Ibiza: Space Doubt, And Other Dilemmas...

My hissy fit at having to leave Italy was hugely mitigated by the prospect of having the wedding-of-the-year to go to upon my return: Kate and James's Moroccan-themed nuptials in Lottisham, the bride's teeny-tiny home village in Somerset. Kaftan and bejewelled sandals packed, two car-loads of us (ours a very swish midnight blue Saab, driven expertly by Glenda) headed down the motorway for a weekend of love, laughter and lunacy - the latter in the form of the swarms of loopy New Agers and wannabe gurus who roam the streets of Glastonbury, where we were staying in a very agreeable hotel above an ancient pub. As weddings go it was a classic. The bride was stunning in a beautiful vintage style dress, and the tiny village church was pure Four Weddings. As was to be expected, the bride's side was packed full of The Gays, all clucking approvingly over the fabulousness of the hat worn by the one lady among them, Kate's old friend and sometime boss Christine. The reception, in a marquee dressed up in Moroccan silks with guests sitting cross-legged at low-slung tables, was utterly charming, made all the more enjoyable by all the guests mucking in to clear the tables and serve the food after a logistical mix up left the party staffless. Drunken dancing - yes, mothers were twirled - continued into the wee small hours; the hangovers the following morning bore testimony to the good time had by all. Back in London on Sunday evening, it was time to pack for the next foreign clime: Ibiza.

Now, somewhere during the organising process for this week-long Balearic jaunt, there transpired to have been a fairly spectacular break-down in communications. I had thought that it was to be just me, Richard and Simon, over from Sydney for a few weeks of family and fun in Europe. On arriving in the BA lounge at Gatwick, however, I found the boys in the company of three other chums, with another seven to be met up with on arrival. Our vacances a trois, therefore, was in fact to be a vacances a treize - a baker's dozen of us to keep entertained for the week ahead. Things didn't get off to a great start - the service on the flight left a very great deal to be desired - but before long we were sitting on the balcony of the boys' stunning apartment in Talamanca, sipping large voddies and looking forward to our stay on the White Isle. I wasn't checking into my hotel until the next afternoon so I stayed there that night, and was woken pleasantly the next day by the sunshine.

Day one was very pleasant and sociable; after a morning spent lounging around the apartment, we strolled en masse - nine of us - to Talamanca for lunch, tucking into paella while watching the boys on the beach. After that it was time to check into my hotel, El Corso, just a stone's throw from the beach and overlooking the new-ish, classy Marina Botafoch. As a base for the week it was fine, although unsurprisingly for somewhere booked through a travel agent it had been rather up-sold and didn't, in my opinion, merit its four stars; my room was very basic and lacked a minibar (horror of horrors) and although clean and bright, looked in need of modernisation. Still, it was only a place to sleep and so I headed across to check out the marina - very nice it was too - before repairing to the hotel bar for a few beers and to enjoy the views out to sea and across the bay to the old town.

Come evening, after drinks at the boys' apartment, we walked into Ibiza Town (I'm not enough of an arse to call it Eivissa as hard-core island goers insist on doing) and the full thirteen of us convened for drinks at the quayside Mar y Sol cafe bar before going on to dinner at Studio, a cute outdoorsy affair in one of the old town's myriad cobbled squares. Comedy ensued when I asked our very cute waiter, in Spanish, if it was possible to exclude the coriander from my starter salad; he replied - in English: "Your Spanish is excellent but unfortunately mine isn't - so could you say that again in English?" He turned out to be Polish; thank heavens for a common language. After dinner it was off to Angelo's, the sprawling multi-level bar in the shadow of the old town's ramparts, where the gay crowd flocks to catch the club parades which culminate in its huge courtyard and to see and be seen. What was left of the group, which inevitably dwindled as the night wore on, moved on to the island's only officially gay club, Anfora, where we dispersed among the club's various areas, some better lit than others...

Next day, after a very pleasant day spent sightseeing in Ibiza Town and dinner at the hotel (€15 all you can eat = happy Hugh!) we once again headed to Angelo's and managed to score free tickets to La Troya at Space, the 'world-famous' gay party and according to one guide I read, 'perhaps the best gay club night in Spain'. Well, all I can say is that that guide writer's experience of Spanish club nights must be fairly limited because I was seriously underwhelmed. Space, like so many clubs, has suffered from the island government's insistence that clubbing hours be limited to 6pm-6am and that all clubs be enclosed; this latter regulation has completely ruined Space's legendary covered terrace, reduced now to nothing more than just another room. I didn't like the music, the crowd - for a putative gay night - was very mixed save for the inevitable cluster of muscle Marys huddled together in a corner gurning at each other, and trying to find a part of a room, far less a part of the club, upon which the group of us could all agree was next to impossible and so reluctantly I split and went off to find a corner that I could at least be happy on my own in, before making a relatively early break for home. To be fair, the others all liked it very much more than I did - three of the guys didn't in fact return home until the following evening, having continued the party all day at various venues of varying salubriousness - so perhaps it was just me, but I wouldn't recommend it in a hurry.

Probably the highlight of the whole week came on the Friday when, after a morning spent browsing the town's jewellers and boutiques, punctuated with a couple of little beers here and there, I met up with Richard, Simon, Ron, Shane and Dr Yaz to take the Jet Cat to Formentera, Ibiza's neighbouring island and smallest of the Balearics. Although we all baulked at the eye-watering €41 return fare (day trips by pleasure boat, admittedly with very limited travel times, can be had for about €15), such qualms were soon forgotten as we whizzed across the turquoise water, docking in what felt like just a few minutes later - actually half an hour -at La Savina on the island's northwest side. We stopped off for delicious bocadillos at a pavement cafe, then walked for about fifteen minutes until we found a beautiful spot on Es Cavall beach where we pitched camp. For the next four and a half hours - the longest, I think, I've ever spent on a beach! - we swam in the cool, azure sea, snoozed under the beach umbrella, read our books and ogled the boys, until we decided it was time to pack up lest we miss the last boat home. Walking back past a very swanky looking bar-restaurant, Mediterraneo, none of us could resist temptation and we made a heavenly pit-stop, sipping beers and nibbling delicious, free tapas for an hour or so before scurrying along to the harbour for the 8pm boat. Dinner that evening, 'just' the nine of us, was at an anonymous Italian chiringuito at Talamanca, where we enjoyed good pizza, tasty fresh salads and lashings of sangria for a bargain €20 a head, including a deliberately small tip in light of slow, surly and inattentive service, characterised by none of the staff being able to agree on which of them exactly was supposed to be looking after us!

Saturday morning saw me waking late - surprisingly, as no-one had been up for going out after dinner the night before and thus it had been an early night. After another delicious breakfast at the hotel (I must say that for all my whinging about the facilities there, the food was superb) I took the boat into town to find an internet cafe and get a flight home booked, as for reasons too boring to go into, I'd only booked a single out. This achieved (via Barcelona for a night with Tigger, then home to - yay! - City Airport), I bagged a coveted pavement table at the town's hippest cafe, Croissant Show, and enjoyed people watching while lunching on their famous Bocadillo #1 - toasted tomato bread with olive oil, Serrano ham and Manchego cheese all for a fairly reasonable €4.90.

It was clearly destined to be a day for great food, as that evening, after a siesta, I dined alone at La Barraca, a restaurant on Talamanca beach which the group had discovered earlier in the week and universally raved about. The high praise was completely deserved; I was welcomed effusively by cool, kaftan-clad hosts, shown to an excellent table (not the crappy one in the corner by the kitchen many restaurants try to fob off on solo diners) and looked after by attentive, amusing as I tucked into two delicious courses washed down with a fresh, fruity Torres de Casta rose. For my starter, I indulged in foie gras sprinkled with truffle salt, served with wafer-thin toasts and quince puree, and followed up with a hefty 200g serving of excellent steak tartare, super-fresh as it should (and indeed, must) be and perfectly seasoned. Pudding didn't appeal but I happily sipped a coffee and read my book until Richard and Simon dropped by to join me.

The three of us boarded the boat across to town and started a bit of a bar crawl, not at Angelo's for once - I'd asked if we could at least check out somewhere else - but at Koko's just down the hill; we then moved on to Angelo's for a while, then to JJ's on the carrer de la Verge, the heart of the Ibiza gay scene. Flirting, in his native tongue, with the French barman was rewarded with passes for Anfora; after a couple of hours there, Richard and Simon called it a night while I - feeling intrepid, taxied it to Playa d'en Bossa to try out Deep, the island's only gay after hours. I have to say I loved it; it was dark, loud, cruisy but also, perhaps surprisingly, really rather friendly...when I staggered out the sun was up - and beating down - and I squinted my way back to the hotel and bed and slept well into Sunday afternoon.

My last full day was spent extremely pleasantly; after finally getting up I headed alone to the beach for a long swim in the warm, if (on the shoreline at least) seaweed-choked sea, then walked round to the apartment having received the kind of invitation I get so rarely but love so much - to help drink the place dry. Richard, Simon, Ron, Shane and I then returned to La Barraca (clearly everyone's favourite restaurant of the week) for a last supper, and while my choices weren't quite as spectacular as the previous nights, I nonetheless greatly enjoyed my steamed mussels starter and main of suckling lamb ribs with the kitchen's signature, delicious, char-grilled vegetables. We strung the evening out with coffees and some dubious Ibizan herb liqueurs (which I'd thought were on the house but turned out, embarrassingly, not to be), all brought to us by a cute and sweet, if inept but happily Hispanophone, waiter. Instead of pudding there we mosied back to the apartment for some very good red wine and cheeses before calling it a night to allow the boys to get some sleep ready for their departure at early o'clock next day.

On the Monday, having breakfasted and checked out of El Corso, I boarded the boat for Ibiza town and killed time in the best possible way - drinking, of course - before busing to the airport. This latter journey was achieved more through luck than design; I'd headed on foot, following the signposts, for Ibiza Town's new bus station, only to find that it had yet to open, and then having found the existing departure point for buses to the airport, struggled to get sense out of anyone as to how one might purchase a ticket - it transpires that one can perform this transaction at only one tiny, obscure and unwelcoming kiosk hidden away on a very unlovely stretch of road about three quarters of a kilometre outside of the town centre. But achieve it I did, and made my flight in plenty of time, landing in Barcelona just 55 minutes later. Matthew and I had a lovely, low-key evening - just a few drinks locally and dinner at his flat - and the next afternoon I took off happily for my beloved City Airport; I was home and sipping PG Tips by 3.

As I always do before clicking 'Publish'. I've re-read what I've written and am aware that in contrast to some of my other travel posts, this one doesn't read like much of a recommendation for the destination in question. Not so; I'd recommend Ibiza to anyone as a very pretty, sociable, Bohemian, elegant island, with the added benefit - no longer as all-consuming as it once was - of a great, if somewhat neutered, clubbing scene, all with the caveat that it is very expensive indeed. But this trip for me was, if highly enjoyable at times, a very strange quantity. I'd got so used to the luxury of travelling alone, with its freedom to be absolute master of how one spends one's time, that it was very difficult to adjust to having to fit in with others; even more so to find myself part of a group many times larger than I had ever envisaged. It's no-one's fault but my own, but lessons were learned, most importantly: next time you book a week of summer sun, make sure you know who, exactly, you're going with...

Right, that now brings us slightly more up to date but I'm still three countries behind, so I'd better get on with telling you about my next and perhaps most exciting destination to date: Mexico.

Bellissimo Bellagio

If this post seems a little disjointed in places, maybe a little breathless, please accept my apologies in advance. The thing is, even a good two months after I left Bellagio, and despite having been to some pretty amazing places since (I'm writing this, in fact, on the return flight from Bermuda, about which more to come), just thinking about my time there has got me nearly as giddy with excitement as I was when I was there. What started as a casual suggestion by Matty, aka My Eldest, that while in Italy I try to fit in a visit to Sarah, his old school friend and my erstwhile drinking buddy and now a successful bar-owner and restaurateur - "You can't go to Italy and not see Lake Homo, Mother!" - turned into an unexpected joy, and saw me fall completely in love with the place. I'll try to keep things eloquent, but if I use the words 'gorgeous', 'super', 'fabulous' and 'amazing' even more than usual, please indulge me this once. I'm also really struggling to just think how to distil into words the wonderful experience I had; how to do justice not just to the place but to the people, the sights, the good times. I think what I'll do is try to cover some of the broad themes of what I want you to know about my time in Bellagio, a tiny jewel of a town on the shores of Lake Como in the very north of Italy, and then fill in some of the detail later or as I go along.

Let me begin by telling you about how beautiful Bellagio is...no actually, let me begin by telling you how beautiful getting to Bellagio is. Once out of the grey suburbs of Milan, the view from the train is of countryside, then soon after of the Alps, and then within only about half an hour, of beautiful Lake Como itself, its lush wooded banks and calm water framed by the mountains beyond. The closer view of this which greets you on arrival at Varenna-Essino, the nearest station to Bellagio, is breath-taking (I let out an involuntary 'Oh my God' as I stepped onto the platform) and even the station itself is attractive, set on a hill above the town amid neatly planted flowerbeds. From there it's only a short, downhill stroll to the lakeside ferry terminal; the journey to Bellagio takes just fifteen minutes, all of them pure joy as you admire the candy-coloured villas which punctuate the lush greenery. Finally, as you dock at the little jetty right on the front street of the town, you're greeted by the sight of a neat row of chi-chi boutiques, pretty cafes and elegant hotels, all with more than a hint of a slightly older, much more refined world, cocooned from the dirt, violence and vulgarity of modern life.

Bellagio is essentially made up of little more than two main streets – the one on the lakefront, the other a few dozen metres up and away on a slight gradient – linked to each by a half dozen or so narrow salite, flights of gently graduated cobbled steps. The front street widens out at one end into a town square of sorts, off of which runs a road to the Lido; the upper street has a church at either end and leads to a small park. Both streets and most of the salite are peppered with shops, both practical and decorative, and places to eat and drink from little gelaterias to gourmet restaurants, and that's about it. No cinema, no supermarket, and certainly no fucking Starbucks. It's simply gorgeous.

Also absolutely gorgeous, and a major contributing factor to my having such a great time, was the Hotel Bellagio where I stayed. Recommended and booked by My Eldest (the booking part during a hilariously camp three-way phone conversation between Matty, Mario at the hotel and myself, conducted for my part from outside La Rinascenta in Milan during a ten-minute time out from the spritz bitches), the Hotel Bellagio far exceeded my expectations given the price and was a truly delightful bolthole for my two nights. Having heaved my suitcase up the 28 steps of salita Grandi to the reception (I couldn't grumble, as in fairness I had been forewarned of the climb), I was checked in and escorted to my fourth floor room. To save the €30/night difference in price I'd opted for a 'side lake view' rather than 'lake view' room, so I was thoroughly chuffed when the first thing I noticed on entering the room was the amazing view. On a top-floor corner of the building, from one side - through the fabulous, electric windows - the view was of the town and its terracotta rooftops, and from the other, with the remote control shutters raised, I could see a very substantial way out across Lake Como even if, admittedly, it was side on. No matter, it was a spectacular vista, jaw-droppingly beautiful, and perfectly set off by the cool, neutral decor of the room from whence I stood gawping.

The gawping didn't last long, however, as Sarah was enjoying a rare day off and had requested the pleasure of my company for afternoon drinks (it was way too early for aperitivi but she'd wangled some anyway), conveniently choosing Bar Rossi at the foot of my salita. "I'm not sure I'll recognise her," I'd told Matty, having not seen her for a few years; "Don't worry, Mother," he'd reassured me, "for one thing she hasn't changed a bit, and for another, if you just look for the girl effing and blinding loudly in English you'll find her." How right he was, for there at a pavement table, cursing away in finest Anglo-Saxon, was a completely unchanged Sarah, sipping cocktails in the glorious sunshine with a couple of friends...I needed no persuasion whatsoever to join this happy group; a Campari and Soda was ordered and the fun began.

Sarah's friends – who for the record, I now firmly count as being also mine – were Siobhan and Grant, a British couple who over the course of many years holidaying in Bellagio had become good friends with Sarah and her Italian boyfriend, Aurelio (who joined us after a couple of hours, by which stage we were all approaching two-thirds cut). You'll all have met friends-of-friends with whom you instantly just get along, and this was certainly the case with Siobhan and Grant. I've rarely met a couple so simultaneously chilled-out and warm-hearted – within fifteen minutes of my sitting down they'd invited me to join them for dinner that evening – and the four of us got to talking about any and everything from the best of Bellagio, to engagement rings, to Take That, to handbags...the usual sort of stuff, made all the more congenial by the beautiful weather (my arrival coincided with one of the hottest and sunniest days of August) and an uninterrupted flow of cocktails and nibbles. Siobhan and Grant excused themselves after a while to return to their flat to rest before dinner; Sarah and I should have done likewise but instead pushed on through until it was time to go for dinner (and in fact a little after it was time to go for dinner) and wove our way tipsily straight to La Punta, a gorgeous lakeside eatery boasting sweeping views across Lake Como. Dinner was a highly congenial affair, our party made up to seven by Siobhan and Grant's lovely, funny daughter, her best friend who was lucky enough to be holidaying with them, and Aurelio, a surprise addition given that he had been due to work that night. The food was heavenly (my main course of a delicious veal chop in sage butter was made possible only by Grant generously sacrificing his after I – trying to show off my Italian – ordered fish by mistake!) and was washed down by bottle after bottle of superb wines including a Greco di Torro and a Brunello. Afterwards we staggered, somehow, back into the town, and drank cocktails into the wee small hours first al fresco at Bar Florence on the lakefront and then, after they'd chucked us out, at Sarah's own gorgeous bar, Aperitivo et Al. I completely ignored my own long-standing 'note to self' that I am not the same after three Martinis, and had four, all delicious, before excusing myself while I could still stand and see and making my way over the cobbles to the hotel and bed.

Next morning, I woke feeling far better than I deserved to given the previous night's excesses and after breakfast at the Bellagio (meagre pickings, but made thoroughly enjoyable by the lovely views towards the lake from the breakfast terrace) I headed out to explore the town. This took all of, oh, about eight minutes, but I did bump into a very hungover Sarah and made arrangements to drop by her bar for a drink later. I killed a couple of hours most enjoyably watching Sex and The City re-runs on the flatscreen in my hotel room, made all the more special by the gorgeous aroma of wood smoke wafting up from the forno a legna of the pizzeria several floors below being heated up for that evening. I made my way to Aperitivo et Al, where Sarah's staff made me very welcome, and decided to stop for lunch; my salad of rocket, parmesan and tomato was a perfect, fresh sharp foil to the hearty rusticity of my pizzochero, a fat, flat buckwheat pasta served with grana di Pardano (a hard cheese not unlike pecorino) and cabbage. Sarah warned me that this might cause 'rumbling' later, My Eldest having managed to set off a gas alarm in a rented apartment the last time he partook of this particular dish of roughage! On this basis I decided it might be wise to stay outdoors, so I took a long stroll along the front, past the town square and down to the Lido where I sat happily finishing Jessica Mitford's first volume of memoirs until it was time for aperitivi. For these I returned first to Bar Rossi (where, recognised from the day before, I was greeted like an old friend) and then moved along to Bar Florence, idling away the time writing postcards and speaking at length on the phone to Alyn who I wished intensely had been there to share the beauty of the day with me.

Dinner time was approaching and so I headed back to Sarah's bar; she was intending to join me for dinner at Aurelio's restaurant, custom at the bar permitting. For a Tuesday night it was unexpectedly busy, and thus so was Sarah, but I happily settled down at a corner table with a whopping glass of Muller di Alto Adige to wait optimistically for a lull. I love people watching anyway, but it was truly fascinating, and rewarding, to see Sarah in situ; charming her customers in several languages, not least her impressively fluent Italian, talking knowledgably about the many wines on offer (also all on sale to take away at bargain prices, if ever you're passing, plug plug) and managing the team and kitchen to ensure that everyone was kept happy. I certainly was. Fortunately, within a couple of hours the pace slackened and Sarah was able to get away; we didn't have far to go, as Aurelio's Trattoria San Giacomo is directly opposite the bar, and the patron had reserved us a much-in-demand pavement table. The setting could hardly be more gorgeous; right at the top of the salita, overlooked by the tall houses of the upper street, the Trattoria is a tiny, bustling place with about a dozen tables inside and half as many again on the terrace, all of which people happily wait their turn for either in Sarah's bar or seated on the top-most steps of the salita on brightly-coloured cushions taken from a huge wicker basket outside the restaurant. As for the food...oh, the food! I mean, I've had some pretty spectacular meals in my time, but this was truly something else. My starter of fusilli with speck and saffron was a rich, buttery, savoury bowlful of bliss, golden yellow from the strands of the rare precious spice stirred through it; our shared main course of tagliata di manzo – beef sirloin – was a melt-in-the-mouth mountain of gently seared rare beef served simply on a pile of rocket under which was a mouth-watering heap of steamed, buttered vegetables; and pudding, Marguerita's Chocolate Cake, made to Aurelio's mama Marguerita's top secret flourless recipe, was the kind of ambrosial pud that were I to ever find myself on Death Row – God forbid – I would order by the kilo for my last meal on this earth. Add to this a bottle of very good Italian red wine, the attentive service of Aurelio and his team, and the warm feeling that one gets from being the owner's very welcome guest, and it all made for one of the most enjoyable, delicious and memorable meals I've ever had – seriously. And I should also mention that during the course of all this, Grant dropped by to invite me for a farewell coffee at Rossi next morning: I had truly joined 'the Bellagio set'. After a nightcap across the road, I went to bed feeling I couldn't have been happier had George Clooney dropped by from his villa across the lake and tucked me in himself.

Waking the next morning I couldn't help but feel intensely sad that I was leaving that day, such was the extent to which I had fallen for Bellagio. But, there was no time for moping, as I had my coffee date to look forward to. I scoffed some breakfast (pocketing a couple of bananas for the train back to Milan later) and checked out of the hotel, taking myself and my suitcase down to Bar Rossi where Grant, Siobhan and after a little while, Sarah, all gathered to say arrivederci. Stories were shared, photos taken, and contact details exchanged, all with a pledge that our first time together in Bellagio wouldn't be our last. I boarded the boat to Varenna feeling really happy and loved, albeit sad to be leaving – for now. Finding the ticket office at the station closed for lunch, I made my way (as instructed by the notice on the locked door) to the Bar Albergo Beretta at the foot of the hill, where as well as buying my return ticket to Milan I enjoyed a slice of excellent pizza and a couple of ice-cold beers for all of about €9. When word got out among the staff – including a very-hot-indeed barman – that there was an inglese on the premises, it seemed that everyone came out to my table to chat, practise their English, ask me what I thought of their town and country and generally make me feel more welcome than I ever have in restaurants charging a ton a head. It was just so typical of my whole Bellagio experience and completely took the sting out of my departure.

My Italian adventures were drawing to a close but, as I mentioned to you before, my experience of Milan second time around made up for the disappointment of the first. Arriving at about 4pm and having checked in once again to the Hotel Ariston, it having served me so well before, I headed out to the shops and this time, joy of joys, they were actually open! First stop was Armani Manzoni, where in addition to admiring the beautifully conceived layout and displays I invested in some gorgeous evening trousers; I stopped for aperitivi al fresco at the Armani Caffe, which while looking a little tired and unloved compared to the rest of the building serves a mean Martini. From there it was on to Moschino, where to my own astonishment I was able to hold a conversation entirely in Italian regarding a cape from the A/W 08-09 collection which Andrew is lusting after and buy a t-shirt for Alyn, including requesting a style and size! I then moved on to the Dolce & Gabbana men's store, a surprisingly austere but nonetheless very beautiful warren of marble-floored, mirror-walled rooms over four floors housing their complete collection and a surfeit of chisel-jawed staff with nothing much to do (I also checked out the Martini Bar but finding it practically empty, didn't stop for long.) I filled a very exciting couple of hours checking out all these temples to high fashion that I'd been denied the pleasure of exploring just a few days before, and it was every bit as good as I'd hoped it would be. While London may boast some of the finest shopping in the world, even the designer flagships of Bond, Sloane and Mount Streets have nothing on the sheer glamour of the Quadrilatero d'Oro. Finally,on the way back to the hotel, I stopped by the beautiful Pasticerria Fratelli Freni and picked up a half-dozen marzipan fruits, from the finest and most, well, fruit-like selection I've ever seen, for my soon-to-be brother-in-law who loves the things. Hungry from all the retail excitement, I dined at Pizzeria Naturale, an organic, bio-dynamic pizzeria on Corso Genova, where despite suffering from the combined heat of a wood-fired oven and no air-con, I thoroughly enjoyed my pizza Valdostana and half-bottle of Corvo di Sicilia. I left the next morning, walking the short distance from the Ariston to the station to catch the express train to Malpensa and feeling much more sympathetic towards Milan than after my initial bum-note visit.

During the journey home – again taking in a couple of hours in heavenly Zurich Airport – I reflected with immense fondness on my fortnight in Italy, but most particularly on my time in bellissimo Bellagio. Since getting back, Siobhan has been in touch to say that there's a possibility they'll be fitting in a little visit next April; if anywhere will give you odds, you can bet your bottom euro I'll be there too.

Gay Ol' Nights in Florence

I was bursting with excitement as I sank into my vast leather armchair of a seat on the 12.50 Eurostar (no relation) to Firenze Santa Maria Novella. On my first (and to date, only) visit to Florence, with the family in 2007, I'd seen pretty much all of the city's star sights thanks to my sister's expert organisation and so on this visit I was looking forward seeing 'the rest', and to being at liberty to do so at my own pace and not, as had been the case last time, with mum in tow (love her as I deeply do, seeing Florence in intense June heat with a short-legged 70-year-old is not necessarily an experience I would recommend). Coffee in hand, I got stuck into A Room With A View, the first half of which is set in Florence, and in just an hour and three quarters and seven chapters, I arrived.

I took a cab from the station and a few minutes later was dropped outside the Pension Orchidea, a Rough Guide recommendation I'd booked before leaving Rome. I couldn't have wished for more Forster-esque location: the Orchidea occupies the first floor of a twelfth century palazzo in a cobbled street just behind the Duomo, Florence's immense, breath-taking, technicolor cathedral. The rooms are basic but perfectly fine for a short stay, and the Italian-American owners have done wonders at making the place homely - when I found that there was English Breakfast tea included in the selection of help-yourself-anytime drinks in the lounge area, I practically wept with joy. Best of all though was the location, right in the centre of the city within easy walking distance of just about everywhere, and so I set out on foot for my first destination.

Now, while Florence's top three attractions are undoubtedly the Duomo, the Uffizi gallery and Michelangelo's David, for a fashion and footwear junkie such as I the fourth has to be the Salvatore Ferragamo Shoe Museum. I'd not been able to persuade the family to go last year - funnily enough, they were more interested in seeing Botticelli's Birth of Venus than Eva Peron's slingbacks, the Philistines - so on this visit it was right at the top of my itinerary. Tucked away in the basement of the Ferragamo flagship store and company headquarters on the heavenly shopping stretch that is via Tornabuoni, the museum (€5 admission and worth every cent) is a compact but fascinating collection of sketches, photographs, lasts and of course shoes, spanning the eighty-odd years history of this (sadly deceased) shoemaker to the stars. Here the hand-whittled lasts of the shoes of Hepburns Audrey and Katherine; there original artwork from Ferragamo's iconic Art Deco-style ad campaigns; here photos of Sal himself ministering to the tootsies of Marlene Dietrich; there, Judy Garland's very own, sky-high rainbow wedges in a glass case. After about an hour of pure camp cobblers, I sashayed out onto the street and into the boutique thinking I might invest in a slice of Ferragamo glamour all of my own, but compared with Marilyn Monroe's original red rhinestone-encrusted stilettos, the conservative if beautifully crafted men's collection could only be an anti-climax.

Taking a left onto Lungarno Corsini (factoid: the embankment streets are all called Lungarno something-or-other from lung'arno, literally 'Along the Arno', the river which bisects the city), I strolled down to the Ponte Vecchio, the only one of Florence's bridges to survive the Nazis' bombings when they retreated from the city in 1944. It's a remarkable structure, with its higgledy-piggledy piles of shops and alleyways, famed now for its myriad jewellery shops all seemingly peddling the same eye-wateringly sparkly and buttock-clenchingly expensive gew-gaws which everyone comes to gawp at but never, it seems, to buy. I did, with a long-term view to perhaps popping the question to a certain young man, actually pop in to look at a very nice platinum and diamond ring, but when told that it was a replica of the rings designed by Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston for their ultimately doomed marriage my interest quickly waned. From there I ambled back to the hotel via the Piazza della Signoria, half-ignoring the statuary for which it's best known to instead make a bee-line for the plaque marking the spot of the Bonfire of the Vanities, so brilliantly and evocatively described in Sarah Dunant's novel The Birth of Venus which I'd recommend to anyone who's been to, or might like to visit, Florence.

After a couple of quiet hours spent reading my Forster and enjoying some Japanese nibbles and beers from the Asian grocers I'd been delighted to chance upon on via S.Egidio, I headed out for some supper at Trattoria da Benvenuto (it translates, sweetly, to something like 'The Welcome Inn') where I enjoyed juicy marinated sardines followed by roast rabbit and veggies, washed down with the house red which, at €2 for 250ml, was a bargain in a city where it's perfectly possible to eat extremely well, and likewise reasonably cheaply, but very rarely the twain in one place. (A footnote here about restaurants; I had hoped to re-visit the wonderful Coquinarius on via dell'Oche where as a family we'd enjoyed a couple of superb meals last year (their pappardelle with rabbit ragu is worth a visit in its own right), but alas like so many small businesses it was closed for most of August and scheduled to re-open, frustratingly, two days after I was due to leave!) Replete, I thought I'd check out the scene, but a quick flit to three of the bars on the list found them all pretty much empty (in one I was in fact the only punter, even at 11.30) so I called it a night, moseyed back to the Orchidea and snuggled under the covers with Edward Morgan.

Next morning I was up early and, wanting to live out Chapter 2 of A Room With A View, 'In Santa Croce with no Baedeker', headed to the church of Sta. Croce where Miss Honeychurch has her memorable encounter with the Emersons. Whilst externally the church is almost as elaborately beautiful as the Duomo, Forster's description of the interior - "But how like a barn!" - proved highly accurate, the high beamed ceiling and sparse decoration indeed resembling a farm building, but I was nonetheless quietly wowed by Michelangelo's tomb and the Giotto frescoes so highly praised by Forster's Mr Eager and berated by old Mr Emerson. I moved on to the Bargello museum, home (ostensibly) to much of Italy's finest sculpture as well as collections of bronzes, pottery and miniatures but usually overlooked by most visitors in favour of the city's other show-stoppers. While there are some beautiful works in the collection - I especially liked Giambologna's statues, and particularly his Ocean - a couple of things niggled. Firstly, the published entry fee, like at the Colosseum in Rome and as would prove to be the case elsewhere in Florence and beyond, was bumped up a few euros by a non-discretionary extra charge for a 'special exhibition', which in this case proved to be some bronzes and statues which whilst admittedly impressive, were almost entirely taken from the museum's permanent collection. Secondly, one of the museum's main draws, Donatello's androgynous bronze David, was being restored and consequently face-down in a special frame in the room it usually occupies, and while I know conservation is part and parcel of a museum's role, there are plenty of places in Florence where I could see a gorgeous young man's firm behind without it costing me €7. Finally, the Bargello's famous Michelangelo room, which on paper has one of the most comprehensive collections of his work throughout his life, was remarkable on my visit less for what it contained than for what it didn't; many plinths were empty due to the works being either on loan, under restoration or indeed in the 'special exhibition' across the hall. Had any of this been pre-advised at the entrance I might have though twice about visiting, but on balance it was a worthwhile experience and one I'd recommend.

Continuing the Forster trail, I took a stroll through town to Lungarno della Grazie where, at number 2, Forster located the Pension Bertolini and, within, the room with (or more specifically, without) a view of the book's title. While these days the building is a smart private hotel rather than the simple pension run by a Cockney where Forster himself stayed with his mother, it was still great fun to see the building and idly speculate, looking up, as to which of the windows looking out onto the Arno and beyond might, had fiction been truth, have belonged to the room occupied by Lucy and Miss Bartlett. After lunch at a large, noisy but reasonably priced brasserie, I crossed the river to the district known as Oltr'arno - what we might call in English 'T'other side of the Arno' - to visit Florence's second biggest gallery after the Uffizi, the Palazzo Pitti. This was a revelation. Every single ornate, gilded room in this spectacularly well-preserved palace yielded something noteworthy, from masterpiece after masterpiece by Titian, Rubens and Raphael to sculptures by Canova, and from the sumptuous draped and flocked interiors of the royal apartments to the odd, and oddly fascinating sight of Napoleon's bathtub. While the Gallery of Modern Art, housed somewhat incongruously in the same building, contained very little of interest, the main floors more than made up for this and I was so fascinated that I was more than happy to kill time, waiting for the spectacular lightning storm which had blown up outside to subside, by going round the entire collection twice.

That night, after having given into temptation and just this once foregone fine Italian cuisine for a McDonald's (which I at least ordered in Italian, if that counts) I decided to give the scene another try - it was Friday, after all - and was greatly pleased to find that Thursday night's near-total desertion had been an exception and that Florence's gay community was alive, well and drinking. Starting off with a couple of beers at the trendy, friendly café-bar Piccolo (busier outside in the smoking area than the smoke-free inside: welcome to Italy!) I moved onto the creatively-monikered Y.A.G. Bar which was pleasingly packed and noisy, with a big video screen showing mostly British and American pop acts allowing me to have the unbridled joy of throwing shapes to Girls Aloud and Whitney Houston while the Florentines watched aghast. Unable to find putatively the scene's most popular club, Tabasco, the tiny street given as its address not appearing on any of the maps in my possession, I rounded off the night with a quick visit to the dark 'n' dirrrty Crisco, a men-only joint very typical of the late night gay scene on the Continent complete with 'Ring Bell For Entry' sign, a peephole for the doorman to size you up through, a nose-bleed techno soundtrack and very, very old, grainy porn (had there been sound I would have expected 1920's clipped vowels and the odd "What-ho Albert! Steady on as you penetrate old chap!") showing on a big screen. There, I was befriended by a group of Italian lads who taught me some choice Italian phrases in return for my help with English profanities, but I turned down the invitation from one of them to put words into action and instead heeded Miss Bartlett's advice to Lucy on their last night in Florence, to "Go to bed at once dear. You need all the rest you can get."

In the morning I left for Milan.

I've Andalusian Enough

I'm tiled. Not just a little bit tiled, but really, really tiled out. I couldn't be any more tiled. And no, sharp-eyed readers, that's not a repeated typo; I'm referring to the fact that after a week in Andalusia I have seen more mosaics, Moorish azulejo tiling and marble floors than anyone needs to see in a lifetime.

To put this into a historical context: Andalusia, Spain's Southern-most region (and fuck me its hottest region too, but more of that in a while) was over a period of roughly seven centuries, from the 8th to the 15th AD, fought over in the most brutal fashion possible by Moors (Muslims) and Catholics and conquered, reconquered and then conquered again by each religion until the Catholics finally triumphed, for good, in 1492. As a result, the architecture of the region is an at times fascinating mish-mash of styles, not just typical of the two cultures' constant efforts to assert their supremacy through building, but also of the various centuries they span. Add to this already heady mix the architectural legacy of the significant Jewish communities which existed in the region until their expulsion by the Catholic conquerors at the end of the 15th Century, and you have quite a melting pot of styles. But, there's so much of it, with seemingly every city, town and village boasting its own 'spectacular' site, that one can have too much of a good thing - as I found.

Things started well, in Cordoba, just an hour and forty minutes from Madrid on the high-speed AVE train (a great way to travel, fast, spacious, spotless and punctual - Virgin Trains, look and learn...). Although initially shocked at the scorching 43º heat on the afternoon I arrived, I wanted to make the most of my time so after a siesta and a cool shower in my lovely room at the Tryp Gallos Hotel, I slathered myself in factor 40 and headed out into the old town. One of Cordoba's must see sights (according to my 'Top 25 Sights in Andalusia' book) is the Juderia or old Jewish quarter, and this attractive jumble of winding, cobbled streets lined with whitewashed houses is certainly very pretty and, because of the shade afforded by the narrowness of the roads, comparatively cool. There's much adornment with azulejo (blue-enamelled) tiling, and the old synagogue is one of very few still existing in this region and thus a poignant sight (and site). There isn't however a very great deal to do in Juderia once one's seen it, and so I moved on to Cordoba's real crowd-pleaser and UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Mezquita.

This was one of the most spectacular things I've ever seen. There can be no starker example of the religious conflict I referred to than this: the Mezquita is, essentially, an enormous, elaborate cathedral built bang slap in the middle of an enormous, elaborate mosque, as if somehow the cathedral fell out of the sky. The sheer scale of both structures, which come together, incongruously, to form one, takes your breath away (and indeed triggers expletives - at various points I muttered a 'Fuck me!' with sheer astonishment only to remember that I was in a house of God/Allah and really ought not to swear). There's also the visual splendour of it; the ceiling of the mosque section is supported by well over a thousand pillars which in turn support red and white striped arches (Wally would have a field day hiding here) and then the cathedral ceiling soars up into the sky like a rocket launch pad amidst it all. Finally - and of course - there's tiling, of incredibly intricacy, in the mirhab, marking the direction of Mecca, adorning the walls, ceilings and floors; it's spectacular craftsmanship and it saddened me that the Catholics had to go and build the treasury, holding their undeniably impressive stash of cathedral gold and processional gew-gaws, right next to it.

After lunch I went out to explore the newer part of Cordoba, to the north of the city, but found nothing to excite apart from the occasional pretty church, square or civic building. I did however discover something very important for anyone travelling in Spain in the heat: El Corte Ingles, the department store chain (Spain's Debenhams) has the best air conditioning of anywhere at the entrance to their stores, so if you're about to drop from heat or just need to cool off, head for there and pretend to be browsing. This took me up to dinner time and, wanting to put Cordoba's reputation for fine tapas to the test with minimal walking, headed back to the restaurant-lined streets of Juderia. There, in a very attractive taberna, and for only €15, I enjoyed a fantastic six-course menú de tapas which among other treats included salmorejo, an Andalucian speciality consisting of a sort of thick, creamy gazpacho topped with crispy bacon bits and diced onion, and fritos de la huerta, Spanish tempura, gorgeous, salty little strips of battered peppers and onions that frankly, I could live on if it wouldn't make me fat(ter).

The next day I got up early-ish and headed for Cordoba's other big tourist draw, the Alcazar (no, not they of Crying At The Discotheque fame, it's a place). This former palace and prison has a history both illustrious and dubious: while on the one hand it can claim to be the palace from where the discovery of America was planned, it was also the seat of the Spanish Inquisition (which nobody expected). Although largely empty, there are some impressive tapestries and original furnishings to be seen, in addition to which there are - you guessed it - mosaics aplenty both inside, in Roman form, and outside, in the beautiful gardens where azulejo abounds. Fancying a spot of lunch before my late-afternoon train to Seville, I picked a little restaurant with an interesting and reasonable lunch menu and ordered consommé to start and callos con chorizo y patatas to follow. I wasn't exactly sure what callos was, but I like chorizo and potatoes so figured I'd like callos too, but this was to be my first culinary bum note of the trip. For while many of you may feel that I talk a lot of tripe, until my main course arrived I'd never eaten tripe, which is what callos turned out to be. Still, I soldiered on - I was ravenous - and it wasn't actively unpleasant; slithery, chewy, rather like the fat on pork belly but tasting of not very much at all. A lesson learned and one word of Spanish I'll never forget!

My stomach full - albeit of, er, stomach - I boarded the train to Seville and forty five minutes later disembarked in Andalucia's capital city where it was a positively wintery 38º. I hopped in a cab to the hotel, the Tryp Macarena, and was delighted to pull up a few minutes later at a beautiful, palatial building in the Moorish mudejar style where I was very warmly welcomed by a receptionist who complemented me on my Spanish! Whether he'd taken a shine to me or whether it was simple good luck I don't know, but my bargain room, booked online, turned out to be vast, practically a suite, with a separate lounge area, marble bathroom and - best of the best - a balcony overlooking the old city walls and the minor basilica across the road. I could cheerfully have holed up there for the next two days but that not being the point of travelling, headed out on foot to the Barrio Santa Cruz, about twenty minutes along narrow cobbled streets with a huge church seemingly at the end of every one. The Barrio is, like the Juderia, Seville's old Jewish quarter and while certainly very attractive to look at I didn't find it to be especially different to the Juderia. Still, it was a 'must see' ticked off the list and after a couple of beers I headed happily back to the hotel to consider what to do for the evening.

This question resolved itself when I popped out of the hotel for a stroll and to phone mum. Remember that minor basilica I mentioned? Well, it's designated a basilica because it houses a particularly magnificent and ostensibly mystical image of the Virgin (Our Lady of The Macarena since you're wondering, and no, I didn't ask if she knows all the dance moves) which, on certain Sundays in the year, the devoted like to parade through the streets of Seville, dressed in all their finery, carrying processional staffs and crosses, wafting incense and cheering, all accompanied by a brass band. One of those Sundays, you've guessed it, happened to be this one, and so I crossed over the road and joined the crowds to watch the parade - and the band of the 2nd Seville Sea Cadets, *sigh* - go by. This was enormous fun, as well as quite moving, and best of all the next evening when it was on the TV news I saw that I'd been caught on camera!

Monday morning I headed to Seville Cathedral, considered one of the most impressive in the world and its third largest after St Peter's in Rome and St Paul's in London (the Londoner in me loved discovering this fact). It really is magnificent, housing some 40-odd chapels of varying degrees of opulence, an unfeasibly intricate and immense gilded high altar, the tomb - putatively, there's much debate about this - of Columbus, and the Giralda or bell tower, accessed by 34 ramps and a final flight of stairs which in spite of my fear of heights I pushed myself to climb. I'm glad I did, not just for the sense of achievement but for the spectacular aerial views of the city it afforded; Seville is just as beautiful from above as from below. From there I walked on to the Plaza de España, an immense crescent-shaped pavilion and piazza built for the less-than-successful Ibero-American Fair in 1929. It's extremely beautiful on the whole (LOTS of tiling, natch) but it's sad that parts of it have been allowed to fall into disrepair while others, now used as local government offices, are maintained. Feeling the heat - 41º, I believe - I walked back only so far, taking in a couple more monuments including the bull ring, then took the blissfully air-conditioned bus back to the hotel along the riverside, taking in the views of the vast park and landmark buildings erected for the World Exhibition (EXPO) which Seville proudly hosted in 1992.

I went on to have a fantastic evening. I started off with a couple of glasses of chilled fino and some delicious tapas in a fairly swankified bar opposite the hotel, where I got into a fascinating conversation with the barman about the correct temperature for serving sherry at. I read my (Spanish) newspaper, let the muzak wash over me, heard the church bells ringing, with the sun still shining all the while, and really did feel at that moment that everything was right with the world. Then, as night fell, I ventured back to the Barrio Santa Cruz and discovered to my delight that what by day I'd felt had little to distinguish it from the Juderia was by night a buzzing, vibrant, exciting place to be, where young Sevillians ram every tapas bar, spilling out onto the terraces and eating, drinking and chatting into the wee small hours. I found a terrace table at what looked like a fairly hip joint, ordered a beer and some tapas and sat back and drank in the atmosphere; it really was a moment. I rounded off the night with a visit to Isbillyya, a water-front gay bar and club which although relatively quiet when I arrived at around 1AM was packed and banging by 2. The out-and-out highlight of my night was the drag flamenco show; Andalucia is known as the birthplace of flamenco, and I'd seen some out and about, but this was truly different, being both technically accomplished (I'd say) and hilariously camp at the same time. I also met a very friendly - and non-predatory - local with whom I was able to have a good old chat and clear up a few words and phrases I'd been struggling with (callos not among them!)

Next morning, with a train booked for later that afternoon, I visited the Reales Alcazares (Royal Alcazar - this one, unlike Cordoba's, earns the title Real by virtue of its still being the residence of the King and Queen of Spain when in Seville) and while it's certainly very impressive, it was filled with yet more bloody tiling, predominantly mudejar, yet more arches and yet more tapestries. Despite feeling a complete Philistine I just couldn't muster much enthusiasm for it, but I did love the extensive and very pretty gardens which to be honest I felt were the real attraction here. Fruit was out on some of the trees and, unable to resist the temptation to set up the line that's coming, I got my gums round the King of Spain's plums. That, frankly, was worth the €8 entry fee alone.

OK you've been very patient to read this far so I'll try to be brief about my next stop, Granada. In fact that won't prove too difficult, because I've very little to say about the place, or at least very little that's positive. I didn't like the hotel much - it was badly in need of modernisation - and the sights just didn't win me over. The Albaicin, the old Moorish part of the city made up of labyrinthine streets lined with shisha bars, craft shops and cafés, seemed to me to resemble nothing more than a giant Camden; my inner snob came roaring out and I all but fled what felt to me like a horribly smug atmosphere of crusty/hippiness that in 2008 seems retrograde and incongruous. The Alhambra (and dear God am I going to get shot down for this but here goes) didn't impress me much either; despite being Spain's most visited monument by quite some way, this gigantic hilltop complex of palaces, fortresses and gardens is arduous to trek round, poorly signed (for €13 entry fee they could at least provide a free map, but no such luck) and compared to, say, the Mezquita, not as deeply rich in history as it thinks it is. Back in the city I did very much enjoy visiting the Capilla Real, the stunning final resting place of Ferdinand and Isabel, Spain's most famous rulers in history and conquerors of Andalucia, but other than that and coupled with a horribly touristy feel to the whole city, the best thing frankly was getting on the plane out.

The plane which will take me to Mallorca, the Balearic island where my paternal grandmother lived out the last few years of her life and in whose footsteps I am hoping to tread.

Caña Feel It?

In a moment you'll get the title of this post and having seen what I did there, should find yourselves helpless with laughter, or at least chuckling merrily. But until we reach that point, let me tell you about Madrid.

My three days in Spain's capital can be pretty much summed up in three words: art, walking and booze. Anyone who knows me even semi well will immediately see that these are three very good things, and will surmise that I had a good time. And you would surmise right, because after a few hours of post-Barcelona blues, I did indeed have a very splendid time and have a new found love for Madrid that I didn't get from my last (and until now, first) visit some years ago. Let's start with the art: Madrid is justly famous for having, in close proximity to one another, three of Europe's and indeed the world's finest art galleries - the Prado, the Centro Reina Sofia and the Thyssen-Bornemisza. Having visited the Prado in the past, but not the others, I made the Thyssen-Bornemisza (named after the absurdly wealthy Baron and Baroness whose private art collection this still, technically, is) my first port of call after checking into my brilliantly located if slightly shabby hotel. It's an interesting collection, and a beautiful space, but it lacks any real wow factor; there are lots of pieces by acknowledged masters, but no masterpieces, if you catch my drift. Far more interesting, and impressive, was the Reina Sofia which I visited on Thursday, which concentrating as it does on European 20th century art, was bursting at the grouting with Dalí, Miró (please just say if that little thingy over the vowels is starting to irritate you) and Picasso, including Pablo's monochrome masterpiece, Guernica, which occupies its own vast room with an accompanying contextual exhibition to bring home the horror of the massacre it portrays.

My favourite art moment however was at neither of the above, but at the Caixa Forum, which I just chanced upon while walking back up Paseo del Prado. It's a striking building, clad in oxidised metal lattice (designed I found out by Herzog de Meuron, they of Tate Modern fame) and housing the art collection of, and temporary exhibitions funded by, la Caixa, one of Spain's big banks. Unusually for an art space in Madrid, it's also free, so in I went and was delighted to find that a whole floor had been dedicated to an exhibition of the work of Alfons Mucha, a brilliant Czech graphic artist to whom PV had introduced me (well to his work anyway, not to the artist who is a) long dead and b) not a personal chum of PV's, as far as I'm aware). Another floor was given over to an exhibition about the life and work of Charlie Chaplin, which I must say is not a subject I thought I'd ever find engrossing but certainly did. Topped off with lunch in the restaurant on the top floor (gazpacho*, chicken schnitzel, truffle tart and a glass of vino for €12 gets my vote any day) during which I was heavily eyed up by a rather handsome bear who was lunching with his parents (yes, Mummy Bear and Daddy Bear - whether or not they were eating porridge I couldn't see) and it was quite a fabulous couple of hours.

*Keen-eyed readers will have noticed that I'm eating a lot of gazpacho. Please be assured that it's not because it's the only thing I can understand on the menu, it's because firstly I love gazpacho and love seeing - or rather, tasting - what each particular restaurant's take on it is, and secondly, it's ridiculously good for you and tomotaoes help to protect your skin from sun damage which as you will all know, I need!

I mentioned walking, and yes, there was a lot of that. Madrid divides up into eight districts, each with its own very particular mood and style, and I managed to walk the length and breadth of six of them and at least pass through the other two. I only used the Metro maybe two or three times, and one of those was to get to the hotel from the airport! Of the eight my particular favourites were Chueca, which although known as Madrid's gay village is also home to some of its coolest bars and one which I have fallen in love with for life: the splendidly named Bar Cock on Calle de la Reina, and Malasaña, the gritty, arty maze of streets north of the arse end of Gran Via, where spit-and-sawdust cervecerias rub shoulders with trendier shops and grungy speak-easys.

The absolute highlight of the stay - and we're getting to the punchline now, folks - was my discovery of the caña tradition. Basically, from about 8pm onwards, if you go to any bar or cafe and order a caña you will receive not only a glass of draught beer (anything from a small wine glass size to a full half pint) and tapas of some sort. There's absolutely no telling just from looking what sort of deal you're going to get; some places offer no more than a bit of bread and salami, while others offer dishes piled high with patatas bravas, chorizo or tuna salad. The one certainty however is that the most you're likely to pay for this privilege is €2, but most often no more than about €1.20-€1.50. Working your way from bar to bar having maybe one or two cañas in each is a very economical way to a) eat yourself silly and b) get slightly pissed, all for very little money indeed.

All in all, I really fell for Madrid and its non-stop, high speed, 24 hour way of life. There really is something very invigorating at being in the thick of it and I'm already excited at the thought of going back. Next stop: Cordoba, where my Andalucia leg of the trip begins!

Margo, Jerry, Madge & A Magical...Marriage?

In a full and varied life it has been my pleasure to attend some pretty spectacular parties. Boy George’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream/Summer Solstice’ themed birthday in 1995; I went as Titania Fairy Queen and danced with the kaftan-clad birthday boy. The 1997 opening of the Calvin Klein Collection boutique in Paris where the man himself took quite a shine to me and sent me home with free, autographed smalls. The backstage bash at a Finsbury Park music festival in ’99 where a kids TV presenter and I made creative use of the luxury portaloos (and I earned my second Blue Peter badge). The night at Dirty Dishes where the mirrorball came down (for which I may have been partially responsible…) The soap awards after-party where I challenged Lionel Blair to a dance-off - and won. And yes, my very own ‘Studio 54 Meets Disco Bloodbath’ Hallowe’en 2006 extravaganza where TWBD transformed my bachelor pad into a blood red Eighties New York discotheque and Patrick Batemans and Morticia Addamses thronged the Clapham Road. None of these however come close to matching the sheer style, glamour, excitement, emotion and beauty of one of the happiest days of my life – Margo and Jerry’s wedding.

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.

Enjoy The Silence

I’ve lost many things in my time; my mother in a supermarket aged 3; my cherry (to both a boy and a lady); part of my septum; watches, wallets and so many mobile phones in one year that the last time I called to report it the lady at T-Mobile gasped, “Och, not again?” Every loss has pissed me off to a greater or lesser degree but this week I’ve lost something which has upset me so much I just want to scream. Except that I can’t scream because the precious thing I’ve lost this time is my voice. I’m not just a little bit hoarse either – a trip to the doctor’s first thing Wednesday morning, having woken up mute and in excruciating pain, saw me diagnosed with viral laryngitis.

Now, the irony of my having been struck dumb, when normally nothing and no-one can shut me up, has been lost on exactly nobody. While I know any ribbing is good natured, I know too that even my nearest and dearest are probably having a little chuckle that this most talkative and ebullient of men should - for once! – be rendered speechless. I have to rest my voice as much as possible for a week and then, fingers crossed, I should be back to my usual gobby self; for now I can at least talk to you, so let me fill you in on what’s been going on these last couple of weeks.

The most exciting thing I guess is that the silver lining to the cloud of having this bloody virus is the enforced cessation of smoking. I’d be lying if I claimed to have previously given giving up any more than the most tentative of passing thoughts, despite of course being fully aware of everything a pack a day was doing to my body. Unlike the drinking, which was having very tangible – and public – ill-effects, and my promiscuity, which I briefly hated but learned to accept as part of my make-up, smoking was the one vice I never really wanted to give up. It might sound crazy but because the damage smoking does is internal and unpredictable (sure you can get cancer, but you might not, whereas if you drink you will get pissed!) I’d carried on for 15 years with reckless abandon, stopping only twice – once for 48 hours pre- and post-surgery, and then for one stretch of about four weeks when The Ex and I decided to quit together but were lured back on to the weed by his mother, of all people. This time though it’s different as I finally have the impetus and incentive anyone needs to quit. The equation’s a simple one – quit and get voice back, keep smoking and enjoy chronic laryngitis for life. Talk about a no-brainer. Like the drinking, I know kicking the smokes is going to be a challenge so watch this space for progress reports.

Prior to falling ill I’d had a pretty fantastic run of engagements all of which served to show me how blessed I am when it comes to friendships. Thursday I went for drinks and dinner with The Ex and over pizza and Pinot we shared stories of exploits and sexploits that even a couple of months ago we probably wouldn’t have felt able to discuss. There’s certainly been a turning point in our relationship recently and I feel we’ve gone now from being Exes Who Stayed Friends to being, well, friends. The next evening I had a pure Sex and The City moment as Glenda, OLoC, ActiveWill and I descended on Suzie Wong, Soho’s latest swanky eaterie for cocktails and ‘Oriental tapas’. The place is gloriously fitted out in lacquer, paper screens and all manner of Chinoiserie, and staffed by an almost comedic cast of lady-like boys and, well, lady-boys. The food was fantastic, service was friendly if a little slapdash, the cocktails were strong and spirits were sky-high; if only someone had filmed it we could have sold it as a pilot to HBO.

From there OLoC and I travelled on to Brixton for PWdeK and the Duchess of Derbyshire’s joint birthday do at The Manse. I always love these occasions as the whole extended gang comes out to play, and this was no exception with The Other Ex, Best Straight Lady Friend and Big Rob among the revellers I’d not seen for a while. This was a permission-to-drink night so I got stuck into the vodka but managed to hold back from getting absolutely plastered. I may as well have not bothered though, for as the evening wore on, so the party favours came out, and two consonants and a vowel later I was staggering saucer-eyed for the nightbus, fascinated by the lights and the texture of the pavement (which I became better acquainted with at one point and have a cracking bruise on my left hand to show for it.)

Saturday morning came and in spite of the previous night’s excesses I woke up feeling moderately human (still a little wired if truth be told) and awaited the arrival of The South African who was accompanying me to lunch at my Second Favourite Lesbian’s pad up the road. The Saffa, while only my second favourite South African (Charlize Theron tops the chart), is rapidly qualifying as a New Best Friend what with his immense charm, gossipiness and bitchy-as-mine sense of humour. Being drop-dead gorgeous also helps – I do like my friends to be easy on the eye as well you know. He and 2FL, as well as Mrs 2FL and their other gorgeous gay guest, hit it off a treat and as the wine went down and the volume went up it became quickly apparent that we were in for a long afternoon. Sure enough with dessert digested we adjourned to the de facto gay boozer round the corner where, joined by The Saffa’s delightful Straight Lady Friend, we spent an enjoyable if fairly profane few hours until first The Lesbians and then I admitted defeat and headed home to collapse. The Brewers had been mooted but my stamina isn’t what it used to be and when I woke from my ‘disco nap’ at nearly midnight I realised that my Saturday was over.

On Sunday I enjoyed a new and thoroughly enriching experience – the inaugural Hollogays Learning Day. Adapting an idea given to me by the ever-creative Andrea Bianco, the boys and I had agreed a few weeks ago to assemble for lunch at Glenda’s on this day and each present to the others on a topic, in this case, oceans. ActiveWill kicked off with a very slick and well-researched PowerPoint presentation – as perhaps we should have expected from a man with as specialised a geology masters as he – on the Southern Ocean, complete with illustrations and fascinating facts (we were all agog at the giant kelp!) I followed with my bit on the Pacific; being by far the biggest ocean there’s so much to say about it that I chose to focus on its extremes – the widest this, the deepest that etcetera (I could have been talking about ActiveWill, come to think of it…) and we could all now tell you to the metre the depth of the Mariana Trench. Up next was OLoC who delivered a fantastic freestyle micro-lecture on the Arctic Ocean, about which he’d clearly developed such enthusiasm that it came across in his facial expressions and gestures as he regaled us with the movement of its currents. Glenda took the Indian Ocean from an interesting angle, glossing over the statistics to instead speak extensively and passionately about the socio-politics of the area. Did you know how scandalously Britain had treated the people of Diego Garcia? No neither did I until Sunday but believe me if you did, you’d be angry.

Finally it was Margo’s turn to teach us about the Atlantic and I guess we should have known that he’d do something a little bit off-the-wall. Just how off-the-wall took us all by surprise, despite having known him many years – because for the next half an hour we engaged in an experiential drama workshop, learning about Margo’s ocean through, variously, meditation, improvisation, group machine work, mime and performance. It was bonkers, but amazing, and if we laughed it was only through nervousness at exposing ourselves to each other in a totally new way. We all agreed that the day had been a roaring success and have already set the date and topic for the next Learning Day when I will be hosting the boys, plus Jerry, for The Six Wives of Henry VIII. We rounded off the day with a visit to the Kazbar where, joined by Jerry and his gorgeous mother, and bumping by chance into The Ex along with his New Man, Legally Binding and Mini-Lee, we toasted a thoroughly enjoyable and highly educational new experience.

This week was going to be a veritable social whirlwind, with dates in the diary to see Andrea Bianco for coffee and catch up and dinners with The Other Ex and BSLF, but these have of course had to be cancelled due to my tragic loss. Which takes us rather neatly back to the beginning and my state of silence; as I type this I am sitting, in monastic seclusion, at home where I fully expect to spend the next few days sipping hot drinks, gorging on comfort food (my stop smoking counsellor helpfully warned me that ‘You will put on weight’, at which I softly wept) and watching hour-after-hour of Golden Girls reruns. Which actually sounds rather good fun, so enjoy the silence y’all because that’s what I’m planning on doing!

Drinking, dating and defaults

A couple of posts ago, I promised that I would provide you, dear fans of TS&F, with an update on how the drinking was going. Out with a delightfully broad cross-section of the Gang yesterday afternoon, one of them (Little Agony Uncle since you’re asking) enquired as to why that update had not appeared, and I answered that as yet I didn’t feel that I’d quite worked out what my feelings were. I should have expected nothing less from an experienced agony uncle but was nonetheless still stunned by the simple brilliance of his advice: “Tell it to the blog.” So, here goes…

Since I took the big decision to try quitting for a while, and, following the success of that experiment, the arguably bigger decision to then try drinking again, I have certainly regained - or possibly, just gained – a sense of control about my drinking that was missing. It feels wonderful to be able to say that because, well aware as I was of the physical damage I was doing myself, and the wastefulness of spending entire weekends sleeping off the effects of one night’s drinking, it was the lack of control that had really scared me and finally prompted me to find the stop button. I still don’t feel that I’ve quite got the degree of control that I would like to have however, and as result my relationship with alcohol is still at best ambivalent.

It’s really hard to define what it is that I’m unsure about, but as I’m ‘telling it to the blog’ I’ll let you be the judge of whether what I’m saying makes sense. Since stopping, albeit for just a few weeks, there’s been a paradigm shift in my default drinking mode from drinking almost every day to drinking hardly any days, and from drinking more and faster than pretty much anyone to drinking no more and often much less than everyone. I’ve had a couple or three hangovers but nothing on the scale of ‘the old days’ and I’m satisfied that these have not been because of particularly excessive drinking – my biggest bender having been New Year’s Eve and even that was nothing compared to, say, my Bloodbath party - but because my body’s tolerance of and ability to process alcohol has retuned itself from that of a heavy drinker to that of a moderate one. Most satisfyingly, there have been no blackouts, no memory loss, no stripping naked and leaping into hot tubs (other than stone-cold sober in Chariots but that’s not for here), no turning up at afternoon parties already hammered and terrorising the children…you get the picture.

Yesterday I spent a pretty-much-perfect few hours with the boys in Le Shaz Bar and had just one shandy; last week at dinner with Big Sis I had one beer; on neither occasion did I want any more. So, complete abstinence I can do, and ‘just the one’, I can do; the grey area comes when I allow myself – and it really does feel like allowing myself – to drink, those nights (or days) when I consciously decide that drinking is on the agenda. Friday night and Saturday just gone were both such times, the former Glenda’s birthday drinks, the latter an enjoyable but ultimately unsuccessful date with the sexy Saffa from just after Christmas. On both occasions I followed the ‘old’ (and for most, ‘normal’) pattern of one drink after another and both times reached a point where I didn’t want to have any more; I’d chosen to press the ‘stop’ button.

The difficulty is that to be able to push the button, I have to be able to reach it, and it’s never in the bar or club or party that I’m at. If I stay, I’ll stay drinking – it’s as simple as that. I don’t think this is the ‘alcohol allergy’ that Bubble described; I can and do stop at or very near to the moment of my choosing; I just can’t quite get my head around doing that in whatever my present surroundings might be. Instead I have to do a Cinderella-like flit home, to the security – and sobriety – of home; to the sofa, a cup of tea, some chocolate…sources of comfort other than the bottle. Socially it can make things awkward. On the date, for example, about four hours and five or so pints in, I tried to engineer our going back to mine. Of course that was in part with the ulterior motive of getting a bit closer to the gorgeous hunk o’ spunk (that sadly was not on his agenda, unbelievable as that may be) but primarily because I knew that if we stayed out I would end up plastered and I just didn’t want to be. I guess through giving it so much thought – any thought even – I’ve created for myself a new guilt about drinking whereby anything more than ‘just the one’ triggers a thought process that can become quite self-accusatory.

All this leaves me not quite knowing what to do. I could quit drinking altogether, as not doing something is the only sure-fire way to not feel guilty about doing it, but for a reason I can’t yet grasp I don’t ‘want’ to be teetotal. I enjoy good wines, good whisky, a cocktail, a glass of champagne, and I don’t want to give those up. What I need to get to grips with is how to drink socially, if such a thing even exists. Maybe I’m sweating it all a bit too much; maybe I should just go a bit easier on myself and not beat myself up if I get a bit pissed at the weekend – everyone does, right? Or maybe a bit of self-tough-loving is the key to getting this drinking thing licked. For now, I’m happy, things are good, the future’s bright and I must say, that Agony Uncle gives damn good advice because ‘telling it to the blog’ - and may I thank you for indulging me - has made things a whole lot clearer than they were just 24 hours ago!

Amy, mea culpa

Although it may seem hypocritical given my first ever post, I couldn't help but feel very sad when I read the report about Amy Winehouse's shambolic performance (or more precisely, lack thereof) at G-A-Y on Saturday night. She was clearly off her face on the Friday Night Project the night before, and I doubt she'd even sobered up from that bout of drinking before embarking on the one that saw her so publicly shamed in front of two thousand baying gays. Queuing for Ghetto on Saturday we saw the steps to the stage door at G-A-Y being sluiced down with soapy water and joked that Amy had probably thrown up on the way in; if only we'd known the half of it...

When I wrote that first post, I really was amused - yes, amused is the right word - at how she'd behaved on Char's Show. Thinking it was a one-off, I found it hilarious that anyone could be so downright irresponsible as to get twatted before filming a TV appearance (albeit not a 'live' one as claimed.) I sent my account of that night's events to Holy Moly and it made the headline story, and wasn't I pleased with myself about that? But that of course was before I faced up to my own problems with drink and now, far from finding Amy's crazy-bitch antics entertaining, I find them saddening.

I can't help but wonder what the fuck the people around her are doing. Sure, Amy's problems are hers alone and the only person who can tell Amy that she has a problem is Amy. A friend with a drink problem, or any kind of addiction, is like the apocryphal elephant in the room; everyone will gladly talk around it but only the very brave will talk about it. But besides her friends, surely Amy's record company, manager, agent, stylist, hairdresser (yes I'm sure she has one, despite appearances), driver and so on who should be asking themselves what the hell they're doing to earn their money if they let Amy go on stage like that. It must have been obvious that she wasn't fit to perform on Charlotte Church, Buzzcocks, Friday Night Project and now G-A-Y and that if she did she would humiliate herself, and yet no-one has seemingly had the guts or, more to the point, the simple human kindness to say, 'No, sorry love. You can't go on tonight. We'll tell 'em you've got flu,' before giving her the mother of all bollockings in the hope that she will admit to herself, as only she can, that something must be done. If they think that by letting her go on stage pissed out of her beehive-topped head every night, she'll sooner or later learn her lesson, then they are being at best naive and at worst downright cruel. More likely is that the more bad press she gets for turning up smashed, the more disillusioned and paranoid Amy will become, fuelling more drinking in search of the - to her - blissful abandonment that liquor in sufficient quantities brings.

I titled that first post 'Amy needs rehab.' I'm not sure it's rehab that Amy needs now, but she sure needs something. Maybe someone really close to be brave enough to tell her she has a problem. Maybe to have that one flash of clarity where one realises for oneself that something is wrong. Maybe she just needs someone to hold her and love her and tell her that everything's going to be alright. Whatever it is Amy Winehouse needs, I hope she gets it before it's too late. From me, she gets an apology for not knowing then what I know now - that there's nothing funny about being a drunk.

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!