Author: Tom Coates

Because you can never push an obsession too far: Thanks to Davo for this particular gem:

This ridiculous list of Tom-related nicknames is brought to you via Mo Morgan. It neglects ‘Tomato’ and ‘Tomsk’ which are possibly the only two that I remember having been called. Oh, and Thos (rhymes with floss) which is what my step-father called me for about ten years while I squirmed inside.

Today’s reading matter of choice: An Incomplete Manifesto of Growth. Learn well, my children.

So you are working in a start-up company around Regent’s Park, and you’re only going to be doing it for a month, and it’s a very male company, and you’re only doing it four days a week, and they keep talking about football and the merits of David Beckham, and you don’t really have a clue about that kind of stuff nor are you really interested in pretending that you do. Is it worth making an effort to get to know people?

Request: Now I’m looking for browser-emulation sites, if such things exist. Meg sent me dejavu.org, but while it is extraordinarily entertaining using all the browsers that I haven’t even seen in five years, I need something a little more cutting-edge. Do such things exist?

It looks like we will have Apple with us for a little longer at least. Defying expectations to the contrary, they have just announced their profits for the quarter – which are up to 11 cents a share. This is supposedly on the back of two of their newest and classiest products: the Titanium Powerbook and OSX. When I win the lottery, they are the first things I intend to buy before hopping on a plane to Bermuda for a few weeks to get some life perspective.

I sent an e-mail to Mr Big last night. It read, “So I was just watching TV and saw Simon Le Bon and Guy Ritchie and suddenly thought of you. You back yet?”. As usual I don’t really expect to get a reply.

So it looks like there was an article on weblogs in a recent issue of Yahoo Internet Life. Has anyone scanned this in or transcribed it yet?

About three hours ago I had a surprise conversation with Demolition Derby. It was a bit out of the blue – Dan and Matt were going to the Popbitch party and wanted to know if I would go along. But the conversation didn’t go too well. Things strayed within a thousand miles of a sensitive subject, and I suddenly felt bile rise within me (about the subject not Ms D). I had no idea that such an immediate and strong reaction was possible. I don’t know that I’m comfortable even being able to feel such blind aggression and bitterness.

I was a Teenage Sexualist: I went to see the American version of Queer As Folk at the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival a while back, and for me one of the most amusing parts was the peculiar significance of a magazine photograph of Patrick Swayze in the life of two burgeoning masculine sexualities. This led me to think back to my youth, dim and distant though it might be, and to attempt to remember what impacted upon my naive sex-scape.

The first thing I remember having a … strange … significance was a teen book about two boys who fell through a ball of energy in a woodland and emerged in Ancient Rome. I remember very little about it, except that the two boys clearly came from some kind of parallel world because they kept talking about how where they came from, the ancient culture that followed Hellenism was centred around Reme, rather than Rome. It doesn’t sound very sexy, but it worked for me. [Do you know the name of this book?]

Two other things, I am, however, quite clear about. The first was a bizarre piece of SF called Planet of the Warlord. It’s the closest thing to a weird hot S&M fantasy you can imagine. The cover of the copy that I still own has a huge golden masculine robotic body (with a diseased grey face emerging from it) attempting to crush our long-haired hero, Keill Randor above a pit of almost pubic tendrils. Douglas Hill was clearly a bit of a pervert, but the book is extraordinarily strangely sexual. I’m horrief that I’m revealing too much here. You will stop me if I go too far, won’t you?

The other thing was, I’m afraid, Cocoon. I’m not proud, but there it is. And before you ask, no I did not find Don Ameche particularly arousing. But it is a film full of short, scruffy, Steve Guttenberg goodness. Mostly naked goodness at that – except for the odd tight t-shirt. And you must never forget that extraordinary alien sex scene with the injection moulded female. This may have formed the basis of many a pointless crush for years to come. Short, pointless, irritating. Come to think of it, teenage fetishes have a lot to answer for.

[Darren was a teenage sexualist as well.]