I've been to some hen parties...

... but a stag do?

As Paul Burston quite rightly says in The Gay Divorcee:

"For some reason, women always seemed to invite their gay friends to their hen party. Men never invited them to the stag do. Maybe they thought they'd be embarrassed by the lap dancers. Or maybe they just didn't want a gay man around when it was time to strip the groom naked and leave him tied to a lamp-post."

Last night's Polari East - "The Stag Night" was a new deviation on a theme for our favourite "peerless gay literary salon", outside the usual Soho haunts. It took me a while to find the new venue for Ghetto/Trash Palace in Old Street, despite its bright red paint-job, but it is a fashionably bijou little club and ideal for a one-off event like this.

Although the audience was slightly sparse, those of us who did turn out on this sunny May Tuesday had a treat in store.

Not only the usual fab camp disco/electro playlist courtesy of the lovely DJ Dom Agius, but on this occasion host Paul had the tables turned on him and had to perform a reading himself. Of course, that was the whole theme of the evening - the "Stag Night" preceding next week's main launch of The Gay Divorcee (the "Wedding Night" - no mention of the "Divorce Night", but c'est la vie).

Poet (and so it would seem, stripper for the evening - appearing as he did, shirtless) Trevor Medicine treated us to one of his pithy poems. The buffet was appropriately naff - all sausages on sticks and cheese nibbles. And the "novelties" on every table included (obviously) stag horns, devil head-dresses and inflatable caveman clubs.



I had a ball - particularly satisfying after what I felt was a very good meeting with an agency who have an excellent job prospect for me, and after drinks with our friend Maria in the sunshine - and it made up for the fact that next week's "official" event takes place while we are sunning ourselves in Spain, so I haven't missed out on my Polari "fix".

Roll on the next one - "Supernatural Night" on June 17th!

Polari