Movember Mo' Problems

Today is the last day of Movember, an annual month-long moustache-growing charity event to raise funds and awareness for men's health issues.

Now, I may not be the best ambassador for men's health: having fallen through the cracks of the NHS, I've not been to the doctor in over two years and I don't know if this growth is normal, but - hey! - I signed up anyway, and have spent the month growing a moustache in the name of charidee.

But it nearly didn't happen. Movember rules state 'Mo Bros' must start the month clean shaven, which I did, using the only shaving paraphernalia I could find in the flat - a bottle of Herbal Essence and Brooky Wook's lady shave.

I'd kept a full-beard for over two years, had thrown out my own shaver and was a little bit worried about what I would find underneath the facial hair. Would there be spots, I wondered. Or a tan line?

There were neither, thank God, but as I chipped away at two years of beard and the little bits of biscuit I found in there I started to think back to the first time I shaved.

While I'm keeping one now for charity, it's not technically the first time I've had a moustache. Like so many Asian boys it came early - I was perhaps 10 - and like so many Asian mothers mine was reluctant for me to shave it off and enter puberty.

I did the summer before starting "big school", but it kept coming back, each time thicker and faster. It meant that I left one institution looking like Frida Kahlo and entered another looking like an Ofsted inspector with a 3.30pm shadow. Teachers clutched their lesson plans nervously as I walked the halls. I was an 11-year-old man-child, ravaged by puberty, bones flung in all directions; I was stretched to six feet, sinewy muscle just covering the expanse of my growth; my voice an imperceptible pitch, miming its way through three years of school choir - a music teacher unable to harmonise my low growl with the soprano of my classmates.

I must have imagined that the feeling of awkwardness would pass as I grew into my body and became a man but, in truth, I don't think it ever has. I'm just as awkward now with my moustache, as I was at 11 years old without one.

"Oh, this is not a look I'm nurturing, by the way," I said in an effort to explain away my moustache to a conference delegate last week, gesticulating awkwardly at my own face. "I'm doing it for charity."

"You're doing Movember too?" Another delegate asked, joining us, and pointing at his own moustache.

"Oh," the first said, laughing so hard her name badge popped off. "I thought you meant your glasses!"

***

One man dies every hour of prostate cancer in the UK - more than 35,000 will be diagnosed this year! It's the most common kind of cancer here.

Movember is now in its third year and, to date, has achieved some pretty amazing results, working alongside The Prostate Cancer Charity. You can find out more at: http://uk.movemberfoundation.com/research-and-programs.

And look back over my progress at: http://uk.movember.com/mospace/248626 and - please! - it's not too late to make a donation.

I may be losing my moustache tomorrow, but I'm keeping these glasses forever.

The Swami's Visit

Quite often, what we mistake for our earliest memories are in fact our fathers' first camcorder outings. So I won't claim this as my own, but I do remember seeing, at least, a home video of a man known to my family as simply... the Swami.

The Swami, which is an honorific title, is a holy man who tours the world, staying for a few days at a time in Hindu homes. Since the South Asian Diaspora is amongst the furthest flung, the Swami is a very well travelled man.

In the home video he is shown praying in the flat above my parents' corner shop in Newport, Shropshire. Not his most glamourous gig, I imagine, but for us - my two sisters and I - he was an exotic visitor in our otherwise suburban lives.

In what is a particularly uncomfortable scene for me the Swami reaches down from his seat on the sofa to where we children are sat, at his feet, and strokes my head, like I were the cat to his Bond villain. Instead of purring, I stifle a laugh for what felt like an hour, but what the video reveals to have been only a few minutes.

For us, it was the highlight of the Swami's visit. We recounted the story to each other (though we were all there), each time its telling more exaggerated. "It was like I was his bowling ball!" I'd say, not realising how creepy that sounded.

***

When he returned, years later, we were in our teens and had moved house. As he climbed our driveway, I noticed a pair of Nike Air Jordans peeking out from underneath his orange robes. He looked up at the new house, much bigger than the last, a symbol of my parents' success, and declared it bad luck.

"Its shape," he said. "Is like the open mouth of a roaring lion."

I came out to help him with his bags, paused and looked up at the house as if it were a Magic Eye illusion. Maybe the lion would appear if I moved up close, fixed my eyes and stepped slowly back, I thought. But, however I looked at it, it was a new build, detached house with a separate garage joined by a granny annexe extension.

Once inside, he found our house more to his liking. Furniture draped in tarpaulin, at his request, so that when he sat he wouldn't come into contact with the seat. Water too, on his arrival, was poured into his mouth so that the glass didn't touch his lips. He plugged in his mobile phone to charge (it was the first I'd ever seen) and announced his final request - that he stay in my bedroom. As the youngest, he said, my room would be untouched by carnal desires. Good luck with that, buddy, I thought.

That evening, as we gathered in the lounge for a prayer session, we resumed our original positions: children (and mere mortals) to the floor, Swami perched on the covered sofa. This time, when he reached down to stroke my head, he found himself tangled in sticky spikes.

"Any questions?" he asked when we were done. "Anything you like."

It was quiet. I guess we thought if we asked any questions we'd only have to sit there, stifling laughter, for even longer. But it was awkward, so I raised my hand and scanned the room, looking for inspiration, my eyes landing on a painting of the avatar Krishna, in typical pose, playing a flute and dancing with women. Topless women, I'll add.

"Mr Swami?" I said.

"Swami," he corrected me.

"Swami, why's the Lord Krishna always surrounded by women?" I asked. I was fifteen, bear in mind, and if I could just have his secret...

"Sandeep," he said. "You mustn't ask questions of your religion. OK?"

OK. So his question, as to whether we had any questions, was a rhetorical question?

I was glad when he left. And as I helped him with his bags I thought that for a Swami, "free from all the senses", he sure had a lot of shit with him. Checking for his mobile phone, a dance I'd soon learn myself, he was on his way, off to chide more children and put them off the religion their parents so wanted them to embrace.

***

I was reminded of all of this when I went home for Diwali last weekend. It was a similar scene: the family gathered in the lounge for a prayer session on the Saturday evening, except we all sat on the floor this time. And perhaps because this made me feel like we were on the same level, I interrupted the prayer to ask why we didn't say it in English.

"I mean, no-one understands this," I said. I hadn't wanted to start a revolution, but the debate my question had sparked was turning into one.

"Can't you be a Hindu without speaking Hindi?" my sister asked.

"Yeah, why's the religion and the language so tied up?"

You can see that our line of questioning had matured since the Swami's visit, but even still it was upsetting mum. She finished the prayer, put away her books and went to the kitchen.

The next day, as I was packing to return to London, I came across a magazine in my old room. Though the Swami wasn't with us this Diwali he'd found his way onto the cover of Hinduism Today, which had pronounced him, "Hindu of the Year". I wondered how he'd earned the title. Fluent in Hindi? Unquestioning? Looking at the cover, he had a lot of bindis. Maybe that helped. I took a photo of the magazine and put away my camera. I'd been teaching myself photography and Diwali this year had turned into an ethnographic study.

In the car on the way to the railway station I apologised to my mum for upsetting her the night before.

"That's okay, son," she said. "It just upset me, I suppose, that you're willing to teach yourself photography, but you seem uninterested in your own religion."

It didn't feel like my religion, I wanted to say. And the fact that I asked questions meant that I was interested.

But I didn't say anything. I didn't want an argument before I left, and I didn't really want a revolution. I'd had a great weekend, and I knew that when I got home and processed the photos I'd have the evidence in my hands. You just can't say that about religion.

"Mum," I said, as I got out of the car. "Why is Krishna always surrounded by topless women?"

My mum wound-up the car window and started the engine. I guess you can't say that either.

Queer eye for the fat guy.

Having "outed" myself as a metrosexual, I've done very little to maintain a lifestyle in keeping with the culture. If I were a homosexual it'd be like not liking musicals or not having a small dog. As it goes I'm not. And I really ought not make such sweeping - and possibly offensive - generalisations.

The fact of the matter is, I make a terrible metrosexual. Sure, I moisturise. I use a range of hair products. But my sexuality, my...metrosity is tepid, to say the least.

I'm terribly out of shape, I eat crap and I shop at Topman - almost exclusively. I've never bought an Armani suit, I don't care for fruit and I wouldn't know my yoga pilates from my yoga flames.

I've decided, if I'm going to do this properly, if I'm going to write the "true story of a single, metrosexual, twentysomething, British Indian male," I'm going to have to shape up or ship out. (Besides, I figure I can't do much about my being twentysomething or British Indian.)

So tomorrow I'm going for a run.

It's either that or Annie Get Your Gun, a Chihuahua and another closet from which to emerge. But I'm pretty sure it's easier to turn a fat boy slim than a straight guy queer.

• Meet the metrosexual - [Salon]

 

Feeling awkward.

For those of you who thought my blog would suddenly become more interesting (as if that's even possible) since moving to London, and perhaps less about mundane adventures, such as boarding a train, playing video games or watching TV, I write with a story that takes place outside of the house and, indeed, the banality of public transport.

That's right. In an attempt to find something more interesting to write about (and maybe - incidentally - have a good time) I went out on Friday night. To a bar.

(I won't even tell you how I got there.)

But I was early. Never one to be fashionably late (or even fashionable, for that matter), I got to Tiger Tiger in Haymarket a good half-hour or so before my friends arrived, giving me ample time to loiter awkwardly by the bar, even smash a glass and act like it wasn't me.

Still, the fracas drew some attention. And I was soon chatting to a South Korean girl who loitered with just as much awkwardness, if not more. Hers derived from the fact that her English was almost incomprehensible.

At first I couldn't tell if it was because the music was loud or if indeed because she was new to the language. In any case, I understood that she was looking for a boyfriend and, I suspect, a way to stay longer in this country.

Her attempts to do so were misguided to say the least.

"You have strange face," she said.
"Like...in a good way?"
"It's a strange," she insisted.

Just as she began to gesture with her hands and demonstrate just what it was about my face that was quite so strange my friends arrived.

I followed them, left the South Korean girl at the bar and headed to the dance floor, more awkward than ever.

Gay pride

"Sunshine makes British people act crazy. Like...nice and everything."

Twitter update 06:03 PM April 05, 2007

It's a Bank Holiday weekend and spring has sprung its sunny self on us, like a hot, unexpected guest at a party. It's like we're so used to bad weather - and ugly people - that we don't know how to act.

White guys everywhere are wasting no time in impressing our new guest by whipping off their shirts and parading their pastiness with puffed-up pride.

Even I've been acting sort of strange. So overwhelmed was I with the morning sun that I sent a group text message, to around thirty people, announcing my good mood, the good weather and the apparent good news that I was, in no way, a homosexual.

"The sun - and the San - is out," it read. Quickly followed by a disclaimer - "Sorry, I'm not 'coming out.' Just wishing you all a good day."

"The lady doth protest too much," read one response. "You are gay," said another.

Well, if 'gay' is being happy and carefree maybe that's what I am. And proud too.

But heterosexual, I will add. And enjoying the sunshine.

Gutterball

To quote Larry David, "I like bowling." But I can relate, almost too readily, to his many, many complaints:

"You can't find a ball, that's the problem. I don't know, maybe you own a bowling ball; I don't own a bowling ball. My whole life, every time I'm at a bowling alley, sticking my fingers in all these holes, picking up balls...

You gotta get your own ball. I don't bowl enough, I think, to get my own ball; it takes up a lot of space in the house. You'll end up looking at it in the closet going, "What am I doing with a bowling ball? I don't even bowl!"...You know what I mean?

...Say you want to get rid of the ball. How do you get rid of a bowling ball? Think about that. Who do you give a bowling ball to? Nobody bowls. Their fingers -- it only fits your fingers. You throw a bowling ball in the garbage can, you know what that sanitation man's gonna do? He's gonna knock on your door; that's how upset he's going to be. He's gonna say, "Who the f*** threw a bowling ball in the garbage can?"

Curb Your Enthusiasm
Season 4, Episode 31 ("Mel's Offer")

Lately, I've been sticking my fingers in a lot of holes. Not enough, mind you, to buy my own ball, but just enough to become friendly with the alley staff. You might think that Ed was the manager. He certainly rolls around the place like he is. You may even mistake him as being a bowling ball. He is, after all, big and round, and with just as many holes.

Tonight however, if only momentarily, I reserved my judgement, kept my fingers to myself and decided that Ed, while cocky and mildly irritating, was actually a nice guy.
"Listen, when you're, er, finished let me know," he said, as I slipped and laced my way into something less comfortable. "I'll, er, see if I can try and sort you out with another game." With that he winked.
Brilliant, I thought - free game. What a nice guy?

So, when we were finished I headed over to the reception to let him know.
"So Ed," I said, slyly slipping over to his counter. "We're, er, finished...I wondered if you could, er, sort us out with another game?"
"Ah, I see..." He smiled and pointlessly looked over his shoulder, at a wall. "I can't see why that would be a problem."
"Brilliant. Ed, you're the man, you know that?"
Apparently he did, because he didn't acknowledge the question. He just furrowed his brow and banged away at his keyboard. "You're on lane six, right?"
"Yeah."
"Right," he hit the enter key as if he'd just written a novel and was punctuating its final sentence by giving his keyboard a good whack. "Okay...that's going to be £10.50."
My face burned red, or that sort of maroon colour Indian people go when embarrassed. I couldn't believe that I'd misjudged his intentions.
What was the wink? I thought. And why would he try and sort us out with another game? Isn't that his job? Isn't that what he does all day? What's there to 'sort out'? Payment?

In any case, I was standing there, going maroon; so presumptuous as to not even bring my wallet with me, and very aware that I hadn't responded to Ed for the duration of my thought process.
"Yeah, of course," I managed. "I'll, er, go and get my wallet." And with that rolled slowly, back to my lane, to fetch my wallet and my self-respect, and to lose at a game I didn't really want to play.

Movin' Out.

I'm leaving this place in the morning.

• My videos

Not dead.

If this blog is my life "approximately", then I died about two weeks ago. And only three of you were concerned (only one left a comment - thank you, Nyssa). What's with that?

Well, when I ended the last post with a health scare and the words, 'The End', I had intended on writing sooner to explain. But the truth is, my life - not death - needed some serious examination. And I've spent the last week or so doing just that - getting it back on track; evaluating my work, my relationships, and my health.

Of course, none are really the better for it, but at least I have a clearer perspective on things. Even if my absense, these days, is harder to maintain.

In web 2.0, it's hard to play dead.

You can blog your own death, sure. But keeping a low profile on the Internet is a much harder thing. Visiting MySpace, for example, the online equivalent of popping into a Starbucks (albeit one full of emo kids pouting at camera phones), lets other members know when you last logged in.

And if you're slow on your old keyboard shortcuts, your instant messenger of choice might automatically sign you in as 'online', or as I like to set it, 'out for lunch' (which is the most likely).

These signs, and the recent changes to my web site, I imagine, put the most observant of my readers at ease. For the other three, rest assured, I am not dead.

Pain in my heart

A little pain in my heart
Just won't let me be
Wake up restless nights
Lord and I can't even sleep.

Mmm, mmm yeah
Stop this little pain in my heart

Pain in my heart, Otis Redding
(covering the Rolling Stones)

It's a little less romantic than I remember, sitting in bed, listening to Otis Redding tonight. But that's because I do have a pain in my heart but it is less the pang of love than it is the sharp shooting sensation in the right side of my chest.

It woke me up about 3 am this morning. I couldn't get back to sleep and so rang NHS Direct, our health service's 24 hour hot line, which, I'm told, is not the number to chat to naughty nurses. I described my symptoms with the help of our soul singing friend.

"Mmm, mmm yeah," I said. "Stop this little pain in my heart."

Unfortunately, the nurse could not. Nor could she appreciate the song, or the inappropriate jokes I made about her naughtiness. Perhaps the pain is comeuppance for mine.

I have fallen spectacularly off my detox tonight, and indulged in more than a little gluehwein at a German Christmas market. But hey, it's Christmas. And it's German. And since I don't eat bratwurst I had little choice but the hot, spicy goodness of mulled wine. And now I'm left with the sharp, shooting pain of what might be a heart attack.

And so I leave you readers, perhaps for the last time, in the hope that a problem shared is indeed a problem halved (or, in the case of my readership divided by about 20); and that you might help me stop this little pain in my heart, before it stops me.

THE END.

They don't call it '24 Hour Fitness' for nothing.

There's no better blog fodder than my infrequent trips to the gym. Unless, of course, you include my infrequent relationships with lesbians. Or maybe my penchant for social faux pas. (Wow, I really do a lot of stupid stuff...)

So, I thought I'd share with you something that I did this morning. I went to the gym. It was something I'd not done for some time. In fact, in the month that I'd not been I'd thought to cancel my membership but - and this is the way my mind works - I figured it was a tiny bit less of an effort to actually go to the gym than it was to cancel my membership.

I'd felt terrible about not going for a month, likening the waste to throwing £35 onto the ground. (In the run-up to Christmas even that's going to have to stop.) So, having decided to once again utilise my membership, I was buoyed by a sense of self-righteousness and the relief of not having to admit defeat to Kevin, my idiot instructor.

And so, when I got to the gym early this morning and the door was locked, I convinced myself that I was such an enthusiastic athlete that I was first to arrive. I waited no longer than a few seconds before Kevin came to let me in.

"Oh, how eager am I?!" I said, cocky and from under an oversized wooly hat. (I'd imagined I was Rocky Balboa when I got dressed that morning, but had neither the physique or the appropriate gym gear to pull it off convincingly.)
"Hold on," he said, opening the door. "I just popped out for a minute. Come on in."
As I did, and signed the book, I saw that above my name were others more eager than me. 2 am, 4 am, 5 am, read the 'time-in' column.
"What'd you say, mate?" asked Kevin, from behind the counter.
"Yeah...nothing," I said, pulling off my hat. "Just slept in a bit this morning, that's all."

• The Weights Are The Hardest Part
• Kevin's Head

Has anyone ever told you you look like Ashley Olson?

I tell you what, it's a bloody good job that I'm very secure in my sexuality...

I came across MyHeritage.com via a MySpace profile that had posted a "Celebrity Collage".

As part of its development on face recognition in genealogy (and part gimmick, clearly), MyHeritage.com reads your photo, detects your face and, by way of dubious algorithm, associates it with the celebrities you resemble the most.

I thought I'd have a go.

• MyHeritage

Lip Service

If you know me - even a little bit - you'll know of my extravagant, financially crippling, twice daily trips to Marks & Spencer. It's the reason my fridge is full of fancies, my cupboards stupendously stocked and my bank balance below the black. I take pride in having turned around an ailing company, but yesterday - after yet another social faux pas (and expensive lunch) - had very little to be proud of.

You see, I am so often in M&S that I consider it a sort of home from home. So when I see a familiar face I greet them as host - if a very rude, somewhat offensive host.

I was on my way out of the shop yesterday when I saw one such familiar face - or rather, back of head - perusing the cake section of the food hall. In my home of course, inappropriate jokes are the norm and so I walked up from behind and close to her ear said, "a moment on the lips," at which point she turned around and I realised that she was not Jane Robbins, mother of Bill and Kate Mohin but absolute stranger and, frankly, offended lady.

"Excuse me?" she said.

I had started, I thought. Should I finish? 'A lifetime on the hips' then slap her on the arse and stroll off? I couldn't do that. I couldn't do anything. I just froze. With all the confidence with which I had approached her it didn't even seem that I had mistook her for someone else. It looked like I was some kind of fat police, patrolling the cake section warning people off their desserts. I might as well have said, "you've had enough, fatty. Do you really think you ought to be buying cake?"

I thought all this as I stood there, going red before this not unattractive yet very offended lady. And so, like the policeman of my imagination, sort of smiled and bobbed as I walked away. As I did I saw her put the cake back on the shelf. It was a little thing. But yes, I suppose it did make me feel a little bit proud.

Kevin's head

"It's a bit worrying that you're this tired after warming up," said Kevin, my gym instructor and, officially, the most annoying person I have ever met.
I wheezed something about being okay.
"Let's move on to the cross trainer," he said, as he lifted me, all limp, from the exercise bike to the next machine.

I surveyed the device and thought of ways to appear like I was working out without actually exerting myself any further. I decided this was best achieved by simply pulling on the bars with my arms, back and forth, propelling myself into some sort of exercise. As I did, Kevin watched my heart rate on the monitor and calculated, in his tiny head, at which point I should stop.
"You're 23..." he muttered, "220 minus..." Then, looking again at the monitor, "Yep. Stop there." With that he slammed the stop button and I became all limp again.

The next thing I know, I'm half way home, limp on a bench, about to throw up. But all I see is a bin with a roof on and an opening around its sides large enough to deposit a banana skin or an apple core. With little choice and just enough turgidity in my neck to tilt it I threw up the best I could into its little opening. The turgidity in my neck gave way and I slumped back into the bench, all limp. I imagined that the bin, oozing with my vomit, was Kevin's head, and suddenly felt much, much better.

The Weights Are The Hardest Part

The last time I ventured into a gym was during my university days. Well, it was really just the one day. And a gym induction. The tour alone was enough to give me a stitch and, needless to say, I am in no better shape today than I was two years ago.

Since then, I have graduated from the exercise regimes of walking across campus, to walking to the train station, to finally walking downstairs to my kitchen, as my daily commute has shortened in stages. (Next year I imagine I'll be working in my sleep.)

Working from home provides me with almost no exercise at all and at 23, a quite worrying shortness of breath. So it seemed as good a time as any, perhaps even a crucial time, to join the gym.

And when I did, I met Kevin, my gym instructor, and possibly the most annoying guy I have ever met.

"So, you want to join the gym."
"Yes. I want to join the gym."
Without looking he reached for a clipboard under his desk, as per the drill, and grabbed a pen from behind his ear - clicking it more times than was necessary. "Right," he said. "Let me walk you through the form."
Although I wondered if there could be anything more difficult than my name, address and billing details, I nodded all the same.
"Okay. The first bit. It's first name first...and then...is it second name?" He looked over at a framed picture of the gym founder as if for confirmation. "Yeah, second name."
"First name, second name," I confirmed. "Yep, got it."
"Then address." He looked to that section of the form and then to me. "Do you know your address?"
"Yep. Pretty sure I do."

It continued like this until the second page and the section, 'Your Exercise Goals.'
"Right. What sort of stuff do you want to do? Like, general fitness..." Then, looking in my direction, "bulk up?"
"Yeah, just general fitness really."
"And bulk up probabl-"
"No. That's fine. Just...general fitness."
"General fitness..." he repeated, jotting it down on the form, "...bulk up..."
"Not bulk up."
"Okay," he said, clicking his pen shut. "So, a bit of cardiovascular this week. And next week...weights."

Supercuts

I'm about the same height, have the mild manners of a reporter and have even been known to slip into a pair of tights (though, admittedly, not my own). There are, people say, similarities between this man and the Man of Steel. An ex-girlfriend went as far as claiming that my mannerisms were adopted directly from the 1978 Christopher Reeve incarnation - bumbling and bashful, nervously pushing my glasses up the bridge of my nose. (When ironically, the habit is, in actual fact, the result of an accident that took place on a ride named, funnily enough, after the Superman of my doppelganger. I banged my head against the side of the carriage, lost the nosepiece of my spectacles and have since battled gravity as it insists on sending my frames sliding down my face.)

When I saw Brandon Routh's - even better - impression of Christopher Reeve in Superman Returns, I decided to trade my choppy chops for a more sensible side parting, thus completing the look. Armed with a copy of Empire magazine and its feature on Superman Returns I headed to the hair dressers (of several blog entries) and explained what I wanted.
"Can you do this?" I asked, pointing to a photograph of Routh, a floppy side parting, adorning his brow.
"Sure," said the hairdresser, before she started hacking away.

Now, I'm no stylist (though you might think so if you saw my array of styling products) but I know that, to achieve said look, all I needed was a quick trim to the back and sides. Imagine my concern then when, twenty-five minutes later she's still hacking furiously away. And though I couldn't see much without my glasses I could see that I was losing a lot of hair and, just within my field of vision, my copy of Empire Magazine and the photo of Brandon Routh, beside which stood a bald-headed Kevin Spacey, posing as Superman's arch enemy, Lex Luthor.

"Hang on," I said, putting on my glasses, and turning to my hairdresser. "What are you doing?"

My Hot Thighs

Though many online forms and questionnaires have asked, I have - I promise you - never listed my thighs as my "best feature" (though this might be to blame for my lack of match.com action); so, rest assured, this entry is not about the hairy strip of flesh between my knees and nether-regions, sexy though that might be (to the depraved). It is rather about my burning lap, not the seat of exotic dancers, but home to my overheating Mac - cool by form, frickin' hot by function.

The MacBook Pro, released earlier this year, is one hot piece of assembled hardware, apparently fixed with thermal grease, which is causing some of the stylish laptops to reach temperatures of 129°F.

There's no doubt the MacBook Pro is packin' heat. But at those kind of temperatures new Mac users, like me, are no longer the cool kids of the computer world. And, though branded - quite literally - with the Apple logo, my thighs are no more attractive, though perhaps less hairy.

• Warning from Apple: Don't put our laptops on your lap [via Engadget]

Parting Shot

There was an awkwardness with which Peter swept his hair across his brow. Noticing it, I asked, “did you do something different with your hair today, Pete?”
“Yeah, I switched my parting,” he said, once the motion had completed its conspicuous path.
“Can you just…do that?” I asked.
“Well, guys usually have their parting on the left,” he said. “And girls on the right. But I thought I’d switch it up a little.”

My mouth curled into a smile at the thought of Pete, extending the switching up to his dressing habits, turning up at my flat, not as Peter Woods, sports fan and Dylan aficionado, but as Petra, wood strapped firmly to the thigh, bra stuffed with tissue and long black hair, parted from the right.

“Why do we bother with all these gender rules?” he asked, his sensible question interrupting my sordid thought. “Left or right, does it really matter?”

He’d had more profound thoughts, I’m sure, but his question was an interesting one. Watches, badges, earrings, depending on which side they’re worn, can indicate one’s gender or sexuality, in case it’s not already obvious (in which case, the ‘left or right’ dilemma is probably the least pressing).

“It makes me anxious,” he said, “these rules. I don’t know if I’m misrepresenting myself.” Throwing his hands dramatically in the air reminded me of Petra. “If I wear my watch on the right hand does that make me a girl?”
Wearing a bra does, I thought to myself.
“And if I wear an earring on my left ear, does that make me gay?”
“I think with the watch on your right hand it would make you a lesbian.” I said. Pete thought about it for a second, long enough for the excitement to wear off, imagined himself as Petra, stuffed bra and long hair, and unceremoniously switched his parting back, sweeping his hair across his brow so that it started at the left. Like a man.

Dressed to Kill

I had no sooner shelved a posting, called ‘Pocket Full of Poses’ on the advice that it was too self-obsessed, when tonight its sentiment rang violently true. Perhaps one day it will see the light as part of an unreleased collection for die-hard fans (I hear there are already bootlegs in Asia), but its gist was one of standard self-deprecating fare, alluding to the name-calling my appearance elicits, from foppish hair to impractically white leather loafers and every metrosexual muscle in between.

Beth – erstwhile girlfriend, incessant critic – argued that it was too insular and failed to connect with the larger, more pressing issues on readers’ minds: global terrorism, the ‘Islamic threat’, Craig off of Big Brother. Tonight however, I found that same insular subject the unwitting site of a body politic, a dapper scapegoat for our badly dressed social ills.

As I wandered the length and breadth of the bar, looking for my friends, I suddenly felt my conspicuousness. Tall, dark and in a carefully handpicked outfit, I was the antithesis of the short and pasty “chavs” that watched my every move. Unable to find a single familiar or even friendly face I sat myself between breasts instead and chatted to a lady by the bar. In this instance, I was a brunet having more fun than a blonde.

That was until the chavs, in their baseball caps and tracksuits, muscled in.
“What’s a gay twat doing with a bird like that?” one asked.
“Well, I’m not gay.” I said, thinking the situation itself made this quite obvious.
“Of course he’s gay,” one said to another. “Look at his shoes.”
At this the shoes shied away. Hoping to get a better a look, a third clamoured under the table, seemingly to be with the loafers.
“Don’t mate,” his friend warned. “He’s probably got a bomb in them!”

Which would, of course, if their theory proved correct, make me a gay terrorist. Could you imagine? (“Does my bomb look big in this?”) I assured my lady friend that I was indeed neither; that I was, in fact, a lover, not a fighter; and packed nothing more sinister than a sex bomb (sex bomb). Despite this, and I guess through fear of guilt by association, she too left.

But what is my association – what is my relationship to the phobias and the isms in the minds of those young men? Does my wearing white shoes make me gay? Does my having a brown face make me a terrorist? Are those the indicators - the tell-tale signs?

Last night I narrowly avoided a fight. The police were called in and the boys, who got more and more aggressive, left unscathed (the lucky bastards). This morning however, looking at the weekend papers, it seems some other young men, in Central London, didn’t escape the grip of the police so easily, nor the scorn of the tabloid press. “Got the bastards,” screamed the headline of The Sun, referring to the arrest of the suspected London bombers, stripped to their underwear, their brown faces filling the 11’’ X 7’’ page.

Turning over I saw another brown face but under a different headline. “Teenager Killed in Racist Attack,” and I thought to myself how tragically one begets the other. Hatred begets hatred. The “cowardly suicide bombers” of The Sun article are, after all, suspects, but their coverage in the news media breeds the kind of hatred that threatens to infect a nervous nation.

I don’t suspect this is the last time I will notice its effect. Nor can I change my brown face or my white shoes. Well, I suppose I can change the shoes. But why should I? George Michael, a singer who is actually gay and not adverse to a bit of white shoe wearing himself, sang in the aptly titled, ‘Freedom’, that “sometimes the clothes do not make the man.” But, for the chavs in their tracksuits, the suspected terrorists in their pants, and even for me, in my shiny white loafers, it’s often hard to escape the assumption. At least unscathted.

There's no such thing as a three lunch

It used to be I’d say to people, “hey, I’m getting kind of fat.” And people would say, “what are talking about?” with some surprise, “you’re totally skinny.” Then recently, I’d say the same, and they’d go, “yeah, you are putting on some weight.” Now, quite remarkably, people are volunteering this information. “Dude,” they say, looking at my belly. “You’re fat.”

How did this happen? In just a few months I’ve gone from floater to bloater. My blazers are tight (and not like in an indie rock and roll kind of way), my jeans don’t fit and, well, I don’t even want to talk about the swelling in my feet. I find myself wearing more black, saying stuff like, “moment on the lips, lifetime on the hips”, and asking retails assistants if my bum looks big in any number of outfits.

Now that everybody and their mama is noticing (never mind that my lifestyle is inherently unhealthy), I feel driven by vanity to act quickly. This involves switching from regular M&S ready meals to their ‘Count on Us’ low-calorie range, drinking spirits instead of beer and occasionally – get this – walking over to the TV to change the channel. (That won’t last.)

But, before my toes disappear beneath the shadow of my belly, I am going to have to do something. Even if that means just eating the one lunch.

Sounds Like...

I'm sure, blog readers, that you've noticed a decline in quality since my editor-in-chief, Beth, up and left me, her post, and the long arm of the law, for a future of fugitivity in the US.

My most recent post, short of upsetting the friends, family and colleagues to whom I have recently returned, elicited a phone call from the Beth and some suggestions on my writing style.

"Before you post an entry," she began. "Just think, 'does this make me sound like a complete wanker?'"

And so with Beth's simple yet effective test in mind I hope you'll notice an improvement of sorts. Or at least a blogger, sounding less like a wanker.