May 12th 2003 - May 18th 2003
Sunday Not so cool
Saturday Wannabe
Friday McNally, Nancy?
Thursday This good
Wednesday Irritating
Tuesday Self-ish
Monday Naked, in wristbands
Sunday 18th May 2003
If the internet's so damn cool, how come it can't supply me with a reference for the bizarre assertion that I read this morning: the comma comes from Ireland. Or find me the story I swear I read, about the Croatian killed by a pile of books?
Saturday 17th May 2003
Overheard at the office
A: I thought I might write "Suicide bomber's body found in sea"
B: Would-be suicide bomber. Because...
A: Yup
B: You remember the story about the guy who turned up on a surveillance video...
A: ...after he vanished. Yup.
B: Neat trick.
Friday 16th May 2003
Watching some piece of predictable faggot-mimicry on The Sopranos the other evening, I was overcome by a fit of the-bleedin-obvious. There are no gay characters in The Sopranos!
Even more to the point, there are no gay characters in The West Wing! God knows, they've got one of everything else: intelligent young blacks, strong women, recovering alcoholics. So where are the persons of dubious sexuality?
(I did wonder about Mrs Landingham for a moment, until somebody recalled an episode where she talked about her dead husband. Or there's National Security Advisor Nancy McNally - an early victim of dont-ask-don't-tell?)
Postscript: Strangely enough, Aaron Sorkin's interview in the Advocate manages to leave me with the impression that the shows he wrote are airing in a universe parallel to the one in which I watch them. Gay storylines? What gay storylines? Or maybe those episodes haven't aired here yet.
Thursday 15th May 2003
If I knew how it worked, I could probably make a mint: somehow, every time I bump into a friend at Amateur Strip Night at the White Swan, if it's an infrequent visit for them, the night turns out to be fantastic. And I spend most of my time explaining "It's not always this good, honest!"
So it was this week - when I bumped into Dr and Mr Bitful.
There were six contestants in total, an unusually high turnout, and most were fresh faces. But before we got to see them we had to listen to Sandra, the hostess, being barracked by some faceless member of the crowd. From the excellent way Sandra handled the interruption, it was clear that she'd had to deal with the heckler before, but the crowd lost patience with his constant mouth and booed and hooted him to silence.
The first contestant was slim fit good-looking guy who promised to show us 'the biggest black dick you ever saw'. Well, excuse me, but it wasn't quite that. But he was damn fine nonetheless, especially when he invited his friend in the audience to pour beer over his naked chest. After that, we were quite prepared to forgive him for his increasing bashfulness as the moment approached when he had to reveal his perfectly pleasant, if not exactly monumental, manhood.
The second contestant was his friend from the audience who, once he'd removed his comedy rasta hat and sunglasses, also turned out to be a pretty fit specimen. Not sure about that fishnet jockstrap, however.
The third entrant was a familiar face, a young guy who regularly seems to hypnotise himself to get up and get naked on stage: he never ever wins - unsurprisingly really, given that he is uncannily reminiscent of Mr Burns from The Simpsons. Complete with overbite. But naked.
Number four was a fresh-faced fresh face, a cute young Latin guy (in a Wallpaper t-shirt). I was buying beer whilst he took his clothes off so I can't comment on his technique. I did make it back in time to watch him getting a semi-erection as Sandra held his cock in her hands, though.
Number five was a bit of a shock: the heckler from earlier in the evening. Who turned out to be...not unattractive in a nerdy kinda way. Plainly very drunk (you guessed?) he looked quite passable naked. Not that that stopped the crowd from booing him off the stage.
The sixth contestant, a last minute entry, was a dough-faced fat boy, very young, rather overweight, and very very shy: when Sandra spoke to him before yielding the stage, he grabbed the microphone and whimpered: "I just want to say I've never done this before but my friends dared me to do it and now I'm really embarrassed."
The crowd cheered him to the echo. (Who says queens have no heart?) And, whoda thought it, he managed to get naked with considerable elan - before bursting into tears.
So, of course, he won.
Or would have, if Sandra hadn't claimed to have received covert intructions from the back of the room to declare both him and the Latin boy joint winners. At which point they both had to strip all over again, with the crowd going wild, and the chico Latino getting a free blow-job from a member of the audience.
It's not always this good. Honest!
Wednesday 14th May 2003
We have to work out what's the most inappropriate stuff for us to be doing. We've done wood carving, we've done etching, we've done bronze, so we should be really looking at things like flower arranging, or watercolours. If you think about it, you can still produce something that can be slightly irritating.
I'm pretty indifferent to BritArt by and large, with two notable exceptions: Damien Hirst, whom I loathe, and The Chapman Bros whom I like more and more.
I was going to ask which of those two alternatives you might think had come up with the above quote. But then I realised the grammar gave the game away.
Tuesday 13th May 2003
This has been around for a while but has only just been brought to my attention: Will Self versus Richard Littlejohn - a Five Live discussion in which the self-assured novelist demolishes the opinionated right-wing columnist (who sometimes seems to have spent his entire career over-compensating for his surname).There are several knock-out blows, my favourite being:
SELF:I've read 200 pages of [Littlejohn's book which is] a 200 page recruiting leaflet for the BNP.
L'JOHN: Well, you can't comment until you have read the other 200.
SELF: Why? Does it suddenly turn into Tolstoy?
L'JOHN: You'll have to read it and find out, won't you.
SELF: Well it won't take me long.
Monday 12th May 2003
Fool that I am, and despite being conscious of the complications that working several nights a week introduces into my crowded social schedule, I somehow forgot to calculate the devastating impact of procuring employment for my BestBuddy in a job with similar hours on different days of the week. (But, hey, we're saving a fortune on alcohol!)
Bearing that in mind, and given my reluctance to struggle out of bed at noon in order to be able to attend a show that doesn't start till six, I'd pretty much sworn off going to the Vauxhall this Sunday.
But, come five in the afternoon, I'd received several messages alerting me to the fact that the Tavern was 'virtualy empty!' with 'wristbands still avalable!' And so, yeah, yeah, I made a dash for it.
And found myself, yeah, yeah, stuck in the unmoving queue outside for an hour, doing my best to audit the show through the open door four places in front of me. Well, at least it wasn't raining.
My frustration was somewhat alleviated by various friends who'd been energetic enough to get there earlier, and get in, who popped by periodically to say hello and bring me beer (Hi Luca! Hi Steve! Hi Andy-and-watch-where-you're-spilling-that-Guinness!)
And the cute boy in the queue behind me, who works up the road from where I live, and lives up the road from where I drink, helped pass the time.
But mostly I stood and envied the wristbanded throng as they merried to and fro past the door-people, wondering whether we'd ever get to stage where wristbands sold for £1,500 on eBay and what the (big, black, probably lesbian) security staff would look like in high-heeled boots over black suspenders.
......previous week
