Author: Robert

Trains of Thought (#TågFärjetur part 1)

Day 1 (Friday 18 October):
10.47 Liverpool Lime Street to London Euston

Some appropriate music to accompany this blog post:

Europe’s high-speed rail network is a thing of beauty. Trains zip passengers across the continent and through multiple countries in mere hours, with no tacky duty-free shops or requirement to decant your shampoo into tiny bottles.

It’s a network I have taken advantage of multiple times in the past – a trip to Amsterdam with my friend Ian, a sleeper train from Berlin to Paris, zooming across Germany on the sexy InterCityExpress. I was “flight shaming” before Greta Thunberg made it cool.

My last Euro train trip was in 2016. That was far too long ago, and in the summer of 2019, I started to feel the railway itch again. I often found myself at idle moments with multiple browser tabs open on the Eurostar, Deutsche Bahn and Man in Seat Sixty One websites, looking for inspiration for my next trip.

Then, online chatter revealed that one celebrated European railway route was to undergo major changes. The Hamburg to Copenhagen EuroCity service, one of the few remaining lines in the world where the entire train is loaded onto a ferry to cross a body of water, was being rerouted to avoid that messy procedure. After December the opportunity to enjoy this unusual train journey would be gone forever. Naturally, a ride on this train quickly became the centrepiece of the plan.

Continue reading “Trains of Thought (#TågFärjetur part 1)”

The Porn Identity

Picture of Trekkie Monster from Avenue Q

An announcement slipped out today by the Government (no doubt hoping that the Brexit circus would distract everyone) confirms that the plans for compulsory age-verification checks for adult websites will not be going ahead. The plans had already slipped twice – originally planned to roll out in late 2018, it was postponed to July 2019, then was pushed back again to October due to incompetence. Now, Culture Minister Nicky Morgan has confirmed that the plans have been shelved (on the top shelf, presumably).

It does seem to be a universal rule that, as soon as something is invented, it will inevitably end up used for filthy sex stuff. Computers were no exception – I certainly remember the thrills some lads at primary school got from an illicitly-obtained copy of Sam Fox Strip Poker for the Commodore 64. The fact that none of us knew how to play poker hardly seemed to matter. The introduction of modems opened still more horizons – if you knew where to look, bulletin boards offered BBC Micro users a cornucopia (pornucopia?) of pixelated 8-bit erotica, as uncovered a few years ago by John Hoare (VERY NSFW LINK!).

Porn has been on the web for as long as the web has existed. In the olden days of dial-up, it was less of a problem, as postage stamp-sized RealPlayer windows playing at 5 frames per second did not offer much of a thrill. The content that was available was generally locked behind a paywall, requiring a credit card, beyond the means of most under 18s.

However, with the arrival of broadband, and the proliferation of free sites which offer (legally or not) hours of content completely free of charge, it has become a lot easier to find rude videos online. When I was at school, there was one lad at school who found one of his dad’s naughty magazines and brought it in for his mates to excitedly pore over. Now, with a smartphone in every pocket, everyone has instant access to stuff far more potent than a magazine, with no need to worry about the pages getting stuck together.

Continue reading “The Porn Identity”

Still Furious

When I woke up the morning after that vote and saw the result, I was despondent, I was angry, but I genuinely believed I would get over it. I thought time would be a healer, that the country would coalesce around a reasonable Brexit compromise, and we would all move on.

It hasn’t happened. Three years on, and I’m still furious.

Furious at the needless waste of money and effort that is being expended to try and protect us from the impact of this decision.

Furious at the lack of action to solve other serious problems while Westminster obsesses over the minutiae of Brexit.

Furious at the loss of opportunity to live and work freely in 26 other countries.

Furious that millions of young people, who didn’t get to vote because they were under 18 at the time, will have to live for the rest of their lives with a decision that was out of their hands.

Furious that a politician was murdered.

Furious at the liars and cheaters in the campaign who got away with it.

Furious at the media who failed to give the arguments any proper scrutiny.

Furious at the politicians who are too cowardly to stand up and ask for a rethink.

Furious that my patriotism and belief in democracy has been called into question because I want to stop a damaging Brexit.

Furious that bigotry and xenophobia is now being treated as a legitimate political position.

Check back in with me in three years. Maybe by then I’ll be over it. But I doubt it.

The Trains in May Are Mainly Now Explained

Last year (at least six or seven blog posts ago) a massive timetable shakeup was announced on train services across the north of England, promising faster journeys, new connection opportunities and an all-round better experience.

To say the changeover didn’t go smoothly would be an understatement.

Passengers endured weeks of disruption before an emergency timetable was introduced, drastically thinning out the service on some lines. It was months before things got back to some semblance of normality, and the lasting damage to the railway’s reputation (and Northern in particular) will take some time to recover.

Now, one year later, the train companies are gearing up to try again, with a new timetable due to start on Sunday 19th May. It’s not the “big bang” of May 2018, but perhaps that’s just as well.

Sadly, for passengers travelling out of Lime Street, a lot of the promised improvements have been deferred yet again. But there are some big changes going ahead, so let’s look at what’s happening. As always, I focus on the Liverpool area, because… that’s where I live, and it’s boss.

Continue reading “The Trains in May Are Mainly Now Explained”

Ich bin ein… Hamburger

At the end of last month I headed to Hamburg for a second trip to Germany’s second city. Once again, it was at the invitation of my friend Boris, who lived in Hamburg for quite some time and knows the city well.

(I would link to the blog posts about my previous trip in 2016, but my old site is down after an unfortunate hacking attack – hopefully it will be back soon)

The good people of Hamburg were so happy to see us when we arrived on Friday, they organised a giant fireworks display to celebrate!

This is not true, of course. This fireworks display was part of the Hamburg DOM, a festival and funfair held in the St Pauli area three times a year.

Entrance to Hamburg Dom fair and Ferris Wheel, at night

I was surrounded by rides, neon lights and food stands offering German delicacies. No time to sample them, however – neon lights of a different kind were calling us, and we headed to the Reeperbahn for the first time that weekend.
Continue reading “Ich bin ein… Hamburger”

Brex-iety

I spent the weekend in Hamburg with some friends, enjoying all the sights and sounds that Germany’s second city has to offer. If you follow me on Twitter or Instagram, you’ll have got a flavour of my trip. I will try and get a longer blog post up at the weekend detailing the shenanigans.

In the meantime, I wanted to mention one thing. A change in my mood, for reasons that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. When I got home, it hit me: for the 72 hours I was away, I didn’t hear anything about Brexit.

Maybe Brexit was being discussed on all of Germany’s news channels, but if it was, I didn’t see it. I was busy exploring the city so I wasn’t on Twitter as much as usual. And I was much happier.

I’ve always prided myself on keeping up with the issues, but when everything is just so grim, it’s wonderful to get away for a few days. I got back home at lunchtime on Monday. By that evening, all my anxieties and worries had returned.

And, whatever happens, the source of stress is going to go on for years. If the deal fails, we may leave without a deal, with severe long-term consequences that we will all experience. If May’s deal goes through, we have many years of wrangling about our future trading relationship which will dominate the agenda. There’s a tiny chance of a second referendum, which will probably be even more rancorous and unpleasant than the first. We will have a new Tory leader, probably a much more right-wing one (and given how right-wing May has been, that is a scary prospect). Frankly, I’m not sure I can cope.

Someone please write something in the comments to cheer me up.

Nowt so…

Today marks the 20th anniversary of Queer as Folk‘s premiere on Channel 4.

If you’re looking for some inspiring tale about how the show helped me to come out, you’ll be disappointed. In 1999 my family only had one TV and it would have been safely tuned to ITV, so I never saw any of Queer as Folk at the time.

I was certainly aware of the controversy, with the usual suspects in the Daily Mail and Express clutching their pearls over the series. I do remember a fellow passenger on my school bus making his displeasure clear at the giant billboard advertising the series every time we drove past it.

The BBC has a nice article about the anniversary, making the point that it was the first time gay mens’ lives had been depicted so frankly on screen. This was two years after Ellen announced she was gay to an entire airport, and EastEnders and Brookside had featured lesbian and gay characters too, but you rarely saw them indulge in anything more erotic than peck on the cheek. Queer as Folk broke many taboos, and for curious straight viewers who tuned in, it was probably their first exposure to things gay men enjoy, like Doctor Who and rimming.

A few years later BBC Choice (remember them?) showed the US version, so this was the one I saw first. By this time I did have a TV in my room, but I was still deeply closeted, so it was with the sound turned way down and with one hand on the remote at all times, in case mum or dad entered without knocking with a cup of tea. And it was only in 2009, when E4 repeated the series for the 10th anniversary, that I actually saw the original UK version in full.

Things have moved on in the last two decades. We have LGBT politicians and LGBT sports stars, and taboos around the subject are disappearing – when Tom Daley came out in 2013, it was freely discussed on Children’s BBC. But it still feels unusual and daring to have LGBT characters front and centre on a TV show, rather than in a supporting role. And while you will find lots of shows willing to drop in the odd sly reference to Grindr, depictions of gay sex on screen are still very rare, at least in mainstream film and TV.

QaF remains a seminal series, well worth watching if you’ve never seen it. I can even forgive it for introducing the world to Antony Cotton.

If you’re in the UK, every episode of Queer as Folk is available on All4.

TwitTen

10 years ago, I joined Twitter. Like most of my bad decisions, it happened around midnight.

2009 seems to be the moment where Twitter (launched in 2006) reached the tipping point, and stopped being a service for geeks and started becoming truly mainstream (not that I’m claiming to be anything other than a geek). It was in February of that year that Stephen Fry live-tweeted from a stuck lift, bringing much media attention to the fledgling service. Annoyingly, when I got stuck in a lift last year, I had no phone signal so couldn’t tweet anything.

Continue reading “TwitTen”

Future Shocked

Back in February, my younger sister gave birth to her first child. Lucy is the fifth grandchild for my parents, but the first girl, and I suspect she is getting extra special treatment as a result.

Already, at the age of ten months, she is full of insatiable curiosity about the world around her. We visited the Palm House in Sefton Park a few weeks ago, and she was captivated by the colours and smells of the exotic plants, looking around the Victorian structure with wide-eyed wonder.

She has known only love and affection since the moment she took her first breath, and she repays that love to everyone she meets. She is an absolute joy to be around – full of happy noises and laughter, rarely crying unless she is sick or tired, always greeting people with a smile when they walk into the room.

Of course, we are all looking forward to sharing in her first Christmas, as she experiences the magic of the festive season for the first time.

And yet, as I gaze at that innocent face, I feel a tinge of sadness, knowing that the future she is facing is far from rosy.

Continue reading “Future Shocked”

Berlin: The Long-Awaited Third Part

Yes, I know, it’s been a long time coming. Apologies for the delay. Also, despite this walking tour lasting almost four hours, I took precisely two photos, both of which are included here.

FRIDAY

Logo of Original Berlin Walks

I’m terrible at planning my holidays (and writing about them, it seems), and the trip to Berlin was no exception. One thing I did manage to organise, however, was booking myself onto a walking tour of Berlin. I never used to be a fan of these types of tours but on recent jaunts abroad I’ve found them to be an excellent way of seeing a lot of city in a short time. I found the BerlinWalks Queer Berlin tour, which promised a whistle-stop tour of the city’s LGBT history.

I turned up at the meeting point outside Hackescher Markt station in a slightly discombobulated state. I had walked from my hotel to the U-Bahn station before realising that I had forgotten to put on any sun cream, so I had to dash back to slap some on. I didn’t regret this decision – Berlin was in the grip of a heatwave, and even by 10.30am the sun was very hot. However it did mean I arrived only just in time, and in a sweaty, flustered state.

There were several tours setting off at the same time, and while most people were here for the generic city tour or a cheerful trip out to Sachsenhausen, I was the only person here for the queer tour. My guide was a cheerful American (whose name, unfortunately, I have forgotten). He said that if I needed the toilet, I could use the facilities in an adjacent restaurant. Unfortunately his directions were not too clear, so I wandered into the kitchen by mistake and got chased out by an angry chef.

When I returned to the meeting point, two other people had turned up to join our tour. I’m not actually sure which is worse – a tiny tour group, or just one person. If it were just me and the tour guide, it might have been a bit easier. But a small group requires smalltalk. The other two were a couple, and I felt a little bit like I was interrupting a date. I felt a bit awkward, but I did my best and didn’t embarrass myself too much.

Continue reading “Berlin: The Long-Awaited Third Part”