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I was heading back down to London following the Great North Run and sat opposite me was a man we’ll call “Dave”. Dave had also run the “GRN” and was still in his running gear…(I showered AND changed before getting on a 3 hour train journey).

Dave then proceeded to take off his trainers and stretching out his tired, aching legs and feet in my personal space…squeezing my legs to the left of his (and brushing several times!)

At York, a young lady who we’ll call “Sophie” (early 30s at a guess) came on board and sat at our 4 person table…he told her that the seat was reserved with a ticket – to which she responded that she’d take her chances!…annoyingly (more for me than her!) he moved his outstretched legs and made room for her.

She’s now quietly reading her Grazia magazine when out of nowhere he says “so I presume you work in the City?”. Rightly baffled, she responds “no, well yes, but no not really – well not exactly…”

This is it, she now needs to explain her indecisions and we begin a full three-way conversation about her job, his job, my job and charity running and sports and friends and EVENTUALLY, we get to love…more importantly for this particular post – on-line dating!

Now as you may know, I met my girlfriend on match.com – and that’s turned out pretty well! However, 10 years ago I know from personal experience that the internet was a slightly easier place to lie about your age, appearance and sex!

Good old “Dave” now started recounting the story of a lady he befriended on the internet a decade ago and quite openly described that she sent pictures to him – three in total; one regular one, one topless one with “massive 32 FF breasts” and a third which he described (again, please remember he’s only just met us and is obviously attracted to “Sophie”) as “she was starkers from waist down and it was her time of the month!!!!” WTF Dave?! As if you just said that!

Sophie and I exchanged bemused looks and he continued to explain how he then “called it a day” – well thank goodness for that.

Poor old Sophie didn’t know where to look and I tried to add some reality back into in the situation by explaining that 10 years ago, it could well have been a fat, bald, ugly man who had taken a picture from the internet and sent it to him…Dave wasn’t convinced.

As it happens, Sophie works for a corporate events company and had the misfortune of telling us about the next one she’s organising to which Dave obviously invited him (and his super fun, confident friend who after a 10 minute long story we found out put men off with her confidence!). He’s also going to add her to Linkedin…poor old Sophie!

This brings me on to the whole thing about internet profiles and social networking websites and how thankfully they have made it almost impossible now to be an anonymous picture sending weirdo on the net! Websites like Facebook mean that should you meet anyone on a dating site, as I did 2 years ago, you can instantly check their friends, their background, their interest…all at the click of a mouse. I certainly think that’s progress but obviously there is a darker side to be able to peer into people’s lives who you haven’t seen for 10 years!

I repeatedly go through Facebook “culls” and have reduced my number of “friends” greatly in the last 12 months. If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you’ve seen it appear on your news-feed – which means we’re still friends – and that’s a good thing

That’s about it for now – hope you enjoyed hearing about Dave as much as I enjoyed sharing a 3 hour train journey with him!

Stay tuned

Wide newspaper reading.  On a crowded train at 8:30 where people are squishing as close as humanly possible together there’s only one thing worse than breaking wind…that’s pulling out your copy of Metro and opening it full spread to read on top of someone’s head. The only possible way (and it’s still very annoying) is to make it into a tiny origami brick:

Only now can you get away with tilting your head into your neighbours neck to read round the bend in your paper.

Heaven forbid you should open your paper full spread AND fart.

The following post is based on real events but some of the names and locations may have been changed.

I was enjoying my Evening Standard tonight when I noticed a young man (probably about 12 years old) come on board my carriage looking very pale indeed…he had is full school gear on and starting nodding off.

A couple of minutes later, he started throwing up! The lady sitting next to me went into full crisis mode and asked me to pull the emergency alarm – so I did…

“Hello this is the driver – do you have an issue?”

“Yes” I reply. “We have a young school boy being very sick”.

During this time, the lady is quite sensibly asking whether he was epileptic or had any conditions. He looked up and with a little grin said “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry – I’ve had a bit too much to drink!”.

Relief as we now knew what we were dealing with – a boy who had been doing a bit of post-school boozing!

He then threw up a little more and told us in very well spoken english his full name (including how his surname should be pronounced correctly!), his address and his mum’s mobile number – not bad going for someone pissed out their mind I thought!

We eventually pulled into Earls Court and the station staff were ready to react and with some helpful tips from a few other passengers, he was eventually lead off to meet a presumably very angry mummy…

I wonder what words of wisdom his parents have prepared for him in the morning and whose parents are getting a call right now asking “was your son with my William tonight?”…

What was nice to see what how quickly everyone pitched in to help this little chap out – hope his parents don’t give him too hard a time!

Stay tuned

Standing on the northbound Northern Line platform at Bank station when the announcer man asks all my fellow commuters to “please stand behind the yellow line”…

With my metro outstretched before my eyes, I feel a nudge from a lady standing to my right. I turn and look at her smiling ready for whatever she was about to say but she said nothing.

Instead, she just looked down at my feet and pointed at them. Folding down my Metro in half, I looked at what her finger was outstretched towards to notice my left foot casually crossing THE yellow line.

I looked back at her. Again no words came out – just an expectant stare – a little like a teacher would give a misbehaving pupil to say “I’m not angry, just disappointed”.

So, I moved my foot back and the train pulled in safely. I actually found out since that apparently it’s not to stop us getting sucked under a train, but instead it allows train drivers to pull in faster if they see an unbroken yellow line on their approach!

So, in the interest of going places in a timely fashion – please stand behind the yellow line (or else I’ll come nudge you and point!).

Stay tuned.

A good evening to whichever faithful followers remain,

It seems that I struggle to start a post now days (at all!) without first apologising for such lack of commitment to updating you all with my adventures of meeting new people. I know one particular fan has expressed nothing short of anger at the lack of updates and just earlier today was pontificating (topical!) about my lack of commitment to my readers – I therefore apologise and offer this blog entry by way of apology.

So, tonight I went to visit my friend Colin at his place of work – a rather funky place called “GymBox“. As the name suggests, this is a gymnasium…where people go to partake in physical exercise to improve their appearance and resting heart rate. HOWEVER, this gym is not like any other gym I’ve been to (rather regrettably I’m a member of Virgin Active – see posts on Saunas) in the sense that it’s more like a nightclub than a gym as I’ve known them. For starters, there is a live DJ playing a long set of pumping pumping techno music to get you in the mood to work those abs! If he doesn’t get you going, then the boxing lesson in the middle full of angry Thai fighters will!! Basically this place oozes enthusiasm and energy – rather unlike the white-walled sterile environments I pay £68 to Mr. Branson to use!

So, where is this story going Gman? Well, there’s a sauna.

Colin and I were experiencing heavy involuntary muscle spasms when we decided it was time to grab a well deserved sauna. As I peered through the reflective glass before opening the door, I noticed it was going to be a little crowded. As the door flew open with a rush of hot air, we were greeted by what can only be described as a PYTHON attached to a fairly skinny chap with a beautifully crafter “goaty”.

I struggled to focus on anything but this predatory animal and tried desperately to locate the upper shelf upon which I could sit and soak up the hotter air – proving that not only was I comfortable sitting amongst men more manly than myself, but that I could take heat longer and stronger than the thing starting at me from the convenient gap in my neighbour’s tiny towel. Colin then struck conversation with the beast which instantly helped ease the tension as it turns out he knew him well…the owner of the massive wonka was a pilates instructor in the gym.

I soon grew enough courage (no pun intended!) to join in and began exploring the various difference between pilates and yoga – turns out the latter places you in less “natural body positions” than the former. The breathing is also apparently quite different. Anyway, one thing moved onto the next and we spoke about my wrist and the possible extensive calcium build-up which may have occured post breaking it snow boarding earlier this year. Before I could protect myself, the python tamer slid across the bench and grabbed my wrist in his hand!!… “May I?” Well you kinda already have buddy…

After twizzling his hand around he concluded the mild discomfort I felt was indeed most likely due to calcium build up after I cut off my cast using scissors and a bread knife after 4 weeks. This was a silly thing to do he confirmed. It was strange having a complete stranger rub my wrist in a sauna with his thing winking at me…but oddly I felt OK with the situation, he meant no harm and the gap in his towel was probably down to his lack of preparation this morning as he obviously only had time to grab a flannel rather than a bath towel…he must be a very busy man.

What’s stranger is that just before going to the gym, I shared a fruit juice with another friend when I overheard the waitress say “petite bitte” – which in French means “little willy”. I could only assume seeing as we were the only people in the bar, that she was referring to me – so I look across and said “non, GRANDE bitte!” – they say you should be careful what you wish for and had I known that just a few hours later I’d be in a sauna in GymBox with a donkey, I’d probably have kept my mouth shut. Although her red face did make it all worth it.

Not sure what the moral of the story is here, just that I had an evening where willies featured twice. That’s my story about willies – I hope you enjoyed it.

Stay tuned,

G man

Crickey! A month since I last blogged!!

Good morning,

The sun is streaming through my window and as I sip away on a cup of water replenishing my internal water supply, I’m recalling my journey home last night which involved meeting a few complete strangers – or so I initially thought!

The journey started at Old Street as I left a colleague of mine following 2-3 pints post work as we discussed the pricing matrix for a product. Full of Dutch courage (the tour guide on the duck tour tells me this phrase originates from the days of the Great Plague when no one but the drunk Dutch would dare import goods into London) I began conversation with a lady who studies art and specifically fabric printing. Turns out it is quite popular in the fashion world. Once she departed I spoke to the lady sitting next to her who I noticed had a wedding band and a snake for a ring on the same finger. She told me that his historically people bought these snake style rings for engagements as they can be unwound should the engagement break off…I’ve Googled and thus far not found such story but I don’t know why she would have lied about it!?

I then turned to the gentlemen who just got on the tube as snake lady came off and started talking rubbish about the guy’s shoes – they were green and had three fluorescent yellow adidas stripes. Having recently finished a book on the history of Puma my sister kindly gave me last Christmas, I enjoyed telling them about the history of Adidas who was actually Mr. Puma’s brother probably more than they enjoyed hearing it. Eventually (and I don’t remember quite how) it turned out that one of the guys had worked with my boss in the past and was now writing a dissertation on Grid computing (of which my boss knows a lot about). He gave me his card and no doubt I will mention him today.

Makes me think, London really isn’t that big a place – although it can sometimes seem it, the rule of 7 degrees mentioned before on this blog would indicate that should you speak to 7 people on the tube, chances are you’ll know someone in common

Speaking of which, the other day I was running around Farringdon and I saw none other that Sian Clancy again!!!! She just keeps popping up that girl!

Stay tuned