NZ firemen's calendar 2008

It's that time of year again when all that hard work at the gym is put to good use for charity, pumped poses are struck, baby oil is applied to pectoral areas and the possible lewdness of any scenes is photo-shopped. So here's the New Zealand firemen's calendar, proceeds from which go to the Child Cancer Foundation.

The best thing about is that firemen actually go out to shopping malls selling them for $10, so you can get up close and personal, if you dare.

UPDATE: I bought a calendar from a burly fireman who came into work to hawk the calendar. He promoted it as "the ideal Christmas present for chicks". I couldn't bring myself to wake him up from that happy state of affairs. BTW, it's $10 well spent as the men look gorgeous, and for that price it's a bargain compared to some of that overpriced beefcake fare.

NZ flag debate rears its head again

The Prime Minister suggested (again) changing the flag of New Zealand with something more indigenous, even though her design suggestion only mentioned deleting the Union Jack in the left corner and just keep the blue field with the red Southern Cross.
Needless to say debate is running high. So here was my reply to the question: Should the NZ flag be changed?

Yes, and replace it with a personalised version of the person who is flying the flag. (Why don't New Zealand homes have a flag pole like Scandinavian countries?) The Union Jack can be kept by people who regard themselves British New Zealanders. Other ethnicities can add their own top left hand corner field in the flag, even faiths (say, a cross or a crescent), sports fans (silver ferns) and sexual orientations (a rainbow for gays, two short planks of wood for straights) can design their own. It would reflect our nice, inclusive and correct national attitude.

Still, I think this one is still my favourite design:

Worldwide demand for Oozeball world championships

Trey Cruz reports on "a tradition of shirtless frat boys rolling around in mud with other hot boys a.k.a. Oozeball."

Now this looks like a sport that would seriously get my backing, judging from the quality of the entrants, their enthusiasm and preparation work to look absolutely stunning in the pectoral department.

And I'm pleased to see that Texas is inventing traditions which will be worth keeping for the future, unlike death penalties or Bush dynasties, which should be discarded forthwith.

See also: Turkish oil wrestling and the USMC Mud Run.

Sleepy eyed jock sniffing

The rugby world cup time zone difference is really fierce this year, forcing us to stay awake at all hours of the night to watch it.
This morning (3am!!) confusion reigned on the paddock at Murrayfield in Edinburgh because it was impossible to tell the two sides apart. Their shirts had far too many similar colours and patterns on them. If I ruled the International Rugby Board I would decree that players on only wear either white or black tight shorts (and jockstraps for the forwards to allow better grip in the scrum). This would aide the viewer immensely. And that's not even counting the extra viewers the tournament would pull in, even for ho-hum matches between minnows.
I was pleased to read that

"Apparently, on average this year, a third of the audience is female. Even more staggering is the fact that 50 per cent of women watching television when the All Blacks played Italy were training their eyes in on our boys in their tight black tops."

To which I can only add: why else would you watch rugby? I was mighty impressed with the big boys from Georgia who almost whupped those pasty Paddy arses. But Frederic Michalak should lose the silly Beckhamite haircut and show of his tattoos a bit more.

New Zealand and the European Union

Press release by the New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister:

"New Zealand's relationship with the European Union has been given renewed impetus with the adoption of a joint declaration on cooperation, Foreign Minister Winston Peters said in Lisbon today.
The declaration sets out the directions in which the relationship has moved, and explores ways it might be further enhanced. It establishes new areas of cooperation, including new agricultural trade talks, increased cooperation on environment and climate change issues, science and technology cooperation, and exchanges of educational and research personnel.
The EU is a vital partner for New Zealand. We have strong, long-standing personal links with Europe; it is our second largest trading partner; we work together closely on international issues such as climate change and other environmental concerns, and within the World Trade Organisation.
"The joint declaration is a strong reminder of the important role New Zealand can play as a partner for Europe as the EU increases the range and scope of its influence around the world," Mr Peters said".

Yes, yes, but when is New Zealand joining the EU?

Salmer fra kjøkkenet / Kitchen Stories

A film about scientific observation and how it affects researcher and research subject alike set in 1950s rural Norway hardly sounds a promising scenario, but you have to try out Salmer fra kjøkkenet / Kitchen Stories, which screened on Rialto Channel a few nights ago.
It's the sort of movie Ingmar Bergman could have made if he had had a sense of humour instead of being the stereotypical dour Swede. It certainly had me on the floor with glee from the opening scene when a troop of identical looking caravan pulling cars cross the Norway-Sweden border where they had to change driving lanes (Sweden drove on the left in the 1950s, while Norway did not) and one of the drivers was physically unwell from having to drive on the "wrong" side of the road. All part of a whole host of digs Scandinavians make at each other, like any neighbouring nationalities do, but it never turned malicious.
The Swedish researchers going to observe Norwegian bachelor peasants in their ergonomic use of their kitchens had me slightly squirming in my seat, because it so horribly illustrated bad sociological or psychological research, where observers think they can just watch their subjects go about their lives without actually influencing the situation or behaviour.
If it all sounds unpromising or esoteric as a comedy film, don't be disheartened, but try to catch it next time it's on. Scandinavian humour is very droll.

Everybody loves them daddies

For a while now a quite interesting and worthy group has been running on Waiheke Island specifically aimed at fathers and their children and other male relatives, to encourage them to do things actively together so they each can be more involved in each others' lives. They do large variety of activities on the island, so if you have a male in your life, check it out here.

And they have the funniest group logo seen for a long time. I wonder how the dads explain the symbolism to their sons.

Calling all jocksniffers

Surely one reason you want to play a team sport is that time-honoured tradition of swapping shirts with your opponent at the end. It would be my only reason to endure any sporting regime, preserving that aroma, frisson and testosterone of the match, either as a scalp or a memento of your new found boss.
Now, we hear, our alpha males, a.k.a. the All Blacks, have been banned from swapping shirts with their freshly slain prey. No reason was given but they are allowed to give away their shorts and socks, which, since I am now officially a dirty old man since my last birthday, I should never be ungrateful to drape over my face, should I be so lucky. Maybe the All Blacks are saving their jockstraps and jerseys to be auctioned off to fund their next campaign? There are enough jock sniffers in the world to turn a handsome profit from that booty.

I haven't been watching much of the world cup yet, but I was impressed with the size, girth and grit of the boys from Georgia. Frederic Michalak doing a David Beckham with his hairstyle is a turnoff though. And as for the English team, getting their pale pasty pommie arse kicked was always going to be part of the deal, despite the rather fetching shirts.

Consumer Guide for the sexually active Cologne/Bonn guy

Cologne isn't the prettiest of cities but it has a rich history with lots of Roman stuff still being unearthed from the construction site of the new underground tram line, including beautiful mosaics and shrines.
The city got its name from the Romans: Colonia Agrippina, the colony of Agrippina. I'm not sure whether the Cologne people appreciate being founded and dedicated to the second wife of Emperor Claudius, whom she eventually murdered. But it may account for the rather freewheeling and fun-loving spirit that pervades the city. It's the centre of the annual Carnival festivities in the Rhineland and the nightlife was ravishingly good: the bars and clubs stay open very late and public transport, which allows you to take a beer on the tram, runs all night on the weekend.
I met up with Charles at a central bar, called Cox, a bar for "bears and butch men", which summed us up pretty much. It was full of black leather clad German blokes of all sizes and hair colours. Charles had already started chatting to a local, and soon we got a few guys joining in. I marveled at the sheer internationalism of the gay scene: here we were, a Belgian living in New Zealand, an American living in Denmark, an Irishman living in Spain and a Kuwaiti visiting his German boyfriend. If the world was run by gay men there would not be any wars.
After a few beers it was on to a cruise club across the road, which was also owned by the Cox bar people, and they named it Boners (no website). It has a large bar and backroom and a pretty broad dress code, including nothing. They run a great system of charging: you don't pay to get in but you have to buy two drinks or be charged an equivalent amount when you leave. It's very popular but not too crowded as to be stifling. The men seemed to me pretty sociable and keen to get it on with you. After making a lot of new friends in very dark corners we staggered home at 5am on the tram to our hostel.
I went to one sauna in Cologne, the appropriately named Badehaus (or Bath House), a massive complex conceived as a Roman villa, with a swimming pool between both ends of the complex. Both ends are also connected by an underground area where there is a maze and a steamroom and a beautifully massive spa pool complete with Roman-style mosaic. On the ground floors are a winebar, massage rooms and Finnish sauna. Upstairs are resting cubicles. Its sheer size warrants the need for a lot of punters to attend before it feels cozy, and you do walk enormous distances. There are no video rooms as such, only tiny seating areas around video monitors, which is a negative point. It's very much a place for the pretty people although there were men of all ages there. On the hour, one of the attendants bangs a gong summoning everybody to the sauna box where he proceeds with wafting around a large towel so everybody gets throughly scorched by the heat. I had experienced this service before in the Black Forest, and it is not for the faint of heart. The entry price of 19 euros is also heart-stopping!

Bonn is a small provincial city on the Rhine River with a long history too. It's rather pretty with its narrow pedestrianised city centre streets, university and Beethoven culture. And it's incredibly rich too by looking at just one indicator: it has two (two!) Bang & Olufsen shops. There isn't an incredible lot gay-wise. A local neighbourhood pub called Bobo's in the Jozefstrasse. A nice enough venue, very sociable and full of people who know each other. Great beer too, of course.
Around the corner from Bobo's is the sex cinema, in a basement attached to a groundfloor sex shop on Berliner Freiheit (there is a back entrance for all of you who don't want to be seen entering a sex shop on the main thoroughfare). It's a rather spartan affair in two underground rooms, one for hetero and one for homo movies, but there was a lot of traffic in between (perhaps it is true there are a lot of bisexuals in the world!). Enjoying the films is an arduous affair: the benches are wooden only, so bring a cushion. There is a backroom in the homo section. It costs €8 for an all day pass and it does have the feel of a dayroom for many men whose wives had gone shopping.

Frankfurt Airport excitement

During my stay in Germany there was a major terror alert on Wednesday which reportedly threatened Frankfurt Airport and Ramstein.
When I was due to fly out to Hong Kong on Friday, my check-in area at Frankfurt Airport was evacuated due to an unattended suitcase being left in the hall. The police only kept us a safe distance away instead of evacuating the whole building. This was during the late afternoon rush hour and passengers had a ring site view of the bomb squad first x-raying the suitcase, then simply had a dog sniff it and the rather brave bomb squad officer opening the suitcase and emptying its, what looked like Indian subcontinental clothing, in a heap on the floor. It was all over in less than an hour and check in was not that much delayed.
Here's a picture I took when the evacuation was in full progress:

Caption this!

A picture from the Bonn conference trip, yours truly at the speaker's desk in the former German parliament

"My Dear Kompatriots, we have decided to start invading Poland to rid us from those terrible twins."

Consumer guide for sexually active Danish guys

For such a liberal country, the Copenhagen gay (commercial venue) scene is suprisingly small. Only a few bars and saunas, and a lot of them are not in the same area. No gay ghetto here! We checked out the Jailhouse, a small jail-themed (if non-SM) bar and restaurant, but horribly overpriced at NZ$10 for a beer. We quickly legged it to the Men's Bar, a much friendlier (and cheaper) neighbourhood pub aimed at leather guys but without a dress code to get in. Here I got talking to a Norwegian who had recently married his Danish boyfriend, and asked him about the lack of backrooms in gay venues (apparently you need to be a private club to be allowed a backroom) and his aversion to Catholic Poles and Muslim Turks, who, it turned out, are great ideological bedfellows in the fight against gay rights, so well-beloved in Denmark.
Later that evening we got to the only SM club in Copenhagen, SLM (Scandinavian Leather Men), a basement bar and cruise club with all the accoutrements and accessories on the genre catering for all sexual tastes. We happened to strike their annual "photo night", when they allow guys to bring along photographers to do photo shoots for their online profiles so they can be staged in the appropriate setting. We happily obliged to be extras in their particular scenarios - so maybe the evidence will appear soon on a leather profile near you. It was great fun and it felt like being on a real porn photo shoot stage (a lot of porn is produced in Denmark!). A special thanks to Erik the Norseman, who would happily sail up your fjord. Needless to say great fun was had by all - even though the management had apologized to us earlier that not many punters would be turning up on the night. They shouldn't have bothered: in my book fun is a function of the quality of men, not their quantity.
A few winks later the next day it was time to explore the venue that has featured in some conversations we have had with the locals: Ørstedsparken, a city park which has been a cruising ground for over a century. Some say it's unsafe but, on the other hand, the council provides lubes and condoms, handily placed in a bird's nest box, for easy use in the undergrowth. Since it was daytime we could only attest to the bird box's existence and the evidence of activity by the detritus left. Someone should teach those bush queens to clean up after themselves. Condoms do take a long time to ecologically break down.

In Århus we found two gay venues. One, Gay Club Århus (Paradisgade 11) is a cruising club hidden behind a video sex shop. The video shop has a dizzying array of porn DVDs, large sections of which would be highly illegal in New Zealand (apparently Denmark is a major producer of bestiality porn). The actual cruise club is a separate two-storey house reached through the shop and a court yard. At first we thought it was a sauna because the attendant lady gave us towels but after inspection of the premises it turned out it's a practical way of cruising when you have chucked your clothes beforehand. There were three video rooms, two playing gay porn, the third straight porn. I guess it makes closeted Danes more at home when watching familiar sex moves. Comfortable seating couches make for a cosy communal experience. Free coffee and net access and smoking is disturbingly permitted everywhere. There are a few cubicles for horizontal activities and it was suprisingly busy for a Monday afternoon.
The second venue is A Center Video (Rosenkrantzgade), a sex shop/DVD rental place with private viewing booths and two video cinemas. The cinemas show either straight or gay porn but punters switch between often. The gay cinema has a small backroom with a sling. The straight version didn't have that but it did have a second screen showing lesbian porn. The place was also attended by a pleasantly large number of men. There were no straight guys present as far as we could make out and we were speculating whether any would go there since the gay guys would always be willing to assist their viewing pleasure - perhaps some might not appreciate that.
The Danes are, I must say, enthusiastic cocksuckers, and even very pleasant afterwards. So I can recommend them heartily!

Cologne / Bonn / Hong Kong: Jetlag? Schmetlag!

And now for the extracurricular activities last week.
Cologne isn't the prettiest of cities but it has a rich history with lots of Roman stuff still being unearthed from the construction site of the new underground tram line, including beautiful mosaics and shrines.
The city got its name from the Romans: Colonia Agrippina, the colony of Agrippina. I'm not sure whether the Cologne people appreciate being founded and dedicated to the second wife of Emperor Claudius, whom she eventually murdered. But it may account for the rather freewheeling and fun-loving spirit that pervades the city. It's the centre of the annual Carnival festivities in the Rhineland and the nightlife was ravishingly good: the bars and clubs stay open very late and public transport, which allows you to take a beer on the tram, runs all night on the weekend.
I met up with Charles at a central bar, called Cox, a bar for "bears and butch men", which summed us up pretty much. It was full of black leather clad German blokes of all sizes and hair colours. Charles had already started chatting to a local, and soon we got a few guys joining in. I marveled at the sheer internationalism of the gay scene: here we were, a Belgian living in New Zealand, an American living in Denmark, an Irishman living in Spain and a Kuwaiti visiting his German boyfriend. If the world was run by gay men there would not be any wars.
After a few beers it was on to a cruise club across the road, which was also owned by the Cox bar people, and they named it Boners (no website). It has a large bar and backroom and a pretty broad dress code, including nothing. They run a great system of charging: you don't pay to get in but you have to buy two drinks or be charged an equivalent amount when you leave. It's very popular but not too crowded as to be stifling. The men seemed to me pretty sociable and keen to get it on with you. After making a lot of new friends in very dark corners we staggered home at 5am on the tram to our hostel.
I went to one sauna in Cologne, the appropriately named Badehaus (or Bath House), a massive complex conceived as a Roman villa, with a swimming pool between both ends of the complex. Both ends are also connected by an underground area where there is a maze and a steamroom and a beautifully massive spa pool complete with Roman-style mosaic. On the ground floors are a winebar, massage rooms and Finnish sauna. Upstairs are resting cubicles. Its sheer size warrants the need for a lot of punters to attend before it feels cozy, and you do walk enormous distances. There are no video rooms as such, only tiny seating areas around video monitors, which is a negative point. It's very much a place for the pretty people although there were men of all ages there. On the hour, one of the attendants bangs a gong summoning everybody to the sauna box where he proceeds with wafting around a large towel so everybody gets throughly scorched by the heat. I had experienced this service before in the Black Forest, and it is not for the faint of heart. The entry price of 19 euros is also heart-stopping!

Bonn is a small provincial city on the Rhine River with a long history too. It's rather pretty with its narrow pedestrianised city centre streets, university and Beethoven culture. And it's incredibly rich too by looking at just one indicator: it has two (two!) Bang & Olufsen shops. There isn't an incredible lot gay-wise. A local neighbourhood pub called Bobo's in the Jozefstrasse. A nice enough venue, very sociable and full of people who know each other. Great beer too, of course.
Around the corner from Bobo's is the sex cinema, in a basement attached to a groundfloor sex shop on Berliner Freiheit (there is a back entrance for all of you who don't want to be seen entering a sex shop on the main thoroughfare). It's a rather spartan affair in two underground rooms, one for hetero and one for homo movies, but there was a lot of traffic in between (perhaps it is true there are a lot of bisexuals in the world!). Enjoying the films is an arduous affair: the benches are wooden only, so bring a cushion. There is a backroom in the homo section. It costs 6 euros for an all day pass and it does have the feel of a dayroom for many men whose wives had gone shopping.

I had a 7 hour stopover in Hong Kong on the way back to New Zealand so enough time to take the Airport Express into town (at $18 and 100kph a far better bargain than the dreadful Airport Bus affair in Auckland) and try out the local sauna just off the Central Escalator on Hong Kong Island. It's called the CE and housed in a tiny building, as everything is in HK. Very warm and welcoming hospitality and a lot of international punters, which made up for the smallness of the venue. It just forces you to be sociable. Small steamroom, minuscule sauna box but well laid out, two shower areas and making use of all space available. Free internet too. I got to meet a Costa Rican, a Singaporean and a German I had earlier met in the Badehaus. Talk about the world being a small place!

Public service broadcasting in the new dark ages

Having experienced my first international conference with a plethora of bureaucrats, broadcasters, journalists, celebrity presenters and an assortment of hangers-on, it was also fun to get some wind of the shenanigans going on behind the scenes.

The "media dialogue", as it was called, consisted mainly of panel discussions and straightforward speeches, with very little opportunity to contribute from the floor, which was a shame. It would have been more interesting if there had been smaller workshops where people could have related more to each other's experiences with media development (which was one of the aims of the conference: how to allow the poor in the world access to the media), censorship and other political difficulties people faced in their home countries. We were in Europe, in an area where the enlightenment and rationalism was invented, but some delegates and conference organisers had difficulty with concepts such as inclusion and free speech. Two examples:
One, the Taiwanese delegate, who was invited by DW TV as a media partner, was refused entry into the dialogue hall by the head of the AIDB conference organisers. If she did he would have canned the whole three-day meeting. So she obligingly stayed away. She did get to go on the boat trip on he Rhine with all of us, but only via a ruse that she was there in a private capacity.
Two, one of the panel discussions was on that tired old cliche of clash of civilisations, with civilisations this time defined as Christian and Islam, which should have set alarm bells ringing in any rational person. Lots of waffle about how the two Abrahamic religions really have more in common than what sets them apart - true enough, they're both members of the Coalition of the Circumcised - but the whole discussion took place in a vacuum because they never could get to the heart of the matter, since the third member of that dysfunctional religions family, Judaism, was absent. Apparently, the same head of the AIDB, who objected to Taiwan being there, has also always adamantly refused to allow Israel and its media to be part of the AIDB, let alone any media dialogue. So in all rather pointless, fruitless and leaving a bad anti-semitic and brown-nosing-China smell in the conference room, which was actually the rather magnificently modernist former West German Federal Parliament building before all the politicians shifted to Berlin after German reunification.

Coincidentally, if you needed any proof that the Taliban and their culture smashing antics are really only the latest version of a longstanding tradition of iconoclasm by intolerant religions, you should visit the "Sunken Treasures of Egypt" exhibition at the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn. There you can see the finds of underwater archaeologists, who dragged up treasures from the ancient cities of Heracleion and Canopus. Those cities were not only destroyed by earthquakes and tsunamis but also by the helping hand of the Coptic Christians, who took power after the Roman period, and were not very enamoured by Canopus's reputation for dissoluteness and debauchery. It must have been the party town - my kinda town - of the Roman empire, and its pagan temples were used as stone quarries by the Christians in an early version of the Bamiyan statue destruction by the Taliban.

It wasn't all negative of course, I met tons of people at the conference involved in the rather arduous and challenging tasks of being a media outlet or a journalist in countries where our NZ freedoms are not taken for granted - despite the assurances by the Iranian former Information minister, who insisted that western media shouldn't be afraid of sending their correspondents to Iran as they would be quite safe. I had to chuckle at his claim, and if I had the opportunity I would have interjected that his country's anti-gay laws would execute me if I was working and living there.

Consumer guide for sexually active London guys

Now for the evening shenanigans and an update on some of the London gay venues. I only got a few nights to go exploring, so I decided on two venues.
The 349 Eagle is a large pub in Vauxhall (349 Kennington Lane) complete with back garden, pool tables, porn cinema and backroom. It was free before 10pm on a Wednesday night, and quite sociable. Not something I'd go to every week - even though they encourage membership - but nice enough. I even got to chat some punters in the backroom, something which doesn't often happen elsewhere.
A far superior experience was the Play Pit (76 Caledonian Road, King's Cross), which is the new name for the King's Cross Cruising Club I went to three years ago. They have updated some of the play space but the layout and premise is basically the same: a pretention-free basement full of men eager to get it on with you. You really don't need anything more. It's booze-free (you can bring your own), without a dress code (less is better because the temperature can be a problem due to lack of aircon) and offers cheap soft drinks and free condoms. The men certainly were keen and eager and my only quibble would be the amount of barebacking that was going on. It's not something I am into and I regret the casualness of unsafe sex these days.