BY JAMES BEMBRIDGE It’s 11:30 am, the telephone is calling for attention again. Of what and with whom I did last night, I can remember not a sodding thing. I reach with trembling hands for the whisky. After nights of drink, I feel the need to pour another just before negotiating with the mirror, and, as I do, I tell myself I can’t live on … Continue reading Lost Boys
BY JAMES BEMBRIDGE On my third listen to the recording, I accepted there was nothing to hear. Words, words, torrents of words and none worthwhile. How did it happen? How could the most boring interview of my life have been with a prostitute? For months, I had skirted the borders of iniquity in search of a story so ugly as to be unprintable. A revolt … Continue reading Gabriel
BY GARY MCGHEE It was May 1997. Blair had recently entered No.10. A new dawn had broken (had it not?) and an even more important dawn had broken for me. Only this one was set to truly transform my life. I met my Baby Bear. We stared at each other across the bar of Compton’s in Old Compton Street, Soho, a smoke-filled, drunk-addled sleaze-pit as … Continue reading The Queer is Dead
BY GARY MCGHEE There have been a lot of dramas made for TV and film in recent times that have Gay love stories at their centre. They raise important issues about the way these kinds of stories are now presented and what they mean in terms of young Gay identities and lives. I’ve focused on those that I think have much to commend them, but … Continue reading The Limitations of Wokery
BY GARY MCGHEE Love yourself. Two little words with a very big meaning. All else flows from them, the trajectory of your life, the meaning of it, the truths, the experiences, the decisions you make, the sense of your place in the world and what you can achieve in it. Without self-love you are bereft, compromised, emotionally undone, adrift, fated to not live a life … Continue reading Heartbreak Mountain
BY GARY MCGHEE In 1993 I wrote a dissertation for my Masters Degree at Nottingham University. It was titled ‘Men and Self-Esteem’. It was well-researched, packed with salient references and the external examiners said that it was one of the best dissertations they had ever read. (Not bad for a working-class bloke who left school at 16 with good O-Levels, in order to get a … Continue reading Hypocrisy Knows No Bounds
BY TARQUIN SUTHERLAND It’s enough to makes one’s heart swell. The curse has been lifted, and now everyone in the nation can start believing in miracles. The lads of the England football team dug deep and broke their duck… the sight of our boys finally winning a penalty shootout made the nation’s hearts swell as one! Well – almost. Pride. This Saturday shall see a … Continue reading Pride
BY JON ALEXANDER Yes, it’s possible, you can be gay and right wing. Shocking I know, gay guys are supposed to be caring and effeminate and the darlings of the left, adored for our fashion sense, fabulous humour and sadly attitudes. Why wouldn’t we vote Labour, the party that strives to defend us against evil homophobes that think we shouldn’t be allowed to have any … Continue reading Gay & Tory
BY JON ALEXANDER Yes, I’m single, and it’s great! I genuinely don’t mind it and my life is perfectly fine without a partner in it. Yet confess to someone that is in a relationship that you’re single and you get those pity eyes, maybe even a pat on the hand or shoulder and those everlastingly patronising words “don’t worry, you’ll meet someone one day” – … Continue reading Happy & Single
