I do not want what I can have. I recently was in a bar. Having a drink after work. Kind of, but not really cruising the crowd. I got approached by a man in his mid-40s. Wasted drunk. Tried to lose him. Told me his life story. 73-year old hospitalised partner who he had met when he was a rentboy in 70s London. Open relationship. Looking to play around.



I made a few dismissive comments hoping that would end it. Did my best, "god, I'm bored of you" look and moved toward the bar.



But he intercepted. Tried to flatter me. Grilled me about what I did, and when I said, vaguely, "marketing" threw back his head and laughed an extravagantly loud, gargled laugh.



I could count his cavities.



I wondered momentarily if he was trying to unhinge his jaw to swallow me whole in some snake-like way.



He then went to grab my arm but missed, tripped, and fell whilst pouring his drink all over himself. His bald head shined with gin and he was soaked, but he stood up and resumed the conversation.



I left.

No one! Excellent. Now that I know I'm talking to myself in cyberspace things can get juicy. Well, as juicy and things in a bone dry life can get.



Just read that that penultimate fag rag Wallpaper is relaunching in June. New editor, new approach, new attempt to widen a niche audience and regain the patina in cool in a relatively anti-cool world. Nonsense about it trying to be more American. The joyful relaunch of a slow death? We'll see.



I remember hearing Tyler Brulee speak once at a design conference. He told a fantastic story about being shot when he was a war correspondent. He recuperated in a swanky Chelsea garden drinking umbrella drinks and questioning his life's purpose. The result? A magazine for overpampered shallow trendy jetsetting homosexuals (and the girls who want to be them) called Wallpaper, because he was surrounded by it. I remember chortling in shock that this was his revelation. So one can't be surprised at the resulting periodical. What's he doing now that he's left Wallpaper? Branding. God help us.

Who's there? Is anyone actually reading this? If you are, drop me an email at brianj777@mac.com.



Thoughts I'm having a charming email exchange with a charming man, but have lately started to feel that it's very one-sided. And let's face it, I love talking about myself. It's therapeutic. He encourages me to be less self-conscious, but surely not everyone is interested in what's going in my head all the time. So, I'll broaden the discussion.



Several Texan Democrats fled to Oklahoma to avoid a quorum about questionable congressional district redrawing plans brought about by the Republicans. I love this story, although I'm sure there are hundreds of reasons to flee Texas.



I found out that oxtail is, indeed, the tail of any beef animal. But it's never tiger, despite what the Restaurant Georges thinks.



Tony Blair has dodged calls to let Britain vote on a referendum about the broadening of the EU's constitution and Britain adopting the Euro. 80-something % of the country thinks there should be a referendum. And I hate to agree with the bland little man who leads the Tories, but I agree that Blair's adopted a presidential tone that's hindering, not helping government. Our treasury has said the EU hasn't met the five benchmarks we agreed to before joining the Euro and the country doesn't seem to want to do it. 9th June appears to be the date, but how the public will be considered is uncertain.



London's bidding to host the Olympics. Fuck me, the city's already packed with people.



I'm flummoxed that the US has gone after Saudi Arabia for not doing more to prevent the weekend's bombings. Should Saudi Arabia have done more? Likely. Should the US piss off one of it's only allies and sources of intelligence in the Middle East? Don't seem very smart to me.

I love Paris. Unabashedly. Went with work friends to rip up the town and it was great fun to take Robert who hadn't been in almost 10 years, and had never been on the Eurostar. We stayed in a lovely boutique hotel in the 8th arrondissement. Robert bought a suit for his sister's wedding and I managed to muddle through with my elementary French.







It was a glorious Spring weekend -- sun and warmth and clear blue skies. We had dinner at the Georges on top of the Pompidou and learnt that "le tigre qui pleure" despite sounding like tiger meat, was acutally oxtail. Is oxtail really ox? We didn't know. Robert and I hit the bars in the Marais where he was quite the flirt, apparently. You can see more of the pictures here.

Did you know? It's cheap to travel to Paris right now. I'm off for the weekend soon, so bon weekend everyone. Going to revel in unpopular francophilia drink French wine, flirt with French men, eat French food, buy French petit choses.



Did you also know that England experienced a brief time of queer acceptability in the 18th Century? Channel 4 did a rather brilliant show about Georgian England's excesses and forgivenesses last night. From Mother Clap's Molly House to the rather indescribable fashion fetish of molly men pretending to give birth to wooden toys and doll, it seemed gay men and women (especially aristocratic ones) had a certain amount of freedom--as long as they appeared to be straight and respectable.



Ah well, I'm celebrating my queerness with a trip to gay Paris. Au revoir!

Before you start I know not everything is working. But I'm crawling there. And I'm crawling towards finishing the images page. But I was almost crawling on Sunday after an afternoon drinking wine in Kirsten's garden, then going out. So I couldn't face crawling to the computer yesterday. Oh, and I am crawling back to South Kensington -- to rent the flat upstairs from the flat I used to live in. They've agreed to replace the nausea-inducing furniture that was there and I've agreed to pay too much money for a year. Oh well.



Finally watched Withnail and I, that infamous 1980s uni-arthouse favourite. Paul McGann was a stunner and the dialogue is a bit brilliant, if not shrill. Even though it's Britain in the 80s doing Britain in the 60s it reminded me of the grey cold and general downtroddedness that I remember of Britain in the 80s -- and the clothing. I had silver-rimmed round sunglasses then as well.



Can someone please explain "I'm a twat (celebrity), get me out of here!" I know the idea is to choose and vote for your favourite c-list celebrity, but I'm considering voting for the snakes and spiders instead.

Unsettling; Staring forward and looking back I've got to finish this bloody page. Look at up. That will soon be an image and a name and something more than grey words and orange links. It's not that I've been ambivalent, but there's a lot of computer jockeying that's happened to make HTML and images and get it hoisted up onto the page.



Yesterday, whilst crossing Edgware Road to lunch I saw a hearse with a casket and a pile of flowers. Mortality on display, there to suck up one's distractions and preoccupations and spit them back with a "I'm being buried today" procession through the streets. It's a sad, lonely, unceremonial moment when you realise we do actually all die alone (unless you die with others of course, then you don't die alone, but you're buried alone.)



Then I notice the driver was singing along to the radio. Actually full out singing. I'd like to think he was singing Amazing Grace or something, but he was probably singing Justin Timberlake or some old Oasis songs. Singing like he hadn't a care in the world, or actually a dead person in his backseat.



Shouldn't that be disallowed? Respect for the dead, and all that. What if the deceased hated Oasis? What if they once said, "I'd rather be dead than listen to Oasis" and now they're dead and having to listen to it?



In other preoccuptions. I'm flathunting. I hate it. Too many poorly lighted, badly furnished overpriced flats that letting agents are happy to say are "modern, light, and really fantastic value." By far the best flat I've seen just happens to be upstairs from the flat I lived in when I first moved here. I'm thinking about renting it, but wondering, is that terribly regressive?