Minor disturbance

From the back of my phone memory

2008-08-26T14:51:00.005+01:00

I feel like I've made a terrible error of judgment in my actions, and I can't stop rewinding to the moment I set myself up for it.

You know when you make a conscious decision, riding on a gut feeling, that something is more trouble than it's worth? I never used to shy away from those decisions and I always used to follow heart over head. I think that's the main difference between how I am now, and how I was 18 months ago. I've clouded my world in cynicism and for anybody to get close to me intimately, it's just not reasonable to expect them to go to the lengths that they'd need to.

I know I've made the right decision. But for who? I wish I could regain that feeling of caring without fear, but I feel like it got snuffed out on an Iowan highway last summer. Still it shocks me to think just how suddenly the knives were sharpened.

It wasn't the clouds this time, only the fields. You build yourself up inside and hope that things become simple, but just like they refused last April, I could make no sense of them here either. So you look out the window and watch the same optimism of hours before disappear with the rest of the day. I'm hurting inside that I didn't take that chance.

You struggle to not remember the past but it's often the one constant that shapes you. I don't care for the fact that a relationship failed, but the hideous changes that it brought about in people I thought I knew was enough, clearly, to keep my future interests on hold. So we go round and round in circles, suggesting the same sweet nothings and leaving the same desires unanswered.

I'm annoyed with myself for letting cruel character breakdowns undermine me, but why hurt anybody else when you're still living in spite? I'm so full of fake promises and I know how badly they deceive. I didn't want to make another. Hurt someone once and you can say sorry, hurt them again and you should have known better.

I hope some of this makes sense. I'm heading to Amsterdam soon, and as strange as it sounds, I may just come back seeing things a little more clearly.

Bloke from kfc, rolf harris. Bane of chickens extraordineur

A genetically degrading monstrosity, blog forgotten how to kiss

Moveme.com

Bad fall, sincere. Calamity fall, not so much.

Girls and what works, do with them, not to them. Easy pointer

5 yrs to live, ill go in 4

tourist gives camera, you snap self

I love you too template.

iphone- a phone and an ipod wtf

Put on 30lbs and forgotten gow to hiptoss but come saturday night, ill remember how to rock

Pogues

Us londones have a reputation for not wanting to talk, but are we the ones to blame?

Engineering works but never improvement in the service

I would rather snooze and be petted in her lap than endure another convo.

Signing a breast, 'eet was the nice tit ja? Dynamo say 8/10

Unglam life web designer. Monitor muffin

just want to talk, not whau

primark empty or full, smart man socks, cassiobury park at night

Xmas lights, back of bike

du og meg. you're my favourite living human of all

if can happdn to md, your asses better believe

London love letter. Go londonpaper websitd. Lovestruck. ha.

500,000 fans queuing

hair looks a bit full of roses.Intruder in the threesome

Smile at strangers. Watch reaction.

met line, fucked on fri 21

google Gok wan.

well if you double it three times and switch on the reverse i suppose you've got a start. But its gonna take longer than that to get to where i want to be

Ive been putting in a little effort. youdouble it three times, let me do the rest tiny

1 mil Facebook group want smoking ban lifted. hey Dude. 59 mil ppl still say no. jog on

live a little closer you'd be all i ever saw

How many love of my lifes can you get away with before it starts to get OOOLD

the olympics,spear throwing contest, lots of little chinese men

never letting hair down, mistake by dawn

Actually scratch that, Junction at 8?

Oh won't you take me home tonight?

2008-08-14T19:53:00.002+01:00

I sat down to write a serious blog five minutes ago, but with 500 Miles by The Proclaimers ringing in my ears on repeat, I'm finding it quite challenging to connect with my inner emo. Forgive me if this sounds a little insensitive - but it's changed to Fat Bottomed Girls so deal with it.

You made a fat boy out of me! How did he get away with this?

Anyway, the Olympics. Who gives a shit?

The most amusement I've had out of these games came from picking up the Metro on my way to work, only to read that the beautiful singing performance at the opening ceremony was actually performed by another ugly looking Chinese girl - not the lip synching yet perfectly toothed seven year old that Beijing would have you believe.

That's quite a diss when you think about it.

The poor girl's going to grow up with the bursting pride of having sung at the Olympics, yet she'll never be recognized for it because she was a hideous child and wasn't allowed on television. It almost touches my black heart.

Don't get me wrong. I think China's done a commendable job of getting the games up and running and you can tell just how enthusiastic the Chinese people are for it. It also worries me slightly that London is expected to follow in the footsteps of that opening ceremony.

How do you top a gymnast air-running the perimeter of a stadium roof to light a spectacular flame in front of 4 billion or whatever ridiculous number it was that tuned in?

I don't know. But we'll probably end up with Wayne Rooney swinging from a tree to light it when the Olympics comes to London. That's assuming the saga doesn't drag on like Wembley and we actually have an Olympic village for these world class athletes to reside in.

The thought of sport's finest slumming it up in East London after dark sends a shiver down the spine, don't you think? We'd have to adjust schedules to cater for the Hop, Skip and Duck The Fucking Knife. God knows what they'll find in the sand pit. Stashes of drugs, burnt out car parts and shards of Stella bottles, I'd imagine.

I'm not really pessimistic about London having the games. I think it'll be good for tourism, great for redevelopment and we might even get a few medals out of it. You know, like Rachel Whatever Her Name Is who won that cycling thing on Monday? That was totally worth the £9 billion that it'll cost us to stage 2 weeks of glorified interracial school Sports Days.

On that note, Field Day was good fun. Unfortunately, I didn't come dressed or prepared for the occasion. What should have been a day of lounging in the sun, sipping on overpriced cans of Red Stripe while listening to the croons of Noah and the Whale - err - actually turned in to a soggy, cold squib of an affair. I'm usually well up for a festival monsoon. It's what sorts the men from the boys, especially when the men have come kitted out in nothing but Brokeback mountain shirts and stoic determination to see it through to the bitter end.

Yes, I have given the Texan shirt another outing. Unfortunately, I've also acquired a slightly disturbing nickname; Brokeback Martin.

I wouldn't mind, but I've only just broken up with my girlfriend and being single makes gender bending all the more difficult to master without coming across as a massive gay.

That's what ruined Field Day for me. Breaking up is never easy to do. But it's even harder when you've scheduled it in advance and both know that you're embarking on the last day you'll share together. For all of the promises to "leave something happy to remember each other by", I walked home feeling pretty dejected and upset.

I know that it was the right thing to do, and I'm glad that neither of us held any bitter feelings or resentment. We shared five nice months but I'm not in a good place right now and something had to give.

Last time I split up with a girlfriend, it marked the start of a six month rampage where I shagged every girl that so much as pointed her drink in my direction. I'm not sure if I want to go back to that, but some time to myself will hopefully prove a good healer.

Field Day wasn't a total washout. I got to meet up with a couple of familiar faces who I've known for a while, although I feel a bit bad that my departure in to the singledom abyss had to coincide. I haven't been myself in so long that it's hard to snap out of the doldrums and show what people expect of me. I'm still struggling to find my comfort zone at work and I'm restless at home.

The biggest bright spot of my weekend was getting to see of Montreal live again. The sound quality was shocking (almost as shocking as the toilet setup - being cat-called by a gaggle of girls who'd invaded the gents' was slightly odd). But if there's one band that can put a smile on my face no matter what, it's of Montreal. I don't know what it is about Kevin Barnes, but the man has an incredible knack for a melody.

They're playing Koko in October so if you're from London and enjoy busting tropical spandex shapes, be there. Not square.

I'm off to brood over the fact that I have to be at work inexplicably early for a meeting tomorrow.

Unexpected achievement of the year!

2008-07-29T16:30:00.005+01:00

Man, I come out with some seriously confused talk when I'm stoned.

I vividly remember laying in Deane Park this past Monday night, staring at the stars and chatting utter nonsense about being in "prime position for alien abduction". And how "if anybody in Ruislip ends up getting abducted by aliens tonight, it'll probably be me lying in the middle of this field."

This on top of the confusion over why it was getting so foggy. The reason? Well, it wasn't. I just didn't realize I hadn't tipped my head up far enough - and was actually still looking at the clouds.

It's nice and refreshing to warp your mind every once in a while. I feel a lot better for the giggles that come with forgetting about everything that matters.

I'm still trying to find a balance between work, my social life and my private life. It's difficult to juggle them all at once and there's times where I'm drawn to feel guilty one way or the other. Whether it's turning down a night out with mates, not seeing my girlfriend as much as we'd like, or even just making a quick exit from the office at 5:30 while others are still busy.

I feel a lot more comfortable at work now than I did in the first couple of months, but it's still hard to blend in with the typical office banter. When I first started, I felt a big burden from being not just the new guy - but the youngest in the company by quite a margin. Everybody was welcoming, and I'm lucky enough to work for an agency where most of the people are easy to get along with - but you still feel like you're coming from completely different backgrounds.

One thing I can definitely say for sure is that I'm happier working behind the scenes than I would be face-to-face with the endless stream of financial suits that you come to expect in central London.

I see people passing through for meetings and they all look the same, talk the same, walk the same...I bet they even lie the same. I've said it before and I'll say it again: the corporate world is hideous.

I like the work that I do, and I like the people that I work with - but Jesus Christ, I don't think I could stomach the fickle business of greeting clients, smile on my face and a "how was your weekend?" at the ready.

Anyway, the real shallow purpose of this update is to say: 50 posts and counting on Minor Disturbance!

I never expected this blog to survive the test of time. To be honest, I didn't expect it to survive the test of winter. But here I am - still - pouring all of my useless drivel in to one safely contained box - ready to be sealed in concrete and eventually de-listed from the web.

It's been an interesting ten months. I'm surprised - and remotely flattered - by just how many people have bothered to read these pages. It's always surreal when you're down the pub with your friends and somebody uses a blog entry from November 2007 against you. I've had all kinds of people mentioning my gibberish in passing conversation, some people foreseen and some not.

Various people have taken it upon themselves to attempt to decipher just who or what I was talking about with a few of my earlier entries. I don't think it needs me to say that most of everything I write on here is grossly exaggerated and intended to confuse - and hopefully occasionally entertain.

Nothing scares me more than being taken seriously.

What really happens in a London lunch break.

2008-07-28T21:02:00.003+01:00

What a disaster. What a day.

With just two weeks until I'm due to show my face at a music festival, it's dawned on me that I better get some ID under my belt - before I find myself queuing for Diet Pepsi at an ice cream van while my mates get sloshed on Stella and Vodka concoctions. That would break my heart.

Anyway, I printed off some application forms for my new UreLife ID card. I know, it sounds about as official as a dog tag in a nursery. Having worked out that there's not a single form of ID in the country that doesn't require a ridiculous amount of identification to apply with in the first place, I finally settled on my choice.

I now have two appointments booked in over the next couple of days. One with my doctor and one with my college headmaster. I say my college headmaster, but I'm not sure there's any "my" involved given that I've never met the bloke and haven't attended college for 18 months. But who needs details?

The point is, I'm scrambling to get my forms sent away - all for the bureaucratic joy of being verified so that yes, I'm old enough to have a drink. They should just look at my face. You can tell from the wear and tear that I've already drained enough alcohol to water a small African nation.

As part of the application process, I had to attach two passport sized images to send away for processing. As it stands, I have no such photos. And you know why I have no such photos? I have no such photos because W.H Smiths have installed the most heinous money grabbing machine since the invention of the paid cash point.

The W.H Smiths photo booth.

Now, for any of you who've yet to experience this delightful creation, let me first say that my W.H Smiths of choice so happened to be a crowded store in the center of London. Right during the peak of a busy lunch break, I waltzed in to the shop and I could just tell it was going to go wrong.

Everybody hates having their passport picture taken. That is fact. But consider a baking hot afternoon with your work clothes sticking to your back and the sun so strong that you can't help but sweat and sweat.

I stood outside the booth for five minutes and tried to cool myself down.

Hey, wouldn't you? This is the photo that snide little bastards are going to be sniggering at for the next ten years. I sure as hell don't want to look like a sweating greasy slime ball. Some would argue that I achieve that without the effort, but that's not the point.

The point is, by the time I flicked open the curtain and sat down to have my mug snapped, it dawned on me that I didn't actually have five pounds in change.

I should probably say at this point that as far as good shirt days go, this wasn't one of my best. I was already looking distinctly Texan with a checkered cowboy top half unbuttoned down my chest. The second I sat down and saw myself in the reflection, I thought, "Holy shit..."

"Inbred paedophile."

I should have known better really. The second I walked in to the office, I caught earshot of the first Brokeback Mountain reference.

Anyway, I shuffled quickly out of the photo booth and stroked my tenner knowing damn well that I was going to have to break it. I spent what really shouldn't have taken as much time as it did to search the store for something nice and cheap that wasn't going to put too much of a dent in my wallet.

When I got back to the office, one of my mates asked why I didn't just buy a pack of chewing gum. Good shout, but unfortunately too late considering I'd already opted for a pritstick.

It was only when I stopped cursing and fuming under my breath that I realized just how dodgy that might have looked to the till cashier.

It can't be too often that you're left to serve a sweating, ragged Texan-London crossbreed who only wants to buy a pritstick. God knows what she thought my intentions were. Bad day at the office, I presume.

Back to the photo booth I went, this time with a pile of coins in my hand and the religious determination that through hell or high water, I was walking away from Farringdon with valid passport photographs under my belt.

I slotted in the coins and sat back with my eyes shell-shocked wide open. Have you heard how loud the instructions are on these machines?

Jesus Lucifer Christ, the entire DVD section of the store could hear the exact instructions that were being relayed to me. All the while, my feet are shuffling in plain view under the waist height curtain that offers my one and only privacy from this highly personal chore.

"When you are ready, place your chin in line with the screen and press the button"

I swat at my hair and wipe the beading sweat from my brow, desperately trying not to go all criminal eyed as I so often do when confronted with a forced lens.

The machine makes that false camera shutting sound - loud enough for the entire magazine row to wonder where the squeakiness is coming from.

A few seconds later, my face flashes up on the screen and you don't need me to tell you that it wasn't pretty. I know this isn't going to be acceptable as a passport, so let me take another photo and lets keep my little cross eyes a secret. But no no no.

"I'm sorry. Your pose is not valid and is not acceptable as a passport photo. Please try again or press Print to continue."

I literally flinched and shot backwards as this fiendish piece of technology relayed my personal battles to everybody in the surrounding area. And let's face it. W.H.Smiths isn't exactly the loudest of stores. You get the odd flick of a page being turned and the occasional till sounding. But I could actually hear the sniggers as this machine effectively told me; "FAIL!".

For the briefest moment, my hand reached for the eject change button. Sod this, I thought. I'll go somewhere busy without a running commentary of my failures ejected over the airwaves for all to listen in on.

But no, I had another shot at it. The second photo was even worse. I was nervous. I was tensing up. I looked more and more like that Texan rapist and I damn well knew it.

"I'm sorry. Your pose is not valid and is not acceptable as a passport photo. You have one photo opportunity remaining. Please try again or press Print to continue."

More sniggers.

Listen, there's only one reason why they chose to have audio commentary on these machines. And there's absolutely no excuse for turning the volume up to the max - except for turning the screws on a poor paying customer who has one more shot at justifying the £5 he's spent.

By this point, it was a lost cause. I tried again, but I'd accepted that even if it had been a valid picture, that wouldn't hide the fact that I looked absolutely hideous. Like a rabbit caught in the headlights with death written in his eyes, I looked more resigned to my elastic face than anything.

I shuffled out of the booth and walked away downtrodden with my hands in my pockets.

In the distance I could still hear, "It appears that your photo does not fill the requirements for a passport picture..."

Why is that necessary? I know I've fucked up. You know I've fucked up.

The whole of W.H.Smiths is aware that I've fucked up.

Let's just forget about it.

Just a bunch of yesterdays

2008-07-21T00:05:00.000+01:00

I was sitting at work today, with my nose pressed to the screen of another soul breaking print design, when it struck me just how hideous the corporate world really is. "If you never settle for second best, you will never be second best." This being the bold and emblazoned slogan that another Canary Wharf based bank had chosen as their flavour of the month.

Caught between yawning, sighing and mouse clicking my way to an early lunch, I did what I so often do at work; switched off and let everything pass me by on autopilot. If last year was a reckless rampage from bed to bed via my bleary eyed day job, this year is a timid bubble of muted expectations and forever spiraling career ladders.

That's not to say I dislike my job, because I'm lucky to be paid so well to do something that I find mildly interesting. But I hate the business talk and politics that go with being in the city. My office is actually a quiet retreat away from your average money mongering Moorgate suit, but you only have to glance out of the window to see life being sucked from botoxed faces.

I'm kicking my heels in the sand pit making dramas out of something we all have to deal with, and it's creating a detachment effect in my private life. I'm rarely switched on, I rarely have energy and I'm rarely inclined to do much with my evenings. Hell, I'm hardly even drawn to post to this blog anymore - and that's saying something. I'd like to think I've mastered the art of writing about sweet jack all.

It makes me feel a bit bad for my girlfriend that she has to deal with my being distant and disconnected emotionally. I've been told of a few things I do which make her feel bad, and I didn't even realize I was doing them. Normally I fight accusations stubbornly but I know full well that I've been a lousy lover. It's hard to deal with because once you realize what you've been doing, you begin to question whether their opinion of you has lowered. And once that happens, its a long way back.

So much has changed recently. I have friends that are settling down, engaged, moving in together and starting new paths. I'm still trying to work out where my own choices are taking me. It's quite scary.

I've been talking to the girl who used to crop up on these pages all too often for her own liking. It's amazing how far apart things are now from six months ago. She's moved in with her boyfriend and seems to be really happy, which is great. Having seen a picture of them together, I can safely say that I'd feel like a complete and utter outsider even harbouring those thoughts again. They look right for each other. Not to mention, I'm a completely different mould.

Back during my heavy crushing, I secretly wished that he'd be some schizophrenic toss-faced bum of the west country, but I can now see how I lost out in the stud muffin stakes! Besides, obsessing as I was at the time, just ain't cool and I regret it like I knew I would.

It's a little different talking to her now. She's happy with her guy, and I'm happy with my girlfriend...if anything, I've realized how temporary everything is. That intimidates me, and like a stockbroker facing the crunch, I'm putting my faith where there's little risk or danger.

London is the best recluse city in the world for those who need it to be. If you want to give your soul to a 9-5, Monday-Friday, there will always be opportunities to do just that. I'm getting my head down and working hard. Two years from now, I want to be self-employed and chasing goals that are more appealing than a life of semi-serving pay cheques and yearly appraisals.

And everything except my salary is a hazy blur.

Make that a cold one, I'm floating away.

2008-06-25T23:35:00.008+01:00

I know I've hit the doldrums when I look in my wardrobe and think out loud, "That's too bloody bright."

Last year, I took pretentious fashion to a new level amongst my friends. It was probably a subconscious sign that I was game, up for it, and just waiting to catch somebody's eye with my floral humdinger of a Next twenty five pounder.

But with the longest day of the year a distant memory (and thank God 'cause XFM were milking that cow in to a stiff cheese), I find myself contemplating just what I'm trying to prove. You know when you reach the point where the beer is warm, your stomach is bloating and the depressants are kicking in with little in the way of a positive chemical reaction? I feel like I'm just south of that. Hoping for something to spark inside me, but happy to scrape by unharmed.

God, it's this kind of metaphorical bullshit which I vowed never to publish online. I'll cut to the story which made my evening on Saturday, and which I've actually researched to confirm in the knowledge that you should never trust a farmer. It's about a man named Larry who won a Darwin Award in the 1980's.

Darwin Awards are slightly misleading in the sense that they conjure expectations of immaculate biology grades and precise maths.

Well, this guy thought he'd done his homework when he calculated that attaching 60 helium balloons to a garden deck chair would counter-balance his own weight and help him to level out at 30 feet in the air.

So he gathered some sandwiches and a six pack of beer, expecting to be floating pleasantly above his street before shooting the balloons and lowering back to the ground. I can only assume he had a crowd handy to witness this spectacle.

Regardless, Larry sat back in the chair and waited on as they released the balloons, causing him - and I use the exact wording from the article - to "shoot like a cannon" in to the sky at an unstoppable rate.

He shot above the houses, shot above the trees...in fact he miscalculated so badly that instead of leveling out at rooftop height, he reached 16,000 feet in the sky. This, while sitting in a garden deck chair with nothing but balloons and a picnic sandwich for company.

Now at what point in that ascent do you think he realized just how badly his maths teacher had betrayed him? That a calm dreamy day in the sun was about to become, err, a calm dreamy day in the clouds. 16,000 FEET! That's one jet pack battery from the final frontier! It's just a bloody good job that he did all this before 9/11 or the sensationalists would have been touting the world's first balloon bomber.

Anyway, it took him several hours to pluck up the courage to shoot the balloons and start a gradual descent. Unfortunately for Larry, he managed to trespass in to LAX airspace leading to a military scale arrest. Not what he had in mind, but it beats waiting for the bus.

This reminds me, did anybody get a peek at The Sun's headline story today? "Army Spot UFOs Over Shropshire". I actually found myself stood at the newspaper rack in W.H Smiths wondering whether I'd picked up an April 1st back-issue. You might as well replace it with "Finch Spots Floater, Won't Flush" and you'll have a headline of more national relevance.

What do they expect to prove with journalism like that? The fact that every other newspaper was leading with a different story immediately settled my fears. The fear that Holy Shit, the apocalypse is now and I came to work commando.

Just a note, to those who are - or were - regular readers of this blog: changes are afoot and my ongoing one-man epidemic of rambling dyslexia will take on a slightly different shape over the next week.

I'm about to launch a website which will integrate these posts with a personal homepage. Now, I'm not going to be silly about it. I haven't had a genuinely personal website since those all-too-distant Year 8 days when we battled for hits on Geocities with our Bravenet stat counters. You know? Nothing says TechCrunch like hosting your cyber laundry on Freeserve.

Anyway, the site is registered. It will be called Minor Disturbance and it will feature more of this, more of me, and presumably by those maths - less of you.

Competitions and domestics, a healthy balance.

2008-06-04T00:24:00.006+01:00

I took my girlfriend bowling on Monday night, and what should have been a celebration of alpha male sporting dominance - almost became a crushing defeat that John Terry would have been proud of.

I'm sure all guys can relate to the burning issue of how easy to go on a girlfriend when it comes to sport. There's the consensus that a good chap should big up the spirit of the competition, give his girl a chance and then narrowly snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. All in the name of what? Sexual favours in the bedroom? I'd rather not lower myself to such antics.

Alas, I took her bowling with the intention of pummeling her score in to oblivion. And things started positively on that note. While I was serving up a half decent first game, she was striving not to gutter her every go. This brought out the compassionate "let's make sure she doesn't abandon all hope and storm off in a huff" side of me - and I offered her a little encouragement where I could.

Then the second game arrived and, well...she beat me.

I'd like to point out that while I lost on points, I won on style. Never in my life have I seen a girl bowl a ball and have time to re-arrange her hair and powder her nose - all before the ball gets to the bloody pins. I refuse to believe she knocked them down. They were simply bored off their feet. In to a shootout we went and my excuses were frothing in the pot.

"Well, I have to let you win something."

"It's not my fault the score isn't registering properly."

"You sabotaged my bowling finger in the ice cream freezer, you psychopathic wench."

As the future of our relationship flashed before my eyes - through gritted teeth and spectacular nerve - I managed to sneak a one point victory in the deciding game. Fairy tale endings prevailed, a smug grin returned and my condescending offers of a rematch after she'd "practiced a little more" emerged through the Heathrow night.

I may lack integrity, but I still wear the bowling shoes in this relationship, god damn it.

On the subject of sporting achievement, did anybody hear about Usain Bolt?

He's a 21 year old Jamaican athlete in the 100 meters who happens to be a little bit nippy. Just this past weekend, he set a new world record with a time of 9.72 seconds. Did anybody see the giant photograph in the newspapers?

It had a beaming Bolt, hands pointing at a trackside clock with "Fastest Man on Earth" and the time on display. Now I'm thinking, is that really something to brag about? 9.72 seconds? I expected more from a big black man.

It got me thinking though. Just what athletics event is your sex life? I'll settle for being a "Done in Sixty Seconds" 400 meter hurdle wonder. Always rising to the challenge, but occasionally getting my balls in a twist.

It's all a bit pointless, really. Everybody knows I'd only take up athletics if it meant I could wear spandex. Bright pink spandex.

Bumping a new story in an old blog.

2008-05-06T19:10:00.004+01:00

For all of the uproar over terrorists - and the lives that were taken on 9/11 and 7/7 - it amazes me how briskly news of the Burmese cyclone passes on deaf ears. 22,000 dead and 41,000 still missing. Those are shocking numbers and while I'm sure we'll be reminded of them for a few days to come , how long until Burma goes forgotten in favour of more politically explosive headlines?

The real tragedies of the world are the ones which get buried to the bottom of the fifth page where nobody even reads about them. It bothers me that such an event like 9/11 can create a firestorm of public emotion, that Madeleine McCann can bring a nation to tears, while the most terrible natural disaster is met with dumbfounded bliss and shrugs of "eh, Burma's off the holiday map this year then".

I've been pretty outspoken in the past about my utter dislike for sympathetic selection in the media, and this is no different. I find it hard to fathom how Paul Gascoigne found his way on to one newspaper front page when a death toll is rising by the thousands every hour. And unlike so many other leading stories - your terrorist attacks, for example - this is a situation where public exposure should be at the maximum to encourage as many emergency donations as possible.

Still, perfect timing for Gordon Brown, eh?

The Labour party has become a sore joke in power. So, as a good citizen of London, I took it upon myself to vote for a joke that's actually funny. Boris Johnson, take a bow.

I don't know about you, but the sheer sight of his blonde mop wrestling with the wind as he cycles towards City Hall is enough to fill me with dread - and in a way that lacks logic - comfort. I've realised that voting for politicians is like choosing the poison that you can recover from. And while I fully expect Boris Johnson to run London in to the ground, it's going to be one of those epic spirals that I wouldn't be paid to vote Ken to miss.

If his diplomacy is anything like his football tackle, we're in for a real treat.

I've been meaning to post to this blog for a while now, but it's amazing how you suddenly become a lot more selective with your thoughts once you've settled in to a relationship. I'm a little frustrated with myself for closing the book so to speak. But as much as I'd love to reel off the rollercoaster of emotions that I've been feeling, I have to take some responsibility for what gets published to an open window.

I will say, though, that I'm very happy and probably a little bitter that others must have doubted my motives when I got involved in the first place - even if they'd never dream of saying it to my face.

It's very easy to build up a picture book fantasy of how you think your friends' private lives should pan out. And we all do it. But holding them accountable when they take a different path is hardly the way friends are supposed to act. I don't like to feel the doubts that I haven't read the script of my own love life, as written in somebody else's all too vivid imagination.

I make my own decisions and if I don't feel passionately for a girl, I don't get involved in a relationship with her. It's as simple as that. Rattling on about love, happy futures and the names of the first grandkids simply wouldn't be my style.

But people who fictionalize their own private lives with indecision should be the last to look down on friends when they find something that they think is worth fighting for. I guess I'm just having my patience tested by judgmental people in general.

I had an almighty hangover when my last relationship caved in. Time and distance took its toll on me and I found it very hard to trust, even harder to be trusted. I've waited a long time to put myself on the line like that again. I don't know whether this is the start of something long-term, and I'm not naive enough to claim otherwise. But I do care very much and I'm starting to reclaim some of the nicer things about myself that I could swear once existed before things went wrong.

The lunch break rush hour in Central London.

2008-04-16T21:13:00.002+01:00

"I'd love to date an anorexic. Just think of the double meals, man."

"Mhm, yeah..."

"...And don't even get me started on the snap factor."

It's thanks to conversations like this that I can honestly say I enjoy my day's work in the city. You can't help but overhear some of the most ridiculously un-PC remarks.

Londoners - myself included - just don't get it. We had a fire drill today. An unusual event in itself given that it's our company policy to save alarm testing until mid-morning on a Thursday. But this was a real one.

The alarm went off and was greeted by an office full of web developers and account managers chewing gum and casually continuing with their day jobs. For over a minute, it rang out, then silence.

One of my colleagues sulked off to the kitchen to finish cooking his bagel, while I sniggered at the thought that hey-ho, we could have been burning alive and nobody cared any the wiser. A few moments later, the fire alarm sounded out again. What was the reaction? It was mainly consignment to the realization that we were actually going to have to leave the office, travel down ten flights of stairs and wait outside to be registered like a bunch of school kids on a packed Clerkenwell Green.

Not even the slightest tilted nostril to the smell of fumes. A trickle of project managers seeped through to the cloakroom, retrieving coats and hats for the meandering descent via the emergency exit.

I'd finally given in to the idea of moving my arse at this point. Making my way towards the end of the room, I passed one of my workmates who was still clinging to a nitpicking client by the end of his phone.

"Listen, sorry, I'm really gonna have to go now. The fire alarm isn't stopping and we're definitely evacuating. I'll call you back in five?"

As casually yuppie as it gets, right there.

I could just imagine the client's horror at the events unfolding in our office. Images of employees darting for the exit amid the flicker of flames and priceless work drifting up in smoke.

"So, err, you do actually have our files backed up, right?"

"That's right."

"Can I ask where?"

"Under my desk on a bunch of floppies. Must dash, we're burning alive."

Ahh, don't you just love it? I'll do it in my own time, thank you very much. That attitude goes a long way to explaining the nature of this city.

You'd think that if burning alive in your workplace wasn't grave enough reason to trigger concern, then neither should the sight of a clipboard wielding Oxfam volunteer. But no, no.

Londoners can take the end of the world in their stride, or just about anything. Unless, of course, anything involves being pursued by a freakishly beaming 19 year old in a green wooly I'm in hat. Never have I seen grown cockney men flapping their briefcases in such a hurry to avoid the inevitable..."Two seconds of your time, please?"

But it's never two seconds, is it?

You only want my name, you say. Yet the second I scribble it on your rain soaked pad, our brief meeting becomes a gauntlet of addresses, telephone numbers, marital statuses and my aunty's next of kin. Sod off, why don't you?

I always give them the same slip-off.

"Sorry mate, I'm in a hurry."

Only this time, Oxfam had decided to camp out in front of my destination; a packed KFC. Armed with the potential guilt of rejecting starving African kids (or whatever stereotypes they're shooting for these days), I sighed and agreed to hand over my details.

As if my own personal information wasn't enough, she possessed the bloody cheek to ask if I had a girlfriend. Assuming that I was simply being sweet talked in return for my favour while I filled out the form, I said that I did.

"Aww, how sweet. What's her name? Can you fill in her details too, please?"

I twitched on the spot and - eventually - handed over a fake email and fake telephone number. You'd think these charities would act on a little more goodwill and a little less cold-calling, but hey, at least we're fighting Aids, brother.

Anyway, I finally shifted her attention to a flock of surely obliging tourists, accepted my I'm in badge and stomped off with a scowl. And you know what really cheered me up?

The thought that it cost Oxfam more money to manufacture this free badge than I'm ever going to donate when they spring me with their evening cold-call.

Yes, ultimately, I am killing African kids.

Mister Whiska and his sea breeze dreams.

2008-04-06T15:22:00.000+01:00

"Ladies and gentlemen, there is a good service running on all London Underground lines - except for the East London line...which is suspended until 2010."

Well, it's a bloody good job I don't take THAT route to work or there really would be some vintage tutting and fuming coming TFL's way. There's only one thing I hate more than being crammed in to a hot, sweaty Metropolitan carriage. And that's being crammed in to a hot, sweaty Metropolitan carriage in the middle of summer.

While I'm personally looking forward to the arrival of some warm weather and late night vegetation in my local beer garden, I dread the thought of rush hour commuting with our shambles of a tube service. It's become so unreliable that I'm routinely stressed through the eyeballs before I've even parked myself at a workstation by 9 'o clock.

On the bright side, boarding a Farringdon bound train isn't quite as challenging as this. Although for the sake of sorting the men from the yuppies, I sometimes wish it was.

It's been an unusual week in which I've spent half of my time back to the wall fighting a surge of April deadlines, and the other half parading around Ruislip Manor in the guise of an overgrown kitten. Whiska Wednesday, my girlfriend dubbed it. A chance to show the world and Giovanni's Restaurant just how convincing we could look with face painted whiskers and a candle-lit dinner.

Unfortunately, mine were drawn on with such blatant disregard for symmetry that I ended up looking more Mickey Mouse than Macho Tom. I'd do it again though. Hey, a man's gotta have an excuse to lick his crotch in public.

Am I the only one just about sick to death of hearing about the fiasco that is the arrival of the Olympic flame? Not being funny, but if I wanted to give a damn about some celebrity jack-pot running about with a torch, I'd switch on Lord of the Rings. As it so happens, I've seen more interesting blazes in the comfort of my own home.

The London Olympics just doesn't do it for me. I've been brought up in a city where the world's most famous sporting occasion boils down to a shake of my head and a derogatory "there's enough foreigners here already, who needs a bloody village?".

And besides, have you seen East London lately? I needed reassurance that I had after mistaking the landfill dump sites for Stoke on Trent.

I'd love to be optimistic, I really would - especially considering my unusual shift towards a good mood. I don't know whether it's the renewed fire of a happy relationship, or the fact that I've walked home to a drawer full of fresh undies, but I've been chirping a little over-enthusiastically lately.

Business as usual can resume next weekend when I set off to the south coast for a three day bender in Bournemouth. If the weather picks up, I might just have to break in my new swimsuit. Which is absolutely nothing, by the way. I miss the days when I could trawl the beach butt naked with nothing but a flake cone in one hand and a sea breeze up my arse.

I'm a little too hairy to get away with it these days. But the prospect of smelling fresh air arrouses my excitement after far too long inhaling petrol fumes. I guess it's just a shame that the closest I'll get to fresh air in Bournemouth is the time it takes one of my friends to finish his first blunt and spark up a second.

I made the mistake of blurting out my experimental substance fetish to a work mate not too long ago. It served to remind me just how ignorant people can be on the subject of drugs. I know, because I used to be like them. The slightest mention of the word and you're stepping in to dangerous territory marked by junkies, pale looking Albanians and Babyshambles' debut album.

What a load of condescending bollocks. Having spent a couple of years shaking my head at people who'd dismiss drugs as the poison of the stupid, I'm glad to say I've opened my mind and learnt to appreciate the experience of connecting to your surroundings in such a different and surprisingly more clear vision.

I don't believe in abusing precribed pills or designing for drugs. Natural is definitely the way to go. But as far as being detrimental to a person's health or their ability to carry out a job - you only have to cite one word to render the stereotypes useless; alcohol.

It bothers me when people answer quiz questions like "Have you taken drugs?" with a blank "I'm not that stupid."

Well how stupid are you, really? I suppose you've never had a cup of coffee either? Because we're talking about the same influence of substance.

Anyway, after getting in to a bit of a heated debate, I let the issue slip. Ultimately, I was just as ignorant not too long ago so there's no good in spitting feathers from the other side of the fence.

Life in the city is a pretty draining affair. I work for an agency where the day isn't finished until the job's been signed off. And while I get the chance to slack occasionally and bite my thumbs - I'm usually nailed with a violent rush of changes at 4 o'clock when a client needs something for a publisher without fail.

I'll never understand the fascination with internal meetings. I don't want to be taken to the conference room for an hour long brief carving much ado about nothing when I'm siting right next to you and could make the changes in five minutes. For all of the talk about improving processes and integrating project management tools - sometimes I wish common sense would prevail. Other than that, I do enjoy my job.

We have a list of new initiatives circling the office, and one happens to be filling me with more dread than the rest. The "take a colleague to lunch" scheme.

Every week, somebody chooses a colleague to go to lunch with and the company pays for the privilege. A nice gesture, of course. But how in the bloody hell do I go about inviting a colleague to lunch?

See, my predicament is such that if I invite a girl, I blatantly want in her pants. And if I invite a guy, well, I blatantly want in his pants too. I think I've found new reason for the work nights out though. Grab myself a drinking partner, invite him or her out to lunch, and get absolutely hammered on the job.

It'll ease the tension, if nothing else - bar perhaps my long term prospects.

This is not an April Fools joke.

2008-04-01T12:27:00.008+01:00

"What's black, blue and busy in the kitchen?"

"The wife, if she knows what's good for her."

Oh, what it does to spend too much time in the Middlesex Arms.

Weeks have passed, clocks have gone forward and still England rains. Jokes have been told, pints have been downed and corners of the nation have been christened in my name. I'm still in employment, Hell has frozen over and through shock, horror or surprise - I'm fond of a girl who likes me too!

It's been a while since I've committed my thoughts to a blog. Well, it's been a while since I used the word commit at all. But these last few weeks have seen some uncharacteristic developments in my life. I'm no longer single, for one. Don't worry, I'm not going softcore. The slippers and pipe are safely locked away, but it's fair to say that I'm a happy bunny right now.

I've known the girl in question through a friend for a while now, though we didn't meet in person until three weeks ago. She's lovely and gets me smiling when I'm in need of a chirp. I didn't think it was possible to fall for a Harrow girl. No offense, Harrow girls. But if you've seen the St Anns' Primark on a Saturday morning, you know what the hell I'm talking about.

I must've spent ten minutes staring at her while she chick-flicked out to a Hollyoaks omnibus on Channel 4. Normally, I'd be summoning my best diplomatic persuasion and contesting the TV remote. But as she reeled off the entire tragic story of broken down soap romances, incestuous relations and high school cattiness...I don't think I listened to a single word. That's probably when I know that I like someone.

I've kinda accepted that girls will be girls. She'll like her god awful sitcoms, engage in her outrageous gossip, and won't hesitate to drag me around shopping for hours on end. But for me to still adore her and miss her by the time the train's taken me home - that's something I'm thankfully still soppy enough to appreciate.

It only takes one read of this blog to work out just how far off the rails I'd fallen since my relationship breakdown last year. Man slapper, would be a polite term for what I was becoming. A mess would be another.

I've learnt that people will always form their own misconceptions when the image you portray is...a betrayal in itself. And I hate the thought - well, the knowledge - that I've hurt people in the time that it's taken to get myself back on track. I'm sorry to those who feel somehow lead-on by my scattergram behavior.

I hope that I've always been genuine and frank with my feelings. A liar is the last thing I'd want to be known as. It's hard not to feel a little guilty for trampling over friendships to pursue a relationship, but hopefully people will understand that I'm happy and that I haven't been for a while.

I spent Sunday stalking Camden to help her find a dress. I say help, what I really mean there is "hold her bloody coat and let her loose on the racks upon racks of clothes and accessories while keeping a safe distance". There is no such thing as helping a woman to shop - not beyond carrying her newly snapped up purchases and keeping a straight face at the girly dilemmas. Right little trophy lover, I am.

Camden Market is a stodgy old place. I have to admit to completely underestimating the number of dodgy shirts to be found there. I've always associated Camden with scene kids, or those trying too hard. I suppose I still do, really. But any market selling 50's era psychedelic hip-shirts deserves a second chance. I'll be back on my own this weekend to do some serious wardrobe stocking.

Well hey, it is the new season.

On the subject of clothes shopping, I also have to muster a suitably extravagant outfit before Friday for a birthday party. That in itself could be quite tricky with my 9-5 working hours and Farringdon being what it is; a yuppy's haven about as out there as the Burton knitwear range.

I'm in a bit of a situation really. Most of my catastrophic garments are provided at a discount price from the illegal Hong Kong trade. I say that with little to no exaggeration. One of them was delivered with a tyre mark staining the package - presumably where it fell off the back of a lorry.

So with three days to go and East Asian shipping out of the equation, the window of opportunity for a shocking spandex cat suit may have finally been opened. It is, after all, my lifetime ambition to put Kevin Barnes to shame.

And yes, I know. You can treat my fashion sense with misinformed disapproval, but at the end of the day...I'm funding a third world economy.

What've you done for charity, lately?

PS. If you like reading this blog, please do a playa a favour and head on over to the UK Kliq Forums where more of my drivel can be found, amongst the drivel of many others. Registration is free. Showing your love and doing so is priceless. God bless your mothers.

The story I didn't sell to the Daily Mail.

2008-03-07T00:16:00.006Z

Well hello, empty text field. It's been a while, and a while feels like a while.

Life in Farringdon is ticking along with increasing familiarity and I've inevitably mapped the names to the faces. I still feel like an outsider in the city though. As much as I love the buzz and hub of working in London, I never have been and never will be so blindly lost in my work that I become one of those typical yuppy sorts.

While most of the city workers are plotting their excuses for being late to dinner, I find it nigh on impossible to get that lost in what I do. It's just my way, I suppose. An hour rarely goes past without me glancing at the clock and willing it on faster.

I haven't found it that easy to settle in to the office group. Everybody is nice, and always civil, but I'm extremely good at seperating my work from my social life. Last Friday, for example, at nine o'clock...I was enjoying a dinner with my work mates. But instead of plunging myself in to a night out on the town, as was the plan, I couldn't help but scoot off to Waterloo and grab a ridiculously late train to Bournemouth to be with my own group of friends.

Speaking of which, if you haven't read about it already, Bournemouth turned in to quite the little night of mayhem. Arriving at the station for just gone Midnight, I grabbed a cab to Winton Street and met up with everybody in what can only be described as a riot of a house party.

300 people spilling on to the streets, coming from neighbourhoods both nearby and far away. I remember talking to a bloke from Worcester for Christ's sake.

To put the evening in to perspective, some absolute legend had gone as far as to set up a stool outside the house and tout beer to underage kids. Now, while I don't condone alcohol abuse amongst kids - or anybody - I admire the guy's entrepreneurism.

Having turned up so late, it didn't surprise me to find most of my friends completely monged out. I'd barely set foot in the kitchen before having a joint thrust up my nose and a can of Stella necked back with chants to down it. Apparently, I wasn't drunk enough but two hours on a train saw to that.

Eventually, the police crashed the house. And by crash, I mean spectacular scenes of rioting outside. Twenty officers called to the scene, pelted with bottles and forced back in to the street. They eventually sent out the meatwagons and helicopters while I stood at the end of the garden with a close friend - debating how best to deal with his slightly incriminating possession of skunk.

We considered climbing the back wall and running for it, but with police patrolling the entire premises and a 12 foot drop or so, it was never gonna happen. As the token sober guy, I settled for standing still and catching the hopelessly wasted party-goers who hadn't quite judged the extent of the garden slope. And I should be bloody well thanked for it if the stream of vomit that they didn't fall in to is any measure of my goodwill.

Needless to say, we made it to safety eventually. But not before walking aimlessly through the suburbs of Bournemouth in search of a mate's house. About two hours of kicking our heels, if I recall.

I came home on Saturday feeling tired, woozy, slightly drunk with red hair, and ominously ill-prepared for another night on the town - this time for my brother's birthday.

We plan to do it all again next month. But until then, I have an extremely busy March to look forward to. I'm in Norwich this weekend, followed by Hackney the week after, and Kent after that. Days are a blur and nights are slipping through my fingers but I'm happy, I think.

It would be nice to settle down for a little while and take my foot off the accelerator. But there's no sign of the finishing line and sometimes I worry that the finishing line is actually depression, addiction or a hospital bed.

Probably the later if I go to Quaser drunk as a skunk again.

But I'm looking forward to mellowing down and enjoying a hopefully quieter weekend with a friend who's had to endure much of my drunken phone-harrassment. It'll be nice to prove that I exist in sober form too.

Although she probably wouldn't believe it.

Sticking my head out of the abyss for a short moment.

2008-02-18T22:16:00.004Z

London town.

Perhaps the only city in the world where your Tourist mini-map comes with a sub-section titled "What to do if you've been raped." God, if that ain't a warm welcome, I don't know what is.

These last two weeks have marked a pretty dramatic turnaround in my fortunes. I lost my job on Monday morning, applied for a new one on Monday afternoon, had the interview on Friday morning, got the job by Friday afternoon, then started the next Monday.

It's been a bit of a wild jump in to the unknown. Particularly in the sense that I wasn't expecting to be leaving Watford for a good couple of years. But I guess I can say proudly that I've achieved my lifetime ambition. I am now, indeed, a bonafide city boy. I work in Farringdon, stay ridiculously late, and read The Metro a whole 2 centimeters from my face. That's if I'm lucky.

So how was your Valentines Day? Mine was a washout of spectacular proportians. The best pressie I received was a Facebook poke, and even that, I sense, was intended to distract me rather than flatter me. Oh well, better luck next year. I've got no right to complain. People who expect gifts and send none are asking for a boot in the ego!

I've also had time for a round of Pub Golf in Sheffield this past weekend. For those of you unfamiliar with Pub Golf, it goes a little something like this.

A bunch of Londoners travel up north on a coach wearing argyle and sporting golf gloves. They meet up with some northern nancies and proceed to binge drink their way through 18 bars and pubs.

The opening hole - a pint of Carling - needed to be downed in 5 gulps to save par. Being the macho men that we all are, it was eagles that we targeted. Down in three mouthfuls went the first pint. Down in one went the Smirnoff Ice. Down in one went the Vodka Double Red Bull. In fact, down in one went a lot of things.

But this inevitably lead to severe drunken disorderly behaviour from all parties, in bloody quick time. I think I was drunk within the hour.

Friend A - is convinced that he's contracted a kidney infection, having been dragged both in and out of bars by Sheffield bouncers.

Friend B - was sick down both his sleeves, all over the back of his jacket, in two seperate beds, and was found in a pool of his own vomit. He also managed to lose his trousers and pass out in such a state that an ambulance was called to the scene. Primark saved his bacon the next morning when he was able to invest in a brand new jacket.

Friend C - was also violently sick, although thankfully in the toilet. He sent several mass texts pleading for somebody to rescue him from an unknown Sheffield location having lost the rest of the group.

Friend D - was sick before 6pm, hit square in the face with a banana thrown across the street by Friend A and was found in bed with Friend B, though we're told it wasn't quite sexual. Also had an ambulance sent to the scene for him.

And then there was me. I'm proud to announce that I didn't quite top my birthday for drunken carnage, but maybe that's because nobody was sober enough to remember it. What I do know, however, is that I'm covered in cuts and bruises, with a knackered left forearm, and a hole in my wallet.

I fell in to a kitchen, wandered aimlessly through a mosh pit (and subsequently got decked), told a good friend that I loved her, and tried to divert a taxi from Sheffield to Norwich.

Thankfully, each and every one of us made it back in repairable pieces. But either way, I think it's time to say; "I've had enough, mate."

It's time to pursue some non-deadly hobbies. I want to have a little substance in my social life, to go with the substance abuse. I want to go for a pint which doesn't have to be downed in two giant gulps to stay near the top of an imaginary leaderboard which probably should have read "Muppet to die first".

This time last year, I went out once a week. These days, I'm lucky to get a night to myself. And as much as I love the social peaks, it's bloody exhausting to maintain. Yet, foolishly I've agreed to so many things that my calendar needn't bother listing occasions. I've already set aside every single weekend in March for house parties, birthday parties and boozy trips across the Eng of Land.

And I know that I lack the self control to say no to a night out if its on offer. When you turn up drunk on your first day at a new job, having stupidly stayed out until 2am the Monday night before, you know there's something wrong.

Technically, I should be skint. Technically, I would be skint. But with a £4,000 pay rise, I can afford to fund an almost constant bender.

Somebody save me from this madness.

The most prolonged job interview in the world.

2008-02-07T22:33:00.000Z

I find it amazing how vapour thin the politics behind this American presidential race actually are. It's a collection of campaigns that could only be made in the United States.

Every time I switch on the television, I'm greeted to all these news stories of state rallies, primaries or caucuses. Each candidate seems to have a meaningful promise of change, greater hope, and a better America. But where is the meat on the bone? I've heard stray little talk of actual politics other than the forecasts of analyists who seem to know more about each candidate's voting patterns than they themselves.

Mitt Romney, for example. His campaign supports pro life - or so we're told through the media - yet he was quoted as saying every woman should have the right to a legal abortion on his way to becoming Governor of Massachusetts. I don't understand how any American can justifably vote for a candidate when the closest you've got to a manifesto is a cry for change.

Surely it's the business of the Democrats and Republicans to decide on a candidate internally and present him or her to the public - in the same way that we didn't vote Gordon Brown as Labour's leader.

America is in a position where its reigning political power - the Republicans - are putting forward a candidate in John McCain who struggles to represent the party that he's standing for. How is that possible?

Similarly, I like Barack Obama. He exhudes charisma and makes a convincing leader figure. But that doesn't hide the fact that he's revealed precious little detail of what he'd actually do as President. And the same can be said for all the candidates.

John McCain, a veteran war hero who I personally wouldn't trust for ten minutes with America's economy in his hands.

It's unthinkable that a politician in the UK could ride the same wave of popularity and support without at least laying down the most basic building blocks of what he or she planned to act on. The presidential candidates appear to be relying on the power to connect with people rather than the gritty sandstone of what changes can be expected if they're voted to power.

As much as I dislike her, Hillary seems to be the only one with any legitimate political backbone to her name.

Maybe I've simply been sucked in to the American mindset, but I actually want Barack Obama to win the Democrat vote. This despite the fact that nobody really knows much of anything about his long term policy. He simply paints a Hollywood-style picture of a country which we'd all like to see.

And when you're calling the shots for the most powerful nation in the world, that as a manifesto is laughably vague.

My late night skirmish with the BabeStation channel.

2008-01-31T10:02:00.000Z

I logged on to the BBC website today and read one of the breaking news stories, "Kabul suicide blast kills one."

Well, what a great success that was.

Little Ahmed went out to commit terrorism and succeeded only in topping himself. I can't imagine there'll be too many virgins in Nirvana for this particular fool.

Then again, it wouldn't surprise me if he wasn't a terrorist at all and the BBC were simply scaremongering again. That's half the reason I don't bother to switch on the news these days.

When was the last time something positive was reported? If green targets aren't being met, youths are being stabbed in the streets of London. If the Ipswich strangler isn't on trial for murdering a bunch of prossies, Diana's demise is being dragged through the public domain yet again.

Nonetheless, things are chirpy, I'm officially the big two-oh. Twenty years of age, half way to Forty, a third of Sixty, a fifth of the way to my telegram from the Queen. I don't actually feel that different, except I know that it's only a matter of time before the years start clocking by like yesterday's headlines.

It's made me think, though. If you could be one age for the rest of your life, what would you choose? Would you stay a two year old forever? Sweet sixteen? A seedy sixty nine?

I think I'd choose twenty four. It seems like the best balance between sexual prime and receeding hairline.

My actual birthday was a resounding success. Purely in the sense that I remember very little of it. We reigned down on Leicester Square in floral shirts like a pack of binge happy ponces, and it didn't take long for me to hit the dancefloor. When I say hit the dancefloor, I mean literally.

I must've been bounced off my feet at least half a dozen times. It was cool to see so many of my friends gathered together in one place, though. There were a few people missing who I'd liked to have seen there, but in all reality, the place was so swarming - I didn't even get to speak to everybody as it was.

The night ended on a wickedly embarrassing note. Having piled back in to my house with a group of seven or eight, we camped out in the lounge and flicked through the limited channels on my television.

Eventually settling for BabeStation, it was somebody's bad idea to suggest I call the premium rate £1.50 per minute line. Naturally, the sight of some scantily clad Essex tart waving her backside in my direction - albeit through the television, you forget these things when you're drunk - was enough to have me dialling the number.

I eventually made it through to the live show.

"Y'alright, Mate?" she said.

"Hi, are you the one on television?" was about the extent of my reply.

"Yeah, what's y'name, mate?"

"Lombard." I replied.

Take it from me, guys. If you're gonna call BabeStation, be horny or be in the position to get horny. It's pretty weird to bark out sexual orders at a girl on screen when you're surrounded by your mates, with your brother hiding behind the curtains, and feeling not too shifty after drinking yourself under the table in the first place.

I think I eventually asked her what football team she supported. But, of course, she's on air at the time - trying to get other muppets to call by riding some pillow in the slinkiest thong you've seen all night.

I eventually passed the phone on to my friend, and it ended up going round in a circle.

Even in the state of absolute Vodka-induced nonchallance, I still managed to spare a thought for the poor girl. What a job to have.

It all ended rather terribly when my mother walked in on us at 3am and saw me laying on the floor with the Essex girl grinding her booty directly at the camera.

I've never dropped a phone so quickly in my life.

Somewhere in Portugal, a janitor tops himself.

2008-01-21T14:23:00.000Z

Has everybody now seen the sketch depicting the man suspected of kidnapping Maddy? I read the News of the World yesterday and it was rammed with references to a creepy looking stranger. A man with a perverted face, a man who made your blood run cold when he pierced you with his gaze.

Can you imagine if it turns out to be the local janitor?

Err, sorry mate. No offence though, aye? You just look a bit dodgy from a distance.

I'm not convinced personally. It's as if the sketch has been created to encompass every stereotype of paedophilia going. The sunken eyes, the greasy hair and the snarling frown. I feel like a witness to a modern day enactment of Scooby Doo. And I simply don't care anymore.

You know what else I'm sick to death of hearing about? Princess Diana and the death inquest! How much dirt can you drag up over one dead body?

The conspiracy theorists are utterly convinced that there's a sinister secret behind her death. Yet they'd have much more luck if they stuck to the same accusation rather than tossing crackpot ideas every which way but west - all in the hope that one sticks with the jury.

I find it amusing how Muslims will abjectly refuse to eat pork, yet have no such reservation about stuffing their faces with a poor forgotten battery chicken from Paul's takeaway. Yeah, yeah, I know. Pigs are supposed to be holy animals, aren't they? To be cherished and respected by all. Well, I feel the same way about bacon sarnies.

For the first time in many teenage years, I'm happy to be single. After the debacle that was my crusade to get laid in late 2007, I've settled in to a more relaxed regime of forgetting about women completely. That's not to say I'm turning gay - and I certainly can't be trusted not to have a damn good thrust when a dancefloor opportunity arises - but I have other plans for 2008.

As do many of this blog's readers by the sound of things. Those of you looking for dogging hot spots, try Mark Peskett's house.

But anyway. When I look at all the things I'm hoping to do - the festival trips, the holidays abroad, the clubbing and the pubbing - I've reached the simple conclusion that I'd have to be completely heartless to let a girl in to my life. It's not that I don't have any feelings for anybody, but rather I care enough to spare them the emotional torment of having to deal with my lifestyle.

I'll settle down eventually, but I feel like I'm turning in to my brother. A commitment-phobe who'd rather bounce from one bar to the next.

I've faced a bit of criticism for it. People seem to be convinced that relationships are the best way to achieve happiness, well, they're not. I like the freedom of being with my friends and not having to think twice about the implications of where my next pint might take me.

I know how it feels to be in a steady long-term relationship and my one regret is that I didn't save it for five years from now. Or maybe it's better that I witnessed things this way.

Some people probably think I've gone backwards since I split from that relationship. I was due to be moving to America this year, digging up a new life for myself and taking on a massive burden of responsibility. But that fell through and thank God it did because I'm far too young and far too restless to be that attached to a girl.

I don't understand the obsession teenagers have with acting above their age and chasing adult dreams.

I'll settle for being nineteen going on twenty, thanks.

An update on my dogging problem.

2008-01-15T15:22:00.000Z

Am I the only one to notice the cruel irony of Help The Aged charity shops? You know, the fact that the sparse few people who shop in them are the wrong side of sixty? Talk about up your own arse, aye!

Sorry to get all political, but Ken Livingstone is blatantly brown nosing his way to the elderly vote in the mayoral election. Why else would he be extending the Freedom Pass for OAPs to travel without paying during peak times? Don't get me wrong, it's a nice gesture. But how about focusing on getting the current service up to scratch before you overload it with more traffic?

Besides, if anybody should get a free pass, it's me.

I was waiting on the Harrow to Watford platform the other day, cursing my luck as usual, when I heard the most pathetic announcement in recent time.

"Due to wet weather, there are severe delays on the Metropolitan line."

Gotta love London. The slightest whiff of a grey cloud and our entire transport infrastructure capitulates in a soggy computer-says-no heap.

I really should run for Mayor. The first thing I'd do for our great city is burn the south and east. We don't need it. The Olympics, you say? Sod that, you can do the javelin down Bessingby.

Oh and I suppose we need an Olympic village to house the different teams, do we? No we bloody don't. Just evacuate Hayes for the fortnight and you've got the perfect ethnic cesspit to house them all.

Anyway, I have positive feelings about 2008. Something tells me it's going to be one of the messiest years of my life. Maybe it's the fact that I'm officially halfway to forty. I've no time to waste, but plenty to get wasted. And yes, when this beer diet finally ceases to exist, I plan to double up on the regrettable bedroom experiences, boozy nights out and expansive dancefloor antics.

On the subject of beer diets, it's working to a certain extent. In fact, I've specifically chosen this night to post a blog - seeing as earlier, I proudly walked out of the Middlesex Arms having only tippled on a single pint. I'll decline comment on the rest of the week.

Needless to say, certain loopholes have been discovered in the beer dieting process. Such as, well most importantly, it gets thrown out of the window on weekends and days beginning with T.

Hey, I'm a slow starter.

Seriously though, I have managed to cut back on the ridiculous combo meals. After the hideous New Years Eve pictures, I had to.

When you look yourself in the mirror and ask that burning question, "Should I really be eating a Combo For Four on my own?", and the answer is a resounding "I wasn't even hungry, man", you know it's time to cut back.

Plus the financial implications are damning. I paid a tenner for that combo meal, and as I sit here - £113 in to my overdraft - I can't help but think that I'm a bit of a twat. How can anybody be so wreckless with their money?

Worse yet, I was four minutes late getting to Watford Station this morning. So what did I do? I used it as an excuse to get a cab to work and save me the forty minute walk! Another tenner down the drain without so much as a second thought. God only knows what damage I could do to my wallet when my birthday rolls around.

Have you ever had the urge to take up a jogging routine, only to avoid it on the principle that - God forbid - somebody might see you? That's about where my brother and I are at right now.

We both want to work off the turkey pounds (I keep using Christmas as an excuse, which is quite acceptable when they put up the bloody decorations in October. What's a man to think?). Yet despite sharing the same desire to get back in to shape, the smug glare of some random pedestrian is enough to deter us. I think what I truly need is a de-characterizing outfit so that I can run whilst pretending to be somebody else.

Gold spandex booty shorts should do the trick.

Is it so wrong that I'm jealous of a female friend who had the opportunity to buy shiny gold jeans? Not just gold, I should say. I could have ordered those from Next ages ago. But SHINY!

Shiny gold jeans and a big fat birthday present hint.

Now what was I saying?

Oh yes, if you read the last entry, you'll have heard about my dogging problem. I realise how bad that sentence sounds, but it's strictly a search engine related problem. Since mentioning North West London dogging hot spots, my blog has been bombarded with horny perverts who've found it through Google using those keywords.

So naturally, I took the opportunity to place a reference to Sexy Ruislip Manor Studs. Well, what do you know?

Dreams really can come true.

Dogging hot spots and my brief vacation.

2008-01-08T13:14:00.000Z

I find it quite disturbing that my site draws so many visitors under the search terms cassiobury park dogging. When you run a lifestyle blog, you get a good idea of what people in your local area are searching for. But this particular blog seems to have become a haven for the filth of North West London.

I can only blame myself. They'd have nothing to find if I hadn't posted such utter seedy drivel in the first place.

Maybe if I SEO my posts with plenty of references to Sexy Ruislip Manor Studs, I'll start to reach my target market?

I can only dream.

What do you get your girlfriend if her birthday falls on Valentines Day?

Answer: DP.

On that welcoming note, yes, I've decided to emerge from my nest and post again. It's been a while so I'm feeling well travelled. Goodbye 2007, treat me tender 2008.

The New Year has taken its toll in more ways than one. I've piled on weight, partied myself senseless and blown away nights on dancing, drugs and drinking contests. Physically, I'm a bit of a wreck and thus embarking on a three week beer diet to get in shape for my birthday.

I say beer diet, what that really means is one binge per week at the max. I think my body needs a break. And six days out of seven on the wagon beats six days out of seven on the razzle.

The trouble is, having started the diet on January 2nd, I'd broken it by Saturday. I specifically said that I'd be on non-alcoholic drinks at the Middlesex Arms, but somehow got roped in to a game of - err - spin the coin? This promptly ended in Plan A (diet pepsi) being thrown out of the window for Plan Steve (7 pints in 2 hours).

Not the dousing my liver intended, but I'm back on the diet. Until tonight at least.

Get this for a story. A southern friend of mine has recently named her new pet after me, accidentally or not - I don't care. But guess what kind of pet it is? You know if it was a budgie, or a hamster, or even a snake...I'd be pleasantly flattered.

But it's a pig.

Martinez the Pig.

To make matters worse, another friend was playing Word Association the other day and my name was brought up. Nothing too bad about that, except the associated term was "Horrific fashion sense".

I mean, what the hell? Martinez The Pig with Horrific Fashion Sense? And people wonder why I've been feeling under the weather...

Walking down the high street on my way to lunch, I noticed the Evening Standard board had been updated. Apparently the McCanns are planning on making a movie for their missing daughter.

Is that so?

Tell me, do you think they'll delete the scene where Kate murders her? Will they confine Gerry burying the body to the extras on the special edition DVD? I want to know. Because right now, I wouldn't buy a cinema ticket for a movie where I know the ending's going to be absolute tripe.

Seriously though, it reeks of exploitation. A Hollywood sized motion picture isn't going to bring any new evidence to light. In fact, it's more likely to blur the issue with a biased interpretation of what happened that night.

People will think; "If it happened like that on the big screen, it must have happened like that in real life." So unless you produce the definitive feature-length Crimewatch special, you're doing more harm than good.

The best explanation I have.

2007-12-20T01:17:00.000Z

There's something going on at home. I can tell my mum is planning a big surprise Christmas present and the sheer thought makes me a little awkward inside. Not least because the entire family is in on the secret and conversations seem to hush when I walk in to the room. I appreciate the gesture and all, but surprises just make me embarrassed and speechless.

A part of me wants it to be an African Grey parrot, but my sensible side says "Dude, why screw up the next sixty years of your life?"

Well, have you seen an African Grey parrot, dear sensible side? They're simply the grooviest little birds.

Plus I'd love to have a bird that I could train to tease my future partner. A tiny chirping sidekick, if you will. "Who's a pretty broad?"

And he would absolutely have to swoon.

In other news, I fear a mental breakdown. My behaviour is erratic and the tehfincheh veil can go screw itself. Two years ago, I came up with the most outrageous persona imaginable and styled myself to ruffle feathers. These days I've forgotten where the joking ends and the real me begins.

I'm disillusioned by my own choices and other people are paying for it. I'd love to put everything down to a hormonal mood swing, but in reality, I think the festive spirit - or lack thereof - is catching up with me.

When I look back at things, 2007 hasn't been particularly nice to me.

On one hand, I've rediscovered a whole legion of friends. Most of which I became seperated from for this reason and that.

On the other hand, I've lost my Nan and Grandad in the space of four months - two of the most stabling influences in my childhood - and I've endured an ugly breakup from my girlfriend of three years.

Christmas holds a lot of memories for all of the above.

Every year, we'd have a family get together at my Nans and she'd hand out over 50 lucky dips for every cousin, uncle and friend around the Christmas table. It won't happen this time. Every year, my Grandad would wrestle the Vodka from the hidden-most corner of our fridge and overstay his welcome by a whole three days. It won't happen this time.

And just twelve months ago, I was living the west-end lifestyle with my ex. We'd dine in the classier restaurants uptown, go to the theatre, and keep each other warm while waiting for a train in the bitter December cold. It won't be the same this time.

Every time I switch on the radio at work, I cop a load of "All I want for Christmas is you" and it's driving me insane.

My mother puts a brave face on everything. It wasn't too long ago that I was consoling her over the same thoughts that are now plaguing my mind. I remember exactly what she said.

"You wait your whole lifetime to have some money to spoil people with, and your mum and dad have to die for you to get it."

That choked me up at the time, because it was so true. I offered the customary "don't be so silly" denial, hugged her, then promptly slumped off upstairs to cry my eyes out. It's fair to say the festive spirit has passed me by.

We've struggled time and time again through the Christmas period, and overdrafts have taken a battering. But the family has always pulled together. When my Grandad died, it was only then that the inheritance from his property eased some of the crippling financial difficulties.

I guess that's why my Mum is organizing this surprise - to try and make up for the void that she thinks there'll be when we're sitting around the table with two empty chairs.

The thing is, I don't want an extra effort to be made. I don't have the strength or the courage to accept anything other than gratifying self-pity at this point in time.

So it's boiling down to the kind of blog post that I swore blind I'd never publish online. But either way, I've been lashing out at others, snapping at the slightest tug of my dummy and trying to find some way to shift the burden that I feel.

I spend every penny I have on alcohol. I collect nothing. I spit at the thought of saving and I'm usually skint by this time of the month. I'm searching for reason in the wrong places. And while I'm still smiling and finding a joke to crack, nothing is getting better.

I'm sick to death of this tehfincheh gimmick. It's a burden and a phantom exaggeration that started out as a massive lie. The thought that I've morphed in to the very creation that I was mocking, it's enough to make me pull the plug straight away.

Maybe I'm just getting paranoid. Maybe it's all in my head. But the thought that people who I've spoken to on a day-to-day basis could actually view me in that way...it doesn't appeal to me at all.

Anyway, on a slightly different note, I've had several people ask me about the "mystery girl" in this blog. More specifically who I was referring to, and why I no longer seem to talk about her. It was never intentional to leave the nosey cretins of my social circles in suspense, and I've had names touted with nailed-on confidence. But you're most probably all wrong.

Since those earlier blogs, I did actually approach her. But while she refused to reveal her actual feelings, she's always insisted that I am, indeed, a complete and utter nutcase.

I've never encountered such a backwards friendship though. One where it's normal to stay away from each other so that things don't develop any further. A part of me was amused that she'd actually feel vulnerable enough to avoid me (if it isn't cold blooded fear, or more likely - feelings for an ex). The other half was offended that my phone calls went ignored, my messages brushed off, and my offers to actually spend time with her - even as friends - batted away like I was a forbidden fruit.

I'll admit I got a little clingy. I'd been looking for some intimacy, somebody to talk to and share a smile with, but while she never tested my deeper side - I always wanted her to, so I could delve at hers too. It was all a bit confusing. Time and time again, she'd speak of this charming streak that she saw in me as if I'd bowled over a thousand other girls. Yet, I've never been that type.

I reached the end of the road when she told me in no uncertain terms that it wasn't healthy for us to talk properly, that it's too close and too coupley. That was hard for me to take, since my flirty small talk had only been so persistant in wanting to get to know her better.

So I decided to cut my losses and take a step back. I enjoy passing idle conversation as much as the next MSN whack-job, but things were getting complicated and my banter was becoming less and less impersonal. More to the point, my love life has taken a bit of a surprise turn over the last couple of weeks. I realise that it's simply not fair for me to settle in to a potential new relationship - no matter how genuine the feelings may be for a girl that I do like - while my mind's floating in limbo.

I feel quite bad now, though, since I got a Christmas card from her this morning. There's an envelope sitting on my desk which I'll post on my way to work, although I'm not entirely sure it'll be welcome given the lack of understanding I've shown recently.

And I'd hate to think that spilling my feelings in such a public domain would ruin the chances of happier relationships progressing, because that's ultimately what this exorcism is all about. It's like writing a love letter to your sister, wife and daughter all in one go. Painful to be honest, but more painful to be misunderstood by those reading in the wrong context.

The only comfort I recognise hinges on the fact that 2008 is nearly here, optimism knows no bounds, and I'm blessed to be in touch with some genuinely very nice people who I'd like to get to know better.

As you've probably worked out by now, this may well be the final chapter in this blog.

I absolutely hate the thought of my life struggles becoming somebody else's lunchtime reading amusement.

So if I can't find something irrelevant to say, I'll say nothing at all. Either way, thanks to everybody who's wasted five minutes of their life on these pages. You're bigger suckers than I.

The way to deal with tourists.

2007-12-16T11:53:00.000Z

The Sun makes me laugh.

For those of you with a concern for the greater picture or politics in general, you'll probably be aware of the fuss stirred by the new EU Treaty.

Gordon Brown, having pledged a referendum on the original constitution, has backtracked all over Labour's election manifesto and put pen to paper on the treaty without asking the people.

Bless its heart, The Sun has campaigned relentlessly to overturn this decision and even offered a petition which it would send to Downing Street demanding a referendum on the matter.

I just read the paper online and as it turns out, 28,000 readers have signed the petition.

The nation has spoken, says The Sun.

Err, that's all well and good. But what about the rest of our 65 million strong population. You know? The ones who didn't answer your petition?

28,000 readers call for action, so the other 64 million of us are overruled. I'm sorry, but you do the fricking maths.

Regardless, how many people actually read The Sun? I'm guessing a few million at least. If only 2% of the readers have bothered to answer the petition, you don't have much of a leg to stand on.

I'm paranoid when it comes to feeling like a burden. And right now, I can sense the unease and discomfort whenever it appears that I'm going to say too much (ie. open my mouth). Diplomacy is not for me however, so screw it, I'll say nothing at all.

I can be pretty ruthless when it comes to wiping people out of my life. I don't get in to arguments, but I remove all traces of contact and make no effort to heal the rift. It's not that I'm particularly angered by the latest friend to try my patience, because we haven't even argued, but rather they've scrambled my mind with so many mixed messages and kickbacks that to be honest, I'd rather just block and delete out of my head.

Unfortunate but probably for the best, by the sounds of it.

Ten days and I still haven't found time to mention the fantastic experience of seeing of Montreal at the ULU. I have what's bordering on an obsession to the Atlanta band, but when you discover a relatively unknown gem with a huge back catalogue of great music, it's much more memorable than nodding along to the latest XFM hit.

I've decided that I can't stand overly masculine music. The death metal and heavy grunge bands of the world do nothing for me, and likewise, sacrificing melody for artistic snobbery is like taking the sound out of a song. I've got a massive soft spot for of Montreal - and psychedelic rock in general. From Apples in Stereo to Beulah, Caribou to Neutral Milk Hotel. I appreciate any band that's willing to put itself out there and add some colour to what it pumps through the speakers.

It's a little hypocritical for me to preach it, being the massive Radiohead fan that I am, but artists that insist on the importance of pop should be given a lot of credit. I admire Kevin Barnes in particular, for releasing probably the best pop album of the year, when the subject matter relates to his flirtation with suicide and deep depression. How many other bands would drown in their own melodramatic misery?

There's also something pretty mundane, to me, about going to see a band that simply stands on its spot and plays its instruments without the slightest bit of crowd interaction. Which is why I love bands in the Elephant 6 collective who rally the audience and stir up something a little more uplifting than a moshpit. They're definitely the type of artists that are better to go and see with girls though. My friends struggled to get past the outrageous outfits and camp posturing, which is half the fun where psychedelic bands are concerned.

You have to be able to tuck away your alpha male streak, slap on some purple blush and gyrate like it's 1964 all over. Alright, the purple blush is just a fantasy of mine. But I still had an awesome experience.

The next time of Montreal roll in to town, I'll be rallying up my party girl friends for an emasculating dance-off. And I'm hoping Our Last Summer as Independents will be recorded by then.

Did I write about the guy with the warped understanding of tourists? I was walking through London a few weeks ago when a babble of Japanese school girls approached a rather hurried looking businessman with their digital cameras in tow.

"Can you take a picture?" they must've said.

He promptly took the camera, smiled, snapped his own face, gave the camera back and walked off.

I found it absolutely hilarious.

Shattered dreams and the loneliest train ride.

2007-12-12T10:55:00.000Z

Sometimes in life, we get our hopes up beyond all reasonable expectation. More often than not, we end up disappointed and bitter.

So when I opened my copy of thelondonerpaper last month and found a love text seemingly directed at me, I swooned to the heavens and unleashed my deepest fantasies to consider just who the admirer on the tube could possibly be.

"To the young-looking, dark-haired male who I’ve seen several times on the Harrow-on-the-Hill to Watford train. Last time I saw you was on the platform at Harrow on 15 Nov during rush hour. You had a bad cough that day! Hope you’re better now! Drink sometime? ANON"

I was adamant that it was the blonde girl I'd spoken to around the time of the 15th. I remember her commenting on my cold and smiling at me, which is more than enough for any girl to capture my attention.

So for the last three weeks, there's been an unmistakable bounce in my step every time I've crossed the platform to wait for the Watford train. Newspaper tucked smugly under my arm, I'll take a gander at the commuters on the platform. I've noticed the same girl on a couple of occasions and subsequently given her a good eyeballing. Christ, I've even spluttered some suggestive coughs in her direction.

It's not that I'm legitimately attracted to the girl. I'm just determined to revel in my ascendance to Lovestruck eligibility.

Anyway, having returned home from the pub last night, the situation is - as they say - somewhat academic.

Far from being a bonafide Station Stud, I am merely the helpless pawn in a rather sinister prank.

This blog is where it all started.

If you read these entries in the middle of November, you may have noticed my unnatural affinity to the Lovestruck column. You'll also have read that I get the Harrow on the Hill to Watford train, and that I had a pretty nasty cold around the time of the 15th.

So yes, Mark Peskett, take a bow. I might have to hold you to that drink which you've so kindly offered.

Clearly, I've made an effort to avoid naming people in this blog. But for a swindle like that, you can have your fifteen minutes of fame. Rest assured, though, revenge will be sweet and all mine.
I haven't made my New Years Resolutions yet, but I'll be damned if this goes unreturned. You will pay.

I've forgotten how to fail like a normal person.

2007-12-09T13:41:00.000Z

Guess how much tickets for the Ricky Hatton fight were selling at?

$41,999, is the answer you're looking for. I love how they've trimmed off the extra dollar to please the bargain hunters. Yeah, that'll make all the difference, that will.

Apparently, I'm suffering from a screw loose or two. I lack the sensibility to know when I'm getting in too deep where my emotions are concerned. That's probably an accurate call. I've been guilty in the past of chasing lost tails, but it's not an entirely hopeless cause.

Why would I be interested in changing? If you live for the gloomy no man's land between happiness and sadness, hurt and joy, there's really not much to look forward to at all. I have a tainted record in return for my efforts to avoid a lifestyle like that.

My past relationships, for one, tell the full story.

When I left school at 16, by some obscure chance I fell madly for a girl in the States. It was never going to last the distance and I overlooked some of the glaring problems that we were set to face. It spat in the face of sensibility. But that didn't stop me travelling across the Atlantic several times, plunging myself five thousand miles away from the nearest recognisable face.

Nothing tests your self-belief quite like being sat at Heathrow airport with a ticket shaking in your hand, wondering just how you're going to adjust to life in a completely foreign land. I still remember being detained at Minneapolis International Airport because I looked so frightened of what was to come that it arroused the suspicions of the customs officer.

Looking back, it's a story without a happy ending. But I'd rather have some stories with bad endings than a collection of one page memoirs starting "Well, back in the day, I had the chance to..."

Besides, you never know when you might strike it lucky and grasp the kind of happiness that turned your eye in the first place.

I didn't find long-term happiness in the States. But I do have some vivid memories of nights that seem as real in my head as they did at the time. There's something hopelessly romantic about compromising yourself for the sake of a feeling so strong that even through the inevitable hardships, you'll always take the memories from it.

I remember a late night car journey with my ex in Iowa last summer. We went to Grays Lake just after dark and wandered towards the water in flip flops. It had a little bridge which traced the entire perimeter, illuminated by dozens of different coloured lanterns. The sky was a clear mauve and I don't remember a single part of the lake that wasn't glistening or glowing in a different colour. It was really gorgeous.

We must've stood there for half an hour, my nose burrowed in her hair, looking out on to the waters and speaking in hushed voices as if not to disturb what was around us.

I wish I'd taken a photo at the time. Every picture of the lake that I've found seems like a betrayal of my own memory. It's eerie to look at a place so far from home, knowing that you don't know how to get there and that you'll never see it again, but having this one crystal clear image of the time you spent there.

The thought of ever going back makes me feel incredibly lonely. I look at pictures of the lake and I wonder whether they were taken before or after I visited it. I know that makes no sense. I'm sure many people have their own intimate memories of going there, maybe some young couple will discover it tonight. But when you see something that seems so beautiful at the time, it's hard to believe that the stars would ever arrange themselves in the same patterns to be experienced again.

It would have been easy for me to wipe the slate clean after such a shattering break-up. The first instinct after a relationship comes to an end is to tar what you've connected to it as a false start, a pale cloud of the love that's around the next corner. I think that's a bullshit way to look at life.

When I look back at what my ex has said since then, now that she's moved on and found another guy, I shake my head at some of the comments. Reading that she's never been so in love or felt such happiness, that she didn't even know what love was until she met so-and-so, it strikes me as a little self-derogatory in its forgetfulness of the past. I'm pleased that she's found what she has, but I hate it when people backtrack in the aftermath of a failed relationship.

It's that very circle which I can't stand the thought of falling in to. I don't want to be the kind of guy who goes from one girl to the next telling her how he's never felt so in love. Nor do I feel the need to measure love as true, unconditional or hopelessly deluded. It is what it is, and as far as I'm concerned, it doesn't even have to be love to be enjoyable. What happened to the passion of youth?

I could analyse all the things which went wrong in my last relationship, but I only have to remember that one night on the lakefront to know that what I felt was genuine at the time. And maybe, to my mistake, it was going unreturned all along. It shouldn't really matter. You carve your own experiences in life and you can't expect others to remember them in the same way.

I've also been accused of obsessing over the chase in the past. There's this idea that a guy will engage a girl and make her feel like a princess, right up to the point where he has her and then the focus shifts to finding his next catch. It might be a justified stereotype for some. But not for me. I do enjoy the chase, but when I like a girl, I'd prefer to have her in my arms than her name in my trophy cabinet. There's not such a dividing gender gap where those affinities are concerned, and it bothers me when my intentions are mistaken.

I guess I do lack sensibility at times. It's not like me to prioritise and organize my wants from my needs. But if I spent all day dwelling on how they affected each other, I'd genuinely die of suffocation. It's the constant battle in my mind to find a way that ties them together which gives me more hope than anything.

And maybe I do suffer from being too optimistic for my own good, but that's a blissful illusion to embrace. I wouldn't have half of the memories that I do without taking some giant risks with my feelings in the past. They haven't always worked out, in fact they rarely do. I guess I'm just disillusioned by the way some people go about their choices in life. Common sense is no friend of mine.

"Nice to meet you. Please confirm your identity."

2007-12-04T10:36:00.000Z

I'm sure there are those of you expecting a remotely serious blog on my status, each for very differing reasons. While I'd love to update the world on the goings on in my life, I'm here for one reason and one reason only.

So, today, at Chicken Cottage...

They absolutely massacred my burger beyond repair.

I've always been skeptical about the sense in taking on an employee for a fast food apprenticeship. Of all the jobs in the world to learn while you work, I'd rather you kept your grubby hands away from the one profession where I'm potentially paying to eat your junior mistake.

So to see some labouring buffoon approaching me with an apron several sizes too small and a look of utter bewilderment on his face, I knew today wasn't going to be a Good Chicken Cottage Day.

Turns out, I was absolutely correct.

"Can I have a fillet burger meal, please?"

He stared an empty blank through me. So I tried again.

"Err, a number two meal...please?"

With those magic words, he scurried away to grab some lettuce and left me to play with my jacket zip, feeling all the more intelligent for his service. Are you kidding? Word of advice to the person in charge. If your guy on the till works by numbers rather than meal names, you might want to check that he's putting his shoes in the cloakroom rather than the oven.

I eventually got my burger and turned round to take a seat. What do I find? Some useless thugged up Asian massive has reigned down on the last remaining table in the restaurant (and I use the term restaurant with a sprinkling of sarcasm). The very same seats that were empty when I walked in.

That really rubs me up the wrong way. You get to the front of the queue, order your meal, then turn to find that the gang behind you has split in to teams with two occupying the empty seats and another three waiting to be served. But given that there's only one of me, I don't have the advantage of swooping the last table AND fetching my food.

I gave them a dead filthy stare and cussed at their modded cars on the way out.

This after a marathon ten minute wait for my chicken burger to be cooked in the first place. Isn't there something wrong with that?

It's 1pm in the afternoon. You're called Chicken Cottage. Listen mate, if you aren't semi-expecting somebody to come in and order a chicken burger, you're working in the wrong industry.

If I wanted to wait for my food, I'd go next door and order a pizza.

The waiting process becomes all the more infuriating when you're forced to witness a bumbling junior take three attempts at smearing your bun in mayonnaise. Please read that sentence in its desired context. How hard can it be?

And if it is that hard, just tell me! I won't hold it against you. Just invite me behind the counter, give me those fricking tongs, and I'll cook it myself.

By this point, I was slumped over the till area having given up entirely. My eyes transfixed on the poor kid as he went about his work hopelessly. Fair enough. I'm willing to give somebody the benefit of the doubt. A fantastic burger experience would have saved the day.

But no sir. This wasn't a burger. It was a mayonnaise battered slush of soggy buns and a half decent fillet of chicken. I tried to take an unbiased bite, I really did. But it squirted EVERYWHERE.

Needless to say, I'll be offering my filthy custom to Pedros from now on.

I got a call from my mobile phone operator the other day.

"Hello there. We'd like to ask you a few questions regarding your account with Three."

"Alright, quickly..."

"First of all, sir, are you willing to answer a few security questions to prove that you're Mr. Osborn?"

The bloody cheek! You called me! I was tempted to return the gesture.

"Absolutely. But first. Seeing as you're the one who clearly wants something out of this conversation. Could you please prove that you're actually working for Three? Maybe send me your latest bank statement. Get the manager on the phone. God knows, Rajah, text me a picture of you in your company badge and pin striped suit - then maybe I'll prove that I'm Martin Osborn. How about that?"

It turns out they were wanting to upgrade my package.

I said, "I'm fine, dude. Twelve inches is just right for me."

But really, is there any logical reason why I'd want to have unlimited Internet access on my mobile phone? In his own words, you can download as many MP3s as you like without exceeding your current bandwidth quota.

Yeah, well, guess what? I have Broadband at home. I can already download as many as I want without having to pay for your fancy bells and whistles. And if I was going to enjoy your online Spice Girls back-catalogue, I wouldn't choose to do so using my mobile phone on the train.

Now sod off.

Remember remember, how skint you were in November.

2007-11-29T16:00:00.000Z

You know what really gets on my nerves?

Slow meandering pedestrians on narrow sidewalks.

Seriously, let me set the scene. It's a bitterly cold Wednesday evening. I've got a forty-five minute walk to the train station and my hands are already purple at the knuckles, despite my best efforts to keep them warm in my jacket pockets. All I want is a clear stroll to the Watford Metropolitan line and what do I get? Some useless dithering yuppy-sort, eratically veering left and right at a snail's pace - giving me no opportunity whatsoever to overtake.

Overtake? Alright, I didn't mean for it to sound like the 800 meters, but getting home is an achievement that I'd like to bask in before 9pm if it's all the same to you, pavement hogger.

I've noticed that if I scratch my beard, it sounds like house music. Isn't that a bit weird? Go on, try it at home. Give your chin a good scratch and I promise you, the noise vaguely resembles a house beat.

Ten minutes later and I'm debating a change of career. DJ Stubs, and his rough house beatz. You can't tell me it wouldn't catch on.

I could swear that I ate a meal catered towards cats last night. Anything I find in the fridge which is made out of chicken, doesn't require cooking and expires the following day is bound to catch my attention. So these cold Chicken bites were no different. But unfortunately, they were horrifically rancid.

You know when you slit open a sachet of Whiskers and scrunch your nose at the smell of cat food? Well, it was like that, except by the time that I truly appreciated how vile the smell was, I'd eaten half a bag and the taste was stained on my tongue for the rest of the night.

So bad was it, in fact, that I'm absolutely convinced Muffin is sitting at home today wondering what happened to his Friday treats. Sorry dude. Hunger called.

Anybody else tempted to jet out to Sudan with one of those 5ft teddy bears wearing a "Hi, I'm Muhammad!" t-shirt? Just imagine the stares, man! The story of the British teacher is likely to rumble on for some time yet given that she's just been found guilty of blasphemy and sentenced to 15 days in jail.

And did you hear how the extremist Islamic Brotherhood reacted to the news? "If she has been found guilty of purposefully naming the toy after the prophet, she must die." Well, no beating around the bush there!

I've given up all hope of understanding the art of bathroom science. My mum's loaded the shower cabinet with just about every fancy new bottle under the sun. I've seen gels, creams, lotions and god knows what else. Can somebody please explain to me the inexplicable fascination that a woman has to products with "baby" marked across the front?

I mean, don't get me wrong. I understand the concept perfectly well. But being the youngest in the house at the ripe old age of 19, I've clearly outgrown the phase where I need baby lotion dabbed over my botty and a dousing in talcom powder. So tonight I took a chance with one of these potions, and I have to say, it didn't go particularly well.

Now there's only one thing I know about a bottle that sits on the bath basin. It's either for rubbing in to my scalp or lathering over my body. Having already shampoo'd my hair in true male fashion, with my eyes clenched shut to avoid the frothy white foam, I reached for some baby lotion and covered myself from head to toe. Not the best idea, I have to say. I spent the next 10 minutes standing there butt naked trying to unlubricate myself.

It caused a massive commotion, and ultimately a regrettable shower experience. Almost as bad as that time - in deep vertical meditation - where I leant back expecting to find a wall and crashed spectacularly through the shower curtain. But at least I went down in style. Naked style, that is.

Judging by the theme of this blog, I probably come across as a very bitter young man. I'm really not. I keep getting asked when I'm going to actually convey some happiness, but that would be too easy. Besides, I tend to think that people would rather read somebody else's gripes than a tale of happiness. It's suffering for fashion.

That said, I've been a sniping little so-and-so lately. Perhaps even mildly offensive in an irritating kind of manner. There's no plausible way of explaining it other than my usual habbit of hiding behind words when I'm hurt. I can be really stubborn, and if I find that somebody means more to me than I do to them, I tend to back pedal really quickly and make myself as unfathomable as possible. Not just with relationships, but in friendships too.

I hate having my feelings questioned. It hurts to say something nice to somebody, genuinely mean it, and for them to not believe a single word just because of a reputation - no matter how justified or unmerited it may be. I don't get close to many people. So it's a kick in the teeth to spend so long talking to somebody, somewhat hoping that they'll see a softer side of you, only to find out that they still judge you by a reputation that's out of your hands.

My solution is, and always has been, to bolt the door. To tuck away the vulnerabilities and serve up the stereotype that they're expecting to find. It might not be the best way of doing things, but it works for me and it obviously works for them.

Anyway, another month has passed and another financial cycle has begun. Payday has landed, and my spirits are naturally high. I'm always on the crest of a wave with a grand sitting in my account. But I just know it'll be gone within a fortnight.

I'd like to blame my spending woes on an overly generous streak. There can't be too many blokes who'll buy their mates a round of chicken burgers, for God's sake. But seriously, I'm determined to set some money aside in the run up to Christmas. Easy to say now, not quite as simple when I'm stranded in Soho at 2am and a £60 cab home is staring me in the face.

A stiff upper lip and a pathetically frail ankle. Hail, Britannia!

2007-11-27T10:37:00.000Z

I'm sick to death of this ongoing theory that I'm some kind of womanizer, and a bad influence on my taken friends. I can count with one finger the number of times I've approached a girl in the last few months. Admittedly, I'd have to use two hands for the number of girls I've actually slept with, but that's a different story of insecurity and floating through limbo.

I hate this stray accusation that spending time in my company is likely to act as an aphrodisiac for my friends and force them in to mistakes. I'm single and I stay away from empty corners at the pub, but that doesn't mean others have to follow suit.

Girls seem to mistake my flirty nature for a vast sweeping persona which I present to every female on my travels, but I really don't. It's either that or they confuse a genuine shyness - which I actually do have, believe it or not - for a lack of interest. Caught between two extremes, I don't think I've ever been able to find a middle ground.

Maybe that's why I have a particularly hard time shaking one night stands out of the system. While I'm naturally pretty affectionate and happy to cuddle, it probably sends out the wrong message that I've been waiting for more than the strawberries and cream.

Have you heard about The Crack? You know, The Crack at the Tate Modern?

That's £300,000 spent on a work of art that I'll never quite understand.

But you know what the brilliant thing is? The gallery is considering the prospect of glossing over the crack in a plastic sheet after 15 people managed to injure themselves in it.

Only in Britain, that's all I have to say to that. Only in Britain are the museum-goers such hopelessly lost causes that a famed crack exhibition could fill an entire A&E ward.

"So err, Mum, I went to see The Crack today."

"Oh really? How was it, honey?"

"Bit of a tight squeeze, actually. But the hospital food was lovely."

According to the artist, the exhibition represents borders, the experience of immigrants, the experience of segregation, and the experience of racial hatred.

According to me, she's smoking crack.

In any case, why would I travel to the Tate Gallery to see a giant crack when I have my own father's dodgy patio work in the back garden to muse over? You don't have to be an artist to create good art. You just have to be bloody convincing.

This story about the woman naming a teddy bear Muhammad and facing 40 lashes as a punishment is a prime example of why Islam and I will never get along. It might not be politically correct to say so, but I despise the values that these people strive to live up to.

Muslims continue to argue that they receive a bad press and ultimately go misunderstood in the western world. Is it any wonder? This is a religion harbouring mentalists who'll go out and burn an effigy of a teacher who's travelled to the country to educate and help its people. How can you possibly condone a violent outdated punishment as justification for an innocent mistake?

Not only does it show a lack of respect for the woman's own personal beliefs, but it stamps on the good grace that western countries have extended in welcoming Muslims with open arms and making the effort to find a home for their culture and faith.

Send me hate mail if you wish, but I find a large number of Muslims to be as intolerant and as hateful as the westerners they continue to spit feathers at. I'm not referring to the extremists or the terrorists, but the general mood of the religion itself. You can say what you want about bad apples in every basket, but I tend to judge the nature of a religion by the love or hate that it spawns.

While I could never turn up at church and keep a straight face, I can appreciate that it gives a lot of people a lot of reason in life. Islam, rarely manages to extend its acceptance of blind faith to modern day tolerance.

Finally, I read in the Lite yesterday that the woman who makes the famous Mind the Gap announcements for London Underground has been fired. Apparently she created a website with satirical announcements such as "Would the passenger ... pretending to read a paper but who is actually staring at that woman's chest please stop. You're not fooling anyone, you filthy pervert."

Alright woman, you did say Mind the Gap. You didn't say which one.

Text "Drunken Average-Looking 19 Year Old" to 78888

2007-11-25T19:34:00.001Z

I know it's a bit early, but I've already come up with a new year resolution for 2008; learn how to use the keylock on my mobile phone.

Alright, so I do know how to use it. I just don't know when.

Take last night, for example. I was having a perfectly drunken evening, minding my own business and causing very little trouble in general. But as my grasp of sobriety slipped away, I got a phone call from a friend who'd apparently been on the receiving end of six blank text messages.

My first instinct was a sort of defiant "Nah, I ain't sent nuffink. You must be drunk, innit love."

But I soon realised it was my fault. The girl in question is unfortunate enough to have a name beginning with A, which naturally sits at the top of my contact list.

I've now changed the contact details so that she's listed by her surname. I figure if I rotate the order of my contact list, everybody - in time - will share an equal helping of my drunken harrassment. Or to put it bluntly, if your name begins with B, you might want to find a nickname real fast.

I could compile a whole blog entry on my bar crawling antics of yesterday. But we'll cut to the chase and skip to the sad ending. I'm still alive.

You haven't lost me just yet, although I am a little worried about the sheer weight of photographic evidence featuring man-fondles which could later be used against my heterosexuality in court. Refer to Stop 22's lack of integrity as a prime example.

Is it just me or is the "I'm a Celeb" gimmick running a bit thin? I loved the first series, but there's only so much creepy crawlie trauma I can cast my eyes on before I start to question the intelligence of the muppets who've applied to be on the show.

Going to fall out of bed over a rat? Probably don't belong in a jungle, mate. If you can call it a jungle, that is. We all know we're watching an elaborate TV set.

Remember the episode where two celebs were sharing a quiet moment away from the rest of the group? Out of nowhere, they heard a fart coming from behind one of the bushes. Turning to look at each other, the poor cameraman decided to show some manners and offered a quiet "Sorry". That, I found hilarious. Maybe I'm still going through puberty or something.

ITV4 adverts are truly unbelievable after midnight. I was just watching a Clint Eastwood movie, when a break interrupted it with SEVEN lonely hearts ads. I thought I'd seen all of these before, but apparently not. You can now actually text the variety of girl that you're looking for to the number.

Text Wild to 78888.

Text Divorced to 78888.

It even had one for Lonely and Older women.

So I'm sitting here thinking, first of all, what kind of man is SO short on female contacts that he has to resort to a money skimping agency on the box? I've been there, I've felt the urge. You've had a good night and you fancy a bit of flirty banter. But if you don't have at least one contact on your mobile who can be relied on to send a bit of juicy filth when it's most required, you haven't lived enough.

Secondly, where are the adverts for the woman that we're being matched up to?!

You say you can pair me with an older divorced lady, yet I've never seen a text advert appealing to said ladies who fancy some of a drunken 19 year old bum with the taste of KFC on his breath. Where are they getting them from? I want to know.

I'm debating whether I should send ANGELINA JOLIE to 78888.

But I don't think I'd impress any girl with my current financial predicament.

"hey wats ur name? call me. i got no credit. xx"

I was asked today, hypothetically, if I ever had to treat a girl to a homemade dinner, what would I serve up? Well, I'd love to say I'd mash out the finest Italian pasta with a classy wine on the side. But let's be honest here. I know my limits. She'd be lucky to get a Rustlers cheeseburger with microchips.

If that doesn't make me eligible, I don't know what will. But as you can see, I'm in desperate need of a stabling female influence in my life. Oh, alright, and in the kitchen too. Any takers out there? I'm not hard to find.

Have you ever had that feeling, when you come down for a drink of water in the middle of the night, that you're being watched from the darkness? I could swear, one day I'll turn around and see two red eyes piercing a hole through the window glass. I don't know what it is, but I always get the impression that there's more than a reflection staring back at me. Or that sooner or later, I'm going to see what I dread most.

It's like when I was younger, I'd refuse to hang my feet over the edge of the bed for fear of a cold hand suddenly grabbing me.

I probably shouldn't be writing this in a pitch black bedroom. I've given myself the creeps.

Good night.

How Saving Private Ryan changed my sex life.

2007-11-23T14:04:00.000Z

I have never been so skint in my life. Three more long nights until Payday and I quite literally had to scrape the barrel to afford a train, this morning. My room is a desolate graveyard of pennies and two pence pieces after I unloaded a pot of collected change in my morning rush.

Combine that with a pile of plates, several empty cups of hot chocolate, scattered boxers, socks hanging from the door and you should be getting a rough idea of why I won't be bringing home any young ladies tonight. Or, any other night for that matter.

Women are infuriating. God made a massive mistake when he created Eve without an instruction manual. Just when you think you've got one sussed, she wriggles free and evades even your bleakest inspection of reality. I give up. With the festive season coming, I can't help myself from getting a little bit sentimental and god forbid - cuddly.

Anyway, I'd slap myself for stupidity if I could. It's not been a good day in the common sense stakes. Half of me says that I should learn to keep my mouth shut, the other half thinks "Hey, live by the sword, die by the sword," Might as well have a bloody good wave of it in the process.

I was sitting on the high street bench at lunch earlier, minding my own business and watching the cars go by as I tucked in to a Chicken Fillet double. It didn't take long for some strangely red-eyed builder type to come and sit down next to me. He was either drunk or naturally dopey, but I think his exact words were "These facking foreigners, takin' all the money. You got a quid, mate?"

I looked up at him, about to stuff three chips in my gob, gave him the shrug and nailed my typical excuse. "Sorry mate, got nothin' on me"

"It's alrigh', but you know I'd give you a pound if I had one, don'tcha?"

"Yeah, err, sorry dude. I really don't have a pound."

I was wanting nothing more than to be left in peace to eat the rest of my lunch, but he simply wouldn't budge. Launching in to a tirade against foreigners, he blamed them for everything from his car being clamped to failing to keep up with the mortgage repayments.

Honestly, I too am guilty of blaming foreigners for certain discrepancies in this country. But to blame them for being out of pocket when my mouth exhumes Jack Daniels with every word I speak, I'd be a little guilty of passing the buck.

Wisdom teeth. An extremely misleading name, in my opinion.

I've been suffering from mouth discomfort for the last few days and it was only last night that my mum told me it was probably a wisdom tooth. I've heard the term in loose conversation, but I figured it could only be a good thing.

"You should get it removed." she said.

Why? It's called a wisdom tooth. I'll keep it, thank you very much. Clearly I'm blessed with a rewarding gene pool.

It was only after a painful and hasty Wikipedia session that I discovered the true reality of what a wisdom tooth actually is. And more importantly, how I'm not so special after all. This hit me like a tonne of bricks. There's nothing I despise more than a trip to the dentists, while the knowledge that I "need something done" is enough to ruin the faint hope that I'll come home with a strawberry lollipop and all teeth in tact.

I was thinking about sex last night. As I do quite often. Every seven seconds if those scientists with too much time on their hands are to be believed.

But I remember, when I lost my virginity...we were watching Saving Private Ryan at the time. How did that actually happen? I genuinely don't recall how I managed to end up aroused during arguably the most violently graphic Hollywood movie of the last 10 years.

As far as turn-ons go, that has to be one of the most impressive feats of mind over matter. Wartime explosions kicking off on the surround sound, limbs being torn from the bone - hardly the most romantic setting for a first time, but I suppose it drowned out the noise.

Crash, bang, ooh spank me, wallop.

I should note that my first time did not involve spanking. Although it was far kinkier than I imagined it would be.

I don't care what anybody says. As a guy, no matter how much you want to do the deed, those final moments of foreplay leading up to first-time penetration are the most terrifying of your teenage life. You focus far too hard on making it a smooth experience, and it's only when you realise that you've been staring at her for the last ten minutes - eyes bulged, biting your lip - that you remember sex is a shared act and she's probably a little freaked.

Thankfully, I feel a whole lot more confident in the sack these days. As I do in general, ironically enough. Maybe us guys are simple after all.

I apologise to those I've tortured with my incoherent ramblings today, and for once I'm not talking about this blog. Although what I said is true to me, and I genuinely mean it, I'll do all concerned a favour and shut up about it.

What it takes to be a man.

2007-11-20T20:39:00.000Z

There's a perfectly valid reason why I don't have a girlfriend. I never put myself in the position to meet one. No, of course, I do spend half of my existance in the pub which is a social haven and allegedly ideal for meeting a better half.

But if you're looking for a close girlfriend, you probably shouldn't rely on last orders at the bar with beer goggles a'present and a desire not to go home alone.

I think my problem is that I'm far too direct. I go from a casual first meeting to rampant doggystyle in her empty flat without so much as a coffee date along the way. And by the time its over, I'm already thinking of what I can be doing the following morning to merit a hasty exit. I've been through birthdays, work commitments, dentist appointments. I vaguely recall using the ridiculous line that I had to get back to take my rabbits to the vet.

Maybe I'm just light years behind in the emotional development of what a relationship entails, but I feel like I'm living two lives. One inside my head, one for everybody else to see. I genuinely would quite like a bit of stability and comfort at this point.

You know what I find really amusing? The templates folder of my phone, actually.

"I'm going 2 be late."

"Call me when u get this message."

"I love you."

And my favourite of them all, for those occasions where sincerity and time are both an issue...

"I love you too."

How much of a stockbroker do you have to be to send your lover a message of sweet nothings pre-written by a Nokia phone technician?

I can't stand lazy convenience technology at the best of the times. But this is just like one of those cyber sex programs where the actions are point-and-click based. So much for the vivid personal imagination! Not that I put mine to use where cyber sex is concerned...

I'm sitting here, scratching my head, trying to work out what possessed me to buy a KFC Family Bucket last night. It was like eating from a troth. Two drunken savages ripping drumstick and breast open like we hadn't dined for days. Bloody good meal though. Shame about the chips.

Anyway, I was in Camden for a friend's birthday gig, and I managed - by chance - to bump in to another random friend who I really wasn't expecting to see at all. And then, by even more chance, I rambled over the phone to a saucy random friend of said random friend who I'm already random friends with. Unfortunately, she's probably a little traumatised now that my mates have chanted malicious rumours regarding the size of my manhood at her.

To clarify, I am at least double the one inch that they suggested. Besides, they wouldn't even know. Very few can truly claim to have gone head to head with my mythological beast (although tours are going half price if you're interested...err, festive season and all that)

On a mildly less repulsive note, Zico Chain were excellent at what they did. I can't say I'm a massive fan of the genre but for somebody who's in to their scene, it must have been a great experience.

The opening act, Shibby, who I've actually spoken to through my website, were good sports too and had far more energy than I could muster in a thick leather coat with a pint in my hand. Overall, it was a good night and my appetite is deliciously perked for the almighty experience of shape busting when of Montreal roll in to town next month.

If last night was seminal 90's rock, December 6th will be 70's disco pomp. I'm frigging loving it.

Frigging? See that. You can go back and read every blog of mine and you won't find a single swear word. And that's for three reasons, that is.

Firstly, I'm avoiding censorship from a nunhouse where a glamorous little minx resides. She's tiny and reads far too much. So I'm trying to save her mother Christmas expenses on books and - knowing the girl in question quite well - probably an annual subscription to Cosmo magazine too. Not that my scribbles can compare to such a sacred woman's literature, obviously.

Secondly, swearing is far too easy. I like being adjectively challenged.

And finally, those of you who know me we'll be sniggering to hear it, but I'm trying to re-style myself as a true English gentleman.

Oh it's true.

I've started giving up my train seat to hot women and everything.

Before my eyes turn square for good...

2007-11-14T20:53:00.000Z

SpecSavers have got some bloody cheek.

I was checking my scattered pile of post, which probably wouldn't be so scattered if it wasn't a bi-monthly process, and I found an envelope from the opticians.

"Dear Mr Osborn,

It is now time for your eye test."

Oh really? The same one I have to pay for?

You wouldn't get a flyer shoved through your letterbox with "It is now time for your £7.99 medium Meat Feast" in bold type, would you?

Maybe you would. I dropped marketing - along with the rest of my sixth form subjects - when I discovered that I couldn't go home for lunch. It says much for my high school priorities, which you'll be glad to hear, still haven't changed.

I can't stand the opticians. Or the doctors, or the dentists for that matter. In fact, I don't like visiting any clinic where the most you can expect to be given is the all-clear.

In any case, I'm a sufferer of terrible eyesight. I use glasses at work and if I ever learn to tame a vehicle, I'll be using them to drive too. But I really don't like glasses. So much so that I tried to get some contact lenses last year.

SpecSavers made a great big song and dance about the process. They brought me in to an isolated room, gave me some eye lubricant (insert your technical term here), and expected me to miraculously find the ability to touch my eye without blinking.

Sorry guys, but a fifteen minute appointment isn't quite going to be long enough for me to re-train my instinctive reactions so that my eye doesn't close when something is poked in it. They couldn't see this, however, and refused to discharge me with the lens to try at home.

Why? Because if I get it in, and can't get it back out...I could require medical attention.

Well we could say that for a lot of things, but unless you're exceptionally kinky, I don't see why a SpecSavers staff member has to be present.

As a bonafide male, I suppose it's my duty to report that I've stumbled a'foul of the deadly Man Flu. Terrible, it is. I spent my walk home from work coughing and spluttering at potential sympathy bearers. Given that I have the route scouted, I made sure to eyeball the CCTV cameras with a few agonised sniffles.

And then, of course, I had a wonderful ten minute wait at Harrow on the Hill station. With hoards of commuters all around me, it was the perfect opportunity to have a bloody good hack and cough. I wheezed my heart out, yet not one briefcase-laden yuppy cared enough to offer me so much as a pitiful glance from the side of his London Lite.

Apparently this blog has received over 1000 visits in the last month. I'm quietly impressed that so many people have so very little to do that they'd bother to trawl through my scribbles.

I never anticipated that I'd end up posting some of the entries that I have. But when you know certain people read what you're saying, it's nigh on impossible not to slip in the odd veiled message. Or in my case, the odd veiled essay. I could write a frigging 200 page novel on certain passing eyes.

Speaking of novels, I have finally finally finished the draft of the work I started back in 2004. Now I'm faced with the hassle of preparing manuscripts and weeding the inevitable polite rejections from the not-so-ambiguous "Please never submit to us again if you're the last writer on Earth" correspondence.

We'll see how it goes, though. Writing is my main passion in the money making sense. And I highlight the term "money making" because it would be thoroughly homosexual of me to admit to writing out of enjoyment...which, err, is unfortunately the case.

A brief flashback.

2007-11-13T01:21:00.000Z

November 12th feels strange this year.

My mind goes back to the summer and the rollercoaster ride of emotions that we both experienced.

Hurt, comfort, optimism, despair.

We'd spent the day before visiting the zoo and feeling completely at ease. Hand in hand, chucking chips at the birds and falling back in to each others arms for a final summer's night.

This is the last picture of us that I have.

I remember entering the airport and feeling sick to my stomach. You spent the entire car journey flicking through radio stations and it infuriated me inside. I never understood how you could switch off from the impending seperation. So I had my eyes fixed on the road ahead, chasing clouds in the sky and wondering which way I was heading for the Atlantic.

We got to the airport and I could never have imagined that I was holding your hand for the last time. Or maybe I could. You kissed me then turned to leave, but unlike the summer before, you didn't look back. This time I stood there and watched until you were out of sight. I stayed there for ten minutes just incase you hadn't actually gone.

I still remember walking up that escalator with tears in my eyes, spending a good half hour sifting through duty-free magazines and not reading a single word. Then sitting in the window seat and watching your hometown disappear, losing orientation and closing my eyes until I knew that I wouldn't look down and see anything I could recognise.

And while it no longer hurts to think about it, I just know that if I could have foreseen where we are today, I'd have broken down in the departure lounge far worse than I did.

I know that I'll never see that airport again, and I'll never repeat the journey through cornfields to reach it. I know that I'll probably never see you again either.

So I hope today, on your birthday...you're off having fun and enjoying yourself.

I know you're happy with another guy, and it's no longer my responsibility to produce cheesy presents or sentimental CDs. I also know that you still read what I write.

There are far too many happy memories for me to simply erase the last three years from my system. Yet I've moved on and you have too. I haven't forgotten about you and I do still care.

But we both knew it had to end. I'm so sorry for the way that it did.

Kylie and some very big bangers.

2007-11-10T21:40:00.000Z

Anybody see The Kylie Show on ITV? Unbelievable. A cheesier audience, I don't recall.

She performed on a circular stage with a small crowd dancing 360 degrees around her below. And on the television, you couldn't help but pay more attention to the shapes being busted in the audience than the performance from the singer herself.

It's hard for me to respect any crowd that manages to rock out to pint-sized Kylie. Not that I have a thing against pint-sized people. I've got the hots for a good smurf, actually.

But the show was just calling for some of my exotic hand busting gesticulations. Now that would have put the prime in primetime. Just like I put the art in Martin. Which isn't my name, by the way.

How is it so that the firework displays are that much louder and that much more frequent on Diwali than they are on our own national holidays? I was woken up by a massive bang nextdoor, tipped my head out the window and coughed my way through a thin mist of explosive fog.

And really, what is the point of those fireworks that go straight up and explode with NO sparks? I just don't understand. If I'm going to splash out my hard earned cash on a bunch of fireworks, I want some bang for my buck. Well, actually, I want some visual stimulation.

"There she goes, straight up in to the sky."

"Yeah? I don't see any sparks."

"Of course you don't. But we know she exploded."

I still remember when my Dad bought the biggest banger he could find in Ruislip and set it off under our massive oak tree. As a young kid, it scared the hell out of me. You'd kind of expect something like that to go terribly wrong, and when it set fire to the tree, I was in tears with distress.

A girl told me last night that my pupils are the largest she's ever seen. Believe it or not, I have actually been refused entry to a club in the past - just because of their size. Apparently it's a giveaway sign that somebody's on chemicals. And while I can't say that I've never dabbled my hand in pyschedelics, I certainly don't use them every day and night.

It's weird. I've spent the last 19 years under the illusion that I have green eyes. But everybody who sees them says that they're blue. Either way, they're creepily large.

According to Facebook, amongst my 150 friends, I am the 4th nicest smelling.

Weird. But thanks, I guess.

I'm also listed as a strictly average dancer, which quite frankly, isn't true. Anybody who's seen me sharking on a Saturday night will be able to confirm that I'm actually quite terrible.

Speaking of Saturdays, this is the first I've spent snuggled up at home in quite some time. Last night was interesting to say the very least. I'm having a relaxing evening on my own to refill the tank and get some life in my veins.

It always sounds better when it goes unexplained.

2007-11-08T00:10:00.000Z

I've been thinking.

As I tend to do on rare occasions.

What exactly is the job of a Shadow Chancellor? Because, to the best that I can tell, he seems to be the guy who organizes a budget for the opposition party. But based on what?

"That's brilliant, George."

"Now all we need is some power."

Who couldn't do that? I draw up imaginary spending plans for a million imaginary pounds all the time! Give me a fake economy to balance and too right I'll be sniggering when yours goes belly-up.

Am I the only one who simply couldn't care less that the Olympics are coming to his hometown? Honestly, I see no grand occasion. It's second rate sporting entertainment. Pole vault? Bowls? A little bit of archery? Not worth the tax quite frankly. And as a working Londoner, inevitably I'll be forced to pay through my nose for it.

I suppose it's the sort of event that would be good to take your kids to. But in 2012, I'll be lucky to have a serious relationship let alone sprogs of my own. It's a downward spiral from your 20th birthday. And an expensive one to boot.

I had my details taken by the police on Bonfire Night. Having ventured up Harrow Hill to enjoy the Fireworks wash-out, an officer informed us that drinking is banned publically in Harrow. As is gay sex in the graveyard. Not that I dabbled in the latter but clearly somebody has if they patrol it so rigorously.

I've been having rather depressing relapses of the year gone by. It's funny how nine months on, I still haven't found a way to mourn or say a proper goodbye or even to allow myself to remember. My mum left a teddy on my pillow. The same one that I gave to my nan a few months before she died. Nice gesture and all, but it stirred my memory in a way that wasn't very comfortable for my guilty conscience.

It's something I've been fighting with a vengeance. Using every night where somebody's willing to spend time with me as a method of stamping it out - by escaping the four walls and denying myself time to think. Thinking too much gets me nowhere. I've been out on the lash six nights running, and I know it's not just to socialise.

I don't want Christmas to come. Two empty chairs around the table and a large part of my upbringing missing. Not to mention the regret of decimating a relationship - as much as it had to happen - and feeling so hopeless with the chase that loose sex is the only light on the horizon.

It's not that I have regrets for being single. But I miss being able to spill the occasional outburst of hurt and pain. The kind that just wouldn't wash with friends. Even this blog is a massive contradiction of everything that goes through my mind. If you can't be honest with yourself, what the hell are you doing?

I've given up trying to muster a relationship out of a friendship. It's too much fantasizing on my part, and as much as I adore the girl, I'd rather not become one of her mistakes. If I had the slightest idea how her mind worked, maybe it'd be different. But I don't and I'm starting to feel just a little bit stupid for losing my grip on reality and the things that she says - or doesn't.

Nothing has to change. I'm just trying to accept that sooner or later, a more eligible guy is going to see what I already see, and hopefully make her happy. I'm not entirely sure that this isn't already the case.

Maybe that's why I'm spending an increasing ammount of time in cloud cuckoo land. Barely listening to my mates, and scouring bars for a girl to go gooey eyed over in the same way that I do for her. If anything worthwhile comes from this madness, at least I know what I'm looking for.

At the same time, only a total moron judges a girl by what he likes in another.

I think the haircut has gone to my head.

Words from a professional Mouse Artist.

2007-11-05T07:54:00.000Z

Pointless fact of the day. The average ballpoint pen can write a line two miles long before running out of ink.

Even more pointless fact: A pencil gets blunt before you reach the end of Ashburton Road.

I've been experimenting with substances. And by substances, I refer to the accessories above the sink.

Our bathroom is like a science lab full of exotic coloured bottles with labels written in a language that, I could swear, only woman are taught to understand. Highlights, volume, colour vibrancy, heat damaged frizzy hair.

Sod it. Bring a teacup, mix them together, and take the best of all worlds.

I'm a typical man in the bathroom. I'll grab the nearest bottle - hoping that it's shampoo rather than conditioner - and douse myself in it until I feel effectively frothy.

But God, if I get anything in my eye, you wouldn't believe the commotion. It's like a wounded dinosaur desperately reaching for a towel, lashing bottles off shelves left right and center.

London Underground.

Never have so many people gathered in one place where so very little is said.

The Jubilee line was a ridiculous crush this evening. The sort of packed ride where your face is literally inches away from somebody elses' yet you both remain silent throughout - by law of that unspoken English etiquette. A bit of a change to the clubs in Bournemouth, mind you, where it's perfectly acceptable to slap the skirt of a random stranger and flaunt a cheeky smile like you're the best of playmates. Not that I've tried. I'm being a good cat until I find the cream.

Anyway, I mentioned trains (a common gripe of mine, clearly), so I'll be damned if I don't continue. Am I correct in assuming that the point of railworks is generally to improve the service? If that's the case, why have half the lines been part suspended on weekends for the last six years?

Whatever work you're doing, it's clearly not working. Give up, go home, lets not be redirected via Guildford while you do squat all.

This after a mammoth two and a half hour journey back from Bournemouth where I honestly thought I might die of stomach cramps. I managed to get dragged in to conversation with another chirpy Southampton girl. It's a regular occurance apparently. But following this weekend, I'd much rather have been left to snooze in her lap and be petted like an overgrown kitten after supper. Perhaps I'm too demanding with strangers. Oh I do love my affection.

My Ghostbusters outfit went down like the Titanic in the arctic sea on Halloween. And by down, I mean quite literally, it was close to my ankles at one point.

For some God forsaken reason, I decided that wearing clothes under the overalls would go against the spirit of Ghostbusting. I'm no stranger to commando, but I am a stranger to waiting at the bar topless with an inflatable backpack as the sole protector of my nipple modesty.

To add to this, I kept losing my gun. The blonde girl made a hobby of marching over at regular intervals to hand it back to me, yet I'd find somewhere else to forget about it. Freudian tendencies or not, what good is an unarmed Ghostbuster? I'd be about as effective as my wagoned mate, Tom, at a beer festival.

It's late Sunday night and that can mean only one thing. The week is at its lowest ebb. On the bright side, things can only get better. And they'd get better real fast if I could just shift some of the severe stomach contractions that I'm currently suffering from. Quite frankly, this is bordering on a pregnancy scare. No worries though, work tomorrow!

Part of my glamorous job as a web developer involves cycling through online applications and testing for defects. Or to go all techie on the world - usability testing.

Now, there are many different ways to test software, and many things to consider. But us industry kids have a pretty handy shortcut.

If your girlfriend is capable of using it, doesn't break it, and thinks she knows what she's doing...you're on the right track. Unfortunately I don't have a girlfriend to exploit in this sense. So I use my imagination, put myself in her shoes, and sure enough - defects galore!

Yes, life as a web developer hardly offers too many opportunities for charisma to shine. I spend my long walks home pondering the thought of changing my job title.

Just saying it out loud, Web Developer, it's so uninspiring. Can I not be a Cyber Consultant? Or a Mouse Artist? Even just a Digital Plumber, man, we all know what those cretins get up to on the job.

If you have any suggestions, please do send them on a postcard.

My barnet has finally been chopped. You remember the scene in Apollo 13 where they have to watch one half of the shuttle disappear in to space as a sacrifice for fuel? Yeah well, this mop has been the survival of me over the last eleven months.

Without it, I simply have no valid excuse to ask for a good ruffling.

It's all a bit worrying, to be honest. The kind of girl that I'd like to attract would most likely struggle to approve of the short-haired scruff that I now am. On the plus side, it's nice to be able to see and hear again.

I'm off to have a baby and some calpol.

A self-imposed restraining order and tomorrow's tragic jogger.

2007-10-31T07:16:00.000Z

You know you've had a bad day when you walk straight past the burger van and spend your lunch break sinking a Stella in the nearest public house.

I'm having a rough time of things at the moment. So much so that I forced myself in to a positive shopping haul after work. Just a cheap one, mind you. It distracted me from my woes, but I still fancy a good vent.

Primark, Topman, Next, Burton, River Island...I tasted them all and bought nothing.

Personally, I see Primark as a bit of a double edged sword. If you come away empty handed, you're obviously skinter than Larry. Whereas if you exit with six bags and a new jacket, you're the tightest Christmas shopper in Hertfordshire or God forbid; a father of five.

I, however, have reached a comfortable middle ground whereby it's possible to shop on a tight budget and maintain my healthy reputation for sassy fashion (comments turned off for a reason). That's right. I buy my socks at Primark and nothing else. If I'm feeling brave, I'll go so far as to chuck in a pair of those comfortable grey joggy bottoms.

You might scream chav, but I say - great to wear naked and friendly on the twins. Whatcha gonna do about it?

I'd also like to thank Primark for changing their carrier bags to a more generous tone of pale blue. It's now possible to turn the bag inside-out, thus removing all traces of the logo - and your budget spree. This, naturally, allows you to waltz off the train hands 'a packed like you've West Ended it up Knightsbridge with the rest of the WAGS.

Fat wallet, hungry stares and 72 pairs of white socks for £13.99. Who says men can't shop?

Believe it or not, I may have good reason to venture upmarket by the end of the year. I've been offered the chance to nail a freelance stand-up comedy script for a rather flattering £2,000. This is an opportunity that I'm actually quite excited about. I've always wanted to write humour, even if I'm far too shy to get up on a stage and do that kinda schtick myself.

So, I now travel with a notebook in my pocket making little observations whenever I see anything that could be moulded in to a funny set-piece.

I have some material penned down which I think is genuinely quite good, but that's the struggle with writing to get a laugh. It can fall flat on its face and you have no artsy saving grace to roll back on. We'll see how it goes.

On a slightly unrelated note, what kind of lunatic goes jogging through Cassiobury Park now that the clocks have gone back? I was on my way home from work this evening when I caught sight of a mentalist in shorts barely touching his knee caps jogging calmly in to the darkness. When I say darkness, I mean the utter wilderness.

Cassiobury Park is massive, disorientating and more recently - pitch black by 5 o' clock. It's the sort of jogging route that you only take if you're stopping for some dogging along the way. So to see a complete nutcase happily toddle off down the shrouded footpath, I was tempted to jot down his description for the inevitable police enquiry in the morning.

To his credit, at least he wasn't causing harm to anybody but himself.

Which is more than I can say for the festive chap on the bicycle with flashing CHRISTMAS LIGHTS chained to its rear.

Have you considered that you're not the only one on the road, mate?

A flash to the right, a flash to the left. Might go this way, might go that. Who knows? Indicators be done with, let's all enjoy the season to be jolly and cause utter chaos for drivers across the land.

It's getting quite hard to be tactful where my, err, lighter feelings are concerned. In the sense that I find myself about to say something, only to rephrase or reword it completely so that there's room to escape from the meaning if it all goes a bit belly-up. Does that make sense?

The trouble is, I know what I'm like. I'm just six or seven Stellas away from unleashing the cat amongst the pigeons and reeling off all the things I've wanted to say. Nice things, admittedly. Very nice. But ultimately, comments that can only be interpreted in one way. And from the impression I get, she relies on the double meanings to deflect the false expectation that she might actually have to respond to them.

It's just ridiculous. I have no sexual or physical intimacy to judge it by, just the way she makes me smile every day and how increasingly so I look forward to it - oh well alright, her being gorgeous might be a factor too. I really don't know how to deal with that predicament, whether it's attraction or admiration, I just don't know.

The clock has ticked past Midnight and Halloween is upon us.

If you're reading this, have a good one. I will be ghostbusting my way down to the Middlesex Arms later and please, if you see me down there, keep me away from those God damn christmas crackers.

They'll be the barring of me, they will.

Cut loose, cut loose. Stay off the Sunday booze.

2007-10-29T00:20:00.000Z

A movie trailer just aired on Channel 4 with a big Hollywood voice declaring "3 stars" as if its something to draw me out of my seat. Err, three stars, you say? Way to announce your mediocrity to the world - or, as I suspect, the 17 people who actually bother to tune in to Channel 4 at this time of night. Hey, credit where it's due though, they've clearly researched their target market. We're used to watching bollocks, baby.

I've just realised that these condoms in my drawer have a telephone support line on the back of the packet.

How does that work exactly? Do I call for advice when I'm rolling it on? What if they put me on hold? I won't know if I can work it 'til I open it, and that's hardly an impressive start to penetration when you've got one hand on the phone, you know.

"Hello, Durex Support, how may I help you?"

"It's slipping off. What can I do?"

"Err...well if you just reach down and hold it at the base, sir..."

"...sir?"

"God damn it, too late. Could you put me through to the Pregnancy Scare Department, please?"

I'm tempted to call up and ask if they can send a fine young lady to install the product for me. I've misconfigured and need a helping hand.

Sorry, but these large commercial companies rub me up the wrong way (double entendres are flying out of the hat here!).

I called BT the other day - admittedly not during the act of sex, that would have been in poor taste - but honestly, I must have been passed through four seperate continents. And that was before I got the opportunity to explain the problem! It's painfully hard to understand some of these robotic support technicians. Not to mention infuriatingly frustrating when they suggest useless procedures such as "have you tried switching it on and off?"

No, considering I've called you with the very specific query that my modem won't switch on, I haven't tested those waters just yet.

Would you like to run up my phone bill some more, incapable buffoon?

And then they pass you on to another department! Unbelievable.

Word is that if I dismantle one more Christmas display at the Middlesex Arms, I will actually be barred.

I didn't hear this exactly, but I've been reliably informed that they're sick of replacing all the crackers and the tinsel is wasted around my neck. This, ladies and gentleman, is a prime example of what's wrong with the United Kingdom;

Not enough of us wear Christmas hats.

So who else has been royally screwed up the wacko with the clocks going back? I spent the early afternoon two hours ahead of the rest of the UK. Naturally, this made me feel slightly foolish. But not nearly as foolish as my adorably tiny friend who convinced herself that she was living a different day of the week and that I should actually be at work. Aww.

I know I sound like a cynical old git, but I really am quite happy with the world. I've been roped in to studying the Footloose dance with two overly-keen lady friends. Keep it under your hats, but I'm quietly optimistic my shapes will one day grace the West End Stage. The hips don't lie.

I've checked the mirror far too many times, and believe me, that reflection was born to kick off the Sunday shoes.

Reality speaking. A pig is dreaming he can fly.

My dirty thoughts have been frozen.

2007-10-26T01:15:00.000+01:00

Are all the newsagents in India as poor for customer service as those down St. Albans Road?

Nothing irritates me more than going up to the counter - ready to offer my custom - and having to wait for the shopkeeper to either get off the phone, stop talking a foreign language to the kid in the back, or actually tell me how much I have to pay.

I mean, really. There's no price marked, but he thrusts an outstretched hand for my money, expecting me to have calculated the exact change - often while chatting gobbleygook to Sanjay and not even offering me so much as a passing glance. Oh yes, I'm feeling un-PC today.

So maybe I harbour unrealistic expectations, but when the bloke behind the counter ignores me for a couple of minutes while I'm in a hurry for work - just so that he can chat to a delivery man on the phone - I get a little hot and bothered. And not even a "thank you" or a "have a nice day" when I leave!

Likewise, when his wife thumps me in the back of the head with a cardboard box full of old stock, why is it ME that says sorry? Oh, I give up.

Anybody else read The Sun today? Remember A.S from Queensmead? (I don't want to name names, you can search the website for yourself if you're that interested) Apparently he's on trial in Isleworth for sexually assaulting a mother in front of her kid. The mother later committed suicide.

I saw it on the train and it was pretty shocking. From what I remember, A.S mixed with a bit of a dodgy crowd. I used to go round his house after school and we wouldn't get up to much good. I knew that he took a few wrong paths, but to read that was disgusting. Some people go too far off the rails.

Why do I feel like I'm perilously close to falling for this girl who seems so far out of reach? It's one of those situations where half of me wants to take her out, and the other half is worried about how I'd cope if it went as well as it seems it would.

I don't know how to describe it really. It's hard to deny that there's some lusting involved on my part, how can there not be? And I'm equipped to handle that, being the guy that I am. It's the friendship and not wanting to make a wrong approach which shivers me timbers. But I've never known a girl who knows to say exactly what somebody trying to seduce me would say - and yet not appear to be interested.

It's extremely frustrating. Like somebody walking around parading a pair of dream undies that were perfectly designed to match your shape. You know? You're showing me what I want, but you won't let me grab it. God damn you.

I think I've mislead myself. Time and time again, I've insisted that a lunch, park bench or dinner would be enough to sway her. I think I'm simply talking for myself. She seems absolutely immune to it all. And the rest is such an unfathomable basket of what-ifs, I'm starting to get that slush puppy head rush feeling.

And that can mean only one thing.

It's Friday, baby, and I'm in the mood to tear up a dancefloor.

England, what have you become?

2007-10-23T23:42:00.000+01:00

Something tells me I made a grave fashion blunder today. Leather jackets and argyle sweaters. I'll let your imagination save me the adjectives necessary to describe how outrageously bad it looked.

Sort of a confused image, don't you think? Half of me wants to be the biker who'd put Clint Eastwood to shame - all until I take my jacket off when it becomes a case of "don't touch the hair, man, this took me fifteen minutes". To make matters worse, it wasn't just an argyle sweater. It was a pink and yellow argyle sweater. What was I thinking?

I read an interesting article on the train yesterday. It was all about the political correctness of men saying what they want in a relationship. There was quite a bit of truth to it actually. Women can get away with everything. How often do you hear them chirping about their dream catch? It's normally a Frankenstein concoction moulding the stellar bravery of a fireman, the looks of a Brad Pitt and the sensitivity of a chick-flick heart throb - the names of which elude me given that, surprise surprise, I don't watch too many now that I'm single.

But what happens when a guy claims that he wants Angelina Jolie in the bedroom, Little Mo around the house and Virgin Mary for his kids? Outrage! Sexism! ...and a flood of letters to the Daily Mail from disgruntled feminists. Don't you just hate them? So prissy with the world!

I also read that, apparently, the population of the UK is set to rise by 5 million in the next 15 years. Are you having a laugh? Sure, a 12% increase might not sound a lot, but given that we're packed in like sardines as it is, I shudder to imagine what they'll be chopping rid of to make way for the new houses. The only solution is to build upwards instead. Towering London skylines and an expansion of the outer boroughs is going to make things ridiculously over-crowded.

Plus, without sounding too racist, I'm sick to death of getting a bus to Hayes and feeling out of place for being white, English - and in the case of Hayes itself - almost literate. Multicultural society has its benefits, and I wouldn't be so fussed if we weren't battling the PC brigade so religiously, but enough is enough. Somebody put the English back in Mother England.

And what about your climate change targets? It doesn't take a doughnut to work out that more people equals more energy, and more energy equals more emissions. So it looks like I won't be meeting the polar bears, after all.

Don't you just love American politics? It's taken God knows how many fire engines and countless gallons of water for George Bush to announce the California blaze as a "major disaster". Well, take another one Sherlock.

And what's with the mad fascination that the President must visit the scene of the chaos? Not being funny, but if I found out that Cali was melting in a cloud of black smoke, I'd arrange my weekend break in Florida instead.

I realise he's just trying to provide some inspiration in a dire situation. But he could surely do this by, err...making himself scarce.

Anyway, I've been a bit strapped for cash this week. So much so that I made the radical decision to top-up my Oyster with spare 10 pence coins - naturally late at night in a desolate Ruislip Manor station, because we all know how infuriating that'd be in the height of rush hour.

They'd be wheeling me to A&E with a briefcase wedged in my skull.

But alas, after about two pounds worth of spare change, the machine locked up on me! A little message flashed on the screen; "You have inserted too many coins."

Excuse me, piece of redundant technology?

Not satisfied with taking far too much of my money in the first place, it seems Red Ken is now determined to accept only notes and pound coins. Well, bollocks. That's all I can say to that. I hope Boris wipes the floor with you, mate.

Has anybody bothered to write to me in Lovestruck yet? Come on, ladies. I've been using the tube for two whole years and still no sign of a rogue stud muffin sighting in thelondonpaper. Naturally, I'm talking about me.

Honestly, that section just cracks me up. Does clutching at straws spring to mind? Let me read you one of today's messages (because yse - I am cruel enough to remember them).

To the long dark-haired exotic mixed-race girl who sat three seats away opposite me – I'm the guy with a blue rucksack and green jacket on the 18.30 GNR train from Sheffield. We got off at Doncaster. I couldn't keep my eyes off you. Dinner? - Anon

Two things wrong with this, ladies and gentleman.

Firstly, the whole "couldn't keep my eyes off you" deal is a little disturbing. How odd must this poor woman have been feeling with a stranger eyeballing her across the carriage?

Secondly, am I missing something? Sheffield to Doncaster? WHAT POSSESSED YOU TO TEXT A LOCAL LONDON PAPER?

It's like your cat going missing in Brighton and pasting a Wanted poster in Liverpool. Not that I don't understand the logic in that particular scenario. The bloody scousers would steal your mortgage if you gave them half a chance.

Anyway, as ridiculous as this lonely hearts column happens to be, please feel free to text a message about me. It'd brighten my day. Nevermind the signal failures, I'd be swooning my way home like a Metropolitan breeze.

The suburbs and the city.

2007-10-21T16:23:00.000+01:00

You won't believe this, but I found a little note stuffed through our letterbox this evening. "Clean The Alley Day", it boldly proclaimed.

We live at the beginning of the road, and it so happens that the great Ruislip Manor community has organised a fun-day outside our house. The entire town's been invited to "the alley adjacent to 1 Ashburton Road"! This makes me feel uncomfortable, especially since they're offering refreshments and entertainment.

What kind of entertainment can you offer in an alley? I'm simply praying it's not a peephole in the fence and a free shot of my intimate bits. Still, by all means, if you want a crap day out, do come along. Nothing compares to an afternoon spent cleaning up the litter of a hundred dogs.

A couple of friends have taken to calling me "Pretty Boy". What's that all about? I had to endure the first half of the rugby standing in front of two cretins who took great satisfaction in blowing and carressing my hair. Don't get me wrong, I quite liked it, but the touch was a little manly.

This before one of the cretins in question vomited spectacularly on the stairwell, down the bannister and in at least two actual toilets. That's what you get for drinking Glenn's Vodka with Tropical Fruit cider on the train, folks.

Speaking of toilets, I was in one last night and stood up only to find a weirdo gazing over the top of the next cubical. Just his face peering down at me! It made me jump, and it was only when I remembered the incident this morning that I put two and two together, coming to the conclusion that, quite frankly, that's a bit weird.

I have a lot of these retrospective moments. Like the time I was in Sheffield and thought nothing of two guys sharply exiting the same cubical. I'm such an innocent drunk.

We eventually rolled out of O'Neills at 3am last night, somehow finding our way to the most disgusting Subway in Leicester Square. A little de-tour found us slumming it up in a Tottenham Court Road underground pass, catching a quick nap before they opened the tube.

If Home Alone 2 had been set in London, Kevin would have copped it on the first night. Forget pigeon ladies, we have drug dealing hoodies and pill pushers. We also have incredibly random tourists.

I was just laying on the underground stairway when two girls came by and sat down with us. For some reason, the simmering blonde decided to draw on my face. Thankfully there was no ink in the pen, because that could have been really embarrassing.

I vaguely remember dancing with a slightly intoxicated - if very attractive - brunette. Things were going well, there were plenty of smiles and I might have grinded discretely once or twice.

And err...I headbutted her.

No excuses. It was a shape too far. I tried to twirl, she stood her ground. Somewhere in the middle our heads clattered. It was one of those moments where you have no choice but to give an exaggerated wince, smile, then wait twenty seconds - until she's not looking - before effeminately tending to what's actually a very sore bump.

In other news, I'm just about ready to quit my job and quit London.

Ernest Kazoo, whatcha gonna do?

2007-10-19T13:14:00.001+01:00

Consider this a fictional interlude.

We'll call it Ernest Kazoo's heartfelt musings on Daisy Duran.

I would love to express how much it pangs me that I don't have five minutes to sit her down and talk face to face. Because I can't help but feel that it's all I'd need to show something that isn't regularly associated with me, and for the chemistry to take over. But the overwhelming impression I get is of a girl who doesn't want to compromise the hurt, attachment or loss of control that comes with investing her interest in somebody. Which is a shame because I really adore her.

More than anything, I remember a line about 'the best it's going to get'. I've spent a long time scratching my head at that, wondering whether I'm simply too optimistic and not wanting to accept it.

I don't consider myself one of the hopeless emo generation. As far as I'm concerned, if a girl doesn't like me, that's all the more reason to move on in a hurry. But when I have these deep, deep suspicions that she does and simply doesn't want to get hurt, it puts me in a bit of a spin. I'm caught between ignoring the issue completely for fear of pressuring, or approaching her directly and jostling with her defensive logic which is admittedly much greater than my own.

And that's the problem because I really, really can't bring myself to ask somebody to ignore their gut instinct when every last word of this is based on my own.

I know she reads what I write here. When I post something stupid and ultimately misleading, more often than not, it gets relayed back to me - even if a little indirectly and laced in faux kisses. I've given up trying to wrap my words in sweet double meanings. This is, after all, a blog...so if you're reading it, you can't be running for the hills with hands clasped over eyes. And if you are, well y'know, I think that's a reality far easier to come to terms with.

You'd think that documenting all these delicate feelings would be a recipe for awkwardness, but not really. She knows that I like her. I just don't think she trusts me not to like a thousand other girls too. Which is probably why I need those five minutes.

I'm not at all happy with how personal this blog has become in the space of a single entry. So I think that's my call to disappear off the cyber radar for a little while.

Happy travels, Ernest.

I'm looking for a sign and a haircut.

2007-10-18T14:51:00.000+01:00

My hair has reached the point of no return. I can no longer show off the fringe without being blinded by it. This is what happens when you go nine months without a trip to the barbers. The little voice inside me is screaming "get a cut, you bum", but the other half of me is concerned I'll lose my sway with the prettier gender. That sounds a bit ridiculous, but I've enjoyed far greater pulling power with the mop than I ever did without it.

I'm gonna keep it for the good karma, regardless.

Respectfully, I can now say that I know what women mean by the term "morning hair". It's a terrible thing and it emasculates me to admit it, but I honestly dread how my mop's going to look come sunrise.

My first instinct when I wake up is to reach out daintily and survey the damage. Then I'll roll on to whichever side is worse in a last ditch attempt to flatten the waves before my alarm goes off.

My Mum's finding it impossible to wake me in the mornings. I pity her.

"Martin, are you up yet?"

"Come on, time to get up."

"Martin, it's half seven."

"MARTIN!"

"It's quarter to eight...are you awake?"

"...Martin? Are you even there?"

Then my bedroom door opens and I shoot my head off the pillow, nodding vigorously and giving it the best "been up since half six, I 'as". It fails miserably, of course.

My brother's girlfriend doesn't even have an alarm clock. She's simply woken by the sound of Mum trying to get me up. It's my own fault when I'm so late that I have to blow a tenner on a taxi to make it to work on time. But the hissy I throw! Jesus! You'd think that I'd been a victim of theft or something.

"Two-one, to the sheep shaggers! Two-one, to the sheep shaggers!"

A nice self-derogatory chant from the Swansea fans last weekend - as they took the lead. Don't mind me, just remembering with a smile.

I went to work with a massive crown today (...still talking about the hair). It was like the raging pineapple effect. Can't believe I didn't notice it before the sniggers on the tube. I say sniggers as if I heard them chatting about it. I didn't. But we all get a little paranoid in rush hour, don't we?

I'm living for the weekend at the moment. With a massive hangover from last night, a thinning wallet and a bad case of the snifflies, I'm feeling a bit blue. O'Neills, our likely destination for the Rugby World Cup Final, is the sort of bar where if you don't pull something, you might as well retire from the sharking business. So either the nose clears up, or some poor broad's gonna be taking a Monday sickie with my name all over it. That's assuming I can find the inspiration to actually care for cheap thrills.

I had so many opportunities to enjoy a fondle or two last night, but I've never felt so distant in a club. It was like some warped scene from an MTV video, fleeting from girl to girl with eyes only for the crowd. I'd like to think I was paying homage to Bunny Ain't No Kinda Rider.

Did anybody else get the incredible irony on Channel 4 tonight? I found myself watching the Dispatches documentary, "Searching for Madeleine McCann".

In one of the ad breaks, directly before returning, they threw on a promotional vid for another show..."Michael Jackson: What Really Happened"

No kidding. It had Wacko Jacko cradling his young child and evading the snappers. I couldn't help but laugh at the suggestion of it all.

How long until Portuguese detectives pin the blame on Mr Plastic Fantastic himself? I know he'd be my prime suspect from day one. Different country? I don't care, mate. He's guilty.

Amazingly enough, the girl from the Bournemouth bus ride actually bothered to get in touch! I know, I could have done it myself but I was surprised to see the email all the same. It's strange how I've only spoken to her fleetingly, but as a complete stranger, I've dumped more secret fears on her than I have on the rest of my friends put together.

It's nice to be able to have a deep conversation, talk about your worries, and not get too bogged down in providing light hearted giggles. I've felt burdened by that quite a lot recently. I'm either blessed or cursed in the sense that lots of people come to me expecting a few laughs and a non-too-real take on the world. Unfortunately I've had my own troubles, so it's nice for somebody to put put a little direction on my compass.

I'm glad I used the replacement bus service after all - and how often can a Londoner say that without gritted teeth?

Anyway, finally, I leave you with a riddle.

The riddle is this.

Turn it upside down, shake it all around, tell me what you've found.

An obvious one.

Finding time for the bunnies.

2007-10-16T19:16:00.000+01:00

What's all this fuss over the Diana car crash? Yes, Al Fayed, I realise you believe your son was murdered, but it helps to have a consistent theory. Not a collection of inconsistencies.

We have a blinding flash, a mysterious Fiat and an alleged MI5 agent on a bike. Even Henri Paul's been nailed as a conspirator - despite, err, driving the car in to Pillar 13 and absolutely mauling himself beyond recognition. Suicidal hotel handiman? I think not.

Apparently at the root of all this evil was Prince Edward and his scheme to get rid of the Princess before she tore down the Royal interiors. God only knows how he found time to hatch such a cunning plan between the horse riding, the polo and the cups of Earls Tea.

And even if he did, what's a guilty verdict going to achieve? The old fart's just about ready to croak it as he is. I struggle to see the Queen visiting Wakefield between her state trips.

What amuses me most is the suggestion that Liz could be called to the stand in the courtroom. Her Majesty getting drilled by the prosecution! Not being funny, but it'd never happen to Henry VIII. Now there's a man's king. Heads would be rolling long before the Tabloids got the slightest sniff of a Sunday headline.

I've had a peaceful couple of days off work. Two days filled with some of the most wonderfully idle conversation imaginable; including the state of the music industry, glitter, and riding cows up hills.

Although I have to say, having thought about it considerably, I'm beginning to doubt that cows are capable of climbing up hills. Using the same theory of science which deems it impossible for water to flow upwards. Surely it can't happen.

Cows are just so useless in every way - even their camouflage is all wrong.

What were you thinking of, mate? Grazing on a chess board?

And on the subject of farm animals - because clearly it's a great passion of mine - am I the only person heartless enough to watch Babe in its entirity and see nothing but a wasted bacon sarnie?

It's a bit like Chicken Run really. I can't watch that movie without one eye on my fillet burger. Just incase it tries to escape, you know?

Oh my mind's a sea of stupid thoughts.

When I've fallen for girls in the past, it's usually been thanks to a strong sexual connection with the rest of the relationship built on sand. Somehow I feel a bit vulnerable when the foundations are reversed. And while I've been guilty of rushing in with my trousers around my ankles before, it feels weird to want a girl for seemingly all the right reasons - and to complement my happiness as opposed to providing it.

Like that feeling, where you're not quite sure what a smile's going to look like, only you know that it's bound to light the room.

Anyway, Jesus Lucifer Christ. Things are getting busy at my end. Let me see if I can get this right. I'm sure I've muddled my dates.

Friday 19th October - Friend's Sister's 18th.
Saturday 20th October - Leicester Square for the Rugby.
Sunday 21st October - Cousin's 18th.
Friday 26th October - Oktoberfest at the Bavarian Beerhouse.
Wednesday 31st October - Halloween at the Middlesex Arms.
Thursday 1st November - Against Me! gig in Camden.
Saturday 17th November - Friend's Birthday in Watford Reflex.
Saturday 24th November - Watford vs. Barnsley match, out in Sheffield.
Friday 30th November - Bill Bailey live.
Thursday 6th December - of Montreal gig at the UCU.

I'm not entirely happy about consuming my Saturdays in advance. You never know why you might need them, but thank God I've paid for everything already. I knew I didn't waste ALL of that £3000 on Vodka.

Finally, please spare a thought for me this weekend when my parents will be leaving for a short break in Aylesbury. This isn't a big deal in itself, but when you take a peek in your garden and notice 14 giant starving rabbits, you start to become suicidal. Don't get me wrong. I dig bunnies...in small quantities.

It's just when every corner of the garden is a pair of eyes, it's easy to get paranoid.

I'd leave the job to my brother but Pet Sematary scared the hell out of me.

Travelling to London? Use the train toilet.

2007-10-14T22:18:00.000+01:00

I'm in a ferocious mood tonight. It must have something to do with breaking a tenner on a copy of The Sunday Times just to obtain a 20p coin for the gents at Waterloo. What's all that about?

Listen, you can let me pass your premium toilet barriers or you can get urinated on. The decision is yours, Mr. Unluckiest Bouncer In The World. Now what's it gonna be?

Well, it was a copy of The Sunday Times as it so happens. But you better believe that I made the most of my stay.

If I had longer aim, I'd have looped one over the barriers Jonny Wilkinson style. And on his current form, I'd probably have soaked the innocent chap on the left. But a man's gotta have some morals - so I settled for a long queue in WHSmith with a face of absolute thunder.

Anybody who's seen me in a huff will know that it's not a pretty sight. I don't express it so much as I twitch, glare and sigh religiously until I've satisfied my need for everybody around me to see that I'm angry.

It's like waiting for the train. I know it's not coming. You know its not coming. But I'm still gonna stand on the yellow line, turned at a perfect angle facing down the track and eyeballing the horizon as i shake my head in disgust. Or I might practice my peeved walk-in-to-nowhere. You know the one? The back and forth march to the Underground map, somehow expecting that by the time I come back, there'll be a train in the distance.

And when there isn't, I tut extra loudly just to ensure everybody's aware that yes - I am a true Londoner. In every sense of the word.

The Underground just has this knack of turning me from a placid, quiet-natured boy in to a silently abusive stresshead.

And you don't even want to know how spectacular my huff was when I discovered that I'd be requiring a replacement bus service to get home from the south west this evening. I started doing that thing where you suck each cheek in and bite. It must've been bad.

The only saving grace was that I got to sit next to a complete and utter sort. And I say that in the most respectful way possible. She was a lovely girl, great to talk to...but hard to look at without spluttering your words, y'know? Somehow we exchanged email addresses. Is that the done thing these days? I don't know, I'm used to phone numbers but whatever. I'm still nursing a battered desire in the relationship sense - one that was made none too easier by this weekend.

There's two things I learnt about the south of England over these last two days.

Firstly, my sideburns are no match for the likes of your average 50 year old Bournemouth FC fan.

Secondly, the girls down south are absolutely stunning. Really they are. It must be the sea breeze or the lack of car fumes, but I envy the hell out of my coastal mates.

Just have to say. Radiohead's "Reckoner" is playing in the background and has to be one of the most stunningly beautiful tracks that I've heard in a long time. I'm majorly impressed by this new album, if only because it seems to sum up my love life perfectly by the opening verse of the eighth track.

I feel like I've travelled through Hell and high water to be sitting here tonight. Bournemouth, New Forest, Bruton, Salisbury, Southampton. I even got the most unpleasant whiff of Woking. My legs are somehow refusing to oblige. A bit like my hair really, which incidently, has decided to cluster in what can only be described as a bird nest gone wrong.

I only need to wake up slightly out of place and they'll be mistaking me for a Ruislip scarecrow.

The luxury of a sleeping house means that I'm free to sit here in a pair of the most emasculating pyjama bottoms known to man. I never wear pyjama bottoms. I should just point that out. But this is a special occasion, due to a slight injury which I sustained when my Last Man Standing took a zip shot to the head.

The joys of sleeping in your jeans on a hunched recliner, and don't you be laughin' at it.

Anyway, they're loose Jim Bean bottoms. My ex bought them for me in America, despite my practically mourning the loss of my manhood in the store as she did.

I can't hold it against her. They're as comfortable as it gets. But I've only just noticed that when I walk, the crotch - unrestrained as it is - has a nasty habit of flapping with my step.

Normally I'd be proud like any respectable dog, but it's a Sunday night and I'd rather keep my intimacies to myself if it's all the same to you, Muffin.

I have Monday and Tuesday off. But my boss doesn't know that yet.

Love.

P.S. Yes, there is a message in this bottle.

Radiohead: "In Rainbows" Review

2007-10-13T10:30:00.000+01:00

Radiohead were not the first band to release their music digitally or free of charge. But to put it simply, they were the first band of international significance. Such was the reaction on the 1st October when a short blog post from guitarist, Jonny Greenwood, signalled the bands intentions for new download-only release, In Rainbows.

"Hello everyone.

Well, the new album is finished, and it's coming out in 10 days;

We've called it In Rainbows. Love from us all."

If the shock announcement of an imminent album wasn't enough, it was the pricing and distribution structure that would raise the coyest eyebrows. And so it did. There is no label and it has no price.

You, the music fan, decide how much you want to pay for the record. It could be a penny, or ten, or £99.99. With the dawn of a new era, Radiohead laid down the gauntlet to record labels. But how would the album stack up?

If OK Computer was the band's glorious ascendancy to the throne of "greatest rock band in the world", Kid A was their disillusioned abdication of the throne in favour of sonic soundscapes and electronic weirdness. Two albums on, one less record deal, and the band find themselves searching for an identity in 2007. It can only be the greatest accolade that these seasoned veterans have been handed a genre of their own.

Incase you were in any doubt, the new album is every bit worthy of the media storm that it's ignited.

...So this is the new Radiohead sound. 15 Step belts to life with a tribal bassline and thrashing claps before Yorke makes himself heard. Gone is the vocal distortian of the Kid A era. The lead singer resonates a sound closer to his solo work on The Eraser. "How come I end up where I started? How come I end up where I belong?" Perhaps a telling sign as the band pull off a storming opener, somehow eluding their former work and redefining a fresh sound once again.

Bodysnatchers is a pscyhedelic journey with more than it's fair share of political undertones and a bridge to remember. This has all the pomp of Hail to the Thief's memorable opener, but the sound is fuzzy and at times it seems as if Greenwood has plugged his artillery in to a kiddie's practice amp. "I don't know what I'm talking about" snipes Yorke before a climax that's guaranteed to turn crowds mental when the band next tour.

You could be mistaken for assuming that Radiohead had gone all punk, but we're brought down to earth with arguably the standout track of In Rainbows.

After the first listen, Nude hits you like a tonne of bricks. After several, you can't help but feel that it's destined to become what Exit Music was for OK Computer. Introduced by choral mourns and some dreamy ooh'ing and ahh'ing, the vocals are as haunting as they are beautiful. "Don't get any big ideas, they're not gonna happen," we're begged over a rock steady and understated drum beat. Credit has to go to Jonny Greenwood's oustanding composition and also to Yorke who reminds the world with one truly hair-raising climax that nobody does a ballad like Radiohead

Having been kicking around for the best part of a decade, it would have been understandable had Nude managed to disappoint the fans who've waited ten years to hear a studio version. Somehow it triumphs.

Arpeggi/Weird Fishes is next. Fishes, you say? I didn't know it was a word either, but that's what we all are according to Yorke. Debuted quite some time ago on the live circuit, Arpeggi has retained its uplifting rhythm through a lush acoustic guitar and some flattering harmonies. It all builds towards a cry of escapism. Keeping with the album's dense sound, Arpeggi floats through your speakers like a little underwater charm.

All I Need continues the romanticism of the record, although the band have succeeded in turning what should be an acoustic lullaby in to a threatening beast of a sound. There are more flashbacks to 1997 with both the scary drums of Climbing up the Walls and the sweet glockenspiel of No Surprises merging together and somehow co-existing. At times, it does give the impression that the 'Head are going through the motions and toying with their past work (who wouldn't?). But the production is so first-class, the arrangements so precise, it's hard to fault a band that churns out a sound as faultless as this.

After a furious opening twenty minutes, Faust Arp provides the typical Radiohead mid-album breather. But to call this an interlude would be an injustice to some of Greenwood's finest work on the strings. It sounds like a boiled down version of A Wolf at the Door - one that froths without ever threatening to truly spill over.

Up next we have the song that was expected to rattle and clatter like a post-9/11 Electioneering. Reckoner will disappoint or overwhelm in equal measure, depending on what you were expecting. Far from the blazing guitars that the die-hards had in mind, an industrial clatter keeps this in-line with the In Rainbows mould. Yorke caps a seal on it and unleashes a soaring emotional vocal that would probably define the career of a lesser singer. It's a gorgeous ballad, but at the price of a stadium swinging anthem you feel.

House of Cards is another gentle number with some of the most direct lyrics in Post-Bends Radiohead times. "I don't want to be your friend, I just want to be your lover." Where did that come from?! Somewhere Chris Martin is wishing his three albums of crooning could have been simplified as expertly as this. "Denial, denial," pleads the lead singer to the steady coo that "Your ears must be burning" and some soft backing vocals.

If Kid A and Amnesiac were loveless behemoths, In Rainbows injects a welcome dose of romance to prove that maybe the band are mellowing with age. Rarely has Yorke been heard to emote so freely and this is the sound of a band that's comfortable in its own environment.

Jigsaw Falling in to Place lifts the tempo and feels like the first full-band piece in a while. It's default contemporary rock, but executed well with a rising vocal. Far from being a classic, Jigsaw proves that the quintet still know how to nail a traditionally structured tune.

In traditional Radiohead style, the record is drawn to close with a freakishly strange culmination of all that's come before it. Videotape, originally debuted as an ascending piano-driven number, plods through the speakers as Phil Selway explores one of the most eclectic drum beats of his career. Think a haunted attic or a rattling horse cart in the dead of night. Yorke adopts a hurt if controlled vocal to deliver a poignant tale that this is his only way to say goodbye. We can only hope he's playing with us.

Martin Osborn

-----

Some of my work, yo.

Back to the random schrandom when I catch a breather.

Yes, I really do suffer for fashion.

2007-10-10T16:40:00.000+01:00

So I logged in to Facebook and what did I see?

You have 2 Event invitations.

"Terrorist Training" - Friday 19th October at Afghanistan.

You have been invited by Ahmed.

Would you like to accept this invitation?

Attending, Maybe Attending or Not Attending.

Sorry Ahmed, I go bombing on Fridays.

Is it just me wondering whether Alistair Darling is as bipolar as his hair?

I mean, no offence and all, but you look ridiculous mate. Sort of like Eugene Levy in ten year's time.

Nice swoop and steal by Labour though. Get your rivals to announce their vote winning policies, adopt them as your own. and watch Boy George blow his gasket all over Westminster.

My boss is having a clearout in the office, so behind me sit three large boxes of Hushh's finest sex toys and cheeky garments. We have rampant rabbits. We have big black dongs. We have...well, I don't know what that is but I wouldn't want it inside me.

As part of the office overhaul, I walked home this Monday with 72 free condoms. Pretty extravagant considering they expire in January, but you never know when you might get lucky a few dozen times in one night. I make it about 10 weekends until New Years, so to truly reap the rewards, I'm gonna need to be having it like the clappers on protein pills. And that's a scary thought for North West London.

Either that or I could be a total diamond and stock up me mates. There's just something a little bit unnerving about becoming the chief supplier of contraceptives over a casual pint of Stella. I don't want to be known as Aunty Martin, if you catch my drift.

I've been copping a fair bit of stick for my fashion lately. Not just the clothes, but the hair-do too. My boss says I look like I've caught a train to the wrong decade and turned up in the 70s. My friends say the sideburns and psychedelic shirts have to go. Personally, I think it's all a bit silly.

Yes, I have nailed a few horrendous outfits in my time. And yes, I probably could do with an extended lunch break in the nearest salon. But it beats the same old same old.

It's been a bit of a struggle to hold back from posting a very different entry over the past few days. But as much as these words betray how I'm actually feeling, something tells me they're a reassuring sight to the people that matter. I miss what I used to take for granted - and at about 4pm today it'll probably become clear why.

I'm venturing off to Bournemouth this weekend to catch up with a mate, and to inevitably christen his flat. I've told him to go to Sainsburys on Friday night. Not for food, but to stock up on plastic bags. Oh, self burn. If only you knew!

I'm not the only one with hearing difficulties.

2007-10-08T13:35:00.000+01:00

I saw a Metronet van parked up on St Alban's Road yesterday. I can't even begin to describe how tempted I was to spike the tires and leave a note on the windscreen. "Minor delays" on the way home for you, pal.

What is it with these service announcements about a "good service" on the Metropolitan Line? You've got some cheek to be chirping that line when half of it's suspended and I'm counting on a replacement bus service to reach my destination.

Besides, good service? There is no good service. Only one which gets me from A to B on time.

Throw in a television, a snack bar, and let me rest my feet on the bloody seats. Then you can praise your good service.

Without turning this esteemed blog in to an emo sobfest, I have a bit of a dilemma. I'm no longer the Slim Jim that I used to be. Not that I've gone all podge on the world, but my 32 incher is starting to get a little too soft for my liking (good grief, what a sentence). So from this day forward, I'm cutting down on beer in favour of spirits. I figure I should shake off the emerging Stella pouch before my happy trail turns in to an arduous mountain climb.

And I really should start working that Argos rowing machine. It's clogging up too much of my bedroom to be left to gather dust. But there's a problem; it squeaks. Really badly. I'd have an exhaustive workout, but to the people downstairs, it must sound like I'm having a passionately loud solo sesh.

I found myself pondering random nonsense on the way to the bakery today. Why do ambulances have two siren sounds?

There's the "nee-naw nee-naw", and then you've got that bloodcurdling war-siren screen.

But if the ear busting "nee-naw" isn't enough to inform you of an arriving ambulance, what's the screech gonna do for you?

I could swear. The driver's just sitting there, toddling between sirens, trying to scare as many unsuspecting pedestrians as possible in one trip to A&E. It's probably a lunch time sport topic for them.

Following the issue of unwanted noise, I was woken at 7am this morning by the sound of my mobile phone. So I picked it up, bleary eyed no end. "Adam is calling..."

Weird seeing how I don't have an Adam listed in my contact list, but I answered all the same. "Hello?", and no answer.

Nine minutes later, "Adam is calling..." Again I picked up, and again no answer.

It took three cycles of me slamming the phone down in a huff to realise that Adam was actually Alarm and I was actually very late for work. Balls.

Whoever at Sony Ericsson decided to make the wake-up alert exactly the same as the default ringtone, well, you owe me £8.20 for the cab from Watford Met Station to Imperial Way, mate.

I probably shouldn't blame my phone. Anybody who's had the god forsaken burden of sleeping with me in the past will be able to confirm that I'm notoriously restless in bed. I twitch. I turn. I scratch. I lick.

I'm like a man with fleas, baby.

But when I finally do pass out, I'm gone for good. There's no waking me.

Have you ever watched one of those beautifully romantic and wonderfully heroic chick flicks where the newly intimate couple wake up perfectly aligned in spooning position?

Doesn't happen.

As much as I quietly enjoy the soft scent of a girl's hair on a Sunday morning, I don't love it enough to sleep with my honk wedged in the thick of it while I struggle to breath.

I usually wake up in a tangled ball of sheets. My motto is that if she happens to be lucky enough to be draped in a couple of my limbs, I've been a good catch.

And finally, I've had a few people asking me if I have a LiveJournal. The answer is very simply, no I don't. LiveJournal is a barren wasteland of teenage drama that I could do without. I've been there before and it takes a whole, what, two weeks? Two weeks before every entry is directed at friends, with a ridiculous smattering of surveys, quizzes and useless tripe.

That said, those - and I can only think of one - who've been reading between the lines will know that this probably isn't quite as random as I've been letting on.

I'm off to see whether the new girl's worked out the difference between Pepsi and Tango at Chicken Cottage.

Pep-Si.

Tan-Go.

Ain't no such thing as an Orange Pepsi, love. Now please, third time lucky?

If travel vouchers were currency, I'd be a frigging billionaire.

2007-10-05T10:36:00.000+01:00

"Dear Mr. Osborn,

Congratulations.

The Foundazion Di Vittorio has chosen you by the board of trustees as one of the final recipients of a cash Grant/Donation for your own personal, educational, and business development. To celebrate the 30th anniversary program, we are giving out a yearly donation of US$245,000.00.

I crave your indulgence to please contact me through this my emailaddress."

Phwoar blimey. They sure know how to seduce you with Freudian statements, these Nigerian kids.

Inheritance email scams are a great source of amusement to me. Especially when they're signed off with officialdom emails like foundation_officer103@yahoo.it

What kind of muppet am I taken for? I've had three already this morning!

Surely the alarm bells should be ringing. All these corpses leaving me money? How long until Dumbledore sweeps me away and reveals that I'm actually a wizard? I've got the messy hair and everything.

The sad thing is, behind every scam is a technologically challenged no-hoper, ready and only too willing to scream for the kids and remortgage the house in a moment of blind stupidity.

A bit like how I racked up a few grands worth of holiday vouchers from those insert scratchcards in the Daily Mirror!

In Prize Group A, what do we have? A Mercedes, £10,000, a luxury cruise and some travel vouchers.

Those two words - travel vouchers - slipped so innocuously in to the back of the group. Just as I've blown my load over the thought of a Mercedes or a ten grand Stella spree, the dreaded vouchers bring me down to earth with a thud.

Well, they do now. Back when I was seven or eight, I racked up one hell of a phone bill on discounted coach journeys to sunny Skegness.

Oh yes, Skegness. I am the new Adrian Mole - except sporting slightly less bumfluff (or more depending on your classification of my beard), and I don't have a girlfriend named Pandora.

Although I wish I did. She sounded like a right kinky sort.

I really don't agree with all this early Christmas furore. It's barely October and some tosser's already got a snowman hanging from his porch down The Fairway. As far as I'm concerned, if Halloween is still to come and if the yanks are still waiting on their Thanksgiving turkey, it's still too early for your fancy lights and mistletoe. So put em away before I pull another Middlesex Arms and dismantle your display for you.

Christmas is a bit of a depressing thought this year. It's the first time I've been minus a female playfriend during the festive period for quite some time, even if not always physically.

It's nice to know that somebody's thinking of you, even if they can't be with you. And that's pretty much what I'm trying to get to the bottom of right now. I make things so difficult for myself with the girls that I fall for.

Yet I know that I'm far too stubborn to drop the issue.

And if it all backfires spectacularly, eh, one less wench to shop for on Christmas Eve, I suppose.

Mad John and I.

2007-10-03T11:35:00.000+01:00

Sex in the dark.

An acquired taste, don't you think?

I remember the first time I engaged in such an act, it was like searching for the soap in a cloudy bath; somewhat demoralising and ultimately not as slippery as I'd anticipated.

Thankfully I've got my sexual compass finely tuned these days. East leg, west leg, follow the north valley and slam your flag high for the G-top. Enjoy the earthquake.

But it's not like the movies is it?

Dancing silhouettes making love as the curtain breezes and a tiny strip of moonlight conveniently illuminates her exposed nipples. Almost perfect for Sordid George to have a bloody good perv over with his Cheesy Wotsits in hand. God, I've been watching too much Channel 5, haven't I?

No, no. Sex in the dark is a game of pinpoint precision and Twister-like limb placement. If you're not laying on her hair, you're probably crunching on her piercings. And that's assuming that you've located the right woman.

I heard an amusing tale from a friend who hooked up with a girl at university last term. He did his deed, crept off to the toilet and came back to snuggle her up - only to find himself in the wrong bed with the wrong girl. Quite how he managed to mistake blonde for brunette is beyond my understanding, but give me enough Vodka and the world turns a beautiful bloodshot red.

Why do grown men feel the need to draw comparisons between myself and how they used to look in their youths? It's a compliment, I suppose, but ever since I grew my hair a little longer - it's become a magnet to middle aged punters with a thing for their early 20s.

I bumped in to this balding bloke who couldn't have been too shy of his 50th birthday, and he was absolutely adamant that I was the spitting image of how he used to look. Firstly, this is a little bit weird. Secondly, does that mean I'm destined to end up looking like him? Out of my face, pal. You're making me depressed.

Last week, a terrible loss drew a cloud over Ruislip High Street.

Mad John, the eccentric and dynamo-mannered tramp met a tragic demise at the wheels of a bus.

John is the stuff of legend from my childhood. He's the bloke I'd purposefully avoid in the McDonalds queue. He's the guy I'd get a bus in the wrong direction just to miss. As a little boy, very little I might add, I was scared to blue death of him.

Much has been spoken of John. Some say he was a millionaire who simply didn't give a toss for razor blades or shaving foam. If that's the case, we have more in common than I originally thought. But there was no mistaking him.

Ruislip will be an emptier town without the old scruff, and god damn, that's a depressing thought.

On the plus side, I might finally nail a bus to the right neighbourhood.

And on - quite remarkably - another semi-serious note; I know what I want for the first time in a long time.

Thankfully, it doesn't involve regurgitating the past and disguising it as an appealing - if sour tasting - chocolate muffin. And while I've already suffered a kickback in trying to make it happen, erm, me Mum's cooking cheese and bacon omelettes tonight so I don't particularly care.

Simple minds for simple lives.

Analysing the Chicken market for signs of Rat.

2007-10-01T23:50:00.000+01:00

Remember the saying, "Never judge a book by its cover"?

Well, DO judge a chicken takeaway by its name.

I've had the honourable pleasure of dining in many of London's decorated poullet take-outs in my time.

But while Burger King delivers on its royal name, and Chicken Cottage certainly provides a respectable £2.49 fillet special, I should have known better when I checked in to the aptly named "Chicken Shack" last Saturday night expecting something more than the saturated fat of a dead rat. Oh what was I thinking?

The only taste more repugnant than the spicy wings was the rancid stench as I slumped for the cabbie's office - gone 3am - and shared my seat with a half eaten kebab. So glad am I that Watford Allied Taxis isn't mine to clean come Sunday dawn. I'd be sick on the job. But maybe that's why I'm a web designer and Sanjay "Anyvody to Ruisleep?"...isn't.

I'm sitting here with my head in my hands, fingers at my roots - ready to smack myself silly. And yes, I'm talking frustration of the non-sexual variety, so don't get the wrong end of my stick.

I wish I could say otherwise, but I'm a typical bumbling male when it comes to my statements of intent with the opposite sex. I try to say the right things, I really do. But somehow I end up insulting her, belittling her or - for god knows what reason - acting like I'm batting off the interest from all-comers.

I'm really not. Sometimes I wish I was, but I'm really not.

So now I'm sitting here, asking myself; "Did you really say that?". What an idiot I am. I sent a quick text to try and rectify my own foolish words but, erm, oopsadaisy.

I'm like a T-Rex when it comes to romance. I'll hunt it down, but my legs can't carry my head (ooh la la), and I'll destroy whatever I end up with.

A friend of mine boldly stated that I have the gayest collection of shirts that he's ever seen in his life. Pretty worrying considering he's actually been to Brighton, but I can't help but feel a stab of pride, y'know? I enjoy wearing the sorta garments that'd get me murderized in St Georges Pub on a Champions League night down the Manor. What can I say? Pink silk was just born to carress the gooch.

Anyway, I'm off to see if there's anything microwaveable in the kitchen.

Hello Muffin.

Run for your cat flap, dear boy.

"400 pints of Stella, Bartender please."

2007-09-25T14:02:00.000+01:00

So I went to the cashpoint today and what was I greeted with? A security warning, actually. "If you notice anything suspicious about this machine, please report it immediately at xxx xxx xxxx."

So I did. I rang up.

There's money in my account. SOMETHING AIN'T RIGHT.

About a grand's worth actually. Crikey, that's nigh on 400 pints of Stella. And I get paid tomorrow!

I can't be the only one who's sick to black death of Madeline McCann news. It's a shame and all, but have a break please. That's one well and truly milked cow that the press have celotaped themselves to the bollocks of. The news isn't even that significant anymore. But what really made me laugh was walking past the newspaper stand this morning - on the day after Gordon Brown's party defining annual speech - only to find one of the tabloids running with the McCann investigation as its headline cover story.

Don't worry about the rest of the nation, y'know. EU Referendums? Snap elections? What do you take me for?!?

...Here's what Kate said ten minutes after her daughter went missing!

A reality check for the Daily Star please. Not that I don't appreciate a good smutty read. I'm the kind of guy who snaps up a copy of The Sun and flicks straight to Dear Deidre just to make himself feel better. And let's face it, who wouldn't feel better after reading a column of that tripe? I don't know whether to feel more sorry for the husbands and wives who've been cheated on, or the lost soul who felt desperate enough to write to The Sun for some moral direction.

Alas, I'm pretty sure that I've done something to my achilles, both of them unfortunately. Paintball nailed me for six - I'm black, blue and purple too - but the long walk to work has been causing me discomfort for the last couple of weeks, so it can't have been that.

I have a "battle wound" inside my thigh which apparently looks like a nipple. Yes, I'm using the term "battle wound" to look hard.

Sunday was pretty amusing actually. Hanging around the paintball base camp with the rest of the team, kitted out in camo overalls, sipping cups of tea and trying to take pictures around scenery where it'd be possible to convince friends that yes, we'd spent the weekend in Iraq.

As it happens, I don't think traditional English woodland makes for the best Iraq faux-set.

I've been a miserable sod recently, but there are a few bright sparks to keep me smiling. I don't know what it is about relationships, but I always seem to be drawn to the forbidden fruits (and by that, I mean girls that would be better without my influence - not banished gays). I can't help myself.

I suppose it's a little bit weird coming out of a three year relationship and rediscovering how to deal with the signs, hints and self-fabricated madness. Trying to work out what's real, and not quite grasping where friendship ends and attraction begins. It's a knackering business, but there are times where I feel genuine pings of...something.

Maybe this is just a shambolic excuse for my man-brooding in search of some intimacy.

I feel like the weirdo who goes to the gallery every day to have a gander at some stunning painting. But just because he spends more time ogling it, that doesn't mean the painting's going to ogle him back.

Jesus Lucifer Christ.

I must need a pint.

Here she goes. Here she goes again.

2007-09-19T23:33:00.000+01:00

Every eight months or so, I make the radical decision to document my life via the form of a prying voyeur's best friend - an overdone and often cringe-inducing blog.

I normally last about two weeks, until I land on my own writings in a sober state and swear behold le Christ that I'll never lower myself to such mortifying standards ever again.

Well here I am. I figure my life has reached the crossroads where for once in a while, it may actually be worth its while to scribble some of this down. Let's face it, I ain't gonna remember it any other way. I've forgotten why I'm here already.

I woke up this morning after a pretty saucy dream - oh yes, starting how I plan to continue - scooped my head off the pillow and was absolutely convinced that I could see two figures making out in my desk chair. Only then did I realise, having vaguely mouthed to "get a room" and squinted through the darkness - that it was actually a pile of clothes and my cat, Muffin, licking his booty*.

Not quite the explicit* wake-up call that it might have been, but when you can dream my dreams, you'll be damned if you need them.

Why do London commuters insist on legging it for the door as soon as a train turns the bend and catches sight of the next station? I really don't understand. It's not like you're gonna make it to Harrow on the Hill; Platform 5 before me, mate. We're all on the same carriage.

But even more so, what the hell is this lunatic doing trying to unfold his Independant during the sweltering heat of rush hour on a jam packed Northern Line to Kings Cross?

If my face is this close to getting wedged between the automatic doors and Yuppy Headset Man's armpit, you can bugger off with your arm's width broadsheet newspaper. Give me some room to stand without getting Yesterday's stock market details tattooed across my face, and I might actually stop hissing at you whenever you turn the page. You never know.

My kidneys have been aching and my stomach feels like its reached its capacity as far as alcohol consumption is concerned. I feel quite bad, yet when I'm out poisoning my veins, I've never felt happier in a shallow kind of way. It's a deadly combination and one that's messing* me up, slowly but surely. The weekends are short and the mornings are painful.

I'm caught up in the seduction of the chase, so to speak. It's quite weird. As much as I've embraced the single life and being free to enjoy freedom, nail the town, wake up in a different bed - it's not really what I want. I know what I want, and even though I've tried to initiate it, I just don't feel comfortable that it's possible when feelings are made so abstract. I'm convinced that there's a spark there, but I sometimes wonder whether friendship - cop out as it feels - is ultimately the safest bet. I don't want it to be. Yet I'm not used to being the aggressor, and the further my feet sink in to the woo'ing pit, the more I feel like I'm going to end up portraying myself as something that I'm not. Frightening.

My career has taken a turn for the worse. How can it not when you become known as the office tramp*? My boss caught sight of the lovebite which a female friend tattoed me with in Sheffield - and he's since been calling me by the affectionate name of Hickey.

Worse yet, I had to install a Small Business Server for the company today, and he decided to name the Intranet "hickey" as an eternal reminder of my chomped neck.

http://hickey/...

Whenever we recruit new staff and the question of why our Intranet is named after a filthy stain crops up... Indeed.

* Amended to conquer nunhouse censorship.