Some Men Give the Rest a Bad Name

So last night I am on a packed, humid tube. Inside the carriage there are two rows of 3 seats facing each other and a space one either side for luggage or to stand. EVERY one of these seats had the arse of an able bodied man aged between 30s and 40s stuck to it. A woman in her early 30s got on and she was holding a baby who looked about 4 months old. She looked like she had probably gone to her office to show her new baby to her colleagues for the first time. There was nowhere to sit so she had to stand holding the baby and try her best to not fall over seeing as she couldn't hold onto anything. You know what with having armfuls of baby and all. Did any of these lazy selfish bastards give her their seat? Did they fuck. Did they notice her, it was pretty crowded? Yes. Each and every one of them looked at her then looked away. One of the selfish lazy bastards actually kept looking at her. I felt like shouting "Give her a seat you bastards!" but thought better of it. Best of it was that almost all of these men were only going two stops to London Bridge so it wouldn't have been a great hardship to give up their seat like any decent human being would have. Bastards. I hope they all break their leg and have to stand on the tube because no-one gives a shit if they are less able to stand what with being on crutches. Sometimes I hate men. On a much happier note though I read this on the BBC website today:

"A Greek woman accused of setting fire to the genitals of a British tourist in Crete is due to appear in court."

Sorry come again?? Why on earth did she do that?

"The woman admitted assault after dousing the man's private parts in alcohol and igniting them, but says she did so after being sexually harassed."

Ok so he was perving at her but really - set fire to his bollocks was that really necessary. And anyway how did she manage to get sambuca on them om the first place?

"Police on the Greek island say the tourist was drunk and had waved his genitals at several girls before allegedly groping the suspect. The man suffered second degree burns and is recovering in a private clinic. The 26-year-old suspect handed herself over to police, claiming she had acted in self defence."

Ah so he was waving them around in a nightclub. I'll bet he was shouting 'Eer girls want some ov that?" Serves him right then. But the Greeks must think she was a bit over the top though.

"She has won praise on Crete for what has been seen as defending her honour.

According to police the 23-year-old tourist was drunk when he dropped his trousers in a nightclub in the resort of Malia.

The suspect, who has not been named, said she doused the man in Sambuca and torched him after she asked him to stop harassing her and he failed to stop.

The case has been widely discussed on Greek television, and there has been precious little sympathy for the young Briton, said our correspondent.

He added that many Greeks are sickened by British bad behaviour in Malia and other resorts."

Good for her. If I'd been out with my friends and had had some pissed up tourist repeatedly waving his cock at us I'd like to think one my mates would do the same thing.

left: an artist's impression of said incident

Went to Brighton - Felt Very Proud

This (points to the left with thumb) is what Brighton looked like last Saturday. What a glorious summer's day to celebrate Brighton Pride!

Sock Monkey arranged to meet up with friends in the bar at Brighton Station as our trains got in at almost the same time. This is where the plans started going a bit wonky.

I got off my train and the closer I got to the bar the more it looked like a branch of Marks & Spencer Food Hall. Ah that would be because it was a Marks & Spencer Food Hall. Then I got a text from Jan, "We are in the Railway Bell opposite and have a pint here for you". This is the kind of text I like. Sock Monkey hadn't seen Jan & Lynn for the best part of a year so it was lovely to catch up. We had a couple of drinks, a big gossip then schlepped to Preston Park.

The walk there wasn't so bad but when we got there Preston Park wasn't looking her best. It was grey and yeuch. We had arranged to meet some other people so J&L waited for them at X marked the spot whilst I went on an errand to the beer tent. After about 20 minutes we gave up waiting for the others. Thank God because we were outside the Wimmin's Tent which appeared to be having a flashback to the 1980's and was emanating angsty songs.

Then we spent a delightful 45 minutes queuing up for a pee and by this time it was bucketing. Actually it was quite a laugh as everyone had gone into extreme Dunkirk Spirit and some of the girls were thinking of fashioning ShePees out of a variety of items they happened to have about their persons. A hollow flag pole being one one of them. And we discussed the point of actually practicing to become good at something so naff (ie Line Dancing).

I did eventually manage to meet up with Alan (after several phone calls along the lines of ,"Can you hear me??" "Yes I can hear you. Can you hear me? I'm in the queue for the loos beside the Line Dancing Tent. Yes dear. LINE DANCING".) I asked him where his boyfriend was and he laughed and said, "He refused to come. And all my friends left after half an hour! I'm going home now too." At least he lives in Brighton and could be wearing slippers and having cocoa in no time.

J, L & I took cover in the Line Dancing tent as we couldn't face looking for the Drag Tent. If in fact there was one. I must say the entertainment seemed to be a bit lame. There was a young guy standing beside us who seemed to be having a great time and told us, "I have my cigarettes, my drink and my Brokeback Mountain Jacket on. This is great." Sock Monkey just looked at him and replied, "We are stuck in a Line Dancing Tent".

We schlepped back to Brighton (young girl behind us in the mass exodus pretty much summed it up by saying to her friend, "I'm just so unhappy") and we went straight back to the bar we started in. This time to meet Lily & Jossipa who had just arrived. 2 hours late as usual. It was actually a fun afternoon believe it or not. We've all been friends for years and as such remember when we used to find all this exciting. Lynn said, "You spend years going out all the time just to meet someone you can stay in with." I think this is a fair point!

Where was P you say? She was in Norfolk at a wedding. One of her texts that day said, "Its bloody roasting here." The final one was "Am sitting on the beach with my brother having a drink". And she'd been narked to miss the Brighton trip ha ha!

I would have posted a nice pic of Jan & Lynn looking very waterlogged and miserable here but Jan declared it too hideous for human consumption and deleted it from my camera.