Little Tinker

2002-09-01T10:24:00.000Z

I'll run away till I'm bigger,
but then I'll fight.

2002-08-12T19:21:00.000Z

Ow ow ow! Time was, not so long ago, that I could spend the whole of Saturday shopping, before going out for a meal, and then heading off to Love Muscle at the Fridge, before going on to Trade and staying till one o'clock on a Sunday afternoon, and then going off to someone's place for a chill-out, and then getting a cab home, and spending six hours working in front of a computer screen, and then having a wonderful night's sleep, before waking up, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready for another exciting and challenging day at work.

As I said, that was then.

This, unfortunately, is now.

2002-08-08T06:10:00.000Z

I posted my name up on the Friends Reunited website a while back now. It was more out of curiosity than an urgent need to reconnect with old school- and university-friends. If we really wanted to see each other again, contact wouldn't have been lost in the first place, would it?

Until today I reckon I've been right. The only e-mails have been from people I really did not like or respect, and, in one case, couldn't even remember. Now someone with whom I actually got on rather well at Uni has posted me.

She's married, one kid, living on another continent. And me… well, the Little Tinker of my youth has long since gone. After twenty years, what does a mother of a teenage girl and a party-going, should-know-better Metro-Queer have in common?

I'll reply, if only for politeness' sake. But I doubt we'll meet up or exchange phone numbers.

Attractive as it may be, the Past is Another Country.

It should stay that way.

2002-08-07T20:07:00.000Z

Size really is everything, if Peter Jackson's production of The Fellowship of the Ring is anything to go by. It's a film to be enjoyed on the cinema screen, the bigger the better, not on the TV where I saw the VHS for the first time last night.

For the star of the show is Middle Earth itself, a sprawling land of soaring snow-capped mountains, treacherous swamplands, raging cataracts, and gently rolling hillsides of the Shire, the latter as English as a clotted cream tea. Which is all pretty impressive as the entire film was shot in New Zealand, and the tourist board are milking it for all its worth.

As someone who knows the plot back-to-front, how did I rate it? Well, it stays close to the original apart from a couple of necessary cuts (No Tom Bombadil! Yippee! No Barrow-Wight! Boo-hoo!), and the premature arrival on the scene of Arwen, here to provide the necessary thirty-second, blink-and-you'll-miss-it Love Interest.

Yet even with all the cuts, Jackson rushes to pack too much into his three hours, too many battles, too much exposition, too many fantastic special effects, leaving too little time for us to get to know or care about the characters. Only Ian McKellen and Christopher Lee as rival wizards Gandalf and Saruman, and Ian Holm as Bilbo Baggins, manage to convince: and only Frodo and Sam succeed in charming the viewer into actually liking them.

Aragorn is a self-important ass, Gimli a smutty joke, Legolas a limp-wristed prissy old queen in the making. At least Sean Bean as Boromir does the decent thing and gets killed in the end. And you really don't want to know what I think of Cate Blanchett as Galadriel. (Believe me, you really don't.)

But then I've always been one for character-driven pieces rather than action movies, a fan of Rimbaud rather than Rambo.

Yet I've got to say that I did enjoy it, much more than I thought I would. So seven out of ten. I'll definitely be seeing The Two Towers. On the Big Screen, of course. That's the natural place for Spectacle, which is how the trilogy is being treated on film. And now that the scene has been set, and all the back-story told, maybe we'll get to know the other characters a little more in the second movie.

And who did I fancy in the end? Well, the Balrog did have its moments, but in the end it has to be Elijah Wood as Frodo. With those puppy-dog eyes, mischievous grin, hair that was expressly made for running your fingers through, and a suggestion that he still hasn't started shaving, cradle-snatching has never seemed more fun.

2002-08-06T19:07:00.000Z

The Fellowship of the Ring is released today on VHS in the UK. Peter Jackson's film of the best book of all time? Over-rated hype? Rattling good yarn? A piece of plagiaristic, misogynist, reactionary twaddle?

You know something? I don't care what anyone else thinks.

All I care about is that since my teens The Lord of the Rings has been my constant companion, a trilogy reread every couple of years or so. I love Tolkien's shameless nicking of elements from practically every world mythology you can think of. I revel in the cuteness of the first few chapters, when he still wasn't quite sure whether he was writing another kids' story or not (Bilbo Baggins and his eleventy-first birthday indeed!). And I delight in the darkness of the final book, all blood, death and treachery.

I can even live with his characters, as reassuringly stereotypical and as predictable as any character from a Middle English epic. And especially I love this philology professor's utterly convincing invented languages, which instilled in me a never-ending passion for linguistics and the meaning of words.

Yet I haven't seen the movie.

(I never get around to seeing movies. Especially if they require venturing into that first circle of hell that is commonly known as Leicester Square.)

And I was scared that watching The Fellowship of the Ring would destroy my own imagined vision of Tolkien's world.

But today I bought the video, to catch up with what everyone else saw eight months or so ago. And I'm settling back now, phone off the hook, glass of Merlot in the hand. Anticipation building up as the VCR clunks into life.

Will McKellen's Gandalf convey the hidden power and grandeur of Mithrandir? Will the Hobbits be insufferably cute, and what about that dodgy relationship between Frodo and Sam? Will New Zealand make a convincing Middle Earth? Who will I fancy the most – Aragorn, Legolas or (Shame of Shames) the Ring-Wraiths?

And just how are they going to play the Balrog?

I'll let you know.

2002-07-31T20:05:00.000Z

For Everyone-Who-Understands, a frighteningly truthful and extremely uncomfortable insight into my psyche.

I'm David, who are you? Six Feet Under Quiz by Turi.

And for Those-Who-Don't-Understand, in the UK anyway, you need to be in front of the TeeVee, Channel Four, 22h30 on a Monday.

Believe me, you will not regret it.

2002-07-31T19:32:00.000Z

So what happened?

No raging or blowing cataracts and hurricanoes. No sulph'rous and thought-executing fires or oak-cleaving thunderbolts.

Just a few heavy showers. That's all.

I feel cheated somehow.

Humph.

2002-07-30T19:29:00.000Z

Hurrah!

London, with its narrow congested streets, traffic exhaust, over-packed ~~cattle trucks~~ tube trains, and pale-faced natives, is not made for summer.

And now, after three of the hottest and most uncomfortable days in the Big Smoke I can ever remember, it has started to rain!

Rain! Rain! Rain! Wonderful, glorious rain!

We're promised thunderstorms later.

Masses of 'em.

I can't wait!

2002-07-27T15:07:00.000Z

Patsy Stone I am not.

As it was my birthday last Wednesday I thought it was time to treat myself this weekend to a spot of Retail Therapy. So I woke up, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (quite an achievement in itself), and decided to Hit The Sales.

Six hours later, I have returned, bearing nothing for my efforts apart from a Marks and Sparks cafetiere (oh, I am such an Islington Queen!) and a couple of tees. No designer labels. No packages of dodgy white powder. Not even a Best of Steps. Nothing, in fact, which screeches SAD OLD METROPOLITAN QUEER STEREOTYPE to all the other Sad Old Metropolitan Queer Stereotypes on Old Compton Street.

I want to belong, so I tried. Honest, I did.

But I could not find a pair of Converse trainers which I really, really liked.

I turned my nose up at the cut-price DKNY in Selfridges and Dickens and Jones.

Even the 2(x)ist range I came across failed to arouse my enthusiasm.

And you don't want to know what a disappointment the Diesel sale was.

In fact, if it wasn't for the Clarins Beauty Flash and the bottle of poppers I've brought home with me. I'd be scared that I'm turning straight.

I need help.

2002-07-23T19:53:00.000Z

Gulp. Birthday tomorrow. Again.

After a Certain-Age, they seem to tumble around sooner and sooner and quicker and quicker.

Bread Monster and Little Miss Chile are hopefully going to help me see it through.

I shall be a brave little tinker. I will. I will. Honest, I will.

2002-07-20T15:13:00.000Z

Over in Argentina, it seems that the country's dire economic circumstances have forced little old ladies to take up the oldest game in the world.

Come retirement, and a laughable pension, it's nice to know that there's hope for us all. See you in the back-pages of the fag mags in twenty years' time then, boyz.

2002-07-20T11:30:00.000Z

Apart from Wednesday/ Thursday's tube strike, this has been something of a nothing week for me. For some reason or other I've just been feeling tired and drained.

Yesterday, for instance, I did a half-hearted session at the gym, achieved hardly anything all day, and after work the most exciting sentence anyone could get out of me was 'A pint of Stella', please.

Back home I couldn't even be arsed to watch the Street(which is actually starting to improve again), nor tonight's episode of Will and Grace.

Memo to Self: Must get Monday's edition of the Times to check that I am not, in fact, dead.

2002-07-18T19:56:00.000Z

"Everyone is advised to leave central London by eight o'clock this evening."

The way the BBC announced it, you'd've thought the Marauding Hordes were just miles away from Zone One, ready to tear down the barricades and rape and pillage all our women-folk.

Relax. It was only the beginning of a tube strike.

Which meant that last night most of central London was a ghost-town, as people struggled to leave the West End before the Big Shut-Down at eight. Which also meant that Masterchef and myself were able to sit outside on the pavement and enjoy an evening bottle or three of Côtes de Provence without having to put up with car-exhaust fumes, police sirens, or charming-young-people-trying-to-sign-you-up-for the-latest-charity-and-will-you-please-f**k-off-because-if-you-saw-the-state-of-my-bank-balance-then-you-wouldn't-want-to-have-my-bank-details-anyway..

We had a cheery chat about death, drugs and prostitution and what I was going to wear for his wedding to the lovely Angie in October. And then I walked home at Closing Time, slightly tipsy, with the streets refreshingly clear of tourists, winos, and People From Zone Three. (And before I'm accused of being a snob, I used to live in Zone Three, I know what we're like.)

More tube strikes please.

2002-07-16T20:43:00.000Z

Thanks to the Bread Monster for this, which has finally shown where my political and economic allegiances really do lie.

I'm a minus 3.88 on the ecomomic left-wing/ right-wing scale, and a minus 4.51 on the authoritarian/ libertarian scale.

Which apparenly makes me the illegitimate love-child of the Mayor for London and the Liberal Democrat MP for Bermondsey.

Now I really am depressed. . .

2002-07-14T14:52:00.000Z

I tell you, it's the thin-end-of-the-wedge, the start-of-that-slippery-slope, a shameful-example-to-the-youth-of-our-country, an insult to all those-traditional-values-that-we-hold-dear-and-which-have-made-our-country-great.

No wonder that the tabloid press on this Island has exploded into a paroxysm of moral outrage at the news that a seventeen-year-old boy has gone and knocked back a few alcopops, smoked a couple of spliffs, and may just have friends who are partial to the odd line or two.

A member of the Royal Family who is actually normal?

Ooh. That will never do.

2002-07-11T19:51:00.000Z

A friendly word to anyone who shops in the Islington branch of Sainsbury's and should find themselves in the unfortunate position of being in front of me in the queue.

Please do ensure that you have your money ready when the check-out girl totals your bill.

Please do also have your Reward Card ready, and do know well in advance whether you want Cashback or not. And exactly how much.

Please don't wait until you have received your change, before even thinking about packing your purchases away in that pathetic little plastic carrier bag of yours. Which will break.

Please don't suddenly realise that you've missed out on a sensational and unmissable Two-For-One Offer. This will only necessitate the cashier calling over a colleague to track down and bring to you the offending article which, if you had half a brain, you would have picked up yourself first time round.

And then please do not query your bill, and stridently demand that the cashier ask the store manager to come and check the amount.

And please do not turn to me and ask me for my opinion.

Believe me.

As you found out this evening, it really isn't worth it.

2002-07-11T12:55:00.000Z

I speak a couple of European languages and understand three or four more, (ooh, but I am such a cosmopolitan type!). This makes me something of an oddity among my fellow Brits on the Island. Now that there are talks to phase out regular foreign language classes in our schools, I'm resigned to becoming even odder still.

Hey, that's OK. Who wants to talk da Foreign, when everyone speaka da Engleesh anyway?

Sorry. Not an argument. Trying another language isn't just about finding your way more easily around the menu (which it is). It's not just about gaining a deeper understanding of another culture and tradition (which it is).

It's about respect.

Whenever I go abroad, I make a point of knowing at least a few phrases in the host language. Even for a stopover at Osaka airport, I could come up with the Japanese for "please", "thank you" and "another two bottles of beer". And that little bit of Swahili I made myself learn earned me entry to a Kenya tourists rarely ever see.

But then our Little-Englander refusal even to attempt another language either at home or abroad borders on the arrogant. It starts as soon as you step out onto the tarmac. Arrive at any European airport and you'll see signs directing you to the Ausgang/ Sortie/ Salida/ Exit. What do you get at Heathrow? Way Out. Welcome to the UK.

Hey, but that's OK. Why have multilingual signs in the world's busiest airport when everyone speaka da Engleesh anyway?

Not all of us have a knack for languages. We can't all be fluent speakers, slipping effortlessly and accentlessly from English to Italian to Thai to an obscure dialect of Serbo-Croat (although I bet there's a Dutchman out there could prove me wrong). But all us can make a little effort.

Try it the next time you're in a taverna in Rhodes, or on the Eurostar to Brussels. No, you won't make a fool of yourself. Yes, Johnny Foreigner probably will reply in English. And believe me, your feeble attempts at speaking in the local lingo will be warmly appreciated. He'll probably be so taken aback he'll even buy you a drink.

Because even a "Parlez-vous anglais?" shows you're trying.

2002-07-10T20:38:00.000Z

Renaissance Man is a good mate of mine, a really nice bloke. He's an actor/ singer/ dancer/ director/ producer/ writer/ poet - well, you get the idea. But he's most at home on the West End stage. So it was a treat last night to see him playing the role of Scar in the London stage production of Disney's The Lion King.

It goes without saying he was great (hey, all my friends are great), so I'll say something about the show itself.

You know the plot. King's Wicked-Brother (Renaissance Man) kills King and takes over. Exiled Nephew comes back to reclaim Rightful Place as Lion King. Not something I'd normally see, immune as I am to Disney's saccharine sentimentality. Happily, the show is low on cuteness and high on honest-to-goodness spectacle.

What sets it apart from most other big-time shows isn't the exuberance of the cast (playing tonight to a noisily appreciative audience of tourists and ~~brats~~ children) or its occasionally knowing self-parody, but Director Julie Taymor's dazzling back-to-basics direction.

There's hardly a hi-tech gimmick to be seen. What you get instead is honest-to-goodness, down-to-earth theatrical spectacle. The sort you might have seen a couple or so decades ago before Musical Theatre stopped being fun. Before it discovered computer-generated Special Effects and Helicopters and Chandeliers threatening - and unfortunately failing every single bloody time! - to decapitate those corporate clients who can afford to sit in the front-stall seats.
Before we all forgot about Talent, in fact.

The Lion King is a feast of colour, and an inventive juxtaposition of ages-old African masks and costumes with puppet-theatre and shadow-play and with modern-day Western choreography and showmanship. It also provides the most effective use of stage lighting I've ever seen, transforming a blank backdrop into a scorching savannah sky, or into a mysterious night-time heaven pin-pricked with billions upon billions of stars and promises.

Best of all is the score: traditional-based South African and Zulu chants and rhythms forming a perfect counterpoint to the rock-influenced sounds of Tim Rice and Elton John. They have the Tingle Quotient, which is saying a lot these days.

It may not be the greatest musical currently playing the West End – Chicago is wittier and darker, Blood Brothers is cheaper and requires more Kleenex, and Les Miz still has the best tunes, but for a genuine, feel-good time, you can't do much better.

And my mate's in it.

2002-07-08T18:59:00.000Z

Last Saturday saw London's lesbian and gay Mardi Gras parade and party take place in central and not-so-central London.

Like many other gay Londoners I know, I didn't go. The first time I've been a No-Show in almost fifteen years. I had personal reasons for not joining in the march in Central London, which I regret, but I knew that the main Party was going to be a flop. From all the feedback I've had, I wasn't wrong. I don't know the official figures yet, but I do know that two weeks before the event, ticket sales were way. way down from the expected 90, 000.

But then from the beginning, the whole event smacked of commercial desperation. First of all we were told that the Mardi Gras party was taking place in the Millennium Dome. Then, when it was discovered that the Dome was now owned by homophobes (you should have checked first, guys), the venue was rushed to Brockwell Park, home, a few years ago, to one of the best Pride parties ever. And then, when the rival Purple in the Park moved their September dance festival to early June (that effort another damp squib incidentally), Hackney Marches was decided upon.

Queens, eh? Couldn't organise a dose of the clap in a brothel.

Now, I like Hackney but it's situated in an area of London several thousand light years away from the end of the parade. It's a place where Nellies fear to tread, unless they're accompanied by a bodyguard of left-wing-cat-owning-2CV-driving-vegetarian lesbians (only joking, girls). It's an area of London with a reputation for violence, crack-heads, gangland killings, and a lack of tasteful interior furnishings.

And Underground Stations.

The nearest station, Stratford, was a forty-five minutes' walk away from the park, for God's sake. It's hard and potentially life-threatening to make that Bad Trip in drag and stilettos, especially when Old Compton Street is only a five-quid cab ride away. A few free coaches to ferry the attendees would have been welcome but, if there were any, then there weren't advertised.

Paying 20GBP on the gate on the day doesn’t help either. Especially when I'm not into G.A.Y. kiddie bands on the main stage, a staggering lack of good dance tents (clubs who played at Purple weren't allowed to play at Mardi Gras apparently), drug-fuct bungie-jumping, and paying well on three quid for a can of Red Stripe. Even the coup of having Brett and the boyswasn't enough to get me over to Zone Three.

So in the end, I stayed at home, watched the first four episodes of the marvellous Six Feet Under , then went out later for a fantastic night out with Party Boy, Bread Monster and the rest of the Posse at the ever-reliable Mothership .

I'm getting old. Or disillusioned.

Let's make it better next year, boyz. If you want, I'll help.

2002-07-04T21:17:00.000Z

Apparently, I'm a Really-Good-Listener. Most of my friends have at one time or another divulged to me their darkest secrets or deepest emotions, secure in the knowledge I will never repeat them to anyone else. Ever.

But occasionally, I wish that they would shut up with their whinging. Yes, despite my chirpy, little-tinker exterior, I, too, have my depths, my drives and my hang-ups. Sometimes I just want to say: Look, for once I do not want to hear about your problems with your boyfriend/ girlfriend/ creditors/ employer/ landlord/ fellow gym queens/ nasty little rash you contracted after that drunken night in the backroom. Sometimes I just want to scream: Won't you f***ing listen to me for a change!

But I never do. Because I'm nice. Apparently. And I love 'em to bits.

But sometimes I think I should be a lot less nice.

And shout.

2002-07-03T20:13:00.000Z

That'll teach me for dumping the old faithful mobile. It weighed a brick but at least it worked. The moment I buy Sleek New Sexy Model, the whole phone network went down, which meant I missed one majorly important call.

And the moment I stepped into work, our entire intranet crashed, and another web-hosting system started to become majorly petulant, which had me apologising to loads of people-who-get-paid-lots-more-than-me.

I feel like the Masque of bloody Cyber Death , and I spent most of today calmly assuring colleagues-who-for-some-inane-reason-have-faith-in-me that no, you really haven't deleted two years' worth of work, and yes, we really, really, really do have a back-up. Somewhere. Honest.

I call the IT helpdesk who answer from their desk helpfully with the usual helpful response: Oh-just-reboot-mate-and-then-it'll-all-be-alright.
Well, thank you again, but no, it bloody well wasn't.

Question: Does anyone anywhere have an IT helpdesk which is actually helpful ?

Thought not.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Came out smiling and scarred in the end, so had a quick drink with Renaissance Man and Party Boy, and then home to relax with the lovely Kate .

2002-07-02T12:28:00.000Z

I would like to announce that, after much soul-searching and major Angst, I have dumped my long-time companion of almost five years.

Yep. That's right. The Motorola mr201 has been thrown onto the scrapheap.

Let's face it, it was a particularly stupid, ugly and loud-mouthed model at the best of times. Bit like someone else we know, in fact.

And when I found myself having to make calls from darkened alleys because I was ashamed for the two of us to be seen in public together then I knew it was time for something drastic.

So I've traded it in for a sleek, stylish and sort of sexy Japanese model.

This time it's forever.

2002-07-01T19:56:00.000Z

Christopher Street Day in Berlin Part Two

I've only ever attended gay parades in three cities. The Sydney Mardi Gras parade is the most colourful by a long way, but it's now a purely commercial proposition, the city's biggest annual draw for ocker tourists who want to look at the "freaks". (Comment made on Taylor Square to me and French Boy, dressed in our spangly shorts: "Hey, can I take a picture of you. You know, I'm straight, honest, I am, but some of my best friends are poof-…." Oh puh-leeeese!) In Oz, unless you're one of the lucky muscle boyz to be allowed on a float, your only option is to stand on your milk crates behind the crash barriers and watch the parade as it passes you by. When I tried to join in a couple of years ago, I was actively discouraged by the stewards along the route. A case of look, don't get too involved, mate.

There's not that problem back here on the Island, but London's parade, is dreary by comparison. Nothing, for once, to do with British reserve or weather, but with the restraints put upon it by killjoy Westminster, the council borough through which the parade passes. As the event's classed as a political march, there's a legal limit on the number of floats we can have, and even their position in the parade (right at the front). Try as our brave Mardi Gras Committee do to party things up, with the main body of the parade trailing behind the floats, the whole thing has the feel of a student demo from the seventies.

In Berlin the few crash barriers get dismantled pretty pronto. The parade spills drunkenly out onto the city's wide boulevards, drags you into its chemically-fuelled, Sekt-swigging, techno-playing, arm-waving, show-off rollercoaster of a parade. It spins you around till you're dizzy and then spits you out again, before dragging you back in for just one more ride (come on, Liebchen you know you really want it, don't you?).

It's the biggest gay street party in Europe. It's an incredibly kitsch celebration of hedonism and sexuality. It's eighty-plus floats, from the naff to the incredibly elaborate. This year it's also a demand for the continued recognition in Germany of our gay and lesbian partnerships.

But most of all it's more than fifty thousand gays and lesbians dancing and partying and boozing and snogging their way through central Berlin, along the course of the old Berlin Wall, up past the country's seat of government, and into the Tiergarten, one of the largest outdoor cruising areas in Germany.

Political? You bet. Just by us being there. A party? What do you think?

After all – it really is a cabaret, old chum.

2002-06-29T16:34:00.000Z

Borders is having a sale of some classic albums, so I thought it was time to replace my old vinyl with CDs. A classic Patti Smith; one of the last good things that David Bowie did (although I've yet to hear Heathen); and for those mellower moments one by Joni.

And then I go and buy this piece of unreconstructed folkiness.

So much then for my reputation as a cutting-edge MetroQueer with his finger on the pulse...

2002-06-28T12:11:00.000Z

Christopher Street Day in Berlin

The Kurfuerstendamm is Berlin's main drag, and today drag is probably the right word. You can't move for queens dressed up to the ninety-nines for this, our very own special day. There's a party about to start and the whole town has come along to join in the fun. Today the sun is shining, the Sekt is flowing, and the rain most definitely isn't going to rain on this parade.

Klaus Wowereweit, the gay mayor of Berlin, is marching with us. German national telly is broadcasting the event live. Loads of shops on the Ku-damm have special CSD displays. Café Kranzler, home of sexagenarian German gentility, is flying the rainbow flag. The main branch of H&M is offering last-minute hair-cuts and beauty advice.. For f**k's sake, even the shop windows of C&A are full of models clad in tight blue lame and camp easy-to-rip-off briefs.

A team of straight firemen sit astride their parked fire engine. A flounce of pink-clad, bubble-butted disco dollies surround them and throw them up a dozen red plastic fans. Getting into the spirit of things, our butch fire-fighting lads flutter their eyelids coquettishly behind the fans. The crowd whoops. Some cream their jeans. Party Boy passes me a tissue.

While Party Boy goes off in a vain search for our mate, Jason, I grab the cute blond next to me who works for the city's transport authority. Nothing to do with my thing for men in uniform. Not this time anyway. What I need is a U-Bahn travel pass. Just for today, the ticket's in the form of a black cotton thong. I suddenly have visions of the prime of Teutonic youth ripping off its jeans just to be allowed to get onto an underground train. This is a nice thought. I fumble in my shorts for another tissue.

In front of me is a seriously sexy man – you know the sort of thing: tattoos, muscles, combats, Number One crop, diamante choker around his neck. He is waltzing with a midget dressed in taffeta and tulle. Sailor boys right out of a Pierre et Gilles painting are knocking back the bottles of Sekt. Even the cops are getting in on the act, flirting with the drag queens, and takings photos of the rainbow crowd. Everyone is out to have the time of their lives, and to tell the world that we're here, we're queer and… and.. and can I please have another bottle of Sekt?

It's noon. It's Berlin. And the Christopher Street Day parade hasn't even started yet.

To be concluded

2002-06-24T19:39:00.000Z

Just stumbled in off the flight from Berlin. Too tired and Berlined-up to post coherently now. More to come, right after I remember on which Strasse I inadvertently left my brain. And could someone please post it back to me please?

2002-06-19T18:11:00.000Z

Yipee! Off to Berlin tomorrow. I first went there twenty years ago as an innocent. I came back a twelve months later, one of the very, very guilty. I still go back every year, a junkie after just one more fix.

The Wall has come down and new buildings gone up, but not much else has changed. The brash humour is still the same; the night life is as seriously disturbed as it ever was; the surrounding lakes and forests continue to offer welcome relief from the big-city madness; and, most importantly, there's still a Currywurst stall on every street corner.

This time will be special though. I'm flying out with Party Boy. He's never been to Germany before, let alone Berlin, so I'll be playing Mephistopheles to his Faust, introducing him to the delights of my favourite city. Ha ha ha… The fact that Saturday also sees Berlin's annual gay pride celebrations is another big plus.

That's one more innocent soul lost then.

2002-06-17T19:23:00.000Z

LIttle darling, it's been a long, cold, lonely winter. But now the sun is shining. Suddenly it's 26 degrees in London. People are smiling at each other. Trees are greener. Beer is flowing. Boyz are feeling frisky. Amazing how an unexpected burst of good weather brings out the best in people.
Being a Leo, I get insufferably happy in the summer. Very Fotherington-Thomas in fact.
Don't say you haven't been warned.

2002-06-15T13:40:00.000Z

Tried to re-assert my queeny total disinterest in you-know-what by playing Kylie at full volume, and lip-synching with hairbrush in front of mirror, but even La Minogue couldn't drown out the cheers outside. So I switched on the TV to see several rather pleasing-looking young men taking their tops off.

Ah... Now I understand...

2002-06-13T19:30:00.000Z

Look, I've only just got rid of my Amstrad. Why not go away and do something infinitely more interesting? Come back in a couple of week's time when I've learnt some html, and, more importantly, some page design.

Then we'll play. . .

2002-06-13T19:16:00.000Z

Oops. Just blogged.