Free to a good home...

I'm in two minds about today's blog. But I do need to give you one before the weekend break.

My first choice was to do a quickie on the oddities of the Netherlands: firstly the weird toilets where you poo onto a shelf - a shelf which 1) makes urinating as a man somewhat more hazardous; 2) as a chap gives concerns that your willy will rest on the shelf or that the poo will mound high enough to touch your bum; and 3) which makes the toilet seem incapable of flushing paper down - and secondly the odd way they pour their beer - with an enormous head on it which they then slice off with a tool specially designed to slice the head off beer.

My second choice was some sort of restitution for the character assassination perpetuated during the week. Whilst I did caveat at the start with the whole "I do really like my Ex" blurb, and profixed it with a flippant quip along the same lines, I really haven't done justice for my Ex.

And, bearing in mind he is currently single, I should do what I can to get him hooked up with someone. At least that way I can bonk around and break people's arses without breaking his heart.

So an advert for my ex. Think of it as though it were a classified add:

Genuinely good-looking slim, young (23) man, very good sense of humour, chatty, fit, non-smoker seeks similar for head-over-heels romance. Own limbs and bus-pass. Very intelligent, with degree and masters in history, a healthy interest in politics (if slightly unhealthy interest in Belgium) and very broad general knowledge. Able to make you laugh in a moment. Slightly diminutive but that enhances my charm. Unique personality and style and very enthusiastic about pretty much anything. Infectious (though not medically). Generally adorable with very little wear or tear around the edges. Able to talk football as well, so good to take down the pub (although I also do kareoke so avoid Thursday nights). Enjoy cuddling and beans-on-toast. Must own similarly funky headphones to mine.

The Annual General Moan

Just a quickie today because I'm on a half-day at work. Not to rub it in or anything, obviously...

Last night was the football club AGM.

Reasons not to hold the AGM in a pub:

1) You are already in the pub. There is therefore no impetus to 'get this wrapped up so we can get to the pub'. People are quite happy being in the pub. If it is held in a cold room with minimal refreshments and hard chairs then people will be more eager to put the 'meat' into the meeting, get done and get to the pub;
2) The meeting gradually deteriorates as more booze is consumed. What start out as nice, concise, rational arguments end up as long, offensive, rambling rants which fail to achieve any point;
3) people spill their drinks over their agenda, the accounts, the membership survey or the laptop and projector (yes, it was one of 'those' sorts of meeting);
4) the meeting becomes slightly disrupted when the pub quiz starts up in the main room and people are more interested in playing along with that than the business of the meeting;
5) your Ex, who you have just - unfairly and publically - ripped into on your blog may turn up and blank you seriously suggesting that he has read said blog. Fortunately that is the worst that happened. In a pub, with glass, it could have a lot worse. And it is surprising how painful icecubes hurled into your face can actually be. Also very sticky, full-sugar cola-based drinks are very difficult to wash off.

And yes, I do admit, after the Chair I did the most talking.

Of fatties and fitties

So was yesterday a catharsis? It's ok, it's only a very brief post-script.

No.

I don't feel 'better'; I don't feel to have off-loaded a huge weight or anything like that. I actually feel a little annoyed for my rant, although somewhat reassured that I did the right thing getting out of the relationship. I feel annoyed that I managed to identify all these niggles. And they are my niggles - my problems. In reality they are quirks which other people could possibly find endearing. I'm sure there are many people out there that would just love to be physically smothered. What it does do is it goes to reinforce my major, core problem - that I can't let anyone close enough to form a proper relationship with them; to at least oversee any imperfections or - better still - to manage to convert them into individual quirky attractivenesses.

Anyway.

I feel fat today.

I shouldn't. And I'm not. But I didn't go to five-a-side football yesterday. Combine this with my already-identified perceived lack of football over the last week (well, compared to other people at least) and the fact that I didn't do my usual cycling and jogging yesterday, and I feel distinctly untested.

I'm a little annoyed with myself for not doing the cycling and jogging, I have to say. I knew at the beginning of the week I would not be doing five-a-side: I have a family meal on Thursday night, and the football club AGM on Wednesday night which - following on from the very late arrival back on Sunday night and unpacking from the holiday on Monday night - meant I needed Tuesday night for myself. But the cycling and jogging is not dependant upon going to five-a-side. Yes, five-a-side is dependant on cycling and jogging as otherwise I would simply not have enough time in the house to cook and eat before going to football. But that doesn't mean I can only cycle or jog if I'm going to football: I can cycle and jog regardless. And I planned to. I had my big bag all ready with a change of clothes and my cycling kit. But I woke up late. I do still need to get the early train to get showered and changed at work, and there simply wasn't time enough to get there for the early train.

And there was another reason to get the usual - as opposed to early train - a new train fitty. Who says good morning to me. With a smile. And who also wears odd socks (in a very similar style to ones which I also own). So I was eager to get my usual train and fix of fitty.

Anyhow, I didn't do five-a-side. But I'm actually not hugely annoyed by that. Football (whether five-a-side or 11-a-side) can often be very frustrating for me. I know that I am not the most amazing football player in the world; but there are people at football that simply will not pass to me. Five-a-side on Tuesday is supposed to be fun, to get people involved, and hopefully improve people's skills. Even 11-a-side on a Sunday is supposed to be about all of that too, with maybe slightly less emphasis on the 'fun' and more on the 'improvement' aspect. The only time when these ideologies get put aside is when we have competitive matches which we play to win; and then we play the strongest players (it's ok, I'm not ranting on that again!)

But there are players in my own team who simply will not pass to me. There are players who would rather take on two, three, even four of the opposition players rather than make an easy pass to me. And I don't even think it's always because they think I will fluff it. With some of them I think they will only see a 'benefit' to a pass if they are passing to someone of an equal or better standard - otherwise it is just isn't worth the energy of the kick.

Some of it does come down to me being seen as a weaker player. But there are two problems with this:
1) how do they know I am a weaker player if they will not pass to me?
2) how am I supposed to develop as a player if I don't get any game-play because they will not pass to me.
The later is the more particularly pertinent aspect in non-competitive play.

And what is all the more annoying is that I honestly do not believe that I am as weak a player as people think. Nor are they as good as they think. Usually if I fluff the kick it will be a kick that anyone else would have fluffed because of the pace on the ball or the spin on the ball or a bobble on the ground. That or I don't get to the ball purely on the basis of my speed - and my speed is better than average I have to say.

I do have a good technical idea of what I am supposed to be doing on the pitch, which is more than can be said for some of the other players. I have already said about them taking on three or four players when there was an easy pass to make (or, more usually, taking on one player and losing the ball immediately). However there are other problems. When I am marking an opposing player, I mark that player. Even in the limited play-time I had during the tournament there were many times when a companion player on my team was a million miles away from marking any player. And they certainly weren't trying to place themselves in a suitable position to receive a ball (which was with the opposition team anyway). Another player was regularly off-side. He kept saying he wasn't; or that he hadn't noticed their back line move; or that he was just jogging back on-side; but for those few minutes he was out of the team because no-one could play to him.

So I do know what I am supposed to be doing, and I am not as bad at doing it as people make out. Yet still I am an underused player. All of which means that I would rather prioritise a brief, fleeting moment with a train fitty; than a frustrating 90 minutes playing five-a-side. Anyhow, it is an issue I will be bringing up at the club AGM tonight (the game-play, not the train fitty, obviously).

By the end of the week I may have had some sleep and be less grumpy in these postings. Unfortunately the reason for my lack of sleep isn't for 'good' reasons - for which read 'naughty'.

The Joy of Ex...

So, the other problem with the football tournament was that my ex went along.

It's going to start sounding as though I didn't enjoy my time over there. I did. I had sex and I drank beer. That is good by anyone's standards. There are just a few little niggles. Teeny tiny niggles. And one 5'4" niggle.

Let me caveat this entire by saying that I don't hate my ex. I very very rarely hate or dislike my exes. I don't think it is worth the while. And there are usually at least two very good reasons we went out in the first place: attractiveness, and getting on well with each other. Unless something nasty happened, the first doesn't change; and very usually the second doesn't change, we just realise one way or another that we are not meant to be together. Whether that is by getting annoyed at all the little foibles, or by ending up in blazing arguments every weekend, or by finding them sucking on someone else's penis in a nightclub toilet in Birmingham. Whatever the reason, there were good reasons we were going out. And I don't regret going out with anyone. Regret is never a good thing. You are wanting to change things which it is simply never going to be possible to change. It is pointless and ultimately frustrating. Concentrate on what you can change, and the positives of the past. Awesome - I think I have just gotten myself my first mantra.

No, my Ex is attractive in a way. And we got on well and had a good time whilst we were going out. But there are reasons for me being annoyed over the holiday.

So, we'll start with the list of irritations:

Physical appearance.
Yes, it's going to be done by headings. Perhaps even sub-headings.
Like I say, physically the Ex was attractive. Just in a very disproportionate way. Taken independently each part was proportionate: head, torso, legs, arms. Well, maybe not arms.
Arms
The arms just had actually no muscles. They were odd. they looked like they could be snapped really easily. Really skinny. Otherwise they were a perfect length for the torso.
Torso
The torso was pretty much perfect. Normal-sized, skinny waist and nice hairy chest. But normal-sized torso and 5'4" don't really add up, which is where the legs come in
Legs
Don't get me wrong - I like short people. I alway have. But short, proportionate people. Here all the shortness was in the legs. The torso would have been proportionate had the legs been a few inches longer. But the main disproportion was the head
Head
The head is big. Bigger even than mine and I am an entire foot taller (though I do acknowledge having a bit of a small head). But the head was a really big head which - when put on top of such a small body - made it look as though it could fall off at any moment. The face was attractive, nice teeth and eyes, but the hair was a bit fuzzy which only exaggerated further the larger head.

Attire
Ok, so I know I'm not exactly the best person to start criticising people's attire. Until I started at university - age 18 - I had no style whatsoever. Even then it took me a while to get into my stride. And my choices since then have not been without the exceptional mistake. We have obviously already seen some of my clothing choices in a previous post and there are a few notable lapses in judgement. But I have never NEVER worn cordoroy trousers. Or an ancient blazer. And it wasn't just me who commented on it. Now, I know my Ex hasn't got a phenomenal amount of money, but wearing your granddad's hand-me-downs is a little extreme. And believe me, with the Ex still living with his granddad, that's a very real possibility.

Behaviourisms
These are probably only things which normal people (even myself) do, but because of my Ex's diminutive size become exaggerated, I'm sure. That or that because he is a lot shorter than people, reaching becomes all that more of a stretch and whereas I would probably be able to slouch comfortably he has to be at full stretch. However there are many other problems. No, we'll not call them problems... quirks. I like quirks.
Generally
Everything is somewhat severe. Actions are definite. Arms, fingers, are always straight. There is nothing lucid, languid, lazy about any of the actions. They are there or they aren't. It just doesn't flow - it is constantly jerky.
Dancing
The dancing is jerky too, however very limited. Again, sitting in a glass house I probably shouldn't be throwing such criticisms around as my dance-moves are somewhat limited. And yes, again, the cute height issue comes into it - actions need to be slightly exaggerated and whilst for me moving my arms around a few inches is only a couple of degrees, for him to move his hands those same few inches it is actually a considerable rotation of the body. And yet I have dated (or at least danced with) people similarly short and the actions don't seem so extreme.
Facial expressions
Again, life lives itself by the extremes and there is never a mediocre expression. Any point of conversation is accompanied by raised or furrowed eyebrows, a broad grin or deep frown, or (the most annoying) the corners of the mouth are turned down with a piercing stare as though some response is demanded. And the facial expressions are accompanied by hand gestures. I have never know someone use so many hand gestures; or hand gestures which, bizarrely and despite the short arms, seem to extend so far away from the body. It's almost cartoon-like in its melodrama.
Interactions with others
These did annoy me when they were affected on me, I have to say. Fortunately they weren't this holiday, but they do look weird from afar. I'm talking about hugging. And it happens a lot. In fact, one of the things I found is that it happens all the time. ALL THE TIME. I couldn't get rid of my Ex at times. It was almost clawing. I was being pawwed at in the same was as a desperate dog would. And no sooner had I managed to wriggle out of a hug, somehow wipe the arms off from around me and wander over to speak to someone else, than he would be there back again. A number of my friends remarked on how like a limpet he was and how difficult he was to get away from. And it wasn't just a simple arm around the waist - everything was double armed. Both hands round the waist or - more usually and more annoyingly - both arms wrapped around the upper body - they would have been round the shoulders or neck but for the height. And because of the height it made it look even more unnatural, more desperate. And it did seem as though he thought that because we were going out, it was obligatory for him to be next to me, to join in any - every - conversation. Which brings me on to...
Talking
Yep, he was there for every conversation. Always had something to say. Not only that but he always had to be saying something. As someone who quite enjoys peace, quiet and my own thoughts for a lot of the time, the necessity for there to be babble; inane noise in the background; a constant reminder he was there - no, a constant demand for my undivided attention to reassure him that he was the most important person for that moment - drove me round the bend. Not being someone who is a master on the Franco-Prussian war I was not able to join in on those conversations; not being fully conversant with each and every single football player in all of the English divisions since the late 70s I was somewhat bewildered as to some of the jokes or anecdotes; on any random, often obscure or even boring topics, he had something to say. And when you were already in a conversation with someone else and got limpetted by the Ex, this was annoying not just for me but for whomever else I was talking to.
And the voice. Gosh the voice could get annoying. Not the pitch or tone because there is nothing anyone could do about that, but he speaks so slowly, so carefully, so precisely. Combine the voice with all the expressions and gestures into such a small body and it is so extreme so as to be positively comical. Which it actually was when he was shouting at football players on the pitch - watching him jump around, pointing so fiercely, shouting so deeply and aggitatedly and using phrases which had clearly been taken from the Football Book of Cliches but were peppered in with an ever-so-slightly incoherent timing. All of which brings me on to...

Why was he even there?
He wasn't there to play football. He made a very, very last minute decision to come. Yes, we had some spectators there, but they were all partners of players. He just seemed to come along ... er, for a bit of a jolly, on a whim. I know really why he was there - he wanted to be the partner of one of the players. And not me. He had been flirting online with a friend for quite some time, and because they both live a considerable distance apart, this would be one of the few chances they would get to meet up. And, of course, he got to show me that he was over me. The thing is, I didn't really care. I wasn't fussed that he was seeing my friend - best of luck to them. In fact, if anything, it was a very good thing because it made me feel less bad for dumping the Ex. He had moved on and suddenly I was not evil any more. But it was annoying that he limpetted my friend. A number of people said it. There is a time and a place for affection, and being out in public is not it. All of the other couples who went for the tournament were able to control themselves - a couple of affectionate moments during the day but otherwise saving everything for the hotel room; but no - the Ex was permanantly hanging around the neck of my friend like one of those novelty monkey puppets. I don't know whether it was one of those "needing to make Basil jealous" type of overt displays; or whether my Ex - being someone considerably less experienced with relationships (and particularly public relationships) - just didn't realise how annoying it was for everyone; or maybe that's the only way he has to demonstrate absolute undivided attention in the same way as the babbling. Who knows.

But like I say, I actually do like my Ex.

It could be Rotterdam, or anywhere...

So last week I went to Rotterdam in the Netherlands and ended up having sex with a blonde hair, blue-eyed Irish lad in a pitch-dark classroom on a ship.

Well, that's the headline anyway.

Ok, so somehow I managed to go all the way to the Netherlands and pull one of the only two Irish people around. Who was very, very nice. And ok, the hair may have been ever-so-slightly more ginger than blonde, he was very cute. And I do go weak at the knees for an Irish accent. As I was sharing a room with two other people, and he with only one other who agreed to give us a bit of time before coming back, we went back to his for some nookie. His hotel was actually an old cruise ship now moored up in Rotterdam harbour. However, he couldn't find his room (I was not taking advantage of his drunkeness anymore than he was of mine) and, whilst wandering round, we managed to find a classroom which was unlocked. Classroom number 4 to be precise. Why an old cruise-ship-now-stationary-hotel had any classrooms, let alone at least 4, is anyone's guess. But the urge took us and so we ended up bonking in there. It would have been strange to turn on the lights and see the tables and whatnot. That and we were worried there might be cctv which only worked on visible light.

Anyhow, after that we did go back to his room and bonk again some more. Quite a bit more actually. And his friend never came back to the room either - apparently he managed to find someone else to stay with.

The reason I was in Rotterdam was for a football tournament. For those of you in the States I mean 'soccer'. It was the Eurogames - one of the European gay tournaments. I lose track of who organises what, there seem to be so many different organising bodies for various different things. For example next year there is a European tournament in Paris, one in Budapest, a World Gay Games in Mexico City along with numerous others. And that's before getting into domestic tournaments.

Anyhow, the bonking meant that I was late turning up for the first day of the tournament. Not silly late - lunchtime as opposed to 9am - but late enough to be penalised by not starting any matches.

This did annoy me a bit actually. Yes, I can understand that I was in the wrong, prioritising my bonking over the football (albeit accidentally - I had set an alarm to be up on time but slept (or maybe bonked) through it). And yes, I do realise that there were some concerns over my wellbeing (although again this was something I had tried to manage by texting a friend, however because of the foreign-country-transfers, that text didn't get there until around 7pm, well after I had already turned up at 1pm). Probably the only time I have ever been castigated for NOT telling people my sexual exploits. But from my point of view I had made the effort to get myself to Rotterdam, and more so to get myself to the tournament on my own, so to penalise me quite so heavily seems very petty. Add to it that as the tournament progresses the matches get "more important" and my involvement becomes more remote, it is all the more essential to play me during the earlier matches to give me any run-out time and penalising me erroded much of the opportunity I would get to play.

The logic goes like this:
1) I am not one of the better players in the team. There are at least 11 people they would rather start before starting me.
2) The early games are 'divisional' games - if you win the game you are awarded points and the team with the most points is highest in the division. If you lose one game, you can probably make up for it by playing-out a stronger team in the next match to ensure a win. Usually in the divisional section of the tournament you can well afford to sacrifice a couple of matches to let your weaker players have a good run-out.
3) Thereafter the tournament goes into either knock-out or placement matches. It is therefore essential to win these - they may either result in you being knocked out of the competition entirely; or they can be the decider between being placed third or fourth.
4) So as the tournament progresses, each match become more and more important, and the better players are so vital that even introducing one slight change - bringing on an ever-so-slightly weaker player back at left-back - can make the team crumble and lead to a loss.

Well, at least that's how it always gets explained to me. You get told that you are still just as vital a part of the team. Your support is vital without which the players wouldn't know why they are playing; that as a 'utility' player (for which read 'just as crap in every position as any other') you are vital to reserve to go on in any position in case any of the base members of the team get injured and no-one else can play that position; that you are vital because the players are too knackered themselves to get their own water. You are 'vital' for all the most mundane (and nonsensical) reasons. The word 'vital' gets used a lot.

Anyhow, so it was that on the first day I did get brought on as substitute for probably a total of 25 minutes. This is out of total playing time for the team of 125 minutes. On the second day I got 45 minutes - almost entirely twice as much, however even more football was played: 160 minutes. On the third day I didn't get to play a single second of the 75 minutes. There were only two games, both of which were 'vital' to achieve a medal placement. The first game was to decide whether we played in the gold-silver match; or whether we played in the bronze-fourth match. We lost so the second game was the bronze-fourth match to decide whether we went away with the bronze medal or nothing. We won bronze.

Now, this should be fantastic. Technically I was a member of the squad that went away a bronze medal winner, which out of twelve teams where we didn't expect to get into the top division was amazing. But personally it was disappointing. Not only had I only played just over 60 minutes of football whilst the squad as a whole played around 360 minutes; not only had I not had a minute of play on the final day, but most importantly I had not had a single second on the pitch in the deciding match. Yes I got a medal, but I didn't really feel I deserved it. Still, no-one need know that and I could take my medal home with me and make my proud (if internally hollow) boast that I had won a bronze medal at the Eurogames.

Of course, matters took a somewhat different turn later on. We all went out to celebrate with our medals. I took mine along not really to revel in the moment, but more in case I could rub it in the face of one of my friends on one of the other teams who didn't win a medal. The others wore their medals all the time but I kept mine mostly in my pocket. Well my friend did come out and I promptly whipped the lanyard for the medal out of my pocket and somwhere along the lines the medal became dislodged and slipped from the security of the metal ring it was on. It flew across the pub and slid discretely under a podium. I tried looking for it - not an easy thing to do in a crowded bar - but ultimately had to give up and abandon hope.

And so - aside from having sex with a blonde hair, blue-eyed Irish lad in a pitch-dark classroom on a ship - that was the story of my Rotterdam tournament: a token gesture of an empty lanyard where the major basis of its existence is actually the empty hole in the centre to put your neck; with nothing of substance to show for at the end of it. What a perfect metaphor.

I might tell people it was actually a gold medal.

Arty-farty-party

Ok, so I'm going to make an effort today and tomorrow because on Wednesday I'm going Dutch for the rest of the week and I don't think they have blogs in Dutchland.

So we'll do Friday night. Friday night I wanted to be cultured. Friday night the local contemporary art gallery - imaginatively called Nottingham Contemporary - was opening its new exhibition. Call me a snob (I prefer 'cultured snob') but I have always wanted to go to a gallery opening. Anyhow, I found out about the opening, managed to get myself some tickets (it wasn't very difficult - they had created a Facebook event) and bingo: I was all set to go.

Only problem was I had tickets. TicketS. But I didn't have a friend who would have wanted to go. Well, I had one who would have wanted to go but couldn't because of boyfriend commitments, and one who would have wanted to go but couldn't because she was on the other side of the world. Otherwise the only friends I had either wouldn't have wanted to go or were entirely unsuitable to take to an art gallery. I had put an open invite out on my Facebook earlier on in the day asking if anyone wanted to go, and the only sensible response was 'only if there is lots of free drink'. There wasn't - you got one free drink on entry. It's at times like these that I could do with a partner to drag along to these things whereby I get my fill of culture in return for giving said partner sex at the end of the night.

Anyhow, I decided that I didn't need to go with a friend. I can do these things on my own. Yes, I would go on my own. Ordinarily, put me in a contemporary art gallery with a friend and I am a wit. I can understand modern art, but I do find it very pretentious; and I revel in sending up art critics, monologging about the 'juxtaposition of contrasts referencing historical contradictions' or other such nonsense. And because I have the lexicon to go with the situation, and can use hundreds of long words to say absolutely nothing to the entertainment of my companion I do enjoy going with people. But I can cope with these on my own.

The only problem is that it isn't just 'going to an art gallery' - it is 'going to an art gallery opening'. It is a party. It is a full-on social occasion. It isn't really somewhere to be 'seen' on your own. And it's not as though - at 6'4" - that I can't be seen. But then it isn't as though I am there to be seen. I am there because... well, because I had nothing else to do on a Friday night. When I was debating whether or not to go, I did actually say to myself "well, what else would you be doing?" And the truth is, I didn't have anything else planned for Friday night. It was either go to the opening or go home, sit on the sofa on my own and eat fish and chips from the local takeaway whilst watching some rubbish movie.

And the gallery is on my way home, so even if I wasn't enjoying it or felt too out of place I could just 'pop in' and pop back off again - the tickets had been free so I wasn't at any loss. In fact I would be on a benefit because of the one free drink on entry. So I went. And it was actually a really good night which I very much enjoyed. I didn't feel out of place at all, in fact I felt very much at home. And I hardly noticed that I was on my own - there was so much going on that when I wasn't wandering through the exhibition I was downstairs listening to one of the DJs or in the performance space watching the pregnant women grumpily watching their husbands dancing to the band that was on. A very good night.

One ever so slight problem though was that the art gallery was on my way home. This meant that I hadn't had my lonely fish and chips. Or indeed any form of sustenance since lunch. Which, with the free drink on entry, and then the other drinks which I had to have to look sociable and give me something to do with my hands, ended up with me getting rather drunk. Art galleries are even more fun when you are drunk. I just thank goodness that I didn't end up causing a mischief with one of those multi-thousand-pound pieces of art.

I kept myself entertained by people-watching. Spotting the people who usually wouldn't be seen in an art gallery but they wanted to appear cultured (or 'culturally snobby' as I prefer); or the people who were only going because their boy/girlfriend wanted to get their fill of culture and they were on the promise of sex if they went along as company; or the people who for one reason or another only get to go out of an evening once every sixth months. And one of the things I noticed was the lack of brands. I had come straight from dress-down-Friday at work, so was clobbered out in my new Bench jeans and Superdry t-shirt; whilst everyone else was wearing nice, generic plaid or paisley or cordoroys. I really was The Establishment, The Conformer in amongst the artistic rebellion of people shunning societies expectation; and yet in fact I was the person shunning what my peers in the gallery - a government-funded establishment no less - were expecting me to conform to by bypassing the generic, socialist, anti-capitalistic bland uniform of unindividuality. I was distinctive.

I have to say I quite enjoyed the contemporary contrast of my modern attair contradicting with the juxtaposition of the historical references of cordoroy and paisley. Rebel.

A bit of spit and polish

Isn't snogging weird?

I'm off on one of my obscure psycho-social inspections.

I don't get it. As a Brit we get taught at a very young age not to touch people unless it is absolutely necessary; and even then to ask permission first. You certainly don't talk to them. Not even after sex - you simply roll off and go to sleep. But even by that stage we have usually gotten to a socially acceptable understanding - you will have gotten comfortable being in their presence after having a number of conversations. Or beers.

Even then sex seems a bit ridiculous. It's mucky, wet, sticky, sweaty and incredibly invasive. And all that just for a bit of ooh and ah. You see what our natural reaction should be when you explain it to a child: "You put what?! In where?! Yuck!" And quite rightly so.

And yes, this is coming from a gay man whose sex involved doing people up the wrong'un because... well, there's one fewer holes to stick it in. It has to go in somewhere and it's either up the bum or in the mouth.

But snogging? Why would you want to do that? Firstly you can, and do, get diseases. Secondly, you don't get the 'ooh ah' you get with sex. You barely get anything more than you get when you just get a smile from someone pretty. Thirdly, it leaves you entirely unprepared should someone try to come up behind you and hit you with a large bit of wood.

And yet we continue to do it. Socially, it is very excluding. But that is why it works. You are excluding all other people from the relationship - you have your entire concentration on the person you are snogging. Well, unless you allow your mind to wander, but by the mere act of snogging your tongue certainly can't wander onto anyone else - well, unless you are a very unique person. And if your hands do a wander, again it is (or at least should be) confirming to that person that you just can't get enough of them.

Ordinary the idea of spitting into someone's mouth would revile us. This is a bodily fluid for goodness sake. Our bodies go to an incredible length to produce the stuff for ourselves, we shouldn't be going about dishing it out willy nilly. But again, maybe that is why snogging is so good - it is very very intimate. Not only that, but it feels like it should be wrong. You're stealing something that was meant for someone else. How very deviant!

And it's not as though our faces have been made for it either. We've ended up with huge great big hooters in the middle of our faces, almost perfectly designed to stop our lips touching someone else's. We end up having to twist (and in my case bend) to achieve a good, water-tight seal. And then your eyes become so perilously close that you are forced to close your eyes, otherwise you will get one of their eyelashes in your eyeball. Presumably we have now decided that closing our eyes was all lovely and romantic. It's not, it's just a physical necessity. And then there are the tongues - we have to thrust these in and perform a washing machine action, whilst they are trying to do exactly the same in what is actually a very narrow space.

Ah well, I shall go out this weekend and exercise my very best twist and bend washing machine manoevre. Afterall, it's just ever so slightly more fun than holding hands.

Uphill gardening (snigger)

I'm hoping I might be able to get out into the garden tonight.

I won't achieve it. I know that for a fact. There is something with the train managers on a Thursday which means my first train of an evening runs late, making me miss my second, hang around in Leicester for 40 minutes and end up buying a bottle of wine. I am already prepared for this - I have come to work with my plastic wine glass all ready.

This all gets me home late and, on a Thursday, I can't be bothered. I just want to get straight on with cooking my dinner and the rest of the wine. But I am hopeful.

I do enjoy gardening. Whilst previously I have cogitated about buying my house and whether or not it was the right thing to do at the time; were I to buy anywhere it would have had to have a garden. I looked around quite a few maisonette flats in one particular area and the garden - if you even got a garden - was tiny, pokey, unworkable and quite often shared between yourself, the neighbour and the chap upstairs.

No, if I had rented somewhere the absence of the garden would have been a blow, but one parried to a great extent by the flexibility of a lease. But I do enjoy my garden.

This being me, I am not your usual type of garden. I don't know the names of things. I know names such as 'apple', 'grass' and 'potato' but that is it. And also, this being me, I only put into the garden when I can get something out of it. So the front garden is all nice and pretty in order to give a good impression and hopefully bump up a) the social standing of the house and the area; and (and also doubley therefore) b) the house price. So my bush is always very neatly trimmed in case I should get an unexpected visitor and by back passage kept nice and clear and all the wee beasties are eradicated.

The back, however, is purely productive. I have trees which grow apples and pears and plums and cherries; bushes with raspberries and strawberries and blueberries; and I have asparagus spears and grape vines. Then this year I have, for the third year running, planted potatoes which are doing very well; started off tomatoes and peppers; and grown peas and carrots and beetroot and parsnips. I also have a bed of lettuce. The fruits of my labour (yes, intended) pay off sufficiently that I don't have to buy fresh produce for a substantial quantity of the year. Even better, this year I have my very first batch of pear cider.

This has turned me into an accidental environmentalist as I now compost everything that can be composted to provide me with cheap compost and space in my wheeliebin for all the other rubble. And obviously it will have saved me food miles (whatever they are) as well as doing my bit as an urban garden sink. Or whatever. You can tell I'm only into the 'green' ethic when it actually has some benefit to me.

I have been very lucky in that the garden was very well established when I first arrived - the hedges are all very much in the same state as they were, and the trees already a good decade old or so, hardly requiring any pruning or arboriculture of any sort. And the front hasn't had to have a vast quantity to do it other than regular weeding, although I have tackled one area per year - last year it was the border down the side next to the neighbour which now looks very pretty having been a bit of an overgrown shambles before. I also managed to empty out the front border which is invisible to people from the street, hidden by the hedge as it is, but annoyingly very visible from the bedroom window. I still haven't done much with that area - being in the shade of the hedge there is not much which will grow there. I may just extend the lawn.

My current project out the front is an area I call Centre Point. For those of you not aware, this is a bit of a tongue-in-cheek reference to the rather ugly yet very usefully gigantic 1960s tower block at the junction of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street in London. My Centre Point is an area of nothingness. Where my path at the front divides, sending one branch to the front door and the other up my back passage, there is nestled in the corner this patch, borded by the path on two corners, and the front lawn on the other two. Unfortunately somewhere within there is a manhole, so the area needs to be accessible and cannot simply be grassed. But it used to have an ancient pair of rosebushes ruling over a mass of allsorts of whatever plants, running amok and generally looking more dishevelled that I manage to look on a Friday night.

So this is my current task - to entirely clear the area (not just weed it, but get everything out) and then plant in there some nice bushes with some lovely red, white and blue flowers (for this is the colour scheme out the front). I am getting there slowly, although again my galavanting does somewhat delay this further.

Who knows, by the end of summer I may have more bush round the front to keep trim and tidy.

Out with the old and.. What!? Throw that out?! You must be joking.

I hate shopping.

I avoid it where can. Particularly clothes shopping. I have two problems - either I don't know what I want, or I know what I want but can't get it.

If I don't know what I want I don't even bother going out or - if I am out with others - even bothering to look. Even if I see something that looks ok I end up talking myself out of it, convincing myself that there will be something more appropriate to buy, or that I really don't need it, or that there is something better for me to spend my money on.

If it gets to the stage where I need something, then they simply will not have what I need. Either the style won't be in fashion at the minute, or they don't have the particular item in my size or the colour I want. Hence why I have worn the same style of jeans for the last five or six years - I know what style they are; that they fit (just) and where I can buy them from.

Are you ready for an earthquake? This is going to feel as though the solar system has started turning in the opposite direction...

I bought some new, different jeans. Not just one pair, either, but two pairs. I bought one pair this last weekend, and one pair the weekend before down in London.

Let me be clear - this isn't the universe imploding. They were bought out of necessity and not nicety. I haven't suddenly gone fripperous. The problem is that my crotch keeps wearing out. After the amount of sex I've been having over the last few weeks this may not seem like a surprise, however I don't wear the jeans during sex so they shouldn't be wearing out. Aside from the enormous size of my penis, the only other thing I can think causing this is that - being a cyclist - I have developed good thigh muscles. Being slim-hipped, these thigh muscles are quite close together. Add in the enormous penis and there is a lot going on down there in quite a narrow space. Anyhow, when I was down in London I discovered the hole and decided that it was practically indecent of me to walk around like that. All it would have taken was an underwear malfunction (which actually happened on the Sunday when my chap managed to escape down the leg of my underpants) and the whole world would have been exposed to my willy. Or vice-versa.

So there was a necessity. And I managed to find some reasonably-priced jeans fulfilling the style that I wanted relatively quickly. Bargain. Bargain both in money and time.

This weekend I was forced to go shopping with my friend. I had no intention of buying anything, but - surprisingly - I saw some more jeans which I liked. Amazingly they were in the sale. Fantasmagorically they had them in my size. Being a sucker for a bargain (and knowing how quickly I wear out my crotch) I bought them. I cannot seem to justify spending £35 on a standard pair of jeans; yet when they are £40 down from £80, I see the saving rathing than the spending... £40 saved!

However, this means that space in my wardrobe is now worse than at a premium. The old jeans - despite having little by way of crotch - will not get thrown out. They will be used for DIY or gardening work. They still have their knees intact, and almost all of their seat too. And this is, in fact, a major problem for me - I simply cannot throw clothes away until they are falling to pieces.

I have a wardrobe filled with trousers and shirts, absolutely bulging at the seams; and a set of drawers practically filled to the brim with pants, socks and t-shirts which I just cannot justify throwing out. It is hampered considerably by not having changed cloth-sizes since I was 20.

Shall we review some of my classic purchases?

In the 'casual shirt' department there is the (actually quite fetching) lime green, short-sleeve, zip-up shirt. I really quite like this shirt. I will wear it again some day, although the fashion recently has been either t-shirts or check shirts so it is just biding its time. It has an ever-so-slight bleach stain on the shoulder from when I bleached my hair back at uni, some nine years or so ago. Yes, that is how long it has been part of the wardrobe.
To go with this I used to wear some white jeans. These were pretty much my only going-out jeans when I was 18. They were very much the fashion. My hope is that they will be once again. They still fit me. They fell out of favour with me ever-so-slightly when I fell over drunk in the once and woke up and they were black. I bought some others but they were never the same; and with a lot of hard work and scrubbery the stains eventually came out. So I then had two pairs of white jeans, one hardly used. They are still there... just waiting.
Whilst at uni I saw a pair of black woven PVC trousers in the sale. They really aren't as bad as they sound. They were quite nice for a while too. I'm not too sure when black woven PVC will come back into fashion, if ever. As and when it does, I hope it will also be the fashion to wear ever-so-slightly wide-ankled trousers which are about 2inches to short in the leg.
With those black woven PVC trousers I wore my black mule-style shoes. I got through about three pairs of these as the padding in the base eventually collapsed. The ones I had at the demise of the fashion had backs to them after an incident in Newcastle where I was wearing a backless pair whilst trying to jump over a traffic barrier. One shoe flew off into a gutter, another landed on a car whilst I ended up prone on the floor. Unfortunately there were quite a few people to witness the incident and who wanted to check I was fine. I knew I was fine. I wanted to get away. Still, at least the black woven pvc trousers were undamaged.
For some reason, towards the end of the white-trouser-era I bought some baggy, trackie-styled white trousers. I think they got worn out once before realising a) the didn't go with anything that I owned; and b) I got far too hot and sweaty in them. But they reside in my wardrobe because... well, who knows when I will need them!
And then there are the t-shirts. Many, many t-shirts have been bought and either worn-out, or are now in my DIY and gardening pile. Aside from any issues there may be that I have specific clothes for DIY and gardening (merely down to the fact that they are not suitable for wearing out any more), one particular t-shirt stands out. It is white with a blue logo on which says "Get Your Coat You've Pulled." Classy. But that's how things were in the very early 2000s. I would be surprised if I have ever actually worn this t-shirt to go out in. I think I bought it thinking it witty or amusing; very quickly realised it wasn't; and relegated it to the bottom of the pile whereforever after it has lingered. I'm unsure if I have even worn it for gardening.

Still, if any of these come back into fashion, at least I won't have to go shopping.

Like sex used to be

So, my legs ache before I even get to 5-a-side tonight.

The reason? Bonking, basically. Well, that and a bit of Laser Quest over the weekend. But mostly down to bonking.

I remember when these thigh muscles used to be athlete muscles and I could go at it for hours. Actually that was probably never true - even back then I used to fall asleep quite readily as soon as I had done. But whilst my stamina has either remained or waned slightly, my sexual urge has increased; hence waking up three or four times during the night to go at it again. I think the positions have also changed and I am now more active about it whereas before I just used to lay back and let them bounce around.

And there is something with my bedsheets. I don't know if the cotton is a particularly slippery type of cotton, or if the boys I am bonking (well, it's usually only one at a time) are particularly smooth-backed but I really do seem to chase people around the bed. I have noticed that I currently have no hairs on my knees, presumably from having been rubbed off whilst sliding around the sheets simply trying to get some purchase. I could do with some velcro knee-pads; although preparation for sex is already off-putting enough what with having to find a condom, check it is still in date, then get it on. And all this time trying to keep the other party not only interested but positively engaged with the process.

Still, at least the bed is big enough. I do recall when buying the bed wondering whether it was really worthwhile investing in a King Size. Afterall, for around 90% of the time I am the only person in it and have a habit of hugging the side, leaving a good 3/4 of the bed entirely unused. Maybe this is another reason for the slipperyness - those areas of the sheet simply haven't had the use, the roughing-up that the rest has had. I do still find it bizarre that as one of the tallest men I know, I use probably the least amount of bedwidth available and still decided to get the biggest bed I could.

And I suppose I should accentuate the positives - I did get sex. It's not every weekend that happens. Although at the minute it's not far off. I think I am currently just trying to find as many ways as possible to cause gossip: a friend of mine is in New Zealand and likes things to talk about when she calls me. She doesn't have much going on (despite what one would have assumed would have been an exciting time relocating and expatriating to the other side of the world) mostly due to a lack of friends until she settles, and a lack of money associated with the cost of moving and time until she found a decent job. As such she doesn't have much excitement and is living vicariously through me. I therefore have to have twice as much fun as I would ordinarily have. Hence snogging lots of people in London the weekend before and doing lots of bonking prior to that.

At least on this occasion there was no debate about "your place or mine?" This is an odd question which fills me with no end of debate. If they come back to mine, they will know where I live. They may turn into a weird stalker and not leave me alone. Or I may not be able to get rid of them in the morning, if they are particularly heavy sleepers or socially inept enough to not realise that I am trying to get rid of them. Or they may steal things from me whilst I am in the bathroom getting ready or downstairs sorting out my sausage.

If I go back to theirs, I may not know where they live and spend days wandering around in a wilderness looking for public transport. Or I may just come across as though I were a burglar should I stumble onto any flatmates whilst trying to sneak out (having left my mobile number scribbled on the back of a receipt by their bedside if they are really lucky). Or you may get stuck with unusable or unsuitable facilities (the most common for me, at 6'4" tall, is a shower which barely aims at my chest). Usually it is that they come back to mine because I own my place, live on my own, and only a £5 taxi-ride from the centre of the city. I do get a certain frisson of a thrill if they are still in student halls. There is a certain something about having sex in a bed 3/4 the size of a standard single and waking up surrounded by empty bottles of vodka and unsavoury posters.

I did add to the 'things you shouldn't say to the person you are having sex with or have just had sex with' list: when they are dressing it is apparently bad form to say "Oh, you're not the one I fancied last night. He had a red t-shirt on."

This Life? What Life? That Life? No Life!

Remember the heady, drug-fuelled days of the mid-nineties?

No, probably not if they were drug-fuelled. But they probably weren't.

You may recall that I have been watching This Life. Some of it is re-watching, but most of it is just watching for the first time. This culminated this weekend with the final episode 'This Life +10' - where the characters get together after the said 10 year absense.

At the time This Life first came out it was surrounded in controversy; apparently showing indiscrete (nay, indecent) twenty-something lawyers living together, getting drunk, smoking, drinking and taking drugs. Probably the reason for the controversy is that it was on the BBC rather than Channel 4. But it was BBC 2. What surprises me is the lack of basis for the controversy. Yes each of the main characters has a nude scene, but just one. It is hardly wall-to-wall hedonism. And there is drug taking, but over the two main series there could only have been three, perhaps four scenes containing it. In fact, what struck me was how uncontroversial it was.

I realise that since then we have had more programmes that push the boundaries - shortly after This Life was Queer as Folk with considerably more nudity and drug-taking for example; so perhaps at the time it was one of the first programmes to start widening people's eyes.

But yes, quite uncontroversial. So uncontroversial in fact that it seems positively boring these days. I remember it back in the day as quite a fast-paced, multi-layered story. But then I was only 15. It wasn't fast-paced; it was actually quite slow and boring. Over the course of a forty minute episode very little happens. And all of the characters are very flat and single-sided. Egg, for example, is just the lawyer who doesn't want to be a lawyer. Miles is bigotted. And that is it. The only character with any depth seemed to be Millie, but even then her depth was not really believeable. She was this very meticulous, precise character who ends up abandonning all her principles and her boyfriend by sleeping with her boss to prevent her trainee getting any closer. It even finishes with a very soap-operaesque bust-up at a wedding.

What it is, is a time-capsule. The soundtrack really is the epitome of the years. Any decent band from around that time had a song on in the background. And even the accidental, ancilliary aspects put the show firmly in its age. From the entire absense of mobile phones to smoking in pubs still being commonplace, it really has set itself where it was. And it reminds us of the pace of change over just 15 years. They were still using LPs and cassettes (although there is a CD player) and even the answermachine still took cassettes. What it didn't do, though, was try to be political.

And that is where This Life +10 fails further. Again it does very little more than try to time-lock the music; but it tries to time-lock social and political aspects as well. So now Warren is very much into his complementary therapies and life-coaching. Miles is a victim of the dot-com bubble; whilst Egg has become a literary sensation with a book basically just retelling the original series in a haze of 'New Labour' optimism.

And, for some reason, they try to jump on the reality tv bandwagon by following people round with a camera. To this extent it actually detracts from the original premise and loses the few decent elements which it had - that of being a fly on the wall documentary-style story-telling. It really does become some flimsy premise of trying to chronicle end-of-New-Labour era hope. What it doesn't do is add anything to the story or to the characters, aside from a very very brief update of 'now Egg is an author, Miles a failure and Anna still an alcoholic'. All it merely seeks to do - and it really doesn't try to hide this - is cash-in on the ten-year anniversary of what had been seen as a ground-breaking series with a one-off special to get people to go out an buy the box-set again.

Presumably on DVD rather than video this time.

A bit of rough

I don't know how it started or why, but I have a bit of an obsession.

When I look at people to decide whether or not they are attractive, I am obsessed by hairy chests. As a gay (well, bi, but don't tell my mother) I'm a pretty manly type of gay (well, bi). Not pretty as in attractive, pretty as in pretty-much. I'm not one of those who mince around squarking at each other, crying if they break a nail or can't get their hair to do what they want it to do. I do hard gardening, DIY, play football, go climbing and camping (tent-camping, not mince-camping) and I can't dance.

But I always look to see if someone has a hairy chest (well, the men at least). I have started finding myself looking at that before I even look at their face. Sometimes I think that I actually start fancying people on the basis that they have a hairy chest - I'm sure they have to be reasonably attractive from the outset, but the hairyness is a distinct draw. And I can't help but be disappointed when they don't have a hairy chest. I should probably think of a smooth body as being 'wipe-clean'; but no - it just seems a waste of somewhere to put a nice bit of hair. They just aren't man enough for me.

Don't get me wrong, it doesn't stop me fancying women, although ironically it is the women with the least hairy chests that I tend to go for. Although I probably do still pay attention to their chest benefits.

But it's odd. People sometimes ask me if I have a 'type' of person whom I go for, and I don't really. I have a tendency to prefer shorter people, slightly younger people, and they have to be thin or defined. But I'm not averse to a tall person, a slightly older person. I have no preference of brown eyes over blue and when it comes to hair colour I'm game - I've even had sex with a ginger person before. And even then the hairy chest is not an absolute obligation, it's just really really disappointing if they don't have it.

I have a hairy chest too. It's not as though I am looking to substitute my own. In fact, it could be worse still because of the velcro-effect. And it gets worse if any semen dries and sticks you to each other. Maybe it is because I am thinning on top and am trying to maximise the hairyness.

And again, it's not as though I look for someone to be more dominant, more manly than me. If anything I look for people to be 'compliant' and yet still manly. Certainly not the camp type. I want someone with who I can hold a coversation about plumbing and shelf brackets and whether that was off-side or not and who can help me out with my erection. Of my tent, obviously. A bit of grrr but not so much grrr that it overpowers.

What I don't get is when people shave their chest. Trimming I can understand, just about. Keeping things all nice and neat and tidy and not getting out of hand (rather like my bush round the back. The privet bush. In my garden) I can cope with, though there is nothing quite like seeing the hair wrap all around your fingers. But a trim, so long as it isn't too short is ok. Shaving it all off, however, is so frustrating. Here is a really nice, cute guy who has decided to shave off chest hair which a) other men would possibly give their right arm for; and b) makes him look as though he hasn't hit puberty yet. At least they can grown chest hair though. All I need to be is pursuasive enough to convince him not to shave it off in the future.

I was quite pleased at the weekend as, even though one of the men I snogged was quite young (on a gap year before uni) he still have a lovely triangle of chest hair poking itself out of his v-neck t-shirt. Currently there are two train fitties, each of whom has a positive rug poking out through the open-collared shirt; one dark, one blonde. And I just can't help but look - I can barely concentrate on anything else. I just want to undo the rest of the buttons, pull the shirt off and stroke the furry chest.

I don't like a hairy back though. That would just be ridiculous. Even the shoulders is going a bit far.

Mad Dogs and Englishmen

For an Englishman it has taken me far too long to whitter on endlessly about the weather, so let that drought end (do you see what I did there?!)

Firstly a quick explanation - I didn't post yesterday because:
1) I was tired;
2) I couldn't think of anything witty, pithy or otherwise to warrant a post; and
3) I posted quite late on Monday, nothing exciting had happened in the meantime; and
4) You got a bonus post on Sunday, be happy.

Yesterday I made the effort to go to 5-a-side football. It really is quite an effort. It requires planning the night before to get my various bags ready: one with the football kit, and one for work which differs from the usual. It differs because I cycle and jog on a Tuesday. I have very little time at home of an evening before I have to leave for 5-a-side, so I need to maximise this by getting home from the train station as early as possible: by bicycle rather than walking. This means I need to cycle to the train station in the morning too. It isn't really appropriate to cycle in my work clothes, so I need to leave the house in shorts and a tshirt; and change into my work clothes later. Changing on the train is less than ideal, but ok in some circumstances; however if I leave early enough and get the early train I have loads of time to change at work. This allows me to combine it with my jogging at work-end of the commute and have a shower at work; but it does mean I need to ready my bag for all the various different forms of transport and clothing requirements. And this all stems from having to get home quickly.

And yes, for those who wondered, it does mean I cycle 2 miles to the train station; jog 2 miles to work; jog two miles back; cycle the two miles home; cycle the 5 miles to footie, play for 90 minutes; then cycle the 5 miles back. Then collapse.

Anyhow, I was in two minds yesterday as to whether to go to 5-a-side. The forecast was to rain, however when I got home it actually looked quite decent outside so I decided to go - after all, if it was dry when I was setting out, the worst I could get was half-wet. It started to shower whilst we were playing. Then it got harder. By the time I embarked upon my 30 minute cycle home it was a torrential downpour.

And yet just over a week ago it was the hottest day of the year and I was swimming in the sea in Brighton (albeit dressed as santa).

Last year we had a nice hot week or two in May, but aside from the odd pleasant weekend the rest of summer wasn't far shy of a wash-out. And it was a similar story the year before as well. Most people will have forgotten the nice couple of weeks - that is human nature - we just remember 'not really having a summer'.

It may just be me reflecting on an idillic childhood through rose-tinted glasses where we all spent long, hot and hazy summers on bicycles down by the riverside or contructing any form of shelter that we could out of sun-loungers, clothes horses and dust blankets out of the garage; but I'm sure summers never used to be as damp as this. Well, they did if only because the novelty of the paddling pool appeared for a couple of weeks before the surface was covered in more flies, wasps, spiders and other beasties than hover over the wildebeast in a wildlife documentary; or in order to give the parched, brown grass a slight degree of respite the sprinkler was release upon it (but only when the neighbours were out because you didn't want reporting as being in breach of the hose-pipe ban).

In fact, as little ago as five years I remember in desperation having to buy a fan one lunchtime because the heat in the bedroom was simply unbearable. A few lunchtimes later I had to go out and buy a timer because the noise in the bedroom from the fan was simply unbearable. I haven't had the fan out since.

Where have those hazy, heady days gone where we were unable to work because the sunlight on our desks (or screens) was so bright it practically burnt our hands? When we got in from work and had to change immediately into the least amount of clothing possible whilst sipping on an incredibly cold beverage? When we couldn't sit on the sofa because our sweat would make it sopping and anyway the floor was much cooler? When any hint of a breeze would be welcome relief from air so humid it was practically smothering us?

When it is nice and I am stuck in work, my only concession is to spend lunch out at the park when it is sunny enough. I am very childish about this (and rightly so) and will go all the way to the middle of the grass and lay the full length of my body out. I restrain myself from whipping off my shirt (other workers use the park for an early afternoon ambulation) but otherwise I might as well take with me a tub of soapy water to blow bubbles from a hoop. Only I wasn't able to do this today - the ground was still sodden from yesterday's downpour, the clouds appeared and disappeared faster than the moles in the games in the arcade, and it was occasionally spitting. I am being denied even my tiniest piece of joy in the middle of the day.

Maybe it is global warming, causing it to rain like this. Maybe this is one of the effects of all those nasty gases I am pumping out when I fart. One has to wonder then why it is called global warming if it isn't actually making us any warmer. Global wetting?

Maybe this is also why Englishmen can go out in the midday sun - because it will probably be raining as well.

A house is not a home... Well, it's barely a house to be fair

This week, with getting back from London late last night (well, the pub) and preparing for the arrival of one of my London friends at the weekend, I shall have little time to do any work on the house or garden.

This is a bit annoying, but a side-effect of my galavanting. Tonight, for example, I have spent unpacking from the weekend, uploading photos, tidying up. Thursday night I will spend tidying up, vacuuming, cleaning the bathroom and getting the sofabed ready.

When I bought the house, I bought it as a project. I still don't know whether it was a poisonned chalice or not. On the one hand I have been soending money on the mortgage rather than rent, however on the other I haven't been able to move. It is hardwired into our family (well, except for the sister but i'm sure she has rogue genes) to buy rather than rent. Getting on the property ladder was drilled in as the second most important thing to do after getting a decent job.

When I bought the house it was easily liveable, but in need of a substantial amount of updating. For example, the downstairs showerroom was usable, tiled and looked ok if a little dated. My first job was to install a bathroom in one of the spare bedrooms upstairs. The problem occurs in that I didn't have enough money to finish everything, so for a few years there was a fully useable bath, toilet and sink, but no tiles on the walls, no cupboard boxing in the immersion tank, and no bath panel on. In this state there was no chance I could sell the house without making a loss, in which case I might as well have been paying rent.

And of course that's not the only thing. In order to get the damproofing done, a lot of plaster needed chipping off which also involved stripping off a lot of wallpaper in various rooms (not to mention the removal of a VERY 60s full wall-length fire surround), leaving the walls very unaesthetic, albeit that this is mostly cosmetic. But it's surprising how costly both in money and time plastering, sanding, painting and finishing a room can be. And when you're trying to save for the more costly things such as tiles for the bathroom to at least get that room done, plastering and painting the lounge slips a long way down the list. And then there is the kitchen: as well as needing to update the hob and oven which were at the height of fashion when man was first landing on the moon, the removal of it for dampproofing damaged a lot of the tiling. That room falls as one of the major and costly jobs.

It takes someone special to see the value of a house in this state. It does have value, and the value is currently pretty much the same as what I bought it for - realistically bearing in mind the cost to get the house up to scratch and the value that the house will have then. And I do call it and think of it as home. But it is also a millstone.

A couple of years ago I got made redundant. I could have gone anywhere for a job if I had been renting, just giving one month notice. And again now, I am forced into a lengthy commute because, although I am looking for another job, there aren't any in my area. There are in London, or Manchester, or Birmingham, but unless I want a longer commute still they are currently out of the question.

But the weekends away, though incredibly fun and a nice break, also delay my ability to move on. Maybe I need to reassess my priorities and not spend all my time and money galavanting around the country, just until I have my house sold at least. And who knows, maybe next week i'll get around to starting on the airing cupboard shelves or the bath panel or boxing on the pipes or chipping off dead plaster in the spare room or doing the electrics in the spare room or plastering the ceiling around the new loft hatch or sorting the floorboards out in the hallway...

London Loves II

I'm on the train back from London after the weekend.

These posts are starting to get repetitive perhaps.

It was a fantastic weekend. One of the best yet perhaps. But one not without potential pitfalls, skillfully (or just plain fortunately) avoided.

For the weekend I had two boys on the go. When I say 'boys', clearly they are legal. Boys is just a generic term to apply to any attractive but probably younger than me, lad with whom I want to do bonking. A friend of mine, when I reported that I was seeing my lastest ex, responded with "he shall be shorter than you, younger than you and quite possibly a student". I had to concede on all three, though the height point really is a non-point. At 6'4" it is rare that I wake up with anyone taller than me. I think in my life to date it has only happened twice, and one of those was an entirely accidently, intoxicated, utterly regretable incident with someone who I have remained good friends.

Anyhow, you may recall from my 'single again' posting that I broke up because I let myself get caught being snogged by someone else. Yes, these posts are getting repetitive. But, that 'someone else' was in London on Saturday. All of which would have been all fine and lovely had I not found a boy to snog on Friday night. And, in the true and proper nature of the way the earth turns, both of these boys should be thrown into the same nightclub as myself on Saturday night.

Friday-night-boy I saw in the queue and we had a chat and a snog and then met up again later inside where we had a snog and a chat. Repetitive much. Break-me-up-boy I saw outside. He had, gallantly, chivallrously, left the club to walk a girl to a bus-stop and was not allowed back in the club. So he waited around outside, where I met him and we had a chat and a snog. Repetition again. Even the repetition is getting repetitive.

One of the things that annoys me is that I am incapable of recognising them if it is dark or I am drunk. Both the Friday-night-boy and the break-me-up-boy were pointed out to me - on the second occasion - by my friend, with something along the lines of "isn't that your...", obviously a dig at me and my ubiquity, promiscuity etc. but also strangely giving me some kind of ownership over them, as though they are mine and no-one else's. Which of course they are not. They are many, many, countless other boys with at least as good if not greater claim over the lives of these creatures who obviously aren't allowed to own their own lives, pasts and destinies.

Ultimately I had sex with neither. Perhaps for the best. Though who knows, one day maybe. And then I can disappoint absolutely.

Galavanting

Every once in a while it must be nice, surely, to have a weekend at home?

I'm on the train to London for the weekend. I was in Brighton last weekend. Next weekend I am at home but have a friend visiting. Over the next couple of months I have weekends in Manchester, Weston in Staffordshire, Rotterdam, and both Brighton and London again. And this is without a proper holiday.

I enjoy it. I get around I spend more of my winter weekends at home, so need to enjoy as much of the summer as possible. I love getting away as well, I enjoy seeing different places and although I don't very often take proper holidays, each weekend away feels like a holiday; gives me something to look forward to. And it keeps the trains running I suppose.

I have already waxed about my love of London, and will in due course about Brighton. And I have already regailed you with my weekday routines which enable me to galavante around at weekends with little recourse. Any opportunity I get I course the nation on a journey of some sort to investigate some new place or rekindle some old love.

If I were to go away with less quantity, reduced frequency, it would have to be with greater quality: full weeks at any one time, destinations further, more exotic. Currently I am prevented from experiencing these purely on the basis of the frequency of my mini-jaunts. Whilst they are mini, and relatively localised to Britain; they are most certainly not free. Indeed, to maximise the benefit I feel I have to enjoy these weekend, I have to commit time, energy and expense to them, diverting those same qualities away from extended breaks.

I always feel I can rest when I die. I actually think about resting during the week, but that never happens because of the displacement - or rather concentration - of my routine. But I have now finally conditioned myself to little sleep and rest. Well, except when I turn lazy.

But the expense is not inconsiderate, certainly. In a bizarre contradiction that only I could hold, I manage to convince myself that the trips are few, infrequent, and my equivalent of a holiday and therefore I can enjoy myself with gaye abandon. But, obviously, they are frequent and therefore costly. And the financial burden amounts and depletes any potential holiday funds. A self-fulfilling contradiction.

But it does get me to meet people. Since the end of university my friends have scattered across the nation It gives me the perfect excuse - no, reason - to trek around the far flung regions of the nation to see them again. And annually simply will not suffice. It must be at a minimum frequency of twice a year. No, quarterly. And then the are the regulars, certain annual events to which i have to go; camping trips, music festivals, birthdays, occasions we have just found to regularly drink or any other frippery. Do you know what, I have managed to establish an annual routine. But even on these regular, frequent trips I still manage to find new things to do, new people to meet, something of unbridled fantasy. And that is why. Becuase although the places may be the same, some of the people the same, they are still phenomenal, unique, mine.

And anyway, I can always sleep on the train.