Resolution reinforced

At some point in the future, my workplace is slated to close, its functions due to be transferred to a regional centre in a town 50 miles from London. I've said from the outset that I would never work in the new place under any circumstances at all, and, having had to go there for the first time today, for what is now laughingly called a 'development day' - it's still just a paper exercise, designed for the company to be able to claim they provide ongoing training in the case of any 'ambulance-chasing' legal issues - my interest has reduced from zero to negative! It won't be a problem for me, in any case - the original estimate for the transfer was 2019, and that's already slipped by at least 18 months, and probably much longer, so given that I've got every intention of taking early retirement as soon as K finishes at uni, if I can't escape before that, I will, unless something completely unforeseen crops up, finish my career where I am now. I can hardly wait!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

People in, and not in, my 'not local'

I'm in what was going to be my 'new' Wetherspoons, but hasn't really become so. The area manager for the company is sitting within spitting distance of me, and I've been sorely tempted to have a rant about the closure of my local, and, more particularly, the way it was done, but it would achieve nothing - the pub isn't going to miraculously reopen, after all - so I've bitten my tongue. Also in here is a 'celeb', albeit a (probably) retired one, a comedy writer and presenter who's been on TV and radio since I was a kid. When he was on TV, he always seemed to appear sitting down. I know why now - he's very short! Not in here anymore are a passel of youngsters, seemingly part of an extended family, who, when I first arrived, all seemed to be girls, but it turned out that there were a couple of boys, too, probably brothers, judging by appearance. 'Little bro' was as cute as they come, but very young, maybe 6, or thereabouts. 'Big bro', though, was 11-ish, nearly as cute as his (?) sibling, and certainly cheered up my afternoon. Neither, though, were remotely on a par with the utterly beautiful boy I saw on Oxford Street while I was travelling up here from work. He was 12/13, dark-haired, and slightly androgynous, not a look I favour - I'm much more a fan of the 'all-boy' type - but, in this instance, the degree of his attractiveness overrode any such quibbles. If I see anyone better looking than him this week, I'll be surprised - and very pleased!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Even in my fogged brain....

....fogged by fatigue and alcohol, ideas do occasionally form. And the latest idea is another 'Cassie and Robin' story. As ever, no promises as to when the next episode of the adventures of my 'sexy siblings' and their friends will appear, but given that they're my favourite characters since David and Xander, I'm pretty sure it will be 'when' rather than 'if'. Watch the Nephelokokkygia space!

Look & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Another of those days

When your day begins, before 5:00, by getting drenched walking to catch a night bus in the teeth of a gale and pouring rain, you might be justified in thinking that fate is not on your side. And I don't think, having lived through most of the rest of the day, that such an assessment is far wrong. I did, I must admit, have a better working day than most of my colleagues, by dint of the fact that most of the position I was covering was shut for maintenance and renewal work - the bad weather meant most of the other guys had the job round their necks - but that is just about the only positive I can find. Even the 'cutie of the day' is a girl - very boyish looking, apart from her long blonde hair, but indisputably female. Not that I want to wish my life away, but roll on tomorrow!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Vernal

Back onto British Summer Time, as the clocks went forward in the early hours of this morning, with the concomitant benefit of more or less full daylight as I write this, at 6:15 in the evening. Being Britain, though, the weather has had more than a touch of winter about it, wet and windy and not especially warm. The light evenings, though, for me, are the sign that spring has definitively arrived. Let's hope the cuties come out to play!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Sick and tired

Literally and figuratively. I did my fourth early shift this morning, and I've still got four more to go. I've got a chest cold I can't shake off, on top of my long term health issues. The treadmill and the feeling crap all the time pale into insignificance, though, compared to the 'lifeache' that never goes away. I'm particularly sick of the fuckwitted bigots I'm cursed to work with, whose egregious bullshit I have to listen to on a daily basis. It was homophobia day today, mixed with a faux persecution complex about white, heterosexual males being unwelcome in our industry nowadays - ignoring, of course, the strong preponderance of just that group, 80%+, in our workplace, and probably not much different in the company as a whole. There are times, more and more of late, when I just feel like walking out of the door and never going back. Today was most assuredly one of them.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Ooohhh, Luke!

11/12, lovely face, with high, thin, elfin cheekbones, hair the colour of molten gold. And yes, he was called Luke, because I heard one of his scout leaders talking to him, as he sat a couple of heartbeats away from me, on the bus he and his troopmates joined a few stops after me as I was en route back from the pub earlier. He wasn't the only cutie of the day, but he was the most heartbreaking, without a doubt.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Insane

'Let the punishment fit the crime', so the saying goes. Six years for consensual sex with an individual within a few months of the arbitrary age of consent. Sheer fucking insanity.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

More boys

And most welcome, too. En route after work, a boy with striking, but rather unusual looks, close to my erstwhile 'London local' where I'd dropped off the bus to pick up a couple of bits of shopping, then a dog walking cutie, not traffic-stopping but very easy on the eye. And now, in the Wetherspoons that was going to be my 'sort-of' new local, but has hitherto rather been eclipsed by the place where Daniel works, a little guy, maybe a year or two older than Cammy, but with the same irrepressible 'boyness' of my 'little friend'. I gnashed my teeth the other day at a comment I saw online, about 'paedophiles' calling themselves boylovers (or girl lovers) to seem less 'threatening', because, as far as I'm concerned, 'boylover' describes my feelings exactly - I adore boys, and everything about them. Yes, I'll admit to the sexual attraction to many of them, but there's so much more to it than simply sex. And if anyone disbelieves me, bollocks to them, frankly.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Fancy turning lightly

Not a young man, of course, not chronologically, anyway. But Spring has sprung, a little, and as today is my only day off - and then only nominally, given that I didn't finish my run of night shifts until 7:00 this morning - in three weeks, my fancy turned to boys (there's a surprise, eh?!). And, for once, an 'eye candy cruise' was rewarded, big style. First of all, at lunchtime, when I meandered through an area of London which I've found rarely disappoints on the cutie front, I came across not only the 'boy of the day', but one of the most stunning I've ever seen, 13-ish, and more than a little reminiscent of my mental picture of Xander at that age. Then, on my way to my new Wetherspoons haunt, another absolutely delicious blondie, maybe a year younger than the earlier boy, and from the same school as the lost, lamented 'boy on the bus' of eighteen months or so ago. 'Ghosts' both, needless to say, but such lovely ghosts. So now I'm waiting and hoping that Daniel will be working this evening, as he was last Tuesday. Logic and reason should tell me that he'll be no more likely to be interested in me than the younger guys, but I can't help but wish that something illogical and irrational might happen.

1840 edit: Daniel is working, and we've had a little chat, but I've got to go home imminently, because 'stupid o'clock' in the morning. Meh!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Another hour of my life wasted

I had to go to my doctors' surgery yet again this afternoon, albeit to see the practice nurse rather than a doctor, for a blood pressure check. Even though the waiting room population consisted of me and no-one else, they still kept me hanging about for 25 minutes (I did arrive early, admittedly). At least the 'scores on the doors' were relatively good this time, surprisngly so given the correspondance I've been pondering over the weekend, so, unless anything unforeseen crops up, I won't have any more medical interactions, apart from ordering and collecting my repeat prescriptions, until August.
So, it's back to the never-ending treadmill, my last night shift of this current run tonight, then back to work a whole 24 hours later, on Wednesday morning, to start a run of 8 early shifts, including the whole of the bank holiday weekend. I can hardly express my rapture. Or not, as the case may be.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

God gave you

On my way to work last night, I found myself in a tube carriage which, a couple of stops after mine, was 'colonised' by a large group of American tourists, heading into Central London for a night out, as far as I could tell from the rather loud conversation. Their accents, while I'm no expert on American regional accents, seemed to suggest a southern US origin. At one point, a woman began talking about her job as head of special needs education at a high school, including mentioning a student with visual problems, and trotted out the phrase 'God gave you two eyes for a reason'. If ever there was a 'red rag' to a sceptical atheist, and one with a scientific turn of mind, to boot, like me, a comment like that is it. My immediate reaction was to think 'No, stupid, evolution gave you two eyes because binocular vision enhances depth perception and thus confers advantages for survival of the species, most notably avoiding being eaten by predators', and I had to bite my tongue to avoid saying so out loud. It never ceases to amaze me how people, adherents of every organised religion, as far as I'm aware, are prepared to infantilise themselves so casually by accepting 'God did it' as an explanation for anything and everything. How about growing up and actually using your exquisitely evolved brain for a change, instead?

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Wishful dreaming

I had a very vivid dream earlier today. A boy dream. Not an erotic dream, but rather a romantic one. I was at a party, in a big, rambling old house. My friend at work was there, too, and my dream self ended up in a big armchair, kissing and cuddling, smiling and murmuring endearments, with a boy that was some kind of 'mashup' of his two sons. The dream boy was 13/14, a similar age to the older boy, and with his sweet smile, but also with the adorable blond, blue eyed looks and slightly chunky build of 'little bro'. There was no sexual component to what was happening, just love. I woke almost glowing from the experience. But, thinking about the scenario once I'd woken up fully, it soon turned sour. I couldn't help but think how such a connection, should it be repeated in real life, would be viewed by 'society'. Tantamount to rape, I have little doubt. Is it really so appalling, so beyond the pale, so unforgivably, viscerally hateful that I should want to share my love with a boy, rather than an adult? All the evidence suggests that the only answer to that question acceptable to 'the masses' is 'yes'. Everyone's equal, so they say. Except the ' filthy paedo'.
And, on top of that, today's post brought a letter which might herald the beginning of the end of what tiny amount of worth and dignity remains in my life, might take away the only worthwhile thing I have left, the ability to help my daughter complete her education and achieve her ambitions. Compared to four or five years ago, I have virtually nothing. And even that last vestige might soon be taken away. Then it really will be time to go, I suspect.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Deciphering - or failing to

I can't work it out. I'm just not good enough at decoding the signals. If they're signals at all. And with the waters muddied still further by my unholy combination of utter disbelief that anyone could ever want to be close to me, and desperate hope that one particular person might be the exception that proves the rule. Daniel is working tonight, and I've exchanged a few words with him. Including my telling him that I start nights tomorrow, and that I'll be out of circulation for a week. He seemed to be genuinely disappointed that he wouldn't be seeing me in the interim. But was that just wishful thinking on my part? If I say something unequivocal, but get rejected, I'll be gutted. If I prevaricate, and miss out on something I've wanted for so long, I'll be even more gutted. Why is my life such a fucking minefield?

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Desire

I spend a lot of time cooing and sighing over cute boys, especially the younger ones who catch my eye with their beauty. But, sometimes, something more primal comes to the fore - outright sexual attraction. I've never made any secret of the fact that I'm attracted to pubescent boys, and I crossed paths, very briefly, with one such this evening. I was on a bus, en route to what is shaping to become my new regular haunt (not my new 'local', because it isn't, particularly - it takes me a good 40-45 minutes to get home from here), the pub where Daniel now works - he's not here tonight, sadly - when, one stop before I was due to get off, a boy, 13/14 and as cute as hell got on. He was with a girl of around the same age, probably more likely, from the way they were interacting, to be a girlfriend than a sibling, as well as a young woman not old enough to be his mother, maybe an older sister of his or the other girl's. And I can't lie - I wanted him, badly and immediately. As ever, I knew there was no chance of my desire being consummated, but that doesn't make the wanting any less real. A reminder, I guess, that I still have the potential to seriously hurt someone, or to get myself into all sorts of trouble, or both, if the wrong set of circumstances arose. Or to have the ultimate thrill of my life, if the circumstances were right.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Little random things

I've been trying to come up with something to write about for an hour or more, but all that's coming to mind is fragmentary stuff, 'thoughtbites', as it were, nothing coherent or substantive. I think my fundamental problem, as a 'wannabe' writer, is that I do occasionally find the '1% inspiration', but the '99% perspiration' is conspicuous by its absence. But I can make at least one definitive statement of belief as a result of this evening's musings - the phrase 'apple cider' is tautologous!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

'It's good to see you here'

Not the sort of greeting I'm used to receiving any time, anywhere, but when it comes from a certain cute member of Wetherspoons' staff, recently transplanted from my erstwhile local, it's bordering on the surrealistic. I still can't conceive of any real connection, for all the reasons I've gone over before, but thank you anyway, Daniel, for giving me quite a lift.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Gigging again

K and I have been to a gig again this evening, this time to see The Jesus & Mary Chain at Kentish Town. It didn't quite reach the stellar heights that King Crimson scaled last autumn, nor, indeed, did it come close to unseating my all-time number one gig when the B52s played tonight's venue a looong time ago, but it was a thoroughly good do, just the same - and the loudest gig I've been to in many a long year, too! I really didn't have too much idea what they would actually play, but most of the songs were familiar, not least when they played my 'personal national anthem', Never Understand, as part of the encore. It freaked K out a little bit, because I've charged her with making sure it's played at my funeral - 'it's weird, sitting next to you while your funeral song is being played live' was her take on the matter - but, overall, she enjoyed the show almost as much as I did. The fruits of the sound musical education I've given her!

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Come outside and say that again

There aren't many times when I wish I lived in America, or even want to visit there. But there are exceptions. I'd quite happily meet Shoebat in a car park of his choice and kick the living shit out of him (purely in self-defence, of course). Then he could whine to all his like-minded Christofascist associates about how he'd been damaged by the 'gay agenda'. Needless to say, he'd never have the balls to meet anyone one on one and personally put his bigoted arse on the line, but I can daydream.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Takeover!

In my 'second-string' Wetherspoons again, and a passel of familiar faces have recently appeared. Mostly staff from my old local, seemingly on a night out, but a regular or two from there as well. Daniel is amongst them, but we haven't made any sort of contact, sadly for me. Not that I'm remotely unrealistic enough to think that he could ever have any interest in me, but a 'hello' would do more than a little for my self-esteem. Even that is too much to hope for, apparently.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Mixed feelings

I'm in what has been my 'second-string' Wetherspoons for several months, especially in tonight's circumstances, when I'm finishing a late shift on a weeknight, and don't have time to commute to a pub that closes at 11:00, as my old local did from Sunday to Thursday. I knew Daniel had been transferred to here, but he is only a part-timer, and isn't working tonight (sadly!), but what I didn't know was that my 'rival', for a certain cutie's attention, had been transferred here as well. But there he was, large as life, as I walked through the door an hour or so ago. I couldn't suppress an ironic smile, but I wasn't all that thrilled to see him - I was under the impression that he was heading to a branch twenty or so miles out of town where he'd apparently worked before. A few moments of reflection, though, suggested a little ray of light in the scenario - he became very pally with Cammy's family, seemingly because of a shared (purportedly, at least) interest in the focus of their business, so that if they know where he's moved to, they may come to this pub. Which gives me a small degree of hope that I might not have seen the last of that darling little guy. A bit of a long shot, but I'm quite happy to clutch at straws, in the circumstances.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Joining the diaspora

Out and about for the first time since my local closed just over a week ago - I finished my week of night shifts this morning, so I wouldn't have been in my local in the interim, even if it had still been extant - and I've fetched up in another Wetherspoons, three or four miles further from home. I have been here a few times before, mostly in the summer - the pub has a very nice suntrap beer garden, albeit, of course, not much use at this time of year, and, in general, is probably the most congenial option within relatively easy reach - two buses, changing, ironically, more or less right outside my former haunt - of the flat. I'd heard a few people from the old place say that they were going to be coming here, and as soon as I walked in I recognised one of my former fellow customers. I very much doubt I'll be in here anywhere near as often as I was in the old local, not least because I'll be leaving this part of London, unless something most unforeseen happens, in six months or so, but it will certainly pass muster in the meantime.
Except that I've just heard, literally as I was typing the last sentence, that this place might be closing, too. Marvellous.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Indecent haste

Five and a half days, that's all it is since my former local closed its doors for the last time, and already it's had its face ripped off. I went past the place for the first time since its demise, on my way back from work this morning - all the Wetherspoon signage has gone, the windows are boarded up, it looks like nothing more than a disused shop (and, indeed, it was a shop before its conversion to a pub, twenty-odd years ago). I doubt if anyone unfamiliar with the area, driving through for the first time, maybe, would realise it had ever been a pub at all. But that's capitalism, of course. People don't matter, either staff or customers, communities don't matter. All that matters is money, and its concentration in the hands of the oligarchy. Money is power - and power corrupts.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

And, for the 40th consecutive year....

...., maintaining their 100% record, the award for the most flagitiously gratuitous and inaccurate use of the word 'paedophile' (and its more recent disyllabic pejorative contraction) goes to....The Sun, for their front page headline of yesterday. I'd say they were a disgrace to journalism, but that would mean accepting that the ordure they produce is journalism at all. But then again, they belong to the Murdoch lies factory, so what else would you expect?

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Nothing I can say

That I haven't said umpteen times before. And nothing I can say that would change the mind of even one person. That's why it's so frustrating, so often. Not only are you vilified for being yourself, for what you are even if what you do 'toes the line', but even stating an opinion contrary to that of the majority is likely to bring down truckloads of opprobrium. Everyone is supposed to believe, or at least outwardly espouse, the 'conventional wisdom'. It's the societal manifestation of the old joke - 'Eat shit, billions of flies can't be wrong'. And every bit as nauseating, as far as I'm concerned.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Treadmilling, but a possible escape route, too

Nights, again. One down, six to go. Great. My commute home this morning was horrible, just to underline the 'no fun' leitmotiv, two trains delayed by a passenger being taken ill on a preceding service, then two buses from my supposedly 'local' National Rail station (nearly three miles from here) both snagged by glacial traffic, two hours plus to get back. There is, sort of, light at the end of the tunnel, though, and it might be a little brighter than it seemed up to a few days ago. K, although the 'interview season' hasn't finished yet, is becoming more set on going to her first choice university, the one closest to London, and she's also been canvassed for a new part-time job, working behind the bar at a North London music venue, a possibility she's seriously considering. The combination of the two might, and it's very much 'might' at the moment, mean that she's reconsidering living with me after September, in a specific area of the 'bottom left-hand' corner of Greater London, much closer to where I work but still easily commutable to her potential uni town, and fairly easy to get to and from her 'new' job, even late at night. We'll have to see how things develop.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B