William Hague speaks frankly about gay rumours

Brother to Brother - Film Review

PRIDE LONDON 2010

Fri 9 Jul, 2010.
by Jeff Kristian

• “Closet Of Desire”
• “The Kirby Grip Of Doom”
• Meeting The Neighbours
• Adolf The Whelk
• “Dating Florrie”
• “That There Coalition Thingy”
• ADVENTURES OF A DRAG QUEEN – by Jeff Kristian “Twilight Tits”
• “Dancing Queen”
• ADVENTURES OF A DRAG QUEEN – by Jeff Kristian “Off To Oz”
• Doris and Bert

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“If you want anything to get around, just tell Mrs Dunwoody and the whole street will know within the hour” they’d say.

“The Kirby Grip Of Doom”

I can remember some years ago running out into the front garden like every other neighbour down our street, to see why there was a police car and ambulance outside old Mrs Dunwoody’s house at number fourteen.
She was a nice enough woman, though a bit of a busy body in her time. But quite useful in her way. “If you want anything to get around, just tell Mrs Dunwoody and the whole street will know within the hour” they’d say. So we did. And we did. But the irony to this story is that we never did truly find out what had happened to her because there was no longer a Mrs Dunwoody to knock and tell us.

Rumour had it that she’d committed suicide by putting her left foot in a washing up bowl of water while poking a Kirby grip into a plug socket. Apparently, while writhing about in spasms of shock, she’d knocked over a pot plant. Knowing what a clean freak she was, I think it more likely she’d knocked the plant over first and was clearing it up, using the Kirby grip to get the soil out of the hole.

But what a sad thing to think anyone could be so unhappy that they’d want to end their life earlier than nature had intended. I recall someone from our local Supermarket jumping into the Thames. Mind you to be fair, it was Budgen’s. But bless her heart, being a pearl short of a twin-set she jumped at low tide and they had to call the River Police to prise her out of the mud. But then she threatened to sue them because they tore her jacket in the process… odd considering she didn’t seem to mind it floating up the river on a corpse. Perhaps an indication that she wasn’t in her right mind at the time, as I suspect is the case with many other poor souls in the same boat… or mud, as the case may be.

I was once asked to ‘man’ a gay Samaritans’ type phone line as a drag queen for two hours every Monday night after Eastenders. The brief was that suicides might be avoided if we could “cheer them up a bit”. I’m not sure how relevant the Eastenders aspect was. But then some of the story lines are so depressing that perhaps you’d want to jump under a bus after watching. But I honestly couldn’t bring myself to do it.

It’s one thing trying to bring on a smile on stage a couple of times a weeks, but trying to talk some poor bastard down off a rooftop with jokes about Mary Poppins is a different ball of wax altogether.

I did once get three points on my license driving across London at break-neck speed while on the mobile. I was trying to keep someone talking and awake after an overdose. I was somewhat relieved upon arrival to discover that he was so drunk he’d swallowed a whole jar of Vitamin E tablets by mistake. I remember thinking at the time, he may be depressed but he’ll have fabulous skin-tone. He explained through lots of tears and some considerable snot that it was a middle-aged-mother-gay-son thing and all quite sad. He’d been trying to explain that being gay was probably genetic, and she was convinced it was something from his childhood. Apparently, knitting had made him a Homosexual. I suggested perhaps if I got some wool he’d make one for me too, but he couldn’t see the funny side.

I think it’s a brave person who contemplates ending it all. I couldn’t do it, no matter how bad things appeared to be. And I’m not sure how I’d do it if I wanted to. I could leap from the top of my own stiletto shoes I suppose. My partner Charlie’s occasionally suggested I try eating my own cooking. And I’ve died on stage quite a few times, though perhaps that doesn’t count. But I did get knocked over a wall dressed as Diana Ross once when a car mounted the pavement in Trafalgar Square, though that was more attempted murder than a bid for suicide. Well, it felt like attempted murder at the time. Some people just don’t like Diana Ross, I guess.

My philosophy is this. If you ever find you’ve had enough of your own life, just steal someone else’s! Never underestimate how much fun Celebrity Stalking can be. Though it can be expensive, so maybe not the best solution if your problem is money. Or you could just donate yourself to someone else. There’s plenty of slave dungeons in Amsterdam looking for contributions. But if nothing else will do, remember this… when you jam that Kirby grip into a plug socket, you could be depriving a drag queen somewhere of a hair do.

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