Category: Americans

Going Once, Going Twice…

Going Once, Going Twice…

The National League of POW/MIA Families is an American organisation incorporated in 1970 to obtain the release of all prisoners, establish the fullest possible account for the missing and secure the repatriation of all recoverable remains of those who died during the Vietnam War. Each year there is a fundraising event in Washington DC. I was recently contacted by a member of the League asking if I would donate a signed copy of Perking the Pansies to be auctioned off to help raise some cash. I have to admit that I was surprised and not a little intrigued. How did a book about a couple of old homos living in a faraway Muslim land (and written in a peculiarly British carry-on style) come to the attention of a Yankee society with serious business on its mind? I was told that someone specifically requested it. Good enough for me I thought and off it went in the post. Let’s hope the book raises a couple of bucks for the cause.

Pot, Poofs and the Good Book

The wise people of the Yankee state of Washington have voted in a referendum to legalise both same sex marriage and the recreational use of marijuana. Perhaps the Good Book was right all along.

Leviticus 20:13: ‘A man who lays with another man should be stoned.’

Who knew?

God Bless America

Insurance is easy cash for the fat cats, as simple as falling off a log. When we shipped the tarnished family silver back to Blighty, cover was compulsory: no pay, no way. It’s one of life’s expenses that you put down to experience and write off, like the unrequited Christmas card to an ungrateful relative. Regular readers may remember that our tatty heirlooms were raided by the fuzz and that an ostentatious hi-fi speaker was badly damaged. Time to claim, we thought – in for a penny, in for pound. In went the claim, back came the cash. A check (Yankee spelling), landed on the mat for $250. God Bless America and God bless Travel Guard, Inc. Of course, by the time all the middlemen down the monetary line took their cut, I only ended up with £130.

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Thank You, Mitt Romney

We leapt off the train from Norwich at Stratford (the main gateway to the Olympic Games). It was busy but not uncomfortably so. There was no sign of the much anticipated transport gridlock that has dominated the news for months. We jumped on a bus to the penthouse pad overlooking the stadium and took our seats for the biggest show in town. As I had hoped, it was a mesmerising salute to British polish, quirkiness, individuality and diversity – funny, moving, creative, self-deprecating, inclusive, mildly subversive with tongue jammed firmly in cheek. The eccentric cultural cabaret was infused with subtle (and not so subtle) political messages to the great, the good and the incompetent both at home and away. It mattered little to me that much of the humour might have been lost on the globally bemused. It was worth all the money just to get the first lesbian kiss ever broadcast on Saudi TV. After much reticence, all but a few diehard cynics now seem to have risen to the occasion and finally taken the Games to their hearts. There’s a real buzz in the air, a buzz you can feel, taste and see. I think we have Mitt Romney to thank for this. His ungracious remarks about London’s readiness to stage the Games have galvanised opinion. No one likes a bad-mannered, bad-mouthing guest in their house, do they?

I give you one of the many highlights from the show – HM becomes a Bond girl. I hope our German friends weren’t too miffed by the Dambuster’s theme. Naturally, Her Maj was as inscrutable as ever.

Obama Endorses Gay Marriage

Whether we like it or not, what the President of the United States says matters and resonates across the globe. After sitting on the fence for years and dipping his toes in the water to test the electoral temperature, President Obama has finally come out in support of marriage equality. In an interview with ABC News, the President said:

“I’ve just concluded that for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married.”

It’s a simple but powerful statement. Despite self-righteous firebrands flooding the airwaves with their messages of hell and damnation, and battalions of bigots storm-trooping shopping malls, support for marriage equality across America has been steadily rising for years. According to some recent polls, it now exceeds 50%. The President will have followed the polls very carefully. It’s an election year after all. Did President Obama nail his colours to the mast at this delicate stage of the (very) long American election cycle in a cynical attempt to garner extra liberal votes? Perhaps, but what’s said cannot be unsaid.

In Blighty, expect the Government to back-paddle furiously on the proposal to legalise civil marriage for same sex couples in the ridiculous belief that it contributed to their disastrous showing in recent local elections. Sure, this will have lost them a few votes among the (electorally insignificant) religious right and blue-rinse brigade. Let’s get real. To quote Bill Clinton’s famous line, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

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Home Office Consultation on Marriage Equality

Much I Do About Nothing

Gay Marriage in New York

Another Immaculate Conception

Billboard from an Anglican Church in New Zealand

When it comes to social issues, readers may think I’m a bit of a one trick pony – gay this, gay that, blah, blah, blah. In fact, as a bleeding heart pinko liberal, I come equipped with a range of predictable views on a range of predictable issues. People who feed and water me will attest to this. Apart from the fairy thing, I rarely use my blog as a platform to spread the liberal word. This isn’t why I started it. But (yes, here comes the ‘but’) there’s one thing that caught my eye recently that I just can’t resist commenting on. It’s been reported in the New Civil Rights Movement, an American online magazine, that Arizonan women are now legally pregnant two weeks before conception. Even though I agree with a woman’s right to choose, I’m not going to wade into the whole American abortion debate. It’s a divisive issue that stirs up an enormous amount of emotion on both sides of the argument. However, isn’t this all getting a bit daft? In effect, this means that a virgin can be pregnant (Hallelujah, it’s a miracle). Why stop there? What about those wet dreams of our teenage years? Or don’t we boys count?

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Tuscan Turkey

Whitney Houston, RIP

RIP

Another prodigious talent wrecked by addiction. No doubt the internet is awash with tasteless jokes and serves-her-right statements. Whitney Houston’s slow descent into hell was a media circus that picked over the bones of her catastrophic life. Some people seem to take pleasure in it. According to Guinness World Records she was the most awarded female artist of all time.

Ms Houston once said:

“I finally faced the fact that it isn’t a crime not having friends. Being alone means you have fewer problems.”

I wasn’t a great fan though I really liked the ‘My Love is Your Love’ album and this is my favourite track.

Marriage Equality – Much I Do About Nothing

Marriage equality for same sex couples is a hot topic in the States and many other parts of Christendom right now. As the pendulum of liberal public opinion swings towards reform, the religious reactionaries advance ever more bizarre notions for opposing the right of consenting adults to choose whom they wish to marry. It’s in the Land of the Free where the debate (if debate is the word) is at its most venal. An unholy axis is scaring the horses and the old folk with talk of a disintegrating society and the fall of America. The do as I say and not as I do Catholic Church is wielding its considerable power and marshalling its congregation; right-wing American politicians seeking the highest office in the land talk of paganism and a vomiting God; and crazy pastors across the Bible belt warn of Old Testament fire and brimstone and the End of Days. These strange bedfellows all agree that it’s the thin end of the satanic wedge. What next? Pet-wedding perverts? Marriage is between one man and one woman, they say, sanctified by God for the purposes of procreation. How do they know? Because it says so in the Bible, stupid. Actually, the Bible says a lot about marriage – about forced wedlock, polygamy and concubines. It supports all of them. Bible-bashers have selective memories.

Rather than take a trip on the merry-go-round of fables and myths, it might be more illuminating to take a look at history and absorb some hard facts. Until relatively recently, marriage was primarily a property contract. In most societies, girls were the chattels of their fathers; wedlock simply transferred ownership from father to husband. There’s a clue in the word ‘lock’. Often, the contract was transacted within the extended family in order to consolidate assets or preserve clan cohesion. It was generally best to keep it within the family. At the top of the social heap, marriage was a political device to forge alliances, strengthen authority and maintain dynastic power. The rich would oil the marital wheels with generous dowries and the poor might secure a slave bride through war. Women were booty. Like goats. The consent of the unfortunate (and often underage) girl was not required. The wife could get a raw deal; the goats might be treated better. If a woman failed in her primary role to provide male progeny, she could be replaced, supplemented or worse. None of this sounds particularly honourable or pious to me. Nor has this depressing state of marital affairs been consigned to the history books. It’s alive and thriving in many primitive corners of the modern world.

The spawning argument hardly holds water either. It’s an obvious biological fact that marriage is not required to have children. People don’t suddenly become fertile because they’ve been blessed by the shaman. Breeding is like falling off a log and we’ve been at it like proverbial rabbits since our distant ancestors crawled out of the primordial soup at the dawn of time. When Fred Flintstone first clubbed Wilma over the head and dragged her by the hair into his cave to make Pebbles, he didn’t need a holier-than-thou clergyman to stick his oar in.

Just recently, on my side of the pond, a top dog collar in the Church of England jumped on the wedding bandwagon. The Archbishop of York claims that the democratically elected Parliament of Britain has no right to change the definition of marriage. I think His Grace will find that the British Parliament has the right to do as it pleases. England got rid of meddling priests when they pissed off Henry the Eighth. Hell hath no fury like a tyrant scorned. Despite what the Archbishop may think, the meaning and interpretation of abstract concepts often evolve over time through intellectual inquisition and discourse. There was a time when the Church taught us with absolute God-given certainty that the Earth was flat and sat at the centre of the Universe. Woe betide anyone who disagreed. Stoke the bonfire and burn the heretics, they used to say. Fortunately, we now know differently. We discover and we evolve. Our religious establishments would do better to concentrate their energies on addressing the problem of empty pews and unheard sermons. Ironically, the Church of England would find it far more difficult to operate without the growing number of gay vicars in its ranks.

For an unreconstructed liberal and an unabashed secularist like me, this is a fundamental equalities issue. It’s also a love thing; and love, above all other things, is at the core of the Christian message, is it not? As far as I’m aware, no religious organisation will be forced to conduct religious ceremonies for same sex couples if they object. So, let’s just calm down and grow up.

Read all about Jack and Liam‘s life in a Muslim country

Perking the Pansies Book Trailer

It’s done and dusted. My World Book Tour across four continents has finally come to an end. The stage lights have dimmed and the sequins have been packed away for another day. I’m knackered even though I’ve not shifted from the sofa. Was it a sell out? No idea. Have I sold copies of the book? Certainly. To celebrate the end of the tour, I’m releasing my very first book trailer. BAFTAs here we come. Grab yourself some popcorn and a fizzy drink, sit back and watch:

Now to my acceptance speech…

Please extend a massive hand to the talented and generous supporting cast, stars in their own right, who took a back seat and let me take centre stage to strut my stuff.

Fittingly, the tour kicked off in my foster land with Soldier, Solder at a place in the country with rustic old sapper Archers of Okçular.

Next stop was a flying visit to the motherland for our London gig at cosmopolitan Aussie Gidday from the UK with Gidday from Turkay.

The third show, AussieBum was presented Down Under at A Life Less Ordinary with the far from ordinary Russell.

A long virtual night flight took me across the Pacific to the Eureka State – California – for Perking Across the Pond on Lick the Fridge courtesy of gifted wordsmith and family man, Jared.

My second Californian date was a camp inquisition on the pink sofa with the absolutely fabulous Impossibly Glamorous.

No time to dawdle. It was back on the virtual trail to Old Constantinople for a gig on the sharp and witty Istanbul Stranger telling my Yankee Tales, continuing the American theme.

Daft planning took my back Stateside to Provincetown in New England to be entertained by M’lady and the puppets review Perking the Pansies at cross-cultural Slowly-by-Slowly, no strings attached.

I flew the virtual transatlantic red eye for the Continental European leg of my tour. First stop, a chat of the This Morning sofa with my inspirational publisher, Jo Parfitt in the Low Countries.

Next up a trek across the Pyrenees to a campsite somewhere in southern Spain for my Trailer Trash show with the impossibly healthy Helen from Helen’s European Journey.

This was followed by another Dutch gig at Adventures in Expatland with the blogger with the big heart. She entertained us with Pansies Oh So Successfully Perked.

Safe on home soil saw me facing the questions again from the lovely Natalie at the top notch Turkish Travel Blog.

Last and certainly not least, my final interrogation was by Roving Jay on the Bodrum Peninsula Travel Guide. Jay pins me down with questions about Bodrum.

Thank you to one and all, for letting me loose on your blogs, for the Facebook posts and likes, stumbles, tweets, retweets and mentions. Your support is heart-warming. Thank you also to those who followed me around my virtual world. Now the fun really starts…

By the way, would you like to buy my book?

Shaken, Not Stirred

Ex-spook, Linda (she denies it, but I know she was), gave up her 007 career at the Pentagon and settled in the Low Countries to write about life and fret about global warming. If my house was fifty feet below sea level, I’d fret too. Linda is a prolific blogger, accomplished writer and published author. She’s also an all-round good liberal egg with the all the right values and a huge heart. Linda has been a great supporter of my blog virtually from the outset. She wrote an incredible review of my book and, best of all, I didn’t have to bribe her. This just goes to prove you can’t wet the beak of the honourable. In addition to the review, she’s written a post Pansies, Oh So Successfully Perked on Adventures in Expatland. Read it here.