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...