What woman wouldn't love this for Mothers day next year?

It's giraffe week here. I got close to one once. In a safari park in Dallas, Texas. I spent six months travelling round the USA on an old London double decker bus. Bunk beds upstairs, kitchen and living area downstairs. Mighty good fun. Anyway, at the safari park in Dallas I got to scrape some rhino tusk (and smoked it that night but nowt happened) and feed a giraffe. It wasn't allowed but I got off the bus and had my picture taken with him. We still exchange christmas cards you know.

A bunch of us used to go watch Whitley Bay Warriors play ice hockey every other Sunday. Followed by a game of ten pin bowling. On our way to the afternoon game one Sunday in 1982 someone in the car said "the Southern Death Cult are playing the Lyceum in London Tonight". It was one of those spur of the moment things but we stayed on the A1 and drove past the turn off for Whitley Bay and kept going until we reached Golders Green 5 hours later. Parked the car, took the tube to Covent Garden, bought tickets from touts, watched the gig, went back to the car, drove back to Northumberland. We all fell asleep in the car on the way home. Even Mark Heron the driver. He drove straight over a big roundabout on the A1 causing the car to get stuck in flower beds. We pushed it off the roundabout and back onto the A1 and reached home at the crack of dawn on Monday morning. I remember the car was a DAF (these are also DAF, but they're not a car).

1981-1984
The rails that trains run on underground in coal mines are stacked on bogeys in a pyramid shape. A bogey is a flat carriage used for transporting equipment from above-ground to below-ground which runs on rails and is pulled by an engine. To unload the rails from a bogey two guys stand at either end of the rails, pick up an end each and hurl them onto the ground. After chucking about fifty of those heavy motherfuckers I was knackered, so knackered that I misjudged my chuck and didn't chuck as hard as the other chucker and the rail rolled over crushing my fingers and breaking them. I was 17 and it hurt like billy-o.
One time I was working with a couple of engineers fixing a water pump underground when two fellas ran past with another fella on a stretcher. They were heading for the mine shaft and then hospital. A minute after they passed us another fella ran past carrying a boot. With a foot still in it. A coal-face disaster caused by negligence around dangerous machinery.
A year later in 1984 the miners strike started so I left the employ of the NCB and became a rent boy in London. Much less dangerous.

Sunday morning now so lets do a catch up:

Friday

went to work,
bento box for lunch,
came home,
ate ho fun,
watched telly,
went to bed.

Saturday

Bacon sarnies for brekky,
a hot soapy bath,
off to Pride Party in Hyde Park with BF and Rob,
saw Steve 'My Ace Life' with poo all over his fingers (don't ask),
watched five-a-side footy (best bit was when football left enclosure at great velocity and smashed into some poor poofs tray of chips),
favourite outfits of the day,
Rob had a date with a new hunk,
their lips remained locked together for 2 hours outside the Kent police recruitment lorry,
Martin turned up at 6pm (and Rob was still stuck to his mate),
it rained but we sheltered with the bears under a big oak tree,
spot me and Rob,
it rained really hard so we stayed under that tree for hours,
a man with blue eyes showed us his cock and asked to go home with us,
we declined,
it rained some more,
we spent our alcohol vouchers,
we got wet,
we went home.

Sunday

empty kebab boxes in kitchen and Sunday Mail on lounge floor (must have been drunk),
currently waiting for Darren to get up and make bacon sarnies,
raining and gotta take Edward out,
no headache though,
small mercies.

New words, new definitions:

Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

Bozone: The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

Cashtration: The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.

Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.

Decafalon: The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

Glibido: All talk and no action.

Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

Arachnoleptic fit: The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

His Mum and Dad think he is a painter and decorator!
(thanks Sashinka)

I was 5 years old when those brave drag queens at the Stonewall Inn in NYC fought back in June 1969. Thankyou girls.

Pride in the Park this Saturday. Not seen much moaning on blogs about it this year (last year was like World War 3). Usually it's all "been-there, done-that" "it's all just so commercial" "too many orange muscle queens" "why do they all have to act that way", etc etc. Well, that's too bad. I don't deny that all of that is there, and probably not just here in London but every other major European city too. But somehow, overall, it's such a great day to hang out, and see all the other queers (and 'supporters'), and, pardon the cliche, Celebrate Our Diversity. I laugh at it, but I mean it. The whole event has gone over-the-top commercial yet I always manage to notice those cute hand-made signs ('Hull poofs picnic area'), the bad but joyful dancers, more and more obscure professions with offical Gay Clubs, and of course, the cliche-bashing realization that most of us are ugly, unfit and tacky dressers. I love it all. Despite Jeremy Joseph having the musical tastes of a 13 year old girl and despite paying £3 for a lager (and £20 to get in) and despite there being no alternative stage this year (last year Suede, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, 80's Matchbox B-Line Disaster and The Cooper temple Clause all played live), despite all this I know it will be a great day out. I know we will piss ourselves laughing at the line dancers and ballroom dancers, point at drag queens with their heels stuck in the mud, shudder at the bass coming from the disco tents ("are they all mad or on drugs?", "both dear!"), enjoy the punk rock and electronica at the Popstarz and Cock tents, cheer/boo Ken Livingston, drool at the five-a-side and volleyball boys and sing along with 60,000 other fags to 'Tainted Love' when Soft Cell shut the thing down at 10pm.
It's a long way from the Stonewall Inn to a Royal Park in the centre of London (especially in high heels) but it was a journey worth making.

Here's a picture of Me, Darren and Rob at last years event.

Shoulda mentioned earlier but the above piece was inspired by BJ and a piece he wrote last month (I stole half of it actually).

I've had the decorators in. I seem to have gone all pastel and Miami-ish (thats North Miami Beach rather than South Beach, subtle difference)
Thank you to everyone who gave me suggestions about how to fix my blog over the weekend. None of them worked though. Good old swearing and kicking the cat did the trick.

Update:
It took me an hour (and some unkind comments!) to tire of the pastel colour scheme this morning. Then I spent a few hours posing in camouflage but that didn't suit me either. Then Mr Oddverse came to my rescue with this simple yet classy little outfit which I can't wait to wear when I go out to play. Thanks Alan.

If this motherfucking blogger problem isn't fucking resolved soon I'm going to fucking fly to the motherfucking U fucking S of fucking A and split some skulls with a fucking big shiny motherfucking axe. Fuckers!

As you can probably tell I'm a little peeved at blogger at the moment. My site takes 15 minutes to load and I've tried every trick in the book to fix this. Is this bloggers way of asking me to upgrade from the free service? I'm so annoyed with them at the moment that I wouldn't even give them the steam off my piss. Cnuts.

Update:
Looks like threatening violence works.

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We usually go to a 50's stylee fish and chip shop in Walthamstow market on Saturdays and sit in formica booths and eat greasy food. But yesterday Lucio and Mike came over to our house for lunch. Which meant I had to go to Sainsburys again (see below) for cooked chickens and salad type things. I bought 3 litres of red French table wine in a box (so classy) and 3 bottles of 7up and we drank lots of jugs of poor mans sangria. Then we finished a bottle of Absolut and started on a bottle of Kazakh vodka given to me by the President of Kazakhstan a few years ago. I hardly ever get drunk and I don't even like the company of drunks but yesterday we all got insanely drunk and had sex with each other (and Edward) in our garden while the neighbours tried to ignore us.

That last bit was a lie. When Mike and Lucio left at 8pm we called Rob and told him we were coming round for tea and biscuits (God knows how we thought we were going to get there as we were both blind drunk). Then we fell asleep. Rob roused us a few hours later with phone texts asking where the fuck we were. Sorry Rob. Too late to leave our manor we staggered round to the co-op and spent £5 on biscuits and pork pies then watched 'The Man Who Wasn't There' (featuring the fabulous Scarlett Johansson).

Surprisingly chipper today. Done nowt though.

Had the day off yesterday. Cleaned the house. Finished another level on Roller Coaster Tycoon 2. Went to Sainsburys. Cooked dinner for my fella when he got in from work. Watched telly then went to bed.
Today I hope to do much the same only minus cleaning the house, going to Sainsburys and cooking. More of that kind of thing tomorrow too. I saw a lovely pair of slippers advertised in the Daily Mail.

Life was rosy in 1995. I was living in a beautiful double bay fronted flat in a Victorian house in a shady tree lined street. I loved that flat. Spent a fortune on it. Tom and me were in our tenth happy year together and life was, as I said, rosy.
Then Lil' Kim moved into the flat below us. Kim and her 5 foot high hifi speakers. At first it wasn’t so bad. She would play her music very loud while getting ready to go out so, for maybe an hour at the weekends, it wasn’t that bad. I gave her a bottle of wine when she moved in.
Then she got a boyfriend. An unemployed boyfriend. Who stayed in the flat while she went to work. And he played music all day and most of the evening. Really shouty r ‘n’ b and ragga at full volume. Like Spinal Tap, I think those speakers went to number 11.
Polite requests to turn down the music were ignored (sometimes they couldn’t hear me knocking). When I did speak to Kim she told me I should have bought a house in the middle of nowhere if I didn’t want to be bothered by loud music. She added that this was her first flat and she would basically do whatever she liked in it. Fair enough really. An Englishman’s castle and all that.
To be fair to Kim it wasn’t actually the volume that irritated me so much, it was the bass. The bass was so bassy that the plates in my kitchen cupboards would rattle. I would feel the music in my bones and my blood would boil.
This went on for a few months before I called the council environmental health team. They wrote to Kim and explained that her music was annoying her neighbours. She ignored this. They came round to my flat when Kim was blasting out TLC remixes and measured the noise levels. Get this, the volume was under the level where they could knock on her door and tell her to turn it down or court proceedings would take place. Yet the floorboards were shaking, glasses of water were dancing across the table and panes of glass were threatening to tumble out of their frames. They were powerless to help.
I became ill. Depressed. I started to spend every evening out walking my dog for 6 hours. The dog loved this but I was the most miserable I had ever been in my life. I never went to the doctor and I never took time off work but I was very very depressed. And then I found out Tom had been seeing someone else for the last 6 months and had plans to leave me. It never rains eh.
Anyway, I’m rambling now so I’ll speed up the story. I picked myself up, dusted myself down and got down to solving my problems. I couldn’t afford a hit man (but believe me, I came really close to taking out a loan to pay someone to bump that bitch off, I may even have got a two-for-one special offer and had Tom ‘cleaned away’ too). The only solution seemed to be to remove myself from the situation. So I sold the flat. Luckily to the first buyer who saw it and double luckily Kim and Shabba weren’t at home when he came to view. I loved that flat but I swore never to live in a flat again. I bought a house with 12” of brick between me and my neighbours (though I can still hear the single mum next door screaming at her kids but at least she doesn’t make the plates rattle). Tom moved to the new house with me (we were mature enough to stay best mates) but it didn’t work out with his new fella so he moved to Moscow with a new job soon after. My depression lifted quickly after moving but I don’t think I will ever fully recover from these events. I know this because last night while pottering about in the garden I could hear some very loud and very bassy reggae coming from a house two doors away and I felt that rush of panic that Kim used to cause when she popped on her cd’s. I was forced indoors where I couldn’t hear it and it stopped after half an hour anyway but it proves that I’m fucked forever when it comes to the ace of bass.

This is really great. Let Snoop translate your blog. Know what I'm saying?
"spent an hour watering da lawn n' shit. Then that shiznit rained n' shit. Cnuts n' shit".

Soppy bastard.
BJ said this about his new friend and I loved it and it made me remember that thats how I felt when I looked into his eyes when he finally woke up after our first night together...
...'and eyes that could keep my attention for many years'.

Saturday: Borrowed friends ladder, discovered bathroom window rotten, replaced rotten wood, painted window frame, good as new. Went for walk with bf, Edward and Rob along the river Lea. The pub we wanted to have lunch in wouldn't let Edward inside OR in the garden!! Cnuts. Had tuna sandwiches at home. In the evening we watched Hectors House on DVD (gift from bf along with book I've wanted for ages) and had a 16" NYC style pizza delivered by a Russian man staying here on a tourist visa.

After watching about 10 five minute episodes of Hectors House I asked Darren if he thought that the set up reminded him of anyone. He said it didn't. I told him I thought that Hectors house and garden probably look like a certain blue bloggers homestead. And that Mr BW is Hector, Zaza is BW and Mr Whizz is Kiki the frog. He agreed that there are similarities (both have beautiful gardens) but that Mr BW and BW probably take turns being Hector. Quick quiz: can anyone remember what job Kiki did in the show?

4.30pm, left work, came home, ate toast, tidied up then looked forward to bf's arrival home.
5.45pm, bf calls to say work colleague 'in a right state' and needs to have a drink with her.
5.50pm, me now 'in a right state', bored, lonely and it's not my turn to walk Edward.
6.00pm, must start planning to get new job with emotionally fucked-up colleagues.
6.10pm, not smoked all week, quite easy until 5.50pm, thanks.
6.20pm, blood will be spilled if I end up watching the BB eviction alone.

UPDATE:

7.45pm, phone call, I will be watching BB alone.

UPDATE:

9.45pm, nuther phone call, bf's ex turned up at the pub.

I love spending Friday nights home alone, NOT!. Just me and the dog (so technically not alone really) and the telly. Tomorrow I'm gonna get 'cnut' tattoo'd on my forehead.

UPDATE:

10.00pm, nuther phone call, bf on his way home now, drunk. So, if you count the twenty minutes he'll be in the kebab shop, he should be home at 11.00pm. Must go and get my rolling pin ready. Or I could just get dressed up and go dancing, but no, that would be selfish and soooo not me.

The gazebo that collapsed last summer was re-erected last night using plumbers copper piping. Hopefully stronger than the poles we used last year that were made from sugar cubes and spit.

Very hot out there. Came to work and sat looking out the window. We're on the Heathrow flight-path today. Swiss. JAL. Quantas. BA. Turkish. ANA. Blue skies and shiny aeroplanes. Need a holiday.

Spent an hour watering the lawn. Then it rained. Cnuts.

I read about classic Tommy Boy recordings in a three year old magazine while I was on the lav this morning. Downloaded 'Talking All That Jazz' by Stetsasonic before coming to work. Real classy. The 'Dimitri from Paris' remix is very good. Also downloaded some stuff by Jonzun Crew but didn't like it. They don't sound as good as they look.

Went to WH Smiths at lunchtime. At Victoria station. Not sunny but very hot and muggy. Listened to Debussy on my headphones. Flicked through loads of good magazines and bought the new Face. Saw an albino man reading a mag about trains. Had a Starbucks coffee on the way back as a treat (£1.79). Burned my hands carrying it back to the office. Stupid Starbucks.

According to Emap, as a Face reader (for the last 20 shallow years), I'm "confident, opinion forming, an independent thinker who is obsessed with popular culture. Distinctly fashion and media literate, reads The Face for its unique attitude and exceptional variety. The magazine is informative and at times controversial, a title with inimitable appeal for those, in their twenties with a thirst for novel experiences and new ideas." mmmmmm maybe. Independent thinker? No, I just like to be told what's cool to wear, to listen and to watch. Lazy bastard me.

This site treats you to a tour of a moody U.K. lit by street lamps and subtle moonlight. See the Tate Modern at night before it was a trendy cafe and bookshop (Southwark, London (2)). See the stark geometry of a modern office building in Birmingham and the stunning beauty of a chemical factory in Cheshire and a nuclear reprocessing plant in Cumbria. British photographers Jon May and Robert Brook haven't defined a theme for this collection, and their photographs have nothing in common aside from being shot at night.
They look even better when soundtracked to Joy Divisions 'Closer'.

After having my haircut at the barbers on Roseberry Avenue in Islington this morning, I continued into the West End on my bike instead of taking my usual route down Embankment. I stopped at a zebra crossing and Michael Caine stepped out. I shouted "morning!" but he ignored me. This happened to me a few years ago on Piccadilly but that time it was Gary Oldman. I was excited when I saw him and spluttered "I love your work". Needless to say he ignored me. Movie stars are so rude.

Those annoying threads that you're tempted to pull on. Don't.

This one had better win me the 'make Blue Witch laugh' award (yes I know I didn't create it but I did bring it to her attention). Let it load and then wait.

I have a Honda motorbike but now I want a Honda car.