My dear friend Alan, who has been living in Amsterdam since the beginning of the year, really has excelled himself with this one. Take a look at his version of the Amsterdam metro map, with all the station names replaced by their anagrams, and hover your cursor over each station name for its real-life equivalent. (Background and explanation is here.)

If you think that sounds a bit dull and non-clickworthy, than all I can say is: wait until you see the station names. Oo-er!

Labels: amsterdam, friends, linkage, travel

Part 1 is here, and Part 2 is here. This will be somewhat shorter.

Long post-Cockring lie-in.
Aching bod, thick head, brave face.
Out for pad thai, in an almost deserted wok bar.

Not at my chattiest. Thankfully, Alan and I have known each other long enough to be comfortable with companionable silences.

Quick peek at the flower market; obviously not at its most colourful, although some of the stalls had still managed to rustle up some tulips from somewhere. How does that work?

Shortcut through the chi-chi fine art galleries, and on to the Rijksmuseum; currently undergoing renovation, but with a condensed "greatest hits" show on display round the back. This worked in our favour, as there was just enough to see without having to skip anything. Besides, an hour and a half is all you need at the best of times. The exhibition climaxed, inevitably, with Rembrandt's The Night Watch. Yes, I know it's a Masterpiece - but this was at least my third viewing, if not my fourth, and I still retain no abiding visual memory of it.

Tea and biscuits, bought from the grocery opposite Alan's apartment. Spotted on display by the till: cannabis flavoured lollipops, in a suitably "herbal" shade of green. You know, just so the "Little 'Uns" don't feel left out. Only in Amsterdam, eh readers?

Early evening beers in a surprisingly busy Twinksville, our ears once again battered by late 1980s/early 1990s commercial dance hits on endless shuffle. Don't twinks listen to contemporary music any more?

Goodbye hugs and thank yous, as I head off to the airport and Alan heads straight back to bed. But I thought I was trying to keep up with him, not the other way round? Ah well, no matter. That's a good couple of months worth of Gay Points usefully accrued in advance. Lovely weekend. I'll be back.

Labels: amsterdam, art, friends, journal, travel

(You might want to read Part 1 first.)

Saturday afternoon. After lunch, Alan and I wandered northwards to the temporarily relocated Stedelijk museum, now stuck out in a "post-industrial space" near the Central Station, and accessible via a series of wind-lashed pontoons. Regrettably, the museum's fine permanent collection of contemporary art was not on display. Instead, we had to make do with a load of half-baked, indifferently executed, wilfully obscure and largely clueless pile of ropey old conceptual-art-wank toss-bollocks. That most wretched and aesthetically bankrupt of genres, "video art", dominated much of the space - but it was surpassed in pointlessness by a vast installation of crudely scrawled "political" graffiti which would have shamed an SWP convention for the under-12s. However, the overall disappointment was at least redeemed by some stunningly powerful and disturbing photography, shot in South Africa and Israel, which landed some massive sucker-punches to popular perceptions of both nations.

Our cultural duties fulfilled, we rewarded ourselves with leisurely early evening drinks at the Queen's Head on Zeedijk, which connects the Central Station area with the Nieuwmarkt. The street is reassuringly chi-chi at the top end (K would have been in his element), before yielding to some funkier shops and bars, and a mini Chinatown. We liked the moderately chi-chi Queen's Head, which benefits from not being a "destination" gay venue, but more of a low-key regulars' haunt. It's the sort of place which you could visit regularly on your own with a newspaper or a book, slowly building your relationship with it.

Saturday night. Our half-hearted plans to pay brief lip-service to "coffee shop" culture ran swiftly aground, as 30 seconds inside the raucous Bulldog on Leidseplein were enough to signal that it wasn't our scene. On we trolled, to the campy bars around the Amstel, for a restorative contrast to Twinksville and the Dead Cow Zone.

Monmartre was quieter than we had led to expect - that mid-January effect again - but there was still enough residual jollity to spread around, and a much higher ratio of smiles to pouts than we had become used to.

Around the corner, the venerable Amstel Tavern instantly felt like home, with its traditional decor, its Delft mugs hanging from the ceiling, its welcoming bar staff and its camp-as-tits musical playlist. Disco-pop classics merged into singalong Dutch schlager (and boy, did people sing along), taking in a healthly dollop of Eurovision along the way (Teach-In's "Ding Dinge Dong" in its original Dutch version, woo-hoo, I have found my level at last!). Best bar yet.

Up the road and off to the west of Dam Square, it was nipple-to-nipple at Prik, the city's newest gay venue, which was celebrating its six month anniversary with half price drinks all night. A solid and seemingly impenetrable wall of flesh had to be squeezed through in order to get much more than two feet inside the doors - but we are nothing if not persistent, and minor irritations like having half a glass of lager sloshed down my cleavage weren't going to hold us back. Prik is the nearest thing that Amsterdam has to a lively and pumping Soho venue such as Bar Code, with a more cosmopolitan and recognisably Urban Gay Scene crowd to match. It is, without a doubt, the biggest Destination Venue of them all right now.

Wedged into the back bar, Alan and I spent the next couple of hours benignly observing the bobbing throng, as they jiggled their bits to an eclectic mix of classic and cheesy hits: Blondie, The Cure, Kylie, New Order, and MC Miker G & and DJ Sven's lost classic "Holiday Rap". A clump of drunken Irishmen handed out glowsticks, before brandishing inflatable guitars and roaring along to "Copacabana". Oh, it was a scene and a half.

On the way out, I remarked to Alan: You know, that would have been most people's idea of sheer bloody Hell, and I can't even explain why I enjoyed it. I mean, all we did was stand there with drinks in our hands while getting pushed and shoved by a crowd of total strangers - and yet it was great. What's that all about?

The night ended back in - oh look, shall I just spell it out this time - COCKRING. There, I've said it. Cockring. We went to a club called Cockring. Is everybody here OK with that? More of the same, only for longer. Heaps of fun. But let's not dwell, eh?

(I'll wrap this up tomorrow.)

Labels: amsterdam, art, bars, clubs, friends, gay, journal, travel

Try as I might to deny that I'm getting a little too old for Good Old Fashioned Big Gay Weekends, every nerve and synapse is currently telling me otherwise. Pack it in, Grandad, they screech, woundingly.

But I still have my drives and my juices, I protest, unconvincingly. And anyway, look at Alan. He's got a couple more miles on the clock than me, and he can still do it.

Yes, but even Alan knows when to call it a night. Remind us, what time did you leave the club on Sunday morning? 5am, wasn't it? So what was that all about?

Oh, but I'm incorrigible. It's that blasted Second Wind, coupled with the feeling that since I don't get out much any more, I should try and squeeze every last drop of experience from the situation. And now, as Michael "Mouse" Tolliver once memorably said in Tales Of The City, I am all Gayed Out. Don't want to get within sniffing distance of those awful places - at least not until the next time that our newly depleted gang congregates in the Lord Roberts for one of our midweek sessions.

Here's where we went.

Friday night. We commenced our tour of inspection on Reguliersdwarsstraat: the spiritual home of Amsterdam's twink brigade. Think Kouros, think CK1, think... well, what is the fragrance of choice for the C21st twink, anyway? I am out of touch with such matters.

The Soho bar was all faux-antiquity and "repro" stylings, with all the charm and individuality of a Wetherspoons or an All Bar One. Their attempt at cosiness was fatally sabotaged by the deafening soundtrack: a numbing parade of late 1980s and early 1990s commercial dance music, which set the musical tone for most of the weekend. Those Dutch queens sure do be loving their Crystal Waters, their Rozalla, their early-period Whitney 'n Mariah.

The April bar has expanded since my last visit, and is now dominated by three vast circular bars, with seating around each circumference. This doesn't work too well, as the arrangement puts too much distance between each punter, and the in-between areas feel like wasted space. Consequently, the ambience felt a little too stark, remote, impersonal.

Over the road, the newish Arc bar was packing them in. It is clearly one of the major Destination Venues, attracting an arrestingly high number of stylishly turned out beauties. We stood, we gawped, we paid all due deference.

A couple of doors down, Exit is one of the city's only two gay dance clubs. It hasn't changed at all in the 17 years since my first visit - but on a Friday night in the middle of January, numbers were somewhat thin on the ground. We hung out in the bar at the top of the main stairs, waiting for the late surge - but when none materialised, we moved on, leaving the antiseptic comforts of Twinksville behind for the sleazy raunch of Warmoestraat.

Most of the Warmoestraat bars are destined forever to be closed doors to me, catering as they do for the Dead Cow brigade. I don't have the outfits, and would hate for my Paul Smith stripes to cause an outbreak of mass detumescence. However, the city's second gay dance club is situated halfway up the street, and despite its somewhat alarming name (which modesty precludes me from spelling out), its relaxed door policy welcomes all comers (ahum) to the party. Dance floor in the basement (pretty decent dubby funky house), bar in the middle, and yup-you've-guessed-it on the top floor. Despite the undeniable sexual crackle in the air, we found this to be the most relaxed and unpretentious venue of the night.

Saturday daytime. Alan and I hooked up with Caroline for coffee in the Nieuwmarkt district, followed by a long, lazily paced and delicious lunch at a nearby Chinese/Japanese restaurant. (Bubble tea, that's a new one on me. I particularly liked the tight little jelly tapioca balls at the bottom of the glass, which you suck up through your straw.) Special mention should also be made of the the steamed (?) oysters with ginger, finely chopped shallots and soy sauce, as recommended by Caroline. They were sensational.

To be concluded on the morrow. In the meantime, take a look at Alan's account of the weekend.

Labels: amsterdam, bars, clubs, friends, gay, journal, travel

1. Towards the end of our New Year’s Eve “safari supper”, the six of us were joined by J the church warden (who had missed his flight to Pisa due to the massive security queues at Gatwick airport., but I’m not here to talk about that; “return to work” day is grim enough as it is, so let’s focus on the Nice Things). At five minutes to midnight, glasses in hand, we traipsed out of OldEngland and NewEngland’s cottage, through the church yard next door, and into the village church itself – where J unlocked the door, climbed the stairs to the carillon, bonged the bells for midnight, and knocked out a quick impromptu rendition of Auld Lang Syne into the bargain, as the rest of us chinked and hugged below. Best NYE midnight moment ever!

2. “Dressage Diva” A and I have settled on three pieces of music for her forthcoming competition, subject to final approval from the horse. Professional confidentiality forbids me from disclosing our choices – but I can reveal that we have chosen a jazzy, swingy, Blue Note-y direction, with all electronics and drum machines firmly ruled out, as metronome-strict rhythms don’t suit this particular horse’s swishy, sassy gait. The next step is to re-edit the music to match the floor plan, and to sequence it into a seamless five-minute suite, with as little abruptness as possible between the tempo changes.

3. Out in the PDMG, a local woodpecker has started nibbling our nuts on a regular basis (we hang them from the malus tree which faces the kitchen window). Never having seen a real life woodpecker before, I have been getting VERY EXCITED about this. Wide-eyed child of nature, me.

4. Congratulations to my darling sister, whose Suzi Quatro impersonation won her the New Year’s Eve “Stars in Their Eyes” competition in her local pub. Apparently, there is a video clip. No, you can’t.

5. All those long, lazy lie-ins. Cups of tea going cold beside the bed, as we read, or doze, or surf, occasionally making well-intentioned but half-hearted muttering noises about Getting On With The Day. Given half the chance, I reckon we could cheerfully live like that indefinitely. Sigh. January the second's a right bugger, intit?

Labels: cottage, dressage, family, friends, journal, lists, pdmg

1. Seen the Puppini Sisters, at a Halloween "burlesque" evening down The Social.

This was one of those nights when I find myself thinking, "Writing teeny-tiny gig reviewlets for t'local paper: is it really worth standing around in the oppressive heat, for hours on end, bored and restless, and unable to pass the time by drinking more than the statutory maximum of two pints of lager (even half a pint extra, and Drunkard's Block sets in; been there, tried that, got the shit article to prove it), when the headline act in question turns out to as underwhelming as this lot?"

I'd say more - but I know you don't come here for the music, so I shan't. Suffice it to say that the Puppini Sisters - an immaculately coiffed and maquillaged trio of not-actually-siblings, who specialise in mixing Andrews Sisters standards with Andrews-ified novelty covers of modern pop numbers (Wuthering Heights, Heart Of Glass, Panic), who would have been fine as a three-minute interlude on a TV chat show, and might have been OK in a swishy cabaret bar, with proper chairs and tables and waiters and stuff - were utterly unsuited to performing in a packed, sweaty rock venue, at half past eleven on a Tuesday night, to a glammed-up but rapidly wilting crowd whose Halloweeny goodwill had been gradually eroded by a succession of alternately amateurish and ill-matched support acts, and by a tedious and unjustifiable forty-five minute wait with nothing to do except get into fractious arguments with each other (just behind us), or faint (just in front of us).

(Did you enjoy that last sentence? I know I did.)

Anyhow, Alan at Reluctant Nomad (currently enjoying his second massive traffic spike in a month, and really quite the belle of the Internet these days, not that it will change him in any way, oh dear me no, although 18,000 page views in a day would certainly turn my head, at least just a little) has posted his own report - and also some photos of the sexy ginger-haired double bass player, who made our ordeal so much more bearable. (Note: Don't get too excited. He was heaps better in the flesh.)

2. Collapsed in a heap in front of the telly for two days.

Finding myself possessed of an overhwelming desire to be horizontal, with an achey breaky bod to match, I promptly excused myself from all professional commitments, and spent a perversely agreeable couple of days watching old movies, in a fuzzed-out swoon of grateful surrender.

(Best movie: The Card, starring Alec Guinness. Biggest let-down: Our Man In Havana, also starring Alec Guinness. Those afternoon schedulers on TCM and More4 sure do be liking their Alec Guinness movies.)

3. Had a Good Old Fashioned Big Gay Night Out In Nottingham.

"Oh! I'm in town on a Friday night! Oh, and K's away! Well, I must Go Out On The Scene, then! It's my duty! I'm not ready for the knacker's yard just yet, ha ha! Maybe they'll play the Scissor Sisters! Maybe I'll dance! Maybe someone will flirt with me! Even though I've got my specs on! Or "cruising shields", as I call them, ha ha! Not that I care one way or the other, of course! I'm beyond all that!"

Thus did I rage against the dying of the light. At some length. With Belle of the Internet Alan ("Whoops, Mind My Spike!") and Nurse Alan - and special guest TGI Paul, up from London for the weekend.

4. Attended a Big Old Birthday Blogmeet in London.

I really must stop getting totally bladdered on the night before "society" blogmeets, such as the one held in honour of Andre's 40th birthday, last Saturday afternoon/evening. That way, I wouldn't have to spend the first hour telling everyone how knackered I was and how little sleep I'd had, and that I was "running on empty", and "faking it". No-one likes to be told that the person they're talking to is "faking it", do they?

However, by setting expectations of social fabulousness at rock bottom, I was actually freeing myself from the anxiety which they could have induced. This turned out to be quite an effective strategy, and one which I could usefully bear in mind for the future.

And so, one pint of lager later, and thus restored to full functionality, I was working the room like the hoary old tart that I am. Damn, but it was great to see some of my bestest blogpals again - and equally, to meet others for the first time. It was a good mix in that respect - and, indeed, in every respect.

Shall we do a roll-call? Or will it just turn into one of those icky displays of linky-love, that can be so off-putting when you don't know the people concerned?

Nah, let's do a roll-call. In alphabetical order, so that people don't start reading things into randomness. (We're a sensitive bunch.) Off we go!

Abby "One Track" Lee.
"I don't know what I should be calling her", someone said to me during the course of the afternoon. "Do I say Abby, or [real name], or Girl, or what?"

"Well, Andre calls her One Track. Why not go with that?"

As was only right and proper, One Track and I got to share a couple of agreeably fruity exchanges along the way. One was at my instigation, involved webcams, and contained the punchline "So what was I supposed to do: reply to them with my nose?" More than that, I am not at liberty to divulge. You'll have to invent your own middle bit.

The other was at One Track's instigation, and concerned itself with the lamentable lack of lube-awareness within the heterosexual community. (I didn't realise that it was ever required for front-door action - but then, why would I? My sexual knowledge operates mainly on a need-to-know basis.)

On my return journey, I noticed that One Track's worthy little tome is currently at Number Two in the "best sellers" display at the St. Pancras station branch of WH Smith. Awesome or what!

Andre Revolution.
Birthday Boy Andre was showered with cards and compact-sized gift-ettes - a "Head Boy" badge here, a freshly laid farm egg there - and from me, a hand-crafted CD entitled (wait for it) A Beautiful Compilation. (My days of sighing semi-recumbence were not entirely unproductive, then.)

If you would like to assemble your own copy of A Beautiful Compilation, then you will need the following ingredients.(Yes, an "emotional journey". Well spotted, you.)

Anna P Boat.
Anna had a box of those little mini-photo-card things that you can get done off Flickr, and I have to say that they were absolutely gorgeous. I've never quite got the appeal of Flickr (especially when people stick Flickr pics on their blogs - they're so SLOW), but these little card things were enough to make me want to go off and take hundreds of photos, like, tomorrow or something.

Ann Pixeldiva.
Last time I saw Pix, it was in a "jazz curry" joint at Archway. We didn't chat for long enough this time, but you know how these things can be.

Anxious. (whose write-up is here)
I've been following Status Anxiety ever since the previous time we met (over a year ago), so Anxious was one of the people that I was particularly looking forward to seeing. We talked about all sorts, including - what else? - that ole devil called Anxiety. (She actually comes across as rather self-assured in real life, lest you should think otherwise. But I don't want to burst any bubbles. Invisible inner anx is still anx. Hell, I should know.)

Cheerful One. (who refers to the event, albeit obliquely, here)
I might be wrong, but Cheerful One was the only person at the meet that I don't recall even so much as saying "Hello" to. Bah! It's always the ones that get away that come back to haunt you...

Clare Boob Pencil.
Clare told us a long and involved story concerning her train journey to London, a sewing kit, various defective items of clothing, and a number of costume changes in the train's toilets. A little while later, she re-emerged in a different top. Is this evidence of some sort of compulsive costume changing syndrome?

Damian of Our Albion and Universal Critic. (whose write-up is here)
We had quite a long chat - but I was three pints down by that stage, and my memory had switched to RealPlayer streaming mode.

Girl on a Train.
She was on that bit of the table that I never quite managed to infiltrate, so we didn't do much more than wave and smile at each other.

Greavsie. (who avoids the subject here)
He got caught in the crossfire of my self-instigated and unpublishable webcam-related exchange with One Track - but coped with it manfully, I thought. Unlike someone else, of whom more in a bit...

Hydragenic.
Hg has been a Gentleman of Leisure for most of this year. I deeply envy his freedom, and the the unflustered serenity which it seems to have elicited.

JonnyB. (whose write-up is here)
We talked about blog sponsorship, and the Googlejuice which a carefully placed hyperlink can induce. (Until I linked to K's company's website with the words "canine cancer" the other day, the site was languishing in the 40s for the term in question. A couple of days later, it had shot up to fourth position. We bloggers don't always know what we're sitting on.)

Later on, as One Track and I steered our lube-based discussion onto foreskin-related territory (do circumcised cocks need more lube than uncut cocks?), something inside this sheltered East Anglian diarist cracked. Why, you could have heard his howl of trapped anguish all the way up to Covent Garden tube. How unlike the stoic sang froid demonstrated by Greavsie (see above). We do put our str8 boyz through the mill sometimes!

Karen Uborka, Pete Dot Nu and Baby Bernard.
As has been well documented, Baby Bernard could be said to owe his very existence to a blogmeet. The first baby of British blogging looked thrilled to be amongst us all, and gurgled merrily throughout. The cutest and most sunny-natured baby you ever did see - and I don't even like babies, so I speak without prejudice in this matter.

Leonie. (whose write-ups are here and here)
Again, we didn't really get past the nodding and smiling stage. She really is a very lovely looking lady, though. Is it OK to say that? Well, she is, dammit! I'm a big old poof-arse, I can say these things.

Mark Britblog-Technoranki.
"Are you here to arrange us all into alphabetical order?", I quipped, facetiously. Mark has just taken his fledgling Technoranki service to the next level - meaning that those of us Britbloggers who have registered with the site and added his thingy to our template now get a nice little PageRank graphic, and the chance to qualify for the Technoranki Top 200 chart. And as you should all know by now, I ain't half a sucker for a good chart. Especially one that puts me at Number... well, never mind about that.

Meg P Meish.
"I felt like a Betamax in a room full of DVDs", says the pioneering first-waver whom I have come to regard as the Dowager Duchess of British blogging. No, no, no. As Damian says in her comments box: Meg is like vinyl in a sea of MP3s. Wish she'd stayed longer; it had been ages, and I fancied a good long chat.

Mimi in New York.
Accompanied by her intrepid polar explorer boyfriend, and looking dazzling in a white woollen dress, Mimi was the afternoon's surprise guest. We could have chatted for much longer, were it not for the impertinent demands of a lager-swollen bladder (on my part) and the lure of Borat (on her part). We talked about her forthcoming book, and of the difficulties of sticking to one's literary guns when others would rather you dumbed down and sexed up.

Non-Working Monkey. (who briefly mentions the occasion here)
"Oh, you're Non-Working Monkey!", I exclaimed, brightly. "You're quite the Hot Blog of the moment, aren't you? Everyone keeps saying how good you are, and linking to you, and..."

"AAAARGH!", she squirmed, with what I took to be equal measures of embarrassment and delight. "Will people STOP SAYING THAT!"

Shiz good though, intshi? Are you reading her yet? Everybody else is!

Petite Anglaise. (whose write-up is here)
After Petite appeared on Richard and Judy a few months ago, we enjoyed a little e-mail exchange, during which she admitted that she "had kittens in the dressing room". As I reminded her, I then spent a full twenty-four hours thinking that Petite really did have real, live kittens in her dressing room, in best Mariah Carey diva-style - until K gently suggested that maybe, just maybe, she was using a figure of speech. I can be worryingly literal-minded at times.

Rachel Frizzy-Logic.
We talked world music, as we usually do, and I said "Have you heard of Tartit?" At which point, our high-minded cultural exchange somewhat collapsed in on itself. Hee hee, Tartit! Their new album's good, though...

Robin Parent.
We spent quite some time reverentially invoking the spirit of Peter @ Naked Blog, and its recent feline off-shoot. Have you seen Peter's debut vidcast yet? A master class in semi-inebriated eloquence, so it is...

Tim "Free Man In" Preston. (whose write-up is here)
Winner of the Best Personal Blog award at the recent inaugural Manchester Blog Awards, no less. Such exalted company we keep these days...

Unlucky Man.
Had to disappear early, due to reasons amply documented elsewhere. The "living up to the name of his blog" gag has been done as well. Hey ho!

Here is a photo of five of the above-mentioned attendees. Can you spot who is who?

(I have done other things in the last week-and-a-bit, but we'll be here all night. Part Two soon come.)

Labels: blogmeets, blogs, cliquey, clubs, friends, journal, popmusic