Agent Provocateur

Hello boys and girls, today's post is about Spunk's trip to Paris. Please enjoy the show. 

Hi, hello, bonjour, I'm back. Sat at my own desk, with my own English keyboard, walls of faces etc half heartedly eating some veggie kebabs my Mum made me. The photos from Paris are just downloading and in a minute I'll trawl through them and try to find a few half decent ones to post. As for this week, it's been a blast so here goes with what went on:

Day 1 

St. Pancras International, London

View from hotel room

First visit to St Pancras International, London, was mildly interesting. It's pretty fucking massive and beautiful if you, like me, enjoy a good bit of architecture now and again. Managed to get on the right train for once and was seated next to the spitting image of Jude Law, who was French, polite and fell asleep for a good hour. People are always cuter when they are asleep, all the superficial emotion and expression is erased and all that's left for the world to see is genuine. Hotel De La Vallee, on Rue St. Denis, was alright. Cheap and cheerful. Plenty of restaurants and strip clubs nearby, if that's your scene. I clapped out pretty early on, because I could, and it was really hot, not something we Brits are accustomed to. Best thing that happened all day was a cute punk saying hi to me outside Gare Du Nord, not only because he had a Union Jack on the sleeve of his jacket, as I do, but he had a cool dog. I was sold on the dog. 

Day 2

Arc De Triomphe

Either I was crazy from the heat or keen to 'see' as much of Paris as possible. I walked from the hotel to the Arc de Triomphe, via Galeries nationales, the Eiffel Tower (ish) and the Champs-Elysees. How I ended up walking the long way, past all the tourists, I don't know. That was wild, especially as not one but two men decided they fancied giving me a quick, unexplained kiss (or rather two, as they were French and insisted on it). That left me hot and flustered, the walk that is, as the second guy was old and fat therefore canceling out the semi-cute first guy. Anyway, that afternoon I met the amazing Dennis Cooper outside this crazy thing and we talked over black coffee and cigarettes. That obviously put me in a creative mood because I finished off the whole first draft of the Hangers script that evening. For a Tuesday, I think it went pretty damn good.

Day 3

Views from Jules Ferry Youth Hostel

Buzzed in and out of accommodation; Jules Ferry Youth Hostel is a fantastic place to stay in Paris if you don't mind sharing a room. Reception spoke good English, there are lockers to leave luggage/valuables in and the rooms and facilities are clean and functional. I checked into my room, Studio, in the afternoon. It was on the 5th floor, no lift, which was good exercise  to say the least, but the views were amazing. My 'room mates' all spoke English and were friendly too, which is always nice. Back at Galeries Nationales I queued for an hour to get into the Marie Antoinette exhibition that was on. Crazy hot, kind of worth the wait. It was so packed in there it was a wonder no one got trampled on. Mostly paintings and documents, but a few artifacts that were really cool. Also, the painting shown in the film Marie Antoinette was on show. The real thing is huge, I mean really, really, huge. Bigger than the square footage of my bedroom huge. 

Day 4

Versailles

You can't go to Paris without visiting Versailles, so I did. This was due to my interest in Sofia Coppola's film Marie Antoinette, which was filmed on location at the palace, and because I'd visited Paris twice already and not been. I was afore warned that it was massive and I can now verify that Versailles is indeed the biggest palace I have ever been to. Not just the actual buildings, the extensive gardens and domains within the estate. It was so warm that the sun painted me pink and everything was brightly beautiful. I was relieved to get back to Republique though, it kind of gave me the feeling of being home. Tourists, crowds and hot hot heat are three things that don't go down well with me. So crowds of tourists in the sun was just too much. Either way, I had a good day at Versailles and got lots of writing done back at the YHA. Big clap for Thursday.

Day 5

Time went so quick. Before I knew it Friday spun out into discovering the YHA had internet with an English keyboard, more coffee and cigarettes with Dennis, seven hours of sitting in a station then six hours of trains and a car ride back to my house. Back tracking; the internet didn't last long enough and kept freezing, although I did manage to do a brief post saying not a great deal. The coffee was more than welcome, as were the (duty free) cigarettes and conversation, or conversations, with DC. I think we managed to talk about everything and anything, which was great. It was refreshing to meet someone who knew what they were on about, and who didn't mock me for not being able to use a lighter properly, as my friends so often do. So yeah, cheers man. The station wasn't as bad as it sounds. I got to people watch, write a whole chapter and a half for my parallel worlds project and read 3/4 of High Fidelity by Nick Hornby, which by the way is possibly better than the film although because I watched (half of) that first I can only imagine the lines being rallied out by John Cusack and Jack Black. I also kicked a pigeon and silent discoed to The Undertones' 'Teenage Kicks'. Obviously, when I got back at what was around 3am (inc. time difference between UK & France) I was living dead. Still catching up with that. 

Fine

Paris

There's 12 minutes left on the Internet PC I'm using in the Youth Hostel. This one's going to be quick and not rewritten for hours or interupted or whatever. I've been in Paris a week, stayed in two different areas of Paris 'off the beaten track' (I hate that phrase yet love it) and have really had a great time seeing the 'real' Paris. Most of the time I've been writing, or sitting thinking about writing, or writing about what I'm thinking. It's all the same to me. 10 minutes left. At least this PC has an English keyboard so I can touch type and not have to back track or think about where the fucking punctuation is, not that I'm using much but you have no idea how long it takes to find a blooy comma or apostraphe on a French keyboard. Hence why I avoided blogging previously. Also, I'm red raw with sunburn from Versailles, so I'm quite happy NOT to do much today i.e. sit around smoking and drinking very black fucking coffee. Caffine sounds so good right now. I'd be quite happy to go back to sleep, and no doubt I will on Eurostar this evening. My head must have been in some weird place when I booked a late train back to London, because seriously I don't want to lug around my luggage all day, I'm not going to see anything or go anywhere unless it's to meet up with DC again because he talks sense and the rest of France doesn't. Or does in French but that's no good. 5 minutes to go. The stool I'm on is too low, or the top half of my body is too short. Either way I feel like a dwarf. I'm so throughly everything right now. 3 minutes. I sat thinking about nothing for too long. Bored.

I guess that's enough until tomorrow when I don't feel quite so dead and I'm sat at my own desk looking at all my posters. I miss having faces I know around me.

Bait

Scene One

Sugar on my tongue. Metallic taste of hate or something like it. Torrents of what hasn't leaked from my head surges to everywhere, stifling any thought that wasn't of wanting more and aching beneath unzipped flies. Pushing inside the rift in my skull, I can't keep my eyes open. You accept an unsteady offer of scarlet fingers to swirl with your tongue; you push stained lips along, around, back to present my mouth with another intrusion of rough, bloody contact and tearing teeth. In the background, tick, tick time moves past the second of fear that flashed through your glare, when for a moment it was questionable; eyes rolled back when you roll me over?

Fight back – unsuspecting, my firm grip round your throat, round your balls, gives my desire the upper hand. This time it's your skull that cracks against the floorboards, in one swift strike of rage and lust and everything that can be felt between them. Between my legs, you are my captive.

Whole lives are wasted by people trying to find themselves, and yet here you are right in front of me, at my mercy. The hands I have pinned above your head match mine vein for vein, our thoughts are racing, progressing in parallel minds. We are the same, we want the same. You and I, we're meant to be together. XY/XY

Galaxies fast forward across the back of my eyelids. It takes deep breaths to discover my vision's blurred with ecstasy; your mouth reassures me I'm alive and sensitive to every roll of your tongue, each probing finger. There is nothing I wouldn't do for you, to you. Half my heart is in my mouth, forming words and losing them again. What's left is throbbing in desperation between your lips. Numb to your inflictions, our games and excesses, anguish shreds any heart I had.

Burn me with intense eyes. And we do it like we always have done, in rushed, rough releases. Stars run circles around our heads, bring our two halves together like we should have stayed at the first split. Stars split my head. Loss of blood does funny things to how I think.

Scene Two

I say nothing. You were our bait, now the prey has caught your fancy. Unaware of his imminent demise. One, two, three tangled in a war of mouths and holes, writhing like snakes in a pit. Only, my heart is treacherous. Buttered, seduced, he slips into being the centre of our individual, identical attention. Underneath and behind there's nothing to do now but let him shout it out and hope it kills him coming into your mouth. His hole gets the brunt of every pent up emotion behind my green eyes. Fury from furious, not lust.

Our tastes are different. Infatuated, you let him take you over. Out of the equation, I fester in bleak isolation, watching his domination of every part of you that drives me crazy. Again and again he takes what isn't his. There's nothing I wouldn't do for you. Begging, crying in whatever you are feeling for him; he uses you as you ask. I wouldn't -Your teeth have never clenched like that for me, nothing has made you shake like you're doing now. I'm doing this for you, for us.

As soon as it's done and he's splayed purple on the floor, stiff and ugly in asphyxiation, there is a silence hosting glares of hunger for each other. Unleashed, our fight is renewed. New bruises, scratches, bites, cuts awarded in a lust riot that sees us crash to the floor in our conquest of one another. Up, down, unsteady rises of a sweat covered chest. Laid back, you invite me. In my ear you whisper how you crave, how you lust for me. Nothing has ever got you hot like how my murderous rage does; hot blooded.

For a few seconds the blood drains to my brain. In a gush of what must be love my words get mixed up and slowed down, making a mess of saying what I mean to. You feel it too, pulling me down to crash our mouths together, to lie and cure one another. Connect my heart to the rhythm it's lead, it beats for you. From cursed beginnings to these blessed ends, we've found our way to live. And please know that this is not the end.

Scene Three

Lying under your body grows cold. I don't want to let you go; I only did this so no one else could have you. A test of what makes blood flow. The sun still rises. In the light your face is not as beautiful as I remember it. Between my ears is unbearable pain, digging into the flesh inside my skull, tautening the same temples your lips touched while you went inside me. Still there, holding my organs in place, keeping me beating. It's close to giving up without focus in your pupils. Game over. Look up, turn your head, your broken neck. Move the dead dick, which never reached it's last release, still in me. Please.

Gas mark 5. From here my eyes are safe, no bones or blood, stiff limbs or eyes, wide open. Breathe in, out, for both of us now. Are you in here too? When it's been long enough I sink down to the floor, worn out with wishing it was over. In the pack, one Marlboro Red with my name on it. Replace the taste of you and draw a toke of oxygen to face what's next.

Fumble for a lighter with no gas. No matter, all it takes is one

flick

Garbage #3

#3

Foggy's is a fight to get into on Friday night. Not for us. Both bouncers nod in our direction and a roar of “hey, that's not fair” goes up from the punters in the queue. Ignoring everyone of little or no importance, we head for the elevator. The inside is pasted with posters, leaflets and stickers for bands, club nights, tattoo parlours, hustlers. I spend the thirty second jolt to the basement seducing the mirror with intense eye work. Danny cracks his head to both shoulders.

Out we go.

The tunnels are crowded, glowing in red light just bright enough to make out faces, dilated pupils and inviting eye contact. Here and there, hosts are handing out stuff and standing around looking pretty. Well, fierce really. Marylin Manson is playing so loud out of the speakers that it soaks up any conversation. We are reduced to eyeing one another up, silent adoration for the tight leather, PVC and black denim almost everyone is dressed in. My eyes are all over them, drifting over outlined butt cheeks, surface piercings, smooth flawless skin. All the time, searching.

An “aren't you that guy from that band” comment gets thrown at me. “Uh, yeah that's me.” There he is. The girl/boy starts gushing at me about how much they love what I do, how he/she's so star struck to be talking to me. Doesn't seem to be stopping them from talking a load of complete bollocks. He's a head taller than almost everyone else at the bar. Boy/girl has got wrong band. He's coming closer. As he walks under a red strip light, the tattoo on the side of his head becomes plainly visible. My knees might just buckle. “What?” He/she just told me that they think of me when they jack off. Still don't know if it's a boy/girl. Everyone looks the same down here. “I don't know what you're on about.” One shove and they are out of the picture, regardless.

He's no where to be seen.

Danny appears at my side with a brimming pint of Fosters. “Dan, is there anyone else in here who's your height?” Pulling a quizzical look, he cups a hand round his ear. I yell it again; I hope he heard because I couldn't even make out my own voice. The crowd's going mental as Die So Fluid come on stage down through the railway arches, at the very back of the cavern. Danny shakes my shoulder and points over the sea of heads. Thumbs up.

There's all sorts of nooks and crannies in the basement of Foggy's. Corners and hollowed out coves where there's enough room for a few people to sit and talk away from the music and the mosh pits. Alternatively, most of them are just the right size for two to screw.

He's even more of a knock out up close. There's little left of the sultry school boy who was once the centre of my projected affections, perhaps the same glint of malice in his pale irises. I sit on his dick long enough to bring him to the edge; what a risk taker, page turner, cock teaser. “Mitch,” eyes wide open, “Let's go to yours.” Zip up, boys.

Our swift exit experiences turbulence. “Where are yous goin?” Danny mutters angrily.

“To get fucked.”

Blocking the door. Nothing to say, he's making eyes at me and looking hurt. “Come on then.” Out we stride, Mitch the sadistic cat killing stud, Danny half hearted, heart broken, and, me. Reckon with that, twilight streets of London town. Leather jackets and studded belts, zips begging to be teased down, up and down hips arching to be touched. Every inch of my skin is yearning to be inflicted with the strain of a long, slow intrusion, the pain of being bitten, broken, torn and shredded. Underneath my clothes, I am writhing.

In the stairwell my impatience gets the better of me. The bone grinding begins prematurely, lip syncing. Danny watches. He's still watching when we're inside the loft, ripping one another out of our clothes. The whole time Mitch is chewing on me, Danny's by the door glowering in my direction. Off putting.

Pushing off Mitch, I grab Dan from his lurking and pull off his shirt. Between our eyes are a hundred flickering emotions. He makes the first move, kissing me as if we're making up for lost time. Smirk. “Kiss him,” I order Mitch. “Everywhere.”

My eyes have glazed over. In the distance are a couple of blurred bodies, eating out. Somewhere in the haze is what I came here for. I reach a revelation. There's a dull thud when one of my fists comes into sharp contact with the back of Danny's head. He flops, which Mitch loves because he can get right inside him. On the desk is a laptop, whose mouse I rip out and bind Danny's wrists with. Kicking Mitch's head out of his arse, I yank him out of the way and sit him up facing everything worth seeing; us.

“Do your worst.” Snarl. And he does.

Every thrust jolts my skull into the wall. It's been twenty minutes since I could see; there's too much blood in my eyes, or severed nerves in my head, or something. All that is processing are the grunts and gasps of whoever is up my arse, whatever is up there. Maybe that's a voice too, crying, begging. Inside my mouth, the skin is raw and burning. I've bitten my tongue so many times it doesn't feel like a tongue any more. Legs shouldn't be bent this way, this far back, in strange directions. They can't be, without being snapped, joints cracked apart and muscles ripped. Clunk, clunk, clunk. Something will break my neck. Tense beneath cracked ribs and splintered hips, another agony surges and distorts. In torment, my body recognises another sensation for what feels like the first time. Each plunge inside me hits and relays ecstasy. Nothing makes my lips move or my lungs draw in air fast enough. I can't move anything. Clunk, clunk. The body on me is warm, slippery, driving what's still alive in my head crazy with moaning. But I can't breathe. As it's getting closer and closer, less oxygen reaches my brain. It feels as though my head is going to cave in. With every rasping attempt to suck in life, one by one it all, shuts, off. Clunk. I'm almost, there.

The Lives of Saints

Delirious with ignorance in a whitewashed box of aspirations. Surrounded by the ones who made it without making it obvious, looking up to walls of faces who know how to hold their pose and places which make what I've seen of this world inadequate and inarticulate. One moment says a thousand words. And so it runs

in reels and stutters, cigarette burns, clicks, claps, the grind of life and what it brings; what will be brought. Snap nicotine stained fingers: tickets to every back row, grinding in the underground, banging hips with screamers, screen workers, believers in threadbare lust riots. Drink up, pink lips, drink up. Up

all night, dancing in bat caves, up with the stars, feeling infinite, up and screwing harder than DIY in '77. Going on into our last hours. To our drawn out ends we get down, dirty in sweat, hot with working down to the ground. Leave the lights off, 

that is our last request. 

Written to the immense 'Going On' by Gnarls Barkley

Garbage # 2

#2

Ready for anything, swinging from the bars in the ceiling we storm out onto the platform. Through stained stone caverns, up flights up chipped stairs, out into reality. Leicester Square rises out of the ground to greet us; another kingdom to be conquered.

In China Town Danny almost gets run down by a bloke on a bike.

“Worra fuck were that for, cunt! Codn't see over the fuckin 'andlebars?” He's getting looks from all over the place. “Oh.” Staring him down. “Er, jus' road rage innit. Nought meant fu' offending yous.”

All his helpless look gets from me is a shrug. “Bye then.” A quick flash of a hand towards both sides of the street, forced smile and I'm being dragged along the road. “Didn't 'ave to come through 'ere did we?”

Across the border into Soho. The steps are all too familiar, closing in on our destination. Unusually, Danny and I are both sulking. Past the point of no return. The keypad is close enough to make out numbers, the building looming over my already doubting face.

“Whatta we 'ere for?” Snap; all he sees when I glance over my shoulder is a gleeful wink.

No one has taken the time to change the code. Half way up to the apartment I realise I don't have a plan. New potted plants in the hallway, dotted between the flawless flat doors. Real ones.

We jitter about in the stairwell for a few moments. “Okay, just get him out of there, take him somewhere, keep him busy, whatever. Try and give me as long as possible.” Raised eyebrows. “Just do it.” I shove him out to stumble along to the door I'd pointed to. He might not even be in there. Out of sight, I strain to hear them come out of the corridor.

As soon as it's clear, in I go, trying to look like nothing's up. Weirdly, my dick is. Those few distracted moments only led to tomorrow night and – he didn't change the locks. Means he must have never entertained the possibility that a copy had been made from the key he once gave me. Bad luck.

Nothing's changed, except the smell lingering in the row of neatly hung up clothes filling the mirror fronted wardrobes. There's no smell of old smoke, none of the subtle scents of clothes that have been worn after sex. Underwear folded on the top of a pile of clean laundry that he would never wear, that are too big for him. Adrenaline isn't the only thing pumping around me now.

With gritted teeth and a dampened spirit I return to the wardrobe and delve to the back, grabbing the shoeboxes stacked up at the back. Tax returns, cuttings of reviews and articles, old mix CDs. One box even has shoes in it. Nothing in any of the drawers next to the slept in side of the bed. On the other side, the best finds are an unopened packet of ribbed condoms, what looks like LSD and, in the bottom drawer, a tube of lubricant.

I shrug to no one in particular and make the most of things.

As my jizz is spurting over his pillow, I remember where he keeps his most precious porn stash.

There's a second toothbrush in the bathroom. It only phases me for a moment, in which I try and melt it with my eyes. I kick the side of the bath harder than I should have and instead of falling off it cracks and breaks. “Shit.”

Pulling away the debris, I peer into the gloomy space behind it. A few dusty piles of magazines, which have probably become home to mice or beetles since the last time they were read, a select few DVDs and special editions that look relatively dust free and a red London Rebel shoe box. I retrieve the box and kneel in front of the toilet, the box on the lid. For a few seconds I pause, poised to open it.

Inside is more than I remember. Subdued, they line up in stark black and white. Poloroids of me, of him, us. Laughing, kissing, fucking, fucking kids, beating them black and blue. Not that you could see the blue, it was just different shades of grey. A close up of his hand fingering one of my nipples when I'd just got it pierced. That looked grey too. It was all the same.

New photos from a disposable camera or something, showed similar scenes. Similar in the fact that they didn't have me in them.

A door slams.

Fast as I can, I grab all the photos with me in them, including an envelope labelled with my name. My favourite of the other ones get swiped too. No time to clean up. Now I'm wishing I'd jacked off in the tub of hair wax on the shelf. Live and learn.

Out of the apartment, just in time, and take refuge behind one of the plants. There's no way they are not going to see me.

He's alone, and looks livid, too wrapped up in his own rage to notice me and the stowaways underneath my jacket. I don't feel what I thought I would. I don't know what I feel. Nothing? Either way, it's a good thing he disappears inside without looking my way because I can't take my fucking eyes off him.

Across the street, Danny's lit up a cigarette and looks like he wants an explanation.

“Let's go.”

As we stride back towards the underground, I try and reshuffle the photos to stop them falling out. “Wha' yous got?” A few slide out and drift down to the chewing gum patterned pavement.

“Danny!” Too late. Fag stuck out of the corner of his mouth, he's scooped up what dropped out. I watch his eyes widen. Then his cheeks inflame. He doesn't put up a fight when I snatch them back.

“All tha' to get back a few naked photos?” From my pocket comes the LSD. “Yous tryin' to buy me silence.” No question about it.

“Including not asking me about it.”

Danny gives me a sideways glance. One tab on the fingertip, on the tongue. Tab two, on his fingertip. Our eyes battle silently, trying to interpret one another's grey irises. We are the same. Watching him look at me, I pull his hand closer and dip my head to swirl my tongue over the tab. Even after it's smiling from inside my mouth, I engulf his finger, releasing him slowly so it drags over my bottom lip.

I show him the tab.

“Cheers,” he says. But he's not looking at my tongue.

Garbage

#1

At school there was an urban legend someone started about some guy who got kicked out for killing the deputy's cat. It got found in one of the commercial bins out the back of the science block, both it's back legs broken. He'd fucked it to death. No one knew what to believe, what to think. Months later one of our teachers let their tongue slip. After they'd been kicked out and arrested for misadventure with under age students, speculation let lose about the identity of the cat fucker. On results day no one batted an eyelid at the straight grades on my slip. It was lucky on my part; all I'd done for my last year was slouch with glazed over eyes imagining the dead cat being flung in the bin, arse ripped wide open, it's attacker turning to me, with a hot, raging glare, deciding my body should be the next one he would mutilate to satisfy himself.

-

Somewhere deep inside the stained shithole the bell rattles a half hearted alarm. Nothing moves behind flimsy grey curtains, that should be white, at the first floor windows. Rrrrrrrrrr, rrrrrrrr, rrrr, rrrrr, rrrrrrrrrrrrr. I step back again and this time, after a minute, the window jolts up and Danny's mangy head sticks out.

“Worra fuck do yous want?”

“Got a job for you.”

“Ge' lost, bastard.” He smacks the back of his head on the frame.

The door buzzes open.

It's just as much as a shithole as the outside. No handle on the door. I think I saw it shoved in the crotch of a lopsided gnome in the patch of mud out front. Coffee stains up the hall wall.

“How the fuck did you coffee up the wall?”

He yells down the corridor. “'Ow don't you?”

There's no floor in the kitchen, just dirty underlay and nails precariously jutting out everywhere. Only one cabinet still has a door on it and underneath the sink is a tube and a washing up bowl.

“Nice arse.” I slap his half exposed behind and he pulls a sarcastic face, yanking them back up again. Leaning past him and grabbing the box of cereal on his other side I retreat to the window sill and watch him watch the kettle, as if it will make the water boil any quicker. He's put his t-shirt on back to front. “The man” labelled with an arrow pointing up, “the legend” pointing down. It passes time working out whether he did it intentionally or not.

“So wossit yous want me e'do?” As he rinses a couple of chipped mugs, the water going down the sink splurts out of the tube and into the tub underneath. Tearing my eyes away I glance back up at the back of his head.

“Babysitting.”

“Oh aye and who'll that be for?” One mug is brimming with black coffee, the other he's emptying a can of beer into. Sticking his tongue out the corner of his mouth in concentration, he carefully carries the coffee over to me, one foot in front of the other. The back of my hand swipes across my mouth, brushing away remnants of crunchy nut cornflakes. We swap, mug for empty cereal packet.

He shakes it. Open mouth, flashing a glint of a tongue stud, and he tips the last broken up bits in and grins at me, chewing.

“I need you to entertain someone for me, just an hour or so.” Coffee's still too hot to drink. “Take whatsherface with you if you want.”

That killed it.

Four, five, six seconds of awkward silence. And counting . . .

“We, uh. We're not together no more.” Stuck my foot right in that one. I desperately want to look away from him but our gaze is locked, as if he's pelting me with telepathic messages. It's been too long, reading his face is useless. “We . . she found out I'd slept wit' sommon else.”

An ant is working it's way across the floor, through the forest of nails, staples and occasional bit of uncooked pasta. I can't see where he's looking, but I'm positive I can feel his eyes burning into me. Not the only burning thing either, my mouth is seering, anything to not have to look at him and put a stop to my big, fucking mouth.

“Oh, I got sommin to show yous.”

He sweeps past me.

Please God, strike me where I sit, sipping scolding coffee and sinking like a stone in water.

It's an article about Die So Fluid. Danny's at the window, gazing into the smog. “Tomorrow night. Playin' a' Foggy's.”

There's an overturned fish tank, which I sit on and flick through the rest of the zine. “Yeah, let's go.” Another page catches my attention, a whole page image of a man I vaguely recognise. Scanning the accompanying text, the name clicks and my eyes are drawn back to his tilted head, half shaved and tattooed like his arms, neck, torso. I trail my gaze down his body to the low slung trousers around his waist and the cluster of black hair disappearing below the waistband. My mouth's dry, just looking at him.

“Yous ready?” Reality blurs back into focus. I rip both pages from the zine and follow Danny down the stairs and onto the street. “Where to?” He's talking to me.

“Oh. Tube.” All I can think about is the man folded up in my back pocket, rubbing against my arse with every step. A lusty smirk twists onto my lips. My plan is formulating for tomorrow night, playing out in my head in agonising detail. Anticipation stirs under the flies of my jeans and when we perch at the end of the carriage, rattling along Northern Line, I take care to position an arm over my crotch. Inside, I'm burning up and I don't want to be saved from the flames.

Torture Garden

In the blink of an eye half the year is down the drain and the point of no return is upon us. In two weeks I have the last exams I will ever sit and I should have been revising this week. I've been otherwise engaged. Camden was all bipolar weather and good natured bartering on Thursday; better than the last visit in February. There's a buzz, an adrenaline rush that London inspires in me that nowhere else does. No matter how long I stay away from the city, it always draws me back, it will always be my home town. Camden Piercing & Tattoo Studio shoved a leaflet under my nose before anyone else, so they received the honor of sticking sharp objects into me. 

Yesterday it was Beer Fest

Needless to say, Sam, Barry and I all drank copious amounts of ale. All in the name of charity, of course. After stumbling to and from town, eating bread in Sainsburys car park and passing out/forgetting all that had previously occurred, we sobered up enough to watch a film and eat cake with Jimmy. Half way through, we get some unexpected visitors. Chels, Beth and a brand spanking new, teeny tiny, screwed up and red in the face baby Morgan! Not as if anyone had told me Beth had given birth . . but it was a great surprise. Sobered up pretty quick after that. He is the spit of his mum and dad, he was only born at 6.30am on Friday, so bloody impressed that Beth was so chirpy and glowing; congratulations!

The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory

The novel, not the film. I'll start by saying that I am not planning on watching the adaptation for two reasons - Americanising part of British history is wrong, there are no leads given to British actors and the whole enterprise is Hollywood's attempt to gold mine a foreign history because America does not have it's own. Also, the trailer showed clips that were not in the novel and from what I've seen the whole thing has been produced in the interest of profit, and not accuracy regarding the original novel or the historical Tudor period. 

Back to the book:

It's an eye opener. Not only into real British history, but also in the way that characterisation and interweaving narrative strands can be used so effectively as to make the fiction convincing, even if the quality of the actual writing is nothing of distinction. Personal preference in writing techniques and styles leads me to conclude that Philippa Gregory is nothing special when it comes to penning content; she uses many of the same phrases, terms and descriptions repetitively, which is boring, frustrating and unnecessary. Also, there is little use of commas in her lists of adjectives and premodifiers, another pet hate as, in written mode, punctuation should be carefully considered so as to read well and communicate the correct tone. However, the detail she picks up upon in the individual characters allows the reader to feel as if they too are in the court of Henry VIII. 

Written from the perspective of the infamous Anne Boleyn's  (right above) forgotten sister, Mary Boleyn (left above) the story is about their rivalry in a bid to bed the king. Unconvinced by the start of the book, although it must have been alright because I rarely get past the first page if nothing's interested me, the introduction and development of the character George Boleyn, the brother of Anne and Mary. It was much more fun guessing early on that George was gay and waiting for all the other characters to catch on than pay much attention to the main plot. Philippa Gregory incorporates the 16th Century attitudes towards the link between 'abnormal' sexual practices, Satanism, witchcraft etc and miscarriage/fetal deformities. George and Anne are accused of incest and George's homosexual affairs are blamed for several miscarriages and the birth of a dead 'monster' baby. It wasn't the aim of the book at all, but I was much more interested in what George and Sir Francis were getting up to, and working out whether the Boleyns were incestuous in their desperation to have a male heir for Henry VIII. 

The build up to the ending was excellent. There is no tell tale giveaway about whether certain characters will be arrested, charged and executed, although knowing the fate of Anne Boleyn and the future of the Tudor reign is a vital insight. My heart was racing ten pages from the end, only to be let down by a rushed finish that served the novel no justice; after wading through 529 pages I expected an infinite conclusion that would allow me to day dream about it for days to come. Unfortunately, it was very finite and now it's all over I doubt I'll be doing it again anytime soon. 

Recommended only for readers with patience and an intense imagination. The Other Boleyn Girl falls flat on it's face unless read with an active mind's eye and the ability to exaggerate the hinted darker moments.

In other reading, Vogue Hommes International Spring-Summer 2008

Cover: Josh Beech, one of the new British models to appear here there and everywhere, flaunting raw, sexy Britishness.

The issue's theme is EROTIC, the only reason I picked it up. Inside is a feast of half naked, beautiful men and enough articles to keep your eyes keen. Watch the preview here and do yourself a favour and invest £5 in the glossy pages of Vogue Hommes International.

And now . . . all that's left now is to get exams over and done with and disappear off to Paris for a bit. All's well that ends well.