NOW HEAR THIS

Let’s get one thing straight: I am not a transvestite. And I am certainly not a transsexual.

A transsexual is somebody who wants to BE the opposite sex to that which they were born. I do not want to be a woman. You would not catch me forking out £20,000 for some very painful surgery in a dubious clinic in Dubai. And anyway you can’t be sure it will be successful, can you. And if it wasn’t – then where would you be! Talk about not knowing your elbow from your arse… that would be the least of your worries.

And as for being a transvestite: that is someone who gets erotic pleasure from cross-dressing. I do not get any erotic pleasure from dressing as a woman - well, hardly any.

Why do I do it, then?

Well it is not because I am effeminate. I could have joined the Marines, you know. I passed all the tests. But then it occurred to me that I might have to kill someone! I couldn’t do that! I’d much prefer to discuss the matter in a civilised manner. I mean most things can be sorted out over a cup of tea – don’t you find? But then, I suppose that’s more the job of the diplomats than the Marines. And I failed the Civil Service examination. Well no, that’s not true: I passed the exam but failed the interview. And you know why that was? I’ll tell you: it was because I had not been to a public school. (For the benefit of any foreign readers – for example Americans – our ‘public schools’ are actually private schools. And very elite private schools at that.) And believe me, the ‘old boys network’ is still going strong in this country.

And that brings me nicely to why I do dress as a woman: it is a protest: a protest at the unfairness of everything. You don’t choose the family you are going to be born into. We are thrust arbitrarily into this world, without so much as a ‘by you leave’, ‘kiss me Hardy’, ‘Mind the step’ – and have a set of genitalia thrust upon us, which we did not choose. And so we are forced into a gender role. Well, I am protesting against this ‘luck of the draw’ stereotyping.

I dress as a woman to show that I can do so – if I choose. Because choice is what it is all about. Of course I do not don the attire of the female sex every day: it depends upon how I feel. I mean, I may wake up one morning and think: what a lovely sunny day. I do not wish to be constrained by trousers – I shall wear a dress. Having so decided, it seems obvious to complete the ensemble, including shoes, wig, make up, nail varnish (I have lovely nails).

Equal opportunity is the watchword. And in pursuance of this I insisted on being allowed to join the Sisterhood. The only person to vote against my acceptance was my dear old step-mum. There’s a family loyalty for you! Of course, she is mad at my dad for going mad. But that’s not my fault is it?

I’ve been thinking: I may re-apply for the Marines. The uniform would really suit me.

I am painting toe-nails when Georgina – sorry Charlie - rushes in to confront with the news of Sydney.

So startled am I that I knock over nail varnish onto foot of Greta.
‘DUMKOPF’ she is bellowing in such powerful German voice, which is sending shivers up Swedish spine.

It is my turn on toe-nail painting roster (how can you have word meaning ‘male chicken’ which is also meaning list of what to do and when to do it? – stupid English language!) but I say to Norah, who is waiting next in line with stockings already removed, ‘You will have to hold your spit, girl, whilst I get my head around this turning of events.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am great believer in sanctimony of marriage, but this marriage of which I have been a part, in a sense, is the absolute pants. And when I am thinking of that poor boy which is turning into transvestite right under our very noses and behind our backs, because of the absolute crappy parenting – well I am getting so mad.

I could see how confused he was what with the shitty role models he had. That is why I am helping this adolescent boy by filling his sexual proclivities on all those rainy afternoons. Well now the swallow has come home to roost, as they say. Flown back on the nest of his dear mama – who has now come out as lesbian. What a bummer eh!

But what am I going to tell his father, when visiting him in psycho ward? George is already unstable: such news might send him off rocker completely. Frankly I am feeling out of my depth, which is unusual for me, being such tall person.

Meantime I feel it my duty to help lad regain rightful sexuality; not that there is anything wrong with being transvestite (don’t want Beaumont Society on my tail – joke) in fact I have been helping him with make-up and advising on shoes, so he don’t walk like hooker after hard night.

Anyway, enough cogitating (new word I learn) for now. We are expecting 'surprise' visit from Myra person, plus her sink-estate companion whose name I am forgetting. Georgina – bugger! I mean CHARLIE – has ordered house on red alert. All leave cancelled. I am to be posted in attic as ‘look-out’. I ask if Sydney (Cyd) can keep me company, but his mother say ‘not on your nellie’ – which I believe to be quaint English euphonium meaning ‘fuck off’.

Ah well, 'Let's get once more into the breeches' as your Shakespeare would have it.

A FAMILLY IN TURMOIL

I’ve tried! God knows I’ve tried. But just when you think things can’t get any worse – they do, with a vengeance.

Guess who landed on my doorstep yesterday? Sydney, my stepson. George’s son by his first wife.

I hardly recognised him. And not just because he had shaved his beard off: no, it was the white stilettos, miniskirt and red top (not his colour at all) – plus the blond wig.

I have always known was a cross-dresser - he used to steal items of my wardrobe when he was 14 years old, but it was just the odd bra, a pair of panties, that sort of thing - but to be suddenly faced with this apparition­ – this affront to femininity, this togged-up transvestite disgracing my portal… well, I almost fainted.

‘You’re looking a bit pale, mummy’ leered this juvenile pantomime dame.

‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ I enquired, politely.

Well, it seems he had had a blazing row with thingy, his partner the drama student. He said it was over Bertolt Brecht. I thought at first she was having an affair with one of those Polish illegal immigrants that somehow find their way into our institutions of learning. But no – this Bertolt is some kind of playwright. And they almost came to blows during a heated discussion concerning the sub-plot of ‘MUTTER COURAGE UND IHRE KINDER’ which is apparently some ancient black and white film this geezer made.

Anyway, she threw him out and that’s how he landed on my doorstep. Said he’d nowhere else to go.

‘Well you can just bugger off, you painted hussy’ I advised him.

He said he was entitled to live here, as this was the family home – even though his dear old dad was no longer in residence.

When I told him that ‘Wynorin’ was now the headquarters of a militant feminist pressure group – you won’t believe this – he said he wanted to join!! Well, as you can imagine, I was appalled, but since the Sisters constitution requires that ALL applications for membership be considered at full committee level, I had no choice but to convene a meeting and put Sydney’s application before the group. To my surprise, the vote was three to one in favour. My stepson is now a full member of ‘Sisters Under The Duvet’ and from henceforth wishes to be known as Cyd (as a boy he had a crush on the American film star Cyd Charise).

Oh and Cyd – cheeky sod - has asked that he/she be allowed to introduce himself/herself on the blog, so you may expect to hear from our new member shortly.

I blame his father for Sydney’s sexual ambiguity. George did not know who he was half the time – talk about ‘Jekyll and Hyde’. And the other person I blame – and I am sorry to say this of one of our Sisters – is Anna: I am afraid we left him in her hands on two many occasions when she was our so-called ‘au pair’. Swedish massage may be very invigorating but I think that one needs to be careful not to overdo things, with a growing (and impressionable) youth.

Still that cannot be helped now. I have more to think about, what with the threats from that awful Myra person and her sink-estate sidekick. I have already had to restrain Greta: I caught her oiling her Luger and muttering something about the ‘Night of the Long Knives.’

Honestly, I sometimes wish I had done as mother advised, and entered a convent.

When in Rome...

I am worried about Georgie.

He is big strong man. How can he be doing in his back with the piddling little ‘occupational therapy’? That is what I would like to know.

I am thinking has he been put on the ‘hard labour’? As is category of punishment doled out by courts in your behind the times, uncivilised country, for which I am glad I do not have work permit.

You British, you think you bring civilisation to whole world. Rowlocks! is what I say. You send missionaries out to Africa and India and such places what are minding their own business, and get poor natives to cover themselves up because of your Puritan beliefs, while at the same time you are oppressive of them and steal their wealth while calling them Johnny Foreigner. And then you wonder why you get British heads chopped off up the Congo.

We in Sweden are far ahead of you in civilisation stakes. We are not ruled by gang of inbred aristocratics with the receding chin and hooked nose, and the silly secret societies of the moronic lodges with the rolled-up trouser legs and the baring of chest, and funny handshakes.
We are having true democracy in secularised society.

And you treat women abdominally! They like the secondary class citizen when it comes to getting top jobs and that. Why, for example, is no woman Archbishop of Canterbury? Or York? Not that I would want job like that – even if I had work permit. What you call clergy I say bunch of weirdos in funny hats and cloaks, chanting in ancient languages what nobody understand, and swinging incense bottle on string. What’s all that about?

Maybe is why you English so repressed where sex is concerned. So mentally unhealthy: anally retentive and worse.

Getting back to get back to Georgie – say what you like but he is not bad guy, even though we have had our downs and ups. I remember how he took me into his house and gave me bed and board, in return for only household tasks - and sometimes personal attention.

And I say to Georgina – sorry, I mean CHARLIE – it is not right to be advertising his things like this. But she say, we cannot be storing all that junk, we need room for our seminals and sleep-overs and training and that, as our movement grows. Sisterhood (under the duvet) aims to bring changes like of the which you never did dream. Even though we do attract some right nutters (no names). United we stand, together we fall.

I agree with her but I manage to save his collection of ‘self-help’ books (37 of them) which I put in Adidas training bag to take with me when I go visit him in loony bin.

It is getting dark. Soon be time to light joss-sticks and sit in circle holding hands and making Omm noise. Oh well… when in Rome, bring it on – that’s what I say.

GEORGE - BULLETIN

I understand from Dr Foggatty that George has suffered a bit of a trauma.

It seems he woke in the night with severe back pain, got out of bed, fell down and couldn’t get up.

A paramedic was eventually called, who examined him, there on the floor, and said that a large muscle was in spasm. And when that happened the pain could be excruciating. He was given Ibuprofen and Paracetomol and will see a doctor today.

If you ask me, he’s been overdoing the ‘occupational therapy’ – probably trying to impress Janet, the instructor. It would be just like him.

The chance to grab a bargain

The following items will shortly be offered on eBay:

Gents ‘vintage’ racing bicycle (‘Tour de France) colour orange (c/w gel saddle)

Collection of old 78 jazz records (one of two warped – but still playable)

Video of Hitler’s Speeches

Back issues of ‘Fetish Monthly’ Numbers 17-98 (Note – crosswords have been completed)

Several lengths of good quality rope. May suit boat owner.

Pair of walking boots – need a clean

Book ‘A Beginner’s Guide to Oxyacetylene Welding'

30 ‘aircraft plates’ (‘Coalport’ fine bone china) Never been out of boxes

Fencing mask.

Window-cleaner’s ladder.

Gents’ shirts (assorted colours – except white) collar size 16

Gents’ trousers – various styles – sizes from 32 to 38 waist – some stains

Pair of binoculars (slight dent)

Flying model aeroplane (engine missing)

Rubber hose (appx 3 metres)

World War II gas mask (collector’s item)

The complete poems of Walter Thrugg. (signed by author)

Electric toothbrush (3 brushes – slightly worn)

Book ‘The future of rocket weaponry’ by Werner von Braun (several pages have singeing at the edges but all the text (German) is readable)

Anyone wishing to make an early bid should contact Greta our secretary (hon)

GEORGE - BULLETIN

As promised, here is an update on George’s progress.

The director of psychiatry (Dr Foggatty) says it is too early to make predictions, but George seems to settling in and accepting the treatment programme and general regime.

A typical day for George:

6.30 am Wakened and given medication
7.30 am Breakfast
9.00 am Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (one and a half hours)
Followed by rest period – then light exercise.
12.00pm Medication
12.30pm Lunch
2.00pm Occupational Therapy: His instructor, Janet, says George shows a
remarkable talent for creative sculpture. At the moment he is
working on a table-lamp in the shape of a female torso (and head),
made out of chicken-wire and ‘art roc’. He will not, of course, be
allowed to do the wiring, but Janet says that in all other respects he
should be encouraged to develop his creativity.
4.00pm Medication
4.30pm Tea

The evenings are his own. He spends a lot of time reading (there is an excellent
Library) and writing – he is encouraged to keep a journal detailing
his feelings, moods etc.. He can, of course, write letters, but so far
has shown no inclination to do so. George is not allowed to watch
television or have access to the Internet.
9.30pm Medication followed by light supper and bed. Lights out 10.30pm.

George may receive visits but so far has made no requests. Anyone wishing to see him must apply in writing to the director.

So, as you can see, the old sod is being well cared for – at the tax payers expense. So perhaps all you do gooders, banging on about ‘human rights’, will now shut it!

THE ARTS PAGE

Hi – I have been assigned the task of elevating the tone of this publication by the introduction of an ‘Arts Page’. This is something for which I am singularly fitted: although ‘blog’ policy demands that I do not reveal my name, I will just say that at my old school (a well known educational establishment for young ladies, which begins with ‘R’ and ends with ‘n’) I was president of the literary society and edited the school magazine.
I spurned the offer of a place at Oxford University, believing it to be an institution dedicated to the perpetuation of the class system in this country, ensuring that power remains in the hands of a bourgeois elite.
As a ‘gap year’ I worked in one of my father’s shoe factories, somewhere up north – I can’t remember the name of the place. Unfortunately, the cold and the damp did not suit my chest and so I moved back to London to pursue a career as a literary critic.

Anyway – to business. The idea is, that from time – depending upon the demands of my busy schedule – I will take a piece of writing, a poem in this case, and ‘de-construct it’. (I will explain what it means). Okay?



A poem by the post-modernist, Walter Thrugg, called simply

The City.

Winter skids across an autumn sky
In the thick air
Glue streets stick the fronts of
Black terraces to
Shattered pavements
While smoke-stack hatted men conjoin listlessly
On windy corners to moan
Incessantly
Over better days, over the moon, over bar the shouting
And vituperating dogs strain snarling at authority’s leash
In a gnashing of mistaken loyalty –
And nurses grease perambulator wheels
Surreptitiously, in the park
While waiting for their lovers -
When a penumbriacal moon stoops down
To comfort denizens of forgotten alleyways
Recognizable only by the whites of their eyes
Flashing like well-sucked gob-stoppers
In the stygian gloom.

And this is the city?
And I, a city dweller?

Be gone

-----------------------

In this poem Walter is railing against the desperate meaninglessness of life in a Northern industrial city.

The skidding autumn sky needs no explanation.

The ‘smoke-stack hatted men’ is a metaphor for the factory workers, miners, road sweepers and all the others who give freely of their labour – and illustrates the starkness, the grimness of working class existence.

The ‘vituperating dogs’ strain at the leash of capitalism, which is, at the moment, holding the workers in check out of ‘mistaken loyalty’ (this leash is strained to breaking point and will soon snap).

The ‘denizens of forgotten alleyways’ is a metaphor for working class women, who have to share communal wash-houses in stinking alleyways. Grinding poverty, back-breaking work over ‘dolley-tub’ and ‘mangle’ leave these women with neither energy or time to indulge in ‘lovers’ – unlike the nurses in the park, with their crisp-white uniforms and shiny faces.
(‘grease the perambulator wheels’ is of course a sexual allusion – let us be under no illusions about that – these lackies of the upper classes would not soil their manicured hands with machine oil)

Walter ends with a cry of anguish: Is this the city? Am I a city dweller? He has been brought face to face with the dreadful reality – and his complicity in it. He wants to be gone.

Attention

GUTEN TAG! This is the first time I have had the honour to address the great British public via this wonderful Internet.

Under the rules of the Sisterhood - and I am a great believer in rules - I am not allowed to give my name. Suffice it to say I am from a country with strong ties to your Royal Family.

And now to business: Discipline. Discipline (and that is my speciality) is what is needed, and has heretofore been sadly lacking on this blog. It is my role to remedy this state of affairs. A healthy mind in a healthy blog – that is my mission statement. The George person would not be in the position he is in now if he had taken himself in hand at an earlier date.

I shall be publishing a strict regime of exercise and diet on the blog but in the meantime I have instigated a callisthenics session every morning for the Sisters Some are less enthusiastic than will be good for them! For example, a certain Swedish lady prefers to lie in bed fiddling with her iPod. (I think I have spelled that correctly, having a good command of the English language, unlike the aforementioned lady – but let us not dwell upon that.)

We need an iron will to succeed (to paraphrase that great countryman of mine, Nietzsche). I am here to provide that will. And as for the threats – veiled and otherwise – let these people be warned: you will be biting off a bigger chunk of liverwurst than you can chew!

That will be all for now: I have to attend band practice tonight: I am taking the trombone solo in ‘Lohengrin’. Wagner – now there was a composer!

Response to R J Adams

‘We’ are not holding the person known as ‘George’.

As we said, he has been removed to a place of safety. Admittedly one of our members countersigned the necessary documentation, but it was with his best interests at heart.

It was vital that he be extracated from the spiritually toxic environment into which he had allowed himself to slide.

Now, with rest, regular meals – and of course medication – the prognosis of a complete recovery is realistically achievable.

It is, however, good to know that he has not been forgotten by his friends. Any messages of ‘good wishes’ will be forwarded via our secretary (hon) Greta.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ?

There is no such thing as domestic violence. You cannot domesticate violence. A fist in the face hurts just as much in the kitchen as it does in the street. Violence is violence is violence - and should be treated as such, whether the perpetrator is male or female. Calling it ‘domestic’ creates a separate category: a type of violence which is somehow not quite so bad: an almost cosy sort of violence - a traditional feature of hearth and home.

We realise that men can be victims of family violence: We are all too familiar with the excesses of Lizzie Borden! We are also aware of emotional violence (practised by both male and female), where the scars don’t show, but often last longer. This will be the subject of a separate article.


Remorse

She took a flat-iron
To Brian –
Destroyed his good looks,
No denyin’ -
Then she parted his hair
With the leg of a chair –
When the police came, she started cryin’.

Long time no seeing

Well what a turn down for the bookies and no mistaking. I am not able to give my name because we are speaking now with the one voice – the voice of the Sisterhood.
Oh yes.
Not either am I also able to advise of the situation of the man ‘George’ – suffice it to say.
He is personna non gratified around these parts.

But anyway I am glad to be opportuning to talk to you in the flesh – so to speak.
Our organization is growing by the yard. Sisters Norah and Greta being our latest recruits.

Our sister in charge, Georgina – no, I mean CHARLIE – wants the blog to have more of a political slope. We have just had the local elections and we have all voted – except me (for reasons I am unable to divulge at this moment in timing – and no, it is not because I am too young, though often being asked to produce identity when purchasing the alco-pops down the wine-bar).

Anyway it seems poor old Mr Blair’s lot have not done so good. People are saying it has much to do with Iraq conflagration – personally I do not know. My brother, Sven, he call the Middle East the arsehole of the world, so what, I am asking myself, is why Blair wanting to go poking nose in there?
But I am not a political animal, and no doubt is easy to snipe from the sidelines but when you got to run the show is different matter. It must be very difficult so I do not understand why anyone want the job – especially the Brown person who seems to have a nice number going, handling all the cash without any of the responsibility. But Greta says that power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. I say, well that is as may be, babe, but where you find time in that game for the hanky panky? That is what I ask. She refer me to Mr Plunkett (man with dog) who she says managed to put it about even with worries of Homely Office plus difficulties with vision.

I am even less au fate with the American politics, but the Bush man seems a good, clean living person - bit different from the Clinton person - always blowing his saxophone - and he is pal of Tony’s, so maybe he find him a job when he quits No 10 Downing Street. He probably feels sorry for his pal having to live in a Terraced House while he lives in a big white mansion.

Well I think that is enough of the politics for now.

It is a warm, sunny May day and I am going to divest myself of my clothing and bathe in the sun. The man next door, they say is paediatrician – well maybe if he watches me for a bit it take his mind off his unhealthy thoughts. Always thinking of others, that’s been my undoing – several times. But never mind: all in a good cause, eh?