By By Fishies

Im all over the place this past week, so forgiveness for not posting...once things settle down Ill get back to some more regular posting. I'm up to my eyeballs in work. Got the last paper I wrote accepted to a conference in Michican, so it means Ill be going there the same date I was supposed to head out to Baltimore, and fly from there to Baltimore a few days late. Im also working on two other papers that have to be finished by the end of the month, and haven't even started my transfer paper, plus I've all this work to do before the meeting in New York at the beginning of next month, so its crazy. Have had to cancel my dental appointments, so guess my teeth will just have to stay fucked up for a little bit longer. Had a great weekend though. Went to the opening of the Dragon - the new gay bar on George's street, formally Sosume. The place looks fantastic. They've moved the dancefloor downstairs at the back, and put an open-air smoking balcony upstairs at the back. Im sorry to say Dave, that the fish are gone - actually I think they were serving them as apperatifs at the opening party. Was great cause they had free cocktails at the start of the night, then all drinks were 2eur up till midnight. Didnt really take full advantage of it tho, as I was tired and had to be in college early the next day. Went to see Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy on Fri night - was better than I expected, but still far, far too British for my tastes, if you know what I mean. On Sat night I went out to the Flounge and met up with a few of my old LGB soc people for drinks - then headed onto the Dragon afterwards. It was packed and lots of faces haven't seen out and about before - then again I haven't really been out and about properly in ages. And this weekend is going to be even better as its by birthday!! Celebrating with drinks at mine before heading out - looking forward to it, though its all a bit hectic trying to get in touch with everyone and planning things etc. Im sure you'll hear all about it.

Some People Don't Change

I don’t know really how much detail I can go into here, without risking the certain anonymity of the situation, but I’ll do my best. It’s safe to say that most people everybody that knows me will know exactly to what I’m referring, so I suppose that will have to do. To the rest, I apologies if what follows seems non-sensical.



I found out the other day that people who used to be reasonably close friends have been bitching about me behind my back. Now, its not that the bitching has made me refer to them as former-friends, I still consider them as friends, its just since the whole thing started way back when my opinion of them has become somewhat tainted.



A while back I got completely caught up in an on-running situation involving a few different people’s relationships, from different groups of friends. The basic story is that there was (as it looked to me, and to many others) some unfaithfulness going on and basically a big mess ensued into which I was unwittingly dragged, mainly because it was completely unavoidable, to a certain extent. People on ones side were asking me to hide facts from other people, who in turn asked me if I knew what was going on, to which I had to play dumb. Although I did not directly tell people what was going on and did my best to not get directly involved, because frankly it was none of my business (which I realise now, more so than I did then), I think the fact that the word eventually got out did not bode well for me. To hear that the whole thing has resurfaced again just makes me sigh.



Apparently the main two people involved, who are now back together, have been talking about me behind my back in order to validate their relationship. They’ve been saying that I made everything up about the two-timing because I’m a “drama-queen”. I mean, why would I even make up that shit – I may have my own opinion about what was going on, but why would I lie? What did I have to gain from the whole thing? The fact of the matter is, I’m not the only one who saw what was going on. To hear that they’ve been calling me a liar behind my back, does not really make me that angry or upset, it makes me disappointed. Disappointed by the fact that things don’t seem to have changed. Disappointed that people have to resort back to such petty measures. At the end of the day it seems that people don't really change really, they just become slightly different versions of themselves – maybe a bit more mature, maybe a bit wiser, but still, deep-down, they’re the same.



I think I'm just going to ignore it. I think my best option is to avoid involvement at all costs.



If people are totally confused let me know.

Boy For Sale

I had to post a link to this listing on EBay, via towleroad. How desperate can some people get?



*UPDATE: The link has been removed, quite possibly because slavery/prostitution is disallowed by ebays terms & conditions.

The Word of God...in Colour

The Bible...with illustrations! I never knew Godzilla was in Revelations either. Maybe I should have paid more attention in religion class.

All that Jazz

We had to get up at 6.30 on Friday morning in order to get a taxi to the airport in time to catch our plane to...London! He had the flights booked so that we would get over nice an early so we could grab some lunch before checking into our hotel. The train from Stanstead to Liverpool St. Station was absolutely packed meaning we had to stand for the 45min journey along with a lot of other people. We had contemplated sneaking into First Class, but decided against it. It was funny however, when we were getting off the train an extremely posh British woman opened the first class carriage doors, looked at us disgustedly like the lower-class train-travelers we were, expecting us to move out of her way, and instead got stuck in the automatic closing doors, while trying to retain a dignified look on her well-chewed-toffee face. Karma's a bitch!



We arrived at the station, and grabbed the tube. For the whole trip I was working blindly, as I had no clue where we were going and what was planned for the weekend. We got off at Euston station and made our way to our hotel. My jaw dropped when we stopped outside non other than the Hilton hotel! The hotel was really nice, although not completely opulent. We sashayed in....cause it seemed like the place that required a sashay-type entrance, got the keycard from the desk and went to our room. We managed to figure out how to open the stupid door with the keycard just in time as one of the chambermaids, or 'help', walked by in the corridor, about to offer assistance. The room was reasonable size, nice big double bed with white down-filled duvet and pillows, large TV, kettle, gorgeous big bathroom etc. It was just so nice that he put all this thought and organisation into it, especially since it was me who did all the organising for our trip to Paris.



We grabbed some dinner that evening in Garfunkel's just off Oxford Street, before going back to the hotel to get ready for the evening. All I new was to wear something dressy and that we had to be there at 8. We got off the tube at Charring Cross, and from there walked up to the Adelphi Theatre to take our seats for the 8.30 show of Chicago! I mean, the flights, the hotel and now a west-end show! I couldn't believe it!



The seats we had were in the second row, meaning we were basically right up against the stage. The show was fantastic - especially seeing as we got an extra-special view of the male performers in their awe-inspiring, crotch-hugging, ass-lifting trousers and bare chests. There was so much action at times that my head was spinning to catch it all on stage. The lighting and live jazz band were amazing, as well as the dancing and singing. Michael French (ex-Eastenders) who played Billy Flynn just proved how shit Richard Gere was in the film. I really really enjoyed it - much more so than I had expected too. Although, the German-tinged over-emphasised Am-or-icayne accent of the actress playing Velma Kelly at times made me chuckle - especially during the "I love this country (America)" speeches. The show was all that jazz, and much, much more.



After a fantastic nights sleep, we spent most of the day Saturday around Oxford Street doing a bit of shopping, although I was a little disappointed that nothing was that much cheaper than it is at home. And is it just me or do all the London men look, well, gay? I mean the straight ones. It seems like GHD owes its existence to the London metrosexual (or here) population - simply due to the fact that every second man had a straightened 'do, which reeked havoc on the gaydar. And don't get me started on the clothes they wear - tight t-shirts, crotch-hugging jeans and tailored suits. My gaydar was sent into even further confusion when we went out that night to G.A.Y. All the gay men looked 'straighter' than the straight men, right down to their ben sherman shirts *shiver*.



G.A.Y. looked like an older version of the Redbox. Located in the Astoria theatre, the place was huge - with a big stage, big dance floor, seating up on the balcony and second bar at the back. The music was pure 90s with P.A.'s from Michelle Gayle, Chesney Hawkes and Dana International. Chesney proved to be the most entertaining on the night - getting the crowd going with a rendition of American Pie. Michelle Gayle seemed to forget the words to her own song and Dana was basically a glorified drag-show complete with bad miming and glittery body-suit. One thing that struck me as really odd, was that hardly anybody who got up on the stage danced. They just stood there, so why the fuck did they bother to get up there in the first place?? All in all, not that many people were really dancing - it was more of a stand-around-the-place-and-shuffle-your- feet-side-to-side type of affair. Very strange indeed. We had a laugh, though there was only so much of old Steps, Corona and N-trance we could take before we called it a night. We flew home on Sunday (incidentally a mix up resulted in us being 2 hours early for our flight) after having a fantastic weekend in London. Highly recommended!

Mystery Annivesary Weekend

So the weekend has come and passed, without too much pain. After all the stress and work involved and the 9-7 Saturday and Sunday, inlcuding entertaining duties on Saturday night, I figured I needed the rest so I basically took Monday off and have been doing fuck all this week in work. Everyone at the workshop at the weekend was nice, apart from the cunt that is the main guy from Hong Kong.



He is very well known and respected in his research area but he also likes people to be aware of this fact. He has the knack of being able to make someone as clever as Einstein feel stupid. We would have got twice as much work done if he hadn't kept interrupting with arguments about terminology and quoting random papers that nobody else had read, much to his delight. He's just the time of guy elligible for a good ol' cock-punch. On the Saturday night he was even more annoying asking stupid questions about what is "traditional" Irish food and was quite dissapointed that my answers didn't match those in his guide book, and on buying whiskey he proclaimed - "this is no good, it tastes like any other whiskey". What the fuck did you expect?!? After all that, I think I deserved to take the week easy. I learnt that the second meeting in New York is on the weekend of my birthday, which is more fantastic news - but at least I get a trip to NYC for free, even if I have to put the money up front first.



This weekend is our anniversary (I can't belive its been one year already - is that a good or a bad thing? I, myself, actually feel really good about the whole thing which is definitely a step forward from my past neurosis!), so the boyf has has something planned for ages, which he wouldn't tell me anything about. The only thing I knew was that I had to take this Friday (tomorrow off) and have no plans for the weekend. I got the following email on Wednesday with some more information:

The following items shall be required for this weekend:

1. A Passport.


2. 300 euros.


3. Three sets of clothes covering the basic needs of casual and dressy.


4. 2 sets of shoes.


5. Hair and facial products


6. Enough Insulin etc. for three days.


7. An inquisitive mind.

Be at ____ this Thursday night. This email shall now self-destruct.

I have a few ideas of what he might have planned, but I'm trying not to think about them to keep the whole thing a surprise. Im actually really excited about it....I get goosebumps even now thinking about it.

!Stressed!

Apologise for not posting in a while, but I've been under an unbelievable amount of stress these past weeks. Not only do I have shit loads of reading to do, inlcuding learning a new programming language (C++) for the first of the John Hopkins workshop meetings here this weekend (resulting in my whole weekend being taken up and missing my friends birthday on Sat) , but Im trying to run a load of experiments and write a paper before this Friday - which has led to me being stuck in college till 8 most days last week. All this plus trying to spend time with the boyf and my friends at the weekend, Dave R moving to Brummie-land (we're gonna miss you Dave!!), getting my US visa sorted out and paying bills and rent has led to a complete lack of proper sleep, bad skin, shin splints from shitty shoes and an overall complete head-melt.



I just can't wait till this fucking week is over. At least I've Kylie to look forward to on Thurs night, that is if I can get everything else done in the meantime.

We Want Konnt

I had a ball last night at the eleventh Alternative Miss Ireland in the Olympia, a take on the Miss World pageant and organised to raise money for charity. It was my first time going, so didn’t know really what to expect – another drag show of men in dresses miming out of sync, or something really awful. Well it was a fabulous surprise, in the best sense of the word surprise, and fabulous. The stage was set with a hilarious opening act, with Panti, Veda miming to an excerpt from Gone with the Wind, the two of them being completely upstaged by Shirley Temple Bar riding in on a stuffed horse and hilariously colliding with a makeshift fence.

I have to say I was extremely impressed with the amount of effort each of the contestants put into the event (apart from one or two ‘touched’ individuals), especially Miss Wexford O’Grady and Miss Heidi Konnt and her Von Tramp family, who after a hilarious rendition of the Sound of Music’s “Do-a-Deer-Fist-Me” and Madonna’s “Hanky-Panky” with the revised chorus of “all you want to do is Fist Me” beat the competition to claim the crown, with a cheer of “we want konnt” bellowing up from the crowd. I especially liked the way she kept on propositioning Senator David Norris. She was borderline offensive, and even went over a couple of times but it was all in good fun.

Other honourable mentions include Davina Devine and her whole take of the Barbie thing complete with gorgeous Ken, who in actual fact is a friend of the BFs, and Sade O Saphic who did a great routine to “Mein Heir” from Cabaret and later mimed to Turning Japanese while topless with black electrical tape over her nipples, being tied up Japanese rope bondage-style. Ah lesbians, you gotta love ‘em.

Check out more photos.




Speaking of the Sound of Music – check out these lyrics.

Eight weeks of Solitude

In the past few weeks I've found out that I'll be going to John Hopkins University, Baltimore for 6 weeks in July/Aug to attend a research workshop. I wasn't particularly keen on the idea. I know it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and is a very prestigious workshop to attend etc, but I wasn't too sure if I really wanted to go. For one, it reinforced the question in my mind about why I really am doing what I'm doing especially if I'm not into it all that much. This means that I'll be away working with a top-class research team, all of whom are probably extremely intelligent/nerdy/interested in their research, which will just probably make me feel more of a fraud. Also I'll be away from friends and loved ones for a considerable amount of time. It's not as though it's even a fun trip - it's a work trip. Ill be there with my supervisor and his family, and maybe a post-doc from college, but its not going to be exactly a great social event.

However, on hearing that I will be paid quite a reasonable amount to attend, I warmed a bit more to the idea. My boyf also said he'd come over for a week or so to visit me, which would be fantastic, although he wasn't too happy about the whole idea of me being away for so long, understandably enough. Plus I might get to see my relatives in New York as its not that far away.

But a huge dampener has just been put on things as I've just found out that I have to go for eight not six weeks. That's basically my whole summer - the end of June, all of July and most of August. Six weeks I could just about cope with, but eight. It's just too long to be away on my own. Am I being unreasonable? Maybe it won't be so bad, or maybe it will. It's the latter that worries me. And from the reports I've heard about Baltimore, apparently it isn't the most exciting place to spend a week, let alone eight.

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