Category: Family & Friends

Booze, Birds and Fast Cars

Booze, Birds and Fast Cars

george bestMy sister’s football-crazed family has finally spawned a potential star. Tom, third boy of four, has been selected to train with Reading FC’s Soccer Academy. The Academy has a fine reputation for nurturing young talent. Tom’s only 14 (but nearly six foot tall with shoulders the width of a barn door) and his coach thinks he has what it takes to go all the way. Someone once said that to me when I was 14, but that’s another story.

Naturally, Tom turned to his wise old uncle for lifestyle advice. I told him to watch the drink (think George Best and Gazza) and avoid sleeping with prostitutes old enough to be his granny (Wayne Rooney). I also told him that, as his favourite uncles, Liam and I wouldn’t be the least bit embarrassed if he set us up in a luxury penthouse overlooking the Thames. After all, if he makes it into the Premier League, he’ll be bringing in more dosh than Denmark.

“I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered.”

George Best

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Jack and Liam go to Palma

Jack and Liam go to Palma

Old Palma is a place in which to wander and explore. This is just as well. Our hotel, the Costa Azul, hadn’t quite finished constructing the bar by the miniscule pool or supplied enough parasols to avoid third degree burns on the sun terrace. We spent blissful days meandering through narrow cobbled streets, along grand boulevards, over battlements and across elegant piazzas. Palma is a city with art at its heart and the evidence is liberally littered around the streets.

Come nightfall, the Santa Catalina ward – once down at heel but now dressed up to the nines – seduced us with her trendy bars, cool restaurants and laid-back vibe. Upmarket Old Palma is a far cry from downmarket Palma Nova and eating out comes with a West End price tag attached. We stuck with the set menus to keep a check on the check. Still, a palatable glass or two of Rioja was very reasonable priced wherever we watered, and we did quite a lot of watering. Generally, the crowds were good humoured and lively, without being raucous. The one exception was a small bar called The Escape, a roadside inn tucked into the corner of a pretty piazza and frequented by pissed-up Brits from the yachting fraternity. Typical.

Towards the tail end of our stay, we pushed the boat out to visit Ábaco, a cocktail bar in the old town. Occupying a palatial former merchant’s house, part bar, part museum, Ábaco is a bit of an institution with guests being serenaded by light opera in Baroque opulence as they sip lethal cocktails served by snotty waiters in gold lamé cummerbunds. The entire experience was Disney kitsch with a crazy Catalan twist and only slightly marred by the continuous procession of camera-toting tourists wanting to stand, snap and gawp (image courtesy of MallorcaHoliday.com).

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We took the opportunity to venture out of town to the small resort of Ca’n Pastilla to surprise an old friend. Welsh rarebit, Bernard, gave up butlering for bar work a few years back and now owns ‘Thai at the Tavern,’ an unassuming little establishment at the end of the promenade. It does exactly what it says on the tin. Pop in if you’re in town. You’re sure to get a warm welcome, a cold beer and a spicy Siamese from the friendly valley boy. Bernard and I used to step out with the same fella (but not at the same time, obviously). I call Bernard El Presidente of the First Wives Club. When the bar closed, we ended the evening in a backstreet dive well away from the main drag with Bernard, a bunch of jovial locals, a bottle or three of cheap plonk and a strong whiff of weed. The next day we had wine flu.

From Little Acorns…

From Little Acorns…

Jack and John in EphesusOnce upon a time in another life, this seasoned old cynic met and fell for a handsome young man with razor-sharp wit and a glorious smile. His name was John. We collided in a long-gone dive in Earls Court called the Copacabana. He stayed the night and never left. Eight years into our fine romance John fell ill, quite suddenly. Within just six weeks he was dead. He died in my arms. It was quite a Hollywood moment but not one I care to reprise. That was 10 years ago. Even though I’ve been given a second time around, I still miss him.

John liked a slice of Turkey. We’d visited many times. When Liam and I first pitched our yurt in Anatolia, we bought an olive sapling in John’s memory and put it in a patio pot. It did remarkably well and bore fruit in the first year – a lean harvest but a harvest nonetheless. After we decided to wade back to Blighty, I asked Annie of Back to Bodrum fame if she would take care of John’s little twig in her Bodrum garden. Annie went one better and offered a sunny spot in the olive grove of her fabulous country pile.

My old mucky mucker, Ian, and his much younger squeeze, Matt, were our final gentlemen callers in old Bodrum Town. Back in the day, John, Ian and I had been the three muskequeers blazing a gay trail and frightening the locals from Ephesus to Antalya. Annie invited the lot of us out to her rural idyll for a spot of lunch and bit of aboriculture. She knows quite a lot about both. A gorgeous sunny afternoon of feasting, wine and gay-boy banter was polished off with a tree-planting flourish. Notice me proudly holding the big spade. Don’t be fooled. Annie’s husband did all the hard graft. All I did was plop the tree into the hole and pat it down like the Queen at an opening.

Now there is a little corner of Turkey that is forever John.

Thank you, Annie.

VLUU L200 / Samsung L200

Postcards from Soho

Postcards from Soho

Ian, one of my oldest friends, is the area manager of a gay ‘lifestyle’ chain (AKA licensed sex shops – don’t tell his mother). The filthy smut flies off the shelves as the filthy lucre fills the tills even during these recessionary times. Well, people stay in more and make a meal of it.  Despite his status as purveyor of porn to the Grindr generation, Ian is an off-fashioned boy with the Nineties hairdo to prove it. He shuns the modern world of instantaneous communication for a more leisurely discourse – snail-mail rather than e-mail, hand-crafted notes rather than instant messaging. Even his flip-top phone belongs in the Science Museum. He’s particularly scathing about Facebook, seeing it as the work of the Devil. I picked up this postcard and sent it to him. I wrote, “I saw this card and thought of you.”

Facebook

A couple of days later I received this card in the post. Ian had written, “I saw this card and thought of you.” Touché!

Gayer than

Philadelphia

Philadelphia

Last month, John, my eldest brother and his missus came to visit. He’s the eldest of five and would be the first to admit that when I trampolined out of the closet at the tender age of 16, he was none too pleased. In those far-flung days, only the likes of sexually ambivalent Larry Grayson, Kenneth Williams and John Inman were in the public consciousness and they all kept a foot firmly in the closet door. Most people thought all queers were predatory child abusers recruiting for the cause (some pond life still does, of course). Ironic, now that the Jimmy Savile scandal from that very era has now hit the fan. As the years rolled by, my brother’s views mellowed and moderated. I see his altered image as a metaphor for society as a whole. On the evening of our 5th wedding anniversary, John and his wife treated us to a slap-up meal at Jamie’s Italian. Thanks bro!

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It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum

It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum

Overwhelmingly, most pansyfans hail from Britain, Turkey or the States so you can imagine my delight when I noticed that someone from Malaysia was pushing the numbers up by having a good old root around the blog – 334 posts and rising. In the late sixties, I spent nearly three years in Malaysia as a young army brat on a base just outside Malacca. My memories of life in the tropical sun are vivid and glorious. In fact, both my sisters were born in the country (at different times – my sergeant major father was posted there twice). I hope to pop back one day, as my eldest brother has done. So, whoever you are my Malaysian friend, I thank you. You’ve provided the perfect excuse to fish out some ancient time-worn snaps and take a skip down memory lane.

Attack of the Norovirus

The schools are off and a sparkling (but still chilly) early spring day brought the north folk of Norfolk out of hibernation to swarm around the lanes of Norwich in search of a bargain (and there are bargains galore to be had). I watched the throng from a kerbside café. I was out alone in fat jacket and shades to pick up provisions. Liam has been laid low by a nasty bout of gastro-enteritis caused by the norovirus he picked up visiting his mother at the weekend. The virus stalks for prey along the corridors of her care home like the Black Death. As if she didn’t have enough to worry about, my mother-in-law has been struck down and confined to bed along with Liam’s father, brother, sister and nephew. Liam has withdrawn to self-imposed quarantine (except for emergency dashes to the loo) in the vain hope that I won’t be the next casual casualty. I await my fate like a man on death row. We’re rather hoping to drop a few pounds.

FLR-040 NoroVirus Poster FINAL RGB.qxp

The norovirus is particularly perilous for the sick and the old. Does my mother-in-law’s care home have adequate infection controls in place? Your guess is as good as mine but I doubt it. The cynical may see this as a great way to manage turnover. I do know, after working in both adult and children’s social care for many years, that the State’s (and therefore, society’s) willingness to pay for the care of the most vulnerable diminishes as they age. Mark my words, eventually the shit will hit the fan (or the sheet, as in this case).

The good news is that mother-in-law is on the mend and will live to fight another day. We are mightily relieved.

James Dowdall, RIP

Jim Dowdall
James Dowdall, Torch Bearer
Image courtesy of Robert Hayes

It’s curious how extended families, so close in childhood days, can grow slowly apart as children age and move on. I guess it’s related to our modern existence of social mobility, dispersal and transience. My own family is a case in point. When I was growing up, my mother and her siblings were very chummy and we spent much of our time squatting in each other’s houses even when we lived in different parts of the country. An effort was made, the bond was important. But, imperceptibly, the bond gradually eroded, finally snapping when nobody was looking. These days, only funerals bring the clan together (weddings and christenings are as rare as ginger nuns in my largely heathen tribe).

Last week I attended the funeral of my Uncle James. He was 87. The Grim Reaper called at night and Jim died quietly in his sleep. The funeral service was nose to nipple (clearly, dying young isn’t the only way to get a healthy crowd in for a send-off). Late-comers were forced to stand at the back.

There were many things I knew about my uncle. I knew that after his wife (and my favourite aunt), Ruth died and, following a minor stroke, Jim found physical and emotional recovery through fitness and jogging. I also knew that he first completed the London Marathon when he was 73. I didn’t know that Jim went on to complete 8 marathons in all and raise £16,000 for a local cancer charity in the process. I didn’t know that he was given a Local Hero Award, an MBE and selected to carry the 2012 Olympic Torch when it went on national tour last year. Uncle Jim enjoyed a star-spangled dotage. This is a grand lesson to us all.

I also didn’t know how to knot my black tie. After a five year absence from the wicked world of the waged, I’d simply forgotten. This doesn’t auger well for my own dotage.

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 Scene Of My Undoing

A few weeks ago I wrote a little piece on the etymology of Norwich’s River Wensum (old English wandsum). I got quite excited at the prospect of a poetic connection between my current digs and Wandsworth, in South London, where I spent my late childhood and most of my teens. I saw a link between ‘wandsum’ and ‘Wandle’, the Thames tributary that runs through the heart of the London borough. It was not to be. Ye Olde Wandsworth was known as Wandesorde or Wendelesorde at the time of the Domesday Book which means ‘enclosure of (a man called) Waendel’. Shame, but it did take me on a gentle mince down memory lane.

After my father was discharged from the army, he took the tenancy of an off licence cum general grocers. It was called a ‘Bottle and Basket’ for those who may remember the chain, part of the Watney Mann brewery company. We lived above the shop and it surely must have been the start of my love affair with the Devil’s sauce. I used to pilfer bottles of Bulmer’s cider from the shelves to share with my spotty pubescent pals. The liquor trade provided a decent living and kept me in booty hugging florescent loon pants and five inch platform shoes. My canny Dad made a killing during the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977. We had a booze, bench and bunting beano in the street and Geordie Jack wisely kept the tills ringing for the duration. For my sins, I earned an honest crust as a Clark’s shoe shop Saturday boy in the Arndale Shopping Centre. It was the scene of my undoing and a slippery slope from which I was never to recover (thank the Peter Lord). I had a torrid fling with one of the maintenance men. His name was Dave. Dave was married, of course; it was always the way back in the day. My midday breaks were misspent sampling his greasy cut lunch in a lift shaft machine room on the roof, giving a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘Going down?’