A freezing weekend in Taupo

The lake looked magnificent, as ever, and the massive snow cover on the three volcanoes in the background made it all look like a postcard-perfect picture. Highlights were a nighttime visit to the hotpools - even at minus 5 centigrade it was just a great experience, especially since it was about full moon too.
The only jarring note: a roadside placard in deepest Waikato - a truly scary place at the best of times - from an outfit called Promise Keepers, you know the ones that are trying so hard to keep temptation under control (I sought hard for any temptations in Cambridge but apart from a few non-suspended local high school boys the pickings were thin). The board said:

"Turning Ordinary Boys into Extraordinary Men."

I thought that was the motto of Junction 135, Hamilton's gay cruise club.

Catch-22

The US Army has released an updated version of its reading list for its personnel. Plenty of classical western stuff but surprisingly nothing on peacekeeping, the Middle East or Islam.
In the meantime, I'm reading Joseph Heller's Catch-22 (one I would recommend to all soldiers to read). I know, I know, I should have read this much, much sooner in life. I am such a Philistine (or was that Sodomite?)

Here's my favourite extract:

"America ," he said, "will lose the war. And Italy will win it." "America is the strongest and most prosperous nation on earth," Nately informed him with lofty fervor and dignity. "And the American fighting man is second to none".
"Exactly", agreed the old man pleasantly, with a hint of taunting amusement. Italy, on the other hand, is one of the least prosperous nations on earth. And the Italian fighting man is probably second to all. And that's exactly why my country is doing so well in this war while yours is doing so poorly.
Nately guffawed with surprise, then blushed apologetically for his impoliteness. "I'm sorry I laughed at you," he said sincerely, and he continued in a tone of respectful condescension. "But Italy was occupied by the Germans and is now being occupied by us. You don't call that doing very well, do you?"
"But of course I do," exclaimed the old man cheerfully. "The Germans are being driven out, and we are still here. In a few years you will be gone, too, and we will still be here. You see, Italy is really a very poor and weak country, and that's what makes us so strong. Italian soldiers are not dying anymore. But American and German officers are. I call that doing extremely well. Yes, I am certain that Italy will survive this war and still be in existence long after your own country has been destroyed."
Nately could scarcely believe his ears. He had never heard such shocking blasphemies before, and he wondered with instinctive logic why the why G-men did not appear to lock the traitorous old man up. "America is not going to be destroyed!" he shouted passionately.
"Never?" prodded the old man softly.
"Well..." Nately faltered.
The old man laughed indulgently, holding in check a deeper, more explosive delight. His goading remained gentle. "Rome was destroyed, Greece was destroyed, Persia was destroyed, Spain was destroyed. All great countries are destroyed. Why not yours? How much longer do you really think your own country will last? Forever? Keep in mind that the earth itself is destined to be destroyed by the sun in twenty-five million years or so.
Nately squirmed uncomfortably. "Well, forever is a long time, I guess."

Could have been written for today's war. But not recommended reading by the US Army.

Will mumsy come to the rescue again?

Mark Thatcher (Sir, if you must, he inherited the baronetcy title from Mum) was arrested in Cape Town on charges of helping the mercenaries and coup plotters against the dictator in Equatorial Guinea and who got arrested in Zimbabwe en route to their destination.
Sir Mark has a long involvement in shady dealings, no doubt very much helped by trading on his name and relationships back in Blighty and around the world.
Remember when Mummy had to despatch a search party to help find him when he was lost in the desert? Looks like she has to get him out of trouble again, but will she be able to? Last time I saw her at her old mate Reagan's funeral she looked like she was ready to join Ronny real soon.
And the time when she keeled over her notes while giving a speech in Chile (of all places!) in favour of her old mate Pinochet, she looked like a robot that had run out of batteries. That was classic television news.
Anyway looks like sonny boy was trying to emulate mommy by trying to grab power in an oil-rich country, suck it try, flog off the national assets to his mates and the locals gullible enough to pay for something they already owned.
Hey, they claimed it worked for Britain, so why not for Africa?

In Wowser country, when you are 18 you can:

- drive a car (even without 3rd party insurance, what are you? a poof?)
- join the army, navy and airforce
- die for your country (follows previous item)
- watch a porn movie (you're actually allowed to do it from age 16, but can't watch it till 18)
- perform in a porn movie
- have a cigarette after sex (or before, or during if it's that boring)
- get married (if you're stupid enough to think that the sex was that good)
- have a fulltime job
- join a union
- run a company
- own a company
- sue your bastard boss
- go to gaol
- travel the world without your parents
- vote
- run for mayor

But if the local wowsers have their way, you can't have a beer!

La douce France

Our lovely friends in the South of France, Mark and Scott, who escaped from Blighty to find their place in the sun, and landed near that wonderful and majestic piece of Roman engineering still left standing after 2000 years, the Pont du Gard, run their little art gallery there.
Since that corner of France is far more Catalan than French, the locals seem to have these southern traditions such as running with bulls and spending lots of time in the saddle - it is near the Camargue after all.
The local Fete saw lots of fun with animals in the street and a lovely photo reportage can be perused at their website.
Oh, and highly recommended for a non-beach holiday too.

Give them the clap

Any happy clappy guys out there (a receipt from the clap clinic does not count!) have a range of choices to join New Zealand wingnut outfits, not only online, but also in the flesh (fully clothed is recommended, lest lust, passion and the Wellington climate get to your sensitive parts). There's the Enough is Enough March on August 23 in Wellington, with a wonderful backgrounding and fact checking alternative website (Thank you, Peter).
There's also a more pagan black-shirt offshoot, called The National Front, braving the wind later in the year, protesting against diversity and against Wellington climbing on the city creativity index.
If you really, really, really must join a church - and god only knows why you would want to - here's my recommendation

In our occasional series

Unfortunate, unintentionally funny or just a plain attempt to subvert our rich western traditions of cultural expression?

Ageing rentboy manslaughters ageing queen

A jury of his peers(!) have delivered a verdict of manslaughter on the accused Phillip Edwards in the David McNee murder case.
Sorry, it's not a murder case. My apologies for the sloppy legal language. In New Zealand, "homosexual panic" is a lawful and accepted form of defence against a charge of murder if you find yourself, as a self-professed heterosexual, with a dead gay body on your hands. Or you have been indulging in some innocent puppetry-of-the-penis man-to-man play and suddenly you realise that if you want to get into his booze cabinet and his black Audi, you better start working fast and having his finger up your arse just cramps your style. And you don't want your buddy jailbirds to know you had a finger up your arse cos otherwise the cons will use your arse nightly, and that would be, like, really humiliating.
Now the world knows that killing a gay man in New Zealand in effect will never carry a conviction for murder, unless you have a really bad lawyer. How many classes of citizens does that create? And why not get rid of "manslaughter" too, because that implies the victim was a "real man", which obviously he was not, and call it "fag slaughter" or "Christian mercy killing" instead, with the appropriate leniency of the law attached?
Time to abolish the panic defence, methinks too.
And time for Edwards to rot in jail, but don't hold your breath.
Anyone wants to bet he will make a guest appearance at some rightwing political party conference, claiming he either turned his life around or found God inside, following those great lights of prison rehab, Soulan Pownceby and the ex-Parnell Panther?

Surely not the Pink Alliance!

Cruising the right-of-centre - and right-of-Djenghis Khan - blogs (or "wingnuts" for short) sounds a bit like hard work, but it is often a source of great mirth. That leading light of the right Adam Yoshida had this great idea of creating a "League of Good Nations" (Anglo-Saxon etc) to replace that example of the devil's (and the French) work, the UN. Sadly, No! solicited alternative names for this new international alliance.
My favourite, by far, and considering how apt, is: The Coalition Of Countries Who Have Accepted Jesus As Their Personal Savior. And New Zealand. (or TCOCWHAJATPSANZ)
Given our country's secular nature - no matter how hard the Destiny Church blackshirts try - and our recalcitrance in joining anything dreamed up by the American Empire, it would surprise me if New Zealand was admitted into their alliance at all under any circumstance.

Hot Olympians

About time some eye candy sites for hot Olympians have been set up. (Cheers ShadowFootPrints for the tip). You can send in your own suggestions and pictures to them. The NZ Herald also picked up on the site, bemoaning the fact

"So far all [featured athletes] have been men, which must be about making the Olympics more interesting to women - or gay men."

Please, granny Herald, sometimes you are so 20th Century. The columnist even mildly criticised her own editorial department for running a full page full chest frontal of Michael Phelps on its sports section front page. Sure beats pictures of ugly politicians or - more commonly - fat All Blacks.
None of the entries so far at Hot Olympians have floated my boat, but here are my present and past favourites:
American gymnast Blaine Wilson
Russian diver Dmitri Saoutine
But I definitely wish they would include Turkish oil wrestling as a demonstration sport - if only to promote goodwill between Greeks and Turks.

Wasn't outing so, like, err, an eighties thing?

If it's a rumour spread by your nemesis on the sports field,
if it's a news item on 365gay.com,
if your body is on display at gaysportsfancentral and
if your girlfriend is the 2004 Playboy Playmate of the Year,
it's gotta be true,
surely,
no?

(tip from Gay News Blog)

Se7en

Watched that noir horror movie Se7en on the weekend because I was stuck in a household without many commercial free alternatives. I normally don't go for grisly films, especially those with Brad Pitt, but since it had such a good write up on rottentomatoes, and I am such a bad movie theatre goer these days, I couldn't really pass it up - even if it meant sitting through almost 30 minutes of commercials as is wont on New Zealand TV.
I thought it was rather wonderfully done, despite the grislyness. It's not often that you get Dante and Chaucer as major plot references in Hollywood films these days. (If you don't want to watch the film, there is a highly readable film script). You can't but admire the tenacity and the complete obsession of John Doe with his project. I had him down as an Asperger's Syndrome guy right away but I was unsure about his priorities. I mean, we can all empathise with getting a pound of flesh back out of a greedy lawyer, but why did the prostitute have to die? She wasn't the one guilty of lust, her johns are and they got away with only a knife dildo strapped to their groin. And why did he think sloth the worst of all the deadly sins? The victim took a whole year to die a particularly slow and nasty death - much worse than Jesus in The Passion - while the others were dispatched relatively quickly.
But I still can't take Brad Pitt seriously, but Kevin Spacey has surely deserved his place among the screen's worst baddies.

Second best

Since we can't have naked Olympics (yet), we shall have to settle for second best: the All Black modelling underwear.
Daniel Carter's bulge is making waves in Christchurch (it was on TV One News, so it must be true) and he's hanging out on Auckland's Queen Street too.
Of course, he is but the latest in a long(ish) line of athletes that can make more out of their bodies than having it bashed around on the paddock - and risking its marketable assets. My personal favourite is still Christian Cullen.
All the hoopla about Carter really only serves to hide the fact that the current All Black line up is sure one ugly bunch compared to the shirtless AFL squads.

Assholism

The invasion of Wellington by the Ass[ian]holes.

Real Olympics, anyone?

I lost interest in sport around the time the Romans conquered the Hellenic world and thoroughly Romanised the Olympic Games - you remember Emperor Nero rescheduling the events so he could partake in all of them and could win all of them.
Nowadays any organised sport is so completely a showcase for corporate apparel, pharmaceutical innovation and sorry jingoism that it is really a complete waste of my time.
Some attempts are being made to bring the spirit of individual sport and glory back to its roots with the Nemean Games, a worthy but only partial successful attempt.
The Gay Games (if they can get their shit together because there has been a schism resulting in two different Games held in Montreal and Chicago in 2006) have missed the opportunity to go the whole way and recreate and non-Roman, non-Christian and completely pagan version of the Olympic Games: no clothes, no women, no teams.
A Campaign for Real Olympics anyone?