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26 mai Those Were The DaysFor some queer reason, it's assumed I have a up-to-the-minute grasp of the pop-cultural Zeitgeist. Gym goer's all congregate round the water-cooler, like acolytes to my Delphi, for pronouncements on last night's must-see telly, and my opinions on the latest artistic vibe down Canal Street.
17 mai Elvis Ooh-Là-LàOne of the bars I drink in, let's call it the French Bar. It's a tiny, blink-and-you'll-miss-it place with a small but excellent wine list, and decent grub, hidden away in a side-street. The place is stuck in a time-warp: empty bottles of Beaujolais '68 (a particularly bad year, by all accounts) swing from the ceiling; the framed and faded Time Out reviews by the mullioned windows date from the seventies; and no-one here has yet discovered a sensible use for Smirnoff Ice. It’s not the place you'd normally expect to find me. A large proportion of the clientele are macho, middle-aged French ex-pats, talking boules or rugby over interminable glasses of Ricard. Either that, or they're boorish big-bellied City Suits with even bigger expense accounts. There is, however, one small hard-core of wayward regulars, enjoying the wine, and holding out against the Suits and rugger buggers. These are actors and musicians, freelance photographers and writers, would-be "entrepreneurs" and cheeky Essex Wide-Boys, even the odd sozzled survivor from sixties Soho with stories to tell. Running into them here can be a refreshing antidote to some of the hung-up homo-haunts of nearby. Like the song says, it really is good to have a bar "where everybody knows your name". It's even better when it's a bar where, when you're going through a lean patch, the staff let you run up a tab of a hundred or so, as long as you find the readies to pay by the end of the month, or there'll be trouble, mon ami. Because all of us here live our lives slightly at an angle to the respected "normality" of the bar's other customers, there's something of the Mutual Support and Networking Club about us. And it was in that spirit of Mutual Support that I found myself, watching, of all things, an Elvis Presley impersonator. Now, for me, the prospect of being shafted by a red-hot poker is infinitely more promising than listening to someone ape the voice and mannerisms of a man who last made a decent record in 1963. Even the kitsch value doesn't do it for me. But as this was the teenage son of one of our maverick lot, working for his Equity Card in front of a paying audience, there was a moral obligation to cough up our five-quid and go. And you know what? For someone who hadn't even been born when Presley died, he was actually very good, doing a better-than-decent cover of the Viva Las Vegas-era King, before he'd wolfed down one double cheese-burger too many. Dan was obviously pleased, and the Luvvies he'd invited were dancing on the tables, as Luvvies often do, and much to the bemusement of our little French chums, who'd probably have preferred to have seen Johnny Hallyday anyway. The kid needs to think about his act a bit more though. When you're playing to an audience of liberal-minded media-folk and non-saying Frenchmen, perhaps it's not such a wise move to have as your finale, a rip-roaring, flag-waving rendition of An American Trilogy… 15 mai SwatOf course, there's a plus side to all this sweetness and niceness lark, you know. — Bless, but Gayboy is simply so nice isn't he? I always feel safe and secure when he's around. Oh my dear, I'd trust him with anything. — Oh, rather! That Gayboy, well, he is just soooo sweet. He wouldn't hurt a fly. — Sppplaaaatt! — Er, what was that? — Dead fly. 11 mai Goin' Back To My RootsIt could be the growing spectre of middle-age. Or simply the realisation that, the pedigree ends with me. In the past month, I've been tracing my family tree, trying to put names and dates to all the people who, in some way, have made me what I am. Despite being a bunch of breeding-like-rabbits Wirral/Irish, my parents' siblings were never ones for staying in touch or keeping records. Almost all of them are dead now anyway. So, for the facts, my main source material has been the staggering amount of info available in the 1901 census returns at the Public Records Office. Several pleasant G&T-sozzled evenings with Mum have provided loads of the long-forgotten goss. Bit by bit, I'm starting to put the flesh of fact onto family legends. So, the story that an anonymous ancestor has a statue dedicated to him in a park in Cork seems to be a myth. And despite my nanna's remarkable resemblance to the late Queen Mum, I regret the Bowes-Lyon connection has to be ruled out. But I've discovered two uncles I never knew existed; and Cathleen (who they didn't talk about after That Divorce); and, just possibly, my paternal great-grandfather. As well as flame-haired Catherine, considered such a beauty in the 1880s that the jealous Paddy never let her out alone. John, just nineteen, dead at Ypres. Edna, who changed her name to Judy Gray and tried to make it big on the stage. Fred, who did make it big - in fish. And Isabella, wilful mill-owner's daughter from Chorley, disowned by her family when she married beneath her. The 1901 census tells me that, as a widow, she was forced to take in as boarders two circus clowns. And then there was Thomas. Fine figure of a man, by all accounts. Winning ways, to-die-for smile. All the lasses from miles around were half in love with our Tommy, but, oh no, he wasn't interested. He went off to be a sailor instead. Later they heard he'd taken the boat to America to become an actor. Surprisingly, he never married. Hmmm… I wonder what happened to him? 4 mai I'm Back In TownRemember me? Thank you all for all those good wishes in the comments box: evidence of the community spirit this blogging nonsense is supposed to generate. Or maybe you just want a thank-you drink the next time you run into me. Whichever way, the Stellas are all on me. Genuine thanks again: it meant, and means, a lot. What happened was my mother took a tumble at home Up North (far too many gin-and-tonics, I say; shut up, she says), and was admitted to A&E on Friday evening for a weekend operation. Things became complicated when it emerged the leg she'd buggered up was the same one she'd broken seven years ago (and which she'd then kept quiet about, to me at least, until a week after the op). The thing which shook me up so much initially was that long-dreaded, out-of-the-blue call on the mobile ("Hello, Gayboy, this is the hospital calling about your mother. . ."); their NHS-rulebook insistence I couldn't speak to her straight away (I soon bullied them out of that one); and my concern for the excruciating pain a woman, who had never deserved it, must have been going through. But, above all, it was the horribly inevitable Intimation of Mortality. My mother's been the one constant in my life. If - and let's face it, when - she does go, it will mean that, whatever else is going on in my emotional life, I will finally be Alone. A Grown-Up Gayboy at long last, living with regrets of never having said how he really felt, or given her the chance to see him truly happy. Selfish maybe, but there you go. Anyway, the happy upshot of all this is that, while she won't be doing the can-can for a while, she has a nice shiny new hip to show off, provided by a nice (and very shiny) doctor (oh, those Northern boyz…); they're going to try and get her up and walking tomorrow; and this particular Gayboy's been sent off with a flea in his ear for worrying too much. She's going to be all right, is my mum. And so will I. 8 avril Waiting For My ManWhen the most exciting thing you're looking forward to is Saturday morning's home delivery from Sainsbury's, and the best fun you've had recently was an argy-bargy last night with some call-centre chappie from Mumbai, then reason suggests that, if you intend remaining a card-carrying queen for much longer, you really ought to start getting out just that little bit more. 3 avril In DenialYeah, course I go there, mate, I mean, don't get me wrong, it’s not like I'm a puff or anything, but them bender blokes, well, they're all right once you get to know them, and they've got some blinding clubs, and the music's like real cutting-edge too, and there's always some fantastic-looking birds there too, nah, not lezzies but the actual real thing, some proper stunners too, yeah, you wouldn't credit it, would you, and them slags, well, like they're real relaxed, but do us a favour, you think they really want to be out with their woofter friends, when they can shag a real man like me, so that's why I go off to them queer clubs, knowwhatimean?
Though, fair's fair, a couple of them nancy boys, well, they ain't so bad, knowwhatimean, and they always know where to get the best gear, and the other night, well, I reckon I was pissed, I tell you I was off me tits, man, knowwhatimean, and I had a couple of them pills, as you do, and, like, it were obvious all them shirt-lifters were getting off on me, course I told them I weren't interested, didn't I, like I ain't havin' nothing to do with all of that, well, it ain't natural, innit, although there were that geezer down the Arsenal, and I mean, he supported the Gunners and all that, and you wouldn't have known it if I hadn't gone and ... well, let's not talk about that now... Anyways, I was having a real good time with these two arse-bandits I got chatting to, like you do, so we went on back to their gaff, didn't we, and it was real nicely decorated like in them makeover things on the telly, but don't get me wrong, we just had a good laff and a smoke like you do with anyone, and, I mean, there's summat not right about it, but live and let live, that's what I say, not that I let them get the wrong idea, you know, c'mon, what do you think I am, I'm a real ferkin' man's man, that's what I am, ain't I, but just between you and me I reckon they was begging for it, and, like, it doesn't hurt to be friendly, does it, knowwhatimean, and that stuff the three of us had, well, I reckon I was really stoned that night, yeah, that must have been it, really arseholed, knowwhatimean, but too right we're all going back next week. That fag hag of theirs? Nah, she was a tart, right old slapper, couldn't handle a man's man like me, knowwhatimean, but that's OK, Gareth and Jason said they'd see me sorted... Knowwhatimean? Saturday night out on queer street "Yeh Yeh, I think I knowwhat-ya-mean" I responded, before going the bar then to the dancefloor!! 1 avril Catch Of The DayYesterday was spent suffering with a funny tummy, the result of an evening passed with a cash-strapped friend at one of those all-you-can-eat-for-a-fiver places. I should have known better than to trust a "restaurant", which, despite having an Italian name, serves Spanish-style tapas, dished up by moon-lighting Korean students, and where the house red is Bulgarian gut-rot. Classy fusion food it was not. Now, as someone whose idea of culinary heaven is a pair of finest pork and beef sausages squashed between slices of thin, processed, white bread, I can hardly be called a food snob, but I reckon if you want good grub then you have to pay for it. As I totter disgracefully through my thirties, I find I'm eating out more and more. I appreciate dining in restaurants, enjoying the company of good friends, or perhaps getting to know a new one better, over fine food and wine; and a bill of between twenty to forty quid per head with plonk, or even more, depending on the occasion, is OK with me. For my generation, dining out is rapidly becoming the new clubbing or pubbing: just a couple of years ago we'd normally be spending twice as much as that on a night of pharmaceutically-assisted jumping up and down anyway. But the best meal I've ever had in my life wasn't in some over-priced metropolitan eaterie, patronised by C-list celebrities, or part-owned by one of those chefs off the telly, but on the Greek island of Rhodes. One afternoon, the scorching June heat had finally defeated us, and we parked at a run-down and out-of-the-way taverna on the beach. Sitting out on a ramshackle jetty, staring over the sea at the wind-surfers in the distance, we feasted on fish, sizzling and pan-fried in its own juices, garnished with nothing more than lemon. It was delicious on its own, but made more so by the knowledge that, just twenty minutes previously, we had seen the grizzled taverna owner send his dark-eyed teenage son out with a spear to catch the fish, especially for us, fresh from the glittering Aegean shallows. (And we got tons of change from our drachmas as well.) Sometimes, you don't need even one single Michelin star to impress. 25 mars Local Shops for Local PeopleProbably like loads of people, I rarely have time for local shopping. I'm hardly at home during the week. I leave early for a gym 'n' swim (yeah, yeah, I'm an insufferably smug git: you'll learn to love me in time); and, when I return home, only the mini-market, the three offies, and Ali's Northern-Fried Halal Rat-Burgers are open for business. So most of my grocery shopping gets done anonymously at Sainsbury's. I can do it on-line, and, what's more, they deliver. Occasionally, I'll drop by Market for a stack of cheapo loo rolls, the Sunday farmers' market for cheese, or breeze into Marks and Sparks (they have a very yummy young man working one of the checkouts, and that's excuse enough for this shallow and superficial Gayboy). On Saturdays I'm usually too brain-dead from the previous week (and/or Friday night), that any activity involving person-to-person contact, including shopping, is a definite no-no until about eight p.m. that evening. This Saturday, however, for the first time in a couple of years, I braved the local shops just five minutes' walk from my home. Within three tiny blocks, I discovered: a florists naffly-named Austin Flowers and a swish designer-glassware store; a post office, two chemists and three newsagents; two butchers and one fruit 'n' veg; a dry-cleaners and an overpriced hardware store; a greasy spoon and an undertaker's; four Tandoori restaurants, three organic health-food places, two crusty bakers and one Italian deli. The baker gave me a free cream-bun, and the chemist offered me advice for my "little problem"; the deli-man told me just how al dente my pasta should be; and, when I asked the butcher to spatchcock my chicken, he actually knew what I was talking about, rather than threatening to call in the authorities. I could get used to this support-your-local-retailers lark. I might not get points on my Nectar card, but at least Jamie Oliver doesn't work for them. And the cashiers smile back at you as well. 16 mars It's So Nice To Be Insane (No-One Asks You To Explain)When you live alone, talking to yourself is perfectly acceptable. Indeed, it's to be expected, if you don't want to turn completely bonkers. Sometimes, a decision can only be made correctly, or a thought process taken to its proper conclusion, when it's expressed aloud. Nothing wrong with that, is there? So I've no problem with chirping maniacally away to myself like a speed-junkie squirrel, and do not regard it as the first step on that long, lonely road terminating at Funny Farm Central. With the advent of hands-free technology, you can even do it in the street these days, and no-one will look pityingly at you as though you're gaga, and cross the road to avoid you. No, they'll just think you're a prat. They'll still cross the road though. Recently, however, I've noticed a disturbing new tendency. Not content merely with muttering softly to myself, I have now started to answer back. My vocalised interior monologue has become a dialogue. It happened last night, when I was sketching out some future blog, and debating whether I should have just one more Stella before going home. One part of me vociferously insisted I had had enough, while the other argued forcefully that another little half wouldn't do me any harm, and might even help the flow of ideas. No prizes for guessing which side won. For the regulars at the bar, it was a bit like eavesdropping on Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, although not quite as pretty. They've always thought I was a bit of a self-obsessed nutter anyway, and now all their worst fears have been confirmed. But that's OK. After all, two's company, they say. It's only three that's doo-lally. 12 mars Poor Little MeWhat I'd originally imagined to be the result of the excesses of the week – it’s not every day a friend turns up out of the blue from far away, you know, and you need to celebrate in the correct manner – proved to be slightly more serious (no, not that serious, and I'm feeling much better now, thank you very much). So I'm afraid the past couple of days have been spent alternately shuddering with a fever or fitfully snoozing, spread out cadaverously on the zebra skin (don't ask) like a consumptive poet languishing deliciously in a garret near you. But - I assure you, - I've been having the most marvellous time feeling sorry for myself. 4 mars Small WorldOnce I used gently to mock my mother's class and generation for spending their entire lives working, living, playing and dying in the same tiny town, often down the same narrow Coronation Streets, never thinking of venturing outside its cobble-stoned borders into the wider and foreign world Now, as I stumble dazed towards a crisis not just on Queer Street, but in mid-life too, I think I might just be turning into one of them, as far as my adopted home town is concerned.
When I first arrived in the capital, I had no concept of the city being a collection of discrete villages, each one with its own boundaries and character.this place is just, a brand-new toy-shop to explore. North, south, east and west, I ransacked it of all its cultural and historic treasures, of all its sights and sounds — and a good few other things as well. Pretty soon I had a passing acquaintance with the capital so comprehensive I could probably even have made a halfway-decent attempt at the cabbies' Knowledge. (The bitchier of you may point out that much of this familiarity was gained during my Slapper Years, when I seldom ventured out without my toothbrush and a copy of the A-Z to help me find my way home in the morning after. For my part, I would point out that you're just being grubby, and, besides, you can't prove a thing.) This Gayboy's life is spinning around in ever-decreasing circles, like mucky bath-water glug-glug-glugging down the plughole. His homo h(a)unting-grounds are shrinking faster than an E-bunny's boner, and his social life seems now confined to a few not-so-mean but safe-bet streets and venues. Someone wanted to take me on a romantic date to Ikea the other week. When he told me it was in Warrington, the poor love didn't see me for fairy-dust. And it's pretty obvious where all this is going to end, isn't it? Mark my words, this time next year, I'll have become a virtual recluse. You'll find me rarely leaving my tiny room and its two-bar fire, confined to my bed with a swansdown wrap around my shoulders, going grumpy and gaga on gin. If it was good enough for Marlene, my dears, then it's certainly going to be good enough for me. 27 février Prêt à MangerIt's a little-known fact that, in time, every Prêt à Manger "gourmet" sandwich turns into every other Prêt à Manger "gourmet" sandwich. After about your twentieth visit, you suddenly realise they are all exactly the same, and that your Crayfish and Rocket tastes exactly like your More Than Mozzarella tastes exactly like the BLT I had for breakfast. It's not a nostalgic longing for sausage and bacon butties, dripping with fat and their edges curled just so, which gets me peeved with Prêt. I don't mind the fact they've Starbucked their way onto every high street, forcing out the old delis, or that McDonalds has a thirty-three per cent stake in them. I can just about handle their smug and trendy corporate image, and I even get on with their chirpy and helpful young staff, when a saner Gayboy would punch that cheery grin right off their face. No, it's the way those employees have been trained to hand you back your change. Rather than just drop the coins into your outstretched hand, they very deliberately place them there, ensuring, for just one half-second or so, they are touching you, their fingers resting in the centre of your palm. Check it out when you next pop in for your Avo and Italian. They all do it. It's probably called something fancy like "customer care", or "connecting", or "bonding". Whatever it is, it annoys the hell out of me. 25 février Brief EncounterIt happened in a club on Temple Lane, where I was having drinks with some select friends. Outside, the midwinter weather rained down on the passers-by. Through the smokey dancefloor, I saw someone cross, seeking another drink at the bar. Italian probably, a couple of years older than me; tall, number 2 cropped hair, dark, lean of figure, wearing Levis and stylish squared blue shirt. Whoever he was, pre-Raphaelite minstrel, or Botticelli courtier. Time passed though he probably never knew I was looking at him.
Just a five seconds' glimpse, nearly six years ago. Astonishing how sometimes the fleetest of images stays with you for the rest of your life. 23 février February ShowerAt my gym, a new sign has just been attached to the tiled walls in the men's changing room. There may be a similar one in the ladies', but I'll bet my last Molton Brown against your Radox multi-pack there isn't. It reads something along the lines of: We expect all members of our club, which is a wide and a diverse community, to respect at all times the rights and considerations of all other members. 21 février Hands That DoMy new PC arrived today along with an IBM engineer, a Health and Safety notice turned up too asking me to log-into their website to give me a work-station assessment. I was touched by their concern, until I realised they're only covering themselves should I get struck down with RSI and decide to sue. However, I'm pleased to report my posture is perfect (those nights spent down at the club balanced precariously on some Mary's shoulders not in vain then); and, hard as it is to believe, I sit at my desk with both feet planted firmly on the ground. The most favourable comments, however, were passed on my keyboard technique, and especially the lack of any rigidity or stiffness in my hands as my fingers fly fluently over the keys. You know, this is probably the very first time in my life that I have ever received official approval for being limp-wristed. 20 février Here I Am In A Roomful Of StrangersA couple of days ago, I got a call on the mobile. It was one of those frantic Friday-evening SOS calls, when you suddenly realise it's the weekend and you've nada on your dance card, and where's the Queertown kudos in that, my shallow socialite? Never mind though, when everyone else has stood you up, there's always Gayboy. He'll never let you down, and he's anyone's for a Stella. Sadly I had to tell my desperate friend that I couldn’t meet up, as I was on my way to not one of my favourite pubs for an appointment with a group of people I'd never even met, or spoken to, and, what's more, I didn't have even the slightest notion of what any of them looked like (although I was led to believe that one of them might have been wearing a pointy blue hat). The "oh-yeah?" tone of her voice, and the fact she hung up in a huff, makes me think she didn't believe me, or at the very least thought I was taking the piss. Either that, or she was convinced I was on my way to a secret speed-dating session, and what did my mother always say about talking to strangers anyway? For when you think about it, meeting up with people you think you know well, solely through what they choose to reveal of themselves on-line, isn't possibly the most normal thing to do, and, quite frankly, it's a little scary too. The only other time I turned up at one of these blogging get-togethers, I chickened out at the last minute, and high-tailed it back to the comparative safety of home with a bottle of wine. So a million-and-one mwah-mwahs to everyone who made a Gayboy feel not like a stranger, and relieved me of my blogmeet virginity in such a delightful and alcoholic way on Saturday night. The only disappointment was that there wasn't some sort of quiz. I don't think anyone realised quite how much revision I'd put in, and how many individual archives I'd read in the days before, just so I wouldn't be caught out and put my size-nines in it with the wrong person. All that hard work to impress, and not even a starter for ten! Of course, while I didn't know what my fellow webloggers looked like, they were in the same situation when it came to me as I now have a number 2 all over, so very diffrent to my pictures. And later on, when I had finally achieved some kind of opacity, it was remarked that certain people had previously always envisaged me as being a Tom Baker sort of character, all long scarf and Fedora. I'm not sure how to take that one. Did they see me as a fine actor and writer, a wit and raconteur, a bon viveur bringing a fin-de-siècle elegance to the proceedings? Or did they imagine me as some thousand-year-old geezer, bonkers as a bandersnatch, with a dodgy line in cyber-chums, and a history of being heroically sozzled in pubs? Please don’t answer that one. 12 février Saturday Night's All RightThe general perceived notion round these parts come closing-time is that we metropolitan Marys all lead hugely hedonistic lives, mwah-mwahing our way from guest-list to A-list with our cutting-edge clothes and designer drugs, setting the standard in all things superficial, and generally shagging anything remotely resembling a member from a boy-band. So by rights, and so as not to let the side down, I should have been spotted this weekend somewhere in a mixed-up and sweaty mess of muscled madness, amyl up the nose, trousers round the ankles, slappers at my side, and dancing to next door's Dyson after having partaken of far too much of the fifth and eleventh letters of the alphabet. Instead - and if someone had even been bothered to look - they would have found me at home, slopping around in my trackie bottoms, re-reading a favoutite book by table-light, whilst sipping a fine red wine, and listening to the complete recorded works of Joni Mitchell. Staying in on Saturday night: it’s the new rock 'n' roll, don't you know? Now, someone get me my pipe and slippers. 10 février Remember Me?Sometimes, I arrange to touch base in a bar with a friend, or, more usually, a mate (there's a whole welcome world of difference). I do it with the vague and selfish intention of holding a halfway-serious conversation about what's currently doing flip-flops in the run-down adventure playground that's my head. Rather uncharitably, I rarely give people advance notice of what I have in store for them. Face it: they'd run a mile if they realised that, instead of a couple of jolly Stellas, it's a helter-skelter ride of neuroses making up tonight's schedule. I don't feel guilty: they've sprung their upsets on me often enough. Today I reckon it’s my turn. This is precisely what I'd planned for tonight. I was already settling in at the French Bar with an old mate for a record-breaking whine and vodka about my personal and professional life, when another mutual acquaintance turned up out of the blue. Now, this was not just any mutual acquaintance, you understand. Oh no, this was a much-loved mutual acquaintance neither of us had seen for over three years. So it was all mwah-mwah-mwah, darling, tell me what have you been doing all this time, my, but you are looking fabulous, and, oh, don't be silly, dear old Gayboy will give up his seat for you, won't you, Gayboy… Gayboy… oh, he must have gone off somewhere… now, now, oh never mind him, sweetheart, where were we? A word of advice: there are times, and especially when he's feeling sorry for himself, that this Gayboy definitely does not like being unseen. There are times, when, if this Gayboy can't be the centre of attention, then he's going to leave in either a huff or a black cab, and probably both. |
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