Wednesday 30 September 2009

There's a Storm Coming... Part I

Hi there Blog Fans,

I’ve been meaning to post this for ages, but kept forgetting to do it or get around to it so please forgive my uselessness. It’s late in the afternoon and I am now here, writing for you, my public. My 9 adoring fans. I’m here to tell you more from the unfortunate, tragic, but undoubtedly hilarious sitcom that is my love-life.

When I started writing this entry, there wasn’t much to tell and I was seeing what I thought was a lovely, emotionally stable, beautiful, funny, intelligent young lady who was going to make me happy. But that, obviously, went tits-up. And in hilarious fashion. Again. I shall blog that over the next week or so when I get various personal things sorted out over the next couple of weeks, but in the meantime, here is what I started writing a few weeks ago...

There's a Storm Coming - Part I

Unfortunately, there’s not much currently to tell you, so I instead have to delve into my past to kind of give you all a grounding of where this all came from. I’m not talking ancient history, you understand, after all we’ve all had those stories from our teenage years when you had no idea what you were doing when it came to girls, your friends’ opinion was more important than your own, and the pinnacle of your Friday night was the slightest chance of getting tops off and fingers with Melissa Coles on the village cricket square after The Boot had served last orders. I’m talking about the bruised and battered tales of the post University life, the tales from adulthood, the stuff that has made me into the (poor, broken, shell of a) man that stands before you today.

There are plenty that will make you laugh and cry in equal measure, and we’ll get through them all in time. The Kiwi girl who wouldn’t take no for an answer, the kind-of-famous woman who became my stalker and who would wait for me outside my work, the Swedish dominatrix, bloody loads of them. But first, let me take you back to the summer of 2007 and the girl whom I thought was the love of my life and who shall henceforth be known as L***a.

I have often been accused of falling in love with women far too easily, and to a degree that’s true. The very nature of my personality is such that I throw myself into new things 100% - that’s who I am and that’s what I do and I’m completely and utterly fine with that. At the moment that thing is playing badminton with people with work followed by a pub quiz, but other times it could be anything – including a new woman in my life. But with hindsight and the benefit of age and experience I’ve come to know that that feeling I get, shit – the feeling that we all get – in the opening months of a courtship isn’t love, but a mixture of things. Lust, certainly. Need, maybe. Happiness and sheer glee, probably. But the overwhelming feeling is actually that of “Thank fuck – I’ve found someone who wants to spend time with me, laugh at my jokes, cuddle me and have sex with me”. We are human beings. We use c. 10% of our thinking organ. We are simple creatures, and whether you want to believe me or not, that is what that feeling you get in the nascent stages of a relationship is. Always.

Well, nearly always. There will be a couple of exceptions in your lifetime when it is something more than that. And these are the relationships that play the biggest parts in your life. L***a was one of those for me.

I’ll never forget the first time I met her. It was outside London Bridge Station and we had arranged to meet for a drink after work one night. She got lost coming out of one of the 342 exits there are out of that station and phoned for directions as to where I was. She had a beautiful speaking voice – perfect diction, no discernible accent... she could have been the voiceover for a Palmolive ad, such was the sultry tone that came through the speaker of my phone. We eventually found each other and as she came towards me I literally had to take a deep breath as though I had been winded by a punch to my gut. She was stunning. Absolutely stunning. Red, shoulder length hair framing a face that would enrapture Dorian Gray such was its unquestionable beauty. Deep, chocolatey brown eyes, and a perfect smile bordered with cherry red lips. She was a classic beauty from any generation and at that moment I would have done pretty much anything she asked of me. We then walked off in the vague direction of a local hostelry and sparked up small talk about our hatred of London Transport and for some reason soon came onto tales of working as a hand model in her teens – the most random of sideways steps, I am sure you can imagine.

But I was hooked. Within minutes. I knew there and then that she would be the love or loathe of my life. She was everything I could possibly want in another human being, male or female, friend or lover, and I couldn’t understand how people in the street were walking past her and not noticing. Were it not so self-defeating, I would have grabbed strangers by the scruff of the neck and present them to her, forcing them to acknowledge her excellence. I had never felt like that about Arsenal footballers or Baywatch lifeguards, let alone a real person and I didn’t know what to do with or how to handle this new found emotion.

Sure, when you’re 18, the girl you’re with then is going to be the one for you. You haven’t turned into the person you’re going to be for the rest of your life yet, your emotions and personality haven’t formed fully, and if we all look back to the girls we thought we were going to be with FOREVER I’m sure we’d all feel a little silly but at the same time lucky that we managed to escape. But at the time I was a well-adjusted, emotionally mature 26 year old man with a career in the City of London in the process of buying my first home – I was a man, and was capable of making rational, mature decisions. I had been struck down with quintessential, textbook, love at first sight.

We had a brilliant first date. We never ended up at that ‘local hostelry’ that I spoke of earlier. We walked all the way from London Bridge to Waterloo Bridge, over it and then back on ourselves towards Charing Cross and Leicester Square before ending up at the best Noodle House in Chinatown for a nibble to eat. We then eventually had a drink or two before ending up at Charing Cross Tube where we had a good, long kiss – pretty much the only time we stopped talking the entire evening. From there, I was hooked. I needed her, and the only analogy that comes to mind comes from a friend of mine who drunkenly bought some crack and a pipe on the way home one evening and awoke the next morning thinking of nothing but crack, and the feeling it gave him. He went back to where he bought the stuff but the old man dealer he bought it from wasn’t there – he remains thankful for that to this very day. That’s what I was like the morning after meeting L***a. I wanted to call her straight away, text her, email her, see her, hold her, smell her, talk to her listen to her, kiss her, be around her. It was uncontrollable.

But that was the easy part. The best bit. The feeling that you could float to work the next morning. What was to follow was something remarkable. This instalment is very much the calm before the storm, and whilst this post may seem less hilarious than usual let me assure you that the next two posts that tell the rest of this story will more than make up for it. Oh yes.

There will be tears. Of every kind imaginable.

xx

Sunday 19 July 2009

Every breath you take...

Hello, hello. It's that time of the week again, kids. I've got an hour to myself, am not in the mood for a DVD or anything else so I am taking the time to tell you another hilarious tale about my shambolic love life.

When I left you last time, we were just catching up again. I had had a good couple of months with Tits McGee and since then it has been largely barren. However, today I had my first date in a fair few months, and whilst it was absolutely fine there was nothing there, nothing to report back (save that her dad used to play football for Rochdale. Massive props there), but it has helped with me getting back on the horse and can confirm that there will hopefully be more to come in the coming weeks.

So, in the meantime I will go back a bit and report on some of the things that happened in between March, Tits McGee and the present day and the cautionary tale of Scary McStalker. Scary was a lovely and charming girl, but she freaked the sheer bejesus out of me.

Scary was on a 3 month contract in New York, so the early stages of us getting to know each other were based around emails and, in fairness she seemed rather nice. Her getting back to the UK coincided with me getting the elbow from Tits, so I thought it was a sign. We arranged to meet up and owing to work being ridiculously busy it was a fleeting drink or two in this pub on Upper Street. Now, I normally leave taking a woman up the Steam Passage until the second date, but what can you do, eh?

I'm here all week, don't forget to tip your waitress. Ahem.

She was a lovely girl, in fairness. Very quiet and rather reserved (the anti-me, if you will), but she was intelligent, had the cutest Scottish accent, and very, very attractive. We had a couple of drinks, I walked her to the tube, there was a cheeky wee snog before she left and it all seemed rosy. I would say that her most striking feature was her eyes. The sky bluest eyes I had ever seen. They actually looked as though they were made of crystal and could even have had some kind of tractor-beam effect. You could go swimming in those bad boys. Well, either that or she could hypnotise you with them and you would do whatever the hell she asked you to.

Although weirdly since that night I cannot find my watch. I feel she used her powers to transfix and then rob me. Maybe.

A couple of Sundays later, it was the Whitsun Bank Holiday, and she arranges to come and meet me, Kinky Steve and The Texan in a pub in Hackney for some Bank Holiday Bonus Beers. We end up in a Belgian Pub off the Broadway Market, the drinks flow, mine and Steve's stories from Uni come pouring out and a gay old time is had by all. It gets to about 11pm, time is called and with our wheels well and truly greased we set about leaving for home. We're walking in the general direction back towards civilisation and I offer to put her in a cab or on a night bus when she interrupts me...

“What, so I'm not coming back to yours, then?”

Jurassic Park. Jackpot. Now, despite impressions to the contrary created largely by this blog, this kind of thing doesn't really happen to me and I didn't know how the hell to react. George Clooney in this situation would do that big smile of his, click his fingers and they would arrive back at his in a couple of seconds. However, I am not George Clooney. I am a cross between Chandler from 'Friends', and Hugh Grant in 'Four Weddings & a Funeral', only more foppish and FAR wetter. So my reaction to Scary's proposal was not as smooth as I could, or indeed should have been. I spluttered some half-words, looked confused and said something along the lines of...

“Foo.... huh.. fli... flennghinenng

I loathe myself. Actually loathe myself. However, I was rescued by Scary's eyes. She looked at me with those big baby blues and they shouted at me. They bellowed at the top of their voices, “TAKE ME, LAWYER. TAKE ME AND LITIGATE MY TWINKLE LIKE A REPEAT OFFENDER ON THE STAND. PUNISH MY LADY GARDEN LIKE A GINGER STEP-SON”.

And I do exactly as I am told. We say our goodbyes to Kinky Steve and the Texan and hotfoot it to Mare Street where a cab is coming along at that exact second and we head for Chez Taxloser. Hurrah!

We get back to mine, I sit her on the sofa and proceed to make a couple of cups of tea. I talk shit, she listens, nodding sagely and appreciatively, all the time, her eyes suggesting that the tea-making should be replaced with something else strong, milky and with two lumps.

I sit down on the settee next to her and place the tea on the tables in front of us and before I can say “Would you care to see my etchings?” she has mounted me. Literally turned and jumped on me, straddling me and pinning me to my own sofa, throwing her tongue down my throat and furiously unbuttoning my shirt.

I'll be honest with you – I felt a little violated. And not in a good way. I am a sophisticated and romantic man who needs to be wined, dined and wooed. Do you really think that I am the kind of guy who will let himself be used as a sexual plaything after 4 pints of Schloovel?

Ah. Right. You know me, I forgot. Ok, back to the story.

So, we're on the sofa, she's undressing me, so I make like a gentleman and return the favour. As I am taking her blouse off, though, she recoils. She pushes me back, shuffles backwards along my thighs and informs me that she has to tell me something.

In this situation, I am not expecting good news. I am not expecting her to tell me that she is a 4-Times-a-Night Girl and that she used to represent Scotland at Bonking. I am not expecting her to tell me that insists on receiving anal sex on the second date. Oh no. No, no, no, no, NO. So I look immediately at the three key areas – ring finger, neck, crotch.

Wedding ring? No. Ok, we're good.

Neck? No Adam's Apple. Great.

Crotch? No throbbing hard-on. Cool. The worst fears have been avoided.

So I utter the words I know I have to say. Ask the question I know I have to ask, but which I don't want to hear the answer to...

Ok... what is it?”

She then informs me that when she was 15, she weighed about 16 stone.

I tell you now, there is nothing to this girl. NOTHING. She is 5'1”, weighs about 45 grams and has a gorgeous little arse and great figure, so I am confused by this revelation, or indeed it's relevance here. She goes on to explain that she lost all the weight thanks to a hardcore dieting regime and lots and lots of exercise but at the end of it all, she was left with a lot of sagging skin.

And then the penny dropped. There would be scarring. I didn't know what to expect, I felt myself go white as a sheet, and needless to say my penis retreated inside of me in fear. I KNOW THAT THIS MAKES ME HALF A MAN, BUT TRUST ME WHEN I SAY THAT I REDEEM MYSELF MASSIVELY LATER ON.

But I needn't have panicked. It was fine. She literally had a little nick under each arm, a tiny scar under each boob, and a little scratch along her belly. It was absolutely fine and, in all honesty, a little sexy from a certain point of view. Don't get me wrong, I'm not James Spader in Crash by any stretch of the imagination, but they were cute.

So, we're fooling around on the sofa undressing each other (turning left out of Dry-Humping Boulevard into Tops Off and Fingers Avenue) when she asks me to take her to bed, and I graciously oblige because I am a gentleman. And seriously fucking horny by this point. I pick her up and carry her into the bedroom (I do this because it reaffirms me as an Alpha Male. And she weighs nothing so there is minimal chance of me dropping her).

We get into the bedroom, we get nekkid and I am about to make like Spinal Tap and sink her submarine with my pink torpedo when she screams “STOP!” at the top of her voice and informs me there is something else she needs to tell me.

I'll be honest with you, I'm a pessimist. I'm, a miserable fucking bastard most of the time and if someone is more than 2 minutes late for meeting me it's not because of the tube or their working late or any other reason. It's because they are DEAD. That is the only possible explanation in my head. So when Scary tells me at this moment that there is something she needs to tell me, this moment when we are stark naked and the bed looks like a tent such is the enormity of my boner (it had been a month since I had got any and was feeling rather anxious), this moment when we were literally chomping at each other's bits, there were only two explanations. Either she had AIDS or daddy touched her as a kid. Those were the only two explanations and either way I wasn't getting any tonight, there would be long conversations and lots and LOTS of crying.
I WISH that one of those were the reasons. Nothing prepared me for her actual revelation.

“I've never been with a man before. I'm a virgin”.

I shit a brick. I was stunned. The first thing that went through my mind was whether I had done anything remotely Polanski-esque and whether I was set for 15 years on K Wing with the other nonces. Then I remembered she told me she was 26 and had been in New York working for 3 months, so I calmed down a little. But there would be no sex that night. No sirree Bob. Whatever you may think of me from reading this blog or from knowing me personally, I am not the kind of cunt who would take a girl's virginity on a one-night stand. To quote George Clooney in 'From Dusk Til Dawn', I might be a bastard, but I'm not a fucking bastard. This is my redemption.

So, I tell her that it's fine, how she should actually feel really quite proud of herself and that she shouldn't worry – there is no need for us to have sex tonight.

Nothing prepared me for her response.

She looked at me with those tractor beam blue eyes, staring through mine and deep into my soul and announces “I'm only a virgin because I've been waiting for the right guy and I think that that's you”.

I actually wanted to cut my cock off there and then and throw it out the window before running away so quickly that I left a large David-shaped hole in the door. But it was my flat. So I was trapped. Fuck-sticks. Fucking cunting bollock shitting fuck sticks.

We had swapped maybe 5 or 6 emails over the course of 3 months and met each other twice, for a combined total of 8 hours during which time there were flaming sambucas involved. How the hell this woman had decided that I was the man to whom she wanted to give her most precious gift to, I have no idea. And I didn't know what to say.

I then spent 30 minutes arguing the case for not having sex. My poor knob was staring up at me saying “Dude, there are two of this in this relationship. Tell conscience to take a hike, man the fuck up and bury yourself in this woman's clunge” and this poor girl kept trying to touch me – it was bizarre and hilarious although deeply, deeply tragic as well. However, by using my finely-honed lawyer's skills (and a stick), I eventually convinced Scary that we should snuggle instead and that sex was not appropriate (although at the time it was like throwing petrol on a fire and seemed only to egg her on – totally not my intention). And at 3am we eventually went to sleep.

The night after a few beers too many is never a good thing. The waking up is the worst. You feel yourself wake up behind your eyelids and you pause for a few seconds and assess the feeling in your head before opening your eyes. I took my time and felt ok, but slightly wobbly. I rolled to my right and slowly opened my eyes.

She was staring at me.

She was there, those giant blue eyes staring a thousand miles at me, yet straight through me. I couldn't help myself and yelped like a little girl. I shat myself. She was looking at me like Papa Lazarou in The League of Gentlemen. It was too much.

“What?” she asked.

“Were you watching me sleep?” I countered.

“Only for a half hour or so. Why?” she responded.

A half hour? A HALF HOUR? An episode of 'Eastenders' only lasts 27 minutes and you at least have some plot and bad acting. I'm guessing that I offered nothing but a bit of snoring and maybe some sleep-chewing so God only knows why she found it so entertaining.

Oh that's right, because she's obviously a FUCKING PSYCHOPATH.

I wanted her out of my flat there and then, but couldn't do it. It was 6am on a Bank Holiday Monday. Bollocks. So, I go and get us a glass of water each and then roll over away from her and go back to sleep hoping that when I awoke she would be gone and I could resign this to the annals of time.

When I do re-awake, it is because I am experiencing the kind of physical pain reserved for horror football injuries, being on fire, or something else truly catastrophic. Scary is trying to thank me for being a gentleman by performing the manual act of love on me. But as a virgin she doesn't really know the rudiments of a man's body and instead seemed to be under the impression that she was playing “Daley Thompson's Olympic Challenge” on the Commodore C64. I looked down and again those eyes are staring up at me, filling me with terror, only this time I realise they're attached to a woman who has my cock hostage in her hands.

I can't tell her to stop so have to bite down on my bottom lip and try and ride the pain. However, there was more chance of Elvis riding in on Shergar than there was of me cumming so after a good 10 minutes I had to tell her to stop claiming that it is impossible for a man to shoot his wad so early in the morning after a night on the tiles. She seemed to believe that and snuggled up to me, asking when we were going out again in the week. All of a sudden my diary became very, very full and would have to let her know.

She is a lovely girl and I want to make this abundantly clear. But there was no way of rescuing this. Fear is not the basis of a long-term relationship so I thought it best to head this one off at the pass.

And that was that.

Kids – I still have plenty of ammo from March – June, so please stay tuned.

As a complete aside, that guy from the Magner's Pear Cider adverts is a cunt and if I ever see him in public I SWEAR that I will shove 100% pears up his fucking arse.

Loving you all, and here's to more shits and grins!

xxx

Tuesday 7 July 2009

You're probably wondering...

In at least two previous posts I have mentioned 'My Big Fat Greek Bedding'. This was the moment I decided to start writing a blog because it was so silly, so random, yet completely TRUE that I HAD to let the world know about.

It started off as a rogue tale in an email chain between me, Fail, Kinky Steve and the Nicks. But since then has been forwarded around my friends.

So, for those of you who haven't read, seen or heard it before... may I proudly present...

My Big Fat Greek Bedding...

Me and Kinky Steve are currently signed up to the online dating forum known as 'mysinglefriend'. By and large it is filled with eligible and good-looking bachelors and bachelorettes looking to find people for dating, kissing and eventually, heavy petting.

It's 5:30pm last night and I am winding down for the day. I get an email saying that someone has sent me a message on the site, so I go and have a look. It's a girl called 'Mary' and the message simply reads "Mmmm.... you look good enough to f*ck. Text me on ____ and let's hook up".

Now being the self-effacing, demure single chap with incredibly high levels of woman-hood, I do what we would all do in this situation and TEXT HER IMMEDIATELY. She texts back, seems to be genuine, and I make my way (sprint like I have never sprinted before) and get to this pub in Camden. I text her, alerting her to my whereabouts and eventually a woman, SIMILAR TO THE GIRL IN THE PHOTO ONLY IN THE SENSE THAT SHE HAS A HEAD comes over and introduces herself as Mary. She is Greek. Still, in for a penny in for a pound. I get Kinky Steve ready on 'emergency text duty' in case of true disaster.

So, I ask her what she would like to drink and she asks for "the finest English Ale!" so there I am, in a cramped bar in Camden, ordering a San Miguel for me, and a Bombardier for the hairy, plate-smashing wife. Before I finish my order, she leans over and tells the bar-man not to worry and then tells me we should go straight back to her place. So, I do what any good man would do here and usher her out the door and in the direction of a nearby bus stop.

We get on the most crowded bus ever and we are squeezed in close. She is giving me a rub down through my jeans and then asks me what my job is.

I wish I was lying and that this was bullshit, but I panicked. I completely panicked. I took into account the fact that I had known this woman for 7 minutes and that she currently had my dick in her hand, along with my being on a bus heading God only knows where (probably to 'Hostel') so I tell her I am a "Private Investigator... you know, a detective. Nothing too heavy, mainly financial stuff, but yeah... that's me". I am chuckling at my desk just thinking about it. Yeah, that'll protect you when you're chloroformed up to the eyeballs and hung upside down on a Saltire with a tennis ball strapped in your mouth and her wearing your bollocks as earrings. Your ability to track down people in default of commercial debts.

So, we get to her place in Archway and before we're through the door, she appears to have fallen on her knees and has taken the old chap out. 15 minutes of making the beast with two backs with Zorba later, and I have absolutely no desire to be there. I get up, into the bathroom and see the tiniest wee friction mark on my old fella. That's my get-out, my excuse, my reason to escape, so I go back into the bedroom, I tell her I'm out of whack for the rest of the evening and incredibly sore, so need to tootle off home. At that point my phone goes - it's my dad - and she asks who it is. I instinctively say "It's my dad... err... boss... err, I work for the family business".

So, she now thinks I come from a dynasty of detectives and is probably trawling through facebook right now looking for "Mr. D___ Pinkerton".

I make my further excuses, leave and then walk all the way from Archway to Holloway as a punishment, regaling the story to Kinky Steve and one of the Nicks.

I then got home, watched the last hour of the footy and drafted an email in my head to ITV asking them to refund me £5 for missing the winning goal.

Here I Go Again On My Own!

Hello there Blog Fans,

Apologies for the heinous delay in getting back to you. Believe it or not, I had actually been happy for a while and didn’t think I would end up writing on the blog again for a little bit. However, you will all be delighted to know that the last few weeks have brought on layers upon layers of abject fucking misery so I thought it high time that I vented.

When I left you last it was 4 bloody months ago. Since then, Arsenal have been ritually humiliated by various opponents more times than I care to remember (poor Kieran Gibbs. The one guy it didn’t deserve to happen to), my dear old mum has found love, I’ve been on holiday, had my flat flooded flooded, been dumped, had all kinds of shilarious henanigans you can possibly imagine (including being nearly bully-raped by a 5’1” Scottish midget – that’s a Bobby Dazzler and I can’t wait to get that out to you) and generally experienced the kind of life you all love to read about but which none of you would even dream of living.

My life is still a sitcom. And here’s the latest episode – “The One Where I End Up Crying Myself to Sleep Tonight as I sit on the edge of my bed trying to Cry-Max to ‘Anthony & the Johnsons’”.

So, when last I wrote I had two dates lined up – THHS (Tammy Horsey Hockey Sticks) and Tits McGee. Well, I’ll be honest with you – THHS never even got off the ground because Tits McGee and I had a second date and never looked back. Don’t get me wrong, THHS was a lovely, beautiful, charming and (to be completely honest) utterly rich young lady. Yet something clicked with Tits McGee, I cancelled with THHS and took a punt on this large-breasted frauline (and before any of you raise a suspicious eyebrow, I’m actually a bum man. So there).

Me and Tits just hit it off. It was like being great mates but at the same time a mate that you fancied and thought about doing all manner of things from ‘Caligula’ to. First date was a couple of beers and a few games of cards(!), second date was even more beer and pool(!!), third date was dinner and a bit of a snog(!!!), and by the end of the fourth date I was hanging out the back of her(TA-DAH!). It was like something out of ‘Pride & Prejudice’ only with hair-pulling and a lady’s face being pushed into a pillow.

From there, things got better and better. We did everything couples in the nascent stages of their courting do – pub quizzes, met her friends (I got the seal of approval), lots of what I can honestly say was really rather good sex, we cooked for each other... we even developed a Sunday night TV-based ritual of sorts around some truly awful reality shows. Add to that, the ridiculously tragic time of her having a close family bereavement and me being ‘the best comfort [she] could have wished for xxx’, I thought things were going pretty well. Life was rosy, I had a skip in my step and I was walking the streets of London Town with the Bee Gees in my head.

Then, from out of nowhere I get a phone call. Evening of the Champions League Semi-Final. I’m on the train from work to meet my bro and Kinky Steve when the phone rings and it’s her.

Me - “Hey Babe, ‘sup?”

Tits - “Nothing, just thought I’d give you a call... there’s... we need to talk”

Me - “Err.... ok... care to share?”

Tits – “I don’t think we can see each other anymore. I kind of want to see other people and don’t want to get into a situation where I’m doing the dirty on you”

Me – “Well, apart from when we first started seeing each other and you were also seeing Kinky Steve at the same time you mean?”

Tits – “Yup.”

Me – “Oh. Right. Fair enough then. I appreciate you being honest.”

Tits – ...

I won’t quote what she said, but the bottom line is that it was 5 minutes of “it’s not you, it’s me”. Although I was rather confused when she acknowledged that we got on great, had great banter, rubbed off each really well, that she fancied me and that I ticked all her boxes. But then again, ho hum.

And then we lost 1-0 to ManYoo in the footy. All in all, a shitty evening. Although she followed up the dumping by sending me a text message telling me that I apparently “did things to [her] in the sack that [she] didn’t think possible and for that [she is] eternally grateful!” I know it said that because I have kept the text message and had it put on the back of my business cards.

The problem was, that damaged me a little and left me rather sceptical. I mean, after all, if you get on brilliantly with someone, you spend most of your free time with then, you sleep together, you tell your mum about them and introduce them to your friends, you banter, you text them, you email them during the working day, you kiss, you hold hands... what else is there, exactly?

So, I took a back seat for a while. I took stock. I took time to contemplate myself, my life, and whether I could even be bothered getting back on the horse with this entire dating thing anymore. After all, a pattern was beginning to emerge – we go out, we have fun, we go out again, we maybe have a little sex, it all starts going rather well and then I get dumped. Now, after the L***a incidents of last year, I had gotten used to being kicked in the nuts by a great big fucking horse. However, that doesn’t mean that I had grown to like it.

After L***a there was Curly O’Hair, the Irish temptress with the Amy Winehouse look (only without the scars, tattoos, drug habit or annoying fucking voice) who also gave me the elbow out of nowhere after two months of congeniality, good food, wonderful sex (I’ll give her her due, in fairness. She might have been a cunt, but when she got going she rode me like Tony McCoy up the hill at Cheltenham), informing me that it wasn’t me but her. Although she did at least do it with a degree of humour...

Curly – “I’ve been thinking about us”

Me – “Oh, ok. Everything alright?”

Curly – “Well... I don’t think it’s a good prognosis”

Me – “Eh? What? Like bowel cancer?”

Curly – “Don’t be like that”

Me – “Like what? You’re the one who has just compared me with a terminal illness”

Curly – “No, I... it’s not... well... I don’t... look. The bottom line is.... well, how can I put this... I’m not the one for you, dearie”

Dearie? Cunting DEARIE? What the fuck am I? 8? 80? DEARIE? For the love of Christ...

It was after that that we had the tale of ‘my Big Fat Greek Bedding’ and from there, I started writing this blog so it’s not all bad. I suppose. From a certain point of view. Maybe.

Hmph.

So, I’m back at square one. I’ll update you with more over the coming days as that’s only where the fun began. There’s been other shits and giggles since then and I firmly intend to get those across to you in the next few days.

In the meantime, take care of yourselves and each other xx

Saturday 7 March 2009

I might just chop it off and donate it to science...

Good afternoon, Blog-fans. It has been far too long since my last confession.

I am writing this missive from an internet cafe in West Kensington. "And why is that?" I hear you ask. Well, it has been a bad couple of weeks or so for me all ready and this is the straw that has broken this particular camel's back.

My iPod died at the end of last week. Well, it hasn't died, in fairness, but I have had to take it in for some surgery. The headphone socket has gone and so I searched the internet for somewhere to get my iPod fixed and to save my musical soul. Google and my friend Andy came up with this place - http://www.ipodrepaircentre.com. As you can see, it seems well established, has been in this game for years and for just £45 I can listen to music again and the world will be a better place.

So, I begin the epic pilgrimage from Hackney. An overground and three tubes later, I arrive at the place. It is not the iPod relief hospital I had ben led to believe. It is instead your average, run of the mill, common and garden mobile phone shop run by a Turkish fellow and his daughter. I walk in and ask whether this is the iPod Repair Centre made so famous by the internet, to which he replies it is. I tell him I was expecting something more grandiose than this, to coincide with those images I had witnessed on the web, and had travelled all the way from Hackney for this. "Hackney? Bloody hell, mate, you should have said. My brother has a shop on Mare Street and he could have done this for you".

At this point, I start crying inside. But maybe I can rescue my afternoon by leaving my iPod with these highly trained professionals and getting to an HMV and spending something from my Xmas gift card. No chance. There is nothing around here. West London is officially shit. Fuck my life (http://www.fmylife.com).

Anyway, enough of that. You are here because you want to hear about my latest escapades with the laydeez. And there are plenty. PLENTY. All resulting in my failing, you will be delighted to know.

When I left you last, I had had two dates on a Sunday afternoon, with Theatre Girl and le Femme Fatale, and had two more dates lined up. So I shall fill you in on each of them.

Firstly, la Femme Fatale. Gorgeous, intelligent, well-read, sexy, interesting, interested in me - our first date went spectacularly. We got on as though we had known each other for ages and it was a pleasure - we even have a history of terrible dating experiences to share with each other! The conversation went all over the place, from favourite films, the unanswerable question as to how exactly James McAvoy has forged a Hollywood career, my love of the Arsenal, her singing in a punk rock karaoke band, and how you deal with people you meet on dates who want to go out again but who you have no interest in. Apparently her tactic is to send them an email simply saying "I know this is hard to believe but I have actually found love with someone else and although it is early days, I like this guy and don't think we should see each other any more". Genius.

Anyway, the date went well, I was eager to see her again and the feeling was mutual. However, the nature of her job (film producer, don't ya know) was such that she was unavailable until 5 March! This brings us up to the present.

So, imagine my delight when the other Tuesday she sends me a text out of the blue saying "Hey, I know it's short notice but I've got two tickets for a private screening of 'Watchmen' - wanna be my date?xx". Zut alors! I accept and meet her the next evening at the Odeon West End. We chat, we laugh, we discuss our jobs (my life? Dull. Her life? Awesome. She was off to have supper with Philip Seymour Hoffman's brother after the film to discuss a picture she has in pre-production. As you do...), and we watch the movie (7/10 - Snyder did the best he could but the whole thing is a bit messy).

She apologises afterwards for having to disappear, but insists we have a quick drink before she scarpers off which I happily accept. It's very nice, the chat is good and there is a big hug and kiss just off the mouth before we go our separate ways. I skip off into the sunset and the World is again a beautiful place.

The next morning I get into work and Variety are reporting that Ridley Scott has cast Russell Crowe as both Robin Hood AND the Sheriff of Nottingham in his new movie. I email the story to la Femme Fatale and we banter and have a chuckle before at the end of the email she writes as follows:

"I know this is hard to believe but I have actually found love with someone else and although it is early days, I like this guy and don't think we should see each other any more".

EH? I'm certain I had heard these words from her lips before somewhere... oh yes... she had already told me that this is how she dumps guys she just doesn't like. Bugger, and indeed, 'fuck my life'.

So, that was the end of her. C'est la vie. Anyway, I wasn't that disheartened as I was due to see Theatre Girl again that evening for our second date. Our first date was fantastic and we hit it off straight away, discussing theatre, art direction, South America and all manners of things before we parted company and she was keen to ask me out again.

That evening, still reeling slightly from The Curious Incident of la Femme Fatale in the Email, I met up with Theatre Girl around Waterloo and we shared a few cocktails and drinks and such, had more giggles, and this time a bit of a kiss and cuddle before she had to get her train home. We even discussed going out again at the weekend.

The next morning I get a "Thank you for a lovely evening" text and she suggests we go to some warehouse party / club-type thing in Dalston on Saturday night. The thing that pops into my head is that Dalston is pretty much where I live so this may be a leading question.

"YES" I immediately reply and she says "Great, the place is called Passing Clouds - check it!xx". So I turn to my friends at google, and I do.

Oh no. As you can see for yourself here, http://www.passingclouds.org , the place is cunt soup. Anywhere that has "Welcome, Dear Pilgrim" on it's front page is never going to be good for anything except rebuilding the hate in you that you had thought had subsided. It is a place for people who tell their friends to pronounce their names "Heeelene" even though it is spelt "Helen" and their parents call them "Helen". People who tell you that they listen to music 'ironically'. People who at parties when asked what they do for a living reply, "I'm actually a Wizard. I've been ordained as a Minister in my own Vegan pseudo-Communist Church".

I hate people like this more than pretty much anything. You know, cunts who have never experienced anything real. People who couldn't tell you what it is like to wake up in the arms of someone else whom you feel entrapped by and in awe of, almost completely powerless. People who have never listened to a song and had it leave them curled on the floor crying. People who had never felt the sheer release of joy in seeing their team score a last minute winner. People whose parents had never told them they loved them enough and hide behind these masks to hide themselves. People who live their lives according to what Charlie Brooker and fashionable 'ironic' websites tells them. People who think that THIS place is an acceptable drinking establishment - http://www.thelighte1.com. People who think Pete Doherty is the greatest poet and rock star of this generation but who couldn't tell you the names of any of his songs. People described by Jeff Stelling here (http://technorati.com/videos/youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DzdBuDSEokz0). People who I detest and pity in equal measure.

And I was going to have an evening full of them. FML, again.

The next day I get another text from her saying that she has friends coming to stay from Edinburgh so they're coming along too. So not only had any suggestion of sex been wiped out in an eleventh of a heartbeat, I had to find Wingmen from somewhere (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wingman_(social)) to support me. I tried everywhere and everyone greeted me with replies along the lines of "Depends on what type of do it is" - to which I forward the link to the Passing Clouds website. This leads to replies along the lines of "Fuck off". Kudos, then, to Kinky Steve who agreed to stand by my side the entire evening and entertain the out-of-towners whilst I looked to work my magic on Theatre Girl.

I don't know how, but it turned into a fun night. The place was not full of cunts and wasn't in any way cuntish. The 'Balkan Beats' we were threatened with had cancelled and been replaced with two live acts (I thoroughly recommend Jason O'Driscoll http://shambobala.com/jason/biog.html) who were moderately entertaining. We had a bit of a listen and a bit of a boogie and then retired to the chillout room upstairs for a laugh and a few more drinks before I phoned the girls a taxi at 4am and got them off home as Kinky Steve and I made the 15 minute walk home, in agreement that the evening went well and that she seems a cracking girl and completely 'my type'.

Midday the next day and I wake up in my bed still completely shattered and on my phone is a text message from Theatre Girl telling me that there is no spark between us and that we shouldn't see each other again. And there was me thinking her kissing me was a sign she liked me. Tsh!

So, onwards and upwards. Or so I thought. Following that I was back to the drawing board, and had three more first dates lined up over the next week - Elly the Actress, Tits McGee and TammyHorseyHockeySticks ("THHS").

Tits McGee and THHS went wonderfully well and we set up second dates very quickly indeed. Tits McGee is very cool and has a cheeky turn of phrase and razor sharp wit. We also ended up playing cards and sinking beers, and she is quite the Rummy player, I can tell you. THHS was nothing liked how I imagined her but fiendishly intelligent and very, very cute. I am sure there is more to come but I will update you further after the second dates. After all, looking at the above, it appears that that is where the funs comes... ;o)

But, before those girls I met up with Elly the Actress. We got on great over emails and the phone, and I was looking forward to it, especially after a nightmarish day at work where I again had to do Fucknuts' job for him. I get to the pub near Hampstead Heath and I buy us a bottle of decent red wine and we sit down by a log fire and start up some conversation.

CORRECTION. Conversation as defined by several dictionaries, "The spoken exchange of thoughts, opinions, and feelings; talk". The key word here is 'exchange'. There was none. Three hours later and I knew that girl inside out. Her friends, family, how her hunt for a new flatmate is going, her acting career and training, her teenage years, her summer jobs whilst at school, her favourite films, her mum and dad and their fucking musical careers within the English National Opera and favourite cunting Womble. She never asked me a single thing, knew nothing about me by the end of the evening and even thought my name was 'Daniel' (it is not). I was not impressed.

At this time, it was 10:30pm and I was rather sozzled and desperate to go home. We had finished our drinks and so I said to her "Well, what's the plan?" to which she says "Oh, there's a train in a couple of minutes but why don't we stay for a nightcap?"

I looked at her with an expression my face that resembled a man who had watched a stranger come into his living room on Xmas Day and literally piss on his children's heads and said "REALLY?" in my most indignant tone. She looked surprised and said "Oh, come on, it's Thursday and I don't have work in the morning!"

It is the first time I have ever ordered a drink out of sheer spite. I ordered a large Glenlivet and slunk in my chair hating this woman. She arrived back from the bar bemoaning how my drink had cost £8. I offered no apology and drank my whiskey earnestly as she continued talking about an audition she had that morning for a Nintendo advert where she was auditioning for the part of a woman in her late teens.

*NOT WITH THOSE CROW'S FEET, LOVE* xx

She finished her whine/wine and we went to the station where her train was waiting. I got to my platform and the next two trains had been cancelled. I had a 45 minute wait during which I sent a very sweary and abusive email to London Overground that I only remembered about the next morning. I am dreading the reply as I used the word 'scum' a lot. FUCK. MY. LIFE.

And that brings us up to speed! As mentioned above, there are more dates in the pipeline this week so I will keep you all posted once there is any news. In the meantime, take care of yourselves... and each other xxxx

Thursday 19 February 2009

We got there in the end

So, another week, another series of dates. And personal catastrophes. Another typical week in my life, really.

Where were we? Ah yes. Last weekend. Valentine’s weekend, so it was. It’s not a good start when the postman delivers you nothing but a council tax chaser and even your mum forgets to send you a card (or a text. Shit, I didn’t even get a phone call. Maybe she DOES prefer my brother).

Still, at least you are safe in the knowledge that you received a text message from a horny and single ex-girlfriend the night before basically offering you sex on Saturday evening providing you’re happy to stay at her place in Finsbury Park. Winner! Maybe Valentine’s Day WON’T be a washout after all! Football in the daytime and rampant, no-strings-attached nookie with a girl you know can do that thing with her pelvis that makes you cluck like a chicken.

And so off I set on Saturday morning to deepest, darkest south-west London to play footy for my Uni Old Boys’ team with a spring in my step and the theme tune to ‘Shaft’ in my ears. Ooooooh yyeeeeaaaahhh...

Would I be blogging this if everything went smoothly and according to plan, though? Would I be writing if we won 5-0, I got man of the match and was then carried on my teammates’ shoulders across London back to Hackney where a taxi was waiting for me to take me to the horny-ex’s place (no charge to YOU, good sir!), and we made the beast with two backs eight times?! Would I?

Of course not. It was a wash-out and a disaster. And this is why you love me and why you read these inane mutterings.

I get up and out the door and make my way across London. It is freezing cold, the pitch is on a 45 degree angle, and covered in sand. It does NOT look like a field of dreams. Our lads turn up on time and we get changed and warm up for the best part of an hour because the opposition are late. We then we play terribly and lose 3-0.

If that wasn’t bad enough, it was made even worse when some overweight cwnt on the other team went straight through my knee and left me having to hobble off to East Putney station and then back across London on my own because the rest of the team are going out with their girlfriends and wives. Tears would not do it justice at this point and it is safe to say that the fat lady was warming up.

I get home and collapse across my sofa in complete agony. I jump in the shower, take 4 painkillers, cover my knee in ibuprofen gel, stick it up at a weird angle and put a bag of peas, hoping and praying that I will still be able to fall onto the bus and make my way to the filthy ex’s house for some carnal gymnastics.

Time ticks away. To try and take my mind off the pain I continue with my quest to conquer Lego Batman (seriously, I’m not a huge gamer by any stretch of the imagination, but this game – PURPORTEDLY FOR CHILDREN – is proving to be my Everest. This will be the making of me as a man and will rank as one of my all-time great achievements as a man. Well, that and getting off with one of the Pogues’ daughters, and having tops off and fingers with Pauline Quirke’s step daughter), but still the searing pain in my knee is nagging away at me.

Horny ex-gf rings and asks where I am and if I am coming out to play. Now, by and large, I don’t have many regrets in life. Not pursuing my teenage acting career? Sure. Not taking up the offer of a Champions League Final ticket in 2006? Definitely. Moving in with Dirty Harry and Luke the Compulsive Liar? Probably. But this is DEFINITELY up there. I wanted to come out and play. More than anything, but I could not move. I was struggling to raise a smile, let alone anything else. So I cancelled and told her I couldn’t come out owing to knee-knack. She sighed, seemed understanding and then rung off, presumably to go and hop on the good foot and do the bad thing with some other guy. I was left on my sofa with regret and a manky leg. Epic, EPIC fail.

The only joy I did get was the occasional text from Kinky Steve who appeared to be on a date with Lorraine Disgustington and needed a get-out. I couldn’t even provide that, but he did appear to be in dire straits. Apparently she was the equivalent of choosing your package holiday from the brochure and selecting a double room with a view of the Bay, and you get to the resort (after a delayed flight, losing your baggage and some Portuguese guy abducting your toddler) only to find the view is of a building site and your ‘double room’ is a fold-up bed on someone else’s balcony. She had Barbara Windsor’s voice only with a lisp, gammy eye and apparently had a habit of just getting up to go to the toilet whenever she felt like it, rather than first alerting you to that fact. Two fails do not make a win.

So, the next morning I wake up and my knee feels absolutely fine. ‘Mark Phelps’ 8 gold medals is a piece of piss’ levels of fine, almost as if I had been the subject of an elaborate practical joke. But with Jeremy Beadle dead and all of the jokers in my life out on Valentine’s Day shenanigans, it turns out that it was just the way my particular cookie had chosen to crumble. And in any event, it at least meant I could get out of the flat and turn up for my dates with Theatre Girl and le Femme Fatale.

As a brief aside, it is prudent to tell you here and now that I am a huge believer in ‘signs’. For example, you get to the point exactly halfway between your house and the bus stop and the sun disappears behind black clouds and a monsoon ensues. This is a sign that you are going to have a bad day. So imagine my thought process when this happens...

I get to the train station in plenty of time, and my knee feels great. There is a train due along in 5 minutes and I stand on the platform with my head bobbing along to ‘Float On’ by Modest Mouse. The sun is shining and it’s a good day. At that point, I happen to catch the platform indicator in the corner of my eye and note that the 14:29 train has disappeared and has been replaced with the 14:48 train. I panic. I am going to be heinously late, and where the fucking hell has my train gone? I look over and there is a train going in the same direction nestling into the other platform – they’ve switched it at the last possible second, the rascals.

I sprint. Sprint like Benny Hill chasing after a busty lovely. Down the stairs and across the under pass. I run straight into a cyclist (well, a Chav with a BMX. What is this? Nineteen eight-fucking-five!?!?!) and the front wheel of his bike goes straight into my bad knee. I feel the scab break under my jeans and the searing pain from last night returns. I bite the inside of my cheek, turn like Johan Cruyff and make my way up the stairs, past the prostate and irate cyclist. I get to the top of the stairs and hear the doors’ ‘beep’ to indicate their closing. I dive for the doors (well, trip on the last step leading up to the platform) and fall into the train just as the doors are closing. Well, my head makes it onto the train. There I am, my limp, damaged body hanging out of the train as the train doors open and shut three times on my head before I shamefully get to my feet and take a seat on the train, blood seeping through my jeans and black marks on each cheek from the door caressing me. This is a sign.

I dust myself down in a bathroom at Liverpool Street and manage to make myself look a bit better. I then hop on the tube and go and meet Theatre Girl.

For the first time in months it is a great date. She’s very attractive, funny, intelligent, speaks languages, and we get on like a house on fire. Nothing funny to report, sadly. It was all good and second date was eagerly pencilled into our diaries. Woo-ha! The only down point was that we both had to skedaddle. Her to see a film with her buddies, and me to see le Femme Fatale in North London. We get to the tube, do the polite not quite on the cheek / not quite on the mouth kiss, and I have a bit of a skip (well, spaz-skip owing to my still dodgy knee) in my step again and I hope on the Northern Line with a grin across my chops and a lob in my pants.

I get to our agreed meeting point and she is running late. However, I find a table in the pub, there is the Observer Music Monthly and the News of the World, and the draw for the FA Cup 6th Round on the gogglebox. I accept her tardiness and am secretly happy. She eventually arrives, and I have ANOTHER perfect first date. She’s witty, attractive, fiendishly clever, French, sexy, VERY showbiz, cool job, and lives locally. Aside from lighting a cigar and turning to my accomplice, ‘The Face Man’ and telling him that ‘I love it when a plan comes together’, I could not have made my contentment any clearer. Her only down point is that her job is so international that she is never around and I have to wait until the middle of March until I am allotted time with her. Harrumph. However, she did have the decency to text me three times the next day to express her apologies and to promise that this is not a stalling tactic. So I shall give her the benefit of the doubt.

The only other matter of interest this week was at work where my job turned into a bad joke. I got a phone call from Fucknuts (see below) which basically said “How do we get 8 fatties into a white water raft?” The weight-loss show is doing a task where the large contestants are going rafting and the activity centre is somewhat apprehensive of letting these guys on together, so apparently I had to phone the centre up and sort it out (by sort it out I mean bully them into buying a new insurance policy and raft just for us). We reached a compromise and the fatties are now going abseiling rather than rafting. Wonderful.

Two more dates coming up next week, blog fans so I am sure there will be more than enough to keep you entertained when I write again. In the meantime, keep smiling and have a fun weekend xx

Tuesday 10 February 2009

PhDs mean nothing

Hello again there, fair readers.

So, the weekend has come and passed and in a few hours it will officially be 'midweek'. The weekend was dull and eventful for the most part. After Friday night's uni-manual happenings, Saturday was spent on my lonesome relaxing and doing close to fuck all ahead of a hectic Sunday.

Sunday was spent scooting around doing a variety of odd jobs whilst trying to enjoy myself a bit as well. After all, even Lawyers have weekends (believe it or not). The North London derby was an early kick-off which meant having to meet my brother at the ridiculously early and unacceptable midday. The plan was to meet some buddies, watch the game, have a bevvie and take it from there. However, brother has recently split from girlfriend and has had up and downs. Sunday was a down. He looked like the visual personification of the shits. I would not recommend him to that woman from EastEnders who looks like a cross between a buzzard and one of 'The Witches' such was his state of physical non-attractiveness at that point.

So, I cancelled on the friends, we went to our aunt's instead (no beer, loads of tea and sausage and onion sandwiches galore) for solace and friendly faces. It's like 'Cheers' only without the joy, fun, hilarious quips from Ted Danson as he flirts with Shelly Long/Kirstie Alley, and the happy-go-lucky punters. Instead we get Emmanuel Eboue acting like a cwnt. Again. *sigh*

Anyhow, an awful match later and I decide to punish myself by going to the gym. This was a bad idea as I threw up afterwards on my way to doing a television interview with the Serbian equivalent of Sky Sports. That was incredibly random and I believe that the 'film crew' have at one time or another been baddies in '24'.

As you may have seen from my last entry, I was due to have a date with a PhD student called Clare after that. Unfortunately, she cancelled until Monday (trying to find a flatmate through Gumtree), which did allow me more sofa time. Or at least I thought.

For those of you who don't know, I am a heavy dater. In the American sense of the word. You find a nice girl, go out for a drink or dinner or some such, see what happens and if it is meant to be, then wonderful. If not, then it's an evening better spent than it would have been stuck at home fretting, depressed over the impossibility of meeting a woman in London and crying your eyes out on the sofa as you attempt to flagellate your flaccid and pathetic excuse for a penis which packed it's balls up and left three years ago. Or 'cry-maxing' as Kinky Steve refers to it as. NOT AS THOUGH I EVER DO THAT AND IF YOU TELL ANYONE I'LL FIND YOU AND KILL YOU.

Ahem.

Anyway, Clare cancelled, and whilst I expected a quiet night, I instead had to deal with a flood of text messages from two women I have had different liaisons with in the past few weeks. First up was Nat. Nat's a lovely and charming girl and as we were getting to know each other seemed to tick more and more of the 'boxes' as it were. Funny, cute, doing a PhD and about to qualify as a clinical psychologist... all rather promising.

Or so it seemed.

Nat is the dimmest girl on the face of the earth. Seriously. Despite being obviously book smart, she hasn't got a clue. The poor cow actually had an alarm on her phone that went off every three seconds simply saying "Breathe".

The main tell-tale signs were when we were walking around the Natural History Museum and she made a couple of worrying gaffes:

1) In the 'mammals' hall there is a giant replica of a blue whale. She was certain it was real and had been stuffed by a taxidermist. I looked deep into her eyes, nee, her SOUL to see if she was actually being hilarious. But alas, all I could see in those eyes was a four year old girl running through a meadow, eating candy floss and being chased by a puppy.

2) We then go into the dinosaur exhibition. We are strolling around, looking at the admittedly wonderful skeletons, and she turns to me, looks me in the eye and says "You can see where humans have come from when you see them like this, can't you?". I look confused and she picks up on this, but before she gets a chance to open her mouth I cut in with "How do you mean?". "Well, we've got skeletons, two arms and two legs, and you can see that in the dinosaurs". I was flabbergasted. We even went around the Anthropology exhibit later where it clearly shows how HUMANS COME FROM FUCKING MONKEYS, NOT CUNTING DINOSAURS and she still didn't seem to get it.

Anyway, we had a nice time, quick drink afterwards and she went off to her friends' house for the second of their three 'Lord of the Rings' theme nights where they all dress up as Middle Earthlings, eat Middle Earth food and watch the film DON'T GET ME STARTED.

We swap a text or two the next day (the Snow Day), it's all rather nice but we seem to come to the conclusion that it's not going to work out and we'll see each other around. Fine by me, all good, no worries.

And so we arrive at Sunday night, two days ago. Nat is out on the lash in Northampton (bloody students). I know this because she texted me 9 times to update me. All very nice and sweet and I reply with casual, non-committal "Glad you're having a nice time, but I'm trying to play Lego Batman so sod off"-type messages.

At this point, I get a lambasting from her (albeit via SMS). She starts effing and blinding (seriously - t'was the language of the snooker hall, not that of a nubile young lady. Even one from Birmingham) about how angry she is with me. Apparently I am supposed to 'woo her' and have made absolutely no effort to do so and as a result she doesn't want to see me again. This is completely and utterly true, but I remind her that we weren't going to see each other ever again anyway and that she probably needs to calm down a little. She then finishes the conversation by telling me that unless I buck my ideas up she's not going to ask me out again. I leave it there.

The second woman to contact me was "My Big Fat Greek Bedding" from last Wednesday's absolutely hilarious, Robin Askwith-like sex-capade. She wants to meet up again, I do not, and that was that. Sorted.

So, to Monday and Clare. Work was fine and generally uneventful (although I am still clearing up after one of my internal clients, known hereinafter as 'Fucknuts' sent a load of fatties skiing in Milton Keynes last week without any insurance in place. Tit), and then after a very quick session in the gym I met up with Clare.

It was the most uneventful date ever. Very, very nice, girl, clever (knows that humans and dinosaurs are different. That has now become a staple first date question, along with "favourite bands", "where did you to go to uni?" and "tits or face?"), great music collection, plays the ukulele... but absolutely no spark and she's barely free anyway. So there we go. Although she fancies going to a pub quiz next week so I guess we'll see.

And that's that. This week brings Valentine's Day (me and Kinky Steve drinking and crying. Probably), a hard rest-of-the-week at work, and maybe another date over the weekend depending on whether Camille the Film Producer gets back from the Berlin Film Festival in time.
I will of course keep you all updated, so keep smiling and I will speak to you all later.