August 19th - August 25th 2002
Sunday Pressure
Saturday Things pick up
Friday Feel the surface
Thursday A hay bar
Wednesday Dogged
Tuesday West 24
Monday Theoretically
Sunday 25th August 2002
I guess I find Bank Holidays disturbing for much the same reason I loathe Christmas and feel distinctly uneasy about birthdays: that dread sense of hedonistic pressure, last chance to Have Fun, don't be such a spoilsport.
Subtle sod that I am, I usually manage to find myself working over most of them but this time I was free on Saturday, free on Sunday, free on Monday too. Oh, the pressure.
Last night was sketchily assigned to loucheness in general, and Sleaze Special at Crash in particular. But what with my louche glands drained so unexpectedly, I ended up staying in for most of the evening: one day down, two to go.
Saturday 24th August 2002
I don't know what proportion of gay men actually manage to pick each other up on the street these days: not as high as one might think, I suspect (though still a hell of a lot higher than the heterosexual equivalent, sure enough).
It's the thought that counts, though.Every time that I leave the Swan, having spent the evening looking at men, being looked at - if I'm lucky - by men, I admit I stumble home enjoying the fantasy of suddenly finding myself just a few paces behind some needy nubile number, the exchange of glances, the knowing smiles, the unnecessary detours...
Not going to happen of course, not at my age.
And besides - how could I possibly drag someone back to this flat, this nest, with its layers of dust, its unwashed dishes, its slurry of unread newspapers covering half the bed?
But
Curious to relate: when I woke up today the floor was covered with newspapers.
Friday 23rd August 2002
Witnessing the mystical wonders of the tallest peak of the world through the windows of our 1900C Beechcraft is a different experience altogether. We will take you so close to the peak that you will actually believe you can stretch out your hands to feel the surface of Everest."
- Rather unfortunate extract from the website of Shangri-la Air whose aircraft crashed into the side of a mountain yesterday killing all 18 people on board.
Almost as quotable, the Telegraph's side-bar report on tourism:
In May, Nepal launched a year-long celebration that focused on Mount Everest, the world's tallest peak, in an effort to attract visitors, but it fell flat... To try to reverse this trend the government announced the opening of 103 new mountains.
And this just in: Manchester Mardi Gras reprieved after police extend alcohol zone.
Now they tell us.
Thursday 22nd August 2002
Two months ago, you'll recall, the world held its breath at the prospect of nuclear war breaking out over the disputed border territory of Kashmir.
Last week, Cadbury India launched its new Temptations bar.
The slogan? "I'm good. I'm tempting. I'm too good to share. What am I? Cadbury's Temptations or Kashmir?"
"A spokesman for Cadbury Schweppes in London said: 'From time to time, local management makes mistakes.'"
Say what you like about Woody Harrelson (and we say: still cute!) but he's certainly making himself at home in London.
First he crashes Iain's softball game then he goes and gets himself seen at The Shadow Lounge.
"As soon as Woody realised he was in a gay bar, he looked extremely uncomfortable," says one onlooker. "He took an extra large gulp of his drink and then made rather a sharp exit. We were all very disappointed that he didn't stick around for a dance."
(Reminds me of my favourite Gary Larson cartoon with the two chickens surrounded by cows, captioned "Suddenly they realised this was a hay bar!")
Do we believe Woody would really be that discommoded to find himself in such splendid company? More to the point - how much did he pay??
Overheard at the office:
Q: So how come when I click on 'Send your questions to our gardening expert' it takes me to 'Sweet as honey: delightful dishes from North Africa'?
A: Looks like we got hacked by Richard Desmond.
Wednesday 21st August 2002
Courtesy of CNN, proof at last that al Qaeda truly are evil, evil, evil: Do as we say, or the dog gets it. Animal Liberation Front, are you listening?
Tuesday 20th August 2002
Here in the UK, the weekend brought a fascinating demonstration of contrasting styles of dramatic climax in rip-roaring action: West Wing versus 24, the final episodes.
At 9pm, we had Jed facing down a tropical storm as he agonises over his decision to run again despite MS. At 10pm, we had Jack agonising over whether to kill the ex-lover cum trusted assistant who, he later discovers, has just shot his wife.
The two series have been running in tandem like this for a couple of months now, providing regular opportunities to compare and contrast.
On the one hand you have the denizens of the very centre of world power wrinkling their brows, week by week, over issues of personal morality, probity and trust.
On the other, you have a renegade spook caught up in the machinations of geo-politics, with no time to stop and consider his position on account of he has to shoot his way out en route to the next cliff-hanger.
In the one series, you can identify the bad guys because they speak with creepy foreign accents or (plot twist!) they are suddenly revealed to be fluent in German; in the other, the opposition are united by their smooth words, cultured accents and impeccable tailoring.
The enemy abroad, the enemy within: it's Clinton versus Bush, surely?
(A friend of mine - "an openly gay Clinton appointee" - described West Wing to me some months ago as "a surprisingly accurate depiction of life in the working White House during the Clinton years," adding "things are much less witty and wise in the current Administration." And he should know.)
Bush/Clinton, 24/West Wing - well I know which style I prefer.
Neither are faultless. Like 24, West Wing has quite some ways to go before it wins awards for any ground-breaking portrayals of gays, women or blacks.
And, despite its quick-fire delivery and urban Sheen, the core values of West Wing are undeniably mired in schmalz: the filibustering senator is always revealed to have Good Grandfatherly Reasons to do what he has to do, the token Republican will always be revealed to be a Fundamentally Decent Human Being.
For all that, West Wing still occasionally demonstrates a shocking ability to pull the rug out from beneath your expectations - as with this closing episode, where the President orders himself locked into the National Cathedral in order to hail the Almighty as "a feckless thug" before defiantly extinguishing a cigarette on holy ground.
The plot of 24, on the other hand, careers along its well-oiled switchback rails at a breakneck speed deliberately designed to deny you any chance to examine the integrity of the structures that carry you from climax to climax: only in hindsight is it annoyingly obvious how rickety these bridges are.
What is obvious, even as you watch, are the huge differences in the quality of characterisation in the two series. Each and every character in the West Wing has back-story to spare; in 24 there's a strictly rationed allowance of just one trait, one look, per character: Senator Palmer frowns, his wife hisses, Jack's wife cries (and cries, and cries.)
Much (far too much) has been made of 24's 'ground-breaking' qualities: its use of split-screen, it's dedication to following the story in 'real' time.
Although I applaud the courage of the programme-makers in opting to invest in these techniques in the first place, faced with the final episode I have to ask - why?
Was the ability to show more than one aspect of the plot used even once to broaden the story's effect?
No.
Did the commitment to obsessively follow 24 hours in 24 hourly episodes create anything other than a desperate need to invent new plot-twists?
No.
The 'shock' ending of the last episode of 24 (and were you truly shocked?) reveals it as the worst kind of modern entertainment. It has been crude, shallow, meretricious schlock: something that plays much better in the tv preview columns than it ever does on the screen.
I'm ashamed to say I went out of my way to watch each and every one of 24's 24 episodes - mostly to be sure to catch one magic moment that made the whole hype worthwhile.
Not gonna fall for that again, no sirree.
Monday 19th August 2002
Sadly, it's official: less than a week before it was scheduled to take place, amidst predictable accusations of police homophobia, Manchester's Mardi Gras has been cancelled.
Good friend that I am, I kept my chortles to the bare minimum when David turned up on the crowded grassy knoll having discovered himself too late to get in to see Dame Edna yesterday, just as I did last week.Good friend that I am, I even abandoned the RVT (after a so-so show) to keep him company down the road in the garden at Dukes, where we soon found ourselves fairly deep in conversation with someone we both know, someone who - as my drunken rambling reached new heights - rather abruptly got to his feet and departed the scene.Good friend that he is, David took one look at my raised eyebrows, leant across, patted my knee, and said, "Never start a sentence 'I have this theory...'"
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