Robert Hampton

It’s my birthday, and for once I actually feel like celebrating. It’s been a hell of a year — I went to Scotland, went to Brighton, came out and went to Pride, and did a whole lot more besides.

There’s nothing like a birthday to make you feel loved and appreciated. As well as the usual gifts from family, I got cards from people in work, from new friends I’ve made recently, and from old friends that I previously thought had forgotten me.

Things are going well for me at the moment. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that I’m happier now than I have been at any time in the past. Even more excitingly, I firmly believe that things are going to get even better for me in the months ahead. Life isn’t perfect, but I feel ready to take on anything that the Universe throws my way.

Partly as a result of my new-found enthusiasm, I’ve finally pulled my finger out and started to renovate and generally fix up this web site, which has stagnated a bit over the past year or so. A redesign is on the cards, but until then some more minor adjustments have been made, including an answer — finally — to a question Seb asked, on 19th August 2003: “how long does a links page take to make?” The answer, as it turns out, is seven years. I’m sure it was worth the wait.

The notion of Gay Pride arouses much tedious harrumphing from some sections of the public, usually along the lines of, “if we had a Straight Pride event we’d be arrested for bigotry. It’s PC gone mad. Loony left, asylum seekers, Daily Mail, BBC Have Your Say”

This opinion (it’s an overstatement to call it an “argument”) ignores the fact that Pride is possibly the one day each year that LGBT people can live their lives completely openly without fear of intimidation or violence. One could easily argue that the other 364 days of the year are de facto Straight Pride days.

Such thoughts were in the back of my mind as I travelled into the city centre for the inaugural Liverpool Pride celebrations. Accepting my sexual orientation has been a long and difficult road of turbulent emotions and long phases of denial and self-loathing. Until very recently, I was out to hardly anyone. Truth be told, I felt like a bit of a fraud for even thinking of taking part in a Pride march, because for a very long time, my feelings were of shame, not pride.

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Why hello, Mr Blog. It’s been a while since the last time I put fingers to keyboard and inserted my text gently into your box.

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I’ve just finished reading The Prostrate Years, the latest addition to the Adrian Mole canon. I won’t give a detailed review, except to say that Sue Townsend is still as adept an author as ever, and if you enjoyed the previous entries in the series, you’ll like this one. The book picks up the diary of Adrian Mole as he turns 40 and copes with the stresses of middle age.

I feel some sympathy with him, despite being a full 13 years younger. The last week has seen me falling asleep in front of the TV, poring over an Experian credit report and comparing ISA interest rates on MoneySupermarket. When did I get so old?

I haven’t been blogging much recently. I wish I could say that this was due to me having more important things to do, but that would be completely untrue.

The looming general election might provide some material for me, but at the moment all I have this well-timed demonstration of old-school Tory unpleasantness, so I will leave it at that for now.

Also, you could follow me on Twitter, where I’m posting all sorts of interesting stuff:

Last week the office I “work” for held a guess the number of sweets in the jar competition. 50p to enter, all proceeds to Haiti (I think it was).

I guessed 225 and thought no more of it until today, when I discovered that not only had I won the prize, but that my guess was EXACTLY right. What are the odds?

OK, it’s a tiny victory in the grand scheme of things, but I enjoyed my moment in the sun:

Everyone has their own story to tell about the cold weather the country has been experiencing recently, which saw parts of Scotland reach temperatures similar to those at the South Pole. People in work have been swapping stories about having to walk home on Tuesday afternoon after Liverpool’s bus companies withdrew services, allegedly due to the Council’s failure to grit the roads.

On a related topic, thanks to the amazing staff at Merseyrail, who pulled out all the stops to keep their trains running, even running empty trains through the night to keep the lines clear of ice. The end result was that, except for a few minor delays and cancellations, the trains have been running normally, even on Tuesday afternoon when there was a near-whiteout for a time. The Liverpool Echo, not known for its love of the railways, had to grudgingly recognise the achievement. Let me just add to the praise: you guys are AWESOME (Merseyrail, not the Liverpool Echo)!

As the trains were running I had no excuse not to be in work, but on Wednesday morning the pavements in the city centre were like glass. I was wearing the least practical shoes imaginable and had barely set foot outside Central station before I slipped and landed on my bum. It wasn’t even a dignified fall: there was much flailing of arms and feet before I eventually toppled over. Still, it seemed to amuse the man on the corner who was giving out Metros.

(satellite image taken on 7th January 2010, NASA/GSFC, MODIS Rapid Response)

July saw Merseyrail’s run of bad luck continue, as a train rolled out of the depot and derailed. To atone for their sins, they introduced a new day ranger ticket, but I wasn’t convinced. This was something of a train-y month for me, as I did my bit to help out the previous generation of Merseyrail trains. Trains were also on the Government’s mind, as they announced that the Liverpool to Manchester line would be electrified.

In London, the Police proved once again what a wonderful organisation they are. In Rome, a swimmer suffered an embarrassing wardrobe malfunction.

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Was this year an exciting way to say goodbye to the decade? Here’s a reminder of what happened on planet Hampo this year (part 2, hopefully, follows tomorrow):-

January started out with one of my favourite shows being revived. Despite being up against EastEnders and being hosted by Ben Shepherd, the Krypton Factor did well enough to be recommissioned for a second series. We found out Who would replace David Tennant, and a year later we still haven’t actually seen him in the role. ITV’s latest attempt to ape the success of Doctor Who was Demons which failed spectacularly; the only creative thing about it being the number of different excuses the writers found for Christian Cooke to remove clothing.

In the wider world, various eras were drawing to a close, as Woolworths closed its doors, Tony Hart kicked the bucket and Dubya left office. Meanwhile, yours truly had an enjoyable night in London Theatreland.

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I think tonight I’ve finally started feeling Christmassy. Today was my penultimate day in work and my last trip to the gym which closed today for the Christmas holiday (it re-opens on Bank Holiday Monday, and it will be comical to see me there attempting a workout following several days of binge-eating).

I spent most of the night helping to wrap presents for my nephews, which engrossed me so much I didn’t even notice it had been snowing. I only realised when I looked in our back garden and saw this untouched snow lying on the ground:-

I can’t wait for Christmas!

It’s that time of year again to send out the Christmas cards. If I leave it much longer I will have to use first class post (expensive!) so I need to push them out over the weekend if possible.

WHSmith had a 3 for 2 offer running this week, so I took advantage of it to get three different packs of cards for all tastes: funny but slightly offensive (what I like to call the Simon Amstell option), funny but inoffensive (Michael McIntyre), not funny at all (Mock the Week).

There is of course the eternal dilemma: what if I get a Christmas card from someone to whom I have not sent one in return? This is the sort of thing I lose sleep over! Luckily for me, most people I know take the charitable option of believing I’m a forgetful idiot instead of a lazy, uncaring one. But in case there’s any doubt, if you don’t get a card from me, it means I don’t have your address. Honest.

So I haven’t really posted much lately, have I? Sorry about that, I’ve been… occupied. Ahem. I have been posting little titbits on my Twitter feed, so WHY AREN’T YOU READING THAT?!

Should I talk about Never Forget: The Musical, which I went to see with my wonderful sister last week? I’m sure some will hold up their hands in horror at the thought of a musical based on Take That songs, but actually I enjoyed it. It’s relentlessly silly, but it knows it and never tries to be anything more than a bit of shamelessly cheesy fluff. An entertaining enough treat, especially if you want to see the show’s resident sexpot Philip Olivier attempt to do a Manchester accent.

Erm, that’s it. I think I’m getting a bit bored of blogging. I need something to inspire me beyond the finely-honed torso of a former Brookside actor and an amusing singing toy. I’m sure something will come along eventually. In the meantime, here’s some music…

Despite the objections of my family, who think that a short post about my weight once a week is indicative of an “obsession” on my part(?), the updates will continue.

For the third week in a row, I’m at the same weight. Clearly I need to try a bit harder.

That’s it. I’m OBSESSED, me!

Almost forgot to do this! Compared to last week I am still 79.5 kg.

I seem to have reached a plateau (is it still a plateau when you’re going down, not up? Oh, who cares). On the good side, I didn’t really try at all last week and still didn’t put any weight on, which implies that, if I actually start making an effort again, I will start losing.

Need to knuckle down before yummy Christmas food starts tempting me. There’s already a packet of mince pies in the kitchen with about 5 million calories in each one. DO NOT WANT.

I appear to be the same weight this week as I was last week. THIS IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH!