Santipolo

Earlier on today I was listening to @lbc and they were asking if the safety of women against predatory men had come along any further in the last decade? The programme continued mentioning ‘all men’ and then, doing a hasty apology of ‘not all men obviously’. The fact it got mentioned at all created adversary. As the conversation went on, one physically sexually abused woman after another I became reminded of a warning and apology they often give out at LBC for any triggering episodes their shows may cause. I thought about it as something which happened 25 years to me suddenly got triggered. Sadly, there is no way to tell the story here without the person concerned being identified to those who knew him and he’s no longer with us to defend himself. In 1998 I really was going through the process of living life accepting I was a gay man. I had made a lot of gay friends but, in reality, I wasn’t really much experienced. I had certainly not had gay sex an...

You see, right there I have readers shaking their heads and asking, are you mad? British people are about as unpatriotic as any nation can be likely caused by a succession of government which rather than pull us together, drove us apart to create division and detract for their own failings. Is the UK really so terrible? In my opinion, no, it’s not. As a country we have lost out way rather a lot, society has some very real issues. However, the bedrock of the country, the land and the climate, they are much as we would expect for these lands. What do I hear those around the world say of the UK? . It’s so quaint, all those cute little villages – Sure, we have a lot of cute old villages dating back centuries but, that is not who we are, that’s just a tourist ideal Isn’t it always raining in the UK? – Actually, just about every year we ban the use of hosepipes in a lot of counties because we are in a drought situation, we simply have not had enough rain....

I just watched an episode of Queer Eye which touched on some realisations I know apply to me. Let’s do the history lesson: I was a very in the closet guy until I was around 20, actually terrified of being ‘me’ so perfecting an image I could become. It was always an act and, as such, I wasn’t a very good version of myself, others noticed I was still not up to their expectation and I was in no position to explain my truth to them. My absolute conditioning was to grow up, find a nice girl and get married. Honestly, being ‘gay’ was some vague thing other people far, far away might be and it was all a bit of a joke and no one took them seriously. Most certainly it couldn’t apply to me. So, I got married, had children. Some believed I was the perfection of a heterosexual lifestyle. Yes, I had some male/male experience and a two year boyfriend but, despite that, being straight still remained my only realistic option. However, this boiler had to blow at...

If language was not a problem we could talk for hours. A lovely soul