NINE 2 FIVE

It’s been a busy few days, I am practically strangers with my sofa, but there seems to have been so much to do. However I don’t know how I get anything done at the moment what with it being night time from about 4pm in the afternoon.

Here are some notes from the last two weeks, and I offer them by way of a chronicle for your amusement and interest.

TOO TIRED TO WORK, TOO YOUNG TO RETIRE

I seem to be too tired to think today. I have reached brain overload, and achievement burn out. It is only Thursday but I feel like I've squeezed two weeks’ worth of work into 4 days. It is only 5 pm but it feels like midnight. It has been a very busy week, and these early dark evenings don't help, but I think that perhaps the truth is that I am now too old to work and should be given early retirement and or 25 years gardening leave. At least that would mean that the grass would finally get cut, and the gates painted. I have started to obsess a little recently about the spine tingling horror, knowing that early retirement is at least 15 years away and probably more like 20 years away, induces! To think I'm going to have to work for as long as I've already been working is a concept too far. There's always marrying up, but I'm very happy on my own at the moment. There's a lottery win, but that requires guessing the correct numbers - harder than it sounds. So I don't know, but I am reviewing my options and hope to have my master plan fully functioning and risk assessed sometime within the next 10 years. I can't begin to think how tired I'll feel by the time I'm 65.

LEAVE THE BOTTLE

Thursday saw Robbyn and I going to a wonderful wine tasting class, yes I know, horse, stable door etc, but it was excellent. We had to do, swirling round the glass, smelling and some ‘yes I’m definitely getting some driving gloves here, and maybe a spot of roasted duck’ we did swilling round the mouth and gauging how the wine worked on different taste buds, we did holding the wine in the bottom of our mouths whilst drawing air in to make sure all our receptors got a good blast. Absolutely wonderful.

EVERYONE NEEDS GOOD NEIGHBOURS

I met one of my neighbours last night. He came round to share some sad news about another neighbour who has been taken unwell, perhaps terminally. Now my elderly neighbour, who is ill, I have known her for the 10 years I've been in my flat, and we chat and share the time of day and swap ailment stories etc, like a pair of gooduns. But this man who came round I didn't know him from Adam. I said 'have you just moved in next door?' he said' No I've lived there for 10 years' How can someone have lived next door to me for ten years and I didn't know, let alone have never said hello and introduced myself. I felt very bad about that, so shook his hand extra sincerely and told him to keep me posted, and let me know if there was anything I could do to help.

Sadly my neighbour died a couple of days later – end of a mini era for me and very sad.

LIKE OLD FRIENDS DO

I got a wonderful message from a blast from the past, someone who I haven’t seen for at least 10 years. Anyway when I first met ‘Alice’ he was just 19 and now he is 30, which made me feel terribly old myself. He came round and it was wonderful to catch up, laugh about the past, remember silly things from long ago, and to hear how lives have moved on, grown and the ups and downs of in between. So my top life advice today is say hello to someone you haven’t said hello to for years and spend a bit of time laughing and catching up.

HOT CLOTHING

I had a long and intense sms extravaganza with Adrian mid week; let’s just say he’s not overly happy with my stain control, laundry temperature and general adherence to strict, but basic principles. He’s put me down for retraining. Hotter, longer, stronger, more powder! No it’s not an 80’s porn remake it’s a way of life!

COSTA RICAN TRAGEDY

Well all I can say is what a week for me to return to the Archies. Who would have thought that a radio drama based around people saying things like......

‘Have you seen Shula?’
‘You mean Kenton’s sister? No sorry, why?’
‘Oh it’s just that Ian..’
‘Adam’s civil partner?’
‘Yes, it’s just that Ian wanted to ask her where Susan was’
‘Why, is it about the lambing?’
‘No it’s just he wants to crush her skull and burn down the fucking shop so she stops her incessant whining!’

.......could be so wonderful and so compelling. Have another large gin and tonic tiger, that’s all I have to say on the matter.

MAKING ALCOHOLISM ACCEPTABLE

I wondered this morning at about 10.30 whether it was too early to have a cocktail. I called my Sommelier immediately and she said yes, unless you added tomato juice to it and called it a bloody Mary. Then it’s all kosher and guardian reader and even children can have them.

AND THE WINNER IS....

So on Wednesday night I rehashed one of my old roles, no not Diamante Alas, but rather as international master of ceremonies and glamorous compére for the world renowned Community Education Student Awards ceremony. It is a very popular evening, a little more Argos than BAFTA perhaps, with some church heating fund jumble thrown in for good measure, but it went mostly smoothly. I announced student after student and stumbled through some very tricky surnames, but we all got there in the end and everyone had a fantastic evening. Apparently in the event feedback, some people had commented on how good the Compére had been. It actually said Compeer though.

WHEN ALL IS SAID AND DONE

Well that’s me; I’m just splashing a bit of bleach around now a bit like a priest with the holy water at the blessing of the boats. I’m also roasting some almonds, and then before I go to see the gurlz and my goddaughter I'll try and pen down some ideas for my new rock opera/concept album.

I learnt some important life lessons tonight.

1. It’s not so bad going to concerts on your own.

2. The city is a bitch to traverse and trying to get across it just following your nose isn’t always the best option.

3. I can no longer read tiny print in half light – problematic when one is relying on the A-Z when lost in the city.

So I have been to a wonderful wonderful concert at the Barbican. Whenever I say the word Barbican I remember a rant, I think by Alexi Sale, about the Barb-e-can! I heard Diamanda Galás, Arthur H, Momus, Camille O'Sullivan, Arno and Marc Almond singing Jacques Brel songs – beautifully. An amazing venue and lots of hair on the back of the neck moments.

I’ve returned, finally, to see Question Time with Nick Griffin which seems to be the political story of the week. People have been making reference to the rise of the NF in the 70’s which made me remember discussions at primary school during the 1979 elections. None of us knew anything about politics, obviously, we were 10! I don’t know if we even knew what the NF stood for. I don’t remember being aware of what racism was. But I clearly remember someone telling me that that if the NF got in, they would abolish schools, so we wouldn’t have to go any more. Milk Snatcher got in anyway, and the rest, is, unfortunately, history. Maggie Maggie Maggie – out out out!

Someone asked me today whether I wanted to donate to the postal worker’s support fund. I said that I would if it went towards getting my fucking letters through the door. I’m sure the CWU has a very extensive strike fund, so I won’t be donating.

Getting back to the TV, which I seem to have started watching again after several months of none/very little. I have mostly been enjoying Escape to the Country, Ru Paul's Drag Race, Newsnight and This Week, but last night I caught Secret Millionaire. I haven’t blubbed so much for ages, apart from the breast cancer care QVC special last week, you’ll have to excuse me for that one. And talking of Breast Cancer Care - please do send them some money this Christmas - they are an amazing charity. I know many people give charitable donations at this time of year so once you've sent a few quid to the Albert Kennedy trust at https://rsm2.rsmsecure.com/cpterminal/cpweb.php please send some money to BCC at www.breastcancercare.org.uk/donate/

Oh well, Friday tomorrow – thank frig!

PS: as always - better to view this at the website - then you'll see any video links http://www.wgodwinesq.blogspot.com/

Are you comprehending my definition?

So, yes I know I'm as street as the next honcho, or is it poncho - oh it's all so confusing these days.

But anyway thems of you what wish to hipity hop in a batty boy stylkee now have a get out of jail free card with new 'no homo'.

This allows one to go jigggy jiggedy wid it, but not to actually be a batty boy. So you suck, then you say 'no homo' then you fuck and you say 'no homo'.

Simples.

From the urban dictionary:

Phrase used after one inadvertently says something that sounds gay.

His ass is mine. No homo.

As this is quite a complex concept, some americans have produced an instructional video.

Enjoy and learn.

No Homo!

(PS: you'll need to actually go to the blog website to see the video http://www.wgodwinesq.blogspot.com/)

The Joy of Reading

My Mother’s bedside table was always piled high with books, like the walls of a great castle. There was strength in those literary walls, and she certainly obtained a great deal of strength from her literary life. She loved books of all kinds, but in particular poetry. Her favourite author was Thomas Hardy, and from her love for him she developed a love of Wessex. We used to decide what books to buy her based on their weight rather than necessarily the content. At each birthday and Christmas I would scour book shops and the internet to try and find a new take on an old favourite, or a new collection of poetry, or an otherwise hidden literary or historical gem.

When she died earlier this year Dad invited me to take some of her books if I liked. So over the past few months I have brought a handful back each time I have gone to visit him. I have now amassed what is known as the Zena Godwin memorial library. I have tried to take books which I remember as having significance for her, and one day hope to get through them all. There is Betjeman, Hardy, Byron, Woolf, Seamus Heaney, Vera Britain, Tennyson and Brooke to name a few.

Growing up in our house one would often hear or ask the question ‘Where’s mum?’ this would usually be answered with ‘upstairs, reading’. It’s where she went to get away from us I suppose, and to revel in a fantasy world a million miles away from family life in Leamington Spa (Royal).

I'm with her on that one though, as I too have used reading to create a little bit of time out and personal space when sharing a home. And there is nothing worse than the noise of someone else’s TV viewing when all you want is a bit of peace and quiet and time on your own. The bed and the book can therefore be a wonderful refuge, a place of quiet escape.

So I do love reading, and have become a bit like mum with several books piled high on the bedside table. Some I have given up on, some I am reading, some I will come back to, some are good for little bits of dipping into, and some are sitting their enticing me to finish my latest so I quickly move on and start to enjoy them. Some I may never pick up and will move back to the shelves or be given away as presents. I am usually focused on one, but like to keep my options open. You'll see from the pic that I am starting to build my own castle walls and have plenty to choose from.

Hey Mr Postman - post a fucking letter!

I decided to write to the Deputy General Secretary of the Communication Worker's Union (CWU) this evening as I've reached the end of my patience with this 'action'.

Just fucking deliver our letters for fuck's sake why don't you!


Dear Mr Ward

Can you please tell me why all these weeks of disrupting my post is supposed to make me support your claims? Won’t it simply make customers and companies choose other post distribution options?

You really are pissing the nation off now - so when are you going get a grip and start thinking about the customers. Yes I am a union member, and yes I understand the issues, but ultimately the delivery of services is about the service user/customer’s needs primarily.

I work with a lot of social workers for example, and yes if they had an industrial grievance I would support them, but ultimately I would be more concerned for the old ladies who were going without a service, and would put their needs above an industrial disagreement.

You are digging your own grave which is a shame as the royal mail used to be a good service when your members went to work. But someone else will come along soon who will deliver the post – face it you aren’t.

You will win or lose the people’s hearts based on whether you deliver their post on time or not. If Christmas stuff sits in sorting offices, and isn’t delivered like last year, you’ll find plenty of labour voters hoping that Mr Cameron, when he gets in next May, will get another company to manage the nation's post.

William Godwin

Too Much Service

Don't get me wrong I like a good service as much as the next man, and I know I would be quick off the mark to complain should I receive a bit of your actual usual standard British customer service. But you can go too far I says.

Having ordered some music from the www.interwap.com the other day I perchanced upon this email in my inbox this morning.

'Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved "Bon Voyage!" to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, October 5, 2009.

We hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. In commemoration, we have placed your picture on our wall as "Customer of the Year." We're all exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!'

Do you think they are taking the piss?

Give, Give, Give - Run, Run, Run

After a hard week in the office ensuring the infirm of South London are smiled at, the Rozzers are up to speed with the hoodlums, and enough Library books have been checked out I don’t know about you, but I like to relax with a marathon. In fact I’ve just finished my cool down session pre typing.

It does feel good though, and I am so pleased with myself. Today’s first marathon, my second of the weekend, was actually a slightly shorter than marathon fun run in aid of Breast Cancer Care. It started at 11.30 am and the first place winner came through the tape about 17 mins later. It was sometime later that I finished, but still.

My first marathon of the weekend took place last night on the Southbank and took 3 and a half hours. Some of it was really tough going, but I think once I’d reached the halfway stage the adrenalin started to kick in and by the end I was really enjoying it.

My third marathon, well snickers actually, is waiting in the fridge and I shall be running into the kitchen to get that just as soon as I’m able to crank the winch up!

Ok so I haven’t just become a super fit Lycra wearing bond girl/beardy boy conglomeration (although I think it is good to have something to aim for in life) Last night’s marathon was Brecht at the National - Mother Courage and her Children. It had its ‘drama workshop’ moments and there were a couple of songs which we could all have done without, but it was a vibrant and interesting production with great live music throughout. At the interval it seemed that nearly everyone in the audience needed to do a big elephant wee. There are never usually queues for the men’s loo. But I suppose everyone has a drink before they go in and the interval wasn’t until we had already ploughed through 2 ¼ hours of the great man’s work.

The fun run was real though, but I was treasurer and marshal not actual runner. I gave all the runners the clap they so richly deserved - handing out the ‘taking part’ medals (you all know my views as to whether it is actually the taking part that counts or not) No silver blankets as it wasn’t that hard. All I can say is ‘Vada the omee-palone bona lallies’. But as well as having to carry around all the entrance fee money, so being a key mafia target – we did make a lot of money for breast cancer care, I also had a walkie talkie. The thing about me is, that at heart I am a boy, so boy’s stuff is great, and a walkie talkie is in the top 10 of boy’s stuff all time greats. Now I didn’t use it for a lot more than asking for more tea, and asking for lost property announcements to be made over the tannoy. Next year I’m hoping I can be promoted so I can whizz round the place in a golf buggy. In fact I might even get myself a golf buggy for personal use anyway (more like a mobility scooter).

So that’s me - all culture and good works. Now all I’ve got to do is get through all the weekend papers, finish last weekend’s papers, read Time Out, finish Attitude and Intelligent Life, finish The Hours, start Michael Palin's new dairies, then it will be bedtime and another week will start. The circle of life is a heady one. Only another 15 years until I can retire!!!

Keep warm, as it is Autumn/Winter now. I’ve heard scarves are in this winter as are warm jumpers – so get knitting and look out for your neighbours.

News Just In

So apart from my clever brother being 3rd story on BBC entertainment news today a few other stories have caught my ears and eyes.

Firstly Delroy Smellie - now how does one get through school with a surname like that? I ask you - near on impossible. It surely has to be the worst possible of all monicas. Anyway whatever pain he felt at school it all seems to have been worthwhile as his bully boy tactics were caught by the hippies on camera - and he is going down. I mean you can't just go around hitting ladies with sticks just because they look a bit pikey. It makes me want to cancel my application to be a special constable.

Worry not dear friends I am not really up to be a bobby, but at work we are all being encouraged to sign up to be special constables. What is the world coming to? Now I look as good as the next man in a uniform - (for pictures please send an SAE and a 47p postal order to the usual address) but I can think of better ways to support my community other than by being a hippy beating traffic warden. Don't get me started on kettling! although I do love a nice cup of tea.

Now there was nothing about tea in the news today - more's the pity but can I please get some thoughts from you as to Roman Polanski. Have I entered an alternate reality, has society's views on sex with minors changed overnight?

It seems so strange - no one is calling him a Paedophile and there is no baying for his blood. People whose babies have pierced ears aren't marching on wapping - no homeless people have been burnt for accidently looking a bit shifty. Am I missing something here? He seems to be in receipt of world wide support. I am sure there is a perfectly good explanation, and it'll simply be that I am not paying enough attention.

Cage fighting - now I've heard of dog fighting and chicken fighting - but cage fighting? But even better to be known as a  former cage fighter. It does have a certain ring about it. Anyway him wot i refer to is one of the securitas robbers and he's been banged up courtesy of the Morroccans. The answer is, of course, that if you don't want to do the time - don't do the crime. Aparently we have good extradition arrangements with Morrocco - Polanski better not go there for his hols should he ever be freed!

Oh yes and now over to our health expert.

I wouldn't have the flu jab if I was you, probably do you more harm than the flu.

And on that note I shall leave you, apologise for being so irregular with my ponderings and then only coming up with this drivel.

Food for thought, if nothing else.

Over and out.

And the Lord said - Don't do today what can be put off until tomorrow!

I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something but have been putting it off for a while now.

Procrastination, don’t you just love it. It is a safe place, a place within boundaries known, it is here. However it stops us getting up there. But if we go there something awful might happen and we may even end back down there. Best to do nothing and put up with the status quo.

Today I took procrastination by the hand, well throat actually, and throttled it, I swung it around the house a little, put it down and wondered whether I was in fact doing the right thing, but then picked it up again. I killed it, and I am up there, not still here or back down there, I have moved on, successfully and positively to a better place. I have won. Savoir faire!

Now what is this life changing event I speak off, it must be mammoth, of rapturous importance, of life changing significance!

Well it’s not actually, but that is how things are in life, we procrastinate about small, little easy things, we put off, we play safe, we don’t oil the squeaky hinge, we don’t change the washer on the drippy tap, we don’t cut the grass, and we don’t upgrade our broadband.

For it is the very medium on which I traverse to you via, that I have been procrastinating over. I wanted to upgrade my broadband from 2 Meg to 10. It was a couple of quid a month extra and dead simple they told me. That was over six months ago. I’ve been paying since then of course, but it hasn’t got any faster. Why? Because they sent me a huge box which would have suited an electrician planning a maisonette rewire. This was going to be a huge, huge job, a job I would get wrong, a job which would require endless calls to India, a job which would need me to enter passwords and set up codes long lost. I couldn’t do it.

But I needed to do it. It was silly to pay for a quick service and waste the money receiving a slow one. So I added it to my list. The Bankers get a round to it list. Having been away for the last two weekends I was looking forward to a long weekend at home getting on with things. I was going to cut my grass (my most common procrastination since the gardener left), repaint the kitchen floor boards, sand down and repaint the front door door frame, fit a new bolt to the back door, get my hair cut and wire in my broadband upgrade.

The list was there, as plain and simple as daylight. There was nothing between me and completion. So on Saturday I got up late, and thought, well it’s the first day of the bankers I can take it slow today, I’ve got Sunday and Monday to chore it up. So I pottered into London’s west end and had my piece tweaked at the barbers, I then came home and enjoyed and evening of reading, laundress duties, fine dining, juices and cordials and slow speed internet communications.

On Sunday I was up with the lark, listened to Fi, Sandy and the Archers and cracked on. It’s like when you are putting off jumping into the pool, you know it is going to be cold and you teeter on the edge for ages, then you just flop in, screech and the all is fine. So I got to the front door, sanded it down, got into the car went to Wickes and got some paint, came back, painted the door frame, started to paint the kitchen floor, went back did second coat on door frame, braced myself for the coldest swimming pool ever and then dashed into the garden for a very sore back making half an hour of grass cutting – a bit like going at Rapunzel with some blunt toe nail clippers, but I got there. Later on I did more kitchen floor and then relaxed with some Colin Firth and some Malbec. I had done very well, I was very pleased, and I had beat procrastination, for that day anyway.

So today, without thinking I get all the pieces out from the various drawers and cupboards and look at the huge pile of wires, the splitter, the new connectors, the 5 set up guides etc, etc,. And then I do something I hadn’t done before. I used my highly evolved analytical skills and reviewed all the contraptions, wires and manuals. It then dawned on me, like a message from the Gods via lightening, that for my set up I required only a small fraction of the parts. I guessed which these would be, quickly assembled them, turned everything off and on again, and do you know that in less than 4 minutes I had broadband and having tested my speed it is giving me 9.6 mbps compared to the 0.96 I had before.

Now I still have the bolt to do, but I feel quite confident about that, and I have added a new item to the list – put the books in order. I didn’t have time to teach the finer points of the Dewey Decimal system to the librarian before he left, and they need to be put back in author, rather than size order.

Don’t put it off, it probably won’t be as bad as you thought, and it’ll be over quickly and then it’s done! I’m a fine one to talk!

Don't Eat Too Much

As I motored through glorious south west London it seemed to me that everyone in Clarhm and ButterSeah was jogging. Now I've seen joggers before - I am, after all, very cosmo - make mine a large one - politan. The difference is that these joggers look fit, streamlined and lovely. The joggers near me are often of the jogging slower than walking brigade and some have bottoms large enough for a family of four with au pair and large SUV!

I shouldn't be discussing the spread of the cheek though; I should be grabbing it, not the cheek, but the spirit and running after them in an ONJ head band! Why? I hear you say. Cos - I DON'T WANT TO DIE!

But I am to die, though hopefully not for many years, but I'm thinking if I donned a velour leisure slack, borrowed a walkman and got trotting myself along the Rye - I may increase the number of years between now and the final countdown. I know I am a wonderful specimen of a man, but I also know that I am a bit fat. As my father said to me yesterday in one of those father-son stylee moments

'You're Getting FAT!'

How we laughed about his usage of the word getting - how. The truth is though that I'm actually not too bothered about girthage, but more concerned with being fit. As long as my heart, lungs and circulation are happy, I'm not so bothered about being larger than dear Pater would have me.

So - yes,.... um, so.......

Well I have been looking into it. Since the Wii Fit has left home I won't be able to ski board my way to a healthy heart. I could go jogging but my bum is far too pert, and far too small. So there is only one thing for it - I'm joining the army. Private Godwin - get down and give me ten! Yes sir - I mean Sergeant!

Well I'm not actually going to join the army - that would just be silly, and it wouldn't be anything like those art movies I've seen. But I have found a place whose website did put me in mind of the New Avengers and there was a picture of a black Land Rover Defender (my sort of car porn).

BMF - British Military Fitness. They do it in my park and they do a slow beginners class for unhealthy people like me. So it'll be me and lots of yummy mummies wanting to lose their post breeding rubber ring. I think our class will run at the same time as the class for fine fit things, so there is always the potential for a glimpse of a firm man thigh to keep me from, or lead me to, cardiac arrest. Basically it is PE outdoors, but without the need for producing the obligatory 'Sorry my son can't do games again this week - he's still gay' letter from your mum.

So there you go. I am yet to sign on the line, there's a bit more sitting on the sofa contemplating it over a glass or two of fine Bordeaux to do first before I sign up and get off, I mean get on.

But you never know - I did give up smoking - so anything is possible.

However, to be on the safe side I have also updated my will. So if you get a visit from a solicitor clutching 2 brass candle sticks, an arts and crafts book shelf and some 1968 ‘The Killing of Sister George’ Lobby Cards, then you'll know the Bordeaux got me first.

Yours, in peep toe sports espadrilles.

William H G Godwin III

Does my bum look big in this?

So what is it about being slim? Why are people obsessed about being a size 8, when actually most of us look fine as a size 12 - or even a little more outsize?

People are forever stopping me in the street and asking me 'Will how do you keep so slim?' Well they don't actually, and no, it has nothing to do with my mashed Swede diet. Sometimes though, people who haven't seen me for a while and remember me being slim with a goatee are a little surprised to see me with the full Captain bird's eye and maybe an ounce or two (llb or 7) extra. It does cast me in a slightly different light - (certainly casts a slightly different shadow).

When I was a young man (think Sepia, think Boer war) I was very svelte - I had the metabolism of a very fast thing, I could eat what I wanted - and did, and never put on an ounce. I liked being slim and accidentally showing my flat stomach if the occasion merited it, and all that is fine and dandy when you are young and bouncing around and regularly going to night discos, rallies and cabaret.

But these days I am happy to be a slightly less slim middle ager – in fact it suits me down to the frigging ground. With turning 40, I think I finally reached my actual age and everything about me fell into place. I can finally turn into my dad and not be embarrassed by it. Not everyone is so happy though with anything non svelte, and a lot of the boys out there worry about whether they’ll get the looks and the dates. Last week a friend of mine who is a little older than me and as svelte as the day is long and as svelte as I ever was in my heyday, was bemoaning the fact that being older and no longer slimmer of the month are two key obstacles against securing either benefits, friends with benefits or a potential mate.

However I think a fixation with being gym perfect and as light as a feather are unnecessary as we approach the afternoon years of our life. I don't think you can only hook a mate if svelte, I know plenty of people who like a slightly chunkier man (thank god). But also one's allure, I believe, changes with time, one's attractiveness matures and develops and the things one is attracted to also change and mature. I’ve certainly never been adverse to a bit of meat on a man (some vegetarian I am).

I think people shouldn't worry about it so much. You're all gorgeous, and slim or large there is someone out there who will find you gorgeous and go funny in the tummy when they think about you in your pants.

Personally I've had all my mirrors adjusted by the Council so when I look into them I am 13 stone 6 ft, slightly tanned with dark blue eyes and muscular hairy forearms. It's only £3.40 a month so I thought - why not?

Oh well – don’t ask me why, but it's good to share.

Surely everyone's met Lulu?

It all started this morning with muscles, big man arm muscles. For some reason the sorting office had a queue – very unusual for a weekday morning, but I think like most other people in the world they were just going a little bit too slow, until the fast man came on and the queue went down in a minute. I like the fast man he is always friendly and efficient, whereas some of the other guys just dodder and botch. So where do the muscles come in, well whilst I was waiting I had time to idly vada a workman over the road. He was sweeping and his arms were moving like the pistons of a steam engine. They were accurate, firm, purposeful moves which resulted in an efficient sweep and a pleasant observational study for me.

So chopping block in hand, for that was the purpose of my trip to the sorting office, I began to motor on to work. The shoulder muscles of the workman must have stuck in my subconscious for I started to recall other muscle extravaganzas from the dusky archive. I remembered in my early days meeting a theatrical troupe over from America. They were performing in London and my companion and I were entertaining them in our Zone 2 Georgian duplex. One of them was so nice, and so sweet and so lovely and had such unnecessarily large muscles and a very tight t-shirt, but in a nice sexy gorgeous way, not a plastic, over tanned sterile way – which you see a lot of these days – or you did, maybe you don’t so much now. What would I know anyway – the last time I went anywhere where people wore tight t-shirts Princess Margaret was still alive! I digress. Anyway I remember taking every opportunity to accidently touch his lovely arms – he didn’t seem to mind. And if I just add that their would have been opportunities a plenty for bouncing nickels – you get the picture – let’s just leave it at that.

So that got me thinking about D-Ream – things can only get better – don’t ask me to explain my thought processes as I don’t control it. I did have a bit of a thing for Peter Cunnah – I thought he was, what the young people call, a dish. Somehow and I can’t remember how, I think I was at some launch or something, or chatting to mutual friends in a bar, and he asked me whether I’d like to come to his party at Heaven. Well of course I did – tartan trousers withstanding. Well the wine was flowing and Peter was very friendly – a really lovely guy. My drunken exit found me scouring the party to find Peter to thank him and bid him farewell. Well I got a kiss good bye, so as I was walking out, I thought, I think I’ll go and say good bye to him again – how sweet. Blame youth – the eternal get out of jail free card.

So that got me thinking as to whether I’d ever been to any other celebrity parties. Well yes I have as a matter of fact, just the one or two. I remembered going to the after show party when Babs last played in London. Now she was far too famous to grace her own party, but I did get to see Barbara Knox and Lulu – so you can’t say I actually missed out – celebrity wise.

So then I got thinking about Vivienne Westwood. I did once go to a tea party at her house which was very nice, and she was lovely, but I also remembered being at a publisher’s bash and being stood next to her, in a Westwood jacket, saying to her ‘Vivienne I hear you have an eye for fashion, what do you think of my jacket?’ She leant over and said ‘Don’t be silly William, I know it’s one of mine’. That was quite a good night actually - it was in Kensington at that lovely roof gardens place. We had to cross a picket line of angry lesbians though who were protesting at some of the publisher’s raunchier, steamier publications. But there was wine to be had. Never let Politics get in the way of the Grape – now who was it who told me that…………….

And just as I started to recall the night at Claridges with Julie Burchill I arrived at work, so the thinking had to stop. Ah well it leaves more for another day.

Everybody Needs Good Neighbours

I have just inducted, I mean met, my new neighbours. I thought someone must have moved in when I heard the shrieking and banging yesterday and last night. I can't help it that I take myself to bed this side rather than that, of midnight. At my age you need as much beauty sleep as possible.

I've been neighbourless for a while which is a treat as it means no noise, but the poor woman who owns upstairs needs her revenue so I can't not let her get tenants - although if anyone does know of a legal loophole do pop it on a postcard to the usual address.

I'm so glad I did get to see them though as I don't get to know all the people who come and go upstairs, but I like to let them know who I am and that they've got a warm gay man living below.

So they were four young girls, they all came round and we had some wine and the chat - all lovely, I'm so pleased as girls are always best as neighbours as they do care and can be bothered. They are all in their second year at Kings and love sex and the city. One of them looked so like Cynthia Nixon I had to mention and then Charlotte was also there I think. They agreed with me that Carrie Bradshaw has a face like a horse, so I gave them some wine as a house warming present to cement our friendship.

The key thing for me, and why it is so important for me to say hello in the first week, is that their kitchen is over my bedroom. So when they are chilling out in the kitchen having a wine, cocktail, Panini, or entertaining a man friend or someone from church, it has a lot of potential to keep me awake. And don't get me started on their spin cycle and the possibilities that has to make me need counselling.

I heard them shrieking with laughter as they returned to their flat so they must have found some amusement in their new neighbour and his abode.

But I am pleased, they seem lovely and I look forward to sharing my wine and wisdom with them.