The new sex: Nylon

"Calling all guys with a NYLON FETISH!! Try something new....?? London lad, living in Wimbledon who is well into having fun with guys wearing puffa/down jackets. I have a big collection of gear that I want to share with others! It is amazing how much guys that have never experienced the softness and shinyness of down gear, really love it."

What did we do without the internet? No, I mean, really...

Editor 2

After a few days, I have decided that video editing is kind of like fun prison.

You're locked in a windowless cell with a burly stranger. Only, instead of forced bumming and biro tattoos, we're making television. Which is kind of cool.

Editor

"I am in an edit." Quite the sexiest out-of-office on the planet, and, for once, true of me.

I am sat in an airless bunker with a very patient video editor, and piles and piles of footage of actors. We have the power of gods, the patience of saints, and satan's own hard drive.

It's hilarious. Apart from when we took a slightly waffly interview and edited it down, whittling and whittling... until there was nothing left.

Why I love my personal trainer

"Smoking speeds up the metabolism," he said, "And alcohol... well, it's calories, which is useful if we're gonna be bulking up."

I've got a new personal trainer. John joins the long army of mildly disapproving Australians who regard my body with the encouraging pity of a hairdresser confronted by Bella Emberg brandishing a picture of Posh Spice.

My last real personal trainer got deported. Lovely bloke, but ran into trouble renewing his student visa. Scrupulously honest, he told them he hadn't studied anything for a while, and that they couldn't send him home as he was running a thriving business.

John's joined my gym after running the Chelsea Harbour Club.

"Where's the harbour in Chelsea, exactly?" I asked him

John looked at me blankly. "You know, I'm not sure there is one. Six years, and I never thought about that."

New gym is hilarious. It includes a clutch of scowling marys with time on their hands, and a hefty discount at the hotel bar.

Alcazar reform. Bang!

For one night only! July 21st!

Good news: One more dose of irresistibly mad Swedish pop from Alcazar - who gave us the couplet "Would you like to come to a menage a trois? There's room for one more body in our boudoir", and who dared do a dance version of "Seaons in the Sun."

Bad news It means swimming in the chicken soup that is G-A-Y.

Two things I'll never do again

1) Provide room service to lonely businessmen in nearby hotels.
No matter how sexy they are, when you walk into the room and they say "No talking"... well, there's a word for that. And it's not nice to realise that I'm just taking work away from local tradesmen.

2) Agree when an ex says "Hey! For a laugh - why don't we watch the porn film I'm in?"
I have no tact and little time for porn. So I just kept saying the wrong thing.
"God... you really looked thin then... How much fake tan are you wearing? Is that chair from Ikea - you know I bet it is... Bless, you're pinching your own nipple... Look at your cock - it's gone quite purple... Oh yes, who could forget that noise? ... Ooh, you've splashed that bowl of fake fruit."
That we still had sex after that is more down to his generosity than my charm.

The new sex

When I was in my twenties I was baffled by the new fashion. Now I'm baffled by the new sex. Here's two new ones:

1) Gunge
Remember the Gunk Tank from Saturday morning kids tv? Well, it's just like that, only without Keith Chegwin and puppets. It's a group of men, and a tank of slime. Beyond that, I'm baffled.

2) Clothing
Boys are putting themselves through university by offering their used socks and boxer shorts for sale. Is there anything less appetising than a student's unwashed undercrackers? Jeez, I have enough trouble doing my own laundry without paying to do someone else's.

Musketeer

Beard is getting a little silly. For one thing, it's growing in the colours of a tortoishell cat. For another, last night i found food in it. Only half a peanut - but still, on the Tramps's Calendar, that puts me a fortnight away from Vodka Breakfasts and a month from not using fabric softener.

How girls watch Doctor Who

It's the accent that does it for me. And also the whistful memory that this is exactly how I used to watch Alias. Only in a wig.

Builders

I found out what happened to the original site manager who was renovating our flats.

"Oh, Wayneton!" the new project manager laughed. "You couldn't put your phone down without him looking at it. Loads of stuff went missing from the estate. In the end, he was caught trying to steal a chaise longue from a flat."

Stealing a phone? That's everyday theft. But soft furnishings? That's bold.

Meanwhile, on Woman's Hour...

They're interviewing a Reverend Arthur Ping-Pong. Almost reaches the joyous day when they interviewed child psychologist Linda Blair.

That Lars von Trier dance video

Bless YouTube:

Windows Vista is bullying me

Windows Vista - it hates you too. Gone are the days of operating systems that sit there while you scream at them, as placid as a pod person on the management fast track. With Windows Vista, it's personal.

Wonderfully, it hates you straight out of the box. I got my laptop from PC World in a slightly too-good-to-be-true £400 offer (It's quite something when you find yourself wishing “if only I'd paid less, I could have had a slower machine running good old Windows XP.”). It turns out that 512Mb of RAM is just enough for Windows Vista to tell you how inadequate you are.

“Cheapskate!” was its first word, as it scored my computer 2/10, before launching a pop-up demanding I upgrade to Windows Home Premium. It's a pattern – abuse followed by extortion.

Remember how DOS had the command prompt? Windows Vista has a suggestion box – it's called the Desktop. Clicking an icon is merely a polite invitation to open Windows Media Player. Which Vista thinks about carefully for a full minute before declining.

Bruised, I went back to PC World where, after waiting an hour for service from their strangely intangible staff, I took to wandering up to people about to purchase the same laptop and explaining why they shouldn't. Eventually a member of staff threw off his cloak of invisibility and told me what to do and where the exit was. Sadly, purchasing an extra gig of RAM merely gave Vista more power to express its displeasure.

Vista isn't just disloyal, it's a sneak. Frequently, the user (you) will try and do something. It will immediately report you to the administrator (also you). “Sir! Sir! User just tried to delete a folder! Permission to cane him!”. Sighing, you'll explain that actually, you're quite happy to see that folder gone. Vista will come huffing back with a blatant lie - “The administrator won't let you do that. You're for a beating.” But, I'll sputter, surely there's some mistake – I'm also the administrator, and I really want to delete that folder. “Is that cheek, boy?” Vista will ask, before offering a choice between a dead arm or six of the slipper before prep.


On top of its sneaky, sullen nature, it's also lazy. It takes forever to copy files (see illustration). Conspiracy theorists suspect that this is because Vista is scanning every file for evidence of fraud, piracy, Communism or the Winchester Vice. Tempting as it is to imagine Vista scribbling notes (“Dear Ms Minogue...”), this isn't true. As I type, I'm sat on a Cornish hill about 10 years away from the internet - and transferring files is just as slow (I suspect it's getting some of the new bugs in the Lower Third to copy them out by hand).

The tyrant is also stupid. Initially, it grabbed Quick Time files with Media Player, before throwing them back crying “these are rubbish, don't waste my time.” I tried putting a stop to this, carefully assigning all the right file types to Quick Time, but every time I try and open a mov file, I get a peculiar message from Quick Time about reassigned file types. “Is there something you're trying to tell me, Quick Time? Now, don't be scared. Is it Vista, again?” Quick Time will make a couple of stammering denials, and then run off for a good blub behind the cricket pavilion.

Sadly though, like all bullies, Windows Vista is insanely attractive and good at games. At the end of a hard day failing to do the impossible, like copy files or write a letter, it'll give me a last playful punch on the arm, ask if i've got any tuck money left, and then suggest we play cards. I know it cheats, but I'll still say yes.

The Kingdom II

"ach! All that anal sex. In my youth, we always said the proper way in was the one with the doormat." Mrs Druse

It took a month to finish the Kingdom sequel. After all, how often am I going to be in the mood for quirky Danish hospital horror?

But it's still quite wonderful – with ghostly messages hidden in the hospital porter's ancient porn stash, the nymphomaniac lesbian sex clinic possessed by demonic powers, a zombie staffmember, Dr Moesgard terrorised by his therapy group, and Death suddenly popping in as a character “because there's work for me”.

The DVD also features the single most charming DVD special feature of all time, in which Lars Von Trier stars in a complicated dance video based on the show's theme. I can't really see Stephen Poliakoff doing the same.

Random Text Messages

I really must give out my number less. The other day I got the following string of texts from a number I don't recognise. All in about an hour, while I was doing something else.

#1: Hi!

#2: Ur sexy!

#3: ru gay?!?

Me: Hello. Who are you?

#4: Who are you???

#5: Can you keep secrets?

#6: How old r u?

#7: All i wana no is how old ur, whether u got bf or gf and are u up for some fun?

Me: Hello? What?

#8: Sorry i bein impatient but i would like to talk to u.

#9: You tell me about u and i will tell u bout me. Will prob disappoint u, but oh well lol.

#10: Please text me.

Me: Hi – look, i'm out with friends and a bit busy. Can we sort this out tomorrow? PS: Who are you?

#11: Rite... Ru interested in havin a bit of private fun wit boy? Yes or no?

#12: Hi... so do u wanna have some fun?

#13: I think we'll be printing the A5 flyers. Love you!

Actually, the last message was from my friend Rick. I haven't heard from my mystery number since, so I guess I'll never know if it was the squaddie or the ballet dancer.

The best thing about being unemployed...

I meet the Polish footballing microbiolgist for coffee at lunchtime, and he says the single most attractive opening line a man has ever said to me:

"Christ, I'm starving. Can we got to Pizza Hut? They do a buffet, you know."

I won't bore you with why I love the Pizza Hut buffet, with its all-you-can-eat array of fake meat treats, fake cheese and shuffling consumers. But I do - and I never let myself go there. But the thrill palled when I realised I was sharing a table with a whippet-thin 22 year-old whose metabolism has ten years on me. So, I pushed some cherry tomatoes around a plate while he peeped over a tottering mountain of pepperoni.

But the great thing about being unemployed is that lunch hour never ends. In fact, it turned into sunbathing in Soho Square, surrounded by topless men drinking cider and poppers. Then, for the sheer hell of it, we went for mid-afternoon cocktails on a roof-garden. Because we had nowhere else really to be.

And then he took me home to show me his weapon. No, really. He's such a big fan of Xena, he's got an enormous chakram.

Surprisingly, I am a sporting star

No one can predict quite what they'll be famous for. I was startled to discover that I have been promoting a sportswear fetish night.

Yeah. I know. Look, I went along for a laugh. There was a camera. I was too busy helping a drunken drag queen perform karaoke in Chelsea strip to remember the details.

But how cool to turn up again and have the doorman recognise me. I have always wanted to walk into a club and have people say, "Hey, it's the cute guy from the magazine." I just never thought it would be a room full of footballers. But, hey, let's not grumble.

The best thing was it gave me a chance to talk to the cute Italian twins - not only do they look alike, they dress in identical Italian kit. Actually, one's Cypriot and the other's from Poland, and is called Volshag. Brilliant.

One of the pleasures of being gay are the rare moments of unlikely wonder. Like being sat in a cellar on a Sunday night, waering a tracksuit that says "Canada Roots", watching a video of naked football, whilst sharing a cigarette with a beautiful Polish microbiologist.

Beard

What with a week of late nights, lazy mornings and vague celebration of being unemployed, my stubble is tipping over into beard.

I'm keeping it. Unless the itching means i tear off my face.

The forbidden taste of swan

"Awkward" is four o clock in the morning in a studio flat in Swiss Cottage. The taxi isn't turning up. Everyone has gone home. The host is asleep wrapped around his boyfriend. Curled up on the minute sofa bed is the prettiest snoring man i've ever seen, with his even prettier ballet dancer boyfriend.

I get up out of the chair. It's time to walk home. The ballet dancer stirs and looks at me. It's quite a look. I'd like to say that I thought "I can't possibly. I mean, how can we? On a sofa bed that small? Next to your boyfriend?"

But I didn't think any of those things. As I said, it was quite a look.