Mark Simpson gets to grips with a man’s favourite bad habit “WANKER!” A bastard blue van has just cut me up, pulling out suddenly from a side-street right in front of me, forcing me to brake. Hard. So, I respond in the customary English way: winding down the window, leaning… Read More »Wanking On: How Masturbation Became Aspiration
‘One Bullet Away: the making of a Marine Officer’, Nathaniel Fick (Orion) Reviewed by Mark Simpson Why do we blokes – and it is almost always blokes – read war books, catch war movies and play twitchy first-person Second World War shooter games like Call of Duty? Why do we crave… Read More »Lashings of manly love in a Humvee – review of ‘One Bullet Away’
The Fall’s legendary front-man has some deep-fried career advice for the Arctic Monkeys and the Kaiser Chiefs (Arena Hommes Plus, Summer 2006) “’Avin’ been around the world I reckon we’re very lucky,” says Mark E Smith, pop genius and (usually) lovable curmudgeon in a moment of uncharacteristic optimism. “They don’t… Read More »The North Rises Again: Interview With Mark E Smith
The MP Chris Bryant has faced calls for his resignation for appearing in his pants in messages sent via a gay website – but others see Gaydar as the future of dating. So what is it really like? Mark Simpson speaks with the (exhausted) voice of experience (Independent on Sunday,… Read More »Promiscuity into Bureaucracy: Gaydar and Online ‘Dating’
In case you thought I was joking when I wrote about the gentlemen of the British press being unable to leave George Michael’s penis alone, today’s Sun newspaper, twisted sister tabloid to the News of the World scandal sheet that ran the original front page Hampstead Heath expose, provides further,… Read More »I (Still) Want Your Sex: The Sun & George Michael’s Privates