Shoulder boulder

This shoulder injury has fucked me up.

It fucking hurts and I can go to the gym but it aches and I've been told to take 6 weeks' rest. I could do legs but screw that. I really am so resentful to the fucker who did it. I will not turn bitter. No.

Thinking about it makes me want to resort to violence. Serious GBH.

Fat-fucking-cunt-motherfucker-wanker-who-did-this-to-me-because-they-should-have-been-on-the-fucking-treadmill-I hate you-fucking-hate-you-HATE-YOU!

So what else is there to do but drink? Last night on First Great Western I drank about six Harvey Wallbangers. I don't remember much of what happened after getting home.

Thank goodness for the text message history...

Right now I'm a little buzzed - three beers and two glasses of wine. I hate myself for it.

This morning at just before 9am, I found myself in the queue to visit the opening of a shopping centre.

Westfield London is apparently the biggest urban shopping centre in Europe. Don't panic. I've been so you don't have to...

Great place; a shopping centre with its own dark room.

And then I thought this was the prettiest - the fresh fruit counter at M&S...

Bla bla bla. I'm pissed. Fuck. I hate the guy who bashed into me and destroyed my shoulder. I hate him so much.

He gets away with his own fat self exercising in the mirror - a large tub of lard bashing into everyone when he should have fucking been running for his goddam life.

And then he launched himself into my life - a Teletubby in the gym, a big bounding wanker, devoid of any consideration for others. And while I was minding my own business he waddled over and injured me. I hate him. I really really hate him.

I,m pissed. dksdfkjs dfkjshdf ksjhdf ksdjhf sdf bla bla.

Bobby Bond

I'm at the gym, on the incline bench - the one at an angle - doing chest.

There's a guy who I've never seen before bumbling about and he's the kind of guy who needs to be on a treadmillnot screwing about amongst the weights.

So I am heaving these weights up and down (you get one guess as to what comes next...)

Yeah, the fucking idiot, wanker, son of a bitch, words cannot describe how angry I am stumbles into me and knocks my arm back.

I drop the weight and grab my shoulder. It's fucking sore.

"Watch what you're fucking doing, Jesus!"

Thankfully a trainer is nearby and sees what happens.

This is good because it means any requirement for macho straight man-on-man pushing around and potential physicality is circumvented.

The trainer asks if I'm okay; I say it's fine, I think. It fucking hurts.

He tells the Wanker Idiot (my editorialisation) to watch what he's doing and if he's new, says he needs to sign up for an induction.

Good. Inside I'm standing with my arms on my hips, tutting and stamping my foot. Outside I go "yeah mate, you really need to watch what you're doing."

So I haven't done anything too bad, just stretched a deltoid or something. It's part of the shoulder.

Whenever I hear words like deltoid and bicep, I always want to do at least five minutes of Rocky Horror.

We do a few stretching exercises and now I am sat with my upper arm and shoulder covered in fucking Deep Heat.

And cue the Princess hissy fit..

"I have to be on a fucking beach in Cape Town in three months, looking like I just stepped out of the pages of Men's Health and this fucking wanker has gone and set my shoulder development back by at least three weeks. This is nearly a catastrophe. Ohmygod, my arm looks so under-developed in that picture. Fuck, there's so much to do....! Ohmygod, I yadda yadda..."

On a completely different note though - I actually feel good. All the better for having seen you...

Not now though - but 40 years ago, maybe...

Lessons from the Scriptures

I found myself at Waterloo Station which isn't really a place you'd want to be at any time of the day.

But it wasn't the thousands of people scurrying around the terminal like frightened mice that alarmed me, instead it was a few words printed on a temporary wall near the old Eurostar terminal.

That part of the station is all boarded up because Eurostar has transferred to that other huge railway shed in North London.

On these screens they have printed various whimsical facts about Eurostar's years spent to-ing and fro-ing from Waterloo.

The facts include things like; "3,768,532 glasses of champagne served", "864,977 drunken English football fans hurling racial abuse at station staff" or my favourite "243,986 shouts of 'oi, lady with the drinks cart - give me another fucking beer - you grumpy fucking Frog, you know we British fucking beat you at Waterloo and don't you ever fucking forget that...'

At least I think that's what I read on one of them. My note-taking skills are sometimes a little touch-and-go.

Anyway, one particular fact stuck out, above vast quantities of alcohol served and the xenophobic slurs issued.

This means that not only can we be sure that there are at least
10,383 people in the world with appallingly bad taste but they're also stupid and forgetful too.

There was a time in London when you could get onto a train or tube carriage and quite literally, every second person would be reading that book.

Thoroughly depressed at this thought I decided to take myself off to the Apple shop.

In there, as I have seen on so many occasions previously, I saw it. It stared back at me. It whispered to me...

If you buy me I will make your life complete.
If you buy me I will make you successful at work.
If you buy me I will make you have more friends.
If you buy me I will make you have a better body, a nicer life and better in bed.
Until you buy me, your life will just stay the stagnant wasteland that it already is.

And thus I went forth to the counter and I said Unto the Assistant; "please Sir, changeth my life unto me."

The Assistant gazed back and uttered; "Ye though you have walked in darkness for these years, I shall now, proclaim you to the light."

And thus he spake and reached out his hand and there came it forth but I not know whence from where it came.

"Go and deliver it unto that Man - he who is stood beneath the arching white glow.

And the neath the Arc the Man proclaimed "ye shall owe penance for such", and afore he uttered thus, I had brought forth Carde of NatWeste.

And Suddenly I was cast forth. Stood in the valley of Square of Hanover whence I reached into the Sack of Provinence and pulled forth the Miracle.

And around Me the choir sang and the Angels did proclaim loudly; "you fucking idiot - everytime you go into that bloody store you can't stop yourself!"

Whatever. Everyone else has one - to the point where you can't get onto a Tube carriage and not see someone playing with theirs - so why shouldn't I have one too?!

Crossroads

The project I've been working on for the last two years has been canned. It's a money thing. In TV there is no money.

I'm not out of a job because I've been on secondment. It just means I'll go back to what I was doing.

I can't believe it's come to an end. My life will return to normal.

It doesn't sound like anything important or even interesting, and the news came so swiftly, but it's so odd. Suddenly after two years of week-in-week-out grafting, everything's going to change.

Our organisation doesn't usually pay for overtime but instead chooses days off in lieu. I am owed at least 32 days off in lieu. This is besides the 15 days I am owed for annual leave.

I am tempted to put in a leave request from December 18th to April 1. I'm pretty sure it'll be turned down.

I don't want to go back to what I was doing. I have a lot of thinking to do.

Do I just quit completely and go back to studying?
Do I just quit completely and go back to Cape Town?
Do I just continue like nothing ever happened?
Do I now make the break to the States?
Do I find a better job in London and regret all of the above?

My head is in a thousand different places right now and I don't really know what to type. I am so excited and so relieved but yet so daunted by what comes next.

I am standing at a crossroads and there are, quite literally, more than 5 roads to choose from.

It's like you're lying in bed, warm and smug and suddenly your mum bangs on the door and says "right, get out - it's time for you to go and get a job because dad and I are not paying for anything anymore."

I know I should go with what my gut is telling me. Am I brave enough to do so? I don't know.

All I know is that I'm being forced to grow up and that's something I just don't / want / can't do.

From being in control of my life I am suddenly, at 30, being forced to chose my next path and I don't know what to do.

Maybe this is the time to grasp what I've always wanted to do.

Maybe on this occasion I will ignore what everyone else is saying and go with my gut. Maybe, right now, I will pursue what I've always wanted...

But the pathetic thing is, is that I'm just too scared to do anything like that. I don't know why.

Monday night

Fucken irritated because these are just some of the things he said to me:

1/ I didn't see you at the gym last night - have you changed your times?
2/ If you're going to do arms, maybe we could work out together tonight?
3/ Maybe see you tomorrow then?
4/ Don't worry - I have an extra protein sachet, would you like it?
5/ It's always better when you work out with someone else.

So tonight, after we finish I say; "what would you think about maybe going for a drink - and not a protein one, I mean...like out somewhere"

And he says; "yeah that would be really nice. I'd like that. The only thing though is that my partner's home right now -he's a trolley dolly for BA. Next week he's off to LA though - so what about then?"

I think I said "yeah - haha... yeah... fun. Er."

What an idiot.

Yeah I'd love to go out for a drink with you but only if the 'boyf' is away. What the fuck!?

I hate to jump to conclusions but he seems just the kind of guy who's like Relationship-zilla. Always refers to himself in the plural "we this" and "we that..."

But as soon as his "hubby's" off somewhere, he's down to the Chariots on a Sunday afternoon in Vauxhall getting roasted like a battery chicken on the KFC rotisserie.

"So yes", let's meet for a drink", he says.

Whatever. I lost interest very quickly, drifted off and grabbed a towel to shower.

Yeah, let's booze-it when "the trolley-dolly boyf" is away. Piss off dipstick.

Cranial urge

Now that we're all suitably freaked out by that drunk weirdo in the green video and can all move on. I don't know who that was but his eyes looked odd.

Anyway.

I want to introduce you to someone's hair. He is a guy at the gym who has one of the the most spectacular barnets I have ever seen.

I have devised some drawings to help you understand just how complex the design of this hairstyle is.

First though, here are the facts.

1/ I reckon this man is between 26 to 30 years old.
2/ He has very dark olive skin and near-black and slightly wavy hair - ethnically I would say he's Indian.
3/ As happens with so many men, he is unfortunately losing his hair but has decided to make the best of a bad situation.
4/ He's on the podgy side too and rather irritatingly will stand over you at the gym while you're busy with something. He asks if you're busy, you say 'let's share', he'll lift the weight once and then move on. Irritating.

Anyway, back to the hair.

This man with the hair - let's call him Donald - is obviously having problems coping with the fact that his hair is falling out so he's decided to embrace the issue. By pretending it isn't.

And it seems that it's not just Donald who's deluded. Donald's hairdresser must also shoulder some of the blame too, for aiding and abetting this bizarre cranial construction.

I reckon one day Donald was paging through a Men's Vogue or a copy of Arena Homme Dior Plus Divide and saw a picture of David Beckham. Donald liked the way David's hair looked...

...and Donald said to himself; "I'm gonna get me a hairstyle like that too!"

Unfortunately Donald is really thin on the top but here's what he's done.

See Exhibit 1 (best picture I could find to illustrate this):

Donald has decided to grow the hair on both sides of his head and around the back.

Then, in a feat of engineering that would make designers of the Hadron Collider blush, Donald brushes all the hair up and towards the centre of his head and styles it into a faux-hawk. It looks something like this. Exhibit 2:

It is the most bizarre thing you've ever seen. From the back it's all combed forward, from the side it looks like buttresses on a cathedral, brushed upwards to hold up the mohawk along the top.

But he combs it up and forward to try and give himself a hairline too.

The problem is, when he stands under a light, you can see he's nearly bald underneath the Mother of All Comb-overs. It's not just one comb-over. It's two on each side that meet in the centre.

It is the Machu Picu of hairstyles - I can describe to you what it looks like, but until you see it up close, you can't truly appreciate how spectacular it really is.

I guess that's why he doesn't really do anything in the gym, because he's so worried about it collapsing.

Also, sweat doesn't go well with hairspray and there must be gallons pumped into making it stand up.

It looks like an extremely intricate but spectacular ethno Alessi salad bowl turned upside down. Or one of those wispy caramelised honey creations that posh chefs plonk on top of a bowl of ice-cream to make it look good.

I wanna give him a nookie so badly. I don't know how much longer I'm going to be able to control myself.

Movie club Monday

This is bad:
Little Britain USA. Ohmygod, it's not even funny. Words can't even describe... Has anyone else had the displeasure of having to sit through this? Watching it is like being insulted.

It's the TV show I would use to torture my worst enemy with. It is so bad it makes me want to put the Little Britain DVD I have on eBay.
Actually, I'm embarrassed to have admitted that I own a Little Britain DVD. Bad.

This is good:
Californication. HMV are having a sale and it was only £20, marked down from £35 so I thought why not, given that I had heard so much about it.

I like it because it makes me fall in love with LA. Is there anyone reading this in LA? Cali... tries a little too hard to be like the street-cred version of Curb Your Enthusiasm - which nothing will ever come close to - but it's good.
I love Bill's 16 year old daughter who's just a nasty little vixen. It's good.

This is fucking excellent:
Gomorra. Ohmygod. I was totally blown away which is nearly an inappropriate thing to say.

Fuck. Okay, I am a gangster movie fan so I'm already halfway won over. It's about the mafia in Naples who're basically all just violent, poor and a bit fucking dum. But it's real, it's like watching real life.
Mark these words: it will be nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film at the 2009 Oscars.

It is bleak and empty and there is no redemption for anyone in the film and it is just astonishing.
I have two little bits for you. First is the brilliant theme tune from Massive Attack. I have been trying to find it to download but can't. Listen to it on YouTube.

Secondly, yes I admit. A nasty little Italian bitch with a bad attitude, in his underwear and firing a stolen automatic weapon kinda makes me a slightly excited.

I have to say that I loved Gomorra but. But! I have slightly off-key taste.

So those are my recommendations. Got any others? Movies, music and/or book suggestions will be grateful received and followed up...

Flabbergasted

This post might be a bit long which means you're welcome to pick your nose or scratch your bum throughout.

(FYI: I once saw a guy do that on the Tube; scratch his arse, as in get right in the crack, and then smell his fingers but anyway - we'll leave that for now.)

I have had one of the most extraordinary days in my life.

Remember the other day I told you that someone heard me doing a silly accent in the tea-bar?
And they said "do you mind if I pass your number onto a friend?"

Anyway, the long and the short of it is I get a call from this producer saying that some director has heard my voice and would love for me to do some voice-over work for a project they're doing for Channel 4.

(FYI: Channel 4 is a TV channel here in the UK)

Suddenly I find myself in the reception at a major post-production studio in Soho. Remember, this is all off the back of someone over-hearing me playing the fool in the tea-bar at work.

I am asked if I would like anything and I say a hot water and honey because this is what other people always ask for.

Some dude takes my bag and coat and I am told that "they're" ready for me in Studio 2.

We take the lift down and pass along a corridor plastered with posters for movies like "Saving Private Ryan", "Bridget Jones's Diary" and "Mamma Mia". These are apparently some of the films that have been mixed here.

Studio 2 is a massive room with a huge screen. Behind an enormous sound desk there are three people and is another man slumped into the leather sofa at the back. There is a large bowl of fruit and small bottles of Evian.

I literally behave like I imagine a professional would act if they were in this position. Casual small-talk and no questions about the project.

"So if you just want to take a seat over there, we'll start."

I am led to the left-hand side of the room where there is a high-chair, a music stand and four microphones.

Some other guy appears with the script and puts it in front of me. There is another man adjusting the mics.

The man who identifies himself as the director appears and says he wants to play me the film sequence over which my voice is going to appear.

I sit there thinking holy-fucking-shit-ohmygod-fuck-what-the-hell?-someone-is-going-to-pop-out-at-any-minute-and-go-Candid-Camera!

Anyway. So we start recording and I am so nervous and Take 1 quickly becomes Take 10.

Finally we get it right and the director is happy so I relax. And we move onto the second bit of script.

We're done in three takes. So we move onto the third. Done.

Fourth bit of script. Done.

Now the director has asked me to ad-lib which I do. He is impressed.

I am reading the words, with the silly accent on cue with what's happening on the screen. Finally, a little confident, I look up at the huge screen.

Fuck. I recognise that face on the massive screen! And then another face I recognise. And then a voice I recognise!

I realise that this is definitely not some project for Channel 4.

After three hours of being sat there, reading script in a silly accent and being served hot water and honey, we're done.

The lights in the studio go up and the director is happy.

"Can I just ask - that guy on the screen with the glasses, that's not so-and-so is it?"

The director laughs; "yes it is..."

"But I thought this was..."

"No, we didn't want to freak you out so I specifically asked the producer not to tell you! We're hoping for theatrical release next year. It's all been going great."

There are hand-shakes, the director says "you really should think about what you do with your voice" and I am suddenly standing in the cold on the corner of Brewer and Lexington Street.

It's not anything like Mamma Mia or Saving Private Ryan but still I cannot quite believe it.

I get back to the office and a colleague asks where I've been. I'd tell them but they wouldn't believe me.

I still can't quite believe it, I really can't.

Random incidents

There's a poster at the Tube station that asks, in big black writing; "if God were alive today, what would you ask him?"

Underneath it, in red, there's another question; "What is the purpose of my life?"

You read about all these people losing money and the value of millions of stocks being wiped and I've started to wonder what the purpose of life really is? It's definitely not money.

Okay, I'm a poover so at the moment it's not to procreate. Ladies, unless you're willing to turkey baste?

So why the hell are we here?

I know this is a pretty fundamental question and yes, I did think about it while trying to hide a fart, wait for the train and make sure nobody could hear I was listening to Supertramp.

And you stuff yourself into a Tube carriage, within centimetres of another person. But they're just an annoyance.

To you they're not someone who has their own life, their own feelings and insecurities and disappointments and triumphs.

Sometimes I look at people and think about slapping them or pulling their hair. Not because I want to hurt them but because I have this urge to connect with their life for a split second.

I think instead of pulling their hair (and trust me, sometimes I really want to yank their goddam locks as hard as possible, especially when they get onto the train before you've got off) but anyway.

Instead of pulling their hair I think I'm going to try and do an act of random kindness. But I don't want whoever it is to know that it's me.

Because everyone's so gloomy I feel like maybe the point of life right now is spread some cheer. I just need to think of a way of doing it that is totally anonymous, non-stalkerish and won't land me up in court for being a perv or trespassing etc.

I am going to have to think about this one.

Bottles at the back

There's a beautiful wine farm on the outskirts of Cape Town called Boschendal (say: "Bosh-in-dahl".)

When I was very little my parents took my sister and I there for a picnic. We thought it would be fun to hide from them so we climbed into the boot of my dad's car.

It took my parents "ages" to find us. They were "nearly about to call the police you two were so well hidden!"

Over the years, whenever we've had special family birthdays and anniversaries we've always gone for lunch to the restaurant at Boschendal because the Sunday buffet is amazing.

I remember once pigging out on the oysters and brandy snaps.

When I turned 21 my dad opened a huge bottle of Boschendal Lanoy to celebrate.

The last time we were was last year, my sister back from San Francisco, me and my mum and dad.

Earlier today I was in the Sainsbury's near my house. A day when everything and everyone is a little depressed and gloomy.

And in the aisle towards the back of the shop I go to the rack marked "South African". There Kate Bush is on my iPod singing.

Just being alive, it can really hurt.
These moments given are a gift from time.
Just let us try to give these moments back
To those we love, to those who will survive
And because I'm a little odd, I just stand near the bottles and think about where they've made their way from.

On some days just I feel homesick, I don't know why. It's just because.

We run this shit

It's Saturday and I have nothing to do. So I made a music video.

London Prepped

Hollywood rarely makes films about Hollywood because audiences don't really care.

Which I guess is much the same as blogging. Blogging about blogging can be a little tedious but I thought I'd make an exception.

In May last year there was a blog that was only about a month old.

I don't know if the person who wrote the blog noticed me or if I noticed them but an e-mail arrived. (Thanks to GMail, all these things are saved...)

It reads something like:

"Hi there,
I have a blog but I wanted some people to read it. Do you have any advice on how I could promote it maybe?
Cheers."

I wrote back that I wasn't really sure but I would write something on my blog to tell people about him.

He said he was only getting about 50 hits a day and no comments. He said he'd like just a few more people to read what he'd taken the time to write.

I posted the following...

"I want to introduce you to a person whose blog I've found.
He lives in London and, in a rather unnerving and breezy fashion, details just how much he's destroyed his life.
At the moment he's teetering on the edge of an addiction to painkillers.
And occasionally he flogs his sweaty underwear on eBay.
It's all rather amusing in the same way that a car crash on the M25 is.
I think you'll enjoy reading it, just as I do.

Here's a link to that blog...

Don't get me wrong. A blog is a blog is a blog - nothing more. It's writing on the internet, done by someone you've never met.

However sometimes you do end up following what people have written and taking an interest in their condition.

I've never properly met London Preppy, we've probably exchanged no more than 10 words in real life but somehow I feel like I know him. That's the funny thing with these blogs.

Tomorrow I could be sat next to him or any one of you on the Central Line, if you were in London. We are nothing more than a few words in cyberspace. I am not Bobby. I am not a blog. I am none of this. But thanks to a few words, on here, I am everything.

Now, nearly 18 months later it's time to change what I first wrote.

I once read about a guy on the internet who used to think he had destroyed his life but I don't think it was destroyed. The last I heard he went to Sydney. I hope he went and found what I think he was looking for.

So farewell then London Preppy.

But before you go, I have just one thing to admit....

Okay, I did actually end up wearing them on the beach. And I pulled someone as a result, so they worked.

Anyway.

All the very best and I think you owe me a signed fucking copy of the book when it appears.

Let's twist again

So who the fuck turned the dial to the setting marked Winter?

We didn't even have an autumn because suddenly the streets are filled with leaves and at night there is frost on all the cars. Bloody hell it's cold.

There is an upside to this though.

Tonight the gym was absolutely empty, just as it was last night.

My guess this is for two reasons; first is that it's now too cold and no-one can be bothered. Instead everyone is sitting at home eating chicken pie and drinking red wine. Fuckers, I hate them.

Second is that our gym is usually packed with boys in T-shirts that say Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan and Credit Suisse on the back.

Due to the credit crunch I think they're all too stressed out to come.

I guess they're all in their towers in Canary Wharf, with their head in their hands - the tears of despair slowly stain their keyboards as they realise that they're not going to make their £124,000,000 annual bonus.

No more renting apartments from Foxtons for a million pounds a month. No more leased Aston Martins. No spraying champagne around nightclubs in St James for the sake of it. Poor diddums.

So the nice thing is, while all the city boys are stressing out about how they're going to pay off their RBS Black card and (I think we've had enough of the anti-City boy sarcasm please... Ed.)

Anyway, the point is that the gym is empty which is great because it means that if you need, you can fart and no-one's the wiser.

And you can listen to the 8-minute version of the Pet Shop Boys 12" Thunderpuss Goddess remix of Liza Minnelli's Losing My Mind and no-one else will hear it and think "God, that is so gay."

I still self-censor on the Tube though. There is some music I will expressly not listen to, incase somebody overhears me listening to it. The assumptions can be devastating.

And since you don't have to face me on a daily basis I might as well tell you what some of the banned list includes:

1/ The Xanadu soundtrack.
I love Xanadu and Olivia Newton John but it's not for public consumption ever. Even when I'm alone I listen to this with headphones on just incase.

2/ ABBA
Okay I have all the ABBA albums and I know all the words. Imagine you were standing next to a guy on the Tube and you heard "so when you're near me, dahling can't you hear me, SOS!" What would you think?!

3/ Hmm... iTunes tells me I've listened to the Bayside Boys remix of the Macarena three times. This can't be right. It's not mine.

4/ And when the fuck did Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers make its way onto my iPod? I swear I have no idea what that's doing there either.

"C-c-c-c-come on let's twist again... like we did last did last did last did last summer."

Oh shut up, this list is a silly idea.

Speaking of the Tube, I have a conundrum for you. Spotted on the Central Line between Holland Park and Bond Street...

Torn jeans, long hair, long defined legs, necklaces, a handbag and flat leather lace-up shoes.

Is it a girl dressed up like a boy? Or a boy dressed up like a girl?