Little Drinker

kids go camping

2010-08-05T03:35:00.000-07:00

I had a week off "between jobs" (of unemployment) so we decided to go camping. Hang on, the sun's reflecting on my computer. That's better.

We arrived on the Thursday after what was possibly the most stressful decision making process ever. God had less trouble trying to decide where to put the naughty bits. We were going to go somewhere in Norfolk, but it's three hours away! Did you know that?? Fuck that. So we ended up going to the New Forest, where we've camped before. We packed our back packs with enough clothing to survive a nuclear holocaust in an underground bunker for several months (W packed EIGHT t-shirts. We were going for four days) and got a cab to the train station. We're real back-packers.

The train was packed full of office cunts talking loudly about utter shite. An example: "I don't fancy that Cameron Diaz. But if she came up to me in a club, I'd definitely think twice." Think twice about what, you deranged arsehole? Think twice that maybe someone had spiked your drink and you were hallucinating that you had somehow ended up in the same nightclub as Cameron Diaz and that she WANTED TO HAVE SEX WITH YOU? To escape the be-suited 'tards, I closed my eyes, thought evil thoughts and drifted off to sleep. Zzzz...

About an hour and a half later, we arrived at the village of Brokenhurst. Who lives in places like this? I mean, I love a picture postcard village as much as the next person - as long as the next person isn't, say, my Auntie Margaret who goes walking around the countryside specifically to see picture postcard villages - but this place was essentially just a Londis and a pub. Seriously? Even Forest Hill has more to offer...

Ten minutes and an £8 taxi ride later - friendly driver, hates the gays - we were at Roundhill campsite, faced with cows, ponies and a tent to pitch.

We got it up (fnar) in record time. Which isn't saying much, considering we've pitched that £30 Argos bad boy in the pitch black, drunk, wet and IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY before now. We rock. A quick brew and a ciggie followed, along with the realisation that the camping stove boiled water faster than the 1960s hob in our £2000 a month flat. INSERT SAD ICON FACE HERE.

We unpacked and checked out the food situation. As suspected, we had only packed tinned goods that came in tomato sauce. Where was the meat produce? Where was the wine? Why did we only have 16 cigarettes between us? We knew we had to go back to Brockenhurst - to Londis! Actually, there was a Tesco Metro there as well, but Londis is just more amusing to me. there was also a massive Nisa there that literally sold one of everything - books, toys, ice cream, coffee, orphans, camping gear, booze. Amazing. All those things, and nothing you'd ever need. So Tesco Express got our custom, our custom being £50 worth of wine, ciggies, meat and a disposable barbecue. The walk back to the campsite was a bit daunting with all the shopping, so we stopped for chips on the way - for energy reason, obviously. Not because we're greedy slags. By the time we got back, we were totally pooped. All that food was heavy. As was the 3 litre box of wine, and the two 'back up' bottles.

You read that right.

We fired up the barbecue and dumped on loads of meat to burn to a cinder. We could have hammered in tent pegs with the sausages, but it was all pretty much edible. I felt a bit grim afterwards, but nothing that a ciggie or 17 and several glasses of cheap boxed wine couldn't cure.

It was a lovely evening, all in all ruined only by the fact that at about midnight we made the error or saying "hello" to a passing couple who looked a bit lost. FUCKING HUGE ERROR. They seemed pleasant and middle class enough, but there was something... odd about them. Oh, that was it, they'd been eating 'space cakes' all day and were absolutely off their tits on the waccy-baccy, and were being, like, really deep. Maaaan. She wore jangly earrings, and had a tattoo of her own name right in her hairy armpit. He just kept HA HA HA laughing randomly, suddenly and very, very HA HA HA loudly at literally nothing. She brought over more of her 'space cakes' and we tried them to be polite. They didn't taste like they were from space to me, and to be honest, they weren't very nice as cakes either. A bit heavy for me. I had a nibble, The Kid had half. I was fine, and tried to keep up a level of polite conversation. The Kid practically passed out and left me in the middle of a depressing conversation with She-Hippy. When someone asks you, "So, She-Hippy, do you get to go home much?" I really didn't want/expect the answer to be, "well, since my mum's best friend got cancer, my mum's taken it really badly and started drinking quite heavily..." OH MY GOD. AWKWARD. As she rambled on, off on a tangent on a tandem made only for her, He-Hippy carried on barking / laughing at random intervals and The Kid just let out the occasional moaning sound from the floor. I managed to shoo them away, before she even finished the terrible cancer story. We never saw them again. The horrible thing is, I think they were avoiding us.

The next morning we awoke feeling suitably grim and over-sensitive. The Kid went mental because the tropical juice drink we bought "wasn't juice - just a juice DRINK!" I wasn't entirely sure what the difference was, but it was ending the world as we knew it, so I did my best to appease him. I didn't do very well.

We eventually got over the whole juice / juice drink debacle, and the bikes we'd hired arrived at the campsite.

Reader: "I'm sorry, the bikes you'd hired? You, Littledrinker and The Kid?"

Me: "Yes, we hired bikes."

Reader: "Well, I imagine that was mildly comical."

Me: "Actually, cunt, it was very lovely."

We had them for two days, and there's pictures on The Kid's camera to prove it. You just can't see them. I can't remember what happened on what day, so I'll give you a run down of the villages we cycled between:

Brockenhurst: you've already heard the highlights. Chip shop, Nisa, Londis. A pub. We had a pint of cider.

Beaulieu: for some reason, the locals like to pronounce this as "Bew-lee". WRONG. Bow-loo is pretty (average), has an abbey or something and a lake and a teashop. Moving on to...

Lyndhurst: named after it's most famous resident, Nicholas, this place was actually alright. We bought a camping toast-making device from a shop that was so amazingly jam-packed with random junk I thought The Kid had somehow created it WITH HIS MIND. Whilst in the village, we bought an un-impressive pie and sausage roll and ate them on a park bench. That was the highlight, really. Next!

Lymington: The jewel in the New Forest's crown. You can get the ferry here to the Isle of White. But why would you? This place has windy cobbled streets, several nice looking ice-cream parlours, a Boots AND a Superdrug, a Waterstones. Several okay boozers. We're going to move there. As soon as they open a Chariots sauna.

Each day we ended up cycling for about 5 hours - read that and weep, nay-sayers - FIVE HOURS. And most of it was brilliant. Apart from the bit where The Kid's 'amazing internal compass' got us lost and we didn't speak for an hour. Both nights we got back to the tent in time to listen to the obnoxious gang of middle-class children near us yell and scream ("Annabel, Timothy, you have to be in a line or else you're not playing!"), and to drink several boxes of wine and talk utter pap to each other.

It usually started with us looking like this:

... and ended up with us hammered at three in the morning, listening to Horse Meat Disco, surrounded by fag ends and burnt out tea-lights trying to brush our teeth with red wine and peeing on the back of the tent. Lovely.

And that was pretty much it! Other things happened, but I can't remember what they were now.

It was fun. Go some time.

spitalfields sunday

2010-02-21T12:21:00.001-08:00

A little sit down and a long exposure watching the shoppers go buy/by/bye.

sunday shopping!

2010-02-21T07:59:00.001-08:00

Yay! I went into town early enough for it not to packed full of tourists walking slowly and stopping suddenly in front of me, wheeling massive cases down the street and not knowing where/what/who they are. In fact, I was there so early that the shops hadn't even opened yet! I spent my Christmas vouchers in Topman, and explored New Look which, to my surprise, wasn't totally shit. Here's three of the four things I bought. The fourth item is for indoors slobbing around only, so will remain a secret until I forget, and pop down to Tesco wearing it. I'm halfway through writing something and literally looking for any distraction whatsoever.

my clothes today

2010-01-14T07:05:00.001-08:00

This is quite self explanatory. Although my underpants and socks are MY OWN BUSINESS.

schnee! schnee!

2010-01-14T06:16:00.000-08:00

Brrrr... it was snowing yesterday and even the birds couldn't use their little house! Poor birds. I'll pop some feed in today to help them get fat - hopefully Sushi the naughty cat upstairs won't go stealing it.

another bit...

2009-11-21T02:37:00.001-08:00

The bar that used to be Element, and was then something else. Was now something else entirely. Well, they’d redecorated. To be honest, neither of us could remember what it looked like. Or before that. But they did make great cockatils. Very great. Very great? I was drunk.

“Very great? How drunk are you?”

“I’m not that bad!” I lied a bit. “I’m just a bit giddy. How’s yours?”

He held up his glass – it was almost empty so I guessed that he was impressed. “Really nice. And half price! Does that mean we can have another two?”

“I think that’s exactly what it means, Walter. I’ll get them.” We’d been sat in on an awkwardly straight-backed sofa shaped like a huge pair of lips. I weaved through the crowd of overly-perfumed men laughing, joking and flirting outrageously with each other. A couple of them made eyes at me. Well, I think they did. I’m pretty terrible at working out when someone’s flirting with me and when they’re just trying to see what’s going on behind me. I played it safe and kept a mildly inane grin on my face.

I reached the bar and squeezed in between all the taller people. Which means I squeezed in between everyone.

Much to the disappointment of everyone around me, I caught the barman’s eye and ordered two drinks. I had a purple coloured thing. Walter had something made with gin and loads of fruit. I paid and left the two pound coin as a tip. I was feeling flush. I’d regret it when it got to the end of the month and I was living on non-brand beans and toast. Cheap white toast. Actually, it doesn’t sound too bad. He could keep the two pounds.

I weaved back, through the crowd. I turned into the little back bit and sat on my half of the lips was a guy who wasn’t me. I held back for a second. Tried to work out what my chances might be if I had to defend my date’s honour. Or if my date chose this new suitor over me, who would win in a three-way fight between us all. Or if I could just neck both drinks, subtly grab my coat and fuck off. Was this guy better looking than me? I couldn’t really tell. They were on the edge of my poor vision. He looked okay though. Nice shirt, actually. I think may be I had it in blue. I was debating escape strategies when Walt looked in my direction. Then he smiled. Then he pointed. And the other guy looked. He sort of smiled. Said something. Got up. Walked towards me and smiled properly this time. “Lucky boy.” He said.

“Him, or me?” I said.

He winked at me and walked on by. I took my seat and handed him a drink. He flashed another toothy white grin. “I think he was trying to chat me up.”

“I think he was. Did he succeed?”

“Does it look like he succeeded?”

“Not just yet.”

“Not just ever – I told him I was with someone.” More toothy grinning.

I looked around the room. “Really? You are? Who?” I was still looking around the room when the bottom lip beneath me sank in a little. Then a hand was on my knee. I turned. His face was so close it took me by surprise, but before I had chance to register the surprise on my face he planted both his lips on mine. Lips, on lips, on lips. It was close mouth. No rancid tonguing each other on the tacky lip sofa. Not just yet. Maybe a couple more cocktails. But, for now, closed lips. Strong, but not angry. He put his hand behind my head ever so gently. He pulled away just as my lips turned up into a smile. He looked right at me with his big brown eyes and said:

“I’m with you.”

“Thought so.” I was a bit shocked still and couldn’t think of anything massively witty to say in return.

Two more cocktails in and the bar was rammed. We’d both been to the toilet twice – too much information? And had another couple of cigarettes on the pavement outside. I’d been asked if I had a lighter twice. I lit both cigarettes but kept hold of my lighter. It was an heirloom – a tiny bic that I’d managed to keep hold of for nearly three weeks. That must be some sort of record? If everyone did that, lighter companies around the world would go bust. It was nearly Cinderella time and that meant it was make or break. Questions needed answering. Well, one in particular.

Shall we dance?

If we left now, we could make a club and not have to queue too much. Or we stay for a couple more and call it a night at one o’clock. But then that meant the very awkward ‘your house or my house’ chat. That’s if it was heading that way. I was pretty sure it was heading that way. But I fancied a drink. And a dance. Oh, God I was drunk if I was ready for dancing.

Over the noise, I shifted my weight forward on the lips – the sofa ones, not his. “Do you fancy another drink? Or…”

“Or what?”

“Well, I was wondering if maybe you fancied a dance?”

We’d met the previous week in a club and I had distinct memories of dancing. Well, I say distinct. Fuzzy. But had some form of memory of some form of dancing. And lots and lots of embarrassing kissing.

“A dance?” He arched an eyebrow in a way that would have made most people look like a twat, but made him look cuter than normal. “I guess that means we won’t be having that awkward ‘who’s house will we go to’ chat for a while?”

“A couple ore hours maybe? Dance some of this booze out?”

“You mean sweat it out?”

I smiled. “Well?”

He emptied his drink. “Where do you want to go?” That smile again.

it's the end of the world!

2009-11-18T15:58:00.001-08:00

2012 is the most bat-shit crazy ball of amazingly shit fantasticality i have ever had seared on to my retinas. watch it in all it's craptacular glory on the biggest screen you can find immediately.

that is all.

a sneak peak

2009-11-16T14:37:00.000-08:00

Here's a little taster of what I been done writing (hope you like it. Not that anyone reads this):

Fuck, fuck, fuck. The little green winking clock on the cooker was telling me I should have left eleven minutes ago. Actually, it was saying I should have left fourteen minutes ago, but it was three minutes fast. It was three minutes fast because I had no idea how to change it, and it was winking at me because it had been winking ever since I’d tried to change it two months ago. I’m sure the knowledge required was contained within the manual, but it had never bothered me before. But now it was taunting me. Winking in a knowing way. The shine of the bean-juice flecked hob mocking me.

I contemplated looking for the manual again, wondering where it was that I kept all the important documentation that came with the house. It was in the bedroom, of that I was pretty sure. Or in the lounge, in that faux-leather (fleather? Leatherique?) box. Wink – twelve minutes. Or, rather, fifteen. Come on, Saul, get your act together.

I walked from the kitchen / living / dining room / box back to the bedroom. The contents of my wardrobe were displayed meaningfully on the bed / floor area. I was on my third iteration of essentially the same outfit already. Jeans, t-shirt, cardigan, Converse. I was nothing if not reliable. Except when it came to time-keeping, obviously. I cast my mind back to the previous weekend when I was in the club – had I been wearing this exact same outfit? Would anyone remember? Do I remember?

My mobile click-clicked a text. It was from him – “running five minutes late, soz x”. Fine. He was late too. Although, if he was running five late, and I was already twelve late, he would still be waiting for me seven minutes. See, that GCSE maths did come in handy. Seven minutes was a fine amount of time to wait. And if you’re willing to wait seven, why not ten? I stripped off my top half, and threw the t-shirt into the washing basket where I’d dug it out five minutes previously. A quick squirt of Fabreze and it was as good as new. Kind of. A squirt of aftershave under each armpit had been the cherry on the BO cake.

I pulled on another t-shirt. Was this the one I’d put on first of all? Followed by the grey cardigan which , despite for the past couple of years being fine for young fok to wear, had gradually trickled back into old-man fashion. My dad had one. Not great news. But I was happy with my look and I found it hard enough to decide what to wear as it was without an image overhaul.

Back to the lounge / kitchen / cupboard big enough for a couch and a TV to pick up phone, fags, Oyster card, change, lighter, cash, keys and chewing gum. Where the fuck was I supposed to put all this? I refused to take a bag with me on a date. Or any night out. I am NOT a woman. And it was too warm for a jacket. I stuffed everything into my jeans, and then found myself staring at the TV as clips of babies falling over to the sound of badly canned laughter and Toploader flicked by. I found myself smiling when one kid smashed his head into a birthday cake. But why are the parents filming this other kid sitting peacefully in his high-chair? Do they know he has an inner ear infection and is about to topple over any moment? Will the £250 paid for every clip be enough to cover putting wheelchair access into the house when crippled little Jack can’t get back up? Still, was funny though wasn’t it, and the voiceover made it doubly amusing.

Another mobile-made clickety click brought me back to reality, and into a state of time-panic. Still, I read the text on the way out of the door. Aah, it was Pete. “Good luck on the date babes. In the Brewers if it all goes tits up.” Good old Pete. Always there. Meaning always there for me. And, more literally, always there in the Brewers – gay South London’s answer to the Queen Vic. It’s shit, but when there’s literally no where else to go… So my plan B was in place, should plan A not go to, erm, plan. But I had to get to plan A first. Victoria line was quicker. And the walk to the tube took the exact amount of time it took me to smoke a cigarette. It was like baby Jesus was smiling down on me.

I arrived at the tube without incident. My mind had been crammed full for the walk – inhale, exhale, what would I say when I arrived? Tap the ash, am I wearing the right outfit? Flick the butt, do I go in for a kiss when I get there? I checked my trainers for dog poo – old habit. I once walked a rancid dollop through a mate’s parent’s house and all over the cream carpet. I’m sure the Underground people wouldn’t notice another foul smelling stain on the floor, would they?

Summer had been creeping in, and the days were pleasant, with the nights feeling pleasantly cool. Still, in keeping with logic, the underground tunnels managed to stay about 20 degrees hotter than the outside temperature. Thankfully, my deodorant kept the old under-pits dry, and I could dab away the excess beading on my forehead. If I was a dainty lady, I might say that I’m ‘glowing’. I’m not a dainty lady. I was fucking sweaty. I caught my reflection in the curved window opposite. It made my head look about four feet long and two inches thick. I looked terrible. Nothing I could do about it now.

I fought my way off the train at Oxford Circus. The corridors and escalators were crammed with people and their bags. I hadn’t bought anything new for ages and hated everyone who’d splurged. Apart from that girl walking towards me who looked like she needed to go shopping more than I did – what was she wearing? Was that trendy nowadays? Did I just say trendy? Am I that old? I’m not that old, by the way. Well, I guess that depends who you ask. I’m 29-years-old. 30 later in the year and I’m kind of not bothered by it. Lots of people go a bit mental, write lists of things they must achieve but possibly never will. I’m constantly disappointing myself so have no need to write a list to feel bad. I’ll be turning 30 in the same manner I turned 20 – drunk.

I hit street level and, thank god, a cool breeze. I lit another cigarette – I know, I know, but I was nervous – and turned towards Soho. Another window offered my reflection, this time in a clothes shop that was closing up for the night. It was a massive improvement – I looked lean and my hair looked cool. My head looked almost normal again. Still, this window could be equally warped and I could still be freakishly odd-looking. Maybe there’ll be another mirror on the way. I checked my watch. Still running late. Eek. My lateness stressed me out. Other people’s lateness makes me livid with a rage so purple and black I want to snap bones and crush skulls and stamp on kittens and clench my fists and shake them at the sky screaming “WHY???” Still it doesn’t stop me from being late for almost everything. Yeah, I’m a hypocrite. Anyway, I’d arrived and surprised even myself by not being as late as I’d thought. 12 minutes, to be precise. Which meant he would have been here for 7 minutes. I crushed the cigarette under my foot, popped a mint in my mouth, ruffled my hair – but not too much – and walked in.

The bar was already busy. More shopping bags. Boys in skinny jeans, checked shirts and skinnier than was necessary ties as far as the eye could see. Which wasn’t very far – it was a small bar. I let my slightly shirt-sighted eyes take in the bar hoping for a glimpse of the date, when suddenly it dawned on me. Would I recognise him when I saw him? How would I know if I’d seen him if I couldn’t remember what he looked like? I was incredibly drunk when we’d met the week before. Incredibly drunk. Offensively so. Well, not so offensively that he didn’t want to kiss me at the time, or even see me again this weekend. But maybe he was also incredibly drunk. In fact, I knew he was incredible drunk – we’d had three shots of sambucca together. And two Jack Daniel’s (with ginger ale – I’m no purist). Even if he hadn’t been drinking all night, which I’m pretty sure he had, he would have been drunk by then. Maybe he wouldn’t recognise me? We could both be stood in the bar, right next to each other, waiting for each other, standing RIGHT NEXT TO EACH OTHER, and not know. That would be awful. I decided to focus on looking for people who looked like they were looking for people. Still no one. But maybe he wasn’t looking for me – why would he if he didn’t know who to look for? Oh God. Maybe if I rang him, he would have to pick up his phone. I would see that. Yes. Call him.

I pulled the phone fro my pocket just as it tickled and tick-tocked again. It was him. Shit. Had he seen me looking right through him? He doesn’t know I’m short-sighted. I could say I was almost blind. Yes, that was my excuse. “Dead sorry – train’s delayed. Be there in 10.” Yes! Thank the lord. I was saved. I ordered a beer – bottled, not draught. I can’t drink pints. Too gassy. And, also, there was an incident when I was 19 after seven pints of wife beater, a plate of beans on toast and my parents. It still makes me shudder now. I took the drink outside, found a table near the door, sat down and lit a cigarette. And relax…

I would normally try and cut down the ciggie intake on a first date. I saw that like I’ve been on loads of them. I haven’t. But I think it’s nice to make a good first impression. But as we’d already snogged, been drunk, and chain-smoked half a dozen cigarettes with each other last time we met, I kind of thought I had a green light to be seen smoking on arrival. Besides, it looked cool and all my friends did it.

About 6 minutes later I was concentrating on grinding the end of my cigarette into the pavement – there were no ashtrays, sorry – when a pair of baby blue Converse appeared next to mine, and the owner asked for a light. I started digging in my pocket and looked up – it was him. Thank god – I recognised him. And he was cute. Handsome. Sod it, he was gorgeous. What a fucking relief. I stood up and he took half a step back. Not a full step, though, and I ended up in much closer proximity to him than I’d anticipated. Flashes of us kissing like school kids on the dance floor the previous weekend flashed through my mind and I immediately became sheepish. Not the most attractive thing to become. I sort of leant forward, half for a hug, partly for a kiss, maybe for a cheek brush and he came in towards me at an awkward angle and some horrible coagulation of all three possibilities occurred. We gave each other meek smiles.

“Hi.” That was me. Excellent opening gambit. I could vaguely remember the previous weekend. We were creased up most of the evening. We were hilarious. We were on fire. Now? Now all I could do was squeak out “hi”.

“Hi.” That was him. This situation needed rescuing. Quickly. I did the onl thing I knew how to do.

“Shall we get a drink?” Me. He smiled. Great smile. Lovely teeth. “Come on then. My round.” We walked in. I weaved my way through the crowd of trendy boys, glancing behind me to make sure he was still there. Every time I turned back he flashed a smile at me. He was nice. Nice eyes. Lovely skin. I totally fancied him. At the bar, I arched my feet up onto my tip toes – I’m only a short – and gave my best smile to the harassed barmaid. “Jack Daniels and ginger ale and a…” My mind went blank. What had he been drinking last week? We had a bit of everything. I turned back.

“I’ll have the same as you.”

That’s it. I was in love. “Two Jack and ginger please.”

The bar was loud, so we had to get close to hear each other. The talk flowed as easily as the drinks did, and I remembered why we’d had so much fun the weekend before. HE touched my shoulder a couple of times, and I kept finding myself just staring at him, smiling, as he recounted some story from a drunken night long ago. Every couple of drinks, we’d pop outside for a cigarette – he smoked! – cool down away from the sweaty throng, and talk about the collection of freaks, weirdos and wonderful folk who streamed past us on the street. He was funny – really funny. And he thought I was funny too. At least, he had the decency to laugh at my crap jokes.

Walter, for that was his name – at first I thought it was a bit old fashioned, but actually I’ve decided it was cool. And he was certainly cool enough to pull it off. I just had to refrain from calling him ‘Wally’. Anyway, Walter was a project manager. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but he talked about it in great detail at one point. Thankfully, we were both drunk, so he was quite animated and amusing on the subject, and was tipsy enough to find it interesting. He had just turned 30 – I was younger by two years – and was from New Zealand. Maori mum, English dad. So that explained the dark skin and curly black hair.

The sun finally went down behind the Soho pubs and knocking shops and the sky went that nice midnight blue colour that only happens around ten o’clock. So why did I call it midnight blue? Ten o’clock blue. I checked my watch and realised that my vision was a little hazy. In a nice way though. I’m actually a bit short sighted, so my vision’s always a little bit hazy – only in a squinty, ‘what the fuck am I looking at’ sort of way. This was more of a mildly un-focussed daze.

“Do you want to head somewhere else?”

He said yes, and after we necked the last of our drinks, he took me by surprise by taking me by the hand and pulled me through the crowd to the door. Holding hands is weird. It kind of makes you feel all goofy and weird, and warm and hyper-aware of just how clammy your palms are all at the same time. I think I went a bit red. I felt like all the people in the bar were looking at us. It wasn’t a gay bar, and I’m sure some of the guys would have rolled their eyes. I’m sure a couple of girls made “aren’t they sweet” faces at us. I’m sure I smiled a bit sheepishly. Outside, the streets were now packed with quasi-, semi- and totally drunk revellers. In this part of London, they were mostly gay men, but still gangs of women tottered around in ludicrous heels and the occasional angry pissed bloke from out of town hurled inappropriate abuse at a drag queen, unaware that he was outnumbered by several thousand to one. The drag queen just hurled back some caustic abuse, raising a laugh from a gang – a pack? Pride? – of bears drinking pints of cider outside one of the oldest establishments in the area. That soon shut him up.

By this point we’d had out fair share of booze, and the night started taking on that kind of mystical quality that the best drunken nights do. It became just a loud noise of sound and talking and lights and money changing hands over bars. A cocktail bar was the first port of call. It was hideously expensive, but maybe we were both trying to show off a little bit. There was definitely at least one mojito, and something that was set on fire by the barman before we drank them. It was his favourite. I got a severely watery mouth instantly and thought I was going to puke. Thankfully I managed to swallow it back and suggested popping outside for a cigarette.

It was then that we saw the first shocking thing that night.

“Oh my God…”

“What?” I was checking my hair in the window. I turned round to see what he was looking at.

“They’re doing two for one cocktails in that bar that used to be Element.” He was stood with a flyer in his hand. The insanely skinny boy in a luminous green, cropped t-shirt was handing them out as he minced down the street.

“The one with the nice upstairs-y bit?”

“Yeah.” He passed me the flyer and looked right at me. “Shall we go?” He had a very mischievous look about him. It was pretty hard to say no to. So I didn’t.

Walking through Soho was always an… experience. Lots to see. More to avoid. We cut through an alley where too-old hookers in doorways called out to us. I politely declined, and he just waved to them and put his arm around my shoulders. He was obviously drunk. I mean, two public displays of affection the past hour? Maybe he just fancied me. Actually, he was drunk. He tripped over his foot and we went stumbling towards a shop window. It was the bookstore that had a huge neon sign in the doorway saying “GAY VIDEOS AND BOOKS DOWNSTAIRS”. There was a helpful flashing arrow, too.

I don’t know what I was thinking. Maybe I was just trying to give my body an extra few minutes to catch up before sinking more booze in the next bar. “Come on – let’s go in.”

“In there?”

“Yeah – I’ve never been in!”

“Whatever!” He punched my arm and laughed. “This is where you get all your dirty videos.” I shot him my most winning smile. Which, to be honest, most probably looks like a constipated grimace. But it worked. We went in. Straight to the basement. And honestly, I’ve never been in there before.

Another point in Walter’s favour – he was really immature. Excellent. We were like giggling schoolgirls down there. The man behind the counter didn’t appreciate it. The nervy mac-wearing guys perusing the books didn’t much like it either. We straightened out faces as much as we could and looked round the shelves.

I’d made my way round from the DVDs to the books – I was looking at some very explicit comic books. Is it wrong to fancy a comic book character? Possibly. I was trying to work out just how wrong it was when he came over.

“Is it too early in the date to suggest this for later?” He handed me a DVD. ‘Pissy Pants 3’. I snorted so hard I thought I was going to hurt my brain. He cracked up and I couldn’t keep noise from escaping. I grabbed the DVD from his hand and put it back on the shelf.

“Come on,” I nodded over in the direct of the miserable looking queen behind the counter. “I think they hate us in here.”

We ran up the stairs together. We didn’t make a purchase.

write, right

2009-11-16T14:30:00.001-08:00

I've sneaked off to the bedroom while The Kid cleans the dishwasher to do some writing. Only for half an hour though.

Good boy.

old jumper

2009-11-11T12:03:00.001-08:00

You know when you're digging around in your wardrobe, looking for that t-shirt you bought a couple of weeks ago? You can't find it anywhere. Where the fuck is it? It was only £8 from Toppy, but you can't have lost it already. Could you? How annoying. Anyway, as you're digging around, you find this old jumper you haven't worn for literally years. Like, actually years. You check your watch and you're already late for work, and you can't find that fucking t-shirt anyway, so you try it on and have a look in the mirror.

It feels quite nice against your skin. All comfy and nice. Like a comfy nice jumper. And it looks alright too. Not dead trendy, but it's been worn so many times it fits you like a glove. Only, it's a jumper. So you wear it that day. Maybe even get a couple of compliments on it. It goes back in the wardrobe on a hanger this time. It's been missing for years and is now your new favourite jumper.

But will you wear it ever again? Will it stay hung up for another two years until another t-shirt goes AWOL?

Who knows. And that's how I feel about my blog. Right now, I think I love it and think I want to play with it all the time. But will it last?

Fuck knows.

EAT did a bad thing. then a good thing.

2009-09-25T03:46:00.000-07:00

I had to write a complaint letter to EAT this morning. They responded Very Quickly Indeed. Here is my email, shortly followed by the response. RESULT!

Hi EAT,

I love EAT food, I really do. I get my breakfast from you lot, like, three times a week. And I love your soups. You did an amazing chicken and vegetable one once that I never quite recovered from, it was that good. I think it was a special one. Tasty.

It was pay day today (yippee!), so I thought I was more than justified in purchasing a tasty EAT-type breakfast. I was mildly upset to see that you'd sold out of bacon butties - my fave - but, it being pay day, I plumped for the rather huge full breakfast toasted thingy (the very last breakfast-type roll in the shop, no less), a cup of tea and an Innocent smoothie. I paid, without really paying too much attention - I'm a bit bleary eyed in the morning, sometimes grumpy even - and mentioned that I would like sauce (ketchup, not brown) and waited.

I was already a teeny bit late for work, but knew that waiting for the sandwich machine to work its magic would make it all worthwhile. A few minutes later my tasty butty was wrapped and ready. The nice lady had forgotten about my tea, but it turned out she hadn't charged me for it, and I needed to get to work, so I departed, still happy - after all, we have a kettle in the office, so I could brew my own cuppa.

My office is about 90 seconds walk away, and once I'd got my hoodie off, I opened up my silvery foil parcel and took a bite into my.... totally cold butty. Like, not even cooked. At all. Cold sausage, cold bacon, cold egg. Doughy, untoasted bread. I don't mind eating cold food, but I'd paid for a hot one. And cold scrambled egg is just Not Very Nice. And the worst thing was, was that it was now too late to go back and get it changed. My smoothie now has to keep me going until lunchtime. I'm a growing boy, EAT. Well, I'm 31, but I'm only 5'6" so I hope I'm still growing.

I don't know what happened - maybe the nice lady wasn't pressing down on the machine hard enough. She was distracted after all, forgetting my tea. Maybe the machine wasn't on. Or maybe it hadn't heated up fully - sometimes my oven takes a while to pre-heat, so I feel your pain. But I'm just a little disappointed, EAT, that's all. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, my mum says so. So WHO KNOWS WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN NOW THAT I'VE MISSED OUT.

Please restore my faith in EAT, EAT.

Oh, and this happened at 68 Oxford Street, W1 1BN on Friday 25th September at 9.30am on the dot.

Ta,

Saul Fearnley

Dear Saul,

Thank you for taking the time to contact EAT. and for your feedback – it is much appreciated.

I was sorry to hear that you were not completely satisfied with your full english breakfast butty this morning. Please be assured that we take such feedback very seriously, and I have directly contacted the shop manager & the area manager to ensure that the necessary actions are taken to resolve this quality issue & prevent any recurrences in future.

I hope that this has gone some way to restoring your faith in EAT. I would like to offer you, as a gesture of goodwill, some EAT. vouchers so you can enjoy a lunch on us. If you would like to accept them, please forward your postal address to me.

I look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience. Thank you once again for bringing this matter to my attention & giving us the opportunity to investigate & respond.

Kind regards,
Matt Hart
Customer Services & Charity Liaison Manager
EAT.

vampires, things and perfect snogging

2008-08-08T07:31:00.000-07:00

The Kid was out getting shite-faced with work last night, so I had the flat, and therefore the telly, all to myself. A quick trip to Film Night (way better than Blockbuster - it's totally non-sensical display system rules) meant that I could rent the films I actually wanted to see. Namely, scary/explosiony films for boys.

First up: 30 Days of Night. It's been a while since I've seen a good vampire film, with actual scary vampires in it. I Am Legend, for example, was great UNTIL the vampires arrived. They were silly, with their silly big mouths and shouting. The bad bitey people in 30 Days... look pretty similar, but are infinitely more scarier, and properly brutal. I had to go round the flat closing all the windows and flicking all the lights on. I'll plant a tree later to balance out my carbon doo-dahs.

The only rubbish bit about the film was when I made popcorn and burnt it. How did I burn popcorn in the MICROWAVE?

I still had Rambo and Tell No One to get through. But I've got them for two nights, and didn't want to spunk my film-load too early. So I flicked on the telly, watched a bit of Family Guy (Peter goes back to school undercover as the new cool kid 'Lando' to stop a drug epidemic - licking toads - and ends up dating his own daughter. Genius) and then Alan Carr's celebrity Ding Dong. The show was pretty shit, but he's comedy gold. Makes me larf and larf. He does a good joke about having psoriasis, taking his driving test, emergency stops and a bag of muesli.

Anyway, the show was distracting enough for me to have composed myself after the vampiring. Well, the bottle of red also helped calm my shredded nerves. I went round the flat again turning off lights and finally plucked up the courage to have a wee.

By the time The Kid staggered giggling through the door, I was halfway through The Thing on Sci-Fi. I haven't seen it since I was traumatized by the head growing spider's legs when I was a youngster. But I soldiered on through and loved every minute of it. Is it some sort of metaphor for the cold war? Why was Kurt Russell's beard and hair so enormous? Did we really used to have computers like that? Why did they have three flame-throwers on a science station in the arctic?

Questions, questions...

undressing the nation... then popping their clothes back on

2008-08-07T00:36:00.000-07:00

Hello Trinny and Susannah! While we all suspect, I suspect, that they're a couple of right nasty bitches in real life, they don't half do a good line in tit-lifting, bum-squeezing posho fashion advice.

Last night they were undressing the nation, making women in a Milton Keynes shopping centre feel better about their bums. There were lots of different lady bums on display. Kind of normal-looking-for-a-middle-aged-woman bums with a few dimples, really long, flat ones, the token "I lost 17 stone in four weeks and now my arse looks like an Aldi carrier bag", and a couple of very tight, very pert bottoms attached to ladies who knew full well that they had very tight, very pert bottoms but insisted that their backsides were "oh, huge - I hate it!". Then why, pert-bottomed lady, are you wearing lovely black frilly knickers and fishnet stockings, rather than the requisite huge off-white granny pants everyone else was wearing? Hmm?

The whole idea behind the show, apparently was to make these bot-hating womenfolk love their rumps a little bit more. They had bronze casts made. They did not like them. A couple of them went, bizarrely, to the University of Central Lancashire in Preston, to have CGI representations of them made, walking in heels. I remember making a 3D dolphin on my Amiga (with a whole ONE MEGABYTE of memory!) that was more convincing than these computer models. The best bit of the whole show, however, was when Trinny took two of the ladies running up a mountain with a hard-looking personal trainer type man. "Huzzah!", thought I, "She's making them do exercise to tighten up their flabby derrieres." And then Trinny ruins it all by saying, "God, this is hard work isn't it? Look you two, you can either do loads of BORING exercise to make your arses look nice, or I can teach you how to make it look nice using control pants and shiny clothes."

After the break, everyone was in Trinny and Susannah control pants (available from Littlewoods Direct. Who sponsor the show) and wearing a new dress. You go girlfriends! We suspect, I suspect, that all the women still hated their arses, but now they were lifted, hoiked, shaped and shifted into flesh-coloured, under-wired cycling shorts and looked better in jeans. So who cares? Next, T&S meet a morbidly obese family, undress them, realise it all looks a lot like too much hard work so just pop them all into full body stockings and nice suits from Littlewoods Direct. Problem solved.

Also in the news(paper) was this article in the Guardian the other day. I once got confused whilst trying to cheek kiss an old boss. I went in for the second cheek, she pulled away, then came back in, we ended up lip-kissing. Awful.

strewth!

2007-11-16T15:05:00.000-08:00

Bloody hell, it's been a while since I've been on here. It's going to have to be one hell of a post to catch up. I'll try and condense it into the smallest amount of sapce possible:

I got drunk and am now living in New Zealand.

Right, now that it's all up to date, I can go and eat my beans on toast thst The Kid is slaving away over. They're not just ANY old beans, though... they're Watties Boston Beans. They have MEAT in them. From a TIN. Mamazing.

Oh, and it's mid-November and I'm sitting out on my balcony wearing just a pair of shorts cos it's so hot. How weird is that? Well, not weird at all if you're from here, but it still makes me giggle like an elf. Heeheheheheheheeeeehehheheheheeee. That's what it looks like.

Anyway, toodle pip. I'm going to be much better from now on. Boz has inspired me. I know I should have somehow cleverly linked to his blog under his name, but I don't know how. I will read the instructions. There are instructions, aren't there?

my bands are no longer broad

2006-04-07T04:26:00.000-07:00

No broadband in the flat after BT fucked me about. GRRR. Hence the lack of posts, which is annoying because I've been out loads since my last postie, and have nice pictures and everything - there was the night at Too 2 Much, dinner in the Falcon, a mediocre night at Rebel Rebel... Lots to discuss. I'll try and get round to it soon. I promise.

Also, Boz wants me to start posting relationship advice. Relationship advice. From me.

Ahaha.

never mix work and pleasure

2006-03-24T02:15:00.000-08:00

Twas Billy's birthday yesterday, so obligatory drinks were to be had at the even more obligatory Studio 6. Now, I really like my work pals, and I love working with them - we alwasy have a really good laugh. I just don't necessarily want to go drinking with them afterwards. Is that bad of me? But luckily some of my old work folks were in the same bar so I sat with them and had a right good catch up. I felt a bit bad for not sitting with my actual colleagues, but... well... I'm a grumpy sod and I didn't want to talk to them. So there.

And then The Kid came down and joined me for a couple of pints which was fucking lush. Really glad he came. Was home (after a horrednous tube journey) by about 11 and in bed by midnight having nice chitty-chat silliness with The Kid. Ah, boys in bed, in their pants. You can't beat it...

Out again tonight in Soho, methinks. Hmmm (rummages through wallet, desperately looking for some forgotten £20 notes).

andrew, meet the kid

2006-03-23T01:40:00.000-08:00

Well, nowt happened Monday or Tuesday: up at 6, work all day, home at 8, eat, clean, sleep, up at 6, work all day, eat, clean, sleep. Not very exciting.

Yesterday, however, got some good news at work - I'm getting to produce a show all of my own in a couple of weeks, which is cool - and then went on a date I'd arranged with The Kid.

Me and The Kid always have a cool time whatever we do, but we're both quite indecisive, and have a tendancy to um... and ar... about where we should go/what we should do/how much we should drink, so I reckoned it might be quite nice for me to book somewhere nice and keep it as a surpirse for him. Aren't I just the best??? Or just quite regular? Thought so.

So I booked this place in London's Trendy Gay Soho called Andrew Edmonds. They had to squeeze me in at 7pm, and said I had to be on time, so I arranged to meet The Kid at 6.45 near the restaurant so that we could mosey down together and I oculd do a big "ta-daaaa!" when we got there. Now, I'd spoken to The Kid the previous night and said "don't be late!" to which he got slightly offended (he's always late, but most of the time I find it kind of eye-rollingly endearing). But he assured me that because he had NOTHING to do aaaalllll day, how could he possibly be late?

So when he was late, it didn't come as a massive shock to be fari, but I was still a bit miffed. Only because I had to tell him over the phone where to meet me and it spoilt my surprise a bit. Humph. But we got and the place is lovely. Really small, but nicely romantic and quite quiet. We were both a bit nervous for some reason - I think because it felt like a real proper date, and also I think The Kid thought I was annoyed with him. But I wasn't! I think he thinks I'm a proper grump...

But we soon settled in and the meal was absolutely fantastic, and so was the Lebanese (!) wine. Do you want to know what we had? Not really? Well, I had duck for my main which was incredible. As was everything else. And not that expensive either, really - £65 for both of us, including service! Cool.

After that, we went for a Long Island Ice Tea in the upstairs bit of Element and then got a taxi home. It was so nice being home at a reasonable hour, and not being wasted. We even just had a cup of tea when we got in (and a ciggie). Oh, and we looked at houses to buy in NZ, but only for a laugh. It still made me feel all warm on the inside, though. Hoho.

And when I woke up this morning, not only was it a gorgeous day, but my skin's still looking alright, The Kid made me breakfast, I wasn't hungover and we had time for silly chats. Brilliant!

and... relax...

2006-03-22T01:53:00.000-08:00

And on the 7th day, He rested. Or rather, was fucking knackered, emotionally distraught and totally skint, with eyes like black voids and skin like cheap mince.

Wracked with The Guilt, and with my back/shoulders in a bit of agony from the previous night, me and The Kid managed to somehow convince ourselves to stay in bed until about 3pm which suited me fine. Now, obviously we weren’t sleeping the whole time. If you get what I mean. Eh? Wink, wink. We ate hot dogs. And that wasn’t a cheap euphamism…

I was working early on Monday, so it was thought best to head back to mine. We had a right nice walk through Battersea Park (actually rather nice, and full of all sorts of folk doing all sorts of things), into Clapham Junction (actually rather closed, but saw the digital camera that I want) and through Clapham Common (actually just rather cold). We were both totally worn out after this, but still managed to drag our arses out to Bierodrome on the High Street for some tasty nosh. The Kid had some sort of sea-dwelling creature (sea bass maybe?) and I had half a chicken in a chilli sauce and far too many chips. And no booze! Who’d have thought it. That’s like a fish saying, “I haven’t been in the water all day.” Kind of.

Boo hoo for work on Monday, but an early night after watching the totally incredible Planet Earth (no one does it like David Attenborough) ensured I was feeling nice fresh for the following morning*.

*said freshness lasted about an hour. After that, my usually grumpy twat self resurfaced…

totally bowled over. sorry.

2006-03-22T01:36:00.000-08:00

I was clearly “on one” this week, and my weekend was taken no prisoners either. The Clapham Irregulars had managed to somehow actually get their arses into gear and actually arrange something that wasn’t either a half-arsed piss-up or a dinner party/piss-up. After a throwaway conversation between Suzy, Pete and yours sometimes-truly, a chance remark at my work and a bit of blagging by Pete, we found ourselves on Saturday going… BOWLING!

Right, now, before you get into your minds that we rocked up to some hideous “mega”bowl in some God awful arse end part of London – let’s say Streatham for the sake of argument - we’d actually rolled all the way to Bloomsbury to Allstar Lanes, which is this absolutely fucking awesome 50s style diner/cocktail lounge/bowling alley that just completely rocked (and rolled) my world.

Now let’s get this straight, when it comes to organised team sports, the Clapham Irregulars are, well, shite. But we actually managed to pull the ten-pin thing out of the bag. Well, most of us did. To be fair, Maria got beat by a 6-year-old girl, Dani may as well have had her hands replaced with wet sponges and The Kid wasn’t amazing in the first round (and boy did he show it, the grumpy little sod – note to self: always let him win or, if feeling particularly cruel, always let him lose). After a few bottles of surprisingly nice house wine (though for £16 a bottle it should have been okay) we all found our stride on the lanes, and The Kid had found his smile again. We soon retired to the bar area which again was fantastic and by eleven o’clock we were dancing by the bar, whilst other normal patrons just gawked, slack-jawed. Och well.

The Gays went on to Ghetto for Wig Out, while the Normals went to crash a 30th party of a friend-of-a-friend. It gets a bit blurry after that, but suffice to say The Kid had to take me home as I was a little… shaky. Bummer. Been a long time since mister twitchy came out to play, and I must say I’m not too keen to see him again for a while. He not only give me knots in my back the size of cricket balls, but he also makes me feel the worst Hangover Guilt in the world the following day. Awful. But The Kid was amazing, and not the least bit anything other than totally love him. If I was a teacher, and he was in my class, he would have lots of big gold stars by his name.

Was the teacher analogy slightly inappropriate?

yeah, yeah... i'm gonna network

2006-03-21T11:55:00.000-08:00

Right, so Friday night I had two choices of Fun:

1) Go to Hip Hip with The Kid for Emma's birthday, or
2) Go to The Bear in Farringdon with Pete for Rachel's birthday.

Oh, and quite coincidentally, it was my 3rd anniversary in London Town! Yey me for still being solvent after three years of hard liver-punishment! But what to do, what to do... Well, seeing as I'd spent Tuesday and Wednesday with The Kid, I thought it'd be cool to go for drinkies with Pete in Farringdon. There were going to be lots and lots of telly-type people for me to network with and I'm out of a job in 7 weeks so I thought I might be able to schmooze at the same time. Obviously just ended up getting wankered, though, and by eleven o'clock I was feeling the need to see The Kid.

Having not randomly appeared at a club to "surprise" The Kid for a while, I decided that texting was NOT the answer, so just turned up. Reception? GREAT!!! Ah, it was very fun. Now, normally I'd obviously wax lyrical about how good the night was. But I was so shit-faced I can't remember it. But it was good. We snogged lots (The Kid and I, obviously) and he had to sleep in the cab on the way home (he was much drunker than I - he kept falling off the stage, fnar).

Sleeps, more sleeps, rudies, sleeps, goooooood.

ohmygodwhatastressfuldayineedadrink

2006-03-17T02:14:00.000-08:00

Well. No one saw that shit-storm coming. You know those days when you're totally calm because you know that you're totally prepared for your day at work? That's how I felt yesterday. And then suddenly everything went tits north and the space/time continuum ruptured, causing everything to shift into retardo-gear. Awful. Truly awful. But a post-show glass of vino and half a pack of Luckies later everything was aaaalll alright.

We were supposed to be going to an opening of a bar in London's Trendy Shoreditch. But we were all fooked off and tired and stressed, so we headed back to Cla'am for beers-a-plenty in The People's Republic. It was just me and Dicky to start with, but soon we were joined by Pete, Jacqui and Billy. I smoked my way through an inordinate amount of ciggies, but the music was good and the chairs really comfortable. We talked work, nonsense and fun times and I was thankfully in bed by midnight.

Nothing else of note really happened, though, to be honest. Although I did get the chance to chat quickly with Dicky about the whole Xian thing. Xian being Dicky's ex boyfriend, and an ex-datee of mine from a loooong time ago. Anyhoo, it turns out they broke up because Xian was still kind of obsessing about me and thinks that I'm amazing blah, blah, blah. Dicky's fine, and so am I. Although I'm perplexed as to why Xian felt the need to email to tell me exactly why they broke up. Strange little man.

Anything else? Oh, The Kid went to Brighton to meet his mate. Mate didn't turn up or answer his phone, so The Kid ended up eating fish chips and going to the cinema on his own. Awww... By the way, The Kid says don't watch Date Movie. It's "possibly the worst movie of the year". Who'd have thought?

sunshine and fine wine

2006-03-16T00:37:00.000-08:00

Bleurgh... 6am starts aren't ever that much fun, but it's even less so when you've been out a-drinking the red wiiine. Twas the last night I had chance to see Hol before she heads off to Thailand for two weeks (jammy bitch - give me a job that gives you a yearly bonus of a few grand, please).

Me, The Kid, Boz, Newman, Maria and Hol all headed down to the Sun for a quick drinkie and a chit. Obviously it turned in to several bottles of Merlot and a pack of Lucky Strike (and a pack of Camels for The Kid). It was a lovely, chilled night. Everyone was really quiet, but it was nice because of that. Me and The Kid are okay I think. But I think he was a little bit tired. Still, it's always nice to be able to leave him in my bed when I've got an early start. Dunno why, but giving him a kiss on the cheek before I leave the house, and knowing that he's still in my bed when I get into work, makes me feel all warm on the indisde. I don't really know why, to be honest. Aah...

vagisil and vegans

2006-03-15T04:20:00.000-08:00

Oooh... It was my first ever birthday meal out with some of The Kid's mates and I was nervous as hell. Luckily enough, we were staying well within my comfort zone - a non-smoking vegitarian restaurant :-| . Okay, so maybe I wasn't too thrilled about the prospect of going to Mildred's in Soho to celebrate Emma's 32nd birthday, but I try and tackle everything with gusto. Gusto wasn't in, though, so I had to tackle it on my own. A-boo-hoo.

I rocked up to The Kid's with a bottle of champagne - he's just got a new job so I thought I'd help him celebrate - but we didnt get chance to drink it as we were already late. Which isn't like us. At all.

We made it to Mildred's by about 7.30 but Emma and Pals hadn't been seated yet, so with a rumbling in my stomach we perched at the bar, necked a botle of house red and waited for a table. We'd polished off the vin rouge before we ordered and I was absolutely ravenous, so decided to go for a starter AND a main. Wowsers. My logic was that a) I was hungry and b) there was no meat involved so it couldn't possibly fill me up. Could it?

Cut to 45 minutes, one plate of humous and flat-bread, a tomato and cabbage "burger" and chips and half of Emma's vegan wheat-free stir-fry and both The Kid and I were rolling about in agony. I think my body went into vitamin shock. the Kid suffered more, claiming to have experienced a 4 minute fart in the gents. 4 minutes. A very specific amount of time. Images of Norris McWhirter holding a stop-watch whilst The Kid broke a constant stream of wind and Roy Castle tap-danced in the corner sprang to mind. But The Kid assured me this was not the case. Damn. The experience was non-too-horredous, either. Apart from having to share the table with oh-my-god possibly the two most boring girls I've ever had the misfortune to meet. Jesus. I can't even remember their fucking names, they were so painfully dull. And at the end of the meal, I dared suggest that we all chip in to pay for Emma's birthday meal and the daggers I got from them! Arseholes. And they live in Clapham as well, so there's a distinct possiblity that I'll end up bumping into them every two minutes. Well, that would be a concern if my clever little mind hadn't wiped their completely non-descript faces from my mind...

Suitable full and de-gassed, we obviously weren't willing to call it a night and headed to Two Floors which was dead, and only had one floor open so was also slightly misleading.

Then follows the obligatory "shall we stay out longer" discussion with The Kid. Both of us know we're going to go out. Both of us know we're going to end up in the Ghetto. We could have saved a good three minutes by just going straight there.

I'll skip the boring bits - got there, paid in, drank booze, smoked fags, danced a bit to slightly crap music, danced to some much better music. Got home. Good night in all. Well, kind of. Hmmm. Is it worth writing out? Me and The Kid have been together for about 5 months now, and God I love him to bits, but recently things have been going a bit... odd. Not bad. Definitely not bad. He just flirts with folk. And fancies lots of people. But we think about boys in different ways I think. He sees people and thinks "ooh, they're attractive" and he flirts with them. And I know it's harmless. I do know. But it still makes me feel a bit weird, I guess. I think it's made worse by the fact that when we're out he's quite openly flirting with other boys, but I never really feel as though he's flirting with me. And I don't just want it to be all ME! ME! ME! but it wouldn't hurt to have a little bit of attention thrown my way.

But don't get me wrong - when we're together he flirts, he touches, grabs and kisses me. Even in restaurants and bars. But the moment we set foot into a gay bar, I kind of feel a little bit... left out. Now, I'm the first to point out that I'm a paranoid little fucker and that's emotionally unstable and needy. But surely that can't be the real problem can it? Oh, fuck knows. The Kid's done a couple of daft things that have annoyed me and caused us to have a couple of "chats", which I hate. I just want things to be fun, but I know that there's gonna be some rough shit as well as all the amazing stuff that we'll do. I'm over it now. Or, rather, I'm over it for now...

first things first

2006-03-13T02:30:00.000-08:00

The events of the past few days would, you think, have put me off blogs for life. But it's rather oddly had the opposite effect. That's been happening a lot recently - things that 6 months ago would have caused me to have one reaction, have been having the opposite effect. Which is rather strange, but oddly comforting. I feel kind of secure, but whilst still teetering on the edge of insecurity. Odd.

But I've got work to do, so all this will have to wait.