I was nervous.

What if he didn't like me?

I walked slowly up the ramp at Euston station, the train still humming with power behind me.

I was one of many people who had travelled from Manchester to London on the Thursday, we had been united in silence, too busy reading or listening to music or even sleeping but travelling to a common destintation.

But I was the only one who was about to meet the man of his dreams.

But I didn't know that then.

And it could have so easily gone the other way.

I exited the platform and saw him standing, waiting for me.

I had only seen his picture on his profile and although I knew I found him attractive, the pictures in no way did him justice.

I know, dial a cliche.

But in his case, the cliche was true.

He was a little taller than me, with dark hair and soulful brown eyes.

And a cute smile that betrayed inner, playful mischief.

We greeted and began to move way from the station toward the Tube, exchanging pleasantries on the way.

On the surface, at least.

But underneath we were evaluating each other, did we meet each others expectations?

From my perspective my expectations were exceeded.

He was handsome.

We travelled back to his apartment in Canary Wharf and upon entering we exchanged what would turn out to be the first of many, many kisses.

The first night did not disapoint in any respect.

And I found myself over the weekend looking at him at every opportunity, memorising every detail.

Every handsome, beutiful detail.

I was relaxed i his company, I found him easy to talk too and I felt intensely proud, very proud to be in his company when we were out, walking along Compton st or around London.

We chose the route carefully, allowing for gay pubs where we could go into, order a drink and just kiss.

And the kisses.

Wow.

I could -and did- kiss him forever.

Being with him was like a light switch being turned on in my soul.

The hand of god reaching down from parted clouds-

'CLICK'

And all these feelings, all these thoughts were being reciprocatd.

I stayed for an extra day, choosing to go back to Manchester today - Monday.

He cancelled his date for Wednesday night, and his weekend away for the following weekend.

Over the course of 3 days we became boyfriends and he has stolen my heart.

If love is an illusion

Then it's the only illusion that counts, my friend.

I should have gone back.

I should have at least given some money, or something.

I'm not rich by any standard but I have got some cash.

I could afford it.

And frankly, I've got two functioning hands, which was more than he had.

I came down to the tube platform in the middle of a wave of people, all going in the same direction.

Going with the flow, so to speak.

At the bottom of the steps a guy caught my eye.

No, Binky, not in that way...

I looked to my left and before me was a guy who was noting more than a husk of a human being.

A burns victin of some decription, the skin around the face was pulled and twisted.

And kinda melted.

His features were unrecognisable, what was left of his hair was hidden under a baseball cap.

And his hands.

His hands were not there, he clasped a colecting tin in the bony stumps of his arms.

I heard him say that he was collecting for....something.

I didn't hear the details.

And then he was gone as I swept away with everybody else and before I knew it I was on a train bound for Mile End.

But what I had seen stayed with me for a few hours and is still with me.

Here was this guy - this victim - putting himself in front of commuters/travellers and asking them for money.

He didn't let the reations of passers by stop him from collecting money to help others.

And I should have gone back.

I should have given something, I should have acknowledged his bravery with some cash and a warm smile.

But like a schmuck, I didn't.

Fuck.

Paul sits down with a colleague of mine, David, to discuss the job I have put him forward for.

''So'' says David ''Why do you want the job?''

The job is nothing special.

A Concierge position,mostly at night.

It ain't nothing special.

But twice his current salary.

''Well..'' begins Paul ''I want to prove certain people wrong.''

Certain People.

Can you guess who he was referring to?

Well, Paul....if you want to prove me wrong, turn up for the interview properly dressed and not give the impression that you have no direction or ambition inlife.

Oh, and I won't smooth any of this shit over either.

Turn the job down when it's offered to you, get up every morning early and instead of watching Big Brother Live for half the day, go and get a job yourself.

A full time job, not the part time job you have right now.

Then, you can say you have proved me wrong.

So I'm not looking forward to Friday.

Friday is the day of Nick's funeral and a lot of us are going.

It's weird, when I learnt that he had been killed I was very numb about it. I just got on with it, while colleagues around me were upset I provided the hankies.

But inside,I felt nothing.

Until this week.

There have been a few moments where I have expexted him to walk into my office, or call him with some issue...or just see him dashing around the building.

And I miss him.

Maybe it's normal.

No Binky, not the Jackson 5 wannabe's from the eighties.

The hotel was awarded it's five stars today by the Visit Britain hotel inspector.

Proud moment.

Yep, A diet.

Sheesh! Me on a diet!

Well, I guess it was about time,I want to lose some weight, not a great deal as I like being a big 'ole bear but I want to lose some.

And it's tough.

I like my food, I like all the things that are bad for us.

I love pizza's,burgers,pasta...

Hence the diet.

It's tough. I feel my body missing the carbs I'm being denied, On day one I was as cranky as hell.

I was ready to walk out of the hotel, go buy a 12 gauge, calmly re- enter the hotel and blow the mutha's away.

I was that cranky!!

I'm a little calmer now.

We'll see how it goes.

I liked Superman.

I liked the epic scope of the movie, I liked some of the imagery, of Superman rising high above the clouds to soak up the energy from our yellow sun.

I liked him hanging in Space,listening to the planet below and deciding where he is needed most.

I liked that I felt sorry for his mom standing with the rest of Metropolis outside the hospital while her son lays inside,unable to go to him.

I liked seeing Marlon Brando, the Kent farm, the same title sequence as the other two Superman movies.

And Brendan Routh is da man.

A worthy successor to Chris Reeve.

What I didn't like was Lois Lane. She was kinda bland compared to Margot Kidda.

And the costume. Too dark.

And..

Last one I promise 'cause I actually liked the movie.

It should have been dedicated to the memory of Christopher Reeve.

He is the definitive Superman to a lot of people.

Me included.

It just would have been nice.

Now this is going to be cool.

Really, it is.

Superman Returns opens Friday and I'm going to see it with a couple of friends.

Like seventeen of them!!

You read right..SEVENTEEN of us from the hotel have tickets to the 9pm performance at the local flicks.

What started as a small 'team building excercise' for my department somehow gathered momentum and now the hotel is buzzing with excitement of this movie and it has become an event.

I think with the tragedy of the previous weekend, this has become a very positive focus for all concerned.

Which is cool.

And it gets better.

We will going for a Japanese meal at 6.30 which is complimentary.

That's right.

Won't cost a dollar.

This happens a lot in hotels.

Local restaurants are desperate to have their eaterie recommended by the hotel staff so invites are pretty easy to come by.

And I am excited to see this movie, the kind of excitement I felt as twelve year old queuing outside the Gaumont cinema in Birmingham for The Empire Strikes Back.

Laugh it up, furball.

I've followed this movie -via the cool dudes over at Aintitcool-since
the beginning...and I mean the beginning.

Before Bryan Singer was attached.

Bryan Singer. He's da man.

I have every confidence in this movie, every review I have read has been good.

Confidence is high.

Repeat

Confidence is high.

My respect , loyalty, admiration -whatever monika you want to hang it on just got deeper for THE BOSS today.

He's an amazing guy.

Really.

I arrived on the fourth floor of the hotel a little nervous.

It was 10.55 and he had asked for a two minute silence at 11.00am in respect of Nick and his family.

I entered the conference room and it was full.

He got up, walked the short distance to the front of the room and began his speech about Nick.

Shortly into the speech the simply broke down in tears.

He cried.

He is a man of 47 years,stocky in stature and would define the word professional.

And he cried.

He cried as though he had lost a son, not a colleague,not an employee.

The two minutes of silence passed and he thanked us between sobs.

I moved to the front and offered him my handkerchief, which he took.

There were lots of hugs.

Afterward I went outside the hotel and for the first time this year lit a cigarrette.

I was a little envious of THE BOSS being able to share his feelings, emotions in a way that I never could.

In those situations I just feel numb.

But later when I'm alone or on a bus crowded with strangers, that's when I revisit such feelings.

And even then, I do so in a limited way.

Maybe I'm some kind of emotional retard.

Binky, don't answer that.

We have some sexy guys in the hotel at the moment.

Americans.

They are the crew of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

They sit in the lobby in their shorts and t-shirts and every sentence starts with ''Dude...'' and is punctuated with a million ''like..'' and end's with ''..dude, no way!''

But who cares about all that when they have the legs of rugby players.

Tanned and muscled and a little hair.

Any excuse and I'm in the lobby.

And room service? Allow me to deliver it.

I got the call from the night manager at the hotel at 2.00pm this afternoon.

I was laying on the couch, bowl of crisps on the floor next to me and a can of diet coke.

A biography of Rock Hudson was playing on the tv.

The mobile rang and I answered.

Five minutes later I hung up,I was left feeling a little numb and a touch shocked.

I was told that the chief engineer of the hotel, a guy I had known for the last five years had been killed in a motorbike accident on Saturday.

To make matters worse for the poor family, his sister was staying in the hotel celebrating her hen party and THE BOSS had to break the news to her on Saturday afternoon.

This is the second person I have known who has been killed as a result of a motorbike accident.

The other was a guy called Tom.

He went under a juggernaut and was practically decapitated.

At 24.

Motorbikes.

Sexy but deadly.

I feel sorry for he family and I'm a little sad that Nick is not with us anymore, he was a good guy and a bloody good engineer.

I've got my hand tight on his dick, I pull it as fast as I can, he just groans.

As dicks go, it's average.

Average length, average thickness with a nice head.

I wet the forefinger of my free hand and slowly force it into the tight ass of the guy, I continue to jerk him off as I do.

He's getting my full attention 'cause right now it's all aqbout him.

He cums with a deep satisfying groan and his juice shoots over his chest to the pillow beyond.

Nice shot.

He calms a little, I bring him close and kiss him deeply.

It's now my turn, I guide his head down to my waiting member.

He goes to work on my dick and my ass and with ten minutes I explode all over him.

Nice.

Friends.

Who is the sexiest guy around at the moment?

And the muck and the grime only enhances it.

The bus is hot, oppressively so.

I notice that the heating is still being pumped out of the small vents next to the seats and I think ''Why lord, why?''

I take my seat close to the front and disappear into my own little world.

I think about the Paul situation,I think about the house, about the job, about sex.

Mainly about sex.

With the bus driver, mainly.

He was a handsome bear, chubby-ish, hairy and cropped.

Yum.

I'm brought back to reality by the sound of an old woman climbing onto the bus speaking very loudly to the dishy bus driver.

''Your twenty five minutes late.'' she starts.

''Twenty five minutes we have been stood at that bus stop, it's a disgrace''. The poor driver does not know what to say so he wisely takes the fifth.

She moves deeper into the bus and immediately notices two girls sitting opposite each other, with their feet on the chairs.

An old man who was with her sits opposite me. I notice immediately that he smells of stale piss.

I hold my nose and breath through my mouth.

''Will you look at this??'' says the lady to nobody in particular but to everybody at once. ''Feet on the seats!! This is what they do, they bring all the muck from outside and leave it on the seats. How old are you??''

The two girls look at her and in a rather sheepish voice say they are fourteen.

''Fourteen!! They need moral support at fourteen!! Come on, get your feet down!''

Powerless to disobey the girls drop their feet and to their mutual horror the old lady sits next to them.

It could be worse girls, you could have Mr PissedMyPants sitiing next to you.

And while I felt embarassed for her, part of me admired her.

I admired her sassy attitude and the confidence that comes with age. An almost total disrepect for those who are in turn, disrespectful to other peolpe and property.

You rock, lady.

Whoever you are.

I'm standing at the concrete bus stop.

The heat is almost unbearable but it's not sunny, it's like the heavy cloud has trapped all the heat, unable to escape to the cooling vacuum above.

The bus is late by twnety minutes and that's ok at this stage,my resebvoir patience with the public transport system has yet to reach empty.

Two young girls - teenagers - come and stand by the bus stop,munching crisps. They are younger than 14 but are dressed like they are over 21.

Mini skirts and huge hoop earrings.

You know the type.

Anyway,they finish their crisps and just drop the empty bags on the ground where they catch a breeze and float across the street like lovers skipping through the grass.

They were standing not ten feet away from a rubbish bin.

I looked at them, I looked at the bin.

They didn't give a fuck where they left their shit.

And the fact that I found this irritating me nailed a moment for me.

Maybe the passage from manhood to middle ages is not marked by the passage of time, but by the heavy boom of a crisp packet hitting cracked concrete.

You know Binky, I've had wet dreams.

Not for a long time but I have.

When I say long time, I mean decades.

They were always about a teacher - usually Mr Rhodes from Science as he was big, bolshy sexy bugger.

Once, when we were discussing sex education, I felt my first pang of envy.

He was standing in front of a cartoon flaccid penis and simply said ''I have had sex many times with my wife and it is very enjoyable''

Lucky bitch.

Anyway, I had another sort of wet dream tonight.

The Daleks and the Cybermen duking it out on Earth with the Doctor and Torchwood caught in the middle.

Fucking A.

Next week Rose is supposed to die but I suspect only her identity will die, to protect the secrets of Torchwood.

Let's see if I am right.

After 17 straight days of work I finallt got a day off today.

And it was a good day.

Just me.

I woke up about ten, but snoozed a little longer to the Best of REM cranked up.

I wandred aroud town like I usually do, and lunch was at Waggamam's - a place that is fast rising to the top of my lunchtime list.

Then the weekly comics fix.

52
The Spectre
X-Factor
Ion
Brave New World

I'm stoked with X-Factor.

This is the only X Book I read and it consistenly delivers due to Peter David hi has the writing chores.

Pick it up if your so inclined.

You won't be disapointed.

Back to to an empty house.

And this is what has made it so relaxing.

The house was empty

Get my drift?