Category: Bars & Restaurants

God Save the Queen’s Head

Once upon a time, too many years ago, I was a shop boy on Chelsea’s trendy King’s Road. Days on the tills and nights on the tiles were the best probation for a young gay man about town. Back then, I pulled quite a crowd in a small local saloon appropriately called ‘The Queen’s Head’ along the even more appropriately called ‘Tryon Street.’ It was a time when safe havens for happy homosexuals were few and far between and the pub provided a venue for people from all walks of life to meet and natter over a sweet sherry with the promise of more. Out of necessity, the gay scene was a great social leveller. The lord and the navvy would mingle happily without deference or embarrassment. What you were trumped who you were. This is when I served my apprenticeship and why kissing arse has never been my style. These days, the gay scene has been commercialised, internationalised and diversified beyond recognition with big business chasing the pink pound, leading to the decline of the little boozers away from the main drag with their no-frills bonhomie. Such is the case for the Queen’s Head, probably Britain’s oldest gay pub, with a pink lineage stretching back to the buttoned-up Fifties. It no longer draws in the punters from far and wide and relies too heavily on an aging crowd who, like me, are in constant danger of permanently dropping off their bar stools. Takings are down.

The inevitable happened. Developers stepped in with plans to convert the building into luxury flats. Time to make a killing. After all, this is Chelsea, a place with some of the most expensive real estate on the planet. Locals were having none of it, gay and straight alike (and those in between). There was a groundswell of opposition supported by a well organised petition. I signed it for old time’s sake. I’m glad to report that the wise burghers of Kensington and Chelsea (my old employers) saw the writing on the wall and turned the planning application down. The pub has been saved – for now.

I’m not one of those old fairy farts who bleat on about how much better it was back in the day. It wasn’t. Many (if not most) gay people lived in fear of prosecution, exposure, blackmail and violence. I’m glad the scene is out of the closet and on the high street. However, next time I mince down the King’s Road, I’ll definitely be popping into my old trolling ground for a pint or two. Why don’t you join me? If the gay community really does have a culture worthy of the name, the Queen’s Head is surely part of it.

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Willy-Wares and Booby Prizes

elf hatThe excessive festive recess started with a Soho reunion: old friends, cards and kisses, secret Santa tat and drunken frolics. It’s a Yuletide tradition of our own making. The next day, Liam and I had a parting of the Christmas ways, he to his folks, me to little sis. ‘Twas the season to be separated when love and duty called. Supermum sis cooked up an all-the-trimmings banquet for a small tribe. The ten ton turkey was the size of an ostrich and took two of her strong lads to haul the big bird into the oven. Plates were perched on every surface and piled high with just-right tastiness. I don’t how she does it. There was just one minor fly in the ointment. A kitchen frisk uncovered a sprout-less cupboard. Trifling recriminations were muttered over the sink, but it suited me just fine, not least because it avoided a windy afternoon with my old mother bringing up the rear. As usual, I didn’t lift a finger. My sister never lets me. I always offer, honestly I do, but my pleas fall on dismissive ears. She always makes me feel like a treasured guest. Brimming glasses of wine appeared from nowhere and a hot water bottle was slipped into my pit while my back was turned. Liam joined the fray on Boxing Day, sporting an elf hat and dragging his bulging sack of filthy goodies from Ann Summers. ‘Rude and Lewd’ could be our family motto and Liam raised the tone with willy-wares, booby prizes and lick-me-quick licentiousness. I could show you the photographs but I fear a call to Social Services might be the outcome. Priceless.

The Big Bang

The Big Bang

fireworks2We approached the New Year’s celebrations with the best gay-boy-about-town intentions. At first, we planned to bop ‘til we dropped at The Loft, Norwich’s premier gay club (okay, Norwich’s only gay club).  This idea was soon swapped for a more sedate saunter to our favourite watering hole, The Birdcage, an intimate über-fashionable bar with a metrosexual vibe. The evening started in style with a leisurely bite and a bottle. After polishing off our second Pinot Grigio Blush, we paid the bill and wandered down the cobbled street. We peered through the dripping window of the pub. It was crammed with animated revellers. A line of youthful punters in identical skinny chinos queued at the door. Liam and I looked at each other with a can’t-be-arsed expression and, without a word, we tottered off home, arm in arm. I thought I was letting the side down until I gave a round-robin ring to my London life friends. One was watching Graham Norton, the second was catching a film on Netflix and the third was watching Julie and Julia on DVD. All were nesting on the sofa with their respective partners. Age has crept up on all of us. Like the sudden arrival of grey pubes, we didn’t see it coming. I don’t mind too much. Just like the Virgin Queen, I survived the slings and arrows and have entered my golden age. Elizabeth Tudor was no virgin either.

Every cloud, as they say, has a silver lining. If we had danced the night away in the company of trendy nippers barely out of short trousers, we would have missed the pyrotechnic gig on Auntie. With the exception of the brief and barely disguised party political broadcast on behalf of the Tory Party, the heart-stopping show stopper had us on the edge of our pews. See for yourself…

World AIDS Day, RIP

World AIDS Day, RIP

A few weeks, back Liam and I watched a biopic of Kenny Everett on BBC4. ‘Best Possible Taste’ documented cuddly Kenny’s struggle to achieve personal happiness and professional recognition. The film was cleverly narrated throughout by the pantheon of Kenny’s comic creations. Kenny and his characters were brilliantly reconstructed by Oliver Lansley, who perfected Kenny’s high camp mannerisms and anarchic style. I’d forgotten just how funny and original Kenny was, and how far he pushed the boundaries. For most of his adult life Kenny was resolutely in the closet even when it was obvious to everyone (including his long-suffering wife) that he was as bent as a nine bob note. Abstinence wasn’t his game, just denial. For very good reasons, the closet was a crowded house back then. Like all of us, Kenny was entitled to his privacy and, as far as I know, he never said anything negative about gay people (unlike some of his closeted contemporaries). He came out just before the tabloids forced him out and he did so in typical OTT style. I didn’t know Kenny but I saw him occasionally, usually at the Sunday night gay gordons at the Dog and Fox in Wimbledon Village. He was always attended by fawning acolytes, as is the way for the rich and famous.

Kenny was an irrepressible one-off whose off-script ad-libbing frequently got him got him the sack. His ill-judged appearance at a Tory Party Conference where he urged delegates to “…kick Michael Foot’s* stick away,” did him no favours but he redeemed himself by telling a very rude joke about Margaret Thatcher live on Radio 2. He was instantly dismissed for the misdemeanour. Kenny died of an AIDS-related illness in 1995. He was 50. That was the same year I met John. Those who have read my book will know that he died of an AIDS-related illness in 2003. John was 36.

Today is World AIDS Day. It doesn’t get the coverage it once did. In the rich world people aren’t falling off their barstools like they used to. It was not always so. One balmy evening in the summer of 2004 I was having a drink with an old friend in the Colherne, once the grand old dame of London gay bars. I looked around.

“Just a load of old uglies in tonight,” I said.

“That’s because all the handsome ones are dead,” he replied.

Cruel and cutting or just a bald statement of fact? The truth is, most of the gay people I knew in my twenties are dead.

When AIDS first hit the headlines the Reagan Administration across the Pond shamefully sat on its hands (well, it was divine retribution on fags and smack-heads after all) until it became blindingly obvious that, unlike Reagan, the Lord’s wrath wasn’t the least bit discriminating. Ironically, given the Thatcher Government’s abysmal record on minority rights, it was the Tories who chucked money at the problem – into research, awareness and care. From the mid-Eighties right through to the late Noughties, Britain had some of the best services for people with HIV and AIDS to be found anywhere in the world. These days, HIV is something you live with not die from (unless you have the misfortune to be born in much of Africa, but that’s another depressing story). But, AIDS is still with us, stalking the bars and the chat rooms. There is no cure, no vaccine – maybe one day but not yet. It pains me to see young people playing Russian roulette through some misguided notion that AIDS is an old queen’s disease or thinking that if they do get it, a pill a day will keep the Grim Reaper at bay. This is no way to think or to live. Heed the advice of an old pro who ducked the Reaper’s scythe by the skin of his teeth. Pick up the condoms that are still freely available in gay bars. Go dressed to the party. It may save your life.

*Michael Foot was the Leader of the Labour Party at the time and used a stick to help him walk. 

Get Out of My Pub!

Get Out of My Pub!

Close to our ancient lodgings in the parish of Norwich-across-the-water is an Irish pub called ‘Delaney’s’. Gawd knows why it’s described as an Irish bar. It sells Guinness but otherwise looks like a run-of-the-mill pub to me. One thing in its favour is a late licence. After a disappointing bite at the über-trendy Bicycle restaurant, we passed Delaney’s welcome mat and Liam persuaded me to have a final snifter (not much of a stretch, I know). We took up pole position at the end of the bar and eyed the pubscape of squiffy painted Norfolk broadettes, Primark neo-chavs, indebted bedsit students and bewildered tourists. The only fly in the otherwise tasty ointment was the wasp-chewing landlady surveying the jovial scene from behind the bar with her arms folded. A couple of drinkers away, a dandily-dressed Italian ordered a pint but then realised he didn’t have enough pennies to pay for it. He proffered plastic instead.

“Five quid minimum spend,” growled the slapped-arse face.

“I’ll have two pints, then,” he replied warmly.

She was having none of it. “No chance!” she barked.

The bemused Italian, still smiling, asked what the problem was. He even offered to give one drink to the stranger to his right. Clearly not a woman to be crossed, she dismissed him with a wave and scuttled off to serve another punter. Refusing to submit, he persisted with his friendly inquisition. Her faced reddened, her eyes narrowed and her thin lips pursed. The whippersnapper’s challenge was stoking her fire and not in good way. Finally, the fiery redhead could take no more and blew her stack, screaming in true Peggy Mitchell style:

“You’re barred. Get out of my pub!”

He stood his ground for a little longer but eventually gave up with a shrug and left. Not wishing to suffer the same fate, we supped our frothy pints and watched our Ps and Qs. Ten minutes later, Mr Persistent returned in triumph waving a ten pound note. It had no effect. The lippy landlady just chucked him a cold shoulder and no one else dared to serve him. The battle of wills continued. He stood at the bar for a good thirty minutes, casting broad smiles and boundless charm. Then suddenly, as the crowd looked on, his dogged tenacity melted the harridan’s icy heart. She smiled, pulled him a pint, slapped it on the counter and waved the tenner away.

All’s well that ends well. Who needs EastEnders when you’ve got Delaney’s of Norwich?

Update 2015: Sadly Delaney’s and the harridan are no more. The pub’s been converted into a Shoreditchesque gastropub called St Andrew’s Brew House and the flame-haired landlady has entered a nunnery. 

 

Sucking on a Woo Woo

Sucking on a Woo Woo

On the morning of my birthday, we awoke to the thud of wildebeest migrating across the floor of the apartment above us. It coincided with the thud of wildebeest migrating across my forehead. We dragged ourselves out of our pit and wandered into the sunny run-down wilderness in search of comfort food. We found it at Jimmy’s bar and availed ourselves of generous Jimmy’s ample portions. The rest of the afternoon was spent in a semi-coma around the cool pool. Around us, there was an excitable coach party, in from Maastricht. It turned out to be the same rowdy herd who disturbed our slumber by clog-hopping across the floor. Why didn’t I pack my elephant gun? As I nodded off in the shade, Liam slipped away and when I returned to the apartment, I found it decorated with Canarian-style birthday paraphernalia. A cartoon banner was draped across the balcony and a mini chocolate slice was topped with eight multi-coloured candles. We toasted my old age with a glass of plonk Liam had picked up at the local market, a steal at 65 cents a litre (yes, 65 cents), though I admit it could have doubled up as oven cleaner. Once Liam had put a smile on my face, he then took advantage by sitting on it.

Rested, rinsed and sporting a post-coital glow, we headed back to the brothel in our best gay-about-shopping-mall outfits. Even at our age, we scrubbed up rather well. We drank, we ate, we drank some more. Meals on the rock are more ‘hearty’ than haute cuisine. Liam’s steak was the size of the Isle of Wight and I was served up half a sow stuffed with Brie. As we sucked on our after-dinner woos-woos, we watched the congregation of happy gays weaving around us; young and old alike, same sex couples of all genders and hues holding hands, laughing and loving. The security guards looked on in amusement. They were there, not to harass, but to keep us safe. I wonder what General Franco would have made of it?

We bar-hopped the night away before agreeing on a final snifter or two at Coco Loco, a raucous dance and video dive. Everyone was in a merry mood, fuelled by the cheap duty-free triples coursing through their veins. Cabaret was provided by a lithe young thing whose skimpy gold lame shorts gave his religion away. He rode the dance pole like an old pro and shook his booty like Beyoncé. As we meandered through the exotic hubbub, Liam was being stalked by a tall dark stranger, a  man whose snout was so large he could have snorted Colombia. I too had an admirer. My foreign paramour was a drunken vision in denim with a face that could grate Parmesan. Liam, ever competitive,  leaned over and whispered, “Don’t think much of yours.”

 

What a drag …

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The Soldier, the Virgin and the Drag Queen

Mother’s inaugural royal visit to the weaver’s croft went without a hitch. She was escorted across country by my nephew and namesake, Jack Junior. I wondered if she’d be able to climb the narrow winding steps up to the attic boudoirs. I needn’t have worried. She remains a spritely 83 year and still runs for buses, despite a touch of arthritis. She had a good root around and gave her seal of approval. Fed and brandy’d, she retired for the evening with ‘Fifty Shades Darker’. We took young Jack to the bar at the Playhouse Theatre to discuss his exam results and flourishing love life. This popular watering hole by the water is always bursting with fresh-faced students and earnest artists with a dash of old homos thrown into the mix. The next morning, as Liam fixed breakfast, Mother noticed a timeworn photo of her wedding I keep in a frame on the window ledge. We looked at it together. Handsome Dad looked dapper and proud in his dress uniform and the old girl looked stunning and radiant in her classic cut wedding dress and virginal veil. “But who,” I asked “was the drag queen in the fur next to Dad?”

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A Date with Anna Karenina

Norwich’s rich cultural repertoire has Liam drooling like a rabid dog. He’s joined the club at the Theatre Royal and has planned an entire programme of cultural festivities to drag me along to. I daren’t admit that I’d rather catch Coronation Street as the cold nights approach. Our latest date was with Anna Karenina at Cinema City. The mini-multiplex is housed in the Suckling’s House and Stuart Hall, a Grade I listed complex spanning a 14th Century merchant’s house and an early twentieth century public hall. Much of the ground floor is occupied by a trendy bar with an ancient vaulted oak ceiling and a fancy restaurant extending into a medieval courtyard. It feels like a swanky café with a cinema attached rather than the other way round. We took our deep, comfy seats and witnessed a parade of boozy bacchanalian folk file past with bottles of white rattling away in their ice buckets. Anna was a lavish hostess – exquisitely staged, sumptuously filmed, superbly acted and evocatively scored. Loyalty, betrayal and suffocating social convention were magically set against the sweeping steppe. Keira Knightley’s impossibly long bedecked neck stole the show. Liam was mesmerised. I was strangely unmoved. As the end credits rolled, the audience tottered out. Many were clearly pie-eyed and not in control of their faculties. Who says the middle classes don’t have a drink problem?

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Still Waters Run Deep

Still Waters Run Deep

Norwich’s river is called the Wensum. The name derives from the Old English adjective wandsum or wendsum, meaning ‘winding’. It’s aptly titled. The river caresses like a feather boa, arching around the town and providing ample opportunities for boozy afternoons in riverside inns when the weather’s right. So far, the weather’s been right for much of the time. The Wensum is a lazy river with a slow flow. Apparently, this is caused by a large number of redundant upstream water mills. Plans are afoot to modify the mills to enable the river to behave more naturally. In the meantime, the idle waters are a fertile breeding ground for mosquitoes. We’re well acquainted with the sipping beasts of Anatolia. After four itchy years, our tough old hides eventually developed a natural immunity to their veracious appetites. Their slower, more timid English cousins don’t stand a bug in hell’s chance with these old pros. Top up, anyone?

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Homes Sweet Homes

Homes Sweet Homes

The other day, my nephew and namesake asked me how many times I’d moved digs down the long, long years. I had to trawl the deepest recesses of my scatter brain to dredge up faded memories of homes sweet homes, tallying first with my fat fingers, then with my stunted toes. My digital sum revealed that our 17th century weaver’s gaff in Norwich is also my 17th home. It has a certain poetic ring to it don’t you think? Over the years, I’ve done home and away, foreign and familiar, new and old. Until now, I’d never done artisan (that’s homes not men, by the way). I’d never done public house either but it turns out that our new croft was converted into a pub in 1760. The first licensee was a certain Samuel Westall. Sam was a worsted weaver by trade but must have thought pulling pints and spinning yarns would be more profitable than downing pints and spinning yarn. Perhaps Sam saw the writing on the wall (though he probably couldn’t read what he saw) and decided to turn in his wheel before Jenny started her spinning. The pub was called the Kings Head and served up real ale to the drunks of Norwich for over 170 years until its sad demise in 1932. Somehow, I always knew I’d end up on my back in a bar.

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