Psoriasis

Since I was a child, I have suffered from psoriasis. It’s a skin condition, and it means that sometimes, parts of my skin grow about four times faster than normal skin. The new skin doesn’t have time to be worn away naturally like normal skin does, and this results in itchy skin patches which are red and scaly. In my case I have guttate psoriasis, meaning I get the condition in lots of small patches, though sometimes my patches join together into larger areas.

As a child and teenager, I was particularly badly affected by psoriasis. It covered a very large proportion of my body, including my face and scalp. I spent many weeks in hospital trying to get it under control, to little positive response. I did get relentlessly bullied because of it, mostly name calling (pizza face, flakybake, dandruff boy – you get the idea!), and spent years avoiding PE lessons so I wouldn’t have to get changed.

As an adult, it has come and gone, and I’ve been lucky enough for most of my 30s to be almost free of it, just retaining a little on my scalp and elbows. It often has a small resurgence in the winter, but clears up when I can get into some sunshine in the summer. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened this year, and it has returned with a vengeance, and I’m in a particularly bad breakout right now. It’s probably caused by the stress of the last 18 months or so with the bad university course, unemployment and new job taking their toll.

So for all those people I overhear talking about my ‘terrible dandruff’, or think I’m dirty because I appear to scratch a lot… give me a break, if I could do anything about it, I would!

Who am I?

I am a 36 year old adult gay male. I like Girls Aloud, Take That and Abba. I like the Eurovision Song Contest. I like (dare I say it?) Kylie. I like singing and performing. I enjoy musicals and showtunes. I suck at sports. I like acting on stage and making films. I like being with friends, whether that's at home or in a bar or at a big bear event. I like reality TV. I can gossip like anyone else, but try to generally be a nice person. I like Ab Fab and Gimme Gimme Gimme. I like sci-fi. Are these things 'gay' enough for you?

I also like the Kaiser Chiefs, Black Eyed Peas and Blondie. I hate opera and ballet. I enjoy watching athletics, and used to have the odd game of squash. I like watching comedy movies and horror films. I dislike people who go out of their way to criticise and annoy others. I don't take illegal drugs and I don't judge those who do. I don't like the bars on Canal Street. I hate when the music in a pub is so loud you can't talk to your mates. I don't have lots of female friends, just a select few. I'm not fashion conscious. I'm overweight and suffer from psoriasis. I'm shy with new people and loud with friends. Are these things 'straight' or 'manly' enough for you?

As an adult, I have made my own mind up about these things, and don't feel any peer pressure to decide either way on them. My decision to like or dislike things doesn't stop you enjoying them.

But if it makes you feel superior to call me a stereotype, or happier to call me mainstream, or more alternative to call me a sheep - you just go right ahead.

Holiday

Well, I've come back from a great holiday in the USA. First stop was Chub Convergence in Las Vegas, which was an extremely well organised event which Phil and I really enjoyed... next year's Convergence is in Orlando - anyone fancy the trip?

We then moved on to San Diego, an altogether quieter and more laid back city, which was needed after the craziness that is Vegas! I've put a photo album up from our travels on Facebook here.

My Life According To Bananarama

"Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions. Pass it on to 15 people you like and include me. You can't use the band I used. You can't repeat a song title. Repost as "My life according to (band name)".


Pick your Artist/Band: Bananarama

Are you a male or female?: Preacher Man

Describe yourself: Shy Boy

How do you feel?: I Heard A Rumour

Describe where you currently live?: Do Not Disturb

If you could go anywhere, where would you go?: Venus

Your favorite form of transportation?: Long Train Running

Your best friend?: Nathan Jones

You and your friends are....: Really Saying Something

What's the weather like?: Cruel Summer

Favorite time of day?: Trick of the Night

If your life was a TV show, what would it be called?: I Can't Help It

Your relationship?: Love In The First Degree

What is life to you?: Rough Justice

Your fear?: Help!

What is the best advice you have to give?: Look On The Floor (Hypnotic Tango)

Thought for the day?: It Ain't What You Do It's The Way That You Do It

How you would like to die?: Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye

Your soul's present condition?: Love Comes

Your motto?: Love, Truth and Honesty

Bearcelona Pool Party

OK, here's a blatant plug for one of my friend Jonathan Robinson's videos - this one features bear soup at the Bearcelona 09 event :-) Enjoy!

Click here to see it.

Christianity - Part 2

Another warning - this second post is fairly negative on Christians and Christianity. If you're going to be offended by that, don't read it!

I continued as part of the church and got more and more involved – as a youth group leader, playing guitar and leading worship in church, and by age 18 I was on the ‘Vestry’ – the group of people running the church. I had the strange position of being baptised as an adult – meaning I could choose my own godparents – in fact my godfather was my best mate at the time and only a year older than me. I was best man at the wedding of two very dear friends. In essence, I was the model of a young Christian lad, though my ‘secret’ gay life was still there and still being fought against.

Things started to crumble a bit though – at 20 I failed most of my exams at university and decided to take a year out to weigh up the options. Signing up for training as a priest was one option at that point. I spent the year as a full time volunteer for the Church of Ireland Youth Council, taking bookings and doing admin for the (very large) ‘Summer Madness’ festival. Eventually I decided to train as a teacher, and as I could only get 2 more years of grant funding, I needed a 2 year course. These didn’t exist in Northern Ireland, so I signed up for uni in Lancaster.

I moved to Lancaster, and wrote to everyone – dozens of letters – giving them my address and phone number, and letting them know how I was getting on. I got 2 letters back. I wrote another batch of letters. No calls, no letters came. I couldn’t believe that these people – Christian people – couldn’t make time to get in touch, particularly those I thought I was very close to. I felt let down and abandoned. And now I was in a new country, with no friends. I joined a church, but I couldn’t seem to connect with people there.

Eventually I just gave up. People in England were much less bothered about religion, and I followed suit. And being gay was suddenly a whole lot easier since it no longer conflicted with my beliefs. I’ve since come across some of these Christian former-friends on the likes of Facebook, but after a couple of polite messages, it was clear that they weren’t really that interested any more. Maybe because I’m gay, maybe they just don’t like the person I am now! In fact this blog post was inspired by finding my godfather on Facebook and not knowing whether or not to send a message!

More recently I had a guy I spoke to occasionally on some bear chat sites and on Facebook. I was pretty neutral towards him, he was OK – a bit over-familiar in person, but harmless and OK to be around. Like many people in the world (I’m looking at you, Americans!), he liked to think he was Irish. I don’t know whether he was or wasn’t born in Ireland, but he’d certainly spent the vast majority of his life in England. But then he started putting strange little comments on Facebook, about catholics and protestants, and bigoted views. It stuck out to me, because English people generally don’t make distinctions along denominational grounds. I decided the best thing to do was quietly delete him as a friend, since I didn’t want to see these things. But he spotted it and started up a whole row with me, making some pretty nasty comments (which I just ignored till he stopped!). But it reminded me just why I’m no longer a fan of religion in general – it just divides people!

Do I believe in God now? Don’t know. But Christians have a lot more work to do if they want to convince non-believers!

Christianity - Part 1

Quick warning at the beginning of this 2-part blog entry – I’m going to talk about my views on Christians and Christianity, which will bore many, interest a few and possibly alienate or offend a few more. Think about which category you might fall into and then decide whether to read any further!

As a child, I always attended Sunday School etc, but it wasn’t until I was reaching the end of first year at secondary school that Christianity made any impact on my life. There were two reasons for this. One was that I’d got into trouble at school and with the police for nicking coins out of a school bus driver’s pockets. That really made me think about whether that’s how I wanted my life to go. But it was another incident that made me really think about religion for the first time.

I used to live about 2 miles from the shores of Belfast Lough, and would regularly take myself off for a walk to a park on the shore. As far as I am concerned, the best ice cream shop in the world was (and I think, still is) there – Maud’s Ice Cream. The quickest way to get there was a walk through a wood and past a predominantly catholic area. I never thought anything of this. One day on my way back a number of older teenagers spotted me walking through the wood and decided to beat me up because I was ‘walking in their territory’. I was attacked because (they assumed – they never asked!) I wasn’t a catholic. It wasn’t a major attack – I just curled up in a ball until they went away, so avoided any injury above a bruise – but it did make me question why religion mattered.

For the rest of my teenage years, my whole social life was based around Christianity, both at school where I was involved with the Christian Union, and my home life, where everything I did was connected to church. I had plenty of friends and seemed popular, which are great things for a teenager to feel. I was struggling with my Christian beliefs and my being gay, though. I knew I was gay very early in my life – probably from about 8 or 9 years old. I used to pray that God would just make me straight like everyone else – even had a couple of girlfriends.

At 16, I got a part time job in Woolworths, which basically involved folding down cardboard boxes and brushing the stockroom floor – very boring, but gave me some pocket money. About a year after I started, I was talking there with another couple of lads, Eddie and Anthony, and somehow the topic turned to religion. I can’t remember the exact conversation, but somehow I ended up saying something like ‘at least he’s protestant’. This was a bad time to find out that Eddie was catholic. I stumbled an apology out and went to hide in the toilet – I have never been so ashamed in all my life. I suddenly realised that growing up in Northern Ireland had made me just as bigoted as everyone else around me – and I hated that idea.

It did make me resolve to never make that kind of judgment on a group of people again.

Daily Mugshot

Daily Mugshothhhh

I've been taking daily pictures at www.dailymugshot.com for nearly a month. Seems fun, and I kinda like the result - thought I'd share it!

GBBB12

The Great British Bear Bash has passed for another year and I'd have to say it was the best one for quite a few years! Lots of men not giving a toss and just getting on with enjoying themselves. Plenty of fellas embracing the school uniform theme on Friday night (not to mention a few unfortunates who got the wrong night on Saturday - bless!).

The highlight for me (and from what I understand, most people!) was Sunday afternoon at the Birdcage. They was one ropey act, but mostly it was a cavalcade of enjoyment. I took part with a small group of 'showbears' to pull off a Disney Tribute which had the crowd on their feet yelling for more. Which was nice! (Hence the picture of me in the Baloo costume!)

There's a video of the showbears performance on youtube. It's in 4 parts, and the first of those is here.

Why it's not cool to slag off bear events!

Firstly let me start by saying I'm not involved at all with the running of Bear Bash or Manbears. I take part in a small way in providing some of the entertainment, but otherwise am just a participant like everyone else. But having helped run events like this in the past, I know where they're coming from.

There have been a number of people in recent years who have been trying to prove their 'alternative' credentials by slagging off bear bash and any other bear event. These events are apparently too 'mainstream' for them. I don't need to name these self-appointed 'bear spokesmen' - you all know who they are!

One criticism I hear a lot is that Bear Bash is too expensive and that Manbears are profiteering with it. Well, do you really think you could put on everything that goes on over that weekend (for well over 1000 people) any cheaper? Seriously? I'd suggest you try costing it out! Are there things you think money is wasted on? As far as I can see, everything on the programme is there because it's been asked for. Sure, not everyone wants to do everything - that's why some parts of the weekend are charged for separately. And if you do have suggestions, why not just share them with Manbears instead of shooting your mouth off all over the place?

The other thing I hear over and over is 'I don't support Manbears because I don't like (insert name of person here)'. That is feeble. No-one at Manbears could put these events together alone. It takes a team of people - who, by the way give up a lot of their time and energy to make these events happen.

And as for being 'too mainstream' - pah! How mainstream could gathering a bunch of bears ever be? Bears represent a tiny proportion of the gay community, which in itself is a small minority of the world at large. And if so many men are attending these events, they must be serving them in some way.

So maybe, before you have a go at bear events, think about doing these 2 things instead:
1. Offer your suggestions to bear event organisers - from my experience, they're pretty open to this.
2. Offer alternative events (but don't deliberately clash them, that would be petty) - there's still plenty of room for all sorts of events!

If you can't do either of these things then, with all due respect, shut up!

Motivation

Something I am seriously lacking at the moment. I have looming deadlines for some assignments, then exam revision to do, but really can't get myself into the mood to do them. Partly to do with how awful the course has been, partly my own inertia. I am going to be terrible when it comes to the MSc Project - 3 months of work under my own steam... maybe I should cut my losses now!

Mini diet update: On Monday it was 2 weeks and 10 pounds lost. At least that's still happening (how much longer for I couldn't say!).

Diet Update: Week 1

Week 1 is done and my total weight loss is 5.5 pounds.

I'm kinda hoping that broadcasting to the world that I'm on a diet via here and the vlogs on my youtube channel might help me stick to it! I'm fine in the daytime, it's the evenings where I want to snack... so far, so good though!

Videos

Saturday saw me do some more filming for GBBB. I'm not giving the game away, but we filmed a spoof of a well-known US TV show along with a spoof of a common UK TV ad. It was a good day of filming, and as ever, I got my face covered in goop (seems to be a theme!).

It was good that as well as a few old faces (me!) there were a few people involved who hadn't done a lot before. But in the weeks leading up to the filming, it was really difficult to find people to get involved. We need more people to do both acting, but more importantly behind the scenes stuff. We also need some enthusiastic people with ideas to come on board, and people who can write scripts. If any of you are interested, let me know!

Saturday also reminded me how much I love acting, and I would love to do more. Anyone know any drama or musical theatre groups in the Manchester area who need another bloke? Let me know.

Finally, I've put up a new Vlog on my youtube channel. Hope you enjoy it!

St Paddy's Day Massacre!

I went into town for the Manchester Irish Festival Market today. Ten years ago, this would have been a fun day, browsing loads of stalls and buying stuff you can normally only get in Ireland.

Now it's about 8 stalls, six of which are selling green and orange tat with 'Ireland' printed on it, one selling CDs your gran would be ashamed to own and one selling food you can get at your local Asda (cheaper). How disappointing... Sorry, but it's had its day!

Gloom

This term is so difficult! I have an assignment on Java programming and honestly have no idea how to even start on it...

And having no job/money and being home all the time is really starting to get to me :-(

Small Victories!

Today I managed to program a pocket calculator application in Flash. It's not particularly whizzy, and it's probably still got some bugs in. I may not have coded it very elegantly. It might not look very chic. But it's all my own work and I'm proud of it!

You can take a look at it below... Can I officially be a geek now?

Exams

My first semester exam results came today - they were posted out! I certainly didn't expect that... The university has invested a lot of money in a VLE (virtual learning environment) - if the Computing department aren't using it, what chance is there that anyone else is?

Anyway, I passed them all, which means if I left right now I'd still get a Postgraduate Certificate in Computing. And the grade would be Distinction, which is nice :-)

Waddyawannaknow?

Readers - is there anything you'd like to know about me? Comment here! I'm not guaranteeing to answer everything anyone asks... but it would be good to get some feedback :-)

So ask away - oh, and I'm not going to publish any comments for this post, so really, ask anything and see if I bite LOL

Exams

Just a very quick update... This last week has been hell... exam week. But I've got through the three end of unit exams and I think I might just have passed them too. We can only wait to see when the results are published!