Clapham Spleen

Got the nightbus back from the West End on Saturday night after a trying couple of hours at Exilio Latino. All was fine and dandy till the N155 hit Clapham High Street, where we slid into a crawl, then when we stopped at Clapham Common, the pissed-up young professionals piled on at every orifice. I found myself surrounded by leering 30-somethings, all pawing each others' girlfriends. The nearest group consisted of 4 guys and a gal, one of the former creepily stroking the latter's straightened locks - clearly NOT his bird - and announcing through beer-bloated, sneering lips "if you're staying at mine, you realise I'll have to cut off pieces of your hair". The unfortunate woman then crouched down in the middle of the group to grapple with her handbag, at which point the sniggering started in earnest. "You'll have to give us all blowjobs now" came the horribly predictable comment.

With mates like that ...

A week after getting over the norovirus - two months after everyone else had it - I'm addicted to plain boiled rice, and I find I'm down to 13 stone for the first time in who knows how long. Is this a look I want to work with? I fit into a couple of skinny black t-shirts far better than I ever have. I feel like I should be doing a Venus Xtravaganza routine every time I go out - "feel these ribs darling, feel all of these ribs. OK? You just can't take it".

New year, new flat, new blog. The old one was getting a bit arsey, so after a break of a few months I thought I'd give this version a whirl. No doubt it'll lapse back into the usual routine of half-assed reviews of movies, artshows, drunken benders and crap shags. We'll see what happens.

Recent news? Now fully installed in Eraserhead Mansions high atop Clapham South tube station, and quite enjoying it thanks. Missing Old Street? Yehbutnobutyehbutnobutyehbutno. Current projects include scraping 70 years' worth of South London rain limescale and fag tar off the Crittal windows with the help of washing soda and dilute hydrochloric acid. Quite satisfying getting rid of the gunk, but it's a bit hairy when the Spirits of Salt hit the window frames, and it all starts to fizzzzzz.

Cultural highlights of this weekend include No Country for Old Men (decidedly not a Friday night movie - in my clapped-out pre-weekend mode, I didn't clock that it was set in 1980 till the end, and it took me a full minute to register that one of the main characters had been killed - odearime - praps I'll go back to it on DVD in a couple of years) and downloading the Rita Coolidge version of Higher & Higher, which turned a rather tetchy evening down at Duckie a few months back into something far more mellow and delicious.

That's all I can think of fer the now. More in the next.