Well, today, my internal jukebox has had three songs on repeat:

“Here comes that Sinking Feeling,”

“This City never sleeps,”

and

“Better to have Lost in Love”

All end-of album songs by the Eurythmics.

What’s that all about?

Lay on the sofa fri and watched a rerun of the Orympic opening ceremony. They get 3,000 perfectly choreographed drummers and Sarah Brightman on top of a fifteen story metal globe. We’ll probably get Amy Winehouse in a shopping trolley.

Sat, sorted out my clutter - mental and physical - and feel incredible for doing it.

Sat night, the all-male Mikado at the Union, bookended by too many beers at the Fire Station, and a train journey with a disproportionate amount of eye candy, and all wrapped up in another great night with one of my oldest (in so many senses of the word) friends, was magical.

Abed at 2am.

Sunday, a furious bout of house keeping - dusting hoovering, bleaching the bloodstains out of the carpet - left both D and I exhausted but the house feeling tidier than it has in ages, and our mental states vastly improved. I cooked, though not brilliantly, and Carl and Stu turned up with the lovely Ellie, who was charming and funny and only tried to rip my leg off once during the visit. The dog was lovely too.

A new computer was installed by My friend Ennis, whilst his other half and I swapped stories of long forgotten Stock Aitken and Waterman artistes (Oh how I wish I’d kept my Mandy Smith Promo).

Four bottles (and half of a fifth) of vin rouge were consumed, which is very surprising, as the general level of drunk didn’t seem too high. That said, after they’d left, I was abed, and fell asleep on top of Tintin. Rather, one suspects, like Captain Haddock…

A weekend where I realised, again, how truly blessed I am. I have brilliant friends, a great great life, and so much to be thankful for.

I am now, however, knackered. Roll on next weekend.

I so would.

Captions for the above, please.

As I passed them by, I clearly heard one say “Well, anyhoo. That didn’t work.”

Any? Hoo? People really talk like that outside of chat rooms? OMFG! HuNu? LMFAO! Got Pix?

Sorry, wrong chat rooms….

the questions kate mccann refused to answer have just been published.

she is such a lying, no commenting old cow

shes lied and evaded so much it woudlnt surprise me if maddy never exiisted and she just spent an hour on the old photoshop.

Stratford-on-avon on saturday for Hamlet starring Him off Doctor Who, her off Star Trek TNG (geekahoy) and one of them off Star Wars Ep I, II, and III. V good (that Bill Shakespeare’s not a bad writer. Just needs a good editor, is all), and bookended with a lovely drive to and from the place, an open-top bus trip, three beers in a beer garden, and a lovely chicken bacon and poached egg salad.Sunday - got into bed at 3am. Got out of bed at 11:15. Tidied up my ipod (now with even more added kylie), my mail, my bills, did my accounting, found some certificates I needed to prove I’ve studied on a course I want to do in the autumn, called my parents, did some ironing / laundry, chilled, made pasta, and went to kd lang. In BTon. On Pride weekend. There were other men there too. Just not many. I cried like a baby during the song ‘the valley,’ which features the lines

“I love the best in you

You love the best in me

Though it’s not always easy

You will walk in good company.”

But then, I am a big sissy.

Tonight, off to see a complete history of my sexual failures. No, not mine….

I was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar…. Oh, wait, wrong story.

I, at the time, was working as a bank cashier in a suburban branch of the TSB, and had skipped work for the day to interview at a few large City Banks. Typically, I’d forgotten to take any money out of my bank account, and, having called in sick, realised that the bank manager I worked for would see if I withdrew any cash from bank machines.

Paranoid? I was born that way, mate.

So, on realising just how expensive the cost of travelling to my job interviews was, I had just enough money for a piece of toast for breakfast. Which meant that, for the rest of the day, I had nothing else to eat.

Every interview I went to offered me coffee, which I took greedily. By the time I hit my last interview with Merrill Lynch, I was wired, and gaseous, and chatting madly whilst trying not to emit staccato farts.

And that’s when I met my friend Suzanne.

She tag-teamed me with Julia, and they barely suppressed their laughter at some of my more rambly answers.

Rambling answers? I was born that way, mate.

I got the job, and I realised later that the smiles, the sparkles, meant that they’d actually liked me. I got the job, and they liked me.

And, not long after, I went to work for Sue, who taught me so much stuff that, to this day, is still part of my philosophy.

She taught me the value of respecting – hell, even of liking – the people who work for you. She taught me the importance of honesty – better to retain their respect than simply to retain staff. She introduced me to Sushi, to Mishima, to Cartier Bresson’s photography (I was pretentious before then, of course, but Suzanne developed it from a hobby to a mode de vie, so to speak) , and to the concept of honest letching at pretty straight city boys (“They love it, really; they’re all slaaags,” she might have said, if she weren’t such a lady).

She persuaded the notoriously butch office that the best 21^st Birthday present they could get me (on my strong hint) was an acid yellow Emporio Armani Baseball cap with a twelve inch Peak. It was the most ridiculous piece of fashion I have ever owned, and the most perfectly insane (and insanely expensive) present I’ve ever been given.

She managed to feign a minor degree of surprise when I came out to her, before finally confiding “Oh, sweetheart. Right from the interview – that sparkle, it was me thinking I wonder if he knows he’s a big ole fairy? – I’ve known. Derek, Blind people. With Alzheimers. In Korea. Can see it.

She became my friend, my confidante, and, when some bad stuff happened to me and I got scared that my job was going to be finished, she taught me that your employers are not our parents, don’t have the right to behave like your parents, and that, so long as you do your job, your private life is none of their business.

She helped me grow up, and put me on the road to where I am today.

And tonight, we will be popping some champagne corks to celebrate her twenty-five years at Merrill Lynch.

Who could have guessed, twenty years ago, where we’d all end up; or how many careers she’d end up launching? Or that, when we don’t see each other for years at a stretch, I’d still consider Sue Sexton to be one of the best friends a scared little Irish fairy ever had, at a time when he needed one most of all?

Long may she reign.