Category: Travel

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prison Rant Travel

Stealing Virginity

We are in Marseilles.   Bad hotel in the port but very welcome after our long journey from Calais.

Our trip?  A spontaneous event.  Bought a ticket and jumped on a train.  The train was packed and we were moved around a lot.  The dog was in good spirits. The coffee was delicious.  In Lille I ran to Monoprix and bought ham and cheese forgetting that Jake doesn’t eat cheese.

We sat next to very good looking man and his gf who I befriended.

The last part of my stay in London was irritatingly dramatic.  A largely drama free vacation morphed into the worst kind of melodrama.

Firstly, the iPod turned up.   Whether it was in fact stolen or not is another matter.  It was not my iPod.    Yes, you heard me.  It wasn’t even my iPod.  Yet, I felt incredibly responsible.  It was Jake’s iPod – and critically, if not found, would jeopardize my relationship with whomever the fucking iPod belonged to…Jake.   Pride before a fall.   My pride before my fall.

I have only myself to blame.

A little more information about the incident:

The cast of characters I mentioned yesterday included a tall spotty boy who was recently expelled from school for stealing a girl’s virginity in the school toilets.  Ruby, a small, fat girl with bright red hair with a nasty mouth and attitude – until she wants something of course, like a fag then she sweetens up pretty damned fast.  The ugly gay friend and his pretty Greek ‘best friend’ were perhaps the worst of the lot.

Paul, Phil’s long-term man friend explained to us how rude and impossible he found them all.   He told me that Ruby was a thief.  Actually he really fanned the flames once the iPod went missing.   It seemed like there was no other reasonable explanation.

Sure I over reacted but nobody tried to help.   Yet, it was none of my damned business.  The moment it went missing I offered to pay for it as if I were somehow responsible.  Why?

I had no reason to feel responsible for somebody else’s stuff.  Especially as they were drunk and had lost the damned thing.  I was sober and didn’t lose anything.    When I left my sunglasses in Whitstable I didn’t expect anyone to pay for them yet for some extraordinary reason the moment someone else loses something I feel as if it were my fault.

As I was sitting in the cell I had a series of catastrophic thoughts.  The dog was dead, my friend was dead, my stuff had been ransacked.  I sat on the edge of the bed blaming myself for introducing someone essentially blameless into a den of thieves.

As it turned out the kids had not stolen the fucking iPod and it was LOST.   I was angry with myself that I had brought a sweet, kind, good person into a den of thieves but as it turned out I brought a forgetful person and my temper into a largely innocent adolescent smoking den.

As much as I loathed them for their promiscuity, their smoking and rudeness I had no reason to jump to conclusions.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

There is an Indian woman taking very loud telephone calls on her very large phone with a very loud alarm that goes off with appalling regularity.   I think every train should have a mobile/cell free zone where other travelers can escape.

Delightful dinner with Charlie Parsons at Dean Street Town House.  Just me Jake, Charlie and delicious food.  Calves liver.  Bumped into at least twenty old friends on the streets of Soho including Tania who was in Clancy’s Kitchen.  Ended up at Soho House with Richard and his friend.

Today we are going to rent a car and aim toward Monte Carlo.  The streets at night around the port are transformed this morning.  I am wearing a brightly patterned Etro shirt and my black sandals.   I am tired but eager to get on the road.

Categories
Dogs Travel

Police Cell

Decided to stay an extra week in London.

Woke up at 11.30 this morning.  That is LATE for me.  Me!  Me who is usually up so early.  Anyway, we were going back to Whitstable today but I ended up spending the better part of my day at Chelsea Police Station.

Why?

You may well ask.

A drama unfolded at the house that included a cast of unruly, drunk children a lost iPod touch and me trying to enforce an adolescent exit strategy.  I mean, getting 5 unwelcome 15-year-old kids out of the house whilst Phil was at her Dad’s.  Anyway, it all ended up with me being arrested and taken to the police station and then being let go.

The short story is this:  I accused them of stealing an iPod touch.  They accused me of spitting at them, which is a total lie, but it had to be investigated.  So, I got cuffed and dragged to the police station.

Of course, our accusations were ignored.  Impossible to substantiate.

Firstly, can I tell you how utterly charming the policemen were in the station.  The  Desk Sergeant, the constables, the detective..all utterly considerate and thoughtful and even though I had to spend an hour in a cell it really did not matter.  Even the cell was clean, the toilet flushed and someone had stenciled a note for a drug ‘help line’ on the ceiling.

Much has changed since I was arrested 30 years ago.

Fingerprints are scanned, mug shots digital and every time I had to sign my name it was on a pad like you would find in a bank.  Of course there were the usual host of nutter types being held there but sadly, since the mental hospitals were closed down the police and prison service are used to hold the insane until they can be reclaimed by the broken mental health system.

The detective who interviewed me was really good looking.  Big blue eyes.

Now I just feel ghastly.  I felt like crying in the station.  How could this have happened?  That kind of sad moment.   In fact..I did shed a tear when the nice detective was interviewing me.  Had odd feeling of shame telling him that I was gay.

I felt like I was defending our honor against those kids.   They were HORRIBLE.

I am going to Victoria Station to help Jake and the Little dog who went off to Whitstable for the day.

More about this tomorrow.

Categories
art Travel

London Calling

Serpentine Gallery Pavilion Opening

Yesterday began with breakfast of cakes and coffee at Maison Bertaud on Greek Street with Tania who showed off her occasional gallery – very crowded with nondescript paintings by Noel Fielding.

The great find at the show was the animated video art piece tucked in the back of the cellar and REALLY worth checking out or indeed buying.

We had lunch at Patisserie Valerie and looked at the parade of boys and freaks.

Yesterday evening took taxi from Chelsea to Serpentine Gallery Pavilion opening at the behest of architect Tom Croft.  Saw many people from the past who all seemed delighted to see me.  The pavilion, designed by Jean Nouvel, was very red and surrounded by soggy turf.  There was some consternation about his eligibility – apparently the point of this yearly event is to commission emerging architects not those in the twilight of their career.

We were invited to Richard Rogers house after the Serpantine event but I really couldn’t be bothered so we caught the bus back to Soho where we met Matt who pushed us into a cab and over the river to Vauxhall.

Toured sad, empty Vauxhall gay bars ending up in Balans back on Old Compton St eating DISGUSTING burger.  I am going to pop in there after I have written this and complain about how bad it all was.

This morning I sat in BlueBird with, of all people, Manolo Blahnik who is looking very doddery and frail.  He has a stick and his hair is all awry.  Within the space of just one month Manolo and Christian Louboutin!  These two great..the greatest grandees of ladies shoes.  Christian is, of course, the young buck.

I have been away from London for the best part of a decade.  My contemporaries all look a bit worse for wear.  Worn out.  Thank God I have been sober for so long!

Spoke to Tim briefly today.  He admitted to having had botox.  He looks amazing.  Amazing.

On the bus to Soho I met Juanita Carberry who was a child in Africa at the time of the Happy Valley murder.  She wrote a book called Child of the Happy Valley.  Holly Aird played her in the film adaptation.  So, I know Holly and Issie’s grandfather was the murderer…weird eh?  What is even odder..Lavinia, Issie’s sister stayed at the house last night.

Lunch at Soho house with Sharon Marshall who is getting married in less than 8 weeks and is all of a quiver about flowers, bridesmaids dresses and who will photograph the event.

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Categories
Rant Travel

No Teeth

Things change between some people and some things never change.

Back at home in Chelsea after two glorious days in Whitstable.   The train to London was filled with fat women with no teeth from Ramsgate.   The Little Dog sat on his lap all the way here.   They are my strange family of travelling souls.

The house in Chelsea is neat and cool.  We are sleeping in a huge room painted a dirty rose color.  Phil bought us new toothbrushes. The cupboards are filled with boxes marked BOOKS AND PLATES.  Knowing that I love them Phil found two gilded (ormolu I think) stork shaped candlesticks for the dining room table.  In our room she filled a vase of my favorite pink peonies.  I moved them into the kitchen so I can look at them whilst I write.  Phil has a lanky, 11 month old, wolf-like lurcher called William who irritates both of us by leaping all over our bed.  Her 15-year-old daughter Moffy is going to be a model and this morning there are other very elegant girls sleeping on the drawing room sofas, their handbags overflowing with cigarettes, condoms and tampons.

The companion is in bed moaning at Phil’s dog that wants to be his friend.  “Out, out!”  William skulks away, unwanted.

We arrived in London yesterday, the hottest day here so far this year.  It was still 88 degrees at midnight when we sat on the steps in front of the house, drinking tea, explaining to the travelling companion what coal holes were and how they worked.

The house is much bigger than I remembered it.

After a lovely lunch at La Famiglia (I ate ham and figs) we walked up the Kings Road to the Designer’s Guild summer sale and hankered after a beautiful chair and a bulbous teapot.

Last night we drove to Battersea Park and walked for two hours.  The Little Dog is happier in London than anywhere else we visit.  He is free to run and leap and now he has a new friend to play with-even though their new friendship started off with growls and snapping.

Nobody knows how to access the wifi so neither of us automatically reaches for our phones or laptops as soon as our eyes open.  It is very therapeutic not having the Internet so freely available.

Less eager to check my emails, more of an event to do so.  We have to walk to the Starbucks on the Kings Road and drink warm iced coffee.

I really shouldn’t be so eager to placate myself with the soothing, addictive page after page of regular web sites I open every morning.

Even though we are only half way through our adventure I am already dreading having to deal with LA and the eventual closing down of my life in the USA.

I didn’t mention that the travelling companion bumped into (of all people) Cary Fukunaga in Wheelers the Oyster Bar in Whitststable.  He is here directing Jane Eyre. He was with the actress playing Jane Eyre – Mia Wasikowska who was Tim Burton‘s Alice.   Even before I knew who he was he had an air about him that reeked of unbridled entitlement.   It came as no surprise to hear that he directs-we are all the same.  All directors have that air about them that may indicate that he is indeed the real deal.  Time will tell.  He wanted a table in the back room but Anita refused to give him one.  If only he had been a little softer, more charming, he would have gotten what he wanted.

Seeing Gary tonight in North London.  We are going to a Diana Krall event at Kenwood House.

Travelling companion and I are having a lovely time.   Not without consternation but actually and mostly we laugh and try to make sense of our odd friendship.

There was something inevitable about this I suppose. Though there is an emotional imbalance and sexual disparity that is more revealed as we spend time together.  I understand – who wouldn’t?   It’s just the way things are.

We may know each other a little too well.

I have never, ever thought of love as anything other than fleeting.  Being here in London has filled the hole, the gaping, yearning hole that rots my life from the inside out.  London! Look around you!  The art, the architecture, the color and movement inspire and nourish.

Phil is off to a woman’s Buddhist retreat for the day.

Is this Sunday?  I think so.   We are thinking about extending our trip.  Staying in London longer, maybe going to Berlin.

Anyway, another day has passed since I wrote the above and even though we are in the very heart of London there is something oddly bucolic about this house.

Saturday morning we walked up the Kings Road toward Sloane Square.  Where the Duke of York’s Barracks used to be, there is now a food market that sells delicious looking food from all over the world, Caribbean, Mediterranean, British (of course), Indian etc. etc.  We ate curried goat and rice.  Delicious.

(We were going to have lunch at the Blue Bird restaurant but who ever now owns it is not taking much care.  The staff were rude and unhelpful.  The tables dirty, the food uninspiring.  It used to be so elegant.)

Bought ourselves Oyster cards and after a long walk through Eton Square and the back of Belgravia we caught a bus to Piccadilly Circus and hung out in Soho House.  He drank champagne and I coffee and fizzy water.  The staff brought the little dog a plastic box of water and a chicken breast.

After ‘lunch’ we walked back toward Bond St stopping in at Richard James which used to be so glorious but now looks a bit sad, the staff all puffed up and arrogant.

Popped into the new Louis Vuitton store, which is, I am very sad to say, TOTALLY VILE!  Packed with retail-obsessed tourists this monstrous, badly conceived, gaudily decorated ‘shop’ was also swarming with London’s boys in blue.  Policemen and women who I assume had been called to deal with a shoplifting incident.    It was almost Dickensian, the rich and the poor come to the emporium to either buy or steal.

We popped into APC and he bought a jacket that he is desperate to wear because he looks incredibly chic in it.   We are teaching him how to buy beautiful things.   Every gay man needs a style mentor.  He is so lucky to be a small to medium.  The summer sales here are stuffed with small to medium bargains.  50%/70% off everything with plenty of room for negotiation..one can easily get a further 10% off of everything.

I bought a teapot and six cups and a milk jug for my new life in London.

Anyway, we wended our way home.  It was incredibly hot.  We lay down and slept for a little while.

At 8ish Phil stuffed us in her car and drove to Hampstead where we saw Diana Krall then after..believe it or not..we went to Cary Fukunaga’s birthday party.  My opinion of him did not alter much.  We are both quite awkward but he gets to drink.  We are both quite competitive but he is 32.  We are both talented but John Lyons wants to suck his cock and not mine.

Is Cary Fukunaga gay?  Probably.

We met a delightful lesbian and an odd gay boy who started craving shots and drugs and became so very dull.  We sat in the most beautiful garden and smoked cigarettes.  The gay boy told us about all the thrilling gay club/bar opportunities that we could have in East London.

On the way home he sleepily laid his head on my shoulder and drunkenly told me all manner of charming things but I am acutely aware that I am still on guard.  I know that if just one person says just one cruel word about these two men together I would kill them.   Too many men in big cities are killed by homophobes and I am not going to be one of them.  Consequently, whenever it may be apparent that we are gay in public my fist is clenched just in case some fool wants to try killing us.

We were home by 3.30am.

Jake Bauman by Adam King

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Categories
Dogs Travel Whitstable

New York/Paris/London

I left LA last week (July 2nd) though it actually feels like months ago, so much has happened.   I flew into JFK with bags and dog and chaos.  He was waiting for me and whisked me off to a beautiful house set in perfect woodland and rolling lawns.

We ate and walked and talked.  I never tire of listening to him.   We have done our fair share of soul-searching these past few months and now it is time to have a few laughs.   I know that at the back of his mind he worries, that he is not truly free.

I loved the countryside and delightful clapboard houses on the border of New York and Connecticut.

In distant, very white upstate town Katonah there were two very black gay men from the Caribbean eating a light lunch.   They were the only black people for miles around.

 

Two days later we were in a taxi back to JFK and onto one of Air France’s spectacular Airbus A380.   The huge plane was almost empty!  Deciding to fly on July 4th was a great idea.  Taking off over a million 4th July firework parties.  Fireworks exploding all around us.

The first part of the journey was not without drama as we managed to get delayed for 3 hours by a bomb scare at JFK.  The entire airport emptied out just minutes before we were about to fly.    We were herded outside and sat around smoking cigarettes and drinking water.   After a couple of hours in the sun we stampeded back into the building directly onto our planes and landed in France 6 hours later.

It is delicious to be back in Europe.  Away from the tangled life I have left behind in the USA.   Once in Paris we checked into Mama Shelter in the 20th, seconds from the cemetery Pere Lachaise.  We loved it!

 

Although I smuggled the dog into the hotel-actually we had no need as dogs, we later found out, are allowed.   The food and service were excellent.  The only vaguely irritating thing was the Internet wi-fi connection which was linked to their rather modern but baffling Apple TV.  Apart from finding it impossible to get on-line their sophisticated interconnected system meant that the TV remote would also remotely control our lap tops..hmmm.

It is so easy to concentrate on what is wrong in life or in others without noticing how beautiful things are.  The staff at the hotel were gorgeous and we drooled over them everyday.

First day of Couture shows in Paris.  We had lunch with William Stoddart at Hotel d’Amour near Pigalle.  Gosh that area has changed so much!   When I lived there with Claire Sant it was ghastly.  Last week it was wonderful.   The weather has been gorgeous everywhere we have been.

The beautiful Edouard joined us afterwards for coffee.  We had dinner with him the night before and 6 others at Italian restaurant.   Very pretty German model who was obviously rooting for Germany in the World Cup..she was tall and womanly and intelligent.  We talked France’s ignominious exit from the competition and sneered at the British teams pathetic attempt to get into the last 8.

 

Three days in Paris followed by a train ride to Calais and a ferry to Dover after a short taxi ride home to Whitstable we were sitting on the beach eating venison burgers and the travelling companion couldn’t believe how beautiful it all was and complained that I had underplayed how Whitstable really is.

 

Today there are warnings that old people may overheat.  We are going to take a train to London.

I am sitting writing this from my room overlooking the sea in Georgina’s home in Whitstable.   It was my birthday yesterday.   The day started well enough with coffee at Dave’s deli catching up on gossip and drinking his perfect latte.   I left the companion in bed.  He is not really a morning person.  We met my mother for lunch at Wheelers where Mark Stubbs the chef there continues to surpass himself-this time with delicately spiced soft shell crab.

I really had no desire to see anyone other than who was at that table.  I am certainly not interested in tangoing in front of 500 people like an eastern European gypsy.    My mum and Georgina bonded over their hatred of Asylum Seekers.  My mother pointed out that some asylum seekers were pretending to be gay so that they could stay in the country.  If it’s not the Mexican’s it’s the Eastern Europeans..there always someone to blame for never having enough.

I thought that the fear of others getting something for nothing was an American phenomena but no!  It’s British too.

After lunch Adam took my picture as part of his photographic Whitstable project and his lovely mum cut my hair.  We sat in their lush garden drinking lemonade and lusting after his gorgeous, recently tattooed, diver brother.   After the pictures were taken we walked the couple of miles home up the beach.   I have never been so happy.

When we got home the companion had a drama unfold which he needed to deal with.  When he finally tore himself away from the Internet we sat in the garden and ate dinner with Georgina.  We ate huge organic pork chops that I managed to burn on the bbq.   After dinner we sat outside the Neptune pub with Barry and other drunksters.   The dog was tired and lay on the beach and fell asleep.  The night was balmy and the sea lapped lazily over the shingle.

This morning I woke at 6am and walked the dog up to the harbor.  He loves it here.   The Greens who own the Oyster Company scrawl unfortunate notes on black boards all over their property.  Don’t do this and don’t do that. Those black boards used to be charming now they just look vicious.

Some people like to get their own way..I am one of them.  When you finally meet your match, as I seem to, it can be less than comfortable.  I am trying to be sensitive to the needs of others but I am a stubborn old fool.

As for him..the traveling companion..he’s finding his feet and I am finding mine.

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