Fanny Cradock/Justin BondChristmas Eve in Beverly Hills last year was a mass of heaving bags, frantic women and dissolute men.   This year there was scarcely a soul on Rodeo Drive.  ‘Deck the Hills’ Beverly Hills tacky shopping slogan-hadn’t worked.  Tim, Amanda and I walked briskly from shop to shop nere another shopping bag to be seen.

In the spirit of Christmas Past I was wearing a pair of black cashmere pantaloons with pink socks and buckled shoes.  I had both the dogs with me.  All eyes on Duncan.  It is possible to be a chic farmer-as Martha Sitwell proves.  I am so sick of dressing DOWN.   Bland, dreary jeans, meaningless sweats: how can a man of any sexuality express himself sartorially?

Women, for that matter, don’t seem to have it any better.  Note the tribes of identically dressed club girls waiting in line on Ivar.  Shivering, tiny, rectangular micro-mini dresses and boucle crop tops, emaciated spikes of pink/brown flesh once born as arms and legs.

Since my rehab experience I am having a cris de coeur.  A real one.  A bone fide cris de coeur.  Well, not so much a crisis of the heart but of the cock.  A cris de pallique!

I am having an unplanned, unwanted, unloved revelation about my sexuality.  I really don’t know if I am gay anymore.  I think I might not be.  Genuinely.  I am having a MOMENT about my gayness.  Somebody wrote on some board somewhere, “If Duncan Roy doesn’t like gay sex-he isn’t gay.”  Well, as it happens, that might be true.

Lets face it; my sexual relations with man are based on recreating earlier abuses.  I seldom get excited-if ever.   I don’t get no-satisfaction. Perhaps if I trained myself to be present during sex with men but…even…even that seems like nonsense.   I just don’t enjoy men.  I lay there wondering, unengaged, what the hell am I doing here?  Out of body.  Thinking about Delia’s thick bean and bacon soup.

Wearing pantaloons does not make you a gay.  Nor do pink socks.

Justin Bond

There’s something about dressing up, wearing wonderfully exotic clothing that makes me feel complete.  Frankly, at my age, I can wear what ever I damn well please.  I could wear make up if I wanted-and have been considering it.

I don’t want to be a star cross dresser rather a star-crossed lover of beautiful things.  After all, there’s a tranny deep inside of me-who’d like to be deep inside of you.

Somewhere along the way I became confused, disillusioned or just plain bored of GAY.   It used to be fabulous; it kept me coming back, the mere spectacle of GAY..but now look..it’s crazily banal.  The bars, clubs, private parties are all the same.  The same ghastly narrative, the same Benny Hill type chases, the same miserable, vacuous queens.   I didn’t sign up for that.  I signed up for glamour and individuality.

Would any of you mind if I just stopped the gay bus and got off?

Yesterday, I found myself in conversation with a woman whose life I had been at the periphery for many, many years.   We met at lunch with Amanda and Tim and, as so often happens, we had both been caught in the same social cobweb.  But, whereas the spider had already sucked me dry-my friend is in the process of being eaten alive.

I am incredibly attracted to a certain kind of woman as I am attracted to a certain kind of man.  However, a man’s intellect does nothing for me.  I don’t wake up thinking about his brain-I wake up thinking about his cock.  His story is a means to an end.  A woman’s story can, and often does, lead to intimacy.

Okay, more of that later.  Some other day.  More will be revealed etc. etc.

I voted round one for the Academy Awards.  My personal shortlist (films I had seen) was three times longer than 2008.  The Academy will be thrilled to hear that I took my voting duties very seriously this year.

The best actor category was the hardest vote to cast.  Gordon Levitt from 500 Days of Summer left a lasting impression-but really, that was IT.  So much easier to vote for the women!   There seemed to be real choice.  The role as written for women hasn’t gotten any better but women seem to have fun with their performances.  Whilst the men seem imprisoned by introspection the women are having a fucking blast…think Up In The Air.Fanny Cradock/Elizabeth Bowes Lyons/Justin Bond

Finally for Christmas!  My Christmas cheer:

If you have the chance, time or inclination do please check out Fanny Cradock.  Fanny, a 1970’s TV chef of the British snob variety became a ‘camp ’ legend, rude, funny and disparaging she predates Simon Cowell by thirty years.  Fanny had all his savvy but in those genteel days was fired for being a bitch whereas nowadays she would be given a pay rise.

My Grandmother couldn’t stand Fanny because she’d wear long sleeves whilst say, stuffing a goose.

I always wanted to create a mid-century modern TV bitch type character based on Fanny Cradock but Justin Bond got there first with his Kiki in the award winning show Kiki and Herb.

Johnny Cradock after eating a freshly made doughnut once said, “Mmmm, delicious.  I hope all your doughnuts taste like Fanny’s”