As the train arrows its way out of London I do get a strong feeling that this is what I want to be doing and what I want to be doing for the rest of my life

As the train arrows its way out of London, I do get a strong feeling that this is what I want to be doing, and what I want to be doing for the rest of my life. Constantly travelling is what my life must be; not living in a marriage. It is only the depth of my love for —– that has delayed me making this break. Yes, this is what I want to do: travelling into emptiness, travelling into nothingness, travelling into solitude and anomie.

Another rubbish night at ——–. If I was to stay out drinking this Friday night, where would I go?

Another rubbish night at ——–. If I was to stay out drinking this Friday night, where would I go? Absolutely nowhere! There is absolutely nowhere I would want to go tonight. So what is this freedom I am supposedly gasping for? I am happy going home to open French windows, my tropical ferns, and classical music on the gramophone in the shrubbery, a few late butterflies or bumble bies darting in or out, with my kakapo hopping around my feet. Tomorrow I am free from midday to 7pm or later, to go wherever I want. Sunday I devote myself to my wife. Monday night I can have a quick look in the ——–, stay a bit longer in the unlikely event there is anything remotely worth staying for. I could go to the Axe or Nag’s but they would be just as bad as the ——–, so what is the point. Happy to say I have only spent £3.25 this Friday night. Making my freedom within my marriage; make a bubble of freedom protected by a force field within the marriage. A bubble in which I can breathe completely freely—for as long as she still puts up with me (miracle that she does). I think my freedom will come starting in afternoon pubs, 1230, 1pm, the absolute joy of my life. Plenty of time to be free and still be home in time for the wife, or turn it into an all night if ever necessary—having built up a bit of steam and momentum and in that state being capable of anything. My strategy for finding some workable double life for myself must be carefully thought out. There are times when I have felt close to the edge and thought I must let the marriage go, in order to find the freedom I feel I need. A useful analogy would be having to sleep at night with the windows closed, when I can only sleep with windows open. In the end I feel like I am going to explode with frustration because I cannot sleep and have to get up and throw them open, to the noise and traffic and revellers—then I can relax. Marriage feels like having to sleep with the windows closed, but then at times you feel cold and really need the warmth that marriage provides. But usually I need fresh air, and it would be perfect if I can find the fresh air I need within the marriage, without having to lose the marriage. I offer her fresh air, too, but she prefers closed rooms. I offer her freedom she does not want. She wants to be in all day waiting for me then if I don’t come straight home gets upset. I would rather she went out and did things with her friends somewhere to give me more freedom and breathing space. I think this would keep the spark and romance in our affair—but the thought I don’t want to be with her every single minute makes her very sad and feel that I do not love her. Because I love her and want to keep that love fresh and alive, and blooming and blossoming, I think we should spend more time doing things alone or with other people. So we start to miss each other and then can really enjoy come back together and seeing each other again. “Our set up is sweet, there isn’t a catch. The secret is living semi-detached.” Her conception of a relationship is very different. It remains to be seen if we can survive. I think when I am with her I must give her my absolute all, care, devotion, tenderness, passion, and then when I want to be alone I must do that to the utmost as well, and enjoy my moments of freedom to the nth degree. Thus I wonder if a balance can be achieved. A double life can be found and made to work. The Marriage of Helen & Faustus can go on, and indeed bloom and blossom. It is steadfastly refusing to bud at the moment as if it is not getting the sunlight it needs, like the flowers and ferns in our house. If we moved to a higher floor, they would get the light they need to flourish, and I feel our marriage would be the same, if we could lift it onto another level—where the sunshine could flood in.

Long distance travel only works when you have no one at home waiting for you

Long distance travel only works when you have no one at home waiting for you. These days drinking and thinking seem like all I really need. If there is a naked girl on stage while I’m doing it, all the better. I would never turn my back on ——. I’ll always be at the end of the phone line if they ever wanted it. Maybe I want to be a figure of mystery again. Two in the Nelson and two in the Waiting Room—as if I am resisting the ——– as much as I can. A kind of repulsion. A permanent Kings of Leon soundtrack helps. The terrible thing is I feel I have to leave —— to return feeling to my life. I respect a man who brings two beers for himself and sits down with a newspaper and drinks them. I respect the lonely people. Is there anything more annoying than getting hiccups when you are drinking? Why not stop being sad, and lead a life of total freedom as if you are free—and let her decide what she wants to do? Rearrange my mind. She is always my missing half. And always will be.

When you have nothing a little thing becomes everything

When you have nothing, a little thing becomes everything. However, when you have something, a little thing seems like nothing. How I miss the great days—that massive black Congolese cock in Brussels hotel toilet, the massive breasts of Martina in Nuremberg, epic amazing nights. This is the crux of my problem, and why I cannot enjoy the double life now. For it to be worthwhile, the old life has got to offer something extraordinary, and it never does, and perhaps never did. Only when you have nothing does everything in the gutter glitter like gold. Don’t I want the freedom of being free again? The cold icy air of total loneliness, total solitude, total despair? Maybe we should try it for a while—a trial separation. The trouble is I think I want to be the lonely old man staring into a pint in the pub every day. That has always seemed attractive to me. While creating my body of work that no one will ever read. Journals 1996-2007, and the others that follow. I can only be alone, I think. I love her, and will love her till the day I die, but I can only be alone, and can only make her unhappy when I’m with her. J.G. Farrell water turning to hard ice, causing such sadness to the women who tried to love him. The price of the man is the head of the artist, as Munch thought. As Nial F says, you can’t mix work and marriage. You have to give up too much. Ah now Sex on Fire. I can only be free when I don’t have a home to go to. When we split up, every sight of her will become so thrilling, I will swoon, like before. I love her more than anything in the world, and yet I love my complete freedom—I don’t know how to put the two things together. This is the tragedy of me and ——. Use Somebody, oh all those amazing trips to Southend. Don’t I need to split up, so I can miss her again?

The years of seduction, violence, decay now seem like a lost golden age though at the time I was desperate to escape to find something real

The years of seduction, violence, decay now seem like a lost golden age, though at the time I was desperate to escape to find something real. Now I have something real I miss the old seduction, violence, decay. To be able to marry the two together, or enjoy balance side by side, that is my dream. The Spice of Life is very nice, so much more comfortable than the Cambridge next door. Even if I am prepared to do something naughty, I just cannot think of anywhere to go to now. The Carnival I sorely miss. SS is a waste of time these days—a travesty of what it used to be; ditto Boulevard. Astral gone. Pamela, Betty days all gone. I just don’t have a clue what to do to have a naughty time these days. In the end I always end up back at the Fly. Oh I could try the Pepys. I came in the Spice of Life with Olga once.

It is better to stay drunk because then it gives me beer goggles and every woman suddenly looks beautiful

It is better to stay drunk, because then it gives me beer goggles and every woman suddenly looks beautiful, and one starts to feel turned on; it is better to stay in this aroused state. Debord spent every day searching for the perfect point of inebriation; but of course as soon as it is achieved it is passed, and lost. Drink, giant tropical ferns, fauna and flora, classical music, naked women dancing. This is my lush life. —– gives me incredible freedom within the marriage to enjoy this; but I still have not successfully found the lush life I want. I am still searching for the lushness I feel I need. I tend to concentrate my search in King’s Cross and Soho but think I must search further afield. I found nothing in Brussels, Berlin or Vienna . I have got to find it in me first. You carry the weather with you. I wonder have I ever had a great experience sober? All the great experiences of my life, all the high nights that persuade us to put off suicide, came when I was drunk, I am sure of it. I am not capable of highs, of pleasure, when I am not drunk. When one starts drinking, anything becomes possible. The door to all sorts of pleasures opens. Rubicons can be crossed. Ishtar Gates passed through. Riccarda, Iga, Diana, Yulia, Emily, Martina, would never have happened if I was not drunk. Drink is the precondition for anything happening. “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.” Those amazing, amazing nights I had in Munich, Berlin, Brussels, Vienna were all fuelled by drink. Then why was I so unhappy? I had the freedom but craved something real. I was eviscerated by loneliness and emptiness. I was ripe for falling in love with the woman of my life, and then there was —– . “I don’t have a boyfriend in London !” Now I want to go back and enjoy all those places I used to enjoy. So I go back but—I find all those places are dark and closed down, no longer in business, and those that are open are filled with hideous crones, the same crones that excited me so much just 5, 6 years ago. Is loneliness, despair, essential to being able to enjoy the lush life?

At times of financial meltdown you have to hold onto what is imperishable and endures: gold

At times of financial meltdown you have to hold onto what is imperishable, and endures: gold. I have to make use of my gold. Locked away in my vaults all these years. I have to try to make use of it. That schoolgirl fascinates me more than I can say. She is such a floweringly beautiful 15 (16?) year old girl yet always looks so unhappy, like she is carrying some deep wound, dignified, and proud. Her lips are always set in a pout, she always walks so slowly, like she has nothing to look forward to in her life—yet she is staggeringly attractive and can have any boy or man she wants. Perhaps she has suffered a loss, the loss of a mother perhaps, or perhaps it is a romantic wound—that I will not approach her perhaps. I always feel a spark of electricity between us since those first times we saw each other back in September, October, eight months ago now. In an attempt to catch my attention, or rather to provoke me into acting on my attention, I fancy was the reason for her change from a demure brunette to a stunning bottle blonde with long hair all over the place. I really don’t like blondes, despite the only three real girlfriends of my life, Olga, R—, and —– all being blonde, but her appeal to me has not changed. I had not seen her for a long long time, what with the Easter holidays and then me always being late, but yesterday as the bus turned off of Tower Bridge Road there she was trudging slowly with eyes to the ground, back TOWARDS her bus stop, away from her school. As if she had been that way and was now coming back for some reason. I think she cannot live that way as there was a closer bus stop than the one I always see her at. Her being there at that corner was quite mysterious. And today she got on my bus for the first time in weeks, and then strangely got off one stop earlier. I wonder if this was to give me the chance to get off with her in peace away from the crowd of her schoolmates who all pile off with her at the usual stop and have the confidence to approach her. The other strange thing is she never acknowledges the other pupils on the bus in her same uniform. She seems so apart from them, indeed looks so different, like she belongs in a better place than this. It is strange to see a girl so staggeringly beautiful around these parts. Quite out of place. There is something special about her, and I think she knows that, and I think she recognises there is something special about me too, that is why she was attracted to me from the beginning and cannot now shake it off, and it weighs down her every step. She has a broken bleeding heart, yet still hopes by some miracle I will do something to make something happen. Yet—I can never approach her, she is just 15, perhaps 16. It has to come from her or not at all. So I will do nothing and soon will see her no more. But she is one of the special people of my life, already.

My problem with psychotherapy was I felt she was asking me to be someone who was not fully my true self but to live in some corset

My problem with psychotherapy was I felt she was asking me to be someone who was not fully my true self, but to live in some corset; and sometimes I think this affair is the same. I feel a constant frustration that I cannot be fully myself every day, and that breeds a low level resentment which is quite damaging to romance, or lust. “After two decades obscured by scaffolding, the Leaning Tower of Pisa basks in its full quirky glory”. I wanted Sarah to help me bask in my quirky glory; instead she wanted to knock me down and build a new tower, just like everyone else’s. I don’t feel I can bask in my full quirky glory now either. Perhaps I can only ever be alone. To be happy I have to be unhappy?

Now I am travelling between sheer rock faces on my little ship as the waters quicken and the channel narrows

Now I am travelling between sheer rock faces, on my little ship, as the waters quicken and the channel narrows. It seems that I must be dashed against the rocks or the walls, but this time the narrowing is caused by financial pressure. I am being squeezed to death like Princess Leia and Luke in the Death Star. I seriously give consideration to ending my affair with —–, to return home to mother for a year or two, to relieve the financial pressure and float my boat again. I am taking on water faster than I can bail it out. Something has to give. I dream of a magic solution, a way out of my predicament, with one bound I am free, Fantomas-style. Getting published, rich and famous; living alone again in a small studio flat; returning to mother’s for a year or so; moving to —–. Most of the options revolve around me being single. The cost to my soul and heart of that are quite difficult to imagine or quantify. I fought so long and hard to get the one woman in the universe I could love, so to consider letting her go to save money is quite hard to get my head around. But I feel locked in a vice, that is getting tighter and tighter and tighter. I have achieved one impossible dream in getting —–—me, the biggest loner in the world, the man most incapable of love or any human relationship because of his crippling shyness, gets —–, the woman everyone wants. Now I seek the second impossible dream—getting published, and earning money from my writings. Only by achieving this second impossible dream can I hold onto the first, I think. If not, my only way out of this impasse is to be single again. All great artists suffered crippling debts while trying to work, Wilde, Byron, Grimshaw. I tell myself not to give up, but to let —– go would improve my finances at a stroke. Then I would be free to miss her for the rest of my life.

I now have a craving to go see the Blechen pictures in Berlin

I now have a craving to go see the Blechen pictures in Berlin, and in Alte National Gallery. My four books Autismus, Lotta, The Cold Icy Air of the Mountains, and Casanova should be collected in one volume like The Cornelius Chronicles and the title will be Journals 1996-2007. The cover will be Blechen’s In the Palmhouse that I saw on that very first trip to Berlin, though each individual book can keep its title pages of Die Sünde, The Kiss, Tilla Durieux as Circe and Mars, Venus & Amor. I am happiest when writing, working on my books, I truly am. The hot summer sun outside, the ferns and trees blowing in the gentle breeze, butterflies fluttering in and out of the open French windows, some classical music playing from the gramophone, I work on, chipping away at the manuscripts. I can achieve a perfect balanced life by going to park or cinema or butterflies with —– in the daytime, then in the evenings shut myself away with my classical music my ferns and my writing. —– brings a South American exoticism to my life. We went out to a public park, Finsbury, and it was absolutely disgusting with litter all over the place. The trees and flowers were beautiful, but the overflowing litter bins and rubbish scattered everywhere you like made it repulsive. Visible evidence one suspects of the Government spending cuts already making themselves felt. How preferable to return to the lush ferns, fauna and flora of my studies and libraries at home, the French windows open to my own gardens, my own butterflies and aphids. My kakapo night parrot hopping up onto my shoulder and shatting down my nightgown. To put my Pintscher on the gramophone and resume my writing and reading, Byron’s biography today. I just have to see my way through any difficult moments in my marriage, because it is the richness of my life, the miracle of my life, the saving of my life. In —– I achieved an impossible dream, which makes me think it may yet to be possible to really achieve something with my writing.

I go to art museums in every city I go to so for me going to strip clubs to look at naked women is no different

I go to art museums in every city I go to, so for me going to strip clubs to look at naked women is no different. I walk around art museums very fast just glancing at the pictures I am passing waiting for the one picture that is going to leap off the walls and grab me—what it is that makes one picture grab hold of me and not let me go is something I cannot explain. It is the same at a strip club. Most sex dancers are mediocre in the extreme and you would never want to see them naked, but every once in a while you see one who has something that grabs hold of you. I am in love with beauty. I also look for beauty. I do not regard that as cheating on my wife anymore than stopping off in Munich just to see Die Sünde is cheating, or going to Antwerp to see Cleopatra again is cheating. I am just letting my eyes gaze on beauty. I am hungry for it. With me everything revolves around the eyes. I am a scopophiliac. I must look on beauty. If my wife is home I will leave work on the stroke of 5 to be home with her as soon as possible. If she is out working then I will fill the time by finding other beauty to detain me.

How excited I used to feel in The Goose in the old days before the long breathless hyperventilating walk to L— to see —-

How excited I used to feel in The Goose in the old days before the long breathless hyperventilating walk to L— to see —-. That is why it still means something to be there now. Apart from strip pubs my favourite drinking places are the pubs I go to ON THE WAY to the strip pub—The Goose in Walthamstow, the Nellie Dean in Soho, the Chandos in St Martin’s Lane, the Black Hole of Calcutta under the Charing Cross Hotel, The Tottenham in Oxford Street, the Plaza bar in Berlin, Dorint bar in Vienna, Intercity Hotel bar in Munich, the Ibis bar in Brussels. To drink each pint and feel my anticipation rising with every sip till I can take no more and feel I am going absolutely crazy with lust. I am such a lush. Lush. Maybe that is my title. A lush verdant life with ferns and fauna all around me, a beautiful voluptuous redhead wife in the bed, nights in the fleshpots of Europe. Drunkenly taking myself from classical music recital to Tallulah to Esmeralda. I need to rediscover this lush life. From my bedchamber in the Justice Palace.

On the bus back from Gatwick I saw the most amazing series of beautiful sexy women

On the bus back from Gatwick I saw the most amazing series of beautiful sexy women, starting at Piccadilly Circus and then along the entire length of Shaftesbury Avenue, although it dwindled out as rapidly as it started once we turned into the Charing Cross Road and then New Oxford Street, though there were three most stunningly beautiful brunettes on the bus with me for various stages of the journey all the way back to ——-, all of whom sought some eye contact with me. Sometimes I feel in bloom, I really do, though it is only ever fleeting. That is Spring for you. The funny thing is that now Moloch has become merely a waiting room between trips to Vienna and Munich and Berlin and Frankfurt, it has brought Moloch to some kind of life for me. No longer is Moloch my prison for the rest of my life, it is but a waiting room between travels. One can live happily in a waiting room but not in a prison, even if one has to wait for six months at a time.

The Original Dangerous Drug (Can Coffee Wreck Your Marriage?) “Back in 17th-century England, King Charles wasn’t the only person who thought coffee was a social vice”

The Original Dangerous Drug (Can Coffee Wreck Your Marriage?) “Back in 17th-century England, King Charles wasn’t the only person who thought coffee was a social vice. The Women’s Petition Against Coffee of 1674 claimed all-male coffee houses were responsible for “a very sensible Decay of that Old English Vigour . . .” by promoting “the excessive use of that Newfangled, Abominable, Heathenish liquor called Coffee, which . . . has so Eunucht our Husbands and Crippled our more kind gallants they come from it with nothing moist but their snotty noses, nothing stiffe but their Joints . . .” prompting the men’s response that it “makes the erection more Vigorous, the Ejaculation more full, adds spiritualescency to the Sperme”.” It was nice going on a pub crawl with —–. The Spouter’s Corner, The Angel, The William Blake, The Masque Haunt. Perhaps she is trying to do with me the things that I like doing to keep me happy. She was even incredibly enthused about the idea of us moving to live in Belgium, or Berlin, “why don’t we go? Why don’t we start to plan to go?”, and coming to the dirty night-time places with me so we can do those dirty things together where no one knows us. She was so excited by the idea, despite its evident impracticality. Wouldn’t it be lovely if we won the lottery to spend the rest of our lives touring the fleshpots of Europe together!

I could have had sexual adventure in Brussels, Berlin or Vienna but I did nothing

I could have had sexual adventure in Brussels, Berlin or Vienna, but I did nothing. There was nothing I wanted. If I’d met a T—, an A—– or a D—- it might have been different. I still think there must be an Esmeralda out there with my name on her but I may never find her. The great days of Yulia, Riccarda, Iga, Diana, Emily, Martina, Maria seem long gone. That whole world does not excite me like it used to, it does not excite me at all. I still keep going because I don’t know what else to do. Being at Gatwick waiting for my flight to Vienna at least WAS a little bit exciting and erotic, so that was a good sign. Contrast that with my total misery on the Eurostar to Brussels in September. I think going for one night only is better, then I can always tell myself I can be home tomorrow. What on earth would I have done for a second night in Vienna? I went to all the places I really wanted to go. I woke up the next morning feeling completely miserable. A couple of hours back down in the Dorint bar cheered me up a bit before the bus back to the airport.

I can only write about my experience

I can only write about my experience. I cannot write about Merkel, or Bild, or Portugal bankruptcy. I can only write about walking around the Gurtel, or crossing the corner of Schillerstraße, or rounding Olivaer Platz. This is my unique experience. I shake my experience for meaning. I analyse everything that happens to me and all my feelings. Everything I do is an experiment that I carry out in order to yield results.

Now when I am tempted to feel bored like this Saturday afternoon in Moloch with NOWHERE TO GO

Now when I am tempted to feel bored, like this Saturday afternoon in Moloch with NOWHERE TO GO, I remind myself you can go to Munich in the next month, and straightaway I brighten up. Lamm’s, Turkentor, New Pin, Atlantic City at night, maybe even Nuremberg and Caribic. The city of Emily and Irina and Martina and Patricia and Bella Rosa and Susi and Viktoriya. I felt calm and relaxed in Vienna, hope I will in Munich, too.

Perhaps in years to come people will want to sit in the seat K1 of the English National Opera balcony because it is where I used to sit

Perhaps in years to come people will want to sit in the seat K1 of the English National Opera balcony because it is where I used to sit. They will want to stay in the Dorint, and the Berlin Plaza, and the Munich Intercity, and the Brussels Ibis because it is where I used to stay. I remember when I used to sit at the Dorint bar studying the Vienna map for where I am going today—but I have been everywhere now. Amazing to think Lotta and Sophia are probably 26-27 now. Probably married with kids.

I have enjoyed this brief visit to Wien. The night wasn’t completely successful but as we say it has kept the pendulum swinging

I have enjoyed this brief visit to Wien. The night wasn’t completely successful, but as we say, it has kept the pendulum swinging. The room was beautiful. There are no white-shirted Dorint barmaids! For a start the uniform is now a ghastly purple and they are all men. No young busty 18-year-old Swedish girls. No more Wiener Zwiebel Rostbratens on the menu! Everything gets worse. This is the law of life. However, I would still come back, maybe for an extra day—very different from my feelings after Brussels and Berlin. Pour Platin has shut down? It is funny out of all the places in Berlin Mon Cheri was the best and that is the one that has closed. Out of all the places in Vienna Pour Platin was the best and that is the one that has closed. Indeed, I lost my Berlin virginity in Mon Cheri and I lost my Vienna virginity in Pour Platin, and they are the two places that have closed! However, Cora’s picture in the Laufhaus intrigues me—my bad luck she is on zwei woche urlaub. There is a Schiele exhibition at the Belvedere I must come back for. I never got to Stephansdom or the Butterfly House either, too busy sleeping off the hangover. Ah the most gorgeous thick-black-haired waitress has brought a meal for two diners—big girl, really pretty. It is raining in Vienna again. I can’t wait to come back now, and for longer. At the last moment, my faith in Vienna has been partially restored. This trip has given me renewed belief that it is worth trying Munich again, perhaps even Frankfurt. Did I see any good Esmeraldas? In 6 she was OK, in Okay they were okay but the porn film on the screen was better. Pour Platin was closed. In Tete-a-Tete they were ok. The only one who looked spectacular was Cora who was on holiday. The ML films were good though nothing spectacular. I think I have just grabbed hold of the rope of travel again, and can perhaps begin to pull myself back on to the ship, in time. But it needs commitment and investment, of time, money and energy. I don’t care if I can afford it or not. This trip to Vienna has not given me much but it has given me a little bit, and that little bit is better than nothing. Better than the desert of Moloch.

I was halfway through my first Zipfer at the Dorint bar before I looked behind the bar and realised this is where Lotta stood eight years ago

I was halfway through my first Zipfer at the Dorint bar before I looked behind the bar and realised this is where Lotta stood eight years ago. It was quite an incredibly powerful moment. I travel always looking for another Lotta; another Riccarda; another Yulia, Diana, Iga, Emily, Martina—but I never meet them anymore. I travel looking for the real Lotta again, really. The more Zipfer I have the more that four days with Lotta comes more and more back to life—and the gap between that memory and this present reality more and more stark. When I look at —– I feel I am looking at myself. I feel so inseparable from her. If we met years in the future, having not seen each other for all these years, I would break down in tears unable to control my grief. Six years since I have been in the Dorint bar. Unbelievable. I miss my youth and innocence and hairtrigger eroticism of those days. But, I suppose, not the pain, the tortures, the agonies. When I start drinking, I only want to be alone, it’s true. This incredible paradox of being with someone is so hard for me to get my head around. For a normal person this is normal. To enjoy sin I’ve got to be so drunk that I cannot see, so I’ve completely lost my moral compass. Moral compass. What does that mean for a man like me. Being on my own at Gatwick I felt the most incredible hunger for every woman I saw; this is why I have to travel. Nothing happens, but that feeling keeps me feeling young, alive. I look at the armchair I sat in when Lotta suddenly appeared at my shoulder 8 years ago, and it seems like another lifetime, a dream; not something that really happened. But that’s how my journeys used to be. Unbelievable fantasies made real. 730pm I’m the only person in the bar. From 630 to 745 there has been no one in the restaurant. Does everything get worse? Is this the law of life? The Dorint bar carpet looks exactly the same as the Ibis Brussels bed rugs. That seems a fascinating thing to discover. Sitting alone in the Dorint bar is pleasurable enough to tell me I will travel again, in the next month or so. My old addiction has returned. The bar staff may be boring, but! Remember Lotta and Sophia worked days! There is still hope for tomorrow. It feels like something extraordinary to realise the Dorint carpet is the exact same as the Ibis bedspreads. Now when I travel it’s just all memories—is this what turning 40 is? I wouldn’t recommend it!

My hotel room in Vienna is I think the most beautiful I’ve ever had. The Dorint pleases me very much

My hotel room in Vienna is I think the most beautiful I’ve ever had. The Dorint pleases me very much. Being here makes me realise I must stop going out in Moloch trying in vain to find any jollies—I must live like a monk in Moloch and save all my money for monthly visits to Vienna, Munich, Frankfurt, and Berlin. But will I ever meet another Yulia or Riccarda or Iga or Diana in Berlin—it seems those days are gone. The Mon Cheri golden age, “the claustrophobic stifle of a Berlin apartment”. I don’t want to go to any place that advertises its girls on its website, with pictures and times—I want to find one by myself by chance in the sleazy places. But that scene is dead in Moloch—no more Olgas or Pamelas—and it seems to be in Berlin, too. We will soon see what Vienna holds. Moloch will go back to just being a waiting room for my visits to Europe. I sit here imagining I am not here for one night but am permanently single. I feel so happy here in Vienna, compared to how miserable I was in Brussels and Berlin. Perhaps that will change by the time I next put pencil to Dorint paper. “Sex in the air I don’t care I love the smell of it.”

No time for the Secession building & the Beethoven frieze on this brief flying visit or the Schoenberg Foundation

No time for the Secession building & the Beethoven frieze on this brief flying visit, or the Schoenberg Foundation, Karl Kraus’s house, the Belvedere, KHM, Zentralfriedhof. No Third Man sites. How I have blossomed and bloomed since the cerebral, mind-obsessed pages of Autismus is quite extraordinary, yet in another way I have not moved on at all. I have become more relaxed and at ease in my own skin, but still the eternal battle between love, art and eros rages in me. Like scratching a mark above a child’s head every year to measure how fast they are growing, it will be interesting to see how different I feel in Vienna this time; from the neurotic first 4 day stay in 1998, to the three days of exquisite masturbation on the way to Oslo, then falling in love with Lotta & Sophia, to my last time six years ago when I finally lost my Vienna virginity. Now I am living in Moloch with a sex dancer from The ———, after an affair with another Tallulah from the same place, and before that an Esmeralda, a sumptuous Siberian Cleopatra, with a big cat’s face, purple fingernails and blonde highlighted bob. Back in 1998 I never imagined I would ever be with a woman, or could ever be. Eroticism is the motor of life, it is what makes the world go around, and I have no shame in admitting I have devoted my life to it. Let those who are family men be family men, those who are businessmen be businessmen, but I live for eros alone. Priapism, persistent erection of the penis, has been my guiding philosophy since I was almost old enough to walk. There is no pleasure to compare with the swelling of one’s member, feeling all the warm blood beginning to fill it; it is even better than orgasm. Anticipation is everything. Resolution is merely putting the lid on it so one can return home, over Dowson’s Shaftesbury Avenue, across a rain-swept torrential Leicester Square, pass the statue of Oscar Wilde, into the bosom of the Charing Cross Hotel; or across a beautiful vast tree-canopied Kurfurstendamm with a bulge that still refuses to go down one little bit, around Olivaer Platz and its erotic window-display mannequins, back to the Plaza; back around the Gurtel to the Dorint; around the corner of Schillerstraße on shaking legs over the tramlines back to the Intercity; or back down the interminable never ending Boulevard Adolphe Max to the Ibis. Oh these high nights of erotic swooning, those high moments that “persuade us to put off suicide”. This my career in infamy has brought me. I like Nietzche am grateful to what my years of sickness have wrought in me.

I do want to try to squeeze in St Stephen’s, the Butterfly House, and the Albertina into my one Tuesday morning in Vienna

I do want to try to squeeze in St Stephen’s, the Butterfly House, and the Albertina into my one Tuesday morning in Vienna. More likely I will still be sleeping in an alcoholic stupor from the night before and will barely have time to rush to the airport to catch my 330 flight home. Zat is ze life mein friends. I always try to force myself to go to art galleries because there is always one picture that will stick in your mind and haunt you for the rest of your life. Similarly, I always try to force myself to go to classical music recitals, as there will always be one single young woman in the crowd looking out for a similarly inclined young man.

THERE IS NOTHING FOR ME TO DO IN LONDON NOW. THERE IS NOWHERE I CAN GO

THERE IS NOTHING FOR ME TO DO IN LONDON NOW. THERE IS NOWHERE I CAN GO, NOTHING I CAN ENJOY DOING. NOTHING NAUGHTY I CAN DO. I HAVE TO TRAVEL. RETURN TO VIENNA, MUNICH, FRANKFURT, BERLIN, BRUSSELS.

My four year battle for —– turned into a psychodrama between the two of us which in its own way became highly addictive and in a masochistic kind of way pleasurable

My four year battle for —– turned into a psychodrama between the two of us, which in its own way became highly addictive, and in a masochistic kind of way, pleasurable. Before that, my feelings for her, initially not bothered either way, had been growing almost undetected inside me like “a slow burning fuse nearing its moment of detonation”. No one was more surprised than me when I realised I loved her, and could not live without her.

Preparing for a trip passes so much time (so much longer than the trip itself) and is so enjoyable

Preparing for a trip passes so much time (so much longer than the trip itself), and is so enjoyable. Anticipation is everything—in travel as in eroticism. You know you are going to be disappointed when you get there but the experienced traveller is prepared for this, and is already fortified against disappointment. There is no way out of this financial Venus Fly Trap I am in. Austerity measures for the next 10 years would just destroy my growth. My only possible get out of jail card is to publish my books that I have been writing during all these years of travelling and debauchery. That is the only card I have got up my sleeve. What a miracle of my life that I have got this amazing beautiful, sexy woman who loves me, and accepts me totally as I am. How on earth did this happen. It could end at any moment but I will treasure it as long as it lasts.

It is incredible but even if I do feel like going out later I have NOWHERE to go

It is incredible but even if I do feel like going out later, I have NOWHERE to go. In Berlin I would be happy spending every evening in the Plaza bar before strolling to the BEC later, in Brussels I would be happy spending every evening in the Ibis bar before strolling to the ABC later, in Vienna I would be happy spending every evening in the Dorint bar before strolling around the Gurtel later, in Munich I would be happy spending every evening in the Atlantic City. All my money must be reserved for travelling now. Short, quick trips. It will be interesting whether my trip to Vienna will leave me feeling oh I wish I could stay an extra day, or whether I will be desperate to come home as I was from Brussels & Berlin. I could not bear the thought of having to stay any longer in Brussels or Berlin. I hope Vienna will be different. Get home tonight and start planning my Vienna trip meticulously with my ferns and my classical music around me.

I keep saying I like P&P but it is the idea of P&P that turns me on, the reality does not

I keep saying I like P&P but it is the idea of P&P that turns me on, the reality does not. It feels like Oscar’s “cold mutton”. I have just looked, windowshopped, without partaking, but still the reality leaves me totally cold. Perhaps this is the process, the reality leaves me cold first, then even the thought will, then I will be recovered. Word of a Marilyn does intrigue me and I will have to at least go to have a look at her before giving up on Soho again but it is without enthusiasm or desire. Before I would sleep with anything. Now I am so so fussy, nothing I see would entice me however drunk I was. I’m just not desperate for it anymore, and I rather think you have to be. I behaved like a jerk with —– again on Saturday night but thankfully she already forgave me on Sunday morning. I have to drink on Saturday. It is one day I like to let all the bats out of the Belfry. Cherry blossom everywhere.

Since I booked the Vienna flight and hotel my love for redheaded —– has burst out of me like a fountain

Since I booked the Vienna flight and hotel, my love for redheaded —– has burst out of me like a fountain. She has never looked so beautiful and I have never loved her so strongly. I miss her already. My love has bloomed and blossomed like the cherry blossom all over Moloch in the last two days. This is why I should travel. How much I enjoy eating and drinking; how much I do NOT enjoy pornography and prostitution. When am I going to accept this; the pleasures lie in drinking and getting starving hungry then eating.

The next trip will have to be Munich in June, City in the Autumn Stars, Night of the Snow

The next trip will have to be Munich in June, City in the Autumn Stars, Night of the Snow, Susi, Patricia, Bella Rosa, Emily, Irina, Viktoriya, Martina, where I have left so much blood on the tracks, wow what an incredible city that has been for me, get an early flight so I can be at Intercity by 12, giving me time for afternoon Lamm’s, Augustiner, then sleep before evening Atlantic and Sexyland. Then Berlin in August, Yulia, Riccarda, Iga, Diana, all long gone, an early flight giving me time for Pils and knesepfanne,then sleep before evening what? Stuttgarter, is it worth it again? Ciro, Mazurka, is it worth it again? So why Berlin? Perhaps better Frankfurt? Poststrasse hotel, O’Neills, then evening out. More life there than Berlin last time I went. Esmeraldas cheap and plentiful, to say the least. But oh so like a factory, not an iota of sinful seduction. Strauss’s Intermezzo blazing from the gramophone in the corner of the office.

I offer a guide to the world of strip clubs, brothels and porn cinemas from the point of view of a gentleman connoisseur—a sort of bosom Baedeker

I offer a guide to the world of strip clubs, brothels and porn cinemas from the point of view of a gentleman connoisseur—a sort of bosom Baedeker. An unhealthy obsession with bosoms and buttocks has led me to a very rich life, and an expensive one. The “voluptuous sea of scented bosoms” claimed me at a very young age, and has never let me go. The other Esmeraldas who I nearly got involved with but ran away from at the last moment were Pamela, a young Swedish girl with gorgeously pretty face and big bosoms, Lela a Romanian with the most perfect bottom, and Olga, who was just massively voluptuous all over with a big cat’s face, like Master & Margarita, my sumptuous Siberian Cleopatra. That I have a mind completely bitten by the serpent of sex will by now have become apparent.

I will plan my visit to Vienna in the Lyric

I will plan my visit to Vienna in the Lyric, just over the road from not only the Windmill but also the Red Lion where Marx and Engels planned their Communist Manifesto, the Red Lion now a Be@One of course—“Workers of the World Be At One”? Next to us is the empty lot where once stood the model’s flats where I made the acquaintance of Ana Maria, one of my favourites. I kept asking her to “come home with me, come home with me” as I always do, and she would always say “no, I don’t finish till 4am” but then one Saturday night she seemed nervous and shy and casually mentioned she was finishing at midnight tonight, in 20 minutes time, and also that her car is parked near Trafalgar Square. It seemed she had at last decided to risk taking me up on my invitation, but then her nerve failed her, and she just got rid of me. I stopped going there after that. When Esmeraldas start getting affectionate they scare me. As do Tallulahs, yet my last two girlfriends have been Tallulahs, and before that it was an Esmeralda.

Back to the F– and I really don’t want to go. Just the thought of —– in the gloom

Back to the F–, and I really don’t want to go. Just the thought of —– in the gloom, with her dark red hair, dancing to Dusty Springfield last night with that far away smile she always has when she is drinking Budweisers. I don’t want to drink tonight, but expect I will. I just don’t have the impetus to do all those naughty things I talk about. When it comes to it, I cannot go through with it. I just can’t be bothered. I’d rather go home and listen to Radio 3 amidst my ferns, French windows open to the dark night garden. Little spirits and will’o’th’wisps flitting between the black trees.

After the Vienna Monday night a month or so later I can go for a Munich Monday night

After the Vienna Monday night, a month or so later, I can go for a Munich Monday night in May (early flight giving me chance for Monday afternoon Lamm’s) back in the Intercity Jugendstil, then a Berlin Monday night in July (early flight giving me chance for a Monday afternoon Knesepfanne) back in the gorgeous Berlin Plaza. And I will find a magnificent Esmeralda in Moloch. Brussels I can rest for a while. I must really lose my shackles this year. We can live together as loving brother & sister like Les Enfants Terribles (Parents Terribles).

I have to create these crises so I have some Bessemer Furnace to forge my writing in

I have to create theses crises so I have some Bessemer Furnace to forge my writing in. Some reactions take place so I can observe the particles smashing into each other and start recording my observations again. By resuming my European trips I am provoking a crisis, financial, and marital, already I am excited.

Let us have a knowing understanding with each other. She knowing I have to travel to Vienna, Berlin, Munich or Brussels

Let us have a knowing understanding with each other. She knowing I have to travel to Vienna, Berlin, Munich or Brussels every two months for one night only to irrigate my soul. She said the shackles are off–you can go where you want. My four visits to Vienna have been amazing in different ways. Will this time be a disaster? I want my complete freedom and to have her to come home to. I want to have my cake and eat it. I want the best of both worlds. Why should one not ask for that? She may want to ask for the best of both worlds, too. I am not unfair.

I have to keep going to Europe the way Kenneth Williams had to keep going back to Tangiers

I have to keep going to Europe, the way Kenneth Williams had to keep going back to Tangiers. I realise now it is exactly the same thing. Most of his visits were disappointing, but a few weeks later he was desperate to go back again. You have to keep the pendulum swinging. Thinking about going to Vienna has brought me back to life. —— said the shackles are off—you are free to go where you want. The love, tenderness and affection is there, but I need more road space. But surely one night in Vienna is NOT going to be enough is it? Lovely to wake up the next morning in my Dorint hotel bed, looking forward to a day in St Stephen’s and the Belvedere and the KHM, and a second night exploring,  before flying home the next morning. I have to resume travelling. It is my life-blood. It irrigates my soul and keeps me growing. A new era of exploration must begin. How on earth I am going to fund it I have no idea? Try to sell my books? Friday morning I DID really enjoy those Stellas in the Ibis bar didn’t I? Shame I had to leave to catch the train to Berlin. Friday night I DID really enjoy those Pils in the Berlin Plaza bar didn’t I? I will surely love the Zipfers in the Dorint bar, if nothing else.

I want to investigate the notion that the web has killed eroticism. For that I would need to be alone

I want to investigate the notion that the web has killed eroticism. For that I would need to be alone, and spend a lot of time in Vienna, Berlin, Munich and Brussels. It seems the scene has died everywhere, London Soho and Berlin, but maybe it is me that just changed when I became a family man. When I left R— on Twelfth Night I saw vistas of complete freedom open up before me but just a few hours later before the end of the night those vistas were closed off again. But I love her. If we split up, the Ice Age would envelop me instantly. All love, comfort, tenderness, affection, cut off like a switch. She would be vicious in enjoying her new single life.

If —– did leave me wouldn’t the despair of sitting at the Ibis bar drinking my Stellas be absolutely exquisite?

If —– did leave me, wouldn’t the despair of sitting at the Ibis bar drinking my Stellas be absolutely exquisite? In that nihilistic frame of mind would I not take pleasure from ANYTHING I might find at Gare du Nord? Nihilism, that is the ingredient that I am missing, without that I believe eroticism is not possible. Over the last 13 months, the times when it looked like —– and me were finished, and she just left the house without telling where she was going, the wild rausch and intoxication I felt in storming drunkenly around London looking for her was incredible. If —– did leave me, wouldn’t the despair of sitting at the Berlin Plaza bar with my Berliner Pils be absolutely exquisite? Before debauching myself in a kino with total nihilism? If —– did leave me, wouldn’t the despair of sitting at the Dorint bar with my Zipfers be absolutely exquisite? Always this pleasure in despair. It is all I have known all my life, it is all I knew from the moment I was born. It is all I am comfortable with, it is the only air I can breathe. In a family, I feel like a fish out of water. I cannot breathe. I can only breathe in pain and despair. Book that flight to Vienna. Precipitate that crisis. Perhaps we should just split up for a while. Europe only comes to life for me when I have nothing at home and am totally nihilistic. Then I have all the time in the world on my hands, I can spend one day going to the Belvedere and St Stephen’s, the next day going to KHM and the Butterfly House, but more than anything just sitting at bars watching the world go by thinking about the girl I lost.

The three days of exquisite masturbation in Vienna in 2001 on the way to Oslo are a legend of my life

The three days of exquisite masturbation in Vienna in 2001 on the way to Oslo are a legend of my life. I don’t know what came over me. Well I do, and that was the strange thing, instead of catching myself in a tissue or my underwear I laid back and let it come all over my stomach and chest, time and time again. I have never done that before or since. It was a mixture of the black psychotic despair I travelled with combined with the sinful seductiveness in the Vienna air, I think. It was a combustible mixture and it was just set off. The days with Lotta & Sophia are a legend of my life. Maria in Pour Platin is a legend of my life. I feel like just going ahead and booking my April flight now and done with it. Despair and hopelessness are the vital ingredients for a true eroticism I think. Perhaps I need —— to leave me before I will ever know true erotic pleasure again. The pain and despair of that will overwhelm anything I have ever felt before. I want to really wallow in that pain and despair again. Am I really prepared to let —— go to do that? Perhaps better if I go to Vienna as soon as possible so I can answer a question to myself—provoke the crisis now, and now see what comes out of the crisis. There needs to be an explosion and a reordering. Perhaps when the smoke clears she will be gone, then I will be alone for the rest of my life.