Dressed to Kill

I had no sooner shelved a posting, called ‘Pocket Full of Poses’ on the advice that it was too self-obsessed, when tonight its sentiment rang violently true. Perhaps one day it will see the light as part of an unreleased collection for die-hard fans (I hear there are already bootlegs in Asia), but its gist was one of standard self-deprecating fare, alluding to the name-calling my appearance elicits, from foppish hair to impractically white leather loafers and every metrosexual muscle in between.

Beth – erstwhile girlfriend, incessant critic – argued that it was too insular and failed to connect with the larger, more pressing issues on readers’ minds: global terrorism, the ‘Islamic threat’, Craig off of Big Brother. Tonight however, I found that same insular subject the unwitting site of a body politic, a dapper scapegoat for our badly dressed social ills.

As I wandered the length and breadth of the bar, looking for my friends, I suddenly felt my conspicuousness. Tall, dark and in a carefully handpicked outfit, I was the antithesis of the short and pasty “chavs” that watched my every move. Unable to find a single familiar or even friendly face I sat myself between breasts instead and chatted to a lady by the bar. In this instance, I was a brunet having more fun than a blonde.

That was until the chavs, in their baseball caps and tracksuits, muscled in.
“What’s a gay twat doing with a bird like that?” one asked.
“Well, I’m not gay.” I said, thinking the situation itself made this quite obvious.
“Of course he’s gay,” one said to another. “Look at his shoes.”
At this the shoes shied away. Hoping to get a better a look, a third clamoured under the table, seemingly to be with the loafers.
“Don’t mate,” his friend warned. “He’s probably got a bomb in them!”

Which would, of course, if their theory proved correct, make me a gay terrorist. Could you imagine? (“Does my bomb look big in this?”) I assured my lady friend that I was indeed neither; that I was, in fact, a lover, not a fighter; and packed nothing more sinister than a sex bomb (sex bomb). Despite this, and I guess through fear of guilt by association, she too left.

But what is my association – what is my relationship to the phobias and the isms in the minds of those young men? Does my wearing white shoes make me gay? Does my having a brown face make me a terrorist? Are those the indicators - the tell-tale signs?

Last night I narrowly avoided a fight. The police were called in and the boys, who got more and more aggressive, left unscathed (the lucky bastards). This morning however, looking at the weekend papers, it seems some other young men, in Central London, didn’t escape the grip of the police so easily, nor the scorn of the tabloid press. “Got the bastards,” screamed the headline of The Sun, referring to the arrest of the suspected London bombers, stripped to their underwear, their brown faces filling the 11’’ X 7’’ page.

Turning over I saw another brown face but under a different headline. “Teenager Killed in Racist Attack,” and I thought to myself how tragically one begets the other. Hatred begets hatred. The “cowardly suicide bombers” of The Sun article are, after all, suspects, but their coverage in the news media breeds the kind of hatred that threatens to infect a nervous nation.

I don’t suspect this is the last time I will notice its effect. Nor can I change my brown face or my white shoes. Well, I suppose I can change the shoes. But why should I? George Michael, a singer who is actually gay and not adverse to a bit of white shoe wearing himself, sang in the aptly titled, ‘Freedom’, that “sometimes the clothes do not make the man.” But, for the chavs in their tracksuits, the suspected terrorists in their pants, and even for me, in my shiny white loafers, it’s often hard to escape the assumption. At least unscathted.

Goff or Go?

Strange though it seems, I hate to talk about art in an art gallery. I’d rather do that museum shuffle, hit the gift shop, gobble a panini (or what is essentially a toasted sandwich) and leave the whispering analyses to the culture vultures more in the know.

I’m always slightly afraid that one might overhear my transparent paraphrasing of the gallery programme, swoop down and brand me a philistine for my hopeless pronunciation of artists’ names. (Is it Goff or Go?)

Today at the Tate, I’ll admit, I took credit for some rather intelligent observations regarding Cubism that were not entirely my own. “Its radical fragmentation of the human body,” I said, glancing at the museum notes, “and aggressively angular forms could also be seen to reflect a troubled and changing world.”
“Gosh.” The lady was suitably impressed. “And who painted this?”
“Diego…” I began, having caught the first name in my discreet glancing. “…Maradona.”
“The football player?”
“That’s right.”
At this point, she too glanced at the museum notes. My eyes followed and soon realised that my hopeless pronunciation had exposed me again. The lady, also realising this, slowly pulled her jacket from the bench, shuffled towards the gift shop and left me for the vultures. It was Rivera, I thought. Bloody Diego Rivera.

There's no such thing as a three lunch

It used to be I’d say to people, “hey, I’m getting kind of fat.” And people would say, “what are talking about?” with some surprise, “you’re totally skinny.” Then recently, I’d say the same, and they’d go, “yeah, you are putting on some weight.” Now, quite remarkably, people are volunteering this information. “Dude,” they say, looking at my belly. “You’re fat.”

How did this happen? In just a few months I’ve gone from floater to bloater. My blazers are tight (and not like in an indie rock and roll kind of way), my jeans don’t fit and, well, I don’t even want to talk about the swelling in my feet. I find myself wearing more black, saying stuff like, “moment on the lips, lifetime on the hips”, and asking retails assistants if my bum looks big in any number of outfits.

Now that everybody and their mama is noticing (never mind that my lifestyle is inherently unhealthy), I feel driven by vanity to act quickly. This involves switching from regular M&S ready meals to their ‘Count on Us’ low-calorie range, drinking spirits instead of beer and occasionally – get this – walking over to the TV to change the channel. (That won’t last.)

But, before my toes disappear beneath the shadow of my belly, I am going to have to do something. Even if that means just eating the one lunch.