Things I can currently see from where I am sitting:

* A yellow rubber chicken, suspended from the ceiling
* Two brown curly wigs
* A sombrero
* An inflatable sheep
* Two small plastic dinosaurs engaged in what appears to be some kind of S&M practice involving chains and blindfolds

I want to work in a normal office!

Romanian firm banned from promoting 'indecent' wine: The producer of a wine called 'Pasarica' is being banned from advertising under indecency laws - 'pasarica' meaning small bird, but also Romanian slang for female genitalia.

Ministry of Agriculture spokeswoman Tita Mutica (surely also Romanian slang for something?) says, rather bafflingly:
"If the label shows a woman with one finger in her mouth and it includes also the image of a little bird, then the bottle should contain what the label shows." Er, sorry?

Lord knows what she thinks is in tins of cat food with cute little kittens on the label.

Unlike my connoisseur flatmate Greg, I'm no wine expert, so have to stick with the following rules of thumb:

Label has more than one colour of writing = It will be disgusting
Label has pretty picture of Iberian villa, and more than one colour = It will be really disgusting
Label has pretty picture of Iberian villa, and many multi-coloured flowers = Do not go near this in a million years

Trust me, it works.

You realise your colleagues know you far, far too well, when they buy you, as a birthday present, the Love Muscle Classics 2 CD, and one of those calendars featuring loads of semi-naked firemen (Genuine Serving Firefighters! From The UK!). And sod pretending to be above such things - it's great. I'm particularly looking forward to next January and March...

Meanwhile, other treats included the 'Wow! Let's Dance 6' video (Sing and Dance to your favourite chart hits! Words on screen for added enjoyment! Fun for children from 2 years upwards ...and their parents!) from Kirsty. Not that I intend to watch it of course - there is nothing the kids on this video can teach me that Dan and I do not already know. Except that they probably manage to get through S Club 7 without knocking a full pint of beer down themselves. Repeatedly.

Ah, if only all weekends could be like this one was. Oh, hang on, they usually are. Well, whatever - a damn good one.

Surprisingly, all went as planned - so a suitably ridiculous evening on Friday, followed by another one on Saturday, courtesy of The Fridge. Shamefully, I bottled out of the planned cowboy costume - well, I still wasn't entirely sure we were all dressing up, and I'd have lost the hat in seconds (my ability to lose things in that venue - travelcard, money, sanity, virtue - is second to none). However, Phil, Nigel, Dave and co more than made up for it, with hats, chaps, er, silver hotpants (you're a braver man than me, Dave) and lightsticks a go-go. Which renders somewhat inexplicable Rick's inability to find us, on arriving later on ("just look for the neon people in the hats and not much else.") - but good to run into a whole host of familiar faces.

It finished of course, all too soon (where does the time go in that place?), so back, en masse, to Phil's for a party of which I can remember little, although marginally more than of the last one. To this day, I still don't know whether it was actually me who was responsible for the towel rail parting company with the bathroom wall (and how that came about, if it did, I'm not even going into...)

Sunday night of course, the Royal Vauxhall Tavern (was that really Kelvin, Phil and I, dancing on stage and finding ever more inventive uses for a leather belt? Oh dear...), and onwards to DTPM at Fabric. Which I rarely get to, owing to that pesky Monday morning having-to-go-to-work thing, so a nice change to be somewhere different. Again, the memory's somewhat vague, which may be a good thing (I have no idea to whom the mystery business card belongs which I found in my jeans the next day...), but I remember there being rather a lot of downright depressingly gorgeous men, plenty of wonderfully ditzy straight girls, and the cream of London's A-list celebrities, including, ahem, Jimmy Somerville (approximately three-foot-two), and Brian-from-Big-Brother (looking absolutely hammered, leaning on wall in toilets for support). Do none of these people ever have to work on a Monday??

After all of which, a (necessarily) relaxing birthday yesterday, spent lazing around with Kelvin, having a vast pub lunch (having forgotten to eat for the previous 48 hours) and watching trash television. I'm rather liking being 28 already...

Scores on the changing-room doors from last night's visit to Southgate Swimming Pool:

Lengths achieved: 30
People in my lane: 6 (good)
Women with heavy make-up attempting not to get face wet: 2
Show-off doing 'butterfly': 1
Shouty children: 3
Annoying Fish Man (bloke who hogs middle of lane and gapes like goldfish): not present
Eye candy - lifeguards: 1
Eye candy - other: 0

More next week, stats fans!

I have just four days left on this side of 28. Yes, like so many at this time of year, it's birthday time. I guess the proliferation of birthdays around this time relates to so many drunken New Year flings - I note with interest that mine falls precisely nine months to the day after my father's (wonder how his birthday was spent that year?). That, and the fact that there's generally sod all else to do in January.

So on Monday I'll be 28. And on Tuesday Phil er, won't, but I'm sure he remembers it fondly, if distantly ;=)

Which, of course calls for not just a party, but an entire weekend of revelry and celebration (read drunkenness and debauchery). Hurrah.

It's all spiralled slightly - what started as 'let's take Monday off and go to DTPM or somewhere after Vauxhall', has now become:

Friday: inevitably raucous dinner party chez nous at Brownlow Towers. Much wine, experimenting with drinks cabinet, Phil, Nigel, Kelvin, Greg and myself - and the star attraction, Greg's legendary fajitas. This is supposed to be a gentle warm-up to the rest of the weekend but I have my doubts. The vodka will come out. Followed by the camp straws. And the pink-elephant shaped ice-cubes. Well, not cubes obviously but y'know what i mean. Heads will be hurting on Saturday morning.

Saturday: the handily-scheduled appearance of Love Muscle, which seems as good an excuse as any for another party. I have a sneaking suspicion that in a previous drunken moment I may have agreed to Phil's suggestion of going in some kind of fancy dress. The details are blurry, but I fear I'm not going to get away with my usual vest-and-jeans gay uniform.

To be followed by a so-called 'chillout' at Phil's - which as Dame Edna has observed is in fact the Spanish for 'takesomemoredrugsdahliiing...' - so who knows where that will all end...

Sunday: but all being well, as ever, where else could I celebrate a birthday but at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, to be followed if still standing, by further clubbing at a yet-to-be-decided venue. The last time I did this I found myself stumbling out of The Orange in Vauxhall, at 8.30am on the Monday morning and on to a Victoria line packed with visibly bemused commuters. Perhaps the big red eyes and foaming-at-the-mouth wasn't a great look. Ah well.

So tonight I'm sleeping. A lot. Somehow I think I might be needing it - I'm going to feel about 48 by Monday...

Next year, dammit, I will get to the Folsom Street Fair, in San Francisco.

If it's half as much fun as the many nights I spent in said thoroughfare this June....

Which, judging from Dean's weekend, I should think it probably would be...

'A University degree in 7 days!' - I'm sure I'm not the only one currently being bombarded with this email, and seemingly endless variants thereof, on Hotmail.

I don't want a university degree in seven days. I've got one thank you very much. And if I wanted another one, I'd sure as hell want the four years of sleeping in late, excessive alcohol consumption, sexual and pharmaceutical experimentation, and daytime television (well ok, maybe not the last one) that goes with it.

Be off with you, pesky junk mail people, and come back when you've got a 'Free Holiday Of A Lifetime!' to sell me.

An extremely talented thirtysomething performer doing a top class drag act. Sharp-tongued comedy. Witty songs showcasing a truly remarkable vocal range.

Not, for once, the Dame Edna Experience, but Jeffery Roberson in The Very Worst Of Varla Jean Merman, at the rather lovely Soho Writers' Theatre in Dean Street, last night.

And very good stuff too. It's near impossible not to compare (and on that it's still safe to say Edna has no threat to her funniest-drag-act-in-existence title), but in fairness it was a different kind of show, gentler, less outrageous, more scripted, but no less impressive. The kind of show you could take your mother to - well, just about.

She'd clearly made an effort to work in local references (the horrors of finding yourself in the Kings Cross McDonald's were all too familiar...) - and along with some very funny video footage (including a quest to Japan in search of an elusive Hello Kitty toaster) and songs like 'If We Could Talk To The Genitals' and her ode to boyfriend-stealing 'Reach Out And Touch (Somebody's Man)', it was a thoroughly entertaining show. And another truly amazing voice. Only on here until this Saturday but highly recommended, should you get chance to see her elsewhere.

I feel like Time Out all of a sudden.

I LOVE my new corner desk. It's a small victory, but it's the small things that make office life bearable when the big things (prospects, money, workload etc, etc, yawn....) suck.

Not only can I now survey the entire kingdom of the office environment with barely an upward glance, but best of all, no-one will ever have any reason to be loitering around behind me (call me irrational but it's a personal pet hate). Which means I can blog in peace. I can write emails filled with the most colourful of language to my friends without worrying whether anyone's reading over my shoulder. Hell, I can spend the entire day perusing deeply dubious Brazilian porn sites should I so desire (not, of course, that such thoughts would enter this most innocent of heads).

Love it, love it, love it.