FULL CIRCLE

As Night Nurse slowly dulls my senses and my chest wheezes under the weight of its own mucus I wonder why I'm sitting here writing this blog.

Nothing much of interest happened to me today, unless you count warning the boss that I'd be taking my second ever sick day tomorrow.

For a week now I've been alternately ignoring, fighting and suffering with my cold/cough/flu. Countless pills, potions and early nights have made little headway against the many-faced beast that torments me. Today, I gave in. And as my bed beckons I lust after nothing more than a peaceful, long and undisturbed night's rest.

But before I go, I must convey news that I finished with Jane yesterday. All day I'd been steeling myself for the conversation. Would I tell her I just didn't fancy her? Or should I use the tried and tested "it's-me-not-you" line?

I chose the latter. "I'm not in a very good place right now," I told her, in between coughs. "It's not fair on you." As it happens, everything I told her was true. I am feeling miserable and sorry for myself right now. At the best of times it takes a special person to keep me at a big enough distance to keep me keen, yet not so far away that I give up altogether. Jane was not that person. She took it rather well.

Of more immediate concern, though, is the fact that I seem to have gone full circle. Five years ago when I was being screwed around by Jane's friend Natalie I began subscribing to the view that all women are fucked up. I haven't changed my mind. Just that now, I'm sorry to conclude, I realise that I am too. And I can't even think of anyone I ought to blame!

BABY HELL

I've been to some bad parties in my time. None prepared me for the living hell that was my friend Derek's 35th.

It was a surprise party. I nearly scuppered it by asking him if he was doing anything for this birthday on Sunday, which I had down in my diary as his anniversary. He told me his birthday had just passed. I realised my mistake, but was sure he hadn't cottoned on (despite my protestations his wife, in her usual affable way, blamed me when she learned that hubby had not been surprised after all).

Anyway, so I arrived at their suburban utopia in Hendon. It was filled with the couple's largely awkward, but nice friends. Babies were everywhere - waving balloons, wailing, smoked salmon hanging limply from their nostrils as they searched for their wayward parents.

Including myself, there were four single people: I had stumbled into what I can only describe as baby hell. Derek's friends - most of whom I hadn't seen since he wedded Erick - were now themselves married with drooling oiks clinging to their or their wives' bosom. Everyone had grown up, done the natural thing. And here was I, five years on, in the same flat, in the same job, forever single and standing around in a party where I felt as out-of-place as a nun in a brothel.

To make matters worse, I then hooked up with Jane. We watched Unleashed. The fight scenes and Bob Hoskin were amazing; the plot-line, particularly the requisite mushy, over-satinised fluffy bits, were dreadful.

After we'd watched the Simpsons (the new Ricky Gervais one, which was disappointing), had a blow-job, eaten and watched the film, I got a text. It was from a chunky-but-sweet Essex girl called Joanna who'm I'd known since I was 16. She asked me to go for a drink. She'd asked me out once before - I said no. I didn't fancy her. I still don't. But luckily I could let her down gently - and, for a change, honestly - by telling her I was seeing someone.

How long that will last, I don't know. I already have that nagging feeling in the back of my head saying: "End it, End it." There's just no chemistry and, bar the oral sex, little passion.

All this leads me to conclude that a) I need to end it and b) I've become as fucked up as all those girls that used to blow hot and cold with me all those years ago.

SCHNORRER OF SHNORRERS

My friend Terri often tells me that I should write a regular column entitled shnorrer of the week. It would document my often feeble efforts to spend less money, obtain discounts or get things on the cheap. She's away on holiday right now, but I know she'd be proud of my latest ruse.

It happened by chance. There I was on Friday morning scanning through the ghastly images up on JDate in search of someone passable. And there, staring at me out of the pages, was a slim, blonde, Dutch lovely going under the name of chemistry2u. She was stunning. And as I read her profile, I realised that we shared many common interests, goals and even a profession. She's perfect!

There was just one catch: I don't subscribe to JDate. Paying to get dates, I have long felt, is only one notch above paying for sex. And I've never had to do that (perhaps that's why I haven't had any for seven months). What's more, if a decent date's going to set me back £20 or £30, why on earth should I pay another £20 just for privilege of getting the date in the first place?

Luckily, I had an ace up my sleeve. My mate Ian is a member of JDate. So my solution was simple. Ian would message Dutch blondey, send her a photo of me, and let Cupid do the rest. The trick would be to tell her that he happened upon her profile, thought she was ideal for me, and would she like to meet me. "He's a shnorrer and doesn't want to pay to subscribe," was not part of the plan. I don't have an answer yet. But could she really say no after seeing my cute, little mug.

TECHNORATI

I feel like a 50-something father who's finally worked out how to set the video recorder. In the past few days I've lost my virginity on myspace and even managed to get this much-read blog included on technorati's blog search engine Technorati. Who says you're over the hill at 30?

ANOTHER KICK IN THE NUTS

I've not slept properly now for two days. Maybe it was the night shifts I had at the start of the week? Perhaps I have too much on my mind? Or it could just be that for the umpteenth time since I returned to this germ-ridden country I'm coming down with flu.

Having said that, I do have plenty of things running around my throbbing head. The need to fill in job applications; my concerns about where things are going with Jane (there's got to me more to a relationship than fine fellatio) ; and all manner of domestic inconveniences that are conspiring to make my home life hell.

As of a few minutes ago there is at least one less thing to worry about. My latest attempts to find solace in a the arms of a foreign post have been dashed again. Not even an interview this time. I wonder if there's actually any point in making an effort anymore. Maybe I should just play hard to get?

I'd like to write more now, but I have an empty page staring at me from my computer screen. It's waiting to be filled by yet more tosh extolling my virtues in pursuit of yet another unachievable job.

COMPLIMENTS

I stuffed myself silly with sausages today. My friend Nathan threw a barbecue. I invited Jane - my latest squeeze - to come along and gorge with me.

Within a couple of hours the conversation with the other revellers was dead, the food gone and our stomachs bloated. So we went back to her lovingly-tendered flat for a recording of the Apprentice, a fiddle with her giblets and some more sausage-stuffing.

Twice she worked her magic, and not a drop spilt on her grey-green couch or her peachy sheets. She's really rather good. She compliments me all the time - on my tight arse, my fluffiness and, of course, my inordinately large nob. Sometimes I wonder if she just says these things because she feels obliged to.

I, on the other hand, don't. Call me old-fashioned, but I only ever say things if I really mean them. If I don't, my silence is signal enough that the dress, the hair, the figure or that other object of insecurity is not as amazing as they would like it to be.

Nevertheless, in the days leading up to Sunday's fellatathon I had remarked on the striking nature of Jane's cheekbones and her sharpness. Today, she asked for another compliment. I told her my rule, but she insisted. "Okay," I said, "I think you're mouth's really nice...when my cock's in it." Overcome with mirth, I rolled over on the bed, my lungs filled with chuckles and tears streaming down my face at my own wit. Jane found it a mite less amusing. "I'm just too funny," I remarked. She changed the subject. I got dressed, went home and cycled into work.

AN ARM OR A LEG

Pity poor Peruvians. In their presidential election on Sunday they went to the polls to elect a replacement for the hapless Alejandro Toledo. There was a simple choice: a) a racist, populist nationalist whose brother killed several policemen last August; b) a silver-tongued ex-president whose rule caused a civil war, 7,000% inflation and human-rights abuses galore; or c) a chubby, characterless conservative whose father made racist, anti-Toledo jibes at the last election.

As I write this, the votes are still being counted. What's clear, though, is that candidate a) - Ollanta Humala - has won round one. Perhaps more worrying, though, is that his run-off opponent next month looks like being Mr b), Alan Garcia. "It's like choosing between having your arm cut off or your leg," a Peruvian journalist friend of mine told me earlier today.

I fear she may be right. Ollanta is untested. He'll be like an oil-less Chavez - he'll have less largesse to spread around, but he won't think twice about ruffling the business community's feathers or spending all of Peru's mining revenues freely.

As for Alan, arguably the most-gifted speaker in South America (and having seen him in action, I can testify that he is a serious charmer), he argues that he's changed his ways. He's learnt from his disastrous presidency in the 1980s, he says. But does that mean he deserves a second chance? A Limeno cabbie once put it like this: "If an architect puts up a building which then collapses, he gets thrown in jail. So if a president causes the collapse of a country shouldn't he also be punished?"

Alas, Peruvians - much as I love them, their country, their food, their chicha (and chucha) and their beer - like to be different. They seem to relish a bit of farce in their politics. It makes great copy for journalists. But it doesn't do much to improve Peruvians' lot.
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Now that I'm down from my soap-box, I can get back to ranting about girls, work and life in general. But not until tomorrow, or after Passover.

PANDORA'S BOX

I had planned to spend this evening swotting up on Mexico; thinking up feature ideas; immersing myself in factoids and figures; and figuring out what I might be asked when I finally have an interview for the job. But then fate intervened in the form of Pandora.

Sad as it may seem, whenever I log on to my blog, I always hope to find that a message or a comment has been left behind - anything to suggest that my idle scrawl isn't simply uploading into a black hole in cyberspace. But when comments the size of short stories are left behind by critics with the social grace of a python at a mouse party, I tend to get a little distracted (see comments under previous blog entry).

So here I am, ensconced in my black leather sofa. The World Service is playing in the background and my Powerbook is humming, warming up my lap as it overheats. My eyes are sagging and the shnitzel stir-fry is sitting heavy in my belly.

Today was a shit, shit day by all accounts. But yesterday was better. I went to the Tropicalia exhibition with Jane. "Do you have anything against my shnorrering a journalist's discount?" I asked her, as we queued. "Yes," she replied, matter-of-factly. "These things are underfunded as it is." She had a point. I paid and we entered.

The expo itself was pretty uninspiring - wearing a fetishist's mask that's been worn by countless germ-carrying tourists is not my normal idea of fun. Nor is painting with edible gloop. But Jane and I got on well. We flirted and, as the rain fell on the concrete Barbican jungle around us, we kissed. She's chunkier than the girls I usually go for (though as a former anorexic I suppose she's in better shape than she was). But she's sharp, witty and enjoyable. The memory of non-calling Karen is already beginning to fade.

TAUNTED BY THE TELE

Peru, Bolivia, Brazil: Latin America comes back to haunt me every night on my TV, reminding me about what I had, where I'd been, and where I am now. "That could've been me," I hear myself grumbling. "That SHOULD have been me!" But it's not. And I have to deal with that.

Distractions, there are many. Dinner at parents; The Apprentice on the tele; friends on the phone; Karen.

Before today it had been a week since I'd heard a peep out of her. So I called. Why not? She made no apologies for her absence. She'd been with her horse, relaxing, seeing her family. "No time for me," was the implication.

Just as I was building up speed, she cut me off. She was at her grandma's and had to go. She said she'd call me back later. She never did. Will I ever hear from her again? I expect she'll send me some superficial two-line text on Saturday, assuring me that she will eventually call, before eventually failing to do so. I'm not that bothered. It just means that I wasted another couple of weeks barking at the wrong bitch.

Now I'm tired: a tough workout at the gym and an early start. The days are zipping by. Pay-day comes closer, but then so does my 31st birthday. And I'm sill sitting in the same chair - on wheels, but going nowhere, except one step closer to the edge.

DOWN BUT NOT OUT - YET

It's been an inauspicious start to the week. Monday brought news - long-feared but not entirely unexpected - that I didn't get the job. As my loose-tongued colleagues had warned me, they were looking for a woman. And despite my wearing a pink-shirt and dying my chest-wig blond, I failed to pass the estrogen test. And a week spent swotting and preparing two well-researched reports has now been wasted.

Which leaves me, well, pretty much where I was seven months ago: unfulfilled, uninspired and one step closer to the edge.

The day ended on a better note at my best friend's birthday bash. Posh nosh and dainty drinks (my Peruvian pisco sour came in a girl's glass) at a private member's club off Bond Street was a decent enough way to spend the evening. I left earlyish, at around 10pm, so I could get home in time to watch the Newsnight special on Latin America.

I walked into the house that houses my flat, through the battered black door that mustn't be slammed or else it fails to close, and up the blue-carpeted stairs that haven't been cleaned in a decade. But something wasn't right. I peered through my alcohol-misted haze and took a closer look at my bike. A flat tire. Can't be arsed. I'll deal with it in the morning.

So, cometh Tuesday, cometh the 45 minutes spent in my skimpy, lycra cycling shorts battling with an inner tube, a 12-inch high-pressure pump and an oily-rear wheel. I didn't leave for work until almost 8am, about 45 minutes later than usual.

The day itself was uninspiring. The highlight was making the eerie discovery of the existence of peanut-free peanut butter ("it's better than the real thing") at Kosher Kingdom in Golders Green, as I went about my Pesach shopping.

This annual trial is one I've never grown fond of, despite having had to endure it every year of my life since as long as I can remember.

For the uninitiated, all food has to be specially-prepared to ensure it doesn't contain any of the grains or ingredients forbidden during Passover. Even the Diet-Coke comes with a rabbinical seal of approval. The upshot of which is that a) there's nothing to eat (no bread, no pasta, no rice) and b) it all costs 10 times more than normal.

I didn't buy any of the nutless Peanut Butter. But I still ended up spending 70 quid on not that much at all. I bought another kosher block of Parmesan, which at 35 pounds a kilo probably costs more than cocaine. But I dfrew the line at the nine-pound frozen "pizza".

I spoke to Jane on the phone. And tried not to eat anything before my early night. Dull, dull, dull.