Go and catch a falling star, Get with child a mandrake root, Tell me where all past years are, Or who cleft the devil's foot, Teach me to hear mermaids singing, Or to keep off envy's stinging, And find What wind Serves to advance an honest mind.
If thou be'st born to strange sights, Things invisible to see, Ride ten thousand days and nights, Till age snow white hairs on thee, Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me, All strange wonders that befell thee, And swear, No where Lives a woman true and fair.
If thou find'st one, let me know, Such a pilgrimage were sweet; Yet do not, I would not go, Though at next door we might meet, Though she were true, when you met her, And last, till you write your letter, Yet she Will be False, ere I come, to two, or three. JOHN DONNE
A work of art (allegedly) photographed in King's Cross.
I've been wondering what 'fake hookers' are. Do they have sex with you, then pretend to take money? Or do they take your money, and then pretend to have sex? (I thought that was what real hookers did.)
People in London make their lives very complicated.
King's Cross was, and probably still is, one of the railway termini where young men and women would arrive from the North looking for glamour, wealth and fame. A lot of them would be recruited into being prostitutes and rent boys. The manager of Tottenham Hotspur was arrested kerb crawling for hookers at King's Cross. So was one of Brother Beyond.
Two months after this record came out, there was a huge fire at King's Cross tube station. About 30 people died. It was quite eerie listening to the song after that. The film is by Derek Jarman.
The man at the back of the queue was sent To feel the smack of firm government Linger by the flyposter, for a fight It's the same story every night I've been hurt and we've been had You leave home, and you don't go back
Someone told me Monday, someone told me Saturday Wait until tomorrow and there's still no way Read it in a book or write it in a letter Wake up in the morning and there's still no guarantee
Only last night I found myself lost By the station called King's Cross Dead and wounded on either side You know it's only a matter of time I've been good and I've been bad I've been guilty of hanging around
Someone told me Monday, someone told me Saturday Wait until tomorrow and there's still no way Read it in a book or write it in a letter Wake up in the morning and there's still no guarantee
So I went looking out today For the one who got away Murder walking round the block Ending up in King's Cross Good luck, bad luck waiting in a line It takes more than the matter of time
Someone told me Monday, someone told me Saturday Wait until tomorrow and there's still no way Read it in a book or write it in a letter Wake up in the morning and there's still no guarantee
Someone told me Monday, someone told me Saturday Wait until tomorrow and there's still no way Read it in a book or write it in a letter Wake up in the morning and there's still no guarantee And there's still no guarantee There is still no guarantee Words and Music by NEIL TENNANT and CHRIS LOWE
According to Harvard Business School, an analysis of credit card spending patterns shows that conservatives spend more more money downloading porn from the Internet than liberals. They are also more likely to visit wife-swapping sites.
"Some of the people who are most outraged turn out to be consumers of the very things they claimed to be outraged by." (Well now, who'da thought it?)
8 of the top 10 pornography consuming states voted for McCain, while 6 of the 10 states with the lowest consumption voted for Obama.
The 27 states with laws forbidding gay marriage bought an average of 11% more porn. Church-goers bought less online porn on Sundays, but more during the week.
Could it really be true be that too much porn makes you a Republican?
I used to be a corporate whore, and I stayed in nice hotels, and ate in nice restaurants.... but it didn't satisfy me. I had sexy girlfriends, who thought I was funny... but didn't understand me, and that left an empty space I needed to nourish.
They were my John the Baptist years, my wandering in the desert years.
I set up Hot Vimto as a vehicle to reconnect to my creative inner child through reminiscence, smut, and rock and roll, but I have had to accept that I can't even describe myself on my own terms! At least, not to my satisfaction. I have been pretty messed up over the course of my life, and the most important thing has been re-connecting with my integrity.
"It says here that my son was cavorting on a beach in Ibiza with someone called Helena Christensen . . . Why is that in the newspaper?"
"She's a well-known supermodel, William."
"Oh really . . . so it's a good thing?"
This is, apparently, a true story from the life of William O'Malley Armstrong, whose son is Rollo (of Faithless) and whose daughter is Dido. (What would we do for embarrassment, eh. if we didn't have parents?)
Helena is pretty hot, and you know what turns her on?
"Whenever my head is like a maze, I turn to the easy things in life, the things that mean the most to me: Sex and cheese. These things are connected.
"There've been times when I've bought a whole pound of cheese and walked down the street and eaten it in one go... I think it's incredibly sensual."
"Actually I've seriously thought about getting a cheese tattoo. A nice Edam on my shoulder, maybe."
a woman who dated Michael Hutchence and Heath Ledger. Do I really want to join that club? Would I ever be able to satisfy this woman, except at great cost to myself?
Except maybe she's onto something. Cheese is sex. Maybe cheese is the new drug of choice for the guys who want to get the girl.
Today I ask you to join me in celebrating Donn Coppens of Whatevepeg, MB (that presumably stands for Mad Bastard). Donnnnnnnnnn chose to celebrate his birthday this year by having his genitalia surgically enhanced to please the ladies.
Well isn't he the optimist?
In honour of the great and anomalous Escapeons and his enduring efforts to drag Canada back to the Age of Enlightment, I am posting a video by top pop combo Ladytron, which is an ode to male sexual performance, which reaches its peak at the age of seventeen (biologically, if not culturally).
They only want you when you're seventeen When you're twenty-one You're no fun They take a polaroid and let you go Say they'll let you know So come on
(*repeat 7 times*)
We only want you when you're seventeen When you're twenty-one You're no fun LADYTRON
* I assume "repeat 7 times" was meant to be witty.
Apparently, there's a good chance they would.. Thanks to Science and Supermodels for this advice, which is another good reason to put your partner's pleasure first, chaps.
"If theta waves are taken as a criterion, the entire brain emits theta waves when women reach an orgasm that are close to 10 times stronger than when men climax. So, if theta waves are an indication of an orgasm's strength, then women experience an orgasm that is physically impossible for men to go through.
Putting it a little crudely, if the intensity of a woman's orgasm was played through a man's brain, there's a danger that the shock to his system would kill him. That risk makes it impossible to experiment on a man at the moment. And men can never become women."
Dr. Kunio Kitamura Head of the Japan Family Planning Association
I like my food, but have never been a 'foodie', or even much of a gourmet. Simple, tasty, nourishing dishes, in ample quantities, with beer and wine, and an extra portion of chips, is what works for me.
The only TV chef I ever liked was Keith Floyd, because he was usually drunk and charming, and would quote Bob Dylan lyrics. He once managed to fit an entire verse of Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues into a recipe.
He was also responsible for Kiwi Fruit and the Stranglers, two elements of Eighties culture without which life under Mrs. Thatcher would have been even harder to bear.
But times change, and now we have now we have to be entertained by gastric gnomes like Anthony Worral Thompson, Giles Coren (the humourless son of a humorist), and Jamie Oliver, whose tongue seems too large for his mouth and capable of vasodilation, which may explain why a) he talks in that lisping fake Cockney accent of his and b) he has managed to marry quite an attractive woman. Jamie is currently annoying the population of Rotherham.
But it gets worse.
Thirty miles up the M1 from Rotherham, the top match on Google for "seasoned and fried" is now the murder trial of Anthony Morley of Leeds, who went on a date with Damian Oldfield, after which he took him home, had sex with him, cut his throat, stabbed him repeatedly, then carved a piece of flesh from his thigh, seasoned it with fresh herbs and fried it in olive oil.
Morley then walked to his local takeaway kebab shop, wearing a bloodstained dressing gown and flip-flops, and told staff: "I have killed someone, call the police."
Isn't this just typical? One minute he's all pretentious and showing off, with his olive oil and herbs, like he thinks he's Paul bloody Newman or someone, then as soon as he's got what he wants, he's off down the kebab shop in a dirty dressing gown! Mr Morley, I'm afraid, is a cannibal bulimic and a junk food junkie, and very much in the closet about all of it.
I think Mr. Morley hasn't exactly been honest about his sexuality either, come to think of it. In 1993, he won a beauty contest as Mr. Gay UK. According to a contemporary report, to win the title he had to beat off stiff competition in front of a nightclub audience in Blackpool. (Oo-err, missus) I'm not sure I could have managed that.
Then, he was the "gay scene's best known and talked about lad" who listed as his hobbies "pleasing other people". Now he says he's never been happy being gay, and claims the other man raped him. Sad, if it's true, but still no reason to kill your date and eat them.
"Androgynous android, statistically perfect in physical appearance but confused about own sexuality, WLTM open-minded males, females and appliances for friendship, evenings out and no cables attached fun, possibly leading to LTR. Bristol, Bath, North East Somerset"
Advice from the Manufacturer
Each robot is individually hand-crafted and built to perform in a wide variety of applications, including entertainment, research, animation, and even consumer households. Over the years, we have mastered the art of bringing to life amazing characters by sculpting them into crowd drawing masterpieces. All HumanKind robots have the following capabilities:
Utilizes the latest in A.I. software technology for face and speech recognition, eye tracking, and conversational operations
Capable of running in full autonomous or Robo-phone mode, meaning that you can turn off the A.I. to use the robot for local/remote pupeteering or even research
Portable and can run on up to 1/20 the power required for comparable products
Interface with standard computers (included with robot)
Can function in a variety of environments.
Well, you know what they say... Nothing ventured, nothing gained!
1. Wear a skirt and no underwear. For this reason, we don't recommend attempting this act in the middle of winter--that's the last place you want frostbite.
2. Get in a bit of foreplay before you hail the cab so you're both raring to go when you get in: make out on a street corner, sit in the back row at the movies, exchange some dirty text messages...
3. You might be tempted to get so drunk that you have no idea whether or not the driver is watching, but we think this is bad manners. A drink or two to calm your nerves is one thing, but too much booze + motion sickness = not exactly your "Before I Die" fantasy sesh!
4. Oh, and he totally knows what you're up to, by the way. But isn't that kind of the point?
5. Unless you just decide to give each other a sneaky handjob, of course.
6. For something a little more, trying sitting on your boyfriend's lap, facing away from him. It's not exactly stealth sex--especially if you get caught at a red light--but at least no naughty bits will be on display.
7. If it's late at night and one of you is lying down across the seat resting your head in your partner's lap, this could be a nice segue into oral sex.
8. Don't expect a happy ending...this is more about the journey than the destination (both literally and figuratively). But even getting just a little busy in the back of a cab will provide you with fantasy fodder for years to come!
9. If you'd like a little more privacy (and a shot at that happy ending), then consider renting a limo with a privacy screen. Why not surprise your partner by picking up from the airport in one of these? It'd be just like prom night but without all the teen drama and bad hairdo's.
I had a friend called Keith whose sage words of advice in times of trouble were
Get Drunk
Get Laid
Get Over It
He didn't stand by that rule all the time. For example, when a large truck compressed Keith's brain into a smaller space than the space it was meant to occupy (to whit, Keith's skull) he went into a coma for a few days, then suffered total amnesia, which left him unable to remember that he had dumped his girlfriend three months previously, and started seeing someone else. The dumped ex, who had been wondering how to win him back, got to the hospital before the new girlfriend, and Keith's life got a little bit complicated.
But we're talking about bad sex here.
I don't mean baaaad sex, involving an Isaac Hayes CD, a bottle of supermarket vodka, and some MDMA. I'm not talking about Coyote Ugly sex either, where you find yourself gnawing your own arm off the next morning just you can get out before the other person* wakes up.
*I'm making an assumption here. I hope I haven't offended your lifestyle.
I'm talking about transition sex; the times in your life when bad sex can be just what the doctor ordered - or just what the nurse offered, if that's your preference.
Now, before you think this is about what I got up to last night, it isn't. I got up to the Merry Monk last night, where I had three pints of cider, and discussed Russian hackers attacking the local authority's housing benefits system; that's what I got up to last night.
There were no scenes of a sexual nature, or people of a sexual nature. It's not that sort of pub. This is just a long-winded introduction to the little tune that's going round my head this morning.
Ida Maria has written a brilliant song about meeting a guy, and not knowing what to say, and finding that she's just talking complete bollocks. (You're going to tell me this has never happened to you?) She even finds herself smoking a cigarette, and she's not really sure what for.
But she suggests that the guy take her home, and then she suggests that he might like to take all his clothes off. Which he obligingly does (he must like her, I guess.) And she immediately feels much happier. She likes him much better when he's naked. She likes herself much better, too. Result.. Happy ending!
All the clever things I should say to you They got stuck somewhere Stuck between me and you
Oh I'm nervous I don't know what to do Light a cigarette I only smoke when I'm with you.
What the hell do I do this for? You're just another guy OK, you're kind of sexy But you're not really special
But I won't mind If you take me home Come on, take me home
I won't mind if you take off all your clothes Come on, take them off
'Cause I like you so much better when you're naked I like me so much better when you're naked I like you so much better when you're naked I like me so much better when you're naked. IDA MARIA
"New York, New York, it's a helluva town, The Bronx is up and the Battery's down "
Been here for four days,and I still don't know where the plain women hang out. Seriously: there's something unusual when the ugliest crowd you see are the people at the Apple store standing in line to buy iPhones.
After work,the bars fill up with groups of well turned out women, and I feel like an extra in Sex and the City. Around my hotel, yellow cabs dispense them in threes and fours, like money from cash machines.
There are gay men around, and gay women - I'm on the edge of Chelsea and Greenwich Village. Where are the groups of straight men? In another part of town, possibly with the plain girls. Here,they're outnumbered five-to-one.
Two blondes talking with a brunette friend about the man the brunette's been seeing. She likes him, but he's married. Still, she can let him buy her dinner, can't she?
I got into a conversation with a lovely girl who recognised my accent, and told me she'd recently had her heart broken by a man from London. No, she said, she doesn't hate men. She doesn't even hate British men. She just hates him. He dumped her a few weeks ago. She has a date tonight. I wish her luck.
At my hotel, one of the receptionists is showing off a book she's had published. It's about her experiences as a self-destructive teenage punk rock fan. Or as the book calls her, a Death Rock Cutter, which sounds like a spaceship in Star Wars. Still,the book looks very arty.
I walk around the corner to Starbucks, and pass a shoe shop called Shoegasm.They don't seem to stock much for men. Another part of town. Another part of town.
"There are eight million stories in the Naked City"
When the alarm clock went off this morning, I was dreaming that I was trying to tell one of the women I love the plot of a film called 'The Philadelphia Story'. I think in the dream, I got the whole thing mixed up with 'Now Voyager'.
They're both romantic comedies from the 1940's. 'Now Voyager' is the one where Bette Davis has psychotherapy. ‘The Philadelphia Story’, on the other hand, is (well, what did the posters say?)
"Broadway's howling year-long comedy hit of the snooty society beauty who slipped and fell - IN LOVE."
Katharine Hepburn plays Tracy Lord Haven, a wealthy, stubborn, arrogant railroad heiress - "married on impulse and divorced in a rage" - who's about to get married for the second time, but still has feelings for her first husband, the dashing and colourful C.K. Dexter Haven, played by Cary Grant.
There's also a lot of interest from a tabloid journalist (Mike Connor, played by Jimmy Stewart) who gets exclusive rights to cover the wedding by threatening to reveal a number of rude (but true) stories about various members of the family.
In true Jane Austen style, proto-husband number two is safe but dull, so you know he isn't going to get the girl. (Heck, he doesn't even get to be on the DVD cover.) In one scene, Hepburn's character considers contracting smallpox in order to postpone the wedding. As you do.
When I was growing up, Katharine Hepburn was probably the oldest woman I ever fancied. Intelligent, good-looking, redheaded and a feminist (you see, even as a teenager, I didn't go for the easy option), she still looked incredibly sexy when she was over ninety. Way to go, girl.
