Love me, love my iPad

OK, so I admit it, I am as a friend described me on Facebook, a "big techy apple obsessed computer nerd". Actually, not completely apple obsessed. I still haven't gone over to the dark side and gone Mac. I can't prise myself away from my PC games (see, how nerdy can I be if I play games on a PC instead of a WII? Oh wait, that IS nerdy!) and the other day was only the first time I saw all four of my beloved games; City of Heroes, Civilization IV, Rollercoaster Tycoon III and Sims 3 ALL available for Mac. (I admit, I did pee myself, just a little bit right there and then and had to stop myself asking the sales girl about a macbook pro). But then to be honest, that was a day for weeing with excitement, because you see dear reader, that was the day I bought my iPad.

Oh my god I love it. It's beautiful. Truly.
Did I need it? Of course not.
Did I want it? Desperately.

 I'd convinced myself I didn't want one. That it was a super-sized iPhone and that I had no use for it. My self-delusion lasted right through the build up and well into the hype. Until I touched it for the first time. Slid my fingertips across it's sleek, shiny screen. Playfully flicked it's apps from left to right, held it's weight in the palm of my hand and caressed it's hard covering. Mmmmmmmmmm. It felt good. It felt right.

When leaving the store after that first fateful meeting, I forcefully convinced myself that I could resist, that it was a mild flirtation with no possibility of long term commitment. The second time I drank in its sexy, sleek lines I knew there was no going back. I had to have one. I want to tell you it was because of the amazing functionality, that the iPad can do things neither my laptop nor my iPhone can do, that the apps are exceptional, the screen resolution phenomenal and if I told you these things I wouldn't be lying, they're just not the reasons why I craved it so.

Of course it's about status but it's also the fact that I travel soooooo much and need the entertainment factor. Bullshit. It's about desire. And Messrs. Ive and Jobs have done a fabulous job at building an empire based on feeding that desire.

One trip to New York, a stoking of my need by a handsome, silver tongued salesman and a saving of £80 later and the device of my dreams was sequestered in my bag where it's been ever since. When asked why I carry it with me everywhere I go, I explain "I'm like a new mother, my iPad's not yet two weeks old, I couldn't possibly leave it alone!".
But my iPad and I both know the truth: I'm addicted. Well and truly. And addiction is bliss.

Gay Icons of the 21st century

What makes an Icon? Does an Icon need to be representative of the entire collective, or is it OK for a panel of people to get together and decide for us?
This week in the Independent an interesting article surfaced, telling us gays just who our icons are.


"A panel of high-profile gay figures including Sir Elton John, Billie Jean King, Lord Ali and Sir Ian McKellen have selected 60 of their most inspirational figures, be they openly lesbian, gay, straight, bisexual, repressed or none of the above, to feature in an exhibition opening at the National Portrait Gallery in London in July..."
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/the-top-gay-icons-straight-up-1655362.html

I have mixed sentiments about the panel to start with. Elton John, is hardly representative of the mainstream Gay community. His infamous tantrums, gaudy display of wealth and self-aggrandising pontifications aside, the man recently sang for Rush Limbaugh, one of America's most obnoxious, right wing, hate filled shock-jocks, at his fourth wedding (yes he's adamant that marriage is sacred and therefore for heterosexuals only, hence him generously and repeatedly demonstrating how to get married, just in case his red-neck followers haven't figured out how to do it yet). http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/jun/08/elton-john-rush-limbaugh
Whether Elton John's fee went to the Elton John Aids Foundation or not, his choice of donor certainly is not representative of the views of the majority of Gays I know in the States, let alone here in the UK. I'd argue that his choice of Gay Icon isn't exactly representative either: Elton, wrapped up in his own little world, elected his (straight) lyricist Bernie Taupin as Gay Icon.  Seriously. Unless you're a fan, would you know who Bernie Taupin is? Thought not. Clearly Elton considers his music to be of great cultural importance to the gay community and Mr Taupin's contribution therefore must also be recognised. Sheesh!
That said, the inclusion of the likes of Joe Orton, Virginia Woolf and Bessie Smith are welcome, if only to highlight a sense of gay cultural history.


Weirdly enough, there once was a time when we were told that the Wombles were the new gay icon. 
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/sandy-nairne-they-dont-begin-and-end-with-kylie-minogue-and-judy-garland-1655363.html

Admittedly, this was back in 2000 when we were just getting over the Y2K panic (our brains must have been scrambled) and we were being informed by Jeremy Joseph a club promoter here in London and Boyz magazine, a gay rag aimed at twinks, muscle marys and other sceney types (seriously, if you get your information from ridiculous sources, your information is going to be ridiculous - Fox watchers take note). I love the irony of a group of furry, portly types being the Gay Icons of the mainstream, preened and waxed gay scene, while the Bear community's idols include muscled, ripped A-list-bears, their fur carefully tweezed and plucked to acceptable levels (overheard in a bear bar recently: "I love fur I do and I know I shouldn't care, but when it's on their backs, ugh!" and this from the hairiest man in sight). 


So, at least this new list includes real people, rather than fictitious characters, whether they are of true iconic status or otherwise. It makes for an interesting list and I'll go see the exhibition and report back...


In the mean time, feel free to comment, letting me know who your gay icons are. Tom Ford, Jonathon Ive, even Stefani Germanotta spring to mind more readily than Uncle Bulgaria (he's the leader of the Wombles, my US friends). Maybe it's time we created our own list...

Shut up I can't hear!

I hate using my phone in public. Mainly because I'm hyper sensitive to sounding like Dom Joly and looking like a general twat. I believe everyone else should be wary of this too, though if your conversation is either a) at a normal volume or b) interesting enough to ear-wig on, then fill your boots I say.
So imagine how pissed I am now:
I'm sat on the train and have just had to terminate a call because I couldn't hear the woman on the other end. Why? Because the man opposite me is shouting into his phone so loudly it's drowning out the noise of the train, the boy with the loud headphones and the crying baby (who incidentally woke up after his call started).
For god's sake man, it's a mobile phone, akin to the one at home in every sense other than it's mobility. Would you bray into your land-line causing the next door neighbour to bang on the wall and complain? No.
So get a little phone etiquette. We don't care that you've stopped smoking and your voice is going and I really don't need to know what time you're going to be arriving at your little meeting: stop bloody shouting into your phone. Its a sophisticated little device able to amplify your nasal twang enough for your caller to hear you.
It is NOT a pair of yoghurt pots and a piece of string!

On gays, community and family...

Growing up as a baby gay there was one thing drummed into me by my elder peers, 'They may never let you get married, they'll tell you you can never have kids, but you'll always have the gay community, we're your new family now'. In many ways back in 1990 this was true: The homo-hating Tories were in power (so full circle there then), the age of consent for gay men was 21 (16 for hetties), Section 28 banned the 'promotion' of homosexuality in schools forcing LGB (there was no T back then, in fact they were in the process of adding the B and it was causing much debate) support groups to disband for fear of prosecution and AIDS was still known as God's Gay Plague, 'advertised' with large forboding tombstones forewarning our impending doom. For many young gay men in the late eighties and early nineties, the gay scene really was our family. It was a community that supported, educated and looked after its own.

I remember being told which books and plays to read (Radclyffe Hall's the Well of loneliness, Plato's Symposium, Larry Kramer's Faggots amongst many others), which clubs to go to, which bars to avoid, how to say no to someone without causing offence, skills and knowledge that would ease my transition through gay adolescence and enrich my life. I remember thinking how lucky I was to have such generous 'gay parents' in Simon and Ashley... Back then, there was still a palpable sense of belonging that went with coming out onto 'the scene', that you'd finally come home, that there was a tradition and a culture that you now belonged to.

Recently I was talking with friends about their plans for Pride this year. Half way through the discussion a friend stopped and said "Isn't it funny that everyone around the world throws Pride festivals at the same time..?" I stopped in my tracks. "Err surely, you're joking right?" Except he wasn't. Gay Pride festivals are thrown as close to June 27th as possible to commemorate the beginning of the Gay Liberation movement. More specifically, this was the night of Judy Garland's funeral, the night when a group of drag queens, hippies and street kids, sick and tired of police raids on their bars, stood up and fought back after a raid on the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, New York. I'd expected my friend to know this, after all he's only a year or two younger than me, it took place in his country not mine and surely his Gay Parents would have taught him... Except he hadn't had any. In fact, most gay people of my age I know, didn't. Most of them came out in their early twenties during the late nineties (I came out at 16) and by this time the Gay Train was no longer underground but about to go mainstream, as such the need for a young gay guy to be taken under the wing of an older queen and shown the ropes was well and truly a thing of the past. So what happenned to cause this shift?

It's obvious I guess. The Labour government in the UK has repealed Maggie's Hateful Acts and given almost complete equality to the LGBT community (let's not forget, while we have Civil Unions, they're not marriages - all people are equal but some are more equal than others), society at large has become more tolerant. It's no longer the norm for parents to disown their children upon learning of their sexuality (though sadly it still happens - google gay teen suicide UK for tragic results), gay couples adopt or have children of their own, are voted into positions of power - (my mate Johnnie is now Camden's mayor - OK it's not supreme power, but here's a shout out anyway! http://news.pinkpaper.com/NewsStory.aspx?id=3069 )  I'm fortunate in that I never suffered the rejection of my family upon coming out. In fact, my Mother, Father, siblings, cousins, grandparents, aunts, uncles, all have been incredibly supportive. Yet I would say that my family consists not just of these blood relatives, but of friends I have met around the world, from the early days in Nottingham, to Sydney, Chicago, New York and of course London and the UK. I have a feeling that this is the same for a lot of my peers, but I wonder whether this general acceptance by society, the acceptance of gay children and siblings by their families is eradicating the need for and the reinforcement of a gay 'community'? And sadly taking our sense of history with it? Can we as a community take our place in greater society and yet maintain our sense of self, like the black community in the US with Black History month, or do we even want/need to? My fear is that when you look at history we see tolerance and liberalism wax and wane: If we forget our history, our struggles and achievements as a community, we will be in danger of taking our current liberties for granted, and then of course we will be forever one step away from losing them.

Banning the Burqa - a question of freedom

It's very rare for me not to have an opinion on something, especially when that something involves religion and freedom of choice. So picture this, I'm sat in a restaurant in New York having dinner with three good friends, Nathan, Hal and George. I don't remember who brought it up, probably me, but I asked for their opinions regarding France banning the Burqa, as at the time I felt unsure as to what my opinion was.

For those who might not know, France has already banned all face coverings in schools as part of a law banning the ḥijāb (arabic for 'covering' - not necessarily a face covering -see pic, ḥijāb usually refers to head-scarves, although according to Islamic scholarship, ḥijāb in the Qur'an is given the wider meaning of modesty, privacy and morality; the word for a headscarf or veil used in the Qur'an is khimār) and other conspicuous religious symbols. This would include large crosses, jewish headscarves and other visible signs of faith. Personally I can't see the point in this. The whole point of education for me is to provide children with the ability to question, challenge and understand. When it comes to questions of faith what better way of having them discover other religions than to have them asking the person stood at the front of their class why they cover their hair, or why they have a star or cross hanging from their neck, for example. But I digress.

Currently on the cards in France, actually approved by the French cabinet and awaiting parliamentary approval, is a new law aimed at banning the wearing of clothes in public designed to hide the face.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/europe/10129324.stm

The measure notably creates a new offense, "inciting to hide the face," and anyone convicted of forcing a woman to wear such a veil risks a year in prison and a €15,000 ($18,555) fine, according to a copy of the text which says that "France's founding tenets of liberty, equality and fraternity, values that guarantee the "social pact" are at stake"

I'll come back to this point in a moment, but first let's look at the religious perspective.

There are a lot of articles flying around the web suggesting that the Qur'an doesn't actually say that women need to cover their bodies, so I wanted to add what I have read in the Qur'an regarding this (I have an app with the whole thing on my iPhone - I figure before you criticise something you should know it inside and out). 

Firstly the mention of ḥijāb in reference to women comes in directives on how the Prophet's followers should speak to his (the Prophet's) wives - "through a ḥijāb", Arabic for a covering or veil - this suggests that something akin to a sheet be hung separating the two groups to protect the women's modesty - it also dictates that doing so is the responsibility of the men. Qur'an 33:53 

Scholars believe that at the time there were a large crowd living in the vicinity near to where the Prophet lived, there to see and listen to the Prophet and as such this ḥijāb would allow him to maintain a sense or separateness between his followers and his wives.

Secondly, nowhere else in the Qur'an does it suggest ḥijāb in relation to women's dress, in fact it only mentions it in this way relating to the Prophet's wives explicitly. However there are several passages that refer to a woman clothing herself to protect her modesty even going so far as to specify that she cloak herself when in public and that she cover her chest and neckline specifically. Qur'an 33:59, 24:31, 

So despite no specific reference to a garment, or indeed to how far the ḥijāb should go (there is mention of the Prophet specifying hands and face are exempt from covering in the Hadith - a collection of the sayings of the Prophet, but not in the Qur'an - the writings of the Prophet himself),  it would appear that there is enough evidence to suggest that according to the Qur'an traditional head-scarves would be a requirement of practicing Muslim women, if only to cover the neckline. Of course, just like Christianity there are various ideas of what the relevant 'holy texts' mean. And anyway in France's case, the law seeks to eradicate facial coverings like the Burqa or Chadri not other forms of ḥijāb.

So as I said at the beginning, I asked around for people's opinions including my three friends at dinner.

Hal suggested that this was one step away from banning the Jewish headscarf and infringing on the liberties of other religious groups and he quoted Martin Niemöller's statement from WWII:

First, they came for the communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for me and by that time no one was left to speak up

Hal made a valid point, but my cousin when asked was able to put another popular side to the debate - when a western woman visits a Muslim country, out of respect for the customs and culture of that country she covers her shoulders, wears a long(er) skirt and in certain countries like Saudi Arabia for example, will go out in public accompanied by a man she knows. It only stands to reason that when visiting a secular country, a Muslim woman should expect to show her face... 
While this statement definitely reflects the French sentiment that wearing a Burqa goes against French values, it's hard to see how expressing your faith by concealing your face damages the tenets upon which French society was constructed. Indeed banning the right for a woman to wear what she chooses would seem to do greater damage to the tenets of liberty and equality to say the least. 


The most important argument for me surrounds the oppression of women and the role the state plays in protecting its citizens. While at Selfridge's I worked with an amazing young woman Sameera. 

She was from a very liberal Muslim family and had chosen to wear the ḥijāb as an expression of her own personal faith. Neither her Mother or sister did and her Father had frowned upon the idea initially. I had many conversations with Sameera about Islam, her faith, my sexuality, my being raised Catholic and she was confident, self assured, articulate and more than able to demonstrate her personal beliefs as exactly that, her own. I am sure that were she in Paris she would have been with the demonstrating Muslim women last week (above right). One woman was quoted in the press as saying she had covered her face with a veil for 10 years and that because she is divorced and raising her children alone no one "can say this is imposed on me."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100519/ap_on_re_eu/eu_france_forbidding_the_veil
I guess my argument boils down to this: What we're really talking about is a fear of 'them'. Them being different to us. This is clear when people feel comfortable saying, 'I don't trust them because I can't see their face', they're frightened that what lies beneath the Burqa is different to what lies beneath their own skin.We can't admit this however, and so we talk about women's rights instead. 
I agree that some Muslim women may well be coerced into wearing the veil, but should we deny other women the right to chose that for themselves, just to make us feel that little bit safer about what lies beneath the veil? If greater integration and participation in society is our aim for the Muslims among us, is it going to be achieved by ostracising them and making a martyr of their faith? Surely education, inclusion and tolerance are the way forward?


Johan Hari wrote an as usual, enlightened article last week looking at among other things the effect of demonstrating values of tolerance, freedom and justice in the independent last week, "To give one example of many, Majid Nawaz was in prison for being part of a hardcore Islamist plot to try to topple the governments of Egypt and Pakistan and seize its nukes – but when Amnesty International campaigned to protect him from torture, he realised the "Infidel" were rescuing him, because we have strong moral principles of our own. Now he is one of the most articulate campaigning enemies of Islamism".
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-islamists-their-victims-and-hypocrisy-1977424.html
Surely demonstrating these principles would be a far more effective way of encouraging integration. While we're at it we might learn a little about ourselves and how we live those values while we do it.

How to follow my blog

Like most people, I have a fairly healthy sized ego.
It's fuelled by being told I'm sexy, mega make-out sessions and people listening attentively to what I have to say.

And YOU can help! Well, with the last part anyway.
Simply look over there on the right - you'll see a little click button with the option to 'follow'. If you have a google account (and if not, why not, gmail, google chrome, blogspot etc, etc. get with it people!) then you can be notified as to when I blog and I can see who's interested in what I'm posting.

Also, leaving comments helps, down there at the bottom of this posting- I never said I was self-motivated!

IN ALL SERIOUSNESS - I've been working on that book thing that's been hanging about the last few years and one of the ways to get publisher interest is by having a blog, preferably one that's 'followed' by lots of people. Who knew that publishing was one big popularity contest?!

So come, on follow me and I promise I'll be funny, entertaining, current and if not these, at least ranty...

Religion, Race and Homophobia - why I am what I am.

I realise several of my rants have been on Religion and Homophobia and no doubt several more will be too. So I wanted to paint a scene for you to help you understand my perspective.

Let's step back in time to 1910 or so. My Great-Grandfather Joseph Ashby, left Barbados and worked his passage over to the UK on a merchant navy ship. I know very little about him other than a few facts, he had a sister called Frances I think and when my Great-Uncle went to Barbados to track his father's family armed with the same scant information, the locals laughed at him - Ashby, having been a plantation owner's name, was as common a surname in Barbados as Smith was in England, and in the large Catholic community, the names Frances and Joseph were common too. What we do know however, was that by the standards of the day he was considerably older than the wife he married soon after, my Great-Gran and that he was black. These two things at this time would have singled the newlyweds out as different from the norm. Not that mixed marriages were illegal (unlike the US at this time), but they were far from commonplace. My Great-Grandfather died during the second world war and my Great-Gran was always elusive with the details of their marriage and courtship providing some speculation regarding her age at the time - marriage at that time was illegal for anyone under 21 without parental consent.

Fast forward sixty years and my Father married my Mother in similar circumstances regarding his race. In the early 70's there was no mixed-race with all it's PC inclusivity- you were either 'colored' or white - one of them or one of us. My Mother tells a story of going to her mother and sitting her down to hear the news that she was dating someone, that it was serious and that he was black. Her reaction was one of horror, horror that my Mum thought his race would ever be an issue for her mother, but it could have easily been a different kind of horror altogether. Nowadays, you look at my Father and like his father before him, he's paled with age, his hair is greying and less afro-looking and yet when you look at his photos from the 70's there he is looking like a young John Conteh (pic). As a child I remember school kids asking me why I had a 'nigger nose', why my Dad was black and my Mother white. Asking 'what did that make me' and determining me a 'half breed'. My sister had it worse. Like my dad and I, she had the full shaped lips which at the time she had yet to grow into and for which she would suffer merciless taunts from the kids at school - but to complicate matters further, unlike me Emma's skin was a dark olive, she tans to this day a very deep bronze brown colour - although now of course she is the envy of her peers - and had long, black, silky and perfectly straight hair. To the kids on our council estate and at school she could be only one thing: a paki.

So from a race perspective, we were an odd lot. My Mum, the standard anglo saxon, fair skinned woman; her tall, 'colored', afro haired husband; her painfully camp, fair skinned, big lipped, nig nosed and afro'd son (old women would want to pat my hair in supermarkets like I was a poodle - I would die of quiet rage and shame); and her daughter, the dark skinned Paki with lips too full to be 'from raand 'ere'. Admittedly by the time our fair skinned, blonde haired, perfectly anglo featured sister came along and was old enough to be going to school, things had changed for the better with our schools having a wider range of people from various ethnicities so less people commented on our varied appearances. They just assumed we had different fathers. My poor Mother.

We went to a Catholic school where we were indoctrinated with the right way to think, pray and behave. The education was a good one. The bashing's from kids from the protestant state school on the way home? Not so good. I remember walking home alone wondering whether my bashing today would be because I was a poof (I never really quite understood what it meant - I was attracted to boys alright, but never quite realized that THAT was what they were talking about), or whether it would be the Catholic me or the Half Breed me that would win out and earn the beating that might be lurking round the corner.

So I got it from all angles. I know what it's like to face prejudice because of racism. Don't get me wrong, I never suffered like Emma suffered and I certainly didn't do it with the stoicism of my sister, but I've been there. And I've had plenty of experiences of homophobia - from the school 'friend' turning on me outside a club when I was 17, trying to impress his girlfriend who had also once been a school friend - (thanks Anthony Mills and Anna Green - she held his coat), to the jumping on Oxford Street of four geezers on three defenceless 'batty boys' - not quite so defenceless as it happens; I'd had less to drink than they had and more than held my own- when I was 24. There've been plenty more and there probably will be again.

I've also suffered the religious dogma of institutionalised religion - it's quite something when a 12 year old boy announces he's joining the priesthood to save his soul from the temptations he's experiencing as a gay adolescent - the terror, the futility, the sense of abandonment that god must think you so low as to curse you with this torture. Mercifully I came to my senses - thank you Ms. Nevins for instructing me on the orthodoxy of Catholicism - it's all original sin and no original thought, just borrowings of older religions.

And there you have it, some of the things that led me to my current state of being, a rabidly Atheist (I like to say I'm religious in my Atheism), white identified (white people identify me as white, black people often question otherwise and only black women ever mention it, but as much as I'd like to be a brutha, I'm as honky as they come), homosexual. Faggot. Gender Bender. Shirt Lifter. Queer. Batty Man. Arse Bandit. Uphill Gardner (you have to love the Welsh sense of humour). I embrace them all. I know who I am. You can use these words too, if you feel comfortable with them. But trust me, if I'm uncomfortable with you using them because I think you mean offence, you'll know about it.

A rod for our own backs...

In case you haven't opened a newspaper today, have yet to see Facebook or are too busy worrying whether your birthday flight to New York is gonna be cancelled due to strike action (alright, that one was me), you may not have heard of the two Malawian men being imprisoned for 14 years each after announcing their engagement.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/gay-couple-sentenced-to-14-years-in-malawi-1977949.html

I'm deeply saddened by the plight of Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjez, simply declaring their relationship depicts a brave stance against their government's position on Gay rights and inequality, yet I wonder why people are calling for boycotts of Malawi all of a sudden, when the list of countries imposing the death sentence for homosexuality seems to have drawn little attention...

Sorry, this image is a crap copy - go here the original, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_by_country_or_territory plus a whole heap of info regarding countries that kill and imprison on the grounds of imorality)

Gay people and their supporters need to get wise.

If it's not our governments funding these countries' agendas through aid and trade, it's the gay community funding the hate campaigns of the Mormons by happily buying and dancing to the music of bands like the Killers.

www.mormonwiki.com/brandon_flowers

(this is a gem, the Mormons doing a lovely spin on their favourite rock son!)

Mr. Flowers may be a 'liberal Mormon', but anyone calling themselves a Mormon, liberal or otherwise, tithes to the Mormon church: Ergo you bought an album? You helped pay for Prop. 8. coz we all know the Mormons funded 77% of the campaign to deny gays and lesbians the right to marry. http://www.advocate.com/article.aspx?id=413381338

So yeah, I'm happy to boycott, but are we gonna inform ourselves and organise, or just band wagon jump and take collective pot shots whenever the media decides to trumpet how lucky we gays have it here in the 'liberal' west?

A new dawn or more of the same..?

I can't say when I've been more engaged and emotionally involved in an election.

I vaguely remember the 1992 British Election and disbelievingly watching John Major elected as Prime Minister. I know that at the time, I was ineligible to vote - the election was scheduled for the Monday before my 18th birthday - man was I pissed. I was more annoyed afterwards that the British electorate had been stupid enough to buy into five more years of Thatcherism, though with hindsight the Tories had probably put forward a better case for managing the economy at the time and Neil Kinnock was clearly deemed to be too Far Left to be palatable. The next election was the first I was able to vote in and while the magnitude of the rise of New Labour wasn't lost on me, it was seen as a forgone conclusion and although I voted it wasn't with any great sense of anxiety. By '97 I was living in Australia and a postal vote certainly disengaged me from another election that seemed inevitable.

This last year in Chicago I've felt more involved in an election than ever, despite the fact that I'm ineligible to vote! Anyone who has seen my FaceBook profile will tell you that I'm constantly gleaning articles from the NY Times and The Independent and posting them for their enjoyment (no, honestly I am!). I've donated money to Obama's campaign, posted countless articles, had debates with strangers and friends, bought & worn T-shirts, watched the debates and Saturday Night Live skits, displayed bumper stickers and watched the forecasted results online changing slowly each day as if the outcome of the election would have a profound effect on my life.

Yet to be a citizen of Earth means that America's election results WILL have a profound impact on your life.

In discussion with friends on Tuesday night I mentioned that of all the countries polled, only three - Georgia, Israel and The Philippines wanted McCain as the POTUS. My friends were surprised not at the outcome of that particular poll (no surprise at all there), but that countries around the world would care at all - that such polling would even take place. They cited the fact that no-one in the States was bothered whether Gordon Brown continued in power or Cameron got in (not that any of them knew who Cameron was - pictured) and that most people wouldn't have a clue who was up for election in Canada on the USA's doorstep earlier this year, let alone the outcome of the Italian election in April - which might as well have been on a different planet (both returned right wing governments).

The fact of the matter as anyone not living in the USA will know, is that America has a great deal of influence in the world, reaching into everyone's lives - the current economic crisis, a perfect example, has been cited as the responsibility of Wall street and has reached around the world with disastrous consequences. An article in the Independent this week talked about the 'what if presidents' (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/what-if-the-presidents-we-never-had-989509.html) and that had Gore been elected, he would have been likely to go into Afghanistan in pursuit of al Qa'ida after 9-11, but would have stopped short of attacking Iraq and as such the bombings in Madrid and London in July 2005 may not have occurred.

The outcome of this election therefore will have a massive effect on the world: America's stance on the environment, the global economy and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as demonstrated by their choice of President will go on to affect how the world perceives the US for the next four and hopefully eight years. Whether the world is ready to trust a country that has weilded its influence with blind disregard for the impact on its neighbours for the last eight years will be massively influenced by its choice of leader. I for one am filled with a new hope.

Obama's campaign was supported with a massive swell of grass roots activism with people from all generations involved in what is in American politics a massive shift from right wing, militarily aggressive and in terms of the wealthy in America, fiscally self serving policies to a more left leaning, socially minded both at home and abroad and egalitarian approach. The fact that this change came about because of a groundswell of ordinary people, who dedicated their time and money (Obama's campaign was funded primarily by ordinary people not corporations and lobbyists) to a stance that they felt better represented their own views, rather than the NeoCons that had been mismanaging their country and misrepresented Americans to the rest of the world, only made his victory sweeter. Obama's victory was a victory for the everyday American.

As a gay man, my heart swelled with emotion to hear our inclusion in his speech "It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled, Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states, we are, and always will be, the United States of America". (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/the-full-text-of-barack-obamas-victory-speech-993008.html)

The fact that proposals to ban Gay Marriage were passed in three states with a fourth banning Gay Adoption is neither here nor there: America has come a long way in the past two years even if there is some distance left to go before it can live up to it's promise of justice and liberty for all.

All I can say is that standing in my local gay bar, surrounded by my friends and seeing CNN call for Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States (were you wondering what POTUS stood for?) was one of the most emotional moments of my life. There was a palpable sense of a new dawn approaching. I'm not a hundred percent sure what the weather for tomorrow will be, but I know that it will be better than the grey rain of the last eight years.

Come and take a stand...

I almost blogged on this a month or so ago, but was asked not to due to the timeliness of the piece and the event in question. Unfortunately with the rash of homophobic attacks in and around Oxford Street in Sydney I'm beginning to see a bigger picture and the subject rears it's ugly thuggish head again.

Let me start at the beginning...

A couple of months ago a friend of mine, Louise, related a conversation she'd had with her flatmate - we'll call her Waynetta. They were discussing the results of the Australian election.

The conversation centered around Waynetta's voting Liberal (Conservative in the UK, Republican in the US) and what policies she was inadvertently voting for.

Despite Louise demonstrating their anti-women policies regarding single parenthood etc Waynetta was adamant they were the party for her. "After all," Waynetta said, "I'm not a single mother".

Louise's next tack was to try and point out the Liberal party's discrimination against other groups that Waynetta may feel for, such as Gays and Lesbians.

Here again, Waynetta responded with "But I'm not Gay", whereupon Louise, thinking she had her at last said, "no, but several of your friends are!"

This was nothing to Waynetta who clearly couldn't see why that would make a difference and later in the discussion when confronted with Australia's general lack of equality for Gays retorted with "well I'm not sure they should be entitled to the same rights as us!"

Now if Waynetta had only met a couple of Gay Boys in her local pub and had no further contact, I could kind of understand her stance. After all, her family are conservative and right wing and I'd felt myself bristle in conversations with her Father around race for example. However, Waynetta was not some country hick with little exposure. She'd worked, socialised and even shared Xmas with gay people, myself included and as another Sydney orphan had been welcomed as part of our extended family, a family that is very much 50/50, Gay/Straight.

So how did Waynetta become like this and why did she remain so?

Waynetta is a bigot because she "was raised this way"- her words not mine and she fails to see how her attitude harms herself and her society. By her own statements if she could perceive why her position jeopardises her own safeties, she might change her position, for example is she herself were gay. She's not, but she is however, in a state of ignorance. She doesn't know why she feels the way she does, can't verbalise it, but feels it instinctively: She fears the unknown.

She continues to be this way, because nobody until Louise, had ever challenged on it, shown her how misguided she was, or held a mirror up to her face to show her what a dirty, little bigot she is. Sorry Waynetta, but your position is not acceptable in the modern world, you're a 50's reject, a product of your small minded parents and in need of a wake-up call. It's 2008 and you're expected to use that brain between your ears, rather than following blindly in your Father's footsteps. And if you can't verbalise your opinions in a way other than "I just do that's all" then maybe Australia needs to re-think it's mandatory voting stance.

I'd decided not to post on this topic, based on Louise's feelings about the subject and my own inability to write dispassionately and rationally on it. While none of that has changed, I can't help but feel it's linked to a bigger problem and that I fail myself and my peers by not taking some sort of action, even if all that is, is blogging here.

So why now?

Fiction: Sydney: Gay Mecca of the Southern Hemisphere. While people in the States tell you San Francisco is no longer the hedonistic place of sanctuary of the 70's, they look with longing eyes to the Harboured City of Homos. Everyone is treated equally, it's the most gay friendly place on the planet and to be gay here is the norm.

Fact: Oxford Street (Sydney's Castro, Christopher Street or Old Compton Street) has been taken over as the Hen Party destination of Sydney, the Gay bars being seen as lacking the male predators of straight bars and therefore "safe" for groups of straight women - this despite the fact that the straight boys follow. Coupled with the increase in straight venues in the area, Oxford Street and Darlinghurst are no longer the safe spaces they were. Gay bashings are on the increase and you only need to walk past a straight club to have abuse hurled - I know because it happened to me several times in the month or so before I left last August.

Why is this happening? Aren't we talking about clubbers? Generations X and Y? The more liberal and tolerant generations? Shouldn't the two communities be able to sit side by side?

Well you'd think so. But while people with attitudes like Waynetta's remain unchallenged and go around thinking their bigoted mindset is permissible, thugs on Oxford Street will continue to bash.

The worst thing is that there appears to be no penalty for their behaviour.

While John Howard was busy perpetuating the idea that Gays and Lesbians didn't deserve the right to equality, the police force in Sydney dithered over the incidences of Homophobic crime reported to them.

As reported in the SMH only today, a victim of an attack occurring last December (Craig Gee - see pic) where he was able to identify his attackers on CCTV, has still yet to receive further communication from the Police. I'd blame the Xmas holidays for the Police's lack of response, but an attack on another victim in January of 2007 sees the victim still waiting for a return phone call from his Liaison Officer assigned to his case. In his own words "Every time I call, the officer is sick or doesn’t ring back.”

It seems like a victim of Homophobic abuse has a long wait for any sort of justice.

To be fair, the police have identified key areas where they can impact, education in schools being one of them, but greater police presence is not one of their options. The sad thing is, that without an arrest, without a visible penalty for these attitudes and these actions, there is no deterrent for the homophobic thugs.

So what can we do? Well you can attend the march in Sydney on Australia Day for a start (details below) and you can stop taking those deep breaths when you hear someone spouting their right wing values. Waynetta is your best friend, your sister, your colleague; which only means you have more responsibility to tell her where she's going wrong. If there's one person in your world who may be affected, it's you. Because today it's the Gays, tomorrow the Jews, the Blacks next week and on and on. It's time we stopped pussyfooting around and pretending we're so close to equality we don't want to rock the boat. There is no partial equality - you're either equal or you're not. Making your society the best it can be is hard work and it's your job and mine. Are you equal to the task?

WHEN: 26 January 2008, starting 4pm

WHERE: Harmony Park (next to Surry Hills Police Station)

BYO: Rainbow flags, friends & family, seating, drums/instruments, peaceful determination, sunscreen, snacks/water

Breakfast in America

So it's been a long while since I posted - I'm blaming the relocation blues which of course incorporate arguing with relocators, "What? I told you to ship it six weeks ago!" and filling out forms in triplicate "You need my blood group? For a train ticket?!"

As you can imagine, I've been busy.

Now of course, I'm fairly settled.

In many ways you know exactly what to expect of the US - everything is 'drive thru', food portions are as big as your head and no-one understands more than half of what I say. Still, I had to laugh when I saw the sign for the drive thru bank. In my mind it is to the US what the drive thru liquor store/bottle shop/off licence is to Australia and is equally indicative of the nations psyche.

I have to say that I'm scared by the coffee here.

I kid you not, but a wonderful, intelligent friend I have here is mortified to admit that up until fairly recently, he believed that coffee beans came naturally in French Vanilla and Hazelnut varieties. That there might be a plantation or two, carefully selecting Vanillaesque coffee beans for Dunkin Donuts is an idea I find hilarious and terrifying! The very smell of French Vanilla Coffee 'brewing' brings bile to the back of my throat.

All of this presents me with a problem. Anyone who knows me will know that I am a vile evil bastard until I've imbibed my first caffeine fix in the morning. Where do I go to get it here?

Starbucks. I almost have a hard time typing it, let alone reading it back to myself!

Yet it's true. I know that they under-roast the beans, burn the coffee,allow you to bastardise it with whipped cream, syrups in forty different flavours, pumpkin spice or gingerbread and hilariously call the sizes Tall, Grande and Venti to convey some sort of European pedigree and yet every day I trudge in, headphones frying my one awake braincell and before I can even order it (they know my daily ritual now- I am MORTIFIED to admit) have scrawled my 'Double Latte with Whole Milk' order on the side of a tall (err small?) paper cup. And even if there were an alternative to this over propagating green goblin of the coffee world, it's too late: I am now officially addicted. I even have the card you put cash onto so I don't have to pay each day.

There is however, one saving grace: The Toasted Cream Cheese Bagel. Every morning I order the same thing - I really do think my brain is unable to think for itself at this time of the morning and I go into autopilot - toasted, warm, chewy and heavenly.

I want to say "If only the coffee was this good", but it's too late ,I have to admit, I can't get to 10.30 without it!

Tell me something new and exciting...

So each day at around 4.30, my brain shuts down for the day, only to be reactivated by Facebook or Blogspot. Quite often I'm known to spin around in my chair and shout at random passers by "tell me something new and exciting!"

Over the past few weeks this has turned into something of a competition with daily recognition for 'best individual team member contribution' and also a weekly nomination for 'outstandingly exciting new information'.

It's often a mixed bag. Solly Pombo, the fabulous English accented Spanish 'chick' I'm lucky enough to sit next to (hey I ain't moved to the US yet - chick is totally acceptable here -didn't I say I was stuck in a 50's time-warp?), has entered the following over the last week or so:

1. I'm going to see Miss Saigon - OK, it was new in that I didn't know, but I told her 'nil points' - with Eurovision accent - for exciting. Miss Saigon should be consigned to it's tragic 20th Century past.
2. Hed Kandi is coming to Australia - New AND exciting - she won that day.
3. I'm having my eyeballs lasered - New, exciting and kinda kookilly intriguing on the process front - she would have won except Silvia beat her to it that night with her only entry...

Which was..?

• I'm going Sky Diving. Silvia is often out of the office explaining her lack of entries, however she won that day and has yet to be beaten in the overall contest which runs until I leave in August.

Current second place for the overall prize of 'most new and exciting individual ever' is held by Yudit, my boss. She is having her mid-back-length hair chopped Edward Scissorhands stylee on Friday with a shrug and a "I'm bored, do what you like Mr Hairdresser" attitude. I like her new and exciting style.

But hey, I wanna open this up to the masses for the possibility of a 'viewers prize'. Simply tell me something New AND Exciting for your chance to win the title of 'New and Exciting Outsider'. Send you answers to the comments board on a stamped addressed envelope.