THEGAYUK

Tag: Ramblings Of A Gay Man

  • Five totally rubbish ways to end things with your boyfriend

    Exit Strategies (…or rubbish my ex-partners have told me)

    Extricating yourself from a relationship isn’t easy. We’ve all been there; watching a once-promising union limping sadly towards the end, trying to fan the fire of a lukewarm love life or just living through that daily battle of trying not to slip a pinch of Arsenic into his latte. I’ve been through a few relationship breakdowns and my behaviour can be charted somewhere on a continuum that ranges from psychopathic maniac to saintly martyr. One thing I wish though is that my ex-partners had sometimes been more truthful.

    Here are my top 5 pieces of crap which have been uttered to me over the past 20 years:

    1) It’s not you, it’s me: This one is a total classic and is invariably nonsense. Of course, it was me too. I made that remark about your mother, didn’t put out as often as you wanted and was often snippy and critical. Yes, you were pretty dire at times and those nasty clothes and the penchant for 80s soft rock was hard to tolerate but let’s be honest. We both played a part in causing this once quite promising future to turn post-apocalyptic.

    2) I need to find myself: Seriously? How careless to mislay something so important. In my experience, this one always means ‘I need to spend time on Grindr and see what I can find within a 3-mile radius that is willing to take his pants down and lube up for me.”

    3) I want an open relationship: See above. This is also often the cowardly way of saying: “I want an affair or ten and you to stay at home, ask no questions but remain totally faithful to me. If you so much as brush up against another man on the tube I’ll get all psycho on you but please don’t complain when I bring home pubic lice and my phone buzzes with texts from morning till night.”

    4) I’m not sure that I’m really gay: This one was uttered by a very plausible and slightly mixed up man and got my sympathy (albeit in a puzzled way). I felt sorry for his messed up emotions. This sympathy lasted until I spotted his new Gaydar profile two weeks later in which he was seeking: ‘Young good looking versatile men who want to be pounded and give some cock back”. That’s not normally the request of someone who is feeling all hetero all of a sudden. Don’t they like fishing, football and tits? I’m not sure they’re always so keen on hard anal with another man. That desire implies leanings, to me.

    5) I love you but you’re impossible to be around: If you love someone then surely being around him or her is easy or something you’ll work to be able to do. You love them and that involves you wanting to be with them however difficult they can be. This actually translates as: “I’ve finally woken up to what a nightmare you can be and realised we’re not compatible. Don’t feel bad but I now regard you in the same light as an episode of Friends. It was once endearing, funny and I kind of liked it but now it makes me wince and wonder what the hell I was thinking.”

    I accept that honesty isn’t always good. We all need some sugaring of the pills from time to time but there’s dishonesty and there’s downright ridiculousness. Sometimes a pinch of honesty peppered with a smidgeon of tact is really the best policy of all.

    Opinions expressed in this article may not reflect those of THEGAYUK, its management or editorial teams. If you’d like to comment or write a comment, opinion or blog piece, please click here.

  • 5 things that are actually the worst about shopping

    Last week I experienced something horrific: shopping on Oxford Street.

    I avoid clothes shopping until my wardrobe is decimated. I wait until I’m down to a few pairs of socks and my underwear is looking like the type of thing your parents warned you not to wear in case of being run over before I venture out to rectify the situation. I try to ignore the dwindling collection of shirts and trousers that have been ravaged by over washing, deodorant marks and time until I can do it no more.

    Last week was the turning point and I had to face the ugly truth: I needed to go clothes shopping. It was my bi-annual clothes procurement mission and I gritted my teeth, revved myself up on caffeine and went for it.

    ALSO READ: 17 you only know if you’ve worked as a go go boy in a gay bar

    Maybe Oxford Street on a Sunday wasn’t the best choice for a pathological shopping hater but needs must. I needed new basic items and chain stores are the place to go. I just needed to suck up a whole world of pain.

    I won’t go into all the messy details. I won’t describe the moment (fifteen minutes in) when my partner offered to go home and leave, as he couldn’t take my mood any more. I won’t describe the inner demon that emerged and the childish tantrums, rages and traumas (for everyone else, not me). I’ll just tell you why it was so bloody awful.

    1) Un-priced garments:

    It’s a shop. You sell things. If there’s no price on it then you can keep it. I’m not asking around or waiting for some glassy eyed teenager to go and check. I’ve got a life to live. I also hate that concealed price/size thing. A whole stack of shirts, neatly folded, with every one having a tag tucked discretely away so that you have to wade through each one and extricate the size label only to find after 10 minutes that they only have extra small and XXL. Strangely a lot of shops seem to cater solely for the very burly or the painfully thin.

    2) Changing rooms:

    Bright lights and mirrors at all angles are not something most of us need. I know I’ve got a bald spot. I know that years of smoking have ravaged my skin. I really don’t want this hammering home in an overheated cupboard as I puff and pant and try to ram myself into the sizes I wore 20 years ago.

    3) Vacant automaton shop assistants:

    Working in retail is tough, I’m sure, especially with people like me about. Being British, I kind of expect you to show that to me though. I don’t mind surly, truculent and disinterested. What displeases me is the false, robotic eagerness to please. It’s terrifying and disingenuous. I don’t trust the fakery, especially when it’s clearly being delivered through a world of pain and has been taught by a smiley man called Bob on an away day in Milton Keynes.

    4) Other shoppers:

    Faster, quicker and out of my way. They’re the only words I need to say. Unfortunately, shouting them out loud only gets you into trouble so I keep them in and just get angrier and my ulcer grows deeper by the moment. People also seem to be having a good time, lingering over the whole experience, which of course, makes me even angrier.

    5) It’s illegal to carry a Taser:

    I don’t need to explain that one

     

    The ordeal is over. I have clothes. Project forward in time to six months down the line: that’ll be my next foray into the world of retail. I’d mark it in your diary and avoid the day.

  • 5 really annoying things about going to a wedding

    Now, I’m not one to rain on anyone’s parade and I’m the first to shout out a resounding YES to the fact that we have marriage equality. I’m stunned that I’ve seen so many changes in societal attitudes since my teenage years 20 plus years ago. I’m all for liberty, equality and freedom of expression. Except when it comes to bad taste.

    There’s just one issue in this whole thing. I may now get more wedding invites and I bloody hate weddings. I dodge, feign illness and fake deaths (including my own): just to avoid these often-horrible things. They’re just not my thing at all. One sniff of a fat uncle dancing with a small child to ‘Come on Eileen’ or the oily drip of a 99% oil chocolate fountain and I’m running for cover.

    Here’s my top five wedding don’ts for those planning to tie the knot:

    1) Eskimo/Native American/Self-penned love poems.

    OK. We get it. We know you’re quite fond of each other but we do not want to regurgitate our lunch. If you need to recite little poems to each other then there’s a time and a place…maybe just before you are both put to death by lethal injection for mawkish bad taste? Is that a crime punishable by death? I hope so.

    2) Bizarre Outfits.

    OK, so your mother’s cousin’s milkman’s best friend was Scottish or at least he once shared a lift with someone from Perth, but this is no reason to wear a kilt, especially if you haven’t got good knees. Cummerbunds, tuxedos, matching suits, pastel shades: they’re fine as an ironic statement but not to have in photographs that we’re quite frankly all going to be wincing at before we’ve even recovered from our hangovers.

    3) The Chocolate Fountain

    Unless this is a euphemism for some nefarious sexual practice that you and your guests will all enjoy then no. Just no. OK? It’s dirty, unhygienic and just plain oily.

    4) Wedding lists.

    Save up for it like the rest of us. The world doesn’t owe you a living. Have you not heard of payday lending and credit cards or just getting a job? Maybe you could sell a kidney or take to the streets with a bowl? It’s a more honest form of begging. I recently went to a wedding where the list contains items such as wide screen TVs, washing machines and a shed. I kid you not.

    5) Bankrupt your guests.

    OK, You’re getting married. That’s lovely. We’d love to come. Oh, the wedding is in Lapland? We have to attend a weeklong stag do in Borneo? We need a minimum £50 gift spend, not to mention the new outfits and the stint in rehab after that stag do? That’s fine. We’ll shelve those plans to move out of our hovel/ever own a home/ have a decent holiday. It’s not like the divorce stats are 50/50 is it? We’ll play along and don’t worry about that new hip we were planning on buying.

    Apart from all that. Have a great day, whatever your wedding.

     

    Opinions expressed in this article may not reflect those of THEGAYUK, its management or editorial teams. If you’d like to comment or write a comment, opinion or blog piece, please click here.

  • COLUMN | A Winter’s Tale

    Winter is definitely looming over us and I’m embracing the fact that the weather is distinctly nippy. I’m trying hard to not spend my life looking forward to the next season.

    I’m not good at living in the moment but instead, long for the next thing on the horizon or hanker after the past. Rather than enjoying the summer, I instead, long to stop sweating, wear my warm clothes and drag out my tweed suits. Instead of savouring the autumn, I dread the dark nights, miss my shorts and long for brighter days. It’s a never-ending cycle for me.

    This year, I’m trying hard to appreciate what I have. Here are my tips for a pleasurable cold snap:

    1) Enjoy the equality of cold weather: Winter clothes are so much more forgiving. You can hide pale and mottled flash, disguise the lumps and bumps and not worry about all those depilatory issues. Just avoid those Christmas jumpers. They may be retro but so was syphilis and no one rejoiced when that came back.

    2) Make like Mrs Beeton: Ditch the diet and reach for the stovetop. Winter is all about gaining weight. It’s genetic, forgivable and indeed, sensible. It’s getting bloody cold; you need an extra layer of blubber to keep you warm. It’s all about soup and cakes for me this year (served separately of course). I’ll be swimming in broth come January but may have to have a layer of butter scraped out of my arteries.

    3) Curl up with a good book: What finer winter activity than being stuck inside with a comfortable sofa and a pile of books (or DVDs/Netflix/C.D.s; if you’re so inclined)? It’s the perfect excuse for it. We’re practically captives of the weather. Who are we to argue with nature? Go with the flow and ditch the jogging. It’s all about lolling. Lolling won’t give you chapped lips. Lounging around feels so much less decadent when you can blame it on inclement conditions.

    4) Enjoy nature: I suppose we must leave the house at some point and when we do, what better sight than the natural world. Forget summer with its parched showy finery. Winter has many charms too. The foliage is sparser but the wildlife is more visible and bolder. A bracing stroll is good to clear the sinuses. Just make sure you have a good mobile phone signal and a Kendall Mint Cake and forget al-fresco romps unless you want frostbitten nipples.

    5) Seek good company: Whether you’re single, coupled or polygamous: the long dark nights can become oppressive and if you’re feeling it, then it’s more than likely that so are your friends. Connecting with people is a good thing. Seek out friends and make an effort to enjoy the oppressive nights together (but only if your book is dull). Whether that’s hanging out in a warm sitting room with friends and Cluedo, snuggling in the snug of a bar or sweating in a sauna: it’s good to share (as long as it’s not body fluids).

    Whatever you’re doing this winter, stay safe and warm and if it gets too harsh then there’s always the traditional Russian remedy to winter: a thick eiderdown and vodka.

  • 5 ways to beat the bullies

    Don’t suffer in silence. THEGAYUK Columnist Chris Bridges shares 5 ways to beat the bullies and how he dealt with the homophobes in his life.

    CREDIT: Flynt-bigstock

    1) Tell people about it

    The worst bullying of all came from a sport’s teacher (clichéd, I know but people often do behave in a way so tediously true to the expected norm). The belittling comments and name calling during sports lessons set a precedent. If it was acceptable for a teacher to call me ‘the poofter’ in front of the class then it was acceptable for everyone, surely? The resolution came when he blacked my eye (accidentally) by throwing an icy cold football at my face with velocity whilst shouting some retro homophobic name at me. Cue a minor inquiry and a partial resolution of his nasty behaviour (it was the ‘80s, people could get away with more bad stuff than now). It’s easy to see, in retrospect, that I could have made it end a lot quicker had I spoken out sooner to maybe my parents or a sympathetic teacher. At the time this felt terrifying and impossible but I realise now that I didn’t deserve this and that whatever I did to speak out then the moron couldn’t hurt me any more than he already was doing.

    2) There’s safety in numbers

    Take comfort in your allies and if possible, befriend the like minded. I’d tell 12-year-old Chris that he has a great bunch of friends who actually seem to like him and will stand up for him. I made friends with two other gay teenagers and that was an incredibly lucky thing for me. I was lucky that they existed and we got on. We’d hang out together and to our surprise, it was harder to bully three people than one. My loyal female friends were a support too. There was a memorable incident when a boy tripped me over on the way home and my female friend punched him squarely on the jaw. He didn’t cross me again for fear of her firm left-hook. Naturally, I wouldn’t ever advocate violence but I really wish I’d known before that my group of friends were so willing to take no nonsense whilst I was prepared to take so much.

    3) What they’re saying is rubbish

    Just because you have a crush on the singer from Duran Duran and like a good show tune doesn’t make you inferior. Whatever names they might call you are utterly irrelevant. The opinion of someone who terrorises someone due to his or her sexuality really doesn’t count at all. It’s worth less than zero. In fact, it’s worth less than that even. It needs a whole scale of its own; it’s so beneath contempt.

    4) Look for positive role models

    Not so easy in the 1980s but this is a bit easier now, hopefully. Even back in the bad old days of leg warmers and The Kids from Fame, there were strong positive people to look up to. It was a revelation to me, at the age of 14, to discover gay literature. I devoured books by Edmund White and Felice Picano and took a keen interest in historical figures like Harvey Milk who had fought so strongly for the cause. Pop music gave me idols too and Andy Bell and Jimmy Somerville were strong and unashamedly gay figures. These people taught me more about humanity and strength than any meathead sports teacher or vile acting teenager with an axe to grind.

    I also found comfort from a local gay youth group and the local gay switchboard. I was amazed that other people understood what the strife I was going through and that I wasn’t alone.

    5) Remember: You really are a lot more fierce and fabulous than they’ll ever be

    Nothing to say about this on except: fact!

    This is just my advice to myself and doesn’t apply to everyone. Bullying is a hard thing to stand up to and to get through alone. If you are being bullied because of your sexuality or any other reason, whatever age you are, then please get some professional help and advice.

     

    Here are some useful links:
    http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Bullying/Pages/Homophobicbullying.aspx
    http://www.standupfoundation.com/

    http://www.anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk/advice/children-young-people.aspx

    http://www.eachaction.org.uk/about-each/

     

  • COLUMN | Sticks And Stones

    I got called a faggot on the bus home last week. I was quite amused actually. It felt so retro and dated. I’ve almost grown to love some of these quaint old words for what I am. Maybe I’d have liked it less had I been alone at night somewhere less crowded.

    I was with my partner on the bus and a group of six teenage boys were misbehaving, shouting out remarks and jumping across the aisle punching each other. To summarise, I got a bit uppity when they started talking about girls they’d like to bang (their words) and how they’d go for the ones who couldn’t fight back and would just lie there and take it against their will.

    I have these moments when I see red (usually in cinemas, on public transport or when I get bad service) and struggle to hold my tongue. I contain my anger and am usually quite assertive and reasoned. I attack the issue like I’m a middle class woman in M and S complaining to a young whippersnapper of a boy about a bad lettuce, cold and aloof.

    Naturally they called me a faggot amongst other things. They would do. It’s the easiest target and requires no wit or thought and although I’m not over the top camp, I’m easily identifiable as gay. Had I been fat or old then that would have been mentioned as an insult. We’re allowed to call people fat or old too as well as shout homophobic remarks. The word itself didn’t offend me although the venom it was spat out with took me back slightly. They surmised that I took it up the arse (good guess boys!) and had a backside like a wizard’s sleeve (bad guess and unoriginal cliché). I generally just felt that they were making idiots of themselves and felt faintly amused but maybe I should have been more angry and affronted?

    I spent much of my teenage years having names shouted at me at school by other children and occasionally by teachers. It was the 1980s. Homophobia came as standard. I came out aged 15 at a comprehensive school in the Midlands. It was going to happen. Were you to ask me my nickname at school I would reply Poof or Gaylord. I always laugh it off (and tried to at the time) but it was actually not much fun at all and at times left me feeling vulnerable, despised and tearful. My parents also had a cache of anti-gay names they’d hurl at the TV when Boy George was on Top of the Pops or bandy about at the dinner table. That was never very comfortable either.

    Working in a shop in my teens, there was a regular customer who’d come in to try to shoplift. If I spotted him and got in his way he’d shout “Yo! Battyman!” I didn’t know the term and thought it was an affectionate nickname so would always wave back and smile.

    I still get a knee jerk reaction when I hear homophobic terms. They take me back and raise a tiny hackle or two. I’ve tried owning them and that works to an extent. Calling myself queer or poofter does have a strong disempowering effect on the words. My friends affectionately call me names too which is fine by me. Who can blame them if I call them myself or my friends too? I recently posted a photo of myself on a social networking site wearing a cravat (it was vintage chic, before you start getting funny about it). The comments generally followed the theme of “You are so GAY!” I’m not sure that’s an insult. Is there anything wrong with being gay? I am gay. It’s a fact. Maybe there’s something wrong with wearing a cravat, but it did match my blazer well and bought out my eyes.

    My pet hate currently is the use of the word “gay” to denote “crap”. It sends out a terrible message and is regressive in every way. I hate how people in the media have got away with using it too. I wince when I hear people on the bus calling things gay. I once asked an acquaintance who used the word in that context what she meant and she said by saying gay she meant “crap”. Goodness that made me feel warm inside. I avoid her now.

    Words do have a lot of power and the old saying is wrong. Names can hurt you just like sticks and stones but maybe in different ways. Look at the statistics of mental illness, suicide and drug and alcohol abuse in gay people and consider what it is makes us prone to these problems. It doesn’t take much thinking to see that the undercurrent of both explicit and implicit homophobia is a major culprit.

    I’m not 15 anymore. I can cope with name calling better than before. The thing is though, I’d really rather not cope with it at all.

    Chris Bridges is a regular writer for TheGayUK and also writes more of his observations on his blog: http://www.gayboyinterrupted.blogspot.co.uk/

  • COLUMN | Mr Nosey

    I have a very bad habit on public transport. I’m incurably nosy and I can’t help peeking over people’s shoulders at what they’re reading, watching or texting. It’s naughty, voyeuristic and an invasion of privacy but oh what a joy it can be.

    Whether it’s spotting the suited businessman who is secretly reading a romantic novel on his Kindle, the surprisingly sexual texts of a middle aged woman or the semi-pornographic and bizarre social media feeds of a teenager; I love the little glimpse it gives me into people’s lives. It’s a bit like the dusky late summer nights when you get a peek into people’s sitting rooms in the magical little hour when people light the lamps just before they draw their curtains. It’s a very guilty pleasure but I confess. I’m guilty as charged. I love to see and imagine what others’ lives are like. I’m not after spying on people naked or spotting people in coitus. I’d be pretty mortified if I did and blush the colour of a pillar-box whilst quickly looking away. I want to see nasty curtains and ornaments, not cocks.

    I got a couple of shocks recently. About a month ago I was on the train into central London and a well-groomed man of about 20 was answering a volley of texts on his phone. I cast a sneaky sideways glance and was pretty horrified to read that he was setting up being the all you can eat buffet for a group of Chinese businessmen in a hotel. The reassuring factor was that the person procuring his services appeared to have arranged it very carefully and was reassuring him that the businessmen would all wait in a separate room and take it turns, forming an orderly queue to make use of his body. I must admit to feeling a bit queasy but reproached myself for my bourgeois small mindedness. He was wearing McQueen (he needed income to maintain that look), looked relaxed and happy and who am I to have qualms about his job just because I wouldn’t do it myself. Although, an orderly queue? I love good manners. Maybe not such a horrific job after all, provided it was a good quality hotel.

    A few weeks ago I was travelling up North and my nosiness caused me a major dilemma. The middle-aged businessman man sitting in front of me was reviewing his selection of photographs on his phone.

    These weren’t happy snaps of his kids or shots of Instagrammed food: they were covert photos of young women’s crotches taken under train tables. After an hour of seeing him from between the seat backs enlarging, changing definitions and compulsively viewing a huge collection of photos of women’s thighs and gussets (all taken under train tables), I made my displeasure known through a series of huffs and tsks that made him stop for a good 5 minutes before resuming his compulsion.

    To cut a long story very short: I managed to make like a cross between Mary Whitehouse and Miss Marple and got his name and company address from his email signature when he sent an email on his laptop and reported him to the police. Being the person I am, I challenged him first and asked if I could take a picture of his cock or not; a question he seemed to object to which was something I found hypocritical in an inveterate vagina snapper.

    He, ultimately, got a police caution, which was great. My point in telling the story? I wonder am I any better than him? I invade privacy by reading texts, looking in people’s houses and I lecherously glance at men’s bulging crotches on public transport. Only yesterday, I couldn’t resist a good look at a muscled man in tight Lycra (he was definitely circumcised). I know people who post pictures of hot men in the street on Facebook for their friends’ to comment on.

    There are whole social media feeds of people’s photos of bare chested young men on Tube trains. It’s no wonder that we can get confused on what is right and wrong any more. Is my grandmother’s favourite 1950’s past time of passing on overheard bits of gossips over the garden fence any different in its intrusive and harmful voyeuristic joy? Is the digital age making us all into a bunch of twisted individuals?

    Maybe we should all think twice about what the boundaries are and what is harmless admiration and what is invasion of privacy. The questions and issues are endless. The big question: will I stop peeking at people’s I-Pads and phones? Of course not.

  • COLUMN | A Difficult Spot

    One thing that I looked forward to about ageing was the absence of spots. I imagined that there was a magical age, twenty-five perhaps, where my skin would clear up and I’d be totally blemish free. It was a false hope. I’m in my early forties and am sporting a ridiculous collection of pimples around my mouth.

    I managed to miss acne vulgaris. I was lucky enough not to suffer those rashes and colonies of ugly spots during my teenage years. What I got instead was the uber-zit. I’d grow these massive headless spots that would take root and stick around sending me running for the nearest chemist to peruse the chemical warfare agents that promised clearer skin. I had two giant spots on the end of my nose for so long during my late teens that I christened them (Bette and Joan if you must know: they were bickering mean spots).

    I scoured my skin with bright pink lotions that left me with a complexion like a flaky pastry sausage roll but the spots remained, red and shiny as ever. I applied medical concealer that was designed for the cast of TOWIE (i.e. bright orange). Having a bright orange, powdery pimple was clearly so much more discrete. I applied acidic lotions that burned and sizzled but seemed to feed the spots. I avoided grease and chocolate, ate fruit, drank water and squeezed/didn’t squeeze till I was blue (and still spotty) in the face.

    The advent of facial hair made things worse. The spots would come and go and were occasionally joined by their more vicious friends: the ingrowing hairs. The only delight with these is the sating of my love of picking and prodding. Hot flannels and savage attacks garner a lot o satisfaction.

    I’m less vain and self-conscious than in my youth and I have a more philosophical outlook to things. I tend to go with the phrase: It is what it is.

    I’ll sport my pimples with pride today. I don’t love my glue sniffer type rash but I can take it. It’ll go in time.

  • COLUMN | Football Is Crazy, Football Is Mad

    I’m sorry to be a gay stereotype but football bores me senseless.

    I’ve never seen more than a few minutes of any sports match and I don’t intend to change that now. For the duration of the World Cup I’ll be avoiding the TV and newspapers (it seems to have pervaded everything, even Google has football themed graphics). I’ll definitely be staying out of any pub that has a huge flag draped outside and a television the size of a standard door. I’ll be wincing at pound shop nylon flags draped on cars or people wearing face paints.

    My family weren’t sports viewers and we grew up without the presence of competitive sport anywhere in the house and with a healthy disinterest in people running round in rash inducing nylon. Surely there are more important things to put your competitive energy into like fighting for the right man, a good place to live or the killer job. I’ve sustained the disinterest and taken it to a slightly higher level (i.e. hatred of all sports). I just don’t get why people become such fanatical crazed monsters. My worst public transport nightmare isn’t the slurry drunk or the youth playing music and spitting. It’s the two men avidly discussing sport and becoming increasingly shouty and loud as their tempers and passions rise. I feel like I may as well be hearing a Martian language for all the sense it makes to me.

    I see the appeal of football for some gay men: men in skimpy shorts frolicking about on a field. That can be found elsewhere though. Why bother watching the game? Just take it to another level and search for one of the multitude of sport related porn flicks on the Internet. At least you don’t have to watch the dull bit and the action is more interesting than a few men kicking a ball to each other. If you’re unlucky the film will have a ‘plot’ a.k.a. a couple of South Londoners shouting across to each with lines they’re reading off a card whilst they ineptly kick a ball just before the shower scene when the fellatio starts.

    Last night I was kept awake till the early hours. I don’ t know what the result was but they were either happy/sad/angry/elated/disappointed. It seems to translate into the same way: drunken people shouting at 2am. I love that people have a passion but what the f**k? I get very excited by literary awards but you don’t catch me running down the High Street shouting about them in the small hours. It strikes me that sport lacks decorum at times.

    I can waffle on for hours about things I hate, like orange skinned W.A.G.s, bizarre hairstyles and hideous tattoos. I can bemoan overpaid dunderheads and managers in car coats. Let’s maybe just leave it that football is not my thing and I can choose to avoid it and will try really hard (except when I’m in the supermarket, looking at social media, in the street, at work, reading the news, on the train or anywhere out of the house at all when I can’t avoid it all as it’s being rammed down my throat). If you need me for the next month I’ll be in isolation with a pile of books and a pot of coffee or maybe partaking of my own particular sport: competitive complaining and griping.

  • COLUMN | Unhappy Birthday

    I did something sly and naughty this week. I kept a big secret. I wasn’t hanging around in a sauna in a skimpy towel, working my way through a selection of sex toys, snorting Crystal Meth or shoplifting. My secret was far worse: I was having a birthday, a secret birthday.

    I’m not ashamed at aging. I’m irritated by aging (thinning hair, ear hair, nostril hair and other hair related things) but not ashamed. I don’t mind being in my early 40s at all. I feel more comfortable in my skin and more assured of what I do and don’t want and am able to better articulate this.

    One thing I don’t want is to be made a fuss of. I can’t abide those silly office things where colleagues put a few quid into a pot and ritually buy each other a card with a silly slogan and a gift voucher for some shop you wouldn’t necessarily set foot in under usual circumstances. I’d rather get something useful like a packet of cigarettes or a tenner off my supermarket shopping. I hate all those inane Facebook messages and tweets from people you barely know that only know it’s your birthday because the site tells them so. I’m not keen on shelves full of cards that the combined cost of would buy me something useful (e.g. cigarettes). They seem a bit of a waste of money to me.

    I’m pretty rubbish at pretending. I can’t do faces of delight when offered a present I don’t want. I’m actually pretty impossible to buy presents for. Who’d want their clothes or household items chosen for them? Not me, for sure. From the age of about 5 I was quite determined to choose my own attire and soft furnishings. The usual suspects are out: booze and chocolates (drink issues and migraines rule those out). That leaves books, DVDs or music which are surely impossible things to buy for someone unless you actually inhabit their head and police their taste and monitor what they’ve already read, seen, own or have listened to.

    I do like cake. Cake is good. I just can’t be bothered with all that embarrassing attention that goes with it. I nonchalantly spent the day at work and almost forgot it was my birthday, pulled up occasionally when I typed the date. It was perfect. My partner insisted on taking me out for a meal, which was sweet and a friend made a cake for me. We quietly consumed it whilst watching T.V.

    I’m not totally miserable but just know what I like. Being older is great. Being able to choose to do or not do something is better than anything.

  • COLUMN | Dying to talk

    I’m afraid that I’ve got some really bad news for you. I’m not usually so blunt but there’s something that I need to tell you. You’re going to die one day. Sorry about that. I know it’s not palatable but it’s going to happen. No one has, as yet, escaped the inevitable. It’s an uncomfortable fact for most of us and one which we, generally, try to avoid thinking about.

    The organisation Dying Matters has been promoting talking about death, forward planning and trying to break down taboos surrounding death. Their recent survey findings are fascinating. Only a third of people have made a will, half of people don’t know what their partner’s funeral wishes are and over 70% of people haven’t given any though to what would happen to their on-line legacy. Future care planning is important too. How can medical professionals decide what treatment to give us if we haven’t made our wishes clearly known about what kind of treatments we’d like to have carried out?

    There are a whole host of additional issues that can present themselves for LGBT people. If you’re in a relationship, is your partner the person nominated to be your next of kin, your advocate or your beneficiary? There are whole hosts of horror stories about bereaved partners who are left homeless, cut out of funeral plans and denied the place they should be entitled to in the pecking order of mourners by resentful and bigoted families. I certainly wouldn’t want that to happen to mine or anyone else’s partner.

    The digital legacy frightens me. I hate the idea that my social media accounts would linger on with mawkish pictures of sad kittens and inept tributes after my death. That’s not my style at all. It may suit some people but isn’t for me. My partner has strict instructions to close the accounts down the minute I croak. He just has to look in the bureau and find the folder marked “Death” to find the will, passwords, explicit instructions and funeral plans. Maybe I’m an extreme example of a control freak but is that so bad?

    Naturally, LGBT people have their own special issues. No one wants a Grindr account loitering in the ether with their preference for ‘hard tops’, after they’ve been hit by a car. What about your collection of European twink porn? Is that something you want your mum to have to sort out for the charity shop along with your barely worn Aussie Bums? Does anyone know which Britney song you want at the funeral and which ex shags you definitely don’t want there?

    Flippancy aside, it’s something that’s worth thinking about. Anyone who’s had an unmarried or non-civil partner-shipped relative or friend die intestate will tell you just how much easier it would have been to sort the post mortem affairs out with a sturdy will in place. Anyone left with a dying relative or friend who has had no idea about what their care or funeral wishes are will tell you how hateful and hard that can be.

    It’s definitely worth checking out the Dying Matters website. It’s not as bleak or painful to read, as you’d think and it’s bloody important. Seriously.

    Read more here: http://dyingmatters.org/