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

HOMOVISION REHAB with THE SWARMITE: AGEING

They used to sing ” Nobody loves a Fairy when she’s Forty ” back in the days of homo criminalisation but now the internet is awash with Daddies, Bears and Spanking GrandDads – thankfully nobody needs to look like Cher anymore to still be in the game. Can you imagine being rejected...

January 12th, 2010 | Health, News, Rehab | Read More

HOMOVISION REHAB with THE SWARMITE: EXPECTATIONS

Setting expectations too high is societies curse, which is why government and partners fail us and media is flooded at this time of year with detox trivia, diet plans and resolutions. Don’t encourage them, be stylish – wait till February or when you feel you want to, rather than need to...

January 5th, 2010 | Rehab | Read More

HOMOVISION REHAB with THE SWARMITE: XMAS BOOZE CHECK

We know that Alcohol can make gayers do mad things but no one is mental enough to give up Booze before Christmas. Right? “It’s only another month before the New Year and I can get it sorted then” is the annual December mantra of hope. The page BOOZE CHECK on my own website is number...

December 7th, 2009 | Highlights, Rehab | 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

COMMENT: DESIRE, CONFORMISM AND THE ELUSIVE GREAT DARK MAN

“Oh Alberto, have you heard Shirley Bassey’s new album?” the shrill, camp voice rang out from the right hand toilet cubicle. “No,” grunted the blatantly bored and clearly paid for Alberto from the left hand cubicle. “Oh well, never mind,” sighed the nameless extra from Julian and Sandi....

December 7th, 2009 | Comment | 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