Pink Sauce

Since Reverend Tallach of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland , on the Isle of Lewis, can not be reached by email (the two addresses for him, I could find online bounced), I will post this email on my blog, hoping that God will guide the Reverend to it (see this article on PinkNews for details of Rev. Tallach's comments). Dear Reverend Tallach, I was very interested to read in the press about your pronouncement that a recent tornado over the Isle of Lewis was the result of God's Righteous Wrath for allowing civil partnerships. It is indeed quite wonderful to be able to find God's work in nature everywhere. I couldn't help thinking myself recently that the forest fires and earth tremours that plagued California at the end of last year and the beginning of this, and so reminiscent of the Biblical fire and brimstone, were indeed God's way of telling the inhabitants of the golden state that they should not have voted for Proposition 8 which made gay marriages ille...

The National Portrait Gallery has gone a bit queer this summer. Beyond the perennial portraits of gay, lesbian, bi or trans (LGBT) people that the initiated can spot around the gallery, there is a selection of colourful portraits of George Melly by his friend Maggi Hambling on offer. The pièce de résistance however is only a few butch strides down the corridor. The soft-lit, aubergine confines of the Gay Icons exhibition huddle together a selection by 10 prominent LGB figures of 60 photographic portraits they personally deem significant... Read my full review of the exhibition on Londonist here . Images - left to right: Joe Dallesandro by Paul Morrissey 1968, k.d.lang by Jill Furmanovsky 1992 & Joe Orton by Lewis Morley 1965 all courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery

One of the many pleasures offered by London is that of discovering quirky places no one seem to know about and seemingly held in some quaint timewarp. The Sands Films Studios in Rotherhithe are just one such place. Housed in some unprepossessing Grade II listed former granary, Sands Films Studios were founded in the 1970's and offer film production facilities as you may expect but also a cinema club (free) and a renowned costume-making workshop. You will have seen their creations in such films as Little Dorrit (1988), Vanity Fair (2004), The Phantom of the Opera (2004), Pride and Prejudice (2005) or Fingersmith (2005) and many others. The quaintest and most interesting part of the complex however is without a doubt the adjacent Picture Research Library. Neatly tucked on the ground floor of the oldest part of the building, its ceiling supported by 18th century reclaimed ships' timbers, imagine a giant scrapbook of thousands of images, photographs and other magazine clippings bro...

This picture was used by Londonist to illustrate an article about "dog crimes" in Camden Town .

A cropped version of this picture was used to illustrate several articles about the event is depicts (Sue Sanders receiving an award for her work from the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association (GALHA) and the Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE) on 10 July 2009). First on the LGBT History Month blog here and then in PinkNews here .

Last month the Diocese of Plymouth (southern England) sent out letters to its priests advising them to stop offering wine at communion in a bid to help fight the swine flu epidemic. The Plymouth Diocese has 93 parishes stretching from Penzance and the Isles of Scilly in the west to parts of Bournemouth in the Dorset. The step was apparently taken in response to the World Health Organisation upgrading the seriousness of the epidemic risk. According to the BBC, at the time, there were no cases of the flu in the area covered by the Diocese and only 18 cases have been diagnosed since then ( source ). This morning, the chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, told BBC Radio Four's Today programme that, at present, swine flu appears to be less severe than previous pandemics and "broadly similar" to seasonal flu - which kills between 5,000 and 7,000 each year. There have so far been 17 swine flu-related deaths in the UK. All information both at the time of the Diocese's le...

This year, like last year, I spent the parade at Pride on the open top of a bus. As it passed in front of Selfridges on Oxford Street, a friend remarked that, unlike last year where they had some half-naked guy or other handing out stuff, nothing seemed to be happening there to mark Pride. We didn't think about it much at the time. When I got home however and started checking out the pictures of Pride uploaded to Flickr ( here ), I quickly found out the reason for this change. Selfridges had teamed up with Calvin Klein to hire a bunch of skimpily-clad models to take part in the parade itself, carrying a banner and handing out flyers, as can be seen in the picture above (courtesy of RealMen ). Selfridges and CK are obviously not the first non-gay commercial organisations to take part in Pride (British Airways or BT come to mind). And it is obviously a great thing that parts of the wider community should want to reach out and support the LGBT community. That they should decide that, ...

Today marks nine years since I moved to London. How time flies!

last week I was waiting for someone at a corner on Old Compton Street when I was approached by a young man and took my picture. Before your overworked imaginations start going on overdrive, I must add that he was a "journalist" working for Boyz magazine (one of the free scene rags in London). He explained that the National Portrait Gallery was about to have a new exhibition (now open) called Gay Icons , gathering 60 pictures showing what 10 prominent member of the LGBT community view as their icons. Boys was doing a voxpop to see who people would nominate. It seems that the editor of Boyz felt that the icons featured in the exhibition were not quite current enough. And so I was asked to nominate my own gay icon and to say why. Well, Boyz, the results are in and as usual I stick out like a sort thumb. A look at the scan of the incriminating page of Boyz No 931, below, should be ample proof.

And that's another one done! My (not very good) pics of the event can be found on flickr here . The flickr photo pool for Pride 09 is here . One of my pics was used by Londonist (along with a selected few) to illustrate the event. View it here .

My newly-finished placard to take on the opentop bus of the Southwark LGBT Network at Pride London on Saturday.