Thoughts for the Day

Holy Shitballs!

Aaaaargh! The alarm's gone off for the first time in twenty days, and I am not ready for all this shit again...

Here's a song that just about sums it all up, from one of the films I watched at John-John's the other day, Deadpool 2:

Tyler Bates - You Can't Stop this Mother Fucker! [Deadpool 2 (Original Motion Picture Score)]

Have a good week, dear reader. I won't.

Men in tights

I'm off to John-John's today for another film day, most likely involving superheroes...

Meanwhile...

Super. Men.

Looks like a fun day out.

Vocal cords made of tweed

"My vocal cords are made of tweed. I give off an air of Oxford donnishness and old BBC wirelesses."



"Let's face it, I do not get offered the parts that Brad Pitt has just turned down."

"It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that', as if that gives them certain rights. It's no more than a whine. It has no meaning, it has no purpose, it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I'm offended by that.' Well, so fucking what?"

"Temperance is wickedness."



"Swearing is a really important part of one's life. It would be impossible to imagine going through life without swearing and without enjoying swearing... There used to be mad, silly, prissy people who used to say swearing was a sign of a poor vocabulary - such utter nonsense. The people I know who swear the most tend to have the widest vocabularies and the kind of person who says swearing is a sign of a poor vocabulary usually have a pretty poor vocabulary themselves."

"The beauty of the brain is that you can still be as greedy as you like for knowledge and it doesn’t show."

"I don't need you to remind me of my age, I have a bladder to do that for me."



Happy 60th birthday, Mr Stephen John Fry (born 24th August 1957)

Is he strong? Listen bud, he's got radioactive blood

The new film Spider-Man: Homecoming, featuring Tom Holland in the role, has been all over the papers today.

I wonder if its theme will be as good as this:

Spiderman theme song 1960s

Very, Very Much

Yes! Our hero again...

Today is IDAHo (or IDAHoT, as it is now known) - the International Day Against Homophobia (and Transphobia).

Every year, we in the West can see more and more enlightenment among governments in Europe and the Americas (equal marriage legislation is rapidly becoming the "norm", or so it seems; despite the best efforts of loonies standing for local council elections), yet the picture worldwide - the medieval fundamentalism rife in Islamic countries, the fomenting of hatred by Evangelical churches in Africa (and elsewhere) and, most worryingly, the rise of right-wing tyranny and thuggery in the countries of Eastern Europe (in which we held such hope when the iron grip of the Soviets was toppled) - our gay brethren still face a daily struggle just to survive.

Just today comes the announcement that a parade in Russia to celebrate the victory of Conchita Wurst in Eurovision has been banned.

The Guardian, admirably (it has always been a bit of a "friend of the gays"), has published a rather fascinating set of stats:

Being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender is illegal in almost 80 countries, and in at least five of them is still punishable by death. [On] the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, explore the legal situation for LGBT people around sex, marriage or civil partnerships, adoption, workplace discrimination and hate crime by region, country and overall population.

Read and absorb the facts

I shan't upset myself, or you, dear reader, with my usual list of examples of the homophobic crimes that are being committed on a daily basis in such benighted regimes as Cameroon, Nigeria, Uganda, Belarus, Malaysia and Jamaica (and the rest) against our peers. That remarkable campaigner, drag queen Panti Bliss sums it up so much more succinctly:

Inspiring message by Panti Bliss for IDaHoT 2014

Instead, I shall rely - as I always do on this day - upon the otherwise un-admirable Lily Allen (and, of course, the myriad contributors to this video that uses her song as its rallying cry) to send out a message to homophobes the world over:

GayCLIC Collaboration against Homophobia - Fuck You

International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia

Mysterious deaths, drag queens to the rescue, Fanny and the Hulk, grief, revenge, superhero sex and a long-list

It's been a bit of a busy few days - a leaving do/reunion, shopping, gardening, enjoying the sunshine (and storms)... and of course, work.

However John-John, Paul and I were shivering with anticip...ation as we trolled along to the last summer outing of "London's peerless gay literary salon" Polari, hosted by the equally peerless Mr Paul Burston, on Tuesday evening.



Why the particular excitement on this occasion? After all, Polari has been a regular fixture in my social calendar for five years. Uniquely, on this occasion we had a good friend to support, as our very own Ange Chan was making her debut as a reader rather than just a supporter...



After the familiarly flamboyant introductions from Mr B, our Ange took to the lectern to open the show. If she was nervous (and I guess she must have been), it didn't show, as she treated us to her marvellously pithy short story about a family estranged from one of their number, and the discovery by our heroine of his (her brother's) dead body in mysterious circumstances. Gripping stuff, and very well done indeed.

We were clapping like proud dads as she received well-deserved applause from the appreciative audience (that included usual suspects such as Val Lee, DJ Connell, Peter Daniels, Emma and Toby, Joe Storey-Scott, Krys Fitzgerald-Morris, little Tony and - a first for him - Ange's hubby Steve). The story itself and much more will be available via Ange's F***book page (link above) soon.



Next up was another newcomer, Stevie Hendon. He read for us a rather wonderful extract from his first book The Lost Boy, the Doodlebug and the Mysterious Number 80, a tangled web of relationships between gay men in 1970s London, dream fantasies and murder. However, the piece he chose for us was not as grim as that may sound - a hilarious account of the novel's protagonist, the young gay boy Charlie, his unfortunate decision to "lose his cherry" (while pissed) with a creepy pervert with a sling, and his triumphal rescue by a bevy of drag queens armed with dangerous stilettos!

It tickled me pink - and I hope to get around to reading more of these salacious adventures soon.



Our final reader in the first half was a familiar fave, the poet Neil Alexander. He read for us a typically varied selection of his excellent work (little of which is available online these days - one assumes because he is on the verge of a publishing deal), including a tribute to our heroines "Fanny and Stella", one about 80s AIDS campaigns, another about his recent redundancy, and this one - The Incredible Hulk:





After the break, it was the turn of the lovely VG Lee - not to perform any of her work, but to announce the eagerly-awaited long-list for this year's Polari First Book Prize!

The prize is for a first book which explores the LGBT experience and is open to any work of poetry, prose, fiction or non-fiction published in the UK in English within the twelve months of the deadline for submissions (this year Feb 1, 2013). Self-published works in both print and digital formats are eligible for submission. This year the prize has a new sponsor, Société Générale UK LGBT Network, who will be kindly donating £1000 prize money to the winner of this year's prize.

The Polari First Book Prize Longlist:

• The January Flower by Orla Broderick
• Five To One by Chris Chalmers
• Counting Eggs by Peter Daniels
• Realisations by Andie Davidson
• The Governess by Rachael Eyre
• The Murder Wall by Mari Hannah
• Tony Hogan Bought Me An Icecream Float Before He Stole My Ma by Kerry Hudson
• The Sitar by Rebecca Idris
• Catching Bullets - Memoirs of a Gay Bond Fan by Mark O’Connell
• Readings from the Book of Exile by Pádraig Ó Tuama
• The Tale of Raw Head & Bloody Bones by Jack Wolf

What a list! Can't wait to find out how they whittle that down.

Anyhow, it was time to get back to the "show". And my word, what an excellent reader was in store...



Denise Marshall's book Soul Assassin is a harrowingly personal observation of one woman's reaction to her betrayal by a lover (whose affair is exposed by a very publicly reported terrorist atrocity at her place of work while she is elsewhere with another woman). Breathtaking in its honest depiction of the central character's grief and painful self-examination, Ms Marshall had the entire room transfixed in an eerie silence throughout the reading. An utterly superb, if emotionally draining experience.


[photo: http://krysphotos.co.uk/]

Breaking the tension somewhat, our star turn - and a rather gorgeous one at that - was Italy's premier gay author Marco Mancassola, here reading for the first time an extract in English from his best-seller The Erotic Lives of the Superheroes. A bizarre concept, taking the super-powered heroes of the classic comics and imagining them growing older, and focusing in particular on their intimate relationships.

In the first extract from his book, Mr Mancassola focused on the homoerotic first meeting of an out-gay Batman and the flawless teenage Robin. With his purring Italian accent, he could have read the telephone directory out loud and I still would have needed to mop down with a damp sponge. The piece itself was beautifully sensuous (as was his second extract starring the retired and sexually obsessed former "Mister Fantastic", who used to be able to stretch every part of his body - oo-er - but can do so no more), fascinating, and totally unique. We loved it.

And with the customary gathering of the night's readers back onto the stage, that, as they say, was that.



An utterly magnificent evening, as ever - and I am going to miss Polari until its return in September!



The next Polari is on 11th September and features Lois Walden, Bernardine Evaristo, Susie Boyt and Nick Field. The shortlist for the Polari First Book Prize 2013 will be announced.

Gayest superhero?

As far as I can see, they've outed the wrong one...

DC announces which of its superheroes is gay

"So sick and tired of all the hatred you harbour"

Today marks the seventh International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHO).

The event has been held every year since 2005 to raise awareness of discrimination and harassment of LGBT people around the globe.

Although I know of nothing that is happening in our borough (Haringey), a conference on LGBT rights and faith featuring Peter Tatchell, communities minister Andrew Stunell and the mayor Lutfur Rahmanis is to be held in Tower Hamlets following upset over anti-gay stickers posted around the area.

Bigotry amongst Islamists (who are believed to be behind the East End stickers) and Islamic countries is nothing new - and just as the UN has produced its first-ever brochure (to coincide with IDAHO) highlighting its official position on sexual orientation and gender identity human rights, so the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and some African countries have organised vocal opposition to it. Their agenda is to redefine human rights - permitting religion to exclude not just homosexuality but some women's rights issues.

In that most homophobic society Uganda, IDAHO campaigners have organised a conference titled "Sexuality, Orientation, Gender Identity and Health", a brave move considering that only last week there was still a threat that the Ugandan parliament was considering passing an Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Thankfully, Uganda has at last been directly threatened with having its aid withdrawn by numerous countries, including the US, which said it would use its leverage in places like the World Bank.

In Malawi the picture is just as bad - the British ambassador was expelled in April following his leaked diplomatic criticism of the president, after which their local press once more put the blame on gay people! However, arrests for homosexuality and a new law criminalising lesbians have contributed to the withdrawal of some international aid, and to other aid being renegotiated.

Read more in the Guardian

Even in the so-called "civilised world", religious fundamentalism still espouses hate against us - in the Australian city of Adelaide only yesterday, a gang of fascist "God Hates Gays" protestors violently attacked a rally against homophobia. Great news in the country that produced Priscilla Queen of the Desert...

All this is depressing stuff, but must yet again serve to remind the complacent public - gay and straight - that some of the battles (perhaps here and in other European countries) may have been fought and won, but we are a long way away from being accepted, tolerated or even decriminalised - we can be imprisoned or face corporal punishment in 76 countries across the world, and the death penalty for homosexual activity still exists in five countries and parts of Nigeria and Somalia.

Download a copy of the International Gay Rights Map (PDF)

The date of IDAHO marks the day when the World Health Organisation removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders - only 21 years ago. Coincidentally, and almost as depressing, Lady Gaga is apparently the self-proclaimed "spokesperson" for IDAHO...

Never mind her - this is what I inevitably want to play:

GayCLIC Collaboration against Homophobia - Fuck You

International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia website