I received an e-mail from my hosting company the other day, telling me that I had exceeded my 200mb space limit. To my surprise, 107mb of those 200mb were taken up by my mailbox.
Butbutbut, I didn’t know I had a mailbox for this domain! I never asked for one! Nobody ever told me I had one!
After much ferreting around, I finally managed to open my mailbox via webmail. Jeepers! There were over 7,700 unread e-mails waiting for me, all addressed to something-or-other at troubled-diva.com!
What’s more, on the very first page of results, there was an incredibly kind and thoughtful e-mail from a reader of this site from over two years ago, and – haha! – an invitation to Belle De Jour’s book launch party, would you believe. Who else had I snubbed? What else had I missed? How many BOOK DEALS and MAGAZINE COLUMNS had I unwittingly thumbed my nose at? What GILDED EXISTENCE had my ignorance cost me?
Obviously, I couldn’t delete any of these e-mails until I had read them. Every last one. Via a clunking webmail interface. With a strict limit of 25 e-mails per screen. Hey, that’s only 308 screens to wade through. Piece of piss.
Two hours and endless spams later – and not having unearthed one other e-mail of any interest whatsoever – I gave up and hit Delete All.
So, if you have ever e-mailed me at troubled-diva.com and wondered why you never received a reply – my sincere apologies.
I have now tweaked my settings such that all future e-mails to the domain will be automatically bounced – and I have moved my real e-mail address up to the top of the sidebar.
(That’s the one with the absolutely top-notch, super-duper, ultra-efficient webmail service – honestly, it’s brilliant, I haven’t touched Outlook in yonks – and the kick-ass spam filter to match. BT/Yahoo, I kiss you.)
Oh dear. They don’t teach you this sort of thing at Blog School, do they?
…and, yes, I think that the rattle must have rolled underneath the sofa. No, that’s fine, I can reach it from here…
Good. Now that the pram has been fully re-furnished with Items of Play, we can bring this popular little series to its conclusion.
Lucie enquired after my holiday reading. Well, since we were only away for five nights, I only completed the one novel – but that in itself is a rare achievement these days. Tell you what: let me list all the books which I have read (and, crucially, completed) this year.
1. Me Talk Pretty One Day – David Sedaris.
Lent to me by J, my flatmate in Hangzhou. Loved it. Hysterical. Howled my head off.
2. Dress Your Family In Corduroy and Denim – David Sedaris.
Bought and consumed immediately upon completion of #1 above. Lunchtimes in the sandwich shops of Canary Wharf wouldn’t have been half so much fun without it.
3. A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian – Marina Lewycka.
Nice retro-style cover art, which meant that it kept catching my eye in the tube. (In the early part of the year, it seemed as if all the nice, I-could-imagine-being-your-friend people on the tube were reading this book at the same time. You know, like Captain Corelli before the film, and that Donna Tartt book from the early 1990s.) Terrific stuff. Finished it on our not-a-honeymoon in the Maldives, and then embarked upon:
4. Johnny Come Home – Jake Arnott.
An early 1970s period piece, with references to gay London life and the commercial end of glam rock – but it was also clear that the author was fractionally too young to have had any of the experiences from himself, so everything felt a fraction too stylised and at one remove. Readable, but ultimately slight and forgettable. Also, the biographical details of the fictional glam rock star were based far too closely upon Gary Glitter (with a dash of Alvin Stardust), which betrayed a slight lack of imagination.
5. Girl With A One Track Mind – Abby Lee.
But of course! Haven’t we all! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: like reading a travel guide to an exotic, far-off destination which you know you’ll never visit. In a word: educational.
6. Nul Points – Tim Moore.
In which Tim Moore, a man with no particular prior interest in Eurovision, sets himself a mission: to track down and interview all of the artists who have scored “nul points” in the contest since Jahn Teigen brought it home for Norway in 1978. The results are a good deal more absorbing, illuminating – and sometimes profoundly disturbing – than he could have imagined, and it is interesting to see these darker undercurrents reveal themselves, subverting the originally intended light comedy, and wiping the smile off Moore’s face. You don’t have to be a Eurovision fan to enjoy this one – and as such, it stands head and shoulders above anything else which has ever been written about the contest.
7. The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger.
And this was the one which I actually read on holiday in Marrakech. Not having genned up on it beforehand, I hadn’t actually realised that it was about, er, a time traveller and his wife. Whoda thought it? Some very clever plotting towards the beginning (I frequently found myself gasping with wonder at the sheer boldness and complexity of it all) eventually gives way to a more conventional – and, to be honest, rather anti-climactic – love story. Fascinating throughout, but some of the later scenes felt as if they had been written on auto-pilot, and the book could have done with more concentration and concision. It felt as if the author had rather knocked herself out in the first half, and couldn’t sustain the required momentum for an equally dazzling second half. But I’m niggling. It was good.
Seven books in one year? Actually, that’s not bad going for me these days. I know, shocking…
Of course, when you pledge to answer any question that your readers might throw at you, there is always a danger that some nutter (in this case, basil) will ask you something like this:
so did jimmy saville ever say jingly jangly er uh er uh er uh er uh?
I despair, I really do.
(Incidentally, there’s only one “l” in “Savile” actually actually I think you’ll find. It’s a common enough error. So don’t go beating yourself up about it, basil.)
To answer your question: I should have thought it fairly unlikely. Although the catchphrase “Er uh er uh er uh er uh” was often heard to pass his lips, I have no recollection of Savile ever using the phrase “jingly jangly” – which was merely an onomatopoeic description, applied by others, of the legendary disc jockey’s ur-bling taste in jewellery.
More interestingly, did you know that Savile has been credited as the first person ever to play records in public using two turntables and a microphone, back in the 1940s? (I gathered this fact from reading one of the best books ever written about popular music: Last Night a DJ Saved My Life, by Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton.)
(Slightly less interestingly, K and I used to know someone who appeared on Jim’ll Fix It in the mid-1980s. Her particular dream-come-true? To sing backing vocals with Paul Young. As dreams-come-true go, it does rather smack of the cut-price. Maybe that’s why they had her on the show.)
Cliff asks: Name your 5 cities INCLUDING songs to go with them.
Working on the assumption that Cliff was looking for a list of my five favourite cities…
1. London. Waterloo Sunset – The Kinks. Need you ask why? Gets me every – and I mean every – time.
2. Barcelona. Barcelona – D.Kay & Epsilon featuring Stamina MC. Because it was a hit while I was working there, and it reminds me of some good nights out in the old town. My boss at the time liked this, and he was a nice guy, so it all ties together.
3. New York. Peace (In The Valley) – Sabrina Johnston. The Saint at Large Halloween Party at the Roseland Ballroom, October 1991. It was my first ever big night out in New York City, and I had accidentally stumbled across one of the major events of the gay social calendar. Sabrina Johnston sang this on stage at around 3am. One of those sometimes-life-is-just-like-the-movies moments.
4. Amsterdam. Amsterdam – Peter Bjorn & John. I’m looking forward to a few more visits in 2007, as my good friend Alan @ Reluctant Nomad will be working over there for 12 months, starting in January. I’m going to miss him horribly, of course – but at least there will be compensations along the way.
5. Stockholm. Once In A Lifetime – Ines. Fond memories of the Best! Eurovision! Disco! Ever! at the Tip Top club, Spring 2000, the year that “Fly On The Wings Of Love” won. Ee, the tales I could tell about that weekend…
patita asks: Any interest in ressurecting postoftheweek.com?
Now, that takes me back. Remember the lively discussion we all had about this in February? Volunteer judges made themselves known, a working party was set up, a site design was implemented… and then… in early May, it all ran out of steam. Mainly because, for my part, Real Life got in the way, big time.
However, now that Real Life is basically back on an even keel, it would be good to pick up where we left off, and to get the site properly launched. To this end, I have just put out a call to re-convene the working party. If all goes well, then I’ll be re-recruiting volunteer judges in the near future – and I’ll be contacting last February’s volunteers, to see if they’re still keen.
It could be a whole heap of fun – it could be a disasterous flop – but unless we give it a bash, we’ll never know, will we?
No, Kate. No, I haven’t. But it’s worse than that.
Many Christmasses ago, I bought the debut novel by Sebastian Faulks – The Girl at the Lion D’Or, newly published in hardback – as a present for my mother. She loved it, and duly complimented me on my selection. We don’t share many cultural interests, and so she must have been delighted that, for once, we had been able to forge a connection.
The only trouble was: I hadn’t read the book, nor indeed anything else by Sebastian Faulks, other than his weekly columns for the Independent On Sunday. It merely had been inspired guesswork on my part. The cover blurb looked promising, the artwork was nice, and I couldn’t readily find any sex or swearing in it. It had said “quality middlebrow read” to me, and so I had taken my chances.
Unable to bluff my way through the literary discussion that my mother seemed intent on initiating, I gently fessed up. No problem. She seemed fine about it.
A few years later, as part of my birthday present, my mother gave me a paperback copy of Faulks’s third novel, Birdsong. She had read it, loved it, and was keen to share her reading pleasure with me. As I appreciatively scanned the back cover, she offered up a brief introduction to the book, and expressed the hope that I would enjoy it as much as she did.
I got about thirty pages in, before giving up. Not because of any deficiencies in the writing, but simply because I am a lazy reader with a tiny concentration span, and had put the book aside for slightly too long. In other words, the moment had passed. It happens quite often.
The next time we met, a few months later, my mother brightly asked me how I had got on with the novel.
Shit. I had completely forgotten, and was totally unprepared. I mumbled something about not having finished it, and quickly changed the subject.
z asks: Mike, honey, what makes you so Good? Not in the saintly sense of course.
Plenty of fresh food in my diet, the love of my man, nice socks, a sunny disposition and an enquiring mind.
OR…
A ready smile, a cute bum, a focus on the other person’s needs, and a great snogging technique.
OR…
Guilt, shame (or the lack of it), displacement activity, a neurotic fear of criticism, a competitive, heirarchical mindset and an ego the size of Leeds.
OR…
Peter Pan Syndrome, Olympic levels of denial, Molton Brown moisturiser and a resolute belief in Nirvana through Shallowness.
Since getting out of medical chokey, I am completely and utterly and dreadfully uninspired by blogging. If I had something better to do with my time, I would do that. But I don’t. So help me, O Diva of the Troubled! What’s inspiring you in the world of blogging (I refuse to say blogosphere, or I may vomit copiously) these days? What should I be reading? What can I simply not miss?
Alas, alas, this is one of the perils of being Ancien Regime; for the days when I used to be able to spot Hot New Blogs before they Made It Big are long gone. These days, I’m more like the clapped-out old rock star who says things like “I’m getting into this great new band called the Kaiser Chiefs, have you heard of them?”
Consequently, all of my newest reads are the same ones that everyone else has been getting into: that chap who takes photographs of a bathmat, that unemployed lady who posts pictures of simian life-forms, that bloke who gets pissed off a lot… all very Hive Mind, I’m afraid.
(But do any of these “inspire” me? No, that would be the wrong word. Many, many blogs have inspired me over the years – not least because I’m a right old imitative bastard at heart – but currently, the bar for UK personal weblog writing is being raised so high that I’m finding myself rather over-awed by it all.)
(I’ll tell you what the above three new-ish blogs do make me feel, though. They make me feel nostalgic. Nostalgic for the days when I was still discovering, on a daily basis, just what I could do with this medium – fired up with energy and enthusiasm, on a roll, breaking rules, taking risks, posting like a madman, and building my audience. There’s a particular phase which a lot of blogs go through, somewhere towards the end of their first year of existence or thereabouts, where it all comes together and you can feel the buzz in the air. It’s a lovely phase, and I enjoy bearing witness to it.)
On the music front, I’ve been enjoying the weekly “In The Dock” feature on The Art Of Noise, which is currently deliberating over whether Birmingham has a musical legacy which is worth defending. It’s particularly refreshing to read a group of people talking about music without ostentatiously parading their knowledge, and without seeking to score points off one another.
However, if I am to target my recommendations specifically at you, dear Witness, then – having briefly paused to check your links page (and I see that Bathmat Boy, Monkey Lady and Furious Fella are already present and correct) – might I direct your attention to The Overnight Editor? I suspect that this will be Your Sort Of Thing… and indeed, many other people’s Sort Of Thing besides.
Pam asks: What is the most embarrassing story you know about somebody else?
It has to be the one about the secret underwear fetishist who forgot to lock the bathroom door at his party. However, if you think I’m going to wantonly violate the Unwritten But Tacitly Accepted Bloggers’ Code in order to peddle a few cheap laughs… well bless my soul, what do you take me for? Away with you, temptress!
(But really, over his head? In front of the mirror? Goodness, how outré.)
Mike, as a gay man well versed in the modern world and this being World AIDS Day and all: what is your opinion on the archaic and, in my opinion, homophobic rule regarding gay men and giving blood? I’ve been on my soap box about this all day at work as the blood doners are coming round and I’m boycotting them.
Oh, lawks. This was supposed to be a bit of light-hearted fluff for a Friday – and now here I am, mentally knackered at the end of a rather trying Tuesday on the mainframe, and faced with the prospect of knocking out another extended essay on a Major Issue. You’ve got me confused with a Deep and Knowledgable Authority Figure Slash Spokesman For His Community, with carefully evaluated opinions on stuff that actually, you know, matters! Hay-ulp!
Although I have always rather shied away from making AIDS-related posts on December 1st (a.k.a. World AIDS Day), this doesn’t mean to say that the day ever passes unremembered. Far from it. However – and perhaps this is surprising for someone of my generation, who came of Gay Age in 1982 – my direct personal experiences with the full-blown illness have been few and far between – and for the most part, they have occurred at one remove. I have never lost a friend to AIDS, and I have never been to the funeral of someone with AIDS. There have just been the occasional slight acquaintances, and friends of friends – and, OK, there was that one guy I slept with after a New Year’s Eve party in the early 1990s, but we only ever met the once, and… you know how it goes, right?
Naturally, I have known (and indeed had sex with) a few HIV+ people over the years – and obviously many more whose positive status has never been made known to me – but (and how can I best put this?) their status has only ever hovered in the background between us: as an abstract piece of information, rather than as a tangible reality which has ever required a more direct personal engagement.
I have always, always practised safer sex, and have never been tempted to lapse. Not that this has been too difficult, given my historic lack of enthusiasm – in either role – for that particular act which is so often held to be virtually synonymous with gay male sexuality.
(In fact, that handy little phrase “Sorry, I don’t have any condoms” has saved me from several potentially awkward situations over the years – and so, if anything, the global tragedy has worked very slightly in my favour. Talk about Survivor’s Guilt.)
And so, as a mere remote observer, I have never quite liked to claim the disease for my own by dredging up some tangential reminiscences, seasoning them with a few well-meant homilies, offering them up on this site, and standing by for compliments in the comments box. It would feel a little stretched, a little forced – and even slightly exploitative. Such matters are best left to those with stories which are truly worth telling, and memories which should never be forgotten.
However, I do have a vivid memory of the screening interview which I attended about six years ago, at my previous place of employment, with the intention of donating my blood – and of the awkward surprise and embarrassment on the face of the rather ill-briefed young nurse, as she falteringly tried to explain why my blood could not be accepted. And yes, I remember feeling a sharp pang of wounded embarrassment of my own. After all, I prided myself on being clued up in such matters. So how could I not have known that all gay men – or indeed any men who had ever had even one same-sex experience, of any nature, no matter how long ago – were still being barred from donating blood, even though all donations were now being screened for possible infection?
Did I feel unfairly discriminated against? Hell, yeah. Any straight person who had ever had unprotected sex could donate, whereas Lil’ Ol’ Goody Two-Shoes Me couldn’t. Where was the fairness in that?
Was it – indeed, is it still – evidence of institutionalised homophobia? In the light of all the recent legislative changes in this country, it is a viewpoint which has progressively become more and more untenable. Not so much homophobic, as hyper-cautious – maybe excessively cautious.
But is this caution truly excessive? Reading the explanatory document “Why we ask gay men not to give blood“, as produced by the UK Blood Transfusion Service, I cannot help but feel that their case is, by and large, a sound one. Yes, all donated blood is screened – but this is not a perfect process, and infected blood can still slip through the net. It’s a tiny risk, but a real one – and so, arguably, any measures which can significantly reduce that risk should be followed, regardless of the feelings of unjustified exclusion which they might cause. After all, what’s more important here: sparing hurt feelings, or saving lives?
Of course, I could always choose to treat this exclusion as evidence of my continued status as a member of an Oppressed Minority – but in this case, I have actively chosen not to do this. In my experience – and counter-assimilationists amongst My People may commence hissing here – the less that we gay men consider ourselves to be marginalised victims, and the more that our social interactions spring from the assumption that we are already fully integrated and equal members of society, then the less that straight society will marginalise and victimise us.
I might be missing some important facts here, and my lurking inner Peter Tatchell would actually quite like to be proved wrong – so, if you know of any compelling counter-arguments which I might have missed, then (ahum) please deposit them in my box. (Now, that’s an invitation you won’t ever hear me issue lightly.)
Dearie dearie me, I really do seem to be losing the power of written expression altogether. Evidence: I spent over an hour and half yesterday evening, penning a mere 120 word blurb on one of my favourite singles of the year, for the forthcoming “Best Singles of 2006” round-up on Stylus. And that’s not counting the time I spent doing the research, either.
So, yeah: the plan was to answer all ten of your questions over the weekend in a fairly quick-and-dirty, rapid-fire manner – but the aforementioned Failing Powers got in the way of doing this. This wasn’t helped by the gargantuan nature of Question Number One, either – in which jo asked:
Has the proliferation of alternative sources for finding and hearing new music such as music blogs, YouTube, Myspace, etc., helped or hindered the populace in the quest to find new music?
Do you think these alternative sources are allowing smaller acts who might not have caught the attention of music scouts or writers previously to promote without the backing of giant label conglomerates – and if so, do you think this has led to a dearth or a surplus of quality music?
Is it simply nostalgia for previous decades that causes us to feel that music from *then* was, in general, better than whatever is *current* – or is it that we simply manage to blot out all the crap that was around *then*, and create a rosy post-image?
Blimey, jo! And, er, Naughty jo! Not only did I say “one question per person only”, but I even said it in bold type, so that no-one could miss it!
OK, so let’s try and answer this one without turning in a 5000 word dissertation on The General State Of Popular Music In 2006. Yeah, fat chance. Brevity has never been my forte.
I’m not sure that I can speak for the general populace, but YouTube and Myspace in particular have certainly made it easier than ever before for people like me to access new music with a minimum of effort. For instance: the last time that I posted a list of my favourite tunes, I was able to add helpful illustrative YouTube and/or Myspace links for all of them – and in 11 cases out of 20, I was able to supply both. This wouldn’t have happened 12 months ago, and I most certainly welcome it.
These days, I regularly use both sites in order to decide which gigs and albums I should review, or whether it’s worth turning up early to catch the support act. If I read of a new song or act on a website, or a message board, or in the print media, I can be listening to that song in seconds – and because the content is being streamed rather than downloaded to my hard drive, nobody seems to mind. This makes for a more reliable – and more ethically defensible – alternative to peer-to-peer file-sharing sites, which I only access in cases of dire need. (Compare and contrast with the trigger-happy days of Napster and Audiogalaxy.)
All of this has to be set against my declining interest in old media – both print and broadcast – as reliable sources of information. Radio One is a hyper-active, unlistenable racket; I’m still (just) too hip for Radio Two; and as I don’t own a digital radio and can’t stream live audio at work, 6 Music has yet to become a regular listen – even though it is clearly the station which most closely matches my needs. In fact – and in a highly unexpected reversal of roles – it’s now K who relies on the radio for most of his new CD purchases, as he is a long-standing fan of Radio 3’s Late Junction, and he frequently uses the “Listen Again” service in tandem with the archived playlists on the show’s website.
Meanwhile, Top of the Pops and CD:UK have vanished, Popworld is as nothing without Simon Amstell at the helm, and I can never get it together to set the Sky box for all those late-late-night Channel 4 music shows. Which just leaves Jools Holland’s Later, which will occasionally – very occasionally – throw something new in my direction.
As for the music press: Uncut and the NME are shadows of their former selves, Q and Mixmag are comics for people who don’t really like music, Mojo is overly heavy on the retro, The Wire is impenetrably “difficult” for a shallow soul like me, Straight No Chaser is indiscriminately nice about everybody and everything, which makes it an untrustworthy guide… which leaves Plan B (excellent in its way, but mostly far too indie for my personal tastes), The Word (trendy vicar stuff for the most part, but I have long since learnt to live with my inner Mark Ellen), The Guardian on a Friday (but please don’t get me started on the questionable merits of Alexis “Man at C&A” Petridis) and the Observer Music Magazine once a month (probably my favourite read of the lot, despite having its own fair share of horrors: that “Record Doctor” of theirs should be struck off the register forthwith, for instance). Oh, and there’s always fRoots and Songlines – both excellent in their way, but somehow they have never become essential purchases.
All of this means that, thanks to the likes of the ILM message board, webzines like Stylus and MP3 blogs like the ever-reliable Fluxblog, the web is now by far and away my main source of information regarding new music – and I should imagine that applies to many thousands of others. Do I think that’s a healthy, democratising, liberating shift of emphasis, which enables people to make a freer set of personal choices? Absolutely. Much as I regret the passing of the Top 40 as a mass-consensus barometer of popular taste, I’d rather have things this way round. Maybe that’s partly why my tolerance for music radio has diminished; why should I endure five consecutive crap songs in order to discover one good song, when I could be assembling my own playlists instead?
Has all of this helped smaller acts to flourish? Absolutely. I cannot recall a time when live music in this country was in such a healthy state – or maybe it’s just a local upswing, and I’m just lucky enough to have access to six excellent venues, catering for all sizes of audience, and all within 15 minutes walk from my front door.
Has this led to a dearth or a surplus of quality music? A moot point. It has been a particularly rubbish year for the singles and album charts, with the intelligent and innovative new pop and R&B of the first half of the decade increasingly giving way to identikit faux-rebellious “corporate indie” bands, dreary singer-songwriters, and a iredeemably fossiled slurry of creatively bankrupt commercial dance tunes. So, in order to get to the good stuff, you really do have to make a bit of an effort – but once you do (and really, it’s not that great an effort) – there’s as much good stuff out there as ever.
As for jo’s “are we just giving in to rose-tinted nostalgia, or was music really better in the old days” question: it’s problematic, as…
a) The popular music of our formative years will generally cut deeper than anything we will ever experience in adult life, for reasons which shouldn’t need spelling out.
b) Old music tends to feel more “significant” than new music, as it accumulates depth and weight over time.
c) I genuinely do believe that the singles charts were objectively at their best between 1964 and 1984, with “golden ages” from 1964 to 1966, and again from 1979 to 1982. But that’s just the singles charts. Once you look beyond the commercially popular, the seemingly “good” years and “crap” years even themselves out to a much greater degree.
Extended ramble over, or else we’ll be here all night.
(I’d cop out and do you a vidcast instead, but I sense a looming backlash in the air.)
Marrakech was lovely. Next to no street hassles (we dressed smartly, which helped), a beautiful Marrakech riad (I promised the nice Dutch owners that I’d bestow the gift of Googlejuice), good shopping (once you leave the souks), stylish restaurants (Dar Moha and Foundouk were our favourites), pleasant weather (fractionally too cool to sunbathe, hence perfect for wandering about)… ack, holiday-blogging, who needs it? But thank you for your recommendations; many of them were acted upon. (Ooh, that Yves St Laurent cactus garden was lov-er-ley.)
I have taken up a new hobby. It is called Reading Books. They might be the next big thing after vidcasts – but they do take rather a long time to read, when you could be skim-reading blogs instead, and it’s difficult to read them at work, so maybe not.
The tired-all-the-time syndrome is improved, but it hasn’t altogether disappeared. However, Positive Steps are being taken, so fret not.
A couple of weeks ago, I took a couple of sick days, with what I took to be a viral infection. Constant fatigue, aching limbs – but no other symptoms. It passed, and I returned to work.
In the last few days, the fatigue has returned – but in a more subtle way, that I can’t really attribute to a virus. I go to bed at a sensible time, sleep for 8 or 9 hours – and wake up feeling as tired as when I went to bed.
During the day, everything feels like an effort – even the most straightforward of everyday tasks, even getting up from my desk to make a cup of tea. Give you an example: even when busting for a pee, I’ll stay at my desk until I’m absolutely desperate – because I can’t even be bothered to go upstairs to the loo.
And it’s not only fatigue. My piles have flared up; a couple of days ago, I was in severe pain just walking home from work. I’m back on the bum bullets and the prescription gel. They’re under control now, but I’m having to be careful.
The eczema on both ankles has also flared up. I’ve had to buy betnovate, a eczema cream to treat them, every day for two weeks. It brings the eczema under control, but not to the point where it actually vanishes.
I went to the dentist today. The “nasty” area around my bottom left cavity has been giving me grief. The dentist says it’s the early stages of gum disease, to be treated with a high-powered mouthwash to stop it spreading and doing damage.
Work has been tough for the past few months. I’m been out of my comfort zone all year. Every new task involves areas which are largely new to me, and the information which I need isn’t readily available. The work is difficult, but not unsurmountably so. It’s just taking a lot of will power to apply myself.
I started the year in China. Shortly after returning, I started commuting to London. For five months, I lived out of a suitcase. Keeping on top of things at home was another struggle, when all I wanted to do was flop out. In the middle of it all, K lost his sister. He has needed a lot of support, and so has his family.
Outside of work, I have taken on a considerable amount of freelance music journalism work. I’ve reviewed nearly thirty gigs, over a dozen albums, several dozen singles, and the Eurovision Song Contest in Athens. Most weeks during the Autumn, I’ve been doing two gigs a week, sometimes three.
So the physical problems that I’m experiencing: as K gently pointed out this evening, they have to be stress-related. I may not be climbing the walls with stress, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not taking a steady toll.
Mercifully – and I have last year’s cognitive behavioural therapy course to thank for this – none of this has led the sort of depressive relapse which plagued me in the last half of 2004. I’m proud of this fact. Sure, there has been the odd wobble – but nothing which I haven’t been able to challenge and rationalise.
Next week, we’ll be on holiday, in gentle, tranquil, relaxing… Marrakech. Hahahahaha! But hey, a change is as good as a rest. I can’t wait, and neither can he.
In amongst all the helpful comments which people have left me (see next post down), these two (from Boz) have particularly struck me.
“Expect to get lost – but don’t mind if you do. Going with the flow is part of the fun.”
“All the traders will be out for your money, but actually, it’s part of the craic. Pretend you’re Indiana Jones.”
Excellent and much needed advice – because, by default, both situations could all too easily stress us out. I shall bear them in mind, Boz.
And finally, and just before I retire for the night: in amongst all the madness, we’ve still found time to cultivate a garden which looked like this, just before the village gardens open day in June. (It’s a professionally taken photograph, which may be appearing in a garden design book some time next year. I’ll tell you when I know more.)
I’m proud of this, as well.
In fact, I’m proud of the way that I’ve handled a lot of situations this year.
Yesterday, K declined an invitation to be photographed – in his guise as “prominent local businessman” – for a promotional campaign that would have seen his beaming visage plastered all over town: billboards, bus stops, public transport, the full works.
His reasons for turning the offer down were reasonable enough: he wasn’t dolled up in the requisite business drag, and in any case, he has people to do that sort of thing on his behalf these days. Besides, there’s only room for the one media whore in our household.
Whilst applauding his modesty, I couldn’t help but experience a slight twinge of regret. God, the mileage I could have extracted from that one…
“My boyfriend’s got a face like the back of a bus! Quite literally! Look, over there!“
1. once and never again – the long blondes (video) 2. let’s call it off – peter bjorn & john (audio) (video) 3. let’s get out of this country – camera obscura (audio) (video) 4. take me back to your house – basement jaxx (video) 5. last night i nearly died – duke special (audio) (video) 6. nothing’s gonna change your mind – badly drawn boy (audio) (video) 7. rehab – amy winehouse (audio) (video) 8. myspace – chicks on speed (audio) 9. ice cream – new young pony club (audio) (video) 10. beware of the dog – jamelia (video) 11. idlewild blue (don’t chu worry ’bout me) – outkast (audio) (video) 12. lovelight – robbie williams (audio) (video) 13. this is not real love – george michael featuring mutya (audio) 14. here in your arms – hellogoodbye (audio) (video) 15. magick – klaxons (audio) (video) 16. alala – cansei de ser sexy (video) 17. something kinda ooh – girls aloud (audio) (video) 18. herculean – the good the bad and the queen (audio) (live video) 19. standing in the way of control – the gossip (audio) (video) 20. no pussy blues – grinderman (a.k.a. nick cave) (audio)
I do make a rod for my own back sometimes. This post has been hanging over me like an overdue homework assignment, and I’m rapidly approaching the Can’t Be Arsed stage with it. So here goes – but quickly now – and then we can all move on with our lives.
Immediately upon arriving at my friends’ house in Clapham – three and a half pints down, and beginning to wilt – I was informed that I was going to Duckie, and that I had better get a move on, as they were already waiting for me at Kazbar. Having successfully negotiated a brief top-changing window (nice smart Paul Smith stripey shirt OFF; interesting glow-in-the-dark Camembert Electrique T-shirt ON – it’s the only vaguely “rock and roll” garment I possess, providing you don’t peer too closely at the hippy-dippy graphic), I was summarily bundled back out onto the street, with barely even time to snatch a burger. Still, being told I’d been guest-listed put a spring in my step.
“Guest listed for Duckie!”, I texted to K, with the customary glee which I reserve for such nano-triumphs. Duckie is the only gay club EVER, in nearly a quarter of a century of being made to suffer them, which K has genuinely enjoyed. (There had to be somewhere.) That’s probably because a) they don’t play “dance” music, b) nobody’s cruising (at least not so as you’d notice), so there’s none of that brittle, competitive sexual tension, c) tops are kept firmly ON, d) it’s relaxed, friendly and mostly 30+ (at least), e) there are no vicious, self-adoring, sociopathic disco bunnies bouncing around on f**king E. I wish we could go more often.
As we walked in, the Readers Wifes were playing my second favourite single of the year so far: Peter Bjorn and John‘s “Young Folks”. GOOD sign.
In the middle of what passes for the dancefloor, Amy Lamé was making popcorn from a little machine that she picked up from Argos during the week, and was handing it out in plastic bowls. (“Why am I doing it? Because we’ve been running this club for eleven f**king years and I’ve run out of ideas, OKAY?”)
Cabaret Act #1 performed a routine that was vaguely based around The Phantom of the Opera. Gothic burlesque, you could have called it. A bunch of red roses was seized; the petals were bitten off, chewed up and spat out over our eagerly upturned faces; and the remaining stems were contemptuously tossed away, most of them landing smack in my face. (The honour!) Upper clothing was removed, leaving a pair of red love hearts, one covering each bosom. A large crimson candle was brandished and dangled above the performer’s bare midriff, so that a third love heart could be etched upon her skin with the molten wax. Ooh! Aah! Hey, that’s actually quite pretty!
Next, a tourniquet was applied to the performer’s upper arm, a syringe inserted, and a blood sample extracted. (I couldn’t look. I’ve got a thing about needles). The blood was then squirted into a half-full wine glass, stirred, and greedily gulped down. Erk! Eek! But hold up, we’re not done yet!
Lower clothing (such as it was) was removed, revealing – you guessed it – a fourth love heart, protecting what little remained of the performer’s modesty.
It was at this point that we noticed the string.
As the soundtrack changed to “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend”, and even before a collective “Uh-oh!” could be muttered, the performer grabbed the string and yanked it downwards – extracting a length of large, threaded beads from her hoo-hah as she did so.
It swiftly occurred to me that this was only the second time in my life that I had been presented with a lady’s hoo-hah at such close quarters – and that the first time had also been at a Duckie event, when Ursula Martinez had extracted a string of brightly coloured handkerchiefs from her “special place”. Really, the place is an education.
Cabaret Act #2, a slender, bare-chested androgyne of indeterminate ethnicity (if pressed, I’d plump for Flipino), who had previously performed at Caesar’s Palace and the Brixton Academy, proceeded to thrill us all with the most remarkable display of hula-hoop-manship that any of us are ever likely to see. To the strains of CCS’s cover of “Whole Lotta Love” (used as the theme tune for Top of the Pops for most of the 1970s), he/she worked that hoop like a whirling dervish, spinning it from every limb, and at every angle, at dazzling speed – and somehow managing to avoid hitting the ceiling, the walls, and indeed us (it was a very small stage, and a very large hula hoop). Ooh, we went mental – all lingering memories of vaginal bead extraction banished, as we cheered him/her to the rafters.
The music was – as ever – eclectic, seemingly random, but never obscure (I recognised everything they played, even that “modern” one by The Fratellis) , and always perfectly chosen. Forget the Guilty Pleasures aesthetic; although many of the choices would have overlapped, their context was quite different. For the final run, we gave it up to: “Living Thing” (ELO), “Cannonball” (The Breeders), “Justified and Ancient” (The KLF with Tammy Wynette), “Teenage Kicks” (The Undertones) and “Get Down” (Gilbert O’Sullivan). As I say: perfect.
The day’s total damage: seven pints of lager and one can of Red Bull – but spread out over eleven hours, allowing plenty of time for absorption and processing. At forty-four, I don’t do shit-faced. So unbecoming in the slightly older gentleman.
1. Seen the Puppini Sisters, at a Halloween “burlesque” evening down The Social.
This was one of those nights when I find myself thinking, “Writing teeny-tiny gig reviewlets for t’local paper: is it really worth standing around in the oppressive heat, for hours on end, bored and restless, and unable to pass the time by drinking more than the statutory maximum of two pints of lager (even half a pint extra, and Drunkard’s Block sets in; been there, tried that, got the shit article to prove it), when the headline act in question turns out to as underwhelming as this lot?”
I’d say more – but I know you don’t come here for the music, so I shan’t. Suffice it to say that the Puppini Sisters – an immaculately coiffed and maquillaged trio of not-actually-siblings, who specialise in mixing Andrews Sisters standards with Andrews-ified novelty covers of modern pop numbers (Wuthering Heights, Heart Of Glass, Panic), who would have been fine as a three-minute interlude on a TV chat show, and might have been OK in a swishy cabaret bar, with proper chairs and tables and waiters and stuff – were utterly unsuited to performing in a packed, sweaty rock venue, at half past eleven on a Tuesday night, to a glammed-up but rapidly wilting crowd whose Halloweeny goodwill had been gradually eroded by a succession of alternately amateurish and ill-matched support acts, and by a tedious and unjustifiable forty-five minute wait with nothing to do except get into fractious arguments with each other (just behind us), or faint (just in front of us).
(Did you enjoy that last sentence? I know I did.)
Anyhow, Alan at Reluctant Nomad (currently enjoying his second massive traffic spike in a month, and really quite the belle of the Internet these days, not that it will change him in any way, oh dear me no, although 18,000 page views in a day would certainly turn my head, at least just a little) has posted his own report – and also some photos of the sexy ginger-haired double bass player, who made our ordeal so much more bearable. (Note: Don’t get too excited. He was heaps better in the flesh.)
2. Collapsed in a heap in front of the telly for two days.
Finding myself possessed of an overhwelming desire to be horizontal, with an achey breaky bod to match, I promptly excused myself from all professional commitments, and spent a perversely agreeable couple of days watching old movies, in a fuzzed-out swoon of grateful surrender.
(Best movie: The Card, starring Alec Guinness. Biggest let-down: Our Man In Havana, also starring Alec Guinness. Those afternoon schedulers on TCM and More4 sure do be liking their Alec Guinness movies.)
3. Had a Good Old Fashioned Big Gay Night Out In Nottingham.
“Oh! I’m in town on a Friday night! Oh, and K’s away! Well, I must Go Out On The Scene, then! It’s my duty! I’m not ready for the knacker’s yard just yet, ha ha! Maybe they’ll play the Scissor Sisters! Maybe I’ll dance! Maybe someone will flirt with me! Even though I’ve got my specs on! Or “cruising shields”, as I call them, ha ha! Not that I care one way or the other, of course! I’m beyond all that!”
Thus did I rage against the dying of the light. At some length. With Belle of the Internet Alan (“Whoops, Mind My Spike!”) and Nurse Alan – and special guest TGI Paul, up from London for the weekend.
4. Attended a Big Old Birthday Blogmeet in London.
I really must stop getting totally bladdered on the night before “society” blogmeets, such as the one held in honour of Andre‘s 40th birthday, last Saturday afternoon/evening. That way, I wouldn’t have to spend the first hour telling everyone how knackered I was and how little sleep I’d had, and that I was “running on empty”, and “faking it”. No-one likes to be told that the person they’re talking to is “faking it”, do they?
However, by setting expectations of social fabulousness at rock bottom, I was actually freeing myself from the anxiety which they could have induced. This turned out to be quite an effective strategy, and one which I could usefully bear in mind for the future.
And so, one pint of lager later, and thus restored to full functionality, I was working the room like the hoary old tart that I am. Damn, but it was great to see some of my bestest blogpals again – and equally, to meet others for the first time. It was a good mix in that respect – and, indeed, in every respect.
Shall we do a roll-call? Or will it just turn into one of those icky displays of linky-love, that can be so off-putting when you don’t know the people concerned?
Nah, let’s do a roll-call. In alphabetical order, so that people don’t start reading things into randomness. (We’re a sensitive bunch.) Off we go!
Abby “One Track” Lee. “I don’t know what I should be calling her”, someone said to me during the course of the afternoon. “Do I say Abby, or [real name], or Girl, or what?”
“Well, Andre calls her One Track. Why not go with that?”
As was only right and proper, One Track and I got to share a couple of agreeably fruity exchanges along the way. One was at my instigation, involved webcams, and contained the punchline “So what was I supposed to do: reply to them with my nose?” More than that, I am not at liberty to divulge. You’ll have to invent your own middle bit.
The other was at One Track’s instigation, and concerned itself with the lamentable lack of lube-awareness within the heterosexual community. (I didn’t realise that it was ever required for front-door action – but then, why would I? My sexual knowledge operates mainly on a need-to-know basis.)
On my return journey, I noticed that One Track’s worthy little tome is currently at Number Two in the “best sellers” display at the St. Pancras station branch of WH Smith. Awesome or what!
Andre Revolution. Birthday Boy Andre was showered with cards and compact-sized gift-ettes – a “Head Boy” badge here, a freshly laid farm egg there – and from me, a hand-crafted CD entitled (wait for it) A Beautiful Compilation. (My days of sighing semi-recumbence were not entirely unproductive, then.)
If you would like to assemble your own copy of A Beautiful Compilation, then you will need the following ingredients.
1. I Started A Blog Nobody Read – Sprites 2. Lloyd, I’m Ready To Be Heartbroken – Camera Obscura 3. Young Folks – Peter, Bjorn & John 4. Casanova In Hell (live) – Pet Shop Boys featuring Rufus Wainwright 5. Everybody Wants A Little Something – Duke Special 6. Long Way Round – Badly Drawn Boy 7. Once I Was – Tim Buckley 8. Everything I Cannot See – Charlotte Gainsbourg 9. The Greatest – Cat Power 10. She’s Gone – The Hidden Cameras 11. Giddy Stratospheres – The Long Blondes 12. The Decision – The Young Knives 13. Oops! I Did It Again (live) – Richard Thompson 14. Uncertain Smile – The The 15. Tower Of Song – Leonard Cohen 16. Crazy – Gnarls Barkley 17. Hey Man (Now You’re Really Living) – Eels 18. If It Feels Good, Do It – Della Reese 19. The Only Way Is Up – Otis Clay 20. What A Wonderful World – Nick Cave & Shane MacGowan
(Yes, an “emotional journey”. Well spotted, you.)
Anna P Boat. Anna had a box of those little mini-photo-card things that you can get done off Flickr, and I have to say that they were absolutely gorgeous. I’ve never quite got the appeal of Flickr (especially when people stick Flickr pics on their blogs – they’re so SLOW), but these little card things were enough to make me want to go off and take hundreds of photos, like, tomorrow or something.
Ann Pixeldiva. Last time I saw Pix, it was in a “jazz curry” joint at Archway. We didn’t chat for long enough this time, but you know how these things can be.
Anxious. (whose write-up is here) I’ve been following Status Anxiety ever since the previous time we met (over a year ago), so Anxious was one of the people that I was particularly looking forward to seeing. We talked about all sorts, including – what else? – that ole devil called Anxiety. (She actually comes across as rather self-assured in real life, lest you should think otherwise. But I don’t want to burst any bubbles. Invisible inner anx is still anx. Hell, I should know.)
Cheerful One. (who refers to the event, albeit obliquely, here) I might be wrong, but Cheerful One was the only person at the meet that I don’t recall even so much as saying “Hello” to. Bah! It’s always the ones that get away that come back to haunt you…
Clare Boob Pencil. Clare told us a long and involved story concerning her train journey to London, a sewing kit, various defective items of clothing, and a number of costume changes in the train’s toilets. A little while later, she re-emerged in a different top. Is this evidence of some sort of compulsive costume changing syndrome?
Damian of Our Albion and Universal Critic. (whose write-up is here) We had quite a long chat – but I was three pints down by that stage, and my memory had switched to RealPlayer streaming mode.
Girl on a Train. She was on that bit of the table that I never quite managed to infiltrate, so we didn’t do much more than wave and smile at each other.
Greavsie. (who avoids the subject here) He got caught in the crossfire of my self-instigated and unpublishable webcam-related exchange with One Track – but coped with it manfully, I thought. Unlike someone else, of whom more in a bit…
Hydragenic. Hg has been a Gentleman of Leisure for most of this year. I deeply envy his freedom, and the the unflustered serenity which it seems to have elicited.
JonnyB. (whose write-up is here) We talked about blog sponsorship, and the Googlejuice which a carefully placed hyperlink can induce. (Until I linked to K’s company’s website with the words “canine cancer” the other day, the site was languishing in the 40s for the term in question. A couple of days later, it had shot up to fourth position. We bloggers don’t always know what we’re sitting on.)
Later on, as One Track and I steered our lube-based discussion onto foreskin-related territory (do circumcised cocks need more lube than uncut cocks?), something inside this sheltered East Anglian diarist cracked. Why, you could have heard his howl of trapped anguish all the way up to Covent Garden tube. How unlike the stoic sang froid demonstrated by Greavsie (see above). We do put our str8 boyz through the mill sometimes!
Karen Uborka, Pete Dot Nu and Baby Bernard. As has been well documented, Baby Bernard could be said to owe his very existence to a blogmeet. The first baby of British blogging looked thrilled to be amongst us all, and gurgled merrily throughout. The cutest and most sunny-natured baby you ever did see – and I don’t even like babies, so I speak without prejudice in this matter.
Leonie. (whose write-ups are here and here) Again, we didn’t really get past the nodding and smiling stage. She really is a very lovely looking lady, though. Is it OK to say that? Well, she is, dammit! I’m a big old poof-arse, I can say these things.
Mark Britblog–Technoranki. “Are you here to arrange us all into alphabetical order?”, I quipped, facetiously. Mark has just taken his fledgling Technoranki service to the next level – meaning that those of us Britbloggers who have registered with the site and added his thingy to our template now get a nice little PageRank graphic, and the chance to qualify for the Technoranki Top 200 chart. And as you should all know by now, I ain’t half a sucker for a good chart. Especially one that puts me at Number… well, never mind about that.
Meg P Meish. “I felt like a Betamax in a room full of DVDs“, says the pioneering first-waver whom I have come to regard as the Dowager Duchess of British blogging. No, no, no. As Damian says in her comments box: Meg is like vinyl in a sea of MP3s. Wish she’d stayed longer; it had been ages, and I fancied a good long chat.
Mimi in New York. Accompanied by her intrepid polar explorer boyfriend, and looking dazzling in a white woollen dress, Mimi was the afternoon’s surprise guest. We could have chatted for much longer, were it not for the impertinent demands of a lager-swollen bladder (on my part) and the lure of Borat (on her part). We talked about her forthcoming book, and of the difficulties of sticking to one’s literary guns when others would rather you dumbed down and sexed up.
Non-Working Monkey. (who briefly mentions the occasion here) “Oh, you’re Non-Working Monkey!”, I exclaimed, brightly. “You’re quite the Hot Blog of the moment, aren’t you? Everyone keeps saying how good you are, and linking to you, and…”
“AAAARGH!”, she squirmed, with what I took to be equal measures of embarrassment and delight. “Will people STOP SAYING THAT!”
Shiz good though, intshi? Are you reading her yet? Everybody else is!
Petite Anglaise. (whose write-up is here) After Petite appeared on Richard and Judy a few months ago, we enjoyed a little e-mail exchange, during which she admitted that she “had kittens in the dressing room”. As I reminded her, I then spent a full twenty-four hours thinking that Petite really did have real, live kittens in her dressing room, in best Mariah Carey diva-style – until K gently suggested that maybe, just maybe, she was using a figure of speech. I can be worryingly literal-minded at times.
Rachel Frizzy-Logic. We talked world music, as we usually do, and I said “Have you heard of Tartit?” At which point, our high-minded cultural exchange somewhat collapsed in on itself. Hee hee, Tartit! Their new album’s good, though…
Unlucky Man. Had to disappear early, due to reasons amply documented elsewhere. The “living up to the name of his blog” gag has been done as well. Hey ho!
Over at collaborative music blog The Art Of Noise, the second of their “In The Dock” features sees Eurovision being prosecuted (by drmigs), and defended by… well, who do you think?
Having studied the cases for the prosecution and the defence, you are then invited to leave your verdict in the comments box. I won’t say any more than that, in case I am accused of unduly influencing the jury – but I think we all know where the balance of justice lies in this instance, don’t we? I SAID, DON’T WE?
“The new Madonna album is, essentially, and provided you edit out all the usual aren’t-I-just-so-uniquely-fascinating fame-is-such-a-headf**k me-me-me-ness of the lyrics, one great big, non-stop-segued, spangly-disco-balled, glad-rags-on, hands-in-the-air, yo-DJ-pump-this-party, we’re-all-in-this-crazy-ship-together, ooh-these-are-good-ones, Christ-he’s-smiling-back-have-I-pulled-or-what, sod-the-attitude-let’s-SCREAM, (well-OK-just-a-little-bit-of-attitude-then), most entrancingly transiently transcendentally meltingly beltingly everything-just-SO, sometimes-life-is-just-like-the-movies, move-over-losers-Miss-THING-has-come-to-town Saturday Night Out of the year.”
K starts his own moblog. (Now long defunct. Some of us just don’t have the staying power.)
“Nice, aren’t they?”
“They’re gorgeous. But Mike, what are you supposed to do with them?”
“Oh, you just have to love them.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
Walking the Forest Path: a weekend ramble in the Derbyshire Peak District is blogged at great length, over several episodes. Buried within the wildlife descriptions is a major nugget of news.
Frizzy diva! Amdist much discussion of “what is mauve” and “what is puce”, qB creates an exciting new bespoke shade.
A three-column layout is trialled, and swiftly withdrawn.
“And you may ask yourself: how did I get here?” Troubled Diva becomes a finalist in the Best Poof category at the grandly titled Weblog Awards 2005, where it finds itself in distinctly gung-ho, yee-hah, right wing company.
The final nail is hammered into the coffin of my unreconstructed 1980s student politics radical chic. (Look, it was a drag hunt, OK?) All of my newly acquired gung-ho, yee-hah friends must have loved that one…
Tom Worstall’s 2005 Blogged anthology is reviewed – needless to say, at some length.
The Sum Of All Years meme requires me to pen a year-by-year autobiography, in which the number of words for each year matches my age at that time.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
After drunkenly attempting to channel the spirit of Jarvis Cocker at a karaoke evening in a lesbian pub, the only honourable course of action is to leave the country. I therefore spend the next three weeks – including Christmas and New Year’s Eve – working in the Chinese city of Hangzhou.
My time in Hangzhou gets off to a wobbly start, all alone in a freezing apartment, but improves immeasurably once I acquire a flatmate (J, now in London, still reading the blog).
What would it be like if I really did “just do it for myself, and if anyone else happens to like it, that’s a bonus”? To find out, Troubled Diva Xtra is semi-secretly launched.
The Cognitive Behavioural Therapy sessions are concluded.
Following a meeting with the deputy editor, the Nottingham Evening Post invites me to join its team of freelance music reviewers.
After a couple of weeks’ inactivity, a gig is secured with a new London-based client. Apparently, I am to spend “between four and six weeks” working in Canary Wharf. Little did I know that this was to expand to five months…
February 2006.
“Post of the Week” is discontinued – but plans are made to set it up on a dedicated site. Sadly, the planning fizzles out during the spring, as other commitments get in the way…
Troubled Diva is a finalist at the European Satin Pajama Awards (hosted by Fistful of Euros), in the category of Best Personal Weblog.
The London Phase commences, with four or five nights a week being spent at the Britannia Hotel at Canary Wharf. Sunday evenings see me at Horsemeat Disco in Vauxhall; Wednesday nights are spent at Get Yer Kecks Off And Win A Hundred Quid Nite at the White Swan in Limehouse. Other than that, I’m out every night – more often than not, with friends that I have made through blogging. So it wasn’t all just shouting into the void, then. Never have I felt more grateful of the social blessings which the medium has bestowed.
Meanwhile, and inevitably, blogging itself becomes decidedly thin on the ground.
(Note to self: one of these days, when you’re no longer concerned about maintaining any sort of reputation whatsoever, tell them about The Night Of The Five Cs.)
My 44th birthday is spent at an alt.gay.goth-slash-industrial night, with my middle-aged gut squeezed into tight leather kecks, having balloons filled with laughing gas shoved down my mouth while dancing to It’s A Sin by the Pet Shop Boys. How deliciously age-inappropriate!
K buys me an exercise bike for my birthday. Shamefully, it is still sitting in the entrance hall, inside the box that it came in.
March 2006.
The month begins with two diametric opposites. At the White Swan, Ian and I witness a sixty-something Latvian transvestite called Viola do a full strip-tease. The following night, I meet qB for exceedingly posh nosh at a sleek Conran joint: the Plateau Bar & Grill. This is just the sort of contradictory existence which I love.
Down at the BBC Television Centre, I attend the live recording of Making Your Mind Up, in which the UK’s Eurovision entry is selected. Following this joyous re-absorption into the Eurovision brotherhood, I become a regular at the monthly Douze Points nights at the Retro Bar.
Pop Quiz Theme Week sees David (ex-Swish Cottage) and I winning the Retro Bar quiz – and lumbering ourselves with a drunken madwoman “team mate” in the process, who develops a worrying habit of knocking our drinks over and falling off her chair. A couple of nights later, the I Love Music message board crowd holds their own music quiz, which our team is winning… until I have to leave early, at which point the lead crumbles. (Not boasting! Just saying!)
My cousin, who is a Something at the House of Commons, gives me a personal, access-all-areas, in-depth guided tour of the Palace of Westminster. We nip out onto the roof, where I stand only a few feet away from the illuminated clock tower of Big Ben. In the main debating chamber of the Commons, I stand at the dispatch box and pretend that I am running the country. Shortly afterwards, we have a drink in the suprisingly poky Members’ Bar, rubbing shoulders with the Honourable Members. I find myself in utter awe of the mad Gothic splendour of the place.
Loving London. Absolutely loving it. But then, I thought my time down there was nearly up…
April 2006.
With my stay extended for an indefinite period, being out every night starts to lose some of its initial sparkle. Down at Canary Wharf, I am showing signs of becoming assimilated into the matrix – why, I’ve got the “business casual” T.M. Lewin shirts, and everything.
I am interviewed live on BBC Radio Nottingham for a second time, talking about blogging again – but at considerably greater length, and with considerably greater articulacy and confidence. My contribution is made at the BBC studios in Westminster, which is frankly pretty bloody exciting (especially when I accidentally blunder into the ITN newsroom).
A jolly little mini-blogmeet is hosted in Soho, at the Duke of Argyll on Brewer Street.
A stag weekend – incorporating another jolly little mini-blogmeet – is held in Manchester, starting in the Northern Quarter and ending (where else?) on Canal Street. It is by no means a typical stag weekend; we spend the afternoon shopping for outfits in Selfridges, and I have invited GIRLS out for the night as well.
On Friday April 28th, K and I register our civil partnership. Or, as I put it late that night, I’M FOOKIN MARRIED!!! Friends join us for early-doors drinks; this is followed by a lavish multi-course banquet for our respective immediate families.
That we should have lived to see the day.
The following afternoon, we fly off to the Maldives for a blissfully relaxing not-a-honeymoon-actually in a tropical island paradise.
2006 is fast shaping up to be the best year of my life.
May 2006.
Just five days after returning from the Maldives, I fly off to Athens, where I am to be covering this year’s Eurovision Song Contest all week, on behalf of Slate magazine in the USA. As a member of the official press pack, I get access to the rehearsals, the press conferences and the parties, along with a massive bunch of fellow journalists fellow fans on the blag. This is the week which I have been looking forward to for well over a year, and it doesn’t disappoint – although filing my daily dispatches proves to be my most challenging writing assignment to date, by a long long way…
…not least when my laptop irretrievably crashes, just as I am mailing my first article to my editor, and forcing me to a) blag a higher level accreditation (already once denied me), so that I can use the PCs in the press centre, and b) re-write the entire article from scratch, immediately and without delay. (It had taken me over four hours to write it the first time round.) One of the most stressful days of my life – I finished the evening drenched in sweat, not having eaten since breakfast time – but also one of the most fulfilling, as the re-written article was a significant improvement upon the original.
However, I omit to mention the news which I have received by telephone from K in the UK that morning. K’s sister – whom we only saw a couple of weeks earlier, at our civil partnership – has suffered a massive stroke, and is in intensive care.
This casts a long shadow over the long-awaited finals night. I drink myself through it, stay up all night at the winners’ press conference and the after-party… and generally rely on Denial to see me through.
Upon returning to the UK on the Monday, I learn that all hope for K’s sister’s survival has been extinguished. In the meantime, my fourth and final Slate article has – has – to be written. It takes me all day, and I miss my last train. This is when I realise that professional journalism is no walk in the park.
By the time I make it to K’s parents’ house on the Tuesday, M is dead.
I am still working three days a week in London – when I should be at home, supporting K.
2006 is no longer the happiest year of my adult life.
July 2006.
My five months in London come to an end – but not before I have been reunited with a school friend who I haven’t seen in over 30 years, a cousin in his thirties who I haven’t seen since he was an infant… and J, my flatmate from Hangzhou who is now working for the same client in Canary Wharf.
Oh, and there is the week where every evening seems to start with complementary glasses of champagne at some Do or other… and my introduction to the ABSOLUTELY BLOODY FANTASTIC Phoenix Arts Club on Charing Cross Road (one of London’s last outposts of true Bohemia, which evokes warm memories of the late lamented George’s Bar). So, you know, not all bad… not by a long chalk.
Upon my return, I do my level best not to start every sentence with the words “When I was in London…” But frankly darlings, Nottingham has never looked shittier.
As you will have observed from the lack of links in most of the above, the separation between blog and life has never been sharper.
Back on the blog, the first embedded Youtube video is posted – after which, Troubled Diva Xtra makes a brief comeback as a clicky-on-the-piccy Youtube blog.
Year Four of Which Decade Is Tops For Pops? kicks off, five months later than it should have done. This year, the 1970s emerge victorious for the second time.
The podcasts re-commence, as have the Stylus Singles Jukebox reviews (but not for long), and the gig reviews for the local paper.
My first pair of vari-focal spectacles are purchased. Can it really only be three and a half years since I danced topless in a nightclub for the very last time?
Suddenly, and after many many months, the blogging mojo returns. (Here at Troubled Diva, these things are more cyclical than at most normal blogs. God, what what must it be like to have a normal blog? I guess I’ll never know.) Arbeit macht frei, an account of a nightmare holiday job in a wholesalers’ warehouse, is the first decent bit of non-music writing that I’ve done since China.
I pledge to make at least one post per day for the whole of September. If I succeed, then I shall buy a webcam and make an inaugural vidcast. If I fail, then the name of the blog will change to Clapped Out Has Been from October 1st. The tension of it all, eh readers?
A nasty attack of groin strain leaves me stranded in the city centre, and unable to walk, until K picks me up and takes me to hospital. A post explaining this earns me a measly three comments. A follow-up hissy fit (“Nobody cares. I hate you all.“) earns me 26 comments. Much more like it.
The experience moves me to change my comments box strapline, from the age-old “Purge yourself – go on, purge yourself” to the much more descriptive “Transitory fluff, yoo-hoos, woo-hoos, poor-yous and me-toos.”
My duties for the local paper have stepped up a couple of notches, as I am now reviewing as many gigs as I can squeeze into my schedule, as well as semi-regular album reviews for the Friday entertainment supplement. Meeting the deadlines can be tough – but I am deliberately pushing myself, in order to derive maximum benefit from the experience. Besides, I still get an adolescent kick from being on the guest list.
A snapshot is provided of my whereabouts, circumstances and states of mind in October 1996, 1986, 1976 and 1966.
A Journey South concert review is potentially compromised by my proximity to the artists’ parents. Well, a hatchet job would have been too predictable…
My favourite albums of the 1970s are listed, year by year. A request for reader recommendations unearths a previously hidden coterie of Jake Thackeray fans. Who knew?
“Look, I’m bruising. This is a vicious sport! Why was it never banned? OK, I’m getting a tea-towel and wrapping it round my… stop LAUGHING, will you!” K and I go conkers bonkers.
Back down in London for the evening (hooray!), I make it over to Girl With A One Track Mind‘s debut book signing, and stick around for drinkies afterwards. But which other Midlands blogger of note ends up sharing my hotel room?
The local paper prints my first lead album review: a 500 word hatchet job on the forthcoming, tatty, lazy, half-baked so-called “greatest hits” compilation from George “Penelope Pitstop” Michael.
My colleague JP returns to the UK (and today, to the office), already well on his way to a full recovery.
And finally…
On October 30th 2006, Troubled Diva celebrates its fifth birthday.
It has been a fascinating experience, reviewing the past five years of my life in such depth. Not having kept a diary since adolescence, I have never had access to this level of detail before, and it is remarkable how long-forgotten blog entries can trigger such powerful memories.
I have also realised, with a force that has never really hit me before, that Troubled Diva really is a very peculiar weblog indeed. In fact, it’s a f**king BONKERS weblog, if you ask me. Where do all those mad surges of energy come from, and why do they have to alternate with all those periods of near inactivity? Why can’t postings be regular, and moderate, and normal? Jeez, you lot must think I’m bi-polar or summat! I’m not! Honest! I’m just a neurotic, narcissistic, self-obsessed drama queen, that’s all!
There also been times over the past few days where I have observed myself almost as a cartoon character: tearing around the place, squawking and squeaking, and living a life which seems packed with an uncommonly high number of “incidents” – good and bad, clever and stupid, sorrowful and triumphal, important and trivial.
(Particularly the latter. “Doubled Trivia”, someone once called this place.)
I have also been reminded of the extremes of self-aggrandisement and self-deprecation which peremeate these archives. Both can, at times, make me cringe. Hopefully – and at least over time – the one will generally balance out the other. And besides, if there’s one thing which the tragic events of this otherwise fantastic year have shown me, it’s that moments of pleasure, joy, excitement and fulfilment should be savoured as they happen, and never taken for granted. So if that comes sometimes across as “Gee, isn’t my life amazing!”… well, I guess that’s because my life frequently amazes me.
This blog has taken me to places that I never thought I would go. Backstage at an annual music event that I have loved since childhood. In front of a writers’ conference. Onto live radio, and onto the printed page. And it has introduced me to many, many wonderful new friends – who, in varying ways, seem to be capable of tuning into my way of thinking, making sense of it, and making sense of me. (And vice versa, many times over.) As a former Neurotic Boy Outsider who felt for a long time that nobody truly “got” him, and that he wasn’t much good at anything at all, this kind of collective mutual validation is something to which I ascribe the highest value.
But I’m delirious, and gushing… and knackered. (This little exercise took far longer than I had expected, but then I never was much good at doing things by halves.) Time for a congratulatory glass of something cold and refreshing. The sodding album reviews can wait until tomorrow.
troubled diva 