March 4th - March 10th 2002
Sunday Will power
Saturday Backpassage pages
Friday Where?
Thursday Hang on...
Wednesday Teething troubles
Tuesday Groovy oldsters
Monday Viva Vauxhall
Sunday 10th March 2002
Of course, we always knew - but it's nice to have it in writing nonetheless.
The news will surely have reached you by cissy-net before you see this (I personally texted a dozen people at 11 o'clock last night) but you might like to read some of the, um, finer detail.
"POP Idol winner Will Young has fame, fortune, adulation - and the courage of a lion.
"And last night, after hearing the news that his first record - the fastest selling debut single in history - had sold an astonishing 1.4 million copies, he opened up that brave heart to announce: 'I feel it's time to tell my fans I'm gay.'
[Braver still to have announced it before the record went on sale, but hey.]
"'I'm sure this will not come as a surprise to many people [no duh], although I've always been discreet and I'm not a campaigner when it comes to my sexuality.'"
"'Some other media pressure has led me to talk about my private life,' he told us. 'I always try to be honest and true to myself and not to take life too seriously.
"'I had a long conversation with the boss Simon Fuller last night and told him about my decision to come out publicly.
"'He was totally relaxed and supportive and left it up to me to decide when, or if, I wanted to talk about it' [Of course he did.]
"A Pop Iol [sic] source told us: 'Will's had lots of speculation about his private life. He is gay but is very discreet and not some gay rights fanatic'
"'He's only ever had two close relationships and is now really too busy to have a partner. [Must remember that line.] He wanted to come out in the News of the World because that's where all this began when he saw the entry form in the paper'"
[Nothing to do with the NoW's campaigning attitude on gay rights, then?]
Do remember through all this talk of "exclusive interviews" and "some other media pressure" that it was the News of the World that originally sent a heavily disguised reporter to talk to the Countess of Wessex's business partner, and came back with lurid stories of offers of drugs and boys.
And that the paper then agreed to drop the story in exchange for a fawning interview with Sophie herself, who infamously seized the opportunity to tell the world; "My Edward's not gay"...
And if that intrigues you, try this, the NoW's editorial that accompanies the Will Young story:
"Since his Pop Idol triumph an admiring nation has wanted to know where gorgeous Will's fancy lies. Well sorry ladies, you are out of luck.
"For Will is gay and as he reveals in our exclusive interview, that's no big deal. [Hence the 144pt front page headline, no doubt.]
"Now he has chosen to share the truth with his huge army of fans. Of course it doesn't make a scrap of difference, he has nothing to hide and Will's frankness is refreshing.
"As to the future, girls... well Anything Is Possible." [a reference to Young's pop record, m'lud.]
So then: how long before we have the answer to a far more important question (to judge by my my search requests): "Is Gareth Gates gay?"
Elsewhere in the paper, a somewhat more telling story about police investigations into the death of a 31 year old man found floating in Michael Barrymore's swimming pool - which reads like nothing so much as a game of gay Cluedo:
"The stories of the TV legend [that's TV as in television - presumably - and legend as in 'all over the tabloids for falling down drunk in gay bars'] Michael Barrymore, his former lover John Kenney and party guest Justin Merritt contradict each other on certain crucial details.
"The man in charge, Chief Superintendent Ian McNeill, was forced to admit: 'I have never been so baffled.'
"Police were further confused by Barrymore's insistence 'there was no sex in that house that night' after the dead man was found with severe sexual injuries.
"Chief Supt McNeill added; 'You have all eight people who were in the house and you would think you would be able to work it out, wouldn't you? But it is baffling.'
"Dad-of-two Lubbock, from Harlow, Essex, was declared dead shortly after being found in his underwear in the pool at Barrymore's home in Roydon. He had severe sexual injuries, which could have been caused by gay sex or by an implement, and booze and drugs were found in his body.
"Merritt claimed Barrymore snorted cocaine at the party and offered him some before rubbing the powder on Lubbock's gums.
"Now Barrymore and the other witnesses face having to tell their stories in public at the inquest.
"It also emerged that Barrymore's neighbours had heard 'hysterical and high-pitched' screams early on the morning of March 31. [Gay rights fanatics, perhaps?]
"Chief Supt McNeill stressed 'I have absolutely no indication that Stuart Lubbock was homosexual. The contrary is the case. He was actively heterosexual.'"
[But Anything Is Possible, right Sup?]
Lest all this leave you impressed by their impeccable journalistic standards, I should point out that the News of the World's web-site bears not a trace of these stories as I write.
I did discover the image featured (right) though, notable not so much for its overt antipathy to the Wessexes (it's well-known that the NoW editor Rebecca Wade is firm friends with Prince Charles' pet PR man Mark Bolland and that Charles loathes Edward) but for the fact that it contains not just one spelling error, but two.
Baffling.
Saturday 9th March 2002
Republican readers who suspect the British royal family of being so inbred they couldn't even wipe their own arse will be intrigued to learn that the list of Princess Margaret's newly-redundant staff includes a Page of the Backpassage.
Monarchists who insist on believing that the British royal family remain, au fond, decent middle-class people will take heart in a recent report from Australia:
"Mrs Kirk asked the Queen if she remembered her son... At first the Queen looked puzzled, but then as Mrs Kirk explained he was an Australian who served on the royal yacht, she smiled broadly and replied: 'Oh, you mean Oz!'"
On the third hand, beats there a heart so brave that it welcomes the news that The Earl and Countess of Wessex (aka Edward and Sophie) are abandoning all of their so-called commercial activities in order to "shoulder some of the increasing responsibilities and workload" during this Golden Jubilee year?
The last time Edward put his stunty shoulder to the wheel in this fashion, you'll recall, he obliterated what little credibility remained to his family with one single blow, the eponymous "It's a Royal Knockout".
Look forward to these Jubilee headlines:
Queen and Posh share sandwich secrets as Beckhams take tea at Buckingham Palace
Princess Margaret memorial ashtray tops QVC bestsellers
Pop Idol win brings chart success for artist formally known as Prince Charles
Awards ceremony shock as Prince Harry moons media
Official: Prince Phillip is The Weakest (Royal) Link
Countess of Wessex to give birth live on the internet
And finally: imagine Prince Charles. Naked. With muscles and a loin cloth. And wings.
Can't do it? Here's a photo.
Friday 8th March 2002
"I go into Soho very little now. I go to the bars in Kennington where Pimpernel meet, and we have a gay bar in Croydon where I live. Otherwise, I tend to steer clear and think to myself that that's for the young people."
- Peter Robins, 70-year old former senior political journalist at the BBC, talking to OutUK on the eve of the UK's first national conference discussing issues effecting older gays and lesbians. [Thanks to Saunders for the heads-up.]
Pimpernel, which Peter Robins runs, is a 'social group' for gay men over 45 (they stopped calling it a 'club' when people started ringing up asking about the dress-code).
Robins adds: ""I do get phone calls from time to time from younger men wanting to come along... But where am I to send the twenty eight year old who says he's not after anyone's money, he just wants a father figure?"
I think we know the answer to that one.
Mail from Marcus yesterday, urgently asking if anyone had a copy of Metro, a free newspaper that tends to litter tube carriages like leaves on the line.
Courtesy of the last train back from work tonight, as of 0025 this morning I do indeed have a copy. Now all I have to work out is what he wants it for.
"Britney 'behaves like a porn star'"? Or receptionist's job title upgraded to "head of verbal communications"? We shall see...
Thursday 7th March 2002
Quick reminder: if you run a gay blog, and would like to go to Queer Nation in Brixton on Saturday, drop me a line at QN@iansie.com and I will arrange for you to be guest-listed (plus one) for the rest of March.
This week's prize for not writing what you know everybody will be thinking goes to an article in The Independent about plans for a new production of Mel Brooks's The Producers - in Berlin.
"The Producers is in the process of being translated into German, and though there will be some changes to allow for the German sense of humour, the backers have made it clear that none of the tasteless Hitler jokes that made it such a hit will be taken out."
A story in yesterday's paper announces Cannabis linked to memory problems.
Hang on, don't I remember reading about this before?
Gordon Matthews, the man who gave us voicemail, is dead.
"If you would like more information, press 1. If you would like to express your condolences, press 2. If you would like to jump up and down on his grave whilst we try to connect you, press 3."
The source of yesterday's Buffy-stuff shouldn't have been too difficult to guess: topical references, so obviously a newspaper or magazine; BBC2 mentioned, ergo British; mention made of obscure books and English novelists...
The next paragraph in the piece, the one I deliberately refrained from quoting, would have made it even plainer:
"PhDs are being written about it. Reading the Vampire Slayer: An Unofficial Critical Companion to 'Buffy' and 'Angel'; edited by Roz Kaveney (Tauris, £12.99), has contributions from a variety of academics and journalists, and for the most part makes good reading, despite the odd dud note: 'Buffy's breezy versatility with a full spectrum of comedy would alone earn its place in the annals of jocosity' - true enough, perhaps, but the sentence doesn't exactly show what it tells."
Not many British magazines where a citation has to come complete with price and publisher: yup, the London Review of Books has discovered Buffy.
Rigorous in my scientific enquiry, I returned to the White Swan last night, downed three pints and found myself embarked on an almost surreal re-run of last week (up to and including just not quite making an absolute twat of myself over the same somebody at 5am in the Limehouse Health Club.)
So I guess it's official - you don't need alcohol to be an idiot.
Wednesday 6th March 2002
Thank you all for the big Lurv you sent in preparation for my much rumoured tooth-extraction this morning: I could feel the cresting spume of it, breaking against my huddled teeth as I Iay there staring up at the dentist's ceiling.
(When I am Prime Minister every dental surgery in the land will be obliged by law to install a range of fluffy duck mobiles; surely nothing's so calculated to bring on existential angst as fluorescent light on fractured ceiling tiles.)
Sadly though, the Lurv's misplaced: I am home, and whole.
The extraction, it seems, is scheduled to happen somewhere further down the line, with lots to do in the meantime.
The good news is that, subject to Government approval, I am to get at least two gold inlays: bling, bling.
The bad news is, aaargh, root canal work.
And the really bad news?
I'm so ashamed I can hardly bring myself to say it. Seven letters. Starts with a D, ends with an S.
Like anyone of my generation, I guess, I have an absolute horror of false teeth, dental plates, dentures (there I said it).
Memories of my father sitting at the table idly flipping his plate forward over his front teeth. Music hall nightmares of plastic grins floating in a bedside glass. Dentures, zimmer frame, musical therapy, alzheimers, death.
The dentist says it's not like that at all these days. Just a tiny, tiny, plate. Only two teeth. Hardly notice it's there. Well, he would say that, wouldn't he?
One thing's for sure: I shall never eat in public again.
But hey, that's months away. In the meantime, major cleaning works: three appointments, with hoardings, scaffolding and builder's skips parked on the pavement. Seems to me I have more plaque than tooth; clean that lot out and you'll look over my lips and see straight through the gaps to the back of my throat.
Not attractive. But what can I say? Dentally speaking, apparently, it's official: not just a fraud, but a slut.
I found this in the Sunday Telegraph, of all places:
"Others speculated that something terrible might have happened to Mugabe in the showers while he was incarcerated as a black revolutionary by the Rhodesians. Whatever, there is a peculiar campness about Mugabe in his gait and diction...
"Mugabe famously loathes homosexuals, whom he once described as 'worse than pigs and dogs'. David Blair detects an acceleration in Mugabe's decline in November 1999, when he was ambushed by Peter Tatchell, the gay activist, during one of his regular shopping sprees in London. To Mugabe's disgust, Tatchell actually touched him as he performed a symbolic citizen's arrest.
"Mugabe became obsessed by this trivial incident, blaming Tony Blair's 'gay gangster' regime for conspiring to humiliate him, and claiming that Peter Hain at the Foreign Office and Peter Tatchell were lovers. As David Blair notes, the importance of this daft accusation is that the incident preyed upon Mugabe's mind, and he was still complaining about it many months later."
And, speaking of literary provenance, guess where this comes from:
"Mid-January to mid-February was the warmest it's been seen 1659 (which is when records began), foxing unwary plants into flowering prematurely, to give the frost something to kill.
"My feelings about the weather are not put into any kind of perspective by the stoicism of Mark Blumberg, a psychologist at the University of Iowa, who says in his new book, Body heat: Temperature and Life on Earth (due from Harvard in May), that 'Pluto is cold; Chicago in January is merely inconvenient.'
"For those of us still languishing in the dark ages of terrestrial analogue TV, the gloom is deepened by the fog that currently envelops BBC2's schedules: the Winter Olympics.
"The last three episodes of season five of Buffy the Vampire Slayer have been postponed until the fog disperses...
"People who've never seen [Buffy] tend to think it's crappy. But they haven't seen it. It's very funny, very clever (and fairly intelligent, too), engrossing, even at times quite affecting.
"It has a large and not too narrow fan base; at least one serious English novelist is rumoured to have stayed at home to watch it rather than go to the TLS centenary party."
Tuesday 5th March 2002
Bumper bundle of blog-oriented fun in the Review section of yesterday's Independent:
Malice: John Walsh meets Joan Rivers:
"'The first time I did Carnegie Hall, now that was a horror... they were all sitting there, all dressed up, waiting for someone else to say, 'This is funny'.
"That's why I want real people at my show. I want six gay men in the front row. I want Graham Norton. I want the gays, and the young students and a couple of old Jews."
Liz Taylor "was there in her Orson Welles designer jeans... I said, 'My God, she's a house!'"
Donatella Versace "has a face like a piece of leather. You want to open her mouth and put your keys in it..."
Cher "just cannot move her face. 'Hey, Cher, you won the Academy Award.' Mask-like expression: 'Hurray'. 'Hey, Cher, your mother died'. Mask-like expression: 'Boo-hoo'."
Alcohol: David Lister on bad behaviour by actors:
"As the impatient audience slow-handclapped, Robert Newton parted the curtains himself and announced: 'Ladies and gentlemen, the reason this curtain has so far not risen is because the stage manager has the fucking impertinence to suggest that I am pissed.'"
And Trivia: Miles Kington writes about boning up for the News Quiz:
"And now all these stories are stuck in my mind like threepenny bits in a trouser turn-up or fluff in the navel, and the only way I can get rid of them is by writing about them, so thank you very much for helping with my therapy - oh, and not forgetting the report that Ken Dodd is being seriously considered as the next Dr Who.
"'Not so unlikely,' said a BBC spokesman. 'After all, he has an odd appearance and a reputation for talking in an outlandish way.'"
Old geezers really groovy shock horror
Research among 5,000 people over 50 in Britain, the United States, Japan, Spain and Sweden has identified three basic groups.
The first group, those aged 50 to 55 (hello!), are identified as "radical boomers".
They are described as:
instinctively rebellious,
non-conformist,
narcissistic and
determined to stay young.
The report concludes: "The generations that instigated, enjoyed and watched the first sexual revolution in the 1960s are on the move again. They're on the cusp of changing the focus of society from the young to the old."
I have no comment to make on this, other than "Nyah, nyah, nyah." With knobs on.
Monday 4th March 2002
What a constellation of small joys Sunday turned out to be.
It started badly when, as often happens these days, I found myself irreparably awake at noon, after only four hours sleep. (Yes, yes, I came home at dawn.)
Tired, hungry and hungover, I seriously contemplated giving the statutory Vauxhall visit a miss this week. But then Andy rang to remind me of their standing invitation to a late pub lunch, and I thought fuck it, several birds with one stone, and rushed to get myself ready: a stratgem that fell flat on its face when I sat down to program the VCR and found myself immersed in the latest climax in the Eastenders omnibus.
So: scratch lunch.
But my early start wasn't completely wasted: it meant that I had a rare opportunity to get to the Vauxhall Tavern half an hour earlier than usual, a useful head start given the steadily lengthening length of the line in recent weeks.
As it turned out, the queue at five thirty was even longer than it's been at six in previous weeks. Strolling to the back of it, I passed Andy and Guy (Hi Andy! Hi Guy!) but steadfastly resisted the temptation to cut in: getting lynched is not a good way to start your Sunday.
Standing patiently forty feet from the door, I spotted David and Marcus (Hi David! Hi Marcus!) slightly ahead of me. Plus, slightly nearer, Sean (Hi Sean!). Like David and Marcus, Sean had also been at Queer Nation the previous night. But, unlike David and Marcus, this was his first visit to the Vauxhall for about a year, and our time in the queue passed very pleasantly as we compared and contrasted, bitched and preened.
Edna started her show very promptly and proceeded to deliver one of the finest, and funniest, sets I've seen in quite a while, the highlight being a hilarious and totally unexpected version of "I could have danced all night" reworked as a hymn to Trade ("I could have spread my legs, I could have poached my eggs").
Watching two hundred shaven-headed men harmonising en masse, Edna cried: "Look at this room: you could cast the remake of Schindler's List. Only he never went shopping." I laughed till I cried, with my friends (Hi Jonce! Hi Drew! Hi Pano!) ranged neatly behind me and a gorgeous man on either side (Hi Jo! Hi Jonce's unfeasibly attractive neighbour!)
I think we can safely look forward to many more My Fair Lady parodies: On the Beat Where You Live perhaps, or The Half-Cut Gavotte. Or a jeremiad about bad drugs, perhaps: "I Feel Shitty"?
As spring tiptoes in, it's getting increasingly possible to spend at least a little of the evening on the pavement outside the pub, and I spent quite some time talking bollocks by the bollards, making introductions ("Marcus, this is Sean - he did Bananarama's hair the night you saw them at G.A.Y."), and wafting over to talk to Peter (Hi Peter!).
Looking across the crowd, I spotted a friend of Peter's deep in conversation with a middle-aged woman in glasses, a woman I couldn't help but notice earlier when I spotted her sticking out like a sore thumb by the balustrade. Intrigued by her, and even more intrigued to see one of the gorgeous men from earlier also involved in the conversation, I made Peter introduce us.
Mr Gorgeous sloped off in fairly short order, sniff, but the conversation thereafter went like the clappers. The woman, it transpires, is the mother of Peter's friend; a mother, it transpires, who has grave issues about her son's homosexuality, issues that she was all too delighted to share with me. ("You are living in a ghetto! You will die lonely!").
Whilst I'd like to think that the, ahem, robust debate that followed left her slightly more comforted than before, I'm left with one overwhelmingly puzzled question: what son in his right mind would introduce his mother to the sylvan delights of the London gay scene by pitching her feet first with no life-jacket into the roiling maelstrom of The Vauxhall on a Sunday?
Lord knows what she made of it, but I had a great night, squeezing back into the roistering masses yearning to breathe free with a kiss here (Hi Dave! Hi Kelvin!) and a hug there (Hi Rob!! Hi Wayne!), a little dance, a little drink, a lot of joy.
Time flew. Flash! The end of Andy Almighty's set already. Bang! We're in Dukes. Wallop! The stripper is, ahem, barely trying to get me up on stage. (I guess he didn't notice us drunkenly searching for the right adjective to describe our disappointment earlier. Caravaggiesque won, as I recall.)
And so, via yet another set of night buses, to bed.
That's three nights running I've had to stumble down Cannon Street Road, humming madly to disguise my desperation for a pee. And you know what? I wouldn't change it for the world.
Some of us really like it, here in our ghetto.
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