Dirty Gays Terrible! As informed by the wonderful Matthew of York, I forgot to put in my last post the exciting event of the week before last! It was such a day that my memory couldn't cope. Anyway, after an eventful journey involving shitty buses (never trust Bristol's buses, ever, EVER) and some kind of terror alert at Paddington, I finally made it to Portcullis House. Alas, Government was called into prorogation at the last minute, and so we didn't get to witness Prime Minister's Questions. Typical!

Instead, we had a wonderful tour of Portcullis House and a little nosey around the Houses of Parliament by one of Matthew's friend's (an MP no less!) assistants. And what a wonderful place it is—previously I cursed at the huge expense of Portcullis House (apparently ~£1m for every MP), but having seen it, and seen it used, I can see the investment that has been made. The centre to the building is a lively, thronging courtyard with a restaurant, cafés, and a post office. MPs drift past (David Blunkett, with dog and henchmen noticed in celeb-MP spotting) and attractive young researchers flirt over clipboards and coffee.

To fill the afternoon, a trip to the theatre was made (as one should make an effort to do when up town), to see Bent (with Alan Cumming) at the Trafalgar Studios. An excellent show I must say, both Matthew and I leaving the theatre feeling emotionally knocked for six. If we felt like that simply watching a play about the treatment of a minority group in a Nazi concentration camp, then it goes beyond what the mind is capable to attempt to imagine the suffering that happened. On a happier note, the new-kid-on-the-block actor Chris New provided a delicious morsel to devour with the eyes. And I was quite genuinely shocked to see one of the characters wearing a cock-ring!

After the show it was a skeddadle back to the Houses of Parliament (and how lax security is despite appearing so rigorous! should I say that on here? who knows...) to meet with an old friend of Matthew's, a lovely lady (working high up in think tank things), whose partner is an MP of somewhere in Bristol no less. Matthew moves in influential circles it seems. We received a further tour of the Houses of Parliament, this time seeing the House of Commons itself, and, my! how small it is. Tiiiiiny, I mean, you just can't imagine how pokey it is until seeing it. It must get quite horribly sweaty and nasty in the summer, and stuffy in the winter. But how exciting!

Then it was onwards for dinner back in Portcullis House, with Sir Menzies sat but a few tables away (unfortunately, hushed tones kept the contents of his conversation away from prying ears). Could things get better? Yes—the food was pretty damn good I must say. An excellent end to an already excellent day, and even the thought of contending with Bristol buses couldn't put a damper on it. Amazing!



Talking of gay things as I was earlier (cock-rings and persecuted homosexuals in Nazi Germany), I came across the Catherine Tate sketch of 'Gay Johnny' online (isn't YouTube fantastic?), and I've never seen a comedy sketch so accurate! Well, I'm not too sure about the Irish run-down estate-livingness of it all (never having lived in a run-down Irish estate), but the coming out and what follows couldn't be more true to life. Young Johnny is a teenager, and he's just come out to his mum: in the first sketch, his mother's response is (after yelling at him thinking the thing he had to tell her was that he'd joyridden or got a neighbour's daughter up the duff) to run up stairs to try on a pencil skirt with him! In other sketches, his mother proudly tells friends and neighbours "our Johnny's a gay man now" to the reception of more invitations to look at the decoration ("see out new tongue-and-groove, oh!, you'll die!") or pointing out (for his opinion) hot men in magazines.

It's just too true for words: as soon as the whole gay thing becomes knowledge, for some reason there's an instant need for people to ask fashion advice, decoration advice, man advice, sex advice! Not too sure why, I'm not sure there's a genetic link that makes gay men editors of Cosmo. Besides, many gays that one sees about should certainly take some fashion advice that's not their own.
I've probably forgotten something else again, so if there's anything, I'll save it for next time. Over and out! Posted: 23-11-06 22:08 :: Permalink: http://ben.corale.co.uk/archive/v1/238.html


Comments Use the form at the bottom to post your comments. Here is the feedback:

Matthew of York writes :D Commented: 25-11-06 23:25

Richard writes The gay johnny sketch is one of the few Tate jokes that I actually like. Was it Irish though? I remember Scottish accents. I particularly liked the bit with the thugs turning up and asking whether their trousers matched their boots. Commented: 15-12-06 16:20

The blog author writes Aye, it were Irish. Linkage for another in case you've not seen them all: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eorObV6E9U Commented: 15-12-06 16:59

mareike writes write your blog! Commented: 15-12-06 17:44

Wolfie writes It's been a month and a day since we've had an update. We're beginning to feel ignored and unloved :( Commented: 23-12-06 17:42