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
Thursday 19 February 2009
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.
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.
Saturday 7 February 2009
This is what the title means...
As you can see, the title of my blog is 'My life is a sitcom'. This goes back to an email conversation I was having on Thursday with Kinky Steve, Scouse Nick, Lewis and Fail, where I was regaling the tale of an impromptu dating experience I had on Wednesday night that descended into something from 'Peep Show' meets 'Friends'. I mentioned in the email chain that 'my life is a sitcom', as this was not the first time it had happened, and from there the blog was born.
So, on to Friday night. I normally go out with Kinky Steve and Andy on Fridays, but this week both were unavailable. I put out feelers and instead went out with Hari for a wee catch-up, and on to her mate's birthday drinks. I love Hari to pieces, and her efforts to get me a nice young lady are second-to-none, and I was looking forward to seeing her as we hadn't had one of these for a little while.
She also mentions that it is an Antipodean Girl's Birthday on Waitangi day and that there may be some drunken single lady action going on.
(Of course, when people say 'drunken single lady action' to me now, I only get visions of this... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJlPEHL85Ig, but that's by the by. Hopefully the single ladies in question would be nothing like this)
So, we have a beer in a Smith's pub first in between a mid-treatment transsexual and a lady (they were obviously 'together' but to this moment I am still puzzled as to the logistics. The transsexual was going from man to lady, so I am just trying to figure out what goes where and indeed if it would still be around for it to go there, afterwards. Ahem.) where we have a brief catch-up. Her new script has been well-received by people that matter and things are generally OK with me, so hurrah. We finish our drinks and head off to some God-awful pretentious, overpriced shit hole in Covent Garden to celebrate Amanda turning 24.
Now, by and large, I love Covent Garden, but we went to some underground bunker that wasn't a million miles away from the Mos Eisley Cantina from Star Wars IV that epitomised all that is wrong with central London.
1) It's called Detroit. WHY? What possible link with America's 'Motor Town' is there? It's 20ft underground, there are curved stone walls, it's poorly lit, the DJ has just got the sack from Yates's on Leicester Square because of the turgid 10 year old R&B he was playing.... it was about as 'Detroit' as I am.
2) The bar staff are cwnts. All of them. Admittedly, I don't have tits, but PLEASE don't make that the only criterium for deciding whether you say 'please' and 'thank you' to your clientele.
3) It looked like someone had opened a can of 'wanker' in there. Wall-to-wall Rude Boys, girls who believe that two strips of rubber covering their 'decency' constitutes a dress... dear me.
Anyway, moaning aside, we find Amanda and her posse, we do the kisses on cheeks and we sit down amongst strangers and try to make nice.
Now, I'm no Vanilla Ice, but I still have a modicum of 'cool' about me. However, these guys made me look like KanYe fucking West. It was like the groovy gang's annual outing. Lovely people, definitely, and I am certain that none of them are so bitter and twisted that they spurt their annoyances out on the Internet, but ridiculously boring. I was getting through £4 bottles of Asahi (DON'T) like they were going out of fashion, just to keep myself sane...
...at this point, Kinky Steve texts me to tell me that his date is going terribly and that I am to provide a 9:20pm get-out phone call and that he will come and join me and H for a beer. JOY!
Back to Detroit (still no sign of Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin), though and the Groovy Gang are showing each other photos on their phones of them playing in the snow and I am looking around for any kind of twine or string to hang myself with. At this point, someone breaks off from the GG and starts chatting to me.
She is a beautiful lady, too. We chat, we laugh. She is 'Ana', from Latvia, and works with H. We are getting on famously. H's eyes light up at this point and immediately gets on the phone to the vicar, reserves the Church and sets about finding a hat. Then Ana gets up to go and powder her nose and it is at that point that we all see that she only has one arm.
Call me shallow, but that did it for me. I KNOW it makes me a bad person, and I accept this but I couldn't bring myself to do it. You should not date a woman if the first thing that comes to mind is a catalogue of bad, distasteful gags.
Thankfully, she didn't fancy me, and it stopped me from having to make any kind of decision (although Haydon and Scouse Nick got 'what do I do!?' text messages, just in case), but we carried on chatting and she is a lovely and charming girl. She certainly got a big hand from me.
(SEE? I'm a BAD person)
It gets to 9:20pm and Kinky Steve's phone is now turned off meaning that he is turning the Kink up to 11 and he shall not be joining me for a drink. Fuck - I've just realised that he's Quagmire from Family Guy. Anyway, I leave him to it and return to my conversation with Hari and the Bandit. Anyway, it gets to 10pm and H ups and leaves, meaning I am left on my lonesome with Stumpy and the Groovy Gang. Although she chooses this opportunity to tell me that she has set me and Ana up.
Ana's coming over to hers and Nick's for a computer game afternoon and I am to attend as well. Computer games. A generally two-handed activity.
Fuck me, I hope they've got a Wii...
I cannot bring myself to do it, so up and leave, wish Amanda a Happy Birthday and Waitangi Day. At this point, the Groovy Gang are in full flow and have excluded me, even Ana. I smirk to myself, make my excuses and take a slow walk to Holborn where I catch my train and return home, where a Pot Noodle and Jonathan Ross awaits.
My life is still a sitcom.
This weekend brings laziness and lounging around the flat, housework, the gym, the North London Derby (Arsene, if you're reading this then please, please, PLEASE, beat Spurs. The only thing worse than a Spurs fan is a smug Spurs fan) and I am on a date with a PhD student called Clare. I will of course, update once I get to the bottom of it all.
Much love xx
So, on to Friday night. I normally go out with Kinky Steve and Andy on Fridays, but this week both were unavailable. I put out feelers and instead went out with Hari for a wee catch-up, and on to her mate's birthday drinks. I love Hari to pieces, and her efforts to get me a nice young lady are second-to-none, and I was looking forward to seeing her as we hadn't had one of these for a little while.
She also mentions that it is an Antipodean Girl's Birthday on Waitangi day and that there may be some drunken single lady action going on.
(Of course, when people say 'drunken single lady action' to me now, I only get visions of this... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJlPEHL85Ig, but that's by the by. Hopefully the single ladies in question would be nothing like this)
So, we have a beer in a Smith's pub first in between a mid-treatment transsexual and a lady (they were obviously 'together' but to this moment I am still puzzled as to the logistics. The transsexual was going from man to lady, so I am just trying to figure out what goes where and indeed if it would still be around for it to go there, afterwards. Ahem.) where we have a brief catch-up. Her new script has been well-received by people that matter and things are generally OK with me, so hurrah. We finish our drinks and head off to some God-awful pretentious, overpriced shit hole in Covent Garden to celebrate Amanda turning 24.
Now, by and large, I love Covent Garden, but we went to some underground bunker that wasn't a million miles away from the Mos Eisley Cantina from Star Wars IV that epitomised all that is wrong with central London.
1) It's called Detroit. WHY? What possible link with America's 'Motor Town' is there? It's 20ft underground, there are curved stone walls, it's poorly lit, the DJ has just got the sack from Yates's on Leicester Square because of the turgid 10 year old R&B he was playing.... it was about as 'Detroit' as I am.
2) The bar staff are cwnts. All of them. Admittedly, I don't have tits, but PLEASE don't make that the only criterium for deciding whether you say 'please' and 'thank you' to your clientele.
3) It looked like someone had opened a can of 'wanker' in there. Wall-to-wall Rude Boys, girls who believe that two strips of rubber covering their 'decency' constitutes a dress... dear me.
Anyway, moaning aside, we find Amanda and her posse, we do the kisses on cheeks and we sit down amongst strangers and try to make nice.
Now, I'm no Vanilla Ice, but I still have a modicum of 'cool' about me. However, these guys made me look like KanYe fucking West. It was like the groovy gang's annual outing. Lovely people, definitely, and I am certain that none of them are so bitter and twisted that they spurt their annoyances out on the Internet, but ridiculously boring. I was getting through £4 bottles of Asahi (DON'T) like they were going out of fashion, just to keep myself sane...
...at this point, Kinky Steve texts me to tell me that his date is going terribly and that I am to provide a 9:20pm get-out phone call and that he will come and join me and H for a beer. JOY!
Back to Detroit (still no sign of Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin), though and the Groovy Gang are showing each other photos on their phones of them playing in the snow and I am looking around for any kind of twine or string to hang myself with. At this point, someone breaks off from the GG and starts chatting to me.
She is a beautiful lady, too. We chat, we laugh. She is 'Ana', from Latvia, and works with H. We are getting on famously. H's eyes light up at this point and immediately gets on the phone to the vicar, reserves the Church and sets about finding a hat. Then Ana gets up to go and powder her nose and it is at that point that we all see that she only has one arm.
Call me shallow, but that did it for me. I KNOW it makes me a bad person, and I accept this but I couldn't bring myself to do it. You should not date a woman if the first thing that comes to mind is a catalogue of bad, distasteful gags.
Thankfully, she didn't fancy me, and it stopped me from having to make any kind of decision (although Haydon and Scouse Nick got 'what do I do!?' text messages, just in case), but we carried on chatting and she is a lovely and charming girl. She certainly got a big hand from me.
(SEE? I'm a BAD person)
It gets to 9:20pm and Kinky Steve's phone is now turned off meaning that he is turning the Kink up to 11 and he shall not be joining me for a drink. Fuck - I've just realised that he's Quagmire from Family Guy. Anyway, I leave him to it and return to my conversation with Hari and the Bandit. Anyway, it gets to 10pm and H ups and leaves, meaning I am left on my lonesome with Stumpy and the Groovy Gang. Although she chooses this opportunity to tell me that she has set me and Ana up.
Ana's coming over to hers and Nick's for a computer game afternoon and I am to attend as well. Computer games. A generally two-handed activity.
Fuck me, I hope they've got a Wii...
I cannot bring myself to do it, so up and leave, wish Amanda a Happy Birthday and Waitangi Day. At this point, the Groovy Gang are in full flow and have excluded me, even Ana. I smirk to myself, make my excuses and take a slow walk to Holborn where I catch my train and return home, where a Pot Noodle and Jonathan Ross awaits.
My life is still a sitcom.
This weekend brings laziness and lounging around the flat, housework, the gym, the North London Derby (Arsene, if you're reading this then please, please, PLEASE, beat Spurs. The only thing worse than a Spurs fan is a smug Spurs fan) and I am on a date with a PhD student called Clare. I will of course, update once I get to the bottom of it all.
Much love xx
Friday 6 February 2009
Hello there
Hi Kids,
Well, this is me. I am a 28 year old single guy living in London and this is where from time-to-time I will place my thoughts as I muddle through life, trying to avoid getting hit and putting a smile on my face.
I'm a nice, decent, some would say 'funny' bloke and will update you on whatever bits and bobs come to mind, although to be honest this will probably be work, my wonderful friends, my ever-hilarious attempts at finding love, and football. After nearly 30 years on this mortal coil I haven't found anything else worth writing about.
So, let the merriment commence...
xx
Well, this is me. I am a 28 year old single guy living in London and this is where from time-to-time I will place my thoughts as I muddle through life, trying to avoid getting hit and putting a smile on my face.
I'm a nice, decent, some would say 'funny' bloke and will update you on whatever bits and bobs come to mind, although to be honest this will probably be work, my wonderful friends, my ever-hilarious attempts at finding love, and football. After nearly 30 years on this mortal coil I haven't found anything else worth writing about.
So, let the merriment commence...
xx
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