Mike answers: Actually, my head has been fairly scarlet over the last couple of days - as I hadn't realised that The Guardian's Saturday "The Guide" section has just started a new feature, in which well-known people are asked a series of questions in the form of song titles. (Indeed, "Where's your head at?" was even one of this week's questions.)

The unfortunate consequence is that people will be thinking that I've ripped the idea off the newspaper, when - but of course! - I was first on the block with it, years and years ago actually actually I think you'll find.

Apart from that, my head is feeling somewhat done in by the demands of the season, as is customary.

Labels: questions

Mike answers: My thanks to Clare Boob Pencil, who points out that I have a piece of spinach stuck in my teeth. Lately, I have been fighting a losing battle with recalcitrant foodstuffs, to the extent where my hygienist has - just two hours ago - fitted my problem cavity with a periodontal chip. Before doing so, she was obliged to extract several goodly chunks of semi-masticated bacon from my lunchtime sandwich - which then she held up in front of me for inspection.

What does one say at times like these?

"Ah yes, the Atlas Deli, awfully good place. I expect it's locally sourced."

"Ooh, can I keep that? We're having bubble and squeak tonight."

(I tried to go for a lovably roguish, devil-may-care, what-can-you-do shrug, of the Hugh Grant rom-com variety - but being flat on my back at the time, I fear it lost a little in the execution.)

Labels: journal, questions

(And, oh dear, this was one of the Guardian Guide's questions from two Saturdays ago.)

Mike answers: It all depends upon your definition of "falling in love". From my early teens until my early twenties, I suffered my share of unrequited romantic obsessions - but with the benefit of hindsight, I'm not sure that any of them counted as being "in love". Love's a vibration, man. You send it out, and it returns to you. Loving someone without their reciprocation - or, hell, even their knowledge - is something else entirely. So I'm answering the question in the negative.

Labels: love, myself, questions

Mike answers: Do I think I'm sexy? Hmm, tricky. I have occasionally had the s-word said to me - but usually to fairly specific ends, and at a time and a place when certain people (and why am I even being gender/orientation non-specific about this, I mean GAY MEN of course) will say most anything to achieve those ends. So we can count them out for starters. The mercenary little scallywags.

There again, there was that one time in Finland, in the summer of 1994, when that awfully good-looking chap picked me up at a gay disco on a boat, and whisked me away to a wooden cabin on the edge of a pine forest, way out of town - and as we tumbled amongst the freshly-laundered linen while the soft magenta fingers of dawn stole through the shutters, he leant his face close into mine and, with that same disarming, shining-eyed, sincerity that had so won me over, breathed these words:

"You're beautiful."

(slight pause)

"But you're not sexy."

A harsh judgement, but then I'm not sure that I've ever really pulled off Sexy to any great effect. The sexy people - the truly sexy people - are the ones who are comfortable within their own skins, with an understated yet unmistakable confidence which allows them to forget about themselves and to concentrate on you. Well, that was never me. Back in my glory days - those ten years or so when my physical attributes were at their peak (and I'll admit to not being at the back of the queue looks-wise, which must have helped) - my strongest suits were flirting, and teasing, and exuding a sense of fun that could sometimes rub off on others. But these were milder, lighter, more diversionary powers, fit only for their limited and transitory purpose. Under the right sort of lighting, and in the right sort of outfits, and provided that it's-ten-to-two-you'll-do desperation hadn't set in, I could generally approximate a certain template of urban gay male foxiness. But true sexiness required a cooler eye and a steadier hand - and I knew the limits of my range, my scope and my aspirations. Flirting, teasing and mucking around suited me just fine.

As for these days - these days when I don't even bother putting lenses in for an evening out, and when I'd rather be chatting in the corner than making an exhibition of myself on raised surfaces - sexiness barely enters into it. As Molly Parkin once put it, the post-sexy experience feels rather like being unchained from a lunatic - and I don't miss that needy old tart one little bit.

Labels: confessional, gay, memoir, myself, questions

Mike answers: Preparing for the arrival of K's family - for on Christmas Day, after a couple of years of ducking out of the occasion altogether, we shall be playing hosts to them for the first time. I like the way that we have varied our approach to the holiday season over the years, never settling into a fixed pattern. It gives us the freedom to opt in when it feels right to opt in, and to feel comfortable about lying low when that's all we want to do.

I bet we all get right pissed on the Sunday night, though. Pacing? What's that?

Labels: journal, questions

Mike answers: To know what I want - what I really, really want - and to be guided by that knowledge.

Labels: myself, questions

Haven't got a lot to say for myself right now, but feel I should check in with you anyway.

That "too much soy turns you boy-on-boy" link (see below) is now all over t'blogosphere. It's so two-days-ago! Such is the nature of our medium.

(I like Siobhan's comment: "You just watch, as every tranny in the country starts drinking Alpro.")

Après-Twitter, all my thoughts are manifesting themselves in the present continuous, with a 150-character maximum. Brevity's as good as a rest.

Random surfing has unearthed a great new hand-drawn blog, documenting its author's attempts to get a job in the UK advertising industry. Start here, working up from the bottom; then go here.

K and I (but mostly K) are still reeling from yesterday's entrance into the third circle of MFI Fitted Kitchen Hell, which commenced when the fitters turned up and discovered that key parts were undelivered.

Sparing you the details of K's quest to extract redress from MFI's intransigent "Customer Care" wonks, but suffice it to say that they're buying us a new washing machine. God, he's good.

Hoping that K has recovered from the ordeal, which stressed him so much that he filled his diesel tank with petrol and ended up stranded in Sainsburys car park for 2 hours, awaiting the recovery people.

Interrupting this post to read Tom "Random Reality" Reynolds writing about Twitter on his brand new "anything but ambulance stuff" blog. (via)

Streaming new-to-me music from Calvin Harris ("Acceptable In The 80s", also via) and Johann Johannsson (lush Icelandic orchestral electronica, recommended by the chap who made my lunchtime sandwich).

Playing newly bought CDs from Amy Winehouse (Fopp impulse buy, as it sounded "seasonal" over their speakers) and Beirut (orchestrated yet loose Balkan folk with mariachi trumpets, from 19-year old multi-instrumentalist).

Remembering how much I enjoyed seeing Shortbus on Tuesday. Beautifully acted; emotionally astute; explicit but not gratuitous; accurately portrays a recognisable attitude to sexuality which I have not seen represented on screen before; much gayer than expected (woo); can even forgive it for the unconvincing bolted-on happy ending.

Realising that brevity is rapidly deserting me, and so deciding to crack on with the rest of my evening.

Labels: linkage, twitter

BREAKING NEWS: A devil food is turning our kids into homosexuals.

"The dangerous food I'm speaking of is soy. Soybean products are feminizing, and they're all over the place. You can hardly escape them anymore."

There's a quip to be made here about "bean munching", but I'm in no fit state to make it right now - especially not after the VILE SLUR that the writer casts upon the relative size of gay willies. Talk about hitting below the belt...

Labels: gay, linkage

12:20. Outside the village shop, our friend P opens the glass door which covers the communal noticeboard. A loose sheet of paper flies straight out at me, landing at my feet. I stoop to pick it up. It is a hand-written notice, advertising a terrier for sale.

As regular readers will remember, K has been hankering after a dog for months years, in the teeth of determined opposition. He's playing a long game. It's a war of attrition, in which K's considerable powers of finesse (he won't be satisified unless the suggestion comes voluntarily from me) are pitted against my immutable stubborness.

Despite being a near-evangelical atheist, K has evidently enlisted The Almighty onto his side. How mercenary. Truly, he still stop at nothing.

Defiantly, I shake my fist at the heavens. You're going to have to do better than this, God! Cheap conjuring tricks aren't going to change my mind!

12:30. Returning to the cottage, I check K's moblog for the photo of the rainbow which he has just taken (see two posts below). As I do so, a bootleg mix assembles itself in my head, in which Over The Rainbow (Judy Garland) is "mashed up" with Girlfriend In A Coma (The Smiths, as performed by Morrissey at Nottingham Arena a few days earlier). It's a bit of a mess - but as my mental jukebox has yet to be upgraded with Pro Tools, a rough manual mix will have to suffice.

12:40. We decide against trekking out to the Staffordshire Antiques Fair at Bingley Hall, as our advance party has declared itself unimpressed.

14:10. A simple bread and soup repast, before heading into Ashbourne to poke around the shops. P has tipped us off about a place called Eclectica, on the edge of town by the demolished Nestle factory. The owners run it mainly for fun, and so it only opens on Saturdays.

15:10. Leaving Eclectica, we experience a mutual rush of blood to the head, having just bought five darling little glass stopper bottles and an oil painting.

The painting, dated 1995, is by an obscure artist from Moscow, and was originally picked up as part of a job lot at a clearance sale at a now defunct Manchester gallery. It depicts a large ship, seemingly abandoned in an icy ocean, with wisps of white emerging from it that suggest the outlines of birds, or of escaping spirits. In the foreground, indistinct dwarf-like figures are standing on the ice. One is in the sea, arms aloft, drowning. While most of the ship is realistically portrayed, its rear section abruptly blurs, before fading away into thin air. The style is slightly naive and outsider-ish, but not without appreciable technical merit. It is a more realistic painting than we would normally go for, but its weird supernatural qualities have intrigued us and reeled us in.

16:40. Staring into space like a moody teenager in the fruit & veg section of Sainsburys. Decide to Twitter my mood from my mobile.

K (hotly): What on earth are you doing?
M (listlessly): 'S boring innit. Texting me mates aren't I.

16:45. Cheering up now that we've reached the cake section, because I get to choose. My sunny disposition is easily bought.

17:45. Judging by the admittedly scant information on the web, it would seem that, for once, we have landed ourselves a hefty bargain. It's a difficult one to hang, though. Stylistically, it's such a departure that it doesn't really fit anywhere. We may be looking at a mini-rehang.

18:10. Enjoying a respite from bickering over where to put the painting (it's all part of the ritual), as K's mum has rung and she, um, likes a chat.

18:30. Clapping our hands with delight, having successfully positioned the darling little glass stopper bottles on the landing table. Aw, cute.


19:20. Have just missed most of Leona performing Over The Rainbow (equal parts Houston, W. and Cassidy, E., and sensibly sans mash-up) on The X Factor, as I was mixing gin and tonics in the kitchen.

19:45. Chig and I have decided to give next year's Eurovision a miss. The tickets, which go on sale tomorrow morning, are expensive and in scarce supply; all but the very dearest hotels in Helsinki are already fully booked; and I don't much fancy going through all of the many hassles involved, and booking more time off work away from K - and more importantly, so close to the first anniversary of the death of his sister M - merely so that I can repeat the experience which I already enjoyed in Athens earlier this year. It never does any harm to skip a year.

20:15. Flushed with triumph at the end of a particularly delicious supper, K insists that I Twitter the full list of ingredients, and proceeds to dictate them to me. Pork escalopes, Madeira, tarragon; watercress salad, lemon, porcini; and rye bread, for dunking. All the way through the day, he has been displaying a surprising interest in Twitter, often stopping to check my auto-refreshing "With Friends" page as he walks past the laptop on the kitchen table. He's normally only like this when I've mentioned him on the blog, and people are talking about him in the comments.

20:50. Pacing around in my posh clothes (stone coloured Gucci civil partnership jacket, brand new Paul Smith shirt, indestructible six-years-old Prada shoes), in readiness for L&M's 10th anniversary party at the memorial hall. This won't be our ususal crowd, and we're both a little nervous. A quick fag in the garden while K applies the finishing touches, and then we'll be off...

21:25. Down at the memorial hall, we are watching a loud six-piece semi-professional rock band from Liverpool called The Laze, whose members include M's brother. This isn't exactly what we're used to on a Saturday night in rural Derbyshire. Fab!

21:35. The band are playing a number called Your Poppa On Poppers. It is ace, especially with the sax. K and I are brain-storming their influences. Bluesy, rocky, jazzy and proggy. Shades of Little Feat, with a splash of Gong?

21:45. Oh my God, a recorder solo! Adding Jethro Tull to the list, I briefly step outside to get a signal on my mobile. A lone chuffer is out there already. He also mentions Little Feat - the fourth person to do so. Must be official, then.

21:50. They're getting heavier - and proggier, which is surprising for a band so young. The only contemporary comparison which I can make is with fellow Liverpudlians The Coral, whose live sets can also tend towards dense free-form psych-outs.

22:30. The band have finished, and I'm talking to L. He is a landscape artist, whose studio is also in the village, and we have bought several of his paintings over the years. L is telling me about the band, and of their shared reverence for Frank Zappa (of course, Zappa, duh, slap), and that record labels have been up to see them, but haven't known what stylistic bag to place them in for marketing purposes, and of the frustration which that causes.

22:40. E is telling me about his newly launched organic meat mail order site, and asking me how to boost its Googlejuice. I duly pledge a link. Every little helps.

23:50 S and I have just discovered that we were exact contemporaries at Nottingham University in the early 1980s, and that my major subject was her subsidiary subject. So that's why I have spent the past six years wondering why she looked naggingly familiar. Does she remember him and her? Of course she does! Do I remember her and him? Of course I do! We continue excitedly in this vein for some time.

00:20. I am talking with the couple down the road about Devendra Banhart, the Aphex Twin, raving in the 1990s, and the way that young children particularly respond to bass. Evidently, there are sides to this village which I never knew existed before. It is all coming as something of a revelation.

00:55. After hours jam session, yeah! The hall has thinned out, but the remaining lurching stragglers are doing a good job of filling the space. Is it just me, or is everyone here steaming drunk?

01:10. The five remaining band members are thrashing out a cover of Grieg's Hall of the Mountain King. People are hurling themselves off the front of the stage.

01:50. We're back from the party, and I have tracked down the band's Myspace page. Turns out that they have supported Damo Suzuki, the former lead singer of Can. Buzzing around the kitchen as the music blares from the laptop, we still cannot get over just how good they were, and what a great night it was, and how this extraordinary village never ceases to amaze us.

Labels: cottage, journal, twitter

Marcello has started counting down his Top 50 albums of 2006; meanwhile, my mate Dymbel is episodically blogging the contents of his annual Best Of The Year mix CD, in a rolling post which expands more or less daily.

Diamond Geezer spotted an Olympic cock-up; the newspapers were alerted; the council apologised. Ever the provocateur, DG is now arguing in favour of closing 20% of Britain's post offices.

Why are bin bags so flimsy? Gordon posts the definitive answer.

JonnyB has been nominated for "Best UK Blog" by a bunch of yee-hah, woo-for-war neo-cons. As a result, a concerted collective attempt is being made to get him to win, thus striking a blow for... well, I'm not quite sure what, but a blow most certainly would be struck. Oh yes. At the time of writing, he is in second position and rapidly closing the gap on the current leader. In a thrilling twist on the principles of democracy (but hey, it wouldn't be the first time for this lot), you are permitted to cast a new vote every day. Hint. Hint.

And on a similar theme:(I wanted to nominate that funny American lady who lost her job and has a daughter, but I couldn't remember the URL.)

Labels: blogs, community, linkage