Marklife!
Foulest mood. Utterly soaked on the way home and battered by hailstones en route from High Street Kensington office to Earl’s Court Tube. A Mad Mary ten minutes if ever there was one. At one point I was trying to talk to Jelly about iPhones whilst pulling my red waterproof out of my overstuffed bag (keys, CDs, insect spray all pinging out) whilst using a piece of paper to try and leverage a queen bee stuck on a lump of soft, melted chewing gum stuck on a paving stone. Futile. The little bee’s legs were firmly rooted in the gum and I didn’t want to go at it too hard because I was sure this would only wrench body from firmly stuck legs… so I stamped on it to kill it and that made me feel wretched, but what can you do? And after the bee drama was over (with people walking past looking at me funny and wondering what I was doing on the floor in the middle of Earl’s Court) I looked like a contestant in a wet T-shirt contest for the second day running and my stuff was still all over the pavement. By the time my waterproof was actually on me and zipped up against the elements the sun had come out! I am honestly the most untogether person you know.

Home and next up the worst thing of any week - Cleaning The Bathroom. I would rather do anything else I really would. On this occasion the Cilit Bang stuff we had in was rubbish and didn’t spray right and the cats kept getting in the way because they were starving and I should have fed them first. Worst of all, Radio 4 had one of their unfunny comedies on about sport so I had absolutely no frame of reference for the ‘jokes’ whatsoever. For some reason, too, the radio was up REALLY LOUD but, wet hands and all, I just let it play on, getting more and more wound up by the posh people laughing. In the end all of this – bee, downpour, bag stuff, Cilit Bang, cats, comedy – has left me with what they used to call a tense, nervous headache. I don’t think I am a good multi-tasker at all. Women of the world take over!

Thing is, I’m tired. I last had a week off in February and feel like I’m crawling towards the holiday which is still a way off in any case. Or maybe it’s the bloody weather coming back with a vengeance: enough to drive anybody round the bend. Certainly, I felt very differently on Sunday night, still basking in the afterglow of the best week / weekend for yonks. It was a foregone conclusion really that Blur in Hyde Park would leave me all moony and silly like a teenager and that’s precisely what happened. I mean they were my favourite band for almost an entire decade (my God, I’ve just realised I don’t really like any guitar bands from now). I also knew beforehand they were gonna do ‘Popscene’ and ‘Jubilee’ and ‘End Of A Century’ and ‘The Universal’ and ‘For Tomorrow’ and ‘Chemical World’ and ‘To The End’ and ‘Sunday Sunday’ and ‘Tender’ and ‘She’s So High’ etc., because the setlist was all over the internet. But what I wouldn’t have dared hope for was such perfect weather, boiling hot at first settling down to balmy, which leant proceedings the air of a really amazing festival. I swear the sun set and the full moon rise during ‘End Of A Century’, which can’t be possible but that’s what it felt like. Everybody in the Park was in such a great, up-for-it mood and word perfect throughout.

Everyone in a good mood except for the woman who got a plastic bottle in her eye and her eye filled up with blood. Me and Jock saw it happen. You know how it is at gigs with these bottles flying all over the place – annoying but not actually dangerous and everyone does it. In this case however a young bloke in front of us had made to throw one back but did a sort of spazz throw by mistake and rather than go up above the crowd it went straight into the eye of the woman directly behind him. She instantly started crying and her scary-looking boyfriend, who looked like he’d recently escaped from prison, made to go after this extremely mortified fellow who kept trying to apologise. In the end he sort of slipped away into the crowd because his apologies seemed to be enraging the pair even more and soon after that convict and blood-eye went off to the medical thingy. The crowd churned a bit more and before long there we were standing behind bottle-thrower boy again, only this time he was with my friend Hannah who I sit next to at work! We spent the rest of the gig with Hannah and her date, now a marked man (and a hot one at that, we agreed) but I’m really glad the bloke didn’t come back or if he did he didn’t find him. As a rule I don’t pick fights with the bullies or the cads and I’m not much cop at punching other people’s dads.

Saturday, our last ever Gay Shame. Brixton Academy. Theme this year was Femininity. I was nervous as hell beforehand because through work I’d booked Saint Etienne and felt sort of responsible for it being a good gig for them. Likewise our Unskinny Bop buddies who we’d got in to do the warm up. There was also the small matter of making 3,500 people dance till 4am – I was sure that by that time in the morning there’d be just the Wifes left and a caretaker, sweeping up. Determined to have as normal a day as possible and take my mind off worrying I went to the gym and did a triple workout. Later, Jelly and I even Tubed it down to Brixton from our usual pre-Duckie curry house in Vauxhall. It's true - a chicken naga and a chapati will always calm me down.

Had a ball of course. Hung out a bit with Jonny Woo (Wonderwoman on stage hilarious) and Scottee (backstreet abortion tapestry), and looked at some of the amazing installations. There were some great pieces from Ryan Styles, Howard, Wee Lee, Francesca... Oh I forget. We wore all white and I was pleased to see so many of our regulars had gone to town with their outfits (David and Stuart had replica Anna and Frida ABBA costumes – the white platform boots alone must have cost a fortune). Crowd fantastic (word perfect again) for Saint Etienne and from our wobbly scaffolding balcony my eyes were treated to the rather wonderful vision of Sarah Cracknell dancing backstage to ‘Get It On’ in her feather boa. They did 'Only Love Can Break Your Heart', 'Who Do You Think You Are' (with Debsey - yay!), 'Like A Motorway' and 'He's On The Phone' and were apparently totally unprepared for, and knocked out by, the reception. Unskinnies perfect, natch – a brilliant femme-themed set. Love those gals.

Beer, beer, cider, cider... after a couple of hours our swaying balcony didn't seem to pose such a threat any more and I'm pretty sure (it is a massive blur) Jels and I had a blast. We slunk off at dawn into our waiting cab leaving a still-full dancefloor. A great relief, it has to be said, that people danced all night. And while I’m a bit sad that that’s it for Shame a part of me is relieved, too. In terms of scale, ambition and numbers we couldn’t possibly top that evening and it’ll be good thing to move on to something new. What we’ve discussed for 2010 is much smaller (we will be able to see the whites of people's eyes again) but I'm already massively excited by it.