Of course there are some who wouldn't know a Ernest Gimson if you hit them over the head with it. ("They're so bloody authentic about everything, it'll be Prince of Wales heritage floorboards and tuckpointed bricks and original Ernest Gimson chairs from the antique shops over in Moreton.")

They also recognise the significant syllable in kunstpause when they hear it. ("That was the thing about the Anvil, that the people...were not so totally off their faces that you couldn't snatch between you the occasional kuntspause to discuss early Antonioni or the Shostakovich cello sonata without feeling guilty that it wasn't something suitably post-ironic like Karen Carpenter or Mommy Dearest instead.")

The last time I came across pretension this arch was twenty years or so ago, when I lived in Holland Park, with a boyfriend whose ex (the son of a comprehensive teacher) began a conversation by asking me where my "people" came from (one of the many times I wished I was Jewish).

I rather assumed that style had died out long since, along with Romanus the Melode, whoever he was. ("Beside the bar stood the bald Byzantist from County Down who had recommended him to read the poems of Romanus the Melode.")

But not so it seems, or not in Mr Keates's neck of the woods. And it's a shame, because these grating bits of name-dropperie spoil what turns out to be a halfway entertaining novel about gay love and sex in late 20th century London, full of references to Fist, Chariots and Clapham Common.

Intriguingly enough, although there are name-checks for countless saunas and sex-clubs, the only pub that's mentioned is The Two Brewers. Perhaps Mr Keates just needs to get out more.

Then he might realise that, these days, men who whistle Bach cantatas in the can are a dying breed. ("...a vinyl disc of the Trauer-Ode which with his customary obsessiveness he had lately been playing almost every day, whistling snatches of 'Lass, Fu¨rstin, lass noch einem strahl' through his teeth as he pottered in the bathroom.")

º Saturday 24th February 2001

Vodkajelly III at the Rat and Parrot, populated by convincing avatars of many of the UK's most popular blogs - some of whom, it must be said, look somewhat smaller in real life. Nice people, nice evening, vile hangover.

º Friday 23rd February 2001

Sorry, can't stop: hot date arriving in 15 minutes and I still haven't changed the duvet-cover.

Oops, apologies for the day's earlier fuck-up: I was, er, distracted.

º Thursday 22nd February 2001

One of the best things about the original Queer As Folk was writer Russell Davies' publicity interviews. Two quotes taken pretty much at random:

It's a relief that Davies is not trying to be politician-ish, because he clearly couldn't maintain it. "My favourite response to the first series is the people who come up saying 'I've lived with my boyfriend for ten years and we go to the opera and have dinner parties, why don't you write about that?' And I say, 'Oh, that's interesting! Hello! I write drama, not fucking dreary bollocks, like your life is. Fuck off.'

And he delights in the thought of making mischief closer to home, too. "The one front room I would have died to have been in the night episode one went out is my parents' front room, because my father's blind and my mother has to describe what's happening on television, so, literally, she sits there going, 'He walks in the room, he looks in his wallet, he takes out a photo.' So quite what she said that night, can you imagine? 'He licks his arse, he wanks him off till he comes...'. I never did ask."

Does the world really need an American re-make of Queer as Folk?

Watching the first couple of episodes last night (courtesy of the international gay conspiracy) it was difficult to see why. The plot, the script and even, in places, the shots seemed to slavishly copy the original with only the names, decor, and location doctored: for Manchester, read Pittsburgh throughout. (And for Stuart, Brian. Er, why?)

Although we were pleasantly surprised to find almost all of the original's naughty bits in place (not least the rimming scene), the whole thing seemed curiously lacking in energy, like a water-colour copy of an oil-paint original: Queer-As-Folk-Lite.

We were told that, shock horror, each episode contained no ad-breaks - mildly admirable until one fell to wondering just how many companies would have invested in such a series anyway: Banana Republic and...er? I can't believe the serialisation rights are worth much either, given the pre-existence of the UK original.

A small-budget cable affair then, which (coupled with predictable career-paranoia) presumably explains the dearth of acting talent on show: the only half-way familiar face is Sharon (Cagney & Lacey) Gless as the mother of Michael/Vince - and, my, what a ruin she turned out to be. Glamour, such as it was, was found only at the edge of the screen, in a horde of buffed-up extras who were noticeably more attractive than the leads.

Shot in Toronto, though you'd never know it, this re-make apparently diverges from the original as it progresses, giving more house-room to the lesbians and to HIV (thereby correcting an arguable political incorrectness in the original.)

Given the States-side fuss about 'Ellen', I guess we have to award the show a gold star or two for bravery (or is that foolhardiness?). Judged purely as entertainment though, Brit-queens should save their tape for 'Will and Grace' and 'Normal, Ohio'. (Are you listening, Channel Four?)

David and Jonathan watched it too...

Having said all that, big-ups to Andy for hosting a dozen of us so smoothly, and to Guy for providing the tape; it was a thoroughly enjoyable evening, up to but not including what I saw of the first episode of Metrosexuality, which looked, well, drear as fuck.

º Wednesday 21st February 2001

I have to leave in a moment to go and visit my accountant in St Johns Wood, and then I'm spending the evening watching the US Queer As Folk, in a loft, in Shoreditch. I wonder if Tamara Beckwith will be there?

Soups of the World part one:

Baxter's 'Cock-a-Leekie'  Tastes like it sounds. More leak than cock? Fragmentary lumps of meat (toe, or possibly armpit) in fawn fondant with orange highlights (carrot?).

Heinz 'Lentil'  Surprisingly inoffensive, given its sick-like consistency. 'Suitable for vegetarians' (who deserve no better, frankly).

Knorr 'Chicken Noodle'  Technological triumph that rationalises poultry out the equation altogether: powdered hormones, with added salt.

The quiz? Oh. They lost.

º Tuesday 20th February 2001

Pop quiz tonight. Here's the way it's going to go:
Wendy still being on her hols, an alternative question-setter will be drafted in.
Said question-setter being over 18, 'Retro' will be correctly defined to include music created prior The Summer of Love (yes, Jessica, they were writing songs back then too).
I will at last lose patience with being so obviously reduced to useless-advisor status to David, Jonce and whoever, and will flounce off to set up a team-of-one.
The questions will all be about The White Album, Cream, pre-electric Bob Dylan, early Leonard Cohen and late Joan Baez and I will score 19 out of 20 (having dropped a point on The Incredible String Band because I was always stoned when I listened to their albums).
I will win a very large bottle of extremely excellent wine.
Which I will drink All By Myself, excuse me.
I will stagger out drunk into the path of a bus and die happy, and you'll all be really really really sad.
For a week.

Tip of the cork-hung hat to The Minkered One, now safely ensconced on the other side of the world (via some weird time-warp shit to judge by his blog). Open a tinnie for me, Dave.

Dreamt about my psychopathic ex-boyfriend and my paranoid ex-landlady. In real life they never met, but having one move in on the other last night made for a genius revenge fantasy.

Also dreamt about one of those cramped Moscow flats: tenth floor, paper-thin walls, several generations all crammed in together. Only, in this flat, the son of the house is building an aeroplane in his room. Oh no, hang on, that one's true; see page 17 of today's Independent.

º Monday 19th February 2001

Anna Pavord writes a kinda gardening/agony column in the Independent each week, where she advises garden-owners on how to improve their plots. Last week, she dealt with a couple who had just bought a house with a garden they absolutely loathed, a garden that Miss Pavord herself found "impersonal...over-featured, over-planted...very instant, very Ground Force."

"Whoever bought the house when it was new...evidently called in a local firm to 'do' the garden. And boy, did they DO it, " she wrote.

Ummm...not so, it seems. A letter to the paper today from the garden's previous owners reveals that: "My wife decided to produce a garden from scratch for the first time in her life, and laid the patio, every stone, by herself and produced a garden in five years that was the pride and joy of her life...Ms Pavord's hurtful words will be with us for many weeks."

Oops.

"Let's break with our usual Sunday routine and, instead of going to see Dame Edna at the Vauxhall, go and meet Andy and Jonce at The Two Brewers to see Pam Ann and Sandra."

"Yeah, why not."

(Why not?
Because Pam Ann, though advertised for 6:30, won't appear till 7:30
Because Pam Ann, though her stewardess-from-hell routine is very slick, will not be as funny as Dame Edna
Because there will be no singing
Because Sandra will only be on very briefly, and not be as funny as she can be
Because Sandra's support act will be crap
Because there will be no-one there I fancy
Because we will end up getting very drunk indeed
Because we will miss the last north-bound train and then get on the wrong bus and then stagger around in the freezing cold
Because I will be so delighted to find a night bus going at least vaguely in the right direction that I will end up going on to the Spiral Staircase and getting even more drunk
That's why not.)

......previous entries