Midnight, and the students in the street are yelling their heads off as a prelude for going out to drink themselves into desexualised miniskirts and tonguing Facebooked selfies. There's no youth cultures any more. It's us middleaged people who are the subculturists now. I wish I could move out of this area. Loud students, burka'd Muslims, a thin sellotape of politeness our flimsy bond. I'd like to live near Kirsty, where we feed each other's cats and children.

Tomorrow I'm off to a posh hotel in Glasgow with Donna. We've agreed on a No Sex rule, which doesn't mean "no sex"; it just means no rodding. I welcome this, for constraints in sex make you more inventive.

Another advantage of the Rule is that I won't have to cope again with the unpleasant surprise she gave me the other night. We'd been out dancing, both a bit pissed, I was e-ing and speeding and amorous... we got back to mine and cosied down into the futon and started snogging. She's an exciting and violent kisser who forces my mouth gapingly wide open. I find it exciting both because of the pure physical sensation and because the power relation that her way of kissing forces on me is ambiguous. I'm looking forward to more of the same tomorrow. But the other night, during a stroky wandering of my fingers, I made an unwelcome discovery: she'd shaved her cunt.

I withdrew my hand slowly. It put me right off. Why would you deprive yourself of that lovely silky, wet, glistening, slidey sensation that cunt hair affords, as you or your lover strokes and kisses and licks your cunt? I'd never, in my life, been to bed with a woman who shaves her cunt. She gets paid loads of money and is Southern, which I'm sure has something to do with it. I love the black, slippery hairs of a woman's cunt. It's part of what makes her cunt her cunt.

---

This afternoon we had a bit of a do upstairs at the Borough for a friend of mine who died last week. He was a member of the Communist Party and a good drinker (which is how I met him). The tables in the pub were covered with old Lancaster University magazines from the early 70s and various literary magazines in which he'd been published, but most touchingly, letters from old pupils from when he was an English teacher.

It was a good afternoon but I left wanting air. I don't want all these readings and tributes and cheese and crackers when I go. I dodged out of it for an hour and went down Wetherspoons to read a bit more of The Sea, The Sea. It's my book club choice for this month and I don't think anyone will like it.

"Norrr... not for a bit. He's brok his fucking wrist. He were trying to jump over a fence, cos then he wouldn't have to go round, and he fell, and he put his wrist out -- down -- an he's fucking brok it."

A rainy day on the Fylde coast with a busty wench from North Wales. What more could a boy want?

We couldn't find the museum where the exhibition was supposed to be, so gave up on it, and instead, I pissed off the owner of the town's chippy by questioning his method of cooking chips -- they parboil them, then fry them. Result: claggy, pale, limp chips that all stick together and have the consistency of baby food.

Then a few pints in The Taps -- what a superb pub that is, made a great deal better by Kitty turning up for a couple of creme de menthe's. I had top notch Butter Bump (no, that's not a mistake) from Acorn in Barnsley at 2.65. Yet again, Lancaster proves it's the most expensive place for a drink for miles around.

Lytham is a place where the people walk around with the air of those convinced that they are more stylish than they are: men in pink shirts, plum-coloured jumpers with small, high V-necks; posh jeans and those beige shoes that seem always to curl up slightly towards the toes; fortysomething women in very tight white trousers and black high heels. As the conversation drifted around to the customary topics, we allowed the table next to us a bit of discreet eavesdropping. The poor man next to us, hearing a beautiful girl like Kitty talking about sex, is probably going to have the shakes this evening when he's pouring a G&T for the Colonel and his wife at the Bridge Club.

At Preston station I successfully bored the poor girl serving by telling her that this used to be our railway mess room and that there used to be Bass on tap, because girls in their early twenties are fascinated by the history of the room in which they are working, and in old beers formerly available in Preston station.

---

So you don't like going out, aren't interested in good conversation, and worst of all, can't punctuate.

I took the girls and one of their friends to see We Are The Best, Lukas Moodysson's latest film, about a trio of young teenage girls who form an inept punk band. It pokes amused fun at a certain kind of well-meaning parents and youth workers, and was laugh out loud funny. My daughters thoroughly enjoyed it and were rocking to an fro in their seats with shared pleasure in the band's antics and language. They're good fun to be around now, chatty, pisstaking, curious, clear-sighted.

---

What a grand day out with Trina in Lytham that was. We couldn't find the museum where the exhibition was supposed to be, so gave up on it. I then pissed off the owner of the chippy on C-- St by questioning his method of cooking chips -- they parboil them, then fry them. Result: claggy, pale-looking, limp chips that all stick together and are the consistency of baby food.

Then a few pints in The Taps -- what a superb pub that is. Managed to get Kitty out for a couple of creme de menthe's. I had top notch Butter Bump (no that's not a mistake) from Acorn in Barnsley at 2.65. Yet again, Lancaster proves it's the most expensive place for a drink for miles around.

We got talking -- as we often do -- about sex, and allowed the table next to us a bit of discreet eavesdropping. Lytham is a peculiar place, one where the people walk around convinced that they are more stylish than they actually are: men in pink shirts, plum-coloured jumpers with small, high V-necks; posh jeans and those beige shoes that seem always to curl up slightly towards the toes; fortysomething women in very tight white trousers and black high heels. The poor man next to us, hearing a beautiful girl like Kitty talking about sex, is probably going to have the shakes this evening when he's pouring a G&T for the Colonel and his wife at the Bridge Club.

At Preston station I successfully bored the poor girl serving by telling her that this used to be our railway mess room and that there used to be Bass on tap, because girls in their early twenties are fascinated by the history of the room in which they are working, and in old beers that used to be available in Preston station.

---

So you don't like going out, aren't interested in good conversation, and worst of all, can't punctuate. Next!

"No, I can't do that. What if they ask me to prove I'm disabled? I'm not disabled."

"They won't though," he insisted. "Just say your Dad's lost his. Say he's a bit forgetful."

"I don't know, I'm not sure. Will they not check?"

My new mate down the pub has just lent me his key to get into the disabled toilet rather than going upstairs to the normal one, and is now urging me to go to the Town Hall to get one of my own.

"Look, have you got three quid?"

"Yes."

"Well give it me and I'll go and get you one." A few minutes later he is back with a sparkling key. It opens up a nationwide vista of free micturition.

---

All is resolved with Donna. She replied graciously to the email I sent her (which I posted in the comments last time) saying that she also isn't interested in a long-distance relationship but would still like to go to Glasgow. She rang up an hour later and we agreed not to cancel the double room, but we would respect the no entry sign. After that we'll just keep it as dancey friends.

---

I had a good chat with my youngest about drugs the other night. There was just me and her left up at about half past eleven. I just answered her questions in a straightforward way. While the girls' sex education is rigorously scientific and thorough, where they practice putting condoms over dowelling rods, and study anatomical line drawings of pudenda, discussion of drugs is little more than propaganda and misinformation, using only extreme, unrepresentative cases to advance a one-sided argument that doesn't reflect the experience of the majority of responsible drug users.

"Thing is Melanie, the reason drugs will never go away is that despite what they tell you at school, 99% of the time they're just marvellous, if you've got the right context and people around you. I mean, friends of mine you know, people who've been round here and looked after you, they're occasional drug users and they get up in the morning and go to work and look after their children. They're not the wild-eyed lunatics they probably show you from these American horror sites about meth addicts."

She was curious about the effects of acid, ecstasy, speed and heroin. I have no experience of the latter, but I told her about Damon Albarn's short article in the Independent recently when he said it was a great help in the creative process on one of Blur's albums. I also repeated the obvious point that two of the most dangerous drugs in the world are legal in the UK.

---

Erica and me and a few others ran through pouring rain to a city centre pub which was having a few DJs on in the garden. A very irritating woman of my acquaintance came and started drivelling some crap and riffling her hands through my hair. I told her to fuck off. I was worn out with this election work and didn't have the patience for her. She came back a few minutes later and tried to talk to me again and I just waved her away. She's the kind of person whose friends dwindle down to clownish women who can't say hello without doing a dance of hugging.

I was clearly not talking to her, but instead to someone I know from years back, a good DJ and partygoer. His friend said he remembered one of my gigs about twenty years ago. "That was fucking amazing," he said. (Who wouldn't get a little thrill when someone says that about something you've done twenty years ago?) I was going through a Dadaist phase at the time and the show involved the insertion of an ecstasy tablet (actually an aspirin) up my rectum after removing some long johns with a red bicycle light hanging in front of my willie. Such innocent days.

It was really wet though, and I nipped across the road to Neil's flat and had a couple of pints of strong Belgian ale, which they'd been given but don't drink, and I dried my socks on the radiator. I had that pleasantly sensual, garrulous, delirium that comes from lack of sleep, having worked very long hours at the elections.

We declared our result at 12.30am this morning. Trina was kind, picking me up and sitting with me as I sat glazed with tiredness and gulped down three pints of cider.

After I thought Trina and I split up, I went trawling again and was contacted by Donna, the pharmaceutical marketing manager, (ha ha -- the irony) and we arranged to meet up in Glasgow in a couple of weeks' time.

Then on Thursday, she said she had a weekend free and asked if I had any plans. I said I was going to the soul festival at Morecambe, and she said she'd drive up. Fine. Trina's away birdwatching with a friend. Oops. Morals? Over there...

About 12ish Saturday, Erica rang and asked me what I was doing and I said I was meeting this friend from down south. Donna turned up five minutes later so after a decent enough interval, I suggested we go down to meet Erica and sit outside in the loveliest pub garden in Lancaster. I'm not really interested in this intense coquetry à deux, over a meal I can't afford, trying to artificially cook up one's emotions.

Straight away, Erica started an amusing but provoking response towards Donna, who had said that she lives in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere. "Sounds shit to me. God, I wouldn't like that." Donna worked a very slow way through two halves of cider; the unbridgeable gap between regular and occasional drinkers was silently laid bare.

"Yes," said Erica. "Italian Looking Woman was asking me if you were single." Please, Erica, no. "I did toy with the idea of saying that you were single but thought I'd better not." I tried to laugh it off, before changing the subject.

We went back to my house. She is an exciting kisser, quite aggressive, forcing my mouth wide open, which drew out my own tendencies in that direction. Out of bed though, she's pleasant. Family, tennis, work trips abroad, her sons, who are doing well at University, and how the house is a conversion from an old maltings.

As quickly as I could, I ushered us to Morecambe where there was a soul festival on. A great many people I knew were there, coming and going at our table. I felt at home and confident. My friend's gorgeous ex -- aka Latino Hellcat -- turned up and embraced me, rubbing some of her status off on me. I made some hints to Donna about ways of banishing any tiredness she might be feeling but she didn't take me up on it, nor was she interested in the poppers we were sharing. But we danced for hours, and we didn't leave early. I sometimes attract these middle class women who want fucking but don't give me the excitement that would make me want to do that.

Back home I surreptitiously texted Kim, who had asked how it was going. "Went out dancing till 3 with a big gang of us. Great kisser. Bit dull otherwise. Overall... BIG FUCKING MISTAKE."

Next afternoon we sat in the sun drinking Prosecco and listening to the DJs, with Erica and a couple of her friends and her husband, and Kirsty and her boyf, while my daughters sunbathed or played with a ball. Donna left, checking that we were still going to Glasgow, and I went for a pint and to phone Kim, before the final session, which featured some fine semi-nude Scottish DJ action.

This evening, Erica rang. "I'm just ringing to apologise for putting you on the spot a bit in the pub. I should have twigged you were up to something with Donna, so sorry about that."

"Looby, she's not for you. She's really nice and while you were away [buying more Prosecco] she opened up quite a lot -- a bit too much in fact, about her divorce and her surgery and everything, which is a bit much when you're spannered -- and she said she's never had a first date like this and she's rung her friend and told her fab it was, and how she never does things like this with her friends. But I'd be careful if I were you. She seems to be investing a lot in it."

Erica suggested I tell her -- before we go to Glasgow -- that I'm not interested in a long-distance relationship. Which is true. I don't want hours and hours on a train, endless fiddling with diaries, investing too much in every meeting and not being able to cancel with hours to go if you went out till silly o'clock the night before. "Tell her there's nothing to stop her coming over for dancey nights, but that it won't work as a relationship with her living so far away. Then at least you've told her early on. But don't keep her in the dark for too long."

Kim's advice: Throw your cards in with Trina. You're having a great time with her for the time being. There's no chance of it lasting for ever, seeing as eventually, the gap in feelings will emerge again. But until then, enjoy what you're doing with her.

---

I'm working at the European elections this week. It's fucking knackering, it really is, spread over four or five days, but it goes a long way towards my ring-fenced contribution to me and Kirsty and the girls' holiday in France.

You're only supposed to have my job if you've got a car but I've always roped people in to help me. This afternoon, we had to pick up the polling booth, ballot boxes, and the several kilos of election paraphernalia from the Town Hall. Erica's mum, who usually does this for me, couldn't make it because she was taking her friend to radiotherapy in Blackpool, so I rang Francesca. Francesca is a top girl. I must think of a way of thanking her.

She turned up with an aged mother trying her best to be polite in the front, and a menagerie in the back. She'd just taken her mother to a death postponement appointment at the Royal Lancaster Infirmary. What a fine spectacle we must have created for the Town Hall staff, who watched us drive off with Francesca and her demented mother in the front, and a budgie, two dachshunds, a polling booth, and me, in the back.

---

In other news, the rectangular black glasses, brunette, belted khaki mac, flatties, tight jeans -- Italian nurse, hasn't got back to me about the room. I don't understand women. Why would a woman like that not want to live in a kicked-in house with a grubby bath and no shower with two men old enough to be her father?