Posts
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!
Thursday, 12 June 2008
Saturday S.L.U.T.S.
Tuesday, 9 October 2007
Margo, Jerry, Madge & A Magical...Marriage?
Even writing those words has brought a lump to my throat as I think back to the day just three weeks ago. Let’s get one thing out of the way before I begin the recollections though. Although the invitations said ‘Civil Partnership’, I and most of the other guests quickly came to refer to the occasion as the ‘wedding’ and I’m sticking with that. While one or two people I’ve spoken to baulk at calling a gay union (any gay union that is, not just Margo and Jerry’s) a ‘wedding’, for my money a ‘wedding’ as opposed to a ‘marriage’ is the whole shebang of ceremony, reception, evening do, speeches, confetti, drunk uncles, tearful aunties and fat bridesmaids getting fingered behind the marquee. Admittedly M & J’s wedding was far too classy to have the last of these (there was no marquee for a start) but a wedding it most certainly was and anyone who wants to say otherwise frankly wouldn’t have been invited. To my mind the terms ‘marriage’ or ‘civil partnership’ (or indeed, ‘civil marriage’) apply only to the mechanism via which the relationship becomes official in law; everything else is semantics.
So, down off my soapbox and on to the big day. Actually let’s start a few nights before when we - the grooms, the overseas visitors (Brick, Adam and Matty aka The Americans and Claire Mac, The Sicilian Widow), OLoC and myself – kicked off the festivities at where else but VauxhallVille. There we found the gang were in celebratory mood too, it being their first birthday. They’d gone for a Wild West theme, always one of my favourite dress-up choices, and entertainment was provided by the sublime Tina C who dedicated many a song to the happy couple. Timberlina, who I’m still just a little bit stalker-ish about, made sure our party was the centre of attention and although I think we may have pissed off the gorgeous Nathaniel De Ville by storming the stage for his line dancing finale it was the perfect way to start off the wedding weekend. Margo – under the influence of three bottles of Cava not to mention the caipirinhas we’d necked at Anne Frank’s House before leaving – fell on top of Sam the Wedding Planner, nearly knocking her out and resulting in not only a golf ball-sized lump on his left temple but also a black bruise to the tongue which he was lucky not to bite clean through. Which would certainly have made saying his vows somewhat tricky…
After a Friday spent recovering, Saturday saw me running a few errands for the boys and making the finishing touches to my outfit, before joining M & J, the Hollogays, The Americans, The Sicilian Widow and a huge contingent of their recently-arrived families for a long, boozy dinner at the local Italian. What was beautiful about that part of the celebrations was the realisation that this wasn’t just a wedding of two people who love each other deeply, but of their loved ones too; their friends and families, siblings and ex-lovers, colleagues, employers, employees, all brought together by the common bond of their love for one, the other or both of this gorgeous couple.
Sunday morning dawned and with it, The Big Day. The ceremony was due to start at 3.00 so I could afford a lie in even though – having been given the honour of being Master of Ceremonies – I had to be at the Prince of Wales Theatre, their chosen venue, at 2.00. I was up in good time but on looking in the mirror saw that a few late nights (and long days) had taken their toll on my usually flawless complexion and I looked pasty, puffy and – aaargh! – spotty. So, I put out a Facialist 911 call and within half an hour had a fully-trained expert on my doorstep armed with the finest products and strict orders to make me a supermodel. The results were nothing short of miraculous and I was dressed, groomed and out the door within the hour and got me to the ‘church’ just about on time.
What followed was nothing short of dreamlike.
After a walk through of the venue and timings with Sam the Wedding Planner (who’d made a good recovery from Thursday night’s near-fatal Margo-tumbling accident) the ushers (among them, The Agony Uncles) and I took our places to receive the guests as they arrived, and what a glamorous bunch they were. The hats, gowns, suits, corsages, fascinators, cravats, ties, jewellery and general sparkle with which everyone had adorned themselves made for a picture–perfect colourful congregation, led by an immaculately attired groom and groom; Margo in a beautiful checked two-piece, Jerry in a more sober, sharply tailored navy number. Their make-up artiste had worked miracles on Margo’s golf ball, rendering it all but invisible, and the swelling to his tongue had subsided enough for him to get his ‘I will’ out when the moment came.
That moment was at the near-climax of a truly beautiful ceremony which combined the very considered – thoughtful, literary readings expressing what love means to them – and the high camp – a choral rendition of a classically re-arranged ‘Crazy For You’ in honour of the boys’ own goddess, Mrs Ritchie. Taking place on the stage of the theatre, decorated with nothing more elaborate than huge hyacinths in monolithic glass vases, the ceremony was touching, honest, sincere and devotional. Only two things distracted from the emotion of it all. One was the registrar’s inability to pronounce the word ‘ask’, instead saying ‘arks’, bringing to mind Catherine Tate’s ‘Am I bovvered?’ schoolgirl Lauren. The other was, well, you’ve probably guessed – me, sobbing uncontrollably having been completely overwhelmed with emotion before I’d even arrived. I’d managed to hold it together long enough to announce the guests as they’d arrived and usher them into the auditorium but then totally lost it as the vows were read.
Still, I was able to get something of a grip and moved on to the champagne reception in the theatre’s main room, a fabulous art deco space overlooking Leicester Square, complete with sweeping staircase designed – and of course used – for grand entrances. Glenda and ActiveWill, the buffest boys anyone knows, had been talked into taking the role of Champagne Charlies and had spent many extra hours in the gym and many fewer hours eating to ensure that they were at the peak of their musculature for the occasion. Stripped to the waist of their skin-tight white jeans and sprinkled in gold body glitter, the boys toured the room filling guests’ flutes from Methuselahs of Perrier-Jouet and Laurent-Perrier, ensuring that by the time the cake – a glorious, just-shy-of-over-the-top pink iced confection – was ready to be cut, the majority of those in attendance were half cut themselves.
After a few group photos it was time for food, and a delicious, Cornucopian fork buffet had been set up in an adjoining, equally splendid room. Rosé – the boys’ favourite wine – flowed freely, rather too freely in my case considering my duties were not yet over, guests mingled, conversation flourished and love was all around.
Moving downstairs to a function room, transformed for the evening by who else but TWBD into a fantasy disco, the evening part of the bash got into full swing and more guests poured in. The drinks went down, the volume up, and revellers of every age, size and persuasion took to the dancefloor to throw their best shapes to the DJ’s sounds. The floor was cleared for the grooms to have their first dance, to the wonderfully personal choice of ‘Nothing Fails’ (more Madonna) and choreographed to a sufficient extent to impress without a trace of showing off (though God knows if you can’t show off at your own wedding, when can you?) Entertainment was provided by scene legend Dave Lynn, who had most people in stitches with the notable (and vocal) exception of a rather intoxicated distant relative of Jerry’s who was swiftly evicted by his mother.
Finally came the speeches and although five may sound excessive it was anything but, as each of the two best men, Margo’s brother and father and the boys themselves delivered very different but equally moving orations which between them managed to thank, involve, welcome and embrace everyone in the room, and beyond that those who weren’t there: the ‘absent friends’. Touchingly, the boys handed out gifts – beautiful, thoughtful, individually chosen gifts – to those of us who had had duties; I will cherish mine, a paperweight bearing the words ‘A Crown Of Life’ always. And as far as the formalities went, that was pretty much that and it was time to party.
By about 11 o’clock, I had been on the go for nine hours or so and been drinking for much of that. Coupled with my greatly heightened emotional state – partly due to the occasion and my love for Margo who I love like the brother I never had, and partly due to self-pity for my own recent break up from a relationship I’d invested so much hope in – and having rather upset Jerry with an ill-placed ‘joke’ that strayed the wrong side of politically incorrect, I realised that I was in no fit state to stay a second longer and left without saying goodbyes. I think if I had attempted to I would only have started crying again and no-one wanted to see that, frankly. I disappeared into the night and thankfully made it safely home; I woke the next morning still holding my button-hole where I’d gone to sleep clutching it like a precious keepsake (which it is).
I really couldn’t pick a favourite moment of the day. It was so perfect, so personal, so inclusive, so stylish, so sincere, so real, so fantastical, so fucking special from even before the start until well after the finish, that to try to pick one moment would be folly. I’ll remember it for many years to come, how much fun it was, how honoured I was to have been involved, and how when I saw two such devoted and loving people, who I love so very much, commit themselves to each other for life I actually thought my heart would burst out of my chest. So here’s to you Margo and Jerry. You pulled it off – the best party of my life. Thank you for giving me the honour of being your MC and sorry if I let you down by being a drunk. Thank you for the lovely gift which as I type I can see out of the corner of my eye in the spot where I now keep it, proudly on display. But thank you most of all being there for each other and for making the promises you did in front of us all on that wonderful day. I’ll never forget it.
Friday, 5 January 2007
Thirty, single, fabulous...and f**king busy!
Yes! It’s me, I’m back! Did you miss me? Good, because I’ve missed you like crazy – it’s true!
The lack of recent entries here on thirtysingleandfabulous is due quite simply to my having been so darned busy. Two nights after the Molton Brown experience I went to the closing night of Bent at the Trafalgar Studios which was as brilliant as it was harrowing, and left us – me, Glenda, Our Lady of Chappelle and Margo and Jerry – rather lost for words, unable to quite express how grateful we newly were for the sexual freedoms we take for granted. The following weekend, at my first gay wedding, I was again reminded of just how bloody fortunate we are. Despite the anodyne surroundings of Brixton Register Office, the unintentional hilarity of the piped music (‘I’m Not In Love’ and ‘Love on The Rocks’, for Christ’s sake!) and the language barrier – one groom was French, the other Brazilian, neither could quite pronounce ‘civil partnership’ – it was beautiful and very moving to witness such a tangible manifestation of gay equality. OK, I’m off the soapbox now; what else have I been up to?
The week before Christmas was a hoot. It started with a moment I’d awaited for the preceding 13 weeks – the crowning of America’s Next Top Model (Danielle in case you missed it; yes I was surprised too but thank GOD it wasn’t Jade) Then on the Wednesday – my last day at work, hurrah! - I spent a typically hilarious evening of cocktails, dinner and dancing with Miss Adelaide and Andrea Bianco (who was half-celebrating, half-commiserating having walked out of his new job of just three weeks, his boss having turned out to be the living incarnation of Miranda Priestley) Having completed my Christmas shopping in one meticulously planned commando raid on W1 on Thursday morning, the evening was spent enjoying drinks, canapés and champagne (vintage, and a gold medal winner at the Decanter awards, Glenda authoritatively informed the hosts upon presenting it) chez Margo and Jerry. Their house is fast becoming quite the most stylish place to see and be seen in the gay village, thanks to the flair with which they entertain, and this particular evening was no exception.
The following evening Mother arrived, ready for the trip up to Big Sister’s on the Saturday, and I was delighted that she was in sufficiently good health (physical and mental) to come with me to Dolly’s Christmas drinks soiree. Chaperoned by TWBD, I took Mother on what would be her first ever trip to Brixton and despite remaining fairly firmly glued to Dolly’s sofa she was nonetheless on great form, managing to polish off three bottles of Sol, a gin and tonic and about a pint of bubbly without any visible signs of drunkenness (like Mother, like son…!) Once I had taken her back to mine and ensured she was medicated, tucked up and sound asleep, I rejoined Dolly and the rest of the partygoers - including in addition to the Hollogays, Hollywood Rob and Princess Timmy – at Barcode VauHo for more bevies and boogying. Wishing to keep up the alliteration I finished off the evening by popping next door for a bit of bum-fun, and what a lovely way to round off the evening that turned out to be
The Saturday saw us depart for Norfolk and Christmas at Big Sister’s, which in a festive nut selection nutshell can be summarised as five days of pure joy; great company, great food (and mountains of it), fabulous presents (I nearly died of shock when Mother gave me two extremely tasteful and perfectly fitting items of clothing!) and a totally chilled atmosphere with not a single raised voice all the time we were there.
Arriving back on the Wednesday and with Mother safely despatched on her homeward journey, I arranged to hit the town with OLoC, Glenda’s planned drinks party having sadly had to be cancelled due to its host having flu. Much as I had had a gorgeous time with the family, as had OLoC with his, I needed to reacquaint myself with civilisation and as we were both in the mood for a warm welcome, cold drinks and hot boys, we headed for Le Bar de Kaz. There we met up with The Canadian who, through the sniffling brought on by his ‘white Christmas’, informed me that he has decided to settle down with one – just one! – of his current beaux. For you dear reader this means fewer tales of The Canadian and his pan-continental sexploits; for me it simply means that our catch-ups will be rather less difficult to follow.
Tipsy (yes, tipsy! You heard right!) and randy we moved on to Los Dos Brewos, and both OLoC and I were successful in finding company for the night – his a very cute scally type who took him back to (where else?) Peckham; mine a rather gorgeous and (thank you baby Jesus) sillily well-endowed South African lad who kept me busy until well into the next afternoon – they don’t call it a ‘job’ for nothing… (On that topic, I’d welcome readers’ suggestions as to new ways to reply to the compliment ‘You give great head’. Currently I either just say ‘Thanks’ or more often ‘Yes, I do,’ but I’d like a wittier riposte. Answers on a saucy postcard please.)
On New Year’s Eve Eve it was back to the Kaz to meet The Ex and a few of his crew (to one of whom, it later transpired, he is newly-enfianced) for Saturday beers, thence to the fully-recovered Glenda’s for copious amounts of fizz and gossip into the night.
My New Year’s Eve party was fabulously fun and unexpectedly well-attended. I’d expected just a handful but was delighted to welcome OLoC, Dolly, Glenda, Princess Timmy and cute ickle friend thereof, KLo and Mr Media (a gay man trapped in a woman’s body going out with a gay man trapped in a straight man’s body, and boy do the gays love ‘em both), The Ex and The Ex’s New Man (who for the record seems very nice), Smurphy, Judders and Dr Az. All came bearing liquor (and quality liquor at that – my friends have class), and I laid on some nibbles, played some cool tunes through the slinky iPod speakers Santa brought me, conversation flowed, merriment was made and 2007 was seen in in an atmosphere of love and laughter that bodes well for the year ahead.
Waking on 01/01/07 with only my second hangover in eight weeks (the first having been the morning after the South African…well I hadn’t had a chance to sleep off the drink!) I gladly accepted an invitation from The Ex to go round to his for the SW19 premier of Sarah Jane Adventures, the teatime Doctor Who spin off ostensibly for kids but which seems much more aimed at the The Gays than at The Brats. (There was some sort of plot involving an aggressively marketed fizzy drink whose shady but superficially altruistic manufacturer seemed set on world domination, which whilst serving as a clever critique of the current state of global capitalism was far less of a draw for me than the fact it had that Harley off Footballer’s Wives in it looking hot.) Smurphy and Judders - both as drunk as it is physiologically possible to be without the liver imploding – having left, I found myself in the very Noughties but less-uncomfortable-than-it-could-have-been position of chilling in front of the TV with The Ex and his new man in what used to be my front room. After a while (and eager to be on the sofa in time for The Vicar of Dibley) I headed home, washed up the glassware and threw out the debris from NYE, and settled down with a curry to see Dawn French tie the knot with him off Robin Hood. I cried, natch.
All of which brings us pretty much bang up to the minute, other than to update you all on how the drinking’s going…but that I think deserves a post of it’s own so watch, as ever, this space.
Wednesday, 29 November 2006
Testing My Sobriety
After three full weeks of not drinking – not one single drop, sip or taste – I gave myself permission last weekend to start again, with a view to putting to the test whether, having proved to my satisfaction that I could go totally without, I could drink and keep it under control. During the week I’d had a long and enlightening conversation with Bubble, my Stateside friend who is in AA and has been sober now for 13 months. He – like all of the Inner Circle – has been incredibly supportive of my efforts and gave me some surprising but common sense advice: that the only way to be sure if I had a problem was not to abstain, but to drink.
The rationale behind this is that alcoholism, like all addictions, comes in many guises. Some people are alcohol-dependent; that is, they physically cannot get through a day, an hour or a minute without being drunk. For others, the drinking is the symptom, not the problem; they drink to mask or anaesthetise immediate or deeply-rooted emotional or psychological pain, so while they may not drink all the time, when they do, they do it to excess. Others still – and this is the category Bubble falls into – are alcohol-allergic; one drink, just one, triggers a reaction in the brain which removes the ability to stop, leading them to drink to oblivion for no other reason than that they cannot do otherwise.
Of these three types of alcoholism – and the list is by no means exhaustive – I felt by day 21 that I’d successfully discounted the first (cravings, whilst they occurred, were very few and far between and swiftly passed with a bit of self-coaching and a family-size mint Aero.) I took, several times, a good hard impassive look at my life to see if the second applied and decided that it did not; for all that I have, and have had, trouble in my life, I genuinely could not equate my drinking with being symptomatic of it. That left the third option, the alcohol allergy, and there was only one way to put that to the test. So it was that on Saturday last I tentatively took my first drink in three weeks.
The results were far from dramatic. It didn’t go ‘straight to my head’ as I’d thought it might, nor did it make me feel at all ill, as I’d feared it might. I felt neither relief nor pleasure; my overwhelming feeling was, if anything, of confusion. Confusion, because after so long abstaining, I’d unconsciously come to dissociate drinking alcohol from being a part of my routine, and so almost like a computer detecting rogue software, my brain struggled to comprehend what exactly a glass of wine was doing in my hands. I finished the glass very slowly, and shortly after went on to a 40th birthday party and from there, on to that classy Sarf London venue Los Dos Brewos, and not a drop further passed my lips. Experiment or no experiment, I just didn’t want to drink! Sure I was getting bored senseless of juice, Red Bull and water, but I wasn’t even tempted to vary it with something hard. (Although I was certainly gagging for something ‘hard’ but failed to find it – two weeks into not drinking, I mentioned to Glenda that on a stone-cold sober visit to Barcode, I’d been amazed at how few guys I’d found attractive without my trusty beer goggles of old. He chuckled and replied with his typical brevity and perceptiveness, “Sobriety is a harsh judge,” and how bloody right he was!)
Thinking it over the next day, I cautiously allowed myself to take the previous night’s abstinence as a good sign. But then I got to wondering, maybe I didn’t want more of the wine because it just wasn’t very nice wine? What would happen if I were to crack open a really good bottle; would I finish the lot? I needed to test this theory so later, invited to Margo and Jerry’s for lunch along with The Agony Uncles and Our Lady of Chappelle, I took with me a corker of a Cab Sauv and when the beef was served let Margo pour me a small glass. I sipped as I ate – interspersing each delicious mouthful with one of Pellegrino – and found that the one glass lasted me through the meal and indeed dessert. Cometh the cheese board, cometh the port, and I partook of a thimbleful; again, I savoured it, enjoyed it, finished it – but felt no urge at all to refill it. I still felt somehow guilty that after three weeks (sounds like nothing, doesn’t it?) I was ‘back on the bottle’ again, but I reassured myself that it was for research purposes and felt a lot better for that.
So where am I with it now? Well, I think it’s too early to say that I’ve got it fully under control. Sure, I managed to stop at one glass of wine; but I have yet to try that test on one beer, one cocktail or – my real Nemesis – one vodka. And try it I will; I need to know that I can control my drinking, as opposed to my non-drinking, for myself, and if I can’t, I need to think again about what I’m going to do about it.
So far, so damn good – I feel great, everyone says I look great, for the best part of a month I’ve not done or said a single thing I’m ashamed of, and as a very pleasant side-effect my money’s going a hell of a lot further. The support I’ve had from the Inner Circle has been, if not surprising, amazing and affirming. From regular words of encouragement and expressions of their pride, to the more subtle gestures such as inviting me for ‘a juice’ after work, the gang have accepted and respected my need to not drink and made sticking to it so much easier. Drinking responsibly though is, I think, likely to be a greater challenge yet than not drinking has been. Watch, as ever, this space!