Bad, Bad, BAD.

Yesterday I was bad. I went and got drunk after a meeting instead of going back into the office and then I met up with K who was out drinking with some people we both know. I drank rather a lot and did some dancing. I have mentally decided that as pretty and fun as K is she is trouble, which probably makes me want to do the sex on her more but anyway. I have decided that we should stay friends and that is it, and she has a boyfriend so it is double bad.

This resolve lasted about an hour and twenty minutes, and it only lasted about that long because I met a new girl who was a friend of Henry's and we talked about Devon for a bit. She was very pleasant and then drunkenly told me that I was 'too good for K' for someone I had only just met I thought this was quite an observation, normally I stick to 'you have nice hair' at least for a bit before giving people advice like that. I suppose it wasn't 'You aren't good enough for K' which would be worse.

Then we went dancing in a club, bad but fun dancing. I danced with lots of people (okay I danced with lots of girls) and then shared a cab back with K, there may have been some kissing involved but I did go home alone which is good. One step at a time and all that.

I'm thinking of meeting up with S and doing something today, although I found out she has a 'sort of boyfriend' as well. I'm hoping this is just a phase I am going through - hanging around with other people's girlfriends isn't good for the soul.

If the Kenya lady I am meeting on Monday turns out to have a secret boyfriend I am going to just join the gays and be done with it. I wonder how one goes about that. I assume they have some sort of recruiting place where you can choose from a few different looks, like the Armed forces do.

Because I am so bad I am going to go into work now and do some bits and bobs, such is the awesome power of guilt, although I am going to reward myself with a visit to the Troubadour afterwards.

Gayest thing I did today - Brought the sound track to my Fair Lady.

Gentlemen, tonight we drink.

Lets all be a bit honest here, binge drinking is ace. It is like riding down a steep hill in a rickety go-kart whooping with excitement as you pull off wheels and other important bits to make the journey more thrilling.

Last night was a party for some company launching a dull product. They did however have a free bar and that combined with a lack of interesting girls to talk to resulted in my drinking myself to destruction, well what else can a chap do on the day before pay-day?

I got home fairly early as (in my drunken state my homing instinct had kicked in) and then I woke up at 3am with a thirst worthy of the gods and so drank my bodyweight in water and rolled back into bed.

3am is a strange place to be, moderately sober and with a distended stomach. I couldn't get back to sleep for a while so I pondered somethings. This started off with the usual 'what am I going to wear tomorrow' and ended up thinking about things that are lovely about girls, like when they wear your shirt the next morning. Or making them giggle.

Bless.

I say Watson, this girl is rather fun.

Well first telephone contact was established with the Kenya woman. It went rather well I thought considering all the wine I have drunk while watching a documentary on elephants.

It was a good conversation. We talked about how important is it get really drunk as much as possible, alternative art and having a chimp as a valet. For a while it seemed that a chimp would have been the perfect answer for ones butlering needs but alas the reality broke the dream. Which is probably for the best, I'm not sure that a simian would be able to project the correct amount of decorum when answering the door.

The result of this is that a lunch date has been arranged for Monday, in my most favourite of cafes. I do hope she appreciates it, the Troubadour is one of my non-negotiable things, I wouldn't give it up for anyone.

Kenya.

Well I haven't lost the ol' touch via email. All those years of drunken adventures collecting anecdotes and stories is paying off again.

I am down to the last five. Which is strange that now that I think about it I don't really feel huge urge to go to Kenya especially. Still a break might be good to get away from the whole family situation for a while, and doing it with a girl I don't know terribly well is rather appealing. Not that I have won already, I'm just down to the last five and they seem to be some real contenders.

On the girl front I am really pondering if I should be with anyone right now, it appears the family situation has hit me harder than I thought and I don't think I am going to be really 'me' until I manage to sort a few things out in my head.

When I am faced with situations like this, I often ask myself. What would Ray Meyers do and it helps me assess what is going on and then build a small grass hut to spend the night in.

Safe, like a date but safer.

I am returned, and the fact that I am currently not engaged in rampant naughtiness is a subtle clue to how the date went. It was all jolly pleasant, we went on a ghost walk - not actually that scary but enjoyably informative and I saw some lovely parts of London. We bimbled along taking swigs from a hip-flask full of Vodka and enjoyed the tales of ghostly misadventures. Then we went to a pub for a drink and on to another rather strange pub for a meal.

It was all very 'nice' but I didn't get the impression it was terribly sexy. It was just 'safe' she was nice to spend time with but I rather suspect she didn't feel any va-va-voom. Still S is a lovely girl and one can never have too many female friends, especially pretty ones who have debauched adventures. And I did wear a rose in my button hole which might just be the start of a new tradition for me.

In other news a complete stranger (female) offered a holiday on the interweb for any chap who can write an amusing email to her. I sent one detailing a few mis-adventures and I am through to the next round. I am not entirely sure I want to go on a holiday with someone I don't know but it is fun to have someone new to send flirty emails too and I do like a challenge.

Batcomputer.

It was a fairly quiet weekend really. I did my traditional nothing on Saturday apart from read books and ponder important things like how to turn the last few disparate scraps of food in the flat into a meal. This worked rather well and allowed me to delay going to the shops for food for another day. I don't really like food shopping, and I can't really work out why. I like food, I like shopping so surely I should like food shopping. I think it might be down to all the couples that are always swanning around in the Supermarket when ever I go there.

On Sunday I finally strolled to the shops to get some essential supplies and some extra bits and bobs so I could make a mighty roast meal. Waitrose was on form and it had some cracking loonies in it, one was a man who talked to himself about how his 'machine was broken' and how it needed to go to 'machine heaven', I think he was talking about his trolly and there was an old lady there who smelled of wee.

I also used my Pedometer for the first time (I got it for Christmas off my mother) it's quite a snazzy one and includes a rape alarm, I can't imagine I when I will need the rape alarm but it certainly managed to wake me up when I turned it on by mistake at 8am trying to fit the batteries. The loud bleeping was very annoying and would probably kill anyones sex drive and thus save you from attack. Remember ladies if a chap is making advances and you can't be bothered with it all just make loud beeping noises.

I wore the Pedometer for most of today so I can inform you that I walked 11261 steps or 5.63 kilometers and burned 736 calories. Hurrah for needless knowledge! I am going to use it tomorrow as well to find out all sorts of dull information.

More importantly I have a sort of date with S, we were going to go ice skating but she has a bit of a bad back so I have to come up with something else that is.
i)Exciting
ii)Interesting
iii)Makes me look sexy.
iv) Not terribly expensive, as I don't get paid until Friday.

I haven't worked out anything yet, a ghost walk could be fun if rather chilly. What I really need now is some sort of 'bat computer' in which I can just feed in all the requirements and it tells me exactly what I need to do.

Yup, tomorrow I need see if anyone has a bat computer I can borrow for the afternoon, and possibly a sidekick to feed in the details.

Friday news.

Well this last week has been eventful. Last Friday I found out about my fathers condition and then met him for the first time in six years.

This Friday I got another call from him, today he married his mistress in secret.

What is going on with my parents? It is like being in episode of Dynasty but without the shoulderpads. This whole year is just too much, too much is going on. I liked safe ol' 2005 where you could go a couple of days without something strange happening.

I think I am going to spend the rest of the weekend indoors with my phone switched off, it is safer that way.

UPDATE:
S just called, she wants to meet up next week. We are going to go and see the Three Emperors at the Royal Academy which got expanded into lets go ice Skating on Monday as well. I may just have to change my opinion of Fridays now.

Inconceivable

I had a morning meeting about things, and for two important questions I said 'I don't know', this was not approved of. Apparently you are not allowed to say 'I don't know' when asked important work related questions, who would have thought eh?

So I was called into a meeting with my boss, it was a serious meeting because he closed the door to his room and I thought I was going to get a bit of a telling off, but it didn't quite happen. He was a bit upset about me saying 'I don't know' and then we had a long chat about 'where I was going in the company' and then I walked out with a raise (back dated to the start of the year), and a contract for another pay rise in March.

I just don't understand it all, I wasn't even wearing my nice shoes.

On the girl front S is back in the country, Huzzah! K is 'confused about her feelings with me' and L (who has only just joined us in this unworthy tale) texted me at midnight asking me out tomorrow, this is fine but my phone got jolly excited by the whole thing and spent the next few hours bleeping away about it until I turned it off, pesky thing.

Thing is I don't know if I can really be bothered with the rituals of courtship at the moment, it all seems like a lot of effort.

It's not a date

You see, if you and a girl go out for a meal and end up kissing before the after supper cocktails that is fine as long as it isn't a date. Because she doesn't want to go on dates, so it is a 'not date' and completely fine.

Saying that it was jolly good fun, it started off a bit sophisticated and then we got down to the serious work of getting drunk and talking about intellectual things like:
Having rats eat your feet when you are sleeping,
Good lies to say in bars,
Why being a private eye would be ace,
hats,
and of course pants.

It was a lovely evening, some-what spoiled by the fact K got on a bit of a downer because she had given some people a tip to gamble on and it hadn't gone as it should have. Of course everyone understands that with tips it is never a sure thing and they were being lovely via text about it she still was a bit upset for the people who lost money, bless her.

After that I went home and realised I was jolly drunk.

A time and a place for all things.

I had today off work, I emailed them and said I wanted a couple of days to sort out my head a bit. This ended up being a morning off as I was bored and the maid was going to show up which makes lounging on the sofa much less enjoyable.

So I strolled into work, I wasn't looking forward to the first day back. When you give people bad news about you then make that special expression, Their face goes like a crisp packet. It gets slightly wrinkled across the entire surface and their eyes get crinkly. I don't really like sympathy from people I don't know very well so tried to avoid as much Crisp Packet Face as possible. This involved being slightly blase about the whole thing, which was exactly the way I like to deal with it.

The way I see it a chap should only be passionate when with a woman or when about to jump from one ship to another and set about Frenchies or Pirates with a sword. I suppose one can be allowed the lesser passions of food, clothes and good drink but it is not quite the same thing is it?

What I am really saying is I don't like to be sad in front of people I don't know well, it is a side effect of being comparatively alone in Scotland when my parents marriage broke up combined with being raised to be terribly English.

S gets back from South Africa in a few days, which will be very jolly and on Wednesday I am going to a private viewing with K. I only have tonight and tomorrow free this week but the latter half of the week, packed with the promise of adventures and debauchery seems like an age away.

Well.

I'm back, it was traumatic to say the least, but the very essence of cathartic. Now it is over I mostly feel a bit numb. Even the delight of choosing tomorrow's socks can't rouse me from this strange sense of passionless torpor.

I think I have used up my years worth of emotion already and now I amble about in a strange sort of ghost state. It is akin to being the final awake guest at a garden party, padding about in socks on the lawns in the soft morning light with an un-tied bowtie and half a glass of tepid champagne wondering where all the other guests have gone.

I have no anger left, and even the sadness is gone, I mentally poke at it like the final bits of a creme brûlé hiding at the bottom of a ramekin, seeking some sort of response, only getting caramalised flakes of feeling. The whole experience has an edge of unreality to it all.

I just don't know what to think, apart from that similes are aces.

Signs you might be going crazy

I'm trying to get everything together to go down to Bath and meet my sister so we can both go to see my dad. The mad thing is the two things I keep thinking about is which shirt should I wear to meet my father for the first time and how exactly do I phrase the note to my flatmate about why I'm away this weekend.

Usually the note is

'Gone to Brighton to visit pals will be back on Sunday evening, feel free to eat the eggs'

And this time it has to be

'Gone to Wales to visit dad because he has cancer and is going to die, please don't tell anyone as he doesn't want my mother to find out. Oh and the milk went off so I binned it'

I think I want to wear my new lavender striped shirt but it isn't clean so I am going to delay my trip so I can have it ready. My white herringbone shirt isn't sharp enough for dealing with this sort of thing.

We interrupt this blog...

My mad-cap high jinks and adventures are going to have to be put on hold for a bit, sorry.

My Father who I haven't seen in five years has just emailed me to say he has cancer, a really bad sort too. I'm going to go down and see him and say all the things I should have said years ago, before it is too late. I just need to compose myself enough to be able to get on a train without making a fool of myself in public.

As an other indication of my bizare good fortune (you have to think of the positive at a time like this) our new offices are right next to a charity that deals with this sort of cancer and the girls there promised to give me advice on it should I ever have any questions as I have been giving them free copies of the magazine I work for.

Strange how things work out isn't it?

You got dreams...

I asked K to draw me a picture, so she drew us in a pub on New Years Day, as you can guess I am the Ginger Tom on the left. Yes I did wear a cravat, there is some significance to the leg on the right of the picture but it would take too long to explain it.

I'm listening to 9 to 5 on the radio, R (Northbysouthwest) said listen to Terry and I am a complete convert. I do everything R says, especially if she said jump off a cliff or drink lots of cider in the park until you are sick. Why did adults always ask as a counter to 'Well X said to do it' 'Would you jump off a cliff if X asked you to?' I never worked out a good reply to that.

I used to listen to radio 1 and that Chris chap would get me purely out of bed because I hate him so much. This is a much better way to start the day, not as good as waking up in bed with a lady and a having a well co-ordinated outfit waiting for you but pretty good either way.

Today I have a work road trip, we are hiring a car and going down to Somerset to give a company who do something for us chinese burns and noogies for being so crap. It means a whole day with out the interweb, and about 7 hours of driving. It also caused me to have about 40 minutes of abject terror when I tried to find the paper bit for my driving license.

Oh and everyone at work loves my new coat too, but they can't have it as it is my precious.

Right time to put on Macho Man and make the final trouser choice in the style of X factor.

'Macho macho man, I gotta be a macho macho man.'

A love beyond time

My coat has arrived, and I am instantly in love. I didn't think I could love anything as much as my pale brown brogues but I do. It's so perfect, ideal for wearing to pubs in Hampstead to meet girls in pencil skirts and winter boots. That's the girls in pencil skirts, not me. I don't need to wear skirts as I have trousers now, but lets get back to talking about my coat.

I'm dancing around it in right now, it's so perfect. It has a cut like my old favourite coat but it is slightly softer around the edges, in a lovely chocolate fabric and so much more touchable. I bet it goes brilliantly with my new trouser selection (seven pairs of new trousers no less - I love the sales) but I should probably spend the rest of the evening working on looks just to be safe.

I also brought some new underwear at the weekend, my friend-who-I-have-now-been-a-bit-rude-with K has an excellent underwear a habit, as does S (Although much to my disappointment I haven't seen nearly enough evidence of this) so following their example I brought a few choice items. Including a lovely pair of pink jockey shorts.

This made me think a bit. My first pink shirt was a special moment, after that I made sure I had a selection of pink items but nothing like underwear. It is super gay but I think I will be able to carry it off if I wear it with a pink shirt + socks, that's not gay that's just style.

It's serious, he's got no trousers.

I'm still not entirely sure how it happened but I don't have any working 'normal' trousers. I think I must have picked up a voodoo curse at some point over New Year's Eve. I don't remember saying anything cutting to any witch doctors or wise old sages but I could have forgotten it though the magic of alcohol.

I was supposed to get some more trousers yesterday but instead I got drunk which is a bit like buying trousers as it makes your legs feel warm and covers your shame, or not.

Drinking is very fun and with the added 'zing' of wearing trousers that you have to be careful how you sit added to the whole experience. At the end of the evening we ended up in a pub with books on the shelves so of course I stole one. I scampered off with the Three Musketeers by Dumas.

It is a source of much annoyance to me that I am unlikely to ever be a Musketeer, it must have been great lets look at a list of the lovely things they got to do.
1 - Quaff wines
2 - Slap legs at the end of jokes
3 - sword fight
4 - wear great boots
5 - and shirts
6 - The whole clothing thing was ace really
7 - Ladies were either in low cut dresses a-la bar wenches OR feisty female Musketeer types
8 - Grow good facial hair
9 - Fight evil churchy types.
10 - Make cutting remarks while sword fighting.

Oh yes it would have been wonderful.

I am definitely going shopping for trousers today, although everyone said I looked very fetching when I wore that toga to a party and the whole Roman thing is very big now...

Still no sign of the coat, I'm starting to get worried, I wish it would write or just call and let me know where it is and how it is doing.

Oh I say!

Today we had a meeting with a shocking announcement, monging around on the interwebs was banned as was using mobile phones. I think this is because no actual work had been done so far this year, which is bad.

I'm sure monging will return but I managed to get more done in a morning then I have in the last two weeks. Who would have imagined how much time one could free up just by not checking a load of websites constantly.

I think to make up for the banning of monging pizzas were brought for everyone, in a 'let them eat cake' sort of way. At first I thought it was outrageous that they tried to buy our favour with meat feasts and then I ate so much I am actually having a bit of a 'trouser incident'.

I need a nap in a chair, or in ideally on a Confidante (for those of you don't know much about 17th century French upholstery it is a large sofa with a triangular seat extending from the arms) with some soothing baroque music and a lap dog.

'You are a god among insects'

I got this text message from S for sorting something out for her.

'You are a god among insects. Thank you so much! You are such a sweetheart. What a brilliant beginning to my year! Hope you are feeling the same Xxx S Xxx.'

I didn't even do anything that impressive, just saved her £90. Girls can be a bit silly sometimes. Anyway I must now go and perform some insect miracles with my insect god powers.

*stomps off and smashes up a pagoda*

Lets all take a moment...

...And think about the ladies.

They are marvelous, so many exciting parts and a capacity to shop. It is as if they were designed by a higher-power one who was pleased with us and wanted to give us a reward.

But a tricksy reward, like giving someone a candy bracelet but putting it on a stoat so it is hard to get. Watch the dancing mustelid leap around wearing it's bountiful bling of bonbons! One would have to be very cunning indeed to catch the stoat and get it's treats, just think of the feeling of accomplishment you would get afterwards.

As you may have gathered I am up to my eyeballs in drugs to try and conquer this dratted cold, and to make it worse my new coat hasn't arrived yet. Oh how I yearn for it and it's classic cut and superb silhouette.

Here is a Haiku dedicated to it.

Oh my winter coat
You make me smile with pleasure
like cherry blossom

I say, ding-dong.

2006 has been smashing so far. S was working at the club so she had to argue with people at the front about how they weren't coming in, even if 'Dave' said they could yesterday.

As she was busy I had some alone time in the club, which was an unusual experience, thankfully my old friend 'the bar' was there and I set about it in a workman like fashion drinking a wide selection of drinks.

After 1pm S was free to get drunk so she joined in the fun, we started with some vodka from a hip flask she was keeping in her stockings - I don't know why she had a hip flask but it was a very becoming place to keep it and it added an air of excitment to the proceedings, then we had some champers in one of the back rooms, until the owner of the club caught us and wasn't terribly impressed.

Some time later I realised I was showing all the signs of drunkness and decided it was time for me to go home. S had a load of people staying at her flat so she had to herd them about a bit. I hopped into a rape cab and returned home.

The next day (New Year's Day) I was not feeling very well at all, and made all sorts of never drinking again type comments and had to go for a walk to clear my head. Later on K (A good chum with fantastic legs) was taking me out for drinks so as she couldn't go out on NYE. I nearly cancelled on her because I was feeling so bad.

Much later on we met up and found a pub that was actually open so we could have a few drinks, she had some cocktails. I had fruit juice because I felt so bad. This didn't last long though as she was badgering me to drink while wearing an extremely low-cut top so it seemed rude to say no.

At about 10 the pub kicked out and she suggested rum cocktails back at mine, we stumbled home and made a jug of 'rum punch' which was made of a bottle of rum, some chambourd and all the fruit on the flat. It was very tasty, and very strong. K put on some Barry White (I have a bit on my Ipod) and then lit a candle I had in my room from when we had a power cut.

Several glasses of punch later K 'accidentally' spilled rum on her trousers and insisted on taking them off to dry on the radiator. She just happened to be wearing some very naughty pants from Agent P. At this point I started to get some suspicions that she had 'motives'. For the sake of decency I insisted she wore one of my smoking jackets while her trousers dried, she seemed a bit miffed by this but managed to find one (a smoking jacket) in a colour to match her pants which she proved by making me look at them and talking about the colours complimenting each other.

More drinking followed and her saying how I should have a copy of Twister for times like this. I couldn't quite work out exactly what she was suggesting, which I think was due to the rum.

Then she asked how to tie a cravat, I showed her and then she kissed me. It all got a bit naughty at this point. Some time later she ordered a cab went home and I went to sleep as I was ruinously drunk. K is a very cool young lady, I think she has a boyfriend though which makes the whole seduction thing a bit naughty.

The next morning I felt splendid, not even a trace of a hangover I will definitely be getting smashed on rum again.

Oh and I met S for an afternoon coffee today and then we went and looked at tiles, I still not entirely sure why she needed me there to look at tiles but it was a very educational experience and she had a fabulous new bag. I really do like S she is so much fun but I can't tell if she fancies me or justs likes having me around as a sort of Hetro-Gay Best Friend, clearly she just needs to spill rum on her trousers and everything will come together.

I am so pleased about having been seduced - it makes me smile even more then my new shoes.