July 2010

"I am all and nothing...a prince of poverty...a minotaur and a bull-dancer.

"I am nothing and want to offer you the fulness of my nothingness, day by day replenishing us both; and if one or other resists it will be very understandable...

"We go deep - and the juices are the means of our melting...we melt inside and the evidence of our melting is the liquids of our bodies, ritually, mutually, meaningfully drunk ... little host-waferlets of wine-blood flowing through our veins - and we are valiant!

"So we will celebrate our feast and melt and merge..

"I long to smell you, smell of you...to merge with you in your smell...by which I'll recognise you in the tree-vaulted dark...feel you there even if not physically with me...

"The physical is the stimulation, the stirring, the swelling sign ...
My brain is like a magnolia bud opening...widening slowly...and you are golden at its centre.

"Or you are a maggot of my self-illusion.

"Let us root in each other, in the earth, our leaves waving in the wind and singing to the moon, and beautiful creatures living in us...

Pretty romantic stuff, don't you think ? Moreover, he's half my age.
He is Greek, an arty drifter, makes videos, takes photos, has spent the last 2 months getting a friend off cocaine, cooking for him and looking after him. That friend has gone to Mount Athos for a month for a good spiritual cure amongst the stinking-rich monks: plenty of prayer - and perhaps some delicious beards to nuzzle..

And Mr Prince, alias ATree alias Angelos (which means 'messenger' in Greek) Petroutsas is coming here on Friday. And I have paid his fare - just one way.

I'll let that sink in.

Considering what air fares to and from Athens amount to at this time of year (hundreds of pounds) his Aer Lingus fare was 'only' 175 euros. The drawback is that it lands at 00.40 on Friday morning - so I will be pitching a tent (in advance) about 40 minutes from Dublin Airport, beside a nice prehistoric standing-stone, and we will have a romantic night! (After that I'll go to Paddy's for dinner and the evening. Mustn't drink much!)
Then breakfast next morning at Malcolm's after the scenic drive through the Carlingford and Mourne Mountains, and on to my Loughkeelan love-nest (!)

He has promised to do at least 175 euros' worth of work here, which will mostly be painting and decorating, something I loathe. There's a lot that could be done.
Also some gardening.

Using Malcolm's "Reader's Digest DIY Manual" he says he will teach himself plumbing (he's apparently very good with his hands) in case he lasts long enough with me to move to Saint-Antonin in September. He could make a bit of cash there on the black doing small plumbing jobs @ 20-50 euros a time. If all goes well here, I'll get Malcolm to teach him how to make potato bread, which he can quite legally sell on the market and which would be a wholesome 'product'.

Of course, he might be a mad axe-man, but won't be carrying any weapon on the flight. He might simply be a wildly-fantasising loony. I have had them come here before, and they lasted maybe one night before they were shunted off. (Only Alan R has lasted 20 years - and it's only now that it has "paid off" for him. Incidentally, his 'father' died last week, just 3 days after he was moved into a nursing-home.)

If Prince does turn out to be a loony, well, it doesn't matter. If he turns out to me merely incompatible, he might be just the thing for Malcolm, who desperately needs to be swept off his feet by a wild romantic, rather than keeping hanging around the fringes of the dead-in-the-head (to say nothing of their balls) Prim Blands of the gay milieu!

He says that he loves cooking, so that's another plus - if we're compatible. He is not averse to Grass, nor to wine, and can operate a computer. If he gets as far as Saint-Antonin, I will give him the orchard.

22nd July

Well, since Angelos, alias Prince of Poverty, was arriving after midnight at Dublin airport last Friday, I had planned to pitch a tent earlier in the day at one of three spots in county Meath: two at standing-stones, and one at a tower-house. But this romantic option had to be abandoned, firstly because I found the first two places were ploughed over and sown with maize, while the little bawn-lawn in front of the castle turned out to have its gate padlocked. Apart from that, there were torrential showers every 20 minutes.

So I met Prince at 0130 hours at Dublin airport, where I was parked in a terrifying multi-storey carpark. I was slightly surprised by his campness. In order to be able to drive there I took Mephedrone, for its amphetamine effect, around 7 pm - just before I had dinner with Paddy who lives near Shercock, county Cavan : 1 hour 40 mins from the airport. Also lots of coffee.
As you know, I am not great after 21h30.

Because of the continuing downpours my Plan B was to drive to a hotel, but after meeting, we decided to drive North and stay overnight in Malcolm's, where we arrived, through driving rain, at 03.15. Then we made very subtle love until 05.30, slept until about 08.30, had breakfast with Malcolm, who is enchanted by Prince...

As you can see from my photo below, he does not look much like this butchly-contemplative portrait.

On Friday I was in a strange state, feeling that both Malcolm's and my life might have changed.
This guy is amazing. Like a strange thinner, younger, very much 'gayer' version of my grungey self, but part of the 'real' (and real-money) world of arty videos, installation art, fashion, etc - that is to say, the direct opposite of me. But he has knowingly homed in on my hermitish, ascetic-æsthetic, misanthropic and (best admit it!) aloof existence.

He has lived in London's Belgravia - and in Glasgow's Gorbals; more recently in Italy, and with his rich mother in Athens (she owns an apartment-block or three), and many other places, including Sofia, Seville and Berlin. He was a young high-flyer in the detestable Royal Bank of Scotland, has worked with Canongate publishers in Edinburgh, set up his own publishing house (presumably small), has curated exhibitions for private galleries, and been a film publicist. This doesn't sound either princely or poverty-stricken.

He smoked a lot when he arrived - not the anglo-american 'blond' cigarettes which I find absolutely impossible because of the saltpetre that attacks my nasal membrane, but Greek cigarettes and Gitanes, which, however,are still oppressive when smoked in quantity. He has now cut down to four a day, smoked outside of course.

He seems to have 'tuned into' Malcolm very quickly, and has spent two days with him already. If Angelos can help Malc to sort out the blockages that have run our (non-sexual) relationship aground, then £185 (plus continuing expenses) is well worth it.
Next week they are going to Belfast's Gay Pride event together (I wouldn't be seen dead at such a tasteless event, since I think homosexuality and its opposite, homosensuality, have nothing whatsoever to do with pride or shame - the overriding shame is that of being human and not anything that humans may designate shameful) and will then go to a performance of something or other fairly avant-garde or hip by one of Angelos' famous friends, over from London for the event.

The amazingly subtle lovemaking for hours (no distasteful penetrations or crude, vulgar ejaculations) have also been good value : no male brothel (if such exist) or 'escort' (I know they exist) could have offered it at five times the price.

I just hope I can cope with someone living in the same house. It will get extremely difficult in Saint-Antonin when three of us will be in a house half the size of this one. And no 'overflow' house of Malcolm's (as at Seaforde) there to ease the pressure...

But maybe the whole adventure will peter out by the end of August, and Angelos will have decided to move on...?

25th July

Yesterday we met Malcolm in Downpatrick, where he gave us lots of things to eat. I got the impression that he is worried he might 'lose' me, or, at any rate, that things might be changing too drastically for him. We picked wild raspberries on the Mound of Down, and then went on to Inch (Cistercian) Abbey by the water, where there was a grotesque wedding-party photo-shoot.

It seems that Angelos first encountered me on a page of my website concerning an obscure and heterodox (if not egregious) Sufi sect (the Bektashi) who, since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, flourished mainly in Albania until it became communist. He then explored other pages of my websites, and when, later, he saw me on hairyturks.com he felt that he had to make contact.

As far as I can work out, he has descended on various people over the past few years, then moved on : a sophisticated type of itinerant. Hmm...

27th July

A second day of warm sunshine!
A couple of nights ago we had really splendid lovemaking (helped by flower-buds and absinthe leaves). Again, entirely sensual. Again, we simply dropped off to sleep at some point. I am beginning to think that 'homosexuality' is a rather Bad Thing : just a pathetic imitation of heterosexual procreative actions, and that Western culture has, as usual, turned something spiritual and sensual into something crude and unhealthy in all respects. The kind of 'homosensuality' that A. and I enjoy (or should I say enact ?) might be what monks and nuns of all religions considered 'chastity'.

In other words, Europeans have gone to their usual extremism, defining chastity as absolute zero input, and debasing homosensuality to grotesque mock-heterosexuality. (Food for thought there...and another reason to find 'Gay Pride' deeply offensive.)

Today Malcolm and Angelos went up to Belfast, for Malc mans the 'gay' helpline this evening. I felt greatly relaxed yesterday afternoon when I left Angelos at Seaforde and came home for an evening alone. This morning I awoke feeling extremely tired - but I was able to ask myself two simple questions:

1. Would I care if I never saw the delightful and wonderfully touchy-feely Angelos again ? No.
2. Would I care if I never saw Malcolm again ? Yes. (Why ? - because we have been close for 18 years, and that counts for a great deal.)

Of course, I have known Angelos only 10 days. Things may change. I may 'fall in love', though I only do that with dogs (who are much more lovable than humans). Or, on the other hand, the situation in St-Antonin may be so cramped (and so oppressive for me) that I simply give Angelos his 'marching orders'. He has wealthy 'best-friends' in Normandy, who, incidentally, also have a flat in Paris.
But I'll see how the situation develops...

2nd August

Since the last entry, things have changed a bit - but not the weather, which remains cool and mostly grey.
Malcolm feels "challenged" by Angelos, who is socially ebullient and talkative. He also approaches total strangers and has conversations. A good-time-guy! He finds Belfast people very friendly and forthcoming. Malc on the other hand tends to walk with his eyes on the ground, occasionally talking to himself.

They took advantage of a 'health offer' to go to a gay sauna in Belfast. One day a week, there is free entry to the sauna in return for having a blood test for sexually-transmitted diseases. This they duly took, and passed through into the sauna. Little information was forthcoming about what transpired there.

Why are people so coy about transitory sexual encounters ? I, almost obsessively 'up-front', simply don't understand. My upfrontness is probably the reason why I don't ask questions. I volunteer information, so I stupidly assume that others will, too.

The next day they participated in the Belfast Gay Pride demonstration, which they reported to be a jolly affair. Both drank quite a bit, and Malcolm actually danced and enjoyed himself. A. put himself about quite a bit, playing to an audience. (Is he a playboy ?) Late that night there was a special party for which they had free tickets (thanks to A.) and they enjoyed themselves there. A. ended up spending the night with someone in a bunk-bed in a hostel, while Malcolm had a bit of a fling with a beautiful Seasick Steve lookalike.

Meanwhile I received Alan for dinner that evening, and had an amazingly wonderful touchy-feely-kissy-huggy non-penetrative non-ejaculatory (NPNE) couple of hours. Alan turns out to be 'a natural' at this sort of thing, and gets better & better.

I picked up Angelos from Seaforde the next day, and took him to lunch at Pond Cottage with Martin and Vi.
Malcolm is miffed (he says "angry") that I did not give him full and fair warning of Angelos' arrival and his planned travel with us to St-A in September. He has (for the moment) decided not to go either in September or December. He feels sidelined, of course. Angelos is quite a lot of fun, and is not for a moment bored. He is making short videos here - of bees and trees and other local and garden attractions.
On the other hand, he might be beginning to pall.

5th August

In fact, I'm getting a bit tired of being talked at, lectured about things I know about, or even know more about than Angelos. The egos are beginning to lock horns, while Malcolm now seems to be 'an issue' for Angelos, rather than the other way round!
We went to Seaforde yesterday to wish Malcolm bon voyage for his Edward Carpenter Community week in Dumfriesshire, and he seemed fine.

I delivered a (very short) homily about us all 'moving into uncharted territory' - as the cliché goes. I also said that Malcolm resembled Emma's dog Smokey, in a permanent state of perplexity, while Angelos was convinced he knew almost everything about everything. Angelos didn't like this.

Ironically, I am now appreciating Malcolm for not subjecting me to Informative Lectures. Poor Dorothy S. (over 80 years old) got a 10-minute one on choosing the right paper from the right source for art books, Angelos having been a publisher in Greece a few years back - must ask him what happened to that enterprise..

It transpires that not only has he a rich mother with dementia, but he also actually owns the ancestral home - a Des.Res. with olive groves close to or overlooking the Ægean on the southern tip of the Peloponnese, which he has lent to his family! His godfather has a shipping line.

So why is he here, living off Malcolm and me, treating both of us with different amounts and kinds of condescension, and using the computer so much that I am paying extra for the megabits that are being used as he 'streams' video and Greek news websites ?

Today he has been researching the sex lives of butterflies, because he saw a couple mating yesterday in Malcolm's gardens. I brightly told him that the Albanian for butterfly is 'flutura' - which is a fascinating word since it is like our English word but like no other word for butterfly in any other European language. (Maybe it's a Turkish word ?) Flutura is also a girl's name - Albanians go in for names of flowers and animals for first-names. I was quickly told that this was irrelevant to his researches. So I quickly removed myself to the garden.

I am now looking up flights from Belfast to Paris to send him on. He has rich homo-friends in Normandy who also have a flat in Paris which he says he can use anytime.

6th August

I slept on my own last night. I'm surrounding myself with a Cool Atmosphere. Of course, Angelos is not what he implied he was.  He has no practical skills, and is not a good or interesting cook.  In fact, he's not interested in either food or wine.  This alone is a big demerit.  (He made a very boring omelette yesterday for dinner. Nothing else.  I quickly tossed a salad.)

And of course he is extremely opaque about money and his recent past.  I have told him the state of our finances, but this has not been reciprocated.

Irony of ironies: his breath has started to smell bad, not just smokerish. Do I have this effect on people ?

And am I as infantile as the other homos I meet ? Oh dear, I probably am. Angelos is as wrapped up in his little enthusiasms as a little boy - but has no interest in anyone else's. Just as well I keep my most of my enthusiasms to myself. He seemed like a bit of excitement, but actually is pretty dull. OK he's not glum like Malcolm, but on the other hand, even when Malc is glum, he cooks nice things.

Angelos wants to go to Belfast this afternoon to collect something. I wonder what ? With any luck, he won't return until tomorrow!

The money isn't so important. After all, I had brilliant "spiritual" and touchy-feely "sex" three times, plus maybe the best ever with Alan. (That must be worth over £50 a go at the Best Gay Brothel in the World.)

He tells me that some Artist wants to use some of his not-so-great blog photos as part of a forthcoming Installation at the Tate Gallery. Which just goes to show you that Connections Are Everything. (miaow)

I'm feeling greatly relieved after depositing him at the bus station. I shall treat myself to wine and Chaource and boiled waxy potatoes and salad tonight.

Such a pity that I like so few human beings. Or to be more precise, that I don't get opn with men. To be honest, men tend - at the very least - to bore me after a short time. The only one who didn't ever bore me was Mark. What a Live Wire he was! Too live for his own good, and probably for mine, too, since he went off and contracted HIV from another boot/rubber fetishist.

I much prefer the freer female spirits and their delightful conversation. Men tend to lecture (as does Angelos), and if I like them at first it is purely sexual, whereas it is the minds and personalities of women that I like. Men strike me as two-dimensional, interested only in some of many varieties of status and power. But some of them make my nipples tingle.

7th August

Oh the delight of waking up in an empty house.
I actually don't understand people who want constant company or companionship. I'm very happy on my own, and any company that I receive or search out should be worth the trouble...should be inspiring even in a small way.

Good 'sex', for example. Or a good meal made by Malcolm. Or a really nice chat with Rosie or Emma.

Perhaps BBC Radio 4 has ruined me for company, because every day there's something to make me think, get my cerebral teeth into. Then there's reading: I have just enjoyed Margaret Atwood's witty Penelopiad.

All in all, Mr Prince-of-Poverty does not 'fit the bill' which he posted. He has not once mentioned my paintings in this house full of them! Since he is interested in 'visuals', I had hoped to get some inspiration there, some little fillip that might get me started again. He seems much more interested in fashion (of all kinds) than in meaningful art. I guess he's just a shallow 'fashion-queen'. Oh dear... But on the other hand, he was involved in a rather good little video with the (unoriginal) title of La Bruja...

(later)
He returned from Belfast this afternoon, and announced that he was going to "interview someone from the IRA for a Greek magazine" ! Whether this was someone in the New Ulster Establishment, or someone from a dissident group of bomb-junkies, I don't know. When in the city he also seems to have done a pub crawl with a new friend or friends around trendy establishments I had never heard of, and eaten mussels and french fries.

I seem to be unable to ask questions. I (too-) rarely do, I guess. I wait for people to tell me things spontaneously, as I do myself. "Life's too short" to winkle things out of people! I guess it's because I find knowledge and factoids much more interesting than people...(apart from people I'm interested in: the few mentioned above.

8th August

Alan came to dinner last night. They made a curious pair. Angelos, hung-over from his Belfast pub crawl until 3.30 a.m.the day before, and also sleepy, was not too tired to launch into aspects of Greek history, Balkan politics and so on, which I found only mildly interesting (since I am well versed in some aspects of Balkan politics, especially Albanian and Turkish) but turned Alan right off. He was nonetheless sexually turned on and was eager to get Angelos' clothes off. After dinner (which incuded coleslaw and gooseberry fool and giant puff-balls sliced and fried), and a few lectures, Angelos announced that he was going to bed. He showed Alan the tattoo and his genitals, then zipped himself up and went aloft.

a photo of Angelos taken in my little garden

Alan had therefore to make do with me, and we had a very nice long and passionate cuddly kissy nuzzly licky session in front of the peat fire. He went home about 10.30 and I went straight up to Angelos to continue the sensuality. But he wanted to sleep. I turned round and tried to sleep at his feet, but he didn't want his feet licked either. So I repaired to my own bedroom and listened to BBC World Service.

Alan asked Angelos pertinent questions but got many vague replies. But it turns out that when the latter lived in Glasgow's Gorbals in 1998, he had a huge flat @ £350 a month, but the area was so rough he couldn't go on the street after 5 p.m. This flat was paid for by an EU Scholarship. He already had BA qualifications from Cambridge, including a licence to teach English as a foreign language - which I don't quite understand, since his English, though very fluent and with a rich vocabulary, is grammatically flawed. When he left the Royal Bank of Scotland, he took corporate tours around Scotland for £350 a day + five-star accommodation. He could do this again...next year perhaps ?

Alan thinks that 'something doesn't add up' and concludes that I'm a temporary rung on a ladder which will take Angelos somewhere. By which time his mother will have died and he will be very rich. And I will be in his past, probably forgotten. Alan also found him pretty patronising - though that is probably, as with Malcolm, an automatic working-class reaction - and observed after our love-making that Angelos wants to take over, become top dog. He is indeed as much a control freak as I. Whisks the dishes away as soon as they are clear. Tidies up diligently. (Nice change from Malcolm.)

Conquering the testosteronal urge to ejaculate works wonderfully in a sensual context, but top-doggery spoils this by raising its noisy head, rather than being sublimated into empathy of spirit. There is no follow-through, and Angelos (despite a degree in Public Relations) does not change his pitch according to his audience. This shows a certain insensitivity.

Arrogance will, of course, open doors in the Art world - at great personal expense (mostly to others).

I have decided to have a talk with Angelos. Raising such points as:

• the promised mutuality/collaboration on projects or even on weblogs - he does his, I do mine. His is full of English and even Irish (Gaelic) mistakes and mis-spellings. But he doesn't want to know. I, on the other hand, most virtuously appreciate correction and suggestions for improvement. • some sort of quid pro quo for money spent on him: nothing so far except £80 for an item of his sold on eBay, and some desultory cutting of nettles. Not pulling up, just cutting. • his absence of transparency about his finances and prospects and plans in France. I have been completely transparent about Malc's and my finances and incomes. • his smoking of cigarettes @ £5 a pack. Two packs (now they are the noxious Anglo-American 'blond' type) a week is what I have cut him down to. Plus eating chocolatey junk, 'snacks' in packs, and drinking IrnBru, a 'soft' (i.e. sugared) drink made in Scotland which I had not hitherto tasted. (He does not eat much proper food, and seems resistant to frugality.) • our lack of deep or intimate - or on the other hand nice, silly - conversation, his metaphysical void.

Despite earlier vague promises (at the beginning of this page) o commitment to anything has yet been expressed by him, neither emotional nor temporal.

Nor is there joy in food-sharing, though (unlike me, a Quick Rough Cook) he seems to like chopping vegetables very finely, as in restaurants. There was much talk about Greek specialities, including those lovely filo-pastry envelopes or pies, e.g. spinakopitta. Tonight, however he produced gnocchi (out of a packet) with dismal pesto out of a jar, and sliced raw tomatoes with tasteless mozzarella and tomato sauce on a bed of rocket. Sub-restaurant-food.

9th August

Last night things came to a head. After the sub-restaurant dinner we had agreed (perhaps to improve the situation) to embark on a holosensuality session. So we smoked a little of the flowery mixture, which nicely disinhibits me out of my 'observer mode' and into a passionately and sensitively participatory one. Clicking away at the computer, he produced some pleasantly spacey electronic music off the Web - and kept clicking away at the computer. (As he does most of the day.) A bit of music. click. click. click. Then another bit of music... After making a few suggestions that we get at each other's ultrasensitive nipples, I got fed up with his little game and said that I had had enough of the clicks and was going to bed.

No response. So I went to my separate bedroom. An hour or so later Angelos went up to his bed. I waited a bit (still stoned and aroused) and then - ever-so-charitably giving him another chance - went into his room and told him how much I tingled. He looked up from his book and announced with both triumph and derision:
"You said you wanted to go to bed, so go back to bed!"
So I went back to bed. This guy is into power games. Perhaps I shall not buy him an air ticket to Paris, but dump him in Belfast, where I'm sure he'll find someone to latch on to.

An example of a power-game: he agreed to do some physical work for me as part-repayment of his air-fare - but the only work he did was (on his own initiative) to cut nettles where there was no need to cut them. Now there is an area of bleak desolation until they grow up again.

This morning I got up at 9 as usual.  He was still in bed.  I breakfasted and wrote to you.  Then I went off to take Emma's Smokey for a sniff or thousand in the woods.  Returning home, Angelos was at the bottom of the lane.  I told him to jump into the car.  He launched himself into a kiss.  I pushed him away, and launched into my complaint - ending with the question What did he have to offer me ?  (He can't drive, knows nothing about practical things like electrics and rooves and plumbing, and can't produce exciting and companionable meals like Malcolm can, not least because of his obsessive table-clearing and his disinterest in desserts.)

He was truly taken aback.  Very rueful and silent.  Looked at me with hurt-puppy eyes.  Didn't know what I meant about 'power games'...said that at the middle of last week (which was when he started to piss me off) he had wanted to be alone!  (But didn't, of course, say.)

So he's at Seaforde (with all his stuff) to lick his wounds, be on his own, and plan his next move. The first thing he did there was stuff a lot of clothes into Malcolm's washing-machine, since of course I wash clothes here by hand.

10th August

A woman called Suzanne phoned Angelos. I gave her the Seaforde number.
He phoned me this evening, and there were long silences. He sounds very contrite. Seems (or pretends) to 'be in love with' me without saying it (thank goodness). I don't want love, just warm respect.

So I wrote him this e-mail:

Dear Angelos, I think we have been caught up in a folie à deux, and failed to be realistic ever since we contacted each other on Hairyturks. You told me too little about yourself. For example, that you are a tobacco addict from the rentier class, with many rich and/or fashionable friends around Europe, something of a social networker with a tendency to patronise or condescend, and to play a top dog rôle. To be a prince of humility would be, of course, oxymoronic…so why are you here ? I told you a great deal about myself, such that I am antisocial and like living on my own. I told you the state of my finances, and of my relationship with Malcolm. My website tells quite a lot more. I am not easy company - except in small doses. I hate rôles and rôle-playing, which explains the relationship I have with Malcolm. Fortunately, we had a very good sexual connection - until Sunday night when you played the click/music game on the computer, though I made it obvious that (having smoked marijuana) I wanted to make long slow love. I stormed off to bed. But when I heard you go up to your bed, I came to join you, only to be repulsed by your comment ("You said you were off to bed, so go to bed!" as if I were a spoiled child) and a very contemptuous look which I will never forget. I think, quite honestly, we are not really sufficiently interested in each other to make a relationship. You 'do your things' and I do mine. We have not had stimulating conversations or any urge to collaborate on something. I really don't think we have much to offer each other. If you were a handyman, we might be able to work out a modus vivendi. But really you are no more handy than Malcolm or I - and much more narcissistic. I don't need two Malcolms, even if one is sexually wonderful. He doesn't need two Anthonys. We have a sensual rapport, but little emotional/intellectual connection. Sensual rapport is not enough on which to found a relationship - especially for two people who both like solitude, I more than you. What have I to offer you ? Only a roof and a very limited amount of money - plus my limited sensual appeal and performance. So what do we do now ? I can't see how things could possibly work in Saint-Antonin, especially since Malcolm finds you arrogant and patronising. Of course, I don't know yet whether or not Malcolm will go to France with me, but I don't think it would be a good idea for you both to go. If he genuinely does not want to go, it might be possible for you to accompany me, on the understanding that your stay in my house would be limited to (say) a month. In which case you would have to find some kind of income and a flat. Your lack of money is a problem, and I cannot see how you could make any in rural France, except "on the black" - which would require a useful skill. My funds, as you know, are limited, especially since buying the new laptop and the Athens-Dublin air fare. My French taxes this year have risen enormously, due to revaluation of the house. So we are in quite a situation - because of a folie à deux. Maybe you can do something in Belfast, but cities no longer appeal to you, and certainly not a rather depressing one (compared with, say, Siena or Pisa or Perugia). I should point out that I don't know when or where or how you last earned money or had an income. You have been very vague on such matters. Last Sunday night I simply wanted to dump you at Downpatrick bus station. Fortunately for you, I decided to 'sleep on it'. Talking of which, I shall now retire to bed. Yours truly, ANTHONY today's blog: www.dsdnt.blogspot.ie

11th August

I'm so enjoying my solitude!
I think it is very difficult for men to make friends with other men, because of competitiveness initiated perhaps by testosterone, and grotesquely magnified by culture and education. 'Homosexuality' complicates it further. We like a bit of competitiveness, but not too much - unless the friendship is actually based on competitiveness, as in 'sport' which is definable as 'not-play', because play is very friendly indeed. ('Sport' is also a great infantiliser, very useful to governments.) Maybe this is part of the reductive-destructive dualism of Western and/or monotheistic cultures...
Anyway, Angelos is just a bit too competitive for me. Perhaps what men (including me) like about women is their comparative non-competitiveness. I feel with Angelos that he is always waiting to trump my ace, and I just want to walk away from the card-table. I refuse to compete. I have always refused to compete, refused to infantilise myself any further - and refused, therefore, to apply for jobs...
This of course may be a different kind of ace-trumping: setting myself above competition, rather like Jesus or Francis of Assisi!

There are freeloaders and freeloaders. What the "Prince of Poverty" lacks in princeliness, he provides in pushiness. My dislike of pushiness is part of the reason for my anti-Americanism. America is anti-quietist. As the historian Dominic Sandbrook said of a notorious self-pusher, the American Dream was embodied by Richard M. Nixon.

My hatred of competitiveness is part of my egalitarianism, I guess. Angelos has presented himself in competitive mode, or as 'a competitive type', and thus beyond MY pale. And if he becomes contrite (as he sounded last night) and pleads to stay with me, he becomes a 'client'. I have spent 18 years trying to make Malc more independent, with modest success. I don't want clientship any more than I want to have client status myself - though I have (paradoxically ?) succeeded in being a client of the Welfare State all my life, only partly in order to be another little maggot in the meat.
But I digress...!

12th August

I phoned Angelos at Seaforde this morning: he hadn't gone online since arriving there, so I told him to connect and read my e-mail.
About an hour later he phoned back and was eminently reasonable, saying that we had been foolish to rush into things, and that they weren't working out. So I have bought an Aer Lingus flight for him on the 19th August - back 3,000 kilometres to Athens. He declined Paris, and there was not much difference in the price, anyway.

I'm really glad he has been reasonable, and has realised that he is not quite 'ready' to connect with me, and is either too young or too thoughtless and shallow. Apparently, it is not the first time he has been in this situation...
I have a wonderful feeling of relief. He says he will pay me back eventually for all the air fares, but that is not my primary concern. He probably won't : 'out of sight, out of mind'...

20th August

Suzanne turned out to be a counsellor from the STD clinic. He has chlamydia. Perhaps has had it a long time. This is an infection transmitted man-to-man mainly through the rectum, though Suzanne (whom I phoned) says there are other vectors. Since neither of us ejaculated during our several orgasms, and I am not into penetration, I guess I'm free, but I'll go and get tested ('Ridiculous old fool visits tacky Belfast gay sauna').

He left for Dublin airport yesterday morning, without exhibiting an iota of gratitude, respect or regret. He seems incapable of seeing himself from outside, has no concept of self-improvement, no shred of psychological awareness. So he is unaware that he is 99% ego: a free-loading, would-be Playboy of the Eastern Mediterranean - from the rentier class. A form of life not as low, of course, as Greek Ship-owners, or international arms-dealers, because it is relatively harmless, except to its immediate environment.

With smileless eyes (that don't show up as such in photos), he is perhaps one of the more fortunate sad, lonely people who don't know they are lonely and sad.
As for me, 'there's no fool like an old fool'!

The swallows will, in a few weeks' time, depart for Lake Chad or even farther south. This is Angelos' photo of five on my electricity wires.

click to see my startling photo from two days later

Strange that he never once commented on any of the paintings in my house, nor had he gone to my megalithic website, though he knew we were going on a megalithic tour in South Down. So he asked damn-fool questions which derived from total ignorance, though he was online every day, most of the day, 'streaming' down and uploading lots of videos. The day before he left, he used up 580 MB, compared with my total of 80 MB the day after he had departed. And, of course, no painting or decorating done during the month he was here.

When I visited Martin and Vi today, they had summed him up within 5 minutes on his only visit - as 'a bigmouth'. In other words: a self-commodifier. As my mother used to say: There's no fool like an old fool.

Though physically attracted to most bearded men, I tend to be emotionally-drawn to quiet, unassuming characters. So why did I let myself be lured by someone so demanding of attention ? No hopeful intention goes unpunished. (It is interesting that I like forward dogs, probably because I regard dogs as inherently superior...even the confused and unbelievably-timid Smokey.)

I discovered, on checking the History in my browser, that he had spent hours and hours on the gay voyeur website, on Facebook, MySpace (which then located him here) - and on a site called Anarcocks. But I could find no record of a search for information on Chlamydia.

All in all, since he could be so holosensual, Angelos would be great to know for a nice marijuana weekend; great as a short-term cuddle-buddy but not as any kind of partner, since he is so grotesquely narcissistic, egotistic, solipsistic.
And all in all - all I've lost is money!

- but if money is shit, humans might be dysentery...

If "soul" is generosity of spirit, 'bad sex' is one of its many tests. For a few days I had very fine and beautiful holo-homo-sensual sessions with Angelos. It is curious how forgettable and dreamlike such beautiful experiences can be. I guess this unfortunate (but evolutionarily-useful) evanescence is why people keep on wanting to relive, renew, or repeat them.