Glove Love

Here are my marvellous motorbike gloves. They articulate pleasantly with just the right air of menace and I can't wait to try them out on a ride. I can't stop putting them on which is a bit silly as they aren't ideal for typing or making cups of tea. Admittedly that's not what they are designed for so I shouldn't really blame them for not being tip-top at such tasks.

I wonder if the company that made these gloves also makes cravats? I bet if they did they would be armoured cravats. I like the idea of a necktie that provides protection against impacts as well as making a chap look dapper.

New Moka life

One of the additional nice things about going to Devon for a little mini break is that it gave me the chance to pick up my Christmas presents that I had to leave behind. I couldn't take them with me before because I was a homeless bum and homeless bums aren't going to get much of a chance to use a lovely, beautiful moka pot.

I must say that previously I found people who fell in love with objects a bit strange. I've got friends who have named cars, bikes and even clothes. Yes, they are all male. I had that opinion simply because I just hadn't met the right object. Which is a round-about way of saying I don't just like my new moka pot, I adore it.

Of course I can't tell it that because I've got to play it cool.

It's so beautiful, I mean it's really stunning. The polished metal and sharp yet perfectly measured angles make it look faintly reminiscent of a woman or perhaps that is just my frame of mind at the moment.

It doesn't just look lovely, it brews amazingly strong coffee in the most thrilling way. The liquid that comes out of it is fiercely potent so that you should really only have one serving of it, and that should be in the morning when you have a whole day to ride out the effects. It's proper coffee, bitter with subtle tones that race around the pallette and that makes your whole body tingle. It also reminds me of my time in Italy when I nearly died and as a result reinvented myself. The way it makes the coffee is very exciting too, but that has to be witnessed to be understood.

My little brother gave me two lovely cups to use with the moka pot, they are tiny espresso cups in classic off-white. They even have saucers, I don't think I've owned saucers before, they give me a lot to live up to. Oscar Wilde had the same thing about his best crockery and once said

"I find it harder and harder every day to live up to my blue china."

Even if I can't quite live up to my coffee making equipment it is perfect if I should have a guest staying over and I want to impress her with the perfect cup of coffee in the morning.

Not that I'm having guests over at the moment, I don't want that sort of antic at right now. I thought I did but guests can turn into regular guests and regular guests can turn into relationships and I really don't want one of those.

After all I'm already seriously involved with someone - my moka pot.

My first love and jellyfish

I’ve always heard that your first love will hit you like a wave, an overpowering swell of surging emotion that knocks you for six. My first love was a more literal version of this, just seconds after I first saw Laura I was choking on sea water and nursing a bruised head and a few moments later it got a lot worse.

When I was younger I used to go to the local sailing club. On Wednesday evenings after School I would go to nearby Sidmouth to get shouted at for pulling the wrong bit of string or yet again get blamed when a jellyfish would mysteriously get the urge to experiment with flight and end up in someone else’s boat.

That’s how I encountered Laura. A jellyfish completely on it’s own account had been swept up into the bailer I was holding (a bucket for getting water out of the boat which also doubled as a jellyfish launcher) and then through a strange mix of events was flung into a nearby boat which was full of girls.

The sudden shock appearance of a slightly angered invertebrate in the boat typically caused all sorts of amusing squealing and then if you were really lucky the girls would jump out of the boat to escape the jelly fish.

This would mean that an enterprising chap who just so happened to be nearby and who had read too many Hornblower books could board their boat. Commandeer all sorts of important nautical devices and sail off. The items would only be returned after the girls had admitted that boys were better than girls, or ideally after a kiss. Only it never worked out like that because the girls would be a bit peeved by all of this and would now be armed with a jellyfish.

It was during one of these actions when my crew of two were getting our dingy to ramming speed for a boarding that I first saw Laura. It’s hard to look sexy in a wetsuit and life jacket but when she stood up to get away from the invading jellyfish I was struck by her. She had almost jet black eyes with short brown hair in a bob and a smile that was like sun breaking over mountains. She also had a voice like a fog horn which was ideally suited for sailing.

The second thing that struck me was the boom. It’s the long wooden arm on a ship that is below the mainsail and is designed for knocking out chaps that aren’t paying attention. It hit me on the back of the head and I flew out of the boat.

I really did fly, I was standing on the edge of the boat affecting a pose that was somewhere between Royal Navy circa the Battle of Trafalgar and pirate captain from Sunday afternoon television. This look isn’t terribly stable but it is an important part of the attack and so must be adhered too.

“Wait till you see the whites of their Ey-aarghs” I said.

I wasn’t trying to sound like a pirate I just happened to be submerged head first before I could finish. Because I had been talking as I went under I landed in the water with my mouth open it was quickly filled with sea water. I can remember being upside down in the water thinking.

'Is this cool?'

I thought that as long as I could surface with some dignity I might be able to rescue this. If I can just rise up and say something witty I might be okay. So I managed to right myself and swam up. This was probably a mistake.

One of the reasons so many jellyfish had decided to become airborne was that the sea was thick with them. So when I broke through the water and tossed my head to shake off the water instead of looking like a roguish buccaneer I managed to entangle a jellyfish around my face.

If you have never been stung by a jellyfish, try to keep it that way. It felt like my face had been wrapped in a rope made out of angry bees. I violently shook my head but the jellyfish had decided that it was going to get revenges for acts that I had allegedly committed and was holding fast. It was only after I went back under water and sort of swam backwards that it finally relented and drifted away.

I floated up to the surface gingerly, checking for any more nearby jellyfish before I swam anywhere. My face stung wildly but my main concern was that I would look like the Elephant man and so I should try and get back onto my own boat and escape to shore.

Sadly I had got disoriented in the water and instead climbed half into Laura’s boat before I realised what was going wrong.

It’s nice to remember your first love, the person who first made your stomach feel strange and filled you with an urge to do silly things just to be near them. If you are lucky you can remember how you first met or if you are especially fortunate you can even recall the first words your first love said to you. I can.

"Oh my god, what happened to your face?" Were the first words Laura ever said to me.

The Quantum Party Effect

There was a party last night, for a vodka being launched or re-launched or something. I managed to get an invite for T.P. so she could join me after she had been to a charity bash earlier in the evening.

I got at about nine, settled down with my friends in clear view of the bar (it's a tiny place) and set about drinking a lot of free booze. There was a selection of complimentary cocktails and after a brief chat with the PR girl she brought over a few extra bottles of vodka for us to drink and 'understand the brand direction' or something like that.

As I was waiting for TP to appear I checked my phone every fifteen minutes or so as well as constantly scanning the room. This bar was so small that from our position in the corner we could see almost everywhere so I was sure when she arrived I would quickly spot her.

There was no sign of T.P. and she didn't reply to my text messages until at 11:20ish I got an answering machine message saying 'I was here, got the t-shirt, couldn't find you, gone home' I tried to call her back but she wouldn't answer so I bimbled off home to find a very angry girlfriend.

She said she was at the bar for an hour and a half but couldn't see me even though she looked and that she had spent a load of money on drinks. This is the bit that confuses me, the bar is small (only a dash larger than our flat) so it would take an effort not to find me (or my friends who know her and were also looking out for her) and there were countless free cocktails to take everywhere. I didn't know it was even possible to buy booze on the night.

The only logical solution is that she must have stepped through some time vortex or parallel universe where I wasn't in the same bar.

What ever strange quantum effect occurred she is very angry at me and I don't know if even Sam Beckett could fix it, Ziggy isn't providing any clues.

Two simple things

We had the casino party on Saturday night, and it was a huge success. Who would have guessed that people like playing cards for chips? The bash ended at 7am with the final crowd of poker players being reluctantly pushed out of the door. I was rather unwell for the party (I had caught a nasty bug off T.P. while looking after her) so I couldn't drink and spent quite a lot of time feeling like I was about to explode, and yet I still had fun.

Such is the power of card games I suppose. There was even a hint of love as two different friends took a liking to each other and spent the whole evening loudly flirting while playing cards. This flirting took the form of trash-talking over who had the best hand but it was all very amusing to watch. After the party was over the male of the pair requested I get the females phone number and the very next day I had a text message from the female asking for the male's number to apologise for her behaviour.

It's like a Rock Hudson/Doris Day film.

I'm still waiting to hear back from various people for work but this is more bearable as I've shown some of the work stuff to people I know and respect and they liked it so it seems just some agents miss the point entirely. Silly chaps, still one mustn't hold a grudge, it's petty.

Of course if in the future the agents find themselves destitute and for some reason in a burnt-out building covered in soot shouting "Why god. Why?" at the sky, I might allow myself a wry smile.

Dogs and pirates

I'm going to be dog-sitting next week. I'll be staying in the flat so the doggy doesn't get lonely (my place isn't dog suitable). It's a little doggy I know well so it should be lots of fun. We are going to have all sorts of adventures, my only worry is who will look after my Bee while I'm away?

Anyway, I met the owner at a friends birthday drinks and I made a joke about hosting loads of wild parties at her flat. She told me the only rule I would have while staying at her flat

'No cocaine on the low table'

I was speechless for a moment, I don't take mild drugs (I feel guilty about taking paracetamol) let alone something as naughty as that. Then she explained she didn't want any hard drug taking on the low table just in case her dog decided to have a sample.

I laughed for about half an hour.

In other news the L word was mentioned this weekend by T.P. I was asked the question 'Do you love me' and well it seemed like the right time to say yes. So I replied.

'Yes, I love you, I love as much as pirates.'

For some reason this didn't go down as well as I thought it would, I can't see why. Pirates are brilliant.