I pack my suit in a bag, I'm all dressed up for Prague...I'm all dressed up with you, and dressed up for him too...

Why isn't everything glow in the dark? That's some kick-arse technology right there and it's just going to waste. Imagine if you went back in time and showed some glow in the dark stuff to cavemen...they'd lose their primordial shit! I bet that's exactly how Jesus got his big break...

I daresay you've heard about the wild and crazy weather over here where we had the heaviest snow in almost 20 years on Sunday night. I looked out the window and the whole world was blanketed in a soft fluffy doona. I went outside and it was so still and quiet, and the sky was really bright...it was weird and spooky and magical. I made snowballs and threw them at the neighbours' windows until my hands fell off from frost bite and Salette made me come inside. It's so amazing! But as if that wasn't amazing enough, how awesome to wake up Monday morning and finding ourselves snowed in...the whole city got a Snow Day! They closed the schools, took all the buses off the road, trains weren't running and pretty much everyone was told to stay home and play in the snow. Officially it was a work from home day, but with most of my notes and materials back on my desk there was a limit to how much I could do. So after a few hurried hours beavering away (ooh err!) Salette and I downed tools, rugged up and headed out to play in the snow, as per orders. We had a snowball fight and made our first snowman together...more of a totem offering to the snow gods to just keep on doing what they're doing. Good job, man! There were quite a lot of people doing the same thing but still a large number who whinged and complained about the inconvenience of it all and casting about for someone to blame. I felt like a little kid surrounded by grumpy grown ups who actually resented being forced to stay home from work. Sometimes I can't believe this fucking place! For people who are accustomed to snow I guess this all sounds a bit childish and naive but screw you flinty-hearted jerkoffs! i love that all it takes is some frozen water to make me realise that the world is an amazing and beautiful place, and that things like snow and wonder and whimsy and love and all that crap exist if you're prepared to go out amongst it all and enjoy. Of course it all wore off pretty quickly the next day when the remaining snow (and there was a lot of it) froze up into hard-packed ice and the whole world looked like the back of your freezer when you haven't defrosted it for a few years.

When it comes to gifts, I'm not a materialistic person...for me it truly is the thought that counts. The gift you receive from a friend at Xmas time is a clear indicator of how well they know you and the esteem in which they hold you. Case in point: Clara bought me some super posh fancy schmancy cupcakes from Fortnum & Mason to enjoy as part of my solo Xmas lunch. Dr Phil bought me a pink jelly butt plug. Nice.

Speaking of Dr Phil, a few weekends ago Salette and I headed off to Prague for Dr Phil's 30th Birthday Extravaganza (he's just a baby!) We were booked to fly out on Friday night but delays on the stoopid Gatwick Express train meant we were 35 minutes late and 6 minutes late getting to the check-in desk so we missed out. We were booked on the first flight out next morning so headed back to my place for a few minutes sleep before getting a cab back to the airport at 4am. I don't know how many of you have been to Gatwick airport before but one of the trade offs of getting a £20 flight with a budget airline is that you're forced to employ every known mode of transport in order to get to your friggin plane. Cabs, robot trains, buses, hovercraft, skateboards, piggy backs from itinerant Polish migrant workers, I'm not kidding. Thankfully we got there alive and managed a day of sight-seeing before the party that night. Prague is just as lovely and whimsical as everyone makes out, particularly in winter when it's shrouded in mist, however I can't help but feel its glory days have passed. There's a fair bit of tarnish to the shine and decay to the grandeur these days, which some how seems fitting for a former communist stronghold, but the glory and pride of the old days has been plastered over with the tacky posters of tourism and materialism as the Praguians sell out every bit of their history and their heritage and flog it to western tourists with equal measures of vigour and disdain.

The party was a real eastern European knees up in a sweet little cafe, where the accolades flowed as freely as the Czech beer and the tears, although it was hard to tell if the latter was the result of the heart-felt accolades for the guest of honour or the choking miasma of cigarette smoke. The place was packed with Dr Phil's friends and family and although I've not known him nearly as long as most of the people there, I felt welcomed and wanted and part of something much larger than any of us and all of us put together (Phil has that effect on you, the creepy bastard). Plus I had a smoking hot American Girlflen on my arm upon whom everybody was perving. Check out the photos...

I read to my infinite dismay that some movie studio is planning a remake of Predator with Robert Rodriguez (of Mariachi and Grindhouse fame) to direct. Come on, Hollywood, seriously? What's with this remaking of classic movies all the time? Does Citizen Kane need to be remade to bring it up to speed with the cool kids? Maybe with some up and coming rap star in the lead role to get the kids into it...Citizen Kanye, anyone? Fuck no! What Predator needs is not a make over but a decent sequel. It's already perfect (and kick-ass) so leave it the fuck along, you bunch of slack-jawed faggots! Besides, where're you going to recruit a crop of bad ass 80's action legends of the calbre of Arnie, Carl Weathers and Jessie "the body" Ventura from the current crop of limp-wristed pansy boys that laughingly comprise the contemporary tough guy stable these days?

After returning from Sand Crab's Disco, I got a serious jones for Mexican food so I tracked down an authentic Mexican ingredients supplier at Borough Market and whipped up a feast for my Lady Love of guacamole, chipotle salsa, negros frijoles and fish tacos. I even bought a some proper corn flour and a tortilla press and hand made my own soft corn tortillas. Yummo, stick-it-up-your-bummo! It was abso-fuckin-lutely delish. Unfortunately the margaritas I made were a little tequila-heavy so things got a bit raucous (which is a combination of 'rawk' and 'nauseous').

There was a bit of excitement the other day when the cops smashed in Salette's front door. They'd caught some kid with a load of crack and he gave them her address as his own so a bunch of them went around with The Enforcer and gave it what for. It took them 15 minutes to get in as she had a super secure door, but they practically tore the entire frame out of the brickwork in the process. They realised pretty quickly they were in the wrong place and were super apologetic and will replace the door. Thankfully she was at work at the time but was understandably shaken up by it all and wished she was there to let them in when they knocked. Personally I'm glad she wasn't: they believed they were raiding a crack den and if they found her there they might have decided to do a repeat of the London Tube debacle and pumped seven rounds into her pretty little head.

Why is it we start to feel our most insecure when things are going really well? We try to be cool and calm but inside we're a roiling writhing tumult of fear and self-doubt. As much as we'd like to think we're Fonzie, there's a great big chunk of Potsie deep inside us (all you Anson Williams fetishists just creamed your jeans). As each day passes I find myself falling more and more in love with Salette, but I occasionally have these brief spurts of paranoia. She switches her phone off when she's at work and is so busy she hardly ever gets back to her desk during the day, so in the early days when I was sending her cute emails and texts and stuff she never responded, so I got all worried and started to imagine stuff (totally unlike me, I know). But then I found out what was going on and it was OK, and nowadays she responds almost straight away, which is nice. At the Mexican new year's Eve party this swarthy artist guy was hitting on her at the end of the night. He put his hand on her arse at precisely the same moment he looked over his shoulder to see me standing there, drunk on mescal and glaring at him like my eyesight would set him on fire. At the point he wisely chose to depart in a hurry, but Salette was so pissy pants she doesn't even remember the incident, the guy or the arse touching. All she remembers is me being all weird and upset for no reason.

I think the thing I struggle most with is feeling so plain and ordinary compared to the other guys she's dated. She's been with these amazing artists who are talented and smart and passionate and temperamental and renowned. And I'm just some jerk-off who can make a nice omlette and crack a silly joke now and then. I still don't know what she would see in me, I'm nothing like those guys. But maybe that's entirely the point: maybe I'm better than them. So then I start thinking that maybe because she's lived the wild and crazy and passionate life and is sick of it, she now wants something quiet and ordinary and dull. Is that me? Why do I feel so insecure? Why is it so hard for me to see the good things in me? Why does this sound like flippin' God-awful Goth poetry?

It's not all doom and gloom and glasses-half-empty, you'll be pleased to know. Our six-month anniversary is coming up in Feb, and I can scarcely believe it. The downside is it falls on Valentine's day, bleech! We're doing something special to celebrate but we're so NOT doing the Valentine's day thing. It's just an unfortunate co-inky-dink that it falls on that day. We're celebrating our lurve in spite of the brainless greeting card zombie drones and their minions, but we're doing it because we're in luh-huh-hurve, not because some ass-bag in a suit tells us we have to. We both planned something super awesome for the occasion and neither of us would backdown or tell the other their idea, so we had to employ the services of Dr Phil and Phillipa the Kiwi Chick to play independent mediator and choose which idea was the best. We had this big discussion about me being gracious in defeat prior to the decision coming in, but then I won, woo hoo! And of course a certain someone wasn't at all gracious in her defeat, heh heh.

Is Lou Rawls still alive? I bet I could get him to show up and sing "My Lady Love" for, like, a pork chop and a glass of bourbon...