Of gods and men

Dear mortals,

As I gaze down upon thee from the formidable heights of Mount Olympus, noting thy pathetic scratchings and scrapings from my throne of gilded buttocks, I place a wearied hand upon my brow and bid thee stop, pause thy pitiful scurrying, look to the heavens and…

Check. Out. My. Life. It’s fucking fantastic.

As you are all well aware, my life wasn’t always like this. No, up until last weekend I was one of You Lot, my days spent gazing at the Navel of Discontent and chewing the Fat of Melancholia (it tastes like liquorice if you want to know). But now? Well, now I neck beers with Dionysus, make little charm bracelets with Hephaestus and perve on Apollo’s buns with Hermes in the Pool of Nubile Youths (just don’t drop the soap).

How did this happen? My ascent up Mount Olympus began last Saturday night, at the 30-something birthday extravaganza of my good friend The Maggirister.

For those of you new to my world, The Maggirister is a freak of human nature: half barrister, half internationally-acclaimed card magician. He flies through the streets of London in a spandex suit emblazoned with diamonds and hearts, resolving commercial litigation with one flick of his mighty Delia Smith kitchen scales, and accepting the cheers of a grateful populous with a nod of his immaculately coiffured wig.

We dated once; briefly, tragically. It ended with moi throwing The Maggirister’s heart into oncoming traffic on the Portishead bypass, where it bounced off the bonnet of a 1972 Skoda before being eaten by pack of rabid Somerset inbreds. Fortunately he has since successfully grown a new one with the aid of a much more loving man and his rather beautiful 8-pack.

So. The Dinner Party. Not one to do things by halves, The Maggirister hosted a catered, four-course event for 16 people in the ‘Oak Room’ of his historic apartment building. You know the one. Next to the Ballroom. Underneath the 17th century fresco of dancing cherubs. I know, I know, not a patch on one’s usual vomit-on-the-half-eaten-kebab Saturday night out but one must struggle on as best one can.

Not surprisingly most of The Maggirister’s friends were from the ‘Magic Industry’. The first fellow I spoke to worked as a Hustler on American TV, which sadly proved not to be a career in the porn-rodeo business. Less pink-tasselled chaps, more ripping-off fat stupid yanks. Delightful conversation, but disappointingly he didn’t fall for my trick of hiding my wallet in my pants and challenging him to ‘hustle [that] out Big Boy.’

Magic guest number two worked as a consultant for film and stage. His last job had been to figure out how the lead in “Desperately Seeking Susan - The Musical” (oh so much material here) could sing the final number whilst being sawn in half. Ah yes, how often I have pondered the same question. Oh, and he’d helped Daniel with his magic tricks in Harry Potter 3. Ahem. Of course your faithful narrator took all this in his stride, snuck off to the bathroom and wrapped the hand that had touched the hand that had touched Harry in a plastic bag, never to be washed again.

And so to Guest 3. Ah, Guest 3. If Guest 3 was a drug, he’d go in your toes or up your nose. If he was real estate, you wouldn’t even be allowed to change the colour of the medieval finials. If he was your primary school maths exam, Mrs Woodley would have stuck a gold star to his forehead. Yes, ladies and gentlemen; Guest 3 was a bona fide, A-grade, Class I celebrity.

Fuck. Me.

Fortunately the initial shock of recognition carried me through the introductions, so that when G3 shook my hand and said “Ah, HW, I’ve heard a lot about you” he misinterpreted my stupefied silence as a cool why-the-fuck-should-I-care attitude to celebritydom. Because I don’t… care that is… well, not much… [must get plastic bag off hand before G3 notices fuck fuck double fuck].

As pre-dinner drinks came to an end G3 and I wended our way over the to dinner venue. En route there was an unfortunate accident with a fast-moving garden trowel which resulted in there being an empty seat next to G3 at the dinner table. The poor fellow was therefore required to talk to the person on his left all night who was, oh!, really?! ME?!

Oh how the honey of our conversation flowed! Politics, architecture, music, classical philosophy; nothing was beyond the scope of our most intimate imaginings. For whole minutes we grappled with the breadth of human experience and the dark imaginings of mankind’s flawed soul. And then we talked about boys. And cocks. And boys some more. Who have nice cocks.

Yes, it turns out G3 is a gayer [whoopee!]… with a boyfriend [boo, hiss]… who he loves deeply [fucking cunt fuck]. This point was in danger of derailing my Master Plan of wooing and winning a celebrity for my collection, when Lady Luck decided to help me out.

G3: “What are you up to for the rest of the weekend?”

HW: [with casual flick of his hair] “Oh, the choir I am in are singing one of Elgar’s lesser known works, The Dream Of Gerontius, at the Royal Albert Hall tomorrow. You probably don’t know it.”

G3: “No way! You’re kidding?! That’s my favourite piece of classical music! I sing it in the shower for god’s sake! HW, do you think, is there ANY chance you might be able to get me two tickets? Any chance at all?”

HW: “Weeeeell, I’m not sure. It’s pretty popular. I’ll try and pull a few strings, see what I can do.”

G3: “Wow, thank you so much. Look, here’s my number, call me tomorrow to let me know how you get on.”

HW: [YYYEEEEEEESSSSSSSSS!!!!] “OK. Like, whatever.”

After dinner, in desperate need of wing-woman advice I rang The Best Friend. Typically, she completely missed the point and asked “HW, do you actually fancy this man?” What on earth has that got to do with the anything? I mean, really. I needed advice on how to eliminate The Competition in a multiple paper-cut tragedy with a Royal Albert Hall program, not some moralistic mumbo jumbo about Right and Wrong.

The next day I got the tickets, sang my little heart out in the concert and afterwards met G3 and his beau outside. A small crowd had gathered around G3 and some chav was asking him to sign her Megabus ticket with an Asda eye-liner, so I chatted to The Competition for a bit. Disappointingly he turned out to be lovely. Intelligent, sincere, fucking lovely. Suddenly I couldn’t imagine pushing him under a bus or setting a host of genetically-engineered squirrels onto him, let alone slowly bleeding him to death with a musical programme. Fuck. The best laid plans of mice and fucking men.

As a consolation prize G3 and Lovely Beau gave me a lift, and after they’d been dropped off their driver took me home. As you do. I may not have ended up dating an A-class celebrity, but hanging out with him and his boyfriend was a nice second best. Drive, take a left here; we're going to Mount Olympus.