Beside the seaside

Did a whistle-stop trip to Brighton this weekend to catch up with a bunch more people, as half of London seems to have moved down there now. On the Saturday I had breakfast, mid-morning, lunch and afternoon booked in with various old friends. But my first appointment of the day was a telephone call from Steven. I was staying at my sister’s flat, and the only phone socket was in her bedroom. She’d left the phone out in the hall for me, and the receiver just reached into the spare room, so I lay on the floor with my head up against the door for an hour. It was bliss.

A last-minute change of plan left me with a gap in my schedule before lunch. I sat on the beach in the abnormally warm weather and felt the physical sensation of missing someone.

I took off my shoes and socks and hobbled over the hot pebbles down to the sea. The water coursed over my feet, the same expanse of water that was lapping at Melbourne’s shore.

O for a beaker full of the warm South

I miss Australian coffee. Those little latte glasses filled with delicate brown and white froth. And the cups of flat white, still frothy on the top but with more substance underneath. And the artful patterns etched into the surface.

And having the mornings free to savour them. And a groovy Melbourne cafe to savour them in. And a handsome man to savour them with.

You couldn't make it up

Thank you for Smoking meets An Inconvenient Truth

To all commentators

Sorry. I've been by turns too preoccupied, lazy, offline, dimwitted or busy to reply to comments over the last few weeks. But, thanks. I do appreciate them.

Nine Eleven

On a day that was filled with memories of the carnage of five years ago, we looked back to a more recent event - the day six months beforehand when we'd met. We marked the occasion with a phone conversation as I sat by a river in Surrey during my lunchbreak and wittered on about how the woman in the sandwich shop had callously charged me an extra 30p for having cheese as well as ham in my salad box. What more can you ask for from a partner than that they actually enjoy listening to you spout nonsense?

So far yet so near

Ahhhh, the joys of iChat. That was the best hour I've had in ages.
Nice to see you, Steven.

The doodle bug

In between seeing everyone, I’ve also started on a month’s work. Working again after such a long break has actually been no problem at all. It’s the first time I’ve spent any time sitting in a confined space with pen and paper (as opposed to a laptop) for a while, and I’ve rediscovered the joys of doodling. And today I had to smile, as I found myself doodling a word I’d never doodled before: Steven.

Catching up

So after eight months, I’m back in the UK. Thursday went to my mum’s, Friday had a night out with the Boyz (my gay friends), Saturday played football with John, Clare and godson Jake, Sunday limbered up with my tai chi friends and then headed up to see the North London posse including other godson Louis, Monday had a night in, Tuesday had a lovely paella at John and Austin’s (the couple that were over for Mardi Gras) with Woody (their crazy but cute Dalmation), Wednesday visited some old Soho haunts with Lynda, my ex-art director and the architect of me meeting Steven, Thursday was another night in and now I’m off to catch up with the rest of my family. It’s been really great to see everyone – but of course there’s one guy missing. And I miss him.

Upwardly mobile

Before I left the UK, a gay friend of mine gave me a tutorial on getting an upgrade. His fundamental thesis was that you should try and establish a relationship with the airline employee, be it at the check-in desk, gate or on the plane. Techniques include establishing eye contact before you approach, smiling, joking, calling them by the name on their tag etc. I tried variations of these at every stage on my world tour, but sadly it never worked. Airline staff, it seems, take an instant dislike to me and get all huffy on my uptight English ass. That is, until the final leg of the trip. With the heightened security on flights into London, I’d had my bags x-rayed twice, been made to move stuff from one to another, joined countless queues and then, just when I thought it was all over, been frisked and had my hand-luggage searched again in the corridor that takes you down to the plane. Staggering down the final few yards, I rolled my eyes in a conspiratorial way at the lady who was waiting to check my boarding pass. She smiled and greeted me with the magical words, “If you could just wait a moment, sir, there’s been a change to your seat.” I guess my icy front had finally melted. Leaving me with a very pleasant 10 hours.

Hooray for Bollywood

So what do you do on a rainy Tuesday in Mumbai? Be an extra in a Bollywood movie, of course! I’d been stopped by a scout on the street the day before, and joined 30 other tourists on a leaky bus the next morning.

I always love watching party scenes in movies, mostly to enjoy quite how unconvincing they are, so imagine my delight when I found out we were bound for one of the city’s groovier nightclubs, which was standing in for a London club.

We were given the once-over by wardrobe, hair and make-up – short skirts and ringlets for the gals, vivid T-shirts and spray-on hair colour for the guys (blue and gold stripes in my case – London’s obviously changed while I’ve been gone).

The Assistant Director positioned us all on the dance-floor, with me in a solo position by the bar. The main actress (who we soon christened Diva) had to walk through the throng to get to her friend at the bar, stopping on the way to say hello to someone. As I was standing apart from the others, I was the natural choice.

Her face lit up as she approached me. ‘Hey!’ she said. Quick-thinkingly, I improvised. ‘Hey!’ I replied with a broad smile. ‘OK, let’s go for a take,’ boomed the director. Oh my god, I’d done it. I’d landed myself a speaking part.

Diva had a quick chat with the director, after which the A.D. bundled another guy towards me. ‘You stand there,’ he ordered him, before bundling me off to the back where the other guy had been. ‘And you stand there.’

Chewed up and spat out by Bollywood, I relayed my fate to the extras beside me. Diva must have heard, because she turned round and smiled apologetically. ‘Too small,’ she said, illustrating her point with a downward motion of the palm.

Oh. Thanks for clearing that up.

The rest of the morning was spent dancing frenetically to the same tune over and over again, which was actually a lot of fun. ‘Dance louder!’ the A.D kept urging us, by which he meant increase the jumping and flailing of arms – he even suggested throwing in a few high-fives. We were happy to oblige – I really hope they use the take where we decided to do that old cheesy synchronised dive move.

Each of the stars had a mirror man – a guy who rushed in between each take to hold a mirror while the actors touched up their foundation (female) or squirted extra sheen into their hair (male). But the best thing was the smoke machine – a little old guy wandering about the set scattering incense onto a pan of hot coals. I bet they don’t have that in Hollywood.

It was a long day, and the novelty had worn off by lunchtime, but in true Bollywood tradition, they got us hooked back in with a song and dance number to round things off.

I was pulled out of the synchronised dance routine to be part of two couples doing synchronised ‘making out’ on the sofa as the camera moves past towards the crowd. So you might get to see me after all.

‘Namatey London’. Coming soon to a movie theatre probably nowhere near you.

Lost and found

Wow, so that was Tokyo. Neon, cartoon characters and diagonal zebra crossings all as expected, but it's not as bewildering as Ms Coppola would have us believe. I had three very different days:

Day one - Orientation. Walked around Shinjuku and Shibuya drinking it all in. I was expecting the visual feast, but not the sonic one - video screens blared, train stations blasted out their individual theme tunes, promotional lorries spewed out J-pop hits and slot machine halls sounded like they'd been hijacked by a gang of psycopathic organists.

Day two - Culture. Meandered through Ueno Park to look at some old stuff in a museum. Then followed the crowds to Senso-ji to see the temple and wander the alleyways.

Day three - SHOPPING!!! From window-shopping at Prada (and you couldn't ask for crazier windows) to actually buying stuff at Banana Republic. From mingling with the goth-French-maid schoolgirls over the soft toys at Kiddyland to marvelling at the delights of Itoya, a very Japanese stationery store.

Plenty of stuff to keep me distracted. Not that I minded being alone. Because I knew I wasn't.

Junk mail

OK, I know, I've been bad. When your own boyfriend leaves a comment on your blog telling you to post more, you know you haven't been blogging enough. I've written a Tokyo entry on the iBook, but that's in a vet surgery across town right now. (Feel my pain, readers - I've been reduced to typing this on a PC.)I'm currently on my friend's junk in Hong Kong, which is a great place to be. I always find that when I arrive in Asia I seem to get very drunk very quickly and then wake up to a hideous hangover. At first I put this down to the humidity - but then I realised that it's more likely to be because I'm out with my old friend Tony. Still, a quick blast in the speedboat (yesterday) or a kayak trip (today) soon gets rid of the cobwebs.

The other great thing about Hong Kong is that my phone works here, so I get to here my beloved's voice again. I miss him. Tony's got a new girlfriend, so he's loved up too, and we get to sit on the junk and swap mushy stories. So sad. But so not!