Thursday, January 29, 2004

Hutton Horror

It's just horrid. even before Greg went, and we spent an afternoon standing outside in the cold protesting... we were all cross.

The government has got away with lying. The BBC has been punished for finding them out. And the man who blew the whistle has ended up dead.

Admittedly, I look at Andrew Gilligan and shudder slightly (doesn't he look like a gameshow contestant who wears a cardigan and knows a little too much?), but I'm happy to admit that he was at least reporting the broad truth of what his source was saying...

Whereas, if i remember rightly, the government were caught plagiarising a twelve-year old theses, merely stapling on a rubbishly ambitious introduction in crayon which said "Scary Towel Head Knows Where You Live And Smells."

Strangely, no-one involved in writing this vitally important document On The Basis Of Which We Went To War (TM) can remember who wrote the bit about "Smelly Beard Has Weapons Which Can Destroy The Earth's Core In 45 Minutes".

Even the Nimon would be suspicious about that.

Meanwhile...

Grey Dyke's left. Which is awful.

Chaos. People standing around, jostling and shoving. No clear picture.
Incoherent shouting.

And that was just on News 24.

Self aware?

I've become the gay equivalent of a rolykin dalek. Pull me back and let me go. Watch me zoom along, plunger waving until I either career off the table or into the nearest bushes.

Wednesday, January 28, 2004

Famous Person Sighting!

While I was chaining up my bike in the Centre House carpark, someone started talking to me.

This is never a good idea when I've just arrived at work. I'm swaddled in jumpers and scarves, and have Radio 4's Midweek With Libby Purves blaring into my ears, so it was a few seconds before the person got my attention.

But she seemed quite lovely, if rather better turned out than the average person you find hanging around in the BBC Bike Sheds. Floor-length leopard print coat, immaculate hair, nails you could hang the mona lisa on, and a warm orange glow.

Yes... it was TV's Jessica Wallace. And she was lost.

Wild child Kat Slater was looking for Mal Young's office. Discuss.

Tuesday, January 27, 2004

Departmental away day

Forgot to mention that last week we had a departmental away day. One exercise was to break up into groups and explain to each other about key groups of our audience.

My team had Paulo. He's 13, and really should use the BBC. We decided that he's into ogling girls, gaming and rebellion. So we devised "BapDaq" - an interactive TV application that allows him to score the attractiveness of ladies on TV by pushing the red button. Weirdly, we got shot down in flames.

Meanwhile, another team had done research into attracting the BBC's gay audience. We were informed that They Gay:
- are at their peak between 15 and 20.
- are really looking for reassurance.
- only use Gaydar in desperation.
- and that the BBC should really devise a community space for them to get together online and discuss issues of relevance, sexual health matters and influence political decisions.

For some reason he left out that we all live at home with our mothers, are genetic failures, and will die alone.

It didn't snow

And I am in a foul mood. Not helped by getting emails from my ex-flatmates in Australia.

I can sense a big-anti BBC rant coming on. Apart from anything else, a project I've been working on has steered itself seemlessly through two layers of management, only to now be confounded by powergames between two other layers of management.

I wouldn't normally mind, but as this involves a trip abroad and my suntan, I am most vexed.

Dinner with the "A" Gays

I went to a jolly lovely Gay old dinner party last night in Notting Hill. There were several very lovely gays here, convivial company, silver napkin rings, several sizes of fork - you know the drill.

We were an interesting bunch - including a fund manager, a TV chef, two technical gurus... oh, and a bloke who manages a branch of Sainsbury's but is off work at the moment with a rollerblading injury.

The TV chef explained all about the horrors of running cookery classes for spoiled Essex princesses. And brought chocolates he's had made in class.

One technical guru (I couldn't normally afford to be in the same room as him) told me more about what's really happening at BBCi than I ever believed possible. My solution to a problem with the BBC Rights Group is to get my boss to take them to lunch. His is to take them to California.

The bloke with the rollerblading injury manages to be handsome, witty, and a great cook. Plus manages a vast retail empire. Shrug. I have enough trouble keeping the spider plant in the bathroom alive.

The other technical guru claimed to have had George Michael last summer. Penthouse. Black satin sheets. Stubbly and slightly uncomfortable. Breakfast was black coffee.

The Mastery of Time

I am on a time management course today.
I turned up half an hour early.

Friday, January 23, 2004

Clap! Clap! Clap!

It appears I may have caught more from the lovely Tim than just a cold. Althought I have no symptoms, the dear boy seems most worried that he's not actually got over his Gonorrhea, and that I should report myself to the Clap Shop sharpish for the scrape and jab.

It all was all rather jolly really, helped no end by the waiting room being full of enormously shifty men watching daytime TV (Terry and Gabby really do have chemistry, don't they?).

I found myself switching into my breeziest mood - being jolly, reassuring, and even risking the odd encouraging smile at my fellow inmates (most of whom were disappointingly unnatractive).

For my first ever visit it went rather well, although, during one briefing session, I did feel like such a trollop:

NICE LADY: "How many male sexual partners have you had?"

ME: "In total?"

NICE LADY: "Yes."

ME: "Really? Gosh. Well…. Um…"

NICE LADY: (encouragingly) "You can estimate, if you want."

ME: (hopeful) "To the nearest hundred?"

NICE LADY: (patiently) "How about just over the last six months, then?"

I'd like to say I was terribly brave. But not really.

I merely winced during the blood tests, and tutted during the Hep A, B, and Gonorrhea jabs.

My only comment after a swab was collected from somewhere Rather Unsusual was "that's an extraordinary sensation, isn't it?" to which the female nurse merely shrugged and showed me the swabs they use for smear tests - they look like balsa-wood spanners. So glad I don't own a cervix.

My downfall was during what Lee assured me was really called The Anal Probe. The Doctor was an extremely jolly fellow, and for some reason insisted on showing me the Instruments of Torture before pottering off to do some exploring. When I started whinnying like a pony he suddenly looked up:

"Ah yes - there is some inflammation.... here (jab! whimper!).... Probably nothing to worry about.. (jab! whimper!) ... but it's probably causing you some discomfort... (jab! whimper!)... I'm sure we'll see what it is when we examine the cultures... (prod! jab! whimper!)... although, you know, this is a terribly inefficient place to gather material from (prod! jab! scrape!)... often worthless (weird, wiggling sensation that, frankly, i wouldn't recommend or be able to describe).. anyway..."

Frankly, it felt like he was putting up shelves in there.

Thursday, January 22, 2004

I'm back

And have adored spending days spending quality time with my cold, a sofa, and Season Two of Alias.

It's just fabulous, and has whizzed past in a blur of...
exploding blondes.... evil dyke impersonators... Special Agent Vaughan's tattooo... Sydney's mom... bad dresses... impossibly convoluted plots.... two Ethan Hawkes....

I'm getting very near the end, and will miss it.

Have given up trying to explain it to my flatmate after I ran in gabbling "he was being haunted by the ghost of his ex-wife who was dying of Cancer and who he killed but she isn't actually dead, you see...

.... she cut off her finger and was in it with him in the plot to blackmail his own company and waited on a beach while he hired Faye Dunaway to expose him and bought a safe house in Tuscany with a secret passage...

... but that didn't work out cos although it had a pool and a kitchen she didn't realise that he also owned a plane which had Sydney's mom on it who was implanted with a passive tracking device after her ex-husband who she was married to because he was in the CIA removed the active one because he decided he could maybe trust her again only for her to betray him and the CIA were outside the house and....

Lovely flatmate started to sing to herself and left the room.

To the editor of Vanity Fair

Dear Graydon Carter

While Vanity Fair is undoubtedly the best magazine in the world, as a subscriber I feel I have to point out a failing of the mag.

Your freebies are rubbish. Why do you perpetually send me invitations to diamond sales at Sotheby's, Pret A Porter shows in Milan, and exclusive discounts on Zebra Hunts on A Private Island?

Take a leaf out of your rivals, sir. Smash Hits magazine have just given me two pens (one smells of violet) and some heart-shaped post-it notes.

Monday, January 19, 2004

Centrifugal Force

(Actually, this took place on Jan 19, 2005 - I've moved it here in case Adam finds it. I don't want this to ruin stuff. But it'll move back eventually)


Good things about last night with Adam


  • I learnt how to pole dance. Really easy, very good fun, and great for the biceps.
  • Adam is magnificent in a crisis. His roommate's grandmother died (yes, Adam's taken in a waif off the street - bet you wondered where those GAY flyer boys lived). Adam was fantastic. We took poor Tom to my club.
  • My club was on great form. "Christian Slater drinks here," Adam told Tom. "Oh. Over there, in fact." Tom was immediately smitten: "He was prettier in films, wasn't he? Is he still rich?"
  • TooTooMuch - It's kind of nice for a gay bar. Even if you get the feeling it would rather be something else.


So-So things about last night


  • Much as I rather enjoy being a sugar daddy, I still don't earn enough for the role. Last night cost about £200 (damn you, table service!). I'm too mean and venal not to notice that.



Bad things about last night


  • Adam attacked me in the club. He crushed my hand and bent my arm back, and didn't stop when I screamed, nor when I sobbed with pain, but when other people noticed. Curious.

Thursday, January 15, 2004

Olbas Oil

Really is just poppers for the ill, isn't it?

About last night...

I finally met up with the beloved Mark (previous boy rating: 0/10).

Discovered that he's split up from his boyfriend. Hurrah.
But has a new one. Boo.
... Who is ginger. Hiss.

Anyway, we had a lovely, cultured evening - we drank in Rupert St (shocking, vile pit of amphetamines, rent and ISAs), and then went to a quiet Italian restaurant, shared a glass of dessert wine, and then wandered off for just a final drinkie.

It was a this point that I explained to Mark my mission for the year - to go to exciting, interesting, or different places. Mark grinned, grabbed a copy of a gay paper and announced "Let's go somewhere filthy."

I should point out that when Mark says "filthy" he says it in a light Scots accent - so it sounds like slow-moving honey, a genteel trickle of fine whisky, and the warm embrace of a tartan travelling rug.

Which is why we ended up in XXL. Which is a club for large gentlemen. Large, hairy bouncy castles. Mark and I looked out of place, and proceeded to get hammered. It didn't help that we fancied the barmen, who were pretty.

JAMES: Where in Wales are you from?
BAR-TOTTY: Pontypreith.
MARK: Hahaah! Were you the only gay in the village?
MARK AND JAMES LAUGH AS THEY ARE FUNNY.
PRETTY BARMAN GOES AND SNOGS SOMETHING WITH A HANDLEBAR MOUSTACHE.

We got drunker and drunker, and then went to explore the back room, where a lot of fat, hairy men were rubbing bits of each other. It looked like sofas mating.

And then, oddly, and after eighteen months of build-up, we started to have sex. Um. Surrounded by sweatily advancing truckers.

It was more most unusual. Made even odder by the fact that, as we left, we saw a rather fit attractive man called Gavin. Who we took home with us.

Gavin was from South Africa. We asked him what, exactly, a lean muscle machine with a gorgeous arse was doing in a club for the chubby.

"I thought XXL meant large penis," he explained.

I've found Osama Bin Laden

He's hiding in the backroom at XXL.

Wednesday, January 14, 2004

Truly horrifying detail

Something even I didn't really want to know...

Twisties are an Australian Crisp - a bit like Nik Naks boiled down. They are quite striking - full of MSG and Orange food colouring.

Last night I ate so many of them, I've turned my poo orange.

Shudder. Although, not as alarming as the time when I ate a jar of beetroot, went for a pee, and thought I'd haemorrhaged.

A Shilling For Candles

Thoroughly astonishing book from Josephine Tey. It's a 1920s detective mystery starring the enigmatic Inspector Grant (a big old closet case if ever there was one).

A Hollywood starlet is found dead on a Cornish beach, and a manhunt ensues for a man who may have been her lover.

While Inspector Grant loyally starts to track down his chief suspect, he's occasionally aided, and more often thwarted by the Chief Constable's daughter, a determined gal who's in the Guides, drives a loud motor car badly, and learned to fight dirty from a boxing champ....

She is, in short, the best Doctor Who companion, ever, and proceeds to run rings around the hapless Grant for a good 250 joyous pages.

Hurrah for Joesphine Tey - who is terribly clever, died young, and left all her money to the National Trust.

sniffle

I appear to have caught a cold from lovely Tim.

I'm actually counting my blessings - the young waif is a veritable Tesco Metro of STDs.

Monday, January 12, 2004

In the middle...

Francis from Malcolm in the Middle. All grown up.
www.fox.com/malcolm/family/

Golden shower

The deliciously filthy Caite from EastEnders informs me that the reason why men's loos always have that bad splashy stench may be closely related to the fact that men's pee is six times more concentrated than that of ladies.

How bizarrely fascinating.

Soap Train

Bizarre train journey back from Manc. This shambolic man sat down next to me. He looked like he used to drum in Oasis, and smelt worse. He was clutching several cans of Strongbow, and belching.

He announced his true nastiness by neatly stealing all my elbow room and then going for my leg room.

And then he made a phone call, his voice slurring "Yeah - 's'me. I'm coming to see ya. I've been evicted. 'Swear on the kids life I have. On my way now. On the train. Jus pick us up from the Station, will ya? Yeah. I'm on the train. Course I'm sober (slurp). Swear to you. Will you pick us up from Leighton Buzzard?"

And on and on he went, with occasional pauses to go and either throw up/smoke in the loos.

Evidently, his entire life had just fallen apart, and - drunk out of his head - he was on his way to his ex wife and the kids.

After a while, his phone rang, and his wife's current partner rang, and tried to convince him it wasn't a good idea.

There was shouting - of the weird aggrieved/aggressive kind that rattles between "Will ya help us?" and "It's your fault." And then another trip to the lav, from which he'd return smelling even worse...

I concentrated on watching Sapphire and Steel. Which is marvellous and lovely and belongs to a nicer world.

Strip Twister

Had a great weekend with the exciting Tim in Manchester.
We didn't, alas, get to play Strip Twister.... there wasn't space in the mathcbox of a posh hotel room.

Malmaison turns out to be a bizarre hotel chain. It's all fake French - they don't appear to have any branches in France, it's just a po-mo statement - from the french toiletries through to the lift that announces "ouverture le porte" as the doors open.

One of the great things about a weekend with a charming gentleman friend in Manchester is that the weather is so predictably horrid you don't feel guilty about not going out much.

Thursday, January 08, 2004

gulp!

disaster :(

Mere hours away from a naughty weekend in Manchester, my throat's suddenly swollen up in a most painful way.

I can't swallow.

BBC Fumble

I have been here for four years, and still haven't had sex here.

*pause*

Well, apart from that magic evening on the BBC Four bench with a DJ. But, after all, everyone needs a place to think.

Anyway, my point is that I have never seduced anyone actually *on* BBC premises.

And yet, today, it very nearly happened....

I was walking back into the building, when a cute young thing was walking out. I naturally stared at him, and, pleasingly he stared back. I carried on walking, before I realised what had happened, and ground to a halt, and looked over my shoulder.

He'd done the same. We both paused. And smiled.

"Er," I said, "Sorry - I thought I knew you..."

He grinned. "I thought you were.... my brother..."

We both smiled, shrugged, and went on our way. After all - there was nowhere to go. Not a BBC Three smoking tent in sight.

Tuesday, January 06, 2004

Carpe diem

"The gym's a fine and private place,
And men, I think, do there embrace.
For at my back, I always hear
Your meaty maggot beating near."

Yeah. Failed to go the the gym again today.

Woke up at 7.20. It was still dark. My body refused to move.

So I continued my lovely dream about owning a nice, warm second hand bookshop full of old pengiun paperbacks, friendly cats, and Margaret Rutherford.

Monday, January 05, 2004

TV over christmas...

Was extra rubbish this year wasn't it?

How I celebrated the New Year

Playing Stip Hangman with lovely Tim.

I won, but the rules do need a bit of work.

We're planning a rematch next weekend in a hotel in Manchester. Unfortunately, the only blackboard they have is in the conference suite, and that's booked out. Hmmn.

We're now arguing over whether or not to try either Strip Connect Four or Strip Scrabble. But Tim's worried about what happens with a triple word score.

Sunday, January 04, 2004

The Unbearable Lightness of Skip

It was a lovely, lovely day in the glossy forest. Skip ran eagerly home, his little head full of joyful thoughts.

"Tomorrow! Tomorrow! Tomorrow!" he sang to the sparrows.

"Tomorrow! Tomorrow! Tomorrow!" he beamed to the beavers.

"Tomorrow! Tomorrow! Tomorrow!" he called to the caterpillars.

For tomorrow was Skip's favouritest day of all his favourite days, and he had many favourite days. A whole wall of his bright shiny burrow was devoted to Days He Really Liked, and every now and then, if he had a moment to spare, he would stand, tail-a-quiver, looking over all his little list of Nice Days, and working out which, of all of them, he possibly liked more than any other. But one day was always at the top of the heap, and always especially nicest.

And that day was tomorrow. The day when all the lovely, happy creatures of the bouncy wood got together to celebrate the Happy Parade.

Skip loved Happy Parade Day more than any other day. More than Treacle Custard Day. More than Funfair Day. More than Acorn Pie Day. For Happy Parade Day was when he got to lead all his lovely friends in a joyous dance through the entire woodland, on a long, winding, path along which they would joyously play their tambourines, cymbals and xylophones until the birds fell out ot the trees with delight.

After several happy hours of lovely music and nice song singing, the creatures would wind up in the woodland clearing in front of the house of his bestest friend, Scowl. Scowl loved Happy Parade Day almost as much as Skip. Skip was sure of this fact. For Scowl loved the loud, joyful singing, the thunderous banging of lovely instruments and the happy blowing of all the ruddy faced animals. Scowl, Skip thought, loved to hide away in his little hole, so overcome with happiness that he didn't even dare emerge.

He would even scatter presents in front of his door for them - lots of lovely shiny nails, tinkly bits of broken glass, and wonderfully sharp new razor blades which the happy animals gathered carefully up and used to cut together their happy ribbons to tie them into neat bunches to take home.