Two years in the making and, just as Liam and I celebrated the blog’s second birthday with a drop of bubbly, Perking the Pansies received its 250,000th hit*. This may be skinny fry for the big hitters but this fat little sprat is delighted. I had fretted that our move – a wrench from the warm bosom of Bodrum to a quick-step along Norwich’s ancient cobbled lanes – might put people off. I thought I might end up talking to myself. I thought I might end up in therapy. Well, I needn’t have worried, readers have stayed the course, I’ve actually picked up a few more punters along the street and the book is still dropping into the shopping basket. So, whoever you are out there, friends and strangers alike, thank you.
Who knows what the terrible twos will bring? For a start, the equal sequel to the book will be out in 2013. Gird your loins. If you thought the first book was an eye opener, well… Thank you for all the enquiries; watch this space. I will also be releasing two e-books this month, and of course, I’ll continue to bombard you with rambling posts and the occasional bit of not so subtle PR.
On that very subject, the people at iWriteReadRate have shortlisted Perking the Pansies for their book of the month competition. If you can be bothered, please vote. You’ll have to register though, which is a bit of a drag. Who knows? You might like this fancy new book site and stick around. Aw, go on.
* combined with my original Google blog that was blocked in Turkey in December 2010, blah, blah, blah …
Cardinal Keith O’Brien, leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland, has been named as Stonewall’s Bigot of the Year 2012. He gets my vote. His ‘Eminence’ (these people do so love their titles and do so hate to be questioned) has declared ‘war’ on the Scottish Government’s plans to introduce marriage equality and likens gay marriage to slavery and child abuse. He should know. The Catholic Church is well-acquainted with war, slavery and child abuse.
With familiar names like Charing Cross, Blackfriars Bridge, Spitalfields, Haymarket and Pudding Lane, you could mistake Norwich for London. But, during all my years in the Smoke, I never spotted a tree swathed in wrapping paper or a multi-coloured tea set wafting in the leaves, not even when flying high on recreational smarties. Other city streets have a distinctive rural feel – Upper Goat Lane (quite Turkish, when you think about it), Golden Dog Lane, Lobster Lane, Rampant Horse Street and my ecclesiastical favourite, St Gregory’s Back Alley. Who was the saintly Greg and why was his back alley so popular? I think those naughty monks should dish the dirt.
Our re-acquaintance, after a absence of 5 years, with the lewd, the rude and the crude of the Isle of Dogs* reminded me of a bit of a gag that Bob Senkow sent me some time ago:
It’s important to have a man who helps at home, who cooks from time to time, cleans up and has a job.
It’s important to have a man who can make you laugh.
It’s important to have a man who you can trust and who doesn’t lie to you.
It’s important to have a man who is good in bed and who likes to be with you.
It’s very, very, very important that these four men don’t know each other.
Just a happy gay life? Discuss.
*Contrary to its name, the islands have little to nothing to do with the canary bird. Rather, it is the bird that is named after the islands, not the converse. The name Islas Canarias is likely derived from the Latin name Canariae Insulae, meaning “Island of the Dogs”, a name applied originally only to Gran Canaria. According to the historian Pliny the Elder, the Mauritanian king Juba II named the island Canaria because it contained “vast multitudes of dogs of very large size”. Source: Wikipedia.
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.”
Eight hours after leaving Norwich, we turned the key on our digs at Playa Del Inglés. Aside from a few up-market hotels, Canarian apartments tend to be standard fare – concrete boxes with a small dark bedroom, an enclosed shower-room with barely enough light to fix your face, a stark balcony with nasty plastic seats, an ill-equipped kitchenette and a wipe-down living space decorated with lopsided Athena prints. We were pleasantly surprised to find that our concrete box was a comfortable cut above, with laminate flooring, trendy fittings and a flat screen TV. Liam flicked through the channels. The only one in English was CNN. They were showing an interview with Mitt Romney’s sons – all Hollywood teeth and apple pie. I wanted to throw up. At least the Osmonds could sing. I swept open the balcony door and the first thing to catch my eye was a sign for the ‘Garage Sex Shop – Cabins, Cinema and Video.’ It does exactly what it says on the tin, a metaphor for the entire mid-Atlantic rock. We’d arrived.
When it comes to a turn around the dance floor, location is more important than lodgings. Happily, we were spitting distance from the Yumbo Center, the throbbing epicentre of gay Canarian low-life. The Yumbo is a naff treat for all the senses, a crumbling multi-layered open air shopping and sex emporium. It started to fall apart as soon as it was built (some twenty five years ago). By day, it’s an over-sized pound shop patronised by ancient slow-lane Germans in busy shirts and socked sandals. But, at the stroke of midnight, the racks of tat are wheeled away, the garish bars throw open their doors and the entire place is transformed into a gaudy cacophonous neon-lit cess-pit of drunken debauchery. After four years of tranquilising sexual ambiguity in Turkey, the no nonsense in-yer-face, up-for-anything style was right up our alley.
Our photos couldn’t possible do justice to the wonder that is the Yumbo Center (we must get ourselves a better camera) but this certainly does:
Liam and I spent a few days in Gran Canaria to celebrate my birthday and to catch a few rays before the winter drizzle forced us into snug hibernation. We flew Easyjet – On the Buses with a tango tan. As usual, speedy boarding was a nail-biting chaotic scrum. Mindful of our blood pressure, we decided not to leg it to the front. As we queued to board the plane, a lumpy broad with precision-cut bottle-black hair and a particularly miserable expression, ram-raided a wheelchair-bound pensioner through the snaking crowd. “Well, excuse me,” she screamed. “Get out of the way!” Startled passengers parted like the Red Sea, us included. Presumably, the charmless dragon was pissed off about having to do some work.
Thankfully, we managed to get seats together and strapped ourselves in for the full EJ experience. The chief flying mattress was a jolly fat fellow, an extraordinarily energetic thing who cha-cha-cha’d up and down the aisle and nearly took off when indicating the emergency exits. Cha-cha-cha man tried to talk up the over-priced down-market bacon butties by announcing that they came with “an accompaniment of ketchup.” Amazingly, the hype worked and steaming cellophane packs of soggy microwaved rubber were hurtled down the cabin courtesy of the “here, catch,” school of Sleazyjet service. Half the punters suffered third degree burns.
Liam and I attended the No to Hate candle-lit vigil in Norwich’s Chapelfield Gardens on Saturday evening which commemorated the savage homophobic murder of Ian Baynham in Trafalgar Square in September 2009. He was set upon by a feral trio of two drunken girls and a lashed-up boy, all minors at the time. They kicked him unconscious and stamped on him, screaming homophobic abuse as he lay defenceless on the ground. He died of his injuries 18 days later. This was not a case of the dispossessed hitting out at a callous society (not that this is a valid excuse). One of thugs had been to public school. Depressingly, queer bashing is nothing new and used to be quite de rigeur back in the day. We may live in more enlightened times, with the likes of the Daily Mail being slightly less incendiary and a Tory Government (of all things) struggling to introduce marriage equality against the bitter opposition of the bigots of the Right and the Cloth. But, the times are not enlightened enough to prevent vicious bullying in our schools and hate crime on our streets (total recorded crime may be down but reported hate crime is up).
The vigil was organised by Norwich Pride and coincided with events held up and down the realm and the mother of all tributes in Trafalgar Square with a cast of thousands. Our event was a little more modest with about 100 or so huddled around one side of the bandstand. Small is beautiful. The scene was lit by dozens of tea lights flickering away in hand-painted rainbow-coloured holders. There were a few speeches, a tuneful set by the Sing With Pride Choir and a two minute silence heralded by the striking of the City Hall clock. For me, the most tender moment was the last speaker, a young man call Kai (I hope I have spelt this correctly), who told us of his struggle as a man born in a woman’s body. I’m a cynical old queen these days but it brought a tear to my eye. Of course, that could just have been the pain from the hot wax dripping down my fingers.
Ian as I remember him
The remembrance was particularly poignant for me as I knew Ian Baynham. We had a brief fling way, way back in 1980. I still have a photograph of him in a dusty old album that’s miraculously survived being dragged across country and foreign field. Ian’s murder has come to represent the campaign against all hate crimes of whatever hue. Perhaps his untimely demise was not in vain. I can only hope for the best. I can’t help wondering, though, where were the trendy young things? It was a Saturday night and there was plenty of time to swing by before heading to the bars for a bit of boozing and cruising. It’s not that much to ask.
I checked out the coverage of the event in the local press. Norwich Evening News Online did a nice piece. However, I was rather incensed by the comment from Noah Vale who wrote:
“It’s a shame that the constabulary doesn’t have the same attitude to ALL reported crime – not just trendy “right-on” minority group PC crime. How about clearing the streets of aggressive beggars , unlicenced buskers with various animals , illegally riding dangerous cyclists & other assorted drunks & litter louts.”
I was moved to register and reply. I wrote:
“Is this for real? No one ever died from excessive litter. There’s nothing trendy or right-on about being kicked to death by a baying mob or blown to pieces by a nail bomb.”
Now that our frivolous semi-retired life among the lotus-eating emigreys of the Aegean is behind us, I thought I’d mark the transition with a major makeover. Not me, of course (far too late for that). Regular readers will have noticed that the blog is now dressed in more sober attire. Backtobodrum commented:
“I have to comment that your blog now looks very organized and serious. Have you two gone back to wearing suits and ties?”
It’s an interesting observation because, in a way, we have. Liam’s got himself a part time job doing something with data. So much for giving up the wicked world of the waged but needs must when the Devil drives. The demon in this case is the continuing slide in Turkish interest rates. It’s a pre-emptive strike. We’re spending more or less the same here as we did in Bodrum, but we need to stitch the little hole that first appeared in the family purse a couple of years back. Working part time enables Liam to plug the gap and to meet his family obligations (the main reason we came back to Blighty). It also enables me to make a proper go at this writing lark (the other reason). When I get the film deal, Liam will be released from paid labours and return to his main function in life – sorting me out and peeling me grapes.
Perking the Pansies will be off the air for a few days. Liam and I are taking a well-deserved mini-break to Gran Canaria, that scurrilous mid-Atlantic duty free rock to catch some rays, stock up on Clarins essentials and celebrate my 52nd birthday in dipsomaniac style. I’ve been many, many times before for a little winter warmer and furtive fun in the sun. Now I’m older, wiser and firmly married, I’m content to observe the boozin’ and cruisin’ from the safety of a bar stool and shady sun bed. Notes will be taken and reports will be written. No doubt, the odd geriatric German will wave his crumpled old do-da at us on the beach, flopping out from a well-clipped grey bush. My wrinkly old British do-da will remain safely under wraps. I like to keep the boys guessing (or from throwing up). Normal transmission will be resumed shortly. Salud!
Perking the Pansies 