A Queen's guide on how not to cook

            I am perfect in so many ways the list can go on and on, but one thing I cannot do is cook. Eating good food come's very easy and slides down beautifully when someone else cooks or pays for it, but making the stuff I'm buggered. All I can make is my man pot.            
         Years ago when I was young and single my dear old mother taught me how to make this one dish. Really it was a big stew that was Queen proof. Meat, vegetables, potatoes and gravy in a pot and then cook for a couple of hours in the oven. Every time I brought a man home for a meal I would cook this meal. Worked time and time again, the hunk would think he was dating Fanny Craddock. Then for the next few times I would make an excuse like, I'm too tired or have a headache. My best one was I'm on a diet so no solids for me just gin. I can go for days not eating, all I need is a fag and coffee.
         Now when I lived in Glasgow I shared a flat with my best friend and his flat mate who was the most disgusting and ugly Queen I have ever meet. All that I can say is this creature looked like Toad from Toad Hall with big bulging eyes and would waddle around the flat in a multi coloured kaftan that had holes from fag burns in places that made you feel queazy every time he bent over. We were all unemployed at the time and would take in turns when our giro's came through to buy shopping and cook.
        My day had arrived and as normal on giro day I was up dressed and showered before 7am waiting patiently for the brown envelope to drop through the letter box. Once it had arrived I minced down the street and waited in the queue for the post office to open. First things first was the rush to get a packet of cigarettes and then off to the supermarket to buy the food. Now we always wanted the cheapest food to make the money go as far as possible. I scanned the shop and the assistants, well I was single and always thought it would be handy to have a boyfriend who could get cheap food, there is no harm in looking. Coming across some cheap mince in the frozen section I thought I would grab it and make a variation or a cheaper version of the man pot.
        Home I skipped like Judy Garland along the yellow brick road. Once in and with Kylie belting out "I could be so lucky" in the back ground I set to work. Apron on, everything went into the saucepan. I chopped, sprinkled and cackled mixing up my concoction. All I needed was two more hags and we could be mistaken for the Three witches out of Macbeth. Oh I forgot the other two were still in bed. I had a couple of sips and thought the mince was a bit grizzly but then what do you expect for so much mince for only 97pence.
        Then around 11.30 the Toad appeared and lay on the sofa like the Queen of Sheba. He inquired what the beautiful smell was coming from the kitchen and when would it be ready. "Now" I informed him if he wanted some, getting a big bowl from the cupboard. Well, this Queen never did things in small  measures, I ladled out some of my mixture and handed it to him. As I returned to the kitchen I caught a glance of the packet of mince and ran straight to the bathroom.
        After ten minutes of heaving every item of food from my stomach, I composed myself to walk back in. What I had picked up at the frozen section was mince but not for humans but for dogs. As I entered the lounge to face the Toad and his complaining I was confronted by a large smile and the words straight from Oliver Twist "Please sir can I have some more?" Not a pretty sight at all.
 "Of course honey, Michael and I are on a Gin diet at the moment so you have the lot" Taking his bowl and filling it to the brim. At that moment Michael my other flat mate entered the room. Grabbing the empty mince packaging and then Michael's arm I screamed as I pulled him from the room, "Darling I've been up to my nipples in cooking all morning I need a Gin". Michael and I disappeared from the flat quicker than you can say poof.
       Every time after that when it was my turn to cook the Toad would always ask the night before if I was going to make that lovely mince dish again, but Michael would always chip in and make some excuse or  say that we had swapped roles that week. I never cooked in the flat again and left it to Michael or the Toad.

First encounter of the Queer type

          I left Truro at 18 to move to New Zealand. I was not out, still trying to find if there was more Gay people in this world other than me, John Inman and Larry Grayson. For passing my exams the old coffin dodgers which are my parents paid for me to go with my grandparents to stay with my aunt and uncle in Auckland for a time. After hanging around with them for 6 weeks and losing the will to live, I plucked up the courage to go into the centre of Auckland one Saturday to try and find some life and make friends. Noticing a couple of times before in a mall a male boutique with this screaming Queen working in there, who overtime had given me the Gay eye. Gaydar is one of those things that Gay men have and we know straight away when we are talking or looking at another Gay man. Don't ask me how we do it but it's just that queer eye.
        If I minced up and down that mall once I was up and down it a thousand times like a hooker's knickers on a Friday night. Trying to pluck up the courage to go in to his shop. Once in I slide over to him and asked if he would like to join me for lunch and straight away with the biggest squeal I had ever heard and he said yes. Now I am not blowing my own trumpet if I could I would but I was not bad looking between the ages of 18-26. Over 6 foot tall, blonde hair and blue eyes and very slim, not an ounce of fat to be seen. Oh what wonderful days they were, I do miss them. As I figured out in years to come Gay men are not so different from straight men when it comes to blonde's.

          Taking me down stairs to the food hall we picked our lunches and sat down. Making it very clear at the start that I was not interested in him as a date but could he show me around the Gay scene in Auckland. John was not a bad looking guy but oh he made me look like the Terminator which as you are becoming aware is a very hard thing indeed. Well, dear reader I was over the rainbow with excitement. An understatement really I was so excited I felt like a teenager flicking through his first copy of Razzler. I went home to tell everyone I was going out that night with friends. To be very honest my excitement got a luke warm response so I spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening tarting myself up getting ready for my first night out. Every item of clothing was flung onto the bed and I left the house with half of bottle of perfume all over me, spraying parts most people cannot reach and wearing a jacket that had bigger shoulder pads than anything Joan Collins would have worn. Please remember that it was the 80's.
          I waited nervously on the street corner  trying to avoid the looks from men in the cars that crawled passed. In their dreams, I'm a good Catholic Gay boy I don't charge. After 30 minutes, boredom had started to creep in and feeling I had been stood up. Then from a distance I could see and hear a group of men walking, well I use that word "walking" very loosely towards me. Screaming and chatting every one of them was dressed in their best. Hair perfect  and not one crease on any of them and that included their faces. If Botox had been around then I would swear these girls had bathed in the stuff. Before I could draw breath I was in the middle of the group being introduced and being dragged off to my first Gay bar.
        My head was spinning, these guys were a mixture of butch and camp, young and old all talking at the same time and I understood them all. Men are from Mars and Woman are from Venus but Gay men are from.........lets leave that one up to you to put in. I drank and smoked, danced and got chatted up all in the space of a couple of hours. Ok dear reader one thing you have to understand is that in New Zealand at that time there was more sheep than people. I was fresh meat on the market and the attention was Fab.
       Looking back on that night all these years later I was lucky, John could have be a psycho or I could have be kidnapped and sold as a sex slave. Now that would be an interesting blog.
Before I go I just want to point out that I am a Gay Man who is 43 and every story is true and I'm not a middle class grey haired woman bored with her life pretending to be someone else.
     Until the next blog dear reader. Remember always have a Fab Gay time what ever you're doing.

Up to my nipples in the bathroom

           I have always been up to my nipples in something. Housework, shopping, Gin which is one of my favourite or other people's business. Housework is the one I hate the most. Never have been very good with it and it's a struggle when you live with a clean freak like my dear husband. The worst room in the house for me is the bathroom. I think it's because my Mother has an obsession with bleach. If you stand long enough in her house you will be bleached. Michael Jackson would have saved a fortune if he had come and stayed with her for a couple of weeks. Bleaching for her is a passion and I am sure that woman is addicted to it. Bet she gets moist just opening the lid and high as a kite the minute she starts pouring it around and starts to scrub. Greg is just like her, making sure every nook and cranny is sparkling.  For me it's a quick spray and wipe and that is an effort. The arguments that have taken place in our household over cleaning would make your pubs curl even more.
          Once after a long day at work my dear husband came home and told me what a pig I was for letting the bathroom get into a disgusting state and wanted the room to be sparkling to his standard by the time he got home the next day. Fair point, at that time I was not working and he was working long and hard hours. Ok please do not feel sorry for him. Greg is a workaholic who thinks a 12 hour day is  quiet. I am completely different I get puffed out just switching the channels over on the television. I can always find something else to be busy with than cleaning that bathroom.

         So the next morning with a pink pair of rubber gloves on I minced into the bathroom for a deep clean. I can hear you asking "but what did you clean it with Disnarc?" Well, my dear reader I always find the best thing to clean a bathroom with is a toothbrush. Yes, you did read it right.......A toothbrush. To be totally correct His toothbrush.
 Scrubbing and cleaning, that toothbrush went everywhere, down sinks, up drains and in every nook and cranny just like my dear old mother had taught me, and then finally the item I hate the most......... the toilet. Oh that toilet was cleaned to an inch of its life and once I had finished I placed the toothbrush back in its home ready to be used for what it was bought for.
         Greg was so pleased when he got home that night. The bathroom looked like new, sparkling and shining, you could eat your dinner off that floor. He was very impressed with the toilet even remarking he was amazed how I had got all the stains off. I proceeded to clean the bathroom twice a week exactly the same way. That toothbrush worked it's magic and I am sure even Greg's teeth looked whiter than ever before.
          I eventually told the truth after three months had gone by and now every two months Greg goes and buys a new toothbrush and sometimes I catch him sniffing it just before he places it into his mouth. After nearly 21 years together Greg knows now that I will get to the bathroom in my own time because I am always up to my nipples doing something better than having my arm down a toilet pan scrubbing. There is a moral to this story, first never piss off a Queen. We win in the end and you will always come off worse, much worse in the long run and secondly use a toothbrush to get all those nasty stains away from your bathroom and make sure he does not catch you doing it.

Remember be yourself and have a Fab Gay Time doing it.

       From an early age campness has been my companion and with that I have always been a controversial figure. I can remember mincing down the road at the tender age of 7 and being told to walk straight and looked at very oddly by family members when asked what music I liked and my reply would be Musicals and my favourite singer was Barbra Streisand. ( I would die to wear one of her dresses). It did not matter how hard everyone tried to butch me up and believe me they tried, the real person always shone through. My early childhood was Fab with only girls around to play with, making perfume out of rose petals, dressing up and putting on make up was an everyday occurrence.
       The best example of campness came at the age of 10, myself and my girl friends (I even had Fag Hags then) wrote to "Jim'll Fix It" All I wanted to do was wear one of Danny La Rue's wigs. You can imagine the storm that would have caused at the BBC if that would have been allowed on prime time television on a Saturday night in the 70's.

The Great Danny La Rue

      Weird really as when I became an adult I have only dressed in drag 3 times. Well, once you dress as Dame Shirley Bassey in front of the Queen of England and Prince Edward you know everything else will be boring. (Plus I came 3rd in that fancy dress party which was Fab as I had a big crush on Prince Edward at the time so it was an honour to be judged by both of them)  
      Growing in up in Truro in the 70's and early 80's and being very different was extremely difficult and then to move to a secondary school where on a daily basis to be beaten up, bullied, teased by your peers, because I was different from all the other boy's. I never allowed anyone to see how much it hurt or let anyone see me cry. Knowing if they saw any emotion they would have won.
      Getting beaten up daily I got used to and always the last kick was from one of the most popular boy in the school. Once he had given his blow (no pun intended) and no one was looking he would wink at me and whisper " Same place normal time" and I would know that meant  8pm in the lane where he would get his rocks off and I would get what I needed. He was the first but not the last. Oh if I was nasty I could now have a field day naming and shaming but that would not solve anything.
       It was not until my Mother and Father sent me to a private school things started to change.  During a Christmas Disco and the last dance started up, everyone else paired up and started slow dancing I cracked and tears flowed from my eyes like never before. The Headmaster led me to the library and proceeded to tell me that everyone in the school including the teachers knew I was Gay and it did not matter, so after the Christmas break he wanted me to return to school with my head held high and I have never looked back. I allowed the real me to come out.
      Funny really one boy that hated me so much and would bully, tease, beat me, in school and out I have now been told that he is as Gay as Gay could be. So now when confronted by homophobic's, the one's that are so anti Gay they cannot even mention the word Gay without their ugly face's distorting, I look on with suspicion knowing that maybe at night when their wive's and children have gone to bed they are down on the computer getting their rocks off and they are not looking at straight porn sites.
     Why am I telling you all this ? Well, two reasons really, first of all I have been thinking a lot since starting these blogs pondering on what am I going to write next and have been thinking about the events that have shaped my life. I would like people to try and understand me a just little better.  Secondly as I stare out of this apartment it's pissing it down outside, nothing on the television and Guernsey shuts down on a Sunday which is starting to bug the tits off me but that's for another blog. So I am enjoying looking back and remembering the good time's and the bad which I promise there will be lots more of.
      I hope you are enjoying reading my blogs and I am on Facebook as Disnarc Henry so feel free to add me as a friend so you will be one of the first to know when the next blog appears.
                Remember be yourself, and have a Fab Gay Time doing it. x