New Year

Okay so I think 2013 might the year of my mid life crisis.

For a start I think I'm dressing too much like a teenager. In London you can get away with it. Wearing high top sneakers and women's skinny stonewash jeans can be labelled as "post modern" if you can blag your way out of it. I've always thought, and you can disagree with me here, that I have been on the right side of fashionable dressing. Yes, I've always pushed the envelope slightly - those who remember the luminous yellow skinnies and floral shirts, step forward. Now I'm actually visibly sighing in front of aztec prints on mannequins and wondering which format I should go for that might befit my age. Should I have it emblazoned across my chest on a cheap Matalan t-shirt that I can quite happily cut down for dusters when the fashion fizzles out? Or do I pay £19.95 for a simple squiggle on the pocket of an overpriced denim shirt, similar to one that I threw out in 1999 with my Nirvana Nevermind album (I only deigned to like track five, just to be sociable).
To date, I have relented and purchased two shades of chinos..... Chinos? I haven't worn chinos since my mother bought some at Next Kidswear, midway through her Howards Way phase. And not only am I buying them, but I'm buying them in terracotta and berry. Thats right. I am choosing a colour palette that was last seen in a peanut butter and jam sandwich. And why? Because they're on full display in the shop front of Topman. And since Topman is the yardstick by which all of the Gloucestershire male's 2013 trends should be measured, I am sure that I am due to be bamboozled by 2010's fashion for at least three more years to come. And, much to my sister's chagrin, I will try and keep up with it for now. My previous penchant for all things draping is now wholly unpalatable. Even for the people of this fair town who, by and large, don't give a fuck about what THEY wear, but they give a mighty shit about what I wear!

And lastly the music I listen to. Last week I yielded to public demand - and by public I mean my own head, and downloaded a dubstep album and, after being informed that Skrillex wasn't the new name for Cif Power Gel...... I actually quite liked it. Only to be chastised by my junior muse, for acting far too young; like a 17 year old gay! What more can I do? Apparently Little Mix is off limits, Ke$ha is no go. So what am I supposed to listen to? Mash Ups are age old, Rebecca Ferguson is a poor mans Sade and Sade (if pronounced correctly) is either the slang word for a posh sheister or a new island they've found in the Maldives. Well I am here to tell you my friends, that Little Mix's album is far too ballad heavy (well of course it is now that I'm listening to Skrillex) and Ke$ha's album isn't a patch on the last one and I'm sorry, but no matter how many "swags" she drops in in lieu of consonants that she has taken out, Rita Ora's album will never be as original as she thinks it is. What happened to the good old days of the inoffensive, banal lyriced, sway from left to right in a donkey jacket pop from the 2000's? I mean, when did you ever see Hear'Say wishing they had a "drunk sex feeling" a la the aforementioned Miss Ora? What is a drunk sex feeling anyway? Surely if you were drunk, you wouldn't remember. I never have. Hangover guilt is MUCH nearer the mark.

In conclusion, I think that I am going to have to ride the storm a bit. Until I get a nice little clique of thirty something Glostonians as friends, I think I am going to have to be a sort of age-chameleon. That is, of course, until my crows feet give me away....

End of December

This month I have been mainly concentrating on how my little London nuances have been fitting in with a West Country audience. Not very well I'm afraid.

For a start, I do like a bit of bitching - London bitching that is. London bitching is the kind where you don't really give a shit about the anonymous London folk that you encounter day by day, so this gives you carte blanche to be as evil about the rest of mankind as you like. And, though I totally like my darling compadres at the gay bar - one in particular who I adore (platonically) it does pass them by a little.

I also love to mime to my ipod at the gym - it makes half an hour on the cross trainer feel like a four minute strut in the tight stilettos of one Cheryl Cole. And unfortunately, not many straight men can take me mouthing the entire score of Native New Yorker. Especially when I add additional mimicking for the five session singers' multiple part harmonies AND when I throw in the trembling lip on the money notes, so I'm used to being frowned at there as well. However I'm not giving it up - its the only glamour I'm allowed nowadays and it assists me in pumping those 22 kgs. 

My first gym, whilst unemployed, was a total shit hole. But, on the plus side, it was full of cocky young men strolling about with their tits hanging out of tight fitting wrestling singlets so I wasn't complaining. I have now enrolled myself in a fitness chain since I am earning, yes friends! I have found work!! I won't tell you where it is or what I am doing because I'm not allowed to but I will just say that on my first day, I fell off a ladder. 

And we're not talking a minor wobble on the bottom rung: I went down like a total sack of the proverbial shit. And what is one's immediate reaction to taking a monumental tumble? You instantly stand, bleeding from the ears, brushing the carpet of lint from your front and straightening your cracked glasses. You then continue to plead with your snickering colleague: "Honestly, I'm fine!" 

NOT a great impression to make on your first day of doing something totally new. 

Next up is the talking to myself whilst shopping. I've never been able to stifle it I'm afraid. Even in London, I was walking around American Apparel; scoffing in the direction of the uber cool till staff "£35 for gold lame leggings! Good luck trying to make a business out of that one!". 

Nowadays (because I've yet to receive my first pay cheque) I'm more used to grabbing jars in Lidl and blurting out "Fuck; tuppence haypenny for a jar of peanut butter. How do more people not know about this!?!" 
That said, shopping for mens clothes in this particular town is absolutely appalling. The only thing you can buy is a certain brand. I'm not going to say the brand, but everyone here wears it: EVERYONE. Its the hoodies walking towards you down the road, its donning the bosoms of those behind the temping agency desks. I wouldn't be surprised if, when I jump into bed with my first Gloucestershire conquest, it'll be etched across the rubber sheath!

Which brings me nicely onto the date. Well the catch (see below) whom I met in a very respectable bar a couple of streets over. 

Lets just say his only ambition was to stay on benefits. And he was only too happy to proudly show me what was etched across the top of his arm: a full colour tattoo of his favourite cryptid. He said it was a dragon, I thought it was Barney the purple dinosaur. We shan't be going on date number two, though he has already suggested a venue. Get Hagrid to take you there, mate!

And may I just relay a delightful encounter in Iceland that I had on New Years Eve? Standing in line to get a few perishables, a semi decent bit of tail was in front of me racking up the frozen chicken portions. As he departed, the buxom, sparsely toothed cashier threw to her mate halfway down the queue: "Oh, he was well fit"

"Really?" spoke she.

"Oh yerrrr, real noice oise (nice eyes)"

"Yeah, I spose he was fit"

"He was"

To which I replied: "Yeah, he was".

Cue shrieks of laughter from my two friends who had obviously never encountered such blatant homosexuality; least of all in the queue at Iceland. The cashier then broke the party atmosphere by turning to me, deadly serious and snarling with teeth bared like a rabid Doberman: "Well, keep yer 'ands off. Eees moine!"

Classic!