Plug

Readers of this blog may have noticed references to a certain newsletter called The Friday Thing throughout my time writing here. It's a weekly e-mail which gets delivered to your inbox every friday, thus guaranteeing that any other work you have to do that day goes flying out the window. Its parent company is called The Friday Project, and even though it is similar in name to the Friday Night Project, it has nothing to do with that turdpile, and even less to do with its supporters.

It's better than PopBitch, Private Eye, and any other satirical publication you may care to mention. It runs to about 25 pages of a Word document, so there's plenty to keep you entertained, and with a letters page at the end, there's plenty of opportunity for feedback. Just be prepared to have your missive cut to ribbons, which was once what almost happened to me.

I started reading this one day early in 2001 when someone I worked with sent on the link to me. In those days, it was little more than a campaign to get friday off work, and the accompanying newsletter, then free, amounted to about 8 to 10 pages in Word. Even if we couldn't get Friday off, these people reckoned, we could certainly find distractions for ourselves at that time of the week. Then an extended edition became available, but you had to pay a subscription fee (to be fair, it was only £10 a year at the time). Then the short version was discontinued, so it became subscription only, but it was still worth it.

Well, because of the success of the parent company, from the 2nd June the full weekly newsletter is now being offered for free. So, all of you who like your writing witty and bitchy, go to the Friday Thing site on that day and sign up. I'll try and remember to post a reminder on that day too.

For a taster, go here, a rather good essay on the nation's hopes for the world cup.

Hooray!

I'm an uncle. For the third time. My sister gave birth to a 8lb-odd boy this evening at about 5pm. In keeping with their obsession with Irish names, he's going to be called MacDara Seán, or something. A brother for Sadhbh and Fionn.

This level of patriotism in a couple who are firm leftists is a bit of a curiosity at times. Oh well. It's all cool. I must remember to send them a card.

"We don't have much time"

The study is, as per bloody usual, progressing at a funereal pace. I'm getting through subjects at roughly one-third of the speed required to cover the amount of material that would net me a reasonable pass this year. I've already given up on replicating last year's achievement of a 2.1. All I want is 40% in everything so I don't have to come back and do anything again.

This morning we had seminars on Medicine Design, and I don't feel quite so bad about what has to be done now, but then again, blind panic is usually the only thing that will motivate me to work, so I'm not sure if that's a good thing.

I've pretty much decided that if I don't get a decent job in Brighton for the summer, then I'll go home and see if I can get some work in IT. I can NOT see myself sticking out the supermarket job for more than a couple of weeks, and doing it for a full summer would cancel out all the positive aspects of staying in Brighton, and then some. Hopefully I'll get some office admin or data entry job instead. It'd be nice to catch up with some of the old heads in Dublin, though. It's been a while, and Pride in Brighton falls on a weekend this year (well, the best part does) so going to that is still a possibility even if I don't end up staying there.

Now I must go back to work, and stop googling Lawrence Dallaglio.*

Mmmmm. Mighty fine. I'd almost sit through an entire rugby match just to look at him. Almost.

*The secret to a good google nudity search is to make sure Google's SafeSearch facility is off.

It's the last line that cracks me up.

Thanks to Basando la vida en el Pene, or if you like, 'Basing life on the Penis', if Babelfish at Altavista is to be believed.

Pinched...

... from BN2beeyatches. Again.

My blog is worth $564.54.
How much is your blog worth?

Also, I did this online survey thing, which generates a blog code for you (a bit like a bear code, but for bloggers). I am:

B6 d- t- k- s- u-- f- i- o++ x+ e l- c

Pissed OFF!

The last few days got off to a shit start last Friday. In Asda I decided I'd be a bit adventurous and try and new recipe or two, so I bought some utensils (a colander and a roasting tin, to be exact), along with a slightly bigger shop than usual. The bill came to £46. I only had £50 to work with that week. Only £4 left for an entire week, which was used to buy a carton of milk and do my laundry.

Then began work. I have noticed something.

Saturday: My shift coincides with bitchy supervisor. It sucks.

Sunday: My shift coincides with other laid back supervisor. In spite of the fact that we're flat out all day, it doesn't feel too bad, as we're left alone to get on with things.

Tuesday: My shift coincides with main manager. He's just about alright, but having to stand at a till all day - 8am to 5pm - with only one hour break, along with the attendant back ache, results in the shift being only barely tolerable. At about 3pm, the bitchy supervisor comes on, and the moaning about the insignificant begins again.

This is the problem. I'm listening to this woman whinge about how the £20 note compartment is jammed while I'm serving a queue of ten fucking people, bitch about how I have to ask for change for my till, and make a production of anything in general that has to be done. The other guy delegates, or else gets it done without any noise. Management has be the biggest area of underperformance on the planet with some people.

It might raise an eyebrow to hear my complaints about the job only this far in, but I've managed to put the finger on what the overall problem is: I'm not afraid of exertion (as long as there isn't too much of it), but the kind of work where you are constantly watching the clock, willing your shift to end, is the kind of work that has always done my head in. Sometimes this reminds me of the days when I used to work in a factory, always looking at the clock with longing. I've worked in places where there were no small amount of physical demands, but I didn't mind it, and the time seemed to fly.

There are jobs going at the pharmacy down the road from the shop. I've applied. I am praying. If it comes down to a choice between software testing in Dublin again this summer, and having to support myself in Brighton by working in the supermarket, I don't know if I could tolerate the latter.

I nearly fell over myself trying to make it in time for a lecture in malaria this morning, only to get there and find out it was cancelled. Aaaaarrggh!

At least the recipe I tried out - oven roasted vegetables with steak and peppercorn sauce - didn't turn out too badly, though I must remember for next time, peel garlic, NOT aubergines, and use less olive oil.

Delia Smith must be quaking in her boots.

Yippee!

I have discovered myTunes Redux, a file-sharing thing tailor-made for university halls of residence. I am like a baby in a sweet shop.

Current mood: Greedy

The last couple of days

It's been an interesting day or two from a college point of view, and it's been a while since that's happened.

Firstly, we had a rather interesting lectures on parasitology on Wednesday. The lecturer, who also happens to be my personal tutor, pertinently made points about how pharmaceutical industry control of drug prices in developing countries is fucking up efforts to treat patients with malaria, and how millions are dying as a result of this. Yeah, not exactly breaking news, I know, but you tend to forget these things when you get enclosed in your own little bubble after a while. One rather interesting development as a consequence of global warming, though, is that this affliction is headed right for our hemisphere, and it's already starting to show up in Italy. Watch the innoculations come out in force when it reaches us.

Secondly, I'd been pencilled in for a round on a HIV hospital ward on Thursday as part of the coursework. Although I knew squat about HIV drugs, I knew the treatment regimens were fairly complex, so I called around to a certain positive someone to get the low down on all of it (thanks again sweetie), and armed with this knowledge, toddled along to the hospital the next day.

While not being a complete eye-opener (there were no visibly-on-death's-door patients), it certainly raised an eyebrow at more than one point. Namely:

1. HIV treatment regimens are complicated enough, but if you think that's bad, trying being HIV positive and having other long-term conditions to deal with. One guy who'd also had a stroke had to wrestle with the less-than-enviable situation of being on 11 different medications a day.

2. Some patients can be difficult to deal with, to the point of hanging up on doctors when the latter are on the phone trying to tell them that it's in their best interests to admit themselves. Can you say 'idiot'? Then there's the ones who don't take their drugs, even when non-adherence in HIV+ patients can be seriously damaging, but I suppose I need to walk in their shoes when it comes to that one...

3. Some will lie about certain aspects of their lifestyle to health professionals, even when this falsehood is so blatantly obvious, hearing it raises questions about how they perceive others to see them.

4. The... er... theme of unpredictable uncontrollable diarrhoea as a side-effect of some of the HIV meds recurred constantly, even with those who were on anti-diarrhoeal drugs. Personally, I think highlighting this would go a lot further than some of the safe-sex campaigns that are always doing the rounds, but maybe that's just me. Then there's the nausea and God knows what else in individual patients.
   I feel inspiration for a prevention campaign coming on...

Then there was the bodybuilder who was taking anabolic steroids that would normally be used on horses. And the one who had come off heroin years ago, only to resume using it as a method of controlling pain.

At the end, I had an interesting chat with the pharmacy chief. Among the things we talked about was the perennial topic of how although the work in this area can be fulfilling, it - as per bloody usual - doesn't make half as much as working in a high street pharmacy, fielding questions about nappy rash and chesty coughs. Gah! When it comes to buying property on your own (something I, at the age of 33 when I graduate, am going to have to think about), these kind of economics get more consideration than they deserve, and it sucks.

I finished off the day by meeting the hot bear I had referred to previously, and bringing him back to mine. He turned out to be quite well versed, and the only problem that presented itself was the drunken giggling and shrieking of some of the girl flatmates outside my bedroom door, which is rather distracting when you're being worked on, so I had to march out there and, willing some piety into my voice, announce that 'I was studying'.

It wasn't a complete lie, if you look at it from a certain perspective...

Midweek

I should've know better than to head out again on sunday night after work, but that's never stopped me before. I had received word from Bear that 'Flee was in the Bulldog so I decided to drop in.

After a short while, I got ..er.. talking to a hot bear with a rug on his chest. His boyfriend was there too, but they are in an open relationship. He gave me his number. If anything is to happen, I need to ring him tonight or tomorrow night at the latest.

The Fleemeister can't quite recall, but he reckons that the man is a target he has previously acquired. Surprise!

Everyone in college was talking about all the essays they're currently working on this morning, and it all made me quite nervous. I distracted myself by looking at a hot barechested skin lying out on the grass on campus in the sun. Yum!

Back home from work...

... and feeling a little bit better. I circled the shop today before I was due to begin work, willing the shift that I was about to start to be better than the one I did yesterday. Thankfully it was, and I don't feeling like throwing in the towel any more. The duty manager who was on today, a chap called Lee, is more laid back and better at getting things done than the woman who was on yesterday, and he himself referred pointedly to her style of doing things as we walked home, so at least I know it's not just me.

Our takings were up by a substantial amount on last sunday as well, so that should please the powers that be.

Tomorrow I get up and make a start on endocrinology, before I forget why I came here.

Lots to do, little time...

Update

Just back at my room after work now (I've got broadband in my room now. Yay!). It was a day from hell. I didn't get enough stuff moved from the storage area to the shelves, according to my supervisor, and she didn't really seem interested in the fact that storage was crammed to the rafters and finding particular products was a nightmare. Having said that, I need to become more efficient in this area. Then again, if a minimum of stuff needs to be shifted during a shift, it should be made clear, and supervisors running around having panic attacks don't help, as don't staff shortages (I had help last week when I was doing this).

Hopefully this won't become a bigger incident, but one thing is certain: This job sucks.

Anyway, I got back to the house after my preceding entry about my birthday and found a text on my phone from the man Dan. His girlfriend June has given birth to a baby boy (9 pounds! Bloody hell...) after running almost two weeks overdue. So Luke Vernon Brooks, the baby in question, shares my birthday. It should be fun taking him out for his first legal drink in 18 years time.

I met Dan and his parents that night for a few drinks, and then came back here, and even though a certain tipsiness informed the scene, I still managed to install a network card and drivers onto my computer. Nice to see I haven't forgotten some of what I learned in IT. Incidentally, when I walked into the kitchen, some of the girls I live with had been out, and were lolling drunkenly all over the couch, giggling with uninhibited abandon, the smell of girlie farts permeating the air. They had torn a piece of white card off of something, and wrote 'Happy Birthday Dennis, from ?', with a balloon drawn next to it. It made me feel special, even though they spelled my name wrong.

Friday, I was joined by 'Flee and Phil, along with Sarah, for a meal for my birthday (thanks for treating me, people!) and then drinks were had afterwards in Dr. Brightons. The staff behind the bar were hot.

Sarah and I continued to party into the small hours, and the two of us ended up at that bastion of gay maleness, the Bulldog, where Sarah ended up what looked like being chatted up by some guy. A guy who had a boyfriend. After I had dropped her off at Phils to sleep I returned for one more, and got talking to a hot n' burly bloke name Gary,who has been texting me since.

As an aside, some people just couldn't let the fact that I was with a girl go without passing comment. Paul, an ex-stalker entanglement of mine, huffed that I 'seemed to have changed', and when I re-entered without Sarah, the moron manager of the Star Inn said "Well, that was a short shag". Grow up, ye twats!

Today, I met Sarah for breakfast, and then she got the train back, and I went into purgatory, sorry, work. So endeth the fun. With a bang.

God only knows if I'll stick this. I think the worst thing about it is that there is no-one to really pass the time with there, and for that kind of job, only a twenty minute break in an eight-hour shift is not enough.

Someone say a prayer for me.

Birthday boy

It's my birthday today. I'm 31.

In hexadecimal (base 16), that's... erm... 1F. This makes me look like I'm still a teenager. On the whole, I can't think if this makes me feel better or worse. Worse, I think.

31 years ago today, the song 'Oh Boy' by Mud was number one in the UK charts. The song 'He Don’t Love You Like I Love You' by Tony Orlando & Dawn was number one in America. No, I've never heard of these either, which is weird considering the current album I have on my discman was made in 1973 ('For Your Pleasure', by Roxy Music).

Famous people born on April 27th? I fed my name into this online history thing, and from what I can see, a great many composers were born on this day, including Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev, in 1891. There was also a physicist named de Broglie, whose laws I vaguely remember struggling with when I was doing physics courses in university before. Sheena Easton, in 1959. A baseball player named Chris Carpenter shares my birthday, year and all...

Oh, WHATEVER!

It's also Freedom Day in South Africa - FYI Slagella - and today is also World Day of Design.

Right, I think I'll quit while I'm ahead...

Nothing doing today. The party is on tomorrow night, with 'Flee, Phil, and the venerable Sarah, who is coming down from London for the day. Party time!

On the TV the other night...

Bill:	"What do you think we should do?"
Alice:	"What do I think we should do?"
Helena (in background):	"Look, Mommy!"
Alice:	"What do I think? I don't know. I mean, maybe... Maybe I think.... we should be grateful. Grateful... that we've managed to survive through all of our... adventures... whether they were real... or only a dream."
Bill:	"Are you sure of that?"
Alice:	"Am I sure? Only as sure as I am... that the reality of one night... let alone that of a whole lifetime... can ever be the whole truth. And no dream is ever... just a dream. The important thing is... we're awake now... and hopefully... for a long time to come."
Bill:	"Forever."
Alice:	"Forever?"
Bill:	"Forever."
Alice:	"Let's not use that word, you know? It frightens me. But, I do love you... and you know... there is something very important... that we need to do as soon as possible."
Bill:	"What's that?"
Alice:	"Fuck."

(Now dowload and listen to the song for the closing credits here.)

I don't care what any of the critics say. Eyes Wide Shut rocks.

Work

The weekend was a blur, spending most of it as I did working in the supermarket. On Saturday I came in, stood watching one of the till girls do her thing - a waste of time, as she did it so quickly I couldn't learn anything - and then went onto the tills myself. I was more than a little nervous, what with a queue snaking halfway down the shop and only two of us to deal with all of it. After a while I settled in. Barcode readers are a cinch, making most of your work brain dead, and you only have to think when someone asks you for something like a lottery ticket or a mobile phone top-up. My only mistakes were IDing a 21 year-old for cigarette papers and a 28 year-old for alcohol. A bit of paranoia on my part.

There's also shelf-stacking though, which can be very tedious and take quite a bit out of you with all the lifting and bending. I have to work tomorrow as well, I'm not sure if it's an eight-hour shift or a nine hour one, but it's a pain having to go in. I'm already tired after the last two days - yawning at my desk here - and I wouldn't normally take something like this on so close to my exams, but I need something to carry me through the summer, in the likely event of me not getting anything anywhere else. I'd prefer to stay in Brighton for the summer, and at the moment working at this is the only way I'll be able to do it. Having to return to Mallow and suffer unemployment would be unbearable.

Anyway, any job as a counter assistant after this will be a cinch. Roll on my next job, in something like Next or CloneZone.

First day on the job, sort of...

It went well, but then I was only there for 3 hours, watching videos as part of the induction process. There was one about the 'Philosophy of Co-op', which featured a rather inofffensive looking chap droning on about the history of the company, how it was set up with the community in mind, and about its social responsibility. There then followed a health and safety video about how spillages must be cleaned up as soon as possible after they occur (duh), and not to overreach for stuff when on the top of a tall ladder (ditto) and about how stuff shouldn't be left lying around on the shop flower in case people trip over them (unnhhhh!), along with the mandatory example about lifting stuff while keeping your back straight.

There then followed a rather scary video about restricted sale products, i.e. alcohol, solvents, and cigarettes. If a counter assistant gets caught selling booze to someone under 18, they can be held personally responsible for it and fined rather a lot of money. A lot of money if you're a penniless student anyhow. The same for the other two categories and their respective age minimums. Apparently the till reminds you of this on its screen automatically, but just to be sure, I think I'll be IDing anyone not old and grey who's buying booze, smokes, or lighter fluid for the next week or so.

I start Saturday afternoon. I've never worked in this kind of environment before, so I'm just a tad nervous. Fingers crossed...

Thank GOD!

After having another application for a pharmacy placement rejected (Lloyds) and having my interview for phone debt collector for Lloyds TSB lead nowhere as well, I was getting pretty despondent. It was one rejection after another, but today I had an interview for a job for a branch of the Co-op chain of supermarkets. The manager just rung me back to offer me the job! I'm in gainful employment again!! Yayyyyy!

I've zero counter experience with a cash register, and the work does sound back-breaking in parts, but sod it, I should be able to manage. I'll need counter experience for pharmacy work anyway, so this should be a good way of getting it. Fingers crossed it won't be a complete disaster.

This should soften the blow when I ring up my parents and ask them for help with paying the rent on my room again!

Out last night with Bear and 'Flee and Phil for Bear's belated birthday. Thursday 27th is my birthday. I think I'll have the night out on Friday night. Sarah Al is making an appearance too. That should be good.

In other news, I found the previously mislaid old CD-R of men that I had collected over the years, thankfully, so my man-gallery is complete once more! It was fun going through it the other night, taking a trip down memory lane, recalling where I got each of them...

Also, the grand opening of my brother's restaurant went really well, by all accounts. Good-oh, I'll have to bestow upon them an improptu tasting session when I next get home. Whether they like it or not.

Pictures!

Steady yourselves, ladies and gentlemen.



On the train to London on Friday morning. This was taken by Phil. I had been out the night before, and was trying to grab an hour's shut eye before hitting the smoke. This has been put on my gaydar profile for the simple reason that if you're going to sleep with someone, it's important to know what they look like asleep.



I woke up after a while. I rather like this one, and it's been put on my gaydar profile as well.





The first of the pictures taken in Expectations. Not a candidate for my gaydar profile. I really should've known better than to wear something with short sleeves. Phil said the cap was a cliché. Perhaps he's right, but they can look hot on some people, whomever they may be.






A slight improvement, with the shirt a size slightly bigger, but still not the best of the bunch. Especially with the sodding tag clearly visible on the right.





Better. No tags, long sleeves, and extra breadth in the shoulders. When I have enough money to splash out on this kind of stuff (Mid 2008+) this is the combo I shall opt for. Also put on my gaydar profile.






So there you go, ladies and gents. I wouldn't ever have thought that leather would be my thing, but in some circumstances, it appears that it can be.

Orders, contracts, rabid entreaties from men who want me in their bed, in the comments section, please...

London Bear and Leather Pride

Well, I'm back and fully recovered. Friday was more a day of fun than a day of debauchery, and that was just the way I liked it.

I rose slightly later than expected on Friday morn to the sound of BigPuppy ringing me demanding that I get up and get ready. Once I shook off the hangover from the night before, I did my thing and met him at Brighton Station at noon(-ish) and we jumped onto a train.

Hitting LondonBridge at around 3pm, we headed straight to Expectations to try on some leather gear. This store has a policy of no photography, but luckily the counter assistant disappeared off behind the scenes at one stage, and the Pupster was ready with his camera. Full advantage was taken - many outfits were tried on - and I wanted to upload these pictures here, now, but this stupid computer won't let me (in an internet café as all the college facilities are shut today). I'll have to wait until Tuesday. In the end I left the shop having bought a red jockstrap.

Once we had that done, we headed to Soho to check out the gay strip. We settled on Comptons first, where I could have stayed downstairs all day drooling over the hot bear couple across the bar from us. We went upstairs and settled into a big pair of armchairs next to a window that looked down onto the street. You can see these in the photo on the website. We eventually headed off to take in the Kings Arms. We headed upstairs to the poolroom with our drinks, and I salivated over the hot bears playing. After that, we headed off to Italian Graffiti to eat (nice!) and then back to the Kings Arms. At this point the bar had filled up with masses of hairy beasts, and the sensory overload was making my head spin, probably because of the blood rushing from it to go somewhere else. There was just so many men I didn't know where to begin! Having said that, I did manage - after much deliberation - to march upto one guy and tell him he had a great arse...

Then it was on the bus to Chunk, where they were having the friday night bear social. This was more of the same: loads of big hairy men everywhere, and we got talking to two guys I recognised from Brighton and stuffed our face with the barbeque food. We eventually got talking to one of the hot bears who I saw playing pool earlier, who turned out to be nice and chatty, though unavailable to me, *sniff*.

Later we boogied (Even Phil! Alas, no camera) and I locked lips with two or three different bears, including a hot Belgian one who was quite a vociferous kisser. At the end of the night, I hooked up with a small stocky cub, and it was decided that I would go back to his. It was only in the taxi queue that I realised that he was coked out of his head, so I jumped ship and quickly re-connected with Phil, and he walked me down to the Chariots sauna in Vauxhall.

It was at this point, regrettably, that things started to go pear-shaped. This was my first time in a sauna, and I was only there to while away some time until the trains to Brighton started running again. The customer base seemed to fall into one of two camps, twink or muscle boy. I've been a bit cynical lately about bear club's assertions that they are 'attitude-free', but the laid-back antics of Chunk were in stark contrast to the meat-market feel of this place. It was a bit of a catch-22 situation: The people who I fancied weren't into me, and equally the people who moved on me weren't my cup of tea either. You have to be pretty thick-skinned to cope with the goings on in a gay sauna, and I wasn't used to it. I got entangled, but the sparks didn't exactly fly. One thing I noticed was that one of the Brighton guys I was talking to earlier was there, and even though I'm still not sure if I like him, he is hot, and I checked him out getting hot n' heavy with some other guy for a while. After that, I tried the darkroom, and although I messed around with a couple of guys in there, I found the fact that you couldn't see your hand in front of your face, never mind the face of the others, more than a bit irritating.

After about two hours or so, I got bored and headed for the video lounge and fell asleep there for a while. I was woken by a twink groping me at about 10:30 in the morning, and after throwing him off, I showered and got dressed and got the train back to Brighton. There I grabbed a few more hours of sleep, thus righteously cocking up my sleeping pattern for last night, so that was why I was still up at 1am watching the Amityville Horror for the twentieth time...

Bear & Leather Pride is still ongoing in London right now, but that's it for me. It was a fun Friday, discounting how I ended it, and I know where I'll be going next time I'm in London.

Back to earth with a bang. College on Tuesday. Exams only seven weeks away. Only my birthday on the 27th of this month to look forward to now. Onward ho...

Woo hoooooo!

My grant cheque has cleared into my accout in time for Bear Pride this weekend! Yessssss! So I'm off to London on Friday for a night of debauchery. For too long, me and Phil have been planning a night like this, but something has always gotten in the way. Well, no more obstacles! This Friday is partytime!

My brother and his fiancé have recently moved back to Mallow to take advantage of the business opportunity of opening a restaurant that has lain dormant for a while. The grand opening is this Saturday. I wouldn't have minded being there, but the flights are too expensive to book this close to the time. Oh well...

Anyway, tomorrow I shop for army boots to complete my combat pants/t-shirt/black jacket military ensemble. Watch out London!

The Road To Guantanamo

I saw Michael Winterbottom's The Road to Guantanamo the other night, and it was pretty gut-wrenching stuff.

It's the story of the Tipton Three, a group of British Muslims who head to Pakistan where one of them is to get married. While there, they decide to head to Afghanistan to see the place for itself and help out other Muslims in the process. To understate it substantially, this turns out to be a mistake, and they decide to head back to Pakistan. It is then, without giving too much away, they end up being detained in US Custody, in one of their infamous interrogation camps.

It's hard to watch the treatment of these three at the hands of British and American soldiers and not feel outraged. The army, so often romanticised in adverts and films, is shown as a group of spineless bullies here, as they are afraid to approach the prisoners in anything other than full riot gear. The whole thing highlights the misdirected zeal of the two countries of interest at the moment: These three were arrested purely because of their nationality. It would seem that in attempt to stand up and rid themselves of terrorists, Britain and America are at once on their knees, such is the current climate of fear that these two powers live in. The interrogation sessions were funny in a macabre kind of way: The three were accused, without any proper foundation, of being members of Al-Queda, which is the kind of thing you'd expect in a racist-by-numbers sketch of someone shouting something across the street at a Muslim.

It invokes new anger with biggest-cunt-for-US-president-EVER Bush, and just as much for Britain, who are right up there in their participation of the managment of these camps. Apparently a civil suit is being taken by the three against certain state figureheads, amongst whom are Rumsfeld and Cheney, if I'm not misinformed. I hope they sue them for the roof over their heads.

Go see this. If you can't, download it here. £5 for something like this is small change.

A headline I didn't really see coming

Ireland backs legalizing gay partnerships

Well, it's a step in the right direction. I'm somewhat surprised to see those quotes coming from the mouth of Ahern, but then again, I reckon he's just being political about it. Labour have traditionally courted the gay vote, and Bertie probably realises that if he doesn't get in on the action soon, he'll be left behind. Or maybe I'm being cynical.

Of course the reference to the clause in the constitution that 'protects' the institution of marriage shows that we still have some way to go, and if the only way to loosen the grip that the church has on the country is by amputation of the corresponding limb, then so be it.

▪

My clinical exam wasn't a complete disaster, but I made a couple of very stupid mistakes. Hopefully I won't get penalised too much for them. I'm on holidays for the next two weeks, and I'm staying here in an attempt to get some work done. For the first time since I moved in, I can relax, knowing that I'm stable for a while.

One positive outcome of the move from the other hole house that I forgot to mention was that, a week prior to my departure, one of the other girls also moved out, and as her computer proved too cumbersome for her to take with her, she simply left it with me. It's not a bad one: Windows XP/Office XP/DVD player with speakers and a microphone set. It could be a bit faster, but hey, beggars and choosers and all that. I now have all my mp3s are organised in one place on the hard drive, along with all the other stuff. Only one disappointment arose from all this: I did an inventory of my collection of man pictures, and one CD-R, with a gallery of big hairy men on it, appears to have been lost, or else left at home in Ireland (a possibility I really don't want to consider, considering my parents would actually know how to read the contents of one these days).

Oh well, I'll just have to start over with my collection, which is a bit of fun in itself :-)

I saw a documentary last night about living for 30 days on the minimum wage in America (Columbus, Ohio to be exact). It starred limelight-hogger du jour Morgan Spurlock and his girlfriend. Ok, maybe that last bit was unfair, seeing as he's quite good at this kind of thing. The only thing was that I'd seen it all before when Des Bishop did it as part of a roadshow documentary, so there was nothing new there for me. However the '30 days' thing will continue with other people, and one such concept will be a redneck texan being part of the gay community in the gay stronghold of Castro, in San Francisco. That should be interesting, and the photo op that Spurlock did for that, with leather cap and arm bands but otherwise barechested, was kind of hot.

Moved again!

I am now comfortably ensconced in my new room with the bulk of my unpacking done. The room is fine (my own en-suite!) and the other flatmates seem ok. I'm only there for two and a half months before I move on again, but it'll do for now.

As an aside, there is very little that takes it out of you more than moving. Aaaarrrgggh!

I got all the money I was owed from my previous landlord, but in spite of my protestations he gave it to me as a crossed cheque, the wanker, and then ignored my phone calls later when I told him the university wouldn't accept it. It has been lodged to my account, but as usual, I can't get at the money until next Tuesday. I am so glad to see the back of that twat.

Easter break on Friday for two weeks, but I'm staying here to begin my hunt for a job with renewed desperation. Not only do I need money for the rest of the year, I need work in order to stay here for the summer.

Clinical exam tomorrow. Cross your fingers for me, readers!

Yippeee!

On Friday, I was told by the accommodation office that I have a room in Phoenix halls of residence for the rest of the academic year. Phoenix halls are the most central of all the university residences so I'm still a BN2 boy, and I'm that bit closer to where all my lectures are. Woo hoo! Tonight I get the bulk of my stuff out of there, and all going well, the rest of it tomorrow. Then I have to meet the twat landlord to get my money back. I've just spoken to him on the phone, and he's agreed to the amount that I want as a refund. With a bit of luck, this will pass off without incident. I just want to get the hell out of there.

Saturday night saw me in the Bulldog with Bear and 'Flee for a while before I got talking to a cute stocky cub and we ended up going back to his place. His house was just around the corner from the pub, so I anticipated that the fun wouldn't last too long and I would come back to the Bully after. It didn't turn out like that. We ended up frolicking for the night back at his, and I was woken by his two dogs jumping on the bed and panting in my face the next morning. The chap was a cute little meatball with a rug on his chest and stomach, and he was nice. He left in a hurry the next morning, and surprisingly, trusted me to leave afterwards. I left a little note on the draining board in the kitchen with my number. Who knows where this might lead?

Sunday saw me go to Bears R Us in Candy Bar, and it was as dead as a doornail. Hardly anyone there. Maybe Candy Bar, traditionally being a lesbian bar, wasn't too suited to the theme. An unremarkable night, memorable only for a group of council estate chavs calling me and 'Flee 'batty boys', 'arse bandits' and just about every other unoriginal homophobic name under the sun, when we were queueing to get smokes at a service station hatch. I felt like taking a baseball bat to them, but they were too large in number.

An important clinical exam this coming Friday, which I'm dreading. I must get on this move as soon as possible and get it out of the way. Hopefully this won't be a case of getting out of the frying pan and into the fire. The other students in the flat are young (19-22), but I have an en-suite bathroom, so if I need to keep to my own space, I can. Fingers crossed we'll get on OK though.

A film review

While at Dan and June's place for Sunday roast three days ago, we went down to the video shop to pick out two DVDs to watch after the meal. One of them was I "heart" Huckabees, which I didn't actually stick around to see afterwards, and the other one was 'Primer'.

This is a science fiction movie with serious difference. I had heard good things about it - it has won awards at Sundance - and I had meant to see it when it first was released but had never got around to it, so when I saw it at the video shop, out we got it, and after the meal, we threw it on.

*Great endeavours to exclude spoilers follow*

This is a story centred around two engineers, who while working on a project in their spare time, end up devising something that was quite accidental and definitely mind-blowing, and how to react to this discovery. Revealing a part of the plot, the discovery is that of time travel. Once they realise what they're holding, they begin to experiment with it, and without giving too much away, this is where the shit hits the fan.

The one BIG difference between this film, and other films about time travel, is that this one has what I think is the most realistic treatment of what would happen if such a thing existed. In all other films, such as Terminator (1, 2, or 3) and The Butterfly Effect, to name but a few, certain elements of improbability are glossed over for the sake of keeping the plot from spiralling into the realms of mystifying complexity. Dumbing down? Maybe, but it kept the film ticking over.

This one takes everything into account, with scant regard for whether the viewer is able to follow the plot threads ('a recursive problem', as one of the characters says) or not. Given that certain events in the film are precipated by the actions of the main characters where they have travelled back from a later time section in the film to witness that certain event at which their earlier selves were also present (if you...erm...know what I mean), the shit is simply confused out of everything. At one point during the film, Dan, who is one of the smartest people I know, turned around with a big smirk on his face and said "Right. Does anyone know what's going on?"

The experiment inherent in this film is admirable, but I'm not altogether sure if it succeeds. Sometimes (quite often, I'd wager) a film is quite simply better off reflecting a slightly fantastical version of events, no matter how worthy it purports to be, for the sake of the overall artistic statement. I'll have to take my hat off to that director, though, who used to be a work in various engineering firms before quitting, teaching himself film making, and then pulling this off three years later.

As someone who used to do engineering in college, and who worked an an allied domain for quite some time, I must say his representation of the people working on the device, and the process of the discovery itself, is spot on. Apart from anything else, it shows how what is fundamentally a very interesting area of intellectual endeavour can be reduced by soulless corporations to the preserve of worker drones. This is a thriller without the usual signposts of build-up and climax and it's definitely staking out new territory that way. It should definitely be slapped on all undergrad courses in film.

So that's it. It's hot stuff, but it should carry an Intellectual Advisory sticker on it, and that's coming from someone who likes maths and related technical concepts. As it is, I'll definitely need to see it again, or at least read the script, if it's up on the net by now.

A reason why gay relationships rock.

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More butcherings of the vernacular

My landlord to me: "I don't know who the fuck you think you are, but you've really pissed me."

Well, under circumstances that can only be described as startling, matters have come to a head. I'm moving out. As soon as humanly possible. The little shit mentioned above called to the flat this morning, and formally issued me with one months notice. He refused to offer it for debate, and I simply didn't care.

The ball started rolling after my encounter with the irritant yesterday, who in hindsight I should have slapped, when I rang the landlord about him. As per bloody usual, the spanner didn't answer his phone, so I left an irate message summarising what happened, and requesting that he get back to me. After a heinous day of labs, I still had heard nothing from him at 5pm, so I headed off out for St. Patrick's Day to meet the man Dan and all the other Irish pharmacy students.

Later in the night, I saw that I had missed a call and got a message from said landlord, so I rang him back.

One of the things I heard defied belief. Aside from the usual shit about how he had had complaints from other lodgers about me (I was accused to leaving the bathroom untidy, which by the standards of some of the people I live with, means nothing more than leaving a facecloth on the edge of the bath) and about how 'un-housetrained' I was, and how I had insulted his wife (where he got this from I don't know, and it's a bit rich considering the notes I got from her), he told me that one of the other tenants - no prizes for guessing who that might be - had discovered that someone had taken a dump in the downstairs bath, and had told the idiot that it was most likely me.

As I've said previously, I'm usually too nice and accommodating for my own good when I've had a few drinks in me, but right then, the exception to the rule became apparent. I lost it. I asked him how on earth he could think that I would do something like that, who had told him this (he wouldn't tell me), and I told him that I found his house to be the most depressing place I had ever lived in and that I wanted a meeting with him first thing in the morning to sort out everything.

This morning he turned up at 8:45, the time of my request, and gave me the notice. He took exception to my demand for a visit, saying 'you don't summons me', and stomped off in a huff, quickly after. For pretty much everything he said, I had a retort, but I was still glad to see the back of the gimp. He's agreed (for now) to refund some of the rent that I have payed if I move out before that month is up, which is pretty much the best case scenario from that point of view.

Rooms are currently available in university halls of residence right now, so I am going to take one of those until my exams are out of the way. First thing monday morning, I'm into the accommodation office, and hopefully I can fast track my way into a new place. The clown returns from a trip on Wednesday, and I'm hoping that I can have everything out of there by then. I'm itching to get out of there right now.

Looking on all of this, I feel a bit annoyed, because in one sense the irritant has won. I'm pretty sure he cooked up the bathturd story to stitch me up, and now he's getting what he wants, which is me out of there. But then I think about how depressing it was there, how I may have just let it go on for longer out of an aversion to having to find a new place, and how I may have lost money if I had left suddenly to take up a new place. In a way, the haemhorroid has done me a favour, albeit with intentions that were exactly the opposite. I'm not going to waste my time - well, not that much anyway - working out how to exact revenge. Apparently, he's a floor manager for MacDonalds. His life must be shitty enough already.

Phil jokingly said I should take a DNA test to prove myself innocent of the faeces. I wouldn't mind investigating the story a little more, but I really don't want to have to deal with the shmandlord any more than I have to from now on.

London didn't happen, but under the circumstances, it's probably just as well, as I wouldn't have enjoyed it as much. As it was, my St. Patrick's Day got messed up (which required messing up, for me to appreciate it) no end. Even the two hot guys I moved on in the Bulldog turned me down. Bah!

Oh fast forward beyond all of this...

MURDER!

The Scene:

Me, coming out of the downstairs bathroom, one that I wouldn't normally use, but for the previously mentioned fault with our own.

The players:
Me, and the irritant who has just come out of his own room.


Irritant: "Did you just use that bathroom?"
Me: "Yes."
Irritant: "You are not ever supposed to use that bathroom!!"
Me: "We have been told by Diane [the landlady] to use the downstairs bathrooms for the time being!"
Irritant: "No! You must never use that bathroom, that bathroom is for us only. I need to go to work!"
Me: "Yes, and I also need to go to college!"
Irritant: "Oh....You never listen to me, you are a bastard, a bad man, a bastard man(sic), a -
Me: "I am not listening to this shit, JESUS CHRIST!"
Door of flat: SLAM!

If I see him again, I may kill him. The landlord has been contacted and if he doesn't resolve this satisfactorily, I may kill him too.

Aaaaaarrrrraaaaaggggghhhhhh!!!!!

A clip

Family Guy - You've got the AIDS

Of the two with HIV that I know, one of them found it funny, the other didn't. Hmmmm....

I had a job interview yesterday. If I get it, I'm basically taken care of for working in Brighton for the summer, and hopefully the interviewer didn't cop that I was hungover from a night of frivolity chez Phil & 'Flee.

In other news, our shower is leaking. I was interrupted yesterday morning - while covered in soap - by the LANDLADY knocking on the bathroom door squeaking that I needed to turn off the water. So now I have to use the bathroom downstairs until that's fixed. Brilliant. As for the woman herself, she strikes me as a bit thick. The lights are on upstairs, but there's no-one home, know what I'm sayin'?

Going to London this weekend for a weekend of debauchery, so tomorrow (Paddy's day) is going to be quiet one, but hopefully I'll have something to blog about when I come back on Sunday.

Back in Brighton...

...And may I just say what total cunts Ryanair are, for charging me 40 euro because my suitcase weighed 20kg: Their baggage check-in limit is a ludicrously small 15kg, which is why my electric guitar is here with me now, but without the practice amplifier I wanted to bring with it. Damn them! It's been quite a while since I flied with this shitty airline, and now I am reminded why. From now on, they shall be boycotted if at all possible.

I got into Brighton just in time for ER at 10pm. I was bored and wanted to go out, but a text to the ladies who lunch of BN2 yielded no fruit. Reply next time, beeyatches!

Now I go to the accommodation office. If they have a room in halls of residence becoming vacant in the near future, the landlord will get his notice tonight. He's already offered to move me downstairs to another room - below the irritant - and as a result, I'll have full access to the main (and only decent) kitchen of the house, but I fear this won't cut it. I need to be somewhere else..

Somewhere that is still close to the Bulldog, though.

Harrrummmph.

God, Mallow holds less and less for me as time goes on.

Prior to departing to Brighton, most of my close friends I had were in Dublin, and when I went home to Mallow, which wasn't often, it was only then that I renewed acquaintances. This is fine: There are still a small group of people that I look forward to meeting up with when I come home, but most of them have moved, for the sake of their jobs, to surrounding areas, and don't go out very much. Other people I have long lost contact with, and that's no accident. Others just don't seem too pushed.

It might just be me, but if someone I hadn't seen for a while touched down on my turf for a week, I think I would make an effort to see them fairly promptly. It seems like some people just can't be bothered. Maybe it's just the simple explanation that other people have their own lives now, but I know that if I had arrived in Dublin this week, I could have counted on meeting up with at least two separate groups of people on arrival into the city.

Ho hum...

My landlord rang this morning, as it was rent day. In spite of the fact that I had left a note in my room telling his wife that I had gone home for a week and would pay him next week, and in spite of the fact that the dozy bat had read the note, she didn't tell him. Which is why he was ringing me in a tizzy this morning. I explained. He understood. Hopefully when I arrive back and explain that I'm giving him one month's notice of my intention to move out, he'll understand then too.

I e-mailed hybridimages.co.uk about the hottie I had paid tribute to earlier. He replied back with a big spiel about his photo shoots and how much they cost, but said that he could only pass on my contact details to the grizzly, not the other way around. I think I'll bite the bullet and approve that. Nothing ventured, no spirit-crushing rejections gained...

Niiiiiiccce!

This month's issue of GScene, a magazine aimed at the Brighton & Hove gay community, is a bear special. On the front cover is a man who is pretty much the quintessential essence of hotness in the male of the species.

Drool...

There is also another picture of him on the inside of the front cover that looks something like this...

Any more, I hear you cry? Just one, then...

All pictures are taken by a photographer whose site is www.hybridimages.co.uk, as you can see from the watermark. Perhaps I should e-mail him and ask him who this hottie is.

The downside of the special is that a clown who manages a certain bear pub in Brighton (and who, mystifyingly, has a nice boyfriend) gets a full interview, but you can't have everything I suppose.

At home...

...since yesterday, where my flight narrowly avoided getting redirected to another airport because of fog.

The weekend just gone was one of the more interesting ones. On Saturday, I went on a day trip to Ostende in Belgium on a bus with lots of others, quite a few of which I knew from the Winchester (which still has to change hands, at the time of going to press) and much fun was had, much mussels were eaten, and much Belgian beer was drunk. The only fly in the ointment was not knowing how to speak to the natives - in that region, they all seem to speak Flemish, which sounds like a variation on Dutch or German - and I hate having to rely on natives knowing English when it should really be the other way around.

We then headed back via the Eurotunnel, and were back in Brighton for about 9:30pm or so. Not bad transport for only £22, especially since I was sitting next to the 'Flee, availing of his tasteful lavender-walleted iPod.

Sunday night saw me in a lock-in until 4am, and so I didn't rise until rather...erm...late on Monday. Oh well.

As an aside, I know of certain people of have given up alcohol in the last while, and they have all been keen to extoll the virtues of the exercise. I am seriously considering it myself, though I fear my willpower, which is that of a dying jellyfish, may prove to be something of an obstacle. We'll see.

Oh, I've just had a sense of deja vu...

The fun never stops around here...

In spite of the fact that others have violated this rule, I've always adhered to it. Yet, even though a note was put up over said washing machine, I get my own personal reminder left in my room. Aren't I the lucky one? Also, I came down to collect my washing from the machine this morning, only to find that someone had paused it mid-cycle. I restarted it, and then headed into town. If anyone so much as moans about laundry being left in the machine when I come back, they're getting it in the neck.

To top it off, the guy (the irritant) whose room is below mine is obssessed with any amount of noise, no matter how small, that I make in my room, and has taken to banging the ceiling directly under my floor in what appears to be some attempt to make a point. God help him if he comes near me in the immediate future.

I don't think I've ever lived in a place where people are wound so tight. Even a short-term lease in university halls of residence is starting to look like an attractive option right now.

Not really the last night...

... as it looks like the transfer of the lease has fallen through, and so it may be business as usual, but hey.

That's me toward the front with the white shirt. The 0h-so-dashing cowboyhatted one to my immediate right is The 'Flee, whilst behind us crouches the Philster.

(courtesty of bn2beeyatches)

Bollocks.

My application for a placement with a Tesco pharmacy went the same way as my application to Boots. Now I'm starting to get worried. Having said that, a Kemptown pharmacy had an ad up in its window looking for a counter assistant, and my CV has been handed in.

In other news, I'm going home for a well-deserved holiday next Monday, for a week.

The Winchester

It's a pub near the top of St. George's road in Kemptown. I'd started going there rather regularly before Christmas, and when I moved to my new place a couple of weeks ago, I discovered that by happy coincidence, it was only just around the corner from where I lived.

I quite like it. It's very intimate, everyone knows each other, the barbs flow almost as freely ('fleely?) as the beer, and the Bloody Marys rock.

And now?! It's changing hands!

The low-key casual nature of the setup will, I fear, not appeal to the shark businessperson who prioritises their profit margin highly. For that reason, this may be the last we'll see of it in its current form.

This is just my luck. Storm, a bear club, closed in Brighton last year before I had a chance to check it out, I only fitted in two visits to Schwarz before that entire building was closed for 6 months for renovations, and now this. Next thing you know, they'll be closing down the Bulldog.

Hopefully this particular song will remain the same, but if it doesn't, I see splintering of groups on the horizon...

In any case, tonight is the 'last night', and all drinks are £1. I'm there.

In other news from today, a chiropracter was doing freebies in the hall that I walk through to get to lectures. I got a free 'assessment of the spine and pelvis'. Apparently there are slight misalignments of my spinal column, and some torsional irregularities in my pelvis, but this is normal in the general population. If I get a decent job over the summer, I might see to it.

The weekend

Out I went on Friday night to the Winchester for a quiet water & lime or two, after which I repaired to the Bulldog with The 'Flee of BN2Beeyatches fame. There, I got entangled with the hot n' horny Scotsman I referred to earlier, and we later went back to mine.

I'd been keeping my TV down after that missive from hell I got recently, but if the lodgers next door and underneath my floor are light of sleep, well, that night they had something else to complain about. Ha!

While on that note, The 'Flee posted up a rather fun parody of my recently received letter on BN2Beeyatches.

Pinched from BN2Beeyatches...

This is what a Word Cloud of my blog looks like. As opposed to Yeller/Slagella, I am rather happy with mine. I particularly like the juxtaposition of 'guy' and 'head'.

I'm wrecked tired...

Crap!

My application for a summer placement with Boots, which if successful meant that I would have had two months of paid work taken care of, has not been successful.

If the other applications I made go the same way, I could end up having to go back home and repeat the cycle of looking for work from my parents computer in Mallow. This does not augur well for the future of my sanity.

One down, four to go. Please God make it happen.

No ratty note left on my bed by the landlady this week, though they changed the bed covers to a blinding canary yellow and white check pattern. I'm going to have to leave them a note telling them not to touch them in future.

One of the other lodgers (he who complained when I used 'their' kitchen) continues to be an irritant. Once more, and he's going the same way as Janet Leigh's character in Psycho.

Oh My God.

Oh My God!!

I passed both of the exams I sat after Christmas!

Neither of the marks were spectacular, but considering - in my own opinion - I was borderline on one and almost certain to fail the other one, I am now very much chuffed to bits. Both of the marks were at the lower end of the passing scale, but right now, after what the last 6 weeks have been like, that is enough for me. The main thing is, I don't have to do either of them again. I don't start being assessed towards my final award until next year, so this year all I have to do is get through.

I'd love to go on the razz tonight but I'm broke - especially after last weekend - and I need to get things done tomorrow, so that's kind of a damp squib on everything. We'll see how things pan out later.

Oh huge sigh of relief...

The Weekend

After a hellish day of labs on Friday, I had a dinner at Phil's that really hit the spot, and then repaired to the Bulldog.

The drunken antics of all concerned was a source of merriment, but the hangover I had the next day most certainly wasn't. That's absolutely the last time I stay out until 5am. The extended opening hours of the Bully have their drawbacks.

Today saw me making breakfast in a kitchen which is actually considered to be available only to the bedsits outside my section, owing to the fact that in spite of the landlord being told that one of the two hobs in our own kitchen is broken, it has yet to be fixed, and now the other one has packed up as well. One schmuck from the other bedsits laboured the point that it was inconvenient for everyone else, almost to the point where I nearly strangled him. I got what he was saying, but I won't go without breakfast just to please someone else.

As it is, our own kitchenette (a small corridor with a few appliances, basically) has no oven, and I've alreay told the landlord that I may need to use the oven in the other kitchen once or twice a week. He agreed to this, but now it looks as if he needs to make the other lodgers agree to this as well. He has been texted. He'd better get back to me soon.

This place is having more than its fair share of teething problems, and while it's a given that I'll be moving out once the academic year is finished, even if I stay in Brighton for the summer, I'm now beginning to wonder if I'll even make it that far. The whole moving process took enough out of me the first time though, and it gets in the way of all things academic as well. I'll have to play this one by ear, I think.

I'm getting tired of this shit. It's been quite a while since I've had to live in a place with this kind of atmosphere. I've gone from one extreme (living on my own) to this, and because it's not the usual house share set up, it's the negative aspects of the former combined with the pain-in-the-arse aspects of this particular setup. Living on my own wasn't that bad, it was just the area I was in, in those particular circumstances.

Oh, I just want to press the fast-forward button and move beyond all this crap.

Can you say 'Control Freak'?

God Almightly, it hasn't taken long for trouble to rear its ugly head.

I came home from college yesterday after a hard day, feeling rather satisfied with myself, and found this on my bed:

Bloody hell. Ignoring the fact that as I am still in the process of unpacking, so of course it's going to be a bit untidy, these people are invading my living space and then passing comment on it. I told them I was more than capable of cleaning my room myself. As for the TV, it was never blaring, and if I was disturbed by someone else's tv, I would just ask them politely to turn it down, which is what they should do. Then there is the snotty tone, behind which it is implied that because I am a 'student', I need reminding that I must stay quiet and tidy at all times. I should say that to the one (whoever it was) who crashed up the stairs past my room at 2 am last Saturday night.

I just got off the phone from the landlord and he explained that his wife was 'in a bit of a mood' when she wrote it, to which I replied that I was put in quite the mood when I read it. He explained that she was a bit house-proud, which is fair enough, but that is quite the letter to get when you've only just moved into somewhere.

I could write her a letter back that would cut the legs from under her, but I know that it's best not to reply in anger. I'll sit on it for a while.

This is definitely not a place I will stay in for the duration of my degree though.

I have moved!

At last, I am more or less set up in the new house. I have acquired a room overlooking the seafront in Kemptown (hereafter referred to as 'bn2', its postcode) , and I am right in the middle of everything. The university is a bit far from where I am, relatively speaking, but I don't care. I can walk it in 40 minutes, whereas all my favourite pubs, clubs and shops are all within a stone's throw. The rent is saucy enough, but I'll make it up on the taxis that I won't have to get any more when going home. And I'm right next door to Brighton's main cruising ground, The Bushes.

The move from my old flat was done quite quickly, but was a bit of a nightmare at times. I fear some of my clothes may have been lost in transit, and only time will tell if they turn up again.

I never really liked the place I was living in before, and the area was chav central, so even though this new place is essentially a bedsit, the fact that the overall tone of the place is classier puts that quibble in the shade.

Last night, I had some after hours drinks in a nearby bar, until quite late. There will be other perks becoming obvious soon, I'm sure. I passed a megahot bear on the main street a couple of days ago. If I hadn't been so preoccupied with the whole removal saga, I would have swooped in, but I'm sure I'll see him again.

It's been a depressing, draining weekend, and now college has started again. I need to think about a holiday of some kind, to recharge my batteries, but now things are looking up slightly, thank God.

My head is ready to EXPLODE!

Venting time!

January has been just the worst month in a long time for me. I have had to write two time-consuming reports and study for and sit two exams, all the while being broke and concious of the fact that by this Monday coming, I have to be out of my current flat and have found somewhere to live.

Realistically, I couldn't do much househunting in the run-up to the exams, so I left it until after Friday January 27th, where I figured that the two weeks holidays would give me enough time to find somewhere else to live. It is only today that I have finally sorted out somewhere, but not everything has been finalised, and I won't know for sure what my story is until about 8pm this evening.

Not surprisingly, I'm feeling just a bit fucking burned out. I haven't had a chance to stop and take a breather since I got back here, and the two weeks holidays that were supposed to be chill-time for me have almost been as bad as the four weeks that came before them. I need a break, badly. But once I move into the new place over the weekend (enough of an ordeal, with all the stuff I have), do I get a break? Oh no. Another assignment is due in this day week and I also have to find a job, with no small amount of urgency.

I knew going back to do this course wouldn't be easy, but I am seriously feeling the pinch right now. God only knows how I am going to take this for another two and a half years.

Deep deep breaths. This time next Friday everything will hopefully feel a little bit better.

Oooohhhh.....

My face is bald

I completely shaved off my goatee this morning. I needed to start again anyway, mainly because it had gone slightly asymmetrical in the last while due to my recent shaving around it one night when I was drunk (not a good idea, don't ever take a razor to your face in a state of inebriation).

I very much regret it though. I looked better with it than without, and once it grows back, I'm leaving it there, most likely until I die.

Exasperation is...

• Getting chatted up by a guy at a bus stop
• It turns out he is a rugby player and has a fantasy body (His name was Darren and he plays for Portsmouth RFC)
• Comes to a nightclub with you

AND THEN:

• He has 'problems' getting money out of the cash machine so you end up buying him drinks and paying for putting his coat in the cloakroom
• He turns out to have more issues with himself than a bag of cats on drowning day
• He sticks his tongue down some other guy's throat but swears they are 'just good friends'
• He asks you to wait until 3am, the time the nightclub closes, and promises that he'll go home with you then...

AND THEN CHANGES HIS FUCKING MIND AND DECIDES HE DOESN'T WANT TO GO THROUGH WITH IT AFTER ALL!

Aaaaaarrrraaaaaggghhhhh!

In retrospect, the fact that the muppet had paid £350 for a pair of Prada jeans should have acted as some kind of warning light.

Current mood: Capable of murder.

¡Hola!

Inspired by the big hairy man-mountains that I saw in Bear Cub, I have decided to learn Spanish.

Knowing myself, of course, I was reluctant to shell out money for a course of book and tapes in case I gave up after two days and they ended up gathering dust on the shelf. However, one of the newspapers over here, the Independent, gave away a free learning CD of the language with its paper yesterday, and the free book to go with it today, so I bought both. Not bad for £2.70.

The course is only six weeks long, so I figure that it won't be too much of an undertaking. So...

Avanti!*


* This might not actually be Spanish.

Kate Bush - Aerial

Prologue

I waited long and listened hard, trying to arrive at a definitive opinion on this, the first album from La Bush in twelve years. Then I realised that my opinions of almost all the records I own are pretty fluid, and I can end up revising my opinion of entire albums over a year after I've heard them for the first time. So, is this one any good?

Yes it is, though sometimes I feel like adding a qualifier to that.

Me and Kate go back over 15 years. I remember seeing the video for Cloudbusting when I was in my early teens, and startled by the amount of personality in what can often be a very tedious art form for getting across the essence of a song and its band. From then I was hooked, and my sister's copy of The Whole Story was fair game. Soon after that, I got my hands on The Sensual World, which was part of the soundtrack to my sometimes miserable first attempt at higher education. One of the strengths of Kate Bush is how she simply doesn't anything like anyone else at all, and on that album it was all there. Rock outs, love songs, ethereal dream sequences, everything. One song on it, This Rocket's Tail, made singers like Robert Plant sound like petulant little brats, and that was down to the fact that she can still hold a note while howling and shrieking through a passage, and that's one of her main strengths. I discovered more of this kind of melodrama on the Hounds of Love, while working my way backwards through her catalogue.

There wasn't much howling and shrieking on the more mellow follow-up, The Red Shoes, but it still had some great moments in spite of that, the most prominent in my mind being Moments of Pleasure.

Aerial is a bit like that. It's mellow, she doesn't cut loose like on her earlier albums, and this is why she'll appeal to a certain portion of the easily-listening crowd. There's no wailing declarations of lost love or anger due to some abstract event, but there is still plenty of dreamlike compositions and abstract reference points. Songs like Bertie and Mrs. Bartolozzi, the latter of which sees her describing the minutiae of her doing her laundry(!), refer to her domestic bliss, A Coral Room has flashes of a plane crashing and an underwater city, and An Architect's Dream and The Painter's Link feature Rolf Harris (yes Puppy, you were right that time!) joining in singing about the easel and the brush, so to speak. Some of the songs also revolve around Birdsong, and the pattern on the album cover actually represents the sound wave pattern of the song of a blackbird.

The song I've linked to above is one of the better ones, and a good indication of the overall feel of the album.

(Goddammit! I can't type this entry without the CD skipping. Windows XP multitasking, my arse.)

So there you go. She still has it, even if she's reigning herself a little days. It's still a worthy buy. Just don't expect any Ninth-Waveisms.

Going by her current rate of output, we can expect the next one in 2017.

Brokeback Mountain

Just came away from seeing this, and really liked it. You'd want to have been in a coma not to have heard about all the praise being lavished on it, and I think it's the critics trying to make up for the fact that they overreacted to The Hulk, which wasn't really bad except for the CGI effects, which made Hulk himself look like the green giant out of the ads for tinned sweetcorn.

The general critical opinion is that Heath Ledger has excelled in this, and his protrayal of a surly incommunicative farm hand was spot on. Gyllenhaal's role was pretty much up there too, with him in a role I wouldn't really have imagined for him. Also, if a film can be described as 'minimal' then this is it. Everything progresses slowly, with a fair bit of emphasis on background scenery (not entirely dissimilarly to Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon), yet Ang Lee makes sure it still holds your interest all the way. It's pretty much at the opposite end to the more post-modern films of gay interest, with the traditional theme of coming to terms with love in an era where it is pretty much regarded as an aberration, at the forefront. The hype about 'steamy cowboy sex scenes' couldn't have been wider of the mark, and the film is all the better for that omission. The soundtrack complimented it well too, with a single finger-picking guitar composition running through it in a way not dissimilar to Ry Cooder's one in Paris, Texas.

So, go see. There really isn't a whole lot else out there anyway, Christ Almighty.

The trailer I saw for Walk The Line, a bio of Johnny Cash, looked pretty cool too. That has been pencilled in.

A sex entry

I went to the Bulldog on Friday night. Ten minutes inside the door and I had notched up shifts from three different guys, with one of them also engaging me ... er... further down.

My arrival was likened by Phil to that of an exocet missile. Perhaps I go too far? In any case, I also got entangled with a hot'n'horny Scotsman. Time will tell if that progresses to something more. I had acquired a headache earlier in the day that just would not go away, so I wasn't really up for moving quickly with anyone, much as I would have liked to.

Friday's exam sucked, and I fear I'll be doing that one again. This last month has been hell for all of us, and it showed on Friday evening, with a lot of people going home early or just not really in the form for a whole day of partying, myself included. But it's over now. I have two weeks to find somewhere else to live, and hopefully I'll get a job in that time as well.

Oh, the stress is starting to take its tole.

Chris Penn. October 1965 - January 2006

I heard about this on the radio last night, and sure enough, it's true. Chris Penn, brother of Seán, was found dead in his beachside apartment on Wednesday morning. He was 40 years old.

The only films I saw that starred him were Reservoir Dogs, True Romance, and Footloose, and those apart, I never really was that pushed about the rest. Having said that, I still have to see Rumblefish and Short Cuts.

Most of the articles written so far have concentrated on how his career was outshone by his more famous brother, but I found Seán's overwrought posturing a bit hard to take sometimes, and to my knowledge, Chris doesn't have an out-and-out bomb like Shanghai Surprise to his name.

Other commentators have pointed out that as his weight ballooned due to cocaine abuse, his career shrank. Maybe the latter was in fact due to the former, but I have to say I found that meatiness suited him. So here I provide some pictures:

Rest in peace Chris. You nailed a few noteworthy roles, you made more money than most people do, and you could have doubled nicely as a human duvet. Not bad, all in all.

Exams...

Had microbiology this afternoon, which basically consisted of MCQs and a short answer section.

The MCQs weren't a complete disaster, but the smell of bullshit from my written answers would have driven away a dragon. At least the labs I've had to suffer for the last three months contribute substantially to the overall course mark, and I averaged a grade B there.

Now, here I sit, at 1:20am, learning about how tablets are made, and what goes into them. I never knew they could consist of so many ingredients other than the active drug substance itself. Bloody hell. I sit this one - the last - on Friday, and then it's out on a bender from hell with the class.

Roll on the weekend.

South Park, with a rant attached.

Around a fortnight ago, Comedy Central was forced to pull the season finale of South Park, an episode entitled 'Bloody Mary'.

This particular one - there's no way of putting this delicately - features a statue of the Virgin Mary bleeding from the ass. This miracle brings people flocking to South Park to be healed, until it transpires that in fact Mary's just having a period. Then the Pope declares that 'a chick bleeding out her vagina is no miracle', and everyone goes home disgruntled.

Unfortunately for Comedy Central, the episode was scheduled to run the before the Catholic celebration of the Feast of the immaculate conception. An American organisation, the Catholic league, succeeded in having the episode pulled from the air, never to be repeated. How they managed this may something to do with the fact that Viacom, the parent company of Comedy Central, has on its board of members a staunch Catholic. The Catholic League also succeeded in securing an apology from Viacom. What's that flying out the window? It looked like the first amendment...

Last year, the Jerry Springer opera opened to substantial controversy in the UK. I didn't see it, and it looked a bit shit frankly, but in spite of protest it was shown here. It showed that although catholicism had a voice here, it wasn't an overpowering one. Which is the way it should be.

The Friday Thing, a satirical commentsheet and the source of much of the previous three paragraphs, points out that this is an indication of, on the other hand, how much influence Catholicism has in the ol' Red White and Blue right now. Similarly offensive episodes have been aired previously (a couple of years ago, to be precise), but when the Catholic League tried to intervene then, they were told to fuck off. Something appears to have changed.

South Park is funny. Its subversion is rudimentary, it can often be peurile, and it's nowhere near as clever as The Simpsons was, but it does have one substantial jewel in its crown: Eric Cartman. He alone makes it worth watching.

The tenets on which the Catholic church have founded itself are so ridiculous - and, it should be pointed out, damaging to women and minorities in general everywhere - that it has no-one to blame but itself for becoming this kind of target. Its bound to be offensive to some catholics, but considering the whole subtext of the immaculate conception in general (docile woman accepts pregnancy as a gift from God, without sullying herself with the 'sin' of intercourse) the church have brought this on themselves.

So. I am going to help in my own little way. Here is a link to a bittorrent location of the episode.

It's fair to say that Matt Stone and Trey Parker wouldn't have the balls to try something like this with the Muslim faith though, even though that's as deserving a target as Christianity.

And now to my next point.

Comedy Central has pulled another another episode of South Park this week. It's called "Come out of the Closet" Tom Cruise. You don't have to be a genius to deduce from the title what that one is about, and all that reminds me of something.

There is rather irritating tendency for people inside and outside the gay community to 'out' people, as soon as they come 'under suspicion'. Even in academia, gay activists such as Andrew Hodges and David Hutter, in the pamphlet 'With Downcast Gays' (a good read, though flawed by its militant politics) point out that the writer E.M. Forster 'betrayed' the gay community by remaining in what was essentially 'the closet'. Maybe he did the gay community a disservice, maybe he didn't, but whom he slept with was ultimately his own business.

Fast forward quite a few years, and now we have people pointing the finger at everyone from Kevin Spacey to Tom Selleck to Tom Cruise. What the fuck does it matter if they are or not? If we (or more accurately, the media) have advanced to the point where we are 'accepting' of other people's preferences, why do we still have to know what their gender of preference is? It's none of our business.

I was in a pub once, in a discussion with someone about a work colleague that neither of us particularly liked. Up came the subject of the unlikeable one's sexual orientation. "At least you say what you are", pointed out the other drinker. To this day, I don't particularly think the unlikeable one is gay, and I couldn't care even less, but I'm pretty convinced that subconciously, the other drinker intended it [his orientation] as a slur because he didn't like him, not out of objectivity or some crusading purpose.

I'm pretty sure that this is what is at the root of what goes on with a lot of outing. A gay person's life is improved immeasurably once they come out. It could almost - though not quite - be argued that by outing someone, you are doing them a favour. But you are also performing an invasion of privacy that is pretty much without equal, and it is almost always something other than altruism that is behind someone making the demand that someone else come out of the closet. It is inevitably more about demander, than demandee.

Tom Cruise has attracted this shit because, on the surface, he is someone that attracts begrudgery. He has made a lot of money playing to the standard Hollywood archetype of the 'red-blooded' action hero, much, it has to be said, to the detriment of the more artistic aspects of his profession. He is good-looking - though not, I must stress, at all my type - and has had quite a few beauties on his arm.

He's also a bit of an arse, with all the Scientology, and in that rubbish about Brooke Shields he really was operating outside his field of expertise. In fact he should have been slapped hard across the face for that one, and it is this characteristic of his that lead people to react by characterising him contemptously. And it's pretty telling to see what they come out with.

Ricky Martin has attracted it. Paul Newman has attracted it. George Michael attracted it for some time before he was very publicly caught, but sometimes there is smoke without fire. Sometimes it's just mean-minded unattractive jealousy with a twist of disrespect for gay men. If you disparage someone, including their orientation as backup can turn the spotlight on what your core beliefs really are, and it can make for a rather unattractive sight.

The 'outing' of politicians that have a history of opposing gay rights is somewhat different, and serves a worthwhile purpose in one sense, but it still leaves a nasty taste in my mouth, because by their 'exposure' - try as much as you like to get away from it - you are equating their orientation with something shameful. I suppose the end just about justifies the means, but only just. I wish there was some other way though.

Lastly, some of the gay community are at this as well. Is it out of a sense of injured loyalty, or do they feel better if a closet gay man finally comes around to joining their ranks? I can't imagine why the latter would be the case. Some say that by remaining in the closet, a public figure contributes to the oppression of gay men and women, forgetting that if there was no oppression, whether or not they are in the closet simply wouldn't be an issue for anyone except themselves.

Tom Cruise's decision to remain secretive is most likely motivated by career considerations. The offers of a lead role as a hero in an action movie would probably dry up if he came out. Maybe there's more to it, but if I'm confronted with one prick taking issue with another prick on the basis of the sexuality of the latter, I'm not so much on the side of the latter, as against that of the former.

So. South Park, as entertaining as it can be, is not really so cool with this episode. It's probably not the intention of Stone and Parker, they're most likely just trying to get up the nose of Cruise himself. Unfortunately, the screen 'idol' succeeded in getting Comedy Central to pull that one as well by threatening to sue them, so he's pretty much won, and strangely enough, I don't feel too outraged about this.

You can still watch it here though, and judge for yourself. I'm nothing if not fair.

P.S. If you think there is hypocrisy evident in this post, you need to get a sense of history. Fast.

Maybe I have a nice natural smell?

The Scene: Denis in the lift, headed for the ground floor. A woman gets on halfway down. I recognise her (I think) as one of the lab technicians from the microbiology department.

Her: "That's a nice eau-de-toilette you're wearing. What is it?"
Me (Not sure if I heard right): "Sorry?"
Her: "That's a nice eau-de-toilette you're wearing. What is it?"
Me: "Er....I'm not wearing any..."
Her (surprised): "Oh..."

The lift stops at my floor. I get out.

Me (over my shoulder, back towards her): "It must be someone else's..."

I'm no good at accepting unsolicited compliments from strangers.

I do wear 'Body Mechanics for Men' from the Body Shop as a deodorant though. Maybe it was that.

A thought about alcohol

I become a much nicer, more friendly person when I'm drunk. Too much so, it could be argued. I suppose it's better than what happens with a lot of people, which is that they get aggressive, or near-psychotic, and start getting into fights. I'm the opposite. If I get confronted with that kind of trouble, I usually dispel it with loads of unthreatening amicability.

There is a downside to this. During a night out which involves beer, I can ending up entertaining the most moronic argument or slagging match and hearing the other person out, and it is only the next day, when I wake up, that I realise that sometimes a box into the face can work wonders for people who turn into a shambling mess after a drinking session. Or at the very least, walking off and leaving them on their own when their back is turned.

Current mood: Exasperated

Back in Brighton...

Exams in two weeks, and what do I do on my first day back? Go out drinking. And stay out until 7am. This is simply NOT on. I've got work to do!

Over Christmas I had ordered the DVD of 'Bear Cub', a film that first came out over a year ago but, thanks to the fact that it wasn't shown over here at the time and I missed subsequent screenings of it, one that I hadn't got around to seeing. This was wrecking my head verily, as my interest had been seriously piqued by the trailer, or more accurately, the men in the trailer. Watch it and I think you'll agree. I tried to do a screen capture of one of the scenes on the DVD and include it here, but it keeps fucking up, so no joy.

Anyway, I came back to Brighton on Sunday night (Boy, was getting a train from Gatwick at 11:20pm a barrel of laughs. Especially when the train timetable display changed the platform number of interest TWO MINUTES before the train came in) and found the DVD in my letterbox, much to my delight. A quick rendez-vous with Phil and it was decided that we would watch it on the plasma screen at his place to do it justice. With two bags of Nachos, dip, buttered popcorn, chocolate and alcohol in hand, we settled down.

Set in Madrid, the film tells the story of how a gay dentist, whose life is one big party, ends up looking after his 9-year old nephew after the mother is detained indefinitely in a different country. Add to this the fact that the boy's paternal grandmother wants custody of the child as she believes, surprise surprise, a gay man does not for a fit parent make.

The difference between this and almost every other film I've seen of gay interest is how it resonated in so many ways with me at an everyday level. Right from the opening slightly comedic sex scene, I was going 'Lord, I know what that's like.' A scene where the lead character is in the sauna having his nipples played with brought back to me how many times I've already had to tell guys that tit torture has never been my thing (I must be the only gay man on the planet who feels like this, from what I can see), a part where they are all mangled on cocaine made me laugh out loud, it brought back so many memories, and the prowling of the cruising areas reminded me of what I could avail of later, if I felt like it.

Other than that, the standard themes of HIV, homophobia etc. were dealt with in a very straight-up no-nonsense way. As a piece of art, the film didn't break a huge amount of ground, but it was probably the most realistic representation of the gay lifestyle I've seen in some time. And the men rocked. Loads of big hairy eye-candy everywhere. The only fly in the ointment was that I missed a thing about Richard Dawkins on BBC something, and also a programme about linguistics (they were doing a thing on the mauling of the English language by management-speak, a pet peeve of mine) but hey.

Anyway, it was kickin'. Get it out, and make sure you get the directors cut, with all the sex scenes left intact, so you can see it at its artistic best, har har.

So after that, we went out drinking, went back to the house, drank some more, watched some porn, and drank some more again. I then left, mystifyingly refusing the offer of a bed, at half-past bloody four in the morning and went cruising in The Bushes. There, I got entangled with a guy, and walked all the way home afterwards, thanks to the dearth of taxis around at the time. Bloody cabbies! What do they think they're doing, knocking off before 6am!

Today, I rose rather late. Lectures tomorrow. No more debauchery. There's a new man in town.

Oh déjà vu...

And onto a new year...

Well, it's been, and I got a little drunk and demented in Dingle, and now it's gone, and I'm on the last leg of the holidays. Time to get on the new year's resolutions. Smokes and alcohol shall feature, as usual. Let's see if I can make it work this year. My stomach is extremely pissed off with how I've been shovelling junk into it indiscriminately, and it's been letting me know in know uncertain terms: While I was out in partying over the past couple of days, I had to keep a toilet nearby at all times. Uurgh...

I had a fear when I came home for the holidays that I would end up getting no study done. I have got some done, but all of this work could more or less be compressed into one day. I refuse to get upset about it. I have one week left.

When I go back, I have exams at the end of January. I also have to find somewhere new to live before the 8th of February. On top of that, I have to find a proper part-time job so that I can be more self sufficient. It's going to be a busy month.

Now I go do laundry. Excitement!