Everyone @ Chortle

So as one door closes another one opens for I have secured another date for next week! I have to admit, I've limited strength left with the whole sorry saga and I fear this will be my second to last shot at a spark with anymore gentleman from the Internet. I just can't be bothered.

Yes, it's all very pleasant and I've only had a couple of weird situations but its quite simply, draining. Like I'm currently in the middle of email chats with this guy who I am meeting next week and I'm finding it hard work. Don't get me wrong, he seems lovely but I am so over the pleasantries. Lets just have a row, I'll win, and then lets marry. It's not so difficult is it?

So I had a message on my Facebook wall today from someone who reads my blog to say that they read it cause it makes them feel better about their own non-existent sex life. ERM, just because I don't blabber on about sex doesn't mean I don't get any! Ever heard of an FB? (And I don't mean Facebook) Yeah thats right EFF. BEE. my friend... christ, who am I kidding, even that's not consistent of late. Plus the term FB makes me cringe. oh well. Feel even better now Andrew do ya? (Remember that time you fell over outside Caroline's and you landed NEXT to a banana skin? Great days!)

So I caught some of "Too fat to Toddle" t'other night on ITV1 and it was horrid and UNTRUE. Most of the kids were over toddler age and could walk. So... Too fat to walk more like. But they could walk - so it was basically a show full of untruths and just fatties who cried if they didn't get enough grub. I know that feeling.

I'm so looking forward to Peep Show tonight. What a great, great show. It didn't get an amazing review in the Metro - but I beg to differ, I loved it and watched the first episode twice. It's the best thing on TV at the moment, other than the Apprentice. Which incidently was extra great on Wednesday. Oh Alex you're so pretty but such a twat. Good riddance to that vile bitch Jennifer (not the irish one). She is disgusting. She reminds me of the first female manager I had when I started work in central London when I was 19. I was the "front of house" receptionist at a Car Show room in Park Lane. In those days I was WELL fit so it made all the business men want to buy cars...(in my head)

Some female bosses are mentalists. With balls of steel (or so they convey) and shoulder pads to match, they bark orders at work, make their staff cry and secretly love it. Then they go home to their pathetic friendless lives and hope and pray that the next day will come around soon so that they can make people feel shit at work again, because deep down they hate themselves more. That's Jennifer that is.

You know what that Claire reminds me of in The Apprentice? She reminds me of "Maz" off Holiday Reps. She has the same whiney voice and sentences that seem to finish on the same irritating note. And she talks a load of office jargon in the hope that people won't realise that she's actually extremely thick.

"Look" magazine is out now avec my feature in it. Its a bit cringey and not entirely accurate - saying that I get £100 a gig! Ha! I wish! They asked me what the most I'd been paid was and I told them £100 which is true for a 20 min spot. I also made it clear that I am only really paid consistently for compering but whatever, I'm in a glossy mag so 'ave it!

Have a nice weekend and congrats to Paul below too!

Brooklyn as Dream:
Delicate, pink, cherry blossoms in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, filling the air, falling on children, lovers and -- sprawled across the grass -- a bombastic blonde, fully dressed in the manner of a pre-hippie,'60s actress or model, looking like a classically-imagined stewardess in civilian clothes.

Brooklyn as Medieval Nightmare:
The healthy-looking, dead rat sprawled across the blacktop by the laundromat, looking ready for a photo shoot, a drop of something -- maybe blood -- not far from his head.

The sweet counter girl at Dunkin Donuts with her misshaped, darkened lip.

The delicate, pink, cherry blossoms in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden falling on Chassidic boys with Down's Syndrome.

...aka Ageing, part 5 (at least - even my 'ageing' blogs are getting old - blimey). The radio silence in blogland is cos I proposed on the weekend, and she said yes, so I am now an engaged man...

So, the inevitable questions of how, where, why, etc. Well the short answer is Dartmoor, on top of a waterfall. The only slightly less short answer is that Zoe took me away for a mystery surprise weekend (only slightly given away when she said two days before we went, "Don't worry if you don't get time to buy wellies before we go - you can get some in Devon." Ah. But still, the rest was a surprise, and indeed it's Britain's best kept secret. The little farmland area between Dartmouth and Salcome - I recommend it to everyone. We stayed in one of a lovely row of cottages on a converted farm, which now houses a swimming-pool, sauna, jacuzzi, tennis court, full-size snooker table, games room with x-box, table-tennis, table-football, 200 DVDs, and each cottage with a full kitchen, log-fire, TV, Sky, DVD player, free wifi, yet all also beamed and old-fashioned and homely and beautiful. Plus it's wonderful scenery, the beach is 10min walk away, you can cycle a-plenty (and we did), and there are really really excellent restaurants and pubs in neighbouring villages. What more could you ask for from a holiday destination?

Oh yes, nice weather. Well we had that too, so ha. On Saturday we decided to make the most of the nice weather and visit Castle Drogo on Dartmoor, just cos it sounds so sinister and we wanted to see if there be dragons. We also thought we'd take in Canonteign Falls - England's tallest waterfall, so we reached there, paid our £5.80 each to climb the falls, and atop it, I proposed. For me of course though, I can't resist doing something a little different, so I did it via a magic trick. I forced two cards on her (that's magician talk - there was no physical forcing of anything, I'm delighted to say, as that is less than romantic), so she thought she'd picked two random cards: the 2 of Hearts and the Ace of Diamonds. I got her to shut her eyes and convert those cards into a number and a suit, ie. 2 hearts and 1 diamond. She opened her eyes, and there was the diamond, there were 2 hearts (living in just one mind), me on one knee and all around were tourists chucking up at what they'd just seen. Well tough, it's our moment.

Anyway, she said yes, so woohoo. We clambered down the waterfall (I'll put some piccies up on facebook of the view from there), and sadly forewent Castle Drogo, in favour of finding a pub for a stiff drink. We found this pub in the middle of Dartmoor, in Widecombe-on-the-Moor. Middle of nowhere, and in that pub, who should we see, but comedian Gareth Richards. "On my way to a gig in Plymouth", he said. I think he's stalking me. Last time I saw him he was sat behind me in Odeon Guildford, and he doesn't even live in Guildford. I'm getting suspicious. If he turns up at the wedding and yells out that he loves me when the vicar asks if anyone knows any reason, etc etc, then I won't be surprised.

Oh yeah. The wedding. I'd fotgotten that's what happens after proposals. Well by dinner on Saturday evening, at a lovely Thai restaurant in Dartmouth, we'd decided on everything from who's doing the readings to what sort of car takes her to church. But that's all to be rethought, altered and debated further over the next year (for twill be about a year till any knot-tying), cos otherwise what else are we going to talk about?

Facebook have already started their 'targetted advertising' (that's why you've been getting adverts about bands you like recently), and as soon as I changed from 'In A Relationship' to 'Engaged', I'm being bombarded with ads for wedding photographers or strippers for stag dos (alright, just the former). And speaking of Facebook, did anyone notice that my status all last week was 'Paul is vacant'. Twas meant to be clever, ie. that I could change it to 'Paul is engaged'. Vacant? Engaged? Geddit? Yeah, no one else did - it turns out no one checks my status. Pah. I feel unloved. Except the opposite.

when you call someone who always thought you were preposterous and is now in a position of authority and they don't get back to you.

But when it's someone who clearly liked and, at least to some extent, respected you, it just makes them a superficial, arrogant, self-important (even if also actually important) shithead.

Such is the case with the now long-term editor of a once-important humor organization which has spent more than ten years living off the reputation others imbued it with a long time ago and which is now, kind of respectable, if not exactly respected.

For instance, yesterday, walking through Bed-Stuy, the sun touched me with just the right kind of gentle.