Remember how sexually aroused I used to be when I first started staying in hotels? (31st August 2006)

Remember how sexually aroused I used to be when I first started staying in hotels? That 5 star Tulip in Brussels. Stripping off & looking at myself in the bedroom mirror. I was the same when I first moved into this flat. The fact that my graph is going UP again proves I can afford the flat. I can pay my rent, buy my food, go to the pub a couple of times a week, and still have enough money to pay off my credit cards. This is the last day of August! There is no point owing no money if you are not having any fun, are not having any pleasure, any excitement, any anticipation, not having any illicit thrills. I need the sex. It is the sex that fuels the books. It is the pornographic cinema & Demi and Pamela that fuels the books. And I do not drink so much, just 3 pints maybe, before Sunset and Demi and Pamela, so I am not too drunk to come, so I come feeling so sober. After Bell or Sunset Strip I just come home so blindly drunk. I have had interesting times in past years, but this year all my money and time has just been sunk into the Scotsman, first looking for Sylvia & then because of Florence. All that money could have enabled me to keep travelling & keep having interesting times. Instead I pissed it all away in King’s Cross. The way the Vienna trip seemed a horrible dud at the time but soon came to seem magical in retrospect, now those nights in Frankfurt are starting to seem magical. Moonbootica, Nur Ein Wort, Pure, the songs are so evocative, and remind me of those nervous nights heading out from the Intercity Poststrasse to the Eros Houses and Katerina.
Travel is so far away the most exciting thing. Listening to Cabin Crew Star to Fall and Uniting Nations reminds me so much of being in the Berlin Radisson SAS. Even when travel is bad it is good. Even those Antwerp, Frankfurt, Berlin Arrica trips are glowing hotly in my memory. George Michael Amazing is so much Brussels. I had a McDonald's at 10:30. That is becoming such a nice routine now, then bus to Calcutta for two and a half. Haircut at last. Home. Brunette Swedish girl all in black in Charing Cross then down to underground, with big breasts. Helped her friend with her case. Now tempted to see Demi or Pamela tomorrow night.

I wake up midnight with an iron hard erection (30th August 2006)

I wake up midnight, with an iron hard erection. An incredible serendipity. I want European pornography again. The Munich Intercity films, the Munich Atlantic City and Sexyland kabins. The Vienna Dorint films. I was dreaming of K.M. a lot. I got the 12:10 bus to Calcutta after a lovely hamburger & fries, without any sleep. Sexy redhead at back in brown jacket & black glasses. Getting on at next stop beautiful black-haired Greek-looking girl, eyes met, little smile as she squeezed into corner. Pale blue jeans over meaty thighs & bum, pale blue coat, pale blue bandanna headband. White T-shirt. So pretty, got off Vauxhall. Coming into Calcutta just before I left, absolutely mindblowing thick light brown brunette, like Raquel Welch huge hair, red v-neck sweater over massive massive heavy breasts, grey skirt tight over her voluptuous hips & thighs, very self confident ordering her large white wine, sitting at round table behind me. What a sex bomb. I want Sunset again. Black dress Kay. All the money I have spent on strippers and drink this year, and such a small amount on pornographic cinema & whores. All these Bad Timing and Night Porter pictures form a triumphal way leading to the Ishtar Gate perhaps, of Maria’s cunt. It became clear to me after 1 pint, how drink suddenly makes me want to throw my money away. It is such a disinhibitor.

“The paradigm of the romantic bohemian” sitting at the table in the Cafe am Zoo reading about The Libertines and Pete Doherty in the Observer newspaper, “the outsider painter who pursued his own vision amid a swirl of drugs, alcohol and dissolution”. Oh I cannot wait to get back to Berlin again! If I can achieve this saving, it will be like shaking hands with myself. Sylvia still shines on my horizon higher and brighter and bigger than any other woman. She is a Charlotte Rampling of a woman. In Berlin alone there has been Iga, Diana, Riccarda, Yulia. “We learnt what our national Church was…a visible testimony of the collective experience of mystery, enshrined by generations in stone and glass. Imagine how we should feel if all the cathedrals were museums. What would be missing? Betjeman gives some hint of what the mysterious something was. It was a something in which, for all his doubts, he most passionately and sincerely believed”. The Arrest of Oscar Wilde in the Cadogan Hotel. “I think I’m excited by extremity. I don’t think of myself as sleazy–I like to think of myself as intrepid. Whether sex, food or going on holiday,whenever I’m confronted by a decision I always do the thing that’ll be the best anecdote.’ Pushing boundaries almost to the point of transgression is his stock in trade, and sex a major topic. ‘I’m just trying to bludgeon ennui,’ he says, ‘trying not to be bored'”.

Wouldn’t it be great to always behave myself in London and save it all for Berlin, Vienna, Brussels? Every £50 I spend in London is 74 euros I could use to buy a night in a European hotel. But I have such great memories in London. Sunset and Demi and Pamela. “The smoky Tanz bars of Berlin,where the German public tried to put aside growing concerns about world politics and lose themselves in a seething pit of immorality, decadence and extravagance”. The world has already entered a state of dangerous climate change. “No longer passionate enough about it to be disappointed”. How fantastic to have  my own place! Never take that for granted. Just yards from the bus stop to Charing Cross, next door to McDonald's, just opposite a mini supermarket & paper shop. It is not just saving money, it is stopping myself being drunk & hungover all the time. It is losing weight, too. It is not about writing about it on Bite or Virtual Tourist, it is just about the books.

I never meant to hurt you so this is goodbye (29th August 2006)

I never meant to hurt you, so this is goodbye. Tell the truth, you never wanted me. Tell me. The end of me and Florence. Olga. Another missed call from Olga yesterday at 11:03. It breaks my heart to hurt her, but the alternative is she completely uses me and fucks my life up and throws me away behind her.********Found it really hard to sleep on the floor today, felt so uncomfortable, kept waking up at hourly intervals. It was nice sitting in that position typing on my laptop, though. Felt so much attention from the girls on the No.2, that same South American brown ponytail I see SO many times, kept looking sideways and back, gorgeous Albino blonde getting off Hyde Park Corner, and on the 87, that blonde schoolteacher girl again. Just five hours to get through, then….sitting alone in my flat? Will I resist the late bus to Calcutta? I went out at 610PM tonight to get a McDonald's & take it back to flat with me. That was SO nice. Thank God, I could not face more corned beef. Not much else to say. The long hibernation continues. It has to be done. I will go home and get my hair cut Thursday afternoon, maybe back to flat Friday morning. Then I can go see Volver maybe. It it is raining!

How lovely it was lying on the floor of my flat when I got home (28th August 2006)

How lovely it was lying on the floor of my flat when I got home, just doing my newspapers, and I put the anglepoise lamp on for the first time in months. My little nest looked so lovely, with all those books starting to pile up against the wall. I slept on the floor again! I think I actually prefer it on the floor, I seem to sleep a lot longer, and have so many vivid dreams. I did not get up until 645pm again. Before sleeping I was listening to that tape & it was full of the Vienna 2002 songs! Avril Lavigne Complicated, Los Asejere The Tomato Song, Puddle of Mudd, No Doubt Underneath it All. It was amazing to hear them again. At the same time I have been thinking a lot about those great films, the German tramp in the forest with the girl in the fur coat, and at first he exposes himself, then she just touches him a bit, before they are full on fucking in the middle of the forest path where anyone can see them. And the Last Bus to Boobsville. And the women’s hen night party. Incredible memories. This is why I travel. Watching it on your computer is not the same. It needs oxygen to become combustible and erotic and catch into flames. But do I really have to wait so long till December! It will be great to finally get back to ML Revue again. How excited I will be that night, leaving the hotel, and riding the tram up the Gurtel till I get there! How excited I will be on the train to Vienna and arriving at Westbhanhof, and crossing the road to the Dorint! At Christmas time! Progress is slow, it will be such a long time till I get there. All of September, all of October, all of November–is it possible? I will have to go back to Sunset in the meantime, and Demi and Pamela. No, you must wait for Vienna, because I really want to have some spending money when I get there, for the dancing, and the kabins, and the whores. I woke up briefly at 5, just as it started to thunder! Then lash with rain. That was lovely. If only I did not also have to come to work. Just one more night to get through! I want to see Volver, Snakes on a Plane, Scanner Darkly, the Sir John Soanes Museum. Plenty. It can wait a week or two. I have just realised tonight is the Third Anniversary of Powercut Night, Rani If Loving You is Wrong I don’t want to be Right, when the Flying Scotsman really started for me. It is also the second anniversary of Animal Trainer 14 and my second time with Olga. I have found a new place to go in Brussels, the incredible bar of the Hotel Metropol by Le Brouckere, and a new place in Vienna, the Liechtenstein Palace.

OK so I fell off the wagon but it only cost me £30 (27th August 2006)

OK so I fell off the wagon, but it only cost me £30. I can make that up by not going to Calcutta at all this week, as punishment. And I learned an important lesson, that the Bell really is over for me now. Blonde in low cut white top who came in Calcutta for glass of wine just as I was leaving was highlight of the day. Rebels & Martyrs blonde American in skin tight beige trousers that cut her arse in half and grey vest. Now I’ve lost interest in Vienna, lost interest in everything. It was mighty fine to see Lucy again, though. Those thighs, that arse. She is sexy. And nice to see Florence again in see through all in one blue outfit, and coming in in her grey hooded top.***********This was in fact a very valuable £30 and not wasted at all, because it taught me a very valuable lesson, that the Scotsman really is over for me, and most definitely so is Florence. Lucy caught my eyes a couple of times while she was sitting at side, once when I was squinting to look at pink poster, I looked back to screen & saw that she was looking at me, and when she got changed to leave she also glanced to me. It was also valuable because it made me realise I do not even want to drink anymore. I will not go to Calcutta for my nightcaps anymore either, that will recoup the £30. So what will I do in these lovely dark autumn rainy, storm-tossed nights, if no Scotsman, no Sunset, no Calcutta? Stay in enjoying my hamburger & fries, writing by my lamp, reading, listening to my classical music tapes, watching my videos, all the time saving the money to get me back to Vienna and Berlin. I slept all day today, on the floor! What is happening to my life? I am going through a change. I do not know what I am changing into. It was good to see how much more expensive the Scotsman makes my life. It was a useful lesson. It was good to finally see the Rebels & Martyrs exhibition. I did get a slight erection. Lucy liked my rings as well. MY BUS STOP IS BACK! It is so lovely to be able to go from that stop again. Beautiful dream today, where I lived was like in a forest, all overgrown & overhung, up a little muddy path & steps, and I went down to the valley and looked towards the viaduct crossing the valley & framed by overhanging trees, and red sunset, and rushed back to my place under the trees to get my camera. I so much want to stop drinking. I am so tired of being tired all the time, too tired to read or write.

I wake up alone and how do I feel about that? Fine (26th August 2006)

I wake up alone and how do I feel about that? Fine. There is no one I want to be with. I am so happy to be alone and free. I feel stressed because I have got to go back to the flat early in order to force myself to get to the Rebels & Martyrs at the National Gallery, and I have become so used to not going out, not doing anything. I have retreated so deep into my own little world, almost a hibernation, and liking it. Those drunken addictive years to strippers & whores seem so far away. It is so nice to be curled up small & protected. But always I fear everything being torn down, invaded, ripped away from me. As always I expect the great flood any moment & having to gather all my things together on a raft and starting all over again.

For all that talk of big breasts I never really made the most of my opportunities (25th August 2006)

For all that talk of big breasts I never really made the most of my opportunities: Clarisse I never even had a 5 euro dance in my seat & refused to talk to her, Martina, I went with Diana instead, Andrea I just had the £20 option instead of half an hour. I can worry about the sadness and despair of my last trips to Berlin, Munich, Brussels, but I always feel this sadness and despair so it is normal & I should enjoy it! There is a kernel inside my brain that only wants to be stimulated by pornographic films and prostitutes, and will never be able to feel anything in real relationships, so I should just understand that and enjoy it. Isn’t it great that I now feel so happy in myself and so self-confident, I am writing, I have my own place, I am enjoying the pornographic films and the prostitutes the same as ever, and no one can touch me. How beaten down I used to be. Not anymore. I am taunting them with what I enjoy that they cannot. I am flaunting it in their angry faces, more and more. I am provoking them more and more. I am Beethoven. I am genius.
Alcazar Crying at the Discotheque. My God I cannot wait to get back to Vienna again! Back to the Ring! I cannot wait to see Jolanda again. And Melani. Then on to Demi or Pamela. Oh travel is so much the greatest thing.
I try so hard to recreate the sensations I feel when I am on holiday. That feeling drinking beer from my minibar in my Munich hotel room before going to Atlantic City. Or drinking in my Vienna hotel room before going to ML Revue. Or in Berlin before going to BEC and Stuttgarter Platz.

Well, this morning I was able to pay £300 off my Barclaycard. The long road back starts here. I felt so uncomfortable when I came out my flat 930am yesterday morning. I had two pints in the Calcutta before getting the 23:19 home. ENJOY ALL MY TAPES AND MY VIDEOS! WHAT A COLLECTION I HAVE AMASSED!
I lead a strange existence. I read and write for a couple of hours, then sleep for a couple of hours. Listen to some classical music for an hour, then read & write some more, then sleep some more.

What a great life this is. Sleep for a few hours, get up to read and write for a few hours, listen to classical music for a while, sleep some more, for three or four days a week. Even my bad trips still produced interesting experiences. I need complete isolation. Complete peace. Complete solitude. I can only exist in solipsism, and its military wing, Priapism. I enjoyed living in the broken world of strippers and whores. But I fell in love with one of the strippers and started embarrassing myself. I want to write a magazine like Simpliccimus and Die Fackel. Or make my satiric interventions on, for example, BITE, or Openlegs4u. I would restart The Serpent’s Egg either on wildeboy.com or Yahoo360 but I would have to reveal too much about myself. My life revolves around strippers and whores and yet I cannot talk about that. 95% of my life would have to remain hidden under the surface leaving only the tip of the iceberg which is not worth talking about.

How do I square the circle and get back to Munich again? Get back to Vienna again? (24th August 2006)

How do I square the circle and get back to Munich again? Get back to Vienna again? Seeing that Heidi Klum picture makes me think of it. Maybe that was my high moment in Munich, my City in the Autumn Stars moment, those three visits from October to January 2004–so long ago–and in Munich they will never come again. My high moment at the Bell was those nights when I used to see Sylvia all the time and at the Bell will probably never come again. Those high nights I spent at Carnival will never come again. You worry all your high moments are in the past. Certainly my last six or seven foreign trips have been dull, low-key, disillusioning affairs. It does seem, though, that all my high times come while travelling–apart from Sylvia. It is hard to escape that fact. That is why I live for travelling. And even during those last low, dull trips there were stand out moments, such as Clarisse in Brussels, Erika in Berlin. Yesterday was Sleeping Beauty is a Junkie day from 1999. Even last time in Berlin, leaving out the one night I spent there to see Prokina in Onegin & then Katarina & The Wild Hunt at the BEC, there was Alla & Olga, and Erika at Ciro, all on my last night. Being in love deadens all my high moments. All those months longing for Florence this year, and all those months longing for Olga before that. High times can only come when you are not longing for anyone, are free, and refreshed, and priapic.

Counting backwards, I think March 2005 was my last really high time, with Diana in snowy Berlin, in that claustrophobic stuffy grandeur of the Charlies Rennie Mackintosh bedroom. How vividly I remember coming out of BEC into the falling snow, my cock rolling in my trousers, to go back to Diana. At the time, I felt even that visit was not working. Before that in February was a similarly failed trip to Vienna (even though there was Maria and Harrieta), in January the failed trip to Munich (even though there was pink top blonde), before that the ruinous £2,000 Interrail trip to Munich and Berlin (even though I met Martina in Nuremberg, and Riccarda and Iga again), before that the cryingly sad reunion with Riccarda the White Angel of Death in Berlin (even though I discovered the Libertines), before that the devastating heartbreak of Viktoriya (after inital excitement of Patricia, Susi and Irina). Before that were the three great Rubicon-crossing Berlin trips, where I met Iga, Riccarda and Yulia, the last trips that really worked, and before that were the three Munich trips. Since that last good moment with Diana in March 05, there was the horrible one night in Munich for Poppea and Viktoriya, the failed attempt to see Von Weth in Lulu in Berlin, then Antwerp/Brussels Clarisse, Frankfurt Katerina, Berlin Erika and that last empty visit to Munich. By this time my debt had deadened everything,. There is no point going to these places where the Esmeraldas and Tallulahs are waiting for you, unless you can splash the cash. You are wasting your time and their time otherwise. You are depressed before you step through the door.

Florence has ruined the Bell for me, so it feels lovely to give it up. So it can be seen that when I fell in love with Florence was the moment the Bell was destroyed for me, and all those great nights with Sylvia were brought to an end. And when I fell in love with Viktoriya was the moment Munich and Berlin were destroyed for me, all those great City in the Autumn Stars nights were brought to an end. Falling in love ruins everything. How sad I remember being on ALL those trips I mentioned above. Why do I say I love travelling when the trips are filled with such sadness and despair? Because in the sadness and despair I still find jewels, and have incredible experiences, like Clarisse, Martina, Erika, etc, etc. And after all the sadness and despair is no different from what I feel at home. That is just who I am. I take it everywhere with me. Europe offers greater sensual pleasures that is all. The greatest moments have always involved the pornographic cinema or videokabins. It is almost a year ago I first met black dress Kay, what a sexy moment that was, as she stroked my cock with her hand, as the black guy put his huge cock in her mouth and other guy put condom on & fucked her before coming over her breasts!

No epiphanies tonight but my first huge temptation (23rd August 2006)

No epiphanies tonight, but my first huge temptation. After three I was wild enough to want to go back to the Bell, just for the mad hell of it–to see Florence again, to see Anya’s breasts again, in the black skies and pouring rain. I stood at the top of the tube steps debating it. Mass debating it. Thank God I passed my first test! It is all the money I waste on the girls I do not want. That is what kills me. Alia was in shock, no tuna!, wait I will make one for you! I tipped her £1.75. Nothing too much exciting in the Calcutta, though black ponytail on bus home to Vauxhall, blue jeans, black jacket, yellow vest over big breasts. I wanted to go to Bell, then cinema, then Pamela. The only thing that convinced me to not to was my hair! When I get my hair cut then it may be different. How much better it will be to go back to the Bell after three months rather than three weeks. Let me leave it three months until November!? Yea, right. I did feel a disgust for the Bell as I stood at the top of the steps. I am pleased to say. It is totally ironic, this is precisely the late August rainy black weather I would normally have chosen for my return to the Bell. This would have been a perfect night for it. I cannot keep this up for long.

Uneventful journey home (22nd August 2006)

Uneventful journey home. Anna K was sweet again. Getting on the 87 to work though just before Sainsburys was one of the most beautiful girls I have ever seen. I thought it was Anya at first, or maybe Martini with the huge breasts she used to have. Blonde plaited ponytail, little pursed smile, tight cyan blue top over big big pillow-like soft breasts, black trousers over voluptuous soft arse, very Swedish or Slav looking. Stood side on by the bars until off at Vauxhall. My God, she made me want to go back to Sunset Cinema and Demi or Pamela. It was a mighty temptation and test of resolve, but by the time I got to work and I was asking myself DO you want to go back to cinema, the answer was still no, I still didn’t want to. Just three hours to go. I think rather than stay in my flat I should go home Wednesday night, then I can be on the internet and drinking every night all week. I will have the house to myself and I can come back home Friday afternoon, in time to go out for The Third Man? Or do The Third Man tonight? I have seen that film so many times I must know the dialogue by now. If I don’t go to The Third Man I can leave Rebels & Martyrs to Wednesday afternoon when I come back to my flat. So then I can go straight to Calcutta this afternoon or this lunchtime for a couple before going home on the 3pm train. Or go to Calcutta about 1PM, Rebels & Martyrs, back to flat for couple of hours, back home with  bag tonight. Buy some beers on way to take home with me. I want my trips to Sunset Strip to be special and big events like they used to be in the Carnival days. I slept through to 640PM yesterday! What is the matter with me! I shouldn’t complain. I must be very relaxed. Still no Lilith. I miss Pamela and Demi. Oh I so look forward to getting to Calcutta for a drink this PM! Drinking is my favourite activity I think. I haven’t had a drop since Thursday night.

What to say? (21st August 2006)

What to say? Oh I saw that voluptuous woman at the 74 stop in the morning. She is so sexy. Apart from that, uneventful journeys home & back to work. I slept all day again! Till just before 6PM. Maybe now I have put the travelling issue to bed by deciding to go in December I feel much more relaxed. Or maybe I am sleeping more because I am just so bored these days! No, I think my addictive lifestyle agitated my system so much. It is much better to be calmer now. What joy when I do get back to Demi and Pamela. What joy when I get my 87 bus stop back. What joy if Lilith comes back. One more night to get through.

At Christmas I really can treat myself to a couple of days in Brussels first (20th August 2006)

At Christmas, I really can treat myself to a couple of days in Brussels first. The longer I can resist travelling for, the more money I will have to spend when I get there, and so the happier I will feel. Especially if I know I can come back to London and pay it off quickly with my new continence. Going to Vienna in December will give me the chance to see the After Schiele exhibition at the Atelier Augarten. ‘Courbet, who in his pictures constantly examined himself and his artistry, often re-worked his portraits according to his moods and viewpoints, and it is possible that the painful separation from his lover in the years between 1851-54 prompted “The Wounded Man”. He sees himself as wounded by heartache and abandoned in a twilit landscape.
One can hardly overlook the similarity between his figure and that of Christ. Identifying with Christ gave the artist the possibility of expressing his status as that of a pariah fired by an ideal, as one burdened with insight in an uncomprehending society, and who suffers greatly because of this. When the Vendôme Column collapsed in Paris, Courbet explicitly cited this concept: “Here I stand before this pillar of infamy, like Jesus when he carried his Cross.” 

Oh God I am so excited about going to Vienna in December! And I am so excited about all the weeks before then, just twelve, when I can not go out, and save money frenziedly. These will be rich weeks, rich in writing and classical music, and ferns. Rich in drinks in the Calcutta, cinema, and time spent with my mother. This week I want to go to the Rebels & Martyrs exhibition, and The Third Man at the NFT. Maybe even Miami Vice. “Boundless aestheticism and ambivalent premonitions of an imminent and inevitable decline brought about a unique atmosphere in turn-of-the-century imperial Vienna, and led to Early Austrian Expressionism.” I am aware of the decline and decadence, the sensual decadence, the diving deeper into darkness, the romantic nihilism in myself, so that is why I am attracted to Vienna around 1900, to Weimar Berlin. If I am to dive deeper into darkness, then let me do it when it is dark, in December! I think a new mature phase of my life is about to begin, it is struggling through its metamorphosis and is just about to emerge from its chrysalis! A new mature diving deeper into darkness! A new mature sensual decadence!

If I can achieve this it will be like shaking hands with myself. A dip in the grotesque.
“Violetta, the courtesan. Always free and libertine, always playful, venerated and admired everywhere she goes. But slowly and imperceptibly, consumption spreads through her body. When she meets Alfredo, she finally discovers true love and denounces her dissolute life. Alfredo’s father begs her to leave his son to save their family’s honor. And so the Traviata, this depraved woman, sacrifices herself for the sake of love and breaks with Alfredo without telling him why. Passionate outbursts abound, and the border between love and hate proves slight – until the truth comes out and love triumphs. But happiness doesn’t last, as death will not be deferred. In spite of its scandalous premiere, La Traviata has easily won a place of honor in the hearts of music-lovers.” How this reminds me of Riccarda. Olga, too, a bit. How I saw Lela deteriorate, and Ana Maria, too. What pleasure I feel at night, just going to the Calcutta for a night cap. It will be great to see Vienna in The Third Man on a big screen again. Oh what a long way off December is! I must be able to enjoy Demi and Pamela before then. There is nothing specially to go for in December so I can go at any time, let’s say arriving Wednesday 6th December in Vienna for four nights, that would be £58 a night and £230 in total. Not bad. I just feel relief and release. Storms, floods and record tides on way. “Storms and floods are forecast in the coming weeks as the hot summer comes to an end. Experts said last night that heavy rainfall was expected to affect many central and eastern regions during the next two days as areas of low pressure sweep in from the Atlantic. Further torrential downpours are forecast for Thursday and Friday.” How to enjoy this? Sitting by my open window in my flat, in the lamplight with the black skies thundering outside, spray splashing into my room, as I write on my laptop, and listen to Viennese music on my tape machine. This is always the greatest pleasure. The simple pleasures are the only realities. It is much more pleasurable to be sitting alone in my flat with the rain pouring down outside, drowning out the music from the tapeplayer inside, than it is to be in my bedroom at home. It is so pleasurable in fact. To think I can just run next door to get a hamburger & fries. I might actually stay in my flat all week this week. No rush to go home as mother is away. I can go home Friday afternoon just for haircut and come back Saturday afternoon, for drink that night in Calcutta. Wednesday I can go for early drink then Rebels & Martyrs, then back early to my flat for evening in. Thursday I can go out at teatime to Calcutta before The Third Man late maybe. Read Karl Marx at night at work.

What a fantastic memory when Irina turned to me and said to me “I’m sorry, you’re nice, but you drink too much!” before giving me the most awesome private dance of my life (19th August 2006)

What a fantastic memory when Irina turned to me and said to me “I’m sorry, you’re nice, but you drink too much!” before giving me the most awesome private dance of my life I have ever had or ever will have. It will be awesome to see Melani again, and Jolanda, followed by Deborah? Oh no! What are you saying? Not in August. Strip clubs, Tallulah, that whole world revolts me in August. It was after that private dance with Irina that I got close to Viktoriya, and really nothing has been the same since then.

I no longer have to wait till October 31st as that was predicated on seeing Violeta Urmana in the Mort de Cleopatra in Berlin. I could go mid September! Some people have got a mortgage, some people have got a car–I spend my money on travelling only, which is the greatest thing, and watching showgirls, and fucking the most beautiful whores in the world. I can have three more weeks at work, then go on 5th September. In Vienna, you will not see anything better than Melani, or Jolanda, or Deborah. If I get out of my depth financially after two nights in Brussels, and two nights in Munich, I can always cut and run and come home. There are two good reasons for going in September (1) to see Das Entfuhrung aus dem Serail at La Monnaie Brussels with Alexandra Lubchansky (2) the Maria Callas exhibition at Vienna KHM until 17 Sept. I will stay first night in Brussels SAS for Empire, then go straight to Vienna next day to spend Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night, in Vienna Dorint, back to Brussels Ibis early Sunday morning to see Serail Sunday.
“Maria Callas (1923-1977) was one of the great divas of the 20th century. Both her voice and stage presence are legendary. In 1939, the New York-born Greek made her professional debut at the Athens Olympia Theatre and enjoyed her greatest success at La Scala in Milan throughout the 1950s. Until the mid-1960s, she made numerous appearances at the world’s greatest opera houses. She considered her signature role Norma, which she portrayed almost 90 times, somewhat autobiographical. Callas said, “Norma is in many ways like I am. Norma may appear strong, sometimes even brutal, but in reality she is like a lamb that roars like a lion.”
This exhibition focuses on the staging and self-staging of the artist Maria Callas in the operas La Traviata, Tosca, Medea and Norma as well as the film Medea. Splendid costumes, rare pictures, film sequences of Pasolini’s Medea and Franco Zeffirelli’s Tosca as well as numerous audio samples document her unique artistic personality. The exhibition also provides a detailed picture of the star off stage. The opera star was and remains well known far beyond her own artistic oeuvre. Spectacular cancellations of performances, lawsuits, rivalries and her private life caused sensations. Even today, this diva assoluta inspires not only the world of the opera but also literature and fashion.”
(3) MOZART. The Enlightenment: An Experiment @ the Albertina till 20 Sept
In the 1780s Mozart’s genius was unfolding in Vienna. His most intensive creative period – years of overwhelming success and remarkable wealth, but also of financial need, resulting from an inclination towards venturesomeness – took place in the Josephine climate of rapid reform. This open-minded, enlightened society was marked by the ideals of freemasonry.
(4) Round Table. Egon Schiele & His Circle @ the Belvedere till 24 Sept
“In Roeg’s films, characters don’t realise they are in hell because they have been having too much fun for the most part. And by the time they do realise what is happening, they have resigned themselves to the fact that they are past the point of no return.” Romantic Nihilism.
I am going to have an adventure in Vienna without constraint. I will fuck Maria and Harrietta and Irina double.

Who’s the person I miss most in my life? Sylvia–because it was never spoiled and never went wrong. Because we never got involved. I got "involved" (at a very shallow level) with Melani, & Florence, & Jolanda, and so they were all spoiled and went wrong. Sylvia remains a pure and untouched memory of loveliness. I suppose in a way I can say the same for Irina and Susi and Clarisse and Martina. Beautiful women all look the same whereas not so beautiful women all look unique. Sylvia reminds me of so many other women, Charlotte Rampling, Heather Graham, Meg White, Goldfrapp.

I have got £13,500 credit and I owe £5,900. With this Vienna holiday that will increase temporarily, but so what? It is just like taking out a loan. I have taken out a £5,900 loan which I will pay back when I come back from Vienna. And with this loan I am doing amazing, extraordinary things. Burning bright like a firefly. You have to push yourself to the edge. It is only there that you can observe things & record your observations. I am excited about going to work from now, because my journey to Vienna has already started. Remember how I always used to enjoy going to work because it was just getting me through the two or three weeks until I could get back to Munich again, or get back to Berlin again, or get back to Vienna again? Am I really spending hundreds of pounds going all the way to Vienna just to have sex? The sex with the Vienna and Berlin whores is more expensive but it is better. They will do anything. Remember how Yulia, Riccarda, Maria, Diana, did absolutely everything? You do not get that in Soho. Once you have paid your 100 euros you do get an absolutely mind-blowing experience. Now watching the Alizee J’en ai Marre video I know why I travel. If I had never travelled I would never have seen that video. If I had not gone to Berlin and bought the Observer that Sunday in the Cafe Zoo I would never have discovered the Libertines. If I had not gone back to Brussels I would never have discovered Elena Prokina. Travel enriches you so much. Just as the flat costs me a lot of money but it would be a false economy to give it up, so travelling costs me a lot of money but it too would be a false economy to give it up. That night coming away from Katarina & her Wild Horses with such a huge erection in my trousers it still had not gone down by the time I crossed the leaf carpeted Ku’damm. Meeting Clarisse in Brussels. On a wild goose chase to Nuremberg to look for Viktoriya I met the incredible Martina with the most enormous breasts I have ever seen in my life.

Yes, it is true I am travelling to Vienna for Tallulah, and I have always travelled for Tallulah, but by chance along the way I have also discovered so many things that I would not have discovered otherwise–the Libertines, Elena Prokina, Heidi Klum on the billboard. You always find things while looking for something else. While looking for Susi I met Patricia & B Rosa. While looking for Patricia I met Emily. While looking for Viktoriya I met Martina. While looking for Riccarda I met Diana. The Libertines and Elena Prokina were complete chance discoveries that I would not have made if I had not been in Berlin and Brussels respectively (bored in Berlin on a Sunday I brought an Observer & went to the Cafe Zoo to read it & there read about the Libertines and Pete Doherty for the first time. Bored in Brussels I wandered into La Monnaie and on the off chance bought a ticket for I Due Foscari that night & there heard the most beautiful sound I had ever heard in my life when Prokina came on stage to sing), and they are now two of the most important things in my life. I am going to Vienna to see the Maria Callas exhibition but no doubt I will find something else instead. I always find something different to what it was I thought I was looking for. But if I had not set out looking for that thing, I would not have found the other thing. This is becoming the law of my life. I suppose if I go now expecting to meet some other thing I will find nothing but the original thing. Life is a see-saw. As soon as you think you have worked out its hidden laws and mechanisms, they swing back the other way and become the opposite. It is more than anything travelling, though, that keeps them swinging & keeps giving you glimpses into their internal workings, like looking inside a watch. As Kenneth Williams wrote, none of his trips to Tangier were ever what he could call truly successful, but they were important in that they kept the pendulum swinging. Ernest Shackleton kept going back South, even though none of his expeditions ever had any clear aim. It was enough to be heading South again. There is something in my soul that means it is enough to be just heading South again, and South in my case meaning my four Stations of the Cross, my four Cities in the Autumn Stars, Brussels, Munich, Vienna and Berlin, with occasional forays as far as Venice or Budapest or Oslo. 

I have almost forgotten what it is like to sleep at night. I just lie there and stare at the ceiling and have to give up. I love to be awake all night reading or writing while the world is quiet. Days are noisy and full of people, so it is a pleasure to sleep through them. It is cheaper that way, too. This “loan”  I have taken out of £6,000 is vital to pay for my travels which gives me my vital observations which go to form my books. You have to speculate to accumulate. To dare is to do.

But wouldn’t it be nice to go so I can just be in Vienna for three nights & relax, I am thinking now? I will be travelling to Berlin in January for La Traviata and Carmina Burana, and back to Berlin in April-June for Katarina Dalayman in Salome, and maybe Brussels on 11th June for Violeta Urmana. While the Continence of Scipio is upon me, and I do not kid myself it will last, it is a fantastic chance to finally make an inroad into my credit card debt. I may never get another chance again. Crazy to take advantage of this financial control by blowing it all straight away in a four day trip to Vienna, when there is not really anything special for me to go for at this time. I will take the week off in September and use it to do some writing in my flat. I will not be going to Vienna, I think, until maybe the New Year after the Berlin trip, or maybe even December just before Christmas. I have slept every day for three whole days. I slept all day Thursday, Friday, and even today. I left mother’s at 630PM to get my train straight to work. Another couple of rainy days coming up, and Monday should see heavy rain. It is not BORING to not be going out at all now, it is FANTASTIC! It finally gives me the chance to concentrate on the classical music and the writing.  Finally I have a chance to do something about the overheating of the planet, and stop it getting any worse at least. I have not felt any urge to misbehave at all over the past two weeks. It is not as if I even have to fight it. This will be the biggest and best thing I have ever done in my life, if I can do it.

Oh but I would so much love to be in Vienna! But really the nights are so light still. The sun will not be setting until 7:20PM when I get there. How much better to go in November when it sets at 4:30PM! Let that be my rule, never travel until the clocks go back at the end of October. It is exciting to think that by the end of December I could be at exactly the point I was at the end of December last year. I could have climbed back out of the valley of despair. Having gone from -2255 to -4235 I could be back to -2276. Could be. Only if I carry on like this, doing nothing but going to Calcutta for a couple of nights a week for a nightcap, and preferably going home to mother’s. Then I can reward myself with the trip to Berlin in January, maybe a trip to Vienna as well for Christmas, and the trip to Berlin in April for Katarina Dalayman as Salome. Wouldn’t it be more exciting to think of going to Vienna in December rather than the still light start of September?! Vienna at Christmas would be a genuinely exciting prospect. That is my new goal! Can you imagine sitting in the bar of the Dorint half past four in the afternoon having come in from the museums with the lights all glowing and black darkness already outside, maybe snow, and people rushing around in their fur coats back to the warmth of the hotel! Oh how could I think of going in September! If I went in September I would not be able to go anywhere for Christmas. In fact, I have never been anywhere at Christmas. I need to request the Christmas holiday soon as those dates always go really quickly. Now I can plan my Christmas trip! That will replace the emptiness I was already starting to feel at cancelling the September trip. Oh I am already so excited about Christmas in Vienna! By Christmas I could either have £2,287 sitting in my Woolwich account, or else only owe £3,900 on my credit cards, a level I haven’t reached since before I moved into my flat! But yes–Christmas in Vienna. Finally I have reached a compromise, between going and not going, and my devil and my angel have shaken hands with each other on the deal. I feel as excited now as I did reading the Sleeping Beauty is a Junkie article seven years ago. In fact I have never travelled anywhere in December, not even in November, until my one night seeing Prokina in Berlin. If I can keep up this continence, how I will have earned it, and how proud I can feel sitting in that Dorint bar come Christmas-time!

When will I ever meet someone like Sylvia again? (18th August 2006)

When will I ever meet someone like Sylvia again? Maybe Caroline in Big Apple? Sylvia really was the sphinx. Will I really never see her again? I must ask Amanda one day. Now I can enjoy the eroticism of pulling into Brussels by train, before enjoying the showgirls of Empire. Then the eroticism of drawing into Munich at night by train before enjoying the showgirls of Atlantic City. Then the eroticism and intense nervousness of drawing into Nuremberg at night by train before enjoying the showgirls at Caribic. Then the eroticism of drawing into Vienna at night by train before enjoying the showgirls of Seilerstatte. It is silly to say Brussels is boring or Munich is boring, because I will be awake all night at the showgirl places, only going home at 3 or 4 in the morning,not getting up until midday, going out 2pmish for a few drinks, sleeping it off, before going out again at night. I will live a completely nocturnal existence in those places anyway.

The pleasure of travelling around Europe by train is so great even if I’m lonely because when I am lonely I write the most (17th August 2006)

The pleasure of travelling around Europe by train is so great, even if I’m lonely, because when I am lonely I write the most. It is Nietzsche in cold stoveless rooms writing with blue hands, while weeping, writing in blood. That is what I like best. So what I owe £6,000. You cannot take it with you. I might as well live intensely for the next few years while the rausch is on me. I am inclined to go to Berlin in January for La Traviata and Carmina Burana. That will mean I should go to Munich and Vienna at the end of October, to pull into Munich Hauptbahnhof in the dark at 7 o’clock at night and walk into the Intercity, for a couple of beers from the minibar, shower, couple of beers down in the bar, before rounding the corner into Atlantic City. The next day I can enjoy the gorgeous Lamm's and that night maybe go to Nuremberg coming back for 630 breakfast. So Thursday get Eurostar to Brussels Radisson SAS, few drinks in bar, up to Empire and Gare du Nord. Next lunchtime to Munich. Saturday night in Nuremberg and Sunday lazing in Munich? or train to Vienna? Monday night arrive in Vienna for some drinks from minibar then Dorint bar, then Seilerstatte. Next night Pour Platin and ML Revue. Yes, Munich and Vienna in end of October, save Berlin for January. That will give me all of November and December, another eight weeks, to save for Berlin. Munich more than anywhere is really the City in the Autumn Stars. It even has a Rosenstrasse! Maybe I could buy some new boots. I am really going to enjoy myself this autumn in Munich and Vienna. Still, before I go, I would like to return at least once to Cotton Club Cinema and then to see Demi and Pamela. This time I will take some pictures in Munich at night. I am going to really absorb myself in Munich and draw out of it as much as I can this time. 

OK now I have woken up a bit, I think yes of course I must travel, and put it on my cards. That is what cards are for, to enable you to stretch yourself and have amazing experiences. Even the failed visit to Frankfurt now seems so evocative. Even the last visit to Berlin had Erika, Alla & Olga, Serail at the Komische Oper, not to mention the one night with Prokina at the Deutsche Oper and Wild Hunt in the BEC, coming back home through those leaf-strewn back streets, crossing the Ku'damm STILL with an enormous swollen rolling cock in my trousers! Fantastic. Even the last trip to Brussels brought some fantastic large breasted women, and-amazingly–still that gorgeous McDonald’s girl! Oh the Pullman! Oh the Cafe Belge! I cannot WAIT for end of October so I can pull into Munich station at night, go straight into the Intercity (or Regent?), then straight out to Atlantic City to drink. Next day wake up midday to go for my gorgeous Lamm's, New Pin, back to sleep a little before getting evening train to Nuremberg for Pils Bar and Caribic. 4am milk train back in time for 6am Intercity breakfast! Spend Sunday in Munich, or use it to get to Vienna? Have a rostbraten when I arrive in Vienna and a quiet Sunday night in perhaps, getting very drunk in the Dorint bar. Then Monday, Dorint bar early for some zipfers, then out to St Stephen’s, the Pummerin, the Butterfly House, KHM and Leopold. Back to sleep, before off out to explore Seilerstatte first. Maybe on way back to hotel I can pop into Manhattan or Pour Platin for nightcap. Tuesday night back up to ML Revue then exploring Gurtel on way back, Angelique, Pour Platin. It will be expensive but it has got to be done. Then I can wait for Berlin in January for La Traviata and Carmina Burana–a full 15 months after I last set foot in Berlin!!!—knowing I can then stay at home for rest of year to pay it off. 

Oh how I love to be awake at 4 o’clock in the morning! This is my time! I want to fuck those Vienna whores. Viennese Eroticism. Bad Timing. The Night Porter. Mando Diao. Saybia. The Libertines. Soulwax. Galvanise. Maria. Harrieta. Of COURSE I must go back to Vienna first. Tonight feels like a significant night. The night I realised Munich and Vienna must come first and it feels right.

Why do I wake up at 2AM feeling so unhappy? (16th August 2006)

Why do I wake up at 2AM feeling so unhappy? I feel like I want to cry. I had such an unhappy dream. I was trapped on a long distance train going across Europe and I knew no longer wanted to be on it, but I was trapped. I had no choice. In reflection in the window I saw an old man with black holes where eyes should be. It is almost a premonition of myself in 20 or 30 years time. I felt like I was trapped on this train, and trapped in this travelling, without aim and without enjoyment. Maybe it is just the after effects of the drink. Drink causes depression and low moods. Such a reversal of how I felt on the train home last night. Instead of having my epiphany in the Calcutta, I had it on the train home. As the train neared home in the darkness from station to station closer to ——, I imagined I was on my train in Europe, getting nearer and nearer to pulling in at my final destination of Munich, or Vienna, or Berlin, and I felt again that intense excitement of about to arrive. How exciting it is to arrive at a place by train, not by plane. It made me really want to be on that train to Munich, or Vienna, or Berlin. The great thing about arriving by train is I know my hotel is right next to the station in Munich, and in Vienna, and very close even in Berlin, and in Brussels. To arrive in Munich at night is so exciting, when everywhere is so dark, and all lit up, and the night is about to begin. Very soon I can be heading over the road to Atlantic City and the night can really begin. Now, however, this morning I feel like I do not want to travel to those places and do those tawdry things again. I am sick of those places, and throwing all my money away. As always in the mornings I am most conservative and frightened, and at night I am most wild and hedonistic. 

Who would I want to be with now? No one. I am happy to be in bed alone. And yet I am very lonely. I feel cosmically alone.  Again in the Calcutta–Monkeys From the Ritz to the Rubble on the jukebox– there was a sexy little brown bob thing sitting opposite me as I sat in the box seat, black top, black miniskirt, showing a lot of thigh. It was sexually exciting. I only had two. It is never the same when I have got my bag with me and I am travelling home. I am sure I will stay longer Friday. How lovely to go to Brussels for four days and just do NOTHING. I like to go to places where I can do nothing. Just sit in the Pullman getting drunk while watching the girls pass. Just sit up on O’Neill's balcony watching the girls pass. Just sit in the window of Cafe Belge watching the girls pass. Maybe the Radisson SAS, too. It is true, this money I am saving I must use it to pay off the £6,000 debt because in October the Virgin interest is going to cripple me. And yet, I read of university students leaving with £12,000 debts and I think mine is not so bad, when  I have got a secure (?) job I really like. 


Yesterday I was thinking I want to go to Europe and just go really mad and really for one week just not care about the bills, just fuck everyone—fuck Evalina, fuck Maya, fuck Erika, fuck Olga & Alla. Have the wildest time of my life and then spend the rest of the year paying for it, but what wild erotic memories. Or go to Vienna and fuck Maria, fuck Angelique, fuck Irina double. Go completely wild, that is what holidays are for. I CANNOT go again feeling depressed and miserable and controlling myself. It is not worth going to brothels controlling yourself! And for me Vienna, Berlin, Munich, Brussels, Frankfurt are just vast brothels and nothing else. For me holidays are for dirty sex and nothing else, I just dress it up with art and opera. My holidays are Rabelaisian, Chaucerian treks and pilgrimages. I feel almost medieval, especially if I go by train. Pulling into these great cathedrals that are the railway stations. I don’t know what to do. I change my mind from minute to minute again. I think of course I will not go at the end of October. That will slip by like May did. Now I must think about January for La Traviata and Carmina Burana if at all. Of course October is too soon. Oh to be arriving in Berlin by train, or Munich by train, or Vienna by train, at night.

Monday is going to be quite cool & rainy as well (15th August 2006)

Monday is going to be quite cool & rainy as well, Tuesday a bit brighter, but then Wednesday evening I can go straight home to mother’s! How I look forward to doing that now! I will come back to the flat Friday afternoon & then back to the Calcutta for a nightcap later. JUST TWO MORE NIGHTS TO GET THROUGH! I could go to Brussels for a relaxing three days and only then decide where I want to jump to next—north to Berlin, or south to Nuremberg/Munich & Vienna.

Why don’t I go on holiday EARLY, in mid September, and then pay it off by my hoarding? Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail is on in Brussels through September….."Belmonte has everything prepared to break his beloved Constance out of the seraglio of Selim Pacha in Turkey. His project is discovered, but Selim Pacha overcomes his jealousy and magnanimously pardons Belmonte. With his 'Türkenoper,' Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Mozart clearly touched 18th century Vienna’s heartstrings: the fearful fascination with Turkish culture had hardly dissipated a hundred years after the last occupation of Vienna by the Ottoman Turks. A tender love story, generously seasoned with humour and set to sparkling music, assured this work an enormous popularity and made it one of the greatest successes of Mozart’s career. The unity of music and drama achieved in this piece provided a new ideal for Singspiel, as well as for opera in general. ” And then to Berlin Komische Oper for the Rise & Fall of the City of Mahoganny “If you are persecuted by the police, you need a lot of money to bribe the law and order of the state. If you lack money, you have to make money. Three gangsters act upon this motto and build the paradise city Mahagonny in the middle of nowhere, where people will find happiness and where they should spend their money in return. However, the undertaking would have failed, if Jim Mahoney, a simple lumberjack from Alaska, would not have found the law of human felicity: everybody should be free to do whatever he wants to – to gorge himself ad nauseam, to have excessively sex, to prove to be a real man in a boxing match, to drink himself into oblivion. Mahagonny booms, the gangsters gain wealth, however, Jim has overseen a much more important law: you can do whatever you want to – but you have to pay for it. He cannot do so and is condemned to death for his lack of money.
»Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny« is regarded as a political parable, an operatic aesthetically discourse, analysis of the functioning mechanisms of human civilization, merciless inventory of the state of human relations under the rule of the market. The works stands for all this, however, it is a synonym for much more: it is one of the most successful operas of the twentieth century and a grandiose theatre fun of amazing energy and timeliness.”

So many sexy girls on the journey home this morning. Passing me at Vauxhall 87 stop was the most amazing brunette in red jumper over the most massive breasts, brown long skirt over voluptuous arse. Stunning blonde in white zip up cardigan getting off bus in front in W-- Road. Got £45 bonus at work! That’s 66 Euros! Perhaps I should separate the Brussels and Berlin holidays. Just have four days in Brussels, Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday night, back on Sunday? Wouldn’t that be so boring, on its own? Going to Wiertz & Modern is only so titillating and arousing because it is a precursor to arriving on Babylon on the Spree, Mon Cheri, Golden Gate, Monte Carlo, Ciro, BEC, Sarah Young. It must wait until I have earned it & proved I am worth it, though, at the end of October. And like I say, if I do spend three nights in Brussels & then something exciting happens I can always stay there & forget about going on anywhere else.

Otherwise, I really cannot imagine going to just Brussels for four days. I would be so bored. I need just two nights there, for Gare du Nord, Empire, and Museum of Modern Art. Wiertz will have to wait as I would rather be on my way to Berlin for Saturday night, so I might catch Erika in Ciro. You never know, I can maybe stay in Brussels for one more day on the way back home. Remember the Eurostar has to be fixed dates non-changeable to get the cheap price! So many more sexy girls on the bus to work tonight, too many big busty girls to mention. I need some big breasts again! I have to feel them and suck them. I miss Cotton Club Cinema and Pamela. I need Martina in Nuremberg. I need Clarisse in Brussels. I need Iga and Yulia and Diana in Berlin. Anna the Mayfair Swede is pretty awesome. JUST ONE MORE NIGHT TO GET THROUGH! Then Wednesday I can be on my way back home. Via an early evening session in the Calcutta, obviously. I am hoping to save £800 till the end of October, but it is conceivable I might save as much as £1,000, which is 1,500 Euros, but only if I resist the lure of Cotton Club Cinema and Demi and Pamela, which I doubt. If just in ten weeks from mid August to end October I can cut my credit card bill by £1,000 to £4,900 that shows what can be done. If I could be as good for the other 40 weeks I could reduce my credit card bill to just £900! Before that though, as it keeps getting lower, I can keep travelling now & again. For sure, a 2 night Brussels 4 night Berlin, 1 night Brussels holiday, will cost me just over £1,000. So I will be back to square one again. Owing £6,000 on my card, with the Virgin interest about to hit me. There is no real way out. I must consider downsizing my holiday.

Honestly, one night in Brussels is all I want. Check in to the Ibis or SAS at 7pm, after several drinks in the Pullman Bar, shower, down to hotel bar, then out to Empire and up to Gare du Nord for movies & windows. Next morning, something to eat in bar, then catch train to Berlin, for beers, knesepfanne, then out to BEC and SY. Another ten weeks of saving will take me up to mid January–coincidentally when La Traviata and Carmina Burana are on in Berlin! So should I go to Munich & Vienna in October? No, Munich and Vienna should be saved for my last trip, when I can relax and go mad, nihilistically, knowing it will be all year until I can travel again.

A lovely black windy trees lashing day always looking on the verge of rain (14th August 2006)

A lovely black windy trees lashing day, always looking on the verge of rain. I get back to my flat & put my lamp on & it starts to blend in with the twilight outside & my flat feels so warm & cosy, and I think of COURSE I cannot give the flat up. My little nest. I want to go a long long time without seeing Melani or Jolanda so when I see them again it will feel all brand new & a new life will feel like it's starting again.

Oh God how could I ever have considered giving up my lovely little flat? It is so lovely to come back to at night. All afternoon, and tonight, travelling to Charing Cross I felt so nervous. It was good, it felt exciting, like being in Vienna or Berlin or Brussels at night. Everything was pitch back, windy and rainy and storm-tossed. It felt like winter. It felt like how nervous I felt going out in Vienna at night to look for the peep show place, or how nervous I felt going to look for Stuttgarter Platz in Berlin the first time, or going into Atlantic City every time. I love that nervousness! That excitement! Sitting with my first pint in the Calcutta I still felt it. I felt I was sitting in the Brussels Pullman bar prior to heading up to Empire and Gare du Nord. Or sitting in the Dorint preparing to go out to Pour Platin or Manhattan. It was so exciting. By the second pint the excitement had been replaced by deadness, and I could not recapture the nervousness. By the third pint it had started to turn to the nihilism which can be as exciting as the nervousness but I did not push it to a fourth pint. I think three will be my rule for these Calcutta nightcaps. Oh God I cannot wait to get back to Vienna and the Dorint, and I cannot wait to get back to Munich and Atlantic City. But first I think must come Berlin for Violetta Urmana and the Mort de Cleopatra. That would be special. Any money I save let me use it on Alla & Olga and Erika first. On the 87 bus home someone started playing the Hot Club de France at full blast! It was fantastic. Riding along listening to Stephane Grapelli and Django Reinhardt. Every bus should sound like this at 11 o’clock at night.

Low rumble of thunder. To think I was thinking I could sit out on my balcony once summer comes, and now it is black & rainy & I am turning my heating back on, and it is only 13th August! John Dilys Cooper “turns everything into an epiphany”. I had an epiphany last night. Getting the bus to Charing Cross feeling so nervous, and arriving there in the pitch black, and it was so windy & stormy, and I sat in the Calcutta with my first pint feeling so strongly what it would be like at this same 930PM at night to be sitting in the bar of the Brussels Radisson SAS, or the Ibis Cafe Belge, or the Dorint Wien, or the Berlin Plaza, nervously drinking enough so I was ready to go out looking for Tallulah or Esmeralda. Tingle-Tangle. That feeling in the knot of your stomach. Those butterflies. That excitement, that nervousness. On the bus, around Parliament Square, I was thinking this was how nervous I felt when I went to get that tram in Wien, or how nervous I feel when I leave the Intercity at night to cross Bayerstrasse & round corner of Schiller, my heart suddenly starts beating so fast, my breathing comes so quick, my blood pumps around me so quick, as I am sure everybody knows what I am up to, but they cannot stop me, and I am going to do it anyway. A real epiphany last night, and again on Wednesday, when everything reminded me of Wien Westbahnhof. "We grow beautiful out of our longing." The greatest highs of my life have been those midnight trams in Vienna around the Gurtel to get to ML Revue, or those walks from the Intercity to Atlantic City, or those walks from the Berlin Plaza to the Berlin Erotic Centre or Sarah Young, or that midnight tram from the Gare du Midi up to the Gare du Nord and trying again to find the right exit. Lust suddenly suffuses my whole body. I become so nervous and so excited. In Europe you have dirty experiences. The ONLY time I get close to that in London is when I go to Sunset Cinema, and some man comes in with a girl, and that is so exciting, and then when I am ready, I leave there with my swollen cock rolling in my trousers from side to side like a ship in a storm, just around the corner to Demi or to Pamela. That always feels so dirty. Once September comes I will allow myself this again. As the nights get dark so early. Save my money for October, once the clocks go back! That is why I call November 1st Volcanic Night! I do not think I find Simon Boccanegra interesting enough as an opera to go all the way to  Hamburg to see Prokina in it. I’d rather spend all that money the train would cost on sex in Berlin. I would like to see Urmana in the Mort de Cleopatra though. What to do, Munich & Vienna first, or Brussels & Berlin? NOTHING THAT HAPPENS AT WORK CAN POSSIBLY AFFECT ME. I LIVE FOR WRITING AND FOR TRAVELLING. I AM LIKE A GHOST AT WORK. THUNDER! A dirty, black, thundery, raining evening.

Did those things really happen? (13th August 2006)

Did those things really happen? Patricia, B Rosa, Susi, Irina, Emily, Yulia, Riccarda, Iga, Diana, Maria? It seems too fantastical. Incredible, unbelievable nights. Did that pink top blonde with the massive breasts on the plane to Munich really happen or did I imagine her? “The world is a book, and he who does not travel reads only one page”–St Augustine. Sunny dancing to No One Knows. Getting completely lacerated, pulled limb from limb, absolutely fucking soul murdered, when I went to Norway. Another missed call from Olga at 6:34PM. Did those things truly happen? Truly Munich and Berlin were my Cities of the Autumn Stars. Will I ever have a night as magical as watching England v Turkey under the bulb-lit trees beside the Frauenkirche before walking back to Atlantic City and entering with Irina approaching me smiling and saying she wants to come back to my hotel! Or going back in January to find Heidi Klum on the billboard outside my window, then walking into Atlantic City, hardly able to breathe, going into kabins first, but hearing Junior Senior, J-Lo Let’s Get Loud, Hip Teens Don’t Wear Blue Jeans blaring out from inside, to sit there drunk & dazed as B Rosa danced along the catwalk to Jay-Z’s Threat “dig the desert, they build The Sands on you”, Elena to Tu M’a Promis, before going into separee with Patricia and her letting me wank over her breasts with people standing just a couple of feet away from us! Or going back two weeks later into the separee again with Patricia but this time she told me “B Rosa, I-love-you”, so I staggered out into the deep deep snow & continuing never-ending snowstorm, to find the unbelievable Emily in see through black top, and going into the separee to have the greatest sexual experience of my life, as I pulled down her knickers and pulled out my cock, as she ran the champagne-soaked cotton wool bud around the tip of my penis, before letting me wank over her huge huge breasts! Or going to the brothels for the first time in Berlin, walking around the corner from my Kanthotel to Stutti Frutti and fucking the incredible big breasts black haired Yulia in that Charles Rennie Mackintosh bedroom on the four poster bed! Or going back to Berlin a month later & going into Mon Cheri for the first time to meet Riccarda, back to the Mackintosh bedroom, the same bed, where I felt like I was fucking Marilyn Monroe! Meeting her two nights later as she was slowly stripping on stage! Or going back to Berlin to meet the incredible white haired black dressed Iga! “Liebling. Darling. Will you kiss me?” Or going from Staatsoper’s La Traviata to the Erotic Centre, coming out with the erection into the falling snow, to go back to Diana, the huge breasts blonde in black catsuit, and sucking her pussy on that same Mackintosh four poster bed! 

In Munich and Berlin, in particular, I have had nights so magical, that I can scarcely believe that they really did happen. Did they really happen? Why then have my last six trips, Berlin twice, Munich twice, Frankfurt and Brussels, been so unmagical? I think it is because of the steadily accumulating crippling debt which weighed like an ever heavier millstone around my neck, and I become over-emotionally involved just looking for Riccarda, Iga, Diana, Viktoriya, instead of having new, exciting, open experiences. I will feel fresh and open to new experiences when I go back, I will walk with the huge swinging cock between my legs, pulsing, sore, swollen, swinging from side to side like a ship in a storm, looking for the first voluptuous whore I can find, be it Clarisse, or Alla & Olga, or Erika. I will use Brussels to get me turned on so I am bursting to release it in Berlin. I will use Munich to get me turned on so I am bursting to release it in Vienna. Let us not forget that magical night I met Martina, walking around and lounging around the Pils Bar with the most massive breasts you will ever see in your life! The magical night I met Clarisse in Brussels dancing on stage when I went in with breasts every bit as big! I have got to go back to Copenhagen and Malmo and Oslo one day. Will I ever have a night as magical as watching England v Turkey in the Cafe Belge of the Brussels Ibis and having Nephania come to me & then come to my room! And I haven’t even mentioned the night I walked back into Atlantic City to be hugged by Patricia, then finding Susi up on stage in diamond dress smiling down at me, then peeking into separee to find naked Irina on some man’s lap in a white phosphorescent light, and ending with Viktoriya! I could not enjoy Pils Bar the second & third times I went there, because I could not afford to even buy a girl a drink, let alone touch her. My debt is the reason for everything going flat and dull. 

If I can keep up my hoarding ways, I can be free of the debt.  Already in one week I have saved 130 Euros. By the time the clocks go back at the end of October & the start of the witching months, I should have saved 1,300 Euros. Enough to fuck every whore I want in Brussels and Berlin. Still I wonder if I shouldn’t go to Munich & Vienna first. But the end of October has Violetta Urmana in Berlin & Elena Prokina in Boccanegra in Hamburg. Although January in Berlin has Anna Samuil in Staatsoper’s La Traviata! 

I always let girls ripen and then turn rotten and die. There’s a couple of new ones ripening right now. Oh man, I cannot wait to get back to Munich! Isn’t this amazing after the awful January visit? Every time I see the pictures on the Beate Uhse website I want to get back there–but this time only as a turn on before the consummation in Vienna. Atlantic City can suddenly come back to life because I am using it only as a warm up, it no longer is the be all and end all that everything depends on. That takes the pressure off it, I can go there & relax because I know the real climax is still to come. It is funny how I am thinking so much about Vienna and Munich now? The other night feeling filled with Vienna Westbahnhof and now thinking so much of Munich. Everything except Berlin in fact. Maybe Berlin is something I know I can sink back into at journey’s end, when I have got everything else out of the way. So it maybe will be Berlin in January, and Brussels, Munich and Vienna in October when the clocks go back. But I miss the Berlin Radisson SAS! I miss the Berlin Plaza! I miss the knesepfanne! But really it seems I still miss Atlantic City, Lamm's, and the Dorint more? Let me get Munich and Vienna out of the way first. Two days in Brussels for Wiertz, Modern Art, Empire and Gare du Nord, just two nights in Munich for Atlantic City, Nuremberg Caribic, before pushing on to Vienna for Butterfly House, KHM, Belvedere, Manhattan and Pour Platin. Oh God I cannot wait to get back to Vienna! Fridays & Saturdays Atlantic City is open to 5! 

Now I feel the cold icy air of the mountains. I cannot wait to get back to Europe. In the meantime I will have some drinks at the Calcutta on Saturday night, drinking myself into oblivion just three pints at a time, to get these three months over with as cheaply as possible. For all these magic trips, how can I regret owing £6,000 on my cards?? I regret the £4,000 I have spent in London on nothing but drink & strippers that is what I regret. If not for that I could be free to travel now.

The richer you are the more you can gamble and the more you gamble the more you are going to enjoy spectacular wins (12th August 2006)

The richer you are the more you can gamble, and the more you gamble the more you are going to enjoy spectacular wins. If you are poor you can only gamble very rarely and very small sums and so even if you do sometimes win it is only for very small rewards. How can I say Munich is boring? How can I say Vienna is boring? You carry the weather with you. If I travelled with £2,000 in my pocket I would have the time of my life there. If I went in with a million pounds I could fuck the Irina lookalike, fuck Maria, fuck Angelique, and have the time of my life. Even in Munich I could go from club to club having a drink with every girl I liked until I found the one with looser morals who would let me come on her breasts at least. But as it is now I cannot afford to look in so many clubs, I cannot afford to buy so many girls a drink in order to find the one I will, and I come away feeling frustrated & that Munich is over, when really it is only that I do not have the starting collateral to enable me to gamble freely. You have to speculate to accumulate. At the moment I cannot speculate. To do is to dare. At the moment, I can no longer dare. This is a very important thing I have realised. Munich can come back to life for me ! Brussels can come back to life for me! Vienna can come back to life for me! All these places can bloom and blossom and shoot up above me letting me shelter under their glorious smutty fronds–if I repair my finances and hoard my gold coins in London so I can gamble wildly and speculate crazily and dare everything when I go back. 

In Feb and March I spent £617 on strippers and £547 on drink, another £1,164 in Feb and March alone. So together Feb March April May June July I could have had an extra £2,700 in my Woolwich account, or £1,100 in my Woolwich account and my Barclaycard at zero! Then for sure Munich would be full of life for me and bloom and blossom. Then for sure Vienna would be full of life for me, and bloom and blossom. You should only go into those Munich clubs, Vienna clubs, Berlin bars, if you have a lot of cash to spend; there is absolutely no point if you are on a tight budget. Then no wonder you come home feeling frustrated and dis-spirited. My holidays have got increasingly worse as my debt has increased. Let me go back to those years of repression 1996 1997 1998 when I could only yearn for those occasional visits to the pornographic cinema and a whore. That repression was so sexy, I was like a tautly strung hair trigger, it was delicious. Since then, in contrast, I have been like a gambling addict, Merson or Rooney, going deeper and deeper into debt. That is over now. The girls always say in those places I look miserable. If I went in rich I would be happy & fuck them all.

Go into Brussels like pulling into a great palmhouse, gigantic tropical ferns and trees and butterflies all around me. A steaming primordial paradise. With soot on the leaves. Let it become an overheated closed hothouse. Go into Munich the same way. Go into Vienna the same way. The more poor I became the more I travelled miserably, to Empire, Atlantic City, Pour Platin, Golden Gate. When you are happy people are attracted to you like to a magnet & you have great times. As I get poorer, I become more miserable & only have bad times. How happy I will feel when I reduce my Barclaycard to zero! The long project starts here.

OK so it has taken 8 months for me to get my position this bad. It follows it will take another 8 months to get it back even to where it was before, owing £3,900. How fantastic to see that Paul Delvaux Pygmalion picture again! De Chirico’s Melancholy of the Beautiful Day! Now let me spend all these long hours in my flat, my little nest, my eagle’s eyrie, going through all my old notebooks, manuscripts, book margins, typing up everything from my previous holidays that can be of use in my journals. Finally going through all those newspapers. Oh what joy this next few days off is going to be! I will live on cokes & hamburgers from McDonald’s next door. At night I will treat myself to a couple of pints in the Calcutta. Maybe once a week treat myself to Dionysus and the Cotton Club Cinema and Demi or Pamela. I must get to the Rebels & Martyrs exhibition next week. Of course I cannot give up my nest. What a crying tragedy that will be. That is the best thing in my life. That is the nuclear option. If I spent £800 on beer & strippers in the last two months I should therefore be able to pay off £800 on my Barclaycard over the next two months? This is where I turn my life around, and the fightback starts. I ache to see that Paul Delvaux picture for real in the Brussels Museum of Modern Art! How I ache to see Dali’s The Temptation of St Anthony in the flesh again! “Today, visitors to the Wiertz Museum enter into a highly preserved atmosphere from a revolutionary era favourable for contemplation, inner reflection or daydreams… ” How fantastic to see La Belle Rosine again! Le Tresors de Satan! La Figure Tombale! How much I want to get back to Brussels! I will have to go on a pilgrimage to Felicien Rops in Namur, I think. 

How I ache to see the huge Fountain of Inspiration in Brussels again, and the Mars & Venus on the opposite wall. So full of personal meaning, more than ever now. Getting back to Brussels will be such a symbol of my rebirth. It will be very emotional, before then pushing on to my reunion with Berlin Plaza and Berlin Zoo. Brussels can never be enough on its own. Brussels is always the stopping off point, the starting point, the staging post. I could even go to Berlin for a one night stand in January to see La Traviata?

Oh how lovely to get back to my lovely little flat in the morning! How much I love it. Take that first paragraph above and turn it into a 3rd person story, say the opening chapter of The Willing Cheeks of Fu Manchu. Pulling into Antwerp station covered in trees and rainforest and diamonds everywhere. The well is not empty in Munich. The well is not empty in Vienna. You carry the water with you.

What I wrote 8th September last year? “I would not want to stay living in this house. No point having a place of my own if it is so far from London. I would want a one bedroom flat, lined with my books from floor to ceiling! Tropical ferns all over the floor. Classical music playing. My manuscripts in a drawer. It would have to be more central on a tube line. The only advantage to living in —— now is my mother.” How poignant it is to hear Kings of Leon Red Morning Light and Strokes 12:51 again! Of course I will travel again this year, and of course I will go first to Brussels. I always start in Brussels. I want to spend long long nights lying in the dark of my flat on the floor listening to my Viennese Eroticism classical music tapes or my old Abba tapes. What joy this is going to be for the next 8 weeks. I HAVE been spending almost exactly £100 a week on drink & strippers/whores for as long as I can remember, so it is not unreasonable to guess I could save £80 a week by only going to the Calcutta occasionally, and if we have ten weeks to go until end of October, surely I can save £800?

So my last night is here, and already I am looking forward to getting the bus back to Calcutta tomorrow & then up to Dionysus, then Cotton Club Cinema, then Demi or Pamela. Do the old thing: wait for the black, rainy days & then go out then! If it is horrible and hot, then stay in. How much happier I feel when I can wear my jumper. My spirits and my confidence are lifted by about an extra 40% if I can wear my jumper. That fat, voluptuous, beautiful brunette was at the 74 stop again this morning, in two tone brown top & long skirt, talking on phone as she paced up & down in front of me, her massive breasts like two conical torpedoes in that cantilevered bra. Yesterday was even better, sitting there already as I arrived, in yellow, so low cut top I could see unbelievably massive amounts of her cleavage. Wouldn’t that be great, to bring all my books here, so they stacked up against the walls up to the ceiling?! All my Nietzsche, my Freud, my Marx, my Michael Moorcock? I will take one trip to Brussels and Berlin, then a second trip to Brussels and Munich & Vienna. Always by Eurostar & train. I love trains so much. The great thing about that is I don’t have to go on to Berlin if I don’t want to. I can stay in Brussels then go home if I want. If I meet someone like Clarisse in Brussels I can stay there much longer. If Munich is banging I can stay in Munich for six days, and forget Vienna. Or if Munich is dead, I can go straight on to Vienna the next day.

I always say the great thing about Interrail passes is you can go where you feel like when you feel like it, but you can do that just with point to point tickets as well! If I get to Brussels and meet someone, I can stay & forget about Berlin. If I get to Munich and meet someone I can forget about going to Vienna. Or I just might feel like I really want to go to Nuremberg instead. But definitely I would rather go everywhere by train now–as long as I get 8-10 days from work at a time! I always want to start off with Eurostar to Brussels, before travelling on to Berlin, or travelling on to Munich or Vienna. Not only is it hot and sunny, the second 87 bus stop under the railway bridge had a closed sign on it as well! Even though the bus did actually let us on. Another reason to stay in for a couple of days? It has finally happened with Alia, she did not smile hardly at all this time. As she saw me come, she almost looked contemptuous, “Oh not you again–why don’t you just fuck off?” It will happen with the black McDonald’s girl in the mornings soon. You carry the magic with you. If I stepped into Atlantic City feeling magical again, it will be magical in there. Like the Junior Senior-J Lo-Hip Teens Don’t Wear Blue Jeans nights, the Jay-Z Threat nights, the Global DJs San Francisco nights.

That pretty blonde girl on the bus back from Vauxhall again. I felt a tension between us all the way. After the driver let her off just before Union Road, she walked along a way, before suddenly darting a look back to see if I had got off behind her. Then as bus finally passed the shops, she was coming away from the paper shop, and darted another look at the bus. I think she has feeling for me. We had the Carnival year, the Astral Years, the C– Years, Black Narcissus Year, the Hotel Years, the Flying Scotsman Years, now I feel we are stepping through a portal, a lens, a wormhole, an Ishtar Gate, into a whole new kind of life. A life revolving around travel again, but deeper travel than before. Still, I was only skimming the surface before.

Standing at Vauxhall bus station waiting for the 87 to take me on to Charing Cross, I felt so much that I was standing at the tram stop by Vienna Westbahnhof. It was an intense moment of erotic displacement. And then as I crossed the concourse of Charing Cross Station I felt so much I was crossing the concourse of the Westbahnhof. And then in the Calcutta Avril Lavigne’s Complicated came on! As I started my 3rd pint, I got the overwhelming feeling I was drinking in the bar of the Dorint, with Natalia serving me. And then standing at the 87 stop home looking up at the modernist Charing Cross architecture thinking it was Vienna. Quite extraordinary. This is what I go out for. There were so many women alone in the Calcutta at this time, I shall have to come at 8-9pm more often. So £13.75 spent. There was the most amazing feeling that everything was now different. Everything has changed. I have gone through the eye of the needle, and I am in a new universe. Yunis was gorgeous in the Calcutta. Everything has changed. Everything is new. Everything is now possible and everything is once more in play. Vienna and Munich have most definitely come back into play. So much so that flying to Vienna for FIVE days was the most exciting thought in my mind. And of course fucking Angelique, Maria and Irina double.

I want to go to Vienna & Berlin with such a big pot of money. Oh I cannot wait till I get to those Brussels windows, and it is just 2½ hours away.

Christ, I must confess I’d love to see Deborah tonight, dancing to that Calling track, She’s all that he wants, she’s all that he needs. Remember how Carol came up to me & kissed me on the cheek for no apparent reason? How Melani looked at me in the dark? Then the next week turned to me in the bar and said “How are you?” “I LOVE opera!” The events at Heathrow yesterday make me more than ever want to go everywhere by train. I went back to the Calcutta last night & it did not feel like Westbahnhof at all! Because I was still hung over and tired from the night before. I slept on & off right through to 5PM in the afternoon! All those dreams of a Hogarthian Flying Scotsman I used to have, where it had side rooms with beds where real orgies took place, and Sylvia was always there. It was a bawdy Rabelaisian Rake’s Progress place in those dreams. The great days of the Scotsman ended when Sylvia left. Janet was the only one to come close after that. Czech Republic, Hungary, how I love those Eastern European women. One day a long time from now I will go back. Once again the Calcutta was much more female after 9PM, pretty blonde bob with suitcase sitting at small table by jukebox. Another sexy brunette in white top at tall round table. These late Calcutta nights will definitely become a feature for me now. I would like next week to be a week of movies. Miami Vice, A Scanner Darkly, The Third Man. So after my first week of hoarding, how do I feel? Happy. I have saved £62.26 which means the pot now contains 92.32 Euros. That will be double next week which will mean I have practically paid for three nights in a hotel already or the price of the train ticket. Let us say that I have now covered the Eurostar ticket. I am frightened of conversation. The prospect of conversation literally terrifies me.