London Munterground

Ah, the Tube. The iconic London underground. Yes it gets you about from A to B, when it's working properly (which admittedly is fairly rare) but it's not the most pleasant of experiences. Unless you're some kind of weirdo who gets off on being cocooned in a metal carriage that's hurtling along underground in dark tunnels. I'm unfortunate enough to live on the Central line. While it might be one of the faster and most well-connected lines, it's also one of the busiest, hottest and claustrophobic ones.

Since I've moved, I've found myself becoming part of the commuter Tube scrum. I'd previously mostly managed to get about on buses which are slightly more pleasant for the most part, but I now consign myself to being one of those grumpy business bastards who listens intently to headphones and tuts loudly at other passengers. What I am still coming to terms with is how bargey everyone is in the morning. Yes, we're all in a rush to get to work and deal with clients, or shout at people, or shuffle paperclips, or whatever the fuck everyone does, but that doesn't make physically assaulting someone with your laptop bag ok. Yesterday I was literally pushed out of the way of the opening Tube door by some cretin in a suit. Probably a banker. In a hurry to go and dry-bumfuck the economy a bit more before spending our cash on overpriced champagne in a twatty city bar.

As if the proximity of other people wasn't bad enough, I've noticed that the average Tube carriage plays host to a variety of smells. Firstly the classic body odour. Some people haven't discovered either soap or deodorant. When you get a whiff of the cloying body odour from these people, it's enough to make you want to puke up your first cup of tea. There should be some sort of hygiene gate people have to pass through before entering the train.

The next delightful Tube scent? Food. FOOD. Who finds it acceptable to eat on a scummy, grey, polluted train? Putting your hands in your mouth as you scoff your pungent egg sandwich? You must be some kind of pervert to think it's ok to consume food underground.

Lastly, people who think they're covering their BO by dousing themselves in scent. It's never a nice one. Never someone who wafts about in Jo Malone (except me.) It's always sickly, potent, lingering cheap scent. Enough to make me want to get off the train and snort a line of Vim powder (that's an old school cleaning product by the way, not some trendy drug that all the kids are doing) to ensure that my nasal senses are so obliterated, I never have to be exposed to it again.

As everyone knows, the Tube is fucking hot. I genuinely don't get why people actively shut the windows on the Tube in summer. Unless they're trying to make large swathes of people pass out so they can carry out some sort of mass mugging. OPEN THE FRIGGING WINDOWS!


Everyone also knows that the unwritten rule of Tube travel is Never Make Eye Contact. The thing is, I get bored on my journeys. I'm also quite partial to gazing at people and taking in the details of their appearance. The girls with immaculate makeup, the people with faces only a blind mother could love. Thing is, I'm not that subtle and often get caught which results in a hot flush for me and a glint of steel in the eyes for them. I can't smile. I'd look a mental. And get escorted off the train by men in white coats. You just don't really smile at strangers in London.

I'm a hypocrite though, of course. If someone looks at me and I catch them, I am overwhelmed by paranoia. Has my eyeliner run down my face? Am I wearing clown-levels of blusher after blearily applying my face in morning half-light? Is there some crap on my face? Generally it IS one of these things.

Tonight, The Pinup and I made our way home when the Tube carriage was invaded by a gaggle of exciteable Spanish teenagers. Joy of joys, they were filming each other. I'm pretty sure the conversation only consisted of them insulting each other's Mums, so I couldn't understand why they were filming. I'm hot, tired, grumpy and I don't want your fucking camcorder stuck in my face when I am travelling home.

The sweet relief of reaching your destination is normally tempered by further idiocy, as some muppet swipes their Oyster and it doesn't open the gate. Instead of moving out of the way, they adopt a puzzled look, like having a little think might magically open it. All the while, a swell of pissed-off commuters gathers behind them, risking pushing them straight over the barriers. This is my favourite. Along with people who clearly use the Tube all the time, who decide that they don't need to find their Oysters in their cavernous handbags until they're stood AT the actual barrier. Hey don't worry, I'll wait behind you while you drop your tampons and change all over the ticket hall.

I'd love to see the stats for Tube-related incidents of anger. I bet they get to court and the Judge goes, "Ahhh, he stopped in front of you at the ticket gate for five minutes? Provocation."

Oop north

I consider myself to be an honourary Londoner these days, and feel fairly southernified (what? It's a word.) having lived down south for over a third of my life. I couldn't imagine living anywhere but London now, but spending just shy of three weeks in Lancashire looking after my sister's dogs has made me fall in love with up north all over again. Here are some reasons why.

• It costs three quid in a cab to get anywhere. Literally anywhere. You get charged that in London for even looking at a taxi. 

• Everyone addresses me as 'love' - and not in a patronising way, just in a really friendly way that makes me grin a bit and want to share this with miserable Tube passengers.

•  It costs £5.50 for two pints of Amstel in the local pub. LESS THAN SIX QUID! For two pints! After becoming begrudgingly accustomed to being robbed in east London for a beer, this was an absolute revelation.

• Proper, Lancashire pub food. Homemade steak pie for £5.95. Ridiculous. Even The Foodie was impressed. 

• Retro curry houses full of utterly wasted Bolton girls, having chips with their curries and singing 'New York New York' to the entire restaurant, before introducing themselves to us and inviting us to carry on the night with them in Wetherspoons. If I didn't have to get back to the dogs, I absolutely would have and I can guarantee it'd probably be one of the funnest nights out ever. 

• The mega-friendly dog-walking club that you implicitly and unconditionally become a part of when you step out with a canine friend. It normally involves being bent double laughing as the dogs gambol about the park/ swim in the duckpond/  mug small children for edible treats. 

•  Amidst the suburban houses, you might just glimpse two teenage girls rigging their pony up to a trap on their driveway. Seriously. 

• Fancy new bars give you free starters, complimentary desserts and undercharge you for wine, then say 'oh don't worry, it's our fault' when you point it out, and won't let you pay the difference. That's good service. 

 All-in-all, I can highly recommend Bolton as a summer holiday destination. It wasn't even dampened by the thumb-in-dogpoo eposide (luckily The Foodie was on hand to buy me wet wipes once she'd stopped giggling and retching), or the incident with the two full dogpoo bags, the untied trainer lace, the two dogs pulling in different directions and the errant wasp. Not even by the slightly odd and bemulletted old dogwalking man who insists on never wearing a top, no matter what the weather.

Clutterfuck

They say moving house is one of the most stressful things in life. Along with marriage, divorce and having a baby.I would rather push something watermelon-sized through my pelvis right now, because moving house is turning out to be a right bloody palava.

In addition to the usual stress of sorting, boxes, packing, admin, transport, blah blah, we've had to deal with an uncertain house situation and now need to vacate the entire flat in less than a week if we're to get the most favourable contract solution.

Yesterday I started going through my stuff. This is what I learnt.

- Mice really like hanging out in my boxes of CDs which have sat under the lounge cabinet since we moved in over two years ago. I'm going to have to hand-clean every single CD and put them in a non-mouse-shitty box.

- I inexplicably have three pairs of wellies, AND riding boots. One pair of wellies had been in a carrier bag since Glastonbury 2008, and was still encrusted with the site's mud. I suspect that these contain some deadly strains of bugs last seen in the Edwardian slums, and should probably be burned by men in white protective suits, then buried off the coast somewhere.

- I have twenty handbags. I use about two.

- I own boxes of art stuff and stationery I've not opened or used in roughly four years, but I can't bring myself to part with it. What if I am suddenly gripped by the urge to do some collaging or something, and I don't have any Pritt Stick? It doesn't bear thinking about! At least I am safe in the knowledge that I have emergency  crayons.

- I wear roughly 8% of my wardrobe on a regular basis.

- Letting agents are parasite scumbags whose sole purpose in life is to make everything as difficult as humanly possible, and to rape your bank account at every opportunity. FIFTY QUID to click 'print' on a ten-page Word document?  Really? I'm in the wrong game. For the record, dear letting agents, don't lecture me like some sort of authority on contract clauses, when you are a spelling moron and you cannot differentiate between 'your' and 'you're'. One more unprofessional and shitty email, and I will send you back your correspondence with red markings all over it and 'see me' at the bottom.

- I have an excellent collection of early-noughties photos of my dear university friends where we all look young, stupid and badly-dressed. These will be collated and archived to be easily sourced for future birthdays/weddings/anytime I feel like busting out a photo of flared jeans and Acupuncture trainers.

- I own a box of tangled cables which I have no idea about - but I do know that if I chuck it, I'll suddenly realise what they were for, and that they were in fact essential to my existence.

I'm seriously weighing up just tossing a match in my room and walking away to start again. Best go crayon and cable shopping.

Puppetmaster

I’m being played with by Fate. Or whatever it is controlling my destiny. Some sadistic puppet master, yanking my strings and conspiring to plot my clumsy little path through the chaos of existence and make it a little bit surprising, and more often than not, a teeny bit weird. 

This week has involved finding a great housemate to replace me for my forthcoming move (yay!), said housemate not being allowed to move in because of stupid fucking contract beaurocracy (fuck’s SAKE), having one of the most wonderful, spontaneous London days out I’ve ever had (hurrah!), watching a heron silently fish in Little Venice at midnight (ace!), getting some pretty awful family news (grim) and weirdly, running into someone who’s been on my mind. Twice. Via the medium of almost being randomly hit by their car on two consecutive days.

Obviously I styled it out, not looking at all like I’d just walked three miles home from work, hurriedly, with the world’s heaviest bag on a muggy east London evening. Or that my makeup had fallen off. Or that my hair was a massive frizzy mess. Or that I was seconds away from being actually hit by their car because I was in my own little world flouncing home from work, and crossing side streets perilously after some twat rollerblader almost took me out on a pavement. (Note to east London adults: if you MUST rollerblade around like some childhood-regressive Californian tit, do it on the roads and not on the narrow Hackney pavements, or next time I’m not moving out of your way. PS. Your Lycra shorts are disturbingly revealing.) 

Maybe there’s some alternate version of me out there who inhabits all the could-have-beens from my life. She got a housemate to replace herself, and moved into a new flat with minimum fuss. She didn’t almost fall over someone’s car bonnet, TWICE, because she’s cool and not a total specialton like me. She would have breezed through the serendipitous situations effortlessly. She probably has really good hair too.

What a cow.

Hoxton's Hottest Dog

It was The German's idea. She knows how much me, The Foodie and The Pin Up love animals. Specifically dogs. So when she suggested that we head down to Shoreditch Bark Dog Show (see what they did there?), we didn't hesitate. Hipsters and hounds, what's not to love?

However, when telling people that my plans for Saturday were going to a dog show, I mainly got the reaction of  "....what? A DOG show? .....why?" On the way to the park, we discussed whether it was actually strange that all of us, dogless, were going to a park. To look at the dogs of other people.

"I mean, is it weird though? Is it like adults hanging around a kids' playground? Are we - doggyphiles?"

As expected, this being Shoreditch, there was a high density of people wearing boat shoes and big glasses. But it felt weirdly communal for London, we chatted a bit to a lady who owned a magnificent Labradoodle called Archie. Well, communal and friendly until the witless teenage boys starting antisocially kicking off. The German handily gave us a running commentary.

"Look! Fatty has Ginger's shoes, look!"

We discussed various dog breeds between squealing "Awwwwww! Look at him! AHHHH!". The German has some strong ideas about Labradors which the Pin Up independently backed-up some time later.

"Labradors are fucking thick. They are stupid. They eat poo - seriously, they eat poo and the darker coloured the dog, the more they love eating shit. Not even just their own. It's true!"

We watched the classes with interest (and slight perturbedness when the vet who was compering the event kept talking about how good looking the dogs were in a slightly breathless and eager way), cheering the winners and telling our favourite dog owners that they "were robbed" when they didn't get placed. One of the highlights of the day was during the 'Me and My Best Friend' class where children entered with their pooches for the judging panel to assess who had the best bond. The class had to be stopped part way through as an overexcited entrant pulled it's teeny child guardian across the ring. On it's face. There were tears. (Admittedly ours as we giggled.)

After we all fell in love with an adorable Lhasa-Poo puppy called Huxley, and we tried to figure out if we could fit it in anyone's bag, we wandered down to Shoreditch for some afternoon refreshments. The German played a classic in the 'language barrier' game she likes to throw down on the odd occasion.

The German: "So when are you moving house?"

The Pin Up: "A week on Monday."

The German: "On Monday?"

The Pin Up: "No, a week on Monday."

The German: "On Monday?"

The Pin Up: "No.... a week from Monday."

The German: "No, but I mean, you're moving house on a Monday?"

The Pin Up: "....yes."

Me: "You could have saved yourself a good five minutes of conversational cul-de-sac had you just used the 'a' before Monday."

Sometimes it's our duty to educate her. We then, her English boyfriend included, convinced her that the correct English pronunciation of 'maths' was actually 'marrrrrrths', as we worked out the bill. We are good friends to her.

Someone, somewhere hates me

Do you ever wonder to yourself if you did something really, really awful in a previous life? In this life I would like to think I've been alright. I mean, on a Biblical basis, I'd without a doubt be going straight to the firey depths of Lucifer's lair, but I've been nice to people. Generally. Sure, I've had my moments of unspeakable selfishness and frankly batshit mental episodes, but I don't think I've ever done anything really bad to anyone.

Fate and I are having a tricky relationship at the moment. What's totally ace about life is that things change. All the time. And it's amazing to reminisce over the past and think of all the little tiny actions and people that collided and created the present. But sometimes, Fate decides to tease you. Gives you a little glimpse of something that makes your tummy do a backflip and dizzies you with possibility. Then it cruelly snatches it back again. The thrill of anticipation morphs into the dull ache of disappointment. Like a Blur gig followed by a shitty little set from Bruno Mars or something.

So I kind of believe in some nice Universal system* where, if you're not a total fucking prick and generally treat people with a bit of respect and humanity, that things work out for you in the end. But judging by Fate's current dangle-and-snatch routine, my previous life wrongs must've been fairly bad. Maybe I interfered with animals, or was a James Blunt fan or something. (In which case, to be honest, I probably deserve everything I get.)

So essentially, I've been fluffed by Fate. 

What a cunt. 


*I'm not some kind of hippy though.

The morning after

It's gone 5pm and I'm lay in bed listening to Marianne Faithful on 6 Music and the Hackney rain, trying to force myself to keep drinking water and debating if paracetamol will make me feel more or less queasy. I'm not even relishing the idea of another cup of tea, and I'm still wearing yesterday's eyeliner. That's how good last night was.

Despite the lovely birthday dinner with my excellent friends inevitably turning into drunken silliness outside a bar, I managed to keep hold of the pretty lillies kindly given to me by The Norwegian  - I'm quite proud of that. I'm also proud of the cards that I got given, two of which were handmade, and one of which contained a drawing of a big gay dancing pirate, which was actually a portrait of me. Pretty accurate.

During dinner, Mr Scooter bet No'rn Ir'on that she couldn't fit her whole steak in her mouth. She did, so she's owed cash money by him. In her words, "payoff for having a massive gob and no gag reflex."

Attractively, an evening of rich food and excessive amounts of white wine and mojitos resulted in me being struck with a bout of comedy hiccups which caused much merriment amongst my friends and handily was documented in both photo and video form, apparently. Brilliant. Might put that on my dating profile.

Badger was staying with me and we decided to drunkenly teach No'rn Ir'on the cardgame Shithead, seeing as this was how we spent our entire first year of uni, along with drinking tea, listening to Mark and Lard and copious roll-ups. It's nice that a decade has passed, we've got proper jobs and that, one of us has been married and bought a house, but yet we recement our friendship by calling each other gay and playing a silly card game. No'rn Ir'on enjoyed the fact that it was her first ever game and she managed to totally rinse us both. We got owned a bit. I blame the wine.

Shit to do before I'm 30

I'm 29 today. I know, I know, I look about nineteen still. You're too kind. And a liar.  Anyway, it got me thinking about the fact I've only got one year left until the big three-oh. 365 days. And all the shit I've still not done. So I thought I'd write a little to-do list of thing I really ought to get off my arse and do before then. This is not some gap-year-Jack-Johnson-braids-in-my-hair-yah? wishlist, nor does it involve sky-diving/trekking up Macchu Pichu. I'm not that rich, or adventurous. Lower your expectations.

1. Be able to run a couple of miles
Without puking up a lung/having a coronary.  That would be nice.

2. Do something creative
A course of some sort. Writing. Life-drawing. (I'm not a pervert. I just like life drawing.) Jewellery-making. Yeah, jewellery! Then I can make accessories based on religious iconography with the Saved-By-The-Bell-twist like the Shoreditch dickhead I aspire to be.

3. Stop dating fuckwits/ falling for totally, ridiculously inappropriate people.
Speaks for itself really. The problem is that I only seem to attract/ be attracted to these sorts.  Need to figure this out. It might involve some gin.

4. Perfect the art of baking macaroons
I can add to my wife-skills list with this beauty. It's an important accomplishment. You'll all benefit as I test batches on you. What do you mean, these are shit? YOU MAKE MACAROONS THEN.

5. Visit some London things I've not yet
British Library. Natural History Museum. Night-time museum tours. Last Tuesday Society. Somerset House outdoor cinema. Basically, be a London tourist instead of sticking around the same areas. However, I'll be sure not to get in your way on the Tube/pavements, I won't wear a matching rucksack as my fellow tourists, and I won't clog up your bus shouting "That's AWESOME!" as I take photos of a Hackney tramp.

6. Watch some classic films/read some classic books
If you're my friend, you'll know I'm notoriously rubbish at actually sitting and watching films. I do love them, I just have the attention span of a special-needs magpie. So this year, I'm actually going to compile a list of films I ought to have seen. I've never seen The Goonies though, and I know loads of you think this is a childhood classic, but I once tried to watch it as an adult and thought it was gash. There, I've said it.

7. Learn to drive
I don't need to in London. But, it would be so nice to embark upon ill-advised spontaneous road-trips with my friends. Even if they end in near-crashes and full-blown arguments over directions. It'd just be nice to have the ability. Should I wish to. Actually, I've just given this slightly more thought and it's probably best I'm never allowed in control of a ton-plus of metal and engine. I managed to break the Badge-It! machine at work. (Aimed at 7-11 year olds.)

8. Get a Macbook/SLR
I have no right to live in the east end without owning either of these things, yeah?

9. Do more blogs
Write more shit on the internet for my friends to read. I find it vaguely amusing even if no-one else does.*

*I know you don't.

10. Ask that person out
Actually, see point 3.

There. I'm sure I'll be reviewing this post in 365 days time, crying gin-soaked tears as I've accomplished none of it due to being too busy feeding my 79 stray cats that I've adopted. Ah well, good intentions and all that.

Commitment issues

I've been thinking about this online dating malarkey recently after a few funny encounters. Or non-encounters, as it more accurately were. And I thought I'd share my thoughts with you. Lucky, huh? Don't act like you're not interested.

It seemed quite straightforward at first - get chatting to people you like the look of, exchange a few pleasantries (not a euphemism), arrange a date, go on said date, assess if you want to see them again. But lately I can't help thinking that I'm missing out on some unspoken games that you're supposed to engage in to do this with any degree of success. And I'm shit at games. Except Scrabble. And Shithead.


These games aren't fourth-date-politics-do-I-call-or-not, these are before the first date games. So many times you add someone saying you like the look of them, they add you back, the usual. Not recently. It seems that simply arranging ONE drink to spend half an hour in each other's company to judge that they're not batshit mental/rapists/Mummy's boys is a minefield of headfucks and second-guessing. Cases in point:

Theatre Man. He looked interesting - arty, Irish, tall, approached me first - we exchanged very brief emails as his first one was basically asking me out for a drink. Brilliant, no dicking around - you can exchange all the pithy, wry emails you like, but if they've got no social skills or smell of wet dog, it's never going to work. He suggested central London, I said great, when and where? And...... nothing.

The Chef. Added each other, up and coming Scottish chef, looked fascinating - again, emails, drink suggested - then the classic message, "Sorry but I'm chatting to someone else on here and want to see where that goes." That's all well and good, but it's not totally MENTAL to go on a couple of first dates around the same time because the likelihood is you're not each other's ONE - so back to the drawing board.

If we were having drawn-out, getting-to-know-each-other chats, it's totally understandable that I could have said something spazzy and offputting - actually, inevitable. But that just can't have been the case here. Unless there's some male radar I'm not aware of that reads "Yeah the City would be great, when are you free?" as "I'm a fucking psychopath and I will ingratiate myselves into your friendship group, kill your pets horribly and tell your work colleagues the intimate details of our sex life." Perhaps it's a numbers game; guys message tons of girls knowing only a small percentage will reply. Again, fine, but I DID reply and was up for one little drink to check each other out.

Maybe it's some weird guy thing where the minute you express a bit of interest back, you're not desirable any more. Thrill of the chase and all that. BUT YOU'RE ON A FUCKING DATING SITE.

So why is this first drink such a big deal? I always go armed with a friend's text message prewritten, ready to hit send if you need an escape route. "Oh I'm SO sorry, but I need to go as my cat's on fire." Actually, that could be taken the wrong way. "My friend's having a clothing crisis/ my hamster's depressed/ I need to go and see my therapist." Whatever. Or, if the first drink is a disaster and you find yourself in the company of an absolute fuckwit, just neck that one drink really quickly. In fact this is kinder, if they see you scull your pint, sorry, glass of wine (I am trying to be ladylike after all), they probably see you as a raging alky and thank their lucky stars that you are fucking off so quickly. Everyone's a winner with this method.


So it's more baffling than anything. I feel much like I imagine the girls from The Only Way is Essex feel when they have to blink, breathe and walk at the same time. Maybe it's me. Perhaps there is a huge game where I've not had the rules explained to me. It's my birthday next week. I best get the order for the cats, blanket and lifetime supply of gin in, quicksharpish.

Hipsters and hellhounds

Shopping in Hackney is always an interesting experience. By interesting, I mean sometimes amusing and often ball-achingly frustrating.

I live in one of the best cities in the world for shopping. I ought to be at Borough and Broadway markets buying fresh asparagus, venison burgers and stinky French cheese. But, I'm lazy and poor. So I go to my Tesco Express.

In the aisles, the twentysomething E8 hipsters mope foppishly about, baskets full of organic hummus and CheeseStrings. (It's fucking ironic, yeah? Like, it's not REAL food, yeah?) Maybe a can of cider or two. Hipsters don't really eat anyway, skinny jeans are unforgiving and it's important to have the slightly rickety demeanour of a Victorian orphan round here.

I once nipped in for a quick vaguely hungover shop (paper, bacon, Diet Coke) and got to the checkout only to question how drunk I'd been the night before. There stood three art-studenty looking types, two in full animal outfits (I think zebra and bear) and a guy sporting shiny leggings so tight I could tell he shaved his gentleman's area. They had big messy hair and were probably called Poppy, Giles and Jinty. They tried to buy three single cans of Kronenbourg (OMFG, I'm like sooooo drunk from last night, ya? Let's get beer for breakfast, it'll be, like, MENTAL!) then had an intense debate about which fucking pack of chewing gum to purchase. I gripped my basket tightly and restrained myself from swinging it violently in their direction.

Mingling with the big specs and deckshoes is normally an eastender or two, their slavering, big-bollocked Staffy-cross guarding the door while they yell across the shop.

"'ere! Maureen! Put that fackin' real butter dahn, I ain't fackin' made o' money. Pick me up a Sun yeah? And forty Sovereign."

I actually quite like the people in there, it's always entertaining. What drives me mad about Tesco is the product selection. What I LOVE is that I can't buy ground black pepper but I can buy four different varieties of chickpea flour and coconut milk. And I most certainly can get mugged off by paying over a quid for a teeny butternut squash. Oh, and I might be a working-class northerner living in Hackney, but SOMETIMES I JUST WANT SOME FRESH HERBS, DAMNIT.

So, while I commercially and morally disagree with Tesco's aggressive land-buying and marketing techniques, I'll just keep moaning and still patronising them because I can't be arsed with Borough Market today, and they once forgot to scan my bottle of wine resulting in FREE BOOZE. In your face, THE MAN!

Dear Twitter...

 This blog post comes from a conversation with a fellow Twitter user @CyrilCacoethes, who's quite amusing if you like mostly rude inanity. I requested he expand on a story he told me about a deer that spat IN his mouth, and he did me a special blog post and everything. I was then pondering my next post, and he suggested a Twitter complaint letter.

I love a good complain. So here it is.


Dear Twitter,

Hi. You're mostly pretty fun and amusing, and even educational from time to time. (How else would I know what Jedward are doing when they give their carers the slip and gain internet access? IT'S IMPORTANT.) However, there are a few things, just little things, that frankly, get right on my tits.


 Celebs being shit at Twitter. I know they all get told by their agents to get involved in social media (or, as I was once corrected by a date, "a real-time information network" - fuck off), but just because they *do* it, doesn't make them good at it. I get driven potty by celebs who retweet their OWN #FollowFridays - to their EXISTING followers. In order to see that tweet, they already follow you! It's more pointless than Fearne Cotton, you flangewombles.

Overuse of exclamation marks. I've said this before in relation to general communication. But please, for the love of GOD, stop it. Adding seventeen exclamations to a statement like "Going shopping!!!!!!!!" doesn't make it more interesting or informative. It just makes you appear to have the mentality of an American seven year-old.

Pedants. Now I'm not against pedantry persay. Detail is important. But don't criticise someone's use of language, if you type tweets in text speak. Because it just makes you look like a twat, not me. I don't really understand having a go at someone on Twitter because you don't like what they write. Just unfollow. Or, if you are compelled to have a pop, make sure your own ramblings are immaculately spelled and all language is correctly used. Then fair enough.

Moral highground bandwagons. Twitter is highly entertaining on big news days, as everyone wades in with an opinion, mostly from people who don't actually understand the issues or stories. However, the same faux outrage and topical 'jokes' can get a bit wearing.

Anyway, that's it. If you could find a way to remove boring and stupid people from the service, that would be splendid. For the most part, I like conversing with entertaining people, watching celeb feuds kick off, the incessant punning and the endless videos of kittens riding tortoises.

Ok, thanks. Bye.

"You're just being a bit Italian about it."

It'd been years since the old uni lot hung out together, everyone's very busy and a bit shit at organising things, you know how it is. So we planned a few drinks on a Friday night in central London. I met The Cyclist and Badger and we went to the Ship & Shovell - a lovely old pub off the Strand, alas on a Friday night it's rammed with City pissheads and has a scary barmaid who shouts at you if you step outside the painted lines that corral the smokers outside the pub. (Obviously we tested this by standing on the line/ with our feet within the line but our upper bodies out of it... she wasn't very impressed.)

The pub is at the top of Villiers Street, and you look down the covered arches that lead down to Heaven nightclub. We were waiting for The Gay (he's not really, but he is the campest straight man I know. Saying that, I can't vouch for his heteroxexuality 100%) and befittingly, the first we saw of him was him strolling under the arches right next to the massive rainbow sign that advertised the night G-A-Y at Heaven. He clocked us watching him and proceeded to skip jauntily up the steps to us, sporting an 'I Heart Tea' t-shirt and wearing his omnipresent bike lock around his chest like some sort of confused He-Man.

After a few pints of everyone catching up and watching The Cyclist's other half Mr Scooter talk about his new vehicle and do excellent impressions of how cool he looked on an 80s Honda Vision compared to cyclists and mobility scooters, we went for some Mexican food at the first place we stumbled across.

It was too busy to get a table immediately, so we were ushered down stairs to the 'bar' - a tiny floor space where we generally got in the way of other diners and nosied in cupboards next to us. Mr Scooter nicked the last mojito they had but he kindly shared it with us, we were undeterred even when he licked the straws and some of the ice before offering it to us.

Once we were equipped with a round of margaritas and a table next to the boiling hot kitchen, we pored over the menu. For some reason that I'm still not clear on, the male members of the table decided that it was a brilliant idea to take the little ramekins of Mexican condiments and do them like shots.

"Can we have another round of shots please? Er, I mean, some more sauces?"

"I'm not swallowing a spoon, I am still waiting for this wedge of lime to go down."

The sensible people in our group decided to leave after dinner, whereas Badger and I thought having more drinks was a wicked idea. He tried to shove me over outside and I stumbled into some people who worked in the restaurant we'd just been in. Despite us clearly being idiots, we got chatting to Stefano the Italian manager and he kindly invited us back to the restaurant for a lock-in.

This is why I found myself, post-tequila, in a cupboard in the restaurant basement with Stefano ranting about how much he hated one of his colleagues and how he didn't know what his next move should be. I tried to be empathetic and offer him genuine, well-meaning career advice. Badger just looked at him and said,

"Stefano. You're just being a bit... Italian about it. Chill out, yeah?"

Stefano didn't mind this and still wanted to try on Badger's leather jacket so we avoided upsetting him. I think. We thanked him for the tequila and headed back to mine, where Badger got fixated on brushing my hair at 4am which was nice. If not a bit odd.

What I really enjoyed on Saturday morning though, was being woken up by a slap to the forehead and some abuse. I tried to go back to sleep for a bit and was just about to succeed when Badger poured cold water directly into my earhole, the utter, utter bastard.

I swear my balance hasn't been the same since.

"Do you miss not drinking?" Edinburgh part 2

Saturday. I wake up to The Blonde bringing me a cup of tea in bed with The Geordie behind her singing "We brought you teeeeeaaaaaaa!" I ask him what the fuck he's doing and he looks at me like I'm stupid and says,

"I'm singing the tea song." I don't question him any more.

We hang out in their room drinking tea piecing the night back together, I wonder exactly what I did to my fingers as the bruising is now quite impressive. They put the Comic Relief dancing programme on to catch up from the night before. Noel Fielding comes on doing his amazing Kate Bush routine.

The Geordie looks like he's been struck by the most amazing insight.

"PUFFIN! It's YOU! You look like Noel Fielding dressed as Kate Bush!"

I find this slightly complimentary since when I first saw him doing the routine I was sexually confused as I find him hot in real life, and found him to be an attractive woman. I'm not sure what this says about me.

We slowly get ready after haranguing the poor Geordie to go and get us brekkie from the local cafe, and head out again into town. We go to a bar. I bet no-one saw that coming, eh?

The rugby is on, we order brilliant Bloody Marys and settle in for the afternoon. The music is something ambient and mediocre. The Geordie pipes up again to me.

"This sounds like your sort of shit - it's got lots of 'wooooos' in it." The Blonde pisses herself and I glare at him. It seems unfair to engage in a serious music debate when he's at a natural disadvantage since he has the music taste of a thirteen year old girl.

The Blonde studies her Bloody Mary. "I love celery. I love cucumber. Is cucumber a vegetable?" I pat her on the head and we carry on with our conversation. As long as you humour her and feed her the occasional alcoholic beverage and packet of crisps, she's fine in public.

The Geordie studies the rugby and works out the implications of each team winning.

"That'll be good for England!" The Blonde exclaims brightly to every scenario he mentions.

"Are you just saying 'that'll be good for England' for every result I say?" he asks.

The Blonde smiles and nods brightly like a good little wife.

A new friend of mine, The Thinker, comes to meet us for a drink. He's not drinking so I am scared as to what he'll make of those two mentals, but it all goes very well. The Blonde chooses to divulge her waxing story within the first ten minutes of meeting him, and he doesn't run away so I'm satisfied he's not too scared. We get on to the subject of his teetotalism. The Blonde ponders,

"Do you miss not drinking?"

The Thinker and I look at each other.

"Do you mean, 'does he miss drinking'?"

The Blonde looks earnest.

"No, I mean, does he miss not drinking?"

"But he doesn't drink... how can he miss it when that's what he's doing - ie. NOT drinking?"

We go round in circles for a good half hour, I even draw a diagram of The Thinker WITH drinks and without drinks, and still she doesn't get it. She's a bright girl really, but this really foxed her.

I apologise to The Thinker for some of the lairy conversation. He says, having met me twice before, once on a thirtieth birthday party weekend in a big house,

"I now associate you with the nickname Spaz, being too wasted to play tabletennis with me, and now, intimate waxing stories."

Thanks chums. I say I'm embarrassed about being too inebriated to play ping pong very well.

"I didn't realise you were that drunk, I just thought you were REALLY REALLY shit at it."

We stop discussing my sporting ability and get on to chatting about the recent horrific events in Japan, and The Blonde contributes her stellar social opinion.

"Tsunamis are so powerful aren't they? It's scary. Do you think there'll be pirates?"

We all nod soberly.

She carries on.

"It makes me worry for us on our sailing holiday later in the year. I actually worry about pirates EVERY day you know."

We ignore her.

Later that evening, we meet up with other dear friends for an excellent night in The Standard. It involves feeling No'rn Ir'on's considerable breasts, doing her hair in the middle of the pub and The Grumpy Scot almost crying with laughter at the Modern Toss iPhone app while we're outside smoking. It also involves another horrific story of The Blonde and The Geordie's sex life.

"Oh Puffin, when you'd passed out in the spare room, The Geordie and I got a bit amorous. I normally have lube in my room but I'd put it away on account of you coming to stay. Well, it wasn't to hand so I used my Clarins Flashbalm."

We sit around looking horrified.

"It really DOES brighten and tighten!" she exclaims brightly.

Sunday morning I nick some of her Flashbalm in the bathroom in a hungover haze, then suddenly the story came back to me.

My face feels violated.

"I don't know how you're not in hip-hop." Edinburgh part 1

Ahhh, Edinburgh. Land of kilts, haggis, people wearing tweed and a 

group of endearing misfits I call my friends. It'd been far too long 
since my last visit so No'rn Ir'on and I booked it. And visit we did.

After a four hour journey where I mainly pondered what it was about 
trains that attracts the most bizarre social cross-section, I arrived 
and in typical style, headed to the lovely Queen's Arms to meet The 
Blonde. The Geordie came to meet us too and we grabbed ourselves a 
booth to have a good old catch up.

The Geordie, positioning himself in front of the tv screen:

"The cricket's on so I'm not interested in you for the next half hour, 
ok?"

He then proceeds to tell me ALL about the game while The Blonde was at 
the bar, while I wondered just how rude would it be to put my 
earphones in?

The Blonde comes back with Pinot and launches into a loudly graphic 
description of the intimate waxing module on her spa therapy course.

"So, I'm on all-fours, she's behind me with a spatula of hot wax and 
the whole class is looking up my foo-foo."

Suddenly, The Geordie shows a flicker of interest.

"Did you get your ass bleached too?!"

The Blonde ignores her husband and continues describing how it feels 
to have every hair from your genital and bottom regions removed in 
front of a gang of your classmates.

"Honestly, it was so painful, I could've done with a leather bit to 
bite down on."

The Geordie looks interested again.

"So, the teacher was showing us the Brazilian method and one girl in 
my class volunteered. She's a proper ginge. It was like a fish 
finger!" The Blonde continues gleefully.

We get to talking about her upcoming exams. I reassure her that she's 
totally capable and will pass with flying colours.

The Geordie sniggers, "You're handi-capable."

A fair bit of wine having been consumed at this point, we take a few 
snaps of our reunion. I lament one of them, saying I look awful.

The Blonde: "What don't you like about your face?"

Me: "It's spacky."

The Geordie: "CAZTARD!" 

Him and The Blonde collapse in giggles and high-five each other. The Blonde wipes tears from her eyes and suggests I tweet this. 

"Tweet it, don't delete it, innit!"

Me: "I don't know how you're not in hip-hop you know."

The Blonde: "I know! Me and my repartee. Repertoire. See?!"

We carry on drinking and chatting, punctuated by The Blonde panicking slightly while eating wasabi peas.

"I've dropped a pea in my scarf!" She rummages through her voluminous leopard-print scarf while The Geordie and I pretend we don't know her. 

We head back to their flat to get ready to go out (really not a great idea as we've had a skinful already.)The Blonde drags me into the bathroom, saying,

"Puffin, look at this!" I think she's about to show me some amazing new beauty product, but instead she drops her trousers and shows me the results of her intimate wax. I don't know where to look but utter the words,

"I can never unsee that!"

To get over the trauma, I carry on drinking wine while The Blonde does my makeup, showing off her new skills. As we head out again to meet friends in town, I say that I could be a model with the amazing makeup job she's done on my face.

"Yeah a model for Scope!" shouts The Geordie. 

After a blurry few more drinks in 99 Hanover Street, we decide to head back to Mr Tizz's house for music, food and more booze. I don't remember much past this point but apparently trapped my fingers in a door somewhere as they KILLED when I woke up Sunday. Apparently, Mr Tizz put Muse on the iPod at some point in the evening and I went on a drunken rant about how much I fucking hate Muse, Matt Bellamy and his smug pomposity. Apparently, Mr Tizz's face fell a bit. I don't recall. 

This Charming Man

I thought it'd be the last of Mr Maps after the cancelling. And the indecision. And the general fuckwittery. But no! He had more treats in store, as I was to find out.


I wake up Saturday to find two missed calls from him. One at 1:30am, one at 2:16am. Curious, I thought. One call could be a sit-on-your-phone accidentally scenario. Two separate calls intrigued me, and I was interested to see if he had an excuse or was just a bit mental. The following text conversation ensued.

--------


Hey. I had two missed calls from you at 2am. Everything ok...?


Sorry for drunky calls at silly o'clock. Brain switched off and willy started driving. X


Riiiight... do you always call random people you've never met for 2am booty calls? x


No. Sorry x


Cor, talk about mixed messages. Could've been quite simple had we just had that drink x


Sorry about that. I was horny and drunk x


Still not doing the dating thing? I notice you're still on the site. x


I don't think I want anything serious, just some fun x


Fair enough - tough call to make though if you've not even got as far as a casual drink with someone. x


I know, I just want to be honest. x

Course. Surely it's a case of seeing what happens right? You can't have expectations if you've not met :) x


Busy tonight?x


Why, you taking me for that drink? x


Maybe x


Man you've pushed your luck... If I say yes, will you just cancel again? x


I'm driving. I'll give you a text in a bit?


Let's leave it. Sorry. x


 --------

Face like Crime Watch

Well, here it is – the first post of 2011. And it’s going to be a moany one. About dating.

With the business of Christmas out of the way (shopping, drinking, hangovers, eating, drinking, hangovers, glowering) I decided to get back into the dating thing for 2011. What people don’t tell you is that it’s hard work. You have to be prepared to find time to trawl through endless profiles, for someone who’s photo isn’t like something off Crime Watch and who’s personal description goes beyond “I like smiling, the gym and socialising.” Then there’s the contact thing. It takes time to reply to messages and filter out who you are and aren’t going to respond to. Then there’s the actual dating – going to meet a stranger in a pub after a busy day at work to make wry, flirty, intelligent conversation, when all you really want to do is sit about in your pants and have a nice glass of wine and some crisps while you watch My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding… what do you mean, that’s why I’m single? Shut up.

Anyway. The etiquette of contact. What I am finding is two things: one, I attract some dodgy types who can’t actually type English (the best one’s personal tagline read ‘Where is soulmate?’), and two, there are a fuckload of timewasters on this site. Before Christmas, it all seemed quite straightforward and everyone I met was normal. (With the exception of the Doctor who clearly had the mental stability of a post-Haribo and Capri-Sun binge Jedward on a trip to Alton Towers.) Arranging dates was simple and they always turned up.

Since Christmas, I’ve had messages from three men who looked interesting enough to agree to meet for a drink. It started off with the usual slightly laboured conversation based around something they’d seen on my profile, then getting down to the business of date arranging. Having been asked out, and accepted, I then started the process of when and where we were going to meet. Herein, it seems, lies the problem. Apparently, this is very difficult for grown men to arrange. Two of these conversations ended up fizzling out halfway through arranging a drink. Not a good sign for the future really.

The third one impressed me with the cut of his jib when he simply messaged me ‘cut to the chase – can I take you for a drink?’ No messing about, I thought, how refreshing. We swapped numbers and began texting to finalise details. Then the cancelling began. Firstly, admittedly, it was me. But I was genuine about rearranging. Which we did, four times – and each time he would cancel. This morning I got the classic text (after we’d arranged to meet this Wednesday) saying ‘Hey, I’ve been thinking and I’m not sure I’m ready to date. There’s no point meeting up. Sorry x’ – which is fine….. but prompts the question, WHY in the name of Zeus’s beard are you on a DATING site, actively asking people out?

Tool. Perhaps I should take ‘where is soulmate?’ man up on his offer. If I’m lucky, I might get taken to Wetherspoon’s for a Bacardi Breezer and a packet of Nobby’s nuts.