Aces 25th Birthday, Part 1

My housemate Aces turned 25 on March 24th. He celebrated his birthday last weekend. Aces is a very popular guy and he is diligent at keeping in touch with all of his old friends from University. This is something which I must concede I often let slip in the hustle and bustle of life. As a result of this there is no one like Aces who can draw a good crowd for a birthday party. On Friday, it was a lads only night out. The crew consisted of all of our close friends from University: Tig, Bee, Casanova, Canadian Steak and B Hop. B Hop lived with Steak at Sheffield University and studied Law with me. He has also been a practitioner of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and fan of Mixed Martial Arts for longer than me. In fact, the first time that I met him was at my second ever Brazilian Jiu Jitsu lesson in Sheffield and B Hop made me tap from a rear naked choke during our spar.

Everyone had turned up to our house by 9.30pm and after some drinks and banter we made our way in taxis to The Fez Club in Putney. For the night out I wore a dark blue slim fitted shirt (Zara), diagonal striped blue and burgundy tie (Zara), dark fitted jeans (Diesel), slim white belt (Asos), pointy white shoes (Zara) and a dogtooth Blazer (Adam Lippes for Mango). I had been drinking whisky since seven 'o' clock, polishing off my bottle of Famous Grouse and making decent inroads into a new bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label. This fact, combined with the feeling of hysteria experienced from seeing old friends, resulted in me being pretty rocked by the time I walked through the doors of The Fez Club.

We ran into trouble almost immediately as some huge drunk black guy approached the group for hugs. When he was turned down, he started to get aggressive, at one point putting Bee in a headlock. Steak called the bouncers who reluctantly evicted the guy from the premises. They had initially been reluctant to do so because they claimed that he was a regular who spent a lot of money. However, through Steak's persistence they eventually relented. Unfortunately, Steak (which he does have a tendency to do) continued to hound the security about this issue throughout the night which inevitably led to them becoming incredibly pissed off with him.

I bought rounds of drinks with Tig: double Jack Daniels and coke was the tipple of choice. Aces bought a round of Tequilas/Sambucas (I always go for the former) for the group as well and within the hour I was thoroughly pissed. Fez was unusually quiet for a Friday night and a scan of the room revealed that there were very few hot women. To get warmed up I started dancing with a short, slightly plump blond. She seemed to be attracted to me, although the feeling was by no means mutual. When I returned to my group I was instructed by Aces to try and get off with her as my birthday present to him.

Normally I would go into much more detail about a night out. However, dancing with this girl was my last memory of the night. The only thing that I can remember after that was telling the taxi to stop on the way back to my flat and jumping out to vomit on the side of the road. I was told that shortly after 1am I fell asleep on the sofas near the bar. I was informed the next morning that I ended up getting off with the target set for me by Aces. It is very rare for me not to remember pulling a girl but I was absolutely hammered. Steak and B Hop were wing-manning me by chatting to the rest of this woman's group. It turns out that the woman I pulled was a thirty-seven year old mother of three, which officially makes her the oldest woman that I have ever kissed. Coincidentally she also ended up getting off with Steak.

Leg Kicks

I hate getting kicked in the leg. I think that I would prefer to get punched in the face. Tonight I went to my first Muay Thai lesson in Farnborough. The warm up was brutal, although I do tend to enjoy raising my heart rate in this manner. There was thirty minutes of running, star jumps, burpees, shadow boxing, squat thrusts, push ups, squats and crunches. By the end of the warm up I was drenched in sweat and ready to start pad work.

I have trained in some striking in the past. I did karate for seven years (obtaining a brown belt before giving up at the age of thirteen), boxed in an unlicensed gym for six months and have attended quite a few Muay Thai lessons over the last few years. When asked after the warm up if I had done any striking before I said that I was a beginner. There was one other student, who was recently promoted to blue belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, who was a beginner and we got paired up and taught the basic footwork and how to throw jabs and crosses. I did not mind doing this but as soon as I saw some of the other students throwing punches and kicks I realised that with my prior martial arts experience I could have easily joined in the class.

The worst part of being partnered with this guy for pad work was his lack of accuracy. He was a large, strong guy with thick legs and an enormous paunch. I have found him very awkward to grapple due to his dimensions and weight. Whilst his strikes lacked technique the weight that he put behind them translated into decent power. When practising leg kicks I was given a thin pad to protect my leg, normally used for punching. Admittedly the target was small, although somehow he managed to miss it with the first kick he threw and catch me round the back of my left leg with full force. I felt a shooting pain straight away and must have winced because he asked if I was OK. I said that I was fine and he continued to kick away at the pad. He did not miss again, although the first strike did all of the damage. I now have a painful, dead left leg. I hope that it does not affect my dance moves for Aces birthday weekend.

Text Rules

On Friday night Tucky pulled a thirty-two year old guy (nine years her senior) on a night out in Maidstone, Kent. Tucky has a tendency to get horny when drunk and this can turn her into something of a man-eater with one goal in mind: to snog any male in the vicinity. Being a hot looking girl, she never has a problem finding a willing recipient. The guy Tucky pulled was just another one in a line of unsuspecting victims and she did not even remember his name. She ended up giving him her number and leaving the club with the girls she went out with. When she woke up in the morning she discovered that she had four text messages from him. Throughout the day on Saturday, I received updates from Tucky about the texts that the guy continued to send in spite of no reply from her. The text below is the first that Tucky sent to me:

"Hiya, hows ur day bin? ive just finished 4 the day, wot a long one!! well not sure where u gone, but had an idea if ur up 4 it wud u like 2 go 2 the ice bar in mayfair, london on fri nite? just me and u? offers their anyay xx hope ur ok? x"

Apart from the spelling and grammar mistakes (particularly spelling "there" as "their") this would seem like a pleasant enough first text to send to a girl. I am a big fan of The Absolut Ice Bar in Heddon Street and I believe that this is a good place to take a girl. In fact I had wanted to go there for drinks with Tucky at the end of February but I could not book a suitable time. However, one has to bear in mind that this was text number eight. Fuck knows what the previous texts said. Despite Tucky's silence, Trevor powered on. His final text (number eleven) on Sunday reeked of desperation:

"Not sure wot i did so wrong 2 b ignored? i thought u mite have liked me? well sorry u feel u have 2 ignore me. trevor x"

This was the first text in which he revealed his name. The name, Trevor, says everything about a man in my opinion. It is a name which is associated with argyle tank tops, green blazers with leather patches on the elbows, thick rimmed glasses with lenses like jam jars and trainspotting. Tucky swears that he was nothing like this. However, the ensuing hilarity proved one thing: that he is a fucking loser of the highest order. I have images of him sitting with his friends saying "She still hasn't replied lads but if she hasn't got back to me by the eleventh text then I should probably give up." I remember one of my ex-housemates from university, Linki, who had a three text rule, i.e. you can text a girl up to three times without response before giving up. I personally think that this is the ethos of a desperate fucking loser. I can sympathise with Trevor because I know that I used to be that guy. The tinge of sympathy I feel towards him though is miniscule, considering that I have learned from my past mistakes and at the age of thirty-two he should really know better.

As far as I am concerned there is a one text rule. If a girl has not responded to me after the first text then I will sack her off. An additional rule is that I will not text the girl straight away. I prefer to leave it for at least a day, preferably two, before initiating contact. Speaking to my good friend Abs about this on the phone last night, I would concede that it is OK to text a chick on the same night just to check that she got home safely. The girl I pulled recently at The Fez Club at Casanova's birthday did not respond to my text so I fucked it off. One needs to have some self respect: she probably did not remember getting off with me and even if she did she either a) felt that she made a mistake or b) has a boyfriend that she cheated on. Either way I am not going to waste my time or compromise my dignity by chasing after her.

It got me thinking though, that texting might not be the way forward. It is easy enough for a girl to ignore text. A phone call, on the other hand, from a private number would be too intriguing to neglect. In November I went out with work colleagues to Vodka Revolution in Reading town centre. It was a Monday night so I was not expecting a good night out, although to my surprise the venue was buzzing because it was a student night. I was on top of my game that night (I had just the right amount of alcohol in my system to ooze self-confidence without coming across as arrogant) and I interacted with a number of girls. I talked to one really hot girl Hispanic girl, called Monica, at the bar whilst I was queueing to buy a round of drinks and ended up getting her phone number. A couple of days later I decided to contact her. I had only chatted to her for about three minutes before I obtained her number so we did not make a particularly meaningful connection. Given this fact I called her instead of texting her. She picked up the phone and whilst she did not remember me at first (she was also very drunk that night) she slowly started piecing the night together. The conversation went well and we even talked about potentially meeting each other on a night out in Reading until I found out that she was eighteen years old. This is slightly too young for me, although her reaction to finding out that I was twenty-five put an end to the possibility of an advancement in proceedings.

Before getting with his current girlfriend, my housemate Aces used to give his number to girls and tell them to call him. I highly rate this approach. If the girl does call or text then she is clearly interested and if she does not, then she is not, pure and simple. The one caveat to this approach is that I would not do it with a girl who I thought was really fit (i.e. a seven and a half out of ten or above) since I would rather have her number than not. For slightly above average girls I will probably start using this ploy, since it is not as if I would give a fuck if they made contact.

Aches and pains

On Saturday I trained BJJ for two and half hours. As a result I have various aches. My right shoulder is sore as are both of my knees, although neither is unbearably uncomfortable. There is a tightness in my right hip from getting trapped in an awkward position whilst grappling an opponent. The effect of an accidental slam, which did not wind or hurt me at the time, has culminated now in a dull pain in my upper ribs on the left hand side of my body.

Mouse

I have noticed recently from my Facebook News Feed that Mouse has moved into a new flat with her boyfriend. I met Mouse on my holiday in Tenerife in October 2009. It was one of the funniest holidays I have ever been on and getting to fuck Mouse on the final night capped it off perfectly.

I went to Tenerife with my current housemate and best friend Aces, as well as Casanova and Bea (both ex-housemates from the University of Sheffield). We stayed at a hotel called the Compostella Golf and Beach resort. We had booked an apartment for four people but found that there was one fold out bed in the lounge and two twin beds in another room. There was no air conditioning or ceiling fan in the room which turned out to be a blessing since we all took it in turns to sleep out on the balcony throughout the week.

We had spent extra money to receive the benefits of an all inclusive holiday. This entitled us to free food and "local booze" throughout the week. However, to say that the food and booze was laughable would be a generous sentiment. I am the first person to admit that I know nothing about good food, preferring to eat for nutrition rather than taste. Nevertheless even I could tell that the food at the Compostella was awful: grade Z cuts of meat, lasagne without the beef, bland salad, stale bread, etc. When the buffet cart was wheeled away at the end of lunch and dinner, guests were left free to make their own cheese and ham toasties. The local alcohol was even worse. It came in cardboard cups and if you left the vodka sitting in it for more than thirty minutes it started to burn through. I never get hangovers, although after the first night drinking that alcohol I struggled to move the following day until the early afternoon. Whilst the rest of the crew continued to consume the free alcohol, I spent extra money to buy branded alcohol at the hotel: a strategy for which I was rightfully goaded for the duration of the holiday.

We had expected the clubs in Playa de las Americas to be packed with young, good-looking English girls who would be up for sexual encounters. However, we should have known that turning up in the middle of October, out of the holiday season, would equate to deserted bars and clubs. We were told that the two days for new transfers was Tuesdays and Saturdays. We clung to some slim hope that hotties would arrive at the hotel throughout the week, although the Tuesday passed without incident and we were forced to concede that we were destined to stare at fat families for the whole week. This catalogue of disasters made the holiday all the more memorable: most of the banter originated from complaining about the poor conditions.

I saw Mouse for the first time on the second day of the holiday. We had arrived late on Saturday night and headed straight for the clubs. The following afternoon, we noticed that there were a group of four girls young girls sunbathing by the pool. Two of the girls were average to decent looking, whilst the other two could only be described as atrocities. Mouse was the best looking of the group: she was very short with a young fresh face and light brown hair. We all thought that she was quite pretty, although her most prominent assets were her absolutely massive tits. I found out much later that the size of her breasts were 34DD but they were accentuated on her 4 feet 11 inch frame. She was definitely the best looking girl in the hotel, although this was not saying much considering that almost all of the women there looked like beached whales. We largely ignored the group for the first few days thinking that there would be plenty of better looking girls to go at. When this proved not to be the case we bit the bullet and befriended them.

The first time we initiated contact with the group I was not present. I had gone to the gym a mile from the hotel on the fourth day to work out. The bad food and constant drinking was starting to make me feel puffy and I felt compelled to go to the gym to alleviate this feeling. When I got back to the hotel I was told by Aces that he had gone over to talk to them and the Bea and Casanova had joined him. Through this mini-reconnaisance mission they had discovered that the group was from Doncaster and they were housemates. The other half-decent looking girl in the group was Mouse's sister Gemdog. Gemdog became Bea's project for the week to our amusement, firstly because he had previously chastised her to us about her hair (he thought that her dark roots made it look like there was an octopus on top of her head) and secondly because he staked his reputation on the fact that he would nail her before the week was up.

I talked to Mouse for the first time that night at Lineker's Bar. Lineker's is the most popular club in Tenerife and was the only place that was always busy. The first night we went there was arguably the best night of the holiday, as Casanova was hilariously dragged up onto the stage and nicknamed "Posh Sausage" after telling the promoter for some reason that he owned a plush flat in Notting Hill (this is a lie). When I talked to Mouse I was pretty rocked from a combination of pints of Magners and cocktails. The first question that I asked her was how old she was to which she informed me she was nineteen. For some bizarre reason (probably attributable to the alcohol in my bloodstream) I told her that I had initially thought that she was sixteen but I had changed my mind when I saw her sunbathing topless. Thankfully she found this chat to be funny. It was clear that Mouse was a girl who did not take herself seriously and she had some good banter. She demonstrated this fact when she performed the splits for me after I had asked her to prove that she was a gymnast.

Over the next couple of days Bea and myself got to know the sisters better. I had found out that Mouse had a boyfriend of nine months back in Doncaster and thus I dismissed any possibility of getting with her. I acted as a wingman for Bea who was clearly making tracks with Gemdog. We discovered that they were simple folk with simple designs on life: living for the weekend, excessive drinking and shacking up with men. Their reading material for the week consisted of biographies of C-list celebrities and Now magazines. On the Thursday morning Bea and I, having slept on the balcony, were woken up by the sisters yelling from below to invite us on an excursion to the Siam water park. Aces and Casanova were far too tired and hungover to move at that point in the morning so it was just the two of us and the four girl who went. It ended up being a good day out (the water park in my opinion was comparable to Blizzard Beach in Florida) made funnier by the fact that Bea kept shafting me by making me share boats with the other two girls, whilst he hammed it up with the sisters. I had found out the night before that the other two girls fancied me which created some awkwardness.

On the Thursday night Bea and Gemdog ended up pulling each other. Aces accompanied Luke whilst he chased after a dark-haired PR from a club called the Met Bar on the strip which left me alone with Mouse in Rags bar. We ended up buying each other rounds of drinks and talking about relationships. We were on the subject of what kinds of girls I was attracted to and out of the blue she asked me if I thought that she was attracted to me. At this point I knew that she fancied me - she asked the question to determine whether I was attracted to her. The question took me by surprise and stupidly I told her that she could not be attracted to me because she had a boyfriend. Realising my error, I quickly asked her if she was attracted to me to which she responded with a cheeky smile and the answer "I'm not telling you..." She then changed the subject and the moment was lost. Had this been a normal night out then I would have completely fucked things up.

On the final night I made sure that I did not slip up for a second time. I put wore a tight knitted polo shirt (Zara) which shows the musculature in my deltoids and pectorals and pulled Mouse in same place as the night before. I told her at the bar that I fancied her but the ball was in her court since she had a boyfriend. She told me that she was very tempted and things went from there. Mouse was a very good kisser (she returned the compliment) and offered no resistance to sex and almost immediately came back with me to the hotel. Bea had gone back to Gemdog's room so Mouse and I went back to my apartment. When I returned to the room with Mouse I found Casanova asleep in one of the single beds. He had no problems with me waking him up and turfing him out of the room, considering that Bea and myself had slept elsewhere the previous night when he fucked a girl in the main room.

Mouse knew how to fuck despite being young. I had never fucked a girl with tits that big before and whilst I would normally say that this is not as important as a pretty face, it was definitely a massive turn on. She had a relatively dry and tight cunt which made it difficult to enter her even after extensive foreplay. The sensation of her pussy mid-fucking was awesome, however. Most of the time was spent with her on top although I did fuck her missionary at one point. The first stint of fucking went on for forty-five minutes which was something that she was clearly not used to. She expressed surprise that I was still going and I fucked her so much that she even commented that I had a big cock (something which I cannot honestly attest to possessing). We were both very loud and I was shocked that Aces and Casanova did not hear our antics in the adjacent room. I came once and she came four times. We then took a break and went to eat breakfast, the first time I had gotten up early enough to do so that week.

After eating breakfast together we returned back to the room for some sleep although it was not long before we were fucking again. We went for another twenty minutes (she came another three times) before she asked to stop because she was getting sore. It was great sex and she claimed that it was the best that she had ever had. The final day at the resort was somewhat awkward. Neither of us ended up getting any sleep, which meant that we were both fatigued by the time we got our flights home that day. She got a ribbing from her friends for cheating on her boyfriend. Little did I know that they had a sweepstake running on whether or not I liked her and whether she would cheat on her boyfriend if given the opportunity. I would have liked to have fucked her again that day and when we hung out the sexual tension was clear to see. However, having to vacate the rooms at midday made this impossible. When I think about it now, we could have had sex in the room of the hotel where people are allowed to store their suitcases if they have evening flights. We all made our way to the airport later that day at the same time, although unfortunately we did not have the chance for a proper farewell. Bea preferred to avoid Gemdog who he did not end up shagging due to her unfortunately being on the blob.

When back in the UK, Mouse added me to Facebook straight away. We messaged each other for the first week before this communication fizzled out. I tried texting her with no response until about a month later. I knew that she had a pay as you go O2 contract which allowed her to make free calls to O2 phone numbers but not other networks. Thus it took her a while to top up her phone. Perhaps the most off-putting thing about Mouse is her spelling and grammar. Trying to read her text messages was akin to trying to decipher a long lost language at times. Nevertheless we kept in touch over texts at least once a week. Gemdog, in the meantime, was texting Bea every day. She told me on Facebook chat that she thought he looked like Zac Efron and she seemed to have decided that he was her ideal man. Unfortunately for her, the feeling was and still is not mutual.

The last contact that I had from Mouse was on New Years Day. Since then I have not heard a peep out of her. I can only assume that the fact that she has moved in with her boyfriend has perhaps made her take the relationship more seriously. We have seen pictures of her boyfriend on Facebook and I can only describe him as a disaster. Aces quite aptly named him "The Disabled Matt Damon". I do not know the guy's personality, although on looks alone Mouse could do siginficantly better for herself. As Steak would say, her boyfriend clearly "overachieved". I think that it is a shame that we have lost touch this year. Whilst I could never see myself in a relationship with her I would definitely fuck her again if the opportunity arose. She is a great shag and ultimately a nice girl. I hope that things work out for her in life.

Whisky

Over the last couple of years, I have been trying different types of Scotch whisky. I was introduced to whisky by the Tan brothers from Australia when they were in the UK in 2008. As the stresses of my job have been piling up I have been drinking a small glass on most nights. The first whisky that I bought for myself last year was a twelve-year Bowmore. This has been my favourite whisky to date. It has a very buttery taste and oily texture. The second whisky that I tried was a twelve-year Glenmorangie. If felt that this had a stronger taste and whilst entirely drinkable was not as nice as the Bowmore. My father bought me a one litre twelve-year Glenfiddich which I polished off in about six to seven weeks, before I purchased a blend for the first time, in the form of a bottle of Famous Grouse. I have learned recently that single malts should be consumed neat and blends on the rocks. I drink both types on the rocks because I feel that a little bit of water to dilute the strength of the flavour makes it that much more palatable to me. I have a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label, that I received for free for helping out at a recent trade event, awaiting me when I have finished the Famous Grouse.

Last night I went out with some colleagues from work to a bar called "The Mitre" in Holland Park. It was a trendy bar, which surprised me given its name. When I was told that we were going to this bar for drinks I immediately conjured images in my head of old men with thick white moustaches drinking pints of Newcastle Brown Ale. It was quite the opposite as the place was teeming with young professionals. I wore a white shirt with brown, pink and olive green stripes and matching tie (Red Herring), faded jeans (Levis), chocolate brown belt (Kenneth Cole), chocolate brown pointy shoes (Red Or Dead) and dark brown slim fit blazer (Zara). They had a decent whisky selection and I tried a double Laphroig (strong, smoky and full of flavour) and a few single Glenmorangies. At this point I prefer to drink whisky rather than heavy stouts and beers, both which generally make me bloated and have plenty of calories.

Forgiveness

Cam is a girl who works in the marketing department. Last year she lived just down the road from me in Chiswick. Every so often I would give her lifts into work and I enjoyed her company on these occasions. Back in July after dropping her off at her house, I noticed that four of my Now That's What I Call Music CDs (68, 69, 71 and 72) were missing. I was puzzled as to their whereabouts at first and when I asked Cam the next time I gave her a lift she told me that she had borrowed them to copy them. I remember thinking at the time that it was rude of her to take them without asking, although I trusted that she would return them to me swiftly.

Fast forward nine months and Cam still had not returned the CDs to me. During this time I had constantly asked her to return them, including sending her emails at work for five consecutive days in December. Suspecting that she had lost them I offered her an alternative to pay me £45. I paid £51.97 for the CDs at their original price so I thought that this was a generous offer. In spite of this she ignored all of my messages and at Pri's recent birthday party she acted as if there was no problem between us. Over the last month I have made a conscious effort to ignore her and avoid her to leave her in no doubt that there was a problem.

Yesterday I emailed her to tell her that I had not forgotten about the CDs and that I had been disappointed in her behaviour. To her credit she responded swiftly and got the £45 to me within the hour. It turned out that her housemate (who I think is fucking hot) had taken the CDs and lost them. I have still lost respect for her even though I now consider her debt to be repaid. I can never understand people who come from privileged backgrounds and are not only tight with money, but also deceiptful. There is not a shred of doubt in my mind that Cam would not have compensated me if I had not fucking asked her to do so.

asos order

Last Thursday I placed an order on asos.com. One of my favourite brands on asos is Junk de Luxe. The brand's trademark are its smart matching shirts and ties. I own a short sleeved blue and white fine print check shirt and tie combination by them which I think looks very smart. When I wore this outfit on a night out in Melbourne last year (Harp of Erin Wednesday student night) I got rave reviews from girls and guys alike. I also own another matching shirt and tie set (dark blue with flower print wallpaper pattern) and a white shirt with tartan collar, which did not receive particularly positive reviews when I wore it with a black tie and waistcoat to the Black and White party at the Fez Club on New Years Eve. Even I have a tendency to get it wrong sometimes.

Last week, Junk de Luxe trends were being advertised on the asos Men's homepage. I browsed through the eighty odd items displayed until I got to the bottom of the page which had the sale items. I spotted a smart Gingham waistcoat with fine red stripes for £24. It was reduced from £95 and I placed an order for one straight away. The package arrived at my office today and I when I got home I tried it on. It is quite a snug fit, although I did put on 5lbs last week. I will drop some weight this week and I am certain that it will fit perfectly.

The other item that I bought on the same order was a black pair of plastic rimmed sunglasses with large, dark orange tinted lenses. Last summer I bought four pairs of sunglasses. I personally never spend a lot of money on shades because the trends change year on year. A few years ago a pair of Oakleys was considered to be something of a timeless fashion item. However, I think that their shape is now outdated. These plastic sunglasses are the first pair that I have bought in preparation for the Spring and Summer months and I like them because they remind me of those that were worn by Bruce Lee at the height of his popularity back in the 1970s. I intend to buy an additional couple of pairs next month: tortoise shell wayfarers and tortoise shell aviators.

Kensington High Street and Spring/Summer trends

This afternoon I made a trip to Kensington High Street. I had originally intended to shop in Oxford Street. I have seen a panda patterned cardigan on Topman.com which I think would look pretty trendy for casualwear in Spring. This kind of garment is not something that I would normally buy and I wanted to go to the Topshop flagship store in Oxford Street to try it on before I bought it. This store is supposedly the largest clothes store in Europe: it has four floors, three of which are womenswear with the very top floor being the Topman store.

The Topshop flagship store is always packed with hot women so I decided to dress up. I wore a yellow checked short sleeved shirt (Farah), dark fitted jeans (Diesel), thin white belt (asos), white Converse baseball trainers and a berry-red blazer with white trim (Topman). I took out my brown leather bag (Urban Outfitters) in which I carried the book I am reading at the moment, "The English Patient" by Michael Ondaatje. As soon as I got onto the tube at Turnham Green I discovered that the train service on the District Line was restricted. This would have made getting to and from Oxford Street a real chore and therefore I took a detour to Kensington High Street. Frustratingly I thought that there was a Topman on the High Street. I remembered accompanying Hon to the Topshop there last summer where she bought a flower print dress and black pumps. I had thought that day that there was a Topman in the same store. I found out today that the nearest Topman was in Shepherd's Bush, i.e. Westfield.

Despite this blip, I did get the opportunity to browse the other stores in the area. I saw quite a few items of clothing that I think would look good for the new season. I tried on a pair of beige cotton chinos in H & M that were comfortable and matched with the blazer I was wearing. I have always said that I would not wear chinos since in my opinion it is very much "toff" fashion. After trying this pair on I might have to reconsider. I saw some very reasonably priced colourful flannel shirts and knitted ties in Uniqlo which I would have liked to have purchased. However, money is going to be slightly tight this month so I had to stave off temptation. I now have some ideas for when the paycheck comes in thirteen days. In the meantime I will probably go to Oxford Street tomorrow to try on the cardigan. Hopefully I can get there by early afternoon, although this will depend on how tired I feel after watching the live Pacquiao-Clottey fight.

Leona Lewis

Leona Lewis currently sits at number 19 with her song "I Got You" on the UK Top 40 Music chart based on sales of CDs and downloads. Her highest entry for this song was number 14. A couple of weeks ago she was the Box and 4Music's VIP track so it is not as though she has not had the airplay. I thought that "I Got You" would be a hit for Leona. It ticks all of the boxes of a rousing power ballad. However, the fact that it did not even make the top 10 leads me to believe that Leona is on the downslide.

I like Leona Lewis because I believe that she is truly talented. Like most people in this country I watch the X Factor each year to see which new pop superstar will be unearthed. I would not say that I watch it religiously each week, although I make sure that I know what happens when it gets to the final twelve. It is virtually impossible to ignore since it makes the pages of all of the tabloid newspapers. In all of the years that I have been watching the X Factor Leona Lewis has been the stand out contestant, streets ahead of Shane Ward, Alexandra Burke, JLS and Joe McElderry. She has an amazing voice, a voice to rival that of Christina Aguilera, Celine Dion, Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey.

Her first album, "Spirit" (2007) was a huge success. The debut release from this album, "Bleeding Love" became a global hit, holding the number one spot in this country for seven weeks and also reaching number one on the Billboard Chart in America. This song made her a global sensation overnight. Whilst Leona has had other hits since "Bleeding Love", particularly her cover version of "Run" (2008) by Snow Patrol, which became the fastest selling downloaded single, I have felt that she has been on a downslide in popularity. Her newest album "Echo" reached number one for one week before swiftly plummeting into obscurity and even a stunning performance of her song "Happy" (2009) on X Factor in November was not enough to reach the top of the singles chart, being pipped by the Black Eyed Peas song "Meet Me Halfway" (2009). The signs look rather ominous for Leona's career.

One could argue that people are getting bored of her music. With the exception of her upbeat pop hit "Forgive Me" (2008) produced by Akon, all of her singles have been ballads. However, I do not believe that this is the main reason behind her decline in popularity since there will always be a market for these types of songs. I think that her public image is a big part of the problem. Leona Lewis is the definition of clean cut. She has had the same boyfriend since before she was famous and she always seems to maintain her dignity and quiet grace. Whilst she is a great role model for teenage girls she is competing with the likes of Lady Gaga and Ke$ha who are not afraid to show some skin. The new video for Lady Gaga's song "Telephone" perfectly illustrates my point. Sex sells and unfortunately Leona is pretty and sweet but not sexy.

Leona's looks have always appealed to me. She is so sweet and innocent; the complete opposite to Lily Allen. I remember watching Leona perform on the X Factor with my housemates in my final year at University and having the weekly debate over whether any of us would fuck her. I thought that she vastly improved her looks with straightened hair, although the general consensus had always been that she had too large of a nose to overlook. I would not disagree that she has a large nose, although somehow I think that it suits her face. Leona does possess beautiful eyes, however, which I find particularly attractive. Leona was very slim on the X Factor. Since then she has become curvier and has always said in her interviews that she does not adhere to strict diets. She exercises regularly and eats what she wants. This attitude has always won her fans amongst women. I think that she has a good figure, albeit a large ass and quite chunky legs, which are not necessarily negative traits in a woman.

The kind of unassuming non-sexual vibe that Leona gives off me ideas as to what she would be like in the bedroom. I would assume that she would not be the type of girl who would let you kiss her on the first date let alone put out. It might take a number of months and dates before she would trust you enough to let you sleep with her. Leona is slightly younger than myself and I think that she would be nervous when sleeping with someone for the first time. I would imagine that she would tremble as you kissed her and ran your hand down her back to grab her ass. Kissing would be tame at first, although using her hands to explore her body would make her kiss you more hungrily, progressively using more toungue. In spite of this I think that she would still remove her clothes with some trepidation. Leona has amazing skin and it would be no different for the rest of her body; I would imagine it to be soft and have the subtle, yet alluring smell of honey and milk.

I think that one would have to take the lead with Leona. I would envisage starting by kissing her body, slowly circling her dark hard nipples with my tongue. This would start to turn her on and she would run her hands through your hair as slid down her body towards her pussy. I imagine that Leona would have a thin strip of pubic hair and after fingering and eating her out for a few minutes she would be almost begging for sex. I think that a bit of foreplay would loosen her up and release some of her inhibitions. I am not sure why but I think that Leona would come quite easily and prefer to do so through penetrative sex rather than foreplay.

At first, she would be what I would refer to as a "Missionary Station", i.e. she would lie there whilst you fucked her. However, this is not to say that she would be bad. I think that after she had come the first time, assuming that you already had not, she would do what she could to bring you to climax. She would enjoy being fucked whilst being on top and her catches of breath and gentle moans would create greater arousal. I would not imagine her to be incredibly loud during sexual intercourse based on her reserved personality, although they do say that sometimes the quiet ones can surprise you. She is a woman who likes to be treated with respect. Therefore I do not think that she would be fond of dirty talk, preferring to be complimented throughout. I would imagine that she would like to bask in the post-sex glow with kisses, cuddles and stroking of her hair and hips to help her drift into sleep. Once she has had sex this first time I believe that she would become more impressionable and open to ideas in the bedroom. However, I cannot foresee that she would ever let you fuck her in her ass.

As you can see I have put quite a lot of thought into thinking of Leona in this regard. Imagining these scenarios with other female popstars would require much less thought and this is what Leona has to change. I hope that Simon Cowell has some grand plans for her image and music after her world tour this year.

Account Opened 2010

Yesterday I had meetings all over the North West of England. I left West London at twenty past seven in the morning and had meetings in Stoke, Liverpool, Preston and finally Manchester. I concluded my final meeting in Manchester at about half past four and made my way to the Crowne Plaza hotel where I was staying for the night. I had previously messaged Glin to see if she would be available to hook up and she told me that she would be available. We agreed to meet at 8pm.

In spite of the onset of exhaustion (driving three hundred miles in a day seemed to wear me down) I made sure that I set aside some time to use the gym located on the Mezzanine floor of the hotel. The "Fitness Centre" was ill-equipped; even more so than the gym at work. I ran four miles in just under thirty-two minutes to work up a sweat and then jumped straight into the shower. After my shower I ate dinner at the Glasshouse Restaurant: I had the Soup of The Day (tomato, unsurprisingly) and the beef burger. The burger was very tasty and was made with some good ingredients: 8oz ground beef, pickles, beef tomato and focaccia bread. The food seemed to re-energise me and I went back to my room to freshen up before meeting Glin.

To meet Glin I wore a dark grey slim-fitted suit (Next), fine check black and white shirt (Autograph by Marks and Spencer), black knitted tie (asos) and pointed chocolate brown shoes (Red Or Dead). She called at 8pm on the dot and I took the lift down to the ground floor to greet her at the entrance of the hotel. Glin looked good: she wore a small leather biker jacket, a smart red top and tight black jeans. She did not wear much make-up but I personally think that girls look better like this.

My hotel was very close to the Printworks and the Northern Quarter. I withdrew £30 from the cashpoint and then let her lead me to the Wetherspoons in the Printworks. It was surprisingly busy for a Thursday night although not too busy that we could not find a seat in there. We both had a couple of drinks in here. I had a Jameson's on the rocks followed by a J & B neat, whilst Glin had a couple of blue WKDs. I playfully chided Glin about this since I don't know anyone who is my age who drinks alcopops. In fact I had a good time chatting with Glin in the Wetherspoons. After an hour spent here, we left and went to the Northern Quarter to a bar called Bluu. Similarly to the pub, Bluu was very busy. The last time that I was in Manchester for a university reunion, we were supposed to start the night in Bluu before going to Tiger Tiger. However, we got there too late and the bar was at full capacity, so we ended up going to a quirky bar nearby called TV21. Last night I got to see what it would have been like to go to Bluu. I must admit that it was an impressive bar. The lighting was subtle and this added to the chilled ambience. The interior consisted mainly of padded pink leather couches and large heavy looking wooden tables. Glin and I had a couple more drinks in here before we decided to make tracks back to the hotel.

When back at my room Glin and I got down to business. Although I enjoyed her company I was still shattered, even after a few drinks. It was probably the only time in my life that I could have traded sex for sleep. However, with Glin in the mood there was no way that she was going to let me get any respite. We had sex several times throughout the night: her on top, missionary with her legs over her head, love boat, doggy style, on the bed, on the chair in the corner of the room and in front of the mirror in the bathroom. The best thing about having sex in a hotel is that it is completely neutral territory and this in itself is quite liberating. One does not have to worry about being too loud so as to not wake up a housemate. The first time that we fucked I pulled out and blew an ungodly load of come, so much so that I was sceptical if I could go again. It put me in what I can only describe as an extreme state of relaxation. I felt as if all of my joints and limbs had been unhinged. I fell asleep soon after, but when I awoke a couple of hours later, I was horny and ready to go again. Unusually, Glin seemed to be quite dry that night which presented difficulties in entering her. This could have been due to a lack of foreplay, although the last time Glin and I had sex she preferred to go straight to intercourse. She did say that she was dehydrated that night and I had to nip down to reception to get a bottle of still water at 5am which could have been the reason. Nevertheless it was great sex yet again. I think that she came at least eight times. Glin ordered a taxi which arrived at 6.30am after which I went to the restaurant for the breakfast buffet.

This was the first time that I have had sex in 2010. Hopefully my luck improves with women for the balance of year.

10km

On Sunday Hon ran a 10km race. When I talked to her on Saturday she had set herself a target of one hour and ten minutes. Although she hardly trained for it she ended up completing the course in one hour and one minute exactly. Whilst I was impressed with her performance, I would not say that I was entirely surprised. One of Hon's most admirable qualities is that she is an athlete. She was a county standard squash player and having played a couple of games of badminton with her last year, I can tell that she is adept at any racket sport. I would say that she is one of the only girls I know who can beat me at a sport.

On Monday evening I decided that I would try to run 10km myself on the treadmill at work. Pri was also training that evening and I told her to come in twenty minutes after me to help break up my run. I set off at my usual eight-minute mile pace and at the half way point I still felt quite strong. Only a blister forming on the sole of my right foot bothered me. Pri actually entered the gym after I had been running for twenty-seven minutes. I reached the five mile point in forty minutes (just like I had the Thursday before) and felt better than I had done the previous week as I passed this distance. However, the last mile and a quarter was new territory for me and I was glad that I had Pri running alongside me to inject some energy as I embarked on the unknown. I still felt good after forty-five minutes and therefore I increased the pace of my run for the final five minutes. I ended up completing the 10km in forty-nine minutes and forty seconds. This pleased me, although I admit that I felt the affects of the run in my legs at my jiu jitsu lesson last night. Both legs felt slightly leaden and I am sure that this had an impact on my energy levels. After all, it is important to note that long runs, whilst good for developing aerobic fitness, are ultimately ineffective for developing the kind of anaerobic fitness required for combat sports.

Hon has invited me to run a 10km in Windsor on May 8th. I have decided that I will commit to doing this with an aim of hopefully posting a time under fifty minutes. I will need to start doing some road running closer to the date.

Hoxton Square and Shoreditch

On Saturday night I went out in Hoxton Square and Shoreditch. This was the first time that I had been out in East London; my preference is usually Central or West London. The East End has a reputation as being very trendy, with house and funky music. Whilst I do like the idea of trendy people I hate house music. I only like cheesy music on a night out which is the reason for why I often go to Fez Club and Tiger Tiger to party.

The cause for celebration on Saturday night was due to Canadian Steak finishing his midterms. Canadian Steak is one of my best friends and I met him during my second year at Sheffield University. We both studied Law and in fact Steak helped me a lot for my Commercial exams. He is one of the funniest, most outrageous characters that I know. The first thing that to note about Steak is that he is of Persian descent. He has an obvious Canadian accent and likes to refer to his friends as "bro". He is twenty-eight years old and therefore more experienced in life than myself. There is a running joke that he is like Ryan Reynolds from "Van Wilder" (2002) in that he is still studying and partying at a somewhat advanced age. He pretty much now qualifies as a mature student. I believe that he is now on his fourth degree; Business degree in Canada, Law LLB at Sheffield, Masters LLM at Kings College London and now currently on the Legal Practice Course at the College of Law in Moorgate. For as long as I have known him, Steak consistently gets chicks. He will pretty much say anything to a girl irregardless of their reaction. If they react negatively to his banter then he simply dismisses them as having "no personality". This cavalier approach always gets him a result. Steak is one of those guys (and everybody knows at least one) who will fuck almost any girl. That is not to say that I have not seen him pull good-looking girls. However, I have seen him get with some absolute pigs in the past. More often than not he will do this just so that he can tell everyone a hilarious story.

Steak finished his final exam on Friday and went out to Whisky Mist with his course mates in Park Lane. I was invited, although a prior work committment prevented me from going. I informed Steak of my predicament on Friday night and we agreed that we would go out on the Saturday night to make up for it. After training on Saturday morning I went to visit my good friend Hon, at her new flat in Vauxhall. Along with Pri, Hon is my closest girl friend at work. I first met Hon in December 2008, when she had just joined the company, at a Christmas sales conference. Although I was not aware of it at the time I made a particularly bad first impression: I had unsurprisingly come across as cocky and obnoxious (no surprise there) and it led to her telling her family the next day that she had met some Chinese guy who was an absolute wanker.

However, a couple of weeks later when I moved into my flat in Chiswick I discovered on the first day that Hon lived on the floor above me. I recognised her as I held the door open for her (and I was certain that she recognised me), although I did not speak to her for fear that it was not her and that I would come across as a desperate loser trying to chat her up. We started chatting and hanging out a few weeks later and became incredibly close. I trust Hon as much as anyone else and was deeply saddened when her tenancy ended and she moved out in the middle of December last year. On Saturday Hon invited me round to check out her new house in Vauxhall and with Aces in Leeds visiting his girlfriend I decided to make the trip. Before I left for Hon's I gave Steak a missed call and sent him a message to touch base on plans for the evening. I wore a tight fitted grey polo shirt (Farah), black slim jeans (Topman) and white Converse trainers.

It was not until a few hours later that I received a call from Steak saying that he was planning to go out in Hoxton. I was initially disappointed: not only is Hoxton not my kind of place to go out, but it would also cost me a fortune to get back from by myself in a black cab at the end of the night. At that point I was having a really nice time catching up with Hon; we walked her pet rabbit and had gone to her local pub for some food (we both had Chicken Pesto burgers) and when Steak informed me that we were going out in Hoxton I was half tempted to sack the night off and continue hanging out with Hon. Eventually I made up my mind to hit the town with Steak, for the experience more than anything else.

Steak lives in a plush single bedroom flat in the heart of St Paul's. From his room, you can literally hear the chiming of the bells from the cathedral. Normally it is not too much of an issue to get to his crib - 10 minute walk to Turnham Green Tube Station, take the district line to Hammersmith, change trains and ride the Piccadilly Line to Holborn, change trains for the final time and ride the Central Line for two stops to St. Paul's. His flat is a three-minute walk from the station. However, on Saturday they closed Turnham Green station and the replacement bus service was far from frequent. To my frustration I had to get a black cab to Knightsbridge, which cost me £15.60 to catch the Piccadilly Line.

When I reached Steak's place he showed me the reason for why we were going out in East London instead of Central. He displayed a bill for £1477.75 from the previous night at Whisky Mist. In case I forgot to mention earlier, another one of Steak's qualities is that he knows how to party. He parties the North American way, i.e. VIP and bottles of spirits. The bill included the following drinks to my recollection: bottle of Belvedere (£185), Jack Daniels (£150), magnum of Grey Goose (£380), bottle of Dom Perignon champagne (£260) along with other small drinks. This was all topped of by a £192 service charge. If I got a bill this large after a night out I know that I would be borderline suicidal. Steak wanted to ensure that the Saturday night would be relatively cheap. Going out in Central would offer too many temptations for both of us, namely expensive strip clubs.

We took the tube to Old Street and met his course mate, Birdman at a pub outside the station. After couple of bottles of Corona there we made our way to Hoxton Square. We went into a bar called Zigfrid and Underbelly. The first thing that I noticed when I got in there was that I was not dressed for the occasion. The bar was colourful and trendy, although from the music blaring out of the stereos it was clearly indie. I wore a pink shirt, multi-coloured stripe tie, charcoal waistcoat (all from asos), black slim jeans (Topman), white studded belt (Guess) and white pointy shoes (Zara). Although I thought that I looked sharp I would concede that I probably looked like a cunt to everyone else in there. I have a new rule based on this night: any club which has more than one girl with a pink wig is just not going to be my kind of venue. We left there after one drink and made our way to another bar called Legion. Once again the music in here was shit. No one was dancing, preferring to stand around looking miserable. At one point Birdman pointed out that it might have been a gay bar. However, a quick check with the cute barmaid allayed our fears.

Birdman went after a couple of drinks at Legion, leaving Steak and I to our own devices. I would have been quite content to go back to Steak's at this point. It was about 1am and up to that point the night had been mediocre and relatively expensive. However, Steak had other ideas and led me to Club Aquarium on Old Street itself. Entry into Club Aquarium was £12 each and we were informed on the door that it was 70s music night. I am not a fan of 70s music, although at least one can dance to it. The inside of the club itself reminded me of Fusion and Foundry at Sheffield Student Union. It very much had that feel about it. There were a lot of women and hardly any men which was a positive, albeit most of the women were over the age of thirty-five. There was generally a fun atmosphere, although the club's unique selling point is that there is a swimming pool located next to the main room. I peered in to see that there were a few bikini-clad girls frolicking in the pool which made me regret not bringing a pair of swimming shorts to join in the debauchery.

I got dancing with one girl on the main stage, called Becky. She was quite tall, brunette and had a angular face with pretty features. She approached me to dance and I started to think that I was in there after ten or so minutes of grinding up against each other. She was slim but had a great peach of an arse. However, after this time she told me that she had to leave as there was a taxi waiting outside to take her to a different club. She thanked me for the dance, gave me a peck on the cheek and made her exit. From that point onwards people started leaving in dribs and drabs so that by 3am there were no hot chicks left, with the exception of the stunning twenty year old barmaid who told me that she was half English, half Moroccan. Steak and I left soon after even though the club was open until 9am. The night did improve once we got into Club Aquarium, although I cannot say that I would go back to the East End to party again. At least I can say that I have been out there and can tick it off the list of things to do in London.

BBC Radio 4

Yesterday morning I went to train jiu jitsu at Andy Roberts' in Farnborough. When I strolled through the car park to the academy, I noticed two women standing outside. I got changed into my kimono and warming up I saw the women talking to Andy and another one of the students, Mike. The slightly older woman of the two then put on a spare kimono lent to her by Andy and joined in with the drills after the warm up. Yesterday we were working on some judo throws, followed by some techniques from the scissor sweep. Whilst working on the techniques I asked a student who I was partnered with, James, who the women were. He informed me that they were from BBC Radio 4 and were doing a story about Mike (a white belt with four stripes) who is training for an upcoming cage fight in May. The other woman who was not partaking in the training had a microphone, a dictaphone and a digital camera and was taking notes throughout.

After the drills, as is normal practice for a lesson, there were guard passing contests followed by sparring. Andy forgot to pair me up which would have meant me sitting out for the first spar. However, Mike intervened and offered to fight me, which I accepted. I am slightly taller and probably about 14-15lbs heavier than him. Therefore I had the size and strength advantage as well as the technical advantage. Nevertheless it close fight. I pulled half guard on the bottom and executed a sweep to put him on his back before moving to side control. In looking for an arm lock I got greedy and did not secure my knee on belly position which allowed him to reverse me. It was more difficult the second time around to sweep him, although after a bit more of a struggle I managed to reverse him again. This time I ended up in his half guard and it took me about ninety seconds to pass to side control. This time I went to the north-south position to look for an arm bar or kimura. However, he was defending both of his arms well by keeping his elbows tucked in. With one minute remaining I decided to go for a choke from the knee on belly position again. Mike is strong for his size and explosive which allowed him to escape the position again. This time in anticipation, however, I made sure that I maintained my balance. In the ensuing scramble he turned his back to me and I saw his neck exposed in that moment. I grasped this opportunity seized his neck in a rear naked choke. It was in deep as I managed to slip my forearm underneath his chin immediately. Although I only got one hook in, it was enough to keep me pinned to his back. Mike did not tap at first, although I knew that there was no escape. He eventually submitted just before the time elapsed.

As soon as I had released the choke, the two women who had been watching the spar came to interview me. "That was really amazing! How did you get the choke? It was really fast!" I answered the questions honestly and humbly: it was a close fight and I managed to capitalise on an opening. It was a nice ego boost to start the weekend.

Five miles

My office has a gym on the ground floor and whilst it is devoid of any decent equipment, particularly for someone who enjoys throwing around heavy iron, it has enough to keep in shape and more importantly, it is free. There are three treadmills, two stationary bikes, two cross-trainers (it is my opinion that these are useless for developing good cardio) and one rowing machine. There is a selection of resistance machines: adductor machine, lat pulldown, preacher curl, seated shoulder press, pec deck, seated chest press and hamstring curl. Although there is good resistance on all of these machines (I can probably lift about 75% of each of the stacks; considerably less on the hamstring curl and pec deck), I am a firm believer in using free weights where possible. This is where the biggest problem with the work gym lies: the dumbells only go up to 15kg and there are set barbells, the heaviest of which is 35kg. I have had to squat for high repetitions with the 35kg which is something that I hate doing. At my previous Bannatyne gym there was a squat rack where I could regularly squat 100kg plus, so getting used to this has been frustrating.

Today I finished my work earlier than Pri and feeling tired decided to hit the gym before she was ready. It is normal practice for me to run for 20 minutes at 7.5mph which is 8 minute mile pace. I cover 4km over this time, although sometimes if I am feeling energetic that day I will up this to 5km in 25 minutes. After I have finished my run I then lift weights for a further half an hour before showering and either returning to my desk to finish some work or going straight home.

I detest running. I wish that there was some other way to get a hard body but there simply is not. I have found over the years that it is an essential part of maintaining core fitness. Every elite athlete runs several times a week. Today I felt quite strong during my run. Pri joined me on the adjacent treadmill after I had been running for eighteen and a half minutes, intending to run for twenty minutes herself. I had only wanted to run 25 minutes today, although I decided to run alongside for at least ten minutes. Yesterday was her first gym session since she returned from Australia and she only managed sixteen minutes at 5mph. I thought that I would stay on the treadmill a little longer to motivate her. However, after another ten minutes I still felt good so I decided to push on. Previously the longest I had run on a treadmill at this pace was 32 minutes (4 miles) before getting too fatigued and out of breath. As I passed the 32 minute mark my legs felt tired, although my breathing was not laboured. 4Music's Top 10 Biggest Tracks was on the television at this point, which was a welcome distraction from my tiredness. "Rudeboy" by Rihanna was number 10, followed by "I Got You" by Leona Lewis at number 9. There was an advert break after Leona's video during which I completed my forty minutes. For the last minute I increased the speed to 10mph to make sure that I hit the five mile mark just shy of forty minutes: 39 minutes and 57 seconds which is a new personal best for me. I burned 581 calories.

That was the only exercise I did today. I was too tired to lift weights afterwards and I went home shortly after. I celebrated by consuming eight chocolate toffee crisp bites from Sainsbury after I had finished my nutritious meal of trout fillets and brocolli.

Bitterness

I noticed yesterday that I had not communicated with fey1989 from plentyoffish since the previous week. I had held an uninspired Facebook chat conversation with jadeglasto on Sunday so I had that base covered. In the interest of keeping things ticking over with fey1989, I text her in the middle of the day to see how she had been keeping. I always keep my personal phone on silent because people in the office have laughed at my dramatic rock ringtone ("Still Fighting" from the Final Fantasy 7 soundtrack). Therefore I did not check my messages until about an hour later at which point I saw that I had two from fey1989. The first simply said "Who this" followed by the second which said "?" I found it strange that she would not have known who I was; the only way that this could have happened is if she had deleted my phone number and as far as I was aware, I had given her no reason to do so. I text her back identifying who I was to which she has not replied.

Fuck this stupid cunt. She is the one who contacted me, obviously having liked the look of me from my plentyoffish profile, and now she has made the decision to cease all interactions. I don't think that she realises that I have better things to do with my time than respond to her asinine text messages. I do not even want to fuck her loose vagina anyway. Congratulations on getting knocked up at an early age, being a single mother, having half a helping of brains and no future prospects of which to speak you cunt.

Condolences

On February 23 a lamp post next to Chiswick Town Hall fell onto a pram fatally injuring a baby boy. The boy died two days later in hospital. This happened about forty yards from my house and it is undoubtedly an awful tragedy. The council have been doing roadworks at the top of Sutton Court Road for as long as I have lived there. I suspect that the continually repairs could have weakened the foundations surrounding the lamp post which may have led to the accident.

Walking past the scene to get to the high street is a sombre experience. There has been an outpouring of sympathy as many people have left flowers and soft toys. On Saturday I saw that there was a queue outside of the Town Hall to sign the Condolences Book. A lot of mothers, prams and babies in tow, stood crying at the point at which the baby was killed to pay their respect. I stood in the queue to sign the book. I could see from previous entries that the baby's name was Tommy. I left a message which simply said "I am so sorry for your loss. My thoughts and prayers are with you."

Tucky Day

Yesterday I had met up with Tucky for a day out in Central London. I know Tucky from Sheffield University. We both studied Law and became acquainted after seeing each other on nights out in Gatecrasher and Kingdom (this is now called Embrace). Tucky is a very pretty girl; at present she has shoulder length mouse blonde hair, a thin face with a sharp nose. In my opinion her best feature is her eyes - they are large, hazel and framed by thick eyelashes. In spite of a diet consisting of waffles, fish fingers and baked beans, she has a slim body that many girls would envy.

She had a boyfriend when we first met and thus rejected my advances. However, in our final year when she split up from her boyfriend our friendship developed into something more. We started sleeping together and I became very fond of her. The sex with Tucky was unbelievable - I can say with absolute certainty that it was the best I have ever had. I believe that the end of university came at a bad time for us; whilst I wanted to continue our romantic involvement we gradually drifted apart and she decided that she only wanted to be friends. She went travelling and eventually ended up getting back with her boyfriend. At the time I am not ashamed to say that this absolutely crushed me. To date, I think that she is the only girl I have been in love with and for a while I distanced myself from her to ease the pain of rejection. I would say that I only really got over her when I started liking another girl around this time last year. Since then we have become best friends: I go to her for advice and vice versa.

To meet Tucky I wore a multi-coloured patterned short-sleeved shirt (asos), black knitted tie (asos), fitted dark jeans (All Saints), thick tan leather belt (H & M), tan Chelsea boots (Jones Bootmaker) and a black leather biker jacket (H & M). She wore a dark blue military buttoned three quarter length coat, a black baggy dress with embellishments on the shoulders, black tights and brown leather boots. Having set the rendezvous point as Victoria Station (since this is where her train comes in from Kent) I had initially planned to go to Somerset House for London Fashion Week. I was not aware that I needed tickets for the weekend event and when we got there it had sold out. Fortunately I had looked into some free London attractions the previous day and ended up visiting the Sir John Soane museum near Holborn Tube station. I was very impressed with the engineer's collection of Ancient Roman artefacts and paintings and it exceeded my expectations. We then sat in a Costa and chatted over a green tea before heading on the tube to Piccadilly Circus.

On the way there I mentioned the Trocadero and was surprised to learn that Tucky had never visited it. I intended to briefly show her around before heading to the National Gallery. However, to my amazement Tucky loved the Trocadero. We spent a lot of time watching people play on the dance and percussion arcades as well as dumping a pound's worth of 2p's into one of those sliding machines. At one point Tucky was scolded by an old woman when she tried to play on her machine as she left to get more change.

After a solid couple of hours in the Trocadero we decided to go to Ripley's Believe It Or Not. However, the queue was very long and after standing in it for 10 minutes we abandoned the idea and went to Exchange Bar in Gerrard Street right in the middle of Chinatown. It amuses me when I think about how we must have looked yesterday: an oriental male who was introducing his white girlfriend to his culture: videogames and his people in Chinatown. I had made a reservation at Grace (formerly Sugar Reef) for dinner in Great Windmill Street. We both had Thai fish cakes for a starter and I had salmon for my main whilst Tucky had chicken fajitas. She selected a nice Sauvignon Blanc to accompany the meal.

Grace has been renovated over the last six months and the club downstairs now has a much trendier decor. Tucky and myself spent most of our time getting drunk sitting in a funky chair. The rest of the night went by in a blur and there are gaps in my memory. I can remember nailing some Jagerbombs in Jewel bar and then getting a cab back to my place to sleep. Tucky had a horrible hangover this morning and she made intermittent trips to my bathroom to make herself sick. It was not pleasant hearing her retch - it was so loud that I could hear her down the corridor behind the closed door of my room. Consequently we cuddled in bed for more than half of the day before she felt well enough to move. Since I was going back to Essex to see my parents I told her that I would give her a lift back to Kent. The one good thing about Tucky being ill on the drive back was that she was powerless to complain about my singing to the radio. By the time I dropped her off at her house she seemed a lot better and was ready to eat something. I would argue that is was my soothing vocals throughout the journey which aided her recovery.

Rage

Yesterday I attended a customer meeting in Loughborough which went exceptionally badly. Currently my working hours are consistently 8.30am - 8pm due to the fact that my manager has been offsick for the last six weeks. This has left a hole in the business which I have had to fill. I was ill-equipped at the start, although my knowledge and skill-set has come on leaps and bounds through my endeavours. It is a wonder that I have been able to write my blog each evening.

Therefore due to being under-resourced I have not had the time to visit any customers. This is the first time that I have visited the customer since the end of November and unsurprisingly the Director was not happy. He refused to look at me when he shook my hand and as soon as I sat down he used the meeting as an opportunity to launch a personal attack.

I understand that sucking dick is a large part of any sales job. Most of the time it is an essential tool to build relationships with clients. It is a well known saying in sales that people buy people more than the products themselves. If you can strike up a rapport and deliver results with a client then you will be able to sell him almost anything. I can accept this, although I was not appreciative of the way that this particular Director spoke to me. I found him to be very abrasive and rude which is an attitude to which I will always disengage. After the first five minutes he was threatening to "kick me out" of his office. Now for me, when somebody uses this kind of language it immediately gets my back up.

After an hour and half of constant insults and niggling jibes about my recent non-attendance my rising anger led to violent thoughts. My hands under the table were trembling with rage. I can only describe this Director as having a diminutive stature: about 5ft 7in with a very narrow frame; therefore easy meat for me in a combat situation. I imagined leaping from my chair, across his desk to land a short straight right hand. Launching myself in this way to throw the strike would reduce some of its power and impact since I would not be able to plant my feet. However, catching him in the jaw or face would be more than enough to stun him or possibly knock him off his chair. Once on the floor I would set upon him with controlled aggression. He would most likely start to throw some punches of his back which would not have any power. As alluded to previously, power in punches is generated by planting one's feet to twist the hips into the strike. Off his back he would only be able to throw arm punches which would cause me few problems even if he were to catch me in the face. They would be nothing more than a brief annoyance before I would grab the back of his head with my left hand and drive my right knee into his solar plexus to pin him to the floor. For somebody who is not used to ground fighting this position can be debilitating; I would pull on the back of his neck to drive and twist my knee into his sternum at a different angle. At this point I am sure that I would see a grimace and yelp of pain on his face. The thoughts going through his head would be ones of fear, wishing that he had not continually fucked with me. I would take pleasure in seeing this pain and my racing heartbeat would bring a sort of deranged smile to my face which would make him think that I was a fucking maniac.

In this position the pain caused would have stopped his futile attempts at trying to attack me. The only thing that would be in his mind would be to alleviate the pressure on his solar plexus from my knee, which would be causing him shortness of breath as well as excruciating pain. He would inevitably use both hands to try and push my knee off. In an open space I could grab a hold of his arm, spin, fall back and break his arm in split second. However, in the confines of small space his attention on my knee would leave his head open for strikes. Yanking on the back of his neck with my left hand to control the position would leave my right hand free to rain down hard punches and elbows. Thirty seconds is all I would need to turn his face into a bloody mess - gashes under both eyes, a split lip and a shattered nose which would make his eyes water. I would apply a tight guillotine choke whilst he was lying helpless until he lost consciousness before straightening my suit and tie, mopping my sweaty brow, allowing my breathing and heart rate to return to normal, picking up my bag and casually exiting the scene.

Of course this did not happen. Instead I took his abuse with good humour and laughed. I am certain that this only made him madder but it was the only thing I could do stop myself from ripping his head off. I agreed to meet again next Friday. He assured me that if I am not there then I should not bother turning up at his office for the rest of the year.

asos order

I received a package from asos.com today. For the second successive weekend I could not find anyone to go partying with and hence I bought some clothes. I ordered a charcoal waistcoat, a multicoloured striped tie and a white belt which came to £47 in total. I am very happy with the waistcoat and tie. I think that the tie would be best worn with a white or black shirt. The waistcoat is the same cut and tight fit as my tweed one which received very positive comments at Pri's birthday. However, I am not as content with the white leather belt. I own a white belt with a metal studded cross buckle from Guess Jeans. I love this belt and always wear it with a pair of white pointy shoes from Zara (officially my dancing shoes). I wanted another belt to go with the shoes. The first problem with the belt from asos, is that it is too thin which makes it more suitable for casual wear. Secondly, it is too loose, although it is my fault that I ordered this size. The belt only came in two sizes: small/medium and medium/large. I have a 32 inch waist and took a cautious approach in ordering the medium/large size. In spite of my disappointment it only cost me £12 so I will not bother returning it. I can probably wear it with my Adidas Superstars or Converse trainers.

Cheryl Cole (soon to be Cheryl Tweedy again)

On the drive to work this morning, the headline story across all of the half-hourly radio news bulletins was that Cheryl Cole had finally decided to split from her husband and Chelsea left-back, Ashley Cole. This has not come as any surprise since it is not the first time that Ashley has been exposed cheating; if anything I am astounded that the marriage has lasted as long as it has.

Since she will soon be single again, it got me thinking that I would massively be her type. I am in no way suggesting that I am in her league. Her beauty is unquestioned: flawless hair and skin, sultry brown eyes, a dazzling set of straight white teeth which would not look out of place on a toothpaste advert and an absolutely breathtaking body to top it all off. A string of chart-topping hits with Girls Aloud and her presence on the judging panel of X Factor has propelled her to new heights of fame which I am sure that even she never believed she would reach. Cheryl has become something of an English institution, revered by men and women alike.

She has publicly stated that she goes for men of mixed-race and being married to Ashley Cole is clear evidence of this. She has also proven this on X Factor since the male contestants she has singled out as "gorgeous" have generally been mixed-race and have tended to have shaved heads. I am oriental and not mixed-race, although I firmly believe that I have the type of look that would appeal to her. I have very short hair and in comparing myself to Ashley I am a couple of inches taller and would estimate that I have more muscle mass. Admittedly he has more chiselled facial features, although I am certain that my wit and banter would more than make up for this. Furthermore, in the words of Tony Montana from Scarface, Cheryl strikes me as having that look in her eye which suggests that she has not been fucked in over a year. I am confident that I could take care of her needs in this department: with a girl who looks as good as her I could maintain an erection for days on end.

I just need to be in the right place at the right time (wearing my lucky pair of white Calvin Klein boxers) and let events unfurl. I wonder how often Cheryl goes to Tiger Tiger in Piccadilly Circus...

Hi-tops

Hi-top trainers have been in fashion for men and women for the last year now. When I think of hi-tops the first image which comes into my mind is of La Roux wearing a grey pair in the video for "Bulletproof" (2009). The demand for hi-tops started in the 1980s which I believe was a decade interspersed with faux-pas and success for fashion. Whilst I hate the heavily shoulder-padded suits, I admire the sharp suits, starched shirts, coloured hankerchiefs and thick braces from films like "Wall Street" (1987) and "Scarface" (1983).

In my opinion hi-tops are very attractive trainers. I have seen a few pairs on asos.com which I have been close to purchasing. I saw a nice multi-coloured pair which would go with pretty much anything casual, irrespective of colour co-ordination, for £25. However, the only reason that I have not bought a pair thus far is because they need to be worn with one's jeans tucked in.

Whilst I am a fan of hi-tops, I am vehemently against skinny jeans. A few years ago when I was slightly heavier and bigger than I am now, I prefered to wear quite baggy jeans. This was also due to a hip-hop influence in my fashion sense at that time. I have considerably smartened up my appearance since I have left University and I now wear fitted jeans. I have also become more streamline around my lower body which has allowed me to fit into these types of jeans. Skinny fit jeans, however, are still far too tight and uncomfortable for me to adorn. At the back end of last year I accidentally picked a skinny pair of jeans off the hanger at the TopShop flagship store in Oxford Street. In the fitting room I could barely squeeze my legs into them, let alone do zip up the fly at the top. They were testicle-squeezingly uncomfortable around the crotch region.

Now, in no way am I saying that I have thick legs. I would say that they are average size. I have always had strong legs and have squatted 150kg ass to grass in the past, although genetically they have remained relatively thin and lean (thanks Dad). In my mind, a man should seek to possess a muscular set of legs. Nothing conveys strength in a physique like tree-trunk quadriceps; even more so than a barrel-like chest or bulging biceps. Wearing skinny jeans, to me, is almost symbolic of an acceptance of physical weakness. One truly needs chicken legs to fit into them.

Unfortunately for me the types of jeans that I wear would look stupid tucked into hi-top trainers. The options are more plentiful for girls since they can be worn with tights and leggings.

Pig shit

At present I am in regular contact with the two girls who messaged me on plentyoffish. Since my last post regarding the free dating website, fey1989 has joined jadeglasto in texting me and adding me to facebook. From looking through fey1989's photos I would never have guessed that she is a mother. She has short dark hair and a cute face with what I best describe as a cheeky, impish smile. Perhaps surprisingly to me (considering she has a child) she has a tight body and a nice rack. In most of her photographs she sports a sexy pout, although there are a few shots where she smiles properly. I can see from these pictures that she has a straight set of teeth; no off-putting imperfections thus far. Aesthetically speaking, she is quite different to Jadeglasto.

However, both girls do have one thing in common: they are both as thick as pig shit. In my teens my outlook on the opposite sex, like most guys at that age, was that intelligence came a distant second to looks. Growing up in Essex I got used to interacting with stupid girls, which had an effect on formulating my beliefs. During my years at University the balance of these beliefs tilted more towards the opposite direction as I mixed with more intellectually stimulating women. Today my attitude remains essentially the same, although there are some instances which one simply cannot overlook.

Both girls seem to have nothing to say other than "Wat r u doin this weekend? x" When I tell them that I went into Central London to buy clothes their follow up question is about what garments I bought. This dull and pointless exchange then comes full circle when they then ask "Wat are u doin now hun/babe? x" Any attempt from my end to find out something insightful about them is ignored in favour of asking me another probing question, e.g. "lol hun wat r ur plans tomora? x" Their atrocious spelling and grammar only make matters worse.

I am very swiftly beginning to lose interest in both girls. However, I will continue to grind it out purely because I have absolutely nothing to lose in doing so. After all, my current mobile phone contract entitles me to unlimited free texts each month.

Pills

One Kirkland multivitamin to start the day, two Tumeric capsules to ease the swelling of existing meniscus and rotator cuff injuries post-training, two 900mg Glucosamine and Chondroitin pills to lubricate stiff joints, three large triple strength Omega 3 fish oil pills, one 500mg green tea supplement (containing the equivalent of four very strong cups of green tea) which acts as a mild fat stripper, all washed down with a Reflex "Instant Whey" protein shake which delivers 50g of high quality, fast absorbing protein to repair minute muscle tears and aid muscular growth and development.

Attn: Rihanna

I saw Rihanna's new video last night for her song "Rudeboy" on MTV Hits. It was also the first time that I had listened to the song. On my commute to and from work I had recently heard little snippets of it on Kiss FM, although I had always changed the station.

The first observation that I had about her video is that it is very colourful, bold and primitive somehow. It immediately reminded me of Beenie Man's video for his song "Dude" from 2005. My second observation was Rihanna's dancing has become much sluttier since her last appearance in the video for "Hard" off the same "Rated R" album. Some of her dance moves are identical to those of Beyonce from her video for "Videophone" (2009), particularly her butt jiggling. Rihanna displays here without a shadow of a doubt, that she is a technically proficient dancer. There is more flesh on show than ever and one cannot deny that she smoulders. Her newfound sluttiness reaches its peak at one point in the video when she is dancing with a guy and takes a peek down his shorts.

However, the new direction that Rihanna has taken with her music has not impressed me lately. "Russian Roulette" was a tame first release and only ascended the Top 40 after her appearance at the end of November on X Factor. It seemed from this song that she had come back after the success of "Good Girl Gone Bad" (2007) with an edgier, darker sound to reflect her domestic abuse last year at the hands of Chris Brown. She followed up "Russian Roulette" with "Hard" which I believe is the worst Rihanna song after "Shut Up and Drive". In this song she has way too much attitude. It is clear to me that she is not hard - the stories that I have read about me makes me think the opposite: she is a whiny, selfish diva.

Her lyrics for "Rudeboy" are quite shocking in a sense considering how clean-cut Rihanna previously was. In the chorus she sings "Come here rude boy, boy, can you get it up? Come her rude boy, boy, is you big enough?" It seems apparent now that she not only wants a men who can pleasure her deep into the night but also a men who have large cocks. I have no problem with her saying what prefers in the bedroom nor would it make me uncomfortable in the knowledge that I would not measure up (not that I would ever get the chance to fuck Rihanna). It would not be the first time that a female solo artist has touched on this subject. I remember the line "Got a nice package alright guess I'm gonna have to ride it tonight" from Janet Jackson's song "All For You" (2001). However, in Rihanna's case it is completely different. She is still a young woman (turns 22 tomorrow according to Wikipedia) and I don't think that she has done enough in her career so far to justify such a stark change. She should have released at least one more pop album. In my opinion she is about as manufactured a popstar as you can get. She has built a big fan base with poppy upbeat hits like "Disturbia" and "Don't Stop The Music". Her music was not exactly meaningful, but it was formulaic pop at its absolute best.

Now it would seem as though she is keen to make some sort of statement with her music, the result of which has been awful so far. Every one I know who owns "Rated R" has said it is mediocre. From the singles she has released to date I would file it under "R" for "rubbish". I hope that she returns to her roots for her next album.

Book report: The Twilight Saga (Warning: Spoilers)

As you have probably already gathered, almost everything that I do is geared towards making myself more alluring to the opposite sex. For example, I work hard to get a promotion, to make more money, to buy better clothes and to afford myself a better status, which should make me more attractive to women. I spend hours in the gym each week, train jiu-jitsu and force myself to eat plain, dry, rubbery, sauceless chicken breasts in an effort to improve my physique which, again, should make me more attractive to women. My reading habits have also started to reflect my ultimate goal.

I would consider myself to be an avid reader. In the last two years of my life I have read almost forty novels. With the exception of nineteenth century classics I will read almost anything. I read because I enjoy to do so. I find it educational more often than not and I can appreciate the writing styles of different authors. Whilst I like the wordsplay of Haruki Murakami's stories, my favourite novel is probably "American Psycho" by Brett Easton Ellis. For those who have read this book you can probably tell that my blog draws on many of its influences.

Since the release of the Twilight movie in 2008, there has been hysteria around the series. Stephanie Meyer's saga had already long been an international best-seller, although the movie certainly brought it to my attention and the rest of the mainstream. Almost overnight Robert Pattinson who plays the vampire, Edward, in the film became the world's most desirable man. Tucky, arguably my closest girl friend and a past romantic interest, read the books on her travels to South East Asia, Australasia and America in Spring 2009 and developed an affection for them. Since seeing New Moon she swears that she is in love with the actor who plays Jacob Black, Taylor Lautner.

Tucky has been very influential in recommending books for me to read over the last couple of years. She is a much more prolific reader than myself. She bought me "American Psycho" for my last birthday and thanks to her I have been introduced to Philip Pullman's "Dark Materials" saga. Upon her recommendation I decided over Christmas to read the Twilight Saga. I saw it as a potential opportunity to connect with impressionable eighteen and nineteen year old girls on nights out. I finished the saga two weeks ago.

The first book "Twilight" recounts the story of Isabella Swan (Bella for short) who is uprooted from her life with her mother in Phoenix to live with her father, Charlie in the quiet town of Forks in Washington State. There, she encounters the Cullen vampire family and falls in love with Edward, a stunningly handsome, charming, mind-reading, one hundred year old vampire. Edward is in fact much younger than his adoptive father, Carlisle, who is over three hundred years old. The rest of the family are made up of Esme, Alice, Jasper, Rosalie and Emmett, all of whom are equally striking in looks and some of whom have special powers. The Cullens are considered in this world to be vegetarian vampires since they pledge never to drink the blood of humans, instead hunting animals.

All of the stories are told from Bella's first person perspective. The plot is centred mainly around the attraction between Bella and Edward as they try to figure out a way to maintain a vampire-human relationship as well as make it through high school. It takes Bella a while to figure out that Edward is a vampire and during this time there is plenty of confusion. In my opinion the story is quite dull for the most part until the end where Bella is pursued and attacked by a rival coven. She is of course saved in the nick of time and the story ends with Bella being taken to the prom by Edward.

The second book, "New Moon" covers Bella's despair as Edward leaves for fear of putting her in unnecessary danger. In his absence Bella strikes up a close friendship with the younger Jacob Black. Jacob is of native American descent and his ancestors have protected Forks for generations as mythical werewolves. He later fulfils his destiny in the book and mutates into a large brown werewolf. Jacob is introduced very briefly in the first book and is indeed the person who plants the seed in Bella's head that Edward might be a vampire. He inevitably falls in love with Bella and whilst she does not feel the same way as him this creates an interesting love triangle, which includes Edward, for the rest of the series.

This book also sees the introduction of the Volturi who are essentially the ruling vampire family, residing in Italy. Believing that Bella has committed suicide, Edward decides to end his life at the hands of the Volturi only to be saved at the last minute by Bella and his sister Alice. I found this book to be better than the first although without being riveting.

In the third book, "Eclipse" Edward returns to Forks as Bella's boyfriend and the werewolves and vampires are forced to cooperate to battle an army of vampire newborns created by Victoria (a member of the rival coven from the first book) to kill Bella. This book is Tucky's favourite of the four, since (a) the story is more exciting and (b) due to the more complete development of Jacob's character. I must say that I hated the character of Jacob Black in the Twilight saga. He is desperate, clingy and pathetic in his pursuit of Bella. I can see why girls like his character since he is passionate, idealistic and open about his love. However, in my experience guys who actually behave like this are real-life scarecrows to women. I will admit that Tucky's undying devotion to him makes the character that much more odious to me.

The final part of the series, "Breaking Dawn", is by far my favourite. It is the longest book at almost 700 pages and covers Bella's and Edward's marriage, the first time they have sex, her ensuing pregnancy, motherhood and her transformation into a vampire herself (something that she has wanted since the end of "Twilight"). According to the rules of the Volturi, vampires and humans are forbidden to procreate since the offspring have an uncontrollable bloodlust, and the grand finale takes place when the Volturi march on Forks to destroy Renesmee, Bella and Edward's daughter.

Whilst the saga is not my cup of tea, I can see why teenage girls and upwards get the cream over it. I suppose that it does give one an in-depth insight into Bella's girlish notions as well teenage angst in general. It is well written, although for a male reader it does get difficult to stomach the endless references to Edward's "topaz", "butterscotch" eyes, his "sweet breath" and his "breathtaking" physique. I hope that the investment in time dedicated to reading these books will pay dividends at some point in the near future when it gives me something to talk about with young women.

I hate Personal Trainers

I fucking hate the majority of personal trainers. They parade around gyms with an air of confidence and clipboards in hand. In my opinion, it is all just a big scam to make fat, wealthy people feel good about themselves. Such people are looking for fast ways to lose weight without having to radically change their diets or exercise routines. Hence, the job of a personal trainer is to devise easy routines consisting of brisk walks on the treadmill, half-repetition squats and bicep curls with tins of baked beans which make these people feel as though they are making improvements when in reality, they are no fitter, stronger or more physically attractive than when they started. Getting into peak physical shape requires hard fucking work. I am afraid to say that there is no magical secret.

Personal trainers also have a tendency to talk shit. My good friend, Canadian Steak, has a gym membership at a Fitness First in St. Paul's. He told me recently that he was approached by a large personal trainer who told him "If you give fifty per cent and I give fifty per cent, then that makes one hundred per cent and together we can get you into better shape." What the fuck are you talking about? How about I put in one hundred per cent and you take your fifty per cent and ram it up your arse you cunt.

In spite of my views towards personal trainers, I am normally quite tolerant towards them. After all there is a market for their services and why not take advantage of this for monetary gain? My feelings have reached boiling point recently from training with Pri to help her lose weight for her holiday to Australia. Pri, to her credit, worked admirably over three weeks to lose five pounds. She can now run for twenty-three minutes non-stop and has improved her strength in that short space of time. However, Pri has an annoying tendency to point out that people (including myself) are doing exercises incorrectly. On almost every occasion that she has done this, she has done so unjustifiably.

Ass to grass squats: "You shouldn't squat so deep, it's bad for your knees."

Behind the neck military presses: "It is bad for you to do it behind the neck. It has to be in front of the neck."

Tricep dips: "Your elbows are sticking out."

I know that Pri has gotten this information from personal trainers and gym assistants at her previously fitness club. Whilst I can see Pri's point of view with certain exercises, I strongly disagree that her method is right and any other way is wrong. Pri is naturally an inquisitive person and I know that she would have obtained the opinions of a number of trainers to support her convictions so in this sense I cannot fully blame her for being miseducated. In the interest of time, let me take squats as an example. Pri does what I would consider to be half-repetition squats. As alluded to previously, according to Pri, going any lower than this is bad for your knees and is consequently the wrong way to do it.

Allow me refer to the rules of the International Powerlifting Federation, which documents the world records for squat, bench press and deadlift. Competitors are deemed to have not completed a squat to satisfactory standard if there is a "failure to bend the knees and lower the body until the top surface of the legs at the hip joint are lower than the top of the knees." This would imply that to perform a proper squat one would have to descend in the movement to at least just below parallel. Competitive powerlifters, Olympic weightlifters and many other elite athletes perform squats in this way. Does this mean that they are doing them wrong? I don't think so.

Half-repetition squats with resistance can undoubtedly build the leg muscles. Their appeal is that they are infinitely easier to do compared to full squats and one can use heavier weights. Full squats in comparison utilise more muscles, e.g. the glutes and the lower back, and thus the greater range of movement is better for building muscles and developing strength. This is a fact. Girls are always telling me that they want to tone their legs and bum. Two exercises can achieve this: squats and deadlifts. Instead they mess around on machines in the adductor machines and power plates.

There are also a whole host of exercises which one is unlikely to find in the pages of Men's Health. As a practitioner of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, a lot of exercises that I do are sport specific. Examples of these include overhead squats, windmills and Turkish get ups which improve balance and core strength. The other day whilst on the treadmill I saw a girl out of the corner of my eye performing one-handed dumbell snatches. This is a rare but useful exercise for developing explosive power. Pri, who was running beside me, told me that she was doing the exercise incorrectly and that she wanted to go over to the girl and show her the correct form. Pri had obviously mistaken this exercise as a retarded attempt to do a one-handed clean and press. I told her as much but she dismissed my opinion.

Let me stress that this is not a personal attack on Pri. I have been resistance-training for nine years and have met many people like this in and out of gyms. Their views are a direct by-product of ignorant personal trainers. I would urge everyone to not believe everything that a personal trainer tells you and I would take the training advice of an elite athlete over a personal trainer any day of the week.