Amber

I think I might be in LOVE!!

I feel like jumping up and down on the sofa like Tom Cruise did when he announced his marriage to that girl out of Dawson's Creek on the Oprah Winfrey show. Fair play, she's a lovely looking girl, (the one out of Dawson's Creek, not Oprah Winfrey), although I personally thought she was a little on the young side for Tom.

I've just had a pub lunch with Amber. We both had nutroast. I must admit when I saw someone at the next table tucking into the beef, I was a little bit jealous. But then, as Amber says, meat is murder.

I asked Amber out last night at the end of our shift at Blockbusters. She'd been a bit down all evening as Richard sacked Leigh on Friday. She couldn't work out why. I said that I thought Richard was a racialist, she agreed. So I said I'd take her out today to try and cheer her up.

She's such a lovely thoughtful girl, just like Mum. She didn't stop fretting about Leigh throughout lunch. To be totally honest, I was getting a bit bored of it, I did try and steer the conversation around to Buddhism or judo - she was way impressed that I'm a black belt (in judo, not Buddhism). Although, less impressed when I demonstrated a pressure point move on her causing her to knock her red wine over. I got a replacement, natch, even though technically it wasn't really my fault.

The thing with Leigh, though, is he was taking the piss at Blockbusters, you can't expect to smoke drugs in the storeroom and get away with it, not in today's troubled economic climate, which is exactly the reason I let Richard know what was going on.

I joked to Amber that there's no smoke without being fired, but she was in no mood for my witticisms. So I steered the conversation around to Richard again. Amber really seems to enjoy slagging off Richard. I let her know that Richard takes me seriously. I won't be pushed around by the jumped up little Hitler. I let Amber know that Richard even asked me to keep an eye on things in his absence. Sometimes girls appreciate a man of power. Though she didn't seem that impressed. She just wanted to talk about Leigh all the time.

Leigh's a lovely guy, I said, but he's hanging with a bad crowd. I mentioned that he seemed to have a lot of friends who came to the shop, and that the M&M stockpile was going down, even though no one ever seemed to buy them. Richard might be a wanker, but he's not stupid. Perhaps not surprisingly, this observation didn't go down too well!! You can't win em all, but I think it's important for Amber to see Leigh for what he potentially really is. I'd hate for her to throw her life and career at Blockbusters away over some wannabe gangsta rapper from Thornton Heath.

She perked up when I asked about her about her dancing. I mentioned that Flashdance was one of my fav movies, but she'd never heard of it. It's the one about a beautiful spot-welder who, against all the odds, becomes a dancer. I said it was similar to Billie Elliot, she'd heard of that, so at least I showed her that I'm not completely dance ignorant.

Amber looks a bit like a cross between a young Bonnie Tyler and that Diana Vickers out of the last series of X-Factor. I bet Amber would be great singing Total Eclipse of the Heart at karaoke. I suggested as much, but Amber just looked at me blankly.

I let it drop. Sometimes it's best not to labour a point. I'll bear it in mind though, should Amber's dancing career falter (you've got to be realistic readers, dancing is harder than it looks, and even if you're really good at it, it's difficult to really make any money out of it, look at Wayne Sleep), with Amber's talents she could probably sign up for X-Factor or perhaps become a Bonnie Taylor/Diana Vickers imitator.

They say imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. I've never understood that one. Surely flattery is the most sincere form of flattery. If I rocked up to my Mum's place in Lincoln wearing a floral dress and started banging on about Lionel Richie's latest album she'd probably think I'd turned gay. But if I rocked up and told her that she's the loveliest woman on the planet, the person whom I admire most, she'd be very flattered. See what I mean, readers, sometimes even well established sayings can be misleading.

I'm making it sound like the date was a disaster, but it wasn't, we had a good long chat about my Mum and about Amber's family. Like me, she's an only child. They say only children are spoiled, self-centred, egotists. But that's certainly not something that could be leveled at either Amber or me.

Clearly, though, we had a lot in common, we're both independent, creative individuals. We both like Coldplay. We're both vegetarians. I really think we were covering some ground, although like a lot of younger people today, she was constantly texting on her phone. I think it would have annoyed a lot of people, but I'm totally chilled, it's a generational thing, I know it's not offensive to multi-task your social networks. I'm on Twitter for heaven's sake.

There's nothing I like more than Twittering away. My friend Dave, the roofer, calls it Twatter, which just goes to show I'm much more in tune with the younger generation than with Dave's - even though Dave is actually two years younger than me!! The thing is, unlike Dave, the roofer, I'm down with the digital generation, I'm totally plugged-in to the Internet. Age is irrelevant on the Internet. Age has become totally democratised. Unless you're grooming children in chat rooms of course. Which is a whole separate issue.

Amber seemed to enjoy that we could speak the same language (I don't mean that we spoke English, I mean that we were on the same page culturally). In fact, I was about to ask Amber if she wanted to come back to my flat for a herbal tea and a look at my Mac iBook, but then Leigh arrived out of the blue, driving what can best be described as a Pimpmobile. You could hear the bass booming from the stereo as he pulled in the car park. "How the hell does afford a car like that on the salary at Blockbusters? Maybe there really is no smoke without fire." I said. Amber just shook her head, I think she was embarrassed for Leigh.

Leigh didn't even say hello to me when he came into the pub, he just said: "Come on then," to Amber, taking her by the had and almost literally dragging her out. So I didn't even get a kiss at the end of the date! :-(

Still, Rome wasn't built in a day.

I paid the bill and left, that red wine was pricey, the total came to over £30, I think I might be running into overdraft territory, I don't like to go into the red too much, neither a borrower nor a lender be. Perhaps I'll give Mum a ring and get her to transfer some into my online bank. It's either that or dip into the savings!!

Before that though I think I'll crack into a couple of Cobra and make myself a sausage butty, I'm bloody starving.

Newsdesk Out