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º April 23rd-April 29th 2001
Sunday Brief Encounters
Saturday Bunion
Friday Whimper
Thursday Unreboot
Wednesday Promiscuous?
Tuesday Mondays
Monday Stormperor
º Sunday 29th April 2001
Albee's 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf' is notorious for (amongst other things) being a roman-a-clef about a gay couple. Albee himself has said "I don't know of any gay relationship where one of the characters had an hysterical pregnancy" (thus revealing that it's male homosexuality he has in mind, surely?)
The Benedict article shocked me slightly by claiming that one particular Noel Coward piece is another example of a gay play played straight.
I know people have talked about (and produced?) same-sex versions of 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf'; I wonder if there's been any similar moves to recast 'Brief Encounter'? ("No, I go in the opposite direction.")
I bet sturtle would know...
"I'm male, white, educated, old-ish...I can think of probably 30 minorities to which I belong and I'm defined by them all, not any one of them. No writer should be limited by anything except his ability."
Thus Edward Albee, quoted by David Benedict in an article in todays (offline) Independent on Sunday, discussing the current popularity of 'gay plays'.
Avoiding the obvious, as ever, my mind swooped straight in on "old-ish", since I remember seeing a production of Albee's Tiny Alice when I was still in my teens.
As it turns out, he's 23 years older than I am. Which, I guess, makes me "middle-aged-ish". Phew.
A nice crowd at Hope for David's birthday last night: Andy, Andy, Alex, Charles, Colin, Dave, Dave, Nick, Rob, Sean, Seph, Steve, Steve, Trevor, and many more.
The fact I can remember the names confirms that I wasn't as pissed as usual. Don't know what that was all about. Bit fluey, I think...
º Saturday 28th April 2001
Lots of thoughtfood for information architects at peterme but nice also to see the April 20th entry talking about regionalisms in general, and liquor stores in particular (or 'off-licenses' as we call them).
This goes some way towards explaining one of my favourite lines from Spaced which I feared would not translate: where the landlady (with whom I identify) says "Ah well, can't stop, got to get down to Threshers to do the weekly shop."
This is bizarre: twenty-four hours after sitting here logging David's Walk Across London, I discover a large, painless lump on the side of my foot.
Sympathetic bunion?!?
Intriguing quote from a British military instructor training Sierra Leone troops: "We teach them the meaning of the Geneva Conventions, and that you have to treat your enemy decently - apart from killing him."
º Friday 27th April 2001
If you've come looking for a review of Deep Blue at Katabatic, it's ...here
BLOGADOON SPECIAL: David walks across London is now archived ...here
Superfluous for me to write much about last night's blogmeet; see the new literarily-enhanced Meg for the veritable skinny.
I think I used the verb 'whimper' once too often yesterday; otherwise: top night.
º Thursday 26th April 2001
Blogmeet tonight, upstairs at the Rat & Parrot. Swish Cottage and I will be there about 7:30. I'm the one in the tatty black leather jacket and unfortunate hair (unless i'm having a rare access of over-confidence - aka 'drunk' - in which case it's EdgyHair®). Say hello.
I see that Tom has noticed, as have I, the whole Reboot thing. (And the whole Skiboot thing.)
But I don't think that Tom noticed that you have to have your site down for a week to participate. (Ergo, it's closed to bloggers. Unless one fancies a think, of course.)
Or that, while your site is down, the only hot-links out from your site are those that lead to Reboot's sponsors. I can't help wondering what the sponsors are providing by way of return. And to whom..?
Most of Metafilter seem to think the whole reboot thing is a load of self-serving arse-wank. Difficult to disagree...
º Wednesday 25th April 2001
So, farewell then, Wag Club.
I seem to be assembling a small museum of what I like to think were supposed to be chat-up lines. Recently addressed to me:
- Excuse me, please don't worry, but, like, I just want to say you look, like, really really horny. For someone your age.
- I remember you. You used to bring me books!
- I'm sorry to say this, but I have a bit of a kink about men with hairy chests.
- You're an actor! League of Gentlemen!
- Are you a man or a woman?
Plus, as of last night:
- Are you promiscuous?
Conspicuous by its absence* from Wendy's pop quiz last night: what top five is this?
The Real Slim Shady
Shut Up and Forget About It
Music
Rock DJ
As Long as You Love me
*I say absent, but actually I was so damned drunk that it may well have been there for all I know...
º Tuesday 24th April 2001
I think the moral of this story is: if you can't encode your email, at least hide your cricket bat.
(Btw: can someone unpick for me just what is going on when a purported murderer is consistently referred to as "The Duchess of York's former personal assistant"? Are we supposed to be surprised that homicidal rage and the ability to cope with the personal whims of a woman portrayed by the media as a greedy, stupid, shallow slut can co-exist? Or are we supposed to be, hmm, not surprised at all?)
Those of you whose Monday morning Tube journeys took them through Euston, St James's Park, or Piccadilly Circus, and who found themselves suddenly plunged into a Proustian whirlwind of remembrance of times past: be aware that London Underground tested a new air freshener at these stations yesterday, called Madeleine.
The news that Brenda Spencer, the teenage murderer immortalised by The Boomtown Rats, is due for parole after 22 years in prison moves me to the realisation that, hmm, despite having neither a 9 to 5 job nor a Class A drug habit, I Don't Like Mondays either.
When I fancy a couple of solitary late-night pints in non-contentious company, I tend towards the Royal Borough of Islington. Especially if it's early in the week and little else is open after 11pm.
I'm not sure why. Partly because it's a no-fuss tube journey, it's not in the West End, and it has a late night supermarket. Partly, I suppose, because the borough's core values chime with what are supposedly some of mine: educated, gay, middle-class, 'artistic'. And partly because it has that ridiculously rare thing, a cash machine that promises the ability to transfer cash from my company account to my personal account, and Actually Does So.
The down-side is that Islington's two gay bars, whilst open till midnight, are case studies in manic-depression. For depression: The Edward. For mania: Bar Fusion.
Leaving it to the last minute as ever, having rushed to wash my hair and find my cash-card, I ascended the escalator at Angel tube station at about 10:45 trailing a nebulous unease - which I eventually traced to the realisation that (A) that wasn't a cash-card, it's your Spiral membership card and (B) that wasn't shampoo, it was conditioner. Ah well.
The Edward ought to be a painless enough experience, populated most nights by senior health-care executives who, having fed the cat, have nothing better to do between now and midnight than sink a pint or two of premium lager whilst listening to Kylie remixes and indulging in vanilla fantasies involving Johann, the smiley South Efrican barman.
But last night the music was even pappier than usual, the ageing Liberal Democrat voter who-plainly-fancied-me was even more oh-puhlease-NO! than usual, and the bar staff all seemed to be on sabbatical from Planet Camp. (At one stage, one of them unlocked his trousers to show some customers his naked arse. It's not like me to object to that, even on a Monday, but I did.) And no Johann.
So I strolled up the road , counting my few remaining coins, to Bar Fusion. Said hello to John Anstice, one of the few local faces that's wrinklier and yet twinklier than me, and ordered my pint from...Johann. Who, it seems, has left The Edward for a better offer. Or a less-worse offer, whatever.
I imagine even he finds the coke-fuelled gaiety a little hard to take, especially on a Monday. On a good day, I like the fact that Bar Fusion has more women than many of the bars that I frequent. On a bad day, I reflect that whoever it was who welcomed women drinking in bars as a civilising influence plainly didn't know many lesbians. Yesterday was a bad day.
But there are two TV sets in Bar Fusion, making it one of the few places I know where you can sit and pretend you're in a New-York neighbourhood bar, avoiding everybody else's gaze by staring at the mute news through the bottom of your beer glass, trying to remember what it is you're supposed to be worried about, above and beyond the question of the conditioner.
Which I did. Till midnight. And caught the last tube home. And I still Don't Like Mondays.
Now that's what I call a search request: pool table avatars. Makes everything worthwhile.
º Monday 23rd April 2001
I guess it's safe to assume that Steven Spielberg was hoping for at least some reaction when he stepped down from the Boy Scout's advisory board in protest at their anti-gay stance.
But even he might think this goes a bit far by way of an apology...
Hmmm. Test-tube emperor? I suppose it's a step in the right direction.
But why not simply clone one? Or better yet, forget the flesh altogether and go straight to: Stormperor!.
It would appear that Matt's nipples are positioned next to his navel, a corporeal juxtaposition hitherto confined to women of a certain age. Who knew?
I'm slightly ashamed to say that I missed my traditional date with the London Marathon this year.
Normally, I come across it as I stagger home from some late dive, wild-eyed and shaggy-haired, wondering why nobody told me it was sportswear night as I fight my way across the road through a horde of sweaty beshorted pumping limbs. ("Yay: free water. Cheers, mate.")
This year, and despite David calling me up at 1:30am and demanding I join him at The Spiral, I seem to have missed it.
Growing old, I guess.
And not for the first time, we ask:
Tom, what the fuck are you on about?
Oh, and Matt?
Situationism,
The Flâneur,
Psychogeography,
Paris '68, and
Mayday Monopoly.
Less than candid being is Dan when he speaks of "an abortive attempt to go to Barcode". Foolish boy: we went to BarCode but we chickened out of going into BarCode - when opening the door revealed a seventh-circle scene of wall-to-wall packed middle-aged manhood.
And you know the really annoying thing? It was David and I that chickened out; Matt and Dan would have been perfectly game. I remember the days when straight boys were supposed to find gay bars scarey, tsk.
Had to write a new headline on Saturday night for an article about boy slaves on chocolate plantations being sold for £37.50 - remarkably difficult to do without it sounding like a personal ad: "Sold at 14 for less than £40 - the chocolate slaves of the Ivory Coast."
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