These Pants Aint Big Enough for the Both of Us

It is very difficult to get into my pants unless you happen to be me.

It's not that they are too small or tight. Quite the reverse. They are capacious, roomy, capable of fitting both my plentiful arse and a medium-sized roast chicken within their cotton/lycra confines should I so choose. They are big pants.

No, my pants are not going to be accessible for most because of the defensive forcefield surrounding them. An impenetrable barrier of superiority, self-worth, occasional violence and a triple stitched reinforced gusset.

Only the most interesting and determined of adventurers will get into my pants and even then the chances are I've already slipped out of them and into a concrete girdle.

What am I banging on about now, you may wonder? Simply this: the ease of getting into certain people's pants. I marvel at the free and easy nature of those sex bloggers who remove their undergarments for friends, partners, photos and readers with gay abandon. "Dear Mystery Blogger X," writes the enthusiastic reader, "I love your blog. Let's meet in the nearest budget hotel without delay and throw caution, and our pants, to the wind."

"You're on," replies Mystery Blogger X and the next thing you know there's another award winning blog post in the bag.

But where's the challenge, where's the mystery in such encounters? I blame our instant gratification culture. Life in soundbites. Long conversations, the art of letter writing, even lengthy blog posts have all declined in popularity as the convenience of instant messaging, Facebook and Twitter updates submerge more creative, time consuming passions. People view online personas much as they would peruse a fast food menu - lots of colourful photos of glossy dishes that bear little resemblance to what you eventually unwrap - and order accordingly. I'll have that one. And if it's taking too long I'll have that one instead.

Here in the Boudoir we'll have none of that. Fast is not a word which applies to me in any context. Obtaining anything of worth takes a certain investment of time which is why my pants remain so impenetrable to the casual chancer. That and the high elastane content.

Travellers' Tales #1

So, there I was in my budget hotel room, sitting upon the white expanse of duvet and gazing at the banana I'd placed on the table, thinking "if I was a proper sex blogger that banana would be about to be deployed as an impromptu sex aid, most likely to the faux surprise of somebody tied to that table, and this duvet would become most horribly stained."

I am, of course, not a proper sex blogger so I merely ate the banana in an unrestrained fashion and the duvet remained unsullied.

I did rub the complimentary micro-soap over my lady areas in a steamy solo shower session later but since I failed to post photos of this online, with obligatory click-throughs of me with a loofah up my arse, it doesn't really count and I can't have an award.

The Art of Relaxation

"I'm off to the spa," I announced.

"Great! Bring me back a can of Fanta and a pasty."

"No, not the Spar. The spa."

It was true. I was not heading off to forge a path to the pastry products through the local youths loitering outside the Spar shop but was instead departing for a place of warm waters, warm scented oils, warm towels, warm hands.

And hot stones.

This was to be a serious treat. Times have been hard lately and I haven't been able to run to a rub down with some tepid gravel let alone a hot stone massage. Fortunately I have generous friends who know the best kinds of presents to give.

I wasn't sure exactly what to expect, not having had this type of massage before, but I would heartily recommend it. If you like lying in a dimly lit room, listening to plinky plonky ambient music with heated, oily volcanic rocks on your spine then this is the treatment for you. Though, to be honest, I find just floating in the blue waters, or being fizzed and frothed in the jacuzzi, with a glass of something chilled and bubbly is my favourite part of the spa experience.

At least while you're in the water you don't have to wear the slightly too short, slightly too small robe and sanatorium style slippers. Entering the Relaxation Room when dressed in this institutional-like garb and encountering fellow spa attendees generates a vague One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest feeling. It's the background music, the crimson lipsticked young women with tightly restrained hair and pseudo medical style tunics who randomly appear, select one of the beslippered inmates and gently steer them into a private room for an unspecified treatment. On the plus side, when these towelling-clad women return they are not lobotomised and drooling, just a little bit drowsy maybe, with a slight oily sheen and smelling strongly of almonds. Which is good, as this apparent retention of their faculties meant I didn't have to smother them with one of the many scatter cushions, throw the hydrotherapy console through the window and take off across the golf course. I just took a voucher for ten pounds off my next treatment and left.

Look

I have been gone, as you may have noticed, for quite a while. I had things to do in the Big Room.

Now I am back and eager to establish whether I have missed anything. I suspect not, but you never know.

Blogland is not how I left it. It is an ever shifting landscape, with blogs closing, blogs opening, bloggers leaving, bloggers returning, bloggers changing their identities, their genres, their partners, their minds. An absence of more than a day or two leaves the satirical blog saboteur at a disadvantage. Where is my material hiding itself these days?

I need to take a look around. It is good to see many of my

favourite people still actively posting. But what of those whose old blogs languish limply at the bottom of my inspirational blogroll, to the right? What are they doing now? Why aren't they here, with a cake and balloon and maybe a picture of their arse or a post about being smeared with taramasalata and then taped to the dishwasher? Perhaps they are all busy in the Big Room too.

Still, hundreds of sex blogs and bloggers, only one Luka. I can't look for them all. This is where you, dear, lone, languishing, loyal reader, come in. I need you to do some of the looking for me. Do you know the whereabouts of any fugitive sex bloggers? Maybe someone who used to post about group sex on a coffee shop sofa and who now posts about childcare arrangements, flowers or knitted cushion covers? Maybe someone who used to write at length, with pictures, about their legendary conquests and who now publishes articles on gardening, grouting and bicycle maintenance?

Perhaps you are a lost blogger yourself, someone who has given up the effort of writing lengthy blog posts in favour of the immediacy of Facebook or Twitter. Possibly you just couldn't see the point in continuing, now that the glory days of blogs and book deals are long gone. If so, and you happen to be reading this, unlikely as it seems, do reveal yourself. (No, not on the webcam. That's so noughties.)

Update me. Let me know where to look.

The Return

I would have got someone to water the plants

And to cancel the papers and milk

I would have got someone to hold all my calls

And perform other tasks of that ilk

I would have asked someone to please feed the fish

And to turn out the lights I left on

I would have made somebody check on the gimp

If I'd known I'd be gone for so long!

Positive Thinking

So, here we are, new year, same old January flurry of doomed resolutions and endless adverts for discount sofas and diet products on the telly.

As I roam the internet in my various guises I detect a common trait in some status updates, tweets and blog postings. A persistent, all pervasive pessimism. Some of this is to do with the time of year. The season of forced good cheer can be a depressing experience. Some of it is to do with the undeniably challenging financial situation most of us now find ourselves negotiating. Some of it is down to the individuals in question being resolutely miserable. There's nothing wrong with being miserable, of course. We are all gloomy from time to time. For some unfortunate souls this may develop into full blown depression and that, too, is something I can understand and sympathise with.

The problem is, the negative types I encounter on the social networking sites tend to be miserable and outgoing, rather than quiet and withdrawn which would suit me much better.

We all have our private troubles and inner turmoil. Some people don't wish to keep this to themselves, they don't even want to confide in a close personal friend, relative, priest or healthcare professional. No, they want the whole world to know that they are having a terrible time and nothing, no nothing, ever goes right for them. And should you make the mistake of posting a supportive comment, a link to an uplifting song, a positive story, you will then encounter resistance, self-pity and stubborn, self-indulgent negativity. "That might work for other people," they moan, "but it never does for me."

So, what option does that leave? If a response of "tomorrow will be better - chin up" is met with "it won't, I can't, I'm too miserable" and a response of "you're right, your life is unbearable, top yourself" is unlikely to improve the situation then the only option left is to ignore them. Or slag them off in a blog post.

A problem shared is not a problem halved, it is a problem spread about the place, like dogshit on a shoe. It spoils the atmosphere for everyone.

You're allowed to post that you're pissed off, that your day has been disappointing, frustrating or unsatisfying. You can complain about unexpected bills to pay, being out of work or unhappily married. Just don't let it be all you bang on about and spare me the melodramatics. While you have a roof over your head, a bed in which to sleep, food in your belly, access to clean drinking water, sanitation and medical care you're living the dream. Really. You might feel sad, down, lonely, depressed but that is a very different thing to your life being crap.

Positive thinking, people. That's where it's at.

The Charon QC Blogging & Drinking for BIG SOCIETY Award

As I sit here sipping my not-quite-chilled-enough, not-really-my-favourite Chardonnay because I finished all the Pinot Grigio unexpectedly early, I gaze upon my latest award with a sense of completely unearned pride.

Do go and visit the entertainingly bonkers, yet informative and insightful, Charon QC if you fancy an award of your own to enhance those parts of your blog which look somewhat forlorn and neglected. It covers those stubborn understains that you just can't shift from velvet upholstery and flock wallpaper beautifully.

I am most grateful for this pleasingly relevant and appropriate award as it is far time my efforts in this area were acknowledged and rewarded. The composition of my hilarious ditties, my groundbreaking posts and photos of me in my underwear simply wouldn't occur without the ingestion of several bottles of vino blanc on a regular basis.

Also, no sex bloggers like me any more and none of them will give me an award.