Time Goes By...

... So Slowly.

Madonna had it in one.

Just come off the phone to my friend the Duke. He's called the Duke simply because he is one. Great guy, great fun. We used to work together in the Ivory Tower where he'd often 'nip down to Starbucks' and roll in 4 days later. Surprising he never got the sack, but he was pretty damn good at his job.

Anyway, the Duke rang to see how I was doing. Pretty good I replied. He's got a present for me. What is it? I ask.

Its another Duck.

Not just any duck though, its the duck that I drunkenly asked for and forgot all about and got myself into a knicker-twisting frenzy when I realised I didn't have one. So as a result this duck is 4kgs in weight, complete with giblets and as far as I know, is a Happy Duck reared in the farmlands of France.

Great. I've now got to do this duck justice. Duck Confit, Duck l'Orange, and Duck Parmentier are some options. Perhaps Duck Flambé...

B*llocks, I knew I shouldn't have finished all that brandy.

Do you think the RSPCA would take in a Duck Complete with Giblets?

Brass monkeys...

... out there.

I am now in possession of a very nice grey scarf. It's long and soft, 70% lambswool and 20% angorra. The remaining 10% is nylon, which is supposed to hold it together because the lambswool and the angorra do not see eye to eye and keep trying to unravel themselves. As a result 15% of my lovely new scarf has been deposited on my jacket, the office chair, various London Transport buses, and in and around my flat. I think I have even managed to inhale some of it, which might attribute to the wooly feeling in my head.

Christmas was a lovely affair. It always is a bit unnerving when you're at a loose end and not really knowing what to expect when everyone else is with respective partners and family et al. In a way it is nice to have some solitary time to reflect and generally get to know yourself again, but I find that after 3 hours on my own I'd better get some human interaction in before I go insane and my personalities get the better of me.

In the end I spent it with two of my friends. Both girls, both Chinese, both Australian. We had the best girly time. Ever. TV was on almost all the time. Watched Baz Luhrmann's Red Curtain Trilogy (Strictly Ballroom, some Romeo and Juliet and Moulin Rouge), The Wizard of Oz, The Sound of Music (three times) and lots of other movies that I can't quite remember.

Food was in abundance as well as drink. The one good thing was that in between we all had mugs of Chinese tea to aid digestion, and lots of fresh fruit smoothies (with vodka).

At the end of the festivities my jeans tore, and Sew, I have to go running, a long long way, and very very Far. Lots of Tea, but no Jam or Bread (carbs, dahling...)

Tomorrow I am venturing into the North. I am hoping it will be nice and I am expecting another few days of wild debauchery. Seriously, all we ever do is drink to get through this life.

If I am not back by Sunday evening, send for Captain Glam...

Nothing To Do With Arbroath...

...is one of my favourite websites. It keeps me entertained for hours on end when I'm bored and can't be bothered to focus on the immediate task at hand. It is great for fun stuff to direct people to, and there are some seriously weird things out there in cyber space.

Today I was on the bus reading a book by Alexander McCall Smith that is called 44 Scotland Street. Its a very interesting read, given that the book itself started life as a newspaper novel. I was greatly intruiged when there was a character who had moved from Arbroath to Edinburgh, so I made it my Task Of The Day to improve my knowledge of geography of the British Isles.

So far, I have found that Hull is on the East side of England, and Edinburgh is more east than I originally thought. Tracing the path to Arbroath leads me still along the East Coast of Scotland and it is located between Dundee and Montrose, and further down from Dundee is the town of Perth which had very pretty scenery, not unlike the Australian version where I lived for a number of months.

Anyway, my duck turned out a success. It was stuffed with apricots, pearl barley, pancetta and chestnuts and halfway through the cooking regime I decided to shred some red cabbage and let the duck cook on a bed of it. My friends think I'm a pretty good chef, which I myself think so too, only when the results turn out good. Half the time when I'm in the kitchen, the receipes that I cook up are concoctions of things that I dream up, some hybrids of menus from various restaurants that I've dined in, and a dash of TV cookery thrown in. Fingers crossed, all my more adventurous dishes have turned out to be pretty good, bar one occassion.

In a drunken state once I announced that I would cook dinner. At the time I was in the pub with some friends and so we all traipsed back chez moi and I had a rifle through the cupboards to see what I could whip up. Having just been to Spain, I had various goodies in tins- seafood, calamari, shrimps, octopi, chorizo... you get the picture. I even had various packets of paella seasoning so I ventured to make a paella. Everyone thought it was a great idea and I started on the preparation.

When it came to the actual cooking, I had forgotten what it was that I'd set out to make. clutching my glass of Rioja, I stumbled into the living room where my friends were getting merrily sozzled and a joint was being passed around. It came my way and so I took a couple of drags and sat on the sofa and chatted a bit. After about 5 minutes one of my friends asked me how far the cooking had got to because they were starting to get quite hungry.

I went back into the kitchen having been reminded of the dish I was supposed to make. 'Paella, paella' I kept chanting to myself, and finding it funnier and funnier. So I threw all the ingredients in a pan and found out I'd run out of rice. Searching through the cupboards threw up a packet of dessert rice, and being completely inebriated I thought that it would work just fine. I suppose that it would have been fine if not for the fact that I'd failed to look at it properly and it was actually Rice Pudding In A Pack, the sort that you Just Add Water, and so into the pan that went and got stirred around and the resulting mass went into the oven for the recommended time.

Forty minutes later the bell went off and I took the pot out of the oven. It smelt okay and by now my friends were starting to come into the kitchen, all of us completely stoned, looking hungrily at the paella. Someone had produced a block of parmesan and a grater and we all thought that it was a pretty good idea to have a Spanish/Italian fusion dish since the rice looked like it was arborio rice. Dishes came out and everyone piled the paella on to their plates and filed back into the living room.

Just as I was spooning some onto my own dish, I heard a cry from the living room. Actually it was more a vomituous sound, echoed over and over. My friends were looking quite disgusted and somewhat green when I went to investigate. Mouthfuls of the 'paella' had been spat out and everyone was glaring at me. I simply shrugged and went back to the kitchen and tried out some of the 'paella' that was looking so tantalisingly delicious.

What happened next was indescribable. I'd never had such a foul assault on my senses. Not even eating field snails in Beijing compared to the taste that I was now trying to have eliminated from my mouth. Red wine seemed to be helping and after downing 2 glasses in quick succession I went back to the living room, silently gathered all the plates and chucked the remaining vileness into the bin, and I doubled up the bag just in case it decided to escape and remind me what a monstrousity I had composed.

Yuck.

We had pizza after that, but one of my friends thought it would be funny to sprinkle sugar on the slice that she gave to me.

I learnt 2 very important lessons that night: One, I should be more careful in the kitchen and pay attention to the ingredients.

And secondly, sometimes your friends can be real cunts.

Sleeplessness...

... and I'm longing for sleep to return.

I went to bed at 1.20 am after a manic present-wrapping session and ended it by wrapping myself in my duvet and falling asleep. Other half has now returned to the fold and instead of taking the opportunity to enjoy the comforts of a Bed-To-Myself my body and mind have other plans like staying awake until 10 am to Collect The Duck.

Anyway, apart from all this festive b*llocks, I am totally shattered and am looking forward to vegging out in front of the TV as one of my all time favourite movies has arrived!

Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

Fabulous!

A somewhat sombre and reflective musing:

... anyway, people, come this Christmas let us enjoy the break, have fun and get drunk. But in between all the jollity let us spare a moment of thought for those less fortunate, and let us reflect on the year that has been. To a certain degree we all complain about how shite life is, but somewhere out there, there is someone who has given up hope of even wishing for a slice of the life that we have...

This Little Monkey is going to Bed, and will return after a few days in the wild.

*hic*

Nightmare Before Christmas...

9.27 am standing outside of John Lewis, gazing longingly at the buff security guard with the magic keys to open the doors.

9.28 am people are gathering round me, slowly invading my aura. All I want is to get to the cash point just beyond the doors because all the rest of the cash points round the back of the building are flashing miserable 'We Are Sorry But There Is A Fault' in lurid neon green and lets be honest, these machines are so unfeeling that they are NOT sorry at all. And they don't think twice of spitting your card out in disdain when the tell you that you 'DO NOT HAVE SUFFICIENT FUNDS' in again, lurid green neon but in CAPS so everyone standing in the queue behind you has to turn away in embarrassment when you meekly take your card and walk away.

9.29 am the Security Guard is approaching the door... Oh bugger, he's gone back inside again.

9.30 am still no sign of Security Guard..

9.32 am YAY, oomph... someone just pushed past me... doors open, Cash Point here I come...

9.35 am YAY YAY YAY (I've been a good boy this year) and I have CASH. Now to go get some breakfast...

9.42 am the place is like a dream, its early in the morning and its quiet although the place is full of people milling about. The cosmetics counters glow with the eerie promise of Less Wrinkles but they are bathed in the harsh light that only serves to make you look like your skin is like sandpaper and which only ever seems to bathe over cosmetic counters.

9.43 am the strange thing about the surroundings is that we're in the Women's Section but it is overrun by Men. Men looking Very Harrassed and Very Panicked clutching bits of paper and Post-Its looking furtively at Things In Boxes that have lots of promised goodies. One can only assume that these are the Hen-Pecked Husbands who feel that they are Duty Bound to buy a present that they know the wife will hate and use as Grounds For Divorce. Those men who are really in the know will do one of the following:

1. Ask a Personal Shopper
2. Ask wife's Gay Best Mate
3. Ask their Gay Best Mate
4. Ask their PA
5. Take her on holiday

For those women in the know, subtle but firm hint should be dropped throughout the year, for example, 'Darling, you know how so-and-so commented how I look good for my age? Well, I heard there's this amazing cream that will guarantee me to look that age. I think its called, erm, Créme de la Mer, or something like that... Oh don't be silly, Nivea just simply doesn't have all the nutrients my skin needs...'

Or something along those lines...

Things That Make You Smile...

...when you're feeling low:

- Fortnum and Mason's clock bells chiming Silent Night before their uniformed staff open their doors.

It is the 22nd of Sodding December and even as more and more people are swapping turkey for the more traditional goose, and more and more people are 'Bah-Humbug'-ing there is still the Mad Rush of people grabbing presents off the shelf and muttering curses at the number of relatives they have to buy for. Amongst the throng of people I am slowly losing my patience, having turned up at Selfridges yesterday after meticulously planning my shopping list and finding the following:

1. They've changed part of the layout
2. They've hired even more annoying Perfume Sprayers positioned at every corner and at the end of every escalator to douse you with Eau de Toilette. The thing is it wouldn't be so bad if it was just was one scent but this is a multitude of scents and you end up smelling like a Toilet.
3. They've only gone and sold out of 4 items I wanted to buy, which means its back to the drawing board.

- Children in Victorian Dress singing carols on London Bridge.

Back to my rant.

All I want is the elusive Goodwill Towards Fellow Shoppers and Service With a Smile. Instead I've been getting the boring PC 'Happy Holidays' and Service With a Snarl. I'm tempted to respond with Happy Hannukah and hand out Jehovah's Witness Handbooks, but first I'll use said handbooks to shield me from the Manic Perfume Sprayers, that way when I get to giving them out you not only get to read about Heaven, you get to have a waft of what Heaven smells like (according to Calvin Klein, Donna Karan, Armani et al)

This year I am making a duck. So far I've concocted the recipe in my head, researched it, made a list of the ingredients, bought all ingredients and I'm all ready to go. Apart from one small glitch: I have forgotten to Buy The Duck. So I look up 192.c0m and various other search engines to find a local butcher to bag a duck. I find 5 listings around my vincinity for Butchers In Camden and so in alphabetical order I start to ring.

First Butcher: 'Sorry, no duck mate. Turkey crown still available' (I HATE turkey with a passion)

Second Butcher: 'No duck'

Third Butcher: 'No duck'

At this rate I'm thinking that I might ring up EuroDisney and invite Donald over for Christmas Dinner.

Fourth Butcher: 'Whaddoyowan?'
Me: 'Duck'
FB: 'Holl on'
Me: 'Okay'
FB (another voice): 'yes?'
Me: 'I'd like to make an order for a duck, collection Saturday morning if possible'
FB: 'Thats £20.99 mate'
Me: 'WHAT??? Did it lay bloody golden eggs?'
FB: 'Nope, but it the last few that we have and they're Kosher'

Looks like I'll be celebrating Hannukah after all...

Taking Stock...

In the last week I have received approximately 234 emails. Out of that number approximately 154 of those were attributed to Making-Your-Penis-Grow-4"-More-By-Christmas, Improve-Your-Sex-Life, and Free-Porn-And-We'll-Throw-In-A-Free-Casserole-Dish-(Limted edition) while you're at it.

Firstly, I wouldn't know what to do or how I would react with an extra 4" on my appendage. Would it feel weird? Would it give me more confidence? Would I have to change my entire inventory of underwear to fit? And the questions continue... if a man had a penile extension would it make him feel more manly, like when women get boob jobs they feel more womanly?

And I do not need a new casserole dish. (well, yet, anyway unless Big flatmate decides not to do any of the washing up he has accumulated by the sink and in no way am I going to succumb to playing housemaid and cleaning up after anyone)

Ooh, I think that's my first NY resolutions.

But I digress...

The rest of the emails are made up of various website deals and idle chat that gets exchanged while I'm at work. A constant flurry and ping-pong of messages to brighten up my day so I can get through the stale fug of institutionalised air that surrounds my workplace and little enticements of A Fabulous Time to be had later in the evening that gets me through the afternoon and allows me to slip my Cosmopolitan Tinted Glasses back on and churn out letters at manic speed.

A few other emails are of the 'Its Year End And We're Taking Stock Of The Years Events' variety. In the last few years while I have been living life in Wild Gay Abandon, I have often given these emails no more than a cursory glance and then dismissed with some disdain the fact that other people should think that their lives are important enough to share with the world how frequently they take valium and how often they contemplate on 'sending Tallulah to the local comprehensive in order for her to learn the value of things in life' et al.

However, this year I have been More Grown Up. I have read them all and in depth, and I now realise it's not out sheer egocentricity or even trying to rub others noses in the fact that so-and-so has seen half the world on Daddys Platinum Card, but it is in fact a very good way of emptying all that innane chatter that clouds your clarity and also a great way of having One Big Conversation with everyone.

I should perhaps consider this approach and thus take stock of 2005 and mass mail everyone.

I'd save SO much on phone bills.

And I wouldn't have to be two faced about telling people I don't really want to see that 'we absolutely must meet up, there's so much to catch up on...'

I can just say, 'Didn't you read my mass mail?'

That would really get on their tits.

How Very Hampstead

Sundays are meant to be days of rest and comtemplation. Many times this theory has been put into practise mainly due to hangovers and just general apathy after a long week of working, socialising, library-ing and drinking.

Yesterday I woke up in the middle of the night, but it was actually closer to 5am. Given that I was already awake I decided to make various phonecalls to the Far East to talk to family and friends. By 7.30am I was ready for bed again and I fell into a listless sleep. 10.30am I was up again and comtemplated brunch.

Brunch is a funny affair. Its not quite breakfast and its not quite lunch, and so when you're faced with a menu that offers you Eggs Benedict and toast with a selection of conserves it gets mind boggling as to whether it is convention to have jam spread on the muffin before the poached egg is laid ontop and drowned in Hollandaise. The boggled mind is subject to even more of an assault when a gaggle of excited hungover women who are on a combination of speed and ritalin sit on the table right next to you and in excited voices that only bats can hear proceed to dissect the events of the evening before of who kissed who and who fancied Mark with the Red Jumper blah blah blah. Then in equally excitable tones they dissect the menu and then order the full Englishh Breakfast but please could they have scrambled eggs instead of fried eggs and could they swap the bacon for some artichokes and hold the sausage and instead of the hash brown could they have smoked salmon instead and would it be possible if I had some botox in my forehead while you're bringing my orange juuice and could make sure that the oranges were plucked by virgins at a full moon and squeezed using a diamond studded juicer.

I wanted to scream. Or at the very least lob bits of mushroom over their table to shut them up.

The highlight of the brunch affair when when I almost sprayed tea over other half who was desperately trying not to laugh when one of the specimens on the girls table waved over the waitress and proclaimed in whining bat frequency that the orange juice tasted like washing up liquid.

Later on we took a stroll over to the heath where some children were running around and dogs were bounding about.

'Oh Charles, Augustine. Do come back. What did daddy tell you about inappropriate behaviour?'

Other half looked at me and said 'How very Hampstead'

I was in fits of laughter.

Dull Man

Somehow under the fug of alcohol and cigarettes I managed to awaken at 8.30 am which is highly annoying because on the days that I want to get up early and face the world I normally hit the snooze button and roll back into bed and not wake until after 9 which is fine at the moment as I am a student and part time work that I have occurs in the afternoons.

This morning lying in bed other half and I end up chatting absolute b*llocks as one does of a Saturday morning. Sometimes its highly amusing, sometimes we end up bickering over trivial things like who was meant to do the washing up and I end up nagging him over things like 'please would you make sure that the socks are in pairs and not thrown higgledy-piggledy into the drawer'

Todays discussion was 'What superhero would you be?'

Me: 'erm, so what would you be?'

Him: 'I'll be more than just a superhero, I'll be a hyperhero'

Me: 'Oh, but then your enemies could sedate you with Ritalin'

Him: (thinks for a while) 'I'd be Dull-Man'

Me: 'What would Dull-Man do then?'

Him: 'I'd bore my enemies into submission.'

Me: 'What would you bore them with?'

I really shouldn't have asked, but I did and I received the funniest rendition of the most innane topics that anyone could really come up with- The British Postcode system. And he delivered it flawlessly in a voice akin to a 1970's old-man drone on a television information programme.

Apparently I'd be Pedantic Man, insisting that my enemies Fold Their Pants and Pair Their Socks and Seperate Their Laundry and Fold Their Clothes and Not Leave Things Lying Around and Wash The Dishes and Take Out The Rubbish...

I got the hint.

I on the other hand was thinking of myself as Captain Glam, blinding my enemies with showers of glitter and freezing them in their tracks with lashings of hair putty and then cuffing them in Mulberry Leather straps and fastened with burnished silver clasps.

No, other half insisted that I should Get Fancy Thoughts Out Of My Head and Load The Washing Machine. I told him to sort out the laundry first.

I am Pedantic Man.

Take Away Chinese...

'plawn bowl?'

'er, nope, prawn balls please.'

'Yes, plawn bowl'

And thus it goes on and on trying to order a chinese takeaway when I'm bladdered on the bus on my way home. It doesn't help that my flatmate and my other (worse) half think that prawn balls are the funniest thing and keep miming a prawn with pendulus testiculae while I'm trying to order egg flied lice.

And to make matters even worse, I'm partially Chinese myself and so it seems like a genuine piss-take.

As it was Friday night I happened upon my usual watering hole which is a really old wine bar where the place is held together with years worth of dirt. Indeed its the nicotine and tar that keep the place together, along with the ash and wine spillages. Its a quaint old place filled with seasoned winos, faux-posh girls toasting Chardonnay's impending wedding with Rioja, and seriosly posh boys yah-yah-ing and rhubarb-rhubarbing away into their petit beaujolais.

Being a regular there, I only have to turn up and there will always be a gaggle of people to greet and chat to. Its a brilliant way to while away the time, especially since I am abandoned until 8.30pm each Friday while the other half stiffens his resolve to go to the gym and become the body beautiful, while I stiffen my resolve in that I am the body beautiful and believe in it more with each glass of colombard...

Speaking of the gym, I was having a conversation with my German flatmate the other day. Earlier this year I proclaimed to everyone who would pay me any attention that this would be the Year of The Body, and with a week had joined the Uni Gym and would traipse over every day to work on muscle groups I never dreamed I had. Somewhere along the line I tired of it and so all my hard work went to pot and the (little) pot belly returned. Now I'm thinking of rejoining the gym and am trying to persuade my German flatmate that she needs to come along too as before.

The gym really is quite an antisocial environment. Throngs of people ignoring each other while the fat ones look at the slim ones in disgust, and the thin ones veil their smirks by concentrating on the bald patch of the newsreader on the Bloomsberg Stock Channel. I remember there was this one time when I thought it would be a good idea to take up core training. This is exercise done on a Swedish ball and you use dumbells while balancing on said ball. Well, I went to this class and it turned out that there were only women there and everyone was filing in and out of the small store room that held dumbells and other core training paraphernalia. Being the only guy there I thought that I'd show these women what being a man was all about. So while the ladies were picking up 1kg dumbells I opted for the 5kg ones instead. What I didn't bank on of course was that the instructor for that particular class was Brenda* who was well known as an ex-SAS officer who was prone to making grown men cry. I didn't cry, I'm proud to say, but I very nearly soiled myself when she walked through the doors...

But I digress. I've now decided that 2006 will be the Year of The Body Beautiful and I will once again endure torture to have the six pack in preparation of my fabulous summer somewhere after all these Sodding Exams are over.

*Names have not been changed to protect the identities.

In my next installment I shall write about my neighbours who live in a different universe altogether.

Green Crisps

I'm never sure if Green Crisps are consumable. My old flatmate once told me that if you eat green potatoes you die, and since crisps are essentially dried, fried potatoes would you die if you ate green crisps?

Firstly, I must apologise for the previous blog. It was my first and in order to muster up the courage to start to plaster information from my life onto the web I had a few drinks with my flatmate for Dutch Courage.

As it turned out, the amount we drank could only be described as copious. And so I launched into the world of blogging by sounding like an absolute twat.

Although I still attribute this experiment to Debbie. And when I finally get round to emailing her to tell her about it I hope I'm sober. After my first post I thought I'd email her and it bounced back, thank goodness too because it was the biggest pile of w*nk that I've ever written.

And so on the way into work this morning I was wondering what could I write about? My life seems pretty bland but then there are some bit which are quite amusing and some which are quite annoying. From time to time there will be lots of rants about the general cleanliness of my flatmates and personal hygiene issues which I have to tolerate (their PH, not mine)

Actually, I feel that I am just starting getting excited about blogging when my oh so supportive bf tells me that its going out of fashion.

I always end up being the last to catch up in technology.

Oh, and today I got another email from The Fish Society asking me to buy smoked haddock, salmon, clams, oysters and sea urchins... Aren't they like, so late 80's?

Oh my god....

Oh my god, like...

I so can't believe you just typed me out like...

Okay, I'm out here by choice. it was my muse, my inspiration... Ms Debbie Brummie, that made me take the... PLUNGE.

After all she is more experienced, more au fait, more...

woman...

SHE IS FABULOUS!

Sorry Jen and Dawn... She is though.

Okay. Here I start, attempting normality, starting moribund.

Deb: I don't know you, but Loud Secretary could give me a boost...

UPDATE: This is my first post but basically I'm going to tell my life... bit by bit, little by little, flatmate by flatmate...

I already feel SO two faced..