Only Ginger Rogers Escaped The Wrecking Ball.

'It's a vunder (wonder) she never slung you kids out too' was the answer my grandmother always gave when my sister and I demanded that she 'tell us about when we were little'.

This was our favourite question, way ahead of 'Tell us about the olden days nanny', 'Have you got any sweets' and 'Is Grandad dead?'.

This final question wasn't as brutal as it sounds in retrospect. It was asked by we children as a result of his habit of taking long, silent afternoon naps, during which you couldn't tell whether he was breathing or not. And Nanny's concerned response was always the same 'Daddy! Daddy! Stop it! You're scaring the kinder (children)'.

But back to the whole point..........................

My mother, for all her many good points (and there are many), has never been what you'd describe as sentimental. In fact, she's the human equivalent of a wrecking ball slamming into a beautiful, but no longer practical, Victorian building. Unlike me, she doesn't feel the need to hold on to things for the sake of having them, or because they hold fond memories, or even purely because they're pleasing to the eye. She likes the 'working surfaces' of her life to be clear of clutter and ready for action. Unnecessary obstacles only hinder her ability to sweep down like a vast Sioux war party, armed with a duster and can of furniture polish, onto the unsuspecting covered wagons ambling across the prairie, scattering bonnetted women and children in her wake, and emerging with bloodied scalps ready to be cleared out to make 'more space'.

However, we could never work out what she wanted this 'more space' for. As children, the idea of more space meant that it could be filled with precious things, or at least things which were precious to us. But, unfortunately for we treasure-hoarding children, the only thing precious to my mother was empty space. Shelves, stripped naked and polished daily to an almost scientific shine, and cupboards whose emptiness echoed every time they were opened or closed.

Things fell into only one of two categories 'used' and 'not used', usually the latter.

In order to be classified as 'used', it was necessary for something to be touched by a human hand (ideally ours) at least once every week, even more for some things. I'm not sure how she achieved it, but throughout our childhood, my mother used some kind of sophisticated detection system which could tell when a much-loved toy had last been played with, or when that poster of David Essex had last been gazed at. Anything failing 'the test' would be immediately and mercilessly stripped from the wall, or would just simply 'disappear'. So efficient was her system of removal, that it was almost as if they'd been beamed up into space by aliens in front of our eyes. One minute they would be there, and the next.............vanished into thin air. At a rough guess at least half of all sentences uttered during my childhood began with 'Has anyone seen my.............?'

Unless of course, it happened to be an old musical video, or more recently a DVD.

They say that every man (and woman) has their vice, and my mother's one weakness is musicals from the 1920's an 30's. To this day, the only thing guaranteed to make my mother go weak at the knees, apart from sheer exhaustion, is the sight of the perma-tanned Howard Keel, gazing at her longingly from across the span of time. Teary-eyed Anne Margaret, tinkling yet another corny love song about her bloody 'poor broken heart'. And of course, at the head of this grainy black and white army. Ginger fucking Rogers!

Pushing Boundaries

As a 'homosexually-orientated' man, I've never really thought of myself as particularly raunchy or adventurous when it comes to 'bedroom things'. In fact when asked to describe myself in five words, vanilla is usually about the third one on the list, directly below intelligent and infuriating (I can actually talk for 15 minutes without hesitation, deviation or repetition on the origins and interpretations of the missionary position. You probably aren't aware of this, but in 3rd century BC Mesopotamia, in what is now modern-day Iraq.................... well, maybe another time, eh?).

When it came to anything out of the ordinary sex-wise (by gay standards), I always felt very much like one of those rather dull, middle-aged, home-counties, cake-baking, Women's Institute ladies. They spend almost 30 years being gently and predictably penetrated vaginally (apart from one slight slip) once a month by a mild-mannered accountant with haemorrhoids and striped pyjamas. Then suddenly, they find themselves widowed, divorced, or separated at the age of 50, and on a 'foreign' holiday in Turkey for the first time with their friend Margaret, confronted by a 25 year-old Turkish waiter with a rock hard, throbbing, 8 inch boner squashed into his fake 501's. And like the plate of freshly-caught, chargrilled baby squid in its own ink that he's holding out, they have absolutely no idea what to do with either, and just sit there like a 'rabbit in headlights', jaw resting gently on their large, securely-brassiered chest.

But then, before you can say 'Kamal Ataturk', there they are, shrieking up and down the beach at 3 o'clock in the morning on the back of the waiter's scooter! Clad in a bikini top, sarong, and ankle-chain, clutching a glass of Raki & Diet Coke, sucking cock and 'doing anal' as if they were born to it.

We think these lusty Shirley Valentines are the exception, but it seems that we all have boundaries which move quote easily with a some gentle persuasion (and a bit of Aegean spit!).

I realised just how far my own boundaries have shifted quite recently when I read an advertisement on one of those Internet sites that people claim never to use, you know, the ones packed full of sad and lonely losers desperate for sex. The advertisement was written with impeccable grammar by a guy who wanted nothing more than to be kicked in the balls. I read the two sentences through twice just to be doubly sure that he really had said 'I want to be kicked in the balls', and yup, he definitely wanted a ball-kicker.

My first reaction was to tut tut, roll my eyes, say something like 'Shiver me timbers, what a fucking freak', and move on to the next advert.

But I didn't.

Something caught my imagination and made me wonder what it would feel like to intentionally kick someone in the goolies. Would it feel sexual? Or would it just feel odd? And how would it work? Would he just stand there with his legs apart and shout 'Come on you fucker, kick me where it hurts!'. And surely it would hurt, in fact it hurt me just thinking about it. But I did more than think about it, I emailed him back.

I was still thinking 'Shiver me timbers, what a freak' and wondering if I could go through with it several hours later, when Mr 'Kick Me Hard In The Balls' rang my buzzer.

I've discovered that the thing about pushing your boundaries and doing something that you could never imagine doing usually, is that at some point you find you have an alter-ego who is more than happy to do it. It's a bit like being an actor and walking on stage in a play. You stop being yourself and become someone else, which in my case was a ball-kicker. My shy, mild-mannered, cake-baking facade melted away and before I knew it, I'd turned into a kind of sadistic, truncheon-stroking prison-officer and had this complete stranger's nads in a vice-like grip. And the more positively he responded (which he most certainly did), the more comfortable I felt and the more pleasurable it became. He had come fully equipped for his ordeal, and had brought a pair of beautiful, yellow leather boxing gloves, which I needed no encouragement to slip on. After instructing my victim to strip down to his underwear (which rather surreally was a pair of Union Jack boxer-briefs), I gave him what I thought was a pain-inducing tap.

This is the point at which, without exception, every man I have told the story to, has turned rather pale, broken out into a cold sweat, and asked not to be told any more. Consider yourself warned.

My idea of a pain-inducing tap was met with a groan of sexual pleasure (and a serious woody), and so my taps became harder and harder, gradually turning into full-blown punches (complete with an arm-swing and a three-step run-up). This 'ball-beating', which turned out to be extremely enjoyable for both of us, lasted for well over half an hour, and would have left even the Kray Twins feeling pleased with themselves.

My point is not to see how quickly I can bring tears to your eyes or to change the way you look at me forever. It's to demonstrate the ease with which, even someone like me, can take something that we imagine to be beyond our capabilities, and turn it into something which is perfectly acceptable. I found it exciting, but at the same time frightening to think how far I was capable of pushing my boundaries.

How far could you push your boundaries?

(This blog was written from the comfort of my padded cell).

The Lost Tree Trunk

My grandfather was the solid trunk of our family's tree, and the shock of losing him several years ago left us all emotionally stranded, like pollarded sycamore branches, scattered around on the ground, foundationless, and incapable of sustaining ourselves.

You see, he was the one who first sunk roots into the unfamiliar and often unfriendly ground in this country. The one who supplied all our needs, and the one who stood firm and sheltered us when strong winds and tragedy tried to blow us down. He created a tough, loving shell around us all, and tried to protect us from the world. A fortress into which we frequently fled when danger threatened.

When my younger sister was killed by a car at the age of 11, and my mother was left paralysed with grief, it was my grandfather who dragged her back and forced her to carry on. It was my grandfather's constant presence in our lives that prevented my father's worst excesses, and which saved us from financial crisis when he died of cancer, at a relatively young age, leaving my mother with his debts.

Although not always able to change our lives, it was his strength of character and ability to cope with even the worst of situations which taught us to shut out the things we could not deal with or found too distressing.

But without realising it, his fierce desire to protect us and keep us safe also made us weak and incapable of surviving without him. Like a hedgehog, once our protective prickles were gone, we were left vulnerable to attack, and without the means or experience to defend ourselves. Because we were always sure of his guidance or intervention, we never developed the tools to face the difficult side of life or to stand up for ourselves.

My grandfather was a strong, gentle, loving man devoted to his family, and together with my grandmother, created a family environment free from any form of danger. When something or someone threatened us from outside 'the family', rather than confront it, we retreated inside our protective walls. Standing up for ourselves was never something we considered. Instead, we learned to slam the door and wait for our attackers to get bored and leave.

We learned many valuable lessons from my grandfather. The ability to love and accept love, the value of family and friendship, and being able to ignore the difficulties in life and focus on the positive aspects have all been huge advantages. But there is one lesson learned from my grandfather which , in hindsight, has proved disastrous.

Defence is not always the best form of attack.

Writing a blog

I'm just about to start a new blog about things we did as kids. I'm never entirely sure where each one is going, they seem to take on an energy all their own. Sometimes I write what I initially intended to write, and sometimes it goes off in a completely different direction.

The ones about my family and childhood were quite unexpected, but ended up being some of my favourites. I originally began with the intention of simply writing something light-hearted and funny about growing up in Essex. It's seemed an easy subject to take on, because there is no shortage of material. My Essex childhood on the estuary is absolutely jam-packed full of wonderfully horrific characters with big hearts, tatoos, white high heels, and determination of steel.

But the problem with scratching the surface is that you just never know what you're going to find.

Writing about my past just seemed to lead automatically, and also quite naturally, back to my parent's and grandparent's past. Although my mum's over-loving parents seemed to be the more interesting, my father's under-loving, Victorian parents also deserve their own blog at some point.

I didn't realise how much the possibility, or maybe I should say certainty, of losing my grandmother and her link to that area of our past was affecting me. The Long Journey Home probably isn't the best thing I've written, but it was the one which was most difficult to write because I suddenly realised that the loss of my grandmother meant the loss of that whole part of our family history.

Losing things which are impossible to replace is something that only ever seems to become apparent when it's too late. The fact that my grandparents chose not to speak very much about their past was always perfectly normal, and where the rest of my family were genuinely not interested, I didn't ask because I thought they had every right not to talk about it. But I'm suddenly faced with the possibility that it's too late, the horse has bolted, and I wish I had stood up and said 'I want to know, it's important to know'. With my grandparent's passing, that means that two more family histories will have vanished, no more Sztajnbergs (grandad), no more Voightlanders (nanny). What didn't go up in smoke, will just have fizzled out because nobody talked about it.

It's funny how certain things make us realise the importance (or at least relevance) of others.

But I suppose that's what writing a blog is about, the opportunity to write about what is important or relevant to me, without worrying about whether it's of any interest to anybody else.

Assimilation, as easy as falling off a branch!

My Polish-born, Jewish grandparents worked tirelessly when they first arrived, to become what they thought was 'as British as roast beef' (or roost beefs, as my nanny called it). A simple change of name, and Yehuda and Rivka Sztajnberg became Andrew and Elizabeth (Betty) Flowers. My grandfather's brother Moishele, their only relative in Britain, became George Flowers at the same time.

Who knows why they chose those names, the logic of immigrants is unfathomable. George and Elizabeth were the names of the much-loved King and Queen at the time, and Andrew was the name of the patron saint of Scotland, where my grandparents first started their new life. But the important thing was that they were names that they hoped 'British people' could look at without frowning at their foreign-ness and total unpronouncability. Strange combinations of Z's, K's, and I's, and multi-consonant pile-ups were like a public announcement telling people 'We're not from here'. And at that time in Britain, if you weren't 'from here', then you fell into the single other category of 'FOREIGN'. Regardless of whether you were black or white, Christian or Jew, a king or a peasant, when people spoke about you, they would inevitably incorporate one of the following suffixes:

1) He's a very nice man, although he is foreign.

2) You'd never know from looking at them that they were foreign, would you.

3) I expect they do that where they come from.

4) He's not English, but he's still a very nice man.

So, my grandparents set out on their mission. Objective: Total Anglicisation!

Despite living (rather illogically) in a predominantly Jewish area, surrounded by numerous 'landsmen', they worked hard to change languages and master English. My grandfather did quite a good job, but for my grandmother, it wasn't quite as easy. Even after seventy years in Britain, she never did learn the art of 'crisp consonants', and words beginning with the letter 'D' always sounded as if she had lost the end of her tongue.

Although nobody in my family (particularly my grandmother) ever seemed to notice her constant 'linguistic free-styling', her errors were truly epic, especially when it came to colloquial phrases.

Something considered unimportant was 'like water off a pig's back', and things were often 'on the tip of her mouth'. As alike as chalk and cheese translated as 'they're the same as coal and roses', and greedy people were very likely to 'take the eyes from your head' or 'the tongue from a blind man's mouth'. And instead of being given a piece of her mind when we were bad, we were given (rather unpleasantly) a 'piece of her tongue'.

She created memorable, if slightly un-natural pairs, such as nuts & screws, night & dark, and cats & frogs. And almost everything which wasn't supposed to have a definite article seemed to acquire one. We would never think of talking about 'the cancer', and 'the swimming' was something good for the 'peace and mind'.

But somehow, despite my grandparents lifetime of linguistic struggles, to me they never seemed anything other than the most English of English.

Considered Good-looking

Casual sex is most definitely not everyone's cup of tea. It really depends on whether you can draw a line between kissy-kissy, catch-me, catch-me romance (romantic love) and plain old tooth-rattling, eye-popping shagging, and whether you can rationalise the need in your life for each, or both.

I'm a firm believer in the overall benefit of a good, healthy, nutritious diet with all the right food groups. But I also think that once in a while, eight pints of Heineken, a large chicken doner, and a bag of candy floss is good for your spirit. You may regret the after-effects the next day, but you never regret just 'how fucking good' it felt at the time.

Just to avoid any confusion over what I understand by the term 'casual' sex. For me, casual sex is any act where at least one of the participants are sucked or penetrated in any of their knob-sized holes by someone they met (in the flesh) less than a couple of hours ago. Online chatting doesn't count as 'meeting' unless you talk about something other than who is going to get what, how hard, in which hole, and how many times.

So, okay, let's cut to the chase. I've had plenty of casual sex. It's not sleazy (unless you want it to be), it's not cheap (unless you make it), it doesn't ruin you forever (unless you're a fifteen year-old Iranian girl), and it's not illegal (unless you're a fifteen year-old Iranian boy). So, unless you're one of these people who can't 'do it' unless it's on snowy-white, Egyptian-cotton sheets smelling of new-born lambs with the boy you've been seeing since you were twelve, then there really is no down-side to casual sex.

What is essential (in addition to almost no gag-reflex and a good supply of sexsersories..............you know, lube, condoms, ball-gags, a sling...........), is the ability to not be easily disappointed.

It doesn't matter how hard you try or how careful you are, at some point you're going to run into the guy who didn't have a picture to exchange. He's not at his own computer, he's in an Internet cafe, in the office, wife's around, or the most frightening one. ..................... 'I'm using my children's computer' .......................to trawl for casual gay sex! But he'll be the one who catches you when you're horny and gagging for a shag, or just catches your imagination. You have trust his description of himself, even if that description includes the dangerous phrase 'I'm considered good-looking'. Being a seasoned casual-sexer, this should immediately send alarm bells ringing and red lights flashing...................'Considered good-looking by who? Quasimodo The Fucking Bell-ringer?' Should be the reply. Because too many times, my Mister 'Considered Good-looking' has turned up at the front door looking distinctly like Mister 'Ageing Married Troll Who's Let Himself Go'. Or what about Mister 'Balding Clerk with Bad Knob Hygiene and a Paunch'?

Love may be blind, and so, apparently, are a good number of my fellow casual-sexers! So, a word of advice to save us all a whole lot of disappointment and embarrassment. If you're not 100% sure whether you actually are good-looking or not, check it out and ask someone for fuck's sake!

Somewhere In between

'Ay Channaleh, why so late? We're all waiting for you again!' my grandmother said tersely as my mother arrived that morning. But Channah is just one of the many long-lost ghosts from my grandmother's past who now light her journey home. Channaleh was my grandmother's dearly-loved, youngest sister who died shortly after the German invasion of my grandmother's hometown of Lvov in 1941, kicked to death by a gang of teen-aged Ukrainian militia let lose on the unprotected Jewish population.

'It's not Channaleh mum, it's Carole' my mother replied crossly. But although her voice may have been cross, I know that her heart breaks every time my grandmother fails to recognise her or my auntie Junie. Every time she slips back into the silent world that excludes the two daughters who lovingly and selflessly care for her. The daughters who arrive at the nursing home in which my grandmother lives, four days out of every seven, without complaint and loaded down with anything they think might make my grandmother's life just slightly more comfortable. They scrub and polish her small, self-contained flat over and over again, rearrange my grandmother's dishevelled and mismatched clothing, and change the incontinence pads that she needs in her newly child-like state. And for no other reason than the fact that my grandmother is their flesh and blood, and as essential to them as breathing. Despite the fact that they never receive a thank you, and are seldom recognised, they lavish their time and love on the frail old woman who did the same for them without question.

'Is that you Mags? Are we going to the shops Mags? Is it time for dinner Mags?'

'Mags, Mags, Mags, all we get now is bloody Mags! If I hear Mags one more time, I swear I'll throttle her' snaps my mother on the rare occasion when the only way to disguise her grief is through anger. But only my grandmother knows who Mags is, and she's oblivious to either my mother's anger or her grief.

To lose the people you love so dearly is hard; but to lose them and yet still have them so close is almost too much to bear.

But as my grandmother would say .............................. 'Di velt iz ful mit tsores' ......................... the world is full of sorrows.

The Price of Romance

Being a 'romantic' is incredibly hard nowadays.

'I want to spend the rest of my life with you!' has been replaced by 'Why don't we both live in my flat so that we can rent yours out?' And 'Let's go out for a really nice meal on Saturday' has been replaced with 'Shall we get a couple of grams of K for Saturday night, get shit-faced, and have a threeway?'

Romance may not be completely dead, but it's definitely choking on its own vomit, and seems only to live on in its purest form in the hearts of über-wrinkled, hand-holding, octogenarian couples, and the bulging wallets of Hallmark Card executives and florists.

The problem with being a romantic who is neither highly-paid nor 'pushing death' is that you are almost always going to be disappointed in a world where so many people think that leaving the room when you need to fart is a romantic gesture. We've been slowly re-educated, or brain-washed, into believing that 'romance' is something material which involves large amounts of money, happens at very specific times of the year appointed by retailers, and must come from a list of 'authorised' gestures. What's romantic about sending 12 frighteningly over-priced red roses on Valentine's Day? Most people don't have a vase for them, the heads wilt within 24 hours because they're exhausted after their 48-hour flight from Peru, and they were probably picked by under-paid, under-aged children who will almost certainly die from a lung disease caused by the pesticides and fungicides they have to breathe in.

The idea of romance peddled by companies like Hallmark has been horribly distorted into some kind of emotional version of Muzak. A company who create non-existent, but highly romantic occasions, and then cleverly convince us that we should be sending cards with messages like 'Happy Belated Rosh Hashanah To My Beloved Goy-friend', and 'Congratulations! You Got Your Period, Now We Can Have Un-protected Sex Again'.

That's not romance. That consumerism!

I know I'm starting to sound cynical or bitter (or, God forbid, anti-Hallmark!), but that's not the point I'm trying to make. What I'm saying is that real romance is something that we should feel comfortable to demonstrate at any time of the day (or night), and every day of our lives (past and present). It shouldn't be something that is only available to 'couples' to demonstrate the fact that, even though they rarely have sex anymore, they still love the person they're with. We have all been shockingly robbed of the right to feel comfortable being romantic in our everyday lives. We have to go to the cinema and longingly watch it happening fictionally on-screen because, like the 'ginger-gene', it's gradually being bred out of existence.

I want that intimate, 'eyes-across-a-smokey-room' form of romance (even though, thankfully, smokey rooms are a thing of the past). Surely it must still be possible to lock eyes with a complete stranger, and find our hearts palpitating, our palms sweating, and a funny fluttering in our stomachs? Or are our romantic sides so dead that we just put it down to either a minor heart attack, or a bad curry? Despite Hallmark's attempt to turn romance into 'an occasion', and the efforts of the many non-romantics who try to convince me that romance and shagging are the same thing, I know what I want and still belive it's possible.

So come on boys, forget Gaydar, forget your Xbox, get on your white chargers and sweep me (all 80kg of me) off my feet!

Don't you ever let me get like that!

I went to see my grandmother on Saturday, after almost 6 months. I had been putting it off and off and off because my sister went and was really upset. Yes, this is my 'hard-as-nails', council-estate sister (the one who used to pierce her own ears when she was a teenager) ...................upset, yes, actually upset! She's a bit like me, we both disguise feelings with sarcastic humour, so for her to be visibly (and audibly) upset is a huge thing.

My mum and aunt made the decision to move my grandmother into sheltered accommodation towards the end of last year because she had the quite rapid onset of dementia (my grandmother, not my mum). As they were concerned that she wasn't safe being on her own, they found a very nice residential complex where she has her own flat with living room, bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom, but within a warden-controlled complex. This means that the carers check on her in the morning, evening, and several times during the day and deal with any issues or concerns. So, it was a good compromise between making sure she was safe, and not taking away ALL her privacy and independence.
I don't think anyone thought that her dementia would progress so rapidly and within six months she is probably about 5% of her old self.

Anyway, back to Saturday. My mum managed (as usual) to badger, blackmail, and cajole me into going over even though I said I didn't want to go. I had a really anxious feeling about the possibility of seeing my grandmother, but my mum chooses to hear what she wants to hear sometimes. Part of it is a competition she has with my aunt over whose children are the better grandchildren. My cousin is going to visit on Tuesday, so I think my mum was worried that she would be 'out-grandchilded' by my aunt (auntie Junie) because I hadn't been.

The residential home is actually very nice, especially when you look at some residential homes which are just glorified chapels of rest, full of barely-breathing human fossils in various states of decomposition.
But I was actually shocked when I saw my grandmother. To start with she didn't have a clue who I was, even when mum prompted (and prodded) her. I know that her sight and hearing are both going, but she didn't know who I was, even with my mum hollering at 80 decibels in her ear "Do you know who it is? It's Andrew.........Andrew mum! Andrew, your grandson. Do you remember him? Mum? Mum! It's Andrew". But the reality was that she just looked even more dazed and confused as she trued to manoeuvre her walking frame from the bedroom.
She was like a picture of one of the survivors from Bergen-Belsen, tiny, shrunken, stick-thin limbs, with a face that had almost caved in completely. Dark circles under her eyes, and the vacant expression of someone who isn't somewhere else, they just aren't anything or anywhere. It was truly shocking and upsetting and I knew that I shouldn't have gone.

I stayed for about an hour, and during that time, she was lucid for barely a couple of minutes. It's incredibly hard to have a conversation with someone who has no reaction, I felt like an old, gay Sally Field in Steel Magnolias. But instead of talking to a lifeless, but still stunningly beautiful, Shelby, I had a total stranger who used to be my bright, chatty grandmother. She had always been so fastidious about her appearance, her hair was done every week, fingernails manicured, hands moisturised, make-up applied, and smartly-dressed. I've forgotten how many times she ranted about the old people she saw on the street who had 'let 'em selves go'. She used to say 'Don't you ever let me get like that, will ya, you bang me over the 'ed wiv a lump a' wood if I ever lose me marbles'.


And that's just what I could hear in my head as I was sitting there looking at this complete stranger whose only contribution to the conversation was to beg to be taken to the bathroom. 'I wanna go to the toilet, I want to go to the toilet', like a tiny child. That wasn't the woman I'd been looking up to and loving and being loved by for over 40 years, it was someone different, someone I didn't know. And the only recognition for me was something I felt in my heart, somewhere between love and pity.

"Don't you ever let me get like that!"

I can't imagine how hard this is for my mum and my aunt. I spent an hour there, but they spend every Tuesday, most Thursdays, and alternate Saturdays, cleaning, washing, tidying, and chatting to someone who probably only exists in their hearts as well.

China's Penis Restaurant, a perfect analogy!

Thinking of the choice of who to vote for in the up-coming General Election, this old news article from The Times came to mind. A restaurant with a menu where you only have a choice between one type of penis or another.............................a perfect analogy. You look at the menu, and there's just nothing that makes your mouth water, or even sounds remotely palatable. So you pick the least-offensive thing on the menu, and force yourself to eat it.

China's Penis Restaurant
There are several varieties of steamed, roasted and boiled penis at Beijing’s quirkiest diner.

I'm visiting the Guo-li-zhuang restaurant, a specialist penis and testicle emporium that caters mainly to wealthy businessmen and Communist party officials (who, truth be told, are often one and the same).

It offers every conceivable John Thomas you could ever want, which probably isn’t very many. Nonetheless, the menu is both extensive and impressive.
The place looks like a smart kaiseki ryori (Japanese haute cuisine) formal restaurant, complete with underfloor stream, separate secluded dining rooms and hushed, discreet staff. I have come determined to avoid euphemisms - we’re making a current-affairs programme for the BBC - but I’ll admit the temptation is strong.

I ask a chef to show us the preparation of a penis first, so that I can get a feel for the process. He enters holding aloft an eye-wateringly large yak’s knob. It’s about 45cm long, but thin, so thin. It’s been boiled gently and - I can’t believe I’m writing this - peeled, except for a hunk of foreskin still clinging on to the end. He cuts the thing in half lengthways with a pair of scissors.
As he chops through the very tip of this impressive member, I feel an undeniable empathy twitch in my own penis and a bizarre feeling of nausea in my groin. (I didn’t think groins could experience nausea.) I can’t help yelping in sympathy.

He then uses a knife to make hundreds of little snips along the side of the penis and chops the strips into 5cm pieces. When these are dropped into boiling stock, they curl up into little flower shapes that are so incongruous, I can barely believe my eyes.
I ask the chef if he thinks it strange to deal exclusively in genitalia, but he shrugs and doesn’t know what to say. He’s just happy to have a good job, really. His friends don’t take the mickey, his parents are proud of him and he does what he’s told. Okay.

Less taciturn is the female manager of the place, who says that Chinese history is one of famine, poverty, drought and disaster, which is why the Chinese have become used to eating every part of the animal - they have to extract every edible morsel from the food they have.
I ask if this is good communist food, and she proudly says that most of her customers are male Communist party members. Their meal costs an average of two months’ wages for a dumpling-factory worker, and I ask how a conscientious Communist can be seen here (paying up to £250 for the rarer penises) when the average peasant is on the poverty line.
She holds her hands up in the air and tells me that they come for the virility benefits genital-eating offers. Apparently, you can go for hours after eating a good portion of penis.

We try the water-buffalo penis first, in thin shavings. It started long and thin, but someone has shredded this noble old chap on a mandolin. It has the texture of squid and tastes of the mild chilli stock it’s been poached in.

We are given three sauces to dip it into - lemon and soy, chilli and soy, and a sesame-seed paste. It’s good, and the penile nature of the meat lends an undeniable frisson of excitement to the meal. I tell the boss that “it’s the first time I’ve had penis in my mouth, but I like it and I’m going to do more of it”. Well, someone had to say it.

She seems pleased, and pours me some deer-penis juice, which I’m delighted to say is the vilest concoction I’ve ever had the privilege to imbibe. It’s as sour as a smacked lemon and as bitter as neat quinine. My face freezes in an agonising spasm, and Lord knows how I manage to keep from throwing up. Mr Hoo, the driver, asks if I want any more, and when I shake my spasming head, he grins and downs it in one. I pity Mrs Hoo - she’s going to have a busy night.

We try goat’s penis, chicken feet, bull’s penis tip (that’ll keep you up all night too, the boss warns), terrapin leg and all manner of radishes. I’m offered dog’s penis (“The only one with a bone in it”, and served with a glacé cherry placed pointlessly on the tip), but decline.

All the knobs have intriguing, delicate and bizarre textures, although the flavour is mainly of pork braised in hot stock. My favourite dish of all is undoubtedly bull’s perineum – a delicate piece of flesh, the size of a chicken oyster, which has been poached, then slow-fried.
It’s sweet and crispy, with a deep taste of soy and honey.

Yan Yan, my guide, isn’t too keen on penis, but she’s adventurous in the face of adversity, and tries most things with a curled lip. Just before we go, I ask why the girls get off lightly. Why don’t they serve any female genitalia?

The boss bursts into giggly, embarrassed laughter. “That’s a crazy idea - why would anyone want to do that?”
“Well, because it’s protein and you Chinese are renowned for eating everything.”
“Don’t be insane,” she says. Then she remembers that she’s heard of a dish of donkey vulva, but she’s not sure where. She thinks it’s a disgusting idea.

Extracted from 'In the Danger Zone' by Stefan Gates

I'm a receptionist.........................

I'm planning a really relaxing weekend doing absolutely nothing. I've had the most incredibly busy and stressful week, and I'm mentally tired.

You wouldn't imagine that being a receptionist could be stressful, it's not a word people normally associate with reception work. But in my organisation, expectations (and workloads) are extremely high.

Most people's idea of receptionists is that you just sit at a desk in a Miss Selfridge skirt and jacket, smiling, and wondering what colour to paint your nails at lunchtime, Tuscan Sunset, or Cheeky Blush? Do you want to look like a sophisticated slut ? Or just simply like a slut?

You answer the telephone occasionally in a bored, monotone, vacant-sounding sing-songy voice.................'Helloooooooooo, Smith, Smith, and Smith Chartered Accoooooooooooontants how may I help yoooooooooooooooooooooooooooou?'.

Then, after quickly connecting your caller to the wrong number (the ONLY quick thing you do all day), you go back to nail colours and wondering how far the small hand needs to move before you can go to lunch with Cordelia from Jones & Jones Financial Wideboys, and Shazzer from the Royal Bank of Total Wankers (where your colleague Nadira's fiance works). At lunchtime, you meet other well-groomed, 'Fembot-esque' receptionists (or sometimes Admin Assistants or Secretaries) and shuffle around the shopping mall looking at shoes, clothes, and you guessed it.........................make-up!

Sometimes, you invite 'fat' Rachel (pronounced Rashelle because apparently her great-grandfather was French or black or something) who used to work there until she got the job as PA to an old American guy whose wife refused to let him have 'some young dolly' as his PA. So, he employed her because 'nobody in their right mind would fancy her' (except that he actually does because she gives him 'these fucking awesome blow-jobs under the desk after work - and swallows - and let's him pee over her tits in the exec washroom').

'Don't get me wrong babe, she's a really, really nice girl and I love her to bits, but she eats tons of carbs and she's probably a size 14...................and she sort of smells funny' (Yup, that's because she can't get the smell of piss out of her delicates!).

You wile away the afternoon looking at recruitment websites which advertise jobs that you aren't remotely qualified for but that sound like you'd be really good at. Exotic Futures Analyst (that must be about fruit or something), Strategic Offshore Economist EMEA (that one has loads of foreign travel, probably France or maybe America or even New York), Integrated Retail Planning Consultant (well, that's all about shops, isn't it!).

You break up the monotony of the day with a bit of pointless photocopying, usually something personal. But you never use the nearest copier because it's right next to the Legal Department and the Legal Secretaries are 'such a bunch of total bitches who look down their noses at everyone, even Karen and she's got 4 GCSE's! But they're only normal secretaries ............ .................... right?

Instead, you go all the way up to the photocopier on the third floor next to the IT Department where they're pretty much all buff young guys in T.M.Lewin shirts and Armani Exchange jeans. Then you hang around the copier huffing and puffing and looking helpless until Darren, or Terry, or Max (the one you shagged in the spastic toilet at All Bar One after the Christmas party last year) slither over and ask if you need a hand. The conversation is always pretty much the same:

- Awright Sasha, you need a hand?
- Oh I dunno, this stupid copier's not working again! I keep pressing the button but it won't copy and there's no lights on.
- Yeh, we switch it off sometimes because it gets too hot.
- Oh no, oh God, I'm SUCH a total blonde! (true) You must think I'm really thick (true).
- Nah, course not (lie). Do you just want normal copies?
- No, can you get it bigger for me? (you say, innocently raising your 'recently-threaded' eyebrows)
- (Darren raises his eyebrows) Well, never had any complaints so far (lie).

(you both laugh for 2 seconds)

- .....................oh my God, you're so filthy, I can't believe you just said that!
- What? What?? That's just your dirty mind Sasha (true).
- I've got to get back downstairs, the phones are just manic this afternoon (lie) and I left Nadira on her own.
- Is that the Asian girl with the scarf?
- Yes, but she's really nice though (lie - you think she's stuck-up). She's getting married next month, but it's like a normal marriage. It's not arranged or anything (lie - their families arranged it). Her fiance works at the same place as my mate Shazzer and she said he's really nice (lie - Shazzer calls him 'the wacky-paki' behind his back and thinks he a total perv who spends his time staring at her tits even though he's engaged).

- Are you going out for Ellie's leaving drinks on Friday?

- Might do. Are you going?
-Dunno, are you going?
-Probably.
- Awright, I've got to go, Nadira gets really stressed when she's on her own (lie - she's actually really relieved that she doesn't have to listen to your incessant twittering about shoes and make-up and can concentrate on planning her wedding instead).

You get back downstairs just in time to take your afternoon break, which you spend outside on your (pink) mobile phone smoking and telling Shazzer (and then Cordelia) what a perv Darren is and how much you fancy him (whilst Darren is leaning back on his chair upstairs telling Max what a fucking 'bike' you are). Then you tell Shazzer (and then Cordelia) what a bitch Nadira is, and how she never does anything except talk about how much money her fiance earns. At the same time, whilst you and Nadira smile synthetically at each other through the window, she's on the phone to her fiance telling him what a slut you look in the Cheeky Blush nail varnish that you put on at lunchtime while you were with that other awful slut who works at the same place as him, the one whose tits are too big for the small top she wears.

Will it even make the front page?

So, we've got our General Election date, Thursday 6th May.

And once again, there really isn't much of a choice. It's like that Monty Python song, Spam.

Spam, spam, spam. Spam and egg, spam and chips, spam, egg and chips.

The Conservative Party, the 'opposition' party in what's always been a two-horse race, will promise absolutely anything to win more votes. They always say that they're a new, modernised party, but like the apparently newly-respectable BNP (far-right, nationalist party), you know that underneath, they are the same right-wing, watered-down fascists that they've always been. They've just changed their ties, and re-phrased their tired old promises. The

Conservative Party and the Labour Party both walk that same line of trying to look as if they're doing something, whilst actually doing very little. They try to draw in minority voters whilst not alienating the majority. We saw that demonstrated by David Cameron's sad attempt, during his interview with Gay Times, at being 'right-on' and 'gay-friendly'. He thought he was putting out a new image of the Conservative Party by being interviewed by the 'Queer Press', and fell flat on his face at the first hurdle when they asked him why his party-representatives in the European Parliament had supported Lithuania's implementation of a new 'anti-gay' law. Anyone who thinks that the Conservative Party isn't still the party of the middle to far-right needs to look under the surface.

He's just another grey politician (apart from his high-vis cyclists stripe) who 'didn't inhale'. Just a shame that they all don't all stop inhaling completely and save all a lot of money.

Of course they are going to win, but the question is but what majority.

And of course I'm going to vote. I'm a great believer that we shouldn't waste a right that people died to get. But who am I going to vote for? Well, I'm a socialist, and I've voted Labour all my life. But the problem I have is that the current Labour Party bare deserve the title 'socialists' any more. They've moved so far towards the centre (or further), that they're hardly recognisable as a socialist party. And they seem to have been far too busy in the last couple of years trying to work out whose turn it is to 'be in charge' to actually worry about doing what they said on the tin. I would feel more positive about voting Labour if they promised a new party leader at least.

Gordon Brown was a brilliant finance minister (and I'm sure he's a very nice man who loved his mother), but he's been a total disaster as a party leader and Prime Minister. If ever a party were guilty of 'gross disappoint', then it is the current Labour Party.

And as for the other minor parties. I suppose it sends a message to the main parties when marginal parties receive votes, but apart from that, it's a pointless vote and has no impact on the way the country is governed. They have no voice (or seats) in Parliament.

I would feel more positive about voting Labour if they promised a new party leader. Gordon Brown was a brilliant finance minister, but he's been a disaster of a party leader and Prime Minister.

Fucking hell! Will someone please re-invent politics in this country and actually do what they say they'll do. Or just do SOMETHING! It's boring me to tears..................!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Phew! It Was Hot In That Closet!

An old friend of mine just emailed telling me how, after an 8-year relationship, the 58 year-old (divorced with grandchildren) boyfriend of an old (female) friend of his has just come out of the closet. Are you still following? I know, it's more complicated than rocket science, isn't it!

Part of me (the sympathetic, politically-correct part of me) wants to jump up and cheer him, for being brave enough to face up to who he really is (or at least thinks he is) and making such a fundamental change so late in life. But only part of me..................a very small part of me.

Imagine a woman (or man), spending their whole life perfectly satisfied with their nice brown hair, and then reaching the age of fifty and suddenly rushing to a hair salon and asking to be turned into a blonde (or blond for those of you familiar enough with grammar to notice the difference). Then, as way of explanation to their bemused spouse, they say that it's because they never really wanted brown hair in the first place, they were always really a blonde inside but were too afraid to try it.

Okay, we all need a change of image once in a while (like Dawn Cox, the school slut, who went on to become a charity-worker in Bangladesh), but in the words of Emma Bunton (no, not the 18th Century social reformer, the ex-Spice Girl), What Took You So (fucking) Long? I can get my mind around changing hair colour, having breast implants, taking out an expensive gym membership, having triplets at 40, even a change of career. But sexuality isn't some kind of club that you just join because you suddenly fancy trying a bit of same-sex bum (or muff) action. Thanks to all those brave pioneers of the gay rights movement, it hasn't been illegal for years, and the consequences of being open about your sexual preferences (in western society at least) are minimal. Joining the 'I'm Gay' club so late in life just doesn't work, it leaves you way behind the rest of the class who have been working hard at it all term, and also (homo)sexually-retarded.

It's like deciding to become a landscape gardener at the age of 50 and landing a contract to landscape France when you have absolutely no experience and can't tell a blade of grass from a combine-harvestor. But for some strange reason, you expect everyone to be patient while you churn up acres of beautiful parkland and plant turnips.

I could go on with the analogies, but the bottom line is that being gay isn't something you can sign up for like a six-week beginners pottery class, because you just end up hurting a lot of people with your indecision and confused messages. You leave one person feeling hurt and bemused and wondering why you were with them in the first place, and, in a bid to catch up for lost time, you make desperate promises to other people because you feel lost. You play with people's feelings, and then suddenly decide that 'Hey, guess what? I'm not gay after all. I was just confused'.

Having had a relationship with a man who peeked out of his closet late in life, I can tell you that it doesn't make for an easy experience. They are totally fucked up and feel like they have to try to catch up on all the things they missed. My advice to my friend's friend is to shove him back in that closet and lock the fucking door securely to protect the rest of us from yet another 'born a-gay-n' greenhorn.
"Oooh, threesomes? What's that? Should I try it?".
No you shouldn't, go back to your fucking girlfriend, there isn't enough cock as it it at the moment for those of us who have put in years of hard work at being gay. It's a bit like caviar. If we all wanted to eat it every day, we would soon run out. Some people have to eat tuna..................and some men have to eat muff!

I'm not saying that you can't like poontang AND bhatti, of course you can. Being bisexual isn't the same as being indecisive, bisexuality is a simple admission that you're a greedy bastard who wants it all. But as long as you're clear and honest with the people you meet from the start, nobody gets hurt.

But as far as I'm concerned, sexual indecision breaks hearts, so pick a hole and stick with it.

And then Along Came The Aubergine

Without doubt, growing up in the 70's and early 80's in Britain wasn't the culinary odyssey that it is today. On my semi-provincial Essex housing estate, we were blissfully unaware of the existence of anything more exotic than a beetroot, and most people still thought a butternut squash was something you got from sitting on cold surfaces.

Complex techniques for chilling, freeze-drying, genetically-modifying, and transporting fresh fruit and vegetables thousands of miles from Bangladesh to Basildon and from Israel to Grays in a matter of seconds were a decade away. So, if a product needed anymore than three consecutive days of lukewarm British sunshine to ripen, we just didn't have it. It was as simple as that. In the summer, you found 'summer things', and in the winter....................well, in the winter you found a selection of wizened root vegetables and tired-looking apples. Exotic fruit like papaya and mango could only occasionally be found in larger supermarkets (larger by the standard of the day) in tins, and even then were met with curious stares and comments like "Oooh, I wonder what you do with it?". Or that other 1970's classic "My friend Jean had that at a ruby-wedding and they were all on the toilet for days!" The few encounters we had with unusual 'foreign' foods were met with suspicion rather than curiosity or excitement. Without the gastronomic wisdom of today's 'celebrity chefs', people just didn't know what to do with a shallot, a butternut squash, or an aubergine.

Variety in our diets was provided by a huge range of processed and chemically-enhanced foods, which were pretty cheap, and most importantly, freezable. Bearing in mind that these were the days when we still considered defrosting to be a 'cooking technique' and deep-frying in animal fat to be excellent at 'sealing in the flavour', we had no real need of additional 'fresh' ingredients. The foods that we packed our cupboards and chest-freezers with probably did have some exotic ingredients like bell peppers or garlic, but they'd been processed and dehydrated beyond recognition. Small flecks of red pepper or coriander could be found hiding in packet soup mixes and pot noodles like the desiccated human fragments which littered the sands of plundered burial sites in the Egyptian desert, but we had absolutely no idea what they looked like in their original form. It was like looking at Cher, and trying to imagine what she looked like before she'd been preserved and medically-enhanced.

People weren't 'hungry for adventure', and foreign travel was still relatively rare (and normally limited to locations which were close, cheap, and not too different). People had heard of Spain, or maybe even knew someone who had been there, so 'Spanish-style' rice made some sense to them. It was yellow, it was savoury, and you just had to add water. Nobody had actually been to Provence, Mexico, or Thailand, and hence hadn't a clue what 'Mexican-style' or 'Oriental' was supposed to include. The taste was described using a range of simple terms like spicy, creamy, sweet, and savoury (or my sister's favourite term 'funny'), and anything unfamiliar was grouped together under equally simple headings. If you liked it, it was 'International Cuisine', and if you didn't like it, it was 'Foreign Muck'. It either tasted nice or it didn't, and when talking about food, the words familiar and edible meant more or less the same thing. Char-grilled chicken would have been described in horror as burnt, and al dente vegetables would have been considered raw. In my house, in order to constitute a successful meal, it needed to be hot, well-cooked, capable of being cut with a blunt table-knife, and above all, plentiful.

When it came to food, life in the 70's may not have been as delicious or varied as it is today, and describing our eating habits as sophisticated would be like describing China as the 'home of democracy'. But, like everything else in life, it was relatively simple. We were happy with what we had and didn't waste time worrying about what we didn't have. Life followed a few very simple rules; if you didn't like someone, you didn't talk to them, if it smelt 'funny' you didn't eat it, and if you couldn't afford something, you didn't buy it. Credit cards were for millionaires, queues were to make sure the person who'd waited the longest got on the bus first, and knives were for cutting food (or lino tiles!).

................and then along came the aubergine and everything in life changed.

Coal-mining In Public

Sitting on the Underground on my way in to work the other morning, with nothing else to do but look around, I noticed a beautiful-looking man. Mid-forties, with brilliant blue eyes, nice even white teeth, and a healthy head of hair, cut short and left slightly spiky on top. Strong masculine features with just enough wear-and-tear to give him that look of a man who knows what he's doing. And smartly-dressed, probably a banker or a broker, or something...................well, we were on our way out to Canary Wharf, so the choices aren't exactly wide-ranging (says the man who sits on a reception desk in a polyester suit!). But even by 'finance industry' standards, he was well turned out. His suit was fitted, his shoes were shiny, his shirt was crisp, and his tie was tied in a Windsor knot, not the usual off-centre, lazy knot that tie-novices use. Silver cufflinks, and a beautiful watch finished off this vision of captivating, masculine loveliness.

And as I gazed longingly at him, imagining how it would feel to wake up next to him, he reached up..........................picked his nose and ate it!

Now, even though we all claim not to, it's a fact of modern life that we all get 'dry' noses. From time to time, we find ourselves with an annoying little piece of desiccated snot clinging to the inside of our nose, and no amount of nose-blowing can dislodge it. It has to be removed manually. So we go to the toilet, or somewhere away from the gaze of others, and we deal with the problem. Privately.

Tragically, the man of my dreams (or nightmares it seemed), had no such inhibitions. For three long, never-ending stops, from London Bridge to Canary Wharf, he proceeded to shatter my dreams by rummaging around up his own nose. And not a discreet little rub or pick, but a full-scale nasal excavation, deep-shaft, sinus-mining.

I'm a pretty easy-going person. Well, actually that's not completely true, in fact it's not true at all. I'm a total fuss-pot when it comes to personal hygiene (amongst other things), but please don't tell me that this kind of thing is now acceptable. Nose-picking, at least public nose-picking, is dirty, and something you go to the toilet to do. This man would never dream of flopping out his old man and banging one out in public, but was more than happy to treat the entire carriage to a demonstration of 'bogey nutrition'.

Sadly, nowadays, he is not short of company when it comes to pushing the boundaries of acceptable (or unacceptable) public habits. You don't have to look too hard to find an array of truly Olympian demonstrations of what Miss Jane Austin would describe as 'things one oughtn't to do in polite company'. Noses and ears are picked, spots are popped and drained, fingernails are bitten, filed, or clipped, and groins, tits, and armpits are scratched. With the exception of 'hawking up a mouthful', 'gobbing on the floor' and spontaneous sexual gratification, a morning journey to work can often resemble every well-brought-up person's idea of a Victorian mental asylum.

And nobody evens exchanges eye-rolling, disapproving glances anymore. We just placidly sit, watching as the man of our dreams proceeds to turn our stomachs.

Have we turned from a nation obsessed by 'what people will say' about the slightest thing, into a nation secretly aroused and excited by how far we can push people before they finally crack and snap 'Do you mind! I'm trying to read!'