Ai!

Look at these rows of women; sewing, hammering, knitting and generally just getting their shit on.

I told them to work harder and beaver faster to deliver you the latest from er - ...

The bitches.

Tomorrow morning is the deadline I've been given.

I'm sorry if you've made the bloody effort to say hello. But also, my nails have been drying and I, we - er...

Somewhere amongst that crowd of useless cows at sewing machines is the latest (not) blog.

Do you mind if it spends a few hours stewing in the fridge?

(I'm also sorry to make unfortunate jokes at the expense of exploitation during the industrial revolution.)

Me love you one time.

The latest news is coming, promise..

Thursday, 30 July 2009

07:01
believe is it wake time up . clock alarm I can't (re-arrange and place as necessary)

07:21
On the Jubilee Line on the way to gym and it's fucking pande-fucking-monium. The carriage is shaking from side to side and heaving forward under the weight of the chaos. Look!



07:22
Okay, maybe I'm over-selling the Jubilee Line experience just a little.

...

and the morning passes, gym comes and goes, the train comes and goes and I am on it. And then I am not and it's work and I'm at my desk and people walk past and it's all a blur like when people smudge Vaseline on the cupboard mirror so that when they catch a glance of themselves wanking on the bed, they can imagine the reflection is of someone else...


14:19
Ping!
The new Gay Times magazine wings its way into the office which is always a cause for "a little wee in the panties*".
* = not my words, a colleague's.

[Editorial Aside (And cue the cynicism...)
Doncha love how the Gay Times - a magazine which one assumes proudly serves and reflects the gay community - has dropped the word 'gay' from its name? It's now GT.
Perhaps this is because it wants to appear more mainstream? Or maybe because we're all now post-modern fabulous and no-one really cares whether it was called Gay Times or Suckey-Cockey or Put Your Big Hot Throbbing Nine (okay, we get it...)
Because in the olden days all the homos were falling over themselves to be labelled gay but now not so much. So let's move on. And besides GT is like G&T. And all the homos love pissing it up, so that's okay then.
Cynicism ends...

14:51
Thumbing through the latest Gas Turbine and well, well, well... what have we here then?!

14:52
Ping! Time for some bitchy gossip...

So at the gym there's this guy who basically - well, I'm not going to make assumptions because I haven't actually spoken to him. But that's not for want of trying.

I've smiled and said hello and Liam's tried to say something but nothing. He just walks around in a white vest and conspicuously ignores everyone.

I mean it's a gym for god's sake. You help people, you offer advice and ask them to spot you so that you can look up their shorts and you sniff the bench where they've left a sweaty patch. It's normal.

Except for this guy. Clearly all of this and everyone else is so. utterly. beneath. him.

So you can imagine when I turn to page 60-odd of the latest GigaTonne... A feature on guys who seem to fancy how they look without a top on. And who do we see!?

"I have a good body because I work out at gym and spend all weekend dancing in clubs until Monday morning."

Whadeva.

(Mail me everything you know any of the guys in that feature so we can share The Knowledge. Especially stuff like "I slept with so-and-so who has a trick pelvis and can suck the reflection off a mirror."
foxycoxy@me DOT com)

15:24
Oh yeah, speaking of The Knowledge. Remember last week we were talking about Katie Price's book launch and the man who appeared who was Mary Poppins - practically perfect in every way. He's here...

I said to you - what the fuck do you know? You told me quite a lot. Like that he's from Wales and his name is Peter and...



Do you really want more?!

I think we're all over it now. He's too perfect. Too modelly. We want a bit of rough and madness... So honestly, in your heart-of-hearts, would you take our plucky Peter from Wales or this...

Come on.... Honestly.

You have the choice to be locked up in a log cabin for a week in the remote Scottish highlands and you could only take one, who would you choose?

16:18
Oh. Gay Times was renamed GT back in 2007. Well, that shows how cutting edge we are here at Am Not Blog towers.

(Ohmygod - "Am Not Blog Towers"!? That was so parochial will some please fucken kill me with a yellow Ikea Smegma. Like yesterday already.)

17:21
Watching more television and it's not often I do this. Something called "Deal or No Deal" is on. Have you watched it?

It doesn't quite have the 'oh-my-good-goddam-fucking-fuck' intensity of Project Runway USA, in fact it's a just a guy getting other people to open a bunch of shoeboxes.

There's an old phone on a table and sometimes it rings and Noel Edmonds (the host of this gameshow) pretends to talk to someone called The Banker although it could be Kermit-the-fucking-Frog.

17:51
Um. Oh dear. Some old guy just lost out on winning £250,000. This "Make Me A Deal, Dummy" show is hectic.
Oh god, I think I've been sucked in.

18:56
Did you know that Celine Dion's song "All By Myself" borrows very heavily from Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto #2 in C minor? So much so that if you look in the sleeve notes, Rach is credited.

19:12
Oh yeah, speaking of classics and The Proms and stuff... Would anyone like me to take them on a date to the Royal Albert Hall.
The program is here.
You choose the concert, I'll get the tickets. (Seriously)

20:33
Maybe I was a little harsh earlier on the ice-queen who goes to our gym.

Okay, fair enough. I apologise.

I'm really really sorry, I apologise unreservedly.

I offer a complete and utter retraction.

The imputation was totally without basis in fact, and was in no way fair comment, and was motivated purely by malice, and I deeply regret any distress that my comments may have caused you, or your family, and I hereby undertake not to repeat any such slander at any time in the future.

(Stop it...)

22:10
Oh shit, I said I was going to show you the best Gaydar test in the whole wide world. Bollocks. Okay, maybe tomorrow.

23:31
Can I say something - and you're not allowed to ask but today I was talking to someone and we were laughing and sharing a story and - this was earlier this evening... and can I tell you that - er.

To: You Know Who You Are...

I really really really really really really really really like you. In fact I am counting the days until I am standing next to you again. Tonight I will hug the pillow and pretend it's you.

23:34
Schmaltz. Me? I don't do mushy-lovey shit, don't be fucking ridiculous. I don't know what you've been reading to get that idea?!

23:27
I've over-used the "!?" combination today. Tomorrow less will be more.

The Promise

23:08
Tomorrow I will be all over you like an invading force. Shock and awe.
Tomorrow I will be beautiful. We will be beautiful together.

Tomorrow I will regale you with stories of lust and woe, joy and despair. And that's just the fucking Jubilee Line.

Tomorrow I will show you a test I once devised to find out if people are gay. It works 100%.

Tomorrow I will play you the Rach #3 while blind-folded and sitting on hot pokers at a piano that only has three notes - two black, one white and a green one.*
(* = This offer to subject to availability)

Tomorrow we will share a secret. Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya tomorrow - you're only a day away.

Tomorrow. And Tomorrow. And Tomorrow. And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.
Excuse me but I wrote that without having to check it but I know it's right. Thank you, I will take the pat on the head.

Tomorrow we will share a secret and a laugh.

Tomorrow Never Dies. When Tomorrow Comes. Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?

I Close My Eyes and Count To Ten
Son Of A Preacher Man.

But enough of Dusty Springfield.

Tomorrow will be a day like no other. That's because today's been shite. Which, if you think about it, kind of gives away what...

What's not labour the point too much...

Project Tuesday

10:02
Wake up. Wake up. Wake up! That's because the doorbell has rung.

It's the landlord and he has this incredible knack of being on time so when he says he's going to arrive at 10am, the doorbell fucking goes at 10am.

Isn't being woken by the doorbell the most intrusive thing in the whole world?

11:05
Holy shit. I really hope the landlord doesn't venture into the lounge. He will not like what I've done to his carpet...

This an illustration of the dangers of propping a glass of red wine on the couch while you're watching A Fish Called Wanda.

How on earth am I going to manage to get that stain out? Fuck!

13:24
Watching the TV where some German swimmer is apparently now better than Michael Phelps.

All I will say is...

... hands off bitches, he's mine. I bagged shotgun first.

Go and find your own swimmers.

14:52
Oh shit. Sorting through some photos on the camera and remember that last night I also dropped a glass of red wine in the kitchen.



In our house, when you do something like smash a glass you grab the camera before you grab the dustpan and brush.

God we're so creative. In our house we eat beauty.

In our house we shit design.

The neighbours look at our house, shake their heads a little and look on longingly. "God, if only we could be a little more like Bobs and Sally in that house."

We allow this philistine hero worship to happen outside not because it makes us feel important but because it gives them something in their life.

(cont. on pg. 94)

18:13
Shit.

The carpet needs vacuuming. The cupboard needs tidying and I'm not even going to start on the revolting duvet cover.

And the curtains!? Are they on purpose?

21:34
Ohmygod. Have you watched Project Runway USA?

What utter fabulous nonsense.

Some silver-haired man with this weird mid-Atlantic drawl keeps walking into a room full of wannabe fashion moguls going "hullooo diseeners..."

And then, in unison, they all go "hullloooo Tim."

21:45
Tonight on Project Runway (Season 4) they have to design and make some suit and then they have to show it bla bla.

One of the designers has the nerve to make a jacket from - er, fuck knows what the faaa-bric was and one of the judges goes "ohmygod, that construction makes me wanna reach for the Xanax."

And the irony of a room full of people designing clothes to make people look beautiful, fabulous, ohmygod, "I wanna feel beauty and inner peace with this design", "holy mother-fucking-crap your design is just so fucking pure and goddam fucking beautiful." etc.

21:51
On Sky News we have pictures some starving family in Somalia eating food out of clay bowls as the flies circle a newborn. The reporter very grimly intones, "it is an upsetting scene though not uncommon..."

On Project Runway we have a model walking down the catwalk with (goddam-mother-fucking) safety pins in the sleeve of his jacket. The judge shrieks "ohmyfuckingod, that is the most hideous goddam-mother-fucking thing I have ever seen. I want to gouge my eyes out with a rusty fucking nail.

21:56
Is there a Project Runway boxset? I must have then all!

22:57
Jack has won this evening's task. His first words after victory are....

Well, they've been bleeped.
Though I suspect "ohmygoddam-mother-fucking-god" is probably not far off the mark.

23:03
I decide to live my goddam-motherfucking-ohmygod life more like the goddam-fuck-mother-shit contestants on fucking Project Fucking Runway.

All I want is to be the most beautiful motherfucking person in the whole goddam motherfucking world.

Fuck.

23:07
Oh yeah. I need to show you how I got the red wine stain out of the carpet.

Fuck. Spank me laters. You're beautiful.

23:19
And don't you forget it.

Monday moaning

Woke up and then went to the gym.

At the gym, me and Chris and er - you've never met him before so let's call him um. This is a process of democracy so I'm going to let you name XXXXXX

To guide you...

XXXXX is 23
XXXXX is built like a brick shithouse
...?

There's not much else to tell you about XXXXX.

Anyway we do arms - an exercise that Chris has made up that's so hectic - were I to show you, you would die in pain.

And here are some pictures...

A Bentley, a Lamborghini and a Mercedes McLaren - outside the Dorchester.

I was in the Dorch to visit Uncle Toblerone.

We all call him Uncle Toblerone because all he will ever buy you is fucking Toblerone, from airport duty free. It's his way of saying "you're my special nephew."

He arrives at the Dorchester in a Bentley. All we get is fucking two-day-old Toblerone. Dickhead.

He's lonely. No-one likes him.

Though he is slightly more respectable than my dad's side of the family. My dad's brother is a poor white and lives in a shack.

His second wife is an alcoholic and her first born (who's about 40 years old) is a crack addict.

I haven't seen my dad's side of the family in years.

They did used to visit on Christmas Day. My dad's brother would pitch up and say "it's Christmas, why not", which was cue for him to pour himself a tumbler of Scotch.

I think one Christmas my uncle may have given my mother a vibrator. That was the last time they visited at Christmas.

There is nothing hotter than a hot guy in Sainsbury's buying condoms.

So hot.

And there's nothing worse than...

dropping a beautiful glass of South African Cab Sav onto the kitchen floor.

Or should that be "a glass of beautiful"... No-one's sure.

I just found a photo I was going to show you on Friday...

I was painting my nails and drinking Stella.

No, don't read anything into it. I sometimes paint my nails. I love sequins.

Sometimes you may have seen me dressed in women's clothing.

I'm sorry to say that it means nothing. I am a guy, I want to be a guy, I am happy being a guy.

Who says guys can't wear nailpolish? Sometimes it looks nice. I was experimenting with red. Usually, I wear dark blues, greens or matte - my favourite.

The Cedric Gervais remix of De'Lacey's song "Hideaway" makes me feel fabulous.

Women have built empires of money on the backs of saying they look fabulous, why shouldn't guys enjoy some of that too? You can't say that he doesn't look cool...

So.

Here are some timings... You can fit them in, as you see appropriate...

09:21
11:05
13:06
14:49
17:53
19:14

Oh god. I feel like the student who's had an entire week to finish an assignment but then realised that at the last minute he has nothing really to say.

Fine. Mark me a C-. Tomorrow I will give you an A.

Saturday, 25 July 09

14:51
So I'm remembering back to stuff that I said I was going to tell you.

And it was January 2003 and I was in my last week of living in Cape Town. I decided that weekend to have one last blow-out. Eating, boozing, clubbing etc.

I was still living with my parents at the time, their house a long way from the scene.

If I knew it was going to be a heavy weekend I would either sleep on a friend's couch, use a hotel nearby that had a hospitality arrangement with work or - disgusting but typical I know - go to the sauna and sleep in a cabin.

That weekend, thanks to the work arrangement, I was staying at the hotel in the Waterfront nearby.

So it was Saturday night and I was out at a club called 55.

It was an amazing place because as a club it was incredible and albeit gay, it used to attract a lot of "straight" guys. You know the ones, who you usually find in the loos at around 3am.

Anyway, it was at 55 that I met this guy called Sergio.

We did the usual thing, eyed each other, started kissing and bla bla. We decided to leave and headed back to the hotel I was staying at.

The first and last time I had scored while staying there. It was a double win because Sergio was so hot.

He was quite a bit shorter then I was, had dark hair and was around two years younger than me.

I remember he was very tanned and had on one of those Amercian Apparel-style V-neck T-shirts that cuts low, exposing a really good chest.

The night with Sergio was the best way to end my time in Cape Town.

It was so nice to wake up in this posh hotel with his hot guy and we talked and etc.

He said he was studying IT and worked at a coffee shop on Kloof Street.

I told him I was going to London that Tuesday and he said that was a pity I was going but we swapped numbers anyway.

He said he'd always wanted to see London so perhaps we would meet up again.

Anyway, at around midday-ish we decided to call it quits - he showered - and I said I would give him a lift back to his flat.

I did, we sat in the car outside, chatted and kissed some more. I remember thinking how nice it would be to simply just go back to the hotel with him and spend the rest of our lives in the room together.

We said a final good-bye, he got out and I drove home with a smile from ear to ear. What a brilliant last Saturday night and Sunday morning in Cape Town.

I remember thinking at the time; "that was the best send-off, now I'm ready to go to London...!"

That was Sunday 12 January. By the 14th, I was in London and less than a week later Sergio was dead.

He had been bound up, his throat slit, shot in the head and left to die in a pool of blood.

I remember getting an e-mail from a friend in Cape Town at the time; "have you seen this hectic shit?"

The story detailed a gruesome crime that had happened.

Sometime on January 20th, two men went into a house operating as a gay massage parlour and killed eights guys by tying them up, knifing them, slitting their throats, shooting them and then dousing them in petrol.

Of the photos of some of those who'd been killed, I instantly recognised Sergio.

He was known as Dean and he was actually a rent boy. The house I dropped him off at was the massage parlour.

To this day, I don't know how I feel about it all.

It wouldn't be fair for me to try and romanticise it any more than what it was. We met in a club, we left early and we spent 12 hours together.

It's upsetting I guess but then again it was a one-night stand.

He smiled a lot. We kissed a lot. He seemed happy and I remember we both agreed that we'd had a great time with each other, even though it was brief.

To remember that and then read the following - to this day, I still can't work out what emotion I feel...

From the Cape Argus:
"When 22-year-old Sergio de Castro was three, his mother left home. His father died four years later, leaving Sergio with only one close relative-his half-brother Dane, born of his father's second marriage.

Apparently, Sergio played musical chairs with relatives who didn't really want him until he finally went his own way, ending up in Cape Town in 2000. At the time of the killings, he was sharing a flat in Sea Point with a friend.

Sergio was quite talented, playing the flute and guitar, singing in a church choir, speaking Portuguese and learning Hebrew, but what he wanted to do, was web design. He had completed a course at a computer college, but was unable to find work, being told he was too inexperienced.

Sergio had worked at Sizzlers in the past, but had quit because he had had enough. Two months prior to the killings, he had gone back-out of financial desperation, his flatmate later discovered. Sergio owed the computer college R13,000 (approx. $US 2,2030), and his job at a coffee shop wasn't paying the bill.

All his friends denied that he had a drug problem, only a need to be loved. Sergio's cousin, Ricardo Afonfo, said this in the Cape Argus of January 19, 2004: 'One thing that really amazed me was how many friends he had that cared about him - they were really his family.'"

A bitter little Thursday

07:01
The day tries to begin.
I simply cannot be bothered to let it.

I reach over to the iPhone and push it. Or kick it. Or whatever.

08:31
Let's try and start the day again.
I feel weak, lethargic and uneasy. I think I may have swine flu.

08:33
I check the NHS website.

A box that asks "do you have a temperature that rivals a kettle at full tilt?" requires a tick.
There is no box to mark that declares "I just can't be fucked."

09:01
On the Jubilee Line I spot two people wearing masks. Dicks.

You're going to have to take my word for this. My beating of the iPhone over it's early morning posturing has rendered it void of battery power.

I think it's just sulking. Bastard thing.

09:19
I see one person on the Central Line wearing a mask. Dickhead.

I'm tempted to stick my finger up my nose to tickle it and make myself sneeze.

Knob-end fucking dick-splats are wearing masks yet holding onto the handles. There are more germs on the fucking bars than there are on a public toilet seat. This irony has obviously escaped these spunk-gargling, jism-whore, mask-wearing bastards. Turds.

10:42
I'm at work.

What do you do at work?

11:17
Still at work. Doing what people at work do.

12:47
Stanley Kubrick was a master at choosing music for his films. For example, his selection of the opening of Also Sprach Zarathustra has redefined that piece of music forever.

And although used earlier in The Exorcist, I would argue that Penderecki's work reached far large appeal thanks to "The Shining".

That's why I love Shostakovich's Waltz #2 from the Jazz Suites. It is perhaps the best music to sit and listen to while watching crowds of people in a shopping centre.

14:23
Is it just me or does there seem to be a large amount of "man" in the news today?

First we have Carlos Acosta who's apparently the world's greatest dancer. He's performing in a ballet or is it a rave? I'm didn't get the details...

Would you?

Changed your mind?


15:16
And who is this Katie person? She's apparently an author and launching a book in Selfridges. But she's in a swimming costume? A little confusing but who are we to complain?

Oh yes... you know who I have called shotgun on. Hands off bitches, he's mine. No, not the primping one on the left...

It's him, on the right.

Beauty unparalleled that it hurts to look at. We think he works at the A&F shop. Does anyone know any more?

Particularly, do you know his phone number and if so, would you pass it onto me. Thanks.

(I also need to know his name so that when I think about stuff I can ask myself; "What would ----- do?")

18:41
Jubilee Line.

Summary: Some nice bulk. I'm pretty sure they belong to a rugby player. Could do with some definition. Nice calves but the quads are a little too bulky and not muscular.

Grade: B-

19:51
Remember last night I was telling you that I had breaking news. Okay.

I couldn't find who I needed to speak but I have, instead, spoken to a source very close to the story and it concerns Will.i.am.

Incase you'd missed it (you were probably asleep)...

Will.i.am is a very hunky blonde personal trainer who appeared at my gym about two months ago. Cute face, AMAZING body. For a while I was smitten.

He got called Will.i.am because he resembled a Will.

Well, "is a very hunky" should now be "was". Will.i.am's been sacked.

Get this - he was harassing his women clients.

I'm told he would phone these women up under the pretext of arranging a personal training session and then start trying to invite them out for a drink and he was bothering some of them late at night by leaving voice messages saying that he loved them.

Apparently some of the messages went on for a few minutes, him begging women to see him and then telling them (in rather fruity terms) what he'd like to do with them and then saying that he absolutely loved them.

Holy moly!

So it's not quite as good as the story of the guy at the gym who got caught with the toilet plunger up his bum, but a damn side better than the meat-head who got done for trying to steal dumbbells.

20:21
A good gossip is so satisfying.

And fuck it, let's not kid ourselves. Everyone gossips about everyone else.

I bet you somewhere there's a blog where someone has written; "went to gym tonight and this arsey fucker in brand new Adidas shoes was there. He's a complete jack-off because he walks around like he owns the place but it's pity the body doesn't reflect the arrogance."

They'd probably be referring to me.

When I turned 30 I dunno what happened but my switch marked "Care What People Think" fused. I have never bothered to try and get it replaced.

I wear my heart on my sleeve, I say what I think, I tell people what I think. Screw it.

I spent far too long caring what other people think.

About 99% of the insecurities that gay people have is based on the problem that they worry about what other people think.

How the hell did we get onto talking about this?

22:18
Oh yeah - having said earlier that I don't care about what others think, the irony doesn't escape me that in all the pictures and videos of me on this blog, I have either pixellated my face or have a cap and sunglasses on.

The red cap and white sunglasses. Fuck it. They're a trademark.

23:18
Maybe I should ditch the cap and sunglasses and use something like this as my trademark picture...

At least then I could be sure that people would like me for who I am, not for what I looked like.

Wednesday, 22 July 2009

09:00
Wake up and.....

Roll over back to sleep. I can't be bothered to face people. Being mundane is so last week.

11:12
Let's try again.

Get up. Blah...

Fuck. Today is the day that The Cleaning Lady comes so I must have fucked off by 1pm.

I mean, it's not that I don't like the cleaning lady er, Whatzername... it's just that I always feel guilty sitting on the couch chomping chocolate donuts while she has to vacuum around me and pick up the wrappers I throw behind the couch.

And then empty the ash tray I perch on my stomach.

Sometimes I ask her nicely if she'll kneel down next to me so I can rest the can of Carling on her head, the bitch. Etc...

12:40
In the Adidas shop on Oxford Street buying new shorts for the gym. I have decided with my change of shoes I need a change of gym attire.

Since we all know that Adidas stands for "All Day I Dream About Sex Sport", I decide that on triple stripes.

Adidas = stripey. Oxford Street = busy. You can fill in the rest of the words.

13:06
Sitting in Soho Square having lunch with Liam.

God, the last time I was sat on a sunny afternoon in Soho was at the end of May.

I think that occasion will probably go down as one of the worst of 2009.

I'd just been on a disastrous date, after another disastrous date a week earlier. The guy who I really liked from the week earlier wasn't interested in me.

And the guy who I'd just been on a date with was keen on me but I wasn't keen on him.

I felt sorry myself and sat and listened to Alanis Morissette while the rest of Soho Square quietly enjoyed their Saturday afternoon. God it was crap.

So I'm sitting now looking around to see if there's anyone on a bench alone with sunglasses on, listening to their iPod.

I feel I could be like the (non) Fairy Godmother and walk up to them to say, "don't worry, I've also sat here and cried. In the end it'll be fine..."

Instead Liam and I are sitting playing on Grindr to see if there's anyone within 0 feet of us.

14:29
Back at home watching daytime fucking television. What the fuck is that all about?

I think I nod off for a while... For god's sake! There are surely better things I could be doing with my time...


16:38


17:13
Planking it again in the gym.

Now, we've had some questions about this style of plank.

Particularly about the effectiveness of it since we're basically just doing what would normally be done on the floor.

All I will say is, come to my gym and we'll plank it together and your abs will literally by squirming in pain afterwards. Don't doubt something before you've tried it.

I also do shoulders. Bla.

19:21
"No, I'm not going to tell you because it'll end up on the bloody blog of yours..."

19:28
Still at the gym and I think I could have some breaking news (into little pieces) about Will.i.am. I'm trying to find Chris to ask him but alas alak... he's not around.

20:14
I'm deciding on what to wear to Brighton Pride. I need tuna.

21:14
Fuck the tuna, I decided on turkey instead.

21:36
And that's nice...



22:19
Talk to the mirror, I want an early night and am going to bed.

Monday, 20 July 09

08:00
Ping pong! Awake...

09:12
Excuse me bitches...

Who is able to keep the plank between two elevated surfaces for the entire build-up of "Heartbreak Make A Dancer..."?

(FYI: I think "Heartbreak" could be on its way to becoming my song for 2009. I'm just saying.)

09:29
I know how much you love it, so I will say nothing...



12:41
My friend Jemimah, who joined us all on the morning of London Pride, has taken some amazing photos. I tell the J-Thang that I'm going to nick her pics and show them off to the world.

I think they're brilliant...



























16:12
I am investigating the latest trends in music. You know me - I love a good swinging beat combo.

Sometimes I wish I was a DJ - so that I could play my favourite tunes for the masses.

16:13
I realise that I need to rephrase that. I actually did once DJ.

And here's another chapter in the history of "Bobby's Wayward Past That He's Spent Years Trying to Forget But Embraces Now Because Fuck It, I'm Old and Who Cares"...

So I was on the radio playing music and therefore I used to be paid to DJ at clubs.

Not like doof doof dance clubs, more like commercial clubs where the Radio Edit of Madonna would segue into the Radio Edit of Fat Boy Slim.

On a Wednesday night I played at a completely straight club in a suburb of Cape Town called Claremont. The barmen at this club were totally hot. They served topless.

The club still exists although under a different name.

Anyway, one of the barmen started talking to me. He was super hot. Over the next few weeks we chatted and chatted.

As always happens in club-world, you're there at 6am, after everyone has gone home, having a shot at the bar with the barman who's cashing up etc.

One thing led to another and Mr Barman and I decided that because we were just blokes alone with each other and, because there was no-one else around, it would be appropriate for us to er... find relief in each other's company.

Nothing serious of course, he had a girlfriend and I wasn't gay.

Except I loved it. And evidently so did he.

So it's Wednesday night a few weeks later and I'm DJ'ing and Mr Barman's at the bar. He sees me, I see him.

There are looks and nods and he comes to bring me a drink and we talk.

At the time the biggest songs were tunes like:
1/ Cher: Believe
2/ Cornershop: Brimfull of Asha (Norman Cook remix)
3/ Ultra Nate: Found a Cure (Full Intention Radio Edit)

I don't know how it happened and I am going to cut a long story short but basically Mr Barman and I end up in a toilet stall together with our pants around our ankles.

Except he was supposed to be behind the bar and I was supposed to be DJ'ing.

So you can imagine how I feel when Cher's "Believe" suddenly comes to an end.

Like literally, I am standing in the toilet stall and the song's finished. And my jeans are pulled down as far as possible. And there's a queue outside the toilet door.

I remember the moment like it was yesterday. Shouting fuck and not finding it funny and just darting. And miraculously leaping over people into the DJ box.

While we were busy it seems that God had queued up Bob Sinclair's "Gym Tonic" on CD player 2.

I brought an entire club to a standstill because I was having a wank in the loo with the barman. Fuck.

"2..3..4...5...6..7..8.. and back back back back" is how the Bob Sinclair song starts.

I never saw the barman again. I continued to DJ for another few weeks although in the end I decided it up. It wasn't the same really.


22:14
I drop an e-mail to a friend about Amy Winehouse.

And check out the sponsored link in the GMail message.

Love. It!

23:14
Listen, it's Monday. What do you wank?

I mean, 'want?'

Oh. Tomorrow will be a beautiful day. I feel I need to chuck a sickie.

Black Saturday

12:01
I wake up. No alarm clock.

Change is good.

12:05
The pall of death hangs in the air. For today is the day...

12:25
I'd like you to meet the twins...

They're my gym shoes and the sad thing is, their time is up.

They've worn out.

The soles are thin and they're beginning to hurt my feet when I run in them.

It is a sad day because today these shoes will officially meet their maker. Indeed, they are headed for the great Chinese sweatshop in the sky.

But we do not mourn their passing, we celebrate it.

They have given me hours of comfort and traction. Yes, their life was pretty sheltered in that they were mostly only ever worn in the gym. But that is how they wanted it.

At a young age they were thrust (quite literally) into the spotlight. But their status as The Most Famous Pair Of Gym Shoes In The World never phased them.

Their notoriety stemmed from an appearance in the 2005 film Beefcake. (Not a film for your mum...)

Our sole who art in heaven and asshole which art in face.

When you're tied up, always make sure the tongue is out.

The route to them appearing on the small screen is something they have always refused to discuss although they have never said that they regretted participating.



And even though, towards they end, they battled with the treadmill and their grip during Chris's PE sessions began to falter - on the outside they appeared just as fresh as they always were...

Given their pretty unusual heritage I have thought about putting them on eBay. Surely there must be someone who collects this kind of thing?

Bought new at Nike Town on Oxford Circus, they have also travelled across continents.

On one of the few occasions they were worn outside, they helped me complete a 10k run near Stellenbosch in Cape Town, South Africa in March 2007.

They will be fondly remembered.

No flowers please.

14:07
Gentlemen and Ladies...

I'd like to introduce you to the new kids on the block.