Pink Sauce

Constitutional law history is perhaps not the first thought that comes to mind as a vector of emotion and excitement. It is, in fact, probably likely to be the opposite. Amend: The Fight for America (now on Netflix), fronted and produced by actor Will Smith, is a sweeping journey through 150 years of legal and social US history that tells how the oddly unloved 14th Amendment of the US Constitution came into being, and what the repercussions of this fundamental piece of legislation have been and continue to be during that time. The amendment, with the likely unwittingly inclusive nature of its language, creates a promise of justice and fair treatment from the state to its citizens and visitors. And, from giving the newly emancipated slaves a place in US society to women's rights, allowing same-sex marriage and beyond, it has underpinned the major advances in US civil rights since its inclusion to the constitution in 1868. The six-part documentary brushes the portrait of the fight...

Mildred and Richard Loving should never have achieved fame. Dirt-poor, uneducated, and living in a backwater in Virginia, their only ambition was to be with each other and to lead a life devoid of trouble. Their apparently innocent decision to get married in 1958, however, was to change the legal history of their country, leading to a Supreme Court decision striking down miscegenation state laws (in the so-aptly named Loving v Virginia case) and arguably paving the way, decades later, for another Supreme Court decision, allowing same-sex marriage, by declaring marriage a fundamental right. Loving, which is currently available on iPlayer, is not a court drama. It's not a romance, or even a civil rights epic, full of senseless, gruesome violence and triumphant victory scenes. It is a pared-down, understated study of reluctant heroes, depicting two people buffeted by circumstances bigger than them, and, certainly at the beginning, mostly beyond their understanding. Most of the ...

When I decided to start watching S.W.A.T. (on Netflix, and apparently Sky), I was expecting the cheap and undemanding thrilled of a mindless action series, with lots of fights, car chases and explosions.  The show delivers those things in droves, and some of the writing (the expositionary bits particularly) can be pretty clunky at times. I wasn't however quite prepared for the deeper, sometimes fairly sophisticated layers on offer. One of the catch-phrases of the show is "stay liquid!" and it seems the producers have adopted this as a motto. It starts right from the first episode (filmed in 2016), which delved straight into what it can mean for a black man to become a policeman in the US.  I have now watched the two seasons available on Netflix (the 5th season has apparently already been commissioned by CBS). Even the plotlines of the more run-of-mill episodes feel fresh and often refuse to adhere to the expectations of the genre. Beyond that, the viewers regularly fin...

The second and, sadly, final season of Special has just dropped on Netflix and it is as much a pleasure to watch as the first one.  The semi-autobiographical, award-winning show follows, Ryan, a twenty-something, gay, mama's boy with cerebral palsy navigating the pitfalls of the heteronormative, ablist world as he decides to let go of his mother's skirts. There is the inevitable fag-hag (is that still a word we can use?), who conforms to all the tropes of the type, except for her vibrant sex life, and a couple of weird caricatural characters in the background of Ryan's work life. Everybody is very queer though.  It is the sort of super-woke, inclusive comedy programmes that give broflakes their worst nightmares and that Netflix can be so good at producing. It is kind and generous, and it is exactly what we need right now.  There are a few moments that don't completely make sense, and Ryan's love life is not particularly believable, especially in the number of guys t...

I read the book and liked it better than Mitford's more famous (and sequel to this), Lone in a Cold Climate, and very much enjoyed it, so I was very much looking forward to this BBC adaptation. The buzz has been very positive too but I find myself having reservations. If you can bear to sit through the first episode and a half, or perhaps even the first two, episode, and make it to the third, you will, I think, see what the reviews are raving about. The story is one of women's lib before the time and the production looks absolutely stunning, with a great cast (including Assaad Bouab, of Call My Agent fame).  Unfortunately, you have to sit through the first episode and a half, or perhaps even the first two, episode, and make it to the third to get the full effect.  I can see what the producers are trying to do in that first half and a bit: translate the rebellious anarchic spirit of the main characters in a modern, pop-video idiom. They only end up with a coarse and clumsy ca...

In the next installment on my pointless reviews of (mostly) French content on (mostly) Netflix that nobody reads, I will take a look at two films I watched last night.  Both are period dramas (though it grieves me to say that some of the events depicted in the first one happened during my lifetime!) and both are tales of morality with women at the heart of them. Here the similarities stop.  The first film has just been released: Madame Claude is based on the real life story of a woman (real name Fernande Grudet, played by Karole Rocher) who organised a network of 300 high-class call-girls with access to the elite in the 1960s and 70s. She gave a hand to the French secret services until the establishment finally turned against her. Hers is a well-known name in France, due mostly to the sulfurous nature of the whole thing (mixing sex, power and money, with a soupçon of murder and spying), her high-profile trial in the 90s, and the thrilling existence of notebooks listing her cl...

It was the Friday before Easter - Good Friday - when everybody is sad but is looking forward to eating lots of chocolate in a couple of days. As he waited for the Easter Bunny to bring him his well-deserved chocolate eggs, little Keir decided to go to church. Because that is what nice people do on that day. No one is sure why he decided to go to that particular church, because it is quite well known that this is not a very nice church; one that didn't like fayries. Perhaps it was because all his posh friends - Theresa, Boris, Charles and Camilla - had visited that church before him and he wanted to be more like his posh friends.  So little Keir decided to go to that church, even though some of his best friends were fayries. And to make sure that everyone knew what a good boy he was, he decided to make a video for his social media. In the video, he explained how he liked what the church people did, and what a wonderful example the church was. You could even see him praying with the ...

Tonight I watched The Greatest Showman, which I hadn't seen before and is currently available on All4 for a few more days. I know it's a divisive film: some people love it and lots of people seem to loathe it. While I found it reasonably entertaining, I have to say that it is a bad film. Not in the quality sense (and then again) but in the moral sense. First the goods things: It looks good and the songs are pleasant and catchy. "It's Me" in particular should become a gay anthem. It's perfect for it. Then the bad things (quality and moral): the storyline is not very good. it ends very abruptly and the songs don't blend very well within the narrative which give it a distracting stop and start quality (that word again!). More importantly, though, and what makes this film ultimately reprehensible, is that it is another film about white male privilege. It's all about the two good-looking white blokes who just have to click their fingers to get the ...

I could carry on tinkering with it until Christmas and beyond, I'm sure, but I think the time as come to stop and let my short story go and live its stunted life in the big out there.  Plenty of Time For James, this grey morning of July 2005 is like any other, as he wakes up, gets ready and walks to the tube station to catch his train to work. Until he makes a mistake.   It is 3,400 words long and should take about 30min to read.  To mark the occasion I've created  a webpage  that includes my previous effort (and hopefully, soon, future ones). All in one place, now! This also has a feedback form, which I invite you to use should you kindly grant me time to read my work. The feedback can be given anonymously, so no excuse!  Enjoy!  Health warning: The language I use in this story (quite different from that of the other one) is not going to be to most people's taste. Readers of English tend to prefer simple language. This isn't simple. It's full of adje...

Last night I ended up binge watching the whole series of Emily in Paris  on Netflix, after spotting on twitter someone live-tweeting their viewing of the first episode , which is, admittedly, pretty bad.  The series, which comes from the creators of Sex and the City , is the story of Emily, a girl from Chicago who ends up being given a job as her PR company's envoy to its newly acquired French subsidiary. Her role is to tell that bunch of feckless frogs how to do their job. Something they prove surprisingly not very keen on...  Because this is all about luxury, glamour and attracting the yoofs, she is a Gen Z marketeer specialising in social media, even though she only has 48 followers on IG when the show starts(!).  She also doesn't speak French, which should probably disqualify her but that is not the case, because Emily, played by Lily Collins, daughter of Phil, is a pretty girl reaping the benefits of her white privilege, in her inordinately spacious, compan...

The original poster and Netflix's version There's a storm currently well past brewing in a corner of Twitter about a French film called "Les Mignonnes" ("Cuties" in English), directed by French-Senegalese Maïmouna Doucouré.  The shitstorm started when Netflix announced last month that it was going to show the film and accompanied that announcement with its own poster, showing the young girls at the centre of the film in tight-fitting, revealing outfits and suggestive poses.  Without having even seen the film, and solely going by that image, people started to denounce cultural condescension, exploitation and gratuitous sexualisation. The film is a paedophile's wet dream, capable of perverting the young (though the film has certificate 15), we are told.  Almost 400,000 people have signed a petition demanding Netlflix remove the film from its listings, and that the whole website be "cancelled".  The story has crossed over to the press. People are ...

This was intended as a short Facebook status update... It's been a busy time at the cultural mill this bank-holiday weekend. Eddie dragged me to no less than 6 exhibitions (and there was ancillary cake, of course).  First it was was Tate Modern for the Pierre Bonnard exhibition on Saturday.  I knew OF Bonnard, of course, but very little about him and his work, which doesn't attract me visually, if I'm honest. I can't say I have become a convert after seeing the show but I found his use of framing (for his paintings and the use of frames within the frame) as well as what felt like an attempt to create abstractions from everyday situations interesting (and resonant).  In the Bathroom (1940) I had bumped into a matinal friend when arriving at the gallery and he had recommended having a look at the Dorothea Tanning exhibition, so we popped in. While I recognise the quality of the draftsmanship generally shown by surrealists, I can't say that their stuff is my bag...

I spent Christmas Day 2017 at a friend's place. After indulging in all sorts of delicious foods he had prepared, we lay in a mild torpor on his sofa, half watching television. One of the programmes unfolding before our bleary eyes happened to be the festive Dr Who episode, which included a scene in the trenches of the First World War during that infamous football match in 1914. This was, of course, in reference to the celebrations of the centenary of the war. In any case, this somehow imprinted itself into my subconscious and within the next few days, a story presented itself to my mind. Over the following months, I endeavoured to commit it to electronic paper. This is my first completed attempt at writing fiction. I am grateful to my first readers, Eddie, Sue, Richard, Russell and Andrew, who were kind enough to say positive things about the story, and also provided input and feedback. It is, I think, now time to release it unto the unsuspecting world, 104 years to the day a...

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.", wrote Isaac Newton in 1675. It wasn’t an original thought even at the time but as we reach the middle of this year’s LGBT History Month, and as some wonder what the need is for such an event, this quote seems particularly apt.  Although, as in so many cases, evidence is scant, Newton seems likely to have been at least romantically attracted to men. A possible proclivity, which, like that of so many other prominent figures, is either not discussed or actively maintained in the recesses of the darkest closet by an interested or downright hostile society.  Further than this, however, the quote epitomises the situation of any LGBT person living in the UK in 2018. It is a cliché but we do indeed stand on the shoulders of giants; people who have had the courage to speak out and push for laws and mentalities to change; for us to be in a position to live our lives more or less as we please (although, as rese...

A couple of weeks ago, I received an email from a free lance journalist working for BBC Three. He explained he was working on an article about the resurgence of the use of the term "androphile" among right-wing men as a way to distance themselves from the supposed lefty connotations of the word "gay". Something that was news to me. The journalist wanted to conduct a phone interview with me because somehow he'd found out that when I first created this blog (in 2004), I used the word "androphile" to describe myself.  I should have known better, having been interviewed before, but I agreed to talk to him. When you read the result of an interview you find that the gist of what you said is indeed there but because of the need for pithyness and, possibly, a chinese-whispers effect, your words are also stripped of at least some of their nuance, and somehow not fully representative of what you meant. Hence this post, I suppose.  You can read the resul...

*MILD SPOILER ALERT* God's Own Country (GOC) has been garnering plaudits from critics and audiences alike. The gays on my TL who's seen it are raving about it. Yet on the face of it the film hardly seem material for success. It is a totally conventional romcom story (indeed it has been compared to another (Brokeback Mountain)): an interloper comes to rescue the main character from the doldrums. They don't like each other at the beginning but love triumphs in the end.  The worth here is in the storytelling. The justness of the tone, full of delicate details but always successfully avoiding sentimentality, the sensitive portrayals of the characters, the raw, unflinching scenes, make GOC an out of the ordinary exploration of love and male identity.  That the film is a gay love story is, I would argue, ultimately quite secondary, a narrative device almost, although to most viewers this will probably feel quite central. The facts that it is set in the dourness of the ...

You'll have noticed them on a pavement or at a street corner in the past few days. There's a new set of players in town trying to lure you into taking them for a ride. They are wild and free; they don't need docking stations; the  obikes are in town and they want your attentions. Since I needed to pay Canada Water a visit, which is unhelpfully located outside the catchment zone of the TfL/Santander Cycle Hire scheme, I decided to take the opportunity to satisfy my curiosity by using one of those obikes to take myself there from Elephant and Castle.  A similar hire scheme, called Mokibes, recently opened in Manchester and there's apparently been what we shall modestly call a few teething problems . Even the London scheme, where people are invited to leave the bikes near an official bike parking location, seems to have created some confusion, as seen in the image below I shot earlier this week. I should probably mention here that I am a great fan and have ...