We’ve been looking at holidays and have discovered that Thomson have a specialised ‘side business’ selling ‘gay holidays’, called Freedom Holidays. It seems like a load of patronising guff but they’re well-meaning so I’ll forgive them. Being gay is becoming less and less of an ‘issue’ now. Indeed, Newcastle is such a liberal, progressive city that I actually forget how lucky I am sometimes. I’d feel comfortable walking around holding hands with Paul, or buying rings together, or discussing frotting and cottaging over a frothy cappuccino on The Green. I don’t even think about it. I’m sure that’s partly because of the thriving and varied gay scene. which is littered with lots of different bars catering to all sorts of happy, cheerful people whose only common thread is that they enjoy a bit of cock. Or indeed, a bit of quim if they’re a lady. That said, we tend not to venture out on the scene – not least because we both feel old and our knees hurt and neither of us can dance. Camp shrieking is heavy on the ears and well, music isn’t what it used to be. That said, back in my youth (fucking hell you’d think I was 70, not coming up to thirty) I had some good times on there, dancing (well, more ‘fitting’ in tune to the music) and trying to hide my man-tits.

This sounds like stereotypical fiction but I can assure you, on the life of my poor old nana, that it’s true – I once got in a fight with a lesbian over whose turn it was to use the pool table. It gets better – there was previous bad blood between us because I interrupted her Anastasia marathon to put the Grease megamix on the ‘Choose Your Own Music’ jukebox. The whole situation couldn’t have been more stereotypical unless I had thrown my campari over her and she’d come at me with a powertool and dungarees before we settled it with a dance-off. Along very similar lines, my ex-boyfriend once had a chair thrown at him by a raging lady who (genuinely mistakenly) thought he was taking a picture of her across the pub. He was actually taking a picture of me trying to carry drinks whilst pissed, not her – he didn’t have his wide angle lens for one thing.

The Eagle is about the only bar where we’d be welcomed with something other than a pair of pursed lips and a snide comment about our attire, but it’s not really for us. Admittedly, we both go for the more ‘manly’ type (hence we found each other) (because I’m so masculine it hurts, naturally) and we’d be in our element in a bar like that, but of course, because it’s a manly bar, it’s instantly all about sex and it is incredibly seedy. There’s a gloryhole in the gents, for goodness sake. For those unfamiliar with what a gloryhole is, it’s essentially a hole drilled into the side of a cubicle wall where someone might pop their dingaling through in the vain hope of satisfaction. Well honestly. The only thing I want popping into my peripheral vision when I’m using the lavatory is a fresh, cooled roll of Quilted Velvet for my nipsy, not some angry looking willy with its owner hidden from sight. I’d be tempted to stick the toilet roll on it and use it as a dispenser. Still, each to their own. There was a tale that used to go round that some vengeful ex took a knife in there and sliced off his partner’s schlong as he popped it through. It all goes on!

Tell you what else goes on? This pork chilli! Onto your fork! Well that was a shit segue but you get the idea.





We used pork but there’s no reason you couldn’t be a decadent whore and go for chicken, turkey or beef mince.

This’ll serve 4.

to make pork chilli, you’ll need:

500g pork mince, two tins of chopped tomatoes, one tin of kidney beans, two tins of Pinto beans, 400ml chicken stock, one chopped onion, one diced yellow pepper, 4 cloves of garlic, ½ tsp salt, ½ tsp pepper, 1tsp paprika, 2 tbsp chilli powder, ½ tsp oregano, ½ tsp cumin

to make pork chilli, you should:

spray a large pan with Frylight (use Frylight if you must, but I always think it’s better to use a tiny drop of oil and syn it, unless you want your pans to look like Jodie Marsh’s cervix), and add the mince over a medium-high heat until nicely browned. Add the onion, diced pepper, salt, garlic and black pepper, and cook for a further five minutes. Then add the chilli powder, paprika, oregano and cumin, stir well and cook for another minute. To the same pot, add tomatoes and chicken stock with the tin of drained kidney beans and one can of drained Pinto beans. Bring the mixture to a boil, put the lid on and reduce it to a simmer. In a small bowl, drain the remaining tin of Pinto beans and mash with a fork – this can be done a bit sloppily if you like, it doesn’t have to be perfect. Add this to the chilli and stir well, and then re-cover. Cook for about thirty minutes or until it’s at the desired consistency. Remove from the heat, and serve! For a bit of ‘coolness’ you could add a blob of fromage frais or yoghurt to the top. We didn’t because we were so hungry the thought didn’t occur to us.

Enjoy!

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