Slick suit

As soon as winter is over every year, RO starts asking for a barbecue and last Sunday was the day. Many of my friends live in inner city apartments without decent gardens, so when summer comes my garden is a popular place for outdoor activities. Some 25 friends showed up, and it seems the expression "fashionably late" can be replaced by "fashionably early": I had said in the invitation that the party would be between 3:30pm and 12:30am and at 3:30 sharp the first guests arrived and by 4:30 almost everybody was stuffing themselves with salads, meats, and drinks! I had bought (amongst others) 150 beers and 8 bottles of white wine, and ofcourse everybody chose the white wine so now I am left with a 100 beers...... All in all I think the party was successful and we had a nice time.
Yesterday during lunch break I saw the most beautiful young man in a slick suit walking in my direction. I looked at him (from a corner of my eye, I thought) and when we passed each other he smiled and said "hello". Half a minute later I looked over my shoulder and he was doing the same thing! Oh my god, he is in his late 20's and so beautiful, he must have been joking or what.... Anyway, he probably works close to my office so who knows I will see him again. One can always dream....

Bad planning

I will be leaving today on a business trip to Lagos, Nigeria. It is of course not the nicest destination in the world, but I normally never mind going somewhere for the first time, just to have a look and see a city with my own eyes. This time however the planning is particularly bad - at the time the semi-final is played tonight I will be queueing for immigration and customs at Lagos Airport. I hope they have TVs in the arrivals terminal but I am not too optimistic. Fortunately I am scheduled to be back from Lagos on Saturday so I will be able to see the finals here. Now the Oranje team "just" has to beat Uruguay to reach the finals....

Brown socks in sandals

A quiet day at home today, watching some Tour de France, working a bit in the garden, and doing admin before going to EL's birthday party in the early evening.
Talking about birthdays. I had a small BBQ party with my family last Sunday which was nice. I was honoured that my nephews and nieces still joined their parents for the party - after all they are in their late teens and early 20's now and normally people that age are not so interested to visit an old uncle! The weather has been hot and sunny for the last week so perfect for a day outside in the garden. On my birthday itself I just worked and went home a bit early, and watched football in the evening. The big party for friends (another BBQ) will be in two weeks time.
Yesterday my brother celebrated his birthday and I went for a few hours before joining my card playing group for another BBQ at HA's place and a few rounds of card games. I noticed that both my brother and ER were wearing brown socks in sandals - now if you know me you know I am not a fashion queen but compared to them I have some taste! Must be the difference between living in a big city compared to having spent all your life in a small provincial backwater.

I was right....

It is always nice when the facts confirm what you always knew. I have stated many times since I regularly visited / lived in Singapore that the country has the most gays per capita compared to any other country I know. So when I read today that "last year, of those aged 30 to 34, 42 per cent of men remained single, up from 33 percent ten years ago" I was not at all surprised. Fourty-two per cent!!! Deduct the loners and weirdos who can't find a wife, and we are left with some 30 per cent gays in Singapore. Which is obvious if you have ever walked around in that city.

Back to the stone age

If you are as old as I am, you may remember the days that gay men would write messages on the walls and doors of public toilets, usually indicating the kinds of sexual activities they liked, always with a phone number to call, and sometimes with (often very nice) illustrations featuring cocks, balls and sperm.
Since the Internet became popular in the mid 1990's, these messages have largely disappeared in most countries I regularly visit. So I was very surprised when holidaying in Sicily (Italy) last week, that the old fashioned toilet message system is alive and well there. It must be because most of Italy is still in the stone age as far as Internet access is concerned.

My name

A new cool website: you enter your first name and you can see how many people have that name in the Netherlands. So now I know there are 13,836 people with my first name, and also that my name was very popular in the 1980's and 1990's, and less popular in the new century. They also found out that people with higher education give their children Dutch, French and Scandinavian names, whereas people with fewer braincells prefer English names.
By the way, the sweetest man has 21,876 people with the same name in this country, and his name was popular in the 1960's and 1970's.

Crash course in homosexuality

If you don't know what gays do in their bedrooms, watch this.