Chaps only in the long bar!

I have been neglecting my brain recently and am in dire need of mental stimulation. Last night I decided to address matters by trotting down to the South Bank for a talk about Literature.

Never being one to pass up the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, I had selected a discussion on ‘the urban experience in queer fiction,’ or why gays and lezzers come to cities. I thought there might be some nice ladies there for me to talk to. Always multi-tasking, me.

Imagine my despair when, on arrival at the Purcell Rooms, in full make-up and plunging top, all I could see was gay men. I think I spotted a woman but I can’t be sure of it. It was the first time I’ve been to an event at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and not had to queue for the toilets.

My spirits sank. I groaned inside.

But then I began to rather enjoy myself. There was an octogenarian lesbian writer, a senior police chief, two Welshmen talking about life in the valleys, the gentlest muscle Mary you’d ever hope to meet, an ex-punk who looked like an accountant, a sexy blonde novelist and a biographer in possession of one of the finest bosoms I’ve seen in a very long time.

There was an interval. I decided to celebrate Bastille Day with a thimbleful of fine Bordeaux.

The evening improved even further. It ended around midnight with Lady V clapping her hands above her head as a hip hop artist rapped about homophobia to the tune of – would you believe it – that fine disco classic Ring My Bell. It shouldn’t have worked. But it did.