No more champagne...

... and the fireworks are through. Were there any fireworks? England's a bit crap at New Year.

That said, last night's Duckie special, in the unfamiliar environs of The Eagle (formerly South Central, formerly Dukes), did exactly what it said on the tin. Key ingredient: The London Readers' Wifes, and thank the Lordy lords.

Crowd vibe was a bit office party if one works in an office populated by stocky, hairy men, beardily chic geeks and slightly mumsy secretarial types in their best glittery tops. Something a bit disorientating about hearing the Wifes' Favourite Record Of All Time then having a further hour and a half left to dance. And dance we did. After five minutes, we'd already heard more good tunes than we did last year.

I really need a working mini-camera; the Big Camera is okay but occasionally temperamental with its flash in Duckie-type settings, insisting the mechanism is blocked then working fine the next day. It's also a bit of a pain to dance with, so this time I checked it into the cloakroom after a few shots. Blurry but quite atmospheric, I reckon. Here's a handful:







(Something about that last one reminds me a little of Blake's Ghost of a Flea.)

My head's not too sore, considering; a full English breakfast at the (packed with hungover gayers) Oval Lounge helped. Vague thoughts of detox will have to wait.

Only regret: despite 'phoning four times in quick succession yesterday, Galasheila never left a message. I feel abandoned.

Looking like a true survivor

Feeling like a little kid: Galashiela's 'phoned this evening, four times without leaving a message, at 10.16, 10.17, 10.18 and 10.23; it feels exciting but a little scary having her trapped in my 'phone, like when I was 5 and caught a bee in a jar. It hummed furiously until I was sure I could feel the glass vibrating with its anger and I started to worry that, when I let it out again, it'd exact a painful revenge upon me. Galashiela in my 'phone feels like that...

So far, I'm loving Survivors, to the extent that I'm considering getting hold of a boxed set of the original series (it was a little before my time) for comparison. It's exactly the kind of slightly down-at-heel British apocalypse I like, what Brian Aldiss (in a spot of SF authorial bitchslapping of John Wyndham) termed "cosy catastrophe".

I like the cosiness - and occasionally clunky dialogue, the hint of twee (even Dexter, this week's gun-toting New Warlord is basically a minor Mad Max baddy in zip-up Fred Perry), the hovering spectres of Tom and Barbara Good. I quite like the fact that the lesbian doctor isn't out about being a lesbian or a doctor. I'm even tolerating the Lost-like tendency of this particular bunch of survivors to maintain immaculate make-up and/or clean-shavenness weeks after the catastrophe itself.

The only thing that's annoying me is the repeated montage of Alim and Najif unconvincingly "bonding" over football and chickens. Let's hope the sentimentalised Irresponsible Playboy Redeemed By Lovable Orphan (which, let's face it, began and ended with Annie) doesn't become a weekly fixture...

Sunday girl

It's Galashiela again, Sunday evening 10.02pm:

"Leanna, 'phone the shop and get off the house 'phone. Bye."

The plot thickens. No way am I 'phoning back and explaining it's a wrong number. That'd put an end to future voyeurdrama.

Relaxed Sunday, which is euphemism for Did Nothing Constructive Sunday. TSB and I react to boozy nights in completely different ways: I sleep late; he wakens early and wants to do stuff. Him still being on the current gym kick, he heads uptown, goes through his routine of cycling and rowing and sweating and showering, then 'phones me to plan lunch. I'm usually still dozing (this morning, I was phasing in and out of an alarming dream set in an exaggeratedly brown ITV version of the 1970s, in which I'd survived some kind of event that had turned almost everyone else into monsters-to-be-avoided but, I told myself within the dream, not zombies). I used to feel really guilty at my relative lack of exercise but, over time, that wash of guilt has faded to the merest twinge.

Leaving Duckie last night, we noticed that a Kennington hostelry, The Oval Lounge, seemed to be doing a special promotion for frequenters of the RVT (presumably because so many gayers schlep up and down Clapham/Kennington Park Road on their way to and from Vauxhall) so we decided to head there for Sunday lunch. Here's a pic from their Facebook group:



We found ourselves seated near a couple of appealingly camp black guys loudly discussing sexual technique (that all-important relaxing of the sphincter muscles) and a pair of vaguely Sloaney twentysomething women who were, bizarrely (because they really didn't seem the type), talking about the Bible. We decided one was inducting (indoctrinating?) the other into some sort of religious cult. I reckoned it was a cult with weird dietary restrictions because both of them were stick-thin and had been toying with glasses of water since we arrived - but they surprised us again by suddenly ordering the same main course that we'd plumped for, a towering roast-beef-and-veg based creation in an enormous soup bowl, drenched in red winey-tasting gravy and topped with a Yorkshire pud. A bulimic break, perhaps.

Anyway, lunch was delicious and there was plenty of it. We were just finishing up when the sound system - which had hitherto been playing inoffensive background muzak that sounded a bit like Air - started playing Return To Oz and we both went a bit melty. It was always my favourite Scissor Sisters track but never a single and they only rarely played it live. Realised I hadn't listened to it - or indeed, much of the first album - for aaages.

Here's a rather good fan video:

She never meant to call

She did anyway. Eight times in quick succession, leaving a message only the once, with the first call. Short and sweet, she almost shouts, "call me back!" in a moderately thick Scottish accent. Her tone is a mixture of exasperation and pleading.

I've no idea who she is: it's an unfamiliar number with an 01896 prefix which, Google informs me, is Galashiels. I don't know anyone in Galashiels. Mysteeerious.

Well, very probably not that mysterious at all. She's obviously got the wrong number and, now I come to think of it, I'm pretty sure she's called before. She left a message maybe a year ago, jolly and somewhat inebriated-sounding, your basic "I'm on my way to X, 'phone me back, you lazy bastard" instruction. I ignored it at the time but I feel I'm starting to get drawn into the saga of Galashiela (take a bow).

Should I 'phone back and explain it's a wrong number? Irrationally, having ignored eight redials from her, I'm a little scared of direct communication...