Gay Day Away

Saturday spent with Minge, touring the sights of Portsmouth.

He arrived by train, complete with corduroy cap and jacket, scarf and cheeky grin. Plus the northern habit of calling everyone "Love" or "Hen" and hugging instead of shaking hands. Portsmouth people generally don't like to touch each other - at least not those over 25 and above the poverty line.

Fortunately, Portsmouth people don't like to make eye contact either, so they can't do disapproving glares. I think I can honestly say I've never been kissed by a minge before, ANYWAY...

The first port of call was a crowded caff for tea and shared flapjack, launching into discussion of the Scottish Socialist Party, Tommy Sherridan the oily scottie commie and George Bloody Galloway, the Respect party's biggest liability (and asset). With detours into whether we'd let them shag us.

Then I introduced him to some comrades doing the Saturday Socialist Worker sale in the shopping precinct, and we compared perspectives on the complete and utter blithering mess called Iraq. Odd how absolutely everyone - up to Henry Kissenger and George Bush - acknowledges that it is a blithering mess with no obvious solution. There's just no consensus as to which desperate measure is least dangerous.

Then we trolled through the architectural highlights of the Guildhall (once used in a movie to represent the Peter & Paul Palace in Moscow), some war memorials (forgotten and unvisited, as is the whole point of memorials), the Anglican cathedral (nasty redbrick), the Catholic cathedral (nice whitestone), HMS Victory ("Why has it got funnels?")...and Gunwharf.

Gunwharf is half hideously expensive shopping mall, half hideously expensive luxury apartment flats. It was the last stab at "urban renewal" five years ago, and has provided us with a shop that sells nothing but sunglasses, one that sells enormous bars of ultracheap chocolate, and a lot of empty flats no one can afford to live in. But at least we get a cinema out of it.

We ate lunch in one of the many sophisticated eateries, served by a sweetly camp waiter called Ken - Bengali I think. Minge's UKP11 got him a steak with salad, and my UKP5 got me fried calamari and more salad. Minge paid for everything, which I'm grateful for, because I'm rather close to bankruptcy.

We spoke of the myraid mysteries of human sexuality - the way it can become "attached" to any object or activity as a fetish, the way it changes of it's own accord but can't be made to change, and the endless hypocrisy's of public attitude. Minge is a smart guy, interesting to talk with.

The most well known part of Gunwharf is the tower. Essentially a very tall liftshaft, with a glass observation tower at the top. For UKP5 each, you can view the town as a seagull would see it - which is admittedly an impressive sight. You also buy mementos from the small and painfully tatty giftshop - tower pencil sharpeners, tower rubber balls for your dog to chew, two foot long bendy tower biros, and "highly abstract models" of the tower itself. Which is to say, hollow plastic tubes with a sliding foam "elevator".

The evening we spent in The Old Vic, Portsmouth's least trendy poofpub. Joined by Simon M, we happily talked of showsongs and politicians. And which ones we'd let shag us.

Simon thought he was very sweet and rather cute. We kissed goodnight next to the city's enormous illuminated christmas tree - fenced off so no one could climb up it and fall off. Minge took the train back to a different seedy seaside resort, and I went home for exhausted sleep.