Neurotic

As part of my ongoing attempts to become slightly less repellent whilst at the same time boring the pants off of everyone I know I shall continue to record everything I consume on a daily basis. Once I’ve really started to irritate everyone including myself and begun to look a bit neurotic and need I’ll start including the calorific value of everything as well :-

2 x cup apple & peach mystery liquid
½ x bottle of Lucozade
½ x Chinese lettuce w/dressing (ginger, garlic, chile, sesame oil, olive oil, lime juice, sherry vinegar)
1 x handful pumpkin seeds
2 x small chicken thighs
2 x slices haloumi cheese
½ x can palm hearts
2 x gin & tonic
1 x can of lager
1 x medium bowl of salad – grated carrot, curried rice, chick peas, kidney beans, lentils, dressing 1 x cadbury flake
1 x large coffee
1 x rennie
1 x strepsil

Loo

I’m beginning to feel like Regina out of Mean Girls who thinks she’s eating Swedish diet bars when she’s been tricked into eating Swedish weight-gain bars. Somewhere in the list above is some high gain lard fud masquerading as calorie-less cardboard filler. On the plus side I’ve been eating a lot of pulses lately so my trips to the loo have been both frequent and productive. I’m up to 2 a day!

Pills

You know what sounds good? Diet pills. Bring on the whizz is what I say – gain without pain. Yeah – diet pills and laxatives – it’s your window to weight loss. Actually you know what sounds really kick ass for weight loss – TB.

Ghosts in the machine

Last night I woke up in bed and realised someone was lying next to me. Someone very close to my heart. I could feel her breathing 2 inches from my face, her hand lightly in mine. I lay there for a few minutes hardly believing it, and checking that I really was awake – that it wasn’t a dream. As I reached to curl my fingers more tightly around her hand and move my lips closer to hers I started to wake up.

The transition from lying in a darkened room ‘awake’ (but together) to lying a darkened room awake (but alone) was so smooth that I consciously experienced the sensation of both seeing and feeling someone vanish in front of you. As you reach for them they become insubstantial your fingers slide around them somehow, the outline of their face against the dark ceiling becomes softer and slides into the shadows, and suddenly you’re actually really awake and, of course, despite the best assurances of your sleeping mind, actually really all on your own.

It took me nearly 2½ hours to get back to sleep, so now I’m exhausted as well as bummed. I mean – it’s bad enough having to think about this stuff all the time when you’re awake. Bed, sleep, dreams, this is my refuge, but the enemy has broached the gates. Here’s the problem - it feels real in the dream, you believe it emotionally, so when you wake up you *feel* as if it really is real, even as you understand intellectually that it’s just a dream.

I can’t believe I’m such a fool as to manage to find a way to make myself feel depressed and isolated about people who never even existed, but, to quote, “Oh yes, I’m twice the fool to do that”.

Gelatine

There was about another 800 words here but I deleted them when I worked out what they were really saying : “I hate the way I look, but I’m too lazy to do anything about it”. Nobody wants to read about that. Apart from the 5% who actually *do* go to the gym on a regular basis, and the 10% who are actually young enough and slim enough not to have to worry about it we are all in the same boat. The fat boat of lardy layabouts.

Look at us all, desperately pulling in that gut and trying not to think about how your beer roll makes your trousers hang at an angle. I’m mean I’m only 11 stone (about 150lb) and 5’ 10” so it’s not like I’m blotting out the sun or anything, but still. I feel bad, therefore in my mind I look bad, regardless of whether I really do or not, and if you don’t fancy yourself no-one else is going to do it for you (above mentioned freaks excluded.

So off to the gym (yeah right) and start eating properly. The last 24 hours has seen Pan consume (in sequence) :-

1 x Gin & Tonic
1 x glass of red wine
1 x portion meatballs
1 x portion couscous
1 x espresso
1 x piece of cheese
1 x portion angel delight w’ half fat milk
½ bottle Lucozade
1 x cup apple flavoured fizzy drink from vending machine
1 x portion roast gammon
1 x portion red cabbage
1 x portion roast potatoes
1 x tarte tatin
1 x cup of coffee
1 x chocolate biscuit
1 x cup of earl grey

Well I’ve been told that what goes on stag stays on stag, but frankly I have little time for this kind of nonsense. If you’re going to behave like an arse the place to do it is not in front of 12 of your oldest friends and on video camera. Thankfully I can report that nothing too unpleasant happened so I only have a few beans to spill . . .

As you know the weekend was split into two halves – nice and nasty – and we’re onto the nasty half. Have to say I was *SO* not looking forward to another 12 hours solid drinking, but there was nothing to be done about it, so Joe and I girded out whatsits and headed out to the merry mayhem.

Well it’s amazing how 6 pints of Grolch and 5 games of 10 pin bowling will get you back on your feet again, and so it proved to be, and the evening passed off relatively painlessly. The only bit that was weird was the Strip Club.

Strippers

I’ve never been to a strip club - I couldn’t imagine why I would want to go to some seedy dive and pay a fortune to see a bunch of unhappy women debasing themselves for cash. But stag night it was and off we went. So I go there and then the really weird thing happened. I suddenly realised I was enjoying myself. A lot. I mean what’s not to like? – perfectly pleasant venue, no entry fee, no obviously too dodgy geezers (alright some of them were a bit iffy, but there is no danger of any trouble), pub priced bar with no queue and a whole herd of really beautiful young women wearing virtually nothing wandering around. Every so often one would get on the stage and disrobe. And that’s about it.

Except of course it’s not. There is of course the concept of the private dance. This is where you approach one of these girls, ask for a dance (or she approaches you – again no hassle if you say no thanks), she leads you into the back room, relieves you of £15 and proceeds to grind her various attributes an extremely short distance from your face (remember – no touching!). Put it this way, if you’re getting on a bit remember to bring your reading glasses.

As I’d never seen all this the boys insisted I go along (number of private dances range in our party 0-6+). So that was out of the way – I’ve had the private dance and it’s over, and it was really not that bad at all. Except I suddenly found myself looking at the girls and thinking about one in particular, and before you know it I’m off again and going for the private dance – of my own free will without any coercion at all. And frankly, it was great.

OK, OK, I know this is all bad stuff, but I can’t help myself. Or rather I can’t be bothered to help myself. I know they’re not doing this for fun, but who does go to work just for fun after all? Nobody looked like they were having a bad time (though of course how can you tell) and I do feel a bit ashamed. But provided you can quiet that voice of conscience / voice of Germaine Greer / voice telling you you’re a sad old wanker, I can think of a lot worse ways to spend a couple of hours.

Having said all that I don’t think I’ll be going back – enjoying it once by surprise is one thing, enjoying it on purpose by going there seems like one step towards being a genuine stripper ogler.

And on that note I should give my congratulations to ‘Uncle’ Bob. As the oldest man in the party (49) he not only managed to keep up with the drinking, he also kicked our asses bowling (188 is a *very* respectable score btw) and was the only man to (at least voluntarily) go for the ‘2 Girl Special’. Impressive. Well expensive at any rate ;-)

And speaking of excessive drinking last the weekend just gone saw Pan deliver his (hopefully) one and only stag event.

As I’m sure I've mentioned before I hate stag dos and have jibbed out of the last 3 I was invited to, so inviting me to organise one is a bit like, well, a not particularly clever idea. However, there could really have been no other choice for as The Captain’s best man (hem hem) and it all goes with the territory, so organise boy I was. I immediately broke with tradition by inviting the ladies, but what can you do. Some people were so outraged that I had to compromise and make it 2 nights – Friday night for dinner in company and Saturday afternoon and evening just for the boys.

We all pitched up approximately on time (some more than others) at Captain Birdseye’s crispy Brisket on Norris Street and then proceeded over the road to QUOD where I had booked the red room for dinner. I’m not going to go into too much detail other than to make a couple of quick points :-

1) 3 people were sick, including the Panster. Hurrah. But I don’t think anyone noticed.

2) I stood on a chair and told the assembled audience (including several passing waiters) about mine and The Captain’s 4-in a bed romp.

3) Our waitress was very impressed with both the amount we drank (fairly impressive actually) and with our ‘antics’. I know this sounds like bullshit but it’s true! She specifically requested to be allowed to light the ‘mouth burners’. That by the way is where you take a big swig of Sambuca, close your mouth, swill it around, tilt your head back, breathe out hard and have someone (or even yourself) stick a lighter in your gob. With practice you can project lovely blue flames 6-8inches out of your mouth.

4) I was only sick because of the 5 pints of Guinness I had at the Captain’s Cabin. Yes.

5) The Fat Doctor made a really inappropriate lunge at El Espangola. It’s lucky she has a sense of humour. After we’d managed to get him off her he stood in the middle of the road (Haymarket) and refused to move. Betty & Numinor fell on their swords and took him home. (time ~1.30am)

6) After repairing to another watering hole there was ‘more drink taken’.

7) Can’t really remember getting home, but home we got – woke up with the Captain on Saturday both still fully clothed.

8) Final bill (inc service): £1,125.90. Not bad going for 12 people, but I really, really wish I hadn’t ballsed up divvying it up. Am feeling extremely poor now.

So after that rather tame start to the festivities we rolled out yet again on Saturday for more.

There’s a definite thrill to be had from going to some skanketty skank pub (Big Red at Nag’s Head Corner if you must ask) and knowing without a shadow of a doubt that you’re with the baddest girl in the place, the role for which my soul mate Lisa definitely qualifies. I was just buying another round and L was putting some ROCK on the jukebox, and she just looked amazing – pencil skirt, high heels, ankle chain, tight sleeveless T, Bensons, pool cue, red red lippy, weird snaggly teeth, blue inked prison tattoos on the biceps. She will confess quite openly that if she was in Grease she wouldn’t be Good Sandy, or Bad Sandy, or even Rizzo, but one of the girls who hang out with the Scorpions.

It turned into a bit of an epic session actually. Lisa had come round the night before because she was upset / tripping her nuts off (kept telling me I looked like Jesus which is *so* unfair) and had promptly fallen asleep on me. Literally. I didn’t want to move off the sofa as was quite comfortable and didn’t want to disturb her so nodded off myself. The next thing we know it’s morning and Lisa’s head on my chest felt like Fatty Soames had been pounding in a fence post with a Hyundai 4x4 or similar. Anyway (after a spot of heart massage) we repaired to Manoli’s which is, I think, one of the finest greasy spoons any arterially challenged gastronaut could wish for and proceeded to scoff down a couple of their ‘everything pie’ options. As it was 11.30 Lisa then suggested we have a quick breakfast pint to settle the food in nicely. Well one thing led to another and before we knew it it was 3pm and we were pissed. At that point there’s nothing to be done but push on through to the other side. We left sometime after 12 but it’s all a bit hazy to say the least. All I can really remember is me and Lisa telling eachother we were eachother’s best mates *EVER* losing at pool 17-12 (so that’d be £29 on pool alone ffs) dancing like a loon to some dodgy Beatles tribute band and attempting to persuade a complete stranger that I drove articulated lorries across Africa for a living. WHY??????

A few weeks ago I woke up in a strange place – bit disorientated – had a quick look around – empty bottles, beer can ashtrays, knickers, magazines. Nothing very helpful. Looked over and - bloody hell – I was in bed with Lisa and she didn’t have any clothes on. A quick check thankfully revealed that I did. Not quite sure why as Lisa is very much my type, but somehow it’s not about that – our relationship has an implicit requirement of platonicness. Anything else would lead to immediate implosion and never speaking again. (Lisa has over 30 numbers in her phone that just say “Don’t answer this number”). So we got up staggered around a bit and crawled off to the pub somewhere in Clapham. Sank a few pints, felt better, went to another pub where I had a conversation with a bloke who’s accent was so strong I couldn’t understand one single word he was saying (didn’t seem to matter though), played a lot of dance music to liven all the stiffs up a bit, Lisa beat the locals at pool again and I tied a bandanna onto a pub dog. After that it all starts to get hazy again, though I can definitely remember being in The Blue Posts in Soho and I know for a fact that we met up with some other people and went to Joy King Lau where I impressed the company by eating an eel and a jellyfish.

This sort of thing pretty much always happens when I go out with Lisa. We egg each other on into more and more debatable antics, and let’s face it, neither of us need any encouragement in the first place. All that drinking can’t be good for either of us. I’ve never been anywhere and not had Lisa match me drink for drink all night, and as regular readers may know I’m no Sunday drinker.

My trousers smell of wee and so do I. But who cares - it's Friday and as I'm heading out to London's notorious London to spend the evening shouting my head off in some disgusting boozer I might as well smell of Donald Rumsfeldt's crevice fluff for all the difference it'll make.

Having said that I'm reparing to a Japanese restaurant later, but by then I'll have drunk 6 pints of Cockney Fizzy Keg, smoked a packet of gaspers and no longer care what I smell like.

Anyhoo it's odd that I'm drinking at all seeing as I was SO horribly hung over yesterday that I seriously swore off the booze. Went to see Bluebeard's Castle (freaky Hungarian opera by Bartok) which is only an hour long, so was in the pub by 8.40, but somehow still thinking it was a post opera drink (normally 10.45ish), so felt the needto consume pints as fast as is humanely possible. The results were predictable enough . . . ack.