The male desire to be desired shows no signs of tiring In 1994 the UK PM was a dull, no-frills 1960s branch bank manager, called John Major – a name that evoked a dull, no-frills 1960s British car, the Morris Minor. A new railway tunnel had just opened, recklessly connecting Britain to France.… Read More »The Metrosexual at Thirty
Remembering a lost 20th Century art form A couple of months back, I wrote about the mildly interesting but not exactly gripping BBC boyband reality series Made in Korea, which allows us, reality stylee, a close-up view of the hard drilling of the hopeful young members of fivesome Dear Alice in the… Read More »Boybands (Aren’t) Forever
by Mark Simpson 1991’s big, busty novelty hit ‘I’m Too Sexy’ was as zeitgeisty and bitchily funny as it was ear-wormingly annoying. I remember it playing everywhere in London that summer: builders’ vans, barber’s shops, caffs, pubs, nightclubs, funeral parlours. OK, I didn’t actually hear it in funeral parlours but… Read More »How ‘I’m Too Sexy’ Foretold The All-Too Sexy Future
A warped look at a fin de siècle world of 1990s pop culture where nothing is quite as straight — or gay — as it seems. It’s a Queer World, based on Mark Simpson’s monthly columns of the same name for Attitude magazine, turned out to be both a valedictory for the 20th century and something… Read More »It’s a Queer World Available on Kindle