Comeback queen

If Elvis had re-emerged from the dead and crawled onto the stage in a wedding dress singing Like A Virgin, they would have been like "meh."

Instead on X-Factor we were witness to Britney's comeback.

Of course the media completely talked the whole thing down. I think it may have been one of the tabloids that described it as the greatest reappearance since Jesus.

You can always rely on the newspapers to keep things in context.

Finally at around 10.20pm last night on ITV1 this cataclysmic event happened.

Doormat O'Laundret could barely contain himself as he announced that now it was time for Ba-rit-neee.

The sound system groaned under the over-used strains of Carmina Burana, fireworks burst and big flashy silver graphics alerted us to Ba-rit-nee's various successes.

"One and a quarter billion albums sold", "more than 85 number 1 hit singles" and "972 grammy awards won".

Curiously the "27 bottles of OxyContin necked in a single sitting" fact seemed to have been forgotten.

Then from behind a massive un-ironed sheet Ba-rit-nee appeared. The crowd went wild and in a thousand living rooms across Britain squadrons of young gay men let out a small wee.

For the next 3-odd minutes Ba-rit-nee stomped around the stage, flinging her hair about and miming badly to a song which seemed to only have two words.

You. Womaniser. You you you you. Womaniser. Womaniser. Womaniser. You. Womaniser. You You Womaniser.
(Here in England we spell it with an s)

Suddenly Ba-rit-nee was standing with her hands in the air as some dancer lay on the floor and the song was over.

O'Laundromat then bounded on to ask the Ms Spears a few questions.

"Do you have any advice for our X-Factor contestants?", he enquired.

"Yeah, just keep going", replied Ba-rit.
(Read: Fuck off, I don't know who you are - I don't have a goddam clue what this show is about because I've spent the last few hours in my suite at the Dorchester with the TV off.)

Before she could leave the stage it seemed that everyone on earth was united in their verdict; a truly astonishing performance by the world's greatest-ever singer of the best song ever written.

Suddenly I felt like the little boy who pointed at the naked emperor.

If that was the greatest comeback performance by one of the best performers in the world than either:

a/ the whole world has gone mad or
b/ I'm getting too old for that sort of thing.

Metal detector

It's obviously been a very busy day in the news.

In the entrance to our office we have this electronic scrolling thingy (I think that's its technical name) that gives visitors the latest headlines as they enter the building.

I'd been at the Tesco buying a bottle of water and some sushi and came back to the very latest news from around the UK and the world.

Here's what I was told...

"Britney confirms UK concert dates"

"Wogan sings Bing to drum up cash". (Can anyone explain this?!)

And "Escort wanted to be handcuffed"...

Cor. Get that!

Have you been following the trial of the century?

Boy George allegedly beats alleged Norwegian escort with a pole and allegedly chains him with an alleged chain to the wall of his alleged house in Shoreditch. Alleged.

Apparently they allegedly met on Gaydar and the rent allegedly went around to George's house once or twice allegedly, where George allegedly put the rent boys' (alleged?) willy in his mouth and took photos of him too.

Imagine the poor judge in full costume and wig having to sit and listen to all this! Alleged.

The moral of the story is simple. If you're rent and a famous person comes calling - put down the goddam phone.

So a court hears Boy George allegedly ties his rent-boys up and allegedly beats them with poles...

If it's true it would be tame in comparison!

Remember the stories a few years ago of the British politician (married and with kids) who hired a rent-boy to commit "unspeakable acts of degradation" on him.

I'm sure there are also some American politicians who've developed a habit of ending up in bed with rent-boys too.

Although I'm pretty sure there was none of that sort of er, degradation going on...

It would be the best day in the world if all the dirty little secrets were finally revealed.

Me and Anna were sitting in the office the other day, looking around at some of our male colleagues. I bet there were at least two of them who were wearing women's underwear.

And then there's this other women who we're sure had it off with two other male colleagues in the loo at the Christmas party. At the same time.

And there's this other guy who's apparently in a nightclub photo from a dirty evening in Vauxhall. I haven't seen the photo but someone else says it confirms what everyone's suspected for ages.

That there is a rather large metal object attached to what's stuffed in his underpants. When he talks to me I battle to look him in the eyes.

Mark of the beast

Every morning for the last week I have had to run the gauntlet into work.

It's getting so bad that I can't look, I have to literally leg it and stay transfixed at the ceiling.

Thank god I have yet to bump into anyone while running.

Let's be clear - Barry Levinson is a great director. The guy's won an Oscar.

For me his finest moment is the scene in High Anxiety where he cameos as a psychotic bellman who attacks Mel Brooks with a newspaper in a spoof of the shower scene from Psycho.

However.

It's his latest film that's causing me all the distress.

Here is a poster of it at Bond Street tube station, in a passage that leads to the Central Line platform.

It's just so bad.

Looking at it now makes my teeth itch.

Dear Barry Levinson,

This is an appeal - on behalf of me and for the safety of others at Bond Street tube station who I may bump into while running and screaming, until the poster is removed or amended...

Please get your people to add a fucking question mark to the goddam title...

Fuck!

Thanks Bazza.

Luvs ya and most of your work.

Bobs

One of those

We'd been drinking at a birthday party in Clapham and Clapham is nice for some people.

We leave Clapham and we're on the Northern Line travelling north - as you do - and we stop just before Kennington.

There's that noise, like a truck reversing into wheelie bins. It is the Tube driver coming to terms with the train's PA system.

He announces that someone has collapsed on the platform

He says that anyone who plans to set themselves on fire (alight) should watch their step and - critically - he warns passengers at the front of the train who're sensitive to these things, not to look.

I'm just confused about why train drivers always refer to everything in third-person omniscient tense but that's just me.

Anyway, we pull into the station and sure enough, the doors open to reveal a man lying on the platform passed out in a pool of vomit. It's not an attractive look.

This couple who're sat against the window turn around to look. She gets upset so he gives her a reassuring hug. He tuts.

This really pisses me off.

At the top of my voice I say; "he's breathing so it's not a problem and the driver did say don't look - so why did you?"

They both look down.

Me, powered by five-odd Stellas; "if you know something's going to upset you why look? I'm trying to understand this?"

Chris, who's with me; "I love it when they can hear you but pretend they can't."

Me: "Yeah, and everyone else around us can hear but pretending they can't."

Chris: "No, they're all thinking, shut the fuck up.'"

Me: "They wouldn't use that kind of language, they all look so dreadfully middle class."

Chris: "Urgh."

Everyone sits in complete silence, staring at the floor.

Waterloo's the next stop so we get off.

I'm sure she then snuggled in close to him and went "I really hate those kind of people."

Can't touch this...

It's only November 22nd but this may just be the coolest thing I have seen all year...

Simplicity is genius.

Who's your mummy?

Tonight I speak to my mother who is chipper as she tells me of the wonderful weekend she's had.

She says that on Friday night a group of her women-friends got together, they drank and ate, then ended up downing tequila at the Beulah bar for lesbians in Green Point in Cape Town.

Shit. It was far better when she was disapproving of that sort of thing.

Those mornings I used to come home and park the car on the lawn and stagger around gurning, she would be stood their with her hands on her hips calling me sleazy and disgusting.

When I left my clothes on the bathroom floor after showering she'd ask why they smelt so odd and would pick them up with rubber gloves.

She'd turn out my pockets before putting the trousers into the machine and find a drinks slip with "I wanna be your horny bottom-bitch" scrawled over it.

Who'd have thought she'd now be gloating about her Friday nights spent at the local bush bar? A bar where most of the balls are to be found on the pool table.

Next she's going to be wanting to come the Gay Pride holding one of those ridiculous banners that says "Our Bobby's a Bender". Or something similar.

And then she'll be hogging the floor at Fire in Vauxhall, with her T-shirt tucked behind her bra, passing around the poppers.

It'll end at Christmas with her giving me a Tom of Finland book, rubber underwear and the Queer As Folk UK boxset. In the card it'll say "the rimming scene in episode 1 is H-O-T. Luv Mum".

I sincerely hope not.

Thank god my parents live in Cape Town, 10,000 miles from Vauxhall or Fire.
I'm sure my mum probably thinks that Tom of Finland is one of Santa's little helpers.
And I hope my mum is convinced that rimming is how you apply Domestos to the toilet.

Please God let it stay that way.

Mum, I'm really not that comfortable with you telling me how drunk you got in a lesbian bar. No offence.

Crap colleagues

Around two-hundred odd people come to this blog on a daily basis to perhaps read something or be amused by something and for the last few weeks I have been shit. I'm really sorry.

Life at the moment is just shit. I really am trying so hard not to become resentful or bitter about it. The source of the problem is work.

As I type those words I can already hear myself groaning.

Because of the cutbacks they have made in our office I am doing the job of three people. I am working 60-hour weeks.

It is a back-handed compliment though. It is well-known where I work that management use the better employees and work them into the ground.

They get over-loaded with responsibilities and pushed until breaking point.

I am a long way from that point yet but I can feel it's around the corner.

And then the following happens...

Your boss says "Bobby, you need to delegate more..." So Bobby delegates - to people who are, quite frankly, fucking shit.

And you spend hours briefing them, showing them and they still do a fucking shit job. They know that in the end it's your name that is attached to the project so they don't give a toss.

They don't give a toss because they're 35 and they're lazy. They expected everything to land in their lap and when it didn't they got bitter. And now they just sit, trying to do as little as possible.

In any other organisation or company they would have been out the door a very long time ago and deserve to be. Where I work, they sit like limpets stuck to a rock.

So you delegate - to useless lazy people - but in the end you have to do it all yourself because if you want it done properly, you might as well do it yourself.

Yes, I could ask other colleagues for help but they're also being worked into the ground. So you get a short answer when you need advice and support.

Just as you give them when they ask for advice or support. Don't have time. Too busy.

I don't want to get angry and ranty - it's a wasted emotion but sometimes I really do wonder if there is any justice in the world?

Maybe the way to a happier life is to be the fucking lazy wallpaper limpet selfish cunt who works to rule and insists and taking an hour lunch break?

I don't know why I let these kind of people get to me?

Merde on a Mardi

God. Everything right now really is shit.

Redundancy, redundancy, redundancy.

But in some ways it's odd. I was in Westfield London (largest inner-city shopping centre in Europe) earlier this evening and nearly every second person was loaded with shopping.

Where are they getting the money? It must be all on credit.

It's just so awful to think of the people with a family and a home who're resting their heads on their pillows right now, stressed about whether the boss is going to call them in tomorrow morning and make them redundant.

I'm fortunate.

I am single. I am renting where I live. I am pretty-much debt free (I need to tell you about this on November 15th) and I don't have children, the car's gone and...

If I were to lose my job right now I would probably stress for a while but I've been with the same employer for nearly 6 years so would get some redundancy pay at least. Imagine having a mortgage and a young family?

Think about having to tell your young son that the fire engine he wanted for Christmas was going to have to wait because "daddy's er..." Okay, we're getting mawkish. Besides, plastic fire engines aren't that expensive.

This is all depressing and as we plunge into a shitty winter it's just going to get worse.

With me being a fairly new adult, I am still an RV (Recession Virgin) but I expect the following things will happen:

The number of people playing the lottery and gambling will shoot up.
People will spend loads more on cheap booze and drink heavily.
Petty crime will increase.
People will become more stressed, stay in for longer and not go out.
The long-haul travel industry will collapse. Small and niche businesses will collapse. Estate agents will become extinct.
All this will happen minutes after the media industry collapses too due to the advertising market drying up. (Fuck).
Basically unless you're in a job that has a direct influence on increasing profit you'll be sacked.

Oh god it's too much.

I'm going to take some painkillers and open a bottle of South African red.

It's a good bottle of red, mind - Rupert & Rothschild. We're not opening the stuff in the plastic two-litre bottles just yet.

Strip please

There are times when life just gets in the way of everything. There are also times when everything in life just gets a little odd.

Like Wednesday for example.

I'm not one to spurt toxic rantings so you probably don't know that some guy in the gym fucked my shoulder up for me. This has nothing to do with it.

I go to my Doc on Wednesday who refers me to an osteopath and I says to the Doc, "but Doc - and osteo's for the back Doc", but the Doc insists it's the right thing.

So on Wednesday evening I pitch up at the College of Osteo-something just behind Finchley Road in North West London.

(Again re-proving my theory that all the world you could ever need is contained in London, between Swiss Cottage and West Hampstead tube stations.)

Basically, they're all final year students who're desperate for people to practice on and this evening I am their guinea pig.

Miss Pringle is a large professor and tutor dressed in what seems to be a very large starched napkin.

She explains to me what is going to happen and then utters the dreaded words. "Please strip down to your underwear."

They're simple black Debenhams briefs, thank god. I don't know what's worse in this situation; aussieBums or ones with holes in them.

Then, three students - all young woman - take it in turns to push my shoulder, twist my arms around, put me in a headlock, make me stand against the wall, pull my shoulders back again, punch me in the spine and thrust their elbows into my ribs.

As they do it, Miss Pringle bellows like the drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket; "now Miss Lovemore - have you checked the anterior fibulous deltoid?" Or whatever.

We finally learn that I have a something that, in Latin, sounds impressive.

The upshot is that on seven more occasions I am going to have to spend at least an hour and a half standing around in my underpants as four woman take it in turn to treat me rough.

That's not the distressing bit. What upsets me the most is that for the next six weeks any upper body training is out.

I figure this is my moment to attain the best legs in the whole of the gym. Legs and cardio for the next six weeks.

Finally, at the end of our session Miss Pringle emits a shimmer of light into the consulting room.

"I must be honest that it's good to have you which is why I'd like you to come back so often. We generally only get middle-aged to elderly people so it's nice for the girls to be able to practice on someone who is nicely developed."

A kind compliment wrapped in selfish motive. God the British are so good at it.

Election Night USA

Oh bugger it. You only ever get to do this every four years...

Midnight
McCain takes Kentucky and Obama takes Vermont. So no-one saw that one coming. I was planning to go to bed but this is exciting. Sort of.

Of course the only channel you should be watching when in Britain is the greatest broadcaster in the world - the BBC.

And right now I am being treated to this flame-haired Republican beauty in New York...

Don't say it because I spotted it.

Winner Takes It All? Gimme Gimme Gimme? Knowing Me, Knowing You? The potential jokes are lame but endless.

This game is called "Can you spot which is the cardboard cut-out?"

So it's over before it even started - there's no way McCain can pull it away now...

McCain is right now writing his concession speech.

Sometime after 1am... The floor manager in the studio needs to do some tidying up. Evian, posh.

She has the greatest name on the Beeb but can we go to Katty Kay in Arizona?

Er, no. Apparently at the McCain election HQ in Arizona the band is drowning everyone and everything out. Telling.

1:46am London-time and on the telly is Jesse Jackson. "Now the walls of segregation which were once built - are now not so built." Eh?

Jeremy Vine doing the number crunching in London-town tells us that "New Mexico is a fascinating state to look at". Indeed.

2:04am
According to the BBC, Fox News projects that Obama takes Ohio and Ted Koppel just said "if that is so - then it's all over."

So does that mean it's time for bed?

Remember the water bottle from three pictures up? It's gone. Vanquished.

Somebody obviously read this and decided to do some tidying up. Glad to be of service.

Sometime after 2am. 2.20-ish? And the Kat's back...

But what has the Russian flag got to do with anything?

Don't ask - I won't let you look silly. Here's the Russian flag...

2:26am
No! The slip up of the evening. The Beeb-man called it "Ark-ansis".

Oprah's just exclaimed that she's in "full vibrational mode." Yes, nice. She really did use those words...

2.40am
Bollocks. Obama's just hit 200 electoral college votes. Shall I go to bed or wait til we hit 270 votes? This is history in the making...

Did you know that in Iowa there is one human for every 8 pigs? Apparently. So says David Dimbleby.

Okay, it's nearly 3am. I think it's now time to go to bed.

This guy from the Republican party just said that er, it's going to be a long night. Which is key...

Because it means that I think it's time to go to bed.

Is it? Yes it is. History's about to be made or something.

I want to sleep.

Stop

Ohmygod. Anastasia is not going to be the next Pussycat Doll.

I would go over and change the channel but I just face getting up out of this chair. I'm not drunk and I've been to the gym so I don't have much to rant about.

Except my yearning for a holiday.

I dream about holidays. The last time I took any time off work was back in June - a week for my birthday and it was hardly relaxing. Two long-haul flights in a week, and five nights of partying / drinking / eating etc.

So it means that I haven't actually had any sort of holiday since March.

Right now, getting out of bed every morning feels like having to climb over a massive rock only to find another one right in front of you.

The pace of work is relentless.

Every week we get a blank slate and have to fill it with 22 minutes of television. It has to be topical so we can't really do anything in advance.

Tomorrow I am going to go into the office, build the running order, find stories, book locations, type scripts.

Thursday it will be filming day - somewhere in the UK, on Friday we edit. Every week the same relentless routine.

On Saturday I usually have to go into the office and finish off the mountain of paperwork that goes with it. Making sure songs are cleared, copyright logs are filled in because there isn't time to do it on a Friday.

Today I woke up at around 10am, I didn't get out of bed until around 2-ish and then it was only to go to the gym.

I got back home, watched some TV and at around 6-ish got back into my pyjamas.

And tomorrow, Monday, the cycle starts again. At least 60 hours working each week.

It's not that I am physically tired. Despite me moaning about my shoulder I have still been going to the gym. I eat healthily.

That's not what gets me down - what is most difficult is coping mentally.

I love London but it's so bloody hard.

The tube, the weather, the over-crowding, the pace, the distance, the time it takes to get anywhere. Being stuck in traffic, being stuck on a train.

Grabbing the last free copy of the Metro in the morning and finding that you haven't put a pen in your bag to complete the Sudoku - that's the sort of thing that pushes your day from being a medium tedious one into a bad one.

And amongst all of that, somehow you have to find time to socialise, do the laundry, pick up the dry cleaning, shop, go to the post office.

I want to have finished my current project at the end of December. Please let the next one start in February, the one I want.

I need a holiday - for the whole of January. And it still won't be nearly enough.