Update

Well, there have been a few things going on lately so I thought I’d post an update since they’re all bits and pieces.

After a couple of weeks of not going I made a visit one of the usual clubs, it was interesting to see AR there with another guy, they didn’t really seem very happy as he usually seemed. So a bit later we crossed and asked how he was… turns out the other guy was his boyfriend! Well don’t know for how long he’d had it but one thing is certain, the boyfriend didn’t seem very pleased from the distance while we briefly chatted…

Well, things with AN have been changing. We’re just friends this days, we go out and have fun, if anything else happened it would just be a one off and I’m OK with it. We’re actually going on holidays together with a couple of extra friends and we’ll share apartment for 3 days. One thing I know, I must not miss the gym from now on!

It’s interesting how since meeting AN I have somehow ended up meeting a few more East-Asian guys, more than chance than anything else, and somehow all in their twenties. Not that I’ve been looking for them, but they’ve just somehow appeared!

Just this evening I met this Thai guy, let’s call him P, very nice and sweet and which I hopefully will see again soon. It’s funny, I haven’t really been doing proper dating lately, when I met someone it was just for sex or we just met somewhere by chance. So it was interesting to have an actual date where we just kissed goodbye at the end, haven’t been doing too much of that lately but I intend to change it. I need to practice my chatting skills too, I’m more of a listener than a talker but that’s not necessarily great when dating…

Fighting the proposed UK law on possession of “extreme pornography”

I got an update from the Spanner Trust who are fighting the new law on “extreme pornography” which I wrote about recently so I thought I’d put it here in its entirety:

We hope you’re aware of the current proposal to criminalise possession of what is termed “extreme pornography” but which for the most part will be images of consensual BDSM activity. The Spanner Trust has been working with an organisation called Backlash to fight these proposals.

If you were unaware of these plans or want to get up to speed with what’s happening we suggest you first visit the Backlash web site (http://www.backlash-uk.org.uk/)

There is only one month left to fight these plans and we’re asking people to take some time to write to a couple of members of the House of Lords to ask them to oppose the plans in their current wording. Anyone is allowed to write to any Lord.

If you check out www.theyworkforyou.com, you can try to find Lords who might be sympathetic… or just write to ones on your area.

Two Lib Dem Lords have laid two separate sets of amendments to try to limit the reach of the plans – including a suggestion they be dropped altogether.

You can see the new wording here: http://www.backlash-uk.org.uk/bill80401.html

The thing now is to:

• Mobilise as many people as you can
• Write to as many members of the House of Lords as possible persuading them to either back these amendments or to lay some more amendments.

Time is of the essence as the latest this might be debated is April 30th and the government want it to be law by May 9th.

Unfortunately, we can’t suggest which Lords might be on-side. We’ve found support in unexpected places. The more people we can get to write to as many Lords as possible, the more chance we have of forcing some proper debate and hopefully getting some more changes – if not the whole thing dropped.

There are more than likely many Lords out there who have still never heard the arguments against these plans, the extensive reach of these proposals and have never heard the views of Liberty, Justice, the Joint Committee on Human Rights or other opponents.

We really need to reach out and get these Lords on board too.

The Tories – to date – have been fence sitting.

We need to help them choose their side. The same goes for the crossbenchers.

One way of getting the message to a lot of Lords quickly is to write to the Whip’s offices.

Get in touch with Elizabeth Hanna (Lib Dems) Hannae@parliament.uk & Flora Rose RoseF@parliament.uk (Tories) and ask if they will circulate your message to the front benches and other peers who might be interested.

Many Lords are non party affiliated and sit on the Crossbenches. The contact for these is the Convenor’s Office – you need to contact Julian Dee (deej@paliament.uk).

The Crossbenchers also have their own website http://213.52.137.147/ where they list individual interests which could be useful for you.

Please spread the word to as many people as possible by email, on web forums, on social networking sites, etc.

Some Lords have published their e-mail addresses. A list is available here
http://www.seenoevil.org.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=638

But it would be far better if you’d contact Lords who aren’t on e-mail, either individually at the House of Lords or via the Whips’ and Crossbench offices.

Please pass this email on to anyone who may be interested.

Derek Cohen
chair, the Spanner Trust