April 15th - April 21st 2002
Sunday -
Saturday Imazibubed
Friday -
Thursday Searching
Wednesday Jaded and coarse
Tuesday Die die die
Monday -
Saturday 20th April 2002
As with other aspects of my life, I'm capable of being rather anal about pleasure: I will go here, I will do such-and such, with so-and-so, and I will enjoy myself.
The net result, of course, is that I often end up being somewhat frustrated that I haven't enjoyed myself quite as much as I'd planned.
The best nights are often the ones that don't proceed according to plan or, better yet, were not planned to begin with.
Tuesday night was Pop Quiz, with a full roster of friendly faces, not least David, due to depart to the country the next morning. Despite that, or because of that, things proceeded at a predictably leisurely pace till around midnight when I staggered out of Bar Code to catch a bus home.
Discretion draws a veil over what happened between getting off the bus and getting home - but suffice it to say that it involved seeing someone I know (and fancy) getting up to... something he shouldn't.
We'll call him.. Simon.
In truth, I'm really not sure whether Simon was in any fit state to notice me noticing him. Or to remember it if he had. So that was.. interesting.
On Wednesday night, even though I was technically not working, I spent a couple of hours preparing a new graphic for a project I've taken charge of, planning to pop into the office, insert the new graphic and proceed at a leisurely pace, as per, to The Swan where I would probably (but not necessarily) spend several hours flirting with.. we'll call him The Dane, shall we?
At 9:30, wandering into the bedroom to put some clothes on, I discovered I'd missed a text message inviting me to join The Dane in town for an evening's roistering.
Too late to do that now, so I texted my earnest regrets and headed into the office, intending to proceed as planned to a (now Dane-less) Swan and stand around for a couple of relatively solitary pints. But, aha, yet another text message tells me that The Dane will meet me there - and we spend the next few hours exploring the.. interesting territory that lies somewhere between being lovers and being friends.
We leave. I walk him somewhat home. I turn away to head back, in the opposite direction, to my solitary bed. He calls me to apologise for talking about himself all evening.
I draw a deep breath, prepare to reply.. and the battery on my phone runs out.
Thursday, I worked till midnight, and considered catching the last tube to the Spiral for a very quiet pint or two and a chance to talk to John, the barman, whilst he served approximately two and a half customers. But I decided against it and came straight home.
I worked Friday night too, and this time decided I was definitely heading for the Spiral: it's open late, but not too late; John will be busy but I'll still get to say hello; there'll be a couple of faces I know and - dull but true - I can walk home at the end of the evening via the all-night supermarket and buy something halfway healthy to eat.
I got to the Spiral around 00:45, settled myself on my customary bar-stool and looked around for John, who was nowhere to be seen. The bar was manned by: Simon.
"Simon, so long since I've seen you," I said.
"Yes, about.. two days?" he grinned.
That answers that question.
David-the-mad-Italian steamed in about ten minutes later, fresh - if that's the right word - from his waiter's shift and predictably drunk. (I think his contract includes the right to drink as much Chianti as he can get through in an shift. Which is quite a lot.)
We talked about playing the piano. He demonstrated Chopin cadenzas all along the bar, spilling quite a few people's beer in the process. Simon patiently mopped up.
Intent on demonstrating some arcane point about fingering, David grasped my wrist and made me wiggle my fingers in the air. I toyed with the idea of being embarrassed, but.. nah.
One-armed Tony was there, doing his standard mix of drunken affection cloaked in physical near-violence. Surprising how physical you can be with just one arm..
Terry turned up, not recognising me because of the haircut. I didn't recognise him because he'd shaved off his beard. He showed me the scar a millimetre from his left eye where someone broke a wine bottle over his head. David was very upset about this - it was a full bottle apparently.
Michael (known as Michelle when he's wearing one of his Gone With The Wind ballgowns) stood around looking for someone to get maudlin with. Several vaguely familiar faces winked at me from various corners of the room. Two very cute young men came in and stood behind me. David threw off another couple of cadenzas. Simon grinned. Terry told Queen Mother jokes and mumbled "Happarently, the word is, I'm a villain.."
Pretty much the evening I'd planned.
And then John strolled in.
I guess it's a bit sad when someone who works in a bar chooses to spend their night off there too. But John's choices, like mine, were constricted by the time of the night. There's not many places you can get a drink in Shoreditch at 3 o'clock in the morning. The Spiral is one. And Stunnahz is another..
I can't be sure of the spelling (it's not as if I've ever seen it written down) but I think the name is a reference to the Page 3 Girls in The Sun, getting their tits out for da ladz. Ironic really, because Stunnahz - an after-hours drinking den hidden under a railway arch - is popularly perceived as a club for trannies and transexuals.
The first time I went there, drunk and further bemused by not being able to decide if this was a gay bar or not, I attempted to initiate a conversation by slurring "But this is a trannie bar, no?" only to have three very hoity-toity men in black cocktail frocks turn regally and say, "This is a fetish bar!"
Whatever.
(I should have remembered Andy's advice: "I never know what to say either but I did learn one thing - if all else fails, say 'Nice hair!'")
Stunnahz, quite rightly, has lately taken some exception to the fact that the drunken patrons of the Spiral have fallen into the habit of treating them as little more than a place to get yet another drink before weaving off into the dawn. And John had told me that, since I was there before, they'd taken to insisting on a much stricter dress-code: "They made Simon take his trousers off."
So: when the lights came on in the Spiral, and John, and his boyfriend, and Fiona, the other bartron, and some-attractive-bloke whose-name-I-didn't-catch, and Simon asked me what I was up to next... I didn't admit I had no plans.
Things get fuzzy around about here, but I do recall standing talking to Fiona about what it would be like to wake up and find yourself in somebody else's body, and what body we would like. (For the record we agreed that, if all worked as planned, we'd find it very difficult to leave ourselves alone.)
The two attractive boys who'd stood behind me earlier were there, one of them now mysteriously wearing lycra cycling shorts. Which was like.. nice. James was serving drinks dressed only in a towel. And then with no towel. Which was like.. okay. And a grinning man whom I'd never seen before in my life was attempting to stick his finger in my bottom. Which was like.. oh please.
Did I mention I wasn't wearing any trousers?
Heaven only knows what time it was that they chucked us out of Stunnahz. I do remember the door opening onto daylight, always a magic moment, and John inviting us all back to his place.
I recall Fiona asleep on the settee, Simon draped elegantly around the-attractive-bloke (whose-name-I-still-hadn't-caught), everybody laughing about the concept of Terry as a villain. Jazz cigarettes. And a Saturday Night Fever soundtrack album.
The sun was shining in a clear blue sky. The buses were running. And at the supermarket I bought: a large carton of tomato soup, two rolls, a big bottle of fruit juice and four chocolate eclairs.
More fun that I would have imazibubed.
Friday 19th April 2002
The ex-head of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority is not perhaps the first place one would turn for a spot of after-dinner humour.
All credit then to Ruth Deech, who last week told the Wadham College Law Society that "In the Jewish tradition, the foetus is not considered viable until after it has graduated from law school."
AfghanChic3: Zahir Shah, the 87-year-old former king of Afghanistan, returned home after 29 years in exile yesterday, wearing a brown leather jacket and a tweed cap and smoking a cigarette.
The Evening Standard reports an interview with the American soldiers who have handed over some of their responsibilities for hunting down al-Qa'eda members to our plucky British tommies:
"We don't do mountains," said a member of the US 10th Mountain Division.
Billy lives in New Zealand. Billy is gay. Billy is 75. Billy has a weblog. Good for Billy.
Thursday 18th April 2002
This time round, I don't think I'll bother making the statutory apology for coining content from my search requests - particularly since I've just worked out quite what it is that makes them, considered as a genre in their own right, so different, so appealing.
The point (and it's obvious really) is that when you cast a quick eye over what people have come looking for on your site, you find yourself whistling a jazz remix of everything that's concerned you recently.
Mention anybody more than twice, in whatever context, and you're practically guaranteed to be visited by someone looking for pictures of them naked.
This, in itself, provides much innocent amusement. I'm still heavily intrigued by the fact that for every person that wants to see Will Young Naked there must be at least ten who'd prefer to see naked pictures of Gareth Gates. (Not to mention those who want pictures of gareth gates naked in the shower, gareth gates leather trousers, and gareth gates, bottom).
For the record, I guess I should point out that there there are not now, and never will be, any pictures on Blogadoon of Naked Gareth Gates or Naked Will Young or Naked Amy Gehring or Naked Manuela Ruda. Nor, despite the best efforts of the homophobic elements in the Lambeth police force, are we ever likely to satisfy the visitor who came looking for Brian Paddick Naked.
Which is not to say we don't get pervy here, on occasion. So, who knows, stay tuned for naked hunky men of the world in underwear or without underwear, suffocate bag sex, drunk friends boxing, virginity+gymnastic, and even (my favourite) The picture of stout,hot,naked gay men fucking. (The picture?)
Sex aside, certain search requests have an uncanny ability to make you glow with pride as they reveal the covert qualities that, without ever mentioning in so many words, you've been quietly broadcasting on a subliminal wavelength.
Now it can be revealed, Blogadoon's secret agenda:
annoyed experience
naked men in public showers
norman mailer dirty joke 1973
Donatella Versace height
london hair extension piece
confused comedy voicemail
"duffle coat"+france
(That's not to deny that search requests can also, sometimes, get it spectacularly wrong. This is really not the place for anyone interested in What Gareth Gates wants in a girl, britney piss in your underwear, Scottish football match, cissy from you rang my lord, or (trust me) answers to 4.22 and assembly language.)
But best of all are the requests that deliver the double-whammy, the ones that are not only totally alien to what you think you're talking about, but pretty damned strange altogether. My current favourites:
Crystal Meth Poem
she slapped his face actor hollywood
Why are they called bangs?
west coast,surgical
little mermaid parodies
plimsolls auction
he loved the prince, he danced for him, naked gay
(A final footnote, especially in the light of the above: Prince Harry naked :1, Prince William naked :0.)
Wednesday 17th April 2002
I can't help but identify with today's ITC report that describes the current state of ITV as jaded and coarse - as indicated lately by the lacklustre content of Blogadoon, most of what's been happening in my life recently has been either too predictable to warrant comment or too smutty to talk about.
You'll be wanting details of the latter, you brutes. Shameless as I am, however, I cannot oblige you.
But, looking forward to a time when I flick back through these diary pages in my old age, I append a couple of coded reminders:
Must remember that next time he pours me a pint.
Oooh! And that!
It's not me that's getting older, it's the Brazilians that are getting younger.
If I had the keys to an office in Canary Wharf, that's what I'd use it for too.
Was that his boyfriend, up there with him on the balcony? His flatmate? Brother? Father?!
"It's only a small penis. It won't hurt." Yeah, right.
Tuesday 17th April 2002
One thing is clear from the news that the nation's response to the death of the Queen Mother has produced a boost in the royal family's popularity: if they want to be really popular, surely, they should all die?
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