Two fingers or four?

What's you favourite chocolate treat?

I'm rather partial to anything that contains peanuts, such as Cadbury Star Bar, Reece's, Peanut M&Ms. Although my taste for all things nutty does not extend to hazelnut flavour praline....I hate, hate, hate it! The Ambassador would certainly not be spoiling me with his tray of Ferrero Rocher. I would tell him to take his tray of cheap confectionery and fuck off and get me something more dignified, preferably something dark from Montezuma's or Hotel Chocolat.

Why don't they utilise the benefits of more tasty nuts, such as pecans, macadamias, walnuts and almonds. I know there is almond in praline, but its gentle feminine sweetness is trampled on by the aggressive male flavour of the hazelnut. Yes, I believe flavours can be either masculine or feminine. But, wouldn't that be lovely, a Reece's Cup with a pecan or walnut filling, instead of peanut. Hmmm.

Anyway, a chocolate bar played a pivotal role in my burgeoning sexuality at the age of 16. I know what you're thinking and all I can say is don't be so dirty minded! It was in fact a Kit Kat, or rather a bumper pack of Kit Kats. Of the four fingered variety, in case you're curious.

When I was 16 I had a Saturday job at Iceland freezer stores. The stories I could write about that place would fill a book, such as the man who came in and pretended he was blind and who used to gurn at the end of the till. Or the couple that believed that if you scanned an item then it contaminated the food. Never mind that the food they were buying was the worst kind of frozen processed crap that Iceland specialised in. This meant that you had to type in the bar code for absolutely every item that went through the till and if, God forbid, you accidentally scanned something, then the husband sent his wife off to change it with the snap of his fingers. A charming man.

Anyway, whilst I worked in Iceland, a friend from sixth form college worked in a shop down the road. Not that I admitted it at the time, but I clearly had the biggest crush on this girl and when she told me that she loved Kit Kats, as a hidden declaration of my affection I bought her the biggest bumper pack of Kits Kats you will ever see with my Iceland staff discount card and presented it to her during her Saturday lunch break. I think it was that evening that I finally admitted to myself that I was gay. Would I ever declare my love with Kit Kats for a boy, would I hell!

Anyway, the crush disappeared over time when I realised that my friend was impossibly straight and clearly more attracted to boys with long hair who modelled themselves on Rob Newman, someone who straight girls
in the early 90s went inexplicably doo lally over. So I transferred my affections to my celebrity crushes of Kim Wilde and Belinda Carlisle (equally unobtainable, but at least I didn't have to buy them Kit Kats) and started dipping my toes in the London gay scene with my friend Holly.

Now these first forays on to the London gay scene are whole other story, but I will finish by telling you how Holly and I decided to take those first steps on the scene. We identified place to go to by the fact that it welcomed 'gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transsexuals, transvestites, straights and theatrical friends'. Not wanting to admit our true nature, Holly and I both surmised we were indeed 'theatrical friends' and that was a good enough reason to go. I mean we were studying A-Level Theatre Studies, and if that didn't make theatrical, I don't know what did. Don't you just love the power of a euphemism?

Out of interest, Holly is now happily married in New Zealand....to her lovely wife Sara.

Sober up

Beth and I went for lunch with the boys yesterday in celebration of GBBF (gay boy best friend) Richard's birthday.

We went to Roast in Borough Market where we dined on potted salt beef, scotch eggs, oysters, guinea fowl, partridge, pork belly, Goosnargh chicken, potatoes cooked in beef dripping, kale with garlic, spinach with pine nuts, English cheeses, damson Queen of puddings, chocolate banoffee pudding, apple and blackberry crumble, whisky and gin cocktails, champagne, English sparkling wine, bottles of Bordeaux, Sauternes, maraschino liqueur, port and sloe gin. It was seriously decadent!

Being an intelligent bunch - consisting of a psychiatrist, an operations manager, a lawyer, a journalist and a government policy adviser - the conversation flowed with the wine and led on to discussions about the X Factor, licking dogs, spotting the fellow gays in the restaurant, how St Paul's Cathedral looks like a big breast (we could see it from our table), how one of our set of parents are currently hob-nobbing with the lesbian sex shop owners down their local golf club, Dynasty, Dollywood, Lip Service, our individual voting records (why do I have so many friends who vote Tory when I am a die hard Labourite?), the Spending Review, siblings, the benefits of Valium on a flight, men visiting the club buffet after coming out of the dark room at XXL (urrrgh!), school days, how drinks and mixers are so much better served in the US (always crushed ice, never cubed), Oxford vs Cambridge university and can men and women ever really be friends, a la When Harry met Sally.

The answer to that last question is yes, if both the male and female in question are gay. Both Beth and I have GBBFs as do many of our Sapphic sisters. You see, in this situation the GBBFs don't need to deal with all that unrequited love which often occurs with fag hags and us gay girls don't have to deal with our heterosexual male 'dikey likeys' having secret lascivious thoughts about us. It can really fuck up a friendship if you subsequently find out that someone is harbouring romantic feelings and has some misguided belief that you would reciprocate and change sexuality if they just tried it on. It doesn't work like that, being gay is not a choice!

After lunch and two drinks in a pub by the Millennium Bridge, the lightweight boys went home, whilst Beth and I carried on down to the Retro Bar for a chaser and then on to the vigil against hate crime in Trafalgar Square. We heard the inspiring Stuart Milk speak (nephew of Harvey) and cried when they read out the names of LGBT people who have died as the result of hate crime in the past ten years. A sobering end to a not so sober day.

A rude awakening

I received a rude awakening this morning.

At 4:45am my phone starts bleeping with a text message: "Hey. We're in the Cubbyhole with all the Halloween decorations! Singing along to Erasure. Good times xx". It's my friends Sophie and Diane serving to remind me that they're having a fabulous and gay old time in New York for Diane's 40th, whilst the rest of us are stuck at home dealing with the fall out of the Spending Review (I shall be living of gruel soon, forget fine dining). In fairness, we were invited to join the girls on this merry jaunt to the Big Apple, but Beth and I had to decline due to a number of reasons. But that doesn't stop me from being jealous!

However, although the USA, and specifically New York has the best lesbian bar in the world, the country's LGBT rights record leaves a lot to be desired. Take Don't ask, Don't Tell as an example. How ludicrous is it that in this day and age there is still a rule that says you can't serve in the US military if you are openly gay! Speaking as someone who delivers policy advice to the UK government as her job (although perhaps not for long, given the Spending Review), I wonder what the policy rationale is for such a decision? If one exists at all. Anyway, as part of my rant I promised to share a link from Naomi Davis, a blog reader in the US who is developing a film about the Don't Ask, Don't Tell issue as part of her thesis at NYU. Check it out at http://www.dadtfilm.com/home

Anyhoo, rant over and in accordance with my friend Sophie's (hereby known as the Blog Police) observation that this blog should actually be about food, I shall bring the topic round to food again. So on that note, did anyone watch the Apprentice last night?

It was good wasn't it. Thirteen got whittled down to a baker's dozen as they set off to prepare some baked goods for the hungry London masses. All I'm going to say on the matter is that if Paloma approached me asking me to procure her muffins, I certainly wouldn't turn her down! Although, there's something about her steely manner which suggests she would sell you the muffin, then eat you alive! One to watch....both foxy and scary in equal measure.

Doing it Victorian style

I had a messy night on Saturday night. It was good, but messy.

For the past year and a half Crystal Palace has been embroiled in a battle to save our last remaining public entertainment venue from the hands of a wealthy evangelical 'mega church', which has a somewhat questionable history and holds some strong views. This is despite ongoing interest from an independent cinema chain, whose potential presence in Crystal Palace would do wonders for its regeneration and would offer an inclusive resource for the whole community. Consequently the Picture Palace Campaign was born and on Saturday night we attended a campaign dinner with a Victorian theme at, irony of ironies, the St John the Evangelist church down the road.

The Sphinx Dining Club certainly put on a good show and I am kind of embarrassed that I didn't dress up to embrace the theme, seeing that most of the 120 guests had. Those that know me know that this is highly out of character, but we had Beth's mother staying and I didn't really think she'd be too comfortable dressing up in a feather boa, bloomers and a basque. I guess I could have looked to Tipping the Velvet for some inspiration, but seeing as I am not exactly mammarily challenged, rent-boy drag would have required some serious suspension of disbelief. Plus I don't think a leather strap-on would have gone down well with the masses and certainly not in church!

Anyway, there was good food, good wine and some 'interesting' entertainment. Plus some ribald conversation on our table about long fingers and pork pies. I'll leave it to your imagination to guess what we were talking about. The venue looked a treat, like some decadent music hall. I half expected Marie Lloyd to pop up and start The Boy I Love in Up in the Gallery. But, the night got messier by the hour. I blame the Hendrick's gin cocktails pre-dinner, the copious amounts of red wine during dinner and the subsequent bourbon and cokes at the after show party at Los Toreros. Crystal Palace's only tapas bar must have resembled some gin-soaked Victorian boozer, with women in feathers, corsets and basques, men with handle-bar moustaches and top hats and plenty of carousing.

The locals came out in force, including our cats' vet. Do you think that with vets you need to maintain that line of professional distance as you do with doctors? I mean it's not like they're examining you. However, I bet the practitioners at our local vets have probably diagnosed me with 'mad cat woman syndrome', such is my irrational devotion to my pussies. I remember I saw my therapist once in Marks and Spencer's and instinctively knew that I shouldn't go up and start engaging her in conversation about some cardigan Twiggy wore on an M&S advert. But, I hadn't just consumed three Hendricks's gin martinis on that occasion and so if there was a professional line to be crossed on Saturday night, then I'm sure I crossed it!

Hopefully there will be more events with more themes. I beg them to hold a Studio 54 night. Now that's a theme I WILL embrace!

Mash it up

It's sausage and mash night tonight. Not that we have a special night for sausage and mash, it's just one of my 'can't be arsed' meals, i.e. a meal you cook when you really cannot be bothered will all the flange of proper cooking. Although, I do have Purple Majesty potatoes for purple mash. I got suckered in by the marketing at Sainsbury's you see.

I know to most people the concept of not being arsed to cook manifests itself in the procurement of a take away. A take away meal in our house is like Dolly Parton's husband - rarely seen. I think we've bought one in three years, which was pizza the other week. Actually it wasn't bad, if a tad strange on the topping choices. We had Chinese chicken, pineapple, jalapeños, BBQ sauce and pepperoni. We didn't make it up, it was an actual combination choice on the menu. Methinks the mad professor who works in my staff canteen moonlights at Napoli Pizza in Crystal Palace.

Given the choice of establishments in South London, it's hardly surprising we don't order many take aways. I really want to know what's the unique selling point of Tennessee Fried Chicken vs. Miami Fried Chicken vs. Mississippi Fried Chicken vs. Atlanta Fried Chicken? Apart from the change Southern state or city name that is. The market is literally saturated....in a huge vat of reconstituted deep frying fat!

So, sausage and mash it is with tomato gravy. I know it's not hugely healthy, but the sausages are quality and the mash (the ultimate comfort food, seeing as work has been manic this week) will be soft and buttery......and purple!

So what is your 'can't be arsed' choice?