Burlybugger's Blog

More Bear Explosion madness!

2011-09-04T16:57:00.002+01:00

It's been an incredible summer for my latest project, Bear Explosion. For anyone who doesn't yet know (can it be?), we're a comedy band producing videos and doing occasional live performances, loosely on a bear theme.

July saw us over in Northern Ireland, performing our first 'proper' live shows at the Belfast Bear Weekend, organised by Men Of The North. We certainly were very busy boys that weekend, performing our stuff three times in all. The Northern Irish audiences LOVED what we were doing, and we were incredibly proud and flattered by the comments we received during the weekend. Add to that the fact we were all away together on a boys' mini-break, and that the very well organised weekend was fantastically enjoyable and we'd have to say a brilliant time was had by all!

We were then straight back into rehearsals for our first gig in our home town of Manchester, booked in to perform at the Village Square stage during Manchester Pride. I could feel the lads getting a bit nervous as we got closer and closer to the day. Even the rain (and there was lots of it!) couldn't keep our amazing audience from having a great time watching us. And again we had so much fun, both on stage, and also during our drunken celebrations throughout the weekend! Several of us even went for a boogie at G-A-Y Manchester, not something you'll hear me say very often! :-)

Bear Explosion have posted several new videos since the last time I blogged about them, so if you want to find out more about us, you can connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or on the Bear Explosion website.

Holiday Time

2011-06-22T12:15:00.003+01:00

Just back from a fun fortnight in the Northwest of North America.

It started with a long journey: Manchester - London - Toronto - Portland. The flight from London to Toronto was delayed, then we discovered that to transfer to the US, we had to pick up our bags and take them through US Border Controls. Unfortunately, our bags didn't come off the flight... After much to-ing and fro-ing with a member of Air Canada's staff, we discovered the bags had been sent to the wrong belt in Toronto and eventually got hold of them... by now we'd been waiting over an hour. Then we had a look at the line for Border Control - that was going to take at least another hour, by which time we'd definitely have missed our connection.

We had conversations with two more of Air Canada's staff, both of whom were utterly useless and might as well have ignored us. Thank goodness we kept on trying, and the third one we asked finally helped and popped us in the front of the queue (sorry if you were waiting behind us!).

Why are the US border guards so scary? Already flustered through being about to miss my flight, the guard asked so many questions and made me nervous and stuttering! Eventually I got through and then did something I haven't done since the nineties... run! I surprised myself by how far I was able to run without dying... and somehow we made it on to the flight (which took off within a couple of minutes of our arrival!).

The weekend in Portland was fantastic - Oregon Bears really know how to put on a bear event. I'd highly recommend it - beartownweekend.com for next year! We met some great people, and even managed to swap our shirts at the shirt swapping party, no mean feat for two of the big guys!

Then on to Seattle, where we had a manic couple of days fitting in all the sights. We met up again with Jonathan, who we'd met in Portland and spent an enjoyable morning with him at the aquarium and getting fish and chips. We also did here what we always do on US holidays... find a branch of Casual Male XL (in Tukwila) and shop, shop, shop!

Final weekend was spent in Vancouver. We did our travelling between cities on Amtrak trains, which was a nice change from flying. Vancouver itself was very quiet, having been the location of a riot the night before we arrived. We spent the time there mainly pottering around, although we did have one night getting drunk on Peach cider...

Baby Got Back

2011-05-22T16:20:00.002+01:00

Just a very quick blog post to say that Bear Explosion's first video is now online! You can find it here - and if you like it, feel free to share it... find Bear Explosion on Facebook, Twitter or here.

Bear Explosion!

2011-05-03T17:10:00.003+01:00

Well, it does seem my blogs are getting further and further apart!

The reason, for once, is that I've been really busy... I've set up a new group - Bear Explosion. We're a bunch of gay guys based in Manchester, making comedy music videos. We also have an offshoot doing live performances. As a group, we've been hard at work since about November, and last Sunday we premiered our first two videos during the karaoke night at the Outpost.

It was in the middle of the Great British Bear Bash, a huge event for the Bear community (hey, look up bear (gay slang) on wikipedia if you're confused!).

The evening was very busy, and as well as showing our first two videos ("Baby Got Back" and "Bearband Medley"), we also planned to sing a couple of songs - an adapted version of Katy Perry's "California Girls", plus the Bear Explosion theme song, which I wrote, my friend Gary arranged and another friend, Will, created the backing track for.

Just to clear it up - yes, we do know the words to our songs :-) But since we knew it was a karaoke night, we thought it would be fun to put our lyrics on the screen as if they were karaoke tracks - that way the audience could follow us, or even join in!

So we had five nervous performers, some well rehearsed songs and some fun, crackingly well-edited videos... and they were all received really well. I was massively proud of the boys, who gave some brilliant harmonic vocals and even managed to enjoy what they were doing, despite any butterflies they were feeling... well done lads!

We're going to start putting the videos online sometime in early June, so watch this space for details - or find us on Facebook, Twitter, or on our own website. Our website is only just started, and doesn't contain much for now, but we are working on it!

Then at the end July, we'll be performing at the Belfast Bear Weekend organised by Men Of The North - we're really excited about this, so hope you'll consider being there!

Getting creative!

2010-11-26T15:37:00.005Z

Has it really been this long since I last blogged? I guess I've been mostly micro-blogging via Twitter and Facebook Status updates for the last months. Sometimes it's just easier to do a one-liner than to try to waffle for a longer post!

My lack of blogging is probably a symptom of a general lack of creativity from me in the last few months. The onset of winter definitely does have an effect on me, and though I'm not a S.A.D. sufferer, I do get a darker feeling inside as the darker nights come on. Manchester Pride weekend back in August had a lot of performances and a lot of running around promoting those performances and since then I've found myself needing a break from my artistic projects.

The last few weeks have had me rediscover my creative side though. I've been working with some friends on an acting project we'll be filming early in the new year (all very hush hush right now!). I've been choosing new (often comically inappropriate) songs at karaoke night. I've been writing songs, designing a website, and even thrown a haiku-esque poem or two out there on Facebook! Hopefully this means I'll have plenty of outlets in 2011 to distract me from the monotony at work.

Onwards and upwards!

All about the feelings!

2010-06-12T09:34:00.004+01:00

Wow, seems I've not blogged for a few months now... I guess I just haven't felt like it. Plus it's been a very busy time for the Showbears with our May show at Manto going down a real treat :-) so much so that we took selections of it to the stage at Bradford Pride and stormed it :-) We've a number of things planned for Manchester Pride at the end of August with a float in the Parade, a main stage appearance and a huge show at the Birdcage on the afternoon of Sunday 29th - please support us in these adventures!

Lots of things have happened in the last few weeks on the theme of feelings... One person I thought was a good friend (though we didn't see each other often) posted something on Facebook that hurt my feelings. When I told him so, he hid behind the 'oh it was meant as sarcasm' line, told me I couldn't take a joke and dumped me off his friends list. That was a bit sad....

Then someone else I barely even know told me to cheer up and stop posting so much 'feeling sorry for yourself' stuff on Facebook and Twitter. I had a look through and I don't think I do that particularly more than anyone else does... funny the impression someone can get of you! I posted something about not being told what to post, that I'll post how I feel when I feel it... which then prompted another person to ask if I was having a go at them for telling people to think positive! It's all so complicated!

But these things did make me think. I agree that finding positives in situations is a good thing. But you can't tell someone to be happy or to 'snap out of it'... Why? Because feelings are things we cannot control. Every time we have an emotion it is a valid reaction based on our experiences in life, and it's totally involuntary. We can't stop ourselves having these reactions. All we can do is hope to sometimes control our responses to our emotions.

It's easy to say, but maybe our first reaction to feelings (positive or negative) should mostly be 'wait'. Everything becomes a little clearer with a little time to reflect...

Winter sucks!

2010-02-28T14:44:00.003Z

Didn't want February to go by without a blog post, though I'm not much in the mood for blogging. I hate winter, and this winter has been particularly bad - so sick of seeing snow, scraping ice off the windscreen and the dark days... roll on the spring! The only thing keeping me going is the rehearsal work for Showbears. We've a show scheduled for April 30th, and we're really excited about it. The rehearsals have been a bit fragmented, as so far we've not had one where everyone's been available, but it is slowly coming together. All we need now is to get the crowd there on the night... see www.showbears.co.uk for more details.

Showbears

2010-01-20T20:44:00.003Z

I've been dying to talk about plans for Showbears for ages, but now I actually can!

We've got a show on Friday 30th April at Manto, Canal Street, Manchester. It's called "Lights, Camera, Action!" and is a comedy revue with a movie theme. We're doing the show twice - at 9.30pm and 11.30pm, with just a £3 charge to help cover our costs. Keep an eye on www.showbears.co.uk for ticketing details - hope you'll come and sell the shows out.

And on the subject of Showbears, why not nominate Showbears as your favourite cabaret act of the year in the Pink Paper awards? http://www.pinkpaper.com/pp_awards2010.html - I for one would find it hilarious to get through to the voting round :-)

Psoriasis

2009-12-05T13:24:00.001Z

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?

2009-10-16T20:40:00.002+01:00

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

2009-09-20T13:53:00.002+01:00

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

2009-08-15T10:43:00.001+01:00

"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

2009-07-28T12:32:00.002+01:00

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

2009-06-10T11:56:00.003+01:00

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

2009-06-09T11:22:00.001+01:00

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

2009-05-23T08:30:00.002+01:00

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

2009-05-05T10:31:00.003+01:00

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!

2009-04-11T09:58:00.003+01:00

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

2009-04-10T09:44:00.002+01:00

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

2009-03-30T10:36:00.002+01:00

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

2009-03-26T11:38:00.002Z

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!

2009-03-15T11:56:00.003Z

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

2009-03-03T10:51:00.001Z

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!

2009-02-19T20:16:00.003Z

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

2009-02-18T19:48:00.002Z

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?

2009-02-01T17:07:00.002Z

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

2009-01-17T10:03:00.001Z

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!

Congestion Charging

2008-12-13T20:20:00.002Z

Manchester had its say on whether or not to implement a Congestion Charging zone this week, and overwhelmingly (79%) rejected it. A number of people have had a go at me for voting 'No', and predictably enough, the 'Yes' camp are now trying to say the 'No' voters 'didn't understand what they were voting for'.

Now apart from this being very simplistic, it's also rather patronising. So the 800,000+ 'No' voters are dumb animals who haven't the mental capacity to think it through? I would have to say I was initially in favour of Congestion Charging in principle, but on looking into it, and into Manchester's proposal in particular, I changed my mind. Here's why:

The suggested improvements to Metrolink basically involve 12 miles of new track that don't go anywhere I need to go, plus a few more carriages on a massively overcrowded system. Plus Metrolink is nowhere near where I live.
Bus and cycle lanes actually increase congestion, since there is less space on the roads.
More buses in the early mornings and late evenings? If there's a demand for them, why are they not already there, providing more profits for the bus companies?
Train improvements seem limited to a few extra carriages, a couple of new stations and more CCTV.
To enforce the scheme, there would be £300 million of new cameras. Is it just me that sees that amount of money as obscene?
The route of the 'inner charging ring' was never clearly defined or shown on any of the literature sent out about the charge, but was clearly a LOT bigger than what most people would define as the city centre.
If I wanted to go away for the weekend (reducing Manchester's congestion!) I would have to pay for the privelege of leaving Manchester.
There would be a unified payment system for public transport in Manchester, similar to London's Oystercard. This would actually be a good thing.
Many of the posters for the 'Yes' campaign talked about reduced bus fares. But in the detail of the proposal, there was NO commitment to doing this.
Congestion charging in London has not worked. Congestion has already returned to the previous levels within just a few years.
Many businesses have no choice but to use vehicles at peak times. So many of them would potentially go under due to this charge.
Crucially, since it would be car drivers who paid the charge, there was NO improvement to roads as part of the scheme.

So yes, I did understand the issues. And I decided the scheme was flawed and voted 'No'. Well done to all the other voters in Manchester for rejecting what is essentially a tax dressed up as a public improvement scheme.

LCD TV

2008-11-30T10:55:00.002Z

It's easy and fashionable to knock TV programmes like X-Factor, Big Brother, Hole In The Wall, I'm a Celebrity etc. etc. 'Serious' people call such programmes 'Lowest Common Denominator' television. I say compare the viewing figures for these shows compared to Horizon or Panorama and for these channels compared to BBC4 or Discovery.

Like so much in life, don't criticise people for liking something just because you don't!

November Quickie

2008-11-25T21:39:00.002Z

I've been busy with university... finally today I got some marked work back from a lecturer and it was good news, a really high score on my assignment in Object Oriented Programming. It is by far my favourite unit though, very practical, so I'm not celebrating too much.

Unfortunately the poor teaching continues on 2 units... I complained about it and was basically told that since the pass rates for those units are fine, I should shut up. And so I will - I can see when the university are about to close ranks - but I certainly won't be recommending MMU to anyone!

Anyway with five assignments on the go at once right now, I don't have time to complain any longer, too much to do!

Student Life

2008-10-10T21:06:00.002+01:00

Thought I'd do a quick blog update - I get occasional nags from you readers... (A bizarre thought that people actually read this guff!)

Been on my course for 3 weeks now, and I’d have to say it’s a mixed experience. I’m certainly enjoying studying again and the freedom that being a student brings along with it. The course itself is odd... I’m doing 5 units – two are very practical learning-to-program units that suit me down to the ground and I’m enjoying hugely. One is part practical and part theoretical (not so good!). The other two are very theory driven so far, which is driving me nuts.

The quality of teaching is certainly not good on 4 out of 5 units – I’d say extremely poor on 1 or 2 of them! But I guess I have to take into account that as someone who’s taught people things my whole working life, I have high and possibly unrealistic standards that don’t really fit university lecturers, who after all, have had no teacher training. Overall it’s going OK, though my first assignment is due in a couple of weeks’ time and is an essay on a subject I know nothing about... My experience of essay writing last time I was in education is poor – just something I’m definitely not good at!

I’m still looking for some part time work, and desperately trying to avoid having to go for supply teaching (which would mean joining the GTC etc etc blah blah). Hopefully some Christmas jobs will appear in the papers soon... I do like not working at the moment, but I know I will run out of savings at some point in the summer if I don’t get something more :-)

Gay Pride

2008-09-07T13:24:00.003+01:00

Manchester Pride sucked!

The main events in the gay village only seem to cater for the 'mincing-queen' type of gay man, along with their fag-hags and a few assorted lesbians. We decided not to pay the £20 per head charge just to access the streets and see some mostly 3rd rate entertainment. Yes, I know it's for charity. Yes, I know I could have got it for £12.50 if I'd bought it months in advance. But really, why would I pay it - there is seemingly nothing for me there!

Legends was similarly disappointing. Friday night gave us the choice of 2 events taking up the whole of the club. The first was the dresscode and attitude night 'Alert'; the second was the rock-and-pop-not handbag-and-house night 'Bollox'. We settled for Bollox, since previous trips to Alert reminded me of a BNP meeting.

I really want to like Bollox. I like the change in music style. I really like the guys who organise it. But I don't like the event, because it's gone from a gay event to a gay-friendly one, and attracts a crowd which seems to be 50% straight women, 10% lesbians and then some gay men to make up the numbers. I don't want to knock it, it's hugely successful in the market it's aiming at. It's just not for me.

Saturday was a more general club night at Legends, but it seems most of our friends went to another event elsewhere, which meant that although the club was packed, with few folks we knew to talk to, it was quite boring.

I've never really got what there is to be proud of about being gay anyway. It's like being proud of having brown hair, or size nine feet. I feel the same way about nationality... why be proud of things that are simply accidents of birth? Be proud of things you have achieved, not things you have no control over. (By the way, I know that 'pride' here is being used as the opposite of 'shame', and that it's not so much being proud as not ashamed. Just wish there was a better word!)

I think I had the right idea a couple of years ago when I booked a holiday so that we'd be away for pride weekend!

Shy

2008-08-24T13:11:00.003+01:00

Being shy is a real curse. I hate it. People around me sometimes don't believe I am shy... maybe shy is the wrong word. Maybe it's that I'm painfully self-conscious. I know I really struggle to start friendships, because I just don't know how to do general chit-chat. And that means people see me as rather stand-offish. I guess it doesn't help that what I think of as my 'neutral' expression seems to be interpreted by the rest of the world as 'pissed off'!

And with being self-conscious, comes being self aware. I'm very aware of my negative points... that I'm grumpy, intolerant, bossy, slightly misogynistic, cynical, morose, opinionated... (This is not a desperate fish for compliments... I'm also aware of my positives!)

All this leads to many of my friendships being a bit superficial, and if I meet other shy people, it's almost impossible for me to connect. I know this is mainly down to me not opening up about myself, but I'd have to say that my life has shown me that a lot of the time, being open comes back to bite me in the ass, and ends up in me getting hurt!

I would love to have the sorts of friendships I see other people have – where you can just hang out together and kill some time in pleasant company. Where instead of lurking on the internet for hours at a time like some freakish saddo, I can spend time relaxing with affable people in the real world. But guess what? The reason I don't really have friendships like that is because I don't know how to be that sort of friend.

Jeez... reading this back, it looks really self-indulgent and whiny; I generally try to keep my blog entries light, factual and positive... Is that the self-conscious Seamus creeping in? Don't worry, it's all quite tongue-in-cheek. Maybe I should look on it as an attempt to be open :-)

PS - To my friends - I love you all, don't read anything unnecessary into this post - I'm grateful to have you!

Universally Challenged!

2008-08-24T11:59:00.002+01:00

Just a quick update... I've been accepted by Manchester Metropolitan University to study for a Masters degree in Computing. So I'm now awaiting the start of term with excitement and trepidation... hopefully this time next year I'll be Seamus McAteer MSc :-)

Orlando

2008-08-18T10:05:00.003+01:00

After our journey to Toronto, we were expecting the worst from our travel plans to Orlando. But as it happens we had a perfect day... Two on-time flights, luggage first on the belt at the airport, and we were even the first drop off from the airport shuttle bus.

Orlando was a busy nine days, mostly spent visiting Disney theme parks - Epcot, Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, Animal Kingdom and Downtown Disney. Getting to and from the parks on the buses seemed to take forever - usually 2 hours or so each way. I was surprised that there were only really a couple of headline rides in each parks, but I guess the Disney parks are really for kids. As you might expect in mid-summer, the queues were horrendous, and I'd have to say the 'fast-pass' system of booking a time to return to a particular attraction made things worse, since you'd normally get a return time 6 or 7 hours later. In one case, the queue time was shown as 40 minutes, and we were still not on the ride 2.5 hours later! But the bigger rides were good - Space and Splash Mountains, Rock 'n' Roller Coaster and Expedition Everest all ridden with glee :-)

As well as the parks, we also did a lot of shopping in the outlets - it was so cheap it would be daft not to... We were slightly worried about fitting it all in the cases, but we managed somehow! Food was also cheap and unavoidable - I seriously lost count of the number of 'all you care to eat' meals we had. I can actually say I was getting sick of food by the time we left, though we did have a nice meal at Planet Hollywood.

The temperatures were HOT - 32-35 degrees in the daytime, 24 degrees at night, and very, very humid. Almost every day had a thunderstorm - usually incredibly forceful rainfall, but short lived.

We went to Typhoon Lagoon towards the end of our trip, where we got sunburnt again within about 2 hours. The water slides in there - ouch! I managed to hurt myself on both the ones we tried - one from my shoulders bouncing over the joints on the slide, the other from landing awkwardly in the pool at the end. But I guess we fatties build up more momentum on these things, so it's the price you pay!

A good trip, but now I'm all Disney-ed out!

Toronto

2008-08-17T21:24:00.004+01:00

It was holiday time again, and we set off from Manchester to Toronto. We were using US Airways, which meant we had to change planes in Philadelphia en route, and only had about 90 minutes to get across the airport to make our flight. We did make it though, and were soon aboard the plane and pushed back from the gate. Unfortunately, that's as far as we got for the next 3.5 hours...

There was a massive thunderstorm in Philly, which meant we were eventually offloaded and sent back to the terminal, where we were informed we would now have a 24 hour delay. Now in Europe there are laws about these things, but in the US you get absolutely no help at all from the airline to find overnight accommodation, have a meal - in fact, they wouldn't even offload our luggage from the plane, so we were literally left with nothing but the name of a hotel to try. When we eventually found out how to get to the hotel, there was a queue of about 50 people ahead of us to check in. Finally, we were in a room, and walked down the street to a pizza place for some food at 10.30 pm!

Now to be fair, the TV news told us there's been 10,000 (yes, ten thousand!) lightning strikes in the Philadelphia area that night... but seriously, a 24 hour delay and all we were offered was a glass of water - the US needs to sort out looking after its travellers!

Naturally we were worried about whether our bags would make it to Toronto (since they were now on a different flight from us!), but luckily they were there when we arrived.

So we'd lost a day of our holiday, but Toronto was great. The Just for Laughs festival was on while we were there, which meant plenty of street entertainment. We trundled up to the Bear Night on the Friday, which was held in the open air on the patio of a cafe, which was novel, though we find the US and Canada's insistence on shutting everything down at 2am a bit strange!

Two highlights - an open-top city sightseeing tour with an excellent guide in glorious sunshine, where we got a bit pinked up; and our day tour to Niagara Falls. Yes, we picked the cheapest tour, so it was excellent value, but the tour guide on this one was chronically bad - to the point where he had a go at one of the other passengers while on the microphone to the whole bus! And SO, SO dull! No tip for him!

New Opportunites

2008-07-12T11:00:00.002+01:00

Having moaned about my job for... well, forever... I finally handed in my notice earlier this week. At this moment in time I don't know what I'm going to do from September (yes I had to give 2 MONTHS notice!!!). One option is going back to university to do a Masters (if they'll have me!), but failing that I guess I'm just hoping something will turn up. Slightly scary I suppose, but that fear is more than cancelled out by the relief of knowing there's an end in sight for a job I HATE.

Anyone who has any (sensible) suggestions or job offers, let me know!

All the Small Things

2008-07-04T14:50:00.002+01:00

A couple of days ago, I choked on my lunch. Not a minor choke, I might add, but a full blown 2 minute coughing fit that left my shoulders and chest throbbing. It was slightly scary as I was home alone at the time - good job I didn't need the Heimlich manouevre (though it felt close)!

Within a few minutes of this incident, I could feel my breathing was impaired. I could only take very shallow breaths, any deep breaths or yawns were causing a relapse of the coughing fit! I could also feel that something was lodged in my windpipe, and I was making a wheezy sound when breathing.

This is where my inner hypochondriac kicked in... I was straight on the internet to find out what to do - most of the advice was to wait 24 hours then seek emergency help at a hospital, which was quite alarming! This led me to looking at what happens if food goes into the lungs and lots of searching about aspiration pneumonia!

The following day was a very uncomfortable one, trying to get through work meetings suppressing as many coughs as I could. I decided to have a nap when I got home, and as soon as I lay down, I started having another coughing fit... and voila... out pops a completely intact kernel of sweetcorn. Much relief - but also amazement that something so small could cause so much pain and hassle. I'm still feeling pain in my ribs every time I cough or yawn!

Also this week, one of my customers e-mailed my boss to say that I had "been a star" over the last few months. Now my job still sucks big time, but that one small gesture at least let me have a happy day!

Small things matter!

YouTube goes nuts!

2008-06-21T19:51:00.002+01:00

Thanks to a bit of promotion by Jonathan Robinson, my latest YouTube video has had over 1000 views in 3 weeks... almost as much as all my other videos put together. Weird!

Watch it here.

Eurovision

2008-05-25T15:35:00.004+01:00

Another year, another Eurovision. I make no apologies for enjoying this event, despite criticism from all quarters about how 'gay' it is. A couple of stand outs for me: Iceland had a great dance track that would not have been out of place in any club on a Saturday night; Latvia's pirates gave us a camp, fun number; a simple, catchy pop tune from Denmark; and the usual couple of truly bizarre entries... this time from Spain and Bosnia...

In fact the one track which didn't stand out was the eventual winner from Russia... as is so often the case! Ukraine in 2nd or Greece in 3rd would have been much worthier winners. But politics blah blah blah...!

We had a fun night watching it with a gang of mates round - though you didn't eat the food, you gits! A few pints out at Legends afterwards topped the night off nicely.

Blog fatigue

2008-05-17T12:02:00.002+01:00

Well I missed blogging in April. The first month since I started that I haven't done it... I just don't seem to have a lot to say at the moment.

We did manage to go to the Bear Bash in Manchester again. I've been saddened by some people who've simply slagged off the event - in one case it was someone who didn't even attend! As someone who's organised these events in the past I know just how much hard work is involved in putting them together... so I say thank you and well done to Manbears.

The event itself was very busy and I'd say I enjoyed it, particularly being able to catch up with friends from other parts of the country that I rarely see. We went to the Saturday afternoon fair for the first time this year, and the naked oil wrestling was quite a sight - particularly with the copper-chopper buzzing overhead! Sunday's Birdcage entertainment was again excellent, though I'd have to ask: does anyone really care about bear beauty contests any more?

Otherwise life ticks on... work still sucks, though I've managed to have an interview (unsuccessful but good experience). Roll on July and our hols!

Rumour Squashing

2008-03-30T15:06:00.002+01:00

Don't you just hate it when nasty people start nasty rumours abut you? Well there's one going round about me right now that goes along the lines that I think I'm too important to take on a small role in the latest Manbears film, and said if I didn't get a leading role I wouldn't take part.

Truth is this: filming was taking place the day before I left for my holiday. I didn't get time to do all the stuff I needed to do in the week leading up to the trip, so unfortunately I couldn't make it to the filming day. As any member of the film group will tell you, I am more than happy to help out in any way with the films, either on or off camera, and I look forward to involvement in future projects.

Some people need more going on in their lives!

Holidays

2008-03-27T16:39:00.005Z

Sunday 16 March and we were up at 3.30am to get our flight to Malaga. Why on earth did we need to fly at 6.20am!

We were actually going to Torremolinos for a week's break. It was mostly warm, sunny and quiet, which is certainly what I needed. We also fitted in a day-trip to Gibraltar, which was an excellent day out, but slightly weird to feel like you were back in Britain!

Inevitably, there was a delay coming back on Easter Sunday - caused by SNOW at Manchester Airport. A bit of a come down from the sunshine we were experiencing! Seriously, snow in March is just plain wrong!

Just as inevitable was the post-holiday blues... luckily I booked the next week off work too. But the thought of going back to work is a very unpleasant one... if anyone's got a suitable job opportunity, please let me know!

Website Update

2008-02-16T12:38:00.002Z

Thanks to the ever-geeky BBC Click, I've found a nice online tool that makes sorting out a website really easy. I spent this morning giving my website a freshen up with it.

The tool is called Weebly. It allows you to choose a template (from a fairly wide range) and then drag and drop elements into it. Simple as it can be, and free too. They even host your finished site, and the only price to pay is a small text link at the bottom of your pages.

Nice!

Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous

2008-01-27T22:55:00.000Z

When I got an e-mail today from Forrest at PlanetBears telling me that he'd written an article about me... I thought, "This is weird!"

But actually it's pretty cool, he's bigging up my acting work on the BSI films I've made with Jonathan and the Manbears team. Keep on like this and maybe someday I can be a real actor. LOL

You can check it out here. Big thanks to Forrest for his kind words!

New Year, Same Beer

2008-01-02T13:47:00.002Z

Well it seems that New Year's Eve in Legends wasn't too bad! I'd even go so far as to say I enjoyed it. I clearly drank way too much though... there are photos of me looking particularly pissed that I don't even remember being taken!

And I've joined Facebook. I'd been resisting for some time, not really understanding what it was for... but I took the plunge and set it up and am getting the occasional poke...

Down, Down, Deeper and Down

2007-12-28T11:02:00.000Z

Ending the year on a low. Down (depressed possibly). The only way is up for 2008!

Pre-Hibernation

2007-11-24T19:51:00.001Z

Whenever I come to write this blog, I always think to myself, "nothing has happened"...

I guess the main thing in November was the pre-hibernation event run by Manbears. It was fun to catch up with old mates. I had my MOT on the Saturday morning, so couldn't go too mad on Friday - probably a good thing.

The highlight of the event should have been Saturday afternoon's entertainment. Unfortunately New York New York wasn't a good enough venue - too small by far and no real stage to speak of. However, it did provide an opportunity for the 'premiere' of BSI Episode 2, which did seem to go down particularly well - surf on over to www.funfur.tv to take a look.

Otherwise, the weekend was just 2 more nights in the pub - albeit very very busy nights! However I know that the Manbears team worked very hard to make the weekend a good one, so thanks to them all.

Another Childish Rant!

2007-10-07T11:35:00.000+01:00

Can I just ask: if you're not interested in what's happening in my life, why have you come here?

Sounds like I'm being really rude there... so let me explain... I recently had a message from someone ranting about my 'me me me' website. Um, yes. That's what a blog is for, moron!

It's amazing how people you've spoken to once online think they know you, and can sum up your life in a sentence...

But anyway, enough ranting. The purpose of my blog is to let friends know what I've been up to. If you don't want to read it, no-one's forcing you to stay!

Life Sucks?

2007-09-29T18:02:00.000+01:00

Prepare yourself for some self-indulgent rambling. I'm not prone to depression, navel-gazing or generally feeling sorry for myself, but recently it seems that's all I've been able to do.

It's easy to pinpoint the source of this - work - but somewhat less easy to do something about it. I should be grateful - I've a well-paid steady job, which is more than many people have. But the thought of staying in this job for a year, let alone for the next 30+ years till retirement, is abhorrent.

So get a new job, you say. Like, DUH! Unfortunately, the Education sector hasn't been throwing up a lot of opportunities. Nor has there been much chance of changing my role in the company. And actually, I'm not sure I want to stay in the sort of roles I've had until now. I'm left with the prospect of retraining. To do what, I don't yet know. But something's gotta give...

And anyway, I've a great partner, a nice home, good friends and I'm finally out of debt. Life doesn't suck. It just seems like it sometimes!

San Francisco

2007-09-18T12:13:00.000+01:00

I've been to San Francisco a couple of times before, but I'd never really done the 'tourist' thing, and having Phil with me seemed like the perfect opportunity to do so.

So we spent our days on the beach, at the bridge, at Fisherman's Wharf, and on the multitude of transport options - ferries, buses, subway trains, streetcars and cable cars.

The gay stuff hasn't changed all that much... the Lone Star and Eagle seem much as I remember them. Daddy's has had a name change, but again seems the same, if a little more overcrowded. The Powerhouse was new to me, and is probably OK when you're in the mood for loud dance music! We didn't seem to be able to find anywhere to drink after 2am though!

Highlight of the week for me was a trip to the Six Flags Discovery Kingdom theme park. I got to go on several rollercoasters, and they had special seats for fatties too :-). Phil hates rides, but the wildlife and dolphin and whale shows kept us both entertained.

Auckland

2007-08-24T17:48:00.001+01:00

What can be said about Auckland?

In some ways, it's like stepping back to the 70s... yet it is a modern city with all the usual things. I must admit it all seemed a bit smaller than I imagined, and we did struggle a bit for things to do...

The day before we left, we spent a day on a tour to Waitomo and Rotorua. Waitomo is home to some spectacular caves, including one filled with glow worms, who give off a weird green-blue light. In Rotorua, we stopped off at a wildlife park, where we managed to see kiwis (amongst other things), before spending some time at the foul smelling geysers.

Must admit though, it was odd when we left New Zealand, flew for 12 hours and still landed in America several hours before we took off from NZ...

Sydney

2007-08-14T07:50:00.000+01:00

After 27 hours of travelling, we arrived at our hotel in Sydney at 7am. Unfortunately, the check in time was from 2pm... so we got some breakfast and wandered around the city and harbour areas. By 11am we were knackered, so we chanced it and went back to the hotel... Hurrah! They had a room ready!

What have we done here? Well, aside from the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge (no climb, unfortunately... Phil's vertigo put paid to that!), we had a couple of great days out down at Bondi Beach and up in the Blue Mountains, where we stopped en route at a wildlife park. The 'winter' weather was brilliant too :-)

For a city this size, we were surprised to find how little 'bear-life' there is... bears only seem to come out on a Friday night. Maybe the Sydneysiders prefer houseparties...

Disappointment and Elation

2007-07-21T13:21:00.000+01:00

Today should have been a pretty exciting one. For my 33rd birthday in 2006, my friends clubbed together to buy me a helicopter flight. (OK, so it's taken me a while to get round to taking it!)

As you can see from my previous post, I tried to take it last month. This involved a drive up to Preston, where I had to hang around a hotel lobby for about an hour before finally someone from the company told us we would not be able to fly that day, due to the wrong helicopter turning up on the day. Because of the inconvenience, they allowed me to rebook for another date, and said they'd throw in a free ride as a passenger around a 4x4 track as well as my flight next time. Fair enough, these things happen.

So today, I drove down to Stafford for my rescheduled flight. Again, I waited around for over an hour before they told us the flight was cancelled due to the helicopter being unable to get permission to take off from Sheffield (the mind boggles!). this time they're offering to double the flight time if I rebook, plus get the 4x4 ride.

So after two wasted half-days, over 200 miles of driving and several phone calls, I've still got both feet firmly on the ground. Forgive my cynicism, but I'm a wee bit dubious about this company now, so I'll be aiming to get the cash out of them so I can book with someone else. And they better not mess me about when I phone them next week!

To name and shame, in the hope that no-one else gets taken for a ride (not literally, more's the pity!), the experience was booked through Adventure 001 via Buyagift.com.

Thank goodness Amazon.co.uk are able to keep their promises and delivered the last Harry Potter book this morning, or the whole day would have been a washout!

Dull June

2007-06-24T15:04:00.000+01:00

It's been too long since I last updated... though it seems very little has happened before this weekend!

I spent yesterday filming the next episode of BSI: Manchester for the Manbears video team. It was a fun day, but very exhausting. We didn't manage to film everything we needed, so we'll have to do some more shooting at another date. There was some sort of tranny festival happening, so the filming of scenes involving me running down Canal Street were a bit weird!

I was supposed to be taking a helicopter flight today - a gift my friends bought me for my birthday last year that I've only just got around to taking. Unfortunately the company providing the flights had hugely overbooked, so I opted to reschedule for another date...

Oh and I've updated my acting website, just to add in my showreel. It's at www.seamusmcateer.co.uk

Scooched!

2007-05-29T11:15:00.000+01:00

Cheesy pop music again... sometimes I think I might be gay!

Some very good friends gave us tickets to the Cruz 101 15th birthday party on Saturday (thanks!). We were out in Legends anyway, and went round there sometime after 2am to catch the highlight of the night - a live performance by Scooch! They performed all 5 of their UK hits, closing (of course) with 'Flying the Flag'.

Sad? Yes. Camp? Also Yes! Bovvered? Nah!

DANZING!

2007-05-12T15:24:00.000+01:00

It's Eurovision day - YAY!

I know it's frowned upon by the bear community to like Eurovision, but I've always liked cheesy pop music, and always liked Eurovision. And judging by the sheer numbers of bears coming to our Euro-party tonight, I'm certainly not on my own!

The semi-final on Thursday was a real eye-opener... pretty much all the songs I liked have been knocked out - Denmark's drag queen DQ, Belgium's Love Power, Israel's anti-war song (alright, that was crap, but kinda catchy after a few listens!), the Cypriots singing entirely in French (bizarre!), Poland's party song (the word party was used 35 times in 3 minutes!) and Switzerland's version of Aqua singing about vampires. The final result was 8 qualifiers that were ex-Soviet or ex-Yugoslav states, plus Turkey and Hungary. Draw your own conclusions!

The favourites seem to be a Su Pollard lookalike drag artist from Ukraine, whose costume is mainly bacofoil, and what can only be described as a Serbian lesbian (well, I can't be sure, but look at her performance!). As ever, the UK are deemed to have no chance (25-1 for a win, 8-1 for a nul-points!), but I have to admit I think the Scooch song is funny!

Bear Bash

2007-05-12T15:17:00.000+01:00

Well bear bash has finally come and gone for another year... As usual it was horrendously overcrowded, but hey, there's no way around the event's success. The Thursday night in AXM was a really good way to start the weekend off, understatedly. We did try the Outpost on Friday night, but we could only manage about 45 minutes in there before feeling too squished! Legends on both Friday and Saturday was excellent - very busy but still do-able. Having the patio open downstairs was very welcome.

The highlight of the weekend was Sunday afternoon at the Birdcage. Jonathan once again made a great host, and the Mr Bear 'competitions' were almost lost (thank goodness - does anyone care about these any more?) amongst the top quality entertainment from Bearlesque, Rowetta and the videos. I was really pleased at the reaction to the videos - the quality just keeps going up.

All the videos are now on YouTube - just do a search for Manbears.

Fame at last!

2007-04-28T10:24:00.000+01:00

A quick blog entry... just to say how strange it is to see your face on a magazine cover! Honestly, it's bizarre! It is nice, however, to see a magazine write about bears without any particular sniping. Although the page after the bear article has a feature about losing weight LOL.

Nothing much to update on since the last blog... not done a great deal, and been kinda depressed for a bit... mainly to do with work. I'm determined to find a way to resolve things though.

Cover Star!

2007-04-04T17:07:00.000+01:00

Monday was a strange day... had to go into town early evening for a photoshoot. How very glamorous! It was for Out Northwest magazine, and was for a promotional cover for Bear Bash. It'll be published near the end of April, so I must remember to try to get a copy!

Some of the photos taken might also end up advertising the LGF free condom scheme LOL. You can see one of the pictures on the left.

The other thing taking up my time has been a new Macbook. I've not had a Mac before, but the adjustments are all going reasonably well so far! I've managed to work out how to move and catalogue my photos and move my mail and browser settings across, and I really think I can see myself using it for everything, and not even having to install Windows on it...

An actor's life for me...

2007-03-17T12:00:00.000Z

I spent this morning updating my acting website, adding some links to YouTube videos. I've had a renewed burst of energy about acting recently, probably brought on by the Manbears filming for Bear Bash. Also my pal Jonathan has helped me get a showreel DVD together, which I can send out to casting directors and agents. I will put that onto YouTube in early May. you can take a look at my acting website here.

Well, I MIGHT keep it up...

2007-02-27T15:48:00.000Z

Thought I'd start a blog. I'm notoriously bad at keeping in touch with friends and acquaintances, so I'm making a vague attempt at this in the hope that some people might read it and feel less neglected!

So what's happened since the start of the year?

Well Phil and I haven't been out much for a start. It's the usual January hangover from Christmas really, not got too much cash and can't honestly be bothered! I'm not a winter person... maybe I've got that S.A.D. ... ;-)

I've done a few more bits of filming for Manbears for the upcoming Bear Bash 10 in May. Can't believe it's the tenth one... I remember being panicky about the first one, and whether or not we could make it break even! It's amazing to see how it's grown from 53 people to the thousand plus it attracts nowadays. The films will be the usual comedy spoofs... this time of CSI, Extreme Makeover, Psycho, Most Haunted and Antiques Roadshow. No doubt they'll be posted on YouTube soon after Bear Bash. You can take a look at the previous Manbears videos (I'm in some of them!) on my YouTube playlist here. By the way, most of them contain none-too-subtle gay innuendo!

Phil and I did manage to take a trip to Cardiff a few weeks ago - I was down there to work in a school in Barry, so seemed a good idea for Phil to tag along. When we went out on the Friday night, I thought it was all a bit tired... plus Phil and I seemed to be the only bears in the city!

I guess my other news happened yesterday when I appeared on Brainteaser on Five. I sent off an application months ago and thought nothing of it. Then just over a week ago I got the call, did a telephone audition and was in! All very speedy. Best of all is that I got to the final and won £750 - should come in handy for something... :-)

Final piece of good news for this month is the holiday is finally paid for! :-) Which means everything we save from now until August is spending money - hurrah!