A fresh new blog from me is a rare occurrence these days, partly due to my weekly column, but I just had to tell you about the most incredible experiences I've had in the past few weeks.
My Grandfather passed away a year ago, and left me some money to use on whatever I wished for. I could have bought myriad shoes or gotten very drunk very often, but I'm in a fortunate position in which I'm satisfied with the amount of material belongings I posses, and I doubt he'd approve of my dizzy nights out. Instead I bought an experience of a lifetime.
I left drizzly London behind with Jo, one of my closest friends, and flew to South Africa for pampering and animal encounters. January is always a quiet month in club / media land, and December is always exhausting, so I didn't feel guilty about checking into a spa hotel in Cape Town, getting massaged every morning and checking out the city's most delicious restaurants by night, with a helicopter tour of the city thrown in as an extra treat. That freaked me out somewhat, especially when there was a technical fault while we flew over the sea! We lived to tell the tale, and booked a table at the Cape Town Ritz for dinner that evening to celebrate our survival, as we'd heard there's a revolving restaurant at the top. We assumed dressing smartly was de rigueur there, so we went shopping for shoes, shirts and I even bought a Louis Vuitton cravat. As we pulled up to the hotel dressed to the nines, we were rather alarmed to find what was clearly not part of the Paris/ NYC/ London chain of luxury hotels, and what was clearly the ugly sister of the Holiday Inn in its place. After being greeted not by a top-hat toting doorman, but by an old lady mopping the lobby floor and shaking her fist at us for walking over her work, we dined among Americans in Hawaiian shirts and shorts and laughed until we were sick. Moments like that make the best memories. The food was average but it was the best night of our trip.
I have always been afraid of sharks, even when I'm paddling in Ibiza or Margate! I think I saw Jaws too often when I was younger. I have a theory that fears are there to be faced, so off we drove to an area a few hours outside Cape Town where the largest numbers of great white sharks in the world go to breed. I have no idea how I managed to go through with it, but I was zipped into a wetsuit, given breathing apparatus and jumped into a cage to be lowered under the ocean before I knew it. The shark that circled me for the duration of my dive was a female roughly the size of a car with a menacing stare and several rows of very sharp teeth. I actually felt quite safe in the confines of the cage, although my legs kept floating out through the gaps due to the buoyancy of my wetsuit. She didn't want to eat - or even bother - me, she was more interested in the fish heads that were being dangled on a line from the boat above to keep her in the area. It was a beautiful, euphoric experience. She had so much elegance. I forgot she was a killing machine. Sharks only attack humans by mistake, as we're not in their food chain. A surfboarder can look like a seal from below the water, but as soon as the shark takes a bite and realises that it's a human, it'll spit you back out, dead or alive.
A two-hour flight and one hour car transfer away from Cape Town is Pumba Game Reserve, the most luxury, exquisite and comfortable place I have ever stayed. The real wild in Africa is a thing of the past, besides Botswana and parts of the Serengeti. Everything else is enclosed in hundreds of huge (and I mean REALLY huge) game reserves surrounded by electric fences to keep endangered species in and ivory poachers out. Even Kruger National Park, which fences in millions of animals in a space the size of Wales, is big enough for the wilder beast to migrate within.
Pumba boasts a small hamlet of private thatched-roof bungalows with outdoor showers overlooking the bush, and four staff to every guest. In stark contrast to the cities of the western world, it seems most people are genuine and friendly. When you say thank you and they tell you 'it's a pleasure', they really mean it.
After the sun set on the first night we stayed there, I looked up at the sky to see Venus and Mars, and the cloud-like Milky Way and constellations such as Taurus and Hercules, literally TWINKLING, almost like fireworks. You can't experience that from Primrose Hill. You can even spot satellite dishes orbiting the atmosphere if you have a telescope to hand. The best things in life really are free.
Going on safari trips out into the bush are not like day trips to the zoo. The animals are wild – never handled and never fed. Pure nature. Because of this there are rules – if you encounter a heard of rhino or an elephant, don't stand in your vehicle, make too much noise or do anything to make them feel you are a threat. Much like the great white shark, we are not their prey. We are driving through their territory, and they deserve respect. At one point we encountered a pair of huge male lions basking in the sun. They clocked us, yawned, and got up to see what we were there for. At these safari destinations you're driven around in an open-topped 4x4. There are no glass windows. If lion wants to jump into vehicle, lion jumps into vehicle. Our ranger, Nerma, grew up in a tribe and has been around animals in the wild her whole life. She can tell if our presence is annoying the lions just by a glint in their eye. If it looks like one could switch and we risk being charged, she's already got her foot on reverse. Nothing has ever gone wrong on her safaris, and she's at one with the nature that surrounds her. Back to these lions – who happen to be brothers and can often be seen hanging out together. The king of the jungle decides to walk literally a meter away from my side, and I can feel its panting breath on my cheek. You can imagine how fast my heart is pounding. I stay still, avoid eye contact, and moments later he's moved back into the shade. I'm not a tasty antelope and I haven't pissed him off. An experience like that is completely humbling, and understandably quite emotional. Who needs drugs with something as amazing as that to make your head spin?
I feel very lucky, and my Granddad would have loved to have heard all about it. If you ever get the opportunity, get yourself to Africa. I've not come back a completely changed person, but it made me think about the great scheme of things.
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( 3 / 194 )So it's January...and my New Year resolution is to get healthy. I've already expressed my concerns about smoking, but the quitting will happen later when I have more will power. I got a juicer for Christmas and a book about how to make delicious (!!!!) smoothies. As I write this I'm sipping on a glass which contains two carrots, an apple and some ginger. I'd rather have a coffee but cafine is OUT!
I purchased a detox programme from Fresh and Wild (where a salad costs a tenner!) and I have to take two tablets in the morning and two in the evening. It's meant to purify my liver and gut. Food seems to pass through me a lot quicker since I started the programme....have I been sold expensive laxatives?!!
Anyhoo, that's as far as my health strike is going. Roll on February when I can have a guilt-free Pizza Hut delivered!
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( 2.9 / 190 )So, July 1st....London joins places like NYC in the 'no smoking in public places rule'. I think it's time to give up.
I've smoked since I was fifteen and it's a filthy habit. i love a ciggy, especially with a cocktail, but it's wrecking my health I'm sure. And no one likes snogging an ashtray!
I'm not sure about the best way to stop....patches? Gum? One of those inhalors that look like tampons?
My Mum thought I gave up years ago until she saw me in Heat with a fag in my hand. I got a right ear-full on the phone! I was even hypnotised for it a few years back which did nothing to help the habit. It took place in a therapy center which had the builders in making loads of noise, so I did manage to get my money back. Sadly, but ironically, the lovely hypnotist lady died of cancer a year later, although I don't think it had anything to do with the lungs.
Oh Marlboro Lights....we've had some good times together, and maybe have a couple more months to look forward to, but you've got to go, you fuckers.
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( 2.9 / 224 )From Boyz magazine, Nov '06.
I'm going to tell you a tale of woe that probably harks true for most drag queens out there. But before I begin, I want to make one thing clear – this ain't a call for sympathy or a sorry cry for help! I simply have to get something off my chest (which is flat, by the way. I'm a boy in a wig and a bit of slap after all, not a woman-wanabe).
Boys. Can't live with them, can't live without them. Before becoming a fully blown pantomime dame/ Barbie doll rip off/ Circus clown, I couldn't keep my legs shut. New in town only half a decade ago, the city was my sex toy to manipulate and rarely a week went by when I didn't have some sort of sexual conquest to gossip about to my friends back home in the countryside. I didn't need a boyfriend when there were so many hotties out there. Emotional attachment was for pussies. Then I discovered dressing up in moonlight hours and all its fabulous add-ons and I quickly became a self-confessed drag-addict. Here's where the problem began.
In my experience, it's rare to find a gay guy who is entirely comfortable shagging, or dating, a guy who likes dressing in high heels and wearing false nails for a night on the dance floor. Not that I'm saying it's impossible – a couple of gender-benders I know have held steady relationships for longer than I've been legal to drink shandy. Lucky bitches. I just can't seem to lasso myself a perfect partner and keep him. Considering I'm currently on about three nights in slap per week at present, perhaps they think I won't have time for dinners and cuddly nights in front of Corrie (which sounds like bliss to me). Perhaps they are scared I'll get a sex change (never gonna happen), that I won't have time for them with all my grooming and carousing (I only dress like this when I work, duh), that their friends will freak at them for dating a tranny (even my past flat mate suffered some stick) or that I'm just not man enough (listen – it takes a REAL man to handle six inch platforms, itchy wigs, scratchy false lashes and being slagged off by the Daily Star and 3AM Girls for hanging out with C-listers and being a 'Pete Burns wanabe').
Before I end up sounding like Carrie from Sex and the City after a mammoth makeover in MAC, I'd like to point out that I'm actually not a bad catch. Ok, so I'm not a pumped-up gym bunny with a sixteen inch cock and a mortgage-free house in Hamstead, but are any of us? I have the fortune of being alright looking without a coat of face paint, my bank balance is healthy, I've got a fierce pad and a wicked sense of humour and my friends are great. But will a man ever see past a bouffant wig and silly outfits?
Of course, there are several alternative routes to dating that I've passed on after trying them out. Gaydar ain't for me. Like ecstacy, I've tried it once and hated it. I know online dating is the future but I feel a bit awkward and I'm always asked why I shave my eyebrows or why there are wigs in the bathroom cupboard (the nosey fuckers should let me fetch the lube). Similarly, tranny fucking can be great for some people. I've had the odd fling with a hot 'straight' guy or two after meeting them at a straight club but why would I want anything more than a bit of hanky panky with a guy who only wants to see me in my full get-up? Like I said, I'm a MAN! Hear me roar!
I don't want to sound like Billy No-fucks. I've had a fair few good sessions and even a couple of mini relationships over the course of my drag life, one of which saw me too-ing and fro-ing between here and New York for a while. How glam. But right now I'm at that stage where I want to settle down with a hot lad to call my own, at least for the first half of each week when I have my 'tracksuit-and-telly-time'.
So, to conclude, most gay guys I've come across don't think hard enough about what could be behind a platinum blonde, finely painted and (only very slightly) collagen enhanced mask. If there's any offers out there, the guys are Boyz have my e-mail address. But I'm not willing to fork out my hard-earned cash. Some of my best pals are on the game but I'm not that desperate….yet.
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