Pink Sauce

On the long and arduous journey through the intricate forrest that is life, I thought I had found a nice and welcoming clearing where I could rest for a while and build up some strength. I should have known better. In a post in December last year, I mentioned quickly a guy I had met on the net and to whose place I had been for a bit of fun. Let's call him M. That was the last shag of the year and right up until yesterday afternoon, he looked like he was going to be the first one of this year too. I had not heard from him since December but a few weeks ago, he texted me and expressed an interest in meeting up. We chatted a couple of times on MSN but were not able to organise anything until yesterday afternoon. On one occasion, he sent me a pic of himself featuring his bum, telling me that it belonged to me! I was actually quite looking forward to this "meeting". This sort of things very very rarely happen to me and the guy, without being a stunner, has a good body and an ...

In the past few weeks, we learned that Moscow was following in Warsaw's footsteps with plans to ban the organisation of gay pride there. Local religious leaders joined their voices and actually physically threatened potential participants. Last week, Ken Livingston, mayor of london, joined the mayors of Paris and Berlin, as well as Merlin Holland, grandson of Oscar Wilde, in a call for Moscow Pride to take place. Now it is time for "the man (and woman) in the street" to show their support for this event... Russian Embassy picket Thursday 2 March 2006 12:00 Noon – 2:00 PM Russian Embassy 13 Kensington Palace Gardens London W8 4QX A demonstration in solidarity with Russian LGBT groups will be held outside the Russian Embassy on Thursday 2 March 2006, from 12 noon, to protest the banning of Moscow Pride by the Mayor of Moscow and threats of violence by Russian religious leaders. The protest is being called by the organisers of the International Day Against Homophobia and w...

The Portrait of Mr W.H. by Oscar Wilde A short story where Wilde explores his theory that the person to whom Shakespeare dedicated his sonnets was the boy actor Willie Hughes. You can read the full story by clicking on the title above. Tags: book , books , reading .

It all started in a very civilised manner. RS had expressed an interest in joining Slightly and myself at the recording Any Questions? . After phone the venue, he had been told that seats were still available and he was therefore able to indeed join in the fun. Although the show is live and broadcast at 8pm, we had to be there by 7.15pm at the latest. As planned, we left our questions in the box provided to that effect at the entrance and took seats somewhere towards the centre of the hall. The audience was made of a strange mixture of posh middle age people, older excentric looking English people (if you know the type) and a surprising number of gay couples. As a warm up, we were treated to a Q&A session with Mark Damazer , controller of BBC Radio4 who prefaced this session with reading extracts of a Guardian article about a swearing parrot which was being re-educated by being made to listen to Radio 4. The questions he was asked seem to be fairly unoriginal and consistent with ...

If you are not going out tonight, tune in to Radio 4 at 8pm (UK time) and listen to me and Slightly clapping as members of the audience of Any Questions? . The show is being recording live at Morley College , round the corner from where I live. How is that for fun on a Friday evening?! The panel (list below) should make for some interesting discussion. I particularly look forward to hear what Tebbit and Germaine Greer have to say to each other. The panel: Chris Huhne MP Candidate in the Lib-Dem leadership election Germaine Greer Author and commentator Lord Tebbit Former chairman of the Conservative Party Trevor Kavanagh Associate Editor of the Sun The questions, about news items of the past week, are usually asked by members of the audience. Yesterday I received the tickets which include a flat where to fill in our details and write down a question we would like to ask to the panel. I will suggest the following and hope it gets chosen: The call from all quarters to save the grade II ...

Mark Oaten , the Lib Dem leardership candidate and then Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, who was outed on 21 January this year by ( yet again ) the News of the World for having been involved with a male escort , had some interesting advice for the government just a few days before the revelations were made: Prostitution strategy a missed opportunity - 17th January 2006. Responding to the Government's new strategy on prostitution , Mark Oaten MP, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, said: "While the Government is right to highlight the abuse involved in on-street prostitution, this new strategy is a missed opportunity. It will do very little to reduce the number of prostitutes on the street, to improve the appalling conditions they work in, or to tackle health problems. "We need smart solutions not the same old failed approach. We support the piloting of 'managed zones' in designated areas of cities, subject to a code of conduct and regular contact with...

On Wednesday, Towleroad , the top gay blog, who win all the awards, were kind enough to link to and quote from my post on Football and Homophobia . This has generated quite a bit a traffic in this otherwise desolate region of the blogosphere. So much so that Wednesday was my highest day ever with 132 hits (previous one was 97), this week is already my highest ever with 317 hits so far (previous one was 287) and this month is the highest month ever with already 865 hits (previous one, last month, was 739, thanks to the posts on the Danish cartoons). So thank you again to Towleroad and welcome to their readers. I hope they like what they see and will be back from time to time.

I almost never go out in bars or clubs, whether on the gay scene or not; probably a partial cause for my lack of social life. One of the reasons for my not patronising these venues, in addition to my lack of interest in drinking and the level of noise in those places, is cigarette smoke. I hate when breahting air becomes as difficult to find as a straight Lib Dem politician in a leadership contest and then to have to bring the memories of that experience at home with me, afterwards. The recent ban on smoking in public places in England (see what I had to say on the subject of smoking/smokers by following the link) which will take place in the summer of 2007, will probably not make much of a difference with my habits in this respect but it looks like it will for a lot of gay men. About 53% of gay men smoke, nearly double the 29% of all adult males. While 8,000 gay men have died from Aids to date, one charity estimates 12,000 die every year from smoking-related diseases. Protect and sur...

While athletes (particularly in team sports) are often seen being rather friendly with each other in a touchy feely sort of way, the world of sports is notoriously not welcoming to LGBT people. Only a handful of world-class athletes have come out over the years and mostly are women (female sexuality (when acknowledged at all) always seems less threatening for some reason). Football (soccer) is probably one of the toughest sports in that respect. Thankfully the Football Association seems dedicated to tackle (so to speak) the problem. For the past few years they have been campaigning (not too loudly, though) against homophobia in the sport. This week, the north London football club, Tottenham Hotspurs, announced a ban on homophobic chants from their supporters. It seems there is hope in this respect. The News of the World, however, and unsurprisingly, coming from a tabloid paper. does not seem ready to help, They have just published a series of anonymous kiss and tell stories about P...

My usual scribe on the Other Side has the report of what happened last night. Although, as usual, he finds a way to include tons of irrelevant details about his own life... like anyone would care... ;O) Tags: London , London Gay Men's Chorus , gay .

The condemnation of the controversial, so-called historian, David Irving , to three years of prison by an Austrian tribunal for denying the Holocaust, raises some interesting questions about freedom of speech. The concept has already been put to the test in the past weeks with the controversy surrounding those cartoons and periodically, a case arises, highlighting the difficulty of striking the right balance in those matters. In the case of Irving, for example, it seems fair to say that the instinctive response of most people to the condemnation (including mine) is that he deserved to be sentenced and that justice has been done. Indeed, eleven countries in Europe have laws against denying the Holocaust. Likewise, last year when I heard of the condemnation of a Swedish priest who had compared homosexuality to a cancer for society, a subject obviously close to my heart, I was quite happy with the judge’s decision (it looks like the judgement has now been quashed). Having thought a li...

A quick comment I left on this post : While I agree that religions have been the source of many evil deeds over the centuries, I also think we have to be careful not to apply our contemporary values to what happened hundreds of years ago when people had a completely different outlook (especially on death and the value of human life). On a similar point, I think, it is important to point out that sacrificial victims of the Aztec and Mayan religous systems were actually (at least most of the time) willing victims, which has very different implications to what the Inquisition, for example, did. Having said all that, I do think that the main religions, in their most fundamental expression in any case, have become, when offset with contemporary values, all too often a source of oppression and violence which need to be fought and denounced. I agree with you that religion tend to free individuals of responsibility and of the need to think for themselves. This is, to me, the reason why, once p...

Innocence by Kathleen Tessaro I read Tessaro's first novel, Elegance , some time ago, which, I think, can be summed up as high(er)-brow Bridget Jones Diary. I enjoyed it and am now trying out her second novel. Tags: book , books , reading .

I have already ranted in the past about the lack of consideration for others evinced by smokers. Not only do they claim that the recent ban on smoking in public places goes against their civil liberties, they refuse to see that their smoking goes against non-smokers liberty to enjoy smoke free environments. Another, perhaps less obvious proof of the lack of civility of most smokers, is the disgusting habit a lot of them of just dumping their fag ends anywhere, creating lots of rubbish. The fact that smokers will find themselves on the streets to indulge as of summer 2007, will probably not help this problem. This type of litter is unsightly and difficult to clean up, as the small filters fall into grates and cracks in the pavement, avoiding detection by normal cleaning processes. Cigarette filters are composed of cellulose acetate, a plastic that can take anywhere between 18 months and 500 years to break down and be absorbed back into the environment. Deposition can also lead to toxin...

For some strange reason, I have been getting a lot of traffic via Google Image from people looking for pictures of Nicky Byrne, a blond member of pop band Westlife. So much so that the pic (and therefore my blog) is ranking 7 out of 1,460 in the search results. I had linked to this picture (from the official Westlife website ) following a sighting of the young man (not the worst looking in the band either) one day in Hammersmith ( read the post ) and Google seem to believe that the picture is on display on this blog. Since people looking for this pic must be slightly disappointed not find it (Google doesn't link to the actually post but the blog in general), I have decided to actually post this pic and hopefully people will get what they want. If you come here looking for a picture of Mr Byrne, welcome. Please will free to have a noise around. I hope you enjoy your visit and will come again. An now, without any more ado, I give you: *drum roll* Nicky Byrne Tags: Nicky Byrne , We...

I am not sure whether this is due to my coming home late last night and being tired today (fatigue usually breeds self-pity for me) or to the weather which is wet, grey and miserable but the mood is definitely not on the sunny side today. I am feeling both restless and despondent; not wanting to stay alone in my room but, at the same time, not bothered do anything about it. Slightly is in town this afternoon and as asked me to join him but because of my mood, the rain and the fact that I can not walk properly at the moment, I decided not to go, making myself even more miserable. I think this is also some sort of sordid attention seeking ploy, whereby I punish someone I am close to (but eventually, of course, only punishing myself) for my feelings of inadequacy and loneliness. Having been incapacitated (however slightly) all of this week (and probably for at least another week), has brought on a feeling of helplessness and of being tied down by contingencies. Something I experience ever...

Last night, trying to do my bit for the Anglo/Irish/French relations, I dragged Slightly to an all French evening at a friend's place in Surrey Quays . This guy moved from a village close to my parents' to London about 11 years ago and has done rather well for himself. Contrary to me, he is still very much in touch with all things French. Most of the people he knows are French and he keeps informed of what happens in the Vaterland. Last night, he had organised a gathering with the aim of eating "gauffres" (French equivalent of waffles) and more importantly for him to play tarot . This meant a fairly traditionally French sort of an evening and I thought it would be interested for Slightly to learn to play tarot (which he otherwise claims to be able to read; different card deck though) and generally do a little bit of anthropology. There were two French girls present in addition to my friend, Slightly and myself. Just the right number for a game. While quickly explaini...

I was asked by the power that be at LGBT History Month to write up some sort of report of a study day I attended recently. Here it is for your reading pleasure: During Black History Month last year, I attended a lecture by Stephen Bourne at the Imperial War Musuem . After the event I approached the woman in attendance from the education department and asked her if the museum was aware of LGBT History Month and if they had planned any event. I first had to repeat LGBT several times and explain to her what it meant before she could tell me that she had heard of it but that the museum had not planned anything. To be honest, she seemed rather worried to be talking to me and even though she relaxed a little when Stephen Bourne joined the conversation and supported the idea of an event, she was not exactly enthusiastic about the idea. There is probably a case for some gentle lobbying to take place here. In stark contrast with this, the Museum of London is getting quite active in respect t...

It goes like this: (a) fire up your MP3 player, (b) put your entire collection on random play, and (c) list the first ten songs that play. (No matter how embarrassing they may be. This is everyone’s chance to find out what you’re really listening on on your iPod, etc.) Last night, I did the above on iTunes, except it wasn't my whole collection. I left out the classical stuff (about 1000 tracks). There was still 2906 songs to choose from. I also extended the selection to 30, for the first time. So, I show you mine: Faded - Ben Harper Everybody is Free (to feel good) - Rozalla Pop Muzik - Tricky Time of My Life - Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes Older Chests - Damien Rice Sincere (Vocal Mix) - MJ Cole The Score - Fugees Jesus Loves Me - Whitney Houston Back to Life - Soul II Soul Wishful Thinking - 4hero Meera (featuring Kakoli Sengupta) - DJ Cam Liebesbrief - Thomas D Downhill Racer - Everything but the Girl Because - I am Kloot Yeke Yeke - (Mogo Djolo Ambush Vocal Mix) - Mory Ka...

You Are a Seeker Soul You are on a quest for knowledge and life challenges. You love to be curious and ask a ton of questions. Since you know so much, you make for an interesting conversationalist. Mentally alert, you can outwit almost anyone (and have fun doing it!). Very introspective, you can be silently critical of others. And your quiet nature makes it difficult for people to get to know you. You see yourself as a philosopher, and you take everything philosophically. Your main talent is expressing and communicating ideas. Souls you are most compatible with: Hunter Soul and Visionary Soul What Kind of Soul Are You? Hat tip .

Like most people, I regularly receive spam emails, most of them trying to sell me discounted softwares or all sorts of pharmaceuticals, give me a job from home, not to forget trying the get my e-banking details for banks I am not a client of. Today I received one that particularly grab the attention of th eternal romantic that I am (especially that close of Valentine's day). I thought I would share it with you and let you enjoy all the ironies and discrepancies hidden in this short text. Subject: Safe way to drown your girlfriend in cum! Want to ejaculate like a porn star? Would you like to show your girlfriend your sexual strength and power? You have tried different methods, exercises and got no results? Before giving up the dream, try our solution! After years of research, our scientists have created a powerful combination of key vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and botanicals that will help you to improve your fertility by enhancing sperm count, sperm health and sperm mobility....

Rid England of This Plague by Rex Batten Tags: book , books , reading .

Those of you who, for some unknown reason, venture on the Ohter Side, will probably have read this post . You will therefore know that Slightly has started to molest me, so desperate is he for something to post on his blog. As I know that you must have been spending hours of sweating anxiety since you read how he so shamlessly took advantage of me (not in that way, you perv!), I would like to take this opportunity to reassure you and published a summary of my state of health for the expectant world to let out a sigh of relief and go about its daily business again. Because my new gash (watch it!) is situated bang in the middle of my left foot sole, I have to limp on the ball of this feet. I have taken to wearing plimsoles which is not exactly a great look, it allows me keep my heel out of my footwear and leave my sole free of any contact with the shoe. Again not a great look but it is very handy to get right of way on a busy pavement in the morning. While I hobble about as fast as your ...

Smoking ban in all pubs and clubs In case you have any doubts about my views, read this .

And you can bet I won't even get one of those. On a similarly self-pitying note, someone from Camberra, Australia (hello!) recently googled: "Why does my gaydar profile only attract ugly men?". Guess what! My blog is the top result for this search out of 657 hits... I am not sure why, except that it is rather relevant to my experience of Gaydar and other such websites. It is good to see that I am not the only one with that problem, though. Schadenfreude moment... Tags: Gaydar , gay , LGBT , GLBT , life , men , diary , love , Valentine , Valentine's day , cards , schadenfreude .

Last I went to the Barbican Theatre with a friend. As I was saying to him, I had never been to the Theatre although I have now performed three times in the Concert Hall. Being a member of the Chorus means I have spent more time on the stages of the some of the biggest venues in London than in their house. Some of them (like the Royal Albert Hall) I have never been to as a member of the audience. We were their to see the Anderson Project by Robert Lepage . I did not know what to expect at all; did not even know anything about the show. My friend had suggested it and I had just acquiesced. I wish I could say something intelligent about the show. I am not sure I can. It was a hugely entertaining and impressive performance. Lepage is on stage by himself for two hours with only the support of a few props and an interactive decor including video projections. It is funny two. The show, written, directed and performed by Lepage, tells the story of a French Canadian composer coming to the Pala...

It's candle blowing time at Marsh and Malone this week. Yesterday, I went to MandM Towers to help John Marsh celebrate his 60th birthday. A very civilised affair with cheese, wine and good company. Today the other side is one year old today... Happy Blogday to Slightly Lost. Many happy returns to both.

Last week we learned that David Cameron, the new leader of the Conservative Party wanted more Gay candidates for his party at the next general elections. Today it is the turn of Party Chairman, Francis Maude , former Foreign Office minister to come out in favour better inclusion of LGBT people in political life; stating that that it had been totally morally wrong for his party to be so much against gay right in the past two decades. He also suggested that the repressive culture supported by Tory politics in the 1980's probably contributed to the death of his own brother who succumbed to AIDS in 1993. The gay scene in London in the 1980s was quite aggressively promiscuous and I think if society generally and the government I served in had been more willing to recognise gay people then there would have been less of that problem. [...] A lot of people like my brother would not have succumbed to HIV and lost their lives. The Tory policies consisted mostly of blocking legislation t...

Three months after the introduction of the new Licencing Law, official figures confirm what you were able to read on this blog in November. The forecast catastrophe has not happened: Booze Britain? Drink-fuelled crime and violence slump after new licensing laws take effect We were warned: Liberalisation of drink laws would fuel disorder The sober truth: Serious violent crime has fallen 21% - and is down by twice that in some towns - while there are 14% fewer woundings As for drinks firms? They are reporting no windfall profits. Of course, the Tories are quick to point out that the introduction of the new opening hours were accompanied by £2.5M for extra policing and that the figures published yesterday therefore mean nothing. The money has, it seems, now run out; we should, as a result, prepare ourselves for the end of the world... again! Read my original post . Tags: licensing law , smoking ban , politics , drinking , alcohol , tabacco , opening hours , pubs , bar .

I had an email from Slightly this morning. He was asking me if I had a picture of the book for which those infamous cartoons had been originally intended. He has been asked to do a lecture in some forsaken art college about design and diversity and wants to use this picture as a case study. Let's hope he doesn't have any militant Muslim in the audience... I did not have a copy of the picture but being the Internet wizz that I am (read I have nothing else to do and am a sad git), I quickly managed to locate the said picture (included in the book's author's profile on Wikipedia - link below). I also discovered that the book in question, Koranen og profeten Muhammeds liv (The Qur'an and the life of the Prophet Muhammad) by Kåre Bluitgen is actually a children's book. This is, I have to say rather surprising news. I mentioned in the post below that I don't think the majority of the cartoons are particularly good, some of them don't actually make much sens...

As the madness continues to spiral out of proportion (the Danish embassy in Beirut was burnt down on Sunday, two people got killed in Afghanistan while protesters in the UK called for the beheading of whoever they thought were responsible), I heard, yesterday morning on the Today Programme , the leader of al-Muhajiroun , Omar Bakri Mohamed , and the Secretary General of the Arab League , Amr Moussa , both making the point that while there are laws in many (western) countries to forbid anti-Semitic discourses, there is nothing to prevent anti-Muslim attacks. I don’t think this is a relevant argument in this debate to be honest and these people are simply clutching at straws to try and justify their messages of hatred. It seems to me that anti-Semitism and what the media like to call Islamophobia are two completely different situations, which are not comparable. Each feeling has quite different ways of expressing itself. While one is verbal and not actually violent but simply critica...

On Friday, I attended the AGM of the Southwark LGBT Network . After a few songs by the Pink Singers . The meeting itself took place. After the usual annual report from the Chair, the matter of electing the members of the executive committee was dealt with. For the past year or so, I have been the Secretary of the Network. Last year’s AGM was my real contact with the Network and, full of good will and unspent energy I had decided to stand when it became obvious that no one was interested in the position. The tasks attached to the position are, to be honest, not very onerous and consist in attending a meeting once a month or so and to take the minutes. You are now reading the blog of the new Co-Chair of the Southwark LGBT Network. The other Co-chair being Linda Bellos . Linda had approached me at the previous executive meeting and had asked me whether I would consider standing as Co-Chair. The network is the interlocutor of choice for the Council in matters LGBT but also tries to foster ...

It apparently all start on 30th September, last year, when, after the author of a book on the prophet Mohammad had complained that he could not find illustrators, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published a series of twelve cartoons representing the prophet. During the next six months, a controversy around these cartoons steadily gained momentum until newspapers in several European countries reproduced the cartoons on 1st February. This is when I first heard about that story, like most people, I would imagine. In my case, I was chatting on MSN with one of my contact who is of Asian origin when he suddenly angrily mentioned something about the French government allowing the publication of discriminatory cartoons. This sparked a discussion on the differences between the British and French outlook on ethnicity. The story so far : 30 Sept: Danish paper publishes cartoons 20 Oct: Muslim ambassadors complain to Danish PM 10 Jan: Norwegian publication reprints cartoons 26 Jan: Saudi...