Situation difficile part deux

Now, as a fully fledged member of the lavender persuasion, I am known for being over the top, high maintenance, unreasonable, highly strung and have the tendency to make a mountain out of a molehill. Yes, I do consider these to be among my best qualities. But for once in my life, I don’t think I am over reacting, and feel like I am being harassed, so my question is, what constitutes as harassment?

A while back I posted about a difficult situation I had found myself in at the workplace with a fellow lavender, JT. I have had many emails from my lovely readers asking what happened when I had to contact him to set up a meeting with my boss (who we’ll call Kitty) after spurning his advances a year before. Well, as I predicted, he used it as a reason to initiate contact, and it is making me feel more uncomfortable than when I hoof myself into my ten year old 28 inch waist Levis jeans, being that my waist is now 32, and I refuse to accept that I, like my waist size, am no longer in my late twenties.

Here is how the email conversation went:

From: Tequila Mockingbird
Sent: 02 July 2008 10:09
To: JT
Subject: RE: Directors' meetings

Hi JT,

Tamsin has asked me to set up a meeting with yourself and Kitty before the 7th July. She is actually off this week and will be back on Monday. Do you have any time free in the diary between 11:30- and 1:30 on Monday?

Warm regards,

Tequila

I thought, keep it purely professional. Afterall, I do not know the man at all, he simply works for the same place I do, and unfortunately due to a restructure, he would now be reporting directly to my boss, meaning I’d have to develop a working relationship with him. Not an easy feat when he has already successfully tried it on and left me squirming, and not in the way that’s good.

From: JT
Sent: 02 July 2008 11:42
To: Tequila Mockingbird
Subject: RE: Directors' meetings

Hi ya... Yes I have booked out the entire morning to see her, so fit me in anytime.

Thanks.

JT
P.s. Happy Birthday for whenever it was! LOL.. Saw the balloons on your desk!...

My birthday was actually in March but I still had a helium filled balloon in the corner by my desk. It had become part of the furniture really, and I didn’t even realise it was still there. This had turned out to be my undoing, as it was a perfect way for cunning old JT to strike up a conversation. However, I had to reply and confirm the meeting, and didn’t want to be totally rude by ignoring his comment altogether:

From: Tequila Mockingbird
Sent: 02 July 2008 11:50
To: JT
Subject: RE: Directors' meetings

Hi,

Excellent- shall we say 11:30? I'll send a proposal. I use both Outlook and MM, so I'll do one of each.

Thanks- My birthday was months ago.

Warm regards,

Tequila

From: JT
Sent: 02 July 2008 11:51
To: Tequila Mockingbird
Subject: RE: Directors' meetings

LOL.. Oops sorry I was late! LOL... will have to buy you a bevvy one day!

Jesus Christ on a bike, what is with this guy and LOL?! And sorry he was late? For what- he doesn’t even know me and here he is apologising for not knowing it was my birthday. I have to say, I admired his perseverance in the face of such adversity and I celebrated his pluck, as he obviously thought- if at first you don’t succeed try to pin down the gay again. But no.

From: Tequila Mockingbird
Sent: 02 July 2008 11:57
To: JT
Subject: RE: Directors' meetings

I should probably take it down, I quite often have people wishing me a happy birthday.

I decided short, sharp and sweet. Not being rude, but giving nothing away by using closed sentences, and pretending not to have noticed him asking me out for a drink. If we have to work together, I don’t want to get a reputation as someone who is up his own arse. In my position there is the risk of that and a lot of people already think I am self important and consider myself a cut above the rest but nothing could be further from the truth. I suppose it is bound to come with the territory, being an assistant to a Director. Anyway, I hoped that would be the end of it.

From: JT
Sent: 02 July 2008 11:59
To: Tequila Mockingbird
Subject: RE: Directors' meetings

You should get as much out of it as possible a nice cute guy like you (hope you dont mind me saying that!).... I would milk it as much as possible! LOL....Im looking forward to the big 40 in 8 months I think your cute!.. Anyway!..... if you fancy a bevvy at anytime, let me know! I still feel very young!!

Ladies, Gentleman, undecided and pre ops, I didn’t know how to respond to that one, so I just ignored it and prayed to high lavender that would be the last I heard of him. It was starting to get scary.

A few minutes later I get an email to tell me that JT has sent a friend request via facebook. He has also sent me a message, quoting things he has read on my profile which I’m sure he thought would appear witty but was more "I'm not just gonna be ignored" Immediately I blocked him. Not long after I got the following:

From: JT
Sent: 02 July 2008 13:51
To: Tequila Mockingbird
Subject: Hi

Hi ya.... only me again!... if you fancy a bevvy sometime let me know - here is my mobile (pers) 07930 ******.
Would be nice to get to know other people outside my dept! around my own age too.

So, not only had he now asked me out for a drink twice in one day, and stalked me via facebook, but to top it all off he was trying to say I was the same age as him? He’s pushing 40! That was the final straw, and I thought to myself -you may be a lot older than me, and in a far more hierarchical position here, but I, dear boy am going to remain professional despite being at the hands of such harassment and tell you in no uncertain terms that I am not interested. Before I had the chance to send an email back this came:

From: JT
Sent: 02 July 2008 16:21
To: Tequila Mockingbird
Subject: Hi

Hi there.. you OK? hope did not offend you earlier?

JT

What that showed was that he knew he had been wholly inappropriate in his emails, and maybe he was starting to worry that as I assist the Director who heads up many areas of the organisation, including Human Resources, he may have tried it on with the wrong person. I sent him an email, not saying what I wanted to, which was ‘When I decide to engage in a bit of necrophilia, I’ll be sure to give you a call, but for now, fuck off you angry inch and stop breathing down my neck like some human hairdryer or I will see to it that you are torn, limb by limb apart and worn as a charm bracelet.’ I opted for:

From: Tequila Mockingbird
Sent: 02 July 2008 16:26
To: JT
Subject: RE: Hi

Hi JT,

Thanks for the offer, please don't be offended, but I tend to keep work and my private life separate and don't socialise outside of work. If you are going to be working with this Directorate a lot more, I would prefer to keep a professional relationship.

This is something I have always done and is not specific to this organisation; it's just not my thing.

T

From: JT
Sent: 02 July 2008 16:28
To: Tequila Mockingbird
Subject: Hi

OK, no worried Tequila - I understand.

J

In his haste and to possibly stop me from filing a sexual harassment compliant, he had sent a rushed and misspelt (worried instead of worries- the imbecile) message showing that he realised, at least I thought, that he had overstepped the mark.

When he came for the meeting I had scheduled, he arrived 15 minutes early, obviously hoping that he’d get to hang around and undress me with his eyes until Kitty was ready to see him. Thankfully, I knew exactly what this trickster was all about, and had left a half hour gap between her last meeting and the one with JT incase he pulled a stunt like that. He arrived and I simply ushered him in, then went to the toilet and had a panic attack, as I felt so unnerved. I also timed it that I would be out at lunch when the meeting had finished.

Other than an email he sent asking if I was going to Soho Pride, which I ignored, I knew better than to open up the lines of communication, and a few times when I have bumped into him in the canteen, I heard nothing from him. Until Monday of this week. I had to set up a meeting with him, his team, and Kitty, as they are officially joining our directorate, and as Kitty will be their boss from the beginning of the New Year, she wanted to get an introduction out of the way. The fear of emailing him was ever present, but knowing that it was a group email, I thought I’d be safe. Yeah, as safe as a female teenager going round to Fred & Rose West’s for a roast dinner.

From: Tequila Mockingbird
Sent: 20 November 2008 13:44
To: TS
Cc: JT; LP; JC
Subject: RE: Kitty to meet with Health & Safety

Dear all,

I've put an introduction meeting in the diary for you to meet with Kitty on the 2nd December at 4pm, in her office.

Any questions please let me know.

Warm regards,

Tequila

He couldn’t find anything to possibly come back to on that I thought, could he?

From: JT
Sent: 24 November 2008 14:41
To: Tequila Mockingbird
Subject: RE: Kitty to meet with Health & Safety

Cant recall if I have asked you this Thomas, many apologies if I have - but fancy a drink sometime?

Again, sorry if I have already asked - my brain is a bit "fried" of late!

J

I’m starting to wonder if this guy literally has rhinoceros skin. He will just not take no for an answer. Part of me thinks I should just go for this f*cking drink and be so supremely rude, which to be brutally honest, I wouldn’t find that hard, in the hope that he rues the day he ever started to try to get into The Mockings, stockings. Should I just give him the sexual equivalent of winning the lottery and let him have his wicked way?

I simply curse the day I was born with this face that could launch a thousand ships, these impossible piercing blue eyes, my razor sharp cheekbones, my cantaloupe tush and my lashes that defy the laws of gravity.

Don't You Want Me Baby?

So, the week before last, my dear Big Sis flew in from Califor-ni-gay, for the first time since she done broke my heart and left these shores for good over two years ago. To say I was looking forward to seeing her is an understatement. I have known Big Sis, since I was the very ripe and tender age of 16, when, in a bid to be able to feed and clothe myself, I got a job in a restaurant by embellishing I was in fact 18. Mercifully, the place itself, an American Bar & Diner in the city, was about as law abiding, upright and reputable as Osama Bin Laden, so they didn’t bother to check out my references or my age, and before I knew it, I was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar, that much is true…..

Now, the only other job I’d had, believe it or not, was working on a flower stall at the side of the motorway on Saturday & Sunday which I started doing at 14, (my father was a raging and abusive alcoholic, and well, someone had to go out and earn a wage to buy his booze for him as he was in no fit state to do it) so I was incredibly nervous about starting, as I had no experience of work really and I had a total lack of confidence. I was living in a homeless hostel (having been thrown onto the streets at 15) and felt completely inadequate, useless and a waste of perfectly good oxygen. I didn’t have the best start in life, and by that point I just assumed that nobody liked, or would ever like me, I had no self worth or respect and essentially considered myself a third rate citizen.

Because of my many misgivings about myself I was convinced that I’d get there for my first shift, and the manager along everyone in the restaurant would look at me, burst out laughing and say ‘Do you really think we would give a peasant like you a chance- get out and don’t come back’ or they would make me humiliate myself in a number of ways by passing initiations like cleaning the toilet floor with my tongue or making me run around in my underwear. But then I thought to my little gay self ‘This isn’t like at school, where the teachers were nuns who would make you do those things…..’

I was so scared, that I actually paced outside in the manor of an escaped lunatic for about an hour before plucking up the courage to finally go in. Straight away, a divine red haired American lady with chunky shoes, a passion for fashion and a very friendly face introduced herself, and told me she would be showing me the ropes. This was Big Sis, and immediately I knew I had someone who would take this poor defenceless queerling under her wing, and I felt at ease. And take me under her wing she did. We quickly established a rapport and we had a lot of fun. She was the only person there who was nice to me, and the only one to give me a share of her tips (I was only a bus boy after all). The other waiters, chefs, and bar staff paid me very little attention, and if Big Sis wasn’t around, they would completely ignore me and I felt like even more of an outsider. But when it was us together on a shift, even though it is still the most physically demanding job I have ever done, it was great fun, and I always looked forward to working with her. Looking back, and now knowing her situation back then, I realise we were actually both outsiders; her a veritible nubile from America who'd married a English Business man, that plucked her from her home in California for a new life in England, who truth be told once he got her here she rarely saw and when she did had to adopt the role of doting wife in front of his clients, all the while terrified of one of his aggressive outbursts once the evening was over, and me, a penniless 16 year old boy who was gayer that a neon pink alligator, living in a Christian Homeless hostel, with holes in his shoes that weren’t meant to be there and holes in his jeans that were. We were destined to be friends.

It was a very peculiar set up, and I was so naive back in those days, I genuinely believed that prayer was the best form of contraceptive. Before long, my eyes were open to the absolute underbelly of London, and I realised that the restaurant was actually a front for drugs, money laundering and all sorts of criminal activity. I really needed the job to support me, at that time I had nobody, so when I was asked to go the Jewellers ‘up the road’ and collect a package, I asked no questions. When I was asked to take the restaurant owners dog for a walk while he did afterhours ‘business’ in the office, I simply got my poop a scoop and headed off to the green, and when I was told to go and clean up the blood stained toilet floor one morning, what could I do but comply? Even when one of the managers slapped me around the face for dropping a bottle of wine I just got on with it. It was a very unsavoury environment, but I would do it all over again, because it gave me Big Sis.

Our friendship has lasted over 15 years, through countless failed relationships, a divorce, two stints of her going back to the states, two rhinoplasties (on yours truly), dramatic weight gain, dramatic weight loss, bereavements, and more cocaine and wine than you can shake a stick at. Big Sis is a friend for every season, and even though she insists that this time, she is staying in America for good we have kept in contact, and I know that we will always be in each others lives. I couldn’t wait to see her, and catch up on old times, and also, to meet the new man in her life, Jimmy.

We met in Balans, both being 30 minutes late, and quickly ordered in some Cocktails. A Kir Royale for moi, Big Sis and Jimmy opting for Vodka Martinis. I raised a toast, and simply said ‘Welcome Homo’ told her she’d proved her point, asked when was she moving back, and generally refused to accept that she could live anywhere, but in London. Three cocktails in, and I had decided that Jimmy was so delicious that I was gaining weight just by sitting with him, and that my darling Big Sis looked happier than I have seen her in a very long time, which obviously made me ecstatic, even though it dawned on me that in light of her happiness and her delicious man, the likelihood of her moving back was slim.

We then went for some Tapas at a place I can’t remember (I’d had a few cocktails by that point on an empty stomach) but I do know that we devoured cold cuts of ham and some lovely prawns with lashings of Alioli while reminiscing about the good old days, my bad taste in music, how Big Sis used to berate me for liking Mariah Carey by insisting she had missed her calling as a pest control expert as she could just walk into a building, sing, and the roaches would leave of their own accord, to the time I virtually emptied the restaurant and patrons fled in terror when I broke the valve on a cylinder of Helium I was using to fill up balloons and it almost exploded, to the fact that I had not fallen off the Columbian Bandwagon in three years and how great I felt about it. There was I, perched above all on my self righteous high chair claiming that I ‘didn’t miss it at all’ and that I would ‘never touch the stuff again’.

‘Oh, well, we’ve got loads of gear at our place, we thought you’d……’ before she even finished the sentence I was screaming ‘Taxi’ like I was a doorman at The Dorchester and we were heading back to North London, stopping in at the local off licence for Champagne and other much needed essentials for a night of some Columbian.

After a three year hiatus, I gave in to temptation and fell off the bandwagon. The thing I always say is that I don’t actually enjoy cocaine; I just love the smell of it. In order to smell it, you’ve got to snort it. So I did, and we stayed up to the wee small hours, snorting, drinking, talking, and snorting some more. After we decided to turn it in and call it a night- I got a cab home, during which the cab driver made a pass at me and started fondling himself when we were at a set of traffic lights, after having asked me about my sexuality and what bars I went to. What is it about cab drivers? Are they all perverts? And more importantly, are they all unattractive perverts? It was very uncomfortable and owing to the fact that I’d just put half a rain forest up my nose, I was feeling just a bit anxious. All I wanted to do was get in and drink the bottle of vodka I had in the fridge and listen to music and have myself a little party. Which is exactly what I did when I got in. I passed out at about 9am. Thankfully I’d booked the day off. In hindsight, maybe I knew just how badly behaved me and Big Sis would be once we got together, hence the fact I’d booked the day’s leave.

I awoke at about 7pm that evening looking like Amy Winehouse and probably smelling like her too. I walked into my living room to find every single Prince CD I own strewn across the floor, his Sign O The Times DVD still in the player, a few empty bottles of booze were on the coffee table (I finished off everything I had in the fridge) and I knew that not only had Big Sis come Homo, but I had flung myself off the wagon like a lemming, and thrown caution to the wind. I can’t say I’ll be doing it again in a hurry, but I do know that in my coked up state, I may or may not have stopped pestering Big Sis about coming back Homo, and agreed to give up my job, sell my flat, ditch everyone and move to Laguna Beach.

Whilst I would love nothing more, I just don’t know if London is ready to see the back of me yet. And more importantly, I’m just not sure that America would get me. Or let me in. Answers on a postcard to the usual address.

The US of Gay

Ladies and Labradors,

Since my last blog we have witnessed the historic events of the first black President being elected into The White House, something that I was fully behind. After The US of Gay voting in Bush for a second term, I did have my doubts, but when the final counts came through and I heard the news that Obama had made it, I felt, for the first time from a political point of view, as if justice had finally been served. I think it was a moment for human nature to be proud. Now in America, little black boys and black girls can grow up with the knowledge, more so than ever before that they can do something with their lives. That they can have a voice, and that they can be leaders. Of course, this is not an end to the racism over there, or anywhere for that matter, but let’s hope it is a start. Obama being elected affects us all, and I truly believe he will bring great change to America, and to the world. There were many reasons why he had my support, but the main thing for me was his pledge to pull the Troops out of Iraq. So after work, me and some friends went for a couple of mini bars and raised a glass to Obama.

However, it is funny how such elation could turn to disappointment when hearing that California had passed Proposition 8. So while America was busy patting each other on the back, self congratulating and generally heralding the dawn of a Brave New World by declaring itself the greatest democracy on earth, the literal same country deduces that those of the lavender persuasion do not merit the same rights as our heterosexual counterparts. Now don’t get me wrong, I have never been for gay marriage- I mean, what happens if it goes wrong- who gets the Madonna collection? How on earth could that be split in court- it is, my dearest of readers, an image too utterly barbaric to picture, let alone live through- but still, it’s a little bit offensive, non? Why should Britney Spears be allowed to get tanked up, marry a bloke she once made out with in the back of an RV one day and get an annullment the next, if I can’t? Surely there should be some equality here?

I am of course being a tad extreme labelling the whole of America as Homophobic twits, and know that it has more to do with, what else but religious extremists, in this case the Mormons donating millions to the ‘cause.’ But I feel I have the right to express my disappointment that people still, in this gay and age, view me, and my lifestyle as unacceptable and that as a fellow human being I am not entitled to be able to share vows with another man purely because I am a pole smoker. A big fat flamer. A friend of Dorothy. A fudge packer. I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, but surely the money poured into this campaign might have been better spent, and I’m just throwing this out here, being pumped into homeless problems or to victims of hurricane Katrina for instance, or troops wounded in the Iraq conflicts, or people affected by 9/11?

Now I am all for Barack Obama, and the first Black president, but one has to wonder if me, and my sisters, will ever see one of our rabble in the White House. Or as I like to think of it, The Lavender House. It seems that as Mo’s, we still have a long way to go before we are really accepted in society, and things like this do make you wonder if we are merely being tolerated?

Rant over- next time, I will go back to light heartedness, and will regale all with my tale of falling off the Columbian wagon with my Big Sis when she visited me in London recently.

Soho is a No-go

It seems every time I sit down to update my blog I am apologising for yet another long absence. These moratoriums are usually because I don’t have the time. I tend to update my blog during my lunch break at work and as lunch breaks can be rare around here, I have a legitimate excuse for not updating with the frequency with which I would like. And furthermore, I have the attention span of a fruit fly whereby I forget I even have a blog, with literally one’s of five’s of loyal readers, to update.

I update the blog at work as I refuse to go online at home. I feel there is something quite sacred about being the only Lady of The Lavender left on Planet Dearth who isn’t. It makes me feel kind of unique. Truth be told it was also far too confusing for me trying to install Broadband so I threw a hissy fit, cancelled my BT line and am now without connection. That was two years ago, and you know what- I’m still WCAH. Without Connection At Home and I’m still here. If anything I want to prove that one can exist without 24 hour internet connection.

My friends question my sanity and in a bid to get me on-line, one of them even set up a profile a year back on mysinglefriend.com in the hope that it would have me sashaying into the nearest BT Broadband outlet and promising the blood of my first born to get me on line. It had the opposite effect and after three days, I pulled the plug.

They say things like ‘How can you possibly cope without a Gaydar profile?’ Um, quite fucking effectively actually. No Gaydar for this one. Not Moi. Uh-huh. Been there once about four or so years ago, and won’t do it again. I actually consider Gaydar the devils backyard and anyone logging on is headed straight to hell in a handbag. In my case it was once bitten- turn celibate.*

Then there is the ‘But honey, what about the porn you’re missing?’ What the Britney Spears’ angry red gash are they talking about ‘missing’? It’s as if no self respecting Mo can exist without having a profile on a website that even by logging on you risk getting the clap, or having 24 hour access to online porn where guys are so allegedly ‘perfect’ that you end up feeling completely inadequate and believe that unless you can pull off things like ‘you like that big cock don’t ya’ & 'Yeah take it boy' in a Southern Drawl (and lets be honest here, in a Southern Squeal a lot of the time) you will have more chance of securing a million dollar record deal even though your throat has been cut and you are actually headless then you do of swinging on another Mo’s appendage.

Anyhoo, so I haven’t updated for quite a while I know, but to be honest, there isn’t a huge amount going on. I have been slowly but surely withdrawing from going out over the last year, for many reasons, firstly money (I recently forked out a huge amount on, let’s just say a ‘procedure’ and also, I now have a mortgage to pay), boredom with the gay scene (I have been going out in Soho for nigh on 14 years, and its getting tedious) and finally, Soho is also a walking graveyard of those failed relationships, and the thought of bumping into scary men from my past is all too much, a sentiment which was cemented a while back when I was approached in one night not once, not twice, but thrice by a man that I cut, quite rightfully so, out of my life three years ago. I don’t take the decision to cut someone out lightly, and you must push me to the edge to be a candidate for this most severe course of action, but when I do decide to, the decision is final and that person will be erased from my life, and any connections to them are severed.

Prior to this, I had been forced to change number years before after growing tired of his vile voicemails and bullying text messages, so he resorted to trying to contact me by email. All these attempts were ignored, and even when I moved, he went to my old address to get a forwarding address and one evening he appeared, bold as brass outside my window calling my name. There were sooooooo many factors in him being cut out of my life* so I was astounded he had the temerity to even approach me. Each time he approached I said firmly ‘I have nothing to say to you’ and whilst at first he was saying ‘Please, can I talk to you’ it wasn’t long before he showed his true colours. I can’t remember word for word what was said but I think it was something along the lines of me being called bitter and twisted and thinking that everything was about me (um, it kind of is) and generally yelled fuck at me on the street like a common dog. Nice. I can't believe my hesitence at speaking to him.

As he stormed off in a schizophrenic haze my friend and I looked at each other aghast, and decided to call it a night, as even though this was the first contact we’d had in years, he managed to put a dampener on the evening. Any doubts I had about whether I’d made a mistake were answered. No, I hadn’t. The funniest thing was that he had no idea who I was with, for all he knew, I was on a date, or with my new boyfriend so he just seemed intent on hurting me or potentially scaring the man I was with off by making me out to be some sort of sadistic bitter and twisted queen. But they do say that sociopaths pursue endless vendettas against those they perceive to have wronged them, so I shouldn’t be surprised. I learnt that in therapy- aren’t I clever? Let me tell you those were some intense sessions pretending the plant in the corner was my ex and screaming ‘WHY?!’ ‘how could you have said that’ and stop fucking with my mind’. It seemed insane at first, but soon I was doing it to any bush or piece of foliage I passed. For a while, Kew Gardens was off my list of places to go. Reliving that time in my life was extremely unpleasant, but my head was so totally screwed with I had no alternative. Six months of yelling at a yukka plant to find out I inherently pick the wrong men who will cause mass destruction because all I’ve ever known is drama. Fab.

So, when you factor in the cost, the boredom, and the potential of bumping into crazed ex’s who are unpredictable and seem to have it in for you, it’s easy to understand why spending my life in town is somewhat less appealing. Some might think that is letting him win, but I say, you can only win if you’re playing a game, and I most definitely am not. I think a respite from the gay scene will do me wonders, and I look forward to returning to it soon, with gusto, for some much needed debauched fun, and fingers crossed, an STI. Who knows? Tequila still goes out and is still very much the social butterfly, and there are always going to be stories to tell, but for now Soho is dead to me.***


* Coincidentally both asterisks are linked.
**Just off the top of my head, some of the deciding factors about his removal:

Sociopathic behaviour, pathological liar, phone sex addict (even though this threatened to destroy the relationship he kept on regardless and turned it on me saying it was my fault ), infantile behaviour, at times it was like dealing with a 13 year old rather than a 35 year old, constantly forcing me into situations that I was uncomfortable with, extreme jealously over a friendship and regularly trying to come between it, turning on me quite spectacularly after I’d supported him during a bereavement (He thought I had disclosed something about how vile he was to a then mutual friend. As usual, he was wrong and his venom was erroneously spat in my direction), hostile voicemails one in particular saying he couldn’t wait for my mother to die so he could come and laugh in my face, accusing me of murdering the love of my life, who very sadly committed suicide when I was 21 (the most devastating thing to have happened to me, which he saw perfectly fit to use to hurt me. It did, irreversibly), ultimately ruining two friendships just by my association with him (in due course friends were fed up of me giving him more chances and they turned against me- perhaps a testament to how lethal his mere presence was?). One day, I did snap and I hit him in the face. I’m not a particularly strong person, and believe me am no fighter, but still he had me arrested and thrown in the slammer for the night. If I’m listing his shortcomings, it’s only fair I list mine. When I was released I had 36 missed calls from him. Where the hell did he think I was, in a piano bar singing show tunes?

*** The book is open on just how long it will remain dead to me. One week anyone?

The man with no shame

Do I just date sociopaths? You know, those that lack a sense of personal responsibility and morality, have a total lack of remorse for their actions, are impulsive, manipulative, reckless, quarrelsome and consistent liars? The reason I ask is because I recently got an email from Goodie, a knob end I dated way back in my early twenties. It was in response to a request I had sent him, about a year ago. The request was:

From: "Tequila Mockingbird"
To: “goodie”Subject:
RE: Goodie has Tagged you! :)
Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2007 14:11:32 +0000

Hi,

Please can you take my name off these things?

Regards,
Tequila

The ‘things’ I wanted to be taken off were the endless social networking sites and on line communities that he was signing up to which, because I was in his address book meant that I was bombarded with junk emails. Je déteste junk emails. All of these on line communities and IM services drive me insane and I just don’t get it. The whole thing is ridiculous, letting complete strangers have your phone number, email address and vital statistics? Letting your every last move be monitored by anyone and everyone, and those scary ex boyfriends that you really don’t want to know you are still alive, let alone getting on with your life without them thank you very much.*

However, more importantly, I didn’t want to accept his friend requests because this guy was an absolute cunt to me when we were together. The last contact we had was when I got home one day to find he had virtually emptied out my flat and set off into the sunset, after repeatedly cheating on me for nigh on eight months and sinking me literally thousands of pounds into debt. He was a pathological liar who really screwed my head up in a whole host of ways including manipulating me into thinking that his cheating was all in my head,regardless of the unquestionable evidence. He even went as far as to offer to go and see a shrink with me, you know, to sort out my 'trust' issues. Even when he gave me crabs, and insisted it was scabies, but still had me use the crabs lotion he had me thinking I was imagining it. He ran up HUGE phonebills ( which he left me to pay) on chat lines, that he was using to meet the men he was cheating on me with. We had not spoken since he'd done his midnight flit almost seven years ago and now he had the absolute unmitigated panooge to include me as a friend on the abundance of networking sites he was signing up for?? Clearly, not an ounce of shame.

His email said, and this is the actual text:

Mr!! im shocked !!! you dont know who i am do u ??? well you should seein as we spent nearly 2 years together natalie’s been telling me all about you glad your ok and doin better then me lol ive jus split up wid mine so livin in lpool now you will have to come visit its a rite good laugh nice to hear from ya even tho it was to say bugger off sent ya a pic as well love and kisses goodie **

I shall translate for those who speak English. This boil on the butt of humanity thought I had asked to be taken off his list, because I had forgotten who he was, and he was shocked. In his warped mind, the eight months we had spent together had now become two years, and he’d heard from someone we both knew that I was doing well. He had split up with his boyfriend, (I’m hazarding a guess there was infidelity on Goodies part) and he wanted me to go visit him in Liverpool. And he had sent me a picture. His email had outraged me, but when I clicked on the attachment, I nearly fell off my chair.

It was him, in his underwear. I presume to show me what I had been missing these seven years. Well, dear readers, all it did, was make me want to put hooks in my cheeks and fly myself off Canary Wharf. I have no idea what I ever saw in him. I used to think of him as sexy and incredibly handsome with a nice body. He was none of the things I thought he was. What the hell was I thinking? Love is not only blind; it’s for crazy people I tell you. You see that crazy bag lady on the street having an argument with herself and you’re seeing me. You hear that neighbour screaming at the voices in his head to all get along, and you’re hearing me. You watch Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane and you’re watching me.

The thing which really annoyed me about the whole thing, was that he was only contacting me now because he’d split up with another one of his victims, whose vulnerable heart he no doubt would have preyed and trampled on. No mention of all the shit he put me through, no apology for the lies, the infidelities and the money he owed me. Nada. This email seemed like we were long lost pals.

I cannot believe the sheer effrontery of it all. You just could not make this stuff up. What the hell did he expect me to do? Email him back and say how happy I was to hear from him and the picture had got me all aquiver? Well I did email back. I said:

Goodie,
I do know who you are. Please stop sending me these things.
T

He’ll respond to that in a year undoubtedly. Please God don’t let the email have a picture attached.


*I have a facebook account, I admit, but my account is set to private, and ONLY my friends & family and some colleagues are on my account.

**Now before my darling Big Sis flies over from the US to kill me for the bad spelling and complete lack of grammar, I would like to point out, that I have simply copied and pasted the email in question. Big sis my love, In a Word document, it was one WHOLE big red squiggly line. xx

When a stranger emails

A friend of mine, Telstar emailed recently saying ‘we have a new best friend’ which had me intrigued and chomping at the bit to find out more. However, my eagerness soon turned to dread. Turns out he had been in communication with a chap that reads his blog religiously and they had been emailing each other for a few weeks. This guy, Just Justin, seemed to think that Telstar and I were the kind of Mo’s that you really want to be associated with and had made the very brave move of asking if we would meet him for a drink. Telstar obviously has mentioned some of our exploits via his emails, and he seemed keen on meeting, then raping and murdering us:

“I would actually really like to meet you and Tequila. You talk about him with such affection; it would be lovely to meet you both. Tell you what, I’m returning to London tomorrow. I'll leave you my mobile number so just text/call me when you want to meet (or whenever you wish!). Maybe you could send me a text so I could have yours? Or am I being too forward? (I am a complete stranger after all!)

I look forward to meeting you and Tequila in due course.”

Now, immediately I thought what a dreadful idea this would be. I have been contacted by many young lovelies asking to go out for a drink via my blog, but unlike Telstar, I’m not desperate, and also, do not have a death wish. I once met someone via a rather awful social networking site years ago, who on first impressions seemed like a normal kind of guy. Time showed that the face he had initially showed and the hand that he had dealt me could not have been further from who, or what he was. To this day he remains one of the most unhinged, manipulative, vengeful and self serving people I have ever met. And last year I met Madonna. So to say that I am loathe meeting strangers in an understatement. If it’s done via the internet, I’m sorry, but something aint right. As far as I was concerned, Just Justin was a little bit odd, and there was no way I was going to take part in any of this. As I always say, if your genitals are on the outside, you’re hiding something on the inside.

However, my good friend Telstar is single, and horny as hell, and he obviously wanted to meet up with this guy in the hope of getting some tail. Trouble being, he can be shy at times, and would only go if I would. I was caught between a rock and a gay place, so I racked my rack, and decided that in the true spirit of sisterhood, I had a responsibility for my flailing queerling of a friend, and agreed to go. It was time to Gay it Forward.

I roped Charles into coming along, incase Telstar & Just Justin hit it off, and left me high and dry looking like the local loon in the corner. We all met at about 5pm at The Y for a much needed debrief and some Dutch courage. We had arranged to meet with Just Justin at 7pm so had two hours to prepare ourselves.

Now, Telstar, poor sweet simple fool that he is, had not got a description of this guy, so we had no idea what we were on the lookout for. Honestly, didn’t even get a hair colour or ask what he would be wearing. I mean, that’s gay 101. This meant that Just Justin could be anybody. We would literally be looking for a needle in a gaystack.

By the time 7pm was approaching, we were on our 4th drink, feeling no pain and starting to get quite excited about meeting this chap. Even I had jumped on board the Just Justin Express. Every time a hot guy walked in the bar, we all silently prayed that this was our man. If a mutant guy walked into the bar, we’d all face the floor say nothing to each other and pray that if this were our man, he would spot that we are far too decent for him to associate with, and scuttle off out of our lives forever.

By 7:30, the bar was packed, but Just Justin was nowhere to be seen. It was starting to look like Telstar had been stood up. And by proxy, so had I. This did not bode well. ‘Do you think he came, took one look at you and then left’ I asked Telstar. ‘Well, now I do’ he screeched. Charles began laughing hysterically and saying ‘Tragic much? you two have been stood up by a guy you don’t even know’. I said ‘What’s to say it isn’t you he didn’t like the look of, sister’ which brought that one crashing back down to earth with a well needed thud.

As I was well on the way to drunkville, I kept shouting ‘JUSTIN!’ which had people looking at me like I was on a day trip from Bedlam. We then proceeded to tear Just Justin apart for having stood us up, and our tongues were acid sharp. ‘The blokes a cunt. A cardboard cut out cunt. If he turns up now, I’ll turf my drink in his face’ I proclaimed with Charles offering ‘I can’t believe we’ve been stood up, there’s nothing wrong with us. Probably an ugly bastard with pores you can see from space’ and Telstar crying ‘But we’re decent. Why didn’t show. He’d be lucky to have mates like us, the cunt. Someone’s got some hang up phonecalls coming their way’. And so on and so forth. We then proceeded to do what we always do, makes fun of everyone in the bar, just out of earshot and stand there cackling like the Bitches of Eastwick.

By 8pm, I was demanding that Telstar hand me over his phone so I could send a text to Just Justin telling him what I thought of him. I was like a homo with a bone, but he refused. Even tried to get the phone out of his pocket but to no avail. It was all getting quite dramatic, with even Charles screaming foul play. All this over a man we had never even met. By this point Just Justin had been truly vilified and used as fodder.

We went for some Sushi, to line the stomach for even more boozing, and a text came through to Telstar. ‘You were the guy in the plaid shirt, right? You didn’t see me,I was there from just after 7’. ‘We have to go back and meet him I said he’s come to meet us and we owe him at least one drink’. Which they both vetoed saying we owed him nothing, So I started kicking off and getting incensed saying that we would go to hell for being so awful, and that it would be really bad taste to ignore him now he’d made contact and how sorry I felt for him. ‘Text him back NOW’ I yelled.

‘Where were you, why didn’t you come up to us?’ said Telstar’s text. I was starting to throw a BF (Bitch fit) because I thought we should go back, but those two would just not cooperate. I guess I felt bad that we’d all been slagging him off for not showing and he actually had, but might have been too shy to come up to three queens who were pissed and hurling abuse. Not exactly the most approachable look eh? But at least I was trying to do the good thing and rectify the situation.

However, when Just Justin replied with ‘I was the guy standing behind you all night,sorry, I was too shy, next time?’ my morality kind of went out the window. The guy that was stood behind us was a dwarf with a sty, and homo just won’t play that. A cretin, a monster, a veritable gremlin. And one, that had been giving me the glad eye for about an hour at that. But what was even worse, was the fact that he had stood behind us and heard what hateful things we had been saying. I mean, based on how he looked, he deserved it, to be sure, but still, we all found it a bit creepy that he knew who we were, and didn’t just come and say hi, but chose instead, to stand behind us and eavesdrop on our entire conversation. It was all very ‘The call is coming from inside the house’ if you ask me. It felt like he had the upper hand, and none of us were impressed.

So, the bad news is that we all got exposed for being the acid tongued queens that we are for tearing Just Justin apart limp wrist, by limp wrist.

The good news is that none of us wanted to fuck him, so all in all, it was a pretty successful experiment.

Diamond Geezers are forever

Someone posed a question the other day- What is my single most embarrassing moment? Immediately a plethora of images flickered through my mind as I recalled times when I have prayed for the ground to open up and ingest me whole, or have longed for spontaneous combustion. Such gems as the time I went Speed Dating and hurled abuse at all attendees, or the time that I got up at Karaoke night refused to get off stage and kept asking the DJ to ‘hit me’ with another track, or the time I thought it would be fun to hack into my works phone system and change everyone’s outgoing voicemails while drunk, or when I came onto a dashingly handsome fellow at a work function blissfully unaware that not only was he straight, he was the General Managers husband. And how could I ever forget the time that I applied fake tan for a blind date, which next morning had come off on the guys Egyptian cotton sheets. That was awkward enough, but the fact that when he’d commented on my colour the night before I'd embellished and said I was in fact of Greek decent was slightly more reprehensible now that my ‘heritage’ had stained his linens.

I responded saying ‘It’s difficult to pick just one as my life has been one embarrassing moment and I could literally write a book about some of the more thwarting things that have happened to me’. What’s funny is that I say ‘happened to me’ when in fact most things are caused by me, so in fact, I am merely living in the hell of my own making. My sheer existence at times it seems, is to publicly humiliate myself, which makes me wonder if that is why I have previously dated sociopaths.

I decided that as I am a self deprecating kind of guy, I would start blogging about some of my less than fabulous moments. Let’s begin with the night I met hot British actor Danny Dyer.

I have been a fan for ten years, and fell head over heels in love when he adorned my screen in the film Human Traffic. Since then I have seen every film he has been in, the good, the bad and the very very ugly. Even when his films are dreadful, they are first-rate, because it has him in it to salivate over. Yes he may play the same character in every single film, but my life has always been lacking consistency, and that dear readers I get through Danny. He is the one true constant in my inconsistent life.

So, you can imagine my delight when last April my friend Charles invited me to a party called Diamond Geezers, which his PR agency was arranging. It was Danny Dyer and Tamer Hassan's party ( they starred inThe Business together) that they were throwing ahead of their involvement in something called Gumball Rally, launching the next evening at the Trocadero which I also had tickets for.

I had promised myself that if I were ever to meet him I would be uber cool, incredibly unfazed and would win him over with my undeniable wit. I would praise him on his acting abilities, show what a fan I was by quoting obscure lines from lesser known films and ask if I would ever get the chance to see him at the theatre and possibly get into a heated debate about the film industry, he’d realise that I could stand my ground, which would result in me appearing even more alluring.

What essentially happened could not be further from the truth. Telstar and I rocked up at a jewellers on Bond Street where the party was being held- all very themed we deduced, holding a Diamond Geezers soiree in an actual shop that specialised in diamonds. It was very James Bond. Sadly, the diamante encrusted belt I was wearing was not forever. The night got off to a bad start when we hit the red carpet. Being the nobodies that we are, the paparazzi groaned, asked each other very audibly who ‘the queens’ on the carpet were, stopped taking pictures and then chatted amongst themselves until real Z-listers arrived.

‘Are you here to cover or to play?’ enquired the lady on the door. ‘Play’ we squealed in unison, whilst jumping up and down a little and clapping like seals. Surprisingly, after this display, we were still allowed in.

Two glasses of champagne in (we’d already necked a bottle of wine in approximately 10 minutes in a bar around the corner for medicinal purposes, naturellement) and we were starting to ignore the suspicious looks from the other guests. We were dressed like extras on Pimp My Ride, and everyone else had opted for their best designer attire. Not only did we not belong, but we looked like we didn’t belong and were sticking out like two sore gays.

All of a sudden the room became saturated in flash lights and the click of cameras. Danny was on his way in the door. In he walked with Tamer, down the stairs, and everyone followed him into what can only be described as a secret nightclub under the shop. There was a bar, a celebrity DJ, a dance floor, and Nintendo Wii consoles. This is not what you expect to find underneath a Jewellers on Bond Street. I felt like Alice in Wonderland, and I knew the first thing I wanted to take a bite out of.

Thankfully the bar was free so we ordered drinks and scuttled into a corner where we had a perfect view of our beloved. Sipping champagne and staring at Danny Dyer- what could be better? We continued to make full use of the free bar, hitting it with such frequency that the bar staff would simply lift two fingers and tilt their heads when we approached to enquire if we wanted yet more champagne, to which either one of us would simply nod and say ‘We’ll have another two’.


We persistently watched our man from afar while he played on the games console taking deep and sharp breaths every time he moved. He looked so delicious, I knew he had to be fattening. I’d never felt so star struck and love struck at the same time. After another nine glasses of champers, I was full of courage and ready to make my move. Telstar went to the toilet and I decided to pounce. When he came back, I was playing the Nintendo with Danny. To say I couldn’t concentrate is an understatement, my heart was pounding, my crotch was throbbing and I was feeling quite lightheaded. I crashed down to earth when Telstar hustled in between us and demanded to know what I was doing, and told my man not to talk to me.

I threw myself at him and said 'I love you, I’ve seen all your films, don’t talk to this one he’s a cunt’ and Telstar started saying ‘No Danny I’m the real fan, this one’s the cunt’. We then started fighting over Danny Dyer, in front of Danny Dyer, hurling quotes and insults at each other, which is not the best approach admittedly. Danny eventually said 'Listen boys, you’re mates, stop calling each other cunts’ which only made us vie for his attention even more. He subsequently gave us a hug, and said ‘you’re both cunts, I fuckin’ love you irons*’

Now I have been called a cunt by a man before, whilst in bed in fact, and I did not enjoy it one bit. He actually spat on me and then called me a cunt, which he thought was entirely customary, but I found truly disconcerting. However, being called it by Danny Dyer was a completely different and it was the most romantic thing I had ever heard. We started having a chat and he asked what our favourite films were, told us how much he loved his fans, had his picture taken with us and was the nicest, most humble man either of us has ever met. Instead of asking him all the things I always said I would, all I kept saying was ‘Seriously, I fucking love you. No, but you don’t understand Danny, I really love you’. I’m surprised that he didn’t give us both a wallop, or have us thrown out, but he acted like we were the only two in the room. To be fair, we WERE the only two homos in the room professing our undying love for a straight man. He must have been completely bemused when he realised that he didn’t know any queerlings and most definitely hadn’t invited any to his party yet here were Gay and Gayer doing the whole presenting of the butt ritual.

We spoke of his gay following and he asked if I had seen his Attitude Magazine front cover. ‘Seen it??! Danny I masturbate to it every day’ I screeched, which again, instead of taking offence, he laughed at. I then told him that my dream was to take a line of cocaine off of his cock, and enquired if it would be possible. ‘Uh, yeah, maybe later babe’ he said and then that was it, off he went. I don’t think he was particularly offended by what I had said, and to this day I still maintain that he left in pursuit of getting some of the old Columbian powder to make my dream a reality.

The rest of the night is pretty much a blur, I recall telling the DJ he was useless for not playing Prince, I threw myself at Tamer and told him I wanted to blow Danny and made a general fool of myself on the dancefloor. When Tamar addressed the room on a microphone to thank everyone for coming he said ‘I’m just gonna say a few words, but before I start I just wanna say I’ve got a couple of fucking Iron’s behind me and they’re in love with Danny Fucking Dyer and this one(pointing to me) wants to do a line of Charlie off his ol’ boy’ Now this was a room full of the underbelly of London’s gangster world, modern day Krays and people that you really wouldn’t want to be caught down a dark alley with, let alone in a secret room beneath a jewellers on Bond Street- I feared we were about to become next days front page news ‘Homo’s found beheaded and impaled on Blackfriars bridge’ but instead of trying to kill us, they all laughed and applauded, which neither of us were expecting. Realising that our 15 seconds of fame was nearly up, Telstar grabbed the microphone from Tamer and announced to the room ‘I am all about the Tamar Hassan’ to which there was another huge round of applause from our indulgent audience. We gave them a bow and let Tamer continue his speech, all the while interjecting and screaming ‘We love you’.

Danny, Tamer and most of their troupe left shortly after the speech, but Telstar, myself and the rest of the freeloaders continued to dance and drink the free bar. I fell over at some point and knocked myself unconscious on the dance floor. When I regained consciousness a few people were putting cold towels on my head and asking if I was ok. The first thing I said was 'What’s going on, where the fuck is Danny Dyer’ when to be perfectly honest I should have been thanking these people for looking after me. Next thing I know I was flying through the air. That is the very first time that I have actually been thrown out of anywhere and into the bins. I felt like Courtney Love. As Telstar was with me, he sadly befell the same fate, which did not amuse, because he was having a great time mixing with the Z list celebrities and was having a real bonding experience with Big Brovaz and Abs from 5ive.

The following night we had VIP tickets to the Gumball launch which Danny and Tamer would be at again. You would think, that based on my performance at the previous party that I wouldn’t have the temerity to turn up. But my motto has always been there’s nothing like regret to remind you that you’re alive, so I reasoned I had better get down there and behave even more regretfully.

Now, meeting Danny Dyer the night before was brilliant. Being recognised by him as I sauntered into the VIP section was priceless. As we walked in Tamer said ‘Have a look, it’s the irons again’ Danny bowled over, gave me a big hug and said ‘How’s it goin babes? I died a little bit and then told him all about my behaviour after he had left the party, which he found HIGHlarious. The whole time I was relaying the story to him, he was stroking my chest, which was the most erotic yet unnerving thing that I have experienced. We chatted for a while and then he asked ‘You still wanna do that line of Charlie off me cock?’ grabbed his crotch turned, walked away and said ‘get in there my son’ It was the most perfect moment of my life.

So, what I would say to anybody, when meeting a celebrity is to just be yourself. Turns out they not only appreciate it, but you’ll be remembered for it too. I’ve now met Danny a number of times and we have a bit of banter, and I always ask him if I can blow him. He declines my offer, but one day I know he is just going to unleash the monster and let me feed.

I do die of mortification when I call to mind just how disgraceful I was the first time we met, but then he knows me by name now, and that quite frankly, is worth the inner shame.

* Cockney Rhyming Slang- Iron Hoofs = Poofs

Situation difficile

You’d think being somebodies object d’art would make one feel uber fabulous, confident and vicariously sexual but in truth, it makes me feel unnerved, irritated and hounded, especially in the way that JT has tried to, for want of a better expression, get into my Jock Straps.

It started a while back when I came into the office one morning, to an email saying ‘Hi Tequilla, really great to meet you yesterday. You look familiar, have I seen you out somewhere?’ from someone called JT. Now while this in itself is inoffensive it did slightly unease me because I had no idea who JT was and certainly had no recollection of meeting him. I began perturbing that all the doctor’s warnings were legitimate; one day the years of drugs and alcohol worship really would result in memory loss and brain damage.

‘Do you know who this JT is?’ I asked the team and a little bit of research later I learned JT worked in our other building as the Head of Facilities and was at a Focus Group the previous day, which, yours truly was also at. In these kinds of situations, I keep myself to myself and pray that nobody will talk to me. As I mentioned previously I work in an organisation where it’s all very much about office-speak and management talk which is spoken in abundance at the best of times, but a Focus Group? Fuck. Me .Hard. It just drones on and on, so I zone out, daydreaming about working in a place where they all speak The Queens English only to zone back and hear the likes of ‘Not letting the grass grow too long on this one’ ‘what are the elephants in the room’ and ‘getting all of our ducks in a row’.

Thinking back on the previous day, I vaguely recalled getting myself a coffee and asking a guy if he would mind passing the milk. That was it. That was him. I’d asked someone to pass me a drop of milk for my coffee, and suddenly we ‘met’. And according to JT, ‘it was great’. If that is the case, then I’m better about meeting people than I think I am. Who knew it was so unproblematic?

Armed with this knowledge and still no clearer I emailed back saying ‘Hi, it’s possible you have seen me out, I am a permanent fixture in most pubs and bars in Central London’. I didn’t want to be rude by not emailing back, but didn’t want to say ‘great to meet you too’ so didn’t.

Literally a few seconds later he emailed back ‘so, which bars do you drink in matey’ and I realised, he was trying to figure out if I was of the lavender persuasion. If I was less of a moth to a flame and more of a moth to a flamer. In short, was I a pole smoker? Now, I’ve never considered myself to be the most mannish of guys, but I didn’t speak to anyone or move in that Focus Group, which is the only way I am able to conceal my Lavenderness. He was trying to work me out, which piqued me if I’m honest. Does he have any idea how much work has gone into being this gay?

‘The ones that serve alcohol’ I fired back. I was being very short and sharp hoping that he’d take the hint but no, within milliseconds he’s saying ‘LOL like a drink do we? Seriously, I think I’ve seen you out and about what’s your local?’

Was he freaking kidding me with this? The espèce de merde. He knew how totally inappropriate this was becoming, he could after all have been barking up the wrong tree, which is why he was so hesitant in asking me if I drank in a specific Homo Haunt.

‘ I don’t have a regular, I have been in most of the bars in the West End, including Soho wine bar, the Toucan, Café Boheme, The Wellington, The Marquis and The Yard.’ All the bars apart from The Yard are heterosexual places, and I have been in them all many times, so if he was trying to find out if I received swollen goods and took deliveries around the back based on where I drink, well, then he was barking up the wrong lavander bush quite frankly.

Again, quick as a cat he emailed back, ‘Ah, The Yard? That’s not the kind of place I’d expect a bear cub like you to hang out. LOL Listen, I think you’re cute, and it’d be nice to get to know each other a bit more, when are we going for a bevy? Maybe we could do it at the weekend and make a day of it LOL, go for lunch, then out on the razz LOL’

Ladies and Dobermans, I don’t mind telling you I almost fell off my chair when that came through. I don’t know what I was more offended by, the fact that he had LOL’d me three times in one email, which really is a pet hate of mine, had called me a bear cub, or had assumed that it was appropriate to hit on someone you worked with via work email? It was by far, one of the most unsavoury things that had ever popped in my box.

I felt a little bit of sick come up and decided to nip this in the bud. I replied ‘Considering the only words we have ever said to each other are ‘can you pass the milk’ I’m not sure we’d have much to talk about, so think I’ll give it a miss’

‘Calm down, I didn’t ask to marry you I just want to get to know other people in the charity. I’ve worked here for years and don’t really know anyone’

Yes, well, if this is how you behave then I’m not really surprised I thought to myself. And how you have the unmitigated crust to now make this about work is beyond me. You have called me cute, a bear cub, asked me to go on the razz, said how nice it was to meet me, badgered me into telling you I’m gay in a roundabout way and not ONCE have you asked what I do here. And the fact that you snapped about not asking to marry me, because I declined your offer in a humorous way, trying to make this less embarrassing for you than it already is suggests to me that I’ve been fucked over by you being a colleague, let alone someone who I’d go and socialise with. Jesus tonight.

So I ignored it, and the email he sent me the following day asking what I got up to the night before. What is he, a rejection junkie?

I never heard or thought about him again. I had completely forgotten about the episode when my boss told me that due to a restructuring, Facilities would fall under her umbrella. I knew it was coming, I could sense it, in the same way that animals know when an earthquake is about to hit and they begin acting oddly, make strange noises and start pacing. I was doing all of this.

‘So I need to you to get some time in the diary with someone called JT. Do you know him at all?’

***sweat pouring down forehead in manner of Iguaza Falls***

‘No, but I’m sure I’ll find him on the Intranet. I’ll get that set up for you, leave it with me.’

Do I know him? Lady are you serious, I am the object of his erection. I can’t believe this. I KNOW that as soon as I contact him even though it is for business related purposes he is going to be like a preying mantis all over again. There is no way that I can call him, and based on our previous contact, it’s probably a good idea to have electronic evidence, you know, for when the trial of my having been raped and murdered comes to court, so I’ll stick with the email.

Shall I just move jobs?

Confessions On A Answerphone

First off thanks for all of your emails and the comments on my blog. Sometimes it kinda makes me feel bad for not blogging so often. But only for a little while. No seriously, I do appreciate them and I will get back to you all.

So, as is the norm, Tequilla finds himself in a little bit of a pickle. This time though, I really don’t know what to do.

My friend Jake hosted his annual ‘Madonna Night’ this weekend. Even though I may not be on board with her latest offering, she is still the mother of us all, and therefore I headed West to Ealing with disco ball and mirrored cross strapped to my back for my entrance. You should have seen the looks of surprise when I rose from the ground singing Live to Tell.

There was much drinking and frivolity with Madonna concerts being screened back to back, me repeatedly requesting Gambler and trying to teach everyone how to Vogue. Some people had really gone to town and had come dressed as Madonna throughout her career, every where you looked there were cowboy hats, wedding dresses and conical bras. It could not have been any gayer if Barbra Streisand was there draped over a piano singing the Way We Were.

Some of the Old Columbian powder was being passed around freely, but having given all that malarkey up about three years ago now, I stuck to my white wine spritzers. Seeing people off their heads had me positively cringing when thinking back to the amount of absolute drivel I must have come out with. Why do people on coke just not shut the fuck up, and give themselves a chance to breathe? And I’m saying this as someone who used to indulge VERY heavily. I’d come home and if everyone had gone to bed I’d talk to my reflection in the toaster for hours, just to have someone to talk to.

The party was great and at about 1am people started leaving, most to go on clubbing. I had brought my over night kit to sleep in Jake’s spare room, and all I wanted to do was sit there, keep drinking wine and watch the Confession’s concert without any interruptions. So it was me, Jake, his friend Ruth and some howdy doody looking Mother Fella called Christopher, a pint sized Irish Mo with a zest for life and a yearning to dance, who had been entertaining everyone with the full routine to the Don’t Tell Me video, which had me spitting feathers in the corner for having not mastered it myself.

Jake seemed delighted that Christopher was staying on to watch the DVD and I could see that he was hoping that he might be getting some tail. He had been shamelessly flirting with Christopher all night, which was quite embarrassing, especially when his advances were continually spurned. He must have thought that by this point Christopher’s Beer Goggles were firmly in place and he was ready to make musk rat love.

So the DVD is popped in and I sit down, on the sofa. Christopher sits next to me and the concert begins. Christopher say’s he was at the show that we were watching, then abruptly the DVD stops.

‘If you two are just going to sit there and flirt with each other I’d prefer it if you left. You’ve been all over each other all night’ slurred Jake, in a not so nice tone.

‘What are you talking about, we’re sitting next to each other’ I cried

To which Jake screeched ‘I’ve seen you, whispering sweet nothings in each others ears all night, and practically having sex, you’ve both totally ruined my Madonna Night and made it incredibly uncomfortable for everyone, that’s why they’ve all left’

What the Freddie Prinze Junior what this bi-otch going on about? I had probably said two words to Christopher all night. This was all so strange.

He then jumped up from his seat and went over to the TV, turned it off, looked at me and howled ‘And you BROKE my speakers! I think you should just fucking get out now, go on, go back to Christophers’ and drool all over each other, I don’t want to see this in my fucking house’

Christopher and I looked at each other like foreigners who had turned up at customs without visas. What was happening? I’d been invited to stay, then all of a sudden I’m being accused of virtually having sex with someone in full view of everyone, breaking speakers, which I had been nowhere near, but HAD seen Jake fall onto earlier on, and was being turfed out onto the streets at 2am. In fucking EALING. I live in Surrey Quays. Miles away.

I was not in the mood for this so I just said ‘Jake, if you can’t handle your alcohol then don’t drink it. I am leaving now and I look forward to you waking up tomorrow and remembering all of this, how you invited me to stay and then threw me out of you flat for no reason, all because you are jealous that this dude isn’t interested in you. Don’t project your bullshit onto me. And as for your speakers, you fell onto them you ignoramus and broke them yourself. And furthermore you're kind of on a nine at the moment when you really ought to be on a two- toodles' and span on my heels and left.

I left with poor Christopher behind me asking ‘what the fuck was all that about?' I had no idea, but that boy had just won himself an Oscar nomination. All I knew was I needed to get home, then Christopher chirps up with ‘You can spend the night at mine’ and proceeded to hit on me.

‘Are you crazy? I’ve just been chased out of a flat in the middle of Ealing at 2 in the morning by a queen on the verge of a nervous breakdown and you’re trying to get me in the sack? I need to get home, not get Homo.’

So, I made my excuses and left, found a cab place and saw their eyes light up when I said Surrey Quays. £48 later, I got home and fell into bed.

When I woke on Sunday, I had 18 missed calls from Jake who had been frantically trying to get hold of me, but I just couldn’t be bothered with dealing with what would no doubt have been a drunken blabbering, snivelling mess, so had put my phone on silent in the cab.

I clicked to listen to my voicemail, and had a new message. I put my phone on loud speaker and listened to what was the funniest message I had ever heard. He was desperately crying apologising and saying ‘I don’t know what the fuck I’ve done, what did I do, please forgive me, you’re such a good friend’ and I could hear the snot falling from his nose and the tears from his eyes hitting the handset. But then something truly uncanny happened. The message continued after he had said goodbye. He hadn’t hung up. It was hard to make out at first as all I could hear was him crying and being comforted by Ruth. Then he said ‘What the fuck have I done? I’ve been in love with Tequila for over 4 years. I have never felt this way about anyone, and because of my fucking stupid jealousy, I’ve ruined any chances of ever being with him. And now I’ve sent him flying into Christopher’s arms. They’re fucking now, aren’t they? They are fucking, fucking each other and it’s my entire fault……….’

And on and on it went….I didn’t know where to look. He hasn’t a clue that he left that message, because he thought he’d hung up. I felt embarrassed, like I was eavesdropping, but I wasn’t. It was there on my answering machine. It was like a car crash, or the new Madonna video, you know you shouldn’t look, but you just can’t turn away. Hearing myself being referred to as someone’s soul mate was very odd, especially when I had NO idea how he felt for me.

I knew I had to contact him, because I was in no doubt that he’d be calling to apologise abundantly, but the thought of talking to him with my new found awareness had me sweating like a whore in church. I sent a text saying ‘No hard feelings don’t beat yourself up about it; we’ve all had mad moments when intoxicated. You did Madonna proud.’ He sent one apologising again, which I didn’t get back to. What could I say ‘Oh, don’t worry, I enjoyed you yelling fuck at me, and FYI, I now know you’re in love with me and no I did not end up fucking Christopher’.

We have planned to go away for the weekend next month, and I feel really uncomfortable about the whole thing. Do I tell him I know? What if when we go away he’s planning to make a move? Oh readers I am in a two and eight about this, and feel really nauseous. I just want to cut ties with him altogether. Can I do that?

You’d think hearing that someone is in love with you would be flattering, but in this case it feels anything but. I’m questioning our friendship and wondering if when I’ve had moments and been down and he’s comforted me if there was more in it. I think about us going to the gym together and him seeing me naked. I wonder if he fantasizes about me and it is making me want to tear off all my limbs and throw myself at a chilli plant. I mean, if I fancy someone, then I masturbate over them 20 times an hour. So if he’s in love with me, is he bashing the bishop over me?

This is not good. Will our friendship be able to survive? Aren’t they built on trust and having no secrets? He doesn’t know that I know, you know? But I can’t tell him, as it would humiliate him, and may make him far too embarrassed to ever talk to me. I will never feel the same around him again, and will be walking on eggshells wondering if he is about to pounce. We’re going to see George Michael in August which I have been so excited about but now I don’t even want to go. What if during I’m Your Man he decides to try and be my man? Fuck that fucking voicemail message.

Even my friendships are of unknown quantities. Who knew? If I was Jewish, I’d be oy-ing all over the place right now.

So, the question is, what would YOU do?

Tequilla- raised from the ashes

Ladies, Gentlemen and undecided,

It has been an age since I last put fingers to keyboard I know, and I would love to give an excuse like I have been volunteering in a third world country, without clean water or food, let alone a laptop connection, but in truth I just couldn’t be bothered. There, I’ve said it. However, following the urging of a blogging friend, I decided to raise Tequilla from the ashes and update all on The Mockingbird.

So much has happened since my last post that I don’t know where to begin. Firstly, I got myself a new job. I am now an assistant to the director of a high profile organisation. What that means is, I’m someone’s bitch and I effing love it. The Not for Profit world is indeed a funny one, and it’s taken me some time to embrace the utter twaddle of it all. You know, the political correctness, the lunacy and most of all the business jargon- a phenomenon that is totally unknown to me. All day long I hear talk of brown bag lunches, emergent environments, idea showers and big ticket items.

It’s completely unfathomable to me that this knob-end speak occurs in such a professional environment and sometimes I find myself staring at people with complete and absolute confusion.. Why would you replace ‘We screwed up here’ with ‘We wrongsided the demographic’ or ‘Let’s have a drink after work’ with ‘Shall we touch base offline’??? I have been here for almost two years (I had another role before applying for the one I now have), and still just cannot get to grips with what is referred to as ‘Management Speak’. Actually, I refuse to.

Other than that, I am totally on board with my new job, and have never been happier in work. My boss is great and I think she enjoys the fact that she has a gay assistant, and is seen throughout the organisation as someone who is really progressive and outside box thinking.

'Speak with my gay assistant about setting something up’
'You have a gay assistant? How unreservedly forward thinking’

I’m on more money than I have ever earned (although I am poorer than I have ever been- how does that work??) and I wake up every day looking forward to going to work, so really can’t complain.

I turned the big 30 in March of this year, so am now officially deceased in gays years. I now literally have the shelf life of a dairy product, and I’m staring to curdle. I am a dead homo fucking. Its odd turning 30, there really was a mind shift for me, and in the approach to it, a strange thing happened . I started thinking about the future. And not just the end of the week, but of years to come. I started thinking about the fact that I never have any money a week after payday and am under house arrest because I have been tearing the arse out of it for a week and spent all of my wages. So, last September I started to, wait for it, save money. In 3 months I put away £1500 and for the first time in my life I was able to hit the January sales. However, I wasn’t shopping for clothes, fragrances and skin care products. No, I was on the hunt for electricals. I bought myself a flat screen TV, a fridge and a washing machine. Finally, Tequilla had grown up. It was all about Cash ISA’s, pension plans, IBS and saving for a rainy day.

However, the thrill of saving quickly passed, and I am now back to my old ways, and am so poor at the moment I may have to nip down to the pawn shop this weekend with the Armani watch I got for my birthday, just to get enough cash to get me through to payday. Nobody can say that I do not give things a fair try. However, nobody could say that I stick to things either. I am like English weather, unpredictable, erratic and mostly disappointing.

Sadly I had to say goodbye to my cat Toby last week. He hasn’t died, he just drove me to the edge of my sanity. He was never happy, always whingeing to go out, when he was out he would howl to get in, even though the window was open for him, and I have never heard a cat make such a racket. My neighbour was always complaining because he was a nuisance, and it was getting really embarrassing. On top of that, was the fact that he kept using my entire flat as a littler box.

He ruined my floorboards, covers of my DVD box sets, my photography books and an entertainment unit (it eventually rust and buckled on account of how much he was urinating on it) so in despair I took him to the vet, who checks him for urinary problems. That test cost me £75. Nada. No problem with his urine. The cat is stressed they tell me. Why is he stressed, can’t he meet his deadlines at work? Does he have financial woes, and is the rise in utilities taking its toll on him? Anyhoo they advise me to buy this plug in thing called feliway, which is supposed to create a tranquil environment for stressed pussies. At £30 a pop for a months supply, I gave it three months. Didn’t work. This little furry thing was pushing me over the edge, and I thought to myself, if this were a man, I would have dumped him a long time ago.

The FINAL straw came last Tuesday when I woke up and there was no electricity. Now I don’t mess with electric, can just about switch on a plug, let alone change one, so called in an electrician, he fiddles with a few things, not me unfortunately cos this guy was Foxy with a capital ‘Fuck me now’. Anyway, asks me ‘Have you got a pet in here?’ and then proceeded to tell me that Toby had urinated into an extension cable, causing the electric to blow. Told me I was lucky that it hadn’t started an electrical fire and killed me. I think when it gets to the point where your pussy is endangering your life; it’s time for tough love. I resisted the urge of putting him, the ruined extension and a couple tins of Whiskers in a tied bag and floating it down the Thames and he is now residing with my Mum and her 3 other cats. If that doesn’t teach him a lesson, nothing will. It’s sad, but I just don’t know if my work will believe another ‘I can’t come in today, my cat tried to kill me again last night’.Only I could end up with the Anti-Cat.

So, turns out, even my relationships with animals are dysfunctional.

Tequilla Does Assertive

You know, I have signed up for some crazy things in my life from Speed Dating; becoming a Chat line operator; volunteering in a soup kitchen; taking part in a stopping smoking trial, to doing a charity run. These days I am all about trying different things and gaining new life experiences.

So when I saw an advert for a 5 day long Assertiveness course, I decided to sign up quicker than a bulimic could purge a peanut. I tried to kid myself that it would be really interesting and a great thing to do for growth and personal development. But I finally gave in to my nagging conscience and admitted I was going in the hope of finding some decent tail.

Now I am not a particularly confident person at all. Once I have had a drink I am Mr Confident, but we all know that there is a fine line between being confident, and being a cunt, and as I say, I am still yet to master the art of confidence………so signing up for this was a huge deal for me as I knew it would have to be done alcohol free.

After a sleepless night the day had arrived, and I did what I always do when I am anxious, terrified and about to crap myself- I go on auto pilot, and before I knew it I was taking a left off Tottenham Court Road en route to my certain humiliation, and death……

I walked in and there were two rows of chairs in the middle of the room. I spied the one I decided was at the back and sat down. A few followed suit but I gave them my best ‘talk to me and I’ll rip off your head and shit in your neck’ look, which seemed to work wonders.

To my horror one of the facilitators began rearranging the chairs to make a semi circle, which actually meant that I was sat at the front, as opposed to being at the back. We all know what that means. Yep, when it comes to the whole ‘introduce yourself to the group’ cuntistry, I’d be first up. The seat directly to my right was free so I spotted my salvation and made a jump floor it, but doing so I collided with a howdy–doody-looking mother-fella, sent his coffee flying across the room, and with it my last shred of dignity. Everyone looked at me while I looked at the floor and wondered why it wasn’t opening to absorb me. I had been in the room less than 2 minutes and I had already embarrassed myself, ruined someone’s outfit, broken crockery and made an enemy in ‘Philippe’.

Before I knew what was happening we had been split up in two groups and were told we had to come up with a ‘Group Agreement’. Once this had been completed we were all ‘bound’ and it would become a ‘Closed Group’. We had to come up with our own ‘terms & conditions’ or in other words, things we should and shouldn’t do, or things we expected our counterparts to do, or not do. The air was abuzz with words and phrases such as ‘Respect’ ‘ Boundaries’ ‘No judgement’ and ‘I have the right to sleep with who I want without having to justify it’….. However the main thing that everyone wanted to be clear on was how we would approach someone from the course if we met ‘outside the group’. I said “I wouldn’t have a problem if you come and say hello” to which this venomous queen started screaming at me ‘Well what if I am with someone? Will that put me in a difficult situation? What will they think? I don’t want anyone knowing about this, nobody knows I’m gay!!!!’ I said, “Hi there Angry, are you mad much? You really need to chill out here’ and reasoned that by the end of the course he would be assertive enough to say to the probing friend “it’s none of your business”. Now I thought this was a valid point, but the whole group then looked at me and then each other like they had just been caught in Bangkok with a couple of kilos of cocaine on them. To say it went down like a plate of sick is an understatement.

After we had compiled our ’ Group agreement’ it was time for the bit that I was dreading. The part where you have to introduce yourself to the room by giving your name and why you were there. I was first in line:

“Hello, my name is Tequila (adopting a slightly incredulous tone) and, um, I’m here because I’m not very assertive” .The whole room looked at me, some mouths open, staring in disbelief and a lengthy silence ensued. Russ, the facilitator, started gesturing for me to continue, but that was ALL I had to say. Why the fuck else would you be on an Assertiveness course? I then realised that everyone in the room was waiting for me to say something else. I can’t tell you how uncomfortable I felt with all those gay eyes on me. Judging me. Undressing me. Dressing me up again in different outfit.

I needed some damage control but by this point all my barriers had gone up so I simply said “Well I’m sorry but it’s why I’m here, what else do you want me to say?”

Russ, sensing a lynching was as quick as a cat. “Um, yep, great, thanks for that Tequila, OK moving on’ ………. Philippe, the guy who already hated me because of ‘coffee-gate’ piped up:

“Oh, hi guys, well, I am in a fantastic relationship, I have just had a big promotion and pay rise at work, my friends are fabulous, I have just got on the property ladder and life is perfect. I’m here because I thought it would be a fun and interesting thing to do”

I thought, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realise I had signed up for ‘My life is fabulous and you are all a bunch of losers’. I started to have serious doubts about the men that had signed up for this course and their lack of assertiveness. As we continued around the room everyone apart from my good self seemed confident, outgoing and assertive. It became clear that this was a group of people who were so in love with every aspect of their fantastic lives that they would use any opportunity to talk about it.

After introductions, Russ started talking about what the 5 day course would entail, what skills we could hope to learn and lots of other interesting information that he kept interjecting ‘Assertiveness-isms’ into such as:

Learning to have a ‘transaction’ with someone without feeling threatened

Disclosing information within the group

Taking the responsibility to ‘own’ what ever we were ‘disclosing’

Parking our issues

Understanding our ‘Bottom line’

What the Sarah Michelle Gellar had I let myself in for I thought? Transactions? Bottom lines? Parking my issues? Load of old bollocks much? Cuntistry much? Get me the hell out of here much?

This course was not for me, and I knew I had to leave. Lunch would be the perfect time to do a Houdini, so content with the fact that I would leave these cunts behind; I suddenly had a new found confidence. Knowing I was jumping ship made me feel well, superior, so I started talking to people, cracking jokes and generally being myself.

This backfired. This backfired BIG. Because when I was running for the door like a dog that hadn’t been out in a month, half of the guys followed me and asked where I was going for lunch. I couldn’t think of a lie quick enough to cover up the fact that I was out, way out, on my way home out, so instead I just said the park and by 2pm I was back at the course, apparently having a good time.

The second half was even more vomit inducing, with role plays involving us trying to take a jumper back for a refund and trying to get the second two weeks off in July but coming to a compromise with our boss and accepting the last week of July and the first week of August, as our ‘bottom line’. It was SO painful. None of this meant anything, it was ridiculous and I couldn’t believe these cunts were taking it so seriously.

Did I excuse myself to go to the bathroom and not go back in? Yes, I did. Did a cutie called Shaun ask for my number? Yes, he did. Did I go back for the other 4 days of the course? No, I did not.

And that my friends, is the true meaning of assertiveness.

UNSENT

Dear.....

Goodie- my very own Narcissus. Never have I met a more self-obsessed man. You were selfish, sleazy and shameless and you caused me nothing but pain. You had such a high opinion of yourself and thought you were something special. You weren’t, and your breath smelled.

Anthony- you rocked my world. You were exactly what I needed at that moment in time and I still tingle at the thought of you.

Joseph- my sister hadn’t really been involved in an accident. In fact I don’t even have a sister, I just couldn’t bear to sit and listen to you wax on about how much money your earned, or how fantastic and fast paced your life was. You were an absolute boring old cunt, so I made the phone call up. You may have money- but it didn’t a personality buy.

Malcolm- I was young and mixed up and you were the complete opposite. I wasn’t ready to be saved. I also wasn’t ready to date a man with a false leg.

Mickey- your teeth looked like a row of condemned houses. Why was this not mentioned before I schlepped my way into Soho for our blind date? The memory of your rancid smile still causes me to have a reaction. And not in a good way.

Brian- I’m not sure a first date is the best time to bring up the fact that you just had a gangbang in a local sauna, but I must say I admired your honesty.

Stuart- I’m sorry I never returned your calls. All one hundred of them after our first date. The fact that you told me you could really fall for a guy like me within the first 5 minutes did get alarm bells ringing. As did your messages saying you couldn’t live without me. I have always wondered, am I that good a date, or were you just desperate?

Russell- I didn’t get it and just wasn’t that into you. I knew there was no way I would be able to love you even half as much as you loved yourself. Such a big ego for one so under endowed. I refer to you as Needle Dick The Bug Fucker.

Nick- we had a promising future, until you threw up in my lap.

Andy- my heterosexual conquest. How glad I was to realise I had not been imagining your come to bed eyes. I’m glad you made the first move. It was VERY gratifying experience, and if that really was your first time, you get top marks.

Biggie- you saved me. You showed me how beautiful love could be, and remain my one true love. I let all my barriers down with you, and there was never a reason for me to put them back up. You were my rock amongst all this quicksand, and accepted me pure and undiluted. Who knows what pain you must have been in or why you did it? I love you muchly. Rest in peace darling.

Tim – A year and a half may have seemed like a long time, but I wasn’t ready.

Hans- My Danish delight. You brought me back to life with your kiss. It is a shame you were so arrogant and conceited. Yes you had the biggest dick I have ever seen, but combine that with a bigger attitude and you get two months of fantastic sex.

Tom- you remain the sexiest man I’ve ever met, and I have spent more time fantasising about you than anyone. I HAD to resist your advances because she was a friend. If only I had known where it would end up I might not have been so loyal. I still have no idea how I managed to have such self-restraint on so many occasions. If I had the chance now, I would pounce like a tiger.

Keith- you were gorgeous, articulate, intelligent and charming. I wish I hadn’t fucked it up with my drunken behaviour. Whenever I remember myself showing you my Justin Timberlake dance moves (or at least my interpretation of them) I want to spontaneously combust.

Jack- what can I say? You were cooking, but your oven wasn’t on and you are quite possibly the most insane person I have ever met. You were beyond therapy and I was secretly terrified you were going to murder me in my sleep. We had the steamiest sessions ever, and I guess because you were so out of your box, you liked to fuck outside it too.

Dean – I was so nervous about our date that I drank a bottle of wine beforehand on an empty stomach. When I said I had had an asthma attack in the toilet and had to rush to hospital I lied. I had really thrown up all over myself and was too mortified to come back.

Callum- you are without a doubt the most fucked up person I have ever met. You have sociopathic tendencies,which probably explains the fact that you have no shame or remorse. Well you know what, I’m embarrassed FOR you. You were the king of manipulation and drove me to the edge of my sanity with your constant lies and Jekyll & Hydeness. When ever I think of that time in my life I feel sick to the pit of my stomach and loathe myself for giving you so many chances. The tongues I bit for you.

David – It was the perfect first date. Until your boyfriend turned up in the bar and hurled abuse at you and threw a drink over me. I wish you had told me you were in a relationship. Don't get me wrong, I still would have dated you- I just wouldn’t have done it in public.

James- It’s not that common, it doesn’t happen to everyone and it WAS a big deal.

Dave – I came back from the toilet to find you setting up another date, on our first one. And you still had the sheer cuntistry to call and ask me out again. For the record, I wasn’t that interested. Your teeth were yellow, you smelled of old spice and you were a bit simple.

Paul- well, it had to happen, it was on the cards for years. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about it, but I would be dishonest if I said I enjoyed it. What were you doing your tongue? And who told you that licking inside the nostrils was appropriate or acceptable?

Kevan- you were in a bad place and wanted me to save you. The self-destruct button had been pushed and there was nothing I could do to deactivate it. You wanted too much from me. I hope you took my advice and sought help.

Alan – You had the dreaded ‘backnee’ and a pear shaped cock. You lucked out with me that night buddy.

Robert- I was besotted with you. Unfortunately it was unrequited and you thought I was too young and immature. I was, you should have taken advantage you silly prick.

Peter- my Mr 10th floor. We literally kept running in to each other all over the place for a period of 1 year, so it seemed destiny was telling us to fuck. I’m glad we did. Those kisses in the stairwells made the day go a lot quicker. You were a cheeky chappy and your cockiness completely won me over. ‘Tis a shame you moved Down Under, we could have had much more fun.

Jacques- Oh dear. My one night stand from hell. You wanted me to pretend I was your father and rape you. It was terrifying behaviour made even more startling by the fact that after I ran for the hills you continued to bombard me with calls until I eventually had to get my number changed. What part of ‘you need some serious fucking help you fucked up cunt’ did you not understand?

Martin – your profile said you had a large cock. Large by who’s standards?

Lee – I just woke up one day and couldn’t ignore the fact that you were ginger anymore.

HOW TO GET WHAT YOU WANT

To celebrate the fact that I turned 29 on Sunday I decided to throw a little ‘soirgay’ at my place so my friends and I could all get ‘to-gay-ther’ and have lots of drinking and debauched fun, to a soundtrack consisting of Madonna albums, Madonna soundtracks, Madonna greatest hits, and Madonna 12” mixes, with the odd Madonna DVD thrown in, just to mix it up. It was also an opportunity to put a theory I have to the test. The theory involves a cooker, The Folks and their love of proving how fabulous they are in front of my friends, and is a mixture of complete cuntistry on my part and complete genius, also on my part.

I have been after a new cooker for a while now, as the one I have is older than me, is as temperamental as me and needs to be given lots of attention before it will even heat up a tin of soup. It is like that annoying vibrator you own that sometimes works after being charged all day and sometimes doesn’t. Or like sleeping with a male escort, you never know what you’re gonna get. The oven door hangs off, the grill doesn’t work, it is impossible to clean and halfway through meals it will randomly turn itself off, which is incredibly frustrating when you are trying to get something to rise……

Anyway, I have been dropping hints with The Folks for the last 4 months in the hope that they would buy me one. I’d say things like ‘I would have cooked you something but the oven is on the blink’ or ‘I’m living on breakfast cereal at the moment because the hob will not light up’ or ‘Sorry it’s so cold in here, I usually heat up the place with the stove, but as you know it’s not working’ and was sure I had done just enough to secure me a sparkling new cooker for the Christmas just gone. I was convinced that they would buy me one, so decided to spend the money I had put aside for it on even more Christmas presents. For myself. So you can imagine my utter disappointment when they arrived with my presents and the closest thing to a cooker I got was a candle lighter.

I cursed myself silently for spending my cooker fund, and the harsh realisation hit me that I would now be living on toasted cheese sandwiches until I could afford to save for another cooker. How COULD I have been so stupid I asked myself? And as soon as I thought the question in my head, the answer came to me even quicker than David Beckham does in my prison rape fantasy. As always, there was a major flaw to my plan.

The Folks are very generous and love nothing more than to lavish gifts upon me; in the last year they have bought me a state of the art tumble drier, a rather fabulous barbeque, fixtures and fittings, appliances and much more. However, all of these have been given to me in front of people. Now, as I was spending Christmas with friends, and they were spending it at home there was nobody to see the presents I had been given and therefore no need to buy something extravagant. What is the point of giving if you have no audience eh?

So, with my birthday, approaching and now growing sick of cold soup and toasted sandwiches I had an epiphany. To have a ren-gay-vous ON my birthday with lots of guests and invite The Folks. Surely if there is an audience there will be a cooker.

The Folks arrived at 2:30 and presented me with a card and a bottle of champagne and of course big birthday hugs. Mmm I thought handling the bottle, is this my cooker? By 4pm everyone had arrived there was no cooker in sight, and I had already had too much to drink. I began to think that all I was getting was said bottle of champagne. Not much cooking you can do with that I thought, so I opened it, downed it and started to feel somewhat hard done by. I went to the bathroom and sat in there wondering why The Folks hated me so much. What had I done to deserve this?

I was already starting to feel quite drunk as well as sorry for myself and decided not to leave the bathroom for the rest of the day. This shindig had been a complete waste of time and I wondered what the Sarah Jessica Parker I was thinking by putting this on? Just as I was about to take an overdose of the Vitamin C in my cabinet everyone outside started singing Happy Birthday, and I walked out to find The Folks, with the cooker I had been yearning for, and all of my friends gushing telling me what a lucky person I am and how fabulous The Folks were. And just like that, it went from a celebration of my birthday, to a celebration of The Folks.

So, I got what I wanted and they got what they wanted. I got the cooker and they got the adoration of being the world best Folks, just as I had predicted. If only I had thought about it logistically pre Christmas, who knows what I could of bagged myself for my birthday?

I now want a flat screen TV so, I guess I will be having another ‘soir-gay’ next year, and of course, The Folks are invited.

Is it cuntistry, or just pure genius?

DRAMA QUEENS, AND THE MEN THAT DUMP THEM

Just as I was about to leave the office Tuesday I got an email from Paul. It simply said ‘Clive dumped me last night I need someone to talk to’ and with those eleven words I knew that I had been summoned to be his shoulder to cry on, and before I knew it I was hoofing my way down Oxford Street to lend a supportive ear, even though all I really wanted to do was go home and watch the new Danny Dyer DVD I had just bought.

When I got there he was nowhere to be seen and I found myself in a predicament that I am most uncomfortable with. Being on my own in a gay bar, looking like a reject. I don’t go into bars on my own as I have a phobia about it. I think everyone is looking at me, judging me and laughing at me because they think I am some kind of friendless leper who hangs around bars reeking of desperation hoping that some charitable chappy will take pity and talk to me. Basically, exactly what I think when I see someone on their own in a bar……… (Yes I have added conceited and shallow to my list of ‘qualities’) so after dying when he sent a text to say he would be 20 minutes late, as I was already at the bar I reasoned that it would be even more humiliating to walk out, even though I desperately wanted to and OH MY GOD why is everyone looking at me, so I decided to buy a pint, chain smoke and make lots of imaginary phone calls, making sure to announce in every one of them ‘Well, I’m meeting Paul and he’s running late’ just to divert those judgemental eyes away from me….

By the time Paul arrived, 45 fucking minutes late I had smoked 10 Marlboro lights, drank 2 pints, made 4 imaginary phone calls (during one of which my phone actually started ringing, because obviously I wasn’t really on the phone which wasn’t embarrassing at all...) and was being eyed up by a cutie who clearly had none of the issues about being in a bar on his own that I have. In short, it was like a pressure cooker.

Straight away he handed his phone to me and showed me a text from Clive that said

‘I’m just on my way home from Wales. My eye looks really dodgy* and I’m tired. Listen, I don’t think I’m the guy ur looking for no matter how sexy u think I am, so it’s kind of the end of the road I’m afraid. Love C xx’

So Paul’s flame had been extinguished by a text message. He was beside himself, and all I could do was try to be supportive. He kept asking me where it had all gone wrong, what did he do, why after all they had been through did he get dumped by a text. It was almost as harsh as the lighting in the bar. I listened to him as he reminisced about their time together and the intimate moments they shared, the snuggles in bed, a particularly memorable dinner at Balans, when the waiter said how happy they looked together and he hoped to find what they had one day. He then told me of the plans they had made, and the holiday they were looking forward to in the summer and this is where he stared to become a little overwhelmed. Did I mention that Paul & Clive had met last week and had only shared two dates?

Yep, the memories that were pouring out of Paul had been accumulated over seven whole days. Anyone would think that a 27-year marriage was about to end in divorce. What the fuck does anybody owe you after such a non-specific amount of time? My view was that he was lucky to have got any form of communication at all, and most guys would have just stopped calling.

The thing that alarmed me about Paul’s overreaction, over what had merely been two dates a movie and dinner was that at his age of 44, he was still pinning his every last hope on any man he met, regardless of their compatibility. The only thing they had in common was their age. But as a 44-year-old man, Paul had decided that he had found the one and went in with his eyes closed and his heart wide open.

Had Clive acted wrongly? I couldn’t help but think that in some ways, he was a decent enough guy, and had removed any false hope and blind faith that Paul clearly had. By sending that message, (which in itself was a bit cuntish, I mean I had seen the bloke and I’m sorry, I don’t care which way you try to dress it up, he was ginger so the ‘sexy’ comment was a bit rich) he had basically said ‘Don’t sit around thinking I’m busy, or that I will get back to you. This is going nowhere, move on to new pastures and waste no more time on me’. If it were me I would have thought, fair enough you ginger cunt, and that would have been the end of that.

I always used to ask myself if the whole dating ritual got any easier with age? Do people stop playing games once they reach a certain age, and if so, can the younger ones among us look to our peers for inspiration and seek solace in the knowledge that eventually we will meet ‘the one’ and have the relationship, without the mixed messages, unknown quantities and general cuntistry of it all, that we so desire?

But after that my questions were answered, and suddenly I realised that age brings nothing with it but thinning hair, incontinence, more bad dates, and in Paul's case, an Oscar nomination for ‘most dramatic male in a leading role’


* I didn’t even bother to ask about the dodgy eye. The idea of a ginger cunt with Conjunctivitis killed any curiosity within me.

HOW TO MAKE A GOOD WORST IMPRESSION

As I am rapidly approaching the big Three O, in the last year I have been ticking off my things to do before I reach the aforementioned big Three O*. One of them was to try speed dating. Pink Speed dating to be precise, if you don’t mind.

This was all very odd because I hate going on dates; they are always like interviews, and I invariably end up not getting the job. Or wanting it for that matter. The idea of going on a date reduces me to a quivering, nervous wreck, so my therapist is still hypothesizing what possessed me to think that I could handle 25 first dates in one evening.

Obviously I couldn’t go through the mortification alone, and therefore enlisted the company of Telstar & Gaz to come along and die this painful death with me. They were very reluctant to join me on this adventure. I told them how much fun it would be and that we were just going along to laugh at these sad folk who go and we weren’t going to take it seriously. Eventually during one of those very rare moments where I actually get what I want I managed to persuade them to jump on board the Loser Express, and we were all bound for Pink Speeddatersville. But, in true Tequilla Mockingbird fashion, there would have to be a lay over in Alcoholville before hand…………….

What was to be just the one to calm the nerves actually turned into me downing a bottle and a half of wine. The reason I didn’t finish the second bottle is that they wouldn’t let me into the speed-dating event with it. Yes, I arrived with it in my hands. How classy. Not only was I showing what a third rate citizen I was by going speed dating, but also I was showing that I really had no concept of dignity.

So, instead of merely giving myself some Dutch courage, I had plunged myself into a drunken blabbering mess. Of course, as is always the case, I didn’t think I was drunk. I felt full of life, and remained blissfully oblivious to the cringing looks I was getting from those around me.

Everyone mingled at the bar before the humiliation begun. Telstar advised me to get some water to sober up but as we all know, when you have had too much to drink the last thing you want is water. I demanded some more wine, and against his better judgement he got it for me. Well, I say that, but I think I had started to be abusive towards him, and he realised that the only way to stop it was to comply with my demands. I’m sure we have all been there, but when I remember myself saying ‘Who the fuck are you to tell me I can’t have another drink, I’m FINE’ I want to die.

So drink in hand, everyone sat down to listen some oddly confident bespectacled 40-year-old lesbian tell us how the evening would operate. Sitting down I realised how drunk I was. I landed on the chair with a thump, knocked the table and spilled water over the guy that was sitting there. He was to be my first date. The Lesbian was waxing on about a card to fill out but by this stage I couldn’t hear anything above all the wine inside of me. The only thing I did pick up was that there would be an interval. Noted and downloaded I thought- a chance to get another drink. Why is speed dating so good to me I asked myself?

“Ok, your time starts now”

A who a huh and a wha’? I wasn’t ready for this, what would I say, could I actually just get up and run, what the fuck was this card in front of me, who the fuck are all these ugly bastards and how the Jennifer Love Hewitt did I get here?

They were the absolute dregs of society. Each and every one of them was a boil on the arse of humanity. It was like what I imagine a Star Trek convention to be like. My first ‘date looked like Jimmy Osmond, so it seemed perfectly natural for me to sing Long Haired Lover from Liverpool. Badly. And loudly. By the time I hit the chorus, the bell chimed and thankfully it was time to move on. The next guy had eyebrows that had been plucked within and inch of their lives, and he told me I had 3 minutes to impress him. Um, ME impress him? ‘Oh fuck off you pretentious cunt’ I said, and then sat there in silence for three minutes, trying not to fall of my chair, which I was swaying in. The next few dates completely haven’t registered, but I do remember the signal for the interval. I had just had seven dates, bad dates at that, and needed another drink. As I walked to greet Telstar & Gaz, I said ‘What a bunch of ugly cunts’. I thought I was talking quietly, however, the whole room turned around and gave me filthy looks so I decided not to use my usual ‘discretion is my middle name’ on any of my following dates. Not only had they heard me, but 14 of them still had the ‘pleasure’ of my company.

We started up again, and I have vague recollections of how the rest of the evening went. I remember running from a date and joining Telstar on one of his by throwing myself on the table and saying ‘They are such a bunch of cunts’ to the sheer horror of not only him, but his date. By the third round of dates I point blank refused to move from my table, and announced that if they wanted to date me, they would have to come to me. I was too drunk to move. In between this I was asking the organisers where they had managed to find so many unattractive and boring people. Well, I say asking like I was in a conversation with them; I was actually shouting it across the room.

At this stage though they were frantically running around trying to reorganise the system they had in place, that I’d shot to shit with my refusal to move, so were not about to dignify my inane ramblings with an answer.

That’s all I remember. The rest of the night is a blur. Thankfully. To this very day I have no idea what came over me. I am still mortified. Whenever I think of that night I cringe. I have turned myself into the Urban Legend of speed dating and not in a good way. I am convinced that in the gay underworld people regale each other with the tale of the drunken cunt that went speed dating and hurled abuse at everyone. If there were a list of what not to do, I would be the case study.

Walking into the office the next day, I looked at Telstar & Gaz, they looked at me, gave shakes of their heads and I knew. There were no words. If I had a self-destruct button, I think I would have pushed it.

Telstar summed it up best when he said ‘You know how when you go to a family function there is that random uncle that gets drunk, touches himself and others inappropriately, tells bad jokes and is really offensive? Well, that was you last night.’

Bizarrely, I got seven matches out of it. I couldn’t believe it. Seven potential dates. Were they mad? Based on my behaviour people still wanted to date me? I couldn’t believe it, and still wonder what sort of people go speed dating, and just how desperate to be with someone are they?

Did I go on any? Go on a date with a person who goes speed dating? Are you freaking kidding me?




* Although I sit here at 28 years of age, I have been telling myself and anyone that listens that I am nearly 30. Why? It’s my defence mechanism. I have been mentally preparing myself for reaching that age for many years now, in the hope that when I actually get there, it will be nowhere near as offensive as it sounds.

Artificial Intelligence

George Michael once sang the line “you look for your dreams in heaven, but what the hell are you supposed to do when they come true” and I am, starting to think he and I may be on the same page. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean we have a similar life, if only, I mean, my nights are spent indoors with friends having deep and meaningful’s; his are spent on Hampstead Heath knee deep in mud. He has amassed a fortune of millions eliminating the need of ever having to worry where his next meal is coming from, whilst I can get 5 meals out of a tin of beans and can stretch a fiver further than Tony Blair can stretch the truth. I simply mean that I get what he is talking about, and can relate it to my new job.

As I have said before I have always wanted to work for a charity, and got my chance late last year after being made redundant from my last job. I took a few months off to spend my redundancy money, and do the normal things that any man of the lavender persuasion does when he has got excess funds like, go see Madonna in Amsterdam, buy a new wardrobe and fill it with fabulous outfits, have a dirty little gay holiday in Gran Canaria and generally live like the other half.

Because of the money in the bank I was in a position to only apply for jobs that I wanted to, mainly within charities. However I still had to find work,and after a few months of looking I started to have this vision of me sitting behind a checkout at Tesco’s, the closest thing to charity work being me asking “are you collecting computers for schools vouchers Sir?”

Luckily it didn’t come to that, and I got my first full time job in charity*. Rather than being nervous about starting I couldn’t wait. The idea that I would be working for such a worthwhile cause really excited me, and I could only imagine what fantastic, hip cool and trendy people I would be working with. I imagined everyone sitting around feasting on mung beans, pulses and fresh air, washing it down with endless cups of chamomile tea. I pictured colleagues shouting at each other for not recycling their tea bags and going on protests where they would all tie themselves naked to trees and refuse to wash for days on end.

The reality of it all is very different. It is just an office job, like any other, the main difference being that most of the people that work here are clinically insane. It is a madhouse and I can’t shake the feeling that I am really working at some mental hospital, where everyone is convinced they work for a leading charity?

Firstly they suffer with BTBMS (back to back meeting syndrome). On my first day I had two and the other day I had four (one of them lasting for three hours in which NOTHING was achieved, except for, of course annoying the bejesus out of me). I really don’t want to sit around talking about what I have to do; I’d rather just do it. Call me crazy, but that is just the way I am. When I say I don’t have time for meetings it is frowned upon and they look at me like I have just turned up for work wearing a tutu and a Vivienne Westwood Basque.

And secondly is the language that is used. I don’t mean foul, or that we all sit around calling each other cunts all day. No, I mean the way they talk which all just sounds like a mass of consonants once they get going. My boss called me the other day and when I answered, she said “Oh bugger” and then hung up. By way of explanation she sent me the following email the next day

Dear Tequilla**

My scrambled phone call (John had disappeared for a few minutes but then he came back) was to let you know that it has now been decided that some members will not take part in our meeting!
Brain can’t compute exactly what that means but felt I should share this intelligence
Rgds

As soon as I read the email I was summoned into another meeting, with my boss, to discuss the aftermath of a conference we had recently successfully organised and brainstorm ideas of what we would do differently next time. During this meeting she decided to shorten her new favourite saying ‘share the intelligence’ when she went off on one of her long-winded tangents as follows:

“If I had a retrospectograph, giving me 20/20 hindsight, I would have shared the intel months ago'

The scariest thing is, having been here for a few months, the brainwashing is starting to work, because the above makes COMPLETE sense to me. So I looked for my dream job and this is what I got. How long before I am slipping these little sayings into my everyday life, resulting in my being sectioned and the key thrown away?

Maybe if I should just cut my losses and go back to publishing. At least class A drugs were readily available in that environment, and we did sit around calling each other cunts.

No, I have never been happier, and will continue to share the intel here, if you don't mind.

* I do other charity work, on a voluntary basis at weekends, where I stand for hours cooking meals for people with HIV & AIDS, which is the most fulfilling thing I think I have done in my life. I would urge anyone reading this to become involved in charity work, as volunteers really are the backbone of any organisation. Ok? Nuff said.


** She doesn't really call me Tequilla, she calls me.....

In Ashley Cole's boots

A few of you have sent me emails asking 101 questions about my foray into the land of being a chat-line operator so I thought I would give you an insight into just what it involves, and to warn you all about the very strange people that roam our telecommunication cables…….

I was drunk, very drunk the first time I logged on. In fact, being realistic, I was shit faced. It was the only way I could possibly go through with it. By 8pm on the night in question, all inhibitions had abandoned me and so merry was I, that I couldn’t wait for the first call to come through. I recorded my message and waited for a caller. As soon as the phone did ring, I sobered up, broke out in a sweat and almost crapped my pants. But, like a true professional I went ahead, got into character and answered the phone.

Dave from Liverpool was my first caller. ‘Do you do role plays mate’ he asked. The hairs stood up not only on the back of my neck but also on the carpet. I was terrified, but responded with ‘yeah, we can do that Dave’ And this is how the converstion continued.....

Dave: Do you like football mate

Me: Um, yeah (to self-I’m gay for fuck sake, I know nothing about it)

Dave: I want you to be Ashley Cole

Me (wondering where the hell this is going): Yeah, I’m um, Ashley Cole, how are ya doing Dave?

Dave: Can I call you Ash?

Me, but now Ash: Yep, you can call me Ash.

Dave: Tell me about your Chelsea kit Ash

Ash (racking my brain to find any sort of image of a football kit): Oh, it’s lovely, its red and white and I have a number on the back I’m number 1 and…..

Dave (cutting me off abruptly): No it’s not; your kit is blue and white and the number on your back is 3

Ash (backtracking to cover up this clearly titanic error) Oh, I thought I was playing away, yeah, that's my away kit (what the fuck am I talking about?)

Dave: Look, don’t spoil it, you’re wearing blue and white, I don’t want to talk about your away kit
Ash (removing foot, ankle and shin from mouth) Sorry, I’m in my blue and white kit, am I playing football?

Dave: Oh yeah, that’s good. OK Ash, your on the pitch, I want to hear you panting

Ash: (stifled laughter but like a good chat line operator, I compose and start to pant)

Dave (getting VERY animated): Ok Ash, Rooney is gonna give you a sly tackle on the left and you’re gonna hit the pitch.

Ash(getting carried away at this point):Fuck, that Rooney is a dirty player, he’s just fowled me

Dave (breathing heavily): Are you in pain Ash? I wanna hear you in pain. Say ‘Ow’ for me Ash

Ash (going for a BAFTA by howling like a banshee): My leg is fucked, I can’t play the rest of the match, they might have to stretcher me off. That cunt Rooney, I’m gonna ‘ave him (This isn’t so hard I think to myself)

Dave: Ok Ash mate, I’m gonna have to give you a little injection in your leg ok?

Ash (feeling slightly unnerved and reverting to being five years old, completely forgetting I am doing role-play): I’m not a fan of needles, in fact I hate them, they scare the life out of me, can you just rub some ointment on it? Oh please, Don’t inject me.

Dave (making a familiar sounding moan): Thanks mate, I’m sorted

That was it, Dave hung up, apparently a very happy customer. During my two week stint on the chat-line he became a ‘Regular’ and called back frequently. We would pretty much do the same scenario, except sometimes we would alternate and it would be ‘that prissy cunt’ Beckham that has given me a sly tackle, but consistent as Dave was, it was always ‘on me left’.

The funny thing about our conversations was that they were not actually sexual at all.^ I did once try to get my character off the pitch and into the shower but Dave was having none of it. The furthest we ever got to undressing ‘Ash’ was him taking one of ‘his’ boots off, while ‘he’ was ‘Laying down on his bed after the big match’ and poor old Dave didn’t even get the laces undone before saying ‘Thanks mate, I’m sorted’

I lasted about two weeks as a chat line operator, because I really do find the whole thing VERY unsavoury.* I just thought it would be a very funny thing to do (and to write a blog about) and really did think the pounds would be rolling in. But here is where it became a false economy:

I had to be pissed as a fart to go on line. Cost £10 for 2 bottle of wine per day, over a 2 week period £140.

Amount of revenue I made in a two week period, having a ‘talk time’++ total of 6 hours: £53.45

Out of pocket in two weeks by: £86.55

So, it turns out that what had initially seemed like a great money making scheme actually wasn’t and was also in danger of turning me into an alcoholic. So I knocked it on ‘the head’.

I just wonder if whoever Dave is speaking to know, comes close to filling my Chelsea boots.




^ Some calls we so perverse, that I would have a bucket by me just incase I needed to spew. And I did have to terminate a few, that even Pamela Anderson would have considered ‘too much’

*I would like to state for the record that I absolutely detest the whole chat-line world and it is all very bittersweet for me because an ex of mine, Mr Sewer, as well as being sociopath, a pathological liar, selfish, bad in bed and a sex addict (yeah, I’m leading with his nicer qualities here) he was also addicted to chat lines and would spend hours on them and would even call them from the toliets at his workplace. I would like to say that they were responsible for completely ruining our relationship, but clearly there were numerous other factors in the demise………


++ You only get paid for talking to a caller. If you are logged on to the system for 5 hours, but only talk for 20 minutes, you will only be paid for those 20 minutes. Tight cunts.

The Class A Gays (CAG's)

I’m bringing Christmas back. Usually I absolutely detest everything about this time of year, especially after being savagely attacked by a crazed lesbian last Christmas Eve while she was lodging in MY house. Lets just say by New Years Eve, she, along with all of her belongings were out of the house and she hasn’t been seen since…..but karma does get paid in full, and the Butch Biker Dyke has got one hefty debt to be settled…..anyway I digress, and will save the tale of demonic lesbians and back stabbing friends for another less festive time of year………

So, as last years was the worst Christmas in the history of Christmases past present and future, I’m going all out this year. I usually like to lock myself away and pretend that the whole thing isn’t happening, and have been known to go into hiding with a couple of grams of the white stuff, a few bags of the green stuff, and a couple of thousand Marlboro lights from 24th December until at least the 5th January, when all traces of the ‘festive’ season have gone, along with my paranoia of the outside world after a week of taking Daniella Westbrook amounts of drugs with the curtains closed and nobody to talk to but my reflection on the microwave.

This year however is not going to be as exciting as the sort of Christmases I have just mentioned. But I am looking forward to it as I am spending it with Charles and his boyfriend, Fabian in their new house. Well, I say looking forward to it, but I am really of very unknown quantities about the whole thing. Am I excited or terrified? Charles is my best friend and we have known each other for more years than my surgeon can physically remove with a facelift. He is the funniest person I have ever met and to this day I don’t think we have ever argued. His boyfriend Fabian is also a gem who is naturally accommodating and welcoming. They are the PERFECT couple. They are both Gorgeous, have style, have money, have it all. They are what you call Class A Gay. But however nice they are they are still a couple and I am still a sad single Class Z Gay ( Class Z because of my single status, naturally) and that means it is of course going to be a day of interrogation, humiliation and trying to justify why I have no 'mans'.

Being that I find myself single, yet again at the only time of year that it matters, I will obviously be arriving on the ‘Gooseberry’ express. I am a little worried that I might have an urge to jump in the oven before the turkey, as they, after 4 years together are more in love than ever. I can see exactly how the whole thing will go before I have even got there. I will arrive, and they do their best to make me feel completely comfortable, but in doing so make me feel like I have leprosy because I have no ‘mans’. I love them to bits but whenever I go over to see them, the conversation inevitably comes around to ‘why I don’t have any ‘mans’ and we play our game of me pretending that I love single life and wouldn’t want a relationship for all the lube in Prowler. However, the truth is, ‘mans’ just aint that easy to find, and I inherently choose the wrong ones when I do finally find one so basically, I’m fucked. They then continue our game by making me feel inadequate and saying things like how I should ‘Get real’ and ‘settle down’ because I am ‘not getting any younger’ you know, real supportive stuff.

I’m sure they really believe they are being helpful, and offering my some serious pearls of wisdom. In fact I come away feeling like a failure.

This was supposed to be a post to say how excited I am about Christmas this year but having typed it out, as usual I have realise just how much I am loathing the idea, and I may just switch the old mobile off, call the dealer and have a Christmas of yesteryear? The forecast says there will not be snow this Christmas, but having spoken to Igor my Russian dealer, I’m not so sure I believe the weatherman……..

Bah humbug everyone.

A Queen who Likes Queen.

Unlike Vanessa Feltz's thighs, most of my the things I say do not retain water, and I am known for being like the weather, very changeable. My motto is that I used to be indecisive, now I’m just not so sure, so when I point blank refused to go and see We Will Rock You the musical because I considered it to be a dilution of some of the best music in the world, my friends knew it wouldn’t be long before I not only came around to the idea of going, but also buying the accompanying CD of the show.

We Will Rock You is set in the future on Planet Mall, a planet where real music is a thing of the past, and all that exists is computer generated junk, by Boy & Girl bands who have taken over the world. It is a very cloned society, with everyone thinking and doing the same thing. The main characters Galileo and Scaramouch do not fit in with this society, and words just ‘pop’ into their heads, usually taken from Queen songs. They are referred to as the ‘Ancient text’. This is forbidden on Planet Mall, and having a single original thought results in the secret police coming along and brainwashing you.

They flee camp in search of other like-minded individuals, and meet a suspicious looking fellow going by the name of Britney Spears. He seems familiar with the ancient text too and they believe him when he says he will be the one to free them, based on the ‘legend’. The legend states that there are musical instruments buried somewhere on Planet Mall. As musical instruments are banned, they set out to try and find them and to save the Planet and music.

Throughout, the musical Queen songs are very cleverly weaved into the story line with everything from Radio Ga Ga, Killer Queen, Flash, We are the Champions and of course the title track to mention just a few. However, In a way it is not just a celebration of Queens music, but music as a whole with a very poignant scene where The Bohemians pay tribute to all the great musical legends over the years that had died young leaving a their undeniable legacy to music behind.

One of the most amusing things throughout the show, is the references to the fact that good music lost it’s respect and appeal, being ultimately destroyed after all inhabitants were overdosed by a massive influx of reality TV ‘Talent’ finding shows such as Pop Idol, and Fame Academy. Watching the X Factor last Saturday, I couldn’t help but wonder if this was actually a premonition. Does Ben Elton (Writer) have a crystal ball??

The sets are lavish as is the lighting and it is obvious that no expense has been spared. The musicians are absolutely fantastic and the cast all have incredible voices. This is a very energetic and high tech show with lots going on to keep the audience captivated. I found it extremely entertaining and incredibly funny at points, which I was not expecting at all. However, as always, you take your sugar and then comes the medicine, and there were a few moments where it was heart wrenchingly emotional (I didn’t cry. Honest)


At this moment, I would put my hand on my heart and say it is one of the best Musicals I have seen, and would recommend it to anyone. But the thing is with me, you never know. It’s ‘any way the wind blows………’

Where for art thou Romeo?

No matter how many freaks I meet, I am an eternal optimist, and genuinely believe in love at first sight. I fall in love at least 25 times a day, and everytime I go out for a drink to a Homo haunt, I convince myself that I will meet the man of my dreams. Last Thursday was no exception.

Gaz and I met up in the Retro bar for a quick 'ketchup' and debrief to see how one another is getting on in our new jobs. We used to work together and were made redundant on the same day back in the summer, and as irony would have it, after 3 months of looking for work, we found our new jobs within days of each other. Gaz is doing extremely well and was full of new buzzwords he has picked up from his new place of employ such as 'Quota's' and 'Briefings'. I on the other hand am hating my new job and am sick of working for a charity that cannot seem to speak the Queens English and insist on using acronyms for everything. On my first day there I learned that I was working for CRUCK in the HICE directorate, which was part of POLD based at LIND. (If anyone out there knows what the hell that means, would you mind clarifying for me) This really is how they talk where I work, and in my 'Directorate' everything is about the 'Comms' (communications) It is our buzzword. As in "have we got the comms on that?" or "I'm just waiting to book the next HICE meeting but am waiting on the comms" or the most common one is, from the head of our team "can I get everyone to gather round for a quick comms". I find myself looking around at my fellow colleagues for signs of what the fuck they are actually talking about, but they are so sucked into the whole acronym language that they all sit there nodding, while I sit and back wondering whether it really isn't butter.........

Needless to say I am not very happy in my current job, and felt the need to let my hair down, rejoin the rest of the human race and have fun. My best friend Charles joined us at about 7:30 for one of his famous 'just the ones' and we were all quite merry by 8:45 so decided to whiz down to the Ku bar and watch the final Catherine Tate on the big screen. when we got there we wondered if we had just stepped into a after school club. There were Youths (and their fag slag's) in there that hadn't even had their BCG's yet, let alone reached puberty. We found the whole thing quite distasteful, so as soon as we had watched yet another disappointing episode of Catherine Tate, we decided to Schlep out of there and find a place with men. Or at least someone you wouldn't face arrest for by merely giving them a light for their Mayfair cigarette. Off to The Yard we go. Empty. Hardly a living soul in there, and most definitely nobody I would sleep with, so like a tribe of nomads off into the night we went again.

We decided the Admiral was the best option, it as its always busy, drinks are cheap, and if you are willing to spend £1.50 at a time, you can guarantee that every song you want to hear will be played on their fantastic 'Play mine first' jukebox. I can't end a night in town without hearing the 12" mix of Gambler by Madonna, so the overweight (and offensively under dressed) queen slouched against the jukebox was given the heave ho, my money was in, my song was on, and my scent was being reacted to by a rather suspicious looking fellow at the end of the bar.....

He had been checking me out since I had arrived, and I had been letting him. I kept making eye contact and giving him my cutest ‘come over and make the first move by asking me for a drink because I don't want to come over and be rejected by you’ smiles. I was sure he was the man of my dreams. This went on for a good 2 hours and I was getting quite frustrated with him and myself. With him for not being a man and just coming up to me and saying ‘Hello’, with myself for not being a man and just going up to him and saying ‘Hello’. I was about to call it a night when he eventually got up off his stool and started making his way over to me. I mentally gave myself a pat of the back for having not made the first move, leaving myself open to rejection and humiliation.He approached me and was about to either ask for my name, ask what the time was or kill me. I'm not sure which because he fell onto me, ricocheted off and promptly left the bar without saying a word.

Now one of two things has happened here. Either he was blind drunk and was embarrassed hence his hasty departure once he made the misdemeanour of falling into a perspective mate without establishing his name, or he wasn’t interested in me at all, and I had spent the whole night cruising a man that wasn’t cruising me back. I wish I knew which one it was. I think the most tragic thing about the whole event is that it was the closest I have been to having sex this year. This was a man who didn't even know my name, a man who was too drunk to stand up, a man that once seen up close I wouldn't have slept with anyway and yet he has still been the only man to have any form of contact with me in nearly 12 months.

They say that rejection is the greatest aphrodisiac, and they are right. Because I am horny as a bitch in season.

Day old bread

When are you too old to go clubbing on a week night?

I ask this question because it seems for the most part the answer is twelve. last night I, at 28 years of age felt past it during an impromptu spontaneous moment when myself and Gaz decided to throw caution to the wind and hoof ourselves down to G.A.Y for a deliciously irresponsible night of drinking and dancing. As soon as we paid our £1 entry fee and headed off to the bar to purchase one of their 'all drinks for under £2' we knew something wasn't right. Looking around I saw faces younger than the pint of milk I have in my fridge at the moment and there was a smell of baby lotion in the air, which unfortunately was not lingering after a hot strippers routine. The place was packed with guys who I bet my Madonna CD collection on had not yet received their National Insurance number. And here they were, out on what was definitely for them school night making me and Gaz feel like we should be have been sentenced to spend the rest of our days at the Elephants Graveyard (The City of Quebec pub in Marble Arch, where gay folklore has it, all the old queens go to die).

They may have youth but I could still fuck all of them under the table.

Just when you thought it was safe to install a BT line

A colleague of mine was just talking about what a nightmare she is having with getting a landline installed in her new place. BT have been mucking her about for nearly three weeks and it was outrageous she said. Have I ever heard of anything so shocking from a large corporation she asked? Yes, I have I thought........

I moved into my new fabulous riverside flat in March this year, on my birthday in fact. Whilst it costs more to run this two bedroom flat than it did to rent my previous three bedroom house with a garden, I am still immensely happy that I made the move. It is the perfect flat, and it is the nicest place I have ever lived. It seemed to have everything I could possibly need. Except for a telephone line. How on earth the previous tenants had managed to live for 15 years without a landline was beyond me, and I put it down to them being aliens from another planet that communicated via the toaster.

There is no way that I can live without my Sky TV so had to get a telephone line installed before that could be fitted. Three weeks I had to wait for an appointment for an engineer. I can't tell you how many episodes of Will & Grace I missed in that period. I know I have them all on DVD but still, I like turning Living on at 7pm and knowing that I have an hour of the last greatest sitcom to watch before I even consider feeding the cat or feeding myself. So these were three very tough weeks indeed. I decorated, cleaned out my wardrobe, filed papers, caught up on washing, put shelf's together, put curtains up organised pot cupboards, alphabetised my CD, DVD and book collection. Not as productive as sitting on the sofa in front of Sky I'm sure you will agree. Who wants to spend their time doing that? All I want out of life is escapism. I watch these shows and pretend they are my life. I don't want to have to deal with reality, so I absolve myself in sitcoms and hang my every last hope on a witty new one liner they produce that I can drop into conversations with my friends to have them laugh hysterically and think I am devastatingly funny.

The BT engineer arrive promptly at 1:30pm. I asked if he wanted a cup to tea, which I think is always nice thing to do even though you are secretly hoping they will decline. Thankfully he did, but asked if he could use my toilet So I left him to it, as he wasn't very attractive so I didn't feel the need to ask if he needed me to hold anything. He seemed to be taking an awfully long time, and I was about to knock on the door when he came out. "um, I just have to pop downstairs he said" Fine, I thought, he obviously has to install the line from outside and is off to get cracking on it. I was slightly confused when I watched him jump in his van and speed off. Maybe the connection box is around the corner I pondered? Nothing really mattered at this point except the fact that Sky TV was on the horizon. An engineer was due at the weekend to install that. Everything was going as planned, which is so unlike me.

An hour and a half later he still hadn't returned and at this stage I was starting to worry if he had been a BT engineer at all. maybe he had just come here to case the joint. All sorts of things were going through my head. I wondered if he was a sex maniac that enjoyed knocking on peoples doors, asking to use their toilet and then masturbating in them, whilst the tenant remains oblivious to what has happened, he has got his kicks thank you very much and off he goes. But no, he didn't do that. Nor had he place a bomb in my bathroom. He had dropped a bomb though. Looking into my toilet I saw the largest turd I have ever seen in my life. It was like an Anaconda. it was so big that it had it's very own postcode and website.

Turns out the BT engineer had blocked my toilet, felt so supremely embarrassed and mortified about the whole thing that he decided the only thing to do was run out of my flat never to be seen again. He didn't even have the decency to fold it up in some tissue and take it with him and dispose of it somewhere, anywhere but MY flat. But more to the point he hadn't fitted my land line which would enable me to watch Sky. I was livid. Not only did I have to call a plumber as he had shoved a years supply of paper down the toilet as well as leaving what had to be half of his spine in the loo, I also had to call BT and explain what had happened. Try explaining that to a call centre in New Delhi. "Sir, we are not plumbers we are British Telecom, we cannot help you with your enquiry" 'I know you're not plumbers, but I need to call one because of the reptile your colleague has left in my flat. Who is going to pay for this" I screamed . The response was the same monotonous robotic drivel I have come to expect from these larges corporate companies that outsource their call centres to far away places without minimum wages and pay their staff in grains of rice. "sir, what is the call regarding?"

It was infuriating. I was getting nowhere and really losing my temper. I had to speak to a person rather than a robot.

Me: Please can you put your manager on the line, I need to speak to somebody with a better grasp of the English language

Vikash: To my manager sir? And what is the call regarding

Me: The fact that you cannot help me with my problem

Vikash: What is the problem sir

Me: Your engineer has just blocked my toilet, I need to call a plumber and I expect you to pay for it. I also expect you to get someone around here to fit my land line

Vikash: Sir, we are not plumbers, we are BT

Me: Oh shove it up your arse

Vikash: I'm sorry Sir, but what is your call regarding

They really do NOT know how to deal with people and this guy at the end of the line clearly thought I was at home licking the light switches. I hung up and tackled the problem by sending an email the following day when I was back at work. My land line was installed three days later naturally by a different engineer. Titanic Turd obviously didn't want to return to the scene of the crime. The chap they sent was very nice indeed, He didn't use my toilet, and was very professional. Well, I say professional, after he installed my line he did call an hour later to ask if I fancied a drink some time. I declined. I decided that I'd had quite enough of all things BT by this stage. I promptly changed my number and service provider.

It has left me with a lingering question though. What does BT stand for? British Telecom or Blocked Toilet?

Thursdays are the new black

When my alarm woke me this morning, I at first thought I had suffered a stroke. There was a funny taste in my mouth, I couldn't move and my head was extremely fuzzy. I had visions of myself laying there paralysed for weeks only to be discovered when neighbours complained of a funny smell coming from flat number 5............ However, slowly last nights antics came flooding back and I realised I had not had a stroke. I had just had Telstar over last night. The funny taste in my mouth was from the last fajita I had wolfed down at 2.52 am and the reason I couldn't move could probably be related to the 4 bottles of vino we had shared, and my head was most likely fuzzy because it was 7:30 am, and Telstar and I had been up drinking until 4:00 am.

I am of the opinion that Thursday is the new Friday. I have always preferred going out on a Thursday, because it is a school night and you are technically being naughty as there is work the next day, but you can justify staying up drinking like we did last night as you only have Friday to get through, just one day of hell. Put like that it just makes sense. For me there is something rather comforting and familiar about waking up the way I did today. It means the weekend is here.

Telstar and I had much to discuss last night, firstly his impending redundancy. I know exactly how he feels, because I suffered the same thing back in July from the same company. The funny thing is, at my leaving drinks I had jokingly said to Telstar- you'll be gone by December. I was a month out, his last day is 31st January. Neither of us are particularly happy about the situation, Telstar because he is out on his ear, and me because my psychic powers are not as finely tuned as they once were. So we spent some time planning our revenge and have decided the best way is to contact Watch Dog who will in turn expose them as the charlatans they are to the nation. We have both decided that our interviews for the showare to be filmed with us silhouetted..... We are clearly very bitter about the whole thing, but like mother always said, revenge is better than Christmas.

We then talked shop, making many new discoveries along the way, such as whilst Telstar is a staunch atheist, I am borderline agnostic. We are both currently having issues with our step parents and are considering cutting our real ones out of our lives altogether. We both have the new Jamiroquai cd on our wish list, and neither of us are any closer to realising our dream of sleeping with hot Brit actor Danny Dyer.

I then made us chicken fajitas, (with no offer of help to be had) while Telstar sank wine like prohibition was coming in, played with my cat and made a general nuisance of himself by dancing around my kitchen while I was trying to prepare a meal. To be honest I was quite glad he was where I could see him. usually when he comes over he is far too busy stealing my clothes and Will & Grace box sets to offer me any form of help in the kitchen....... the DVD's I completely understand, I mean, Will & Grace is the best sitcom ever made, but the clothes confuse me. I am 5' 5" and a little bit, shall we say rotund, and Telstar is over six foot and makes Nicole Ritchie look like she should be on the Zone. When we walk down the road together, we look like the number 10.

Things took a turn for the worse when I pulled out a joint that I had secured form Mr C the previous evening. Neither of us have smoked a joint in about 2 years, and it was like riding a bike, you never actually forget how to do it. What you do forget is the effect that it can have on your speech and coordination. We smoked it like we were a pair of Rastafarians swaying in hammocks, listening to Buju Banton, who were used to smoking the equivalent of their dreadlock weight in gunja a day. But we are in fact two light weight queens who bit off more than they could chew. Telstar was having trouble getting the contents of his fajita in his mouth, and I was having difficulty speaking in my mother tongue. The next thing I know, Telstar is rummaging in my fridge looking for double cream and a melting chocolate sponge pudding, whilst I am giggling so hard I drop my glass of wine onto the kitchen floor. This resutled in even more hysterics, and at one point only the cats and dogs in the neighbourhood could hear us. It was all getting a little bit too real for our liking so we decided the only way forward was to drink ourselves into stupor in a bid to cancel out the effects of the joint and to ease our paranoia.

All in all it was a good night, and I for one, can't wait to do it all over again

Me & Mr C

Can a man really change? I find myself asking myself this question today. Usually my gut reaction is to say no, absolutely not. You are more likely to have a a string quartet playing a symphony to sold out audiences in your rectum than that ever happening. But today I wonder if maybe just maybe a man can change, maybe he can stop playing games, treating you like a puppet on a string and finally let you into his life after years of letting you down?

Mr C and I go back about 4 years now. I met him in my local gay bar in Islington, exactly one week after my previous boyfriend had unceremoniously dumped me, by emptying out my flat and doing a runner while I was shopping. It had been a very turbulent relationship, and whilst I was absolutely crushed about the end of it, it was more the fact that I had put up with so much during my time with Tinker (a man who had repeatedly cheated on me, sunk me thousands of pounds into debt, manipulated me, preyed on my vulnerabilities) that I was REALLY devastated about. I should have been the one to end it not him. So I decided I would go out and find me a man. We all know that the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else so, fuelled by a couple of cans of Strongbow cider (for Dutch courage of course) I went to the local Homo haunt. This was the night that I met Mr C. He was with a group of people and one of them invited me over. They were all your average local gays, all seemed to have have slept with the bar staff, they called each other 'Dear' and most of them were a good 30- 100 lbs over weight with bald heads and ill fitting jeans. But Mr C was a cut above the rest. He was very attractive, and very stylish for an older guy. I put his age at about 37. At my almost ripe 23 he was an older guy.

They welcomed me into their group, bought me drinks and showered me with attention. I was having a great time, and Tinker was the furthest thing from my mind. I was having such fun and found myself completely high on the feeling that everyone was interested in me. Each one of them was trying to get me into bed and I was really enjoying leading them on and making them think they were in with a chance. The only one who wasn't making a play for me was Mr C. I kept trying to engage in conversations with him but he was quite stand offish. Fortunately enough for me, I wasn't drunk enough to lose my inhibitions, so played it cool. However, I was so drawn to him, and the way he kept looking at me suggested he was attracted to me. I couldn't work it out. I went to the toilet and as I was coming out Mr C came in. He didn't go to use the toilet but instead pushed me against the wall and kissed me. It was the most passionate kiss I had ever had and it told me everything I needed to know. It was soft and hard all at the same time, and he pulled me closer to him by my head whilst we kissed. It is the closet to having a dry orgasm I had ever been. He asked for my number, which I gave him, and he said that maybe we could go for a drink sometime. 'Yes, I'd like that' I replied as seductively as I could.

We didn't sleep together that night but a few days later, Mr C called and arranged a date. I am embarrassed to say when I put the phone down I jumped for joy. I hadn't been able to get our kiss out of my mind, and I just had to find out what another one of them could lead to. He arrived on time and was even more devastating handsome then I had remembered. I wondered if he was out of my league. I had never been on a date with someone so sexy. He became even more desirable when I discovered he was a plumber. The idea of him in overalls immediately sprang to mind and it wasn't long before I had to go to the toilet and readjust myself.

The date was going well. Mr C was funny and charming, and I was becoming dangerously attracted to him. I had to have him. I feared if I didn't make a move I might lose my chance to sleep with the most attractive man I had ever been on a date with. I decided to be upfront and ask if he fancied coming back to mine to finish that kiss. The Gods, or should I say the Fairies must have been looking down because he said he thought I'd never ask.

I won't go in to detail, as I have never really been one to shag then shout, but lets just say, Mr C was amazing. The best sex I had ever had. I was convinced he must be a wonderful plumber by day, because he certainly knew his way around pipes in the bedroom. As I lay there, post the best orgasm of my life something odd happened. Mr C got up from my bed and began putting his clothes on, and started mumbling something about how he had to be up really early. I felt cheap. I had known that it would probably just be a sexual encounter, but I had never counted on just how awful I would feel once it happened. I was prepared for the fact that after any extreme high there is certain to be an extreme low. I just assumed it would be tomorrow morning when he left. Not twenty seconds after having sex. At this point, the only sexual experiences I'd had, were with boyfriends. I had never had a one night stand, but was pretty sure that a one night stand meant that both parties were obligated to stay for one night? It all happened so quickly and before I knew it, Mr C kissed me and said he's give me a call soon.

This is pretty much how our relationship, if you can call it that continued for the next 2 years. It turned out that Mr C was in a relationship which he claimed to be profusely unhappy in. He told me they were living separate lives, didn't communicate, never had sex and he wanted to get out to start a new life with me. The oldest story in the book. Unfortunately as has been an inherent problem my whole life, I believed him. I trusted him. I became 'the other woman' a role I had always promised myself I would never act. But suddenly I found myself in the lead part of An Affair to Remember.

Except there wasn't really anything to remember. We would meet up every few weeks, have some drinks, ocassionally dinner, go back to mine, have sex and then he would leave. He never invited to to his place, and I never even knew where he lived. But even this wasn't enough to make me see sense, I was in love, and Mr C assured me it wasn't unrequited. He led me to believe we would one day be together...............

Four years down the line, and after quite a lot of turbulence, we are just friends. It is definitely not sexual. I think that Mr C is actually destined to be in my life, and maybe we needed to go through what we did in order to come out the other end as friends. Sometimes people come into your life and we are far too quick to categorize then by putting them into the wrong box. Maybe I put Mr C into the "Boyfriend" box, when I should have put him into the "Friend" box?

But, it seems that he is changing. When we make an arrangement to meet, he never cancels, he hasn't stood me up and he is not in a relationship anymore. The biggest change of all is this. Tonight I am going over to his place in Crouch End for dinner. So, maybe a man can change?

A Question of Question

Being made redundant from a job is a funny old thing, because it quite literally is how you feel about yourself. Redundant. Not needed. Defunct. You can't help but feel like a failure, especially when a company is paying thousands of pounds for you NOT to work for them any longer. It feels like you must be so supremely awful that bankrupting a company is preferable to continuing a working relationship with you. It is very hard not to take it personally. Especially when you find out 3 months after having made you redundant, your post has been refilled......... but I'll cover that in another blog. For now I just want to relive what was Wank Wednesday. The day I got the boot. And also use it as an outlet to bitch about a former colleague.

It happened this July when I, along with the rest of the Customer Services team at a well known financial publishers were all notified we were being made redundant. It was all quite shocking because of the fact I had recently been promoted to the Customer Services Manager, having worked my way up the ladder for 4 years and things were going really well, our calls statistics had improved a great deal, we achieved our annual sales target, in fact we were meeting all of our targets.The department had never performed so well, and I liked to think that it was because of some changes I had made. I had also just finished staff appraisals, given pay rises and promotions. This is why is was out of the blue when we were all called into a meeting room by the Managing Director and told that we were being made redundant.

If I am completely honest, the first thing I felt was excitement. Adrenalin kicked in and my heart was pounding at the prospect of finding a new job. Maybe I could change my career path? I had always wanted to get into charity and this could be my chance? As I looked around the room, into the eyes of my colleagues who had befallen the same fate, I saw glimpses of terror, impending doom, confusion and shock. Then I looked at a girl we all called "Question" behind her back (who was possibly the most irritating person I have ever worked with, and on more than one occasion I think all of us fantasised about giving her a back hander, right across her grubby, bulbous, blackhead infested face), Questions lip was quivering and tears were streaming down her face. "um, what does this mean, am I out of a job? My god this is awful". Most people would feel empathy for the girl, but not me, nor any other of my colleagues. Not because we were mean and needed to be checked for heart beats but because we were all full time employees, and Question came into the office part time for 5 hours a week. And all she did in those 5 hours was irritate the hell out of us all by asking and answering her own questions in the same sentence so, I felt it was just a tad insensitive of her to be worrying about her pissy part time position when we were losing our full time positions. But that was Question all over. ANNOYING

She was one of those do gooders that ever office has. Always bright, upbeat, efficient and so irritatingly enthusiastic about her work she couldn't hold a conversation that didn't involve work, or answering her own work related questions. This displayed how was completely devoid of personality Question was. she put the 'ring' into boring. In fact, I think she put the 'bore' in there too. At 21 years of age, she had the figure of a 48 year old woman who had lived on microwave meals for the past decade. Her dress sense was ILLEGAL. If there were such things as fashion felony protesters, this girl would have been egged on a regular basis. Her hair was a disaster a D-I-saster. Just a mass of straw and hay. The whole thing was a car crash, and even her walking past my desk would make the hairs stand up on the back of my neck and not in a good way. She drove everyone crazy, but was oblivious to this. Even just getting an email from her would drive most people to either commit murder or commit suicide. she was annoying on so many levels, but it was her questions that people took particular offence to I think. It drove us all to distraction, especially when she would hop toward your desk every time she wanted to ask an inane, self answered question. A prime example would be "Oh, can I just ask you a quick question? I have this customer who hasn't had his copy of this months magazine and wants another one. I think I should just send him another, what do you think?" So she would ask the question, then answer it JUST to show how clever she was. She needed reassurance about anything work related, but not her hair, dress sense or figure, which I could never understand or quite fathom out. No, she seemed completely confident and self assured with her pores the size of Mars, her white head ravaged nose and the nest of rabid pigeons that she called a haircut.

Even though she was only in the office for 5 hours a week (which she spread over 3 days) Question also thought that the whole company couldn't cope without her being there for the other 35+ hours because she took it upon herself to send an email around, not just the department, but the whole company saying "I will be out of the office now until Friday when I will be here from 11:00 and until 12:00pm, Have a great week everyone" every time she left the office. There were actually audible groans from around the office whenever she sent one of her of office emails.

So cut to me, in the office being told I am being made redundant, Question is crying and I can't help but smirk. I smirk because it's embarrassing. I smirk because it's awkward. I smirk because she is pathetic. How hard can it be to get 5 hours part time work I thought? Is it really THAT devastating? Considering we were located in central London and she lived in Surbiton most of her wages were surely spent on travel, which proved to me that she really was in the office just to annoy us all.

We were all told that there was not enough work for us all, and they had 8 full time workers but only 3 full time positions available. We could apply for them. They actually expected us to all apply for a job that we already had, and go up against not just colleagues, but friends. Some of us in that room had formed really good friendships. It was all very unethical, and I had already decided to take the money and run. The Managing Director asked to see me later, and explained that if I was to apply for one of the other jobs I would have to take a demotion and a pay cut as there were going to be no managerial positions. So basically my redundancy was compulsory (This has all proved to be an utter crock of shit and they filled my position within 3 months). I accepted the redundancy, and was told my last day would be the following Friday. This came as a shock because I thought when you were made redundant, you were not needed, and as you didn't have enough work to do, or so I was being told I assumed I would leave right away.....

Well, as they say, when you assume you make an ass out of you, because the MD had made his own assumption, that everyone else would be clamboring all over each other for the other 3 positions, when in fact they all opted for redundancy too. So they fucked themselves royally, much to our amusement. Apart from of course, Question, who is still hanging on for dear life.

I did go on to change my career, and I did get into charity.

Baby, talk is cheap

The run up to Christmas always gets me worried. I worry that I am not going to have enough money to buy everyone the nice presents they have come to expect from me, which would result in me become disowned. I worry that I will not have enough money to pay my bills come the 1st of January, which will result in me being made homeless. I worry that I will not have enough money to top up my Oyster card to get to work, which would result in me being made unemployed, pretty much the same dilemas that face 99.9% of the population after overspending at this time of year. And like 99.9% of the population, I am always looking for news ways to earn myself a little cash to help buy those presents I know my friends and family will love, which is why I have jumped at the chance to be a Gay Chat Operator. The advert said you could earn up to £10 per hour from the comfort of your own home. How hard can it be? So I have decided to jump on board the chat operator express, next stop Sex Worker-ville.

I went straight to the website and downloaded a manual, and a contract. The manual was full of encouraging testimonials from other chat operators saying things like "I like the feeling of knowing the more effort I put in the more money I'll earn. It really gives me a sense of satisfaction when I get my money every two weeks" from Maria, but even more encouraging was Caroline who states "I have been working as a chat line operator for two months now and I love it! it's great fun and doesn't feel like work at all. the money is a bonus, I made £665.14 in two weeks"

Well, the contract was signed and posted along with a copy of my passport quicker than you could hum the first verse of Sade's Smooth Operator. The following day I received an email with my starter manual and had to call up the helpdesk for a log in code. In all honestly I was more terrified of calling up for my code than actually becoming an operator. These were going to be 'Real' people who probably thought that chat line operators were some sub standard species, I could picture them putting my call on loud speaker and humiliating me by saying it was all a prank and they just thought it would be funny to see if anyone out there was sad enough to do it. Well, there is, and I am.

My call to retrieve my log in was going quite smoothly I have to say. This wasn't so embarrassing I thought. Well, apart from when I asked the woman who was taking my details how long do the calls generally last and did they all tend to be very sexual."I wouldn't know I work in the office, no judgement" she bellowed. My face stung with shame and self hatred and my fear that I was on loud speaker seemed ever more real. I pictured rows of blondes, wearing tight sweaters with gargantuan nails and red lipstick typing away and laughing at me behind my back. I could not have hated myself harder than I did at that moment. But then Tasmin turned it around by saying that if I looked on page 33 of the manual it gave me more details and ideas about the sort of calls to expect.

The start up manual is very helpful, and is fully of lots of information, some of it is just pure common sense, but parts are just plain crazy. Like in the section on 'How to Get Started' it says 'To get you in the mood, think about some pleasant experiences you may have had such as: How you might talk intimately to your partner. Remember the best chat-up line you ever heard, and how you responded to it. Perhaps you went to a great party and want to talk about it.' No, my advice on how to get started is to knock back alcohol like prohibition is coming in to enable you to throw caution to the wind so that you can talk to these FREAKS. These incredibly odd people who get their kicks by somebody at the end of the line pretending that they're wearing French panties whilst preparing a three course meal and getting the kids ready for bed.

The manual also gives you a few ideas for the messages you can leave on the phone lines such as:

"Hi, my name is Steve. I'm a gay guy looking forward to talking to you and having fun. I just love hearing new voices"

or

"Hi, Transsexual Suzie here. I've got gorgeous dark glowing skin, long flowing hair and I just love talking on the phone."

I'm not sure that I will go with any of those, I was thinking more "Hi, I've had two bottles of wine, I'm likely to make no sense and be abusive, and may very well vomit during our chat. On line now waiting for your call."

Tonight will be the first time I try being a chat line operator. I feel after studying the manual for the last two days I have all the information I need to be a success. I also feel that with two bottles of Pinot Grigio in the fridge, I will have the courage to carry it off.

"Everybody's gotta learn sometime"

Last night I was one bad date away from being bitter, today I am just bitter.
I am through with men. Oh yes indeedy. That’s it. Over. I will date men no more. This Homo is closing down for season. I am on the Celibacy Express. I am relocating to Baron Island. Alone. I used to think that I was genuinely unlucky with men, today I know it is the only thing I am certain of in this show called life.

I had met Dave whilst on holiday a few weeks back, on the island I have now renamed as Gross Canaria. We got chatting on a boat trip and he was definitely the type of guy I fantasize about. An ASBO. A scaly lad, very straight acting, with a real London accent decked out in tracksuit bottoms and trainers. The gay ideal. The dream. We were from very different worlds, He was a baggage handler at an airport, and I work in events for a charity. He shopped at Morrisons for his food, I wouldn’t be seen dead in anywhere but M&S. I wore a simple silver bracelet and he was dripping in the entire Argos jewellery collection. My spare time is spent going to galleries or exhibitions; his spare time was spent sitting in a mate’s studio flat above a kebab shop listening to drum and bass, getting stoned. He was what I would call Chav-tastic, I mean this guy should have been in a laboratory being studied. So when he asked for my number I practically tattooed it on to him for fear that he may forget it or lose it. I couldn’t believe my luck. We said that we would meet once back in London. He wrote down his number for me and signed it with his tag, a smiley face and also a message, to remember him by ‘Grrrr’. Perfect.

So he contacts me last week out of the blue to ask if I want to meet him for a drink. In fact his text message said ‘wana meet up wiv u soon m8. U up 4 a drink’ I hadn’t contacted him because I had thrown his number away when he had given it to me eliminating any chance I may start to stalk him. Although I didn’t recognise the number, I knew who it was, it had Dave all over it.

We arranged to meet last night and have been sharing a bit of banter via text for a few days. One of his messages said ‘I really wana sleep wiv ya 2nite m8’ I have never really understood the whole ‘text talk’ and hate it when anyone uses it, mainly because I am not an imbecile and have a good grasp of the English language but that was quite possibly the most perfect text message I have ever received. I sent one back saying ‘you are very forward. I like that’. The more text messages he sent the more excitement within me grew and I started to really look forward to this date. The possibility of one of my fantasies actually coming true was almost too much for me to bear. Having sex with a scaly boy has always been at the top of my list. I think for most Gay men it is up there. There is even a whole gay porn company that makes movies with scalys and nothing else and they have titles like Scaly Boy Orgy, Trackie Lads and Scaly Football Orgy. Those of us who are of the lavender persuasion really cannot get enough of dirty little scalys.

As I navigated my way along Oxford Street last night to go and meet Dave, I called my friend Telstar to rub in the fact that I had a date with a scaly. He quickly pointed out to me that not only was I living the dream, I was living his dream. The realisation that I could lose his friendship started to appear very real indeed. Telstar dreams of scalys. His entire porn collection is dedicated to them, so the fact that I had a date with an actual scaly was, in Telstar’s eyes, the ultimate betrayal, and completely unjust. I worried that he might even sabotage the date and ruin my chance to turn a fantasy into a reality by turning up and pretending to be a jilted lover, or tell Dave he was pregnant with my child…

Dave came straight up to me as I entered the bar, which I was thankful for because I had only met him once, about a month before, on a gay cruise during which I had drank twice my body weight in beer and tequila. So although I remembered that I was attracted to him, I couldn’t actually remember what he looked like. We got a drink and then sat down, and I had to stop myself form laughing at the sight of us. He was over six foot, wearing trainers & trackies, and me 5’ 5” wearing a suit. It was all so Pretty Woman and I felt like Richard Gere in the leading role. Dave was very talkative and kept saying things like “Ur ‘Orny” (he found me attractive) and “u look a lot branner than me” (I had more of a suntan) and "wanna novver one?" (was I thirsty) He also told me about his new car, he described it as bullet. As in: have you heard the new Madonna single? It’s bullet. It was all so deliciously scaly.

There were a few problems though, mainly his lack of diplomacy and tact. At one point he asked how old I was. When I told him I was 28 he said “nah mate, I thought you were about 35” and asked me to prove that I was in fact 28. He then said that he was really into bigger guys who didn't spend too much time taking care of themselves. A minute later he told me how much he fancied me and asked did I want to go to XXL with him? XXL is a well-known gay club for chubbys and their chasers. I weigh 65 kilos. Yes I could probably do with losing half a stone but would hardly call myself fat. However in Dave’s eyes I was Richard SImmons before he found aerobics. Basically Dave was saying I looked old, overweight and had let myself go. I should have been insulted but I wasn’t. I actually found it highly amusing. He didn’t have the intelligence to see how offensive he had been, and for some reason this tickled me. I was not tickled though when he started showing me explicit text messages form some bloke he was having a fling with or when I came back from the toilet to find him setting up another date. I came back to find my date on another date. I hate it when that happens. I realised that if Dave couldn’t be faithful to me for 2 hours, he wasn’t really the sort of man I want in my life. So I made my excuses and left. My fantasy wasn’t about to come true this evening

On the way home I bought Scaly Boy Orgy and decided that scalys are best left as fantasies.

In the name of The Father

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Tequila Mockingbird. I am a single gay man living in London, and I am here to the the "sex" back into "Homosexual". Well, OK, not quite. That would imply that I am getting some which I am not. Believe me. A friend asked me how long it has been the other day since I had a little 'sumthin sumthin' and I traced it back to when a certain Mr Michael Jackson was black........But it's ok I am not bitter, because life is too short to be bitter, and standing in at 5' 5" lets face it, I'm too short to be bitter. In fairness I haven't really been lucky in the sex department. I always end up drawing the short straw and I think this is what has caused the serious drought I am now enduring. I simply cannot be bothered to have sex anymore, because I always end up being disappointed. Lets give you an example. My last encounter was with a friend of a friend type set up. Why on earth I decided to go along with it I will never know, because historically these things tend to be disasters, especially in the World of Lavender (the gay world). This is because our heterosexual friends always automatically assume, if you're gay, and he's gay, you are going to be into each other. It's like they seriously think that you and this other gay man are the only two on the planet, and therefore MUST sleep together. Hold the phone? It is such a ridiculous generalisation but it happens the world over. Friends of Homo's please note- not ALL gay men are George Michael and will sleep with anything that resembles a human, a tree, or a bench on Hampstead Heath. Yes, indeed, some of us have standards.

So, against my better judgment, I went for drinks with my darling friend known as Big Sis in a watering hole just off Brewer Street and down a dangerously steep staircase......... This was the place I was to meet my date, Jack. I had told Big Sis the ONLY way I would consider meeting him was if she was present. At least that way if this guy was the cretin I had predicted, I would have someone to talk to.

I was fully expecting a monster, because most people that go on blind dates are the dregs of society. Myself included. I was more than pleased when he arrived to see he was tall, attractive funny, articulate, and IN TO ME. Right from the start he was extremely forward, and I found his confidence extremely sexy. At some point later though I decided that his confidence was actually arrogance, and of course this made him appear even more desirable to me.

He charmed the Calvin's off of me, like no other man ever has because I broke my rule. My rule not to snog the face off someone in a bar because it looks cheap and tacky. That night I had never looked cheaper or tacky-er, and I loved every minute of it. After a good seven hour's drinking, things between Jack & I started heating up, and I was annoyed at myself for having doubted Big Sis's skills at setting up queer folk.

Before I know it I am in a cab with Jack on the way back to Clapham, and he is practically trying to have sex with me in the back, and truth be told, I am letting him. He kept asking what my fantasies were and saying he would fulfill every one of them. Now my fantasies are MINE and MINE only. Fantasies are not spoken of. Fantasies never come true, so I like them left as fantasies. I told him so too. I tried to explain that we had just met and I wasn't really comfortable discussing my deepest darkest secrets, but was much-o looking forward to some torrid sexual liaisons with him that very evening.

If he said it once he said it a million times "tell me what your fantasies are" so I thought to myself, this guy is obsessed with fantasy, should I return the favor and ask him? What is fantasy etiquette? Is it the same as you show me yours and I'll show you mine schoolground etiquette I wondered? I didn't want to ask him because asking someone what their fantasy is can be like having unprotected sex: you never know what you're going to get, so I was reluctant to say the least. I did ask. Well, in fact I mumbled, half hoping he hadn't heard me. He didn't say anything, much to my relief.

We get back to his hovel of an apartment, and I am so desperate for sex I manage to suppress my urge to run around with some bleach and clean the place. So he makes me a drink, which was when I started to realise that all might not be normal and above board. It was Advocat. ADVOCAT. I had to check my watch to make sure I hadn't gone back to the 60's and landed in Fanny Craddocks living room. Obviously there was no way I could ingest a drink that looks like raw scrambled eggs and the smell of sink was starting to make me feel light headed, so I pounced. I just had to do something that firstly wouldn't require me to drink the slime, and secondly to take my mind off the smell of a good 2- 3 months of non-cleaning.

Now Jack can kiss. And Jack is good with his hands..........I can't believe how lucky I am, and then it all goes very wrong. I still cannot believe how horrendously horrfically catastrophically awfully wrong it went, but it did. Jack whispered in my ear 'now I can tell you what my fantasies are' And the part of my body that was stiff turned to jelly and the rest of my body felt like rigor Mortis had set in. When someone whispers that in your ear, you kind of know its going downhill.

I thought oh dear, this is where he tells me he like wearing women's underwear, or wants to clean the house naked while I order him about, or wants me to bark like a dog. But no, nothing like that. No. Jack says, as if he was asking if I wanted a cup of tea "I want you to pretend that you are my father and rape me" I asked if he was joking to which he screamed "my father is watching us" he then pointed to a picture of a man above his bed, whom I am assuming was his father.........

"um, this isn't working for me" I say as I am trying to get off the bed and away from him. But now he is whimpering and waving his arse in my face saying "come on and rape me you f*cking f*cker" So engrossed was he in his role playing that he was oblivious to the fact that I was fully clothed and asking him for directions to the nearest cab office. I ran out of that house like a refugee running for the border and swore that I would never be set up on a date by a friend again. In fact to turn lesbian, to be celibate, to chop my gonads off and become a eunich. I sent Big Sis a text to say "honey you're fired" and then got a cab home. It was at this stage that I realised just how sober I had become, and what an utterly frightening experience it has been, and once again how typical it was of my life to end up with such a complete and utter freak.

I got a text from him the next day saying 'I was really drunk last night, can't really remember much. Hope I didn't do or say anything embarrassing. I'd really like to see you again'

I sent one back saying 'Who's your daddy?' He hasn't responded.