Zurich, Zug, and Lucerne

For longer than I can remember, I wanted to visit Zurich. I actually don't know why... perhaps because the Swiss banking system, and Zurich specifically, is referenced so frequently in so many movies. But whatever the reason, I visited over the second weekend this past May for a city break... and what a disappointment! The first things I noticed about Zurich is that it is exceptionally clean and pretty, the trains run on time, and it's very safe. Then within a few hours I realised it's rather dull, perhaps because it's exceptionally clean and pretty, the trains run on time, and it's very safe.

I spent my time in Zurich wandering around the central business district and old town, window-shopping, and gorging myself on food and drink... Not a bad way to spend a day, I admit, but not culturally enlightening. The highlight was discovering where the gold depository is - or at least where the guidebooks say it is. If they're correct, Zurich's gold reserves are held almost in plain sight, in a purpose-built vault directly beneath the Paradeplatz square, in the central area.

On my second day, I took advantage of Switzerland's astoundingly good transport system and visited Zug and Lucerne. Both are interesting in their own right, but Lucerne, the larger of the two, holds more authentic cultural value. Zug is a tax haven for the wealthy, and rather too twee for my liking. Still, it's location on a lake offers some astoundingly beautiful views.

All of my photos from Zurich, Zug, and Lucerne are on Flickr, and can be viewed in a slideshow.

Murder's a Drag

I finally got around to uploading the video file for Murder's a Drag to YouTube. You can watch it by clicking on the above link. Please don't forget to rate and favourite the film, if you like it. It'll be a great boost to my YouTube statistics!

This is the little film I made a few years back, and previously blogged about. For a very amateur effort it had legs, screening at a bunch of festivals and picking up a couple of prizes. The stills from the shoot are available on Flickr, and can be viewed in a slideshow.

Natural History Museum Ice Rink

I'm not the type that gets overly excited by Christmas. However Christmas in a cold climate is still a novelty. I like how temporary how ice rinks are opened around London; this one, at the Natural History Museum, is particulary pretty.

Christmas Decorations on South Molton Street

London's Christmas decorations are always beautiful. This is the first year I've noticed the pretty decorations on South Molton Street.

I spent most of last week with my parents, who visited from Australia, and we went to Greece for a few days. That was very depressing, because my parents are (i) clinically insane, (ii) very annoying, and (iii) insist on treating me like the five-year-old boy I once was. The highlight of the trip to Greece was my father's erratic driving, at 200km/h (around 80km/h above the speed limit), with his radar detector on (so he won't get caught), passing cars with 5 or 6 feet to spare, observing the landscape (read: not looking at the road), and crossing himself 3 times whenever we passed a church or an iconostasis. As I was in the front passenger seat (the death seat), I was not very happy, but my complaints fell on deaf ears.

My osteo-arthritic mother sat in the back seat, also crossing herself madly. Her ill health is relevant to the story, because a minor car crash might be sufficient to kill her... leaving aside a high-speed head-on collision that might pulverise her oh-so-slight frame. My mother, who is mad, did not seem concerned by my father taking one hand off the wheel to cross himself. Apparently, according to my mad mother, Dad's deference to God is enough to protect us from his bad driving. I suggested that God had left our car, but that only served to make my Mum very angry for different reasons.

Anyhow, perhaps because of the come-down of dealing with exhausting parents, or perhaps because the sun has begun to hibernate in London, or perhaps because I am having a total breakdown, I had the worst Thursday for a long time, yesterday. The nadir was when I retreated to the lavatory to cry like a baby for about ten minutes. The trouble is, I just don't know why. All I can say is that I feel doomed that this is about as good as my life is going to get. That I can go to the gym all I want, put as much effort into my work as I wish, and study my heart out, and be sociable and nice and whatever else I think will work to fix me... but at the end of the day, I'm stuck with the person I am. And that is a person I don't like. Queue the violins.

I talked it over with M, my counsellor, last night (fortunately Thursday is my regularly scheduled crazy-hour appointment) and felt immensely better, but still, my low-level melancholic depression is what it is, and it's not going to change.

I am still depressed today, yet strangely feeling a lot better since I visited the newsagents at lunch time. I went to have a look at the current issue of fag-rags, and happened upon the current issue of DNA (an Australian magazine). The cover had me weak at the knees; I almost collapsed. I don't know anything about this man, but my love-at-first-sight obsession caused me to rush back to office to Google him. Apparentlly, Dennis Batbayli won a DNA underwear contest
earlier this year. He is also, in my humble opinion, sex-on-legs. If God divides, Mr Batbayli has slid off the bell curve into perfect heaven. He may even get to replace Marco Dapper as my imaginary life partner.

The highlight of yesterday was reading that Jodie Foster has come out of the closet, finally. Shock, horror. I hope the newly-proud Jodie will get a new agent to celebrate, and start working
on good films again (eg Silence of the Lambs, The Accused) instead of bad films (eg Flight Plan, Panic Room). That would make me very happy.

I am invited to two parties this Friday evening, which makes me feel more in-the-loop than I actually feel. The first party is a friend's birthday, which is a must-attend of course, and the second is QX's Christmas party. (QX being a street press fag-rag here in London.) My friend's party will be fun, and I'll know everyone there, and I will be relaxed, and laughing and enjoying myself. The QX party will likely be filled with people I don't really know, and I'll feel invisible, and I'll pretend to enjoy myself, but won't really. Of course, the QX party is a must-attend too, because there is more chance of hotness there, than at my friend's party (where everyone will be coupled up, or female). Debrief, tomorrow.

Okay, so yesterday I attended my local GP because I've been taking creatine and arginine a bunch of other supplements for about a year now, and not feeling the best lately, I've managed to convince myself that I've induced some sort of renal failure. I'm not a doctor, but I come from a family with a long history of hypochondria. Anyhow... so my doctor, who is totally crap, suggests that he send me to a "macro-nutrient specialist". It's so typical. The NHS is broke, and this clown wants to send a perfectly healthy man to an expensive specialist for an unnecessary examination.

I eventually convince the doctor to just do a routine blood test. He agrees (although he wants to send me to a specialist - hopefully a shrink - at a later
time). He hands me the form, and asks me to make an appointment with the nurse. And here the story gets interesting. You see, I noticed on the form, in addition to all the checked items like Renal, Insulin, Thyroid blah stuff, I see Testosterone. Hmmm... I think... having often
wondered what my actual testosterone levels are, and given that I take every supplement under the sun, but steroids, to try and raise the level, this unnecessary test could do wonders for my body dysmorphia. Maybe my levels are unnecessarily low, and justify my need to take steroids. Maybe they're really high, and off the scale, and the doctor needs to know that. So, anyhow, rather than ask to see the doctor again, I palm a pen and fake an excuse to use the bathroom, where I add the necessary checkmark. Of course, this is probably no biggie, but I'm now racked with worry that I'll be caught out with my little fraud. But is it a fraud?

So last night was my work Christmas party. Well, one of them. There are four this year. Starving children and all that, and we still spend copious amounts of money on getting fat, and buying shit presents. (Well, others do... I just get fat and try to avoid buying any presents at all). I work for a large law firm in the City, in their business services division. Basically, that means I have a well-paying but totally shit job on the bottom-rung of the hierarchy. Even our offices could not be any lower as we're in the basement. Seriously... The basement. No light permeates these depths, which is why I must fry my skin with unnecessary sunbed "treatments". Well, there's that, and that it's so hard to compete in London's gay scene with so many bronzed Brazilians working it.

Anyhow, the Christmas party. I can barely tolerate my job for the regulated 37.5 hours per week, so I shudder at the thought of forced socialising. Why do I attend? It's a free meal, I guess, and I have to make some effort to charm them and be sociable or they might see through the endless days of "busy work" and sack my poor-performing ass. So my first thought on arriving at random City event venue, is that the fake snow (soap bubbles) is a nice touch. But the "white Christmas" theme gets me thinking. Maybe I should have brought some ____ to wire my way through the inane chatter. Hang on, I think, didn't I leave that dreg bag in my backpack... I rummage through it while waiting for the coat check (trying to be discreet, where is that gum) before remembering where I left it... At home. At this point, I break into a brow sweat, and realise I have to be sociable without any chemical assistance. Being gay and in London, this is very hard for me.

I grab a glass of sparkling white wine, dry retch on tasting it, but too lazy to dump it, and then find a corner of the room where I can text my friends. I text one friend, and convey my ____ desperation, but he doesn't reply. The bastard. Still refusing to chat with anyone, I pretend to become distracted by the ball juggler who is the evening's entertainment. (Seriously. The Firm bills £1 billion each year, and they give us a ball juggler.) His skill is impressive, but I can't help but be distracted by a thousand other thoughts like, how did he learn / is this a gift he was born with / could I learn it / is anyone watching me watching him / does anyone know how much I don't want to be here / would anyone notice if I, say, punched the juggler?

Just when the evening couldn't pick up any more, I discover that our table seating is pre-allocated. The good news is that this means that I don't have to sit next to the nerds in my team. The bad news is that I have to sit next to strange/unknown nerds from other teams. So I take my seat, and proceed to comfort eat through the boring conversations about work, practically snorting every dish placed in front of me, including a heart-stopping cheesecake dessert that, while delicious, will haunt me when I next attempt to strip off my shirt at a club. Around the time the chocolates were served (I had 3) I managed to find myself seated next to my drunk team manager, who babbled on about the last time he went to a club, on VJ day I think. The DJ started, predictably with "Pump Up The Jam", but we had to wait until the Rolling Stones started up with "Satisfaction" before anyone had the guts (read: sufficiently pissed) to start dancing. Funniest. Sight. Ever.

A random office worker joined the team manager and I, and I leaped on the opportunity to excuse myself to use the toilet, which was truthfully an excuse. I needed to get away, and the toilet seemed like a nice quiet place to text more friends for help. They didn't reply... Again... So I forced some urine out and prepared to leave, when I overheard whispering from a toilet cubicle. Either there was sex or drugs going on in there, probably the latter, but either way I was on the wrong side of the chipboard wall. The bastards. I realised it was time to leave.

Prague

I visited Prague over a city-break weekend in April this year, having wanted to visit for many years, most probably (I have to admit) because it was the setting of the INXS music video Never Tear Us Apart, and much of the early action of Mission: Impossible (1996).

I stayed in a beautiful studio apartment in Malá Strana (the old town), which was modern and conveniently-located. Central Prague is quite easy to navigate on foot, and within an hour of landing I was scurrying through the back alleys checking out the bars, and looking for mischief. Prague has the reputation of being the buck's and hen's party capital of Europe, and I ran into many single-sex groups, but, sadly, on this occasion, none in my demographic.

The Charles Bridge is one of the most enduring icons of Prague. It is famed for its fortress-like towers, a slight S-bend design to slow attacking armies, and beautiful statue decorations, which are in need of a bloody good clean. To truly experience the bridge, one must visit at at night time when it is eerily empty, to compare with the hustle and bustle of tourists and market sellers that crowd the bridge during the day.

Charles Bridge, neighbouring Kampa Island, and Lichtenstein Palace feature signficantly in the early part of Mission: Impossible. No external location is cheated - all are as crucially close to each other as suggested in the film - making this a particularly rewarding set-jetting experience. It was quite wonderful being able to retrace the steps of the characters in this film.

Prague Castle is reputed to be the largest castle in the world, and well beyond the scope of a single day visit. The ticketing and tour guide options were various and too confusing... so I opted to self-guide myself around the castle. Less stressful, but I didn't have a clue what I was looking at. St Vitus Cathedral, with its elaborate gothic gargoyles, is especially beautiful. Most of my time in Prague I just wandered around the town, eating, drinking, occasionally shopping, and generally enjoying being outside in the 20 degree heat.

I managed to find four more Mission: Impossible locations:
- Wenceslas Square was the location of the glass-fronted Akvarium building that Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) sensationally destroys;
- the Hotel Europa was home to the arms dealer Max (Vanessa Redgrave in a divine cameo);
- a random street where Hunt meets Max's goons;
- the stairs in the National Museum, which doubled for the interior of the American Embassy building (the exteriors were shot at Lichtenstein Palace on Kampa Island, across town).

All of my Prague photographs are on Flickr, and can be viewed in a slideshow.

New York

My friend Geoffrey moved to New York in December 2006, so I visited in early March to see how he was settling in. I also coincided the trip with a Scissor Sisters concert at Madison Square Garden. They were fabulous, but sadly I can't say much for the rest of New York's nightlife. With The Roxy now closed, I just didn't get the venues I visited, including Mr Black's, The Cock, and Element at Bank. I did, however, get to snap a photograph of Katz's Diner, on East Houston Street just near Element, where Meg Ryan simulated an orgasm in When Harry Met Sally!

Having visited New York before, there wasn't much that I wished to see, but I did manage to secure tickets to the tour of the gold depository at the Federal Resreve Bank building in Lower Manhattan. Reputedly the largest depository in the world, more than 5 tonnes of bullion, valued at $90 billion in 2007 prices, is stored here, most of that belonging to foreign countries. The depository itself is 26 metres below street level, in a vault that rests on bedrock. This is the gold depository that is raided by Jeremy Irons in Die Hard 3. For many years Kevin McClory threatened to make a non-official Bond film called Warhead 2000 (a remake of Thunderball, which McClory owned the rights to). The plot of that film also involved the theft of the gold reserves; in that film Blofeld's men were to have tunnelled to the Federal Gold Depository using elaborate drilling machines.

I realised on this trip to New York that I would find it very hard to live there. Mostly it's the fact that in New Yorkers seem so obsessed with status and money. Harkening back to an early comment, I found it so odd to be listening to Junior Vasquez play live at the gay Element event at Bank, where most of the patrons were wearing blazer jackets. It's really at odds with every other city I've visited, and basically I found it pretentious. Another thing, the winter weather in New York is depressingly bitterly cold. Of course, I also feel that if I were wealthy there's probably no other place I'd rather live... which might account for that New York obsession.

Geoffrey hadn't done a great deal of sightseeing things in New York, so we saw a show (Avenue Q, which was hilarious), rode the Staten Island Ferry (partly because Working Girl is on both our favourite film lists), and visited the recently reopened Top of the Rock observatory, at the Rockefeller Center's GE Building. The view from here is somewhat better than that from the Empire State Building. Top of the Rock is closer to Central Park, and it also allows you to view the Empire State Building itself. If the view looks familiar, it was used for the cover art photograph of the Blur album Standing on the Shoulder of Giants.

The last thing I did in New York was to catch up with my friend Dan, a fellow film student from my days at Bond. At the time, Dan was working for a Midtown law firm and he shouted me lunch at a French restaurant (where, unusually, we ate hamburgers). Alas Dan has since joined the dark side, and is now studying to be a lawyer. Anyhow a big shout out to Dan, who I know is an occasional read of this blog.

All of my 2007 New York photographs are on Flickr, and can be viewed in a slideshow.

Lisbon

Lisbon was on my destination list from the moment I arrived in London. I was just waiting for the right time to visit, and the story of how I got there is slightly unusual. British Airways cabin crew were threatening to strike in late January this year. The strike was averted at the eleventh hour, but not before thousands of travellers had changed their travel plans. Suddenly the airline found itself flying near-empty planes, and needed to sell a lot of seats fast! I read about the impromptu sale on Wednesday afternoon. Two days (and only £78) later, I was in Lisbon.

Lisbon reminds me of Madrid, but less glitzy, rougher-edged, a little more run-down, and perhaps a little poorer. That's not to say I didn't like Lisbon; in fact, I loved it. I stayed on the edge of Bairro Alto, which literally translates to "upper town". The Santa Justa elevator, now a tourist attraction, was constructed to assist people to from the low town to the high town. Lisbon was flattened by a massive earthquake in 1755, one of the largest to strike a major city up to that time. The ruins of the Carmo Convent, located adjacent to elevator, are an enduring visual memory of the earthquake's effect.

The Bairro, as it's known, was mostly unaffected by the earthquake, so this part of Lisbon is much older than the surrounding town. When wandering through the Bairro, you could be easily forgiven for thinking you'd gotten lost in Madrid's Chueca, as both districts look very similar. And even though it was mid-winter when I visited, the streets were filled with young people congregating outside bars drinking into the wee hours of the morning.

Lisbon's most significant cultural attraction is the Belém region, located to the west of the city centre. Here I visited the World Heritage listed Jerónimos Monastery and the Church of Santa Maria. The great explorer Vasco da Gama is buried in the cathedral. Nearby, one can visit Belém Tower which was constructed in the early 16th century to commemorate de Gama's expedition and the Age of Discoveries when Portugal, by commanding the seas, was a major world power. The Monument to the Discoveries commemorates this period. It was constructed using temporary materials for the 1940 Portugese World Fair, and then later rebuilt as the permanement monument that exists today. The monument offers a commanding birds-eye view of all of Belém, including the modern cultural centre, incorporating an art gallery and exhibition space.

There are two architectural curiosities in Lisbon that look like they were stolen from another city, much like the way one can plonk notable buildings into different cities in Sim City. The 25th of April bridge, named for the 1974 date of the Carnation Revolution, is an impressive sight up close and from afar, as it spans the bay with a single suspension arch. It also looks a helluva lot like San Francisco's Bay Bridge (which in turn is often mistaken for the Golden Gate Bridge). That's because both bridges were constructed by the same firm, the American Bridge Company.

Adjacent to the bridge's southern span is a steep hill, perched on which you'll find a giant statue of Jesus Christ, arms abreast, and eerily similar to Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro. Cristo-Rei, as the monument is known, was built following World War II, in thanks to God for sparing Portugal from the horrors that befell most of Europe. My trip to Cristo-Rei was my favourite memory of Lisbon. The sun was shining, the temperature was close to 20 degrees, and the view from the hilltop, and the monument, was sensational.

All of my photographs from Lisbon are on Flickr, and can be viewed in a slideshow.