Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

Auntie Beeb recently ran an article about gays in the military – not in America this time – but in our foster home. It makes comical reading. For young gay Turks to receive their pink exemption slip (I prefer lilac myself) they have to prove their perversion with photographic evidence. Got a few holiday snaps of you being bummed on the beach in Bodrum? Now, young man, it only counts if you’re Martha not Arthur. The next best thing is to see you in a frock and slingbacks*. Anything floral by Laura Ashley will do. You couldn’t make it up.

For all those wasted years of navel gazing by the horrified higher echelons of the British armed forces, gay and lesbian Britons are now allowed to serve their country. People who know a great deal more than I do about these things say this has had absolutely no detrimental effect on the operational efficiency of Her Maj’s army, air force or navy (well, it’s always been rum and bum in the navy anyway). Military failure is reserved for our hapless politicians who send our brave boys (and girls) out to fight wars they can’t win.

Let’s face it, when it came to periods of genuine national emergency (like a world war), no one cared less where you put it. We were all cannon fodder back then (unless you were Quentin Crisp, of course).

Thank you to Pansyfan Paul who sent me the article.

*A cock in a shock frock reminds me of my encounter with transsexual prostitutes on my very first trip to Istanbul in 2003, but that’s another story.

Overcooking the Books

Sadly, my prediction about the little market a short sashay along the street from our house has come to pass. The ever-so smiley pony-tailed proprietor has removed his dusty stock and abandoned his customer-less business. A padlocked glazed door protects the dusty ghost shop, the shelves are empty, worthless rubbish is piled up in the middle of the cracked floor and a tatty ‘for rent’ sign is swinging in the wind outside. What next for this ill-fated space? A croissant-erie would be nice.

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Gay’s the Word and Perking Down Under

I’m ecstatic to announce to the room that London’s Gay’s the Word, Blighty’s premiere LGBT bookshop (and voted 3rd in the top 50 bookshops in Britain by the Independent newspaper), have added Perking the Pansies to their illustrious shelves. This is better than sex. Gay’s the Word really is the place to be seen. If you’re in the area, pop in, browse the aisles and thumb through the many titles on offer (and buy my book, of course). To celebrate this latest achievement and whet your appetite, I’ve released the first five chapters for everyone to read.

It doesn’t end there. Are you sitting down? On the very same day I found out about Gay’s the Word, my publisher told me that the Bookshop – Darlinghurst, Australia’s pre-eminent LGBT bookstore is also offering the book for sale, just in time for Mardi Gras. The discerning readers of Sydney will have the opportunity to meet:

“…the oddballs, VOMITs, vetpats, emigreys, semigreys, debauched waiters and middle England miseries.”

I can now declare that, just like the British Empire of yesteryear, the sun never sets on these pansies.

Fancy a Dip?

The benign spring weather allowed us to take tea and tittle tattle on our balcony with a few Bodrum Belles. It’s a sunny spot, though we often have to yell above the din of the harried street. This is more than compensated by the chance to observe busy Bodrum life passing by below. I was being mother and, as I poured the coffee, I gazed momentary across at the flat roof of our single storey kitchen at the other end of the courtyard. It glistened in the bright sunlight. Tiny waves rippled in the gentle breeze. Had we installed a roof-top plunge pool? No such luck. A few weeks earlier, a beefy covered lady with Popeye biceps and sprouting underarms had collected the olive crop from the over-hanging tree. She had beat the bush with Amazonian gusto and left a shag-pile of twiggy debris in her wake. Come the next deluge, the leaf litter plugged the drainage hole and created the shallow lake.

After the Belles departed, I climbed onto the roof, waded through the water and unblocked the hole with the handle of a wooden spatula. The undammed waters spewed like a mini Niagara onto the turned dirt of our neighbour’s bald vegetable patch. Their chained up dog, so used to barking at the slightest flutter of the tiniest sparrow, was taken totally by surprise. Rover didn’t know how to react so decided not to react at all. Now there’s a first.

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Black Gold

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Spanner in the Words

WordPress (the organisation that hosts my blog) has got its knickers in a twist over comments. They’ve introduced some unheralded changes to the comments function and now there are more bugs in it than an old cow pat. Some people who try to comment on Perking the Pansies either can’t at all, or have to sign in to some long forgotten WordPress account of yesteryear. There’s no rhyme or reason to it. It’s all very irritating, causing much fury on the user forum and tut-tutting in the Scott-Brennan household.

I’m sure they’ll unscramble the mess soon but in the meantime, please do persevere with your thoughts, either by choosing your Facebook or Twitter ID (if you have one) in the comments box or commenting on posts as they appear on Facebook. As a last resort, you can create a WordPress Account which will allow you to comment on my blog and others hosted by WordPress. It’ll only take a few minutes off the rest of your life.

Telegraph Jack

I flung open the closet door in the same year that ‘Going Straight’ first aired on the BBC. It was a time when the age of consent for gay men was 21* and the number of gay bars in London could be counted on the fingers of one hand. The Fourth Estate – redtops and broadsheets alike – was routinely beastly to the down-trodden embryonic gay community and the police raided at will. It’s no surprise then, that my politics were a little leftish and I thought of myself as standing on the outside looking in. Now in my fifth decade, I find myself published in the Telegraph, that most ‘establishment’ of newspapers – only online, mind you. Read my Bumpy Rite of Passage. I’ve sold out for a sell-out.

*In fact it was only legal for two men to get down and dirty if they were alone in a private dwelling. Also, lesbianism was never a crime, presumably because most of the (male) public school lawmaking hypocrites not knocking off the boys on the side were rather turned on by the thought of their nannies at it.  

Unfinished Business

This year, direct Sleazyjet flights to Milas-Bodrum airport start on 26th March. Low gear hassling, a fresh lick of whitewash, flourishing floral fauna and ruins un-ruined by a savage sun makes springtime in the Aegean a Turkish delight. Braving a last minute tantrum by grumpy old Mother Nature, savvy travellers might be tempted to try out Bodrum just as the town emerges from the short, sharp winter. Come by all means but, this year, give Bodrum itself a wide berth and go exploring elsewhere. This year’s spring clean is more of a root and branch demolition. Some bits I thought were completed last year have been dug up again. Why? Who knows. Will Turkey ever be finished? Probably not.

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Singing For His Pension

Soft focus image courtesy of the BBC

Remarkably, wrinkly Engelbert (aka Arnold Dorsey) can still hold a note at 75. Mr Humperdinck will be singing for his pension at the 57th Eurovision Song Contest with a sweet little ditty called Love Will Set You Free. It’s actually not a bad ballad in a Lionel Bart musical kind of way. Come Eurovision night in May, the streets of Soho will be empty, the middle aged ladies of the Carpathians will be chucking their knickers at the screen and Caucasian grannies will be swooning in the aisles in Baku. But, can Engelbert win and bring glory back to Blighty after 15 luckless years? Not while the Baltic league and Balkan cartel are in the driving seat, methinks. What do you think?

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The Only Virgin in London

My father died when he was 50. My mother has been single ever since. In fact, she’s been a widow for much longer than she was a wife. She calls herself ‘the only virgin in London’. She says this without the slightest hint of bitterness or irony. My mother is now 83 and still runs for buses. She’s been to Bodrum just the once, for my surprise 50th birthday party. She loved it and spent her time chain smoking and solving puzzles. ‘Keeps my brain active,’ she says. She has five children, eleven grandchildren and three great grandchildren. She loves us all even when we’re not that loveable. Liam calls his mother-in-law ‘One hell of a woman.’ You can say that again.

Happy Mother’s Day to the only virgin in London.

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Home Office Consultation on Marriage Equality

I’ve just responded to the British Home Office consultation on same sex marriage. As I understand it, the original proposal was to make us all equal under the Law by allowing same sex secular marriage (replacing and/or supplementing civil partnerships) and to enable those religious organisations that wished to conduct a religious ceremony for same sex couples to do so. The Quakers really wanted their oats on this one: our Friends were at the forefront of agitating for reform. They will be disappointed; a collective ‘tut, tut’ will echo around the polite meeting houses of Blighty. Why? Because the proposed statute will introduce civil marriage equality but will also enshrine in law the notion that religious marriage is between a man and a woman only. Presumably, this typically British fudge is a concession to the meddlesome priests who think they have the divine right to call the shots. This is absurd. Where’s Henry the Eighth when you need him? Either there is marriage equality or there isn’t. A religious ceremony isn’t right for me but to deny it to the religious isn’t right either.

If there is to be a two-tier marriage system can we also have a two-tier tax system where I pay less for fewer rights? A kind of citizen-rights lite.

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