Invisible Stranger |
|
|
Collecting Crises on Old Compton Street and Beyond
Archives
Currently clicking:
Usually Playing:
|
Tuesday, March 30, 2004
Being Boring
Not content with stinting on the Stellas, I'm now seriously considering cutting the coffee, or at least opting for the de-caff variety. I appreciate the kick-start my tall Americano gives me in the morning, but I can never stop at just one. By the time work chucks out, I'm Starbucked with so much caffeine, that I'm kicking and screaming like a bronco rider on crystal meth. Oh dear. These days, I'm turning into a proper Goody Two-Shoes, aren't I? Please feel free to give me a slap. I've never messed with fags (at least, not of the tobacco kind), and have even been known to cross the street to avoid being downwind of a smoker. At the moment, I'm only drinking at weekends (although admittedly it's a Planet Gay sort of weekend, one that starts on Thursday night); and, as for other stimulants, I can't recall having a runny nose for quite a while now. And when it comes to grand, earth-moving passion, often it feels that sort of thing gave up on me somewhere between Money by Martin Amis and Kate Bush's last CD. And I'm in bed before Graham Norton most nights of the week. Next thing you know, I'll be passing up on the burgers at Ed's Easy Diner, cycling to work (if I'd ever learnt to ride a bike, that is), and electing to subsist on a diet of bamboo sprouts and rainwater, before shacking up with a yak on top of a Tibetan mountain, from which I shall occasionally descend to deliver my words of clean-mind-clean-body claptrap. I feel as though I'm unconsciously evolving into some holier-than-thou proselytiser for the Healthy Lifestyle, and it just feels all wrong and unnatural somehow. A man needs at least one vice of which he knows his mother would disapprove, and a queen preferably ten, or else where's the fun to be had in life? As for me, well, I don't even pick my nose anymore. Thursday, March 25, 2004
Acc(id)ents Will Happen
I studied Modern Languages at University. Back then we called it Frog and Kraut and there was always more emphasis placed on literature than on the languages themselves. All quite brilliantly useless, of course, even though they always came in handy chatting up Armand from Antibes and Kurt from Cologne. We read some great books — The Tin Drum, just about anything by Zola (Emile, that is, rather than Gianfranco) — but they led directly to not one decent job for anyone I know. It’s quite disturbing to graduate after four years of a so-called language degree and discover most Germans don’t go for Goethe, and the French give hardly a f**k for Flaubert, and you're never going to use your languages in your job after all. Fortunately, twenty-odd years on, and unlike many of my fellow students, my German is still good, a standard heroically maintained through never saying "nein" in dodgy Berlin bars. My French could be better, but it's still passable, its fluency depending on just how many Ricards have been consumed that evening. And because of a foundation course in Linguistics, and a basic schoolboy's knowledge of Latin (best subject not on the National Curriculum, you know, and it should be reinstated confestim), I can usually bumble around in most languages between here and the Finland Station, and get myself at least halfway understood. (And before anyone says it, yes, that's right, I still can't say "no" in any of them.) So with this background and ear for languages, you'd think I'd be able to distinguish between all the varying regional nuances of my native tongue. Tell an Essex girl from a Geordie lass, for instance, a Lincolnshire poacher from an Irish rover, and know the difference between a Bondi backpacker and a Cincinnati quarterback. Think again. For today I have just discovered that a girl I've worked alongside for three months, and who, from her accent, I presumed to come from a tough-as-nails Belfast council estate, actually hails from Edinburgh. And the really posh bit at that. Languages I am fine with. It's the accents I don't get. And Professor Henry Higgins I most definitely am not. Tuesday, March 23, 2004
Time Lord
I've never had problems with being on-time. Quite the opposite, in fact. Sure as clockwork, I always wake up exactly one minute before my alarm goes off in the morning, my day is planned with an almost jackbooted military precision, and I have never once missed a train, a plane, or the opening of an envelope. Friends set their watches by me, and everyone knows I have a twenty-four-hours timetable for a brain and an atomic clock for a heart. Of course, this has its downside too, and means I rather unfairly expect similar punctuality from others. The easiest way to turn me into the sort of sulking, sarcastic Stranger you can't help but slap is to turn up late, after having kept me waiting for, oh, a good ten minutes or so. It’s a throwback to the days when I worked entirely freelance, and every minute wasted was another few quid down the drain. So what happened last night when I turned up at eight-ish when the invite clearly said seven-thirty sharp? Sorry, my dears, that wasn't Late, that was what's called Making An Entrance, and it is the sole prerogative of we who love to sing showtunes. And, besides, I always do aim to be worth the wait. . . Friday, March 19, 2004
Homo For The Holidays
I've just discovered I've a whopping twenty-three days of holiday left, all of which has to be used by the end of August if I don't want to wave goodbye to them. Unfortunately, they can't be taken all at once, otherwise I'd be flying down to Rio before you could say "her name was Lola", and instead must enjoy them in bite-sized chunks. Still, with some crafty playing around with bank holidays, this works out at about one full week off for the next five months. Friends are urging me to take some time out for sun, sea, sand, and several other things starting with "s". I need a few away-gays, they say, and a bit of relaxation might even help me get back my looks again. They've slipped a couple of brochures my way, each one bulging with images of buffed-up benders, suntans from Boot's, teeth from Photoshop, and not a Bacardi-breezered brain cell in sight. I trip over enough of this sort at chucking-out time on Old Compton Street already, thank you very much. An enforced week in that kind of company would be enough to make me consider electroconvulsive therapy as actually not such a bad idea, after all. It’s why I hate the whole concept of the "gay" holiday and would rather die than go to Ibiza, or Mykonos, or any of the other supposedly homo hot-spots. For I'm a maturing Mary, secure in my individuality, confident in my nelliness, and I don't want, or need, to pay more pink pounds than is proper to fly out for a week in Poofters' Paradise, What's the point, as all you're going to do is bump into Wayne from last week down the pub and bitch about Jase anyway? And besides, a shag is a shag is a shag, even when it's foreign and talks with a funny accent. (Although the thought of tripping over to Amsterdam to settle a few scores is unusually attractive, but for all of the wrong reasons. There's the bottom of a particularly murky canal with which I'd just love someone over there to get much better acquainted. And no, I am not a bitter and vengeful old queen. Well, not usually.) Oh, bugger it, who do I think I'm kidding? It'll be Berlin, beer and boyz, won't it? I am nothing if not predictable. Tuesday, March 16, 2004
Last Orders
Last week I opted to give up the Stellas and the sherbet for a while. It's a decision I take every so often, a resolution so regular you can set your Rolex by it. The difference this time was that my decision to detox was taken not in the shambles of an oh-my-god-how-drunk-was-I-last-night, self-loathing sort of daze, but arrived upon in the cold and sober, holier-than-thou light of day. I need to get into better shape for the summer, you see, and I'd like to sport a six-pack made up of ripped and toned muscle, rather than one produced by Belgium's best. Of course, this abstinence lark isn't quite as simple as that. For starters, I am a gay man hitting his mid-life crisis slap-bang in the middle of London's Old Compton Street. We all know the Homopolis is centred around ever so stylish establishments, where booze lubricates our social lives, as well as giving us a far better chance for a cheap and not-too-choosey shag at closing-time. Standing with a Highland Spring in the middle of a bunch of up-for-it, havin'-it-large metro-queens is not a recommended look, and definitely not an advisable frame of mind in which to find oneself. And then there's the restaurant dilemma. I love to dine out, and can usually pick out the healthier options on the menu, but for me a meal, even a Chinese with green tea, isn't a meal without a fine bottle of wine. I also like to eat out à deux, candlelight optional, and it's hardly fair to expect your dining companion to down a whole bottle of Bordeaux themselves, now, is it? He'd be pissed and passed out by pudding, and what use is he going to be to you then? So if I'm really serious about staying off the booze, then it looks like my only alternative is to give up this gay thing altogether, and dust down the Delia and start cooking for myself. If I need any social interaction, I can always try my friendly straight pub on the corner, which serves pretty damn fine coffee, and whose heterosexual clientele have far better things on their mind than getting their end away with that drunken hairdresser from Ilford. But when your pint's already being poured for you before you've even reached the bar, just as it was last night, and it's a pint of your usual because that what you always drink and they aren't going to let you stop now, then you begin to suspect you might just be on the losing side in the booze wars. Cheers, mate, but just a half, mind? Oh, well, if you twist my arm… Friday, March 12, 2004
Radio-Gaga
Lately I've been listening more and more to the radio. Proper radio, that is, radio with joined-up words rather then the catatonic caterwauling of some pimpled and pre-pubescent Pop Idol reject. Radio as in Radio Four, in fact. Is there any other? For me it’s one of the best things about the BBC. Well, that and a stripped-to-the-waist Dennis from EastEnders. As ever, the Today programme wakes me up at six, with commentators whose voices all manage somehow to sound the same, but come across far more believable and authoritative than their plastic-perfect Tellyland counterparts, all capped teeth and Princess Di hairdos. But now I'm also following the rest of the cosily predictable schedules: thoughts for the day and afternoon plays, women's hours and gardeners' questions, arts reviews and foreign correspondences, until I reach my book at bedtime. And then it's the land-lubbers' lullaby of the Shipping Forecast, its nightly litany of occasional gales (veering south-west) and squally showers (moderate then good) way more effective at sending me to sleep than vodka or valerian could ever be. You might be thinking I'm living in a comfortable and genteel Middle-England world of cricket and crumpets, where Auntie is always on hand with the cucumber sandwiches, and Nicholas Parsons is my quizmaster god. (He actually is, but that's beside the point.) So let me just point out that yesterday evening they had their very first audible and sloppy same-sex snog down Ambridge way. Heavens. Homos in the haylofts. Looks like I've started tuning in just in time. Tuesday, March 09, 2004
I Came To Dance
Once again several disapproving stares were shot my way in the gym this morning. Apparently, it's simply not the done (and definitely not the butch) thing to perform a little dance in the free-weights room, even when the song playing over the PA is DB Boulevard's rather wonderful "Another Point Of View". But the boy can't help it, you see, for he loves to dance, and will at the slightest excuse. Find me a free square metre of space and I'll shimmy and I'll shuffle, and I'll boogie and I'll bustle, till the nice men in the white coats turn up to take me home. I don't even need the music: I'll conjure up tunes in my head, and can find syncopation in the hourly pips on Radio Four. And all this without the help of any pharmaceuticals either. I'm talking solo here: I never could quite get the hang of doing it with a partner. (No grubby comments, please.) Along with the co-ordination required, it's just one more social skill I lack, and I can never quite decide who’s supposed to lead. Someone once bravely tried to teach me the tango, a dance memorably described as the "vertical expression of a horizontal desire". I can certainly vouch for the horizontal bit: I ended up on my back almost every single time. Whenever I go to dance-clubs, it's inevitably my friends who cop off. They make the effort of chatting up tall and handsome strangers at the bar before becoming, er, better acquainted in somewhat darker places. The Stranger's too busy on the dancefloor, out there with the music and the mayhem and the lasers. Oh, and usually on a podium, if they've got one. Blatant showing-off? Of course not. Terpsichorean self-expression, more like, and pass the poppers, why don't you? In fact, who needs the dancefloor? It’s only when I 'm on a serious downer that I don't dance my way down Old Compton Street (call it mincing, bitch, and I'll stamp on your Nikes with my stilettos). You'll even catch me in queues tapping my feet, wiggling my bum, and rocking from side to side, although part of that might be because I've just had three Stellas, and I really, really need to use the loo. And should I ever be caught with my umbrella in a torrential downpour then the temptation to do a Gene Kelly (or more probably a Morecambe and Wise) is pretty damn irresistible. It's fun, my dears, and I can't think of any time or place where it's inappropriate to give 'em a bit of that old razzle-dazzle. I once even danced at someone's memorial service, although, to be fair, it was a showbiz send-off, and half the queens there were also high-kicking it to "It's Not Where You Start It's Where You Finish" from Broadway musical Seesaw. And there it is. Because, if I had my way, then I'd be a song-and-dance man, and my whole life an all-singing, all-dancing musical extravaganza. At the very least it would have an absolutely cracking soundtrack. Bloody hell. Can you imagine what I'd be like with an iPod? Monday, March 08, 2004
Back To Business
After a relaxing week's holiday, spent largely not doing all those useful things I should have been doing around the house (oven-cleaner: what is that for?), I returned to work refreshed, determined to face my daily grind with a smile on my face, and a merry little song in my heart. Because a positive attitude, well, it's the new black, isn't it? No. Actually black is the new black. As in black mood, black day and the Black Death I'd cheerfully visit on certain colleagues if only I had a plague rat handy. Already the first Hissy Fit of the month has been thrown, and I'm gearing up for a particularly impressive Flounce round about three-thirty this afternoon. For not only am I greeted by a pile of leftover paperwork that someone else just couldn't be arsed to do ("but, Stranger, you do it so much better than we ever could"), the administrative, electronic and inter-departmental chaos whipped up in my absence means that the only words springing readily to mind are "piss-up", "brewery" and "inability to organise". And it's my Blogday today. So a happy Blogday to me. One year on, and I really should know better. Friday, March 05, 2004
Here We Go Again
In case anyone hasn't noticed yet, that ever-so-troublesome Diva has just gone and come back, hasn't he? (Oh yeah, and like he really went away, did he?) And about bloody time as well, is all I can say. Apart from: we've all missed you something rotten, Mike. Welcome home. Thursday, March 04, 2004
Respectable
Today I removed the shocking-pink faux fur which for the past year has rimmed my bathroom mirror, in preparation for its replacement by a rather funkier, chrome-framed and rivet-studded, gun-metal grey model. With an aching heart, I realised this also meant that the similarly coloured drapes covering one entire wall would also have to go. And after that, well, it was curtains too for the glitter ball, which never failed to cheer me up whenever I staggered in bleary-eyed and hungover on the hunt for the sodium bicarbonate. And now my collection of four Barbies, including this one, three Kens, and Brandon and Brenda from Beverly Hills 90210, who’ve been sitting lined up on the bathroom shelf since I moved into this flat, have now all been consigned to the shoebox under the bed, along with those other things I’d rather not everyone knew about. Butch. It’s the next big thing around here, my dears. Wednesday, March 03, 2004
In The Lands Of The North Where The Black Rocks Stand Guard…
Wandering purposelessly through London’s West End today, I stumbled quite by chance on a VHS chronicling every last adventure ever experienced by these fine, everyday Northern folk. Those of you who know what I’m talking about will know precisely why I’m talking about it. Those of you who don’t will undoubtedly sigh sympathetically, pat me on my slightly demented puppy-dog head, and remind me that, at my age, a throrough investigation of the positive benefits of a grown-up existence might not be such a bad idea after all. Your loss, my dears, for you’re far too young. While me and my mate, Graculus, well, we go back a long, long way. You know, they simply don’t make sagas like that anymore. Monday, March 01, 2004
Oblivion
The fact I woke up today, on the first day of a week off, to face several empty wine bottles and two of Stoli, three shattered glasses, and one unbroken tumbler half-full of what I really do not want to know, several cut-price flyers from certain establishments of a very dubious nature, two undecipherable phone numbers which I really dare not call, a numbing headache and a nagging sense of guilt, as well as one item of clothing very definitely not belonging to me, and a rip in my jeans, suggests that a rather good time was had by all. Now if only someone would tell me just what it is that I actually did, then I could come up with all the right excuses. |
