A bit of Danish

Round about the time we discovered that there was television after the Nine o'Clock News some bloody fool invented sex. 

Up till then making babies involved cough drops, strong ale and a couple of acres of winceyette nightwear. Then suddenly they invented sex. One minute nothing was allowed, the next minute some things were allowed but nobody knew which ones. Everyone was confused. And we were just entering adolescence, which is too confusing for words anyway, so we were baffled. 

Findlay Anderson’s brother worked in a sex shop and once a week he’d sneak something out of his brother’s stash to bring to school. There’d be thirty of so lads clustered round behind the cricket pavilion to have a look. (“Cricket pavilion!” — it was an old garden shed with a slate blackboard nailed on the side. Not that that was any bloody good because nobody could see it. They’d tell Darren Cladthorpe that he was the scorer and he’d spend the entire match drawing pictures of willies and naked ladies sitting in the bath eating the soap.) 

Anyway… round the back of the pavilion… The teacher on playground duty would say: “Are you boys smoking?” And we’d say: “No sir, we’re looking at mucky books.” “That’s all right then. I won’t have you smoking behind the cricket pavilion, you’ll be setting fire to the heavy roller.” 

‘Course, it was all wasted on us because we had no idea of the mechanics of the female form. It was an all-boys school so we hadn’t really progressed beyond the scabs on Audrey Mottershead’s knee back in Junior Class Four. Then we had a compulsory government sex education film. We had to go to it one Tuesday night with our dads. We hadn’t progressed beyond the scabs on Audrey Mottershead’s knee by the end of that, either. We were told that the male member was called the penis and it was part of the essential machinery of human reproduction; it was also useful because you could use it to relieve yourself against a tree; now let’s have a look at some of the more common venereal diseases. Half our class was convinced that if you had a slash against a tree with a film crew present your goolies would go blue and fall off. “I’m dying for a pee!” “There’s a tree over there.” “Can you see any cameramen?” “No.” “Keep a watch out for us will you? I’m busting.” 

That’s how ignorant we were. Thirty-odd of us clustered round a mucky book. Three of them could actually see the pictures, the rest frantically trying to find out what they can see. “What is it? What is it?” “It’s a nuddy lady.” “What’s she doing?” “She’s got a baby hamster in her lap…" "Ahh… that's nice!" "…and she’s feeding it a carrot.”

Animated hormones

One of the papers this weekend ran yet another "Is Jessica Rabbit the sexiest cartoon character…" article, which is becoming almost a greater cliché than the Flintstones MILF debate. Wilma vs. Betty has become a tad tired but still goes a-rumbling on (if you need to know: Wilma, because I've got a thing about redheads). Even some twenty-somethings at work have this argument (outside Game of Thrones seasons). It's odd that we have these reactions to what are, after all, just drawings. One of my friends at school fell in love with the black lady in the Tom and Jerry cartoons because he reckoned she had a lovely singing voice and thick ankles.

I'm above this sort of nonsense, of course.

I've seen it in the adverts

My dad saw a piece in the paper about these vibrating knickers, so he had to point it out to us when me and The Small Object of Desire went round for lunch.

"It's alright, I'm safe enough," my mum said. "It's not like he ever uses the 'phone."

The bits they cut out of The Lovers' Guide, part two

The entirely inappropriate fake orgasm.

The bits they cut out of The Lovers' Guide, part one

For all you sexual athletes out there...

Jumpers for goalposts

Apparently, "Hurray For Santa Claus" isn't a good choice of bathroom serenade on a cold, wet June morning. Aside from that and the fight over the duvet and The Small Object Of Desire's too-strong protestations of innocence of the charge of lusting after Jeremy Clarkson (one of the subsidiary dangers of partnering a petrol head), Railway Cuttings' transition into sultry love nest is going remarkably smoothly. This is remarkable for two reasons: it's been more than a decade since I last shared any space with anybody at all (and quarter of a century since my last foray into co-habitant); and we're both natural curmudgeons of a high order.

There is, however, one dark shadow in this Elysian splendour. It is the matter of sex.

Luckily, we are both still capable in the arts of making love, with the aid of a walking frame and a box of safety matches. Unluckily, there is an issue about foreplay. Round these parts foreplay consists of a beery nudge after "Match of the Day" and the magic words: "How about it lass?" unfortunately, neither of us are beer drinkers (I don't drink at all, come to that) and we're not overly struck on "Match of the Day." We're both quite struck by how much Alan Hansen looks like Captain Scarlet but it's not enough to get the libido going.

We'd quite like the cry of: "Oh He'll, Mark Kermode's on the telly again! Switch it off!" to be the signal for romantic manoeuvres but we worry that this may be beyond the pale societally.

Something for the weekend

I like how Durex now has a range of condoms labelled "Extra Large," moulded for a really snug fit for The Insecure Gentleman.

All muck and cobwebs

"You'll have to watch out for yourself," said my mother. "It says here that homes across the country are going to be invaded by sex-crazed spiders."

I'm going to have to stop her reading newspapers.

Snow job

Back in the dark ages, in days when I did advice work, I shared a workspace with the council's Trading Standards department. This was useful as part of my working brief was to provide consumer advice so I could always ask for ideas/advice (which very often amounted to: "oh shit is he back in again?" For any of you not in the know, the worst thing that can happen to you when you do advice work is for an elderly gentleman in a club blazer to walk through the door with a bag full of paperwork in his hands.)

Their regular chores involved breaches of the Trades Descriptions Act ("is this product/service as described?") and the laws on pornography. Every so often they'd do raids of the usual suspect and then have to watch the tapes to garner evidence. You could always tell when they were doing the latter because they'd be much more depressed than usual ("I'll tell you something, that's put me off boiled ham for a while!") Once in a while a few councils would band together against the forces of evil. The best one they did while I was there was an investigation of telephone sex services. After about three months' work they had to give up on most of the providers: the services they were providing were very far from being pornographic but they were, hilariously, still within the letter - if not the spirit - of the Trades Descriptions Act.

"Donna's Hard Ride" - charged then at 75p a minute - turned out to be a girl describing a pony trekking holiday on Dartmoor.

Further back in the mists of time, when we were students, a friend bought an audio sex tape. I can't remember what it was called, or even what it was about. All I can remember was its being of such a lousy quality that all we could make out was a bloke with a West Country accent saying: "Ooh... oh yes... oh... lovely!" We weren't sure he wasn't on his own at time of recording.

We couldn't find anything even remotely erotic about the whole thing. Which is remarkable given that we were all teenage males without a lot of luck engaging with the ladies.

Like many people of my age my first real porn movie was "Deep Throat." The Junior Common Room borrowed a copy from somewhere or other and a mass of us paid 50p each for the viewing performance. The video was an umpteenth-generation pirate copy with so much noise on it that it was a good twenty minutes before a restive audience could be convinced we weren't watching "Scott of the Antarctic."

Some of my contemporaries still can't listen to "Sinphonia antarctica" without getting an erection.

Naughty

Visiting the parents for to cadge a cup of tea and a read of the paper I was suprised when my mother burst into raucous laughter. It turns out that she's reading the sex advice page in the Sunday Mirror.

"There's this letter here, it says: 'I have been endowed with a large manhood. This not the advantage that most men would think. When they see it, women look at it wide-eyed and ask where on earth I think I'm putting that.'"

People will throw things at me for this one

It was Joan Bakewell's 76th birthday the other day. A couple of days earlier she was being interviewed on BBC News 24 in her "Champion of the Elderly" rôle. Nothing in the adolescent fumblings of middle-aged manhood prepares you for the day that you fancy a 76-year-old woman. I'm not saying it's a bad thing (as it happens, I'd argue I was showing ineffable good taste), it's just a surprise when the realisation dawns.

Body talk

I popped into The Body Shop, where I was dealt with by some formidably friendly shop assistants.

"Are you buying something for yourself?"

I was asked repeatedly. Eventually I had to explain myself.

"I'm looking for something for my mother," I said, picking up some body butter. "Well actually, it's really for my father."

"Ah yes," one said knowingly, "you've been given the job to do."

She obviously thought I meant that I was buying on behalf of my father. I wasn't. My dad sees body butter as a licence for groping my mother but I wasn't going to tell the shop assistant that. The sexuality of the agèd is embarassing to the young.

They don't make 'em like that any more

Had a meal with friends last night and repaired to their local for a drink. We reminisced about an old work colleague who was an inveterate old queen, camp as Christmas and always one for a cottage. We were laughing at the memory of the immortal line

"I went in for an honest pee and I stayed there all day!"

when one of their friends pottered over to say hello. Out of politeness we recounted the story to him.

"That reminds me of the time me and a friend went into a public toilet in York, of all places. A camp old queen came in, looks at both of us stood at the urinal and says: 'Hello, loves, would you like a sherry?' So I said yes please, and do you know what? He took a decanter and glasses out of a case he was carrying and asked:

'Dry or sweet?'"

Class act.

Fetish

I've decided that I need to have a fetish. God knows, I'm old enough and peculiar enough for one and everyone and their dog seems to have one already and I don't see why I should miss out.

Which is great in principle, but more of a problem in practice. A quick sken of the reports in The Lancet and the Sunday red-tops confirm that there are possibiities amongst the solitary vices but I can't say that any of them appeal at all, even remotely.

I'll have to make a research project out of it. Leastways, that'll be my defence when I'm brought up in front of the Watch Committee.

Perspective

I must be getting old.

I was watching a TV programme which included clips from Ibiza and Sping Break parties and all I could think of was all those millions of horseshoe crabs thrashing about on the beaches of Maine.

Thrust

We're often told that the male sex drive is at its peak at 18. We're not told that till our 19th birthday, mind. Usually by older relatives who sit back in their chairs, tap their pipes out on the cat and say: "it's all downhill from here on in tha knows."

Cobblers.

Having reviewed my relict powers I reckon I'm just as capable of thirty seconds' worth of ineffectually emabarassing fumbling about as I was quarter of a century ago.