Gucci loafer under the couch.

"Okay honey, so, when you hear your name, walk across the stage, the hostess will talk to you, then get into the shower, pull the handle up and the water will come on," he explained. "Make sure you're good and wet all over then get out of the shower, walk to the middle of the stage and dance your ass off!"

"Em, excuse me," I asked, "I have a couple of questions..."

"Oh my gawd! Your accent is too much!"

"Thank you." I was flattered, naturally.

"Whadda ya wanna know honey?" the young man cocked his head and smiled through me.

"Well it's not so much as a question but I need to check - will he, er she, touch me? They won't try to take my shorts off will they?"

"No honey, don't worry, you'll be great! Now take your clothes off behind that curtain, leave your underwear on, and take a seat over there until you hear your name."

The backstage assistant minced off to brief another contestant as I ducked behind the curtain and started taking my clothes off wondering why the hell I was about to go on stage at a gay drag bar on the American border with Mexico.

*  *  *  *  *

That morning we'd woken in La Jolla, San Diego, at the house of Peter Nedley and his boyfriend Stan. Peter was originally from Wythenshawe in South Manchester and after a stint in the merchant navy had settled in Southern California, married and had a son. After a subsequent stint in which he played the role of straight family man, he and his wife had split and Peter met Stan.

We'd arrived the afternoon before after being introduced, long distance, by Peter's cousin who sold us our flights to The States, back in the UK.

"I love the gays me." she'd said in that matter of fact way of a Mancunian. She didn't take her eyes off the screen while tapping away at the computer. "My cousin's gay you know. Lives with a Chinese lad. You should get in touch when you get to California. He'd love to see you."

Somehow this off the cuff comment resulted in us staying with Peter and Stan for two nights and being shown the sights of San Diego. 

We arrived after a four hour drive from Santa Barbara and knocked on the door of the bungalow. It was 1997 and communication was very different then. We'd not had email contact, we didn't even speak to them on the phone ahead of our arrival. It was all arranged through the cousin and we just rocked up on the doorstep on an agreed afternoon in May.

"Hello. I'm Chris." said Chris.

"You made it!" Peter face lit up and he flung his arms around his guest.

Chris struggled his way out of the bear hug. "And this is Richard." 

"Um, hello?" I was a shy 21 year old and unaccustomed to American hospitality.

Peter gripped me and pulled me into his chest before introducing his partner with an open palm and a flourish of his hand.

"This is Stan!" he enthused in his California slash Manchester accent.

Stan looked us up and down, we were dishevelled and sweaty from being in the car. He pouted, raised his eyebrows and said, "We kick our shoes off when we come into the house," before turning on his heel and disappearing inside.

Whilst it can be said that Stan's welcome was slightly cooler than Peter's, he soon warmed up and within no time was talking me through a new painting that had caught my eye on the wall of the sitting room. It was by a friend of his, in acrylic, and was called 'I lost a Gucci loafer under the couch'. 

The painting was in the style of a sixties Hockney and wasn't bad for an amateur. It depicted a domestic scene between two aloof men, one was fishing around under a Robin Day-esque sofa for a just-out-of-reach shoe while the other stood in the doorway frowning at his wristwatch.

I admired it, and cooed to Stan, while secretly fancying that one day Chris and I would recreate that scene. I'd be the one who was missing the shoe, naturally.

The house was lovely, in that effortless Californian style. Single storey decorated with a mix of original art, orchids and flea market finds. Above the table in the open plan kitchen-diner hung a wooden candelabra made up of four angels with terracotta skirts and ochre wings, each holding two candles, one in each hand. 

The indigo table was distressed before distressed was even a thing, and despite having two foreign strangers about to arrive neither Peter nor Stan had seen fit to clear the rubbish off it or indeed tidy the house at all. It was immediately relaxing.

"You'll be staying in my son's room." Peter said, "it's just down the hall."

"Perfect, do you mind if we drop our bags in there now?"

"Sure, just leave them wherever, and mind the toys. You'll be in the double at the bottom and he'll sleep in the top bunk."

We dragged our enormous suitcases to the bedroom, closed the door to and I turned to Chris. 

"Did he say his kid would be sleeping in here with us?"

"I think so." 

"His four year old child? With two strangers? I could be a paedophile for all he knows!"

"But you're not."

"He doesn't know that!" I protested, "You'll have to tell him." I was less confident about speaking my mind back then.

Chris waited for an opportune moment to tell Peter that we didn't feel entirely comfortable sleeping with his toddler, to which he replied, "No problem, he can sleep in between me and Stan." 

With the sleeping arrangements agreed we settled in for an evening at home and a barbecue in the back yard. Stan had been to the farmers' market and picked up a butternut squash and some aubergines which would be perfect for me before the other three tucked into steaks the size of my head.

We woke late the following morning, enjoyed brunch - a novelty for two Brits used to three square meals a day - and sat around sipping artisan coffee and discussing what we'd like to do with our day.

"We know this really cool beach." suggested Peter.

"I love the beach!" I piped up.

"Yeah," drawled Stan in his soft, Californian tones, "Black's Beach is beautiful. We could go there."

"Great, sounds marvellous." 

Little did I know what I'd agreed to.

"It's a gay beach." said Stan.

"Okay..."

"And there's a nude section."

"I see."

"More coffee?" Peter topped me up as I side-eyed Chris and twisted my mouth.

Whilst getting ready for the beach, surrounded by stuffed toys and wooden toys, I turned to Chris and quietly but urgently said, "I'm not going on a nudist beach!"

"You don't have to take your clothes off." Chris was nonchalant.

"I don't care! I have no intention of taking my clothes off in public and I certainly don't want to see that man's ginger pubes!"

"Don't be silly." Chris already knew he was fighting a losing battle.

"It's our first anniversary in a couple of days. It's completely inappropriate. I'm not going."

"Okay, okay. We don't have to."

I stuffed a towel and a bottle of sunscreen in a backpack and headed back out to our hosts.

Later, as we sat in the back of Stan's green, open top four by four, Peter passed the time of day by asking "So what's the gay car of choice in England these days?"

"I don't drive I'm afraid," I replied.

"We don't really have one," said Chris. "I drive a Renault Laguna," he offered.

Stan looked quizzically at Peter and they both shrugged.

"You see this drive?" Peter pointed to a gate as we sped up a hill. "They say it leads to the house where Tom Cruise takes his boys at the weekends."

"Ah." I acknowledged, wondering who on earth these boys were and whether Nicole went with them to the house.

 

We continued the drive to the national park and Black's beach practically in silence until after nearly fifteen minutes Peter had another bash at small talk.

"So what's the gay car of choice in England nowadays?"

"You asked that already." Stan interrupted, shutting him down.

Eventually parked up, and bags retrieved from the back of the Californian gay car of choice, Chris told our hosts that we weren't really comfortable (again) with the nudist beach, especially as it was so close to our anniversary. They seemed to sense that it was me that didn't want to go and began poking fun. I laughed it off while secretly promising myself I'd punish them by breaking something in their home or starting a small fire just before we left.

At the time I assumed they were teasing me for being shy and self conscious but, with the hindsight of over twenty years, I now suspect they were annoyed that they weren't going to get to see a good looking twenty one year old lad naked. 

The irony is that if I'd have once thought I was good looking at that age I might have actually gone to Black's beach and got undressed but, as it happened, I thought I was a dog. I think that's probably what they mean by youth is wasted on the young.

Chris and I stopped before the cliffs began to rise leaving Peter and Stan to walk the two miles or so along the Pacific coast to the gay, nudist beach. We had a lovely afternoon sunbathing and splashing around in the sea before our hosts turned up again. Stan looked tanned and healthy, Peter on the other hand looked for all the world like like a walking beacon, his fair skin still being unused to the southern California sun. As we walked back to Stan's four by four I wondered if Peter had used a higher SPF on his nether regions to avoid singeing and, if so, did Stan help him apply it or did he take matters into his own hands.

That evening our temporary landlords took us to the Kazumi Sushi bar in downtown San Diego before driving us to another venue for after dinner drinks. The late night coffee shop was magical, we took a table outside and I ordered a glass of wine and a slab of chocolate cake with gold leaf running through the sponge and a rich black cherry glaze. We chatted about our day at the beach, our thoughts on San Diego and La Jolla, and our plans for the rest of our holiday as we were due to travel north again for our flights out of San Francisco which left a week later.

Every now and then either Peter or Stan would make another sly dig about Black's beach, but I was chilled now after self lubricating with a few glasses of wine so the gentle drubbing was like water off a duck's back.

As I finished off the last of the gateau, washing it down with a swig of chardonnay, the enchantment of the twinkly lights and soft music that enveloped us was dashed when I saw the biggest cockroach known to human kind make a bolt for it behind the counter, swiftly followed by a tap dancing waiter intent on stopping the creature in its tracks.

"Ready to go?" Peter stood up and led us back to the four by four. Next stop was a nightclub where Chris was thrilled to be asked for ID at the age of thirty three, Stan ruined the experience for him by revealing that everyone had to show ID. The police, it was rumoured, had a habit of coming down hard on gay venues that couldn't prove they'd checked everyone inside was old enough to be there. 

Jaywalking was apparently another tactic the cops would use to torment the gays back then, something I learned half way across the road when Peter clutched his pearls and shrieked "Oh my God Richard! No!" 

Normally a minor misdemeanour officers would hang around near gay bars in the hope they could ticket someone for crossing the road in the wrong place, a strange cat and mouse affair I wasn't used to back home in 90s Manchester - a place where I'd seen a police van drive past a full blown fight taking place in the middle of Princess Street without the officers batting an eyelid.

It was too early to be in the club, and it was practically empty, so once we'd necked a quick gin and tonic, and I'd marvelled at video-mixing, a novelty to my British eyes, we moved on.

We landed at an open air venue, apparently close to the Mexican border, with a stage at one end and the bar and toilets at the other. 

After stuffing my face on sushi, and the huge slice of incredibly rich chocolate cake, I was dying for the toilet and so left the group buying margaritas at the bar, to go for a sneaky poo. I was aghast when I walked into the empty restroom to find two urinals on the wall next to two sit down toilets which, despite being in cubicles with dividing walls, were missing doors leaving the latrines open to the room. I weighed up my options - risk a flash-crap and relieve myself or hold on to it for the rest of the night. I'm British so I had a wee, clenched my cheeks and went back to the bar hoping it would crawl back up inside me.

Eventually seated at a table I learned that tonight, being Friday night, there was a regular competition where the winner would walk away with a hundred dollars. It was the highlight of the week and the reason Peter and Stan had chosen this particular bar. 

Contestants would get up on stage, shower in their underwear, and dance for the crowd. The winner would be the person who received the biggest cheer at the end of the game. 

A round of tequila arrived at the table. I tipped mine into the remains of my cocktail and swilled it down before ordering another jug. I read the leaflet on the table and beckoned Chris over.

"I'm going to do it." I whispered cupping his ear.

"What?"

"The competish'n. I'm going to take part." I slurred

"What? Why?"

"They think I'm a prude becaushe I wouldn't go to that beach."

"Richard..."

"Sho I'm going to do it." The jug of margarita was delivered, I paid the waiter and grimacing through the booze said, "Keep the shange."

"You don't have to, you know." Chris was worried.

"I know. But I'm gonna..." I flared my nostrils and gave him a slightly crazed but defiant look before turning back to the table.

Just then there was a roll of drums, a fanfare of Mexican trumpets and a spotlight illuminated the centre of the stage. A seven foot drag queen occupied the stage, she grabbed a microphone from its stand and addressed the audience.

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome! This is your ten minute warning. If anyone wants to try their luck for this week's grand prize of one hundred dollars," the crowd whooped, "then raise your hand now and let one of the waiters know who you are."

My hand shot up and everyone round the table gawped at me.

"You don't have to." pleaded Chris.

"I know." I replied through gritted teeth.

A waiter came over. "Hi sweet, you takin' part tonight?"

"Yesh! Where do I shine?"

"He means sign," explained Chris.

"Come with me," and with that he grabbed my hand and led me to the side of the stage where I was delivered to the back stage assistant.

"Name and age please?"

"Rishard. Richard Douglash." I hiccuped. "I'm twenty one."

"Where are you from?"

"England."

"They're gonna love you honey!"

"Thanksh."

"Before I go through everything, I need to check - will your shorts become transparent when they're wet? Because if they do then I've got some here you can use instead."

The next few minutes whizzed by as I prepared myself. I sobered up instantly and the next thing I knew a voice from the stage announced, "Hey fellas, we've got a real treat for you tonight! A British twink!"

The crowd roared; backstage I regretted not risking the poo.

"Go easy on him you guys! This is Richard, he's twenty one and he's all the way from England!"

I was shoved onto the stage and immediately went into auto drive. The drag queen asked me a few questions before pointing to the glass sided shower to her right. I bit my lip and got in.

As the water drenched me the music started booming. I was soaking. I looked down to check my shorts, thankful they hadn't become see-through. My dignity intact and dripping wet, I headed back to the middle of the stage where I spent what felt like hours, but was probably all of 45 seconds, gyrating and dancing for the baying crowd.

Money maker shaken, I retreated backstage until all the contestants had had their turn. The final humiliation was spent as we all returned to the stage for the final applause, still damp, wearing only our boxer shorts and one by one contestants were voted off based on how loud the crowd cheered and clapped. 

I wish I could say I won but sadly I came second. Returning to the table with my chin held a little higher I was consoled by the subtly impressed Peter and Stan. They told me the guy that came out on top took part every week and had a gang of friends who would help him win. According to my hosts he used the money to pay the rent which made me feel slightly better. At least I could walk away with my pride.

San Francisco on my mind

Chris and I spent Saturday afternoon painting the walls at the back of our house. The old red brick now brightened up with the Alpine Blue masonry paint which took five weeks to travel from Darwen to Altrincham and finally to us. We're getting lots of jobs done during the lockdown, jobs which might have still been ideas if we weren't restricted to internet shopping and staying at home. I've never seen the cutlery drawers so neat before.

One of the lovely treats of being at home all weekend is when friends visit unannounced, usually on their daily day-release walk round the neighbourhood. I was putting some plates in the dishwasher after lunch when I heard David and Dino calling from the street to the garden and saw Chris wander down the drive to greet them. We had a ten minute chat and catch up, them on the street and us at the front door naturally. You really appreciate proper, face to face contact with people when you go so long without it.

Dino, who teaches fine art at Liverpool John Moores, is still working and having to adapt to online tutoring. I'd have imagined it would be pretty tricky to do but he's modified the way he works, like many of us, and he even says there are definite benefits to it. Not least of which are reduced stress levels from not having to drive from Salford to Liverpool every day.

Earlier in the day Matthew had stopped by to drop off a book. I have no idea when I'd mentioned it but I'd said at some point that I hadn't read The Days of Anna Madrigal, the last in the Tales of the City series, he remembered and, kind soul that he is, lent me his copy. The logistics of giving someone a book when you're supposed to stay two metres apart from each other are surprisingly problematic, especially when I was lending him one of mine in return. How does one land a hardback book in a friend's open backpack from six feet away without lobbing it at the back of their head?

There was a bit of a debacle last week when I ordered two books from Waterstones, one for me and one for Alison, only for them both to be delivered to her, in Leeds, on consecutive days. I've been in touch with them, offering to send one back, post-lockdown, and suggesting they post me a copy to Manchester as they were supposed to. I received an automated response to say their customer service team are working through a backlog dating back a month and my query is in a queue. I can't say I'm surprised they have such a mountain of complaints when they struggle with something so simple as putting the correct address on a book, but never mind, everything is forgivable in the age of Coronavirus.

In the absence of my new book Matthew's unexpected delivery was a welcome surprise. Especially as without it I'd have been forced to carry on trawling through Dracula, which I ordered while drunk one night thinking it was about time I actually read it. It's alright I suppose, it's just so Victorian and verbose, and the writing so small, that a chapter can take what feels like weeks to read. I get a far bigger sense of achievement with larger fonts.

For years I've had a habit of buying books which I think I ought to read so my bookcase is filled with unread classics such as Anna Karenina, Moby Dick and The Dharma Bums which sit neatly next to John Irving, Stephen King and (for shame) Helen Fielding. I'm a terrible snob when it comes to books so both the Brigit Jones books - given not bought - are hiding behind a Christmas Cactus, and my Stephen King horrors, well thumbed and secretly loved, are stashed behind a pile of my granny's antique Charles Dickens novels. I've even been known, in the height of my snobbery, to put what I consider to be higher brow books on shelves at eye level and trashy ones lower down, out of immediate eye line. Thus Doris Lessing and James Joyce enjoy the heady heights of the top shelf, unread of course, while The Lovely Bones and Life of Pi languish at knee height.

For a very slow reader I think I'm reasonably well read. I've read Frankenstein, Wuthering Heights and The Go Between for example, and my favourite authors are Salman Rushdie and Gore Vidal who are both revered. However the fact that I turn my nose up at George Orwell and I stopped reading Brighton Rock at page 215 with only thirty two pages left to go leaves some of my friends aghast. And as far as I'm concerned Dickens can do one - they made me read that at school and it was dullsville in my opinion. I tried The Hobbit when I was a kid and I shan't be going back there either, Tolkien is banished in this house.

Anyway, I'm rambling, where was I? Armistead Maupin - certainly not high brow but a master storyteller and a favourite all the same.

Thankful to be able to ditch Jonathan Harker and his drearily lustful pal, Nosferatu, I started reading The Days of Anna Madrigal. I first came across Tales of the City at the age of eighteen when Channel 4 broadcast the mini-series based on the book. It was a revelation to me to see gay people on the telly and as I was, let's say, exploring my tendencies, I was initially hooked into it by that. Then of course the storytelling grabbed me and I was addicted.

I didn't know then that it was based on a book, assuming it to be just another TV series and it wasn't until I was twenty that I saw it in print after seeing a dogeared copy on a toilet cistern in Shrewsbury. Since then I've read the lot, aside from this weekend's delivery, and even seen the author at a book reading and interview in Salford last year.

Maupin has a talent for plonking the reader in San Francisco, in any given year, and making you feel like you know it intimately. I suppose that's what a good writer should be able to do and he has this skill in abundance.

In 1997 Chris and I took our first holiday together and at my insistence we went to California rather than Florida, somewhere he'd been time and again. My primary reason for this was that I didn't want to go to all the places he'd already been to with his awful ex. Another reason however was that I wanted to go to San Francisco and that desire was based exclusively on Tales of the City.

We originally decided that what we'd do is book our flights in and out of San Francisco, two weeks apart, and find accommodation when we were there, each day dependent on where we found ourselves driving to. While booking the flights and chatting to the travel agent, she revealed that her cousin Peter lived in California, in a place called La Jolla in San Diego. He was originally from Wythenshawe in south Manchester and had been in the merchant navy, settling in California, marrying and having a child. Since then Peter had been busy setting up a construction company, splitting from his wife and shacking up with an Asian boyfriend called Stan, many years his junior.

"You should go and stay with him!" she said, so she arranged it and we did.

With a couple of weeks to go before our holiday we thought it might be a good idea to at least ensure we had some accommodation when we landed in San Francisco so we got looking. The internet in 1997 was a cumbersome beast in comparison to what we have today, in many ways like a kid at a special school, small, slow and dim, so Chris asked around people he knew for recommendations of where we might call and book a night or two in advance.

Luckily someone from a record company he used to deal with knew somebody in San Francisco who knew somebody else that rented out a room. This was ten years before AirBNB was conceived but essentially that's what we were going to do. We were given instructions for how to find the friend when we landed, agreed a price of $40 a night, and that was that.

Landing at SFO via Chicago and after about nineteen hours travelling we bumbled out into the dazzling California sun. This was pre-mobile phone for us and all we knew was that we were to find the 'friend', a woman in a champagne coloured VW Beetle. Surprisingly she found us in minutes, packed our cases into the boot of the car and we sped off into town, her chattering away, a dime a dozen, and interrogating us about our journey.

We arrived at a typical wooden Victorian house in the Mission District. The 'friend' hoiked our bags out onto the pavement, then taking the steps at the front of the house two at a time, bounded to the front door and hammered on it. A young man came to the door and with wildly expressive arms flying around her head like a windmill, she explained who we were and introduced us then immediately went on her way with a parting "Good luck you guys!" I'm not sure if it was meant for us or our new landlords.

The couple, one Brazilian, the other French were strangely quiet and moody for hosts but welcoming and generous all the same. They had the middle apartment in the house with neighbours upstairs and down and, once cash had changed hands for the room, they gave us our own key and showed us around.

The place felt spacious and was filled with bohemian touches, a battered old ladder in the bathroom in place of a towel rail, wall hangings, plants everywhere with fairly lights twinkling away in them and a huge cactus bedecked with glow in the dark stars.

I was immediately jealous after all I'd grown up, in a small terraced house in the countryside in Oldham, and only ever lived in Chris's house in Sale, a small semi on an estate, since moving out. This place was wildly exciting to my unsophisticated, twenty one year old eyes.

We were shown to the guest bedroom, a large room with a bay window at the front of the house, and told that we could use the whole place as we saw fit, only their bedroom was off limits which was understandable. Delirious from jet lag and having been awake for the best part of twenty four hours did what any sensible travellers would do, we unpacked, had a half hour lie down, then headed out to find food. That night remains a blur in my mind simply because of exhaustion. I've never been very good without sleep you see, I've even been known to fall asleep in nightclubs and once behind someone's gran's sofa at an after-party in Moston.

The next day, wide awake at 4.00am but still refreshed and raring to explore, we helped ourselves to breakfast and headed out. San Francisco, it seemed, was small enough to walk around but big enough to completely knacker you out. We spent hours marching up and down its steep streets, being sure to take in as many sights as possible. The Golden Gate Bridge turned out to be way further away from anything than we expected but was definitely worth the hike.

Chris was especially interested in the crisis counselling phones which were dotted along it.

"Take a picture! Take a picture!" he insisted.

I obliged, only a little concerned that the last person to have used it may well have plummeted to a watery death beneath us. It was our holiday and we were going to do tourist shit. China Town was ticked off, the Financial District too for some reason, the cable cars were ridden and of course an obligatory trip to Russian Hill was made to look for the fictional Barbary Lane from Tales of the City.

Worn out and in need of a change of clothes after a day of hardcore sightseeing we headed back to the Mission. We took the Muni in the general direction of home and eventually disembarked. In 1997 Chris and I had only ever lived in Manchester, so we weren't accustomed to the system of street numbering and naming of junctions used in San Francisco. This led us to missing our stop and getting off one station too far. That one stop may as well have been twenty miles away.

Unaware of our mistake we wandered up into the daylight and stood there at the junction blinking into the sun, no doubt looking confused and startled, as we took in the sights around us. It was like a scene from a Romero film with scores of what appeared to be brain eating zombies staggering around the streets. As one tripped on a pavement another wandered in front of a moving car, oblivious to world around.

It took a minute or two to realise what we'd done, after all the junction looked very similar to the one we should have got off at. A quick plan was formed - we would walk back to where we should be, it couldn't be that far surely, and we knew which way we should go didn't we? At that moment I had never felt that I looked like a lost tourist so much in my entire life. Chinos and a polo shirt with a rucksack was not the fashion in these parts.

Spotting a police cruiser as it pulled up at the lights we nipped over and through the open window told the officer what we'd done and asked how best to get back to where we needed to be.

"That's quite a mistake." he pointed out in that slow, obvious manner some Americans are prone to, "What you guys need to do is take one block that way, turn right and go another five blocks."

Thank god! We finally knew how to get out of there, and we weren't going to have our brains eaten on the junction of Crack Cocaine and Mission.

"Thank you so much!" we said earnestly.

Just then the lights changed and as we stepped back, away from the police car, he called through the window to us, "Hey guys, be sure to hold tight to you bags!" He sped off leaving us to a certain death.

That evening, very much alive and kicking, we went for dinner and drinks in the Castro and reflected on the day's adventures. We sat in a colourful Mexican restaurant which had cute salt and pepper cruets, shaped like cacti, on the tables. I had chosen it because, despite this being California, or perhaps because this was America, I was surprised to see vegetarian food on a menu. My experience thus far was much like that in continental Europe, where anyone wanting to eat anything other than meat of fish had to settle for pizza and pasta.

I ordered the grilled cactus leaf with a sense of smug satisfaction. A sense that was soon wiped away when I bit into the weird tasting, gelatinous, lump on my plate fifteen minutes later.

After dinner we tried a few bars, all gay bars, some more successful than others. I should have known better with the first place as we got to the bottom of the stairs leading from the street to the basement to be presented with a heavy, black, leather curtain designed either to keep the world out or the clientele in. Thankfully it was early so we had a quick beer and moved on to a drag bar with a balcony that stretched around two sides of the building's first floor. Possibly influenced by the disgusting cactus leaf, I asked the bar man for a bottle of Sol.

"I didn't even know they still made that." he said before offering me a Budweiser and an apologetic shrug.

We left San Francisco after a couple of days to head south but as our flights were from there in the not too distant future the guys whose room we rented insisted we kept their house key and let ourselves back in for the final two days of our holiday.

When we did eventually land back in town we couldn't remember their address or indeed how to find the house, and not wanting to risk getting lost with a bunch of junkies again, we kept the key and booked ourselves into the worst hotel in the California, The Amsterdam on Taylor Street. It was so bad the cockroaches had moved out. I checked it out on Tripadvisor a couple of days ago after finding a scrap book of our trip to California, and it turns out nothing much has changed.

Our last two days were spent much as our first two were, being proper tourists. We went to Pier 39 to see the sea lions and took a trip to Alcatraz, we played mini golf (according to the photographs at least) and went to UnderWater World where we met a giant foam shark. Finally running out of things to do on our last day we spent a few hours at the cinema watching Jurassic Park 2. I don't remember the film but I do remember people booing at the screen when a Coca Cola advert came on. I think by that point I'd got the measure of San Francisco and I liked it. I promised myself that I'd go back one day.

Cut to twenty one years later.

It was September 2018 that we eventually returned. Someone once said, the more things change the more they stay the same, and that felt so true there.

We stayed in an AirBNB in Dolores Heights with two guys who rented a room out, only this time our trip from the airport was in an Uber and not in the back of a friend of a friend's champagne VW Beetle. The city felt bigger and noisier despite not having grown. Poverty was more noticeable and everything felt much more expensive than it had done.

The sea lions were still there but Pier 39 had become more of a tourist trap, if that was possible. The Golden Gate Bridge was still really far away but still worth going to see again and while the Castro felt way more gentrified than it had two decades earlier, it was still full of gay bars, outrageous characters and drag queens.

I'm glad we went when I was only 21 years old because returning when I was 42 made me realise that unless I get a better paying job, I can't really afford to go there again.

The city has become richer as I have become poorer which is a bummer but that's okay because I'll always have Armistead Maupin to take me back there.

The Cool Kids

As I have written previously, pubs have played a pivitol part in my life and just so you know - so have night clubs... To think about it my experiences in nightclubs seems interesting and varied but in reality I just got wrecked and danced strangely whilst wearing a variety of fashion statements.

My first night club at the age of sixteen was Henry Africa's in Oldham. I distinctly remember wearing a shirt, tie and jacket because that was what my dad used to wear when he went to night clubs - in the late sixties... I spent many a pointless night in there drinking blastaways (a pint glass with one bottle of castaway mixed with one bottle of diamond white - I've always been classy.) and pretending not to look at Stan the man (the stripper) and vice versa pretending to be interested in Sexy Sue (the other stripper.) One of my enduring memories of this place was Alison going arse over tit on a wet patch on the dance floor and flashing her undergarments to one and all as she lay there splayed across the middle of the dance floor.

I used to go to a club called Ambition - again in Oldham. This was known as Oldhams best alternative night - it was actually Oldham's only alternative night. The music was quite a range from Metallica, Nirvana and Rage Against The Machine (who I insisted on calling rage against the washing machine much to the chagrin of the alternative fans) to Blur, Adam Ant and Madness. There were lots of people with long hair, lots of people with shaved heads, lots of ripped jeans and a sea of Doc Martins. I fit in there very well...

Bowlers was interesting. A club that opened at eight and closed at two, sold no alcohol and had a massive following right the way across the north west. You were frisked by the doormen - who were terrifying - and the only words you needed to make a new friend for life were "What's your name? Where're you from? What've you had?" Which invariably would be answered with "Alright mate, I'm Gaz from Warrington. I've had a gram and a pill. Safe, I'm going for a dance now." I would leave Bowlers dripping with sweat and once even had an imprint of my tartan trousers on my legs when I undressed later that night.

I remember going to Sankeys Soap in Manchester for the first time - it was very exciting at the time! I didn't know where it was so we jumped in a taxi and had him drop us off. He pulled up outside a closed door at an old warehouse on the wrong side of Great Ancoats street and said here you go. There was a funny little, rough looking pub on the opposite corner which we went into for a pint and about twenty minutes later came out to find a queue outside the little door. We eventually went in through the door to a courtyard and then into the building. The music started incredibly slowly - almost a just a deep drum beat and over the course of about an hour slowly sped up and people started joining the dance floor. A couple of hours later I was dancing to very hard, very loud techno.

One of my favourite clubs was Paradise Factory in Manchester. I went there for the first time on my twentieth birthday and hadn't ever seen seen anything like it. On one night in there I found myself dancing with a roller skating nun called Sister Marta and a giant piece of toast called Mrs Crusty. I nearly got kicked in the face one night by Fernando doing high kicks in his high heeled platforms - Fernando is now April. There was a guy there every week who must have been in his mid sixties. He was called Tony and he always wore a dinner jacket and bow tie and smoked what looked like huge joints firmly jammed into a cigarette holder. I also remember a woman who was a regular who wore a long trench coat and had big eighties hair. Underneath the trench coat she just wore a skimpy bikini and she looked and danced like one of the women from that Robert Palmer video.

On the door was Nicki Pennington who always had a clip board for the guest listers and grilled everyone else about their gay credentials. She would ask if you knew that this was a gay club, then she would ask if you were gay, then she would ask which magazines you read - which you would have to reply Gay Times and Boyz magazine - well you could hardly answer New Scientist and The Times Sunday supplement could you. She would finally ask you what your favourite page of Boyz was and the standard answer had to be - the back page. That's where the naked man picture was. Whilst waiting for this grilling you would be entertained by Lady Lola who would tease people in the queue and give out lolly pops. I believe she went on to be a producer for The Trisha show.

Also amongst my favourites is Space in Ibiza - not so much inside but definitely the outside terrace. There's something spine tingling about dancing, off your tits, in the middle of the day and watching an aeroplane coming screaming over your head as it goes in to land at Evissa airport down the road. You can read the letters on the bottom of the plane and everyone throws their hands in the air as if to touch it as it comes in. It's thrilling.

I met Chris at the Hacienda in Manchester on one of their Flesh nights. I've still got the ticket. It was called Flesh FC and had a football theme. I was dancing up on the stage when I turned around and saw him there. He was the boy I had been dancing with at Paradise Factory the week before but hadn't spoken to. Fate or just the small world of clubbing in Manchester in 1996? That was the first night that I went to Danceteria at Central Park. A dirty, nasty club if ever I've been to one. It started at midnight on Saturday and closed at ten thirty on Sunday night. Oil from the Chorlton Street car park above would seep through the concrete ceiling and stain your clothes as it dripped through to the club. I far preferred The Breakfast Club which ran from three till six after Paradise Factory had closed. No booze, just soft drinks and coffee and after a quick sit down and chat the dancing would begin again. This is where the cool kids went - and I was one of them. What happened?

Samantha from Burnley

When we first moved to Preston we went to Chris's chairman's house for drinks one evening. He lives in a lovely house overlooking Stanley Park in Blackpool. As we were leaving one of his neighbours was shouting coo-ee and doing high kicks in the front garden. Turns out that this bloke was otherwise known as Betty Legs Diamond and was the headline act at Funny Girls in Blackpool. Chris's chairman tried to reciprocate and made a valiant effort to high kick back at him but when you're in your mid sixties and you've had half a bottle of red wine this can appear quite graceless. Betty put me in mind of a transvestite I met two August bank holiday's ago called Samantha from Burnley. Samantha from Burnley was a bus driver during the week and came down to Manchester at weekends to get all trashed up and drink pints of bitter.

I love trannies - not drag queens, just trannies - especially the ones who look like they've just come off the building site and put a frock on for the night. The librarian ones you see standing quietly in the corner on a Wednesday night on canal street talking to the teacher ones - all tweed skirts and cheap pearls. The cocky ones who've gone a shade mad with their human hair wigs and plumped for a shade of maroon that will show off their glittering cleavage enhancer and the married ones who are out for the night with their ever so understanding wives.

I can't imagine wanting to dress up like that - either as a lifestyle thing like a transvestite or as an entertainment thing like a drag queen. I did once wear a skirt on my head though when I was five years old.

Blackpool

Blackpool never fails to make me cringe.

Buckley said "You're never going to change it so just get drunk and go with it."
Needless to say I did get drunk but not in order to "go with it" but rather to block it out. I would have got more drunk but for the fact that all the gay bars in Blackpool charge you to get in.

We went into Blackpool during the day and during the half hour that I waded through the swirling rubbish on and around Victoria Street I was witness to a bloke in a mankini - knob & balls on show - a middle aged woman with a SEX bracelet being tongued by her terrier on a bench and about fifteen blokes in grass skirts and ladies' bras. It was a beautiful experience. I had to seek refuge in Waterstones.

I was actually looking for the 3 Mobile store to do a bit of research for a job interview but couldn't find it. I looked everywhere for it. I called directory enquiries and they gave me the address and phone number - it wasn't at the supplied address and the phone number was dead. I asked people in the street - nobody knew. By the time I gave up I had already decided that I didn't want to work in Blackpool anyway.

We escaped back to Poulton for drinks and dinner with my brothers before daring our return to Blackpool to see the other side of the town.

We drank at Taboo first for which we paid one pound each for the priveledge. The DJ was a camp tranny who hasn't changed her act since the eighties. The venue was run down and dirty. The 'terrace' where we sat whilst I smoked, was full of loud hen parties, there was no character, no music, no lighting in fact nothing to make you want to sit out there. We left after one drink.

Across the road at Pepes it was the same entrance fee situation so we declined. The doorman told us that it was to keep straight people out. At Trades bar we were told that you must become a member which again you must pay for. When we commented that it was really difficult to go for a drink in Blackpool the doorman there claimed it was because the council didn't want gay bars in Blackpool and that the licensing laws required entry fees. I suspect it's just a money making trick.

We eventually decided that if we were going to go somewhere for an hour before the club it might as well be the busiest and closest of all the bars so we ventured into The Flying Handbag... This place had a two pound door charge for some reason and whilst it was an improvement on Taboo it was still trashy. A bad drag queen played camp music and the place felt unfinished.

I'd have hoped that after all these years Blackpool would have moved on a little or if not, at least in such a captive market where one person owns most of the bars, I'd have expected some money being put back into it. There must be a market for something a little more sophisticated in Blackpool.

We finished at Flamingo's night club which was a bit rough - there were lots of dealers in there very early in the evening and they seemed to take over the toilets and be quite intimidating. The music was quite full on from the beginning and didn't seem to do very much. Having said that we did dance for about an hour before calling it a day and heading back to Poulton.

I'm sure that in a couple of years we'll have forgotten how bad Blackpool really is and do it again but until then I'll steer clear - it makes me feel dirty.