I’m currently in the process of trying to move. My ex-husband and I bought this flat in Hastings as an investment and quickly became ‘DFLs’ or ‘Down From Londoners’. It’s a nice enough flat, but it’s too small for my needs and has far too many memories. I need a new start, starting with a new place to live.

I’ve had an offer accepted on a property I desperately want to buy, but first I need to sell this flat or find some other way of making up the shortfall. My days are spent liaising with estate agents, mortgage brokers and solicitors. Needless to say, this has all been rather stressful.

As my friend Maria reminded me last night, there are few things more stressful in life than moving home, apart from divorce and bereavement. As I reminded her, my divorce was only finalised last month and I lost my mum in 2024.

“But that was two years ago,” Maria said. “It’s time to move on.”

I know what she meant. Still it made me think. Do we really move on from bereavement? How long are we supposed to grieve for? Is there a time limit on these things? Because I appear to have missed that memo.

Maria and I were attending the Hastings launch of Jake Arnott’s new novel Netherwood – a folk horror story set in Hastings and described by the author as a love letter to the town. There was certainly a lot of love in the room last night, not least for the author’s unexpected rendition of ‘The Monster Mash’.

Well I say ‘unexpected’. I’ve heard Jake’s rendition of this camp classic before, on more than one occasion. But it was certainly unexpected in the context of a book launch, rather than a birthday party or karaoke night. Jake also treated us to a reading, which gave a taste of the horrors awaiting the novel’s protagonists and had us all on tenterhooks.

Netherwood is the tale of a couple called Adam and Justine. They’re what locals refer to as ‘FILTH’ – “failed in London, trying Hastings” – and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who felt a flicker of recognition. Much as I love my life here, there’s often the sense of still being seen as an outsider, not least by the people my friend Sam refers to as “made in Hastings.”

Sam and I once entered a local pub together and I swear it was just like that scene from An American Werewolf in London, where the two American backpackers enter a pub on the Yorkshire moors called ‘The Slaughtered Lamb.’ Everyone turned to stare at us, and their expressions weren’t friendly. I could practically hear them thinking, “We don’t like strangers round ’ere!” We left pretty sharpish.

There was none of that parochial nonsense last night. We were all of us strangers, and none of us were. I chatted with people I’ve known for years and others I’ve only met recently. What we all share is a love of this town and an appreciation of how lucky we are to live here.

For a small town, Hastings certainly punches above its weight. Yes, there’s poverty. But there’s also a huge amount of creativity and lots of community spirit. It’s what I love about this place. This, and the regular excuses to parade through town in fancy dress. Never before have I attended so many festivals, or worn so many silly costumes.

As Jake reminded us during his speech, we have three independent bookshops in Hastings, including Printed Matter, who were selling books on the night. That’s pretty impressive for a town this size.

Over the years I’ve attended a great many book launches – and I’ve hosted a few, too. Some are quite dull. Others are more memorable.

For the launch of my 2005 Hollywood-themed novel Star People, I hired two muscle boys in gold paint to pose as living Oscar statues. At a previous book launch, for my debut novel Shameless, I had two muscle boys in jockstraps dancing on podiums. (Does anyone else see a theme emerging here?)

There were no such gratuitous displays of male flesh at Jake’s launch, but it will certainly go down as one of the more memorable launches I’ve ever attended. Partly because the drinks flowed freely all evening. Partly because the host sang ‘The Monster Mash’. And partly because there were so many friendly faces, all gathered to show their support. By the end of the evening, there wasn’t a single book left. Lee from Printed Matter had sold the lot.

My old friend Dom Agius was on DJ duties and kept us dancing for hours. ‘Love Action’ by The Human League, ‘Don’t Tell Me’ by Madonna, ‘Fashion’ by Bowie, ‘State of Independence’ by Donna Summer – I threw shapes to them all. Some of my dance moves may have been ill-advised, but no matter. It was a special night.

Today I’m back in the world of work, life admin and fretting about my plans to move. Despite my best efforts, I’m naturally more of a worrier than a warrior, and the statistics don’t help. It’s estimated that up to a third of property sales in England currently fall through. Here in Hastings, it’s closer to 50 percent. So I’m not being overly anxious, I’m just being realistic.

Anyway, enough of my griping. Go and order Jake’s new novel. The reviews have been fantastic and he deserves every success. Especially after that performance.

Netherwood is published by Titan Books

© 2026 Paul Burston

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Both titles were pitched as men’s lifestyle magazines, and were launched in the same month, May 1994. But while Attitude was geared towards gay men, Loaded was aimed at a very different demographic – the so-called ‘New Lad’ – and was marketed as “the magazine for men who should know better.”

I wasn’t a regular reader of Loaded but I’ve always been an admirer of Martin’s writing, particularly his skills as an interviewer. These are very much in evidence on his podcast, where he interviews ’90s movers and shakers about the decade of Britpop, lad culture and “lager, lager, lager”. Guests so far include Irvine Welsh, Keith Allen, Jenny Eclair and Maria McErlane.

I particularly enjoyed Martin’s conversation with Maria, who spoke candidly about ageing, mortality and the two bottles of morphine she keeps in her fridge. (Her recent memoir Bumps In The Road is funny, insightful and highly recommended.)

Martin isn’t the only one tapping into the nostalgia for all things ’90s. Fellow journalist Miranda Sawyer has an entertaining podcast called Talk ’90s To Me, which covers similar territory. Guests include Bobby Gillespie of Primal Scream and Garbage front-woman Shirley Manson.

I’ve also been talking ’90s rather a lot lately. Two months ago, I was approached by Dalston Superstore’s Dan Beaumont, who’s researching London’s gay nightlife in the ’90s and early Noughties. Our conversation was wide ranging, but focussed largely on the emerging alternative scene in the ’90s, including the influential gay indie night Popstarz and the somewhat artier Duckie.

Of the two, Popstarz was more clearly aligned with Britpop. Promoter Simon Hobart dressed like a member of Blur and could easily have passed as one of the lads who read Loaded. I had some great nights at Popstarz but as I told Dan, I always felt more at home at Duckie – drinking Smirnoff Ice, snorting coke and dancing to the likes of Pulp, Suede, Bowie and The Banshees.

Dan isn’t the only one eager to pick what’s left of my ’90s addled brains. Back in March, I was contacted by curator Shaun Wallace, who was researching a project about “lost queer spaces” for the V&A.

He was particularly interested in black queer club spaces in London, and had come across an article I wrote for the Independent back in 1995. Indie nights weren’t the only gay alternatives back then. There was also a thriving club scene catering to a largely black audience.

It pains me to say it, but the ’90s didn’t end yesterday, much as I might like to kid myself. As the aforementioned podcasts and conversations remind me, they were A Long Time Ago. A lot has changed since then. Many of London’s queer club spaces have come and gone. Bars have closed. Barcode, The Box, Brief Encounter, The Edge, The Green Carnation, Manbar, Trash Palace – all gone.

The Soho I once knew is barely recognisable. And articles I wrote back then are now officially Of Historical Interest.

Here’s one such article, first published in the Independent on Feb 1, 1995 –

Faggamuffins’ night out

The publishers of Skank, the black adult comic for fans of “pure ragga”, have been putting a face to black male homosexuality. One of their regular cartoon strips, “Faggamuffins”, concerns the exploits of a couple of black queens, who refer to each other as “darling” and “dear scrotum juggler”, and fantasise about “getting bummed”.

In a recent issue, the pair are booted out of their flat by an angry landlord demanding his rent. Hitting on a way to make some cash and have some fun into the bargain, they go looking for trade on “Batty Road”, make passes at straight men, and get beaten up. The image presented is of black gay men as victims – not unlike the image that existed of white gay men before the media realised the extent of their spending power.

“It’s crap, man,” says Steve, a gay black man in his mid-twenties “It’s not the real picture.” Looking around, you are forced to agree. Steve is a regular at Silk, one of a growing number of London clubs catering for a crowd that is predominantly black, gay and, if appearances are anything to go by, brimming with self-confidence.

These are the real-life “faggamuffins” – the “bullers” (gay men) and “wickers” (lesbians). “Black people tend to be very self-conscious,” says Ronald, who is here for the seventh time in as many weeks. “And the gay scene as a whole is so white. It takes clubs like this to really bring us out of ourselves.”

Clubs such as this – and Funky Feel, Nwangi and Shugs – have been a long time coming. For years, the black gay scene was a strictly underground phenomenon. Faced with homophobia and racism, black lesbians and gay men developed their own social network based around private parties. Neville Clayton remembers a time when hanging with the homo boys and girls meant waiting for invites to crowded house parties where nobody had room enough to dance and the sound system was usually “atrocious”.

So why have things changed? “Cos I’m here,’‘ he says with relish. Clayton, the man behind Sunday night’s Funky Feel in Kensington, was one of the first promoters to recognise the potential of the black gay club market. After a brief stint with the Black Experience, who ran the moderately successful Time club on Oxford Street, Clayton joined up with DJ Supadon and Thomas M, promoter of Silk, to launch what was to become the most popular, high-profile club of its kind: Pressure Zone, at the Vox club in Brixton.

“Thomas came to me and asked if he could use my DJs,’‘ Clayton recalls. “I remember thinking it sounded a bit shady, but I wanted a regular venue. So on 29 January 1993, we launched Pressure Zone. We were mobbed.’‘

Right from the outset, the impact of Pressure Zone was enormous. “The whole black party scene came out into the open,’‘ says Thomas M. “People who didn’t fit into the mainstream gay scene had been given a space.’‘

He believes the choice of venue had a lot to do with it: “The Vox was special, because it had the advantage of two dance floors. Upstairs you could play Jamaican music like ragga and reggae, and downstairs you could play club classics, and attract a wider audience.’‘

Perhaps not quite wide enough. According to Clayton, the reason for the club’s demise was that it fell prey to black party politics. “People became very defensive about it being a black space,’‘ he says. “You’d have mixed-race couples coming in there, and getting attitude. A lot of woman were made to feel uncomfortable, too.”

“Most of the problems tended to be with the sorts of people who stereotype themselves, if you know what I mean. Once the ragga music started, these guys would come out on to the dance floor and start being very aggressive.’‘

As a result he decided against playing ragga at Funky Feel, he says. And that was why Pressure Zone didn’t last.

Thomas M takes a different view. “Pressure Zone educated a lot of people from both sides of the divide,” he says. “The white people who came got used to particular ways of behaviour. At the same time, those black people who were really quite stand-offish at the start became much more amenable to the idea of having all sorts of people around them, and just concentrated on having a good time.’‘

If there is one thing both men agree on, it is that a good time tends to be had by all when clubs operate a mixed door policy. A typical night at Funky Feel is 70-75 per cent black, with 10-15 per cent of punters women. Silk attracts a 60 per cent black crowd for the first few hours, rising to 80 per cent as the night goes on and the music switches to the heavier sounds of ragga and jungle. Again, a fair number of women are in evidence.

“Women are an essential part of the black scene,’‘ says David Cairns, manager of Lowdown, where Silk is also housed. “There simply isn’t the same split you find on the gay scene in general.’‘

Asked about ragga’s reputation as a homophobic genre, Thomas M is unfazed. “Ragga is a rhythm,” he says. “There may be quite a few homophobic songs. But that doesn’t make all ragga music homophobic. A lot of ragga is culturally aware, and consciously political in a way that most white pop music is not.’‘

Whatever the reasoning behind the music policy, the punters seem to be enjoying it. At Silk, the temperature is rising.

Paul is white and has come for the first time with black friends. “I prefer this kind of music,” he says. “The whole gay scene at the moment seems to revolve around music to take drugs to. I can’t stand that. Also, this is one of the few clubs you can come to where there is an interracial mix. There is still such a lot of segregation on the gay scene. Places like this help break down barriers.’‘

His friend Cliff agrees. “A lot of the black guys here tonight wouldn’t go out on the gay scene ‘cos the music is crap. I know lots of black lesbians who won’t go out to the girl bars ‘cos they know they’re unlikely to meet other black lesbians. Here, the music is a lot better, and it doesn’t matter what colour you are.’‘

Neville Clayton could be speaking for both when he says: “This whole scene is important cos it’s showing people there is another way of enjoying gay clubs and being with the brothers and sisters. It’s not about black versus white, or who’s right and who’s wrong. It’s all about mixing.”

© 2026 Paul Burston

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I don’t know how old she was, but in the photos left by grieving friends and family, she looks no older than 20.

I don’t know how she died, though the circumstances and heavy police presence suggest that her death is being treated as suspicious.

She was discovered last Friday morning. As I made my morning coffee, I glanced down from my third floor kitchen window. The streets below were lined with police cars. An ambulance was parked nearby.

The immediate area was screened off by the police, but from my window I had a bird’s eye view of the forensic team as they erected a tent and searched the spot where the body was found.

I felt guilty for looking. Dignity in dying is something we often talk about, and there’s very little dignity in such a public death.

I wasn’t the only one watching. Several neighbours were peering down from the buildings opposite. A crowd gathered on the corner of the road, sufficiently distanced but clearly focussed on what looked like a crime scene.

I turned away, drank my coffee and prepared my breakfast. When I left the flat an hour or so later, the police screens and forensic tent had gone, the crowd had dispersed and the only physical reminder of the dead woman was a bouquet of flowers tied to a nearby tree.

When I returned home later that day, more flowers had arrived. A small group of young people were adding to the tributes with photos and handwritten letters. Some spoke together in hushed voices. Others sat in silence. It was such a painfully sad scene, I averted my eyes as I walked past, not wishing to intrude on their grief.

I’ve been thinking about grief a lot lately. I lost my mum two years ago – the same year two gay male friends lost theirs. A lesbian friend lost her mother shortly afterwards. Another recently lost her beloved brother.

Any personal loss is sad, especially when it’s a close friend or family member. We’re supposed to be prepared for it, especially as we and our loved ones grow older. It’s the natural order of things, after all.

But nothing prepares you, not really. Two year on, I still have moments when I forget and think “I must call mum and tell her” – only to experience another wave of grief, smaller and less intense than before but still strong enough to make me catch my breath.

I don’t think grief ever truly leaves you. It comes and goes like the tides, shifting and reshaping but as permanent as the sea.

There’s something particularly sad about someone dying young. It’s certainly not the natural order of things and the impact can be devastating. How do you process the loss of someone who had their whole life ahead of them?

I experienced this in the early ’90s, at the height of the AIDS crisis. In a few short years, I lost half my friends. Most were in their ’20s or early ’30s.

When an older gay male friend, the author Tom Wakefield, died at the age of 60, it came as a shock. In my topsy-turvy world, dying young was the new normal. Older men like Tom weren’t supposed to die. How fucked up is that?

Tom is buried in Highgate Cemetery, where his headstone describes him as a ‘writer, educator, mother’. He certainly mothered me, though his cooking was questionable and his advice, though well-intentioned, was often hard to follow.

“I told you, Paul…” he’d say, sucking on a Silk Cut and reminding me of a conversation we’d supposedly had but which I could never remember – either because it had never taken place, or it hadn’t gone quite the way he said.

But Tom always had my best interests at heart. He comforted me in times of trouble, and his death had a profound effect on me. It also pushed me into finally writing the novel he’d always encouraged me to write, and I’ll always be grateful to him for that.

The year Tom died, I was 29 years old and had been to far too many funerals. Losing loved ones at such a young age changes you in ways you can’t imagine. In my case, it set me on a path of increasingly self destructive behaviour, fuelled by cumulative grief and survivor’s guilt. It took me a long time to process those feelings and come to terms with the profound sense of loss.

My heart breaks for the poor young woman who died just over a week ago.

My heart goes out to her friends and family, including the many young people who’ve come to pay their respects.

I hope they’re coping.

I hope they’re wiser than I was at their age, and more resilient.

I hope they have someone to mother them.

© 2026 Paul Burston

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No-one is more surprised by this than me. As a kid, I hated football with a passion. I was always the last to be picked and the first to have a ball kicked in his face.

At school, I developed an interest in cross country running and later joined a cycling team – anything to avoid the indignity of chasing a ball around a muddy playing field.

These feelings carried over into adulthood, when football fans often posed threats of violence. To this day, my body tenses whenever I encounter gangs of male football supporters in the wild.

For me, the beautiful game has always been tainted by the ugliness of football hooliganism and homophobia. I first met the late Justin Fashanu in 1990, shortly after he came out and was hounded by the tabloid press. His brother John denounced him as an “attention seeker” who’d brought shame on his family.

Fashanu took his own life in 1998, the same year David Beckham played his first World Cup. I admired Beckham for his outspoken gay allyship and unashamedly homoerotic photoshoots. These days we’d call this ‘gay baiting’. Back then, it felt little short of revolutionary.

But I still wasn’t remotely interested in the game. Until last month I’d never watched a single match.

Then my dear friend Sam invited me over for dinner and suggested that we watch the World Cup.

“Must we?” I asked. “I’m not really interested.”

But Sam was – and I was a guest in her house, so watch the match we did. Dinner was served and the TV switched on.

“The Croatian team are hot!” Sam assured me.

And they were. But as the game unfolded, something remarkable happened. It wasn’t the eye candy that held my attention. It was the drama. It wasn’t just a game of football. It was a battle of skills, wits and determination.

Sam’s enthusiasm was infectious. The more she shouted at the TV, the more involved I became. Who knew that football could be so exciting? Most people, I imagine. But not me. Not until that night.

Since then I’ve become as personally invested in the sporting achievements of Jude Bellingham, Harry Kane, Marcus Rashford and Declan Rice as the next footie fan. I’ve even taken to calling it ‘footie’.

Old friends say I’m acting strange. They shake their heads and tell me that I’ve changed.

“You’ve just called it ‘the footie’,” my friend and fellow journalist Phil Harrison noted. “Who are you and what have you done with Paul?”

Others have suggested that I’m “on the turn.”

I don’t think I am, or I wouldn’t be quoting Joni Mitchell lyrics. But I’ve looked at life from both sides now – from win and lose and still somehow, it’s life’s illusions I recall – and what could be more illusory than the dream of England winning the World Cup?

“I love that you’ve discovered the joy and pain of football,” the author Mark Edwards commented on Facebook. “Which club are you going to support? You need one that’s going to cause you maximum pain and disappointment.”

I tasted the pain during the semi-final against Argentina. Sam and I were at our local gay bar, where we sat on a stage usually reserved for drag performers, watching the match on multiple screens and enjoying multiple hydration breaks.

It was a fun night, at least until Argentina won. Then it wasn’t such fun anymore. It was devastating.

Suddenly it all made sense. The tribalism. The emotional investment. The crushing disappointment. All the “years of hurt”.

“No-one likes a semi,” Sam said solemnly.

I tried to make light of it – “a semi, oo-er!” But it was no use. We left with heavy hearts and half a bottle of wine, which we donated to a man sleeping rough in a nearby bus shelter.

Halfway home, we stopped for a comfort break at Yates, where Sam bonded with a group of young women in the ladies loo and disappeared onto the dance floor for a spot of “mum dancing”.

“I feel better now,” she said. “I’ve danced it off.”

I wasn’t in the mood for dancing, so we said our goodbyes and I sloped off home.

The following morning, I was walking past my local vape shop and saw the familiar faces of two young lads working inside. There were no customers in the shop so I popped in.

“What about last night’s game, eh?” I said, which are words I never expected to come out of my mouth.

The look of surprise on their faces told me they didn’t have me down for a footie fan, either. Then we shared our sorrows and chatted about defence, substitutions, and those damned Argentinians.

It may sound trivial but I’d never experienced this kind of male bonding before. I left the shop feeling strangely elated and celebrated with a sausage roll from Greggs.

Truth be told, not all of the England matches were as exciting as that first game. The quarter final against Norway was pretty dull.

But if you need convincing that Jude Bellingham is a god among men, watch the third place play-off against France, where he demonstrated that not only is he a great player, he’s also a total gent.

And then there’s his bromance with Norway’s Erling Haaland, which some fans are already comparing to Heated Rivalry.

The World Cup may be over, but my love of footie – and Jude – has only just begun.

What a man. What a role model. What a beautiful game.

© 2026 Paul Burston

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‘Hung Up’ is massive. Her last album American Life performed poorly by her standards. But now she’s back on top again, which is where Madonna likes to be. ‘Hung Up’ reworks two tracks – ‘Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight)’ by ABBA and ‘Love Song’, a duet with Prince from Like A Prayer.

2007 is the year of Confessions on a Dance Floor, which sees Our Lady of Reinvention returning to the disco and dressing like Karen Lynn Gorney in Saturday Night Fever. Madonna’s command of visual imagery is well known. In the past she’s referenced Marilyn, Marlene, Marlon and more. No visual clue is unplanned. For the Confessions tour, she also dresses like John Travolta, in the iconic white suit and black shirt.

2007 is also the year my third novel Lovers & Losers is published. The novel tells the story of a fictional ’80s synth pop duo. The launch party is held at Trash Palace in Soho and the owner, Tommy, insists that I play a guest DJ set.

I spend weeks preparing for this, agonising over the set list and creating multiple mixes of favourite tracks on GarageBand. At the end of my set I play ‘Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)’ followed by ‘Act of Contrition’ (“oh my god”) then ‘Like A Prayer’.

The cool crowd looks hesitant at first, then the place erupts as the chorus kicks in and the power of Madonna takes us there.

The party is such a success that we decide to launch a club night called A Club for Lovers and Losers, with my DJ pal Dom Agius and guests joining me on the decks. The first night is rammed, with queues round the block. But gradually it goes the way of most alternative club nights and fizzles out.

One of my biggest regrets is that I didn’t see the Confessions tour live. So let’s move swiftly on.

Confession 8 - “So now what?”

It’s 36 years since I first saw Madonna live on stage with Blond Ambition. I’ve seen her several times since, often at considerable expense – The Girlie Show, Drowned World, Madame X.

In her own words, her career has been up and down and all around, but it’s all about survival.

She nearly didn’t survive 2023, after being hospitalised with sepsis. Her highly anticipated Celebration tour was postponed. The US dates were rescheduled, which meant that the tour opened in London. I went with friends and family, including my sister Jac and my cousin MissElaineous. Jac and her friend Rebecca were in the “cheap seats”, which cost well over £100. MissElaineous and I were closer to the stage.

It was the second night. I’d avoided social media in case of spoilers, though a friend who attended the opening night assured me that I was in for a treat.

Before the show began – considerably later than advertised – I was beginning to question the wisdom of having parted with so much money. It could have paid for a holiday. But I needn’t have worried. The moment Madonna appears singing ‘Nothing Really Matters’, all is forgiven and every penny I’d spent “all comes back to me”.

Then as the jubilation of ‘Holiday’ gives way to the opening strains of ‘Live To Tell’, something remarkable happens. Images appear on giant screens high above our heads, each one featuring someone who died of AIDS.

It’s hard to explain how powerful this was, and how deeply it affected me. It felt like I was back in ACT-UP, honouring the dead and fighting for the living. I confess I cried.

MissElaineous cried too. Somehow Madonna had repurposed a song about emotional betrayal into an anthem for doomed youth. It was the first song of hers I ever truly loved, and suddenly it felt more personal than ever. Even if she never makes such a powerful statement again, it’s more than enough.

And now it’s 2026. Concessions II is topping the charts. Madonna is on Grindr and her gay fans are having ‘a moment’. Whenever someone taps or messages me on the world’s largest hookup app, Madonna says “thanks for coming”. The sauce pot.

There are rumours of a world tour, and a headline slot at Glastonbury. Who knows how true they are. But the album rollout has been a joy to behold and the album itself is her best in decades. Better than the first Confessions, if you ask me. Her best album since Ray of Light.

Some of the commentary on mainstream and social media is predictably ageist and sexist, but the album receives glowing reviews. Surprisingly little is said about the fact that the cover image echoes the pink triangle adopted by gay activists in the 1970s and ACT-UP in the 1980s.

The pink triangle has a long history. It was first used in Nazi Germany to identify and dehumanise men imprisoned for homosexuality, as described in the 1972 memoir The Men with the Pink Triangle by Josef Kohout (written under the pseudonym Heinz Heger) – the first published account of a gay survivor of the concentration camps.

Gay activists reclaimed the pink triangle as a symbol of resistance. AIDS activists inverted it, with the triangle pointing upwards on a black background – a deliberate ‘reversal’ of its usage by the Nazis.

ACT-UP was founded in 1987. Madonna was already a huge star by this point, and the AIDS crisis affected her in a deeply personal way. Her best friend Martin Burgoyne died the previous year. His image was the first to appear on screen at the Celebration tour.

So it’s no accident that she appears on the cover of Confessions II in the shape of a pink triangle. Five decades into a record-breaking, culture-changing career, The Queen of Pop has reclaimed her crown, and she’s done it with a powerful acknowledgment of her audience.

It hasn’t always been easy being a Madonna fan. But lose my faith? I’ll be gone before it happens.

PS. Tonight I taught a two hour creative writing workshop. I ended it with two writing exercises, both on the theme of confessions. The participants enjoyed the exercises and produced some great work.

Then I made a confession of my own. The exercises were a tribute to Madonna – Confessions I and Confessions II.

Amen.

© 2026 Paul Burston

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On Monday night I was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. I signed the RSL’s Roll Book, using a pen that once belonged to Lord Byron.

If you’ve read my memoir or you knew me in the ’90s, you might recall that I was obsessed with Byron for many years, and once wrote a radio play about him. So to sign my name with Byron’s pen felt somewhat surreal.

In fact, the whole evening felt like a fever dream. So many wonderful people. So many special moments. President of the RSL Elif Shafak gave a great speech, and welcomed each of the new Fellows and Honorary Fellows with such grace.

It was a joyous occasion – and a little overwhelming. I’ve spent much of the past six months in casual clothes so it was fun to dress up for a change. My suit trousers felt a little tight, but the suit gave me confidence. Imposter syndrome is something I struggle with regularly but I didn’t feel like an imposter on this occasion. I felt seen.

I’ve known about this honour for a few months but was sworn to secrecy. As you can imagine, I found this difficult. I haven’t had a lot of good news to share lately, so part of me wanted to shout it from the rooftops. I confided in a few close friends, including Sam, who was my guest at the induction ceremony.

And I told my therapist, who suggested that I write about it.

I received the news the day after my mum’s birthday. My first thought was that she’d be so proud of me. I wanted to call her, but she’s been gone for two years now.

“Maybe you could write a letter to your mum?” my therapist suggested. “Or to your younger self?”

I still feel quite raw whenever I think about my mum, and I didn’t want this letter to be another expression of grief.

So I wrote to my younger self. Here’s what I wrote –

Dear 23 year-old Paul

Congratulations on having your first feature article accepted for publication. You are now officially a working journalist!

I know the payment is small. To be honest, it’ll be years before you’re able to make any kind of a living from writing, and even then the rewards won’t be that great.

But don’t be discouraged. Seeing your name in print is no mean achievement. It proves that your teachers were right to encourage you in your dreams of being a writer. Even if they’re unlikely to be reading a copy of Capital Gay.

Years from now, one of your former English teachers will interview you for a Welsh arts magazine. You’ll go back to your old comprehensive school and interview teenage boys about their hopes and aspirations. You’ll remember how you felt at that age, how much you loved English and creative writing, how uncertain you were about the future.

You needn’t have worried. By the time you’re 28 you’ll have an editorial staff position at Time Out. You’ll be writing for various newspapers and magazines, interviewing celebrities and enjoying press trips to Miami, New England, New York and LA.

You’ll meet many of the people who once graced your bedroom wall – David Bowie, Debbie Harry, Siouxsie Sioux. You’ll stay in the kind of hotels you once worked in. You’ll make a point of tipping the maid and leaving your room reasonably clean and tidy.

At 30 you’ll publish your first book, quickly followed by a second, both works of non-fiction. At 33 you’ll be writing and presenting television documentaries for Channel 4.

At 35 you’ll publish your first novel, Shameless. You’ll receive a glowing review in the New York Times Review of Books, comparing you to Candace Bushnell and Jacqueline Susann – two writers you admire greatly, the first of whom you’ll later interview at an author event in Brighton.

You’ll also have your detractors – people who say your work is “too gay”, “too niche” or “not literary enough.” But they won’t put you off writing, any more than the boys who bullied you at school put you off writing.

By the time you’re 42, you’ll have published seven books in total. Your third novel Lovers and Losers will earn you your best reviews yet, and you’ll be nominated for a Stonewall Award for writing.

Despite this, you still won’t have received a single invitation to take part in a book festival. So you’ll decide to launch your own literary salon, showcasing LGBTQ writers. Much to your surprise, it’ll take off in a big way, moving to the Southbank Centre and touring the country with funding from Arts Council England.

You’ll launch a book prize for LGBTQ+ writers.

You’ll turn to writing crime novels. You’ll teach writing workshops in a men’s prison. You’ll be nervous at first, then pleasantly surprised at how engaged the inmates can be, and how creative.

You’ll contribute to a book called Not Quite Right For Us, describing how class and sexuality have shaped your experience of the publishing world. You’ll write about rejection and power dynamics and the many times you’ve felt like an outsider.

But you’ll carry on doing what you do, because you believe passionately in celebrating and supporting other writers. You’ll continue writing, because you’ve always been a writer at heart and you can’t imagine a life in which you don’t write.

You’ll publish a bestselling memoir and start a Substack.

And one day, you’ll receive an unexpected email inviting you to become a Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

You’ll wish your mum was here to enjoy this special moment. But you’ll tell yourself that she knows somehow.

© 2026 Paul Burston

Tip Jar

It’s been seven weeks since my last confession. All I can say in my defence is that it’s been a busy seven weeks. I’ve been working on a new novel, developing and delivering an online writing course and planning a series of upcoming events.

In this respect, I’m a bit like Madonna, who rarely takes a holiday (“some time to celebrate”) and was once described by Camille Paglia as ‘Our Lady of Hard Work’.

Or so I tell myself.

Anyway, enough with the excuses. On with the confessions…

Confession 5 - “I’m not your bitch, don’t hang your shit on me”

In October 1994, Madonna released a new album and I was commissioned by the Independent newspaper to write about it.

It wasn’t a review. It wasn’t an interview – though Madonna was granting interviews again, following the backlash to her Sex book. She was on the cover of The Face and chatting on a hotel bed with Ruby Wax.

God knows I’d have loved the opportunity to interview Madonna. I still would.

But no such luck. My brief was to hang around the Virgin Megastore on Oxford Street, spot people who looked as if they might be considering buying the Bedtime Stories album and ask them if they were part of the Madonna backlash.

No, I’m not sure why I agreed to this, either. But in any event it was a total disaster.

The first person I met was a devoted lesbian fan who took umbrage at the impertinence of my question. And it all went rapidly downhill from there.

One man laughed in my face and walked away. A gay couple took pity on me but had nothing much to say. Then my dictaphone died and I resorted to pen and paper. Since I never mastered shorthand and can barely read my own handwriting, this was far from ideal.

Finally, after half a dozen more torturous encounters, my body decided that enough was enough. Clutching my stomach, I ran to the doors and projectile vomited onto the busy pavement outside.

The article never appeared, which is probably just as well. I wasn’t a big fan of Bedtime Stories, though it has grown on me in the years since. At the time, it felt disappointingly safe, certainly compared to the bold experimentation of Erotica.

‘Secret’ was mid tempo and a bit meh. As a lead single, it lacked the excitement of ‘Erotica’ or the euphoria of ‘Like a Prayer’ (though the Junior Vasquez dance remix was a vast improvement on the radio edit). Despite Madonna’s protestations that she wasn’t sorry (“it’s human nature”) there was a strong sense that she was softening her act in a bid to win back mainstream approval.

Still, Bedtime Stories certainly did the job, spawning one of her biggest hits with ‘Take a Bow’. And ’90s Madonna still had plenty more experimental tricks up her sleeve.

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To the best of my knowledge, nobody has ever been criminalised or persecuted simply for being straight. No country in the world outlaws heterosexual marriage or executes its citizens for the crime of being straight. Nobody grows up being physically bullied or publicly shamed for being heterosexual.

So until someone offers a more compelling argument than those I’ve seen on social media, I can’t see any need for Straight Pride.

Meanwhile, the need for Not Straight Pride is still very strong. I was reminded of this on Wednesday afternoon. The previous evening, my friend Sam and I watched the final episode of the Russell T. Davies drama Tip Toe, in which a gay man my age is lynched and hung from a lamppost.

On Wednesday, I took Sam’s adorable dachshund Darcy for a walk near her house in Islington, where a man shouted at me – “Let that dog off the lead or I’ll put a lead around your neck, you queer cunt!”

It’s been some time since I was subjected to this kind of abuse. I laughed it off and continued on my way. But nobody should have to put up with this.

The feelings of anger, fear, shock and even shame hung over me all day. These are feelings many people in the LGBTQ+ community know only too well. This is why we have Pride.

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The original was gifted to me by Jimmy Somerville, who was a prominent member of ACT-UP and had the T-shirts designed for the release of his 1989 album Read My Lips.

He wore the T-shirt on Top of the Pops when he performed the lead single of the same name. The song was inspired by Jimmy’s activism and is a call to action in the face of government indifference and prejudice towards people with HIV / AIDS.

When London Records reissued the album a few years ago, they reproduced the T-shirt as a fundraiser for ACT-UP. I provided sleeve notes for the reissue, for which I was paid a fee and received a T-shirt as a bonus gift. I’ve worn it many times since, partly out of nostalgia and partly because I still believe passionately in the message.

According to Google, “Action equals life” is a powerful philosophy that highlights how motion drives progress. Overthinking often leads to stagnation, whereas taking immediate steps naturally builds confidence, provides clarity, and generates momentum.”

Deep down, I know this to be true. But as a chronic over-thinker, I sometimes forget it and slide into periods of self doubt and stagnation, losing faith in myself and my abilities.

I’ve been overthinking a lot lately. This isn’t uncommon in my line of work. Most writers I know are over-thinkers. A few days ago, someone posted on X – “What do you call a collection of writers? An insecurity of writers? An anxiety of writers?”

I found this deeply relatable, obviously.

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The memoir describes how she lost her way and her sense of self. Jane being Jane, she doesn’t let the grass grow under her feet. She moves to another country, develops new friendships and goes on dates. Dates with men. Dates with women. A lot of dates.

Nothing is off limits. The memoir lets us in Jane’s her inner life and exposes her vulnerabilities. It’s a brave book – and one I found relatable in many ways.

It’s three years since my own memoir We Can Be Heroes was first published. Putting this book out into the world was far scarier than I’d imagined, and for all the reasons I should have foreseen. It’s not as if I’m new to this game. I’ve had a fair number of books published, and each time I’ve experienced The Fear.

The Fear usually creeps up on you in the run up to publication, when proof copies are sent out and you wait for endorsements from fellow authors and advance reviews from critics and readers. It’s one of the most stressful periods in an author’s working life.

The Fear tells you that everyone will hate your book, nobody will endorse it and your chances of getting reviewed are practically nonexistent. All the rewrites, all the edits, all the positive feedback from agents and editors and publicists – none of that matters. Your new baby is out in the world and you’re no longer there to hold its hand. Will it be popular? Will it be torn apart? There’s no way of knowing.

I’ve experienced The Fear many times. Mainly I write novels, and each time a new novel is published I go through the same process, hoping for the best and preparing for the worst.

But at least with a novel, you have some degree of emotional distance. Readers might not like the story or connect with the characters – but that’s only to be expected and it’s no reflection on you as an author or a person.

A memoir is a different story altogether. It’s your own story, or part of it. There’s very little distance between the writer and the book. So any criticism is going to feel more personal.

I was relieved when writers I admire gave such glowing endorsements. I was thrilled when readers and reviewers shared such positive reviews. But all the time I kept thinking, “these people know all my darkest secrets, all my insecurities, all my weaknesses!”

I don’t think there’s any point in writing a memoir if you’re not willing to be honest about it. But honesty can be very exposing. When Russell T. Davies described my memoir as “brutally honest” I know he meant it as a compliment. But it also confirmed that I’d laid myself bare, and that brought with it a certain sense of vulnerability.

I dare say Jane will be feeling this, too. No writer I know doesn’t have The Fear at some point or other. But I also know that she wrote her memoir from a place of emotional honesty and with a desire to connect with readers. “Only connect” as E.M Forster wrote.

The best part of publishing my own memoir was hearing from readers who’d shared similar experiences, and from others whose personal journeys were vastly different to my own. Three years on, I’m still receiving emails from female readers. I’m still hearing from young gay men in their teens and 20s – people who grew up in a different time and place but were touched by my story.

I grew up in the 1980s. I was a small town boy in a small Welsh town where homophobia was rife. Keeping secrets was second nature to me. It was all about survival. But by the time I was 19, I knew I couldn’t go on pretending to be someone I wasn’t and made a conscious decision to live as openly and honestly as possible. This has shaped my life and my writing ever since.

In his essay The Critic as Artist, Oscar Wilde wrote that “man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.”

This is why fiction is so powerful. It’s the lie that tells the truth.

Novels invite readers to journey into other worlds, as seen through the eyes of characters who exist only on the page. As a reader, I often marvel at a writer’s ability to make me suspend disbelief in a story they made up. And I’m in awe of writers who manage to test the boundaries of fiction without destroying the magic.

There’s a memorable chapter in John Fowles’s postmodern historical novel The French Lieutenant’s Woman where the author makes a surprising confession, breaking the fourth wall and reminding us that what we’re reading is a work of fiction.

“This story I am telling is all imagination,” he writes in Chapter 13. “These characters I create never existed outside my own mind. If I have pretended until now to know my characters’ minds and innermost thoughts, it is because I am writing in (just as I have assumed some of the vocabulary and ‘voice’ of ) a convention universally accepted at the time of my story: that the novelist stands next to God.”

I first read The French Lieutenant’s Woman for my English A level and it blew my mind. It’s a measure of how good the novel is that I couldn’t wait to find out what happens next. And was equally thrilled to discover that the author offers the reader a choice of three alternate endings.

So yes, I’m a big fan of fiction. I love reading it and I love writing it.

But there’s a special kind of power in being truthful without hiding behind masks or putting words into the mouths of fictional characters. There’s a certain freedom in speaking directly from the heart, writing in your own voice, sharing your lived experience. It may feel scary at times but it has its own reward. At its best, life writing can touch the parts other genres can’t reach.

For a writer, there’s no better feeling than knowing your words have resonated with someone. There’s no greater goal than emotional connection. And there’s nobody we value more than readers. Without you, we’re nothing.

So please, go and order Jane’s memoir. And thank you for reading.

Rewilding by Jane Green is published on June 4

© 2026 Paul Burston

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Tell us about your new book.

‘Well, hello there! My new publishing adventure is called Bond, Queer Bond – The Fabulous Other History of a Spy! It is a wholly original, unique and sometimes bold chronicle about the vital LGBTQ artistry, decisions and creativity that helped forge and steer the openly straight James Bond – onscreen, on the big screen and beyond. It has grown into a beautiful work that also features some vital Bond and gay names who really open out the discoveries and lost histories of 007 in often surprising and poignant ways. I wanted to do a new Bond book. But more importantly, I wanted to address how LGBTQ rights, progressions and publications are being thrown under various political buses for performative bigotries. There was suddenly no better knight of British culture than 007, and that felt like a good moment and filter to outline some lost queer histories – whilst surprise Bond fan folk with the real contexts to the properties and Bond tropes they hold dear. Ultimately, if a history is not complete because it has sidelined queer timelines and people, can it really then claim to be history?’

Who is your favourite writer and why?

‘As I journeyed through Bond, Queer Bond and discovered so much more about 007 creator Ian Fleming and his writer’s mind and mid-century pedestal, I could easily cite him on so many levels. However, a writer whose era, eye, voice and observations I continue to hold both vital and dear is Armistead Maupin.

As a gay teen I emerged into the mid 1990s seeing a UK press framing homosexuals with such performative bigotry. I would have the footage of dying angels in AIDS wards abandoned by their families or a brave lone mum clutching onto emaciated bedside hope as my only LGBTQ representation. We didn’t have Heated Rivalry. We had terrifying TV info-warnings about AIDS and the dangers of unprotected sex with an iceberg. And then there is Maupin and Tales of the City.

Whilst the 1980s tsunami of HIV/AIDS was very pinned to San Francisco, here is an out gay voice detailing like a Castro Dickens all the communities, foibles, relationships, momentums and unabashed sexuality of gay life in San Francisco in the late 1970s. It was not about warnings. It was about conversations, cool people and life. The first couple of books and the subsequent TV adaptation were vital signifiers of a happy, out, sexual, complicated queer world. It created a fascination and a wholly personal relationship with San Francisco for me. I wanted to know about Harvey Milk, and those ’taches and those topless boot-cut denim boys flanking the late night TV documentaries I would sneak-watch in my bedroom at 1am via Channel Four.

And then when Bond, Queer Bond comes full circle with its San Francisco findings alongside real queer world iconography I felt a certain Maupin duty to get those personalities and histories correct. He always has such skill at depicting the gay condition across the generations now but makes it universal. And never angry.

One of my happiest life beats was walking with a coffee in hand through the Castro with my husband as we realised the man nursing his own latte on another pavement coffee bench was Armistead himself. And then three minutes later on the same sidewalk we pass Cleve Jones and that direct, passionate link to Harvey Milk and SF’s sense of queer fight and activism. Suddenly, the cute boys with their ’taches holding hands on the sidewalk was more about me than AIDS warnings and icebergs. I thank Maupin for giving me not only a gay Oz, but also a second home with a history I hold very dear. Maupin’s writing is more than a document. It is a mindful template for gay life in a straight world.’

What are the best and worst writing tips you’ve ever heard?

‘I remember when I was starting out as a screenwriter – and writing comedy, short and feature scripts and having some production success – that there is a pile of ‘how to’ books out there and vying for my attention, from ‘screenwriting gurus’ who only ever wrote an episode of Kojak but made a name for themselves as script legends for writing self-help screenwriting books but never scripts. I was so glad to be warned off them. It made me realise just writing a script or a scene and finishing it via my instinct and momentum was the only way.

The sole piece of advice that may have partly instigated my first book Catching Bullets – Memoir of a Bond Fan (2012) was a cliché, but wholly true – write what you know. We do not all write to meet deadlines and manuscript word counts. But if you write knowing what your unique selling point is and why only your voice is the one that can tell a story, create a character world or recount that beat of history, then the work has a better chance of holding greater resonance and quality. And reality.’

Which classic novel have you never got around to reading? And which one do you consider over-rated?

‘There are loads of unread glories! I am a terrible reader. It is always this time of early summer when I start thinking about the US and a vacation – which then makes me do my annual brain announcement of wanting to read and know more of the beat poets.

Tess of the D’Urbervilles held great fascination as a teen as we would holiday around Thomas Hardy’s Dorset. It is also a shopping list of grief and tragedy, but without Dickens’ sense of social commentary and that slight humour regarding poverty and bad luck. Hardy just piles on the PTSD, starves it, has it married off against its will in the next county, sees it lose a baby in some stream and then has everyone die young of consumption. Without any food. I rarely felt Hardy was one of the people he actually wrote about. At least Wuthering Heights gets a Kate Bush makeover.’

What’s your signature dinner party dish?

‘So, in recent years, and partly because I had to make use of a cute cake tier stand I whim-bought, I have become family known for my egg mayonnaise sandwich fingers and high teas! I have also accidentally and rather singlehandedly brought back the sherry trifle in recent times – which is basically just nursery food for toddlers – so I now get asked for my martini glass trifles and the ‘recipe’ at a dinner soiree. Suddenly, my Roger Moore fandom makes total late 1970s sense when it comes to my signature dish… a boozy trifle and egg mayo sarnies.’

If you could invite five people living or dead to a dinner party, who would you invite and why?

‘It all depends on if they are cool with sherry trifle! Gosh, this is a list that forever changes. Okay, in no order of rank or brilliance… Kathy Burke – because of her intelligence, humanity and attitude, the gay politician and rights icon. Harvey Milk – because he accidentally made a pasty assed boy from Surrey, England fall in love with a gay village and community of communities and knew how to bring disparate souls together to many a table. Paul O’Grady – who I may well have had future dinner party seating luck as we had great mutual pals who miss him dearly, but who once beguiled me at a lock-in at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern and I always wanted to host him for dinner and lap up more of his devil does not care brilliance. The screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz – who had the best eye and ear for making hard script concepts like Bond and Superman totally work, and Bond author Ian Fleming – just so I can seat him amongst the others and watch them all collectively marvel at the martini trifles and tales of old Vauxhall and the tenderloin.’

What keeps you awake at night?

‘I had to realise recently that the rise of right-wing bigotry and fascism during a recent local election cycle did get me concerned. And the concern usually hit me in the early hours when I would get anxious that any conversation I was having about it would always be met with ‘it is just politics, you need to not worry’. But it is not my politics. Oh that it could just be that. It is my rights, my equalities, my social standing and my community. Jonathan Harvey says LGBTQ folk are always the canary in the mine. And I feel that in a world of more renewable energy and less fossil fuel, the gay fight has still to get into the coal mines and defend ourselves in the dark to those that have never had to ever think their lives are less ring-fenced or safeguarded than mine. I sometimes get asked ‘now that you have A, B and C, what is the next thing gay folk need to be mindful of and fight against?’ I always, always say… complacency.’

Tell us a joke OR tell us a secret.

‘I am currently loving the gay comic Matteo Lane so would only steal from him right now. Okay, this will sound like a book plug, but one of the great and somewhat sexy finds of my research journey on Bond, Queer Bond was that the gay porn world was always way ahead of the pop-culture curve. There is a whole collection of very underground, very vintage and very hirsute gay porn titles that steal from Bond, steal the existing soundtracks and have their own guns and dicks title sequences. And no one quite knows about them. Yet. Maybe Ian Fleming would be okay if we ended our dinner party night watching some! I would certainly kill to hear the other guests all start a running commentary together.’

Bond, Queer Bond – The Fabulous Other History of a Spy is published by The History Press

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I wasn’t expecting the new movie to have much to say on either subject. But I was wrong.

It’s not the first time I’ve been wrong about The Devil Wears Prada. I read Laura Weisberger’s novel when it was first published – and to be honest, I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. If you’d told me then that Meryl Streep would give such a memorable, Oscar-nominated performance as Miranda, I wouldn’t have believed it.

The first film was released 20 years ago. Since then, it’s become a pop cultural phenomenon, inspiring memes and comedy skits, and even spawning a stage musical with songs by Elton John.

Now we have the film sequel, which reunites Streep with Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci but strikes a very different note to the first movie. Andy is now A Serious Award-Winning Journalist. Emily works for Dior.

Miranda still works for Runway magazine – but crucially, she’s no longer the apex predator of the first film but part of a dying breed, out of step with the prevailing culture and facing the threat of cancellation. She hangs her own coat and holds her tongue. She has a new assistant who advises her on what she should and shouldn’t say. The Devil may still wear Prada but she no longer calls the shots. She even travels economy – which is the ultimate humiliation, obviously.

Subplots and guest stars abound. Andy gets a love interest in the shape of Aussie actor Patrick Brammell of Colin From Accounts fame. Emily gets Justin Theroux, who’s barely recognisable as her idiot wealthy boyfriend. Miranda has a dutiful but dull consort in the shape of Kenneth Branagh. There are cameos from Donatella Versace and Lady Gaga, neither of which serves much purpose.

The plot is ridiculously far fetched but this hardly matters. You don’t come to a confection like this expecting realism. There’s no faulting the performances or the frocks. But there’s something vital missing. The first film was part rom-com, part grim fairy tale. Much of the pleasure came from watching Streep’s evil fashion queen devour those further down the food chain.

The new film lacks the bite which made its predecessor so entertaining. Miranda is less powerful than before, while Andy is more self-assured and less eager to please. Their working relationship lacks tension, which reduces the dramatic stakes and sometimes leaves the film foundering.

I doubt that The Devil Wears Prada 2 will have the same cultural impact as the original. For a film set in the world of fashion magazines, it features very little in the way of fashion journalism. There isn’t a single scene to match the famous cerulean belt buckle takedown in the first film. But it does have a lot to say about the changing media landscape, where advertisers increasingly call the shots and nobody’s job is safe from the threat of AI or the whims of wealthy investors.

This is especially true of the female characters, who have to scheme and plot simply to survive. The Devil may be a woman, but the men upstairs hold all the power – at least until the final reel.

The original novel was inspired by the author’s experience of working with Anna Wintour at Vogue. This film brings the story full circle as Andy is offered a major book deal to dish the dirt on Miranda and the audience is left wondering if the old adage is true and it really is a case of ‘better the Devil you know.’

© 2026 Paul Burston

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My name is Paul and it’s been two weeks since my last confession.

Back then, I was in bed with two men and Madonna was slipping a leaflet about safer sex into her critically acclaimed album Like A Prayer.

You can read this piece here

With the exception of David Bowie, Madonna is the artist I’ve obsessed about the most. And as with Bowie, there’ve been times when my devotion was put to the test. But I’m not here to judge Madonna. I’m here to celebrate her evolution as a gay icon and what she means to me as a gay fan of a certain vintage.

“So now what?”

Confession 3 - “What are you looking at?”

There’s a reason I named my 1995 book What Are You Looking At? and that reason is Madonna. In July 1990, I saw her in concert for the first time. My cousin MissElaineous and I arrived at Wembley Stadium and queued for hours to ensure that we were near the front. Blond Ambition wasn’t just a pop concert. It was a theatrical experience, a political statement, a cultural event.

1990 was the year Queer Nation was born in the USA. It was the year the first of my friends died of an AIDS-related illness and I spent a significant amount of my time getting arrested on demos with ACT- UP. These were hostile times for our community.

And here was the world’s biggest female pop star grabbing her crotch in man drag, strutting her stuff in a cone bra designed by Jean Paul Gaultier, simulating masturbation during Like a Virgin and celebrating gay ballroom culture with Vogue.

Vogue was a gift to the gay dance whores I encountered in the clubs. Suddenly everyone was striking a pose, giving good face and reciting the lyrics at the drop of a needle – myself included. I think it’s safe to say that half the gay men in London attended Blond Ambition. There were faces I recognised from the clubs – ladies with an attitude, fellas who were in the mood, all gathered to worship the woman who had yet to be dubbed ‘Our Glorious Leader’ but who was already a gay icon.

As we entered the 1990s, we were looking at her – and she was looking back at us. Madonna gave her first major gay interview to The Advocate, calling out homophobia in the music industry, defending gay culture and addressing rumours about her sexuality. “I think everybody has a bisexual nature,” said the woman whose public image was becoming less Boy Toy and ever more sexually ambiguous.

In a pre-recorded video message for MTV’s tenth birthday celebrations, she camped it up as a lover spurned in Dietrich drag, delivering lines like, “I am big, it’s the videos that got smaller” and, “She’s a man in drag. He’s a woman in drag. I’m a man and a woman. I’m your worst nightmare.” It was all a far cry from the wholesome heterosexuality of La Isla Bonita, “where a girl loves a boy and a boy loves a girl.”

Then there was her much publicised friendship with Sandra Bernhard and visits to the Cubbyhole lesbian bar in New York. There was the groundbreaking documentary Truth or Dare / In Bed With Madonna with its focus on her gay male dancers, two of whom are shown French kissing. I know a number of gay men who cite this scene as a life-changing moment.

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I’m not Jewish. I can’t pretend to know how it feels to be a Jew living in London right now. But I do know how it feels to be targeted by extremists and to live in fear of violence. This is something many minority groups have in common.

Earlier this week, a man was arrested following a suspected arson attack on the Pink Punters LGBT nightclub in Milton Keynes. The incident took place in the early hours of Sunday morning. The club was packed to the rafters. Thankfully, people were evacuated quickly and there were no reported injuries.

Incidents like this are rare, but some of us have long memories. We’ve been here before.

Today marks 27 years since a nail bomb exploded at The Admiral Duncan pub in Soho, killing three people and wounding many more. Today we remember Andrea Dykes, John Light and Nik Moore, whose lives were taken in that horrific attack. We remember all those who were injured. We remember the resilience of our community then and now.

But remembrance and resilience aren’t enough. Then, as now, what’s really needed is action to ensure that this level of hatred isn’t left to fester and that these kinds of attacks don’t happen again.

A number of Jewish friends have written powerful pieces about yesterday’s attack in Golders Green. You can read David Toube’s article here. He articulates the challenges facing British Jews and the wider community far better than I can. But what’s clear to me is that we’re at a crisis point.

When I posted about yesterday’s attack on Facebook, expressing horror at what happened and sympathy for those affected, Jewish friends thanked me. What does this say about the current climate, that people are grateful to someone expressing sympathy for victims of a terrorist attack? What does it say about the expectations of a community under threat? How alienated and isolated must they feel?

Listening to the radio yesterday, I heard that one in five British Jews are making plans to leave the UK due to rising antisemitism. How can this be allowed to happen? How can a community be made to feel so unsafe, they’re driven out of the country where they’ve lived for generations?

Many of the platitudes mouthed by politicians following yesterday’s attack were also mouthed 27 years ago, in the wake of the attack on the Admiral Duncan. I wrote about this in We Can Be Heroes –

On Friday, April 30, 1999, I was in a pub in Soho with some colleagues from Time Out. It was the start of the Easter weekend. I was supposed to meet a friend for drinks at the Admiral Duncan on Old Compton Street, only he texted to say he’d been delayed at work and was running an hour late. Shortly after 6.30pm, we heard an almighty bang. People’s phones started pinging as text messages came through. There’d been an explosion on Old Compton Street. Details were still emerging but it appeared to be an act of terrorism.

Heading up Wardour Street, I heard the chaos before I saw it. People were screaming. Sirens screeched. The corner of Old Compton Street looked like a war zone. There were people running in all directions, many of them cut and bleeding. Glass littered the street and smoke billowed from what was left of the frontage of the Admiral Duncan.

Quickly it became apparent that a nail bomb had exploded inside the pub. Two similar attacks had taken place during the previous two weekends — one at the heart of the black community in Brixton Market, the other in Brick Lane. The homemade bombs contained up to 1,500 four-inch nails, designed to cause as much carnage as possible. 48 people were injured in Brixton and thirteen in Brick Lane.

MI5 had predicted that a gay venue would be the next target. This information had been leaked to The Pink Paper and appeared as a front page news story the day before the explosion. The national press picked up on it and pressure was put on the police to hit the streets and warn Soho’s gay venues — all to no avail. Of the three nail bomb attacks, the one on the Admiral Duncan was the most devastating and the only one that led to loss of life.

Three people were killed that day, including a pregnant woman named Andrea Dykes and her hosts for the evening, Nick Moore and John Light. Andrea’s husband Julian was seriously injured. Much of the subsequent media coverage focussed on the fact that two of those killed and injured were heterosexual. There was a distinct whiff of the good victim / bad victim mentality we saw during the AIDS epidemic, where some lives were deemed more worthy than others.

Four of the survivors were so badly wounded, they needed to have limbs amputated. A total of 79 people were injured in all, including bar man David Morley who suffered burns but bravely helped to rescue wounded customers and later went to visit the worst affected in hospital. Others were seen returning to the smouldering building in search of missing friends.

A left-wing female columnist who shall remain nameless wrote a piece expressing surprise that gay men could display such courage — as if we hadn’t already done so by living through an epidemic and fighting for our rights in the face of such hostility. We could be heroes, too. We’d shown it time and time again. I wrote a letter of complaint. The newspaper chose not to print it.

A few days after the bombing at the Admiral Duncan, The Sunday Times published an article by Tony Blair, expressing his sincere belief that it was the nail-bomber and not the victims of the attack who were “the true outsiders” in our society. He was confident, he said, that the vast majority of people in Britain were appalled by homophobic violence and wished to see “a society where there is opportunity for all, where the barriers of prejudice are dismantled.”

Still, he wasn’t confident enough to introduce tougher penalties for homophobic hate crimes, which would have served as a fitting tribute to those killed or maimed by the attack on The Admiral Duncan. Nor was he confident enough to act on recommendations from the Home Office and amend the Crime and Disorder Bill to remove the specifically gay crime of gross indecency — the same crime for which Oscar Wilde was imprisoned over a century earlier. The Home Office report concluded that there was “no justification for retaining an offence that deals solely with same-sex behaviour between consenting adults.”

The Prime Minister didn’t agree. The reason given for failing to act on the findings of the report was the fear of a backlash. But from whom, exactly? The vast majority of people in Britain who were appalled by homophobic violence and wished to see “a society where there is opportunity for all, where the barriers of prejudice are dismantled?” Weren’t those the Prime Minister’s own words? And what of the famous leaked memo, in which he wrote about the need to rebrand New Labour as the “party of the family” and introduce “eye-catching initiatives that are entirely conventional in terms of their attitude to the family.” This was Tony Blair talking, but it could just as easily have been John Major or even Margaret Thatcher.

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I know that many of the frustrations I expressed here are shared by Jewish friends today. They don’t want thoughts and prayers. They don’t want wishy washy talk about community cohesion. They want action.

The man who carried out yesterday’s attack was apprehended and will face trial. Today we learned that he was known to the authorities and had previously been referred to the UK’s counter-terrorism programme, which begs a few questions. And how long before the next attack? How long can a community be expected to live with heightened security and the threat of danger?

If what happened yesterday doesn’t bring about change, if serious measures aren’t taken to address the growth of antisemitism and violent extremism on our streets, what happens next? Who have we become?

As my friend David Toube writes, “a country in which Jews cannot walk safely through Golders Green is not merely failing Jews. It is failing itself.”

© 2026 Paul Burston

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I can’t speak for anyone else, but as a gay man of a certain vintage, “I’ve got something to say about it – and it goes something like this…”

Confession 1 - “A man can tell a thousand lies”

I wasn’t always a Madonna fan. I don’t recall hearing Everybody on the radio, and the first time I heard Lucky Star, it left me cold. I was 17 years old and my taste in music was a reflection of my painfully self-conscious status as an alienated teenage outsider. I listened to The Cure, David Bowie, Echo and The Bunnymen, Soft Cell and The Smiths. I wore black on the outside because black was how I felt on the inside.

Then along came this girly pop star with brightly coloured clothes and a squeaky voice, singing about love, luck and starlight. I couldn’t have been less interested.

But pretty soon she was hard to ignore. There was a girl in my class called Tracey Ann who developed a crush on me and would turn up at my house on her pushbike, forearms adorned with black rubber bangles, diamanté crucifixes dangling from her throat and earlobes and a giant bow in her heavily backcombed hair.

Tracey Ann was a tall girl – taller than me – and she wasn’t just barking up the wrong tree. She was in a completely different part of the forest – one where A Forest by The Cure played on endless repeat and her beloved Madonna wasn’t speaking my language.

By the time I turned 19, she was flashing her belly button in a Boy Toy belt and turning out hits like Material Girl and Like A Virgin – Madonna, not Tracey Ann – and I still wasn’t interested.

“But she’s such fun!” my friend Maria insisted. As if that would impress someone whose idea of fun was dyeing their hair black, reaching for the crimping irons and wallowing in Torment and Toreros by Marc and the Mambas. Compared to Marc’s dark imaginings, Madonna seemed so lightweight.

I didn’t rush to the cinema, desperately seeking Susan. I didn’t get into the groove – not then, though later I’d look back and wonder why on earth not. As musical mission statements go, Into The Groove is right up there with Bowie’s Changes. “Only when I’m dancing can I feel this free” sings the woman for whom dancing and freedom of expression are every bit as important as a talent for reinvention.

But I hadn’t yet released my inner dance whore. I preferred posing in bars to striking a pose on the dance floor. My clothes had changed – less black, more stonewashed denim. But my taste in music hadn’t.

By now I was out, proud and sharing a flat with a gay guy called Bryan who adored Madonna and would play her records constantly. We hung out in gay bars in Earl’s Court, where the latest music videos played on heavy rotation – everyone from The Communards to Whitney Houston and Madonna.

It was here that I first saw the video for Live To Tell. Standing at the bar with a bottle of Grolsch in one hand and a mentholated cigarette in the other, I had what can only be described as a religious conversion. It was the first Madonna song I truly loved.

My boyfriend at the time hated it with a passion. His main objection was to the line “a man can tell a thousand lies”. He considered it to be offensive to men.

A few years later, I discovered that he’d been lying to me for months, cheating on me with my (supposedly) good friend.

I learned my lesson well.

Madonna – 1

My ex – a big fat zero

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He is a Lambda Award finalist and Leicestershire Short Story Prize winner.

His stories have been featured on BBC Radio 4, and in various anthologies.

1) Tell us about your latest book.

‘Saltburn is a collection of six queer (and bonkers) love stories. It’s nothing to do with the film, but the seaside town where my dad was from in the north-east of England. My Saltburn has a nuclear power station that melts down, a mermaid who works in a penny arcade, an aquarium with no fish that becomes a symbol of gay pride, a man who changes into a woman (and back again) every 12 hours, and a soldier in a dress who finds love in the desert. But behind all the craziness are us little people just trying to get by in the face of hypocritical governance and big business muscling in and taking over.’

2) Who is your favourite writer and why?

‘Can I choose two? I am currently listening to Ian Fleming’s Bond collection again. These books take me back to my childhood holidays camping in the South of France. I get that they are terribly racist, sexist, homophobic but Bond is a genius creation and Fleming had a brilliant eye for writing thrilling scenes.

American short story writer George Saunders is my second choice. He’s a superstar now but I’ve loved him since seeing the cover of Pastoralia in Waterstones, buying the book on the back of it, and then being in awe. That’s what I want to do, I thought, absurd stories with heart.’

3) What are the best and worst writing tips you’ve ever heard?

‘Ha! Well I’ve written my own writing guide that is full of the most terrible writing advice. It’s called You: From Pissed to Publication and the character You (who first appeared in my book Seven Nights at the Flamingo Hotel) has become my writing alter ago here on Substack too, appearing occasionally in my posts with his sharp eye on the publishing industry.

For the best writing advice I’ll go back to George Saunders. Look at your story, he says, line by line and ask yourself the question, is it giving me pleasure? If not, change it. If yes, move forward. Repeat this, on and on.’

4) Which classic novel have you never got around to reading? And which one do you consider over-rated?

‘The answer to both these questions is anything by Kafka. I have started pretty much all his books and never finished them. I even have the audiobook of Metamorphosis in French which I listen to sometimes before giving up, not being able to understand French.

He is the most over-rated, not because the quality of his writing is poor but because comparisons to him are so overused. How many books are described as Kafaesque? I mean, they can’t all be.’

5) What’s your signature dinner party dish?

‘I have never attended or given a dinner party. At the thought of someone coming over to dinner my mind immediately turns to faking my own death or booking into a hotel. This is the actual truth. I’ve had counselling for the past year. I was trying to find out why I find social situations so problematic. Saying that, I like cooking, Radio 6 on, then a glass of wine and a film.’

6) If you could invite five people living or dead to a dinner party, who would you invite and why?

‘The answer to the above question makes answering this a tough one. But if I didn’t have to be involved, maybe I could be in a nook, checking in coats, be able to listen in. So… I love passion that people have for things. David Hockney, he still has such enthusiasm and has had such a life. Tom Cruise because my next book is about him (in a way). Harris Dickinson, because he’s at the beginning of his career and I think he could learn a lot from those two. Michael Parkinson, because you’d need to have someone to guide the conversation, give people space, and my dad, because he hasn’t been alive for a long old while and I think he’d appreciate a night out. Although dad would probably ask where all the women are. “You brought me back for this?”’

7) What keeps you awake at night?

‘I’m a terrible sleeper. I fall asleep in minutes, usually listening to Hound of the Baskervilles or some other Sherlock Holmes story but then I wake up just a few hours later. My writing has been compared to Kurt Vonnegut’s (very flatteringly!) and his sketches, how he goes over and over certain situations. And that’s what my mind does at night. It goes around and around a situation – and that can be anything – changing the variables, adding bits, taking them away.

Having not slept I’d like to sleep in but Will Self got it spot on. Like him I have a Sgt. Major in my head telling me to get my ass out of bed, I’ve got things to do. I am usually writing by 6, when I’m writing, and done by 9 or 10. This works for me. It gives me the whole day free to come up with excuses not to attend the dinner parties I might be invited to if anyone might desire my company.’

8) Tell us a joke OR Tell us a secret.

‘I have been writing funny stories for 40 years – I started with my fictional detective Tod Towski in the school magazine – but the secret is I’m not funny at all, not in person. Which is why I don’t get invited to those dinner parties. Who would want to sit next to me? Haha!’

Saltburn is published by Renard Press

I met Caroline on my first day at primary school and we remain friends to this day. I named one of the characters in my debut novel, Shameless, after her. She was also part of the inspiration for Katrina, the ’80s synth-pop sensation in my third novel, Lovers and Losers.

Jim’s starring role as my imaginary friend and muse was short-lived. His adventures didn’t extend beyond those school exercise books. To be honest, I rarely think of him. Then a conversation with my therapist brought the memories flooding back.

“What was he like?” my therapist asked.

“The opposite of me at that age. Very sporty. Very adventurous. A bit like Huckleberry Finn, except he battled Daleks as well as quicksand.”

“Did he protect you?”

“Sometimes. In my head. He was like a big brother. And he was very skilled with a slingshot.”

I was bullied a lot as a kid. Jim was the protector I wished I had. I wrote about him in my memoir, We Can Be Heroes, which is currently just £1 on Kindle.

“I’ve always loved reading and I’ve always written stories. At school I wrote adventure stories about a boy called Jim, heavily influenced by whatever I watched on TV that week – Bonanza, Star Trek, Dr Who. On more than one occasion, my intrepid hero came face to face with a Dalek! It was life, Jim, but not as I knew it.

My friend Caroline would illustrate the stories and our proud headmaster would insist that I read them aloud during morning assembly. At break time, boys would corner me in the playground and beat me up for showing off. But they didn’t beat it out of me.”

Of course I was a child then. Now I’m a man, I’ve put away childish things.

But I still have imaginary friends. Only these days I call them characters and spend my days dreaming up new ways of testing them.

I’m currently spending a lot of time with a gay divorcee called Gavin. He’s adjusting to life in a new town, with a new job and few friends. And when I’m not thinking about him, I’m getting to know his main rival, Natalie.

Sometimes I find myself having conversations with them both, but mostly I keep each of them to myself, the way some people like to ring fence their friends, for fear that they’ll get along too well and forget the person who first introduced them.

These conversations mainly take place in private, at my desk as I’m typing away, working on a scene. But they carry over into other, public situations too. At the gym. At the supermarket. On the train.

And because I have a tendency to test my dialogue by speaking the words aloud, I’m often aware that people notice and I wonder what they’re thinking. That I’m hearing voices? Well, I am. Kind of. The imaginary voices of people I’ve made up, but who feel as real to me as the man sitting opposite or the woman casting concerned looks in my direction.

When writers talk about their characters taking on a life of their own, they run the risk of finding themselves quoted in Pseud’s Corner. But I can’t think of a better way to describe the process of creating a fictional character who somehow becomes real – first to the writer and then, hopefully, to the reader.

When Shameless was first published, I was often approached by strangers in nightclubs who recognised something of themselves in my characters. “I’m Caroline!” one woman told me. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that, no actually, she wasn’t. If someone identifies that strongly with a fictional character, who am I to tell them otherwise?

When my second crime novel The Closer I Get was published in 2019, I worried that book bloggers might take offence at the portrayal of Evie Stokes, a blogger who becomes dangerously obsessed with a novelist and disrupts his life to devastating effect. In fact, many female book bloggers embraced the character. One even wrote to tell me she identified with Evie – “but not in that way!”

Describing her own writing process, Muriel Spark once wrote, “I turned my mind into a wireless set and let my characters play on my ears.” I can relate to this. I always hear my characters long before I can picture them. I tune in to their thoughts and conversations and I write dialogue. Then I add actions and physical descriptions, fleshing them out as the story develops. Gradually the radio play in my mind turns into a film.

As a writer of crime fiction, there are times when I have to kill my darlings. And sometimes it pains me. You don’t have to love all your characters but you do have to understand them.

The Closer I Get was partly inspired by my own experience of being stalked online. Before writing the novel, I had very little sympathy for the woman whose behaviour caused me a great deal of distress and took a huge toll on my mental health.

But I developed a lot of sympathy for Evie. I don’t think I could have written the novel otherwise. The story is largely told from her first person point of view, which required me to get inside her head and work out why she behaves the way she does.

Reading fiction fosters empathy. Writing it does, too. By the time I’d finished writing The Closer I Get, I was no longer angry with the woman who’d helped inspire the novel. I felt sorry for her.

It’s a fact of life that good people are capable of doing bad things, and vice versa. We can be heroes one minute, and villains the next. The same applies to fictional characters. Every protagonist needs an antagonist, but their roles are often blurred.

This is especially true of characters in psychological thrillers. The protagonist in The Closer I Get is an author called Tom. Evie is both antagonist and unreliable narrator. But as the story develops, we see another side to Tom and begin to question his version of events.

For me, the best fictional characters are complex, multi-faceted, never simply heroes or villains. Sadly, this wasn’t true of Jim. He was a hero through and through – a character without nuance, the product of my childish imagination.

Which is why it’s probably best if he remains in the past.

© 2026 Paul Burston

The baseball cap pictured above is from a great new company called Untamed Chapter, who specialise in “literary merch for readers, writers & storytellers”.

Check them out at www.untamedchapter.com

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VG Lee is the award-winning author of six novels and two short story collections. Her latest novel Our Shadow Selves is published by Muswell Press.

Tell us about your new book.

‘Our Shadow Selves represents a change of direction in my writing. I’ve always concentrated on the best in my characters, their endearing traits. Now I want to look at the other side of the coin, experiences that have made a change, both good and bad. Each of the four main characters in my novel have endured difficult journeys. Two of them survive, two of them don’t.’

Who is your favourite writer and why?

‘I believe most favourite authors let their readers down at some point. But Elizabeth Strout is reliable. Ishiguro is unreliable but when on my wavelength, terrific. At the moment I’m re-reading Radclyffe Hall’s The Unlit Lamp for about the fifth time. It still has something to say about devastating parental relationships. Sarah Waters has never let me down. Her The Little Stranger carried me through a very challenging couple of weeks some years ago, when I was attempting to be funny at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.’

What are the best and worst writing tips you’ve ever heard?

‘The best writing tip is one many of us use: if you’re stuck, start with, ‘I remember…’

For me at the start of my writing career when I was still going to writing workshops, the worst tip or prompt was to write about the tutor’s ‘found objects’. My heart would sink. Always sea shells, or a particular dry grass, or stones. Oh yes, and feathers.’

Which classic novel have you never got around to reading? And which one do you consider over-rated?

‘Ulysses, James Joyce.

Anything by James Joyce.’

What’s your signature dinner party dish?

‘Macaroni cheese with a side portion of well-grilled bacon.’

If you could invite five people living or dead to a dinner party, who would you invite and why?

‘Paul Robeson for his voice and how I sense him to have been as a person. Thora Hird because she always asked for me to serve her during the 1970s, when she visited the trousers-suit shop I managed in Lancaster Gate. Maggi Hambling, so I could ask her just what was the creative thinking involved for her statue of Mary Wollstonecraft in Newington Green, which looks as if MW is emerging from a gigantic piping bag. Jasmine Harman, co-presenter of A Place in the Sun, because she appears delightful in every way. Finally, the film star Tom Cruise, because in my eyes he is a proper film star and he was great in Collateral which I’ve watched and enjoyed many times.’

What keeps you awake at night?

‘My cat Claudia. She walks back and forth across my face and likes to pat my nose and eyelashes… with her claws.’

Tell us a secret.

‘From this moment on, no longer a secret, but I’ve just finished the M&S chocolate hippo I’d bought as an Easter gift for my friend Micra Mary!’

Our Shadow Selves is published by Muswell Press

VG Lee will be appearing at Polari at Tunbridge Wells Lit Fest on May 6

When I was growing up, one of the television highlights of the week was That’s Life! on Sunday evening. Truth be told, it was a terrible show – a mixture of consumer affairs and whimsical nonsense guaranteed to send you to bed reflecting on the decline of western civilisation. What hope was there, when one of the most popular shows on TV featured Esther Rantzen and a dog that said “sausages”?

“That’s life!” you’d say bitterly, as you climbed the stairs to bed and hoped that you’d die in your sleep. (Younger readers might consider the inexplicable popularity of Mrs Brown’s Boys as the contemporary equivalent of the existential horrors suffered by those of us exposed to That’s Life!)

Thankfully, by the mid ’90s That’s Life! was consigned to the dog poo bag of history and a new TV drama was gaining cult status and sparking water cooler conversations across the country. And now it’s back on iPlayer. A friend posted on Facebook about “the tsunami of nostalgia for This Life” – and I know exactly what he means.

I’ve just finished rewatching the first season – recalling how, when it was first broadcast, friends automatically assumed that I identified with Welsh gay Warren. In fact, the character I identified with most strongly was tough talking Glaswegian Anna.

And I wasn’t the only one. When I mentioned this on social media, comments ranged from “Every gay man I knew wanted to be Anna” to “Anna was everything!” One friend wrote, “Adored this show. I also still use the Anna classic if someone pisses me off - ‘oh go have a fucking yoghurt, Warren!’”

For the benefit of those too young or too drug fucked to remember the ’90s, This Life is a television drama about a group of photogenic young law graduates who share a house where they fall out, make up and party to the likes of Blur, Pulp, Suede and other ’90s indie darlings. It’s Friends with more sex, a cooler soundtrack and a law degree.

Often cited as one of the best British television series ever made, This Life made stars of Jack Davenport and Andrew Lincoln, and a gay icon of Daniela Nardini as the aforementioned Anna. Why do I love Anna? Let me count the ways.

I was barely 30 when This Life was first shown, which is roughly 21 in gay years as most of us missed out on our teenage years and spent our twenties making up for lost time. Anna has the air of a woman who’s afraid of missing out. FOMO is her modus operandi.

Compared to hard working high flyer Milly (Amita Dhiri), Anna’s life is a bit of a mess. She drinks heavily, dabbles in drugs and has a very relaxed attitude to sex. In one episode she has a casual hookup with a handsome lad who assumes that they’re now dating and is hurt and angry when she tells him it was “just sex”. Is it any wonder gay viewers took Anna to their hearts?

Anna is the character I’d most like to be. As for the character I’d most like to lay, look no further than Andrew Lincoln as Egg, who has a full frontal scene and what can only be described as a cracking (sorry) bod.

It was the late, great Fay Weldon who coined the phrase, “go to work on an egg” – an advertising slogan for the Egg Marketing Board, promoting eggs as a healthy, nutritious, protein-rich breakfast to start the day. I know a few gay men who’d happily go to work on this particular Egg and enjoy a protein-rich breakfast into the bargain. A dippy Egg has never sounded more appealing.

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I spent last weekend at Lancaster Literature Festival, where I had a packed schedule as writer in residence. As my entry in the festival brochure put it, “At Litfest he will busy – in discussion with Lancaster University students, running a Queer Life Writing Course, discussing memoir and life writing with Gordon Urquhart, and hosting a Polari salon.”

The festival celebrates its 47th birthday this year, making it one of the oldest literature festivals in the UK. I’m possibly one of the oldest writers in residence, too. I’m certainly the first LGBTQ+ writer to hold that position, which fills me with pride.

Despite a number of delays and disruptions on network rail and the mainly miserable weather, it was a wonderful weekend. I arrived late and soaked to the skin, but soon got into the swing of things, attending the launch party on Thursday evening and meeting the festival organisers, media partner and sponsors.

On Friday afternoon I was chaperoned to Lancaster University, where the seminar room was filled with eager young creative writing students. We discussed the responsibilities of life writing, the challenges of writing about personal trauma, the need for queer joy and the power of stories to give voice to marginalised communities.

The students were so engaged and asked such insightful questions, the time flew by. Special thanks to Dr Oliver Langmead for organising, and to Andy Ainscough for giving me such a warm welcome and chairing our discussion.

Saturday morning’s workshop went well, with participants producing great work. I’m often astonished at how productive a writing workshop can be, especially when people are as enthusiastic as this group were. They really threw themselves into the exercises and were happy to share what they’d written with the group. There were some very funny pieces and some rather moving ones, too.

There’ll be further workshops online, and there are still some spaces available. More info here.

The afternoon author panel with fellow memoirist Gordon Urquhart was chaired by Gurmit Singh, a trustee of the festival and the man responsible for developing the LBGTQ+ strand. We talked about writing, activism, and the power of books to change lives.

Books have certainly changed my life – both as a reader and a writer. Without them, I don’t know where I’d be today.

We rounded off the day with Polari, featuring poets Jay Gadhia and Rosie Garland and author VG Lee – all of whom read beautifully. Jay stepped in at late notice as fellow poet Max Wallis wasn’t well enough to attend. Jay is based in Leeds and will be appearing with us at Huddersfield Literature Festival on May 8. But he also happens to be a graduate of Lancaster University, which made his visit something of a personal pilgrimage.

It was our first Polari in Lancaster, but judging by the audience reaction and the enthusiasm shown by the organisers, it won’t be the last.

Afterwards, Gurmit and Gordon took us for dinner at a local pizza restaurant, where the waiting staff were so slow, it felt as if we’d wandered into a Victoria Wood sketch. (Nobody dared order the soup of the day.)

Earlier in the evening, VG Lee remarked on how well I looked.

“You seem really energised,” she said – and I was.

A reminder, if it were needed, that connecting with readers and writers makes Paul a happy man. Even on a wet weekend when the trains were up the spout.

© 2026 Paul Burston

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