[Sex Toy] Rubber Jenny

So a couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how I was growing increasingly tired of masturbation. Then last Friday I received an email from a sex worker. Is that what they’re called? Women who work for sex toy companies? Anyway, Carly works for LoveHoney.co.uk and by way of solution to my problem, she offered me free sex. In a can. Specifically, this one: As you can see, it’s quite odd. For one thing, it has a mouth. Now I know I’ve not seen that many vaginas, but I’m sure even Seymore Butts hasn’t seen one with an infranasal depression, or - it always takes me ages of fruitless head-searching then a quick Google search to remember this word - philtrum. (Hmm. I just spent ten minutes checking Wikipedia’s etymology of the word philtrum against the entry in volume two of The New Shorter Oxford. Interesting. Veeeery interesting. And they say masturbation ruins your vocabulary. Paff.) Anyhow, in the words of the popular song, any hole’s a goal. Now, before I go any further – I think I should just … one moment, please. Right. I have to say, having used the thing twice now, it is really very, very good. Which is to say, it feels excellent wrapped around your engorged Johnson and it does facilitate some splendid and relatively powerful sensations on fruition. I did find it much easier to use, however, when I removed the superskin flesh-sleeve from the can. The reasons for this are twofold. Number one. It’s a bit tight in the can. Out of the can, the superskin flesh-sleeve is able to expand to take your girth. In the can, it’s like trying to fuck a frighteningly robust moth. I think you know what I’m saying. Also, out of the can … … the superskin flesh-sleeve becomes eerily animated, almost lifelike. It flops about in your hand like a dazed rat, freshly shaven, or like the panicking infant of some alien animal species, lost and frightened and helpless.

For the rest of this remarkable and educational review, Stan recommends you go here and purchase a copy of The Little Book of Shame. Not only does it contain the article you're currently reading, it also contains around 50 others, and all for the incredible price of whatever price it happens to be at the moment. You lucky thing you.

[Special Product] Vulva :: Old Man

I thought it might be funny to write an account of a date I had on Valentine’s Day - a date with myself and a bottle of Vulva. It would have been a silly thing, you understand. I was going to pretend that I had someone over for a cosy dinner. I would tidy the house and cook a meal - fish pie maybe, or a nice New England clam bake. And then I was going to make a clumsy lunge at myself after the coffee and hopefully go all the way. But not necessarily.

There is every chance I might not have put out at all. After all, I’m a sensitive not to say needy individual and it might very well have taken a good deal more than the scent of synthetic nethers to bring me to fruition. More important still, I feared that if I got into that whole self-love thing again, there was every possibility I might actually disappear right inside my own bottom.

Thankfully, the Vulva didn’t come till Monday. (I would normally have used the word arrive in that sentence, but I am a sucker for a vagina gag.) (!)

So, in order to fulfil my end of the bargain – to wit an honest review in exchange for a free sample of the product – I was forced to go to the hustings. Is that what I mean? Let’s say yes.

On Monday night, I held my first woefully unstructured focus group, telling my guinea pigs exactly what I was smearing on their hands. I asked them to score the product out of ten for vulvacity, arousal and overall pleasantness. The results were not good.

For vulvacity, Vulva was found distinctly lacking. Which is not a good sign. A product called Vulva, describing itself as a vaginal fragrance really ought to smell like vagina. If not, it can only be considered a failure. But then again, as a few of the people with whom I have engaged on the subject have pointed out, surely not all vulvae smell alike. Well, in my limited experience, I would say yes and no. Of course every foo-foo has a different odour, just as every Johnson has a different odour, just as every human being has a different odour. However, it's surely also true to say that there is definitely a ball-park smell.

Anyhow, here are a bunch of thoughts from the first session:

'It smells like wee.'

'It's a bit toilet.'

'It smells a bit like fish and chips. A bit musky … It's not unpleasant. I wouldn't want to smell of it but I wouldn't be really upset if I did ... It doesn't smell of my vulva, but does my vulva smell of everybody's vulva? Is my vulva everyvulva? … That doesn't smell anything like a vulva. Oh, maaaaaaybe – maybe there's a tiny hint. It's too perfumey though. It's got that kind of Copydex quality … I feel like it's burning my wrist. It feels simultaneously hot and cold … It smells a bit of honey as well.'

'So you put this on and masturbate? And it's meant to help, is it?'

'It smells a bit like cardboard.'

So there you go. 'Not unpleasant' is about as good as it gets. Personally, I don't agree. I think it's very unpleasant. For me, it does smell of vulva, but it smells of a vulva that's been trapped in a chemical toilet for six days. It has ammonia front bottom notes, reminiscent of those awful pineapple chunks you find it men's urinals.

Anyhow, on Tuesday night, I did a blind test in a pub with three new rugged male friends. They weren't impressed. The best quote came from Paul, a 45-year-old man from Macclesfield. 'It smells like old man,' he said.



That's not good.

So there it is. Vulva is basically a novelty item that no one in their right brain would ever buy twice.

And let that be an end to it.

In other news, I'm almost finished my first week of proper work, and yesterday, I got an iPhone.

I feel like an adult.

I'm not though.

Have a super weekend.

Sick Of Self-Love (I'm Waiting For My Vulva)

I need to spice up my self-love life.

There. I’ve said it.

And when I say self-love, I don’t mean cutting myself some slack, thinking positive and giving myself a pat on the back whether or not I deserve it. I mean wanking. Unless of course, I’m being jolly clever and using one as a slightly sticky mirror for the other. Well, I’m not. I’m just talking about wanking.

I’ve fallen into a rut, you see. I just don’t put any effort into the act of making love with myself anymore. You know? I just don’t pleasure myself with the same outlandish vigour and rigour as once I did.

It’s an unpleasant truth but it’s come to pass that in this period of my life, my self-love lacks verve. I do it of course, and relentlessly, but the joy is gone. The sense of urgency is gone. The spontaneity that was at times jazz-like. That’s gone too. All that’s left is a tired, asthmatic glimmer of desire and a dulled sense of weary obligation. I go through the motions: a text-book moribund shuffle, like a dying man rooting through a pile of garbage. There’s no romance. There’s not even any real sense of pleasure. And as for foreplay? Forget about it.

A lot of this is connected to technology, of course, and the proliferation of fat-pipe porn. Erotic images were incredibly scarce when I was young. This meant you had to put a lot more work into your relationship with yourself. It also meant you had to take opportunities as and when they arose. Songs of Praise. Your friend’s mother’s bra and lipstick. Every inappropriate erection was a new, distinctly seedy adventure. These days there’s none of that, and recklessly I have allowed my imagination and impulsivity to become saturated, and desiccated, by porn. As a result, I’ve turned into a lousy self-lover.

And don’t think I haven’t noticed. If you want to know the truth, it’s tearing me apart. I’ve tried talking about it but I just won’t listen. I’ve come to resent myself. Literally. And when I remember how I used to be, back at the beginning when it was all fresh and new and I couldn’t keep my hands off myself….

So, in the absence of the ability to split up with myself, which is what I really want to do, frankly, I’ve decided to make a concerted effort to get myself back on the right track. I'm staging a kind of self-intervention, before any really irreparable damage is done.

My first move was to check out the clever articles you find in magazines and newspapers, the ones full of advice for couples who don’t really like one another anymore because of years of mind-numbing repetition. But they didn’t really work out. Spontaneous hugging met with a limp silence. Surprising myself with chocolates was a lovely touch but then watching me eat them all and calling me fat afterwards was just awful. That was an angry wank, that one. And not in a good way.

Then I thought of buying myself some knickers. It would be deceitful of me to claim that having the sexual smorgasbord of my nether regions coddled in the stretched silk of a woman’s undergarment is not something that gives me a terrific itch in the belly. For it is. Even the mere thought of it threatens to cajole some twitch of appreciation from Cupid’s torch. Having said that, the thought of actually purchasing a nice pair of knickers for posh-wank purposes – and they would have to be very nice – just feels a little sad. Sad as in pathetic. Lamentable. Borderline deplorable. That’s the problem with all of these masturbatory aids: they just seem so fucking desperate. Toe-curling in their desperation. And yet, still, in arid times, in a cold climate, when one’s very soul feels like it’s running to seed, if you’ll pardon the pine nut, it can be very, very tempting.

I mean, there are all kinds of self-sex accessories out there that, when you first hear about them, your mind just boggles and you think, no. You think, that’s just wretched. That’s pitiful. And then some time passes and maybe your circumstances change and maybe you think about it a little more and your mind stops boggling quite so much. I mean, is it really any less wretched and pitiful for a grown man to penetrate a synthetic vibrating vagina in a tin can than it is for a lady to krunk herself giddy on the shaft of a synthetic vibrating lovestick or rabbit-themed pleasuring device? Is it?

Well, it shouldn’t be.

And yet, somehow... I don’t know. Maybe it just isn’t for me.

This, for example:



This is ‘Sex in a Can’, from the same Captains of Cock that brought you the industry leader, the classic, Fleshlight.

I mean, good luck to you if you can grit your eyes and get into that, but I really don’t think I could. I should probably add, however, that I am willing to try, so if anyone’s got one they’ve finished with, do get in touch. For now though, even with the extreme nunliness of the vulva, it just doesn’t inspire me.

In fact, I can think of only two pertinent things less appealing than pushing my roaring jack into the fake plastic undermeat of a pair of canned quim nuts. One is filming the same act and putting it on YouPorn. (I just can’t bring myself to watch those things. It must be the saddest act of pornography in the whole world.) The other is splashing six thousand US dollars on a real doll.

Having said that, one day, when my boat comes in, I’d quite like to run away with this one.



There are of course men who reject outright the easy commercialisation of self-love. These men prefer to bore an unsexy orifice into a watermelon or pumpkin and root out their pleasure that way. Sometimes they layer bacon around the bore-hole.

Although I admire the spirit and inventiveness of these men, I can’t really imagine myself making love to a melon. Not at my age. I'd rather make love to a chicken, to be honest. A dead chicken, obviously – I’m not into kinky stuff. Just an everyday dead chicken from the supermarket. Maybe a bit of bacon around the bore-hole.



I can imagine that quite easily. You know, if I absolutely have to. I can imagine that the feel of the chicken skin, mottled from plucking and sliding back and forth across the cold white flesh of the legs might actually be quite erotic.

I don't intend to do it though. These are just thought experiments. I actually find it repulsive. Honest.

So instead of fucking a dead chicken, I’ve hit upon something else. Something definitely less vile. An idea. A business idea for a new product. Something to enliven the - let's face it - the chore of male masturbation.

I call it FISTMUFF.

Essentially it’s essence of fresh vagina, applied to the back of the hand. A bird in the hand, you might say. But no bush.

Simply apply FISTMUFF to one hand, take your old chap in the other and you’re away. With your eyes closed you sniff at the FISTMUFF, breathing in the erotic fragrance of the mouth that speaks no words, and you imagine that you’re anywhere but where you actually are, doing anything but what you’re actually doing.

Of course I’m joking. Where am I going to find a fresh vagina to tease and milk? Or indeed any vagina.

Unless… unless I reread Perfume with terrifying zeal, master maceration and enfleurage and then launch myself on a murderous yet delectably redolent rampage. Hmm... No. I don’t think so. Important though it is to spice up a dead date with Fisty Palmer, rampant carnage just wouldn’t seem right so close to Valentine’s Day.

Anyway, what kind of madman would deign to distil the bouquet of the bower of bliss? Surely not even a man with a smell camera would be so arrogant as to seriously attempt to simulate essence of vulva. It’d be like trying to recreate the roof of the Sistine Chapel in a bus shelter in Basildon.

It'll never happen.

Or will it?

I'm afraid all of that guff about me inventing FISTMUFF was a bit of a red herring. I was pulling the wool over your eyes, if you’ll pardon the poon. For the fact is, FISTMUFF exists. You may, of course, already be wholly cognisant of this fact; you may, in fact, be drenched in the stuff as we speak, pleasuring yourself to a dervish, spitting hot liquid on the keyboard, rolling on the floor, your tongue lolling from your mouth like a single sad mitten lost in the rain. FISTMUFF exists! Only it’s not called FISTMUFF. It’s called Vulva.

Vaginal scent. For men.

Watch the video and just marvel for a moment if you would, at the wonder of the world in which we live…



Mmmmmm, yes. Finally, a scent to keep the scourge of saddle-sniffing gusset-gannets off the streets and out of the gymnasia.

I’m figuring Vulva could be just the fillip I need to get me through this miserable mizzling month to the sappy spring that awaits. And more importantly, it can help bring me closer again. To myself. I'm convinced of it: essence of vagina will get me through this unpleasant patch.

So, my third consignment of Vulva is in the post. The first two, I should explain, went missing in transit. I swear.

I'm just hoping it gets here in time for Valentine’s Day. I don’t want to be alone again this year.

In the meantime, I'd appreciate a little feedback. I can't be the only one for whom wanking has become a depressing, devitalising experience. Can I? Singletons! Speak to me. What do you do to keep your self-sex life alive?

The Virgin Media Sex Line Scandal

This is the letter of complaint I sent to Virgin Media this morning. I’m afraid I got rather carried away. Keith’s illustration does not appear in the letter I sent. It’s for your eyes only.

Dear Sir/Madam

On April 9, according to the bill I received from Virgin Media dated 11 May, I spoke for 14 minutes to what I can only presume was a member of the opposite sex, employed by cruel swine to talk dirty to lonely idiots. Explicit in your accusation is the further presumption that whilst talking to this woman, I manipulated myself to emission. Or at least tried to.

I find all of this extremely offensive.

I am not a proud man. On the contrary, I am on occasion deeply ashamed of many of the acts I commit on a regular basis, and many of the things which ooze unbidden, unpunished through my mind.

You know in The Information, where Martin Amis describes a couple’s bed as having ‘the towelly smell of marriage’? I always found this rather charming. Awww, I thought, marriage. All comfy and safe and warm and fluffy. Maybe not massively sexy, but still, I always rather fancied the idea that one day my own bed would have a towelly smell of its own. Instead, to my eternal shame, my bed has a bowelly smell. The bowelly smell of desperation. And I’m here to tell you, it isn’t pleasant. My whole room smells like the inside of an acutely irritated bowel, tempered, nay, chastened with the toffee-like tinge of freshly congealed manseed.

Do you see where I’m coming from?

What I’m saying to you is that my life, like my bed, is a fairly unspeakable combination of gastric mayhem and – not to put too fine a point on it – cock-toffee. It wouldn’t be so bad if the self-abuse to which I subtly allude actually brought with it any pleasure, but really, in the cold light of my overflowing navel, it doesn’t. Rarely. Rather, sometime it feels like I’m enslaved to this rather soulless instinct to just hammer out the desire. It’s really unpleasant if you think about it in a dark light, and sometimes, frequently, it makes me feel ashamed.

But the important thing is that deep deep down, I also have some pride mixed in with the shame and there are some things that I would never ever do. One of those things is that I would never ever pay damn fine money to an unscrupulous reptile house of low rent pimps, in order that they might then pay paltry peanuts to a woman who despises me, so that she, in turn, might then spit bald and lazy, vagina-heavy platitudes – or, if you will, twatitudes – into my plump, unlovely ear.

I would never do that. And I’ll tell you why.

For the simple if not sole reason that there now exists a tool which renders such venal pursuits wholly obsolete. That thing, my Virgin Media friends, is the internet. I know you’ve heard of it because you serve it to me by the month – occasionally uninterrupted for an entire month at a time! – for an obscenely inflated sum; a sum which, like a loose-cheeked imbecile pleasuring a dandy highwayman, I pay with nothing more than muffled imprecations.

And I pay it because my life without the internet would be worse than useless. Unlike the TV – which I also rent from you – the internet offers a good deal more than large bald men yelling at yokels, and disabled women parading their broken bodies before weak-willed homosexuals (although the internet has these things too, and in spades). The internet also offers 24-hour free and uncensored footage of everything from able-bodied lesbians French-kissing one another’s anuses, to webcammed conversation with damaged middle-aged women in Asshat, Arkansas, getting wasted with their tops off and oiling their bacon.

More than that however – as if anyone, in an ideal world, would ever really need any more than that – the internet also offers a veritable myriad of opportunities for ordinary consumers to share information.

For example, if I type the number of the sex line I am accused of calling – 09090271146 – into Google, it delivers me, in a chillingly efficient 0.11 of a second to a website called Cable Forum, and more specifically, a discussion entitled ‘Have you been charged for premium calls that you didn’t make?’

This discussion begins with the words ‘I am a Virgin Media customer…’, followed by four pages of anecdote – or evidence – from various Virgin Media customers who have been falsely billed for ringing sex lines. Some of them paid up to £400, and are still fighting to be reimbursed. Evidently then, I am far from the first Virgin Media customer to have fallen foul of this nasty scam.



Therefore, under the circumstances, it really peeves me that I have had to write this letter. I was already on the phone to one of your employees when I was originally informed that I had been panting away on a sex line. I pointed out that I do not use ‘adult services’ over the telephone. Then I asked her what she was wearing. I’m joking of course. Rather, I asked how this might have occurred. What was afoot? I asked. In response, I was treated to an almost amusingly high level of ignorance – especially considering that this scam is already well-known to at least some members of Virgin Media’s customer service department.

So, clearly, it doesn’t take a man in a canoe to figure out some kind of system to deal with this known problem. That’s all I’m saying.

Actually that’s not all I’m saying. I’m also saying that, if you have any claims to being a respectable and law-abiding company and any idea whatsoever about decent customer service, then I would ask you please to deal with the following glaringly obvious problems immediately.

1. Please pay me back the money you have taken from me. Immediately. It’s theft, and I really don’t care for it at all.

2. Also, please reimburse all the other people you’ve taken money from too. God knows how many complaints you’ve received and casually fobbed off. Stop pretending you don’t know what’s going on and play fair. For the sake of common decency. The fact is, whether deliberately, with malice aforethought or merely through sloppiness, you have taken money which doesn’t belong to you and you really ought to give it back.

3. Also, while you’re about it, please offer me a refund for the extended periods of internet outage which occurred last some time month. One of your customer service staff said that if I asked for compensation, I would get it. So I’m asking. Please don’t ask me to call your helpline again. I will implode.

4. Also, please learn to use email. I mean, come on. In this day and age. It’s embarrassing. Anyone would think you’re deliberately making it difficult for disgruntled customers to make you accountable for not doing your job very well.

5. And please show the last two seasons of Six Feet Under on TV Choice On Demand. I choose it. I demand it. And The Wire too. And Dexter.

Thank you.

I would appreciate a prompt and considered response, if not from you, then from your superior.

I will not hesitate to take the matter further if you do not at least have the courtesy to grant me a decent reply. (I will be using the aforementioned internet as the chief tool in my 'taking the matter further'. Please do not cut me off.) (I will implode.)

Yours in keen anticipation of some semblance of humanity,



Etc.

Now I guess I wait and see.

Bastards.

Feedback Friday :: Nadir

bulk :: 16st 0 (aaaaarrrgh! When am I going to break that bastard's back?)
cigarettes :: 0
joints :: 0
alcohol :: some
runs :: 2 (seems I don’t want to fuck the horse at all. Seems I shall spend the rest of my life a big paunchy mediocre bastard. Why can’t I have Rafael Nadal’s body?! Why?! Oh yes, because I am mentally and physically lazy. ROAR!!!! Where is my passion?! Why aren’t I a roaring boy? Balls to me. What I deserve is a really good hiding.)
swims :: 0 (lazy shitbag)
chocolate biscuits :: 0 (progress!)
Odd Couple-style arguments with Keith :: 7 (one about not throwing things away; one about throwing things away; one about tennis; one about Keith not doing enough art; one about him not commenting on the comments on his blog; two about women)
games of tennis :: 1 (back spazzed out again – so why the hell haven’t I been to a chiropodist yet? I must want to be a failure.) (Chiropractor. I mean chiropractor.)
wanks :: 412 (meh)

So. It’s official. I am on heat. Two weeks now, and in that time I have become transformed. I am now nothing more than a giant pulsating testicle. Sixteen stone of stagnant sticky manwash enclosed in a diaphanous sheath of sweat, hair and cellulite. Any moment now I could snap, crackle and pop, splashing my spicy clam right in your eye.

Really. It feels like it's becoming untenable.

So. Earlier this week I figured, before I become a danger to anything in a brassiere, I’d better do something about it. (I would never really become a danger to anything in a brassiere. Honest I wouldn’t.)

Persuading Keith was actually much easier than I thought. At first he was like, ‘Get fucked. What am I, desperate?’ and I was like, ‘Yeah’, and he was like, ‘Get a life, bozo’, and I was like, ‘Why are you talking like that, you great nonce?’ and he was like, ‘Whatever’. Then I said, ‘Although you might not be desperate, many of the women in the room with you will be, and you’ll most likely be able to trick one of them into thinking you might be able to love her, just long enough to slip inside her and damage her forever, you vile misogynist.’

He thought about this for a moment.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘But you’d better be right.’

Men are monsters.

But women are monsters too.

And so it was that Keith and I went speed dating last night. And boy oh boy oh boy oh boy was it fun. Well was it? Actually, it was. But I can’t possibly begin to talk about it now. It’ll take me all weekend to embellish write up. If I can stop masturbating long enough, that is.

Lust is awful, isn’t it? I mean, I think it’s awful. You might not. I'm finding it overwhelming at the moment. I feel like I’m half here. At best.

So.

Have a splendid weekend.

Miscellany Monday :: Masturbation Actually

1. Masturbation

So. A couple of days ago I received an email asking me if I wanted to exchange links with a site called, rather bluntly, Masturbators. This is a blog in which one young man shares his opinions on various products designed to aid masturbation, such as the Black Orchid, the Sue Johanson Head Honcho or, of course, the Fleshlight.

Most intriguing and, it has to be said, repulsive of all is the ‘Kobe Tai Realistic Ass’.

At first I assumed that this must be one of those consumer blogs I’d heard about, where people are paid a pittance to review various products. As this is something I would very much enjoy doing, I wrote to the Masturbator man, whose name is Olesea, and quizzed him. Turns out it isn’t a consumer blog at all, and he is merely writing about his favourite hobby for pleasure, something to which he is clearly dedicated. Indeed, you have to marvel at Olesea’s dedication. Even during my most fervent self-pleasuring days – back when I came across the internet in my late teens – I was never so obsessed as to consider actually writing about it. Mind you, I was never particularly into toys. I was a wanking purist. Lesbian porn only.

Having bigged up his dedication, I should probably point out that Olesea has only managed one post a month since February. Presumably the rest of the time, he’s too busy sitting in his room, pounding away.

It’s easy to look down on Masturbators but at least Olesea is attempting to add a little romance to masturbation, buying himself gifts before going in for the kill. And some of his reviews are really quite sweet. For example, of the Kobe Tai realistic ass, he writes, ‘Reality has never felt so good!’

And I thought I needed to get out more.

None of this is written with any disrespect intended toward the Olesea by the way. I’m sure he’s a very nice young man. Just not one I particularly want to shake hands with.

2. Fitness

This morning I got out of bed at 6.45 and went for a run for the first time in quite a while. I wore headphones for the first time and listened to Rodrigo and Gabriela. That’s right. I am rather hip.

And Gabriela is lovely. Imagine what she could do with those hands. Eh, Olesea? Eh?



3. Chiropractic

I was pleased to discover that running this morning didn’t seem to aggravate my back any further, but it’s generally still a bit ruined and I really should see someone about it, so… does anyone have a chiropractor they could recommend?

4. Chiropody

Speaking of physical self-improvement, my feet are an absolute disgrace. I shall tell you about them in more detail soon, and you will retch. So I have another question. Have any of you ever had any chiropody? And if so, could you recommend a foot person to me?

5. Film

I was most amused by this review of The Incredible Hulk in the Guardian this week. Equally scathing is Bradshaw’s verdict on Priceless, but I might go and see that anyway because I am very much in love with Audrey Tautou. In fact, I dedicate this post to her. No doubt she will be thrilled.

6. Art

Artist-in-residence Keith has drawn a very strange thing. I really like it. But I’m not sure why.

See you tomorrow!

Day One :: Tox, Detox

So, in the firm belief that desperate situations call for desperate measures, I have decided to starve myself. Not to death, no. Nothing so drastic. But hopefully to something in the neighbourhood of 16 stone. I would be happy with that neighbourhood. If the rent was reasonable. So I’ve just had my first of today’s 6-9 glasses of Madal Bal Natural Tree Syrup and Lemon Detox Drink. Aside from the few grains of cayenne pepper that got stuck in my throat at the end, it was really rather tasty. Like molasses I think. (Have a ever had molasses? I don’t know.) I do know that I could murder a bloody great steak though. I’m actually very hungry. You know, there’s a plant beside me on my desk here. A rubber plant of some kind, its lush elastic leaves only inches away from my mouth. If I just lean forward… No.

I shall do no such thing. My will is like a shield of steel.

But I am not without caution. I am approaching this fast with the diligence of a scientist, and if life without solid food begins to feel remotely dangerous, I will eat. Plus, I have a few outdoor chores to attend to this week for which I’ll need my wits about me. So if I start to crack up, I’ll stop. But if I just go a little bit funny, I might persist for a while. In the name of Science, which I embrace.

But first, I must talk about drugs, baby, and I must tell you a fulsome and rambling tale. For it was Keith who suggested that if I was going to detox, I really ought to start by thoroughly toxing. I explained that I’d been eating a lot of mini-eggs, but evidently mini-eggs weren’t toxic enough for Keith. No. He can be quite full-on at times, if you know what I think I mean. Which is why I found myself schlepping over to Hummercosh Park at around 8 o’clock on Friday night.

Now, Hummercosh Park is a made-up name. I’m using made-up names because it’s probably best to be a little circumspect when you’re discussing drug use. I don’t want to get anyone into trouble. Neither do I want an axe through my front door or a skinned swan in my bed. So there’s going to be a lot of fictionalising going on, but the vein is true.

So, Keith was going to go and see Ineloquent Quinn. His man. That was the plan. But because his work was dragging on, the plan, and the designated drug mule, had to be changed. This was around 7.30 when I’d already had a couple of large glasses of wine, so I had to get public transport all the way out to Hummercosh Park.

I’d met Quinn before when he’d dropped stuff off at Keith’s but I’d never met him on my own, and following instructions to his flat in the middle of a dodgy, scaffold-dashed tower block in Hummercosh Park was making me feel very uneasy. But then I got there and Quinn welcomed me into his living room, which afforded excellent views of Bongleby Docks.

We were after weed and ecstasy, apparently, but Quinn didn’t have any ecstasy. He did have some MDMA powder however, which he presented to me in a rather sordid plastic bag. ‘I don’t really know anything about it,’ I said. ‘It’s £30 a gram,’ he explained. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘That sounds very reasonable.’

Quinn is second-generation SilverSlav. He looks terrifying in silhouette, stupidly tall, all horns and spikes, but he’s actually very laid-back and rather shy. ‘Can you stay for a cup of tea?’ he asked.

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘I’d love to.’ I made a joint.

We got chatting over our tea and I began to realise that not only is Quinn rather shy, but also, he’s not quite all there. Upstairs. He is a nice guy though, I'm convinced. Just a bit slow. And it doesn’t help that he has a slight lisp. I have a horrible habit of picking up lisps and stutters by the way. It’s happened a couple of times now. It’s like Tourette’s. Completely involuntary. But it didn’t happen with Quinn. Thank God. He might have murdered me. You know what SilverSlavs are like.

He asked me what I do for a living but then, when I told him, didn’t have much to say about it, so I commended him on his view and asked him if he’d always lived in London. He told me he had. He told me that he was born in a home.

I said, ‘Oh, that’s sad, man,’ and hoped that it was. He said he might leave London if he met a woman and had a family, he might want to move to a better area. Then he went all wistful and lonely-looking. ‘Are you looking for a woman?’ I said, trying to sound like a concerned friend rather than a pimp.

And then he launched into this anecdote.

‘Yeah, I had this woman once. She was nice, man, but she was into all this fetish stuff. She wanted me to put a lead on her and take her to a club, lead her around like a dog… she was always telling me about all these things that she did, getting tied up and like, bondage and leather gear and whips and stuff. She asked me if I could handle it, you know, I was like, “No, man, just give me ordinary sex”, you know what I mean? Just like, straight sex. No dressing up and no handcuffs, no chains round the neck and nothing shoved up the arse….’

To which I replied, ‘Oh now, steady on. I can understand that you might have some reservations about being led around clubs on a lead, but there’s nothing wrong with a bit of arse-play.’

Quinn was not in agreement. I put him straight. ‘I like my arse,’ I told him. ‘And my arse likes me.’ I smoked some more of the joint and felt a little odd. ‘Anal beads,’ I said, sounding ever so slightly like Michael Caine. ‘It’s not a fetish, calm yourself down.’ Quinn looked disturbed. ‘I don’t know if you’ve seen what I’m talking about. It’s basically like plastic… well, it’s like a dildo really….’

‘Ah, man, look, I don’t even wanna go there….’

‘You must go there.’ I was shouting. ‘Hear me out. Imagine a series of about seven plastic balls, each half a centimetre apart and a little bigger than the last one….’ His face was scrunched up, as if I were talking about castration. I could see I had hit a brick wall. Luckily drug dealers are all totally teched up these days, so I hijacked Quinn’s internet and after a little fumbling, found this...

‘There are a lot of anal beads out there and this is not exactly the same as mine, but it does give you an idea. You can order them online,’ I told him. ‘Maybe get a deal on some lube. Then just try it, Quinn. For God’s sake, man, where’s your balls? Ease it in slowly like. You really might like it. It might be right up your alley.’

Nah. He wasn’t keen. Then he started mumbling something which I couldn’t catch, except for the last few words which were, ‘I’m not trying to hurry you or anything, I just got to be somewhere.’

Oh. I was being kicked out by a drug dealer.

I gathered together my purchases and stuffed them into my coat. I had a terrible feeling I’d offended him. I think I was paranoid but I can’t be sure. ‘Sorry about the beads thing, man,’ I said. I always call him ‘man’. I’m trying to be cool. ‘I just think, you know, I AM a beadsman. You know? Embrace it.’

He shook his head. I left.

It was as I stood there waiting for the lift that I realised I was really very stoned. I remembered the documentary about dope I’d seen a couple of weeks ago – Should I Smoke Dope with the decidedly saucy Nicky Taylor – and what it had told me about drug dealers sprinkling glass beads on their skunk - not anal beads, which might not be such a bad thing, but glass beads. Apparently it gives the impression that the stuff is bristling with THC, and therefore more powerful. But of course, it fucks your lungs. I wondered if I’d been inhaling burning glass. I hoped not.

In the lift I became horribly self-conscious and couldn’t stop repositioning myself so that I wouldn’t look stoned or muggable if the doors opened. Once out into the night, however, and the unlit Gantry Estate just behind Cackingham Park, I began to march, brisk, confident and ever so slightly threatening - just fast enough to be a proper mental.

I was very jittery. I was sure I smelled of skunk and aware that I was carrying Class something or other drugs. And I was in a rough area, walking right up in the arsecrack of Blithe Alley. On the way in, I’d already had to ignore a small gang of Bastards and I was bracing myself for all kinds of nonsense. If push comes to shove though, worst case scenario, I’m mugged and beaten and I have my grass stolen, then I’m arrested, charged with MDMA crimes and have to make a break for it and go on the lam, at least I’ll have stuff to blog about. I comforted myself with that thought and changed direction, onto a street which led to a mass of bus stops.

Then I passed a woman who was either old and mad or young and creative. She was dancing around with a closed umbrella, then just as I was passing, she turned her back on me, took a small black book out of her shopping trolley, tossed it on the pavement and began doing a dainty Irish jig around it. I’m pretty sure it was a bible, but I still couldn’t tell if she was unhinged or a great talent.

I laughed out loud, with the joy of it all. A short walk later, just as I was thinking I wished I could have photographed the Bible Dancer without making her feel uncomfortable or patronised, I became aware of a giant penguin ahead. I laughed again. It felt like someone was laying things on for me. Like God was totally playing friendly games with me. I mean, come on! A penguin!

I did take a photo of this guy though, although it isn’t very good

As I took the photo, a friend declared that there was also a Pink Panther inside. But I thought that might be overkill. ‘I’m alright with a penguin,’ I said.

I changed direction again. After a short while, poorly-lit streets eventually pooped me into the bright open concrete mouth of the Dank Pong Piss Subway System. And there were three young girls sitting in the middle of this underground concrete tunnel, illuminated by a stark overhead light. They had a large sign with the words, ‘SMILE! Have a great weekend!’ written around a large smiley face. Then I realised that they had a guitar and a tambourine. They also had blankets and sleeping bags, ribbons in their hair and bottles of beer in their fists. They were lovely. A guy walking ahead of me tossed some money in their hat and they dedicated a rendition of Let It Be to him. It was really quite beautiful. I wish I’d left some money myself, but I felt a little insecure, so I just shuffled by, smiling and feeling terribly protective. I hoped they managed to get through the night without some damaged soul causing them pain.

I considered going to a cash point and returning with enough money for them to go home and leave the subway behind. But they were probably there because they wanted to be. They’ll probably have their own TV show in four years. I smiled, felt better.

Finally I got on a bus. I sat down and relaxed and wrote down a couple of things that had happened since I'd left the house. It had been a lot of fun on the whole. I had seen some splendid things. I had seen things you people wouldn’t believe. I began to feel a tropical blend of ultra-fascination and exalted libido. You know, sometimes I imagine myself as a giant cauldron of semen, bubbling away on an enormous purple fire.

Then a guy got on the bus wearing a tee-shirt under his coat but clearly visible, which read ‘BE VERY AFRAID’. Half a minute later, someone started ringing the bell repeatedly upstairs. The driver had missed their stop, apparently, so they were now registering their protest with non-stop bell-ringing. It was quite tense. The driver was indecisive. He pulled over at first, as if to confront the culprits, then he just thought, ‘No,’ and he kept driving. At the next stop three young Bulgations and a couple of Strawberry Sandflies filed down the stairs, the tallest Bulgation muttering ‘wanker’ under his breath. Then as he reached the doors of the bus, he got louder. He shouted, ‘Wanker. Wankers. You’re all wankers! The lot of you.’ As the bus pulled away, they all joined in. ‘Wankers!’ they shouted. ‘Fucking wankers!’ Outside I saw an ageing WoolHeifer turn round in disgust, crossing her face and willing her kids not to hear.

It put a bit of a dampener on my splendid mood, I don’t mind telling you. Little devils. No respect, kids today.

Boris will sort them out.

Just kidding.

Anyhow, the rest of the weekend more than made up for it. We basically spent the entire time smoking weed and taking MDMA. And I have to say, although I am generally no great advocate of the slacker lifestyle, I had a whale of a time. In fact, I would go as far as to say, I think I’ve found my drug. I’ve since been reading about it and it doesn’t surprise me at all that it was used in therapy. Nor that it used to be called Empathy. That’s a much nicer name. Empathy.

In short, I had a wonderful openly emotional time, laughing, a tiny bit of weeping, and talking about problems and mistakes, sorting things out and making plans. In fact, I don't think I've ever had a more positive weekend before - especially not one that was so much fun.

Now the last thing I want to do is become some kind of drugs evangelist here, but the fact is, you should all definitely go out immediately and find some MDMA and take it. It's really good for you. Indeed, if I may recall Alexander Shulgin, describing the effects of some of his own MDMA: ‘It gave me a pleasant lightness of spirit… a distinct lightness of mood. And an indication to get busy and do things that needed doing.’

Exactly, yes. And we even played in the snow for a bit.



And we met a very affectionate cat in the street.



And we decorated a plant.



And Keith gets his results this week and is definitely feeling much more optimistic about things in general.

It was a good weekend for both of us.

It’s midnightish now. I’ve had my fifth large glass of tree juice and I feel extremely tired. That’s probably just tired from the exertions of the weekend though. Not from the fasting. Either way, I can barely keep my eyes open.

So I shall stop.

Two more things though:

1) I think Katinka is sleeping with her brother. I can’t be sure – yet – but there’s definitely something fishy going on and I intend to find it what it is and then moralise over it.

2) I have also given up masturbation for a week.

Wish me luck!