After a none too hectic morning and a long lunchbreak I left work early to catch the train to Lowestoft to see Tim and Gemma. I had my workmate Paul with me as far as Norwich so had somebody to talk to most of the way which made the journey seem too fairly short. The only problem was the air conditioning or lack of it, everyone on the train was sweating buckets and by the time the guard opened the windows everybody stunk.

I had to change at Norwich station where I purchased a mexican spicy chicken wrap which consisted of one piece of chicken and lots of peas and even more chilli powder, it wasn't the best.

The trip from Norwich to Lowestoft took no time at all and Tim was waiting for me on the Station and Gemma in her car. I think they were expecting me to turn up beered up but I had resisited and hadn't touched a drop.

After a beer and a bit of a chat, then freshening up, we headed to The Triangle for lots of strangely named beers. Tim had one called 'Granny Would Like It!', I didn't, so I had a very nice wheat beer instead. Gemma was drinking fruity numbers by the half pint. I liked The Triangle and wish there were more places like it in Birmingham.

At closing time I said that I wanted to go and see the sea. Along the way we met a very nice young man, who was being carried off into the back of a police van, he wanted to know what Gemma was looking at.

After walking along the beach, Tim and Gemma took me clubbing. We three all felt a little old in there but the music was good and we enjoyed dancing. I even got kissed by two people unfortunately one of them was Tim and the other was a strange hairy bloke.

Walking back along the beach home, Gemma insisted that I went in the sea and we had great difficulty taking my trainers off (Joe thinks that she was attempting to drown me). It was absolutely freezing. Tim was busy drawing murder scene lines around Gemma who by that point was lying very drunk on the sand.

After losing and finding Gemma's mobile phone Tim took us to the local kebab shop and bought some potato wedges that were just whole potatoes. Gemma and I didn't like them so Tim ate the lot. Gemma went charging off home whilst Tim and I dawdled behind her when we arrived at the house she was waiting outside without her key.

Tim then decided he was going to show me every photo he owned, Gemma fell asleep on my shoulder and I fell asleep not long after. Tim was still showing us photos for at least another hour until I started snoring. He woke us up about five and we headed off to bed.

Loretta said to me that I looked like the man from American Chopper, my boss said that he didn't want to hear about the dodgy films I had been appearing in and she had been watching.

Saturday night was good we went to the Bam Bam Club at The Rainbow, it was full of attractive ladies and the music was dead cool. A strange girl wanted Dan to sniff her shoes, he was quite shocked

Joe met somebody who he had worked with in the past, apparently he was the club promoter and also made some of the records that were played, one of which I thought sounded like ELO. Joe was shaking his ass and gurning an awful lot.

Neither Phil not Joe were not answering phones so I told David exactly where they were. My choice for the evening was Moseley with Dan, Nick and his ladyfriend and her mate. First off we went to the Bulls Head which was pretty quiet, Vic didn't like the music (some kind of acid jazz) so we left for O'Neils which was much more suitable for her as they were playing eighties manufactured pop.

Come closing time Dan wanted to 'do stuff', everybody else agreed that it wasn't a bad idea. I heard about a new place called the Barfly behind the Sanctuary which was having its opening night but when we arrived it was closed and wouldn't be open until next week.

Deciding to head toward The Sunflower Lounge we had to walk past a drum'n'bass night in the OC's. Standing outside were a few lads who had not been let in because of the tracksuit bottoms they were wearing. They offered me £50 to swap my trousers. I didn't think this would have been very successful as I was about three times the size of them. I declined the offer.

The Sunflower Lounge shut fairly early and Dan wanted to do some more 'stuff' but this time nobody could be bothered. So we all went home.

Gemma sent me this picture, its a shame Dan had to spoil it.

Thank fuck its the end of the working week. At half past nine this morning I was hoping it was five.

I felt like calling in sick but realised that all we would be doing is watching the cricket so I dragged myself to work.

Phil and Joe were going to The Bell so I met them around ten, I felt pretty awful.

This morning I was awake in time to see Amdrew Flintoff demolish the Aussies but still too pissed to get out of bed. Finally getting up around half two to make a tasty bacon sandwich with too much butter and even more ketchup.

I received a message from Ben inviting me around for a Barbeque, so I headed off to the local supermarket for more bubbly. Ben's cooking was most excellent, for some reason Nick and Vic didn't want to try it and had something that looked like a pizza but with a pork chop base instead. After drinking several bottles of beer and most of a bottle of very nice cava Ben, Dave and I retired to the British Oak for a quick three pints of Wifebeater. Then to the Pizza shop were the owner was lamenting Nick's leaving.

The weekend was started as it began and I cant remember what time I went to bed.

After about five hours sleep I woke up to find that Australia where on about 250-1. I moped around a bit thinking that I might have made a bit of a fool of myself the previous night but after a bacon sandwich my hangover subsided, as did my dispirited state of mind.

About two I decided that it was time to wake Dan up and head to the Birmingham Artsfest. Perusing the brochure we discovered that there was a excerpt of Mozart's Don Giovanni in the pub and being cultured as we are aimed straight for the bar. This opera was extremely dirty, the best bit was the very attractive singer in a short dress lain across a table asking her husband to beat her.

Not leaving the pub (due to the adverse weather conditions) we missed a lot of performances but the second thing we saw was 'Birmingham' The Musical a very funny sketch show, the best sketch being Steve Owen - Chav Hunter. Being the culture lovers we are, next performance was a Burlesque show, which left me sort of gobsmacked.

Pato Banton was playing in Centenary Square and was OK, there wasn't much happening after that and as it was raining we decided on a pint in the Rep Bar. Leaving at just in time for the last performance of the night, Arabic Techno, Joe was very impressed by the belly dancers and kept shouting that he was going to find this Desert Groove techno night and go every week.

After more beers in the Sunflower Lounge we finally ended up in Dan's Kitchen. Dan's mate's girlfriend insisted we played strip poker but then wouldn't strip once she lost, what a bad sport. ;) After the others left I stayed chatting to Dan till after sunrise and finally went to bed about eight.

Today instead of doing any work we watched the cricket.

At five I left to meet Dan and Nick, both of whom were late and I had already downed three pints whilst waiting. We were in the Sunflower Lounge but Dan complained that it wasn't the same in the afternoon. so I took him to Scruffy Murphy's and he complained that it was too loud. I needed some cheap stodgy food so we then went to the Square Peg but that was too melancholy.

Birmingham was hosting a free reggae festival. I drank a bit too much sparkling wine and I the evening is pretty hazy. I remember thinking that one of the bands was a bit like Pink Floyd.

When the music had finished we found ourselves in the Tap and Spile where I was bullied by Joe who kept hitting me and said nasty horrible things. I'm not to sure why but I'm sure I didn't deserve it. Phil bumped into Evil Emma. And Paul and Kerry had their usual argument with the bouncer at closing time.

We ended up back at Joe house and now it was Paul's turn to hit me. I left very late.

I arrived at work early, left late and was very bored in between. Tim sent me an email telling me that his disaster recovery session had been cancelled due to a real life disaster. I was disappointed to learn that it had not been a swarm of killer bees attacking his office but a switch blowing up on a computer.

Joe also sent me an email, telling me that the best way to get the woman you are thinking of (and shouldn't be) out of your head was to grip hard on your thing, I'm pretty sure that his advice would have got me arrested or the sack or both.

I didn't want to return home to an empty house straight away, so popped around to see Dan before he had to go to work. Afterwards I listened to music, read for a while and felt a little lonely. :(

Dan Enjoying Himself.

Today I have been feeling very tired and emotional. I chatted with Phil last night about my love life or lack of it, until the wee small hours. Phil said I should relax and not worry about things too much, My boss said that shouldn't be allowed to go out on a school night.

Friday night was nuts, I met Dan straight after work and I was barred entry to Apres for wearing trainers wheras Dan was not. Instead we headed to the Actress and Bishop, Tarnished Halo and the Hogshead on Newhall Street, where Nick sent my lovely picture to a random person via bluetooth who just happened to be standing next to us. She told Dan he had a lovely Cockney accent?? I was steaming by the time so Nick and I went for a curry and Dan left to meet his friends at the Glee Club After eating Nick dropped me back in town and I met Ben, Dave and Ben's mate Richard in the Sunflower Lounge. More beers there and Dan turned up. We ended up in Snobs were the music was so-so but the place empty. Then all back to Dan's house to play music very loud and drink more beer. I left at six thirty.