Scotland the brave...

I spent the weekend in Glasgow meeting up with folks I know from various places around the internet. I'm not going to go into great detail here, I've kinda decided that things that go on in a public(ish) places such as a club or sauna are fair game, but when its in the privacy of a house or hotel room it doesn't feel right sharing the details. Lets just say that I had a really nice time with three lovely guys (not *all* concurrently!) all of who I hope to see again... I also explored my more versatile side, which went much better than I expected. I'm still more of a top than a bottom, but it is reassuring to know that I can enjoy getting fucked as much as fucking.

For various reasons I didn't really see much of the Glasgow gay scene, restricting my bar going to the very relaxed bar Revolver. What was nice about it, and was commented on by one of the guys I was meeting, was the 'ordinary' type of guys that seemed to frequent it and the general laid back attitude free atmosphere. After my the last of my mates had departed I decided I fancied another pint, so headed back there on my own. The local gay paper suggested that it was a good place to go on Sundays, and this proved to be the case. It wasn't hugely crowded, but there was a fair few guys about. What I liked was that they were playing music videos, interspersed with comedy clips - which is something I've seen in the US but not in the UK. While I was sitting supping a pint of Guinness (my drink of choice in gay bars because its pretty consistent and decent bitter is very rare) I noticed this cute wee guy come into the bar. He was obviously pretty well drunk as he didn't look to steady on his feet, but we exchanged a few glances as he sat down at a table/retro video game console thingy. As things were looking a little bit more interesting I decided to get another pint and when I got back to my seat he staggered over to me and asked if I knew how the video game worked! I went over and figured out the video game (it had various ones and I picked some Galaxions type clone) and managed to get on the leader board (I'm guessing the game doesn't get played much!). We then chatted a bit more and I discovered that: yes he was 'pished'; he has a boyfriend; he likes bears; he doesn't think much of Revolver; he likes bears in rubber and/or leather; he is a Glasgow native; he supports Celtic and agreed that the fluorescent yellow and black away kit wasn't a good look; he was concerned that I might get mugged or pickpocketed and that I needed to always know where my 'wad and phone' were. Now even though he wasn't really my 'type' (in so much as I have a type) as he was more a chaser, but there was a glint in his eye that I found attractive. I was fairly sure that nothing would happen, though if I'd been into rubber/leather I suspect I'd have been a shoe-in, despite him having a boyfriend and not quite getting that I was available if he was up for it! A couple of drinks later and he staggered off home - leaving me with a kiss and a hug, which just left me feeling rather horny and frustrated (even though I was really too tired to actually have done anything!)...

Brighton Pride

Last weekend was Brighton Pride and as we had so much fun last year we decided to go again and make a weekend of it. Pride in Brighton tends to sprawl over the whole weekend, the pubs and bars around St James Street are busy with people getting in the mood on Friday and then Saturday evening there is the post-Pride street party which starts up again on Sunday afternoon.

One of the highlights of the bigger Prides (I'm thinking London, Brighton and Manchester - but I may be doing some of the others a disservice) is the parade and the Brighton one wends its way from the pier, along the seafront and then through town eventually hitting Preston Park.

As we were staying on a seafront hotel we decided we'd watch the start of the parade. I always find that Pride parades are a good opportunity for fun photos and cute guys. The theme this year was 'Pride by the Sea' so a lot of the floats had a nautical or aquatic feel - with some very funky and colourful head-dresses.

I always get a bit emotional when all the big company's and organisation's floats go past. It always reminds me how far we've come when organisations like the police, the NHS and banks like Barclay's and Lloyds TSB have high profile presence in Pride parades.

While the parade stayed dry we weren't so luck for the festival at the park. After the parade had moved on we headed into the shopping streets for a bit of a look around before heading down to the park. It was quite strange the way that Pride completely takes over the centre of Brighton, we kept coming across the parade as it slowly made its way down the streets lined with onlookers. After a spot of lunch we followed the crowds down to the park, the weather gradually getting worse until shortly after we arrived at the festival the heavens opened. By this time we'd managed to find the very poorly signed and almost mythical 'bears tent' where we knew most of the guys from Oxford would be. We managed to keep the worst of the rain off with a combination of brollies and huddling and there was more than a touch of the Dunkirk spirit about it all. Needless to say my bf was very popular due to his oversized golf umbrella (which sadly broke before the end of the day). Whoever said that size doesn't matter has obviously never been in a wet and muddy park when its bucketing down! Eventually we gave up and de-camped to a pub for a pint before heading back to St James Street for the evening.

The street parties on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon have a really good atmosphere. Yeah, its a bit of a crush and getting about can be a pain, but everyone seems to be having a good time and its all very good natured. We always tend to bar crawl, have a couple of pints at various places and because gay pubs tend to serve terrible bitter we nearly always end up at pubs that are not normally gay! This year we got stung a bit on the Sunday afternoon. The St James Inn, where we'd had very nice beer on Friday night, decided they were going to add an 80p 'Pride Tax' and the beer we'd paid £2.70 a pint for on Friday suddenly went up by 30% to £3.50! We should have walked away in disgust - but for some reason we stayed to get fleeced for another one...

As Sunday was much better weather we were able to lounge around in the park near St James St with our lunch before joining the throng for beers. Much beer and chat later we decided it was time for food and went in search of curry. We were probably a bit too drunk to fully appreciate Indian Summer but it seemed pretty good and maybe next year we'll go back before we go drinking :)

After dinner we were pretty much done for the evening, so headed back to our hotel at a rather sedate 2200 or so. This meant we were up nice and refreshed for the trip home on Monday after a lovely weekend, despite the variable weather.

Playing with the bears...

Its been a quiet few weeks and as I hadn't been to Bears Day at the Luton Sauna for a while I decided I'd take a trip on Sunday. JC was having a week off from his regular Sunday jaunts into London, so joined me for my little adventure. After we'd disrobed and towelled up I did a quick tour around to show JC where everything was then we split up to have a stalk around the corridors and see what was going on...

I had a pretty good day. Plenty of snogging, some very nice blow jobs (giving and receiving), a nice session with JC in the steam room, giving one of the guys I see there regularly a good fucking (he was trying to beat his record of 11, apparently I was his 6th of the day!) and a really nice surprise just before we left...

I was half taking a rest in one of the cabins and half eyeing up passers by for a last session before we went when a cute beary guy I'd noticed earlier walked past. We kinda made eye contact, but he kept going... Just when I thought my afternoon was coming to an end the beary guy came back along the corridor in the other direction and I managed to make it clear that I'd like him to join me... He shut the door behind him and we started snogging and I pulled his towel away and started to feel for his stiffening cock. The first thing I noticed was a PA, which brought a smile to my face and a hardness to my cock. The next thing I noticed was a ladder of about 8 bars through the skin up the underside of his nice thick dick. At this point my eyes lit up - I'd really hit the jackpot! I know that piercings aren't for everyone, but folks that have read this blog for a while will know that I love them! We slide back down onto the 'bed' and I had to resist going straight for his lovely metal adorned cock. I was very restrained worked my way down, kissing his lovely furry chest, sucking his nipples and running my tongue up the inside of his thighs. Eventually I had to give in and licked his cock from bottom to top, savouring the feel of the bars, before taking his cock in my mouth and playing with his PA with my tongue. From his moans I thought he was almost going to cum there and then, so I moved down and gave his arse some attention. Sadly we didn't really have time to continue this train of thought as I'd agreed to meet JC, but we swapped Eurowoof profiles and we've been in touch since and plan on meeting up to finish what we started...

Pride, in the name of...

Oxford!

It was Oxford Pride last weekend and despite the rain there was a good turnout and fun was had. The main afternoon event is in a little field by the river, which makes for a lovely spot if it is sunny. Unfortunately last weekend it was raining quite heavily pretty much all afternoon, so wellies, brollies and macs featured a lot. We had a bit of a wander around the park, chatted to some folks, had a beer and half-watched a burlesque drag act before decamping to the pub for a couple of drinks in the dry. We decided that, rather than getting completely twatted we would head home for some food and a rest before going out for the evening's festivities.

The evening events were held jointly in the two main pubs in Oxford, which are both owned and run by the same person. Entry was with a wristband (it wasn't clear where the money was going to - I bloody well hope it was to Pride!) which let you into both pubs. Both had DJs and were open late, the normal Saturday night pub staying open into the wee small hours. What was good about Pride was that a lot of people you wouldn't normally see were out and about. I was quite struck by how many friends I have locally now. Add JC's London friends to that and it was a really social night out! My boyfriend flaked out fairly early (not an unusual occurrence) but needless to say JC persuaded me to stay out and then tempted me back to his bedsit for yet more booze! Needless to say I missed the last bus home, so ended up staying the night with him on his airbed (two of his friends were staying over and had the bed). I eventually got home at about 8am on Sunday (after a fitful night's sleep due to aforementioned airbed) and fell into bed just as boyfriend was getting up...

Ripped to the tits on drink and drugs...

One thing that has surprised me in my last couple of adventures is how druggy parts of the bear scene are.  Maybe I just didn't notice before or maybe its because some of the guys I've been socialising with are more into it but there were times it felt like I was the only guy not on anything other than alcohol...  The RVT has a bit of a reputation as a fairly druggy scene, but I was surprised that it was going on so much at XXL too (especially given the publicity over the death of Kevin Greening who had been at an event in the venue where XXL lives the night of his death).  It wasn't overt drug taking (the management aren't stupid I'm sure of that) but I was certainly aware that a lot of the guys were more than just drunk...

I don't take drugs.  I've tried various things but its never really had a draw for me.  I suspect part of it is because I'm a bit of a control freak.  I really don't like the idea of loosing control and the short term memory loss that is a common side effect of Ketamine (which seems to be the drug of choice as far as I could tell)  frankly terrifies me.  Doing something seriously wreckless while out of it and not actually remembering it?  No thanks!  Thankfully people on K are generally just a bit fuzzy around the edges and wobbly rather than completely out of it or on a complete buzz (I hate being around people on coke - turns perfectly lovely people into total arseholes!) so I didn't feel uncomfortable (especially when I'm fuzzy around the edges myself due to the drink!).  I don't think I'd ever consider it 'normal' though, I guess I'm just too straight-laced at heart...

Vauxhall and I

My big London weekend finished off with an afternoon at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern.  After I'd checked out of the hotel me and JC got the tube into town to see a mate I'd arranged to meet up with for lunch.  Over lunch JC turned on a charm offensive and persuaded my mate (continuing the initials theme we shall refer to him as SW) to join us at the RVT for 'a couple of drinks'.  As the Victoria tube line was closed we had to do a bit of London Calculus to figure out the easiest route to Vauxhall and decided on getting the Northern Line to Oval and a 10 minute walk from there.

The RVT itself is a slightly dislocated looking detached pub near to the MI6 building, right next to the Vauxhall tube with a small grassy area (park would be over-egging it) just behind.  As it was a lovely sunny day the crowds congregated on the grassy area after getting their wristbands and a drink.   The draw of the RVT on a Sunday afternoon (apart from, it seems, the drugs - I'll cover my thoughts on this in a separate post) is the drag show with 'Dame Edna' (aka Jonathan Hellyer) followed by a DJ set.  For JC and his friends the Sunday ritual is get there about 3pm, before the queues get too big, have a few drinks (and other stuff) and catch up with friends before the show starts at 5.30.   It was nice to chill out with a few beers, catch up with SW (who I don't see very often), meet JC's friends (a few people assumed I was his new bf - the reason for which became clear when I met his ex, it wasn't quite like looking in a mirror but we certainly were the same 'type') and generally have a nice afternoon.

The show itself was fun enough.  Dame Edna is the usual drag act combination of bitchy jokes at the expense (no pun intended) of celebrity and, unsurprisingly this week given how much they have dominated the news, MPs followed by big musical numbers, often twisting the lyrics to comedic effect.  Where Edna's talent lies is in vocal mimicry - her Karen Carpenter for example was quite spooky.  There's no denying she's a good performer, but there seems to be a bit of a cult built around her which I really didn't get.  Going to the show week in, week out would get tired very quickly for me - especially if it wasn't warm enough to sit outside with a few beers enjoying the weather and the company...  The show had one extra feature this time, a PA from Alison Jiear who performed the über camp I Just Wanna Dance which seems to be a bit of an RVT anthem cause the crowd went wild.  There's no denying she has a great voice, but the song itself is such a hi-NRG gay cliché!  Amusingly I was chatting with one of JCs mates outside after the show and he suddenly completely lost the plot and asked me for a pen.  I looked terribly confused and he pointed out that Alison was having a drink outside and he wanted to get her autograph!

After the show the DJs took over and there was the inevitable dancing and once more I was persuaded to remove my shirt.  I had decided that I had to get the last train home so left the pub at 10ish.  Handily there was a stop nearby where I could get a bus straight to Paddington (which goes via Victoria - which will be useful for future trips by bus) and soon I was on the train home, knackered, but happy...

Night clubin'

This weekend was a big weekend out in London.  I was down for a concert in Camden, so decided to make a weekend of it and go to XXL on Saturday night and the Royal Vauxhall Tavern on Sunday (as my friend, who will be referred to by his initials JC, has been trying to get me to go with him for pretty much as long as I've known him).  As it turned out it was a good weekend for it as there was a guy I'd been chatting to on gaydar for a while down from Scotland for the Depeche Mode concert at the O2 (unfortunately cancelled - get well soon Dave Gahan) and it was also one of the guys I know in Oxford's birthday weekend (a significant one to boot) so there were a lot of guys I knew going to XXL that night.

I've only been to XXL two times before, but its a club I like quite a lot.  The venue itself is cool, based as it is in four old railway arches.  You come in to the main bar area, then there is an outside smoking area off to the right and the left leads off to the main dance floor.  If you follow that through you come to an area that splits off to another dance floor (which always seemed deserted) and the dark room (more on that later) and leads on to another bar where they play a mix of non-dance stuff (sometimes more chillout, this week it was more indie stuff, possibly because Morrissey was supposed to be playing a gig in London that weekend (another cancelled one...)), and then another outside smoking area.

I found JC and his mates straight away and then headed barwards where I was greeted by the guy I'd been chatting to on gaydar (henceforth known as Sexy Scottish Bear) and we had a quick chat and agreed to find each other a bit later.  So after a pint of Guinness and some chatter I took a bit of a wander (via the main dance floor which was packed with shirtless fellas - its a hard life) to see if I could find Sexy Scottish Bear.  Once again I found him at the bar (definately my kind of fella) and after he had delivered the drinks to his boyfriend and mates he came back so we could get properly acquainted.  We'd had some really sexy chats on Gaydar over the last few months so it wasn't long before we'd started doing some of the stuff we'd talked about!  He is an incredibly sexy bloke with loads of lovely body hair and a great arse (he had jocks on under his kilt, not quite traditional but very sexy nonetheless).  We spent quite some time snogging in the bar area before we decided we couldn't keep our hands off each other any longer and we headed to the dark room.  The dark room in XXL seems to change every time I visit.  Last time I was there they had four or so cubicles in the main dimly lit rather than black 'cruising' area, which was handy if you wanted a bit of privacy, but they had gone to make way for more sofas and chairs.  There's also a rather precarious 'dark' bit on a platform, but as we wanted just the two of us this didn't really fit the bill either.  In the end we found a corner where the Sexy Scottish Bear made a beeline for my zip and gave me a really excellent blow job!  I then lived out a bit of a fantasy by lifting his kilt, rubbering up and giving him a good fucking!  Unfortunately we'd become a bit of a floor show by this point, which was a bit offputting, but it was still really good to hook up with him after chatting online for so long.  We're both keen to meet up again some time and have a proper session - which I'm looking forward to.

After my Sexy Scottish Bear diversion I went to look for JC again and was introduced to some more of his mates and dragged onto the floor for a dance.  Despite not intending to take my shirt off, as I had just had a new tattoo that morning, it was so hot in the club and everyone else was shirtless it felt rude not to!  

At about 4am I was starting to flake, as I'd been up since 10am and on the go pretty much non-stop, so dragged JC out of the club and off to my hotel which was just around the corner.  Eventually we fell asleep in each other's arms, rather aware that the alarm at 11am for a noon checkout would be a rude awakening...