Tricky

Been here, been there

 

Perhaps the one thing that has marked this year as being different from the two that preceded it, is that I haven't been to as many live concerts. I mean, it's not deliberate exactly, I've been to the ones I have been passionate about, but I haven't really been passionate about as many. I'll write about the ones I have seen as I get to it.

I have traveled though, which has kept me sane. Save for Christmas, when -ugh- I was ill, between August 08 and April 09 I didn't take a single day of holiday which, frankly, is not something I will be doing again in a hurry. It's just... not healthy. 

So the top one is obviously Cape Town. I was there in April, for my birthday too, which was kind of magical, mainly because of the company I was keeping down there. Then I was in Berlin at the end of May for three days. Bit of a "new places" type adventure

Then I was in Italy, in the deep deep South: Puglia, in June. It was very... unreconstructed. Sort of how you imagine Italy - beautiful, ancient and gobsmackingly architectural in parts then a bit sort of industrial and thrown up in others... but good coffee and ice cream served everywhere, so it doesn't really matter than you might be in a ordinary bit on an ordinary day.

Jeez, loved her.

Then two weeks ago I was in Amsterdam for Pride weekend. It was wild... and so maybe that's kind of another story for another day...

Yes - that last one is the reason there's a story. Offer Nissim DJing in shirtless heaven.

I am getting a little up to date because I am off to Mallorca and Barcelona in seven days... and I want to post a few snaps as I go, of that.

Staying mainly in the plane

It has been oh-so gently pointed out to me (thank you, DB) that I did actually promise to post a series of photos from Majorca here. So, I remedy that now. It was actually such a pleasure looking over the wider selection, particularly as the trip was so idyllically work-free, in distinctly sharp contrast to now. Not that I am complaining, rather things are as they should be, which is wonderful. Still, the blue skies and warm oceans feel a world away as brown leaves sweep along the Fulham pavements I inhabit at this moment in time...

So here are a few memories - a blast of Summer on an Autumn day - some are cheeky shots taken of handsome strangers - particularly number three, which I just could not resist - others are just funny moments. The one that is all sparkly and white and pink is of a place where they harvest salt for cookery. In fact it's quite well known and fancy. Sold in Fortnums, dontchaknow.

The penultimate one is actually me, staring out to sea. Feels rather odd looking at that again, clad in knitwear.

Richard Grey Thriller (Pacha Dub Mix)

Countdown

It is now but hours to my skadaddleing off for my annual trip to sun-soaked Majorca. About time too. Of course, I have been many times before so it's a case of knowing precisely what I am going to, which is half the charm. I'm wondering if next year I might ring the changes completely, but I think I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. In the meantime, the laundry is clean and ironed, the suitcase is out, and at some point I will put the two together. I've had to jump through a couple of hurdles before the flight on Sunday night, not least the last of my Summer BBQs last night, then the small matter of the gay wedding party to end all gay wedding parties this evening. Where I am delivering a speech, for heaven's sake. But I can almost feel the sunshine now.

Whenever I head down there I like to know that there are one or two interesting new diversions on the horizon and often it's good to fix that in advance via locals who will be offering hospitality, or friends from the UK who just happen to be passing through. I'm quietly excited because this year promises both. Quite what form the activities they will provide will take, remains to be seen of course. But unless I am very much mistaken there will be an episode aboard a boat. Maybe two if we play our cards right. I'm leaving that in the lap of the Gods; we shall see, etc. But it would be rather lovely. They are such fiendish and expensive occasions to organise on one's own. If someone else has fixed the whole thing in advance, or just happens to be cruising through the harbour, so much the better. I'm hedging my bets for now. If it happens, I will be photographing it, put it that way.

Music is prepared. Before I went away in June, I had one playlist, but here's another which will be blaring from behind the air-conditioned windows of my hire car...

Antigone More man than man (Bassmonkeys remix)
Cyndi Lauper Same ol' story (Ralphi Rosario vocal mix)
Adele Hometown glory (Axwell original mix)
Dirty South and Axwell Open your heart (Vocal mix)
Birthday girl Mandy Give it 2 me (Jody Den Broeder club mix)
K. & Saly & Patric Work 4 love (Bongoloverz remix)
Richard Grey Thriller (Pacha dub mix)
Kimblee, Solu Music etc Fade (Bimbo Jones Strings remix)
Kurtis Mantronik How did you know (99 strings)

That last one more out of sentiment than trend - it will sound amazing in the sunshine.

See you on location, bitches.

All that glitters isn't five star

From the roof of the Hotel Urban, Madrid - featuring their lovely kitchen vent

People often bang on about super-luxury experiences as if they were the best in the world. Well, some people do, anyway. My holiday over the last fortnight had two occurances of this type of thing, among the rest, which was rather more rustic and lo-fi. And this suited me rather well, actually. The first of these was in Madrid where I was staying at the Hotel Urban, right bang in the centre of the city. This I discovered through the wildly fabulous Design Hotels group who only pick hotels of a certain sort as worthy of their attention. Another was the Skt Petri, where I stayed for my Easter trip to Copenhagen in April. But the Urban was seriously snazzy... I spoke a little about it one day while I was there. I mean, the housekeeper puts a small sugar fried egg on my pillow every night whenshe turned down the bed, which thrilled me. After day one, I was sort of hoping that it might vary, but it was the same every night. And thus, every night I consumed two (one on each pillow).

Then, last Friday, I had another of these experiences in Majorca. My Aunt and Uncle, who like to dine with style, have often mentioned their visits to Read's Hotel but I have never known quite where it was. My parents, who don't run long on luxury, have always been rather vocal in my presence about places like that being slightly excessive. And that's their prerogative and probably because they have already experienced that kind of dining, know it's not really their thing and choose to eschew it if generally given the choice. I have not had this privilege (much), so reckon it's worth the experience. But when it comes down to it, the reason we went is because DD, one of my travel companions, is a restauranteur, knows all about a glass of good wine (he's basically a sommelier) and is partial to a little Michelin star dining. He had read about Read's and suggested we pop along. I was not protesting.

The pool at Read's, Santa Maria, Majorca

And the experience was lovely. The food was gastronomic (my favourite, a starter of hare with a risotto and walnut milk will remain with me for some time to come). The surroundings plush to a degree. But my overwhelming impression was that both Read's and the Urban were fairly soulless. Perhaps that's inevitable in a hotel - nobody stays there permanently except staff, who don't actually want to be there in the first place, they are just paid to show up. So as a result, if the management are not careful the whole building maintains a rather tipped balancing act between reluctance and expectation. Reid's was flash and fancy but, by and large, as we weren't staying, we felt like passing trade. There was one lovely waitress and a jolly sommelier, but the Maitre d' didn't both to say hello till I called him over, and the woman who ran the hotel sat in one corner drinking champagne with friends. It was an experience that fed the stomach, but not the soul.

kd lang Simple

Catch the sun

And just like that, it's all over.

After almost two weeks of travel and what the French would perhaps describe as dépaysement - a sort of inspirational change of scenery - I am back. I have one or two more tales to tell, particularly about Friday night's amazing restaurant meal, but basically it's back to business as usual. After leaving Palma on Sunday morning, with its dazzling warmth and incipient heat, the cloud-heavy skies above Gatwick seemed almost cruel. But as I sat on the train back from the airport, I remembered that the point of going away in the first place was to escape all that (and, of course, the detritus of everyday life), which certainly worked.

My musing and reflection was cruelly snapped shut by an arrival at Victoria. Loud noise, building work, taxi queues, dreary people, traffic lights, the fact that I managed to cross the whole of a continent in two hours but it took a further two to travel from the airport to my home. All this served to make me wonder why on earth I live here at all. And incidentally I am still waiting for the answer to that question.

During the holiday I managed to read only one book, which was completely out of character and not for want of trying: I usually power through three or four. But, what a book it was: Edmund White's My Lives. As I finished it (on the plane!) the last words really got me. He's talking about his friends and what they mean to him, as almost a postscript, a way of winding the whole thing up.

(talking about a very close female friend...)
"I hope this odd memoir contains several surprises for her. At least I hope so. Being predictable is the one unforgivable sin in a friend"

Something to aspire to.

Loggia at first sight

In years past, when I have mentioned I am off to Majorca at the end of August, people have raised one eyebrow and said dull things like "won't that be rather hot?" and I have sighed under my breath slightly at such Englishness and explained how the house we stay at is high up on a hill, always a little cooler, and so on. But this year the heat has undone me. At night, sleep has been slow to come and while the fan in my room has panned the soup-like air back and forth across me, it has left plenty of time to reflect and think. Recent topics that have crossed my mind are:

- the speech I have to deliver at my brother's wedding in four weeks

- a tiresome client who hasn't stopped bugging me throughout my holiday

- where we should go for dinner tomorrow night

- the new business I need to go and hunt when I get back to London

- if it will be cloudy in the morning

- when the new Kylie song will finally leak

Then, last night's thoughts were about the serious miles I have managed to clock up this holiday. Not enough that I have gone from London to Madrid; Madrid to Majorca already in the past two weeks, but once on the island, we have been busy. Take yesterday, for example. Some time ago, I discussed the friend of DD's who had talked about his large house here. It may have been eleventh hour, but we gave him a call on Wednesday evening, and, thrilled we had made contact, JM (for that was he) said we should definitely come and visit the next day. This house was near Pollensa, in the north east corner of the island, about thirty miles further up the coast from Soller, which I visited last year. Over my morning leche semi-desnatada purchase, I asked the cute guy who runs the local village shop how long he thought it should take (any excuse to strike up a conversation with him, with those come-and-get-me eyelashes) and I was assured it was only an hour.

In the event, it took about fifty minutes. My Ford Focus flew. The directions were a little complex/comical ("take the second exit at the large junction with the gigantic metallic, sculptural rooster on it - we call it the big cock roundabout" for example) but when we finally approached the house, a jaw-dropping view (at top) was the sight that greeted us. I mean really. This is real estate porn...

This (above) is what happened inside that eight hundred year-old gabled loggia on the top floor. Then, turning to our left, the view of the orchard below, filled with pomegranate, orange and quince trees...

I'm not finished yet. If an overnight visitor, the morning view through one of the downstairs bedroom windows is of one of the house's two wells.

An architecturally-themed post had been requested. I trust this fits the bill.

It was a fantastic day. We headed into Pollensa for lunch at a little restaurant which JM knew, and ate gaspacho, lemon chicken and orange cake (citrus fruits are big here). JM is an extemely experienced restauranteur and knows the island well, so we talked about his local favourites. That conversation lead us, despite consuming the entire menu del diá, to find a nearby ice cream stand where we ordered something sensational. It was the time of year - local dairies had started making young almond granita from the new crop. The woman behind the stand hadn't bothered to put it on the list of available flavours, it was just there for those who knew, and thank heaven we had been told. She opened the freezer and dolloped a portion into a paper cup. A frozen, cinnamony, nuttyness was presented to me which was unspeakably divine. I mean, anything to beat the heat...

Shady pines

The other day I mentioned about those beautiful young German gays (they've been on my mind, forgive me) who lay on my favourite beach here in Majorca and then flew home to Munich yesterday. It was my theory (given the sheer volume of people that come in and out of this little island) that they would be replaced by another group of heavenly bodies. So imagine my surprise when I got to the beach yesterday and the new boys in town were most certainly there, but... a little older. We're talking in their sixties. Plus. And they were organised. The row of parasols were carefully screwed into the sand, unlike mine which is forced in by hand and thus wobbles and blows inside out periodically in the gusty sea breeze. Their towels were in a line. The picnics were to Harrods Hamper standards. And there was endless standing around and sociability. A female friend was also in town, wearing the most sensational white beach turban (I don't think it was new season Prada). The whole thing was rather lovely to behold.

They may have been from a different generation from me (and most of the other guys), but it seems some things never change. The photo in today's post is of the dunes and large pine forest that back on to the beach where, when tired of the intensity of the sun, the male beach-dwellers like to go for a little shade and relaxation, shall we say. On arrival, one can peer back there from the vantage point of the shore and observe little heads pop out of bushes like meercats. Indeed, our encampment yesterday was strategically positioned by the main route back there, so we observed the comings and goings from behind our holiday reading and sunglasses. I was, I confess, rather surprised to see the old guys, to a man, head off there for their bit of fun. The most senior and wrinkled of the group really wowed me though. He had to be just this side of eighty and showed real determination: he genteely manoevered himself naked into the woods... using two crutches.

Two men and their dog

That's a peach. And apropos of nothing. I just thought how summery it was.

Back in the ark, the animals they did go in two by two, and so it goes with holiday-makers. Generally. Not my jolly little gang, which expanded to three yesterday. We're subverting the dominant paradigm, which pleases me. However, this holiday I have been struck somewhat intensely: even with gays, normally, that's how it goes. Take for instance the German couple I mentioned yesterday. They were sweet. They've returned to Munich now, sadly, but I have no doubt that when I go back to that beach  where I met them later there will be a new pair to take their place. Then, yesterday I arrived at the rocky cove which I so like here and was greeted with this sight below. Two beautiful, fit, handsome gays with a dog. It was like something out of a lifestyle catalogue. I hadn't intended to do another Secret Squirrel, lest these pages become solely the notes of wanton longing of a snooping pervert, but it's too bad (nobody would have believed it possible if I hadn't) so here my snapshot:

And they called it Puppy Love

In the afternoon, once we had consumed an almost deadening amount of paella, I spotted another couple: G&J, the guys with the speedboat. I met them last year and they gave my friends and I on a spin along the coastline to take a look at the (Spanish Royal) Marivent Palace. It was rather fantastic and not something I had done in Majorca before. Thinking how rude it would be not to say hello, I swam over, greeted them both warmly then sat on the end of the boat. All in full view of the legion of other gays sitting on the rocks, which was satisfying. I heard tell of their activities, their life of travel back and forth from Majorca and the many other glamorous international destinations they visit. They also updated me: they had just sold this speedboat and purchased another: ten feet longer with more space down below. I nodded, sagely. Of course.

They also introduced me to another couple. These we had spotted in the beach-bar at lunchtime necking back a vast jug of sangria between them. One was English, so much so that his almost comically cut-glass tones could have frozen the Mediterranean. He was charming and... forty-something? fifty-something? one of those people of indeterminate age whose hair had gone white, but while that was happening he hadn't left the gym for one second. It was very impressive. His boyfriend was Italian, similarly buff and  very proud of it. He was boasting brashly of the sex party they had held the previous night: I could hardly walk! I rolled my eyes, as I don't take particularly well to that sort of conversation. They were both intolerably lascivious. I wanted to send them to a nunnery to be sheep-dipped in Dettol.

There was a good reason why later on, I reached for a little local anaesthetic...

But it's not all waspish bitterness from your correspondent. I do find news to gladden my heart, send me on my way with hope, and my hat at a jaunty angle. This happened shortly after the peaches photograph was taken, on Sunday afternoon. A long-standing client of mine, who I have always liked very much, had invited me (and thus DD) to take lunch with him and his long-standing partner at their villa which is bang in the centre of the island, somewhere I haven't been before. So we did. It was the most marvellous day out. Such hospitality! I have no idea how I will manage to repay it. But perhaps that's not the point. What I found really wonderful is that they have been together for thirty-two years. Both met when one was 19 and the other 21 at university. And it suddenly clicked - they had found each other within three weeks of my birth! And if that doesn't give you hope, nothing will.

And the beach goes on

The ideal day to go to Es Trenc beach is on a Saturday or Sunday. The locals are there, you see, so whilst it is busier, the pleasure of their company mitigates the crowds. They are Spaniards, of course, who are generally more hot than not, or at least have that dark hair and olive skin thing going on which helps in almost every situation.

Saturday was a meh day weather-wise, and even when it cheered up, the humidity was almost too much to bear. And the long-range news was not good: I had been to see my neighbours up here on the hill because I couldn't lock the front door (it had warped slightly as these things tend to do over time). The husband had popped down and helped me sort the problem, all the while his wife was telling me of the doom and gloom inevitability of the weather all weekend. What a shame we had come for this week! I don't like to think she got a kick out of it, but I wonder. One becomes obsessed with the weather on holiday if everything is not absolutely as one would want it. Thankfully, I am less worried now, and pleasingly that pastel-clad harbinger of doom up the road was wrong. The photo above is proof!

As I said, the ideal day to go to Es Trenc would have been Sunday, but, having had my mind poisoned by the lady next door It's not even worth sweeping the leaves! So many will get washed down in these storms! I had committed to a more social day elsewhere which was more weather-proof. However, Sunday and yesterday dawned immaculate. Which pleased me both because it meant I sunbathed, but also because at some point in the coming days, I will be able to bump into her and smile blandly while talking about the unpredictability of island life.

Yesterday, we made it out very promptly. I noticed how much easier it is to get two people out of the house than, say, four. Typically last year we would be leaving around 12.30. Ditto my Italy trip in June. That was seven gays and a woman: say no more. But DD and I are a slick operation and were out of the door by 10.30, crossed to the other side of the island and were sipping coffee behind our sunglasses by the edge of the beach an hour later. We made quite a day of it, staying till around six.

The crowd was divine. I got talking to two puppy-cute German guys who were almost tiresomely in love. They lay in the shallow waters building sandcastles on each others' backs. I couldn't just pass by, and struck up conversation with them. One was a florist with a shaved head, lean musculature, pierced nipple and mahogany tan. I wish I had managed to get a secret squirrel snap of him, but I think that might have been a little blatant (at least the above is taken from about twenty metres away). We lay there for perhaps an hour (who knows?) chatting, before our hands were too shrivelled to continue. And that was the main event of the day. Which reminded me why I keep coming back here. Despite the dreadful weather. Ahem.

Back in business

So I have shifted locations once more, and since I am holiday anyway, am slightly ignoring the August Bank Holiday-ness of today. It's my first Majorca update... and I am so happy to be here!

I flew over from Madrid on Friday afternoon. As I mentioned, it had been unseasonably cool there. I mean, nothing I was complaining about by any means, but the reality of where it was supposed to be was really bought home to me when I got out of the airport building in Palma and a blast of hot, burning, sticky summer was chucked in my face, as sweaty as a Sumo Wrestler's jockstrap. I picked up the hire car, which, compared with last year's Suzuki Jimny, is at turns significantly more sensible, powerful, plus half the price. But a Ford Focus is possibly also half the fun. On the way to the house, I dropped into Caprabo, the nearest local equivalent of Waitrose, and while I was pushing my trolley round, DD, my guest for the next few days, dropped me a text message to ask if it was still raining. Raining?

It wasn't till later, around nine in the evening, when I was going to collect DD that I began to understand what he was getting at. The house is on top of a hill in the South West of the Island and consequently that much closer to heaven. And large thunderstorms when they roll in from the Med. Just as I was leaving (and, needless to say, operating the hire car for the first time at night), the most gigantic electrical storm flew overhead. Zig-zags of the most absurd cartoon-esque lightning split the sky from one side to the other, illuminating the countryside for miles around while buckets of water lashed the car. This was not part of the plan. I turned up my holiday mix CD and in my mind chanelled sand, beaches and pool-side cocktails. And that worked. Not entirely immediately, but around three o'clock on Saturday afternoon, the sun burned through and got the holiday back on track.

I had taken DD to a little cove nearby, following the logic that if the weather didn't go as planned, then we could scoot home. It's a cute little place. Secluded, relaxed. There's a beach bar where one can enjoy a fantastic paella with a sea view. It's also a honeypot if you enjoy sunbathing naked. But disturbing the usual peace that afternoon there were some unusual and unexpected guests. This was a film crew for one of those absolutely dire music videos where two ugly fat white men rap, while some bosomy female sings something inane in the gaps in-between. Because the people doing it had no imagination, they had hired a bunch of bikini girls to shake their asses wildly on a beach and treat the doughy, dreary stars as if they were God's representatives on Earth.

The music sounded dreadful, but the camerawork was done very carefully so as to avoid the other beach-dwellers. I don't know who the rappers were, but here's a small exclusive snap of the shoot, and also, far more amusingly, what was really going on around them...