I was limping my down to the gate for the plane home
49. They closed Park Avenue on Saturday afternoon and had a street market. You could buy practically everything in the world there. I half expected to see a stall selling the contents of my own flat
50. Macy’s is the biggest department store in the world. It is also shit. Avoid unless you think Debenham’s is cutting edge
51. I can’t believe anyone would voluntarily go to Times Square unless all their families’ lives were under threat. It’s truly awful
52. Bryant Park, however, is just a couple of blocks east and is lovely. There are many tables and chairs where you can sit and a couple of cafes, but it’s not like Britain, where a harassed café worker would hurry you along because you hadn’t bought anything. You can just sit there and idly watch the Empire State Building just be there. Where you are. In New York.

When it comes to the crunch

2008-09-20T08:35:00.002Z

One of the most remarkable things about the latest recession is that nobody actually wants to call it a recession. The term ‘credit crunch’ seems to be the acceptable face of economic decline, falling into everyday usage with great speed. ‘Credit crunch lunch £4.95!’ shrieks an A-board of one of my local pubs.

I love words and finding new ways of describing things, but the term credit crunch sounds like such a desperate PR job on something that isn’t nearly as cute as its terminology suggests. But I guess “Ooh, got to start saving because of the old credit crunch” sounds a bit sexier than “I can’t spend any money because of the recession”, and we must take our fun where we can in these supposedly doom-laden times.

Another word which seems to have been brought back from the dead is the marvellous ‘spiv’. I saw it for the first time in years this week, describing traders at the major banks whose actions have allegedly resulted in just about every major financial institution checking down the back of the sofa for stray 50p pieces.

The word spiv brings to mind for me a petty thief from some kind of ‘50s or ‘60s British movie. He would have a pencil-thin moustache and be wearing along overcoat, deep within which he would have an array of knock-off watches and/ or jewellery.

It is the Daily Mail, champion of the not-so-polite middle-classes that has been among the most vociferous in its condemnation of such ‘spivs’, but as I really couldn’t bring myself to read yet more tales of economic armageddon, I didn’t bother to find out why the traders had acquired this moniker. A lot of these traders, however, live out in Essex, are a bit flash, speak with broad estuary accents and are usually self-made.

Could the word spiv have been brought out of retirement to make it clear to readers that these traders were ‘common’ and ‘not like us’? It's the ultimate 'looking down your nose' word, which is what the Daily Mail does best, after all.

Oui belong together

2008-09-02T00:32:00.003Z

One thing I kind of half-miss about being a bright young thing is the teenage pretension, the things you're into when you're a teen to show how *different* you are. It's a life stage that I’m starting to recognise in my sister, who is obsessed with sushi because none of her friends eat it.

One of mine was France, and all things associated with it. I stopped short of sporting a beret and draping onions round my neck, but when it came to brie eating, baguette chewing and French onion soup slurping, I couldn’t be beaten. It helped that I was very good at French at school. To me, living in France, speaking French and being called Olivier or Jean Claude was the height of sophistication and just the escapism I needed from my dull, gritty northern upbringing. Having a French first name also helped massively and it would please me no end that when the French teacher went round the room asking us to recite our verb tables, her calling of my name would sound exotic, authentic and romantic, while the poor Daniels, Michaels, Claires and Samanthas just sounded as if the policeman from ‘Allo ‘Allo was saying them in a piss-take accent. You could call Steven ‘Etienne’ all you wanted, Mrs Hodge, but his name was Steven, and nobody with that name was born in the 16th arrondissement- an entirely plausible prospect for someone with a moniker like mine.

Such was my enthusiasm for French that I wasted quite lot of time studying it when I should have been doing subjects that would get me on the career path I actually wanted to be on. It took until I was 20 to realise that perhaps studying French and French only would not really be a good idea unless I wanted to be a French teacher- and therefore subject myself to a lifetime of glamorising the lives of a hundred Stevens with a brightly-trilled ‘Etienne’- or working for a French company in some way, probably in a sales office glued to a phone shouting at a despondent guy called Luc or Pierre in a similar sales office in a corrugated iron nightmare 27 miles outside Paris.

Despite my rampant Francophilia, I have only visited France 3 or 4 times: the first coming at 14 for the school’s French exchange. My excitement soon gave way to disappointment when I realised that Julien, my ‘host’ had the charisma of a mouldy flannel. My only joys during the week I spent in their home were talking in English to his brilliant mother and teaching his impressionable younger brother swear words. I am hoping to go to Paris again for New Year and, if I do, I will live out all my teenage fantasies and wander around marvelling at old buildings, drinking chocolat chaud and pretending I live there. For once in my life I’m disappointed I don’t smoke any more, or I’d almost certainly be taking languorous draws on one of a million Gauloise cigarettes.

Currently feeding my once-dormant Francophilia is the brilliant blog Stuff Parisians Like, a wonderfully wicked insight into how the residents of the capital of romance really think. C’est formidable.

Fade to grey

2008-08-31T10:44:00.002Z

There’s always something a little bit depressing about September, which looms ahead. You’re finally saying goodbye to summer and therefore the prospect of getting any browner or more cheerful by natural means, all the children look depressed because it’s nearly time to go back to school and there’s the great big monster called Christmas lurking, with 1 September almost guaranteeing to bring you a sprig of tinsel somewhere. There is no escape.

And then there's the other side of the coin. Children actually claiming that they can’t wait to go back to school (novelty wears off after two days) and the impending excitement of Hallowe’en, Bonfire Night and, of course, Christmas, which quite a lot of people enjoy, or so I have read.

I would always have brand-new uniform to put on in September, along with sparkling stationery and a too-short, unfashionable haircut save for my first ever September at school where my blond locks were allowed to flow freely). Mornings spent in bed half-heartedly watching repeats of Home and Away and Silas were to be no more, replaced instead by getting up early and queuing for the school special in the drizzle, while girls in puffa jackets wearing too much hairspray would nervously clutch the packets of cigarettes in their pockets, just waiting for the time when they could get on the top deck of the bus and smoke their lungs off.

Now, as a grown-up, September passes me by almost unnoticed, like most other months. A leaf might fall from a tree to remind me that autumn is limbering up for its annual occupation, but aside from a cooler temperature, there’s little to remind me that we’re shifting from one season to another. The sky has been almost permanently grey over London throughout June, July and August anyway, so three more months’ worth of non-weather won’t make much difference, I’m sure.

Writer's block

2008-08-23T08:46:00.007Z

I don’t usually like memes, but I am doing this one as I can’t think of anything to write, but I feel like I should be writing, so write I must.

1 My uncle once: was so drunk he didn’t recognise me and thought I was a burglar.

2 Never in my life: will I eat a black olive again unless at gunpoint.

3 When I was five: I was more pessimistic than I am now

4 High school was: something I read about in magazines. I went to grammar school..

5 I will never forget: how to tie a shoelace. Hopefully.

6 Once I met: Amy Winehouse. She had weird leggings on and wasn’t as fucked as she is now. It was a long time ago.

7 There’s this girl I knew: who became a journalist solely because of Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City. Suffice to say, she can’t write for shit. We do not speak.

8 Once, at a bar: I don’t have anything for this one. Nothing happens to me in bars.

9 By noon, I’m usually: at work, whereas Sue Ellen Ewing would usually be drunk, so I feel I'm doing OK.

10 Last night: I went to a friend’s for dinner. I drank a little too much wine.

11 If only I had: realised when I was younger that good things really do come to those who wait.

12 Next time I go to church: will be a wedding. No idea whose yet.

13 What worries me most: is having nothing to worry about.

14 When I turn my head left I see: the kitchen.

15 When I turn my head right I see: the wall and some windows. Christ, I’ve remembered why I don’t do these very often.

16 You know I’m lying when: I do not lie. It is pointless. And exhausting.

17 What I miss most about the eighties is: absolutely zero. The time is now. Well, maybe TV or something. Child’s Play with Michael Aspel!

18 If I were a character in Shakespeare I’d be: Enobarbus

19 By this time next year: I’ll be a millionaire.

20 A better name for me would be: anything but my actual name.

21 I have a hard time understanding: financial services, to my eternal annoyance.

22 If I ever go back to school, I’ll: blow it up.

23 You know I like you if: I talk to you. If I don’t, I won’t.

24 If I ever won an award, the first person I would thank would be: my mother.

25 Take my advice, never: smoke. It’s shit and expensive and giving up is one of the best things I ever did.

26 My ideal breakfast is: sausages, which I never eat now. Or an egg. Boiled. More people should take pleasure in being just a little bit pedestrian, I feel.

27 A song I love but do not have is: I think I have all the songs I like.

28 If you visit my hometown, I suggest you: make a note of all the ways to leave; you’ll need them ten minutes after arrival.

29 Why won’t people: do my bidding? It’s much easier that way, for all of us.

30 If you spend a night at my house: feel free to wash up.

31 I’d stop my wedding for: the hell of it? I don’t understand this one.

32 The world could do without: dandelion and burdock.

33 I’d rather lick the belly of a cockroach than: wear trousers that were too short. Why do people do this? Somebody should tell them.

34 My favourite blonde(s) is/are: my mum.

35 Paper clips are more useful than: you’d think they are. Should I say Gordon Brown or something? Paper clips aren't really that useful, are they?

36 If I do anything well it’s: always a bonus.

37 I can’t help but: wish I didn’t live on the ground floor.

38 I usually cry: when there is simply no other option. I hardly ever cry; it seems like such a waste of time.

39 My advice to my child/nephew/niece: is to wait and see.

40 And by the way: I’m glad I finally got to the end.

Take the high road

2008-08-21T14:50:00.006Z

10 things I did in Scotland last week

1. Edinburgh: Listened intently while a woman with an impossibly slow speaking speed told me in great detail about a very unfunny-sounding play based on the experience of a comedian who found he’d fathered a lovechild when the child’s mother sent him a MySpace message.

2. Carnoustie: Went for a run along the beach every morning.

3. Some woods in Dumfries: Drank a mini bottle of Baileys and contemplated smoking a rolled-up cigarette.

4. Edinburgh: Wished I hadn’t spent £10 on the worst piece of theatre ever. It masqueraded as a comedy but was actually a dramatic monologue featuring the most googly-eyed and uptight female I’ve ever encountered.

5. Carnoustie: Ate an amazing steak pie in the kind of pub you only get in Scotland and would certainly avoid if it were anywhere else but Scotland.

6. Some woods near Dumfries: Vowed never again to stray more than 3 miles from a built-up area without wellingtons.

7. Edinburgh: Spotted a hatchet-faced Big Brother ‘celebrity’ having his picture taken by awestruck bar staff in a really horrid, yet shiny, pub. I haven’t watched it this year but fellow onlookers told me it was Dennis, who was ejected for spitting is someone’s face. He was three feet tall, orange and carried a handbag. He had many hangers-on who looked like the kind of people you see, well, auditioning for Big Brother, I suppose.

8. Edinburgh: In the same bar, watched in horror as a man and a woman stripped off in order to win a bottle of champagne. The male disrobed down to his somewhat grubby underwear, while the woman actually went topless. The judge was an acidic gay who kept screaming that he didn’t like anyone with ‘attitude’. The male won. He was in a bit of a ‘state’.

9. Arbroath: Ate the most amazing fish and chips I’ve tasted in a decade and stared out at a grey, Scottish sea.

10. All locations: Was plagued by wasps who seemed to find my cologne irresistible. Wasps, it seems, can’t get enough of Chanel.

Can’t wait to do it all again next year.

Attitude problem

2008-07-29T12:14:00.001Z

I have never really been interested in reading the gay press. I don’t know if this means I am a traitor or trying to deny my sexuality or whatever but the truth of it is that I find all of it, without exception, maddeningly dull.

Whether it’s the po-faced reporting of the Pink Paper or the scary zoom lens-obsessed freebies you find in Soho, I’ve carefully avoided as much of this reading material as I can.

One magazine I have been unable to evade is Attitude. My other half occasionally buys it and so it finds its way into our living room. When it does, I usually pick it up and give it a cursory glance. The formula remains the same across most of the issues I’ve seen: smatterings of consumer porn; reviews; fashion shoots with underweight men in their late teens wearing clothes only Elton and David could afford; interviews with supposed gay icons along with the most icky part of all- an interview with a straight, attractive male celebrity.

Now, why the ick, you may ask? Am I so shallow as to assume that the gay readership of this magazine wouldn’t be interested in a straight celebrity? Well, of course not. The problem lies in the content of the interview. The interview will usually be accompanied by a ‘shirtless’ photospread, always really badly shot and photoshopped and showing the subject in a variety of poses that someone who had never had sex with anyone other than themselves may find alluring. Said photos will then be adorned with pull quotes which highlight anything remotely homosexual the straight celeb may have hinted on during the interview. The copy itself will be shallow and badly composed, with over half of it asking questions desperate to tease out the tiniest smidgen of homosexuality, and most of the rest of it concerned with how the star feels about getting his kit off and casting aspersions on his sexual prowess.

This month’s celeb- an airbrushed Steve Jones- is photographed as if he were a juicy steak in a butcher’s window; one image shows a close-up of his chest and nothing else. The questions he is asked are adolescent and, frankly, boring, and the ‘revelation’ that he kissed another male friend when pissed and for a bet (clearly included to help on their way any reader who struggled to orgasm over the chest shot) seems forced and was probably proffered so that Jones could end the interview sooner. After all that, tagged onto the end of the interview is a question about growing up in Wales, which is notable only for the fact it is completely out-of-step with the rest of the piece.

Attitude, and other magazines like it, have done a lot of good work in raising awareness and promoting acceptability of homosexuality, as well as encouraging unsure young teens to take that terrifying step out in the wider gay world, but drivel like this overshadows any merit and that’s a shame. Is this the kind of press that is supposed to inform and inspire me?

I'm a slave for you

2008-07-09T21:10:00.002Z

I’ve spent some of tonight watching a very odd TV programme on Channel 4. Entitled ‘Personal Services Required’, the Apprentice-style show sees three potential house servants spend a couple of days with their prospective employers. After a couple of days’ trial with one couple or family, the potential hired helps move on to the next set of employers. I had never seen it before, but I was open-mouthed within a few minutes of watching. Our three servants, Andrew, Vivian and Wendy Ann, were due to spend 48 hours each with both the Grassos, a couple working long hours and living in a ridiculously big tacky house with a spoiled daughter in Bedfordshire as well as the Walshes, who run a dog luxury hotel and spa. The job up for grabs was that of housekeeper

The Grassos, who were clearly trying as hard as they could to distance themselves from their tower block upbringings in some sink estate in London, made short work of disdainful uber-bitch Vivian, despatching her off into the sunset after less than a day. As the Grassos slobbed around their ‘executive mansion’ and rolled their eyes at prim and proper Vivian, salt-of-the-earth type Wendy Ann was refusing to take a resident of the luxury dog spa for a swim. It was fascinating to watch the wannabe housekeepers recoil from the tasks they were being asked to do. As Vivian’s forked tongue pointed out: “they want a cleaner, not a housekeeper.”

Vivian then decamped to the dog hotel and wonderfully drove the Walshes to distraction by twittering ‘By The Light of the Silvery Moon’ while she cleaned shit off the carpet. Over at the Grassos, slightly camp Andrew took his place in amongst the lions’ den. Seemingly-spoiled daughter Sasha took an instant dislike to him and mother Gabriela seemed to revel in having a servant. She asked meek and mild Andrew to wear chauffeur’s livery, including a hat, to which he took offence. To be fair to him, Andrew said he thought they would look ridiculous walking around with a chauffeur in full garb. The upwardly mobile Grassos then took Wendy Ann into their home and, as she was the kind of subservient, grateful person that people with a few noughts on their statements loved, proved very popular, The teenage daughter, who didn’t even have to make her own bed, campaigned hard for Wendy Ann to be hired, arguing like a real svengali that they could ‘mould her’. Sure the parents worked long hours but all the child had to do was go to school; couldn’t she tidy her own shit up? The house was the kind of house that would have had my mother clutching her chest in shock: scruffiness masquerading as bohemia. Andy proved to be a smash at the dog spa but ultimately thought animal magic didn’t really have as much sparkle as he thought it would.

I watched this programme in awe. For a long time, I’ve considered having a cleaner ad have searched in vain for a recommendation. Now, I’m not so sure: do I really want to be like the self-indulgent sloths on this show, bitching because my serf didn’t want to clean my toilet and wear a uniform?

The end of the programme saw the potential housekeepers swap notes. Surprisingly, they all disagreed about their servitude, with Wendy Ann defending the Grassos, while Andrew and Vivian surmised they were simply lazy.

In the end, Andrew turned down a position at the dog spa and Wendy Ann tired of the Grassos’ supercilious interview style and declined their offer of £16,500 for a week of 16 hour days.

I now know for sure what I suspected all along: the only person I want doing my cleaning is me (or my mum, ho ho ho). My working class guilt wouldn’t have it any other way.

The butler did it

2008-06-17T21:42:00.002Z

I saw a headline the other day which claimed that Paul Burrell, infamous butler to Diana, Princess of Wales, had boasted to his brother-in-law that he had fucked his employer. This story didn't interest me in the slightest- no story surrounding Diana will ever shock me- but I did find myself reading it online later.

The story itself was pretty unremarkable: outlandish claims based on hearsay and not much else. One comment by the enraged brother-in-law leapt out at me, though. He said that because of the gay company Burrell had kept in the past, Burrell's wife should consider an AIDS test. That homosexuality still equals AIDS to someone living and breathing in the 21st century isn't entirely unbelievable, but it does make me sad to read it in the most-read Sunday newspaper in the UK. Comments from the newspaper's readers below the article demonstrated that the bitter brother-in-law was not alone in his ignorance.

I remember the first time the story of Burrell's alleged bisexuality hit the front pages. Coverage that had been at best neutral and at worst slightly snidey all of a sudden ramped up to vitriolic, pathological hatred and ridicule, as if all other traits like alleged dress-pinching, lying and cashing in on a dead employer had faded into insignificance next to the possibility that Burrellmight have just clamped his jaw round a penis.

Living in my London bubble where gay is more or less OK, I sometimes forget that the real, intolerant world is waiting with a great big pin.

Show me the way to go home

2008-05-17T11:08:00.001Z

Boris Johnson, London’s new mayor, has decided to ban drinking alcohol on the tube. From 1 June, if you’re caught drinking on the tube…er…well, no-one’s too sure what happens or how this will be enforced, but, um, you might get fined, or perhaps out in stocks or thrown under the next Victoria line train or something.

Of all the things that need sorting out in London, I’m not altogether sure that boozing on the Tube is the most pressing. People do drink on the tube, yes, but this is usually more to do with the fact that it takes an hour to get anywhere if you live out in the suburbs than the primal urge to get pissed out of your mind on public transport. In handing down this edict, Lord Boris (as he no doubt will be one day) spoke of the intimidation that Tube-travelling people feel thanks to fellow passengers drinking alcohol. Er, no. You can tell Boris and his cronies don’t step onto the Northern line very much.

There are definitely times when drunks can be loud and overbearing, but these people are usually ALREADY pissed. Sober people don’t get on the Tube with a six pack and go round and round the Circle line getting more and more inebriated terrorising law-abiding citizens. Getting wasted on the Tube isn’t a social event. To really combat the problem of drunks on the underground, you’d have to breathalyse all passengers at the turnstiles. Drinking on the Tube isn’t the issue, it’s the drunks who get paralytic before they get on.

If you were to stop boozers getting on the Tube, you might as well close it at 8 every night, as there’d only be a few librarians from Ealing getting on and making a journey.

I don’t get the Tube and when I do, I don’t drink alcohol, but this law seems to be nothing more than a new way for the chattering classes in the suburbs to cock a snook at the inner Londoners who loved Ken so much. “Take that, you rotters!” they’re no doubt calling out. On horseback. With a dead fox under each arm.

Can we ban something useful next please, oh mayoral one? Like, maybe, YOU.

Wheel of misfortune

2008-05-10T16:37:00.002Z

I’m not really a fan of driving. First of all, I’ve never done it and secondly, there seems to be this secret society at work that involves loving a big hunk of metal and enjoying sitting in great rows of them in the burning heat. Many drivers tend to be aggressive and controlling no matter where they live, but in London those drivers really are something else.

Whether they’re zooming through red light, flipping the bird to traffic wardens or parking in your back garden, the London driver really doesn’t seem to give a fuck about anyone else. A zebra crossing was installed outside my house last year and yet is visible only to us pedestrians: the car-lovers motor on through no matter who or what might be in their path. As they sit grunting, sweating and rocking backwards and forwards in their traffic jams or screeching round a corner into a gaggle of unsuspecting schoolchildren, I wonder why some humans are naturally predisposed to getting behind the wheel and others, well, aren’t.

Thankfully the London driver has the perfect foil in the London pedestrian. While ‘green men’, who masquerade as pedestrians’ friends yet really are on the side of the wheel bound, illuminate only long enough for you to get one third of the way across the road, the London pedestrian will take his or her time and, for a few seconds at least, own the road again. Zebra crossings are met with a laid-back stroll and lollipop men and women nod approvingly as their charges take a million years to dawdle their way to the friendly kerb.

Of course, every social group needs a common enemy and it in the cyclist that both driver and pedestrian can unite in hatred. These Earth-loving, highway code-ignorant neon crusaders, who see path, road, or canvas shoe as fair game for their front wheel, may be burning valuable calories and doing their bit for the environment, but they also help to piss up the non-pedalling public.

I suppose every wants to get to where they’re going as safely as possible and in as short a time. Whether we intend to do it at the expense of everybody else is quite another matter. Perhaps that’s part of the fun.

Shut up and drive

2008-04-14T16:23:00.004Z

I went to Oxford yesterday. My other half's parents and aunt and uncle were going to be there for the day visiting his cousin who is at university there so we thought we'd go along and do the family thing. My complete ignorance of the geography of the south east of England reared its ugly head yet again as I assumed Oxford was around half an hour away by train and, seemingly, it is on other days, but when I checked the very ugly National rail website it told me I'd be glued to a train seat for 1 hour 45 minutes.

On my travels I had seen the Oxford Tube coach which promised departures every ten minutes and whose garish livery trilled proudly of onboard Wi-Fi and comfortable seating. The other half's auntie said it was OK and pretty speedy, so to save money (it's been one of those months), we decided to take the coach. First mistake of the day.

We got to Victoria and made a decent attempt to find the coach station from the tube. It seems that 'they' don’t want you to find the coach station at all. We dutifully followed arrow after arrow and endless signposts which led us past all manner of unlovely shops and 'eateries'. The weather was awful and very hair-sleekness unfriendly and I could feel my ire bubbling like organic porridge so was relieved to see the very coach we needed waiting at a bus stop as we rounded yet another corner. We got on and asked the driver for a return to Oxford. He asked when we were coming back. We said the same day. We sat down and realised that while he'd sold my other half a return, I’d got a single. I went back to politely point out the error only to have him turn on me with a crazed look and loudly deny I ever asked for a return. Twice. His pupils were getting large and clearly such details mattered to him so I demurred no further and allowed him to think he'd won, silently seething. My ticket was 'upgraded' and I slumped back into my seat, ready to numb the pain of the journey with some serious internet junk browsing. Alas promises of Wi-Fi proved to be big fat lies and I instead spent most of the journey staring out of the window, marvelling at how weird and unattractive London gets the further out you go.

I remembered now why I hadn’t spent more than 20 minutes on a coach since the late '90s: they're a magnet for weirdos, tightarses and trainophobes. We had the obligatory teen playing tinny R&B through his mobile phone, a fluffy-haired corduroy enthusiast switching seats every two seconds and a Next underwear-sporting student who blabbed on his mobile constantly, pausing only to get out of his seat to find something in his bag in the overhead locker, giving us a delightful view of his pale arse-crack and aforementioned budget underwear,

After a soul-shattering, unremarkable journey of 2 hours and 10 minutes we arrived in Oxford. It was only my second visit. My first, 10 years ago, had been in the summer when I was in charge of about 100 foreign language students who wanted to be there as much as I did. My only sightseeing then consisted of the McDonald's (it's all the Spaniards wanted to do) and a desperately outdated shopping centre. Oxford has been in surgery and had its nose and boobs done since then: the shops were OK and there were loads of places to eat or grab a drink. There was something not quite right about the place, though. Sure, it was dreaming spires-a-gogo and full of lots of historic buildings, but they all seemed to be part of the university and not open to the Oxford masses. There was also a number of hulking great 1960s monstrosities, leading me to conclude that the council must have been freebasing when approving planning permission or,more realistically, just open to kickbacks.

Eventually I got ornamental building fatigue and even singing 'oooold buildiiiing' to the tune of 'Goldfinger' every time I saw one soon lost its novelty value. There isn't really a lot to say about Oxford that you can’t get from watching an old episode of Inspector Morse. Despite being tooled up with relics and ornate architecture, I didn't get much of a positive vibe from the place. Maybe it’s nicer in summer. The afternoon went all too quickly and soon it was time to get back onto the coach of doom and hotfoot it back to London. We waited in the rain for ages as rival operators' coaches came and went. Finally, our chariot arrived and we wearily clambered aboard. Again we were lacking Wi-Fi so I read in semi-darkness until London started appearing through the rain-splattered windows. At Victoria we got off and headed for the nearest pub to get out of the cold and rain. The drummer from McFly, Harry (why do I know his name? I'm 32!), was in there drinking with friends who all looked like foetuses. He looked far too boring and ordinary to be famous, but that’s true of most 'celebs' I've laid eyes on.

So after two Sundays of venturing beyond my SE1 comfort zone, I was looking forward to a quiet one next week, but alas I'll be in Yorkshire for a wedding. A family wedding at that. Shudder.

Harrow goodbye

2008-04-09T15:22:00.001Z

It's odd the things you do on the spur of the moment on a Sunday. One minute I was standing in London Bridge station, the next I was on the Metropolitan line heading to territories as yet personally uncharted.

Having lived in London for over five years, it feels like there's a lot of it I've already seen. This is, of course, complete rubbish: there are countless satellite town out there that I haven't stepped foot near, mainly because I can't imagine what there would be of interest to find when I got there that I can't find where I live. I've always been interested in the Metropolitan line; I love the fact that once out of Baker Street it barely bothers to stop in inner London, preferring instead to speed out towards the suburbs as fast as it can in a marvellous fit of snobbery and dismissal of inner city life. As a teenager I read a book by Julian Barnes called Metroland, which I believe was also televised. Its setting was the fag-end of the Metropolitan line and to a non-London dweller like me at the time, the idea of living so close to London and yet so far away fascinated me. The book itself was dull, maudlin and irritiating, but its locations stayed with me.

I've never been past Wembley Park so, as I sat on the train at Baker Street and surveyed the grubby map of the line, I resolved to at least nudge into zone 5. I had no idea how long this would take or even why I was doing it, but as the train set off and began to chug under tunnels groaning with the weight of London's buildings, I felt like I was going on holiday. I selected Harrow-on-the-Hill as my destination: it was just within zone 5 and sounded like it couldn’t help but be a nice place, but if it were a warzone awash with ASBO teens and bitter OAPs, I'd be close-ish to civilisation. Semi-familiar pockets of north London zoomed by, Wembley and its shouting fans came and went (Wales were playing, er, somebody, judging by the supporters; I have no interest in the sporting calendar) and before long I had arrived at my destination.

Wembley-bound sporting supporters were blocking the exit which excitedly signposted the town centre and buses, so I took the other exit and found myself on an unremarkable street. After taking the long way round on a traffic-heavy road that was home to only a pub and a few rundown-looking shops, I found myself next to the afore-mentioned bus station and opposite a shopping centre. There were around three people on the street. It may have been a Sunday, but it was only 2.30 in the afternoon. Where was everybody?

It was stepping into the shopping centre that gave me my answer. The place was pretty busy thanks to a large Primark at its hub. I have never understood the fixation with Primark. Sure, it’s cheap but the styles are beyond shit and it is greatly unpleasant shopping experience. I realise that we now live in a world where reverse bragging is the order of the day and that it's now much cooler to boast how little you paid for your clothes, but there are much better places to get inexpensive clothes from, surely.

I wandered around the shopping centre for a few seconds. Aside from a small but quite good Topshop there was nothing to see. Shops with names like Shoe Zone, Book Zone, Kitchen Zone and Suicide Zone surrounded me. Hungry and feeling more desolate by the second, I noticed a food court on the upper level and made my way up the escalator flanked on either side by people carrying newly-purchased deep fat fryers. The food court was where it was all happening. It was noisy and seemed devoid any natural material whatsoever, only plastic, plastic and more plastic. Pizza Hut jostled alongside KFC, Burger King, Quizno's and Subway for my attention, but it was Spudulike (sic) I plumped for. I hadn’t eaten in one in years and it seemed like a good idea at the time. It wasn't, although I admired their cutlery (plastic of course!)

I went for a walk around what I thought was Harrow town centre but was shocked to find absolutely nothing happening. The only signs of activity were a bustling Pizza Express and a solitary couple eating in a restaurant called Kebabland. Nothign else was open save for a newsagent. The wind started to whip up around me as if telling me to go home and I decided no matter how much I pulled in my hoodie tighter it wasn't going to get any warmer.

I returned to central London, the journey become less interesting the closer I got, and met my other half, whereupon I slated Harrow as a one-horse town and compared it to a less exciting version of my own hometown. Later that day, I looked online to see if Harrow-on-the-Hill and Harrow proper were two separate places, as I was sure I'd heard that Harrow was a pretty major place in Middlesex, yet had seen no evidence of any metropolis. It was then I discovered that just around the corner from where I’d been was the town centre itself; if I'd carried on through the god-awful shopping centre and not been sidelined by an undercooked spud, I would have found it. As it was, I judged a book by its cover and turned on my heels without giving it so much as a once-over.

I'm sorry Harrow; one day I'll return to right my wrong.

Yesterday when I was young

2008-03-31T11:05:00.000Z

How is it that the working week can drag by and yet the weekend seems to be gone in the blink of an eye. As I crossed Clerkenwell Road on my way to work this morning, it felt like only a few seconds since I'd been there last, feeling elated as it was Friday and I'd just got paid. Fast forward to Monday and I'm poorer, considerably less cheerful and back at work again. I'm 32 and have been working full-time for nine years; will I ever get used to Mondays?

I went out drinking in Camden on Saturday night. This is something I don’t generally do. I hardly ever cross the river and am a little bit scared of Camden once the sun slips out of the sky. I fancied a change though and so we endured the Northern line to meet a friend in Camden.

On entering the pub I instantly felt like a tourist. Endless unfamiliar faces and odd clothes stretched out before me as I made my way to the bar. In one corner, a boy with bad hair wore a badge which indicated he was celebrating his 21st birthday. Good looking people with their whole lives in front of them littered the place and I was glad when I could find a seat and sit down and be less conspicuous. Despite feeling like an osteoporotic pensioner, I enjoyed myself immensely. I realised how caught up I’d been in a smug thirtysomething bubble over the river in SE1.

It was quite nice being surrounded by the young and feeling by osmosis their contradictory inner struggles between not giving a damn and being riddled with insecurities. Although I would have quite liked to steal their smooth skin and waist sizes, I decided I didn’t want to be 21 again. 29, maybe, but not 21.

Through the mill

2008-03-19T20:07:00.002Z

Why is it that I've read every letter of the judgment, every headline, every comment on her being a liar and a fantasist and even the words out of her own mouth, yet I still find a little bit of sympathy for Heather Mills?

Is it because I think step-daughter Stella looks like the sort of girl who'd kick and scream and refuse to eat her lunch because Daddy's new girlfriend looked at her funny?

Is it that I instantly don't trust Paul McCartney with his tight, mean mouth and droopy eyes? I don't know.

If I had been Sir Paul, I'd have given her the money she asked for: she's the mother of his daughter after all. You'd think he wouldnlt want her reputation destroyed for the good of his child, no? I guess, however,that in times of extreme emotion, we all do extreme things.

I look forward to this story evaporating from the news.

Today I heard a cliche I haven't heard for long time- that some single mums get themselves knocked up so they can live on benefits and get a flat from the council. It made me sad to hear it, especially from someone in their 20s. I don't doubt that, on occasion, it's true, but to see the re-emergence of that oft-used, prehistoric beating stick made the corners of my mouth turn down. Single mums aren't to blame for that much are they? I must ask my mother.

Blonde ambition

2008-02-20T00:13:00.001Z

There has been what can only be described as a hoohah during recent weeks over the defection of newsreader and presenter Natasha Kaplinsky from the BBC to five. Much has been made of publicity shots for five’s revamped news programme whish show Natasha about to deliver news of worl events in- gasp- jeans and- horror- on a sofa. The fact that Natasha a) has breasts b) blonde hair c) likes to wear a bit of slap and d) isn’t exactly the ugliest newsreader out there has incensed critics and led to the very boring, predictable accusations of a TV viewership subjected to the ‘dumbing down’ of news and broadcasting in general.

Fellow journalists have been particularly vicious in their attacks on Kaplinsky; Amanda Platell and Quentin Letts of the Daily Mail have been like rottweilers starved of steak who’ve suddenly been tossed an old bone and have ripped her to shreds. Criticism of Natasha is nothing new: she was vilified for her presenting on BBC Breakfast and practically lynched for appearing on Strictly Come Dancing. Commentators moaned that it was hard to take her seriously reporting on world issues in news bulletins because of her alleged relationship with her dance partner and her stints on light entertainment shows. Her propensity for wearing bright pink lipstick saw her branded a bimbo, incapable of the gravitas and journalistic skills necessary to read out a script someone else had written anyway.

I haven’t seen five news; I’m guessing I’m not in its target audience as I don’t watch news much anyway. From most of the reports I’ve read about it- and there have been a lot, only royal weddings and Winehouse get more coverage- it was a fairly run-of-the-mill news programme interesting only because of its presenter and an only slightly different method of presenting the news.

I’m not sure why journalists love to turn on other journalists, women in particular. I’m neither an expert nor a fan of Kaplinsky, but I’m not aware of any massive clangers she’s dropped or hateful opinions she’s had. Perhaps good old-fashioned envy is at the heart of this very public execution.

Those who complain about the dumbing down of news are being naïve and snobby. Who says that the news has to be presented by a dour-faced, suit-sporting main with grey hair spouting long words? Why shouldn’t five target a news bulletin at its audience? Their viewers watch US and Australian imports, their comedy shows and reality and light entertainment. Isn’t it better to have an accessible news programme that speaks to people ordinarily put off by what they might consider stuffy output elsewhere. In a world where commentators bemoan young people’s lack of interest in world events, why complain when a news show tries to be inclusive and inform? Is it better to alienate?

Viewers who are unable to make a distinction between a newsreader participating in a dancing reality show and commenting on atrocities in wartorn Iraq are the current affairs equivalent of soap fans who truly believe that if they head down to east London they’ll find themselves in Albert Square and bump into Peggy Mitchell.

Doing it for the kids

2008-02-13T17:56:00.002Z

I’ve never really rated Reese Witherspoon. She’s been in a few films I’ve liked but for the most part I can’t honestly say that she’s been the best thing about them or that her performance has enriched my movie viewing experience. I rate her even less since I read what I hope was a massive misquote from her. Speaking on Good Morning America, Reese said “I wouldn't want my children to miss out on any of that teasing and bullying and don't you think it kind of makes you who you are?” Er, not really Reese, but please do go on…”This drives me crazy about today. Everyone wins the award and then, you know, everybody's an MVP (Most Valuable Player)? No! They're not! Okay? I distinctly recall the two weeks of crying because I didn't make the softball team. It made me interesting, you know?" Hmm, interesting. What Reese is actually describing there is not being picked for a sports team, not the demoralising, soul-destroying taunts and violence experienced by millions of children every day.

I don’t think bullying is character building at all. That old chestnut ‘it made me a stronger person’, often trotted out by former victims, rings hollow when you think of all the people who harm or kill themselves because of a bully’s actions. While Reese does have a point in there somewhere- that a ‘reward everybody’ culture isn’t necessarily very healthy- to equate not getting picked for a sports team shows a whole new side of cluelessness. I’m almost sure that Reese isn’t advocating being kicked to shit on a school bus or having your head flushed down the toilets as the stuff of well-balanced, upstanding future citizens of America, but what a crass statement to make on national television; how stupid of her to cheapen and trivialise what is, in this country at least, an illegal act. To shrug off bullying like it’s just another facet of school life, like not liking PE or getting excited when a dog interrupts play on the football pitch, gives weight to a growing concern that bullying is being roundly ignored.

I don’t hope that Reese’s children get bullied, but I do hope that they give her hell during those adolescent years. Parenting a boisterous teen- now that’s real character-building stuff, Reese. Good luck to you, dear.

Hopelessly devoted

2008-02-11T17:08:00.000Z

The other day I told my other half, quite calmly and deliberately, that I was in love with someone else. We were sitting in a pub in Camden (only a few hours before the area started, er, burning down) and on hearing this news my other half took it very well indeed. There were no fireworks, no tears, no tantrums and no bitter accusations. Disappointingly, but understandably, there were no dramatics at all, just a light shrug and even an admission that he could see why I felt this way. Why? Well, probably because I was telling him that I was enamoured of a celebrity I’d never met and knew the square root of fuck all about rather than confessing I was running away with the milkman.

I have never been one for fancying people out of my reach or pining for celebrities to come and take me away from all this. My teenage infatuations were thin on the ground and confined to people I’d actually met. I think ‘infatuation’ is too strong here; my adolescent pashes were infrequent, short-lived and weak. I never agonised over romantic verse, scrawled it in an uneven hand in a Valentine’s card and placed my lips upon an envelope before posting it to an unrequited love under cover of darkness. I’m of the opinion that once you get in with the unrequited love nonsense, a whole other world of ‘un’ is unleashed upon you: unsatisfying; unfulfilling, unaccompanied; unbalanced; unashamed; unwelcome.

So who has caught my eye after years of staring straight ahead? Well, strangely enough, it is a British-born musician called Mark Ronson. I think he’s quite cute. I never think this about famous people. I think, for example, Jake Gyllenhaal is attractive, sure, but I don’t fancy him. Not at all. Not really.

There’s something about the not-quite-geeky, not-quite-hot Mark that I find appealing. It probably helps that I quite like his music and the work he’s done with other artists. He first came to my attention a few years ago with his debut single, a track called Ooh Wee which was not a tribute to the piss club scene of Vauxhall but in fact a cool little hip-hop dance song. He is now recognised, of course, for his work with Amy Winehouse and Lily Allen and now for winning a Grammy for Producer of the Year. In interviews I’ve seen he seems cool but not that personable and his accent veers between tuneful and irritating, but who cares? That’s the beauty of admiring a star from afar, as I’m finding out: I don’t have to address the bits I don’t like because I’ll never meet him and probably wouldn’t like him if I did.

So my other half is very understanding about my new obsession (although I’m actually not obsessed and it’s only on writing this down I’ve actually realised how weak my ardour is, but, you know, I’ve started now), but he did scowl a little when I told him this morning that I had dreamt about Mark Ronson and Amy Winehouse last night. Even though I explained it was not a dirty dream (I’m not the kind of person who has dirty dreams) and all we exchanged was a chaste, brotherly kiss (in full presence of Amy), I could tell that in his mind I had dreamcheated.

And so I will have to let Mark go. I much prefer the reality of my other half to the fantasy of a musician and all the trumpet-heavy cover versions and geeky haircuts in the world can’t replace what we have. So having found myself in the flush of my first schoolboy crush at the age of 32, I can now tick that experience off my list. It was nice while it lasted, but I don’t think I missed that much.

Three for sorrow

2008-02-05T20:33:00.000Z

February has arrived at last, banishing January, which doesn’t really feel like part of an exciting New Year anyway, thanks to its hangovers, restrictive diets, gym worship and weather. For me, 2008 has really only just started.

It may be a new year, but there’s nothing new happening in the news. Tabloids gleefully report on the supposed meltdowns of Amy Winehouse and Britney Spears as if they were characters in a soap opera, not real people. No detail is too trivial, whether Britney is popping out to the shops or Amy chugging on yet another LSD-dipped Marlboro Light. There must be mixed emotions now that both ladies are receiving help for their problems- Amy in rehab and Britney in a psychiatric hospital- as tabloid editors agonise over who will fill their pages. Happily, Amy nipped out to get a visa for the States today, so the front page famine was averted. Much has been written about Winehouse and Spears’s troubles, so I won’t scribble too much further about them, but I can’t help but wonder if their downfalls would have been covered with such ferocity if they had happened to two famous men. Even Pete Doherty didn’t come under such scrutiny. One paper has ever kept a counter, detailing how many days we are into Britney’s meltdown. Tasteful as ever.

Another woman who’s given the tabs a belated Christmas present is Cheryl Cole, pop puppet and well-documented bigmouth, who has now suffered the tackiest of all tabloid cover stories like a thousand miserable MP’s wives and wallflower girlfriends before her: the kiss and tell. Her footballing husband has been exposed as what the tabs love to call a ‘love rat’. After allegedly boning and offering abortions to every blonde in the south east of England, Ashley Cole has helped to propel his wife to the frint covers she adores to appear on, but for all the wrong reasons. After the first fling story broke, Cheryl- rather stupidly in my opinion- did a double page spread in a Sunday tabloid, claiming she knew all along about the story, rubbishing the claims and standing by her man, albeit almost damning him as impotent after a couple of pints. Columnists begged her to leave him, but Cheryl wouldn’t budge. Now that there are only a few women left who haven’t claimed to fucking her husband, Cheryl has wisely buttoned it and left the marital home.

If there is anybody left out there who still craves to be famous and is poised to fill out a form to appear on reality TV, one can only hope that the experiences of our three unfortunates persuades them to put the pen down and stay out of the limelight.

The final act

2008-01-23T00:01:00.000Z

It was odd to read, a few moments ago, that 'Hollywood' actor Heath Ledger had been found dead in a New York apartment. Not odd because I was a fan if his or odd because the fact that people die is odd, but odd because Mr Ledger was only 28, and despite the fact people who seem too young to die kick the bucket all the time, 28 just seems especially young. To a 32-year-old at least.

Barely three hours into the discovry of his body by a housekeeper and a masseuse, the rumour mill is wearing itself out with all kinds of claims: he was surrounded by pills; he was staying in Mary-Kate Olsen's apartment; he was naked. Some of it will be true, most of it will not.

Heath Ledger was supposedly named after the famed character from Wuthering Heights, which is one of my favourite books. This is the sort of weird fact that gets tacked onto your obituary if web journalists have run out of things to type about you. Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights was a tortured soul, eventually driven mad and, ultimately, to his demise, by the things he could not have. Looking at Mr Ledger, apparently disillusioned by his lifestyle and checking out at 28, leaving a two-year-old daughter behind him, it seems that his destiny could almost have been written from the moment he was named. Or maybe not.

I believe I can fly

2008-01-17T17:19:00.000Z

I have not boarded an aircraft for nine years this summer. The only way I’ve been able to exit this country is via the beauty of Eurostar. I have missed invites to summer holidays, friends’ special birthdays and seeing long-flown pals thanks to the fact that I am afraid of flying. This year, however, is the year I will fly again. Or at least that’s what I’m saying now. As I do every January.

I can’t remember how it started. I have not flown very much in my life; I wouldn’t run out of fingers if I had to count my flights on two hands. My first flight was a journey to Australia when I was 14. I went unaccompanied as my father lived out there at the time. I flew there and back totally solo and was not remotely frightened. My father, expecting a stressed teenager full of wonderment and excitement at the 24 hours plus of flying said that I looked like I just got off a number 9 bus from the shops, such was my calm, nonchalant demeanour on trudging through Melbourne Airport.

Somehow, since then, each flight has worried me more, culminating in a brain-demolishing trip to Paris, with a journey time of 60 minutes each way. I kind of managed to hold it together on the way there: I sat bolt upright and faced front as if only my concentration and absolute stillness were the only things keeping the hunk of metal in the air. The plane was the size of a condom packet and the stewardesses edging retirement, while still retaining an air of menace which suggested they would restrain or sedate me if I acted up. The flight back broke me and was my last. The plane, a morning flight, was delayed massively and I’d had no sleep. After we were finally called for boarding, a little bus took us out to the plane which was abandoned in the middle of some runway. I made my way to the steps to see an engineer fixing something to the wing with what looked like sticky tape. I became slightly hysterical and felt seconds away from a heart attack. I spent the entire flight clawing the backs of my hands and imagine what my scream would sound like as I hurtled towards the ground if the wings fell off. Imagining all that air beneath me made me want to smash my own head off the seat in front just to knock myself out.

But this year is the year to get over it. There are places I want to go, people I want to see and things I want to do and quite a lot of them happen beyond these grimy shores. I was kind of coming round to the idea and so was thrilled to see that there’s been some kind of crash landing at Heathrow today. Super.

Gym'll fix it

2008-01-10T00:36:00.000Z

I went to the gym after work today and it was not unlike finding myself on Oxford Street on a Saturday, but with more sweat and a considerable amount of flesh on display.

It is, of course, January and the gym has been over-run with would-be athletic gods and goddesses determined to shake off the tins of Roses and extra Bailey’s they’ve acquired round their waist over Christmas.

The changing rooms were nose to nipple and I had to search as thorughly as I could for an empty locker: no mean feat when there's tens of flabby bottoms and cans of Lynx barring your way. A quick glance around told me that few of my fellow disrobees were regular gymgoers. My gym is hardly a Baywatch casting session at the best of times, but the extra inches of podge and the interesting way the carriers of it tried to hide their bodies as they changed gave the game away. I don’t hang around in the changing room and I try not to look at anybody. I don’t really feel the need to get a surreptitious shot of businessman cock and I hate those guys who stride around with their twig and berries on display, languorously applying deodorant and-ugh- talc to their shrivelled balls as if to say “hey I’m totally down with my body and am cool with you all getting a good look”. Well I'm *not* 'down with it' and my sausage is staying firmly under wraps. Ninety-nine times out of one hundred, these posturing masses of testosterone are the very guys who should be covering up.

At both gyms I’ve joined, I’ve always waited until January is over before signging on the dotted line and kissing goodbye to £50a month. By then, the novelty of gym membership has faded for even the most dedicated of resolution-makers and everyone else is back on the beer and peanuts. As I half-heartedly ‘pumped iron’ this evening, I looked around the gym and could practically see the Christmas dinners sweating out of the lot of them. I imagined the thud of a seven stone weakling dropping a free weight was actually a 17lb turkey making its escape from a weary exerciser's upper thigh. I’d never seen any of the new members before; I wonder if I’ll see them again.

The gym is an odd place and I’m not quite sure why I go. I abhorred sport or any kind of activity at school: rugby was my personal hell and as I took off my PE shorts for the very last time as a 17-year-old, I swore I’d never run after a ball or pick up a bat ever again. Of course, as my metabolism slowed and ‘something’ started protruding through my shirt that wasn’t a secreted football but- gasp- a tummy, I realised action needed to be taken. My first gym membership was like PE all over again. My instructor forced me to pick up a dumbbell over and over again because I wasn’t retrieving it from the floor in the correct way. He stood over me as I laboured on the cross trainer and sneered as I pathetically attempted to tackle the shoulder press. I lasted eight months before deciding enough was enough. My latest foray into fitness has been more successful. Having the benefit of a couple more years and a little more confidence in what I was talking about, I’ve found a gym programme that works for me and I can even now be found on the treadmill- a thought as alien to me a couple of years ago as arranging my big white wedding or going to an Elton John concert would be. While I would need to lock myself in the gym for around six months to achieve a physique worthy of appearing in a magazine, I have finally gained what you might call ‘a body’. I’m not quite sure how I feel about it; sometimes I wonder who it is in the mirror. I look a bit like a slightly out of condition swimmer recovering from pneumonia, if you can imagine that.

So I think I’ll do the very opposite of the aspirant fitness fanatics and give the gym a wide berth this month. I’ll leave it to them and try and work up a bit more belly for me to run off in February.

First things first

2008-01-04T16:29:00.000Z

January’s the worst month. I remember reading somewhere that Julie Burchill thought that people who named autumn as their favourite season were boring, but she was wrong, as usual. Nothing wrong with autumn at all, with the still-warm days of September easing you out of summer and Halloween lifting the grump and then Bonfire Night kicking off the social season. Winter’s fine too, as December holds the promise of Christmas and February is a mercilessly short cobbled street leading you into March and then spring. Autumn’s triumph over its wintry cousin can be attributed to one stony-faced miser of a month: January.

It’s the fashion at this time of year to find endless lists of what was hot or rot in the previous year, because journalists and TV producers can’t really be bothered to out anything else together, so instead of bucking or fighting against this trend, I will acquiesce and produce a list all of my own. Here’s why I hate January:

1 January
There can be nothing much more depressing than that taxi ride home from wherever you’ve been celebrating the New Year back to wherever you live. It’s almost always raining, and the taxi costs loads and the radio is almost always playing Bob Marley or Enrique Iglesias and retuning itself because it can’t find a strong enough signal. I almost started crying in the taxi this year, such was my desolation at being driven around Streatham for the second time because the taxi driver wouldn’t admit he was fucking lost.

Birthdays
Everyone seems to have a birthday party or five to go to in January and it’s the one month you don’t really want to spend money or get drunk or see anybody you spent New Year with, but there they all are, all feeling as shit and misanthropic as you do.

Resolutions
Of course there are those who welcome January as a time to self-flagellate and give up absolutely everything they enjoy. They will then delight in regaling you with tales of their abstinence and how strong they are for not eating Walnut Whips, drinking pints of beer or going out and enjoying themselves. This serves no purpose other than making them splurge the rest of the year because they were ‘really good in January’ and had the most miserable time of their lives. Oh *well done* you.

I could carry on but I don’t think it’s wise. I really need to learn to love January. Right now, it's the only month I have.

Happy New Year!

*Image courtesy of someone's flickr photostream, but I forgot who. If it's yours, let me know and I'll credit you.

Take me home

2007-12-22T11:34:00.000Z

I’m on a train again. This time heading to Yorkshire for Christmas. King’s Cross was utter chaos this morning, but everybody seemed quite cheerful. Queues for Burger King snaked back miles yet even though only two tills were open, nobody complained and everyone smiled broadly. Ah, the Christmas effect. I’m doing the same journey again in January; it’ll be interesting to see if everyone’s still feeling sunny then.

I’m in first class once more. In total contrast with my Scottish trip, which was sedate and lovely and everything a train journey should be, this is like sharing a cage with some sleep-deprived tigers. Everybody seems to be on edge and the staff look quite menacing and pissed off. There’s a family of two parents and two children sitting diagonally to me. The offspring have whinged, griped and bickered for most of the journey. I’m not surprised: their parents have brought nary a book or magazine to entertain them. Have they ever met a child before? Children are always bored. I watched in wonder as the father allowed the child to wrest the spectacles from his face and poke him in the eye. The mother is in her thirties but has a voice like a 12-year-old, which seems very affected. Why do some people talk like this? I can barely listen to them, so I’m powering the loudest music I can find through my headphones.

I find it impossible to travel light, despite all my measures to curb my over-packing. I even sit down the night before I pack and plan out meticulously what I will wear each day to avoid the usual panic packing of throwing seventy T-shirts into my case at the last minute. I also downsized from a huge case the size of Namibia to a manageable one that would allow me to get on and off trains with relative ease. As a consequence, I now struggle through the station with four different bags, all stuffed to the brim. I sensibly ordered some presents from Amazon and had them sent to my mother’s ready for me to wrap in my arrival. Unfortunately I must have forgotten I had done this because now I have bought twice as much in London.

And now, a week of eating, drinking, dancing and, of course, present opening awaits. All internet access-free, which is kind of a relief. It’s my birthday tomorrow so I get to have a practice run of present opening. Those closest to me have long since learned not to pull any ‘this is a joint present for birthday and Christmas’ shit, thank goodness. You wouldn’t turn up to someone’s July birthday party with a Christmas card, would you? I will be thirty-two and I really don’t know how to feel about it or what to say about it, so I won’t say anything. Except for Happy Birthday to me- and Merry Christmas to you. x

Spice up your life

2007-12-20T14:25:00.000Z

Purely by accident, I went to see the Spice Girls in concert on Sunday. We had intended to go to the cinema but when we pitched up at the O2 were greeted by the sight of a girl dressed in a Union jack-inspired tutu and realised that the Spice Girls were in town. Despite having never owned a Spice Girls record nor having any particular interest in them musically, I’ve always found their cultural impact fascinating. Purely as a spur-of-the-moment thing, we decided to see if they had tickets left for the show which was due to start in an hour. They did. Right next to the stage. I bought them. Feeling light-headed and, well, poorer, we made our way top the auditorium and queued up with a whole gaggle of gays, girls and their mums for access.

The press has been particularly vicious about this reunion. While nobody accused Take That of cashing in on former glories, the Spice Girls were vilified and painted as money grabbing milkmaids giving the withering teat of their fame one final, desperate squeeze. Given that they are still, long after their chart bothering days have ended, featured in the newspapers almost every day must mean that there is an appetite for them. The tour was billed as ‘The Return of the Spice Girls’, but have they ever really been away? It took a tear-jerking documentary to reignite interest in a Take That reformation, whereas there’s been interest in the Spice Girls performing since, well, since the day Geri pulled off her platforms for the last time.

I had read that they were playing to half empty venues, but save for our row, which we had all to ourselves, the place was packed. We were apparently sitting in seats originally reserved for guests of Roberto Cavalli. A flushed PR girl bustled around us and asked if we were the Cavalli guests. I thought she was trying to get me to move and so was rather defensive. With hindsight I should have pretended I was a Cavalli guest; there may have been free champagne involved. Crowd hysteria reached fever pitch when the Beckham children came out to take their seats. Literally the entire stadium rose to its feet, screamed and craned to take photographs of three very ordinary looking children. I did not rise from my seat, not even when David Beckham came to join them; the flash of camera phones and the bellowing sound of what I guess what you’d call fandom started to make me feel a little uncomfortable and I almost regretted my decision to come to the gig.

The concert was good. Victoria Beckham is just as skinny as ‘they’ say, can’t dance and, from what I could hear, can’t sing very well. No surprises there. It was actually quite hard to decipher any contribution form her: the crowd would scream wildly any time she got a solo. The other girls all performed well. Despite myself, I enjoyed it. I also found that I knew more of their songs than I thought I did.

The days of security guards getting uptight about people taking pictures at gigs seem to be far behind us: the crowd was a sea of camera phones held aloft by pale, ample arms. The performers themselves posed and beamed straight at cameras proffered by the audience. Perhaps the papers are right: maybe the girls are still hungry for fame and that’s why they didn’t object to adoring fans taking fuzzy pictures on their camera phones. The brightness of the flash bulb doesn’t matter, just as long as somebody, somewhere, loves you enough to take your picture and freeze frame that moment- your moment- for ever.

Somewhere only we know

2007-12-05T17:53:00.000Z

Someone, possibly a Marx brother, once said: “I wouldn’t want to join any club that would have me as a member”. It’s a damning indictment of my laziness that I can’t even be bothered to Google to find out who first uttered that quote, but there you go. Although the speaker may not have wanted to belong to a club, many people now do, with private members’ clubs cropping up all over the place. Even Edinburgh has some!

Of course, in days of yore, private clubs were pretty much men only and activities within generally confined to smoking, reading newspapers, pretending women didn’t exist and buggering schoolboys, but now the world and his wife want to belong to one. And most of them are succeeding.

The concept puzzles me somewhat. Depending on your chosen club, you can pay around £400 per year for membership. This membership doesn’t include anything other than the ability to get in through the door; any food you consume, booze you imbibe or hookers you fuck are all extra and not usually part of the service. So, in effect, you’re paying a door entry charge in advance, and you might not even go. And if you do go often, you’re likely to spend a healthy wad of your hard-earned cash on ‘exclusive’ food and drink.

I’m not a member of any private club as I don’t really feel the need. From the times I have been in one, it seems you’re not guaranteed a seat, the bar is just as noisy as the Dog and Duck and while the people may be wearing more expensive jewellery than your average pub-goer, attitudes can stink just as much whether dressed in Prada or Primark. You can usually move relatively freely around a pub but at one of the members’ clubs I went to, there’s a girl with a clipboard on every floor to look you up and down to make sure you are where you’re supposed to be. I’m not sure how they identify those who belong and those who don’t. Perhaps the clipboards contain photo montages comparing this year’s designer collections with their H&M rip-off versions, instantly outing anybody who pays less than £150 for plimsolls.

I learned today that Home House, of which Madonna and Sting are members, is to open a non-West End branch round the corner from my flat. Quite what the local residents will make of that, I don’t know. Most of them probably won’t even realise it’s there: the club will be surrounded by luxury apartments and a boutique hotel, so that anyone enjoying the luxury of being grilled by a clipboard-wielding posh chick won’t have to look at the sight of dozens of council blocks and can remain cocooned in their fee-paying, ‘isn’t this wonderful’ revelry.

Long train running

2007-11-22T15:48:00.000Z

I’m on a train to Scotland. Well, the train actually *is* in Scotland: we pulled out of Inverkeithing a few minutes ago. I am on my way to Carnoustie to see my father. It will be my first time in Scotland for over a year and a half. Because it’s a six hour train journey, I opted to go first class, which I always try to do if getting the train to Scotland. First class isn’t usually a big deal at all- the seats are a teensy bit bigger and there’s fucking endless cups of tea on offer- but this time it’s one of the older trains and it feels much more luxurious and less sterile than the new ‘fleet’.

As soon as the Firth of Forth came into view I felt a strange wrench in my stomach. I have felt this before, but usually I am getting off at Edinburgh so the wrench is all but gone by the time I’ve humped my bag out of Waverley. This time, however, I was carrying on through so the wrench remains. I don’t for a moment regret leaving Edinburgh but I do have a strange affection for it that I don’t feel for pretty much any place, even the town I was born and grew up in.

Most train journeys bring me hilarity thanks to some of my fellow travellers but this time it’s all been strangely pedestrian. I had a youngish, balding woman sitting at the opposite table who scowled her way up to Edinburgh and wore a Manic Street Preachers T-shirt. She was joined by a friend at Newcastle and was very curt and dismissive to him- so much so that I silently hoped for the speedy loss of the rest of her hair, preferably right in front of me. That really is quite cruel of me.

I ate a cheese and ham toastie which tasted like it had been retrieved from a supermarket floor by someone with dog shit on their hands and was charged £3.50 for the ‘pleasure’. I was almost charged £5: when the steward gave me my receipt she walked away and when I asked for my change claimed she had given it to me. She was quite persistent but I pointed out that I would have had to have been a magician to gave pocketed it; my hands had not moved at all and the receipt still rested accusingly on my right palm, right where she’d plonked it. I diagnose the early onset of dementia or perhaps ‘light-fingerus vulgaris’.

London was bright at 10.30 this morning but the skies darkened the more northerly I travelled. The sun broke through at Edinburgh, as if it were trying to tell me something, and the tall houses of the Old Town seemed to glimmer. Edinburgh can be a terrible flirt but I’ve fallen for that trick before; I turned my head back to my computer screen and did not glance up again until we reached the Forth Bridge.

Vision on

2007-11-20T17:26:00.000Z

I don’t really watch that much television. Well, I say that, because I don’t feel as if I do. If you were to ask me what my favourite TV programmes were (as someone once did in a job interview), I would stutter and stumble over my words before reeling off the only programmes I could remember, usually from the previous night’s schedule. This isn’t because I think watching TV programmes is anything to be embarrassed about, or that having favourite shows is something to be ashamed of; there just aren’t that many TV shows out there that interest me as much as they used to.

I have Freeview at home, which I bought three years ago and only because my then nine-year-old sister was due to visit and used to having 70,000 channels on cable at home, of which she watches about two and flicks through the rest. I’m always finding leaflets in the mailbox which all try and find new and exciting ways to gently push me over the invisible precipice that separates a casual TV viewer and a card-carrying telly addict. Apart from a very miserable four months lodging in a flat in Rosyth I have never lived in a Sky-viewing household. Perhaps my view of it has been tainted by the lanky moron I lived with, but there’s something so male and menacing about satellite and cable TV companies and their marketing strategies, whether it’s a one-time A-list Hollywood actress suggesting that having a few extra channels will make your peanut into a dong or montages of lots of men doing sport and looking really manly. I recently entertained the idea of buying a Freeview box with a hard drive meaning I could record all of my ‘favourites’. I then remembered that I don’t have any favourites and that there is little more depressing than watching a recording of a TV show that was on days ago because there’s zero of note happening on screen now.

A couple of nights, we have experimented with actually not turning on the TV when we get in from work. My partner will perhaps sit on the computer as I make dinner. This doesn’t last long as the silence is too much to bear and with my partner engrossed in the internet, the need to be spoken to by someone- anyone, even a tight-mouthed regional news presenter or dead-eyed docusoap participant- supersedes my good intention to be TV-free.

One thing I refuse to do is rush home to watch TV. ‘Appointment to view’ shows are a waste of time on me. I’ll never break my neck to watch someone else break theirs on Strictly Come Dancing.

I know some people who even go as far as to not have a TV, which as choices go is perfectly acceptable, I suppose. The type of people who make this choice, however, tend to be quite evangelical about it and will reach for the crucifix should you start to twitter about a contestant on The X Factor. Like music snobbery, I find looking down on someone because of the TV programmes they watch very dull. Yet at the same time, I chastise myself for sitting motionless in front of the TV despite the fact there is nothing to watch. “There is such a thing as an off switch, you know!” is an often-heard scream from those whose programmes are criticised, but sometimes, in my case at least, there isn’t. Even if I’m on the computer, which is even less sociable than the television, I like the TV on in the background, guzzling electricity supplies and keeping the neighbours awake.

Afternoon delight

2007-11-16T18:17:00.000Z

I went to The Ivy last week. This is not a boast post, don’t worry. I took a friend there. She had a baby in August and I thought rather than turn up with a bunch of petrol station flowers and the same BabyGap dungarees as everybody else, I would be that clichéd gay best friend and take her out for a nice meal and be fabulous, which isn’t usually my kind of thing. I went to The Ivy for my 30th but she’d never been before. We were both very excited, me mainly because despite my frosty exterior, I actually like doing nice things for people.

We’d met in Selfridges where I was buying a coat and I’d already had a glass of champagne on an empty stomach thanks to stumbling on the opening of yet another branch of Reiss (why is that shop so expensive? It’s not *that* nice), so by the time we got into the cab to go to the restaurant, the gid factor was up to 99. I’m not suggesting we were jumping up and down in the taxi, but there was a warm glow coming from us both: I’d been sooo busy at work that I hadn’t relaxed in ages and she has two children, which is like having ten full-time jobs at once.

Those of you who’ve been to The Ivy will know that it’s no big deal: it’s not posh at all, but the atmosphere is great and the food is generally very good. We had a lovely time guessing the lifestyle of our fellow diners and spent a lot of time trying to work out the relationships of a group of gays a couple of tables away who had one solitary, rapt woman sitting with them. This prompted my friend to ask if she were a fag hag, and I thought that she wasn’t. Is ‘fag hag’ a derogatory term? I’ve never attracted them so am not entirely sure.

I’m not sure why people revere The Ivy so much, but I do like going there. Maybe it’s because, despite the fact that the food is just what you can find elsewhere (albeit more tasty), you really feel as if you’re being looked after. Of course, there are some who go starspotting, but I think all the celebs moved on years ago.

After lunch we trudged to a bar in Seven Dials. I’ll name and shame as it was the biggest pile of cunt in the world: Dial. My friend waited ages to get served and when she’d been ignored for 15 minutes we decided to try our luck elsewhere and went to the pub opposite, which smelled of dirty dishcloths, and found a seat precariously perching on bar stools which everybody wanted to get past. I don’t know where they were all going, but half of London must have squeezed their arse behind me to get to it. Few of them made the return trip and there were no seats beyond me. Perhaps Narnia had opened a new portal. We started to feel faintly ridiculous dressed in our ‘Saturday lunchtime best’ and quickly realised we were coming down from our prosecco high. I left her at the tube station and went to meet the other half in the Lamb and Flag.

Sorry about the dull, whimsical post. I don’t often have Saturdays where (almost) everything falls into place and is (near) perfect. I think I’ll aim to spend fewer Saturdays digging my nails into my palm as I wait in a queue in Urban Outfitters and more of them doing something nice. Is it too early to book in a New Year’s resolution?

I know where it's at

2007-11-02T13:02:00.000Z

Crossing Borough High Street and trying not to get killed this morning, my eyes caught a road sign directing traffic to Waterloo and Elephant & Castle and it occurred to me that the ambition I had the longest was to move to London. Career aspirations- teacher, actor, writer, journalist, pop star- and personal goals- be thinner, be richer, lose freckles- have come and go but the one ambition which burned inside me the longest and has, of course, been achieved was that urge to move to what people used to call the Big Smoke (do people still actually say this?)

My first visit to London was a school trip when I was nine. I think the trip cost £50 back in 1985, which was a pretty big deal, and I was very excited. I found the train down from my hometown into King’s Cross absolutely fascinating. Like a country bumpkin introduced to electricity for the first time, I marvelled at the fact the train had tables and that you could get food on it. Along with my school friends I questioned the purpose of the silver clip inscribed with ‘Tariff’ and placed at the end of the table closest to the window.

We stayed at a hotel in Kensington called Hotel Europe which was the sort of place missing east European teenagers are found dead in and we were allowed to watch Coronation Street if we liked. Sights-wise I was agog at Big Ben, kind of bored at St Paul’s, mesmerised by the Tube and dumbstruck by Tower Bridge, which we sailed under and drove over. We had a workbook to fill in which I pored over long after the trip was finished and there was also a trip to the theatre to see 42nd Street. It was only three days but the excitement I’d felt was burned onto my mind for long afterwards.

After the London trip, Yorkshire felt boring and my attachment to my hometown was all but severed. Life seemed pedestrian and so ‘local’. Before regionalisation came back into vogue, England was a pretty London-centric place and it almost hurt not to be able to live there. Reading magazines and newspapers, it seemed as if everything I wanted to do was 200 miles south of where I was. Even now, I think people who grew up in London are lucky. Perhaps those who spent their childhoods in some of the city’s sink estates might not agree.

I am glad, however, that I didn’t grow up here. I’m slowly starting to appreciate Yorkshire again and am all the more grateful that my London experience is still relatively fresh and exciting after ovejavascript:void(0)r five years.

This weekend brings me fireworks in Blackheath for the third year running and, after the gym, a super lazy Sunday possibly involving a walk over Tower Bridge. Sometimes the familiar still has the power to amaze.

Through the keyhole

2007-10-31T22:51:00.002Z

I don’t really talk much about my home life on my blog. I’m not trying to be mysterious or sexy by withholding details; I just don’t think it’s that interesting. I am, however, a sucker for questionnaires or surveys. I have often delighted in giving wildly inaccurate opinions to market researchers and I used to have a terrible habit of filling in what are now called memes but have managed to go cold turkey on that score for a while. When one of my regular reads and favourite bloggers Minge asked me a few questions about my house, my concealed confessional side was stirred. He even asked for photos and I took some earlier. Ooh. I’ll answer the questions first.

Does your bathroom have a window?
No, it doesn’t, to my eternal regret. I will *never* rent a flat with a windowless bathroom again.

Could you live without a window in your kitchen?
Hmmm. I had a kitchen in Edinburgh with no window. It was like cooking in a cell, but I lived with it. My flat here has a kitchen in the lounge, so while strictly speaking there is a window in the same room, I can’t gaze out of it while I’m washing up unless I swivel my head round like the girl from The Exorcist. That said, I hardly ever wash up so I don’t crave a view. So the answer, I guess, is yes.

Have you ever seen anyone famous from your window?
No, but I was once walking outside my flat and Tony Blair drove past. That’s as close as it gets.

Do you have a balcony?
No, unfortunately. I’m on the ground floor (another thing I won’t do again) and secretly covet the flats upstairs who *do* have one. Although it's probably best that I dont have one. The urge to spit on the heads of passers-by would be too strong.

And now the photos. Oh how exciting.

Bathroom

I’ve lived here over a year with a mirrorless bathroom. It has driven me mad. Last week we bought some mirrored tiles from Ikea. This is what they look like. I really don’t care that half of Britain has these tiles. Home furnishings snobbery is boring.

Lounge

The chair is old. It is my other half’s. I have no idea where it came from. It is draped in a rope light. I like rope lights. No-one really sits in the chair because it broke when we moved. The thing that looks like a jellyfish is a speaker.

Kitchen

When I took the photos the washing up hadn’t been done (tsk) so I took a photo of my overflowing utensils pot (yes Ikea again; I actually don’t have that much Ikea stuff). To the right you can see one of those Alessi egg cups, which was a present, and my sister’s cough medicine which she left here last week. It didn’t work; she coughed non-stop.

This is the view outside my lounge window. The road is quiet for once. You can just about make out a London cab hurtling towards us. There is also a phone box, which I once watched somebody kick violently for about 20 minutes.

My Macbook, where I have just written this.

So there you go. How was it for you?

Walking back to happiness

2007-10-14T08:48:00.000Z

I think I could walk round London for ever. Well, not for ever, as my feet would get tired and I’d need to stop and eat and take a piss and I’d have to go to work to ensure the bills were paid on time…but, as I walked around central London yesterday I thought ‘yes, I’m glad I’m able to do this’.

I live near Tower Bridge and so can get close to the Thames pretty quickly. I’m not altogether sure why this is a plus. Yesterday I walked along the south bank for a while until I got to the Tate Modern, where there were so many tourists it was like walking through a badly-dressed, decorum-shy jam, and then I decided the best thing to do would be to cross the Millennium Bridge (the wobbly one) and walk through the City.

The bridge takes you right outside St Paul’s Cathedral, which nearly always has scaffolding up around it and isn’t as ‘spectacular’ as a million picture postcards would have you believe. There were lots of people milling around taking photos of nothing in particular and perusing the menu of the Yo Sushi directly opposite the cathedral. I pushed on through and walked along Fleet Street, which was mercifully quiet. The City is almost deserted at the weekend. Such is its importance and dedication to business through the week that come Saturday and Sunday it is a ghost town as all the burned-out City types attempt to recharge their batteries before another onslaught of making money and wearing expensive ties begins. Fleet Street doesn’t house any major newspapers any more but at the very end there is the High Court where reporters always stand with solemn faces to report major divorce battles and the like. Opposite is a shop selling barristers’ paraphernalia. In case you’re interested, a robe is almost £700. I don’t know how much the funny-looking wigs are.

Things start to get busy again as Fleet Street turns into the Strand. The endless row of closed Pret à Mangers ends and shops are once more open for business. The air fills with foreign languages and I move swiftly on as crowds of people gather round out-of-date maps and scratch their heads. I’m always tempted to stop and ask if someone looks lost but am never sure of the reaction I’d get; I’d be mortified if someone did that to me.

And so across the Strand and over to Covent Garden, noticing Nelson peeking over the top of the buses as I make my way over the road. Covent Garden is where people who don’t know London very well usually want to head first, not realising that there is nowhere decent to eat, no nice pubs and- well, nothing really except a few shops. Yesterday it smelled of swimming pools; I don’t know why.

The best thing about walking round London is that there is always something new and even the familiar never seems dull because it gives you a great feeling: the feeling that finally, after all these years, you just might be on the way to figuring out how this bizarre, amazing city ticks. Just for once, maybe for today only, I loved London just a little bit more.

The wrong trousers

2007-10-03T12:09:00.000Z

I see from ladies’ magazines (we get them at work!) that hemlines are on their way down and it’s all about maxi dresses for the next ten minutes or so. Male fashion seems to be in direct contrast, at least in the City on my way to work. I count around 30 pairs of ill-fitting trousers on my way into the office every day and it’s beginning to make me feel all irrational.

There are not many things a man has to do to stay looking OK. There’s no arduous make-up routine, precious little getting up at 5 am to wash, blow dry and straighten unruly locks and not a whole lot of agonising over which shoes, which bag, which necklace!?!

All a City-working man really has to do before leaving in the morning is firstly plop a bit of product on his hair (for those with hair; what do those without do? Wipe their pate clean? I really would like to know). Then he needs to make sure his clothes are, or at least appear, clean and, most importantly, fit him. I understand why guys with good T-shirt muscles feel the need to wear figure-hugging formal shorts that show off their pecs, but quite what possesses any of these gentlemen to put on trousers two inches too short is a complete mystery.

I’ve railed against this phenomenon before, I know. Once you’ve been walking to work for a while, the view around you starts to mean less and you therefore seek a bit of interest on your surroundings and source it from your fellow commuters. I look at faces and then my eye darts down to the lower half- no, lower than that- to take a peek at that all-important hemline. For some strange reason, many men are either buying trousers that are too short in the leg, have washed something that should have been dry clean only, or have had a miraculous growth spurt overnight.

So, gentlemen, please ensure that your trousers expose no sock and at least graze the top of the heel of your shoe. It really does make you look nicer and is such a simple thing. Then again, it is these internal style tussles which make my journey to work a little more diverting, so maybe I should live and let live. Let their ankles freeze in the name of entertainment!

Right hair, right now

2007-09-28T15:58:00.000Z

This may sound dramatic, but I don’t know what I’d do without my hair. Although it was late arriving- I was practically bald until the age of 3- since we’ve been together we’ve been inseparable.

My hair is no particular colour at all. Dishwater brown would be the best way to describe it. I dyed it for a year or so as a teenager: jet black was my colour of choice and it looked horrific. Thank goodness for photos: looking at them ensures I’ll never make that mistake again. There are now hints of grey and my natural highlights seem to be dulling, but it is still thick and around 24 hours or so after washing it, becomes somewhere near manageable.

My obsession with my hair comes from both parents, I think. My mum hasn’t given her natural hair colour any opportunity to make a reappearance since the late 1970s and used to spend for ever getting it ‘just right’ in front of the mirror, regardless of whether she was going anywhere. My dad is constantly heading off to the hairdresser and agonising over what style to get and whether it will look right. My parents are frustrated gay men. My father went grey shockingly young; he was badger-white in his early 30s but still held onto a luxuriant mane. I only ever think about my encroaching strands of grey when I’m in the bathroom at my mum’s house. She has a mirror in front of the window that reflects the light in such a way that I look as if I have milk pouring down my locks. I try to avoid this mirror at first but then find myself wide-eyed in fascination at the refusal of my 31-year-old hair follicles to keep in line with my 22-year-old brain.

I have had just about every hairstyle it’s possible to have without growing your hair overlong or ten feet tall. Hardly a product in the world exists that I haven’t tried in an effort to control my wayward barnet. Like a king of a far-off fairytale land interviewing suitors for his princess daughter’s hand in marriage, my hair has entertained mousses, gels, waxes, pomades, sprays and creams from all over the world, eaten and absorbed them whole, the result looking no different. When I get my hair ‘done’ somewhere new, the stylist will inevitably offer me the chance to buy some product or another and I will give a hollow laugh. Occasionally I give in because buying product from a hair stylist is one of my favourite pastimes, but regret it instantly as I realise the product only works within the confines of a salon and in the hands of a slightly effeminate, perma-tanned man with MTV hair. Sigh.

So, hair, while we haven’t always got on and we might be going through a few changes that I’m not thrilled about, I’m very glad you’re still here.

No news is good news

2007-09-24T15:50:00.000Z

Has it really been so long since I last blogged? It would appear so. I imagine the last of any readers I may have had have deserted me, but in case there is someone out there, I shall carry on. How brave of me.

I have spent most of the last month rolling my eyes at yet another mention of Amy Winehouse in the news. Whether she’s popping to the shops for some Bernard Matthews turkey ham or sitting in A&E with her arm hanging off, a picture of Miss Winehouse is big business and I find the inevitability and predictability of it all very wearing. I almost want to curl up in a duvet and pretend she didn’t exist, but if I did that I wouldn’t have her two album and they’re very good, so exist she must.

Another woman who’s been getting the shit kicked out of her in the press is Britney Spears. I was about three days late to the ‘Britney VMA fuck-up’ party, but when Id did finally watch the performance, the best reaction I could give it was a bored shrug. Was it really that bad? Her dancing wasn’t great and she mimed, sure, but it was hardly the huge dramatic shambles I had expected. I work in online media and appreciate that what makes it work is its easily-updateable, instant quality, but when a whole load of nothing is presented as news and its audience whipped into such a frenzy, I almost want to wrench the plug out of the modem and launch it across the room.

Joining Amy and Britney in the not-as-popular-as used-to-be stakes is the hyphen. The OED has decided that because most people don’t use it, it should be consigned to the dustbin in many cases of usage. I don’t have any particular feelings about hyphens themselves, but I do quite like the word ‘hyphen’. Apparently hyphens are on the way out because of email, or e-mail if you prefer, so that’s another reason to reach for the modem then.

I'm sorry I haven't a clue

2007-08-18T07:27:00.000Z

Last night I watched a documentary on BBC4 about Stephen Fry to celebrate his 50th birthday. Well, it wasn’t really a documentary, more a load of talking heads queuing up to say how fantastic he was, held together by an endless montages of clips showing us how funny he can be.

I don’t mind Stephen Fry at all. He can be amusing enough and has had a varied and impressive career of which he should be very proud, but one thing about this celebrity love-in irked me. The production team had lined up an admirable array of familiar faces to endorse the wit of Mr. Fry, from Harry Potter one trick pony JK Rowling to slobbering chat show host Jonathan Ross, but one thing that stuck out far more than the A-list fan club was the fact that 99% of them had the same thing to say: that Stephen Fry is very intelligent.

Seriously, not one star, including, in fact, the Prince of Wales, whose HRH credentials we were constantly reminded of thanks to intrusive titles every time he came on screen, could not get through their eulogy without informing us just how brainy, how clever, how learned and just downright remarkable Stephen Fry is. After a while, I began to feel uncomfortable about this. I know he’s written countless books and, you know, talks posh and uses long words, but after 25 years in the business, is the best thing his admirers can tell us that he knows lots of stuff? And is that a good enough reason to celebrate him?

I’m hardly a brainbox, but I’m not stupid, and I don’t wear my assumed intelligence like a badge. Stephen’s star-studded inner circle seemed to be in awe of this man who knows a few poems and- gasp!- knows a lot about certain things. Someone (I can’t remember who) even said that it was an achievement for Stephen to even get on TV these days, because it was now the domain of thick people. Watching this crowing, fawning bunch of moneyed arse lickers passing round their singular brain cell to exalt someone who has read a lot of dusty old books, I was inclined to agree; they really will let anyone on TV.

Stephen is a prolific author, actor, comedian and director, but if the best thing any of his mates can say is that they’ve never met someone so clever, what’s the point?

I can’t remember who it was (it might have been the acidic TV critic Charlie Brooker), but someone a few years ago said that Stephen Fry was what an idiot would deem a clever person. I suppose it’s easy to look like a genius if you surround yourself with vapid, compliment-spewing imbeciles, right? I should try it myself.

Girls allowed

2007-08-02T16:02:00.000Z

This weekend I’m going to a ‘lesbian wedding’, whatever that is. Well, I know what it is: it’s a civil partnership between two women. This is the first ‘gay wedding’ I’ve ever been to and I feel a sense of trepidation and, of course, excitement. From what I’ve heard from the participants (is it wrong to say bride and bride?), it will be much like any other wedding: vows will be made; drinks will be drunk; food will be eaten and everyone will feel ill in the morning.

I’m not altogether sure, then, why, whenever I tell someone I’m going to this wedding, I get an odd reaction, akin to that of someone being told that full alien contact has been made and Martians are dishing out canapés in the Houses of Parliament. Here’s just an example:

Person: “What are you doing this weekend?”
Lost Boy: “Oh I’m going to a wedding.”
Person: “Oh, whose is it?”
Lost Boy: “Just some friends. It’s two women actually.”
Person: “REALLY?” or “Ooh how weird.” or “Will they both be wearing dresses?” or “Ugh lesbians!”
Lost Boy: [goes on to explain that no, they won’t be wearing dungarees down the aisle and, no, they don’t have cats who can be bridesmaids]

Much the same happened as I visited my hairdresser last night. Once I had casually announced I was going to a wedding where two girls were to be the ones taking the vows, he recoiled; as if lesbian were a dirty word.

I’m not ashamed of going to a civil partnership, but I don’t like talking about it because it’s obvious that nobody really seems to take them that seriously. It’s just the stupid gays getting in on the act and wanting to be like everybody else, right? Try as I might, I can’t imagine many people travelling the length and breadth of the country to attend my civil partnership, if my partner and I decided to ever have one.

Jokes abound of having drag queens for bridesmaids (Why would there be bridesmaids? Whither the bride?), having matching suits, big pink wedding cakes and Scissor Sisters being the wedding band. Of course, if you do want all the above for your ceremony, that’s entirely up to you. Bring lesbians into the equation and the conversations surrounding civil partnerships become even more ludicrous and hateful.

Why do some gay men have such an innate loathing for girls who don’t like girls? They don’t want to fuck women themselves, so why should they care? So let's raise a glass to the happy couple, and leave the haters out in the rain where they belong.

The bad Samaritan

2007-07-24T09:54:00.000Z

I’m not the most charitable person in the world and have been known not to suffer fools at all gladly, but I hate to see anyone in genuine distress or difficulty. If there’s any way in which I can help, I will, for all my frosty exterior, I will. I just wanted to make that clear to anyone who still bothers to read this before I go on.

I was walking through Walworth on Sunday. It was the first time I had been except for times when I’ve been on buses which have hurtled through it as if afraid to stop. Walworth is not the most amazing place on Earth. Sandwiched between Camberwell and Elephant and Castle, it has the air of a place without hope. Rundown Costcutters sit side-by-side along with chain stores featuring brand identities long since disappeared from carrier bags. The streets were dusty and filled with people who seemed to be trying to get somewhere else. Crowds centred around bus stops and when the buses did stop, they were already crammed with escapees.

As I walked towards Camberwell, I spotted out of the corner of my eye an elderly man talking out loud. I turned to him and he seemed to be speaking to me. He was standing quite a way back from the road and had his hand stretched out to me. I asked him to repeat himself but still couldn’t hear what he was saying, due in part to the traffic noise and the fact he was mumbling slightly. I have this weird thing where I get terribly embarrassed if I have to ask someone to repeat themselves and so usually pretend I’ve heard them. So after the second time of saying ‘I’m sorry?’ in the politest manner I could muster, I assumed the man was attempting to engage me in theological discussion (this happens to me a lot), said ‘No, sorry’ and started to walk away. As I turned back, the man looked at me helplessly and I scowled as I tried to piece together what he had been saying.

A few seconds later, I got my answer as I heard him call out to someone else. A quick look to the left told me that the man was standing near a pelican crossing. A feeling of doom and regret washed over ma s I realised the man was blind and needed help to cross the road. As I watched someone help him totter across the busy road, I stood motionless wondering how to make things right. Should I go back to him and apologise? I felt terrible but decided to leave the poor guy alone. I couldn’t think of a sensible reason as to why I hadn’t asked him to repeat himself again. I could hardly say ‘Oh yeah, I have this thing where I don’t like asking people to repeat themselves’, could I? I felt racked with guilt but decided the best thing to do was to stay out of the guy’s face.

I don't mean to over-emote, but the outstretched hand and look in his eye will stay with me for a while. Naturally, I then became convinced that some horrible fate was set to befall me as payback, so am now awaiting anvils to drop out of the sky or shopping bags to burst on the street. And a valuable lesson has been learned: don’t pretend you’ve heard what someone is saying and, most importantly of all, don’t go to Walworth.

Summer is cancelled

2007-07-04T17:02:00.000Z

Summer may be upon us but, like the killjoy bitch that she is, is refusing so far to grant us any sunshine. I’m kind of torn about this because although I’m not too mad about being rained on at very given opportunity, I’m not overly fond of baking half to death either. The sky regularly looks like the end of the world is nigh. Maybe it is.

My usual summer pastime of pretending to be interested in Wimbledon has failed to take off this year. I don’t think I’ve seen one second of tennis, and have managed to avoid almost all media coverage, with exception of Tim Henman’s perennial ‘just-lost’ whine about how the UK isn’t producing any world class tennis players any more. Er, that’s because it costs a fortune, Tim. Why not bankroll a couple of future superstars yourself?

My other habitual summery inspiration is the 'reality TV' monolith that is Big Brother, but this year I have not watched it. I saw the ladies go in, watched the first man enter and sighed as I witnessed the girls go slightly loopy at the introduction of a supposedly-functioning penis and decided to withdraw. I don’t like or care about anybody in the house, so what’s the point? The subsequent introduction of yet more men you wouldn’t want to sit next to at a seminar have equally failed to raise my interest so I suppose, after seven years, I can consider myself fully weaned off the tit of mediocrity. Lucky me.

So with a summer void of the blazing heat I hate, the tennis I pretend to like and the show I used to obsess over, you’d think I’d have loads of time to do other stuff. Quite how I’m filling all the hours I’m not sure, but there still aren’t enough in a day.

Forget Paris

2007-06-15T09:28:00.000Z

I must say that the ‘Paris Hilton goes to prison’ storyline is playing out magnificently. Summer’s notoriously a slow news time for the media and with the trail around Madeleine McCann (or Maddie/ Maddy as the press insist on calling her because the name Madeleine isn’t cutesy enough) going cold, Paris’s latest exploits are filling up the tabloid columns nicely.

Telenovelas have got nothing on the last couple of weeks in Paris’s life:

- HUMILIATED on live TV at the MTV Awards where a comedienne I’ve never heard of made an unbelievably obvious and humourless quip and made the world’s front pages.

- IMPRISONED for driving like a nutcase while pissed or on drugs or something. Funny how the original cause of all this is almost immaterial to the high drama happening.

- RELEASED after three days following reports of illness, but in fact was afraid of being photographed taking a shit (this from the woman who has a sex tape to thank for her notoriety and earnings).

- CAGED once more when a judge rules that she’s a lying cow and has to do her time. Sentence extended to full term.

- FINDS RELIGION within minutes of stepping through the cell door and hopes to be an example to other young girls.

I find the whole thing deathly dull and I’m sure there’s a wider debate to be had about celebrities, justice and tabloids but nobody, least of all the red tops, seems to want to have it. And why would they when Paris is just days away from disembowelling herself or, the more likely option, launching a new book, perfume and TV show based on her ‘experiences’ being shipped in and out of her private cell?

No doubt tabloid hacks up and down the country are rubbing their hands together, or more probably their groins, in glee.

The beautiful ones

2007-05-30T18:16:00.000Z

Sick of the unattractive riff raff on MySpace? Got killer bone structure? Your special area is right this way...

Social networking appears to be taking over the world. It seems that if I want to get in touch with my friends or find out what they’re up to, I have to log in to MySpace or Facebook. Gone are the days where emails and texts and- gasp- actual conversation on a phone or even- shock horror- meeting up in person were de rigueur.

Alongside the more general networks like MySpace and Bebo there exist a few which cater for particular types of people, divided up by profession or interests. One such network, however, has only one criterion: you have to be beautiful. Imaginatively named Beautiful People, this site is a kind of roped-off area of the net where only the gorgeous are admitted. Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and on looking at some of the profile pictures, I can only assume that some of these beholders are blind.

I can’t think of anything worse than a social networking site exclusively for lookers. While I’m no dog and don’t want to surround myself with the ugly, experience has shown that when you throw too many hotties into the equation, things get boring. As well as the nasty side-effect of vanity, beauty regularly also accompanies dullness. The congenitally lovely never really have to try that hard, be it in social skills or academia; they’re just happy knowing they’re sexy. Even worse are the gorgeous people who pretend that they’re ugly and constantly seek reassurance about their looks, when it’s their personality, or lack thereof, which should be worrying them the most.

So why would anyone want to be a part of Beautiful People? Well, I guess we all like to think we’re hot and this site, which is little more than the internet equivalent of being wolf-whistled at by a builder or groped by a bouncer in the queue for a club, seems to offer a quick fix for those who need telling they’re pretty. And for those not hot enough to make it? What of them? Probably best not to think about it; I’m sure they’ll be OK. They’ve got their ‘great personalities’ to fall back on, after all.

Only happy when it rains

2007-05-29T10:46:00.000Z

I can barely keep track of time at the moment. It seems just a few seconds since I was frowning in frustration at my mobile and trying to call people to say Happy New Year and half of that year is almost gone and summer is just about round the corner. Sunglasses are being purchased, shorts are being considered and layers are being reduced. And, of course, it’s pissing it down.

When I first moved to London from Edinburgh, I enthused about how rarely it rained compared to Scotland. I must have been punch-drunk from the hellish experience of moving from one end of the country to the other, because as years have gone by, I’ve noticed that it rains just as much as anywhere else.

We have a strange relationship with the rain, don’t we? When it arrives unexpectedly we act as if it is poison being poured on top of our heads. We would rather look idiotic pathetically waving a news paper above our head in a vain attempt to keep dry than allow our carefully-coiffed hair to be exposed to moisture. Rain can cause traffic chaos, bring on bad moods and, save for gardeners and meteorologists, few people are ever pleased to see it. Speaking as someone who trailed out and about for two days solid in the lovely Bank Holiday rain, I think it’s time rain was given a new image by a PR company, to help change the public’s perception of it. Perhaps a good starting point would be to feature it more in general advertising. Take those execrable L’Oréal adverts, for example. The current boring piece-to-camera in generic studio could be changed to Beyoncé extolling the virtues of whatever shampoo she’s flogging while standing at the side of the M5 in a downpour. Imagine how much more interesting Andie MacDowell’s anti-wrinkle sales pitch would be if she were filmed giving it on a market stall in sodden Chapel Market as torrential rain whipped around her penta-peptides.

More radically, perhaps EastEnders could be relocated to somewhere that had a long monsoon season. Showing household favourites coping with sheets of rain in glitzy locations would surely be a ratings hit and help associate wetter weather with normal, everyday life instead of the great wet plague we see it as now.

Another problem is that clothes which protect against the rain are quite boring. Sure, Cath Kidston may sell flowered wellies but no way does rainwear have the same kudos that beachwear and summer collections do. Perhaps designers could start slinging models down perilous, waterlogged catwalks wearing a variety of sexy, revealing pack-a-macs. Designers could flirt with danger and bring a frisson of excitement to rainmacs by including electric strip lighting into the hemline.

Whatever way we do it, it’s time to start getting excited about rain, because for the moment, it looks like it’s all we’ve got.

Another think coming

2007-05-22T15:40:00.000Z

The fabulous Minge has tagged me and challenged me to list the five blogs that make me think. This, of course, begs the question ‘think of what?’, because different blogs can make you think about different things. Blogs written by lonely park rangers with nobody but a chainsaw and a jar of raw steak for company might inspire me to think of one thing while blogs written by housewives zonked out of their dome from sniffing those smoke-emitting air fresheners might make you think of something quite different altogether.

So, aside from the lovely Minge himself, here are some blogs that make me think. I’m not doing five, though; I’m not that thoughtful, to be honest.

Lubin Odana
The blogger formerly known as Trash Addict makes me think quite a lot about gay identity, snobbery (and how it is generally a good thing), poshness, being clever, growing up in the north of England, living in different places, being old before my time and, oh, lots of things. He was one of the first personal bloggers I ever read with any regularity and in some ways we’re quite similar, while in others we are light years apart, which is probably why I find him so interesting. ‘Same’ is so dull, isn’t it?

High Camp Caress Morell
Another blog I’ve been reading since what feels like the dawn of time, Caress makes me think about Scotland, doing whatever takes your fancy and having a riot. He’s done lots that I haven’t done and some things I would never do, but is consistently entertaining. He has an eye for the best of trashy TV and brings back great memories of some of the fantastic crap I used to watch when American TV was primetime stuff. We have even broken the ‘fourth wall’ and talked over MySpace!

One more, then, because I’m getting RSI, but third and finally, I’ll go for Betty’s Utility Room
Her observational style makes for a great read and her take on news events or general chit chat is usually acerbic, withering and humorous; I love it. She makes me think about all sorts of things.

As I imagine the idea of 'tagging' is to, er, tag people back, I'll tag the blogs I listed above. And even if I didn't tag you, why not list the five blogs that make *you* think. You don't even have to say what of; keep us guessing if you like.

The S word

2007-05-16T18:05:00.000Z

In the week that the NSPCC warns about the danger of online paedophiles targeting children and teens using social networks like MySpace and Bebo, a ten-year-old I know came home from school with a letter telling her mother that the children were shortly to be given sexual and puberty education.

I was quite surprised at this because I don’t remember getting any such education until I was at least 12, and that two years does make a hell of a difference. The children’s parents have been invited to a ‘preview’ of what the children will be shown and the ten-year-old’s mother (who also happens to be my mother) has decided not to go and stand watching sex ed for children with a load of other parents. If the child had been my daughter and not my sister, I would have liked to have gone. Not to get my rocks off watching someone baby talk over diagrams of sex organs, but purely because I’m hugely curious as to how they teach someone as young as ten about the birds and the balls. Will it be puppetry? Through the art of dance? Will the nurses flick through a dog-eared leaflet? I can’t help but wonder how exactly are they going to approach this because, according to my mother, my sister is more or less clueless. I’m willing to bet she’s heard those whispers we all hear at that age though; it’s unavoidable. “A preview?” shrieked my mother, barely containing her laughter. “They make it sound like an invite to the Academy Awards!”

I’m not sure how I feel about her getting this ‘education’. In one way, I start to feel really Victorian and prim and horrified that my precious angel’s sensibilities will be defiled and that her childhood will be over and in another, I’d rather it was got over with now because I don’t want to see her end up pregnant at 12 by some loser. And as anyone who reads the paper knows, it can happen.

If it is as ridiculous as my sex education I needn’t worry. Most of us sat, at 12, with one eyebrow raised as the word vulva was thrown about like a tennis ball. I’d never heard that word before and I wasn’t alone. Badly-drawn overweight illustration moved about under a blanket which then cut to a live action birth scene of a woman with really pale thighs squeezing out a monolithic fur-capped egg dipped in snot. I knew right there and then that I would never stand at the end of a bed, cigar poised, anticipating the birth of my first-born. It seemed as if something else was born that day; I’m not quite sure what it was but it has stayed with me.

Post 101

2007-05-11T15:32:00.000Z

Continuing the whinging for which I am famed.

When I ‘saw’ you last, I’d just finished counting down the first half of my lazy, self-absorbed list of what I’m sick of the sight of in London. I’m always very conscious about my levels of negativity and it’s referred to every now and again by people I know, but I have to say I’m not being entirely serious and writing shiny, happy shit has never been my ‘thing’. Blogger’s new horrendous uploading system tells me that this post is my 101st, so in the spirit of Room 101 from not-really-that-scary old book ‘Nineteen Eighty Four’, I’ll finish my countdown. Before I do, I must say that I do actually like living here. Most of the time. Really.

5. Disregard
Nobody cares about or takes notice of anything but themselves. Cyclists whiz through red lights and mount packed pavements, barmen serve the blonde rather than those who’ve been standing in wait for hours, teenagers play really, really crap music through their mobiles on busy trains and best of all absolutely nobody says please or thank you. Perhaps we all exist in our own worlds. Come the revolution, nobody will notice; they’ll be too bust jostling in the queue at the bar. Which leads me nicely onto…

4. Queuing
Queuing in its purest form does not exist in London. Rather than a long orderly line at my bust stop in the morning, there’s a huddle of pissed-off commuters staring angrily forward at the exact spot where they hope the doors of the bendy bus will stop, as if removing their eyes from it would bring down world order. Similarly, it’s every man for himself in sandwich shops, pubs and at clubs. At a recent night out, I queued an astonishing five times before I’d even taken a swallow of drink and set trainer upon the dancefloor: once to get in, followed by a queue for the loo, third to put a coat in, fourth to queue for tokens to buy drink and fifth and finally at the bar itself. At each queue someone tried to push in and most of them succeeded. My brain was too tired to react.

3. Scenes
Lots of people in London are into scenes: indie scene, band scenes, fashion scenes, underground scenes, club scenes, art scenes, burlesque scenes, roller-skating scenes. You name it, it’s got a scene thriving in London. London is a wholly multicultural city, which is fantastic, but in a city so rich in culture, the amount of people who don’t have any or belong to any is remarkable. Such is their desperation to be part of something that London’s inhabitants cling to or create their own scenes, which Time Out revels in waxing lyrical about. Non-one’s just happy to be themselves any more.

2. The South Bank
Yeah, I know. It’s a great place really but ye gods if I find myself walking along it because I’ve nothing better to do ever again I shall throw myself into the Thames. It’s always chock full of tourists, cyclists (wow, I’m quite a velophobe on the quiet, aren’t I?) and performance artists and there’s never room to breathe. But then, I suppose you turn your head away from the man pretended to be made of gold and the out-of-tune flute player and towards the views across the river and realise why you moved to London in the first place. And then a cyclist’s bell trills behind you and you eject juice down the front of your T-shirt.

1. Myself, and others, moaning
I mean, seriously, where the hell else would you rather live? Nowhere. Exactly. So pipe down or piss off.

Total eclipse of the chart

2007-05-04T11:59:00.000Z

So the singles chart has been revitalised by downloads and every magazine worth its salt has been listing just about anything from top 100 best albums to top 30 thongs Jordan might or might not have worn to premieres, so it’s fair to say, charts are BACK. So I'm launching my very own chart of MOAN.

Charts and lists are piss-easy, lazy-arsed journalism but the public love them and, for that reason, so do I. So I’m going to do more of them. This is, of course, nothing to do with the fact that I haven’t got time to write real blogs about world events/ Jodie Marsh and am scared you’re all going to forget me, oh no. So here are the top ten things I’m sick of the sight of in London, part 1

10. Boys on bikes
Courier bag? Check. Shorn hair to a grade 3? Check. One rolled-up trouser leg? Check. I kind of get the idea about cycling. You know, carbon footprints and all that ‘jazz’ but why is it that as soon as you step onto a bike (*can* you step onto a bike?), all identity is lost and you become one of those generic ‘boys on bikes’ who fill the streets, terrorising pedestrians with their disregard for traffic lights and becoming front bumper fodder for motorists. You may think you’re being individual by cycling, but you’re all utterly interchangeable to me.

9. Dead-eyed cashiers
I worked in a supermarket once and didn’t mind it too much, probably because I knew it wouldn’t be my career and I was a young, impressionable schoolboy. I understand why checkout boys and girls might be a little down in the mouth, but a little ‘please’ or ‘thank you’ would be super, thank you very much. You hate serving me, I hate being served by you. Can’t we find a little camaraderie in our mutual anguish.

8. Freesheets
Not only do I detest being attacked by their demented distributors as I go about my business, I’m thoroughly bored of laying eyes on their dull and uninspiring copies as they litter the pavement or bus. A few facts cobble together from Wikipedia and a double page spread on Prince William do not a newspaper make.

7. Traffic lights
If Ken wants us all to get the bus, why has he reprogrammed every traffic light on the city to be green for approximately three milliseconds, thereby elongating a short bus journey into an epic, traumatic expedition? This is why I walk to work.

6. Smokers
This ban can’t come soon enough. Whether it’s a bored secretary desperately puffing on a Rothman’s outside her office (I am fascinated by bored secretaries and think I may have been one in a previous life), or the greasy-haired dullard smoking a joint in front of me on my journey to work, I am so over smoking and its devotees that it’s almost impossible to hold my tongue and displaying my displeasure. My other half smokes and I am hoping that the ban will spur him into action and make him quit. We shall see…

Part 2 when I get time. I’ve always sneered at people who claimed they were too busy to do things/ stop/ email as I kind of thought it was another way of saying how much more important you are than someone else, but sometimes it’s just as simple as that: I've no time. Hopefully things will calm down and I’ll become a much better blogger. Forgive me, do.

Sure shot

2007-04-17T19:11:00.000Z

To some newshounds, blood is like crack: they just can't get enough.

Like most people, the news that yet another gunman has gone on what the press are breathlessly calling a rampage made me sad when I heard. The fact that this has happened in the US has meant that I am not remotely surprised, however, and I suppose there’s a great debate to be had in there about how desensitised we’re all becoming to violence and bloodshed but I really can’t be bothered having it either here or in real life so for anyone who’d reached for their soapbox in anticipation, I apologise.

What has struck me most about this incident is that the news channels have been reporting it as if it were some great big fun event for all the family. Every report I’ve seen on it as it pays on perma-rotation on every channel has gone to great lengths to list just how many people were killed- sorry, SLAUGHTERED- and just how long it took for the gunman to carry out the crime- sorry, I mean EXECUTE everybody. It’s being reported as if it were a death defying stunt on Blue Peter, a record-breaking attempt or an adaptation of an Andy McNab novel, hopelessly detached from the reality that is a very awful set of killings and instead giving people too young to remember Rambo something to get hard over.

I realise that as a blogger I should advocate the use of citizen journalism but I’ve had my fill of shaky footage taken from a vodka-splattered Sony Ericsson and panting ‘eye’witnesses telling their first-hand account of absolutely nothing. I guess I expect it online but on the television I’d rather something a little more substantial than what amounts to having a freesheet flickerbooked before my eyes. People have been moaning about sensationalised journalism for years and it has always been a problem but when I hear yet another recount of how this is the ‘biggest mass shooting in America’ I start to wonder if people aren’t getting a kick out of all the drama. I wonder how long it will be before EastEnders incorporates some kind of high school massacre in its storylines. Hollyoaks is already pretty prolific in mass-murdering its cast at strarlingly regular intervals.

I guess the news doesn’t create such horrific scenes and merely reports them but I can’t help but think that these situations are horrible enough without every last detail spilling out onto the floor like an old, dropped handbag.

I remember you

2007-04-12T20:07:00.000Z

Sometimes, the North-South divide happens inside your very own head.

I’ve never felt so adulterous in my entire life. I’m shocked at how easily I’ve been seduced by an old flame. Just two days together and it seems like we have picked up where we left off. Already I’m harbouring thoughts of leaving my current life behind and starting anew far, far away.

No, I’m not having an affair, but instead of been back to a part of London I haven’t set foot in for a while. It’s around two years since I worked in the Islington area but this week I’ve been back there for a training course and, quite frankly, I haven’t felt the same since. I rarely bother crossing the river except for work or going into town so it’s been quite a shock to actually spend some time in the world of the N postcode. Maybe it’s because the sun has been shining but walking along Upper Street I’ve kind of started feeling that maybe everyone who slates south London has a point. For those of you unfamiliar with Islington, Highbury and its environs, it’s that mythical place where pretty much every broadsheet’s Sunday supplements are written for. If you are baffled by baby yoga, a stranger to smoothie seminars and organic trainers are a mystery to you, then clearly you’re not in their target demographic. Upper Street is a swathe of clothes shops, antiques stores and artisan bakeries. Sure, there’s a McDonald’s at one end ad a few ropey pubs here and there, but Islington has fallen victim to that spreading disease of thinking it’s a village in Hertfordshire.

Like most other affluent areas of London, there’s little permanency. In the short time since I was last here, businesses have been and gone and buildings have been erected and demolished. This might make a traditionalist sulk, and admittedly I was disappointed to see that a really cool pub had been turned into the blandest of clothes shops, but I kind of like it that things constantly evolve.

Walking around today and yesterday I felt wistful and nostalgic: something that’s happening more and more the longer I live here. The sight of something familiar has made me smile more than a few times this morning, but as I walked past where my old office used to be, I felt a lurch that I couldn’t quite place.

While I know that all areas of London have plenty of horrid pockets, north London felt more positive, more hopeful and just MORE than south London has been feeling for me recently. Is it time I headed back north of the river for a fresh taste of London life or should I keep it real and stay on the south side? As my bus rumbled over London Bridge and brought me back to the right side of the river, I realised that while it’s nice to go on ‘holiday’ to another part of London, you’re better off sticking to where you know.

That was the week that was

2007-04-01T10:07:00.000Z

This time, it's personal.

What an odd, unsettling couple of weeks it’s been. I left my former job on Tuesday after almost three years and it felt very strange saying goodbye for the last time. It was almost like a love affair was ending or I was moving out of a treasured childhood home. I was neither particularly popular or universally hated at my old job but lots of people turned up to my leaving drinks so I suppose if I were the kind of person to whom those kind of things matter I would have been ‘touched’. I became that person after about ten drinks, hugging my old boss as I left the pub and tripped off out into the cold Shoreditch night.

The last few days before my departure had been fraught, with me writing notes for whoever was to do my job after me in a blind panic. It’s very strange deconstructing your daily grind for a stranger’s eyes. It was after I’d spellchecked my fortieth page or so that I realised why I was so fucking knackered all the time: this job is no picnic. I’m not a particularly emotional material but those old familiar feelings of romanticising everything came flooding back during my last days at work. ‘This is my last Wednesday sitting in this chair’ I would think as I plonked my arse down on the dirtiest, most uncomfortable chair I’ve ever sat on in my entire life; ‘I’m going to miss this kitchen’ I would ruminate as I swished a teabag around in a cup. I was like that as a child: I would build up mundane events as if they were huge gestures which really meant something and then, when they were over, never think of them again. As I read through the comments on my leaving card I smiled but knew that in a year’s time I’d have trouble linking some of the scrawls to a face.

And so, onwards and upwards. After my leaving drinks, I endured a trip to the dentist. I apologised for my red wine breath on arriving in the sterile, humourless room but almost wished I hadn’t. Being an NHS patient, I was treated to a super fast check-up, informed I had gum disease and recommended an appointment with the hygienist (£40 for half an hour), and then dispatched back out into the waiting room and asked for my debit card. All within around 30 seconds. I finally give in: I’m going private just so I can be treated a little more like a human. My last socialist leaning has been wiped out by a red-haired tooth prodder. How depressing.

Two days in the Cotswolds with throbbing gums followed. I couldn’t really relax as I was feeling a bit ‘weird’ about leaving my job, and it was too quiet and smelled of cow shit but it was nice to be somewhere other than London. I must be getting old; I looked at a hill (a ‘Cotswold’ I suppose) and remarked how lovely it was. Ten years ago I’d have rolled my eyes. Growing up at last.

Smells like teen spirit

2007-03-20T11:55:00.000Z

What triggers memories for you? For some people it's a song or a face, but all I have to do is breathe in deeply.

I don't have a big nose, but it's certainly a sensitive one. I have got off buses before because of a slightly dodgy pong sniffable only by my own nose, can't eat anything which offends my nose and have been known to drop friends from my social circle because of their choice of cologne.

Living in London isn't great if your nose is a sensitive one, because quite frankly, the place smells. From the cesspit reek of the dustbin wagons which trawl the West End to the chemical pong of the MSG in Chinatown, there's plenty of whiffs to commit olfactory assault. Of course, not all of the smells are quite so offensive, but, on the whole, breathing in through your nose in any part of London is like playing Russian roulette with your nasal passages.

It's funny how the slightest hint of a familiar smell can whisk me back in time too. The chance sniff of someone wearing CK One (still!) sends me hurtling back through the years to my second year at university, where I bought the fragrance on its launch. When I catch a whiff of it now, I realise that it smells like cheap disinfectant, but at the time it was a must-have. Similarly, someone wearing Davidoff's putrid Cool Water can find me reminiscing of summer balls, dancing in marquees to bad acid jazz, colossal amounts of hair gel and essay deadlines long missed. Standing in the vicinity of a McDonald's and breathing in the sugary smell of toasting buns sees me 18 again and back in my burgundy striped uniform, red-faced and panting as I rush around to serve yet another miserable bastard with their Big Mac meal.

I sometimes look at photos and feel utterly disconnected from whatever's happening on them. Maybe I'm sporting a facial expression I don't recognise, wearing a shirt I don't remember owning or am standing in an unfamiliar location, but most of the time, they don't evoke memories but only make me ask questions. What was I thinking then? What did I hope for? What worried me? What did I like? A smell, however, can transform me and the years fade, the lines fall away, the dress sense and wisdom evaporate and I'm myself again, or at least whoever I was at the time.

All the rage

2007-03-06T10:26:00.000Z

Why do Londoners love to have a go at each other?

I have been fairly erratic in my blogging recently. The main reason is that I have just landed a new job, which has heralded a great feeling of 'impending change'. While I like change and doing new things, I hate 'impending change' and the nervousness and insecurity it brings with it. Thoughts of 'Oh in three weeks' time I'll be getting a bus to work' or 'I wonder what my new desk will be like' or 'Will I still be able to heat up porridge at work in the morning' are just some of the one million quandaries and anxieties whirling around my head.

One of the downsides about my new job is that I probably won't be able to walk to work. The walk to and from work is one of my favourite parts of the day, which is probably an excellent reason for changing jobs, while I think about it.

One thing I'll miss about the daily trudge to work is the seeming acceptability of inexplicable anger. Most people go about their business in a fairly unassuming manner, getting from A to B without bothering anybody else. There are a select few, however, who wake up or leave work in a towering rage, this burning anger aching to burst from within them. I have watched cyclists scream at each other, taxi drivers shout 'fuck off' at someone tried to use a zebra crossing, grown men and women utter such treats as 'get the hell out of my way' on the pavement and, best of all, a couple of commuters having the most bizarre row ever on a bus about who pushed who. As I stood there pretending to listen to my iPod, the argument escalated with both passengers refusing to back down. Finally the male said to his new-found nemesis "You know I didn't push you so stop being a awkward little bitch". I found this unbelievably horrifying. So did his assailant; neither of them spoke again for the tortuous twenty minutes which remained of the journey. Of course, this was one row I saw while on a bus to work, as opposed to walking, so probably shouldn't be included but hey.

The rage is everywhere, though. Surly shopkeepers who are upset that your purchase of a bottle of water is interrupting their intense long distance phone call, checkout supervisors whose badge says 'Can I help you?' but their face says 'What the hell do you want?', bus drivers who shut the door on you as you get on or off, the teenager who gleefully turns up the blaring music on their mobile phone as if daring someone to complain, grown men giving withering looks to other commuters for not walking at their own breakneck pace. London's such an angry, volatile, exhilarating place. It must be something in the water, or perhaps they should start putting something in the water to calm us all down.

Last night I watched 28 Days Later on DVD. At the beginning of the movie, as the hero wanders deserted, post-Apocalyptic streets, I thought 'Hmmm London's nice when it's all quiet like that'. Thankfully a London more familiar to me soon appeared as the crazed, marauding 'infected' raged their way through the city, destroying everything they touched. That's more like it.

Going for gold

2007-02-26T15:05:00.000Z

Hollywood has been showing some love to its favourite sons and daughters.

Every year the media gets very excited about a little ceremony in Los Angeles where a handful of people get a lump of metal and get to revel in a spotlight under the watchful eye of billions. Yes, the Oscars buzz is quietening down to little more than a hum and the frocks and speeches have been dissected. Having seen only two of the Oscar-nominated movies I don't really feel in any position to comment on whether anybody was robbed in particular. I've not seen much of the Oscars coverage, and while I usually like all the over-emotive fawning which goes on, I don't think I've missed much this year. Helen Mirren predictably walked off with the Oscar for her role in The Queen as, er, the Queen. It seems that you get an Oscar these days for wearing a bit of make-up or a dodgy wig, because the greatness of Mirren's performance passed me by as I sat through the two hours of torture-by-digestive-biscuit that was The Queen. I really like our Helen and I suppose in this dullfest she shone a little but she was still utterly unbelievable as the biggest mother of them all. Like Charlize Theron (went fat), Nicole Kidman (wore a big nose) and Hilary Swank (taped her boobs down) before her, Helen won that Oscar for looking a bit ugly, in her case wearing a hideous wig and portraying someone who comes over as a droid in Jaeger. Judi Dench was way better in Notes of a Scandal but HEY. What I did love about Mirren winning was the way she held her Oscar aloft as she said the words 'the Queen' knowing full well that that would be the picture which took every front page and internet coverage. You could almost see the Getty images logo flash up as she did it. Way to go, Helen; I hope you get a cut of the money that image will earn.

Boohoo of the night was Jennifer Hudson, then former reality TV contestant who showed Beyoncé up for the plank of polystyrene that she is by stealing a movie and having very big lungs or something in Dreamgirls. As Hudson tearfully accepted her statuette, La Knowles beamed a rictus grin and wished she'd fattened up and played Effie instead of Deena. Tough break, B.

The small amount of BBC coverage I caught before leaving the house was more than enough. For some reason, Auntie had asked Kate Silverton to go and report on all the frocks. Kate, who is to reporting what M&S is to high couture, jumped up and down excitedly on the red carpet after possibly one merlot too many and burbled back to the camera as bona fide A-listers sailed past her. Clearly Kate has been pretending all these years to be interested in current affairs. Her inner Heat reader came bounding to the fore at the sight of so many people; I half expected her to do a celebratory streak when she finally bagged an interview with Helen Mirren. The looks on the faces of the anchors back in the UK, as Kate handed back to them after asking The Departed's producer Graham King if she could hold his Oscar, said it all. They looked almost relieved to be reporting on serious matters like train crashes and interest rates.

Like, whatever

2007-02-13T11:37:00.000Z

I hate being late and I pride myself on my punctuality but if there's one thing I'm arriving at the tail end of, it's the whole Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie 'thing'.

In the time it's taken me to completely ignore absolutely everything they've ever done, they've filmed four series of a reality TV show, released albums, written novels and even fallen out 'for ever' before making up late last year. Of course, I have been aware of them staring blankly out of the pages of the magazines we get at work or online, but until fairly recently I haven't really had an opinion on them one way or the other.

My ignorance was halted last summer. One very hot day, I lay ill in bed with the TV murmuring in the background as my partner clattered plates downstairs to show his frustration at playing nursemaid. The day was a Sunday, the channel was 4 and the show which changed everything was The Simple Life. This double-bill was the first episode of it I'd ever caught and it featured the two heiresses as interns. They were working firstly in what looked like a pretty boring office, much like the one featured in, er, The Office. Paris and Nicole had been entrusted to improve office morale and do the fairly menial office tasks that every bored temp has had to do at some point or another. Of course, because neither of them were doing this job for real and had pots of family money to fall back on, they did the opposite of what any put-upon intern would actually do- i.e. exactly what they were told- and did what they wanted to do. This involved providing employees with lap dances, kissing booths, tequila shots and breaking the photocopier. At the end of their day as an intern, they were asked to grade their own performances. They jointly decided they'd been A+ interns while their line manager disagreed.

Watching the two women was a revelation to me. I've met plenty of apathetic people in my time and I've had my listless moments, but I don't think I've ever witnessed two people refusing to care in such a way ever before. Out of the two of them, Nicole seems to be the one who has some semblance of a personality. Paris, dead-eyed and motionless, seemed to float around as if her brain had been switched off or removed prior to the cameras rolling. Every facial expression, every word and ever movement seemed to take the maximum effort and was usually avoided in an attempt to conserve energy. Nicole, on the other hand, was full of one-liners and a roll of her eyes told a thousand words. I was shocked to find that I actually liked her.

Last night, the girls' latest pisstake out of the ordinary folk arrived on E4. Filmed when the girls couldn't stand to be within thirty miles of each other, the gruesome twosome now complete their tasks separately and the strain shows. The professional airheads have been given the task of taking it in turns to take the place of a wife in a busy family for a day. Whereas, in previous series, Paris managed to come across as relatively human with Nicole there to spur her into action, she now wanders around like a wounded gazelle trapped in a hall of mirrors, stumbling from room to room with a look of perplexity. Her faux pas don't seem funny any more; she now comes across as a mental patient concentrating desperately on rehabilitation before blowing it all by smearing shit on the wall in front of the inspectors. Nicole's segments show her in a meltdown of sorts, yet she's not suffering too much from the removal of her pseudo-Siamese twin. From tattooing toddlers with felt tip pen to taking the easily-led husband to a strip club, on the surface she's still having fun, despite the fact that her eyes betray the story of someone who'd rather be somewhere else. Now that they're talking, perhaps they'll make another series together. Chips are great on their own, but with fish they're even nicer. Er, I'm not quite sure where I'm going with that analogy, but I'm sure you get the idea.

There's a lot of talk in newspapers and magazines about how we celebrate stupidity these days, but when it comes to Paris and Nicole and their far-from-simple life, who are the idiots? Two someday millionairesses who make a living out of bumping into furniture while being filmed for the masses or the supposed intelligentsia sitting at home crowing about the death of earned celebrity and giving the oxygen of publicity to those they rail against?

Coffee republic

2007-02-09T17:20:00.000Z

I never realised that drinking coffee, or rather where you buy it from, is a political act, but it is. I was in Stoke Newington on Sunday. I was there on the pretext of going for some lunch until I realised that there wasn't anywhere to go that I particularly fancied and that I might have well as gone to the pub round the corner, which I eventually did do. (I had sausage and mash, minutiae fans). Before hotfooting out of Stoke Newington and back to the polluted sprawl of Borough, I happened to notice that a building had a flag waving outside which said 'Occupied'. The building was large, shabby and appeared to be inhabited, and was what I now know to be the site of the Vortex jazz club, which has moved to Hackney. The building and the land it stands on have been sold to a developer for an undisclosed sum and is to be made into- yes!- flats, along with retail premises which may or may not be a café. The building is being occupied by a collective who want it to be preserved as a cultural space, which is fair enough. The crux of their argument, though, is that they are fearful that any cafe which might open on the site will be a Starbucks. Like a drunken uncle at a wedding who'll dance to Kylie to prove she's still got it, Stoke Newington is the latest in a long line of London areas to cling desperately to village status it lost about 100 years ago.

Starbucks, like McDonald's, is one of those companies which have been demonised to such an extent that only a murderous paedophile would be less welcome in most neighbourhoods. It represents globalisation, the death of independent trading and, to me, really boring design. I used to live in Crouch End, another very nice village wannabe in the midst of a million shitholes. For I don't know how long, coffee and smoothie consumption was monopolised by a small coffee shop which I won't name. It was cramped and scraggy, had disgusting toilets, substandard products and, my personal favourite, the arsiest, most sneering staff ever. When a shop closed down and a sign appeared telling the residents of Crouch End that a Starbucks was opening, the villagers were in uproar. Anti-Starbucks graffiti appeared and a campaign was started urging Crouch Enders to stick with the 'independent' coffee shop and shun the giant corporation which was looking to come here, dare to serve delicious coffee and then kill everyone's babies. The first flaw in this argument was that the coffee shop was part of a chain, albeit a much smaller one than Starbucks. The second flaw was that if ever there were somewhere which deserved to close down and staff be mercilessly sacked, it was that coffee shop. Starbucks opened regardless and I moved away. When I returned to Crouch End some time later, I couldn't help but smile as I saw that the independent impostor was gone for ever, replaced by a Costa. Both it and the Starbucks were rammed to the rafters.

We're in a tricky situation: we are desperate to retain our individuality in a world where everything looks the same; we want to stay in villages but still log on and order trainers from Japan; we'd like to go organic but still go on holidays to the other side of the Earth. So is Stoke Newington right to try and hang on to its clique of independent traders? Independent traders may offer a unique service but they can also rip off, inflexible and just as mean as the big conglomerates they rail against.

I guess when it comes down to it, the public will vote with its feet and its choice of latte.

Let it snow

2007-02-08T11:34:00.000Z

It's white, it's falling from the sky and it's causing excitement wherever it goes. No, not cocaine, but cold, wet snow.

Today in London it is snowing. There are probably few people in the UK who weren't aware of this fact, thanks to the blanket coverage it's been receiving on all the channels this morning. When I got up I peered out of the Venetian blinds and saw the snow on the ground. Given that every newspaper, website and TV broadcast had been foretelling the snowfall as if it were the arrival of the apocalypse, I was expecting to look through the window and see nothing but impacted snow straining at my window waiting to envelop me in a frosty duvet. Instead I saw a bit of snow and, on the B road which thunders past my flat, most cars coping with it quite well. To hear Fiona Phillips on GMTV talk, you'd think the entire world had been taken over by huge 50 foot monsters made out of ice and snow. As she excitedly read out details of every road closure, airport problem and dead sparrow across the country, her eyes darting manically across the autocue like a sparrow searching for a worm, I couldn't help but wonder why everyone seems to lose control when it comes to a bit of snow falling to the ground.

When snowfalls are reported on the news, they either show the same stock footage of a seriously snow-fucked road in Kent with cars nose to arse or they shove their least favourite reporter out into the wilds armed only with an inappropriate jacket and a garish scarf. I watched with glee this morning as the shouty weathergirl who can't stop saying "erm" attempted to give us a rundown of what was happening near the London Eye with cheeks pinker than a Yorkshire ham. She had her scarf shoved so far up her face I could hardly hear what she was saying, but from the look of the scene behind her, I could safely assume it was snowing that whole half a mile from my flat. Radio presenters are similarly enthralled by a bit of the white stuff. I can almost hear the rustle of mohair and mid-price denim as they move their hands slowly down to their genitals to touch themselves as they frenziedly count down the number of flights cancelled thank to the sky's snowy coughing fit.

It seems like the only way to jazz up a slow news day is to make it a snow news day, and by quacking about it in my blog, I'm no better than any of them.

Step back in time

2007-02-06T13:07:00.000Z

This morning I went to the press launch of the Kylie fashion retrospective at the V&A in South Kensington, I love going to things like this because not only do you overhear the most ridiculous conversations, witness unbelievable levels of greasing up and get to watch TV anchormen fucking up a link, you also get to have a nosey at things you wouldn't normally bother going to see.

The exhibition consists of pretty much every famous outfit Kylie has worn over her twenty year career: that white hooded dress from Can't Get You Out Of My Head, her gross dungarees from her days as Charlene in Neighbours and, of course, those teeny tiny hotpants she wore for her video to Spinning Around. It's only when you see all of Kylie's outfits that you realise just how much of an influence she's had, not only on fashion, but on popular culture. Most of the dresses, suits and, er, furry cardigans were instantly recognisable and as well as sartorial iconography there were all her single covers, gold and silver discs, awards and even a sneak peek at her dressing room, which was re-enacted as part of the exhibition space. On looking at it, I deduced that Kylie is quite untidy and is wasteful of lipstick.

Despite the fact that her music may fall in and out of favour every few years, she can still make the headlines thanks to what she's wearing. Managing to stay on trend and relevant is no mean feat when everybody thinks your music is rubbish and nobody seems to care about you any more, but she has. You could argue that it's thanks to her style and deftness at choosing the right designers to work with has helped her stay in the public eye when her music has missed the mark. Kylie's music came secondary to the exhibition itself. There was a huge video wall showing her hits in chronological order but apart from a few horrified glances at the horrible hat she wore in the Got To Be Certain video, nobody paid it much attention.

After an hour or so, I was all Kylied out, my concentration broken only once by a young man who wanted to ask me questions for a magazine. Perhaps he thought that somebody wearing a flat cap and scarf indoors was making a style statement and was therefore worth talking to, but in actual fact I couldn't get them in my bag because the zip was broken. He asked a few questions and then went on his way. He was wearing a white leather jacket and I wasn't at all surprised to learn on returning to the office that the magazine he'd quizzed me for was of the pink persuasion. I gave good quote so hopefully he'll be kind in the write-up.

My last stop in the exhibition was the reception area, where people were knocking back glasses of wine at 11.30 am and fingering copies of the exhibition's printed guide, a nip at £19.99! I eschewed the chattering mass of liggers and made my way out of the Victoria & Albert and into the crisp Kensington sunshine, my curiosity sated. If I remember, I will put some photos up so that you can squint at a load of tatty-looking pint-sized dresses too.