The Boy and The Coconut Tree

Today is the 60th anniversary of the Eurovision  Song Contest , a show I've watched most years since 1973 or so. I remember being curled up on my Nana's sofa on a Saturday night with her singing "Save All Your Kisses For Me" to me as I fell asleep, a lovely memory. Now Eurovision has become intertwined with the gay movement and gay society; I love it, we love it. A friend of mine asked me yesterday if I had not grown out of it at 45? I said "bloody hell, no" the day I stop enjoying fun and silliness is the day I lay down in a coffin. In some of the newer entrant countries, it is less of a gay thing and more of a cultural showcase for their popular music.  Most years I either host or attend a Eurovision party, usually a mix of friends from various countries my 2009 party had people from Germany, Norway, China, Spain and Australia, gay and straight, it was fun and today I will be watching it with Americans and Germans, an intriguing mix. Today is Euro...

A few years ago two of my friends had been together almost 12 years and they felt marriage would mark a positive and inevitable stage in their relationship. The bank holiday weekend finally provided a chance for me and others who know them to celebrate their love: it was their wedding day . I will refer to it as a wedding because the whole experience was so similar to every wedding I have ever been to and, as far as all the people involved last weekend were concerned, that is what it was. I will always call it marriage despite the current debate and opposition from some Tory politicians . Legally speaking, though, it was just a civil partnership ceremony. I did not know much about civil partnerships until I attended this event, but it feels as if they are a half-way house because the government will not go ahead and allow gay men and women to have a civil marriage. Why not? I don't understand this. What are they frightened of?...