Favourite spam of the week:

From: bakljsdffo79705@yahoo.com
Subject: FUCK FOR 8 HOURS STRAIGHT! AND LOSE 50 LBS WHILE YOU DO IT!
Date : Thu, 02 May 2002 01:59:13 -0400 (EDT)

Well, I guess you'd burn off a fair few calories in eight hours, but 50 lbs? Where would it go? And wouldn't you be concerned if your partner suddenly lost the best part of four stone overnight? It'd be like going to bed with Russell Grant and waking up with Russell Crowe. Okay, bad example.

I suspect this is a new trend in spam though. Having found that just one life-changing, too-good-to-be-true proposition isn't enough, now they're going for two. Pursuing this to its logical conclusion, it's only a matter of time before:

'Fuck for 8 hours straight! Whilst losing 50 lbs, getting Big, Ripped and Strong, Solving all your Debt problems in one go, getting a University Diploma and Tracing Your Family Tree!'

Now that one, I might just open.

I'm clearly moving in the wrong circles.

Kelvin has spent the last two nights at The Ivy and the Groucho Club (or at least, would have done were it not rendered inaccessible by the crowds of dog-on-string people protesting about May Day or something - 'Bring it back to the 1st of May! Where are the Maypoles? We want Morris Dancing and we want it now!').

I, on the other hand, have been at my local Asda supermarket, the Springfield Park Tavern (my nearest pub) and Southgate Municipal Swimming Pool.

Must do something about this.

...or even Tuesday. And a good 'un indeed it was.

Friday
Kelvin, Phil and Nigel came round to join Greg, Kirsty and myself for a suitably riotous dinner and send-off for our resident blonde Scottish bombshell (Kirsty, that is, not Greg - that experiment was mercifully short-lived...)

She's off in search of a promised land where eligible bachelors line the streets, exquisite hostelries abound with delights, and chardonnay springs anew at every corner. The elders tell of this mythical place; they call it 'Clapham', and it is said to have seduced many a young professional female throughout the ages. She will be hugely missed though - it's not everyone can join you in drunken Kylie-thons, outdo you in the love-life drama/disaster stakes on a daily basis, bat nary an eyelid when your friends discuss their evening classes in advanced bondage, and carry off a zebra-print coat with such aplomb (and so little underwear).

Saturday
To Bar Code for drinks, and onwards to Crash, down in Vauxhall. Of much amusement on the way: the dreadlocked Rastafarian busker on the tube playing not Bob Marley or the like, but Will Young's 'Evergeen', reggae-style. Is there no end to Simon Fuller's promotional ploys?

Crash, as ever, proved to be excellent. Packed, plenty of atmosphere, wall to wall pneumatic pectorals (for those who like that sort of thing, can't understand it myself...) and exceptionally good bouncy, chunky house on the main floor from Steve Pitron, who I must make an effort to catch in future. Very Crash, and very, very good indeed.

We, on the other hand, were a bit rubbish - somehow unable to really get into the swing of it for long despite considerable assistance, and eventually heading for an 'early' night instead about 4am. Odd, but not a complete loss, and it was worth getting some sleep before...

Sunday
...David's surprise birthday party, expertly hosted (and impressively kept secret) by Marcus, at his place on Sunday afternoon. Much beer, much jollity, good to see familiar faces including Ian and Jonathan, and it was great to meet Scally and Mike, the troubled diva himself, at last!

From there it was up the road to the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, for one of Dame Edna's finest shows in many a week, and indeed a spectacularly good night all round. Whatever was missing from Saturday night was certainly there on Sunday by the bucketload (or should that be glassful?) - a truly fantastic night, which no doubt you'll read more about elsewhere. Kelvin and I found ourselves dancing and chatting with a very affable chap by the name of Ggreg, who's given up his life as a San Francisco club persona to set up home here in little ol' London. Interesting guy, interesting website.

And finally, many vodkas, much dancing and several hours later, home to bed. Indeed, a good weekend.

Apologies if you do live in the country and happen to like it, by the way. No offence intended to you freaks, honest. But please try and stop doing that with your cousin, it isn't nice.

Anyway, have now cheered up, the end of a less-than-fabulous week is in sight, and I have a good feeling about this weekend. It's going to be a good 'un. Oh yes. Full reports when I regain consciousness sometime around Wednesday.

Have good weekends, people!

You see what happens when I get no sleep.

Friday Rant #3:

And another thing. I was back up in Gloucestershire recently for family reasons, and why is it that everyone, but everyone, feels they have carte blanche to run down London, the place you have chosen to live, to your face? And this, despite the fact that they have never been there apart from on a coach trip sometime in the early eighties to see Cats because 'that nice Elaine Paige is in it, you know, off the Two Ronnies.'

It's all: "Well, I suppose you must like it but I couldn't bear to live there. All that noise! And it's so crowded, and smelly, and expensive, and the pollution and all that traffic - I don't know how you can stand it.'

Well just hang on a minute. Yes, it's crowded - that's because people actually want to live here. And the Tube might smell a bit occasionally but out in the countryside everywhere fucking smells. You can't go five yards without your senses being assassinated by Eau de Cowshit, or silage, or worse. Do you actually like that smell? And yes, you might have all this green space around you, but you can't actually go in any of it without fear of being shot by some over-zealous landowner. And how can you bear to be trapped in those narrow-minded little villages where the entire place shuts at 5pm and everyone knows everyone else's business, except that everyone's business is so catatonically dull it's of absolutely no interest to anyone, but that won't stop you regurgitating it endlessly because there is absolutely fucking nothing else to do. Add to that the fact that you haven't had a decent night out in years, because even if there were anywhere to go other than some god-forsaken family 'theme pub', you couldn't drink, because you'd have to drive there, because there is no fucking public transport whatsoever, and...and...arrggghhh!!!

Do you get the feeling I was brought up in a village and didn't really like it?

Friday Rant #2:

I can't find the original feature, but I'd like to lend my all-too-rapidly-increasing weight to Rainbow Network's bid to stop people - gay men, specifically - wearing those fucking ridiculous three-quarter length trousers. The first sign of summer and out they come - Soho is positively awash with them.

As I think they said: not only do they scream 'screaming queen' at ear-shattering volume, but there is nothing, whatsoever, even remotely sexy about catching a glimpse of someone's hairy ankle. They're the skinniest, most unattractive bit of even the beefiest of boys. So please, put them away. Get some proper shorts or stick with long trousers, but put them away. I thank you.

Which reminds me of this - old, but still entirely valid:

Friday Rant #1:

So there I am, in bed nice and early last night, looking forward to a good night's sleep from which I'll wake refreshed, happy, and ready to hit the gym in a big way. But that was before my downstairs neighbour decided to have a very loud party, which started, started, at half-past fucking three this morning. Who has parties at 3.30am on a Thursday night, for fuck's sake?

And not just loud music (mostly atrocious seventies rock before degenerating even further into Phil Collins) but there was obviously some kind of band set up, such that at least two people decided they had to maintain their fuckwit conversation/argument through the fucking microphones, thus amplifying it for the benefit of the entire fucking street. Not being particularly in the mood to go down and confront an entire party of beered-up, argumentative strangers, I try the time-honoured old-person approach of banging on the floor repeatedly in what I hope is a suitably guilt-inducing and menacing manner.

Half an hour later, it's clear that this is having no effect whatsoever. In desperation I dig out the industrial ear plugs I once acquired on a visit to an aluminium factory (don't ask..). Trouble is, while their sound-blocking properties are pretty good, they are so uncomfortable as to render sleep entirely impossible. Back to the banging.

Sometime around 5am though there must have been a lull, because I finally drifted back off to peaceful, blissful sleep.

Only to be blasted awake again at 6am by Paul Young and the entire fucking 'No Parlez' album at thirty thousand fucking decibels. ARRRGGGHHH!!! By this point I have moved from wondering if it's possible to call the electricity company and have their power cut off, to plotting my neighbour's death in a number of creative and sadistic ways. And of course, by the time they finally, finally shut the fuck up at about 7.45, it's time to get up anyway. Gah.

Still, I shall have my revenge. Tonight, when they will no doubt be tired and desperate for sleep after last night's excesses, I shall put my speakers to the floor, turn the volume up loud, and put the Vengaboys' 'Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!' on endless repeat. And then go out until Sunday.

They'll be institutionalised by Saturday afternoon. Fuckers.

Like David says, our little Googlebombing experiment has worked. There have been side effects - notably the influx of people arriving here via searches for Shakira or Travis Fimmel naked (sorry to disappoint, guys and girls - though we suspect mostly guys...), but our respective aims have been achieved.

Which means - yes! - I am the number one Google search result for 'Ann Widdecombe naked'. If this isn't a proud moment I don't know what is.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, no-one has actually searched for said phrase as yet; with the closest so far being 'Ann Widdecombe 2002'. (now there's a pin-up calendar I never want to see...)

Now, if we could just think of a useful application for it all...

Well, in the words of the (fortunately) inimitable Adam Rickett: I breathe again.

The good news is I'm not being made redundant. The bad news is, er, that means I'm still working here.

Still, the CV is finally done, which is a step at least. Now I just have the simple task of deciding what I want to do with my life. Easy.

Except, of course, it isn't. I've never known. I have a mixture of admiration and envy for those people who knew, like when they were still at school, that they wanted to be an engineer, a lawyer, a journalist, an architect, a landscape gardener - and just worked towards that, doing the right courses at college, getting the right qualifications, and getting the career.

I'm one of the other group. Sure, I've studied and got the odd qualification, but not with any particular aim in mind, and largely just because I perceived it to be the easiest and most enjoyable option at the time. There's no career plan going on here. I'd hoped that by 28 I might have some idea - but I'm still waiting. Me and Diana Ross, baby.

So where once I might have headed down to the University Careers Service, now I'll more than likely find myself at a recruitment agency sometime soon. And one of the first questions will inevitably be:

'So, what kind of work do you want to do?'

Dammit, that's always the killer. I want to be a successful songwriter, a singer, an actor, a writer, a TV presenter, a DJ, and any number of creative, flaky things that I can pursue in my spare time but aren't going to pay my bar bill any time in the immediate future. What the question needs to be is:

'So, what kind of work are you prepared to do? What kind of soul-destroying, mind-numbing, corporate-tedium-hell can you convincingly pretend at an interview that you actually want to do?'

And on that one, the jury is still out.