superlative

I'm moving this blog

2010-05-21T10:59:00.004+01:00

I have finally got sick of Blogger's general ugliness and clunkiness and lack of customizability(-ness), and so I am moving this blog as of today.

My new blog will be Wordpress-powered, and will have its own web address. Unfortunately I was unable to register www.superlative.co.uk because some bastard has already taken it, so I have instead had to settle for:

www.superlativity.co.uk

Which isn't a real word, I know, but it will have to do. In the future I plan to develop the site to be more than just a blog of my life, but to have some of the other things that I work on or that interest me on it as well.

So, for the three or four of you that actually read this blog, if you have it bookmarked anywhere, please update the link to the one above. The RSS feed, if you subscribe that way, is www.superlativity.co.uk/?feed=rss2.

I'm not planning on making any more posts on this Blogger address, unless I have an absolute disaster with Wordpress, so hopefully this will be the last one here. I'll see you soon at the new site!

Thank you so much for reading and commenting, it really does mean a lot to me.

Iron Man 2 and The Reader

2010-05-10T15:13:00.015+01:00

I have seen and enjoyed two films recently. Some people might say they are quite different, but I think they have a lot in common: one is about a 40-year old superhero in a robot suit; the other is about a young boy's relationship with a semi-paedophile former Nazi. You can see why I might get the two confused in my mind, so just because it's easier I shall review them in one post.

Iron Man 2

Some people would call this a flagrant and needless attempt to extract more money from the Iron Man franchise after an initially successful film. Indeed, when watching the sequel I did find an awful lot of similarities with the first film that made me think "was there really any point in making this?"

Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, is once again challenged by someone using a hijacked version of his own design and must battle it out and prove his suit is better than the other guy's. There is a vague plot slung around the whole thing, and in this second film Scarlett Johansson prances about in a skin-tight outfit to distract you from the obvious similarities with the first one.

Originality aside though, I did enjoy it, and it was a perfectly acceptable means of being entertained for a couple of hours. The fight scenes are quite cool, the special effects are polished, and Gwyneth Paltrow is reasonably amusing as the unfortunately-named Pepper Potts. Oh and that funny arm-robot that's a bit like a scutter is back too.

It's not amazing cinema, but it's better than being stabbed in the face. I even quite liked Robert Downey Jr in it, despite him not being my favourite actor, as he plays the smug richboy character of Tony Stark quite accurately.

My verdict: B- (not a disaster, but could do better )

The Reader

The Reader, on the other hand, was really really good, and I thoroughly recommend it to anyone. It's not very often that I find myself transfixed by a film, and then left pondering it for ages afterwards.

I'll try not to give too much away, but it is essentially the story of a 15-year old German boy who embarks on an affair with an older woman. They lose contact, and years later while at Law School, he finds that his former lover is a defendant in a trial brought against Nazi war criminals.

The story is well-written and the acting is superb. I found Kate Winslet's character Hanna believable, and quite disturbingly touching when you realise what she is accused of. I think that the conflict the audience feels towards her is a testament to the cleverness of the story and her quality as an actress, and the answers that the film doesn't give you allow you room to ponder and interpret it as you wish. In a way you're drawn into the mindset of the male character, who experiences the same mixture of emotions as he tries to reconcile the woman he thought he knew with the woman he encounters later in life.

Quite rightly, Kate Winslet won an Oscar for it, and I also enjoyed the performance of David Kross, her gratuitously naked young lover. And before you say "doesn't that make you a bit of a paedo?", the actor wasn't actually 15 when he made it, he was about 18, so that makes it alright if I had a bit of a look.

My verdict: A (polished and intriguing)

Birthday booze and 30 looms

2010-05-05T09:35:00.010+01:00

I had a really nice birthday weekend and seemed to pack loads into it. I also managed to avoid any particularly bad hangovers, which for me is a massive success and meant I could actually attend my whole birthday weekend and not spend it with a cushion over my head on the sofa.

I came home on Friday to find that Chris had stuck balloons up in our building's front passage, on our front door, and then around the living room, and had laid out my cards and presents all nicely for me, which was lovely. He's much better at making a fuss of me on my birthday than I am of him. I opened all my stuff with a nice glass of wine, and then we had dinner WITHOUT THE TELLY ON because it was that much of a special occasion.

Our friends joined us later on in the evening for some drinkies and some Singstar, which was a nice easy thing to do and meant I didn't have to leave the house. I think everyone enjoyed themselves, there were about nine of us in the end, which is good because I know Singstar isn't everyone's cup of tea. It was unfortunately rather loud though and we ended up with the neighbours banging on the wall at about 11.45pm. Well, in fact it was mostly one friend who was rather loud because he has the loudest voice ever and thinks that singing means shouting, so giving him a microphone to do it into was possibly not the best idea.

I actually felt really bad, as the neighbours have never banged on the wall before in the six years we've lived there, and I know how tetchy I am about other people making noise. I did turn it down after that though, and most people went off home about 45 minutes later anyway. It left me slightly concerned that our Eurovision party in four weeks might not go down very well with them, but that's normally a bit quieter because it's watching telly (not shouting into a sound system) and it's much earlier in the evening.

I had to get up a reasonable time on Saturday to go to the Children's Parade and take photos for Chris. He's a teacher and he was in the parade, I should point out, it's not that he just likes photos of children. Anyway, the combination of my slight hangover headache and 2,000 children with drums and whistles did not mix very well, but apart from that the parade was quite fun.

And on Saturday night, as planned we went to Pop Kraft at the Hanbury. We took a couple of friends with us who haven't been before, and I'm always a bit nervous when we do that because Boogaloo Stu's nights have a rather.... unusual feel to them. They're fabulous, obviously, and I love them to bits, but the very first time you go you can't help thinking "What the fuck is going on?"

Our friends really enjoyed it anyway, so that was good. I made a cake:

And Chris made a balloon dog:

And then on Sunday, as if all that weren't enough, we had the most GORGEOUS Sunday lunch at the PV. They do a great roast there, and it's just what you need when you're a bit hungover and can't be bothered to cook.

So that was my birthday weekend, and it was great. I've also seen Iron Man 2 and The Reader this weekend, but I might have to write about those separately. They were both good, but obviously in very different ways.

Now that the dust has settled though, I actually have to consider the notion that I am 29 and have entered my last year before I'm 30. How the fuck did that happen?? 29, at least when I was 10 years younger, has always sounded so OLD. But now that I'm there, I don't feel old remotely, and it makes my age feel rather inappropriate.

I don't feel any different to how I felt when I left uni really. When I look back on my university years, yes I was much younger in my mind then, but since I left and started work I feel like I've psychologically stayed the same. Yet somehow nearly seven years have drifted past, which is actually almost twice the length of my whole degree, and that just sounds insane. I know I sound like I'm 60, but where the hell does the time go??

Oh well, it could be worse. I have a nice life, and a job that pays pretty well, and a lovely flat, and I can go out clubbing and go on holiday and drink booze and more or less do whatever I want. So I'm not complaining; I know I'm very lucky. But I'd be even luckier if my stupid age had stopped at 24 instead of stubbornly marching onwards.

It has made me think a little though that maybe there are things I would like to have done before I'm 30, and if that's the case I really ought to get on and do them. I don't know what they are of course, but I'm going to have a think about it. And then procrastinate and not do them, and pretend I never really wanted to do them anyway.

A catch up on some political stuff

2010-04-29T10:23:00.010+01:00

I haven't really blogged about the election campaign since it started in earnest. That's not because I haven't been thinking about it, but rather because I've been talking about it and watching it on the television and tweeting about it to such an extent that it was all starting to get a bit much for me. Even I, who am more interested in politics than most and try to be well-informed, have been flagging at times in the face of the relentless onslaught of the campaign, and the conflict it creates when you discuss it with people.

But anyway, we are now just one week away from election day, so I thought I'd catch up a little bit on the stuff I've been thinking about and where I think my vote will be going (at the moment) when I reach the polling booth.

The debates

I have watched the two leaders' debates with interest, and will be watching the third one tonight. I'm so pleased that they have held them, because it has really changed some of the feel of this election campaign for me, and it seems to have sparked some additional political interest amongst people who normally wouldn't care.

I feel that the format is rather dry, which is unfortunate, and I blame this mostly on the fact that the audience aren't allowed to clap or respond in any way to what they say. What's the point of having a mute audience? It just means it's the three of them talking to camera for long periods, like a party political. It gets much more interesting once they start debating properly and responding to each other, instead of just rattling off pre-prepared answers.

I felt that Nick Clegg was the clear winner of the first debate, based partly on what he said and partly on the way it changed public opinion of the Liberal Democrats. I felt he was always going to have the most to gain from it, as he was suddenly depicted on an equal footing with the other two leaders and people had to actually listen to what he has to say. And what happened in the polls once the three candidates were giving an equal platform? Suddenly it's a three-horse race, with all the parties polling around the 30% mark. That came as no surprise to me at all.

The second debate had no clear winner for me; not because Nick Clegg did much worse, but because David Cameron and Gordon Brown did much better and seemed to settle into the format much more. It was a little bit samey towards the end when they starting talking about similar issues to the previous week, but it was interesting nonetheless.

Stupid party political broadcasts

One of the things I really hate during any political campaign is scaremongering and negative campaigning. I realise that they're always going to do it, but it annoys me intensely because it detracts from the real issues and is insulting to the intelligence of the electorate.

There have been a couple of party politicals in the last two weeks that have riled me up in particular though.

The first was an appalling Labour advert featuring Eddie Izzard, that made me think much much less of him. In it, he talked about the Conservatives (why bother talking about Labour policies, eh?) and said "These are Thatcher's children! Be afraid, be very afraid!"

Fuck. Right. Off.

Seriously, how long are Labour planning on flogging Thatcher's corpse (interesting image) as a reason to vote for them? She was in power THIRTY years ago. It's fucking ridiculous! And contrary to the opinion of most uninformed socialists, she wasn't the worse thing ever to happen to this country anyway. A modernised economy and inflation reduced from 18% to 4% during her time in office? Yes, DISASTROUS. Such a terrible effect on the country that she was re-elected TWICE with whopping majorities and therefore had a clear mandate for what she was doing? Yes, that really shows how the people hated her. Hated her so much in fact that even after the Tories deposed her, they STILL got re-elected the next time around. It's not like everyone went running straight to Labour, desperate to be free from Maggie's claws, is it?

So anyway, I found that advert patronising, childish and irrelevant.

The second party political that's pissed me off is a recent one from the Conservatives, styled as a fictional advert from the Hung Parliament Party. Seriously, it looked like crap, like a GCSE Media Studies project, where it had been so hastily thrown together once the Conservatives realised a hung parliament was a distinct possibility. And it had a stupid noose logo everywhere, despite the fact that a noose would imply a HANGED parliament, not a hung one.

But leaving aside the generally shitty aesthetic aspects of it, the content was what really annoyed me.

A hung parliament would be undemocratic and would mean the country was governed via deals done behind closed doors, they said. It won't be the utopia of cooperation some people would have you believe, they said.

So they're saying that the present system is MORE democratic are they? A system where only 60% of the electorate vote, and then a party is installed as a majority government having received only 35% of that? That's 21% of the electorate backing the party that gains power, who then get to pick whoever they like to fill the cabinet and can spend five years legislating pretty much with impunity, even in the face of large-scale public opposition to any particular plan. How democratic is that?

And on the question of cooperation, other countries seem to manage perfectly well with coalition governments, including Germany: the strongest economy in Europe. The problem actually is that our two main parties are very used to having all or nothing, and they don't normally have to play nicely with the other children. They don't have to negotiate or compromise to get legislation through, they can just force it through on the strength of a questionable public mandate and a large majority in the Commons. A hung parliament doesn't necessarily mean an ineffective one, and the only way the Conservatives can guarantee there would be no cooperation is if they're saying they won't cooperate with any other party.

Anyway, I can feel I'm getting more and more riled up as I write this, so I'm going to leave it there. My final point will be to describe where my voting intentions lie at present, so I can compare that with next week.

At the moment I am voting Liberal Democrat. I would like to see them gain a much larger share of the seats in parliament, perhaps around 100, and for them to exercise that power to bring about political reform.

I really, really wanted the Conservatives to convince me and win my vote, and I gave them ample opportunity. But at this stage, my principal feeling is that I can't trust them. This is based particularly around the issue of gay rights, but has broader implications than that, and relates to the fact that members of the Conservative party don't actually seem to agree with the official line we are fed by David Cameron. There have been too many homophobic views expressed, and it has been enough to put me off. How would these MPs actually vote in the Commons on gay rights issues, if this is how they feel? What value is the official party line if the party's members don't actually support it? And that lack of trust and credibility on gay issues has seeped across and eroded my support for them in other areas, and my whole opinion of them.

My main disagreements with the Liberal Democrats are on issues such as the euro. I don't want us to join the euro, I don't think that we need it or that it presents sufficient benefits to us. However, as the LibDem pledge is to hold a referendum on the issue 'when the conditions are right', I can live with that. If we have a referendum, I'll vote no. And if most people vote yes, I'll just learn to live with it. It's a democracy after all; if that's what the majority of people want, then so be it.

So that's my political update and I'll shut up now. Roll on election day because it's all starting to get rather exhausting.

Birthday shopping success

2010-04-27T15:06:00.004+01:00

Having said to everyone that I don't know what I want for my birthday, and I don't need anything, and don't bother wasting your money if I don't want anything, I actually had a highly successful trip to the shops on Saturday and bought myself LOADS of cool stuff.

The coolest acquisition was these fucking excellent shoes:

I'm wearing them right now and I looooooooooove them. They are Onitsuka Tigers, and I've wanted some for ages but always decided they were too expensive. They're not too expensive when I'm not paying though! For some reason I really like the pattern on the side (most Onitsukas have it), and I really like the colours on these too.

I also bought Amelie on DVD, which I have seen quite a few times but which I really like. It'll also be good for my French to watch it again too, I must be getting pretty rusty by now. I haven't read anything in French or Italian for ages and I know I'd be a bit tongue-tied if I tried to speak them now. In fact, some people who are only occasional readers of my blog may not realise that I actually have a degree in French and Italian and am supposedly fluent, because obviously it doesn't really come up very often when you spend your days pottering around doing (English) websites. I'm not fluent any more anyway, certainly not in Italian, although I could probably make an attempt at French and not sound too stupid.

Anyway, as well as Amelie I also bought Little Miss Sunshine, which I LOVE. I watched it the other night, I couldn't wait until my birthday to see it again. The little girl in it is just SO sweet, and the people are all such fuck ups, and the ending is just hilarious.

So yes I'm pleased with my DVD purchases.

AND on top of that, I bought three t-shirts. So not bad really! It's a nice feeling to come home clutching lots of shopping bags and knowing you've got lots of nice new things.

My plans for my actual birthday have been a bit last-minute (because I refused to decide what to do), but on Friday (my actual birthday) I'm now having people over to ours for booze and SingStar, and then we've got some friends coming to stay on Saturday and we're going to go clubbing and be entertained by Boogaloo Stu at Pop Kraft.

So it should be good hopefully. I hope very much to keep my drinking in check and not get carried away like I usually do, so that I don't suffer horribly the next day and end up spending my birthday weekend in bed or with my face in the toilet. That would be rubbish and would annoy me, so I must MUST remember to stop drinking at a sensible hour.

Will post some pictures of the weekend if any of them are stimulating enough.

In your FACE, Sony Ericsson

2010-04-21T14:50:00.005+01:00

I fixed it!!!

This is an update to my post from yesterday about Chris' shitty broken Sony Ericsson.

I looked at it again last night, as I said, and tried the Phone Repair function that is part of its program on my PC again. It had already failed to repair it several times on Monday, so I thought it was a bit of a long-shot last ditch attempt, but I had suspected that the reason it was failing was that the battery wasn't lasting long enough each time for it to wipe and reload the software before the phone switched off.

It was difficult to charge the phone though, because it seemed to refuse to charge for more than 10 minutes at a time before all its lights went off and it looked suspiciously like it was ignoring the power input. So in the end I kept unplugging and replugging it every time the lights went off until I decided it might have enough power stored up to give it a go.

And it worked! I was SO surprised, as normally these things never do anything. It successfully downloaded the newest version of the software from Sony Ericsson, accessed the phone in some weird Flash drive mode, wiped everything (this is the point where it kept failing and I thought I might have actually made the phone worse than before), and then shoved the software back in before it ran out of power.

And now the phone is up and running again! Yes it has lost all of its previous data and phone numbers, but that ship sailed the minute it packed in on the plane anyway.

AND we won't have to pay anything getting it fixed, or mess about sending it off for repair. And that's probably all the repair person would have done anyway, so it would have been a total rip off.

So yay me!

One thing I forgot to mention before was that I am APPALLED by the new 'repair under warranty' system that Orange seem to be operating. When we went to the Orange shop and the guy agreed it needed to go off for repair, he gave Chris a card for a repair company who he said were now handling all their repairs. But in order to send it off to them for assessment and repair, even under warranty, you have to pay the company a £15 handling fee! How is that even legal? If it's broken and under warranty, it should be fixed at the expense of the retailer or manufacturer, surely? So we weren't very happy about that at all.

But anyway, fuck it, it's fixed now and it didn't cost anything, so repairmob.com and Sony Ericsson and Orange can all suck my balls. They'll have to form an orderly queue though.

FINGERS CROSSED it will remain fixed and not screw itself up again. My C510 lasted without error for a year after it had its software upgraded, so I'm hoping this will be the same.

I shall be basking in my own smugness until such time as it breaks again anyway :-)

Stupid Sony Ericsson AGAIN

2010-04-20T09:35:00.006+01:00

If you have been reading my blog for a while, you might remember that last year I had some issues with my new Sony Ericsson phone. 'Some issues' is probably an understatement actually, as its software decided to completely fuck itself up and render the phone inoperable.

After some internet searching, it transpired that this was a not uncommon problem with phones using that version of Sony Ericsson's software, and that the only solution was to have Orange send it back to the manufacturer to be wiped and the new version of the software installed. This I did, and I lost all my numbers and it was annoying, but the phone at least worked again until I replaced it last month. Well, I say it worked, but that was only with some bits of paper jammed in next to the battery to stop it from switching off all the time, in another apparently characteristic problem with Sony Ericssons.

Anyway, shortly after my phone woes, Chris decided that he liked the tariff I was on with Orange, and he also wanted a 3G phone like I had, so off we toddled and bought him a nice new Sony Ericsson W595. As I mentioned in my previous post on this subject, that phone also had the randomly-turning-off problem, but as I didn't know about the bit of paper solution at the time we had to take it back and get it replaced immediately after we bought it. After that it was fine.

Except that after that it is NOT fine, stupid stupid me for possibly thinking that it would be. Because what has happened? The software has fucked his phone as well! As we boarded our flight to New York and he was checking his texts before switching the phone off, up popped, to my horror, a funny error message: "Insert correct SIM". Erm... OK, it's still got the same SIM in it.

Maybe it's got some dust in it. We'll just take the SIM out and put it back in and it'll be fine. No, no that's not done it. Well we'll just leave it switched off and then charge it up when we get to New York and it'll probably sort itself out.

Plug it in in New York. "Unable to charge. Use only a Sony Ericsson battery." Now WHERE have I seen that message before..?

I can't fucking BELIEVE it. What kind of faulty crap are Sony Ericsson producing?

So I bought my C510, and it broke. I got it back, and it still wasn't right, and I had to jam lime green post-it note pieces inside it just to make it work.

Chris bought a W595, and it had to be replaced straight away. And then the fucker breaks with EXACTLY THE SAME PROBLEM as mine a few months later.

I'm absolutely APPALLED. When the phones work, they are fine, brilliant in fact, and Chris had actually just said minutes before it broke "I love this phone, I don't think I ever want to change it". Ho ho ho, well thank you sod's law for pissing all over that.

But to have such a catalogue of failures just between the two of us I think is terrible. My previous opinion that Sony Ericsson make the best phones has been replaced by the view that they make shitty, shitty phones that you can't trust. I've never, EVER had a phone that has died due to a manufacturing error and needed to go back for repair before I bought my Sony Ericsson. I've had Nokias, Motorolas, LGs, and even a fucking Lobster (yes that is a real phone make), and they just worked until I replaced them or bashed them and the screen went funny.

And to make it worse, Chris doesn't have his receipt. Why doesn't he? Because when he took his first W595 back THE DAY AFTER BUYING IT BECAUSE IT WAS SHIT, Orange took it and clipped it to something so they could send the faulty one back to Sony Ericsson. So now it won't be covered under warranty.

What a fucking shambles.

There's a Phone Repair function on my Sony Ericsson PC Suite that I'm going to try again tonight which may allow us to fix it at home, but I tried it last night and it failed. I'm hoping that's just because it needed to be plugged in for longer so the battery had more of a charge. If it won't work, it'll have to go off for private repair.

I really don't think I can bring myself to buy a Sony Ericsson again. They should be fucking ashamed of themselves.

'Now you're in New Yoooooooooooork' (except I'm not because I'm back now)

2010-04-19T12:08:00.022+01:00

Hello all.

I had a marvellous time in New York (concrete jungle that dreams are made of), it was really really good. And as a bonus I got back with 36 hours to spare before the whole world went volcano-crazy and had to resort to plebeian land-based forms of transport.

We walked MILES, at least five miles a day, and we did and saw so much, so I shall only share with you the highlights and some of the nicer pictures. It was meant to be a more relaxed trip to New York this time, as we'd already rushed around for four days there before doing all the touristy things, but in the end we did just as much this time. It's that sort of place, you can't really just sit around when you're in the middle of one of the coolest cities you can visit.

Our flight out from Heathrow was fine (good old Virgin Atlantic, they're always so good). We used Purple Parking at the airport, which I had been a bit worried about because I'd read some bad reviews, but in actual fact they were really good and ever so efficient. I guess some people just get unlucky and have a bad experience, but we thought they were really good.

Anyway, the flight was fine as I say, and I watched the film Precious on the way out. It's a harrowing film in many ways, but it's also brilliant and gritty, and kind of uplifting by the end. I also watched half of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, which was crap and predictable and as annoying as any of the other JK Rowling drivel (I watched the second half on the flight home; it didn't improve).

The hotel was the same one as we stayed at on our honeymoon, the Chelsea Pines Inn on West 14th Street. It's a really nice gay hotel with very friendly staff, and all the rooms are named after movie stars and have their movie posters on the walls. This time we were in the Mitzi Gaynor room, which was a cheaper bracket of room than we had before, and it did show a bit. It was fine, nice posh furniture and stuff, but not as plush. I'd still recommend it anyway, and you can't fault the location; it's ideally placed so you can walk uptown to Times Square and the touristy bits, and downtown into Greenwich Village where lots of gay bars are.

Some of the exciting things we did included:

- Walking miles and miles up and down 8th Avenue, 7th Avenue, 6th Avenue, 5th Avenue and Broadway. We saw lots of skyscrapers, and went in loads of shops, but apart from my cool new Skechers I didn't actually buy anything. American clothes were so BORING. If I want checked shirts and chinos I can buy those at home thank you very much.

The shopping was not wasted time however, as several US stores apparently employ hot, semi-clad male and female greeters who entice you in and then stand there letting you drool over them. Principally I'm talking about Abercrombie & Fitch, and Hollisters. Behold the hotness:

And once you've walked around looking at all the hot boys (and girls dancing in stairwells in bikinis) you can swan back out again obviously without buying anything, and they STILL wish you a nice day.

- We went to a couple of museums: the Museum of Modern Art (the MoMa), where we saw lots of famous paintings by famous people. There was also an 'artist' woman who had decided that sitting in a chair in a red dress staring into space for three months counted as art. The museum apparently agreed, but it all seemed rather pointless to me, as she was obviously just sitting there wondering what to have for her tea. I liked this piece though:

And we went to the Museum of Sex, which was good for a giggle. I learnt about female anatomy:

And Chris learnt about sex toys:

- We went to quite a few different bars for drinkies. Some were very good (a bar called Pieces in particular), and some were crap (The Duplex). The Duplex was a pretentious piano bar where the drinks were over-priced, and they kept passing round this stupid fucking plastic top-hat to try to solicit tips for the pianist. Frankly, after paying £10 for two drinks AND having to tip the barmaid on top of that, we weren't prepared to give them any more money. "Has everybody had the hat?" they kept asking expectantly. Yes we had had the hat, and we passed it straight onto the next person thank you very fucking much. We didn't stay there long.

Pieces, on the other hand, had some excellent reasons to stay there, including this:

And I met @plaintruthiness whom I know from Twitter there too. I think that's the first person I know from Twitter that I've met in real life actually.

I had one night where I over-indulged and threw up everywhere when we got back to the hotel, and consequently one day with a shocking SHOCKING hangover, but other than that I coped fairly well given my general wussiness and lightweightedness.

- What else... oo yes, we saw Chicago on Broadway, which was fab! I knew nothing at all about the story, and so it was all new to me and I really really enjoyed it. Plus it had the third not-quite-so-famous one from Destiny's Child in it (not Beyoncé, not Kelly Rowland, the other one. Michelle summink) in one of the lead roles.

And I think that's about it! I'm obviously really pleased that we got back before the volcano erupted, as I'm not sure I'd fancy being stuck abroad indefinitely. Chris' brother and sister-in-law are currently trapped in Fuerteventura, but I think they're OK and the tour operator is looking after them, and so there are worse things.

I've been back at work for half a day now, and it's been alriiiiiiiiight, it could be worse, but it's still pretty crappy compared to swanning about in New York and photographing hot boys.

I have lots of other things I should write about that aren't New York-related, but I shall save those for later.

TTFN.

Silence is not golden, it's fucking boring

2010-04-06T16:05:00.004+01:00

My trip home to see Mother for Easter was not too bad, we didn't have any disasters or anything, but it wasn't exactly fun either.

Whenever I speak to her on the phone, she normally complains incessantly about how noisy the neighbours/neighbours' children/railway line/nearby school is, are, or have been being. Any noise basically means that she can't rest, and therefore feels worse than even her usual level, and so she is obliged to spread some of that misery out to adjacent parts of the world. And this happens all the time apparently, it's like a non-stop noisy hell.

So when I got home on Saturday I was expecting there to be at least a pneumatic drill going off in next door's garden and some sort of monster truck derby happening in the street. I was surprised therefore to find no pneumatic drills and instead just complete, uninterrupted silence. Like serious silence too, you could practically hear it. I'm sure at one point my heartbeat was the loudest thing on the street.

"It's never normally like this!" says she. "You won't believe us now will you? They're normally screaming at each other next door! And coughing! You can hear them coughing all the time!"

Erm... coughing?

Anyway, it was very, VERY quiet. So that's good for Mum, I suppose. They don't do anything in that silence, they wouldn't want to break its pristine completeness. So instead you just end up sitting there. Reading. Or talking, but only very quietly, otherwise Mum says "You're being very loud Thomas!" (that's my Dad) and he is obliged to apologise.

And it's BORING. I need some damn stimulation! They even have the lights down quite low, so it's like you've wandered into one of those sensory deprivation tanks.

I was only there for 24 hours, but I'd gone pretty stir crazy by the end of it. No doubt the endless noise started up again as soon as I left, or so they'll tell me. Or perhaps no it won't, because it's never actually THAT noisy, but they've got nothing better to do than bang on about it all the time.

On the plus side, I did receive six Cadbury Creme Eggs in memory of the Baby Jesus (or something), so it wasn't all bad.

And I'm off to New Yoooooooooooooooork on Thursday, so it's not all bad.

Also, the General Election has been announced today, so I shall blog about that tomorrow if I get time. It's terribly exciting! Sort of.

Terrible blogger

2010-04-01T15:46:00.004+01:00

I have turned into one of those bloggers I don't like who only updates their blog twice a month, making it a bit annoying to try to keep up to date with. It's my own fault really; once I leave it for too long, events either don't seem current enough to write about or they become irrelevant.

But anyway, in case you care here are a few things that have happened in my life recently.

Most excitingly for the geek in me, I have got a new phone to replace my Sony Ericsson C510. Yes I know I've only had my last phone for a year, but it's one of the few things that I treat myself to and spend any actual money on myself on.

So now I have a brand sparkling new HTC Tattoo, and so far I'm really pleased with it. It's my first touchscreen phone, and it has Wi Fi, which are the two things I really wanted. It seems really good, like a proper little computer in your pocket, and it's quite pretty too. The touchscreen is a bit annoying at times, as I knew in advance from the reviews, simply because it's on the small side and so it's easy to jab the wrong thing with your finger. I was texting my sister-in-law this morning and nearly wished her a Harrowing Birthday because of it. I'm getting used to it though, and the general interface and software is really nice.

The only thing that made my Sony Ericsson better was the awesome camera it had, that took some of the best photos I've ever taken. But I only really used the camera once a month or so, so I shall learn to live without it.

I've also been ill with a cold for the last week, which is quite annoying as I'd managed to go almost six months without catching anything. I've been proudly telling everyone that I haven't been ill for ages, so I suppose this is my payback for being smug. I'm hoping it will go away soon, not least because we go to New York in just ONE WEEK!

It's terribly exciting, even though I've been before. I was surprised to see that the temperature is in the high 60s out there at the moment, so it's really quite warm, which would be lovely compared to the horrible greyness we've had here lately. I think it might turn more rainy by next week, but I'm still vaguely hoping we'll get some early summer sun while we're there.

We'll be there for five nights, but I'm actually off work for a whole week and a half for it, which will be lovely. I'm sure I'll come back to a backlog of annoyances upon my return, but I'll worry about that when it happens.

Other than that, things have been more or less normal. My mother has been medium-crazy for the last little while, as opposed to her normal uber-mentalist state, so that's been quite pleasant. I did have her on the phone for 20 minutes today though in a stress because next door is apparently having their roof done, which will undoubtedly cause lots of noise and upset her. It hasn't caused much noise yet of course, she's just speculating and stressing in advance, but she likes doing that. If you haven't got anything proper to stress about, you may as well make something up - that seems to be her philosophy, and it gives her a reason to ring me up anyway. How nice for me.

That's all for now. I shall write more after the Easter weekend, which will involve a trip to see the mentalist mother and so will I'm sure provide lots more blogging material.

Eurovision Revamp

2010-03-19T15:28:00.009Z

My friend and I have been discussing by email our appalling entry for Eurovision this year (see previous blog post) and what could possibly be done to turn it from Euro Loser into Epic Euro Mind Blowing Winner.

We have decided that it is possible, but with no small amount of work. The song and singer have been decided, so we can't change those, but that is only a small part of any Eurovision performance.

So, here is my friend's Eurovision Business Plan:

I have concluded that they need to totally pimp him out, he is going to have to work on his upper body (I think he could have nice shoulders) and wear tighter than tight clothing, basically the dancing girls are going to have to carry him and are going to have to totally work it. An outfit change will be needed. I have listened to the song some more and whilst it is very weak it's OK. Sort of. But the performance/dancers/staging is going to have to blow it out the water. We need some sort of theme, just to have him will leave NO mark whatsoever, he needs a gimmick to hide his TOTAL blandness....basically ne needs to NOT BE HIM.

Based on this, I have created the following artist's impression:

I think you'll agree, it's an absolute DEAD FUCKING CERT. Your Country Needs You organisers, take note: this is the new format for our performance. Get working on it. You have two months and ten days to produce the above.

Suck on that, FYR Macedonia, you don't stand a chance. And FYI, FYR is a stupid prefix for a country's name and we've secretly all been laughing at you behind your back.

No I'm not a fucking dormouse

2010-03-19T11:54:00.004Z

I haven't had much time for blogging this week, due to a combination of going out on staff jollies and actually being really busy at work. I know, me, busy, who'd have thought?

But anyway, I had a fun time last weekend on an Alice In Wonderland night out. It was our friend Alice's birthday, and so she had decreed that the night out would have a dressing up theme in her honour. This was fine, except that as with all these things you have to say 'dressing up optional' so people aren't put off. We like dressing up though, so we thought we'd make the effort, and here was the result of our labours:

In case you can't tell, I am the Cheshire Cat and Chris is the Mad Hatter. Pretty obvious, no? But apparently not to the people who said "Are you the dormouse?" to me on more than one occasion. Of COURSE I wasn't the fucking dormouse, look at my smile! So I glared at them, but this was rather undermined by the perma-happy expression painted onto me.

Here's another picture, complete with inflatable flamingo:

The other girl in it isn't dressed up, but that didn't stop someone saying "I like your wig" (it's her actual hair) which amused me immensely.

Anyway, I mentioned that it was 'dressing up optional'.

"There will be other people dressed up won't there?" we said.

"Oh yes, don't worry," said Alice. "I'm doing face paint and everything."

So we get to the pub and, er, NO ONE is dressed up. And we're stood in a normal pub, full of bemused looking staff and clientele, me in a pink and purple stripey H&M fucking cat print hoodie, and all our friends saying "Oo your costumes are great". Where the fuck are their costumes???

Alice is the one holding the flamingo. Can you see her face paint? It's there, look again. She had painted a SPADE on her face. A spade from a deck of cards, not a shovel. And that was it! That's not fucking face paint!

So I was mortified anyway, and sat in the furthest corner of the pub where people couldn't see me.

A few other people turned up in costume later, and they'd made quite a bit of effort actually, but bizarrely they'd "only come out for a couple" and weren't coming clubbing. Would you really get all dressed up in fancy dress just to come to the pub? So that was a bit odd anyway.

I had a good night once I got going, and we moved on to the Hanbury Club for We Love Pop after a while. I have to say though, £8 to get into the Hanbury Club is ABSURD. It's only a little out-of-the-way kooky club. So I'm not going there again if they're going to charge that for We Love Pop. It's never that expensive for Pop Kraft, I don't know how they can justify it.

Since the weekend I've had a fairly good week at work, but have been a bit rushed off my feet. This is good though because it makes a change from being bored.

We went on a nice staff social/jolly on Wednesday, in the form of a lunch out at Pinocchios and then a trawl around Brighton Museum. Everyone was horrified I'd never been to the museum considering you can nearly see it from my house, and actually I'm really glad we went because it was really, really good. I heartily recommend it to anyone looking for something to do for an hour that's free (well, voluntary donation, i.e. free).

And now it's Friday again and I don't know where the week went. I might allow myself a little drinkie tonight (as you know, I hardly ever drink) as a reward for being so busy and important this week. I deserve it after all.

Your Country Doesn't Need You

2010-03-16T08:43:00.006Z

OK, so I'm quite a big Eurovision fan.

I never used to be, but in the last 10 years or so I have fully embraced it to the point of someone needing to shoot me in the face I get so excited about it. Every year we have a big Eurovision party at our house, and there are home-made little flags and scoresheets and a sweepstake, and all guests are compelled to show excessive enthusiasm, or feign enthusiasm, or get out.

So, pretty much I don't think anyone could be more pro-Eurovision than me.

But what. The. Fuck. What the fuck was that they gave us on Your Country Needs you last Friday?? It was APPALLING.

First of all, we had half an hour of 'oo let's all spunk over Pete Waterman', which in itself isn't a particularly attractive image anyway. Admittedly, he has co-written some excellent songs in the 80s and 90s. But take note of that last bit, THE 80s AND 90s . His music has a very particular sound to it, which I enjoy and grew up with, but which is quite dated now.

And in any case, he hasn't actually written a new song for us anyway. He's just smooshed Kids In America and Better The Devil You Know into a single song, which does give it a familiar feel, but also makes you think 'er, this is a total rip off of something else'. Maybe he's hoping the foolish Europeans won't notice.

But that brings us on to our choice of act. They trotted out six unknowns (well, one of them I knew), who then proceeded to sing Pete Waterman songs out of key and of a quality that would get you three quick Xs on Britain's Got Talent.

I really REALLY wanted Miss Fitz to do well, as I remembered them from this year's X Factor where they'd had an AMAZING first audition. But alas, blame it on the microphones or the acoustics or whatever, they weren't in key and it sounded terrible.

So his highness Queen Pete eliminated three acts, although sadly not 'eliminated' in the Terminator sense, but in the thank you now get out sense.

This left us with one boy with a girl's name (Alexis - WTF? Would you not shorten it to Alex?), one boy with a big face, and girl with a good voice. The girl's going to win then, we thought.

But no. Even with only two songs to learn and perform, she somehow managed to forget the lyrics half way though (she could have just made them up, they were quite generic anyway) and the public quite rightly binned her.

And so now we're left with Josh from Basildon (Basildon for fuck's sake) as our Eurovision entry for 2010. He's got a fucking cravat on on the BBC Eurovision website! What the hell??

He'll be singing the instant not-classic That Sounds Good To Me, but I'm afraid it does not sound good to me, or to Europe, or to anyone else.

It was a disaster, a DISASTER I say. Bring back Michelle Gayle, she kicked ass with the song she wrote for Eurovision and would piss all over "Josh". I'm picking some other country to support, maybe Switzerland with their entry 'Il pleut de l'or', or 'Golden shower' in English (my own translation).

Fuck you, Pete Waterman.

Can you fix stupidity with regulation?

2010-03-11T13:54:00.004Z

No, you can't.

I don't know why, but people think that you can. Or probably more accurately, they are afraid that they'll get sued if they don't mitigate every possible act of stupidity that the public's infinite diswisdom can think of.

Someone was killed last year in Brighton after getting into a wheelie bin drunk and then falling asleep. A refuse lorry came along, emptied the bin, and he was promptly crushed to death, his body later found at a waste transfer site.

While this is tragic for the individual and his family, the 'revised guidelines' that have been issued for waste collectors are just absurd. Commercial wheelie bins will now have to have locks on them, and where possible they will have to be kept away from public areas. This won't stop people climbing into public (i.e. not commercial) wheelie bins of course, or the large and very comfy looking communal bins that feature on hundreds of streets in Brighton.

Why must we do this in response to every random act of stupidity? Yes, the guy made a mistake, he was drunk and it was raining, and it probably seemed like a good idea at the time. It's tragic that the bin happened to get emptied the following morning before he woke up. But it was a one off, stupid mistake.

If people are stupid enough to sleep in wheelie bins, then the responsibility for what happens to them lies with them. You can't devise regulations to cover every possible eventuality, and nor should you have to. Just the reporting in the media of what happened to this particular man should be enough for people to think twice before setting up home in a bin.

What will be next? You can't put broken glass in your bin, someone might climb in it and cut themselves. You can't throw rotten chicken in the bin, someone might come along and eat it; you must write "Warning, this chicken is not for eating" on it in biro, and THEN you can throw it away*.

Honestly, the complete lack of personal responsibility that we have today frightens me. Someone wrote on Twitter yesterday "Had an accident that wasn't your fault? Well suck it up and put it down to experience". I couldn't agree more.

---

* UPDATE Following publication of this post, I have been informed by someone who works at a well-known chain of shops that they are indeed told to pour blue dye over any waste meat before they throw it away. We're doomed, we are ALL DOOMED.

Pop Kraft it Up

2010-03-08T10:07:00.012Z

I had a fun night out on Saturday at this month's Pop Kraft. It's always good there, and seems to be the highlight of my blogging month at the moment. I just haven't felt like I've been doing an awful lot worth writing about. So instead, here are a few photos:

They always have activities at Pop Kraft, but normally we arrive too late to do them. This month however, we were in time for the cake decorating, and I was lucky enough to be assisted by Miss Dolly Rocket.

We made a very pretty cake, with icing and little silver ball things that I hope were edible because I ate them.

Dolly also assisted me with the eating of my cake. She doesn't go in for any of this 'small bites' malarkey, it's all or nothing with Dolly.

Boogaloo Stu entertained us with his unique style of performing. The glove/sleeve things this month were a triumph.

And Dolly and Chris had a nice cuddle. He enjoyed it more than she did.

The only other thing I did this weekend really was watch Up, the Disney Pixar film that everyone has been raving about. It was really good! Not like the best BEST film in the world, but very entertaining, and some of it was really funny.

The first bit is really sad, as they cram the lives of two childhood sweethearts from the age of about 8, through marriage and then retirement, into about 5 minutes of film. It's sad because, well, what do you think happens at the end of a long happy marriage, and look there's only one of them left in the movie poster -->

But after that it's quite a heart-warming tale of an old man's adventure with a young companion and a talking dog, and a house with lots of balloons attached to it.

As with any of these Pixar films, one of the best bits is the extra cartoon short you get with it. With Up it was a film called Partly Cloudy, that actually makes you laugh as much in its six short minutes as Up does in the whole film. Not that Up isn't funny of course, it really is, but Partly Cloudy is brilliant. I really like those short films they do; I still love For The Birds, the short that came with Monsters Inc, that has no human dialogue, but is hugely expressive and lovely to watch.

So anyway, that was my weekend. I've got a quiet week (again) this week, as I've pretty much done everything on my to do list, and I'm running out of ways to fill my day. I've been learning jQuery for the last little while though (a computer thing for geeks; it's fun, if you like that sort of thing) so that at least has been a distraction for me.

Next weekend is Mothers Day - a perfect excuse for my Mum to demand more attention than she does usually. I'm going to my brother's for a meal for it, which should be alright, and which means I'll only be out of Brighton for part of Saturday, instead of losing my whole weekend on a trip to London.

Oo yes, and it's also Your Country Needs You on Friday night, where we'll decide on our Eurovision entry for this year, so I'm really looking forward to that. And we're going out dressed up in Alice In Wonderland outfits next Saturday for a friend's birthday. I'm going as the Cheshire Cat, in an odd pink and purple stripey outfit, face paint and false ears. I'm not sure where we're going, hopefully not somewhere where'll I'll feel too ridiculous in fancy dress. I hope no one pulls my tail off too. Pictures to follow, if you're good.

Milk you can’t drink and politicians you can’t trust

2010-02-23T12:54:00.006Z

I have just realised to my horror that I haven’t posted anything on my blog for two whole weeks, so I thought I’d better do a bit of a catch up. I hate it when I click on someone’s blog and it hasn’t been updated for ages, it just looks a bit boring, so I’ve been a very bad superlative for letting it slip for so long.

Anyway, these are some of the things that I have been doing and thinking about recently:

Milk
I watched Milk a couple of weeks ago, having previously known virtually nothing about it. I was aware that Harvey Milk was some sort of gay politician from San Francisco, but that was only really because I’d had a couple of drinks in a bar called Harvey’s when we were there, and they had information up on the walls about him.

Anyway, the film was GREAT, as was the story of his life in general. He was the first openly gay man to hold public office in the United States, and he was just so dedicated to improving the lot of gays and other minorities in his city. What was most shocking to me however was how recently it all took place: it is set from 1972 to 1978. Having been fortunate enough to grow up during a period when homosexuality started to be properly accepted in society, I hadn’t really realised how much I’ve taken for granted the freedoms I enjoy. In the mid-70s in San Francisco, it seems the police would regularly raid gay bars and arrest and beat up their patrons. This was the POLICE, the people you’re supposed to be able to call when someone assaults you! Even if homophobia was rife back then, I hadn’t really expected on duty police officers to be engaging in it.

Anyway, the film is about a lot more than just that, and although the ending is sad, I still found Harvey Milk’s courage and determination very uplifting. It made me feel like I could and should be doing more to overcome intolerance, and not just enjoy the benefits of the work done by others. I probably won’t of course, I’m fundamentally lazy and it was only a film, but it made me think at least and will keep me thinking in the future.

Political things

Sort of related to the above, I have been continuing to ponder my position as a gay man with semi-conservative views and the fast approaching general election. I still haven’t decided who I want to vote for, but I’ve still got a couple of months to go, and I’m quite enjoying researching the parties and thinking about it anyway.

Attitude magazine has published an interview with each of the three main party leaders over its last few issues, and I’ve found that very helpful. I’ve taken everything the leaders have said in the interviews with a pinch of salt, because of course they’re just going to say whatever they think will appeal to the magazine’s gay readership, but it was useful to see them address those kinds of questions specifically.

Overall I’d say Nick Clegg came off the best. I don’t like Gordon Brown, so he would have had to say something very special to change my mind, and he just didn’t. David Cameron’s interview and the accompanying articles they published were tremendously interesting, but only made me less inclined to vote Conservative than I had been before. It made David Cameron look very much like a ‘will say what you want to hear’ politician, even more than politicians are in general, and it was pretty absurd to read him denying he’d voted against gay adoption even while they waved Hansard under his nose showing that he did. I’m not going to base my vote particularly on what his party did in the 80s, but the voting record of the current Conservative front bench is important and doesn’t make for good reading.

Nick Clegg seemed the most straightforward and honest, and said some nice things about equalities for gay people. My only reservation is that of course he can easily make generous promises: he’s unlikely to become prime minister and ever have to live up to them. Even so, I’d say the Lib Dems are currently winning in my estimations.

On top of that, there is a debate going on this week about a bill the government is putting through parliament and its section on sex education in schools. After intense lobbying by religious groups, the Labour party has allowed an amendment to let religious schools teach sex education (including mandatory information on same sex relationships) ‘within their institution’s ethos’. So that means religious schools would be free to say “Yes there are same sex relationships. These are wrong, they are immoral, and they are inferior to heterosexual love and marriage”. I’m absolutely appalled by that and think it would be a big step backwards for the country. Some gay activists are even calling the amendment a modern Section 28.

How would a gay child in that class feel to be told they are inferior and immoral? Shouldn’t they be free to be taught the facts of sex education without judgement attached, so they can make up their own minds? That seems like a fundamental right to me, and I really hope the amendment is removed. Labour have proclaimed themselves the only party that has championed gay rights over the last two decades, and this would be a terrible stain on their record.

General bits and bobs

This post is going on a bit now, so I shall cut the rest short.

I’m very much looking forward to our holiday to New York in six weeks. So far we have booked to tour the Federal Reserve Gold Vault, where you can view $8billion of gold all stacked up, and we have bought tickets to see Chicago on Broadway. Both of those should be really good.

Life is otherwise fairly good at the moment, but work is interminably dull and it is starting to affect my moods in the evening again. This feeling of unfulfillment I get creeps into my home life, and I become terribly listless and depressed. So anyway, I’m trying to be more positive at work, to fill my days with activity instead of endlessly clicking Refresh on Twitter, and to do some studying and other things in the periods when I really haven’t got anything to do. It’s worked for the last two days anyway, so I shall try to keep it up.

Sex and drugs and being called a faggot in the street

2010-02-08T12:45:00.000Z

I had a lovely weekend, involving two lots of clubbing and a yummy lunch out on Sunday. There was no sex, or drugs, I just said that to get your attention, but I did get called a faggot in the street. More on that later though.

We thought we would give Don’t Stop Believin another try on Friday night, after last week’s enjoyable but rather under-populated launch night. Our friend Alice was quite keen to try it as the music they say they’ll play always sounds so good, so we thought it would be worth a go and hoped a few more people would be dancing this time. Unfortunately, there were actually even fewer people there this time than before, so it was a bit of a washout really.

We still had a nice time, and we sat upstairs in the bar area to start with while we had a couple of drinks, but then as soon as you move downstairs to the club bit it just turns into a very chilly and very empty evening. The music was fine, quite good even, but when you’re the only three people dancing it just doesn’t feel all that much fun. So I think we lasted until about 1am this week, by which point we were fairly sure hoards of people weren’t going to arrive at any moment, so we called it a night. It’s a shame, as I said last week, because the club night is right up our street in terms of atmosphere and the playlist. I might not go again though, at least not until I see that it has got a bit busier.

Then Saturday night was the FABULOUS Pop Kraft, which was much much busier, and was highly enjoyable. We had a few drinks at home, then waited for Alice to ditch her match.com date and come join us for our two-nights-in-a-row we’-re-still-young-aren’t-we trip to the Hanbury Ballroom. It was PACKED when we got there, which was a welcome contrast to the previous night. The music’s always really good there too, the Size Zero Albino and Boogaloo Stu both play really good stuff, and I think we’ve only ever had one night out at Pop Kraft that we haven’t really enjoyed.

There was one slight wobble when the bar managed to enrage Chris so much I thought he was going to batter someone to death, by running out of change during the first hour. So after queuing up for 20 minutes to get served he was told he could only have drinks if he had the right money. “Do you take cards?”, he asked. “No,” said the unapologetic barman. There’s a card machine there behind the bar at the Hanbury of course, there always is, but for some idiotic reason it’s NEVER working. “So what do you want me to do?”, Chris enquired. “I don’t know,” said barman. What the fuck is that?? Do they not WANT to make any money? That was the fault of the Hanbury as a venue though, not the people who run Pop Kraft. If they had no change, they should either have given you the £12 round for £10, or found some way of giving you additional drinks until it made a round number. Tsk. So we only had one round of drinks there all night, which was fine for us because it made it fantastically cheap, but ridiculous for any club to operate like that. GET A FUCKING CARD MACHINE HANBURY BALLROOM (I’m assuming they’ll read this, everyone does don’t they?).

Other than the No Drinks For You fiasco, we had a fab time. We acquired/stole some Glee facemasks of Sue Sylvester and Artie, which I’m sure will come in handy for… er… nothing, and we went fucking MENTAL when they played Don’t Stop Believing. As did the whole club actually, there was a bit of Glee fever going on in there that night. And we stayed until the end, which we don’t always do so I guess we must have been having a good time.

The three of us wandered back home through Kemptown singing Don’t Stop Believing quietly (loudly) to ourselves, and it was at this point that a charming young man decided to say “Faggots” at us as he walked past with his friends. Due to a combination of booze and the fact we were at a good bit in the song (the bit that goes ‘Somewhere in the NIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT’) I didn’t actually care that much at the time, but once I got home I was quite annoyed. It’s only happened to me a handful of times that I’ve been homophobically abused in the street (once on the Isle of Wight, and couple of times near the Level, which is apparently a hotspot for cockmunchers in white transits to drive past and shout “Poofs” at you), so I’ve been quite lucky really. I’ve never been attacked or anything, and I don’t actually care if someone calls me a faggot. I know what I am and I like what I am, so you’d have about as much chance of insulting me if you called me tall. It’s the fact that this person obviously thinks they’re better than you because they like to put their penis into vaginas, and because the only reason they’re saying it is to show off in front of their friends. No one ever shouts that sort of thing when they’re on their own, it’s like a stupid schoolboy thing they do to look cool.

So that pissed me off a bit, because even in Brighton you apparently can’t escape from retarded idiocy. But it didn’t ruin my night, which was EXCELLENT.

And then we had a lovely lunch in Gourmet Burger Kitchen on Sunday where I stuffed my fat face with a massive chicken, camembert and cranberry burger. It was gorgeous.

All in all it was a lahvely weekend. We have such a nice life, I sometimes think, and I should be more grateful for it.

A couple of pics of the sunset in Brighton last weekend

2010-02-02T10:31:00.002Z

I love the camera on my phone, it takes gorgeous pictures without me even doing anything. Well, I have to point it and press the button, obviously.

You’re entitled to your opinion – as long as it’s anti-Tory

2010-02-01T16:22:00.004Z

I’ve been criticised a few times in the last few months for saying that I’m considering voting Conservative at the next general election. I have to confess that I do deliberately say it sometimes to people who I know will be shocked and appalled by it, just to see how they’ll respond. Even so, the reaction that you get for saying it, particularly when you’re gay, I think is somewhat excessive. It’s not like I’m saying I’m going to vote for the Kill Babies With A Spikey Stick Party. This is a mainstream political party, supported by a proportion of the population that’s either equal to or greater than that which supports the Labour Party (based on current opinion polls anyway).

I don’t mind people saying “You shouldn’t vote Conservative”; in fact I welcome it. I do wish though that they would say “You shouldn’t vote Conservative because…” and then give me some sort of reason other than the rather childish “they’re evil” or “they screwed the miners in the 80s”. I’m looking for proper reasons to help me decide which party to support at the next election. I intend to be a well-informed voter who goes to the polls knowing which party they think would be best to run the country, and which candidate would be best for my constituency. I can’t accept “They’re evil”, with no follow up or evidence, as a reason.

One person recently has drawn my attention to the voting record of the Conservative front bench on gay rights. Fine. Absolutely fine, because that gives me something to work with. As a gay man, it is rather distressing to see the attempts made to block the advancement of gay rights by senior Conservative MPs. I’m not going to base my vote on that one issue though; being gay is a very small part of who I am. I think I have a greater responsibility to vote for whichever party will be best for the country overall, rather than put the needs of my minority group first. If there were a Pink Party with a manifesto based solely around gay rights, I wouldn’t vote for it because it would most likely not have a clue how to run an economy, and I think that would be selfish and stupid of me.

I did swing quite far to the right earlier in the year, and felt fairly sure I would vote Conservative in May (or whenever it ends up being). That was based in large part on my dissatisfaction with the way Labour has performed, and because of some of the core political principles I hold most dear. Those are namely that I believe in individual responsibility for your actions and wellbeing; fairly small government; limited intervention by government into people’s private lives; and a tax system that rewards people for working hard and for saving. These are all quite Conservative things.

In addition to that though, I consider myself liberal socially. I believe in equality and equal rights. I believe religion should play no part in government or legislation. I believe in the right to express yourself freely, and I believe a government shouldn’t pass laws on what is moral and what is not, provided those activities aren’t hurting anyone.

What has concerned me most recently about the Conservative Party is their increasingly obvious method of saying-whatever-they-need-to-get-elected. So yes you’ll hear them say grand things about, for instance, gay rights. They’ll proclaim themselves a friend to gay people (I’m just picking one issue here for the sake of argument), but their actions in the recent past and present don’t seem to tally quite with that statement. I’m not concerned particularly with what the party stood for in the 80s, that’s irrelevant to me now because I believe people should be allowed to change their minds over time. But some of what the Conservative Party, and David Cameron, have said recently has begun to sound quite hollow and contrived to me.

I won’t vote Labour, as I really don’t approve of them. I find, especially with Gordon Brown, that they’ll just say anything, even in the face of it being completely untrue. An ‘end to boom and bust’, Gordon Brown said, during a period of happy prosperity for the country which was then followed by a massive bust that he hadn’t prepared for. A justified war, Tony Blair called the invasion Iraq, and which he maintained at this week’s Chilcot Inquiry, even though it is very apparent to most people now that it wasn’t justified, or at least wasn’t justified on the grounds they put forward at the time.

So then I’m left thinking should I vote Liberal Democrat again, as I have done before (I’ve never actually voted Conservative). It’s true that I do respect them as a party; I think they have been the most plain-spoken and believable on the economy; and I agree with a good number of their policies. Even with them though it is hard to understand everything they stand for, because you end up in reams of detail on their website and there is too much to wade through. There is also the problem of ‘making my vote count’. My constituency is marginal, but it is still likely to be a Labour or Conservative seat. If I don’t want Labour, should I vote Conservative to ensure they don’t win in my area? That seems somewhat spiteful, and potentially stupid if I don’t agree with the Conservatives on enough of the big issues. It’s a great shame to me that the only reason I know who my Liberal Democrat candidate is is because I looked it up myself. Where is the campaigning? Where is the information to help me make my decision? I know it’s early yet, but I’ve already received some information from the Conservatives.

So I don’t know, anyway. Some people will have read the first part of this post with horror at the very suggestion I may vote Conservative, and I might still do so. I did that deliberately to get people to read it really, as I knew it would hook some staunch lefties into an enraged excoriation against the Evil Tories. But if you did read it, and thought “God no, don’t vote Conservative”, please do leave a comment and tell me why. Constructive comments though please, with an actual reason.

Thanks very much.

So much yummy food stuffed into my face

2010-01-31T15:44:00.005Z

I've had such a nice weekend. It started off with a little bit of a wobble, but after that it has been great, and I must have consumed about 60,000 calories in the last 24 hours.

The initial wobble was Friday night when we went to try a new club night called Don't Stop Believin. It was the same club night we went to for New Year's Eve, which they have now tried to turn into a regular Friday night thing. It's run by Dynamite Sal, whom we know quite well really (to chat to at least) as we've been going to her club nights for more than 10 years. That makes me feel quite old to say that actually. Anyway, it was at The Jam, the same as before, and we thought we'd give it a try.

Unfortunately, although the music was alright really, it ended up being really empty. It was freezing cold in there, possibly not helped by the lack of people, and while there were quite a few people in the bar upstairs, no one was coming downstairs to dance. So we kept our coats on (because of the cold), had a bit of a dance, and then bailed out by 12.30. I feel a bit sorry for Sal, but maybe it will pick up a bit after a couple of weeks, and when it's not so freezing cold outside.

We had friends coming down on Saturday, so I had to drag myself out of bed with a bit more of a hangover than I was expecting yesterday in order to do the dusting and hoovering. Fortunately for me they were a bit later than they expected, so I had time for a nap and to make myself look presentable before they arrived. We've known these friends for about five years now, having met them on our first holiday to Gran Canaria, and we have a lovely relaxed, flirty sort of relationship with them.

So anyway, the first part of my massive calorie overload was last night, when we had a few glasses of wine at home before going out for dinner. I can highly recommend Old Telegraph Shiraz which our friends brought for us, as it was DELICIOUS. I don't usually buy Shiraz as I think it's too dark for me, but this had a really lovely chocolatey flavour to it. Then after my chocolate-flavoured red wine we went to Cafe Rouge, where I gorged myself on deep-fried Camembert with red current sauce, followed by confit de canard in a delicious orange jus thing with dauphinoise potatoes. It was sooooooooo nice! And massive, and meaty considering I don't each much meat at home.

Then we had a drink in the Star Inn (nice but a bit expensive actually), a drink in the Marine Tavern (who have a FIT little bar boy who shows his pants when he bends over to get things) and a drink in Vavoom (nice but, as always, massively over-priced. £4 for a drink is rather a lot). I was practically waddling by the time we walked home.

Then this morning I weirdly woke up hungry again. I don't know why but that always happens when I've eaten loads the night before, but body seems to start expecting constant stuffing with food. I had a nice muffin thing for breakfast, a short walk in the cold, and then we went to the PV at the Jury's Out for Sunday lunch.

The PV is actually a really nice pub, and every time I go there I think "wow this is lovely, we must come more often". The Sunday lunch is GORGEOUS. I had roast beef, yorkshire pudding, stuffing, roast potatoes, cauliflower cheese, broccoli, parsnips, green beans and cabbage, and it was all soooooo yummy. It was only about 15 hours since my dinner though, so I don't know where I've put it all, I must have gained a stone.

I definitely want to go to the PV more often; they do a quiz night, and cheap drinks (£2, can't beat that), and it generally has a nice atmosphere in there.

And now I've got a wild boar sausage roll sitting in the fridge that I bought from Bona Foodie for no apparent reasons, which is calling out to me to eat it in the next half hour. I'm such a fat bloater.

Oo yes, and I forgot to say that I drank BEER this weekend. Well, a Hoegaarden with my dinner. But normally I don't drink beer at all. However, I am in training so that I can drink beer more regularly because my other big news is we're going to New York!!! We booked the tickets on Friday night, flying Virgin just after Easter and staying for five nights. I'm really looking forward to it. BUT, last time we went, I couldn't drink properly in the bars because if you asked for a vodka and coke you got given a glass of vodka that had about 5ml of coke in it so it was very slightly discoloured, and it was DISGUSTING. I couldn't drink it, and I love vodka. So in anticipation of that I plan to convert myself into a semi-pro beer drinker in the next two months, so I can saunter up to American bars and say "Gimme a beer" without adding on "I hope it doesn't make me throw up" in my head afterwards.

So anyway, I might try to sleep my lunch off now, and then drag my massive carcass over to the fridge to eat my wild boar sausage roll in time for the Dancing On Ice Fittyfest at 6.15. Bring on Gary Lucy and Kieron Richardson in skimpy lycra tops and tight trousers.

Why I’m opposed to Sarah’s Law

2010-01-25T12:29:00.001Z

There has been a fair bit of coverage in the news over the weekend of the plan to extend the so-called Sarah’s Law from its four pilot areas around the UK to a national scheme. For a few reasons, I think that this is a bad idea that won’t achieve very much, and that it is being implement purely because it is popular and grabs headlines in the run-up to a general election.

For those of you who don’t know, the Sarah’s Law scheme allows parents to ask local police forces if people who have contact with their children have convictions for sex crimes or have been previously suspected of abuse. The police then check the Sex Offenders Register and any other relevant databases, and if there is a cause for concern they will share a certain amount of information with the applicant. The parent is supposed to be legally bound to keep that information confidential and not tell any other parents or people in the local area. It is named Sarah’s Law after the abduction and murder of a girl called Sarah Payne by a convicted paedophile in 2000, and is similar to but not the same as Megan’s Law in the US. Megan’s Law is more wide-reaching, as it allows people to find out if any sex offenders live in their local area, without having to make an enquiry about a specific individual. The Sarah’s Law campaigners wanted the same thing in the UK, but instead this compromise scheme was introduced.

I think the whole scheme is a bad idea with potentially dangerous consequences. Firstly, I would be extremely concerned about the possibility of vigilante reprisals against people who have details relating to them released under this scheme. I know that in the pilot areas they haven’t found this to be a problem, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be in the future. The public, and particularly parents, are not at all rational when it comes to any kind of sex offender, and there have already been instances in the past of people being attacked, murdered or hounded from their homes because of previous allegations – whether those allegations were actually proven or not. For this reason, I think the monitoring of sex offenders is and should remain the job of the police and the probation service. Despite what some campaigners might say, parents are NOT appropriate people to do so.

Secondly, I think that the Sex Offender Register is at times a highly imperfect system. People who pose no threat to children, or in fact no threat to anyone at all, can sometimes end up on the Sex Offenders Register for life. Take a 16 year-old boy who has sex with his 15 year-old girlfriend: technically, that is statutory rape, and could lead to him being recorded on the register for sex with a minor. Does that make him a danger to children? Most likely not. But if ‘previous sex with a child’ is shared with a member of the public, with no qualifying information, that person will then be labelled as a dangerous paedophile, and a hysterical reaction ensues. I am unsure quite what level of detail is shared with parents under this scheme, but I would feel that this is a significant area of concern.

The scheme also includes people who have been suspected of or investigated for abuse, which I think is even worse. Of course that information may sometimes be critical to crime prevention, but it could also be due to a malicious or mistaken allegation that was investigated and then dismissed. How is it fair that that should be shared with local people should they ask about it? Qualified individuals should have access to that information, not members of the public.

Further to that, the scheme of course offers no protection at all from people who have never been investigated for or charged with a sex offence. Yes I suppose it may offer some limited protection from those who have previous convictions, but as I understand it, people who are a danger to children are barred from working with them anyway, so what does this scheme add?

Fear of paedophile attack has been whipped up to ridiculous extremes in this country, even though in reality I would expect the risk remains very low and has not increased particularly over the years. People may say “yes but any risk is too great”, or “we have to do EVERYTHING we can to protect our children”, or “it only has to happen once though doesn’t it?”, and yes those statements are true. But you could equally apply those statements to road traffic accidents, which do far more harm to children each year, and then say that we should ban all cars or not allow children to cross the road until they are 18.

On top of that, as far as I am aware most cases of abuse still occur within families and extended families, and are not due to strangers snatching a child in the streets. Would this scheme help with that? Not really. A mother can check if her new boyfriend poses any danger to her children, the scheme’s organisers say. Well yes, I suppose so, but how many of them will? And what about fathers, uncles, cousins and trusted neighbours whom you’ve known for years? Any of these people could, and do, turn out to be child abusers, but you wouldn’t get checks run on everyone, and even if you did they probably wouldn’t have any previous convictions anyway.

This legislation is pointless, and is just a convenient way for a government to look tough on crime and to be seen to be ‘doing something’. I feel its potential efficacy is going to be substantially less than should be required to outweigh its risks. It is very hard, however, for someone to publicly oppose the scheme, particularly politicians – do so, and you risk be called anything from ‘soft on crime’ to ‘pro-child abuse’. Calling it Sarah’s Law is a deliberate contrivance to make it even harder to criticise, as they can then slap Sarah Payne’s picture all over everything and use her murder to guilt-trip you into backing the proposal without properly considering it.

I would point out however, that this scheme would not have saved Sarah Payne’s life. She wasn’t killed by someone her mother could have applied for information about. He didn’t have previous or regular contact with her. He snatched her from the streets – an abominable but extremely rare crime. The even more dangerous Megan’s Law could potentially have avoided it, but Sarah’s Law would not. The whole idea should be binned.

Fuck you very much, Lily Allen

2010-01-24T16:36:00.003Z

I don't like Lily Allen very much. In fact, she annoys the piss out of me, and here's why.

The thing about Lily Allen is that she's under the impression that she's cool. Actually it's more than that, she thinks that she's too-cool-for-school, and that pretty much everything else apart from her is kind of lame. That's part of what she thinks makes her cool - generally not liking anything, because it's uncool to like things and say they're good, so she just says everything apart from her music is shit.

Admittedly she likes Kate Nash. But to be honest, anyone who likes Kate Nash has got far more serious issues than just a stupid pudding bowl haircut that makes her look like a Lego woman.

A few of her songs are quite catchy, but lots of them are rather lazy lyrically, and I can't help but think she wouldn't really be famous if she weren't Keith Allen's daughter. That was all that really made her noteworthy in the first place.

Take her Fuck You song - yes it's got an alright tune, but calling it Fuck You and singing fuck you over and over again is typical of the kind of "I wanna be controversial" nature that she exemplifies. It's like it was written by a child trying to get attention by swearing. Which is exactly what she did at the GQ Awards actually: she got pissed, swore lots on stage and generally behaved like a brat just so people would look at her.

She said in an interview that her disparaging remarks about other singers were due to a lack of confidence, because she felt short, fat and ugly next to them. Well yes Lily, you are short and kind of ugly, I wouldn't necessarily say fat but you won't be making any bikini commercials, but that doesn't make it OK to slag off anything you feel threatened by. If you were a brilliant musician then maybe you'd be in a position to comment, but you're really not.

So no, I don't like Lily Allen. She's unforgivably rude, insufficiently talented and undeservedly smug.

Selfish children take to the streets and get in my fucking way AGAIN

2010-01-19T10:33:00.014Z

For those of you who read this blog from time to time, you may remember my angry ramblings regarding the puerile and ill-directed protest that Brighton endured last May courtesy of the Smash EDO organisation.

Well they were kind enough to do it again yesterday, and once more they got in my fucking way and generally annoyed me.

The protest was directed as before at the EDO weapons factory in Moulsecoomb, and to the protesters' credit this time they actually managed to find it. Someone must have bought them a map or something, as last time it seemed they couldn't be bothered to walk the three miles up the road from central Brighton to where the factory is actually located.

This time they managed to protest near and around the factory, but unfortunately they got bored after a while and decided to fuck off the rest of the city by coming into the centre. Despite taking a different route home, I still had to take several diversions in order to avoid the places where the police were trying to hold them back. I was also unlucky enough to catch sight of a few of them, wearing black, faces covered and hoods up, looking not at all like the group of peaceful protesters they claim to be. Fortunately it seems that there wasn't as much wanton destruction as last time, but their presence was still rather intimidating for the city's residents, and as always seemed rather pointless.

Why did they need to come into town? No one in town CARED about their protest, all they did was fuck us off AGAIN. It stops even being about the protest after a while, and they instead just seem to enjoy trying to outwit the police and get to places the police don't want them to get to. It's childish and pathetic, and it costs the taxpayers a ridiculous amount of money in policing.

I was also annoyed to learn that EDO denies that it supplies weapons to Israel anyway. According to a tribunal ruling last November, there is nothing in their export licences that proves they do so, and so the tribunal turned down Smash EDO's request to publish them (they're normally confidential, apparently). Of course, Smash EDO retorted "that doesn't prove that they don't, it just says there isn't evidence they do".

Well I'm sorry but I object to that on two counts. Firstly, we live in a country where our legal system is predicated on a party being innocent until proven guilty. Secondly, as a person with a scientific mind, I base my opinions on the evidence that is presented to me, not on the say so of a bunch of idiots in face masks. If I see evidence that EDO sells weapons components to Israel, or if EDO confirms that it does, then fine I'll believe it, but not until then.

Furthermore, even if they do sell components directly or indirectly to Israel, I don't actually give a fuck anyway. People talk about the murder of Palestinian civilians by the Israeli army in illegal military action - but as I said before, if that's your beef then go and protest outside the Israeli embassy. Stopping a small piece of equipment being made in Brighton is not going to matter one jot to what happens in Palestine, and it is insulting to the Palestinian cause if that's where you decide to focus your efforts. If you care that much, go to Gaza and help the injured. Stand in front of an Israeli tank. Lobby the British government and the UN to condemn their military action and impose sanctions. No? Too much effort? Prefer to piss off the people of Brighton instead? Well fuck you then.

While we're on the subject, I may as well make my position on Israel/Palestine clear. I am not pro-Israel, as some people might infer from the above. My position is that both sides are as bad as each other, and so I just don't care what they do to each other any more. I do not take this view lightly, or without having taken them time inform myself on the subject beforehand, I might add.

The problem I have with their conflict is that neither side is prepared to compromise. They are much happier to carry on killing each other, so why should I care about it? The broad strokes of a peace deal between Israel and Palestine have been known for years: a two-state solution; shared custody of Jerusalem; Israel to stop expanding into Palestinian territory, and to give back large portions of the land they annexed in the 60s; limited right of return for Palestinian refugees to land within Israel; recognition of Israel's right to exist. There have been times when they have been close(ish) to peace in the past, but every time one side or the other or both fucks it up, because ultimately they don't want peace. They aren't prepared to share. It's ridiculously childish considering what's at stake. And yes the land is 'holy' in various ways to them, but you can still fucking share it.

Yes Israel kills far more Palestinians than Palestinians kill Israelis because they have bigger guns, but the Palestinians aren't innocent either. If they were, they wouldn't elect Hamas who want to see Israel wiped from the map to represent them. They wouldn't tolerate militants firing rockets at Israeli houses. Being the weaker person in a fight doesn't necessarily exonerate you of all blame.

And yes, I fully acknowledge that perhaps it would have been better if the world's superpowers hadn't plonked Israel there in the first place, but it's there now. You have to deal with the situation as it stands.

So I agree that it is all a big fucking mess, but it needn't be if both sides wanted to compromise. They won't, so fuck them.

Anyway, I have digressed a little from my original topic. The protest was annoying, achieved nothing, and cost me money. I don't agree with their cause, but that's not the major problem I have with Smash EDO - it's their methods I object to. Their protests end up directed more at the police than anything else, they disrupt the lives of people who really don't care, they directly or indirectly cause violence and intimidation, and they generally piss me off.

11 reasons why you haven't got a boyfriend - part deux

2010-01-18T13:48:00.009Z

I have bought Attitude now and have read through their eleven suggested reasons why people don't have boyfriends (see my previous post). The article is written by their 'dating expert' Pip McCormac, and while it is fine I think he is a little overly kind in it, and a bit too keen to recommend self help books by Pia Mellody. I'm sorry but the fact they are written by someone called Pia Mellody should be enough to put anyone off.

But anyway, as promised here is a nice table I've made comparing their reasons with mine (yes I'm clearly not that busy today).

Attitude	Me et al.
1. You can't be faithful	2. Because you're a slag and would rather sleep around than go steady with someone.
2. You have low self esteem	6. Because you're the kind of person who reads 'How to get a boyfriend' articles in magazines. (the low self esteem is implied in our reason)
3. You come over too strong	7. Because you scare them off by being clingy and calling them every 20 minutes. (same reason, just meaner)
4. You never seem to meet the right sort of guy	9. Because you stay at home all the time and never go out and meet real people. and 3. Because you try to pull people based solely on looks, and then are surprised when they have a shitty personality.
5. You're hypercritical	11. Because you have unrealistic expectations of your 'ideal boyfriend' that don't correspond to any actual humans.
6. You don't seem to have any conversational skills	OK I don't have one that corresponds directly to this. I'm still doing pretty well so far though.
7. You sleep with them too soon	10. Because you don't know the difference between sex and intimacy. And also reason 2 again about being a slag.
8.You're not proactive enough	9. Because you stay at home all the time and never go out and meet real people.
9. You've got a fear of commitment	1. Because you panic every time you get one and dump him. They've put this one down lower on their page so as not to draw too much attention to it, but I'd say it's the leading reason for gay singledom. That and the slag thing.
10. You're clueless as to how to present yourself	4. Because you're ugly and smelly and no one wants to go near you. They make the rather generous assumption that you've got something worth presenting in their reason. We didn't bother with that bit.
11. You're not being yourself	I don't have one for this either. All I would say is that for most men you could equally put 'You are being yourself', and then I could cite my reason number 5 (most men are dickheads) as the corresponding one.

So all in all I think we did quite well! I don't know why I'm surprised, most of them are quite obvious.

And yes I realise that I am fortunate enough to be in a relationship, and so it may sound patronising for me to list all the defects that I think cause people to be single. BUT, what I would say is that my opinions are based on many years of watching a whole raft of gay men sabotage their own relationships and mope about the place being dicks and not understanding where they are going wrong.

I would also add that I don't think there is anything at all wrong with being single if you're happy. I've never tried it, but it looks quite fun, and it must certainly be nice to be footloose and fancy free sometimes. I think therefore that it can be just as unhelpful to be desperate to get a boyfriend no matter what, simply because you think it's what you should want, because it probably doesn't lead you to make very good choices.

A random bunch of stuff all chucked into one blog post

2010-01-14T10:30:00.004Z

I haven't blogged all that much over the last few weeks, because I feel like I haven't been doing much that was noteworthy.

Mum has kind of plateaued at a medium level of crazy for the moment, so I haven't even felt there was much to write about her either. She's still ill of course, and she's still subject to their bizarre gypsy curse and its associated mishaps (the thermostat is still kind of broken, and this week their kitchen sink decided to overflow), but she hasn't had anything major to bang on at me about for a while.

So this is just an odds and sods post really to distract me from my work for a little while.

We went to a friend's house last night for an Indian take away and to watch Slumdog Millionaire on Channel 4. I hadn't seen it before, but obviously I've heard quite a lot about it after it won lots of different awards. I have to say that I quite enjoyed it, but I didn't think it was amazing or anything. I often get that with 'big' films though, they end up rather over-hyped and then you can't help but be disappointed.

I thought it was a good story, but it was essentially an episode of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire with some padding. Yes it gave an apparently realistic and compelling portrayal of life in the slums of Mumbai, and it had a very authentic feel given its use of real people from the slums as actors. So it was good definitely, but parts of it were a bit predictable and I wasn't left thinking "wow that was a best thing I've ever seen".

I've also watched the first three episodes of the new season of Heroes recently. Almost immediately it managed to annoy me, and although it is refreshing to have some new characters I do feel like it has gone off the boil a bit. Why is Sylar STILL in it as one of the main villains? Why? Why would you do this? That's FOUR seasons now where he's been running around, talking with his mouth half closed and having practically limitless powers. It just seems a bit lazy not to have written him out.

I'm also fed up with the way Matt Parkman does a weird squinty head twitch every time he uses his powers. Surely he would be more effective if it weren't so obvious he was poking around in your head?

And of course Claire Bennet is still trying to live a normal life, but failing miserably to be at all discreet about her powers, and her Dad is interfering in the name of protecting her, and Hiro's powers don't work properly, and blah blah blah. You could be describing practically any season of the show.

So anyway, I'm sure I'll end up still watching it, but I'll frequently tut the whole way through, and let out an exasperated sigh at the end of each episode. It's such a shame, because the first two seasons were excellent.

Other than that, work is the same as usual: pretty dull and filled mostly with Facebook and Twitter. I've had quite a few days off due to the snow, which has been nice and has helped the weeks to flick by more quickly. I had someone ask me YET AGAIN the other day "wouldn't you rather be doing a job that uses your languages". ARRRRGH! Yes I probably would, but I'm just not, alright?? There aren't that many jobs 'using your languages' in Brighton, and if I learnt one thing from the job in the tour operators which I hated, it's that just using your languages isn't enough to make you like your job. You have to like the actual job in the first place - doing it in French or Italian makes very little difference.

So yes, I still have my vaguely-unfulfilled feeling from time to time, and would quite like to be doing something more challenging. But as I have no idea what that would be, this job is fine: it pays well (considering I have hardly any work to do), I like the bits of work that I DO do, the people are nice, and I get left alone and not stressed out. If a bit of boredom is the price I pay for that, it could be a lot worse.

Right, I've been banging on for ages now, so I'd better do some work/Twitter. We're meant to be going to Pop Kraft this weekend, so maybe that will give me an opportunity to take some photos and write about some actual events instead of general ramblings!

11 reasons why you haven't got a boyfriend

2010-01-12T12:33:00.004Z

The next issue of Attitude magazine will feature an article entitled '11 reasons why you haven't got a boyfriend, and what you can do about it'.

For no particular reason, I and a couple of fellow homeowners on Twitter have compiled our own list of 11 reasons why gay men frequently fail to have or retain a boyfriend, despite purporting to desperately want one. Please find them below.

Because you panic every time you get one and dump him.
Because you're a slag and would rather sleep around than go steady with someone.
Because you try to pull people based solely on looks, and then are surprised when they have a shitty personality
Because you're ugly and smelly and no one wants to go near you.
Because most men are dickheads, so the chances of having at least one dickhead in the relationship are unreasonably high.
Because you're the kind of person who reads 'How to get a boyfriend' articles in magazines.
Because you scare them off by being clingy and calling them every 20 minutes.
Because some dick hurt you so badly before you're overly wary of getting into something new.
Because you stay at home all the time and never go out and meet real people.
Because you don't know the difference between sex and intimacy.
Because you have unrealistic expectations of your 'ideal boyfriend' that don't correspond to any actual humans.

I am fairly confident that the above reasons, in various combinations, accurately describe the difficulty lots of gay men have with relationships. Number 4 is particularly harsh; I didn't write that one, but I'm sure it is a significant impediment to some people. They do unfortunately describe several people that I actually know.

We haven't proposed any solutions to the problems we've described, but that is partly because that part is far less fun, and partly because they are kind of obvious (i.e. avoid doing or being items 1 to 11).

I'm quite looking forward to reading the Attitude article now, so I can see how closely they match and then sue them for breach of copyright.

Wicked

2010-01-05T10:42:00.007Z

I had a very nice Christmas and New Year, even if it has become a distant memory already now that I'm back at work. I apologise for not having managed to blog at all during that period, but I was too busy having my Mum flap at me about one thing or another and stuffing my face with food I didn't pay for.

Anyway, amongst the many Christmas gifts I got from Chris' Mum, I was very pleased to find two tickets to see the musical Wicked. I read the book ages ago, and occasionally say things like "yes we really must go to the theatre more often", so she actually did quite well to get us that as a present. She didn't do so well in picking Monday 4 January, our first day back at work, as the evening to book it for, but she's a bit dotty like that.

"You're not back at work then are you?", she said when we unwrapped them.

Er yes, of course we are. Everyone is! But her brain works in its own special little way sometimes.

It didn't matter too much really, as the show was at 7.30pm, and the theatre is right next to Victoria station, so it was perfectly possible to get up to London in time to see it. It did turn out to be hideously tiring though, running for a train at 5.30pm through freezing weather, and then sitting on it thinking "I bet my bed is all warm and cosy right now. I wonder what's on the telly?"

But anyway, the show was AMAZING. It was easily as good as I had hoped it would be, with a very talented cast and excellent sets and lighting and things. Our seats were right near the back, so when I saw the seating plan I thought we wouldn't be able to see very much, but the Apollo is quite a small theatre really so the view was fine.

I was surprised how different the story is compared to the book, particularly the second half of the show, but it didn't really matter. I think they'd changed it largely to make it more accessible to people who have only seen the Wizard of Oz film, and because there's simply too much in the book for a stage show.

Alexia Khadime was great as Elphaba, and has a spectacular voice. The Glinda character had almost as big a part, which I hadn't realised, and she was also really good and provided quite a bit of the humour. I think we had the standby Sarah Earnshaw rather than the main billed actress. I really liked her anyway, she was really funny.

It did make me want to go and see more shows, particularly Priscilla Queen of the Desert which is on at the moment (could I be any gayer?), but I don't think I'd go on a week night again. Standing in freezing Victoria at 10.30pm really wasn't very fun, and I had to drag myself out of bed this morning.

I don't think I'll blog very much more about Christmas and New Year, but in summary:

- I had a better than average Christmas, everyone seemed to get on, and I got very good presents.

- My Mum didn't come to our Boxing Day meal with my Horrible Grandad, but that was better really because it made it less stressy for me.

- And for New Year we went to The Jam in Brighton, to a club night organised by Dynamite Sal, which was BRILLIANT. I got trashed and felt dreadful the next day, but was at least conscious at midnight this year.

Oh yes, and my parents are still subject to their weird voodoo gypsy curse where everything goes wrong for them. Notably over the Christmas period, they enjoyed:

- a Christmas meal booking with me where the restaurant turned out not to be open for another hour after our booked time, and had no record of their booking, so we ended up in a Wetherspoons in Wanstead eating burgers.

- water coming in round one of their bedroom windows and running down the wall.

- a thermostat that broke at 10pm on a Saturday night and proceeded to try to freeze them to death during the subsequent Sunday when no one was available to come and fix it.

What fun! So of course I had to hear about all that in detail. They really shouldn't have built their house on that Indian burial ground.

The BBC have disgusted me today

2009-12-16T13:41:00.004Z

The BBC are really scraping the barrel today, which their repulsive Have Your Say 'discussion' entitled 'Should homosexuals face execution?'

Even the question is abhorrent, and I don't know how they can justify posting it. Would it be right to have a discussion, under the banner of freedom of speech, on 'Should black people be killed for being black?', or 'Should goats be executed for having four legs?'. NO. Of course not. Because the question in itself is ridiculous and stupid. All they've done is invite lots of horrible little bigots to submit their putrid little brain farts, typed out with their misshapen club hands, while they furrow their monobrows under the strain of trying to spell a word as long as homosexuality. It's the kind of thing I'd expect from the Daily Mail, not from the BBC.

The 'Most recommended' tab of the debate (sic) is particularly horrifying, both for the stupidity and the bile that it contains. And these are posts that have been RECOMMENDED as good by other readers. It's truly terrifying.

Chris the vile little toad from Guildford treats us to this awesome piece of widsom:

"I suggest all gays are put on a remote island somewhere and left for a generation - afterwhich, theoretically there shoild be none left !"

First of all, WOO HOO gay party island! We'll take Mustique, thanks very much, and YOU'RE not invited because only people who can tie their own shoelaces and don't clasp their pencils with their whole fist are allowed.

Second of all, SHUT UP. Where do you think gay people come from? Not from breeding with each other obviously, you seem to have grasped that much. So what, you think we just swish past people in our fabulous outfits and somehow they get turned gay? You worthless little moron. I've known I was gay since I was in infant school. INFANT SCHOOL. Do you think I should have been put to death for it then? Or was it only when I started tonguing boys that I crossed the line? If the world ever has the misfortune of you breeding, I hope all your children ARE gay and I hope they hate you. Also, learn to spell 'should', you vacuous pustule.

Rob D from Northampton is no better:

"Homosexuality is not natural. It makes me very uncomfortable when you consider what it involves."

Homosexuality does not equal anal sex. Lots of straight people have anal sex. For FUCK'S sake. Do you think that's all we do all day? Even if your problem is with anal sex, that's completely different to homosexuality. That's an act, not a gender. And you've got no reason to feel uncomfortable, who do you think is going to want to fuck you, you lard arse? Gay people have GOOD taste, haven't you heard?

It goes on and on. Anglobert from Surrey makes an attempt at being understanding, but can't get past the 'I'm a complete and utter DICKWAD with no right to be alive' stage:

"Let's face it. Homosexuals are not wilful criminals but unfortunate disabled people who cannot enjoy Nature's gift of attraction to and union with the opposite sex, and unable to treasure the family memories most of us take to the grave.

Feel sympathy but do not regard their relationships as normal alternatives to marriage and procreation. Hopefully, medical science will find a remedy to normalise their disability. Meanwhile, they should not be regarded as criminals. They are born that way."

I'll wait for my blue badge in the post shall I? It'll make it much easier when I nip up to Tescos. You better be careful though, those bays are right next to the Mother And Baby ones, I might try to fiddle with some kiddies while I'm there.

In case you hadn't noticed, Anglobert, most gay people think gay sex is HOT. I for one do not feel a huge void in my life simply because I am unable to fancy Anglobettina, or whatever your snub-nosed dwarf of a wife is called. And lots of us also have FAMILIES. I know! Shocking isn't it?

So forgive me if I don't rush myself down to the electroshock clinic in order to get my disability rectified. I'm far too busy spending my disposal income, wearing great shoes, and holidaying three times a year.

The BBC should be ashamed of itself.

X Factor final

2009-12-14T10:48:00.008Z

I'm not going to write loads about this, because I'm sure everyone has pretty much had enough of X Factor by now. I like watching the show myself, but after 3 or 4 months of it I do start think "God can please have my Saturday nights back now?"

But anyway, little Joe won in the end and I'm really pleased. Although I said I didn't mind really which finalist one, Olly was always my least favourite, so once Stacey was out it had to be Joe for me really. I don't know quite what he'll be like in terms of longevity, as boys do really struggle to find a place in the charts I think, and I'm not totally sure what market he's pitching himself at. If he goes for the mums like most X Factor boys do (Leon, Rhydian etc) then he'll probably flop after a few months. A much better long-term prospect would be to go for the Will Young section of the market: girls, gay boys and a few Mums too. It won't really be up to him though unfortunately, as the record label will just do whatever they think is most likely to earn them their money back in the short term, in the full knowledge that they'll have another X Factor winner in a year so it doesn't matter if he doesn't last longer than that.

I kind of feel that he might rather have a career on stage instead of as a pop singer anyway - he's got a very stagey voice and it seemed to be what interested him before he was on the show. Which is fine, Diana Vickers is apparently doing quite well on stage now, so if he does end up doing that then good for him.

The thing I'm most pleased about is that neither Danyl nor Jedward came even close to winning; beyond that I wasn't that bothered. Danyl was just too much of a wanky twat, and Jedward made me feel physically sick. They've released the voting statistics now (available on Wikipedia) and at times it was a bit touch and go, particularly Week 9 when Danyl got eliminated. Joe was never in doubt by that stage though so it wouldn't have made that much difference. And I'm quite pleased that my assertion that no one who is ever in the bottom two can go on to win was proven correct again.

So anyway, that was the X Factor for another year. I'm not that impressed by the single they've chosen, and I think it's stupid that they pick the single and whoever wins has to sing it regardless of whether it suits them, but I don't think they're likely to change that. I've heard rumours that Dannii might leave and be replaced by Melanie B from the Spice Girls, which would be a shame as she's a good judge. They should get rid of Louis if they're going to get rid of anyone.

I think Joe should have released that Journey song he sang as it suited him much better. Maybe he'll release that as a follow-up single or something.

Oo and I nearly forgot - Robbie Williams mucked up his own song!!! I was delighted, and had to rewind it and watch it again so I could enjoy it's full glory. He looked like he was going to cry as he thought "shit, this was my chance to make up for my first crappy X Factor performance, and I've fucked my lyrics up and now look like a dick". Olly should have refused to have him for his duet, if anything was going to be a drain on your votes it'd be performing with that fat faced drug-addled potatoman.

My favourite moments of the whole series though had nothing to do with the final, and everything to do with televised falling over humiliation. First was the majesty of Rachel Adedeji sucking carpet in front of Dannii Minogue:

And then there was the beautiful moment when one of John and Edward fluffed their big entrance with a humiliating slip/trip while bursting through a paper screen. Only a full fall involving the loss of teeth could have made it any better:

They're performing at Revenge this Friday, apparently. Maybe I'll go so I can shout "Enjoy your trip six weeks ago?" and then feel very very witty.

See you next year for more televised karaoke and premium rate phone voting fun.

Yummy Tin Drummy

2009-12-10T10:47:00.005Z

I had my office Christmas meal yesterday at the Tin Drum in Kemp Town. I know some of the people I work with didn't enjoy their food quite as much as me, but I thought all the things I had were really good and quite posh, so I took photos of them for you:

This was my starter, which was a squash, rosemary and parmesan tart with a pomegranate dressing. It was very nice.

This was my main course of pheasant with a port and damson jus on a mustard pommery mash. I've never had pheasant before, and I really liked half of it (the confit leg bit which tasted like crispy duck) but wasn't quite so keen on the breast bit which was a bit tough. I've never been a breast man though. The sauce (sorry,'jus') was yummy and all fruity.

This was my gorgeous dessert: hot chocolate fudge cake with vanilla ice cream. It was really nice, all gooey, and very very rich. Like a little block of pure calories really. I couldn't finish it, but enjoyed it nonetheless.

And then I had tea with a cute little mince pie with a star shape on it.

And the best part is I didn't pay for ANYTHING! Hahahahaha! Work pays for our Christmas meal here, which I've always thought is great, and it means everybody goes rather than some people saying they can't afford it or just can't be bothered. Even the wine was thrown in!

I'm not hungover at all today, which is quite good I suppose. Some of us went for drinks after the meal, but as we'd started drinking at 1pm we disbanded by 9, so I was still home in plenty of time to sober up before bed. I hadn't realised that there would be no senior staff at all in the office this morning, so I could have got away with being hungover if necessary, but I'm not going to try to get hungover just for the sake of it.

And now it's only a couple of weeks left until Christmas, yay! We've still got our Office Christmas Party to come (actually in the office this time, rather than out of it. I don't know why we have two events here), so that will be my next thing to look forward to next week. I'm feeling very festive now and just want to finish work for Christmas and go home - I can't be bothered to spend nine more days sat in this wheely chair doing not very much.

The rise of the blockbuster

2009-12-03T14:24:00.004Z

I really enjoyed an article from the Economist this week, on the place of blockbusters in modern culture. I've found myself saying quite often over the last few years that everything is a smash these days, and everything that gets released seems to be biggest selling blah ever. The article, called A world of hits, dealt with the same sort of thing, but in the context of 'we have more choice than ever before, so why does that mean even fewer things than ever before become big hits?'

I'll use the term blockbuster quite broadly here even though that only normally applies to films, but really I'm talking about all kinds of media - be it the biggest selling film, or album, or book, or even newspaper.

Basically, the article argues that as the internet grew, people thought our new-found access to a broader range of products would encourage a vastly more diverse market, full of lots and lots of different things all selling moderately well. In fact, what we've ended up with is a market where a very small number of blockbusters account for the vast majority of sales, niche markets at the other end of the scale account for the rest, and all the stuff in the middle loses out. You either have to be a hit, or a niche, or you'll sell hardly anything.

One of the reasons for this is that people like to have something to talk about with their friends. If you all consume the same things, that's much easier, and that in itself encourages us to buy the same things as other people, creating a cycle of popularity. Or if you're part of a clique that enjoys a little-known band or author, you can discuss that band or author with other passionate fans and derive just as much pleasure, even though overall it's not a big seller. But if a product is neither a big seller, nor attracts a devoted niche market, it flops because no one cares.

At the same time though, we end up with blockbusters not necessarily being the best things that are available, but still being the most popular with the masses and receiving the best reviews from the public. That's because a disproportionate share of the audience is made up of people who consume few products of that type - e.g. people who go to see the latest big releases but don't watch smaller films - and they're therefore not that discerning. Those products get an easier ride with the public because the audience isn't informed enough to criticise. If you ask an American who has only read one book this year, the article says, it is highly likely it was The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, and he probably loved it.

Niche products, on the other hand, tend to be consumed by people who read more, or listen to more music, or see more films, and those people are therefore more critical in general and more difficult to please.

In short, blockbusters don't have to be very good, as they get buoyed up by a wave of ill-informed goodwill, while niche products have to work very hard to get a similar level of approval from their audience.

We end up with the market we've got today, where it is only worthwhile for a media company to push the few things that they anticipate will be big hits. Small fry get left out, because while they may surprise everyone and do really well, they won't reliably do so, making them an uncertain investment. It's a bit sad really, as consumers will miss out on some of the very best things in favour of the 'popular', and it will continue to be that way because that's what we buy.

It's no wonder independent films or new authors struggle so much; you can't just be quite good any more. You have to be exceptional, or be accessible, not necessarily that good, but get lucky and be 'the next big thing', and you can enjoy massive self-fulfilling popularity for no good reason (yes I'm looking at you, JK Rowling, you talentless bint).

So anyway, I thought it was an excellent article, and it's one of the reasons I highly recommend reading the Economist to anyone who'll listen.

Twinkling lights and celebrities

2009-12-01T14:00:00.005Z

Last Friday we had the first annual Switching On Of The Christmas Lights on my road. Even though it may very well end up being the last one too, I still found it terribly exciting, not least because of the multitude of A List celebrities it attracted!

I should point out that I do not live on a main road, or in a town centre, so the very fact that we had Christmas lights of our own was slightly unexpected. Some of the shop keepers just got together and organised it, and one of them bought the Christmas lights from an entire town, or so we were told. I was therefore expecting a blaze of fluorescence up and down the street that could be seen from space, and was slightly disappointed that it ended up just being a few things on lamp posts.

Anyway, when it was initially advertised, we were told that Emma Chawner, a failed X Factor entrant and local lass, had been lined up for the grand switching on ceremony. In case you don't know who she is, behold:

She didn't get very far on the X Factor, even when she came back to sing a duet with her sister the next year.

Unfortunately, some of the road's shop keepers felt she would lower the tone somewhat and make it into a less believable event. They obviously weren't concerned with the hilarity aspect, or that Christmas is quite camp anyway and you don't get camper than a fat cavegirl in a home-made dress.

So they ditched Emma Chawner, and I was disappointed.

Instead though, we were upgraded to:

Annabel Giles, who performed no real function at the event other than lending it a BBC-level of classiness,

and

Michelle Collins! Yes, Cindy Beale turned on our Christmas lights! She was very gracious, and seemed to know a couple of people from our road. One of them was kind enough to collar her and ask if Chris could have her photo taken with her, and it was very weird to hear Cindy Beale's voice go "Yes of course. Chris! Chris!" and call him over.

I can see why she was more classy than the dumpy girl, but she was less hilarious. I was also very suspicious that there was no actual wiring involved in her 'switching on' the lights, she just did a count down, then sort of moved her arm. A couple of the lamp post lights came on, and then a man in a fluorescent jacket ambled down the road switching each one on one by one. But you can't have everything, we had LIGHTS and it was fab.

Oo yes, and I almost forgot, we had Santa!

So hurrah for living on the campest road in the campest part of Brighton.

Here's me looking Christmassy:

And then the next day, as if all that weren't enough, I saw Gok Wan in a jewellery shop in the lanes. It was an all-out celebrity overload. Oddly, he was wearing the same outfit he always wears on television, leading me to think he only actually owns one set of clothes. Presumably he stands naked in the kitchen while he washes them in the sink.

Anyway, I'm feeling all Christmassy now and can look forward to seeing twinkling lights every time I walk up my road from now until, erm, Christmas. Ho ho ho!

Cold dead eyes

2009-11-20T10:26:00.010Z

I feel like I haven't been blogging so much lately about things that are actually going on in my life. That's partly because I haven't been doing that many things out of the ordinary, and partly because my Mum hasn't been quite as mental as usual. She's still mental of course, and she has her moments, but nothing has caused her to have a major freakout for a little while.

So rather than write another review of something I've seen on the television, I thought I'd write a little bit about one of the places I went to while on holiday in Gran Canaria instead. I don't know how it managed to slip my mind in my original post about our holiday - perhaps it didn't slip it at all, and just buried itself as deeply as possible in my brain, hoping never to be recalled.

The place was called the Basement Club, and it's a sex club. It's more than that actually, it's a whole sex resort accommodation thing, much like the set of bungalows we stayed at but with a rather different 'anything goes' kind of ethos. You can spend your whole holiday staying there if you want to.

It wasn't my idea to go to the Basement Club (I know you won't believe me), but it was our first night there and one of the staff of Club Mancha was out with us and offered to show us some places we hadn't been before. I should have realised at that point that there was probably a very good reason why we hadn't been to them before, but alas the considerable amounts of vodka I was pouring down my face and the 13 hours travelling that day impaired my judgement.

I've been in darkrooms before, lots of bars and clubs in Gran Canaria have them, and although they're not really my thing they're usually OK for a quick skirt round and then escape into the bar area trying not to laugh while hissing to your friends "Oh my god, did you see what that man was doing to that other man? He looked like my Dad!"

So when the Club Mancha man said they were having a sex party at the Basement Club that night and did we want to pop in there "just for a quick drink to see", I thought it couldn't be that bad, it's nothing I haven't seen before.

Actually yes it was that bad, and not for the reasons I was expecting. First of all, I think 'sex party' was a rather grand term for what it actually was. I was expecting some kind of porno-esque scene replete with tanned bodies and funky guitar music in the background. In fact, what I got was a group of about a dozen men, mostly in leather kilts and waistcoats, standing around a pool and bar area and not talking to each other. None of them were my type at all, but as they were all of a similar look I suppose they might have been each others' types, so... good for them I suppose. There was high energy club music playing, and a definite feeling of "is this a sex party? are we meant to be having sex? well I'm not starting, someone else can start, I'm going to stand here and wait."

It reeked in there despite being outdoors, possibly the result of a previous sex party or some problem with their drains, and was pretty much one of the least sexy places I've ever been. And the men, oh the men. They just looked so SAD. Not sad as in trainspotting sad, sad as in unhappy. They had lifeless dead zombie eyes that roamed around looking for some sort of connection with another person and not finding any. And if they weren't sad they looked angry, although that might not have been helped by me and my friends standing in the middle talking and laughing and generally not taking the this-is-meant-to-be-sexy thing very seriously.

In the end two men shuffled close enough together that each took it as sign the other may be vaguely interested in them, and they started doing something in the corner. The other kilties were inexorably drawn over like moths to a physical affection flame and decided to cluster around them in silence, and that was when we decided we'd had enough and wanted to go.

It was all so serious, and moody, and angry, and silent. I thought sex was supposed to be fun, and you might even be able to laugh at times during it (although laughing at the moment your partner drops his trousers is possibly not helpful). I couldn't see anything to enjoy there at all, and even though I felt maybe it's just not my thing, none of the other men seemed to be enjoying themselves either.

I don't know, maybe I missed the point or something, but it left me feeling rather sorry for them. I know that's hideously patronising, and I don't really mean it quite like that, but if they look that angry and sad when they're having fun, fuck knows what they look like the rest of the time.

It was an experience anyway. Not one I'd repeat in a hurry, but an experience nonetheless. Am I being terribly narrow-minded? I don't think I am really, most narrow-minded people don't tend to go into sex clubs in the first place. And I don't mind if that's what the people in there want to do, that's up to them. They weren't hurting anyone. They had a rack thing you could tie someone up on if you wanted, I suppose you could hurt someone on that, but I'm almost certain that's normally used in consensual circumstances. I'd be interested to know what their clients get from it anyway, because all it really gave me was the feeling I needed to take a shower.

Changeling - excellent film, stupid title

2009-11-18T11:58:00.005Z

I watched a film called Changeling last night, on rental from LoveFilm, and I have to say that it was GREAT. It was so much better than I was expecting, and in actual fact it was nothing like the film that I thought it was.

The one-line description on LoveFilm read: "A mother's prayer for her kidnapped son to return home is answered, though it doesn't take long for her to suspect the boy who comes back is not hers." Based on that, and on the fact that it is called Changeling, I got it into my head that the boy who returns to her is not only not her son, but is actually not a boy at all, and is probably an alien or a demon or something like that. So I was expecting a thriller or a horror.

I could not have been more wrong, and I'm blaming it largely on the title which is thoroughly inappropriate for the film. Yes the boy is not hers, but the film isn't about that specifically, it's about the mother's struggle to convince a powerful and belligerent police force that he's not her son, and to find out what has really happened to him.

I'm not going to say much more because I don't want to spoil it, but it's a great story, even if that short description of it makes it sound like it'll be boring. Angelina Jolie is excellent in it, and I actually didn't realise it was her until about halfway through. I always quite like that from an actor - where the first thing you think isn't "Oh that's Angelina Jolie", because you're solely concerned with the character they're playing and not the fact that they're famous. Reese Witherspoon and Hilary Swank both wanted the role apparently, but didn't get it.

It's even more gripping to watch when you know that it's based on a true story, with very few of the details changed. The plot doesn't actually need much spicing up for the big screen, it's all there already, and knowing that it's true is fairly horrifying. It was nominated for three Oscars, and even though it failed to win any I'm surprised I didn't know more about it.

I thoroughly recommend it if you haven't seen it. Yes it's written by the man who wrote Babylon 5, and yes it's called Changeling, but ignore those two things - they're a distraction and they don't tell you anything about what this film is going to be like. It's very rare that I finish a film and think "Wow, that was really good", but I found Changeling really exceptional.

Trinity and the old bait-and-switch

2009-11-09T11:55:00.008Z

A while ago I blogged about the new ITV2 series Trinity and its nudity-laden first episode. The series finished last night, with a sort of semi-cliffhanger 'will we get renewed for a second series?' finale.

Overall, the series was fine, and was reasonably entertaining. It was rather confused and muddled about what genre it was hoping to be, because it seemed to veer wildly from racy romp, to teen drama, to thriller, to comic sci fi. At times it was fairly gory (including someone blowing their own brains out with a big red splatter last night), and at times it was farcical and ridiculous (particularly the comic relief 'fools' characters, who added nothing to the series except a bit of padding).

Christian Cooke was alriiiight in it, once you got used to his dodgy posh accent. His character even gained some depth, as he became more vulnerable later in the series. And the hammy characters managed to settle down a bit after the first couple of episodes, so it was fine really. I even got quite into the story.

It has to be said though that they used a blatant nudity bait-and-switch to hook you in during the first episode, in much the same way that Queer As Folk did years ago. There was LOTS of sex and nudity in the first episode, Christian Cooke was barely clothed for most of it, and then there was pretty much nothing of the kind for the rest of the series. It was quite annoying to tune in dutifully each week in the hopes of seeing him nekkid again, only to be completely unrewarded. I think they owed us faithful and pervy viewers a bit more than that, and he should have at least done a shower scene halfway through the series or something.

Apparently there is a DVD boxset of it coming out. I won't be buying it of course, it wasn't that good, but I hope they do get a second series. They left a lot of stuff open for further explanation at the end, and so it will be frustrating if they don't. Like the whole Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles debacle, which had JUST got good when they suddenly cancelled it. Network executives are idiots.

I don't like the Blood Service

2009-11-06T09:50:00.002Z

I don't like the Blood Service because it is discriminatory and unfair. I've read through all their arguments, and I've read why the Terrence Higgins Trust supports their view (albeit accepting that it is discriminatory), but I still don't like it because it makes me feel like I am inferior because of who I am.

For those of you who don't know, the Blood Service doesn't allow gay men to give blood. Ever. We're banned for life. They don't phrase it specifically like that, in fact they deliberately make it not about being gay but about sexual behaviour. Otherwise I suspect it would be illegal under equalities legislation. The question they ask you is:

'Are you a man who has had oral or anal sex with another man (even if you used a condom)?'

And if the answer is yes, then you're out.

You can, however, be a woman who has had oral sex with a man without using a condom, and that's fine. You can also be a man who has had sex with 300 women in the last year. Even if it was in a back alley after 14 shots of vodka. Not if she gave you a tenner in payment for it though, that makes a whole world of difference.

Their argument, based on their scientific advice, is that by allowing any men who have any kind of sex with men to donate blood, they would greatly increase (by 60% they say) the chance of blood-borne viruses entering the supply. They can't take that risk, nor can they jeopardise public confidence in the Blood Service.

I can understand why they have to keep patient safety rather than my feelings as an overriding concern. But as a gay man it feels HORRIBLE. They'd rather take blood from a tramp on the street than from me.

Even worse, without wanting to bore you (or enthrall you) with too much detail, the kind of sexual activities I have enjoyed during my life to date could not be classed, in my opinion, as being in any way risky. In fact I'd go as far to say that I'm at less risk than the average person of having contracted HIV. On top of that, I actually know my HIV status, which is more than lots of people can say. I doubt many of my straight friends have ever had an HIV test. But none of that matters. They don't have the "resources", they say, to obtain detailed sexual histories from every potential donor, so the kind of sex you've had or how recent it was doesn't matter.

But what of that feeling you have, and that is implied in the adverts, that they always need to people to give blood, they're crying out for it, and that people would die if you didn't? Well they don't care about that either. In fact if pressed, they say "there has been a safe and sufficient blood supply in this country for many years". Oh, so I don't need to feel guilt-tripped into giving blood by your adverts after all? Well I wish you'd said, there was me hoping to be a good citizen and "do something amazing today".

I'm not arguing particularly for a change in policy, although I do note that other European countries take a different view. If I were to argue for it, I suppose it would be that they should consider each person's individual history, and not impose a fairly arbitrary and harshly-phrased lifetime ban. But I would like them to acknowledge that their policy sucks ass (which would presumably preclude you from giving blood if it's a man's ass), and for them to show a bit more sensitivity as they trample over my feelings.

Sun, vodka, boys and insects

2009-11-02T14:57:00.006Z

I had a lovely time in Gran Canaria, and the weather did indeed stay nice for us. It was closer to 80 degrees sometimes I think, so I was even grateful for the bit of cloud we had towards the end of the week.

We were only there for five days, but to be honest that was quite enough for me. It's a rare occasion now that I'd want to go out two nights in a row, so going out five nights in a row was quite a struggle for me. Thank goodness all I had to do in the daytime afterwards was lay on a plastic sun lounger in my skimpies for hours in end (see photo).

For those of you who haven't been to Gran Canaria before, it really is your basic sun and booze holiday. There's not actually that much else to do there, although you can hire a car and go inland if you want to, which we've done in previous years. But all we did this time was get up late, sunbathe, go out for dinner at reasonably priced restaurants where you have to sit on patio furniture, drink vodka from the Spar, and then go out bar hopping around the Yumbo Centre. It was great. The only thing that could have been improved really was that there weren't that many fit boys there this year. There were some, mostly fit waiters, but I think some people have been put off by how expensive the euro is right now. Plus of course it was half term, and what kind of fool goes on holiday in half term unless they have to? Such is my lot as the wife of a teacher.

Oh yes, and the other thing that could have been improved was that they could have put a tent over the whole island and fumigated it before we arrived. I got SO many mosquito bites! I had about 20 in the end, and some of them have only just gone down. So with them, plus the cockroaches who occasionally scuttle across your bungalow floor, I'd had quite enough of insects by the time we left.

Our accommodation was nice, we stayed at Club Mancha which is right by the Yumbo Centre where all the gay bars are. It's a small complex of about 12 bungalows around a pool. The staff there were really friendly, and I couldn't fault it really. I'd definitely go there again, but having been to Gran Canaria about four times now I think maybe we should try another destination next time we go away.

I was exhausted by the time we got home from all the going out, so it is actually sort of nice to be back at work where I can sit down all day and drink tea. I've got a bit of tan but not loads as I didn't want to burn, but at least it has given me a bit of colour for the winter. Chris, of course, has turned into a sub-saharan African again because he tans really quickly, so he'll probably still be tanned long after mine has faded. It's a shame I can't really pull of Nicole Kidman-esque pale beauty, it would be so much easier for me! I just go pink in the sun. No danger of that though now that I'm back. Still, Christmas is just around the corner, so I shall look forward to that now instead.

Fun fun fun in the sun sun sun with a cold cold cold

2009-10-19T16:00:00.003+01:00

It's not long now until I'm off on holiday to Gran Canaria - five days in fact - and I'm really looking forward to it. It's 75 degrees out there at the moment, and although there is a bit of cloud around I'm hoping it's going to be nice enough to spend most of it lazing by the pool.

Unfortunately, at the moment I am ill with a cold, and so is Chris, and so is one of the friends we're going with. Which is quite a pain really, as I don't particularly relish the prospect of travelling when I'm feeling crappy. It's only Monday though and I've been ill since last Thursday, so I'm hoping it will be long gone by Saturday. I've eaten 13 satsumas in 5 days too, so that's got to have helped hasn't it?

For a little while I felt guilty at the thought I might be on a plane with a virus and give it to other people. Then however, this was overridden by the worry that there might be people on the plane with worse viruses (i.e. swine flu) who might give those to me! So I suddenly got quite irrationally twitchy that I'll get laid up in a random Spanish health centre with swine flu and miss all of my holiday.

BUT I've just looked up some details on air travel, and it seemed to say you're no more at risk on a plane on a short flight that you would be on a bus or train, unless you end up sitting next to someone who is coughing and sneezing. So I'll probably be OK and I'm going to stop panicking.

Now all I need is for the stupid AussieBums I ordered to arrive before Saturday - it's been six weeks now and no sign of them. Typical. I just know they'll turn up the Monday after we leave, and will be waiting all smugly in my post box when we get back.

Tea cosies, booze and Simon Amstell

2009-10-12T15:25:00.013+01:00

I've had a great weekend involving all of the above items. Fortunately they weren't all at once, that would have been a bit odd and probably rather confusing for Simon Amstell.

It was Chris' birthday on Friday, so we had a number of nice things planned over the weekend to celebrate this auspicious occasion. We had a nice dinner at home on Friday accompanied by a bottle of Marks and Spencer Vouvray (one of my favourite wines, try it!) and then we had a cosy night in doing SingStar on his new wireless SingStar microphones.

Then on Saturday we went for a Birthday High Tea at the Tea Cosy teashop. You may have seen it briefly on Brighton Beach Patrol on Channel 5 last week. Basically it's a camp little teashop crammed to bursting with royal memorabilia, where they do great tea and cakes and sandwiches and things. The guy who runs it is lovely and always keeps us entertained with local gossip.

I had the Princess Margaret Memorial Low Tea, which came with the most yummy lemon Madeira cake ever. It was the size of a breeze block too, so I was on a bit of a sugar and caffeine rush for quite a while afterwards and had to have a bit of a lie down in the afternoon (I'm such an old woman)

And then in the evening we had people over and then went to We Luv Pop's We Luv Movie Soundtracks at the Hanbury Ballroom. Chris had decided our evening should have a fancy dress theme, and that theme ended up being "Things you never thought you'd wear again". It was subverted a little by some people buying new fancy dress outfits for it, but they were so horrific we decided it was admissible. Chris and I went in our school uniforms, and were both quite smug that they still fitted fairly well.

The We Luv Movie Soundtracks theme was great (from what I remember), and we did quite a lot of crazy dancing to such classics as Dance Magic Dance and the Neverending Story. It was really busy in there too, which was good. It's run by Dynamite Sal who used to do Dynamite Boogaloo, so I'm glad it's doing well.

Sunday was a necessarily more subdued day, and all I really wanted to do was loaf about and watch Come Dine With Me. We couldn't do that all day though, because we had tickets to see Simon Amstell's stand up show at the Brighton Dome in the evening. We saw him there last year too, and he's been really good both times.

Lots of his act this year seemed to revolve around him being a bit lonely and crap at relationships, which made me think awwwwwww and want to give him a hug. He also said that his ideal man is one who is skinny (check), only says about three sentences an hour (check), and is rather sickly (check!). So I'm definitely in there if I ever get to meet him. I'm not 18 unfortunately, his other stipulation, but I might be able to get him to overlook that with enough vodka.

Sometimes with celebrities who seem a bit vulnerable like that, I think "aw I bet we'd be really good friends". Which is a stupid thing to think I know, because what he says on stage quite possibly bears no relation to how he is in real life. He might be horrible. He's certainly very highly strung I think. You can tell that he's quite tense about his act going well, he doesn't really like hecklers (even good natured ones), and he got quite cross in the middle of his act about the spotlight not following him properly. I imagine he's quite high maintenance. But he's so sweet, I just wanted to take him home with me.

Chris seemed to have a very good birthday weekend anyway, with all these activities to entertain him. I'm thoroughly exhausted now though and will need to try to catch up on some sleep. Particularly as we're probably having another big night out next weekend (again at the Hanbury, which seems to be taking all my money at the moment) for Boogaloo Stu's Pop Kraft.

Honestly, with all this socialising and debauchery it's getting quite difficult to maintain my shy and retiring image.

Miss Amateur Pole Dance UK 2009

2009-10-05T15:30:00.019+01:00

Yesterday I had the unusual experience of going to a pole dancing competition to see one of my friends compete for the title of Miss Amateur Pole Dance UK. It was up in Burgess Hill (it wasn't a huge event, hence the not particularly glamorous location) and my friend had come all the way from Birmingham to compete, so we felt it was only right that a few of us should go along to cheer her on.

And it was really fun! They had 11 girls compete, and they seemed to have come from various places around the country to enter. I think the only stipulations were that you had to have been pole dancing for less than a year and that you weren't a 'professional', i.e. didn't work as a pole dancer in any capacity. They kept reiterating that the emphasis was very much on fitness and fun and dance, rather than it being a sexy showcase, which is probably why it was in a leisure centre at two in the afternoon. All the girls seemed to be doing pole dancing for the same reasons as our friend anyway, as a hobby and for the fitness side.

Actually it was meant to be 12 competitors, but one foolish girl made the mistake during the introductory bit of answering "So how long have you been pole dancing?" with "Two years". "Oh," said the hostess woman. "Well you can't compete then sorry" and she was disqualified then and there on stage! Bit humiliating really, they should have asked her that question earlier... They still let her dance at the end, but only as a 'showcase', she wasn't in the competition.

The girls all performed really well, with a bit of variation in ability, and it was obvious once they got going that it's not as easy as you might think it is. I for one do not fancy trying to suspend myself in mid-air using only the power of my thighs clutching a pole.

Our friend Jennie (third picture, in the camo dress) performed really really well, and did a nice routine to Jordin Spark's 'Battlefield', with a matching outfit and everything. She didn't win, unfortunately, but there was very little in it, and she was a lot more graceful than most of the other competitors.

After the girls' competition there was a Mr Pole Fitness competition, which they touted as the first time they'd had a male competition, but they said they thought the sport was 'ready for it'. Obviously not that ready for it, as they only had four competitors, including one man who had been strong-armed into competing from among the audience. The guy who won had come all the way from France, and I think he may have been expecting a slightly larger competition than the two joke entrants (a milkman and a barbarian) and a guy in jeans. He won anyway, because he could actually dance and do some quite difficult moves on the poles.

And then the current Miss Professional Pole Dance graced us with a performance to close. She was obviously very good, and whizzed round and round on that pole in all her skinny bikinied glory.

It quite made me want to try pole dancing actually... I think the greater upper body strength that men tend to have might be quite an advantage for some of it (especially shimmying up the pole). So who knows, maybe that Mr Pole Fitness 2010 title has got my name on it...

X Factor final 12

2009-10-05T09:04:00.006+01:00

What the fuck??? Once again the X Factor has managed to surprise us with a mixed bag of good singers, mediocre singers, and some truly unfathomable decisions. We're now down to the final 12, the selection we will be repeatedly and forcibly exposed to over the coming weeks right up until Christmas.

I could tackle this post in the same order as the last one, for consistency, but I think it is far more important that I move straight onto the groups first as I feel like I'm about to explode.

The groups - Louis Walsh, sex pest and retard extraordinaire

What the fuck??????? He put John and Edward through!!!!!!! I can't BELIEVE it. It's not that I can't believe that Louis would do it, I can very much believe that, but I can't believe he had the audacity to put through a 'group' who can't sing, who stood there like a wet fucking weekend singing off key, and who then cried about how shit their performance was, and who Ronan Keating even said "well I can't see why you like them", but who he put through ANYWAY solely because he wants to finger them. It was SO bare-faced and transparent! There was no musical justification for it, and yet he just did it anyway.

Of course, he can make the argument that putting in a group that everyone hates is 'good television'. But he won't be making that argument because he'll be too busy jiggling up and down on their cocks to think about it. He claims they "have potential". Potential is not enough by this stage of the competition! Potential is fine for the first audition, but then you boot them out at the second stage and say they're not ready or aren't strong enough. It was just ridiculous!

If they had been two black twins from Battersea with those voices, would he have put them through? No. A million times no. Louis Walsh is a racist. Not because he wouldn't put them through because they're black, but because he so blatantly favours the Irish over all others and with complete disregard for their actual ability. It'll probably come out in the papers in a few weeks that he knows their family or something, the same as it did with Simon and Leona, and that's why he's pushed them through. Or maybe he doesn't know their family but their school is near his house and he used to look at them in the playground through the railings while toying with his Irish flute.

So anyway, that was dreadful, just dreadful. Also through for the groups are Kandy Rain (meh, they'll last two weeks) and Miss Frank. Miss Frank are OK, I don't always like the rapping much, but they can sing reasonably well and aren't doing badly considering they didn't want to be a group.

I'm glad he kicked out Harmony Hood, because they were crap and were just there to make up the numbers. They thought they were good because they were all urban and 'street', but I'm sorry, this isn't Sister Act II: Back In The Habit, being from the gritty suburbs but having a heart of gold isn't enough for this competition. If that's what you're hoping for I suggest you look for a fat black woman in a nun's habit and ask her to make your musical dreams come true.

The boys - Cheryl Cole

This category wasn't toooooooo bad. Fit Lloyd got through, but is a bit young and may crack under the pressure. She got rid of equally fit Ethan, but I agree that he didn't sing all that well in his final performance. I don't know why she tortured that opera boy by making him wait, she was never going to put him through. And Rikki Loney needs to give it up with the hats, it's not a good look. Who was the other one? Oh yes, Joe. He's alright, a bit wishy washy. Suspiciously he's from South Shields like Cheryl is, so when she said "I felt like I knew you as soon as you walked in" it was a bit obviously just because he has the same accent. But anyway, I guess Lloyd is my favourite from this lot. He could do with not speaking though, he's rather too Welsh.

The girls - Dannii Minogue

As I said before, I found it hard to identify individual girls from this category, and didn't know that much about them. She's put Rachel Adedeji though, which is fine. I suspect her real reason wasn't that she liked her singing, but rather that she liked her prostrating herself before her at the end of Bootcamp (see previous photo).

I quite like the Stacey that got through, she is dippy and sweet. She talks weirdly like Frank Spencer at times, which I find rather amusing. And the Lucy girl has a good voice so I suppose that's OK.

The overs - Simon Cowell

Some odd decisions here again. Both the women got the chop, which is a shame because they had great voices. He was maybe concerned they would be overshadowed by the under 25 girls, or that they simply wouldn't get the votes. He's quite shrewd like that: he doesn't necessarily pick the best singers, because he knows the public don't vote for the best singers. Look at Eoghan Quigg: he was crap, and he had a big white face that slowly expanded through the series until he looked like Michael Myers from Halloween. But he got through to almost win it, so Simon knew what he was doing.

Annoyingly, he kept Danyl, who is so retarded he can't even spell Daniel. And this was despite his massively over-the-top performance, which included gurning and occasionally looking quite like Kermit the Frog. There is such a thing as adjusting your performance to suit your type of audience, and his monstrosity was just not suitable for two people on a sofa three feet in front of you. I don't like him, he's a knob.

Jamie Afro is through, but he has been slightly raised in my estimation because he DID adjust his performance - he toned it down a lot, and it felt much more appropriate for the setting. I still don't like him, I don't think he'll sell records, and I don't know why he always has a fucking dishcloth tucked into his jeans. I don't need my windows washed, thank you Jamie, although you could probably buff them to a nice shine with that afro.

And finally there was big cheeks Olly. He's okaaaaaaay in a hamstery sort of way. I suppose for novelty during Big Band week he could house the entire band actually in his cheeks, that might be fun. He's not great though, he has bad bad hair and his voice is only OK. He's no Austin Drage anyway.

So yes, I was mildly disappointed. I think I want Lloyd to win (he's probably not strong enough) or one of the girls (I don't mind which at the moment).

And John and Edward need to be beaten to death with a rusty rail spike.

X Factor final 24

2009-09-28T11:43:00.021+01:00

The X Factor has finally progressed beyond its endless parade of mentally impaired and recently bereaved people, to a stage where you start to actually know who some of them are. Yes, it's the Judges Houses, and from a pool of thousands of delusional retards we're now down to 24, some of whom can actually sing! It's exciting, I know.

However, I'm not actually thrilled by their chosen selection. When they showed them all, I thought "Really? One of them is going to win? Oh." So that's not exactly great. There are also some that I want to kill with a claw hammer, but I suppose the X Factor wouldn't be the X Factor if you couldn't scream in rage at the screen from time to time.

So, let's see who we've got.

The boys - Cheryl Cole

Cheryl's got a fair group of boys, considering I think they're a harder group to work with as the voters don't always warm to them. I don't know much about Duane Lamonte, and Rikki Loney is just some boy in a hat. Ethan Boroian is sort of cute, and so is Lloyd Daniels, even if he is a bit young. He's a big improvement on Eeyore Quigg at any rate. The other ones don't really stand out for me, so I guess Ethan and Lloyd are my favourites. Not sure they've got the strongest voices though.

The girls - Dannii Minogue

This is easily the strongest category every year, so Dannii's lucky they gave it to her. To compensate for her lack of musical knowledge or talent, they also revealed Kylie would be helping her out in picking her final three. Shame they can't ditch funny-nostrilled Dannii in favour of Kylie completely. I don't really know much about the girls though, because they've hardly shown most of them. There are a couple of quite good Staceys I think, and a girl called Rachel who fell on her face in her eagerness to get a closer look at Dannii's nose.

The overs - Simon Cowell

Simon seemed quite pleased with his category, and I think he's probably got my favourite act so far, Nicole Lawrence. Yes she milked the death of her Dad a bit, but she has that whole big fat black woman with a great voice thing going on which really does it for me. He also has Jamie Afro, who I can't stand, and bizarrely has managed to find two people who can't spell Daniel properly. One of them I hate, I think it's Danyl Johnson, as he's a complete and utter wank spittoon. It's one thing to give a confident audition, but it's quite another to completely frig yourself off on stage while shouting your own name (he didn't actually do that, but he may as well have). He's a knob anyway. I'm sure Simon won't keep both him AND Jamie Afro though, they're too similar in their wanky styles, so at least one of them should get the chop.

The groups - Louis Walsh

And once again, Louis has the groups. The only thing I have to say about this category, is what the FUCK? What the HELL are John and Edward still doing there? They're TERRIBLE and they can't sing. Louis says they 'have something'. The only thing they're going to have is Louis' cock in their mouths as he forces them to nosh him off. He doesn't even like novelty acts so what the hell is he doing? Actually, I know what he's doing, he's just always fancied the idea of a threesome with twins, so now that he's got two blond Irish twins in his power he must be doing a leprechauny celebration jigdance all the way to his sex dungeon. They have to go, they just have to, in the name of all that is holy. And for child protection reasons.

So, that's the X Factor for this year. Not thrilling, and a possibly mediocre Christmas Number One on the way. I'll still watch it of course, and some of them may even grow on me. You never know.

More silly protests

2009-09-28T11:06:00.007+01:00

There was another anti-government protest in Brighton at the weekend, apparently attended by Sloth from The Goonies (see picture - courtesy of the Argus).

As if the Labour Party Conference weren't disruptive enough for the citizens of Brighton, we also have to put up with vague and pointless protests cluttering up our streets.

Fortunately, this one seemed rather smaller than the Smash EDO idiocy, and by the time I ventured down to the seafront to take a look it appeared to consist of a man standing on a plinth and some bored-looking policemen. I was pleased to see that there were also stacks and stacks of unused placards on Madeira Drive, where they'd clearly not had as many people turn up as they'd been hoping for.

As with the previous protest, it was the diffuse and varied aims of this one that really made it pointless for me. Some people seemed upset about bankers' bonuses; some didn't want cuts in public services; some thought Vestas should be nationalised (er, bit late); some were anti-war; and some were just generally anti-anything because they think protesting is cool. The problem with that, I feel though, is that the protest doesn't end up achieving anything, because no one is really sure why they're there.

This one was particularly pointless because I'm sure it caused no disruption at all to the Labour Party delegates, who were safely tucked up inside the windowless Brighton Centre and probably couldn't hear or see any of what was going on.

I also don't really get some of the arguments that the protesters make. Some of their placards said "Fight for the right to work", which I found odd. There isn't an unlimited supply of jobs out there, and I don't think the Human Rights Convention says we all have a right to a job which the government must provide and pay for.

The 'no cuts in public services' ones also seemed misguided. There is a huge deficit in the public finances which has to be repaired. Regardless of how it got there (I'll come to that in a minute), it has to be remedied. The country doesn't have secret stacks of cash it's keeping squirrelled away - the only way to cut the deficit is to make cuts in spending, or raise taxes. They seem to think that just 'taxing the rich' more is going to sort it out, but it's not realistic. Why do they think that all the major parties have acknowledged the need for cuts? Even Labour says so now, after trying to dodge the word cuts for ages. Efficiency savings won't be enough, there need to be actual cuts, and we will all feel the effects. But the alternative is a much longer and more painful recession or depression - you can't just ignore the problem and expect the economy to sort itself out.

There was quite a bit of talk about bankers' bonuses too, and apportioning of blame on the banking sector for our financial woes. While I agree it was the bursting of the credit bubble and overly-risky investing by the banks that dragged the economy down, outlawing bankers bonuses is a purely populist measure that won't actually fix the state we're in. Yes the banks behaved badly - but the problem was that they were allowed to do so. We should be talking now about much tighter financial regulation and imposed margins on the banks' balance sheets, to ensure it doesn't happen again. Complaining about bonuses doesn't address the real issue at all.

And yes it's annoying that some of the people who caused this are still getting big bonuses. Fine. The banks shouldn't be giving those people financial rewards, if they've even still got their jobs. But the issue isn't an across-the-board one for all banks, and the backlash against the financial world will only discourage the bright and talented people we need to repair the damage from joining the sector. The same as with the social workers/Baby P thing: now no one wants to be a social worker, so there are no good social workers out there fixing a flawed system.

Anyway, I've digressed a little. The protest was pointless, and to me it achieved nothing except some venting of anger and to confirm for me that lots of people really don't understand economics, politics, or how the country works in general.

Trinity - first episode

2009-09-21T15:48:00.004+01:00

As I mentioned last week, the new ITV series Trinity started on Sunday.

It did indeed deliver plentifully on the Christian-Cooke-getting-naked side (see photo) as I had hoped, but other than that it was baaaaaaaaaad! Some of the acting was really, really terrible, and the writing was mediocre at best.

Christian Cooke was OK in it; he plays a smug upper-class playboy called Dorian, and so it's fine that his character has very little depth to it, that's how he's meant to be. They've made him do a posh accent for it though, and he just sounds a bit silly.

The main posh girl is very hammy, as is the seemingly evil lecturer/doctor man. They play it like it's a cartoon really, which then doesn't fit with some of the other characters who are more normal.

It felt a bit like it was written by someone who's never been to university, and who has certainly never been to Oxford or Cambridge, but they've heard that "it's a bit like this". I wasn't sure if it was meant to be a comedy, or a thriller, or a drama really.

Dorian is the only character they make get naked, none of the girls even got their baps out, but that's fine because he's the only one I'm interested in seeing naked anyway. They do rather overplay that card I have to say, he was barely clothed at all, but I'm a superficial individual so it suited me perfectly and distracted me from the attempt at a plot.

I'm going to watch the second episode because it looks like it might get going a bit more next week (they had a bizarre 10-minute-long 'coming up next week' montage at the end that basically showed you everything). Perhaps it was a slow start because they had to introduce all the characters, and the Dandelion Club, and the mystery surrounding the religious girl's father. So we shall see if it improves.

I'm not saying I'll stop watching it, it wasn't that bad, and the nudity was ample reward. But it has a definite ITV2 feel to it that left me feeling slightly unclean afterwards.

How to keep a healthy level of insanity

2009-09-17T13:44:00.001+01:00

I was going through some old emails and I found this and I liked it, so here it is.

How to keep a healthy level of insanity

1. At lunch time, sit in your parked car with sunglasses on and point a hair dryer at passing cars. See if they slow down.

2. Page yourself over the intercom. Don't disguise your voice.

3. Every time someone asks you to do something, ask if they want fries with that.

4. Put your garbage can on your desk and label it "in"

5. Put decaf in the coffee maker for 3 weeks. Once everyone is over their caffeine addictions, switch to espresso.

6. In the memo field of all your cheques, write "for sexual favours".

7. Finish all your sentences with "in accordance with the prophecy."

8. Dont use any punctuation marks

9. As often as possible, skip rather than walk.

10. Ask people what sex they are. Laugh hysterically after they answer.

11. Specify that your drive-through order is "to go".

12. Sing along at the opera.

13. Go to a poetry recital and ask why the poems don't rhyme.

14. Five days in advance, tell your friends you can't attend their party because you're not in the mood.

15. Have your co-workers address you by your wrestling name

16. When the money comes out the ATM, scream "won!", "I won!" "3rd time this week!!!!!"

17. When leaving the zoo, start running towards the parking lot, yelling, "run for your lives, they're loose!!"

18. Tell your children over dinner. "due to the economy, we are going to have to let one of you go."

Stupid Orange - or stupid Sony Ericsson?

2009-09-17T10:44:00.002+01:00

I hope that Melany from Sony Ericsson is as on the case as she was last week, and miraculously finds this post while trawling the internet for discussions of their mobiles. Maybe she can offer some helpful advice in the comments? (holds breath)

I got my C510 back yesterday, about half a week earlier than I was expecting, which was a nice surprise. I got them to turn it on in front of me in the shop to make sure it was working, and all seemed fine. Sony Ericsson have upgraded the firmware to the latest version, and you can tell that some improvements have been made to it because it seems to function a little better. For one thing it doesn't hang for 10 seconds every time you try to go into the contacts directory, so I thought "oo, things are looking up".

It was fine all last night, and I got it set up again pretty much how I had it before. The only thing I noticed was that the battery seemed to run down quite quickly, but I attributed that to the fact I was using it a lot and launching and closing applications all the time.

This morning it was also fine and let me listen to music on the way to work and check my Twitter. All fine and dandy it seemed. Until after about an hour of being at work, I noticed it was off. Strange, I thought, and turned it back on. Then I plugged it in to charge it, and it was suddenly off. No shut down sequence, just off.

Hmm, I thought. The battery can't have been that low, it would have warned me.

After a bit of searching on the internet (AGAIN), I found that indeed Sony Ericssons do have a habit of switching off randomly. Chris just bought one, and it had to go back to the shop the next day and be replaced for the same reason; we just thought it was a faulty handset.

The helpful internet forums suggested reflashing the firmware (erm, possibly not going to help in my case), OR that it could be a notorious loose battery problem that you get on SE phones. Some people complained that tapping their phone on its side would cause it to switch off. I gingerly tapped my phone against the desk, and off it went. I turned it back on, tapped it, and off it switched again. When I opened the back, I found that yes the battery was able to slide about slightly, roughly a millimetre from side to side. The gold contacts were also a bit grubby.

I have cleaned the contacts, and have insert two small pieces of paper next to the battery, which prevent it from moving. It's been on for a while now charging, and I have tried tapping it from various angles without any ill effects.

So... is it fixed? I'm not sure. Why did it start doing this switching off thing suddenly? Who knows. I'm not particularly happy, but stupid and ridiculous as this folded paper thing seems, if it fixes it I don't care.

I'm very disappointed in Sony Ericsson though. I thought they were like the best phone make. Why can't any electrical products be made to proper standards any more? The amount of things I've had to take back to the shop - cameras, televisions, phones - it's just ridiculous. I don't remember such problems when everything used to be made in Japan, maybe it's cheap Chinese and Korean components that cause it.

Well anyway, I guess I'll just keep an eye on it. I can't be arsed to take it back to the shop AGAIN. Everyone think good thoughts about my phone...

Trinity starts this weekend!

2009-09-15T11:58:00.003+01:00

Quite a while ago I wrote a post about vampire-smiting fitty Christian Cooke, and his upcoming new series Trinity. Well, it's been a while coming, but I learnt recently that it's going to start this weekend!

It's on ITV2, so they're obviously not expecting it to be a massive ratings winner initially, but that's fine. I know very little about it, except that it's set at a place called Trinity College, it is vaguely spooky in nature, and it will feature gratuitous Christian Cooke toplessness. In fact, having had a look at a bit of the first episode online just now, there may even be some bottom action too. So that's pretty much enough to sell it to me already. Not that I'm shallow or anything.

You can find out more about it on the ITV website. I particularly like their optimistic bit of text that says 'Are you hooked on Trinity? Join the show's Facebook group now' before it's even been on the television.

Stupid Orange

2009-09-11T09:58:00.006+01:00

*** Update May 2010: You may also want to see my more recent post in which I successfully FIXED a phone with this problem at home! ***

This isn't a rant about citrus fruit (I'll save that for later, stupid vitamin-filled bastards), but rather a complaint about Orange Mobile and their shoddy merchandise and shoddy customer service.

I have been without my phone for the last week, and will continue to be so for next week as well. I've only had the bloody thing for five months, it's a Sony Ericsson C510, but last Saturday it decided to keel over and die. What was I doing that taxed it beyond reasonable limits? Trying to text my Mum. Possibly the most mundane and easy thing you can do on a mobile.

Having done some searching on the web, I realise now that I'm not the only Sony Ericsson owner this has happened to, and there were precautions I could have taken to prevent it. But of course before it died I had to reason to take them, so I didn't.

Basically, either the software or the memory or both decided to fail. I got as far as 'Send message', when it suddenly said "Memory full. Delete a file of your choice? Yes/No". I said yes, and then the phone karked it. It crashed beyond recovery (I had to take the battery out), and then displayed this exciting list of symptoms:

no access to the network, or indeed any network. (The manual helpfully said "try changing your location if you cannot access your network." Er, no.)
no access to the phonebook, it locked up if you even tried.
inability to charge the phone, as when you plugged it in it said "Please use a Sony Ericsson battery" and then refused to cooperate, even when I shouted "IT IS A FUCKING SONY ERICSSON BATTERY" at it.
all menu text had changed to black on a black background, so you couldn't read anything. Well, in fact you could, because the highlighted menu item remained white, you just couldn't see any of the other options in the list until you moved up or down. So that made navigation very exciting as you never knew what was coming next.
unable to connect the phone to the PC, as the Sony Ericsson Phone Suite programme thingy refused to recognise the phone.

So, all in all, it was fucked.

The helpful information I found on the web blamed a software error, and said it might be resolved if you updated the firmware. Indeed, on the Sony Ericsson site, there was a new version which proudly proclaimed it would resolve certain errors and improve memory access. Well, that's lovely, but it was a bit fucking late now that my phone was dead and I couldn't connect it to the PC to wipe it and reload the software. I also couldn't back up my contacts directory onto the computer, or even onto the SIM, because it couldn't access it.

So after a couple of hours of futilely turning it on and off and hoping it magically healed itself, I took it back to the Orange shop.

Were they concerned, apologetic, sympathetic and helpful? No.

I got some woman, who I assume must have been the store manager judging by her rather casual attire and blasé attitude, and explained that the phone was busted.

"Oh right. Well it'll have to go back to Sony Ericsson to be fixed then. They'll wipe it and reload the software. We're not fixing them ourselves any more, we're sending them straight to them" (a big hint, I think, that other people have had the same problem). "It'll take 10 days."

"10 days, or 10 working days?"

"10 working days."

"So two weeks then. What do I do for a phone in the meantime?"

"You'll have to use an old handset if you've got one."

"I have one, but it doesn't work very well, that's why I bought a new one. Isn't there anything else you can do for me?" (I was hoping for a courtesy phone, which I know they can do because I could see the space on the form for it)

"Not unless you have another old handset."

"So that's a no then. What about my numbers?"

"I'll back them up onto your SIM for you." (starts jabbing with her podgy fingers at the buttons)

"You can't. As I said, you can't access the phonebook."

"Well you'll lose your numbers then."

"Oh. Thanks."

And that was it! No apology, no nothing. I'm now just waiting for a call to say the phone is back and I can go and get it. I'm hoping it'll be before the end of next week, but based on my experience so far it's more likely to be the start of the week after.

So I've got no 3G any more, and I'm stuck with my crappy LG Chocolate which looks nice but works like it was programmed by illiterate paraplegics with severe brain injuries.

My advice to you if you're reading this post because you've searched for Sony Ericsson C510 on Google is to install the Phone Suite programme thingy and back up your phone now. Then, if you know what you're doing, upgrade your software to the latest version. I'm not sure if that means you lose any network-specific customisations (mine had special Orange links built into the menus), but it's probably worth it to keep the phone from dying.

It's a shame, because I loved my C510, it's the best phone I've ever had, and most people have told me Sony Ericssons are really good. Maybe it'll come back in tip top condition and I'll have no more problems with it, but whatever happens it'll be no thanks to Miss Piggy of the Brighton Orange shop.

Gender pay gap in the City

2009-09-07T09:19:00.001+01:00

There's an article on BBC News this morning, Gender pay gap in the City 'shocking', that says that women in the financial sector in London get paid far fewer bonuses than men. Some equality bod says in it that "the sector must take action to redress this shocking disparity of rewards", and the government has talked about tough new measures to tackle the pay gap.

I would agree that if men are receiving five times more in bonus payments than women, and if women aren't reaching the upper echelons of the companies solely because they are women, then that's shocking and should be redressed.

The article blames entrenched recruitment patterns, and practices which intentionally or not inhibit women's success for the disparity.

BUT, I also read this article in the Economist this week, called Risky business. The article outlines a study on attitude to risk, which is important in a lot of financial jobs, and the levels of testosterone in a person's body. The study claims that if you look at people as individuals, regardless of sex, and factor in their testosterone levels, any perceived sexism vanishes. Men and women with the same testosterone levels performed the same in the study, from those who were more risk-averse to those who were more comfortable with it.

When the study tracked people through into their careers, they found the same correlation between testosterone levels and where they ended up: those with higher levels were more likely to choose risky jobs in finance.

So based on that, I now don't know what to make of the first article on pay disparity. If bonuses and promotions in the financial sector are linked to performance, and if those with higher testosterone levels (admittedly being mostly men) perform better, is it really sexist? And is it realistic to introduce quotas and other measures to eliminate the pay gap? That could artificially reward women whose performance doesn't merit it.

It's an interesting argument anyway, and one that probably hasn't been considered by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. It's only one study of course, so more work would be needed to corroborate it, but it muddied the waters for me rather and gave me something to think about.

Robbie Williams to release new single, 'Destination Failure' (or something)

2009-09-04T13:54:00.009+01:00

Further to my previous post about beached manatee Robbie Williams, I have today had the good fortune to listen to his forthcoming new single, Bodies. You can listen to it here if you wish, but you may want to have a towel handy to stuff into your mouth to stop yourself from laughing and/or throwing up on your keyboard.

I say it was good fortune purely because it made my day, and not because I was impressed by what his label describes as the "apocalyptic conspiracy-laced" nature of this musical feast.

Put simply, it's terrible. Really REALLY terrible. Robbie, in between stuffing meat pies into his filthy craw, has described the single as a "turning point in his career" that will determine his future direction. I think I can give him a good idea of his future direction, if pointers is what he needs: it will be straight to the Mr Kipling aisle of his local Asda to cram as many battenburgs (or as he calls them, 'hug substitutes') into his fat pudding face before he gets whisked back off to rehab.

Just in case listening to the song doesn't impress its full majesty upon you, I think it is worth transcribing some of the lyrics:

Bodies in the Bodhi tree (<-- what the fuck?)

Bodies making chemistry (<-- no)

Bodies are my family

Bodies in the way of me

Bodies in the cemetery

And that's the way it's gonna be

All we've ever wanted

Is to look good naked (<-- ha! vain hope, porker)

Hope that someone can take it

God save me rejection

From my reflection

I want perfection

It's awesome isn't it? He must have employed a really good lyricist to write that. Either that or he consulted Natasha Bedingfield's masterpiece, The Big Book of Shit Lyrics and got them from there.

As you can tell, I'm not a huge fan. In fact, I really don't like Robbie Williams, I think he's a fat twat who needs putting out to pasture. But that works out fine, because thanks to this single pretty soon everyone else will be thinking that too.

Bye bye summer

2009-09-02T09:53:00.004+01:00

It feels like the summer holidays are well and truly over now. For the first time in ages, I woke up this morning and it was too gloomy to see my alarm clock properly. It was raining outside, and the whole world looked grey. Chris has gone back to work, the kids are back at school from tomorrow, and pretty much that means it's now autumn and the summer is over.

I'm not one of those people who bleats on about us 'not getting a proper summer this year' though. It's actually been very hot at times, including very early on around April or May when it was roasting hot and I got sunburn. Admittedly, it has also been quite a wet summer, and there were long periods of howling wind and rain, but I've managed to get quite a good tan and spend a fair bit of time sat on the beach, so it's not all bad.

Work will slowly start to pick up pace again now. The first students (the PGCE ones) will be starting next week I think, and then soon after that the international students will arrive, and then the freshers. I hope there are some fit ones, it has been ages since there has been any proper eye candy on campus. The university is thoroughly dull during the vacations - it's not the best place for facilities normally, and in the holidays what little there is closes so there's nothing at all! There's not even a proper bar here, what kind of campus is that?? So it'll be nice once there's a bit of life on campus again.

We're hoping to go away on holiday in half term, having not had a proper trip away in quite a while. We were thinking Sitges, but that won't be all that sunny in October apparently, so we might go to Gran Canaria again with some of our friends. At least that'll be something to look forward to as the depression of the autumn term sets in.

This morning I am amusing myself by trying out Tumblr, which is a blog engine type thing. It seems quite good - it's mostly for sharing pictures and videos and things, and then you re-post ones you like from other people's Tumblr pages. I was hoping there would be an easy way of importing my posts on it into here, but there doesn't seem to be. I don't really want to run two different blogs, but I like the way Tumblr works, and it has a prettier interface than Blogger (which is frankly quite ugly). I'll see if I start using it properly before I worry about that anyway. In the meantime, here is a really REALLY pretty boy that I found on there. He's so yummy that I just want to bite him. Is that weird?

Scuba baby!

2009-08-25T11:40:00.005+01:00

In an uncharacteristically adventurous move, Chris and I tried scuba diving on Saturday. It was great! We both really enjoyed it. Although we didn't manage to get photos of ourselves in full scuba gear, behold me in a wetsuit:

We would never normally have thought "I know, let's go on a scuba taster session" of course; it was a present from Chris' Mum. She bought Chris one of those 'experience gift' things where you choose from a selection of activities to do like driving a racing car or clay pigeon shooting or whatever. We picked scuba diving because most of the options were a bit manly and not that interesting to us.

It was at a scuba diving centre near Gatwick, and kicked off with a bit of (quite scary) theory in a classroom where they tell you what would happen to the airspaces in your body if you didn't equalise the pressure on the way down and up. Saying "your lungs might explode, but of course that won't happen today" always fills you with confidence! And then we had about half an hour in their diving pool, starting off just with putting your face in the water and breathing through the mouthpiece thingy, and building up to swimming around at the bottom and removing the mouthpiece from your mouth for a minute then putting it back in again.

It was a really nice gentle introduction to see if you like it, and then if you want to go back and do a proper course to qualify you as an Open Water Diver then you can. It was a lovely feeling being able to swim around without needing to go back up, and I didn't find it difficult at all to get used to breathing underwater. I wish we could have had just a little bit longer in the water really.

I don't know if we'll go back and do the course. Maybe. It's not that expensive, but it's only worth doing if you're planning on diving somewhere like on holiday, and it takes two days to complete it. Chris really liked it lots, so we'll see. It would be nice to go and dive somewhere exotic with coral and fishes and things, even if I would be a bit scared of being mauled by sharks. I've seen Open Water you know.

Feeling a bit peaky? Well never mind you're a criminal, off you pop home

2009-08-20T09:16:00.002+01:00

I have been appalled recently by two cases of people being released early from prison 'on compassionate grounds', i.e. because they're probably going to die quite soon. The first was Ronnie Bigs, the Great Train Robber, and the second today looks set to be Ali al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber.

I fail to see why the fact that they received life sentences for their crimes no longer matters simply because they are ill. That's the whole point isn't it? You give someone a life sentence so that they live out the rest of their life in prison, because their crimes were so serious.

Ronnie Biggs being released is particularly galling. He was sentenced to life in prison for his part in the Great Train Robbery, but after 15 months he escaped from prison and then spent the next 30 years on the run. So as well as stealing £2.6m of money that wasn't his, he stole back 30 years of freedom that weren't his to live simply because he didn't feel like staying in prison, and probably had a lovely time living in Australia and Brazil feeling very smug. He only came back to the UK because he was getting old and wanted medical treatment! What the fuck?? Medical treatment that he's paid no taxes during his life to pay for!

And Ali al-Megrahi killed 270 people in a terrorist bombing, but now has prostate cancer. Well boo fucking hoo - that's 270 people who had their lives stolen from them, why should he enjoy even his last few months in freedom?

Being ill and being old do not negate your crimes. These people forfeited their right to freedom when they decided the law didn't apply to them; their sentence should be fully carried out and they should die in prison.

Blogging catch-up

2009-08-17T15:55:00.003+01:00

It's been ages since I wrote something on my blog, so I thought I'd better make the effort to post a little something today. Largely it's because I haven't been at work, where I'm sat in front of a computer all day with nothing better to do than bore you all with my daily doings.

I've had quite a nice week off, and I've done quite a few things, although as always it feels like the time has gone really quickly.

I've been camping in Essex, which was quite fun. I'm still not hugely keen on sleeping in a tent though, particularly as I was nearly asphixiated at 5am by it. I was worried that we'd be cold, so I closed all the flaps up apart from the "vent" in the top, not realising however that the vent did absolutely nothing at all. So after four hours of sleep our oxygen had been entirely depleted, and I started to have an odd dream where I was breathing but nothing was going in. And then I woke up with a start and found that I could indeed inhale quite happily, but was still nearly on the point of passing out from lack of oxygen. Stupid tent. A few minutes of panting on the grass after ripping the door open and all was well again, but it still wasn't much fun.

I've also had a couple of nice nights out, accompanied by the obligatory not-so-nice mornings after. We actually managed to get to Pop Kraft, Boogaloo Stu's new Brighton night, this weekend and it was really good! Great pop music, porno badges, and free jelly beans, what more could you want? I'll definitely try to go again, especially to the Saturday special they do sometimes. I'm not sure I can handle clubbing on a Thursday night any more.

I went to Revenge as well recently, the first time I've been there in ages. It was only okay I have to say. They have a nice new roof terrace now, which is quite pleasant when you need a rest, but consequently you can no longer leave the club and get stamped to come back in. We used to like that, because then you could flit around between Revenge and Vavoom and anywhere else that took your fancy without being pinned down in one place. It also seems that Revenge has become very lesbian in recent months. Not that I mind lesbians as a general rule of course, I know some very nice ones, but there's a certain kind of lesbian that Revenge attracts in droves that really REALLY pisses me off. They're generally of less than average height, and they seem to have developed the notion that everyone is going to persecute them. They therefore exhibit an unnecessary level of pre-emptive aggression in order to ward you off, and it's fucking annoying! There's just no need for it. Often they take up far more than their fair share of the dance floor, they dance wildly, and they SHOVE if you get too near them. But woe betide you if you should shove them back, oh no, because then you get an earful off an overweight cluster of snaggle-toothed sweaty faced little dwarves. And if Pink comes on, the apparent music of choice for these marauding herds of wildebeests, you better run for it because then they flail and mosh and elbow even harder than usual.

So it put me off a bit to be honest. I'll probably still go occasionally, but I don't rate Revenge any more really. That doesn't leave many options for clubbing really though: Legends is alright but I don't like the smug pug-faced man who owns it and it's generally quite an old crowd in there; Charles Street is only open certain nights; and Ghetto used to be very good but seems to be dead all the time now. So er... that's no good gay clubs left. No wonder people aren't going out like they used to.

Anyway, I'm back to work tomorrow after my week and a half off. I've just waded through my emails and deleted the most twatty and irrelevant, and my backlog doesn't look too bad. It's amazing how quickly I can get annoyed with work again though, when I'm not even there yet! "Oh this webpage still says this, that's really wrong now, it should have been taken down a couple of weeks ago". Er did you ask me to take it down? No! I'm not psychic dear.

Still, I at least only have a three-day week again this week. I'm then going on an introduction to scuba diving (yes, you heard me!) next Saturday, followed by another wedding reception in the evening, so that should be quite good.

I shall try to blog more often in the interim, as I don't like to think of you all forlornly clicking on refresh every ten minutes to see if I've posted anything new and being disappointed.

A damp and drunken Pride

2009-08-05T11:25:00.006+01:00

It was Brighton Pride last weekend. While I always enjoy it, I'm not quite as mad on it as some people seem to be - looking forward to it all year, updating their Facebook for the month before it with "13 sleeps to go until Pride!", and then running round ejaculating "Happy Pride! Happy Pride!" at everyone on the day. It's quite fun, but it's not THAT good...

This year it was slightly spoiled by the very ill-timed weather. Friday? Lovely. Sunday? Lovely. Saturday? Heavy rain on and off from 1pm until 8pm. So not great, I have to say.

It stayed dry for the parade at least, as it would have been rather miserable to see the rain slowly dissolve people's papier maché outfits into sloppy goo. They said it was the "biggest and best parade ever", but they always say that, and I found most of the floats rather mediocre. Lots of the gay bars who normally do floats didn't even bother this year, so it was primarily political parties, public services, and a couple of banks.

The Conservative Party excelled itself though by having some of the fittest boys on their float, including a rather nice one in red shorts. He spotted us taking lots of photos of him (and then catching up with the float later on and taking some more) and he waved lots in an appreciative manner.

I was rather disappointed to see that the Labour Party parade people, aside from being exceptionally sub par in appearance, were wearing stupid red t-shirts that proclaimed "Never kissed a Tory - never will." So pathetic! What has that got to do with Pride? And they clearly hadn't seen the boy on the Conservative float before making that commitment... I'd kiss him. I'd kiss him good. But honestly, it's ridiculous the amount of negative campaigning Labour supporters indulge in - half the time they don't even mention their own policies, they just campaign on a platform of 'You have to vote for us or the mean old Tories will get in'. Tsk. Anyway, I digress.

We did go up to the park for a while, but after sheltering from the rain in the Wild Fruit tent for 40 minutes we decided it wasn't really worth the effort and we bailed out.

The street parties in the evening are always much more fun anyway, and as usual ours was one of the roads they closed for it. It's ever so convenient to live just upstairs from all the action, and it's rather economical too as you can just bring your own drinks from home. So we spent a fair bit of the evening just wandering around Kemp Town checking out hot boys and emptying out our drinks cabinet.

The mixture of champagne, wine, vodka, cookie dough-flavoured shots and cider did take its toll on me though, and by 1.30am I was rather out of it. I remember being sat on the kerb on my road for quite a bit, while a girl angrily told me that the pollips up her nose were preventing her from taking her coke. I didn't really like that, so I staggered off to bed, and was fortunately too drunk to care about the remaining noise from the street.

On Sunday I felt really rather ill, but I did manage a walk in the sun, and an alcohol-free hour or two in the daytime street parties they have on the Sunday afternoon. I did my usual thing of swearing off booze for a while, but it only lasted until 9pm when I had a glass of wine "to finish it up because it's open" and "to help me sleep" (both good excuses).

It wasn't the best Pride I've been to, mostly because of the rain, but it was quite good. It made us appreciate our flat and our location a bit more again too, so I think we might stay put a bit longer before we worry to much about moving.

Living a champagne lifestyle

2009-07-28T14:46:00.006+01:00

Amazingly, it has now been a whole year since I got married. I don't know where the time has gone, it has just flown by. Saturday was our actual wedding anniversary, and we had a couple of nice things planned over the weekend which made it nice and special.

Our wine rack has been half full for the last year with bottles of champagne we were given as wedding presents (about five of them I think), and recently we were told that champage doesn't always stay at its best for more than a year or so. We therefore felt we had an obligation to start drinking it up, which in reality turned into us drinking four bottles of champagne in six days. It was actually really nice to do, as expensive champagne tastes very nice and is much better than the cheap stuff, and I was surprised to find how well it goes with a dinner of fish fingers, chips and beans. It is certainly a combination that I would try again.

On Friday we had a wedding reception to go to in the evening, for a couple who had attended our wedding last year. It was out on Pangdean Farm in Pyecombe, a very nice country venue with a converted barn with lots of wooden beams. I was particularly impressed with the unusual choice of wedding cake decoration:

and the bride's beautiful sort-of-French-style wedding dress that was made by her very talented mother:

A few friends of ours were there too, so we had a nice evening of dancing and feeling nostalgic about our own wedding.

Then on Saturday, our actual anniversary, we went for a lovely meal at Blanch House, a posh restaurant in Kemptown not very far from us. We'd never go there normally, it's a bit out of our usual price range, but Chris' Mum was treating us, and it was GREAT! It was lots of high class masterchef-type food like this:

and it was ever so yummy. It was also rather alcohol-fuelled, as we had champagne before we went, and then cocktails on arrival, and wine with dinner. It was all a bit of a blur by dessert I have to say, so we took a short detour home afterwards to sober up a little bit, and sat looking at our wedding photos together and feeling a bit gooey (that may have been the fault of the alcohol again though). And then we just had a couple more drinks in Vavoom before retiring for the evening.

I was pleased to find that I didn't have a hangover at all on Sunday, which I am going to attribute as well to the champagne being expensive, and to the six million calories I ate to soak it all up.

So that was it - one anniversary down, and only 49 more until our golden one. Hopefully they will all be as enjoyable as this one was (and I won't forget any of them, which is a very real possibility).

I'm back at work today, but am only doing three-day weeks through the summer, so hurrah only two days left until the weekend! It is Brighton Pride this weekend, and they are forecasting heavy rain for Saturday. Oh dear. Pride is really quite depressing and pointless in the rain, as it is meant to be a day of drinking in the sun and looking at topless boys (a microcosm of my entire life, in fact). If it rains like they're saying it will, I may not even bother going to the park during the day - I have mud at home I can squelch around in if I wish. And besides, I'll have more champagne to drink up.

Dentistry and humiliation

2009-07-23T15:52:00.005+01:00

I had to go to the dentist this morning for a check up, as when I went six months ago the dentist lady thought I might need a filling soon. So I obediently made an appointment and went back today, with my fingers crossed that probably nothing would need doing after all and I would escape unscathed.

Silly me, because of COURSE she took one look and said oh yes that'll need filling, oh and by the way it's going to be £45.60. FORTY FIVE POUNDS! For NHS treatment! What about all my taxes? Where do they go? I thought that's what I paid them for! I couldn't really argue anyway, and she said it'd only take 15 minutes, so I just agreed to do it there and then and get it over with.

It wasn't too bad really, the worst part is the injection they give you in your mouth, which is never very pleasant and seems to go on forever. I was much more distressed however by the fact that, for some strange reason, I was obliged to wear very ugly, very unfashionable plastic sunglasses for the duration of the procedure. They were like the kind of glasses a toddler would wear, they were HORRIBLE. They looked a bit like this:

And I'm sure the nurse boy who was assisting her was laughing as he gave them to me to put on. I'm not even sure they did anything, I think it was just so they could piss themselves laughing at all their patients. It's not like it was sunny in there or anything! And I suppose they could have been to protect my eyes from flying shrapnel as she drilled the tooth, but I've had fillings before and bad sunglasses were never on the agenda for those.

I got through it anyway, despite the glasses, and despite being raped by Maestro card on the way out. I'm meant to go back in another six months time, but I think they've had enough fun at my expense for a while so I might leave it a bit longer.

A Brummy adventure

2009-07-21T12:58:00.000+01:00

I haven't blogged much lately, because I don't feel like I've really done a lot. We've viewed a couple of rental flats, and nearly took one last week until on second inspection we found it wasn't quite as nice as we'd first thought (limited storage and suspicious damp marks on some of the walls), and that's been about it. This weekend however, I've actually done lots and lots so I thought I would grace you with a blog post.

I've only been up to Birmingham once before, and it didn't really count as I just went to a friend's house, stayed overnight, and then drove straight back again. But one of our friends was getting married this Sunday, so we went up on Saturday and made a proper trip of it this time. I have to confess that despite my customary prejudice regarding anything further north than Cambridge, it was really good! The city seemed really nice with lots of shops and restaurants clustered around the canals, and there were some nice buildings and squares in the centre of town.

We thought we'd try Nightingales while we were up there, which seems to be Birmingham's main (only?) gay club, and I was very impressed with it. There were lots of quite fit boys, and the music was great. It was boiling though and I don't think my feet appreciated the four hours of dancing much. It had a nice outdoor terrace thing too, and for some reason a diner upstairs, which I think is a GREAT idea for a club.

Saturday was a special night they were having to launch the new single by September. "Who?" I hear you cry. Yes I know, I thought so too, but I did actually recognise one of her previous songs, and she's a sort of Cascada-y dance singer from Sweden. She was good anyway, even if she did come on an hour late and it was a bit obvious that quite a few people didn't know who she was. I'll try to put up a picture of her once I've got them off my camera.

Then Sunday was the wedding, for which I was feeling rather tired from the night before. I can say it was officially a Good Wedding, as I've been to a couple of bad ones, a couple of mediocre ones, and this was a Good one. It was in a nice church in a little square in the centre of Birmingham, and they had a good choir and some really nice musical interludes. Then we all piled into taxis down to the Mailbox, and had a boat ride along the canal up to the reception. It unfortunately started to pour with rain at this point, so on arrival we all had to run 200 metres through driving rain and arrive at the venue thoroughly soaked. The bride was protected by four men holding a blanket over her head, and reportedly ran the journey while shouting “This isn't glamorous! It was meant to be glamorous!”. The dress survived intact though and at least she didn't fall in the canal or anything.

The reception was good, with good food made largely by the groom and his family (he's a chef, and spent his wedding day morning making canapés, bless), and then good music and lots of dancing on my already well-worn feet.

The drive home yesterday felt soooooooo long, and I'm really exhausted today. I've been a bit virusy all weekend, and haven't stopped for a proper rest since Thursday night I don't think, so it's all catching up with me now. I've got a stupid flat viewing tonight, and then finally I will hopefully be able to sleep and sleep and sleep.

Hooray for Brum though, and for it not being as provincial as first feared.

Well that entire post was a waste of time...

2009-07-03T10:26:00.002+01:00

Cancel that entire previous post, as I did not go and see the nice seafront flat because the viewing got cancelled about four hours after I wrote all that. Some bastard has got in there first and taken it. So annoying!

I was quite disappointed, because I'd managed to get myself looking forward to seeing it and excited that it might be nice. It seems however that if you want to get a nice place to rent, you have to move very fast. That flat came on the market on Monday I think, and because I only saw it on Tuesday and we were having a dinner party on Wednesday I couldn't book the viewing until Thursday night. And that has proven to be far too long an interval - someone must have seen it on Wednesday and taken it on Thursday I think.

So never mind. I have convinced myself that it was too far from town and that there would probably have been loads of stairs to get up to a third floor flat in a Regency building (because of the high ceilings and all that).

We are seeing a different flat tonight instead now. It's still on the seafront but closer to town. It's ground and lower ground floor though, and the bit of road it is on seems quite a bit busier to me, so I think it'll possibly be too noisy with traffic and passers by. We may as well go and see it though, and I guess we'll just carry on looking at adverts over the weekend!

In other news, my sometimes noisy and possibly drug dealing student neighbours are apparently NOT moving out in June as we had been informed. I was suspicious that this might be the case given that it is now July and they are still there.

I got home to a letter from our landlord (who lives in the same building) yesterday, saying that he'd rung the students' managing agent to ask why they hadn't gone as he'd been told. And apparently he was told wrong because they were just given a warning and in fact have been allowed to extend the tenancy for another year. So he was quite cross actually, because they fobbed us off with "we won't be offering them a tenancy renewal because of your complaints, so they'll be out in 2 months", when in actuality they've done the opposite.

Saying that though, they HAVE been significantly quieter since we complained to their landlord, their managing agent, and the environmental health people. And the blatant drug dealing has not been so obvious, so maybe they've been doing it off the premises instead. So it could be worse, and we could have got much worse new neighbours to replace these ones who are now trying to behave themselves. So we'll just have to live with it.

I am surprised though that you can report someone to the police with suspicions that they're selling drugs, the police can say "oh yes, what you've described sounds very suspicious and is a classic description of people who are dealing", and then NOTHING happens. Nothing at all! What was the point?? I suppose you'd have to complain more than once or something, but still, it seems a bit rubbish to me.

If you can't afford to buy it, rent it

2009-07-02T10:13:00.006+01:00

I think that we're leaning a bit more towards renting a new flat rather than buying now. After a few weeks of looking, we've found that we aren't even seeing any places advertised that we want to go and view, let alone would consider buying. There just aren't enough things coming on the market at the moment, as all the sellers are waiting for prices to pick up again. So all the things that do come on the market are there because the seller has to sell for some reason, and there's not a lot to choose from.

So anyway, I had kind of gone off the idea of moving at all, as it's summer now and our location in town is quite useful in the summer, and I've done some work on making our flat a bit nicer. But Chris is still fairly keen on moving, and having had a look at some adverts there are some really lovely places around that we could afford. We could never afford to buy them of course, but we could rent them and still stay happily within our means.

We're off to see one tonight that I think only came on the market on Monday. It looks really nice in the pictures: it's a Regency flat right on the seafront with a gorgeous big lounge and views of the sea. Look how nice this is:

Of course we wouldn't have that furniture in it, we'd have our own stuff and make the inside look a bit more modern, but the rooms are nice and big and the view is great. I suppose it's at the top end of our rental budget, but we can afford it alright, and we should still have a bit of money left over to put into savings each month.

Saying all that though, I can still feel my nerves setting in a little bit. I can't remember when I turned into an anxious person, I'm normally too rational for it, but the fact is I am anxious about a fair few things now. And with things like flats it's the commitment that makes me nervous.

What if we end up not liking it? What if the neighbours are horrible? What if the landlord whacks the rent up after a year? What if the landlord decides to sell it? What if it's the wrong decision??

All those things go round and round in my head until I think "gaahhh let's just not move! At least we know what we're getting with the flat we're in now!"

BUT, in lots of ways we do quite want to move. It's too noisy on the road we live on, the student neighbours next door can be a pain, and we'd like to have a proper guestroom instead of a sofabed in the living room.

And if you look at my nervous questions above, you can pick them apart and they don't sound so serious.

What if we end up not liking it?
We can move out after a year, or probably sooner if we want. The only real issue with that is that you lose all the fees you've spent in taking out the tenancy and you have all the hassle of moving again. It's not dire though.

What if the neighbours are horrible?
Same as above. And our neighbours aren't great at the moment.

What if the landlord whacks the rent up after a year? What if the landlord decides to sell it?
What if it's the wrong decision??
Again, you can just move out. At least we wouldn't have bought the place and be stuck with it until we could sell it.

So really I shouldn't get myself too over-wrought about it. I shall try to go and see this flat with an open mind and non-anxious eyes, and then I'll write if we liked it tomorrow!

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen IQ

2009-06-30T10:38:00.010+01:00

I went to see Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen last night, with some trepidation as I had heard from several sources that it really isn't very good. However, Chris is quite a Transformers geek and would happily be turned into a giant transforming robot if they offered the operation on the NHS, and so we went anyway.

It wasn't terrible. It was alright. The kind of alright that you pronounce 'alriiiiiiiiiiight', and often add 'I suppose' onto the end of.

I felt that overall it was fairly entertaining, and the special effects are really very good. I kept forgetting that the robots are computer generated and aren't actually there, because they're textured so well.

However, it wasn't nearly as good as the first film, and for some reason they had decided really to dumb down the general feel and humour of it. It's not as though the first film was massively high brow, but they really have gone for the lowest common denominator this time. It was basically the human characters' fault, as some of them behaved in an almost slapstick fashion. The robots were generally more mature. But mostly they seemed to go for a lot of toilet and bodily function humour. Did we need to see the ugly ex-Section 7 agent in a thong? No. Did the little robot need to fart fire? No. Did Devastator need to have two bollocks made of wrecking balls? No. It was all needless and it debased the film and the franchise.

And then on top of that there was the fact that large parts of it really bore no relation to the original stories and characters, or even to the first film. I realise that they change things when writing it for the screen, but I think they wandered too far, and made it hideously inconsistent.

For some reason Bumblebee had transformed (no pun intended) into a needy, rather thick kind of pet. Forgotten was the fact that he's actually an advanced organic robot from outer space who just happens to have a broken speech modulator. That doesn't make him thick.

There were two new characters called the Twins, who appeared to be the Jar Jar Binks of the Transformers world, in that they were an inane racial stereotype with an IQ of about 40 shared between the two of them, and they were pretty much as annoying.

And they'd done something really bizarre to Megatron. Megatron, who usually kicks ass and is a ruthless, dominating leader, and who only ever really seemed to be afraid of Unicron (a planet-sized Transformer, for those of you who don't know). But what had he become in this film? Some sort of meek servant of the Fallen, scurrying around and doing his bidding. The real Megatron would have waited until the Fallen's back was turned and then opened him up like a melon.

Lastly, there were the logical inconsistencies that you get with any weakly written script. The Fallen can only be defeated by a Prime, apparently. Therefore Megatron is scared of him. But Megatron kicked Optimus Prime to death in the first half hour of the film. And then when it actually comes to a fight between Optimus and the Fallen, it lasts for all of about five minutes before Optimus cries "Give me your face", and tears the Fallen into little pieces. And then Megatron runs away. Hmm.

So, as you can see, it wasn't great. It was only OK.

Highlights were a girl getting her faced smashed against a dashboard by a jealous sports car, and Soundwave who was WAY COOL (as he should be, he always has been) and who should have been featured much much more. The whole film would have been better without Megatron or the Fallen and with Soundwave running the show. But there you go.

So, go see it if you want two and a bit hours of light entertainment and ITV-style humour, but if you're a Transformers fan you might be disappointed.

NSFW - Gary Lucy in various states of undress

2009-06-30T09:14:00.006+01:00

I heard yesterday that Gary Lucy is going to be in the next series of Dancing On Ice. I'm not sure who else is on it, but it is likely that he is going to be the principal boy totty of the series, which suits me just fine because he's quite fit. Assuming he hasn't let himself go of course, he used to be fit in Hollyoaks and Footballers' Wives.

Anyway, there seemed to be quite a bit of interest on Twitter in the fact that I have various photos and screen caps of him wearing not many clothes, and so as requested I share them with you now.

These aren't particularly work safe so, you know, save looking at them for a 'private viewing' later on or something. Click for larger versions.

Michael Jackson dies - and I really don't care that much

2009-06-26T09:01:00.000+01:00

Everybody seems to have gone bananas today over the sudden death of Michael Jackson. I suppose I should be used to the media-fed bouts of public hysteria we get these days, but it has still managed to surprise me. I think in this case it's because lots of people really didn't seem to care very much for Michael Jackson, and just used to use him as an easy target for all manner of jokes and slurs, but now they're all spouting exaggerated eulogies about "the world losing one of its greats", today being "the day music died", and Alexandra Burke of X-Factor fame (sic) even went as far as "Sometimes God needs to call his angels home".

What?? Have I missed something?

I'm not saying he didn't write some good songs. Some of his songs are actually very good indeed. But most of them are from 20 years ago, and since then it's been a slow decline into debt, lawsuits, child molestation charges, and public ridicule.

Maybe people just feel bad for being so mean about him. I don't though. I think it's hypocritical to switch to "oh he was a lovely person" just because someone dies. It doesn't make it all alright.

He was clearly a troubled man whose behaviour was erratic, and who at the very least had boundary issues with regards to children. Fine fine, he was acquitted of all charges, but by his own admission he used to share his bed with young boys. That's not normal! That's not OK! And no amount of "he never had a normal childhood, so he still behaves like he's a child" is going to change that!

And he named his children Michael Joseph Jackson Jr, Paris Michael Katherine Jackson and Prince Michael Jackson II. That's crime enough in itself.

I don't know why anyone believed he was going to be able to do 50 concert dates every other night when he hasn't completed a concert tour in 12 years and could barely even walk the last time I saw him on television. Even if he had lived as far as July, that would have finished him off for sure.

I don't believe he just "turned white" either. He was mentally unwell, and that was just another feature of it. People say Susan Boyle shouldn't have been allowed to perform, or should have been better protected at least, because she doesn't have the faculties to cope with the pressure. But they're also quite happy to milk certain celebrities and their instabilities for their own amusement, and they'll just lap it up until they either die or are committed. Like Britney Spears and Michael Jackson, who apparently are/were fair game for anything.

So anyway, Michael Jackson is dead. My only reason for caring is that now my television is going to be crammed full of insipid tributes for the next week. It's not nice that anyone should die, but I don't see why it results in automatic beatification these days.

Contrary to most evidence, I do indeed have a father as well

2009-06-23T15:06:00.006+01:00

I spend quite a lot of time (too much, in fact) writing about my insane mother on here, and I've realised today that I don't really mention my Dad much. And when I do mention him, it's usually in relation to her and the running around after her that he has to do.

But today is my Dad's birthday, his 61st in fact, and so I'm going to write a little something about him.

I like my Dad, but in some ways we aren't that close. I suppose that's why I don't write about him often. We rarely speak on the phone, and when we do it can be a little stilted, but I think that's probably the same for lots of people. You just speak to your Mum instead and get any news about your Dad second hand.

Growing up I felt that I didn't have a lot in common with him, as we scarcely share any interests and are quite different people. It was connected in part to me being gay and him not knowing about it, as I felt that meant he didn't really know me very well. I've actually felt much closer to him ever since I came out to him about eleven years ago. I didn't think he would take it all that well as he's from a traditional east end kind of background, but after an initial period of getting used to the idea he has always been really supportive. I genuinely feel that he's proud of me, and that he enjoys seeing me, even though we aren't hugely close.

He's a quiet man, occasionally a bit clumsy both in his words and his actions, but he always means well and he's very kind. He possibly wouldn't be so quiet or so clumsy if he weren't so browbeaten by my mother. He must also be very very patient to live with her and to put up with her crap. I often find myself telling her off for being utterly unreasonable to him, but he'll rarely say anything back to her himself. Although saying that, his temper will get the better of him sometimes: when I was younger I saw him both put his fist through a wooden door, and drive a breadknife through a frozen (yes FROZEN) turkey, through the plate underneath it, and into the worksurface when Mum pushed him too far. He's quite terrifyingly strong beneath his placid nature. Maybe Mum should take note...

He's also very hardworking: he works full-time as a delivery man, and then about an extra hundred hours a week looking after Mum and doing for her all the things she can no longer manage, like the shopping and housework.

When I spoke to him on the phone on Fathers Day this weekend, he was half way round Tesco's doing the weekly shop. Not the best time for me to speak to him, I thought, but he seemed quite eager to talk to me and keep me on the phone for a few minutes. And then I realised why: he probably didn't want to go home in too much of a hurry. He and Mum had had a bit of a spat first thing in the morning, and he was probably glad to be out of the house for a while so they both had a bit of breathing space. How sad for him though, on Fathers Day, to be lingering on the phone to his son in the dairy aisle of Tesco's.

I don't know what he'll be doing for his birthday today. Not much, would be my guess. He's off work, I know that much, and they had planned to go away for a couple of days to the coast. But Mum's not sleeping well due to the humidity (there's always something), and so they've cancelled it.

"Can't you put the fan on in your bedroom at night?" I asked.

"It's too loud," she said.

"Even with ear plugs in?" (she always wears ear plugs)

"And also I just don't like the feeling of the fan on me." - Oh. Well. There's no helping some people!

So anyway, he'll be having a fairly crappy birthday by the looks of it. Maybe I'll give him a ring later, just to say hello. He'd probably quite like that, and the five minutes he's on the phone to me will be five minutes that no-one's going on at him.

Christian Cooke can smite me any time he likes

2009-06-18T09:51:00.002+01:00

And by 'smite' I mean 'do'.

And by 'do' I mean 'have sex with'.

Because my last post was so dull and finance-oriented, I've decided to lighten the mood by posting some pictures of international hottie Christian Cooke, star of the mediocre Buffy ripoff Demons, and soon-to-be-star of new series Trinity.

Flat hunting. Or not.

2009-06-18T09:16:00.004+01:00

I've just realised that I haven't blogged for nine whole days! Very poor of me, I apologise. It's not because of been working or anything, don't be silly, but I've been away from a proper computer for a while so haven't had the chance. We've been up at Chris' Mum's house for a couple of days because she's just had a hip replacement, and so like dutiful sons (I'm sort of her son now) we went to help look after her.

Anyway, in a shocking departure from our usual lethargy and inaction, we've actually started flat hunting properly and have been to see a couple of places. The first one was on Saturday and was in Hanover, which is a nice part of Brighton about 10 minutes from where we are now. It was a very nice flat, really nicely decorated inside and with a nice modern kitchen and bathroom. You wouldn't need to change anything inside really. But you could unfortunately only live there if you didn't own any belongings at all. The living room wasn't that small, but due to the location of the fireplace and the window and the door to the kitchen, we couldn't even work out where we'd put our telly. The master bedroom was nice but had no room for a wardrobe, and the second bedroom could just about take a double bed but nothing else. So it would never have worked. It was more of a flat for a single person, who could then put all their stuff in the spare bedroom.

We were meant to see two more flats last night, but due to the ineptitude of the estate agent he'd booked it in wrong and so could only show us one of them. This one was in Kemptown, on a nice road near the sea, but it was HORRIBLE. Really really horrible and shabby. Chris said he wouldn't rule it out for the right price, but honestly I could never see myself living there. Only the kitchen was nice, and the bathroom was just about bearable if a bit small, but even that didn't have a window. All the other rooms would need complete redecorating, there was a banister hanging out of the wall, the plug sockets were cracked, and the hot water tank was in a cupboard in the main bedroom. And the bedrooms were too small. And it only had a 75 year lease. And it was just nasty. And they wanted £185,000 for it! So no, I'm not going near it. I don't think Chris liked me saying a flat "no I don't like it", because he probably suspects I'll never like anything, but in this case I don't think I could even bear to live there, let alone like it.

So it's not been going great so far. We're seeing another one on Friday night which looks much nicer but is a bit more expensive so we'd have to make a low-ish offer for it.

And still I'm thinking should we buy or should we rent or should we not move at all. I could just clear out all our clutter and we'd have a lot more room in the flat, and we could consider buying a nicer sofa bed for guests. I even looked up ways of reducing the noise through our front windows, because that would solve another of the problems with our current flat. It would be nice to have a second bedroom though.

Most people that I ask say "oh you should buy, it's the best time to buy, prices haven't been lower in years". But I get the impression that they don't actually know what the market is like for first-time buyers with a 10% deposit.

Prices have come down a bit yes, but there's a shortage of supply as people aren't putting their houses on the market until prices pick up. So the only ones selling are those who really need to sell. This reduces the choices available, and keeps prices artificially higher than they otherwise would be.

And the mortgage market for 90% mortgages is NOT favourable in my opinion, I've looked loads. The base rate is 0.5%, but all the 90% mortgages are offered at 6% or higher, which makes them really quite expensive per month (more than £950, sometimes more than £1,000). We could just about afford that, but if the roof fell in we'd have no spare cash. I've been waiting for the mortage market to loosen up a bit as lenders get more confident, but if anything it seems to have got worse this month rather than better. I heard there might be a few better deals around in June, but they didn't materialise and rates have actually got higher.

So I don't know. I'm still conflicted, as you can see. And it's thoroughly boring to be thinking about it all the time, and to be talking about it all the time. I wish we had a nice fat 40% deposit, or even 25%, then it certainly would be a good time to buy. Maybe I'll buy a lottery ticket on the way home...

BB 'n' BNP

2009-06-09T09:52:00.002+01:00

I've watched a couple of episodes of Big Brother since last week, and as predicted they're largely a bunch of weirdos. They all seem to be pretty much caricatures of certain stereotypes, with a mixed bag of oddballs thrown in to fill up the gaps.

There's a posh boy who claims to be an entrepreneur, i.e. he spends Daddy's money on 'business ventures' to amuse himself. There's a rather extreme version of a lesbian, and a fairly camp tight t-shirted gay boy (not entirely unattractive though). There's a couple of peroxided WAG-type girls. There's a 'ladies man' who fancies himself rather too much and does not appeal to me at all. And then there's a few others, including a dwarf girl, a scary Russian, a bizarre-looking 'stylist' with no style, and an American boy with his jeans around his kness. Oh yeah, and Wolverine from the X-Men.

As I said before, how are we meant to relate to any of these people? There are only a handful who I could actually imagine meeting in real life, and even fewer who I'd want to have a prolonged conversation with. Maybe they'll grow on me, I don't know. As it is though, I've largely lost interest already. I might just dip in and out of it until there aren't as many of them, that's what I usually do.

Also in the news, and rather sadly less noticeable than Big Brother, were the European and local elections. Labour got caned, which I found delightful, and it's left their party and morale pretty much in tatters. They don't control any local councils now, and they lost a fair few MEPs.

I was surprised to find though that the BNP had won two seats on the European Parliament. It's a fairly sad illustration of the effect of voter apathy and how pathetic the main parties are at the moment: although the BNP got fewer votes in total, turn-out was so low that it still resulted in them winning seats. And how does it make us look to the rest of Europe when we send over two far-right candidates with a rights-for-whites anti-Europe agenda? Lots of Britons seem thoroughly ashamed that we've elected them, but it's the people who didn't vote who are to blame.

It reminded me of when I was living in Geneva and the presidential elections were being held in France. The socialist candidate crashed out of the first round, coming third place behind the National Front, and so the second round had to be fought between the incumbent (conservative) Jacques Chirac and the leader of the National Front, Jean-Marie Le Pen. And the French were aghast that they'd let it happen. Naturally they rallied round to stop themselves electing a far-right president, and even the left wingers turned out to vote for Chirac, because what choice did they have? But it was the failure of the main opposition that caused it.

Sadly for us, we don't get a second round at the European elections and now we're stuck with two BNP MEPs for several years. I just hope it teaches people a lesson for when we finally get a general election and that they come out and vote. Of course we'll have to wait for Labour to get the balls to call one before we can worry about that.

Oo get me, I'm all political today...

Big Brother 10

2009-06-04T10:37:00.006+01:00

Big Brother starts AGAIN today, and is now into its tenth year in the UK. Ten years! I can't believe they've not let it die yet, the last few years have just been so appalling and pointless.

The first couple of years I quite enjoyed, because the people they put in were mostly quite normal. That was the point wasn't it? Put normal people into a house together and see how they cope with confinement and being constantly filmed. And it was interesting, it was interesting to see the relationships they formed and the way they coped (or didn't cope) with the pressures of it.

But then somewhere along the way the producers lost the plot and decided normal people weren't sensational enough. So now to get on it you basically have to be a freak or a loud-mouthed idiot. How many of the audition tapes tonight I wonder will have people saying "I tell it like it is, me. If someone pisses me off, I won't bitch about it, I'll say it to their face"? In other words, you're rude, have no tact or social skills, and like to cause arguments. Not that most of them will actually DO that of course - it's just what you say in the audition so you get picked. Once they're actually in there they go back to bitching like everyone else.

If they're all freaks, how are we meant to relate to any of them?

And because they pick people with no social skills, the programme now has to rely on bizarre "twists" to try to make it more interesting, like making half of them servants or infecting some of them with herpes or releasing killer bees into the kitchen.

I wouldn't mind so much if they at least put some cute men in there. Occasionally they try, but generally over the last 10 years there has been hardly anyone I've found attractive on there at all. And it's so unfair compared to some other countries!

Australian Big Brother viewers get this:

And we get this:

How is that fair??

So I suppose I'll just do tonight what I normally do when Big Brother starts: watch the first episode (possibly on mute) and see if I like the look of anyone, and then never watch it again and be thoroughly fed up that there's nothing else on Channel 4 or E4 for three months.

I have two (small) claims to Big Brother fame, by the way: I went to school with Victor who was on it one year (tall black guy, claimed to have had a 'gritty' upbringing but went to the same Roman Catholic boys' school as I did, and frankly it wasn't that gritty); and I was once mean to Kitten on the telephone (shortly before she went on Big Brother) after she didn't get a job where I worked and she thought being pushy and rude afterwards would make us reconsider.

To buy or not to buy

2009-06-01T12:22:00.003+01:00

No not the BBC1 property show featuring the house-buying fitty Kristian Digby, I'm referring to an actual dilemma here.

I've been wondering lately about whether we should actually buy a flat like we've been talking about for the last few months, or whether we should just move to a nicer rented place. Having looked at some rental adverts over the weekend, I've realised that we could afford to rent a really really nice flat now for the same monthly cost (or in fact a bit less) than a mortgage would be. I'm talking swish kitchen, decked sun terrace, and in some cases even allocated parking. This is compared to buying a flat that would potentially be quite a bit smaller, quite a bit further out of town, and probably not as nice.

So now I am conflicted. On the one hand I have that very British notion that it's good to own your own place, where you can decorate it and change it how you like, and where your money is going into a long-term investment that you actually get to keep (supposedly, assuming you don't lose money and get trapped in negative equity). But on the other hand I think that on the continent, like in Germany, loads more people rent than buy, and it doesn't seem to do them any harm. And I would have more cash left over each month for holidays and toys and things, and I could get a really nice flat straight away.

Hmm, I don't know now. I might type "should I rent or buy" into Google and let it tell me what to do, that usually works.

Me in the sun

2009-05-29T16:11:00.000+01:00

Sitting on sunny Brighton beach

2009-05-29T16:01:00.000+01:00

Horrific but entirely accurate

2009-05-27T11:57:00.004+01:00

A well-meaning friend introduced me to Wordle yesterday by showing me the word-cloud it creates from my blog feed. Essentially it goes through all the text and then picks out the most common words, attributing greater size to those used more frequently.

Take a look at the result:

How horrifying is that? Look how big the 'Mum' is! It's MASSIVE! And you can hardly even see Chris on there, he's tiny and under Mum.

I was absolutely appalled. I'm so sorry to have bored you all by going on and on and on about my mother. Although I don't feel like she dominates that much of my life, she clearly dominates a fair bit of what I think about and a lot of what I write about. It's not healthy really; I'd much rather my word cloud featured a few more positive words like 'fun' and 'enjoyed'. But no, they're not even in there I don't think. How sad.

I resolve therefore to try to write a bit less about my mother, to think about her perhaps a bit less (fat chance, she rang me twice yesterday and she's already texted me this morning), and to allocate more of my attention to pleasant and enjoyable activities. I shall then review my Wordle in a few weeks and see if it looks a bit more positive.

I'll fail of course. It's in my nature to be negative, but I can try.

UPDATE: Oo oo, 'enjoyed' is on there actually! It's very small and on the far left. Let's see if we can't nurture it to a more decent size.

Wedding mission complete, disaster rating 6/10

2009-05-26T20:00:00.004+01:00

I haven't had time to blog about the wedding until now, so I've had to set aside some time this evening (yes, in my *own time*) to do it.

Overall it went OK, and despite things with Mum being more difficult than average, there were no disasters, so I suppose I should just be grateful for that. It's done now anyway, so that's a relief, and I was able to enjoy a fair portion of it.

The coldy virus thing I had at the end of the week had abated enough by Saturday for it not to give me too much trouble, and so I set off on time in the car up to Tunbridge Wells. I got checked in at the hotel (quite nice for a Travelodge), and then went to meet Mum and Dad who had already arrived at the wedding venue. We were there good and early so Mum had time to rest before the ceremony, and so she could get installed in the room she was to be using for her rest periods.

Basically things went slightly downhill from there, and continued in that trend until Mum and Dad went home. It became apparent to me fairly quickly that Dave and Janine had made choices and organised things in a way that was somewhat incompatible with Mum's needs, and this made things more difficult than they otherwise might have been. I choose the word incompatible carefully, because after all why shouldn't they choose what they want first and foremost for their wedding? It's not unreasonable. It's just that it exacerbated an already difficult situation.

Take this room Mum was to rest in: we were told it was a dressing room, attached to the function suite, where she could be out of the way and rest quietly. In fact it was a small attic room up five flights of stairs, with no lift access, and with no furnishings other than a table and chair. Given that Mum can't walk that far, can't exert herself etc., this was not ideal. She ended up 'resting' with a blanket on the floor.

Janine arrived on time, by steam train which was quite novel, and looked very nice in her dress. The ceremony was nice, a fairly typical civil ceremony really, but the room was too hot which added to Mum's progressively crosser expression.

Then the plan was to get photos with Mum done quickly so she could go and rest again, while the main body of photos would take quite a bit longer. She had practically to be dragged across a lawn to where the photos would be (it was 'too far'), at which point the photographer's camera jammed. So after five minutes of hanging around, Mum complaining that she "can't stand like this for long", Janine barely able to mask her fury at Mum diverting attention towards herself, and the photographer getting stressed, photos with her had to be abandoned and NO official photos with Mum in were taken. Disaster! So off she went in a foul mood, basically delirious with fatigue, and Dad and I had to do our best to sort her out.

Thankfully, the camera became unjammed after that so Dave and Janine still got the rest of their photos done. I missed the bucks fizz of course because I was sorting Mum out, but managed to get back for most of the photos and the ones I needed to be in, and took quite a few nice ones myself.

Then there was the meal, which Mum didn't really attend any of, and the speeches which she was there for but which were 'too loud', and through which she sat looking like she was about to pass out while poor Dad looked confused and embarrassed. And then they went home by 7pm.

So it wasn't awful, but it wasn't great either. Thankfully I was able to relax after that. My Grandad pushed off at 8pm, around the time Chris arrived, and after that I was fine. We watched their first dance (well executed - Janine used to ballroom dance competitively), we had quite a few drinks, we chatted nicely with other guests, and we danced quite a bit ourselves. It was fun, and I think Dave and Janine enjoyed it, which is the main thing.

I'm glad that it is over as I found the build up and the thought of what could happen quite tense. I've already had Mum on the phone twice today though, in tears at one point, at how ill she now feels following the wedding, how it'll take her probably two months to recover from it (that's not an exaggeration), and how no-one understands. So that was thoroughly depressing and made me think "can't I get a minute's peace??". But she'll be OK I should think, and at least the day wasn't spoilt. I only give it a disaster rating of 6/10 from a personal point of view; hopefully Dave and Janine weren't aware of all the stress that went on and were able to enjoy their wedding undistracted.

How sad it is though that almost my entire blog post about my brother's wedding is about my mother. Chris will read this at some point and think "yes, because you let her rule your life, exactly like she wants you to", and he'll be right. Ho hum.

Ill-timed illness

2009-05-21T12:20:00.002+01:00

As I suspected, I'm ill. My sore throat has turned into a proper stuffed up cold, and I feel really run down. It's so inconvenient! I have to be well on Saturday, I've got to drive myself to Tunbridge Wells and then be on my feet and sociable for pretty much the whole day. So I've taken today off work anyway, and I'm hoping if I just watch property programmes on TV and think happy thoughts then my body will heal itself before the weekend.

I've just checked back on where I'd got to on the 'Days healthy' counter I started after the last time I was ill. I didn't maintain it on every post because I couldn't be bothered, but if I had I would have reached the grand total of 91 days by today. That's not even a hundred! I thought it was going to be longer than that, but apparently not. So I managed to be more or less healthy for 3 months before succumbing to yet another virus. I suppose that's not too bad, I just hope I can get rid of it fairly quickly.

I have taken the executive decision not to inform Mum that I'm not well, because she'll only a) freak out that I won't be well enough to come to the wedding; and b) say "but I can't afford to catch a cold from you", in her usual it's-all-about-me way.

Which is stupid anyway, because of COURSE I'm going to go to my brother's wedding, even if I have got a cold. I'll just dose myself up on paracetamol, gun through it with a fixed smile on my face, and then feel like crap the next day. It's not going to come to that anyway because I will be better by Saturday (happy thoughts happy thoughts).

Right, I'm off to eat hula hoops now and see if Sophie Allsop has managed to turn a run-down three bed apartment into a trendy cottage in the Lake District.

Rush rush rush

2009-05-20T12:29:00.006+01:00

I haven't had much time for blogging since last week, which is unusual for me and now I feel I've got behind with it.

We had our Eurovision party at the weekend, which of course was another triumph. We had scoresheets, miniature flags, posters, and a lovely Eurocake:

I enjoyed the show, but was a bit disappointed that the winner was Norway. Their song was OK, not great, and the fact that it was the bookies' favourite and that it was such a complete runaway winner made it a bit boring. After a quarter of the votes were in you could tell no-one was going to catch them. And also, he had weird eyebrows.

I thought Jade did really well to finish fifth considering how poorly we've done in the last few years. She sang very well and was obviously much stronger than lots of the other contestants, so fifth is quite respectable. I didn't think that the jury voting really made that much difference though, there was still lots of unjustified awarding of 12 points to neighbouring countries by some of the Eastern and Scandinavian nations.

Sunday was a little bit of a write off, as I had drunk a combination of white wine, rosé wine, champagne, and Moscow Mules (careful Eurovision linkage there) so I had a bit of a headache. And then this week just seems to be flying by with no time to do anything.

Dave's wedding is this Saturday, and after a mini-meltdown last week (including the glib fiasco) Mum seems to have plateaued at "there's nothing I can do about it now, I'll just have to hope for the best". Which is better than insane stress attacks I suppose.

I wish I could look forward to it more, but I won't be able to relax until Mum and Dad head off home and Chris has arrived safely after his epic two hour bus and taxi journey from Brighton. Just to make things a bit more of a pain, I feel like I'm coming down with something today, which I could obviously do without. I've had a sore throat since yesterday and this morning I felt completely run down as soon as I got up. If I'm going to get a virus I'd rather get it now, deal with it on Thursday and Friday, and then hopefully be better on Saturday. I'll have to see how I go anyway.

I'll need to check back to my 'Days healthy' counter I started on here after Christmas to see how long I lasted before getting ill AGAIN. I don't think I did too badly, it must be at least a hundred days!

My next blog post may very well be after the wedding. Wish me luck!

Stupid MP's expenses drivel

2009-05-13T08:51:00.003+01:00

Oh my god, I can't believe how much they're going on about the MP's expenses 'scandal' and how every party leader is bandwagonning and ordering people to repay the money.

Why are people surprised that in a system with very loose rules, people took advantage and claimed as much as they thought they could get away with? They didn't break the rules, and everyone around them was doing the same thing, so of course they did it too. I think everyone would! And yes it wasn't a very good use of tax payers money, but the system was flawed in the first place and was obviously set up as a convenient way of bumping up MP's salaries without changing the headline figure.

And what annoys me is that there is actually much more important work that politicians need to be doing at the moment, like oh I don't know fixing the economy maybe? Repairing the housing market? Improving healthcare? No, not interested in any of those? No, because those are much more difficult than making a stupid speech condemning a practice that they all knew was going on but which now has become public knowledge.

A few weeks ago bankers' bonuses was the flavour of the month, so they all pledged to re-regulate and take bonuses back and anything else that they thought would sound good in the Daily Mail. But now the public have lost interest in that, so they've found another topic of fairly modest import that will allow them to avoid tackling the real issues.

It's rubbish, politicians are rubbish. And they wonder why people are disillusioned and can't be bothered to vote. Yeah fine, fix the expenses system, it clearly needs fixing. But then stop going on about it and do some actual work.

Jay Brannan and a dodgy bush

2009-05-12T15:36:00.004+01:00

We went to see Jay Brannan play on Saturday - he was so good! And terribly sweet and cute, as usual.

Chris was meant to be at university during the day, but he reprehensibly bunked off, which meant that we could go up to London a bit earlier. The concert (gig? concert?) was in Shepherd's Bush, and for some reason I'd got it into my head that Shepherd's Bush would be quite trendy and nice. I think it must have been because it's in West London not far from Kensington. It's not anyway, it was actually a bit rank. The high street was just lots and lots of takeaways and cafés where groups of 40-year old men were watching television together rather than go home to their wives.

We had decided to have some dinner up there anyway, and went to Nando's. It was my first Nando's experience, and the food was actually quite nice despite the noticeably pikey clientele. I suppose that's what you get for eating somewhere where the main course costs £5. It was also conveniently located about three doors down from Bush Hall though, where the concert was going to be.

When we came out of the restaurant a bit before 7, I was surprised to find there was already a queue of people at the venue, even though the doors weren't opening for another half an hour. We didn't really want to queue for all that time so we went for a short walk, before deciding Shepherd's Bush definitely wasn't that nice and going back to queue instead. It was quite good anyway because you could hear Jay warming up or doing a sound check or something through the fire doors next to us, and the queue was decidedly homotastic, and once the doors opened we were all in quite quickly.

Bush Hall was nice, it's an old sort of building with cornices and mouldings and things. It was an all-standing gig so there were no seats, just a big room with a stage at one end. But as the support act wasn't going to be on for an hour everyone just sat on the floor, thereby staking out good positions near the stage and saving our feet. Apart from a few rude people who actually thought they'd stand near the front, in front of lots of people sitting down so they couldn't see anything, until someone shouted "SIT DOWN" at them.

The support act was a guy called Arthur Delaney, who was quite good just as an act on his own and very watchable. He did kind of fast guitar playing and singing, and was accompanied by a not unattractive young man who was also quite good but apparently not good enough to get a mention alongside Arthur Delaney.

And then it was time for Jay, who came out on stage to an almighty amount of applause and promptly said "You guys are going to be so disappointed..."

We weren't anyway, he was really good. It was just him on his own, which I always think is brave of anyone up on a stage, and he brought his own water and things out in a little Morrisons bag (so sweet!). He had also brought crumpets which, in an odd twist of logic, were "in case anyone throws crumpets at me, because you're British". We didn't anyway, but someone did throw a box of Earl Grey tea, which he seemed to appreciate.

He played songs mostly from his album Goddamned, but also quite a few that weren't, which was nice because there were a few things I hadn't heard before. And he just chatted in between and made us laugh, a bit like Lisa Loeb did when I saw her.

Everyone seemed to really enjoy it and I'm definitely glad I went to see him. A lady also threw her bra at him at the end, which seemed to bemuse him slightly, even more so when she said she'd want it back.

He was only doing one gig in the UK before going on to Paris the next day (where he's doing five gigs, SO not fair). It can't be that much fun travelling around on your own with your guitar on your back, but to his credit he sold out a performance in London and five performances in Paris, and he was doing a couple of others in Dublin and Tel Aviv, so he must be doing pretty well for himself.

I would go and see him again certainly, although maybe not in Shepherd's Bush.

If you don't know who he is (in which case you may not have read through all this), you can check him out on YouTube www.youtube.com/jaybrannan

Ingratitude

2009-05-08T21:01:00.005+01:00

I'm really fed up with my Mum at the moment. Which is unusual, because I normally put up with a lot from her and don't complain all that much. But yesterday she accused me of being glib about her illness. Me! Glib!! After all the fucking sympathy I give her and the amount of crap I put up with.

Basically, she had a whole hoo ha paddy over the weekend about my brother's wedding. She suddenly found out that my Grandad was going to want a lift back with her and Dad, and Dad hadn't told him that that wasn't possible, and Mum refused point blank to give him a lift back because she "won't be able to deal with someone else in the car". So she had a massive go at Dad for not refusing to drive his own father home, and slagged him off to me saying he had no backbone. I told her not to talk to me like that about him, which brought her up short a bit because people don't answer her back often.

Anyway, in the end my brother had to do some phoning around, and has arranged a cab to take my Grandad home (85 fucking quid!), and so it was all sorted after three days of stress.

And is she pleased? No. She rings me up at work and bleats on about how she "could really do without the stress of it all". Yes but it's done now, I say, so don't worry about it any more. "No you're not listening, I feel really ill and worn out by it all now". "YES, but it's done now, so stop thinking about it and concentrate on feeling better. Just put it behind you."

And then I'm called glib. Glib is such a little word, it slips out so easily, but I've had TEN YEARS of fucking crap off of her, I've been her main source of support and sympathy, even more than my Dad or brother who "don't understand", and she dares to call ME glib? How much fucking more does she want?

So anyway, I'm pissed off with her now. The thing about her illness, the really fucking convenient thing, is that any kind of stress or disruption makes her feel ill. So that means essentially that everything has to happen exactly the way she wants it to, and you can't do or say anything that she doesn't like, because otherwise you're inconsiderately inflicting suffering on a disabled woman. Isn't that a bit fucking convenient for a woman who has always been demanding and has always insisted that everything is about her? And isn't it just the tiniest bit open to abuse? How easy it must be to say she's feeling ill if she doesn't like something. How tempting.

Fucking glib. It makes me sick.

Over-eating, over-drinking, and simulating cage sex in a cowboy hat

2009-05-06T12:00:00.009+01:00

I had a very good birthday weekend in the end, and feel that my 28th birthday was adequately celebrated.

A couple of our friends came down on Saturday to stay, and we had a nice meal out at Café Rouge. I don't go there very often, but the food was very good and it was made all the sweeter by our triumphant production of money-off vouchers that knocked about 25% off the bill at the end. I always feel like you look a little bit cheap when you say you've got a voucher, but it's unlikely we would have eaten there without them so they should be grateful damn it.

Then we did a little bar hopping on Saturday night, just to a few places like Dr Brightons, the Bulldog, Vavoom and R-Bar. Oh and a new one as well, the Kings Arms, which is a new bear-type pub. R-Bar had their music up ridiculously loud, to the point where it actually hurt my ears, so they are in my bad books now because I just don't see the need for it. You couldn't talk to anyone, you had to just sit there and wait for your ears to bleed.

On Sunday we wandered around the shops, Chris made us a yummy lasagne for dinner, and then we got all dressed up for the Wild Fruit Sex Saloon. We enjoy dressing up, it makes the night more fun, and when you're in costume strangers seem to assume that you're a confident and fun type of person so they talk to you more (regardless of whether you actually are confident or fun. I am neither).

Wild Fruit was really good. It was very busy, as usual, and there are always lots of pretty boys there. The music in the pop room was really, really good, so we pretty much just danced in there all night. It's always a bit quiet in the pop room, most people tend to stay in the dancy main room, but they do have an enjoyable cage type podium where you can practice your pole dancing and take stupid photos of yourself pretending to bum your friends or hanging upside. Chris does the hanging upside down rather than me, he's considerably more athletic and I'm not prepared to risk a broken neck for a photo.

We stayed until the end, and must have still been quite hyped up because we decided to go back to Vavoom for a bit afterwards just to make sure we really had drunk as much as we could. It was 5am and the sun was coming up by the time we went to bed, and I have to admit that seeing the sun come up before I'd been to sleep did make me feel slightly hysterical. It's unlike me to be out that late without fainting, throwing up, or falling asleep in a corner. I bet it was part of some subconscious need to prove that "I've still got it" and can party until 5am despite being 28.

Monday was, unsurprisingly, a little more subdued, and I had a slightly green tint to my not-so-youthful complexion until about 3 o'clock. We did manage another lunch out though (I must have consumed about 40,000 calories over the weekend) before our friends headed off home. They got caught in the stupid protester twattiness unfortunately (see previous post), but eventually made it out of the city after several diversions to avoid the imbeciles.

So it was an excellent weekend all in all. I'm only just today getting over my tiredness, I don't bounce back like I used to when I was 19, but I've had a quiet couple of days at work at least, and if you can't wear yourself out celebrating your birthday then I don't know when you can.

Selfish children take to the streets and get in my bloody way

2009-05-04T17:58:00.000+01:00

Brighton has been taken over today by lots of idiotic children with no respect for other people. The ‘protesters' have decided it would be a good idea to disrupt the lives of innocent (and uninterested) people by blocking roads, hurling missiles, letting off flares, smashing light bulbs, and dancing on a café roof.

And what was all this in aid of? Well it was fairly vague actually. The ‘protest' was advertised as being "against war and greed". What, just war and greed in general? How ridiculous. You can't protest against greed in general, it's an emotion. It's like protesting against feeling a bit grumpy. And who were they directing their protest at anyway? What power do the residents of Brighton have to prevent war and greed? As far as I'm aware, the city isn't at war with anyone at the moment, nor is it in charge of any multinational banks. If you really don't like Israeli foreign policy, go and protest outside the Israeli embassy. At least then it'd be vaguely relevant. Or even better, go to Gaza, and hopefully step on a landmine while you're there.

They were protesting in part about the presence of an ‘arms factory' in Brighton (which they say sells bomb-dropping equipment to Israel). Which is fine if you really want to protest about it, but the factory is on the edge of the city so why didn't they just sod off up there? Why are you protesting at the PIER??

It's just ridiculous. I hate stupid left-wing children who basically don't like "the establishment", despite the fact that they probably would have died from cholera without it years ago. Their protests end up not really being about anything (because they have no real argument), and they just do it for the sake of it, like a tantrum. And then they bleat on about their right to peaceful protest, before completely disregarding the peaceful part and inflicting wanton criminal damage on a city that really couldn't give a toss. Why attack a café? Why?? What's that got to do with it? Why block up the traffic?

I really don't get it. If people care about the cause of their protest they would already be attending it; if they don't, then getting in their way is just going to make them hate you and hate your cause by association. I now feel compelled to campaign for the presence of the arms factory in Brighton just because I'm so cross.

I feel really sorry for the police who have had to deal with it all day, having objects thrown at them and people shouting in their faces. The police haven't got anything to do with war or greed anyway, they're a domestic public organisation, and yet they have to bear the brunt of this idiotic behaviour.

The protesters should count themselves lucky they don't live in a country where they break out the water cannons and tear gas at the first sign of trouble. Their violent, antisocial, pathetic behaviour is more than deserving of a high-pressure hose in the face.

Worship me, for I happen to have been born on this day

2009-04-30T11:17:00.003+01:00

Today is my birthday, and I am officially now 28 and Very Close To Being Thirty.

I can't believe that I'm 28 already and I'm not particularly happy about it. When I was young I thought 28 seemed like an eternity away and just sounded so OLD. I also didn't used to start sentences with "when I was young". Saying that though, I kind of have two opinions on it. I don't like my age when written down any more, but I feel perfectly happy with where I am and wouldn't want to change it. I just looked back on my post from my last birthday and found I wrote almost exactly the same thing last year too, so I shouldn't complain really.

I have received lots of nice birthday wishes by text and on Facebook and Twitter (and even in person, shock horror). It's funny how you get special treatment and presents simply for having survived another year. I could be a horrible person (I'm not, I'm lovely) and I'd still get birthday cards. What is it that we celebrate exactly? "I like you, and am therefore pleased you were born, so will mark this day with gifts"? It's nice anyway, and means everyone gets a special day during the year apart from the Queen who gets two and the people who were born too close to Christmas for it to really warrant two presents and who has enough money to buy two presents at Christmastime anyway, their parents should have thought about that when they were busily getting knocked up in March.

I probably won't be doing too much for my birthday today, what with it being a school night, but I've got birthday cake and doughnuts to eat at work (paid for by me, tsk) and we'll probably have a nice meal tonight. I'll save the proper celebrations for the weekend when we've got friends coming down and we'll be going to cowboy-themed Wild Fruit (insert Rawhide-music whip cracking noise here).

I'm off to contemplate my third doughnut of the morning now.

Public masturbation

2009-04-29T13:56:00.003+01:00

Why do boys these days walk around wearing jogging bottoms with one or both hands shoved right down the front? What are they doing down there? And more importantly, why does no-one say "excuse me, can you stop tugging yourself off in front of Ladbrokes please"?

I see it all the time now, it's like it's trendy or something. I just saw a boy walking with a group of four girls, just casually chatting, and clearly clasping his cock while doing it. I just don't get it! Why doesn't it trouble the girls? Why don't they squeal "uurrrrrrrrr he's touching himself Lind", and run off to find a grown up (they were fairly young). I don't know, maybe they've all got love eggs shoved up themselves or something, so they think the boys deserve an equivalent.

It's wrong anyway. In my day if you wanted to have a wank you did it in private. Or at least under a coat.

Letter to a Christian Nation

2009-04-28T13:40:00.003+01:00

I was just reading these quotes from Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris that someone sent me the link to on Twitter (thanks @Sheamus!), and the last bit really made me laugh so I thought I'd share it with you.

"The president of the United States has claimed, on more than one occasion, to be in dialogue with God. If he said that he was talking to God through his hairdryer, this would precipitate a national emergency. I fail to see how the addition of a hairdryer makes the claim more ridiculous or offensive."

I hope he was writing about George W Bush rather than Barack Obama. I can easily imagine George Bush talking to his hairdryer, and the hairdryer being his intellectual superior.

Such a nice neighbourhood

2009-04-27T09:21:00.003+01:00

I'm a bit disturbed by this article in the Argus saying there was an attempted armed robbery on my road on Saturday. What a lovely area I must live in!

I was out at the time so I missed all the excitement, and fortunately it was a robbery in a shop rather than an individual being held up in the street at gun point, but it's still a bit scary. I actually hate the shop in question, it's an eyesore, so I don't mind if it gets robbed particularly, but obviously I'm quite keen not to get shot by fleeing gunmen.

It's never been the nicest road to live on, I have to say. It's close to town and lots of people walk along it on their way home after nights out, so that brings with it a fair bit of noise and the occasional bit of trouble. I've seen several fights in the time I've lived here, including one person who had their ear cut off ("my ear's gone! my fucking ear's gone!" cried the young man in question), and a gay couple who had a rather savage fight that featured belt-whipping, repeated in-the-face kicking, and then an attempt to bite a finger off. A charming couple with a bright future ahead of them, I'm sure you'll agree.

I'd never called 999 in my life before moving here, and in the last five and a half years I must have called it about six times.

So anyway, it's obviously not that nice an area really. Maybe it's just as well we're planning on moving this year. We had a meeting with a mortgage man at HSBC on Saturday, which was quite exciting in a boring financial sort of way, so now all we have to do is start looking for flats!

It's words that hurt the most

2009-04-24T15:22:00.002+01:00

My clothing was slagged off by a pikey yesterday. That's right, MY clothing was critiqued by a fat, toothless, street-drinking pikey woman in a dirty grey jumper and joggers. What the hell??

We had just left the house and had unfortunately to walk past one of the groups of drunks that are always sitting near our house on the way to the car.

"The one on the left needs skinny jeans!", crowed the fat boiler, to the delight of her equally disease-ridden companion who promptly laughed at said boiler's witty remark.

I had perfectly nice trousers on! And they went with my outfit and everything! They were from Primark I admit, but she didn't know that.

Of course I couldn't think of anything clever to say in return, so just kept walking and suffered the ignominy of them chortling behind my back.

I should have pointed out that she needs to get some front teeth and lose about 300 pounds before she comments on anyone else's appearance, fat cow. The audacity of it!