Invisible Stranger


Invisible Stranger

Collecting Crises on Old Compton Street and Beyond

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Little Tinker

Currently clicking:
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- bitful
- blue witch
- diamondgeezer
- glitter for brains
- london calling
- naked blog
- troubled diva

Usually Playing:
- ute
- neil and chris
- peter and anna
- june
- kurt

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Saturday, August 30, 2003
Ladies And Gentlemen, There Will Now Be A Short Intermission
(Please Collect Your Drinks At The Bar)

It should only be for a few days, until the middle of next week. I normally aim to be Invisible, and a Stranger, and not get too personal in this blog of mine, but today, my dears, I simply don't give a sodding f**k fuck. My mother, the woman who brought me up single-handedly with no help from anyone else, thank-you-very-much, has had an accident. It's sort-of-serious when you're told about it on your mobile last night after two bottles of Beaujolais Villages (she never did have much sense of timing, did my mum). It's hopefully-and-probably-not-that-serious in the cold, hungover light of day. But it does mean that I'm going Up North to see her. And they don't have this internet access thingie up there, you know. So see you next week.

Sometimes, all the show-tunes in the world can't even begin to help.


Thursday, August 28, 2003
It's Only Rock 'n' Roll
Walking home last night, I passed someone I presumed to be a beggar. He certainly looked the part. Dishevelled appearance, glaring manic eyes, and a haircut you should be shot at dawn for; he was reeking of booze even cheaper than the stuff I'd been drinking, and wearing a scruffy parka covered with the kind of stains you don't ask your mum to wash out. Around his neck he'd hung a placard on which he'd scrawled the words "Have You Got A Stones Ticket?"

With tickets for their current world tour flogging for hundreds of quid, Rolling Stones tickets would make beggars out of us all, so I admired his cheek. (Word of advice: cheek/ honesty works with me every time. Ask me for the price of a cuppa tea, guv, and I'll come over all sneery and Kenneth Williams with you. Be up-front and demand a few quid for a couple of Special Brews, and you might just get lucky, matey.)

It was only when I saw the police cordon, the flashing cameras, and the queues of similarly-dressed people waiting outside the 2,000-capacity London Astoria, that I realised Mick Jagger had got over his nasty little cold and was playing there tonight, as a warm-up to the Stones' upcoming Wembley Arena gigs. And the man with the placard was no down-at-heel unfortunate but a bona fide rock 'n' roll fan.

Good on the Stones for playing such a comparatively small venue slap-bang in the middle of the West End. But do they know the Astoria is also the home to G.A.Y and Camp Attack, a couple of notoriously naff gay nights, distinguished by dipsy queens with no dress sense dancing even worse than me, and whose stage regularly plays host to wannabe popstars, faded 70s icons, and put-to-seed rock-star has-beens trying just one more come-back?

You know, maybe Mick and the lads are in on the joke, after all.


Tuesday, August 26, 2003
Is This The Real World?
I intended dropping in on my very first London bloggers' get-together this weekend, but, timid and shrinking violet that I'm sure you know I am, chickened out at the last moment. I actually arrived, but remained in invisible mode for one solitary Stella before slinking silently off into the heart of Saturday night (well, Old Compton Street, as if you couldn't have guessed).

I do that sometimes. I even did it at a friend's wedding reception once. It's not shyness, as anyone who's seen me dancing topless at Turnmills can attest, and I hope people won't see it as bad manners. What I probably find so exhausting and off-putting is the pressure of having to interconnect all at once with a big bunch of (mostly) faceless but (doubtless) friendly strangers, and to be witty and erudite and remember not to go on too much about The Tomorrow People.

I'm much better meeting up with smaller groups where I don't feel obliged to give 'em the old razzle-dazzle, or called upon to "perform"; more relaxed that way, I don't forget anyone's name either, I get to know people better and I don’t make too much of a idiot of myself until about the fourth or fifth Stella.

Of course, there was also the very real possibility that someone would introduce themselves to me as the author of "Little Boy Blog" or whatever, and I wouldn't even have heard of the bloody thing let alone read it. That fear obsessed me so much that, for the two days leading up to Saturday, I Googled every bloody UK blogmeet since 2000, before finally whittling down to about sixty a possible attendee-list, and then doing a crammer on their last month's posts. I even drew up an Excel spreadsheet, detailing all their recent goings-on, favourite bands, quirks, and real names. Because I do so want to make a good impression on you, my dears. I do so want us to have loads to talk about. That's how much I need to entertain you.

Or maybe I'm just a snotty and supercilious middle-aged queen. Anyway, apologies if anyone was expecting to see me, and next time I'll be braver. Next time I'll try harder. Honest.



Sunday was spent on more familiar ground, as I made my first trip this year to the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, there to meet up with Mike of Troubled Diva, and listen to a foul-mouthed man in a frock sing Karen Carpenter songs. The product of an illicit union between Lily Savage and a Royston Vasey reject, the Dame Edna Experience wasn't as outrageously funny as she can be, even though she's still got one of the best voices in the biz.

Whatever she lacked, however, was more than made up by the Diva's presence, Mike's was the first blog I ever read, so it's all his fault, and it was fitting he should be the first blogger I meet in what passes for the real world of Vauxhall Cross. I couldn't put it better than he does here: it was a blinder, mate. Also nice to see, albeit briefly, Marcus whose Cuddles piece is one of the best things I've read in yonks; and Steve, who'll stand you a packet of dry-roasteds next time you're down Soho way.

It was remarked over the weekend that I'm not half as camp in real life as I am in my blog. Look, dears, no-one's that camp. But purely to make you all happy, I've just gone out and bought a Bonnie Langford CD. There. Satisfied now?


Friday, August 22, 2003
Whip Crack Away
When I was a lad in a Northern town, I collected what we then called "American Comics", and which I think we're now supposed to call graphic novels, or some similar silliness. I loved dropping round Mr McKenzie's newsagent every month to catch up on the latest goss from Gotham, or the mayhem down Metropolis way. Back then I never analysed Bruce's night-time adventures with his Dick, or the real reason muscle-Mary Clark kept saying no to Lois. Anyway, I identified much more with Catwoman - a loner, living outside the law, shy pussy-cat on first encounter, later a tiger who'll scratch your eyes out to get her own way.

Round about my thirteenth birthday, I decided to become a responsible adult and chuck out all six hundred or so of my Marvel and DC comics, saving just my half-complete collection of Superman's Girlfriend, Lois Lane (yes, you go figure…). Working out how much those discarded kiddie comics are worth today, it's something I regret every time the grown-up bills come in.

I tried to get back into comics in my mid-twenties and then in my mid-thirties when The Face insisted I should. Apart from the breath-taking Sandman (written by another blogging Brit and in a class of its own), I found most of them lacking any sense of humour and way too self-referential and post-modern (for which, read: a pile of pooey pants). Anyway, it wasn't the same. Dick had left Bruce, Clark finally got it on with Lois, and Wonder Woman hadn't been down and dirty with Cheetah for far too long. Where was the fun in that?

And that's why last night's purchase of The Rawhide Kid, while hardly the greatest comic there's ever been, was well worth the ten-quid I paid for the collected edition. A cute mysterious loner, who moseys on down into a dead-end Western town, six-gun at the ready, and who's, er, awkward in the company of girls, it's got its tongue firmly placed in its dimpled and moisturised cheek, and is a welcome innuendo-drenched alternative to all those other butcher-than-thou X-Men and Justice Leagues.

Cowboys, the slap of leather, and a hero who doesn't let the bad guys mess up his hair. Just goes to prove what I suspected all along. Those super-heroes – they're all a load of nancy-boys at heart.


Wednesday, August 20, 2003
On Your Way Out
I had a ticket for tonight's On Your Toes at London's Festival Hall. Normally, this would mean that tomorrow I'd be telling you about the breath-takingly sexy choreography, the wonderful Rodgers & Hammerstein songs, and what I'd like Irek Mukhamedov to do to me. (However, not wishing to disappoint, I'd still get in a sneak mention of the ten-quid season next door at the National.)

Only I didn't go. Cancelled at the last moment, I did: just too tired and I simply couldn't be arsed. I was meant to meet a couple of mates there too, meaning that later we'd cliché over to luvvie canteen Joe Allen for burgers, Manhattans, and chocolate fudge cake, before stumbling home long after the milkman's been on his way. Sorry, my dears, but these (school) days this Stranger needs his beauty sleep.

Hmm... First, putting the blinds up last Saturday… Then, yesterday, turning my nose up at that showbizzy party… And now this. You know, I fear my C.Q. (Camp Quotient) is descending to a dangerously low level. Reckon it needs a top-up.

Must remember the feather-boa this weekend.


Tuesday, August 19, 2003
Party Pooper
I haven't quite said "no", but have given a definite "probably not", to a party-invite for this weekend. It's being hosted out in the country by an occasional mate of mine, and his rather famous pop-star wife. We're hardly bosom-buddies, so it was nice of them to ask. Previous bashes at their place have been a hoot, and, whenever things started to flag, me and his lovely missus would just go out into the garden and discuss the rhododendrons, about which she knows quite a bit.

Ten years, even five years ago, I'd've jumped, wide-eyed and open-legged, at the opportunity of going showbiz and mwah-mwah-mwahing with the famous, the fondly-remembered, and the what-was-your-name-again? And now? Well, the whole celebrity thing just doesn't do it for me. In fact, it's too much like hard work. I'd much rather stay at home with a bottle of Merlot, and, should I crave sincerity and affection, a video of Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? That's loads more fun than working a room of never-to-be-met-again luvvies, or the awkwardness of pretending not to know who Super-Famous Person is by starting the small talk with "So, exactly what is it you do for a living?"

Besides, there's a bloggers' meeting in central London this weekend, which I might just try and make. For scandal, intrigue and glamour, I reckon that one's going to be hard to beat…


Saturday, August 16, 2003
Man At Work
I'm not the most practical of Strangers. I never learnt to drive or ride a bike, sometimes forget which way's up, and anything green in a pot dies within the month. I'm a lousy cook, apart from sausage sarnies, and, if I really must wire a plug, then I'm going to need a diagram to work out which coloured wire goes where. And on the rare occasions I attempt DIY, I make Frank Spencer look like Frank Lloyd Wright.

I bought a set of wooden blinds recently. Well, recently as in six months ago. They've been in the hallway ever since, glaring at me accusingly every time I leave or enter my flat, demanding I stop being so ineffectual and girly, and put them up. Once upon a time, I'd have paid someone to come round. Sadly, over the years I've discovered that call-out handymen, rather like pizza delivery boys and motorcycle couriers, never look like, or do the things, they do in the videos, so what's the point? If anyone's going to do it then it's going to have to be me.

So, by mid-morning today the floor was strewn with back-copies of the Pink Paper and everything was neatly laid out - blinds, mounting brackets, borrowed spirit-level, borrowed power-drill, borrowed selection of screwdrivers, screws and rawl-plugs. I made sure I looked the part too: grubby vest, too-tight shorts and one day's growth of stubble. Sizing myself up in my bathroom mirror, trimmed with faux pink fur, I looked ever so butch.

Of course, despite careful measuring, the blinds were way too big for the window space. This had something to do with the fact I'd previously done the measurements after an all-nighter in Farringdon, and with the tape-measure I use when sewing. (Apparently not the professional way to go about such things.) Undaunted, a determined stride down the road to the local hardware shop was called for, to buy my very first hacksaw. Knowing a DIY virgin when he saw one, the shop owner suggested I needed a "junior" hacksaw. Nah, mate, chewing the imaginary piece of Wrigley's in my mouth, give us the sort the trade uses. Cheers.

Back home and fifteen quid poorer, I supported the first blind on a chair (the kind Liza Minnelli danced around in Cabaret, only painted lilac), and, with a hardback set of the complete works of Oscar Wilde as counterweight, manfully set to sawing away at the metal and wood of the blind. A breeze, my dears; I reckon I could add "straight-acting and sweaty" to my Gaydar profile if only I had one. It was only halfway through the second blind I realised the CD playing in the background was Judy At Carnegie Hall Deciding Liza's mum wasn't the most appropriate choice of soundtrack, I switched the player over to Bruce Springsteen.

With all three blinds now chopped to their correct size, and only one splattered with blood, Bruce and I set to screwing the mounting brackets into the wall. Pounding power-tool in my hands for the first time (well, one made by Black & Decker anyway), I handled it like the DIY pro I'm sure you've realised I've now become. Even when I worked out that the holes I'd marked on the wall now no longer corresponded to the length of the sawn-down blinds, I didn't pout and stamp my feet and throw a queeny fit. No, I just said "f**k-s**t, f**k-s**t, f**k-s**t", like any respected workman would, downed tools, went to the pub, and two Stellas later returned to start all over again.

They're up now. With a bit of luck they might just stay up too: I've liberally applied some No More Nails, that lifesaver of the DIY-inept, to the mounting brackets just to be on the safe side. I swallowed only one rawl-plug, and the whole place is covered in a light layer of plaster-dust. I might just leave it like that: it lends a glamour of butch masculinity to balance the camp nelliness of the zebra-skin cushions and rugs, and the framed portraits of Louise Brooks. The sun is shining through the wooden slats now, turning the flat into something out of a 70s Hockney.

No-one's more impressed than me. You know, I could get into the hang of this do-it-yourself lark. I'm thinking of sorting out the plumbing next weekend, and after that putting down a parquet floor. I might even come round to yours and knock up some shelves, and a walk-in wardrobe.

I'm a man, my dears. Oooh, I am sooo glad I'm a man!


Thursday, August 14, 2003
Kultura – Nyet!
Last night I should have been watching a new - and supposedly sexy - production of one of my favourite plays, written by one of my favourite dramatists. Instead I swapped Three Sisters at the National for three-and-a-half Stellas in the beer garden. In this weather, my dears, three hours of Chekhov is no laughing matter.

There are times when culture just won't cut it. There are times when Moscow can bloody well wait.


Wednesday, August 13, 2003
Don't Sit Too Close To Me
Dawn's not too sure, you see. After sukiyaki and sake, she and the girls are going to this camp comedy club, but it'll be her first time in a gay bar, and she's worried it's going to be more Village People than Queer As Folk. But Trish says not to worry, 'cos Gareth will be there, and he'll look after them, and anyway, titters Sarah, some of those boys are, like, totally fit, and you really wouldn't know they're gay at all.

Meanwhile, to my right, Juan and Julio have just so obviously met for the first time at G.A.Y last night. They’re staring soulfully into each other's still loved-up puppy-dog eyes, babbling away in Portuguese. When their bento boxes arrive, and they have to stop their mutual pawing because they need their hands for the chopsticks, they start on some serious footwork under the table, at one point nudging my Converses by mistake.

While I appreciate the great-value food and no-fuss attitude of noodle canteens like Satsuma in Soho, the management's habit of jamming you thigh-by-thigh next to total strangers in rows of long, refectory-style tables is about as welcome as a kick in the tako-yaki. Call me old-fashioned, but I like to concentrate on savouring my sushi, rather than being forced to listen to Dawn's doubts about the evening, or the cooings and wooings of two randy Brazilians.

Of course, if I was eavesdropping on them last night, they were probably doing the same to me and the Social Worker. As we were chatting about nitrate abuse, a knife-carrying psychopath we're both rather fond of, and the cost of pectoral implants (two grand apiece on Harley Street, if you’re interested), I hope Dawn and the girls, never mind Juan and Julio, don't run their own blogs. I'd hate just any old riff-raff reading about what I get up to in the evenings, thank you very much…


Monday, August 11, 2003
Waking In A Winter Wonderland
There's nothing I love better than a cold winter's day, when the mercury hits zero and then just keeps on dropping. When the trees are covered in snow, the lawn's a crisp and endless sheet of white, and there's ice floating down the Regent's Canal. When the sky's so clear you can make out the Milky Way even through the light pollution, and your breath hangs in icy clouds before you. As long as I'm outside wrapped up warm, or inside snuggled on the sofa, watching the frost etch patterns on my windows, then you won't hear me complain.

The coldest winter I ever experienced was one January in Berlin. The temperature was down to the minus-twenties; the wind was howling its way in from Siberia. To the south-west of the city, the great lakes had frozen over. Delivery vans and cars took short-cuts across the surface of the Wannsee lake, and impromptu stalls had been set up selling hot-chestnuts and Glühwein to families out on a day-trip. It was what I imagine the old London Frost Fairs were like on the Thames.

I'd been out of town for a few days, and returned to an inevitably chilly reception. The heating system of the studio-flat I was staying in, already hoary with age when Bismarck was a boy, had finally packed in. The water in all the pipes had frozen solid; and my loo was one dirty great lump of ice.

I surprised no one more than myself by successfully managing to thaw the lot out. It took me several days, during which time I kipped under a duvet wearing thermals, a duffle-coat, bobble-hat and thirteen pairs of socks, but the whole thing passed off without incident. (I even sorted out the toilet arrangements, but we won't dwell on that.) For days afterwards, I was an insufferably smug little Stranger.

The smugness lasted a few weeks until one frosty February morning. Lying in bed in the darkness, I was awakened by what I thought was the gentle pit-pitter-pattering of rain on my window pane, a sure sign the thaw was settling in. I turned over, tried to get back to sleep, but the sound became louder and more insistent. So loud, in fact, that it was almost as if I were outside in the rain, rather than in my own warm and cosy bed.

And then I remembered the upstairs neighbours who'd gone on a family trip to Turkey and still hadn't come back. Their heating system was even more knackered than mine. Nervously, I flipped on the bedside light.

Being woken up at four in the morning, to find it's pissing it down in your own bedroom, is not the best way to start your day.

I still love the winter though. It's just the plumbing that bloody terrifies me.


(There. I hope that's gone and cooled you all down, my dears.)


Saturday, August 09, 2003
Too Darn Hot
And all over the world
Strangers
Talk only about the weather
All over the world
It's the same

All right, my dears. It's hot. Let's all get used to it, shall we?


Friday, August 08, 2003
Knock On Wood
As I left home this morning I patted the Scottish gonk on my kitchen window-sill three times for luck, just as I do every morning. Unfortunately, while so doing I knocked over the Saxa, which meant I simply had to bung a bit over my shoulder (the left one, of course: the one where the devil sits). There was a spider waiting for me outside, but, as the rhyme advises, I let it run alive because I want to live and thrive.

Luckily it wasn't the first of the month which would mean my first utterance of the morning would have to be "rabbits" rather than "s**t, isn't it the weekend yet?" (unless, of course, it's April, when it has to be "white rabbits" for the magic to work).

Tonight I'll probably just have a couple of Stellas down the pub. If I was going out clubbing however, I'd have to get ready singing along to Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now", and make sure I'm wearing my lucky studded belt. That's what I always do because it's what I did one night back in 97 and I had an absolute blinder, so, who knows, I might have one again. And, of course, if I was buying one of those ten-quid seats at the National, I'd simply refuse to discuss that Scottish play.

Just charming little rituals, my dears, to give my life some structure in the messy, disorganised world in which we live. I mean, it's not like I'm superstitious or anything.


Wednesday, August 06, 2003
Old Songs
Last night in HMV, I indulged my addiction to what DJ Andy Kershaw prettifies by calling "English roots" music, and I know just as traditional folk. I don't talk about it much, mainly because I'd be perceived as being as uncool as the genre itself, and being uncool would never do. It surprises people too, as I'm hardly your average "folkie". I don't sport a bushy beard or dirty fingernails for starters, and I usually remember to wash behind my ears. My clothes are Diesel rather than Oxfam, and never in my life have I pranced naked around a maypole, or worried a sheep. And I hate Real Ale.

But I love these old songs, best sung a cappella in a woman's voice, or to a haunting solo fiddle. Tales of demon-lovers and raggle-taggle gypsies, maidens ruined and lovers deceived, saucy sailors and buxom factory-maids. They've lasted a great deal longer than Gareth Gates' over-produced and manipulated warblings ever will because the stories and emotions, their delivery honed razor-sharp over centuries, touch us with the simple constants of the real world: love and hope, death and betrayal. Sex, as well. Loads of it.

The English tradition is currently experiencing a bit of a mini-revival, with yet another "roots" album being a contender for this year's Mercury Music Prize.

Next time round, in 2004, I'd put my tenner on last night's CD purchase. The just-released Sweet England by Jim Moray (Folkdom's latest Wunderkind, so they tell me) is a reworking of some old chestnuts which has Cross-Over written all over it. Besides being cute, he's got a voice as fresh as earth after spring rain, and his contemporary arrangements (piano, horns, strings, programming, kitchen sink) give a refreshing new take on the familiar songs, while still remaining faithful to the original story-telling spirit, and never once falling into that circle of Hell known only as folk-rock. And anyone who can transform that execrable schoolroom ditty, "Early One Morning", into the kind of pre-pubescent suicide note Nick Cave would kill for, is OK by me.

Admittedly , it's hardly the purchase of your typical Old Compton Street queen, but, as far as I'm concerned, music is music is music and shouldn't be categorised. So Sweet England will take its proud place alongside my show-tunes and power-pop, my techno and tangos, my Mahlers and Madonnas, my goth and my froth. And if you thought my head was messed-up and weird, my dears, then you should stop by and rummage though my CD collection sometime.


Tuesday, August 05, 2003
Remember Me?
Sometimes, I arrange to touch base in a bar with a friend, or, more usually, a mate (there's a whole welcome world of difference, my dears). I do it with the vague and selfish intention of holding a halfway-serious conversation about what's currently doing flip-flops in the run-down adventure playground that's my head.

Rather uncharitably, I rarely give people advance notice of what I have in store for them. Face it: they'd run a mile if they realised that, instead of a couple of jolly Stellas, it's a helter-skelter ride of neuroses making up tonight's schedule. I don't feel guilty: they've sprung their upsets on me often enough. Today I reckon it’s my turn.

This is precisely what I'd planned for tonight. I was already settling in at the French Bar with an old mate for a record-breaking whine and vodka about my personal and professional life, when another mutual acquaintance turned up out of the blue. Now, this was not just any mutual acquaintance, you understand. Oh no, this was a much-loved mutual acquaintance neither of us had seen for over three years.

So it was all mwah-mwah-mwah, darling, tell me what have you been doing all this time, my, but you are looking fabulous, and, oh, don't be silly, dear old Stranger will give up his seat for you, won't you, Stranger… Stranger… oh, he must have gone off somewhere… now, now, oh never mind him, sweetheart, where were we?

A word of advice: there are times, and especially when he's feeling sorry for himself, that this Stranger definitely does not like being Invisible. There are times, when, if this Stranger can't be the centre of attention, then he's going to leave in either a huff or a black cab, and probably both.

But before he flags down that taxi, and just to cheer himself up, he will, nine-times-out-of-ten, hand some money over to feed one of his most secret and shameful addictions. Which, my dears, is precisely what he did tonight…

Oh, is that how late it is? Sorry, folks. Time to go. Night draws in, and I must away to bed…


Monday, August 04, 2003
It Would Be, It Would Be So Nice
At work we employ a fair number of temporary staff, many of them Ozzies doing the grand tour of Europe. In the past year, they've backpacked to places I've hardly even heard of and can just about pronounce. My would-be cosmopolitan life, on the other hand, and apart from a jaunt to Berlin, has become so London-centric that the odd dirty weekend in Brighton is my sole excursion outside Zone Two. And, let's face it, I only go there because I can be back home on the Thameslink in fifty minutes.

So I think I should follow their example and take a trip. Not one of those European city breaks where you end up doing everything you'd normally be doing in London, only with a different accent and better food. What I need is a proper holiday, the kind with sun, sea and sand, plus a Shirley-Valentine romance to take my mind off the melanoma. The last one I had (proper holiday not romance) was a whole five years ago. Back then, I took a month out to do the whole of Australia, and, adventurous Crocodile Dundee that I am, got no further than the boyz on Bondi Beach. It did me the world of good though, and, on my return, friends remarked how rested, laid-back and happy I seemed to be. Why, it was weeks before the next hissy fit on Old Compton Street.

However, as my acquaintance with my own country is woefully inadequate, perhaps I should explore closer to home. I've never been surfing in Cornwall, gone bonkers in Brontë Country, or indulged in pagan practices at Stonehenge. I spent a whole week in Margate one afternoon, though, but it rained and was half-day closing anyway.

Any ideas? I need somewhere quiet and idyllic, a place where nothing much ever happens and nobody knows my name; where I can soak up for a few days what's left of our summer, while sipping an ice-cold Pimms on the beach, reading Proust and Jackie Collins undisturbed.

Otherwise, I'm buggering off to Bognor.


Saturday, August 02, 2003
Hard Cheese
I'm thinking of starting a mini-diet, just to tone up those parts of the body that are now responding less to regular gym 'n' swim sessions, and more to the sneaky, long-avoided approach of middle age. (There. I've just gone and uttered those two deplorable words, which, apart from "Not on the guest-list", are dreaded above all others on Queer Street. Middle. Age. My, my. Brave little Stranger, aren't we?)

So, how difficult is it going to be? Piece of cream cake, mate. Cut the carbs? No problem. Here, have the buttered bagels I had for breakfast, and - if you really must - last night's beef and oyster pie with chips too. They're all yours. Take the pasta in a creamy wild mushroom sauce, and the rat-kebabs from Ali's down the road: I can live without these perfectly happily. Sugar in my tea? Never touch the stuff. Mars Bars and most kinds of Cadbury's make me sick; and we simply have never, ever, done puddings. And I'm sure that, with a little bit of hypno-therapy, I could even learn to say no to the odd Argentinean red or Stella.

But let's get one thing straight before we start, OK? Don't even think of denying me the crumbliness of a farmhouse Lancashire, or a tangy Derby Sage or a Cornish Yarg. That ripe and stinky Brie on the table, not to mention that tongue-tickling Roquefort, and that walnut and apple Camembert soaked in Calvados, well, they’re all mine. And let’s not forget the salty feta, served with honey and olives. And for afters we're having port and Stilton because that's what we always do.

Hmm. I think we may have problems in the cheese department.