Continuing the pussy theme from yesterday, Liam came across this splendid little video montage of Mrs Slocombe from Are You Being Served, played by the marvelous Mollie Sugden, a jobbing comedy actress who sadly died in 2009 after a long illness. Many people will remember that Mrs Slocombe was always having a bit of bother with her pussy. Obvious, lewd and unsophisticated? Certainly. Funny? Absolutely. A bit like me. Sit back and enjoy.
Pussy on Patrol
Our neighbours have rowed little of late. There was a time when we were regularly disturbed by bubbly Beril screaming like a banshee. Beril has an excellent set of pipes which she can use to volcanic effect. I think the acquisition of Bianca the snow white cat a few months ago has calmed the spirits and silenced the guns. Bianca is an inquisitive creature. She’s now firmly in charge of our shared garden and tolerates no incursions by rivals. I often see her patrolling the low garden wall looking inquisitively out on the world beyond. I hope she doesn’t get too bold otherwise she may get set upon by the mean felines that strut their stuff by the communal bins or end up as road kill along the busy thoroughfare where the speed junkies race.
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Now That’s What I Call Old
Civilisation in Anatolia has deeper roots than most people imagine. The recently discovered ruins of Göbekli Tepe are among the oldest human-made structures yet discovered. The site is almost 12,000 years old, predating any other known civilisation by several thousand years. Eat your heart out Abraham (c1800 BC) Rameses the Great (c1300 BC), Nebuchadnezzar (c600 BC) and all those daft fundamentalist Christians who think that the world was created 6000 years ago.
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The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus | Bodrum’s Crusader Castle | Cappadocia, Then and Now | Rutting Reptiles | Communal Crapping
Mausoleum of Halicarnassus
Bodrum Castle
Cappadocia
Library of Celcus, Ephesus
Temple of Apollo, Didyma
And for My Next Trick
When Liam and I first set up home together, certain concessions had to be made. I’d spent a lifetime developing a neat demeanour – a place for everything and everything in its place. This stemmed from the rich chaos of my early years in a large family, when competition for the bathroom was fierce and you’d do well to find matching socks during the Monday morning scrum. Liam’s approach to organisation had always been a little more laissez faire. During our salad days I would come home from work to find a shoe on the mantelpiece or a pair of Calvins in the fridge (freshly laundered ones, obviously). This was his way of telling me to lighten up. I listened to the gentle provocation and over time, saw the light. Down the years, Liam’s raised his game and I’ve lowered mine: we’ve arrived at contented compromise. All except for one small thing. When Liam retires for the night, he just slips effortlessly out of his clothes and leaves them in a concertinaed heap on the floor by the bed, collapsed in a series of folds like a deflated accordion. Slippers poke out from under the crumpled jeans that sit tidily beneath a discarded tee shirt. It’s as if he’s disappeared through a trap door. All that’s missing is a puff of white smoke. It’s quite a trick.
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The Demon Drink
We’ve finally managed to collate all the incriminating photographic evidence of our wicked trip to Bordeaux back in September to celebrate the half century of Blighty life friend, Ian. Liam has produced a timely public heath broadcast about the evils of alcohol. A sorry collection of over-the-hill so-called fine and upstanding members of society (well, except for the birthday boy who runs a sex shop in Soho), strutting their drunken stuff in an isolated French farm house is a pathetic spectacle. It’s enough to put you off your pink gin. Listen up kids, in Nancy Reagan’s immortal words, ‘Just say no.’
We had a ball.
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Fried Alive
After a romantic evening of candlelight and cards, we fell into bed and prayed to the electricity fairy for a constant supply. Our landlady returned the next day with the sheepish pixie spark in tow. He fessed up that he was to blame for the dodgy circuit board. It had been completely mis-wired and caused a whole series of intermittent power surges. It was good to know we could have been fried alive in our bed. He fiddled his final fiddle and all seemed well. Sockets and switches worked as they should, and this time, nothing blew up. Our landlady, worried we might move out in a huff, assured us that we were model tenants (if only she knew) and agreed to replace the extinct appliances. The modem transformer was quickly substituted, brand new circuit breakers were supplied and a new circuit board for the water heater was ordered. It’s just as well there was enough sun to supply the solar panels; otherwise I’d have been forced to use a bucket of cold water to flannel-wipe my pits and sponge down my important little places. Another cross to bear in a Moslem land.
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Bang, Bang
Our electricity supply continued up and down like whore’s drawers. Strangely, the power seemed to mostly misbehave during daylight hours when our consumption was relatively light. The main circuit breaker tripped at random so there was no obvious explanation. Once again, our formidable landlady swung into action and sent her little pixie spark to re-check the fuse box. He fiddled with the fuses and re-knitted the wires like a lazy carpet weaver. Progress was slow but steady. He flicked the kitchen light switch. The electric heater fired up. He plugged in the kettle. The air-con beeped. He smiled a satisfied smile and returned to his fiddling. Finally, through a tortuous process of trial and error he concluded that the root of the problem was a power surge in a circuit running along one side of the house. To test his theory he plugged in our modem. Bang went the transformer. He plugged in the TV. Bang went the independent surge protector. He plugged in the bathroom water heater. Bang when the circuitry. As a flume of smoke filled the house, bang went our tempers and we threw the pixie out.
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Polari Literary Salon
I’m really excited to announce that Paul Burston, award winning author, LGBT Editor of Time Out London and one of Blighty’s leading commentators on LGBT life, has invited me to speak at the Polari Literary Salon in February. Paul created Polari to showcase new gay and lesbian writers. Since its launch in 2007, Polari has established an enviable reputation as a centre of excellence for promoting new talent. I’ll be reading passages from the book and taking questions. I’m completely terrified. Paul assures me it’s a warm and easy crowd. I will have to dig deep into my past to resurrect the orator in me. I’ll be trolling down to Soho to ask the literati omis, palones and palone-omis to vada my bona book*. I hope this pansy will still be perking by the end of it. What shall I wear?
*For a quick lesson in Polari slang check out Trolling on the Net.
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Under the Tuscan Sun
With Liam back in Blighty, I’m making do. Our Turkish neighbour, Bubbly Beril, knocked on the door and shoved a DVD in my hands.
Based loosely on a true story, Under the Tuscan Sun is the tale of an American woman whose marriage collapses around her. She emerges from deep despair and paralysing sense of failure by making a new life in Tuscany, all by chance. It’s a sentimental, sugar coated yarn of love lost and a life regained. Boo to the nasty man who dumped her and hurrah for the cast of colourful characters who pick her up, dust her down and help her start all over again. I cried like a child.
Of course, life isn’t really like a movie. Not everyone’s that nice. The female flotsam washing up on our shores seeking comfort in the arms of a Turk are mostly onto a hiding to nothing. It can work but the odds are stacked against it. For me, the most significant part of the film was that the Yankee expat first arrived in Italy on a Tuscan gay tour. Beril had picked up the subplot. She was saying, ‘I know and I don’t mind.’
Trolling on the Net
Fellow blogger, Yankee Garrett at A Change of Underwear commented on my post about expat forums and some of the strange people that lurk within. He tells me that the word trolling is now used to describe the mean business of writing nasty online comments. Funny, in my day trolling meant something completely different – cruising (in the picking up loose men sense, not mucking about on silly boats sense). This was part of a whole lexicon of slang words that formed something called Polari (from the Italian palare – to talk). Polari was used in Britain by sinners on the social margins – actors (when acting was considered little better than whoring), circus and fairground showmen, criminals, prostitutes, and, up to the early seventies, gay people. We deviants have always kept the best company. Back when you couldn’t get a word out of the love that dares not speak its name because of the threat of a stiff prison sentence, Polari slang was a safe and secret form of communication. It has a delicious vocabulary of wonderfully ripe terms. Here are a few of the ones I just love:
Basket (a man’s bulge through clothes); bibi (bisexual); bona (good); bona nochy (a good night); bungery (pub); buvare (a drink); camp (effeminate); carts (willy); chicken (young man); cottage (a public loo used for jollies); dilly boy (rent boy); dish (bum); eek (face); handbag (money); jubes (tits); khazi (loo); lallies (legs); mince (walk); naff (nasty); national handbag (dole); omi (man) omi-palone (camp queen); plate (blow job); palone (woman); palone-omi (lesbian); remould (sex change); riah (hair) rough trade (working class sex); slap (makeup); todd (alone); tootsie trade (sex between two passive partners); trade (sex); troll (to walk about looking for trade): vada (see).
The use of Polari began to wane when society loosened up and male gay sex was de-criminalised in 1967 (interestingly, lesbianism was never a crime). However, before it was finally consigned to the social history books, Polari had one last glorious hurrah. Round the Horne was a popular BBC radio show from 1965 to 1968 and featured short sketches called Julian and Sandy. The high camp comedy was liberally sprinkled with Polari and wicked double entendre, ultra risqué for those buttoned up days. Julian was played by Kenneth Williams and Sandy by Hugh Paddick. The back story here is that the supremely talented Kenneth always struggled with his sexuality and lived an embittered almost monastic existence, whereas jobbing thespian Hugh lived a happy homosexual life with his partner for thirty years. Sadly, both Kenneth and Hugh are now in bona heaven.
A few Polari words such as naff, camp and slap have entered modern parlance. If by chance I walk past you and remark, ‘vada the bona dish’, take it as a complement. And I absolutely love the thought of right wing ranters trolling the internet. I hope they use a wipe-down webcam; forgive them, they know not what they do. The word Polari itself lives on at the Polari Literary Salon launched by Paul Burston (Gay Editor of Time Out London), a brilliant showcase for new gay and lesbian writers.
Perking the Pansies 