Farewell 2006

Juicelog Sun 311206: There is an old Chinese saying that says:

”Man who waits for roast duck to fly into mouth must wait very, very long time.”

I’ve never seen a roast duck fly but if and when that time comes I’ll be sure to keep my big mouth wide open (and then immediately go and get myself tested for Asian bird flu). What I think this proverb is trying to say is if you sit back expecting all the wonderful things in life to come to you then it’s not going to happen at all. And it is on this premise I decided to take a different approach to how I wanted this year to pan out.

2006 is not what I would describe as a vintage year but undeniably it was an eventful and colourful one. The year started on a bit of a bum note when my job was re-graded (to a banding which was lower than I had expected), my PC died and my general mood was mildly low. Over the course of the next few months things began to pick up (and dip) with two enjoyable holidays, a mini operation, new friendships, Mickey Mouse, a variety of outings, one of my favourite bloggers ended his blog, dilly parties and fab weekends away.

Whilst I’ve strayed away from blogging about certain parts of my personal life, I have to let my immaturity come through with this one minor item. This year has been a flattering one with the amount of male attention I have received. In the grand scale of things this is a very insignificant and artificial thing to be talking about, but personally this has boosted my self esteem and given me a new found confidence which has helped me in other parts of my life.

One of the topics I’ve deliberately not mentioned is my love life. My reasons have got nothing to do with being coy but simply because I didn’t have any relationships this year. I can’t say for sure as to why I haven’t made an effort in this area, but I guess partly it has something to do with the unimpressionable characters I’ve encountered who have not offered me an incentive for me to engage with them on an emotional level. Part of the thing with being in my 30’s is that I have entered this new age bracket with a new set of expectations and a dismissive mindset. This is an area that I need some assistance and insight with.

As 2006 draws to a close I end it in good health and feeling fairly content. I am confident that next year will be a great one. I look forward to all that this great city has to offer. I look forward to having more memorable moments with my mates. I look forward to progressing in my career. I look forward to testing myself with how I deal with the unexpected. I look forward to doing that relationship thing again. I look forward to having the unconditional support and love of my nearest and dearest. And most of all I look forward to sharing more of me with you.

Let’s have a great 2007. Happy New Year everyone!

The Llama’s gathering

Juicelog Sat 161206: The Llama (AKA Claire) has to go into her winter hibernation at this time of the year. In order for her to have a long and peaceful sleep she needs to be doused with haddock incensed holy water by an allegiance of impudent lowbred drolls. An electronic summons directed us to The House of Flesh situated in a deep dark remote and concealed area that struggles with broadband internet and pizza deliveries (i.e. Upper Clapton).

With her trusted flatmates by her side (Joe and Leve) we centred ourselves for quiet drinks and lesbian cheesecake before proceeding with the official departing ceremony. A few doorbell rings later, plan L was binned as it was not able to cope with the many digressions and deviations thrown in:

Phil H’s Bidet

Juicelog Fri 151206: Wasn’t able to finish my Steak Catalan burger at Hache (in Camden) for Phil H’s 32^nd bidet. Not wanting to borrow any additional energy from the bank of chemicals I decided to opt for an early night and left the guys to damage themselves in the heart of Kings Cross.

Rudeboyz Finals

Juicelog Thurs 141206: My trip to Costa Coffee today was to coerce Londan into coming to the finals of the Rudeboyz competition tonight and to seek bespoke chavtorial advice (so that I could live up to the scally standards that have been nationally benchmarked by Tom & Bouncy Boy’s outfits).

Tonight, Philip Olivier didn’t look that hot in the flesh as I had hoped he would be. He made a brief appearance to judge the competition and to promote his £7 calendar. Tonight’s competition was well attended and we even got to see Tommy (one of the contestants) perform an impressive bend forward head to groin yoga technique. Even though he didn’t win it was definitely an award winning performance!

Boys Night Out 2

Juicelog Sat 091206: Ra-Ra served up canapés, cheesy music and mulled wine at his lovely South Chelsea residence tonight. Resolutely we ploughed on through the blustery cold and ended up in the 2 Brewers (gay bar on Clapham High Street that).

The last time I was here was about ten years ago when the place had blacked out windows and the entrance was through the back entrance in a dodgy little back street. How gloomy it was for me to see how this place has ditched its history and transformed itself into a Marbella-like modern bar.

Boys Night Out 1

Juicelog Fri 081206: Had a pre-Chrimbo dinner at Joy King Lau with Ruben, David M and Dan E tonight. Having not done the drinking thing for quite some time we circulated a few bars before heading down to The Cock. Just as I was getting into the electro sounds I got dragged outside to make up the numbers for some cable television show quiz.

Aunt D

Juicelog Sat 021206: Aunt Dorothy (the youngest of nine children) from my father’s side of the family popped into London for a couple of days. Wai and myself caught up with her for a quick drink this afternoon.

It was about 23 years that I last saw her and I was quite startled with her full head of grey hair at 45 years old. This appears to be one of the trademarks that comes with the hectic face paced lifestyle of folks in China. The reason that my aunt gave for working her butt off is to accumulate as much money as possible given that retirement kicks in sooner in Hong Kong.

When the workforce hits 50, many of them are deemed unemployable and only a few continue working after this age onwards. It’s depressing that people are forced into early retirement when they still have the ability and capacity to work. Maybe some of these premature retirees should think about investing their savings into hair dying salons.

The Castle

Juicelog Wed 291106: Charles & Mark have both given up their day jobs to become owners of The Castle pub on Battersea High Street. Went down in the evening to check out their joint. The size of the place was massive with two outdoor drinking areas. Unsurprisingly given the extent of Charles & Mark's proclivity for clubbing we saw tonnes of gay boys from Fire tonight. Kitchen was not open tonight as they had literally just taken it over.

Got accosted by this sweet but semi drunk woman (Annette) who worked for sodamtuff and kept asking me where I was from and whether I could dance. She thought I was Eurasian and told me that she wanted me on her database. Not sure why but maybe she doesn't have too many J's in her phonebook.

Uncle G

Juicelog Tues 281106: Uncle Graham was in town for one night tonight and so I made a bit of an effort heading down to Clapham to meet up with him. Following his sinful episode a couple of years ago he relocated (with bad Johnie) to Weymouth so it’s not often I get to see him.

Having heard about Uncle Graham’s infamous naughty nephews I finally got to meet four of them tonight. We went for a boisterous meal in a Chinese restaurant on Clapham High Street.

Sweet Tears

Juicelog Tues 281106: For the past two days I have been busy with going to Oxford County Court to give my dad some support with a court case regarding his business. Even though I have no financial interests in my father’s restaurant, it was an extremely tense moment when the judge was about to announce his decision. It took him ages to get to the actual decision as he spent a good ten minutes recapping the whole case and all off the evidence presented to him.

Fortuitously the judge ruled in my dad’s favour. My dad displayed a small relieved smile on his face after finding out that he had won. A couple of minutes later he telephoned my mum to tell her the good news. After telling her he shed a few tears of joy. I can’t remember the last time or having ever seeing him cry. What a touching and stirring moment it was for me to see my dad in such a gay state of being.

Boys to Men

Juicelog Sat 251106: November certainly served up many a bidets in my man packed schedule. Tonight intrepidly I attended a double whammy to celebrate Londan’s & Crazycake’s joint bday social outing. Having circulated across a few bars we then dropped into Heaven (who coincidentally were also celebrating their bidet). Crazycakes took us into his new age bracket with some reds and blues. Unfortunately Londan’s body was not responding appropriately due to a midnight tuna sandwich.

Bent

Juicelog Wed 221106: Steering away from my current attendances of musicals I went to see Bent tonight at Trafalgar Studios. Bent is Martin Sherman’s 1979 play about the lives of Berlin's gay community and how they were treated by the Nazis.

Seeing Alan Cummings on stage gave me a whole new perspective of him away from the stereotyped role he plays in major blockbusters. His second half performance (which looks at the relationship between Max and Horst a fellow gay inmate played by the fittie Chris New) at a concentration camp lacked emotional depth and required more gravitas. This is a thought provoking play and can be at times fairly difficult to watch. I would have loved to seen it the first time round when Sir Ian McKellen played the role of Max.

Cholmeley Boys Club

Juicelog Sun 191106: Ant (the safest driver according to Paul C) got us back to London in a speedy 65 minutes. This allowed me to hook up with Londan & Crazycakes for Ben’s birthday party. Not having received any pre-party details I really wasn’t sure what to expect.

Ben is a Norwegian-Pakistani fashion photographer that we met clubbing one warm Sunday afternoon. The location for his 30^th bidet bash tonight was in Highbury at Cholmeley Boys Club (which I think used to be an old Sunday grammar school). Mesmerised by the building I was fascinated to see more of the inside but the upstairs area was restricted access. Dance floor and DJ sound system were housed downstairs in a large dark room on the ground floor which had a small overlooking balcony towards the back of the room. A large warmly lit fireplace was the main source of light giving the party a groovy electric feel.

As soon as numbers of party people began to dwindle we headed back into town to experiment with neuroblasts.

Mamak – Part 2

Juicelog Sat 181106: Like a documentary on the history channel, Dan and Paul gave me a condensed afternoon tour of the lanes and introduced me to their Brighton mates. Josh B. continued where they left off and took me to Brighton Rock for some rainy cocktails and a good ol’ natter. He’s recently acquired a new tattoo and a funky petite fan-belt foldaway bike (which I absolutely adore). The relocation to Brighton seems to have given him a new lease of life.

After Mamak’s official birthday dinner we drove back to London singing along to cheesy songs on the radio.

Mamak – Part 1

Juicelog Fri 171106: Mamak (AKA Alex C) launched an emergency distress call as there was a mini epidemic of Reindeer flu in her local hood. A handful from the London area headed south to Brighton celebrate Mamak’s 47th bidet.

Mamak practiced her David Copperfield routine at tonight’s pre-birthday dinner. Afterwards the boys popped into the newly refurbished Legends for a lesson on yucky green lighting and random placements of uncovered electric sockets. As I came out of the gents I was approached by a tall 21yo twink who boldly struck up a mini conversation with me. We swapped 11 digits planning to continue the conversation back in London.

What My Shorts Caught

Juicelog Sat 111106: Feeling bored I went for a slightly different disco outfit tonight and opted to go out in my white shorts instead of my usual clubwear. As predicted this produced a few salacious stares and cheeky remarks.

During the course of the evening my shorts caught the attention of a 27yo chap by the name of Kieran. In the past Kieran has never acknowledged my existence let alone batted an eyelid at me. With the Londan seal of approval (one of the highest accolades that can be bestowed upon the mere mortals of Vauxhallsville) and a rubber-stamped authorisation form, I swapped a smile with him which drew him closer into my local vicinity. We then got talking. Our conversation was the usual exchange of basic demographics that usually takes place between two unacquainted people getting to know each other.

After a few minutes Kieran decided he wanted to let me know how much he admired my outfit. With a couple of lines of sweet talking he proceeded with an attempted unsanctioned detailed inspection of them. In his quality control role, he initiated the first part of the analysis by determining exactly what material they were made of by touching the back of my shorts. In doing so a large section of my left booty was accidentally clasped. As it was done in the name of research I overlooked his violation.

He also wanted to remove my ivory coloured apparel so that he could read the little label at the back to determine the country of origin. Like a true gentlemen he offered me privacy by trying a couple of times to lure me into a toilet cubicle. At this point I declined and decided to keep away from his Saturday night mojo.

Now I’m by no means a conservative prude or an angel. Hell, I even invented several jillion new ways a toilet cubicle can be used (way back in 2003). My lack of enthusiasm stemmed from how unchallenging and easy I found the whole episode. If there is one thing I learnt tonight is that I cannot be enticed and tempted that easily. Not unless your outfit is easier to remove than mine.

More Geordies

Juicelog Thurs 091106: After dissing my sexy black Calvin Kleins, he then sends me some happy Circo Loco memories:

Spamalot

Juicelog Wed 081106: The Palace Theatre tonight was packed full of fans and children from the Python generation. Spamalot is a musical based on Monty Python and The Holy Grail, this production was a pastiche of a Broadway/west end musical which had satire and staging extremely reminiscent of The Producers.

Every time one of the popular characters came on everybody cheered. Most of them seem to be enraptured by the jolly sing along songs. The Python trademark was well and truly alive tonight even with a lot of popular culture references thrown in. Some of the memorable scenes for me was the joke about the French stereotypes and the lake woman doing her rendition of an over the top pop diva. Product placement was rife with Spam sandwiches being sold during the interval as well as our favourite killer bunny.

China Power Station: Part 1

Juicelog Sun 051106: Scraping in on the last day we (David M, Brian, Yod and myself) finally made it to Battersea Power station to catch the last day of the China Power Station (Part 1) exhibition. As we were queuing to get inside the building it was quite apparent that the power station had been neglected since it was closed down.

Upon entering the station we were greeted by a polystyrene tank which I later discovered was one of the installation pieces (by Chinese artist called Xu Zhen).

Apart from the tank one of the other things most people observe is the enormous space inside the building. With the derelict atmosphere it would make the ideal location for a major squat party or a 90’s boy band video.

Moving upstairs we checked out various pieces of video installation being shown in dark spaces. Cao Fei “Whose Utopia?” piece had a beautiful and moving sadness to it in the way it showed various people dancing amongst Chinese workers.

One level beneath the videos was a big wall of (juicy) fruits.

Stop Climate Chaos

Juicelog Sat 041106: With a couple of hours of sleep tucked underneath last night’s Gucci belt, I sleepwalked into central London to join Tom & Bouncy Boy’s rebels for some hardcore foot stomping at the Stop Climate Chaos demonstration. Climate change has been a prominent issue in the media this week. My attendance was not as an absolute climate chaos partisan, given that scientists themselves have still yet to reach an unanimous consensus as to whether global warming would have occured irrespective of whether human beings existed or not. The demo attracted a large turnout who turned up with the right weather symbol banners as stipulated by the organisers.

At lunch we had a gravytastic Steak and Ale pie at the Ship and Shovel afterwards. I was surprised to learn about Bouncy Boy’s morning TV viewing habits (and spotless flat) after deciding not to pursue his recent BBC appointment.

On the way home I chuckled when mister handyman went driving around terrorising the general public with his drivealong karaoke being pumped out of his sweet little handyman van.

Phu’s Grey Permanence

Juicelog Fri 031106: Leaving my warm cosy flat tonight I joined Phu and his big bad posse at Viet Grill (on Kingsland Road) for his hullabaloo soiree. Primary purpose for attending was to count the number of grey hairs that Phu had hoarded over the past thirty-one years. The secondary reason was to celebrate his recent British status. After our divine Vietnamese meal we made a last minute decision to prolong the evening with a disco session.

As self nominated peg distributors, Dan E & myself dished out various insults and compliments (scribbled onto the pegs) to selected A:M clubbers.

Snow Cake

Juicelog Wed 011106: Dan C. suggested that I checked out Marc Evan’s Snow Cake and so I did tonight. This comedy drama looks at the catharsis of ex-convict Alex’s (played by Alan Rickman) emotions following a tragic car accident with the death of Vivienne (young hitchhiker teenager who he picks up in a motorway café). Trying to deal with his grief, Alex goes ends up in Wawa to seek out Linda (taken on by Sigourney Weaver) who is the high-functioning autistic mother of Vivienne.

Alex doesn’t have much dialogue in his role but it’s what he doesn’t say in those awkward moments between him and Linda produces a very captivating chemistry. As the exterior of both these characters slowly melts away, their innermost fears slowly seep out through the cracks along their healing journey. The soft tone and soft texture of Rickman’s voice are delivered in a beautiful understated British accent. Weaver does well in showing Linda as a strong feisty independent women with oddities.

The film is not as depressing as it sounds as there are some comical quirky moments interlaced throughout the film. A lot of the sadness is quite touching and emotionally beautiful. Not my cinematic highlight of the year but the stunning performances and thoughtful script is a memorable minor piece of work.

More Space closing

Juicelog Tues 311006: What's not to love about the best car park in the world?

Trade Goes Legal

Juicelog Sun 291006: Sixteen years ago it gave birth to the addictive buzz of afterhours and a new meaning to Sunday mornings. The term "Trade Babies" was coined to describe its loyal followers and devotees. Now being of a legal age, this morning Trade attracted many from the shallow murky depths of insentient beings to the pulsating throb of Farringdon.

A few of us bought our DC10 fans along to the club in an attempt to import this Ibizian trend into the London club scene. The magnetism of the club is the rave like atmosphere in this big labyrinth venue. Paranoia kicked in when I kept imagining a freaky bunny rabbit stalking us as we floated back and forth between the different rooms and corridors.

Fat Tony played a devastatingly smokin’ set in the lite lounge this afternoon as the club wound down to an end. Whilst breakfast in bed freshens up the body for the weekend, Trade on a Sunday morning provides sublime relief for the soul to finish off the weekend.

Not so La Troya

Juicelog Sun 291006: Step two of my Saturday agenda was not implemented due to not being allowed into Area (for the La Troya night) from my heavy exposure to alcohol.

Slouched on the pavement I hung my head inbetween my knees questioning how I ended up in such a state. Knowing that I had defiled my flawless record, I clenched my buttcheeks as tight as they could go and prayed to the almighty one for help and guidance. Two minutes later my prayer was unanswered. With my last ounce of focus I managed to compose a help text message and shortly later my egregious knight in chavvy armour came to my rescue.

The scally shell is upgraded:

Daddy Dick & Lola’s Housewarming

Juicelog Sat 281006: Being the proud owners of a new property in the middle of Brixton Hill my mates Daddy Dick and Lola have recently acquired a Victorian terraced house in the Brixton Hill area. During the tour of his big and beautiful pad, I had a heart warming moment when Daddy Dick showed me his bedroom. He finally got round to getting himself a kingsize bedstead and a proper (visco elastic memory foam) mattress. With nuts, crisps and hefty amounts of booze we initiated Saturday night proceedings.