July 18th - July 25th 2005
Sunday BGO
Saturday Wharf
Friday Hounded
Thursday Swan Norton
Wednesday Numbers
Tuesday Teddy
Monday Goodness
Sunday 24th July 2005
I swore blind I wouldn't dream of going to Big Gay Out. For all sorts of reasons: the exorbitant cost of a ticket, nothing there I wanted to see, political objections to the commodification of the gay identity.
All that, of course, fell by the wayside when I was offered a free VIP pass on Friday (not in my own right - surprisingly - but as companion to another.)
We did at least agree we'd wouldn't rush, loosely aiming to get there around 8pm for the last few hours.
And when we spoke on the phone around 5, the simple observation that it was beginning to drizzle was enough for us both to agree, instantaneously, not to bother.
There was a downside though: the minor kerfuffle over BGO scrambled my calendar-sense such that I somehow failed to notice my outstanding appointment to attend Wes and Oli's party today.
So that's four reasons to loathe Big Gay Out.
Saturday 23rd July 2005
Canary Wharf, Summer 2005
Friday 22nd July 2005
Thursday 21st July 2005
Most Wednesday nights a few of the gay men who worked on the show and I would end up at the White Swan for what is called 'Amateur strip night'.
Like most things, this sounds a lot sexier than it actually is.
Before I went I always imagined it as full of hunky regular guys stripping in front of other people because it turned them on or because...well, I'd never thought too long about why they would do it. In fact, nobody thinks too long about why they do it, which is the problem.
Some of them think they might have a chance as a professional stripper - they're wrong: think of the first round of Pop idol auditions without pants - but the vast majority do it because they are drunk beyond reason or shame and think that the £10 you get for entering will do nicely for a few more drinks and the night bus home...
- Graham Norton, 'So me'
Wednesday 20th July 2005
Part of the curious joy of going on holiday is re-discovering the rude behaviour of foreigners in dark rooms - what is all that flicking of cigarette lighters about? Kids today, mumble mumble...
I was also swiftly disabused of my status as Honoured (and Slightly Fancied) (If Somewhat Elderly) Guest: the third time someone cute went for my back pocket only seconds after they'd made lip contact, I started leaving my money with my friends before I popped upstairs.
A parallel caution applied, with knobs on, after dark on the beach - though I never worried too much about my phone, it being so skanky and all.
What I hadn't figured, romantic that I am, was that all phones look alike in the dark: seconds after my co-fumbler had departed to fetch 'popperz..my auto' it's a safe bet that my poor old Nokia 3310 had been hurled into a ditch in disgust ('Eeoof: no cam, no chrome, no empeethree; theze people dizgust me').
More fool me, you say - and you're not wrong, though not having a phone for the last four or five days of my holidays didn't prove that much of a disability and I reckoned, correctly as it happens, that I'd be able to replace it on eBay for not much more than twenty quid.
But getting my new old phone retro-fitted with my old number proved considerably more difficult than I'd expected: can we say 'different networks'? can we say PAC codes? can we say 'bah', and 'bah' again?
Any road up, my old number is now mine again - so please feel free to start calling again, hoping that this might be the one time you don't get transferred immediately to voicemail. Then text me.
Tuesday 19th July 2005
If I make a speech ... my wife Tessa is always there to mutter: 'Wonderful speech, darling; such a pity your fly buttons were undone.'
Thus, bathetically, Tory ex-cabinet minister Peter Walker as quoted by Max Hastings in (a long way from home) The Guardian. The point of the quote is to elide the late Ted Heath's resolute misogyny into what Max calls 'solitariness' - yet another riff on 'He Never Married', in other words.
Too early for any discussion as to whether Grumpy Ted was gay or not - but, if you believe countless stories I've heard from ex-rent-boys down the years (and I don't, as a rule), the phrase that was most likely to greet Heath as he returned home after a busy day's speechifying was more likely to be:
Where the fuck have you been? I can't find any more champagne and this sherry stuff is disgusting!
Monday 18th July 2005
Record sales leap after TV success at Live8
You see? Goodness is its own reward.
......previous week
