Hurrah for words

I'm re-writing the children's book at the moment, it's hard going (which is why I keep finding time to work on my C.V. and learn Japanese) but I just had a massive breakthrough. I just enjoyed doing a chapter. That's the first time that's happened as before it's been a huge slog ever step of the way.

If this keeps up I may even get dangerously close to enjoying the experience.

In which Louche talks about January

January is the worst month. It's cold, everyone is poor and summer seems like a fictional place that someone invented just to torture you. It seems like an age since I shared a cocktail with someone fabulous, even though it's only been about a month.

Today was my first date without bread. I've been eating sandwiches for a while at work, mostly because the food in the canteen is so dire. And since I've been going to the gym and working out so hard I've needed more and more sandwiches to fill me up.

It was getting silly how much bread I was eating and so now I've cut it out of my diet. I'm only on day two of bread free land and it's mostly okay. The most difficult part was when my salad leaked all over my bag. Sandwiches don't do that. My manbag smells funny now.

The gym is rammed at the moment, perhaps it took people a while to dig out their p.e. kits and find their gym shoes to join the new years resolution rush but today there were more people than machines. I'm going to have to start going earlier to beat the rush. It's not that I don't like people, it's just the gym is my quiet time away from that all. It's time to think, or not think, or at least work myself to exhaustion so I can sleep at night without fretting about pointless things.

Yes I am writing this instead of updating my c.v. BAD LOUCHE.

Being a grown-up

My life is a lot more grown up these days, and I'm not entirely sure I approve. It's not like I've got kids, or any real responsibilities, it's just things are a bit more dull. I used to have a rule about not seeing girls at weekends, or that a week was wasted unless I got wasted at least twice.

Last time I went to a nightclub I even paid to get in, I didn't do that for the entire time I lived in London. The closest thing to a steamy affair is with my gym and I've even started eating brown rice. Yes brown rice. I used to only eat fruit if it was part of a cocktail.

What has happened to me? Where did it go wrong? I mean apart from moving out of London. This job may have been good for my career but it's been dire for my social life.

*Pause in writing while frantically updating C.V.*

Updating a c.v is terribly dull isn't it? I mean, even when you've got loads of good stuff to put on it, it is still very boring. The last three months have just been a bit of a training montage, and not a lot else.

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.

(500) Days of Summer, a rather belated review

WARNING THE FOLLOWING POST CONTAINS SPOILERS.

The first time I watched 500 Days of Summer I hated it. I think I hated for a few reasons. I didn't have the ending I expected, or sort of wanted but didn't want at the same time.

I also hated it because Zooey Deschanel plays a less than pleasant character, this made me sad because it caused me to interrupt my usual flow of gazing at her while simpering.

Anyway, I watched the film, was angry for reasons I couldn't really explain and then didn't think much more about it for a few days. Then I thought about it a bit more, and more, until I watched it again and then I loved it.

It's not the usual sort of rom-com, that's sort of missing the point. What it really is, is an excellent film about dating awkward women. The sort of pretty woman that is like being in a cage with a wild animal who is fun for a brief time, and utterly consumes you until tossing you aside a slightly broken person.

I've not seen a lot of films about girls like that so it was refreshing to see. It was nice to see someone else making all the same mistakes and ignoring all the same signals. I think that's why 500 days of summer is now one of my favourite films, not one of those films you watch constantly, or talk about to impress people but something that someone just ticks a box in a way you can't quite place.

I really like it.

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?

Forcing words in my head

I've been getting my learn on recently, and I think my new attitude to learning is gym inspired. The thing is, when you first go to the gym it's a bit awful. You will discover that really you aren't that fit. The next day you will feel terrible, massively sore and it's hard to work out why you would even consider going again.

Add to this the fact that you won't notice any difference in your body for a while and it's easy to understand why people give up after a bit. The thing is, one you get through that it starts to get really fun. All the modern machines give you numbers to compare yourself with so you can see yourself making progress and so it's rewarding. I enjoy this.

It's spilled over to other things, while learning Japanese I've been forcing myself to study every night and I've had to learn a whole load of symbols for the alphabets. The first one is pretty sorted now, and I'm working on my second alphabet. It's hard, after having learned all the noises and shapes I have to learn a new set off them. Still if I can get this nailed I'm most of the way there.

Work is hard at the moment, we are under huge pressure to do lots of things with no end in sight. If I didn't have the furious learning of Japanese to destract me I think I'd go a bit mad.

Bad dates

I had an awkward date this weekend. It was a second date with someone via work. It happened because the person at work was hassling me to go out with her again, and I gave in. I really should learn not to give in to stuff like that.

What followed was far, far too much polite conversation and mental counting down hours. There just isn't any spark, so it was a fight to keep the conversation going. I'm not saying that I'm insisting on love at first sight, but you should be able to at least spend time with the person without strugging for topics of conversation.

This date went on for far too long, I got drunk, so drunk that drinking some chilli oil in the restaurant seemed like a good idea. We ended up back at the cottage and she stayed the night. Nothing *really* rude happened, but enough to make me feel a bit wrong in the morning. For some reason she kept bringing up the subject of long term relationships (Top Tip: Don't do this when in bed with someone for the first time) or various insecurities (Top Tip: Women, you are all beautiful, men want to see you naked, don't ask them turn the light off, draw the curtains, and then close their eyes) or just weird stuff (Top Tip: The tip here was too rude to publish).

It was just uncomfortable and what makes it worse is I'm going to have to deal with work people asking about it, the ones who set us up. Oh dear. Still I must be resolute, I'm not going on another date with her, nope. Not at all. Please?

Snow

It's snowy here. Not end of the world snow, but a light dusting. I was quite hoping for joke snow but this is far too managable for my liking. It's also been bloody cold which has caused me to discover that I've messed up the circulation in my left foot a bit by crashing. It's a bit annoying, it's not completely broken, it just get's colder easier. Oh bum.

I've returned to the gym and my first visit was really unpleasant. My strength hasn't taken that much of a knock over the Christmas period but my stamina has been destroyed. I'm working on getting it back though and the second visit was far more pleasant than the first. The gym is very busy too as lots of people have New Year resolutions to work on.

My resolutions are rattling away, well at least one of them is. I'm re-learning Japanese. My oral skills are coming along okay, although I'm sure my pronounciation is a bit rough but my reading skills are being harder. Last night I just couldn't get the alphabet to go in my head. I stuck at it and about three hours later I was at about 40% comprehension (I've got an Iphone app that tests me). I suppose the main difference is I didn't give up, for which I'm slightly surprised at myself.

Not a lot else to report really. I don't do that much in the evenings. I've got a date lined up for the weekend, a second one with someone who is 'okay' rather than fabulous. I think I agreed to it because she is fairly local more than anything else, and no it's not the racist.

Other dates are in early planning stages but all of them are in London. I'm trying to work out a system where I can go down and a load of them in one go. Not at the same time of course, but you know, sort of have a long weekend of interviews, *ahem* I mean dates.

NYE with cider

New Year's Eve was surprisingly boozy. I was in the rural part of the country with the family so we had a large meal and then wobbled up to the local pub.

The local pub is, well terribly local. Some of the people I vaguely recognised from school. They were younger than me, and I suppose still are but they were herding children around. That was alarming.

There wasn't much else to do but drink, so I got very drunk. It seemed rude not to with pints so cheap. The clock raced around to midnight and everyone poured outside to sing the first verse of that song before mumbling the rest of the way through it. I was feeling a little bit blurry but not too bad. We scampered back home through frosty lanes and I got increasingly drunk.

For some reason this seemed like an excellent time to give my brother some useful life advice. So the rest of the walk was spent with me saying things like 'never offer to buy a girl a drink as an opener' and 'With very few exceptions you can always walk home from an awful party if nothing else'. He wasn't drunk and took this in good grace. The full moon lit the way home so it was a very pleasant walk.

By the time we arrived home I was ruinously drunk and stumbled into bed. I woke up a few times, feeling more drunk each time until about 7am when I just felt weird. Still that's NYE out of the way, now I have a month of purity and self enforced improving to look forward too.

Anything will be better than this bloody hangover that is still haunting me. I'm never drinking cider again.

Resolve

I've started working on my new Year Resolutions. Here they are so far.

1) (re)learn Japanese, and then go to Japan.
I've actually started this one, I've got some new teaching programs and they are going well. If I can get my Japanese up to conversational I can probably blag some press trips. Huzzah.

2) Re-write children's book.
I've been meaning to do this for ages. I've started and it's going pretty well thanks to some useful feedback from my mum and some chums. It should have been done months ago but I'm rubbish.

3) Do more Stand-up.
I thought I wasn't going to do anymore but then I accidentally went to a gig (it was downstairs at a party and we were morally obligied to go). One of the chaps at the gig was someone who was on before me at my first gig ever, it made me think I really should have another crack at it. I've got some new jokes too.

4) Move back to London, or somewhere with a night life
It's gotta be done. Cottage or no cottage I'm too young and too single to be living out the rest of my life as a hermit.

More to follow.

Final festive party

I'm hungover, I have cuts on my hand and I bump on the back of my head. Yes I've been drinking. It was the work goodbye drinks and they started at 3pm with desk Whiskey and went on from there. I really can't handle my drink anymore (the gym effect) and so I had to excuse myself at 9pm with a case of 'absolutely ruined'. I stumbled home, slipped on some ice banged my head and cut my hand before I finally fell into bed.

I feel a bit special today, but it could have been much worse. The drinks were, well actually really good fun. This job may be in the wilderness but I do like the chaps I work with. I even had a proper blokie chat with someone I don't get on with terribly well. It was jolly festive.

So now I'm packing to return home for Christmas. I'm in a very different situation form last year. I've got a job, a proper career one, a house of my own but this time I'm single. Which is the default mode for me.

I'd like to say I'm going to use this much needed time off for some soul searching but really I'm just going to eat too many mince pies and sit next to a log fire. In balance I think that's better anyway

Crimble

I've completed my Christmas Shopping, hurrah. It took a couple of hours but that's mostly because my sister is so awkward to shop for. Now I've just got to muscle through my final day of work and then it's time to eat as much food as possible and watch James Bond films. Christmas is going to be great.

New Year's Eve might possibly be a bit lame. Last year with The Hitchcock Blonde was excellent and so I've been rather spoiled. The year before that I got mashed with the Brightonian Princess which was also good. The rest of New Year's Eves have been a bit patchy. There is a huge weight of expectation, vast cost and a vague feeling you should be at a party somewhere else.

One option, which I hadn't really considered, was that the Actress now owes me an a meal and a rescue, would it be bad form to call in the favour on New Year's Eve?

The danger of wedding hats

I had another first date on Sunday. It was a friend of someone I work with. We met at the usual place - an 18th century coaching inn - and had a good bottle of wine. After that we decamped to an even older pub for more booze and mince pies.

I got fairly blasted and I know this because I started ordering brandy. The girl was nice. Easy to talk to and pretty. It went well, not amazing but nice. Of course since this was a work arranged date my work chums are now talking about wedding hats and dresses.

I think I'll see her again, but I'm in no huge hurry. I think the problem is I've been rather spoiled by having excellent female chums and so often the women I go on dates with just aren't as entertaining.

Panto with pencil skirts

I'm a few days out of sync, you'll have to forgive me. Things keep happening. Right, so last Thursday I went to see a panto with my London chums. I was feeling a bit strange from the night before (too much naughty behaviour) but I was feeling very excited as I jumped onto the train.

The old office in Soho was full of the old lovable misfits that have sort of fallen together over the years. Ms Pencil skirt was there, and thankfully it wasn't weird. It was great to catch up with the London lot while drinking gin.

After a couple of snifters we stumbled towards the tube and eventually surfaced in Wimbledon. More people met us here while we had another drink to prepare the mind for panto.

We were assigned tickets at random, I swapped with a chum so that boyfriend and girlfriend could sit together which through chance caused me to be sat next to Pencil skirt. Luckly this wasn't weird and there was even a bit of light co-ordinated dancing going on between us. I blame the gin.

The panto was excellent. Brian Blessed is everything you'd want him to be and Pamela Anderson was good too, on top form but completely outshined by Brian.

After the panto I had to disappearing to the night, H had parked his car and it was running out of time on the ticket. We scampered out to it and parking wardens were swarming over the carpark trying to catch people out. The rotters.

One short car journey in the snow and we dropped the car off and went to the pub. I only managed a couple of cocktails before I was absolutely exhausted and crashed out. It had been a good day.

The next day I got the train back up North but was delayed by a few hours because of the snow. When I finally arrived at work there was a minor blizard going on. So I did the only logical thing - dug out my off-road bike and charged around the business park. It was for a feature, so I sort of had an excuse. Sort of.

During the day Pencil Skirt sent me an email asking if we could go for tea in the new year. I said of course and so plans are being made. I'm not reading too much into this - but I may cross a couple of toes.

The office party.

The office party was more like a trip to a nightclub than a party. The company is far bigger than I expected. Clearly I need to explore the other floors a bit more. There were a lot of people I didn't recognise - also girls seem to dress up a lot more for these things than the boys do. The chaps were just wearing normal work gear, where as the women were dolled up to the nines.

The nightclub was in an old library so it was a pleasantly pretty building. We were armed with 5 tokens to buy drinks and then we would be on our own. I caught up with a few people I hadn't seen in a while, including another person from the journalism training course who is now leaving. He was in good salts, defiant and full of vigor thanks to leaving.

The rest of the evening was fun, bouncing around from group to group of chums talking about all sorts of things. I chatted to the girl in HR (Tall, dark hair, great sense of humour) who I'm going to be working with in a few weeks and even danced for a bit. The music was awful but when needs must. I left at about midnight and in an excellent mood.

The next day I was off to Panto with Pencil skirt and the rest of the London lot.

In which twitter saves the day

Last night was not what I expected, which actually turned out to be rather fun. I got down to London early, positively buzzing with excitement. After a short bit of pacing about and waiting the Actress arrived and we ambled into the members club.

The moment I saw the alleyway to the club I had sudden flashbacks to if not the second then probably the third date with The Peruvian. She was a member of the same club. This made the next few moments rather exciting as any time a girl with long hair was spotted I flinched and hid behind the Actress.

The actress was on glowing form, I'd not seen her in months but she was everything I remembered and more, absolutely fabulous. We grabbed some drinks and I introduced her to the art dealer. She bonded instantly over wearing beautiful shoes that destroy feet. The Art Dealer took a real shine to the Actress, and so the evening progressed. The Lycra lady was there too. Looking resplendent. We made a bit of polite conversation about the planned adventure and then I went to get some more drinks.

It was all a bit of a whirl, and then Lycra ran off into the night with a client and I was left with the Actress having far, far too much fun. We played billiards and gambled with promises. I left the table with an offer of supper and a 'rescue should I need it' and so we drank some more and laughed. There was a book of 'erotic origami' which we tried some admittedly rather tame designs from and cackled at the results. I doubt the financial pages have ever been turned into 'those' before.

Eventually the Actress had to scamper off into the night, I was terribly sad to see her go, she had been even more fun than I'd remembered and yet again we had engaged in a surprisingly deep conversation about relationships and stuff. We will definitely go drinking again.

At this point I rejoined the Art dealer and we drank pink champagne and talked to some porn producers. I knew some of them from my old job and so we caught up on the gossip and they shocked the bankers left in the club with their stories from the set.

Far, far later we had to leave the club and stumbled home via a take-away to by something awful to eat. When we were back in the flat we drank rum and then went to bed. I was staying in the Art Dealer's spare flat - honestly, who has a spare flat?

Before I went to bed I tweeted about my might and thought no more of it. The next morning I work up, pulled my things together and jumped on a train. Work knew I was going to be a bit late but they didn't know how late exactly, neither did I. I arrived 'Up North' in good time but then had to spend almost two hours at the bus station waiting for a pesky bus. I arrived rather late thinking I was going to get a bit of a telling off but instead was greeted triumphantly - my tweet had impressed them so much they didn't mind that I was rather delayed.

There is a lesson in that somewhere, but I'm not sure exactly what it is. I also have no idea if Lycra was stirred into jealousy by the Actress, she (the Actress) was on form but who knows how the female mind works, not me. Either way the Actress was a delight and we are going to go out again because she is far too entertaining to take out rarely.

What a spiffing night out.

The art of dating

I'm going to a bash in London tomorrow. The art dealing chum is hosting another private view and so I'm going to amble down to join in the fun.

I'm taking along an actress I met at a birthday party a few month ago. The one I send telegram style text messages too (how are you STOP fancy some gin on Saturday STOP etc) We are chums, so she is going to provide entertaining company and giggles while we admire art.

I could have invited a date to go along but that might have been a bit weird. There will be loads of people I know there so that would be a bit full on.

Also Lycra will be there, so I'm hoping that she is consumed with jealousy over seeing me with another woman. This sort of plan works in films so it's bound to work in real life.

I can see no flaws in this plan, apart from now that I think about it every time someone does it in a film it normally goes wrong. Oh dear.

Coffee with Chuck

I went for coffee with Chuck. It was her suggestion. It's the festive season and I was feeling pretty planted. By planted I mean that I have completely an utterly moved on and I couldn't give a damn what happens to her either way.

Given that I thought it was a pretty low risk activity. I was right and wrong.

The coffee ended up being a drink because it was late. It wasn't awkward, it was okay, or at least it started that way. We caught up in a slightly stilted way, polite as always. There was quite a lot of needless touching going on by her, far too much. Do you really need to sit on someones lap to show them a magazine?

Then she invited herself back for port and cheese. Again more touching, by her, not by me.

I'd picked up the hint that she had intentions on me, but I was having absolutely none of it. Eventually it was time for her to leave and she was slightly taken aback when she asked if I wanted her to stay. I said it was up to her, and that I would make up the spare bed. She was shocked.

She was amazed that I didn't want to sleep with her. This shock lasted a while, then after a short Alan Bennett style bit of dialogue she stormed off into the night. She was genuinely amazed that I didn't want to do anything naughty with her, or go out with her again. I suppose pretty girls don't get that very much.

Anyway, I think the whole Chuck affair is finally over. It had its moments but it's for the best.

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?