The Unorthodox Website Blog

In the bad old days being a gay man in the UK, quite apart from being not respectable, was illegal. Lesbianism was never made against the law since Queen Victoria refused to approve such legislation, believing women wouldn’t get up to such things. (Or perhaps she had a crush on her maid of the bedchamber after Albert kicked the bucket.) Anyway, she obviously wanted men to be breeding loads of young male cannon fodder to fight her imperialist wars and add to her ever-expanding Empire, and gay men didn’t produce young recruits and conscripts.

Whatever the reason, male homosexuality had to wait till the 21st Century before it was made fully legal in UK. This legislation was forced on the UK by EU membership and the European Court of Human Rights. In the latter third of the 20th Century we lagged far behind such countries as USA, Australia, all of Western Europe, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and post-Franco Spain in matters of gay liberation.

Everything is relative, Einstein taught us that. People see things differently. So when I was talking to a friend and neighbor about a nearby pub and described it as ‘that new building’ he challenged this. Since it was built 10 years before he was born, probably erected in the 1950s, he regarded it as an ‘old’ building.

For me, old buildings are those erected before the First World War, such as the Victorian terraces seen in cities across England. 

Ancient buildings are those built before the 19th century, such as the well preserved 11th century part of the Tower of London for instance.

Modern buildings include those built between the two world wars, such as the Empire State and Chrysler buildings in New York.

Also the very modern looking Peter Jones department store in Chelsea, London.

Plus, of course, the terraced houses built in that era, which include the vast expansion of London northwest into the former county of Middlesex around the Metropolitan Line of the Underground (then known as Metroland).

Muhammad Al-Fayed came across as a ranting, raving, paranoid conspiracy theorist in the courts the other day. He was accusing everyone in positions of power of being part of the conspiracy/cover up, and calling them names like ‘Nazi’, ‘Frankenstein’, ‘Dracula’, etc.

The trouble is he has no proof, and never will have. If Diana was murdered, as seems very likely to me, it will have been most carefully planned involving both the British and French Secret Services and the police and emergency services of both countries. So no evidence is likely to come to light.

All we have are theories and scraps of information which, like other conspiracy theories, point to foul play. For instance, the white car which hit Diana’s vehicle just before the crash, quite likely causing the so-called ‘accident’, has never been officially traced and investigated by the police. The fact that the driver of that car has since died is also suspicious – another possible witness who can’t testify.

I frequently find myself out-of-tune with most people on all sorts of things, from pop/rock music, thru fashion, my sexuality to political issues. For instance, many people in Western countries applauded the falling of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. I still think these were two of the greatest tragedies of the late 20th century, but that’s not the main subject of today’s blog. There are two of these, but not the two just mentioned.

The first subject I want to comment on is the unilateral declaration of independence by the Serbian province of Kosovo. How ridiculous! I said the same, so did my partner incidentally, about the crazy rush to ‘independence’ by the three Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania which led ultimately to the break-up of the Soviet Union. Also the similar crazy desire for independence by Slovenia which led to terrible wars and genocide, and the break-up of the Yugoslav federation. Thus ended the most successful form of Socialism on the planet, a unique blend of the Western  competitive market economy with true Socialism – independent competing enterprises all publicly owned and controlled.

Ban The Bomb For Evermore!

We little thought, when we marched to/from Aldermaston in the late 1950s/early 1960s, that we’d still be demonstrating there against the latest development of that evil place in the 21st century.

My first Aldermaston March was in 1962, and I hope to attend the 50th anniversary demo there on Easter Monday 2008, to mark the first Aldermaston March back in 1958, the year CND was also founded.

Some may think that CND and similar movements around the world achieved nothing, since nuclear weapons have not been given up by any country except South Africa (which was going to develop them at one time) and have spread to ever more countries.

However, we have achieved much. The first big victory was the 1963 Test Ban Treaty which halted all nuclear bomb tests in the atmosphere.

Last Sunday I had to take my mother, now 93 and largely in a wheelchair, across London to a cousin’s 60th birthday celebration. The journey, though a long one, looked simple enough: bus to our nearest Tube station (South Kensington), a Piccadilly Line straight to Eastcote, then a 7 minute bus journey to the Chinese restaurant in Northwood Hills where we were meeting the rest of the family.

We got to South Ken – trains to Eastcote only run during peak hours. This wasn’t stated/shown on any of the Underground maps I’d consulted beforehand. So we decided to take the Piccadilly Line the other way, traveling in the completely wrong direction, to Kings Cross and pick up the Metropolitan Line to Northwood Hills from there.

Got to Kings Cross, after negotiating loads of difficult steps at both South Ken and Kings Cross, to find Metropolitan Line trains don’t run from there to Northwood Hills at weekends – again not shown on any Underground map.

Since its revamp last year, the British edition of ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?’ with Chris Tarrant, there are not only 12 questions to be answered correctly (with the help of three lifelines) in order to win a million quid.

However I have a number of questions to ask about this quiz show:

 1.  Why it is one of the very few quiz shows to rarely feature anyone from the ethnic communities as contestants? They are in the audience, but the overwhelming preponderance of 10 white would-be contestants at the beginning of each show is very obvious.

2. Why is it also one of the very few quiz shows to never feature a gay/lesbian contestant? Every male seems to have a wife or girlfriend either in the audience or watching at home, and every female contestant a husband or boyfriend.

Jerry Lee Lewis, now 72, is currently riding high after his third come-back/fourth bout of popularity in the USA. After the 1958 crash due to his third marriage, news of which broke in London on a tour here which was aborted after just three shows, Jerry made a big come-back ten years later as a Country star.  He became one of the biggest-selling Country artists, with nearly every record reaching the Top Twenty.

With the advent of New Country in the 1980s, many of the traditional Country artists, including Jerry Lee, found themselves without a label or a recording contract. It seemed he would never have a hit again.

The biopic ‘Great Balls of Fire’ starring Dennis Quaid, with a brand new musical soundtrack recorded by Lewis, revived his career yet again, and brought him a new generation of fans around the world, despite the deficiencies of the film and Quaid’s over-acting, cartoon-like characterization of Lewis.