Same Sex Marriage in England and Wales

The debate in the House of Commons was predictable and as suspected, the traditional wing of the Parliamentary Tory Party revolted. Despite the bluster from the Colonel Blimp types, the Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Bill passed its second reading with flying colours – by 400 votes to 175. I call that a comfortable majority. The Bill now passes to the Upper House and will no doubt get roughed up by a cohort of unelected geriatric reactionaries and dusty old farts in cassocks. I never thought I’d ever say this, but I applaud David Cameron’s bravery in facing down the rebellion. He’s trying to drag the Nasty Party into the 21^st Century. He needs all the help he can get. Too many Tories are still living in the 19^th Century, a time of gunboat diplomacy, child labour and rotten boroughs. They’re a dying breed and the society of inequality they cherish is dying with them. The grey men in the shires may be sharpening their knives but I suspect that Mr Cameron is safe for now. The coalition of political convenience will limp on to the next General Election. They will lose spectacularly and Mr Cameron will find himself cast out of Number Ten on his old Etonian arse (with a few daggers in his back). Don’t worry, David, a fat job in the City is assured.

On the day, the vote was all over the News. But the hacks and the pundits focused on the split in the Tory ranks rather than the issue of marriage equality itself. The canny media know that in the real world, it’s a bit of a non-issue, particularly among those under 40. By the very next day, the Press had moved on to greener pastures – another depressing scandal about NHS failure. Now that’s something that really matters. The marriage equality law will eventually pass (and I hope we pip the French at the post) and when the dust has settled, reasonable people will wonder what all the fuss was about.

You might also like Much I Do About Nothing.

And Then There Were Three

When we lived in Walthamstow, the recycling scheme was clear and simple. We had a single green plastic container into which all material was deposited – plastic, glass, paper, cardboard, aluminium cans – the entire kit and caboodle. I called it my ‘save the world box’ and it was emptied weekly. Four years on and the whole recycling malarkey has got a lot more serious. We now have a black wheelie bin for general household refuse and a light green wheelie bin for recycling except for kitchen waste that goes in a little black box, garden waste that is chucked into a beige sack and glass which goes into a dark green box. The latter, in particular, requires the strength of two butch lads to lug and tip. Our little back yard, with its random collection of multi-sized containers, could be entered into the Turner Prize to represent the municipal oppression of the common man.

Our general rubbish and recycling is collected on alternate weeks. This came as quite a shock after the twice daily tours by Bodrum bin men. At my advanced age, the new regime takes some mental acrobatics to remember what week is which. I’ve taken to sticking post-it notes on the multi-point. Nevertheless, we do our bit. Sometimes though, the city council don’t do theirs and sometimes, they serve up an embarrassment of riches. Three times now, our recycling has been left to rot by the wayside. Our refuse was refused. Then we were suddenly hit by the mysterious case of the stolen wheelie. I looked out the window. It was gone. I looked up and down the street. It was of empty of wheelies of any sort. What would Miss Marple make of it? I amused myself with the thought of early-morning students on a drunken caper wheeling my wheelie around the city with a pissed-up nerd inside. Wheelie-less, I rang the Council. “I’m without a wheelie,” I said. “Oh dear, no,” a sympathetic lady replied. She was shocked by my sorry tale and promised re-instatement. A shiny new wheelie arrived the very next day; then another one the day after, then a third the day after that. I’ve opened an e-Bay account. Don’t tell the Council.

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.

Matilda

We ventured down to the Smoke during the big freeze for a night at the theatre. Surprisingly, our train ride both to and from London was untroubled by the threat of snow drifts wafting across the frozen flatlands. Our West End treat was Matilda, the RSC musical adapted from Roald Dahl’s dark parable of good and evil. The gong-drenched pantomime was a slick, visually stunning, superbly staged, brilliantly choreographed, foot-tapping extravaganza that left a warm glow like a vintage brandy on a chilly night. The performance was only slightly marred by the quartet of ladies sitting immediately behind us who provided a running commentary while rustling their way through a hundredweight of Maltesers. Every appearance of a cute child on stage was greeted with an “aah” and, since much of the cast is made up of cute kiddies, there were a lot of aahs to sit through. A word of caution, the deafening crescendo of pre-pubescent sopranos singing in perfect harmony might crack your glasses and make your ears bleed.

Beating the Bishop

The Church of England continues to get its collective cassock in a twirl attempting to respond to the social changes beating down the cathedral door. The result is a dog’s breakfast of compromise and fudge that appears to please nobody. Female vicars are not allowed to be bishops but gay male priests can be if they promise to keep the Devil in their drawers, even those in a civil partnerships. God knows what they’ll say when marriage equality is introduced (and it will be). How is this to be monitored? Spy cameras in the boudoir of the bishop’s palace? Lie detectors at the altar? Early-morning electrodes for the lazy lob? The Old Testament evangelicals are spitting fire and brimstone, the traditionalists are defecting to the holier-than-thou papists and the lame liberals are tut-tutting all the way to the gay pub. The Church’s continuing self-flagellation over rumpy-bumpy between consenting males is laughable and yet the subject of girl-on-girl goings on is strangely absent from the debate. Lesbianism, it seems, doesn’t exist in Canon Law. You’d think that a church established out of political expediency would be more politically astute in these more egalitarian times. Surely they must know that few people care that much anymore?

Les Misérables

The advantages of joining the club at Cinema City are free tickets and 10% off at the bar, both of which are guaranteed to drag us out into the drizzle. Our latest freebie at the flicks was the musical blockbuster, ‘Les Misérables,’ adapted from the all-conquering stage musical. Les Mis follows the fortunes of on-the-run ex-con, Jean Valjean, ducking and diving his way to redemption from the final defeat of Napoleon in 1815 to the abortive Paris uprisings of 1832. Anyone who is familiar with the Victor Hugo tale will know the misery of the revolting masses is relentless. The film slaps on the despair with a technicolor trowel from the epic opening act right through to the desperate insurrection of the final scenes. The historic ex-Royal Naval College (now university) at Greenwich is used to great effect as the grand backdrop to the bloody revolution. I presume the lofty burghers of Paris didn’t provide the right tax breaks to the production company.

The complicated score of Les Mis requires pipes of semi-operatic quality and it was entertaining watching various Hollywood divas straining to hold a tune. Apart from Russell Crowe’s flat notes, on the whole it wasn’t half bad, and Anne Hathaway’s exquisite performance as the luckless Fantine was a tear-jerking revelation. The film is 2 ½ hours long which befits one of the longest novels ever penned. The Glums canters the distance well enough. Misery was never so much fun.

Turkey, Surviving the Expats – Out Now!

After a few weeks of tweaking, fixing and buffing, Turkey, Surviving the Expats is off the blocks. Episode Two of the best of the blog contains all the juicy bits from the Turkey years. Here’s the blurb:

In 2009, Jack Scott and his civil partner, Liam, sold off the family silver and jumped the good ship Blighty for Muslim Turkey. They parachuted into paradise with eyes firmly shut and hoped for the best. When the blindfolds were removed, what they saw wasn’t pretty. They found themselves peering over the rim of a Byzantine bear pit. Bitching and pretension ruled the emigrey roost. The white-washed ghettoes were populated by neo-colonial bar-room bores who hated the country they’d come from, hated the country they’d come to and were obsessed with property prices, pork products and street dogs. Expat life was village life where your business was everyone’s business. For Liam, it was the barren badlands of the lost and lonely. For Jack it was the last stand of the charmless Raj – ‘Tenko’ without the guards, the guns and the barbed wire. It took them a while to find their feet and separate the wheat from the chavs but, determined to stay the course, eventually they found diamonds in the rough and roses among the weeds.

Welcome to Part Two of the mini-series which includes previously unpublished material together with Jack’s personal recommendations of the must-sees that Turkey has to offer visitors and residents alike.

Buy a Kindle edition from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com and from all other Amazon stores worldwide. Don’t have a Kindle? No problem. Download the Kindle app from Amazon and read the book on your PC, smartphone or tablet. Alternatively, buy an e-Pub version from me directly and I get to keep all the dosh. The e-Pub format can be read on most non-Kindle readers (Nook, Kobo, Sony, Apple). The e-books are priced at just £2.99, $3.99 and €3.50 – cheaper than a frozen pizza from Iceland (the shop, not the country).

Don’t forget to pick up Episode One – Turkey, the Raw Guide. Like Jack and Liam, they come as a pair.

The Big Thaw

After the big freeze comes the inevitable big thaw as temperatures rise to their seasonal norm. The glaciers of Norwich are gently melting to a sloppy slush of dirty grey and iced water gently trickles away into sewers. My bruised back is gradually recovering from my big trip and I can venture out once more without fear of slippage and indignity. Before the cold snap becomes yesterday’s news, I give one last cold snap of my own – our patio table looking like a giant iced sponge on a silver cake stand.

The Hazards of Duke Street

Norwich City Council in its municipal wisdom has decided that gritting pavements isn’t their bag. While city streets are generally clear, the continuing arctic snap means that unsuspecting pedestrians risk their dignities and their coccyxes attempting to skate along the glacial footpaths. People are dropping like nine pins judging by the amateur footage taken by a voyeuristic resident of Duke Street. Yesterday, I was gingery trying to navigate the Tombland icecap. My thick-tread winter boots did not save me from an arse-over-tit, ice scream tumble that nearly put me into an early grave. It hurt. I think I’ll sue. It’s all the rage these days.

Winter Wonderland

It didn’t take the power of the Delphic Oracle to predict the chaos that would result from yesterday’s whiteout. Even a light dusting of snow generally brings the nation to a shuddering halt. East Anglia has been particularly badly hit by the avalanche. It’s been the talk of BBC Radio Norfolk all day with a litany of cancelled events hitting the airwaves – whist drives, netball practice, line dancing, am dram, bowls and bingo. The county is littered with abandoned cars, parish halls have shut up shop, the brownies will not be dib-dib-dob-dobbing any time soon and the oven’s gone cold at the WI. Hundreds of schools have called time and thousands of kids are playing in the snow before it turns to dirty slush. Trains are cancelled and planes are grounded at Norwich International Airport (Yes, Norwich does have an international airport, not that you can fly to anywhere particularly exciting). The Dunkirk spirit has been rekindled and tales of random acts of kindness are flooding in. Plummeting temperatures and a sharp frost will guarantee that the show will run and run for a few days more. This all pales into insignificance when compared to the drama and tragedy that unfolded on the streets of South London this morning when a helicopter crashed into a crane, killing two people and injuring twelve more. You would never know it from the coverage on local radio here in the frozen east.

A sparkling blue sky enticed me out of the warmth for a hot drink and an iced bun. I took these snaps along the way.