[Note to size queens: it is large. Use 'n' now or open wide.]
Thursday, 26 April
I arrive at LHR after a restless ten-hour flight from LAX. As usual, the UK immigration people are among the most gracious of all countries that I have visited. Why can't the US be like this? Unfortunately for the English citizenry, they let me in. Martin is almost there waiting; he runs in five minutes after I have cleared customs. After dropping our belongings off at his friend Francis' flat near Manor House, we embark on an afternoon of cakes, regular (needed) infusions of coffee, and much walking throughout Soho. As dinner time approaches, we have drinks at two gay establishments: Comptons, which is fairly wild, and The Kings Arms, which we quickly renamed The Kings Bits. The Bits has a nice upstairs area that is quiet and allowed us a couple hours of conversation before dinner at a very wild Indian place. The name escapes me; blame the persistent syncopation of my circadian rhythm. Afterwards, we head into the Brief Encounter. It is packed floor to ceiling, both levels -- many twinks, some bears. It is hot. It is sweltering. It is flooded in UV light downstairs. The music pulses. The place is throbbing. I've had enough, it's off to get some sleep at 23:00 after being awake for almost 36 hours.
Friday, 27 April
We arise. After croissants and coffee at a Belgian bakery in Soho, it's off to Kew Gardens for a walk in the sunshine. (The weather was incredible during my stay.) We visit the palm houses, which are quite warm and humid inside, and generally wander about the place. Of course, I am on the lookout for squirrels at all times, and we don't locate one until towards the end. It promptly flees for the sanctuary of a large tree when I try to approach it with some nuts (perhaps I should have meeped at it). Martin: "Oh, it's just a typically British squirrel. It's snooty about your nuts." We opted to feed some ducks instead. British or not, they were omnivorous and probably queer as well; these two mallards seemed to be fond of each other. Speaking of squirrels, I found some figurines of Squirrel Nutkin in the Wedgewood shop on Regent St. We went back to London to have coffee at a place called Bungies -- a staff member is a feast for the eyes, and plays wonderful games with same. We eventually do the Comptons-Bits routine again. We aren't in Comptons for long, however, as we are menaced by a drunk who wants to fondle both of us something fierce. It's then off to LHR to meet Evelyne, my dear Parisian friend who is coming to London to have dinner with us and see some other people. (In October, I delivered to Evelyne this rather large American slang dictionary -- she called me weeks later, having discovered the term "fag hag" and wanted to know if she was one of them. After I recovered, I explained that it was not necessarily a term of endearment to some people. She insists that she likes the title.) Her Air France flight was running late (évidement, ça c'est typique; moi, je pense que les controlleurs sont tout en grève) so Martin and I had cocktails and people-watched (airports, no matter where their locale, are fabulous for this). Evelyne finally arrives, and we grab a taxi to Soho for dinner at a Thai restaurant, which is shut for the night due to the hour. We instead have another Indian meal across the street. As we finished dinner after 01:00, getting a taxi home proved interesting. It took us well over an hour of wandering about Piccadilly Circus amongst a great number of people who were pissed out of their minds. The hack kept reminding us what troubles he might encounter from returning his car so late, but "it's not a problem, really." We gave him a nice tip. :^)
Saturday, 28 April
It's uk.motss day, and that means getting on the train out to Oxford. We arrive just in time to walk to the initial rendezvous point, a second-level coffee house that resides in the Covered Market. There are no visible motssers upon arrival, but in short time, celebutantes Trevor Potten and Jimmy Aitken arrive with Steve-The-Bear. We opt for refills on our java, only to be served this wretched concoction that can only be described as coffee with lemon dishwashing liquid. Martin took all of our cups back up to the counter of this twink hangout (most every student seems to be a twink) and returns with something more palatable. They (the staff) were at a loss as to the mysterious flavouring but agreed that it tasted not unlike brake fluid.
After finishing the beverages (Jimmy wisely opted for Red Zinger tea), we headed off to Destination Unknown down a main street in Oxford. Without warning, like a Bat out of hell, a person came running up the sidewalk from afar. The person was meeping. His frazzled companion caught up, and we all made the acquaintance of Fruitbat and Kay. If you are counting, we are now a Gang of Seven. It was decided that we would return to the Covered Market, purchase a bunch of English cheeses and go sit by the river and watch the twinkies punt. The cheese shop at the Market has the most delicious young man working there. Besides his stunning good looks, he's dizzy. As his father said with exasperation, "He's been a problem child for many years." I decided that he would make a good house boy and was going to offer the father 25 quid for the kid, but figured I'd have problems explaining my cargo to US Customs. We were then off to the river after one more stop for beverages and crackers. Settling into a nice spot with plenty of sunshine (it is about 70 degrees), we start taking in the scenery that is conveniently floating past us. It is an interesting assortment of twinkies, a few bears, boats with all women, tourists, etc. A great deal of the students seemed to be engaging in alcohol consumption. More succinctly, lots of them were drunk. Never wanting to miss an opportunity to cause trouble, I asked one of the particularly drunk twinks to take our group picture. They almost crashed into the bank in the process. Another boat was having even worse problems, and appeared to be "heading" down the river sideways. As they passed us, we all burst into laughter. A woman who had been trying frantically to maneuver the craft blurted out, "Oh do shut up." We fell apart. Fruitbat seemed convinced that he was being menaced by something large and yellow; Kay reassured him that it was only a dandelion. We all really enjoyed the sights; to paraphrase, "sitting on a river bank ... eyeing little boys with bad intent." Or is that Bat Intent? When we tired of making fun of the punters, it was off to our next rendezvous point for other motssers to join us.
A bit of a walk later, we arrive at the Jolly Farmer, a gay pub in Oxford. Eventually we are joined by Nigel Whitfield, Howard Price, and a friend of Howard named Martin. It was at this venue that I decided to give Fruitbat his birthday presents: a box with twenty five Milky Way bars and a button for his lapel that reads DO NOT FEED OR TEASE THE STRAIGHT PEOPLE. That damn box of candy was responsible for a large portion of my luggage's weight. The Bat immediately consumed several of the pseudo-Mars bars. I had also thought to bring birthday candles. We poked twenty of them into a single candy bar, ignited it, and watched Fruitbat attempt to blow the candles out. Of course, I had purchased the type of candle that cannot be blown out. Soon the pub was filled with laughter and copious amounts of smoke. The bar keep was less than amused. Oh, we had started drinking by now as well. I committed a Major Social Faux-Pas when I asked Jimmy, our studly Scotsman, to pick out the best whisky they had and serve it to me OVER ICE. Needless to say, I now drink it sans rocks. :^) Fruitbat had one incredible surprise for me, albeit personal and won't seem funny here: The Adorable Tom Ace (tm) had successfully explained to the Bat over email how to perform this strange greeting that Eric Novikoff and I invented. To do it, you hold out your hand vertically with the fingers pointed at the other person and parted like a Vulcan greeting (I'll assume everyone knows I mean Star Trek here). Now make a Telebit Trailblazer training sequence noise, which is two beeps followed by a rainstorm sound. Trust me, it was way surreal to have Fruitbat do this to me.
Soon it was time to eat, so we were off en masse to the Hi-Lo, a very funky Jamaican restaurant. Martin overheard one of the staff comment on our group as we walked in, "Oh, there's MORE of them!" We came in by staggered groups from the street, thus prompting her remark. For that matter, we might have been described as a staggering group. Speaking of walking, Martin had on these really wild leopard print shoes that went well with the atmosphere. We ordered more drinks (I ordered the Bat some mango juice -- it was basically sugar water) and then had dinner. Despite the numerous signs to the contrary, I feigned illiteracy and attempted flash photography of the group members. The large, dreadlocked Jamaican owner lunged at me from nowhere and read me my last rites. I decided it best to stop taking pictures ;^). Fruitbat, now fortified on mango juice, pints of ale, and innumerable candy bars, began folding every piece of paper in sight -- a veritable origami orgy. Martin went down to the other end of the table to talk with Trevor and sort of slid down onto his ass when he arrived. Trevor, in an obvious moment of good taste, joined him on the ground in conversation. Dessert was served. The person sitting next to me ate the fried bananas with cream in a most suggestive way. If my memory serves me correct, meeping was detected during this activity. At some point I realized that /dev/bladder had been sending me a high level interrupt and weaved off to the loo. The toilet just fell apart when I tried to lift the lid; I had to fish around in the bowl for some of the parts. If you ever visit Oxford, this place is a must.
After this debauchery, some of us ended up at Martin's house in Abingdon for coffee and lively discussion. Some twink from Oxford appeared at this point, but other than remembering that he was picked up at the Jolly Farmer, I can't remember who brought him. This boy, who we'll call John and may in fact be named John, started playing with another flatmate's balls -- juggling balls. Innuendos flew everywhere. This continued until the early morning. Finally, we headed off for some much-needed sleep.
Sunday, 29 April
We slept late this morning, having been up until 04:00 talking about world politics and the like. Another motss gathering took place at a lovely abbey in Dorchester with a subset of the previous night's dinner crowd. As the taxi was dropping us off from our short jaunt from Abingdon, the tape that the driver had playing started in on "Town Without Pity" -- I remarked to the hack that I hoped it wasn't setting the tone of the day ;^). We all had tea at the abbey: the village women, all apparently in their fifties and beyond, bake treats such as scones, cakes, etc. All proceeds from the sales benefit the abbey. Of course, there is the wonderful (note to the Bat: "cute") village society that goes with all this. We had tea indoors at a large table with some non-motss friends of Martin as well as some other locals. Afterwards, we went into the garden behind the abbey, leered at the glistening twinks that had cycled in, and took some pictures for the motss archives. The one of Nigel sitting on a bench with a come-hither look should prove most popular. Speaking of Nigel, he remarked during tea that one of the chocolate cakes that was out of his reach appeared to have strong artery-clogging properties. One of the other people that we didn't know at the table smiled and passed him the plate. At one point, there was only one scone left on a plate, and one of the bake-ladies grumbled about its loneliness, as well as the fact that it was a less-than-perfect scone, aesthetically speaking. She then declared it a "staff scone" and whisked it away, presumably for her own pleasures. Also perched on the table was a bell with a sign next to it: "If you are feeling lonely or neglected, please tinkle the bell." Tinkle indeed.
After saying our goodbyes to the motss people, Martin's friends drove us to the train station in Didcot for our journey back to London. Nigel appeared on the train platform via a different means (Aitken Taxi Ltd.) and rode with us into the city. Once there, we wandered around a bit, stopped for some Perrier (sans benzene, bien sûr) at a hideous tourist-filled cafe that seemed to be run by a bunch of surly adolescents from Paris, and then met Evelyne again at her hotel where we all jumped into a cab and went to Van B.'s for dinner with Francis. Actually, we had a couple of drinks at a pub down the road first; this pub would be much more at home in the East Village than in London W1. It's très arty and always populated with a mixed and interesting crowd. I cannot recall its name (note to Martin: "Sorry.") but perhaps Mr. Prime will let us know. Dinner at Van B.'s was perfect. As you may recall from my previous UK travels, there is this amazing Irish creature who is so camp and witty that it works out close to a laugh a nanosecond. Last time he claimed to be from Iceland; I asked this time how his parents were and he oozed, "Oh, they've moved to Wandsworth." He flitted about, mouthed the words to the Sarah Vaughn and Edith Piaf tunes that were wafting through the place (wouldn't a rice dish named Edith Pilaf be a scream?) and generally amused us all. Our waiter was no less a floor show; he purposely massacred several languages (Evelyne is a Parisian, after all) and, while doing so, said that he was practicing for '92. He referred to Evelyne as "Madamoiselle" and the rest of us as "Madame". When we went to open one of our bottles of wine, he realised that his opener was in the posession of someone else (it may have been the Irish creature), and remarked "Oh, he's using my screw, but I will get it in a moment." A very sexy taxi driver took us back to the flat at Manor House for a precious few winks before I had to awaken again and tube it out to LHR for the torturous 11 hour flight back to SFO.
Monday, 30 April
Other than a two-hour delay in London, I arrive home alive and well. While filling out the customs nonsense, I encountered the following question (check YES or NO): "I am/we are bringing fruits, plants, meats, food, soil, birds, snails, other live animals, farm products, or I/we have been on a farm or ranch outside the US." I wondered how our illustrious Fruitbat would have answered this question.
Many, many thanks to everyone who participated in this madness. I
truly enjoyed meeting each and every one of you and hope that we
can share some crazy times and love again.
