So A Cyclist Outed Me As Gay

I know you're all looking forward to your monthly dose of satiric journalism surrounding life in London, and don't worry that will come, (I locked my keys and my phone inside the flat today. What a story!) But right now something that happened on my way home is playing on my mind, and I honestly can't get my head around it.

Let's start at the bus stop. I, after closing the pub and having a now customary drink and general life chat with the manager, was waiting for the night bus (late) when a couple of young girls walked up and sat down next to me, shivering violently. They dispaired at the display stating that the next bus would be almost half an hour's wait, so I assured them that the display lies, and pointed out that the bus was parked in the terminal across the road. They explained that they had gotten on the bus not knowing where to get off and had ridden it to the end of the line, and were now essentially retracing their journey in the hope of eventually getting home.

Long story short, they needed to get off at my stop and walk in a slightly different direction. After a nice bus-chat and after they thanked me for my kindness and help (I was branded the nicest person in London, I pointed out that this was due to my not being from London) I pointed them in the right direction and headed off on my own path. No sooner had I taken two steps then a cyclist who had been approaching us from behind yelled out,

"What kind of man lets two girls walk home by themselves at this time of night?" A fair point, I suppose, but he immediately followed with, "He must be gay."

Now I stayed silent here, as any immediate response my brain may have formulated would probably have been either juvenile or offensive. Or both. But after the fee seconds of no, you're gay ran through my head, the next thought I had was, was that an insult? To me? Seems more insulting to the gay community. Did this cyclist just attempt to argue that gay men are less chivalrous than their straight counterparts? How does that work? If I preferred cock, would I feel less obliged to be a gentleman? Certainly in my experience homosexuals are far more likely to walk a woman home. After all, what's less creepy: random stranger you met on a bus walks you to your front door and now knows were you live, or man who has no interest in your genitalia walks you home?

Which leads to an even more disturbing thought, was the cyclist trying to pin me as some sort of sexual deviant? Obviously if a man walks a girl home he must be straight, and also must be interested in engaging in sexual congress with one or both of his unsuspecting female companions. As such, being the raging homosexual that he has judged me to be, I would have no reason to walk the young ladies home.

Surely I am not in the wrong here? I got the girls onto the correct bus, got them off at the stop closest to their house, and by my estimations they will have had to walk for a maximum of 9 minutes through the notably assault-prone area of Honor Oak Park. Honestly they would have been more at risk walking through Balamory..

Perks Of Being A Tourist

I don't get much opportunity to do 'touristy' stuff; the stereotypical sights and spots which attract thousands of foreigners every day, none more so than those in the Capital itself. And so, ten months into my life in London, an opportunity arose which I could not pass up: show an old friend from America (high school) around London during her first two days in the fair isles. My thoughts during the whole experience were, "Why have I never done this before?"

We started at Paddington station. Some time later we managed to arrive within the same part of Paddington station, and headed to a convenient coffee shop which rhymes with Bartucks to prepare for the day ahead. After a stroll through Hyde Park (Why had I never done that before?) we took a train to King's Cross to gaze at the lack of platform 9 3/4, visit the Harry Potter shop and see a man who may have had the best job ever - he was a rail-based pest controller. And he was carrying a large falcon. No word of a lie, this man was casually strolling around one of England's most famous stations with an impressive bird of prey perched on his gloved arm. This day was going to be great.

After King's X, it was a bus to Southbank, to take in the river and the bank's world-class entertainment and attractions! Except lets face it, the Thames isn't hard to take in and the entertainment was disappointingly sparse on Monday afternoon. Still, got some bloody good ice-cream (the first of many) and had a nice stroll.

From there we visited Trafalgar Square (again, I'd not had chance to go since my move, and we chose a beautiful day to visit) to sunbathe with the lions under the watchful gaze of Admiral Nelson.

The final stop of the day took us to London Bridge for a pint on the riverfront at a great riverside pub in the Hays Galleria. Which was a Nicholson's pub, which granted me my new employee discount, but more about that later. The drinks were perfect and food we ended up having was delicious.

And then we had an indor BBQ (George Forman's Lean Mean Grilling Machine) at Richard's along with drinks for dinner.

Day two started with another meeting at Tarmucks - this time we were actually able to find one another far more easily - and then we were off to visit the Queen! The Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace is a wonderful tourist and British attraction. Featuring such exciting sights as: Police Officers on horseback, footsoldiers in red coats (The Red Coats are coming! The Red Coats are coming!) and bearskin caps, some of whom were also ahorse. And the marching band, easily stealing the show playing such classics as The Theme from Indiana Jones, The Imperial March and My Heart Will Go On. Brilliant stuff.

Day duo continued to improve as The American was introduced to the wonderful concept of a Cheesemonger. The concept that a shop could specialize in selling little other than numerous varieties of cheese caused a minor excitement aneurysm, but she quickly recovered and was nibbling happily on the samples available for tasting. I bought a very expensive pork pie, another new experience (and another very good one, though she wasn't too keen on the sweet chili scotch egg) which we shared for lunch on a little city centre greenspace we stumbled across en route to Leicester Square. On final arrival to the cinema-swamped stomping ground of the world's biggest film releases, we decided to have a drink (well, I had a drink), wonder Chinatown, buy tickets to a comedy show, and make our way to a far more obscure attraction: Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese.

The full run of events that took place in our short time in this particular pub (enough for us to finish one drink) would occupy an entire blog post to themselves, and by this point I imagine you're tired, so I'll condence the entire experience into the funniest moments: Thames Water pub crawl, 'you're rather attractive', and dogging. I'll let your imaginations run riot there.

We met Richard again for dinner before all heading to the highly anticipated Mostly Comedy at the Leicester Square Theatre. The show featured two warm-up Fringe acts and we were three of an audience of 12. It was absolutely wonderful. The first act, comic duo Doggett & Ephgrave, based their entire show on a slide show. A risky maneuver for a comedy show as there can be no room for error or improvisation, and at times the room was quiet but they got plenty of laughs. The second act was the acclaimmed stand-up and Metro columnist Richard Herring, who's writing I have long admired and who had a cameo role in Rock Band VS Vampires (sadly I wasn't on set that particular day, so missed the opportunity to strike up a conversational friendship with this semi-famous personal favourite of mine, setting up a flaky pretence to saying hello after the show, portraying a vague air of fame and fortune to my friends. Friends who know me well enough to realise that said air is, in fact, complete rubbish). By this point I had consumed a lot of alcohol (5 pints) so going for another drink afterwards seemed like the most sensible idea. And then, Soho! Which turned out to be perfectly barren on a Tuesday night in early June.

However, through the haze of smog and beer goggles, I spied a neon sign down a little alley. It said simply "The Bar". This had to be good. And as we drew closer the blackboard outside declared 'DJs dedicated to 60s and 70s soul.' It was tiny, it was underground, it serverd alcohol and the DJ was genuinely playing vynals on two decks. I let the soul train take me all the way home.

Actually it was the N343 but that doesn't sound nearly as fun.

Holy Shit I Have A Blog

Woah. Seriously. I know my time-keeping skills are stuff of legends but still. Wow, it has been a long time. I had to actually read my last blog post to remind myself what was happening two months ago (two months!)

I really dropped the ball there folks. My apologies. Here's a brief overview of life in the realm of Adam:

1. Job: New. Awesome. Long commute.

2. Acting: #teamkillday, TIE Panto auditions approaching, Rock Band wrapped.

3. Exercise: Eh, still doing it. No discernable results.

4. Moving house: June 1st, closer to work, touch wood.

That's all folks! 40+ hours/week have left me pretty exhausted so you'll have to wait for a full run down of all things Dindorf. Until then, be good. And have fun.

April Genius

So far, the month has been good to me. Let's start with the biggest positive in my life right now: I finally got a new job.

I'm working for a pub in Crystal Palace called The White Hart, which is part of a company of pubs called Castle, which in turn is a subsidiary of Mitchell & Butlers. In short, this means I work for a large company which owns such chains as Harvester, O'Neills, and All Bar One. Exciting stuff! The biggest drawback is that Crystal Palace is about an hour and a half away from me in Leyton, so the house move planned for the summer may take me further afield than I had first thought. Still, south London seems like a nice enough place, and still well-connected by rail and bus.

It is a relief, to say the least, to be back behind a bar. I was pondering it for a couple of days and mentioned to one of the other staff after a 10-hour shift that I felt less tired than my last 7-hour stint at the call centre. He described it as less exhausting on the soul. Very philosophical, but there's a certain truth to that. In the call centre, you follow a script, you listen to complaints, you follow the script some more, get shouted at, follow the script, but whatever you do don't answer back or try to defend yourself. Behind a bar, there are no rules against laughing, against banter, against being a bit (or in my case, very) tongue-in-cheek. I can be... myself. So much more so than I could when I was simply reading from a screen. And that is so very relaxing, and at the same time invigorating. Yes, in weeks and months to come I may complain and scowl at the injustice of having to clean up after such a rabble as we may see, but for now the manager is becoming a very good friend and colleague; the other staff are friendly and up for a laugh; and the customers are local and regular, intrigued by a new face and welcoming from the off. I actually finished my last shift with a discussion about European Medieval weaponry - one of the regulars, called Mattie if memory serves - is a collector and keeps a warhammer beside his bed.

In other news, I'm still exercising, eating and getting plenty of sleep. Oh and Charlotte's Surprise Christmas/Anniversary/Valentine's/Birthday present - Pirates of the Caribbean, screened at the Royal Albert Hall whilst the Royal Philharmonic performed the soundtrack live - was spectacular. Aside from the sound/video being out of sync during the first few scenes (much to the amusement of the audience, and then to rapturous applause when the lips and words began to synchronize).

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is also brilliant. However, in a move that will put me off Cineworld for life, the projectionist cut the tape at the beginning of the end-credits-sequence. There was a collective 'what the fuck?' from those few of us who had stayed to watch it, followed by one gentleman in the audience (after shouting at the projection box) explaining in brief the sequence of events we had been denied. Ah well, at least the DVD will be released before the next film, and also they made a reference to Stephen Strange which is ridiculously exciting for people like myself.

Live long and read on, minions!

The Past Is Just A Story We Tell Ourselves

What. A. Day.

You know those days you just feel like you need to talk about? Well it is four minutes past midnight as I'm starting to write this and since I woke up at 10:30am a ridiculous amount has happened. I'll walk you through important events in chronological order.

Part 1: The Master Ball

For those who have no interest in my video game habits, skip to part two.

I've recently started playing the Minecraft mod Pixelmon, which creates a normal Minecraft world with the addition of pokemon running around everywhere. Literally everywhere. In the water, in the caves, in my house, luckily the mod removes the normally present hostile mobs so the only real danger you face as a player is starvation (combined with falling short distances.) So I've been learning the basics and, as I should have foreseen, have been wasting far too much time on it already. In fact I'm surprised you're still even reading this, I'm getting bored of writing about it.. long story short, within a few hours I'd beaten some special pokemon and gotten some cool rare items including the coveted Master Ball meaning I can eventually hunt and catch some legendary pokemon and force it into my servitude. Basically this was a positive note of the day. Moving on!

Part Two: The Arcola

The job hunt is ongoing, and one of my applications has been to a little theatre in Dalston. I heard from a friend that it was a nice place and since it has been two weeks since I sent in my application and I hadn't heard anything from them (and the vacancy was still listed on the website) I decided to scout the place out. And I liked it. I went there under the pretence of lunch (beef stew. delicious.) and stayed for two cups of tea and some banana loaf because I had time to kill. Before I left I had a conversation with the girls who were working about racism and stereotyping (as you do) and enquired about the job listings, which I was told probably hadn't actually been looked at yet. Filled with hope, I asked them to put in a good word for me. Hopefully their memory for names is better than mine.

Part Three: The Red Wedding

As most people know I'm reading my way through Game of Thrones (so good) and I'm now on Storm of Swords 2: Blood and Gold. And this is when the dreaded Red Wedding happens.. by some coincidence I had managed to avoid hearing exactly who died in this much-referenced event so when it hit me, it hit me hard. 

Right in the feels. 

I'm still recovering.

Part Four: 1st For Talent

My first agency audition was today. 1st started as a child-actor agency and have recently expanded their client base to include young adults (up to 29) and out of 400 applications I was chosen to be one of 30 auditionees fighting for one of five openings. Although to be fair the last number is flexible as they need to expand their 20s actor catalog. Included was a professional photoshoot (at a discounted £59, a price I'm happy to pay when it would cost upwards of £100 if I'd looked up a photographer myself) and a very chatty make-up girl who may or may not have been flirting with me. I can honestly never tell these days, and having a girlfriend makes me pretty much immune to any advances - imagined or otherwise. Overall I left feeling a little uneasy. I'm still not sure why, though it could have been that I hadn't been able to use a bathroom since lunch, and wouldn't be able to while I was travelling again for the next hour.

Part Five: Her

This is possibly one of the most ridiculously heart-wrenching rom-coms I have ever seen. The acting is brilliant, the writing is natural, the emotions are real. I really don't want to say anything about the plot, but I would recommend going to see it. Don't look up a synopsis. The less you know about it, the better. However, I will say this: I wish I hadn't read The Red Wedding scenes on the same day as seeing this.

Oh the feels.
Also, I want the soundtrack.

Woke Up, Got Out Of Bed, Immediately Regretted That Descision

Heck, it's almost half way though the shortest month of the year and I haven't written anything yet. What's happened then, let's see.

Well, we recently completed principle photography on Rock Band VS Vampires! Hurray! It has been a long and sometimes bumpy road, expounded by the fact that our original set on which we were due to film had been turned into a building site. No, I mean literally, it wasn't just a bit messy, there were men in overalls throwing two by fours around. Not conducive to a productive day's filming. Still, we are a well-oiled machine, despite getting some sawdust in the gears we soldiered on to a different venue, which was exactly the same in every way. Except one third of the size. Adding to the overall ridiculousness of the situation, we had the biggest turnout for extras since the film began. Last I heard we had around 60 people hoping to get in on the action, and we were suddenly stuck in a venue that could barely hold ten.

Still, we soldier on, and I was granted the most important role I've ever had: I got to hold the black and white board thing which goes 'clap' in front of the camera before the scene starts. Yep, best thing I've done so far. Screw all of that 'acting' bollocks. Who needs a 'character' anyway. Why would I want my face on the screen when my hands have a slim possibility of being in the gag reel! Dream come true, I tell you.

By the time you read this, our facebook page will probably have reached about 20,000 likes with all the promotion we're doing, but I'm sure we'd appreciate a couple more. Go on, don't be a douche. I know you liked that Ronan Keating page when you first joined facebook.

I had to excuse myself from the set after seven hours of standing around, eating some pizza, taking some photos, and playing with the clapper board (exhausting day) because I had 'stuff' to do.

In honesty, that 'stuff' was actually the ever-important, life altering, Minecraft! Because let's face it, my virtual life won't live itself.

If you've never heard of minecraft, the link there takes you to their website where you can watch their promo video and buy the game. Also, I recommend watching the review which made me want to buy the game in the first place (after being nagged by multiple friends). Keep in mind this review was published when Minecraft was in phase approximately 0.6 (hence the reference to it being a beta), and the game is constantly being updated. Currently it is on version 1.7.4 and while the mechanics and effort required are more or less the same, there are a whole bunch of new elements to make the game playable by anyone. It may also be a good idea to watch this video which is much more recent and takes a more scientific approach to explaining Minecraft's success, individuality, and it's appeal.

Anyway back to what happens in my actual life, or my virtual life.

One of the newer features is the multi-player aspect of the game. When I started playing it was just me, in a world, alone. Much like the Zero Punctuation review. The closest we got to multi-player was Sam and I setting up our laptops, loading a new game, and seeing who could survive the longest in our respective worlds. Then they introduced servers and local multi-player, which is almost a prerequisite of games these days, but for Minecraft, it was mind-blowing.

So some time passes and after I moved to London Sam and I discussed setting up our own server. It means we can still play together like the good ol' days, and we can invite other people on to it and have a thriving community in our own little world. I was sceptical, as I always am, about how popular our idea would be. Low and behold we now have over 15 players on our server, easily funding the annual hosting fee.

Why am I writing about a video game on my blog about my exploits in the big city? Is that the frustrated screams of a thousand minions I can hear, quoting Monty Python at me ("Get on with it!")? Well simply because it is a link to my past and to those I hold dear. On Minecraft, Charlotte and I can go on long walks along the beach (however, we're more likely to go on mob-slaughter crusades); Sam and I can discuss life and how our respective cities are these days (however, we're more likely to go on horseback-mob-slaughter crusades); I can reconnect with friends I don't otherwise see very often (on crusades); I can even play games with my little brother in Germany (like our personal favourite, Mob Slaughter Crusade III). I suppose it has just been on my mind a lot lately. Not that I would discourage people from buying it, learning it, joining our world, joining us on certain crusades..

Anyway, to the stuff most of you have skipped down to anyway. Life updates!

Job hunting is in full swing. CVs are flying through the post like swallows in the spring; my email notifications ping new opportunities to me every day, and my sent box is rapidly filling with various 'Dear Sir/Madam,' messages.

Exercise is actually still happening. Which is still surprising me. My shoulder is flaring up so I can't do much with my arms, but I've taken to doing about 20 sit-ups and bicycles per day, plus I still use the SlenderTone belt once a week. Can't really see any results, but the fact that I've not completely given up on this routine is enough to make me feel better.

Acting is still happening, as ever. Next weekend sees me perform with LonDram in a handful of short plays, over two full days of performance (matinee and evening), which should be a blast. If nothing else, the theatre we're performing in has a wonderful café above it! After that, Kill Day's film day is March 1st with a full day of action in store, then on the 3rd I've got a photoshoot with a photographer who's creating a portfolio called 'Endurance', focussing on scars. I really couldn't resist that one.

That's all from me for now, minions, don't forget to click every link in this blog post for shits and giggles!

Darkness Pulls Itself Over The Night Like A Warm Blanket

I think of you.

Long-time fans will recognize that as an extract from one of my poems, and right now it couldn't be a more fitting metaphor. I'm exhausted tonight. So much has happened in such a short time and keeping the smile cranked up to the 'crowd-pleaser' setting takes its toll.

Right now it's settled onto 'content' - not to be confused with 'contempt' - and I'm taking stock of things.

Thing one - I have a very busy acting schedule. The eccos of Panto (ahoy there, boys and girls!) are still ringing in my ears and yet now I must focus fully on LonDram's February debut. And the little one-off films I'm doing here and there, but mainly LonDram. No sooner will I finish that, but I'll be on set for filming series one of Kill Day, a web series in which I have a (not unreasonably sized) part. And then the slate is a bit blank. I'm almost thankful for that at the moment though. March and April have commitments of their own to uphold.

Thing two - work. I'm bored again. Don't get me wrong, the call centre is ten times better than fundraising, but I want ten times better than that. A hundred times better than fundraising, and then some. Which is why, by the time I publish this, I will have received an email from the London Eye telling me whether they've invited me back for induction and training after a 2-stage interview process this week. Fingers crossed, find out at the end.

Thing three - my role in Kill Day requires me to be a soldier. I'll not say more for the sake of spoiling the plot, but needless to say a soldier generally needs to be, well, physically active. So I've got a month to get myself looking more front-line than back-bench. To that end, I encourage everyone to send me various forms of electronic communication to force me to do some sort of physical exercise. Be it sit-ups, step-training, swimming, whatever. Just no press-ups or jogging. I don't have the shoes to jog and my shoulder is acting up badly at the moment.

***

Update: I didn't get the London Eye job, which I'm pretty gutted about, but consoling myself with the knowledge that it obviously wasn't meant to be. They've got more jobs going, and you can bet my application will be in the pile somewhere.

I've also started doing daily sit-ups. Currently ranging from 20-50 per day over the past week. My previously forgotten muscles ache.