I rounded off my year in style by getting thrown out of the Hogarthian place for my appalling behaviour (31st Dec 2006)

I rounded off my year in style by getting thrown out of the Hogarthian place for my appalling behaviour. In five years I don’t think I have ever seen anyone thrown out, unless they were actually cracking bar stools over other people’s heads. How low can a boy sink? I think it was watching the Consul in Under the Volcano the previous night that inspired me to these dizzying depths of depravity. I was already worse for wear when I arrived, had one more, discovered Lucky now has dark hair, Crystal discovered I now have dimples, headed off to see La Antonacci. I had a standing place, but found I kept nodding off, and coming round just as my knees were about to buckle. I left after an hour, not even making it to the interval. As Carmen made her escape from jail, the lights momentarily dimmed, and I made my escape from the opera house, running in the direction of rain-soaked Kingsway where I made my fateful decision to get the 91 BACK to King’s Cross. Things then went from bad to worse. Israeli Helen, —–, Stella, Chloe, Arleni, Sindy, Demi. I seem to remember buying Demi a box of chocolates as she told me it was her last night [it later turned out it wasn't].

A brief visit to Sunset Strip (29th Dec 2006)

A brief visit to Sunset Strip, after the appalling enforced Christmas abstinence, to see the divinity that is Jolanda and the callipygous Helen. It is amazing how much more naked a stripper looks when she takes off her shoes. The first thing Helen always does when she steps on stage is to take off her shoes, & then slowly pads around the stage, Salome-like even without the Salome costume, on the balls of her bare feet. All strippers should dance barefoot, I think. Without wanting to get too personal, she does have the best behind in London, apart OF COURSE from Hannah/Pink at the White Horse who possesses a bottom that you would follow anywhere if you met it in the street. 

When Jolanda steps on stage it is like how Zola describes Nana: “Then scarcely was Diana alone than Venus made her appearance. A shiver of delight ran round the house. Nana was nude. With quiet audacity she appeared in her nakedness, certain of the sovereign power of her flesh. Some gauze enveloped her, but her rounded shoulders, her Amazonian bosom, her wide hips, which swayed to and fro voluptuously, her whole body, in fact, could be divined, nay discerned, in all its foamlike whiteness of tint beneath the slight fabric she wore. It was Venus rising from the waves with no veil save her tresses. And when Nana lifted her arms the golden hairs in her armpits were observable in the glare of the footlights. There was no applause. Nobody laughed any more. The men strained forward with serious faces, sharp features, mouths irritated and parched. A wind seemed to have passed, a soft, soft wind, laden with a secret menace. Suddenly in the bouncing child the woman stood discovered, a woman full of restless suggestion, who brought with her the delirium of sex and opened the gates of the unknown world of desire. Nana was smiling still, but her smile was now bitter, as of a devourer of men. “By God,” said Fauchery quite simply to La Faloise.” 

Jolanda wore a lime green see-through slip of fabric for my first sight of her, then a pink dress for her double act with Helen, finishing with that Stokerish white see-through dress. I realise now not only is she a Nana, but a blonde Zora Suleman, and there is not much better than that. For me, she is the Queen of Sunset Strip. Miss Soho 2006. Jolanda is a girl Toulouse Lautrec would have designed posters for. Why don’t they do that anymore!? 

Dorothy Anstruther she’s a Belgian dancer living in London (26th Dec 2006)

Dorothy Anstruther she’s a Belgian dancer living in London—the girl in the Country Girl video!!!! ********* How fantastic those porn films were in Munich Inter City! The Italian ones. There is such a special feeling when I go to Munich. Knowing Italy is just the other side of the Alps. Those memories from Munich, and Vienna, and Berlin, are the best of my life. There is a soft lubriciousness about Munich. I have to go back. 

CHECK EUROPEAN TRAIN TIMES BEFORE BOOKING TICKETS, or deciding whether to stay in Munich Sunday or get train back to Brussels. So I cannot get it out & have sex in Munich; but did I enjoy it with Pamela or Francesca? with Alla? with Margareta? I can use the kabins. I realise I can only enjoy music when I am drinking & when it is turned up full deafening volume. No I cannot have sex in Munich, but the greatest nights of my life have come there, Patricia in Atlantic City let me come on her breasts in séparée, —– —- fell in love with me, Susi & Irina, Emily in Femina let me come on her breasts in séparée, Viktoriya, Martina massive breasts in Nuremberg Pils bar. It only works if you totally lose yourself in it—music. Drink, sex. 

Perfect in Brussels to go from hotel, really drunk, to California to get turned on & sober, then back to Empire ready to feel something.

Yes I think going to strip pubs is about sex (22nd Dec 2006)

Yes, I think going to strip pubs is about sex. I only enjoy watching a girl strip if I want to f–k her (for those who like dirty talk). There is nothing worse than watching a girl strip who you do not fancy. This is the time to get up & get another drink or go to the lavatory even if you do not really need to go; although, thinking particularly of Sunset, it always looks so rude when a man gets up & leaves his seat as soon as a girl comes on to dance! I try and do it delicately when her back is turned. The dirtiest striptease I ever saw was Hungarian Janet at the *[Hogarthian place]* dancing to Madonna’s Material Girl this year, during her all too brief stay on these shores. I pray for her return in 2007. Nothing else has ever come close to Janet for pure (!) dirty sexiness. It is almost always all in the eyes, I think. You can be watching a dancer and be completely unmoved, but then she looks you in the eye for a couple of seconds, and straightaway you are turned on, as the “smutty provocations” pass between you. But then that is the same anywhere, of course. Tenseness, Eroticism, Repulsive Pathology. 

The plethora of Christmas decorations hanging down from the Queen Anne ceiling made it seem like a tropical whorehouse; oh, I do apologise, HOThouse. Like a mangrove swamp, with the tendrils of fog curling through the door every now & again easily mistaken for steam; if it wasn’t so fucking cold. And it seemed so DARK in there! Obviously the effect of the new lighting. I like dark, so I am all in favour of this. Also, the music seemed louder than I have ever known it. Still not deafening, but louder than usual. In contrast to the Esteemed Maestro I love going to strip pubs at Christmas as they are so packed & the atmosphere is so good, and the Queen Anne was certainly packed. 

And then, there she was, the loveliness that is Ms Adaire. In Santa hat, and little red lacy Santa outfit {Great Tontoolian Marshes! “And those white Martian Princesses have to be seen to be believed!”}. With no disrespect to the other ladies present I enjoyed watching Redd sitting down more than I did watching the others dancing. Why pay to watch? I’d pay to watch her doing nothing. I’d pay to watch her sleep. Still recovering from my Golden Arm excesses of the previous night, and my weakened body already succumbing to a cold, I would not have bothered coming out for anyone but her. I did not stay long & did not indulge in a private dance as the thought of having to sit on my hands when such temptation was right there in front of me was too much to contemplate. I am not that strong.

I like big girls so I don’t know why I like Honey so much (21st Dec 2006)

I like big girls so I don’t know why I like Honey so much. An almost child-like body, implacable face half-hidden behind long wavy honey-blonde hair. She is a fast dancer. The slow, quiet cinema-seated somnolence of the Sunset often seems to be reflected in the dancers; they prowl & pad around the stage in a languid, cat-like way & if they lie on their back a tad too long you suspect they have actually fallen asleep; Honey bounces around the stage like a baby kitten. As soon as a few men are standing at the back the atmosphere immediately seems to improve. The snowball fights it seems are just a distant memory. I am sure the poor chap who always had to come around afterwards looking for all the snowballs under the seats and between people’s feet is glad about that. It was good to see the place so packed. When Honey was on I thought she is the star of Sunset Strip; yet when Jolanda came on in her almost Stokerish see-through white dress, I thought, no, it is Jolanda; then when Melani was on I thought, no, of course it is Melani; but then Fernanda is so lovely; and “French beauty” Lilou is so stunning; oh, and Lana; and let’s not forget the electrifying Elektra who wasn’t even here tonight. 

That, though, was only the start of my night of appalling debauchery. I wake up at 630AM the next morning, and just think “Shit”, still six hours until the pub opens again. What on Earth am I going to do for those six hours? They stretch ahead of me like an eternity. It is four hours until I can even get a McDonald’s Hamburger & Fries for breakfast. 

Pondering obsessively on Simon’s “lost” weekend in Amsterdam, those still unaccounted for three days. I have become so hooked on his Around & Abouts that I now want every SECOND of his life accounted for. I am The Man with the Golden Arm, and for two, no more than TWO, days in a week, I am just shooting up, lost to the world in my strip addiction oblivion.

There seemed to be a party going on in the Sunset Cinema bar (20th Dec 2006)

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Well at least I am not crying like I was at end of October (7th Dec 2006)

Well, at least I am not crying like I was at end of October, for three days in a row! I feel happy now. Yes I spent £1200 in the last six days but I feel ok about it. I met Clarisse & Polish Margareta in Brussels, and Evalina, Olga, Alla and Nadia in Berlin. Berlin feels brought back to life.

The Flying Scotsman was only great as an interval between visits to Berlin and maybe it can go back to that again (30th Nov 2006)

The Flying Scotsman was only great as an interval between visits to Berlin, and maybe it can go back to that again. 

You work hard to earn money so you can throw it away on your pleasures. How I admire that man at the hotel who drank 8 bottles of wine a day. 

I had such great high times in Berlin Munich Vienna I had to keep my fix going while stuck in boring London till I could get back again, that is when The Flying Scotsman started to become special to me. I love starting to drink, and then it hits your blood, then you get high, and lit up. 

Benassi Sex’n’Money. 

I have had some great nights on holiday, but they were all nights where I spent money wildly, like it was no object. That is the only lesson. Fuck the pain away.

The sensible thing would be to go to Brussels Thursday (27th Nov 2006)

The sensible thing would be to go to Brussels Thursday, spend one night in the Radisson (or Ibis probably better for ease, to save travelling to & for with bags), to allow me to get to Gare du Nord & Empire, then get train to Berlin next lunchtime, arriving Berlin Plaza about 8pm Friday night. Then staying there Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday nights, train back Tuesday, Eurostar back home Tuesday night??? 

Where do I want to go in Berlin? Just Alte National Gallery. Maybe Dom. Mostly just drinking & whoring at night. It will be nice to be in Berlin at Christmas time for first time ever. 

Just one more night to get through. Off to Waterloo on Thursday lunchtime for Eurostar. The return fare to Berlin from Brussels should be around £180? Maybe leave it till I get to Brussels to see if I can get it cheaper in the Gare du Midi??? 

Check hotel reservation for Berlin Plaza! 

**********Oh now I am so turned on & desperate to get to Berlin!! 

I have booked Thursday night in the Gare du Midi Ibis, Saturday-Monday nights in Berlin Plaza, I will just have to try Radisson SAS for Friday night in Berlin? Now Eurostar will be £89 and the Berlin train will be £185, total £275! Just one more night to get through, then I can be on Eurostar to Brussels & Berlin! These last minute decisions to travel are so much more exciting. Just watching the end of that Pete Doherty Arena documentary with him singing along to Radiohead in the car made me realise that all that matters is TO GET HIGH! TO LOSE IT! Be high all the time. 'Exhilaration is the breeze, that sweeps us off the ground'.

It is sad (25th Nov 2006)

It is sad. I had SO many great nights in Munich, but it is really hard to imagine how I could have another one. The Ukrainians have clamped everything down. Nice to look for Martina again in Pils? 

Munich seems rather sad & finished now? But to check in to the Inter City again! To go back to Lamm’s! To go out at night back across Bayerstraße to Atlantic City! To get that train to Nuremberg, Pils Bar, and Caribic on a Saturday night! Where is the best place for sex? Berlin, of course. How fantastic to go from Mon Cheri, to Golden Gate, to Monte Carlo, looking for the girl with big breasts, then taking her into the James Pryde bedroom or the séparée to f–k her. Save all my money for Berlin, and for Olga & Alla, and Ciro. That will be January 11th-14th. 

How fantastic to drink in Munich in Intercity, Lamm’s], Atlantic City at night. How fantastic to drink in Brussels in the Ibis or Radisson, then the Pullman bar, then the Metropole, before Empire at night. How fantastic to drink in Berlin in Berlin Plaza, then Café Zoo, Irish Bar beneath the old Romanisches Café, then the clubs at night. Why not go straight to Berlin this week???? Fuck La Traviata in January. Yes, Berlin. For Alte National Gallery, Dom, drinking in Café Zoo, The Oscar Wilde fish & chips, egg & ham rolls in Thobens, back to hotel to sleep, down to Berlin Plaza Knese at night for pfanne & pils, then out to Stutti or Ciro at night. So I fly? Yes. Berlin THIS WEEK!

I want my writing to be jouissance. Orgasm. An ejaculation in words (24th Nov 2006)

I want my writing to be jouissance. Orgasm. An ejaculation in words. 

Limit the f–king to once a fortnight. 

Translating mental upheaval into a revolution. 

“What do people think of me? A non entity, an eccentric, an unpleasant person, a person with no position in society, in sum the lowest of the low. Even if true, then one day I should like to show by my work what such a non entity, what such a nobody has in his heart. With a handshake, ever yours, Vincent.” 

I have become close to several whores: Ana Maria, Lela, Olga, Pamela. In Berlin Iga. To many sex dancers, too. In Munich Viktoriya. 

I wish the whole world was a harem. I wish it would thunder all the time, I wish it would rain all the time. I wish it would be dark all the time.

I am so tired & jaded of London now (23rd Nov 2006)

I am so tired & jaded of London now. I must instead go & get drunk in Brussels & Berlin. Reacquaint myself with Karl Kraus, and F Nietzsche. 

All that matters is my bleak books, written in blood, with blue hands in cold stoveless rooms around Europe. My studies in solipsism, the visceral pleasure in detachment of an autistic person. Autismus. Lotta & Sophia. The Cold Icy Air of the Mountains. Casanova. 

I have moved beyond —–, & Olga, and am free of them. Now the travelling starts again. To write my books in Brussels, Berlin, Munich and Vienna. 

I will run up such a debt I will no longer be able to go out in London, will just pay all my money on my credit card repayments & interest. That is OK. I will go back to drinking in my mother’s house & the Calcutta, while listening to the songs that remind me of travel, until I can travel again.

Now I’m thinking of course I must go to Berlin in January (20th Nov 2006)

Now I’m thinking of course I must go to Berlin in January. Life is to be lived and money is to be spent. Then I come and think you would spend hundreds of pounds going to Berlin just for that, when you can do it at home? But, no, sensual pleasure is the point of life. If I had never travelled I would never have met pink top Munich blonde, Pon de Replay Heathrow woman, Nicky, Arrica, Katerina in Frankfurt, Iga, Riccarda, Diana, Yulia, Susi, Irina, Viktoriya, Patricia, Emily. I will go to Brussels just for a Thursday, Friday and Saturday night in December maybe. Just time for Museum of Modern Art, Wiertz, Gare du Nord, kabins, and Empire—but then I think how bored I will be just in Brussels? If I am going to go, it must be Berlin or Vienna. In which case I should wait for January. But no it will be nice to go drinking in Brussels for three days, and just see who you meet. 

The thought of travelling has already cheered me up again! Just to go drinking in a different place. 

But if I’m going to go, I have to go wild, and spend a lot of money, not necessarily in Brussels, but for sure in Berlin.

Great depression when I woke this morning (19th Nov 2006)

Great depression when I woke this morning. Rejected by Pamela, —–, just used by Lydia to get her passport. Lydia does look so good, though, she turned me on so much. If we go to the swimming pool & sauna this month, I will not be able to resist trying to f–k her in the steam room! 

Huge pressure in my chest. Pamela’s rejection has saddened me.

I needed Pamela just to get me over —– (18th Nov 2006)

I needed Pamela just to get me over —–, so that money was vital to spend. I am now in my official worst ever financial position—but I am not crying over —– anymore. I even really enjoyed watching ——–, and —-, and could really enjoy all the girls again. I even got a thank you from ——–, and as she was trying to collect from drunk man, she backed into me & I even got a sorry from her, and in fact she stayed with her back resting against my arm the whole time she was with him. Maybe she sees I am not the only one who gets drunk and I am not as bad as some. 

I will leave Pamela for a while now, so my finances should recover a bit. It will just be twice a week at the Scotsman which shouldn’t be too bad. Maybe an occasional Sunset as well. 

BERLIN IN APRIL FOR SALOME IS A MUST!!!! 

So this is it—my first anniversary of moving into my own flat. What have I to show for it? Very little. It is my nest, my hiding place, and that is important though. I seem to have talked myself into going back to Brussels again, and Munich/Nuremberg, and Vienna, and Berlin in April! 

I don’t want to go to bed at night because I feel so empty and depressed. So unfulfilled, another day gone by on which I did absolutely nothing. Remember how I felt at the end of the Pete Doherty Arena, I wanted to go out & get high & lose myself, I suppose I am just feeling down now. Who would I like to be with now? Pamela? Yes. —–? No. I will not look at — for a week.

Life seems to have no meaning except to drink (17th Nov 2006)

Life seems to have no meaning except to drink. Nothing matters except getting drunk. “I give in to sin because you have to make this life livable” Strangelove—Tiger Baby. ********** 

I was absolutely hyperventilating as I waited for 96 to Horse & Groom, then as I walked along the street passing one pub after another, to find it, then pulling open the door to see…Amanda Barrington. Only three men in there. It is impossible to imagine —– working in an environment like this when she could be in the packed to the rafters Scotsman. I escaped, without asking Amanda about —–, as that would give me away, and resolved that I would now be able to go to the Scotsman after all. At Charing X there were no 91s coming, however, so I could not get to the Scotsman by 7, so might as well go to Sunset first so I could at least catch Helen. I saw her do one dance dressed as Salome, plus big Lilou who did look Danish. Snake-hipped Yasmin and Emilia who now looks like her sister, Ruby, Caroline who is Scottish, Nikita. After Helen I went up to Scotsman, already with five inside me, to see Camilla, Chloe, Arleni, Stella, Crystal, Lena. Absolutely packed. Again devastated and empty as still no sign of —–. I was thinking the danger is that now Pamela has comprehensively rejected me, I will start mourning my missed opportunity with —– again, and my mental health did indeed seem very shaky on Saturday. Back to the Sunset for some more Lilou and Caroline, and I was so drunk now I moved into the front row central. Sunset was packed now as well, standing room only, and whole back wall covered by men standing, plus blonde woman, and two Indian girls. Left after 7th beer, just as Caroline sat near me, and headed to say hello to Olga. Her hair is now wavy and looks so gorgeous. With make up on she once more looks like the woman I fell in love with & could not resist. I wish I had my camera with me at that moment. It was so good to see her. Staying with her so long, from 1140PM to 12? I missed the last train of course, and got back to the stop in time for the 20 past midnight N--. I was incredibly wide awake & crystal clear, though by the time we reached —— the headache had started and the eye ache in particular, like someone squeezing my eyeballs.

I think I now see that Olga has always reminded me of Lydia from Despair (16th Nov 2006)

I think I now see that Olga has always reminded me of Lydia from Despair, and that was a great deal of her appeal to me.

I love Pamela but cannot have her (15th Nov 2006)

I love Pamela but cannot have her. Another unrequited love in my life, after —–. At least with Pamela there is no madness, no great missed opportunity to torment me. There is just a sadness, when being with her is so lovely, she is so voluptuous and beautiful, it is so hard to come away. I will not see her again for a long time, I think. It is pointless, crazy, like it became with Lydia. And I am getting missed calls from her again, on the 9th, 10th, and 12th. 

I was running late so did not get to the Calcutta till 540, I took the box seat and found the Calcutta Belle & her man already sitting there. She was sitting facing me & it was hard to resist looking at her in the mirror. I left just after 6, after just one, as she was putting her coat on to leave as well. I got to the Scotsman just as —— was coming back to collect from some men she had missed first time but did not approach me, yet when she got on stage she was looking at me with little smiles. Sam, Crystal, Lucky. Alison, Cindy, Kelly, Cristina finishing at 7 same as Arleni. Holland v England was on which saved me some money.

—— served me first with a little smile. It did seem very busy in there; I wonder if people had been reading my recommendations! It was great to see Lucky & Alison again, but nothing else, and I left after 3. Felt so steaming mad, and bad-tempered on the bus, just from the despair and unhappiness of my life. Would have loved a Dionysus but resisted. Looked in Sunset Cinema but could not be bothered, just wanted to see Pamela. £47. Finally understood now it will always be no. Sadness. She is so good to hold, and talk to. Her dog is a terrier, called —. “He loves me”.

Not sure why I was quite so depressed after last night (9th November 2006)

Not sure why I was quite so depressed after last night. Felt rejected by —— covering her ears when I asked about private parties, and then by Pamela keep saying no to me, she is busy every day, then when I asked her if she had a boyfriend she announced she had a not-quite a boyfriend, a Frenchman, who she knew from when she first came to England. Did not wake up till 130PM, just in time to head back to Calcutta for four, then the Queen Anne. Clara, Lucy is Giselle from Sunset! Then Redd appeared. My god. She is everything she is cracked up to be and more. Changed into black businesswoman’s jacket and skirt with nothing underneath. I had a private dance with her and she rubbed very hard against me. She is awesome. It will be so long till I see her again. Got to work just before 10. Fairly awful night as can be expected with six pints inside me. 

Arleni, Maira, the unbelievably pretty Sol, Sam, Lena, Michelle, at the Flying Scotsman. And —- who I avoided. Stupidly I went into Sunset Cinema, paid £12, just looked upstairs and downstairs then left straightaway. I was too drunk. Big Naughty Titties is the only title I can remember. Pamela was busy so I sat with maid waiting, She smiled hello when she saw me, in red bra & knickers, & hair pulled back tight. As I said I felt like she would always reject me and it will never happen. “Don’t look sad” she said as I dressed, “I hate it when you look sad” At least I only spent £22 this time. All those gorgeous Berlin whores I could be fucking in Mon Cheri,Golden Gate and Monte Carlo. All those gorgeous Vienna whores. Clarisse in Brussels. 

It is six days till I can misbehave again next Wednesday. Just three hours to get through tonight. 

This day last year I was heading to Berlin for Eugene Onegin at the Deutsche Oper, and going to see the Katarina Wild Horses film in BEC afterwards, and getting so hard it would not go down even by the time I got back to leaf-strewn Ku’damm. How long till I do that again? The thing is I don’t regret spending £12 in cinema Wednesday, I just regret not forcing myself to stay. 

I would like to see Demi again in Peter Street. For that I have to go to cinema first. Just 8 days till —– at the Horse & Groom. New brunette girl in the Calcutta. Thank God a girl at last!

Cannot talk to anyone at work again (6th November 2006)

Cannot talk to anyone at work again. Awful. Want something to happen with Pamela. After all it is Tuesday tonight, so I can possible see her tomorrow. Calcutta, Flying Scotsman?, Sunset Cinema, Lisle Street. Maybe I will give the Scotsman a miss for a week. I do like those long long sessions in the Calcutta. The bigger question concerns Thursday. Do I go see Redd Adaire 4-8 at the Queen Anne?

I am under a lot of financial pressure now (5th November 2006)

I am under a lot of financial pressure now. I have steered myself towards some very tight straits, and the rock walls are closing in on me from both sides. Will my ship be able to squeeze through?

Yes I have spent £268 this week—but it was vital money to get me over —– and start something new with Pamela (4th Nov 2006)

Yes I have spent £268 this week—but it was vital money to get me over —– and start something new with Pamela. Pamela did repeat on Thursday that she doesn’t go out with customers, but then she said “I cannot go out this week, and I cannot go out next week because I am busy every day”. What about the week after? “I don’t know what my plans are the week after”. So she is not ruling it out then! Or am I clutching at straws?

It is amazing how everything has come together (3rd November 2006)

It is amazing how everything has come together: Hogarth, Harlot’s Progress, Hogarthian Flying Scotsman, Pamela, —–, Zoe Tapper, Twenty Thousand Streets. The necklace I commented to —– on, my necklace that broke with Pamela. I never want to do anything but drink in the Calcutta, then go up to either the Hogarthian Flying Scotsman to drink some more and hopefully see —–, or to see Pamela in Lisle Street next to the Crooked Surgeon. 

I want to try to get to the Soanes Museum, The Departed, Cabaret.

The reason I am going crazy over Pamela is my madness over —– (2nd November 2006)

The reason I am going crazy over Pamela is my madness over —–. The two are connected inextricably, I will never get anything from either. 

Another five in the Calcutta. The Belle of the Calcutta came in at 530 with boyfriend, black boots, short black dress, white white legs, black lipstick, brown fur trimmed coat, what a sex bomb. Later I sat at round table so I could get a direct look as she sat facing him in box seat, beautiful breasts in that black silk dress. From there I do not remember but I must have walked up to Leicester Square up the side-turning directly towards the Crooked Surgeon and straight into Pamela’s door, Emma now. She was grinning as she opened the door £50 for twenty minutes talking! Let me suck her breasts and did not stop me even when her nipples got hard, and let me lick her pussy as well. 

Fantastic watching the Hogarth Harlot’s Progress programme when I got back with Zoe Tapper again as the prostitute Mary Collins. How poignant to see Hogarth falling so infatuatedly in love with his whore. 

A Harlot’s Progress 

“In 1731 the artist William Hogarth produced a graphic series of paintings which lifted the lid on 18th-century vice and established his enduring reputation as a remarkable social satirist and the greatest British artist of his day. With an all-star cast, A Harlot’s Progress depicts Hogarth’s exploration of sex trafficking and debauchery in Georgian London.”

“He gave up drinking and decided to enjoy women–but from a distance” (18th October 2006)

“He gave up drinking and decided to enjoy women–but from a distance”. Close enough to enjoy the petals without risking the thorns. “The Artist and Model I (1919) shows Munch and his model facing the viewer. Both artist and model are in uncomfortable proximity—claustrophobic and silent rather than intimate.The model’s face is in shadow and has become mask-like. In these years Munch clarified what he considered to be the core of the dissatisfaction in relations between men and women. Men need distance from women to feel powerful but this causes women to suffer; women need men to be close in order to feel powerful but this causes men to suffer.” Alternatively, as Helena and Rosa’s countryman Anton Chekhov would have it, “A woman, deprived of the company of men, pines. A man, deprived of the company of women, becomes stupid!” How true. How many times I have demonstrated the truth of this myself. As Boris Pasternak wrote in Mary Magdalene, “As soon as night descends we meet. Remorse my memories releases. The demons of the past compete, and draw and tear my heart to pieces. Sin. Vice. And madness. And deceit. When I was slave of men’s caprices, and when my dwelling was the street. The deathly silence is not far. A few more moments only matter, which the inevitable bar. But at the edge, before they scatter, in front of thee my life I shatter, as though an alabaster jar.”  

On bus to work last night, gorgeous black haired Latina(?) with friend, blue jeans, beige jacket, grey brown silk negligee top over massive huge breasts, I looked several times before they got off before Selfridges. The swell of that cleavage. No fighting. I have a Russian friend. She drinks too much, and smokes too much, and I love her too much. I have also not spoken to her for months. She was my sumptuous Siberian princess. My Siberian Cleopatra. 

If you walk into a high street bar in Vienna and find scantily-clad women lounging around, you know you can take them into a back room and fuck them. If you walk into a Berlin bar & find scantily-clad women lounging around, you know you can take them up into a bedroom and fuck them. That is why when people stumble into the Scotsman by mistake, especially Europeans, and find all these scantily-clad women sitting around, they can be forgiven for thinking the girls are there for more than dancing. After many visits to Berlin, searching in vain, I finally found a good old fashioned London-style strip club. The girls outnumbered the men, true, as they always do in Europe—I have never ever solved the conundrum where do all the men go in Berlin? In Vienna? In Brussels? In London you can go into the Nag’s Head, Old Axe, Scotsman, White Horse, anywhere, and find it rammed with men ogling the handful of dancers, whereas in Europe you will almost always find yourself the only man there, outnumbered ten to one by the girls who always sit there looking at you, which surely is the wrong way around?—but even here when the girl stepped off stage & sat at the bar with me, she offered me a private dance for 50 Euros or sex for 80! There is nowhere in Berlin that does not offer you sex. Even what you think is just a strip club. It has not changed so much since Cabaret Kit Kat Club days. Obviously, I made my excuses and left, as they say. 

 ********Death can come at any moment. If I had three minutes to live, I could think of no nicer way to spend it than one last dance from one of my favourite Flying Scotsman girls. A love letter to the FS. 

For me, for a girl to be a dancer is the greatest thing in the world. And to not be crude but to use my favourite description, a sex dancer. I revere opera singers, violinists, pianists, and actresses, but I worship no one like I do sex dancers. Wine, women and song.

If only I could have back all the thousands of pounds I have wasted on strippers and drink over the years I would go out and spend it all on strippers and drink (17th October 2006)

If only I could have back all the thousands of pounds I have wasted on strippers and drink over the years, I would go out and spend it all on strippers and drink. Our sad tawdry addictions are the best of us. If I did not have things to be sadly addicted to, I would kill myself. Our vices are the best of us. They are when we glow brightest and most brilliant. Oscar Wilde would not be celebrated today, would not have the West End full of his plays, would not have his own statute in Adelaide Street and his own stained (of course) window in Westminster Abbey if not for his vice. To watch young women take their knickers off on a stage. What a sad, empty experience, but as sad, empty experiences go, one of the absolute best. And at the Scotsman it has been refined to its most pure and simple state. The Nag’s Head and the Old Axe could be this good, but are not. Dodgy doorman demanding an apparently arbitrary amount of pound coins in their hand before they will let you in, body searches for concealed..what? An endless stream of 20 or 30 girls constantly asking for private dances. The fact that the FS does not offer private dances seems to me one of the most beautiful things about it. Anyway, if any of my Scotsman girls gave me a private dance I think I would die. It would be too much, after all this time longing for them. 

So a Journal about the FS pub, and yet so much of what occurs there must remain unsaid, sub judice. 

People criticise the FS because nothing is spent on it to modernise it, but that seems to me the knub of its absolute charm. It is like stepping back into Victorian London. With the Thatcherite revolution, the Millenium, the old Soho basement strip clubs were replaced by the mirrors and champagne and poles of the Stringfellows, and Sophisticats, and For Your Eyes Only, and we were told it is all right to go to strip clubs now, because they had gone upmarket, and respectable. Since when should sex be respectable? Sex should be down and dirty and sleazy or what is the point of it at all. The FS shines out like a beacon in the Stygian gloom, a glowing candle in the peasouper fog, by having resisted the tide. It is as close as you can get to the old Soho experience. It is like a fly trapped in amber. It is a Lost World at the bottom of a hole on a high South American plateau, where Tyrannosaurus Rex still roams and Pterodactyl still fly in the sky. It is the Pterodactyl brought back to London and escaping and circling above the Geographic Society against a Full Moon. 

KARL KRAUS. “Why do I always act so dumb, seem to fuck things up for fun. Just can’t help behaving, as if my head needs rearranging”. It is always something exotic, and steamy. Exotic, steamy, King’s Cross.

I am decadent and rotten (16th October 2006)

I am decadent and rotten. I can lust after the great sex dancers of the Flying Scotsman, as much as I lust after the great pianists, Irina Botan, Mihaela Ursuleasa, Valentina Igoshina, Nadia Giliova; the great violinists Tatiana Burman, Janine Jansen, the great opera singers Elena Prokina, Barbara Frittoli, Anna Caterina Antonacci, Stefania Bonfadelli. Is this bad of me? Is this wrong of me? “Saw the same two men on the Cally Road” This will be my Die Fackel. This will be my Simplicissimus. Devoted to the Flying Scotsman pub, the Wigmore Hall, English National Opera, the Black Hole of Calcutta pub, the Lemon Tree. After my great depression of these last few weeks, I see now that depression was the chrysalis, in which some metamorphosis was taking place, to give birth to this beautiful butterfly. Nana. It seems sad, but as sad experiences go it is one of the best. Men lusting after women is the engine of the world. 

Decorated all over by pictures of the Anna Friel Lulu. I live in a lush, overgrown, tropical paradise. I push through the great ferns and fronds, brushing the black train soot off the leaves, till I find the door of the Scotsman, and surreptitiously disappear inside, into the wonderland within that scarcely anyone passing by can imagine. How many times I myself passed by this door without it occurring to me what went on within. All those wasted years of my life! 

Some days I think I am going to go in that door and find just a normal pub, like a Wetherspoon’s or an All Bar One, and I will realise I dreamed the whole thing. It will be like the wardrobe that the children went through to enter their snowy Narnia, but then one day just becomes—a wardrobe. 

“Benjamin Franklin (Frank) Wedekind (1864-1918) German playwright, who began his career working in business and in a circus. He became an actor and singer, and a playwright. The plays, Erdgeist (Earth Spirit), 1893 and Die Busche der Pandora (Pandora’s Box), 1904 depict a society riven by the demands of lust and greed reinforcing his main thesis that the repression of sexuality results in perversion and tragedy. The two plays were later staged together as the Lulu plays.” “All Wedekind’s plays, with their sex-ridden men, women and children, their gentlemen crooks, and their grotesque yet vivid cranks, typify the feverish spirit of the years before 1914. Perhaps less shocking now to our society they remain valid statements of repressed and thwarted sexuality.” Information from The Cambridge Guide to World Theatre and The Oxford Companion to the Theatre. Repressed, and thwarted sexuality! My constant and dearest companions and bedfellows! You mean sexuality comes in any other kinds? Thus due to my bizarre and troubling psychopathology, my mummy never loved me, I was dropped on my head as a baby, or something, I am a Lost Boy, repressed and thwarted, my Eros bends instead, during interludes, to the butterflies and the nightingales of the Scotsman, my Midnight Bell. But increasingly I find the interludes are becoming longer and more enjoyable, and I do not want the real Acts to begin again. The interludes between the real thing are becoming more real to me than the real thing, and the real thing seems not worth a light. My life becomes one long dark pleasurable interlude between womb and tomb. It used to be my cure for a broken heart. Now it has become where my heart most wants to be. I cannot imagine loving any girl who was not a Salome dancing for Herod, or a Mata Hari. Wouldn’t it be great to take a nightime picture of the Bell & use it as my cover page for The Serpent’s Egg! I want my Flying Scotsman website to be suffused with Anna Friel’s Lulu, and with Salome, and with Nana, and with heady steamy sensuousness. Cloying, overpowering, romantic nihilistic sweetness. Tension, Eroticism, Repulsive Pathology. “The most over-perfumed drama in the language” “‘Where is she who gave herself unto the Captains of Assyria, who have baldricks on their loins, and tiaras of divers colours on their heads?” I want it to be filled with cut and paste things from all around me. The fuggy atmosphere. As Black Narcissus helped me over the madness of losing Pooky, maybe the new Serpent’s Egg may help me over the madness of losing —–. 

You’ve got to hide your love away; though it is the most natural thing in the world to want to sing it from the rooftops. Each man kills the thing he loves. They are all Salomes, dancing for King Herod. 

I have always centred my life around the great train stations: Munich Hauptbahnhof, Wien Westbahnhof, Berlin Zoo, Brussels Gare du Midi, in London, Charing Cross and King's Cross. I am so pleased Eurostar is now coming to King’s Cross. Will the Flying Scotsman survive? They are the black smokers on the ocean floor around which life congregates.

You can stick your Stringfellows & your Sophisticats—the sexiest strippers in London are the Scotsman girls (15th October 2006)

You can stick your Stringfellows & your Sophisticats—the sexiest strippers in London are the Scotsman girls. Of course, it goes without saying London’s and the British Empire’s great gift to the world is the strip pub, and out of all them—White Horse, Nag’s Head, Old Axe, Browns, Griffin, Queen Anne—the Flying Scot is far & away the best. The “Menu of the Day” list of girls is disturbingly reminiscent of Jack the Ripper’s victims’ board at the Ten Bells. In the space of twenty yards King’s Cross used to boast Housmans bookshop, The Flying Scotsman, and the gloriously sleazy Scala Cinema. The Scala Cinema alas is no more, but thankfully these other two great treasures of the British Empire remain. Tenseness, eroticism and repulsive pathology. Fine for a Jimmy Riddle but those needing a Tom Tit should look elsewhere. 

Watching the Electro video, then Eric Thoneick Love Sensation and Aaron Smith Dancin, I got an erection, and it reminded me again it is really about time I went back to cinema. *********The black depression of recent weeks seems to have receded, to be replaced by such a soft, warm, deep longing and yearning. I am almost molten from wanting her. Also I feel a bit freer and happier. The darkness has receded a little, for a while. “ As Nietzsche put it, while recovering from his intoxication with Wagner: ‘What can be done well today, what can be masterly, is only what is small.'” Talk about the girls being great actresses. Like Sarah Bernhardt, Mrs P Campbell. When I see them on stage I am seeing Anita Berber, Mata Hari, Josephine Baker. Every dance is a mini-drama. Tense, erotic, pathological. I want to write a magazine reviewing their performances like an opera magazine would Maria Callas at Covent Garden. Yet it seems more personal, and to talk about them by name seems impertinent, and to betray a secret. Write about Karl Kraus a lot and his attitude to the sexuality of women. Goncourt. One skirts around one’s feelings. One beats around the bush. One does not name one’s fears or one’s loves. I want curling flowers down the side of my page. THE SERPENT’S EGG will be my life’s labour, my Samuel Pepys’s Diary. Talk about my love of 20,000 Streets Under the Sky. Talk about my scopophilia. 

THE SERPENT’S EGG 
A Journal about The Flying Scotsman pub, and Other Things 

A general introduction then underneath it in boxes to left and right: ANITA BERBER, JOSEPHINE BAKER, MATA HARI, the Showgirls Guardian article. A site dedicated to the tense erotic pathology of watching sex dancers. SALOME. Anna Friel’s LULU. How often I used to go to King’s Cross for Housman’s bookshop, for their science fiction and their Karl Marx and their Situationist and Anarchist literature, and passed by that old ramshackle pub over the road that looked like it had closed a long time ago without barely giving it a second look. How many hours of my misspent life I spent in the darkness of the Scala Cinema, watching Godard triple bills, Russ Meyer triple bills, Bertolucci triple bills, without realising what delights were in the pub just next door. Can I even imagine a time when I didn’t drink? After loving the Otto Dix picture of Anita Berber for so long I went to see the Berber film Anita: Dances of Vice there, and though there were only about ten people in the vast 2,000 seat auditorium, some man who looked like Arthur Miller came and sat right down next to me in the back row and proceeded to slowly slowly creepy creepy spider creep his hand towards my arm, trying to touch me. At the moment his finger touched the back of my hand I asked him to leave me alone; of course I did. You doubt me? He soon went down the front of the cinema & no doubt tried his luck with some other pretty young boy, before, bizarrely, about 40 minutes later coming & sitting back by me.

“How are you?” the stunning tall blonde Amazonian (Moldovan) girl smiled to me. “Thou hast what’s left of me” I said (14th October 2006)

“How are you?” the stunning tall blonde Amazonian (Moldovan) girl smiled to me. “Thou hast what’s left of me:” I said. “For I am now sunk so low from what I was, thou findst me at my lowest watermark. The rivers that ran in and raised my fortunes are all dried up, or take another course: What I have left is from my native spring; I’ve still a heart that swells in scorn of fate, and lifts me to my banks.” “OK” she said, a little hesitant now. I ploughed on. “Already, Death, I feel thee in my veins. I go with such a will to find my lord that we shall quickly meet. A heavy numbness creeps through every limb, and now tis at my head; my eyelids fall, and my dear love is vanished in a mist. Where shall I find her, where? Oh turn me to her, and lay me on her breast!–Caesar, thy worst. Now part us if thou canst.” She was visibly moved by my oration, and had to rush to the other side of the room so as not to let me see her crying. I purchased another pint. 

Like there can be sudden changes in the Earth’s magnetic field, in February this year my soul suddenly became completely pointed towards —–, and despite the catastrophe, despite my Actium, despite my Black Night of Downfall, my soul remains immovably pointed in her direction all of eight months later. Other women–Pamela, Melani–have come along and with their magnetic attraction have been able to flicker my pointer a fraction towards them for a short while, but it has never been strong enough to keep me from my overwhelming attaction to —–. Even if Sylvia came back that would not change anything. 

I made my first post on londonstrip last night, with the Karl Kraus quote about women being an acceptable substitute for masturbation but it requiring a lot of imagination. I do not want to throw away hundreds of pounds going all the way to Brussels and Berlin again. I want to use this money to keep paying off my cards, leaving me with money for —–. Maybe in April for Dalayaman’s Salome I will go to Berlin but not before. 

I want that Libertines world, that Hogarth world, that Dowson world. “The sight of a whore is profoundly thrilling to a man”. It has been three days since I last saw —– and already it feels like an eternity. It feels so long since I last saw her. My life is just going through the boring motions, work, work, work. The only thing that gives it a spark is my writing, and time spent with a loved one if such a thing were ever possible for me. 

“They rage there as at meat in a menagerie” The introduction to Pandora’s Box. It was going to see Lulu at King’s Cross that I discovered and fell into the world of strip clubs like falling down a rabbit hole into wonderland. They’ve even, coincidentally, got an Alice. It was a treasure to stand there watching all the posh theatre goers coming in in their suits and mink coats and pearls and their mouths dropping open when they saw the half naked girls walking around, and then quickly turning around and leaving. To the uninitiated, they must have thought they had walked into a brothel. One of the great theatrical events in recent London history for that reason, and why I also supported the idea of the ENO relocating to a King’s Cross base. I cannot believe it was a year before I went back to the Flying Scotsman, and a further year before I went back again. Finally, this time the combination of Lucky, Anya, Vicky, Czech Sylvia–who I would continue to regard as my Magic Four for years to come–plus T-- “If loving you is wrong I don’t want to be right” and Thais dancing to the Kinks Lola (people say the quality of girls is bad which baffles me, where on any stage in the world would you see six such sexy women as this?), blew several fuses in my mind. As usual I always believe I affect the weather, and when I went to leave I found London consumed in pitch blackness as there had been a power cut, and I was sure it was me, it was me that had caused this, and I had to walk all the way back to Charing Cross–and I have never been the same since. Since then it has provided me with several of “those high moments that persuade us to put off suicide”, whereas the Nag’s Head, the Old Axe, the Queen Anne, the Griffin, Browns, White Horse, Rainbow, never have. Only in time did I venture out & let go of my comfort blanket and explored these other strip pubs but found nothing that could match the visceral excitement of the Flying Scot. Things that come to you by accident are usually the best. 

OK I did great to “save” £900 in ten weeks but that is over now (13th October 2006)

OK I did great to “save” £900 in ten weeks, but that is over now. I am going to go wild again now. I cannot waste these gorgeous dark witching months. Forget Berlin. There is so much to taste here in London. That break has renewed my taste for it. “There’s really no way to reach me.” What I want to achieve in my books is simplicity. Strippers remind me of Anita Berber, Josephine Baker, Mata Hari. They are Salome dancing for dirty old man Herod so she can get to kiss the lips of John the Baptist.

What am I going to do all day? (11th October 2006)

What am I going to do all day? My life feels so bereft and empty without —–, knowing I cannot even see her again for at least a week. I have got just £2 in my pocket. I am Bob and she is Jenny. My obsession with her is ruining me.

I write books about a chronic inability to relate to people or to talk to them or to form relationships of any meaningful kind (3rd Oct 2006)

I write books about a chronic inability to relate to people or to talk to them or to form relationships of any meaningful kind. About life lived with no companionship whatsoever even though much may be offered. AUTISMUS. BLACK NARCISSUS. THE COLD ICY AIR OF THE MOUNTAINS. CASANOVA. NOT OF —–. I go through life with no companionship, even though —– offered me companionship and I threw the chance away. The chance to get to know another human being, and to be known by another human being, and I threw it away. “The harder we search for someone else, the more likely we are to find ourselves.” “But it is not Turgenev’s writing that interests Dessaix most, it is his life. Specifically, the 40 years Turgenev spent in supposedly chaste devotion to mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot, trotting around Europe after her—and her husband—like a fuddy-duddy lapdog”. “He puts off visiting sites and is ultimately uninterested in peeking under the sheet to discover if Turgenev slept with his muse”. “The greatest of the 19th-century novels always centred on the journey towards that moment when one person is known by another, and is transfigured—or believes she is transfigured, or wants to be transfigured—by intimacy. From Jane Austen to Charlotte Bronte to Tolstoy, novelists created and strengthened our faith in the absolute power of the love relationship to transform a life for good or ill”. “The American novelist Richard Yates died in 1992 with few of his books in print. His life was ‘a uniquely cheerless undertaking’…Yates ‘staggered from one badly paid teaching job to another, living in unbelievably squalid apartments and somehow writing further novels.” 

You wait so long for something special to happen in your life, that when it does, you just watch it in amazement & do not realise you have to make a move to catch it before it is gone and lost. A man on a desert island for 36 years finally sees a ship sailing by and is so shocked it is gone before he realises he should do something to make it stop. It is clear I have got to back and f–k either Demi or Pamela to cope with the pain of —–. I haven’t had sex since…Francesca on the 13th July, and both Francesca & Pamela the week before that. A lonely man, who never talks, just stands quietly on his own in the corner. When the girl he loves and pines for is just a few feet away on the other side of the pub, ready for him to talk to all night long if he wished, but still he stays on his own in the corner, talking to no one. 

I am Ernest Dowson, wandering around Europe after his rejection by Adelaide, suffering the torture of the damned. That is how I like to be. Pining for —–. Longing for —–. Bleeding for —–. I had a chance to get into her life and I let it go. 

“But despite his literary success, Crane was a profoundly tormented man. Poetry sustained him in a life that otherwise teetered on the brink of collapse. When he wasn’t writing, he spent much of his time engaged in fleeting homosexual encounters and alcohol binges. In 1932, three years after meeting Lorca, Crane committed suicide by leaping from a ship into the Caribbean”. 

I am a broken man. —– can see that now.

When I feel so broken and sad like I did last night & now I need to go on from the Scotsman to the cinema to lose myself in porn & that high (2nd October 2006)

When I feel so broken and sad like I did last night & now, I need to go on from the Scotsman to the cinema to lose myself in porn & that high, and on that high, dangerously excited, to go on to see Demi or Pamela. I need to see someone to take my mind off —–. And then straightaway I am right back into my old life and nothing will have changed whatsoever! Friday night 7pm I had another missed call from Olga. I definitely need to lose myself in the spiritual high of porn and whores to get my mind off the intense sadness of my relationship with —–. That means Berlin may have to wait till April or May. I didn’t try to talk to —– or buy her a drink, because I just want things to settle down between us, which started to happen at the end, when she let her body rest against mine & massaged my shoulder, so that I will feel OK about going to see her in Plumstead on the 18th November, which after all is only SIX WEEKS away! 

I am a dreamy boy, who lives in a world of his own. I am Ernest Dowson, seemingly always submerged in a dream. He spent all his money on drink and whores. He suffered the torture of the damned because his beloved Adelaide did not love him back. I need to go to see Demi and Pamela, to try to console me over my broken heart with —–. “I have been faithful to thee, Cynara, in my fashion” But all the time I am fucking Demi or Pamela it will be really —– I am imagining is beneath me.

Of course I cannot travel to Berlin in the New Year (1st October 2006)

Of course I cannot travel to Berlin in the New Year. Especially when the one I love is behind me in London. Alone, alone, alone. Always alone. I have always been alone, and I always shall be. And yet travelling can mark the end of one period of your life, and when you come back you can find everything feels different, and you feel very liberated from them. Maybe after going to Berlin I will feel I can start again and turn over a new page, which I will not do just by staying the whole time in London, trapped in the same routine, silently morosely standing in the back corner of the Scotsman, longing for —– and never even going over to talk to her. This year has been ALL about —–. That would be a good title! ALL ABOUT —–.

Thunder at 6AM. Now torrential rain (30th Sept 2006)

Thunder at 6AM. Now torrential rain. Winter is finally coming. I am autistic. I am Stephane in Un Coeur en Hiver. I am Will Penny. I am the Consul. I am Noodles. It was so good watching that Stephen Fry programme about depression. Even though he had just been to a party and was laughing and joking and was the life of the party, when he got home he cried his eyes out and thought of ways to kill himself. Richard Dreyfus has only coped by being on medication for the last 30 years. Many people find it hard to cope with their minds. 

I am so ridiculously nervous about meeting —– again tonight. Most people have got lots of different kinds of relationships, as Sarah would say. I do not. I have only my longing for —– and nothing else. —– is everything. I just know how I will feel when I wake up Sunday morning with a hangover, depressed, so so empty, feeling so worthless and pointless because I am alone and without her. I dread it—yet what is the alternative? If I stay in and do not go, I will feel just as empty. At least for a couple of hours I will have the intensity of losing myself in the depravity, of diving deeper into darkness. Into the Libertines, Hogarthian, Crane Wine Menagerie world. What I did was perverse with —–. I eventually got over the black psychological meltdown with Black Bob, I eventually got over the black psychological meltdown with Pooky, I eventually got over the black psychological meltdown with Susi and Irina. I suppose I will eventually get over the black psychological meltdown with —–, but it is hard when temptation is always there, when she is so close. I am so unhappy, because I am alone, because I did not take a chance with —–. Falling in love is awful. I have been bombed to ruins again. What is there for me to look forward to? Just writing with cold blue hands in cold stoveless rooms high in the icy mountains. Complete emptiness and hollowness. 

I was always the one who wanted to stay in the corner and not get involved. Fine. 

I got to the Calcutta at 4 Wednesday and I knew it was ominous when I felt how easy the beer was going down (28th Sept 2006)

I got to the Calcutta at 4 Wednesday and I knew it was ominous when I felt how easy the beer was going down. It was one of those rare special days when the beer goes down so easy. Up to the Scotsman after two pints. Didn’t take me long to realise —– was not there as I did not hear her laughter. A new barmaid! Very sexy brunette. A good line up, Lucky, Vicky, Amanda, Helena, Tequila, Nicky, Crystal and Aussie Victoria. —— gave me a nice welcome back, "where you been?" "Where you been?" I said. "In Italy?" "That was fucking July! Where have you been going?" she said. "My mum’s house." She was pulling shocked faces. "My mind is boggling!" After she danced she came & stood in the dark centre corner with me talking. She has got a private party tonight, Tilly's. Next time I will ask her to put me on the list. I got there about ten to six I think, and —— finished at 7. The last two times she collected she leaned right against me until I put the money in. After she left a little brunette girl came in, and mentioned she was a better dancer than them and had better tits. I pulled her back and stopped her from leaving. And after that she was with me for 30? 40? minutes. Me with my hand on her tits and she with her hand down my pants around the base of my cock. Francesca, she is in love with Jasmine. We made a deal, she will help me with —– and I will help her with Jasmine. Helena was grinning at me as she collected. Because of all this, I completely lost count of my number of pints, but it was a lot. And this was even before I started watching the Levski Sofia v Chelsea game on TV! I think I left before half time, and fell asleep on the No.87 home and had to get one back. 

Straight away I am reminded how attractive this world is, and how much I love it.

I always have to have this twisted painful sado-masochistic relationship with women (27th Sept 2006)

I always have to have this twisted, painful, sado-masochistic relationship with women–like —–, Melani. Where initial fondness and attraction turns to anger and bitterness and incomprehension. Like Stephane with Emmanuelle Beart in Un Coeur en Hiver. Like Will Penny. How close I came to Lotta’s fitta, to Covadonga’s, to —–‘s. To get so close to those lovely soft nubile women’s bodies, to be so close to being let in, and then to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. I was absolutely like Stephane with Emmanuelle Beart with —–. Let her know I like her, make her want me, and then just coldly stand there and let her go. 

Just one more night to get through, then—I can go back to the Scotsman.

I suspect when this period of abstinence is over I will return to my sinful ways with more of a vengeance than ever before (26th Sept 2006)

I suspect when this period of abstinence is over, I will return to my sinful ways with more of a vengeance than ever before. Did Alla and Olga really offer me jacuzzi and bed for 250 euros? And I said no? I will go back to Demi and Pamela more than ever. Back to the Scotsman and Sunset Strip and Cinema more than ever. 

My life got overheated. Overlush. 

The Libertines. Hart Crane. Ernest Dowson. “There were no good old days. These are the good old days”. “And you know how I feel out of place, until I’m levered off my face, and I can work out what she’s all about”. Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire and the Flying Scotsman absolutely go together. The terrible conflict between wanting to publicly declare my deep love for the Scotsman and my desire to keep it absolutely hidden and private, for myself. It provides some of those “high moments that persuade us to put off suicide”.

Yes I miss those nights at Atlantic City & Sexyland & Golden Gate & Mon Cheri & Monte Carlo & Ciro & Pour Platin and Empire and the Scotsman and Sunset Strip & Cinema but you cannot keep doing it all the time (25th Sept 2006)

Yes I miss those nights at Atlantic City and Sexyland and Golden Gate & Mon Cheri & Monte Carlo & Ciro & Pour Platin and Empire and the Scotsman and Sunset Strip & Cinema, but you cannot keep doing it all the time. You cannot do it every week, 52 weeks a year. Yes I am missing out on all those experiences and all those heady nights and all those new people like Janet or Martina that might be arriving—but it is great to have some months when you do nothing, and then have some months when you go back to it. You have to deny yourself some things for a while, in order to enjoy them again. The longer I leave it the more I will appreciate it when I go back to my Pope life, my Francis Bacon life, my George Grosz life. The Broken World. The Shining Road. Once again I pore over the weather forecasts. For signs, auguries, of when the right time will be to resume my former sinful profligate life. I divine things from the weather. My sexuality is linked to the weather as much as it is linked to finance and to justice and to cathedrals. I will indulge my sexuality when the weather indicators are right, and the financial indicators are right, and the scales of justice feel right, and when in the cathedral it feels right. 

I love the wicked women. I have met some women I could trust in that broken world, Lela, for example, Ana Maria, Pamela. Diana in Berlin or Riccarda. Probably not Iga, as much as I love her! You can genuinely touch someone in that world and be touched by them, I think. I always go into that world looking for love, as I think they are the only women I could ever love. The clink of gold in the glass. The Tallulahs are probably no more cynical than the Esmeraldas. They are only nice to you as long as you are filling their glass with gold. Still, I think you can meet some exceptions, when something genuine passes between you, with Susi, with Janet, with —–. And if I am wrong, then it does not matter. Fleetingly, it felt nice to feel there was something real between us, if only in the blink of an eye. It is those moments that you keep going out looking for. That is what you keep gambling for, throwing so much money down on the roulette table for the very occasional moment when you get back more than you put in. That is what you keep trawling the broken world for, those fleeting moments when eye meets eye and some spark of electricity passes between you, and that current brings you back to life, for a couple of hours, or for one night, at least. That is what the poems of Hart Crane speak to me of: “The flesh assaults outright for bolts that linger” The wine menagerie. How you put on your beer goggles, so everything looks magical, everyone looks beautiful and desirable, and everyone seems to find you beautiful and desirable in return. If it is all commerce, simply, then no matter. There are just those brief moments when it seems so real, comes so close to being real, that it is as good as real. In every city there is Helen of Troy locked up somewhere in a room. She lives on like Orlando, like Emilia Makropolos. You go out every night searching for her, as David Tennant’s Casanova always searches for Laura Fraser. “The sight of a whore is profoundly thrilling to a man”.

How I walked away from Irina without seizing my moment. How I walked away from —– without seizing my moment.How I walked away from Susi without seizing my moment. Maybe Riccarda, too. Pamela? 

 

Some beautiful new pictures of Sunset Strip on the website, what a surprise! Including two absolutely gorgeous pictures of —–. Oh you just look at those pictures and you see how attractive that world is, how easy it is to lose yourself in it, and submerge yourself in it, and let the waters close over your head, and disappear into another world. When you think of —– dancing to Promiscuous Girl. They are the best things in life. Maybe one day I will settle down with —–. Hahaha. I am abstaining from that world completely, just so I can dive back into it so completely when I am ready. Yes I owed £3,600 on October 1st last year, but I then still went ahead & went to Frankfurt for 4 days, Berlin for 5 days, Berlin for one night only, not to mention the last visit to Munich. What real nice warmth did I ever find in that world: —–, Janet, Sylvia, Martina, Amanda. Maybe Luana? I live in the Ernest Dowson world. Don’t stick your head above the parapet unless you want to get shot at.

When I hear Maneater I want to see —– dancing to it. I am obsessed with her. “As Nietzsche put it, while recovering from his intoxication with Wagner: ‘What can be done well today, what can be masterly, is only what is small.'”

I pore over the weather forecasts with such interest (25th Sept 2006)

I pore over the weather forecasts with such interest, as it tells me when the best time is to go back to the shining road. Weather therefore assumes a special significance to me, the same way Justice Palaces do, the same way Bourses do, the same way Cathedrals do. Everything is Eros.

Natalie Maines used to be such a happy go lucky always smiling always laughing kind of girl, then after one throwaway line at a concert, America turned against her and actually tried to destroy her, actually tried to make her want to kill herself. The same way Britain turned against Beckham after one split-second momentary error of judgement, and tried to destroy him, totally crush him, make him want to kill himself. To survive this sudden amazing breathtaking unexpected onslaught, to survive this sudden hate, which you could never have believed if you were not seeing it and hearing it for yourself aimed directly at your person every single day, you must become hard and tough, a fighter, you must kill something in your heart, and you will never be quite the same happy go lucky smiling laughing person again. It will age you very quickly, and make you grow up very quickly. Natalie Maines suddenly looks older, quite drawn, though still of course unbelievably beautiful. But you can see she is an older, wiser, sadder person now, not quite so ever ready with the laugh & the smile. There is a shadow on her, the way there was on Beckham forever after. You find it very hard to trust again. Your faith in the goodness of human beings is almost completely shattered. Almost. Those who keep on loving you, keep on being warm to you, are what keep you going.

I love Dixie Chicks because they went through a really hard time when people tried to destroy them (24th Sept 2006)

I love Dixie Chicks because they went through a really hard time when people tried to destroy them. Which is what happened to me, what happened to Beckham, Cantona, etc. And because Natalie Maines is the closest thing I’ve seen to —–. Short, beautiful, always smiling, always laughing, such a lovely girl, not a bad bone in her body. I feel so sad now, after watching her all night, partly because it makes me miss —–, but also because I wish I could be with Maines! She is so gorgeous. 

I just noticed, at the end of the Call Me When You Are Sober video, Amy Lee walks down the table to the man and just puts her finger to his lips! I feel down now. I wish I could have someone like Natalie Maines, or —–. 

Really raining hard now, 430AM. I live in my own little world, and couldn’t quite bring myself to leave it when —– came along. 

What a merry chase I lead people! (23rd Sept 2006)

What a merry chase I lead people! I exult in it now. How I torment them and torture them with what I get away with and STILL get away with. I used to feel chased and hunted and hounded. Now I delight in leading them on a chase after me. See if you can keep up!

Everybody was waiting for me when I first went to Europe. They already knew me and they already knew I was on my way, and they already knew the date and time of my arrival. I feel like Bourne. They know who I am and I don’t. What was it I did? Who was I? Why was everyone trying to kill me? When I went to the top of the St Mark’s Belltower in Venice, the American kids knew me.

Another hot sunny albeit windy day. No good for the Scotsman or Sunset Strip. If I didn’t have a flat of my own, I could never have even asked —– to come home with me, or Pamela. That is why I must keep the flat at all costs. Women, music and drinking are where all my money goes. I spend every penny I have got on it. Wine, women and song. How can I possibly regret any of it? So I owe £6,000? It was all well spent! Shakira Illegal. Evanescence Call Me When You’re Sober. Infernal Ten Miles. Pink Who Knew.

Like you can tell the age of a tree by counting its rings, I can measure my life out in the number of Salomes I have seen at the opera. Just listening to songs on Berlin Energy reminds me of being in Berlin. I only asked —– and Pamela to come home with me because since then all I have done is get drunk and spend all my time in the Scotsman and Sunset Strip then go home and pass out.

Yes I am amused to feel like Bourne. But I also feel like Joe Orton—still getting away with it! Like Frank Wedekind, flaunting it in their faces! Pour épater la bourgeoisie. To do whatever it is I shouldn’t do. I LIVE FOR THE WILD NIETZSCHEAN DIONYSIAN PLEASURE. I LIVE FOR STIRRING PEOPLE UP. I LIVE FOR DOING THINGS I SHOULDN’T. I LIVE FOR DOING DANGEROUS THINGS WHICH WILL PUT ME ON THE VERGE OF SELF-DESTRUCTION. I LIVE FOR THE SLEAZY THRILL.

Royksopp What Else Is There. Yes I owe a massive £6000. Yes my monthly interest is a massive £80. But think of those nights in Munich Atlantic City watching Susi, Irina, Patricia, Bella Rosa, Viktoriya, or in Femina with Emily. Going to Nuremberg and meeting Martina in the Pils Bar. Those nights in Berlin with Yulia, Riccarda, Iga, Diana or Arrica. Would I take any of it back? No!

I AM DEBAUCHED. Debauchery is the road to Taoist contentment. The pleasures are great. The rewards are great.

The rewards for that £6,000 have been great.

Oh God I love to get drunk and lose it! And I always will. Whether in London or Berlin or Munich or Vienna or Brussels. I will always want to get drunk and lose it. That is the point of life. Live for the moment. Live every moment like it’s the last.

Why do I keep going back to the same places? For me, it is an attempt at time travel. I am trying to go back to the past & this time put right what I did wrong. I have left so much blood on the tracks, and I want to put it all right this time, with Susi, with Irina, with Viktoriya, and do the right thing this time. Please let me have that chance. So of course all my visits become increasingly forlorn.

What a lovely 30? 45? minutes I had with Harrietta in Angelique in Vienna.

I am quietly obsessed with recording my own life.

Für Elise is nostalgia for all the beautiful Esmeraldas you have fallen in love with & who you have had to leave behind.

If I have learnt one thing in life it is that you have to take your chances—Susi, —–, Irina, all of them. Clarisse. Martina.

When you hear Afghan Whigs See About Me, how can you not want to go back to the strip clubs? Yes, but it is about going back when they are at they best—in winter, and on Saturdays, and in Berlin or Munich. The Afghan Whigs seem to exist in that same drunken world as the Libertines, and Faith Healers, and me.