Fit men blogs

You know those blogs that are just pages and pages of pictures of fit shirtless blokes? Yeah, I love those. But even I get bored after nineteen pictures of the same Versace cumbuckets or the pseudo-porn of Abercrombie & Felch. So, for one night only, let this be your totty blog of choice. Here, classic man-beauty triumphs over the usual three per cent body fat contractual obligations. These are the men that make me trip over myself and the very reason God made eyes etc.


Marlon Brando: The ripped white T-shirt in A Streetcar Named Desire must surely have been the sexual litmus test of its day (see Brad Pitt in Thelma & Louise generations later). Don’t refuse him, that’ll just make him angry …


Cary Grant: Rugged and a gentleman, is there anything better? Who else was built like such a brute yet played tender and awkward so heart-warmingly? Stills don’t do justice to his magnetism in motion. Clooney is proffered as a modern equivalent and though they share an ambiguous sexuality and a quiet manliness, Cary clearly has the swoon factor that gave Clooney the blueprint.


Rock Hudson: Another brute but this one a cad and ruthlessly sexy womaniser, on-screen only of course. He is quite simply textbook handsome. Could have been a Greek hero in another life. Looks like he could break a barrel with one hand.

Gene Kelly: The finest behind in the business of show. But forget that for a second and let the twinkle in his eyes work its magic. Could anyone have ever said no to him? And in a sailor suit, forget it …

Clive Owen: My old PC perpetually groaned under the weight of my unintentionally amassed gallery of Clive Owen images until I had to admit I had a problem and erased them all. Absence only makes the heart grow fonder though. The slightly oversized ears and boxer’s nose suggest a rogue turned respectable but with a streak just waiting to be tapped into. Suits do not look this good on anybody else.

Channing Tatum: I accidentally came … across this defiantly gorgeous, ridiculously named Yank in Dito Montiel’s A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints. He’s a model turned actor of course and one of only two concessions I’m making to anyone born after 1965. Hopefully he’ll fall on hard times soon and can come round and scrub my floors.

They also served …

Joe Dallesandro

Paul Newman

Paul Simonon

James Dean

Ben Cohen

Diary run-down, or 'How hard it is to write'

I need to break the back of this sodding novel. It’s on my mind all the time and I know I have it in me to finish, and I actually think it might be good. I have ideas coming at me unexpectedly like lovely little tennis balls to the face, but I have to work for a living, I have a boyfriend I like to see occasionally, I need to get to the gym at least a couple of times a week to help me sleep properly (and to keep said boyfriend), I live alone and the flat doesn’t clean itself missy, nor do the cupboards refresh themselves in the night. And on it goes …

The frustration of not being able to write when I want is beginning to send me doolally in fact. Right before I went on holiday I had whatever the opposite of writer’s block is. I even kept my first drafts virtually unchanged and that never happens. Of course the holiday disturbed my momentum (I’m so ungrateful) but I vowed to pick up the mantle on my return. But consider this for a week of how not to get any writing done: Saturday: return to UK from holiday – Sunday: unpack, open post, laundry, food shop, restore semblance of order to Mancunian life – Monday: spend time with important life partner – Tuesday: work, Pam Ann at The Lowry – Wednesday: work, dinner at Cornerhouse, Sex and the City opening night – Thursday: gym, anniversary meal – Friday: gym, housework, computer fatigue, exhaustion ­– Saturday: gym, birthday gift shopping, birthday party, meal and drinks for two very dear friends – Sunday: trembling hangover, the fear, the blues, uncreative slump, watch Family Guy and Footballer’s Wives DVDs – Monday: work, gym, see boyfriend (can’t write in his presence, he sits on the paper) – Tuesday: dinner with beloved Auntie Dee and Uncle John to show holiday pics and because I will miss Dee’s birthday at the weekend due to wedding (so no writing then either …) Do you see? One has a room of one’s own; when will one have time of one’s own to use it?

Three Chinese restaurants in one week

Failed to buy Neil a present on holiday, and having returned home with a very British craving for Chinese food, I treated us instead to a meal at Pacific. As it turned out I ended up eating in Chinatown three times in a week, very rare and extremely decadent. Here’s what I found:

Pacific
What I ate: Vegetarian prawn dumplings, Quorn pieces in black bean sauce, seasonal veg with garlic sauce, egg fried rice, soft noodles and bean sprouts, Tsing Tao beers
What I paid: £29
A little pricier than most of Chinatown but that bit cooler and more stylish. Good user-friendly menu with ethos explained in the front. Bonus points for Quorn dishes and lovely seasonal sides, plus rarities like the prawn dumplings. No idea what’s in those. The waitress brought the steamed version when I’d asked for fried and when I tried to explain the mistake she hadn’t a clue what I was trying to say. Still, it tasted great. Good place for a date I would think.

China City
What I ate: Rainbow soup, mixed vegetarian dim sum platter, gluten sweet and sour duck, boiled rice, soft noodles with bean sprouts, Tsing Tao beer
What I paid: £18
Cheapest of the lot, full of cool Chinese teens and lovely staff. Soup was a bit uninspiring, doused with soy and pepper it was much improved, but you shouldn’t have to really. Oughtn’t to have strayed from my usual hot and sour but it did have the word ‘rainbow’ in it. Mixed platter was nice, lots of seaweed and particularly good Chinese samosas. Most people balk at the notion of gluten duck but I love it even though it’s probably killing me, and theirs was tasty. Generous portions too. This one’s on me.

Pan Asia
What I ate: Veggie sushi, crispy chilli veggie beef, soft noodles, Tiger beers
What I paid: £26
Classic work do venue, this time for my best mate Joffrey’s 30th though, and fave meal of the week for me, though a couple of other people found their dishes too salty. Generous portions again, next time I’ll split a main with someone and get soup and shared platter for starters. Bonus for offering sushi, and veggie sushi at that. The chilli beef dish is brand new to the menu and I thought was divine. I would normally stick with tofu and veg but I seem to have gone mad on meat substitutes this week, for whatever reason. My only gripe was they pushed Tiger beers on us and when we twigged it was a full quid dearer than other beers they took the drinks list away! Could just be paranoid. My favourite moment was when the waiter, in preparation for a surprise rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ replete with ice-cream and sparklers, whispered in Joff’s ear ‘Whose birthday is it?’ and Joff dourly replied ‘Mine’. Oops. Keep for special occasions.

Pam Ann at The Lowry

Ooh she’s got a filthy mouth on her! I think her fourth word was probably ‘cunt’. After the cringe fest that was Sandra Bernhard, Pam Ann was unstoppable hysterical joy at The Lowry. The garish vintage hostess frocks and dangerously hard hair-do are accessorised with a broad Aussie brogue and the lexicon of a navvie. We laughed from start to finish. Canal Street must have been a desert that night, every mo in the postcode appeared to be in attendance. My highlights were the excruciating audience interrogations (Pam: ‘What do you do for a living love?’ Man in audience: ‘I’m a filing clerk.’ Pam: ‘(pause) Wow, it’s so exciting just being here talking to you.’) and her re-edited version of Terror at 41,000 Feet where Pam accidentally gets drunk, doles out Ketamine to the passengers and calls the traumatised hostess a ‘cross-eyed bitch’.


At the climax of the show Pam invites representatives from all the airlines in the audience up onto the stage to compete with their very best PA announcements and campest airport strut. She has the utmost respect for the cut-glass professionalism of your Lufthansas and your British Airways, the ‘charter bitches’ on the other hand are virtually made to scrub the floors, and they love it. Such a good night, do not miss her again.

Pam on economy travel: ‘Okay front row, you’re my Business Class, next two rows you’re First Class. Okay, someone from Business Class, can you stand up for me, turn around, tell me what you can see. That’s right: POOR PEOPLE.’

Pam on the environment: ‘I’m sick of celebrities harping on about being green. ‘Oh, I’m trying to reduce my carbon footprint, so I won’t be flying to New Zealand this year’. Well guess what, the plane’s going there anyway sweetheart, why not just get on the fuckin’ thing? And stay there.’

To woman in the audience: ‘Is that your husband? Is he gay? Oh really? Who bought the tickets for tonight? I think you two need to talk.

Mediterranean Spray

Graffiti on the Med ...

Ville franche


Barcelona


Florence


Palermo


Pisa


Rome

Final Mediterranean memories

Reserved family seating unearthed at one of Pompeii's two amphitheatres:


Part of the surviving 'menu' at one of Pompeii's nineteen brothels (not bad for a city with only 25,000 inhabitants):


Plaster cast of suffocated dog, Pompeii:



Could I give up city living for this ... ?

Probably ...



Saying arriverderci to the Colisseum ...


... and to Rome.