Return to Innocence

Liam and I share a small office in our equally small cottage and, while we toil (in the loosest sense of the word) to keep the bailiffs at bay, we listen to the radio. One particular morning, a song on the morning show sent me hurtling down memory lane, like music often does.

In the summer of 1993, I split from Mike, my partner of 11 years. I was 32. It was the right thing to do, the right time for us both to move on. It was also a time when AIDS was firing on all cylinders. One of the many things that I shall always be grateful to Mike for is saving me from toppling off my barstool during those dark, deadly days. Those 11 years protected me – and him too, I suppose.

What was a newly liberated gay boy with lead in his pencil to do? Roll out his stall again, of course, hoping to attract willing and eager punters to sample his wares. And where’s the best pitch? Amsterdam. So off I sailed with a case full of condoms and a heart full of optimism. I had a ball. And so did some of the likely lads I met on my journey – I hope.

Amsterdam – the Homomonument, Then and in 2023

And one cruisy afternoon of my dirty weekend in a saucy part of town, in an even saucier bar, what song was playing in the background when I ordered my first drink? Yes, you guessed it; the very same track I heard on our office radio. And what was it? ‘Return to Innocence’ by Enigma. Oh, the irony. Great days!

Cue the video…

Aegina Again

The main event on Aegina was recuperation and recharge. Once again, we stayed at the Bamboo Cottage in the lush and leafy grounds of the gorgeous Rastoni Hotel. Our cool and comfy terrace provided the perfect plot for reading, napping and gassing, dealing cards and enjoying a few trips around the Scrabble board, all washed down with cheap and cheerful local plonk. I beat Liam at seven-card gin rummy; he thrashed me at the wordy game. I suspect he cheated by swapping tiles while I was retrieving the wine from the fridge to refresh our glasses. He denied it, of course.

Early evenings were spent wandering around town poking our noses down alleys and browsing for tourist tat. Good-looking Aegina Town is stuffed with handsome pastel-painted neo-classical buildings and pretty churches. Occasionally, though, we’d stumble upon a tumbledown wreck in dire need of some TLC. Liam loves a doer-upper. It sets his pulse racing with ‘what ifs’.

All too soon it was over and it was back to Athens for one final night in the vibrant and captivating city of wisdom. It’s also the city of graffiti. Pretty much everything is tagged. After a while, you just stop noticing. And alongside the fancy bits, some of the buildings are a bit knackered. But we loved it anyway.

We shall return.

Greece Street

Following a couple of sweaty days in frenetic Athens, we caught the fast hydrofoil from the Port of Piraeus to Aegina for a few days of rest and relaxation. After a welcome drink by the harbourside in pretty Aegina Town, we ventured on to our holiday lodgings along a narrow street. Memories of a different time, different place came flooding back.

Like many old Anatolian thoroughfares, Turkey Street was just wide enough for two emaciated camels to pass each other unhindered. This constraint never seemed to trouble the locals but for us, motorcades of Nissan tanks flanked by Vespas on amphetamines made for a testing pedestrian experience. Aided by the now-you-see-them-now-you-don’t pavements, death or permanent disability lurked at every twist and turn of the perilous road.

Turkey Street, Chapter 2

OK, there were no Nissan tanks but there were high-speed Vespas aplenty as we navigated along the now-you-see-them-now-you-don’t pavements, dragging our cases behind. We had to keep our wits about us.

Back in the day, our Bodrum digs were on the corner of what I called Turkey Street and Sentry Lane.

Sentry Lane
Aegina

Mind you, Turkey Street didn’t feature a row of garden gnomes standing guard. Who knew gnomes were popular beyond the gardens of Middle England?

The similarity between Bodrum and Aegina was uncanny. So much so that, for me, the road to our hotel shall forever be called ‘Greece Street’.

Athens, City of Wisdom

Like our first trip to Athens last year, our flight was delayed by an hour. But unlike our first trip, our passage through passport control at Athens Airport was a breeze. It was then déjà vu all the way to the Attalos Hotel, a short and sweaty case-wheeling stroll from Monastiraki Square, once the throbbing heart of Ottoman Athens. And it’s still throbbing today with a milling crowd of many nations. After dumping our belongings we headed straight up to the intimate rooftop bar with its jaw-dropping views of the Acropolis.

Last year we embarked on our very own Greek odyssey, taking in the ancient sites at Epidaurus, Mycenae, Olympia and Delphi. This time was more of a museum vibe. Our morning excursion was to the National Archaeological Museum, a neo-classical pile showcasing the best finds from Greece’s glorious past. There’s so much to see that it’s simply overwhelming.

Nevertheless, we were particularly drawn to the many faces from the past.

And the sculptures of butt-naked blokes went down well too judging by the throng of over-excited onlookers. Some statues had their meat and two veg intact, others not. In more modern times, many a male member was hacked off by buttoned-up curators, and sometimes, rather than being discarded, they were hidden away in secret museum collections. Imagine it, a pick-a-willy drawer in size order.

Of all the stunning exhibits, this was my favourite. Standing at just over two metres tall, the magnificent bronze ‘Jockey of Artemision’ is dated to around 150–140 BCE and was recovered from a shipwreck in 1926.

Our afternoon expedition was to the über-modern Acropolis Museum, nestled at the foot of the famous rock and built to house artefacts found on the citadel and the surrounding slopes, from the Greek Bronze Age to the Roman and Byzantine eras. It is, perhaps, the most beautiful museum I have ever visited. We were politely but firmly discouraged from taking pictures but I sneaked in a few of the ladies of old Athens anyway. I know, naughty Jack.

Having had our fill of ancient Athens, we café-crawled back to our hotel through modern Athens, stopping off at various watering holes along the way with a final snifter in the rooftop bar before our short-hop ferry to Aegina the following day for the next leg of our journey.

Trigger Happy, Jack

We all know that these days, unless you’re a dropout living completely off-grid in a forest clearing somewhere in the middle of nowhere, your personal information will be passed around like a used dish cloth. Regardless of what you do or don’t tick and click, they’ll get you anyway. But what fancy algorithm thought I’d be remotely interested in this?

Yet Another Greek Intermission

Yet again, I’m off-air as we perk our pansies in Greece. While we’re away resting our weary old carcasses, here’s another random selection of images that caught my eye from both home and away. As usual, it’s a crazy mix. My favourite is the picture of the chair lift and mini funicular railway we stumbled across in lovely Lakka on Paxos as we made our way to the town beach. It leads to and from an old fella’s house who parks his mobility scooter at the bottom. Genius! Who needs a carer when you can do it all yourself? Shame it wouldn’t work on our twisty cottage stairs.

Athens, The Return

We’re getting greedy, Greece-wise. Two Hellenic adventures last year and two again this year. First up was our trip in July to perfect Paxos and the Venetian splendour that is Corfu Old Town. This time, we’re heading back to restful Aegina and the Bamboo Cottage, top and tailed with time in busy, buzzy, bustling Athens. Yes, it’s a partial reprise of last summer’s epic odyssey minus the ancient tumbledown ruins. Much cheap, local ‘workaday’ wine will be consumed. Stick to what you know and love, I say!

Ask for Clive

An ‘Ask for Clive’ poster recently appeared on my Faceache feed. Why ask for Clive? Living in our semi-rural bubble, we’re a bit out of touch with the big bad world beyond our fields of burnt gold. So I did some digging. It turns out that ‘Ask for Clive’ is an amazing nationwide campaign working with pubs and other venues to promote inclusion and provide safe spaces for LGBT people. It started with a sticker and a simple idea. Now thousands of supporters have joined up to stamp out hate and make inclusion a reality. It’s a welcome and much-needed antidote to today’s toxic politics supercharged by the rise of far-right nutters who, given half a chance, would lock us back into the closet – or worse.

Coincidentally, Clive also happens to be the name of my oldest friend who died suddenly in 2020. I think my Clive would be chuffed to see his name associated with an inspirational anti-hate campaign.

Ironically, adopting the name ‘Clive’ also now serves up a massive dollop of dark humour, an entirely unintended nod to ‘Tip Toe’, Russell T Davies’* recent psychological thriller which took gay bashing to a whole new, deeply disturbing level – a portent of things to come if we don’t watch our backs. If you’ve not seen it, Clive is the mad baddie you definitely wouldn’t ask for. The first episode features a lynching. We couldn’t watch the finale; it was simply too much.

* Russell T Davies is the supremely talented writer of the original pioneering Manchester-based ‘Queer as Folk’ series and the ground-breaking AIDS-era drama ‘It’s a Sin’, both for Channel 4, among many others.

How Did Henry Get His Hampton Court?

What’s a couple of loose-end gay boys to do on a hot and cloudless summer’s day in old London Town? Pub or palace? We tossed a coin. Tails for the pub, heads for the palace. Her Maj won, so off we went to visit the glorious Hampton Court Palace, which graces a pretty stretch of the River Thames, upstream from Richmond. It was Liam’s first time whereas I’m an old pro – I first visited as a wide-eyed lad.

Construction of the magnificent pile started in 1514 by Cardinal Wolsey, Henry VIII’s Lord Chancellor. For seven years Wolsey lavished vast sums, building a palace to match his ego and rival anything in Rome. Clever and ambitious, the so-called ‘butcher’s son’ from Suffolk rose through the ranks to a position of power second only to the King himself. However, for most, being in Henry’s orbit was as precarious at it was profitable. And being his chief minister was the most precarious of all. Top dog Henry, the old letch and all-round shit, was a notoriously demanding and unpredictable boss who always got his way. A fall from favour could cost you your head – literally.

When the cunning old cardinal’s Machiavellian ways failed to secure a papal annulment for Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon, he sensed his days might be numbered. So he gifted Hampton Court to Henry as an expensive bung in a desperate attempt to save his own skin. It didn’t work. He was arrested anyway – on trumped-up charges of treason – but died horribly from dysentery before he found his too-clever-for-his-own-good head on the block.

And that’s how Henry got his Hampton Court.

These days, the Palace has a split personality, with a 17th-century Versailles-inspired extension grafted onto the Tudor carcass

We worked up quite a thirst wandering through the gates, galleries and grand halls, chambers, chapel and wine cellar. So obviously, after the palace came the pub.

We spent a sultry evening watching the sun set over Old Father Thames and mingling with the jolly young boozers supping outside the parade of riverside ale houses by Richmond Bridge. Cheers!

Pride, the Musical

In my ever-so-humble opinion the 2014 comedy-drama, Pride, is one of the best British films ever made. It’s based on the (almost unbelievably) true story of a small group of London activists calling themselves ‘Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners’ who, in the darkening AIDS days of 1984, raised thousands to help the families of striking Welsh miners in their hour of need. As I wrote in Pits and Perverts…

“Cue the considerable talents of some seasoned pros (Imelda Staunton*, Bill Nighy, Dominic West) who know how to deliver a line or two and some gifted fresh faces to inject a dash of youthful angst and exuberance. The clash of cultures is pure magic. Moving without being sugary, political without being preachy, candid without being gratuitous and clever without being patronising.”

So it was with considerable nervous expectation that we took our Dorfman Theatre seats at the National on London’s arty-farty South Bank to see Pride, the Musical. Would it be as good as the film?

You betcha, and then some. Sheer brilliance and delight, with all the best lines from the film, all tied up with a bleedin’ big bow, and a finale that didn’t leave a dry eye in the house.

* We spotted the multi-talented top-of-the-bill Imelda Staunton in the bar with hubby and fellow thesp, Jim Carter. Imelda knows all about top-drawer shows. She’s been in a few herself.