80. Pro Patria Mori

I was not asked to wear a Poppy at work this week, I was told to. For those of you not in the know, a paper Poppy is worn during the week of Remembrance in the United Kingdom in order to honour those who have served in the British military. The proceeds are then used to support war veterans and their families.

The question you are probably asking is, why would I not want to wear a Poppy in the first place? When I have told this story to several people, all except one have given me that answer. Surely I want to honour those who have died to defend this country and the freedoms and democracy we now enjoy.

Let's try again...I was TOLD to wear a Poppy at work this week.

It goes a little deeper than that actually. The reason I was told to wear one was not because any of the managerial staff felt it was fitting, it was because a company called Body Care was not allowing their staff to wear their Poppies in work, as they were not part of the uniform. Heaven forbid anyone should confuse Body Care with The Body Shop, and ask if the reason I was not wearing a Poppy was because I had been told I couldn't wear one. That would be awful. That would...make for a decline in sales! Which is deeply undemocratic.

I confess to having a stubborn streak. When I am told to do something, I want to know why. I want a good reason. Be it believing in God, wearing a certain dress code or not being allowed into somewhere. I don't see this as unusually as others do. Some people think I just like to cause trouble, that I should put my head down and go with the flow.

But here's the thing. If they'd put their head down and gone with the flow, black people would still have to drink from separate fountains. Gay people would be in jail or internment camps. Women would still be tied to the kitchen, not allowed to vote. The Aztecs thought the Spanish invaders were gods, so they put their heads down and worshipped, and look where that got them.

When I bring forth my views about why I don't wear a Poppy, I'm looked at in shock like I'm some kind of monster. Surely these freedoms that men have died defending include the right to not wear a Poppy? There's something deeply hypocritical about these "freedom" we live in, this post 9/11 crusade where you must have an American flag on your porch and a Poppy on your lapel or otherwise you're some sort of traitorous extremist.

Lest we forget. Lest we forget, most of the young men were sent to war against their will, and the ones who simply wanted peace were sent to jail and humiliated with white feathers. Lest we forget, an eye was turned when children signed up to military service, lying about their age. Lest we forget, Britain turned the other eye when stories about the horrors at Auschwitz were brought to the country. Lest we forget, it was the Soviet troops who discovered the concentration camps and freed the Jews.
Lest we forget, whole families were torn apart for the sake of sending fodder to the front lines.

Lest we forget, we have a government who sends people to war, and then relies on a charity to take care of them when and if they come home, because they're too busy spending our money sending more people to war and buying even more weapons.

There's this idea that if we don't fight and kill, we'll suddenly be taken over by the threat from "outside". There is no alternative to this, nobody is seeking an alternative to this and there's a perfectly good reason why. It is not because war works so well. If war worked perfectly, there would only have been one many years ago and none since then. It is because war is a wonderful business. It sells papers and missiles and battle armour, it sells guns and bombs to either side. Yet again, lest we forget, the Taliban were trained by the USA as a way of fighting against the Soviets. That one didn't quite work out very well did it.

It's always weird to me when we talk about soldiers being killed in war with so much surprise. It is certainly upsetting, and I don't discount the emotion of it. It is an incredible waste. But...when you sign up to run with the bulls in Pamplona you expect to get trampled. You might wrap it up in defending civil liberties but when you sign up with the Army you are going out to be trained to kill, and there is a ridiculously high chance you are going to be killed in return. We see a soldier and we are expected to feel proud, but that man or woman is carrying a gun, and that gun is full of bullets and those bullets are going to rip through someone's vital organs.

I bet there are people completely willing to rip my head off for the statements I am making. I know this because like no other subject, I have had people scream at me for talking this way. How dare I. Who do I think I am. I am disrespectful and uncaring of our troops. This is a lie. I care about our troops so much, I want them to come home and not die. I want them to never have to fight a war again. I want them reunited with their families, and given a job where they are not threatened with death and injury and murder on a daily basis. I know, I'm a complete monster.

Why is it so controversial to talk about not agreeing to war? I hate this view people have whereby they spout "if it wasn't for our brave troops, we'd all be speaking German now". I am not siding with Germany here, I am not some form of Nazi sympathiser but it seems like there are only these two extremes when it comes to talking about any war. You are either with us, or against us. A lover of freedom or a dirty Muslim. Now get that bloody Poppy on your chest and raise your arm in salute...oh wait, I got a little confused there for a moment.

79. Gay Gypsies, Gay Tramps And Gay Thieves....Oh My!

The biggest story this weekend on British news has been the untimely passing of Stephen Gately, a member of a boyband called Boyzone who were pretty big in the mid to late nineties. Later on, Stephen made even more headlines by being one of the most prominent people to come out of the closet at a time when it was still a risky move, especially when you belonged to a boyband.

Sadly, Stephen Gately died this weekend while on holiday in Mallorca at the age of 33. An air of mystery has been surrounding the death, and of course the British press has been lapping it up.

It's not a hard death to make sound seedy, but wow, they've really been trying. Apparently, Stephen and his husband Andrew went out drinking to Mallorca gay bars on Saturday night. They came back home with a companion, a young Bulgarian guy who was the person to find Stephen dead in the living room. His husband was in the bedroom, and according to this other guy's interview with the press, he came out of "the bedroom" to find Gately dead on the sofa.

Let's be honest now, this man doesn't even factor into any equation but the tabloids love the fact he was there. In today's Daily Mail, beside the photo of a grieving Andrew, is a naked photo of the young man in question. It's pretty clear what the newspapers are hinting at...there was some sort of naughty extra-marital thing going on. The Daily Mail reports "But while Gately slept on the sofa, the other two spent the night in a bedroom together."

Gately's death has been ruled as "natural causes", a build-up of fluid in his lungs. I have no idea what this means what could cause it, but it seems it did not happen from any type of overdose or even excessive drinking (or choking on his own vomit like the tabloids suggested). Perhaps there was a chronic condition that hasn't been fully looked into yet, and perhaps the drinking didn't help. Who knows.

But let's face it, the tabloids love a gay. They love to put down a gay when he's alive, and they love to be salacious when he dies. There's nothing people love more than feeling morally indignant, and there's something about the word "gay" that sends people over the edge.

I've seen it so many times....Gay Pedophile, Gay Serial Killer, Man kills his Gay Lover. Only last week were we treated to Matt Lucas' ex husband's suicide making the front page. With plenty of "Gay Lover" comments littered everywhere in bold type.

What makes a gay paedophile worse than a straight one? What makes a serial killer who happens to be gay worse? Does the idea of a man killing his boyfriend sound naughtier than a man killing his wife? I just don't get it.

When I heard about Stephen Gately's death, I felt very sad to hear someone so young had passed on. There was a part of me that quietly hoped though, that his death was nothing dodgy. "Please let it not be poppers or some bizarre sex game" I said to myself. Yet the press dug up anyway, because they love to make out like we're weird slutty people with poor morals. They rub their hands with glee every time George Michael walks into a toilet, or Boy George ties up an escort to a chair.

Of course it's also a shame that many gay men play up to these things for the sake of attention. When Oregon Mayor Sam Adams was found to have entered a relationship with a then 17 year old Beau Breedlove, Breedlove could think of nothing better to do than tell the papers every last detail and then get naked for Unzipped magazine. Affected much? Hardly. Nevermind the fact he ruined a man's life and career, and gave the very worst impression of what a gay man is. I'm sure he'll be coming to a gay bar near you, and when he takes his top off all you'll be able to do is scream and holler for all the wrong reasons.

You might wonder why it matters so much? Well, because we are so scrutinised that any evidence of failure on one person's part seems to make up for the whole. When Paris Hilton flashes her beaver she doesn't automatically become spokesperson for women everywhere, but when some gay celebrity makes a mistake in their personal life, suddenly we're all drug-addled sex fiends.

78. Diana Ross Ain't Got Shit On Me

With love and thanks to my parents and my sister...for putting up with the mental glitter.

It's National Coming Out Day in the UK today, I don't know when this started but it's preferable to Secretary's Day, I'll give them that. I just wonder whether you keep yourself in the closet until this day from now on. I want cake too, maybe in the form of a wardrobe? It's not a holiday without cake.

Anyway, it means I don't have to think too hard to come up with a new blog post. Except I kind of do, because I don't feel like my coming out was massively eventful. I've heard stories involving drugs and hospitals and big hugs and pink unicorns and Mariah Carey. Okay, maybe not Mariah Carey. Nobody's THAT gay. I can't say there wasn't ever a closet for me to jump out either. When I was about fourteen years old my mother bought me a fabulous carved pine one with a golden key and a tasseled blue keyholder. Then they wonder...

I suppose my wardrobe sort of got very full, or maybe I always kept the door open and stuck my foot out once in a while. It probably sounded like a packed gay club. Which sounds dirty, but stay with me. I don't mean full of men, more like you can hear Britney Spears blaring out through the cracks.

I was never a slutty gay, always more of a whimsical one. When I look back at my childhood, it was always very queer in an escapist sort of way. I was the stereotypically bad at sports sensitive child who was very good at school and loved making cupcakes with his mother. But instead of swishing about in public dressed exquisitely (that came a lot later), I turned into a shy withdrawn person. The fantasies were always in my mind and of the highest order, in the privacy of my bedroom I could retreat to a world where I was the star and the drama I felt churning outside was laid out for an adoring invisible audience.

I was fascinated with Jem, He-Man, and later came the superheroes. Okay I lie, I was fascinated with She-Ra, I really wanted her horse. But come on now, what do they all have in common? By day Jem is a fabulous fashion designer, by night she's a rock star superhero with bright pink hair. Was there really a higher thing to aspire to? I never found it. She even had arch enemies who were practically drag queens. I am positive the writers of Sex And The City were influenced somewhere along the way by Jem.

Don't even get me started on He-Man, with his butch female friend and moustached muscular male friend, his eyebrows showing the carpet clearly doesn't match the curtains, and turning into a scantily clad hero with a wave of his...ahem....sword. There's a drag queen in there somewhere too.

By the age of six I was in love with Prince Eric from The Little Mermaid. Actually, when I was three years old I ran away from a camping site with a boy, and hid in the baggage compartment of a coach that was setting out to France the very next day. No joke. See, even at three years old I was a romantic queer with wanderlust.

I was a teenage faggot, seriously. If it was campy and filled with high drama, I was totally there, taking it completely seriously. The first album I bought with my own money was Mariah Carey's Music Box. Then came my obsession with Whitney Houston, at the age of eight. Followed by The Spice Girls, Toni Braxton, TLC, Christina Aguilera and yes, even Britney. Ouch.

When I was about fourteen years old my father stormed into my room late one night and told me to stop singing like a girl. The culprit? Cher's Believe album and not realising how much I was into it. The deep, deep shame.

About a year later he found gay porn on the computer. I denied all knowledge of it, cool as an iceberg. Inside I was DYING. I think he was in even more shock than I was though, and told me if I ever needed to talk he was there for me. Go ahead, go "aaw". I declined though, I thought the evidence spoke for itself, and thankfully I'm sure it was pretty vanilla. For me anyway, maybe his corneas haven't quite recovered yet.

My mother was still thankfully oblivious. I think she's taken it for granted she can get her son to help her with the cooking, ask what dress she should wear out, spend hours walking through flea markets and bitch about other people.

My sister almost caught me kissing my first boyfriend in my bedroom too. Years later when I told her I liked boys (via text message. Thank you technology!) she professed to be shocked. Girlfriend...no heterosexual man is going to tell you it's a bad idea to wear a knee-length skirt with knee-high boots. And pray tell who else do you think stole your Cosmos to read them?

There was a murky period in my teens when I kind of didn't want to be the way I was, but it was almost an annoyance more than anything. You can delude yourself into thinking pretty much anything when the weight of the world is upon you, and then suddenly in an instant you're free.

It took me a few months to realise that. Once I moved to the UK, the process was a slow one in getting used to the idea I could be whoever I wanted fear of reprieve. At least to a greater degree than I was in Gibraltar. A far greater degree.

So I'm sorry, I don't know if I have this massive drama-filled coming out story. I don't even know if I have a point except to say that you should be yourself, because it's the best thing you can be. Struggle and resist and fight, because when you get to the top of that mountain or burst open that closet door as far as you possibly can, there's a beautiful world out there waiting for you.

PS: I realise my coming out story does mention Mariah Carey. I am THAT gay. Sorry.

77. We Were Heatherette

Maybe we started in New York in the late nineties or maybe at that time we were stuck on some rock somewhere in a tiny little town. We were the cowboy and the club kid, or perhaps we were the bookish student with a broken heart and the wild child who'd ventured into everything from piercings to Anton LaVey.

Does it really matter who we were? We were both of them and worlds away, and somehow we collided in this manic sugar-filled bomb of danger and sexual awakening. I don't think we even noticed how much of a world we'd created, we were joined at the hip so much it just turned into some form of organic wonder. I only realise now, because we are always cursed with the benefit of hindsight. You try your best to make up a universe in which you are the burning star, without realising you're already doing it.

So in some part our heads were full of the overstock of Alig's rude departure from the scene. What he did with that pillow put the brake effectively on the circus. Some people didn't hold on very tight and flew out of the picture. Some of them hit the sidewalk with painful thumps. One of them exited gracefully from the burning buildings with a palette in one hand and another outstretched towards Montana.

In other worlds we simply crashed and burned. You think the world is enormous until you start to travel and one day you get a phone call. Like two pieces of skin where the bleeding has finally stopped and the needle pulls in to tighten the thread. All of a sudden you're connected again, and you realise what fed your art. You forget what caused you pain and frustration, you simply feel the tug of a muse at your heels and you can do nothing but kneel.

We wore t-shirts with slogans from The Wizard Of Oz. Which was apt. Perhaps no-one took us seriously with our candy face and cowboy hat, but we brought that circus into town and we made sure everyone knew we weren't against celebrating the trashy. We made it, we took every little wonderful freak of nature and spun a rainbow web with glitter sparkles.

Somewhere else I wrote letters to you detailing how I would never stop loving you.

Somewhere else we revelled in seeing New York City surrender to us.

Somewhere else you'd reach to hold my hand at night and read what I typed furiously, and you loved it without hesitation.

I don't know when you begin to see the tears in the fabric.

When I bring you a Dita Von Teese book for your birthday from Manchester and I cannot find the heart to write anything inside it. Or when we finally decide this life is going to kill us and we can't be on top forever. When our creative differences are too much. When we can't reconcile Americana with these enormous plastic castles. When you become the goldfish and I become the lasso. When I see you tearing up love letters, or bringing a man home to your room, to your bed. To our room. To our bed.

Somewhere else, we'll always have disco.

76. Hot Meat

The new gay club in Cardiff is so unbelievably tacky, the way they advertise their lunch special is with the blaring slogan of "Hot Meat". I know, how original and witty and such.

For their opening night they had naked waiters, bad drag queens, and a failing soap star whose PR team has told him the only way he can even cling to any semblance of a career or exposure is by learning to love the faggots.

I don't think Cardiff is particularly able to sustain more than about three gay clubs at any one time. Open a new one and it will invariably not last, or one of the older ones will crash and burn. I don't think it's only a question of numbers, but the fact the owners become complacent. Stick a big old rainbow flag on the door and they will come, regardless of what's inside. Sadly, what's inside is normally pretty rubbish.

Don't get me wrong, I like going to these places once in a while. I think it's a place where you can feel safe and be yourself among people who somewhat understand you in some capacity. It means you can kiss your boyfriend or hold his hand and no-one will give you those sneering sideways glances.

Let's be honest though, does anyone ever really meet the love of their life in a gay bar? The past two times I went there I had plenty of fun dancing, but something rubbed me up the wrong way. It was something I couldn't quite put my finger on until I had given it a few days thought. Then it hit me, everyone looked ridiculously desperate.

Everyone was trying so hard to preen in front of mirrors and dance somewhere they would be seen, keep their cheeks in, their eyebrows high and their jeans tight and low, that they forgot to do the decent thing and interact with the people beside them. It reeked of some sort of top model show on crack.

I hate to get romantic but I long for the days of bohemian Paris that probably never existed as much as they're portrayed, but hey, they sounded like heaven. The gay bars are trying so hard to outdo each other in terms of shock and awe, it gets quite uncomfortable.

Monday nights in WOW are now amateur stripper nights. Last Wednesday, Pulse announced gay porn star Brent Corrigan (made famous for his first films, when he was 17 years old and had unprotected sex) would take to the stage. Who wants to go and watch some campy shrieky show-off queen twirl on a pole and strip to their tan-stained underwear? On both counts.

This might sound ridiculously simple, but I'm learning that the part of me that wants to believe in a higher place for the gay community might have to settle for lesser ideals. It's a big old queer community though, and perhaps I don't belong to the ocean, but there's a little pond somewhere I can happily swim in. The water might not be rainbow-coloured but I am equally at home.

The other evening I was somewhat awakened to something I've been neglecting for a long time. My intellectual capacities are not diminished, but when you try and sit and talk about a book you've been reading and everyone looks at you like you're an alien as they proceed to talk about last night's Big Brother, you start learning to keep your mouth shut. So I had that for three years, and I suppose it sunk to the bottom of my self.

Sometimes people get the wrong idea of me. Because I like to dress a certain way and I talk a certain way and I don't take myself too seriously. I think I give the impression of being some sort of shallow fashionista airhead. That really is not me.

So amidst beer and mojitos I engaged in talk of Murakami, Garcia Marquez, Palahniuk, the cultural and literary values of comic books, mixtapes, alternative music and time travel.

I may dress a certain way, talk a certain way, walk a certain way and contradict the way I think because I like listening to Mariah Carey on occasion. Yet, like a raspberry swirl through vanilla, I am a bohemian rebel poet dreamer pirate prince in search of a tribe who is most certainly not into hot meat.

I think I found a walking stick the other night.

Issue Seventy-Five: Homeless Homo

"I have had to fight like hell and fighting like hell has made me what I am" - John Arbuthnot Fisher

I arrived and hit the ground running on this green, green land. It's been a wonder, I've been here almost a month and I've kept plenty busy making new friends, reuniting with old ones, settling into new living arrangements and looking for a job.

I was particularly impressed by this year's Cardiff Mardi Gras/Pride. Gone were the sex stalls and in their place were a rise in the stalls highlighting every aspect of our community. It gave me a real sense of who I am, who we are and what we are working towards. I do see us as a tribe, a people, a subculture if you will. I am very proud of this and who I am.

I think it is easier to see a culture when it comes to skin colour, because that person is that colour 24 hours a day. Let me tell you that I am also queer 24 hours a day, and it is a hard world to live in because people sometimes do not pick up on that. It means you sometimes get to hear

people's true thoughts, thoughts you wish you didn't have to hear. It also means you have the ability to "go stealth". This may sound like a blessing, but you can find yourself going stealth for years without realising it. You choose what you feel is the uncomplicated path of least resistance and find yourself on a cliff edge wondering where you went. Somewhere along the way you lost yourself.

Yet sometimes, in this day and age it is nothing short of essential. I count myself very lucky that we do not live in a society where queer people are hunted down like dogs. There have been reports of Islamic groups in Iraq using the internet to seek out and then kill gay men. Worse than dogs, nothing but a speck of dirt on the boot of a savage.

In truth we do live in this society. We live in this place where people see it fit to treat us like the scum they think we are. They wrap it up in politics but they still debate our very right to have a life. Tragically, more often than you think, we are also hunted down. It might be covered up as something else or not reported as largely as say a missing child, but it happens. Don't ignore that fact. Teish Green was shot to death in her car because she was transgendered. For no other reason, someone felt the need to pick up a gun and point it at the heart of a person just trying to live their life.

So sometimes I do feel the need to "go stealth", and I don't think I am betraying myself in

doing so. I am currently living in a house with two straight men. They are very nice, I am not discounting that, but I feel myself walking on tip-toes around certain issues because the last place I want to see myself is out on the street. It is very well and good to proclaim that I have to be true to myself in every instance, but I also need to sleep somewhere. I don't have the financial luxury of finding somewhere else.

So you chip away at your soul a little and you creep around a little and you keep your mouth shut. Of course it makes me angry and frustrated and mad, of course it keeps me up at night wondering if I am betraying myself and my people. I want to help change this, but it happens and I don't know what is ever going to change in order to make things like these better.

So we self segregate sometimes, we have our clubs and our bars and our people. It's for our own protection, let's not kid ourselves.

To be geeky, in a recent story arc in X-Men, they claim rights to an island in the middle of the sea and call it a safe haven for all mutants. Their attempt at integration in San Francisco of all places failed miserably. They decide on a self-imposed exile to a place called Utopia. I long for the day straight people and queer people can live together in peace, tolerance and understanding. I fully intend on keeping my foot jammed into the door even though they keep slamming it.

Sometimes though, I look into the eyes of people like Teish Green, I look at the corpses rotting on the ground in Iraq and I think of Utopia.

Issue Seventy-Four: Exit Notes (Apocrypha)

I.

"Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand."

My friends have been fighting in court in order to be able to marry. Not just for themselves, but for the entirety of Gibraltar. They're an ordinary couple who have been together for about 16 years and just happen to be lesbians. I suppose many people expect change to come from great people, but what makes a great person anyway? Are they great in nature and go on to great things, or are they simply ordinary people who are capable of greatness and act on it.

I'd like to think everyone has a potential for greatness within them, and the trigger is in acting upon it. Without that, Harvey Milk would have been just another man in San Francisco, frustrated by his situation. Martin Luther King would be just another reverend, Barack Obama a frustrated college dropout.

Not everything has to come from this selfless place though. My friends are fighting for marriage because they want the same rights as everyone else. In fact, all they want is to be able to park both their cars in the estate in which they live. As they are not entitled to having the house in both their names, they are not allowed two permits. This has now become a European human rights issue.

Rosa Parks just wanted to sit down, because she'd had a long day and her feet hurt.

My friends say during the trial, a lawyer stated that the gay community in Gibraltar is a minority. They say sometimes they feel like the gay community is just them.

II.

"And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God;"

I suppose you're pointing a finger and asking what I've done. I point that finger at myself also.

I came back to Gibraltar expecting prejudice, and because I was stronger within myself I was able to both find it and face it head-on. But I also found an enormous amount of acceptance in a small community that might not be quite ready for a Gay Pride parade, but for the most part is either uncaring or supportive of equal rights.

Sometimes it's not the best thing to try and break the door down. In the early days of Facebook, someone set up a Gay/Straight Alliance page for Gibraltar, and punctuated it with a "Gay Rights Now!" slogan. I found this a little alienating.

I began to invite friends, little by little spreading the word of support and love and tolerance. I put my face out there, I wanted them to see that by rejecting an invitation, they were rejecting me. Friends invited friends, and by the end of the week an overwhelming 500 members had joined the group.

It didn't matter that nothing of importance was being discussed. It was a silent support that made for great strength. It even made the local newspapers, with heated debates in the letter columns. Of course, the fanatical Christians came knocking on the doors soon after. But it was joyous to see, that people cared in some small way.

Change can be a speck on a butterfly wing, slowly unfolding.

III.

"And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war."

The public face of something does not necessarily reflect the views of the people, and in a place so full of paranoia, shadows and lack of cohesion, it is easy for anyone to take the microphone and ask for whatever they feel is best.

So we have Gibraltar Gay Rights, a political party led by a man who quite frankly, is completely out of touch with the fragmented gay community. Completely unaware that the battles were being fought in places like All's Well and Fresh, little bars where people had created a silent scene movement to feel accepted and part of something. This was frustrating.

When he asked me to write an article for a politically charged newspaper and I hesitated, asking for direction, he told me to stop wasting his time. His words were along the lines of having seen many people come in strong and leave like a fart. Charming. I suppose I did not factor into the equation of what he wanted, a mix of what he felt were gay rights and his own personal agenda.

Big fish. Small pond. Death To Troy Bolton was born out of that frustration, in part. I do not claim to be the spokesperson of a people, of a generation, of a culture, of a tribe. I simply look at others and see something similar, or different, something to talk about. A need for more.

People respond, gradually and slowly, and it is wonderful. Eleven followers on Blogger. Over sixty fans on Facebook. Plenty of online traffic, amusingly some looking for naked Troy Bolton photos. Bless you. It may not sound like much, but it's more than what was there before. I hope that answer satisfies the pointing finger.

IV.

"And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death."

I met Max on my last week in Gibraltar. We had known each other for years, but eventually through a friend I found out he was queer, and vice versa. We got in touch, we went for a drive at night and we kissed by the lighthouse. It was nice. He told me not to leave.

He then ignored me until he was horny. Every few days the same pattern, of complete silence and a willingness to only meet after midnight. Nothing public, nothing bright, for even the smallest suspicion regarding anyone could smash his life to pieces. He thinks, anyway.

I don't claim to be a strong person, I don't think what I do every day is that strong of an action. I simply have no choice other than to be myself, I would rather not live than have to pretend to be something else. That is why I walk with my head high, and nothing to be ashamed of or scared about.

Just like Max, there are many men. Men who are afraid to be who they are because they feel they will be rejected. Men who will end up without any form of loving relationship, not even the hope of one. Men who end up marrying for fear of what the neighbours might say, and end up squashing hearts against doors, leaving bloody trails.

There is a light here for you, it is warm if you want it. There are some of us who look after our own, they do exist. Some of us who don't try and sleep with everything that moves, especially if they are vulnerable. This is a good place for you, here in the light. Because the place you are in now, and sadly I see you being in your whole life, it makes me weep for you.

V.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. The former heaven and the former earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.

It might sound snarky to say that as I walked up the stairs onto the plane, I pretended to scratch my nose but instead gave a middle finger to Gibraltar.

It's not about the people, or my family or the friends I have there. It's not about the geography or the history or the culture. I have learnt plenty there, I have smiled plenty and laughed and grown and thought and developed rich experiences. Hell, this blog was born there, I can never deny that.

It's something else though, a shadow that clouds around the place and suffocates it against change. A shadow I'd like to think I helped pierce a little, so that one day every little queer boy and girl growing up there in eternal frustration can know there is a way out, or at it's most ideal a way to be while they're still inside.

I went to Cardiff Pride last weekend and revelled in the acceptance. In my people and what we have achieved. I looked at all the stalls with admiration. I was truly proud that day, to be a part of this collective. Seeing drag queens, students, lawyers, policemen, firemen, volunteers come together to celebrate who we are, where we came from and where we are going.

It would be easy to forget Gibraltar but I cannot. I might as well forget Stonewall, or even what is happening now in Egypt or Jamaica. Wherever I go and whatever I do, I will do my best to highlight the simple issues that can make life so damn hard there.

For the moment however, here's to new beginnings.