My dearest friend and ex-boyfriend Paul Shurey 24/12/59 - 14/4/13 R.I.P. has died.

A massive stroke eventually killed him in a hospital in Goa but the precise circumstances of why he was in the hospital are a little sketchy. It doesn't really matter to me. He's gone and I miss him.

Paul and I met 20 years ago when he was a big-time rave promoter. His girlfriend at the time said, "Can't wait for you to meet Paul, your gonna love him". And I did. We instantly got on and would chat, chat, chat. He loved my scene and I loved his.

Soon he invited me to bring a coach load of fetishists to cavort in the VIP tent. One time we all dressed in kinky camouflage and performed on one of the main stages. My friend Anita shouting to Lauren Garner to, "Whack it up mate!"

He also booked me to take a coach load of perverts to Munich and we hosted the VIP room.

I lost touch with Paul for many years only seeing him once in Club RUB Christmas 2002. We had a Christmas kiss, our first. There one minute, then gone the next.

In the summer of 2009 Don Eales invited me to an office-block party and declared Paul would be coming. I was excited to see him. Upon arriving and seeing me Paul instantly told me I was gorgeous, beautiful, stunning and repeatedly kissed me. We started dating. We were a couple.

In December Paul took me to Cork in Ireland for Christmas and to meet his mother Gill and her partner/husband John. It was a magical time. Gill and I got on like a house on fire. Their home is stunning, half way up a mountain and in the middle on nowhere. It felt just right. Paul showered me with gifts. He's very generous and takes time to think about what you would really like.

We went to my house in Spain 2010 when the football was on TV. Paul had found a bar to go and watch England surrounded by Spaniards. Paul had no fear and would try to converse with everyone. He was also extremely funny when he'd had a couple of beers. Upon his return we had such a fun time on the patio and in the garden. I loved it when Paul to talk to me with a German accent (which he was very good at), we laughed and bandied jokes backwards and forwards.

Beer and sunshine...hilarity!

It occurred to me that we had a possible career as a stand-up comedic double act. Which Paul loved the idea of. He picked it up and ran with it for the course of the fuel he had inside. I would be Mistress Sauer and him - Unkraut. Which in German translates to 'weed'! Him the intelligent rich banker living in London and me the common dominatrix, that has all the put-on airs and graces (who he feeds the lines too). Oh how we laughed throughout the holiday adding to our characters!

Paul loved my house in Tarragona. We would arrive and he would set about getting the beds made, mowing the lawn and visiting the supermarket. He treated the place like his own. Each time we would say, "let's bring your mum". Antway we have a trip booked for June 5th 2013. Paul's Mum arrives on June 7th, only on this occasion it will just be me to meet her at the 'arrivals' in Reus airport. We both still want to go. Gill thinks she will need a break by then. I want to show her what Paul and I enjoyed doing. Mostly for Paul it was sitting in the sun on a lounger and reading a book whilst smoking!

You only had to meet Paul once and you never forgot him. He had a way of making you feel like he cared about you and wanted to help you. He did care too! Altruistic always. That's why there are so many messages on his Facebook page. You might not remember his face but you remembered the names and the enthusiasm of a man that was filled with life.

I kind o,f want to get this all out...so I will return :)

I have LOADS of photos!

My musical loves include Air. Whenever I go to my house in Spain it's the first sound track I put on. It seems to go perfectly with the sunshine. Then followed closely by Chill Bossa Mamma Mia. Neil A. introduced me to this fab CD. It's full of Abba covers to the rythm of the bossa nova.

This takes me right back to my early 20's and getting ready to go out, only to dance to this type of music all night. A CD of various artists – The Greatest 80's Soul Weekender (disc 1) via @lastfm.

There are loads of Northern Soul tracks that take me back to a time when I was sixteen and desperately in love with my first love Alan. He introduced me to his first love 'soul' music. This film show the dancers 15 years after Northern Soul was at it's height. The must all be about 30/35.

Love all the tracks on Apollo 440 Dude Decending The Staircase - it's very eclectic. At the last minute I dropped it in my suitcase on a trip to Morocco. I loved all their albums, however, this was Apollo 440's fourth and last studio album. Taking its name from a neo-psycadelic painting by Ausgang, its acid funk influences couldn't be more apparent if they had a photo of George Clinton on the cover (which is proably why I like it).

We embarked on a road trip across the Atlas Moiuntain and into the Sahara in a Mercades and there was the sounds track to many of the views. I also bought all the Budda Bar CD's in the Marrakesh souk. These turned me on to the talents of Craig Armstrong.

GRAVELANDS CD is Elvis Presley style covers of rock classics by Jimmy THE KING. Its great to play to unsuspecting dinner guests, the look of confusion has started many a conversation. The idea of Elvis who has died covering songs from other artists who have also died. The album opens with Nirvana's " Come as you are" with one of the best bass lines in history and the strange thing is that it works! We are then treated to a version of Joy Division's "Love will tear us apart". Genius.

My radio stations of choice are either Classical or Chill FM. Classical is permanatly on in my kitchen. CHILL goes on when folks come over and we are chatting.

I love stuff like this...

Where did "Piss Poor" come from?

They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot and then once a day it was taken and sold to the tannery. If you had to do this to survive you were "Piss Poor".  But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn't even afford to buy a pot. They "didn't have a pot to piss in" and were the lowest of the low.

Here are some facts about the 1500's.

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and they still smelled pretty good by June. However, since they were starting to smell, brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the Bath water!"

Houses had thatched roofs, thick straw piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof.  When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying, "It's raining cats and dogs."  There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house.  This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt.  Hence the saying, "Dirt poor." The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery
in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance-way. Hence: a thresh hold.

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire.  Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while.

Hence the rhyme: “Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old”.

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, "bring home the bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and "chew the fat".

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes,
so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the upper crust.

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around
and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom; “of holding a wake”.

England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin
and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift.) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, “saved by the bell” or was “considered a dead ringer”.

And that's the truth. Now, whoever said History was boring!

On the Road - Jack Kerouac

When I was a teenager, the novel On the Road by Jack Kerouac was the bible for any aspiring bohemian, a book that was passed on from one friend to the next almost as if it were a talisman.  On the Road instilled in me a belief that, in order to find oneself, one had to throw caution to the wind and travel long distances with no real goal and very little money. It was this belief that has endowed me with my own priceless memories.

The Razor's Edge - W. Somerset Maughan

The Razor's Edge is an unusual amalgam — three-quarters witty social commentary about American and European society, one-quarter Eastern philosophy, all bound together with impeccable prose.

The Caliph's House - Tahir Shah

The writer, disenchanted with British city life buys an abandoned residence on the edge of Casablanca's shanty town that, rumour had it, once belonged to the city's Caliph. Childhood memories of holidaying with his folks, led him to Morocco and to 'Dar Khalifa'.  This Dar came with some unwanted guests, its jinn’s (ghosts). So begins Tahir Shah's gloriously vivid, funny, affectionate and compelling account of how he and his family - aided, abetted and so often hindered by a wonderful cast of larger-than-life local characters: guardians, gardeners, builders, artisans, bureaucrats and police (not forgetting the jinn's, the spirits that haunt the house) - returned the Caliph's House to its former glory and learned to make this most exotic and alluring of countries their home. This book gave me a very realistic impression of the country I love, the magical, multi-faceted, contradictory country that is Morocco. It also stopped me wanting to buy a house there!

Empress Orchid - Anchee Min

My favourite review and I couldn't agree more 'Rich in detail and historical background, the novel drenches readers in the colours, textures and affluence of the Forbidden City ... a stirring, exotic novel that is a treat for the senses and the intellect alike' Los Angeles Times.

Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson

This book made me laugh out loud. OMG what a drug riddled adventure.

Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand

I was given a battered copy by an ex-boyfriend and, even before I read it, I knew that it carried within its pages some deep, abiding truth about motivations, freedom and self-determination. I went on to read all her books We The Living, The Fountainhead and Anthem.

Tuesdays with Morrie - Mitch Albom

In Mitch Albom's best-seller book ‘Tuesdays With Morrie’, the author examines what life is all about and its most important values. As Mitch attended university, Morris Schwartz, known as Morrie, taught him at least one sociology course per year. He developed a close relationship with the professor and promised to stay in touch after graduation. Although life took Mitch on a different course, he heard, thanks to a TV interview, that his old professor suffered from an illness. After a 16-year gap, he renewed his acquaintance with Morrie. Together, they charted the professor's final course, his journey to death from ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). The journey forces the reader to address what is really important in life. Then I read...

The Five People You Will Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

The story starts out with a grumpy old lonely man named Eddie. He works at a carnival which has deeper meaning to him than just spinning rides and cotton candy stands. He had no idea that his 83rd birthday it would be his last, as he saved an innocent girl from a broken carnival ride, but gave his own. Now in heaven he meets five people who remind him of his past. They show how he affected the world in a way that was unconscious to him. Through the adventure he realises his true life's meaning. After reading The Five People You Meet in Heaven it made me wonder if I have impacted other peoples lives?

The Catcher in the Rye - J. D. Salinger

J. D.  Salinger's classic The Catcher in the Rye illustrates a teenager's dramatic struggle against death and growing up. Main character Holden Caufield recounts the days following his expulsion from Pencey Prep, a private school. After a fight with his roommate, Stradlater, Holden leaves school two days early to explore New York before returning home, interacting with teachers, prostitutes, nuns, an old girlfriend, and his sister along the way

The Boy in The Striped Pyjamas - John Boyne

Set during World War II, a story seen through the innocent eyes of Bruno, the eight-year-old son of the commandant at a concentration camp, whose forbidden friendship with a Jewish boy on the other side of the camp fence has startling and unexpected consequences.

A Million Little Pieces - James Frey

This book has amazing review from everyone. Read on: 'The last remarkable book I read... I couldn't put it down.' (Q Magazine, Dave Matthews) or 'Frey really can write. Brilliantly. And if you don't think so, f*** you' (Evening Standard ) or 'This book is definitely going to be huge ... There is no question that he's a good writer. As soon as you start reading the book, Frey's voice rings out. It's clear and sharp and turbocharged ... We love rehab memoirs. This is a good one. It might even be a great one' (Independent ) 'I agree with all above' (Kim)

1421 - Gavin Menzies

Who discovered America? Fact: the Chinese!

Mists of Avalon - Marlon Zimmerman Bradley

Mists of Avalon was given to me whilst in California from a dear friend. I'd been reading this book just before I went to sleep. With my imagination fully fuelled I dreamt I was flying. Arms stretched wide, I flew around like an Eagle. After a lifetime of listening to my sister and father telling me how great it was, I had my own experience. I was also taught magic with stones and it was so real I could feel the stones in my hand. My commentary on this book is that it's 'magical'.

Tales of the City - Armistead Maupin.

After living in San Francisco in the 80's reading all these books was like going on a trip down memory lane.

Wonderland Avenue - Danny Sugarman

What more can you say about a book that was written by the Doors manager! Sex, drugs and rock and roll baby! LOVED IT!