Friday: Time to moan

They say that there's no prude like a reformed whore.

And that whore was me this morning.

A scabby, blotchy-faced bloke sat in front of me on the train this morning.

He made me feel sick. I knew what he'd been doing. He reeked of it.

Smoke.

He must've just finished a cigarette and as soon as he sat down, the stale stench hung in the air like a cloud of shit.

On 21 April it will be one year to the day since I gave up smoking. I won't call myself a non-smoker until that day; instead I'll label myself a 'recovering smoker'.

I don't want to jinx it, but I still have no desire to start up again and when I smell someone like him, it makes me deeply ashamed that I ever smoked.

It means that every morning when I got on the train, other people could smell it on me. The same thing goes for people unfortunate enough to share a lift with me in my building.

Well, now I don't smell and those that do make me sick to the pit of my stomach. I wanted to ask him to sit somewhere else, but that might have been too much so early in the morning.

I'd hoped when I got to work that I wouldn't have to endure any more unpleasant odours, but I have discovered that one of the people who sits behind me has personal hygiene issues of his own: he clearly doesn't brush his teeth as his breath stinks like pig shit.

Couple that with Chip Fat John who sits on the other side of the office, and I have a day full of stench to look forward to.

He's known as Chip Fat John because he smells like chip fat. And his name is John. He also smells of dirty towels. You know when you wash a towel and for some reason it gets left lying around indoors and ends up smelling like stale sweat, feet and cabbage? That's what he smells like all day, every day.

And he seems to think that as we are the only two gayers who work in my office anymore, I will enjoy talking to him all day about the fact that Rupert Everett saw him and his boyfriend snogging, that Jeremy Sheffield propositioned him in a 'leather club' and which male Gladiator I used to fancy.

I enjoy none of these conversations.

(But I fancied Trojan.)

(And Rupert Everett and Jeremy Sheffield, if you want to get technical.)