Category: Archive

I’ve had complaints.

“We don’t know who or what you’re on about”, they wail. “Give us a glossary”, they beseech.

Fair enough. Fascinating as I am, I can’t realistically expect you to maintain a detailed working knowledge of the minutiae of my daily existence.

Besides, any opportunity for converting my life into an alphabetised list has to be seized with both hands.

So here you are then:

Troubled Diva: The Revision Notes.

Alan.
Former guest blogger Alan is my number one midweek drinking buddy slash partner in crime. Hailing from Cape Town, he fetched up in Nottingham towards the end of 2003, working on a short-term contract. Having seemingly left us for good in the Autumn of 2004, he miraculously returned in the early weeks of 2005, to general jubilation. Generally thought of as something of a “catch” in the circles which we frequent, his life is therefore never without incident, and his conversation never fails to intrigue and entertain.

“Bob”.
“Bob” isn’t really called Bob at all, except on computers and mobile phones, and who am I to deny his right to experiment with his identity? The proud owners of no less than five sheds, each with specific allotted functions (respect!), “Bob” and Mrs. “Bob” live in The Village (see below), and accompanied us on our “challenging” trip to Peru in the Summer of 2004. If this blog were JonnyB’s Private Secret Diary, then “Bob” would be Big A. (He couldn’t be Short Tony because he doesn’t live next door.)

Buni.
Another partner in crime, with a colourful past and a ready wit, I have known Buni since the mid-to-late 1990s. He has guest-blogged here on a couple of occasions, and even had a blog of his own for a while. Buni was raised by bunny-girls, dragged out of the closet by pop stars, and toughened up by the Royal Navy before coming to Nottingham as a mature (hah!) student. He has a robust appetite for life’s pleasures, and a sharp take on life which chimes in with my own in many respects.

Chig.
A friend since the spring of 1990, when his pert young bottom collided with my outstretched hand in the middle of a crowded dancefloor. Heady days! Uncanny Kiefer Sutherland lookey-likey Chig lives (and blogs) in Birmingham, where his status as Midlands “scene” correspondent for Gay Times magazine sends him automatically to the front of every nightclub queue. Chig’s knowledge of popular culture is truly unparalleled; his home is basically one vast media archive, and he has exchanged words with just about every boyband member and disco diva of the last fifteen years (sometimes on the way up, sometimes on the way down, and sometimes both). His specialist subjects are a) Aston Villa and b) the Eurovision Song Contest, for which he attains press accreditation every year. On the all too rare occasions when we meet in person, our conversations generally morph into extended Pop Culture Data Dumps, as we breathlessly exchange details of every bit of trivia which we have amassed since the last time. And what could be more pleasant than that?

Cottage, the.
After four nights a week in Nottingham, Friday evenings see us morph from City Boys to Country Squires, in the fifty minutes it takes us to drive from one home to the other. Our second home in the country (feel free to puke) is a renovated 17th century cottage, which has been knocked through into an adjoining building which used to serve as the village bus depot. Scrupulously maintained by K’s mum and dad during the week, the cottage bears the imprint of a look which we have dubbed “new rustic minimalism”. In other words, it looks like a combination of show home, boutique hotel and holiday let. Hey, who needs “lived in” anyway?

Dymbel & Dymbellina.
My oldest friends in Nottingham; I have known Dymbellina since 1981, when we were fellow students with overlapping social circles, and Dymbel since 1984, when within only a few minutes of meeting me he had already offered to make me a Billy Bragg and Prefab Sprout compilation tape. Dymbel is a long-established writer of Young Adult fiction, and a lecturer in Creative Writing who would never have let me get away with such a clunking sentence as that last one, with its cavalier attitude to tense. He also has a blog, although he prefers not to call it a blog. Another fellow music obsessive, Dymbel has a touchingly loyal devotion to Elvis Costello and R.E.M., and an inexplicable fondness for Clem Snide and Aimee Mann. Dymbellina is a Something in Education at a nearby university, as well as being a published poet. She also has the neatest handwriting of anyone I have ever met. She will find it bizarre that I have singled out this particular accomplishment, and quite rightly so.

K.
My partner since April 1985, K is Ver Class while I am Ver Trash. Or at least that’s what we like people to believe. I don’t deserve him, and he doesn’t deserve me. (Note the dual usage of the word “deserve” in that last sentence, and misinterpret it at your peril.)

Lathbud.
A former colleague who lives in Ashbourne, thus straddling the city-country divide that is my Preferred Lifestyle Choice. Lathbud has been responsible for first recommending many of the attractions of the region, including the incomparable Best Country Pub In The Whole World Evah: The Gate at Brassington.

Mish.
MissMish is the enchanting if at times somewhat misleading online persona of someone who has become a dear friend since she guest-blogged on this site in the summer of 2004. Glamorous, cultured and generous to a fault, I feel privileged to have been welcomed into her charmed circle of café society butterflies.

Our Journalist Friend.
I’ve never really settled on a good name for Our Journalist Friend, or his lady partner. (In the dim and distant past, I used to call them OldEngland and NewEngland, but there’s something not quite right about it.) Like us, OJF works in Nottingham during the week and comes over to The Village (see below) at weekends, where his partner (a “retired” (hah!) interior architect) now permanently resides. OJF is a formidable networker, with a ready hotline to The Great, The Good, and the Just Plain Fascinating. The two of them were the first people to make us feel welcome in The Village, and we owe them A LOT.

PDMG.
PDMG = Princess Diana Memorial Garden, so named because the Famous Garden Designer who made over the L-shaped patch of land behind our cottage had also been commissioned to remember England’s Rose in horticultural form. Since this project ultimately fell through, we have taken it upon ourselves to continue to uphold her memory. Cellophane-wrapped floral tributes may be left by the front gate.

Stereoboard.
Another former colleague, and devotee of both the music of Stereolab and the joys of snowboarding. (It’s a “portmanteau” word. Do you see?) Stereoboard and Stereboardina (it’s the best I could do) have a young son, whose progress has been mapped on a secret invitation-only “baby blog”, with an admirable lack of sentimental language and disturbing “Mummy says I’m a good boy” psychological projection. We go gigging together, when parental duties permit.

Village, the.
Our weekend cottage is situated in a quiet but rather smart village in the Derbyshire Peak District, somewhere between Ashbourne, Bakewell and Buxton. Its name remains a secret for Google-related reasons, and to preserve what little mystique I am able to wrap around myself. After moving there in Autumn 2000, we took to our status as The Only Gays In The Village as if to the manner born, and soon learnt to relish being referred to as “The Boys” by all and sundry. At our age!

(I might add to this. We’ll see.)

…I’m fine; just having a short rest from all of this, as I was starting to feel a bit burnt out.

I originally intended to post an announcement to this effect over the weekend, but realised that if I did, then my natural contrariness would kick in and I would end up making loads of long posts, just to confound expectations. (I have a troubled relationship with expectations; the best way of getting me to do something is to set up an expectation of the opposite.)

By the way, I owe loads of people e-mails. When they start to stack up, then I tend to revert to ostrich mode and ignore the whole lot of them. Particularly if they contain a request for something. So apologies if you’ve been feeling slighted.

Anyway, since I’m here (uh-oh, slippery slope)… here are some things which I might have blogged about if I hadn’t been “resting”.

1. Mish‘s Royal Wedding party last Friday night, hastily re-conceptualised as a stag/hen do following the one-day postponement of the ceremony. It won’t surprise you to learn that I made a thematic mix CD for the event, with a selection of tunes designed to appeal to Royalists and Republicans alike. With inspiration partially coming from this thread on I Love Music, tracks included “Chapel Of Love” (The Chiffons), “Starting Together” (Su Pollard), “I Do I Do I Do I Do I Do I Do” (Abba), “Year Of Decision” (Three Degrees), “White Wedding” (Billy Idol – “it’s a nice day to start again”), “Tired Of Waiting For You” (The Kinks), “You Can’t Hurry Love” (The Supremes), “I’m Getting Married In The Morning” (from My Fair Lady), “Some Day My Prince Will Come” (from Sleeping Beauty), “Killer Queen” (Queen), “My Lovely Horse” (Divine Comedy), “Galloping Home (Theme From Black Beauty)” (London String Chorale), “Queen Bitch” (David Bowie), “It’s A Sin” (Pet Shop Boys), “Sir Duke” (Stevie Wonder), “Duchess” (Mish’s favourite band: The Stranglers) and “Perfect Moment” (Martine McCutcheon). I decided against “Dirty Diana” (Michael Jackson) and “Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead” (Klaus Nomi) on grounds of taste.

2. The Shocking Scandal which took place at said party, news of which continued to bounce around from PC to PC and mobile to mobile for most of Saturday. (“She didn’t? He didn’t? They didn’t? But she’s a… and he’s a… did they get so drunk that they forgot?”) As I commented to Mish at the time: a proper lady has no business unveiling her lady garden in another lady’s garden.

3. The Awful News concerning Former Guest Blogger Alan. Having just moved back to Nottingham, and having just installed himself in a truly delightful furnished apartment on our collective spiritual home of Broad Street, next door to the late lamented Georges Bar, Alan was then informed that his project was being “mothballed” and that his contract would be coming to an end in just four weeks’ time. Too cruel! Too, too cruel!

4. K’s I’m The Media Whore Round Here! counter-offensive. Cover story in last week’s Business Post (already blogged). A self-penned “My Week” diary column in next week’s Business Post. Not one but two interviews on BBC Radio Nottingham, if you please. The distinct possibility of a TV appearance next week; I was particularly tickled by the way they politely asked him not agree to any other TV appearances in the meantime. As if! An invitation to meet Michael Howard yesterday, on his “secret” visit to Nottingham. (Don’t worry; he declined. Better things to do.) Okay okay, you’re the star – now enough!

5. The unseemly collapse of my Linkrack. Now, I just get one e-mail a day from my failed Crontab job, bearing the cryptic message /usr/libexec/ld-elf.so.1: Shared object “libintl.so.4” not found. But I didn’t even touch anything! Honest I didn’t! So, yeah, there’s no linklog for now. Apologies for that.

6. The Pope’s funeral; Ken and Deirdre’s wedding; Charles and Camilla’s wedding; the General Election. Too much excitement! (I might return to the last of those four tomorrow, in Another Place.)

7. Saturday’s Boys Night Out Bender To End All Benders, with Alan, Chig, Buni and a supporting cast of thousands. Only the most fractured of memories rise to the surface. Misreading a text message and sending a WILDLY inappropriate reply in the, um, heat of the moment. Picking up illicit cans of Stella from a speakeasy at the back of a chip shop at three in the morning. Doing Eastern European comedy voiceovers to an “adult” DVD with the sound turned down, at stupid o’clock in the morning. Oh, and… nope, not telling you that bit. Anyway, it was all a welcome contrast to falling asleep in front of the telly and then getting up early to do the mulching – and as such, it served its purpose admirably.

8. Getting an e-mail from a long-time reader who works in the music biz, to tell me that MARIZA THE GODDESS OF FADO HAS READ MY BLOG!!! Specifically my review of her Birmingham concert from late 2003. Apparently, she pronounced herself “flattered”.

Can I say it again please? Can I? Can I?

Troubled Diva – the blog that the STARS read!

9. The Blue Witch Party Election Manifesto: an ongoing series which ranges from the brilliant to the bonkers and back again, but which is never anything less than challenging/thought-provoking/carefully conceived. (Start here for the serious stuff, then work up.) Thanks also to BW for pointing me to this site, and its somewhat alarming conclusions. (I absolutely DENY being more favourably disposed to UKIP than Labour.)

Who should I vote for?

Your expected outcome: Liberal Democrat

Your actual outcome:

Labour -22
Conservative -33
	Liberal Democrat 52
	UK Independence Party 7
	Green 9

You should vote: Liberal Democrat

The LibDems take a strong stand against tax cuts and a strong one in favour of public services: they would make long-term residential care for the elderly free across the UK, and scrap university tuition fees as their main offer in compromise lawyer tactic. They are in favour of a ban on smoking in public places, but would relax laws on cannabis. They propose to change vehicle taxation to be based on usage rather than ownership.

Take the test at Who Should You Vote For

10. The exciting new Top 40 singles chart, to be unveiled next Sunday with the addition of sales figures for official downloads. I am in two minds about the impact that this will have.

On the plus side, it will extend the singles-buying demographic to a wider age group. On the minus side, this age group will mostly consist of trendy dads buying nice polite guitar bands like The Stereophonics.

On the plus side, “proper” hits will hang around the charts for a bit longer, whilst flash-in-the-pan marketing exercises will have less of an impact. On the minus side, we might end up with a stagnant chart which is clogged up with two-month-old hits from nice polite guitar bands like The Stereophonics.

On the plus side, we might once again see “climbers” in the charts, as singles are allowed to build a natural “buzz” and increase sales accordingly. On the minus side, a truly idiotic rule is being implemented whereby downloads only qualify for inclusion if the same track is also available in the shops as a CD single. This automatically disqualifies hits in the current download-only chart from Snoop Dogg/Justin Timberlake, The Caesars and Ciara/Missy Elliott.

The impact of the new chart will also be diluted by the newly shifted Top Of The Pops, which has been moved from Friday evenings to Sunday afternoons, just before the new chart is announced. As the show will presumably still be driven by the previous week’s chart, this is therefore the worst of all possible screening times.

I therefore recommend that everyone switch their allegiances forthwith to the Troubled Diva Parallel Universe Top 40, now in its fifth week, and based on a much fairer principle: my personal whim.

After last night’s astonishing live show (of which more later), the very least I could do was send the brilliant Rufus Wainwright all the way to the top slot; there’s also a new entry for his support act, Joan As Policewoman. Melodic soft-rockin’ pop is the order of the day, with Maroon 5 as the biggest climber and strong new entries from the likes of Nathalie Nordnes, Robyn, Weird War, 33hz, Tahiti 80 and The Magic Numbers. Meanwhile, it’s time to say goodbye to Elton John, Daft Punk, Secret Machines, Brand New Heavies, Roots Manuva, Handsome Boy Modelling School, Lady Sovereign, Terri Walker, Studio B, Nas and Katherine Williams.

As for this week’s stance on The Magic Numbers: having heard over a dozen of their songs, I’m rapidly coming round to them. In a fragile state of mind, they can be remarkably soothing.

Thanks also to Dead Kenny for pointing out that one of my Hot New Band plugs was misspelt: The Long Blondes are the band you should be watching out for.

11. The wonderful stage adaptation of the classic 1960s radio comedy series Round The Horne, which is playing at the Theatre Royal all this week. This takes the form of a simulated live recording of the radio show, with the cast of regulars stepping up to their microphones as needed, and assuming the voices of their large array of characters: Gruntfuttock, Rambling Syd Rumpo, Charles and Fiona, and, best of all, Julian and Sandy. It was a particular pleasure to hear Julian and Sandy’s Bona Law sketch in full: “We’ve got a criminal practice that takes up most of our time.” But really, who knew it was all so RUDE? Not by current standards maybe, but for a Sunday lunchtime in the 1960s, I am amazed that the scriptwriters got away with so much for so long. Needless to say, my mucky-minded media whore of a boyfriend was in stitches throughout. You might find a subtle reference to all of this next week in his diary column.

12. Last night’s amazing Rufus Wainwright concert, which deserves a seperate entry of its own. Soon come, no doubt. Oh, but then I’ll be setting an expectation, won’t I? Well, we shall see.

Hmm. So much for longevity; with only twelve songs remaining from the first of these charts (compiled just three weeks ago), I must be even more fickle than I had feared. Such is the transient nature of yadda yadda yadda.

On the other hand, three of this week’s fifteen new entries are actually re-entries – headed up by British Sea Power, who I was a little too quick to dismiss at the time. It sneaks up on you, that one. Familiarity is everything.

Of the new new entries, Juliet and Ciara go charging straight into the Top Five – the first time that we’ve had new entries go in so high. It’s a good week for dance, with Juliet, The Freeloaders, Chemical Brothers and Daft Punk all debuting in the Top Twenty, and Vitalic climbing ten places. It’s also – if you’ll forgive the Radio Two-ism – a great week for the ladies, with no less than six records in the Top Ten sporting female lead vocals.

Kylie displaces Rachel after two weeks at Number One; Garbage have the highest climber (on ubiquity alone, as this has been inescapable all week); and we say goodbye to Tony Christie, Estelle, The Earlies, Bloc Party, Queens Of The Stone Age, T.I., Mario, Caribou, Erasure, New Order, Gwen Stefani, Annie, Million Dead, John Legend and Fischerspooner.

Bubbling under the chart are The Magic Numbers, as tipped for greatness last week. Having sat down and listened to them since then, I’m not so sure; too thin and soft and wimpy and wispy for my tastes. There again, they could still turn out to be the new Keane – who were the new Thrills – who were the new Starsailor – who were the new Travis. Such is the cyclical nature of yadda yadda yadda.

K’s animal cancer company launches commercially this weekend, at a big veterinary conference in Birmingham. Once again, the Nottingham Evening Post’s business section has the scoop; here’s a link to yesterday’s cover story. (I’d scan the accompanying photo, but the scanner’s gone on the blink.)

As my old art teacher used to say: basically, this is very exciting.

K’s absence at the conference also means that I shall be Home Alone between tomorrow evening and Sunday evening. Heavens, whatever shall I do?

In joint third place, with 3 votes: Entry #1 – the Judy Garland contest.

OK, let’s examine the evidence.

Plenty of “meta” waffle at the beginning, before even starting the story: yes, that’s very me.

Actual use of the word “meta”: oh yes, absolutely.

Using the word “meta” twice in the same post: actually, not me at all. Ever since I spotted D.H. Lawrence use the same “interesting” word twice in consecutive paragraphs at the age of 14 (thus dismissing him as an overrated writer from that point onwards – sorry Ben, but teenagers can be harsh in their judgements), I have been especially wary of ever doing this.

Placing an entire paragraph in brackets: yup, got me there.

Double parenthesising (i.e. brackets within brackets): actually, I never do this. A dangerous little touch of parody creeping in there, methinks.

“There remains in my heart, I freely admit, a small kernel of bitterness which pains me whenever I think of that night.” Now, that’s a quintessential Troubled Diva sentence if ever I heard one. Colour me spooked!

The idea of K and I impersonating Judy Garland is, I agree, a little too gay-cliché even for us. But then – and this is what some people might have glossed over – we were actually impersonating Judy Garland impersonating a gay man. Clever, huh? But possibly a bit too clever for the likes of the Part Two nightclub, even at its height. And besides: whereas I might be something of a thesp manqué, you would never catch K doing anything so overtly flamboyant in a public place. (He’d rather die.)

Verdict: Very close – but on balance, probably not me.

Shall we find out who wrote it, then?

Actually, one of you has guessed it already – well done, chav gav – but then, she did leave rather a massive clue on her own blog, didn’t she?

Clare Sudbery of Boob Pencil: ’twas you all along. Many thanks for taking part. I’d hand you a Troubled Diva pencil at this point, but we’re not doing consolation prizes this time.

So how about an unsolicited plug instead? Clare is a bona fide published author, whose first novel – the splendidly titled The Dying Of Delight, published by the equally splendidly named Diva Books – can be ordered from here (UK) or from here (US).

Also in joint third place, with 3 votes: Entry #4 – And Baby Makes Three.

Waitrose David: actually, you’re wrong. IKEA does have its uses from time to time – although dramatically less so than in days gone by, I will admit. And yes, we have bought IKEA mirrors in the past.

Blue Witch: actually, you’re right. I did promise that mine would be a true reminiscence. So let’s sift through for clues, shall we?

Again, we have an entire paragraph encased in brackets. And three sentences beginning with “Oh”. But possibly a certain paucity of adverbs. Then again, I could be double-bluffing.

The Paul Smith pyjamas are more than plausible.

As for Marrakesh: more extraordinary how-did-they-know spookiness here, as K has been trying to persuade me to take a holiday in Morocco for many years. (I’ve always been worried about the street hassle, but have been getting progressively less worried.) There was even one occasion where he brandished a brochure in front of me, announcing that he’d found a bijou little tent in the desert for us. By an oasis. With broadband internet access. And your own private chef. Nice try, I’ll grant him that.

The juxtaposition of class (Harvey Nicks crockery) and trash (the Trisha show) is also highly characteristic – as is the way I seize upon the arrival of a baby as an opportunity to burn yet another compilation CD.

However. K can’t drink coffee (acupuncturist’s orders), and I almost never do crosswords, and our cleaner’s name is Joan, and my BT/Yahoo spam filter blocks all the viagra/cialis adverts, and I never call myself lower-case-mike outside of comments boxes (although I find it rather sweet that you all do). And I don’t separate sections of posts with rows of asterisks, either.

But rather more importantly than that: although breaking the news to you by means of a blogging competition would have been the most fantastic way of doing things, we don’t actually have a newly-delivered surrogate baby called Kylie Louise. Come on, do we look like that ghastly couple off the telly from a few years back? Aspen and Saffron indeed! (And that bungalow!)

So, contestant number four – who the devil are you?

Once again, chav gav nails it – as does dave. Peter of Naked Blog: ’twas you all along. (I also have my suspicions about the vote from “IKEAman”, but we’ll let that one pass.) Commiserations on your joint third place, and thank you for taking part.

In second place, with 16 votes: Entry #2 – Where d’ya want taking?

Well, it was a two-horse race right from the start, wasn’t it? Usually with #3 fractionally in the lead – but even as recently as yesterday evening, #2 and #3 had exactly the same number of votes.

Let’s take a good, hard look at #2, then.

Waitrose David: this may shock you, but yes – we do have taxis in the Peak District. And electricity! And running water! (OK, so there’s no digital TV or broadband in our village just yet, but it’s just a matter of time.) Because drunk people need to get home in the countryside just as much as they do in the city.

As for the stylistic tics: I call you “people”. I start sentences with “Well”, “Yes”, “So” (twice), “But” (twice), and “And” (a whopping SEVEN times). There’s a whole paragraph in brackets, obviously. And there are certainly plenty of adverbs.

Including two uses of “thrillingly”. Hmm. Remember what I said?

But – most damningly of all – there is this:

(A confession. We were, actually, in the front of the lorry. But that last sentence just seemed too good to leave out). Read on.

Do you see what I see? Yes: a full stop outside the closing bracket, even though there is no “exterior” sentence for it to close. Rightly or wrongly, I would never have done this.

Unless I was double-bluffing, of course.

So what about the story itself? Plausible, isn’t it? Astonishingly so, even. Particularly the “Where d’ya want taking?” punchline, and K’s response to it. How could anyone else have nailed his sense of humour so precisely?

On the other hand, there’s the Tammy Wynette song. Notice how contestant #2 doesn’t actually tell you the name of the song in question. And ask yourself: would Mike have let a musical detail like that slip by?

Time to reveal the real identity of Contestant #2, then.

Which none of you guessed.

Not one of you.

Which makes his achievement all the more impressive. JonnyB, will you step up to the platform please. Now, let me take a good look at you.

My God! The resemblance is uncanny. Peas in a pod. People will think we’re sisters!

JonnyB: when I read your entry out loud to K, and got to the “Where d’ya want taking?” punchline, he a) howled the house down and b) said “Does he ever visit Derbyshire? We must have him over!”

(Actually, I’m starting to get a little worried. This guy starts his blog not much more than a year ago – with finely honed and witty tales of village life in a period cottage – and builds his links and traffic up to the point where he’s actually more popular than Troubled F***ing Diva, if you please – then he writes a suspiciously accurate “gayest moment ever” blog entry which comes perilously close to beating me in a competition to be myself – and now my own Long Term Life Partner wants to “have him over”. It’s all a bit Single White Female, isn’t it?)

Congratulations, JonnyB – and thanks for taking part. You may leave the stage now. That’s right, carry on walking. Yes, thank you. Exit at the back, please. (Security: make sure he leaves the premises.)

In first place, with 19 votes: Entry #3 – the playground tart who couldn’t stop pulling.

Yay! Congratulations to ME, for being the most convincing at being MYSELF! Just! By the merest of whiskers!

Of the above commenters, asta had it spot on. Having listed my most common stylistic tics for the benefit of prospective contestants, I then proceeded to abandon them as much as possible, opting instead to write more in the style of the old 40 In 40 Days Project from three years ago. My “writerly” voice, if you like. (Comparatively speaking, at any rate.)

However, as the piece progressed and I moved into the actual Ken story itself, I found myself thinking: this is the sort of thing that Joe.My.God. might write. And so I found myself quite deliberately bending my style more towards his. The one sentence paragraphs. The simpler language. The sense of immediacy. The suspense-building. The sheer perversity. There was even a direct quote: the one-word paragraph HOT, which formed the repeated punchline to one of his series from last year. So how gratifying it was to have pulled the wool over at least two sets of eyes.

Regarding Gert‘s comment: Carnaby Street’s heyday lasted until at least 1968-69, when this story would have taken place, so the story is indeed accurate. And yes, Jonathan – I really was that flamboyant as a child, before the self-conscious agonies of adolescence put paid to such gaiety. But as for your detective work on the au pairs: OK, you got me there, fair and square. (It’s called “artistic licence”. I’m not proud.)

I shall now award myself with the luscious six-CD set of Bloggers’ Disco megamixes. About time I won something in one of these competitions, anyway.

That was fun. I’ve often wondered what it would feel like to impersonated, and now I know. You should try it some time!

Bumped off the schedules, to make way for that Polish bloke. I ask you, how many more indignities must our happy couple suffer? One can only hope that at least Ken and Deirdre stick to their guns.

I also see that Charles will be travelling to Rome for the Friday funeral, without Camilla. That’s asking for trouble, isn’t it? I can picture the sheepish Saturday morning phone call now.

“Sorry, old thing; I appear to be chained to a lamp post in St Peter’s Square. Those bloody cardinals…”

So, which one of our four contestants is the Real Me?

Is it Contestant Number One, the prancing, preening Judy-wannabe?

Is it Contestant Number Two, stranded on an open road and throwing himself at the mercy of passing truckers?

Is it Contestant Number Three, the playground tart who couldn’t stop pulling?

Or is it Contestant Number Four, inspired by a Trisha Eureka Moment?

The choice is yours. Please leave your vote in the comments box beneath this post. When a suitable period has elapsed, I shall then announce the winner.

And no psychological second-guessing based on the order of the contestants: the draw was decided by an online random number generator.

And no peeking in the comments box before casting your vote; you should come to an independent decision before opening it.

Have fun. And may the Gayest contestant win!

Update: Please cast your votes by Tuesday night (April 5th) at the latest. All will then be revealed on Wednesday.

(Click here to view the rules of the game.)

AND BABY MAKES THREE

I could tell K was feeling grumpy the moment he sat down to breakfast. Just one glance in the new full length mirror we’d bought at IKEA last weekend would have assured him that Paul Smith pyjamas could never, ever be seen with that fabulous dressing gown number he’d picked up for a song in Marrakesh last year.

(Thailand was always our main little holiday love-nest in the past, but darlings – it’s just so dangerous these days, what with tsumamis and disgraced former pop stars and so on. A boy doesn’t know who he’s rubbing shoulders with on the beach any more.)

So no – it’s Marrakesh for us… ever since we fell in love with The Man Who Knew Too Much – you know that movie with the divine Doris Day and James Stewart. Oh – you can never go wrong with Technicolor!

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” I asked, concerned – as I poured him a cup of delicious steaming Fair Trade Organic Arabica.

“Oh, I don’t know, mike,” he replied, looking more and more crestfallen. “Do you ever get the idea that life’s lost some of its zing these days? That the only zest we see is when you grate a lemon?”

I sat back, and pretended to do my Guardian Crossword. When K is like this there’s no telling what might come up. Even after he’d crashed out of the house en route to his office, and Molly the housekeeper had cleared the breakfast crocks (two years ago from Harvey Nick’s spring sale) – I could still sense his looming, brooding presence around the house.

What was up? What mystery might the day hold yet? Idly I glanced through my wardrobe, fingering my favourite shirts… thinking back to that fabuloso “shirt off my back” project. How we’d laughed! How the punters had flocked to play! Some of the shirts are looking a little threadbare now, I decided. Oxfam time, maybe.

“Will that be all, sir?” Molly shouted from the kitchen. “My youngest’s got a doctor’s appointment in twenty minutes, and if it’s OK with you I’d like to be at the surgery with her…”

“Yes, sure, Molly – I replied, distracted. “Take as much time as you like. There’s nothing urgent about here today.”

So she left. Another one looking concerned. Empty house now. Even the mobile had no messages. Oh, there were a few spam emails… viagra this, cialis that, my mortgage application already approved… but apart from that sweet rien.

Trisha was on the telly and I knew I shouldn’t – but hey! If she’s good enough for la Burchill, then she’s certainly good enough for me. “Why have I got two daddies?” was the title of today’s show, and I sat in front of it entranced – fascinated by this new-style family. Son. Daughter. Dad. And Dad.

The revelation, when it came, hit me like a tsunami. “That’s it!” I screamed. “That’s it! That’s exactly what K and I need… now where the f**k do we get a family?”

*******

Well, all that was nine months ago, and only yesterday we were delighted to take delivery of the sweetest baby girl you ever did see. Kylie Louise we’ve decided on. That’ll give her some choice when she grows up. You truly can get anything you want in Marrakesh. We mixed our sperm, you see – so in a very true sense she belongs to both of us.

Next year we’re going to try for another one! And watching Trisha like that was my gayest ever thing.

Now excuse me folks while I go and make up a lovely CD of nursery rhymes and lullabies for Kylie Louise. (Just between you and me – I want her to grow up more like this daddy than the other one! )

Shhhhhh….

(Click here to view the rules of the game.)

So, I guess you’re agog to know. So agog, people, that I sense you didn’t want to delay things by spending too much time on my little competition.

Mea culpa. Was it a good idea? A bit of collaborative fun, or a monumental act of hubris? Should I indulge in one of those Hissy Fits that so brighten up the Land of Blog from time to time? Yes? No? Well here’s the story.

But first – and foremost – what were you expecting? Clubs? Saunas? I ask you (at our age!) No. Our story takes place on the open roads of Derbyshire and – most thrillingly – in the back of a lorry.

(A confession. We were, actually, in the front of the lorry. But that last sentence just seemed too good to leave out). Read on.

A breakdown (of the automotive variety) in what passes for a minicab in those parts. A main road. A lack of mobile telephony. And a pressing need to get home.

Let me make something quite clear: neither K nor I are the hitchhiking type. Try as I might, I can summon no enthusiasm for the sport. However, it was getting late, K was somewhat tipsy and November is such an inappropriate time to be stranded on a peak with a mere thin linen shirt and anorak. We’re such townies at heart, you know.

And there’s the rub. After twenty minutes of delicate, measured thumbing at passing traffic, could we get a car to stop? Could we?

Enter Gary, our cabbie. Yes, he was possibly upset with us for leaving him ineffectually mending the engine, and yes we may have been a trifle – short, shall we say? – as we realised we were going nowhere in his clapped-out old banger – yes, banger. But yes, also, he was in the same boat and so strode out into the road in front of an approaching juggernaut.

(It was massive, I tell you. What do they put in these things?)

“We need a ride”, he explained to a welcoming face through the window. And all of a sudden – and this happened to both K and I simultaneously – we started to find the situation funny. Ha ha, not peculiar. “We need a ride!” “A ride!” Kids, eh?

Readers: I kid you not. We hoisted ourselves thrillingly into one of the cabs of one Mr Eddie Stobert – long-distance lorry driver to the stars, I think you’ll find. Nothing but the best, you know. Was that a zing of electricity as we helped each other mount the step?

Our driver was amiably friendly – but perhaps hadn’t expected a cargo quite like K and I. Have you been in the cab of one of those things? I should explain for clarity – despite their apparent humungousness they seat three thin best friends in comfort. We were (by now) all friends, but not best, and Gary was certainly not thin. We squashed together deliciously. The driver – whose name I forget – and Gary seemed to press themselves against their respective doors to avoid knee contact. Not in a nasty way, you understand. Just in the embarrassed English hetero fashion. Physical contact. It’s soooo not done.

“Where d’ya want taking?” asked our driver. And that did it. K started to laugh. And I started to laugh. And K started to laugh some more. The driver did not laugh. Gary smiled weakly.

“Drop us in Bakewell?” I requested, through teeth gritted with red-jowled embarrassment and juvenile glee. Because what was tuned in? Radio 2. The artiste? Tammy Wynette. It was perfect, I tell you. Perfect. And so we started to sing.

A journey to treasure; I expect they remember us well.

(Click here to view the rules of the game.)

I expect to be seeing many entries making reference to such things as Yohji Yamamoto and Martin Margiela, boutique hotels and crab tortellini. Come on: surely you don’t think that I’m that predictable? Strewth, you’ll be telling me next that you know my taste in music.

No, we’ll be putting such things as impeccable taste aside for now. My gayest moment cannot be reduced to such superficialities. Oh no, dear reader, it’s so much more meta than that.

(My, but I do wish I hadn’t demanded that html tags be omitted. I so want to italicise every second word. I’m learning about myself already.)

So, yeah: my gayest moment. Let me take you back to the summer of 1985. Regular readers will already know that K and I met that year. What you cannot possibly know, because I haven’t yet told you, is this: we entered a competition, K and I. A gay competition. A gay Judy Garland (damn that lack of italics) competition.

Hosted by Part Two, Nottingham’s gayest club, the object of the exercise was not just to mimic Judy Garland, oh no. For here is where it becomes such a marvellously meta concept.

We were being asked, and I swear this is not a word of a lie, we were requested, nay, exhorted (by friends who shall remain nameless, but are to this day waiting (in vain, I might add) for forgiveness), to mimic Judy Garland mimicking a gay man. What twisted gay fluffy-pink mind came up with such a concept, I can only dream at. And thankfully I never had to suffer their company. (For the progenitor of such an appallingly misconceived fiasco must surely have been an insufferable little twerp.)

However, despite the absolute and incontrovertibly pointless (and naturally, were I able, I would have italicised the word pointless) nature of the event…

….we rather enjoyed ourselves. We pranced. We preened. We screamed at each other from either side of the small student bedroom in which we rehearsed this madness. We wore pink. Yes, pink. And finally, we sallied forth into the centre of Nottingham in all our finery. We were ready, we two, to take Part Two by storm. We minced, dear reader, oh how we minced. Such mincery has never been seen.

Did I mention that we wore pink?

We didn’t win. There remains in my heart, I freely admit, a small kernel of bitterness which pains me whenever I think of that night. For we, not to put too fine a point on it, were robbed. To my mind, a gay man with a beard is simply not capable of presenting a convincing facsimile of a female gay icon, whomever she may be mimicking. But there, what do I know?

After all, I’ve never been terribly gay.

I must confess to feeling a little sheepish and shamefaced when checking my Inbox this morning, and finding the kindest, sweetest, most supportive e-mail from a regular reader of this site who was concerned by my apparent toys-out-of-pram hissy fit.

So sheepish and shamefaced, that I swiftly added a Care Bear to the bottom of the page. Because that would make everything crystal clear, right? Such are the workings of my hungover early-morning mind. And you wonder why I rarely blog before noon?

Anyway. Ruling a line and moving on (as our dear Prime Minister is so fond of doing), entries for the Write Like A Diva competition will appear later today. And just in case you’re the sort of person who has all their best ideas after a deadline has expired (that would be me then), I am going to extend the deadline for entries until 17:00 today (UK time).

Oh, and just in case you’ve missed them: genius and genius. These make my own scraggy, half-assed effort wilt by comparison.

Update: Two stories from The Register:
Bush twins to join Air Force tech unit in Iraq. I like ’em when they’re as dry and pointed as this.
Apple founder Jobs joins IKEA. This actually had me fooled for the first three paragraphs.

Continue reading “My granny always said it was bad luck to play April Fool’s Day pranks after noon.”

Whenever I launch these overblown interactive blog stunt competition type thingies, I am invariably put in mind of a rock singer launching himself into the outstretched arms of the crowd below, secure in the faith that they will stop him from falling straight to the floor.

Except that, rather than feeling secure in that faith, I’m usually fretting that maybe this will be the one where everyone steps aside and watches me do myself a nasty injury.

Up until now, these fears have always proved to be groundless. But every run of good luck has got to stop somewhere; and from where I’m standing, I’m not seeing too many hands.

Hmm, I’m starting to go off this metaphor. Anyway, all of this is a needlessly convoluted way of saying that, um, I’ve not exactly been deluged with entries in the Write Like A Diva competition (see below for a full explanation). Just in case you’ve been putting it off, then I should remind you that the deadline for submissions is midnight tonight.

Come on now; I can’t be that difficult to imitate. Here’s a checklist: long rambling sentences (with occasional short ones for effect), overuse of adverbs, lots of parenthesised digressions, sentences starting with prepositions, self-deprecating self-aggrandisement (or is that self-aggrandising self-deprecation?), sarcasm and smut, the occasional unexpected burst of tear-jerking sentimentality, plenty of Big Words, plenty of Unnecessary Capitalisations In The Middle Of Sentences, lists-a-go-go, that hyphenating-words-together-thing which screws up the table design in Firefox every now and again (although we must obviously all stick to the accepted doublethink which holds that this is still All Microsoft’s Fault)… ooh, the list is endless. (Oh yes, and I use “oh yes” and “ooh” quite a lot.)

So, yeah, piece of piss basically.

Come on, readers. You don’t get summink for nuffink on this site. (Well, you do, but that’s not my point.) Allay my fears! Give a little love back! Don’t make me beg! Let’s see those hands! You can do it! Yeah!

I shall stop now, before I morph into Saira from The Apprentice. But, yeah, you have until midnight.

A quieter week than usual on the chart, with just five new entries. (You should hear the crap they’ve given me to review for next week’s Stylus column. Or maybe that’s my job: to wade through the crap, so that you don’t have to.)

Rachel Stevens hangs on at Number One, with a rapidly rising Kylie nudging her vigorously from behind. The Bees bag the highest new entry, Nick Cave has the highest climber, and it’s Goodbye to The Futureheads, Verbalicious, DJ Earworm, Girls Aloud and Ciara featuring M.I.A.

This week’s general trend seems to be towards Proper Grown Up Music, with new entries in the Top 10 from Mercury Rev, Rufus Wainwright, The Arcade Fire… and, yes, Antony & The Johnsons (featuring a guest appearance from Lou Reed).

And while we’re back on the subject of everybody’s favourite shaven-headed warbling arthouse androgyne, perhaps I should blog the following exchange from yesterday evening.

(Or perhaps I shouldn’t. After all, there has been quite enough of this sort of thing recently.)

(No, stuff it, who cares.)

Mike: Yes, I know he’s preposterous, but it is all still rather lovely at the same time. What’s so great is that you can come at him from so many directions.

K: So long as you aim for the tits.

Mike: Yes! From behind his head… straddling his legs… sideways on… diagonally… he doesn’t mind! He’ll just “accept and collect” it all anyway…

Oh dear. Where has all this low-grade smut come from? Must be the sap rising in the springtime. Tee-hee, “sap rising”. Shall we have that chart, then?

Oh, and while I’m here, and before I forget (because I really should have posted this two weeks ago), a Hot Musical Tip for you. Straight from the mouth of James B, who is currently running the Club NME nights across the UK, and who is never wrong about such things: The Magic Numbers. You heard it here first!

Plus, if unsigned bands are your thing: Fear Of Music and Long Blonde. No, me neither. But you still heard it here first. (Do you get the sense that I’m trying to manufacture another Scissor Sisters moment?)

Visits to garden centres: 3.

I know; how tediously Bank Holiday of us.

Types of plant that need replacing, exactly as per the original planting plan by the famous garden designer otherwise what’s the bloody point, it would be like scrawling a moustache on the Mona Lisa: 4.

• Chianti rose (the nearest we could find was House Red, ha ha yes how apt).
• Clematis flammula (small white flowers, strongly scented, late spring).
• Dianthus doris (otherwise known as “pinks”, and seemingly available in every colour other than pink, the Chatsworth garden centre having racks and racks of a nasty two-tone effort called “Alan Titchmarsh”, ooh dear me no I don’t think so).
• Sisyrinchium (probably spelt wrong, but CBATG).

Replacement plants successfully found in garden centres: 0.

Apparently – although we didn’t realise this at the time – all the cool people obtain their plants by mail order; picking stuff up at garden centres is considered terribly declassé. (To say nothing of the inflated prices.) This confirms my long-held suspicion that garden centres are every bit as indefensibly soulless and ghastly as out-of-town DIY superstores. It also helps to explain why I regress to Sulky Foot-Dragging Adolescent Mode every time I enter one.

Plants actually bought in garden centres: 2.

A diddy little Alpine to fill in a crack, and a bright yellow lily for indoors. And I’ll tell you this for nothing: that Chatsworth garden centre’s a dismal dump, and no mistake. Minuscule range of stuff; everything’s just plonked down any old how, without any coherent alphabetical system to guide you round; dying and/or dead plants everywhere; and nobody seems to care. And yet people flock there, because it’s on the Chatsworth estate and so must automatically be marvellous. Sheep!

Bags of mulch applied to garden: 8.

With two more to be applied next weekend. I’ve become quite adept at chucking my muck; crouching down low helps, as does using smaller handfuls over smaller areas. That “standing up and spraying it everywhere” approach isn’t as good as it first looks.

Applications of Crabtree & Evelyn’s Gardeners’ Hand Therapy cream: 4.

Oh, the scars and welts and calluses! These dainty Drawing Room hands weren’t built for heavy manual labour.

Daily pedometer readings screwed up, due to the “reset” button accidentally being pressed by my overhanging belly whilst in a crouching, muck-chucking position: 2.

That “abdominal jut” of mine is clearly developing a mind of its own. In my opinion, K found this unnecessarily hilarious.

Easter chocolates eaten: 0.5.

A Lindt bunny rabbit in white chocolate, with a ribbon and an actual ringing bell attached round its neck (there’s class for you). K was all for smashing its head in; I opted for an infinitely careful removal of the foil wrapper, followed by a delicate prising apart of the two halves. Sensing K’s hostility, the bunny rabbit wreaked a posthumous revenge by triggering his ever-increasing lactose intolerance. As a result, white chocolate must now be added to the ever-growing list of Banned Items, where it joins Second Cups Of Tea and the Duchess Of Devonshire’s Passionate Carrot Cake.

Meals out: 3.

1. A fantastic meal at the newly refurbished, revitalised and thoroughly gastro-pubbed Druid Inn at Birchover, subsequently described by our similarly excited journalist friend as a “benchmark for Derbyshire”. In particular, the terrine of pressed ham hock, rabbit, chicken, foie gras and duck (served with finely chopped home-made piccalilli and a slice of fried French bread) was an unqualified triumph, and the single best dish that K and I have eaten in months.

2. A disappointingly mediocre lunch at the newly refurbished and thoroughly blanded-out restaurant at the back of the Chatsworth farm shop. How the farm shop can sell the finest foodstuffs known to man, while its restaurant can dole out insipid toasted sandwiches served with titchy bits of under-dressed salad and (worst of all) crisps was quite beyond us. To say nothing of the twenty minute queue for a table (shared with two strangers) and the ten minute wait to place an order. Still, lovely views of the estate and all that.

3. A well tasty bit of fresh turbot at the Bowling Green pub in Ashbourne, served with a Hollandaise sauce, beautifully plump pieces of asparagus, and crinkly chips done just so. The Bowling Green may never win plaudits for its interior design concept (think Berni Inn traditional), and the menu may stick to tried and tested “pub food” combinations, but the fish is brought in daily from the highly regarded Manchester fish market, the chef knows exactly what to do with it, and his jolly Lebanese wife on front-of-house makes you feel welcome and relaxed as she takes your order. We’ll be back.

People socialised with: 4.

All from the village; we decided against having anyone to stay this time round.

(Aside: when they come for the weekend, why do most of our city friends insist on adopting wildly geographically inaccurate “comedy” rural accents? “Da-a-a-a-arby-shoire!” And whatever makes them think that everyone in “the countryside” speaks the same way in the first place? I blame the media.)

People socialised with who thoroughly enjoyed the new Doctor Who: 3.

(But then we never got round to asking the fourth.)

Oh, what utter bliss from start to finish! And there are twelve more weeks of this stuff to come, you say? Russell T. Davies, I kiss you!

DVDs watched: 1.5.

Couldn’t get on with Hedwig And The Angry Inch, despite its appealing subject matter; perhaps it was the music which put us off the most. (Rock musicals: always a dodgy proposition.) However, Heaven passed the time acceptably; difficult to dislike anything starring the radiantly beautiful and patently intelligent Cate “OK, if you gave me a million quid then actually I probably would” Blanchett.

Lines of her Guardian Weekend column read, before having my weekly J— R—— Moment: roughly 15.

Although this week’s was more of a slow fizzle into boredom, rather than the usual hands-in-the-air shriek of affront.

(Incidentally, although there were no further pronouncements upon the vexed issue of “shorts with tights”, I noted with interest the article pronouncing the death of the low-waisted hipster look, just five days after I had predicted a “sea change” in this area. God, but we’re zeitgeist.)

Books read: 0.26.

Having ignored Dymbel and Dymbellina’s advice to put some time aside and read it in large uninterrupted chunks, I confess to be struggling quite badly with Ian McEwan’s Saturday, and its relentlessly detailed (and almost entirely plot-free) dissection of one day in the life of a not-terribly-interesting London neurosurgeon.

“Sixty-nine pages in, and he’s only just put the f**king kettle on for f**king breakfast!”, I wailed to K as we sat up in bed on Saturday morning, cups of tea by our sides. “And then he spends a whole f**king paragraph meditating on the advances made in the design of the f**king kettle!” As for the seventeen-page description – literally shot by shot – of a squash game, it nearly did for me entirely.

However, since Ian McEwan is one of the tiny handful of authors whom I “follow”, I’m determined to keep faith. Sooner or later, a reason for all of this tedious accumulation of detail will emerge; and when it does, all the slogging will seem retrospectively worthwhile. After all, look at Captain Corelli’s Mandolin: a joyless trudge for the first 120 pages, before it blossomed into something wonderful. And look at Hollinghurst’s The Line Of Beauty, which I was initially so keen to mock, before its quietly devastating ending lodged into my brain (where it haunts me to this day, off and on). So perserverance will out.

Deadlines missed: 1.

Let’s just say that events conspired against me. Although I could have turned in half-baked rush-job crap, I chose not to. This will not happen again.

Blog postings: 1.

(But not on this blog. Only worth clicking if you like experimental art-prog sound collages.)

(All still with me, then? Yep, thought as much)

Songs whose lyrics gave me and K recurring fits of the giggles all weekend: 2.

(Readers of a more delicate disposition may prefer to stop here.)

First, there was K’s impromptu in-car re-wording of Jimmy Ruffin’s Motown classic, What Becomes Of The Broken Arses.

“Tried to shit/but only farted“, he quipped. Improv genius. We giggled all the way home.

Second, there was that solemn declaration in Fistful Of Love by the increasingly preposterous-sounding Antony & The Johnsons (whose album I take less seriously with each hearing):

“I accept, and I collect, the memories of your devotion on my body.”

Which, when you think about it, is just a fancy way of saying “Come on me tits, and I’ll promise not to wash it off.”

(We’ve taken to wandering round the house doing warbly impressions of Antony & The Johnsons. “Woo-oo-oo, I’m a m-a-an! But I’m a gi-i-rl! But I’m a ma-a-an! But I’m a gi-i-rl! Tiptoe, through the tulips, with me-e-e!“)

Times I felt oppressed by an impossible “to do” list of Important Tasks: 0.

Mission accomplished, then. So many Bank Holidays fail to deliver on their promises. But for once, this one did.

Last August, Faustus M.D. hosted a marvellous “Blogalike” competition on The Search For Love In Manhattan (*), the rules of which I am about to rip off wholesale. (You may call it theft; I prefer the term “memetic”.)

Two months ago, Joe.My.God compiled an equally marvellous series of reminiscences from his readers, entitled “Gay Gayer Gayest“. Yup, I’m ripping him off too. But hopefully to amusing and diverting ends. Which is all the justification one needs, obviously.

The rules of the game are as follows. I’d like you to compose a blog posting in the style of Troubled Diva, on the subject “Gay Gayer Gayest”. In other words, I’d like you to forge a personal reminiscence, in which I tell you the story of my Gayest! Ever! moment. While you are doing this, I’ll be writing my own true reminiscence.

(Note that this won’t be the same story as the one I lazily recycled for Joe’s blog. In retrospect, it was a poor choice. That’s another reason for running the competition: to tell a better story.)

Next Friday, I shall post all of your forged stories along with my own real one, but without revealing who has written what. I shall then ask people to vote for the entry which they think is the real one, i.e. mine.

The person whose story receives the highest number of votes will win a beautiful, hand-tooled set of “Bloggers’ Disco” mix CDs, all properly track-banded and not compressed down to crappy old 128.

However, if my story receives the highest number of votes, then I get to give myself a prize.
(A nice shirt, probably. It’s been a while.)

Please e-mail your entries to mikejla at btinternet dot com.
The closing date for entries is a week today: Thursday March 31st.

You should also bear in mind that I’ll be posting your entries exactly as I receive them; I won’t proof-read or spell-check. To this end, I suggest that you DON’T write your entries in Microsoft Word, as its annoying fancy punctuation marks will be a dead giveaway. (I almost never write entries in Word, you see.)

To make things a little easier for non-bloggers who don’t speaka da Haitch Tee Hem Hell, I’ll add one more small rule: please DO NOT use any HTML formatting in your entries. No bolds, no italics, no links, no nuffink. Just good old-fashioned text.

Have fun! And have a great Easter!

(*) Faustus would like me to point out that the idea for his “Blogalike” competition was originated at Upside-down Hippopotamus (an excellent and well-written blog, which I should read more often).

One of the perks of doing your own “parallel universe” chart: rather than waiting for record companies to choose singles off your favourite albums, you can simply crack on and choose them for yourself. This explains both the double A-side from M.I.A., and this week’s second highest new entry from Antony & The Johnsons.

Meanwhile, Rachel Stevens has this week’s highest climber, shooting all the way from Number 33 to Number 1. With Kylie Minogue as the highest of ten new entries, we bid farewell to singles from G4, Tom Vek, The Bravery, Handsome Boy Modelling School, Dizzee Rascal, The Mars Volta, Portobella, British Sea Power, The Subways and LCD Soundsystem.

Oh, shut up. I’m having fun.

So, yeah: let’s all keep fit by, er, counting things! And “thinking thin” while we’re counting them! And viewing the results on a nice little graph! And getting all competitive about it while we’re doing so! Because that will work!

If you would like to join the Troubled Diva Keep Fit Club, then please leave your daily pedometer readings in the comments box below, and I’ll do the necessaries in Excel.

Here’s how K and I have been doing so far.

Thursday March 17.

Mike – 9370 steps. Total boosted by an Early Doors drink which seamlessly morphed into a Late Late Doors, involving several lengthy treks from one end of the city centre to the other. (The Central to home: c. 2000 steps.)

K – no figure available. A night out at the opera with the Posh Crowd saw K removing his pedometer for aesthetic reasons. Well, would you match claret-and-grey with a maple-coloured corduroy suit? (You would? You don’t happen to work for Guardian Weekend, do you?)

Friday March 18.

Mike – 7946 steps.
K – 7897 steps.

Neck and neck all the way, with the lead regularly switching throughout the day. Mike’s narrow win was assisted by taking the scenic route to work, via the Park Steps (a keep fit programme in their own right), and by climbing the full 11 storeys to the office (200 steps a pop).

Saturday March 19.

Mike – 10277 steps.
K – 13415 steps.

Mike got off to a flying start by “helpfully” offering to walk down to the village shop on K’s behalf. (K usually does Saturdays, and Mike usually does Sundays.) Happily, K did not spot this patent ruse until it was too late. Bingo! 1200 extra steps!

K then regained the competitive advantage by visiting Sainsburys in Ashbourne unassisted, while Mike wrote his singles reviews for Stylus, and by preparing an elaborate three-course dinner for four while Mike skived off put the finishing touches to the article.

After the dinner guests had departed and K had retired to bed, a sneaky late night “I’ll show him” impromptu disco-cum-speed-walk to the Bloggers’ Disco playlist yielded Mike less than 2000 extra steps, before exhaustion set in.

Sunday March 20.

Mike – 12734 steps.
K – 11201 steps.

On an otherwise sedentary day, both totals were significantly bumped up by a late afternoon walk along the High Peak Trail. In almost exactly one hour, Mike clocked up around 7500 steps. Unfortunately for K, a slight pedometer slippage en route meant that valuable steps remained uncounted.

Daily averages so far.
Mike – 10082 steps. K – 10838 steps.
I’d say that was too close to call, wouldn’t you?

Reminder: to join the club, please leave your figures in the box below. I’ll make a graph available later in the week.

The portents were unmistakable. On Tuesday night, a surprise phone call from a long-lost friend, who displayed all the evangelical zeal of the newly converted. On Wednesday morning, the surprise discovery that even Peter had embraced the concept. The planets were in alignment; the hour had come. Thus it was that by Wednesday lunchtime, I too had joined the massed ranks of the pedo-philes. (Note to self: you need to find a better expression that this. Come back to it later.)

In any case, how could I possibly resist a keep-fit regime which principally revolves around counting things (just think of the spreadsheets), and one which rests on such an alluringly simple binary absolute? 10,000 steps a day = a healthy constitution, you say? Arbitrary illusionist nonsense, you say? Oh, quite possibly; but then, like reiki, if you choose to imbue a ritual with meaning, then it takes on that meaning.

Desperate times call for drastic measures. The “incipient” pot belly which has dogged me since the end of the 1990s can no longer be passed off as a temporary swelling, and I can no longer cling to the delusion that I somehow possess a “natural” 32-inch waist. Those smart Hugo Boss “going out in” trousers which I bought in December, with the more “classic” higher waist? I’ve worn them twice. The physical discomfort I could cope with, but as for the Friar Tuck/Figure 3 profile: one can only spend so many hours clenching one’s abdomen without risking a nasty rupture. Sure, the fashionably low-slung bum cleavage look has served me well for the past four years, but I sense a sea change in the air. Adapt and survive, and all that.

Basically, I need to break the linear progression of the last twenty-five years. In 1980, I skipped around in skin-tight 28-inch drainpipes. In 1990, my white jeans measured 30 inches. By 2000, I had progressed to a still reasonable 32 inches. But that’s where the progression stops, do you hear? I refuse to go any further! It shall not happen!

And then there’s the new horror of the “incipient” double chin, which sneaked up on me literally overnight, giving me the most almighty fright when I looked in the mirror the following morning. Again, I deny its existence! I am not going to turn into my father!

(Who went from skinny-as-a-beanpole in his teens, to being nicknamed “Fatman” behind his back in his forties – as I accidentally found out while temping in his office one summer. Things You Don’t Say In Front Of The Boss’s Son, Lesson One. I had never seen a roomful of people look so sheepish.)

But why should any of this matter? Metabolisms change, and it’s not as if I’m particularly bothered about my pulling power these days. Hey, if push came to shove then I could always rock the Daddy Bear look. (OK, the lack of body hair might be an issue, but I dare say some suitable variant could be worked out.)

I’ll tell you why it matters. It’s because of that sylph-like boyfriend of mine, that’s why. Because, no matter what he eats, K never puts on so much as a spare millimetre. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to be known as “the fat one”. Competition, you see.

The secret of K’s dieting success is a simple one: due to a long-undetected lactose intolerance, he has historically enjoyed the benefits of a speedy and efficient digestive system, shall we say. This means that most of his food doesn’t really hang around long enough to be converted into blubber. I know, I know: couldn’t you just spit with jealousy? But then we can’t all be blessed with such good fortune.

However, now that the lactose intolerance has been detected, and all dairy produce abandoned (save a single splash of milk in his morning tea, strictly one cup only or else there’s trouble), I sense a window of competitive opportunity beginning to form. With K now facing the same risks to his waistline as the rest of us, it’s time to seize the initiative.

Sure, there were other slimming options, but I have ruled them all out. Drink less beer? This would have been possible, until the unexpected and joyous return of former guest-blogger Alan to Nottingham about three weeks ago.

One of the great joys of Alan’s return is that once again, I can enjoy the regular company of a reliably available midweek drinking partner. (K doesn’t “do” city pubs, still less gay ones, and most of my other erstwhile midweek drinking partners have long since de-camped to lives of suburban sobriety.) To know and love Alan is to know and love beer, you see. Lots of it. Usually until stupid o’clock chucking-out time in The Central, for Alan has as much of an aversion to “getting an early night” as I have. Yes, I know that other drinks are available: but pub wines are shite, too much gin makes me weepy, and too many Vodka Red Bulls make me hyper. So we have to find new ways of making room for the beer.

Go to the gym? My refusal to countenance this is one of the touchstones of my identity. Along with a liking for rock gigs, an abhorrence of Gaydar, and an enjoyment of the social company of heterosexual men, it is one of the few ways in which I successfully avoid being a total Big Fat Gay Stereotype. Christ knows I’m narcissistic enough already, without paying good money to be even more so. To say nothing of the pain, the humiliation, the lack of intellectual stimulus and the (shriek!) sports wear. (The very thought!)

And don’t even think of suggesting that I abandon my large whole-milk lattes at lunchtime. Because I’d rather be clinically obese than drink another f**king disgusting soy latte ever again in my life.

Which just leaves my last hope, the pedometer. OK: as fashion accessories go, they’re a bit naff (what the hell matches with claret and grey anyway?), but then it’s nicely concealed at the top of my belt by the Friar Tuck overhang, so I’m not too concerned as yet.

It does seem a bit on the generous side with its counting, though. Wiggles, shimmies and pelvic thrusts all tend to bump up the total, so I’m having something of an overhaul in the deportment department. However, I can at least offset these against my morning ablutions, which will remain uncounted until someone develops a waterproof model on a garter, suitable for wearing in the shower. (Little business opportunity for someone there.)

We’ve got a matching his-and-his set, naturally. K was initially a bit concerned about getting them mixed up, until it dawned on us that as they get reset to zero every night, there’s not much point in forming specific attachments. It’s not like toothbrushes. And by the steady stream of texts, e-mails and phone calls I’ve been getting over the last couple of days (“What are you up to? I’m on 3000…“), I think he’s taking it even more seriously than I am. Ah, you can’t beat the competitive spirit.

9370 steps on the first full day, I’ll have you know. Not bad! That belt’s feeling looser already. Excel here we come!

From: K
To: Dymbellina
Subject: A Tree Needs A Poem

Please don’t think this presumptious of me, but last night I was shown a tree which is ripe for a poem. If you think this is a stupid idea, the tree is still worth a detour in the evening.

I was having a drink in The Bell (Market Square) with T– H—– who is Chairman of the Nottingham Wildlife Trust. As we left, he pointed out the tree which is directly in front of the pub door. Initially I couldn’t understand why he was bothering, it just looked like a tree that was beginning to come into blossom like so many other trees at this time of year, the blossoms being on the higher branches. T– insisted that I look again. The tree wasn’t in bloom, it was full of hundreds of Gray Wagtails, all sitting perfectly still. When you look around, you realise that this is the only tree in the city centre in which the birds roost. It turns out that they like to be in the city during winter months because that’s where the insects are during the day. The entire population of Nottingham only ever roosts in this one tree because it is higher than all the others, giving the birds a feeling of safety above the marauding hordes!

Do take a look, they are there from dusk till dawn, remaining perfectly silent and still the whole time so very few people notice them.

Enjoy!

K.

Update: Here are the Grey Wagtails, as of Monday March 22. According to the guy from The Bell, they were a bit thin on the ground this evening; maybe this was due to the warmer weather.