IDAHO and Paddick

I attended the launch of International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO) at the London College of Fashion, Rootstein Hopkins Space last night. A very interesting evening with a couple of very strong testimony from Uganda (by Pastor Kiyimba Brown) and Irak (Ali Hili – Founder and Coordinator of Iraqi LGBT). Speakers also included, amongst others, Linda Bellos OBE, Louis-Georges Tin, founder of IDAHO, Sue Sanders, someone from Unison and from Amnesty.

Seeing a cabinet minister (Barbara Follett, Minister for Equality, who, incidentally, was one of the best speakers of the evening) dancing to a silly song about baking crumble (the lyrics went like this: Everybody’s good at cooking something/and I’m good at cooking crumble/In fact, I’ve got one in the oven/would you like some? YES, PLEASE!) while waving a small glitter ball over her head at the end of a metal coat-hanger was probably also worth the trip in itself!

Four of the mayoral candidates were also present (or their representatives: Paddick and Sian Berry MP, the Green party candidate, were the only ones present. Ken and Boris had sent representatives with speeches) and sadly treated the thing as a hustings which I thought was a bit cheeky of them.

Paddick was rather obnoxious. He behaved as if we owed him allegiance simply because he is gay and that seemed to be enough to make him the right person for the job. He was a rubbish speaker too. His "speech" didn't seem to have much point to it and was badly delivered.

Stonewall are organising a proper gay hustings at the BFI on 19 April (details here) which I shall be attending too. That should be interesting. Let's hope Mr Paddick will have had a healthy portion of humble pie by then.

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A Short History of the Elephant and Castle and Its Name

Last night I attended a lecture by local historian Stephen Humphrey who discussed the general history of the Elephant & Castle, focussing more particularly on what he called its heyday (between 1850 and 1940). This is part of a week-long art project ( The Elephant Project ) hosted in an empty unit on the first floor of the infamous shopping centre, aiming to chart some of the changes currently happening to the area. When an historian starts talking about the Elephant and Castle, there is one subject he can not possibly avoid, even if he wanted to. Indeed my unsuspecting announcement on Facebook that I was attending such talk prompted a few people to ask the dreaded question: Where does the name of the area come from, for realz? Panoramic view of the Elephant and Castle around 1960/61. Those of us less badly informed than the rest have long discarded the theory that the name comes from the linguistic deformation of "Infanta de Castille", a name which would have become at

pink sauce | life, with a pink seasoning

As of tonight, my blog Aimless Ramblings of Zefrog , that "place where I can vent my frustration, express ideas and generally open my big gob without bothering too many people" which will be 6 in a couple of months, becomes Pink Sauce . While the URLs zefrog.blogspot.com and www.zefrog.eu are still valid to access this page, the main URL now becomes www.pinksauce.co.uk. There is a vague plan to create a proper website for www.zefrog.eu to which the blog would be linked. Why Pink Sauce , you may ask. It is both simple and complicated. For several years, I have grown out of love for the name of the blog. It felt a bit cumbersome and clumsy. That said, I never really looked into changing it, seriously. Tonight, for dinner, I had pasta with a special pink sauce of my concoction ; single cream and ketchup. I know most people while feel nauseous at the very though of the mixture but trust me, it's gorgeous. Don't knock it till you've tried it. After having had my platte

Review: Park Avenue Cat @ Arts Theatre

As we are steadily reminded throughout the hour and half hour of Park Avenue Cat , the new play by Frank Strausser, which had its "world premiere" this week-end at the Arts Theatre, time is money. Most of the play takes place in the office of a posh LA therapist who charges $200 per hour. So, having sat through the play, I am wondering why the author spent time writing it, why a production team spent time putting it up and why I and any audience member are asked to spent time (and money) watching it. The play, said to be "a triangle with four corners" (!), brings together a therapist (Tessa Peake-Jones), who is probably not enjoying her job all that much), Lily (Josefina Gabrielle - the eponymous Parc Avenue cat) as well as Philip (Gray O'Brien - aka Tony Gordon in Coronation Street) and Dorian (Daniel Weyman), Lily's lovers. In an interview on the play's dedicated website, Strausser (who was in the audience) explains that he thinks comedy comes out of a

Pink Sauce

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