Big brother on the trains

I was smoking and thinking at a quiet Ash Vale station today, hungover from the brilliant officers' commissioning ball at Sandhurst, when the tannoy struck up:

"We would like to remind customers that all SouthWest Trains property is non-smoking"

Embarassed, I looked around for spies but could see none. I shyly abandoned the cigarette on the rails and remained at the trackside with my ponderings. A few minutes later the voice crackled back to life:

"We would like to remind customers not to leave any unattended baggage on the station"

As I turned toward my far-off dinner jacket in amazement a couple who'd seen what happened a few minutes' earlier laughed out loud. They pointed to an ugly SIEMENS CCTV camera further along the platform. Oh honestly! I yelled to the camera, to the puzzlement of those who hadn't been following.

So I got on the train - readers will have to trust I'm not making the next bit up - and sat down ready for a doze. But a girl who'd followed me on was speaking on her phone. Yes (a live voice this time):

"Customers in carriages with a yellow sticker are reminded that use of a mobile phone is not permitted in these areas"

The unfortunate girl blushed and finished off her call. "Unbelievable - it's like Big Brother!" I said. Not knowing my story she ignored me, thinking I was trying to get inside her pants.

I soon closed my eyes, hoping sleep would get me before depression. But some soul elsewhere in the train had obviously made himself too comfortable. The voice came back:

"Customers are asked to refrain from resting their feet on the seats. Thank you for your co-operation"

The world is increasingly appalling; I might have to start blogging again.

If not quite love...

My mentally handicapped cousin C got married on Friday. Her new husband is slow too, as were the best man (C’s ex) and one or two of the guests, making it quite funny, in a naughty kind of way.

The registrar began proceedings unaware of the couple’s specialness and had to quickly adjust her delivery into little snippets:

“To love…”
“Te ruv…”
“and respect”
“argh spec”

The speeches were inevitably hilarious, and we all wore huge grins throughout. Fortunately the happy couple are blessed with an endearing self-awareness that made one feel unobliged to pretend it was a ‘normal’ wedding.

And it really wasn’t. Apparently, like many such partnerships, this had been all but arranged by the local mental disability charity. C and S were of an age and situation that meant they could be partially ‘released’ into civilian life in each other’s care.

A heart warmer, all told, the only drawback for me being an absence of intriguing female wedding guests.

Getting to know the neighbours

My block of flats had a summer garden party last night and I thought I'd go along, if only to meet the pretty-but-moody girl who's moved in below.

I'd made a couple of elaborate salads for the buffet in order to gain acceptance with the other residents (many of whom would undoubtedly remember my infamous housewarming party last year). Good move: I was taken immediately under the wing of the gay couple organising the show, and plied with free booze and great gossip.

After a few Pinot Grigios one of the silver-haired queens, Karl, recounted a story from the days when a retired sergeant major named MacKenzie inhabited our square.

The bigoted MacKenzie enters the gate one day to see Karl and partner Adam in some kind of embrace. Appalled, he harrumphs: "We had the parking fiasco, then the pigeons... now we've got the poofs!"

In campest tones Karl drawls "But my dear, the three "p"s, how wonderful!".

And just as the old codger is about to explode there is a bark of "MACKENZIE! Is that YOU again?!". All turn to the corner of the square where, fully naked at his living room window, stands a household name Gay Historian - then a resident. From this public vantage GH unleashes a storm of furious wit and belittlement on the hapless MacKenzie who has no choice but to skulk back to his flat, humiliated.

And then there's Louise, the schizophrenic old lady who frequently hounds my poor flatmate about his "unsightly" bicycle. Last night's news was that some urchins had been drinking in the square, so Louise had marched outside to give them a telling off.

Urchin: "Fuck off grandma, yeah?"

80 yr-old Louise [screaming]: "No sunshine, you fuck off, right out of my square you horrible little cunt!" The kids fled.

Apparently she knew the Krays!

The evening ended in the marquee, me sharing a spliff with the poofs and a couple of randoms. I knew I'd drunk too much when I heard myself asking Karl's boyfriend if he was "the pusher or the sewer" (eh?) and had to go home where, gurning over the basin, I managed to pull the mirror unit off the wall: smash! The vomiting began and my flatmate came home to the sight of me semi-conscious on the bathroom floor, surrounded by mirror glass. He and his girlfriend accepted it with good grace. I think I need a holiday: really ought to go visit my sis in Greece, although she's a bit of a boozer herself.

The Jubilee Line...

...is where it's at these days!

Awful story

A friend recounts an incident involving his drunk friend Chris.

Chris is smashed and runs into the club toilet, bursting in the first available cubicle in order to puke. Such is his state that he doesn't immediately register the presence of a big man having a shit on the toilet. The vomit flies all over the fellow.

Chris sees this guy's face turn beetroot as he looks at Chris, down at the vomit on his lap, and up again. In blind panic, Chris punches him in the face and runs for it.

Poor victim; what must he have thought? His life probably changed in some way...

ah bollocks

Hey London Bachelor,

Nice to see you at the bbq, good that the gig was, good.

Sorry for just replying now – been out of the office for most of the week.

Don’t think I’ll make it unfortunately as I try not to head out too much on weeknights – but if they’re playing on a weekend again sometime, that could be fun. Otherwise, come Harry Potter with us if you like.

Cheers,
Aussie Big Shades

with us? US??? a straightforward snub or could there be some hard-to-get shit in there? ach, who am i kidding.

Brave New World

I arrived back from Belgium and the entire regular clientele of the York was squished into the terrace area outside, while the bar itself was deserted save a dozen shandy-drinking softies.

Quiet satisfaction pervaded in place of smoke: these new customers had successfully annexed pub life from the English national experience - and they knew it.

As we benighteds went up to order we received smiley looks from women whose jeans came bosom-high, their comb-over husbands hardly more bashful.

Wasn't this a nice change, to be able to come for a nice drink and not go home smelling of smoke!

In us they saw a sorry yesterday, in them we glimpsed tomorrow.

Prediction of the evening: outdoor gas heaters will be banned by 2009.

Two pick me ups

I've never heard the word mojo used outside of blogs but anyway, if you've mislaid whatever it is, try these:

- Bit of A Blur by a hilarious guy from Blur I'd hardly heard of. Best rattled through on a Sunday afternoon in the pub, with Abbot Ale.

- Boeing Boeing. Farce best enjoyed sober, after work, with your mum. I am grateful for my mum; must definitely tell her that one day.

Not keeping up appearances

Wiping the vomit from the corner of my mouth with a Rizla paper last night, eyes still watering, I saw that a tramp had witnessed everything. Happily i'd managed to puke neatly into a discarded paint tin but really - vomiting one's expensive meal in front of a tramp is too naughty.

So I dropped a £20 shame payment into his delighted lap as we passed and as soon as we were beyond earshot my friend Caspar flipped.

"Dude! What is wrong with you! We've got to talk about this man - something's wrong. Don't go to Wales. I'll come round, cook you dinner, we'll talk this through."

"Whoah Caspar, I'm fine. OK perhaps having a minor moment but no crisis!"

"No way - you have to tell me what's wrong. I'll call you tomorrow"

Shit - he was really worried! Caspar is someone I've known since school (in fact he's a close friend of Blond Brainbox's ex, but that's another story) and he suffers pretty frequent depressions during some of which I've acted as advisor. The idea of having him counsel me was not something I've ever considered, indeed would ever consider, even if i thought i needed help, which I don't. But it was weird seeing him concerned and eager to help like that; perhaps he saw a chance to repay something.

So back in the office I am:

- touched at his concern; but
- somewhat annoyed at myself for exposing what i admit may have been a slight chink in the armour; and
- of course, mediaevally hungover.

Honestly...

The exuberance of my where-shall-we-meet email appeared to have frightened Blonde Brainbox off our evening drink, gladly planned last friday over the phone:

"Can we do lunch on Thursday instead - I know it's not as exciting but things are getting mega stressful before my trip."

With leaden heart I said OK - lunch sounds great, how about Wagamama?

And she never replied!

I know girls get certain behavioral privileges, but really? Whatever happened to "something's come up can we do it another time"? Perhaps that's just as rubbish, I dunno.

Whatever to do?

Last night I dreamt I was walking around in public without clothes - I haven't had one of those dreams since school! I don't think I was very bothered about passer-by's opinions this time, I just wanted somewhere private to take a piss.

Well, I woke up from this at 3am - anguished - and for the next few hours lay in bed wondering what the hell was up.

In my grog I think I decided there was some secret corner of me that I'd never shared with anyone and that all I needed was someone to trust with it, and that thence onwards my life would be complete, and where is this person as I'm fed up of waking up in semi-drunken sweats?

My sober self congratulates the sleepy psychoanalyst - but can I have some practical tips next time?

For example, what do I do about Blonde Brainbox (the only girl I've properly fancied since the Big One), who recently - five months after our crazy one-night stand - texted me with a mildly suggestive reference to the hairbands she left behind, and subsequently agreed to meet for a drink some time after her exams finished (on the 14th - today!)?

What is with her? She hardly even replied when I emailed her a specially-composed comic-romantic ballad on Valentine's Day - except to say "that was the nicest email to receive". OK so you think I'm merely sweet, fine... but then why are you texting me now?

My yen for self-destruction means we will inevitably meet for a drink at some stage, her permitting, and should it go badly this page will bear a full report.

London: rubbish

Last night a female ex-colleague called and we went and did some drinking in the City. She is fairly attractive and drew a few purrs from my friends.

We always got on pretty well at work and I have of course considered whether I'd "go there" myself. But, as we drunkenly exchanged stories of our recent opposite-sex travails, I remembered how different we were.

For her and a million other Londoners, life is Seeing Friends, Visiting Museums, Walking in Parks and Eating in Restaurants. But for me - to sound like an arse - it is travelling, nature, adventure and pondering.

My soulmate will feel as out of place in London as me. She will cringe at the mock-culture of London's street festivals. She will be nauseated by the Gü marketing campaign ('puds' - what the fuck?). The idea of having someone wash her hands for a tip will amaze her (does this happen in the Ladies? is the handwasher always black?).

Every day perhaps, like me, she will squeeze onto the tube and think "What. Am. I. Doing??"

Charles or Sebastian?

My relationship with Best Pal was under discussion last night in the Slaughtered Lamb where a gas leak had forced us out of the cellar bar - gig cancelled - and into our cups.

BP's artistic, educated, female [yeah!] work colleagues were claiming he & I had a "romantic friendship" going on. The big question was who was Brideshead Revisited's Charles Ryder in the pairing, and who Sebastian Flyte. While BP apparently exhibited Flytesque naughtiness, I was easy to imagine treasuring Aloysius. These smart early-thirties women just can't resist taking the piss!

So anyway, one of them has taken a 26 year old toy boy, another is half-way to snagging one, and the third declares herself intrigued by the idea. And yes, I increasingly fantasise about toyboyhood myself.

No doubt Freud would have something to say about the fascination-with-older-women 'phase' guys my age go through. It may also be to do with the fact that girls chill out a bit towards men as they get older - we become benign idiots rather than devil's spawn - and Being a Nice Guy starts working again after years of irrelevance. The pressure to mis-sell yourself like a 90s pension is off and you can score as the person you are...

That's probably all bollocks but has me thinking - how about a 34 year old for my next "romantic friendship"?

La France

Without even a road map angry Best Pal and I roared down to Amiens – appropriately crossing the Somme for a night of heinous destruction.

“Ils ont commande une bouteille de rouge et puis… immediatement… un grand pichet de blanc!” our nervous waiter reported to his colleague as we installed ourselves on a table overlooking the river into which, 5 hours later, I would be vomiting like a first-year student.

We eventually staggered home at 2ish (via a random Of Montreal gig) bellowing tunes from the Nutcracker across the sleeping town. Classic Brits Abroad.

Next day we headed to Lille where our hotel had a most charming old-fashioned wooden lift. In a bid to amuse ourselves at the expense of the surly proprietor – who clearly thought we were unwelcome bottomistes – BP struck camp poses in this lift while I snapped him at various angles with my phone. The Gallic tut this prompted from M. le Patron was pretty special.

And then back in time for flatmate’s gig in Camden last night. Not at all the head-clearing break I needed, but neanmoins un plaisir!

Plenty more gags to report from the weekend but will have to wait till I've recovered.

Niceness

After an office lunch yesterday a bubbly European translator emails round some photos she's taken at the restaurant.

Me: "Good ones those..."

She: "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh, see ?! You are actually very photogenic [smiley] I’m glad you like these pics as I actually got some comments from people who are not happy with the way they look"

Me: "ah - was thinking from a humorous perspective rather than aesthetic!"

She:"Really?! Well I think they are aesthetically good [smiley] Hehe !!"

Me: "Ha ok very kind..!"

She: "Very kind ?! Very kind ?! … I’m not being kind!!! Just objective [smiley] … 110%"

Pottiness aside, she's very sweet, if boys can use that condemnatory word. For example she couldn't understand why I was gloomy the other week (it was bog-standard black dog) so she assumed it was related to the foreign departure of my sister for the summer, something I'd briefly mentioned. I had days of concern and reassurance ("you can go and visit her soon"; "have you heard from her"; "I know what it's like being away from family" etc) and I hadn't the heart to say my sister's trip was no big deal.

I could never get seriously involved with someone so nice and uncomplicated. Give me complex AND clever AND good.

So to France tomorrow on a last minute mini-mission with chum - I can smell a particular escargot broth already.

Nigerian Lagers

Overheard in the pub:

"Can I have four Nigerian lagers and a glass of red wine ta love"

[...]

"Oi what you doing pouring Carlsberg, I said Nigerian lagers - that's Guinness, he he!"

!!

RE:FW: Help find Madeleine

thanks - i hadn't even heard about this.

yeah just thinking about it i nipped over to portugal the other day for an after-work jog in the mark warner praia de luz complex and there was this old chap with a lop-sided toupee...

i didn't think anything of it at the time but... oh. geez if you hadn't forwarded this to me!

Drink-recover; rpt x 2

Friday night's party was not a houseparty after all: just another City bar piss-up. A nice-looking girl showed affection for a while but male politics stopped play.

Saturday's innocence-restorer: making elderflower cordial from the neighbouring pub's tree.

Saturday night's party was not in Mayfair after all: it was in Chelsea. After a slow evening we repaired to one of those Braying Toff places. Very boring until a randy but hmmm lady colleague suggested we shared a taxi home. She saw the panic in my eyes and reflected that we did not actually live in the same part of London.

Sunday's innocence-restorer: Dad's Army best-of DVD. Fraser, Godfrey and Jones dying their hair black - the greatest episode?

Last night was pretty wrong too. Whom I will call Best Pal for the sake of narrative came round and we got smashed over the apparent break up of his 4-year relationship.

Next weekend is earmarked for a renewing trip to the Lake District.

Heathenry over health

Another weekend looms... Like the past few it has been earmarked for a renewing trip to the Lake District; like the past few it will inevitably fall to booze.

Friday night my flatmate's girlfriend's friend is throwing a houseparty which is being sold as ladysome.

Saturday night an office pal is hosting a cocktail party in Mayfair. Mayfair! Not my scene, but this time colleague Rhuna is bringing a friend. "Maybe she is something for you?" was the emailed suggestion...

And hill-walking: sometimes I come back all invigorated, but occasionally it makes no difference. At least the effects of disgraceful alcohol inhalation are mappable in advance - and there's no 5-hour drive.

Crap effort

IT technicienne was back in this morning. I excelled myself.

Pass 1
me: "what's wrong with it this time?"
she: "what's wrong?"
me: "er, with the computer"
she: [smiling sympathetically] "nothing's wrong, nothing at all"


Pass 2 [as she's waiting for the lift]
me: "see you next time"
she: "mm-hmm..."


Rubbish! If only i had a proper excuse to speak to her. Perhaps i shall lobby the boss for a Mac...

Friends in crisis

Me and my best pal have been discussing some of our friends in the pub.

- Jake: last weekend guzzled 15 pills, 2 grams of coke, plus the usual civil drugs. Still having panic attacks.
- Sarah: in tears all week, rages, random disappearances
- Mark: gambling addiction, weed addiction
- Laurie: Trust fund, no motivation, unemployable, depressed
- Stav: No trust fund, no motivation, unemployable, depressed
- Julian: Brain completely gone - drugs
- Steven: lonely
- Joe: depressed
- Dom: lonely, depressed
- Richard: dead - cause unknown

(Names changed.)

I think a modern westerner's happiness rests on three pillars: good friends, an OK occupation/preoccupation and the love of another.

Going through this list of embattled 20-somethings, almost none have (or had, in one case) all three things. Few even have two - surely the minimum long-term requirement. Most just have one, and you can't get by on that forever.

In other news, as they say, I just got an email from a multi-layered girl with whom I've had a strange friendship for the past year or so. It was in verse.

Time for bed.

The Weekend

Friday: Flatmate's gig. Well - a girl tried to get me dancing with her! But she didn't look too good and I straight-batted. Twice this happened, and in front of her complicit friends. I empathised because I embarrass myself in that way frequently. And us male beggars can hardly be choosers, can we?

Saturday: Friend's girlfriend's birthday party. No girls. Declined MDMA in anticipation of ....

Sunday: Early start, walked along the course of the river F1eet, from Highgate to Blackfriars. You can peer down at it from time to time through storm drains. It reaches the Thames beneath Blackfriars Bridge, ignominiously, via a spout.

Monday: Nerded away at my website. Watched This is England - OK if violent.

Service with a blessing

I sent the site over for review.

Blessings
Debbie

----- Original Message -----
From: xxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: info@wisechoice.net
Sent: Sunday, May 06, 2007

Subject: request for site to be blocked

hi can you please block this website: http://in.solit.us/ it's full of pornographic downloads. Thanks xxxxxxxxx (username: xxxxxx)

Explore the seven wonders of the world Learn more!

MySpace as tear-jerker

A guy in a bygone circle of friends died yesterday. He was universally liked, not least by me who only really knew him through drinking.

His MySpace page is now a litany of tributes to which I just added. I hope my comment wasn't too mawkish, I don't think so. Anyway it obligated me to pour a gin and tonic in his name. Not three, necessarily, but I doubt he'd have disapproved.

The "last login" date was shortly before he went, and the first of a flood of messages a couple of days later. A particular cartoon sits beneath his profile picture, making it all rather too much.

Whom the Gods love eh.

Masturbation Offsets & Porn Blockers

I have downloaded my final online porn video, thanks to a Christian company that puts smut irreversably beyond one's reach. The company was founded by a man called Ned who claims his business proves that "what the enemy meant for evil, God will turn to the good for those that love Him". Hmm well I'm not really sure about that Ned but thanks for providing the service.

In an accompanying gesture I made a £250 donation to Women's Aid.

And thus, hopefully:

• 1 small step for the emotional toddler
• 2 small steps for womankind
  

The curse of Onan?

Or have I touched dog shit and not washed my hands? Or is it the hangover? Or am I just getting old?

Sometimes my eyes just fail. I was walking down the corridor and a colleague was stood in a doorway staring in my direction. But I couldn't tell if she was smiling or looking behind me or at me or what - everything was blurred. So I half-looked and half-smiled to hedge my bets.

On last night's tube I was checking out a small, beautiful, frowning girl. It developed into such naughty eyeballing I almost cracked up. She likely inspires a lot of hopeful messages to the London Paper lovestruck feature.

And there's a nice IT technicienne who came into work today. I thought about trying to amuse her but, right under the bosses nose, it would have taken more chutzpah than I possess.

What a piece of work is a man

Savaged by Mariella in this week's Observer Magazine...

There's something questionable about going to the UK's leading man-basher for relationship advice but I've always been a glutton for punishment.

A nice headline - the OM subeditors must have saved it up for a true villain. Well I'm not as bad as they imagine.

Ouch though. Emotional Toddler.