No way but Moet

Having worked Saturday and Sunday I obviously had to take Monday off. So I had arranged with my friend Katie (we were once a couple and we snogged, I thought of shopping lists...) to have lunch and thus it came to pass.

Katie also works in the meedja, so there was alcohol involved. I haven't had anything for a few weeks so I thought I would let myself go a bit.

Yes...carbs on Thursday and drinking today. I'm facing fat in the face, I know.

Lunch with Katie's always fun because we can reminisce. Our history is nearly identical.

Well, sort of.

Katie has an older sister, I have a younger one.
Katie's parents and my parents both moved to South Africa in the 80s for some wishy-washy leftie, commie-liberal reason, though Katie's dad has now come back to the UK. Her mum died tragically a few years ago in Cape Town.

My parents still live out there, pretending that they're part of some crumbling colonial dream.

Even though my parents and her dad claim to be muesli-eating, left-wingers they still use words like "nig-nogs" (black people) and "poofs" (gays).

My parents know I'm gay. God, my mother doesn't stop going on about "when are you going to bring home someone nice for your father and I to meet" - is what she says everytime I fly to Cape Town.

But in my parents' eyes there's a big difference between me and a poof. Fuck alone knows what that difference is though?!

Oh yeah, and Katie and I both went to single-sex private schools. They tried to turn Katie into a hulking great lesbionika and they tried to homosexualise me.

Well, I guess my school was the better one.

And so we sat and reminisced. And it was lovely.

Katie's boyfriend, according to my calculations, is about to propose to her and so we talked about her wedding. I decided that the ceremony must take place in an after-care day centre in Brixton.

And instead of wedding cake and confetti there will be jerk chicken and rum.

In your life there are people who come into it, who you know will stay with you forever. When I'm 80 and pissing myself in my old-timers' nappy, Katie is one of the people I'll be phoning from the next ward.

"Oi, bitch - gotta faaag I can have?" is what I'll be lying there asking.

Anyway, on a completely different note...

Every Saturday the Guardian has a great feature where they get someone "of interest" to write in and share their experiences.

On Saturday it was the turn of a former rent boy. I thought it was excellently written and a great insight. Click here to read of one person's experiences as gay rent.

Bobby's Dodgy Music Collection CD #7

Avant-garde 80s experimental music is very very cool - which is why I love Laurie Anderson.

For me, this album just aches with the pretensions and vacuities of the 80s.

And besides, William S. Burroughs does the vocals on the final track Sharkey's Night, which immediately relegates it to "must have" status.