Another Duckie Triumph

I don’t know what it is about Duckie www.duckie.co.uk Perhaps they pump some kind of laughing gas through the air conditioning, but that can’t be the case because the venue is so dilapidated they certainly don’t have anything as sophisticated as air-con. Maybe it just the combination of beer, bizarre cabaret, eclectic music and uncontrolled dancing that makes the nights there such fun.

Last night I went with Flattie, Fox and Cosgrove. We met for a warm up drink at the Railway. Fox and Cosgrove had been shopping that afternoon and had interspersed the spending of wages on appareil with the spending of wages on booze. They were in high spirits and as soon as Fox walked into the pub he demanded to know where the fairly burly guy sitting on the table next to ours had got his shirt, because he had brought the same one that day. He then demanded to know how much the guy had paid for it and I could see a fight brewing. However the moment passed and the burly crew stayed put and we complimented Fox on his current choice of shirt.( Green with a pirate on the front and “Pirates Arrrrr Cool”) It would seem that the pair of them had cleared out the stock at Urban Outfitters and there had been a bit of a squabble over a military coat at Reiss. Fox has it and Cosgrove is jealous.

We left the pub at 10.15 and got a cab to Duckie as it was freezing and we wanted to beat the queue.It was already busy when we got there, and I spotted the burly crew from the table next to us. Flattie had been correct, he had said that they were just a bunch of burly gays, as opposed to burly guys. Fox of course decided he would make the one who had his shirt the target for the night. Beered up we walked over to where they were standing and I bumped into Tom, who was there with a group of his friends including the new boyfriend, who is just as Tom described him, small and blond. I asked Tom what Small and Blond was called:
T: His name is Mark
M: Oh that’s easy for me to remember
T: No, wait you are called Mark, he’s called....er...Anthony. No, no I keep calling him Anthony but thats not his name, it’s er....Alan, yes Alan. God, how m I going to remember his name?
M: I shall think of him as a small and useful thing like an Allen key and then I will remember. Who else are you here with?
T: (indicates a couple of people, one of whom is talking to Fox and has slept with someone I know very well.)
M: I know him he’s slept with three of my friends.
T: (Laughs and turns to boy who I think is called Tim) Mark says you’ve (I grab Tom’s arm and pinch very hard. It doesn’t work) slept with three of his friends.
(Tim scowls and stomps off)
T: Oh, that didn’t go down very well.
(Fox walks over)
F: I think I’ve just met my new boyfriend. It’s that guy Tim.
M: Some how Fox I don’t think it’s going to work out. Sorry.

Then it was time for the show. It was Nathan, the guy does a Smiths Tribute Show with a ventriloquist ‘s dummy. This time he was presenting “A History Of Homosexuality from Wilde to Will with slideshow and pyrotechnics” Nathan and I have flirted a bit in the past. He used to have very long hair and he has very nice arms. I can’t really remember much of his spiel but it culminated with him saying how he had been seduced by Travis’ Calvin Klein ad and in protest he was going to strip off and burn his own Calvins. He warned us that he had a tiny penis and hoped we wouldn’t be too disappointed. The place was freezing and to strip naked was a brave thing to do, but Cosgrove and Fox were disappointed in spite of the warning, they like their strippers to be better endowed. He whipped off his Calvins and squirted lighter fuel on them and torched them. We all cheered and clapped and then got on with some proper dancing.

Flattie’s mate Guestie arrived and we drank more beers and larked around. A tall guy in a green t shirt caught my eye and we did the smiling across the room thing. I think our dancing to Grace Jones La Vie En Rose might have put him off, because when we finished I saw him having an apparently intimate conversation with a beardy man. Then they played Filthy Gorgeous and I forgot all about him. Next thing I know he’s dancing next to me and so we start chatting. He is called Stephen and is from Northern Ireland. (Not my favourite accent in the world). He asks what I do and when I tell him, he says one of his friends used to be a model. I just know what’s coming. His friend is going to be one model who despises me. I don’t what it was but we seemed to really rub each other the wrong way. I say “It’s not P is it?”
S: Yes. Wow. You know him?
M: How good a friend is he?
S: We’re pretty good mates. I know him and David (Fox’s ex, let’s not talk about it)
At this point I realise the karma police have been lurking around and as revenge for my earlier comments about Tim I am now having to pay. We exchanged numbers and I said if he wanted to go for a drink after he’d spoken to P he could give me a call.

The guy that lipsynchs to Kate Bush got up on stage and gave us his best Running Up That Hill. One non regular tried to join in and had to be dragged off. He shares the stage with no one when he is channelling Kate.

Then it was time for The Readers Wives Favourite Song Of All Time. (It changes every week and I can’t remember which one it was.) then off home.

When I woke up this morning I had a text from Cosgrove. “I seem to be in a strange mans bed. How did that happen?”
I sent one back asking who he ended up with. The reply made me laugh out loud:
“Well I think you might know him-I’ll give you a clue, he’s now slept with 4 people you know.”

This weeks dose of culture

I’ve just got back from seeing First Drafts at the Opera House. My friend Vanessa is a ballerina with the Royal Ballet and she had choreographed a piece. First Drafts is an opportunity for members of the Royal Ballet to try out new works. The results can be very mixed. Vaness’s piece was last on the bill. It was called Sea Castles and was to a piece of music by Edward Elgar. I don’t know the title of the music but it sounded like a counter-tenor, I’ll ask her later. The set consisted of three white flats painted with huge pink bouquets. She had four male dancers wearing only black shorts. The movement seemed to reference Nijinsky at times, the two dimensional vase painting poses he used, but Vanessa is a genius at getting the dancers to push themselves and find new shapes, lifts and holds. It was at times very camp, with a repeated motif of the boys holding there hand to their foreheads in manner of a Victorian swoon, but there were also moments of machismo, at one point of of the boys throws himself across the stage into the arms of the other three boys and the audience let out a collective gasp. Until Vanessa’s piece the audience had been politely appreciative, but there whooped and cheered as the boys took their curtain call. I was very proud. She gets dinner and drinks next week!

Grrrr...

The UK Media has reached an all time low. Even the BBC plummeted in my estimations today. It's as if the editors of Heat have taken over. A little bit of snow for two consecutive days should not really be described ARTIC CONDITIONS. The Queen is not snubbing her son's wedding because she isn't going to the registry office. She's going to the blessing and throwing a great big reception at her place for the happy couple, what more do you expect? Should David Beckham's choice of name for his child merit a whole newspaper front page? Also does the fact that Ken Livingstone referred to a journalist as behaving like a Nazi merit 5 pages of editorial and demands of apologies from the Jewish community? If he should apologise to anyone, shouldn't it be the Germans? Please can we have some real news reporting again soon?

Let it snow!

I woke up this morning and looked out at a London that had been sprinkled with snow. It's only a light dusting, but of course it means that London grinds to a halt. Roads are closed, Tubes can't run and the modeling fraternity are unable to leave their homes. Luckily the shows are on in Milan and so we are pretty quiet here anyway, but the snow seems to have silenced the phones today. I've been catching up with emails and filing! The phones do ring at annoying intervals, so you can't really get involved in writing a proper blog entry.

I've just nipped out with Gemma and Fraser to grab some lunch and help choose a shirt for Gemma's boyfriend's birthday. We did a quick tour of the men's stores in Covent Garden, she wants a floral pattern but not too flowery. Our shirt of choice was in Cecil Gee, it scored points for price and pattern and so that's the one he will be getting!

On the way back we accidentally stopped into The Cornish Pasty Shop for lunch. It felt good to be walking along in the snow eating hot pasties. I am from Plymouth, which is right next to Cornwall, and so was raised on quality pasties, and hell, it was a once in a blue moon treat!

Flattie came home yesterday evening. The wedding was a big success, the subzero temperatures didn't dampen anyone's spirits and there were no huge family dramas. His sister looked amazing, he played well and no one ended up in casualty. VG!

Weekend

Flattie's sister got married this weekend up North, which means I had the flat to myself. This means I mooched around in my underwear, listened to crap music and watched knock off DVD's that Clare from work had lent me. I watched Door In The Floor with Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger, a dull film about a marriage in crisis and Dogville, the Lars Von Trier movie with Nicole Kidman. Typical of a Von Trier movie it's harrowing stuff. I wasn't convinced by Nicole's performance, I think she is too weak/vulnerable to make the ending believable, but still worth a look.

On Saturday I met Fox, Adrian, Dan and Emily. We went to Trash palace where they were doing Glam Rock Makeovers. Adrian went first and had a pink and blue Ziggy Stardust lightening flash across his face. Impressed with the results I opted for a black and glittery star over my left eye. Of course we forgot we had them done and I wondered why I was getting funny looks as we walked from TP to Wig Out.

At Wig Out things slipped in the usual drunken chaos. I saw Paul Twin, who had just got back from visiting his brother Steven Twin in Australia. It is a bit strange seeing one without the other. They were a bit of a Wig Out fixture. Fox got off with some German. He was having a bit of a German week as he had been flirting with another German on Thursday.

Flattie sent texts from his sister's wedding detailing the progress of events. It doesn't sound too much of a train wreck! I will get the full story this evening.

Cards, nil. Flowers, nil.

Well the postman did bring me something yesterday! It wasn't the secretly hoped for Valentines card, merely a statement of my Nectar (store card) reward points. I have 2053. I don't know what that entitles me too as I was so disappointed I threw everything into the bin.

I ate my chocolate desert sitting on the sofa watching a TV program about a girl from Russia who had X ray vision and could see what was wrong with you. I switched off before I found out if she was a fake or really was psychic. I am guessing they proved she wasn't, these shows always do. I decided to go to bed and read a book. I started Shampoo Planet by Douglas Copeland and quickly fell asleep! Whoops.

Tonight I am going to see Kiki and Herb's anti Valentine show, Losers in Love with a bunch of other singletons. I can foresee bile and venom in abundance!

At dinner last night we were talking about my job and how it affects your relationships. There is definitely something of a "booker syndrome", the majority of agents I work with are single. I think this is partly due to being surrounded by unrealistic specimens. One tends to forget the guys we see on a daily basis make up something like 0.01% of the population, and no matter how many times you tell yourself this, it does give you unreal standards, especially as part of our job is scouting new talent, so we are evaluating everyone we meet. The other thing you learn when you do this is that beautiful people go through life being treated in a completely different way to ordinary mortals. As a rule people are much nicer to them and they get away with much more, as a result they tend to expect more to be done for them. They also have to deal with getting older and losing the power they once had. My colleague was a model in the late eighties and early nineties. He is still a very handsome man. Yesterday someone brought in an old issue of Blitz magazine. He was the cover boy. Everyone thronged round and all said variations of the same thing, "Didn't you used to be handsome!" Imagine how that must hurt, you made your living from looking good and that is something that has faded away forever. Very sad.

Another reason why we are all single is that we become control freaks. We spend our days organising the schedules of all the models. Sorting out their daily schedule, planning everything from flights to hair appointments, negotiating fees and arranging their portfolios. We have to be decisive. In a partner we tend to look for someone who will take over responsibility, but as much as we say we want to relinquish control we find it very difficult to release the reins.

That isn't meant to sound like a whinge. I love my job. Former model and I have been comparing notes on designers we have shagged. This fashion week we both have 1 each on the schedule! Sluts.

Big Deal

So Ellen MacArthur made it home and broke her record. I just think all her mates said they had planned to share a villa in Benidorm this year and didn't want to join her on her poxy cruise.

Sshh. He's asleep..

I am writing this because I do not want to disturb Flattie, who despite many protestations about not going to Beyond this week arrived home at 10.30am this morning. I deduce that The Johns dragged him kicking and screaming from Action onto Beyond. However I could be slandering him and perhaps he met someone nice and went back to theirs for coffee and biscuits. Anyway, I don't want to crash around in my room too much as the boy will need his sleep, but having read a couple of chapters of The Da Vinci Code (I didn't realise it was such a trashy thriller, I thought it was one of those historical self helpy books.) and the review section of The Sunday Observer I am starting to get fidgetty.

Can you believe Leo Di Caprio has been given a life time acheivement award? Oh, and how about The History Boys winning Best New Play? Apparently the homophobic, paedophiliac plotlines are really rather sweet. Grrrrrrr!

Fox sent texts last night from Manchester saying it was rubbish. He didn't manage to pull, even though he had a lovley new shirt from Selfridges. Fox, not pull?!! Blimey there must have been something seriously off-kilter. I always did rather well in Manchester, I recall one particularly charming blond, rugby-playing doctor and a night at Mal Maison. Sighs...

that was no head cold

So the head cold actually turned out to be flu. I had forgotten how horrible real flu is. Fever, sweating, aching everywhere, unable to breathe, unable to sleep, horrible. I called the office at 8.30 on Friday morning and told them I wouldn’t be in. The next time I looked at the bedside clock it was 2.30pm. I struggled into the living room with the duvet and collapsed on the sofa with a mug of Lemsip Blackcurrant Flu Formula. In the time since I left college daytime TV has changed beyond recognition. Now it’s packed with chat shows, garden makeovers, buy a place in the sun shows, sell your old junk at bootsales/auction houses shows and even buy stuff from boot sales in the sun and sell it at boot sales here in the UK. ( I am serious!) It’s very soothing and I am sure helped my recovery. I even got to see an episode of my ex’s old favourite, “Ready, Steady, Cook”.

I was back in bed by 10 and had a much better night . I was awoken by my mobile ringing.(It plays a dreadful version of Scissor Sisters, “Filthy Gorgeous”) It was Black John to say the model he booked for a shoot had not yet arrived, and he knew I was at home sick but no one else was answering their phone. Grrr! I called the model and of course all I got was their answering machine so i left a shitty message. Fortunately BJ had booked another guy, so he would just have to double up on the shots. Anyway I was up and out of bed and feeling so much better than I had for the past two days, so I made some toast and finished off the book I had been reading.

Flattie teaches on a Saturday and so I had the place to myself for the morning. Laundry on, a bit of low key tidying. (If Flattie reads this he will laugh because the tidying was so low key he will not have noticed it! It was clearing out of a couple drawers,actually!) I needed to buy milk, cereal and something for lunch but wasn’t sure I could make it to Sainsburys. I walked round the corner to Pikey Iceland and brought some soup and milk and took advantage of the two for one Oat So Simple offer. I also broke down in the pizza section and brought three for £4!! Listen, they are frozen and so I can have one a week as a special treat!

Flattie called to say he, Mac and White John were at Eco having lunch and did I need any medication picking up on the way home. What a sweet heart! I walked up to meet them for coffee after promising that I was no longer contagious. Mac was recovering from a drinking binge that had started on Thursday afternoon and had finished early this morning. He and Jamie are a terribly destructive combination. WJ and BJ are going to Action tonight, which means they will end up after the after hours club Beyond. I do not think that is compatible with my recovery programme and so I will give it a miss. (FYI: I loathe Action and Beyond.)

Fox is in Manchester. Look out Canal Street, beware the predatory gentleman in yellow socks!

Sneezes...

Have a stinking cold. Lemsip and loo roll at hand. I am wearing pink and orange Missoni socks and brown fabric Coach logo shoes. Grumpy David said that my cold has taken an unusual twist and blocked not my nose, but my sense of pattern co ordination. When I got dressed this morning I was feeling so rough and miserable I put on things I thought would perk me up. A bit like clothes as vitamins, hence the orange socks and bright yellow watch strap and pastelly pink and blue shirt, all the colours of little pills!

Tonight I have organised for Grumpy David, Fox and Flattie to go and see Sweeney Todd, the Sondheim musical. The boys don't normally do musicals, but I explained this one was blood thirsty and cannibalistic and they were sold on the idea. We'll see what they have to say later.

His Dark Materials

Went to the theatre last night to see the second part of the adaptation of Philip Pullman's trilogy: http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/?lid=7927&tmpl=whatsonpics It is such and amazing spectacle. For those who have not read the books the plot is incredibly complex, think Lord of The Rings/Harry Potter/An analysis of the essence of religion, but the way the animals and spirits are brought to life is brilliant.

I dreamed of monsters and daemons and polar bears last night.

Feb 1st

Hi there,

I am just about recovered from Mac's impromptu after hours party on Sunday night. The gang had met up for dinner at The Railway at 8pm on Sunday. It felt a bit like a Guerilla Gay Bar event as there were about 12 of us and then another table of gayers beside us. We had spilt up on Saturday night, with Mac going to a party in Clapham, the Johns staying in and watching DVD's, Flattie and I at Duckie, Fox and Adrian at a fancy dress party, Liverpool Martin at Queer Nation and I can't recall where the others were.

Fox and Flattie had been shopping that afternoon and arrived laden with purchases just as I about to relate the tales from Duckie. I had been on moderate good behaviour because there had been work related people there and I don't like to be caught falling off stage by people I have to deal with professionally later in the week. However we had managed to find a little hottie for Flattie and things were proceeding nicely, kissing on dancefloor, etc. Unfortunately just before The Readers Wives played "Their favourite song of all time" the small cutie announced he was "too wasted" to accompany Flattie home and anyway, he was "too choosy". Hmm. Not very impressed. When we got home Flattie was still raging and threw stuff around. Fortunately our flat is sparsely furnished and most of it is unbreakable. The rest of the gays made sympathetic noises and we all agreed for the 7903 time that, "Men are bastards."

This sentiment was echoed by Mau Mau. Her married, but separated lover of the past two years announced by email (Very modern, but totally unacceptable) that he was in Argentina and sleeping with prostitutes. Difficult news for a gay man to come to terms with, for a girl as sensitive as Mau, it destroyed her. There was not much I could say to make her feel better. I guess at least he wasn't looking for another relationship, he just wanted quick anonymous sex. Men do stuff like that, men are ...(7904)

Suddenly they were calling last orders at the bar and we all piled back to Mac's flat for more drinks! I don't know how it happpened, but there was singing and dancing until the early hours. I would publish pictures but I feel there could be law suits!