And speaking of girls, I can now for the first time empathise with the embarrassment of several of my female (and slightly more “fabulous” male) friends who have found themselves sitting in a restaurant or pub close to someone wearing exactly the same top as them.

I’ve just returned from Euston station, on a now uncharacteristic quest to “buy burger” (I haven’t fancied one in ages, but some days you just need the heavy greasy goodness of its fat and carbohydrate cuddle). As I crossed the road I had to hurry away from the Number 59 bus parked there. No, I was in no danger of being run over by a stationary vehicle, but on its side was a huge poster for Torchwood, complete with Captain Jack in dynamic action pose and wearing my favourite long grey coat - the one I was indeed wearing at the time.

What with David Tennant having stolen the more manic side of my personality for his portrayal of the Tenth Doctor, and now John Barrowman helping himself to my wardrobe, I can only think that Russell T Davies is out to get me.

And what’s the T for anyway? I hope it’s Tiberius.

I think it would be nice to have a girlfriend. I like the smell of girls’ perfume and the feel of their hair, and I like the idea of girls’ rooms with girl things in them that are entirely alien to me and yet both charming and fascinating. I like the clink and rattle of a girl’s makeup bag, like a magician’s bag of tricks. I’m jealous of how women don’t get judged for still sleeping with a cuddly toy as much as a man would.

I just don’t know how I would even begin finding a woman at all personally attractive. I could probably sleep with one - it would be no different to sleeping with a man I wasn’t attracted to. I just don’t see the point. I just don’t want to.

Strange thing, sexuality. We should all be bisexual, but we’re not.

I need to meet a human I am attracted to who has passion for creating something that we can work together with - preferably a musician or an actor. Not a writer or an artist. Maybe a painter. I can’t paint, so that would be okay. Besides, I like the smell of oils and acrylics, so that could work. Someone who can stimulate and encourage and maybe even compete with me, in our own safely divided spheres and mediums where envy or resentment can never get a lasting foothold. Someone who isn’t bloody practical or make tired reflex comments when you want to say something different to usual garden variety human banter. Someone who’s totally fucking bats by human standards, who likes dressing up or staying up all night taking photos of the people who come and go outside their window, and putting on too much eye shadow one evening, just for the hell of it, and buying baby food for dinner because they used to eat it once, right? There has to be a rawness to it all - an unpretentiousness and kiddish love of Just Doing It. An individual who resists the demand to conform.

Why is it I only see that person being a woman? I know very few men like that. True individuals. Men seem to increasingly feel the need to conform as they get older - maybe some silly outdated hunter-gatherer thing, I don’t know. Men wear suits - tie, shirt, polyester. Women wear whatever they want - trousers, skirts, dresses, reds, blues, yellows, earrings and make up, hair styled differently every day. Men must conform, must be homogeneous. Women are allowed to stand out in the sea of nylon. Men don’t become the old lesbian on the hill - the mad woman who wears purple and has one hundred cats. Men become either grumpy or mild mannered and slurp tea. Or have I got that wrong?

I’m sort of looking for a weird sort of cross between Wednesday Addams, Björk and Clea Duvall, but in boy form. As a preference. Breasts on someone I’m likely to be attracted to have previously not been a selling point, but it’s always really been about eyes, teeth and hair.

Never underestimate hair. Hair’s very important.

Episode 3: “Rapunzel should have just got cable”

The concept of a universal translator comes that little bit closer to reality.

Last month, it was revealed that filming was to begin on a 90-minute one-off special of This Life, a sexually-explicit series based on the lives of a group of twenty-something lawyers in London.

However, she did not elaborate on the storyline…

…But we have, and in the opening sentence of our article.

Thanks for ruining the surprise, guys. The words “spoiler alert” wouldn’t have hurt.

I have just decided that words are an inefficient medium to properly convey the rapidity of concepts and images that flit around in my brain.

I am henceforth going to communicate through animal noises, rapid hand gestures and intent facial expressions. I might even use a paintbrush or drumstick too.

At the moment I feel WHEEEEE! stam stam STAM. Brrog brrog. brrog. brrogggggg. tittletacktoe totum nee nee pang pang vwOWWwwm. vvvrrrrrRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. [ruffles hair maniacally with fingertips, scrunching up face] Doggie cakeus. [Makes noise like a melancholy dolphin] Fhanstnap.

Yeah, that was rubbish. See? Words just don’t work anymore. They should be upgraded or given a sabbatical or something. Or be made redundant. Everyone else I know is being made redundant at the moment. “Thank you for your tireless contribution to civilisation. I’m sorry but you’re just not up to the job anymore - we need something that can keep up with the big important thoughts of the highly mobile lifestyles of the twenty first century. Here’s a gold watch and a book about Dolly Parton. Please now leave my idiom.”
“Idiom!”, Words sobs on his way out, clutching his gold watch and book about Dolly Parton. “I gave you that!”
“Henceforth ‘Idiom’ shall be known as “kHAA! Bram ZWAH! [puts cake on head].”

We should all instead talk to each other through haircuts and smiles, big coats, stripey purple tights and loud shrieks and humming noises.

I wish I had a job that would let me dye my hair every day or week or paint my face. And let me dress in long coats with shirts that have big sleeves meant for cufflinks.

I find it so hard to properly express myself at the moment.

Of course, this is all just “propaganda”…

This morning I was on Eversholt Street, having just bought my now regular sandwich in Mark’s and Spencer’s line in Manic Depressive foodstuffs (”Smoked Mackerel and Egg Omega Boost” - delicious. Closest I can get to kedgeree in Euston at this hour) and this thought popped in my head - it sounded a bit like my voice, so I paid more attention to it than I usually would.

“Be like the shoes,” the thought said.
“Eh?” I grunted by way of reply, narrowly avoiding ending up a series of clashing colours on the 263’s front right wheel.
“Be like the shoes,” it repeated. “Just do it.”

I think it’s taken me a while to rum up my exhausted rescue squads into making another daring salvage attempt, but as usual, the bleedin’ obvious has hit me months later. Just do it. You have to try. Don’t fret about people thinking it’s rubbish. Don’t fret about you thinking it’s rubbish - you can’t possess an arrogant blustering confidence in your abilities all the time.

Don’t delay doing it any longer, and don’t pretend it’s not because you’re scared. Just do it, and keep on doing it. Rome wasn’t built in a day but Triangle was written in two hours. Success is not a mark of ability but an occasionally happy bonus.

So why are you still here?

Go and write books.