November 15th 2004 - November 21st 2004
Sunday Compounded
Saturday Prayer
Friday Perfidious
Thursday Poodled
Wednesday Sad
Tuesday Cross7
Monday Reeling
Sunday 21st November 2004
Scanning the catalogue of bad behaviour attributed to Prince Ernst August of Hanover (no relation), I notice - in passing - that he once abused a newspaper executive by describing him as a homosexual who collects uniforms and lies in them naked
And I wonder - in passing - whether it sounds more cutting in his native tongue. Though given the German predeliction for compund nouns: I doubt it.
Saturday 20th November 2004
Bearing in mind that I share this area of town with many Muslims, and given that sunset is a moveable feast and therefore bound (if you think about it) to coincide with my trip to work at least twice every year, I guess I should mostly be surprised not to have seen it before: a man unrolling his prayer mat beside the chocolate machine on the eastbound Jubilee line platform at Canada Water.
Friday 19th November 2004
A recent NOP/Independent survey shows that, asked if having good relations with Britain's European Union partners is more important than with the United States, only 25 per cent of the British public believe the relationship with the US should take priority.
Britain's stand-offish relationship with Europe has been a troublesome feature of our island's geo-politics for at least as long as Blair's premiership, and it's long been an open secret that Blair would like some kind of resolution to this problem to feature, if not crown, his political legacy.
So how's this for a game plan? Cosy up to America, for better or worse, throughout all but the penultimate year of your premiership. Stick to the US through thick and thin, let public opinion call you a poodle, a simpering little whore or worse - whilst quietly cashing in on the advantages of a thoroughly sycophantic relationship with the most powerful empire in history.
Then, at the last minute, just when voters are so sick of you that they'll vote against anything you propose, shrug, turn to the cameras, ask "Well, who would you rather be friends with, America or Europe?", declare a referendum, hear the people with one voice shout "EUROPE!" - and retire smiling.
Only I don't think he's that clever.
Thursday 18th November 2004
Poodles - what do you call yours?
Wednesday 17th November 2004
Refreshing to see that splashed loud and proud right across the top of the Independent's obituary pages. (The Telegraph, predictably enough, titled their obit 'Russell Tyrone Jones (Ol' Dirty Bastard)')
Made me yearn, just for a moment, for a truer, franker, world where every obit is headlined not with a title but a judgement:
Mercenary Cunt
Hopeless Fuckwit
Kleptomaniac Nympho
Or maybe I could change my name: Sad Old Tosser
Tuesday 16th November 2004
The other night, more than a little banjaxed by several hours of beer and boys, I staggered out of the Swan, sharp left down Butcher's Row, passing one of the several large poster sites on the corner - and couldn't help smiling as I read the catch-line, a foot or so high: "It's not mess, it's Pride."
That's struck me as so apposite, both as a personal and a political slogan, that I actually paused after I'd turned onto Cable Street, just beyond the scented shrubs, to haul out my notebook and write it down before proceeding on my way, grinning.
Only it's not "...Pride", of course, it's "...Persil".
That pretty much characterises my mood on this. the second stage of my journey home: good-humoured, as a rule, rather pleased with myself - and 180° wrong.
A dangerous mood for a city street after midnight, but not much of a problem given that I'm inevitably completely alone, the closest thing to a threat being the odd six-foot tranny that I sometimes see on the other side of the road, heading for Stunners.
It's a curiously banal stretch of lamp-lit road, this, and essentially suburban, what with its mix of relatively recent low-rise apartment blocks and single-storey light-industrial sheds whose purpose remains studiedly opaque.
About half way down, on the left, behind sturdy iron fencing, I've sometimes heard the unmistakeable rattle of a long chain of supermarket trolleys being wheeled across tarmac. There's no supermarket here, and certainly no retail outlet that's open at this time of the morning, so..? A trolley-farm, perhaps?
Heh, now that's a cute thought, must make a note of that one - but only after I've abused this handy patch of shaded foliage to offload some of the beer I took on board earlier.
Call me old-fashioned, call me degenerate - but hauling my cock out under cover of darkness always makes me nostalgic for al fresco anonymous sex and so, not for the first time, I look back whence I've come at this stage to see if anyone from the Swan has found me so mysterious, so appealing that they've stalked me thus far.
And the road is always empty.
Or...nearly always.
Monday 15th November 2004
I think I've earnt the right to be cynical about the whole Hoxton phenomenon. I've paid my dues, after all.
I first began to know the area over ten years ago, when I started spending most nights at what is now 333 but was then the London Apprentice. (Like most gay men of my generation, I'd actually been to the LA in the early 70s - and promptly erased it from my memory as being just too implausible.)
And although I never actually had sex in Hoxton Square, I certainly knew it went on. (I did, one memorable night, have great sex in the bandstand at the middle of Arnold Circus.)
I used to have friends who lived in a huge loft space on the square, and who used to buy their dope from a black jazzer who frequented the cellar of the Bass Clef, just across the road.
Six or seven years ago, I spent a lot of time hanging out in the offices of my publishers, originally in Charlotte Road, and then in a building right behind where the White Cube is now. I drank with them in the Bricklayer's Arms and enjoyed lock-ins at the pub on the corner of Curtain Road - The Mitre, is it?
I went to Whirligig nights at Shoreditch Town Hall. I bought health foods from the organic co-op near Old Street roundabout. I came dangerously close to having my name above the door at The Joiner's Arms on Hackney Road (and ran the quiz night there for almost a year).
Four or five years ago, I shared the general cynicism that greeted the opening of The Lux, the area's only cinema, scoured its programme for something, anything, that wasn't intolerably arty, grinned knowledgably when I heard it had shut down.
I enjoyed the early days of the Lux Bar next door, that long thin shoe-box of a space with the ankle-level view of Bowling Green Walk at the far end. I used to stay out late at Charlies on Pitfield Street, or the Ship and Blue Ball on Boundary Street. Plus, of course, endless debauch and karaoke at the Spiral Staircase.
And I first wrote about the George and Dragon over a year ago.
So I reckon I know Hoxton pretty well, even if, these days, I'm more than a little sniffy about the hordes of bridge and tunnel sophisticate-wannabes that jam the area even late on a weekday evening.
Last night, I had the pleasure of introducing Jonathan and others to the George. I got there too late for a window seat but early enough for a table, which I clung on to until they arrived. It was busy by 7, buzzy by 8, and - as expected - utterly rammed by 9.
At which stage The Dane, who'd joined us at some stage, suggested it might be time to move on to the Lux Bar. I was happy to agree, but puzzled by his enthusiasm: the Lux is pleasant enough but...
As the five of us crossed Kingsland Road, we couldn't help but notice that we seemed to be forming part of a convoy, most of it drunkenly aimed at Hoxton Square and much of it, it transpired, heading for the Lux.
The doorman nodded us in without even frowning, slightly to my surprise, given that the volume of people through the doors seemed sure to overwhelm the space I knew to be available. Like: it's big, but it's not that big.
Drinks in hand, The Dane suggested we go next door. More puzzlement, because I wasn't aware that there was a next door to go to. But I was pretty drunk by this stage, and happy to follow where led.
Which turned out to be into a huge space, crowded with people, ceilings at least thirty feet high. It was fantastic, but also very surreal, like entering the Tardis, or stepping through the wardrobe to find the whole of Narnia spread before you.
And it was only this morning, bleary with hangover, that I realised we'd been drinking in what used to be the Lux cinema.
Maybe I don't know Hoxton that well after all.
(Footnote: I texted Jonathan to ask if it occurred to him, at the time, that we were carousing in an ex-cinema. His reply? "It did occur - they were showing films!")
......previous week
