The morbid adventures of Minge

formspring.me

2009-12-04T16:52:00.001Z

Ask me anything you like! http://formspring.me/xxxrmt

formspring.me

2009-12-03T20:35:00.001Z

Ask me anything http://formspring.me/xxxrmt

formspring.me

2009-12-03T20:23:00.001Z

Does this work? by xxxrmt

No.

Ask me anything

formspring.me

2009-12-03T20:20:00.001Z

Sweet or savoury?

Sweet. I like sticky lips.

Ask me anything

formspring.me

2009-12-03T20:16:00.001Z

Why gay and not bi?

I don't know.

Ask me anything

formspring.me

2009-12-03T17:39:00.001Z

Why gay and not bi?

Don't know.

Butter or margarine?

I'm too posh for margarine.

Ask me anything

formspring.me

2009-12-03T17:38:00.001Z

Why gay and not bi?

Don't know.

Ask me anything

formspring.me

2009-12-03T17:35:00.003Z

Butter or margarine?

I'm too posh for margarine. Butter, every time. Or buttah.

Ask me anything

formspring.me

2009-12-03T17:35:00.001Z

Why gay and not bi?

I have no idea.

Ask me anything

Watch Minge tweet

2009-12-03T14:07:00.001Z

Twitter!

Nevaland

2008-08-15T14:59:00.009+01:00

I come temporarily out of retirement, dear reader, to encourage all and sundry to see Nevaland (where boys do grow up) by Castoffs 2, a part of the Edinburgh Fringe this year.

The story begins in Nevaland. Peter Pan is off to Kensington to spend the Summer with Wendy. Before leaving, he warns the Lost Boyz not to grow up...

Is Nevaland a real place? A figment of our imaginations? A place of escape? If the latter, one wonders, by the end of the piece, if the place one escapes to is sometimes worse than that which one has escaped from.

The star of the piece, Matt Flory, takes his character and her companions through a world of confusion and turmoil exposing the real reason for their arrival in Nevaland, greeted every time by Tink Da Bell.

Largely Forgotten enters Nevaland's Got Talent in the hope of finding someone and losing the pain of an alcoholic wife-beating Father behind him. Tiga finds love in the arms Bunny Boy, her soldier. But will she be forced into a loveless marriage? Will Bunny come home alive? Will Wen-Day be able to keep her family together?

These questions and many more are answered in Nevaland; the audience member carried along on a roller-coaster ride of tragedy and comedy; the characters facing many forms of abuse, domestic violence, honour killings, alcohol, drugs, and growing from child into adult.

As ever, Castoffs have the ability to bring social issues to our attention using humour without being stupid or silly and calamity without being patronising or clichéd. Each and every member of the company are enthusiastic, eager and a joy to watch. They continue to go from strength to strength. Always sure that they cannot beat their performance from the previous year, I'm always left realising that they have.

The campery, drama and intensity always give me that fit to burst feeling, especially so when Aisha Iqbal launches into her first scene, when Jono McBeth begins to sing and when Matt Flory delivers his lines with brilliant conviction and a knowing look only a true thespian can convey.

Fabulous, five stars.

Nevaland is playing at Augustine's studio, venue 152 from 12th - 17th August at 1615 and from 19th - 24th August at 1145.

The Dick Mallet

2007-10-28T11:53:00.000Z

My days of blogging have come to a sorry end, dear reader. To celebrate, I hereby finish with my beloved Sunday Mallet, daughter of Fib Sunday, cousin to Haiku Saturday.

Families are funny things.

The last edition of the Sunday Mallet began several weeks ago. Japanesewhispers left us with cock. The first word which came to mind: dick.

Please, my lamb. Play on.

Se7en

2007-10-26T15:30:00.000+01:00

I've been tagged by Raquel.

Here are the rules:

Firstly, post these rules and a link to the person who tagged you.

Secondly, share seven facts about yourself, all devastatingly interesting.

Lastly, tag seven people at the end of your post, linking their names to their blogs. Follow this up by advising said parties of the tag in the comment section on their blog(s).

Seven things about Minge:

My mobile telephone number is +447841831579.

I've had a cough for ten months.

I don't like thrash metal.

I have no spleen (to speak of).

My Mother wanted to call me André, but my Father couldn't pronounce it.

I hate the SNP and everything that the isolationist bigots stand for.

I've never been to the southern hemisphere although I long to and would adore standing on the equator.

I'm tagging David, Moncrief Speaks, Bill, Salty Sailor, Krafty Bitch, Simon and (Japanese) Alan.

Fall

2007-10-26T14:39:00.000+01:00

Spring forward, fall back. That's a good way to remember what to do with the clocks each Spring and Autumn. I mentioned this to my sister-in-law last week and we wondered why the third season of the year is never described as Autumn in the United States of America. I say we. I was doing the wondering. No conclusion was come to, although I was told that the word Autumn is not unknown to Americans.

And so, dear reader, the clocks will fall back in the early hours of Sunday morning. The sun will rise at 07:10 and set at 16:42 here in Edinburgh, affording most people only nine and a half hours of daylight. For me, that number will be much less as I hardly ever rise before 09:00. Worse still, we have 22nd December to look forward to with only six hours and fifty eight minutes of daylight. I'll end up with about three or four, I think. A far cry from the seventeen hours and thirty seven minutes we were blessed with on 22nd June.

The point to all this? That there's nothing much to look forward to at this time of year. It's all downhill from here on. And if one more person tells me that Autumn is their favourite season because of all the lovely colours, I'll abuse them. Physically, of course. I'm too old for sexual shenanigans and emotional torture is not something I'm terribly good at.

I'm just marching time.

But isn't that what we do throughout our lives? From the quickening inside the womb, we're just waiting to draw our final breath.

And Mum always told me to never put off until tomorrow that which I could do today. I'm just a useless man.

Car

2007-10-25T20:19:00.000+01:00

I remember the day my Father and I went to pick up the new car with such clarity.

It was a very warm week day. Dad was not at work. My school holidays were in full swing. His break from work had just begun. My skin was a warm brown. His was as white then as mine is now, Britain having bypassed anything close to a Summer this year.

The hairs that made up Dad's wig were rigid. They did not move. All thanks to hairspray for men. Mum's was cheaper and did the same thing, but he refused to use it. The year was 1978, a year in which many gay men were seen sporting lumberjack shirts. Some straight men wore them, too, one being my Father. The shirt was mainly cream in colour with horizontal and vertical stripes of differing thickness in a colour my Mother would describe as brick. His trousers were navy blue; polyester. The belt was plastic and dark brown, as were his shoes, though leather and not plastic. I was six years old and wore, as many a six year old did at the time, open toed sandals or Jesus boots. Some boys in my school told me they were girls' shoes. I wore beige shorts and a white short sleeve shirt.

Mum was washing up at the kitchen sink as Dad and I left for the bus stop. I'd never seen Dad on a bus before, only ever in a car, taxi or van and naturally assumed he'd never taken one in his life. I felt very important thinking I was about to educate my father.

"Bye, Mum!"

Mum kissed me, holding my face with her hot, soapy hands. Bubbles clung to my cheeks.

The car showroom was in Winton, the Moordown end, so we took the number 31 from Fernheath Road. Dad allowed me to believe he'd never been on a bus before. I persued the rôle reversal by instructing my Dad to hold his hand out when we saw the bus come around the corner from Coleman Road.

"And when we get on, you have to say one and a half to Winton, please. The driver will tell you how much you have to pay."

Our wait under the dappled shade from a front garden tree was short. The yellow bus soon made the corner and Dad did exactly as he was told. We stepped into the bus from beneath the tree briefly passing through the vivid light and the warm August sunshine. Dad got the tickets as I waited to dispense the coins he'd given me into the driver's plate.

"This way," I said, climbing the unpainted metal stairs to the top deck.

We sat at the front of the bus, me next to the window, Dad at the aisle. He lit up a fag, took a deep draw on it and sighed. The red plastic seats burned the backs of my legs and I fidgeted.

"This side," he said, winking, and gesturing with a side nod of his head to cross to the opposite seat where we'd find shade from the hot sun. He swapped seats, I followed. This meant I was now sat at the aisle. Mum would never have let this happen, but I said nothing, wondering if perhaps Dad thought I was more grown-up than Mum imagined me to be.

I sat up straight, holding onto the chrome bar before me across the wide front windows of the bus.

"We'll be back in Turbary Park soon," I said, Dad nodding, drawing more on his cigarette. "Then we go up through Columbia and Ensbury Park."

"Oh?" said Dad, feigning interest, staring ahead into space.

I delighted in being right. Children of six often make claims which bear no fruit. But not I. Not today. Columbia Road. Ensbury Park. Moordown.

And then Winton. The first stop in which, was for us.

The showroom contained three cars. All the same (to me), just different colours. I remember it being stiflingly hot. I had no empathy for the man greeting us then, having never worn a suit and tie myself, but here he was, in one and in something of a greenhouse, too, the whole of the frontage being made entirely from glass.

I don't think that anyone in Britain would have even heard of air conditioning in 1978.

"Mr Tapping!"

How did he know my Dad?

"Sit here," said Dad as he wandered off with the man in the suit into a dimly lit space which was too dark for me to make sense of. I sat there on the fabric and chrome office chair for what felt like an eternity. Dad didn't come back. Neither did the man.

Just as panic began to set in, I heard the beep from a car's horn. Looking out into the street, I saw a blue estate car with my father sat in the driver's seat. He was grinning from ear to ear. I leapt from the chair and mouthed shall I come out?

"Yes!" called my Dad, whom I'd heard perfectly.

With no man in a suit so say goodbye to, I heaved open the heavy door from the showroom and raced across the pavement to the car. The passenger window was wound down completely. I rested my crossed arms on the open space and smiled at my Dad. Then giggled.

"Get in," he said.

So I did.

I was happy to be in a brand new car but sad on realising Dad was Dad again and I was the little boy once more.

"You alright?"

"Yes, Dad."

I loved the sound of the engine. Although loud, it seemed quieter than our last car. Another Datsun and the same model, although blue in colour. I wasn't sure about the colour. Our last car was orange and I preferred that.

The noise and the change in the tone of the sounds coming from the engine as Dad moved up through the gears were fascinating.

"Let's go on a drive before going home," said Dad.

We went to Poole. I remember passing the large Barclays Bank building near the Arndale Centre. The next thing I remember was Dad lifting me out of the car back at home in Turbary Park Avenue. I'd nodded off.

I still like to sleep on car journeys, long and short. Some things change, some stay the same, dear reader.

I'm alive. Dad's dead.

Imagine

2007-10-24T11:56:00.000+01:00

Ha!

Ha! Ha!!

And...

Ha! Ha!! Ha!!!

Good morning, dear reader and welcome to the catch-up edition of The morbid adventures of Minge. Unlike Captain Oates, I've returned, although I was some time.

I must say, though, at this point. I'm quite uncomfortable with the grammar there. Captain Oates' famous statement, "I may be some time," has always bothered me. How can a person be time? Was the captain hinting at something, that he was/is some kind of deity? Or maybe a well-loved time traveller with a penchant for Earth and Britain?

My recent video blogging adventures were a fun exercise and I really enjoyed doing it, as did Ian. He was the mind behind the camera; the director, editor and interviewer. One of the questions put to me came from David. He asked me to name my favourite Asian dish and suggested I should be filmed while cooking it. As ever, I'm keen to oblige. You can see the results, my love, in the previous three entries, here, here and here.

Oh, and for my anonymous reader who requested it, here's Mrs McGinty's recipe for Cinder Toffee:

You will need

200g caster sugar
100g golden syrup
40g goats' butter
1 tablespoon water
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cider vinegar
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

Method

Line a small baking tray (I use an 8" sandwich tin) with parchment paper.
Place all the ingredients apart from the vinegar and bicarbonate of soda into a heavy bottomed pan. Put on a medium heat and stir until the sugar has dissolved.
Bring to the boil and heat until a teaspoon of the syrup becomes a soft ball when dropped into a cup of cold water (138°c on a sugar thermometer).
Remove from the heat and add the vinegar and bicarbonate of soda. Beat well and watch the toffee mixture foam up.
Pour into your prepared tray or tin.
After ten or so minutes, once the toffee has begun to set, score it with a sharp knife into portion sizes according to your personal taste.
After approximately twenty more minutes, break your cinder toffee along the lines and store in an air tight container where it will remain in good shape for up to ten days.

Experiment with the flavour by replacing the vanilla extract with other extracts such as almond, maple or similar. I've a mind, next time I make it, to replace the extract and the water with a double espresso! I've done quite a bit of travelling throughout the isle quite recently. Much of October seems to have been spent on the roads and rails of the United Kingdom.

The first part of the month took Ian and I to London. We stayed there with our fabulous friend Robin who was kind enough to put us up for a long weekend. Pictures of which can be seen here, my lamb. We went the whole hog and did all the things tourists do; a cruise on the Thames, a trip to Buckingham Palace, a wander around Trafalgar Square, took in the neon lights at Piccadilly Circus, explored some galleries, visited St Paul's Cathedral, toured Television Centre, saw some shows and so much more besides. The shows we saw were Les Misérables, Avenue Q and Wicked. I plan to blog about these, at length, later.

Before leaving the topic altogether though, I will say that all three musicals were absolutely fabulous, well produced and provocative. Human (and animal) relationships can be peculair. I'm left wondering if it's true that everyone's a little bit racist (more later), if wickedness is as black and white a situation as it's often painted and who would be the better king of France should the monarchy there be restored? Louis, Henri, Charles or Nicolas? Which man would you chosse, dear reader? Or do you feel a woman would do a better job?

I'm sure, really, that wickedness is indeed not so black and white. There are many shades of grey in the mix, as is proven by my late Father who died on 11th October. He might have been evil personified to my Mother, Mark (my brother) and I, though he obviously wasn't those things to his second wife or she'd have not been able to say these things. Having said that, she was and is able to lie (his family will NOT miss him - see here). Why she'd want to lie, now, though, I'm not sure. If he was cruel to her, she'd have no need to publish such a sickly-sweet goodbye. Perhaps, after meeting her, he'd become too old to fuck around with other women and pick fist-fights with his friends and relatives?

I was lucky and happy to be in Bournemouth for the week following Roy's death. My presence stopped my eldest brother from using my Mum's house as a hotel, accommodating his appearance at his Father's funeral. Cruel of him, I'm sure, to ask (and he did) my Mother for a bed for him and his son while in Bournemouth for the funeral. Does this man have a heart of stone? Like his Father, does he have no conscience? Did he really expect my Mum to give him somewhere to stay so that he could attend the funeral of the man who made her life a living hell? I'm sure there's irony there somewhere, though I don't care to look for or expose it.

I'm sure she was prepared to, but my presence but a bar in his way. He doesn't speak to me since I confronted him about opening personal correspondence between me and his son and questioning his motives in taking my Mother on foreign holidays.

I wondered if, even though we weren't attending the funeral, we'd be sad and melancholy on the day or open a bottle of champagne. As it was, I'm currently taking anti-biotics for yet another chest and sinus infection so champagne would have been off the menu. Come the 18th October, we'd kind of almost fogotten what was going on until people started turning up at home, wondering how my Mum was. The only person not to come or call on the telephone was my eldest brother, Ken.

We were neither happy nor sad about his death or funeral, though I will admit to being sad about him in general ever since hearing of his death.

As hinted at before, he wasn't utterly wicked. The movie made of his life would be littered with violence and abuse, both of the physical and emotional sort. However, there would be the odd happy scene. I remember him yodeling in the Alps, drawing with me at the kitchen table, showing me how to saw oak and taking me to a restaurant for the very first time at six or seven years of age.

I used to wonder and think that perhaps he wasn't so terrible after all, though I soon changed my mind when I saw the looks on the faces of the people in whom I was able to confide. Good people don't systematically abuse their families on more levels than I knew existed. Good people don't sleep with their wife's family. Good people don't serially cheat on their partners. Good people dont beat their children to a pulp.

He was an actor, too. On divorcing, friends of my parents couldn't believe such a couple could or would ever part.

"But Roy's such a great bloke..."

He could charm the birds out of the trees, buy gifts for his friends' children and be the life and soul of any party. Birds may have been charmed, but we were repulsed. Any Christmas presents, shoes or school uniforms were paid for by the money my Mother earned cleaning during the evenings. In my Mother's words, usual gatherings of my immediate family were given, "...the golden silence treatment..." by my Father.

"Silence!"

"Be quiet, I'm watching telly."

"Go outside and play and stop bothering me."

He's been a major topic of conversation for many years. I really wonder, now, how we'll fill those gaps in conversation. I'm sure, with things more cheerful.

He may have gone and this will do many of us some good, but what will not go are the memories. His snarling face. His awful temper. His fist. His flying kicks.

On some level, his wild behaviour was never as difficult for me to cope with as it was for Mum and to a certain extent, Mark. Apparently, he got worse as time went on. The violence and screaming was normal to me. For Mark, weekly beatings and slanging matches became a daily occurrence. For Mum, a lady who grew up in a home free from hostility and full of love and gay times, her married life must have been an absolute nightmare. Like a story from a soap opera which builds and builds over a few weeks, Mum's life descended into reasoned anarchy over thirty or so years; an anarchy which, however she's tried, she's been unable to recover from since the old man left us cold an penniless in 1981.

I'm still undecided if I'm happy or sad. I can't generalise, though, and find being black and white quite difficult. I suppose I feel grey. I have decided on two things, though. I shall write a memoir in two parts:

My Father and other monsters

and

I remember Mama

I plan on starting next week. Any tips will be gratefully received.

Bournemouth wasn't all doom and gloom, of course. The highlight was spending time with my Mum at and outwith the bingo, my wonderful niece (see evidence of that here, here, here and here), other family members and friends.

Following on from my evening watching Avenue Q, two conversations made me ponder more about the racism issue. Auntie Lil said that Britons are able to be so openly and unapologetically racist because we've never lost a war in modern times and that military superiority implies cultural superiority. No-one in Germany could get away with doing the Nazi salute or calling anyone a money-grabbing Jew. However, people in Britain are called Wogs, Spics, Yids, Pakis and Wops with no-one batting an eyelid.

With my Mother complaining about the number of Poles and East Europeans in the country, my American sister-in-law piped up with a reason why she doesn't want her daughter to learn Spanish. My sister-in-law is fabulous, though a little naive and easily led. She told me how her Father, a Methodist pastor had told her how copious amounts of Mexicans were flooding the United States of America with their extended families, taking from the state without putting anything into the economy and refusing to learn English. Strange for a man of God to have not heard of the story of the good Samaritan.

Always unresolved... I still imagine a world full of good people, though I wonder if it will only ever exist in my imagination. My Mother was grateful, I'm sure, for the home the UK gave her when the German army invaded her home island in 1940. Native Americans - did they complain about white settlers taking and not giving or not learning Adai, Coosan, Tunica or similar?

Will history always repeat itself? Until we learn from it?

You may say that I'm a dreamer (some say I am), but I'm not the only one.

Cook #3

2007-10-24T11:46:00.000+01:00

Cook #2

2007-10-24T11:45:00.000+01:00

Cook #1

2007-10-24T11:43:00.000+01:00

Great idea. Why don't I steal it? (Part IXd)/Mrs McGinty's Cinder Toffee

2007-10-13T17:53:00.000+01:00

La dernière partie:

Great idea. Why don't I steal it? (Part IXc)

2007-10-13T11:49:00.001+01:00

No acid house, sadly, though I hope that this (or this) might make up for the lack of said musical style.

Great idea. Why don't I steal it? (Part IXb)

2007-10-12T20:51:00.000+01:00

Part two, dear reader, in which I go deeper. Deeper than ever before!

Would you like to join Minge?

Click on the play button! Go on, you know you want to!

Great idea. Why don't I steal it? (Part IXa)

2007-10-11T21:33:00.000+01:00

Today, dear reader, is National Coming Out Day. A good day, then, to come out with answers to questions recently put to me. The video below contains part one and lasts just over seven minutes. I'll upload part two shortly.

By the way, forget the Euro. I've seen the future and it's the quid.

Harajuku

2007-10-10T15:25:00.000+01:00

Be Gwen. Go on, you know you want to. I do.

Great idea. Why don't I steal it? (Part IX)

2007-10-02T11:22:00.000+01:00

Guten morgen, dear reader.

Nuns can be violent!

To celebrate the third anniversary of his blog, David recently invited his readers to submit questions which he then answered in a videocast. I plan on doing the same, recording the video in perhaps seven or so days time.

Until that time, please leave your questions for me here in the comments section or email them to me with questions in the subject line.

Ask what you like. Go on, you know you want to.

Everybody loves a sequel, even if it's plagiarism.

Shadows

2007-10-01T22:38:00.000+01:00

Medium shadows; now long and low
Tickle me and usher me in
To write poems
And order laws to repeal themselves

A warning shot fired overhead
Arithmetic, yes, wet clothes
The numbers seem to paint
Scenes from my childhood

The Land by Vita Sackville-West
Was a square peg in my round hole
Whittling it down
Was done under our club tree

No words were spoken then
But nests were made
As big sister played
First day at school on our first day at school

The Ice Mallet

2007-09-30T21:51:00.000+01:00

Having decided, by the tail end of last week, to buy a new computer, Ian popped into Scotsys in Glasgow on his way home from work last Friday and picked one up.

We are now the proud owners of a new iMac. It works like a dream and has been no trouble at all. Although it promises to whip some up. New house, new baby; new computer, new virtual presence. I've taken the plunge and invested in a .mac account. I get an email address, the ability to instantly upload from iPhoto to the web and a huge chunk of web space... I'm thinking of using it to blog.

On Saturday, Ian put together a highlights package from my niece's eighteenth birthday party. Thankfully, my singing is unheard. Without going too far down the philosophical road, reliving the experience of being a woman, if only for an evening, has me once more wondering what it feels like for a girl.

So, dear reader, that was Friday and Saturday. Today is Sunday and time for The Sunday Mallet! If you didn't know, it's a word association game played out in the comments section. For the original instructions, please click here. For something vulgar, please click here.

Last week, Salty Sailor left us with vanilla. The first word to pop into my mind: ice. Now, my love, it's over to you...!

Girls

2007-09-30T00:18:00.000+01:00

Lists

2007-09-28T14:35:00.000+01:00

Regular readers of this blog will know that I'm a fan of lists and am mad for constructing them. Not having done so in a while (I've resisted temptation so many times to avoid being predictable and boring) and being inspired to do so by this article, here is my current top ten most fabulous albums:

10 Cindy Lauper - The Body Acoustic
9 Bent - The Everlasting Blink
8 Amy Winehouse - Frank
7 Sarah Brightman - Dive
6 Kate Bush - Aerial
5 Saint Etienne - So Tough
4 Sandra - My Favourites
3 Madonna - Confessions On A Dancefloor
2 Liza Minnelli - Results
1 Pet Shop Boys - Behaviour

I am a fickle person, though, dear reader. If asked to compile this list yesterday or tomorrow, ten different entries might appear.

Radio 1 is soon to be forty years old. That's only a few years older than me! Scarey! Of course, with that in mind, it's no surprise to learn that the station has long since ceased to be my favourite. When tuning in now, usually by chance, I quickly spin the dial again on hearing nothing but a horrible racket. Queer. That's how my Mother used to describe it when it was the only station to which I'd listen back in the 1980s.

Actually, that's not quite true. I'd sit at the old hi-fi with my finger poised over the play and record buttons on the cassette deck with the tape wound to just the right place, where clear ended and brown began. Sing Something Simple would end and the Radio 2 continuity announcer would hand over to Radio 1 in FM. And the top 40 countdown would begin!

Once a good song began, I'd start recording and pause on a beat just before I thought Bruno Brookes was going to start speaking (talking over the music really cheesed me off). If something came on that I didn't know, I'd record it anyway. If, halfway into the song, I realised I didn't like it, I'd rewind the cassette and cue it up, again, right on a beat so that seamless playback was guaranteed. Usually, pause on, pause off, just to lose Bruno. How, now, I wish I'd kept him. And all those C90 cassettes.

Once the Network Chart programme began on 2CR, I'd sometimes flip between stations, just to see which station said my favourite song of the day was doing best. Pet Shop Boys often did better on the BBC resulting in me berating the Kid Jensen fans at school for their poor taste.

I wonder if anyone listens to any singles rundown programmes anymore. For me and other people of my age, such shows were the only place we could hear our favourite music in good quality sound. These days (There I go again, sounding like an old fart) the youngsters can find their favourite music at the drop of a hat on interactive television, You Tube, the internet in general, virtual jukeboxes and a myriad of different radio stations.

And I suppose, my glee in hearing the UK's forty top selling singles in crystal clear FM is comparable, now, with, well, nothing, only perhaps the omnipresence of music to any listener's ear where ten years ago we had to go into a shop, hand over money and take a CD home with us.

In the 1980s, I'd have to wait all week to hear the music I loved. In the 1990s, I had to wait as long as it took me to go into town and then back home again on the bus or on my motorbike. Now, gratification is instant. If I want something, I can click and have it.

No wonder, then, that we've all run out of patience and the world is an uglier, grumpier and less desirable place to live in.

How strange that a trip down memory lane over the way I listened to the radio could produce something vaguely philosophical.

Italian

2007-09-28T11:16:00.000+01:00

I began the second day of my adult education programme yesterday, dear reader. At ten o'clock, Digital Imgage Editing for Apple Macintosh Computers kicked off with half the machines out of action. Of the machines that did work, half wouldn't allow a user to login. Of those that did allow a user to login, half failed to launch Photoshop elements. Meaning two people were able to take part in the class, fourteen were not. So our very impatient, joyless, stern and severe tutor sent us home.

I did not go home. I went to Henderson's for a lunch of vegetable curry with brown rice and then on to Costa opposite The Mound for a double espresso. While there, I switched on my mobile telephone and found I had a voicemail from Pat. I called her back. She'd been ill but no virus was able to squash the enthusiasm she has for her grandson's theatre career. She spoke to me about his appearance in Footloose with a vivacity rarely heard these days.

Shit. I know I'm old. Only old people say these days.

I'd have taken the opportunity to see him in Footloose while Ian and I are in London next week, though we're unable to. Our free time does not match the times he's on stage. So that's that. Traurig aber wahr.

From Costa, I walked across to the National Theatre of Scotland to begin my history of art course. I did wonder if we'd begin with cave paintings, but we did not. No, instead, our introduction was with medieval Italian art. We spent two hours looking at approximately six paintings. How, I'm not sure, but our delightful tutor had a lot to say. She was always interesting, insightful and brought a realism to the art as previously unseen. It was quite clear to me and to the other seventeen middle class ladies in my company that Agnes has a love for her work which most working people would be jealous of. Not only love but passion.

Gunk

2007-09-26T16:12:00.001+01:00

Guten tag, huren!

Did you see Tribe last night? It was fabulous. Just when I though biofuels might save the planet, I'm shown how they're actually wrecking it.

I went to see Dr Bermingham (not Birmingham) this morning. We discussed my ongoing chest/coughing/mucus problems. I told him that I've a notion I'm allergic to dairy. Or at least, I have an intolerance. Or maybe wheat. My ever fabulous GP told me there's only one way to find out. I have to consume some and see what happens. But in a controlled experiment, of course. The only trouble is, I don't want to. I've avoided wheat and dairy since yesterday and to be frank, I'm fine. Well, not perfectly fine, there's still a wee something up, but nothing like twenty four hours ago. At its worst, I feel like I'm drowning in gunk, my throat is killing me and I feel more depressed than a lesbian with super-long fingernails.

I'm not too worried about this. Dr Bermingham (I think his name is Mark) told me the symptoms of such allergies/intolerances usually manifest themselves pretty quickly. They can dissipate over a period of hours, sometimes days, sometimes weeks. It all depends on what my body doesn't like and how it's reacting to it.

Of course, it's still not a given fact that I am allergic to a certain foodstuff or group. To be sure of this, I have to have an allergy/intolerance test which I will arrange soon (it's not available on the NHS).

And he also explained that the unusually high number of sinus and chest infections I've suffered with this year can all be explained away by the disgracefully large amount of mucus I'm producing because of this allergy. It's a perfect breeding ground for viruses and bacteria. The nasty airborne cunts fly into my nose and throat when I breathe in and immediately find a nice home for themselves, somewhere wet, warm and full of food. Then, I suppose, they start having it off and having babies. Yuck.

At least I now know it's not all in my head. I was beginning to wonder. No, seriously. A cough can irritate the back of the mouth and throat. And an irritation can make for a sore throat. And a sore throat can make the best of us cough. See how my mind works, dear reader?

I'm to go back and see Mark in a few weeks. He told me he'd be interested to know how this develops. How kind.

And his likeness to Salty Sailor is as deliciously disturbing as ever. It's uncanny. Incidentally, you should click here for his very interesting article on air transport and taxation. And while I'm on the subject of blogs, my comedy partner has just begun a new one: Broken Chalk.

I thank you.

£50.00

2007-09-25T22:36:00.000+01:00

I earned a rather tasty fifty pounds today. And for only forty five minutes work. Well, I say work, it actually wasn't.

I've been many things to many people, dear reader, but never a guinea pig to a professor. Until today. Within the confines of Edinburgh University's King's Buildings Campus, I pretended to be three people, all with a desire to interact with automated telephone based services!

One of my alter egos got to muck about with a voice recognition service, another with a push button system and a third with a combination of them both*. My telephone conversations were highly entertaining, both for myself and the operator I sometimes spoke with on the other end of the line who was barely able to stifle his hysterical laughter!

I felt like an actor, it must be said, and a bad one. In a soap opera. A daytime soap opera. I pretended to be three different people. The guy with whom I interacted pretended to be three people. Pure farce. Still, farce or no farce, I got paid for it. I never thought I could have so much fun prostituting myself.

The money almost covers the price of my Wicked ticket which I shall see on the weekend after next. I'm so excited, dear reader, I could... Yes, you know the rest.

*I know it's not strictly possible to have three alter egos, but I don't care frankly.

Education

2007-09-24T19:57:00.000+01:00

I began two adult education classes today, dear reader, courtesy of Edinburgh City Council. They're a kind bunch of people.

The morning commenced, for me at any rate, at five minutes to eight. The radio-alarm kicked in, right on cue, with the ugly voice of a Today presenter. I was immediately flustered. I continued to be flustered while getting washed, dressed and ready for my day of erudition.

Where's my flask? Have I got a spare pen in case my favourite runs out? Which apron shall I sacrifice to clay?

I suppose I should be grateful for a hurried morning of agitation. With time on my hands, I'd have been able to think and to ponder. Thinking is no good for a stressed Minge. No. I usually end up in a right state. The best way to avoid turmoil is to be swamped; a full plate.

I could feel my heartbeat getting harder and louder once I was ready at my front door, though. For the first time in a long time, I thought of a cigarette. But it was only a brief thought after rubbing my tongue over my teeth.

I hate meeting people. I hate to be the centre of attention. I hate introductions.

Meeting people and introductions were surely the order of the day and with my camera still in the hands of its manufacturer for repair, I would surely be the centre of attention turning up to a photography class without a camera. I think Ian could see all this flooding through my tiny mind so did his best throughout the car journey to keep me chatting about our ongoing detox. Yes, I had a headache. Yes, I was hungry. Yes, I needed a coffee.

Scared, sweating like a paedophile in a schoolyard, I entered the South Bridge Resource Centre and immediately made my way for the toilets. I was desperate for a waz and to wipe my face. I managed to do both rather quickly and then returned to the main reception area to find out where to go and how, if the need came, to escape as quickly and as easily as possible.

Hurrah! Only a few metres away: Computer suite 1. And two old women and a very old man entering before me.

Old people. I'm not scared of old people. I quite like old people, actually. I suppose, in that respect, I'm ageist. I can't help it. It's just the way I am, my lamb. Old people have never been a threat to me. And in circumstances where I have been threatened, there were old people coming to the rescue. One could even argue, actually, that a very old person saved my life. Thursday. Pension day in a post office I once worked at. An armed robbery. But lets not go there. It was a long time ago.

My first class of the day. Digital photography. A daytime class, so I expected middle aged housewives and pensioners. I was right to do so. I was the youngest person there. Two other women in their forties or fifties. The rest (one man and a handful of women) were very old. The tutor, Neil, was nearer my age than any other member of the class, though the distance was still considerable.

I was immediately at ease. As much as I hate clichés, I often use them, and I wonder now what all the fuss was about.

It was a fabulous class. My worry over not having my camera soon vanished once that wee matter was aired. The tutor had enough to deal with. Many of my fellow students had never taken a single photograph with their digital cameras. One woman didn't even know how to switch it on.

What fun.

Yes, my fears were allayed with the presence of the elderly but my heart skipped a beat on realising I was surrounded by the middle classes and one or two people who thought they were or would like to be! I adore middle class people. I find them exciting and interesting. I was not disappointed. The first hour of the two hour class was basically a question and answer session; a free-for-all. Hilarious. Sentences began with my very expensive camera or my husband and I or mine is much bigger than that. In the room, I was smiling, in my mind, I was giggling.

So with no camera, I had to team up with someone else once we were invited to used the computers to experiment with editing software. This was doubly hilarious for me. The tutor, who seemed an open, honest and broad-minded man, didn't consider that a bunch of people who, in most circumstances, hadn't moved on from inserting batteries into their cameras, might know how to switch a computer on. I added naïvety to my list of Neil's attributes.

My team mate was a middle aged lady with a strong French accent though for whom, it seemed, English had become her first language. As luck would have it, the computers we were using were Apple Macs. eMacs, to be precise. We were busy uploading photographs of her very Morningside (and very beautiful) garden. On changing seats to enable my new found friend better access to the mouse, we noticed no-one else had proceeded beyond the login screen. Oops. Were we going to be branded the class swots? It seemed not. What I love about the middle classes is their observance of all things polite. They may hate you, dear reader, but they will smile at you and tell you how well you're doing. But take them too far and it will all come spilling out.

Should I worry? Will it all come spilling out? Or can these people stand me for ten hours over five weeks?

My lunch break lasted an hour, during which I ended my detox. The headache was just too much. Some people might like the feeling of having their head in a vice. I do not. At the top of Infirmary Street, I found Caffé Nero and indulged in a double espresso. Within moments, my headache was nothing but a memory.

And so to the afternoon. And pottery.

Still slightly anxious and nervous, yes, but by now I'm feeling relatively buoyed up by my matin confidence boost.

I was the second person to arrive at the pottery room. Waiting for me was a lady in her mid to late fifties. I was delighted in finding her, also to be middle class. Though my delight was short lived. She was not the stereotypical middle class person I'd come to love. She told me how she remembered coming to the building we were in when she was a child to wash for it had formerly been a public bath. No, not a swimming pool, dear reader, but a place for people to come to take a bath and wash themselves when such facilities were not present in their own homes.

Throughout the pottery class, my new friend continued to feed me more morsels from her very interesting life story as we built coil pots. She'd lived all over the world and seen many different changes to her life. Just as Ian had earlier kept me from having a panic attack, my pottery partner kept me calm with her fabulous stories.

So, I suppose she was middle class. She bought her knickers in Marks and Spencer, went to a salon to have her hair coloured and owned neither a screwdriver, spanner nor hammer. But there was no air of snootiness about her. She did not read the Daily Mail. She did not choose her friends on the basis of their age, race, religion or nationality.

Opposite me, though, once the class had begun, was a bored middle class wannabe who'd come along with her hen-pecked husband. I could tell, quite early on, that they'd bought their council house, went on holiday to Egypt and liked to be seen in Sainsbury's. Her dress jewellery was large and ostentatious. Her sulphurous perfume filled the room in seconds.

But they were harmless. And dull.

Other potters were a mentally and physically disabled man in a wheel chair with his carer, a young single woman, an older man (and a possible mary) and continuing from last year: a Japanese girl who was obsessed with the potter's wheel and an Earth Mother who was warm and talkative.

Our tutor, Sheena, reminded me of an art teacher I'd once had in senior (comprehensive) school. She was flamboyant, attentive, interesting and interested in her pupils. Her hair was tied back with a cheap clip, she wore a man's shirt and had embroidered flowers on the back pocket of her black denim jeans.

I ache for my classes to continue. Sadly, they may not. We've not crossed a threshold in either class for an acceptable number of students. Unless another photographer and three potters turn up next week, it's over for all over us.

I've my art class/gallery tours and Photograph editing for Macintosh classes starting on Thursday. The good news is that my camera is fixed and is now on it's way back to me. The bad news is that I fear my Thursday classes might be under subscribed, too and my confidence boost will be all too brief.

On my return home from the city, I met up with Ian on the bus. He told me he'd been asked to start working for yet another consultancy. To celebrate, we ordered a take-away from Rick Shaw's and drank the champagne which Robin so kindly gave us while he was here in August.

I went to bed in a drunken stupor.

The Milk Mallet

2007-09-23T10:18:00.000+01:00

Bonjour!

We hope you feel at home with us.

Do you have a blue tongue?

Last night, my beau and I went out to a band concert in Innerleithen. On offer were St Ronan's Silver Band, St Ronan's Future Band, Stephen Mead and The Kirkintilloch Band. The music was good and there were a lot of hot men blowing horns.

Excellent, peachy, fabulous, wonderful!

But that was yesterday and this is today - and welcome to The Sunday Mallet! It's a word association game played out in the comments section of this post. For the original post and instructions, please click here. Click with caution, though, dear reader. I say it's a link to the original instructions. It might not be. It might be a site all about Rainbow Brite!

Or one of those rating sites!

Who knows?

Last week, David left us with cereal. The first word to pop into my tiny mind was milk. Now, my love, it's over to you...!

Granddad

2007-09-22T15:41:00.000+01:00

May the light of this flickering candle illuminate the night the way your spirit illuminates my soul. Granddad, can you hear me?

My Grandfather died in 1981. Twenty six years ago. That's a long time. It would be a very long time for a child, it's long enough for a man.

The only benefit of growing old myself, I think, is that time passes through my hands ever faster. As time speeds up, the pains and heartaches of the past seem ever further away. Back, back, further back in time.

Strange, how when I was an eight year old boy, the six weeks of Summer holiday, of no schoool, well, seemed like an eternity. Now, as a man in his mid thirties, the children seem to have next to no rest from the place I waited years to leave. They may have it bad now, and, a cliché, I know, but life gets worse. As one gets older, the threats become more severe, the possibilities more deadly and the pain more bloody. The only saving grace is that as the quantity of shit builds up and the frequency of its delivery increases, the space between shitty events seems ever larger. Thank the Lord.

And time is a great healer. I don't know how I'd have coped if my Grandfather died while I'm in adulthood. Or, indeed, if it happened recently. And as horrible as the possibility was real, each time I imagine it, my heart breaks into a thousand pieces, my stomach ties itself into a knot and breathing is laboured.

And I face the future, knowing how bad the past is and was, contemplating the death of my Mother. It's a reality I find impossible to face. I simply cannot. I know her end will mean some kind of ending for me, but what that exactly might be, I cannot say. I cannot guess the outcome of something I cannot face. Yet I rush headlong into the future, the unknown and the undiscovered.

Granddad would have known what to do, what might lie in wait around the proverbial corner and how to face it.

I think he'd tell me not to worry; that worry never changed anything. He'd tell me that I need a new philosophy. How people with empty lives need the drama of theatre, cinema and sombre music - and how I need an empty life, achievable, in no small part, by categorising everything in life, even the meaningful, as rubbish.

Buddhism, it would seem, dear reader, is the way ahead. Great truths and no desire. No desire to live a long and happy life, no desire to be loved and no desire to love. When it all falls apart, there's no reason to be upset; it was never desired in the first place. In a world where I want for nothing and nothing is all I have, I am happy.

So, as I go further into life, further towards death, I see that a philosophy of pessimism is not only desirable, but undesirable, too.

British

2007-09-21T11:39:00.000+01:00

Dannii!

2007-09-19T11:37:00.000+01:00

Dannii Minogue has been beaten by rivals Rumours Of Whores in the stand-off to claim the best-selling album in the United States of America! Rumours Of Whores' No Album shifted 957,000 copies in its first week of sales while Dannii's album, Not Available For Fucking, only sold 691,000, according to Billboard.

Before the albums went on sale Dannii vowed that she would retire from making solo albums if she was outsold by Rumours Of Whores.

She has now axed her European tour and a performance at London Mobo Awards.

'Historic moment'

Speaking to the Associated Press, XWiz said: "It feels overwhelming. Everyone is coming up to me and telling me how proud they are of me. We're going to celebrate by indulging in huge portions of tiramisu."

"To be a champion, you've got to take out a champion," he added.

Dannii Minogue, who is planning a world tour for her album, said: "I am very excited to have participated in one of the biggest album release weeks in the last two years.

"Collectively, we have sold hundreds of thousands of units in our debut week. This marks a great moment for EBM, one that will go down in history."

Earlier this week her spokeswoman said "unforeseen circumstances" had led to the temporary postponement of her post-X Factor tour, but refused to comment on any retirement plans. The singer was also due to perform at the Vodafone Live Music Awards in London, as well as at an MTV show in Germany on Friday. Those appearances have also been scrapped.

On Sunday it was announced that Rumours Of Whores had also beaten Dannii in the UK album charts.

Rumours Of Whores and Dannii Minogue, whose real name is Danielle Jane Minogue, both released their most critically acclaimed albums last week. Dannii threw down the gauntlet last month in an interview with EBM website Electric Tremor.

"If Rumours Of Whores sell more records than me on September 11, I'll no longer write music," she said.

"I'll write music and work with my sister, but I won't put out any more solo albums. Those bastards should have let me sing on Schizophrenic."

The Spunk Mallet

2007-09-16T15:41:00.000+01:00

Ian and I indulged in our three most ardent passions last night, dear reader:

Reality television
Chocolate
and
Friendship

After lunch, we made a Russian Forest Gateau. By late afternoon, it was cool enough to add the cherry jam and topping, which we did and then headed over to Armadale to watch The X Factor with Alan!

What a fabulous experience. I so adore watching people make fools of themselves which X Factor would-be contestants seem to do with gay abandon. The reasonable to good singers aside, are the other wannabes mad or are there actually people out in the world telling these idiots that they can sing? I don't really care, to be frank - it does make fantastic television.

Not only did Alan furnish us with party food and copious amounts of booze, but also with a Fisher original! Yes, the most fabulous watercolour. A nautical scene, as one might expect from one so salty, executed with flair and resulting in an amazing art work which I shall treasure for the rest of my life.

Last night was so much better than the night before. My neighbour from hell, at gone one o'clock in the morning, was playing loud music, shouting and screaming. At eight minutes past the hour, after lying in bed for well over an hour, I got up, put my dressing gown on and knocked on her front door. After my third attempt, she opened the door.

"Would you mind turning the music down please? I can't sleep for the noise."
"That's your fucking problem."
"I'm sorry?"
"Ah, fuck off you English bastard."
"Listen, you! It's gone one in the morning and I can't sleep for all the noise that you're making."
"Aye, like I say. Your problem."
"It'll be your problem when I call the police, and I shall if you don't pipe down."

At which point, my lady's friend comes to the door and raises her hand to thump me! The only reason for the hand staying aloft and not landing upon my face: my vile neighbour grabbed her pal's arm, saying, "Hang on."

Indeed.

I've never lived next to such a shower of retards, anti-social chavs and inconsiderate cunts. And I've lived in a lot of places.

It was viewing time next door today. I felt like putting a CD on at full volume. I didn't, though. I'd never sink to her very low level and I want that house sold as soon as is humanly possible. The sooner they've moved to Tranent the better. There are a lot of schemies there (they once pelted a visiting Father Christmas with stones and dog shit) who will welcome the family from the sewer with open arms.

From the sublime, my lamb, to the ridiculous and welcome to The Sunday Mallet! It's a word association game played out in the comments section of this post. For the original post and instructions, please click here. Click with caution, though, my love. I say it's a link to the original instructions. It might not be. It might be hardcore porn.

Last week, Salty Sailor left us with the topic of Monica. The first word that popped into my tiny mind: spunk. It's over to you, my love.

Bitch!

2007-09-14T16:17:00.001+01:00

This is why I love facebook.

Dirty!

2007-09-14T12:44:00.001+01:00

Open

2007-09-12T21:26:00.000+01:00

I like to think I'm open minded and plan on proving the point in this brief post about Scotland.

This evening, Ian and I were discussing how Scotland would be better off as a sovereign state within the European Union. We'd have the Euro, we'd not have to worry about having a Conservative government and the road signs would display distances and speeds in kilometres. We'd more than likely be a republic, too. Fabulous? Yes, for Scotland.

But, you see, dear reader, I'm a unionist at heart. Without a left-leaning Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland would lurch even further to the right. The voice of the Daily Mail reader, although a minority, would have no reasoned socialist viewpoint with which to argue and it would all go horribly wrong South of the border. But why should I worry if I'm living in the Republic Of Scotland? Because I care about the rest of my country, I suppose. Just as any Scottish nationalist worth his or her salt would worry about something dreadful happening in Edinburgh, even if he or she lived in Aberdeen and never left the granite city.

Although I'm far from patriotic, I still find the very idea of having my country broken up into several parts as upsetting as any Scottish nationalist might balk at Scotland breaking up into Pictland/Kingdom of Alba, Strathclyde, Northumbria and giving the islands back to the Norwegians.

Yes, Scotland might be more progressive and better off leaving it's English yoke behind, but it just feels selfish to me. Like a lottery winner leaving his or her spouse on finding they've hit the jackpot.

"I'm leaving you, now. I don't need you any more."

If we did leave the union and be the cause of its break up, I'd hope the reasons were plucked from a higher branch of the intelligence tree. I'm thinking of the time the Baltic states left the USSR and played their part in its break-up.

Yesterday, the EU announced it had given up on the UK and will no longer force us to use metric measurements. Great. So now our children can be taught to measure in feet, inches, yards and miles; in fluid ounces, pints quarts and gallons.

How many yards are there in a mile, again?

I'm being pulled in two directions, dear reader. The Euro lies ahead of me, LSD behind me. Which is the best way to go?

So, the EU might well have given up on the UK. But they'd not, I'm sure, give up on Scotland. Perhaps it's time Scotland gave up on England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Did I really say that?

Facebook

2007-09-12T16:53:00.000+01:00

Facebook was in the news this morning. It seems their loyal band of subscribers (me included) are worried (me excluded) about their personal details being banded about the internet. Click here if you'd like to read the story.

Personally, I don't care who sees my photograph (it's one of very few good ones), finds out how old I am or even knows the size of my enormous cock. I really couldn't care less.

What I do care about, though, is the two hours I wasted there today playing a word association game and answering a series of ridiculous questions. Surely, there are better things to spend two hours on than sitting, staring at a computer screen, clicking a mouse. Still, in those two hours I also managed to track down an old friend from school. So I suppose it wasn't a total waste of time. And then I thought about old school chums from the 1980s and set about finding them, too.

Oh, and after that, I got to thinking. What was I really doing on the Facebook website?

Social networking sites may be places where some people hook up, arrange to meet or gossip, but with telephony and public transport on offer, what's the real reason for most people coming to this website? I can only speak for myself, of course, but I feel it's the last refuge for the lonely, the bored and the friendless. I can log on to Facebook at any time of the day or night and be in touch with people I can call a friend, many of whom I've never even met and wouldn't recognise if I passed them on the street. I (along with other geeks and sociophobes) can pretend that I care about them and they can pretend that they care about me. In a world where we are either too lazy or don't care enough about our friends to pick up the telephone, make a visit or invite people over to our own homes, there's a mirage in the friendship desert called Facebook.

Yesterday/today

2007-09-11T13:51:00.001+01:00

I can't believe there's so little in the news today about the terrorist attacks of 11th September 2001. Next to nothing.

I watched a rerun of Fahrenheit 9/11 on television last night, there's a documentary on Channel 4 this evening about the World Trade Center and after a good dig, I found a story about 9/11 on the BBC news site.

Has the whole thing been forgotten already?

Perhaps it has. Perhaps the mess we've made in Iraq and the mess we're about to start with Iran are more important issues.

Ian and I went to Culross yesterday. It's a wee town over the water in Fife. More a villiage, actually, although Wikipedia describes it as a city.

I wouldn't say we were bored, we've never been that, but we did spend the morning wondering what we'd do in the afternoon. A wee surf of the internet and the National Trust for Scotland website was all we needed, throwing ideas at us left, right and centre.

The journey was quite short, certainly less than an hour, though not by much. My first port of call was the public toilet. I was desperate for a waz. But I couldn't go in! No! It was ghastly! Dark, stinking and wet. Instead, I did my business in the bushes, eyes darting all around the place to see if someone was coming. I hate doing a tiddle out in the open or, at least, not in a toilet. The reason? There's no way of washing my hands afterwards! So guess what came next? A picnic of sandwiches, Ryvita Minis and fruit! All finger food.

Still, at least I was putting bacteria from my own body back into my mouth and not germs from someone else.

Culross is a beautiful place, almost preserved in time. The only giveaways being the odd car and a bus stop. Being members of the NTS, we got in to Culross Palace for free. Not only that, we were entitled to a guided tour of the town, too (highlights: Town House, Captain's cottage and The Study)! Our escort was a wonderful and charming young lady who was a mine of historical knowledge. I commented to her that Culross is like a living outdoor museum. Indeed it is and I shall return to it as soon as I have someone here to whom I might show it off!

The palace was fully equipped with period furniture, fixtures and fittings and a functioning kitchen garden! And how enlightening that was! There were enormous thistles, herbs and vegetables growing rampant. Back inside the palace, we came upon a herbal remedy exhibition. One exhibit was advice on how to cure diarrhoea. With an egg. And the advice wasn't to eat it. Edna was shocked and made a note in the comments book.

We made our way to Fife over the Kincardine bridge. Our return home was made, firstly, in an Easterly direction and then south over the Forth road bridge. Before going home, we popped in to a Nissan Garage near Ikea in Midlothian and had a look at a peculiarly named vehicle. It was quite nice, actually. I was given the impression we'd get a lot of car for our money. We might buy it. Either that, the Honda Civic or an Audi A3.

YMCA

2007-09-10T19:18:00.001+01:00

The Nipple Mallet

2007-09-09T23:47:00.000+01:00

My camera was sent back to Canon last week to be repaired. Initially, I thought that there was a hair on the lens. I couldn't get rid of it. For advice, I went into Jessops in Newcraighall. The guy there told me to get it cleaned professionally, which I did.

I collected my camera from Camerabase in Morningside (didn't see JK) on Thursday and was told that the lens, body and sensor were as clean as a whistle. However, there was a scratch on the sensor, hence the curious mark on all images produced.

I'm not best pleased, then, with Jessops. I get a thirty quid cleaning bill. All because the guy behind the counter was too lazy to take a wee look at my camera.

I intend to write a stinking letter. I'm quite good at them. I got a £10.00 gift voucher from Waitrose last week. Their Belgian chocolate selection tasted like it had been developed in Kazakhstan.

Armed with my trusty old Sony Cybershot; Ian, the dogs and I enjoyed a couple of hours south of Edinburgh (just North of Innerleithen) yesterday in what could strictly be called our Summer. Having said that, the day wasn't Summer. Don't be ridiculous! No, just an hour...! I've never known a sixty minute Summer before!

We set ourselves down, ate our picnic, read a few lines from our books - and then the black clouds came rolling by.

We were then soon speeding off back to Edinburgh with nought but The Sunday Mallet on our minds. It's a word association game, you see, dear reader, played out in the comments section of this post. For the original post and instructions, please click here. You might find it so exciting, though, that you hyperventilate, so be careful where you click that mouse!

By the way, James IV of Scotland died on this day in 1513. He was the so-called Grandfather of the British state (The Kingdom of Great Britain), all thanks to his marriage to Margaret Tudor, their offspring, the union of the crowns and the Act of Union, 1707. Actually, though, if Britain's the Garden of Eden, Jimmy may well be Grandfather, but the Mother Superior simply has to be ol' Marj. Liz is one of her direct descendants.

Last week, another famous (or maybe infamous?) Scot, the delicious Alan, left us with Diddies. The first word that sprag to mind: NIPPLE.

Over to you, dear reader.

Imperfect

2007-09-07T15:05:00.000+01:00

I spent a great deal of the Summer out of Edinburgh, indeed, out of Scotland. I should, of course, being a gay, be able to liken that to Meryl Streep and Out of Africa, but I can't. I'm a gay, yes, but a bad gay. Most gays know which style of top is hot this week and last, which band should be top of anyone's playlist and how to bitch. The best I can do is bake muffins. I'm sorry, it's true.

And I'm waffling. Again. And sorry for that, too.

So yes, I've spent much of the Summer away from home. For a myriad of reasons; to try and rescue my sanity, to spend time with my Mum and to see some sunshine. I'm not sure if I managed any of that, to be frank, but I tried and if I'd not even tried, I'd feel more of a failure now than I actually am.

On the sanity front - spending much of my time here alone with not much to do afforded me hours of tongue examination and my mind went a wondering. Without given facts but plenty on which to ponder, I'd frighten myself in imagining my imminent death on a daily basis. Anyone might imagine I had too much time on my hands. Perhaps they were right.

There's never a dull moment in Bournemouth. Mum's a very lively personality. She likes to push buttons and surround herself with something of a royal court. I've often wondered if she was a queen in a former life and if, perhaps, that's why her son turned out to be a queen, too.

I certainly did not have too much time on my hands in Bournemouth. In fact, I had no time to spare. Mum woke me up, most mornings, quite early. There was always a plan; people to see, things to do, bingo to play. There was no time to worry about what might or might not be.

It was great seeing Mum. When I initially left Bournemouth in 2000, I planned on going back down to Dorset about once a month. I've never actually managed that. Mum's either been too busy to see me or things have been happening up here. Of course, I have been down to England quite often, sometimes for extended periods and Mum's been here. I'm sure it averages out to about as much time as my planned one weekend in four. So I don't feel too guilty over it. Of course, such statistics, as used by many a government, paper over many a crack. I think I've convinced myself that I'm ok with this. I can be positive about it. Indeed, my eldest sister only lives a five minute car journey away from Mum. I see her much more often than my sister does, the bitch.

If 2007 had abeen a better Summer, I'd have been able to fulfil my other desire - to see some sunshine! Get a wee tan, even. No, not possible. Most days were dull. Overcast skies were the norm and there were as many wet days as there were dry.

But still, there was the bingo! And we won quite a bit. We never left out of pocket, even if we only broke even. One afternoon, Mum, Pat (her wee pal) and I left with just over one hundred pounds. We have a sharing pact, though. If my memory serves me well, we each came away with £34.33 each. Who got the extra penny, I can't say.

Those, I suppose, dear reader, are the bar bones of my Summer trip to England.

In my degenerating mind, it was somewhat different.

Loyal readers of this vile blog may know how my brother's wedding in West Virgina a few years back was a hotbed of hate and homophobia. My Mum still refuses to face facts and accept that her daughter is an evil and twisted bitch with opinions that would make Adolf Hitler look liberal.

I tried, on many occasions, to let sly comments go by the wayside, but once or twice, I did take the bate and debate the point with Mum. Why, I'm not too sure.

I don't have children. I imagine how a woman might feel torn when her children are fighting, but I do imagine and do hope that I'd be able to see right from wrong. No matter how old my children were, I'd like to think I'd intervene and punish where punishments were due, even if said punishment was just a tirade of verbal abuse.

But I'm not a parent. So I don't really know. I cannot judge my Mother. I don't have the ability to walk a mile in her moccasins.

All I am able to take from the Summer is that I don't want to fight with my Mother, I don't want to argue and I don't want another sibling to come between us. I have to accept that Mum isn't perfect. Mum has to accept that her children aren't perfect either. Both sons and daughters.

I love my Mother dearly, even if she is a right wing xenephobe. She's going to be seventy seven years old in November. I don't know how much longer I'll have here with her but certainly intend to treasure whatever time I do have. Quite a poignant statement, actually, especially considering that it's two years ago today that Ian's Mum passed away after a short illness.

There are still some bones I'd like to pick over and contentious subjects I'd like addressed, but I won't let them get in the way of my relationship with Mum. All health scares taken into account, we might not have that long together. No-one knows what's around the corner. And a cliché, I know, but she or I could get run over by a bus tomorrow.

That said, my sister really should do something about the widening rift she's caused within my family. I've never been one for being buddies with a person simply because we're related, but I do care on some level for my bitch of a sister. If I didn't, all this wouldn't bother me. And I know it bothers Mum. So if that bus did come for Mum or I tomorrow, my sister would have to live out the rest of her life with no opportunity to repair the damage she's done.

And what a lot of damage.

To add insult to homophobic injury, she's forbidden her daughter from telling my Mum (her Gran) that she's a lesbian. My sister's story varies from source to source. She's either blantantly vague on the matter, can't bring herself to tell Mummy, indifferent or insisting Mum doesn't know the truth because she's ashamed of her daughter's lesbianism.

But Mum will find out. It's not a question of if but when. Practically every member of the family knows about my niece. The only person who doesn't seem to know is Mum. Whether it's a slip of the tongue or intentional, she will be told at some point. The only question then remaining will be my Mother's: how come everyone else knew and not me?

I'd really hoped, even in taking the brunt of my sister's hatred, she'd learn something from that American episode. No. She hasn't. She's still a homophobic cunt. I pity her, I really do. But I can't help loving her. I'm some kind of glutton for punishment, I think.

Hey, ho. As Sylvia Mason-James once said to me, live for today, hen.

Fringe

2007-09-05T16:09:00.000+01:00

My pal Robin was up here in Edinburgh back in August. He dazzles Scotland with his presence every year and absorbs the absurdities of the festival fringe with gay abandon.

I try to join him in this frivolity as much as is humanly possible.

One of the first things we saw, if not the first was Choon-Hyang: True Love. A youth theatre company brought Korea's most adored traditional love story from Seoul to Edinburgh and joy to my heart. The lovers were sweet, the Mother was the epitome of campery and the teen boys adored drag. Perfect fringe!

In the same venue, a few days later, we saw Kenmac Productions' Company. My favourite piece of the 2007 season. A minimalist stage was all that was required as the actors knew how to fill it with presence, glamour and beautiful voices. Wonderful. My favourite segment? I've never had a song from musical theatre sung to me before, especially not from the stage, but after Joanne demanding not to be stared at, she stared at me as she launched herself into The ladies who lunch - and continued staring at me throughout.

A magical experience and one I long to repeat.

If Company was my favourite, Seriously was my second favourite. I've written about it before, dear reader, so click here if you'd like to know what I had to say.

Eurobeat - almost Eurovision! The talk of the fringe, apparently, and deservedly so. Indeed, it was almost Eurovision. As kitch and addictive as the real thing. How pleased was I to find my home (for the evening) country of Estonia was the winning entry with Together Again that night in the phone vote (for, yes, the audience is invited to text in their favourite entries)? Very pleased! And very pleased with Estonia myself! What a shame I couldn't have voted for them (no-one can vote for their own country). They were hot, had huge packages and their song was pure Eurovision. Bad english, sentimental and strange. Utterly fabulous.

Mel Giedroyc shone. But not as much as the sparkly costumes. And what costumes! A lycra fiesta! All the gays love lycra, especially on hot men. It all so often leaves nothing to the imagination.

Splendid.

Guilds was an original piece cut from the Gilbert and Sullivan tree and brought to us by Edinburgh University Savoy Opera Group. It was Robin's highlight, I think, though can't be sure. For me, it failed on several fronts. The humour was horribly middle class, some of the actors can only do hammy and everyone about me seemed to be a toff - which I find intimidating. It was especially marred for me by one of the actors sporting a vile and bushy beard. Like Father Christmas after buying too much Just For Men. I hate beards. I really, really do. When I'm Prime Minister, I shall ban them.

Jesus Christ superstar was performed by Marlborough school with enthusiasm, though it lacked depth. The vocals were drowned out by the band and the acting was mediocre to poor. There were some hot teens, yes, if that's your thing. One of the female leads was extremely slutty looking and could have done with a hair wash, but she had a brilliant vocal range. I just loved her voice.

I wanted to see Orgasm - the musical, but was afraid. I had come to imagine that the whole audience might be encouraged to masturbate inside the venue. This is all very well and I might have been tempted to take part in my teens, but not now, not now that I'm old, bald and fat.

So I didn't go.

Snowflake (100 words for snow, one for sorrow) was the masterpiece I'd come to expect from Castoffs Youth Theatre Group. I thought it would be impossible to top last year's The it boy, but they did. Bringing a range of issues to the attention of the audience with a wild mix of comedy, tragedy and musical theatre could go horribly wrong, but Castoffs pulled it off. Neither silly nor pointless, the cast brought a tear to my eye with a story about anorexia, self-harm and climate change delivered with humour and original songs. The band rocked, literally - and Aisha Iqbal stole the show as Ekoomak, an Inuit Mother with a sad story to tell. Last year, Aisha stole my heart as the hijra. A crush has turned to love!

Castoffs is a theatre group put together by Rotherham Young People's Services. It's a great way of fixing society's ills in some kind of one pot cooking exercise. However, they need seasoning and this would come in the form of professional assistance from someone in the world of theatre. I hope there's someone out there with a charitable heart and the desire to help these youngsters go from strength to strength.

This year, the American High School Theatre Festival was very much a hit and miss affair for Robin and I. Sadly, far more misses than hits. Of the hits (the only one?), Urinetown came top of the pile. The narrator of the piece is a policeman. He was easily the star of the show; a great actor, a beautiful singing voice and hot to boot. Also, he shared some rather touching moments of romance and homoerotica with a fellow police officer, which, to be frank, made the show what it was for me: splendid. A four and a half star performance. I'd have given it five, but the copper kept his clothes on.

Baby with the bathwater, also part of the American High School Theatre Festival was a mockumentary about parenthood, excess and transgenderism. It failed on all three counts, mainly because the actors didn't take the piece seriously. What could have been interesting and fun came across as simply ridiculous.

Still within the AHSTF, Chicken bones for the teenage soup. A comedy without any laughs. Apart from those eminating inappropriately from the actors who, by the looks on their faeces (is that a Freudian slip?), thought themselves idiots to be appearing in this trite nonsense.

And yes, still a part of the AHSTF - Is this a test? It certaily tested my patience. A piece about daydreaming during a test. Not very entertaining and leaving nothing for an audience member to take away.

Apollo/Dionysus - Part 1: wine/water & part 2: order/chaos was a very strange piece indeed. Of the four cast members, two were nude from the start, one undressed completely halfway through and the fourth member drank wine dribbled from the mouth of one of the original nudes.

I'd like to tell you what it was all about, but I can't. This leaves me with a two fold problem. I'm either stupid and it went over my head or it was utter jibberish. Which do you suppose, dear reader, is most likely?

If this piece was a philosophical stab in the dark, the knife ended up in the heart, not in the brain. Nudity always draws a crowd on the fringe but in a piece about Greek philosophy, our eyes should have been darting all about the space and not fixed on the actors' cocks. I must add, here, that the masturbation scenes were quite disturbing.

I'm not sure what I was supposed to make of the piece or what greater understanding of life it afforded me, but it is clear that getting drunk every day is a bad thing, but just as bad as being a dull, uninterested and bland old git.

Remember: everything in moderation and shit happens. Analyze that.

The Changeling, here presented by Eyeball Theatre could have been a compelling piece about murder and sex. Ultimately, no-one in the audience seemed to have a clue as to what was going on. The worst part for me was the guy with the beard. not only did he wear a mass of loathesome facial hair but he sweated throughout and profusely. He made me feel physically sick. Be sure, if I were alone, I'd have left before the end. It was poor. It's only redeeming feature, as, sadly, was the case with many pieces, was a hot man. I can't recall, now, the characters he played, but he put me in mind of a young Peter Duncan with the voice of Matt Lucas.

Frank and Dolly, for me, was an hour of campery, fun, intrigue and heartbreak. For Rob, sadly, it was an hour of shouting. Frank and Dolly are dancing partners. They enter the stage with Dolly's ballgown covered in vomit. Frank passes through a doorway. Although the audience sees both characters throughout, Frank and Dolly do not see one another.

Is Frank a drag king? A transgendered person? Or a fake? We soon find out, along with a myriad of other things.

Dillie Keane, as ever, triumphs. I adore her.

Gay slave handbook was, sadly, a piece with promise which went on for far too long and tried to be something it never could be: poignant. Instead, it invited the audience to dive headlong into the depths of depression, sadness and suicide, all thanks to a closeted Mormon and his quest to be normal. For a gay piece, there were surprisingly few mentions of male homosexuality and far too many flashes of the lady's tits. I should have taken Dannii Minogue along. It would have been more her thing than mine.

Into the hoods. If hip-hop and hoodies make you smile, you'd have loved this modern take on Into the woods. For me, Sondheim's masterpiece was ruined by a bunch of chavs who thought they were something special.

Is this about sex? was a very special play about love, romance, cross-dressing and yes, sex. A psychologist's wet dream, for sure, the piece explored sexual identity and sexual politics. I enjoyed it very much and hope Rough Magic return to the fringe next year. Professional and perfectly executed.

Jean Jacques, a piece about M Rousseau was pretentious nonsense. I left before the end, as did two others, leaving an audience of just three. After leaving, I began to wonder, if everyone had left (and they might have after I'd gone), would the piece have continued without an audience?

My filthy hunt was a piece about thrill-seekers. If any thrill-seekers were in the audience, they'd have left disappointed.

The discotivity could have been my favourite piece this year, but I felt utterly cheated as it under-ran by twenty five minutes. A piece that should have lasted an hour ended after just thirty five minutes. Still, Michelle McmAnus was there to entertain, as were the three hot boy dancers with hot bodies and full packets. Oh, what was it about? Yes, the story of the nativity set to old disco hits frm the 1970s and 1980s. It's transferring to the West End (of London) at the end of the year. If I can make it, I'll go and see it again in the hope that the piece I saw was simply an edit of what's to come.

Scarborough. We join the players, quite literally, in a hotel room, cheap and shabby, the sink falling off of the wall along with peeling wallpaper and dodgy Charles and Di memorabilia. He's fifteen. She's his teacher. They've come for a dirty weekend in Scarborough. Everything falls apart before our eyes. Wonderful, moving and ingenious.

Being in the room with the players instead of watching them perform on a stage from a seat in a theatre was a strange experience. Even stranger was having the curtains drawn over my face and James Baxter's crotch pressed up against my mouth and nose. I could actually smell his flesh.

Stonewall. Drag queens riot in 1960s New York. Below the surface, we find the stories behind the tragedies and triumphs. Rikki Beadle Blair never fails to whip his audience up into a state of euphoria. The lip-synching (in honour of the old-time drag acts, I think), the glitter and the hot men made for an hour of unforgettable theatre.

Do I have a thing about hot men?

I adore the works of Joe Orton and I especially loved About Turn's production of What the butler saw. Absolutley hilarious, the audience were in hysterics from start to end. A saucy seaside postcard made flesh by actors who seemed to be RADA trained.

The only negative thing I'd have to say about the piece was that the company were either not used to or didn't know how to handle the rapturous applause and praise given in whooping and cheering come the end. To be frank, this smacked of arrogance. Perhaps they should be shown how to seem more appreciative and gracious.

I saw other things, besides these here mentioned, though, to be frank, I've forgotten them. The reason? There was just so much and in such circumstances, one tends to remember the good and the bad but forget all that falls between, like pennies in between the cusions on the sofa.

I miss Robin endlessly. He is one of the better friends I've had the good luck to have in my life. It's just so sad that he lives hundreds of miles away in London. Still, Ian and I are heading his way in October. We're hoping to see Wicked, Avenue Q and All about my mother while we're there. Exciting! Nice to see actors in the flesh!

I wonder if any of them will be hot men?

Flying

2007-09-05T14:13:00.000+01:00

A friend of mine from the United States of America called Steve said he was coming to see me yesterday. Something of a flying visit. He's not shown up. Should I be worried?

Penis

2007-09-04T16:10:00.000+01:00

Be famous!

Fireworks

2007-09-03T20:31:00.000+01:00

Ian and I headed out into the city on the evening of Sunday last to watch the firework display accompanied by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra which officially marks the end of the International Festival and unofficially marks the end of the festival season here in Edinburgh.

In order to find the ideal spot for viewing, we arrived a good ninety minutes before the show was due to begin, but even then our choices were limited. Standing close to the barrier on Princes Street (at the foot of Frederick Street), a woman rose from her deck chair some two metres away, approached us and asked us to move.

"I've been here since four o'clock and I want to stand there," she said.

What a cheek.

She could have been there all day for all I care. Whole swathes of street are not reservable. I stayed put. Still, I was as polite and accomodating as possible and did not set about to (as she'd begun to) place personal objects about myself in some kind of demarkation exercise.

She was a very rude madam. She constantly nudged me as if I were either not there or shouldn't be. After less than twenty minutes and having been joined by a very nice woman and her Mother at the barrier, the madam made some sly comment about my presence. Both the nice woman and the Mother raisd their eyebrows at me. I took this as reassurance that disapproval of the madam's words and actions were appropriate and that some action should be taken.

Ian and I had eaten some home made vegetable soup at lunchtime. Root vegetables give me awful wind. Awful in some circumstances, fabulous in others. This, dear reader, was one of those other times. I felt a pressure in my lower bowel and hung on to it as long as I could before turning to point my bottom in the madam's direction and letting out the loudest fart of the day. And the fumes, I should say, were noxious.

"You dirty pig!" said madam.

I said nothing.

I may be a dirty pig, but I'm not a rude and selfish cunt, I thought to myself.

The fireworks were marvellous. A real spectacle. Forty five minutes of wild colours, bangs and beautiful music. I took a few photographs but most of them were terrible. I'm new to the world of DSLRs and am still learning and experimenting. I uploaded the best of the few that turned out reasonably well to Flickr. Click here if you wish to see them, my love.

The Sucking Mallet

2007-09-02T10:21:00.000+01:00

I've recently been thinking about putting my lobbyist head on and approaching our Glorious First Minister about his party's radical programme of cuts here in Edinburgh; the closue of many schools and other social services, but I've changed my mind. At ten grand a pop, I'd be expecting more than a chat. I'd want him to suck my dick, kiss my arse and indulge me in a little finger play.

To be frank, the very idea of physical relations with that vile walrus dressued up as a human being makes me feel physically sick. I'd rather be an interactive blogger, thank you very much.

Grüß Gott, meine Fotzen und Huren and welcome to the Sunday that is Mallet, The Sunday Mallet, a word association game played out in the comments section.

Two weeks ago (for I was in Bournemouth last week), David left us with slurp. The first word that popped into my brain was sucking. It's over to you, dear reader.

Diana

2007-08-31T08:29:00.000+01:00

Hello, dear reader. I love you!

I'm back from the brink. Yes. Back! Back!! Back!!! Etc. On returning from Bournemouth, I seem to have shaken off my melancholia and left my inner gypsy on the apron at Prestwick airport.

I do plan on writing some more on my Summer soon, my extended trips to Dorset (Bournemouth, Bourne Free and Polly's baptism), my week in Ireland and the odd day spent here in the Athens of the North. But for now, I want to talk about the ramifications of the events from ten years ago; the death of Diana.

Curious, how only yesterday I was sorting through some books and old tat and putting them up for sale on ebay when I came across The Royal Baby Album and images of the late Princess of Wales. All through the night and with resonating clarity on each waking moment (and there were many) Diana was on my mind. More curious, then, in a slow week for news when most bulletins have gone ignored, I wake up to a world awash with news about the people's princess.

Without getting bogged down in how or why, it can be said, quite simply, that Britain is a strange place, indeed, a very strange place. And what of the British? A strange society. If opinion polls are to be believed, the majority of us like living under a constitutional monarchy. We like the Royal Family to be something they cannot be; the same as us but different. We like to see The Queen wearing ermine, we like her to deliver a speech to Parliament with jewels worth millions of pounds perched upon her head, we like to see the changing of the guard, we like to see a Royal wedding, we like to see an elderly couple living in a palace that could house thousands. We liked to see The Queen Mother wandering around the East End of London after a WWII bombing raid, we don't like to see Harry smoking dope and dressing as a Nazi, we don't like Windsorial infidelity, we don't like to see a family of toffs running out into the countryside to kill hundreds of wild animals for a bit of fun and we don't like to see Her Majesty getting away without paying tax.

We seem to like the Royal Family, on some level, being above us, but we want them to act as if they weren't.

The current bunch do not fulfil that rôle. But Diana did. And that's where, for all of us, it went horribly wrong. The bridge between the corporeal and aethereal was always a weak one. When it collapsed and was swept away, no-one seemed to know what to do.

Cubans admire Castro, Americans adore Washington and some Russians still have a thing for Lenin but you'll be hard pressed, dear reader, to find any Briton who has a good word to say about Oliver Cromwell.

Cromwell is hated, actually. Revolution? Cutting off the King's head? Not very British, is it.

As much as Cromwell is hated, Darwin is admired, even loved. You see, my lamb, Britain doesn't really like revolution. We're more keen on evolution. And in the days after Diana's death, The Queen instinctively knew this. She chose to play along with the masses who seemed to be damanding her presence in London and in some way acted as though she were being dragged back to the capital kicking and screaming.

She was not. She knew that the mood of the country was for change, but she knew it was a blip and not a powder keg under the House of Lords. She understood our desire for slow and methodical adjustment. She knew, to survive, she had to appear to bow to pressure, although to keep her authority, she had to be the author of that change. One has a glimpse of this in her metaphorical stamping of the royal foot when she addressed the nation shortly before Diana's funeral, "As your queen..." and, for good measure, reitterating the same but different mantra, "...and a grandmother..."

There have been blips before, of course, wobbles, if you like. In 1917 when most if not all British people thought the only good German were a dead one, the Royal Family dropped all their German titles and in the PR stunt of the century, changed their name to Windsor. How very, very, very British.

In 1936, the government preempted the country at large not being in favour of the King's choice of wife. With some mutual decision making, it must be said, Edward VIII and his gay divorcée were quickly dispatched and replaced with the epitome of perfect British family life.

The Queen is a clever woman and she's used her family history to teach her some very important lessons, the most important of which is to watch for a right Royal mess and how to clear it up.

Very often, we Britons can't tell the difference between what's important and what's impressive. Perhaps uniquely among Royals, Diana was both and loved by everyone. We realised a lot through Diana's life. We were a sentimental nation, we were imaginative and loved a wee bit of rebellion.

"Hey! Queen! Get down here to London! Hey! Queen! Get that Union Jack up at half mast! Hey! Queen! Do what you're bloody well told."

The Queen liked us to think she was doing what she was told. In fact, I'd bet everything I own that coming back to London was her dcision and her decision alone, therefore her victory and not our victory; the Monarchy being stronger and more stable now than at any time during Elizabeth's reign.

What's my point? Not sure that there is one. This has been less a rant more a pseudo-drunken ramble, but there must be a point...

...Perhaps this: That the Royal Family and Diana (inside and out of it) can never and could never be what we want them to be. That people scheme. That a national sadness could be born out of the guilt of a people who perhaps expected a wee bit too much from such a young and fragile life.

Our head of state claimed lessons would be and had been learned over Diana's death. So how come the monarchy's in no different place now ten years after said claims were made? Because the Royal Family don't want change? Or because Britons are disinclined to accept it?

Revolution, dear reader, or evolution?

Or stagnation?

Miranda!

2007-08-30T15:55:00.000+01:00

Apple

2007-08-25T10:18:00.000+01:00

Ian and I are in the Apple store in Glasgow. I am on my way to Bournemouth. Ian is on his way to Greenock.

I feel fabulous.

Perversion

2007-08-21T08:32:00.001+01:00

Wii

2007-08-19T16:35:00.000+01:00

HI! My name is Minge (formerly Jackie Collins). And you'd better watch out... What an outrageous evening we had last night. It was hot. It was steamy. And it's coming to your screens soon.

A wild party! There was drink, drugs and sex happening all over the place. We met Harry Belafonte, Warren Beatty and Marilyn Monroe! So exciting!

And we played Wii after watching X Factor!

Where were we?

Alan's house in Armadale.

It all goes on in West Lothian, you know, dear reader.

The Lady Mallet

2007-08-19T10:20:00.000+01:00

Hello my darlings and wilkom in The Sunday Mallet, a word association game inspired by Timmy Mallett and TVAM and played out in the comments section.

For the original post and instructions, please click here. You might find it exciting. You might not, dear reader.

Oh, no! Johnny!

Last week, David left us with caaaaaaaaa! I might be about to say something stupid, but the first word to pop into my head is lady.

Abomination!

2007-08-18T17:25:00.000+01:00

Dog

2007-08-18T13:19:00.000+01:00

An old dog, contrary to popular belief, can be taught new tricks. I intend to prove this, if only to myself, by taking a leaf out of Alan's book (even though he wants to give me a delicious toe job!) and engage myself in the following:

Macintosh digital photograph editing

Pottery (inspired by Krafty)

Gallery tours

and

Digital camera skills

Sadly, the one course I was most eager to take, dear reader, doesn't seem to be on this year, the art of photography.

I have books on the subject and one or two people with whom I could chat. But. Can art be taught? Or is it in ones bones? Is it not true to say that one is either artistic in nature or not? I really do not know the answer to those questions but I suppose I will find out over the next few weeks on Mondays and Thursday.

I also have the opportunity to learn how to cook an array of world dishes and fully intend to take up this opportunity. Though only if Alan commits. I'm not going to go all the way over to Bathgate every Tuesday evening to complete a course on my own. I hate meeting new people and those getting to know one another approaches, so, I suppose, doing a cookery course with Alan will make life easier somewhat easier for me.

I'm not using Alan, though. I want that to be made quite clear.

Meeting people and introductions are more than scary. I'm sometimes in floods of tears at the thought of it. Pure panic and fear take a horrible grip on me and all I can think of doing is running away.

But I digress...

By Christmas I may be able to tell a Raphael from a da Vinci, make myself look thin in photographs, pour tea into a cup I've made myself and know what all the funky buttons on my camera are for.

I'll be like a fourteen year old Rottweiler with the ability to operate a VCR.

Stupid

2007-08-17T09:32:00.000+01:00

I woke up this morning, dear reader, and got out of bed from the wrong side. With my first footfall, I scowled, tutted and sighed.

I was beginning the day in a world where Carole or Gerry are the likely evictees in tonight's Big Brother. Why I let such trivia upset me or even register in my mind is sometimes baffling (to me and to others) though I face facts and accept that Big Brother does seem to play a large rôle in my life during the Summer months.

But why?

Perhaps because my life is so shallow and empty. I don't know. And the only antidote to that is to engross myself in the lives of other people. People who will, whether they want to or not, let me in. Few do.

For the life of me, I cannot understand how Brian is the favourite to win and the twins are second favourite. After the racism debacle in the Big Brother house at the beginning of the year and the perpetrator's fall from grace, I thought we UK citizens had lost our appetite to watch and our admiration for the stupid.

Brian has no concept of who or what Shakespeare is.

The twins do not know how to spell taxes, who their Prime Minister is and describe the world as pink. Do UK universities not include a spelling test in their endevours to sort the wheat from the chaf? If not, shouldn't they?

Ingnorance and stupidity are not the same thing, but they are common bedfellows. Not knowing how to spell or how many UK PMs there have been since Robert Walpole became the first in 1721 is ignorance and could be blamed on any number of contributing factors. But lacking any understanding of who's in charge of the country is an example of pure stupidity, exposing a lack of interest in anything above the puerile.

Yes, the twins (Sam and Amanda) are kind, polite and inoffensive but with their vanilla harmlessness, they display themselves as empty vessels, bereft of opinion. Air-head idiots.

I'm reminded, here, of a similar numpty. Fiona Hyslop is our Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning. When I lived in Armadale, I was blessed with her as one of my regional MSPs and wrote to her about the same sex marriage/partnership/civil union debate. Twice. Did she bother to reply? Did she hell. And when, perturbed by being ignored, I contacted her office, I was told she held no opinion on the matter.

Aye, right.

No opinion, my arse. She held an opinion, I'm sure. She just didn't want to share it. With anyone. Which is worrying. If she didn't have an opinion, she should have come to one. An MSP without an opinion is like a Christmas dinner without turkey. She should have an opinion, an opinion on her constituents, their lives and the things that affect them.

But, really, what else should one expect from a ridiculous party like the SNP headed by a sly old dog like Alex Salmond? The man who can be blamed for an unprecedented number of spoiled ballot papers in a Scottish election by asserting that one of the choices was for First Minister. Yes. The SNP box was daubed with Alex Salmond for First Minister. Any idiot knows that in a parliamentary democracy, by vote or convention, the leader of the largest party is elected to the post by their fellows in the chamber and appointed by the monarch. The electorate at large do not elect him or her. But obviously, Alex Salmond did take us for fools. And perhaps we were in splattering his box with our mark.

Having said that, perhaps Scotland will soon wake from its lunacy. Salmond's honeymoon is over. Wendy Alexander (the hottie Douglas' sister) is coming to rock our First Minister's dingy. She'll not sink to his vulgar level. She will not fool the electorate, she will not lie and she will not come across as an arrogant and fat pig. And she'll have plenty of ammunition:

Whilst earmarking twenty two schools for closure, our illustrious SNP/Lib Dem council is spending God only knows how much money on refreshing its logo. How strange for the SNP to put themselves before the education of Edinburgh's children. Who'd have thought it?

Edinburgh Council workers vote to strike in a bid to stop their masters from implementing a programme of cuts. To me, that means losing education staff, home helps and social workers.

Alex Salmond's national conversation on the dissolution of the union is not only a waste of money, but propaganda at the nation's expense. He should remember that he has no moral majority. Only forty seven out of the one hundred and twenty nine seats in the Scottish Parliament (ONLY one more than Scottish Labour) and opinion polls suggest the mood of the country is not for independence at all.

Salmond's been calling for broadcasting to be an issue devolved from Westminster to Holyrood. It's obvious why. Not only does Mr Salmond want to get his grubby mitts on the issue, but also on the power that goes with it. Mr Salmond is not satisfied with the title of First Minister. He also wants to see the word Editor on his door.

You see, dear reader, similarities between that infamous Channel 4 programme and Alex Salmond are profound. We adore the stupid and Alex's desperate to be a Scottish Big Brother.

Scary, isn't it!

He who sups with the devil should use a long spoon. Sadly, no spoon is long enough, in my opinion, for the poor people who have to work with our current First Minister, though, thankfully, no political party in the parliament will agree to work with him. He doesn't care, himself, with whom he sups.

The SNP's election victory was paid for by Brian Souter and should have been a taster for things to come.

So yes, I'm scared.

No Jew would have voted for a political party in the pay of Adolf Hitler and I could never bring myself to vote for a party in the pay of a vulgar wee homophobe, but I am scared to see that so many people in Scotland did. Again, similarities are frightening. The Nazi Party, too, were a homophobic body. Contrary to popular belief, they, just like the SNP were not brought to power by war or a coup d'état, but by the electorate. They made homosexuals stateless. The SNP want to make me a foreigner in my own country.

What a bunch of cunts.

I'm still scowling. Even a breakfast of cheesecake and rooibos has, alarmingly, had no impact on my mood.

Suggestions are, as always, more than welcome.

Cake!

2007-08-16T15:32:00.000+01:00

Russian Forest Gateau

You will need (for the cake):

250g 70-80% cocoa solids chocolate
3 large organic free range eggs
250g light muscovado sugar
1 vanilla pod
4 tablespoons good maple syrup
40g self-raising flour
20g cornflour
half teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
50g cocoa powder
50g ground almonds
250g raw beetroot (peeled and finely grated)
100ml very strong black coffee (not instant, please!)
30ml extra virgin olive oil

For the topping:

150g 70-80% cocoa solids chocolate
3 tablespoons very strong black coffee
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons good maple syrup

For the filling:

Half a jar of good quality black cherry jam

Instructions:

Dip a pastry brush into the olive oil and grease a 20cm springform cake pan. Set aside.
Set your oven to 140ºc (fan) or 160ºc (conventional).
Melt the chocolate over a pan of barely simmering water and set aside to cool slightly.
In a large bowl, scrape out the seeds from the vanilla pod, add the eggs, maple syrup and sugar and then beat vigourously with an electric whisk for three minutes until light and fluffy.
Gently fold in the dry ingredients until fully incorporated.
Fold in the beetroot, chocolate, coffee and oil, again, until thoroughly incorporated.
Pour your cake mix into the prepared tin and bake on the middle shelf for ninety minutes, after which time, remove from the oven, cover with foil and return to bake for a further thirty minutes.
Test to see if the cake is cooked by inserting a skewer. If it comes out clean, it's done. This is a moist cake, though, remember, so it won't come out spotless. If it's really messy, return it to the oven for another five or ten minutes and then test again.
Now, take all the ingredients for the topping and melt, again, slowly over a pan of barely simmering water. Once everything's melted, mix together gently and set aside to cool.
Once your cake is done and cooled on a wire rack, slice it in half, spread the bottom layer with the cherry jam and pop the other half of the cake on top.
Pop your cake, now, onto a plate and cover the top and sides with your chocolate topping.

It's utterly delicious. Serve with a hot drink, coffee or, surprisingly, tea! Rooibos is a perfect accompaniment!

News

2007-08-14T15:13:00.000+01:00

Look what I've just seen as I glanced out of my bedroom window, dear reader!

Yes, the owners of the house next door have put it up for sale! And by the look of the particulars, the lady next door has been doing a spot of tidying up and even thought to take the washing from the line which had been outside and exposed to the elements for weeks!

I hope the place is sold quickly. No longer will I have to hear her shouting and swearing at her poor children, her vile transistor radio-sounding hi-fi blaring out at two in the morning or the slamming of doors at breakfast time as she rows with her husband!

The lady who lives on the other side of my neighbour will be as gleeful as I am, I'm sure.

Now, If I hadn't drunk the last bottle of champagne in the house on Saturday night, I'd be popping the cork at this very moment.

If you always dreamed, dear reader, of living next door to Minge and within spitting distance of J K Rowling, clickez-vous ici.

Also in the news...

Alex Salmond has started what he's calling a big conversation. I call it a sly move, but who am I to speculate upon the shenanigans of a rat?

His chances are remote, and he knows this. So why press ahead? What's his wee game? Win or lose, the break up of the union is his end game and wants to keep the idea fresh in our minds for as long as possible.

He'll succeed in that, I'm sure, especially if we as the United Kingdom elect a conservative government next time around. A British Tory governement would be too much for many wavering Scots to stomach and I can predict, with reasonable ease, what the result of any independence referendum might be.

But of course, Mr Salmond is an awful way off from a referendum. With a parliament well short of a fifty per cent nationalist majority, it's probably never going to happen. The SNP like to cheerily snort and cackle about winning the election in May. But I can't really see it as a victory. With a margin of a handful of seats, the electoral equation gives a very curious answer to the SNP and the voters. The numbers of Tory, Labour and Liberal Democrat seats remained pretty static. The SNP took their additional seats from the Greens, Solidarity and the SSP - all of whom are also nationalist parties.

O grave, where is thy victory?

Other supposed successes for Salmond include populist moves like saving A&E departments, the abolition of prescription charges for people with chronic illnesses and tolls on the Forth and Tay bridges. Though remember, dear reader, two things:

The money for these measures has to come from somewhere
The Scottish Parliament has tax raising powers

The Scottish political scene is going to be a very lively and interesting place over the next few years. Lots of ifs, buts and maybes, though. Does Alex Salmond have the balls to go for legislation that may be voted down by the parliament? Does the parliament have the balls to go for a vote of no confidence in the government/executive and First Minister if the SNP lose a vote in the chamber, prompting a Scottish parliamentary election?

Breaking up Britain would be a pointless and ridiculous leap in the dark. Not in Scotland's interest at all.

Help!

I'm still coughing for Britain, there's a suspected case of foot and mouth in Kent and E.coli in Paisley. Is it just me, or are we all dying?

Hello

2007-08-14T13:48:00.000+01:00

Violent

2007-08-14T13:47:00.001+01:00

The Erotic Mallet

2007-08-12T12:45:00.000+01:00

I'm not a witch, I'm a love technician, dear reader.

Guten tag and welcome to The Sunday Mallet, a word association game played ut in the comments section of this post. Players are required to input (I love that word, input) the first word that comes to mind after reading the previously given word, whether it be here or in the comments section.

What does the word you think of say about you? And what would Mr Freud deduce?

It's a wild and wacky game inspired by TVAM and Timmy Mallett.

Come and play. You know you want to!

Last week, Ian left us with his penis. The first word I thought of is...

Erotic

Kundew

2007-08-11T16:30:00.001+01:00

Yes. I know how icky it sounds.

Soundtrack

2007-08-11T13:20:00.000+01:00

Although untagged, I'm picking up the baton from A Novelist and Alan. In a pioneering mood, I venture forth, dear reader, with the soundtrack to my life.

I'm getting off to a bad start here, beginning with a song out of chronological order.

Ode to Billy Joe

I was fifteen when I first heard this record. My friend had a country compilation LP with this track on it. I nearly fell off my chair when, early on in the song, I heard my own date of birth, the third of June.

So perhaps this song isn't out of chronological order, really (though strictly speaking, of course, it is).

Kiss me honey honey kiss me

and

Puppy love

The early years of my life are quite horrible and, to be frank, I'm rather glad human beings don't have vivid memories of our first few years.

My Father could not be found as my Mother went into labour. As it later turned out, he was with his mistress in Wareham. Probably fucking her while my Mother was giving birth to me. Horrid imagery is conjured in my mind when I think about it.

I was a poorly child right from the start. At three moths old, my Mum was told I'd probably not live beyond my first birthday. Doctors considered removing my spleen, but then discounted the idea claiming it would neither save me nor prolong my life. But as now, I clung on to life.

Numerous blood transfusions carried me from a babe in arms to a two year old boy, nearly three.

A week before my third birthday, I went into hospital. Again. This time, no-one was really sure if or when I'd come out. Blood transfusions. Steroids. Confined to bed. But I did get better. I remember eating a whole packet of custard cream biscuits on my birthday and then vomiting up the lot in a tiny metal dish shaped like a kidney. The spew went all over my Mum and a nurse.

Actually, that's probably my earliest memory. I always thought it was waking up on my fourth birthday. Strange that only know I realise that this is not the case.

Those are my memories. The memories of others are of me and my record player. I only had two records, apparently, and would play them over and over again. Puppy love by Donny Osmond and Kiss me honey honey kiss me by Dame Shirley Bassey.

Later, when I'm probably about five or six years old, I remember playing the Bassey song in my bedroom. I remember feeling a sense of shame, hoping no-one heard me playing Kiss me... Not because I thought people might think the song was naff but because I actually thought the song was quite rude.

And I love you so

My Father was a strange person. His mood could change like the wind and he had a temper like no other man on the face of the earth. He made Saddam Hussein look kind.

In our car, we had an eight track cassette player. One of the many cassettes which lived in the glove box was by Perry Como. Dad loved And I love you so. I'm always reminded of him when I hear Perry, which is a shame as he's quite a nice singer and the song is actually quite beautiful.

I can't believe how often I use the word nice. It's such a bland word.

I'm in the mood for dancing

The Nolans must have come to the fore in the late 1970s and I'm in the mood... I remember, was a favourite of my sister's when she looked like this. Some of the most splendid moments of my youth were spent with Christine. She's very special to me. And some of those moments were spent in her bedroom. This special moment was spent there with her, I and Debbie. I remember having an old curtain over me. I believed I was an old gypsy woman. The three of us were dancing to I'm in the mood for dancing.

It's such an innocent memory. I had no idea, then, that people might judge someone pretending to be a gypsy woman.

I just remember us twirling, laughing, having fun.

I don't want to set the world on fire

I hated going to Sunday School. I really did. And it was a Baptist church to boot. I really dug my heels in and told my Mother that in no uncertain terms was I prepared to ever go again after the superintendent told me that my dog was indeed not in heaven (animals don't have souls and only Jews and gentiles go to heaven) and I'd been hit on the head by one of the teachers. With an umbrella. Hard.

My Mum loved music. A minibus called to pick me up and take me to Sunday School and then bring me home again. I think, practically every time I came back from that awful place, just in time for lunch, Mum would be playing The Ink Spots on our old hi-fi. The track she liked best was I don't want to set the world on fire. I used to know all the words. Sadly, I can now only remember the second line... I just want to start a flame in your heart.

Chain reaction

By the mid 1980s, I was well into pop music. When I first heard La Ross singing Chain reaction, I nearly had a heart attack. I thought it was the best song I'd ever heard and nothing could ever beat it. I thought that if I had this record I'd never need another.

True blue

and

We don't need another hero (Thunderdome)

I'm never sure, dear reader, if Madonna's True blue or Tina Turner's We don't need another hero (Thunderdome) was the first record I ever bought as, strictly speaking, I bought them together. In W H Smith's in Bournemouth. Of course, the cashier must have put one through the till before the other. Which one, though, I don't know and now, never will know.

I remember there was an instrumental version of We don't need another hero (Thunderdome) on the b side of Tina's single. I'd play the 7" in my bedroom (where there were no mirrors) and then go and stand in the bathroom in front of the medicine cabinet which had a mirror on the door. I'd sing the song, pretending I was Tina. The instrumental version was no quite the same as the a side, though, and I'd often get lost somewhere with in it. I remember thinking Tina was a bitch for that.

West End girls

I saw Pet Shop Boys perform their first ever UK number one single on Top Of The Pops either at the tail end of 1985 or the beginning of 1986. I'm sure, actually, it was 1985 as they weren't yet number one. West End girls didn't get to number one until the first week of 1986 when it knocked Shakin' Stevens (a guy I thought was utterly hot) off of the top of the chart.

I remember thinking that both Neil and Chris were quite dishy. And the song was something else. I'd never heard anything like it before and had to have it. Sadly, though, I had to wait a while. I saved up my pocket money and bought Please in 1986.

Love on a mountain top

I'd been buying CDs since 1987. It's s sin, being the first. But the first CD I bought and played after buying my own CD player was Wicked by Sinitta. Love on a mountain top is my favourite song on that album.

Justify my love (the beast within mix)

The video for Justify my love was the filthiest I'd ever seen. I was desperate to buy the single and the Immaculate Collection video. Imagine my surprise, dearest reader, on having bought said single, to hear the the beast within mix. I was scared shitless.

Time to say goodbye

My Mother's younger sister, Barl, died in 1986. Mum asked me to play Sarah Brightman's Time to say goodbye in the morning on the day of the funeral, just before we left the house. We looked at each other with a bitter-sweet smile and ended up in floods of tears.

After the funeral, Sue, my cousin, Barl's eldest daughter, told me that on going through her things, she'd discovered her Mum had kept a photograph of me in her purse. It was old, somewhat faded and tatty at the edges. It had been there for years. Whenever I think of that (even now) I shed a tear.

Aunty Barl was a dear woman who lived a troubled life. She was glad to die. I could never understand it when she went, but now, eleven years later, I do.

One of the hymns at the funeral was Abide with me. I want that at my own, too.

Dream a little dream of me

Dream a little dream of me is featured in one of my favourite films of all time, Beautiful Thing. It's very special. J'adore it - the film and the song. Ian used to sing it to me.

Schizophrenic

XWiz and I adore being Rumours Of Whores. Schizophrenic, for me, is the highlight of the experience.

It only takes a minute

As I type, It only takes a minute by Take That (it's not shit at all) is playing on iTunes (I've got it on shuffle mode). An apt place to stop.

Fab!

2007-08-11T10:21:00.001+01:00

Fear

2007-08-10T14:42:00.000+01:00

As you may or may not know, dear reader, I've just come back to Edinburgh from an extended holiday to England and Ireland. I must have been away around six weeks.

Six difficult weeks, it must be said.

Some of my earliest memories are of being afraid; of fearful situations. I recall my brother telling me the funny man was on his way to get me. That wasn't funny at all. I recall trips to the toilet. No relief was to be found there. I was sure someone was on the stairs, watching me, watching me dart from the living room, across the hall to the bog. I recall laying in bed at night, alone, unable to stand the fear anymore... I'd creep down the stairs and sit by the living room door with the voices of adults for comfort.

I've always been afraid of being alone and of being got. This fear, all too tangibly, has continued into my adult life.

A sickly child, ill health was a constant threat to my very existence. Mother was very kind to me. Without wrapping me up in cotton wool, she protected me from death and disaster. Without explanation, I knew I was safe. The sight of blood, however, mine or anyone else's, and I was in hysterics.

All those horrid fears; of threat and of solitude came to me like a fist to the face in the early 1990s when my work colleague and I were held up in an armed robbery at our place of work.

As an adult, I had to face things on my own. I had to cope. Unable to face these things, unable to cope, I fled from life itself and into my bedroom. I did not come out, save for visits to the toilet and bathroom, for six months.

Slowly but surely, with the help of doctors, nurses and psychiatric specialists, I emerged from my bedroom. Not really because I wanted to, no, but because my fear of letting down the medical staff and my Mother was greater than my fear of what might lie outside of my bedroom/stronghold.

However, regardless of the hows and whys, I did it and soon realised the outside world wasn't such a bad place after all. My fears were based on something I'd suggested to myself rather than on anything real. My fears were all about what might be, what could be. Just like my funny man fear. What he might do to me, what he might look like. Just like my fear of someone watching me on the stairs and where they might take me if they caught me.

But aren't all fears like that?

What if?

Fear still plays a starring rôle in my life. He's been a special guest star in The Minge Show since 1972.

Breathe.

Between then and now, fears have also been about self doubt and about a lack of explanation. Being told I was daft and shouldn't worry have never been a cure for my fears. I need proof that I'm daft and proof that my worries are groundless. That's how I came out from my bedroom after six moths of self-imposed imprisonment.

From my Spring trip to Japan and through to my Summer trips to England and Ireland, my fears have been alive and well. I've been coughing, without much of a break, since the beginning of this year. Antibiotics have seen off chest and sinus infections, yet still the cough refuses to pack up and go home.

This week, I visited Dr Wendy here in Edinburgh. I see her every so often for check-ups after the removal of the tumour from my tongue. She knows of my ever present fear of the c word and understood my hints over the constant coughing. She also knows about my fear of facing up to things, ever afraid that my thoughts could be confirmed as fact.

"See your GP," said Wendy.

So I did.

First of all, it must be noted that when I first saw the guy, a new doctor at the practice, I thought Alan was playing some kind of trick on me, impersonating my GP. But no, the guy was either his doppelgänger or his long lost twin with an English accent. As he called to me, with a wink, "Mr Tapping?" I nearly fell off of my chair.

What a wonderful man he was and put my fears to bed, I hope, once and for all. And he certainly knew how to do that. Not with a ruffle of my hair and a, "Don't be a silly lad," but with an explanation.

Apparently, after a chest infection and sinus infection quite close together, my sinuses are inflamed and inflamed sinuses tend to overproduce mucus. That mucus finds itself on my chest, hence the coughing. The wheezing is caused, not by an asthmatic lung or even a cancerous one, but by the constant coughing and the bronchioles tightening, then not relaxing.

I'm not to worry.

And spookily, I'm not.

For the first time in months, I'm able to spend moments alone without my mind wandering into the realms of pain, death and funerals. I've actually read a passage from a book today. Something I've been unable to do for some weeks. This afternoon, after I've taken my ladies out for another walk, I plan on watching The Weakest Link.

I love this sense of freedom.

But still, I look back into the past and ponder my theories of fear and regret.

I'd love to be a person who can look back upon their life and say, hand on heart, "No regrets." Sadly, I regret a lot of things, from ugly romantic relationships, fucked-up thoughts on how to keep a man, smoking and always wondering what people thought of me (and the tests I put them through to discover the answer).

I can't live a life of fear. I can't. It's horrible. The depression that comes with it is like a lid on my kettle. I want to whistle, sing and let all that steam out. Crying, lying on the bed in a ball, pulling out my eyebrows - all things I want consigned to the past. I'm doing my best.

I'm high maintenance, I'll admit that, and a needy person, though I won't ask. I'm not ashamed of being needy. I'm not ashamed of myself, though I am ashamed, on some level, of not asking for help.

But I do get help. Sometimes it's a surprise, sometimes it's from the dependable people in my life. My fears of being alone are, I think, at last allayed.

I'm still coughing, but I'm no longer afraid.

Donna!

2007-08-10T09:14:00.001+01:00

The guest stars for the 2008 run of Doctor Who have been announced.

Of course, I'm jumping for joy over the return of Donna, whom I adore, but my excitement reaches some kind of pinnacle over the appearance of Fenella Woolgar who shone (If you'll excuse the pun) in Bright Young Things.

Another guest star is Tim McInnerny who, in my humble opinion, was quite delicious whenever he appeared in Blackadder, codpiece or no codpiece.

Also, how wonderful to see Richard Briers in Torchwood and Felicity Kendal taking part in the next series of Doctor Who. I wonder if they'll be reunited on screen somehow and shown digging up Donna's back garden, turning it into a farm?

The Christmas special is only a few months away. I cannot wait. For Kylie! It's turning out to be a gay ol' Christmas. As camp as...

And to top it all, we have Torchwood II to look forward to and The Sarah Jane Adventures.

How fabulous.

Seriously

2007-08-08T17:22:00.000+01:00

On Sunday evening, Ian and I went into Edinburgh to see Seriously. Pet Shop Boys. Reinterpreted. What a wonderful way to be broken in to Edinburgh's 2007 Fringe Festival.

Wonderful, yes, though queueing in the rain, the performance starting almost half an hour late, I wasn't feeling too wonderful, it must be said at curtain up. Although there wasn't actually a curtain.

Fringe productions almost always run to time, the whole event being such a tight ship, so waiting half an hour for Seriously to start was like waiting five hours for a cold starter in a five star restaurant.

I felt a tad scared as I took my seat at a front row table (just like dinner theatre!) and wondered how dampened the crowd's ardour would be. Quite damp. Almost soggy.

But once things actually got going, wet jackets and the smell of damp dog were totally forgotten.

I'd once thought calling this piece of, let's face it, musical theatre, well, might be slightly pretentious, as if the songs were not serious but made serious by their reworkings. No. Not the case. More that the seriousness of the songs are exposed thanks to the stripping back of the HiNRG and revealing the hurts, the jealousy, the sadness, the euphoria and all the other extreme emotions which make up our lives.

A story is told through the piece, yes, though nothing contrived or as ridiculous as the stories concocted for Mama Mia! and We Will Rock You. Indeed, no words are spoken, the audience being shown aspects of life, of the characters lives, through music and lyrics. A boy falls in love with a man, his Mother's losing her husband to another woman...

How are they going to get through?

Who'd have thought that Flamboyant could become a classy swing/jazz number? Who'd have thought that a medley of Left to my own devices and A red letter day could become something of a torch song or that another medley, this time Love comes quickly and Miracles might bring a tear to ones eye or make the hairs on the back of ones neck stand up on end?

The piece was amazing, though just short of perfect, all thanks to technical hitches and us punters having to wait in three disorganised queues - almost chaos.

Michael Howard Smith's mic kept crackling and crashing out. He then came back on stage with a bulkier, clumsier and more obvious piece of electronics. Quite aptly, he then began to sing The survivors.

I hope Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe get to see it themselves soon. They should. It's fucking brilliant.

9.5/10

Words

2007-08-07T19:20:00.000+01:00

I love words. I love playing with words and watching others play, too. So you should imagine, dear reader, that I love the word verification service offered by Blogger to protect users from spammers and other similar nasty types. The strange mix of letters on offer are usually dull rendering word verification, for he or she verifying their words, nothing more than annoying.

But word verification on Krafty's blog was far from dull and far from annoying today!

The word I was asked to enter was cunjeta. Nothing wild, you might think. Actually, no, completely wild! Like a new word invented for the lady garden and reminding me of Conchita Martinez.

Fabulous.

Water

2007-08-06T19:34:00.000+01:00

Today, on my return from Borders here in Edinburgh, I was listening to PM with Eddie Mair.

How shocked, dear reader, do you suppose I was on hearing a moaning fish wife from England calling in to complain about having no drinking water on tap for the past thirteen days? I'll tell you. I was very shocked indeed.

Shocked.

I cannot believe, in a world where a child has to travel many miles on foot to collect the dregs of a muddy puddle, a woman in Gloucestershire seriously expects us to pity her having to boil the water coming through the tap in her MFI kitchen.

Yes, floods are terrible but, hey, at least the moaning Gloucester bint is alive. I wonder if it crossed her tiny mind, while waiting to go to air, in the silence of her own thoughts, not to yack on about having to boil water in her electric kettle but to beg for more media attention and aid for the two hundred million people affected by flooding in South Asia?

Sadly, two hundred and forty people have died in India...

...And three people here in the UK.

But those three people are the tip of the iceberg. It's been revealed today that the flooding may be the cause of Britain's latest foot and mouth outbreak. Debby Reynolds (Debby, sadly and not Debbie) appears worried.

I'd be more worried if I were a cow, pig, sheep or goat. Many cows have already been slaughtered and I expect more animals will be murdered yet.

It's time people sat back and really considered their own positions. Boiling water in order to make it drinkable isn't such a dreadful thing and certainly nothing to grizzle over. At least there's water on tap and it's only been unfit for human use for the past two weeks. The slaughter of sentient beings and the plight of millions of Asian people affected by floods might move me to telephone a radio news programme. Boiling my kettle would not.

The Sunday Mallet

2007-08-05T14:37:00.000+01:00

I came back (back, back, etc), dear reader, from my hiatus and state of limbo.

While away in England, Northern Ireland and Eire, I had much time to think. More about that later, but first, thoughts about the matter at hand and what's to be done with an interactive Sunday. Holidays always seem to remind me of Mallett's Mallet, seemingly because I often find myself getting up earlier while away on holiday than I do at home. As a boy, weekdays meant staying in bed as long as possible before getting up for school. Weekends and school holidays meant getting up early to watch children's TV.

Wacaday was a wild part of my childhood and teenage years and it's with great reverence that I put my own spin on the show with The Sunday Mallet. I did toy with the idea of Minge's Mallet, but narcissism can be oh so horrid.

So, how to play... Much as we did with Fib Sunday, though this time there shall be no fibs, just simple rounds of word association. Yes, The Sunday Mallet is a word association game. No need for suggesting topics and so forth. I shall presently come up with a word. In the comments section, a player should provide the first word that pops into his or her mind. The next player, on seeing said word, should provide the first word that they think of and so on. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

So, the first ever word of The Sunday Mallet shall be jubilation.

Holiday

2007-06-29T15:43:00.000+01:00

Gordon

2007-06-29T15:38:00.000+01:00

Our new Prime Minister has seen my cock.

News from Bournemouth

2007-06-28T19:37:00.000+01:00

Phyllis here . . .

Roy's nephew's girlfriend had a baby - Polly.

Roy is now officially a Great Aunt.

Ina

xxx

Juni-Août

2007-06-22T17:00:00.000+01:00

3

2007-06-22T15:24:00.001+01:00

Kamakura, Japan. 2006. Those were the days!

Away

2007-06-22T12:46:00.000+01:00

I like the word hiatus. It smacks of science from the ancient world and reminds me of what many Greek and Roman men would do in their spare time without fear of anyone batting an eyelid.

And a hiatus, I'm about to take.

In the early hours of tomorrow morning, Phyllis and I shall drive down to Bournemouth. I expect to stay there about a month and will, more than likely, be there for the birth of my first great niece or great nephew. Exciting! Nice to be a great uncle! Even a great uncle!

Ian will stay with me for a day before returning home sans moi et nos chiennes. In the middle of July, he'll visit me chez Maman for a weekend, then, towards the end of the month, come to collect me again, bring me home, perhaps for a night or two, before the four of us go on a seven day holiday to Ireland.

I'm so excited, I could vomit, dear reader.

In England, I plan on going to the beach, playing bingo, visiting old pals, seeing my family and having some quality time with Mumsy-wumsy. In Ireland, I plan on touring the whole fucking island and, hopefully, bumping into a few folks along the way. On the itinerary so far: Dublin, Waterville, somewhere wee in County Galway and Belfast.

Je retournerai.

Sun

2007-06-22T11:07:00.000+01:00

As predictable as the waxing and waning of the moon, the tides and the knowledge that the best part of The X Factor will be the rubbish acts cast off at the beginning, yesterday was the longest day of the year. Although we saw next to no sunshine here in Edinburgh, we were blessed with seventeen hours, thirty six minutes and thirty five seconds of Northern daylight. Plus, of course, the strange constant twilight, melding into dawn as the globe of the sun skips briefly below the horizon.

I love the Summer and I love the longest day/shortest night. We get a massive ten hours, thirty nine minutes and seven seconds more daylight during the Summer solstice than we do on the shortest day.

I've not had to put the heating on, nor the lights and warming foods, the comforting type such as mashed potato, soup or steamed puddings are as far from my mind as they can ever get.

But...

The six months of looking forward to ever longer days are now over. The nights are already drawing in.

So what do I do? Should I be a pessimist, think the worst about the up-coming six months and then be pleasantly surprised when it doesn't turn out half as bad as I expected? Will that be the key to a happy Winter?

I don't think so. I know it's going to get colder. I know it's going to get wetter. I know the days will get shorter. I know the nights will get longer. I know I'll have to be putting the lights on at three in the afternoon. There's no way any of that's going to change.

Unless, dear reader, if you know of anything to aid me in thinking the absolute worst about the Autumn and Winter which might not actually occur and leave me happily amazed, please let me know.

My self-diagnosed SAD is already kicking in.

Rating

2007-06-22T00:38:00.001+01:00

Mingle² - Online Dating

Jesus

2007-06-21T12:34:00.001+01:00

Phyllis and I weren't alone on our all-Nippon holiday, you know, dear reader. Oh, no! We were accompanied by Jesus Christ, as given to me by my delightful American friend, Dame Krafty of Bitch.

Christ was a welcome companion and eager to see the pagan lands of the East. He enjoyed his tour, just as The Buddha had previously enjoyed touring with us around Scotland.

While in Japan, Jesus Christ enjoyed bathing in a sento, drank milk, made tea and even performed miracles. Yes. He turned water into beer and steam into melon cream soda. If that doesn't beat raising the dead, I don't know what does.

Leaving

2007-06-21T10:22:00.000+01:00

We left Japan on 6th June 2007. From the Park Hyatt, Tokyo, to Narita airport by limousine bus. How a bus has anything to do with a limousine, I don't know, but that's not for here.

I was very sad that morning, and being tired always exaggerates emotion. Leaving is never a delicious experience and saying cheerio to Alan and Junya the previous evening made this one of the longest good-byes in history. Painful and not at all nice.

As the bus pulled away from the hotel, I began thinking about all the things we'd seen and done in our short stay. And the things we hadn't done: the fish market, an oxygen bar and a visit to an onsen. Also, I was sad to have to leave Marie (my birthday gift from Dan and Masumi) behind at the hotel. There would be no chance of me being able to take her on the aeroplane. But I had a plan so that she might live. I removed the cord from her neck and let her float up to the ceiling. Surely, the cleaners wouldn't look up. And the next inhabitants of room #4909 might adopt her.

More sad than leaving Marie, I was upset to the point of tearful at leaving Alan and Junya. Even now, after this short time, they feel lost in the mists, not only of time, but of the Orient, like another realm, another planet, another reality. Distance is a horrible thing. Email, blogging and telephone calls don't make up for physical contact; a brush of ones hair, a hug, a kiss. Or first hand vision of a beautiful smile. They are lost. For now. But I do feel, honestly, someday I'll find them.

Leaving Japan was much easier than entering. Were it not for the lack of cheering, I might have imagined they were glad to see the back of us. On the passenger side, it was time to seek out a toilet, café/restaurant and shop - in that order.

Having tiddled, we sat and watched the Airbus A380 manoeuvre around the apron and then took our traditional yet untypical Japanese breakfast of coffee and cakes, this time, courtesy of Starbucks. An area was set aside for the consumption of purchased goods, shared with other establishments. I noticed a couple of menus. Not exactly engrish, but delightful nonetheless, one asked me if vegetables were enough, another offered the dreaded curry doughnut which haunted me during 2006.

Breakfast over, we headed, with haste, to a shop selling electronics and watches. Yes! I was after a new watch. Impressed with Alan's, I'd decided to bag a Japanese Fossil for myself, though had not seen any up until then. Thankfully, all that changed in the shop and I purchased a fabulous timepiece for myself. Every time I look at it, I'm reminded of my time in Japan, not only this year, but in 2006 and 2004.

On our way to the gate, we passed a couple of daft American women, asking a Japanese man for directions to their aeroplane and seemingly unaware of where they actually were, asked, "Do you know where we're at?"

I can be quite rude at times, hen, and, rather loudly, I tutted and commented on her poor grasp of grammar.

Where we're at? At?

Lord, preserve us.

Our journey home was far from fabulous. Lufthansa aeroplanes are scruffy and old. Their cabin crew are at best, rude. At worst, a bunch of humourless cunts. The food is dreadful and the entertainment a disgrace. We were cold, hungry and ignored.

Frankfurt airport is equally vile. Dirty, scruffy, old and in dire need of a lick of paint and some smiles on the faces of the workers there. I was keen to get away on our flight to London.

Luckily, our flight from London to Edinburgh was provided by British Airways. How fabulous to travel with an airline with morals, who believe in new aeroplanes, cleanliness and the occasional smile! And food, to boot! Good food. And copious amounts of booze!

So before long, we were back in Edinburgh, back in our wee house. Japan, thousands of miles away.

Suica

2007-06-20T23:03:00.000+01:00

Je suis Minge La Chatte.

TTFN

2007-06-19T15:51:00.000+01:00

Our last evening in Japan was spent performing Karaoke.

Our day in Disneyland over, Ian and I made our way back to Shinjuku to meet up with our most delicious of friends, Alan and Junya. We were unusually early. In waiting, I was flattered to find the Japanese people passing by would stop to admire Ian in his Fantasia/Sorcerer's Apprentice headgear and me in my Minnie Mouse wedding veil. Of course, they hated to be caught looking. When I'd turn around to see them, heads turned, looking back at us, they'd bow their heads of cover their mouths and giggle in that cutesy way, the way only the Japanese people know. Of course, some were brave, would ask where we were from or say, "Cute!" By and large, though, they were shy, yet intrigued to see a fat Westerner in cartoon drag.

The Minnie Mouse gear came in very handy indeed. After meeting up with Alan and Junya, we headed off to a Karaoke place, taking an all you can eat and drink package with karaoke. I adored singing, favourites being a medley of West End Girls/So Excited (I Could Vomit), I Begin To Spin Around and Like A Virgin. Like A Virgin simply cannot and should not be sung without a wedding veil worn. Our waiter did his level best to ignore me singing that song to him when he came into our room with beer, sake and food, though he did leave with a smile on his face. Which was a picture. A better picture would have been the look on his Mother's face when he returned home after his shift. I can picture it now.

"Kon Ban Wah, Ma!"
"Hi, darlin'! How was your shift?"
"Well, you'll never believe it, but this big, fat Western Man dressed up in no small way like Minnie Mouse tried his seduction techniques on me by singing Like A Virgin."
"Have you been at the medicine cabinet again, son?"

Oh, to be a fly on the wall.

Ian's highlight, I am sure, was singing Hung Up. He seemed to really enjoy it. Alan amazed us by singing in Japanese and Junya amazed us with his strong, yet somehow delicate and fragile voice.

We had a blast. We really did. Such fun.

But then it was time to go. Alan and Junya came back to the hotel with us to pick up some Irn Bru and some cables we'd borrowed in order to recharge our electrical devices. After a very short stay, it was time to go in order that they caught their final train home.

A sad goodbye and a sad ending to the happiest of holidays.

I miss Alan and Junya more than I can express, all thanks to the limits of language. Needless to say, I love them dearly and look forward to seeing them soon, God willing.

Maglev

2007-06-19T14:23:00.000+01:00

A feasibility study into a high-speed rail link between Glasgow and Edinburgh has been commissioned by transport chiefs in the West of Scotland.

The implementation of a maglev link between the two cities would cut journey times from fifty to just fifteen minutes. Of course, a the idea is pure fantasy. As long as the SNP are in power, at any rate. They're already set their sights on abandoning the tram project here in Edinburgh. They'd rather spend that money on the road network. Not very green, are they? And you thought the Tories were the party most keen on cuts! Wrong! The SNP are mad for cuts. They even want to cut Ian's job. What will actually happen, though, is anyone's guess. As with every other issue, the SNP went into the election broadcasting a multitude of ideas. They've implemented not one. Instead, they've announced a raft of reviews and studies, wasting even more money than they promised.

What a mess they're making. I cringe every time I see Alex Salmond on the television. His smarmy smirk is enough to put anyone off their tea, even life itself.

Roll on the next Scottish parliamentary elections! The sooner, the better! Between now and then, however, I'll continue to hope and pray that the SNP forgets all about what is good for it and thinks about what's good for Scotland.

Disney

2007-06-19T12:16:00.001+01:00

On 4th and 5th June, we visited Tokyo Disneyland. On 4th, we were accompanied by Alan, Junya, Masumi and Dan (and Marie) and also visited Tokyo Disney Sea.

Sometimes there is no need for words. A picture can speak thousands of them. However, for Alan's take on the day, click here and to see Ian with Woody, please click here. You'll be glad you did, dear reader.

Faith

2007-06-18T23:20:00.000+01:00

Birthday

2007-06-17T10:57:00.000+01:00

Fib Sunday is gone. It is no more. It is done.

Dead.

Trying to break out from the chains of my comfort blanket into a brave new world, I abandon the old and look to the new. Being a creature of habit, though, I am eager maintain a theme for Sundays and seek out a new one. I'll have decided by next week. Come back then, if you do so wish, Sunday girl, Sunday boy.

Ian Thorpe, though, was the last person to submit a Fib and new topic (a lack of understanding in people from other times). In his honour, I offer, without suggestion of a new topic (for Fib Sunday is dead - did I mention that?):

Back;
Back.
Further.
Further back.
Going back in time.
Grasp feathered birds; not of metal.

Moving on...

Although I hate to admit it, I am thirty five years old, dear reader. As I move, in the Biblical sense, into the second half of my life, not only do I look old, I feel old. Though on the day of my birthday, I felt young, youthful and lithe.

It began, as usual, after rising, washing and dressing, with breakfast. Though not in our usual haunt, a bakery. No. My birthday breakfast was taken in our hotel, the Park Hyatt, Tokyo. I've never paid twenty five pounds for a poached egg on toast before, but I do think it was worth every penny. Well, every ¥en. You see, my little maid, Ian and I were not only paying for the food, but for the view and to experience life how the other half live it.

Intimidated, perhaps, by the surroundings, the millionaries and the staring eyes of the former axis powers, I resisted the buffet table until prompted to do so by our caring waitress. As Jack was baffled by which pieces of cutlery to use and when, I had no idea at which point during the proceedings to go and grab as many pastries, cakes and fine delicacies as possible. My Mother gave me some very good advice when I was a young man and I've always lived by it.

"If you don't know what to do," she said, "do nothing and wait until you do know."

Fine advice indeed - and it works well in all situations, even this one. Unsure when to act, I decided to sit tight and wait. After a gentle and diplomatic prod from our waitress, I knew when the time was right and went for it.

And shit, did I go for it! Not wanting to seem or look greedy and constantly repeating the mantra quality, not quantity, I brought as much back to the table as appeared reasonable. Though in doing so, through nervousness, I'm sure, I made a massive fuck-up. In attempting to transport some cream cheese from a bowl via a spoon to my plate, Minge ended up, with extreme force, splattering a load of white muck all over the floor.

Shit!

What would the millionaires do? What would the former axis powers do? What would I do?

Reverting to type, skivvy type, I got down on my knees and attempted to pick said splat up. Though, now, what to do with it? I checked to see if anyone was looking before wiping the white goo on the corner of the table before returning with my fine fair to Ian where my poached eggs on toast were waiting.

Breakfast over, we headed off to Yoyogi Park. On the agenda: The Meiji Shrine, the museums and the Harajuku girls!

Shinto, a uniquely Japanese religion, is principally based on the worship of spirits, nature and ancestors resulting in a reverence of wisdom, beauty and peace, all easily felt and tangible inside Shinto shrines and temples. More concerned with the here and now than an afterlife, a respect for life itself fills the hearts and minds of devotees, even the simplest of curious tourists like me.

I have a great admiration for Shintoism and wonder what the world would be like if it were the leading universal religion instead of the horror of the Abrahamic blief systems the world is, depending on ones viewpoint, either cursed or blessed with. Of course, Shinto did not stop Japan's aggression during the course of World War II, so perhaps it wouldn't be such a different place. Having said that, I must repeat my notions of joy and peace as felt during my visits to the holier places in Japan, both Shinto and Buddhist and am reminded of my opinion that religions are often hijacked, their peaceful intentions replaced with hatred and used as banners of war.

But that's a whole other debate, my lamb.

Before leaving the shrine, both Phyllis and I wrote out a prayer on a wooden tablet and hung it about a sacred tree. I hope God or at least someone was listening or can read my plea.

On leaving, we, at first, thought we were quite fortunate to see a wedding procession. Fortune had nothing to do with it, however. As soon as one was over, another began. The Meiji Shrine, it was apparent, is THE place to get married. Also, babies are brought for a blessing and prayers offered for the dead. A good place to visit on my birthday, then - and I did pray that I would one day return.

From the shrine itself, we walked through the park to the Meiji Treasure Museum, stopping en route for a drink from the vending machines which seem to be omnipresent in Japan. Small, with only a few articles on display, all having belonged to the Emperor Meiji or his wife. He looked a proper bruiser, she, something like a primordial dwarf. I know I shouldn't, but I have a morbid curiosity and wondered how and indeed if they had sexual relations. My mind's workings went into overtime and I imagined Meiji's penis being as big as his wife.

An annexe, found elsewhere in the park, was filled with nineteenth Century royal garb, totty shoes and fans. It also provided welcome eating facilities where Phyllis and I gobbled up two huge bowls of ramen. Very little Japanese cuisine was on offer, oddly, in such a Japanese place. Everyone around and about us seemed to be stuffing corndogs and hamburgers into their tiny mouths, swiftly followed by whippy ice-cream.

Lunch over with, we proceeded to another area of Yoyogi Park to visit my adored Harajuku girls (and boys). Their look, whether it be the classis Gothic Lolita or Visual kei, never ceases to make my heart race. If I lived in Tokyo, I am sure I'd be there in Harajuku every Sunday aftenoon, perhaps in a wedding dress and kinky boots. Probably bought at Innocent World.

We were offered and gladly accepted free hugs. Japanese teddy boys danced. Victorian costumes were worn. What a fabulous atmosphere. Add to that the live music, the food stalls, the selling of bizarre old calculators, cables and 1980s computer game consoles and Harajuku was alive with all that's strange, all that's fabulous.

The only thing to stop me from living out the rest of my life with the Harajuku girls was the impending arrival of Alan and Junya at our hotel. Read about the day from Alan's perspective here. And there are some great shots of our meal to behold, too!

But I'm jumping ahead of myself...

We met Alan and Junya in our hotel room during the latter half of the afternoon. At five o'clock, we headed up to the New York bar for a round of early drinks, the beginning of my birthday celebrations. Avoiding my boozing comfort blanket, a delicious Margarita, instead, I opted for a cherry cocktail, made with a traditional japanese cherry liqueur, sake and, I believe something else. What, though, I can't remember. But I can remember how delicious it was! Alan and Junya presented me with a fabulous book, Watching The English by Kate Fox. We had a blast. Really, a wonderfully happy time. I glanced over to where Bill Murray sat in Lost In Translation and was tempted to go and sit there, too. After all, it was my birthday. I felt a bit silly, though, so stayed put.

Next, the Ninja restaurant and my birthday meal, another kind and fabulous gift to me from Alan and Junya. I've never been to a theme restaurant before and didn't really know what to expect. Good job. Expect the unexpected. A lady met us from the door and escorted us along some kind of labyrinth to our table, many scares along the way. Once seated in near darkness, Alan and Junya helped us decide how to order from the menu. A huge benefit to us, I can tell you, my love. What I didn't know, was the number of different courses (all of which can be seen, in detail, on Alan's blog entry about my birthday) we were about to consume! Beginning with Lobster Tofu and, some two hours later, maybe more, ending up with delicious desserts. No! I lie! The meal did not end with desserts, no! We were treated to a private magic show by a Ninja! He made coins appear and disappear and then delighted us with card tricks, allowing me to keep the ace of spades, the card I'd chosen from the deck. What a wonderful treat for wee Minge.

On leaving, we were yet again escorted out of the building, this time by a slighty more direct route and waved off, literally until we were out of sight, by the same woman who'd greeted us hours before.

The night was not over yet, however. A return trip to the New York Bar at the Park Hyatt was absolutely necessary. At five o'clock, during our first visit, poor Alan had been refused entry on account of his sandals. Not any rough old sandals, you understand, but high fashion footwear. Why, I can't imagine, as on our return, we were joined in the bar by several scruffy old geezers in shell suits accompanied, quite obviously, by rent boys. High class hookers, the lads may have been, their clients were definitely low class.

Martin

2007-06-16T21:54:00.000+01:00

This is not about a beautiful memory, a story with a moral, a message or any form of catharsis. It's more a getting it off of my chest moment.

Back in the '80s, I had a friend called Martin Cobbler. He lived not too far from me, in the next terrace. We were kind of thrown together, I suppose. I lived on the top of a hill in Bournemouth. A meagre hill, it must be said, but a hill nonetheless. Down the hill, to the East, I think, the Catholic families lived. The Protestant families lived on the Western slope. The Catholic Mothers didn't like their children playing with Protestants.

I played with Martin because he was my age. At first, I didn't like him. He was fat. His lips glistened with saliva. He had a strange pong, like a damp dog. One of his sisters had a habit of shitting in drains and the other sister would prod it with a stick before shouting, "Mum, Sammy's done a dirty."

Then I grew to like Martin. I can't be specific, but I think out of pity. Eating in their kitchen, I was more than upset to find they had no dessert spoons, but, instead, ate trifle out of cereal bowls with table spoons. They had no living room carpet. Their toilet was filthy and stank.

Of course, I said nothing, apart from refusing future invitations to take tea with the Cobblers.

I must have had the most patronising ideas for Martin. I'd encourage him to play in my bedroom or my garden as often as possible and ask Mum to dish a meal up for him, whether it be lunchtime or teatime. We were common, remember, dear reader, so we didn't eat dinner, but tea. Before leaving my house, I'd ask, "Would you like to use my toilet, Martin, before going home?"

Martin and I didn't go to the same school. Although out of the catchment area, I did go to the better school. Only because my brother was already there. And he only got to go because our sister was there before him. She'd got in because my parents used to live in a less common part of town when Lorraine began school. I say less common. It was still common, just to a lesser extent. There are grades of common, you know.

Martin went to the school where children swore. They said things like shit and fuck.

I asked Mum if Martin could go to my school. She said he wouldn't be allowed. My heart sank. Then I began dreaming of Martin's parents dying in a car accident and Mum adopting him.

And then I grew up.

Martin went to work in an architect's office on leaving school. I went to college, then, at the start of the '90s, took a job in the accounts department at a builder and decorators' merchant. After that, a bank, then Post Office Counters Limited and then a building society. We were eighteen within a week of one another in 1990. I bought him a CD player, chose a really sappy birthday card with verse after verse about friendship and being good friends and took him out for a meal.

My birthday came some six days later. We met in the morning. He didn't wish me a happy birthday or many happy returns of the day. First, I thought he might be planning some kind of surprise. You know the kind, the type where the victim believes his or her birthday's been forgotten - until some huge surprise party begins.

There was no surprise party, although he did attend a meal with me, along with very close friends and family.

Not short of a bob or two himself, he left the restaurant to go home without even offering to chip in with the bill.

Within a year, I was living in something of a molly house in Southbourne. A 1920s/1930s house in Irving Road, choc full of gays. His parents had recently split up and he needed to find a place of his own. He asked me if he could stay with me for a week or two until he'd organised his living arrangements. Of course, I agreed. Of course, for the two weeks he stayed with me, he didn't once offer to chip in with the rent or share the food bill.

I had no idea he'd be gone after two weeks. I came home after work, on the Friday, I think it was, to find he'd cleared all his stuff out and a wee note saying he'd be in touch.

I didn't see him for seven years...

...And then I did, on a bus going through Winton in Bournemouth. I was on the street and recognised him immediately. He was stood near the door, waiting for the bus to stop, waiting to alight. I sometimes wonder, if he'd seen me as I'd seen him, would he have got off of the bus?

He said he'd been busy.

I was never too busy to be his friend.

Friendships are all about give and take. As with every other kind of relationship, friendships are never based on pure equality, even when we think they are or wish they are. Friendships are give and take situations. One friend will do lots of giving and hardly any taking. The other friend will do lots of taking and hardly any giving.

This can work. Some people get off on being takers. The adulation and hero-worship may make them feel special or important, especially knowing their friends need them; that they can get away with it. Others get off on being givers. Insecurities and other personal issues mean that some people will either seek out or only feel comfortable with people who treat them poorly. A giver might see this, consciously or subconsciously as some kind of psychlogical challenge:

Even though he's really mean to me, if I am even nicer in future, give him more, massage his ego more than ever before, he might finally like me. When he likes me, I'll be a better person.

That cycle is very difficult to break. The taker doesn't want to stop getting off on the worship, the giver doesn't want to give up trying in the hope that they'll become a good friend, good person.

Martin taught me lots and lots of lessons about friendship and relationships in general. I'd idealised our friendship, our brotherhood. I believed in equality and presumed this meant I'd create and propagate equality in all aspects of my personal life. It took me a long time, but I eventually realised he'd been using me all those years and I'd let it happen. The packets of menthol fags I'd buy; he'd smoke. The tenners I'd lend him, never to see again. The promises of this, that and the other that he'd make and never keep. My requests, always to be met, though never were. The way he enjoyed my feeling sorry for him, when, in fact, there was nothing to feel sorry about.

Martin broke my heart.

But, you know, all those things, however bad, however one sided, I rarely think of. When I think of Martin, I remember a game we used to play as children. I think we were about seven or eight years of age. Don't ask me why, but it was called Peter's Block and was like a cross between it and hide 'n' seek. Martin would get quite annoyed if a player ignored, changed or broke the complicated rules of the game and would use humiliation and other tactics to dish out his revenge. Strangely, he thought nothing of changing, ignoring or breaking the rules himself and would do so quite openly with an almost expressionless face. As if he had no conscience.

I'm still quite childish with friendships and have difficulty accepting hypocrisy.

I expect Martin is still self obsessed; still surrounds himself with people who have inferiority issues and still makes promises he has no intention of keeping; enjoying the reaction, seeing the sadness in people who find they've been let down yet again. I also expect, though, that Martin is still to experience the wonder of true friendship and all the benefits it can bring. His heart will never miss a miss. He will never walk with a spring in his step and he will never hear the words, "I love you, " with the same feeling as most other people do.

My relationship with Martin started with pity and, really, ended that way, for I still pity him today.