The Unorthodox Website Blog

(Click on picture to enlarge – George is on right of picture, as in my politics, I’m on the Left!)

The above photo is one of the last taken of us both, a few months before he died. It was one of the publicity shots taken by Channel 4’s ‘Out’ program. We were briefly featured in an episode about housing for gay people. George’s wonderful collage of pop music thru the 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s and into the 90s was featured all too briefly in the program.

George came into my life on September 10th, 1970 and changed it completely, for the better. We helped each other in so many ways, and grew very close over the 21 years we were together on this Earth.

When we met I was a fanatical Stalinist card-carrying member of the Communist Party, George was paranoid about anything vaguely leftwing.

I get regular medication from St Thomas’ Hospital, which I visit twice every three months, once for tests and a few weeks later to see the doctor. I used to collect my medication from the Pharmacy on my visit to the hospital doctor. Now they have a contractor send them to me by ’special delivery’ because they claim it saves them money. This is impossible, it can’t be cheaper to get a contractor to send medications by special delivery than just hand them out when people visit the hospital. What they mean, of course, is that they shift the cost from the budget of St Thomas’ Hospital to another Health area.

This sort of nonsense goes on all the time in the NHS and elsewhere. They are closing hospital wards as another false economy. Only this week I heard of a hospital newly built just over 40 years ago being closed.

This BBC series started last week, first episode repeated Saturday night. I’d have called it ‘Michael Pallin’s Sad Europe’ since I don’t see what many, if any, of the former Socialist countries have gained by trying to revert to capitalism, some of them after terrible, senseless and barabaric wars.

Pallin started off in former Yugoslavia, and it was odd to see him roaming around Split and Dubrovnik in Croatia, where I’d been myself just a week or so before. He also visited Sarajevo and Mostar in Bosnia-Herzogovina, which I’d visited when they were part of the Yugosolav federation. The historic bridge in Mostar was very obviously brand new, since the old one on which I stood with my partner years ago was sadly destroyed in the senseless Balkan wars of the 1990s.

On the Mediterranean cruise I have just completed we visted 7 ports, 6 of which I had previously visited or traveled thru with my life-partner George, who died 16 years ago on the 29th of this month. Our 37th anniversary of meeting was on the 10th of this month.

So the cruise brought bitter-sweet memories, especially when I found our ship anchored right opposite the beach and hotel complex on the Babin Kuk peninsular in Dubrovnik where we stayed 20 years ago. We could see it clearly from our cabin balcony, and I felt I was looking back in Time, and could wave to myself and George 20 years ago on that beach, and they could see us 20 years in the future. Weird experience!

Also in Dubrovnik, in the old city, my mother and I visited the self-service restaurant where George and I ate regularly.

This was the title of a show on the cruise ship ‘Arcadia’ tonite, performed by the ship’s company. As Jim Royale would say: ‘Rock’n'Roll my arse!’

Rock’n'Roll is Little Richard, Bill Haley, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, early Elvis Presley, Gene Vincent, etc., etc.  OK, this was a tribute to ‘British rock’n'roll’, in which case it should have been Johnny Kidd & The Pirates, Wee Willie Harris, early Cliff Richard and The Drifters/Shadows, Terry Dene, Terry Wayne, Screamin’ Lord Sutch, Billy Fury, Marty Wilde, Lord Rockingham’s XI, etc. You could perhaps stretch the definition to include the skiffle of Lonnie Donegan, etc.

But Elton John, Paul McCartney, Shirley Bassey, Petula Clark? I don’t think so. The nearest we got to anything like rock’n'roll was a couple of Stones songs – ‘I Can’t Get No Satisfaction’ and ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’.

 It is a shame that the name rock’n'roll is so abused. They should think of a new name for this production.

That word means different things to different people. To the rock’n'roll crowd it means driving around in big American 1950’s cars, to the gay community it means ‘looking for trade’ (sex). When you reach your dotage, like myself (62) and my mother (93 next week) it is more likely to mean going on a sedate sea cruise, but let’s not knock it. Frankie Ford sang about it, Kyle Esplin is making his fortune out of them, and hey, it can be fun. Something like an up-market holiday camp with entertainment, as much food as you can eat, and you get to see different places from your balcony or porthole as your trip progresses. (He hasn’t mentioned ‘Hello sailor!’ I hear you say, but after three cruises the nearest I’ve got to a gay romance is a few gay and lesbian meet-ups at a bar on deck on the American ship last year.