Big Gay Away
July 27, 2009
The London gay then is during the holiday season an ambassador to carry his little bit of fabulousness to the sunny spots of Europe and beyond.
If in the first flush of a relationship he and his currently beloved are likely to avoid the “commercial” scene as they do not want the purity of their love to be contaminated. Of course they do not, equally, want their love to be chased out of town by drooling locals with tar pitch brands and pitchforks so will avoid any country immune to the gay charm and pound and head somewhere where there is at least a hint of pink in the air. There they may run with gay abandon through the meadows, have meaningful conversations about the future, work out if they are cat and dog people and by day five cheerfully fantasise about taking a wheel brace to make him just shut the fuck up for five minutes already.
If he is very young he may just take himself to Ibiza to live the high life in the Old town though, of course, in Figuretaas accommodation. Big clubs, big beaches and lots of easy love make this the first timers paradise, the memory of which he will hold forever though he is equally not going to forget the sensation of pissing razorblades – seven days or thereabouts – after he gets home.
If he thinks he has outgrown Ibiza he may take himself to Sitges and really, what is not to like. The attitude is turned down quite a few notches and the town for the most part exudes a civilised calm that is hard to beat. Eating in the Alfresco restaurant is the equal to any London place and sundowner cocktails in the Hotel Romantic is a calm introduction to a nightlife that never exactly goes wild – the adventurous and foolish may decide to brave the Barcelona muggers that haunt the shallows between the town and the cruising area by the beach – but the wise will stick to the clubs and late bars.
If he is truly without hope he will go to Gran Canaria which fully deserves its reputation as the fifth circle of hell. Year after year, hordes of the innocent in search of winter sun think “it can’t be that bad”. It is. On day five you will flee your compound because you fear a violence if you have to spend one more second in the presence of that elderly brummie queen that chases you lounger to lounger to bar all the day long. Driven slowly mad by a high carb, fat and alcohol diet you make the mistake to think to shop for local delicacies (though none exist) and wander into the local shopping center. In the courtyard you will find a vast spread of elderly silent Germans, silently drinking vast schooners, seemingly entranced by oom pah pah music only they can hear. It is a moment from Hitchcock and you move swiftly away as you know the next scene if you rouse them.
If you worry about fennel in your food and are aspirationally, as opposed to actually, rich you may take yourself to Mykonos where the simple buildings of blue and white make it terrifically easy to colour coordinate your outfit to the architecture. You will accept you are actually human bait for the cruise ships that locally dock and you can, over the course of a few days, safely indulge in a torrid love affair in the safe knowledge that this sailor will sail. It is a test of gay courage to walk alone onto the terrace of the Athenaeum hotel for sundown drinks – each entrant will be assessed with production line efficiency and stripped to his component parts – there will not be a queue alas for the pale, H&M wearing, day one tan, non boat owning, not staying in the Belvedere, north London queer. If the person rejecting you is actually the type that stays at the Athenaeum, then this will be a considerable relief to you.
Once the London gay has settled on his destination of choice then the next step is the preparation. He will of course have left it too late to avail of any of the package deals that the gay travel companies arrange and which have been snapped up by the Very Efficient Queens about two years in advance and who, while living such lives of admirable thrift, are luxurious in sharing their tales of cost saving. It is one of nature’s laws you will be seated next to them on an EasyJet flight that cost you twice what they have paid for their week in the sun. Still, it is useful practice for your tight wintry smile if elderly poolside brummies feature in your future.
Extortionate holiday paid for you must take yourself shopping. The tube on an early Saturday is relaxed and allows you to look around more than the normal stampede to work permits. Noticing the escalator advertising, you see that “Grease – the musical” is still playing and you are reminded how the movie was the first one you saw in a proper cinema some years back – you were actually meant to see Superman but he had flown and left you with this god – all dark hair and leather – though you pledged yourself that day to Stockard Channing, recognising, even then, that a diva is forever while poor John was destined for religion and Italianate curves.
Depressingly the musical “stars” Ray Quinn exuding the sexual menace of a gelded teletubbie. Bleurgh. Sic gloria transit mundi.
If you are Ibiza bound and, oh, ten, you can go to A&F for all your beach needs and your “Fierce” (the smelly of nelly everywhere) aftershave but, if of a certain age, you can take yourself to Superdry and buy “vintage” T Shirts and shorts that you actually wore the first time around. If you stand still long enough you are bound to come back into fashion.
Adequately prepared, face turned to the rising sun – happy holidays indeed.
Paulie!
July 24, 2009
This was based on a number of factors.
- The location of the tomb being inside the basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls (sister church of St Paul Going Up the Walls).
- The tomb was located underneath the epigraph Paulo Apostolo Mart (Paul the Apostle and Martyr) – a sort of latin equivalent to a floral “Mam” I guess.
- Carbon dating of bone fragments therein resulted in a date of someone who lived between the first and second century – that narrows it…
Never one to shy from a glitzy outfit the Pope confirmed that the tomb revealed evidence of purple linen decorated with gold sequins, blue material and red incencse grains as well as the remains.
Was he buried with a showgirl?
We hope his holiness never gets done for jury duty as on this evidence we draw our conclusions.
Which makes it all the more outrageous the Church will not support the clear appearance of the BVM in a tree stump in Limerick given the lady has some form in this area in the West of Ireland, was well known to like trees and in the absence of a tomb (Mary Mammyus Godus?) has precious few other means to capture airtime given some evidential problems with the assumption into heaven.
I think tree stump appearing is far more in line with the austere times we live in than those who would be wrapped in purple cloth.
Alas, again, a Church disconnected.
Suffering little children
July 20, 2009
While it is important to keep one hand on youth, and indeed both hands firmly if you can move quickly enough, it is rare enough that we spend any time with the truly little people.
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince at the weekend was a chance to show the Irish nephews and niece a London time and to see them enchanted by Leicester Square on a sunny Saturday morning is to be refreshed as to what London offers.
Of course eating young venison is to see what a bambi kebab could offer so, please, do not think this blog would go mellow on you.
The movie you can take or leave. Its all very good, what with the special effects and all, but its pretty one directional and, given one’s natural affinity to the Dark Lord, the general lack of any moral ambiguity in the protagonists is tiresome. I’m not asking for an angst ridden wrestle with conscience but being a bit of a prick every now and then would make Harry a more interesting proposition.
Be honest – if you had an invisibility cloak when at school you would have spent most of your time in the showers.
Children, while not quite immune to the age old North London debate of whether dinner does in fact include fennel, are not, it appears, that interested in food so long as it is unhealthy and served with chips. Thus, the Oxo Tower was probably not the most inspired choice, though the adults in the company appreciated the food offerings and the glass of wine to take the edge off the piping voices expressing disgust at the English interpretation of sausages (I have to concur that a nation that brings you “Toad in the hole” has some explaining to do).
A tour around town guided by your writer is interesting, especially as one’s responses to questions cannot generally be challenged – though one of the elder children showed some alarming indications of intelligence. The solution was to silence him through exhaustion and following an extended walk through the City he pretty much accepted that the Great Fire was started by pixies. It is in such ways we inculcate our prejudice in the next generation.
We are fond of our little people but very fond of their absence too and in such fashion as my youngest nephew – the sensitive one – disguised his sadness at my parting through weeping profusely at the presence of mayonnaise on his burger, I could weep, howl and rent my clothes in open relief at their leaving, in the safe assumption it would be misinterpreted.
The normal weekend service will resume imminently.
Not forgiven
July 6, 2009
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 2002 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.
Had the Idiot Leader, or any ordinary idiot, supported such legislation against black, Jew, woman, African, catholic, then you can be certain that they could apologise until the kingdom come, and in time that apology might even be accepted, but they would not have a political career today.
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 well, exquisitely well, made.
Big gay penguins
June 17, 2009
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
May 19, 2009
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
May 14, 2009
“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”.
Protected: It’s not always about me.
May 11, 2009
The Darling Buds of May (nearly)
April 30, 2009
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
April 30, 2009
“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
