just to clarify i was not insinuating with the last post that ALL religious people are crazy, window licking, butt munching kid fuckers, many many religious people are perfectly lovely and I wiah them the best in all their endeavours but it's the religous few that use their religion and the fact that they are religious to spit sheer hate at others in the name of their chosen worship. Personally I believe we were all put on this planet to love, and that is all that I and my gay brothers and sisters are trying to do, it's just a shame that some of the so called "religious" folk seem desperate to put barriers up to love - the one thing that every human has and can give and receive.

it's xmas

for fucks sake

xx

Well somehow I managed to survive the work xmas do, it was a fun affair with a great meal at a local bar in Kings Cross followed by the inevitable trip to Soho, I think most people are assuming that Trash Palace in Soho has already closed as it was very quiet but they gave us 2 free bottles of "champagne" so it was not all bad. A few of us then headed to Profile Bar and that's when it started to get messy, I was quite far gone by this point and kinda took a back seat, observing and trying to sort my head out. Luckily I got my second windand headed to popstarz which was fantastic (from what I remember) Oliver and Louise turned up and we had lots of fun. Not sure what time we left but I had the surreal experience of getting on aa night bus by Centrepoint and it being TOTALLY empty - very strange.

After 5 hours sleep I woke up stupidly early and got myact togther to go to Oxford Street to do all my xmas shopping, I got there pretty early and managed to have it all done (and bought myself 2 new tops) by 12pm! I then even managed a bit of a rest before heading up to Highgate Village for drinks with Clare, Glenn, Oliver, Zoe, Ruth etc etc. Lots of fun and drink but we left a lil early to meet Tom and Mal at Unskinny Bop in Betnal Green which again was great fun.

Yesterday was half messy, half relaxing but all good. Now for some stupid reason I am in work really wishing I had just booked today off, I also seem to have the beginnings of a sore throat so have stocked up on strepsils, lemon and ginger tea and some honey. I refuse to have another ill xmas!

Now as it's xmas I got to thinking about religion, well more specifically hell. According to a lot of (crazy, window licking, buttmunching, kid fucking) right wing religious people I am destined to go to hell and I was thinking last night what hell would be like. I mean are there different levels? I assume that people like Hitler are in hell as well as lots of murderers, rapists and child abusers, I Imagine hell works on different levels, imagine if you will - The Brit Awards, they always put the nominees on the front tables and as it goes further back you get record company people and then the unwashed british public. If hell works in the same way then Hitler and his million + murdering lot will be licking the stage whereas the gays will be right at the back which would suit me as surely that’s where the bar would be. If that is the case and all the gays are together, well it's just going to be like a big pride day. I would imagine arriving and just being like "HI! oh my god! HI!!! How have you been? When did you die?" etc.

I know it's a bit morbid but these things need clarifying for me, I guess since I am not religious all this doesn't matter anyway but when I get a thought in my head, there is no knowing where it's gonna go. I am generally a good person, I do voluntary work and work full time for a charity so that does essentially make me a good person but at the same time I have a mouth like a sewer and have been known to say the word "retarded" more than is necessary, sometimes even bringing the term "fucktard" into the equation, you might be thinking that is a new one on me so I shall use it in a sentence - "Paris Hilton is a fucktard", it just saves time from saying "fucking retard", try using it in a sentence today with either your manager or your mother. I also laugh at people falling over and derive a certain amount of pleasure if it looks like they have slightly hurt themselves.

Ok well I think I have probably been offensive enough now so I shall move on to discuss "Strictly Come Dancing", Ok so I didn't watch a single show this series but having seen a few clips on youtube and seeing all the newspapers yesterday I have to say I LOVE Tom Chambers, this years winner, He is so adorable! He seems very sweet and quite the opposite of my other perfect man Danny Dyer. Check him out!



Well I just have today to get through and then tomorrow I am heading back to Sheffield til the 29th! I am really looking forward to the break and to catching up with people that I have not seen for a while and of course to get some good mum's home cooking down my neck.

Back tomorrow for my last blog before xmas!

xx

Justice!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7791660.stm

Classy Bird!!



Grace Jones has been quoted as saying that her 1986 hit "Pull up to the Bumper" is not necessarily about sex, let's examine some of the lyrics shall we?

Pull up to my bumper baby,
In your long black limosine,
Pull up to my bumper baby,
And drive it in between.

Pull up to it, don't drive through it,
Back it, up twice, now that fits nice,
Grease it, spray it, let me luricate it,
Pull up to my bumper baby

Ms Jones has said - "I don't think it's necessarily about [sex]. I think it means whatever you want it to. I kind of like the doggy position myself, but that doesn't mean it's going up my a**e." - that's nice

Now I like the next mo, loves his manmeat but there really is a time and a place and Burger King have just taken things a step too far. The Burger chain are marketing a man's fragrance called "Flame" apparently it is the "Scent of seduction with a hint of flame broiled meat". How on earth could that be seductive?, you might as well go out, get twatted and buy one of those dodgy hot dogs from the trolleys on tottenham court road and throw it round your bed a bit - nasty!

xx

Right before I go all celebrity gossip on your ass I need to get political for a minute. In the next week the United Nations General Assembly will meet and France, on behalf of the EU, will make a declaration from the podium in support of the human rights of all people regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. You may be reading this and saying "and what?" like me you may be expecting that those human rights already exist - sadly they do not, It will be the first time in history that the UN general assembly has considered the issue of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights. 86 countries (nearly half the nations on earth) still have a total ban on male homosexuality and a smaller number also have a ban on sex between women. The penalties in these countries range from a few years in jail to life imprisonment. In at least 7 countries or regions of countries, the sentence is death. It just amazes me that in the year 2008 the world leaders that we are supposedly looking to for direction are so out of touch with life and love.

For some this may be an issue that just doesn't enter the thought process, but I can't ignore the fact that if I had happened to have been born in a different country but was still the same person with the same sexuality - I could be executed. In America Proposition 8 is a clear example of how far people will go to take away the rights of lesbians and gay men. Millions of dollars were spent on both sides of the argument whether or not to ban gay marriage. We are living in a world where the economy is quite frankly fucked and yet people claim more interest in who fucks who. Newsflash if we carry on like this we will all be fucked.

Now that’s off my chest let's move into the impending joy/doom of the work xmas do. I love a good do and I do indeed do the do but our meal/drinks is going to be a very messy affair indeed, I am sure it will all start quite innocently with a proper xmas lunch and a spinkling of wine but then we are heading into Soho and that's where I fear all will go downhill. Last year we ended up in Soho and by the end of the night pretty much everyone had either lost something or had it stolen - I managed to misplace my housekeys. This year I am taking a minimal amount of things, not even a bag, and ya know I love to accessorise with a man bag but it is too big a risk. Check back next week for the full report.

God that Elton John just can't keep his trap shut can he? The other night he was performing at the o2 Arena and started banging on about the X Factor. Now I don't know about you but when I go and see an artist in concert I want to hear them sing songs not use offensive language completely unnecessarily. Elton is quoted as saying to the audience that he would "rather have his cock bitten off by an alsation than watch the X factor, his balls too" - all I can say to that dear is it would be a miracle that even a dog would go near your nasty old member! eeewww. Oh and by the way Elton you really shouldn't have said that - Alexandra Burke (this year's X factor winner) is supporting you at the o2 arena on New Years Eve, dumbass!




xxx

The partying seems to have started

yes it was my girl Oliver's birthday this weekend and we partied it up grand style, Oliver has just joined "The Pink Singers" - a london based lesbian and gay community choir and it was their xmas concert at the Royal Academy of Music on saturday night, it was fantastic! there is something rather beautiful about hearing a choir sing and they came up trumps! afterwards we headed into soho for the after party at the Green Carnation bar in Soho which is a lovely bar but when it is busy it is hateful so we hotfooted it out of there and headed to the new G-A-Y location at Heaven which was great fun and there was enough space to dance and see a couple pretty much having sex by the dancefloor.

Sunday was spent recovering for about half an hour and then I started making cocktails ready for the X factor final, we had managed to avoid the results, it was such a good show! Alexandra deservedly won and her performance with Beyonce was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen "sing it girl!" indeed!

That night we headed back into Soho to the Revue Bar to see Oliver's friends band performing who were really good but I think we might have overdone it on the cocktails as I was all kinds of hammered!

Things are winding down at work now ready for xmas, well actually I have loads of work to do but believe me I am so winding down, my motivation is nowhere to be seen, I have been working like a beeeyatch lately though.

So Madonna has agreed to a divorce settlement worth around £50 Million!, not too shabby for Guy Ritchie then, suppose it's nice to see that the credit crunch has not hit Madonna towers. Poor love was performing in a stadium the other night, it was raining, the stage was wet and she fell, girl went down like a bag of shit but somehow managed to incorporate it into her dance routine much like me tripping in the street and pretending I wanted to run anyway.

I see that Kathy Staff aka Nora Batty from "Last of the Summer Wine" died at the weekend, her co star Peter Sallis was on BBC news paying tribute to her but it was the most lacklustre tribute ever, he basically said she would be terribly missed but he never really got to know her (the show just completed its 29th series and has been going for 25 years), how do you not get to know someone in that time? then again if I had been subjected to acting in the same storyline for 25 years I would not be feeling exactly sociable.

How many public phone vote scams do we have to endure before the crying bastards that are the british public realise that it's all a load of old shit and they would be better off spending their money on new clothes. The latest bunch of victims called into vote on "Strictly Come Dancing" and found that their votes didn't matter as all three couples were put through to the final - hang on a minute whist I find that "I care about this" button. Nope, ah well.

found a fantastic video on youtube recently with 2 of my fave women, Lisa Kudrow and the Ellen Degeneres show

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=fNE80eaLT0c

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=GHMV3UAA_yc

Lisa's comedy timing is just genius!

xx

Every so often I see a film that just gets me! It moves me and makes me think - I suppose that is what films are supposed to do. I can remember the first film that got me - I must have been 8 or 9 years old when I first saw "The Colour Purple" - I can remember it very clearly, I was off school sick and the night before my parents had rented the film on video. I was bored and feeling sorry for myself on the sofa and decided to watch it. It made me cry more than any film had before and it made me think. I was crying because of the struggles that the character's were going through and also because having grown up in a very white town I had not realised that people were racist. It had totally passed me by and I can remember going to school the following week and writing about the film. My teacher was very impressed, I think I may have even got a gold star.

There have not been many films since then that have stopped me in my tracks but last night I saw a film that blew me away. It made me smile, made me cry and made me very angry. The film was "Milk" directed by Gus Van Sant and starring Sean Penn. The film is the story of Harvey Milk, a truly inspirational man. Milk was an american politician and the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California. He was a true fighter, a passionate individual who could not stand injustice, bigotry or discrimination. I think the reason the film hit me so hard last night is due to the parallel's from the era of the film to the current situation in America where gay people are yet again having to fight for their human rights. In 1978 a conservative state legislator in California sponsored the proposition 6 initiative - if this proposition had been passed by voters it would have meant that gay men, lesbians and anyone supporting gay rights would have been banned from working in public schools in California. One of the key supporters of Proposition 6 was the singer Anita Bryant who is well known In America for her views on "the homosexual agenda". Many of her hate speeches are shown during the film and it was striking just how similar they were to the speeches of US State Legislator - Sally Kern.

Bryant was saying this 30 years ago -

"As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children" and "If gays are granted rights, next we'll have to give rights to prostitutes and to people who sleep with St.Bernards and to nail biters"

As we all know there is no bigger threat to society than nail biters. People seriously took notice of this woman and not even in a circus freak kind of way!

Anyway that was 30 years ago, surely things have changed and people are not still spouting such rubbish?

Sally Kern, Oklahoma State Legislator, 2008

"Studies show that no society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted more than, you know, a few decades. So it's the death knell of this country. I honestly think it's the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam — which I think is a big threat, okay? Cause what's happening now is they are going after, in schools, two-year olds...And this stuff is deadly, and it's spreading, and it will destroy our young people, it will destroy this nation."

Oh dear! "Milk" has inspired me to do more, to stand up and be counted, I may not live in America and gay men and lesbians tend to be more accepted in this country but there is still a long way to go, I am not going to just sit through life thinking "well I am ok and that’s the main thing" - what about the gay men that are murdered in this country every year, where are their stories? did you know that 2 openly gay men had been murdered in this country this year with another being paralysed after being attacked for being gay? No probably not because the mainstream media does not think that is important for you to know. There is nothing wrong with being an angry gay, the gay "community" needs anger rather than complacency, just because we are used to being treated badly that does not mean it has to continue. What can you do to make a difference?

* volunteer? there will be projects in your local area, maybe a helpline or a youth group that could use your support

* Find out who your local MP is and write to them asking them what they are doing to support gay rights

* Find out who your local LGBT police liaison officer is and ask them what the situation is locally around homophobic crime and if there is anything you can do

* The majority of local areas have LGBT forums, maybe organised by the police or local activists, check it out

It does not have to involve cash just a bit of passion and commitment, who has not got that to spare.

Harvey Milk always talked about the need to have hope, in his most famous speech he brought this message home

"I can’t forget the looks on faces of people who’ve lost hope. Be they gay, be they seniors, be they black looking for an almost-impossible job, be they Latins trying to explain their problems and aspirations in a tongue that’s foreign to them. I personally will never forget that people are more important than buildings. I use the word “I” because I’m proud. I stand here tonight in front of my gay sisters, brothers and friends because I’m proud of you. I think it’s time that we have many legislators who are gay and proud of that fact and do not have to remain in the closet. I think that a gay person, up-front, will not walk away from a responsibility and be afraid of being tossed out of office. After Dade County, I walked among the angry and the frustrated night after night and I looked at their faces. And in San Francisco, three days before Gay Pride Day, a person was killed just because he was gay. And that night, I walked among the sad and the frustrated at City Hall in San Francisco and later that night as they lit candles on Castro Street and stood in silence, reaching out for some symbolic thing that would give them hope. These were strong people, people whose faces I knew from the shop, the streets, meetings and people who I never saw before but I knew. They were strong, but even they needed hope.

And the young gay people in the Altoona, Pennsylvanias and the Richmond, Minnesotas who are coming out and hear Anita Bryant on television and her story. The only thing they have to look forward to is hope. And you have to give them hope. Hope for a better world, hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a better place to come to if the pressures at home are too great. Hope that all will be all right. Without hope, not only gays, but the blacks, the seniors, the handicapped, the us’es, the us’es will give up. And if you help elect to the central committee and more offices, more gay people, that gives a green light to all who feel disenfranchised, a green light to move forward. It means hope to a nation that has given up, because if a gay person makes it, the doors are open to everyone.

So if there is a message I have to give, it is that if I’ve found one overriding thing about my personal election, it’s the fact that if a gay person can be elected, it’s a green light. And you and you and you, you have to give people hope. Thank you very much".

Harvey Milk was assasinated on November 27th 1978, in a recording made months before his death Milk stated

"If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door"

This film is vitally important and you have to see it, it will change the way you think and feel and hopefully it will make you do something.

That is all Harvey Milk hoped for



xx

What a lovely weekend!!

Thanks to my Sheffield Girls for the great weekend, I arrived on saturday afternoon and was whisked into a bar for a gorge cocktail closely followed byt beer and a kebab (yeah we were starting as we meant to go on) - We hit the scene hard and fast, taking in the new gay bar "Sanctuary" which if there had been more people in would've been great, it's a lovely bar and has a lot of potential but where were all the gays…..where else they were in Dempseys of course. I have to say I had a marvellous time, the music was fab and I saw loads of people that I had not seen in ages. I also have to admit that the mullet craze that swept sheffield seems to have blown on by!

No scary goings on can be reported apart from the world's tallest, largest man on the dancefloor, it a bit like "It's a Knockout",



I had to keep runing away from him for fear of being crushed - but apart from that a grand night was had by all, I do have to apologise to Dan for slapping him, he was a bit swirlyu at one point and started to lose it bless him and asked me to slap or snap him out of it, I gave him a gentle slap but he wanted it harder so I did, it was not until he said he was seeing stars and felt dizzy that I began to realise I may have overdone it. Apol's for that one sweetie.

The rest of the weekend was a lazy haze of TV and far too much KFC, did we really need a family feast for 2 of us? well it turns out we did as we managed to clear most of it!

Now it is back to the grindstone and it's another really busy week of training and travelling. Howevee, this is the last really crazy week and then the wind down for xmas begins. I am so looking forward to having a break and heading home to be well fed and pampered by ma and pa pippy!!

Have we entered a world of politically correct madness, I thought that comedy was supposed to be edgy and indeed sometimes offensive but since the Brand/Ross debacle it does seem that comics can't say anything near the knockle for fear of getting attacked by daft daily mail reading twats. The latest casualty is Alan Carr who made a joke about Karen Matthews at the British Comedy Awards this weekend. Alan Carr is offensive and un PC and that is why he is loved, please don't relegate him to telling tame jokes about everyday life we have Pam Ayres for that sort of thing.

I caught the X factor at the weekend and have to say thank god that howdy doody looking cranberries lead singer rip off girl has left the competition, whose Idea was it to get her to sing a Dido song, bleurgh!!! I am praying that the marvellous Alexandra wins but I have an awful feeling that big haired Eggnog will get all those irish votes and do that ugly cry again. Well it's all nearly over and then we can look forward to the xmas number one being an X factor song yet again. It does get a bit boring and predictable. I remember when there was a real battle as to who would be the xmas number one but now it is just an inevitability really, shame.

xx

Is it wrong to fancy Michael Buble? or Michael Buttplay as I endearingly refer to him. I am not sure what it is about him (male + breathing?) but he is rather tasty, saying that, I think my 50 year old aunt thinks exactly the same thing. Oh when did I get old? I will probably start pissing myself next, oh wait, eeewww too late! steamin!



The so called mother of Shannon Matthews has been found guilty of kidnapping her daughter in a plot to claim the £50,000 reward. I'm sorry but surely if the mother turned up to the police saying I've found her give me the cash, wouldn't they just say "alright love, well done, get off home then". After reading the coverage of the trial on the BBC website I am not sure she has quite finished with crime just yet, when given the guilty verdict the mother was referred to -

"Matthews stood staring straight forward in the stone-coloured jacket she has worn throughout the proceedings and with her red hair hanging untied over her shoulders".

She has worn the same jacket for the whole time, how long has this trial been going on?, she must have stunk!, no wonder they found her guilty and yes they are correct red hair is indeed hanging! Let's face it, she does look like one of those women who confronts you at a regional bus station asking whilst crying for enough change to get home - smell ya later girl!




I am off to Sheffield this weekend to celebrate my girl Dan's birthday, It should be a good one, not only do I get to see my girl but we are also going for a lush meal and then my favourite pastime - the sheffield gay scene, yes pippy is hitting it again. Quite a few new venues have opened since I last hit the town but then again knowing Sheffield and its high turnover of gay venues, I will probably walk into one bar and by the time I get to the bar it will have changed ownership and it's name … twice. The main joy of the sheffield scene is the sea of orange faces and the tropical field of mullets (I would say blowing in the breeze but I would need an industrial strength fan to get one of those hair"styles" to move).

I am very excited! Having not been to the cinema for ages, next week I am off to a preview of the new Gus Van Sant film "Milk" starring my fave actor Sean Penn as the first out gay politician in the USA (Harvey Milk), the film is getting major oscar buzz and rave reviews. Full report next week.




I am so bugged that I am not going to see the marvellous Tina Turner on her comeback tour next year, here are pics of her performing at New York Madison Square Garden earlier this week, not bad considering she is 69 years old and was in hospital the day before with a fever!




Go Girl

xx

Is it the credit crunch? the divorce? the lack of publicity? who knows but Madonna's new single went into the singles chart yesterday at no.39!!!! It's Madonna's first single to not get into the top 20 since Borderline in 1984! On the bright side her Sticky and Sweet Tour has been named the most successful solo tour ever, grossing $282 million - so it's not all bad!

Well Britney hit the X factor on saturday night in a so so performance, I managed to catch it on youtube. The real controversy happened after the show - the majority of the tabloid press had been spreading the rumour that Britney would be performing at G-A-Y, the rumour hit the gay scene and according to their message board the place was packed but the security staff did not seem to realise that the place was full so kept letting people in. This led to people being crushed, people passing out. Britney was in the building but apprently was not scheduled to perform. When club promoter Jeremy Joseph took to the stage to clarify that Britney would not be performing all hell broke loose, booing, fighting, pushing and shoving, Seems like the organisers need to come to terms that they are now in a smaller venue.

I am getting older and indeed sadder by the day, the things that excite me have taken a turn and no more is it the prospect of a new club opening in Soho or the possibility of clubbing til 5 in the morning. I now find myself craving nights in I think this is mainly due to the fact that it is freezing outside and work is crazy busy. All I can think of at the end of the day is dashing home, making some gorge soup and curling up in front of a good dvd. My excitement reached a new high over the weekend when I discovered that the BBC are going to be showing repeats each afternoon of the Miss Marple episodes fro the 80's with Joan Hickson. I can remember watching these on sunday nights and being totally enthralled, they were really well made and Joan Hickson was the perfect Marple. This I feel though is essentially a sad disclosure so whilst other gays are getting shitfaced all day everyday during the xmas period I shall be curled up knowing who did it but not caring and watching til the end anyway.

Today is World AIDS Day, hopefully you are aware of this and somehow managed to find a red ribbon and donate some much needed cash. In recent years World AIDS Day seems to have disappeared off the radar of public awareness. HIV is still very much a problem in the UK, many people turn a blind eye or decide that the virus is not their problem as they are neither gay nor african. HIV can affect anyone and after working on raising awareness of the virus for the last 16 years I am sad to say that the battle is ongoing. More gay men are being diagnosed with HIV in the UK than ever before. Last year 3160 gay men were diagnosed with HIV showing that levels of HIV are are their highest since the mid 1980's.
Nearly 500 men were diagnosed after the point at which treatment should have begun, meaning they missed out on the benefits associated with early diagnosis including prolonged life expectancy. Early diagnosis continues to be the most important factor in mortality and morbidity linked to HIV. Analysis of figures over the past five years has shown that a late diagnosis of HIV meant that gay men were 13 times more likely to die within one year of diagnosis compared to those diagnosed early.
Take some time today to log on to www.tht.org.uk where you can donate cash, become of member of the charity, become an e campaigner or simply learn more about HIV and how to protect yourself and others.
xx