Holding the Man

Big Boots Theatre Company are off to a roaring start with this intimate and emotionally searing production of Tommy Murphy's dramatisation of Timothy Conigrave's memoir. Finished only two weeks before Conigrave's death from an AIDS-related illness in 1994, the work is a monument to the love of his life John Caleo.  The book won the United Nations Human Rights Award for Non-Fiction in 1995. Murphy's dramatisation has itself won numerous awards and has been made into a film. The last production in London was at the Trafalgar Studios in 2010.

At the Jack Studio Theatre, director Sebastian Palka mounts a fluid, fast and smoothly moving production full of imaginative touches and emotional insight. The intelligent and robust direction means the story never becomes confusing, despite the tiny ensemble cast performing multiple roles, changing costumes and making set changes on stage throughout.

The leads are well cast physically: Christopher Hunter as Tim and Paul-Emile Forman (making his professional debut) as John make a handsome couple with striking chemistry. Hunter emanates an easy appeal and charm which holds the audience's sympathy despite his character's sometimes dubious choices, but for me Forman's luminous John is the emotional bedrock of this work. Written knowingly with guilt as an elegy, John is idealised to a degree which could make him remote - it is a huge credit to Forman who finds the human being in this role and so compellingly inhabits him.

There is good work from the ensemble who mesh strongly as a team. A stand-out is Marla-Jane Lynch, very enjoyable in all her characters but especially affecting in her role as John's mother.

Design and sets are wisely kept low-key and minimalist. I thought the musical and sound choices were appropriate and emotionally helpful, but perhaps a touch too loud in this very intimate space.

Jack Studio

at the Brockley Jack

17 Jan- 4  Feb 2017

Photographs courtesy of Nicolas Chinardet 

Spitting Image / King's Head Theatre

Back to the King's Head for this very interesting revival of Colin Spencer's Spitting Image - the first openly gay play performed in the UK back in 1968 after the decriminalisation of homosexuality and (presumably) the relaxation of theatre censorship, and never since revived.

It played for two months to packed houses at the Hampstead Theatre (greeted with much tutting by the Evening Standard), and transferred to the West End. In the disapproving atmosphere of the times however, the play could not find a publisher, and disappeared. It's amazing that Adam Spreadbury-Maher, artistic director of the King's Head, discovered a script in the Oscar Lewenstein theatre archive at the V&A Museum, and hence this revival was possible.

One half of a gay couple falls pregnant and the play explores the consequences both for their relationship and in society. What is amazing is at the time it was written the idea of gay couples bringing up children was totally unthought of - the play uses it as a metaphor for coming out - but now of course in the era of gay marriage it's pretty topical.

Spitting Image's giddy and surreal social satire sits well in the context of Orton and Stoppard. I actually thought the satirical element worked best - the couple squabbling over dirty nappies and relationship issues less so. The huge concern the play demonstrates over crushing state surveillance is sadly right up-to-date. Nothing's changed there.

The acting was all on point and brought out all the fun of the piece. The set design aimed for minimalism but actually was quite tricksy and distracting with actors having to carry props on and off awkwardly all the time. At least in the first half Sally Ambrose entertained us while this was happening with her groovy 60's dance moves. In the second half she became a character in her own right, mooning after Alan Grant's Gary, the gay man struggling against the odds to keep his relationship and child.

The Chemsex Monologues

It's not often one hears of an actor playing two roles in different plays at the same time - however, for the last week you could catch Denholm Spurr  as Damien/Jean Baptiste in 'The Past is a Tattooed Sailor'  by Simon Blow at the Old Red Lion Theatre (through to 27 August)  and Nameless in 'The Chemsex Monologues' by Patrick Cash at The King's Head Theatre (last performance tonight).

In fact, make that three roles! (Two different ones in the same play.)

One can only applaud Spurr's energy, commitment and enthusiasm in taking his final bows (after a two hours + performance) at the Old Red Lion and then dashing up Upper Street to The King's Head to don his makeup for Nameless. It would have been fun to catch both performances in a marathon night of theatre, but we took things much more sedately, catching Sailor last weekend (review here) and Chemsex last night after a quick dinner at Belanger on Islington Green.

They are both new gay plays by gay authors performed in pub theatres in Islington simultaneously, but that is where the similarities end.

Sailor is an expansive, nostalgic, traditionally-structured piece whereas Chemsex is much more contemporary in focus and experimental in form. Four narrators appear in sequence with monologues from their individual perspectives on their relationship with Nameless and his story. The audience pieces together Nameless's situation from each fragment - each narrative is slightly unreliable due to their tangential relation to Nameless and the plot line and each character is wrapped up in their own concerns.

This structure gives a sense of urban anonymity and alienation, but also creates a considerable amount of suspense as we follow Nameless's story to its climax. The total separation of the actors also serves to heighten the pathos of Nameless's descent.

The acting was all good, which was so important here when you can't talk of an ensemble. Richard Watkins plays the Narrator - an 'Everygay' sort of character who bookends the play - with breezy charm. Charly Flight is Fag Hag Cath - amusing but very warm and human. Matthew Hodson plays Daniel the Sexual Health Worker - again, a lovable doofus doing his innocent best, a very heart-warming performance. Denholm Spurr's Nameless is the heart of the play and he gives it a terrific performance moving smoothly from humour to the emotional depths.

An urgent and well-considered piece of contemporary theatre; I'm really pleased to have caught it.

The Past is a Tattooed Sailor

It’s always pretty exciting to see new work, and a first play by a neophyte playwright.

Joshua, a posh but poor aspirant writer (Jojo Macari), seeks to create a closer relationship with his great-uncle Napier,  a bed-ridden ex-social butterfly and fading beauty shut up in his country mansion and living only through reminiscences of his past success amongst the social and artistic elite, as well as his raunchy liaisons with French sailors in Marseilles. Napier’s penchant for rough trade is shared with Joshua, who has a builder’s mate boyfriend Damien (Denholm Spurr) - shared quite literally as the bed-ridden Napier nevertheless craftily manages to put the moves on Damien.

There is good material in Tattooed Sailor, and an intriguing premise, but I felt the writing could have benefitted from further work editing and refining purpose and dramatic direction. I sense a number of unresolved issues in the writer’s emotional responses to these autobiographical events, which sadly accrue around the leading character Joshua, the cornerstone of the entire play:  weaknesses in the construction of this character impact the whole piece. Macari struggles manfully with this underwritten and confused role.

Bernard O’Sullivan and Nick Finegan are evocative, stylish and affecting as the older and younger Napiers - Finegan especially evokes the authentic note of a 1930s Bohemian dandy and rake and contrasts pleasingly with the more contemporary Joshua and Damien. Denholm Spurr exudes an effortless animal sensuality and displays rampant sexual chemistry with all three of the other leads - in French too as the titular tattooed sailor in a tryst with the younger Napier.

Overall, this play held my attention and I did enjoy the experience, with the caveat that I ended with feeling a much stronger play is hidden deep within.

Tweet of the day

Thanks, Your Majesty, for the Royal Assent. You soon won't be the only married queen in Britain. Hurrah, hurray hurroo! #EqualMarriage
— Stephen Fry (@stephenfry) July 17, 2013

An Open Letter to the Management of the John Snow Public House

photo courtesy of metacheetr

On the evening of Wednesday 13 April 2011, Jonathan Williams, 26, and James Bull, 23, were asked to leave the John Snow public house for kissing while on their first date. A member of staff allegedly described the couple’s behaviour as obscene and evicted them from the establishment.

The media have reported several accounts of this incident. The general consensus has been that the couple's behaviour was entirely appropriate for a couple enjoying their first romantic evening together.

The strength of feeling that this mistreatment of a gay couple raised in London’s LGBT community was such that in the course of less than 30 hours, a gay kiss-in was organised with several hundred participants at the John Snow on the evening of 15 April 2011. Another kiss-in followed the next week on 21 April 2011. Rather than allow the LGBT protesters into or around the pub, the John Snow closed its doors on both of these evenings.

Despite several attempts at contacting the management of the John Snow, as well as the Samuel Smith Old Brewery, which owns the pub, neither the pub nor the brewer have released any comment, statement or apology to this date.

While we agree that any establishment is entitled to refuse entry, and/or the provision of goods and services to individuals they deem unsuitable or inappropriate, if this refusal is motivated by a person’s sexual orientation (real or perceived) it contravenes the Equality Act of 2010. This legislation came into force in October 2010 to prevent any business discriminating on the grounds of sexual orientation, gender, disability, religion or ethnicity, or against pregnant or breastfeeding mothers.

Anyone found to be the victim of discrimination on those grounds could be considered liable for compensation from the venue that discriminates against them.

We, the undersigned, therefore ask that the John Snow management, and/or the Samuel Smith Old Brewery issue a statement:

1/ specifying exactly why Mr. Jonathan Williams and Mr. James Bull were asked to leave the John Snow public house on the 13 April 2011.

2/ clearly stating the venue and company’s compliance with and commitment to the Equality Act of 2010.

3/ officially apologising to Mr. Jonathan Williams and Mr. James Bull

Continued silence on this matter by both the John Snow Pub and the Samuel Smith Old Brewery can only be seen by the public as acquiescence to the fact that discrimination had taken place, something that is likely to damage the reputation of the business. Direct actions will continue against this pub until it, or the brewery has started to engage in the meaningful and respectful dialogue that we believe this serious matter warrants.

You can sign an online petition via Facebook.

The PCC's Jan Moir FAIL

Jan Moir’s notorious Stephen Gately piece, published in the Daily Mail the day before his funeral, attracted 25,000 individual complaints from the public. Those complaints came in so fast they crashed the PCC website. Mainstream advertisers like Marks & Spencer demanded their ads were pulled from the article. Eventually the Mail pulled all advertising from the article.

Stephen Gately’s husband filed an official complaint as well. This was crucial, because despite the scale of public outrage, only those directly affected are allowed to make a complaint under PCC rules.

The PCC has now ruled that the article was just fine: within the standards we should expect of our free Press here in the UK.

Compare and contrast with the results of the public hysteria whipped up by the Daily Mail against the BBC, Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand over the Andrew Sachs incident: a BBC executive was forced out, Brand resigned, Ross, the BBC's biggest star, was suspended without pay for three months and now his contract has not been renewed.

But Jan Moir and the Daily Mail have got off scott free. Depressingly, this means we can probably expect more of this genre of homophobic writing to emerge from the gutter press in the future, especially as the PCC seems to feel that they can say whatever they like as long as they avoid words like fag, queer, poof, bender etc.

PCC: "While many complainants considered that there was an underlying tone of negativity towards Mr Gately and the complainant on account of the fact that they were gay, it was not possible to identify any direct uses of pejorative or prejudicial language in the article."

Yes, it is indeed true Ms Moir did not use the specific and traditional homophobic epithets in her article. What she did use was offensive innuendo ramped up to the maximum. It has been described as “dog whistle” journalism - but in this case it’s for dogs of a particularly deaf and stupid nature, in case they don’t quite get it:

“Another real sadness about Gately's death is that it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships.

Gay activists are always calling for tolerance and understanding about same-sex relationships, arguing that they are just the same as heterosexual marriages. Not everyone, they say, is like George Michael.

Of course, in many cases this may be true. Yet the recent death of Kevin McGee, the former husband of Little Britain star Matt Lucas, and now the dubious events of Gately's last night raise troubling questions about what happened.
It is important that the truth comes out about the exact circumstances of his strange and lonely death.

As a gay rights champion, I am sure he would want to set an example to any impressionable young men who may want to emulate what they might see as his glamorous routine.

For once again, under the carapace of glittering, hedonistic celebrity, the ooze of a very different and more dangerous lifestyle has seeped out for all to see.”

Even if one accepts the PCC’s highly restrictive definition of homophobic journalism, her factual inaccuracy is surely just grounds for complaint:

"Whatever the cause of death is, it is not, by any yardstick, a natural one. Let us be absolutely clear about this." (emphasis mine)

The Spanish coroner ruled that Gately died on the 10th October 2009 of natural causes, due to pulmonary oedema. Clearly Jan was highly inaccurate, not so, PCC?

PCC: Moir's claim that Gately's death had not been "natural", while controversial and speculative, "could not be established as accurate or otherwise".

I’m sorry, but in this ruling the PCC comes across as a Society for the Preservation and Justification of the Gutter Press.

Peter Tatchell has it absolutely right:

"If Jan Moir had made similar comments about a black or Jewish person, and disparaged their race and community, the PCC would have ruled against her.

"She may well have been arrested and charged with inciting racial hatred. Why is the PCC adopting double standards on homophobia?

"This ruling brings the PCC into disrepute. It's another nail in the coffin of this discredited, feeble institution. The PCC is past its sell-by date. It should be replaced by an independent statutory body with real power and principles."

Candle lit vigil

more candles
Originally uploaded by Matt Eason

Last night a candle lit vigil was held in memory of Ian Baynham and other victims of homophobic hate crimes.



The vigil was well attended, and a moving and uniting experience. I think it was particulalry shocking that Ian Baynham was murdered in Trafalgar Square - the very centre of London - and in a relatively gay-friendly area too.



After a two-minute's silence the comedienne Sue Perkins read a list of names of people lost to hate violence. It was shockingly long.



More photos of the vigil

Sarah Brown at the vigil - photo from the organiser, Mark Healey's, Facebook album of the event.

Media homophobia on the rise?

It’s been a good week for twitter, with two major victories for UK tweeters, over the oil company Trafigura and the columnist Jan Moir of the Daily Mail.

Jan Moir’s vile column on the tragic death of Stephen Gately was deeply shocking and rightly aroused a huge reaction across the UK and Ireland. Special credit must be paid to the Mail’s own readers, who overwhelmingly rejected Moir’s sentiments in the comments section. The twitter reaction was such that “Jan Moir” topped the trending topics chart throughout Friday, but #janmoir and “Daily Mail” also trended in the top ten yesterday and “Daily Mail” remains trending this morning.

The PCC received an unprecedented number of complaints - so many their website crashed on Friday afternoon. Celebrity tweeters such as Stephen Fry joined in the condemnation, and M&S and Nestle demanded their adverts be pulled from appearing on the article page. Eventually, the Daily Mail pulled all advertising from the page.

With Charlie Brooker in the Guardian accusing her of gay bashing, Jan Moir released through her paper’s PR officers a self-serving “apology” which really just compounded her original homophobic rant.

Why did she do it? In the wake of last weekend’s furore over Danii Minogue’s (quite tame) comments on XFactor, why did the Daily Mail think they could get away with it? Were they deliberately courting controversy and sales?

Or is it something more sinister? Many have considered Jan Moir’s article the worst case of blatant media homophobia in years. The Daily Mail is a right-wing newspaper and if the polls are to be believed we may be only months away from a Conservative government. The Tories’ gay-friendliness has been exposed in the last few weeks as a tissue thin veneer: they are more than happy to partner up in Europe with extremely homophobic eastern European political parties. Moreover, apart from apologizing for Section 28 they lack any real gay equality policies and have opposed Labour on this issue - Cameron himself voted against the repeal of Section 28 in 2003.

So, is Tory ambiguity on LBGT matters encouraging the re-emergence of rabid homophobes in the right-wing press? Of course, with only one article it may be too early to say, but we should maintain vigilance. It is most gratifying and grounds for optimism that Jan Moir’s rant was so comprehensively rejected.

Stephen Fry on Channel 4 News

Absolutely blowing the Tory spokesman away:

Singing at The Scoop

.

The London Gay Men's Chorus gave two free open air concerts in The Scoop yesterday evening, largely featuring songs about London. A stand out for me was the inclusion of Amy Winehouse’s Rehab in a fantastic medley of London songs; it just about brought the house down (7:20 in the video below).



The Scoop has surprisingly good acoustics - as the space is a kind of modern take on the classic ancient greek theatre format I suppose it should. So the space reverberated to manly voices very pleasantly. I was less enchanted by the section of the audience I was sitting amongst. It’s clearly unrealistic to expect concert hall standards of behaviour in an al fresco setting, but some people chatted quite loudly all the way through, amongst each other and even on mobile phones. To cap it all a girl behind me insisted on singing along to her favourite song, in a voice best suited to the privacy of her bathroom. Oh well I suppose it shows she was enjoying it.

The choir triumphed over all the distractions, and won a standing ovation at the end of their performance.

fuck you

Lily Allen's song has been drafted into the USA's culture wars - this rather brilliant, joyous and liberating fan video has been popping up all over. Very well done, very good (Warning: about every second word in the song is 'fuck'):



Maybe Lily should adopt this as her official video? - Crowd-sourcing pop videos! How radical!

Sex and the City (not)

"If you believe you are born gay, you are forced to be tolerant. But if you bring in choices, it changes everything."

It is this ominous quote from Joe Nicolosi, speaker at the recent “Gay Cure” conference ¹, which seems to me to most clearly and succinctly delineate his bigotry.

Of course, people are born gay and as law-abiding citizens we deserve acceptance and equal rights. But, say - completely hypothetically speaking - if homosexuality was a choice, why does Dr Nicolosi think “it changes everything”? Again, as a free, autonomous and law-abiding citizen, I would expect society to respect my free choice to love whoever I want. Nicolosi has no right at all to judge me or intervene in any way in how I choose to live my life lawfully in a free society, especially over a choice which has no impact on him whatsoever.²

The ex-gay brigade’s failures of logic are just astonishing. If homosexuality is a ‘choice’, why does there need to be such a large and activist “reparative” industry to “change” people’s “choices”? ~ and what about the gay penguins, flamingos, bonobos and the 1000s of other animal species demonstrated to evince homosexuality quite naturally? How do they fit into his ridiculous, completely outdated and discredited Freudian ideas of how gayness comes about?

The tragedy is this flim-flam only appeals to vulnerable gay people and their families, desperate out of fear and ignorance to clutch at any straw. Words like “reparative”, “choice” and “healing” completely disguise what their “therapy” really is: brainwashing and mental bludgeoning, forcing internal repression and the simulated appearance of heterosexuality. Underlying same-sex orientation and desire does not change, it is merely suppressed. The unfortunate victim of this “therapy” lives a zombie half-life, desperately trying to convince everyone, including themselves, they are straight, until they have some kind of breakdown. The established psychiatric opinion is that there is no scientific evidence reparative therapy succeeds in its objectives, and in fact it has the potential to do tremendous damage to the patient and their family.

So for Heaven’s sake, Dr Nicolosi, let my people go!

¹ Zefrog organized a well-attended protest outside this conference.
² Apart from destroying the rationale behind his business, of course.

Snowy knows all

“Tell yourself, if you like, that it was just that Tintin hasn't yet met the right girl. Or maybe that it's only a stage he's going through. But if you expect a Belgian Catholic born in 1907 to have unmasked the hero of his blockbuster series of comic adventures as an out-gay activist and homosexual icon, you expect too much. Hergé was no Andy Warhol (Hergé's great admirer). But Snowy saw everything; Snowy knows all. And Snowy never tells.”

- Matthew Paris’s provocative yet hilarious outing in The Times

Gay reproductive advantage

Saw this via Gay Banker, a new scientific theory about why gayness never died out through natural evolution.

My little brain struggles to comprehend - but basically, it appears that the premise of the popular make-over tv programme, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, is now established scientific theory: a little bit of the gay makes you better with the laydeez.

Hmmm.

Hadrian at the British Museum

Many years ago, in York, I bought a silver denarius (or sestertius, can’t remember which) featuring the visage of this august Roman emperor. My plan was to buy two and turn them into cufflinks. But the second has not been bought (finances; worries about desecrating heritage) and the coin lurks to this day in my cuff-link box.

Hadrian made a bit of an impact on Britain, with his wall, of course. But he seems to have been very fond of building projects all over the empire, and with the Pantheon in Rome achieved a whole new category of architecture.


The British Museum’s exhibition brings together wonderful sculptures of Hadrian from across the empire (making our bronze head dredged out of the Thames look of decidedly provincial manufacture). The most exciting of these is also the most recent – fragments of a giant sculpture recently discovered in Turkey in Sagalassos and now standing at the entrance to the exhibition.



There are also fantastic architectural models of the Pantheon and Hadrian’s villa in Tivoli – as big as a small town. The Tivoli model was made in the 1930s and lacks the recent discovery of a massive shrine to Antinous, erected prominently next to the villa’s main entrance (and where a highly eroticized massive marble Antinous in the guise of the Egyptian god Osiris was discovered back in the 18th century). Hadrian famously had his boyfriend declared a god – clearly, this is archeological proof. One wonders what Hadrian’s wife must have made of it. Also, why did the shrine remain ‘undiscovered’ for so long, when the pretty amazing sculpture had been found there hundreds of years before? Clearly, classical scholars felt more comfortable not unearthing evidence of Hadrian’s passion. I’m sensing homophobia at work.

The exhibition interestingly had a section on ancient Roman amphorae (Hadrian’s family was big in olive oil). The Romans were pretty organized – each amphora had information enough about weight, origin, packaging etc to satisfy the modern Brussels bureaucrat.

The most emotive section was one containing personal belongings of Jewish rebels found in the cave they hid from [genocidal] Roman troops.

I’m not sure about the reading Room as a temporary exhibition space. The circular ground plan fragments into awkward spaces and bottlenecks occur everywhere. The dramatic lighting plan casts your fellow visitors’ shadows onto the information labels, making progress really difficult. On the plus side, Panozzi’s wonderful dome pays appropriate homage to Hadrian’s prototype, its ancestor, in this interesting and worthwhile exhibition.

Hadrian Empire and Conflict
British Museum
until 26th October 2008

Queer London: Perils and Pleasures in the Sexual Metropolis, 1918-1957

(Matt Houlbrook, University of Chicago Press, 2006)

The beautiful image on the cover seduced me into buying this book (and I felt the need for some educational reading). It’s a fascinating read; most enjoyable and informative. I loved the way Houlbrook itemises the particular geography of queer London, and has even sourced photos of historic queer places (largely from police records, it would appear). Knowing where these old clubs, bath houses, urinals etc actually were will definitely add another dimension to my experience of London.

The book is (fairly obviously) based on his PhD thesis, so is written in full-on academic-speak. Houlbrook does manage to enliven this jargon-heavy discourse with some wit and flexibility; I just feel an opportunity to reach the general reader has been missed. There is certainly enormous human interest here, and loads of original research. As it was, I felt like a student at the back of queer-studies class.

My other issue is that he imposes an off-the-peg Marxist analysis on the history: not particularly convincingly, in my view. Slippery queer men evade the class categories he constructs for them at every turn. He nostalgically looks for a moment when the [queer] proletariat storms the gates of the Winter Palace – the closest incident he finds is a massive police raid on a proto queer club-night in a Holland Park Street Ballroom run by “Lady” Austin for her “Camp Boys”, in the 1930s. The police gained undercover entrance to this by dragging up and passing as queer. One policeman enthusiastically boasted about “trading twice” with “my boyfriend” – this part was subsequently suppressed at the trial.

Houlbrook clearly shows the camp boys had a vocal and articulate critique of their arrest and the laws which led to it. However I think he overemphasizes the differences between the camp boys and middle-class ‘respectable homosexuals’: the camp boys clearly were trying to keep their night as private as possible, given that the police had to go to extreme lengths to gain entry. Moreover, the camp boys clearly supported the abolition of the Act, following the call of the middle-class Oscar Wilde and prefiguring the middle-class 'respectable homosexual' lobbyists at the Wolfenden commission.

These lobbyists clearly did create a mythical ‘respectable homosexual’ – but surely as a deliberate ploy to counter the demonized stereotypes then prevailing in public discourse. They needed to speak the language of the law-makers in order to persuade them to change the laws.

In the end, the tragic Lady Austin saga had no effect on the liberation struggle one way or the other. By contrast, the arrest and trial for cottaging of the middle-class war-hero, sportsman and public schoolmaster Frank Champain (at midnight, in one of London’s most notorious urinals under the Adelphi arches just off the Strand) had a dramatic effect on police activity after Mr Champain was spectacularly acquitted on appeal.

It is quite clear that he must have been totally guilty, but his solicitor skillfully spun his arrest as police entrapment and this so enraged the appeal judge he berated the policeman involved. The police were so cowed by this that arrests for cottaging fell dramatically after this trial and stayed well down for years afterwards. So, by helping to minimize persecution during a lengthy period of oppression, this has to be counted a small tactical success.

In the final analysis, the Camp Boys protested but did not physically fight their arrest – very much unlike the New York Stonewall Bar gays of decades later. Stonewall became an iconic and liberating moment for gays all over the world. Why didn’t this happen at the Holland Park Ballroom? - are our police less brutal? are we too respectful of the law? Whatever the answers, it would seem that the European reformist strategy has overtaken the activist tradition in the States. Despite the explosive and psychologically liberating Stonewall moment, America today is massively behind Europe in awarding equal rights to its gay citizens – and even has a fundamentalist and activist right-wing trying to turn the clock back even more.

sex exploring with Rupert

Clearly, Rupert Everett speaks his mind very fluently, if not wisely – he’s in all sorts of trouble for his off-the-cuff comments about the contemporary British army’s will to fight. Oops.

Watched his Channel 4 documentary on the “Victorian sex explorer” Sir Richard Burton last night. It was actually great – very well written and presented, taking full advantage of the strange way Roops’ fruity accent rendered quite salacious material relatively ‘safe’. Me, I was gagging for more detail – filthy minds want to know – but although Sir Richard went ‘native’ he remained discreet enough not to tell all, so there is still plenty of room for conjecture. Of course, his Catholic wife destroyed lots of his papers, so we will never know. Richard’s career went ker-ash after a British Army secret mission to investigate the male brothels servicemen were patronizing in India. Apparently, Sir Richard investigated them all too enthusiastically, raising queries over his sexuality that have never gone away.

Rupert got into character, channeling Sir Richard with a studly no.1 crop and fiercely trimmed beard. He showed a lot of well-maintained torso and biceps, and the camera-man did him proud; he looked pretty gorgeous in all sorts of beautifully lit exotic locations. It was cute seeing him flirt with Hirjas (extremely radical Indian transsexuals); nuns; an Egyptian masseur who offered ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ sexual extras to his male clients; an elderly Indian lady fan at Bombay docks, etc etc etc.

so how was it for you?

Just as well I voted before work yesterday – afterwards would have been impossible.

I’ve always thought of myself as a decisive voter: not so much this time. At various stages of the campaign all three leading candidates appealed - in the latter stages I hovered between Ken and Brian as my No.1.

Wanted to vote for Ken as frankly he was the best candidate but simultaneously send him a message about Arrogance, al-Qaradawi, Dubious Funding Strategies, 2ce is enough etc etc etc. Didn’t want to be so shallow as to vote for Handsome Gay Hunk Mr Paddick but I think that’s how it turned out in the end:-(

Juicy Royal sex scandal

When will the Royal Family learn it's not still 1936? They simply can't expect to hide the relevant information from us plebs loyal subjects in the UK when the whole rest of the world knows. Especially when the allegations are this juicy: Royal/Gay sex/blackmail/secrecy etc etc etc.

Also, surely some civil law issues here? - How can thay have a trial completely in secret??? - is it going to be 'off with their heads' next?

As all of us slavering gossipoholics know, thank goodness for Google. And Wikipedia.