Saturday S.L.U.T.S.

Part of staying fabulous is staying fit (or at least, reasonably so) but I've never been able to enjoy sport - always being the last-picked fatty in P.E. has scarred me for life - and I'm utterly turned off by the whole gay gym cult and the vast majority of its practitioners. So it was with unusually little resistance that I let Margo and Patsy talk me into joining the South London Urban Training Squad, aka S.L.U.T.S.!

Meeting (usually) on Saturday mornings, S.L.U.T.S. is a loosely-knit collective of thirtysomething gay guys who want to work out and get fit while having a hoot-and-a-half in a totally attitude free environment. Spring Gardens - to much of gay London a place to chill out, cruise or indeed collapse after a night of clubbing - provides a wonderfully versatile location for the group to meet, offering not just plenty of open, green space but also a basketball court where each session begins with about twenty minutes of either basketball, netball or footie, or a combination of the three for those of us who never could tell the difference. Then follows a fairly intensive forty minutes or so of circuit training (who'd have thought that two minutes of star jumps could bring a grown man - OK, me - to the brink of tears?) before we warm down with ten to fifteen minutes of stretches. This Sunday just gone, the stretches were led by an extremely expert Jerry, who showed us that he has obviously paid attention at every keep-fit class he's ever joined, even if he's never gone back...

S.L.U.T.S. is a great idea, and absolutely perfect for anyone who, like me, wants to get some exercise but is turned off by the twattery and attitude of most gyms or the competitiveness of some groups. At the moment membership extends to only a handful of us (although Patsy did attempt a recruitment drive at the Vauxhall Street Fair the other week...) but the aim is to grow S.L.U.T.S. into a collective large enough to sustain occasional absences of its members - three of us are away this coming Saturday which has put paid to that meeting - and to rotate the duties of organising it all which currently lie with Patsy and Margo. That said, Margo appears in his element channeling his inner school-mistress and never appears happier than when chastising the 'lower VI' for misbehaviour or handing out ten second penalties for stopping during the circuits!

Usually S.L.U.T.S. meets at 10.00 on Saturday mornings by the basketball court in Spring Gardens, weather permitting, and afterwards adjourns to the nearest greasy spoon to undo at least some of the morning's good work. If you like the sound of that, do please get in touch. There are no joining criteria whatsoever - we'll even accept straight members! - just as long as you leave your attitude in your kit bag and promise to get into the spirit of it. Whether you end up behaving like a lower-case slut with anyone you may meet there is entirely up to you!