What the fuck did I do?

Last night. Sheffield. A right good seeing to. An eyeful and an earful. Aural so to speak.  I'm talking of the Devonshire Crew, Muse, of course; and they were brilliant. What they lack in personality (Guy Garvey should offer lessons), they more than make up for with bloody loud spectacle.

The day before I made the reacquaintance of an old friend.  She'd been gone for a few months.   But she was back with a bang (and a blow job to boot).  Couldn't keep our hands off each other. And everything else.  Bathroom floors, living room doorways, wetness and hardness combined.  And loads of laughter too.  Fucking perfect....

And there may be the (never thought it possible) return of another who figured so much back in the early days of blog...but I'll be more circumspect this time with my writing if I'm not to bugger it up once again.

Can a grown man have a crush?  Can a mid-life mid youth be distracted by someone who has proffered only a few words and a bit of conversation?  Will he make a fool of himself? Maybe...

She works for another organisation to me, but we're working on a project together.  She's twenty years younger.  I can see no reason why she should pay me the slightest attention, but I am sure that she is doing just that.  Her e-mails are slightly more informal than I would expect when we know so little of each other (and ostensibly I am her boss in this commission).  And that would be that, but the other day I swear she kept extending our chat outside the office even  though she was clearly frozen cold (God, I almost offered her my jacket!) and wanted to get in her car and even though we'd finished talking work and even though I kept providing opportunities for her to finish the conversation.  I asked her if she wanted to join me at the next meeting (and she had every reason to decline), but she said  i would like to come to the meeting with you.   Not I would like to come to the meeting, but I would like to come to the meeting with you.   And now I have her mobile number too and it wasn't hard.

So perhaps she has a crush on me?!?  Hmmm....On Monday we meet again. I will assess her body language and her language and demeanour once more.

In the meantime I think about her far more than is right.  In an escapist, fantasy kind of way.  That feels nice. That's a nice, thrilling sensation.  Been a while since I felt such emotions.  Not since Peach really.  So two years.  Reality would be messy though.  But escapism is a buzz.  Probably never amount to more.   Not even sure what more means in this context.  An illicit kiss would probably be all the thrill I need.

Oh and she runs too.  God, the thought of her in lycra is more than the old ticker can take!!!!

After a few years away from Pearl Jam, I bought this and, well, it's headbangingly, grungily good.  Fortunately they've rediscovered tunes!

Oh and I've got tickets to see Muse in November....wahoo!

And Massive Attack were excellent last week.

Nothing beats having your music in, around, all over you. Music, sex, red wine, cinema, chocolate, cheese and peanuts. But not always in that order!  Bring me these and I will be a loyal and faithful (maybe that's not the right word for me?!?!) servant.  I have my den I escape to and play the vinyl and the CDs loud and feel like a teenager again, but with less angst! 

I feel surprisingly good after the worst two years of my life. About time too. 

Makes me blog less though. Misery is the midwife of words and happiness washes them downstream.

Ranters. Why? Why do they exist? What is the point? Life is too short.

In my job I get people ranting at me occasionally. If you don't want to respond to the questionnaire, just bin it. I know I do. But, no, they ring me up and threaten to sue me for infringing their personal space with my terrorist inspired, bureacratically attired, human-rights infringing nosiness. Not-In-My-Back-Passage (not a place I wish to visit at the best of times) they scream. I agree and then tell them to go back to their banjo-picking and cousin-marrying homestead or their be-moated mansion.

Similarly the blogger with a chip on his (it's nearly always his) shoulder about people he hates, but who have never done owt to him except breathe the same air and piss in the same water pool. If it was Pol Pot or Attila The Hun or Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer then fair enough. But celebrities or bands you don't like are such a boring and easy target. Why waste your ire? I truly don't get it.

Meanwhile...go see Simon Amstell on tour. Bloody hilarious. And buy Elbow's shortly to be re-issued Asleep In The Back. Or watch Brass Eye. Or get naked. Just enjoy the here and now and ignore those who bore you. You protesteth too much. Life is much better when you don't give the bores the time of day.

Just to say, we're in a pretty good place right now.

Thanks to all who took the time and commented previously. That's what is good about The Blog.

More smiles than angst for now.

Mind you this doesn't mean I don't still chase the skirt and go down from time to time. The last (ten days back) was sweet as sugar candy and as tall as the sky, she sang like a siren and tore into me with the strength of a lionness.

Last night I too was at the MEN Arena for the farewell to the Seldom Seen Kid gig.  After 144 shows since the release of the album Elbow have put him to bed so they can go and record sommat new.

This was the fourth of the those 144 for me and whilst a moving occasion probably the least of all the ten times I have seen them since 2001.  Elbow's music is a warm, melancholic, richly detailed, tapestry of emotions which doesn't suit the arena.  They're at their best in smaller venues or oudoors but not in soulless sheds with the acoustics of an aircraft hangar.  Guy Garvey is the most sincere and romantic frontman around and can charm any crowd (and he did yesterday), but his talents are wasted on the corporate airheads who occupy the boxes around the venue, sipping champagne, chatting throughout and adding Elbow to their list of things they've done paid for by KPMG/Shell/RBS along with the soulless drone of Coldplay, the pre-calculated angst of U2 (what were you thinking Guy?), a Manchester derby, the Henley regatta, opera in the park and Ascot.  I wish the corporate twats would fuck off and leave more tickets to those who actually want to see a live music event because, I don't know, perhaps, they like to hear live music. 

So please Guy, Pete, Craig, Mark and Richard promise not to play arenas in future and leave the bankers in their penthouses with their silicone-enhanced blondes and their powder- filled noses.

On the plus side, thank you so much for playing Scattered Black and Whites, Mexican Standoff, Bitten By The Tailfly along with the usual suspects.  And Weather To Fly ("are we having the time of our lives?") and One Day Like This were dewy-eyed perfect.

Usain Bolt is a force of nature, a breath of exhilirating air in the cynical world of sport, a showman and a genius rolled into one. Where were you when he ran 9.58?  We are blessed to witness such a peak of human physical achievement.

Jessica Ennis: I wrote before about how sexy she is, but more importantly she is a true world class athlete. To come back from such an injury and such disappointment to win the World Championship gold in just a year is a remarkable feat.  And she's gorgeous too!!!

And talking of gorgeous athletes...

Well you can't blame a guy for dreaming...

She doesn't deserve what I have become and yet...

She is a good woman, a good mother, a good wife. The part of me that plays away (both mental and physical) abuses her with its selfish games and yet...

She said a beautiful thing the other day to our daughter. She said that when I'm in the room she feels better about herself. If she knew what I have become, what I do, it would shatter her into a million pieces. She doesn't deserve that, not even for the lapses she made in the last millenium.

We had sex (we didn't make love) on Saturday night.  We both wanted it, but it wasn't great.  Must be at least the second, maybe the third, time this year.  It was functional. Orgasms achieved but little passion spent.

Just one week prior I got very naughtily naked with a beautiful, tall, Amazonian air hostess. I was five miles high! I got hard just talking to her. I came as I tongued her to orgasm and listened to her moans of ecstasy, her cries of release.  I came again as she sat astride me, looking me in the eye and smiling with the control she had over me.  I want to see her again.

I can't stop this. I love sex. I love women. I love my wife. Are these things mutually exclusive? Am I deceiving myself as well as her? Or is this who I am: a good man on the outside, but a philanderer nonetheless?

For those of you in the know, my profile pic up there is Dominic West, or more specifically McNulty of The Wire (he of "What the fuck did I do?").  For those of you who have not seen The Wire, shame on you.  The Wire is without a doubt the greatest piece of TV writing, possibly ever.  It is Shakespearean in its truth, Dickensian in its scale,  Proustian in its detail, a Cystine Chapel, a Mona Lisa, a Handel's Messiah, a Dark Side of The Moon. It will be watched and studied for years to come. Quite simply no TV programme has ever had so many characters speaking so many words in so many story arcs and still made perfect sense. It is a thing of beauty, a wonder to behold, utterly peerless. And last night I watched the final episode of the final season and like a great book I want to go back and watch all five seasons all over again to bathe in its deep waters once more.

It's not easy TV. It's not for the casual viewer: in fact David Simon the writer famously said, "fuck the casual viewer". You have to work at it. You have to invest time in it. And if you do, you will be rewarded beyond anything you have ever given yourself over to on TV. The Wire is the apotheosis of TV, the perfect opposite of the reality junk and 24 hour news that spews forth on a daily basis from the box in the corner of the living room.

If you are a fan then go try this quiz: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/organgrinder/quiz/2009/jul/07/the-wire-quiz.  If you have not sampled its delights then buy, rent or steal Season 1 and wait for the scene when D explains chess to Bodie and Poot. If that doesn't hook you  in, then you have no soul my friend, no soul.

McNulty, Bunk, Omar, Bubs, Det. Freamon, Mayor Carcetti, Ziggy, Herc and Carver, Daniels, Gus, Pearlman, Avon and Stringer, D, Michael...we may never see your  like again. Fuck, yes. I will.

Season One, episode one here I come again...

I know, I should be working, but I got bored!

Is it me, or does Monica Bellucci just get more beautiful as she gets older?

And Sin City, that's where I live!