Acknowledgement

I've just been walking around the centre of town and the amount of cute women wandering around has increased ten-fold since the rain stopped yesterday. Men are constantly scanning their surroundings for women (or other men, if they're that way inclined), plenty of men will deny this but they are lying to both you and themselves. There are many different methods of looking for women, some men only have the capacity to use one, but the clever ones will adapt to their particular situation. Here are a few examples:-

The Discreet David
Perfect for when you're out with a girlfriend who may not appreciate you gawping at other girls. You will not notice David looking at all, even if you're being looked at.

The Blatant Bertie
Bertie will announce who he's looking at to his friends, usually in a raised voice and sometimes accompanied by a pointing finger or wolf whistle, for clarity. The female that's attracted his attention will usually know too.

The Staring Stanley
If you're talking to Stanley and all of a sudden he becomes distant, seemingly ignoring everything you say to him, trace where his eyes are fixated and you'll see why.

The Quick check-out Quentin
Quentin is very similar to David in that he'll discreetly be looking at a girl, but he'll just look her up and down once before moving on to find another one. Once he's found his favourite, he'll keep checking back to see if she's changed at all since the last time he looked.

One thing that all these healthy blokes have in common is that they love acknowledging that they've seen a great girl.

Bertie displays this trait in the most obvious manner, he's not selfish in any way and he'll gladly tell all his friends who he's looking at and perhaps he'll even point out that she has massive breasts, or a lovely bottom for example - which ever is his favourite part.

Stanley usually gets a couple of laughs from whoever's in his company, or a short, sharp command to stop staring as it's making someone feel uncomfortable. Stanley is not usually very good with girls and will accompany his staring with a sentence detailing what he'd like to do to her. His mates will ignore him but he'll be oblivious to that.

Quentin and David get along very well indeed. They'll either work alone or with one other Quentin/David in their company. Imagine David is having a sly look and quietly appreciating what he sees, but Quentin - working his way around the area - catches David looking. David senses this and looks over to Quentin, Quentin finds this hilarious because:
a) He's just caught a Discreet David in action.
b) He also recognises what David is looking at.

They'll both signal that they have a mutual appreciation for the girl, either with a smile, a nod or a wink, and for that split second - they'll be the best mates in the world. Afterwards, they'll go their separate ways and never speak of the incident again.

One of my favourite experiences of this was in a club in Cairns. I was making my way back to my friends on the other side of the dancefloor and noticed the common two-girls-snogging-eachother-for-attention, I was in Bertie mode and needed to tell my mates but I was still nowhere near them. I panicked, I HAD to tell someone, so I tapped the bloke next to me on the shoulder stuck my arm out and pointed towards the faux lesbians. "FUCK!" he cried, he then ordered all of his mates to turn around as well. After the girls had finished, he shook my hand, thanked me and bought me a beer. Everyone was happy.

Here I will introduce the best in the business, the Multi-lingual Mike. Mike and his friends can speak a different language to you and they have zero problems talking about a hot girl no matter how close she is. It won't even appear as though they're talking about her, as far as she's concerned, they're just having a joke about the way Americans pronounce 'Oregano'.

I was once busted BIG time as Mike. We were on a train near Sheffield in the North of England when I noticed a gorgeous girl sit down a couple of seats ahead of me. My mate couldn't see so he asked me to describe her, she was easily within hearing distance so I continued in Welsh. She was completely oblivious to me, perfect. I was just finishing off a few details when her phone rang, she answered in Welsh along with a grin from ear to ear.

Be careful gentlemen, if you can do this well you're life will be a real pleasure. If not, girls can often punch much harder than you think.

Not everyone is surfing, we're not in the USA.

My palms are lacerated, I have bruises all over my legs, my shoulders are in agony and I've got some holes in my feet about eight metres deep.

No, it wasn't some kinky sex adventure, but a great weekend spent on the beach with my brother.

I haven't made it down to the beach for a couple of weeks for the simple reason that it's just been too sunny. The summer holidays are still in full swing and that combined with the sun means that South West Wales is jam packed solid with tourists at the weekends. As a grumpy local, I loathe driving at 5mph behind an army of caravans and cars full of crying children. I ensure that all the windows on the car are safely closed, then I shout obscenities at the people quite happily cruising around, completely ignorant of the fact that other people might not be on holiday and don't have the time to be driving this slowly.

This weekend, however, was an absolute treat - it rained, heavily. I awoke early Saturday morning and let out a loud "Woo-hoo!", I ran downstairs in the similar manner to the little boy in 'The Snowman', but then tripped over our blind dog who's sight was miraculously restored just long enough for his snapping teeth to locate my ankle. My brother was milling around as well, he knew what the score was - we grabbed our wetsuits and bolted out to the car. We drove to Whitesands, donned our gear and ran into the sea. There were very few tourists around compared to a normal summer weekend so we had no problems with slow people or sand-hoggers. We decided to clamber around on the cliffs to find good platforms to launch off into the water below - we found some great jumps but the rocks were rather sharp which led to bleeding hands and punctured feet. Jumping from a high cliff into the sea is a great feeling, as long as you land properly, which I didn't on one occasion - I sustained a little whiplash injury, I've had worse.

Saturday night, we hooked up with some of the St.Davids crew and partied away the night. Sunday morning brought with it a cracking headache, but also news of some good surf coming onto the Gower, eighty miles away! The surf in Pembrokeshire was pretty flat so we decided to drive down to the Gower to check it out. I had a new board to try out and was really looking forward to it, but the sea absolutely destroyed us. The surf was pretty big as predicted, but it was so big that we could barely paddle out to even catch a wave. That combined with my aching body from Saturday meant that I had to swim back to shore to catch my breath on more than one occasion. We ran into a couple of my brothers mates down there who had the more sensible idea of bringing kayaks with them. I'm three hundred times more adept with a kayak that I am with a surf board, so I took out one of their boats and had a good surf session. Paddling out in a boat was half as hard as on a board, so the big waves were actually used to ride on rather than drown under. A few hours in the water had cleared up my headache but had physically exhausted us, time to go home.

Monday morning, I'm feeling it even more than yesterday. There's an even bigger swell forecast for Thursday so I'm hoping I can recharge some of my energy by then.

Deja Vu

My trainers have just broken in a startlingly similar manner to a pair I had almost exactly two years ago.

It's been pissing down all morning and as soon as I took a few steps outside the office door, I could feel the cold water seeping into my shoe and drenching my socks.

This time though, I'm not having a bad day. I'm having a fanstatic day, and tomorrow is going to be better again. A business trip to London is in order, I love business trips as half the time is usually spent on the train - a source of endless entertainment!

Also, I've always been a massive Adam & Joe fan, imagine my delight when I discovered their masterpiece - Toytanic, was online at last. Also around are American Beau-toy and Toy Trainspotting if you can find them.

Quiet Diet

Weird stuff is continuing.

The other week I decided to change my diet a little to become a little healthier. For two weeks I ate the following:-

Breakfast - Cereal, cup of tea.
Lunch - Sandwiches (Wholemeal bread), glass of water.
Dinner - Soup, glass of water.
Excercise - One 12mile cycle, walk 50mins/day (work and back, twice)

I also strictly avoided alcohol. (strictly for all but two nights).

For those two weeks I felt absolutely shagged out, I was sleeping a ridiculous amount, I constantly felt fat and I didn't have energy to even talk to people. Last weekend I finally ended that nonsense in true style, no less that three barbeques stuffed me until I was immobile. Friday was a quiet night in the quiet village pub, I rolled in at 4am. Saturday was a huge piss-up and Sunday was a session to finish any remaining beers.

Monday rolled around and I felt absolutely amazing, it was easy to stay up until 1am, get up at 7:30am and drive all the way to Swansea for work. I've also been to the pub for a couple of beers the last two evenings, got back home - eaten a bagel and sat in the garden for a while before going to bed.

So the current diet:-

Breakfast - Nothing but a cup of tea or an Orange Juice.
Lunch - Sandwiches, Crisps, glass water
Dinner - Sandwich, A bagel, cup of tea.
Snacks - Anything ranging from a peanut to a bowl of cereal. Hot chocolate at night.
Excercise - 30min walk/day.

I feel great. I've never been one to care about what I ate before, but it's intriguing to find that I feel better and have more energy (physically & mentally) now that I'm eating less healthy food in smaller quantities.

Very interestingly I felt the best I've ever felt, and lost the most weight, on this general menu:-

Breakfast - Slice of toast or Nothing
Lunch - Sandwich/Baguette
Dinner - Alcohol, Alcohol, Pub Meal/Takeaway, Alcohol, Alcohol.
Excercise - Walking to the bus stop (10mins), walking back from the pub (10mins) per day.

I expect there's some science in there, but I can't figure it out.

Monotonous TeleVison

Moving back home temporarily has meant that I have been able to watch TV programmes which aren't WWII documentaries or re-runs of re-runs of Will & Grace. Filmfour being free has been the best thing to happen in my life recently, I've been watching the 9pm film every night of the week. During the crap adverts, I flick over to the music channels to see what's around at the moment. Here are some observations from the forementioned channels:-

Hasn't anyone else noticed that Beyonce dances like an absolute tool? What the hell is she doing? You realise that her entire arse is just a gimmick, right?

And Nelly Furtado - I love you, but you're just being an idiot as well. Come on now, get it together and produce another good song like we all know you're capable of.

Fergie - What the fuck are you doing in our country? Go home, it's in everyones best interest.

Nathan - Who are you? I've never heard of you, why do you only have one name? It doesn't help in the identification process.

Shakira - I don't care about your hips anymore, they were cool about 5 years ago but they're tiresome now.

Paris - I like watched the video and like I was like UGH, this song sucks - then I like totally puked , it was G-ROSS. It like hella sucks Yuh-huh?

In fact, Nelly Furtado is the only one mentioned here that doesn't only have one name - Nelly was already taken by the plaster wearing rent-a-rapper I suppose. While we're on the subject - Kanye and Pharell, you're both doing well and kind of like your stuff but for gods sakes get over yourselves, it makes me sick. You know when you listen to someone absolutely gush about one person all the time you just want to tell them to shut up? Shut up.

Sometimes the mute button is my favourite thing in the world.

T.O. Online

Some countries appear to produce more bl*ggers than others, America for example produces more than Zambia (I have no figures to back this up, but I'm pretty safe I think). In the same vein, some cities seem to crop up more than others whilst I'm surfing around on the interweb - none more so than Toronto (Canadia) and the surrounding area.

I was trying to figure out why there apepars to have been such an explosion of 'Personal' bl*gs originating from TO, I couldn't conjour up any answers.

Like a good sandwich filling, my favourite reads are spread out fairly evenly*....

Wales (4) , Australia, Iceland, Canada (4), USA (3), Ireland (2) , England (6), France, Antarctica, Estonia, and Romania.

Of the Canadia based gang - Eano, Paige, Captain Bee and Cleavers can all be found somewhere between Toronto and Windsor, Ontario. Now, Windsor is approximately 363km from Toronto which by North American standards, or giants standards, isn't far at all - before you kick up a fuss and start complaining.

But that's only four, Curly. What the hell are you talking about?

Closer inspection of the Canucks bl*grolls (Cleavers leaves us at this point, because she's a Brit) will show you that most of the sites they visit are also located in the same area. In the case of Eano & Paige, both products of the University of Western Ontario**, they actually know more bl*ggers personally than I know 'virtually'. It goes further, the people they link to also know a different set of local bl*ggers and so on.

It may be that I've just stumbled across one of many cities where everyone seems to have a bl*g, but I'm increasingly getting the feeling that Southern Ontario is actually the ONLY place where this many people maintain and regularly write personal online journals.

London, the real one, has a fair few people rattling away at their keyboards but I've yet to stumble across an Eano or Paige equivalent. In Wales, the number of Welsh language bl*ggers seems to out number the English speaking bunch - and Cope seems to have met a large number of them. Britblog reports that there are 356 bl*gs in London alone and 187 in Wales. Unfortunately, I can't get a breakdown of 'Personal Blog ' numbers.

I've met several people through this bl*g, but the only ones I can actually claim to know well are Owzy O, Po, Oz and Charlie Phaelon. Owzy O and Po got me going on this whole malarky, Owzy lost his internet connection a while ago whilst Po decided that life had got too boring on his return from a round-the-world trip. Oz and Charlie stuttered and ultimately failed to really start.

I'm also led to believe that Toronto is soon to be installing a city-wide Wi-fi network...

So, what is the reason for all this Canadian online comraderie?

Are the Ontario schools encouraging the kids to start up journals?
Are they just able to speak more freely than everyone else?
Is Canada leading the way in internet communication by actually enabling everyone to use the internet?
Is there nothing else to do?
Has Britain just not caught on yet?
Are they all just a big bunch of attention seekers?




* (please don't actually double check this - I haven't done so myself)
** (I haven't checked this either)

A recent hungover SMS conversation

On a train travelling from St.Davids to Swansea...

Curly - I was so jealous of you sleeping on the sofa. My body WANTS to sleep, but I'm being kept awake by sugar and additives. It feels like Keanu Reeves has just flown inside me and trying to make my body explode into 1000 pieces, like on the matrix.

Bledd - Pop quiz hot shot. you want to sleep but you're afraid you might miss Swansea.. What do you do?

Curly - Sleep face down with my pants around my ankles. When I'm woken up by someone holding a lighter to my arse, I'm in Swansea.

Bledd - Just watch it doesn't go to Brighton instead. King said when he did that wake up trick, it wasn't pretty.

Curly - Nah. Going to Crewe, only have my clothes nicked instead. I'm a little worried about what might happen at Pontypool though.

A little concerned

I've just done something I didn't think I was capable of doing.

Something which I've never done before in my life.

I have actually just turned down an opportunity to have fun - Four days in Newquay partying with a group of old University mates.

Newquay, for those who are not familiar with it, is the surfing capital of Britain. It's located in Cornwall, which is the little pointy bit of Britain in the South West. During the summer, the population swells from about 20'000 to somewhere in the region of 100'000, and a very large percentage of these summer visitors are people aged 18-30 who are there to surf or lie on the beach during the daytime and then party the night away. The town is extremely lively at night due to the huge amounts of bars and clubs located in the centre.

I spent a summer working in Newquay back in 2002, I was twenty and in my element down there. It was just three months of sheer enjoyment, we surfed, we drank, we had barbeques every day and slept in tents at night. I was working in a bar down there, even that was fun - the constant throb of people enjoying themselves was a real boost and it didn't feel like I was working at all.

It's always good fun whenever I go down there still. I've always been one for just waking up on a random morning, picking up my tent and driving somewhere else to pitch it. This weekend was going to be along the lines of that, but things just piled up this time. There were so many reasons to stop me going, reasons which previously I would've just blatantly ignored and carried on regardless.

Instead of catching the last day of the Ripcurl Boardmasters and tearing up the town, I'm house-sitting for my parents as they go away for three weeks. I have to water the plants, feed the dog and be nice to the neighbours....



Strange things are definitely afoot, ever since a Captain Bee "I invented the internet" style rant about two weeks ago.

• This has been going into overdrive
• My diet has improved
• I'm becoming increasingly tired. Three nights this week I've got home from work at 6pm, collapsed on my bed and slept until the morning
• I talk less
• I have calmed down
  
• I am on fire
• ABBA?!!!!!
  

Cope mentioned a while back that my bl*g had become some sort of coming of age drama, and he hoped that I'd end up shagging Reese Witherspoon at the end. Although growing up is quite a way off yet, I am having a lot of revelations recently - I just haven't shagged Reese Witherspoon yet.