The spaz rides again.

Tomorrow will be a big day. Not because it means pay-day is less than a week away but because I will ride a motorbike for the first time since the crash about seven months ago.

I've had to get a new helmet since the last one is now being used as presentation aid of what happens when you crash. The company who made it are delighted that it worked so well. The new helmet is white (nice and visible), I used to only wear silver helmets but it's time for a change.

I'm excited to get back on a bike but also a bit nervous, my last ride was well eventful and it's taken about six months before I can kneel again. I doubt the circulation in my foot will ever fully recover. I'm not dead though, and I can walk and run nd things. let's focus on the important stuff.

I've only got the bike for a few days - I'm being loaned it to ride to a work thing, so this is a test really, and a blessing. A blessing because having suddenly increased mobility means I can whizz down to London to see the girl. The girl that things are going very well with.

So well that I'm going to see her on the weekend too. Blimey, that's like a few days in a row. What ever next?

London, reprise.

London was good again. Not excellent but definitely good. I went out far too much again. I just can't resist it. The fact that London is packed with interesting strangers I've not met yet is just so hard to say no to.

I think I had about 5 hours of sleep over the whole weekend. I caught up with some old chums (but not enough) and I had a date or two. The latter events were rather confusing. (A date that was a bit anodyne and a 'just be friends' who was acting weird)

I'm not good at reading if a girl is in to me or not and so if a date doesn't end with a girl either telling me to never call her again or demanding I take her to bed I'm at a loss.

I'm sure it will resolve itself in time, these things usually do. Until then I'll concentrate on work and the gym. At the moment I'm working on macho-moobs (going well) and a sixpack.

Sixpacks are extremely hard work, stomach muscles take ages to build up. Also it's very easy to do sit-ups wrong and have almost no effect. I was told by the gym chap that if you can do more than 20 sit-ups in a row you are doing it wrong. He has shown me how to do them correctly and after about ten I feel like I've been punched in the gut.

I'm making progress though, and that's all I need really. Just enough progress to keep me interested. I've still not got the hang of learning when to stop in the gym, yesterday I ruined myself again by trying to do two whole cardio routines in a row.

Note to self: don't do that.

10 Lessons learned this weekend

1) Never enter a quiz about a sports subject when the other team in the quiz is made of people who are WORLD CHAMPIONS of that sport. Not knowing about the subject but actually doing it. You will lose.

2) Apparently going on lots of dates with girls makes you HOT to other girls. So people like Lycra say 'can we go on a date sometime?'

3) If you have run out of money to get home, it is possible to barter with cab drivers.

4) It is possible to have lots of dates in an evening, but it does mean you spend rather too much time thinking about clocks when you should be gazing into their eyes lovingly.

5) If a girl at then end of the date asks you when you are next in London, this might be a clue that she would like to see you again. If you don't pick up on this until you are on the train home you are a spaz. A Spaz like Louche.

6) If Lycra asks you for a date, don't get too excited because the next day she may say 'she needs a few months before she is ready to date'.

7) The way to cure the bafflement over this is to ask out the nice girl from the night before for another date.

8) This is extra cool if you realise that Lycra and the other girl (known as 'The Hat' from now on) are walking down the same street as you call them, only meters apart.

9) If you go out in a public place in a tight t-shirt after months of working out, strange women will come up to you and squeeze your arms. This requires a set of social skills that I'm not equipped with, yet.

10) Don't start a list of ten lessons learned when you haven't thought of all ten.

Strip Poker?

The following is an actual conversation had recently between me and a girl. The rest of the date was a disaster but this brief dialogue amused me.

Girl - "Hey, do you want to play strip poker?"

Louche - "Erm, okay, but I don't think I have any cards."

Girl - "Do you have any other games?"

Louche - "Not really. How about scissors-paper-stone?"

*brief pause*

Girl - "Okay, after three..."

This story didn't end how you would expect, but that's something for another time.

Memoirs of a mental.

Okay, so you have date with someone a few months ago. It doesn't go great for a range of reasons. She spends most of the time talking about her ex and how he never spent enough money on her and how he made her pay for half their meals together. Yes I know, the bastard. How dare he try that?

She also has that special property, she radiates mad. The sort of thing that just sets off all those animal instincts that tell you to get away fast. So I didn't think much more on it, I never thought I'd see her again after that date. That is until she sent me an email asking me to ghost write her memoirs.

I should point at no point did I say 'I've got loads of free time and I'm looking for a incredibly tricky but ultimately futile project to get my teeth into'. She sent me, what was about a four page email detailing her life, and why she thinks it would make a story that someone would ever want to read.

I'm not sure which date is the 'write my life story' one but I'm pretty sure I've never got to it. How do I attact these women?

Is it wrong to date a racist?

I went on a date, and the girl made some, well some troubling remarks. Not full on racism just a bit of mild racism. Perhaps they were just ill thought out. The rest of the date was a bit dull, no sparkle, no adventures but not horrible either.

So why would I see her again? You may ask. Well she is local so there wouldn't be a 200 mile round-trip to see her. Slightly more importantly I was set up by a chum at work and she has rather made it her mission to get us together.

Is it really so boring up here that I'd put up with dating racists because it would give me something to do?

The evolution of gym kit

I go to the gym a lot. There really is very little else to do up here. I've never really been a gym sort. The first time I went they had to show me what everything was because I had absolutely no idea. I'm not really a sporty person, or I suppose I wasn't a sporty person a few months ago. My life up here may be very quiet but it's allowed me to affect a transformation which has been reflected in my P.E. kit

Outfit 1 - my first gym kit

As you may notice the shoes are, well shoes. The shorts are 'I must have been drunk when I bought these' and the t-shirt, well actually the T-shirt is okay. Basically it says 'I'm new to the gym'.






Outfit 2 - Starting to get some of the right gear
After my first visit I realised I needed to get some at least mildly sensible trainers. I was still wearing shorts that were almost trousers (honestly what are they for apart from to give you a stupid tan). The trainers were far lighter than my normal shoes and marked the beginning of me starting to a bit mental on the cross trainer (Elliptical for the American readers). I would burn about 200 calories in 10 minutes on it.



Outfit 3 - It's all white
I switched a slightly lighter t-shirt and got some of those special trainer socks. I happened to be out doing some shopping at lunch time and thought I'd get some actual clothes for the gym rather than just going in some things I had lying around. At this point I managed to burn 300 calories in 10 minutes on the cross trainer. My trousers started to get loose and my shirts fitted differently.





Outfit 4 - At last sensible shorts
The gym lady said that 300 calories was extremely good going for ten minutes (she couldn't do it). I was really starting to enjoy the gym experience I wanted to beat that. After really pushing myself I burned 340 calories in ten minutes on the cross trainer and decided that I'd aim for 700 in 20 minutes. I also started a new program of weights lifting twice what I did before. I sleep better and feel amazing after going to the gym. no-one ever told me that after going to the gym you would be off your face on endorphins.

Outfit 5 - My first vest
At this point I'm going to the gym every day, without fail. Even when I'm hungover. My first 20 minute run on the cross trainer lets me hit 600 calories, a few days later I push myself as hard as I can and I hit 678 and feel sick. I go and buy a vest, the first one I've ever owned that's not part of a fancy dress costume. I look very different and I've lost about 10 kilograms and put on muscle everywhere. The next day I hit 703. I've done it. The gym staff are amazed and my take my picture to put on the wall.

The next target is 1000 calories in 30 minutes. I'm not sure if I can do it, but I'm going to try. My knee is fine now, occasionally it still feels a bit weird but I'm stronger than I've ever been.

I don't know who I'm doing this for, I suppose myself, it really helps me relax but I'm rather looking forward to the next time I take my shirt off and a girl is around. she will get a pleasant surprise. I may still be a fop but I'm not built like one anymore.

Confucius say 'girls are trouble'

Chuck emailed me today. It was about the tickets to see Shakespeare that had been booked months ago. We were supposed to go on Thursday but she has a friend coming up, so she wondered if I fancied going on Wednesday.

I didn't even think we were going anymore because of Sunday night but, well, I don't know. Anyway, we agreed on Wednesday and I thought I wouldn't hear from her until then, but she emailed me again.

And again, asking about how my day was going and letting me know she didn't sleep well last night either. How am I supposed to reply to that 'well it's your fault' or perhaps 'good'?

I am lost as to wait to do or say. I think I'd like to get back together with her, but I don't want to encourage this sort of behavior - me as this demon figure - when while I said something silly I didn't go on any dates while I was away.

Oh look she is phoning. She called to see if I was okay, this was good. We talked about some stuff, this also good. I was a bit distant because I'm so confused, and then we started talking about the less good stuff. This I think was a good thing because, well it needs talking about.

We discussed each other's positions (trying to gain a bit of empathy) and, for a moment I thought we were making progress and then it went all wrong, again over a chance remark.

I'd say I'm decidedly less inclined to want things to work at this point, this may change when I've had some sleep but for now.

Girls are trouble.

Eleventy twelvety bazillion great

I found my old Ipod when I was last home. It's sort of alive again. The screen is still mashed but the Ipod behind the scenes is just about ticking over. This means, my large collection of strange music is with me again.

Listening to some of the tunes is like going back in time, not very far admittedly, it sort of starts in 2002/3ish. Still it's nice. I listen it it and I'm back to some strange places, with some strange girls, or strange cocktails.

They remind me of seemingly endless summers, drinking with friends near Hyde Park. Frantically getting ready for dates with girls I don't even know the name of. Walking home from friends houses at stupid hours in the morning with only music to keep me awake. Eating strawberries with company, while lying naked in a sun beam. Rattling over hills in Italy, after near-death experiences.

Waltzing in the front room at the end of an affair when we both know it's over. The first sparkly eyed glance over a drink that says 'well hello'. Stumbling from one party to another, with a hand full of goodie bags and a crumpled invite.

Cycling through Hampstead in the rain. Walking people to get them cabs at 7am after staying up all night and then going straight into work. Bursting into warm pubs in winter months, and getting a cheer just because you turned up.

Cocktails at a complete strangers house, in an unknown part of town, just because.

A thousand weekends that started with a badly stuffed weekend bag and a picnic hamper, a hundred strangers met for the weirdest of reasons that became friends, tens of interesting women and one wonderful city, London.

Sometimes you have to stand and look back, just so you can say to yourself
'I say, I really did have a jolly spiffing time, what?'

The ages of man (so far)

The ol' birthday is fast looming and so here are the ages of man as I see them. I'd do more but you'll have to wait a few more years for those.

1 to 5 : The age of noses
This is when you should spend most of your time trying to push things up your nose, ideally wearing dungarees. This is the only time it is acceptable for a chap to wear them. People are fleshy blobs and so you can't really notice the difference between the sexes although you do notice that some of the chaps with longer hair are rubbish at making gun noises.

6 to 12 : The age of conkers
This time should be spent with a small dog, ideally a super intelligent mongrel that smells funny. Summers go on for ever and finding the perfect conker is all that fills your mind. Fashion involves wearing a T-shirt with a robot on it and girls are disgusting creatures with an unhealthy interest in ponies.

13 - 16 : The age of Lynx (or Axe if you are in America)
People start to smell, you think that deodorant can cover all sins and for the next few years your bedroom becomes a toxic wasteland. Girls replace conkers as your key area of interest, although rather annoyingly the ones your age spend the whole time dating men who are older. You later come to realise that the chaps they date are sad types, the ones who can't get women of their own age but by then it's too late. You are probably in a band and no-one understands you.

Drinking becomes a past-time and going into nightclubs is thrillingly exciting as you may not make it in. When you can go into clubs legally half the charm is gone and you realise they are a bit crap. Some people decided to take angry music very seriously and you may find yourself drawing pictures of cannabis leaves all over your geography books even though the closest you have ever come to one is listening to Bob Marley at a friend's house.

17 - 21 : The age of shots
For some reason the moment you have mastered drinking a manly pint you are filled with a strange urge to drink disgusting and strong liquors in the form of shots. This only lasts for a while as soon you will automatically vomit if people even mention Tequila. This is the period at which a chap gets all those great stories that start 'I was smashed and woke up in Berlin with an Ewok'.

Girls are still a bit weird but for some reason if you act like an arse and ignore them they find you terribly attractive. This causes issues as everyone you fancy 'thinks of you as more of a friend' and all the girls you have no interest in spend all their free time writing your name of their pencil cases. You sleep with some people you shouldn't and at least once you will turn down someone you really wish you hadn't.

You'll probably do some very silly things in cars at this point, but if you survive them without dying you'll never do them again.

21 - 27 : The age of seriousness
People stop having fun at this age, or some people do. Jobs become careers and apparently normal types will suddenly only want to talk about mortgages and what happened to their kitchen. You will be invited to dinner parties, once will be enough, and then never vow to go again. A dinner party is an event where a whole load of people sit around a table and only the most boring is allowed to talk.

Fortunately by this age most women have realised that berks aren't worth dating and so now will like you if you are nice to them which makes attracting the ones you really like a bit more logical. Girls will start decide that hanging around and having a lovely time isn't enough and will want to know 'where things are going' and make vague comments relating to children. Some of your best male friends will all but cease to exist due to having kids, you probably won't seem them for at least ten years. On the plus side weddings are excellent fun (provided it's not your one), it costs less to insure cars and tailors start to take you seriously.

To be continued (in about ten years time I reckon)

Stepping out

The Hitchcock Blonde and I have been stepping out together quite a lot. My chums has suspected as much for a while but it was officially confirmed a week or so go.

I expected my chums to be pleased but what caught me slightly off guard was the rave reviews the Hitchcock Blonde got. I've never been out with someone so approved of, perhaps I should try and get the Hitchcock Blonde to run for office? Or maybe my friends are just taken back by me seeing someone who is just lovely.

Either way I'm going to have to change my stand-up routine, hmm.

Winter Hats

It is jolly cold here. In the interests of reducing the Carbon Brogue-print we are trying to avoid turning the heating on as much as possible so other methods have to be employed to keep a chap warm.

So I don't die of extreme (well mild) cold I am working on a plan to stay warm, here is it so far.
1) Grow some smashing facial hair to keep the face warm, ideally whiskers that you can wax while thinking on problems.
2) Burn everything you can in a 'fire'. These 'fires' are jolly hot an excellent for heating up rooms.
3) Take up pipe smoking, this means you can have a 'fire' near your face to work with the whiskers to keep it warm. Of course the wax on your whiskers might catch a bad case of being on fire from your pipe. Which while providing short term warming of the ol' noggin and a very dapper look may cause a bit of light scarring, actually why not go for it anyway.
4) Stuff cats inside you waistcoat. These little purring chaps throw out a lot of heat and come in a range of excellent colours and patterns.
5) Drink a bottle of brandy every 4 to 6 hours, this will make you have a healthy glow and also allow you to enjoy even the most drab of conversations.
6) Ensure that you share your bed with company, girls are not ideal for this as the tend to always have cold feet. Maybe a girl whose feet are ablaze would work...

Abe Lincoln and his amazing beard

I'm starting to get ready for my trip to London, a social calender is being put together, various meetings have been arranged and I've shaved off my silly Miami Vice beard.

While shaving I discovered that an Abe Lincoln beard rather suits me, so perhaps I should go and join a puritanical order in America for a bit. I don't think I'd get on with the religious aspect but the facial hair wouldn't be a problem.

Also I've just found out that my 'slot' for the stand-up is 25 minutes, that's erm about 20 minutes longer than any previous slots I've had so my options are:
a) Say everything five times.
b) Speak at 20% of normal speed.
c) Come up with some new stuff.

Currently A is winning, but B has potential too. The only way C is going to really work is if my journey up to London turns out to be hilarious in a 20 minute sort of way, not exactly likely but we shall see. Or, I could try and date four women in the next four days and try and squeeze five minutes of material out of each relationship. That might work...

Close encounters of the hairy kind

I paid a visit to my old neighbour on Friday. A chum was visiting from Dubai and so we were all out for drinks and things to celebrating seeing him again. It was delightful, the old gang together again talking nonsense and playing Wii tennis.

The only slightly risky thing about the party was that as it was my old neighbour it was directly above my old flat which is still occupied by the ex. Luckily I didn't have an encounter with her, and even if I had I doubt she would have recognised me - I walked past the flatmate today in the street and didn't realise it was me. Ho ho ho.

At about 4am I was ruined and my friends bundled me into a cab. Even with a cab I only just about made my way home. I say just about as I couldn't remember my exact address and so had to guide the very grumpy taxi man street by street. I didn't make any mistakes or anything like that but he was furious by the time we arrived home. He was visibly prickling with rage, maybe my new haircut makes men angry.

Since it was so late/early I elected to sleep in the library (instead of enraging the flatmate) until it was a reasonable hour. It was actually quite comfortable. I selected a book, sprawled out on the sofa and in seconds was fast asleep. Even in my drunken state I made sure I arrayed things around me so it looked like I had just fallen asleep while working rather than being a semi-homeless bum waiting out the time until I can go home.

At about 9ish I went up to the flat and went to sleep in my bed which was far more comfortable but less exciting.

I'm still undecided about the new haircut, which is silly as it's done and so it's not as if it can be undone any time soon. It's entertaining being completely invisible in the presence of friends, although I'm sure that will wear off eventually but I do slightly miss having distinctively long hair.

On the plus side the new look seems to be a hit with the girls, post-comedy gig a friend of a friend (who was also performing) made some not terribly subtle enquiries about my relationship status and then on Friday night another friend of a friend loudly declared to the pub that she had taken a shine to me.

We had been drinking so it wasn't entirely out of place but it still caught me off guard. So it appears that my old long hair while pleasantly roguish was perhaps a bit of a poor choice when it comes to the ladies. Only time will tell I suppose.

Skating Vs Cocktails

Skating is excellent. It should be adopted by the temperance movement. There were a selection of cocktails available at the bash last night and yet I only had two drinks because I was too busy on the rink.

My first steps (rolls?) on the skates were more than a little wobbly but after getting some basic tips from a girl in extremely tight shorts I rumbled onto the rink. The first few laps were a little 'troubled' as I got the hang of the movement and then tried to ape the style of the really experienced skaters. It seems that the better you get at skating the more bored you have to look by it all.

Moving wasn't an issue and I could even glide along on one skate for a while but braking caused problems. I couldn't really work out how to stop with grace and so had to just swerve when someone fell-over in front of me. The rink was packed so there were quite a few crashes going on, still crashing provided an excellent talking point and I made some new chums through them. That doesn't happen on bicycles or in cars.

Still after about thirty minutes of intense skating I was getting quite confident, and was swooshing around happily - if someone knocked me I'd throw my arms into the air and look decidedly uncool but the rest of the time I was doing okay. Even when various Z-listers ploughed into me.

A bit later and I was trying to do fast turns and spins, they were okay but I was getting decidedly thirsty and the bar was calling to me so after about an hour of skating I took off my boots and scampered to get last orders.

There was another bash I was supposed to go to but I didn't get a reply to my text message asking if it was still going until I was most of the way home so I got to have a surprisingly early night.

Weekend adventures, part 1

I don't often have hardcore weekends, not that I'm slipping into an insipid world of wondering around Ikea in a daze and thinking about blinds but that normally I try to have at least one day of rest for every day of charging around doing something strange. So if Saturday is spent swinging from trees or racing motorbikes than Sunday will be spent reading the papers and listening to radio 4.

I don't know why I keep to such a strict system, I work strange hours in the week so occasionally have hours, or days off so weekends mean less. It's a couple of days when everyone is about to play but it's harder to do actual work.

This Friday started off in a fairly tame way. I spent the afternoon doing arts and crafts for work. After making some models and an excellent collage while drinking sherry I ambled over to Sloane Square to meet a chum for a post-work drink. This turned into quite a few after work drinks as we went to a hidden pub off a side-street I had been introduced to by a girl when I first moved up to London. After the pints we went to a Chinese Restaurant in South Kensington and then to a house party.

My chum sort of knew two girls who were, well International Party girls. I've encountered this breed before, they dance from city to city going out and meeting people as a career. They might have 'promoter' as an official job title but really their job is to have fun and search for future husbands. These two girls were from Northern Ireland, and having realised that they had missed their favourite flight to LA had decided to go out in London. They rented a vast flat in Kensington to use as a base of operations and even hired two chunky chaps to stride around topless near them. These two chaps were like Derek Zoolander, but with an angry hint of too many drugs and steroids just bubbling away under the surface.

So we met up with these sort of friends, even acquaintance would be pushing it, at their flat for pre-club drinks. We tried to play some moderately complicated drinking game because one of the hostesses insisted on it but a couple of missing cards made it almost impossible and so it was abandoned in exchange for polite conversation while sipping rum. One of the hostesses had decided I looked familiar and so spent about an hour trying to work out where she had seen me before. I couldn't place her and I normally have a pretty good memory for faces.

This scintillating conversation ended when they had to dance off to get to the club early, we were left in the flat with another girl who had appeared so we could escort her to the club when she was ready. I was slightly taken aback by being left, as strangers in a flat after only having met this girls about an hour ago. We didn't do anything, but we could have.

Anyway we ambled into the club, got whisked in to the VIP area and fed bottles of Vodka. This was all well and good until about midnight where the place filled up massively and got a bit sinister. Chaps were doing drug deals right in the middle of the club, or if they weren't dealing they were buying very expensive tic-tacs.

We decided this wasn't really our scene and the vodka had run out so we went to a flat for a light party (as in short) before we would rejoin the main group to go to the larger house party in Kensington. We ended up drinking grog at 3am with some girls who didn't drink and that we hadn't met before. It was all a bit strange. My memory gets a bit hazy at this point but at about 10ish I woke up on a sofa while a chap in a top hat arranged a cab to take him to the train station.

I managed to get up and then made my way home feeling a little bit woolly. There wasn't much time for rest, I had a quick wash, a power nap and I was off to the second part of the weekend...

To be continued

The end?

I had a stand-up gig last night, probably my last one. I say this because I already have one high-risk, low reward career that doesn't pay as well as I'd like so I don't need another one.

The gig was excellent - probably my best - so it's good to stop on a high-note. Loads of friends turned up so it was cosy little gig and my new material went down well, especially the joke about shoes.

I was pretty nervous before I went on, it was a long wait and I didn't want to mess up in front of friends. The organisers had put me on last which technically makes me a headline act but it's more that 95% of the audience were my friends and the organisers didn't want them to leave after seeing me and leave an empty room for the other chaps.

It really was impressive how many people appeared, including some chums I've not seen for years. Bless. Some of the women there were probably in a pub for the first time in their lives, they are rather more the cocktail set.

In other news, I've had some news, and it's not good. Not terrible but not great either. Sort of neutral to good. Ho-hum. Well I suppose if the promise of a full time job hadn't been waved about I'd be doing a little dance now because of the commissions, but it seems the goal-posts have been moved again.

No beard, no news

My week of relaxing in Devon is drawing to an end, and I still have no news. Argh etc. At least I'll be distracted for the next few days. I'm going to an all-girl surfing school in Cornwall to learn how to surf.

I didn't realise it was an all-girls school when I arranged it but they are allowing me to go anyway. I'll be staying in a hotel with 15 other girls, well women really. It's a school for grown-ups. 15 lovely women from London who are getting away for a weekend, and me. Ding to the dong.

Right, I have to shave off my beard, find a good bottle of brandy to take with me (for night caps of course) and select my cravats for the trip.

Things to ponder

The suit was a roaring success and I don't think I've ever been so complimented by men before in my life. The girl seemed to approve of it too, and I think the fact that I was wearing it with trainers made me look faintly Doctor Who rather than just trampy.

Our first port of call was her local bar where she knew everyone. It's quite a cool place where you can buy a scooter as well as a cocktail. It's just shame they don't sell real motorcycles as well.

After a appetite wetting drink we went for a meal in a Polish place and drank a wide array of vodka while eating food and talked of nonsense and other things. We may have been a bit silly with the number of courses we ordered. I ate so much I felt like I was about to explode out of my new suit and so after a chaste 'mwah' ambled off into the evening.

I'm still not entirely sure of her intentions towards me but she is terribly good company.

The early bird rides the bike

I'm up far too early, this is an inhuman time of day that should only be experienced when heading home from an amazing night out. It should not be seen at the start of the day. I'll forgive it a bit because I'm up early because I'm going motorbike racing so that sort of makes up for it.

In other exciting news, I was talking to a v. pretty female friend about work things and using some dark powers that I don't really understand she found out who my agent was and then later that evening found this blog. Oh dear. Still the knowledge can't be undone so let's all make her very welcome eh?

Right, I have to try and drink as much coffee as possible.