November 1st 2004 - November 7th 2004
Sunday Gay, gay, gay
Saturday Buy nothing
Friday Pre-birthday
Thursday Submissions
Wednesday Wide
Tuesday Waiting
Monday Froth
Sunday 7th November 2004
Was Goya gay? (Do you care?)
Is Yasser Arafat gay? (Or at least bisexual?)
Is Robbie Williams gay? (Or just good at tests?)
Saturday 6th November 2004
November 27th is Buy Nothing Day.
November 27th is a Saturday. if one assumes 'Nothing' includes door tax, beer and all the other accoutrements of a good night out, this could prove somewhat challenging for most of the people I know.
On the other hand, Saturday ends at midnight, sharp. So maybe not so challenging after all.
Friday 5th November 2004
Am I the only person who has severe problems vis-a-vis my birthday? Every year, I try and work out a sensible approach, and every year I get it wrong.
It's not, I hasten to say, anything at all to do with getting older; if I had problems in that department, I'd have cut my own throat several years since. And besides, one ages incrementally, day by day, second by second - not in great year-sized chunks.
And I have no problems with other people's birthdays: let me know when and how someone's birthday is being celebrated and if I'm free I'll be there, with or without a present and a card (generally, it must be said, without - due to what I trust are genuinely felt political concerns).
The clue is the difficulty I had in phrasing that last sentence. I almost wrote 'Let me know how you're celebrating your birthday and I'll be there...' But just who is doing the celebrating here? Who's zooming who?
It seems somewhat self-congratulatory to organise one own's annual festival: "Look at me, you bastards: I survived!"
But, oh!, the awkwardness of laying oneself open to being celebrated by others.
Not so difficult if one's acquaintance is limited to a small circle of tightly-knit friends or, even easier, family. As a child, you never worried about birthday celebrations, they just materialised miraculously around you. (Mostly.) The organisation went on over your head and behind your back.
As an adult, you feel a lot less secure. Does that group of friends know about this group of friends? What if nobody bothers? What if nobody wants to bother? Wouldn't it be a great deal safer to organise the whole damn thing yourself?
Another year, another birthday, another problem created out of thin air. Now that's very me.
Thursday 4th November 2004
I hope you've noticed the sizable presence of "top theatrical personality" Gareth Valentine as one of the judges in Musicality.
We know stuff about that one that would make your hair curl.
Wednesday 3rd November 2004
The Atlantic has never seemed so wide.
Tuesday 2nd November 2004
Election day and a nation finds itself evenly divided: fifty per cent wondering how the hell Osama bin Laden escaped from captivity in Iraq whilst the rest keep busy scanning the videotapes for telltale CIA fingerprints.
And every lawyer in the land rests one talon on the telephone...
Monday 1st November 2004
The Daily Telegraph's leader page has seen some off-centre suggestions in its time, God knows, but this reaction to Alan Bennet's so-called coming-out story sets new head-scratching standards:
"That's a bit like asking a man crawling across the Sahara whether he would prefer Perrier or Malvern water,'' was Alan Bennett's enigmatic reply to Sir Ian McKellen, in 1997, regarding his sexual inclinations.
As far as Alan Bennett's sexuality is concerned, we now know the answer. But the riddle he set remains unanswered. Yes, Mr Bennett is homosexual, but which mineral water would he now choose? Is sparkling water the more feminine and still water the more masculine drink, or vice versa?
Still water, such as Malvern or Evian, is the choice drink in the American gay community; unadulterated by bubbles, it is healthier and better for the skin. In Europe, though, the thinking is the complete opposite: the supposed preference among the homosexual community over here is towards the fizzy, on the understanding that the more extravagant and exotic, the better.
What. The. Fuck?
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