Category: Writing

July 2022

‘For the greater good’ I read. Now, there was a phrase I hadn’t seen for some time. But, I found myself idly wondering, what exactly does it mean, for whose greater good? 

Some quick and dirty searching on Google, told me that it is a saying usually attributed to Jeremy Bentham, (1748-1832), who, in 1789 presented the world with an ethical position that became known as utilitarianism. It is usually accepted that there are, or rather were, three key principles that served as the basic tenets of his position. Simply expressed, these were that pleasure or happiness is the only thing that truly has intrinsic value; that actions that promote happiness are rightbut wrong if they produce unhappiness and finally that everyone’s happiness counts equally. 

You could of course, spend all day picking holes in these statements: their benefits, as it stands, are that they are pretty clear, simplistic notions, that can be easily understood, their problem being that they offer pretty clear simplistic notions, that can be easily mis–understood. How do we relate it to non-human activities for example, (should animals strive for the greater good as well?) and external issues, like the environment? The shareholders in a large oil company may be very happy with its profits, even when it’s despoiling and polluting the planet, for the rest of the animals living on it.

Bentham’s utilitarianism however went hand in hand with a concept usually called the social contract theory, which suggests that we should all try to live in a way that is essentially ‘for the greater good’ of the security of shared life ‘in a community’. So then we need to define how we are going to interpret the word ‘community’. On the whole, it’s an ideology which became less popular in the last century, as concepts like the development of self help rose to greater prominence in the dominant western world order.

I still feel that the ideas above seem ‘reasonable things‘ to strive for in the long term; whilst others seem to feel that it is more important to prioritise the things you have a direct responsibility for: your family, your job, your own future. However, it is nevertheless a phrase, that I had noticed some people had started using again recently, about looking after others around us, by ensuring we carry out social activities, such as mask wearing and following other practices that might help to limit the spread of the Covid virus in your locality or indeed, the world. And as befits the difference of opinion about it more widely, there was disagreement on the idea as it related to Covid prevention too. It ‘takes away from our personal freedoms and liberty’ people argued, to be ordered to wear masks. ‘Whatever next in our increasingly ‘Big Brother’ orientated society’?

When I was younger, collective responsibility meant everything to me and I tried to find positions that allowed self help to integrate with this responsibility, within the social construct. But I wondered if I too had drifted away from that, almost without realising, into something more personally orientated, more, dare I say, selfish?  Is selfish always a dirty word?

One thing we can probably agree on at least, it’s been a difficult few years for us all. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) compilers decided, when looking for its usual ‘word of the year’ that there had been so many new words during 2020 that we were using to describe our changed circumstances, they wouldn’t pick one at all. It seems a slight cop out. I think Pandemic would probably have done. This is a word that has been a part of our history for a long time; it first appeared in 1666, the year the Great Plague ended; likewise self quarantine was also recorded for the first time in relation to the events in the ‘plague village’, Eyam, in Derbyshire that year, where the concept of quarantining all residents, to escape infection, was first introduced in the UK.

Yes, pandemics have been living with us for a long time and it should be no great surprise when another comes upon us. And yet it usually is, and it’s no easier to live with, to struggle against, each time it occurs. We are reminded of our own mortality, as we see others around us, relatives, our loved ones, good friends, struggling to overcome infection caused by the virus, which seems to particularly affect the eldest amongst us. 

Of course, there comes a time in everyone‘s life when they realise the clock is ticking, fast.. faster. As a youngster, I used to imagine that, as old age came, everything slowed, slowed down to a crawl:, physically and mentally. As we get there though, we come to realise that it doesn’t feel like this at all. You adapt and things seem to speed up: the minutes, hours, days fly past. The seasons race past you, one Christmas blurs into another. There comes that time when you accept that there are things you’ll never do and never do again. Birthdays become a gentle reminder of the inevitability of it all, as keeping some sort of good health becomes the key concern, as your body flails and fails around you. And looking after yourself (and your most immediate loved ones) starts to take priority. We can become very dogmatic as we get older, perhaps because it’s easy, it’s less effort, to take a known path, rather than set foot on new ones, to actively look for new ways forward, new challenges. We become ‘set in our ways’, we say.  

So it was, that at some point in this ongoing deliberation, I realised that unless I threw my balls up into the air, (so as to speak), it would soon be too late to even imagine that catching them, as they fell, was any kind of option. A natural ending to some of my life chapters, seemed like an opportunity to open new ones, before my own narrative ran its course to a definitive conclusion. 

A move to Almeria, about as far south east in Spain as you can travel, before the sparkling Alboran Sea comes into view, into the driest depths of the desert of Moorish Andalucia, had seemed like an opportunity to create something different again: challenges, a fresh start, an exploration using knowledge gained from a long history of dipping into Iberia, in the past. Calling it ‘semi retirement’ didn’t seem quite so harsh as admitting that this was perhaps something approaching the final chapters. Walking over oranges? Yes, it had all been done and documented before but it seemed a reasonably fitting adventure for a gay, sixty plus year old man, with a lifelong hispanophilic bent.    

And yet, just three months into this new chapter, as it does, and because it can, the world decided it had other plans and, like you, we went into lockdown in the city, confined to a rented house and allowed out only for vital shopping and pharmacy trips, as military police strolled around arresting people for feeding the cities wild cats, that my lifelong friend Joe and I had ourselves taken to feeding, by a scrubby patch of wasteland, on the seashore. Restriction piled onto restriction; the world held its collective breath, as the tale, the drama -now so familiar to us all -played itself out. We all became armchair experts in discussing the pro’s and cons of the logarithmic curves plotting infection and mortality. As we all binge watched streaming media content and spent most time indoors curating our -suddenly vitally important- social media content, it had seemed like one of Netflix’s many dystopian drama series, was playing out, in front of our own eyes. The content of such series, suddenly seeming rather tame by comparison with our day to day reality, even if the monotony of it all soon became tiresome.

And yet, and yet: for some of us, it took us back to the beginning again. To the days when another pandemic was making the headlines. In the early eighties a ‘dreadful new disease’ was roaming the streets, as the actor John Hurt told us in sombre tones. The TV showed us huge monolithic gravestones, reminiscent of some B movie zombie horror flick and, for some, this narration was both cliched and distressing. AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) and HIV, (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) the virus that causes the related symptoms, had already been a talking point within the gay communities scattered pretty much around the globe, for some time. Where was the targeted government action to combat the disease, which like the Covid virus initially had no vaccine or cure, and was already killing hundreds,  soon thousands of gay men?  

As I write this, in 2020, HIV’s estimated death toll has been around 36 million people… that’s roughly half the population of the UK. And that’s the death toll, not the numbers infected. From when it was initially identified, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as far back as 1976, HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, has become a global pandemic. Now, there are around 33 million people living with HIV, the vast majority of these in Sub-Saharan Africa ( where around 5% of the population is infected: that is roughly twenty one million people). Whilst the treatments that have been developed, now make HIV a manageable illness and many of those infected are able to continue leading worthwhile, productive lives, there are many who do not have access to a health service that can provide those drugs. At least medics now understand the disease and why it affects people in the way it does. However, when it was first identified, the medical establishment knew virtually nothing about the disease, which, at least initially, seemed to disproportionately be affecting men who identified as gay or those whom were ‘having sex with other men’. For many of those people and their friends and families, it was a frightening period to live through and there were many- very many, who did not manage to complete that journey. 

Edmund White, the American writer, who survived through those times, penned an article in 2020, suggesting that as a gay man who had lived through the AIDS pandemic, ‘many people have asked me to compare that crisis with the one we now face‘. He thought that the main difference between the two was that AIDS at first appeared to afflict specific populations, while the coronavirus was ‘an equal opportunity malady’. Things have become a little more complicated since then, as we understand more about its transmission and that certain groups are more likely to be severely affected by the virus but I think the essential point he was making still stands.

Another article I read recently, asked us to consider if living through 2020, the year of Covid, had possibly ‘rewired our brains’. It’s not an unreasonable thing to be asking ourselves. Most of us, from where I’m writing this from, in Europe, have probably not been personally involved in a global pandemic of quite this magnitude before. Although, it’s worth reminding ourselves that this is not a pandemic of the same nature throughout the world; for example whilst in much of Africa,` Covid infection rates have remained relatively low, many on that continent nevertheless exist daily with the knowledge that a range of illnesses that us Europeans barely give a thought to, are still rampant: malaria, dengue fever, diptheria and of course HIV- to name just four of a longer list, are constant causes for concern. Putting that important caveat aside for the moment, the article went on to suggest that the way in which we now approach others and share societal values may have changed. It suggested that in a continent like Europe, the amount of mental illness that is being caused by the pandemic may create ripples all the way through this coming decade, that we will all have to learn to recognise, accept and heal, whether it is our own trauma or that of others, that we have to face up to.

Reading the article made me pause for a moment though and go back, mentally, three or four decades. I pondered whether ‘mainstream society’ in the developed world ever really conceived of the emotional trauma that HIV and AIDS caused to those it most affected in that period and has indeed, since then?

Clearly, in the UK there was a great deal of counselling done, that the specialist support groups that sprang up offered us in that period. Organisations like the Terence Higgins Trust, (THT), London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard (LL&GS) and for a time the government funded ‘National Aids Helpline’ (NAH) took tens of thousands of calls (and more..) from those emotionally involved in the effects, trauma and outcomes of coping with HIV and AIDS. It is probably fair to say that initially, those answering those calls often knew as little about its effects as those who were seeking the information. I worked on long, often gruelling phone shifts at both LL&GS and the NAH in that period and I recall how we scoured the medical papers and journals for evidence that helped us understand more clearly what exactly was happening to those who were getting seriously ill, as their immune systems seemed to rapidly malfunction, to collapse.     

‘Eventually the viral nature of the disease became known and we discovered the only two significant modes of transmission were blood and semen, but in the early days people feared physical contact, mosquitoes, kisses and coughs’. Whilst the corona virus is very much more easily transmitted than HIV virus ever was (and still is), does it make any difference?

Edmund White went on to write that ‘AIDS bore a badge of shame, even in the gay community – if you were infected it was your own fault for not practising safer sex – whereas everyone feels sympathy for coronavirus victims’. Whereas HIV/AIDS was, in its initial decade, pretty often a death sentence for almost all those who were afflicted, it seems that most people afflicted with the corona virus show only mild symptoms and even those who are hospitalised mostly recover (with some important caveats in relation to what we now call ‘long covid sufferers’). Whereas doctors and nurses did not get HIV/AIDS from working with patients (except for a few unfortunate healthcare and lab workers, who were accidentally contaminated with infected blood) health workers are highly vulnerable to corona virus, and shortages of protective equipment only serve to increase this vulnerability.

The Corona virus is the first ‘super pandemic’ of the social media era, and misinformation, conspiracy theories and racist slurs flood various public gateway sites. Whilst the rumour mill might be taking the same approach, official pronouncements during 2020 from the White House took a different tack. Remarkably, (shockingly, in retrospect), President Ronald Reagan only ever mentioned AIDS once in his presidency, whereas ex- President Donald Trump turned his daily televised briefings and re-election campaign into self congratulatory rallies, even after contracting the virus himself. Which was worse? Presidential indifference or the politicisation of the bully-pulpit (not to mention Trumpian rumours)? Remember when Trump said there were just a few cases in America and those were being cured, that the virus would vanish miraculously? Or remember when he wouldn’t let the sick passengers disembark from a cruise ship because that would augment “his” numbers? Both pandemics have had their folklore “origin” stories. Just as AIDS was first dubbed ‘Gay-Related Immune Deficiency’ disease (GRID), the president initially worked hard to dub the Corona virus the “Chinese Virus” (and appears to have stuck to that idea, even when out of presidential office).

Randy Shilts, in his seminal 1987 book ‘And the Band Played On‘ about the AIDS crisis claimed he was forced by his publisher St Martin’s Press, to pin the American spread of AIDS on “patient zero”, a handsome Canadian flight attendant, just as the proliferating American Covid outbreak was at one stage being traced back to a mythical Wuhan businessman. At least, aside from contact tracing, most educated people don’t try to locate the person who “gave” them corona virus, whereas many AIDS patients were initially encouraged to blame a particular sexual partner. Now, for Americans, the contacts are ubiquitous and might be your granddaughter or nephew or your murderous teen who’s still playing basketball or enjoying a spring break in Florida.

Ironically, the same doctor, Anthony Fauci who was the “villain” of the AIDS epidemic (the activist group Act-Up accused him of not releasing life-saving drugs), has generally been considered a ‘hero’ of corona virus (the voice of scientific reason in the recent Trump administration). In both epidemics he has insisted on running studies of new drugs. In that crazy Trumpian far right world, that we recently went through, he was also accused of undermining the president’s oddest pronouncements.

In his article, Edmund White continued with:

‘AIDS‘ was surrounded from the beginning by moral opprobrium in America, especially because the disease was linked with perversion and sexual excess; coronavirus is already associated with maskless renegades who don’t keep their social distance. ‘Whereas I became positive for AIDS in 1985, I survived because I was a “slow progressor” and my T-cell count fell very, very gradually. Now I’m going into my third week of coronavirus quarantine – I wonder if I’ll survive this one‘.‘

As I write this, he has. So many others were not so ‘lucky’. And the books about that period and this period will still be being written, for years to come.

And yet, and yet: again now, some of us remember and remembered a time well before HIV;  another chapter, closer to the start of the book, when the days seemed long, the nights longer, the future not yet mapped out by viral timelines, and its accompanying curves of infection and death. These were days when liberation was our watchword, freedom our mantle and the ‘age of consent’ that was being metaphorically and sometimes literally fought for, mattered.  It wasn’t for nothing that mid eighties gay pop group Bronski Beat’s first album was titled exactly that.

In many ways though, we found and still find, that it is often struggle that brings communities together, brings people together. When it first appeared in our lives back then, in ways we didn’t yet know, HIV would create new communities of support, new ways of loving each other, bring with it new thinking, create new ideas and ideologies to combat oppression and fear and offer us, as a community, new allies and ways of developing an agenda combating racism, sexism and of course homophobia.

Make no mistake, although communities before then had marched and fought and to some extent conquered, this new disease that proliferated in the 1980’s eventually brought frank discussion out into the open like never before, as society was forced to confront the reality of the number of gay men (and women) and others affected by it, in their own lives- friends, brothers, sons, fathers, partners, work colleagues and the great and good of the glitterati in showbiz and the arts. In the next few decades things would change, in at least much of western society, as tolerance and understanding took over from prejudice, fear and- let’s get real- loathing.

The story is a complex one; the script wasn’t written in advance and the ending .. well the story continues to this day, albeit deeply overshadowed at this moment, as I write, by the new pandemic, that is caused by the coronavirus and its many mutations.

It is a story that has of course been told before: scripts, films, books, plays: all have deftly woven the shared narrative of those decades together, some full of hope, whilst others concentrated on the negative effects on a frightened community: for there were indeed many who were very frightened. 

To better understand, to perhaps tell the tale again in a fresh light, I think we need to go back to the time before those days though. For some, including myself, they were heady days, full of optimism, hope, determination: putting ‘two fingers up’ in the face of the fear that had existed in the past, deciding that the future would be, had to be, different. It is a tale born of the optimism and energy that only youth can bring and a naivety that only youth offers, yet it is something I now look back on with relief. For many of us, whilst the tale has seemingly had some kind of happy ending, it was nevertheless an experience that was mixed with a great deal of pain, loss and tears, as we wove our way through its narrative path. One half of the music group the Pet Shop Boys, writer Neil Tennant (of whom much more later) summed it up- almost perfectly- I often think, when he sings in their late 1990 song ‘Being Boring‘ of the influence of ‘a cache of old photos’ and ‘bolting through a closing door’,

Someone said if you’re not careful
 you’ll have nothing left and nothing to care for
 in the nineteen-seventies
 But I sat back and looking forward
 my shoes were high and I had scored
 I’d bolted through a closing door
 and I would never find myself feeling bored

and he goes on, that now, of his friends whom he had thought would continue that journey with him, ‘some are here and some are missing’. Neil described “Being Boring” as “one of the best songs that we’ve written”, and explained that “For me it is a personal song because it’s about a friend of mine who died of AIDS, and so it’s about our lives when we were teenagers,  how we moved to London, and I suppose me becoming successful and him becoming ill.” Understandably, it is they say, their most loved song, with its tale of youthful naivety and innocence lost, perhaps lamented.

So what of those wild, heady days, before our innocence was snatched away from us young things and lost forever?

ON to Sex, Love and life: a preface

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Book 1 Journey into an epidemic..

Preface: A personal story

What follows in these web pages is, in its way, an intensely personally story: my story. It is not a ‘his story’ (or indeed a her story) and it doesn’t pretend to be a history of the period either before or after HIV/AIDS began to make the news headlines. These stories have been written in the intervening period, from those either professionally or personally involved in the era, or as was often the case, both. Equally, it is not a ‘just’ a memoir or an autobiography! Much of whom I  ‘chose’ to become was shaped by the things going on, around me in particular periods and yet I actively sought out a way to understand myself in relation to the past: to identify ‘role models’ if you like. And this was particularly important to me, as I came to understand that there was no clear ‘roadmap’ as such for men who defined as gay in the decades before I was born- or indeed many of the decades after. 

If you decide to read it in the order it was written, you´ll find I initially explore in ¨The Backstory¨, some of the many people, places and things that coloured my life, both in its early years and then later. This is in part as I am no longer completely sure who I was back then, in the seventies and eighties. Some part of me was like a jackdaw, collecting coloured pieces of paper, foil and fabric and marvelling at them, arranging them as I liked in a montage of style, form and sculpture to shape, build, my nest. Trying out things to see how well they fitted; were fit for purpose. It was a period when many people were bringing ideas, notions together from the early part of the century and reimagining them, reinventing them for that present moment. Hence much of what I write about in the early sections of this work relates to how I begun to understand and make some kind of sense of the world I was living in, by reference to the past. 

Equally, it was difficult to maintain a completely consistent narrative structure in telling this story as by their very nature many of the things that coloured me before my birth were filtered through a variety of prisms: separately they were a spectrum of vivid colours that existed for me then that eventually fused together to form the ‘luz blanca brillante de mi vida‘: that bright light I’ve come to love in my life so much now, settled here in Almeria in the far south east of Andalucia, Spain.

It however does offer three contrasts: my life before involvement in a community, my life within a community, in the section entitled ¨The Rituals¨ and in the third section, ¨The Sacrifice¨ a life professionally and to some extent personally ‘marginalised’ by that community. It looks back at a period at the end of the last century when gay men in particular were angry – very angry– about being marginalised and starts to examine why I think this occurred. You’ll have to bear with me on this, as mostly this -quite complex- latter process occurred in the decade from 1990 and so I primarily plan to cover this in a second book, which I am in the process of writing at this moment (February 2024) covering that period, going through the difficult and for me sometimes traumatising nineteen nineties, but the evolution of that process is covered in the first book, in the final third section. Equally as important though, (to me at least), was my own journey whilst coming to an better understanding of the complexities of the decades that preceded my own birth, unravelling the complex history: my history, his story, her story; the life that those whom we would now call ‘lesbians and gay men’ (or having a queer identity, if you prefer) led in that period, and how western social attitudes were shaped in the twentieth century by events, to allow these complexities to develop and eventually, finally, surge out into the open.             

A note about the terminology used in this writing: 

It is notoriously difficult to use a common descriptor for what we now (in western Europe) tend to describe as the ‘LGBTQIA+ community’. Quite a mouthful. Those letters stand for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex and Asexual, (or sometimes Ally, depending on whom you are, or are not, talking to) and often a plus sign, meant to cover anyone else who’s not included and feels they should be.

The terms that we and others have used to describe ourselves, our communities, have changed again and again throughout the last century and a half. Even now, throughout the world, there is disagreement on the most useful, the most effective words to use. And of course, everywhere, everybody, is a little different. So, in this manuscript, I have usually used the terminology and vocabulary which was used at the time of the events I am writing about. If it is now generally considered ‘offensive’ I have put it in italics. I sincerely hope that no one is offended by this decision; it was certainly not my intention to cause upset.

A note about reading this first book..

Although I have written this book more or less chronologically, it is also quite feasible to dip ‘in and out’ of various chapters and still make sense of it all, if some parts are not of interest to you. After the initial historical section (the Backstory), it takes us from 1957 to 1990 with the period from 1975-1990 covered in most detail (the Rituals, the Sacrifice). It is not meant as a concise history of these times, it is very much about the personal journey I made with friends and lovers through it. Equally, there is a temptation when writing about a sequential period of one’s life to want to ‘tidy it up’ into a neat narrative: I started with ‘A‘ from which then naturally followed ‘B’ and then came ‘C’. Yet, it doesn’t happen like that of course; our lives generally aren’t neat and tidy and this certainly wasn’t a very neat and tidy period in our collective histories anyway.

Equally, as I have reread and rewritten parts of the text in this first book over the last year, I have wondered if I should retract some things. Some of the thoughts that I had in this period, some of the things I have done, some of the types of encounters I have had. It is all quite a long time ago now, and in some respects it is all ‘done and dusted’ now. Generally though I have kept the original text, stuck with the facts, used real Christian names but not added surnames. I have requested permission from people to use certain material and asked others to read particular chapters, to assess initial reactions. On the whole I have kept things in the narrative rather than remove them. Some of the things I say are contentious, then and perhaps still now. I think it is better to be honest though and simply say ‘that was where I was coming from’ at that time. They were often born of living in quite a particular and special period, for which in, the main, I am grateful.

Sometimes the narrative moves quickly on, then pauses and runs back. Equally there were periods of intense activity and periods of calm. And obviously things didn’t just stop in 1990; so I am currently writing a second book about the period from 1990 to the present day; as there was simply too much to be contained in a single volume. As an ardent hispanophile, now living in the far south east of Spain, in Almeria, surrounded by the desert and the sea, I also have plans to write a third volume of stories about Spain, as so much of my life was spent travelling and having a myriad of adventures there, with many people, from as early as 1964 onwards.

I hope it makes some sense to you; if you sometimes feel though that we were making it up as went along, you’re absolutely right. We were. 

ON to Sex, love and life : (The backstory) 1.1 Early days, early doors

BACK to Sex, Love and Life: an index

Musing on the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 outcome

Dave Wiseman

Like many of you I sat down to watch Eurovision with mixed feelings. I suppose I was pretty much a Euro fan from age seven and despite a period in the eighties and nineties went it went oh so very cheesy and decidedly naff, (or I was too busy out clubbing on a Saturday night to stay in) returned to the fold about a decade ago as it became ‘iconic’ and an excuse for a quiet or otherwise party.

And so we had the usual eclectic selection of songs from the great and good to the small and should have known better. As usual I had picked favourites a month or so ago, and as usual it was difficult to get past those choices on the night but I was aware, like everyone, that this one was a Liverpudlian stand in for Ukraine, still embroiled in a long standing bloody war. You´ll never stand alone they sang, and even Graham Norton was a little bit wet eyed. So it was political, yes? But no! said its ESC masters: ´no politics, it´s a song contest´. And we thought, yeh, fat chance!

And as ever, in fact arguably more than ever, countries brought their own particular slants to it. One of my favourites from Switzerland sung by young Remo Forrer but written in fact by a Scottish song writing team, was about fighting:´I don´t want to be a soldier, I don´t want to deal with real blood´and ´the body bags we become´, he sang. In my opinion a very strong message and strong song but very probably, I wrote some months ago on its You Tube comments video, far too esoteric for Eurovision audiences to get, especially on a first listen. Sadly I was right, it ended up well down the table in 20th place.

Nevertheless, the favourite to win had been decided well ahead of the contest, Sweden´s previous winner Loreen sang Tattoo. Frankly, it was pretty derivative of her previous winner Euphoria back in 2012. It was a belter, with swelling chorus and eye catching performance from the lady. It was a classic, suck it and see, club love song in the Euro club style and had already been remixed for club classix use months before the contest. You´re stuck on me like a Tat- tat- too Loreen warbled. Yet, although it did win on the night, it did so without winning the public vote and against the crowds wishes. An upstart from Finland, Sweden´s neighbour (with a long, very long, Russian border), came into the running with ´Cha Cha Cha´, sung in Finnish by the cheeky Käärijä , a performance artist, looking younger than his 29 years, wearing a neon green outsized bolero costume and his fuscia pink sequinned group of dancers, whom he sat astride at one stage in the energetic (very energetic) performance, which starts with him escaping from his wooden cage (boxed in 9-5 worklife, geddit?) and standing on its top, his spotlit shadow huge behind him. Cha cha cha, cha cha cha cha he constantly rat a tats, almost spits out, like a machine gun.

This is no paean to a lost cupid though, it is a very Finnish paean to the pleasures of getting rat arsed at the end of a long gruelling work week. Necking pints (how very American), pina coladas (and well yeh, champagne if your offering, thanks!), it tells of how he comes out of his shell on a Friday night and feels ready to take on the world, to be someone else, to be someone. There should probably be a health message attached to the song, but the reality is its an anthemic crowd pleaser with the catchiest of hooks that the Liverpool crowd (and crowds everywhere it seems) go wild for, loudly cha cha ing along. It´s also a Eurovision song in the grand tradition of la la las (Spain) and oooh ahhs (UK), boom bang a bangs (UK again, sorry). And suddenly even Sweden´s song seems staid by comparision. I think it is fair to say our little group was won over by its (and his) energy and like many others all over the Eurovision world was rooting for him to win by the end of the voting; indeed he won the public vote. And he almost did win, coming second behind Loreen´s Tattoo in the final home run.

And I can´t help thinking in this decidedly political of apolitical contests, that this is a thoroughly modern (yet ancient) metaphor; plucky Finland´s own way of putting two fingers up to its big bad neighbour (that´s Russia, not Sweden) and saying yes, it knows full well what the situation is and frankly it´s gonna get rat arsed. About recognising that after you´ve sung about having hearts of steel, dealing with the body bags and getting gummed out on sticky tattooed love, sometimes the only option left is to say Fuck it. Let´s Party.

I think we´ve all been there, havent we?

Listen to the Finnish entry for Eurovision 2023: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6rS8Dv5g-8

David Wiseman, October 2022

Sometimes it is simply necessary to accept that you were wrong. Your fears were unfounded, your judgement was incorrect and your expectations have been exceeded. No bad thing and this was the happy predicament I found myself in yesterday.

I had chosen the relatively remote mountain village of Ohanes, high up around at 1000 metres (3,300 feet) in the eastern Alpujarras as a place to locate myself, when I wanted to get away from my ‘home city’ of three years, Almeria. A place of solitude, of tranquilo, a place of quiet with pure clean air, away from the constant bustle of the capital city of the Province. A place to walk all day in its uplands of scrubby bushes, pine forests and holm oaks, to eagerly sup from one of many fonts scattered about on hot summer days. My plan was set in motion when I rented a small one bedroom casa in a pleasant Andalucian complex (el Castanar) close to the village, to see if I liked it enough to perhaps buy it next summer.

Ohanes suffers from the very real problem that faces many pueblos in Andalucia of depopulation; at one stage in 1877 with 3,000 residents to its name, by 2020 it was down to around 500, as generations of young people progressively moved away to be closer to the more modern amenities of cities like Almeria to raise their families. In fact the Spanish property site Idealista had 72 places for sale in little Ohanes alone and frankly it needs buyers to fill them up. Yes, true, I would be but a temporary resident there and an expat to boot – but it seems to me even that’s better than dozens of unloved & uncared empty houses (but I’m open to discussing it).  

I had rented a suitable casa then, with stunning views south across the mountains, down the valley to Canjayar and further southeast towards the big city; on a clear day a smudge of the sea is even visible. Visits to the few local bars had yielded basic but pleasant enough places with a few locals inside and limited tapas choices. But that was fine: I wasn’t about to be complaining, as it’s pretty much as I’d expected. The locals were certainly pleasant enough and not too obviously negative to my English face and stammering Spanish, as I’d half expected. So all that given, it was a good start to a potentially new mountain life.    

However, I’d also come across a group of mainly gay men at the recent Almerian Pride events (which I wrote about here) calling itself ‘Marymontana’ and which I’d initially misread as ‘Mary Montanas’ on their publicity material and banner (‘mary’ being an old but affectionate affectation taken up by gay men some decades ago, when describing each other). I was wrong of course: it was Mar y Montana (sea and mountains). They hiked (senderismo in Spanish), and played beach games in the mid summer when walking was impractical in the Andalucian desert clime. I decided to tag along one day to see if I could both survive the pace, communicate well enough and be accepted as an English expat in what was a local group. The first walk I could eventually make was in late October and when I saw it was scheduled to start and finish up in Ohanes, my new found mountain home, it became hard to resist. When a friend of a friend (Hola Carlos y Antonio!) offered a lift there and back as well it was hard to find a reason not to tag along and give it a try.

So the day dawned bright and sunny and we made good time from the capital; the last seven kilometres of the drive being simply one steep switchblade of a road, as it rapidly ascends 500 metres up towards the whitewashed pueblo blanco: a tidy bright clump from afar, in reality a narrow hotch-potch of winding calles, steep alley steps and a few sleepy cats. We parked outside and walked on into the centre, where I could see a gaggle of assorted gay men were already congregating, chatting, laughing; spilling out across the narrow street, with beso greetings and hugs en masse, and it seemed we found ourselves right by the ‘Bar Patry’. It soon transpired the plan was to go in for quick desayuno, breakfast. After my experience of the sleepy bars innards before, I wasn’t entirely sure how forty gay men descending en masse into its inner peace and quiet at that hour would be received. My mind raced back to the experiences my old walking group ‘GAYSWAG’ in Sussex had had, in the past, in the last few decades as we entered Sussex village pubs. Being told were weren’t wanted, relegated to the outside tables or a one place being sung ‘YMCA’ at, all suddenly flashed through my mind. And then I actually had to live here as well?

I needn’t have worried. We were soon all quickly served and sitting together up on the terraza upstairs, taking in the early morning sunshine. Excited animated conversation ensued and I stopped worrying and just accepted the fact that so many gay men were sitting in my local bar and the world hadn’t actually stopped. I was rapidly introduced to about a dozen men, who names I quickly forgot as they were shot at me in rapid succession: Rafael’s, Miguel’s, Antonio’s, Victor’s, Franz, Tomas’s and Jose’s. I realised too there were a number of men from South America: countries such as Venezuela, Paraguay and Columbia. For one thing it’s easy for us Europeans to forget about much of Spain, is that expats across from South America usually far outnumber our European counterparts. Each has their own localised version of Spanish and each has had to learn the new cadences present in the old Castillian dialect along with all the local differences that Andalucians have added to it, adding layer upon layer of dialects, meanings, sounds and symbolism to the ‘native’ Spanish. 

We eventually set out after further animated talking in the narrow street and followed the track I’d already walked by myself in recent months, up into the scrub & forested uplands. It was all uphill for a time but conversation flowed as people caught up with each other, a mix of news, gossip and a few splashes of high camp. I was slightly worried that with so many people on such scree grazed paths someone would fall and break something but no, there were no incidents, as we strode ever upwards.

We stopped for a packed lunch at a waterfall up around 1500 metres (4,900ft) and there were more photos taken, high fives, group photos and selfies. I liked the sense from the group that this was something entirely normal, natural and fun. Yes, of course you would find forty gay guys halfway up a mountain in Ohanes in late October, Why ever not? I suppose part of this came from still feeling a little ex-coviddy in terms of social events but the surprise was I perhaps hadn’t expected it in rural Andalucia. I realised my feelings are to some extent born from a different age that I still find hard to really shake off; a kind of ‘do we dare do this’?  Yes, I’ve wandered round Sussex with a group of gay men regularly for the last twenty years doing much the same thing yet here it feels more edgy to me.  I’m really not quite sure why that’s the case though, maybe the sense of being ‘an alien’ is heightened here. It gave me food for thought though along with a strong emotional charge, something akin to thinking that it’s ok even in this little village to be yourself, to be open. And not closed. And that openness went with the openness of the terrain too, of exposure. I tried hard to get to the root of this feeling as I was walking along but I’m still not entirely sure, even yet, that I have. I think that there’s something buried deep inside that still feels it needs ‘liberating’, even after nearly fifty years. I remembered back to the nineties, when an old flame, David had insisted we could walk along the street holding hands and that it felt unbelievably, completely, exposing. And yet liberating. And I think I haven’t done it for so long I had closed myself off to it.           

So given this introspection I found I had to pull myself back into the ‘here and now’ on the walk, realising this was entirely normal for many of the guys around me and this was all too likely me just showing my age. Because god, I do feel old sometimes!

Eventually we arrived back at the village, with everyone more or less intact and no broken bones, sprains or similar. I’d already heard that with this group there was usually a social stop after the walk itself, so wasn’t surprised when we all trooped into the village’s other bar, Mesón ‘Los Casteles’ (sitting right next to the church). This is an entirely more spacious affair but we went to the terraza outside and sat in a long rows along tables. Lists were made up of what people wanted and brought to us by the bar’s colourful owner, whom I really want to call ‘Lola’ but I don’t actually know her name. An older man patiently and with good humour continuously brought out plates and plates of tapas.. piled with hunks of bread with grilled pork meat inside (it’s called ‘Secreto’ here) and hefty chunks of tortilla. The conversation flowed and much liquid refreshment was imbibed. We were made to feel a little bit special, and something in me was very happy that we had ended up there and were accepted so readily. That my choice, Ohanes, was going to be ‘ok’ after all. 

We had to all play a little game, which I admit I had not expected! Tell your name, age, home town and job and one thing you like about the group. Each was received by a round of applause. When it eventually came to my turn I tried to explain, in halting Spanish, how important to me the walk with the group had been and that it had really touched my heart. More applause, so I hope they got it.

After a few hours resting weary legs, it was time to leave and head back to Almeria. With the sun setting behind us I felt tired but my heart was singing. Singing about the mountains and their particular sound of music but also about how very, very good sometimes it simply feels just to be accepted for whom we are. Even in tiny Ohanes.     

A ‘hermit crab style’ lyrical essay, by Dave Wiseman

Background : In 1990, whilst working as a programme officer in the UK’s ‘Health Education Authority’ (an autonomous authority briefed with develop government funded health education campaigns for the UK population on different themes) I was briefed to oversee, develop and arrange distribution of a short A5 style leaflet for gay men about ‘safer sex’. This short essay contains extracts from the leaflet, interwoven with my reflections and recollections of writing them, today.

What Safer Sex means

Everyone talks about HIV and AIDS but many gay men have been living with the epidemic and practising safer sex for many years now. This leaflet provides up to date information on safer sex and AIDS and how to talk it through with your partner. the language is straightforward to ensure that the message is clear,. Safer sex ensures that you care about yourself and your partners.  

So this is it then? It seems so innocuous now:  this purple and black short A5 leaflet, though its message is anything but. It belies many years of fear, tears, sweat, love and shame by gay men; by my friends, by my lovers, by my colleagues. And every word I now read which seems sensible, simple, obvious is  nevertheless imbued with meaning, multi layered. Every word sweated over, every word was discussed again and again: reformatted, reprocessed, redefined, so that its meaning was clear, its focus and tone acceptable to the hundred and one agents tasked with looking after its birth, over thirty years ago now, in 1990.

Safer Sex: talking it through

Most people know about the health risks of sex and have some idea of what is safe and what is not. Raising the subject of safer sex with someone you want to have sex with can still be a problem. Although it maybe easier with someone you know well than it is with someone you have just met talking it through takes careful handling. So here are some tips.

I recall how long we struggled to put these simple words together. I remember the anguished conversations, the memos back and forth, the anger when words were changed, deleted, added. I recall the passion with which single sentences were crafted, amended, altered, put into context. How friendships were lost, remade, remodelled.  For how long we discussed the options open to us, how many times we hoped for a word that would make it all clearer, how we abridged content and cut out words to create space. Then added, demanded, new ones be allowed back in allow for a more humane, nuanced interpretation of the message.

Activities that carry risk:

Anal intercourse (often called fucking), Anal intercourse with a condom, Fisting, rimming, sex toys (there follows a description of all these activities and the sexual risks involved)

Safer Sex Activities:

Kissing, Masturbation (often called Wanking), Oral Sex, Digital intercourse (usually called fingering) Massage, Frottage (often called body rubbing) (there follows a further description of all these activities and the practice of them and the sexual risks involved).

Back and forth went version after version of this text, examined, pored over, revised, reworked, censored, discussed for its accuracy: what should be certain, what was less certain, what was most important, salient, necessary & what was whimsy. Everyone an educator, with strong views, feelings. All of us understanding something of the life and death nature of its contents. All of us knowing how difficult it was to interpret such things in the heat of a moment.  I remember the frustration of changes, the anger at what was taken away, the distress at the removal of phrases that seemed vital to the message. This was after all about our lives, our relationships, our lovers, our friends, about those we had seen off at countless funerals, visited in hospices, argued with whilst shedding hot tears born of despair and frustration.  Why we had marched for years, shouted out in demos to be heard, bonded together to create support groups of love, solidarity and determined commitment. Answered the phone countless times on helplines and switchboards to offer some words at least that were supportive, to offer some hope, shed some light onto the inconsistencies and the unknown that this virus presented us with. Why I had written bitter words in my diaries at the time, as I kept a record of the discussions, as much to resolve my sanity as anything else.  

This innocuous leaflet (coded STD60 by the HEA) which had no real photos as such (which might have been useful but was probably felt to be too controversial) and was pretty bland in many ways and now, retrospectively, it’s hard to understand what all the fuss was about. Partly it was because the leaflets would be going into the public domain (in health clinics, STD centres, surgeries and so on) and the climate was very different then to that of today’s.

 It makes me realise how in a sense everything we read from those times was mediated, going through an often complex process of filtering, editing, censorship and reasoned analysis. I suppose we took it for granted that the less this showed the more effective the process clearly was. By being so very intimately involved in the development and production of the particular leaflet I know just how  complex and -frankly- painful this process was.  

You realise just how much of the material we now read in the internet age (I almost wrote post internet age) is unmediated, raw if you like. Some will argue for this process and other against it. I would argue that it is far easier to present or wrap up dishonesty today than, say, thirty years ago. And yet in retrospect would I have liked the gay safer sex leaflet to have had an easier gestation, an easier birth? I don’t think it came to blows but I think I would have liked the metaphorical blood and the literal sweat and tears that lay behind it to be on show more clearly than the text suggests.

But perhaps, for some context, I will leave the last line to the information strap created by ‘London Gay Switchboard’ that I worked on, in the years before I went to the HEA: ‘Calm words, when you need them most’. And it is calm words that were often what was most needed then.         

Dave Wiseman: An attempt at a braided essay!

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1.The here and now : I realise now that it comes as a necessity when you move to a new place. A new town, a new workplace. You simply have to let go of some things and embrace new ideas: new people, places and ways of being with people. Though it’s not always simple. When some forms of music have always been a part of your life, played such significant roles, sometimes it can be hard to move on. There is a strong temptation, (maybe even desire) to replay, recall, relive, relove those songs that you regard almost as highly as the most significant others in your past. Songs about love, lust and life that you connected strongly with have wrapped themselves around you, perhaps a little like ivy braided around a tree. Songs that made you feel as if you truly belonged, that you were significant: really significant. That you were something more than just a random collection of carbon atoms; stardust if you want to get all fancy about it.  

2. In my past Very young, I recall sitting in a dark hushed cinema, staring at the light. People whispering, a few quiet coughs. Was it the different reality I liked? That beams of light dancing through celluloid could do this to us all? Is that really all it took to bring us together, to have us all waiting expectantly, our senses, our very  consciousness merging? Bournemouth Odeon was (remarkably) where the magic happened. A warm summer afternoon on holiday in 1966. Mum, Dad and I at the cinema together to see ‘The Sound of Music’. All together, sharing the moment. I had no preconception or expectation, except I recall my Grandma had become unusually animated when telling us about it, that we had to go and see it (but then she loved mountains). The interminable adverts over , (Lime Kia Ora by Lyons Maid anyone?) the curtains swept apart and I was transported to a land I’d never seen before. White snowpeaked  mountains, green, green grassy meadows with their cud chewing goats, on the steep hillside. Their bells tinkling and in the valley far below, church bells chiming the hour. And then a glorious musical score swelling up, gathering pace, enveloping you. Even now, I’m getting teary eyed remembering it.  What exactly is it that I am remembering, that brings such an emotional rush, fully sixty years later?

3. I always need some analysis! Perhaps all knowing critics would step in here, in a rush to explain it all. To expand on the film critique that I took in so avidly, when I finally applied to study film production twenty years on. How then I realised that I needed to understand what exactly had happened to me (and, I discovered, so many others) as we sat back as youngsters and watched the technicolor magic unfold. Marie Hallander expands on this process in a fascinating article entitled “Never Again the Everyday”: On Cinema, Colportage and the Pedagogical Possibilities of Escapism. She notes that escapism is defined in the Cambridge English Dictionary as “a way of avoiding an unpleasant or boring life, especially by thinking, reading, etc. about more exciting but impossible activities.” But, she asks ‘what are the pedagogical possibilities of escapism (and in her case) through watching a TV series’? Can such experiences even change us in positive ways that may lead to early emancipation?

4. Re-learning to learn: By the time I moved to Almeria in Andalucia, Spain a few years ago this was a process I felt I’d long understood as being possible, and of being codified, expanded upon, used, reused, and even crafted in films I had made. I understood the significance, the power, the ‘lese-majesty’ if you like of music fused together with potent imagery. Perhaps I had become even a little blase about the whole process. As Neil Tennant wrote, in his three minute piece of perfectly salacious, delicious pop rap, ‘Wet End Girls’ in 1987

Too many shadows, whispering voices
Faces on posters, too many choices
If, when, why, what? How much have you got?
Have you got it, do you get it
If so, how often?
Which do you choose
The hard or soft option?

It was all a little to co-modified,too safe, a pastiche: like a stale cream bun with it’s vividly red glace cherry knocked off. What was new or different? Yes, I still thrilled to the form but how many times can you watch Jesus Christ Superstar, South Pacific, Oklahoma, without feeling that the sweetness was just a little too sweet? Like that spanish gateau from a cheap patisserie, that looks delicious but tastes of nothing but empty, sugary calories. Was I done with the form, the love affair finally over?

5. Those ‘special’ times: Where was that strange rush I had felt as a seven year old as I giddily took in the costumes, the glorious dysfunctional yet connected family, the thrilling notion that if things got too bad you could just burst into a song, a dance or waltz your way out of it all. Out in a thunderstorm? Sing! Bad day? Put on a puppet show and let your marionettes dance away. Or dance around a gazebo as you sing to your new love. Sing of thoughts, feelings, emotions. You don’t need to lock them all away. Sing: the world will love you, sing: the future becomes clear. Sing to escape all the evil in the world. My young self couldn’t possibly articulate it but whilst even he wasn’t naive enough to believe that singing would solve everything, he had just realised that you can at least escape into a fantasy world for precious moments when the outcome was pre-ordained. You could control things in a way that you couldn’t in real life. So much more than day dreaming, this was full on and total immersion.

6. Always a little more explanation needed: Of course you can go further with this, if you are so inclined. As Hallander tells us this early experience  “means that the pedagogical possibilities for the child at school are not placed in the future, in adult life, but rather in the here and now, and that this possibility does not include a determination or a direction, nor does it always enter into a realisation.” (Hållander, 2020, p. 28) These pedagogical possibilities she relates to politics, ethics, aesthetics and the societal, and as moments of transformations where existential and emancipatory becoming can take place. Yes, it can first occur to us, as I related earlier when we are little but what if it can, in fact, happen at any age, at any time, in any space?  

7. Brave new worlds: So it was with not a little sense of trepidation, that I began to listen in long lockdown days to new rhythms, to the music associated with the tempo of Spanish culture. Even I, a professed hispanophile, I came to realise had not really even touched the culture that I had sworn I loved , that I had no real understanding of it, I’d been eating from a whole tray of stale cream buns. I watched Spanish quiz programs only to realise that the Spanish had grown up with a range of traditional music sounds and rhythms that were a world away from anything I was familiar with. Infused with traditional gypsy music, flamenco, rhythms from the far south of El Andalus, from even further south on the African continent and from the New World, along with that which was home grown in its urban barrios. Music by artists such as Fuel Fandango, Vetusta Morla and that culled from the Spanish dynamic urbanista scene, like new wave Biznaga, sometimes imported and coming from the likes of for example Brazilian batucada drumming bands; then there is the gay Madrileno based word poet, Victor Algora, musically capturing his own personal themes from within Spanish inner city life. And equally that each group has developed its own blend of specialised visual imagery. In particular ‘The Eyes of Pablo‘ from Algora and videos such as ‘Mi Danza’ from Fuel Fandango and 2K20 from Biznaga. And you know, poco o poco I learned to love again: to be inflamed, touched, upset and entranced by these unique slices of the rich Spanish culture.

8. The Takeaway ‘The Sound of Music’ improbably then was my gateway to seeing life in a different way, understanding how we can create in it, how malleable it can be and how crafting such stories can help us be the person, the people we want to be.  You just need find the key that unlocks your own  door to an inner garden. One that we can feed, nourish and water to keep it healthy and happy. And one that with practice can grow into something that we can feel justifiably proud of. I like to think that is what the ‘Sound of Music’ was doing with others in my community through the years, in its own way. 

9. Conclusion: Early in the last century, the German born composer Ernest Bloch(1878-1959) wrote ‘A Philosophy of Hope’ in which he discussed escapism in terms of liberty; of developing an understanding of escapism as a pedagogical phenomenon that could be the very start to changing things (in his terms, the beginning of a revolution; and yes he was a bit of Marxist). He helped us understand that the pedagogical possibilities of escapism exist very much in terms of transformation, empowerment and freedom, in relation to colportage, (literature peddling), fairy tale and hope. Rather than stunting us, these activities are a vital part of our growing up into mature, aware and fully formed adults (as I had unwittingly experienced with the musical form).

Reassuringly it seems we can use them to help us at any time in our lives when we need to reassess our position: to realign, refocus and relearn, just as I began too again at the start of my own Spanish journey last year. And amen to that!    

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Dave Wiseman; just a first attempt at a style akin to a lyrical essay?

‘It’s so hot’! ‘It’s boiling’! ‘It’s like an oven out there’. What is it with the British relationship to heat?  We swarm to the Med for the great heat but we moan about it being too hot, as soon as it gets above 80F (27C) in our own country.  

I always loved heat, when I was younger. I remember my first three weeks in Spain in 1964 on a white beach fringed with thick pines near Sitges, needles on the ground, fragrant pine at night with a huge moon, as we camped out in our little pup tent, best friend Nigel and I shared. I got brown as a berry that summer, always loving it but never went back until I was in my mid twenties.

Heat can be dry or moist. I hated it too moist. Think Skye, a few years on in my youth in our family caravan, a sky black spotted with biting midges at dusk. That less fragrant smell of those ever present tiger moon coils. Now living in Almeria, that hot moisture is a known sparring partner.

Then of great heat in London; a Queens’ Jubilee summer at Kew Observatory, watching lawns being cut by handsome gardeners, tops off. Desire hanging in the limpid air, sense of doubt, sense of unease, sense of being weighed down by the heat. Hot days with records being broken, brown grass, gorse fires, shimmering tarmac, thunder cracking, the smell ahead of oncoming moisture, the relief of pattering, splotching, huge dropped rain. And long would she reign over us.  

And developing such a great love of heat accompanied by a strong wind, whipping over you, sitting silently looking over the cliffs above S’Arany towards Ibiza Town, on the enchanted Balearic isle. Imagining, dreaming of sitting waiting for your love to return from the foaming warm sea: fishermen out on the ocean, spotting red, white six second flashing lighthouse; identifying safety. Capturing it, writing it all down on the hot paper, hot off the press.

Dry sauna heat, then wet heat in the steam room; smell of menthol, of wood, warm skin, so hot. So hot! Desire, expire, perspire, … then into an icy cold plunge pool, before starting the process again.

Cycling through Andalucian spanish heat, through its pools of heat in spring, then at night,and in sun and shade. Fast, faster, fastest downhill.. brushing sun dried, hot crisped leaves and vegetation aside. Sounds all muffled by wind, tight half lidded eyes narrowed to the route ahead. Concentration,  exhalation, bifurcation, perspiration. 

Yes, on reflection I love heat. When everything and anything is possible.   

With so much happening in the world at the moment it is easy to forget about the ongoing events in Ukraine. I see the media start to relegate it in their scheduling here, as the news cycles churn over. I had updated my facebook profile icon to be a heart shaped blue and yellow Ukrainian flag but I find that my connection starts to feel limited.

Yet, over thirty years ago I answered an advert for penfreinds in ‘Gay Times’ magazine from a man living in the Ukraine. It turned out he lived in Kiev and was called Viktor. He was full of hope for the future, living in a country just liberated from Russia in the fall of communism; optimistic about change. We didn’t keep in touch for very long sadly, perhaps we had both hoped we would meet in each others country – but it wasn’t to be. In fact I’d forgotten all about this until I happened across his letter yesterday, in a pile of old letters that I’d carefully kept, and suddenly all the dots were connected for me. I can’t get his permission but I don’t think he would have minded if I reproduce his introductory letter here in full, as he wrote it, three decades ago.

I have however omitted his surname and (sadly) his picture, which I still have on the back of the postcard of the beautiful old theatre in Kiev, one destroyed I think in the recent bombardment, that he sent to me with the first letter. It is a less than one inch wide, black and white passport style photo of a very earnest looking young man, in a dark roll neck pullover with dark hair and eyebrows, which I only just noticed he had stuck over a pre paid ‘CCCP Russian federation’ stamp for 5 Hrynvias & dated 1988 on the card. I do remember though that I liked it.

Kiev, 15 Oktober

Hello dear David,

You thought very right that it would be good to write to me. It is splendid! I was so happy when I got your nice letter from London. I am interested for the friendship with you. Here on the card in this letter you can see a photo of myself. Please write me if you like it? Your photo I like quite well.

I like travelling so good as you but I haved not money for it. That’s a pity. My spare time I can go with my friend to the cinema, the theatre, to a party and walking. I like to write poems and stories and I have a dream to write a beautiful story about romantic love between two gay boys. And I want to find a regiseur (a director I think) who will produce a magnificent film about this. How do you like my dream?

Dear David, I cannot understand all the sentences in your letter because your writing is difficult for me. But yes I was in Crimea, in Yalta and in Jeurpatoria. It is very beautiful there. You ask in Kiev are there any cafes and places for gay people? No, there are not. Only is a disco but very seldom.It is so very difficult to find a good friend, a gay boy in Kiev. Yes it is true I have other friends in Kiev but in a moment I do not have a gay friend for love. That feels like my biggest problem.

Kiev City where I live is a very beautiful city with old architecture, it is the capital of our Ukraine and I am working here as a german teacher. I speak German very well , more better than English. Do you speak German or Russian?

Please write me back soon!

My best regards, your new friend, Viktor.

Viktor, I imagine, is in his mid to late fifties now and I do wonder what happened to him, his life and whether he managed to find love, to write his romantic story and carry on learning English? I do hope so. But I also wonder if he is fighting -or even too old now- and how he feels about what is happening to his country. Suddenly though I feel connected: to his past, and I imagine the future there for people such as my young gay penfriend, Viktor.

It’s so easy to think after attending well on forty Prides that you know it all. That there’ll be a huge rainbow flag carried by thirty people: tick; A somewhat circuitous route that winds through side streets: tick; it’ll end up with a rally with disco hits you’ve heard far too many times: tick and (nowadays) there’ll be heavily sponsored floats that gratuitously overdo the self promo: tick.

Yet this was not the rally of the previous Tuesday, that I rather ungraciously bemoaned yesterday. This was the real deal. A ‘proper’ Pride march that I’d only learnt about hours before, as my friend Bea happened to catch it in an instagram post she had chanced upon. So firstly I owe an apology to Almerians, in that I’d thought the rally on Tuesday was it it. Wrong. So very wrong. This ‘manifestacion’ as they like to call such things here, was the real deal offering all the above and more.

The international press were full on about the huge Pride Rally in London yesterday, celebrating fifty years since the first was organised there in 1972. The old activists were wheeled out (no, I’m being both unkind and ableist: they are a pretty sprightly bunch actually), to talk about how it felt going on the first GLF (Gay Liberation Front) march all those years ago. The various internal arguments surfaced as ever (should the still quite homophobic police be allowed to march in uniform, the compromise- they marched with no uniforms and the Queer activist group, Lesbians and Gays Support the Migrants, were allowed to halt the parade to protest against the presence of police at future London pride events) and Labour party leader Keir Starmer was able to march with a glittery face and a t-shirt that said ‘We make Camden Proud’. Well let’s hope so Sir Keir, yes. It too went on a circuitous route around London town for four hours, ending in a staged rally in Trafalgar Square with speeches from the great and good and performers from current pop worthies like Ava Max.

Reliable estimates suggested a million people had in some way been actively involved in it. Now that’s one big parade. Our little manifestacion was called Fiesta Diversidad (Party of Diversity) and featured ten white drag acts on the flier (I may be being a little unfair here as I’m not entirely sure of the chosen gender pronouns of them all..)

Reliable estimates suggested a million people had in some way been actively involved in .. the London march… Now that’s one big parade.

And yet, walking behind the two floats and around ten sponsored open top BMW minis (local recently wed lesbian and gay couples sat in them waving and looking a tad self conscious, since you ask) somehow I felt part of it in a much more intimate way than I guessed I would have in London and realised pretty soon I was going to have to eat humble pie on here. So our little group of seven sashayed our way down on the route from Puerta Purchena in the very centre of Almeria and through a few obligatory sidestreets as well to the Almadrabillas Park on the Paseo Maritimo. Though Bea, with freedom flags painted on her face too this time, said she quite liked the sidestreets ‘as we can get to show the locals eating tapas in bars a thing or too’. And she wasn’t wrong.

The local drumming band leading us kept up a fierce drumming all the time, the minis behind tooted their horns incessantly (engendering slight shadows of the right wing Vox party marches in my mind) and I yet again resisted the urge to toot my whistle (‘Whistles are for football matches here’ I was told). My friend Joe had seen the parade twice before whilst visiting in 2018 and 2019, before Covid put a lid on things in the following years and he said ‘I think its actually bigger than then but those floats look suspiciously like the ones I saw in 2018’. It’s true: I have noticed they do recycle in a big way here; the thinking goes ‘why ditch something that worked well about five years ago’? The christian floats in the Semana Santa (Easter) Procession have been carried around the city routes for literally decades and decades, though not by the same men, they are damned heavy to do a circuit on. Men can be seen at Ego (our local gym) in training for the event for months in advance. Or so I like to think.

So yes, these floats were relatively lightweight affairs, the crowd weren’t chanting much and there were clearly lots of friends here too offering support but here were the LGTBI (as the flyer had it) crowd in Almeria, finally, after two years wait, out to parade and party on down. And it did feel good to be a real part of it. In a flock of a million you are but a feather, in this crowd we were an important, organic part of its structure, as it picked its way through the Almerian calles and pasajes, with it’s various multicoloured freedom flags, (some old school, some new), flying out and away in front of it.

All about .. the queer revolution in the Middle East and how ‘one good song can do more than 5000 protests’.

‘Beirut Dreams in Colour’

When we arrived at the parque there was a small stage and a surprisingly large number of portaloos (budget blown anyone or maybe that was the freebie from the council?) and the rainbow flags were laid out in front of the stage as we all skipped to get our photo taken in front of them. Yes, the first song the DJ played was a tired cliche, ‘Its Raining Men‘ (or ‘Its Raining Men for the 101st time‘ as I think of it) and seemed a slightly ‘non diverse’ opener to me but as the drag queens came out, one by one, to perform Spanish favourites, interspersed with a few more club hits the crowd seemed relatively relaxed about it all. It was what I’ve come to realise, a very Spanish affair. As indeed it should be.

And that music was important especially here in this Southern Med city. If you want to appreciate quite how much so, there’s a sobering BBC documentary online ‘Beirut Dreams in Colour‘ (see Beirut Dreams in Colour) about the queer revolution in the Middle East and how ‘one good song can do more than 5000 protests’. It tells the story of how Mashrou’ Leila were one of the biggest bands in the Middle East, their lead singer, Hamed, being the most prominent openly gay rock star in the Arab world. However, an event at a concert in Cairo in 2017 changed all that. Whilst playing to 35,000 people, the band looking out at the many swaying flickering lights saw it happened to include an Egyptian fan flying the infamous rainbow flag. It was a simple act but (perhaps incredibly to us) it would be later described by Egyptian authorities as ‘inciting debauchery’, and ultimately that simple act catapulted the band, the fan and others into an important (but also tragic) series of events. The flag representing the fight for freedom: freedom to choose and live out your own sexuality, a fight that is so very far from over. Using sensitive music and waving flags still represents that ongoing fight.

So the carrying and laying down of these flags at the Parque both here and many other places really does represent something very profound, such a simple gesture and yet so very full of meaning, of strength, of solidarity. And I humbly submit my apology for the tirade in part one; and with a request for a tad more publicity next time to the great and good who arranged it all I concur: Almeria, you do know how to throw a fiesta. A powerfully important fiesta. Not that I ever really doubted it. Muchas gracias por la invitacion.

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Dave Wiseman

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I went to my first Spanish ‘Pride’ event a few days ago and we marched down the main drag. But boy, was I disappointed! It should all have been a drama in my mind. Sequinned drag queens in stillettos would run out in front of cars and give them an index finger. The normally strictly unsmiling guardia would lead us, a phalanx of happy smiling cops in sexy uniforms proudly holding up their ‘Pride’ banner. People on the streets would stop and wave, smiling, slightly aghast but also secretly in awe of the pageant and colour, as their kids shouted, laughed and drank in the positive vibes. Cars would honk their horns in greeting, like they had done loudly and often when Almeria FC went up into the premier league a few months back.

But no, none of that actually happened. No drag kings or queens, the police watched unsmiling as they held back the traffic, seemingly unaffected in any way by the procession. Nobody was that all that bothered on the streets and those in cars just looked a tad annoyed at having their journeys home curtailed.

Did I see any homophobic abuse? No. Did I feel threatened that our relatively small group of around five hundred people was going to be arrested . No, not really, (though there’s an important comment I’ll return too). Nothing bad happened, at least as far as I’m aware.

‘In seventy countries relations between persons of the same sex are penalised with physical punishment or imprisonment, in eleven you could expect the death penalty’

Amnistia Internacional flyer

My friends had spent the afternoon making banners. There was Beccie, glammed up and ready to sashay with a variety of home made cardboard signs. ‘There’s no Pride in Prejudice’ one read. Nice that! Jennie had had two rainbow hearts drawn on her face by Steph and wore her hair in pigtails decorated with multicolored Pride ribbons, hastily cut from our vimpel streamers, using a house key. We were up for a vibrant march.

Yet at the end of the short distance we went, (about a mile maybe) Steph clearly wasn’t satisfied. Where was all the music, the singing, the dancing she bemoaned? I agreed. Like her I’d been expecting something a little more… well, maybe a little more like the previous forty or so Pride marches I’ve been on in my life.  Yes, there was chanting, though it was with the thick andalucian Spanish, I’ve found so difficult to pick. up. There was a big, slightly scary woman with a megaphone too, exhorting us to shout and sit down a couple of times too on the road as she recited some stats about oppression. There were plenty of rainbow flags being held & some even waved aloft. And so many varieties now too. What exactly does the grey mean in the flag? It feels a little confusing, even to me. Yet the energy seemed muted somehow. It was if we were seeing the ghost of an experience that had been seen fleetingly, then run away, escaped.

Now, I’m only too aware that we were the outsiders here. Almeria actually has a tiny resident population of Brits (incredibly, in fact just about 200 the latest census data suggests out of 200,000 people). And clearly there were different cultural norms happening. I had a whistle on a pretty rainbow string and was planning to happily toot along as we walked. But I started and people looked uneasy. I saw that no one else was blowing or even holding whistles. I realised that whistles are associated with the civil police here, they tend to whistle when you’ve done some wrong, something bad. It’s not a good sign.  So it’s another culture and clearly it’s right to respect that. But I’ve seen happy marches here with a lot of life to them and this wasn’t even especially happy, it felt subdued. I’d asked a gay professional South American expat couple I’d met a few weeks back about going to such events like this but one of them told me, no, we just like to mix with everyone, not go to political events and stuff like that. Fair enough. Maybe that’s just what just young people feel nowadays? Honestly, it felt like a cop out to me but I respect the decision.

Maybe, in fact very likely, I’ve been spoilt by decades of big noisy fun prides in the past in the UK. Specifically in London & Brighton. Bands, floats, dancing, cheering, clapping and chanting. Well yes, very likely, these are huge events attracting nearly a quarter of a million people. Five hundred on a small city street simply wasn’t going to match that. Yet is ‘spoilt’ the right word, shouldn’t that be our ‘right’ if we wished?

And yet. And yet..there are big Pride events in Spain in almost every large city here each year (when covid doesn’t rule the agenda). Barcelona, Madrid, Valencia Prides are justifiably infamous for being kick ass events. Yet here it’s all more low key. There’s one -relatively small- gay bar (‘Babilon’ since you ask) and not much else really. Of course it’s pretty well known that queer bars are closing at the rate of knots anyway, even more widely. The clubbing scene has been decimated too, by Covid, by rising rents and expenses, by the recession and by the resurgence of right wing councils being heavy handed on licences.  We’ve just had a local election and Vox, the ultra right wing party here did well in it, with three members on the council here now along with six from the Partido Popular, a right wing party broadly in line with the Conservative Party back in the UK. The death of two dozen people in the Spanish enclave of Melilla, a hundred and seventy kilometres (one hundred miles) due south of us, on the North African coast a few days ago, whilst trying to get into it by scaling the fences en masse was widely reported and seems very local to us, with the port ferries chundering back and forwards from here to there every day; in fact there was another demo here to protest about that the following day.

Since Covid things haven’t felt quite the same either, it’s as if we all now realise just how thin the veneer of ‘normal society’ is, and it’s a bit of shock, that any sudden movement will bring it crashing back down on us. Just how easy it was to get us to all to stay inside for months on end by declaring a health emergency. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not disputing the necessity for caution then; the curfew seemed right at the time. But it’s a scary time again, when much seems to be uncertain in our world and little seems like it can be taken for granted. People are simply more cautious. Jobs are no longer given things, for a lot of us Brits (well about 48% in fact), Brexit was a system shock we are still floundering over. Travel we took for granted in the past is uncertain, no more free movement, airlines are no longer remotely sexy, they are understaffed, carbon polluting affairs & their schedules are in shreds; and we still wear masks on all public transport. It’s not been an easy ride.

Despite all this though I recognised that things would still have been different here in south east Andalucia. Growing up in London (well ok, I mean whilst I was in my twenties and thirties) it was easy to forget I was at an epicentre. People came to London from the ‘berbs to go clubbing in Soho et al. I was on its doorstep. I was young with the money & energy to go out and get -well, frankly -wasted.  Yes, I cheered when down in Cornwall, where I’d readily left at eighteen, having spent most of my youth there, lesbian & gay clubs opened in places like Truro & St Ives (Saddletramps: I loved you!). But then they closed again.   

Yes, I cheered when gay programmes like ‘Out in the UK’ begun in the early eighties, when soaps got real gay characters (nod to Micheal Cashman) and civil partnerships then marraige suddenly became an option for same sex couples in the UK and other liberal countries around the world, like Spain. It was all good. But that was then and this is now. Freedoms are eroding, being swept away. In the States gay marriage could be swept away as the (black) judge on its supreme court Clarence Thomas suggested recently, in the same way as the rights of women to have an abortion have been. And in places like Afghanistan, gay men are being murdered as always for being gay. And that’s by the State not single homophobes. As the Amnesty International flier they were giving out at our Pride said: (in spanish)’En 70 paises las relaciones entre personas del mismo sexo son penalizadas con castigos fisicos o carcel. En 11 de ellos podran suponer la muerte (‘in seventy countries relationships between people of the same sex are penalised with physical punishment or imprisonment, in eleven of them they could expect the dealth penalty’).   

Orgulla de Ser : www.orgulladeser.org

Amnestia Internacional website

So I guess people are uneasy. When things become less certain people often retreat into their own lives to protect themselves as much as they can. Generally, they do not poke their heads up to be targets above the parapet. So whilst all this change personally makes me angry, fires me up, I realise I am one of the lucky ones who can afford to be so (although something about my current status here as a resident simply by the grace of the Spanish authorities makes me flinch too). I love Spain and the Spanish and don’t particularly want to leave, to return to that inward looking country of the dreary 52% again.  

Ok. So what’s your point you say. Cut to the chase then and I’m saying I realise my expectations are very high, at a level they have no real right to be at. Yes, living in big cities here in western Europe is generally a liberal relaxed affair, yes in a lot of my homeland people generally are now pro LGBTQI+  rights. And yes we have big noisy well attended Prides. But- and it’s a big but- as has been shown in the States in the last week with the abortion decision (technically the repeal of Roe v Wade) those freedoms can change, opinion can change (28% of Americans in a poll in the last month say they would take up arms against their own government if necessary) and in many places things aren’t getting better- they are getting worse. You think things can go only one way but history shows us, time and time again, that things can and do get worse. One step forward. Two steps backwards. Now is the time to get out there and protest against these changes. It feels unsafe, it feels a little dangerous, it feels exposed.

So, yes the march was  small, it was subdued, it was less than I’d expected but the important thing I think is that we were simply there.  And that it happened at all, in the confines of (relatively little) Almeria. We all brought our widely different experiences to the march yes but we all marched together. ‘El gentes unido jamás se dividirá’ (‘The people united will never be divided’) they chanted. And yes, I did get that one! Bravo: well said Almerians!