May 3, 2008

On December 11 last year, a few days after my birthday, my beloved wristwatch, my fellow traveller de jour for years, clunked.

Now, this is something only watch wearers and fellow OCD victims will understand: It. Is. A Nightmare.

Especially if you also suffer from Complete Lazy Twat Syndrome, which I also do, which is why - rain, wind, winter, blustery spring - I have not bothered to walk a half mile down the road into the Bad Lands and buy a new one.

And yes, it is - indeed - now May 3.

Like, almost six months later.

But hey.

Mr Dunn walks out of his apartment (!) today, wanders past his downstairs landlady/hairdresser shop arrangement type thing, and what - what! - does he find right next door.

A watch repairers.

Which is shut on afternoons.

Which means, if I wasn't bastard blogging this morning, my watch would work.

Bugger.

May 3, 2008

[This didn't happen]

"Brian Paddick, bad luck. You came a distant and some might say dismal third in what you may one day feel was the biggest, most vast, vacant and vacuous opportunity of your life. London is arguably the greatest city in the Western world after New York. It's cosmopolitan. It's cool. It's expensive. It's poor. It's gritty. It's shiny. It's black and it's white. It's full of funk and it's full of fuck. Packed. Yes, there are drugs on every corner. But there are hearts in every street. For every tie and every shirt and every blouse and every sock there's a washing machine out there rolling around to wash them. London breathes, Brian. It's not so much a city as an organism. Listen hard enough, Brian, and you can hear it's heartbeat. Thump, thump, thump, thump. And it's liberal with both a capital and a small l. This is a place that accepts, Brian. Pretty much anything goes. You want mango, Brian? You want mango? You can have mango, Brian. Have some. Help yourself to mango. Because this is London, Brian. A city for all seasons and all people. Yet somehow, you, Brian, the Liberal Democrat candidate for our one truly great British metropolis, failed to make an impact and thus failed, essentially, quite miserably. How do you feel?"

"Gay."

"Er, right. But how do you feel about not even being a second choice in the London mayoral election?"

"I just think it's gay."

"Hmm. Do you think this might have been your problem?"

"I don't get you, babe."

"That, well, every answer to every question put to you seems to have been tempered with your sexuality, as though anyone was actually arsed about that?"

"Arse. Excellent. Now you're talking."

"Er, no. No, we're not. We're talking about politics, and your desire to be a part of it."

"Desire. Mmmm. Fancy some? Do you? Eh, twinkle?"

"Can we get back on track here? I'd like to probe a little."

"I bet you do, you naughty boy."

"You rose through the ranks as a married police officer, but you weren't exactly conventional copper material, were you?"

"You're just being anti-gay."

"Erm, no. I'm not. I'm just saying that a police officer who openly admits to taking drugs frequently - which, whether we sit here and debate it or not, is still a crime - and who cruises and cottages for sex - which is also a crime, albeit admittedly a faintly ridiculous one, even if it is to just ask people to be a bit more discreet in an age of hotels - still doesn't necessarily square with the role of upholder of the law, does it? You were like a pig in a poke."

"There you go again, twinkle."

"I'm not your twinkle. Can we get serious here? You seem to see a gay jibe or a gay innuendo or indeed a gayism in just about everything, don't you? As though you see the world through pink-tinted glasses. Do you think it's possible that even in a city as diverse and culturally rich as London, with its broadly liberal elite and its largely accepting majority, that you were perhaps just a bit too much to take?"

"Never had any complaints before, lover."

"See? There you go again. It's, like, nothing else matters. Just you. And being gay. With yourself. 'I'm gay, look at me. I was a copper don't you know'."

"Yes. But they didn't like me being gay. They were threatened by my gayness. My gayability shone sunshine on their opaque mushroom farm-like world."

"So it wasn't because they thought you were just essentially, gay or not, a total cunt, then?"

"Gay. Off."

"Look. Seriously. Please. Help me out here."

"Ooh. Want a hand?"

"Jesus. No. I just want a conversation."

"Oral, eh?"

"No! Just me and you. Man to man."

"Oh, stop it! You big tease!"

"Right - let's play it your way."

"That's better, love. But let's get comfortable."

"No, I mean let's talk about policies from your angle. How do you think your overt sexuality and never ever ever ever ever ever shutting up about it goes down with-"

"I don't do oral on first dates"

"-say, Muslims? The ones Ken tried to coerce to get himself back into office but failed anyway? Them?"

"I'd obviously teach them about being gay. As a gay man, who does gay things, gaily, I know what it's like to be on the outside, where gay men like me - because I'm gay too; properly gay - are. Being gay."

"Transport, then. It's probably the biggest problem this city has. Too many people to do too many things in a small place with huge ideas and huge ideals. Where do you stand on the Tube?"

"Behind men, darling."

"Brian, this is pointless. I can't talk to you. We had an arrogant mayor whose love of reptiles is almost certainly a Freudian indication of galloping narcissism being taken on by a Tory buffoon whose only qualification for the job is that all his Eton dormitory mates run a big building or eight down the road, too, whilst yearning for their frantic circle jerks after Latin. And you. You could have been Mayor of London, Brian. London! But you just couldn't stop going on about being a twatting homosexual, could you? I'm surprised you didn't lose your deposit, frankly."

"I just did, love. Pass the cloth."

May 3, 2008

Dendrophilous, noun
Fond of trees

"How's Mojo?" asked Nipper.

"Asleep," said Zeds.