Sombreros

I forgot the feedback book for this class.  I was absolutely gutted when I realised that I hadn't mentioned it or produced it.  I actually was winding the class down and was just about to mention it, when someone said something to me, I answered and forgot all about it.  Which means I don't have a photograph of one of those colourful pages to help illustrate this blog.  One of those pictures full of glowing praise and testimonials to my capacity to entertain.  I'm going to have to hope that my own words and these other photographs will tell the story instead.

It was a class held in a private venue and as we were walking towards it, I told Alison that I thought it was on the same street as a class we'd held before, more than a year ago.  As we turned onto the relevant street, and the details of that other class started coming back, I remembered that it had been a venue that a large group of girls had rented specially for the weekend.  And once we got inside, it was confirmed - this was the same venue.  It made me wonder about the possibilities of hiring a place like that for the weekend and providing a group with a place to stay as well as a nude male model - or group of models - to entertain them for the duration of their weekend.  The price for such a weekend would be incredibly high, but it would definitely be a fun weekend.

We got to the front door about five minutes before the class was due to start and Alison noticed someone look out the window at us, even as I dialled the number of the girl who had booked us.  I make a point of calling ahead, rather than ringing the bell, just in case the girls want to sneak us in past anyone who doesn't know what's going on.  And once again, it was the right thing to do - someone was hurrying downstairs to meet us, already.  We were ushered in and shown to the kitchen, where I got undressed and Alison started getting the sketchpads ready.  And then she went into the sitting room, while I lurked by the closed door and waited for my cue.

While I stood in the hallway and waited for my cue, I saw a couple of piles of sombreros and couldn't resist the opportunity to grab an extra prop for the class.  So when my introduction came, I was wearing one of them as I entered the room.  Comedy props are always fun and they're even more fun when they're provided by the girls themselves.  And anyway... who can resist putting on a sombrero when they see one just lying around?  Quite clearly, the only people in this world who can resist are people with no sense of fun in their souls.  And to walk into a room full of women, completely naked apart from a comedy hat... moments like that come round all too rarely.

Sometimes there are classes where Alison and I barely even have to work.  We just turn up and I take my clothes off, start the drawing challenges and barely get a chance to settle in before the questions, jokes and laughs start flying.  Those are fun classes and this was definitely one of them.  Words like "raucous" and "bawdy" would probably be appropriate here.  A couple of the girls might have been a little shocked at the sense of humour of their friends, but I wasn't.  I was really enjoying myself.

One of the girls was taking pictures on her iPad.  She told everyone that the pictures were being streamed directly to the Cloud, where the bride's future husband would be immediately able to see them.  Alison and I thought that was funny and were talking about this afterward.  Did he get an immediate alert every time a new picture was taken, and did he look at each one with trepidation?  Technology is amazing.  To be able to share something so quickly - even as the event is still going on - is incredible.  I'm amazed that, so far, nobody has ever set up a Skype connection so that unseen people can observe in an even more "live" capacity.

When the classes finish, Alison and I always like to conclude with a couple of group pictures, just for a final laugh.  This time, someone decided it would be fun if we used the  couch and if I lay across the knees of some of the more adventurous girls.  That was interesting too, but I had to figure out the best way to do so.  It would have been much easier to lay down face first, but then there would have been too much potential for a bit of "brushing" against the knees of the girls, so I had to figure out how to sit on someone's knee, then lay down backwards - all without crushing anyone in the process.  I managed it with a little difficulty, but then the challenge was to get up, turn round so my head was at the opposite end and do it all over again.

Thinking back, I can't help wondering if anyone would have taken genuine offence if I'd gone for the easy option and moved in face-forward - which would have provided more PG versions of the resulting photographs as well - but it's moments like that where common sense prevails.  Although I'm reminded of one of Tyler Durden's early lines in Fight Club - "Now a question of etiquette - do I give you the ass or the crotch?"

And in yet one more twist, I was asked to pose for pictures with a cut-out "mask" of the bride's husband over my face.  He definitely looks like he has a sense of humour.  I certainly hope so, anyway.

I may have stolen a book.  That's the final detail.  While I was getting ready to start the class, I noticed a pile of Adam Lyall's Witchery tales books on the kitchen table and thumbed through it briefly.  A couple of minutes later, I saw another one in the case where I keep the sketchpads.  As we walked to the bus stop later, I asked Alison if one of the girls had given it to her and if she'd stuck it into the case for safekeeping, but she didn't know about it.  Which means someone either stuck it into the case for us, or it somehow managed to get in there accidentally.  Either way, I assumed at the time that it had been a gift.  But just in case, I better get in touch with the girls and make sure.  I'd hate to ruin a good class by becoming a thief right at the end.

The QI logic

I've been invited to a wedding.  For the first time ever, one of my clients liked me well enough to invite me to attend her wedding.  It's in Pitlochry later this year, and I'm really looking forward to it.  Worryingly, it's going to have a Medieval theme going on, and I don't know how I'm going to be able to swing that.  I don't have any clothes available that I can use.  I'll need to try to get creative, somehow.

For this class, I worked with two tutors.  Edith and (arriving slightly later) Marie-Dominique.  Edith was presenting the class for the first time, while Marie-Dominique was mostly observing.

One of my favourite drawing challenges in this class was the "straight lines" challenge.  It's always a fun one and it's always pretty cool to see how people would get renewed confidence as a result of it - girls who thought they couldn't draw would suddenly find themselves making some really cool pictures.  But this week, they seemed to be even better and more artistic than usual.

I was going to choose one particular picture that had some great, angular lines but I got outvoted and ended up going for the one where I supposedly looked a bit like Frankenstein's monster, but with a six-pack.  I'm not entirely sure I agree with that, but it was still a good picture.

Since the random points element of the last class went so well, I returned to that concept and briefly explained it to Edith.  I was going to tear a page out of a sketchpad, like last time, but she spotted a scoreboard, which we used instead.  I'll use that at future bookings in The Standard from now on.  It's going to save a bit of paper.

Using the QI logic, I deducted points as well as awarding them throughout the class.  Towards the end, one of the girls had a very good lead while another had lost loads and gained none.  This girl tried to talk me into contriving some sort of scenario where she would get enough points that she'd still win.  It was definitely tempting, but in the end I played fair.  Not through any moral high ground situation - just because it, at that point, it seemed like that would be more fun to do so.

The collaborative challenge had some particularly creative interpretations going on this time.  One group ended up dividing the body in a very imaginative way.  This group didn't divide me into the usual three key areas of head, torso and legs.  Instead, they took individual parts from all over my body, then tore up the sheets of paper to make them all fit together.  The first photographs where they held all those parts up over my body to illustrate what they had in mind didn't work anywhere near as well as when they simply laid them all down on the floor.  I'm really glad I got a picture of that myself, because it worked amazingly well, when it was laid out like that.

I've been asked occasionally about what I'd do if there was a man in any of my classes.  It's happened before and I never had a problem with it at all.  This is the sort of question that honestly, genuinely surprises me. I'm standing naked before a lot of women and I don't feel remotely self-conscious.  I can't figure out why people would assume that the presence of another man would cause a problem.  There was a man in this class as well, and he seemed to have as good a time as any of the girls there.

Also... for the second time this year, I had a group where there was at least one girl who would have been happy to get naked as well.  For a moment it looked like she really was seriously considering it, and trying to decide whether it would be a good idea or not.  Ultimately, however, she kept her clothes on.  Though later, she mentioned it again and commented on how she thought it might not have been appropriate.

This is the sort of thing that I think is down to the dynamics of the group.  When there are a lot of clothed women (or mostly women) and one naked man, then everything is pretty clear.  If one women gets naked, that would tip the balance of power, and then the dynamic would shift a bit.  I'm not automatically opposed to that happening, though.  But it's definitely something that should be a group decision.  It would be interesting to see how things would go if anyone ever did join me, but I'm definitely going to wait for it to be something that happens naturally.  Still... it would be an interesting world if there were more exhibitionists like me in it.

My favourite picture this time, was really heavy on the black charcoal and looked very artistic.  It was one part of one of the collaborative challenge, and probably wasn't all that flattering to me (there was a certain lack of size going on) but it looked cool, so it just had to win.

It definitely was a fun group.  And a good one for both Edith and Marie-Dominique to be part of as their first.  I still don't know if I'm going to be able to get to the wedding, because that depends on a bit of scheduling I've got going on that weekend.  But I really hope I'll be able to get there, because it sounds like it'll be a lot of fun.

Nasty, nasty feet

There was a great moment in this class that I really loved.  When one of the girls won a competition and was asked if she wanted to pose with me for a photograph of her holding her picture, her tone of voice was perfect.  She said "yeah", with such a casual enthusiasm - almost like I was a bit of an idiot for even thinking I needed to ask.  And then she bounced up and posed with me.  I loved it.

This was one of those cheery, lively groups that seemed to be composed of a group of girls who all already knew each other really well and who really enjoyed each others' company.  It doesn't feel like work at all with a group like that, because their own enthusiasm - and probably their own excitement at being all together at once - really seems to carry everything along completely naturally.  All Alison and I have to do is suggest a challenge or an exercise and occasionally nudge them into a different direction.  

Thankfully, the Standard was much warmer, this time.  The radiators had been given enough time to take the chill off the room and I was able to shake off some of the shrinkage at last.  Stupidly, though, I'd had a glass of coke and a cup of coffee, between the two classes - and so, I was slightly nervous that I might need to take a toilet break halfway through.  That would have been disruptive.  It never became urgent, though, so I was able to cope without any real difficulty.

Yet again, I found it really difficult to pick winners out of a lot of the competitions, because there were some great drawings.  Lots of colour going on, too, which tends to influence me when I'm making my decisions.  For some strange reason, smiley faces have been known to sway me a lot, too.  Perhaps, deep down, I'm just a big kid ready to be distracted by the next shiney thing.

When we got to the "Make A Giant Man" challenge, one girl drew two feet.  Incredibly nasty feet, with horrible toenails.  Even the fact that she'd used the blue chalk to put the Saint Andrew's Cross on all the nails, there was no disguising that these were nasty, nasty feet.  Which actually might have made them the most realistic drawings that anyone's ever produced in these classes.

I never do this usually, but this time round I couldn't resist - and I asked if she was prepared to part with one of the feet, since she had two.  She gave it to me, and I passed it round the class and asked everybody to sign it.  It was a really cool souvenir to take away from this class.

The "Make A Giant Man" pose is perfect for photographic opportunities, even if only parts of the "Giant Man" are being displayed at any point.  The feet could almost have been enough to make a cool photograph all on their own, but a PG version is always worth having as a backup option.  Something that can be shown to the grandparents, perhaps... or those grandparents with a bit of a sense of humour, anyway.

One of the girls asked me what my favourite chat-up routine was like, and I told her I didn't have one.  I'm too shy.  I don't talk to girls in pubs.  Then, a little while later, one of them overheard me ask Alison if she wanted to get a drink when we were finished - and, crucially, she heard Alison agree.  And she immediately pointed out that clearly my chatting up skills were getting better.

But I still have nasty feet.  Luckily, they're not the feature that generally get the most attention at these events.

The "Lunge Monster"

Sometimes I lie awake at nights and worry.  And the main worry I have is a serious one.  It shouldn't be undermined or ridiculed or dismissed.  That sort of thing is cruel and insensitive.  The main worry I have is... do I still have a peachy bum?

And then, next time I do a bit of nude modelling, I anxiously scrutinise the pictures that result from the session, and I check the bum for signs of peachiness and pertness and general juiciness.  And so far, it seems to be doing OK.  I think it's still peachy, anyway.  What do you think?

Anyway, let's not worry about that any more.  It wasn't peachiness I had to worry about on Saturday, at  the Standard - it was shrinkage.  That pub was cold, that morning.  I turned the radiators right up and tried not to stray too far from them, but still... I found myself worrying about whether the girls were getting their money's worth.

Later, I asked Alison about it.  She assured me I was fine.  She said she'd checked.  And none of the girls had complained.  But then, they're looking for other factors.  A charming and engaging model, a bit of flirtatious banter and even (if they're particularly demanding) the occasional spark of wit and intelligence.  Mostly, though, I'm confident that the nudity is practically irrelevant.  I'm sure of it.

Alison and I have been developing the competition concept a bit further, lately.  We took a fresh sheet of paper out of one of the sketchpads and started awarding the girls three points if their picture was the best.  But we also started adding and subtracting points for various arbitrary reasons that we were making up as we went along.  It wasn't exactly consistent, but it didn't really need to be, since it was just for a laugh.  But I kind of liked the idea of checking them later, and finding out if anyone had lost more points than they had gained.

And in this class, we had a fresh twist that we incorporated into the point system, when one girl asked me if I had a nickname for my penis.  It had never occurred to me to give it one, so that sparked off a whole debate about what the nickname should be, and everybody agreed that one should be awarded before the end of the class.  Pieces of paper were handed out, the girls all wrote down their thoughts and then the results were put into a glass and I checked through them all, read them out and picked my favourite.  And so, for those of you out there who might be curious, my penis is now called "Fluffy".

I was tempted to go for "Spartacus", but I preferred "Fluffy".  After all... for something as shy, retiring and generally inoffensive as that little thing, it just seemed to be a bit more appropriate.

Alison noticed that the girls had brought some props along with them, and a pair of plastic boobs were suddenly produced.  I didn't need much persuading to put them on, because - as most people know - I'm not easily embarrassed.  I was a little reluctant to "do the tuck" when one of the girls suggested it, but I was persuaded - and then undid it right away, when some cameras were raised.  Alison thought that was great.  It seems she's finally found my limit and might be prepared to exploit that in the future, if she can just figure out a way to do so.

The pictures were particularly good in this group, and I had an even harder time than usual, when it came to choosing the winners.  Some were amazing.  More than once, I had to resort to the "applause-o-meter" and let the girls choose their own winners, which is always fun.  It's getting to be more and more fun to give the pictures names, as well.  One picture had me standing over a girl and reaching out towards her as she lay on the floor.  I had just been about to call it the "Lunge Monster", but then I turned it round to make it look like she was standing up and called it the "John and Yoko" instead.  It was just meant as a flippant comparison to the famous photograph, but after that I couldn't shake the connection, so that's the name that stuck.

Ultimately, though, the winner was called "The erection".  I really should point out that there were no genuine erections involved in the creation of this picture, but the girl who drew out clearly had an imagination that was perfectly capable of creating one, and so it became a key feature of the winning picture.  And yes, it was the "applause-o-meter" that made that final decision.