This TV series sounds really good. Hopefully it will make its way to YouTube for those of us who don’t have Channel 4… 

This year’s Amsterdam Pride festivities started yesterday, and will carry on until Sunday. The highlight for many people, myself included, will be the annual boat parade. The weather forecast is good, so I’ll travel to Amsterdam tomorrow to take lots of photos of it.

 

Unfortunately, this year Shell won’t have a boat in the parade. As a Shell pensioner, I feel rather sad about this, particularly following all the effort the Shell GLBT group (Pink Pearl) made to get their first ground-breaking boat into the parade in 2005. That led to other multinationals sponsoring their own boats in 2006 alongside the Shell boat.

 

I understand from a Pink Pearl member that the reason that Shell is not participating this year in the parade is because the Shell Nederland Country Chairman gave Pink Pearl the steer to focus their limited resources (both manpower to organise these events, and yearly budget) on solving an internal Shell GLBT issue – which is Mobility across borders. At the moment gay employees are not free to move from one expatriate assignment to another with their partners (because it is illegal to be gay in many countries where Shell operates- sometimes leading to the death penalty if found with another same sex partner). The result of this is that gay people do not have equal chances to succeed in their careers if they are limited as to which countries they can work in with their partners, or they have to make choices to work in a country without their partners which does not make for a stable home life. At the moment, Pink Pearl is working on raising the awareness of this issue in Shell, especially within the Human Resources community and leadership teams.

 

So, alas, no boat this year, but Pink Pearl members will definitely be present to cheer on the parade. Me too.  

Having had to do it a few times in a past life, then I know that compiling the list of questions and answers that go to make up a FAQ can become more of an art than a science at times.

 

Still, I take my hat off to the compiler of this FAQ from Sainsburys, which accompanies their announcement of the fact that they will no longer be accepting cheques in their stores. It contains the following beauty:

It’s given me an insight into some people’s lives that I never even realised existed… Although what you must do if you’re into rubber, and you have a latex allergy, I really cannot imagine. Perhaps that’s one definition of masochist? And before you jump to conclusions, I have neither of the two conditions.

 

(hat tip to Diamond Geezer for the link)

Gawd, I love the internet! It leads me down such fascinating paths. There I was, idly browsing through Improbable Research, and I come across a reference to this week’s Improbable Research column in the Guardian. It’s devoted to the topic of when someone’s speech "sounds gay", what makes it sound that way (and is the speaker in fact gay?). There have been three studies into this.

 

I noticed that one study had been done by Rudolf P. Gaudio at Standford University in 1994 (and on an associated note, his picture set off my gaydar – although I have to say that my gaydar is notoriously unreliable). I then googled to see what other research he might have been involved in. I see that he contributed a wonderfully-titled paper entitled "Not Talking Straight In Hansa" to the book Queerly Phrased: Language, Gender and Sexuality, edited by Anna Livia and Kira Hall. I’m almost persuaded to get a copy, since many of the other papers have equally intriguing titles such as: "The Color of His Eyes; Polari and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence", "Pots an Pans; Identification of Queer Japanese in Terms of Discrimination" and "‘Go Suck Your Husband’s Sugarcane’; Hijras and the Use of Sexual Insult".

 

Gaudio’s work on the Hansa society and language then led me on to another intriguingly-titled book: Boy-Wives and Female Husbands, by Stephen O. Murray and Will Roscoe. It’s a study of homosexualities (the modes and expressions of homosexuality) in African societies. Despite what Archbishop Akinola may wish to believe, homosexualities have been around in African societies for a very long time, and have not been recently introduced by the decadent West. The book gets a good review here. Damn, another one for the pile.