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SUMMER SPECIAL THE UK’S BEST-SELLING AND AWARD-WINNING GAY MAGAZINE

HURTS OT 'S H POP ON O U D EW IR N THE UM ALB

EXCLUSIVE

I'm so excited!

! s r e z w o W Where the heck PEDRO A L M O D Ó VA R AND HIS GAY E S T MOVIE YET

has Ben Foden been hiding? IN THE RUGBY CHANGING ROOM WITH U N A S AT U R DAY, F Y I

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ABBA' S AGNETHA AKS BRE HER E NC SILE

We were never camp, we were so much more'

Ins

4 0 P A G E S O ide F SUPER-HO T

Swimwea Underwre& ar Pl u s

GET YOUR T ICKETS TO TH E SEL FRID AND GES AT T I TU SUMM ER EV DE ENT

05

Eurovision

WORLD EXCLUSIVE

9 771353 187021

...and you thought what goes on on stage was gay...

ATTITUDE.CO.UK • @ATTITUDEMAG • SUMMER 2013

U.K. £4.25 S.A. R99.95

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Official UK Watch Partner www.twsteeluk.com

AM

WI

N

AZI & M NG T W AN OF STEE PR L ST E TW IZES VIS EL STE I FO ELUK T RD .CO ETA M ILS

TM

IN CINEMAS JUNE 14 #manofsteel

©2013 Warner Bros. Ent. Inc. All Rights Reserved. MAN OF STEEL and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and © DC Comics

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ATTITUDE.CO.UK • SUMMER 2013 • @ATTITUDEMAG

42

BEN FODEN SEXY AND CHARMING RUGGER STAR. WHO KNEW?

8

EDITOR’S LETTER INBOX

13

EDIT THE A-LIST JOE STONE HARP ON THE PACKAGE: JON HAMM HOT BOY: ED DREWETT PEDRO ALMODÓVAR PAUL FLYNN AND GAL PAL GADGETS: CAMERAS CULTURE CLUB: WALT WHITMAN MUSIC, FILM: STAR TREK

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S U M M ER STY LE S P ECIAL

10 OF THE BEST STYLE ICON: THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY TREND: FLORALS SOCKS TO MAKE YOU SMILE IN THE BAG: WORTH £2,300 SWIMWEAR UNDERWEAR

116

ACTIVE CHRISTIAN JESSEN WORKOUT: BEACH BUM HIV: STEFAN KYRIAZIS IAN MARBER

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CONTEXT TABLE FOR TWO TRULY MADLY DEEPLY RELATIONSHIPS TRAVEL: GREECE PROPERTY CARS: PEUGEOT 208 HOW GAY ARE YOU?

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F E AT U R E S

54. ABBA: AGNETHA WE LAY ALL OUR LOVE ON THE SWEDISH ICON 60. EUROVISION BANG-A-BANG BOOM, SEX AND THE SONG CONTEST 108. HURTS THE HIP SYNTHPOP DUO ON THEIR SECOND ALBUM

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ATTITUDE

CONTRIBUTORS

NOMA BARR

MICHALIS TZIVITZIDIS

BEN KELLY

Noma studied at the Jerusalem Academy of Art & Design before moving to London in 2001. A combined artist, illustrator and designer, Noma seeks ‘the maximum communication with minimum elements’. His books are design industry must-haves and he exhibits work worldwide. This month he provides our Eurovision illustrations.

Michalis has 20 years’ experience with hair and makeup in fashion, cinema and theatre. Based in Athens, where he zips around on a moped, he’s the go-to man for all visiting international titles, including L’Official Hommes, Vogue and Elle. Handsome, stylish and calm, Michalis was a Greek godsend for our team this month.

Originally from Northern Ireland, Ben has been based in London for four years, where he studied at UCL, appeared on The Voice and became a friend of Attitude. When he’s not making music, he writes about it, too. In this issue he interviews Hurts, Jamie Cullum and Bonnie Tyler. He likes coffee chains, puppies and rolling news.

Editor Matthew Todd [email protected] Art Director Shaun Craig Parkinson [email protected] Acting Deputy Editor Daniel Fulvio Fashion Editor Elauan Lee [email protected] Designer Lucy Hendel [email protected] Design Intern Ike Muotoh Sub Editor Mark Cook Office Assistant Ben Kelly Books Editor Will Davis [email protected] Film Editor Matt Mueller [email protected] Interns Nick Byam, Sam Failes, James Cunningham Senior Contributing Editors Simon Edge, Paul Flynn, Simon Gage, Jamie Hakim, Johann Hari, Philip Reay-Smith, Tim Teeman (US Editor East Coast)

ON THE COVER

attitude:

1 8 t h B IRTH DAY! | CULTURE AT T I T UD E15

005 september 1994

On the cover Ben Foden wears underwear by Calvin Klein at Selfridges. 006 october 1994 007 november 1994 Photography Joseph Sinclair. Styling Elauan Lee, assisted by Nick Byam and James Cunningham. Hair Marc Ramos using Kevin Murphy.

Commercial Director Mike Buckley (020 7608 6496) [email protected] Group Advertising Manager Andy Goddard (020 7608 6305) [email protected] Senior Display and Online Executives Steven Aslam (020 7608 6364) [email protected] Scott Davison (020 7608 6351) [email protected] ATTITUDE MEDIA Ltd Chief Executive Justin Sanders Finance Director Vince Nicholls Publishing Director Darren Styles [email protected] Communications Director Gloria Maydew [email protected] Web Development Adam Osborn [email protected] Subscriptions enquiries [email protected] (01778 392005 ) Warners Subscription Department, Freepost, PE211, Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9BR The next issue of Attitude is out on May 29 2013 Attitude Magazine attitude.co.uk 33 Pear Tree Street, London EC1V 3AG e-mail: [email protected]

FROM THE ARCHIVE 012 april 1995

013 may 1995

014 june 1995

DEBATING THE HOTNESS OF DAMON ALBARN ISSUE 20 DECEMBER 1995

We put cheeky chappie Blur frontman Damon Albarn on this 1995 cover, and wondered whether or not we’d kick him out of bed. Luckily we decided not, and 18 years on he’s a fully fledged British musical genius. We also chatted to Christian Slater and Delia Smith (though regrettably not together), weighed up various religions and got ahead of our time with a piece about cyber safety. So on it! 019 november 1995

020 december 1995

Copyright © Attitude Media Ltd 2013 all rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced in whole or in part without the written permission of the publishers. Unsolicited contributions must be accompanied by a stamped addressed envelope if they are to be returned. We cannot accept responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts and photographs or for material lost or damaged in the post. Letters submitted to Attitude or its editors are assumed to be intended for publication in whole or in part. The mention or appearance or likeness of any person or organisation in articles or advertising in this publication is not to be taken as any indication of sexual, social or political orientation of such persons or organisations. Newstrade distribution by Seymour Distribution Limited, 2 East Poultry Avenue, London EC1A 9PT. Tel 020 7429 4000 Published by Attitude Media Ltd. Printed by Benham Goodhead Print Limited

021 january 1996

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Preferred Hotel Group presents a global collection of independent hotels and resorts that understand the unique needs of the LGBT traveler. Book with confidence. At Preferred Pride hotels and resorts, you will receive special rates, welcome amenities, and the individual attention that makes travel exceptional. The Ring, Vienna’s Casual Luxury Hotel Vienna, Austria Palace Hotel Copenhagen, Denmark Hotel Original Paris Paris, France La Trémoille

Travel with Pride. Book today and receive select rates and VIP amenities.

Paris, France The Fitzwilliam Hotel Dublin, Ireland Parco dei Principi Grand Hotel & Spa Rome, Italy Splendid Venice Venice, Italy Hotel de las Letras Madrid, Spain The Mandeville Hotel London, United Kingdom The Last Word Long Beach Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa Visit PreferredPride.com/ Attitude to view the complete collection or call your travel professional. © 2013 Preferred Hotel Group

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17/04/2013 14:28:40

E DITOR’S LETTE R

Download the latest bespoke edition now available from iTunes

Can it be? Could it actually be true? Could we finally be getting a bit of goddamn sunshine on this shivering country? I’ve written a fair bit about climate change and I think there’s a strong chance the world will crash and burn in the not too distant future (read Boiling Point by Ross Gelbspan, it’s good for nightmares. Fun!), but my God I could do with some sun. To celebrate the arrival of summer (eventually), I won’t be running round Stonehenge in a thong flinging tulips hither and yon and clanking coconuts together, but we do have for you our Summer Special. Yes, once again we celebrate the changing of the seasons by teaming up with the lovely people at Selfridges to produce an amazing summer style portfolio and also throw a fantastic fashion show and party in London. And you are invited (first come, first served, obvs). There is a very cool fashion show (men in pants, what you gonna do) in a specially constructed catwalk in Selfridges’ basement followed by a party upstairs in the underwear department, where there are drinks, goody bags and all manner of exciting things going on. Check out the portfolio that we went all the way to Greece to shoot on page 86, with details about how to get your free tickets on page 73. This is also a rather exciting issue because it’s full of incredible exclusives. First, we have got the man-wonder that is rugby player and Mr Una Saturday, Ben Foden. He is the hottest thing I have laid eyes on since we got Will Mellor to show us his undercarriage in 1999. Inside there are more exclusives. We have the only UK magazine interview that legendary film-maker Pedro Almodóvar has given to promote his fun new film I’m So Excited. We also have a gay press exclusive with Hurts and we go behind the scenes to find out about all the naughty goings-on at the Eurovision Song Contest. But perhaps most excitingly we have a gay press exclusive with someone who is a bona fide megastar of the highest order, one of the most iconic figures of contemporary pop music, queen of Abba, Agnetha Fältskog. We flew to Sweden to meet the apparently reclusive superstar to talk to her about her new album and how she really feels about Abba. It is rather amazing. So if you like what we’re doing, then take out a subscription. I need to eat. You can get the magazine online, on iPad, Android or all manner of devices, or you can just have the magazine sent to you (in discreet packaging so we don’t out you to the postman, parents, wife, head of staff at the Bishop’s residence, etc). Look out for next month: it’s our Youth Issue. See you then ;) M at t h ew T o d d e d i t o r @at t i t u d e m ag @ m r m at t h e w t o d d

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ATTITUDE | LET TERS H AVE W I TTS AB OUT YOU

Attitude, I salute you for finally getting that stud David Witts on the cover. He’s been a favourite of mine ever since he first appeared on EastEnders, and you managed to make him look even better than I thought possible. I loved the James Dean look, it really suits him. But I think I voice the disappointment of many when I say that I was sad to see him only with a shirt on! MATTHEW, CARDIFF

A G R E AT IS S UE

Your piece about gay marriage was very current and great to read. We have made so many gains in the fight for marriage equality, and it only helps when our most vocal opponents in politics and religion are revealed to be hypocrites. An issue which was once a distant hope for the gay community is now being discussed at the top tables and involves the whole country, and that shows just how far we have come. It was nice to see a personal perspective on it from Ian Marber as well. SHANE, NEWCASTLE

P UTTI N G TH E GAY I N TO SI TCOM

I had heard nothing about this Vicious show, but after reading Paul Flynn’s piece I am now very excited about it. It looks like something completely fresh that we’ve never had before, telling an untold story with two theatre legends slap bang in the middle of it. Looks like it will fit right in with the great British comedy shows we know and love. Plus, I enjoyed the story of Ian ‘proposing’ to Derek at the filming. DOMINIC, YORKSHIRE

TWEETS

Loved the Beautiful Thing reunion in @AttitudeMag - getting the DVD out now and will be booking tickets for London. Such an important story. @MrDanielEdwards Oh @AttitudeMag. If you’re going to have David Witts on the cover why is he so clothed inside? @TweetsbyJonesy Cannot wait to climb into my Onesie and curl up with a cuppa and the new @AttitudeMag @Eamumc This is potench one of my fave issues of @AttitudeMag in ages! @MrBaileyM Its snowing but im snuggling up to read my may edition of @AttitudeMag with the tasty David Witts on the cover! :D x @PremWadher Excuse me @AttitudeMag but you could have told us before hand that Glen Berry had turned into a hottie! @Gnaes @AttitudeMag Just read in the latest issue ‘Gay Marriage the enemy within’ What a relief to read an article on this issue not full of hatred @bluefox42 Just read in @AttitudeMag that thebomber jacket is in this season. Result. Can’t wait to dust off my little blue Gap number! #result @JonMundy79

the iPad, and even Suranne Jones in How Gay are You? Getting my tickets booked for the revival now! STEVE, KENT

B E AUTI F UL M OM E N T

C O N TA C T tinyurl.com/facebookattitude twitter.com/AttitudeMag [email protected] 33 Pear Tree Street, London EC1V 3AG

I remember Beautiful Thing when it first came out, and I was just beginning to understand myself. Seeing two young men fall in love on screen was not something I was used to, and it gave me hope that other people were in the same position as me. It was, and remains, such an important piece in gay culture, and you have rightly given it pride of place in this month’s issue, with the original interview on

R OC K ON

As a gay rocker, it was really nice to read Ian Galea’s story. I think people are surprised when they learn that people like me and Ian are gay because of how we look, but it’s good to break people’s stereotypes, and he’s right – the more alternative scenes tend to be much more accepting. Best of luck to him with the RockHARD night in Manchester. JAMES, MERSEYSIDE

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15% D I S C O U N T USE DISCOUNT CODE ATT123 AT CHECKOUT

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EDIT | ATTITUDE

ed drewett on palling up with olly murs p.20

O

UR

GUIDE

TO

shot by holly falconer

Film/Music TV/News/Opinion Performance Style/Books AND Boys

Vest by Marc Jacobs at Harrods, shorts from Topman, sneakers from New Balance at Urban Outfitters

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THINGS WE LOVE THIS MONTH THE

MUSIC

PALOMA IN THE WOODS • Paloma Faith will cap off regular arena dates (including the O2 London) with a series of Forest Live dates, where she’ll perform in woodlands around the country. You know, to tone down the quirk. Nationwide, May 27 to July 5. palomafaith.com

THEATRE

SWEET LIKE CHOCOLATE

STYLE

SEASIDE SHORTS

• Sam Mendes is bringing the classic Roald Dahl book to the West End stage in a brand new musical promising to be the delicious treat of the summer. Previews from May 17, Theatre Royal Drury Lane, London. charlieandthechocolatefactory.com

• The new swim shorts from Orlebar Brown feature aerial photos of seaside bliss from photographer Gray Malin’s A La Plage, A La Piscine collection, digitally printed onto the classic Bulldog-style shorts. Available at Selfridges

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Words by Ben Kelly

dvd

HOUSE OF CARDS

CHARITY

NATIONAL AIDS TRUST’S SPRING AWAKENING

• Kevin Spacey is a scheming senator in the US remake of the UK series that merges The West Wing with Richard III. Get it on DVD if you haven’t already seen it on Netflix. Available on DVD and Blu-ray from June 10

• Christopher Biggins hosts this year’s National AIDS Trust flagship fundraiser, featuring a live set from Erasure’s Andy Bell. A glamorous night of drinks and canapés, with an auction of ‘money can’t buy’ prizes. Haberdashers’ Hall, London, May 30. nat.org.uk

music

HAIM • Since being named BBC’s Sound of 2013, Californian sisterly trio Haim are fast becoming the hottest band on the scene. Catch them at pre-festival shows in Glasgow and London before they get huge. May 27, SWG3, Glasgow; May 30, KOKO, London. haimtheband.com

music

PATTI LUPONE • The Broadway legend is making a rare UK appearance with a week of intimate London shows. Expect career anecdotes and iconic signature songs from Evita, Gypsy and Sunset Boulevard. June 16-23. leicestersquaretheatre.com

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MICHAEL DOUGLAS AS LIBERACE We’ve seen the film but we’re not allowed to say what we think just yet...!

KYLIE & DARK CHILD There’s a new album, apparently. She’s got shot of the old manager and it’s all going on!

Joe Stone IS ON IT twitter @Joe_Stone_

DAFT PUNK Da funk. Da rock. Da pop. Da everyone says you have to like them to be cool, so we’re going with it as it’s very important to fit in, even if it’s actually impossible and doesn’t mean anything (Punk pride).

DAVID SEDARIS Funny. Read Me Talk Pretty One Day.

FIVE (REALLY BAD) REASONS FOR HAVING SEX

SEX

GENERAL ZOD From the new Superqueer movie. Amazing. Wonder if he’s a Zodomite.

EMPIRE OF THE SUN Actual balls of actual amaze.

UPPERS DOWNERS HENRY CAVILL’S HAIR Bit too 80s Hamptons Preppie lawyer for us to look much like Superman, but what can you do.

WHITE PARTY White party, blue party, fukkin’ oblong fukkin’ hexagonal party. WHAT’S THE POINT?! *Runs off, plays hopscotch*

MICHAEL HOWARD Satan’s little helper on Earth.

FRENCH ‘PHOBES :( We love le French but why do you not like the gays getting married, mes amis? ETC NOTHING TO WITH THE RELIGIOUS, IS IT?!

JEREMY IRONS We like you, especially as the Lion in The Lion King. AS YOU DO. Please don’t say daft things about equal marriage and we won’t marry our dads. Deal? Deal. (Screams: WTF!)

WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCH As we went to press they were blaming the Boston bombings on us. Please let’s not mention them ever again.

the one time i slept with a celebrity i fancied, i was so drunk that i threw up in his en suite

A recent survey has highlighted some of the hilarious reasons why we have sex. Apparently, six out of 10 people admitted to having done it out of boredom, while 22% had done so ‘out of pity for their partner’, and 18% had slept with someone out of spite. Spite! Do we assume that they mean that the other person really didn’t want to? Isn’t that plain old-fashioned rape? Or do we think they did it to spite someone else? That probably makes more sense, but still… Nice. Once you step away from the ‘because you’re married and you wish to procreate’ prerogative (which I’m guessing most of you already have), what are the truly justifiable reasons for having sex with someone? Because you love them? If that were the case I’d only have had sex with two boys, which, TBH, isn’t exactly the case. How about because you really fancy them? Is that OK? One thing’s for sure, thanks to my winning combination of being prepared to do almost anything to get out of a socially awkward situation (usually by running head first into an even more awkward one) and making terrible rash decisions, I’ve had sex for some TERRIBLE reasons. These are five of the worst. I’m not proud of any of them but what can you do? (‘Keep your pants on’ – The World.) To get out of a date Ever gone out for a drink with a new friend and realised that you are, in fact, on a date? Awkward. You really like them but not like that. It’s dawning on you that they probably have a romantic interest in you but you don’t want to ask outright in case you’ve completely misread the situation. What you need is an opportunity to demonstrate that you’re not into them, without looking

like a total prick. So, when they introduce you to an acquaintance after six pints you go home and have sex with him. Simple! (Yes, I am a total prick.) Because all my friends thought he was fit Despite being unappealingly stubborn in many, many respects, I’m quite susceptible when it comes to the lusty influence of my friends. If somebody tells me another guy is sexy enough times, I start to believe them. This has got me into some sticky situations. Because I was at an exceptionally boring party I’m not saying I wouldn’t have had sex with him if I hadn’t been at a boring party, because he was really handsome and quite funny. But, as I expect you’re coming to learn, for me it’s all about context. The boring party was the catalyst for our glorious union – I wouldn’t have had sex with him had we met at, for instance, the supermarket. All. About. Context. Because I wanted to stop him sleeping with someone I actually liked This has happened twice. Once was when I knew a boy I was sleeping with fancied someone else, so I slept with the boy he fancied to try and abolish the attraction. It didn’t work. Then I had to sleep with him a second time to prove that the first time wasn’t just to put the boy I actually liked off him. I had basically prostituted myself to my own scheming. Because he looked a bit like a celebrity I fancied This approach probably accounts for 80% of the bad decisions I have ever made. Notably, the only time I did actually sleep with a celebrity I fancied, I was so drunk that I threw up in his en suite and we both just pretended it hadn’t happened. Romantic, eh?

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ATTITUDE | EDI T

T H E PA C K A G E

V TOP

VIRALS

JON HAMM THE ALL-AMERICAN

MAD MAN

1

Cher: definitely not dead. bit.ly/16Pfj0V

2

Thatcher behind the scenes. bit.ly/10Z0KW0

3

Zulu gay wedding in South Africa. bit.ly/YLrNF5

4

Michael Douglas in Liberace biopic. bit.ly/16MXM9F

5

Beyoncé’s a Grown Woman with Pepsi. bit.ly/11U87zs

LIFESTYLE ADVICE FROM OUR NEW FAVOURITE FASHIONISTA

SEEN HERE IN HIS NATURAL HABITAT, JON WAS RECENTLY ASKED TO START WEARING UNDERWEAR ON THE SET OF MAD MEN

HARP ON

Dear Harper, I wish to make a sausage casserole for a dinner party. Is this the done thing in 2013? Tobias, Surrey Quays

Harper says, My esteemed Tobias, by all means, but please festoon your abode with merriment and jollity if one wishes to serve cuisine of such an ironic manner. Irony is paramount! Wear something suitable, be merry in your manner and remember to host as you would wish to be hosted. Be judicious in your choice of banger (ha!), and if at all troubled by any of your guests’ reactions to said rustic plate, then never forget that help is at hand from a local catering company. I send you richest felicitations for a perfunctory evening at the very least and an optimum celebration at best. A bientôt.

CONCLUSION: IT’S NOT FOR US TO GUESS WHY, BUT THOSE PANTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES IMAGE: GETTY

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ed’s Essex boy Ed Drewett writes number-one pop songs, for other people. Here he talks about doing it for himself

Sweater and jeans by Paul Smith at Harrods, sneakers by Nike

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up

Photographer assisted by Jo Scotcher Styling Chris Hobbs Grooming Gemma Wheatcroft using Elemis skincare Kevyn Aucoin make-up and Bumble AND Bumble for hair

wor d s colin crum m y ph otogr a ph y h olly fa lcon e r

It should, in theory, be the easiest sell in the world. For Ed Drewett is hot, funny and can pen a number-one-selling tune when he wants to. But the world, kids, does not always work the way we want it to. For despite putting together The Wanted’s bigtime single All Time Low, when it came to launching his own singing career in 2010, Essex boy Ed stalled. There was a single, Champagne Lemonade, all right, but then he went through two successive record companies without getting his debut album out. Frustrating, much? ‘I’ve only really had a couple of days where I’ve felt really shit,’ says the 25-year-old blondie who cuts his own hair, ‘but other than that… I have so much faith in the music that I write. That sounds a bit naff but that’s what keeps me going.’ So much so that, in between writing gigs for the likes of Olly Murs, Ed decided to put the album Blink out on his own, starting with lead-off track Drunk Dial, an indicator of the geezerish pop that’s become a bit of a Drewett trademark. No wonder, then, that he hit it off with Murs, pop’s prince of mumfriendly swagger, when they got together to write for the latter’s second record. They got on so well that Ed ended up on Olly’s Caribbean lads’ holiday earlier this year, the pap pics of which are worth a Google for the more pop-perv-minded among you. ‘We all got pissed a lot,’ recalls Ed of the sunshine jolly. ‘On the last day, me and Olly’s mate Jake said, “Today is gonna be a little bit more mental than the night before”. So it’s like half-nine in the morning and the butler brought out some Cheerios. So I was like, “Right, let’s put some beer on the Cheerios and call it Beerios”, and we ate it and it was awful.’ Despite the beers-for-breakfast larks, both Olly and Ed share a work ethic that should, with luck, see the songwriter finally get to sing his songs. ‘I’ve had a lot of let-downs so I’m kind of at peace with it,’ Ed says. ‘If it doesn’t work I can say I went for it on my own and I tried. So I’m kind of OK with it not working. I know that I’m always gonna be able to write songs.’ Ed’s debut album, Blink, is out this summer

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ATTITUDE | EDIT | THE RULES

PLAN INTERNATIONAL CUISINE

Words Ben Kelly

SETTLE ON A TAKEAWAY

BELIEVE IN BONNIE

THE RULES FOR A EUROVISION PARTY

HOPE FOR THE BEST

EXPECT THE WORST

SHOT FOR EVERY 12 POINTS...

MOAN AT EASTERN BLOC VOTING

CHEERS AT GENEROUS IRISH VOTING

...OK, A SHOT FOR EVERY POINT

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UNDERWEAR.SWIMWEAR.CLOTHING

BANGLADS.COM

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ATTITUDE | EDIT

TOM DALEY

Paul Flynn IS OVER IT THE REAL MESSAGE FROM THE SAD CASE OF LUCY MEADOWS

Pre-diving:

GalPal Tom lounges by the pool

The ladies we love...

PMiidpdlpetoan

We’ve wanted to be pals with Pippa ever since her booty stole the show at the royal wedding. She’s the toast of Chelsea and only works two days a week. Apparently. She’s going to be the fun aunt to the royal baby, and may well get off with Uncle Harry, too. Never mind being friends, we literally want to be her! Well, except for the awkward book flop. Whether Kate zy B eaz l i t y turns up or not, this gal Qu

can throw a hell of a party.

I’m not one for signing e-petitions swapped around social media. But something about the case of Lucy Meadows, the transgender primary school teacher in Accrington who committed suicide soon after her gender realignment became national news, caught me offside. Because I grew up in the frosted repetition of northern suburbia, I know its rhythms and characters well. This case seemed not only to be about the death of Ms Meadows but the death of everybody’s small dreams of happiness and acceptance in places like Accrington. In the e-petition that I found myself habitually clicking back to there was some intimation that the wider media involvement sparked by a column written by the noted controversialist Richard Littlejohn in the Daily Mail may have had some bearing on Ms Meadows’ emotional state. The petitioners called for Mr Littlejohn’s sacking and an apology from his employers. While hovering over signing, I began thinking of the kind of supermarket Ms Meadows would go to and the conversations she might have buying shoes in a small northern town. The tragedy of Ms Meadows appeared to be one that was an inch away from being just a local curiosity that locals had made their peace with. I thought about the lessons she might teach, about being her pupil and whether I would like her or not. She had been accepted by the children and staff at school. Her story was so close to being a triumph, its tragedy loomed ever larger. She was just a person. I clicked again. I read Mr Littlejohn’s piece. He seemed uncomfortable with, antagonistic even to the subject of transgenderism, turning Lucy Meadows into more than a person: a symbol. I’m sure there were many people in Accrington of a similar age, disposition and political leaning

Littlejohn seemed antagonistic to lucy meadows and turned her into a symbol

to the writer that, before Ms Meadows’ case brought it to their doorstep, were similarly antagonistic. He is paid his magnificent salary for that very reason. The silent triumph of the story of Lucy Meadows is that those local minds appear to have had their minds changed by her before national news agencies got involved. After her suicide, no one in Accrington had anything but good to say about their local primary school teacher. There was an opportunity here to leave a community and an individual alone. Why was her story too irresistible to editorialise? Perhaps just by choosing Lucy Meadows; of each story on the wires that day to direct sensation towards there was some dread moral culpability at the Mail. It might have made no difference. But still they could have left her alone. I went against my own instinct and signed. I don’t think Richard Littlejohn should be sacked. And even if I did, the flaming reaction against him has proven many are quick to cast caustic judgment on other people’s intentions. Social media often behave as much like a superannuated lynch-mob as the press, anyway. I’ve kind of appalled myself by jumping aboard. But on this occasion it would be lovely to think that all the little triumphs Lucy Meadows achieved on a local scale could be matched by one final, national flourish – to make a columnist on what is now, without question our national newspaper, pause for thought before wading in his opprobrium at executive level on personal matters. With power comes responsibility. These local dramas are resolved best by amazing local communities who are perfectly adept at taking their own moral temperature. The tenacity of smalltown Britain has rarely looked more impressive or open-minded.

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ATTITUDE | EDIT You’ve been supporting Olly Murs around the UK. How’s that been? It’s the biggest thing I’ve done in my career, I can’t really believe it! Last summer I did outdoor arenas, but when it’s indoors and it’s dark and full of flashing lights, that’s a bit scarier. You’ve toured with Bieber and made fans in One Direction. How do girl audiences take to you? Well I don’t think I’m very threatening. I just sing happy pop music, so I think they’ve warmed to me. They’ve all been excited and supportive at the shows. I’m really happy that I’ve connected to lots of young girls. I want to inspire them. Do you like having that constant interaction with people online? I love it. A lot of people say it takes away the mystery but I’m not really a mysterious person! I just love getting to know as many people as I can. My Twitter following has doubled to 40,000 – I call them my TichFam! Do you see yourself in the same category as other British pop acts like Jessie J or Lily Allen? As long as I’m a female doing pop there will always be comparisons made but I never see myself anywhere near those girls. Jessie is incredible, and I’ve got a bit of that cheeky Cockney thing, too. Playing the keyboard is a big part of your act. Yes, I love the piano, I’m really connected to it. I can play a bit of guitar, but I’ve never taken to it. I’m passionate about songwriting as well. What do you write about? I write based on my moods and my emotions. If I’m feeling something, it just comes out, but I don’t sit down to write consciously. It’s a constant thing. IS your debut album out in 2013? Yes, it’s pretty much done. I’ve been writing so many songs that we keep adding to it and taking away. I have incredible connections with my producers (Matt Prime, Nick Jonas, Andrew Frampton). The whole album will be done with them, really. Where do you want to go in your music career? I just want to make a lot of music and reach out to as many people as I can. I’d also love to do film scores and maybe the Disney movies. That’s my dream. I’d love to have themes and write 30 songs for a musical. That’s really exciting. Tich’s debut single, Dumb, is out on May 12

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words ben kelly

“i’M happy to connect with lots of girls. i wanT to inspire them”

INTRODUCIN G

TIC H

She counts One Direction as fans and has done a UK tour supporting Olly Murs. And she’s only 19

17/04/2013 15:31:45

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With

CULTURE CLUB

TWEETS

n Matthew Cai

CHANNEL 4’S MATTHEW CAIN ON THE 19TH-CENTURY AMERICAN POET WHO SCANDALISED WITH HIS SEXUALLY EXPLICIT VERSE

@rozgoddard I love the forensic way Walt Whitman interrogates the everyday. He breaks the surface of the world, dives in.

WALT WHITMAN

@Keats_Shelley I suspect ‘I sing the body electric’ is one of the sexier pieces of poetry in the C19th!

@Due_Strade Read it a few years ago: breathtakingly beautiful.

THINK YOU DON’T LIKE POETRY?

THINK IT’S BORING, WORTHY AND UNSEXY? WELL THINK AGAIN – AND DISCOVER THE POETRY OF WALT WHITMAN orn in 1819 on Long Island, Walt Whitman worked as a journalist, teacher and carpenter before self-publishing the first edition of Leaves of Grass in 1855. It caused a sensation, its proselike free verse breaking all the rules of poetry and its celebration of the joys of nature rejecting the convention of rejoicing in the spiritual. Perhaps most shockingly, Whitman revelled

in the sensuality of the human body, over the years adding to the collection several poems that celebrated everything from the wonders of erections (‘love-flesh swelling’) to ejaculation (‘jets of love’ or ‘love-juice’). As if all that weren’t enough for 19th-century readers, much of the sexuality explored in Leaves of Grass is what we’d now call gay. In the Calamus poems Whitman announces his intention to

@zach2504 The work of Allen Ginsberg is certainly influenced by Whitman, which is worth mentioning. @bakerpictures I like the verse Song for Occupations, of many jobs that existed then but now long gone after machines arrived to replace men. @m_a_r_t_y_n Spent a beautiful evening in Milan with Italian I was in love with translating & reading To a Stranger 2 each other once. @Mavro_Arni Hard to say whether Whitman was despised more in his home country for openly loving men or for being the first modern pagan.

@MatthewCainC4

celebrate what he calls ‘the manly love of comrades’. He wrote the series after falling in love with Fred Vaughan, a teenager he lived with in the late 1850s, and some of the poems express his despair at the couple’s split. But out of the relationship comes Whitman’s acceptance of his sexuality and a desire to shout it out to the world. In In Paths Untrodden he’s ‘Resolv’d to sing no songs today but those of manly attachment’ and in Native Moments he declares, ‘I will play a part no longer, why should I exile myself from my companions?’ In some of my favourite lines in the same poem, he addresses other gay men and expresses a sense of solidarity which I find hugely moving 150 years later. ‘Oh you shunn’d persons, I at least do not shun you, I come forthwith in your midst, I will be your poet, I will be more to you than to any of the rest.’ He even goes as far as telling us the kind of man he’s attracted to – the ‘lawless, rude, illiterate’ – and confesses that, ‘I am for those who believe in loose delights, I share the midnight orgies of young men’. Try reading that after a wild weekend and I dare you not to shudder.

BOOK PREVIEWS A VIRTUAL LOVE ANDREW BLACKMAN The new book from the writer of On the Holloway Road is about a man juggling multiple selves as he presents different faces to the world. But when a beautiful woman mistakes him for a famous blogger, he is forced into increasingly desperate measures to maintain the person she believes him to be. An intriguing novel about perception and identity.

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THE HIRED MAN AMINATTA FORNA From prize-winning author Aminatta Forna comes a novel about a man leading a quiet existence in a Croatian town. But when an English family moves into a local house and hires him for repair work, ancient passions and well-buried memories start to surface… Sure to be a riveting piece of literature from the writer of Ancestor Stones and The Memory of Love.

THE CHILD’S CHILD BARBARA VINE Barbara Vine, alter-ego of the prolific Ruth Rendell, examines betrayal in a family situation, probing the themes of illegitimacy and homosexuality in her new novel. Set in London and Devon over half a century ago, it portrays how social attitudes have changed, and yet remain stubbornly the same in many respects. Sure to be a pageturning literary event. Book previews Will Davis

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REX FEATURES

ED IT | A TTITU D E

A casual glance at Whitman’s diaries confirms his tastes; he describes in detail picking up young working-class men on the streets and taking them home for sex. But the poet also enjoyed lengthy, loving relationships, perhaps most significantly with Irish bus conductor Peter Doyle. The pair met one stormy

FA C T F I L E • Born May 31, 1819, died March 26, 1892. • Friends with Oscar Wilde who, after visiting him in 1882, boasted, ‘I have the kiss of Walt Whitman still on my lips.’ • Influenced the Beat poets,

DH Lawrence, Bram Stoker, Benjamin Britten and Isadora Duncan. • Quoted by Madonna in her song Sanctuary on the Bedtime Stories album and often referenced in American TV series Breaking Bad.

night when Whitman was a passenger on Doyle’s horse car. In an interview after his death, Doyle said, ‘We were familiar at once – I put my hand on his knee – we understood.’ Whitman taught the illiterate Doyle how to read and the two of them were photographed looking lovingly into each other’s eyes. But while all the evidence suggests Whitman was out of the closet privately, he stopped short of publicly confirming his homosexuality. Ever since the first edition of Leaves of Grass was denounced as obscene, he’d been dogged by scandal, with one critic accusing him of that ‘horrible sin not to be mentioned among Christians’. Of course, there’s still some resistance to accepting that Whitman was gay, particularly as he’s widely taught in American schools. But there’s no doubt that he was. Just dip into Leaves of Grass – it’s all there. And I love it. For me it opens up a space for reflection in our frantically paced modern lives and offers a retreat from the brutalising influence of the more self-destructive lifestyles that can take a tight hold on so many of us. But you have to be brave enough to read it. Go on, I dare you. And then tell me poetry isn’t sexy.

CLASSIC READ

DE PROFUNDIS OSCAR WILDE

The tempestuous relationship between Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas now stands as one of the most iconic gay love stories of all time, certainly one of the most dramatised. Looking at Oscar Wilde’s own 50,000-word letter of accusation to his ‘Bosie’, it’s easy to see why. Written in 1897 during Wilde’s imprisonment for gross indecency, the letter is a furious indictment of Lord Alfred, as a lover, a friend and a man. Wilde’s manuscript positively throbs with passion at Bosie’s betrayal of his feelings. He drags up one example after another of the injustices committed against him, from Bosie’s repeated failure to care for Wilde in the same

way that Wilde cared for him, to his readiness to spend Wilde’s money. At the same time, Wilde artfully blames himself for Bosie’s spoilt behaviour, careful to make it seem as though his only real shortcoming is a willingness to believe in goodness – and ultimately identifying with none other than Jesus himself. But even a pen wielded with skill like Wilde’s can’t disguise from the reader the portrait that emerges: of a genius who allowed himself to be destroyed by love, an act for which he ultimately, had himself to blame. It is this sad truth that resonates with such power in De Profundis, the ultimate gay love letter.

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17/04/2013 15:43:48

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M U S I C R E V I E WS | ED IT | A TTITU D E

LITTLE BOOTS NOCTURNES / ON REPEAT

Lyrically, Little Boots is still the girl at the disco but she digs deeper musically on Nocturnes, moving closer to Goldfrapp territory on songs such as Broken Record. Here she goes back to basics, referencing 70s disco on Beat Beat, and house influences of the 80s and 90s on Every Night. Full of nostalgia and retro, it’s a creative sophomore effort. Ben Kelly

AGNETHA

MARQUES TOLIVER

In a rare retreat from her life of seclusion in Stockholm, Abba’s blonde bombshell, Agnetha, is back with a new solo album in English – her first in nearly a decade. Lead single When You Really Love Someone is a triumphant pop track with a soaring chorus – somewhere between Abba and Take That, thanks to the writing skills of our own Gary Barlow. He sings on another track, where Agnetha notes that their voices ‘work so well together’. Classic production with a slightly modern edge leaves her sounding like Lana Del Rey’s nan on melancholic tracks such as Flower and Past Forever. Largely a mid-tempo record, it seems Agnetha knows where she stands when she’s playing solo. Ben Kelly

It’s not every day you come across a singer who plays classical violin, but that’s exactly how 24-year-old Marques Toliver was discovered, busking on the streets of NYC. This debut album delivers beautifully crafted songs, showing off his talent and skill, with similar vocals to John Legend. Already known for writing deep lyrics, often with gay themes, Land of CanAan references biblical and American notions of slavery, taking the listener on a 10-song journey – it’s a solid piece without a filler in sight. With Adele as a fan and a Jools Holland appearance in the bag, Toliver is surely a musical sensation in the making. Watch your back, Frank Ocean. Ben Kelly

A / POLYDOR

LAND OF CANAAN / BELLA UNION

3 One Direction vs The Wanted

4/5

/5

PIE CHARTS Beyoncé’s summer plans

50% Homophobic

50% Homoerotic 20% Plotting royal baby/Blue Ivy matchmaking

20% Creating a clone

ENGLISH RAIN/ PARLOPHONE

Nice girl, that Gaby Aplin, even if her cover of The Power of Love for John Lewis did get us sobbing into the eggnog this Christmas. Her debut album is packed with pretty folkpop songs but it’s not soft. ‘Maybe you were happy, I was bored,’ she tells a tedious ex on Panic Cord. On this evidence, she’s the kind of nice girl we like – one with a feisty side. Nick Levine

/5

Bonnie Tyler at Eurovision

5% ‘Whooaaa 5% Body Builder’s Form’ hat 10% Key change

20% Defeating North Korea

GABRIELLE APLIN

3

10% Teaching Blue Ivy the Single Ladies dance

30% Album no 5

3/5

15% Bacardi Breezers

20% Smoke/wind machine

40% Where am I?

NATALIE MAINES

MOTHER / SONY 5% Leather

The Dixie Chicks star has made her first solo record with a mix of originals and classic rock covers. She’s steering in a different direction but her distinctive voice can’t escape her famous band. At times the music is sparse, like the Pink Floyd cover that titles the album, but has rockier moments. It’s experimental, but she knows what she’s talking about. Ben Kelly

3/5

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ATTITUDE | FILM

Words Ryan Gilbey Spock

Uh u ra Kha n

Cheko v

n ey r ngo Kli d of P r Bi

rp te En701 S 1 US CCN

ri

se

Gay Spock

Star Trek – whether in its multiple cinematic or TV incarnations – is a miraculously gay-friendly phenomenon. Put it down to the socially inclusive sensibility of its founder, Gene Roddenberry, whose original vision of the USS Enterprise and its crew members was sexually equal and racially diverse (the show famously featured US television’s first interracial kiss). Or the buddy-buddy closeness of Captain James T Kirk (William Shatner) and the logic-obsessed Mr Spock (Leonard Nimoy), who is forever grappling with the vagaries of human emotions. And while we’re on the subject of Spock, can it really be a coincidence that his father’s planet of origin shares its name with an old UK gay porn magazine (Vulcan)? Then there are the camp or extravagant villains, notably the glamorous Khan, played with matinee-idol pomp and swagger by Ricardo Montalban, originally in the 1967 episode Space Seed, and then again in the excellent 1982 film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. (‘Montalban Montalban may be the most romantic smoothie of all sci-fi villains,’ wrote the critic Pauline Kael. ‘He He looks

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like an Inca priest…’) Maybe Star Trek’s gay appeal comes down to nothing more than the butt-hugging black kecks and brightly coloured jumpers sported by the cast. But something about the Star Trek universe has always made it the science-fiction entertainment of choice for viewers whose imaginations reach over the rainbow. JJ Abrams’ snazzy reboots – Star Trek in 2010, and now its 3D sequel, Star Trek: Into Darkness – have done nothing to diminish this aspect. What do you expect when you cast as Captain Kirk the twinkly eyed pretty boy Chris Pine, and then give him an entire scene rolling around in his underwear? Or when your Dr Spock (Zachary Quinto) is one of the few out gay actors in Hollywood? Not that Quinto is the first Trek cast member to boldly go out of the closet: George Takei, who played Sulu in the original series and six feature films, bows to no man in his openness; in recent years he has popped up as a gay fairy godfather on popular nerdcom The Big Bang Theory. Now, there are women on board the Enterprise, and a very important role

5 Klingon Kang from the original series, always up to no good.

4

Tribbles. Well they get everywhere.

3 Weyoun of Star Trek Deep Space Nine, camp as Christmas, and then some.

2

Captain of the USS Voyager, silvertongued Captain Kathryn Janeway.

Kirk

they play, too. But let’s not disregard entirely the sexual tension that is bound to arise when there are so many men cooped up together in a confined space, and when one of them was as Davy Jones-ishly adorable as Chekov, the pocket-sized Russian Second Officer. Chekov was played by Walter Koenig and installed as a direct sop to teenage viewers; the character’s cuteness factor went into overdrive once Anton Yelchin took over the part in Abrams’ instalments. At the time of writing, the new Star Trek film has yet to be unveiled. But with dashing Benedict Cumberbatch as the villain, and Abrams pledging to look into the long-overdue inclusion of one or more gay characters, the darkness referred to in its title is unlikely to be that of the closet. Star Trek: Into Darkness opens on May 9

1

From The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager, the omnipotent Q. Fabulous wardrobe!

Sulu

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N E W R E L E A SES | ATTITU D E

Reviews Matt Mueller

3/5 BYZANTIUM Gemma Arterton, Saoirse Ronan You’re forgiven if the diabolical Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters made you swear off Gemma Arterton for a while. But trust us, this vampire thriller is heaps more fun. It’s also a century-hopping jumble, although the campy, vampy Arterton, dressed in sex-shop skimpies, has a blast playing her role like a blood-sucking drag queen. The always winning Ronan brings the mope as Gemma’s sulky daughter, and director Neil Jordan (Interview with the Vampire) revels in his return to gore. Released on May 31

3/5

I'M SO EXCITED!

Javier Cámara, Cecilia Roth, Lola Dueñas Considering Pedro Almodóvar’s last film, The Skin I Live In, was such a chilling house of horrors, the volte-face he pulls with this extravagantly camp airborne comedy couldn’t be more startling. But also welcome, with our man Pedro snuggling up to his feisty, funny 80s work like a drowning man clinging to a life raft. The screwball set-up couldn’t be simpler: when a Peninsula Airways flight develops engine trouble after take-off, the crew drugs the economy cabin to stop them complaining, leaving the pilots and business-class passengers (including Roth’s dominatrix and Dueñas’s virgin psychic) in the hands of three gay flight attendants (Cámara, Raúl Arévalo and Carlos Areces). They’re a flamboyant, mescaline-ingesting Greek chorus whose salty chatter gives way to carnal antics and a choreographed routine of the titular disco smash. If Almodóvar feels like taking a break from dark materials, who are we to complain? Frothy fun, with cameos from Penélope Cruz and Antonio Banderas to boot. Released on May 3

THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST Riz Ahmed, Liev Schreiber, Kate Hudson Mira Nair makes a decent fist of adapting Mohsin Hamid’s best-seller, mostly capturing the complexity of a novel that slams extremism of any variety. Ahmed is superb as Changez, the Pakistani whose American dream (Wall Street job, rich artist girlfriend in the miscast Hudson) goes sour post-9/11 and who ends up a terror suspect back in modern-day Lahore, where he’s now an Islamic studies lecturer. Changez’s journey, told in flashback, is compelling; the CIA thriller Nair plasters across the top like sloppy cement, less so. Released on May 10

2/5

D

VD The ninth edition of this RELEA SE praiseworthy series delivers another eclectic, genre-bending collection of LGBT shorts from around the globe. It’s always intriguing to see gay experiences filtered through the lens of other cultures: top marks in this batch goes to Family Affair from Brazil, which depicts a council-estate youth trying to fit in with his brother’s friends; It’s Not a Cowboy Film, a tale of French classmates chatting about Brokeback Mountain the morning after it has been shown on TV; and – our gold-star winner – the accomplished Prora, in which a French and German teen explore a vast, deserted holiday complex built by the Nazis. Available now

BOYS ON FILM 9: 3/5 YOUTH IN TROUBLE

THE LOOK OF LOVE Steve Coogan, Anna Friel, Imogen Poots British smut-mag pioneer Paul Raymond, whose London property empire saw him dubbed The King of Soho, gets a biopic that falls between two stools. On the one hand, director Michael Winterbottom and Coogan relish the happy hedonism of Raymond’s self-made rise – drughoovering, mistresses. On the other, they attempt to deliver an emotional sting in Raymond’s softhearted relationship with beloved daughter Debbie (Poots). Neither strand satisfies nor delivers. In cinemas now

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ATTITUDE | FEA TURE

Words Xxxxxxxxxxx Photography Xxxxxxxxxxx

B I G GAY FO L LOW I N G

PEDRO One of the world’s most successful and distinctive film directors is back with one of his campiest films to date. With a UK exclusive interview, Attitude meets the Spanish genius

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GETTY IMAGES

ALMODÓVAR

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ATTITUDE | FEA TURE

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b i g g a y f o l l o win g | ATT ITU D E

[ WOR D S m at t m ue ller]

left

Posters for High Heels (1991) and All About My Mother (1999)

Since launching his career in the late 70s, Spain’s most celebrated film-maker, Pedro Almodóvar, has always treated the sexual predilections and passions of his characters with an unjudgmental eye. Whether gay, straight, bisexual, transsexual, porn star or kidnapper, they meet and fall in love in any and all combinations. He has also fiercely resisted stereotypying, and, in that sense, his new film, the frothy airborne comedy I’m So Excited!, is a departure. Its trio of trolley-dolly protagonists – Joserra, Ulloa and Fajas – are the most flamboyant gay men ever to have minced through an Almodóvar movie. When a technical failure aboard threatens their Peninsula Airways flight, this chatty trio drug the economy class passengers and turn the business-class cabin and pilots’ cockpit into a hedonistic den of tequila-swilling, drug-taking, orgiastic sex and choreographed dance routines. If only Attitude’s flight to Madrid to meet Almodóvar had been this much fun. The headquarters of his production company, El Deseo, occupies a five-storey building in the city’s swish Salamanca district and is decorated with jumbo-sized posters from his films (Volver, All About My Mother, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!). We happen to meet the same day that Margaret Thatcher died, although Almodóvar is far more concerned by the same-day passing of one of his beloved icons, the Spanish singer-actress Sara Montiel. ‘I’m very sorry for Sara Montiel but in my heart there is no place for Margaret Thatcher,’ he says. ‘She was a very bad example for some of the Spanish politicians that are now in power.’ Having grown up in Franco’s shadow, Almodóvar laments the fact that the spirit of La Movida, the Madrid-based flowering of cultural and sexual liberation that exploded in the Spanish dictator’s wake, is growing ever more distant. ‘When I think of those years it seems like some sort of mirage. But I don’t want to be pessimistic.’ While I’m So Excited! references Spain’s economic crisis, Almodóvar wants it to be embraced as he intended: a giddy escapist comedy. Rebottling the screwball spirit of 80s comedies such as Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, the film feels like an exuberant love letter to the fans who have long adored him for embracing transgressive themes. While Almodóvar has always endeared himself to gay moviegoers, he’s also guarded his private life with ferocity. The temptation is there to ask him whether the younger man accompanying him from the hospital is his current partner. But when he recounts a story about snapping one journalist’s head off after he had dared pose such an impudent query, that temptation is best resisted. Nonetheless, Almodóvar, who has often appeared reluctant to discuss his sexuality in print, is more than happy to do so with Attitude, speaking with lively exuberance about I’m So Excited!, his early years in Madrid and his desire to be young again…

I’m So Excit ed! captur es the spirit of your ca m p, a n a rc hic 198 0 s com edies, in part icular Wom en O n T he V e rg e O f A Nervous B reakdown. Was it fun going back to your roots?

I actually thought that making this film would be a much lighter experience for me than the films I’ve been making but it wasn’t like that at all. For the actors it was just a party, day after day. But comedy is one of the most difficult genres because it requires much more precision. But the film was a joy for all of us to make, particularly because it took me back to the tone of the first films that I made when I started off my career. It became unconsciously a kind of tribute to the 80s. That decade impregnated my memories when I was writing. Your film s ar e oft en being turned into plays, i n c ludi n g a Wom en O n Th e Verge…m u sical that’s com ing to t he West E n d this year. T his one is set alm ost enti rely i nsid e a passen ge r plane. Di d you have th e stage in mi nd?

No, what I had in my head was the typical American screwball comedy. But I did have this red curtain in the film because they have to separate the spaces on the plane, and the idea there is definitely to bring the impression of a theatre stage curtain. And the three stewards, they’re just perfect for some sort of Broadway musical comedy; they’re like the chorus in a Greek tragedy. A r e you i nvolved at all in the Women O n The V erge … m usica l , which op ened or igi nally on B roadway in 2010?

I’m coming to London for the first workshop. It’s the same team but not the same actors. They are going to approach it in a completely different way to what it was on Broadway and I’m very comfortable with that. But I try not to interfere. Is I’m So Excit ed! an att em pt to put a bit of l igh t ness bac k into your work aft er two dark tragedies, B rok en EMB RACES a n d T he Skin I Live In?

I wanted to go back to comedy and, thinking about the situation we are living with now in Spain, I thought it was a good idea to release a comedy in this moment. I think it’s great to be able to celebrate at this time just being alive, and also to remind people that the greatest gift given to us by nature is sex, and to pay tribute to the new freedoms that we gained here in Spain. It’s a good time to think about those things. Besi des bei ng a love letter to that early caree r ex u ber a n ce , the fi lm also f ee ls like a c eleb ration of gay se x ua l it y.

I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily a celebration of homosexuality itself. It’s more to do with the fact that it’s a screwball comedy. When you’re doing a crazy comedy and it’s set inside a plane, the obvious

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ATTITUDE | b ig g a y fo llo w i ng right

Titillation in Kika (1993) and shooting for Bad Education (2004) OPPOSITE PAGE

The Skin I Live In (2011), Penélope Cruz in Volver (2006) and Law of Desire (1987)

thing is to make the three flight attendants who are your main characters as flamboyant as you can. These three are more overtly feminine compared to my other gay characters. But I’m more celebrating the explosion of freedoms that we gained back in the 1980s than homosexuality itself. It’s a celebration of feelings and it’s a celebration of sexuality itself, whether it’s bisexual, heterosexual, homosexual, and with virgins or non-virgins. H ave yo u e ve r drunk a Vale ncia co c ktail lac e d wit h m escaline, wh ich is w hat t he fligh t atte ndants s e rve business class?

Oh yes. It was a cocktail very in vogue in the mid-80s, a bit like a Bellini. The real cocktail didn’t include mescaline but in 1985 we tried mixing it with mescaline and they were very effective. It was an extremely strong aphrodisiac. I think it lasted only two years because people really went a bit crazy with that concoction. D o yo u f e e l n o stalgia fo r t ho s e he ady days o f drug-taking and se x ual l i be r at io n that yo u e xp e r ie nc e d in Madr id at the tim e?

More than nostalgic, I’d just like to be young again. The 80s coincided with two things: it was a new democracy, the new opening up of Spain, and I was also very young at the time. It was the ideal combination. But times have changed, the world has changed. I’m different. We’ve all changed over the years, for the worse, I fear. The Madrid now is not the Madrid of the 80s because the young people today are not the same as we were. Madrid used to be the city that lived through the night but now that’s gone. I think I had much more freedom when I started off being a director than someone like me would have today. And that’s more than nostalgia, I think. Yo u f i rst m ove d to Madrid against yo ur par e nts ’ w ishes, wh en

in London because all the waiters were Spanish so I could get in for free. Lots of people from the music scene used to hang out there. And I went almost every day to the cinematheque on the South Bank, even though my English was worse than now. And w h at ab out M adrid – were t here places to g o? Wh at ki n d of social life did you have?

I’ve never gone to gay clubs. I’ve spent my spare time, my life in general, in the same way as any heterosexual. I live, work and love in mixed places. I’ve never liked ghettos. But that doesn’t mean that the life of someone openly gay was easy during the dictatorship. Not at all. Gay clubs did exist under Franco; they existed a lot. But homosexuality was prosecuted and they could put you in prison in the blink of an eye. There was this law for the ‘idle and delinquent’ that included homosexuality as a punishable crime. When I arrived in Madrid there were so many things to enjoy that I almost didn’t realise the underlying horror. Except for some specific moments, I didn’t have to face that horror personally. Wh en did t h ings really c h ange for t he b etter?

I remember that fear was in the air, and I remember how that fear disappeared in 1977. Freedom became tangible, something you could feel. For me what was important was the opportunity to write short scripts and make Super-8 movies. Before Franco died we were free inside, behind closed doors, just not outside. The 70s was such an important time for me. I was making short films, I was in the theatre, even my day job working at Telefónica was a learning experience because I was finding out about the middle classes, which came to be important later in my films. But if I hadn’t thought the dictatorship was going to end, I would have gone to live in Paris or London.

yo u w e r e 17. Spai n was still unde r F r anco. What was it like for a yo u n g, l i ve ly gay p e rs o n dur ing the dictato rs hip?

From t h e start, you created ex plicitly sex ual n a r r at i v es a n d

I came from a small village, so Madrid for me symbolised freedom. It was a chance for me to see films, go to the theatre, live my own life. But I also went to London in the early 70s, and that meant much more freedom. It was the moment of what they called ‘the permissive society’. It was also when glam rock was hitting the headlines, and David Bowie. Everyone’s paying tribute to the great Bowie now. At that time he was a completely liberating experience.

honed your signature sty le for focusing on stron g f e m a l e

Did yo u go to gigs whe n yo u came to Lo ndo n, o r were you l ist e n i n g to m u sic in c lubs ?

I went to both. I remember going to see Alice Cooper, Roxy Music. I even went to a club called Sombrero’s where – I don’t know if it’s true or not – they say David Bowie used to go to, which was near High Street Kensington. That was the only gay place that I went to

ch aracters. Did you feel you could do any t hing i n f i l m ?

The canvas was blank because I was at the beginning and there was freedom. But I had financial limitations, experience limitations. I didn’t have money to make the first movie [1978’s Fuck Me, Fuck Me, Fuck Me, Tim!] so we did something that now has a name – crowdfunding. But what I did have was unlimited desire to become the film-maker I wanted to be. So I made the first couple of no-budget movies and people talked about them and I got the chance to make film number three, Labyrinth of Passion, which I actually had a budget to make. I was very fortunate. If I’d become a director five years before, I don’t think there would have been the interest internationally because it wasn’t until 1985 that people started to say, ‘Oh look, Spain’s changing, Madrid’s changing’. I was just there at the right time.

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b i g g a y f o l l o w in g | ATT I TU D E

I r e ad o n c e t h at yo u dis li k e d bei ng calle d a gay director, or

Your film s depict gays, straights, bisex uals a n d t r a n s s e x ua ls

co m par e d to ot he r gay directo rs who mak e s o -called ‘wom en’s

all fall ing in and out of love with one anoth e r . You v ie w

pict u r es ’, l i k e G eo rg e Cuko r . Is that disti nctio n still

sex uality i n an ex trem ely flu id way.

i m p o rtan t to you?

It’s what I try to reflect in my films but it’s not really about sexuality being fluid, it’s something that I see as much more natural than that. I’m portraying a world of fiction in my films but it’s also my world, it’s the world that I see and live in. If I have gay characters, it’s simply one of the characteristics of their personality. Of course, sexuality can lead to problems in relationships. For me it was always about portraying everything without any prejudice. I always made movies like Franco never existed. That was my small revenge.

I remember saying that. Here in Spain no one calls anyone a ‘gay director’ or says they make ‘gay movies’. Maybe you get it in the US and England but here nobody pigeonholes you. In the US they always introduce you as ‘the gay director’. I said, ‘Why do you do that when you’d never say, “This is Ronald Reagan, the straight president?”’ I’m not saying it’s negative at all to say I’m homosexual, I’m simply saying that there is no sexuality in film itself. I mean, there are film-makers like Derek Jarman who were militant in their approach but I’m not like that. Truman Capote was a socalled flamboyant gay but you would never say that In Cold Blood was a gay novel. They pin these adjectives on you so quickly and unthinkingly… I just think they’re rude. A r e yo u a fan o f the c las sic H o llywo o d fi lms with strong gay s e n si bi l it ies, lik e Cuko r ’s The Wo me n?

I love George Cukor’s movies but my movies are not like his. Except perhaps I’m So Excited!; that is the one film I’ve made that has an overt gay sensibility. Just to give you a comparison, Law of Desire was the story of two men, but the problems between them could be the same for a heterosexual couple, even though, of course, they were making love, they were naked, they were men. I was very fierce when I started going to America. Even now in Spain, nobody asks me the name of my boyfriend. But I remember when I was in New York for Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, the first question from the Village Voice was, ‘What’s the name of your boyfriend?’ I said, ‘Go to hell. Do you know what it is to have respect for someone?’ What I don’t like is to classify because it’s not that easy. There are many more things to define a movie.

Do you keep tabs on any of the gay cinem a or gay fi l m -m a ke rs out there? H ave you seen Weekend or Laurence A n y ways ?

Yes, I saw Weekend. I haven’t seen Laurence Anyways. I have it at home and I will do – he’s very interesting, Xavier Dolan. I’m also curious about Todd Haynes’ work. I think he’s brilliant. I’m a good moviegoer: the problem is there are not so many good movies to watch any more. But I like to go to the cinema at least twice a week. It was great to see PenÉlope Cruz and Antonio Ba n d e r as croppi ng up for a b r ief cam eo in I’m So Excited !

I just spoke to Penélope. She is very big at the moment [Cruz is pregnant with her second child with Javier Bardem]. She called me because she was very sad about Bigas Luna dying [the Spanish director who helped launch Cruz and Bardem in 1992’s Jamon Jamon]. Do you know what you’re doing nex t?

I’ve got a few scripts ongoing at the moment. They’re not as dark as the films I’ve been making but they’re definitely not comedies. I’m So Excited! opens on May 3 from Pathé UK

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VE ST BY S U N S P E L AT S E L F R I D G E S , B R I E FS BY V E R SAC E AT S E L F R I D G E S

COVER STAR BEN FODEN

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Attitude meets one of the UK’s bestkept secrets. Rugby star and husband of Una from the Saturdays, there’s more than meets the eye to Ben Foden

BIG BEN wo rd s Simo n gag e ph oto graph y j osep h sin c la ir slyli n g elaua n lee

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B EN FO D EN Ben Foden is a gentleman. Despite the fact that he plays full-back for Northampton Saints (that’s rugby, they tell us), he is a pussy cat, a sweetheart and a charmer. One of the nicest gentlemen that Attitude has ever had the chance to photograph for the cover, he even mentions how much he enjoys going to G-A-Y (calm yourself, it’s with his famous girlfriend, more of which later). Despite this, it takes precisely two-and-a-half minutes for the subject of his nakedness to come up. And I don’t even think it’s my fault. He bowls into this quaint country pub near where he lives in Hertfordshire, all arms in a sleeveless puffa jacket, orders himself a pint of Coke and comes to sit by a roaring fire. A romantic scene, don’t you think? A bit like a blind date (fat chance). Asked if he knows what the Attitude shoot is going to involve, he says he thinks it’s swimwear because we wanted something summery. Then he laughs. He knows exactly what Attitude wants, and the seasons of the year have very little to do with it. He’s obviously all right with it all. It’s surprising that he’s never done the Dieux du Stade thing, those black-and-white arty photographs of rugby players in the altogether. He says he’s been asked to do it but has never had the time. ‘I probably wouldn’t have gone full-on like some of the guys have,’ he says. Shame, obvs. ‘No, I wouldn’t go fully naked. I think it would be weird. I’d hate to see my mum Googling my name and there being pictures of me naked popping up. Mind you, she’s done that already and naked pictures have popped up of me at my stag do.’ This is literally the first thing we talk about.  The stag do in question saw him being a bit naughty, doing what rugby players do, ie taking his clothes off. In other words, we wished we’d been there. Although not as much as his now good lady wife Una does. Una, in case you’re wondering, is the redhead from pop outfit The Saturdays, now Ben’s wife and mother of his one-year-old daughter. Ben has even been to London’s legendary popfest, G-A-Y, to see his missus

perform. ‘I’ve been twice,’ he says. ‘I had a great time.’ They met after he saw her on the TV and said he fancied her. Yes, like QVC. ‘I think I said, “I want that one” to my agent, and he went and got her for me,’ he laughs before explaining. He’d been having lunch in a pub with his agent and the conversation had turned to his single status. ‘He said, “How’s your love life?” and I was, “Oh, non-existent”. And he said,

I don’t see myself as a celebrity. One friend says if I ever go on I’m a Celebrity... he’ll shoot me

“Is there anyone you’re thinking about?” And I was like, “Not really”. Then the girls… [The Saturdays] popped up on the music channel in the corner and I said, “Oh, the one in the blue tights. I wouldn’t mind a bit of that”. And he said, “‘Funny you should say that because I know someone who knows someone who works with them. I’ll see what I can do”, and I was like, “Oh, whatever”, and the next thing I know I’ve got a text saying, “She’s expecting your call”.’ A meeting was set up and before the end of it the couple had decided to spend the new year together, and here they are now with a baby girl just learning to walk and saying her first words. All this without Ben ever having gone out with that one-woman rugby-entertainment committee, Kelly Brook. ‘I’ve met her a few times,’ he laughs. ‘I met her when she was going out with Danny, and then I met her when she was going out with Thom (Evans, former Attitude cover star) and it’s, “Oh, hi Kelly”. She’s now, obviously, going out with Danny again.’ But does this mean that Ben is looking to move on from the celebrity lifestyle? He explains that, what with the likes of Danny and Thom and Gareth Edwards and Kyran Bracken, who did Dancing on Ice, Matt Dawson on Question of Sport and Gavin Henson, who married Charlotte Church, the celebrity side of things is becoming more of a possibility for the hitherto largely ignored stars of rugby. ‘It’s another way of making a living,’ he says. ‘And it’s a good living. But I don’t see myself as a celebrity. A friend of mine said if I ever go on anything like I’m a Celebrity…’ he’ll shoot me, but never say never. I’m a sportsman and I suppose the possibility of celebrity status crept in a bit because I’m married to a pop star.’ Ben even had a crack at the pop lark himself, once auditioning for a series of Pop Idol. ‘I got through to the next round, which fell on the same day as my first training session with Sale Sharks.’ Pop’s loss was rugby’s gain and his team-mates have never let him live it down. ‘I think they’d say I wasn’t a very good singer,’ he admits with a laugh. ‘I don’t think I will be following in Una’s footsteps.’

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B E N F O D EN | A TTITU D E O p p o s i t e pag e : U n d e rwe a r by U n d e r at Se l f r i d g e s . Th i s pag e : Sh i rt by APC at S e l f r i d g e s , s h o rts by O r l e ba r B row n at S e lf r i d g e s

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ATTITUDE | BEN FO DEN

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BEN FODEN

J e a n s by D i e s e l at S e l f r i d g e s , u n d e rw e a r by D i e s e l at S e lf r i d g e s

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B EN FO D EN He has done red-carpet events, mind you, and has even started to hear his own name called out for him to go over and sign something on someone. Maybe just a pad. But he is starting to look for a Plan B now that he’s hit the rickety old age of 27 and rugby players tend to bow out around 30 or 35. ‘I know 27 sounds relatively young,’ he says, ‘but when you’re looking on the sheet about who you’re playing and the guy opposite you was born in 1991, you realise that you’re pretty old.’ God help us all. Try to press him on what that Plan B is, and he is very cagey. It turns out that he loved acting at school and, if he hadn’t got a rugby scholarship, he had every intention of going to Queen Mary college in London to do an acting degree. Make of those details what you will. He does say when pushed that he is still ‘very interested in acting and the movie industry but it’s still very early on to be deciding on a definitive path’. Ask Ben if he has any gay mates, and he has to think about it before coming up with quite a posse. ‘Sorry,’ he says, ‘I forgot they were gay.’ And that shows the attitude towards gays in rugby, as opposed to the attitude in football, though Ben insists that he thinks it’s the football fans rather than the football players who would be the problem if a soccer player ever came out. ‘I never met Gareth Thomas,’ he says of rugby’s openly gay superstar. ‘I played with

Ben in the all-white strip of england and, below, scoring a try against scotland

a lot of people who did. He’s from Barry, which is one of the hardest places in Wales, and you see him and he’s ripped to the bone and covered in tats. I think that what he’s done is shown the world that it doesn’t matter what your sexuality is, it doesn’t stop you from being a great sportsman.’ He also admires the way he finally came out, knowing the stick he might get from fans. ‘He had to live with the lie for 20 years when he was married, and for him to come out and say, “I’m gay and have been hiding it for 20 years”, it’s a massive credit to him, really. It’s a great thing to do. Probably 20 years ago it wouldn’t have been as accepted as it is today but talking to people who played alongside him, I think it was known for a while. It doesn’t stop him from being a great player and rugby guys are pretty chilled out about sexuality.’ He thinks that Gareth probably got a bit of taunting from fans – ‘There are always going to be idiots’ – but nothing serious. Football, he thinks, would be a different story altogether. ‘You see the problems with racism in the game at the moment, where matches are stopped because of it. If you came out in today’s football, because of the way the fans are, it would be a very hard place to go and make your living. It’s probably a very daunting thing for an athlete to have to face. With Gareth it was towards the end of his career anyway, so he

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boxers by u nde r at sel f ridges

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BEN FODEN

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ATTITUDE | BEN FO DEN

b ox e r b r i e fs by u n d e r at s e l f r i d g e s

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BEN FODEN

Stylist assisted by James Cunningham and Nick Byam Make-up by Adam Burrell using YSL Hair by Marc Ramos using using kevin murphy

didn’t have to stomach it too much.’ But he salutes Gareth for what he’s done and figures that it has cleared the way for gay rugby players in the future. ‘Gareth has been very intelligent in the way that he’s done it,’ he says. ‘He knew what he was letting himself in for and probably wanted to test that out to see what the reaction was. To see if it would be embraced so that it might give a bit of incentive to other gay rugby players out there at the top of the game, if they were thinking, “I can’t live with this secret any longer”.’ It’s strange how the cultures of rugby and football are so different, something some people put down to class. ‘They always say football is a gentlemen’s game played by thugs, and rugby is a thugs’ game played by gentlemen,’ he says before explaining that in rugby they don’t have ‘ends’, in that they don’t isolate the supporters of one team from another and yet, despite the fact that at rugby matches you’re allowed to drink, while at soccer matches alcohol is banned, you still don’t get trouble between the fans. But then rugby does reach the very highest echelons of society: Ben was hanging out with no less than Her Majesty the Queen when he went to the wedding of rugby player Mike Tindall and the Queen’s granddaughter, Zara Phillips. ‘It was fantastic,’ he said. ‘The Queen gave a wave and we toasted her and she went off in her helicopter.’ Well, the Queen hanging around a wedding reception would tend to put the kybosh on everyone getting slaughtered and copping off with the bridesmaids, wouldn’t it? Being a ladies’ man, something of a rugby players’ speciality, is a thing of the past now that Ben is settled down and doing daddy

daycare when his wife is off on Saturdays duties. ‘I wouldn’t say that I was a “lad” before I got married,’ says Ben, ‘but I wasn’t exactly a good boy. Una knows that. She’s happy. She’s like, “At least you got it out of your system”. In rugby it’s quite laddy: let’s all go out and have a few drinks and go after girls. All the girls knew to stay away from us as we were always quite drunk and messy and sweaty and horrible.’ Girls, eh? They never know a good thing when they see it. But never mind girls, rugby players are famous for getting naked and fruity with each other. What’s all that about? ‘It’s something to do with male bonding,’ says Ben. ‘The difference between football and rugby is that rugby is very much a team game: the team won’t be successful unless everyone does their job. Football can rely on having three superstars. In rugby you’re only as good as the guys around you, so the bond is more important.’ And if you’re wondering how come Ben has pictureperfect looks, a nose direct from a statue – a good statue! – and all his own teeth, it’s because he’s one of the ones up the back who get the ball and run with it – not to get too technical. ‘You should see the state of them after they’ve done a few scrums. They get scrum pox with all the stubble rubbing against stubble…’” Be still our beating trousers! But Ben never really experienced any of those nude initiation things or anything like that. ‘No, no naked initiation,’ he says. ‘But we did do a naked lap of the pitch.’ You see? The man’s obsessed! Ben Foden plays rugby union for Northampton Saints and England

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Agnetha Faltskog

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The Winner Takes It All There are superstars and then there are legends, but Abba’s Agnetha Fältskog is up there with the likes of Michael Jackson, Madonna and The Beatles. As she returns with a new solo album Attitude was granted a rare interview – and a gay press exclusive with one of music’s true originals words Andrew Fraser

In an eerily hushed hotel, resembling a Swedish baronial castle, I sit in silence in a bare white room where a single candle flickers. And I wait. A blizzard moans gently outside the windows, through which an icy lake disappears into the dusk. The atmosphere is holy and almost stupidly metaphoric of the enigmatic Agnetha Fältskog, who I have come to meet. Or at least of what we imagine her to be. Five minutes later, as the opening tinkles of The Winner Takes It All pirouette around my brain, she arrives, beaming and exuding a gentle, warm energy that I swear enters the room a few footsteps before she does. While most daintily attractive girls either see their looks fade or mature into beauty, Agnetha is still girlishly pretty at 62. Girlish. I’ve interviewed a few people over the years, from the sublime to the ridiculous, from Joan Collins to Peter Andre. But at this moment all journalistic distance is lost. Oh God, please like me, Agnetha. Actually, if you can bring yourself – love me, just for a moment or three. And please, for heaven’s sake, don’t fear me. Meeting Agnetha is a nigh-onreligious experience. She was, with her fellow Abba legend Frida, and later Morrissey, the voice of my formative years. The Abba phenomenon began with Agnetha and Frida bopping cheerily in Lycra and spangles on Eurovision in 1974. A succession of simple, hopeful and childlike (but not childish) hits (Dancing Queen, Chiquitita, I Have a Dream) ensued. They sang of believing in angels, dancing away the pain and redemption through love. Of fairy-tale endings. There were melancholy moments, but on the whole their songs spoke of the joy of love, romance, kissing your teacher and banging boomerangs. Within 10 years it was all over. Agnetha and Frida had divorced their husbands, the two Bs, Björn and Benny. The dream died before our very ears. It ended with Frida sitting alone on a rocking chair, ‘in the gloom’ of their last album track Like an Angel Passing Through My Room, with only a ticking clock to remind her of life’s

decay. ‘Like the embers as they die, love was one prolonged goodbye,’ she sighed. Meanwhile Agnetha – poor Agnetha! – was huddled in her windswept bedroom. ‘And rattling on the roof I must have heard the sound of rain,’ she sang in broken, scared tones on The Day Before You Came, Abba’s last masterpiece. Of course, we related to them. The story of Abba, like the story of our childhoods, was one of innocence lost. Oh, the rivers of blue mascara Agnetha must have cried. They say never meet your heroes, but Agnetha is wonderful. There is a motherly kindness to her countenance but she is still very much the little girl lost as she speaks of life’s sadnesses. As her often visceral vocals suggest, Agnetha wears her soul on her sleeve – it is the only way she knows how. When we talk about the good times her eyes sparkle like a child’s; when we talk about the sad times, they become watery and pleading. Far from the Garbo-esque, mysterious Swedish snow queen she has been portrayed, Agnetha is an open book – she simply can’t hide her emotions. It’s a childlike quality I have seen in Chaka Khan and poor Amy Winehouse. Perhaps it’s that connection to the inner child that makes these women’s voices so great. The term legend is much overused but Agnetha Fältskog is that. The Abba ‘girls’ have earned their place alongside Elvis, Jacko, John Lennon and Karen Carpenter in the pantheon of musical superstars. And they surely stand above even Madonna and Kylie in the roll-call of gay pop icons. Nobody, but nobody, breaks a heart like Agnetha does on The Winner Takes It All. And here she is doing it again on her new album, where she sings once more of dancing away the pain and wanting to lay down and die. She need never have sung another note, but thankfully for us she has. If you have tears to shed, grab a hanky; if you have a spine, prepare for it to shiver as that crystalline voice soars and breaks with emotion all over again. Thank you for your music, Agnetha. We’ve been lost without you.

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Agnetha Faltskog Attitude: How does it feel to have a new album out? Is it scary? Agnetha: No. [She beams] It’s exciting and very, very good response. Do you like it? A: It’s beautiful. AF: [Agnetha looks genuinely thrilled] Oh thank you very, very much. A: Is it true that before the album you thought you may never sing again? AF: When I made my last album I thought, ‘Maybe this is the last album I do’. I thought, well if that is how it must be, that is how it must be. The producers came to me and said, ‘We would like to play three new songs for you and see what you think’. I said, ‘I would like to listen’. And then I was just... [Agnetha exhales in awe] I just thought they were so wonderful. After a while I said, ‘I think I have to do this. There is a lot we have to talk about first because I am not so young any more and I don’t know what my voice sounds like now’. A: Your voice sounds as fresh as it did when you were 18. AF: Yeah, it’s strange. But it didn’t from the beginning. I could feel that I had lost some energy in my voice and you get easily tired. But everywhere it sounded good. It got better and better. I took some singing lessons too. A: I can’t believe Agnetha took singing lessons. AF: [Laughs] But that was mostly because I felt rusty. It was easy to get into it again. A: You sing, more than anyone I can think of, absolutely from the soul. AF: Yeah. [She beams] That’s what I hope. I really go into a song and I have to know exactly what the song is about. It is like going into a role. It feels like each song has a story to tell and I would like to give it exactly the feeling that the composer has been thinking of. A: My favourite piece of storytelling ever in a song was on The Day Before You Came. AF: [She smiles broadly] Ah, you like that? It’s so strange, I have read that some people didn’t think I could sing any more when I did that song. Because my voice was breaking as I sang it – but that was why. It

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was part of the storytelling that it should sound like that. A: We are left wondering what happened the day after he came. It leaves us with a dot, dot dot... Was it a very good thing, or a terrible thing? Did you have an idea in mind when you sang it? AF: Yeah. [She leans forward and whispers] I think that it was a very bad thing. Unfortunately. [Laughs] Yes, it was definitely a bad thing about to happen, I’m afraid. A: Was it your last Abba recording? AF: It was one of the last. I don’t know so much any more. The Visitors, I think, was our last album. It was a bit deep. Heavy, I think. That’s when we stopped. Was The Day Before You Came on that album? A: No, it wasn’t. AF: So that was just a single? [Laughs] You know more than I do! Yes, I like that tune. A: How would you describe the mood of the new album, A? AF: I think it is a good mixture. It is about love, because nearly every song in the world is about love. It just isn’t the same to sing about politics, or something else. That’s why you can give so much when you sing because love is so strong. It’s easier... every human being is involved with love in some different way and it touches you very much. The last song on the album, I Keep It on the Floor Beneath My Bed... A: It’s my favourite track on the album. AF: Oh really? When I sat down to write it, I meant to write a child’s lullaby. But it came out as a total love song. I am so happy that you like that song. A: I heard The Winner Takes it All when I was too young to understand what heartbreak felt like. It becomes clear, when you listen to it, that ‘Oh, this is going to happen to me at some point and it will feel like this’.

‘The Winner Takes It All is my favourite ABBA SONG. iT IS INCREDIBLE AND VERY, VERY TOUCHING’ AF: You’re right. The Winner Takes It All is my favourite Abba song. It is incredible and very, very touching. A: I always imagine that you sang it all in one take. AF: I think I did. Because I remember that song recording. It was both difficult and easy to do at the same time. You can get the best recording from the first time you do it, because that is when you feel the emotions and the energy most strongly. It’s new and you haven’t got tired of it yet. A: Was it about your life? People assume that it was... AF: Frida said a short while ago that Björn wrote lyrics about the four of us. So I think it’s a mixture of both of our feelings and sadnesses. A: Your producers said that on A they wanted to explore what you would have sounded like if Abba had never happened. AF: Yes, they have said that, but I think that I don’t want to look on it like that because Abba was such a big part of me and we are, all four of us, so proud of what we achieved. But I know what they’re thinking about. I had a career long before Abba and so I joined Abba as a famous singer in Sweden. A: Did you ever want to write songs for Abba? AF: They asked me a lot. I didn’t actually have time, and also the boys were writing so

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I M AGES: G ETT Y A N D R EX

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Agnetha Faltskog good, so I didn’t have any chance. I did one song and that is called Disillusion. I couldn’t have done it, though, because during the times when we were free and the boys were recording and writing, I wanted to be with the children. That was my slow, cool period. A: The other song of yours I love is Slipping Through My Fingers. AF: Yeah. It is heartbreaking. And I can see our little girl when she goes to school, up on the street [she wells up] and I think Björn saw that too when he wrote the lyrics. A: Would you ever want to sing again with Frida? Your voices are very special together. AF: Yeah. Really. We have talked about it. Fantasised like that. But we have done so much, both of us now. I met Frida during the summer, in Majorca, and we sat and... well, you easily get very nostalgic. A: They were tough times too... AF: Yeah, they were. And I am sure that Frida and I, we still could do it, but now I have this CD to think of. I’m not sure I’m going to do any more after this. But then I thought this the last time I brought out a CD. It would be stupid to get too old and to sing, and you don’t have the same quality. We are very aware of that now and I said that if it sounded too old, or I don’t have the same energy, we should not release it. But it came out sounding good and fresh. A: What do you listen to? AF: We have a very talented Swedish singer called Robyn. I follow the Eurovision Song Contest in Sweden and I was amazed that there were so many good songs and artists and they dance and sing at the same time. A: You have a huge gay audience. AF: I know that in that world, our music is very, very beloved and that makes us very happy to hear. And I wonder what it is that makes that? The honesty and the feelings...and also, maybe the mixture of happiness and sadness which appeals to our gay audience. A: After Muriel’s Wedding Abba became known as camp, which I never thought you really were. AF: What is camp? A: Kitsch.

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‘fRIDA AND I HAVE A CLOSE RelATIONSHIP NOW, MORE TODAY THAN BACK THEN. WE UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER MORE’ AF: Ah! Abba was so much more than that. It was not simple. It was serious and carefully worked. It was good, special original music and lyrics, our voices together... the mixture of a lot of fantasies. It was never kitsch. A: When you were given the chance to make the new album, your daughter warned you, ‘It could all start again’. What is IT? AF: [Laughs] She said, ‘Are you sure you’re gonna do this, Mother?’ It means that the carousel starts all over again. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘let’s hope so!’ Music is really my world. It has been since I was four or five years old. It is hard to get away from it totally. A: The press has said that you are a recluse. You don’t seem like that. AF: Well there have been times when I have been hurt by what the press writes about me, and sometimes, when you are being hurt or sad, you are not in the right level that you should be. Life goes up and down for all of us. And yes, it is very hurtful – ‘She is a mysterious lady, she is like Greta Garbo.’ I am not like that. I am a very earth-grounded human being. I’m also very sensible. One has to think that it is not always easy to be a world star alone. We were world stars but there were four of us. We helped each other a lot during the interviews. The boys could talk much better English than at least I could. So to be on your own and have a world career is very difficult. A: Your producers have worked with Britney Spears. AF: [She sighs] It must be hard for people like her, to just get into it and be so young. Amy Winehouse, it’s just so tragic... her voice was amazing. AF: It was said that you and Frida were rivals who threw gold discs at each other and couldn’t stand one another.

AF: [Laughs] Yes, I read that! I can’t remember that, no. It was, of course, tiresome when we were at the height of our fame, to travel so much and do the concerts. And we were two couples, so of course there were irritations sometimes. We were tired. But we often helped each other as well. Especially the concerts. If Frida felt down or tired, I’d say, ‘Oh I shall work for two’, and she would do the same for me. I often had problems with my throat when I had my tonsils removed – sometimes we had to work when we had a fever. So we relied on each other. It must be so hard for solo artists. You can never be ill. It was scary, I would always be scared of getting ill – and sometimes you just did. But you knew that you just had to work anyway. A: And you can’t have a sad day. AF: No, and people don’t know how you feel. It can be lonely. But it could be so funny as well. We did a mini-musical, The Girl with the Golden Hair. Frida and I had matching wigs on. One evening Frida’s wig was not on very tight and she did a dance move and her wig came off. [She laughs raucously] We had our own hair underneath, in a sock, so poor Frida was on stage with her hair on her head in a big sock. We just laughed so much. A: You must have laughed a lot when you got together in Majorca. AF: Oh yeah. There was a lot of nostalgia. It’s great to have such memories, it means a lot to all of us. A: It’s nice that you are all still friends. It can’t have been easy under the circumstances. AF: No, it was not. And especially after our divorces it was not the same any more. But I think we really made the best of it. A: You all carried yourselves with dignity. AF: You’re right there, I think so too. And after Björn and I divorced we worked together a lot of years after that, and so did Benny and Frida. But we were sad for each other. A: Did you and Frida confide in each other when things became tough in your marriages? AF: Yes we did and we were very aware of what was happening to each other. But you know we have never been the kind of girls that see each other every day. But I think we have a very close friendship now. More today than back then probably. A: You are very different personalities. AF: Yes. I think now we have got older we understand each other more. A: Your voices were magical together... [Her eyes sparkle] I think so too.

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A Bov e, Ag n etha today at 6 2 . R i gh t, wi th h u s ban d bj Örn a n d dau g h te r l i n da i n N ew Yo r k i n th e late 70s

A: I’d love to hear you and Frida sing I Know Him So Well [from Chess]. AF: Oh yes. That’s a lovely song. That would be very nice. A: It’s not going to happen, though? Even if we beg? AF: [Laughs] I don’t think so, I’m afraid. A: Who are your favourite singers? AF: Sandie Shaw is one of my favourites. I have her records. She was very tough and very nice, I think. And I also like Cilla Black, Connie Francis and Dusty Springfield. I first sang, miming Connie Francis songs into a mirror. A: Sandie said that winning Eurovision was one of the most miserable nights of her life. AF: Oh no. Our night was fantastic. I didn’t think we would win. I thought we would come number three or something, and we would have been very happy with that. A: When and where were you happiest? AF: In my whole life? When I had my children. I was pregnant with my daughter the year before Eurovision. She is an actress now, 40 years old [Agnetha looks proud]. A: Would you like to act? AF: I have a little. I would like to do more, a real character role, but I think I’m too old now. A: Is there an Abba song you hate and wish you hadn’t recorded? AF: There are some but not many. The worst was the King Kong song [from their second

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album, Waterloo]...[Laughs. She sings] ‘You do the King Kong Song. Gotta sing along.’ Oh dear, maybe we should have left that out. A: Looking back over your life, what would you change? AF: It’s very difficult for me to look back and regret things. It feels wrong. I would rather not think about life in that way. Things are like they are and you just have to accept things. And learn your lessons. It’s like with your children, you want to save them from all the bad things but you can’t – they have to make their own mistakes. A: Would you go back on stage and sing with Abba again? AF: Oh I wish I could say, ‘Yeeeaaahhh!’ But no. I don’t think it will happen. We live our separate lives now and there’s no need for it. There are wishes that we will do it, but no need. We have already done so much together, so I don’t think it will happen. A: Leave it perfect. AF: Yes, that’s right. But there is an Abba museum opening soon which will be wonderful. That is also a very strange thing, to open a museum about us. We have given them all our outfits. A: What gives you most pleasure in life? AF: To be with my family and Mother Nature. Long walks and sun, the sea, food and good wine! A: Was there a sense when it was coming to the end with Abba...

AF: I can’t remember that really. There were strange songs on [last album] The Visitors. It was not like an Abba album, not at all. Even the song Visitors, and Like an Angel Passing Through My Room. My favourite Frida song was Our Last Summer, I love it. A: How did you decide who sang which song? AF: It was decided mainly by the boys. A: I would love to hear your version of Like an Angel and Frida’s version of The Winner Takes It All. AF: Yeah. I wonder what it would sound like, really? I think it would be just great. A: The next project...? AF: Yes! [Agnetha laughs and then shakes her head reprovingly] No!!! A: So, one last question. Do you ever imagine your life if Abba hadn’t happened? AF: No, no. I very seldom look back and think, ‘I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t done that’. I’m not that kind of person. I live for now and forwards. But all four of us are so grateful for what we achieved and what our music has given to people and for ourselves. A: In what way?’ AF: When my self-confidence is very, very low, it can happen that I put on The Winner Takes It All or some other song and just feel.... [she takes a long breath] proud. [Her eyes fill with tears] And I think, ‘Ah! I did this! No one can ever take this away from me.’ The Album A is out on May 13

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I L L U S T R AT I O N N O M A B A R W O R D S W I L L I A M L E E A D A M S

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HOW TO

{ SCORE } AT EUROVISION

THE SEX SHENANIGANS BEHIND THE SONG CONTEST

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ast May, the organisers of the Eurovision Song Contest in Baku, Azerbaijan, ran with the slogan ‘Light your fire!’ For the legions of gay Eurovision fans who make the journey to the contest every year, it almost seemed redundant. At an event where hooking up is as common as aspiring pop stars in sequins, a bit of heat is expected. Sergio, a 25-year-old Australian, still quivers when he recounts a rendezvous that started at EuroClub – a dance venue organisers set up at every Eurovision where accredited media, fans and contestants can dance to Eurovision classics. When the DJ dropped All Out of Luck – an upbeat Icelandic number from the 1999 contest – Sergio fist-pumped his way towards a bearded fortysomething with ‘a magnetic personality and beautiful eyes’. He happened to be a backing vocalist for one of the competing countries. ‘Someone becomes hotter when you know they’re foreign,’ Sergio says. ‘But when they’re foreign and a Eurovision performer, the hotness is doubled.’ Their shared love of schlager – the distinctly saccharine genre of Scandinavian pop – had the effect of turning their software into hardware. ‘Eventually the party wound down and he went outside to smoke,’ Sergio remembers. ‘We started making out, much to the shock of the Azeris around us, and then we walked back to his hotel, where we had sex in the laundry room.’ Whether they come from Britain or Belarus, the Ukraine or the United States, gay Eurovision fans frequently have two things on their minds: music and sex. This May they’ll give their urges rhythm in Malmö, Sweden, which will host the Eurovision semi-finals on May 14 and 16, and the grand final two days later. It’s difficult to know the precise number of fans who will descend on the city, but in recent years upwards of 30,000 tourists have flocked to the week-long series of events that precede the final, leaving packets of lubricant and promotional Eurovision CDs in their wake. As in past years, delegations from various countries will host parties every night at the EuroClub and at bars throughout the city. And fans will also throw down at the EuroVillage – an outdoor amphitheatre

where contestants will make the most of their 15 minutes with live concerts throughout the day and night. Because Copenhagen is only a 35-minute train ride from Malmö, fans can expect an upsurge in Danish totty, too. Given the high concentration of singles ready to mingle, there’s a good chance visitors will give this year’s slogan – ‘We are one’ – a whole new meaning. ‘Of the eight who came with me to the 2011 contest in Düsseldorf, seven scored – and the one who didn’t is married,’ says Mike Shinnors, an Irish drag queen who goes by Sheila Fitzpatrick on stage and cavorted around various Eurovision arenas with his boa and padded breasts. ‘I think Eurovision for gays is like Mecca for Muslims,’ he says. ‘You have to do it once in your life.’ To make the most of Eurovision it’s helpful to secure press accreditation in the months leading up to the event. This isn’t as difficult as you’d think. Last year more than 2,000 ‘journalists’ received press badges to attend Eurovision rehearsals and parties hosted by contestants and their national delegations (the Georgians are the most hospitable, and the Israelis always have the bouncers with the thickest necks). Some bloggers do legitimate work. Websites such as ESC Insight and escXtra publish interviews and news all year long. So does my own fan site, wiwibloggs.com, which delivers Eurovision news from a decidedly gay perspective and includes contests such as our annual search for Eurovision’s Next Top Male Model. Inside the press centre – where you actually have to look twice to find a woman – it quickly becomes apparent that the majority

WILLIAM LEE ADAMS WITH SIMON AND DUNCAN FROM BLUE WHO, BEFORE REPRESENTING THE UK IN 2011, POSED ON THE COVER OF A T T I T U D E ’ S N A K E D I S S U E ( L E F T ) . O P P O S I T E P A G E : FA N S G E T V E R Y E XC I T E D A N D D R ES S U P I N N AT I O N A L C O LO U R S

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GOOD LUCK TO THE UK IN MALMÖ

of people don’t want to work but do want to work it. ‘I’d say 80% of the journalists are fakes,’ says Sascha, a German writer who has attended the past 12 contests and covered them for some of Germany’s biggest publications. ‘They aren’t actually working so they have time to make contacts for the night.’ Some play the part of Eurovision groupie and wait for the cuter contestants – like Israel’s Harel Skaat from 2010, who came out after the contest – to pass through the room. Don’t call them fantasists trying to bait straight guys. As Sascha says, ‘I see some boys flirting and dancing in the nightclub, and the next day I see them on stage.’ thers use the central aisle of the room as a runway where they go to cruise and be cruised. The constant buh-buh-beep of Grindr and GayRomeo creates a cacophony akin to some of the more tone-deaf acts at the contest. Large screens broadcast live rehearsal footage to the thousands of journalists below, but those in the room are frequently more concerned with mating and dating. Forty-two-year-old Sascha remembers that, standing in the press room in Baku last year, nearly all 200 of the men on his GayRomeo dashboard were in the press centre. He’s thankful the crowd is getting younger. ‘After 12 contests I know most of them. Maybe 10 years ago they were attractive but now they are like me – used and old,’ he says. ‘But more and more countries from Eastern Europe are entering the contest, and their news stations are bringing fresh meat.’

BONNIE TYLER WORDS BEN KELLY

DO YOU WATCH EUROVISION? Well I think it’s compulsory viewing, isn’t it? I always watch it if I’m not working. Last year I was out in my place in Portugal and my friends were all there watching as well.

HOW DID BELIEVE IN ME COME TO BE YOUR ENTRY SONG? Well it was done for my album Rocks and Honey, which is out in May, and it wasn’t intended for Eurovision but the BBC thought it was a really strong song, so they picked that one out. It was co-written with Desmond Child. You know, he’s a world-class songwriter so we’re all very happy with it. I think the reaction to the video we put out has been great so far. It’s had more than a million hits in a couple of weeks, so people love the song.

WHAT WAS YOUR FAVOURITE EUROVISION ENTRY OF ALL TIME? I think it was the early 70s, and it was a song called Come What May [Vicky Leandros, winner

for Luxembourg in 1972], so look that one up if you don’t know it. But of course the UK has had some of the best: Katrina and the Waves! And of course Waterloo – everybody loves Waterloo!

ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO THE BIG NIGHT? Yes, it’ll be nice to be there, in the spirit of the competition with all the other artists, you know, how our own countries can’t vote for us. So we’re all in the same boat in that respect.

FINALLY, DO YOU THINK YOU COULD BRING IT HOME FOR BRITAIN THIS YEAR? I hope so! But you never know do you, because Eurovision is so political and all that stuff. But I have got a good fanbase around Europe, with touring and that over the years. I mean, it’s a good song, I think we’re in with a good chance, so I’m just going to get out there and do my best. Bonnie Tyler will represent the UK at the Eurovision Song Contest on May 18

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hose imports include people who can’t be where they are surrounded by people they know.’ A shared love open at home. That might explain their of Europop, which always gives fans something to talk about, tendency to focus on flesh as much as also plays a role. Eurovision devotees – who can often distinguish music. Be wary standing next to them at between esoteric genres such as gypsy pop, schlager and turbofolk the urinal. ‘A lot of people at Eurovision – make the most of the freedom they have to discuss their guilty come from small communities where the pleasures. ‘In some gay circles, gays look down on it like they look options are really limited,’ says Miroslav, a down on the more effeminate gays,’ Gianni says. ‘But when we’re Slovenian who now resides in Amsterdam. there together everyone likes the same thing so there is no shame.’ The Maltese have earned a reputation for That might explain why hooking up at Eurovision doesn’t feel as letting their hair down after-hours, and sleazy as it might otherwise. It’s not just that everyone else is doing the Serbs frequently present as straight it, but rather that everyone is doing it with someone they’ve spent during the day but let it all hang out on time bonding with. That old-fashioned courtship opens people up their GPS-based apps at night. ‘It’s like to all sorts, including feelings of self-worth and confidence. going to a buffet,’ Miroslav says. ‘You’re suddenly surrounded by a Sergio, the Australian who had sex in the laundry room, left his lot of choice and you can eat as much as you want.’ sexcapade with a spring in his step. He still keeps in contact with Within the confines of the press centre, however, the casual fan his one-night stand. ‘I rarely pick up guys in real life, at least not may lose his appetite. That’s because many of the accredited superwithout using Grindr, and I think that was probably the second fans, even the hot ones, have a tendency to digress into abstruse time ever I have picked someone up in a club setting,’ he says. ‘It conversations that casual viewers will struggle to follow. That was certainly the first time I haven’t felt crap about it afterwards.’ might include debating the evidence that some countries have hired Even rejection, which can ruin an evening out, doesn’t sting as PR companies to purchase votes, analysing the background of much at Eurovision. It frequently results in lifelong friendships. specific jury members, or assessing why Icelandic contestant Silvia In Düsseldorf I met a rather bookish Frenchman named Jacques Night told reporters at the 2006 contest that she didn’t make the in the press centre, and proceeded to dance with him that night final because she wasn’t ‘a slut from Holland’. at EuroClub. (The song? Kati Wolf’s What About My Dreams? from ‘I think there are two groups of visitors Hungary, a song about female emancipation from the gay world,’ Sascha says. ‘Those and independence). He attempted to who are really serious and only want shove his tongue down my throat. I to count the votes and talk about the politely explained that I was getting contestants’ dresses, and those looking for civilly partnered the next week and was sex or fulfilling their fantasies.’ He’s had unavailable for tonsil hockey, and he kindly plenty of time to research the phenomenon: backed off. The next morning, while I was he’s tallied 50 hook-ups during his 12 years showering at my youth hostel, I heard him on the scene. having sex in an adjacent stall. He stopped Regardless of the camp they fall into, fans to say hello. ‘The contest means you always generally agree that Eurovision is a land of have something to say to each other,’ he smiles and a place where even the bitterest says, adding that you should stay in a queen can get her happy back. ‘People hostel rather than a hotel to maximise your are friendlier than they would be in a gay chances of hooking up. bar, where people tend to be quite mean As with any gay adventure, frustrations and where there’s not much solidarity,’ can follow all the crazy stuff. The huge THIS YEAR’S LOGO ON THE CD COVER. says Gianni, a 35-year-old Italian who first variety of cultures, languages and F R O M T O P, E U R O V I S I O N T O T T Y 2 0 1 2 : t O O J I F R O M n O R WAY, A F R E N C H attended the 1999 contest in Jerusalem. expectations can lead to some tricky B A C K I N G D A N C E R A N D ‘ emotional ’ ‘People aren’t putting on performances as situations. Miroslav spent much of his FRIEND, AND THE LEAD SINGER FROM BELARUS ROCK BAND LITESOUND much as they probably would be at home, time in Baku speaking in German – his

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third, and definitely not his best, language. That’s because he was keen to bed a musclebound Austrian he calls Hans. He’d touch the fortysomething on the chest and dance with him suggestively at EuroClub. He thought all was going well until he learned that Hans was already hooking up with an Azerbaijani hotel receptionist. ‘I was surprised to see an attractive older gay male going for a young bimbo with whom he only shared one language – cheap love,’ he says. ‘If Eurovision takes us to an Eastern European city it always reminds me of sex tourism in Thailand.’ TOP right: Norwegian fa n s m e e t b o s n i a’ s m aya s a r . F r o m top : the irish c ont i n g e nt g e t s not i c e d , N o r way ’ s 2 0 0 9 w i nn e r , alexander rybak, with german journalist sascha, and william lee adams and f r i e n d at t h e p r e s s c e nt r e

ust as there are people who read Playboy for the articles, there are people who attend Eurovision to listen to the music and to rub shoulders with minor celebrities. I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m one of them. I grew up in the United States but fell in love with Eurovision in 2009, shortly after learning that the scantily clad Romanian contestant was the daughter of a Macedonian priest. Her ridiculousness inspired me to launch a blog, and it clocked up 125,000 hits in the two weeks leading up to Eurovision that year. I later played her song, The Balkan Girls, at my civil ceremony, largely because I loved the opening line: ‘It’s time for me to unwind/ I’m gonna start my weekend with gin, tonic and lime’. As someone in a relationship, the thrill of Eurovision doesn’t stem from chasing tail but from watching my Eurovision friends fall in love with third-rate pop stars, and from capturing silly moments for the blog. In Baku, poolside, we took covert pictures of the Austrian contestants oiling their muscled bodies, which we later published online. We alse heard learned, via a Croatian informant, that certain back-up dancers had been accused of trying to smuggle cheap artwork out of the Hilton Hotel. And at Baku airport we witnessed a contestant who had been eliminated in the semi-finals hurling insults at an espresso vendor who tried to overcharge her. Ultimately, it’s sharing that quirky world with good friends that keeps fans coming back for more. ‘To most people we’re these weirdos who have a passion for something that the rest of the world just laughs at,’ Sergio says. ‘As a result we’re drawn together because we can talk about Eurovision seriously and, ultimately, we judge each other less than other people judge us. We all wish Eurovision was taken more seriously but I legitimately feel that if it was, it would probably be less special to us all.’ And so would the hook-ups.

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STYLE . QUALITY . PERFORMANCE

“Leaves other watches in the dark” Dave.C, UK

Unquestionable build quality, 24/7 illumination, and reliable swiss movements are just a few of the reasons why Nite Watches are recommended as a 5 star brand on Trust Pilot. We have been recognised by prestigious publications such as National Geographic Traveler Magazine and the Independent for being an exclusively online brand that invests more into quality and innovation as opposed to high-street sales. Visit: nitewatches.com to find out more about our outstanding features and see why customer service excellence is at the heart of everything we do. 100% Self powered illumination. Model shown: MX10-400TS

Exclusively available online. Visit NiteWatches.com

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summer

Sizzling swimwear essential underwear sexy summer socks

2013 of the best

colourblock swim shorts and speedos

Win

the beach bag WORTH

O V ER

£2,300

GET YOUR TICKETS TO THE selfridges & attitude summer event

IN ASSOCIATION WITH

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for

for

for

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DESIGNER OTTAWA TRUNK Active G-Sport cut with sporty teardrop mesh. Soft and sleek black iris and gold Italian waistband.

Exclusive to Selfridges

M-N UNDERWEAR advertisement ss13.indd 2

05/04/2013

summer Swimwear & Underwear Summer is the season we spend the rest of year remembering warmly and fantasising about wildly. It’s the season you swim more and stress less, picnic more and – most importantly – wear less. It’s the season of statement shorts and flattering swimwear, fresh underwear and lighter, brighter socks. Attitude, in association with Selfridges, went on a Mediterranean trip in search of that feeling of sun on your skin, the sand in your hair and the sea splashing in your face, a feeling that should inspire your summer wardrobe. As much as summer trips are about that dreamy holiday romance – think a mahoganycoloured David Gandy, luxuriant chest hair and muscled thighs – they’re about making the most of yourself, too. We can’t all be the most tanned, the most buff or the freshest faced, but we can make sure we have the best style, which means ditching the saggy Speedos, banishing below-the-knee Bermudas, binning novelty underwear and leaving behind wintry walking socks. Once you’ve rid your wardrobe of old nasties and put your winter layers into storage, head to Selfridges, the ultimate emporium for the perfect summer, for all the latest from Hugo Boss, Diesel, aussieBum, Björn Borg, Orlebar Brown, Calvin Klein and more. Moreover, having just launched an awesome 28-metre wall of underwear in its impressive new bodywear department, it is a destination without compare. See our Selfridges selection of cheeky swimwear, with playful prints such as Paul Smith’s sharktooth, Oiler & Boiler’s botanicals, Vilbrequin’s seaside scenes and Hugo Boss’s palm trees. All perfect for a poolside watergun war. Check out the best brands to go to for the enduringly cool colour-blocking look. Look at the underwear that will best offset your tan as you sit on deck with a strong coffee and a croissant. And find the socks that will work wonders with cropped chinos and light loafers. Summer is the season to cast off your jaded winter self and reveal the ideal you, a person who pads around on warm poolside tiles, cocktail in hand, wearing little more than some perfect little pants.

Elauan Lee Fashion Editor

Models

Photography • cameron mcnee A r t d i r e c t i o n & S t y l i n g • e l aua n l e e G r o o m i n g • m i c h a l i s tz i v i t z i d i s P h o t o g r a p h y A ss i s ta n t • c h r i s t o p h e r b a k e r S t y l i s t a ss i s ta n t s • n i c k B ya m & j a m e s c u n n i n g h a m S t i l l l i f e p h o t o g r p h e r • d av i d m a r q u e z Mov i n g I m ag e • g r i g o r i s mo r i k i s • C o s ta s , E va g g e l o s , G e o r g e , S p y r o s , S t e v e d f , T h e o d o r e , a l l at VN M o d e l M a n a g e m e n t Thanks to Giannis Papagiannopoulos, Vasso & Captain L az ar us

IN association WITH

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10 of the best

Colour block

styling ELAUAN LEE PHOTOGRAPHY CAMERON MCNEE MODEL SPYROS AT VN MODEL MANAGEMENT grooming Michalis Tzivitzidis

Colour blocking was hailed as a big trend a couple of seasons back, but it’s not a trend at all – it’s a style staple. No matter what your complexion, you’ll have a healthier glow during the summer months, making it the perfect time to try out a brighter palette in your swim shorts. If you’re feeling bold, go for louder fuchsia or neon, or keep it discreet with a pale mint or a washed-out lemon. Spyros wears swim shorts by Oiler & Boiler at Selfridges, £40, t-shirt from Oliver Spencer at Selfridges, £70

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S T YLE | ATTITU D E

Polo Ralph Lauren £40

Frank’s £50

Orlebar Brown £130

Dior £130

aussieBum £35

NEW BRAN D

Robinson les Bains £55

FA S H E D I T OIO N R P IC K ’S

Saturday’s Surf NYC £70

edit ELAUAN LEE assisted by nick byam and james cunningham PHOTOGRAPHY david marquez

Hugo Boss £60

Paul Smith £80

All available at Selfridges and selfridges.com

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Style Icon Polo, £280, Vivienne Westwood

Shirt, £165, APC

Polo, £140, Orlebar Brown

Frames, £210, Prada

The Talented Mr Ripley Wh o

Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law), Tom Ripley (Matt Damon) and Marge Sherwood (Gwyneth Paltrow) – wealthy young Americans holidaying in 1950s Italy.

The look Imagine you’re spending an endless sundrenched summer frolicking on yachts, listening to jazz in backstreet bars and supping vino rosso for breakfast. Paltrow’s full skirts, blouses and bikinis are beautiful, but it’s Law’s pastels, creams and high-onthe-thigh shorts that steal the show – the perfect foil for the most beautiful tan ever to have been committed to film.

Blazer, £375, Tiger of Sweden; shirt, £110, Paul Smith

Watch, £125, Nixon

Why now

Belt, £90, Anderson Swim shorts, £95, Paul Smith

Swim shorts, £130, Orlebar Brown

Get the look Orlebar Brown swim shorts have nailed the Dickie Greenleaf cut – slim, short and sporty. Try lemon yellow (to match a refreshing sorbet) or a wicker print. When you have a sundown drink or as you drive your cabriolet down the coast, slip on a crisp, short-sleeved shirt, some vintage sunglasses and deck shoes. Slick back your hair for the ultimate in playboy glamour (or if you’ve not got enough of the head stuff, pop on a summer hat). All available at Selfridges and selfridges.com

Loafers, £380, Gucci

Espadrilles, £300, Prada

PHOTOGRAPHY david marquez edit ELAUAN LEE ASSITED BY NICK BYAM and JAMES CUNNINGHAM

The hazy days of summer are the only time to wear pretty pastels and light tailoring. Dolce & Gabbana’s Sicily-influenced spring/summer collection is the best starting point for pulling together a look that includes loose-fitting white cotton shirts, stripes and baroque prints. Head to Paul Smith for leisurely pastel tailoring.

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Trend Florals

steve df wears Swim shorts by Oiler & Boiler, £45; shirt by Saturdays Surf NYC, £90; flip-flops by Havaianas, £16

All available at Selfridges and at selfridges.com

CostAs wears Swim shorts by Paul Smith, £70; shirt by Saturdays Surf NYC, £90; flip-flops by Havaianas, £16

All available at Selfridges and at selfridges.com

Grooming xxxxxxxxx using xxxxxxxxxxxx

PHOTOGRAPHY CAMERON MCNEE STYLING ELAUAN LEE ASSITED BY NICK BYAM GROOMING Michalis Tzivitzidis

Floral print shorts are bang on trend this summer, bringing a bright and breezy, effortlessly cool look to anyone’s adventures in the sun. Chuck on a plain short-sleeved shirt and off you go.

evaggelos wears Swim shorts by Diesel, £85; flip-flops by Havaianas, £16

All available at Selfridges and at selfridges.com

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LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON.

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Sock it to me

Burlington socks are for the traditional modern man. They are renowned for their signature Argyle pattern, a style that would not look out of place while lunching on the lawn or attending a casual game of polo – take Mr Gatsby as your style icon. For city types there is a huge range of summer hues that will brighten your wardrobe; lavender, pink and red, or more vivid emeralds and yellows for the summer enthusiast. Buy them for their soft seams and soft cottons. All available at Selfridges and at selfridges.com

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05/04/2013 09:37

Socks to make you smile

Happy Socks aren’t just happy – they’re tough, charitable and cool, too. Made with a strong, softcombed cotton and with reinforced toes and heels, they last; limited-edition pairs designed by Giles Deacon helped raised money for the Elton John Foundation on World AIDS Day, and they’re the bestconnected socks in the business, collaborating on a new campaign with fashion photographer Terry Richardson, rapper A$AP Rocky and hip singer Sky Ferreira. Happy Socks rule! All available at Selfridges and at selfridges.com

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ATTITUDE | IN THE BAG

Edit Elauan Lee Photography David Marquez

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S T YLE | A TTITU D E

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TH E EN TI R E C O N TE N TS O F TH IS P AG E, W O R TH A W H O P P IN G

£2,300

OPPOSITE

PA G E

1. Marc Jacobs duffel bag, £350 2. Aperol, £16.99 3. Marc by Marc Jacobs tee, £75 4. DSquared shorts, £250 5. Beats by Dr Dre headphones, £152.99 6. Fake Bake Sport, £14.50 7. Hugo Boss underwear, £26 8. Comme des Garçons wallet, £65 9. Moleskine notebook, £19.95 10. Undercover pencils plus pouch, £15.95 11. Marc by Marc Jacobs swim shorts, £26.95 12. Blood Brother tee, £65 13. Polo Ralph Lauren trainers, £75 14. Komono watch, £59.95 15. Oiler & Boiler swim shorts, £45

To win:

Come to our Swimwear and Underwear Summer Party with Selfridges on May 23. Bring the invitation with your details on the back and post it in the competition box TERMS AND CONDITIONS The winner will receive the contents of ‘The Bag’ as depicted in Attitude Attitude, Issue 231. The prize is subject to availability and no alternative sizes or styles will be offered than those depicted. Where an item is unavailable, Attitude will offer an alternative prize to the same or similar value. This prize is non-transferable, there will be no cash refund, and the judge’s decision is final.

THIS PAGE 1. Rag & Bone shorts, £145 2. The Great Gatsby, £14.99 3. i.am+ iPhone case, £199 4. Vogue sunglasses, £104 5. Undercover document wallet, £26.95 6. Absolut miniatures, £14.99 7. Paul Smith t-shirt, £70 8. Missoni beach towel, £185 9. Acne vest, £30 10. Versace trunks, £145 11. Azure Lime by Tom Ford, £135 12. Justin Timberlake CD, £9.99 13. Dr Bronner’s soap, £4 All available at Selfridges and selfridges.com

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in store · online · mobile

Bodywear by Boss

Underwear by BOSS available at Selfridges and selfridges.com

Boss launched its bodywear line back in 1994, creating contemporary, crisp boxers, briefs, tank tops and tees in a range of classic colours. The ab-bearing, bulging packshots were the stuff of fantasy and the underwear reached a level of cool that other brands couldn’t match. Simple but sexy blacks, whites and greys were the order of the day, and the button-front boxer, which was launched in 1995, was an immediate hit with men who were ready to embrace looking sexy in their smalls. The fact that it’s still a best-seller to this day is testament to what a design classic it is. This year, Boss is relaunching its bodywear range with a cleanly shot campaign by photographer Christian Anwander, featuring the agelessly gorgeous Swedish model, Alex Lundqvist. The latest lines cater for all customers, with the finest luxury cottons, core lines in comfortable, contemporary shapes, basics for the essential everyday and higher fashion styles for those keen to stand out. We love these nautical striped boxers from the new summer collection, here modelled by Theodore. They’re inspired by a leisurely break in America’s high-society getaway, The Hamptons, and are yarn-dyed to give crisp lines that won’t fade after washing.

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Styling Elauan Lee Photography Cameron McNee Grooming Michalis Tzivitzidis Model Theodore at VN Model

12/04/2013 17:00:29

FALKE Anzeige_216x281_mit Logoblock_Layout 1 08.04.13 10:28 Seite 1

in store · online · mobile

Sunshine socks

Falke likes to keep it in the family. Four German generations have run the business since it was established in 1895, all ensuring that the best materials are manufactured by the finest workmen to create a superior sock. Its leisure legwear offers stripes, spots and colour blocks, while the business and luxury lines are for the smarter gent. The fine-gauge knits will be pleasantly airy for the summer. All available at Selfridges and at selfridges.com

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Styling Elauan Lee Assisted by Nick Byam Photography Cameron McNee Assisted by Christopher Baker Grooming Michalis Tzivitzidis Model Theodore VN Model Management

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Make You Mine, Calvin Klein Calvin Klein Underwear is the all-American classic when it comes to what lies beneath. Its crazysexy-cool campaigns have helped populate many a gay man’s fantasy world by putting footballer Freddie Ljungberg as well as actors Kellan Lutz and Mehcad Brooks on our collective radar. For many, nothing will beat the iconic 90s log-inthe-leg tight white boxer – modelled by a smooth skinned, beautifully buff Marky Mark, alongside a fresh-faced and freckly Kate Moss. Calvin Klein Underwear also has a wide range of looks for those of you who are after something a little different: a tight, striped trunk, a boldly coloured brief or – why the hell not? – a logoed waistband thong? While other brands have come and gone, Calvin Klein Underwear has kept its crown as the coolest of the crop. Recently launching Calvin Klein Concept for spring, the brand continues to lead. Featuring 360 seamless construction to give you great fit and ultimate freedom, the new designs are clean and sleek with all styles (briefs, trunk and boxer brief) available in a breathable cotton-stretch from traditional colours of black, white and grey to hues such as morning orchid, cherry and blue heron. The eye-catching striped logo waistband will stand out as a sign that your underwear is beyond fresh. Theodore wears underwear by Calvin Klein. All available at Selfridges and selfridges.com

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CK all the way

Calvin Klein briefs – understandably – get all the attention, so we’d like to show our love for Calvin Klein socks, which range from athletic ribbed to little liners and from sober dress socks to bonkers, big-dot numbers. And they serve a great summer purpose when you’re taking them off to dip your toes in the sea: stuff them down the front of your swimwear for bulge-enhancing storage. All available at Selfridges and at selfridges.com

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VILBREQUIN Shirt and swim shorts available at Selfridges and selfridges.com

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INTO THE LAGOON S T Y L I N G ELAUAN

LEE

P H O T O G R A P H Y CAMERON

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MCNEE

12/04/2013 17:34:25

PAU L S M I T H Swim shorts available at Selfridges and selfridges.com

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FRANK’S Swim shorts available at Selfridges and selfridges.com

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12/04/2013 17:36:24

OILER & BOILER Swim shorts available at Selfridges and selfridges.com

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12/04/2013 17:37:14

HUGO BOSS Swim shorts available at Selfridges and selfridges.com

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12/04/2013 17:37:46

ROBINSON LE S BAINS Swim shorts available at Selfridges and selfridges.com

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12/04/2013 17:40:26

PAU L S M I T H Swim shorts and hat available at Selfridges and selfridges.com

Grooming Michalis Tzivitzidis Stylist assistants Nick Byam & James Cunningham Photographer Assistant Christopher Baker Models Costas, Evaggelos, Steve DF, all at VN Model Management

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geōrgios s t y l i n g el auan

le e

p h o t o g r a p h y CA MERON

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M C NEE

12/04/2013 18:23:28

HUGO BOSS Trunks available at Selfridges and selfridges.com

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12/04/2013 18:25:10

EQUMEN Briefs available at Selfridges and selfridges.com

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12/04/2013 18:25:41

AU S S I E B U M Briefs available at Selfridges and selfridges.com

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12/04/2013 18:26:02

U N D E R U N D E RW E A R Trunks available at Selfridges and selfridges.com

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12/04/2013 18:26:35

DIESEL Trunks available at Selfridges and selfridges.com

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12/04/2013 18:26:58

M-N Briefs available at Selfridges and selfridges.com

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12/04/2013 18:27:24

B JÖRN BORG Trunks available at Selfridges and selfridges.com

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12/04/2013 18:27:48

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C A LV I N K L E I N Briefs available at Selfridges and selfridges.com

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THE WHITE BRIEFS Vest and briefs available at Selfridges and selfridges.com

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Grooming Michalis Tzivitzidis Stylist assistants Nick Byam & James Cunningham Photographer Assistant Christopher Baker Model George Parashos VN Model Management

M-N Trunks available at Selfridges and selfridges.com

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s e g d i r f l Se London , 6-9pm

tre oxford s

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3

.15pm 6 w o h S n Fashio your tickettsuvdiesit u es t /atti To reqridges .com f l se

Selfridges & Attitude in v it e y ou to ce le br a te

Su m m e r The star t of

As the temperatures rise, enjoy your chance to celebrate the arrival of the Selfridges summer fashion show. Preview this season’s musthave underwear and swimwear collections while shopping for your summer essentials over delicious drinks and a fashion show like no other. Enjoy the usual surprises throughout the evening: amazing goody bags when you spend over £30, complimentary drinks, the Fake Bake tanning booth and, of course, lots of men in pants! What’s more, this year win ‘The Bag’, worth over £2,300, by filling in your details on the back of the ticket and posting it in the competition box. To request your tickets , visit selfridges .com/at titude Spaces are limited and tickets are allocated on a first come first served basis.

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Words Xxxxxxxxxxx Photography Xxxxxxxxxxx

HURTS SO GOOD

ATTITUDE | FEA TURE

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F E A T UR E | A TTITU D E

Grooming xxxxxxxxx using xxxxxxxxxxxx

AS THEY RELEASE THEIR SECOND ALBUM, EXILE, BEN KELLY TALKS TO HURTS, THE SLICKEST DUO IN POP

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HURTS SO GOOD

THEO HUTCHCRAFT AND ADAM ANDERSON MET AS BYSTANDERS TO A FIGHT IN MANCHESTER IN 2005, AND AFTER A FAILED TURN IN AN OTHER BAND THEY FORMED HURTS IN 2009. THEIR DEBU T ALBUM HAPPINESS WAS PRAISED BY CRITICS AND TH EIR DISTINCT SYNTH-POP SOUND SOON WON THEM AN UN PRECEDENTED EUROPEAN AUDIENCE (AND A TOUR ITIN ERARY THAT LOOKS LIKE A EUROVISION SCOREBOARD). THEIR SOPHOMORE ALBUM EXILE IS A MUCH EDGIER AN D DARKER PIECE, CRAFTED WITH THE SAME FUNDAMENTA L THEMES AS THE FIRST. TO DATE, THEY HAVE SOLD MORE THAN TWO MILLION ALBUMS WORLDWIDE

THEMIC POP WITH A COMBINATION OF AN S AND AN TUNES, DASHING GOOD LOOK LIE MINOGUE, UNLIKELY ALLIANCE WITH KY E BOYS HAVE IT’S NO SURPRISE THAT TH OWING, AND BUILT A SIZEABLE GAY FOLL ALL ALONG. ATTITUDE HAS BEEN A FAN YS TO CHAT WE CAUGHT UP WITH THE BO AND BLACK EYES MINIMALISM, MAN CRUSHES

BY THE TIME YOU FINISHED TOURING WITH HAPPINESS, WERE YOU READY TO GET GOING ON THE SECOND ALBUM? ADAM Yeah, we were really excited to make it because we’d been on tour for two-and-a-half years and it’s difficult not being creative for that length of time. We struggle to write on tour, it doesn’t really work for us. There was a lot of built-up energy so we were really fired up to get on with it. THEO We hadn’t written any songs on tour but we had talked about it, and we had ideas. We wrote so many songs at the beginning, then eventually we got sucked into it and became a bit more miserable. We work till we go mental and can’t do any more, and then that’s the record done, basically. DO YOU APPROACH SONGWRITING DIFFERENTLY WHEN YOU’VE HAD THE LIVE EXPERIENCE AND SEEN THE REACTION FROM AUDIENCES?

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ADAM The first time we just made the songs, then worked out how to do it live. We realised we had 11 ballads out of 12 songs and it was really difficult for us to have a varied live show. So I think we saw the holes in our set and this album really fills in those gaps. So playing live is important for us to discover the types of songs we needed. THEO We’d come off stage and be like, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we had this type of song?’. ADAM By the end of the tour we knew we wanted to make the music a little heavier and a bit more dynamic – a bit bigger and bolder – and I guess that was a good platform to start from. WITH A FIRST ALBUM YOU HAVE YEARS OF EXPERIENCE TO BRING TO THE TABLE, SO HAVING BEEN CONSTANTLY TOURING IN BETWEEN TIMES, DID YOU HAVE ENOUGH INSPIRATION FOR THE NEW ALBUM? THEO We had so much to write about. First time around we were just sat in a room. We didn’t have money, we

didn’t do anything, so our world was quite small. All of those songs on the first record express that mood, and we couldn’t replicate that, so it was quite liberating to go into it and say, ‘Right, we can’t write another song like this’ or ‘We won’t write one better than that’. It was like trying different parts of the puzzle, which was quite fun. Every song is like a different snapshot of our life, really. THERE SEEM TO BE TWO DISTINCT ROLES WHEN YOU PERFORM: ADAM’S BEHIND THE MUSICAL SIDE OF THINGS AND THEO IS UP FRONT SINGING. IS THAT REFLECTIVE OF HOW YOU CREATE THE MUSIC AS WELL? ADAM Yeah, I think so, but there is crossover. I sometimes write melodies or Theo gets involved with sounds. But for the main part that’s how it is, and that’s how I like it, to be honest. THEO This time around it’s much more of a fluid process. It all blurs into one a lot of the time, which is good, but I think it’s whatever comes the easiest, really, with the least stress involved.

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THERE’S A GREAT TRACK ON THE ALBUM CALLED HELP. YOU’VE GOT ELTON JOHN ON PIANO AND A BIG CHOIR OF FANS AT THE END. HOW DID THAT ALL COME ABOUT? ADAM We made contact with Elton and he agreed to come in and record the piano part on top of the track. He had a real interest in our music, was very positive about our career. He stayed around for about three hours talking about music, his life, football. That was a really amazing moment. When you meet your heroes you want them to be a certain way and he was exactly how I wanted him to be – very humble. He was a proper lad as well. Not a diva at all. We had the idea for the choir because obviously we have a huge fan base in Europe and we wanted to give these people a voice on the record. So we picked

people from different countries and got them all in. It was virtually the last thing we did on the record. It’s an amazing tune for the story behind it, so we’re really proud of that one. WHO ELSE WOULD YOU LIKE TO COLLABORATE WITH OR WRITE FOR? ADAM It would be great to write songs for people like Rihanna and Beyoncé. I’d love to do stuff like that and get into that world a bit. Personally, I’d like to do a big film soundtrack. That was always my aim when I was younger. So hopefully someone will ask us eventually.

‘We used to be

From top left, Bowie’s new album, theo with lana del rey, bond star mads mikkelson, pet shop boys, bros and the boys with kylie

on the DOLE in Manchester and we’d wear SMART clothes so people would respect us’

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THE NEXT BOND THEME? ADAM Well most of our songs sound like Bond themes anyway, so they can have any of them! THEO POSTED A PHOTO WITH LANA DEL REY RECENTLY. IS THERE ANY CHANCE OF A DUET THERE? THEO I’d love that to happen. We met her at the Echo awards in Germany. It’s weird because when we first started, we didn’t really want any peers and we did everything we could to alienate ourselves from other musicians. But she’s somebody that has a very similar idea to us about what pop music should be. Not an old-fashioned idea, just that it should be everything and it should be special. So she’s someone that we love very much and that would be great.

17/04/2013 15:02:06

Michael

HURTS SO GOOD

Fassbender... ...I’d go out for a few beers with him and see what happens

CONSIDERING THE HUGE APPRECIATION FOR YOUR SOUND ACROSS EUROPE AND RUSSIA, WOULD YOU EVER VENTURE EAST TO RECORD AN ALBUM? ADAM Yeah, we would, for sure. I mean, writing music is a tough process for us and it always ends up being quite painful and difficult. We intend to go somewhere hot next time just to have a change of scenery because we always seem to end up in a miserable apartment somewhere – which doesn’t help! THEO Yeah, we’ve written two Manchester albums now, and I don’t think we could write another one there. I think that next time it will be a very different approach. We need to keep challenging ourselves. ADAM I think maybe a beach recording studio of some sort... THEO Is it time for the Berlin record? ADAM Maybe Berlin. It’s got a good heritage and people get asked to go there a lot to do that sort of thing, so we might try it. THEO It would be fantastic. The problem with Berlin is that if you ever go out for a drink, you end up coming home about five days later, so you’ve got to be very careful.

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IT WORKED FOR BOWIE. HE MADE ALBUMS ON NOTHING BUT COCAINE. THEO Well in a way it worked for him, in a way it didn’t... WHAT DO YOU THINK OF HIS NEW ALBUM? THEO It’s fantastic. I’m a huge fan. He’s just so brilliant and he’s someone who’s always inspired us and made us want to be different and take pride in what we do. That’s the key. We think pop music should be treasured and you’ve got to fight its corner. WHAT ELSE ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? THEO Obviously the new Depeche Mode record, which is fantastic. ADAM I just got the Kavinsky album. I’ve always liked him from a retrospective point of view and I like the new Foals album. I listen a lot to Watch the Throne by Kanye West and Jay-Z. I love that one. I like a lot of hip hop music these days, which is strange for me.

WELL THERE’S A LITTLE BIT OF THAT APPEARING IN SOME OF THE NEW TRACKS, LIKE SANDMAN. ADAM Yeah, exactly. It’s something that we’ve both got into in the past couple of years. The last Kanye West album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy – we had that on every single night for a year in the dressing room, so maybe it’s crept into our music. THE HURTS STYLE IS VERY CLASSIC AND RETRO, AND THERE’S A LOT OF RUSSIAN IMAGERY IN YOUR VIDEOS AND ARTWORK. WHERE DOES THAT COME FROM? IS IT A REFERENCE TO THE FAN BASE THERE? ADAM With this album it is a little bit, yeah, but with the first album it was an accident, really. It had nothing to do with any of those things. We used to be on the dole in Manchester and we’d wear smart clothes so people would respect us. We set up the MySpace account with one little picture and two songs, and we

17/04/2013 15:02:19

made a video [Wonderful Life] for £20. We struggled a bit in our previous band and we felt a bit burned by the industry at that point, so we wanted to do it our way. The labels got interested just from us having a bit of restraint in the ideology of the band, so that really worked for us in that way. WATCHING THE WONDERFUL LIFE VIDEO, YOU CAN SEE HOW EVEN ON A LOW BUDGET, THE WHOLE CONCEPT IS THERE IN ITS RAW FORM. ADAM That’s the important thing, isn’t it? It’s the initial idea. In a way things are simpler when you’ve got no money because you really have to focus on the idea. When money is involved it can get too big. THEO At first the idea was that the music would be the life, the colour, the excitement, and projecting ourselves in a very minimalistic way would give more life to the music. So weirdly, we did it in a substance-overstyle way, but a lot of people thought it was the other way around, saying we were all about the look. The point was to present something with lots of dynamics in a very simplistic way. And also it’s things we love. We love Fellini, we love Helmut Newton, we love things that have a sort of intensity to them. SO HOW DO THOSE OTHER TYPES OF ART IMPACT ON THE WORK? I KNOW YOU WERE READING THE ROAD BY CORMAC MCCARTHY QUITE A BIT WHILE MAKING EXILE. THEO Yeah. Bleakest book ever! It’s a mood. I think it’s mood and it’s a world. We try to craft a world for ourselves that we could exist in and that we could make music within, and to do that in a very visual way. When we write songs we see them before we hear them and it’s a great way to operate. The more you add to it, and the bigger the world gets, the more inspiring it becomes and things like films and photography become as important as songs. They couldn’t really exist without each other. I know for a fact, Hurts wouldn’t be a band if it was one without the other. HOW DID YOU REALLY GET THAT BLACK EYE, THEO? IF ADAM PUNCHED YOU, YOU CAN TELL US... THEO No! I was running and I tripped at the top of some stairs, went straight down into a gate and had

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eight stitches in my eye. It looked disgusting. To be honest, I was very close to having no eye. THAT WOULD HAVE HELPED THE WHOLE BOND VILLAIN LOOK... THEO Well it sort of gives me an edge that otherwise isn’t there. I don’t want it to go now. It’s almost gone but I treasured it a bit. I really made the most of it. WHAT’S ALL THIS WE HEAR ABOUT AN EIGHTSOME IN KIEV? ADAM That’s bullshit. That’s bollocks. I was misquoted. Make sure you print that as well because my dad was disgusted. An eightsome is a bit ambitious, isn’t it? How does that work? We don’t usually cross over when it comes to sex, me and him. ARE YOU AWARE THAT YOU’VE GOT A GAY FOLLOWING? ADAM Yeah, I think so. THEO It’s great for us. It’s always been a big part of the audience – everywhere we go around the world it’s always been a big thing. YOU’RE CERTAINLY VERY ATTRACTIVE. DO YOU GET A LOT OF MALE ATTENTION? ANY OFFERS? THEO I guess we do, yeah, but that’s just part of it. It’s a compliment, it’s flattery in general. ADAM I’m not sure about offers but there’s definitely a gay audience. The fan base is pretty diverse, so it’s hard to put your finger on it. Maybe it’s something in the music. Theo’s a bit of a pin-up, I guess. SO DOES HE GET MORE ATTENTION THAN YOU? ADAM I don’t know but I imagine that

Will smith: theo wants him to be his dad, brother and best friend

if we were living in 1984, he’d be the poster up on all the bedrooms of the UK. THEO I can’t speak objectively. See, I would have thought it was Adam because he’s much more sultry. We both have very different types of female fans. Adam tends to get older women and I tend to get younger girls. So between the two of us there’s something for everyone. Which works out well, obviously. It always seems bizarre to me that people ask you to marry them and it’s like, ‘Well no... I’m weird, I’m not like you think I am.’ DO YOU GET A LOT OF THAT ON TWITTER? THEO I don’t really look at Twitter, to be honest, for that exact reason. I ignore it. It’s just too weird, too strange. But it’s a nice part of the job, isn’t it? It’s not bad. LOOKS-WISE YOU DO REMIND ME OF DUOS LIKE WHAM! AND BROS. I SUPPOSE THAT’S FAIRLY HOMOEROTIC? ADAM That must be it. And we got Kylie on the first record, so that sort of helped in that respect. It could be a combination of those things for the gay fans, I think. But it’s good for us. It’s good to have a diverse audience. DO YOU SEE ANY SIMILARITY BETWEEN YOURSELVES AND PET SHOP BOYS? ADAM I don’t see it. The only thing is that there’s two of them, and I think the music also carries a grandeur that offsets his voice sometimes. But that’s about it for me. FINALLY, DO YOU HAVE A MAN CRUSH? THEO Will Smith. I just think he’s brilliant, everything about him is brilliant. It’s just something about him. I want him to be my dad, my brother and my best friend at the same time. Lots of lads are obsessed with Will Smith. ADAM Michael Fassbender is quite charismatic. I like his demeanour, he’s really cool. I think I just really want to be him. But I’d definitely go out for a few beers with him and see what happens. Exile is out now on RCA Records

17/04/2013 15:07:28

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17/04/2013 14:38:08 17/04/2013 10:49

ATTITUDE | ACT I VE

The Clinic

& Our he al th ex per t Dr C h ri s ti an J es s en ans we rs yo u r me d i c al qu er i es

with Dr Christan

Got a problem, wa nt a nswers? • Email [email protected]

Every night I seem to sweat a lot in bed. Sometimes I’m hot before I go to sleep, so I do so in the nude, but I still wake up the next day to a soggy pillowcase and sticky legs. What’s causing this? Paul, wakefield Night sweats are amazingly common. Most people will experience them at one time or another. They can be entirely benign, brought on simply by stress or artificial-fibre bedding and overheating. Or there can more serious causes, including chronic infections, chronic viral infections, tuberculosis, HIV and even certain cancers. At your age this is all unlikely but not impossible, so I would suggest you go for a quick general check-up just to be sure. If your GP can rule out some of these more sinister things, then you’ll know it’s simply a question of rearranging your bed and bedding. This is not so much of a problem. Whenever I walk down the street I end up looking like a wreck because my eyes won’t stop watering. It doesn’t need to be windy and I’ve ruled out hay fever because it happens more in cold weather. Why am I constantly teary? Philip, Swansea There are a number of reasons why your eyes might be watery. The first is simply that you’re producing too many tears. This could be because the surface of your eye is inflamed with a small ulcer or chronic infection. These can be treated with antibiotic drops, of course, but you do need

Didn’t know?

Cholesterol is a fat-like substance thast comes from the liver and certain foods. Too much can cause gallstones or block up arteries

this to be diagnosed. Another possible source of the problem is not tear production but if the tear-drainage system has a blockage in it. The small little hole that you can see in the inner corner of your eye can sometimes become blocked as a result of a cold or a minor infection, and clearly you can imagine if your tears aren’t clearing away, they’re going to well up and your eyes will water. Again, that’s something a specialist will be able to diagnose and sort out. The bottom line is that you should probably ask your GP for a referral to an ophthalmologist to get your eyes checked out properly. I’m in my late 40s so I recently had a check-up with my GP, who found that I have high cholesterol. He’s recommended that I start taking Statins but friends have warned me that these have horrible side-effects and may even be dangerous. What would you recommend? Tim, exeter I would say it’s going a little to far to describe this medication as dangerous but it can bring some aches and pains, which is probably what these people are referring to. You can always try different medication as an alternative. Exercise is important in combating high cholesterol but it is rarely enough, so you will need to take something to accompany it.

Probe Sh ing l e s

Shingles is a surprisingly common infection, affecting about three in every thousand people in the UK every year. It can happen at any age but it’s more common in people over the age of 50; it’s much less common in children. It’s an infection of the nerve endings in the skin that is caused by the herpes zoster virus, which is the same one that causes chicken pox. The visible signs are a band or limited area of a vicious red blistering on one side of the body across the middle. Sufferers can become unwell through flu-like symptoms before the rash appears. The rash can be extremely uncomfortable, causing hyper-sensitivity to the touch, and this can persist long after the rash has disappeared. Most people who get shingles have had chicken pox in their childhood because the virus remains dormant in their nervous system. Becoming tired, run-down or even developing other infections such as HIV can cause shingles to reoccur, although it can happen even if none of these factors is present. There is unfortunately no cure for shingles but it can be treated with anti-viral medication and local painkilling treatments. There are some serious complications for shingles, particularly if it occurs in the eye area, as it can cause permanent visual loss, and also with chronic pain in the area where the rash occurs, which is known as postherpetic neuralgia. This is treatable but can be quite resistant to medication.

Dr Christian on twitter @doctorchristian

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Body Talk ATTITUDE | ACTI VE

[PHOTOGRAPHY ALEX GRACE]

Stat s

A N AT T I T U DE R E A D E R O PE N S U P A B OU T H IS BODY

Pe te Walde n , 28 , l ives in Birmingha m an d works as a su p e r visor for Foot asy l um . A self -confe ss ed sc i-fi geek , he u se d to dan c e for cl ub e ve nts in Ma nchester, where he live d for se ven y ears

EXERCISE I’m not very active outside of work, if I’m honest. I’m much more likely to be playing on my PS3. I have done a lot of dancing in the past, in clubs, and that was quite a good workout.

HEIGHT AND WEIGHT

5’10 178 cm

60kg

1 2 3

I’ve never attended the gym. Every year I tell myself I’m going to join but it’s never happened. I do quite a lot of dancing because I actually used to do it part-time as an extra-curricular activity after work. I don’t drive and I try to avoid going on buses or trains if my destination is close enough, which means I actually get to walk a lot. My boyfriend trained to go into the Army, so he does more regular exercise to maintain his stamina and physique, and I like to go along for fun. I definitely don’t want to get smaller than I am at the moment; I’ve set myself a target of 10st. The downside is that I lose weight quite rapidly so I struggle to put it on. The good thing is that I am neither too heavy nor underweight, so it doesn’t worry me too much. I have a tattoo of Pink on my back, which the tattoo artist messed up a bit. If I could, I would talk to my younger self and make him reconsider!

FAGS AND BOOZE I don’t smoke but I do drink at the weekends. Usually we manage to polish off a bottle of vodka and do shots with every drink!

9

5lbs

stone

G u ilt y Plea s u r e s

STICKY TOFFEE PUDDING

s

430cal

R PE TER AR NG QU RVI E S

1,720cals

TES 430 G CO RAMS

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Nose

IDEAL BODY

I got hit in the nose once and it didn’t break, but now it’s not straight. I know exactly how to pose in photos to make sure it looks right.

Chest

I wouldn’t mind having pecs, but to be honest I’m not craving it, so I’m happy with what I have now.

H AV E YOU EV ER

James Marsters, who played Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He had a nice body – slim but defined.

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HAD A TATTOO HAD TEETH WHITENING HAD FAKE TAN HAD A GYM MEMBERSHIP GOT WAXED BEEN SKINNY DIPPING BEEN VAJAZZLED

IDEAL MAN

Stomach

I very rarely do sit-ups and am not a gym-goer, so I suppose it’s down to dancing again.

Legs

Legs are obviously the main body part you use to dance, so they have always been quite toned. I have quite defined calf muscles.

231_ACTIVE_REAL BODIES#.indd 119

Joe Bennett, a footballer for Aston Villa. He’s always well turned out and he’s got that good boy on the outside, bad boy on the inside look to him.

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17/04/2013 14:32:52

A D V IC E | A TTITU D E

HIV and me with Stefan Kyriazis

AN OPERATION FORCES STEFAN TO CONFRONT HIS BODY ISSUES I hate my body. OK, that’s not completely true – and short of slinging on Evanescence’s greatest hits, could I sound any more emo-teen if I tried? (Erm, probably.) Actually, the face is pretty good and the general proportions of the rest are quite pleasing. Some things could be a bit smaller, and others, well, a boy can dream... But sometimes my body screws completely with me in a way that far transcends the daily, ‘Does my cock look big in this?’ dilemmas. Sometimes, folks, my body grows a great big bloody lump in my chest that has to be removed. Oh, the irony. I have wrested all my adult, gay body-dysmorphic life with my fluctuating waistline. I am pretty, and scientifically, sure that I was born without abs (although that packet of custard creams might disagree). I have

I HAVE ALWAYS DERIVED GREAT SOLACE FROM MY PUPPIES GAMBOLLING IN A TIGHT TEE

stereotypically valued myself too much by these deficiencies. But, in return, the universe gave me a honking rack. I love my chest. It is my saving grace, my opening gambit and my get-outof-jail (and bang the warder and a few nasty prison guards along the way) card. Yes, I know, inner beauty, blah blah. I have been working on that. But, in trying times, I have always derived great solace from my puppies gambolling in a tight tee or plunging shirt. But by the time you read this, I will have been wheeled into an operating theatre – under extremely unflattering lighting and wearing a delightful, backless, polyester gown, no less. Oh yes, Cinderfella, you shall go to the ball. Except I won’t be having a ball. I’ll be stone-cold unconscious as they peel away my nipple and cut out a two-inch

THE RULES OF

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SAFE SEX

HIV and AIDS are not the same thing. HIV is human immunodeficiency virus, which attacks the immune system. If left untreated, the immune system becomes damaged and can no longer fight off infections. This is when a person is said to have acquired AIDS. Left untreated, AIDS will kill you. Unfortunately, as a gay man you are more at risk of catching HIV. There is no way of telling who has HIV, and on the gay scene, as many as one in seven men have the virus. For this reason, it is vital to practise safe sex.

mass from my left chesticle. Not a tale this fairy ever wished he would tell. And the real kicker is that it might be related to my HIV. Ta-dah! I wrote last year about this growing lump (a gynomastea) that has been lurking in my chest for five years. Hidebound ‘specialists’ told me contradictory theories while I sat there muttering like a slum-ridden extra on Call the Midwife, ‘Just get the bloody thing out of me’. Finally, a young doctor told me that there were increasing links between certain HIV meds and abnormal growths. It was a hell of a lot to deal with. And I didn’t deal with it well. And then, last month, the follow-up consultant took one look and declared, ‘Right, that needs to come out’. I hate operations. I hate general anaesthetics. I hate pain. I hate possible scary side-effects and being trapped in a body that is mutinying on me. I hate the idea that my HIV meds might have done this to me. I hate that there’s no getting out of this jail for free. The good news is that I found an answer and a solution to the lump. Take a deep (panicky) breath, deal with it and move forward. Kumbaya. The bad news is that I may have to rely on my inner beauty for a while. Oh crap. Can somebody find me that Evanescence CD... [email protected]

Always use a condom, and learn how to use them properly (no washing them in the washing machine, re-using them, etc). Always use a water-based lubricant. Other lubes damage condoms. Don’t let people cum in your mouth. Learn about PEP – post exposure prophylaxis is a short course of HIV treatment you can take if you’ve had unprotected sex. It isn’t a ‘cure’ and can only be used within 72 hours of exposure to HIV. Preventing HIV transmission isn’t the only reason to practise safe sex. There are other nasties out there, and while they are more easily treatable, the likes of chlamydia, gonorrhoea and syphilis can be painful. And we don’t want that, do we? No.

More information: gmfa.org.uk, tht.org.uk

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TOP TIPS

Get wet Drinking lots of water is as important in the gym as it is on the beach. Being even slightly dehydrated can affect your workout and make you feel sluggish and lack energy. Keep plenty of H20 to hand to achieve your personal bests.

Make a splash Make sure you smell as good as you look in the heat. There are summery fragrances aplenty this season. Try Jean Paul Gaultier’s Le Beau Male (theperfumeshop.com) with its torsoshaped bottle providing a splash of inspiration.

IPAD EDITION Video and commentary of Colin’s workout on the iPad Personal training information at colin-gentry.com @colingentry

Slather up If beauty is only skin-deep, then make sure you slap on the suncream to avoid burnt muscles. Spray tans are far healthier than sunbeds, and consider a check-up at The Mole Clinic nationwide (themoleclinic.co.uk) if you have any concerns.

Swe a ting over l ooking good on the be a ch? Person al t rain er Colin Ge ntry shows y ou how t o look hot in S peedos this sum m er Summer is here at last. Winter wardrobe, be gone! It’s time to feel those rays and drop your drawers for Speedo season. If, after a chilly spring, your muscles are looking less than blossoming, avoid going into hibernation and step into the gym. The beach is calling. Whether you favour Bermuda shorts or Hawaiian skirts, summer is all about getting a little skimpy by the sea. Though a broad chest and big guns are impressive, don’t give your lower half a bum deal. This month’s workout is designed to put some junk in your trunks, as well as beef up your thighs and sculpt your abs. Buttocks that can open a bottle of beer will get that hot lifeguard at the hotel pool begging to help you with the sun lotion. Be swimsuit-ready this summer in Barbados, Brighton or just your back garden. Some hard work in the gym will all be worth it when you’re lying back, catching the rays and looking as hot as the weather.

Beach Bum

[ P H OTO G R A P H Y S I M O N TAY LO R ]

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WO R K OU T | A TTITU D E

Cut-out-and-keep guide

Du mb bell De adli f t

To hit your hamstrings, drive through the floor with the weight on your heels. As the dumbbells pass the knees, lean back and pull your shoulder blades together. Tip: Relax the shoulders before lifting, which will lengthen your arms for a better lift.

R en e gade Rows

This is great for strong abs. Place two dumbbells on the floor about shoulder width apart. Position yourself on your toes and your hands as though you were doing a press-up. Push one weight into the floor and row the other weight up to your side. Tip: Pull your elbow into your side as you lift the dumbbell.

F ro nt S quat

Swap the barbell for a weight plate held out in front of you, placing your feet shoulder-width apart, and keep your chest up. Squat down as if sitting in a chair, keeping a curve in the lower back. Go just below parallel and then return to the starting position. Tip: Elevating your heels will result in better quad definition.

Weig h t ed Sid e Pla nk

Perform a side plank so that you rest on your forearm and have an imaginary diagonal line running straight down the body. With the free arm, lift a dumbbell above the body and hold the position. Tip: Avoid letting your hips drop down.

Lu ng e s

Great for a peachy bottom, perform lunges by standing with two dumbbells. Lunge forward with your left foot and lower the right knee down to about 90 degrees. Then drive the left foot back to the start. Repeat on the opposite leg. Tip: Avoid letting your front knee travel over the toes.

Sta nd ing Cal f R ai s e s

Don’t let skinny calves let you down when you’re in your shorts. Stand with two weights and raise the heels up, squeeze and lower. Tip: Stand with toes out at 30 degrees to give the calf muscle that diamond-shaped definition.

FOR FOR YOUR YOUR ULTIMATE ULTIMATE BODY...IT’S BODY...IT’S ALL ALL ABOUT ABOUT RESULTS. RESULTS. 231_ACTIVE_WORKOUT#.indd 123

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ATTITUDE | ACT I VE

Ian Marber

Fast Food By Hannah Barton

The Grilling

Squash, Spinach and Chickpea Curry with Cashews

Email [email protected] • Follow twitter@IanMarber

Ry Wright 22, Student

My Diet

I was diagnosed with Coeliac disease a year ago, so my diet has drastically changed. All gluten was removed, as well as onions and peppers, to which I have an intolerance. I always eat the same meats as I don’t like seafood or fish. This has taken the enjoyment out of eating, and my diet is dull. Even though I am now 63kg to my 5ft 9in frame, it is hard to put on weight. I take advantage of my fast metabolism by snacking on sweets every day. I usually jog twice a week and do two muscle workouts, but this can change as my energy is often low. I need foods that can help build more muscle and substitute the sugary snacks that give me spots.

Breakfast Gluten-free pancakes with honey, or an omelette with bacon. Tea with three sugars. Lunch Bacon sandwich on GF bread with cheese, or GF pasta with tomato and parmesan. Dinner Chicken/mince with rice, carrots and tomato. Accompanied by herbs, a plain tomato sauce or GF gravy. Snacks Haribo, bananas, tea, Pepsi-Max or juice.

as the coeliac finds a ‘safe’ diet and sticks to it. We all need to eat a favourable mix of the food groups, and so Ry should be looking to combine protein with complex carbohydrates every time he eats, and also, to ensure weight maintenance, plenty of the good fats. Just because a food is glutenfree doesn’t make it any good, and so GF biscuits and sweets are still going to offer a load of simple carbs and sugar. It’s easy to fix but will require some discipline in the early days before it becomes second nature. This should also help reduce sugar cravings and maybe clear up his skin, too.

The Analysis

The Solution

Coeliac disease is an intolerance to gluten found in wheat, barley and rye but also, to a lesser extent, in oats. I have worked with several newly diagnosed clients who, like Ry, really struggle with their diet as the focus is, understandably, all about avoiding gluten. Given that a coeliac who eats gluten can experience very bad digestive problems and weight loss, avoiding it is paramount. But this doesn’t mean that other dietary rules don’t apply, they just get overshadowed

Breakfast Gluten-free brown toast, mushroom omelette with lean bacon, grilled. Snacks Plain yoghurt, apple and a palmful of walnuts. Lunch GF pasta with tuna, tomato sauce and topped with parmesan and pine nuts. Snacks Half an avocado on a couple of oatcakes. Dinner Chicken, fresh veg, brown rice. Plain yoghurt topped with banana and toasted almonds.

Everyday veryday Hero Peanut Butter Peanut butter packs a few calories but also offers a good dose of protein, so a little should fill you up for a while. It’s also rich in minerals niacin (B3) and vitamin E. Choose low-salt and unsweetened versions.

• 1 butternut squash • 2 tbsp sunflower oil • 1 red onion, thinly sliced • 2 garlic cloves, chopped • 2cm ginger, peeled, finely chopped • 2 red chillies, deseeded and sliced • 1 tbsp curry powder or paste • 1 red pepper, cut into strips • 1 tin chickpeas, rinsed and drained • Sea salt and ground black pepper • 1 tin coconut milk • 1 bag baby spinach • Juice of half a lime or lemon • 2 tbsp fresh coriander, chopped • Handful of cashews, lightly toasted • Basmati rice or naan bread to serve

Peel and deseed the squash, then cut it into cubes. Heat the oil in a large saucepan, add the onion and cook gently for about five minutes. Add the garlic, ginger, chillies and curry powder or paste and cook for a further two minutes. Now add the squash, red pepper and chickpeas, season and cook for another two minutes or so. Pour in the coconut milk, stir well and bring to a simmer. Cover and cook gently for 20–30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the squash is tender. Add the spinach and cook for a few minutes till just wilted. Squeeze over the lime or lemon juice, season and top with coriander and cashews. Serve with basmati rice or naan bread.

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17/04/2013 14:25:44 19/03/2013 16:18

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C O N T EXT | A TTITU D E

Photography Alex Grace Words Ben Kelly

TABLE FOR 2 W I L L M AT T H E W A N D J O S H HIT IT OFF OVER DINNER?

MATTHEW, 23, MARKETING

Having been on a few dates here and there but making it to Valentine’s Day still single, Matthew decided to sort his love life out and get Attitude to lend a helping hand. F IRST IMPR ESSION S:

I was glad he was about the same age as me but Josh seemed younger and he was dressed quite casually, whereas I had come straight from work in shirt, jacket and with a briefcase. He’s attractive but not my type. TH E CH AT:

We talked a lot about our Twitter accounts and our love of celebrity culture. ANY AWKWARD MO ME NTS ?

No, but maybe when I stopped the conversation to Instagram my food! CO ULD YO U INT RO DUC E HIM TO YO UR FRIE NDS AND FAMILY ?

I think he’d get on well with my sister. S NO G, MARRY, AVOID?

Snog.

S E E E AC H OT HE R AGAIN?

Yeah but probably not in a romantic sense. We’re following each other on Twitter now.

At the beginning the restaurant was quite quiet so it felt like we had to force the conversation, but as the evening went on it got much better.

7/ 10

JOSH, 21, LAW STUDENT

Having never had a proper boyfriend, Josh thought he’d be spontaneous and let Attitude set him up on a blind date to see what it was all about. F IRST IMP RES SIO NS :

I went in for a handshake and he went in for a hug, so we ended up in a hug. He’s not the type I usually go for but I could be open to persuasion. He seemed really nice. TH E C HAT:

It was really good, easy-going. It just kept flowing. He’s really down to earth. We talked about our interests and stuff, the things we have in common. We have the same taste in music, people we’ve seen in concert.

ANY AWKWARD MO ME NTS ?

None at all. We were making an effort to get to know each other but it was quite a laugh too. CO ULD YO U INT RO DUC E HIM TO YO UR FRIE NDS AND FAMILY ?

Definitely. I think he could handle himself, so that’s always a bonus. My friends are quite similar to him. S NO G, MARRY, AVOID?

Snog.

S E E E AC H OT HE R AGAIN?

We’re on the same wavelength. He is boyfriend material. We did swap numbers so you never know.

8/ 10

Would you like to go on an Attitude date? If so, email your name, age, location, a recent photo of yourself and tell us your type of man to [email protected]

Matthew and Josh dined at Parlour Kensal, London NW10 5LG. parlourkensal.com

231_CONTEXT_DATING#.indd 129

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C O U P LES | A TTITU D E

Words Ben Kelly

TrulyMadly Deeply STEVE, 54, ESTATE PLANNING CONSULTANT

GLENN, 47, DISPLAY COMPANY PROJECT CO-ORDINATOR

I met Glenn in 1985 when I was 26 and he was 20, so we’ve been together 27 years now. We were friends first, and then one night after a gig I invited him back to mine, and it just happened from there. We’ve lived in the same house ever since. I wasn’t bold enough to tell my parents and they’ve since passed away. I think my mother knew what was going on but she never said anything. In the beginning we didn’t really have anywhere to go as a couple – we didn’t go into London much. We worked together for a long time and I was his boss. That caused some stress but we never had any major problems. I was made redundant in 2008, then in 2010 he was too, which was testing, but we’ve been there to support each other. Glenn is caring and loyal, not just to me but to his friends and family. We are thinking of getting married in 2015, now with the change in the law. I think as you get older you realise the importance of that legal security. If there is a secret to a long relationship like ours, I’d say just be good to each other. We’ve never played around or anything like that. It’s nice to have someone to come home to and share your life with.

After being with Steve for a few years, I came out to my parents in the early 90s. I thought my mother realised what I was but she was shocked. My Dad said, ‘I don’t understand all you said but you’re still my son, I love you’. Now my mum points out that we’ve been together longer than my brothers, who were both divorced twice. Steve used to be self-conscious about going out and people seeing two blokes at dinner, that kind of thing, but that’s definitely got easier as times have moved on. We don’t walk around holding hands or kissing in people’s faces, but I think that should be the same for a man and a woman, too. We love our home – having our friends around and going walking with the dog. We like taking our holidays, too. We’ve been all over and met some great people that way. I know it’s tough out there on the gay scene, though we’ve never really been into that, so I do feel very lucky to have Steve now. He’s good to me and we work well together. My advice to younger couples would be to enjoy each other. If you meet the right person you just know and you should go for it. Relationships can last.

If you have been together for over a year and would like to feature on Truly, Madly, Deeply, email a photo and a few words about yourself to [email protected]

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ATTITUDE | con te xt

my story

‘G a y d i o i s a b o u t r e f l e c t i n g

gay life all across the country’

Toby Whitehouse

( r i g h t ) S tat i o n D i r e c t o r a n d C o - F o u n d e r o f G ay d i o

t’s hard to think it’s three years since we switched Gaydio on full-time. We’d been around before, though. It all started from an idea we had to create a pop-up festival radio station for Manchester Pride back in 2006. We broadcast for a couple of weeks from the Gay Village and people seemed to love the reports from the event, broadcasts from the bars and clubs, and the community groups that came in to chat with our presenters. It made us think we were on to something. A lot of effort went into our licence application to go full-time and there was a real buzz when we were successful. That’s when the hard work really started.

So, on June 18 2010, we came back and never went away. It was a completely different beast to the pop-ups; this time our team wouldn’t be able to switch off after a few weeks’ hard work over the summer. Our amazing team is made up of a small number of paid staff and also volunteers. The appeal for many of the experienced presenters was that they hadn’t been ‘out’ on air at other stations. Gaydio is different to other stations. Not every talking point has to be gay, gay, gay (although many of them are), but for everything else there should be a Gaydio angle. I think listeners were initially drawn to us because we could relate to each other’s sexuality. So, we were up and running on FM in Manchester and felt

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c o n t ext | ATTITU D E

[ W O R D S D a n i e l F u lv i o p h o t o g r a p h l e e b a x t e r ]

• Gaydio is available on DAB in London and the South-East, 88.4FM in Manchester, online at gaydio.co.uk and on free mobile apps. Search ‘Gaydio’ on Facebook and Twitter

Toby with gaydio’s Breakfast show prEsenters, chris and emma

connected to gay life in the North. The radio was sounding great and the outreach work that we do was changing lives. But things don’t stay still for long – which is when we were approached by QSoft, the owners of Gaydar Radio, who decided they wanted to focus on the core business of their dating sites. We were given the opportunity to take on the DAB licences for London and the South-East to create a combined, national service with our existing Manchester licence. It was a daunting task as we knew Gaydar Radio was a much-loved station.

It’s been a real challenge taking Gaydio to the next level. Thankfully, technology makes lots of things possible, like splitting output at various times and geographically targeting content. After the pop-up stations and 30 months full-time on air, we used this opportunity to take stock. What really worked? What could we do better? How should we do things differently for a national audience? We took a fresh look at everything, from the music to the branding, from the schedule to the social networking – nothing escaped the Gaydio facelift! It was a crazy time but I think it’s paid off and we were ready for the re-launch across the UK in January. So Gaydio is now about reflecting gay life across the whole of the UK; not just in the North-West, not just in London, not just in Brighton, but across the whole of the country. The great thing about our listeners is that they really engage with the station – tweeting, texting, emailing all the time, so it’s very much a two-way thing. Because we’re also available online and we’ve got mobile apps, it means that people are listening across the country and, indeed, across the world. Each month about 850,000 people tune into Gaydio. It’s a very broad age range: the majority of people are between 25 and 44, and mostly male, much like if you go out on the gay scene, though it’s a real melting pot of people. Our listeners say that Gaydio helps them plug into the gay community, whether driving around the M25 or at home in a rural village in the Highlands – hence our slogan ‘The Beat of Gay UK’. This summer is going to give us the chance to get out there and meet our listeners across the UK at the festivals. We’ll be all over Pride festivals, of course, and I’m really looking forward to As One in the Park at Victoria Park. If you’ve not had a chance to tune in yet, then a good place to start would be with Chris and Emma at Breakfast, each weekday morning from 7am to 10am. It’s like the radio equivalent of your morning coffee and, musically, it’s probably an espresso! But crucially, it is also a show that makes you feel that you’re informed and connected to the things that make ‘Gay UK’ tick. I knew Chris from our uni days, and when we paired him and Em for the first time there was real chemistry. They’re now great mates and I think that really comes across on the show. So we cover LGB&T news, with bulletins every half-hour, big interviews with people in the gay community who can dissect the headlines, like when Peter Tatchell talked about marriage equality at the historic moment when the vote took place. We also throw plenty of celebrities in the mix, too; over the past couple of weeks we’ve had Paloma Faith, Gareth Thomas, Stooshe, Louis Smith, Little Mix, Blue and loads more. We’d love you to be a part of the world’s biggest gay radio station, so tune in today and give us a go. I present a show every weekday from 10am to 1pm, which is all about the interaction, so do drop me a tweet or email. It would be great to hear from you. @tobywhitehouse or [email protected].

y o u r s t or y Do you have an interesting story about your life or work to tell our readers? If so, email

[email protected]

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R E L A T I O N S H IPS | ATTITU D E

[ i l l u s t r at i o n d e r m o t f ly n n ]

Gay relationship experts Alan Downs & Joe Kort answer your questions

MY B OY F R IE ND IS TOO CLO S E TO HIS MOT HER

This month: Joe on mommie dearest

dear joe

My boyfriend is bothered by my relationship with my mother. She and I are very close, and I consider it to be healthy. My father is not very nice to her so she confides in me and we talk on the phone every day. My boyfriend says he feels like I am in a relationship with her and there

is no room for him. When he is around my mother he feels she is cold towards him and she refers to him as my ‘friend’ rather than my boyfriend. I think she is sweet and doing her best but he feels second best to her. What should I do? James, Aberdeen

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17/04/2013 14:35:57

R E L A T I O N S H IPS | ATTITU D E

dear JAMES If your boyfriend feels second to your mother, you need to pay attention. While this may turn out to be mostly his issue, our partner’s frustrations are often based on some truth. If you have a relationship with your mother that is blocking your ability to engage fully with your boyfriend, then you need to do something about it. We gay men often have very tight bonds with our mothers, who protect us from the homophobia out there. She’s there for us from the beginning. If our dads distance themselves from their ‘queer son’, Mum’s arms are there ready to protect us. Mothers are usually the first to protect their children, and even when their children have committed crimes will proclaim their innocence. We’re often her favoured child and have a special relationship with her. It is taboo to speak ill of mothers in most cultures, so we either keep silent or silence others who might criticise her. It makes sense not to disparage her – or let anyone else for that matter – because usually she has protected us and made us feel safe. You say you talk to your mother every day and that she confides in you. While it can be healthy to be friends with a parent once you become an adult, I wonder if this has been going on since your childhood. If your father isn’t very nice to your mother, did you feel as though you needed to protect her when you were young? If she leaned on you and confided in you as a child, she may have turned you into a surrogate husband. The surrogate spouse syndrome typically begins when the mother’s relationship with her son’s father grows conflicted or distant. She may turn to her son if things don’t work things out with her husband, or if she doesn’t find another adult to meet her needs. Because the gay son is often more emotional, sensitive and connected to her than his father, that’s the easy way for her to go. The gay son, needing the secure base of his mother’s protection, feels he’s in a privileged position and complies. But while this dynamic relieves the mother’s anxiety of dealing with the relationship with her husband, it causes many problems for her gay son. It’s a mother’s responsibility to block her son from taking on the role of surrogate husband. Therapists teach mothers who have lost a partner to be sure to tell her sons they need not step into their father’s shoes, and to let their children know they don’t need to protect their mother. Her response should be, ‘I can take care of myself, and I’m glad you want to do this. That’s nice of you but

if your mother confided in you as a child, you may be a surrogate husband

just know, I’ll be taking care of myself and you’. But many mothers don’t say this, don’t know how, or are so preoccupied that they don’t see that the son is stepping into a partner’s role. If this is the case in your situation, your partner doesn’t stand a chance of being number one to you. His complaints may be coming from an awareness that your priority is your mother and not him. It is odd that your mother refers to your boyfriend as your friend. You say that it is sweet, but is it? How hard is it to acknowledge that your son has a boyfriend? If you were straight and your mother called your girlfriend your friend, would you still think that was sweet? As gay males we often give others too much room to not acknowledge our gayness, whereas if we were straight we would not tolerate the same things. How do you separate from a mother who relied on you, her gay son, as a surrogate husband? When a mother makes a son – gay or straight – her partner in emotional ways, she prevents him from being able to attach appropriately to future partners. There can be a psychological marriage to Mum, typified by the understanding gay son in whom she might confide. It vandalises his ability to create loving romantic relationships. In fact, serious negative effects from this prevent healthy relationships. It may be time that you go from gay boy to gay man with Your mother and set new guidelines and boundaries. Here is what I suggest: 1. Tell your mother that you want her to stop referring to your boyfriend as a friend Let your mother know that it hurts you as much as it hurts your boyfriend to refer to him in this way. Tell her she may not mean it to be hurtful but that it is. 2. Talk to your mother less frequently Do you make contact with your boyfriend as much as you talk to your mother? If not, I would increase your contact with him and decrease your contact with her. 3. Tell your partner you are going to choose him first Validate your partner’s feelings and tell him that you are going to work on making him a priority over your mother. 4. Share your thoughts and feelings with your mother about what you are doing You don’t have to stop being close to your mother. You do, however, need to make it clear to her that you have a loving adult relationship and that you hope she can acknowledge it and allow it to grow by giving up a bit of time and contact with you. By taking these actions you will find that not only will you and your boyfriend benefit, so will your mother. She may find someone with whom she can be close and get the intimate relationship she deserves as well.

Dr Joe Kort is a licensed clinical social worker and boardcertified sexologist. He is also the author of 10 Smart Things Gay Men Can Do to Improve their Lives. joekort.com

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ATTITUDE | CON TEXT

life lessons

jamie cullum the jazz performer says his music has made him more spontaneous written BY ben kelly

How would other people describe you? I would imagine... outgoing, fairly positive, energetic. What did you want to do when you were younger? Well, I didn’t really know what I was good at. I just did lots of things and threw a lot of shit at the wall. I always knew I liked words so I thought I was going to be a writer in some capacity, maybe in magazines or newspapers, or maybe even writing a book. I had grand ambitions to go and live in Paris and write some weird novel. You’ve said YOUR new album is about crossing over from youth into adulthood. Was that a really formative time for you? I’ve realised these big changes come in cycles, and just when you think you’ve had the big one, you have another big one. I think the link that I’m talking about is when there are so many times when you think you’ve stepped into

“all those pent-up emotions come out watchinG a shit romantic comedy on a plane”

adulthood and you don’t realise until you have all these major responsibilities and made some compromises. How has becoming a father changed you? I think it changes you in every possible way you can imagine. The clearest thing that changes is that you have to understand things about life in a way that is not always the most pleasurable way to view it, so you have to understand things in all their facets. That’s actually a far more beautiful way to understand life. Do you feel like you have a lot to pass on to your children? I think what you pass on is the example of a life well lived, and that’s finding people to love and spend your life with and doing some good work and having a good time. What advice would you give to the 16-year-old Jamie Cullum? Don’t worry, she will return your calls but it might be in 10 years’ time!

What do you think happens when you die? I think that the human spirit is so strong, something happens to the energy of it, it can’t just suddenly cut to black. I think there has to be a last course, like a cheese plate or a dessert wine. Do you have a lot of money in the bank? Sadly, no. I have far too many outgoings for that. Would you say you live an ordinary lifestyle? I think so. I take the bus, I go to the Co-op, I take the train, I ride my bicycle, I’m constantly cleaning up after two children, I worry about bills and what’s happening to the universe. I think where my life does not become ordinary is when I have the great privilege of being able to perform in front of people who enjoy my work. That’s when I feel that I’m very lucky to have an extraordinary career. What makes you cry? When I’ve had a glass of whisky on a plane and I’m watching a shit romantic comedy that I’d never watch anywhere else. Suddenly it opens the floodgates – all the years of pent-up emotions suddenly come out when I’m watching Jennifer Aniston break up with someone. When were you happiest? Right now. What are you most proud of? The family that I’ve created. What’s your favourite Roald Dahl book? [his wife is sophie dahl] I like a lot of the grown-up ghost stories, I’ve read a lot of those. The collection of ghost stories he wrote is pretty amazing. What have you learned about life through your love of jazz? Jazz teaches you to be prepared for anything by developing a level of expertise. Jazz is about being spontaneous, but in order to be spontaneous you need to have done an awful lot of work and preparation. I think that’s a great metaphor for living your life. If you don’t get that, you’ve missed something. What song has taught you most about life? Army by Ben Folds. It’s just about how things never quite work out the way you think they’re going to. Jamie Cullum’s new album, Momentum, is out now

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ATTITUDE | FEA TURE

g r e e c e WORDS JAMES CUNNINGHAM

Greece is known for its sun-kissed coastlines and ancient civilisation, and today the country is one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations. In Athens you can enjoy the buzzy atmosphere of a vibrant capital city while being only half an hour from a Mediterranean beach, and let’s not forget the men who live up to their god-like ancestors. For gay travellers, Athens has a fastgrowing and thriving gay scene with all the European charm you would expect. Pride attracts more than 15,000 people and falls in June when temperatures have risen and the crowds are even hotter. Despite the much-lauded financial problems – and there are areas of the city where economic decline is palpable – the city is packed full of culture, in which ancient Athens seeps through to meet the new metropolis. Here’s our guide to the best of the city. E AT P R O S O PA This stylish restaurant is centrally located in the Gazi neighbourhood, a gay area full of restaurants and clubs occupying the old gasworks. Fitting for an industrial area, Prosopa sits in a former glass factory, yet it is sleek and modern with an inspired contemporary

Mediterranean menu, extensive wine list and extremely attentive staff. 84 Konstadinoupoleos Avenue R O O S T E R CA F É Rooster is busy all day and night, which speaks for itself. A gay-friendly café-bar-restaurant, the venue delivers both good food and service to its committed clientele. Definitely worth a visit. 4 Agias Eirini Square M Y R OVO L O S A favourite among lesbians, Myrovolos is an upbeat bar offering a delicious selection of traditional Greek food, and the drinks list packs a real punch. Come for the traditional Greek folk music, the artwork adorning the walls and the brilliant bartenders. If you are lucky you will meet Mary, the owner of this fine venue. She is the glue that holds the whole of the gay area together. 12 Giatrakou

looking like a silly tourist. Ease yourself into a Mediterranean attitude and go for a leisurely, late dinner, followed by a few drinks – and then start thinking about where to head for the night.

above and below, the leonis summer houseS on mykonos

S O DA D E 2 Sodade is the gay club to go in Athens, playing a mix of mainstream dance, pop and alternative music and hosting a variety of fun nights. Expect it to be very busy after midnight, and plan to dress up – the crowd is young, rowdy and ready to dance. Reasonable drink prices and some sexy staff make this place an even better prospect. 10 Triptolemou Street A PA R T M E N T Apartment is a new club on the block but has proved an instant hit. It is a great space and a favourite for ‘bringing

CLUB If you are wanting to see some nightlife, then be warned that things don’t really get going until the early morning in Athens. Don’t bother going out until at least midnight or you will just end up

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F E A T UR E | A TTITU D E

Ibiza to Athens’, if that is your thing. It also pulls in international DJs who are popular and kick off amazing parties. 46 Kolonou See T H E AC R O P O L I S Not only a landmark of the Greek capital but of civilisation itself – the Acropolis is one of the most popular attractions in Athens, simply a must-do before you leave. The site hosts various architectural remains dating from 400BC, most famously the Parthenon. Go and be awestruck. acropolisofathens.gr PLAKA Located in the shadow of the Acropolis, Plaka is like a little village within a city. The old historical neighbourhood was built by the workers who built the city centre and is now inhabited by their descendants and their many, many cats. A great area to explore, get lost and grab a coffee. L A K E VO U L I AG M E N I Lake Vouliagmeni translates as the Sunken Lake, and the lagoon is a stunning haven: the perfect blue water

– alleged to have healing properties – has a constant 24° Celsius temperature all year round, and the luscious surroundings and Greek atmosphere make it popular with residents and tourists alike. It may be a half-hour drive outside the centre but it is well worth the trip. limnivouliagmenis.gr S tay M E L I A AT H E N S The Melia Athens is a luxury hotel with such draws as central location, surprisingly reasonable rates and spacious rooms. We were particularly impressed by drinks on the amazing rooftop bar and the fact that Jacuzzi baths come as standard in every room. 14 Chalkokondili. melia.com H ow to g e t th e r e AEGEAN AIRLINES Award-winning Aegean Airlines flies from London Heathrow to Athens in just three-and-a-half hours. Treat yourself by upgrading to Business Class, where you’ll enjoy a more luxurious trip both on the ground and in the air. en.aegeanair.com

a b ov e , M Y KON O S TOW N , BE LOW, Fly o n a ege a n a ir l ines, A N D An AT HE N S ST REET

M Y KO N O S One of the added extras of a trip to Athens is that it is close to Mykonos. Flights go regularly to the tiny island, you can hop on a ferry from either of the two sea ports, or fly from the UK. Mykonos became a haven for the more bohemian visitor in the 60s. But have no fear, Mykonos is no pumping gay ghetto. Popular with gay and straight alike, it offers a more sophisticated atmosphere and the island caters for young and old gay visitors. Our favourite place to stay is the Leonis Summer House complex on the south of the island overlooking the beautiful Ornos bay. Built on different levels to ensure a communal feeling but with individual privacy, the traditional blueand-white buildings can accommodate individuals or groups wanting time out from the rat race. The complex allows you to have a quiet getaway but to dip into gay life too. leonis.gr

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ATTITUDE | PROPERTY the PRICE

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17/04/2013 11/03/201314:19:32 11:21

CARS

TH RE E IS A M AGIC N U M B E R P O C K E T- SI Z E D LU X E T H E P E U G EOT 2 0 8 S H I N ES, G LOWS A N D S PA R K L ES W I T H C H IC I may admit to it in hushed tones, and then deny it afterwards, but I do like a bit of shiny, a touch of razzle dazzle, some tinsel on the tree. Regardless of my passing 25, 35 or even 45, it turns out that my inner magpie means I’m just like a baby in that I’m essentially attracted to things on the basis of little more than noise, movement and light on bright surfaces. I know, I know... But that at least explains how come the arrival of a Peugeot 208 (coloured whiter even than Simon Cowell’s teeth) on the driveway was unusually captivating. It’s not big, especially clever or superfast. But the wing mirrors were chrome and shiny, very shiny, and folded themselves in the moment you pressed the remote locking on the key fob. And then out again when you unlocked. A £100 extra, apparently, but cool all the same. Better still, when sat inside, beneath a positively enormous panoramic sunroof (again optional, at £400), you can’t help but notice that the expansive view of the sky above is surrounded by a perfect frame of countless, tiny blue LED lights. Oh yes, from the driver’s seat you sit beneath what is essentially an inverted glass dancefloor. More cool. But though of less superficial interest than shiny bits and lights, the really clever stuff – it transpires – is tucked away under the snub-nosed bonnet. For though you’d not know it on the basis of any aural evidence (it sounds rev-happy and

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THE SPECS

• 82 BHP • 0-62 MPH • 12.2 SECONDS • 109 MPH MAX • £213.495 PEUGEOT.CO.UK

quick-witted) or physical performance (it’s not a quick car per se, but in traffic and around town, even on motorways, it more than keeps up), this little Peugeot has what amounts to just threequarters of a conventional engine. Yes, just three cylinders on my wagon and yet it keeps on rolling right along. The benefit of that 25% downsize versus the norm is clear to see, as the diminutive 1.2-litre powerplant bestows this 208 with a suitably green sheen: just 104g/km in terms of CO2 emissions means no road tax, and a gallon of unleaded will

take you 51.4 miles in an urban environment, and more than 72 miles on a run. That’s some cheap motoring right there. But it’s cheerful, too, as the Allure trim level comes laden with goodies including automatic dual-zone air-conditioning, a multi-function colour touchscreen, Bluetooth connectivity, automatic headlights and windscreen wipers, sports seats, a leather-trimmed steering wheel, LED daytime running lights and tinted rear windows. For a little car those are some big-car comforts, all served up in compact Gallic chic. We like. WORDS BY DARREN STYLES

17/04/2013 15:32:56

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17/04/2013 14:43:37

ATTITUDE | CONTEXT

H OW GAY A R E YO U ?

but then that sounds like a cat. 3/5 Queen Tabitha? Vaguely regal, fairly original. WHO’S GOT THE BIGGEST WOOLPACKAGE? It has to be Cameron, doesn’t it? Because he’s hiding quite a lot, so I’d imagine we could be quite surprised by it. 2/5 An educated guess but it doesn’t seem like she’s done her research. Get gropin’, girl!

SAMANTHA GILE S

CAN YOU TELL US WHO WON EUROVISION LAST YEAR? It’s usually Ireland, isn’t it? I can’t bear Eurovision. The only thing I liked that had anything to do with it was that Jonathan Harvey play, Boom Bang-a-Bang. It’s brilliant! 1/5 A disappointing stance but a bonus point for namedropping The Harv.

SHE’S THE FIERCE BERNICE IN EMMERDALE, BUT COULD SHE PASS FOR GAY?

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT DRAG QUEENS? I’ve seen some brilliant ones in Blackpool. As long as they don’t look more glamorous than me I don’t care! 4/5 She’ll be damned if that biatch looks better than her. That’s the spirit! HAVE YOU EVER UTTERED THE WORDS ‘CAN YOU ACCOM?’ That means can you accommodate me? No. I can’t do abbreviations because I don’t know what they mean. It took me years before I knew what LOL meant. 0/5 She’d never survive the daily Grindr. WOULD YOU EVER PUT YOUR HAND UP A COW? Well if I had a good pair of gloves and I was getting paid, then yeah. 5/5 Protection, payment and she’s good to go. Classy bird!

HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH FOR A HAIRCUT? Well I don’t really like more than an inch. [We explain we mean cost...] Oh! Well I’ve been everywhere from Knightsbridge, where I paid over £100, to funny little hairdressers in Liverpool and paid about £15. In the cheaper ones you have more of an interesting time. I don’t want to be sipping champagne, I want a bit of grit. 3/5 Don’t be fooled by the glam appearance... this classy bird likes a bit of rough. But no more than an inch? HAVE YOU EVER HAD A. A smoothie maker B. A Nespresso C. An unpleasant itch? Well I don’t like black coffee but I’ve had many uncomfortable itches. I think most women do from time to time. And men! As

long as it’s an itch you can scratch then you’re all right. 2/5 Doesn’t like posh coffee but has scratched many an itch. MAN UTD, MAN CITY OR MAN ANYTHING, ANYWHERE, ANY PLACE OR TIME? Well I wouldn’t chose Man Utd or Man City because I can’t bear them – you know Liverpool and Manchester hate each other? So it’ll have to be man anywhere. 3/5 Only chose the latter by default but she does respect a good bit of rivalry.

INTERVIEW BEN KELLY QUESTIONS MATTHEW TO DD

WHAT NAME WOULD YOU GIVE TO THE ROYAL BABY? Well not any of the terrible names that they all get lumbered with. I’d think of a decent name. If it’s a girl, Tabitha. You could shorten it to Tabby

WHO WOULD WIN IN A BITCH FIGHT BETWEEN BERNICE, PEGGY MITCHELL AND STELLA FROM CORRIE? Peggy wouldn’t win because she’s little. I’d just kick her out of the way. Stella is Michelle Collins, and she’s had two big bitchy soap roles, so she’d probably win. I’d have to bow down to her. 5/5 Bow down, bitches. La Giles knows her place.

56% gay Effortlessly camp, Samantha put in a good effort but she should have performed better given her status as a soap queen. Then again, she is a country soap queen. We prescribe one foam-covered night out in the bright lights of a city centre to get her up to scratch. Emmerdale is on ITV every weeknight at 7pm

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