'So do you remember all the things you were saying to me on the train home on Sunday night?' asks Kelvin on the phone last night.

'Er..no?' I reply (to be honest, due to alcohol consumption and pharmaceutical indulgence I didn't even remember that we got the tube home together, and had been wondering up to this point why we'd left at different times...)

'Haha, I'll have to remind you at an appropriate time...'

Now I'm intrigued - although not really too worried. Some people, when intoxicated, get aggressive, violent, or abusive. With me it's entirely the reverse, suddenly I love everyone and will probably tell them so (cue confused expressions from the guy in the kebab shop I frequent post-Vauxhall Tavern) become over-friendly and usually downright flirtatious (some would say 'slut', but it's so, ahem, not true...).

So I've probably just declared undying love or something trivial like that.

Guess I'll find out in Paris over the weekend though. Which I'm really looking forward to now - four days in my other favourite city.

It's largely thanks to Paris that I now live in London, if that makes any sense at all. The six months I lived there as a student, in the first half of 1995, were more than enough to expose 'living in the country' (as I'd done for the previous 21 years) for the contradiction in terms it undoubtedly is, and convince me that capital city life was most definitely where I wanted to be.

For the first time, there were shops where you could buy anything, every conceivable kind of restaurant, bar and cafe, beautiful places, famous places, nefarious places, places filled with opportunity, places to discover - and all of them filled with every kind of people. AlI I had to do was jump on a Metro train and pick where I wanted to experience that day. Armed with little more than a travel pass and plenty of free time, finally I had the opportunity to enjoy a real, live, city and well, some real life.

So little wonder I fell in love with the place. It helps of course, that all the cliches about Paris - beautiful, charming, bohemian - turned out to be entirely true.

The freedom of being away from home and in a big city also gave me the chance to experience this 'gay scene' I'd wondered so much about, but had never encountered in the closet I'd only escaped from six months earlier.

So I'd surreptitiously perused the 'Gay and Lesbian' pages of a friend's Time Out guide, and mentally noted down a few addresses. 'Le Subway' (since renamed) sounded like one of the less intimidating bars, where a tourist might not feel completely out of place - so one February evening I headed off to Le Marais, Paris' charmingly village-like neighbourhood which also doubles as the gay district.

And round and round I walked. Past 'Le Subway' at least fifteen times, but without daring to go in. The windows were tinted so you couldn't see in - what would I find in there? what were you supposed to wear? would everyone laugh at what I was wearing? what if everyone stopped and pointed when I walked in? wouldn't I stick out like a sore thumb on my own with no-one to talk to?

It seems ridiculous now, but I was as nervous as hell. And hence walked the streets for an hour and a half, up and down Rue Ste Croix de la Bretonnerie, where our hotel for this weekend is located, and Paris' nearest equivalent to Old Compton Street here in Soho.

Eventually, courage summoned, and having worn the pavement thin, I went in. And found, of course, a perfectly ordinary bar, with perfectly ordinary people, having a perfectly ordinary drink. Phew. The bar staff smiled, either at my less-than-perfect French or my obvious nervousness - I couldn't tell which - but the atmosphere was friendly, yeah slightly cruisy, but intimidating, no.

And before long, my obvious Britishness had alerted my presence to a couple of British and American guys - Iain and Armando (who went on to become a very good friend throughout my time there) who came over to chat and wow, I had, like, gay friends!

Since which time, there has of course, been no looking back... ;-)

Gratuitous eye candy time.

I don't like football quite like Jonathan likes football, but if there were more like Kevin Phillips, well, there'd be a lot to like...

My name is Dave Young, I'm a 28-year-old man, and I LOVE the new S Club 7 record.

There, said it.

It's under control. I'm only 44% blogaholic. Although by posting this I've probably just gone up another point. And cheers to Molly for the link. Damn, another point!

Y'see there's the Seventh Circle of Hell. And then, just below that, there's Argos, the catalogue shop. Wherein the normal method of shopping (find item you want, take to till and pay, leave) is replaced by: hover expectantly waiting for there to be a catalogue free, search through idiosyncratic index for item, locate it on page, see if it's actually in stock, take item number on bit of paper and queue to pay, then go to another counter and queue for an indefinite period to collect said item.

A process which on Saturday took me thirty whole minutes just to buy a simple beard trimmer (the goatee's staying put, but it's getting out of hand...), which, having finally got it home, is no use whatsoever. Which I would have known if I'd been able to see the sodding thing in the first place instead of looking at a sodding picture in a sodding catalogue!!

'Five different length settings!' it says on the box. Yeah, you have a choice of: 'Forgot-To-Shave-This-Morning' (setting 1), 'Father Time' (settings 2, 3 and 4) and 'God' (setting 5). Reaaally useful. You could use this in Afghanistan and the Taliban wouldn't execute you.

Which means I'll have to face taking it back, next time I have a free four hours to waste.

I fucking hate Argos like, so much.

Monday night. Ho-hum. Well, it's either this or the Channel 5 movie 'Addicted To Love', with Meg Ryan. In which apparently she pairs up with Matthew Broderick, who she doesn't like, they fight, they bicker, but eventually realise they were perfect for each other all along. God, that never happens in a Meg Ryan film...

Something I can relate to, big time. Maybe not right now, but all these thoughts have certainly kicked around my head from time to time - I just never put them into words this well...

Yet another top-notch Sunday night last night, much Vauxhall madness, complete with fireworks (ooh! aah!), and, oops, a reprise of mine and Phil's little performance, this time with added blindfolds (don't ask...) - god, there was practically applause - have we no shame??!

Also managed to fit in a flying visit to the Gaydar party down at The Fridge. Gaydar, for the uninitiated, is I guess what you'd call an 'instant dating' site (or alternatively 'online meat market') massively popular here in London although it doesn't really seem to have caught on as much anywhere else. And having been around for two years now, they decided to celebrate this by holding a one-off club night at Brixton's finest. Which could in theory have been quite entertaining, what with everyone trying to recognise each other only from their online profiles:
'Oh, so that's what you look like from the neck up!'
'Are you completeslapper214? Oh, sorry, must be someone else...'

We'd been lured by the promise of free guest list entry and free drink, so it kinda seemed rude to turn it down, but in the event, it seems most people had. So a very brief visit, just long enough to down the strongest vodka and cranberry known to man (how come they don't make the drinks like that when you're actually paying for them??!), and indulge in some gratuitous podium dancing before returning as hurriedly as possible to Vauxhall.

I guess there's something of a flaw in the logic of holding a great big party for a whole load of people who, er, normally prefer to remain anonymous. Hmmm.

So now we know. Our flat is, officially, average.

Or at least, so say Enfield council. There was a national census here in the UK a few months ago, requiring every household to fill in a rather tedious form about their employment, dependents, yadayadayada. We duly filled it in, and now it seems we have been selected, for some unknown reason, to represent the 'typical household of twentysomething London professionals'. Ahem. Although, thinking about it, a neurotic woman and two gay men, working hard but permanently overdrawn, and getting through enough Chardonnay per week to flood a small country, probably is fairly representative.

So far though, our new-found status has just meant yet more questions, in the form of a council bloke who came round to interview Greg on Saturday (yours truly stayed suitably out of the way) - apparently it was all very straightforward although the guy looked rather disturbed by the pink puppy pants on the wall.

It's a responsibility though. Now, every decision is like:
'So do we go straight to Nik's party or stop off at Bar Code on the way?'
'Dunno - what would the typical twentysomething Londoner do?'
'Go to All Bar One and it would be horrible.'
'Good point.'

Pretty much a perfect Sunday. Waking up with Kelvin. Sunshine. Full fry-up for breakfast. Seriously good Eastenders omnibus. And the Vauxhall Tavern still to come. Fantastic.

And some surprise news over the weekend - I am to be an uncle!

Technically speaking it's top secret between my older sister and myself at the moment - she's waiting for a proper doctor's test before getting the rest of the family too excited, but it looks pretty definite. And I'm actually really touched to be the first to know.

Of course, being top secret I probably shouldn't be writing this but I'm fairly damn certain none of my family will have stumbled across this site - and if they have, somehow I think there'd be rather more to answer to than having blabbed about the bubba.

Am determined to be the Cool Uncle:

'Yeah, that's my Uncle Dave, he's got this reaaally cool flat in London, and goes all over the world, and gets me the best presents 'cos he's got this reaaally cool job and earns loads of money...'

Yeah, well, maybe in a few years' time...