Too busy to blog, but

Stuie's birthday goes off with a bang.

But Gay Pride was a damp squib.


Paris Comes to London Business School (or was it Collins St, Melbourne?)

And London's gone smokefree!!! But as the Guardian points out (and we found out Friday night), aren't people a bit whiffy.....

It still remains with me

Bad blogger. I think - not much of note happened last week - or did it? It all seems to be work at the moment. I'm trying hard to figure out who's on the side of the forces of good in the new office and trying to keep everyone one side. I'm not entirely sure how if it's working at all, but I seem to be keeping my new boss happy, and he's the one who hands out pay rises, so here's hoping.

Last week seemed to be full of emails exhanging photos from Iz's birthday weekend. Mine are here. It was a lovely weekend, full of good food, lots of beer and wine, and nice people. Sperlonga was an excellent choice. The old town is closed to traffic, and the hotel was right in the centre of it all. Paul and I hadn't seen Harold and Sophie and Jean for ages, so we had a good catch up and we finally got to see Steve's house in Gaeta. I seemed to spend a large proportion of the weekend playing beach tennis with H and Sophie's boys, which was good fun. They are really nice kids, no tantrums or whining at all.

Iz and I went shopping in the Rome's Centro Storico Monday morning , ostensibly to find me a birthday present from the Romans. I had decided on a man-bag, so we spent the morning checking out stores around the Spanish Steps and Via Condotti. We didn't have much luck though, as I wasn't able to find the bag I wanted. I was a bit worried that Iz might have thought I was the world's fussiest shopper, but she probably knew that already. And it was nice to have her all to myself for the morning.

A few observations about Rome (or things I'd forgotten since living there):

• Unfeasibly attractive shop assistants!! But I still didn't buy anything.


• They've cleaned the turtle fountain - it used to be so grotty and grey!!


• If we ever go back to live, I'd stack on the weight again - the food is just too good.


• I'd forgotten that heat and how nice it is to be able to go to the beach.


• It's just so beautiful

The rest of the week was spent freezing in the cold snap - my winter coat even made a reappearance. Mitch and Susie arrived back from Scotland and Amsterdam on Saturday. Paul and I went shopping and managed to find a manbag that met all criteria in Selfridges. We then caught up with Damien and Mark to see Jindabyne. I love Laura Linney. And she and Gabriel Byrne were outstanding. And the movie was very good (as you asked, 8.8/10). But it made me (and Damien) homesick. The birdsong. The bush. The laconic humour. It was very haunting and beautiful.

While we were watching that Mitch and Susie were watching 'The Lady from Dubuque', with Dame Maggie Smith (insert comment about national treasure/living legend here). Paul and I had seen it couple of months ago. I found it difficult to engage with, but Maggie Smith was excellent. Mitch and Susie really enjoyed it and then met us afterwards for a drink at The Edge. Which now has gogo boys on a Saturday night. How embarassment. We also saw our first fight (well - a bit of agressiveness and pushing, that's a fight for gay men) in a gay bar ever. Imagine.

Sunday I pumped up the bike tyres (Paul had to go to the shop to do his) and we cycled over to the ponds at Highgate for swim. It was lovely lying in the sun, but I believe it gave me a mild dose of hayfever. And I still hate swimming in that brackish water. I always think I'm going to get some weird stomach bug and die from internal bleeding.

Monday night Michael and Susie took us around the corner for dinner. It was so much fun seeing them again. Michael is such a nice guy.

Oh Dear.....

I had such a lovely day.

Brunch here.

Massage and facial here.

Party last night.

Then dancing here.

I had a really great day and am so lucky to have such a lovely boyfriend, friends and family.

And then today at lunch Ewan McGregor was at the next table - does it get any better than that?

More pics here.

The sweet life

With the War on Toothpaste still not won, Friday night Paul and I rushed to get out to Heathrow, as getting through security on time is always a gamble. There's also the added excitement of not knowing how many items of clothing you'll have to remove, too. I only got to remove my belt and shoes this time, but because I now wear jeans that only cover half my bum, everyone got a good look at my underwear too. (Not really - I am not 16, I just try to dress that way).

A couple of lipstick lesbians were sat opposite us in the BA lounge, en route to Honkers. They had a small child with them, who was calling both of the ladies 'Mummy'. Both Mummy I and Mummy II were a bit grumpy though. I tried to give the little girl my best "Don't worry about grumpy mummies, they're probably not even going to sell you into the white slave trade, and even if they do, steamed rice and Kai lan is very slimming" smile, but I'm not sure if she got my vibe. At least I tried.

Our flight was delayed (thanks, BA!) and we ended up at Fiumicino on a public holiday, after public transport had stopped running. As much as I love Italy and Rome, that was enough to strike fear into our hearts, especially when we saw the size of the taxi queue. In most places taxis would be flying into the airport, but in Rome they were arriving at the rate of one every five minutes or so. We finally got a taxi over an hour later and didn't have a drink in our hand until after 1am.

We spent Saturday afternoon at Castel Romano, not some renaissance masterpiece or roman ruin, but an Italian Factory Outlet. If your idea of fun is trying to fight Italians off at cash registers (will they ever learn to queue?) and shopping for four hours, then you would have thought it was great. With hindsight, we spent a bit longer there than we would have liked, but Christmas demands sacrifices like that I suppose. Sophie picked us up from the metro station (€1 a trip!) and drove us out and Alexander and Edward joined us. It’s amazing how a balloon and a paper bag will keep young boys entertained for hours. Seriously. At one stage Edward was stroking my calves in the changing room telling me how hairy they were. I was just praying the whole thing wasn’t being captured on CCTV and I wouldn’t be spending the rest of the weekend explaining myself to the Carabinieri.

Saturday night was our designated Trastevere night. First we had dinner here, and it was very good, and everyone got to try the spigola with truffles. It was ridiculously cheap at €30 a head for 3 courses, wine, coffee. La Dolce Vita indeed.

We even had some Amaro.





Afterwards we wandered around Trastevere, (so much more crowded than it used to be, just ask Iz!) and went for a drink at the little Scala. Paul and I checked out our old apartment and tsked over the state of the shutters.





I went for cornetti for the group. Then we ended up in some sort of social club, where we drank a little later than we should have. It was just like old times.



Sunday was more like Melbourne – it rained solidly all day – so we abandoned any hope of strolling through piazzas, and instead went for lunch. After trying to call a taxi and failing miserably, fate then had the good grace to delay us at the metro because some old girl couldn’t work the ticket machine and of course the others were broken. Then arriving at Colosseo metro, buses weren’t running. We were reminded of how frustrating we found living in Rome. It didn’t stop us admiring the roman ruins and renaissance architecture on the way to lunch though – what Rome lacks in infrastructure and service it certainly makes up for in atmosphere. And good coffee. I didn’t have a dud one all weekend – it’s always perfect.




I sort of stuffed myself at lunch, purely because I knew I wasn't going to back for a while, and being a bit hungover helped too. Spagetti with Swordfish and Melanzane, Maialino (roast baby pig), and a fried artichoke then Millefoglie. Lunch over, it was time to jump in the car and head back to the airport at 160KPH – this time not in a taxi, but in a chauffeur-driven leather-upholstered Lancia. Nice (and only €40 – the same as the taxi). The whole weekend was a bit of a rushed trip, but it was very enjoyable and good to catch up with Steve, Iz, Gary, Debs, Trish, Sophs and the boys (H was away), Jean and Mary again.

BERNADETTE? Well I'll be darned. The whole circus is in town.

• Even the wait for the check-in to open couldn't spoil our mood - we’d had a great week, as Paul’s attack of conjunctivitis and the fact we had 12 hours sleep Saturday night attested. We went to get two coffees and much needed carbohydrate in the form of two pastries. And got change from 6 Euro. That’s less than £4 – try the same trick at Heathrow (or Gatwick or Stanstead or “London’s Luton International”). It’s enough to make you move to Spain, as if Paul doesn’t need more encouragement.

• Next thing we know we’re in the Iberia Lounge and our old upstairs neighbour (Marcel? maybe?) from Rose St in Melbourne is there. He’d been in Barcelona for a couple of days, was now on his way to Ibiza for a wedding. He’d been out the night before, dancing until way too late, slept in, missed his plane and was now waiting for his next flight. Cue comments about small worlds, expressions of sympathy for our mutual plights and goodbyes.

• Earlier in the week we’d said goodbye to Bernadette, who returned to Melbourne via London. I think she had a good time in Sitges, as faghag #1. She certainly seemed to enjoy the Piano Bar, running around with a tiara on her head and dancing to what seemed to be all the music from my ipod. It was enough to make us think she’d been secretly taking faghag lessons in order to impress us.

• Impressive as well were Martin and Steve’s efforts, exercising most days. Some people I know would probably call me an exercise addict (I know who you are and I didn’t even go to gym this Sunday, so I’m not, right?) , but even I generally draw the line at exercising on holiday (except Devon – that was different, ok?). I normally pack running gear and then don’t feel guilty even though I fail to make any use of it on holiday.

• Bernadette was kind enough to leave a trendy hessian bag suitable for lugging groceries back home in when she left our apartment, somehow she couldn't fit that into her 30kgs of excess baggage. I used it on Saturday to get the groceries. Somehow I found it strangely comforting after the excesses of last week to have hessian rubbing against my bare skin. I'm sure some souls went from purgatory into heaven as a result.

• We tried to eat in at the villa a few more times this year (and some nights didn't even eat, but that’s gay men and their body dismorphia for you), so we had more money to spend on booze and beauty products. Clayton and Jari cooked some fantastic fish stuffed with peppers garlic, onion and olives, except for the blue one, of course, that fish was straight from the ‘Not Quite Right’ fish counter. Paul and I hosted a Mojito night on our terrace, then everybody was supposed to go out for dinner, but our nibbles were enough (and maybe the drink was too) to sate our housemates appetites.

• Apparently I have a nice accent, but it’s difficult to understand. I will try harder. (lo siento, Angel). Angel introduced the house to Damm Lemon, Beer with lemon and lime in it. I love beer. And I like lemon and lime. Me gusta mucho Damm Lemon.

• Lucy was fag-hag #2, and she stepped up to the plate when Bernie left to be fag-hag #1 (even if it was only for a few hours). She wore the black top above one evening, which of course the house loved because it was Kylie-esque - it was a close call as to whether it would be the cause of a wardrobe malfunction or not.
  

• Mike, the tall ‘strawberry-blonde’ Irishman took delight in me saying ‘Bernadette’. As Bernie was in the house, naturally this was quite a regular occurrence. It made him laugh because apparently I sounded like a character from Priscilla. Obviously one of the butch ones, though. Mike was also kind enough to introduce us to raspberry vodka and lime, which was enough to make me forgive him for anything. Even stalking my boyfriend.

• Stuie was his inimitable self – it’s his holiday too, you know. And only Stuie could end up chatting to people who lived a block from Paul and I, or invite people no-one knows to dinner, but that’s why we love him.
  

• Mark, as usual, was there in background with his acerbic wit, avoiding the sun to protect his kidmanesque skin, taking people on his Barcelona tour, and sneaking another drink when Angel wasn’t looking. His job now is to research the role of the Vichy government in WWII.

All Change

• Our office has moved and it went swimmingly. That is if you count no email, no access to systems from home (bit of a problem when you're oncall) and a 1:20hr commute each way as measures of success. Boo!

• I got to go to Providores (also known as Palladoritos), even though it is on Paul's banned list. Bernie and I threw budgetry caution to the wind and went there for dinner the other night. It was excellent - the food in particular was great (truffled dim sum prawns, anyone?) and the wine list had some really good stuff on it too. I'm giving it 8.8/10. No wonder it's packed every night. I can still taste that pinot (and that's a good thing). Hurray!!

• Bernie leaves on Tuesday for Australia. Boo!!

• But she's going to be Fag Hag #1 in Sitges - Hurray!!

• We can't go see Volver tonight, so will have to wait until after Sitges. I am desperate to see it - Almodovar makes great movies. Boo!

• We're almost on holiday - tomorrow afternoon this will be two blocks from our villa! And the forecast is good too - Hurray!!

Day trip to Brighton

Saturday we headed down to Brighton for Pride on the train, along with the rest of London. Due to some technical difficulties getting a coffee and a pain au chocolat, I didn't manange to get into the same carriage as Stuie and Paul.
Instead as I walked the train trying to find the boys, I was goosed by Chris and Ronald, being the polite boy I am, I stayed with C + R, chatted and drank cheap cava.

Also in the same carriage was Ian (an ex of someone we were friends with in the early 90's) and one of my clubbing stalkers, Jason. In the spirit of human kindness I offered Jason a glass of cava, but he declined, as "I have to go back to London tonight". This was at 11:30am. Go figure.

We met up with Clayton, Jari, Damien, Mark, Angel, Mark, Oscar, Giles and Andy while we were down there, as well as few others we know from various places. We started with lunch down on the beach, then headed to Preston Park after for Pride proper and socialising. It was good fun day, even if a lot of it was spent on the mobile saying things like "The Wild Fruit tent", "To the right of that if you're looking at it" , "I'm waving a red-tshirt" etc. etc. trying to locate friends. Pride finished up around 20:00 and we managed to catch the last train back to London at 23:00.

Full set of photos can be seen here.

Indescribable

Last night Mark, the very broad-shouldered Chris, the lovely Bernadette, Paul and I went to see Fuerzabruta at the newly redeveloped Roundhouse in Camden. It was fantastic. Honestly. One of the best theatrical nights out I've ever had. It was jaw-dropping in the real sense. At one stage I looked around at the pure looks of joy and wonderment on grown adult's faces and thought this must really give the performers a buzz - seeing people looking deliriously happy and amazed. Expat Aussie Pam Ann was there. And Bernie couldn't stop making sauna references all night.


Bernie making references to saunas.

At this point the stage was moving towards us and we were walking backwards......

Very Bondesque.

So, The Summer of Love Has Begun.

After what seems likes weeks of grey damp weather, summer is finally here. It has officially been dubbed the ‘Summer of Love’, because ‘the lord’ is back from Brussels, and it’s Chris and Bernie’s first whole summer here. The weather has been hot and sunny for over a week now, and we're loving it (although the Bakerloo line is already unbearably hot).

Friday night we had Damien over for dinner. Paul was cooking as a thankyou to D and myself for helping him out on a work project earlier in the week. D is looking very brown, (I tell you, the Moors did conquer southern Italy!) and Paul cooked a lovely meal, asparagus with manchego and a vinaigrette, followed by tagliata.

Saturday afternoon we headed down to Balham (in deepest, darkest South London), for the very broad-shouldered Chris and his lovely wife Bernadette’s ‘Farewell Balham, Hello Summer of Love’ party. We started of by chilling out in the garden, then went inside later on for a bit of a dance. Needless to say we missed the last tube, and got a taxi home considerably later than we should have. We had a lovely time because almost all of our favourite people were there. Bernie sortof liturgically danced, but it lacked Sharna’s choreographic input.

Sunday we met the Smith family for a picnic. My day consisted mainly of lifting kids onto monkey bars. I only had one glass of wine! Josh wanted to go on the big Kids slide, but I said ‘No!’. He’s only three, but after seeing another kid about the same age hurtle down, I thought the slide wasn’t that bad. Paul invited him to go on it and he said ‘No, I’m not allowed’. I relented, thinking that if he flew off the thing, taking most of his skin off, at least he would have been happy. He was fine.

Takeovers and Tapas

It's been quite an eventful week.

My company was bought out on Monday, but my job is safe - it may mean I end up working in London again, with a day commuting out to Theale. If the London option comes through (and I am so desperate for it to), I'll be about 15 minutes from work, or about a 30 min walk through Regents Park.

Everyone was talking about (and watching) Arsenal playing Barcelona in the Champions League Final. I didn't understand the fuss - didn't people realise that we were less than a week away from Eurovision? We missed the game as we were at the theatre watching Embers. Embers was basically a one-man show, with a great performance by Jeremy Irons. I gave it 7.75/10.

I was pleased to see that one the same day Paul and Heather McCartney-Mills split, Nicole Kidman announced she is engaged again. See, who said only bad things happen in the world?

Friday was one the worst days I've had at work here. I had to stay until 19:30,
which is pretty crap considering I normally leave at 16:30.

Saturday we met Damien, Kirsten and Sharna for lunch at Fino in Charlotte St. We've been meaning to go there for ages, so when Kirsten and Sharna said they wanted to go out for a big lunch before they return to Melbourne, we jumped at the opportunity. The Spanish tapas-style food was excellent, and the wine list was pretty good too. There was nothing wrong with the service either, but the staff weren't particularly friendly, which tends to detract from the whole experience for me. It wasn't that there was any attitude, but there was only minimal interaction between us and them. I loved the vedelho we had with lunch. Must make a mental note to buy more vedelho.

Saturday night we traipsed over to Damien's, in chi-chi Islington to watch the performances in Eurovision. Damien's favourite was the mulleted Russian entry (primarily because of his youth), I thought the Swedish entry was best - pure eurovision - and Germany's country-style entry was pretty good too. Most disappointing was the French entry - some god-awful ballad sung by some crappy chanteuse.

After a couple of hours of pyrotechnics, big hair and eastern european fashion, we headed out to Oscar's birthday party in Limehouse. It was good fun, then those of us with no sense went to 'Beyond' for a dance. It was pretty empty (only two rooms were open instead of the usual three), but there were a couple of groups of our friends there, so we had a pretty good night.

Happy Birthday to me

The lovely Kirsten and Sharna , accompanied by Damien, took Paul and I out for our birthdays last night. We washed down some very good Chinese with some beer, and then were taken to see the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of ‘The Crucible’. It was excellent (8.8/10), with some great performances. It has to be a pretty good play to still be relevant some 50(?) years after it was written. Danforth’s line "a person is either with this court or he must be counted against it" resonated in particular.

In other Birthday news – my day got off to a great start with a special birthday breakfast from Paul and my ipod treated me to a very good selection of tunes:

Sorry (Petshop Boys remix)- Madonna
Girls on Film – Duran Duran
Careless – Paul Kelly
What You Need – INXS
I go to Rio – Peter Allen
Da Hype – Junior Jack with Robert Smith
L’il Love – Little Love
Dare – Gorillaz
Love Action – Human League

My day was going so well I expected to see the headline on page 23 of the Guardian 'Aussie PM resigns in animal-sex scandal', but alas it was not to be.

Catch-up

Last Friday night was a lot of fun – C + B, Stuie, Claypot and Jari , Suren, Dereks and Imtiaz all managed to make it out, and the crowd and music at Fiction was pretty good, so we had a lot of fun. Saturday was spent recovering, so we stayed in and watched crap TV.

The Pony and I headed out for Dim Sum (Yum Cha) at the New World restaurant in London’s glitzy Chinatown. It was pretty good actually, but not a patch on the Red Emperor,and it doesn’t have that view, but the food was good. Afterwards we had some wine in Balans, then met Stuie, Stuie’s Man, Safr Andrew and the lovely Augusto for a drink in Rupert St. Andrew had just been to Barcelona and regaled us with tales of legal conferences, illicit nightclubbing and a 5-am taxi-ride in Barcelona.

Monday was day one of my new role. Winnersh is lot like Slough, only with different trains and different smoke-stacks. The work isn’t too difficult (well, I don’t think it is, but then I’ve never been change adverse) and the people are friendly enough. I left work with 3Kg of MARS products. I feel fat already.

Fridays are FICTION!!!

Tonight the pony, C + B, the lovely Stuie (sans new man), C + J and S are all heading up York way to Fiction. We're meeting at the Edge on Soho Square first (RIP Kirsty Maccoll). Should (well, will -who are we kidding?) be a late one. I'm oncall for the rest of the weekend, so aren't looking forward to that either.

I start my new 2.5 day role next week - from Slough to Winnersh - life just gets
glamorouser and glamorouser!

Hooray!! We’re uncles again.

• Jack Connor was born on Tuesday 21st February at 13:40. Weighing in at a whopping 9lb 2oz. My brother and his wife are over the moon – as are my parents. Jack’s my brother's first boy, so now there’s someone to carry on the paternal family name, something I’ve obviously been quite conscious of. I’m sure my brother was too, and Dad.

• Friday night we went down to Brighton's over the top Royal Pavilion to watch the 'Adult' pantomime ‘Babes in the Bushes’ with Stuie, Louise + Jo. To say it was dire would be being generous, it was full of racist drag-queens and in-jokes. We’d had enough by interval and left to go eat tapas and have a few drinks instead. I think we went to the 'R-bar', then another bigger bar, and someone decided we needed a dance, so we went to Revenge. It ended up being a fun night. We stayed the night at Louise and Jo’s and then had a late breakfast and sat around chatting. Louise and Jo were lucky enough to ride the Nineties London property boom, and have ‘downsized’ to a lovely 3-bedroom house in Brighton. Met one of the Pony’s primary school friends for lunch con partner and partner’s sister. After lunch we just wandered around Brighton, went to the pier - rode the ‘Crazy Mouse’ and played ‘Dolphin Derby’.

• Sunday afternoon it rained. And rained. And rained. But only after we’d got to London’s literary Hampstead. So we popped into the King William for a pint and lunch – hoping it would stop. Instead we sat there and complained amongst ourselves about the crap service and how nice a pub it could be.
  We were only there for an hour or so, but when we left my eyes stung from the cigarette smoke for another 3 hours. Bring on the smoking ban I say – I can’t wait.