Pink Sauce

"Sagging" is becoming increasingly contentious in the US. The fashion trend of wearing jeans sagging low displaying the underwear, favoured mostly by young black men was popularised some years ago by hip hop artists. It is said to originate in American Jails with their ill-fitted uniforms and the lack of belts (for security reasons). Several communities and schools in the US have recently been trying to ban this way of dressing and black organisations have been quick to point out possible racist undertones to these moves. Now the attacks against sagging are coming from a different angle. Texan rapper, Dwayne Brown aka Dooney the Prince, has released a single titled "Put Your Pants Up". When interviewed last week on BBC Radio 4's The World Tonight, Brown explained that sagging is another example of "moral decay". Despite the title of his song, Brown claims not to be trying to tell young people how to dress but simply to educate them on what is for him ...

Sigh

I am just back from the Police Station and the experience there was as dismal as I expected it to be. This was the third time I had set foot in a Police Station. The first time had been to report problems I had had with a friend of my first landlord (I might blog about this someday - I don't seem to already have) and the second time was to report the theft of my wallet on a bus . The theft report had been quite uneventful but during my first visit, I had not been taken seriously (despite the seriousness of what I was reported) and nothing came of it. As I got to the bus stop to start my way home earlier today, I found a battered mobile phone. Being the good Samaritan that my mother taught me to be, I picked the thing up and decided to bring it to the Police. The owner might be glad to get it back. I went to Vauxhall Police Station which is one I know of and close to where I live. When I entered the place I found myself in a small hallway with only two seats and several people alre...

What goes around comes around ! A study of American youths (aged 16 to 29) by The Barna Group shows a declining respect towards Christianity in this age group. It seems that this is at least partly due to the negative attitude of the religious rights (and most established Churches) towards homosexuality. 91% of young non-Christians and 80% of young churchgoers said "anti-homosexual" describes Christianity. Both groups feel that Christians "show excessive contempt and unloving attitudes towards gays and lesbians." They also mention the tendencies of Christian groups to turn homosexuality into a "bigger sin" than anything else while doing little to help young people apply Christian principals to their relation with LGBT friends. 75% of young non-Christians and 50% young Christians also think that Christians are too involved in politics. Read more about the survey here .

It seems that life has made a come-back to the desolate shores of my existence. After the busy past week at the Cycle Show and starting work on the remodeling of the shop, today, I received a phone call from a recent new member of my reading group inviting me, for some incomprehensible reason, to share the bonanza of free tickets to the musical Hairspray at the Shaftesbury. The previews opened on the 11th and the show opens properly on 30th. The guy is an actor and a friend of his, who seems to be managing the Front of House team (or something like that) had lined up for him two circles tickets complete with complementary Champagne and 3 track CD sampler of the original Broadway recording (the tracks can be downloaded here ). The show is based on John Waters ' 1988 film and stars Michael Ball (in Divine 's role of Edna Turnblad), Mel Smith (as Edna's husband), Leanne Jones (as their daughter, Tracy) and Ben James-Ellis (as Tracy's love interest). While Michael Ball is...

As I think I mentioned earlier, I am currently attending the London Cycle Show at Earls Court. For those really desperate to know what I am up to, they can visit the Witcomb Cycles blog , where I blog each day about what has been happening on the stand. For those less interested, let me just say that it is going very very well indeed; far beyond our expectations in fact, and that I am rather tired but also quite excited.

Sculpture by Louise Bourgeois. It was part of the first Unilever Series in the Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern in May 2000 and is made of bronze, stainless steel and marble and measures nine meters high and wide. "The Spider is an ode to my mother. She was my best friend. Like a spider, my mother was a weaver," the 95-year-old Bourgeois said in a statement as quoted by Reuters. This is a taster for an exhibition of 200 works by Bourgeois that will open on October 10 and run to January 20, 2008.

To mark the month, LGBT History Month UK have put together resource pages on their website. These include some information about prominent black LGBT people and black LGBT organisations. Their blog will also feature specific posts throughout the month. You can view these pages by clicking here or on the image above.

I don't normally remember my dreams. It's probably just as well. The other day however, I remembered the appearance in my slumbering psyche of a yellow beetle flying towards me in my room. Nothing else. A day or two before that Slightly, who into all these things, told me about two dreams that two members of his family had had about him. Both were apparently good omens predicting financial success. When I first remembered the nightly insect the morning after, I mistakenly remembered it as a scarab. My friend Google quickly confirmed the hunch I had that scarabs meant good luck in ancient Egypt. Slightly confirmed to me that dreams of any yellow (golden) insect (apart from spiders, who are not insects anyway) announce a windfall. Perhaps the insect was simply announcing the arrival of the cheque I mentioned in my previous post but I want to believe (and why not), that, coupled with Slightly's own dreams, this has to do with the new venture we are starting together. On 14th O...

A couple of weeks ago, I received a message through my Flickr account. It was about the picture above. I'm from a design company in Covent Garden and would like to use the shot for a brochure for LU. We would of course pay you, but would need a higher resolution image if you have one. I took the picture around 5.30 one morning in April this year. I am not sure why I was up so early and looking out of the window that day, but the fact is that I did, saw this lovely sight and snapped it. The brochure is internal to London Underground but I should get a copy anyway. Today I received a cheque for £200 in payment for the use of the picture. That's my now aging digital camera having almost paid for itself (It cost me £300 in 2002). Funnily enough, a few days later, I received another message by the same channel and about the same picture, although from an American fondery, this time. I recently just finished developing a series of typefaces based on the London Underground typeface an...

The DfES is in the process of consulting the public for the introduction of a bill on barring people from working with children and vulnerable adults. They are considering a series of offences which would automatically disqualify an individual without a chance of appeal. Among these offences it is surprising to find references to the Sexual Offences Act 1956, notably with the offences of buggery and indecency between men. Both these offences, which were aimed directly at gay men, have now been repealed from the statute books and should therefore not be considered any more. This would means that some people (older gay men) who might have been convicted of these offences several decades ago would be disqualified while other people who would not have been convicted for the same acts (because no longer an offence) would not be rejected. There is also an implicit suggestion that gay men are not suitable to work with children and vulnerable adults. These elements of the consultation seems to...

I had a rather busy day today; something I am certainly not used to any more. I rolled out of bed at 8, had a quick shower and put a suit on, then walked round the block to the Imperial War Museum . I was there as chair of the LGBT Network to attend the Peace Breakfast organised by the Southwark Multi-faith Forum and the Volunteers Centres Southwark to mark the anniversary of 9/11. There were of gay and lesbian people with me and we spread ourselves as much as we could. We didn't really know how we would be received as we had to more or less beg for an open invite to the event. It all went very well and we hope that this is the start of something important. The Deputy Borough Commander, the Mayor and the rabbi from the South London Liberal Synagogue spoke, awards were given, we ate and had facilitated "discussions". All very civilised and friendly. What was perhaps the most surprising was the the rabbi, during his speech mentioned his involvement with Jews Against the Cl...

The following comment was left on the picture above on my flickr account: Hi, Zefrog. I salute your promptness in getting these photos up and running. This is a great shot, and so I have borrowed it for a piece on www.londonist.com Thanks. You can read the article in question here .

This morning I put my legs on and got myself out of the house for a short walk up the road to Parliament Square where a new statue of Nelson Mandela was being unveiled. The ceremony was scheduled for 11am but the blog on which I found this information suggested to get there at about 10. This is what I did and was grateful for it as people were already waiting when I got there. While a short film on Mandela's life was shown on the giant screens, we watched as guests arrived and were directed to their seats by GLA staff (I recognised the Mayor's LGBT advisor, on the breach). Most faces were unknown to me though I spotted (Dr) Brian May (former Queen), Darren Johnson (leader of the Green Party at teh GLA), David Cameron, John Prescott and Peter Hain. There was even a representative of the BME LGBT community which was a nice touch. Jesse Jackson was there too but he arrived late. The ceremony had already started. He was quick however once it was finished to step up to the stat...

Just when I said I had nothing to blog about, I had a look at the traffic counter for this blog (to be found at the bottom of the sidebar) and realised that a picture I uploaded in February 2006 is ranking second (out of just under 2M) in the Google Images search for Islam . I am getting quite a few hits from there. This was at the time of the controversy surrounding the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed published by a Swedish paper. I had used the pic to illustrate one of my posts on the subject (the others can be found here , here and here ). So far, I haven't received any comment or reaction but I am fully expecting some nutter to take offense of my western liberal anti-religious views on the subject. This extra traffic will probably not even bring me any extra readers since, just like the other high ranking pic on this blog (number 8 out of about 4.5M), it probably won't be the favorite search term for people who would be interested by the content of this blog.

After several weeks without a computer, I am indeed finally back online and I know I should be blogging like there is no tomorrow. However, and please note that I am not moaning or being depressed (or even asking for help) about it, my life is currently a complete blank. I have no social interaction to speak of with any one and I spend most of my weeks at home. I went out only three times this week. Once to Tesco for my food shopping, a second time was a lovely outing of the Southwark LGBT Network at the National Portrait Gallery for a queer view of a few of their paintings. Finally, yesterday, I had a meeting with my business partners. The rest of the time is more or less a blur of nothingness. If you are really missing reading what I can come up with (although you won't find opinion pieces), you can find me on the LGBT History Month blog of which I am the editor. The blog provides information and events details of events linked to LGBT History. I hope you find it interesting.

After 8 weeks of customer service comedy, phone calls and toing and froing of all kinds, I received on Saturday a voucher to replace my laptop which had been deemed irreparable after having been lost and found (more on this later). So today, I went to PC World on the Old Kent Road and gave myself over to the dark side. TADDAAAAH! A Macbook! In the first few weeks of my troubles, I had been lent a laptop running Vista and I have to say I was not impressed. What I like(d) about PC's is that you can fiddle. You can tweak things, go behind the screen and adapt. To an extent. Mac on the other hand runs smoothly, is all about integration and in many ways is for people who are more interested in results than in learning how to use a computer. Vista, in my few, unfortunately and unhappily sits on the fence and ends up to be more frustrating than anything else. This herralds the end of the fiddly PC as I liked it. Mac is also the machine of choice for people working in the creative industry...

About a month ago, my laptop decided to die on me. It just refused to start up. I sent it to the repair people via courier. Repairs were going to take two weeks (and that was only changing the CD player (which was also not working) so that I could restore the whole: ie do the work myself! I still haven't received my laptop back although apparently the repairs have been made. The laptop has apparently been lost by Parceline the courier company (who are not very good: they have apparently been several times but can't be bothered to use my mobile phone. Slightly has had problem with them with the reasons why his stuff wasn't delivered changing at each new phone call). I am not really bothered about the laptop. It was getting oldish (3 years) and all my data is backed up. Getting a new one seems like a good thing after all. During all that time, the nice people at LGBT History Month (I am their webmaster, now remember) have lent me a laptop and by the same token, life! Today ho...

Let loose and on the run! Fresh from the Scotland leg of the Bad Boys Tour, the London Gay Men's Chorus is back in London; brace yourselves for one of the sexiest, sassiest celebrations of villainy ever seen on stage. Including music from James Bond, Chicago , Carmen Jones and Jerry Springer - The Opera , and songs by Queen, The Eagles and Wham, everybody knows Bad Boys get the good tunes and this show has them all. It’s about low lives lived on the wrong side of the tracks. It’s about going off the rails. From the back of the classroom to the depths of the underworld, it’s one hell of a ride. Tickets are going fast! Concert includes: Queen: We will Rock You, Don't Stop me Now, Bohemian Rhapsody Wham: Bad Boys Carmina Burana: O Fortuna The Eagles: Desperado Jerry Springer: The Opera " I Just Wanna Dance " Tom Lehrer: Machismo Tango Frankie Goes to Hollywood: Relax Bad Boys Cadogan Hall 5 Sloane Terrace London SW1X 9DQ July 20 and July 21 2007 - 7:30pm Box Office: 0...

A friend of mine with an interest (bordering on the mania) in the history of theatres and cinemas regularly asks me, usually after imparting some obscure point of trivia, if I think he is mad. I don't think he is particularly. People with a passion, especially the kind of passion that doesn't hurt anyone, are usually interesting and for me admirable, since my enthusiasm is a rather lethargic beast. After tonight, I think I might have to become the one asking the other whether I am mad. The shop on the ground floor of the house I have been living in for about 4 years now has recently changed owners. For about a month, there has been some extensive works in the shop and tonight the fascia and signage of the old shop were taken down and unceremoneously dumped. Just after midnight, to be sure that all workers were gone, I sneeked out and from the pile of unwanted plastic retrieved one of the panels that used to hang perpendicularly from the first floor outside wall of house. It see...