Morality

”The greatest tragedy in mankind’s entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.”

Arthur C. Clarke

Five Years

Five years ago, the War on Terror (TM) kicked off for good after weeks of toing and froing at the UN and demonstrations around the world by millions of people.

Five years on, things don't seem to have improved much. The world is still and dangerous place (probably more dangerous as a result of this war) and hundred of thousand of people have died seemingly for nothing.

I took this picture on the Embankment during the anti-war demonstration on 15 February 2003 which brought together 2 million people to the streets of London, making it, I think, the biggest ever demonstration in the UK.

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.

Star-crossed

I had a "date" last night. Someone who contacted me online and asked to meet for a drink. We met up the Royal Festival Hall.

It proved to be another disaster to add to my ever expanding list. All the more crushing as an email chat during the day had been fairly promising. Basically, we couldn't find anything we had in common and the conversation languished into a series of clumsy reciprocal questions about our lives.

YAWN.

We lasted one hour (which was quite good I thought) and packed it in.

I was supposed to attend something similar on Tuesday but thankfully got invited to a performance of Brief Encounter at the Haymarket Cinema. I canceled the "date" and I don't think I am going to pursue a reschedule, in light of last night's events.

The show was thankfully really good fun, using a mix of music and film to create a fluffy concoction. More than a retelling of the film, it is a homage to it and a way to acknowledge the long-lasting lovestory between the film and the British.

Mushroom

I learnt a nice new saying the other day that seems to be describing a lot of my life at the moment:

I must be a mushroom because everybody keeps me in the dark.