Under the bonnet

What I love about being gay is that it's unpredictable. It's like getting a daily letter from the Reader's Digest. Sometimes you are Mr S of Kent, winning the cruise of a lifetime. And sometimes you get a free pen.

When a child, I was so convinced by those letters from the Reader's Digest. I knew my family was but a few weeks away from financial joy. I knew that my mum would be able to give up her second job as a cleaner, and that I'd get to finally buy every Tintin book.

So sold on the dream was I that, when we moved, I wrote to Reader's Digest to inform them of our new address. I got a charming, and slightly startled letter back.

Anyway, my point was that you never can tell what's going to be in the day's envelope. How was I to tell yesterday morning that I'd spend my evening under a blossoming tree shunting a muscly used car salesman called Tom?

Afterwards, he told me he was out clubbing again that night. He'd been out last night on pills, and was off for some more. He knew of a club that started at 4 in the morning and went on till teatime. It's rough and brilliant.

For a second, I felt whistful. I put aside the fact that both large groups of people and drugs make me paranoid and claustrophobic, and instead yearned for a sweaty sleeze pit in Vauxhall. Instead, I went home, and watched a french musical about murder.

Health and Vitality

Went jogging past the Millennium Eye. Burst out laughing.

The Mystery of the Sealed Room

Got to read some confidential scripts for an upcoming project.

Travelled a long way to read them, signed a piece of paper, and then got to sit in a room with them.

Each page had my name embossed on it. Which was strangely thrilling and intimidating.

Owing to the nature of the piece of paper, however, I cannot discuss the contents of the scripts with anyone. Which instantly becomes frustrating when sat in a pub.

They gave me the option of taking the scripts away with me. Which seemed like suicide. Last year, in a similar situation, my boss promptly left a Dr Who script on the train.

And then sent his assistant hunting for it at a London Transport Lost Property Office. Manned by a Dr Who fan. With hilarious consequences.

Cable

Why do boys love buying cable so much?

I have a theory that cables are like shoes for ladies. Puzzling to the other gender, peculiarly irresistible, and it's inexplicable why you end up buying expensive ones that don't fit very well.

This would be why I staggered back from a Dixons sale, having just spent about £20 on cable. Only to get it home, unpack it, stare at my hi-fi, sigh, and then quietly and sadly pack the cable away for a special day.

Dental pain

Nice things about my dentist:
- He is blonde.
- He is cute.
- He works quickly.
- We had the following conversation about my gag reflex: "God, James, honestly, I can't fit a thing in your mouth."

Nasty things about my dentist:
- Well, he's a dentist.
- Every time I see him it costs me £200.
- The drugs he gives me cause a dramatic character change.

I'm trying to watch an old kids show with Toby Anstis. Instead of my normal reaction ("he's dreamy") I instead find myself yelling: "Who's the dead-eyed freak?"

The Mitford Girls

Wonderful book about seven naughty siblings who flitted through London society in the 20s and 30s.

Heart-warming, charming, batty and scatty - until around about page 200. By which point...

1) Brother Tom Mitford appears to have had most of the girl's boyfriends and at least one husband. Now spends time with pretty blond SS men.

2) Nancy Mitford is hopelessly in love with a gay. He's thrown her off the scent by getting engaged to a lesbian. Idiot friend proposes to Nancy while drunk. Nancy accepts. Loveless marriage ensues. Nancy starts to write slightly hysterical comic novels.

3) Decca Mitford has eloped with Winston Churchill's communist activist cousin to fight in the Spanish Civl War.

4) Diana Mitford is secretly married to Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Fascist Party.

5) Young Unity Mitford has quite had her head turned by charming Adolf Hitler, is often at tea with darling Goebbels, and is writing rather sickening letters to the papers about the beastly "Jewish Problem". She's also started doing the Nazi salute in the village sweet shop.

Oh, how I miss the early pages which were all about eccentric nannies, practical jokes and pet snakes.

Gyms

Why is there always someone distractingly pretty doing sit ups in the gym?

And why is there always someone strangely large and sweaty on the treadmill?

Oh. Thinking about it. That one answered itself.

Boring Management Styles: The Bully

One of our managers is an outright bully. He's brilliant at his job, but has the people skills of a starved council house pitbull.

He's the only person in the department ever to reduce me to tears. I discovered I'm not alone. His name came up at lunch today.

"Oh, him." someone said. "I had a meeting with him for two hours last week. My line manager was there and said nothing. Afterwards I spent 20 minutes in the loo crying."

There was a sudden round of nodding.

Apparently it's a common experience - you suffer through the meeting alarmed, surprised, hurt and frustrated - and then, afterwards, as soon as the meeting is over - on come the waterworks.

I wonder how he's crafted such a technique that cunningly prevents people from bursting into tears *during* meetings?

Whatever, he's very good at being completely unreasonable, vicious and cruel. A lot of it, I've discovered, involves low murmuring, statements rather than questions, and abruptly standing up and walking away, shaking the head and growling. Hmmn. It's oddly like chatting someone up, but in reverse.

Farewell HomeChoice

Goodbye, then HomeChoice.

Four years ago, you were irrestistible. Less than 20 quid a month for really fast internet access was unbeatable. And the ability to pay to watch the odd TV programme on demand down my phoneline was too good to resist.

So much so, that soon enough I was happily paying £35 a month every month for Broadband internet access, great comedy shows on demand, and a staggering on-demand music chanel. Sigh - how many shags were impressed by being able to watch every Madonna/Five video ever? A shocking number.

And, on quiet Friday nights in, my flatmate and I adored curling up in front of the projector to watch big screen movies - sent down the phoneline at adorable quality.

It was too good to be true. And it was too good to last.

The On-Demand channels suddenly got a bit skimpy - gone were vast archives of wonderful shows, replaced by scrapings from BBC One and the odd Canadian fantasy show. True - there was the odd moment of brilliance (State of Play) - but pretty much nothing else.

Then, all of a sudden, a new HomeChoice box arrived. That didn't work. They'd obviously somehow beefed/stuffed up the copy protection, so now it wouldn't work going through a video - which made it a bit of an arse watching anything.

Worse was to come. They relaunched the interface. Suddenly everything was a channel. A really hard to find channel. With not much on it. And no easy way back. Or forward. Or anywhere. But all you had to do to watch last night's EastEnders was press the green button. Shudder.

Then, they proudly announced the addition of extra channels - including UK Gold and BBC Four. Obviously, these would be on demand - which would be fantastic. I mean - they wouldn't just rebroadcast the channels would they? That would be silly.

Oh. They did. But without UK Gold. Or anything interesting. How anyone's proudest marketing boast could be "now includes BBC Three" is beyond me.

And the box still wouldn't work through the projector - despite constant assurance from technical support of "ongoing difficulties/MacroVision reboot" etc. Engineers would come and go. Or, occasionally, just forget to turn up.

They were turning into NTL. Only with worse service. I was now paying £40 a month for a freeview box that I couldn't watch. God knows what the 5,000 other subscribers thought.

They kept on sending out service upgrades almost weekly - including a ridiculously large, scary remote control, and a glossy, glossy brochure about how some of their channels (like BBC One) contained programmes you could watch on demand (like, uh, EastEnders).

Rubbish. I'd rather spend £40 a month on having fun.

Fear of the new

Which would you say is easier? Building a shirt cupboard from scratch, or getting a working DVD recorder?

Hmmn. Let's just say that my shirts are now neatly hanging in their very own cupboard.

Dunno what it is about modern technology. It's so shiny. And yet so rubbish.