Confused by the last post?

It's from a Public Information Film from the 70s on dental hygiene. 'Jeremy' is a lion with a roaring toothache. The nasally whining character who says "he eats too many sweets" is a crocodile (or is it alligator?) - as far as I know, un-named. I always felt sorry for poor Jeremy - after all, what lion doesn't like sweets, and for fuck's sake, lions don't have opposable fucking thumbs, how the fuck are they supposed to clean their teeth? The alligator/crocodile on the other hand has a small bird which hops around in it's mouth picking bits of food out with it's beak. It's just not fair. Poor Jeremy.

Anyway, no-one else in the world seems to remember it, but I've been reliably informed that it's on "Charley Says", a dvd compilation of PIFs.

Now I'm off to entice a small bird to hop around my mouth.

posted at 11:13 AM •

This one's for you Dave,

Now - can anyone remember the rest?

posted at 1:18 PM •

We've got a sweetie dispenser at work - one of those old gumball style ones. It's filled with Jelly Belly, and we have to deposit either a 1p piece or a 5p piece to get between 4 and 6 of the flavoursome beans.

It's a total raffle as to what flavours you'll get of course, and each time I struggle to work out what flavour each one is supposed to be.

In light of my difficulties, I've devised a handy chart.

Here be it be.

posted at 4:08 PM •

The funny thing about blogging for me is that as soon as I announce I'm taking a break, I find loads of things I want to write about.

I've not intentionally taken a break since my birthday, but things have just been a little fraught and confused since then. The birthday weekend itself went pretty well, but left me feeling very very tired.

Since that weekend, I've been having really horrendous toothache. And I don't have a dentist. And I don't like going to the dentist even if I had one.

I don't know what's wrong with me and I'm having difficulty thinking straight with the pain and the resulting sleepless nights. I need t get this fixed, but I can't seem to organise myself to get it done.

Half the problem is I'm embarrassed that I've not been to the dentist in nearly two years and my teeth are a total mess. I've got huge cavities, missing fillings and chipped and cracked teeth. There's the embarrassment, but also the expense.

So I'm feeling wretched and pathetic. I just want someone to come along and look after me, and it just ain't going to happen.

posted at 1:59 PM •

GWM seeks DMC
PHP with IBS
P2P for B&S or MIA
OMG it's SJP at GAP

31 - 2 busy ^ 2 blog.

posted at 5:45 PM •

More birthday wishes.
A hug from my Mum.
An apology from John.
A new laptop.
An end to my financial and mortgage worries.
A boyfriend.
A new bike.
A big pile of grade-A charlie.
Pecs.
Bis.
Glutes.
Oh, the hell with it - a whole new body.
Dirty horny guilt and anxiety-free sex with a gorgeous musclebear.

...sigh, so this is 31? I'm off to get pissed - you know where I'll be, you're all invited.

posted at 5:26 PM •

For my birthday wish, I'd like Morgan Spurlock, or the cash equivalent. Thanks.

posted at 1:05 PM •

Thanks to Peter, my comedy partner.

posted at 11:06 AM •

I haven't carried a watch since losing my last one in a back-street gay fetish club in the east-end of London imaginatively called Backstreet. The watch was a present from my friend Neil, from a holiday in Spain with his boyfriend and Mother. The watch meant a lot to me, and after losing it, a certain sparkle seemed to disappear from my life. Time stopped.

I didn't buy a replacement watch. Watches are funny things - little pieces of eternity strapped to our wrists. In any case - time, and by that I mean chronological time is almost ubiquitous. I stopped looking on my wrist, and instead kept track of the day on the dash of my bike, my laptop menubar, my mobile phone.

Except I'm useless with mobile phones - I can never remember to charge them up. With my last phone, a Nokia, this wasn't so much of a problem, as Nokia phone chargers are pretty much ubiquitous too. But my current phone is a Sharp, and it has a fat ugly connector that no-one seems to have. I only have one, which most of the time I keep next to my desk at work. But I still forget.

This week I've sort of forgotten to charge my phone on purpose. I haven't spoken to my sister for over a month - she's too self-absorbed to make the effort, despite me constantly making the effort to get in touch with her, go see her etc. I'm not going to bother any more. I've had two phone messages from her this week - one on my land-line and one on my mobile, and both times I've received them too late in the evening to return the call.

I've not received a birthday card from her - though I usually leave home before the post, so the card could arrive today, probably with an enclosed cheque in lieu of trying to think of something I might actually like. It's the currency of our family - cash or cheques first - and it's been about six or seven years since I started to see through this and actually be mildly offended when the hastily scrawled slip of paper fell out of the envelope.

Still. It's not all bad.

Happy Birthday eternity.

posted at 10:24 AM •

The new job comes with some perks. One of our clients is a large film company, and we get invites to press screenings of upcoming releases. I've discovered there's this vast underworld of preview screenings that means it's possible to see films weeks and months in advance without paying.

So far I've seen 'I, Robot', 'DodgeBall', 'The Life and Death of Peter Sellers' and 'Garden State'. The last one I'd seen the trailer for a month or so back, and was eagerly looking forward to - the first feature by Zach Braff, aka 'that guy from Scrubs'.

The film follows Andrew Largeman through a haze of prescription medication as he returns to his home town in New Jersey for his Mother's funeral.

I was expecting to be moved by it in a fairly raw sort of way - mothers dying being a bit of an emotive topic for me. Well, it didn't hit me as hard as I had imagined - I had visions of me curled up in a fetal position nestled amongst the popcorn, sobbing and sucking my thumb. Seeing as I was with other members of my company, I was quite glad when the movie ended on quite a feel-good note.

Still, combined with the fact that it's my birthday this week, and remembering where I was this time last year it's made me more introspective than usual - I want to try to write more about how I'm feeling here, but I just can't get my thoughts together. So instead here's some lines from one of the songs from the film. 'Let Go' by Frou Frou.

Drink up baby down.
Are you in or are you out?
Leave your things behind,
'Cause it's all going off without you.
'Scuse me, too busy,
You're writing your tragedy.
These mishaps, your bubble wrap, when,
You've no idea what you're like...

Let go
Just get in
Oh it's so amazing here.
It's alright,
'Cause there's beauty
In the breakdown.

posted at 1:00 PM •

Yes, I'm angry.

I'm angry my life hasn't turned out the way I'd imagined or hoped or dreamed. I hesitate to say 'planned' because I know that most of my life has happened without the aid of planning. My career for example, just kind of 'happened' - I made a few lucky decisions and it just fell in my lap.

I'm at a crossroads at the moment - do I start planning things more, or do I stop trying to make things happen and just let life carry me where it will?

Anyway, I need to stop being so damn sensitive - which would be a damn site easier if certain people weren't so insensitive and self-absorbed (says the man with the blog). The lodger - of course he didn't mean to offend me, but well, he could have thought about what he was saying a little bit. When he excitedly told me about his new job three weeks ago - earning £12k less than me - I didn't laugh in his face and wave my payslip in his face.

*sigh*

Anyway - a funny thing happened on the way to the office.

Walking along Oxford Street, I bumped into Gary, my old landlord from my year in Middlesbrough, about 10 years ago. He'd changed a fair bit, and I amazed myself with my ability to remember a face.

Gary couldn't have been that much older than me when I lodged with him, and suddenly I realised how my life has turned out much as his had been when I lived with him. His mother had died a year or so before I lived with him, followed by the breakup of his relationship which had only kept going because he had been grieving.

Funny how my life is constantly full of coincidence...

posted at 2:12 PM •

FUCK OFF

One minute, everything's going great - I've got home from work on time, I've done two loads of laundry (and hung them on the airer) - I've been to Tesco's and got the cat some food, and I've settled down with a big slap up tex-mex meal and a 'Shaun of The Dead' on DVD.

Then the lodger comes home.

"Guess who's got a date with Mike the gorgeous new barman in the King's Arms?"

Let's see now - who could it be...

Oh for fuck's sake, why can't I get a fucking date with one fucking decent bit of fucking totty? Why do I have to bump into couples I used to know when I was with John who ask me things like "how is he?"

How is he? How the fuck should I know how he is? I spend nearly every day of my life with him for five and a half fucking years, and then one day he decided he'd try being my ex instead, and moved to the other side of London, never to call me again.

ARRRRRRRRRGH.

What. The. Fuck. Did. I. Do. To. Deserve. This?????

posted at 11:56 PM •

To cut a long story short - and trust me, the long story could get very long - my contract was renewed yesterday.

The details are yet to be confirmed, but it's going to be between six to twelve months on a renewable basis.

It's been a hard, long twelve months, a difficult last two years, but finally I feel like things are working out. The job is a dream, and I've got a good feeling it can only get better.

I'm off out now to have a little celebratory drink - well, actually I've been invited to my boss' 30th birthday drinks, and I guess it's not something I should miss.

posted at 8:12 PM •

I woke up one Saturday morning in the summer of 2001 to find my world about to change forever. John was standing over me holding a letter.

"It's from the letting ageny - the landlord intends to sell the flat."

It was maybe the first time I'd seen John look helpless, and the first step on the path that would eventually lead to us splitting up.

"OK, we'll buy the place," I said, and dropped back off to sleep.

I knew it wasn't going to be easy, but we had a lot of things going for us. We had been talking about some point in the future when we might buy a house together, and this brought the issue to the here and now. I had been made redundant a month or so earlier, but had managed to get a job at a small company within two weeks of finishing at my previous company. It was a freelance position at the time, but the odds looked good that it would go full-time. John had also changed jobs, and although he was earning less than me, his position was full-time.

The fact that I was on a freelance wage worked out in our favour. For two or three months I diverted all my income into saving as much as I could towards a deposit. Everything that could went on plastic. I was going to do this without the help of my family - self-sufficiency above all things.

The purchase went extremely smoothly, I managed to get 5% deposit together, and with John's job security we managed to get a mortgage. In the space of three months, we went from being tenants to homeowers - no stress of purchase chains, no moving, no big date - just a seemless but significant change from one state to the other.

I don't regret buying the flat, not one bit - it's in my nature to overcome obstacles like that, and I can't see that I would have done anything different. But it was one of the pieces of the jigsaw of mine and John's breakup - and although I have come to terms with most of what happened last year, there are some things that at best I will have to reach a compromise of emotions with.

posted at 3:29 PM •

URGENT PLEA

Does anyone have a copy of The Observer Magazine from 22nd August lying around? My mate Diana, the transsexual Traffic Warden was featured in a random interview and I really would love a copy of it. The interview can be read here - you have to imagine it in a geordie accent for full effect.

If you spend any amount of time in Soho, London, you may have seen her - you may even have received a parking ticket from her. She's a wonderful woman, a total club-whore, and has the most amazing collection of vinyl I've ever seen. I should probably do an interview of her myself...

posted at 1:57 PM •

Arrived at work 45 minutes early.

Sat outside on front stoop for 15 minutes.

The best laid plans and all that - but gasp - work is still going exceedingly well. It's the quiet ones you've got to watch out for. The lodger is also managing to stay in my good books (despite being 185% more successful with the fellas than me - never mind, vicarious shags are quite fun).

The vacançe du banque was fairly quiet for me. Went out on Saturday night despite my better intentions and threatening phone-calls from my bank - strange that, seeing as they should have been on holiday. Spent an enjoyably maudlin evening with one of my best mates, Neil, ogling the same three men that everyone else was ogling. All French too. Hmm, I just can't seem to get enough of these Frenchies. (And by 'can't seem to get enough' I mean I don't get any).

It's OK though - la la la, I'm happy.

Woke up this morning feeling gloriously first of Septemberish. Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. Oh, and birthday presents. A week on Friday in case you're wondering. If anyone is feeling generous, www.stevepowell.com is going for a mere $975.

posted at 9:32 AM •