It’s twenty years since Culture Club’s Karma Chameleon was the UK’s number one selling single (full list). I really remember the video set in Mississippi (but I don’t imagine it was actually filmed there). I suspect it would be very dated now … all together now, “Every day is like survival, You’re my lover, not my rival …”
2005: Italy Is Smoke Free
2002: Selling
2005: Italy Is Smoke Free
2002: Selling
Apparently, if you’re in the United States, this week is Marriage Protection Week 2003 thanks to George Bush. It really is just plan silly – a knee jerk reaction to fear and prejudice. The hypocrisy of the line, “And we must continue our work to create a compassionate, welcoming society, where all people are treated with dignity and respect” is not lost on me. The overtones about marriage and good parenting are the scary aspects to me. Please support Marriage Equality Week instead (thanks to Eric for the pointer).
2003: Returning from Holidays
2002: Starmaker, Dream Breaker
2003: Returning from Holidays
2002: Starmaker, Dream Breaker
I have been away on holiday for a week and am moving into catch-up mode.
As a child I frantically wrote letters the week before going on holiday so that I would have a nice pile of unopened mail upon my return. Yesterday, there was, of course, a mass of mail on the doorstep but most of it was corporate mass-mailings or junk of some description. My email inboxes were the same but where are the communications I actually want?
Back in the office, most of the mail is not junk and has to be dealt with but, as ever, procrastination gets the better of me. I’ve read it all and acted on the urgent. The rest is delayed for the “catching-up” excuse can last another 24 hours. Shameful, wasteful and it will be – ultimately – frustrating for me but that is the spirit of putting-off.
2003: Marriage Protection Week 2003
2002: Starmaker, Dream Breaker
2003: Marriage Protection Week 2003
2002: Starmaker, Dream Breaker
As the British tend to do, we will look back on this past summer with joy. We’ll talk about it like we did that of 1976 – a long, hot, lazy, crazy summer. I was more likely to be playing in a paddling pool than worrying about shortages of the plastic pools back then but I do remember the heat and picking the fruit from my father’s fruit bushes while sitting in the back garden. Sadly, the topless lads playing football on the green behind my house has given way to to the Sunday morning rugby matches. This is a sign of the on-coming winter as the fields turn from their burnt golden grass to a dark-brown mud bath. Still, autumn comes first and it’s my favourite of seasons. I think it’s time I got the camera out to start recording some of it.
2004: Shrewsbury Town
2002: Nearly There
2002: Ultimate Boy Band CD (1)
2004: Shrewsbury Town
2002: Nearly There
2002: Ultimate Boy Band CD (1)
Today is PY and my twelfth anniversary and tonight we are off for dinner at Lightship X at St Katherine’s Dock. I’m really looking forward to it.
Twelve years sounds like a very long time but it certainly doesn’t feel like it – it’s been a wonderful period of my life and I am very much hoping for another twelve years.
People talk about finding their soulmate and I very lucky to have found mine many years ago.
Thanks for everything PY. I love you.
2004: Today In London
2004: Thirteen
2002: Snapshot of the Blogsphere
2004: Today In London
2004: Thirteen
2002: Snapshot of the Blogsphere
I’ve mentioned elsewhere that the addition of SkyPlus into our household has transformed my television viewing. I appreciate this does make me sound like all the TiVo fans out there but I think it really does make a difference to some people. Nonetheless, fads in television viewing still exist. This time last year I was a big fan of The Shield on Channel Five – I thought it was quite innovative – but it quickly became another formula driven cop-show. On the other hand, Channel Four’s Teachers, now showing it’s third series on Wednesday evenings, remains one of the sharpest programmes on screen at the moment and more surreal by the week. I’m starting to walk past real life schools looking for donkeys in the playground and teachers smoking around the back.
2004: The End Of September
2002: Morally Ambiguous Cop
2004: The End Of September
2002: Morally Ambiguous Cop
I have been unintentionally silent for a week. It’s funny because I can’t pin down the reasons for the lack of attention this site has had in the last seven days or so.
Anyway, I finally caught up on some episodes of Sex And The City which has been sitting on my SkyPlus and it finally dawned on me (seemingly after the rest of the nation) that this is a faked advertisement for Absolut. How come I didn’t catch on to that then?
Am I the only person who thinks that the Absolut Hunk, Jason Lewis, has more than a passing resemblance to Calvin Klein model, Travis Fimmel. Perhaps it’s just me and the fact that long hair has never been much of a turn on for me before. Anyway, apparently Travis is playing Tarzan in a new Warner Brothers serial which means there’s lots of reason to see him with no shirt on should the show ever make it to the UK (although he is, apparently, not that happy about having to take his shirt off all the time – via Let Me Get This Straight).
Sill with the media, last Wednesday brought the revelation that one of my favourite broadcaster’s, Eddie Mair, is leaving Broadcasting House (the show and, maybe, the building). Sometimes you just can’t tell when he’s being serious or of it’s just his humour. Anyway, don’t miss his final shows on Radio Four, Sundays.
Media Guardian’s site (source of the above) also brought us an interesting profile of Graham Norton (originally from yesterday’s Observer) talking about his forthcoming attempt to break on America. It seems he has developed quote a cult following in the US (Jase is a big fan) and, perhaps, it might not be too bad for the UK to take a little break from Graham. I really miss the fact that the guests on the original So Graham Norton shows didn’t know what they were getting themselves into. Nowadays, they’ve either done it before or been warned in advance. I’m sure he’ll come up with something to move the show along and I think it’s probably a very wise thing for him not to start on one of the big US networks.
Which brings us, more-or-less, to today and the very good news that London’s Mayor is stopping those advertisements for holiday companies that say things along the line of “romantic, mixed-sex couples only”. Sandals, the resorts in question, advertise under the slogan, “Love is all you need”. Yeah right. [Source: The Independent]
2004: I Pressed The Button
2002: Sunday
2004: I Pressed The Button
2002: Sunday
I scored 8 out of 10 in the BBC’s Modern Manners Quiz. I am not sure what that says about me except you can come to my house if you don’t mind me telling you to take your drugs outside and if you take the hint when I open a window and you light up a cigarette! I wonder if my mother would be proud of my polite ways!
2004: Trees On Piccadilly
2002: The Woman Who Cooked Her Husband
2004: Trees On Piccadilly
2002: The Woman Who Cooked Her Husband
Yesterday afternoon I took advantage of London Open House Day to visit a building I’d always wanted to explore – Bush House, home of the BBC World Service. The BBC occupied it from 1940 (and should be out by 2008) and it feels as grand as the home of the Empire Service should. Parts of the building are listed so they can’t do much work to alter the place so it does feel like you are stuck in a time warp. The tour got to visit a studio in the basement (on top of the original swimming pool) which was the highlight.
Pictures of the construction of some of the buildings hung on the walls. One showed the central building completed and standing alone at Aldwych Circle. In front of the building were entrances to a subterranean tram-way. When I was looking at it I assumed this was some early form of the London Underground as we know it (and, perhaps, it was). But – and by coincidence – I was reading Phil Gyford’s site earlier and came across a link to Subterranea Britannica.
Fascinated, as I am, by the hidden tunnels around London I was reading some of the entries when I came across references to the Kingsway Tramway Subway – which, it would seem, had an entrance right outside Bush House. The last tram ran in 1952 but, apparently, you can still see parts of the tunnels to this day. Of course, much of it is now part of the traffic subway (opened in 1964) but it’s another wonderful piece of London’s history which I will hunt out.
2004: Jesus Christ Superstar
2002: Tired
2004: Jesus Christ Superstar
2002: Tired
Sometimes I forget that I am in London which is a relatively OK place to be if you are gay – not perfect but better than many. Thank goodness I am not in Pennsylvania:
Police officers in a Pennsylvanian town are responsible for the suicide of a gay teen, after they threatened to tell his family about his sexuality, a court has ruled. [Source: UK Gay.Com via Tom]
What saddens me in this tale are the stories of people being made to read or listen to portions from the bible, presumably, telling them what sinners they are. There is a wide gulf between what these people think of the bible and my own opinions but I will never understand how people of faiths that profess to ‘love’ can be so cruel to other people, regardless of what they think of them.
2006: There Can’t Be A Winner In Football Unless There’s A Loser
2004: Weekend In Britain’s Smallest County
2002: Fast Food Nation
2006: There Can’t Be A Winner In Football Unless There’s A Loser
2004: Weekend In Britain’s Smallest County
2002: Fast Food Nation