Not forgiven

Gay Pride London on a glorious Saturday and the gays are in a particularly exuberant mood. It’s a little too early for the drugs in Trafalgar Square – though some lost boys have the dreamy otherworldliness of the Vauxhall arches – and the beers flow freely if not from the fountains (and I for one would welcome a return of this tradition) then from the £3 a bottle booths helpfully adjacent the square.

The entertainment is the usual collection of third rate has beens who might have had a pash on a boy in school, out gay performers hoping the pink pound may fill the talent void at the heart of their performance, earnest activists respectfully listened too; all presented by some gay lad from the telly what you might see on the afternoon antique shows and the like. Its all dreadful rubbish but good fun with it and the rainbow flag flies proudly from St Martin in the Fields.

It is as the good Doc noted a proven fact that the gays will cheer anyone.

And then the Conservative party spokesperson comes on stage. The mood of the crowd instantly changes and he is roundly booed.

He echoes the recent comments of his Idiot Leader about the Conservatives and the Gays not having the best of histories.

The crowd boos louder.

It is perhaps recognised that being gay and Conservative should not be considered mutually exclusive – indeed there is surely a medical paper to be written on the number of self hating gay conservatives who lived lives of such hypocrisy during the last Tory government ( I was tempted to say theocracy but they were so far to the right of the established church that it seems unkind to genuine theocrats everywhere…).

It is perhaps more correctly noted that in this dysfunctional love affair one of the parties had only the apparatus of state to beat the other with.

And did so.

Am I not to be forgiven? Are we not all permitted our pauline moments? A bright light on the road to Chariots perhaps?

The Idiot Leader is a barely acceptable face to what remains fundamentally the same old nasty party. Allied with right to extreme right parties in Europe who’s national governments would consider section 28 a wimps charter, they continue their dog whistle approach to courting the base elements in the British character – “family” values, immigration, Europe, fat cat public servants and the same tired nonsense they spouted for 18 years, buying the votes of the populace while destroying the infrastructure of the state.

The Idiot Leader as recently as 1992 voted for the retention of Section 28. Not abstained, not held his nose and voted with the whip, voted in favour. I know it seems a tired cliché but take section 28 and play around with the gay bit to replace with black, Jew, woman, African, catholic.

 To support such nonsense is to subscribe to a view that inherent inequality amongst like people is tolerable. Of course the counter argument is that these are not “like” people. These are “these people”. It is scarcely a view of government that comforts but for the Tories it has always been “them” and “us”. This is a core political belief and while suspicious of anyone who might hold such belief I am equally suspicious of one who might say it has been cast off. In remarks and attitude over recent years, the case for the Cameron conversion is, at best, not proven.

And the Trafalgar square gays, in all their angel wings, glitz, leather and denim get it. It was a wonderful moment on Saturday to see a crowd respond to naked political posturing with a hearty loft of the aforementioned £3 bottle of beer stage wise. The bottles were, alas, of the plastic variety but as the spokesperson sloped off the stage it was a point, exquisitely made.

 

Big gay penguins

A number of the UK papers carry the story of the University of California report evidencing widespread homosexuality in animals.

One up to the nature v nurture campaign I guess though I have long taken the obvious view that while primary and secondary socialisation in childhood shapes the adulthood, any attempt to dabble with innate traits just leads to fucked up grown ups.

Nice and all as the idea is, you just cannot construct the ideal gay.

Hence I am single.

The report tells us too that male bat bugs having a gay day pierce the bodies of other males with their penises and ejaculate into their blood.

Now those of us familiar with the mechanics of gay sex know that the first secret of success is to relax but I fear in the bat bug world no amount of hot oil baths, massages or industrial strength poppers is going to get you in the mood for that one….

For the record, I always though Mr Ed might be a little light on his horse feet.

Gay London

 An essential component of the London gay weekend is the London gay brunch which is normally undertaken at 2-3 depending on venue.

This allows all those other elements of the London gay weekend such as going to the gym to run the miles quota you failed to achieve during the week and to the dry cleaners to tend to that shirt you will not trust to the home ragamuffin.

And it also, if truth be told, allows the gays to unpeel their tongues from the roof of their mouths, send the take home trade out the door and have a light and healthy breakfast as if your liver is going to roll over like a contented puppy and business as usual.

Kitty says.

Lunch Saturday at J Sheekys was at the unseemly hour of 12.30 to accommodate metrosexual manfriend’s custody of his child that evening. Regretfully, he took at face value my assertion that the reservation was under the name of “Brutaltop”. Clearly not metrosexual enough to understand what that name entails – to the extent of producing a copy of the email – the gay maitre d’ got it and indeed looked somewhat disappointed when I turned up to the correct booking under my familial name.

The booking sorted we ate a very good though horribly expensive lunch. Exquisitely aware – as ever- of my green credentials I ate locally sourced asparagus – well UK anyway as they discourage asparagus growing in St James Park – and for the privilege was charged £23.50. I should mention the mention of lobster mentioned on the menu but the reference was clearly in the passing and the lobster was clearly in the hiding under the already scare asparagus – more Tamil Tiger in limited undergrowth if I was to pass a topical reference.

And equally brutally dispatched.

The London gay weekend always follows then with a meander around central London shops where interesting objects and age inappropriate clothes are generally a prelude to propping up one of the gay haunts in and around Old Compton Street. It is at this point the great gay divergence occurs. It is as if some of the Wildebeest suddenly announce that actually, they couldn’t be bothered with the Serengeti and if they never see the Ngooggoro (oh spell-check me!) crater again it will be too soon. The grass here is just fine, there is no wretched river crossing and the definition of fun does not include being corralled under a railway arch (my analogy is breaking down but you get the point and Vauxhall does include a river crossing so its quite clever to…oohh forget it…). Thus the Dinner Party Set and the Party Party Set will go their separate ways and while one will fall out of some East End dive bar of the fashionably studiously unfashionable, the Party Party Set will dance with the plastic fantastic until some ungodly hour on Sunday morning.

No judgment, just a note that in a work context each is equally unapproachable until Tuesday morning at the earliest.

The London gay weekend must occasionally involve gay events of a, perhaps, higher nature – arts or theatre darling – which apart from nurturing the soul ensures everyone at the dinner party is not having the same conversation. With this in mind one attended in company the Alternative Miss World at the Roundhouse in Camden some weekends back. It was an interesting divergence also between the gay London weekend professional and the gay London weekend amateur – to read the reviews of this show in the admittedly excellent venue is to understand how people can live in parallel universes. I have seen better performances at a two bit queer bar in a scary side street off alphabet city. The alleged presence of some Jagger ex (Binky, Bianca, Blackie?) and the hosts sepulchrally intoned assurance of “beauty…and…glamour” does not a fabulous London gay weekend make. We held our fairy dust and benedictions and took to the Black Cap in Camden where, provided you are under 50 and not a prisoner of your own body mass, you are, Beauty, and you are, Glamour, indeed.

Some days you don’t aim so high

The Chuch of Scotland has gotten itself all up in a knot over the ministry of an openly gay man, leading the Reverend Ian Watson to opine:

“To claim that the homosexual lifestyle is worthy of a child of God; to demand that a same-sex partnership be recognised as on a footing with marriage; to commend such a lifestyle to others is to deny that Jesus Christ is our only Sovereign and Lord. It is to turn the grace of God into a licence for immorality,

“Such people will not inherit the kingdom of God (1Cor.6:10). And therefore they must be resisted . . . Let me assure you, neither I nor like-minded minsters enjoy conflict . . . But have we learned nothing from history? Remember Hitler and the retaking of the Rhineland. He got away with it. No one stopped him. So next it was Austria, then Czechoslovakia, and then Poland and only then world war.”

I am a little disapponted that the Scottish Church is working itself up over this given its dour, low church ways which should surely send the gay brotehrhood into the high camp, smells and bells sisterhood of the “who you callin’ bitch? bitch” Church of  England.

Media reported “outrage” over the comments but given they are so ridiculously over the top its hard to get exercised over the lunatic opinions of a two bit pastor shouting down the echoes in his empty kirk.

Much better I practise my new favourite word – “Twunt”.

 

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The Darling Buds of May (nearly)

Somedays one is as a puppy with a hat sitting in a basket of kittens.

Other days. Well, less so.

Spring with its tawdry razzmatazz lulls us into false security – all crystalline blue skies, baby green leaves, drinks on someone elses balcony, the promise of Summer. We become nicer and all happy chemicals.

At some random point in the future the Pimms Cocktail season will begin, the precise date of commencement, much as the rules of cricket, a matter between the Englishman and God – eachs popularity equally inexplicable.(Pimms and Cricket not Man and God you understand).

And yet as the horror of Winter fades the horror of Summer arises.

The Tube – what fresh hell is this on the Northern Line. The two day period of perfect equilibrium wherein the temperature is as Goldilocks’ porridge is over and notwithstanding the “brisk” spring winds taking strips of skin off you on surface, it is a sauna underground and not, I add, in the lets-find-a-resting-room-whey-hey sort of way. Like the first cuckoo of spring you will spy the first earnest article about the plans to cool the carriages using all manner of ingenious solutions from coolant water to flying pixies with atomisers.

A special subset of the Tube Summer horror must be Tower Hill. This much I know because I pass through it most days. Bewildered tourists abound – they pause at the gates. They look at the gates. They think of jumping the gates. MOVE Wildebeest – this is not a bloody river crossing on the Ngorogoro plain – worse possible outcome is you will be the far side of the gate with the charity muggers. Oh, and the steps down to the platform. Have I mentioned the steps? – I have seen more decisiveness in russian roulette. It’s TOWER HILL so you alight here for the Tower of London and Tower Bridge. The clue is in the name people not to mention the bleeding announcements on the tube.

And parroting “Mind the Gap” is tired. So, so, so tired. If you can be effortlessly cool in Milan you can be effortlessly cool in London. (Though leave the padded silver coat at home, yeah?)

A super special subset of the Tube Summer horror is the charity mugger and their inability to distinguish between those who give a fuck, those who don’t give a fuck and those who might give a fuck but are not going to give a fuck on a twice daily basis signing direct debits to garnishee an increasing token of one’s declining income to a hodge podge of rambling charities with too much money to spend on students who think a cheeky grin and a tight figure is going to part a city boy from his hard earned cash.

Sharing beer gardens with the Yummy Mummies, gone to pot Dilfs and their spawn is perfectly acceptable – it is a neutral space and mildly amusing to see them fall over and flap about wasps attracted to cider as if the local parish paedo has shown up. But the bar is adult space. Especially the leather sofas in the Northgate, with papers, when one is asked to move over slightly to accommodate a most ungracious adult and whining child. Lest you wondered, that was indeed a cold stare. Is it a North london phenomenon alone that parents here must over engage their children at every opportunity? Must they only do adorable things as mini adults and then consternation and stern talkings too when the over excited child, understandably, overdoes it? You were expecting what precisely? There is the cutest child, most mornings at the bus stop, who is an irrepressible ball of energy but in an engagingly self absorbed talking-to-himself, school-bag-swinging sort of way and it clearly is a little too aspergerish for Mummy who spends her time shouting at him to stand still.(Shouting in that not making noise, angry tug hissing sort of way the posh north London Mummy has) This is the person who no doubt will find his running around adult space reciting bible passages or somesuch as an adorable anecdote between the critique of the jerusalem artichoke soup and the is-that-fennel in the mains dinner courses.

Whaaaaaaat? Did you expect me to gush about Spring forever?

Cast a cold eye…..

Stephen Fry – Genius

“Taunts, beatings and punishment await gay people the world over in playgrounds and execution grounds (the distance between which is measured by nothing more than political constitutions and human will). “

Fry replies to a letter written by his 16 year old self to his future self.

With age he is in danger of going the National Treasure route a la Alan Bennett.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/apr/30/stephen-fry-letter-gay-rights

Pray blog easy

The average life seems to be an expansion and contraction. From the moment we are born we seek to expand our horizons. The moment we realise that those objects we first stick in our mouths can, complete with adorable bootees, get us the hell out of here, we are off and remain off until at some subtle time the spring begins to run down and the world contracts in ever decreasing circles. Pleasures become simpler and more local – the uplift of a bright day, fuzzy green with blue beyond, the sun on your face and the taste of coffee in your mouth.

It is surely one of the saddest things to look in the grave of a long ended life and think of the lifetime of thought and experience and knowledge now lost.

All writing must surely add to knowledge but is there knowledge that needs no addition?

Surely there are the thoughts and experiences that are best internalised. That childish voice, that internal dialogue, that little fat kid that sits on your shoulder all through your adult life – it is enough you have to listen to him without sharing his thoughts to the world.

In humble spirit and with nothing but the clothes on my back and the acid tongue I possess I offer my fellow bloggers some wisdoms:

To those who blog who am I?

In the greater scheme of things you are nothing. Take comfort in the thought that the greater scheme of things may simply be a numbers game and you are not alone – you merely have a computer to bore the rest of us with.

To those who ask am I loved?

Great news! You are. Be it your mother and enduring love, the matter of the need for genital friction or the fact of human sociability and the need to have someone to split the taxi fare home with. It says: you, you. are. special. Or you have a nice ass. Or an available ass.

To those who ask will I find someone?

More great news. As the seventh commandment says “Everybody finds somebody sometime” (and indeed somebodies like to find a lot of everybodies all of the time). It will probably be a hormone induced springtime followed by a long winter of tears and bitter recrimination, interspersed with appalling acts of random violence, but at least you will not be alone. Well, at least not until, one day walking in the garden, the sum of your shuffling existence, you realise that that shortness of breath and mild pain in your arm was really something to worry about, and you would worry about it now except you are spreadeagled on your back, cannot breath and the blue sky is fading to grey before your very, milky, eyes.

To those of you write porn blogs.

 We salute you.You are providing a valuable public service. More links though, less chat, no-one cares what you think.

To those who ask is the world interested in what I had for breakfast?

No. Not even remotely. And you are the exception to the Love rule. Your mother actively disliked you and had secretly agreed with the kids who called you “goggly four eyes” in school. The happiest day of her life was when she snuffed it in the garden.

To those of you who write music blogs.

You are adored.

To those that write random blogs at random times on random thoughts and perhaps take random swipes at random strangers….we recognise you and you, you are forgiven.

Oh for the love of Jaysus…..

At the risk of sounding like an outraged teenager raging against every fashionable issue going (Johann Hari in the UK’s Independent newspaper does that job so well, and so often, for us already) I see that his Popiness has opened his mouth again and declared that AIDS is “a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems”.

Now Benny, love, I know your solution to the Aids crisis is for everyone to sit in their caves under the mountain, under the sea, with their hands on their demurely crossed knees sipping a campari and bromide but honestly man get a grip. If you can make pragmatic decisions to lift the excommunication on a nazi fellow traveller (oh sue me) in order to re-absorb some latin spouting, smells and bells high camp girls sorority into the mother church then surely you can make the intellectual leap and recognise that while condoms may not be the perfect solution (on the grounds they lessen sensation and smell funny) they are a better interim solution to a present problem while you continue to get buy in on your sit-on-hands evangelising.

And good luck with that incidentally…….

The Love Bus

The spectre of death or serious injury seems to be following me though it remains thankfully inaccurate in its smiting. Last night on coming home there was a long line of buses along the Essex Road, it being taped off due to what the local yellow crime signs would refer to as a “serious incident”.

The Essex Road is a busy thoroughfare and the avenue of many routes and I hope the offending party was not the 73 or the 38 – known to some as the Sex Bus and the Love Bus respectively. I imagine the name derives from the fact that they both cross through Soho on their routes northward – a location from where many a romantic night begins but while the 38 sales serenely through Bloomsbury and Holborn on route to Islington the 73 takes a grittier route home through along the unlovely (or for that matter unsexy) Marylebone Road before passing through Kings Cross where love sells alongside the fast food and amusement arcades.

The 38 was one of the routes that converted to the infamous bendy bus as the much loved Routemaster was phased out, though it has to be admitted that the routemaster was loved in the looking at rather than the travelling on. The Idiot Child Mayor has vowed to restore a version of the Routemaster and for that alone he may be remembered. You cannot call yourself a Londoner until you have mistimed jumping on or off the open platform. It taught me what a groin strain is.

The 38 is now a wheelchair friendly and worse family friendly bus with double seats facing each other. In one of those sat a family of four today. The Yummy Mummy and Dilf with two bored little girls they semed determined to stir up into a frenzy with over loud observations on every passing matter. Ducks!!! Big fucking deal. The parents seemed missioned to make their children amusing anecdotes for for the north London dinner table. In this fashion Mummy insisted on addressing the child sitting peering out as “Window”. There are some ridiculous names but surely this is not one of them and the child did not seem to react to her mothers attenpt to make her adorable – except to mouth silent pleas for help at passing strangers and dream of the day she can cast off her Osh Kosh and inject heroin direct into her eyeballs.

THe family were off to lunch with Carl from New York and “Little George” whom I suspect was not an 11 year old with a trackie, gold hoop earrings and a Croydon facelift. The children had to guess what was GROWING IN LITTLE GEORGE”S TUMMY? A tumour I thought hopefully but apparently it was a baby and the children were being primed to rub her tummy and show adorable intrest. I left the bus with great relief as Daddy explained at length and in volume to no interested party that the longest bones in the world were in an elephant and its trunk but that snakes are different. Its the Blue Whale you idiot.

THe milk of human kindness was flowing not through my veins this morning as I muttered darkly of the north London set and continued on my mission to find the perfect pilates mat in John Lewis. The Love Bus rolls slowly on a Saturday afternoon and I’m in a Sex Bus state of mind – this is no country for pilate’s purchases.