THEGAYUK

Category: Column

  • COLUMN | Fake Bake

    I’ve developed a new addiction. Tuesday nights see me glued to people making cakes on BBC2. I know it’s ridiculous and that The Great British Bake Off has been going for years but I’m a late adopter with most things.

    Technology is a prime example. I didn’t get a mobile phone till well into the 2000s and only then under duress. I don’t have an iPad, shudder at Kindles and am ‘appy being app-less. I don’t want more electronic devices taking over my life. I’m already bombarded with technology at work. I want note books made of paper, not tungsten and books that smell of fusty old age which crinkle in my hands rather than a little electronic square with a backlit display and a smell of electronics.

    I also don’t understand cookery programs, generally. I hate watching the latest personality who seems to have cunningly developed their traits to order by a PR company, throwing herbs in the air and shouting in Mockney-Cockney, sporting some contrived eccentricity or preparing a meal in full evening dress whilst looking like they’re dying to munch down on your nether regions. The whole idea of watching someone cook bores me senseless. If I wanted to watch housework, I’d prefer a dusting show. Dusting is very soothing and purposeful. Until they bring back Fanny Craddock and her evil snobbish persona I intend to steer clear of cookery shows. I may wait a while unless they can clone Fanny, as she’s long dead.

    It’s not Paul Hollywood either. He might be some people’s idea of a silver-fox but he’s not mine. I find him slightly irritating and although I don’t mind chunky or well built men, he doesn’t thrill me. Maybe it’s those elaborate collared shirts, maybe his constant moaning about the texture of cakes.

    I think the whole thing is schadenfreude. I want to see people fail. I want sunken middles and slanting icing which drips off precariously. I want to see the over confident ones hoisted upon their own petards and the annoying ones flustered in flour showers. I want burnt things, raw things and high anxiety. I’m not ashamed. It’s human to want to enjoy failure isn’t it? As long as it’s not your own, then failure is fine and dandy.

    Has it inspired me to bake a cake? Has it bollocks. I have a supermarket two minutes walk from my house. I’ll stick to enjoying the successes of people like the delightful Mr Kipling.

  • COLUMN | Painless Pleasure

    Yesterday I spent time looking at instruments of torture and some really gruesome looking antique sex toys. I was out strolling round London with my partner and we’d done the usual stuff (theatre, coffee, Vintage clothes shops) when we happened on a fetish wear shop and decided this complemented. It had an enticing window display and the place looked intriguing so we rang the bell and popped in.

    It was beautifully laid out and the orifice ripping metal wear and rubber ball gags were laid out with aplomb. I’ll give them that. I winced a little as we walked around, browsing and clenched my buttocks as I admired the patina on one highly polished ergonomic device designed to cause pain after another.

    There’s a fine line between the two things. Like love and hate, pleasure and pain are sensations that our hardwiring seem to allow crossover with. I almost envy the S and M fanatics. I’m the kind of person who would take to my bed with a bad corn and am known for my stash of painkillers which I heft around in my bag. I struggle enough with my dodgy back, creaky neck and achy knees to want to invoke further trouble by being paddled mercilessly on the buttocks in a dungeon in Vauxhaul. Nor am I one who is keen to inflict pain. I get upset if I accidentally tread on a spider.

    I once slept with a man who asked if he could put me in a half Nelson during intercourse and I wasn’t keen. He also asked if he could pull my hair which for a man over the age of forty is a definite no-no. I’m already at the point of reaching for the Regaine without having the risk of clumps of it coming out during someone’s boisterous orgasm.

    I admire the style and the commitment of the sadomasochistic scene devotees but I think I’ll stick to the Vintage clothes shops on my next ramble round town. There was a lovely Harris Tweed that hid my flabbier areas better than any PVC suit would and the ties there did more for my eyes than the gimp masks would have.

  • COLUMN | Do the hustle

    For someone who has often led a colourful life, I can be incredibly naive at times. I blush a lot too, due to having fair colouring. Naivety can be sweet but it can also get you into a lot of unexpected trouble. One such example is Amsterdam. Naive people should steer clear of Amsterdam.

    I think it was around 2004 that I went there with my ex partner for a long weekend. For someone who’s in a couple and doesn’t much fancy smoking or eating dope, a lot of the usual delights are a little less than appealing but I went for the architecture and culture, honestly. We flew over and I was bemused to take my first ever budget airline flight. The in flight catering was mini tubes of Pringles, which tickled me and the stewardesses were wearing sweatshirts.

    I loved Amsterdam straight away. The hotel was roomy, if a little dated, the architecture was indeed beautiful and I really liked the giant phallic statue in Dam Square. The people were colourful and seemed laid back and cool, although we did get offered cocaine quite a lot as we walked about. It must have been something about the way I walk. We strolled about along canals, took in the Van Gough Museum and the Anne Frank House and had leisurely coffees outside. It was heavenly. It was autumn time and the leaves were turning brown and the canals looked romantic and picturesque. We did a little boat trip and were generally wholesome, mostly.

    I was perturbed by the bicycle riding epidemic. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve never mastered riding a bike and think of it as witchcraft. There were many witches about. The trams were good fun though and full of fascinating looking eccentrics and oddballs. I quickly learnt never to stop and look at a map. This invariably summoned up a beggar who would initially behave as if he was performing a great public service and offering directions, followed by a request for cash, once he’d lulled you into a false sense of security.

    Being an inveterate people watcher, I loved the red light district at night. I found it utterly fascinating and was intrigued by the prostitutes with their tidy little cubicles and hygienic sinks and paper towels. I do like things clean. There seemed to be a definite pecking order with the prettier girls in tiny bikinis getting the more prominent windows and the gigantic Jabba the Hut types getting the more obscure ones. I’m not sure if there was a sliding scale of pricing or not. I didn’t like to ask. Equally intriguing were the men walking in and disappearing behind drawn curtains.

    We decided to try the Sex Museum, thinking it would be amusing and of course it was. We tittered at the antique sex toys, the Victorian porn (men had some fantastic moustaches in those days) and the gigantic penis in the entrance hall. The door with a warning to put off the easily offended puzzled me. On climbing the steps, walking in and spotting the pictures of a woman being remarkably overfriendly with an Alsatian, I realised that I do actually have some boundaries and am, amazingly, still capable of being offended. I scuttled out fast.

    I decided it would be fun to tour a few of the gay bars and had printed off a little guide. There were some amusing sights and a few which made me regurgitate a little. Lots of the bars had back rooms where men go to have sex. Naturally I peeked in. I can’t tell you what I saw as the hypnosis and the electro-shocks to the head have erased the grisly memories. It wasn’t pretty, is all I’m saying.

    There were two bars close together on the map, one advertised as a transvestite bar and another as a “hustler bar”. The transvestite bar was very friendly. I love a bad transvestite and was sadly disappointed to see a bevy of leggy beauties. Move along, nothing to chuckle at here. The bar man was a six foot Japanese boy in a long blonde wig and silver lame frock. I think he may have been 5 foot 2 without his heels and beehive hairdo. He was very chatty and kept a huge variety of items in his bra. They were having a little singsong and naturally, as the drink flowed, we were obliged to join in.

    I asked my ex what he thought a hustler bar was. He thought it was something to do with cowboys so I expected maybe a few chaps in chaps. I later recalled that that’s a rustler, not a hustler. I wondered if it was something to do with pool, thinking of the Paul Newman film. We were both wrong.

    The bar was long and narrow with a motley collection of dodgy looking older men perched on stools. The room went silent as soon as we entered and everyone stared at us. There was a moment a bit like the scene in “American Werewolf in London” when they enter The Slaughtered Lamb pub.

    Undeterred we headed to the bar for alcohol. At the end of the long bar was a raised platform with a pinball machine and couch and I was gratified to see a pool table. I felt vindicated and as ever, loved being right. I was wrong, of course. At the back of the bar was a curtained off doorway which I took to be the toilets. There were several youngish Eastern European blokes lolling about in provocative poses, languidly playing at playing pool, bending over the pinball machine or stretching out on the sofa. There were two free seats on the settee so I whispered to my ex that I was going to get us a seat on the platform.
    His hand shot out with lightening reflexes and grabbed my wrist: “That’s where the prostitutes sit.” He hissed. It dawned on me then what a “hustler” was and I blushed at my naivety. I’d almost put myself up for sale and I expect the lack of bids would have been embarrassing. I can just see myself now, the oldest prostitute, sitting alone on the couch, as the last boy was lead behind the curtain to the private rooms. We didn’t stay long. I hate to be upstaged.

  • COLUMN | Coming Out of the Broom Closest

    I’ve come out of two closets in my life. First through the rainbow-coloured door – coming out as gay. Then out of the broom closet – coming out as pagan.

    Every time I’ve come out as pagan, I get asked the same sort of questions. Here are some of those questions and my responses:

    What is it all about?
    Paganism is a nature-based religion, so as a pagan I have a reverence for nature. Paganism has a dual aspect of divinity – meaning we have both a god and goddess.

    This god and goddess duality symbolises balance that can be seen in all aspects of the world and universe. We cannot have life without death, happy times without sad times, etc.

    Unlike most other religions we don’t have a bible or other book that tells us what to believe. What pagans believe is much more individual to them. But the two big focuses in paganism are nature and individual responsibility for our own actions and omissions.

    Paganism has values that encourage equality, respect for all living beings and empathy for others, so generally pagans are very accepting of gay people. Acts of love, pleasure and beauty are important to pagans regardless of the sexuality or gender of those involved.

    Do you worship the devil?
    No…we actually don’t believe in a devil.

    Do you have a Church?
    Nature is our church. Some of us like to worship, celebrate and practice on our own; whereas others like to get together with other pagans.

    Covens are closed groups of pagans usually consisting of a maximum of thirteen people. They have a High Priestess and a High Priest as leaders of their group, kind of like priests/vicars. Coven members will teach one another what they know, including the initiates (those new to paganism). Rituals, rites, magic, music and dance will all be taught within the closed coven circle.

    Pagan moots are much more open. They are open to anyone and usually held at local cafes or pubs. Some moot organisers will arrange for talks on a range of pagan topics such as: herbs, crystals, healing, ghosts/other spirits, etc. Organisers usually ask for a donation or minimal charge to attend these fascinating talks.

    Is magic like that on Charmed? Or like Willow on Buffy The Vampire Slayer does?
    No…sorry. But it can be equally effective – it just works in a different way.

    Imagine I cast a Spell for money. Money won’t magically appear. But I might see a job that I can apply for that’s better paid than the one I’m doing.

    Just because I’ve cast the Spell, doesn’t mean the job is automatically mine! I still have to apply for the job, go to the interview and WOW the interviewers. I have to work hard to achieve my goals – like everyone else.

    What’s the difference between a Pagan, a Wiccan and a Druid?
    Paganism is a broad term to describe lots of different paths that have the same principle beliefs. Wicca, Druidism and others paths may have slightly different practices but share the same principle beliefs and are therefore are all encompassed under the term paganism.

    Think of it in terms of Christianity. Christianity is the over-arching term, but within that you have the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church and many others all with the same principle beliefs but with slightly different practices.

    So you don’t celebrate Christmas?
    We have our own holidays, many of which coincide with Christian holidays. But our big celebration is Samhain or Halloween, which to pagans is like Christmas and New Year rolled into one.

    We are all individuals. Personally I celebrate Christmas with my family, because they do and because it’s a positive time for all. It’s the one time of year my family takes the time out to spend precious time together, to eat, drink and be merry – oh and of course there’s the presents!

    Where can I learn more?
    The best gay pagan book I’ve come across is Gay Witchcraft by Christopher Penczak. Christopher Penczak is a pagan gay man who wrote this for gay men. It even has a section on gay deities.

    Other non-gay books I’ve learned a lot about paganism from are: The Real Witches’ Handbook by Kate West, Elements of Witchcraft by Ellen Dugan,Witchcraft: Theory and Practice by Le De Angeles and Everyday Magic by Dorothy Morrison. There’s also a myriad of information on the internet –just do a Google search.

  • COLUMN | Auto Outed

    When it comes to being gay or straight acting, I definitely sit somewhere towards the more fabulous end of the continuum. Not that I approve of that whole gay/straight acting thing. However good you are at DIY or playing football; you’re not that straight acting with a cock in your mouth. Although, thinking about some of the straight men I’ve met over the years…

    I was a slightly effeminate child. When I say slightly effeminate, I mean that my idol was Wonder Woman and there was always ‘Girls’ World Styling Head’ written at the top of my Christmas wish list in pink glitter pen. I’m sure that I was auto outing myself with every sissy boy lisp and mince. This wasn’t a problem in infant and junior school but once I hit secondary school, I was the target of a fair bit of attention. It was usually the wrong sort of attention (the hostile kind), but I didn’t have to identify myself to any of the other children as being gay. They worked it out all on their own.

    There are pluses and minuses in every situation. As a teenager, I wished that I was less conspicuous and that people couldn’t tell so easily that I was gay. Now, I don’t care at all. I see positives. At least I don’t have to constantly come out to every new person I meet. They seem to work it out for themselves somehow. Maybe had I been able to hide the fact that I’m gay from the rest of the world then I’d be closeted and miserable somewhere; one of the legions of married men sating their desires in grubby public lavs. I’m thankful for small mercies.

  • COLUMN | Be Brave

    I’ve never been a massive fan of dates let alone online dating.

    I normally prefer to meet guys at the end of the night in a club, when I’m a walking disaster, hair all over the place and if I try and eat the face off them like it’s my first meal since fasting for lent and they respond, at least I know they have seen me at my worst and it can only get better! None the less I still have Grindr and log on everyday although more through boredom than a longing for love.

    When discussing me getting back in the dating game a wise friend gave me some wise words – “be brave”, easy for him to say his last date was with a Terry’s chocolate orange and The Million Pound Drop. A few weeks ago I decided to follow his advice and go on a date with a guy who asked me from Grindr!

    We arranged to meet in Glasgow on the Sunday afternoon for coffee and naturally the night before I decided to prepare with two good pals and 6 bottles of wine. After spending most of Sunday morning hugging the toilet pan, I decided to re-arrange to meet in Wishaw’s prime dating venue for homosexuals, Wetherspoons, at 9pm.

    When I arrived 15 mins late him waiting outside looking less than amused he looked exactly like the pictures he had sent and had quite large hands. Great. We go inside he orders a soft drink and I order cider. The conversation is awkward, he tells me the first Canadian he ever met gave him maple syrup and it sticks in his mind, I try and inject some humour and reply “oh the first Canadian I ever met gave me herpes”. Silence, pan face, I smile, more silence until I declare I was joking. He nods his head. I decided since I was off the next day, I was going to make the most of the situation and order another drink. He watches BBC news on the TV as I play on Facebook. He did give me a lift home at the end of the night which saved me £4.25 on a taxi. Every cloud has a silver lining.

    Needless to say we won’t be seeing each other again and to be honest I should have known it wouldn’t work when he told me he had never seen Dirty Dancing. At least I’m back on the wagon and in the dating game again. Next time I will however have a check list — Sense of humour a must;big hands a bonus.

    I am forever hopeful.

    Be Brave!

  • COLUMN | The twilight world of the homosexual

    I went to the theatre yesterday and saw the brilliant production of The Pride at the Trafalgar Studios. It’s a play set in two eras, the present day and the 1950s with echoes of the historical horrors of the oppression of gay people versus echoes of what we have and don’t appreciate and the horrors of the oppressions we sometimes choose to inflict upon ourselves.

    It’s a fantastic play and I won’t say much more for fear of spoiling it if you want to see it. I’d highly recommend it.

    It made me ponder. Lots of things do. On talking to a friend recently we both laughingly talked about how being gay has become so much less exciting now it’s all out in the open and less clandestine. Both of us, jokingly, talked about how dull being gay is now and yearned for the secretive and furtive days when sex had an element of danger and there was a whole art surrounding the dangerous act of being a gay man.

    Secret languages, knowing looks and basement dive bars all sound so exciting and almost romantic. Visions of buttoned up men in three piece suits, speaking gruffly in clipped tones as they undress and whip out outsized vintage genitals in dinghy back parlours with scuffed linoleum are daring and thrilling.

    Nostalgia is so often skewed and we often yearn for something that didn’t exist. I imagine that the reality was far from my imaginings. There’s no joy in imprisonment, an inability to express yourself at all and terrors such as aversion therapy or being institutionalised and labelled as mentally sick and twisted simply for the way you were born. The joys of being rejected, vilified and hated are limited.

    If I look back at my own life without a veil of nostalgia fogging the truth, I recall churning anxiety and terror. Living with an older man at the age of 18 in 1989, I was three years below the archaic age of consent of 21. This actually caused us both hideous anxieties.

    On one occasion we had a burglary in the flat we lived in and were panic stricken about having the police round in case they realised we were lovers. I remember ignorance, bullying and no go areas of the city. I remember the boarded up windows of our small city’s gay bar. They couldn’t have glass because it would get broken at least once a week by marauding gangs of blokes. It was a common occurrence to be in the bar and the D.J. would suddenly turn up the music to drown out the sounds of a gang of blokes hammering on the boards and shouting abuse. I remember not daring to touch in the street or even to look into each other’s eyes for too long in a bar or cafe.

    I think I’ll try to keep my nostalgia in check for now. I suppose we have the best of both worlds now. The modern gay man can be more open, mostly (I’m not naive enough to believe that rampant prejudice doesn’t still exist and we’ve a long way to go yet) and live the life he chooses. He can also choose clandestine and dirty too; loitering round cruising grounds and risking arrest if that’s what floats his boat. Of course that’s a simplistic view. The reasons people choose to carry out dangerous acts are multi-factorial.

    For now, I’ll restrict my nostalgia to clothing and my collection of 50’s china and doff my cap in respect to all those who’ve gone before and made life better for me now. Now those 1950’s gays: they sure wore a mean cravat.

  • COLUMN | Tell It To The Hand

    COLUMN | Tell It To The Hand

    I was horrified recently to read a piece in a quality newspaper where a man described his wife as being “pissed”. He meant angry and not inebriated. How odd and confusing. When did pissed start meaning angry? I also saw an advert on a bus saying: “Do the Math!” Eek. It’s maths. It always has been and always will be. I felt a cold chill.

    It’s not just the Americanism we’ve adopted which drive me crazy (24/7 kills me), it’s the faddy and lazy phrases people over use for a period of time. They’re funny for a minute or so and then are hideously irritating. My rule is: what would Noel say? By that, I mean Noel Coward not Edmonds.

    If I met Mr Edmonds he’d say: “Please don’t hurt me.” as I ran at him with my slapping hand raised, for crimes against good taste. If it wouldn’t crop up in a Noel Coward piece it’s probably not funny and not appropriate.

    My current hate list is this:
    • Putting .com after things e.g. tired.com. It’s not funny or clever.
    • Saying “Back in the day.” It makes you sound like a cheesy local radio disc jockey.
    • “Wine o’clock” was maybe funny the first time it was said or typed but it isn’t now, honestly.
    • “Five items or less” on a checkout. It’s “fewer”, the same as it’s “different from” not “different to/than”
    • LOL/PMSL/ROFL. Really? You’re not really doing that at all are you? So please, don’t type it. It’s silly. What ever happened to “tee-hee” or “ha ha ha”.
    • Text message speech and abbreviations. I hate this. I can’t stand “ya” for you, especially.
    • “Man flu”. Lazy and sexist stereotyping. I had severe flu and everyone kept asking if I had man flu. I had actual flu, thanks and was in bed for a week sweating and suffering. Cheers for belittling it.
    • “Epic fail’. It’s over used and tired.

    Another thing I hate is when people laugh about red hair and being “ginger”. It was briefly funny to do this in the 90s. It’s not now. It’s just banal, rude and tired. Lots of ginger men and women are stunningly beautiful and one of my more promiscuous exes tells me that, according to his extensive research of men’s undercarriages, red-haired men have larger willies. I suspect that this is yet another myth but it would be nice were it true as payback for all that ginger baiting.

    I know this sounds pedantic and picky and I’m sure I say things incorrectly or overuse phrases that annoy others too but I am the man who won’t sing along to a song if it’s grammatically incorrect. I have to adapt the lyrics to exclude the word “aint” or any of those nasty double negatives. Eurgh.

    So in summary, desist please. Period.

  • COLUMN | Cock Eyed

    I was talking to a friend the other day about cocks. It’s a perfect subject for polite conversation on a sunny Sunday over lattes and pastries. My friend and I have similar pedigrees and there was a cock related question I needed to chew over.

    In my thirties I had a period of being quite sociable and my friend remains very sociable too. When I say sociable, I mean the kind of conversations that involve you being naked and muttering just occasional words (e.g. ‘Harder!’ or ‘Yes, yes, yes’). I was newly single after a couple of lengthy relationships, it was all safer stuff and I wasn’t hurting anyone or not that I knew of, anyway. I suspect that there was the odd cuckolded wife or boyfriend tucked away here and there. It was all pretty harmless, very diverting and the only downside was that I had to change the bed sheets a lot and keep up with my depilation.

    After a few years of intermittent promiscuity, I gained a peculiar skill. I began to be able to predict what someone would look like naked. One look at a man fully clothed and I’d get an instant feel for what he’d look like once the layers were stripped away. Musculature, hairiness and penile length and complexion; you name it; I could guess it and was often proved right. It’s not a skill I could teach. I don’t suspect it’s a psychic thing either. Who knows what it stems from? Maybe it’s the nose shape, the hand size or most probably the fact that we often fall into set body types which match up with other features or characteristics. It was just borne of the fact that I was seeing an awful lot of men naked.

    Of course there were always exceptions and nasty or pleasant surprises can lurk in a man’s Calvins. I won’t go into some of the things that I saw but let’s just say that some of them still stick in my throat when I contemplate them.

    Miss Marple, the elderly spinster sleuth, had similar skills but hers tended towards knowledge of the criminal mind gained from studying the locals, rather than her knowledge of men’s undercarriages gained from a lot of time spent on her back. I like to think of myself as a kind of latter day Agatha Christie sleuth but with a whole different skill set.

    Interestingly, my friend has the same ability. He can guess a girth at 50 paces and is invariably not disappointed by what lies beneath the trouser. Maybe the two of us should take ourselves on a tour of Northern Working Men’s clubs with our novelty act. Just think of the furore we could cause on Britain’s Got talent. We’d certainly winkle out a few interesting winkles and definitely make the front pages of the gutter press.

    On second thoughts, I’ll stick to familiar territory. I have a long term partner now and my guess-the-weight-of-the-sausage skills are probably much less than they once were. I can’t go back to all that. My washer wouldn’t take all that bed linen.

  • COLUMN | Nudity No-No

    My partner used to like to take off his clothes in public. This was a frequent occurrence, the minute he’d consumed alcohol.

    I blame it on the set he was hanging out with; horsey and aristocratic. That sort of running into ballrooms naked at midnight and jumping into swimming pools is more acceptable there than it would have been in the urban backstreets and dull suburbs where I grew up.

    Funnily enough, I’ve always had a bit of an issue with public nudity. It’s not that I don’t like my body. I have the standard love/hate relationship with it that most of us possess. I wasn’t one of those teenagers who strutted around the locker rooms at school in the buff. I was too embarrassed. There was a whole dimension to growing up gay in the 1980s whereby I was mortified that the other boys would think I was ogling their bodies. I’d hastily change in the corner and dash through the showers, hoping to stay inconspicuous. I also didn’t grow up in one of those liberal families where everyone wandered about the house naked. Thankfully: to recall my father happily chatting about the day’s activities whilst stepping out of the shower with water dripping off his appendages is not something I’d want in my memory bank.

    As an adult I’ve had brushes with public nudity, as many gay men have. The obligatory nudist beach on holiday, the drunken visit to a sauna in Blackpool and the ill advised trip to a clothing optional bar in Amsterdam: these things happen. If you’re anything like me then they only happen once. I’m a quick learner.

    I decided to venture to a nudist beach once, whilst on holiday in the U.K. I’d never been naked in public before and decided that it sounded like a liberating and romantic notion to swim naked in the sea. I trekked the standard torturous 3 miles to the gay part of the nudist beach, arriving with aching limbs and a sweaty face. I put down my bag, stripped off my clothes and let the sun warm parts that the daylight had never seen before. I had a sneaky look round and it was like I’d suddenly entered a leather sofa store. The only difference was that the sofas were in the shape of elderly gay men. Expanses of orange leather flesh dotted the horizon as a variety of shapes and sizes of toughened hides stood lifelessly. Strangely, they seemed to be imitating poses from Kays’ Catalogue circa 1978. There must be something about being naked on a sand dune that makes men want to look out to sea with one knee flexed and their hand on hip at a jaunty angle. I didn’t stay long on the beach. There were drawbacks to the idyllic experience of sunbathing naked which I hadn’t thought through a) I’m not keen on sunbathing b) where would I stow my belongings while I dipped in the sea?

    Another daunting experience was visiting a gay nudist beach in a slick resort in Europe. This was a time when I was going through a hate cycle in the love/hate body thing. The sight of gym fit gay Europeans with perfect pecs and all over tans, lolling on designer label towels was enough to send me scurrying back to my hotel room to hide under a duvet. I’d have been like the ‘before’ picture in an advert, had I taken off as much as a cardigan.

    Naked bars, saunas, nudist beaches: they’re not for the insecure like me. They’re also not for the practical minded. Where do you keep your wallet and change, for one thing? I reproach myself sometimes. Why should I be ashamed to be naked? It’s our natural state and think of all that Vitamin D we’d absorb too. Then I remember all those lovely things that you can buy which can flatter and accentuate, hide and mask and make us all look better: they’re called clothes. I’ll keep mine on for now.

  • COLUMN | Freak Like Me

    Last week I saw a tiny little man who was wearing a floral shower cap on top of his turban. He was all of 5 feet three tall, wizened and elderly and a lurid 1970s shower cap topped off his immaculate dark suit exquisitely. I think he was a very sensible man, it was raining after all and no one wants a damp turban all day.

    I often see a man who dresses as an Edwardian gentleman. He must be in his 50s and is tall and rotund. He sports a series of fetching waistcoats stretched over his ample belly and he has a huge waxed moustache that sprawls over his face. I saw him walking through the city centre one evening and he was also wearing a cape that night and carrying a sliver topped cane. I admire him and often smile at his outfits, commenting on a particular natty cravat or a dashing checked trouser. I asked him once if he lived in a re-created Edwardian house and I was gladdened when he affirmed that indeed he did.

     

    There used to be an elderly woman who walked around the streets with a small white poodle in a huge Silver Cross pram. He was harnessed in by his lead and would sit quite happily, yapping at passers-by as he was wheeled around in style. She would merrily chatter away to him as they strolled.

     

    I always admired a tall thin elderly lady who lived nearby. She would set out from her house with a very purposeful gait, striding briskly, head down, sending people scurrying out of her way in terror. She always wore a blue raincoat and a matching hairnet and had a full beard. She would often smile at people, revealing a lot of missing teeth, and give a jaunty wave with her hand held high. She’d shout “Hello!” at deafening volume. Occasionally she’d appear with a huge brown dog on a lead that would drag her around and she’d trot along breathlessly behind with a happy expression on her whiskery face.

     

    I could write all night about these people. There are scores more of them in my mental bank of people I regularly see. To me, these people are rational and normal. No one wants a wet turban. They must become so heavy. Why not arrive in style in a shower cap if it keeps you dry? The Edwardian style suits a large man and if you can get away with sauntering around in full costume then why not? It’s fun. Poodles are unwieldy things to carry around. They wriggle so. If you have a spare pram to hand going to waste then why not convert it into a poodle carriage? I’m sure he was a good listener to as she talked away. If you struggle with messy hair and don’t have time to shave your beard then why not be proud of it? Walk along with a tooth deficient grin and shout greetings at full volume. The depilatory process can be wearing to maintain. Brazen it out.

     

    My point, I suppose, is that “normal” is all about perception. Maybe we’re the mad ones for spending time plucking stray hairs or walking around with wet hair when we have perfectly nifty shower caps to hand?

     

    I asked on social media last year for people I knew to come out of the closet and admit their inner freakiness. The response was quite phenomenal. People admitted bizarre rituals, filthy habits and strange beliefs. They collected nail clippings, believed that their identical twin was better looking and were scared of sponges or wet wood. They ate inappropriate foods, had attachments to unusual items and perceived things in peculiar ways. All perfectly normal to me. It doesn’t take much chipping away at the surface to reveal a great big scary freak underneath. As for my odd habits, well, I describe them enough on here.

     

    My definition of strange is a teenage boy in canvas shoes on a wintery day, walking along with trousers halfway down his thighs and buttocks showing. Wearing jeans with elasticated ankles and a baggy gusset that makes it look like you’re wearing a nappy, suits no practical purpose and looks pretty odd. Surely we should stop stare and point.

     

    I think madness is to spend thousands of pounds on a huge white wedding party, inviting people you barely know to attend the protracted rituals and wasting money on a frock you’ll wear once and then look back on with blushes as the fashions change. I’m puzzled by people who watch TV constantly, celebrate Christmas with gusto, believe in vengeful deities or find clowns endearing. Now that is very weird.