The 40 In 40 Days Project.
19. The First Memory (1964)

Summer 1964. I am two and a half years old. This is my first memory.

We are living in a smallish bungalow on the edge of Doncaster. One bright and sunny afternoon, I am sitting in my sandpit, just outside the back door leading to the kitchen. My mother is washing up indoors. I am playing with my bucket and spade.

Bored with making sandcastles, I decide to embark on a major civil engineering project instead. It will be something really big, and grown up, and clever, and impressive. I am going to empty all the sand out of the sandpit. Mummy is going to be so proud of me!

I set to work with great determination, repeatedly filling up my little bucket and tipping the sand out onto the lawn beside me. Soon, there is a great big heap of sand on the grass, bigger than any of my sandcastles. Wow!

Once I’ve cleared most of the sand from the pit, I eagerly rush into the kitchen, keen to show off my work. “Mummy, come and look at what I’ve done!” I am acquiring a taste for praise, and get ready to be told what a clever little boy I am. My mother follows me outside.

She is not amused by what she sees. In fact, she looks horrified, and cross. I am spoken to sharply. I am not to tip sand all over the lawn in future. I am to put all the sand back in the sandpit, now, please. And she goes straight back indoors.

I am a bit bewildered and a bit upset. I thought Mummy would be pleased with me. With confounded expectations and a heavy heart, I start spooning the sand back into the sandpit. This is more difficult than it was before, as the sand is in a loose heap rather than a tight enclosed space. It is also not nearly so much fun.

Nine years later, my mother marries a civil engineer. By this time, I am a confirmed aesthete with a pronounced distaste for the great outdoors.

The 40 In 40 Days Project.
18. The Trade Years (1994-1998)

From the back end of 1994 to the back end of 1998, the after hours London gay club Trade played a hugely important part in my life. In just about every respect, it was completely unlike any other club I had been to before, and from my second visit onwards, I was passionately in love with the place.

There is a huge amount that could be said about this period in my life. It was the best of times, but in some ways also the worst of times. It brought out the best in me, but also – undoubtedly - the worst in me too. So originally, I planned to write a harshly analytical, sharply critical piece. Maybe, another time, I will do just that. In fact, I almost certainly will do just that. But, d’you know what? Right now – this very moment, sitting here – I find myself in the mood for celebrating the place.

So, in that spirit (and with all due apologies to David, who did it first and best with the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, and with a lot more thought and effort than I’m about to expend), here’s….

An A To Z of Trade, 1994-1998.

A is for Alan Thompson, the first DJ of the night. Nowadays at Trade, the line-up of DJs varies from week to week, but in my day, the same crew of six regulars would appear in the same time slots, every single week. This meant that every night had a pre-defined - and amongst the regulars, well recognised - musical shape to it. Put very crudely, things started light and housey, and got harder and faster as the morning wore on. So Alan was the warm-up man, for that first hour or so when the lights were still up a bit, the dancefloor not so crowded, the heat not so intense, the shirts still on most people’s backs, the Trade Virgins all thinking “Hey, this place is much more laid back and normal than I was expecting…”

B is for Birthdays. If you were a Trade member, the club would always send you a birthday card, and a queue jump ticket giving you free admission, and your friends reduced admission, on your birthday weekend. So birthday weekends were always a bit special. You briefly felt like a VIP, swishing past the queue with your mates as the door staff wished you Happy Birthday. Nice!

C is for the Coffee Bar upstairs. Everybody’s reality check, away from the noise and the mayhem, where you’d all sit with mugs of sweet tea, smoking like laboratory beagles, and talking for England.

D is for Disco Tits. A veritable sea of nipples. Trade was the only club in the world where I would happily shed my shirt on the dancefloor. With all that toned and buffed perfection around me, it could have felt oppressive – but actually, it felt egalitarian.

E is for…energy, enthusiasm, eagerness, effervescence, excitement, euphoria, elation. E is for Euphemisms.

F is for Fluid, the chill-out session round the corner, next to Smithfields market. Back out on the street in broad daylight at one o’clock on a Sunday afternoon, you needed somewhere to ease gently back into the real world. Fluid did just that.

G is for Give Me Love by Diddy – the Tony De Vit remix, of course. A tune which exploded into life in the Spring of 1997, and which went on to be one of the all time Trade anthems. For me, it will always be the Trade anthem. I remember one time, early on, when it came on for the second time that night. People around me simply stopped their conversations in mid-sentence, and without a second thought, stampeded onto the main dancefloor for a communal, hands-in-the-air, we’re-all-in-this-crazy-ship-together “moment”. Oh, I can hear that piano riff now…

H is for Hoovers. Hoovers were big at Trade. As in: tunes with huge, scary, completely mental whooshy mechanical noises in them, that made normal people cover their ears in horror, and Tradebabes squeal with delight. H is emphatically not for Hard House. The music didn’t have a name in those days, and was all the better for it.

I is for Ian M. After Tony De Vit, before Tall Paul Newman (and subsequently, Pete Wardman). For a long time, my favourite of all the Trade DJs – his sets were more musical, more emotional somehow, even though he played hardest and fastest. King of the hoovers. The only one of the DJs I ever got on speaking terms with. Genuine, approachable, unassuming, totally down-to-earth. A real nice guy, in fact.

J is for the Jitters of anticipatory excitement I would get in my stomach for the whole day, if I knew a Trade visit was coming up that night.

K is for when it all started changing, for the worse in my opinion. K is for horses, not human beings!

L is for Light Stick Man (Kenny), a permanent fixture against the railings overlooking the main floor, every single week, without fail, lovin it lovin it lovin it. Part of the fixtures and fittings. Master of ceremonies. Club mascot. L is not for the Lite Lounge (the second, gentler, housier dancefloor), ‘cos I never really bothered with it. Hey, I can do melodic and housey any old time, any old place. So gimme hard and gimme fast!

M is for Muscle Alley. To get to the main dancefloor, you first had to run the gauntlet of Disco Tits. This was a narrow space running alongside the main bar, crammed wall to wall with shirtless Muscle Marys. The lighting was helpfully bright too, so everyone could freely admire your handiwork. Now, contrary to popular myth, the majority of Trade’s clientele were never of the amply titted variety. However, if you did have the boobs for the job, Muscle Alley was definitely your territory. There was a kind of unspoken rule – if the tits didn’t fit, you chose another, more darkly lit, patch in which to lurk. M is also for Malcolm Duffy, the second DJ of the night, and my least favourite of the residents – his sets always seemed a bit flat and directionless to me.

N is for Neck Massages On The Dancefloor. Ooh baby, that feels so gooood….

O is for Over-familiarity (see also N above). Hi, look at you, my my, aren’t you looking gorgeous tonight? Hi, my boyfriend’s just dumped me, I’m on anti-depressants and I’ve just had a dose of crabs, is it alright if I sit here? Hi, can I just say that those are the BEST tattoos I have EVER SEEN?

P is for Paul Newman (Tall Paul) and subsequently Pete Wardman, DJs for the final set of the morning. When your brain had died and gone to heaven, but your body just had to keep on a-jumpin’ and a-pumpin’ till the bitter end…

Q is for Queuing. An essential part of the ritual. Nowadays, you can more or less breeze straight in. Back then, you had to earn your entry to Turnmills (the venue which hosts Trade). Thirty minute queues outside were the norm; my all time record was a ninety minute wait on a bitterly cold New Year’s Day 1995 (but then that was for FF, Trade’s even more hardcore-bonkers Sunday night cousin). Then even when you got to the door, there was no guarantee that you’d be deemed worthy of admission – if you weren’t a member or bona fide guest, getting in could be a tough business. However, all of this nonsense meant that once you did get inside, it felt all the more special that you had made it through. No pain, no gain, or something.

R is for Regulars. Each with their own little spot within the club, where you knew you’d always find them. The Cambridge professor, slap bang in the middle of the floor. The IT director who flew in from Germany every weekend, down the far end. The unreconstructed socialist from Brighton, up there against the railings. Hi, mwah mwah, nice to see you, can’t talk now, bit twatted, later yeah, have fun, mwah mwah, bye!

S is for Steve Thomas, DJ number three. The “bridging” set whose job it was to link Duffy’s US house with De Vit’s bouncy full-on mayhem. Steve’s set is where the energy levels would start noticeably rising, the lights darkening, the whoops and cheers starting up here and there, the atmosphere building, up and up, ready for…

T is for Tony De Vit. The Don. The King. The Hero. 8am on the dot, every week, without fail. The moment he came on, the whole club knew it. Hands in the air. Massive smiles on everyone’s faces. Huge shrieks of delight. All RIGHT! Here we f***ing GO! After Tony’s death in Summer 1998, closely followed by the temporary booting out of the club from Turnmills, Trade was never quite the same for me again.

U is for Underneath The Arches. Nuff said.

V is for Volume, Velocity, and Va-Va-Voom. ‘Cos Trade was loud, fast, and fabulous.

W is for “What Would You Like To Hear Again?” by Dyewitness – the Ian M remix. Seemingly played every single week for at least two years, and always by Ian M himself, funnily enough. Simple and effective. Possibly the all time “hoover” anthem. “Hey babe… hey babe….hey babe….you – are – WRONG!”

X is for X-rated moments in dark corners, if you were very careful about it. Security weren’t always so keen on that sort of thing. One heard cautionary tales of amorous couples being dragged up to the office for a telling off. Humiliating, and not nice.

Y is for You’re a really special friend, do you know that, I’m not just saying it ‘cos I’m off my face, I really mean it y’know?

Z is for Zopiclone. For ZZZ on a Sunday night.

Are you new here? Are you confused by what you see? Do you want a bit of background on this strange phenomenon we call Blog?

Well, let plasticbag.org explain it all to you: gently, stylishly, with wit, verve and elan.

When you've done that, you'll understand that I too am "a great big fruity mix of the lot".

Over at the rather impressive leather egg, there's a jolly useful set of reviews from the Sundance film festival. If you want to know which films to keep an eye out for over the next few months, this is a good way of finding out. Nicole Kidman as Russian mail order bride, you say? I, for one, can't wait.

Start at January 14th, and then scroll up. Or start at January 21st, and then scroll down.

Something strange is going on. For the second Wednesday running, I haven’t bought the NME.

You should understand that I have been buying the NME every week, without fail, since early 1974. Even if abroad, I would still make a point of finding it at an international newsstand, for an outrageously inflated price.

That’s twenty-eight years, then. I outgrew all my other favourite periodicals (Whizzer And Chips, The Face, Boyz, Attitude) much quicker than that, but the NME has persisted all the way through – until now, it would seem.

There’s only one twinge of worry associated with this. Where am I going to get such detailed and comprehensive information on gig details? Most of the most useful information comes in the adverts in the back, not in the news section – so the NME website is only of limited use as a substitute.

Other than that…do I really need to know what’s flavour of the month with the NME writers? Is it still Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, or have The Coral taken over now? And really, who cares?

Of course, I’m not saying “never again”. I’m sure there will be the odd train trip to fill, or a particularly eye-catching front cover, or a free CD, or something. But still – so long NME, it was nice knowing you.

The 40 In 40 Days Project.
17. The Year In Berlin (1983-84)

Three random Berlin memories.

Eins…

To determine how to spend one Saturday night, three of us decide to use the “Dice Man” technique. We choose six courses of action, number them from 1 to 6, roll a dice, and do whatever it tells us. The dice tells us to write a song and busk it in public the following day.

Someone borrows a cheap Casio keyboard and amps it up to a ghetto blaster. None of us knows that much about music – but still, we choose a preset “rock” rhythm, bash out a few chords, scribble some words down, and end up with quite a groovy little song by the end of the night. A groovy and highly political little song…

In Autumn 1983, the Cold War was raging fiercely. The Soviet Union had recently shot down a South Korean plane, and Reagan had just made one of made one of his classic “evil empire” speeches in response. It was a particularly bellicose speech, and living in occupied West Berlin, within a mile of the Wall, it had a particularly scary resonance. We had also been hearing about the alarmingly fierce anti-Russian reaction that was taking place in the US – bars were tipping vodka bottles down the drain, that sort of thing – and it was the speech and the reaction to it which the song satirised. The chorus went: “Make America strong / that’s what they’d welcome the least / pour all your vodka down the drain / who gives a shit about peace?”

So, the next day we take the keyboard, the ghetto blaster and a couple of empty vodka bottles (for mime purposes) down to the Kurfurstendamm – West Berlin’s busiest street – and set up stall outside the Lufthansa building. We sing our little song, which attracts quite a decent crowd and gets applause – and even money. However, I’m not sure to what degree our audience have picked up on the dry, biting sarcasm of the lyric. I have a nasty feeling that they’re taking the song at face value, and are actually applauding our hawkishness. Oh well, that’s showbusiness. The money is nice, anyway.

There is an expectant pause as people wait for our next number. We don’t know any other songs, so we start playing the same one again. It only has four chords, so it doesn’t really bear repeated listening. Our crowd rapidly disperses. We wait a few minutes and then repeat the whole trick all over again. And again. And again. Then slink off and drink our earnings.

Aside from a spirited vocal rendition of “Jilted John” at the village youth club in 1978, accompanied by the village heavy metal band (Electric Phase – mmm!), this is the only time I have ever rocked and rolled in public. Once, I feel, was more than enough.

Zwei...

You didn’t have flatshares in West Berlin. You had “Wohngemeinschaften”, which translates directly as “living communities”. They were founded on the noble ideal of shared communal living, which required active participation from all “Mitbewohner”. The 2001 film Together is a wonderfully accurate satire on the whole phenomenon.

I wasn’t – am not – a terribly “communal” person. Sharing is not my forte – hoarding is. But the only alternative was a lonely bedsit. So, I moved into a WG (pronounced “vay-gay”), as they were known for short, with three female schoolteachers, all around ten years older than me. They had a fairly relaxed, undogmatic attitude to communal living; so as long as I stuck to the cleaning rotas, and remembered to bring back plain yoghurt from the local Karstadt with precisely 3.5% fat, I was OK.

My only major sticking point was bathroom etiquette. None of my flatmates locked the door, but I most certainly did. Until one afternoon when the lock broke, trapping me inside. One of my flatmate’s boyfriends had to smash the lock with something heavy. I was then treated to a finger-wagging lecture about how I’d obviously spent far too much time in my parents’ house, and how I needed to free myself from my obviously very repressed attitude.

Needless to say, the lock was never repaired – so from then on, privacy went out of the window. My flatmates would think nothing of walking in on me, stark naked if you please, while I was sitting on the toilet, and then - rather than apologising and leaving the room – engaging me in conversation as to what I’d got up to the night before. Call me a prude, but I just didn’t like doing a poo in front of naked ladies. Sorry!

The three schoolteachers all moved out, and the lease was taken over by three new people. I alone stayed put. The three newcomers had never lived in a WG before, and so their idealism, as yet undimmed by experience, burnt fierce. I quickly had to adapt to a harsh new regime of “sharing”. Yuck. It didn’t much help that they all turned out to be deeply unpleasant individuals, coupling a seemingly complete incapacity for original thought with a self-righteous, zealous, almost Maoist desire to impose their received doctrines upon others. Oh, and a truly fearsome petty-mindedness, which instantly betrayed their bourgeois roots.

I lasted less than three weeks before being asked to leave, at a specially convened “community meeting”. My evictors told me that this was not an easy decision for them to make. We have tried especially hard to accept you, they explained, “weil du Mitglieder einer unterdruckten Minderheit bist” (because you are a member of an oppressed minority – poof, in other words). I think I was supposed to look impressed at this point.

I moved into a flatshare with a gay theatre company instead. Not as much fun as it sounds. The director of the company (who was also my landlord), after a string of flops, absconded back to West Germany overnight and went into hiding, owing large sums to his unpaid actors. There were articles in the press about it.

Drei...

I don’t wanna be alone, where is my baby? I don’t wanna be alone, where is my man?

“Where Is My Man” by Eartha Kitt. The Berlin gay anthem. For the entire twelve months I was there, you couldn’t escape it. Every bar, from Anderes Ufer to Andreas Kneipe, Movie to Querelle. Every club, from KC to the SchwuZ, Wu-Wu to Trocadero. And every Saturday night at my mecca, the Metropol on Nollendorfplatz.

I want…a millionaire. With a big, big, big, big….yacht. Hur-hur! Who can take me to Monte Car-r-r-rlo. San T-r-r-opez. And eventually….Tiffany’s!

Droll. Veh veh droll.

The 40 in 40 Days Project.
16. The Perfect Moment (1994)

Summer 1994. K and I have taken the car over to France, driving slowly down to Burgundy via Epernay, staying at some carefully selected hotels en route and dining in fine style each evening. After seeing something of Burgundy, we have left the car in Dijon, where we have hired a small boat to take us down through the canal system, into the River Soane, and as far South as Chalon-sur-Soane.

It is a couple of days into the trip. It is lunchtime, on a gloriously warm and sunny day. We are waiting to go through a lock, but – this being France, where meal times are a sacred ritual – the lock is shut for the lunch hour. We are in the middle of nowhere. There is no-one around.

We moor up, and have a simple lunch on the roof of the boat. Bread, cheese and wine. The cheeses are all local to the region, bought during our stay in Nuit-St-Georges. The wine was bought directly from a local producer, picked more or less at random from our guide, who turned out to be a professor of oenology, no less. Both cheese and wine taste sublime. Meanwhile, the portable Discman, connected to a couple of mini-speakers, is playing the “Talking Timbuktu” collaboration between Ali Farka Toure and Ry Cooder.

Sunshine. Warmth. Tranquillity. Solitude. Countryside. Water. Wine. Cheese. Music. Each other.

Do you know that scene in “Stardust Memories” where Woody Allen is describing sitting in a room with Charlotte Rampling, on an ordinary day, doing nothing in particular, when somehow all the constituent elements unexpectedly fuse together in a moment of transcendent perfection, and everything feels right, and there is this sense of total, true, unalloyed happiness, right through to the very core of his soul?

Well...this is my moment.

My perfect moment!

A troubled diva indeed. Poor, poor Mariah...

Ryan Adams. Now there's someone who divides critical opinion. Me, I love him to bits; in fact, Gold was my album of 2001. What’s more, his beautiful 2000 debut Heartbreaker is even better. Last year, he also put out a superb CD (Pneumonia) by his old band Whiskeytown. Apparently, he already has enough new material in the can to fill five new albums. The man is a prodigious talent.

I was also lucky enough to see him on his first ever live appearance in the UK, in a tiny club in Nottingham in Autumn 2000, where he revealed himself as an engaging, witty fellow who gave a hauntingly intimate and affecting performance. Another performance in Leicester last Spring (containing over an hour’s worth of material that has still not been released) confirmed that this was no fluke.

And yet, there are plenty who can't stand the man. These people, I’ll wager, have only heard Gold, or maybe just the New York, New York single that was so heavily hyped, but which still flopped in the UK. Or maybe they caught that dreadful, shambolic live TV appearance on Jools Holland’s Later, where he looked like he hadn’t slept for days, sang like shit, and performed with a ghastly amped-up backing band (whose intensely grating sax player should have been taken outside and shot).

These people are wrong!

I can see how they have formed their opinions, though. Gold is indeed an album which wears its influences on its sleeve, just like Definitely Maybe eight (eight!) years ago. But it needs to be seen within the wider context of his other work, none of which is anywhere near as explicitly derivative. My enjoyment of (the admittedly patchy, but lovably so) Gold has been filtered through my love of Heartbreaker and Pneumonia before it – but if all I knew was Gold, I might well have made a much harsher judgement (no originality - Springsteen / Stones / Van Morrison rip-off - boring trad dad retro rock - wannabe Rock Star - music press flavour of the month - desperate record company hype - blah blah blah).

Conclusion? It's obvious. Go and buy Heartbreaker!

I've been working my way through the winners of Francis Strand's fine My Way Blog Awards, all of whom were new to me. Having looked at them all, the one which has made the strongest impression must be Tinmanic, winner of the "Best Sylvia Plath Impersonation". Yes, it's heavy on the self-analysis, but in an eloquent, engaging and even rather instructive way, rather than the usual whiney self-obessed way. You sense that Jeff, the Tin Man himself, is working things through rather successfully, and that It Will Be All Right In The End.

In particular, there's a fantastic piece where Jeff enters into conversation with someone who has e-mailed him with a strongly worded anti-gay rant. The conversation does not go where you expect it to go. It's the most inspiring piece I've read in quite a while.

Enough with the cutesy over-familiarity already! The "other blogs" sidebar has been revamped again, in a fiendishly clever new order. Mainly for my own benefit, as under the old regime, I had trouble remembering which was which.

Historically, K has generally not bothered reading this blog (his line: "But I know you well enough already"). However, he has started reading the "40 Days" entries - and latterly, with the subject matter hotting up somewhat, I've been getting him to vet some of the drafts before publication. He thinks that the most recent entry (15: The First Time) is one of the best yet. But then, he does like a bit of nice clean smut.

My randomiser has thrown up a second consecutive “adult” topic, so once again, we’re in Late Night Troubled Diva Uncut territory. Oh, stop licking your lips and grinning like that, will you!

This one gets a bit…well…let’s just say that some of it is not for the squeamish. You have been warned.

Oh, and don’t go thinking that all of this constitutes some sort of fruity thematic sea-change for the site. Two swallows do not make a summer!

The 40 in 40 Days Project.
15. The First Time (1979)

Ah, the golden summer of 1979. A-levels were over, and my boarding school in Cambridge turned into a holiday camp for the last few weeks of term. We would spend lunchtimes drinking in The Anchor, and afternoons sunbathing by The Mill, overlooking the punts floating past on the River Cam. For the first time in my five years there, I could honestly say that I was enjoying the place at last.

Tubeway Army’s “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?” was Number One, and for a while it was ubiquitous; every time you walked down the study corridors, you could hear it coming out of someone’s room. In fact, we were in the middle of a golden age for hit singles. Up The Junction, Silly Games, Babylon’s Burning, H.A.P.P.Y. Radio, Girls Talk, Good Times, Sunday Girl, Boogie Wonderland, Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now, We Are Family, Pop Muzik, I Fought The Law, Ring My Bell…what a soundtrack.

Philip (not his real name) was part of our crowd. He was fair, athletic and impossibly handsome without being in the slightest bit aware of it. I’d had a secret crush on him for ages.

Late one night, back from the pub, someone dared us both to strip naked and walk along the first floor study corridor, down the main staircase, and then along the ground floor corridor. Neither of us hesitated for a second. “Shit,” he chuckled as he took his clothes off, “I’ve got a massive stiffy down here.” “Same here,” I mumbled back – relieved I wasn’t the only one. Relieved – and suddenly very curious. We went through with the dare, and collapsed naked and giggling onto his bed. Neither of us seemed in any great hurry to get dressed again. The air seemed to be crackling with something unspoken. It remained unspoken. I went back to my room, head pounding. The crush began to intensify.

A few nights later. We had all got into the general habit of sitting around on each other’s beds with the lights off, smoking crafty late night cigarettes with the windows open. It was quite normal to go into someone’s study and find two people sitting on a bed together in the dark. And on this particular night, after everyone else has disappeared, I am still sitting on Philip’s bed. There’s that crackle in the air again – it’s unmistakeable.

“D’you know what?” Philip’s voice is completely casual, like he’s just had this sudden thought out of the blue. “I wouldn’t mind trying your clothes on. You can try mine on as well, if you like.”

How far could we push this, I wonder, as once again we strip off in front of each other and swap clothes. I already know that there is a massive rip in the seams of Philip’s black trousers, starting from the bottom of the zip, running all the way underneath, and finishing halfway up the seat.

We’re wearing each other’s clothes now. What next? Philip leans over. “Have you noticed how big the rip has got?” he asks. “It goes all the way from here” – he places his index finger at the top of the rip – “to here” – and follows the slit all the way round to the back.

My temples are thumping, my pulse is racing, and I’m starting to shake, visibly. We are on the brink of something here. I have never been this close to the edge before. I hardly dare to hope where this might lead.

“Right, I want them back now”, he says.

I don’t move.

“Oy! I said I wanted them back!”

Pause.

“Are you going to give them to me, or am I going to have to take them back myself?”

Pause.

“Right. I’m going to count to ten, and then I’m taking them back off you. You can’t say you weren’t warned.”

1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 - 10.

He lunges forward, grabs my zipper and starts yanking it down, while I start writhing, giggling, and pretending to struggle. He’s laughing away too. It’s happening. It’s really happening.

The trouble is - I haven’t got anything on underneath. And I’m very excited.

Well, I only get caught in the zipper, don’t I? There is a sudden shooting pain. My pantomime cries of “Stop! Stop!” become real. Philip hasn’t noticed my change in tone. He keeps laughing and pulling harder. The pain intensifies. There is blood.

Bit of a passion killer, that.

Of course, blood does play a part in many people’s first sexual experiences. But not usually in this kind of sexual experience. It’s like the cruel punchline to a comic strip. You can almost picture me with a Charlie Brown style zig-zag mouth. Just. My. Luck.

To this day, if you look closely, you can still see the tiny little blemish which this left on me. My mark of shame, no less!

Philip and I still had a few weeks left before the end of term. And yes, we did. Several times. But I can’t pretend that these encounters made me happy. There was a basic inequality between us. He was mucking around because, in an all-male boarding school, there weren’t any other options. But for me, these encounters meant everything. At 17, I was still imbued with a huge romantic idealism. There was still no separation between my sexual needs and my emotional needs. And so I suffered, horribly. I fell madly, hopelessly in love – and I choose my words carefully here.

Of course, I didn’t tell him that. Didn’t want the fun to stop. Not completely stupid, you know. But our mini-fling ultimately caused me far more pain than pleasure, and afforded me precious little useful emotional experience for the future. My first proper boyfriend was still three and a half years away…

If you’ve ever wondered what actual fans of So Solid Crew think about the incident where one of their number (Skat D) broke the jaw of a 15 year old girl who resisted his sexual advances, then here’s a discussion on the topic from the message board of their official website. A lot of the messages are from their female fans, and not all of them say what you might necessarily expect. Fascinating, amusing and disturbing in equal measure. If the linguistically bizarre wibblings of a bunch of teenagers are of interest to you, that is.

You say lattay, I say lartay, let’s call the whole thing off.

I can’t make my mind up how to pronounce the Italian word for café au lait, when ordering it in Pret A Manger every lunchtime.

Should I use a long “a” (lartay)? This has the benefit of sounding a) authentic, like a real Italian would say it and b) American, like Niles and Frasier would say it.

Or should I use a short “a” (lattay)? This sounds sensible, matter-of-fact, I’m-English-and-I’m-not-going-to-pretend-otherwise.

The dilemma is not helped by the fact that, amongst the Pret A Manger staff, there is no official way to pronounce the word. Half of them say it one way, and half the other. I know this because every lunchtime, when I order it (regular strength, to go), they repeat it back at me. I do wish they’d standardise their pronunciation. Honestly, with all that funding they’ve got from Macdonalds, you’d think they would have learned a thing or two about consistency...

Anyway, when you are as riddled with insecurities and neuroses as I am, this “repeating back the order” business doesn’t help at all. Mainly because, whichever pronunciation I choose, it always seems to get repeated back the other way:

Me: “Regular strength lartay to go, please”
Them: “OK, one regular lattay…”
Subtext: “Oh, you pretentious little tit, with your fancy foreign sounding intonations! Where do you think this – Milan? Seattle? No, it’s f***ing Nottingham, mate!”

Me: “Regular strength lattay to go, please”
Them: “OK, one regular lartay…”
Subtext: “Oh, you common little man! You insufferably plebian little Englander! Coming in here thinking you’re so bloody metropolitan, then the moment you open your mouth, you give yourself away. If you’re going to use the word, at least learn to say it right!”

You don’t know what hell it is being me sometimes.

There's now an update to this in the comments.

Hello, and welcome to Late Night Troubled Diva. Post-watershed Troubled Diva. Troubled Diva Uncut!

This article contains material of an adult nature. If this is likely to offend you, then please proceed directly to the article which follows it. This contains scenes of tasteful interior design and restful soft furnishings, intended for a family audience.

The 40 In 40 Days Project.
14. The Amsterdam Weekend (1991)

At the age of twenty-nine, I decided there were four things which I had to do before turning thirty. These were: visit New York, go round a maze, ride in a hot air balloon, and attend a jackoff (J/O) party.

This is the story of how I attained the fourth of these goals.

If you wanted to J/O in the early nineties, you really had to go and do it in Amsterdam. We were still living in more tightly controlled times. I’d been researching the subject, and had discovered that a J/O party took place at the Spyker bar on Saturday nights, once a month. So, with K’s amused blessing, I booked myself two nights at the New York hotel, and hopped over.

Friday night, and I headed for more familiar territory: the Exit club on Reguliersdwarstraat. This would be a nice, gentle acclimatisation exercise. It certainly was: his name was Rudolf, and he was a semi-professional, indeed fanatical, swimmer. With all the physique which that might imply. As someone who recoils in horror from all physical exercise save hiking and dancing (and who cannot swim a stroke, owing to a deep and abiding fear of submerging his head under water), I was aware that I was already punching above my weight here – and so I cheerfully took this as a good omen for the weekend ahead. Back at the hotel, my gratitude was enthusiastically expressed, at some length, with few words but much attendant volume.

Rudolf left the hotel around dawn, and a few hours later I emerged for breakfast. Over the breakfast table, I got talking to a fellow single Brit. I asked him how his night had been. It had been OK, but he’d had a lousy night’s sleep. His bedroom walls were paper thin, and there was a couple next door making one hell of a racket during the night – he’d never heard anything like it.

Sounds awful, I said. What was his room number? Ah. That would be the one next door to mine, then. I lowered my head bashfully, and threw that kind of half-blushing, half-smirking look, of which our dear late Princess of Wales was so fond.

Saturday afternoon, and I decided to ramp up a notch in preparation for the big night. I’d never been to a gay sauna before, and maybe this was the time to do it. In truth, I’d never had the slightest desire to attend one – but if this weekend was to be about testing limits, then so be it. I nervously entered the Thermos Day Sauna (one of Europe’s largest), checked in my valuables, and picked up my towel.

Clothes off, towel wrapped round my waist, I commenced my perambulations. There were endless corridors, with doors leading to private cabins, and the occasional public space, such as a plunge pool. I skulked round, fretfully avoiding eye contact, feeling about as erotic as a wet dishcloth. At one point, someone very tall and well-built brushed past me. I glanced up. Dear God, this man was pornography made flesh. It was almost as if he was walking within his own private force field of sexual energy. You could almost see the aura. He looked intent, focussed, determined, in something of a hurry. Clearly on his way to some rampantly orgiastic rumpy-pumpy somewhere or other. I compared and contrasted with meek little me, padding dutifully round the corridors in search of something I didn’t even particularly want, and sighed inwardly.

There were a few…false starts, shall we say. Having made my excuses two or three times over by now, it was with some relief that I found the video lounge. A couple of dozen men were sitting around watching the screen, towels thankfully in place. It looked quite safe here. I settled down on the floor to watch.

A few minutes later, someone else enters the lounge. Oh my God. It’s Pornography Made Flesh. He scans the room, with commendable professionalism and efficiency. He is coming towards me. Oh my God, he’s lying down right next to me. He can’t be interested. Don’t be daft. Oh my God, he’s looking my way. Oh my God, his leg’s touching mine. I return his glance, as coolly as I can. His eyes (dark, limpid pools in which men may read many strange and wonderful things) meet mine. He leans his head (jet black hair, perfect cheekbones, chiselled jaw) towards mine.

“Cabin?”

I am now totally under his control. I have been subsumed into his force field. As such, I can do nothing but grunt and nod. He gets up and strides out purposefully. I trot along behind, my heart beating like a wild, wild thing.

To tell the truth, the sex is a bit of a non-starter, in the way that sex with someone much better looking can sometimes be. He is simply too much for me. The balance of power seems to be all about me having to worship him, and I don’t do worship very easily. He senses my diffidence, and his manner softens. We fall into conversation instead. To my astonishment, the moment we start talking, we hit it off instantly. In fact, we start getting on famously well. He is intelligent, articulate, interesting and interested. Aware that gay saunas are not normally places to initiate in depth conversations, I am now thoroughly enjoying the incongruity of my situation. This is more like it! Who needs all that tedious sex stuff anyway?

The sauna is closing for the afternoon, but we’re still talking ten to the dozen. He suggests we move on for a drink at the April bar. We dress. He puts on tight leather trousers, a tight white T-shirt, a fringed black leather jacket, and biker boots. I put on nondescript Levis and a comfy sweater. Off we go.

He turns out to be something of a local gay celebrity. Last night, he took to the stage of the Amsterdam gay centre’s weekly club event, dressed as a leatherman version of Saint Nicholas. And did a full strip for the crowd. He has also recently performed in a safe sex awareness video. This being Amsterdam, it was a…comprehensive performance, shall we say. Wow, my very own porn star. This is turning out to be quite some weekend.

I tell him about the purpose of my mission – the J/O party. He fills me in on what to expect from the evening. Apparently, the parties are organised by an impeccably worthy non-profit making community collective, with the aim of promoting safer sex within the city. There are some strict rules. Clothes to be checked in on entry, though it’s OK to keep your pants on if you wish. You are given a drinks card, to be signed by the bar staff each time you order, and to be stuffed inside your sock for the rest of the time – you pay on exit.

The sexual etiquette is as follows. Strictly J/O only! No lips below the hips! And there’s one more crucial point of etiquette. At these parties, refusing somebody’s advances is considered to be the height of bad form. You are supposed to accept every invitation which comes your way, in a spirit of communal egalitarianism. Turning someone down because you don’t find them attractive? Tut tut. That would be – well, there isn’t a word for it, but I guess “lookist” would fit the bill nicely.

I go back and change – though getting changed for a night in your underwear seems to be beside the point. The bar is a short hop from the hotel. I walk in and find what is basically a typical Saturday night Amsterdam gay bar, of the more traditional, copper-potted variety, but with all present either naked or (more usually) in their pants. Polite, sociable chit chat is being made. There is no J/O-ing going on down here – that all takes place upstairs.

Kit off, but – in the words of the old Samantha Fox song – the pants stay on, thank you. I wander upstairs, and take a ring side seat.

It’s an open plan room, with a raised platform at one end, and bench seating round the perimeter. The lights are up – you can see the entire room quite clearly. There are strategically positioned boxes of Kleenex and occasional bowls of body lotion, laid out as if for a cocktail party. I remember the Victoria Wood sketch about the couple preparing for a suburban wife-swapping party (the wife calling up the stairs to her husband: “KY Jelly – too ostentatious in a dish?”)

And oh my good golly gosh, and crikey. They’re all at it! Everywhere! Yikes!

I scan the sea of writhing bodies. One thing quickly becomes apparent. At 29, I am easily one of the youngest people in the room, by a considerable margin. Well over half the people here are over fifty years old. Many are in their sixties and seventies. My eyes trawl round, radar like, looking for someone even remotely attractive. There are maybe five or six in the whole room, and they all look…busy. Gulp.

It may very well be bad form to be “lookist” here, but frankly, in this context I’m acutely aware of being hot property. Not that this is helping to stoke my ardour in any way. If anything, I feel even less erotic than I did in the sauna. It’s a good job I’ve still got my pants on!

Well, can’t sit here all night. Time to circulate and mingle. Oh dear. I seem to be the object of repeated attention. Funny little old men (sorry, but I speak as I find) keep bobbing up in front of me with gleeful “come play with me” expressions. I can’t, I just can’t. I keep having to invent urgent appointments at the other end of the room. More funny little old men come trotting after me as I cross the floor from corner to corner. Oh, and I’ve just noticed what music they’re playing. Unbelievably, someone has chosen one of the “Hooked On Classics” albums to set the mood: an extended medley of cheerful light classics set to a boom-thwack drum track. I kid you not: now they’re playing the Can Can, disco style, wihile funny little old men chase me – and each other – round and round in circles. Earlier on, I was in a porn movie. Now, I seem to be in a Benny Hill sketch…

Hmmph, so much for anti-lookism. It seems to be perfectly acceptable in reverse. However, I am determined to do what I came here for. I haven’t flown all this way to wimp out now. Eventually, I make eye contact with a nice looking chap (also British, as it turns out), around my own age, with a similarly bewildered, harassed expression. We attempt to, er, bond. It’s not easy, as we are constantly having to repel invaders, swatting them away like so many mosquitoes. We persevere, manfully. We really do give it our best shot. But eventually, the whole thing runs out of steam. We exchange watery, sheepish smiles and part. And, in true Sunday tabloid style, I decide to make my excuses and leave. I meet up with my porn star again, and we hit the clubs together, in what then turns out to be a night of utter fabulousness. And celibacy. Well, almost…but that, as they say, is another story.

In less than a month’s time, I shall be turning forty. Ten years on, have I set myself any further “must do” objectives?

Nah. I have drunk deep enough from the cup of experience, methinks. Pass me the wafers of wisdom instead!

The doors are now open for virtual cottaging. Take a tour of our country pile, why don't you?

Here's a sample:

Ebay goes all Martin Creed on us. Don't all bid at once!
Thanks for the link, Dymbel.

The (extended) weekend in brief.
(Well, that was the intention…)

Friday – Art Day. Train from Derby to St. Pancras, tube to Farringdon. Walk up to The Blue Gallery on Great Sutton Street. This takes us right past Turnmills, my old stomping ground. Have never been in this part of London on a normal weekday before. Freaky. Where did all these people come from, and just what do they think they are doing here? Marvel at the gentrification of Clerkenwell, but feel rather alienated by it at the same time.

The Blue Gallery, for the Nina Murdoch exhibition. Smaller space than we were expecting, with fewer paintings. Still, they are all stunning, especially the large ones. I’ve written about Nina Murdoch before, and I stand by what I wrote. She deserves to be huge. Exhibition runs till February 2nd. If you can, do go and see it.

Lunch is taken in the first likely looking place we find: Fish! on St. John’s Street. Part of a chain, so could be grim. Luckily, it’s fab. K orders six oysters - Irish, apparently – and by God, they are magnificent. Large, but without the flabbiness that sometimes comes with size (if you know what I mean...) Full of flavour. I order devilled whitebait – very tasty. For mains, we both have grilled halibut, with herb & garlic butter, a simple vegetable garnish, and a big bowl of chips. The style is simple, the emphasis is firmly on the quality and freshness of the fish, and the whole thing is perfectly executed. Okay, maybe the chips were fractionally underdone, but we’re talking nanoseconds.

Walk up to Islington, and Art 2002 at the Business Design Centre on Upper Street. Initial impression – it’s full of overhyped shite, the gallery owners are all pompous wankers, and the prices have gone through the roof. However, once we get beyond the White Cube stand (just joking Jay, we love you, mwah! mwah!) things start to improve. Three hours later, we have a shortlist of five paintings. After much discussion, we purchase two. One is too big for the train, so we agree to arrange delivery.

One painting is by Anthony Scullion. It’s a portrait of a young woman, stylistically very conventional by our standards. A bit of early Picasso, a bit of Bacon, a dash of Vermeer. But very much with its own character. The woman looks vaguely Dutch, somehow. Reading the artist’s CV later on, we find that he’s recently returned from 7 years in South Africa. Afrikaans, then?

The other painting is by Jenny Pockley, and is purchased from Sarah Myerscough Fine Art. We are greatly taken with both Ms. Myerscough and her stand. Unlike so many others in attendance, she seems to be doing what she’s doing primarily out of a love of art – and she has a great eye. Jenny Pockley works with gesso, scraping back the layers and producing an exquisitely glistening surface, with a marked emphasis on light and shadow. Her work reminds us in some ways of Nina Murdoch, who uses similar techniques. We say so. Low and behold! Turns out that Nina and Jenny are good friends, who frequently get together to discuss their respective techniques. Well well well.

Back on the train (packed), back to the cottage, unwrap the Scullion. Oops, it doesn’t work in the space we had planned for it. We haven’t made a mistake, have we? No, it looks fantastic on the stairwell instead. Phew.

There was a third painting, an abstracted landscape by Peter Joyce, based on the Dorset coastline near to where he lives. It was tall and thin. We rejected it because we thought it might be too tall. Back in the cottage, we realise it would be perfect in a particular space on a particular wall. Should we? Eh? OK, we’ll sleep on it.

Saturday. We call the dealer and secure the Peter Joyce painting. Shopping in Ashbourne. Take delivery of a single dark brown soft leather dining chair, ordered last week. Dinner with OldEngland and NewEngland, as discussed below: scallops, roast pheasant. Laaaavely. Come back and bid a fond farewell to Hayley (yes, we're talking 'Pidol again, I'm afraid). Bloody hell Gareth, where did that performance come from? He seems to have acquired a personality at last! William - just a tad complacent this week, I felt. But Zoe will be next for the chop. Won't she?

Sunday. Surprise visit from pk and dj – their first time at the cottage. Sympathise with pk over the “Best British Single” Brit Award nominees. His own composition – a massive hit – has been overlooked in favour of the vastly inferior follow-up single, which he had nothing to do with. This isn’t even an original composition, or even a British composition, but a lame cover version. Tell him I think it’s a disgrace. Assume he already knows about this. He doesn’t. He’s shocked. Oops. Oh well, somebody had to tell him, I guess…

Sunday early evening. After a visit from Pham and Tham, our neighbours in Nottingham, K – who has been feeling a bit rough all day – starts to feel seriously poorly. Crippling stomach ache, and the squits. He has to go to bed. Rennies aren’t helping. No appetite. So it wasn’t a hangover after all, then. He’s at home as I write, after a terrible night’s sleep, still feeling dog rough.

Spend the evening reading “Prisoner of Azkaban”. My entire cultural life in 2002 thus far has been Harry Potter shaped. Not complaining, either!

Another day, another recommended blog. Naked Blog is written by a fiftysomething geezer who seems to spend most of his waking hours down the boozer. At times, the site reads like a gay, Scottish version of the late Jeffery Barnard's "Low Life" column in The Spectator (although at the moment, he's going through a phase of being even more obsessed with ratings than I am). It's also rather witty. However, there's also a major league dissing of 'Pidol, which I am prepared to forgive...just this once.

(Updated posting)

Those of you who have come here in eager expectation of the latest "40 Days" episode may be excited to learn that, in today's submission ("The Amsterdam Weekend"), I will at last be tackling material of an, um, adult and explicit nature. Apparently, there is quite a call for this sort of thing, and I am nothing if not eager to please. Anyhow, it's far too hot for the work PC, so you'll just have to wait until after the watershed.

On a more wholesome tip: this evening, I shall also be loading up the virtual tour of our (I'm going to have to get this gag in some time) swish cottage. So if the steamy details get too much, you can look at the soft furnishings instead.

Vanity alert! Orgy of self-congratulation ahoy! Turn back now!

This morning, I checked my all-important Blogdex ranking. I was delighted to discover that in just 13 days, I have zoomed from 12,787 to 5,785 on their "all-time link index". Now, am I hot or am I hot?! Thanks to all who have linked.

In September 2001, a most unfortunate correspondence took place between Lathbud and my dearest darling K. The salient points are reproduced below:Fast forward to last Saturday night. OldEngland and NewEngland have invited us round for a roast pheasant dinner. For our first course, we are served with pan-fried scallops, accompanied by home-grown salsify from their garden. It is a delicious combination.

When we get home, I say to K “That home-grown salsify was delicious! I don’t know why you think it’s such a cliché.”

K looks abashed. “I don’t think it’s a cliché at all.”

“But what about those e-mails you sent to Lathbud last year?”

“Ah yes, those e-mails. Actually, I had got salsify confused with samphire, which I do think has become a cliché. Only I didn’t want to admit I’d got it wrong.”

Lathbud, please accept our sincere apologies.

For reference, salsify is on the left and samphire is on the right.

The 40 in 40 Days Project.
13. The First Poem (1967)

At the tender age of five, I wrote my first poem, Swish! I have to say that it was also probably my best (you should see all the self-obsessed adolescent stuff!)

I hope you will be touched by its simple moral clarity.

Reader's Note: This is perhaps best enjoyed if read out loud, in a suitably Ivor Cutler-esque accent. Wobbly harmonium backing optional.

Swish!
by Michael, aged five.

Swish!
I’m a fish!
In a pool
So cool
Come any day
And I’ll give you a load of hay.

Said the fish
Who went swish
In that pool
So cool.

So some people came that any day
But they didn’t get their load of hay.
The fish who went swish gave them briar!
The fish who went swish is a liar!

Quote of the weekend.

“Don’t you just hate that awful dark green everyone round here uses on their exterior woodwork? Just because it’s the Tissington estate colour! There’s far too much blue in it, apart from anything else. When Richard (*) told me he had chosen it, I said to him, Richard, you just can’t! I mean, it’s John Lewis green, for goodness sake! It clashes with the trees!”

(*) Sir Richard Fitzherbert, baronet, hereditary owner of Tissington Hall and landlord of the Tissington village estate.