This is the difference, so listen up.

When a guy goes on a date with a woman, after drinks, dinner and more drinks he might get laid.

Might.

Depends on her, really.

If a guy goes out with a guy, after drinks, dinner and more drinks getting laid is not in question.

They already have.

Get it?

Hey, Binky.

Binkster.

Binky old chum.

Getting any?

No, me either.

Anyway, I digress.....

I was privileged to meet a fellow blogger yesterday and I guess I was a little quiet in her presence as I usually am with people who are way more talented than me.

I'm just in awe.

She has a blog that is read by thousands , a published writer and a succesful stand up comic...very talented.

I did her a small favour and in return she gave me a copy of her book which I shall read.

And enjoy immensely.

Anytime your in Manchester Janey, let me know.

And lets have a coffee next time.

I'm sitting opposite the Mortgage Guy, he's filling out forms and I'm signing them.

Whats left of my youth is being erased with every stroke of biro on paper, of every signature I write.

We get to the Life Insurance policy and we go through the questions until we get to the gay question.

''Are you in a group that is at high risk from HIV''.

He lists them.

''Bi-sexuals''

No, I reply

''Intravenous drug users''

Again , no.

''Homosexuals'

I take a sip of my coffee and look out if the window and across the street.

I look at him as he looks over his glasses, detecting my hesitation.

''Sorry''I say ''No''.

After I had said goodbye to him I went for walk outside the hotel, the question and my answer rolling around in my head.

I felt a little ashamed that I had lied.

I had lied about one of my defining characteristics, compromised a small part of my dignity and pride.

Whilst I had the courage to be open at work, to my friends and family, to join in the Pride celebrations, my courage escaped in front of a little grey man in a little grey suit on wet Monday afternoon.

This is too much!

Go build your own South Park character!!

http://spstudio.elena.hosting-friends.de/spstudio.html

A roaring fire in a house in County Claire, 1999.

I sat down for a hearty meal of beef and potatoes with a guy called JP. He was a priest stationed in Florida but had returned home for a month or so.

Of course he was gay.

Aren't they all in Ireland?

We had spent the afternoon driving around Claire and I remember how alien the landscape was in certain parts.

Pools of glass like still water broke up the rocky and barren landscape, a perfect mirror for the clouds hanging in the clear blue sky above.

Over dinner JP told me of his love for a guy in Australia and how he had been broken heated when the guy met somebody else.

I sympathised, but didn't dare ask whre the relationship could have gone due to the dim view the church has of homo's.

We finished dinner and moved into the lounge and sat together in front of the roaring fire.

The silences were puntuated by the crackling of the logs feeding the hungry flames.

After the polite conversation was exhausted his hand came over to my knee and after a moment of plite fumbling later we began to kiss.

First a little awkwardly and then passionately.

Clothes began to be discarded and we were both naked,and he was magnificant.

In every way, if you get my drift.

I came up for air after tasting him over and over and he asked me what I wanted.

I told him.

We killed the lights and put a rug on the floor in front of the fire and we continued to make love.

When it felt right I sat across him and took him into myself.

In those few minutes of physicality and grunting I felt the euphoria of the release and we began to calm down.

I slipped down his body and into his waiting arms and lay together in the warming glow of the fire, at peace with one another and the whole world.

It was a nice moment.

I remembered this today when I looked at a house I subsequently put an offer on.

When I entered the house the fire was roaring and the room was warm and welcoming.

I paused for a second looking deep into the flames letting the embers ignite a memory of a time past, and one I want to recreate in the future when that house becomes my home.

Happy Birthday to me.

What does 'Many Happy Returns' mean anyway?

There's this weird fog that has enveloped Manchester.

It's prety dense, when you look up anything above the fourth storey is engulfed by the whiteness.

When I was a kid, I would pretend that fog was that weird anti-matter cloud that ate through the DC multiverse in 'Crisis on Infinite Earths', eating hero's and villains alike.

I imagined it had reached this Earth and all the hero's had perished with only me left to fight it.

Now it's just fog.

Life's like that sometimes.

http://www.abearslifemag.com/html/featart.html

Way to go, Dude.

Now I just need to find me a husband...

So I could have had him.

The club was full and smokey,the darkness intercut with the dazzle of the lights, the beat of the music resonating and vibrating everything and everybody.

Topless torso's proudly displaying their tribal flags moved to the beat and let the beat move them,young and old, fat and thin, hairy and smooth united in worship of the disco diva.

All hail the fallen and raised again Madonna.

He came past me, my body brushing against his in the madonning crowd, he past me and paused and looked back.

He looked at me and smiled, a bright smile that complimented his handsome features and handsome good looks.

He was an above average looking guy, his dark hair hinting at an Italian or Spanish descent.

He had a muscular physique, a body honed and toned to it's subjective perfection.

He smiled again and without words I apologised to him.

Sorry.

If nothing else , this weekend has allowed me the pleasure of hanging out with a close and dear friend.

Somebody I care about, in my own way.

We'll call him Spanishbear.

You know who you are.

Thanks, handsome.

I learned back in my office chair and wondered what it was going to take.

What is it going to take for me to wise up and stop taking the crap from the LONDON GUY.

Earlier in the day one of my guys - Helen - asked me for some advice.

She had an issue.

Her issue was this;

HORSEFACE is a manager and not a particularly effective one. Never completes her work, often gets it wrong, cuts every corner.

Case in point.

One day she was Duty Manager and left two hours early. Didn't do the required floor check.

Next day at the morning meeting she was asked about it and lied, then when that lie was exposed -in front of the HOD team- lied again.

This was in front of the BOSS.

Anyway.

Last weekend she was caught leaving a guest room where she had spent the night.

This is a big no-no.

We class it as gross misconduct.

So she gets caught and gets a warning.

Back to today.

Helen says to me that if it had been anybody else they would have been dismissed, but because HORSEFACE and the LONDON GUY are such close friends, she got off relatively lightly.

She says that this is not fair, she wants to talk to somebody about it.

I suggest she talk to HR, the LONDON GUY or the BOSS.

She said she cannot talk to the LONDON GUY or HR.

So that leaves the BOSS.

I tell her that if she chooses to talk to the BOSS then she should do it in a respectful manner.

Then off I went to lunch.

When I returned I was confronted by the LONDON GUY and we went outside to talk, he was pretty angry that Helen had chosen to talk to the BOSS and the BOSS had asked him to find out the full story.

It got pretty heated between us -as it usually does- and he asked me if I had put her up to it.

As if.

He was quick to blame me, that made me angry.

I went back into the hotel, unsure of what bullshit he had been feeding the BOSS.

And I would love to talk to him about this kind of stuff, but I feel it's true trivial.

But I'm also angry that he puts so much trust in the LONDON GUY, and listens to him so much.

Reflecting now, I think Helen had balls of steel.

Maybe she can lend them to me sometime and I can have that difficult conversation with the BOSS.

Of the people I've talked to about turning thirty, they all said it was traumatic.

Not for me.

I sailed through it without a care.

Turning thirty five,now that was a kick in the balls.

I can remember clearly around this time last year with the impending birthday only a couple of weeks away that I began to feel a little anxiety.

I would reflect in my quieter moments on my life and all aspects left feeling underwhelmed.

If we each had a report card for our lives, mine would read 'Could SHOULD do better'.

The birthday came and went quite quietly and that was fitting to how I was feeling.

Now I face turning thirty six and although my anxiety hasn't completely gone it has abated.

On the whole I am loving my thirties, I have more money and I know myself better.

It's like having the keys to the sweet shop but knowing when to stop eating the sweets before you puke.

But,

I SHOULD be doing better, I should be achieving more.

So why aren't I??

I've just watched 'Revenge of the Jedi Sith' for the gazillionth time.

Yes Binky, that is a real number.

I don't care what anybody says,I like it.

I feel the same about this Star Wars movie as I do about 'The Empire Strikes Back'.

Wow. Just thinking about 'Empire' has got me all nostalgic.

I saw that movie for the first time at the Gaumont cinema in Birmingham.

On Snow Hill.

Sadly the Gaumont is no longer there, but it was a cinema in the traditional sense, with a huge lobby and big, ornate staircase with a huge chandelier in the centre that lead up to the seats in the circle.

It was really something, almost majestic in appearance.

Damn the city council for demolishing it and building some crummy insurance building.

We queued around the back of the cinema (I was with my nother and stepfather)and slowly inched forward.

It must have been summer because it was light in the evening.

Once inside I was fascinated by a glass display case with a model of the Millenium Falcon with lights and a tiny Han Solo shooting at some equally tiny stormtroopers.

I looked at every detail.

Even now I look at models for along time, fascinated by every line, every decal, every part of the surface

That movie blew me away more than the first Star Wars.

And Jedi just left me empty.

Ewoks. Why George, why??

5 days to go until The Pre-Hibernation bear event in Manchester.

Yes, Binky, the bears are coming out to play.

Lock up the fathers of your sons and daughters!

The Outpost will be bursting at the seams with some of the sexiest hairiest guys, overflowing into the club next door for some boogeying.

Yes, we can dance.

Bears.

I'm proud to be one, proud not to conform to the sterotype of a gay man, to be big, hairy, happy,masculine.

Content to let everybody be who they want to be.

And if you don't like it

Well, tough shit.

I'm not asking for your approval.

I got this friend in Canada.

He's having a tough time at the moment, he's freelance and the work isn't there.

I get the impression the belt has been tightened.

And thats cool, we all have those moments where the outgoings are higher than the incomings.

I haven't known him long but I feel I have known him years, I find him easy to talk to you and a pleasure to listen too.

So I'm asking, if your reading this -whoever you are I like you already-to send a little positive mojo his way.

He could use it.

And I would appreciate it.

It was like a scene out of a movie.

I stepped out onto the terrace of the OxO tower restaurant after having enjoyed a fabulous meal and breathed in the cool night air.

I had a Bellini in one hand and a cigar in the other.

I took a deep drag and watched the smoke dance to the heavens.

The lights from the river riplled and shimmered with the Thames.

I toasted St Pauls across the river, looking spectacular and palatial under the spotlights.

Below on the river a boat sailed past full of party goers dancing the night away.

Another drag.

Life felt good.

And then, just then, when all was right with the world the sky exploded with fireworks.

Scarlet and silver flowers blooming the night sky.

Magical.

The first ten episodes of Battlestar Galactica season 2 on dvd for a tenner.

Including postage.

Okay, it's only one reason,but a good one.