Bitchin' Suit day

I went drinking with some work people last night. It was a post-work wine and chat about things. One of them revealed that when they first spotted me they thought I looked like an eccentric, the sort of person who has cravats and pocket watches.

I wasn't wearing either of these items at the time. Or anything even mildly outlandish so it seems that I've now reached the point where I don't need foppish affectations to come across as the sort of berk who frets about socks too much.

My wardrobe is returning to form. Every time I go to Devon I pick up more items, the last trip involved my first suit. I don't wear a suit for work. Most people don't even wear shirts, which isn't to say they run around topless, but that T-shirts are the usual thing.

I'm not sure what I'll wear this suit for, I suggested that once a month we have 'bitching suit day' where a chap can wear something lilac or a solid tweed. Pipes were also mentioned, so we could discuss matters of importance while loading up some nice clay pipes. The suit I brought up was a light-weight tweed number, perfect for spring time. Now I just need an good excuse to break it out.

I think it's a sign of how I'm feeling more comfortable in my job that now the suits are starting to reappear. Relocating up here required a lot of changes, and I initally thought that I was going to leave all the dandy-style misadventures behind.

Now I know that is wrong. It's just that the part of you that makes you want to invest in waistcoats and cufflinks travels slower than the rest of you. So it takes a while to catch up with the rest of you. It's here now, and judging by the misadventures of last night it's just as potent as it ever was.

I wonder if they are ready for it.

Army Hair

I'm not entirely sure about my new haircut. I think is because it's so shockingly different. It's short, very short, could join the army short.

Almost since I moved to London I've been growing my hair. First in a office appropriate way and then once I left the dull job and joined the fun one in a roguish way. So I've had big hair for ages, and now it's gone.

I don't even look particularly foppish anymore, I mean, unless I'm wearing a cravat and a waistcoat. Good friends don't recognise me, even at close range - I can stand right next to an old chum and they still won't know who I am. One friend last night thought that I was trying to start a fight with him until I spoke and he realised I was just trying to say hello. Men don't do direct, prolonged eye contact with strangers.

The gig last night was fun, blisteringly hot but good. Stephen Merchant is very nice and extremely tall. Not much else to report really.

Right I'm off to see if my hat collection still fits.

Unexpected Tuesday, operation popinjay and rollerskating with dominatrixes

Tuesday was a day of surprises, the day itself wasn't a shock but the events were quite surprising.

Sadly the editor I was supposed to be meeting cancelled on me because she hadn't been to bed the night before and was in pieces. This is a very honourable reason for cancelling, and she has promised to make it up to me so that is fine.

Now that I no-longer had to be sparkling with foppishness in my best waistcoat I changed into a pleasant but unassuming jumper and trotted off to work. This trotting took longer than planned because for some inexplicable reason I got on entirely the wrong bus and I ended up seeing parts of West London that I doubt any outsider has seen for thousands of years. After seeing dinosaurs and packs of proto-humans I managed to finally get on a bus going in vaguely the right direction and made it to Soho.

The office was it's usual fun place, although the main woman was a bit subdued because we are being sued for saying something that is true but the person who told it to us has disappeared. What makes it even more annoying is the person we said it about appeared on T.V. a few days ago and the presenter said even worse things in the same vein but that was okay because the presenter is a shouty chef.

Oh and my piece appeared in the newspaper but sadly the word Popinjay had been removed. On the plus side they had let me include a big plug for my next stand-up show but I shall miss Popinjay. Perhaps I'll get it in some other time.

After work I went with my colleague for a couple of cheeky cocktails at a members club on Shaftsbury Avenue. I had the vodka espresso and she dabbled with the lime Margareta, after those we saw off most of a bottle of champagne while plotting revenge on the person suing us and then came up with an idea for a travel show. Which reminds me I should be writing that right now.

Plinking with merriment after a good dose of nonsense and champers we spilled onto the street and went our separate ways. I decided that I would walk home from Soho as it was a good clear night and I wanted to get to know London again. The stroll was very pleasant. I took in Sloane Street and the King's Road which have both changed a great deal since Chelsea was my stomping ground and this time the walk home passed in a flash. Perhaps thanks to listening to the Mighty Boosh radio show.

When I got home I was still a little bit drunk but it was time for some more moving so I helped my flatmate unload more things from her car and then take the bins out.

Just before I lowered my head on the pillow I got two text messages out of the blue, both offering adventure and excitement.

1) H asked me if I wanted to go camping in the Arctic, sponsored by some car company

2) A Dominatrix I know, the only one I've ever got on with asked me rollerskating for her friends birthday tonight.

Mime, wine and plagiarism

Last night was very good fun it was an extremely hard music quiz, I was of almost no use to the team until a section on Quincy Jones came up and I trumped home thanks to my extensive knowledge of his involvement in the Italian Job sound track.

We drank a lot of free wine and threw biscuits at the other teams, just like a proper pub quiz.

After the quiz had finished we went to a late-night drinking den in Soho to talk about nonsense. I ended up doing some complicated Mime with an old friend, why is drunken mime so entertaining?

The next morning I opened a fresh copy of a magazine that I have a big piece in (v. good) but also noticed that later in the magazine one of my ideas has been plagiarised by someone else. This is a tricky issue because I like writing for the magazine but I can't have my ideas given out to other people.

Oh and everyone liked the waistcoat, apart from Henry who said I looked like a snooker player on the way to a wedding. Cheers Henry.

Waistcoats

I managed to get a new waistcoat this morning, it's a feisty little gold number. It might have a touch of 'wedding usher' about it but I think I can tone that down with the right tie, something subversive with guns on it.

Waistcoats have had a bit of a revival of late, before then there weren't that many inspirational waistcoat wearers apart from Jeremy Fisher and that British Bulldog that you see on stickers. I'm glad that waistcoats are no-longer strictly the preserve of second rate magicians and zany uncles.