Guardian: Blind Date

Sake.

Gay men are about 2-4% of the population, you don't need to feature them every other freaking week.

Guardian: Again?

You do know you don't have to do some fags every other week?

Coming Out: Maybe Not

There is absolutely no irony in The Guardian illustrating an article about coming out with their favourite LGBT stock photo; Man hidden behind rainbow flag.

PS And they've got another couple of gayers doing Blind Date today - that's nine out of 20 this year!*

* Not including the one (1) lesbian couple.

Blind Date: Definitely Maybe

Since October, 8 of the 22 Guardian's blind dates featured have been gayers - which seems a bit excessive.

PS Hope you don't need telling about The Guyliner's hilarious reviews of these.

Terence Davies: Post-Mirth

In his films, Davies is rather obviously drawn to the trapped, the stuck and the withdrawn: there are the manifold children incarcerated in dysfunctional families, Lily Bart in The House of Mirth, who overplays her hand in the fin-de-siecle marriage game, and The Deep Blue Sea’s Hester Collyer, crushed by the hypocrisy of postwar Englishness. His next film, about Emily Dickinson, continues the theme.

There’s a correlation to Davies’s own life too, and not simply in the firelight-illuminated territory of the small house in Liverpool where he spent his childhood, so brilliantly obsessed over in Distant Voices and The Long Day Closes, or the recent post-Mirth career paralysis...

This seems of a piece with aspects of the Davies emotional landscape familiar to anyone who has seen his early films. The “scar” that Catholicism left on him, for one: “I was terribly devout, I believed it completely. I prayed literally till my knees bled. My teenage years were awful because of that.” Then there was the realisation that he was gay (“that was even worse, that was beyond the grace of God. It was awful”), which he still appears to resent. “I have hated being gay, and I’ve been celibate for most of my life. Some people are just good at sex, and others aren’t; I’m one of them who isn’t. I’m just too self-conscious.” ...

The Guardian.

I've put Terry's name forward for The Guardian's Blind Date series, I reckon she'd be a right larf!

Watch Me Date: I Can't Watch!

Alex!

As a companion to their popular – well, I like it anyway – Blind Date series, the Guardian has launched Watch Me Date, a video series that allows you a gonzo view of two people on a date.

This week, it’s gays! Oh, thank goodness. These are no ordinary gays, though – they’re intellectual and all politicky or something. Can we not just have two massive stereotypes with frosted tips and vest tops? Just once? These people do exist.

Watch the video – have some strong black coffee handy – before we unnecessarily dissect absolutely everything they have to say...

The ever-amusing Guyliner strikes again. 

Alex says David has “perfect hair”. It’s quite common on Guardian Blind Dates for hair to be talked up to a staggering degree, usually in the absence of anything else to say, but I have to say if Alex thinks David’s hair is perfect, he should come and get a shot of mine; it’ll blow his fucking mind...

David!

Guardian: Blind Date

Fagburn's comrade-in-blogs, The Guyliner, has started a new one, Impeccable Table Manners.

In which, he scoffs at the responses in Guardian Weekend's cringey Blind Date feature, so we don't have to.

Enjoy!

Blind Date: A Firm Handshake And A Business Card

Entrepreneur David Mack, 24, meets marketing executive Peter Newman, 26

Peter (right) on David

What were you hoping for?
Good conversation, good food, a good laugh – and a good story to tell after.
First impressions?
Polite, friendly, a snappy dresser.
What did you talk about?
Ventures, adventures, "funemployment" and micro-bakeries, desserts and chocolate preference.
Any awkward moments?
Not really.
Good table manners?
Excellent.
Best thing about him?
He's a very ambitious guy who knows what he wants from life.
Would you introduce him to your friends?
If they wanted a business partner.
Could he meet the parents?
I don't know how appealing he'd find a trip to the Midlands.
Did you go on somewhere?
Not this time.
And… did you kiss?
No, but I did get a firm handshake and a business card.
If you could change one thing about the evening, what would it be?
There could maybe have been a few more laughs.
Marks out of 10?
6? He's a nice guy, but I don't think we quite hit it off.
Would you meet again?
Probably not, I'm afraid.

The Guardian - who've now done a handful of this weekly column that featured some man-on-man restaurant action.
This was a classic mismatch where they didn't seem to have much in common beyond their sexuality.
I can't quite put my finger on it, but something tells me Peter thought "Entrepreneur David Mack" was an asshole.
Hopefully he'll have learned his lesson and stick to Grindr in future.