Search terms that have led readers to Polari.

It’s madness, and part of Polari’s WTF Friday features. Madonna and telekinesis!

“It’s funny when you know where a search term led, but you still think, ‘why the hell would anyone search for that?’ Unless it’s a 21st century fetish we’ve not heard about …”

Bona to Nellyarda!

Polari’s editor, alongside Clayton Littlewood and David Benson, talks about what Polari meant at the height of its use in the 1950s and ’60s.

“At the start of the London 2012 Olympics, Polari Magazine joined Clayton Littlewood at the BBC’s new building in Portland Place to talk about the meaning of the slang Polari.”

[rating=4]
307 pages • Paradise Press • June 23, 2012 [PB]

Tim Bennett-Goodman finds Rod Shelton’s first novel fast-paced, picaresque romp which is funny, sexy and intriguing by turns.

“In this blackly-comic novel, high drama meets high camp and the reader is rewarded with raunchy gay sex amongst a bevy of beautiful boys, in every imaginable position, on almost every other page.”

[rating=3]
Released November 11, 2011
Walter Beck reviews the Charles Manson single Horsefly, recorded in secret in his prison cell. Yes, that Chales Manson …

“The hardest part for anyone listening to it is to separate Manson the Musician from Manson the Monster. He has been America’s boogeyman for the last forty years, but underneath the headlines and photos is a good musician.”

[rating=1]
296 pages • Campus Ministry USA • 2nd ed, 1996 [PB]

Walter Beck takes a look at Jed Smock’s right-wing Christian manifesto, which is still doing the rounds and trying to spoil impressionable minds.

“He can’t even talk about them like they’re human beings calling them “sodomites” and even stating, ‘A favorite trick of homosexuals is to get young men drunk and seduce them’.”

The Old Sorting Office, New Oxford St, London – WC1 • August 5-31, 2012

House DJ David Guetta and artist Mr Brainwash, Thiery Guetta, put on an exhibition that is defined by hype but is in the end more than hype.

“At that moment, I stopped caring about the Mr Brainwash hype machine, whether he is real or whether his art says anything, and I became truly moved by something that was in front of me.”

Funny and Gay!

Polari’s spotlight on exceptional LGBT voices in the blogosphere. This week it’s Joe. My. God.

“What Joe manages to do is to run a blog that is in effect a well-curated hub. It is no wonder that news sites follow his lead.”

What would you do?

In a moving, and funny piece, cabaret performer Menno Kuijper writes about living in Brixton and standing up to the man who called him “batty boy” on far too regular a basis.

“I never really quite knew how to respond to it. I always wished I could do something that would scare the living daylights out of him, unleash some kind of monstrous strength or fantastic superpower, or at least find something clever to say. ‘Yes, I’m gay, well-spotted, you’ve just won a fridge!’.”

How do you find Mr Virtual Right?

What has happened to the chat-up line, or the simple ‘hi’, asks Scott De Buitléir, in the days of internet/app dating?

“Yet for all the issues I could have with dating apps, on that Friday night in Dublin city, I didn’t even have the choice – my phone was dead.”

Photographing Men and Architecture.

A candid insight of a photographer at work. A good photograph takes far more than simply an eye for a good-looking man.

“I don’t want them just to be lumps of meat to look at. I’ve already created some kind of trust with these guys so the last thing I want to do is present a set of images that totally objectifies them and turns them into something else.”