Wimbledon Men's Singles Final...

Stuart very kindly bought me two tickets to go to Wimbledon Men's Final Day last Sunday. Centre Court no less. And brilliant court-side seats (Block 101, row D). Just perfect.

As Stu himself doesn't really like the tennis I took Mark (who's a big fan). We had a smashing (sic) time; the sun was shining, we had a picnic on the lawn and the tennis was excellent.

Gross Indecency...

On Saturday night Stu, me, Paul, Andy & Tim, Andy, Andrew & Tim, Darren & Mark all went to Duckie's annual anti-Pride shindig. This year it was called Gross Indecency and was held at Camden Centre next to Camden's Town Hall in the Euston Road.

We had a great time - 1960s music, a secret password to get in, a police raid...



Snaps below and more here.

Hair...

The first proper date Stu and I went on was to see a revival of the 1967 hippy musical Hair at the Gate Theatre in 2005. Twelve years earlier than that coincidentally we'd both seen the same 1993 production at The Old Vic starring Sinitta and John Barrowman. Four months ago we even went to the opening night of the new production at The Gieldgud in London's glitzy West End.

We are obviously both big fans.

So it was with more than little joy that we went to the The Gieldgud last night to see the original New York cast (with one or two changes - such as a now obviously British Claude) do their stuff again.

Hair is undoubtabably a great musical. A rock musical no less. The first of its kind. It explores dramatic themes throughout, most of which are displayed right there on stage; swearing, drug use, overt sexuality, anti-war, anti-racism and nudity. What's not to like?

The songs are great too; Aquarius, Donna, Sodomy, Ain't Got No, Hair, Be-In (Hare Krishna), Good Morning Starshine and of course the seminal Let the Sun Shine In.

This production really does the material justice. It is active, energetic and enthusiastic. Simply staged it allows the great singing to come to the fore. Last night the audience were involved from start to finish being encouraged to join in as the action on the stage bled into the auitorium. Climbing over the seating the cast sang, danced, handed out posters and passed round flowers. By the finale the audience were so involved they flooded onto the stage to join in the fun. Naturally we just had to join them.

I think we might be going again before it closes early Sept.

More snaps here.

Mock The Week...

On Tuesday Andy, RVT David and I went to see a recording of BBC quiz show Mock the Week at the BBC Television Centre. The show starred Dara O'Briain and regulars Hugh Dennis, Russell Howard and Andy Parsons with guests Chris Addison, Ed Byrne and Micky Flanagan. Sadly Ben wasn't doing the warm-up that night.

On the way in we got a chance to take some snaps of a replica TARDIS. It would be churlish to say that this was the best part of the night - because the show was very funny. It's just the recording goes on for so looong. Nearly three hours.

The show is being broadcast tonight on BBC2 at 10pm.

Blondie at Kenwood...

Last Saturday night Paul, Simon, Tim, Andy, Stu and I went to watch Blondie perform an open-air concert at the picnic event at Kenwood House.

It was a lovely hot summer's day, the Carluccio's picnics were gorgeous and we had quite a good view from our premiem deckchairs.





The support act was Little Fish. Ok I guess.

Finally Debbie Harry and the boys came on stage - DH with her trademark blonde hair, diamanté studded sunglasses and more than enough attitude to belies her 64 years.

It was great show. They sang, we sang. They danced, we danced. They sang some more.

The set-list - as far as I can remember it - was:

D-Day
Hanging on the Telephone
The Hardest Part
Love Doesn't Frighten Me At All
Two Times Blue
The End, The End
Fade Away and Radiate
Picure This
Maria
What I Heard
Orchid Club
Atomic
Mother In The Night
The Tide is High
Uprising (a Muse cover)
Call Me
You're Too Hot
Rapture (a rather extended version)
No Exit
One Way Or Another
(Encore)
Break Your Heart (a Taio Cruz cover)
Heart Of Glass
Don't Stop Till You Get Enough (a Michael Jackson cover)

More pix here.

Is Apple's iPhone4 homophobic?...

"Three Canadian scientists have published a study which found some connection between left-handedness and homosexuality" and "The problem is thought to be particularly acute for left-handed owners who naturally touch the phone in the sensitive area".

Bison...

On Friday night Darren and I went to see Bison at the Oval House Theatre. It was excellent. A painfully funny and painfully true exploration of gay life in the noughties.

They was no narrative as such - just a series of character studies and sketches about four gay men. Jason (Matthew Cavan) is a young gayer learning how the gay scene works. Tom (Jonny McMillen-Patterson) is a little bit older than Jason and a little bit wiser too. He is on a journey - quite literally - discovering all that the world has to offer. Simon (Christopher Sutton) is a bit older than Tom. He goes to the max, does everything to the extreme, particularly when it comes to sex (think fisting, blood and barebacking). Finally we have Richard (Miche Doherty) who is just plain old and really rather disillusioned. The four of them are linked only by their sexuality, each one at a different stage in life, and each facing their own worries and problems.

Tosca...

Last night Paul and I went to the London Colosseum in London's glitzy West End to see the English National Opera's production of Pucinni's Tosca.

Set in 1800 and against a backdrop of war the story takes us through an emotional journey of love, jealousy, deceit, lust, betrayal, revenge, murder, execution and suicide.

It was well sung, well acted and brilliantly staged.

Special mention of course goes to our heroine Tosca (Amanda Echalaz), her lover Mario (Julian Gavin) and the villain of the piece - the evil Scarpia (Anthony Michaels-Moore).

We had good seats too - access all arias.

Wolfgang Tillmans...

Wolfgang Tillmans has a new exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery which opens this week.

Here are two of my favourite photographs of his:

Dan (left) and Shiny Shorts (right)

Country Manor...

RIP Mr Tibbles...

Dear Mr Schrödinger,

Please excuse the open letter but we have been trying to contact you for some time. We are both pleased/sorry to inform you that Mr Tibbles is both fine/no longer with us. Please call if/when you get this message and come and observe him. Hopefully you'll be able to collapse him to a definite state.

Yours, Boots the Alchemist (Vet).

Richard Dawkins at TED...

From 2002 Richard Dawkins urges all atheists to openly state their position - and to fight the incursion of the church into politics and science. A fiery, funny, powerful talk.

London Map (By Hand)...

Awesome, hand-drawn, zoomable map of London. Instead of buildings, this guy has put in interesting facts about every neighbourhood and the level of detail is amazing.
http://www.bl.uk/magnificentmaps/map4.html

Hot Chip - 'I Feel Better'...

Peter Serafinowicz's video is good until 0:50. Then it gets amazing. Until 3:07. Then it gets epic. You'll need to click through to watch it on YouTube.

All In Good Time...

"Working in Llandough Hospital, just outside Cardiff. We had our fair share of Jeremy Kyle rejects, and... they breed. The hero of this story is a Senior Registrar in Obs/Gynae. He had just delivered to this world a new future car thief, when the male provider of half of the DNA says "Oi Doc, when can I 'ave sex wiv 'er again?" Our hero, without dropping a beat, says, "Well, a Gentleman would wait until the placenta is delivered."

I Read It In The Daily Mail...

Macbeth...

Last Saturday Andy, Kev, Ian, Stu and I went to Shakespeare's Globe on London's glitzy Bankside to see Macbeth.

It was a great production bringing the Scottish play vividly to life. Almost too vividly at times. On the way into the auditorium was a sign, "Please note that this is a gruesome production of a brutal play".

And they certainly got that right. The front part of The Yard had to put their heads up through holes in a black tarpaulin sheeting that stretched out (five metres?) into the audience. This was partly to extend the stage, partly to great a layer under which performers could move about / pop up with dramatic effect and partly to keep the punters clothes dry from all the piss (water), blood (fake) and flying severed body parts (latex) hurled front of house.

The performance itself was good - solidly acted and suitably staged. The famous speeches were all perfectly well delivered, of course, although one issue with the source material is the rather lengthy detailing of the battles.

We really enjoyed it though. And for five quid you can't really go wrong. Mind you, standing up for three hours goes take it's toll on the legs.

City of the Daleks...

Have you ever wanted to take on the Cybermen or Daleks? This is your chance to play as the Doctor for the very first time, but don't worry, Amy's coming too. Travel across time and space in these brand new online adventures - available free in the UK, only on this site. Can you do battle with the Daleks, survive Skaro and save the Earth? The first adventure, City of the Daleks, is ready to download and play now.

The Adventure Games are a series of downloadable games available for free in the UK. Each game will be around 330MB to download. That will take around 10-20 minutes to download depending upon the speed of your internet connection. You'll need about 2GB of space to install the games which will run on Windows PC and Macs.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/dw/theadventuregames

Google Goooooal!...

If you search for "world cup" in Google you get some tweaked results. Including a new result icon.

Marc Almond @ Jazz Cafe...

Last night Darren, Mark, Paul, Simon, Mark, Patrick and I went to see Marc Almond perform at Camden's glitzy Jazz Cafe as part of the Mojo Honours List gigs.

The show was also partly to promote his recent album Varieté‎ - a largely self-composed collection of cabaret sleaze numbers much like those found on his mid-80s albums.

And what a show it was! Marc was uplifting, exciting and just plain happy to be there. He was full of energy - dancing around, jumping on the piano, singing his heart out and probably enjoying himself as much as we were watching him.

He rattled through a suitably diverse, but all too brief, seventy-five minute set and I just couldn't stop smiling and laughing at each fresh interpretation of each song. Smiling, laughing and dancing.

I think that without doubt it was one of the best Marc shows I have ever seen.

The set list was (as far as I can remember):
Intro
Tears Run Rings
Open All Night
Nijinsky Heart
The Exhibitionist
Trials Of Eyeliner
Bread And Circus
Cabaret Clown
Variety
Jacky
Brilliant Creatures
Sleaze / Take a Walk On The Wild Side
Black Kiss
Joey Demento
Tainted Love
Bedsitter
Run With The Devil

The last song Run Like The Devil by Kenny Roberts (thanks for the heads up on that Darren) and after he finished perfroming it Marc joked that his next album might be "an album of obscure Northern Soul classics". Let's hope so!

I'm with Peter: "So I'm dead chuffed that I chose to go to this rather than the HMV signing on Monday. The whole show was just very uplifting and exciting."

Roll on Bexhill-On-Sea.

come, been and gone...

Last night Darren and I went to see Michael Clark's come, been and gone show at the Barbican Theatre.

Primarily using the music of David Bowie come, been and gone also embraces the work of Bowie's key collaborators: Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Brian Eno and touches on some of his influences; The Velvet Underground, Kraftwerk and Nina Simone.

And wow, what show. It was fabulous. Sexy dancers, great staging, great lighting (no really) and an indecipherable plot. Perfect.

The evening started off with Clark's 1986 piece Swamp - which was the best thing of the night by far. Growling, growing and dramatic it swamped the senses with sound, light and rhythm.

The three pieces 'been', 'come' and 'come again' were less successful although nothing less than outstanding - the last section which used David Bowie's Aladdin Sane and The Jean Genie perhaps working the best.

If you like contemporary dance - this is the show for you.

Hampstead Heath Pool Picnic...

The Footage They Tried To Ban...

The footage the BBC tried to ban: "These have been dramatic and turbulent weeks for the Conservative Party and their dedication to making people's lives absolutely fucking shit."

Star Trek Communicators…

Back in the 1960s these were considered the things of science fiction. I guess we have them now.

I wonder whether the iPhone 4 will look like this when it's launched later today?

Man 2 Man Meets Man Parrish - Male Stripper...

Hi NRG...

I love Hi-NRG music and these are some of my favourite songs:

Hit And Run Lover - Carol Jiani
So Many Men, So Little Time - Miquel Brown
Where Is My Man? - Eartha Kitt
Male Stripper - Man 2 Man meets Man Parrish
High Energy - Evelyn Thomas
Searching (I Got to Find a Man) - Hazell Dean
I like Plastic - Marsha Raven
I Love Men - Eartha Kitt
If You Could Read My Mind - Viola Wills
Love's Gone Mad - Seventh Avenue
I Like You - Phyllis Nelson
Two of Hearts [European Mix] - Stacey Q
One Night Only - Scherrie Payne
Whisper to a Scream - Bobby Orlando (Bobby O)
Savin' Myself - Eria Fachin
Born to Be Alive - Patrick Hernandez
Can't Take My Eyes off of You - Boys Town Gang
Unexpected Lovers - Lime
Voyage, Voyage - Desireless
Voyage - East To West
I'm Living My Own Life - Earlene Bentley
Masquerade - Evelyn Thomas
Love's Gone Mad - Seventh Avenue

Oh and let's not forget...
Love Eviction - Quartzlock
Weekend - Class Action
Break 4 Love - Raze

Joao's BBQ...

 

Kim Peek...

Kim Peek, who died on 19th December 2009 aged 58, was the model for the autistic character Raymond Babbitt in the 1988 film Rain Man, starring Dustin Hoffman.

Hoffman's portrayal of a middle-aged savant's complex interaction with the world through astonishing mental facilities and childlike emotions earned him an Oscar for best actor. But it was Peek, who suffered from Agenesis of Corpus Callosum (a condition similar to autism), whom Hoffman and Barry Morrow – Rain Man's writer, who also won an Oscar – acknowledged as the inspiration behind the performance.

When Hoffman thanked Peek in his Oscar acceptance speech, media interest in Peek's highly unusual abilities was immediate. This prompted Kim and his father, Fran, an advertising executive, to embark on a series of speaking tours throughout America, spreading awareness and acceptance of the "different" and the disabled. The public exposure, in turn, led to pioneering scientific research.

Kim Peek was born on 11th November 1951 in Salt Lake City, Utah – both his parents were Mormons. Despite his mother's uneventful pregnancy, Kim's head was 30 per cent larger than normal at birth. He was a sluggish baby who cried frequently, and doctors soon discovered that he had a blister inside his skull that had damaged the left hemisphere of his brain, which controls language and motor skills. By the time he was nine months old he was expected to be mentally impaired for life. His parents were advised to place him in an institution, but they dismissed the idea, deciding to bring him up normally alongside their other son and daughter.

They were soon astounded by his progress. At the age of 16 months Kim taught himself to read children's books. When he was three he consulted a dictionary to clarify the meaning of the word "confidential"; it was then that his parents realised that he could also read newspapers. Yet for all his brilliance, his oversized head required physical support because of its weight; and, unusually, he was unable to walk until he was four.
When Kim was six, a visit to Utah by the renowned brain surgeon Peter Lindstrom resulted in his being offered a lobotomy. His parents declined, and Kim went on to memorise the entire Bible before his seventh birthday. At this point he was sent to a local school, but was expelled on his first day for being disruptive. The lack of provision in America in the 1950s for special needs children meant that his father had to have him tutored at home by a series of retired teachers. By the time he was 14, Kim had completed the high school curriculum, though the local authorities would not recognise the achievement and refused to award him a certificate.

Before the release of Rain Man – by which time he was 37 – Peek had an insular existence, knowing only about 20 people. Unable to describe his condition, or to dress himself, cook, shave or brush his teeth without help, he was looked after by his mother, Jeanne, until 1981, when his parents divorced. Thereafter his father provided the supervision he required. At 18 he had been given a job working in the accounts department of a community centre. Spare time was devoted to absorbing literature. He read and immediately memorised thousands of texts, including the complete works of Shakespeare and every story in every volume of the condensed Reader's Digest books.

He used telephone directories for exercises in mental arithmetic, adding each column of seven-digit numbers together in his head until he reached figures in the trillions. On a rare excursion away from home in 1984, he attended the national conference of the Association of Retarded Citizens in Arlington, Texas, and it was there that he was "discovered" by Barry Morrow. After spending four hours with Peek, the screenwriter approached Fran Peek, asking him if he realised that his son knew every postcode, area code, and road number in every state across America. He urged Fran to share his son with the world.

Not wishing Kim to become part of a freak show, Fran ignored the request. Two years later, however, Morrow contacted him to explain that a film studio had just bought a script he had written. The story of a selfish yuppie who discovers that an autistic brother he never knew existed has inherited their father's fortune outright, Rain Man put Dustin Hoffman's acting skills to the test in the lead role. To prepare for it he spent time with three autism sufferers, including six hours in the company of Peek. It was Peek's rapid monotone, rocking motions, ability to count cards and childlike emotions that Hoffman copied for the part. The resemblances between Peek and Raymond Babbitt ended there, however, for Peek was many times more complex and prodigious than his fictional alter ego, despite having the mental reasoning of a child of five. A scene in the film in which Raymond is taken to a casino and beats the house with his astounding skills in mental arithmetic never took place – despite the best efforts of Morrow, who asked Peek to read a book about gambling before taking him to a casino to try the experiment. Peek refused to enter the casino, saying he thought it unethical. The success of the film had some beneficial effects on Peek's life. He made many friends, and was awarded the high school certificate he had been denied more than 20 years earlier.

Neuroscientists who conducted tests discovered that he had no corpus callosum, the membrane that separates the two hemispheres of the brain and filters information. This meant that Peek's brain was effectively the equivalent of a giant databank, giving him his photographic memory. He was also the only savant known to science who could read two pages of a book simultaneously – one with each eye, regardless of whether it was upside down or sideways on. His ability to retain 98 per cent of the information he absorbed led to his designation "mega-savant"'.

After the release of Rain Man Peek and his father embarked on a series of public lecture tours, informing students, prisoners, pensioners and politicians of the need to treat all people equally. "Learning to recognise and to respect differences in others and treating them like you want them to treat you will bring the joy we all hope for", read the card that was handed out at each talk. Fran Peek estimated that his son addressed more than two million people.

Wishing to avoid accusations that he was taking advantage of his son's condition, Fran Peek never accepted money for these engagements. The talks were also a chance for Kim to demonstrate his extraordinary memory, including his faultless knowledge of the calendar stretching back 2,000 years.

The five universities which studied him in his adult life decided that he was a genius in at least 15 subjects, including music, geography, history and mathematics. Most savants reach a similar level in one or two subjects. Even more remarkably, doctors found that his powers increased as he aged. In 2004 a Californian hospital which works closely with Nasa persuaded Peek to undergo brain scans in the hope that a detailed map of his mind might allow them to understand more about many disorders, among them vertigo and motion sickness. By tracking the electrical impulses of Peek's brain, they were hoping to discover how people adapt to forces such as acceleration and gravity.

In 1996 Fran Peek published a book about his son, The Real Rain Man: Kim Peek. Never having any romantic inclinations, Kim Peek did not marry and had no children. His favourite possession was the Oscar which Morrow won for writing the Best Screenplay at the 1989 Oscars. Morrow gave it to Peek, who took it with him whenever he travelled. Kim Peek died of a heart attack. His father survives him.

Canadian Alexandre Despatie...

Canadian Alexandre Despatie performs a dive off of the 10-meter platform at the 2004 Athens Olympics.

First They Came...

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak out for me.
[Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984)]

My Two Dads...

"Last year mom and dad divorced. Dad now lives with his friend Frank." If you've never read one of these 'homosexuality is a fact of life' kids' books, that The Daily Mail gets ever-so excited about, now is your chance. Not sure why's it's entitled bizarre but nice little book.
http://www.sadanduseless.com/2010/03/bizarre-childrens-book-about-homosexuality/

Museum Of London...

There is a fab new app for the iPhone called Streetmuseum from the Museum Of London. It imagines you strolling through 19th Century London today and can superimpose images on what you see through the iPhone camera.

Old Spice...

Dammit, gotta get me some Old Spice.

How to Store & Organise Cats...

Lost Finale...

You know, there are two types of Lost fans: "journey" fans, and "destination" fans.

The former are those who enjoyed the characters and the act of discovering with them, who appreciated the development of each person we met on the island and their growth as human beings, and who viewed each episode as an experience and a thread in a large, sometimes flawed, usually beautiful tapestry.

The latter are those who merely tolerated the character arcs, who slogged through episodes for no other reason than to learn "the answers" to every question, who maintained a mental tally of every mystery posed by the series and kept score on which ones were fully resolved to their satisfaction and which weren't, and used that as a numerical basis on which to score the show.

I fully expect that the latter group is furious right now. I, as a "journey" fan, loved the finale.

Nike Ad for World Cup...

Road Safety...

The best road safety ad I've ever seen. Beautiful.

Canary...

"Women and gay people are the litmus test of whether a society is democratic and respecting human rights. We are the canaries in the mine."

Last night Darren, Stu and I went to see Jonathan Harvey's Canary at the Hampstead Theatre in glitzy Swiss Cottage.

It was a moving, funny, uplifting and often magical story about gay love, honesty, dishonesty and being brave enough to sing out at the top of your voice. The play spans almost 50 years, taking in the miners' strike, Aids and the legacy of suppressed secrets and lies in a family over two generations. Along the way we come across a primetime TV host, Queen Isabella, Eleanor Rigby, an 'aversion therary' doctor, Mary Whitehouse and those afore mentioned striking miners.

Still in previews the play is at times a little uneven - the first half perhaps being a tad over long - but the second picks up the pace wonderfully.

Highlight: the gay 'zap' of the Festival Of Light meeting.

Not quite Beautiful Thing but worth a night out.

The Habit Of Art...

Last night Stu and I went to see Alan Bennett's The Habit Of Art at Lyttelton Theatre on London's glitzy South Bank.

Starring Richard Griffiths and Alex Jennings the play centres on a fictional meeting between WH Auden and Benjamin Britten. The former is peeing into his washbasin, waiting for a rent boy to arrive in his college rooms and is stuck over his stanzas. The latter is sailing uncomfortably close to the wind with his new opera, Death In Venice.

The play is a play within a play. Auden and Britten, along with their biographer Humphrey Carpenter, are depicted as characters in a play called "Caliban's Day". We see a rehearsal of this play, so Griffiths and Jennings are in fact playing the actors playing Auden and Britten as well as Auden and Britten themselves. The piece is full of ideas, some filthy laughs and great performances. We pretty much laughed throughout. But it is also deeply and unexpectedly moving.

"In the end," said Auden, "art is small beer. The really serious things in life are earning one’s living and loving one’s neighbour."

A Midsummer Night's Dream...

Last Friday Andy, Kev, Ian, Stu and I went to Shakespeare's Globe on London's glitzy Bankside to see the touring production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

The play features three interlocking plots, connected by a celebration of the wedding of Duke Theseus of Athens and the Amazonian queen, Hippolyta, and set simultaneously in the woodland, and in the realm of Fairyland, under the light of the moon.

It was a very high spirited production; teleporting us to the era of the 1920s Bright Young Things it told the familiar story of love, confusion and mirth. In it we see the lovers Lysander, Hermia, Helena, Demetrius, the Fairies Oberon, Titania and Puck, and of course the workmen Snout, Snug and Bottom all suffer unwanted amorous attentions and mistake each others identities with hilarious consequences. As the Bard puts it in Act I Scene I, "The course of true love never did run smooth."

The performance itself was sexy, slick and funny - as you might expect from such a talented cast. A cast that was small - numbering just eight - but perfectly formed. With so many parts played by so few it might have been hard to follow but it was only on one occasion that the confusion of the characters on stage translated into any real confusion in the audience as to who was who.

If you've not been to Shakespeare's Globe before. Go. It's only £5 to stand in the yard and the shows are excellent.

John Barrowman...

Holding The Man...

On Saturday night Chris, Christopher, Darren, Tim, Andy, Dean, Stu, myself and the rest of the gang went to see Holding The Man at the Trafalgar Studios in London's glitzy West End.

Timothy Conigrave's posthumously published memoir (on which Tommy Murphy's; Holding the Man is based) is highly regarded in Australia. The title derives from Australian Rules Football – “holding the man” is an offence that concedes a penalty. One of the characters in Murphy’s drama plays football, but his use of the phrase is, of course, more complex: it’s both literal and metaphorical. When Tim first makes a move to hold John, his classmate in a Catholic school in 1970s Australia, he initiates a love affair that will last, on and off, for the rest of their lives – and cost them both very dear. By 1994, both will have died from Aids – Tim tormented by the thought that his infidelities might have exposed John to HIV.

The staging of the play was basic but functional and served well. Four of the six-strong cast (including Kath and Kim's Jane Turner) performed impressive quick-change routines in the fast-moving production. The stars of the piece were undoubtedly the two leads though - Tim (Guy Edmonds) and particularly John (Matt Zeremes). They took us on a very funny (both 'peculiar' and 'ha-ha') journey from school-camp circle-jerk to a cringy Gay Soc meeting and a gruesome bar where the stylised conversation raises quite a knowing laugh; "Tee hee, ha ha, Babs, Judy, vagina, Rock Hudson, dizzy bitch, fist."

From this laugh out loud puppy love element in the first act Tim and John's relationship evolves, altering and faltering through separation and reunion. The play deepens just as they do, before the second act brings them face to face with HIV and eventually Aids. Moving though this development is, sadly it threatens to feel a bit dated to my tired old eyes - we had many an Aids deathbed drama in the late eighties and early nineties, from Larry Kramer’s ground-breaking The Normal Heart and Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, to William Finn’s wonderful one-act musical Falsettoland.

On a more positive note (pun intended), if a younger crowd do come to see the play this will be a welcome education to the scourge of Aids in the 1980s and 1990s. And nothing would bring this home better than the deep contrast between the funny first half and the bitingly emotional climax of the second half.

Come and see it. Better still bring your younger gay friends too.

Rugby Player Nick Youngquest...

Straight stable mate of Gareth Thomas at Crusaders RL is the lovely rugby player Nick Youngquest. Here is a photoshoot he did.

T-Shirt War...

A very funny little video of a T-Shirt war.

And I, For One, Welcome Our New Tory Insect Overlords...

"Ladies and gentlemen, uh, we've just lost the picture, but what we've seen speaks for itself. The Corvair spacecraft has apparently been taken over- 'conquered' if you will- by a master race of giant Tory space ants. It's difficult to tell from this vantage point whether they will consume the captive Earthman or merely enslave them. One thing is for certain: there is no stopping them; the ants will soon be here. And I, for one, welcome our new Tory insect overlords. I'd like to remind them as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves." -- Kent Brockman

No HPH...

Julie Andrews: The Gift Of Music...

Stu, Faye, Andy and I went to see Julie Andrews at the O2 Arena last Saturday in her show The Gift Of Music. Boy, what a let down.

She barely sang all night. She had warned, “I don’t sing the way I used to, so I’m doing everything I can to put the word out that they shouldn’t expect that.” Well, Julie m'darlin' you didn't put the word out enough.

Her first time on the London stage in 30 years, she entered to a standing ovation with The Sound Of Music being screened in the background. Our hopes were high but we should have cottoned on that she wasn't actually singing as she came on stage. And things got worse.

In the first half she was joined on stage by the five beaming vocalists who performed hit songs from Rogers and Hammerstein musicals as Dame Julie mainly just looked on. Dame Julie completed only a handful of numbers on her own, disappeared from the stage for large chunks of the show, and the whole of the second half consisted of her reading aloud from a children's book she co-wrote with her daughter - the dreary Simeon's Gift. We sniggered throughout.

Twelve years ago it was feared Dame Julie would never sing again. She had entered hospital in June 1997 for the removal of a non-cancerous polyp on her vocal chords, but what should have been a simple surgical procedure went dreadfully awry and robbed her of her perfectly pitched singing voice. Devastated and trying to cope with the fact that her four-octave singing voice was destroyed, she underwent grief therapy at Sierra Tucson, an Arizona rehabilitation clinic noted for treating celebrity clients. Since then, with the support of her husband Blake Edwards and her family, and helped by a malpractice lawsuit she filed against the surgeons that was settled in 2000 for an estimated £20 million, she has come to terms with her loss and developed a new singing style. “I hope I’ll have a few surprises up my sleeve for the concert, but basically I have about five good bass notes and I can work my way around them pretty well,” she said. “I also employ that Rex Harrison sing-speak kind of voice. I narrate a lot, I tell tales, I show a great deal of footage, and I’ll be with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and will be helped by five Broadway entertainers.”

So there we have it. A rather pointless show which produced a rather disaffected audience - many of whom walked out in disgust. Oh, did I mention it was £106 a ticket? Shameful.

(See Debbie Reynolds for how to put on a great show if you're voice isn't quite what it was.)

Debbie Reynolds: Alive and Fabulous...

To kick off our anniversary week Stu and I went to see Debbie Reynolds in her Alive and Fabulous show at the Apollo Theatre in London's glitzy West End.

I've not laughed at the theatre so much for ages. She was very, very funny.

The show consisted of a mix of anecdotes, chatting to the audience, showing us film clips and singing. OK, her voice perhaps wasn't quite what it was but she is seventy-eight. Here are some of the things I remember from the show:-

"Thank you for coming. No one here is under fifty. Not unless someone over fifty bought you. Anyway, it was nice of you to come and see me before I die."

"I was born Mary." (Whoops from man in audience). "Oh, are you a Mary too, dear."

"I won a beauty competition at sixteen - I wanted to win the first prize; a scarf and a blouse. I ended up getting a contract at Warner Brothers."

"My first husband Eddie Fisher left me for Liz Taylor - she being three months older than me. I warned him that she'd dump him after fifteen months - and she did!"

"I'm Princess Leia's mother - that makes me a Queen... (eyes front row)... are you all Queens too?"

She showed many film clips such as 'Singing' in the Rain' and 'The Unsinkable Molly Brown' and sang along to all of the songs.

She told a dirty joke: A woman was at a party and said, "If any one can guess what's in my hand they can sleep with me". A man calls out, "an elephant?" The woman says, "close enough!"

She did a lovely 1940s melody and even did a rap to Three Little Fishes and did a bit of Beyoncé's Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It). Stu almost wet himself laughing.

"How do I look from up there?", she asked the balcony. "From down here (pointing to the front row again) I look like Lady Gaga."

She did some spot-on impressions too; Mae West, Jimmy Steward, Ethel Merman, Katharine Hepburn and Bette Davis among others and regaling each with stories from her days in Hollywood. Nice to have someone take the piss who actually knew the originals.

"Judy Garland and I were great friends. I'd put Carrie and Todd to bed and she'd put Liza, Lorna and Joey to bed and I'd go over to Judy's house for a drink. Then we'd wake Liza up and give her some!"

Her impression of Barbara Streisand was something to behold though. She looked, sounded and joked just like her. And it was very, very funny.

All in all Debbie Reynolds is a non-stop all-round old-school entertainer. Real show-biz, with all the razzmatazz of Hollywood. She obviously never wants to leave the stage. Always wanting to be in the spot-light. But it's a spot-light that casts a very long shadow. And I can't imagine how tough it must be having to walk in that shadow all your life (yes, I looking at you Carrie Fisher).

Four Years...

Happy Anniversary to my handsome, funny, sexy better half Stuart - it's been so great to find in you that one special person... to annoy for the rest of my life.

Vote Early! Vote Often!...

Agree/Disagree Crazy/Sensible Graph...

On a graph with the x-axis of agree/disagree and y-axis of crazy/sensible I'd say David Cameron would be in the upper right quartile. Gordon Brown would be in the upper left quartile. And Nick Clegg would making the tea.

Donny and Marie (and Kris) Murder Star Wars...

Cesc Fabregas...

Queen's Day...

We had a lovely long weekend in Amsterdam with Gary, Nau, Tim, Andy, Michael and Andrew. Shame I fell ill on the second day and missed some of the festivities though.