Like a tree.

There was a television advert for a bank or an insurance company - I don't remember which exactly - but I'm pretty sure it was for an organisation for whom the level of emotion was completely inappropriate.

It featured a montage of faces, each dreamily looking upwards, sharing the wishes that were somehow facilitated by said organisation.

"I want to be a gymnast,"
"I want to be teacher,"
"I want to be a sex pest," and so on.
And, the closing thought, "I want to be a tree."

The latter was my mum's favourite. She likes trees - she couldn't quite see how banking or taking out insurance would allow her to become one. But the thought became something of a catch phrase for her. "I want to be a tree," she often said, dreamily looking upwards, fantasising of a life more peaceful and serene.

Well, that dream has slowly been hacked away at for several years. And last night it came crashing to the ground, when my dad committed axe to trunk and bought the whole fucking tree down.

Concerned that it was growing out of control, dad was determined to assert his, and fell the tree that loomed over a main road in our front garden.

Obviously, there are precautions that need to be taken when dealing with a felling so close to a busy road. For my dad these precautions, and the costs involved in taking them, were to be - at all times - avoided.

The tree, he decided, would be felled by himself, his shopkeeper friend, a chainsaw, and a bit of rope. And in the hope that the twenty-foot beech tree would fall this way and not that - onto the road and to the injury or death of its innocent users.

But, while still shedding the tree of its branches, onlookers must have observed this potential tragedy and complained; for when the police arrived the men dropped their chainsaws and their plans.

But not for good.

Determined to fell this tree, without any financial cost to himself, and undeterred by the warnings of the police (and soon after the local council and two tree surgeons), my dad decided that he would return to the tree, under the cloak of darkness. And, if his shopkeeper friend wouldn't join him, he'd get his best man on the job.

81-year-old war veteran, John would trade his walking stick for a chainsaw and fell the tree in exchange for fire wood, such was his quality of life. He lived alone, in the bad end of town, and would use the wood to heat his abode through to the summer, if he'd make it.

To my dad being compassionate and frugal were two mutually exclusive things. You couldn't be one and the other. Saving money, he thought, was a cruel thing. And so he watched as the old man boarded a step ladder and began to saw at the wood.

But before they were done, the local council returned. The tree, they suggested, may not be ours after all. My dad may be fined, the old man deprived of his fire wood and my mum, whose dreams had been dashed, sawed and partially felled, proven right, after all.

Being cheap and wise, she'd always insisted, were mutually exclusive. In trying to save money my dad had incurred additional costs. And had he learned his lesson?

"I think I'll get John to make a start on the tree in the back garden," he said over dinner the following night.
"Why don't you just do it the right way," my mum said. "For once."
With that she got down from the table and stood her ground, strong and firm. And not at all unlike a tree.

Coloured people.

You wanna live like coloured people?

People. Pets. Places.

We grieve over people and pets but also over places. And while they never die, as such, our relationships with them can change, remain desperately the same or end altogether. In that sense, the towns and cities in which we spend our childhoods, teens and adult lives, are like the relationships we have with people and, to some extent, with pets. They do, after all, get run over by cars; they are loved and are lost.

The places where I've lived, I suppose, are like the girls I've loved. I've played kiss chase in the town of my infancy, got hot and heavy in the suburbs of my teens, and played the field in the the travels of my twenties.

Now that I'm moving to London - the big smoke - I wonder where the analogy will take me. A fat girl with a cigar? I certainly hope not. But, in the meantime, I'm revisiting an old love, having moved out of my flat and in with my parents.

If the travels of my twenties were like playing the field, moving back with my parents is like being castrated. Long gone is the freedom and the flirtatiousness of my young adult life. It's back to curfews and cooked dinners.

But I can't complain. The food is really very nice and there's no where to go out anyway. It's given me time to think. And yesterday I took our dog for a walk down memory lane. Well, actually Mill Farm Drive, the street where my parents live.

I found that either the houses have shrunk or I've grown. I'd walked the streets as a teenager but, for the first time, could see over its fences, and into the gardens and trampolines of its backyards. I saw not the past but what could be my future.

Young families, new money, old people - in relationships with their places more stable, more kind.

I wondered, when the fat lady in London sings, and my twenties become my thirties and those my forties (as the sequence goes) if I would find myself, on a street like this with a life more ordinary.

Marriages, mortgages, divorces, down payments.... Our relationships with people and places are complicated things! I'll stick to having pets, I thought.

That was until I had to use the poop-a-scoop in my hand. If there's one thing that's true about all relationships: shit happens. You love, you lose and, occasionally, you pick up the shit and move on.

The writing's on the wall.

Removing Dawson's Creek from my list of favourite TV shows on social networking site, Facebook, had the exact opposite effect yesterday, when its 'news feed' announced the move to my entire network of friends.

"'San Sharma removed Dawson's Creek from his favourite TV shows'?" Bill wrote on my wall. "...you big gay."

• Facebook

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.

Cosplay

The gospel according to The Hold Steady

Craig Finn took to the stage last night like the speaker at a school assembly. The crowd was small and well behaved, many smartly-dressed, few actually paying attention.

Chubby, bearded and sweating profusely, Finn's appearance reminded me of an old school teacher, whose assemblies were almost always about global tragedies and usually infused with a typical mix of guilt and religion that, on one occasion, made one boy vomit and all of us - always - feel terrible.

When Craig Finn sang however it was clear he bore the mantle of preacher, not teacher. His stories were of local tragedy, of New York City and Minneapolis, of heartbreak and drinking. They made us feel good. And while one or two of us may have been sick, we were drunk with more love than religion could muster.

In 2000, guitarist Tad Kubler, drummer Judd Counsell and bassist Galen Polivka joined Finn and started a rock and roll band. But last night, on stage, they were his disciples. And four hundred or so people in Birmingham heard the gospel according to The Hold Steady.

Playing mostly from their third album, Boys and Girls in America, Finn smiled and sang and swung his arms, grabbed us by our collars, and whispered in our ears, the secrets of his friends, the stories of his youth.

And when he was done - sweating more so, drunk and tearful - he thanked us, he thanked the band, he said we were one and the same. "You are The Hold Steady," he said. And never before have I felt a deep sense of belonging to a room full of strangers. He walked into the crowd and to open arms and embraces, still singing, "I've had kisses that make Judas seem sincere."

And, just as soon as we planted one on his cheek, he turned the other and it was all over - ears ringing, amps buzzing and lights up on a room full of friends.

• The Hold Steady

Le Moonwalker

Ooh la la! Check out my photos from Paris on the link below.

• Paris is for Lovers [via my Flickr photo stream]

Agnostic for chemistry

"I've decided I'm agnostic," Pete said. "Not atheist."
"What's the difference?"
"It means that the only thing I can be sure of is that there may or may not be a God. But that I can't prove it, so won't worry about it."
"That's exactly how I feel about chemistry."

"1 adult, 1 child, please."

There is something of an image problem with the new Kate Winslet's film, I realised last night, when the attractive, box-office clerk asked me what I'd like to watch.
"Little Children," I replied.

• Little Children (2006) [via IMDb]

My poor, unsuspecting Valentine.

I convinced myself that this year's lack of Valentine's Day cards was due to my recent change of address. Not that in previous years I've had much trouble wading through the post.

I'm usually the one sending them out - channelling the creative powers of an entire cottage industry, crafting a card with a year's worth of consideration, and carelessly spending a crazy amount of money on a gift as romantic as it is wrong.

An ex-girlfriend suffered the brunt of my love some years ago, when one such romantic gesture marked the beginning of the end for our relationship.

Not content buying roses, chocolates or - rather surprisingly - slutty underwear, I got wood. And not in the way you might expect on Valentine's Day. I actually bought two trees in "Lover's Wood", Scotland - planted to "symbolise our love", not intended to scare the crap out of my Valentine. Needless to say, it was the last we spent together.

And so this year I thought I would spare womankind my kindness - less through choice, I suppose, than circumstance - and enjoy a vomit-less Valentine's without the crafts, the cards, the crazy gifts.

There could be no less romantic excursion on Valentine's weekend, I thought, than a city break with my mum and my sister. Unless of course the city is Paris.

And that's where I found myself last weekend. In the exquisite opera district, and a hotel room that sleeps three, where the question, "voulez vous couchez avec moi?" decides who gets the single bed and who shares the double.

It was the Valentine's I'd wished for - unromantic, though no less wrong; spent with two women, albeit members of my immediate family; and cheaper - I don't doubt - than two trees in Lover's Wood or whatever gratuitous gift I would have given my poor, unsuspecting Valentine.

Movin' Out.

I'm leaving this place in the morning.

• My videos

And this is what happens when you read the Daily Mail.

In the wake of the Big Brother racism row, distressed viewers are returning to a sense of normality and to discussing topics more typical of a reality TV show.

For the past week however the most distressed of viewers have been on the receiving end of the following arguments, surprised by the opinions of colleagues and co-workers, alarmed by their naiveté.

I do hope that these do not represent the views of most British people, but these are some of the arguments I actually heard last week.

• "I'm sick of white people being sidelined."
  Yeah, I suppose Black History Month is a bit much, isn't it? Really cuts into White History Year.
• "It's political correctness gone mad."
  I'm sorry, do you long for the time when we could tell one another to "f*** off back home"?
• "Oh, but it's okay for Jermaine to call Jackie 'white trash'?"
  No, Jermaine is not granted some sort of immunity from being racist on account of his being black. What he actually said was, "...they brought up the word 'white trash', and I don't want to bring that up. I wouldn't call her that, because she's a human being..."
• "But Jade can't be racist. She's mixed race."
  There's nothing in Jade's genetic make-up that excludes her from being racist. After all, I'm 100% me, and I hate myself a little bit.
• "I'm sick of people playing the race card."
  FYI: we don't like to, us darkies. If we gave you one you'd realise it's not that good a thing to have.

Death of a celebrity

In the eastern Indian city of Patna protesters are burning an effigy that is said to resemble the organisers of Channel 4's reality TV show, Celebrity Big Brother. It looks very much to me like a standard, two plank wooden frame, cloaked in a burning white salwar kameez. Now, I've met John de Mol, co-founder of Endemol, the production company behind the Big Brother franchise, and he is definitely a jeans/sports jacket kind of guy.

Some four thousand miles west and Patna's favourite Bollywood actress, Shilpa Shetty, sits under the surveillance of de Mol's creation - the Big Brother house - caught by the lens of 36 surveillance cameras and the attention of the world's media.

Shetty, 31, is the unwitting subject of a racism row. Her treatment by fellow housemates has generated a record 30,000 viewer complaints and has sparked a national debate on bullying, class and race.

Whether you think her tormentors are racist or not, Shetty has been on the receiving end of some sort of sinister bigotry. And its origins, whether in cultural ignorance, jealousy or arrogance, is a story that needs to be talked about: it is the story of racism in this country.

The name calling, the back stabbing, the bitching, is not unusual in a television show of this nature. But it has become a vehicle for an issue that is as uncomfortable to discuss as the show is to watch.

Does Big Brother reflect society? And if so, are we a racist nation?

Shetty's biggest opponent in the Big Brother house is former contestant Jade Goody, who left series three in 2002, nominated by the public, denounced by the British tabloid press and met with a crowd of booing protesters. Since, she has returned to television, relauched her career and amassed a not inconsiderable fortune.

It's interesting, as a subplot to this series of Big Brother, that we may be witnessing a turning of the tide against the post-Heat notion of celebrity; that we are fed up with what is being celebrated; that it is no longer intelligence, artistry and achievement.

It is predicted that Jade will be the next contestant to leave the Big Brother house. When she does I suspect she will be met with another booing crowd, and that we may see another burning effigy.

Apple: "We need to talk."

Probably the best thing I've ever seen.

• Apple iPhone

This Life +10: Snap, crackle, flop.

I skipped out of the Maidstone Community Centre New Year's Eve party before midnight this year (God knows why) and missed out on all the fireworks. Luckily for me, and viewers of 'This Life +10', there were a few bags of explosives on last night's telly. And a reminder that, amongst 'Celebrity This' and 'Reality That', there is still some British TV worth staying in for, even if it's a one-off Christmas special - and I use the word 'special' quite liberally.

'This Life +10' caught up with Miles, Anna, Milly, Egg and Warren of the original BBC drama, which ended in 1997 with a bang (actually, more of a wallop) after 32 episodes and a lot of shagging, swearing and snorting. Last night's reunion however ended on a much quieter note. There were fireworks, sure, but they were lit carefully, as if according to health and safety procedures: proof that people - like old fireworks - get duller with age.

Egg is somehow a literary sensation; Milly a mum; Warren is into life coaching; and Miles is a mega-rich hotels entrepreneur, hosting the former lawyers at his huge country pile. Anna still practices, and is the only character not completely mutated by time. She's still got attitude, balls (not literally) and those great legs. She didn't however have the best line. That honour went to Warren ( "Well really, I mean, arguing about the war...is so last season"). What she did have was a baby complex and exactly what was wrong with 'This Life +10'.

The original series was the twenties we had or wished we'd had (I'm still wondering if mine will come, as I struggle to stay awake at 9:30pm). They shagged, they swore, they swayed to...Suede. They were of their time. And now, while they don't swear any less, they discuss babies and bankruptcy and what exactly a "Kaiser Chief" is. And I wonder if it might have been best if they'd just stayed away and, like Suede and...shagging (I remember that), remained warm in the memory.

'This Life +10' arrived on our screens between two bastions of reality TV: 'I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here' and 'Celebrity Big Brother', where fireworks mark the entrance and exit of its c-list contestants. Last night however, 'This Life +10' snapped, it crackled, but it flopped. I only hope that this so-called special, like the lingering smoke of a disappointing backyard firework display, doesn't cloud the memory of a groundbreaking show.

Happy New Year and that.

I figured I'd be excused for my lack of Christmas spirit this year on account of my Hinduism, which - as you know - seems to come and go. In any case, I apologise for a quiet couple of weeks. And, while I'm late in wishing you a Merry Christmas, Hinduism is really no excuse (even if the calendar itself is Judo-centric) - and so I wish you all a very Happy New Year and all the best for 2007.

Peace out, James Brown.

The King of Pop bids farewell to the Godfather of Soul.

Inches and centimetres

Having debunked the rumour that I recently died, I have another, of even bigger concern to deny - "bigger" being the operative word, and more concerning than death, you might ask? If you're a guy, you'll understand.

A survey of more than 1,000 men in India has concluded that condoms made according to international sizes are too large for a majority of Indian men.

This, from a BBC News article, Condoms 'too big' for Indian men, has been the bone - sorry, the bane of my existence for the past two weeks. And the subject of many e-mails, mostly from white guys, liberally copying in their address books, and pasting the article below some small joke about size (though you don't see me complaining about length).

The article spread even to my mother, who is so news illiterate she still thinks Princess Diana was murdered.
"There are people talking in the office, San," she said over the phone. "They say your penis is small."
"What?!"
It was a conversation I didn't want to have with my mum. Again.

In my defence, and that of Indian guys everywhere, who, like me, have been forwarded this article, mocked by their friends and mothers and injured themselves on retracting tape measure, I say this:

It is not the size of the boat, people, it's the motion of the ocean. And, let's not forget, that over Indian seas (incidentally the third largest body of water in the world) is birthplace of the Kama Sutra and a billion children.

"From our population, the evidence is Indians are doing pretty well," says Sunil Mehra, the former editor of the Indian version of men's magazine Maxin. "With apologies to the poet Alexander Pope, you could say, for inches and centimetres, let fools contend."

• Condoms 'too big' for Indian men via [BBC News]

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

Biscuits keep falling on my head

Lovely though she is, I must apologise on behalf of Myleene Klass, for her soapy breasts and their unlikely appearance on my blog last week. I realise the post was somewhat out of character and I do hope it didn't offend my more conservative readers.

The truth is, I've not been feeling myself recently. Quite literally. I'm undertaking a month long detox, in which I'm abstaining from booze, fags and sex. Some are easier to give up than others. I don't smoke really and it's actually more of an effort to attract girls than to...repel them.

Jesus will tell you however (when he's next in) that temptation is the hardest part. Indeed, my four days in detox has felt like a biblical 40. Short of the devil himself making an appearance I have been plagued with the wicked snares of desire.

The inescapably attractive Myleene Klass is one, appearing bikini-clad and buxom on ITV's I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. A burgeoning social life is another. This weekend alone will see me at a club, a house party and a wedding reception, with orange juice and clarity at each.

As if that weren't enough, junk food - perhaps the hardest thing for me to give up - has practically been falling from the sky. Sorry, has actually been falling from the sky, I kid you not. Yesterday, and not for the first time, I was pummelled by chocolate biscuits as I walked down Princess Street. What's that about? Go down there yourself and you'll see crumbs where I was.

Luckily, I've not reached the stage where the smashed remains of chocolate biscuits have tempted me from my detox. Should the bikini-clad and buxom fall into my lap I might be swayed.

	Sorry girls... I'm breaking my 'no ITV' rule, skipping Celebrity Scissorhands (deciding instead to make a large donation to Children In Need) and watching I'm a Celebrity... Here's why.
So long 'Celebrity Scissorhands!'
Why I'm watching 'I'm a Celebrity'...	Ladies and gentlemen, Myleene Klass.

• Celebrity Scissorhands (BBC)
• I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here (ITV)

Washed Up

When I moved out of my family home into my own place one of first things I bought was a plastic washing up bowl. It's more symbolic than it sounds.

To me, it, and all the new kitchenware I'd bought, represented a new independence and a break from the Indian culture on which I was raised.

I'd never seen a washing up bowl until I went to my girlfriend's house. English people, I discovered, put their dishes in this bowl, soaked them in hot water and, some time later, rinsed them off. It seemed to be the antithesis of the Sisypheon ordeal that was washing up in my house.

My long suffering Mum stood making hot chapatis while we ate, and somehow managed to finish hers first and be at the kitchen sink quicker than we could say alloo sag. (My pronunciation always slowed me down somewhat.)

There would be no after dinner conversation. The trays had to be washed - jaldi, jaldi - before the colourful culinary delights left stains in their steel compartments. Mum would stand, hunched over the sink, scrubbing the trays as they clanked, one by one, before her.

The plastic bowl, I observed, allowed my girlfriend's family to dispose of waste liquid into the sink, whilst keeping the washing up water relatively clean.

It was perfect, I thought. While the dishes soaked I could...listen to Radio 4, read the newspaper, have a glass of wine - do all the things we never did in our house. I could...be white and middle-class. All thanks to a plastic washing up bowl.

It wasn't long, however, after moving into my own place that I began to find the plastic bowl a bit cumbersome. I couldn't get much in it and I didn't get much out of it. It just became another thing to wash up. And while I let things soak I realised that I didn't care much for Radio 4, I never bought the paper and I didn't know how to drink wine without getting drunk.

I took it out of the sink. And my washing up bowl, for some time, became my fruit bowl.

Some say multiculturalism is a melting pot. I think it's more a plastic washing up bowl. And I've decided - and can only imagine its cultural ramifications - that I'm getting a dishwasher.

Borat. And mixing with the wrong crowd.

I went to see Borat for the second time yesterday. But I don't imagine it'll become the multiple viewing experience Superman Returns was. In fact, the first time I went to see it I didn't see it at all. I made the mistake of going on an Orange Wednesday, when mobile phone customers get two-for-one cinema tickets, saw the enormous queue of Borat fans, turned around and walked home.

I was put off, not exactly by the size of the crowd, but by its components. And that sounds like a terribly snobby thing to say. But, to quote the Onion, stereotypes are a real time saver, and just a glance at the crowd revealed a group of people probably unable to separate the irony from the racism, misogyny and anti-semitism of Borat.

The genius of Sacha Baron Cohen's creation is that it makes its point by seemingly embracing these bigoted ideas, turning the mirror on its subjects and making us question the boundaries of humour. When I finally saw the film yesterday I found that my stereotyping was spot on, that the crowd, which I'd tried to avoid by going to the matinee, asked no questions of its humour, instead erupted into hysterical laughter without the slightest delay.

I was, and not for the first time in Shrewsbury, immersed in a crowd with whom I shared little in common. And it made me feel as uneasy as Borat's tasteless gags. If you don't see these as satire, I thought, you are essentially laughing at racism, misogyny and anti-semitism. Were these people, I thought, looking at the crowd, the ones accusing me of terrorism? Calling me "über-gay"?

Is it good satire? It is occasionally. I liked when he lambasted people who deserved to be lambasted (and not just because I like to use the word 'lambast'). The frat boys in the Winnebago were truly horrible racist, sexist bastards. The scene in which Borat fearlessly strides into a Texan rodeo ring and loudly praises his hosts' "War of Terror" to wild applause is brilliantly surreal. But picking on shopkeepers by smashing their cheap antiques or presenting Atlanta folk with a bag of his after-dinner poo is just bullying one step up from Jeremy Beadle.

Is Borat funny? Yes, it is, and fine TV. And perhaps that's how it could have been better enjoyed, on the small screen and with like minded people, with whom I could have been sure to share the joke. But yesterday, I think, I was sitting in the wrong crowd.

• Stereotypes Are A Real Timesaver, The Onion

Greatest Hits

I spent a big portion of last night, horizontal on my sofa, going through my entire blog, assigning labels to every post in its three year history. It was a Sisyphean task. But an enlightening one, in that it allowed me to see the frequency with which I write about certain subjects.

By this study you could say that this is something of a travel blog. There are 43 posts in this category, but that's not necessarily because I travel a lot. It's just that I post a lot when I travel.

I also write quite frequently about dating. It's quite alarming how many posts are labelled both 'sex' and 'faux pas'. That should give you some indication of my prowess. (Still single, ladies. Form an orderly queue.)

So, the next time you're horizontal on your sofa browse my blog by label and you might find, if I may say so myself, some absolute corkers. Like these:

From Travel:

• Postcard from South Beach, Miami
• Postcard from Ohio. That's right. Ohio.
• Postcard from Hollywood

From Dating:

• Dumped.com
• My Mental Girlfriend
• Pretzel Logic

From Music:

• Michael Jackson: The Monster that Lurks Among Us
• Thrilling Me Softly
• Sylvia Plath

My type.

I don't exactly have "a type". I find the whole notion a bit non-sensical. Beyond the obvious physical attributes (attractive, please) surely we all want to meet someone who is funny, interesting and smart, etc. (I doubt there is much demand for the sombre, dull and dumb.) Besides I've learnt, in this town, not to be so picky.

There is one attribute however that I assume most people demand in their prospective partners. And that is a compatible sexual orientation. It's an important quality sure, but one that, for some reason, I seem to have difficulty finding.

I didn't find it last weekend. And I'm beginning to wonder if my type is, in fact, lesbian. Or whether I am so metrosexual - so far from the alpha male - that I am considered attractive by the lesbian community. Or even, ironically, so often perceived as gay that my own gaydar is somewhat faulty. In any case, and to quote Larry David, I am a "friend o' lesbians".

It started in 1997 with my first girlfriend, who - you could say - played the butch to my femme. She whipped me in sports (though that's no great feat), she wore her hair shorter than mine and spent an inordinate amount of time with her best friend. She is now, incidentally, a pro-golfer. And full-time lesbian.

More recently I dated a lesbian that I found on match.com. Her profile read, "22-year-old woman...seeking women 18-35." Remarkably, she said, I was just her type. Needless to say, it didn't work out. I guess something got between us.

And then, of course, last weekend. And Sarah. And although I'm off the dating scene at the moment I was happy to meet the delightful Scotswoman and publisher of My Little Pony magazine. And, while I doubt her job has anything to do with her sexuality (unless My Little Pony is some sort of horrible euphemism), I was quite surprised when she asked me out and even more surprised when I heard the next day that she was gay.

With the news I began to piece together the evening. And it's a wonder I didn't work it out for myself. She did have rather boyish hair, she dressed not unlike KD Lang and, of course, she was into me. There was a point in the evening when we were dancing and she grabbed me by the hand and sort of twirled me around. "I'm sorry," she said with a laugh. "I'm used to being the lead." I didn't think much of it at the time. But now it makes complete sense.

• Dumped.com

David Blaine: Street Magic (sort of)

WARNING: Okay kids, this one's got some bad language.
But it's f****** funny.

• Classic (actual) David Blaine trick

What's wrong with Ricky Gervais's Extras?

I suspected something was wrong with Ricky Gervais when he, and writing partner Stephen Merchant, ended The Office with a two-part Christmas special, in which its star-crossed lovers became uncrossed, so to speak, and all lived happily ever after.

It was lovely, don't get me wrong. But at that moment, when Dawn and Tim kissed, a whole country was watching. And it applauded. Long gone were the days when you and your few like-minded friends would cringe at David Brent, the world's most annoying boss. Now annoying bosses all over the country were watching. And they'd bought the DVD.

Then came along Extras and an admirable effort to shed the catch-phrase loving contingent of Gervais's mainstream audience. Viewing figures dropped and, for the first season at least, Gervais and Merchant remembered how to make a cult TV show.

They just forgot to make it funny.

Okay, that's not fair. It has its moments. But, as the second series finished last week, I wondered, what's wrong with Extras?

I came up with this:

• Andy Millman is the least funny character
  Ricky Gervais is Andy Millman, struggling bit-part actor who gave up his day job in the hope of achieving fame and fortune. Actually, Ricky Gervais is Ricky Gervais, which is not to say unfunny, but it's unimaginative. There's very little creation in the character. Ashley Jenson (Maggie); Stephen Merchant, who plays Darren, Andy's incompetent agent; and Barry "off Eastenders" have less screen time but much more realised characters, far more funny in their absurdity. "Have a bit a muffin." Brilliant. That's some funny stuff.
• He's inconsistent
  David Brent was, like Maggie, Darren and Barry, a more consistent character. In Extras, Ricky Gervais alternates between Andy Millman, the podcasting Ricky Gervais and David Brent. He is, in one scene, cool, condescending and cringingly crude - but rarely consistent.
• It's difficult to sympathise with him
  It's like how do you relate to 50 Cent, now that he's off the street and making millions? Okay, bad example. I doubt many of you were ever on the street, or being shot at for that matter. I don't even like rap...what's my point? My point is, by the second series of Extras, Andy Millman's biggest gripe is that he's late for a meeting with Al Pacino. It's hardly Dog Day Afternoon.

There is no doubting Ricky Gervais's enormous talent. The man has actually made me wee laughing. That's funny. But, with Extras, there is something wrong. And I dread to think that it's Ricky Gervais.

I hope with his next project he can either deliver a character as creative and consistent as David Brent or remain behind the cameras as a stellar screenwriter and director. Maybe we'll see more of writing partner Stephen Merchant. Give him a spin-off show with Barry off Eastenders and I might just wee myself. That's some funny stuff. Right there.

S&M

When my local Marks & Spencer revealed its new store layout last week I was a bit disappointed to find that access to the food hall no longer required a trip through the lingerie section.

It had always been something of a guilty pleasure, having to wade through thongs and things to get to the groceries.

Now however when I want, say, some milk or...baps I can take the escalator directly to the food hall.

But I did notice today that, while I'm quite missing the scantily clad mannequins of the lingerie section, M&S seems to have transformed from department store for the elderly into, what looks like, sex shop for the single.

There is definitely an air of eroticism beyond the wireframed undercup of the lingerie department. Mannequins in ladies' clothes hold hands and look adoringly into each others' plastic eyes; they wear Basques and hang from poles, like exotic dancers; and, as I was leaving the store, I noticed a mannequin in that most suggestive of positions: dressed in office attire, bending over a table!

As I went to push the door I saw two letters, backwards through the glass: S&M. Is this the secret to M&S's recent success? I guess the clothes weren't selling so well so they tried the one thing that does in abundance: sex.

Tony Blair rocks out.

• George Bush and Tony Blair sing 'Endless Love'

FHA

Oh, sweet relief. Some good news today: apparently only three of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (FHA) are bad. One of them is God! I did not know that. I do now!

I had a chat with a couple of Christian chaps on Pride Hill today. One of them had some sort of American accent and looked like a member of Hanson (he also had like ketchup on his shirt or something); the other was from India but looked black. The whole thing was weird. But they were nice kids.

And so I figured while God himself might not removeth thy stain from thy shirt I might as well donate some money in the hope that the Church might offer some sort of laundry service. Plus, the posters they were selling actually looked pretty cool. The one I bought depicted three horsemen in drab, dull looking clothes, brandishing bloody swords and what looked like nunchucks, and another on a white horse, in clean, newly pressed cricket whites. He also had white hair, a white beard and a mean looking bow and arrow. He was God, apparently.

"Is that God?" I asked.
"Well yeah," replied the Christian. "That's Jesus."
"Wow," I said. "That's really a relief."

And so I gave him a pound and went about my way. I might not hang the poster on my wall but knowing that only three of the Four Horsemen are a problem seems one less thing to worry about.

The red, white and blues

As a medieval town Shrewsbury's epicentre is a castle that sits atop a hill - Pride Hill, to be exact, also the namesake of one of Shrewsbury three shopping centres.

The Darwin Shopping Centre is nearest the castle and generally considered the best of the three. Pride Hill is next - a little worse for wear, and then the Riverside Mall. If the Darwin is "king of the castle", then Riverside is something of a "dirty rascal", home to stores such as BeWise, TJ Hughes and Wilkinson, and frankly some of the strangest most miserable of Shrewsbury's inhabitants.

As the town's bottom-most shopping centre, the Riverside Mall sits quite literally in the shadow of its competitors, its customers generally those unable to climb stairs or inclines. Hence, there are a lot of old people and prams in the Riverside Mall. There is also a terrible sense of doom. Yesterday there was even jazz, but it did little to lift the mood of mall staff.

"Ah, bet that's lovely, getting to hear that jazz all day," I said to the assistant, as live music from a 'grand opening' party drifted into the store.
"Well," she sighed as she closed her eyes and clutched her head. "Don't get me started on that."
"Oh...okay," I said.
Hang on, I thought. What does she mean? "What do you mean?" I asked.
"Well, it's not my cup of tea," she said, still clutching. "That, out there." With that she used her other hand to point to the black lady singing old standards.
"What?" I asked, intrigued.
"Music."
"You don't like music?"
"Well," she brought her hand down to her side. The clutching had left little white marks on her forehead. "In my own time I do - "
"Right."
" - but I'm working."
"Yeah...did you say you had this in another colour?"
"Only what's on the shelf love," she said abruptly. "If it's not on the shelf we don't have it in stock. OK?"

And so I smiled, bought it in red and stepped out into the mall to see that the jazz band were packing away. "Tough crowd, huh?" I said to the drummer. "Perhaps you ought to play the blues next time."
He looked at me blankly.
"You know, give the people what they want?"

The future's bright. The future's useless.

After two days of presentations and for the most part being asked "is television dead?", Emma and I decided to leave the 'Buzz Hall' of Cross Media Week's main conference building for the 'Tree House', and a line-up of speakers and presentations very much more alive.

'New Interfaces - How to interact with a connected world' presented the studies and developments of four scientists working in the field of advanced media interfaces.

The most impressive was John Underkoffler, inventor of g-speak gestural interface technology and advisor to Steven Spielberg. G-speak replaces a conventional computer mouse with a glove that allows the user to point, push, pull and grab objects within a 3D graphical user interface.

If John de Mol was right yesterday and "the meaning is in the use," what followed was impressive but mostly meaningless presentations. Dr. Emile Aarts from Philips Research Laboratories premiered LED technology that lit a room according to scenes in a film, placing the viewer in an immersive environment; a collaborative canvas on which two children could virtually paint together and thus, to quote Dr. Aarts, "be kept off the streets, and from smacking one another"; and, the most useless of all, LED fabric apparently best demonstrated by a soft cushion that bore a pink glowing heart.

Though I won't be running out to buy one of those, if Jo Reid from HP Labs gets her way school children will be running from creatures great and small as she subjects them to what she calls, "Virtual Experience Environments" - or what anyone else might call, "placing small children in horrifying situations." The technology allows schools to advance their pupils by allowing them to walk around existing environments, such as playgrounds and parks, and make them virtual by attaching audio and video feeds of scenes from the Discovery Channel: riots in Northern Ireland, hunting in the Savannah, the Second World War.

The future's bright, I thought to myself. It's also a little bit useless.

This is a low

There's an old Indian saying - "do not judge a man until you've walked two moons in his moccasins." That's a lot of moonwalking and, when you're in the Netherlands, an uncomfortable trot in wooden clogs.

Nevertheless, I squeezed into a pair (metaphorically, of course) and trotted to an infamous 'coffee shop' in the Red Light District. (Where else would I suggest when accompanying my boss on a business trip?)

It was horribly garish. And utterly uninspired. A Rastafarian at the counter, toad stools for chairs and Japanese tourists sucking on spliffs, making peace signs for pictures.

The 'buffalo soldier' at the bar turned down the music, the crowd sang loudly and while everyone else got high I thought to myself, this is a low.

The Week that Lies Ahead

On the journey from Shrewsbury to Amsterdam my boss, Emma, asked what I had hoped to see in the week that lay ahead. I thought for a moment and answered, "clogs...drugs...and whores."
"Right," she responded. "I sort of meant at the conference...?"
"Yeah, of course," I said, sheepishly. "Um..."

We're here for Picnic '06, Amsterdam's annual event for people interested and involved in cross media content and technology. It's part of Cross Media Week and, by the looks of its programme (which includes keynote presentations from MTV, Pixar, and craigslist.org) should be fantastic.

In the spirit of 'cross media', 'web 2.0' and other sort of faddish buzzwords, I'll be keeping you updated via my blog and my Flickr, bringing you highlights of the conference and whatever else I might see in the week that lies ahead.

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.

Surely, quote of the day.

"They wanted to set an example out of me... Who knew the black buck? I mean today because of me, people know there's an endangered species of deer called black buck, well it's actually an antelope."

Salman Khan
BBC News

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?"

Giving 'Tom Jones' the boot

It's not often that you find a big name, like Tom Jones, thrust back into your life - not least, into your car. But it was not long after writing about his unusual appearance in Shrewsbury that I found myself, quite literally, stuffing Tom Jones into the boot of my Nissan Micra. Let me explain.

I was sent by my employer to the offices of the Town Council to collect some banners that we had produced for a marketing campaign, and was met with the confused looks that you might expect from an overstaffed, under performing local governing body.

"I'm sorry, we have no record of a collection for today," said the receptionist.
"But I called ahead," I said. "I recognise your voice."
"Right," she said. "But there's nothing on the system."
"Yes, because I'm here. I'm standing here," I said. "You told me to come down."
"Right," she said again, looking no less confused. "Bear with me a second."
After some delay she returned from what appeared to be nothing more than 'thinking time' and suggested that the banners I was looking for might be those rolled and stacked against the wall.

I looked at them and after a similar, perhaps spiteful delay, agreed to take them. It was only when I got to the car and began stuffing them into my boot that I realised, from reading what was visible on the rolled up banners, that the letter 'J' didn’t appear anywhere on our marketing campaign. Concerned that these were indeed the wrong banners, I unrolled one onto the pavement and sure enough, it read: "'Tom Jones' here!" You could see how the Council had attempted to avoid confusion by sticking black tape inverted commas around the words 'Tom Jones.'

Even so, I considered taking them home and fixing them to the outside of my apartment building in the hope that, one day, perhaps on his way home to Wales, the singer might stop, confused by the sign, and feel obliged to perform. Though, in Shrewsbury, an adaptation of an 18th century novel is more likely to knock on your door.

It was a bit unusual

Clever marketing ploy? Or dumb oversight? The Shrewsbury Theatre Guild attracted some less gruesome attention to the crime capital of the county this week when its adaptation of an 18th Century novel was mistaken for Welsh balladeer and heartthrob, Tom Jones.

"Tom Jones here!" the banner, somewhat misleadingly screamed, as it hung by the Castle, prompting middle aged women across the county to rush out, buy tickets and lob some knickers in excitement.

"Can you believe Tom Jones is playing here?" Even Shrewsbury's young began to ask, having only been witness to one other pop music event in their lifetimes - the not unusual arrest of Pete Doherty for possession of Class A drugs.

There were, however, some non-believers. "So some big name is booked to play Shrewsbury. Big deal," said one man. "He'll only cancel. What's new...?"

The Pussycat Dolls in the Quarry?

"Whoah-oh-whoah-oh-whoaah-ooh," said the Theatre Guild, when asked to comment.

It has subsequently added inverted commas to the title of its play, adding that the overwhelming interest in tickets was "a bit unusual."

A Not-So Superplan

If you know me/have read my blog/been in ear-shot of any number of recent conversations you'll know that I'm very excited about the UK release of Superman Returns this Friday.

So excited, in fact, that I rushed out - faster than a speeding bullet - and bought more tickets than people I know. Anxious, perhaps optimistically, that the Man of Steel's return to the Silver Screen would sell out, I spent more money than logic today when booking seats over the Internet - reserving two for the 12:30pm showing in Shrewsbury, another two for 1pm that same day in Telford, and two more for an 8pm showing later that evening.

That's six tickets, for three showings - two of which commence within a half hour of each other, are in two towns 10 miles apart and one frankly expensive and badly planned day.

Worse still, Pete's working, Emma's in London, Beth's in York (and is so sick of Superman and its oft-quoted trailer - "the world doesn't need a saviour...and neither do I" - she wouldn't come anyway); and the only girl who might put up with my hand holding, tear welling, nausea inducing excitement is gone, in a similar and badly planned break-up. If I'd have just hung on...

I don't know what's more depressing: that I don't know five other people to take to the cinema, that I can't work an online booking form, or that I'll be watching perhaps the most eagerly anticipated movie event of my adult life alone, in an ill fitting Superman costume, with an empty seat beside me to put my red polyester cape.

Super.

Town of Flowers

Shrewsbury - birthplace of Charles Darwin, home of 80s pop group T'Pau, town of flowers - became the scene of a murder probe Sunday morning when the bodies of two women were found in what police believe to be a massage parlour.

Since their discovery, the murder, as you might imagine, has been talk of the town. In talking about it, townsfolk - on three separate occasions - have asked of my whereabout Saturday night. This was mildly funny the first time. It then dawned on me that the question assumes two things: that I might a) frequent a "massage parlour", and b), perhaps more alarmingly, actually murder someone.

Also worrying is the fact that I don't have a great alibi. I, like most of the nation, watched Rooney stamp on Carvalho's balls Saturday but then left a house party early to travel from Wolverhampton back to Shrewsbury, with enough time to run a bath, have a sandwich and watch Big Brother. Probably enough time to knock out a couple of hookers.

It doesn't help that I often include the building suspected to be a massage parlour in my town tour to visitors, alluding to them the fact that I know of its place and purpose (though no more than it's blacked out windows and closed sign).

It probably works against me that I am like one of two people of colour living in the town centre. If a brown face was caught on CCTV I've a 50/50 chance of being interviewed. And I don't do well under that kind of pressure. I can't even stop from sweating when airport security ask if I packed my own bags.

However conspicuous at least I wasn't sporting ridiculous head gear Saturday night (for once). Apparently police are looking to interview a man who stayed late at a nearby pub, wearing a purple bandana and having taken part in a "pirate re-enactment."

A pirate re-enactment? A massage parlour? A murder? These things happen in Shrewsbury? This place is suddenly a lot more than a town of flowers.

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]

Superman Returns

Superman's return to our big screens this summer will have fanboys, like me, wetting their little red underpants in excitement and might, potentially, give some approval for my often unpopular taste.

People jeer at my Jacko obsession (not those cool kids outside the gates Neverland, oh no); they scoff at my Dawson's Creek DVD collection; throw their drinks at my shiny white shoes and yell, "Oi, you! Gay boy!" Who's gay now? (Well, Superman, according to gay magazine The Advocate.)

But for once, it seems, something I like (in tights, nonetheless) has the approval of critics and the drink lobbing public alike, as the first reviews for Superman Returns give the new movie a resounding thumbs up.

Variety magazine's critic said it was "grandly conceived, sensitively drawn [and] never self-consciously hip".

"It is sincere, with an artistic elegance and a genuine emotional investment in the material," he wrote.

The Hollywood Reporter, meanwhile, saluted "a heartfelt Superman movie that plays to a broad audience".

Routh, it continued, plays the comic book character "with honesty [and] winning fortitude".

And Newsweek's David Ansen wrote: "From the start of this gorgeously crafted epic, you can feel that Singer has real love and respect for the most foursquare comics superhero of them all.

"Newcomer Routh may or may not be a real actor, but he effortlessly lays claim to the iconic role."

His comments were echoed by Harry Knowles on the Ain't It Cool News website, who described Superman Returns as "the film I was hoping and dreaming for".

"Just as Batman Begins relaunched an ailing Batman, it sends Superman into the stratosphere," he wrote.

• BBC News
• Ain't It Cool News
• Superman Returns

Google This

As part of the free service that www.statcounter.com provides I can see what keywords people are entering in Google to find my website. Here are some of my favourites:

• dork on bike
• booty consultant
• macho men
• solar generator briefcase retailers
• arnie-who is your daddy?
• swingers in telford
• shit stained
• black surfers
• crazy ass lights
• www.tiffanyrose.com

Dumped.com

Since failing to meet the requirements that secure my money back guarantee, not to mention being stood up and having thrown up, my match.com subscription had finally rendered itself useless, usurped finally by MySpace and that other playground of romance, the real world, in which I had recently found some success.

Suzie, affectionately referred to in a previous post as “the one that came along,” had been coming along rather well, for want of a better word. That is, we’d been seeing each other for a few weeks. Anything beyond a few dates is somewhat miraculous for me, having dated women with children, ex-husbands and mental illnesses. (A background check revealed no history of these things.)

Excited by this and, hedging my bets somewhat, I made my last move on Match.com to, remarkably, decline a date with a not unattractive young lady. “I’m sorry,” I wrote. “I met someone.” Imagine my surprise then when that someone uses the same online service to send me a virtual wink (see Can’t buy me love) and essentially invites me to view her own match.com profile.

“22-year-old woman,” it began, “seeking women 18-35.”

Now, we’ve not yet had that talk about our “relationship”, whether indeed there is one, and whether, of course, we are seeing other people. By sending me a virtual wink via match.com, Suzie answered some of those questions, sure, but raised others too. Let’s start with what we do know. We are, I guess, seeing other people. In fact, we’re actively seeking other people. We are actively seeking homosexual relationships.

By alerting me to her match.com profile is Suzie suggesting that I am a) “women aged 18-35”, or b) dumped, ceremoniously, with a wink and a new agenda or, rather, a new gender?

Ladies Man

I’m sorry that I haven’t written for so long. I guess I haven’t done anything stupid in a while. Not since seeing She’s the Man, sleeping with my ex-girlfriend or making excessive international calls on my mobile, all of which are detailed below and, incidentally, involve members of the opposite sex.

It was only a matter of time that one would come along; I would do something stupid and, if nothing else, get to share it on my blog. Luckily for me however, Suzie, the one that did come along, finds the stupid things that I do quite charming. (I’ll give her ‘til the end of this blog entry.)

“The female of the species,” so wrote Rudyard Kipling (and sang 90s band, Space), “is more deadly than the male.” And though they’ve not yet proven fatal (though I hope that’s how I’ll go), just being around them is something of a scarring experience for me. Quite literally.

I wrote in Your Hapless Hero of the nosebleed that ruined a barbeque and in Word of Mouth about the mouth sores that precede even the slightest chance of sex. I was suffering from neither come my date with Suzie when I stepped into the shower, and the elaborate routine that is my getting ready, to find I had no hot water. This is, to me, like having no water at all. How was I to double-shampoo, apply my leave-in conditioner, have a hot towel shave?

And while these are issues that concern the metrosexual male, plumbing is not. So I set about getting some help. And when it finally arrived, three days later, it was exactly as I imagined. The plumber’s name was Kev, and he said things like, “ooh, this looks like a bigger job than I thought”, “I’m going to have to order another part”, and something about football that I didn’t understand.

Either way, he left not having fixed my plumbing and with the realisation that, worse than a nosebleed, worse even than the mouth sores, I stank. I hadn’t showered in days. And I had a second date with Suzie. What was I going to do?

I decided I would shower at my gym. But then I realised I don’t have a gym. I know a gym, sure, but it’s not mine, I’m not a member, and I’ve never got beyond the gym tour or over the stitch that it gave me. But this was a matter of personal hygiene, I told myself; personal appearance. And so I called ahead and asked if I could.

Worse than the idea of exercising was the thought of taking a communal shower. But once I got there and changed out of my clothes, I stumbled in blindly, without my glasses, and found there were curtains that divided the shower room into cubicles. Better still, there was no-one there. Pulling the curtain to, I began the first of two shampoos. This was great, I thought. As I applied the leave-in conditioner, I read the ad that hung on the wall. “Stay shower fresh all day,” it read. That would be nice, I thought. And how do I do that? “Use Always Ultra Panty Liner.”

Just then, two female voices entered the room, their pedicured feet showing from under the shower curtain. Thinking mine were conspicuously hairy I edged back towards the wall (and the panty liner advert) and wondered what the hell I was going to do. The female of the species might be deadly, but, when it comes to personal hygiene, apparently they’re no match for the metrosexual male. One shampoo and no conditioning later they had left and so too did I, squinting as I did to see the ‘Ladies’ sign on the door.

Soccer and High Heels

Hot on the high-heels of Felicity Huffman’s critically acclaimed Transamerica, She’s the Man is a gender bending comedy of errors, recycled from parts of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and Robin Williams’ Mrs Doubtfire. In it Amanda Byrnes plays a girl who pretends to be a boy in order to play soccer.

“Everybody has a secret...” reads the almost necessarily long tagline on the movie’s poster. “Duke wants Olivia who likes Sebastian who is really Viola whose brother is dating Monique so she hates Olivia who’s with Duke to make Sebastian jealous who is really Viola who’s crushing on Duke who thinks she's a guy...”

You might be wondering how I read to the end of the poster and still saw this movie. Surely a film with this many interlocking romantic triangles is one for a hot date? Not in my world. In my world this is the kind of film that I am cajoled into seeing by my slightly weird, thirteen year old, male (I should mention) cousin.

I thought, at the least, there might be some eye candy in the form of the female lead. This is usually where I find my solace in being cajoled to watch a sub-standard romantic comedy. I didn’t find it in this film. Amanda Byrnes, though perfectly lovable, looks about 12 years old. And, when disguised as her older brother, a 13 year old boy. This does not appeal to me. And so, with what remained of my appetite, I took what solace I could find in the mouth candy of my popcorn.

But, with exuberance as boundless as his baldness, the greatest consolation, by far, was an excellent turn by David Cross as the school principal. Essentially reviving his role as Tobias Fünke in Arrested Development, Cross’s headmaster is an even less convincing ‘man’ than Byrnes’ – awkward in his skin, weirdly effeminate and occasionally alluding to a penchant for cross-dressing. “Have you ever tried running in high heels?” he asks. “It’s not that easy...it’s not that easy.”

And have you ever tried sitting through a romantic comedy pitched at an age group, an IQ even, dare I say, a gender not your own? It is, I imagine, like running in high heels. It’s not that easy. It’s not that easy.

Baby Brown

Nannying has had its fair share of bad PR. British au pair, Louise Woodward and her murder trial did little for its image; so too did Jude Law when he, rather bizarrely, cheated on his fiancée, Sienna Miller with his children’s nanny. Then, of course, there was the Robin Williams film, Mrs Doubtfire, in which the profession is depicted as an opportunity for some cross-dressing, gender bending, slapstick humour. (“My first day as a woman and I am already having hot flashes.”)

And though, in her casual clothes, she does look somewhat like a small boy, my ex-girlfriend, Beth, is single-handedly improving the public image of the au pair industry. She is meticulous in her care of the four Wheeler children and careful too, to instil some racial tolerance at an early age. I witnessed this first hand yesterday, when I met with Beth and her youngest – two-year old Bea.

“I like your shirt,” I said. “It’s pink. Do you like pink?”
“Yeah,” she replied, coyly.
“My shirt is blue.” I said, pointing to it. “Do you like blue?"
“Yeah,”
“And what about brown, Bea?” asked Beth. Then, pointing at my face, “Do you like brown?”
She thought about it. It was an excruciating moment, but rewarded with relief.
“Yeah,” said Bea. “Brown!”

Be still my stupid heart.

Do you remember that college film, in which a guy cheats on his girlfriend on camera, accidentally sends it to her and then embarks on a road trip to retrieve the tape before she sees it? You know, he and his friends hit the road...in a trip across the States? And lots of funny things happen on the road and during their trip? What’s it called? ‘Road’ something? Something ‘Trip’? I don’t know.

Anyway, I find myself in a similar circumstance – more tenuous, I suppose, than similar. But having returned from my own road trip I now find myself chasing an item of mail, in an attempt to exonerate myself of a stupid incident. There was, I suppose, driving involved, and sex. No videotape however (most unusual), but a letter – and a stupid one at that.

You see, towards the end of my trip, I found myself in the embrace of an ex-girlfriend – one I didn’t think I’d ever see again. In the moment and, I guess, out of my mind, I found myself in a compromising situation and, convinced that this was the result of her undying and unrelenting love for me, wrote her a letter whilst on the plane home.

With a combination of jetlag, fatigue, and the after-effects of that blasted in-flight romantic comedy, I dropped it in the letterbox and essentially sent her a letter of sympathy. I could not, I wrote, find it in my heart to love her again.

Imagine my surprise then when I returned home to an e-mail from said lost-love. It was nice to see me, it said. And nice too, it went on, to relive the passion. “See you later,” it finished. “Cheers.” What I thought was the star-crossing of two paths, nevertheless a rocky road, was nothing more than a booty call.

I was, of course, happy to oblige. But there was a letter, on its way, with a far less casual tone. It must be stopped, I thought. I might not have saved ass, but I was hoping, at least, to save face.

I implored her not to read it, but couldn’t imagine how she would not. Especially with all the imploring. I wondered how long it would take to arrive; I worried that her roommate/ex-boyfriend/whatever might read it; I wished I hadn’t sent it.

Today, I got a letter. In fact, I got two. The first read:

“Dear San, I didn’t open this letter. Alas, I don’t know how to steam it open, but I also trust that if you really wanted to say something to me, you would just say it, unapologetically. So, here is your letter back, unravaged by my curiousity. I hope you’re well… Always, X”

The second was mine, enclosed.

Blog Author for Sale

In my last post, pointless though it was, I asked whether my trip to California had changed me. The question plagued me for, oh, fifteen minutes. I had just as soon forgotten it when Vodafone, my mobile phone provider, called with an answer.

If I had changed since my trip it was financially. Whilst out there, it seems, I made a number of calls, resulting in a bill of £360. I have changed. I’m broke.

Hotel reservations, e-mail checking, booty calls have cost me more than my car rental. Hell, they’ve cost me more than my flight! And now, I need to find a way to recoup my costs.

First to go is my match.com subscription. I’m not going to find love within six months and I don’t even qualify for the guarantee. I haven’t organised enough dates, or rather, dates haven’t always shown up.

Next, are the extravagant Marks & Spencer ready meals. No more Char-Grilled Chicken Linguini with Salsa Verde for me. I bought a sack of potatoes today.

And I’m drastically cutting my shoe budget. – gasp –

Saving money is one thing. Making money is another. And I’ve been thinking of ways to do so with as little effort as possible. See the ads above? Now click.

I figure, with my site statistics, I should make an easy...15c per week. To supplement that I’ve also gone into publishing. Self-publishing, rather, with Lulu. No, not the famed 60's singer (though my books and my prices will make you want to shout! – that’s going on the cover).

Lulu is a free self-publishing site that prints and ships each order as it’s bought. You keep your rights, design, price and 80% of the profits. And, since I thought that I have a much smaller percentage of free time available to write books, let alone paltry blog entries, I decided to publish some of my earlier works. Namely, a university paper, The Thrills: Michael Jackson, MTV and Multi-platinum Success; my dissertation, The Funk: A Cultural Response to the Disappointments of Post-Civil Rights Era America; and, slightly less academic and, arguably, less entertaining than Michael Jackson, MTV and funk music, a compilation of my best blog entries.

And, as a final measure, and perhaps to compensate for having to cancel my match.com subscription, I researched online escort agencies. (This is part of a money-making scheme, mind you, not just a way to blow my remaining money on some good company.) Ideal Escorts can help you make £500 per night. And, I figure, I’d be killing two birds with one stone, so to speak. Well, hopefully, no girls will have to die. But they would be helping a worthy cause. We both would be.

And you can help too. Click an ad, order a book, order me!

It's a kind of magic

Somebody asked me tonight if I was a long baby when I was born.
I said, “Yes.” I said that I was unravelled like a never-ending handkerchief from a magician’s sleeve.

And just as I vanished to America for a month, I now feel suddenly pulled from a hat – a floppy eared bunny rabbit!

Ta-da.

OK, I may be no more floppy eared than usual (they’ve always been big) or, indeed, as highly sexed as a rabbit, but did my vanishing act to California change me?

I think that whenever you leave and return to a place, you give yourself the opportunity to start afresh or, at least, a new chapter. It’s like an artificial New Years. It starts with so many resolutions. Keeping them, though, would be magic.