HOMOVISION REHAB with THE SWARMITE: AGEING (Part 2)

In her book “How to Grow Old Disgracefully”, the actress Hermione Gingold remarked: “There’s nothing so ageing as the past – especially when it catches up with you. I like to live in the present”. How gay was Hermione? Well for starters her sister Angela Baddeley played iconic...

January 19th, 2010 | Highlights, Rehab | Read More

THAT WAS 2009…

Two thousand and nine. Bit of a blip really. Anyway, here’s our video highlights of 2009: DJ Oliver M DJ and Matinee promoter Oliver M talks about the state of London gay clubland. We like a bit of Oliver M. He dared to take the leap out of the Vauxhall triangle when everyone else was saying it...

December 31st, 2009 | Comment, Highlights, News | Read More

THE LEATHER BOYS: SMOKE AND LEATHERS

How many of you old and young-timers have heard of The Leather Boys? It’s got nothing to do with Warhol or Kenneth Anger, despite the imagery it conjures up (anyway, it’s far too playful a title for Anger) and nor is there any debt to Tom of Finland. No, The Leather Boys is a 1961 British pulp novel...

December 7th, 2009 | Comment, Theatre | Read More

HOMOVISION REHAB with THE SWARMITE: VIRUS LIVING

In the current PC climate of rising HIV infections, when health charities place the sensibilties of poz people above prevention, many say we need to go back to basics. When this gay plague started I was there, being tested at The Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead in 1981. Doctors had flown from America...

December 1st, 2009 | Highlights, News, Rehab | Read More

COMMENT: HIV – 20 YEARS ON

As I come into the year of the 20th anniversary of my HIV positive diagnosis the gap between two observations before me is so vast I am moved to make what I am seeing public, in the hope of sparking more conversation about a subject that is a huge factor in every gay man’s life. Every gay man has to...

December 1st, 2009 | Health, Highlights | Read More

COMMENT: Hedonism, HIV and the importance of talking

Everyone has had the odd lost night once in a while. The type when you find yourself stumbling on to the first tube in the morning or, heaven forbid, precariously negotiating your way through the rush hour commuters. There can be something refreshingly beautiful about the experience. At their best these...

November 19th, 2009 | Clubland, Comment, News | Read More

HOMOVISION REHAB with THE SWARMITE: ENLIGHTENMENT

Thankfully, enlightenment is not the prime property of religion. For many BOOZE is the true sauce of light. Some years ago, I went to ClubNight – The Glory Hole @ Central Station Kings Cross with a friend, he head to toe in Prada, posing to the left and right while I entered the backroom dressed...

November 17th, 2009 | Highlights, Rehab | Read More

GAY HATE BEENIE MAN TO PLAY AT FESTIVAL

Listen to this. Beenie Man – the nutcase Jamaican “artist” famed for such lyrics as “I’m dreaming of a new Jamaica, come to execute all the gays” and “Hang chi chi gal [lesbian] wid a long piece of rope” – has been invited to play at New Zealand’s...

November 12th, 2009 | International, Music, News | Read More