25 April 2007

My Pick


He's who I'd like to see win American Idol this year. For a while now, I couldn't decide which of the boys I fancied more Chris or Blake but I've finally it is Chris whom I fancy more.

Being the realist that I am, I have my suspicions that Chris will probably not win. I think the current front-runners are Jordin Sparks and Melinda Doolittle. Between the 2, if my life depended on it, I'd say Jordin would win it. It might have something to do with the fact that she sang "You'll Never Walk Alone" and me being a Liverpool supporter, it struck a chord (pun intended). The remaining 5 are all good singers in their own right and deserve recording contracts. I'd buy any CD which Chris and Blake put out. I've said that about Elliot Yamin as well but it's not been released here yet. I'll definitely get it when it is.

For this week's elimination, I guessing the bottom 3 are going to be Phil, Lekisha and Blake but I wouldn't put money on it. I'd be slightly gutted if Chris was in the bottom 3 but even if he was, I think he'll make it to the next round. If anyone was to go, I suspect it'd be Phil. Needless to say, I'm glad the Creepy One is gone.

24 April 2007

The History Boys



I watched the film during the flight home from Perth. From what little I've read about it, I knew that there were homoerotic themes in the film but that was not surprising, seeing as the film was set in an all boys school and having spent most of my formative adolescent years in that sort of environment, I know that having a horde of horny teenage boys in close proximity to each other every day, there needs to be some sort of outlet for the expression of what it is that a sudden surge in testosterone drives teenage boys to do.

Sport was an acceptable outlet for this and there were of course, the persistent rumours that the boys who stayed at the boarding school (I was a day student) engaged in mutual fellatio, not 69ing, as far as I was aware of but taking turns to suck each other off. It was more a sort if doing each other favours.

This of course opens up all sorts of considerations as to whether there is a distinction between same-sex sexual experiences and gay sexual experiences. I'll explore this in a future post but for now, back to the History Boys.

Having watched film on the plane, it seemed rather disjointed and perhaps it was intended to be that way - the viewer is intended piece together various elements of the plot as opposed to having the entire plot play out on screen. Alternatively, it could simply have been that certain parts of the film were censored because of the possibility that minors had access to it. I doubt that Alan Bennett's play would have had any overt male nudity in it and the same might not have been made part of the film for any number of reasons - reading about 17 year-old boys having homosexual experiences with each other is one thing but showing it on screen might well amount to kiddie porn.

This in itself is something of a double standard as the age of consent for gay sex in the England (I don't know the position in Scotland and Northern Ireland but suspect it is the same as in England but would hesitate to make a sweeping statement that this is the position for all the legal jurisdictions in the UK) is 16 and if a boy/man is deemed by the law to be able to consent to having sex with another boy/man at age 16, why would a graphic representation of something which is otherwise lawful per se otherwise malum prohibitum (my Latin is rusty and if I've used the wrong form of the words, I stand corrected) or perhaps in malum in se, depending on your viewpoint. It is beyond controversy that under English law, graphic representations of two males aged 18 years and above having engaged in sexual activity is lawful. Some would consider any form of graphic repsentation of sexual activity malum in se from a moral point of view (ie. all forms of porn are immoral) but my considerations are solely legal.

It is equally beyond controversy that any form of sexual activity between males, both of whom are below the age of 16 years is malum prohibitum, graphic representations included. This leaves us with an illogical lacuna of the position of graphic representations of boys/men between the age of 16 and 18 engaged in homosexual activities.

I'm sure that there will be records of the debates in Hansard as to why the age of consent was reduced to 16 from 18 and perhaps not lower given that in some other jurisdictions, the legal age for girls to be able to consent to sex is 14. I don't hear feminists complaining about discrimination in this instance.

I've wandered off the point again. I've been meaning to discuss the History Boys but I keep getting side-tracked. Having only watched it once and possibly not having watched the film uncensored, I think I will need to watch it at least one more time (and possibly read the play as well) in order to write something lucid about the film. For now, let's just say that I found some of the boys in the film very fanciable, namely Samuel Barnett (Posner), Jamie Parker (Scripps) and Stephen Campbell Moore (Mr Irwin). I recall a line in the film where the boys were speculating that Irwin was barely older than they were and reading the various biographies on IMDB, that's not very far from the truth. Stephen Campbell More and Jamie Parker are the same age in real life (both born in 1979) and Samuel Barnett is a year younger. I also found Russell Tovey (Rudge) quite fanciable but I think it was his onscreen personam that I fancied. I have a thing for rugby players and boys in rugby kit. Will explore this more in a future blog entry - I suspect that it has something to do with my sexually formative years while in school.

23 April 2007

My Saturday Night In Perth

Saturday night,
I feel the air
is getting hot
Like you baby
I'll make you mine
you know
I'll take you to the top
I'll drive you crazy
Saturday night, dance,
I like
the way you move
Pretty baby
It's party time
and not one
minute we can lose
Be my baby

If those of you who are old enough to remember the Whigfield hit "Saturday Night" from the mid-90s, you'll probably be able to guess my age. In a way, the lyrics had a passing prophetic significance as to how last Saturday evening turned out for me.

My Saturday night started, like all other Saturday nights, with Saturday morning. That morning, a group of my colleagues had gone on a group tour to Freo via Houghton Wineries and the Caversham petting zoo which I declined to go on and I stayed on to roam the shops in the city centre. I'd previously roamed the shops in Cannington, Harbour Town and Subiaco since arriving on Thursday afternoon and by Saturday morning, was already quite sore from walking around the shops. However it was a pleasant stroll around the shops on Saturday and I managed to buy a few things, including an Bulgari tie.

I have a thing for Bulgari ties and if I had my way, all ties would be made like the ones by Bulgari. Most ties are lined with a different fabric from the one used on the outside, usually more plain and not as fancy but Bulgari uses the same fabric for the lining as for the outside and consequently, the entire tie is made of a single piece of silk. It's a pleasure to hold in your hands, as much as it is a pleasure to tie around your neck. If only I could wear silk next to my skin every day!

But I digress. The point I was trying to make was all that walking around the shops over the last few days had made me feel quite tired and sore. I was supposed to meet up with C dinner and then drinks at a gay bar afterwards but something came up - family emergency so that was called off. Fortunately I had a Plan B. Work had organised a dinner at the Intercontinental at Burswood (where the casino is) and I went to that. It was an early dinner - things kicked off at 6pm and ended at 8pm. That left me most of Saturday night and I decided to check out the local wildlife in one of the all-boy spas.

I'd done my homework prior to leaving for Perth and I decided to go to Perth Steam Works (the logo for which is featured at the top of this post. PSW isn't the most nicely decorated spa I've been to but it's cleaner than most and provides a suitable environment for the boys who go there to get what they want. I arrived at about 9pm and it was not very busy - strange for a Saturday night. It wasn't long before I'd found some action in the sauna. For a while there was some 3/4 way action going on but by the time I was satisfied, it was only the two of us.

Having been temporarily spent, I showered and decided to chill in the video room for a while until I was ready to go again. There was some crappy film in the video room - Coneheads - I think it was. I sat there for a while, half watching the film and half checking out the towel-clad boys walking about. After a sufficient period of rest, I wandered around the maze, was groped by a few men, gave a couple the glad eye (I'd seen them coming out of a cubicle with a third boy earlier - must have had a threesome) but there wasn't much action going on around as there weren't too many other boys about.

I went back to the sauna to see whether there was an action going on in there but there wasn't any. There was 1 boy sitting there whom I quite liked the look of earlier so I sat next to him (there was a distance of about half a metre between us) and tried to look cool (but not cold) despite the dry heat around us. I would occasionally make eye contact with him and I started to get the feeling that he might be interested in more than just sitting around. When he started touching his crotch, I knew that he was definitely interested and I let him know that I was too.

Soon our towels came off and he started sucking me. The sauna isn't really the best place for getting it off with someone and I suggested that we go to one of the private rooms. I won't go into the details but we spent more than 2 hours together and it was both emotionally and physically satisfying, unlike the previous encounter which was no doubt physically satisfying but quite emotionless. Other than the time I spent with J at Pleasuredrome, I've not come away from an encounter feeling the same way. Afterwards, we went out for a drink at the Brass Monkey where the Manchester United v Boro match was being shown on the obscene screen. I didn't know there were that many ManU supporters in Perth and when Kieran Richardson scored a goal in the opening minutes of the match, a huge cheer went up throughout the bar. As a Liverpool supporter, it was an incredibly annoying to watch.

Up until the time we got to the Brass Monkey, we still hadn't formally introduced ourselves. Which always strikes me as ironic as we'd just been physically intimate in a way that my boyfriend and I used to be (but not to the extent of having unprotected sex - I'd never do that on a first date - I'm not that sort of boy) and it was only when we were on our second drink that he told me his name - J2 (it also starts with J and I don't want to get you confused with J from Pleasuredrome). It turns out that it's his birthday today and he turns 23. He works in the construction industry but want's to give up what seems to be his very well-paid construction job (it's better than the money I got in my first year as a junior lawyer) for nursing. This means going to university (he's applied for and been accepted at Curtin for a nursing degree) for the next 4 years. Financially he'd be better of laying bricks but I think he want's to do something different with his life.

To J2, many happy returns and I hope you find the satisfaction and happines in a nursing career which you don't have in your current job. Our time together was special and I hope we keep in touch.

We said a lingering goodbye in the early hours of Sunday morning as he got ready to board his train to go home to Gosnells. But for the fact that there were transport police at the barrier to the train platform, I'm sure we would have stolen a goodbye-kiss/snog before he boarded the train. Even in Australia, well Perth at least, I'm not sure whether we could have been done for an obscenity offence as two boys snogging in public. I'm sure that during Mardi Gras in Sydney, the police are all cool with this sort of thing, not that I've been to Mardi Gras in Sydney (I suspect that there's more than just kissing going on in public but that's just my imagination) but Perth is a sleepy town compared to Sydney and much as I find men in uniform attractive (and fit, Australian men no less) and somtimes fantasise about them overpowering me and making me their bitch boy, actually getting arrested for having a gay kiss in public is definitely not a good career move.

Distracted In Subiaco



This cute Scottish boy wasn't the reason why I was distracted while having dinner with my colleagues in Subiaco last Thursday night. That said, if he was at dinner with me, I'd be too busy trying to make eye-contact with him to focus on my food or to pay attention to my colleagues.

We were in Perth (Oz, not Scotland) for an extended weekend holiday paid for by work and a group of us took the train to Subiaco to have dinner at Funtastico's. Shortly after we were seated, two boys (in their 20s) were seated next to us at an adjacent table. One was blond, about 6', nice fit body, not too skinny and not overly muscular. He had a very nice profile, from where I was sitting and reminded me of someone I knew from school, MG. Blondie's boyfriend was dark-haired and reasonably nice-looking but I couldn't see much of his physique as he kept his jacket on all evening whereas his boyfriend has his off and was wearing a short t-shirt which was the reason for my being distracted. Every time Blondie leaned over, I'd be able to see the waistband of his pants (Bonds, they were) and it looked like he was wearing a jockstrap. My heart would beat a little faster every time he leaned over. This was probably not their first date though as I saw Blondie helping himself to food from his boyfriend's plate. What can I say? Growing boys need their food.

I don't think my colleagues noticed that I was too distracted. Unfortunately we left Funtastico's before the boys did but not before I had some yummy chocolate fudge cake for dessert. A girl friend of mine from university once said that eating chocolate was better than having a man. I'm not so sure about that, particularly after what happened last Saturday night (more about that in forthcoming blog entry) but the cake was very satisfying. Not orgasmically satisfying though. It was good but not that good.

By way of a postscript, I've checked Myers and David Jones. They don't carry any Bonds jockstraps. I'm inclined to think that Bonds doesn't make jockstraps. Perhaps I was imagining things. I though I saw bare skin beneath Blondie's waistband. Not that it matters. It was only a fleeting encounter (if that) and I don't suppose I'll ever get to ask him about it.

St George's Day



No, I've not become a member of the BNP. Far from it. The BNP wouldn't want me. I don't qualify on the grounds of race. Perhaps that's too sweeping a statement as it presupposes that assumes that the BNP is a party of white nationalists.

St George's Day means different things to different people. For many Christians, Roman Catholics and Muslims, it's a day to commemorate the life of a saint. I didn't know that St George was "venerated" by Muslims until I read the Wikipedia entry.

To celebrate, I wore a white shirt with a red time and St George's Cross cufflinks to work today. No one noticed. Some of my colleagues wear St George's Cross cufflinks regularly but for them, I suppose it's merely an English symbol and for them the reason they wear it (my guess) is no different from why many American politicians were a lapel pin of a made to resemble a minaturised American flag - national pride, sense of identity, that sort of thing.

Why did I decide to commemorate St George's Day this year? I suppose it was a novelty. I'd thought about for a few years but never got round to it because it was either on a weekend, a holiday or on a day I didn't need to wear a tie to work.

To be honest, I think it's more than a novelty. A large part of my life is still in England, both past and present and will continue to be, for the foreseeable future. I've lived in various parts of world throughout my life. Home is wherever I happened to be living at any point in time but nowhere really felt like home, in the sense of what is referred to as "going home". Most places, it felt like simple "going back to where I'm living now" rather than "going home". It's nothing to do with family connections. I've got relatives who living in England but we don't keep in contact.

Will I commemorate St George's Day next year? I've not decided. I've got it marked as an anniversary in my electronice calendar. Perhaps I'll decide when it's closer to 23rd April next year.

I'm quite aware that St George's Day isn't uniquely English. I was in Mykonos last summer and the picture below is a snap I took of something (does it qualify as an icon?) which could generally be called an architectural feature above the doorway of a house in one of the winding streets of the island. I don't recall exactly where now but it was quite near the Nautica or Gant shop.



16 April 2007

Did He Do It?


Name of accused: Sir Stephen Price Richards (a.k.a Lord Justice Richards)
Age: 56
Date of Birth: 8th December 1950

1975 - Called to the Bar, Gray’s Inn
1987 - Took Silk
1989-91 - Standing Counsel to Director General of Fair Trading
1990-91 - Junior Counsel to the Crown
1992-96 - Assistant Recorder
1996-97 - Recorder
1992 - Bencher, Gray’s Inn
1997 - Judge of the High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division
2000-03 - Presiding Judge, Wales and Chester Circuit
2005 - Lord Justice of Appeal

With a legal career spanning more than 30 years, it was reported by the BBC on 21st January 2007 that the accused had indecently exposed himself to a woman while on a train. He has since denied the allegation on the basis of mistaken identity and a summary trial (no jury - at the election of the accused) is scheduled to be held in June 2007.

Strangely enough, there is nothing on the Judiciary website or the DCA website about this at all.

The Judicial Communications Office has apparently made a statement (presumably in response to press inquiries) to the effect that while Richards LJ has not been suspended, he will not be sitting until this matter is finally resolved. So how is his Lordship's time currently being occupied?

While there is always a presumption of innocence in favour of the accused until guilt has been lawfully determined, there remains the possibility that Richards LJ may be found guilty. There are rumours that he was caught on CCTV exposing himself to the complainant and unless that evidence is somehow inadmissible or proven to be unreliable, there may be an Address tabled in Parliament resulting in his defrocking. I don't think there has been an Address for the removal of a member of the senior judiciary in recent memory and purely as a matter of curiosity as to a point of Parliamentary procedure, it should be interesting to see how this is done.

More interestingly, this scandal involving a senior member of the judiciary seems to have attracted far less attention than if the acccused at the centre of similar allegations was a politician or perhaps even a celebrity. Are judges really such boring people that their alleged foibles, however scandalous are of no interest to the British public?

On a personal note, if Fabio/Damien/Alfonso exposed himself to me on a train, I wouldn't complain. I'd take him home with me to check out the rest of him. However, the accused really isn't my type at all. I might not want to see more of his person but I probably wouldn't bother going to the police about it, even if I knew he was a puisne judge. I'd put it down to it being an act of sad, mentally ill, middle-aged man.

Fabio, Damien Or Alfonso - Who Cares What His Name Is?

I'll let these speak for themselves as well.





Let The Pictures Speak For Themselves

CUTE



CREEPY


I know that beauty is said to be in the eye of the beholder but surely the American public can't be both deaf and blind?

09 April 2007

Please Don't Kill Me


I don't apologise for anthropomorphising a plea for clemency by this baby polar bear who was the only survivor of a litter of 2 cubs abandoned by their mother.

So-called animal rights activists had called for the cub, later named Knut, to be put down on the basis that in the wild Knut would never have survived and it was unnatural to raise him in the company of humans.

That is as much bollocks as I've ever heard. Extrapolating this line of reasoning (it doesn't deserve to be called "logic") , this would equally be a justification to euthanise human orphans but we don't do that do we? Why not? Is it because the value of a human life is more valuable than that of a polar bear? On what basis might such a decision be made? Is there a possibility of a species bias? Please don't be mistaken. I'm not pro-life neither do I unconditionally support the pro-choice movement although I am more sympathetic to the latter.

In my post on PETA, I blogged about the need to exercise stewardship over animal resources and given that polarbears are close to, if not already endangered, there is all the more reason to protect the genetic diversity of the world's polar bear population by not culling Knut.

In any case, the Berlin Zoo disagreed with the animal rights activists and decided to raise Knut. A good decision, if there ever was one.

At the Wolong Panda Reserve in Chengdu, Sichuan, baby giant pandas are routinely raised by humans. The keepers there have found that where pandas give birth to more than 1 cub, the mother panda may either abandon all or all but 1 of the cubs. To avoid this from happening, the keepers at Wolong practice cub-swapping where the mother panding is given a different cub every week. She probably realises that it's a different cub because it smells different but it seems to work. Perhaps pandas can only cope with raising 1 cub at a time.

In any event, the cub(s) which is/are not being looked after by the mother panda is/are raised by the keepers. Eventually the pandas which are born at Wolong are released into the wild.

In theory, if it works for the pandas which are arguably more endangered than polar bears, there is no reason why it shouldn't work for polar bears. I accept that pandas and polar bears live in very different environments and a polar bear who hasn't learnt to hunt for itself will have a grave problem being released into the wild after having lived its life up to that time in a zoo. Pandas don't have this problem. Bamboo doesn't run away and the pandas don't need to learn hunting skills as such but also face the threat of a shrinking habitat in the same way polar bears do.

Apart from the rational arguments not to put Knut down, there is undoubtedly the strong emotional appeal of a furry baby animal which for convenience, I will refer to as the "cuteness factor". Jack Dee in one of his stand-up routines made the point very well. He was taking the piss out of Animal Hospital where a snake had been brought in for treatment after it had been run over by a car. Jack made the point about how the driver shouldn't have stopped after running over the snake but ought to have reversed and run it over again to make sure it was quite dead.

For most humans, furry animals tends to have a higher cuteness factor than the scaly, slimy ones and baby furry animals tend to have the highest cuteness factor. This is probably something to do with our genetic heritage so that adult humans will form emotional bonds with their young and to some extent, this instinct seems to make us predisposed to forming emotional bonds with the young of other mammals as well.

It's perhaps for the best that Knut was allowed to live. The German public seem to be enamoured with him and he's now a (minor) celebrity in Germany and arguably around the world as his story was carried on most of the major Western news networks. It can't be a bad thing for the zoo to see an increase in visitor numbers, even if most only go there to see the baby polar bear.

Utt & Nicholas

Sorry about the wait but at long last, here are the promised pictures of Utt and Nicholas Tse whose biographies can be found by clicking on the links from their names.

I don't propose to say anything more about these two as the pictures will speak for themselves. This post is dedicated to my friend, J. Even though we've not known each other for very long, he's become very special to me.

Here are pictures of Utt:






And Nicholas:



What Was I Thinking?


I was out shopping this weekend among the things which I bought was this sleeveless vest except that it said "rugby" on the front, rather than "australia". The vest comes attached with something rather curious - a sling and in the picture above, it's the thing which the model is wearing draped diagonally across his chest (a nice chest it is too).

When I first saw the attached sling, I was very curious as to what function it had. I immediately thought of the C-IN2 underpants with the built-in sling (cockring) and was curious as to how it might be worn.

It turns out that I was completely wrong about the purpose of the sling. It had an altogether more mundane function. Apparently it's simply there as an alternative to putting it aside if the wearer decided to go shirtless while dancing at a club or while sunbathing. So instead of taking the vest off and putting it aside, the wearer now has the option of slinging it around his neck/chest instead.

What a brilliantly stupid idea!

I've tried my vest on to see if it could also work like the C-IN2 cockring sling but sadly it doesn't or rather, it does but it's very uncomfortable. I think I'll cut off the wretched sling and turn it into a more ordinary sleeveless vest.

There is a chance that I might post a picture of me in the vest but absolutely no chance of seeing me "slung" whatsoever. Other boys might show off their cocks on this blog but I don't think I will. It's not that I'm adverse to showing my cock to other boys as regular readers will know but it's simply not that sort of blog. If you want to see that sort of thing, there's lots of blogs out there where bloggers regularly put themselves on show. One of the blogs where the owner regularly gets his kit off is Skoooozle. It's got a "private" section with links to X-Tube where all the hardcore (mostly solos of Skooozle wanking, I think) video clips can be accessed.