Besos from Barcelona

Talk about time flying; here we are a week since my last post and already it's time to move on to the next destination, in this case Madrid on the 12.30 flight. Which given the proximity of Matthew's flat to the station just about gives me time to quickly fill you in on what I've spent the first week of my travels doing. Firstly though, as it's cropped up in passing, I should mention how very lucky I've been accommodation wise. Matthew really lucked out with this, his latest Barcelona pad (and there have been a few!) - large, bright, modern-ish and thankfully cool, and in an amazing central location in the very trendy district of El Raval. The brilliant location means I've been able to walk everywhere so it's been good for my health too!

Walking has in itself been probably my principle pastime while here. BCN is a very walkable city - you could if so inclined get from its southernmost point on the Barceloneta to its northern reaches of Gracia in twenty minutes and a straight line, and being largely on a grid system even Americans can find their way around with relative ease. The only part of the city which doesn't follow any discernible logic in terms of planning is the ancient Barri Gotíc or Gothic Quarter, and it's such a beautiful jumble of streets, squares and churches that getting lost there is actually part of the fun, and exactly what I quite deliberately did on (hang on...checking notebook...) Friday of last week. Friday was a day for contrasts; after the very old of the Barri Gotíc it was in with the new at the ultra-modern, uber-minimalist new Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA) which can best be summed up from my jotted notes which run, in their entirety, to: "Amazing building - crap art."

The weekend saw Matthew and I up sticks and head down the coast to good old Sitges, and boy has it changed, even in the year since I was there last. Sitges was always bordering on the tacky - the easy comparison being that Sitges was to Barcelona what Brighton is to London, i.e. somewhere city dwellers bugger off to for the weekend - but this time around I found little to love. Maybe it was just that we arrived on a Saturday, but the place was absolutely rammed with tourists, and not just fabulous gay tourists but families, hundreds of them, clogging every street with their double prams and triple chins. One of the things I've always loved about Sitges is that it felt so unremittingly gay, with gay people in gay bars drinking gay drinks, and really didn't get that feel this time around. I don't think I'm alone in feeling this either, judging by the scowls on almost every face among the rows of guys sitting facing off across the main drag outside Parrots Bar and Parrots Cafe; or maybe they were just all German (yes folks, good old fashioned xenophobia is alive and well and living on thirtysomethingandfabulous).

(It wasn't just the boys in the café who were scowling: there was a moment on Sunday morning when I feared for my life despite being within the supposedly safe confines of the very-nice-I-must-say Parrots Hotel where we were staying. Matthew and I went down around 11.00 for breakfast and began to help ourselves from the buffet. I needed tea, as I always do of a morning, and found that the hot water dispensing function of the coffee machine worked very slowly and needed repeated pressings of the dispense button to produce enough for even a single cuppa. Turning away from the machine to go and enjoy my brekker, I saw that a queue of caffeine-starved queens had built up behind me while I'd been leisurely filling my cup and each and every one of them was giving me death stares. In fact I swear one of them was readying to stab me in the eye with a fork. The moral of the story and Lesson Learned #1: Never Come Between A Queen And His Morning Coffee.)

But it was far from a gloomy time, despite Saturday's torrential downpour and spectacular lightning storm; we spent a good amount of Sunday on one of the non-commercial stretches of beach, away from the incessant hawkers of drinks/massages/sunglasses that offer no protection at all, and in the evening, Matthew having had to return to Barcelona ready for work on Monday, I was left to my own devices. I wanted to go somewhere I hadn't tried before for dinner, and then on for drinks somewhere I wouldn't look out of place (or like I was cruising for nookie) on my own, so I asked the receptionist at the hotel for his recommendations. Both were excellent: I had a delicious al fresco dinner of gazpacho, carpaccio and foie gras at El Xalet, sitting by an outdoor swimming pool at a candlelit table, and then moved on to El Piano (yes everywhere has an 'El' in Sitges, it seems) where I chanced upon PV's good friends The Michaels and ceased to be alone. We joined forces for a bar crawl around town and I headed to bed around 3am (at a guess) having had a thoroughly enjoyable night.

Hauling my rather hungover frame back to Barcelona early Monday afternoon, I spent the rest of the day convalescing and reading The Mitfords (which is getting a post of its own, it was so good) leaving the flat only to help Matthew lug home the shopping for the dinner he'd offered to make. Resolving to make better use of Tuesday, I went for another epic walk, this time up, down and all around the swankiest shopping streets of Passeig de Gracia and Avenida Diagonal, chancing along the way upon the Palau Robert, a beautiful town house with a quiet, shaded garden which was a very welcome haven from the heat and bustle. For lunch, I took myself off to Flash Flash, a deservedly famous and trendy tortilleria where the suprisingly formal (but not at all snooty) service made me feel very special even though I was only having a snack and a glass of vino. That evening - my last - Matthew and I ate at home again, before heading out for a night-cap at Carpe Diem, his 'local faggy bar' to use his words, where we sipped on voddie and nibbled the barman's nuts while watching Spain's equivalent of X-Factor on the big screen.

And so to bed, and thence full circle to this morning, which sees me leave Barcelona - reluctantly I must admit given the lovely time I've had - for the high octane capital city Madrid. More of this, if you've not died of boredom yet, from there!

Club Class, and classless clubbing.

Well, a big hola to you all from Barcelona on my first afternoon in this lovely city. I'm taking it easy today after a late night (is there any other sort in Spain, I hear you cry...) which saw Matthew and me up to our hips in foam, throwing shapes to Kylie at a fiesta de espuma in one of the clubs (I couldn't tell you which one they're all so similar; it's ten years since I first visited Barcelona and the scene is still practically unchanged!) Classy it was not; the one pair of jeans I packed is ruined, and much of my skin is dyed indigo blue, but it was a hoot and a half and a great way to start my visit.

The absolute highlight so far though was my trip out: I could get very, very used to flying Club class. The dedicated check-in desks; the roomy, peaceful lounge with booze on tap and freebies galore; boarding and disembarking the plane first; real glass to drink champers from (which was topped up throughout the flight by the lovely gay trolley dolly who also slipped me two miniature bottles of Pommery to take with me!); proper food, extra legroom...definitely worth every extra penny, but if I'm going to stick to anything like my budget for this travelling lark I'm going to have to be very strict about going economy with Club as an occasional treat.

Tonight we're going for dinner at a friend of Matthew's, so I'll get to put faces to the names of the various chums and chumesses he's spoken of over the years he's been here. He doesn't seem very happy at the moment but I think that's homesickness more than anything; hopefully I can put a smile back on his face or at least have fun trying! I'm already missing Alyn like mad; I've been in a sort of denial over the last few weeks about how much I would miss seeing him and now that I'm facing the prospect of not having him next to me for a few weeks it's making me feel a bit sick. Time to give him a call, in fact, so hasta luego and more of this nonsense soon!

We're in the Cinnamon-ey

After a couple of months of anxiety, and an especially tense last few days to the process, the sale of the house finally completed and my bank account - overdrawn, often hideously, for pretty much the whole of the last decade - went very substantially into credit. This happy event marked the conquest of the final obstacle to beginning 'Phase 2' of my life - doing away with all debt and with it the necessity to work, at least for a while - and to celebrate I invited Andrew (the architect, with myself, of Phase 2) to dinner at any restaurant of his choosing. Having heard good things about it in the Westminster corridors of power through which he daily struts, Andrew plumped for haute-Indian The Cinnamon Club, in the old Westminster Library on Great Smith Street.

Wishing to start the evening with a little celebratory bubbly, we headed first to Zander near St James's Park. Propped up on two bar-stools like a pair of post-work Manhattan chicks, we sipped our way through a bottle of Prosecco while nibbling on lotus roots and dissecting the SATC movie which we'd both seen that week (broadly speaking we both loved it, bar one or two minor quibbles and one major one - mine - namely that I don't think she should ultimately have done you-know-what with you-know-who.) Whether it was our stunning good looks, our irresistible charm or just great customer service I don't know, but we were also showered with freebies by the ruggedly-handsome Dutch barman: two further glasses of pink Prosecco (try it - it's delicious) along with a generous serving of chilled strawberries. The high spirits were heightened further when I gave Andrew the gift I'd for so long wanted to give him but until today had been unable to afford; the gorgeous silver leather Patrick Cox shoes which he had fallen in love with the minute they stepped onto the catwalk months before.

Refreshed, we made our way through the still sunny streets to the restaurant, and were impressed from the off as we were ushered into one of the most beautiful dining rooms either of us had seen in London. The library's wood panelling and high-rise shelving has been largely preserved, and a mezzanine overlooks the main room and its enclosed, private dining offshoots. Even at just after 7.30 the restaurant was very nearly full and within a short time every table was occupied (one close to ours by a gaggle of screeching Americans, sadly) and the atmosphere buzzing. Whilst perusing the menu we enjoyed a cocktail from the cleverly put-together list; the cocktails, somewhat like the food, are familiar European favourites given an Indian twist and my Spice Martini, with its hint of cardamom, was fantastic.

Food was difficult to choose given that everything sounded absolutely mouth-watering. Despite being relatively compact - nine starters, eleven mains and a couple of specials and tasting plates - the menu covers all bases in that it offers meat, poultry, fish and vegetarian choices all of which tempted us enormously. (NB: for those unable to decide, or feeling particularly adventurous, or both, there's an eight-course tasting menu.) On top of this, you're also able to choose from a small selection of 'showcase' dishes from another high-flying restaurant, in this case superstar chef Eric Chavot's two Michelin-starred The Capital. I loved this idea, one I'd never come across before, and so I opted for Chavot's crab risotto with truffle cappuccino to start while Andrew went for seared scallops with stir fried mushrooms and coconut and mussel broth. Both were superb, proof of the extremely high quality of the seafood used in each dish being in the eating. My risotto was perhaps a little heavy on cheese, but the pan fried king prawns it came topped with more than compensated for this.

Staying with a seafood theme for his main, Andrew chose grilled wild African prawn with tomato lemon sauce and coconut rice, while I went onto dry land and (blocking out all memories of Bambi) went for roasted saddle of Oisin deer with pickling spices. Both were gold-star, merit badge, top of the class standard; Andrew's 'prawn' turned out in fact to be three huge prawns each the size of a small lobster and gorgeously smoky from the tandoor, while my deer, cooked perfectly pink, tasted deliciously spice-hot and tart. Confident that desserts would be as good, we both ordered the coconut plate and loved the 'three ways'-style treat with which we were subsequently served; a scoop of creamy coconut ice-cream, a miniature brule and a warm, fried donut-y beignet. And it wasn't only the food that delighted us; service from the moment we sat down, throughout every course, and as we left was a joy; warm, courteous and very respectful, but without a trace of the stuffiness one might expect from a restaurant known by some at lunchtime as 'The Commons' Canteen'.

The bill...well yes of course at the end of all this, what with cocktails, three courses, moderate wine (honest!), coffee and service, was none too pretty, but the night had always been planned as a special celebratory treat and it fitted that purpose exactly. Eating at The Cinnamon Club will never be a cheap night out anyway, with starters ranging from £7.50 to £15 and mains going as high as £32, but if it's bargain Baltis you're after then there are tens of thousands of local Indian restaurants who will very happily oblige. If, like we did on the other hand, you want a very special meal and to experience something new culinarily, then the Club should certainly feature highly on your list.

We finished off what had been a thoroughly enjoyable and divinely decadent evening with a couple of cocktails looking out over the Thames at Skylon; amazingly (considering my love of the new) I had never visited until now but will surely be back very soon for another of their terrifically mixed vodka Martinis...!

Saturday S.L.U.T.S.

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

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

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

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