Highlight of the day - at the risk of sounding like an obese alcoholic, a glass of white wine and a some NEW DELICIOUS Double Chocolate Digestives (I mean, it's a crime not to try new things), at the end of a looooong day at work.

Lowlight of the day - First world problem I know, but, semi-skimmed milk shortage at work meant that I had to compromise.  I've always drunk semi and for me, skimmed is like water and whole is like cream.  For my cereal, I thought I was being really clever by mixing some skimmed and whole by pouring a splash of both on.  Should that work? It tasted like runny cream to me.  It did, however, lead to much hilarity with two of the people I sit with at work as I was talking about 'semi', which their dirty minds turned into semi-hard-ons, only exacerbated by the introduction of '(w)hole' to the equation!  Innuendo galore!

Not too much to report today, so, I thought I'd tell you about a weird experience I had a couple of weeks ago.  I've been to a bar on Frith Street called Sofa King Cool (read it out loud if you haven't got the pun).  It's got luminous sign, but looks like it could be anything (particularly a sofa shop), but it's an underground basement bar.  It's supposed to be a lesbian bar.  However, the clientele is so small that when I went with a gay friend, it was a gay bar and when I went with a straight friend, it was a mixed bar (i.e. we were the only people there).  Both times, the staff were lovely and the decor's pretty cool - it's a bit futuristic with lots of neon - something like walking into a Kylie Minogue video.  Anyway, I walked past it about 3 weeks ago and a menu had popped up outside! The food sounded delicious and, even though I thought the atmosphere and neon might be a bit odd for a restaurant, I told my friend we should try it. 

Last week, we took the plunge, however, it was sofa king weird.  We were walking up and down Old Compton Street (we couldn't remember which street it was on, but knew the neon sign stood out when you looked down the road) and we couldn't see it.  We finally decided it was definitely Frith Street and as we walked down, we spotted it! It had changed its name to the Ultra Lounge.  The bouncer/manager/stray Australian invited us in.  I asked if it was Sofa King Cool.  Straight away, she was really quick to say it wasn't, how it had changed its management and was COMPLETELY different.  I told her I'd walked past a week previously! It's pretty quick to change completely.  The same menu was outside...I asked and she said it was the same food!! Completely different, but with the same decor and menu?? She was very cagey about it all and seemed a bit taken aback when I said that I knew it was Sofa King Cool one week ago with the same menu, but anyway, she was still friendly and we went in.

In fairness, they had toned down the lighting to make it more restaurant-y.  The waitress was really friendly, but someone about it oozed 'we are brand new and we don't know what we're doing yet'.  The food was really tasty and very good value.  For £20, you got three courses and a complimentary passion fruit shooter.  I had tempura prawns, tuna steak burger, which was very flavoursome, and chocolate gateaux.  I enjoyed it all very much.  The only slight problem (bar the identity crisis) was the WINE.  I am NOT a wine snob at all, but we ordered house white and they brought us an £18 bottle of GALLO wine.  If they were going to try and palm us off on cheap wine, I honestly wouldn't be able to tell the difference, but they should at least be sneaky enough to choose a bottle that isn't a famous cheap brand.  I mean, they are usually on 3 for £10 in the off-license! To make matters worse, when we wanted a second bottle, we very Britishly said that we weren't overly keen on the first bottle and ordered the next one up (not that we're cheapskates!) which was £20.  To our disbelief (although we were wetting ourselves laughing by now) she brought out a different Gallo! We asked if she could just tell us which bottles she had that weren't Gallo.  She came back a couple of minutes later and said they'd had a rush on (which usually I wouldn't believe, but there were about 4 tables seated there which is a rush by their standards) and the ONLY wine they had left was Gallo.  I think this probably means that had we ordered the most expensive wine on the menu, they would've just brought out a Gallo bottle.  We got cocktails instead which were lovely(they were on offer).  It was a very strange evening, but the food and cocktails were really lovely and very reasonable.  The staff are also really nice on the whole, I'd just recommend that you don't get the Gallo and for some reason, don't mention Sofa King Cool.

Highlight of the day - The return of Jonathan Creek! The ending was a bit weird, but, in my memory, they often were.  Alan Davies also tweeted that there are three more new episodes planned!

Embarrassing moment the day - Does anyone else feel that a different, more angry and impatient person takes them over as soon as they enter the tube system? I always feel as though I'm in a rush, even when I'm not (I more than often am, but still...).  Today, in the distance, I saw a huge crowd of tourists gathering as I was coming down the escalators.  A man had his hand in the air and was signally, tour-guide-stylee for everyone to meet there.  I immediately knew that I HAD to get past them before we entered any sort of corridor.  I JUST missed the opportunity and found myself directly behind said man, right in the midst of the slow-paced group.  He was the only person between me and huge, promising clear space of corridor, which would allow me to reach the platform at least 6 seconds sooner.  Typically British, I didn't want to be rude by asking him to move aside, I wanted to be super-polite, by standing almost on his heels, huffing, puffing and pulling faces.  He turned around a couple of times and failed to notice (the idiot! I was being so Britishly obvious) and then the third time, he realised, looked mortified and apologised, whilst moving aside.  For a brief second, I felt guilty, remembering that just because we are on the tube, does not mean that we have all become horrible, idiotic people, but are in fact all normal nice people.  I said sorry too and moved past him, only to in some catastrophically clumsy motion hit the end of the wine bottle that was in a carrier bag I was holding onto a funny bone in my knee (I believe that's the technical term).  A shock went down my leg, I let out a hugely embarrassing groan and stood clutching my knee.  I almost fell over! Needless to say, I was then getting in the way of the big tourist group, clutching my knee and my pride.  Silly tuber.

Today, I went to The Bridge Coffee House in Shoreditch.  My awful phone camera mustered up the courage to take the awful picture above.  It's a quirky little cafe, which is supposed to be in a Victorian/Dickensian style.  The decor really is something.  It's a feast for the eyes, that sort of makes them want to vomit.  It's quite dark, very kitsch and opulent and certainly old-fashioned.  The decor does look Victorian and you could spend quite a while looking at it all.  The cakes felt quite 70s in a way, but delicious nonetheless.  The music was a mix of 70s-90s - we had Nina Simone, Abba and Celine Dion.  Quite odd.  I enjoyed it and it certainly is an experience.  You wouldn't think that would all be hiding in there.  However, I'm not entirely sure I'd be in a rush to go again.

This evening, I went on another date.  This is another guy I've met on the internet, this time on OK Cupid.  OK Cupid is a website that has a straight and a gay section and, unlike most gay dating sites, is not focussed on sex and even has profiles without cocks on them...quite original! I felt that I had a lot in common with this guy from the start.  We both speak German.  We both work in marketing.  We both like language and puns and he seemed pretty intelligent, witty and good-looking.  We have the German and the marketing in common at least.  We went to Soho Joes on Dean Street, which does delicious pizza at a good price.  The staff are really nice too.  I've been before.  I suggested it, I hope it went down well with him.  I thought it was going really well.  I suggested, very casually, almost as if I didn't want to (trying to be cool, perhaps came off as freezing cold) that we move on for another drink.  He said he should get home as his flatmate was ill.  Then, I can't quite remember what I said after that, but he did a U-turn and said let's go.  I can't work out now if it's that I was being cold and he thought I didn't really want to, until he saw my reaction to him tentatively saying no, or if he didn't really want to, but said yes out of awkwardness/pity when he saw my reaction.  Anyway, we went to The John Snow pub which is really nice (if somewhat overcrowded) and we just seemed to chat and laugh all evening.  I made the very uncool mistake and texting him this evening to say that I had fun.  He hasn't replied.  I had a really good feeling about this one and am a bit concerned already now.  Hopefully he will text soon.

I don't always go on two dates in one weekend by the way! In fact, this may be a first, but it IS Easter, and I'm sure Jesus died so that gay people could meet strangers from the internet, didn't he?

UpDATE from the last one (pardon the pun, would be way funnier with the power of voice for emphasis, not capitals), I text him, he text back, I text again, nothing since.  I don't feel that bothered though, which is a sign I'm not that bothered about him.  I feel quite bothered about tonight's one though, so I'm keeping my

Highlight of the day - I love puns.  Some of my friends and I think it's funny to put -poo on the end of the things to make them sound cute, because we are frightfully intelligent and mature.  My friend said he was sorry for being a 'flakeypoo' because he was cancelling on an arrangment and I am very proud for coming up with the pun that a flakeypoo is the poo you do after having too many Flakes. 

Embarrassing moment of the day - A man catching me staring at his thumbs on the tube...as you do. I mean, they were attached to a massive hand which was attached to a massive person (I'm slightly baffled as to how he fit himself on the tube!) but it was the thumbs that seemed to fascinate me. They completely swamped his iPhone and were actually bigger than most penises I've seen (mine not included).  Quite astounding.  When he gave me a strange look back, I still got the feeling it wasn't the first time some had stared at them.

So, in spite of being hungover in the morning, I still ventured out yesterday evening.  Well, early evening.  I went on a DATE.  I went on a date with someone I met on GrindR.  If you don't know what GrindR is, it's an app that allows gay guys to meet eachother, based on where you are.  It finds your location and shows you guys that are near to you.  It's frankly all a bit creepy.  It's also all a bit sleazy, and when I say 'a bit' I mean 'a lot'.  Roughly 99% of the guys are looking for sex (give or take...if you'll pardon the crude pun) and 80% send you a picture of their cock before they say 'hello'.  However, I met a guy on there a few weeks ago who seemed not to be after sex and we got chatting and decided to meet.  We went to The Crown pub by Victoria Park.  It was lovely in there, with very friendly service.  I think it must advertise itself as dog friendly or something because there were SO many dogs in there (to the point where I felt like I was in a TV show where dogs ruled the world or something, it was like I was in the minority in a dogs' pub).  Anyway, I know you don't care about the dogs or the service, you want to hear the gorey details of the date. 

Well, for the first time in a long time (I've been on a  lot of dates lately) it actually went ok.  He was 45 minutes late, which was slightly annoying, but we got on quite well.  This is why the day was better than expected.  I have had so many awful dates recently (I will probably write about them on here in the future), that even the fact that we got on marginally well was a big relief.  He also didn't try to touch me up or basically ask me back to his flat for a shag after one He DID tell me at one point that he could speak 'all South Asian languages' which I found a bit ambitious and he also spent quite a long time building himself up by telling me that his previous job were so desperate to keep him when he handed in his notice which they never normally are, but he was SUCH an amazing exception, but, apart from that, there weren't many awkward moments at all.  Having said that, it's been 30 hours and neither of us have been in touch, so maybe it wasn't amazing...I'll keep you updated.