Easter and After
16 April

By the Tuesday after Easter I had completed my final assignment and was free to throw off my yoke of burden.

3,731 words and a bibliography were done an dusted. It was then only the small matter of seven weeks of teaching to plan for.

I do worry about some of my fellow students. People don't seem to know what their timetable is at college. People don't seem to know where their various forms are. People seem to be still doing work I boxed off last October/November time. It makes you wonder what they have been doing with their time during the past six months. I know that we all need a life but being a teacher does require a lot of extra work.

Or maybe it's me that has got that wrong.

I made sure that I organised some sport nookie and, whilst Ross was out of the house, I bounced Scot round our bed in an outpouring of energy, lust and sheer fucking horny pleasure.

Scot really is a gem. I can understand why he is in great demand. That ass is a thing of great beauty and wonder and he is a lovely lad.

I went over to Colin's for lunch and met up with Rob. We were recalling the days of Horny Helmets at Unity Theatre. I remember particularly liking the line "You will have to satisfy the yearnings of a Goblin Queen".

The conversation touched on early gay years. We wondered if the whole transition and coming out story is just not as difficult these days. It is certainly more commercial and quite probably much less homely. There are certainly fewer perils with the law but individual random and targeted acts of violence still occur. So, how do we know. We're all well past middle Middle Age. I think reconciling your sexuality when you are a teenager is hard at any time; it's just differently hard depending on the time you are in.

Roland and I went to the Walker to see an exhibition of Matisse artbooks. I like Matisse's cut-outs. This exhibition included preparatory work for Jazz - the book published in 1947 which presented some of the earliest of these works. Icarus, to the right, is probably one of the most famous images from that book.

We also looked at a separate exhibition of works by John Kirby, who was born and grew up in Liverpool. You can see how the local influences of Catholicism, race relations and Northern working class gender politics are reflected in his work. It's not that his work could not have come from anywhere else; it's just that, knowing the roots to come from Liverpool, the subject matter becomes much more self-explanatory.

There are some very disturbing images - not because they contain anything obviously nasty but because there's always something quite uneasy lurking in the layout or the graphic design of the spaces. People wearing unexplained masks. People isolated in individual door frames. People physically together but simply not engaged with each other at all. I found it quite fascinating.

Ross and I have been following BBC's White Heat on the telebox. We're gradually learning who has just died in the present day from among the six characters who first met at students in a flat some thirty years previously. Some of the dialogue and situation are clunky but the acting is very good and it's great fun seeing how the people develop over time.

And then, out of nowhere really, our current Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne told us that he was shocked to learn that rich people avoid paying personal tax. Surely, that's a bit like me saying that I am shocked to learn that dentists actually extract teeth. This must be why trickle down never did actually work. Rich people not playing the game and keeping their money for themselves. Who would have thought?