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

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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.

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.