I am a tad drunk. Most likely not enough for this entry to be much different from any of my others, either in style or content, but i do seem a little more prone to spelling mistakes. Well, typing errors. Naturally i never make spelling mistakes. That would never do. Spelling's always been about the only thing i was good at. I even used to correct my teachers.

I am drunk at the house of a friend. W, as he has so far (Rather infrequently, though) been called. I am drunk on alcopops, as i refuse to drink beer and its ilk, although that's at least partly so as not to stray from my stereotype. J drinks beer though, and likes it, and disdains the drinks i drink. It's disgraceful behaviour, really it is, for a boy of fifteen. Not that he really drinks much. I do get jealous, though, of the people he gets drunk with and those with whom he has important discussions over, say, a game of ping pong. I've never had a heartfelt discussion with J over a game of ping pong and in my mad little obsessive mind i don't see why anyone else should get to. It's not as if i'm even very good at ping pong. I'm not even sure whether to hyphenate it or not.

I'm wearing my hair in a style i've never ever used before. It goes down as it normally would, pretty much straight, to a certain point, and then suddenly there are lots of flicks. It looks a bit silly, really, but i rather like it, despite the fact that it looks more like it belongs on someone to whom one would normally apply the word 'bumpkin'. It only happened because when i stepped out of the shower i shook it like a dog and the flicks just appeared. I decided i liked them and sprayed some gelly stuff on. The hairstyle's a bit of a joke really. I often do that. Try to disguise the fact that i know i'm a joke by making a specific part of myself even more ridiculous. That way there's a sort of complicity in the mocking. I get (Or i used to get) mocked either way. Like this there's a sense that i've made a joke. Of course, it's not really like that any more. At least i hope not.

It saddens me, it saddens me an awful lot, that i will hardly ever see J from now on. I'll talk to him online, of course, but that isn't the same. The Ace Crew always used to stand around by the flowerbed in the quadrangle, and i'll never be part of that any more. The Ace Crew is dead. I know this because there can be no Ace Crew without me. Of course there can't. That would be madness, (I'm so terribly possessive, i hate it, i really do. But there's nothing i can do.) the Ace Crew is nothing without me.

Someone else got to be drunk with J! I want to be drunk with J! It's not fair. We could talk for hours and hours about anything anhd everything and it would be wonderful. We would talk about boys we like and he'd make me feel like so much more than i am, like he always does, and i would... I don't what i could do for him, but i'd try all the same to make it worth his while. And i would play music i like and he like it too, lots, and we would dance to it (like loons on loon tablets) and eventually i'd get to hug him, though perhaps not claim this kiss i made him promise me. Who knows. But without doubt it would be completely wonderful and magnificent and he would love me all the more for it. And at the end of it all i would somehow end up finally winning E over and convincing him to love me and it's all a wonderful fantasy that will never, ever, not ever, come true. Not that that can stop me enjoying anything. I still enjoy a long and blissful future with E from time to time.

I think my drunkenness may well now be giving way to the reflective sadness it has slid into once before. I should, perhaps, go join the other two (W and A) before i get too sad. But i still have a little to say, so not yet.

I think i may be a cat person again. I used to be, i used to adore this cat someone had, and it really liked me too, but i've hardly socialised with a cat since. Today, however, i have. It's really a lovely cat, apart from the eyes, which are downright scary. They seem to have almost nothing in the way of pupils, not even the usual vertical slits. And they are this odd milky green, which make it look really, well, blind. But i spent ages stroking it at the same time as i was reading aloud the Just So Stories. I enjoyed it and i think he did too. Not that i'm any judge. My hand now feels a bit greasy and dirty, but it's a small price to pay. I can imagine E with a cat. Actually, i think i can imagine E as a cat aswell.

I adore reading things aloud. My favourites to read out loud are Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories. The Just So Stories are magnificent to read aloud. But obviously. the whole point oif reading aloud, really, is reading to someone. And i don't get to do that. Iread the small bits of plastic and lumps of wire. That can be an advantage in that they don't care if you get bored and wonder off. But really i wish i could read aloud to someone. One day i'll have someone, and i'll read to him and he'll read to me. That's quite a simple fantasy, isn't it? It might actually come true. I used to sort of think i'd like to have a child to read to, but aswell as the obvious obstacles, it seems a bit selfish to create life just to have someone to read to.

All this, of course, is linked to the fact that i used to think i was a pretty good actor. Back in primary school we did a hugely shortened play of Little Women (We used to hae this thing, bookweek, which i absolutely adored. It culminated in each class putting on a performance of a book, but there were loads of other things too. Once we all made puppets of our favourite characters. I remember i made Reepicheep from the Chronicles of Narnia. The whole bookweek thing seemed sort of to peter out though, as time went by.) and i played Laurie, who, i never hesitated to point out, was the main male role. (Apart from the narrators, of whom they were quite a few.) I, of course, believed i was absolutely excellent, but i was probably quite bad.

At secondary school, in year eight, we read Henry V, and i was the about the only person that read the same person for pretty much the entire time. I was Henry, and i still maintain i was pretty good. This, though, was possibly because i was a little better than everyone else at reading Shakespeare without pauses at the end of each line, not because i can actually act.

Since then i've got steadily worse. There was a drama festival in, i think, yewar eleven, and that was, at the time at least, one of the worst moments of my life. I seem to remember that being one of my longer diary entries. No doubt i'll discuss it in more detaiul next time i'm stuck for something to talk about.

In the last four years i auditioned each time for the school play, and the best part i ever got was in year eleven. I polayed Simon Zealotes in Jesus Christ Superstar, and i got a whole song. It was my song. I absolutely adored doing superstar, but not just because i had quite a good part. E was in it too. He didn't have any words, but he was an apostle, which meant he and i ended up at most of the same rehearsals and hanging around in the same groups backstage. The play only started a month or two after i'd started having feelings for him, and it was the most contacct i ever had with him in my life. That was one of the times about which i wonder whether if i'd been slightly better at talking to people, specifically to him, things might have gone differently. I'm not suggesting for a moment he might have fallen in love with me, but he might perhaps have liked me a bit more. We might even have ended up friends. Maybe if we had that could have cured the obsession. But, obviously, none of that did happen, so i remain obsessed to this day. The closest i got to befriending him was becoming an expert on every single line in the play so tyhat everyone, E included, turned to me to know what was going on. I absolutely adored doing Superstar though. I cried when it was over.

This year there were two school plays, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Grease. I ended up playing Eugene in Grease. The smallest part, as far as i can remember of anyone in the entire sixth form. And i was blatantly typecast. I personally don't see myself as hugely Eugene-ish, but i think i might give that impression. I did enjoy it though. I made some friends i wish i'd kept. It seemed to me, though, that playing Eugene made me actually start to hate the main plot. It didn't seem fair to me that rather than Danny changing at all from an idiot and a bully that it has to be Sandy who changes from the sweet intelligent one to the slutty one with silly hair. Posssibly my favourite part, though, was going round the huge production line for hair and make up. Not because of the actual make-up, just because it's so nice having people fuss over you like that. Also, of course, that moment i shall treasure, where three of the girls were playing with my hair. Before that, the best compliment i'd been paid was being told i was a natural at having make-up put on.

I am a bad actor, though. I've realised this now. I managed to fool other people and myself because i can read well. For all the actual acting i do i may aswell be simply reading straight from a book. if my face shows any emotion it's a ridiculous pantomime. i am a bad actor. Not that will stop me. The university i'm hoping to get in to promises, as part of the french course, an opportunity to perform a frnech play. In French! There is no way, none at all, that i will not at least be trying out fopr that. If i get a tiny part i may drop out though. It wouldn't be the first time. But now that i have a more realistic idea of my abilities, perhaps i'll be less insulted. Probably not.

There's something wrong between J and I. I know there is, i can sense. I don't know what though. It's been like this a while. And i've sort of assumed that it was something J was doing, something he wasn't saying. But i've started to think that actually it might be me. And i think i've now forgotten my reasoning for this. I had it all worked out last night, i promise. Part of it was to do with how i eventually make some attempt to alienate every one of my friends, but i seem to remember there being more to it than that. It might have been to do with realising he wasn't and couldn't be in love with me.

I don't think i'm in love, however shallow that love may have been, with anyone at the moment. I'm still obsessed with E, of course, but i've fallen out of love with him again. And i've explained about J. Naturally, as i have no life, i will be spending most of the summer hols inside, on my own, and it's rather unlikely that anyone i feel even a passing attraction to will turn up here. So i suppose i'll have to go back to living through my books again.

I'm eighteen now. Seventeen and fifty three weeks. It's not so much the aging i dislike, more the maturity and responsibility that's supposed to come with it. The only thing about me that has properly matured is my taste in books. I've gone from reading fantasy and it's ilk to reading (or trying at least) only books written a long time ago, digested by many others and looking down on fantasy to reading pretty much anything. Including picture books, which nobody else seems quite to appreciate. But i am really running out of space. Every shelf of my bookcases that doesn't have the space in front of the books filled with useless clutter (toys from cereal boxes, decks of playing cards, remnants of GCSE art projects and the like) has a second layer of books. Last Friday i bought thirteen books in one day, possibly the most i've ever bought in one day. (apart from the complete set of Famous Five books, which were very cheap through a book club a long time ago) It's a weakness, i know, but they were all so beautiful. Three of them were picture books, including one by absolutely my second favourite picture book (Note how i refuse to refer to them as 'children's books'.) illustrator of all time. (Shaun Tan being my most favourite, of course.) It was only partly my fault. Lot's of people had given me money or book vouchers for my birthday and they expect you to spend it.

I promise my blog will get more interesting eventually. Perhaps when i go to university.

My mother is supposed to be coming home soon. Apparently in about half an hour's time. She's been in my uncle's apartment in Switzerland. And my sister's been on her school trip to Germany. This has left nme all alone here for the past few days with only my father. Fortunately he works rather long hours, but that hasn't spared me completely. For some reason he feels he has to pay more attention to me when he's the only parent around.

My dad's ok, from a distance. But he has a bit of temper, really, and he can be very grumpy. He's been ok this weekend though. He's obviously been trying hard. A couple of days ago he decided it was time for the Talk. Or at least he intimated that such a Talk may be, at some hitherto undefined point in the future, forthcoming. Only not a Talk, a Chat. "One of these days we're going to have a Chat, aren't we." I'm sure there's no need for me to spell out the subject of this 'Chat'. But it was accompanied with the usual "Whatever happens i still love you" nonsense. I hate the "Whatever happens i still love you" bit. I really just find it very, very insulting. How bad as parents do they think i think they are? Surely any person with a reasonable grasp on the world around them can assume that they're parents love them until shown sufficient evidence to the contrary. Is my father telling me that despite who i am he loves me supposed to help me come out to him? They may never say 'despite' but i swear, it's implied, it really is. There's always an unheard 'despite'. I hate, loathe and despise the suggestion that my sexuality might give them cause to not like me. It's always said as if i should somehow be grateful for the fact that my parents arent backwards, homophobic (Incidentally, i still hate that word.) idiots. I'm happy that they aren't, but if they were that would be much more their problem than it is mine. I'm sorry i've been so ineloquent here, but it's one of the few things that really annoys me.

And this little story of mine? Going rather badly. I've written two pages (Which isn't much at all in my writing.) and i can tell i'm on the brink of having E fall completely in love with and giving myself a happy ending. I'm worried it may not serve quite the purpose i intended. However, i'm a stubborn fool, and i'm rather enjoying indulging myself. So i'm going to keep on, no matter how much i end up regretting certain things.

I used to be quite a good writer, i think. My creative writing english coursework, (Written, i might add, around one o'clock in the morning of the day it was due in, thanks to my inability to get a proper start on anything more than a day before the deadline.) which i've spent about three years now boasting about, got full marks. It's besides the point that i read it recently and hated it. Absolutely riddled with cliché and self-indulgent teenage nonsense. And i won a short story competiton (Though at about 100 words it was more of a long paragraph than a short story.) once. It was in Ottakar's, for the prize of a ten pound gift voucher, but it was enough to keep me happy. And i've quite forgotten my point.

I like to carry a pad around with me everywhere. It's nearly run out now, there can only be a few pages left, but i carry it round all the same. It's become as essential as taking a book everywhere i go. I write various things in it. There are pages from a third diary in there, generally written on bus journeys, (I do a surprising amount of my thinking on bus journeys.) a few starts at blog entries, from when i couldn't wait until i had a keyboard at my fingers, and it is on this pad that i also write all of my letters. That isn't many any more, but i still write a few. I know this is nonsense, but i sort of feel as if in writing continually in the same pad i imbue every page with a little of myself, whether or not i've written on it yet. Also in there are, or soon will be, my abortive attempts ("Abortive attempt" has become a far overused phrase now, hasn't it. This will be the last time i use, apart from perhaps when i'm speaking. I'm already boycotting "happy belated birthday".) at fiction. The only one in there so far picks up from a letter i wrote to J, swearing i was going to cut myself off from various of my friends. Pretty much as soon as i'd written the letter i knew it was nonsense, but to utterly convince myself of this, that i was making the right choice in not excising J, i started writing a story imagining that i had sent the letter. It never got beyond a second page (Excluding five pages of letter.) but i had a vague plot worked out in my mind, and those two pages turned out to be enough. Mostly. Obviously i still had regrets, took up wistfulness occassionally, but mostly it worked.

So it makes sense to carry on doing things like this, i think. At the very least it'll keep me in practice. I don't want to wake up in ten years' time and realise i couldn't write a word of prose if i tried. I know exactly where i need to change my life. There is a moment, i still remember it clearly, when E walked straight past me. I should have talked to him, but i'm a coward. So now i'm going to write a me that did ask him. And he won't have been turned down, not at first, because for one thing that'll make far too dull a story, but neither will he be immediately and passionately kissed by E, as that is patently ridiculous. Even more ridiculous, that is, than the idea of me getting up the courage to talk to him. That did nearly happen. Sort of. I almost looked him in the eye, at least.

You see, i've been fantasising again. Yearning, even. It isn't good for me to yearn. There's nothing wrong with a bit of fantasy but yearning is bad. I end up believing the fantasy. Last night, in my insomnia, i thought about E. I'm confused, you see, about his recent behaviour (As reported by S and J). He seems to have been smirking and grinning in their presence. S saw him at the bus stop a couple of days ago (I'm not sure how they feel about being assistant stalkers.) and said he kept looking over (Both E and S were with friends.) at them and smiling. That, surely, is odd behaviour. Not what you expect from Mr. "Stop bugging me", (Who, in this country, actually says "bugging"? Bizarre.) is it? So somewhere inside me, soimething decides that this obviously because he's starting to belive the stuff i said was true. Obviously he's at the very least flattered, but most likely falling in love with me. Unfortunately, this delusional part of myself seems rather persuasive, and i've never been too susceptible to logic anyway.

A few nights before it was J again. I'd convinced myself that he was probably in love with me but too scared to tell me because of how i'd reacted last time. I imagined conversations between J and S about how he couldn't tell me because i'd just reject him. It's quite amazing how vain i can be. Then, the day after, i spoke to him and realised how this was completely not the case. I started wondering if he actually cared about me at all. For a while now i've been saying "I love you" at the end of conversations, because i do, or did, love him. I've got confused again now. but then i saw that maybe i shouldn't be saying it. He responded, generally, but he never said it first. He's said before he has "weird love feelings", but i began to wonder, and still do, really, if those feeling had dissipated. And it isn't really something i can ask without seeming even more of an obsessive. So the nub and gist of it is i'm no longer in love with J. Though i probably will be again next time i see him. I sort of hope so, he's nice to be in love with, whether or not he loves back.

And then, of course, there's the poor fool who's fallen in love with me. This is the most confusing thing of all. I just have no idea what to do, what to say. Because he deserves to be loved. But i don't. Not like that. I've hardly seen him in ages, and when i do i don't know how i should speak to him. I'm afraid of being arrogant, or patronising, or any number of things i often end up being. I don't want to assume it's a huge passionate love, because why should anyone feel that for me? If i do think that then i'm vain. But then i end up belittling his feelings, which really is just as bad. And i think we need to talk about it, but neither of us seems willing to start such conversation. And i doubt either of us knows what we'd say if it did start.

Saw my little sister, R, off yesterday. She's going to Germany on a school trip. They left a little past midnight, so i drove up with her and my dad to the school. It's not a long way, hardly worthy of the drive at all, but i suppose it was because of her rather heavy looking suitcase. I, as always when i get the chance, went barefoot. I think i'm going to miss her. It will definitely be a lot duller around here with just me and my dad, (My mother having also gone on holiday with some friends, to a chalet my uncle has an apartment in in Switzerland.) who i often don't get on with that well.

My mother had hoped that my sister would go to my school's sister school. There are normally one or two joint activities between the two school's each year, including the school plays. But my sister didn't really want to. I think partly because she was afraid if she went to a grammar school she'd end up like me. She went instead to the local school, which isn't actually all that bad, as far as i know. It seems to be better equipped than my school. (I refuse to refer to it as 'my old school'.) And at least she was with a lot of her friends.

What was odd though, was the feeling of nostalgia. I seem to feel this way quite a lot, about almost anything. I think the reason was, vaguely, that if i'd gone to that school, i might have come out different. Better. For one thing, it's a mixed school, and it often seems that, in keeping with my stereotype, i do get on better with girls than boys. Apart from gayboys of course. I might have turned out better able to speak to people, for one thing. And i'd have been closer to people i'd gone to primary school with. They might even have ended up liking me. Or tolerating me in a similar way to the people at my school, at least.

But it's pointless really. The group of people that i'd been friends with (Which i seemd to split off from towards the end. I'm sure that's much more my fault than i ever took credit for.) ended up going to all different places. They were all girls, i was the only boy in our little group. One of them left about halfway through year six, i think. I was often quite mean to her. I really regret that now. The only person i still know is L, who i decided to get in touch with at the end of year eleven. I sent a letter to her school, which evidently she did get, as she responded. I actually got her reply on the first day of work experience, which made me much happier and excited generally, so my day wasn't as bad as i'd expected. We communicated for a while by letter. I've only heard her voice once in the last seven years, and that was over a year ago, when i was on the French exchange. Neither of us turned out to be brilliant at keeping up to date with our letters, though. When i finally got MSN (Which i pretty much credit for saving my life.) though, we were able to speak regularly and still do, and she's tremendous fun to talk to. I'd know count her as one of my best friends, i think. I'm definitely very glad of that letter i sent. I do wish i'd sent more though, to other old friends.

I sometimes see people i know on the bus but, being me, the social incompetent, i never say anything. Never more than a quiet 'hello', at least. Although they never seem much better, and these are people i always remember as being much more conversationally gifted than me. I even shared a birthday party with one of them once, as her birthday was only the day after mine. Everyone, though, looks pretty much the same as i remember them. It's quite scary, really, as i suppose it means i can hardly have changed in the last seven years either. But i hope my personality, at least, has changed. I was as horrible as those of us "at the foot of the social ladder" are ever able to be. So i was horrible to my friends, but not to the people who i didn't really like. Thinking about it, i am still like that. Perhaps a little less so, but that's still bad. And i don't think there's much i can do about it. I've never successfully managed, really, to change who i am before, just to exert a little control over the way i behave.

I reflected, last night, on the fact that i would be blogging this (I don't deliberately plan this thing, but i've started thinking in blog now, so as soon as anything happens, i've started mentally typing it. This has pretty much replaced the imaginary conversations and diary entries. Actually, i miss the imaginary conversations.) on the last day of my last year at my school. As i type this all my friends in the school are enduring the final assembly, an hour-long affair pretty much despised by most people who undergo it. It's mainly just a frenzy of prize-giving, accompanied with a little speechifying by the various teachers who are leaving, (This year including one of my favourites, Ms E (E for English, which i suppose makes my other favourites Mr E, Mr F and Ms L.) and the headmaster (Who will be wearing his swishy cape right now. He's constantly flouncing about the place in that old rag. (Perhaps i'm being a little loose with language here. I can't really imagine Mr H flouncing anywhere. Sweeping, perhaps. He sweeps about the place in his cape.)) and the school song. I never hated the school song quite as much as we were meant to. And i never joined in the chorus of coughing around the third verse which, when it was briefly stamped out, one of my friends was actually nostalgic for. The school song may reflect sentiments i've never particularly been desparate to claim as my own, (Most of it seems to refer to life being a game of cricket, and so on. Sport has never been my thing.) but i always try sing it with a little more enthusiasm than most people, though it's always hard to actually try sing above the dirge produced by most of the school.

It's pretty much over now, my last year. I suppose this means i can no longer refer to myself as a pupil. I'm now officially an 'old boy', with the disgusting tie to prove it. It really is a bad tie. It looks like toothpaste gone mouldy.

Will the sun start shining now the summer hols (Yes, i read a lot of Enid Blyton when i was very young.) have officially started?

P sent me an email three days ago. (Actually, i've just noticed he didn't send it to me. He sent it to J, via myself and S. Assuming i've understood the various twiddly bits at the top of the email.)

"OK I confess. It was unpleasant, unplanned, drunken and unwanted, and quite frankly he is disgusting, but I was too inebriated to care anyway. And about the 'kiss', I wasn't being unnaturally secretive or 'squirmy', because there was no desire there. Anyway, I have paid the consequences and I'm as hurt as anyone (assuming you are also hurt) – as well as embarrassed that I would lower myself to his level, I will probably continue to be valued only (or mainly) by the people that I don't really value back. Such is the price of deceiving people. But I'll probably carry on doing it for the rest of my life nonetheless, whether I want to or not.

I know that I said no more emails, but I thought you'd either want or deserve to have this one. Know that I feel that I have wasted something."

I wasn't entirely sure, at the time, exactly what he was confessing to. Whether he just meant the kiss, or if he was talking about everything the rumours said. I asked him yesterday and he told me that he had meant everything. I was vaguely annoyed, as i had once again started to believe him that nothing had happened, but mostly relieved really. Although i still can and probably will feel somewhat guilty about all this, i believe now that i did the right thing. I told no lies, accidental or otherwise.

Whether or not J ever does, i know that i will forgive P. I'd like to say this is because really i'm a forgiving person, but i'll actually blame it once again on my pathetic inability to remain steadfast on anything and resist his pleading that he doesn't want to do the things that he does. That may be true, but i do think he is too ready to do hings and then use that as his excuse. And i've been drunk more times than him and never ended up kissing him. I, though, failed to see how pathetic the excuse of drunkenness was until it was pointed out to me, and D was right, "You don't lose all sense when you are drunk, you still have your thoughts." And thinking about it, the only reason i ever got drunk in the first place was to give myself the freedom and confidence to do something i'd wanted to do for a while.

When i first got drunk, it was with a small group of friends at W's house. These gatherings occured frequently among my friends, although i'd never gone before. And i knew that they always got drunk. In agreeing to go i had decided that i was going to get drunk. I was the only one who knew why, though.

I'm not quite sure exactly what i was expecting the alcohol to do to me, but i was certain that it would help. And it did. I enjoyed being drunk. I got into one of my giggly attention seeking mmods, but i think other people cared less, as they were drunk too. And, eventually, i did pluck up the courage to come out. Not, as i'd hoped, to everyone, but only to A, who wasgreat about the whole thing. As far as i remember. That was back at the start of the year, around halfway through September. that's actually quite a while ago. I hadn't thought about that before.

Since then i've been drunk a few times, about four or five, and i'm rather pleased that i'm yet to experience a hangover. (P got one on his second time. Serves him right, really.) I haven't, though, been drunk in ages. Mainly because i haven't got a lot of money and there are other causes much more worthy of it. Namely, my book collection. (I've fallen in love with another book, by the way. It just has one of the most beatiful covers of recent times. Although it isn't as good as Cloud Atlas. It's called A Few Short Notes on Tropical Butterflies and it's a book of short stories. Short stories are good, you always tend to get at least one that you like. That happened when i read Other Stories and Other Stories by Ali Smith. The first few i'd decided were "OK", (My pronouncement on any book not worthy of any particular praise but also not atrocious.) but then they started to get rather dull, until the very last, A Story of Love, which i turned out to absolutely adore.) And i'm perfectly capable of giggling and finding contrived statements funny when sober.

My sister and i fight a lot less than we used to. Well, we no longer fight with any seriousness, only jokily. And we make each other laugh a lot more. And best of all, she seems finally to think my tastes are worth something. She sings along to my music (That may simply be due to the constant brainwashing of playing it so loudly.) and she has recently started borrowing my books. I love lending my books. I get terribly freakish and uptight about them, but i adore lending them nonetheless. And she has absorbed my commandment "Don't break the spine." and is able to quote it back at me whenever she borrows one. She is now borrowing The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. Everyone who i rave to has heard about this one. It's absolutely brilliant, it really ius. And now my little sister's reading it. I hope she has the sense to see how good it is, unlike most of the Booker judges. (I'm really bitter about that. It seems silly really. I mean, it won the Whitbread.)

She's giving me a lot more hugs than she used to aswell, although that isn't turning out too well, as apparently both of us prefer to have our arms on the underneath of a hug. (I like that because it feels more protective, more like you're the one actually being hugged. I think she likes it because she's copying me.) So that's really nice, apart from the violent turn she's taken in demanding them. She has also, though, started demanding piggybacks and pony rides. I used to like lifting her up and giving her piggybacks but the thing is, she's a little heavier now. She's grown quite a lot recently and is now roughly the same shape as me. (Actually, thinking about it, she really is similar. I think her breasts, proportionally, are roughly equal to my own. The difference, of course, is that while she tries to make the most of hers i attempt to hide mine.)

But i did notice for the first time, a couple of days ago, that she's actually rather pretty. My parents have been calling her beautiful for years, but that's the duty of all parents. And these same parents call me 'gorgeous', which i definitely am not. (Although i've grown to rather like my nose.) So i always dismissed their comments. Maybe i'm just as biased as them, but i'm beginning to think that actually, they have a point about her.

It seems to me quite likely that this improvement in our relationship may owe something to my finally coming out to her a month or two ago. That night we talked for ages, really quite frankly, and she told me things, secrets, about her aswell. I never knew before, for instance, that she has actually smoked a cigarette or two. She didn't seem all too enamoured with the idea of taking it up as an addiction though.

My favourite bear is too small to cuddle. He's older than me, but he's absolutely tiny, and i just feel like an idiot holding him when i go to bed at night. Which, unfortunately, means Custard (So named because of his colouring.) is generally forced to sit at the side of my bed while i hug Snuffles or Wilfy (A brown bear and rabbit respectively). I know they're only bundles of stuffing with eyes sewn on and he can't actually be offended by this, but it still makes me feel really guilty. I've always credited them with a vague sort of sentience, and still talk to them occasionally. (Though that's more because if i don't talk to them, i'll just be talking to myself.) When i do hug Custard he tends to slip around or fall out after a while.

I've been on a high since seeing J on Friday. It was so wonderful, speaking to him again, and i've been quietly ecstatic since. I've only recently come down. Evidently i'm still in love with him. And on Friday i noticed, in a way i haven't before, that he's really rather good looking. Apart from the fact that he's very obviously fifteen. Still, i can't wait to see him as a grown-up. And i'm more determined than ever to eventually claim the kiss i've been promised, although i still haven't even managed my long yearned for hug.

However, i have no intention, unless something dramatic happens, of ever starting a relationship of any greater depth of emotion (I tried to say it normally, i did, but i just got swept past my target of a clear and concise description into skirting it with long sentences instead.) than our current one. Mainly, of course, because this can't happen. My feelings of being in love are not reciprocated, however much he loves me. And i'm completely happy with this. But were that not the case, if he did love me in the same way, then it still couldn't happen. I'm much more resolute now than back when it nearly did happen.

For one thing, and i know this is silly, i'm actually rather scared by the idea. He has had two... relationships in the past and (I know, i know this isn't his fault.) they have both ended quite badly. One never went further than a brief encounter in the toilets, and the other lasted only a month. He was the one who put an end to them both. Now i know this is silly, as i've known and completely respected his reasons for both, but i would be constantly afraid that i too would not measure up. J isn't as exacting and demanding as i've fooled myself in my head into believing he is, but i find it hard to stop believing something, even when i know it to be complete nonsense.

There is also the reason, the main reason, that i wouldn't let this happen before. And this time i've evidence to back it up. I was afraid then, and still would be now, that if something happened to break us up we would not part on the best of terms. Now that P and J have broken up, J appears to really, well, hate P, calling him on this very blog a "tosser" and a "wanker" and (worst of all!) comparing him to I, widely reputed for his arrogance and insensitvity. (Apparently on the morning of the book group I and J were arguing about whether i'd come in (I don't mean to say that as if it was a hot topic throughout the school; i'm sure they only briefly discussed it.) and J (My best friend, remember.(Though admittedly I probably doesn't know that.)) was informed by I that i wouldn't want to come in to see him (J). Ha!) I asked J a couple of days ago if he was speaking to P and he said he saw no reason to. I doubt that i would act as P has, but even so, if something did go wrong, who's to say that i couldn't end up losing my best friend?

And then, of course, there's the fellow previously referred to as "J's straight boy", worthy, i feel, on his second mention, of a letter. So he shall be Y. Y's position in J's feelings is roughly equivalent to that which E used to enjoy in mine. Apart from general consensus holds that Y is, in fact, straight. E's sexuality, we've always felt, was more doubtful. (No, obviously we don't spend all our time debating people's sexualities, but when these people are important to us we want to be certain.) But J is still rather obsessed with Y. he was even while he was going out with P, though i assume P didn't know that. And i know i'm not sufficient to supplant Y in J's emotions either.

I had other reasons too, when i started this, but i seem to have forgotten them. Still, i'm sure those three (Well, the middle one at least.) are enough to justify my turning down this imaginary relationship. That doesn't mean i'll stop imagining it though.

S says E sniggers now whenever he sees him or J. Not a good thing. J thinks E now thinks that he, S and the chap they had deliver the letter (We'll call him X. (You should hear the middle name that offers X, you really should. Unfortunately, you won't.)) are all playing a joke on the two of us. I'm really starting to get annoyed by his continued disbelief. And obviously there's nothing i can do. That doesn't, of course, mean i'll stop trying. Don't try convince me not to, either, i know i'm a fool.

I used to really like those fabric softener adverts. The ones with the sweet fabric people, you know. I wanted one of my very own. However, the new character is very disappointing. To emphasise the fact that they are appealing to 'sensitive' types they have added a gay character, another complete stereotype. It's so annoying. Gay people can be insensitive too! Look at P!

Oh! I said i'd talk about my books! Prepare to be thrilled. I chose to take in Feeling Sorry For Celia, Not The End Of The World, Vernon God Little and Cloud Atlas. Four brilliant books, i promise. The only one of these i actually got chance to recommend was Celia, an absolutely brilliant book, written solely in letters (We pretentious people refer to it as an 'epistolary' novel. Well, i do it because i'm pretentious. Other people do it because they're english teachers.) from various of the main characters friends, aswell as imaginary organisations, who frequently protest her lach of teenagerly skills and order she commit suicide. Fortunately, she doesn't. I have read it... many times. I think, if i haven't already, i'm close to entering double figures. I've also forced a lot of my closest frineds to read it (Well, the ones that i knew would appreciate it.) and they all loved it.

Not The End Of The World Is the first collection of short stories by the wonderful Kate Atkinson. I do absolutely adore this woman's books. I took Behind the Scenes at the Museum out of the school library a while ago, and it was absolutely brilliant. I've only read three of her books so far, but i'm desparate to read more. Thinkinng about it, i should perhaps have put some on this birthday list i was forced to make. Still perhaps my parents are intelligent enough to notice, and buy me either Case Histories or Human Croquet. However, i sincerely doubt it. Not the End of the World is absolutely brilliant, filled with various classical references, and each story linking somehow to another. However, despite my love of mythology, my favourite is probably the least classicaly grounded of the lot, Dissonance, just because of how brilliantly she writes her warring siblings, Simon and, erm, his sister. But i do love them all really.

Vernon God Little is, as i'm sure you all know, the winner of the 2003 Man Booker prize, (Talking of which, it's almost time for Man Booker 2004! YAY!) and deservedly so. I've only read one other book on the shortlist but it wasn't as good. Wasn't even as good as The Curious Incident of the Dig in the Night-time. Vernon God Little, though was brilliant. I need to re-read it, as i've pretty much forgotten it, but it really is very good. It's based around a columbine-style massacre and the false accusation of the main character, Vernon. It's lovely and critical of pretty much the entirety of American society, in a bally hilarious way, and Vernon really is worthy of all the comparisons to JD Salinger's creation Holden Caulfield.

Finally, i chose Cloud Atlas. I've mentioned this one before, so i hardly need to talk about it again. All i'll say is that i've every intention of reading it again, but that this time it may be fun to have a go at it as a collection of short stories. It's six linked storied, you see, each interrupting the previous one, until the last one finishes and the previous one resumes. Sort of like the Arabian Nights. I might, for instance, read the beginning then end of the book, or maybe just the two parts with my favourite character/narrator in. Sad, i know, but not quite as insane as reading a book completely backwards.

I went into school again today. For the reading group this time. And then that's it, i have no more excuses until about October, when i intend to collect some of my art coursework. My art this year wasn't particularly good, but i had the sense to incude a mildly 'subversive' (if rather comtrived) message in my picture book, which actually turned out quite well. So well, in fact, that the examiner decided it was his favourite of my entire group's work. (It's a group of about five.) The examiner, though, was evidently a loon, as most other people's wotk was much better. Still, i'm not averse to being paid compliments, no matter what their loonish origin.

It was great going in again today. I only saw E very briefly (because i hid in the library almost the entire time) but you'll all be pleased to know he's stiull as beautful as ever. I almost want to say more so, but that's probably just from hardly seeing him any more. I also saw a lot of J and G, though unfortunately not S, who was gallivanting off God knows where. Still, it was fabby seeing those two, especially best friend J, who i got to talk to much more than the last two times i've been in. Also got to be snide and bitchy about I, who's also in the reading group. That was a lot of fun. (I know it's cruel, but he's as bad as P (maybe worse) when it comes to callously and unwittingly insulting people.) I only got to recommend one of my books, which was disappointing, as i'd spent ages carefully choosing four of my favourite books. I shall have to talk about them on here. But not now. Perhaps when my eye and nose have stopped dripping.

A relative called me today to ask what sort of bible i wanted for my birthday. We settled on a revised King James. (I'm rather a fan of the archaic language.) I found it all too uncomfortable to point out that any reading i do of the Bible will be as a work of fiction. I don't consider myself a christian anymore and haven't really for a long time. What clinched it was my mother's bible, in its notes on homosexuality, advising that i seek counselling. But i hadn't really believed in any of it for a while before that. My favourite bit was always the hymns. I do really like church music. And surely everyone, really, loves carols, whether they believe them or not.

However, i refuse to believe, as certain of my friends do, that religion is evil. P once claimed to have had some part in 'freeing S from the shackles of religion'. I don't believe in 'the shackles of religion'. It's wrong to just make such sweeping statements about such an abstract thing. The shackles of the Catholic church perhaps (Although i wouldn't ever think like that.) but the idea of 'the shackles of religion' is just ridiculous. It's just people wanting to feel superior to others because of their beliefs. Which is frankly just as bad as when that happens between religious people.

I have nothing against Christianity. I only vaguely don't believe in it. I seem to want to believe in something, but i've no idea what yet. There's nothing wrong with religion. It's just that a lot of people use religion to their own ends. Back in the crusades, religion was our excuse. It was the excuse we used for the empire and slavery. Bush is still using it today, claiming that certain types of love are 'unconstitutional'. It's preposterous, trying to run the most powerful country on Earth using a set of rules meant for a small desert tribe who needed something to believe in.

But, that said, i have nothing against people who believe in these things, as long as they don't start taking over and applying ridiculous rules. Which, fortunately, most people don't. My friend C, for instance, has never once tried to tell me that the way i live my life is wrong. Far more intolerant is W, who believes that religion, all of it and every single one, is evil.

It's the eighth today, isn't it? That means there are two weeks left until my birthday. I don't remember ever being this unexcited about my birthday. There are various reasons, other than the fact that i generally just don't want to get older and be a grown-up. I've pretty much given up on that whole Peter Pan thing, though. Especially as i seem to have turned into an old man anyway. I have spent a lot of the day either sleeping or shuffling (in a limping sort of way). I've taken to wearing what is, effectively, a cardigan. I think it might be vaguely in fashion (I squandered the good taste that is the birth-right of all homosexuals on choosing books, so i only have a vague idea about such thing.) at the moment, but that's not the point. And i am sitting hee, sipping a fruit tea (Peach and Passionfruit) which is probably about one step from coffe and rich tea biscuits. I suppose rich tea biscuits are actually supposed to be had with tea, but "tea and rich tea" doesn't sound anywhere near as good. I'm old before i've even experienced being middle-aged.

What i really don't like about my birthdays, and the same applies to Christmas, is having to make a present list. It so annoys me to think that my own family don't know me well enought o find a present for me. I wouldn't mind getting a present that i didn't hugely like if i knew that i hadn't had to ask for it first. So instead i try to think of everything i could possibly want, to make as big a list as possible, so that each is present is something of a surprise. Then, of course, mother-mine complains, saying "How many people do you think want to buy you presents." I don't think there's much point to presents at all. I enjoy giving presents, as it's an excuse to force bookks on people (I only ever give books.) but i really hate having tpo choose my own present. Still, a considered present that i'm not expecting will always make me happy.

Maybe that's why i liked the solstice so much. It had more meaning, really, than the other trhings we celebrate, and nobody had to get me any presents. Nobody else even noticed it happening, so i got to enjoy it anyway i wanted. Actually, i think the Finns have the right idea about Midsummer. (I don't really know which is which between Midsummer and the summer solstice.) They have huge bonfires and all sorts. Someone from Finland was telling me about it, and it all just sounded so cool.

I have now cheered up quite a lot. I had an email from S and J telling me the letter i wrote (perhaps misguidedly) to E had been delivered, and then L cheered me up immensely with sparkling conversation: "How can I describe cleavage?" Plus, as always i have happy music to cheer me up. So i do not care about the pain in my foot (largely gone) or the cold i seem to be coming down with. I am obviously very much a happy-go-lucky type with no mundane concerns and my head in the clouds. Obviously.

It turns out that both J and S are just as cowardly as me. Neither of them was able to present my letter to E, and they had to ask someone else to do it. It's quite funny really. (In an "I'm a loser and i can't even manage as a stalker" way.) I put a lot of effort into that letter. Probably far too much. I wrote very carefully, double spaced and everything, trying to make up for my handwriting, which is generally held to be illegible, or pretty darn close. I also used my favourite pen, only used for the most important things, as it contains ink of a very beautiful colour. Everyone calls it turquoise, but it isn't turquoise. Oh no. The first page was mostly apologies (I'm an apologetic person.) and the rest was so dull that i've forgotten. All i really remember is asking him to read my blog. I thought that surely four months of me trying to explain myself must make a better impression than four pages. I shall have to see.

I don't have much hope. Not really. He doesn't see to take kindly to my pestering. But i have to try, you see, no matter how much of a freak i end up looking.

In other news, J says he is pleased that things between he and P are over. I asked, in a bid to ease my conscience, "Were things going that way before my blog or is it all my fault?"

"No, it's nobody's fault," he replied. "Maybe matthew's for being a grade A wanker" So that, i suppose is that. I still feel a little guilty though. But not as much.

I think i have done something very, very bad. J, having read my last blog, confronted P about it and they've now broken up. All of last night i was worrying about that maybe what i'd been told about P wasn't true, though i've no real reason, other than P's denial, to disbelieve it. But still i feel so guilty about it. I had seen P earlier, but i'd hardly been able to talk about anything, nevermind anything that mattered.

As soon as I got into Birmingham yesterday (There, I couldn’t be bothered keeping that a secret from the internet anymore. But I’m not a brummie. Never accuse me of that.) I fell over. It wasn’t that bad at the time, but my foot and ankle, later on, were causing me a hellish amount of pain. Something more that annoyed me about P yesterday: when he heard I’d fallen over and really hurt myself, his first question was “In front of everyone?” as if the humiliation of falling over was worse than the actual pain. I didn’t like the suggestion that I was as obsessed with keeping up appearances as he. Obviously I didn’t tell him so, for the same reason I couldn’t tell him anything, for the same reason I could never talk to E: I’m terribly afraid of confrontation.

Having so injured my leg, when I got home I lay down for a while on my bed, rather than, as I should, it seems, have done, immediately rushing to the computer, going online and urging that everything i said may well have been nonsense. See, i said P would convince me. I am far too impressionable.

However, as i am so fond of quoting in a French translation, what's done is done. P and J are broken up and it doesn't seem that likely that they will get back together again. I don't think i can take sole credit for this, as even P said "I know there's no chance of anything with [J], because he was being a bastard to me on wednesday (or whenever it was) as well. Regardless of anything that people falsely, or jokingly claim happened, something was already going on." I, of course, being my thoroughly wet self, did not stick up for J here when i should have.

That was part of a huge tirade of which i was on the wrong end, filled with all sorts of things i found really rather insulting. He spoke as if he was the only person who's ever tried to help me, citing an incident i don't even remeber that must have been quite some time ago. He accused me of being "at the foot of the social ladder" an observation which i think, although i may have felt that way, has not really been true. Not for a very long time, at least. I think i've always been at the least tolerated, in a sort of annoying, irrelevant way. And i have always had friends who've cared for me, however much i've attempted at times to alienate them.

He basically accused me of having spent the last month trying to break the two of them up "I presume you convinced him to break up with me." "I'm quite sure that this is what you wanted all along." That made me so angry. I've never liked P and J being together, that's always been clear, but i've tried to. I grew, or was growing, to accept it, and i never actively tried to split them up. I realise that a lot of the things of said or blogged have shown my dislike of him, but J knows his own mind well enough that it would take more than a few bitchy comments, of no more weight than the words of a spiteful child, to turn him against P.

But then, when the conversation, i felt so guilty, to both of them, and i don't really know what to think. J has said to me "Thanks a lot for basically everything you've done." but i'm far too good at being guilty to just abandon it so quickly. The conversation ended when P made a few final comments, after i had asserted that i had every right to be jealous, and i never managed to respond to them: "There is no reason for you to be jealous now because [a] nothing happened. [b] he didn't really love me and [c] i wasn't really very fun anyway, it was always when can we meet up, etc., and never actually seeing each other. It was more hope than anything."

"Honesty is fucking shit. If you can get away with lying, do it." - P

I'm going to the cinema this afternoon with some friends, to see Shrek 2. Also going, it seems now, may be P. Now i heard something last night which i doubt he would have wanted me to know. And as i may not contain my anger /disgust /whatever i'll be feeling it seems he may just find out that i know. In which case he may ask me not to tell J.

This wouldn't be the first time, of course. He told me a while ago (But still while he and J were going out.) that someone had tried to kiss him on the lips. He begged me not to tell J, but as J is my best friend i insisted that he tell him. I didn't really think J should mind particularly, as P told it as if he had resisted entirely. That, to me, wouldn't seem to show him in too bad a light. However, it seems now that perhaps he i might not have been told quite the truth. Other accounts have it that he was the one attempting to kiss, the other boy resisting hoim. Which, obviously, changes things a lot. A LOT.

This news filters too me via M, P's best frined, who knows, as far as i can tell, everything about P. Although i do not like or trust him, i do think that generally he is truthful when he is widely spreading his gossip.

I was debating with myself what i should do with this information. Should i tell J straight out? Should i try protect him from it? This is probably about the worst thing possible i could have done, but i've pretty much abandoned my diary now, which means that anything i don't blog just boils inside me. So now i've made up my mind. I have to tell J. But i had to blog this before i go lest P convince me otherwise.

I haven't commented on T and P's relationship in depth for quite a while now. Partly because i haven't really felt it's any of my business. But it is now, i feel, after an argument last night.

Since they first started going together (One must always use a slightly dated turn of phrase when one can get away with it.), things haven't turned out quite as well as we all expected. P, wasting little time to put as much pressure on J as possible, told him that he intended to spend the rest of his life with him. As a point of reference, i should make it clear that only a month before he was completely in love with S. J, unfortunately, did not, and does not, feel the same. He does not really see any future to the relationship after P leaves for university. At the time P said "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it", presumably intending that J would be won over by his magnificent personality. However, J has not been, and now seems more resolute than ever that this will be the end, refusing P's idea that they might start afresh in four years' time.

Until recently, P and i have not been on the best of terms. This is largely my fault. I found something offensive in everything he said, and all of my responses were barbed. I was horribly spiteful and i think that any insults on his part have been completely unwitting. The problem is that his unwitting insults can be quite offensive.

Aside from the one which most sticks with me, "You'd be good looking if you weren't so fat," (Ofeensive, if you need to be told, in it's implications that being good looking would be the only reason for someone to like me ad it's casual dismissal of those of us without a perfect body.) most offensive perhaps, perhaps, because it was intended as a compliment, there have been many other faux pas. So many that i've taken just to ignoring them, or even humouring him in them. So i hardly paid much attention to last night's.

P had finally watched Amélie, a film which i insist everyone watch, and asked me if i identified with her. I do, but i doubt i'm the only one. I seem to remember that half the young female population of France did at the time it came out. However, his reasons for this conclusion weren't quite right, and it was to this, on my behalf, that J took offence. P asked if i identified with her "in that she is romantic but doesn't dare to just ask him [Nino Quincampoix (The rather delectable Mathieu Kassovitz)] out, and finds other ways of dealing with it." This is vaguely true, but i was modelling myself as a male Amélie long before my feelings for E became a complete obsession. But all in all, i hadn't actually been that offended by it.

When P told J the same, though, he felt that this was belittling me, and stuck up for me. I'm pretty certain that this wasn't the only factor, but it was obviously the catalyst. So J stuck up for me and P was offended by this, ending up ignoring J, talking to him only through me. This didn't last long though. P soon left in a huff, his parting shot, said to me, "And tell him it really hurts when it is so obvious that he cares more about you than me."

Now this, unfortunately, is patently untrue. I do believe J has strong feelings for me, but not of the same type as those for P. One would think that the fact that he chose P over me when he had the chance was proof enough. I think, actually, it's really selfish of him, having me tell J how much this hurts him, when he knows i have feelings for J and that i'm jealous of him. Just as i was coming round to almost liking him again. Oh well.

Finally i have succumbed, as, eventually, we all must. At last i am forced to have recourse, as every blogger, when the desire to blog outgrows actually having anything to say, or at least being able to say it, to a list. I swore to myself when i read Nick Hornby's 'High Fidelity' that never again would i make a list. But now, here i am, with my List of Seven Songs That Drive Me Well Near Insane. They are not neccessarily my favourites, just seven songs which really do a lot to me. Seven songs i perhaps should not be allowed to listen to in public, as my face contorts something horrid when i fake trying to hit the high notes and i can 'express' myself more freely at home, without fear of ridicule for my frenzied hand gestures. The songs are in no order other than that in which i hear them now as they play randomly in the background. It was hard enough even choosing the songs, nevermind putting them in order. I depressed myself a little determining whether one song (I took this far too seriously.) made the list. It didn't.

Supertramps and Superstars - Simple Kid. Simple Kid is a genius. He really is. Not terrifically well known though. This is because of his, frankly ridiculous, voice. But his voice is more than made up for by the music he writes, which varies from the beautifully touching to the brilliantly funny. 'Supertramps' falls, without doubt, into the first category. It is, as far as i can tell, about a group of faded drag queens, (I base this on the over the top names and the first line "Penelope Prozac, a seventies throwback, and king of the Camden queens.") including such brilliant lines as "Selina Saliva, with eyes like a tiger, but most of her stripes long gone" and "Penelope knows that the world is a passer-by. So caning discreetly, she'll tell you so sweetly, she's dressed up with nowhere to cry". Simple Kid's was actually the first gig i ever went to. It was really good. He played half the songs in a country style and was joined by various other people, "a genuine French chanteuse" who sang 'Supertramps' in French (I was able to translate shamefull little of it.) and two saw players, one of whom, who also played the fiddle, (I liked him more as a fiddler than a violinist. Silly, i know, but fun.) i fell briefly in love with. Marvy

Someone To Touch - Scissor Sisters. Pretty much everybody has now heard some of Scissor Sisters, but this song seems to be one of their least known, (And presumably therefore least liked.) which i don't like, as it's one of my favourite songs. I can't give a proper genre analysis, so i can't tell you what to compare this to, but i love it so much. The intro has these bizarre sounds in, the nature of which i know not, and won't ask for fear of spoiling the mystery. There was a time, a while ago, when the lyrics really helped me: "You're in my heart, even though it fell apart, but all we had to do was try. I still love you, but the pain feels funny now that you're seeing other guys." And, of course, almost any song featuring a chorus of one sound repeated, be it 'doo', 'da' or 'la', will always have my approval.

Pa Pa Pa Palavas - Benoît Charest (Sorry, he doesn't appear to have a website of his own, but all the music you'll hear on here was written by Charest.) This song was originally written for the Belleville Rendezvous soundtrack, and is used a couple of times. It is the only song on actually sung by the man who composed every single one of the pieces of music, including such diverse instruments as a hoover and a fridge. (Though not on this song, i don't think. But there is a suspicious whirring noise at the beginning.) Based on my limited musical knowledge, this song has a sort of fifties style. It's sung almost completely in French, the only words in English being "Make love." in a very thick French accent. Every single line ends in the sound '-asse', pronounced more sibilantly than even seems possible, which i find quite astounding, although i know english is renowned for being inferior to other languages for finding good rhymes. I'm yet to work out cpompletely what the song means, but i sing along as best i can all the same. It is a very summery song, starting and ending with seaside sounds. It constantly evokes, for me at least, images of proper Italian ice cream on the beach. And the chorus, "Pa-pa-la-la-la-la-la-vas", is, basically, erm... fab. So there's my erudite commentary on Palavas. Four left.

Rumba Dub Style - Ojos de Brujo. This song starts off with one of the best trilly Rs i have ever heard: "rrrrrrrrrrumba!" and proceeds quickly into lightning tongued spanish (Well, castillian, but i'm never sure of spelling. And as far as i know it isn't wildly different to the language of which it is a dialect. Perhaps my spanglophone (No, i do not know the prefix for 'Spanish', but i think 'spanglophone' is a pretty marvy word.) reader can help me out.) of which i can understand almost nothing. I have, at various times, picked out the words for 'head', 'time' (Or was it weather?) and 'listen'. I sort of wish sometimes i still did Spanish. But French is my true love. Anyway, this song is another one perfect for my summery moods. It's one of those songs (Though i'll admit there are'nt a huge number of these around at the moment.) that really makes you wish you knew how to dance flamenco, even though i don't quite have the figure for one of those ruffly dresses. It has all the quick fingered guitar playing &c. from flamenco, but is somehow brilliantly modern aswell. I love it.

Rue des Cascades - Yann Tiersen. YannTiersen writes some of the most beatiful music you will ever hear it. He's really quite famous in France and has done collaborations with all sorts of people, including the recently jailed Bertrand Cantat (That's just me showing off that i know a little about French culture really.) and Neil Hannon, of Divine Comedy fame. This particular song features one of Tiersen's favourite instruments, which i promise, in this context, does not sound at all reminiscent of English folk music, the accorion. It also make a lot of use of some harpsichord style instrument, and the woman who actually sings it has a beautiful voice. The actual words, i think, are rather a poor translation, but they make a vague, if slightly repetitive, sense. But the words are less important to this one. There's this one point, towards the end of the song where one of the instruments comes in like the crack of a whip, which drives me wild every single time i hear it. If you look around a bit in the 'discographie' section of Tiersen's site you should be able to hear thirty seconds of this song and loads of his others. You can also hear the full version of "Les Jours Tristes", with Neil Hannon, which damn near made its way onto this list.

I Want You - Moloko. "Why should i face up to another waking day when there's a chance you'll come to me in dreams?" I've felt like this so often, but i just love it when songs are able to deal with rejection in a completely happy way. (Cf. Someone To Touch and The Moon is Mine - Fairground Attraction.) It's a gorgeous song all about being vaguely obsessed with someone, and has one of the best intros ever. It's just a piano with Roisin Murphy singing really slowly and sexily, and then the piano goes tinkly and speeds up and the beat comes in. I love Moloko, and this, without doubt, is one of their best songs. It's definitely my favourite, but i have something of a weakness for vaguely classical elements in a modern song. And i know that i am not, i simply cannot be, the only person who, at the appropriate time, plays a furious 'air violin'. You probably wouldn't tell, from simply looking that that's what i'm doing, but i promise it is.

Put Your Arms Around Me - Texas . This is the song on the list that's been in my head the longest, but i almost forgot to include it. It was only thinking about the song 'Saint', which, back when i was foolish enough to actually believe people who told me E could like me, i'd decided was our 'theme song'. How incredibly sad is it to choose a theme song for an imginary relationship? Anyway, Saint lost out to this song, this gorgeous song. Sharleen Spiteri has a wonderful voice, and on this song it just comes accross as so tender. I used to be able to sing along to it, though it did end up leaving me completely breathless. Now, though, such high notes, virtually a shriek, are completely beyond my range. I miss being able to naturally sing so high. It made me feel so... i don't know, it gave me an imagined power, somehow. I love the lyrics so much on this song, the complete love and adoration they speak of. They make me think of J a little, lines such "let me believe that i am someone else". And, of course, the song has those magical words, "Sha la la la la".


So, there it is. My full, complete and exhaustive list of seven songs that i rather like. I tried so hard to put my newly acquired linking skills to good use, searching for hours to find Benoît Charest's own website to link to. At one point i thought i had it, but that turned out to be a red herring. However, all of the other sited i link to seem pretty good. I especially recommend playing around on Yann Tiersen's site, and the Ojos de Brujos has some great design too, even though the 'English' version of it is so blatantly not in English. I know that on at least five of those seven sites you should be able to hear something by each of my nominated artists, but i'm not sure about the Texas and Moloko sites. Still, please have a look, i don't want all my work to have been for nothing. Thanks.

Now i'm going to try watch the football. Wish me luck.

P.S. Any opinions welcome - i just want people to talk in my comments section. I have dreams of being one of the big bloggers, with their own little community of commentors. I know it's sad. But i would also like to hear what people think.

I've just had a novel experience. I was reading one of the blogs i mentioned an entry or two ago, Pussy Ranch, and the main blogger, in the entry i was reading, was working in a peep show. The sort of thing where people do erotic dances in a little booth when i suddenly noticed i (Why do i think that "had an erection" is more... well, not offensive, but more something than "was turned on"? Still, in the hope that simply frank may eventually rid my writing of pretention and affectation, i shall plump for the former.) had an erection. I'm not sure why they would be, but i do believe the two were linked. Odd, no?

I suppose, really, i believe that everyone is bi-sexual to an extent, as they (Who are 'they'? I don't know. But they are often right.) claim we all are. It just took me by surprise, really, when i noticed it. I don't remember being turned on by a member of the opposite sex since primary school. And i had no idea what was going on then, so that hardly counts. It was probably more out of a feeling of obligation anyway. I probably just felt left out because i didn't fancy her. (Wow, i'm not giving the recipient of these 'attentions' much credit, am i? I seem to remember she was the closest thing we had to a slut in our primary school (She'd had two whole boyfriends!), but she's probably really nice, etc.)

I wasn't hugely turned on by all this. It wasn't like i was about to have an orgasm. But i just thought it was interesting that it should have any effect on me at all. But don't worry, everyone, i'm still as gay as i ever was. After all, as a homosexual i can choose to not drink foul drinks like beer and lager (Is there even a difference? I don't know.) without anyone thinking anything of it.

I haven't slept yet, but i think i may have to soon. I should stop doing this, or soon i'll be completely nocturnal. which is a pity, as there's a lot less to do at night, and you have to do it much more quietly.

So i went into school today, presumably modelling my panda look, and going in on the bus was, well, annoying. I ended up sitting, as usual, next to I, which wasnt much fun, as he cannot stand to have his views on literature challenged or really his views on anything. Or his right to simply talk over, and for, everyone else. He's me, he's the me i was before i was me. A very depressing thought.

Today, as every day, i went straight to the library on arrival. There is definitely something comfortable about being surrounded by so many books. Plus, for the first few minutes each day, the librarians have the library largely to ourselves. Or themselves, i suppose. I can hardly remain a pupil librarian if i'm no longer a pupil. J also often comes in in the mornings. It's harder to talk to him then, as I will insist on butting into every conversation involving people he knows. But, eventually, i managed to pass to him the letter he and S had agreed to deliver to E for me. I know this is ridiculous and that even now, if there's chance, i should tell them to destroy it. But i know i won't do that. Because i am an idiot and refuse to do what's best.

The most important thing that happened to me all day was, though, recieving my copy of the school photo. I had to wait until i got home to pore over it, but pore i did. I'm on the very central line, it seems, the line of heads stretching up between the headmaster and his deputy. And i look ridiculous. I do not look right at all. It's not that i look particulary hideous; i don't look too bad at all. But i have the most preposterous smile ever, it would seem. You know the smiles they draw on cartoons, with immense crescent shaped black lines at each side denoting cheeks? I have those! I'd always thought they were a complete fiction, but now they've turned up on my face, completely unannounced. And i still have sunken eyes. On top of this, it appears i am the only person in the school that cannot tie a tie properly. Everydoby else's hang perfectly, like bizarre striped and spotted fish, and i look like i've tied a blue rope round my neck.

So, once the neccessary vanity of searching for and crticisng myself was over i immediately looked for everyone else of my acquaintance. They, mostly, look normal. J looks younger than i remember. P, presumably demonstrating his 'rebellious' nature is glaring arropgantly at the camera and wearing the wrong tie. S... i wasn't even sure was S. For one thing, the eye is drawn away from him by the sight of I, pouting suspiciously at the camera through all that hair. S also appears to be the only one of my friends who actually managed a proper smile. G looks like he's squinting a little, but is otherwise ok. D looks, as much as seems possible on these photos, normal. C is giving rather a bizarre expression, a cross between a muscle spasm and a mischievous grin. A seems to be entirely absent.

And finally, E. Obviously he wasn't actually the last i looked for. He was, in fact, the first person i looked for after myself. It took me ages to find him, but eventually i saw him, baring his teeth uncomfortably behind our French teacher. His simle can only really be described as a grimace. There's no ther word for it. If i were called upon to give one piece of patronising advice to E, it would quite likely be to take a little more care with his facial expressions, as so many of them seem to lead quite naturally into what looks awfully like a sneer. I'm sure it isn't, really, but it looks a lot like that. When he smiles, though, when he smiles genuinely all trace of that disappears.

Not that i really can make much comment about E's looks. His only part i have ever been able to clearly envisage is his neck. From the back. It's completely worth it, he has a lovely neck, pale and graceful, with a light fluff of his red hair (Which i, unlike, it seems, many others, adore.) at the top of his prominent spine. Perhaps some explanation of why i know his neck so well is neccessary, but beware, this story will paint me in rather a freakish, stalkerly way.

Around two and a half years ago, when i was in year eleven, a trip was organised for the various musical ensembles. I was entitled, as a steadfast member of the school's choir, (Then recently forced down to the tenor section, although my reluctance abated when i realised that one of fellows was now E.) to which i belonged for the first six years of my life at this school, until the old head of music left and her replacement proved to be rather useless, (I'm still a little bitter about that, as choir (I know i'm sad.) was very probably what i enjoyed most about our school.) to attend this weekend of rehearsals. I was horrendously excited, running shrieking and hugging through the playground when i heard the news, because i had so enjoyed our previous visits in year seven and eight, unfortunately called off because of theactions of various sixth formers, among them, i am told, the son of one of the teachers. The first of these trips also sticks out in my mind because it was where i formed my first crush, (You know, it may be an Americanism, but i rather like the word.) on a boy in the year above.

Anyway, this weekend proved to be quite a turn up for the books for the aspiring stalker. Three days, constantly in the same building as E, (and yes, a lot of other people too.) where even i, surely, couldnt fail to spark up a friendship that would no doubt lead to... well, to whatever my current fantasy was. Obviously i had, as so often, over estimated myself and we barely spoke five words. But the weekend still provided me with my longest (and quite possibly dullest) entry to date in my now largely abandoned diary.

The best i managed, all weekend, was to wander round the basements, ostensibly to finish the book ("Plundering Paradise" by Geraldine McCaughrean. It was really good and people might like to give it a try now pirates seem to be in fashion again.) i was reading, but actually to steal every surreptitous glance i could of E, while also trying desparately to draw his attention. But my true moment of glory was during the choir rehearsals that were held in a large room with glass doorknobs and huge mirrors. E normally sat in a direct line with one of the mirrors, (Because, i presume, it was at the edge of the room, not out of vanity.) allowing me to place myself just behind him, so that when we stood i would have a perfect view both of his face and the back of his head. And that was how i fell in love with E's neck.

That weekend, overall, was perhaps not one of the best in my life. I came back with a huge self-inflicted scab forming on the back of my left hand, from continuous and deliberate scratching, though i may have done that before we left. In a biology lesson, i seem to remember.

It's almost four o'clock. My nights are getting later and later. I just minced over to the bathroom and i look like a panda. A panda with fluffy hair and blonde highlights, but a panda nonetheless. I don't mind too much though. At four o'clock in the morning my eyesight is blurry enough that even pandas are attractive. But it just gets easier and easier to stay up this late. Especially when kept company by the wonderful sexblogs (I believe that is the general term.) Pussy Ranch and Belle de Jour, a good friend (The recently introduced C) and the music of Ojos de Brujos (Wizard's Eyes, i believe, though the word 'wizard' can be replaced with any other male practioner of magic of your choice, as alternative translations have had it as 'sorceror' and 'magician'.), which i have only recently discovered. I was enamoured after seeing them perform only one song on Glastonbury's Jazz World Stage. I immediately went into a downloading frenzy and spent most of the first half of today listening to the magnificent "Rumba dub style" over and over again.

There seems little point now in going to bed, as i would have to get up only three hours later to go into school and hand in all the books i've accumulated (For 'accumulated' read 'had thrust at me by over-enthusiastic French and English teachers.) over the last two years. I decided, for the protection of my spine, that book-collection day refers to books and nothing else, especially not the mountain of French magazines and newspapers currently contributing to the mass of paper which, judging by the immense cracks in my wall, may actually be holding up the ceiling.

In fact, this overstuffing of my room with books is the strongest argument i have actually considered for going to university. I will be granted a whole new room to fill with books. Naturally some of my old friends will be accompanying me from my current abode, along with the pile of books i have bought but not yet read. I do, i think buy too many books, and perhaps not always for quite the right reasons. But i still hold that the old "Don't judge a book by it's cover" idiom is nonsense, and often buy books almost solely based on the fact that they are pretty. It's a method that has served me well, i think. 'Cloud Atlas', for example, my most recent choice for forcing on every reader i know, was bought at least partially because of its cover, particularly the pale green (I may not follow fashion quite as ably as your stereotypical homosexual, but the fifties revival has not passed me by.) typography and scrolly clouds and the wonderfully art nouveau-esque trees which adorn it. And now i love it.

This doesn't always hold true, of course. Jon McGregor's 'If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things' had a brilliant name, quite a good cover, but turned out to actually be quite dull. I suppose that may be deliberate; if you choose the quotidian as your subject mundanity of language may help to convey this. But i'd have thought that if you were trying to accentuate their remarkable aspects you might not draw all your characters in a bleary charcoal.

I feel like my blog recently has taken on something of McGregor's style. It is, or the last couple of entries have been, rather dull. Perhaps due to the fact that I am writing them so late at night that blogger counts them as the next day. I would normally criticise this, but this entry is being written so far into the next day that through the window,in the crevice between two houses, the sky is discernibly pink. It is, without doubt, the next day. I suppose that's proved what a slow writer i am. This thing will probably claim to have been posted at three o'clock when it is now ten to five. Time to find out, i suppose. I wonder what they'll make of my panda look in school.

I've just finished composing (It's a lot more fun than simply writing.) a letter to E. I don't know why, but i need him to understand everything and i need some sort of response. It said my usual things and asked, at one point, that he read my blog. I hope he does, though i don't have much hope. Especially as i'm too much of a coward to actually give him the letter myself and have asked J and S to deliver it for me, preferably into his hands. That's hardly going to convince him i'm me and i'm telling the truth, assuming that's still the problem.

I suppose, in a year's time that none of this will matter. But right now, for some reason, it does. It really does. It no longer eats me up inside (Although it may do if i see him again tomorrow.) but it really, really irritates me that i can't know what, specifically, the problem is. I'm not such a bad fellow. Perhaps if i'd done things differently he at least wouldn't hate me, but, it seems, he does.

I'm just as annoyed, really, by my own attitude. I know that alot of the feelings i have for E are based solely on the fact that i consider him beautiful (Having, as it seems i have, rather a penchant for red-haired individuals.) not his personality, which really i know nothing about. Based on subsequent accounts by various people he doesn't sound such a nice chap, but he never seemed so to me. Apart, obviously, from the consequences of that foolish e-mail.

I went out, earlier tonight, to celebrate the birthday of one of my 'old' friends. I had a lot of fun. We ate and then bowled. Bowling is fun when nobody cares that you're terrible at it. Which i am, of course. I was very proud of the strike i managed. It was great, though, seeing these people with whom i'velet relationships slip. I miss them. I was, i really was, a fool. So i'm glad of my resolutions last night, despite the patronisingly magnanimous "straight people aren't that bad after all" way in which i made them.

And yes, i am aware that, of all the times these resolutions could have been made, at the very end of my school career is very possibly the worst, as we're all about to whizz off to various parts of the country. I suppose it has about as much currency now as a death-bed repentance.

I have, in the past, been a little unfair to heterosexuals. I see now though, that just because they are different, they are not objects of ridicule. I have decided it is about time i took that back.

I have been far too eager to vast myself, as a member of a once hideously oppressed social group, as the victim. This is not so. Oh no. Most of the straight people i know (But lets be honest here, i'm obviously talking only of the male variety. Until recently girls have been to me a largely unknown breed, and i haven't had chance to form my prejudices about them.) Most of the straight people i know are perfectly lovely individuals, so much so that i am allowing two of them to read my blog. A, mentioned once, a very long time ago, and C, who has been my friend since the beginning of secondary school.

I have, recently, and i'm very ashamed of this, let these friendships slip rather a lot, in favour of the company of people i felt understood me better. I believe i have referred to this previously, coining on one occasion a phrase of which i am rather proud, "self-ghettoisation". I should hope the meaning is quite obvious. This has been going on for some time, notably under the guise of the Ace Crew. Perhaps it's demise was no bad thing. It is important that any social group does not isolate itself from society and then blame society for this and really that is sort of what we've been doing.

So i am rebuilding my bridges. I have been too eager to lump together my 'old' friends under this label of heterosexual, and have hence ignored the fact that they are among the best people i know. They would have to be, to have stuck by me since year seven. And they were all so brilliant about my being gay. (Apart from one incident where A tried a little too hard, asking "So... seen any nice lads recently?", a memory which will send me into hysterics for a long time to come, i hope. The sentiment was very nice, but less fabby was the blatant discomfort of the situation and even worse, the fact that i abhor this word "lad" and all its connotations.)

Perhaps i was so eager to reject them because, having known me as long as they had, my flaws were much more obvious to them. I had a chance to start again with a new group of people, with no idea of my arrogance and freakish delight in proving people wrong (This actually led to my being thoroughly embarassed many times.) and i seized it. This choice obviously did not bring me quite what i had expected, so i am hoping now that it is in some way reversible and that my old friends will accept me once again.

Not, of course that i am abandoning my new group, either. No, that would never do, to make up for rejecting one set of people my shunning another. I almost did that once, but not for these reasons. No, i love the Ace Crew and everyone connected and would not desert (I speak as if i have some sort of responsibilty to them, as they, in some way, need me. Not so.) them lightly. So, i shall be friends with them all and no doubt emerge much the richer for it.

Dear God what a pretentious post. I am very and extremely sorry.