Liver



	Previously.....

	The email soap known as "Gays of Our Lives" was killed in a terrible fire, to the great grief and consternaton of practically no-one. Twats. However when the body was recovered it was so horribly burnt it was unrecognisable - and identified only by the smouldering remains of a few weak puns and an anti-german remark left among the ashes. What no-one could have guessed was that the remains in question were not those of GOOL but of her almost identical twin sister "Sunset Bitch"! GOOL in fact had faked her own death and escaped to South America where she underwent surprisingly minor plastic surgery and has now returned looking exactly the same as she did before. The saga drags on.......


	HOW GREEN IS MY LIVER


	This week I shall mostly be quoting me. You will recall, if you've nothing better to do, the account of the Glamorous Miss Gay Wirral Pageant which I attended a short while ago with Andy, his boyfriend James and James' friends - who were all called Roger. The venue for the event turned out to be the "Wirral Ladies After Hours Tea-Dance And Strip Club" or some such, and I was apparently popular that night with any number of people who failed to deserve my attention. Now you remember.


	I had met the 6 Rogers again when I visited James' luxury mansion for a Firework night party which, like all other social events attended by me, failed to meet even the standards set by my feeble hopes and expectations. I'd been picturing a lude to-do with toga clad nubile young homosexuals. What I'd found where 10 year old girls and old men in wheelchairs. You've all met someone else's family before - well here they were again. Plus Roger, Roger, Roger, Roger, Roger and Lucy. (But she likes to be called Roger). The point being that when Andy declared I was to attend a World Aids Day benefit at the same venue as the Miss Wirral event, and presumably in the company of the same people, I was more than a little keen to involve others. Not that there is anything wrong with James' friends (not that there isn't anything wrong with James' friends), it was just that I felt like I was being drawn into membership of a really crap gang. And I've already got one of those. To have two is to give up on life.


	I consequently tried to get several people to escort me. I shall save you the lengthy explanations and inform you simply that they each fell by the wayside at the last minute and I went alone with Andy across the river to meet my destiny.


	My name is "Gattino" and I'm a social Alcoholic. Albeit a delightfully pretty one. The extent of the effect of alcohol on me and whether I'm ever really under the influence is one of my 3 great obsessions in these pages, along with lesbian facial hair and my own reflection. It certainly allows me to act sleepy eyed and giggly, but I've always half suspected I'm playing a part to excuse my silences and disguise the nastiness of the things I do say. The only time I felt certain I was drunk was that night in Chester when I threatened to goose step in front of German Alex and started shouting for the attention of the local populace to be directed at poor Simon's arse. Subsequent outings have failed to produce such giddy results and it was drawn to my attention that the deciding factor seems to have been the Wine. I was thinking about all this as I walked silently, incapable of making even the smallest of small talk, behind Andy and James as we journeyed to the house of the 2 younger Rogers (One of whom is sometimes called Stewart, and who you may recall as the Nick Kershaw lookalike with the quick line in smut.) I wondered to myself if I'd be more responsive to company once I'd had a little drink. Would I indeed....


	The house of Roger and Stewart was impeccable, and thus impeccably homosexual. They shared it with a tall young man with a pained expression, reminiscent of someone who suspects he may just have shit in his pants and is not entirely sure he doesn't like it. He also had a fur coat which was intended for another gender and another age, and which he proceded to parade in. (As party pieces go it was original but lacked something in the way of a punchline. Once he put it on all he could really do was take it off. Which he did. I resisted the urge to applaud. ) On arrival I stood silently in the kitchen unable to participate in the genial conversation of these people I didn't really know. I had a glass of wine instead. When we moved into the living room I had a second, gulping it down in my usual fashion to avoid the taste (Something I'm sure you can relate to..). And suddenly I found myself splayed out on a chair and smirking silently. Two it seems will do. But three....three is me! It was the cat that did it. It gave me the fright of my life to see an enormous explosion of blue fluff, several inches taller than me even on a bad hair day, stroll past my chair. "What the fuck...!??" I genuinely didn't know what it was, and given the household in question, considered it might not be a cat so much as a dog in drag. When it turned around and my heart had stopped pounding, the extent of my lightning quick slide into inebriation became clear for the first time, since I could no longer distinguish between the chair and the floor and found myself on the latter giggling and declaring the feline Godzilla before me to be "the ugliest fucking thing I've ever seen". I was wondering what they must have shoved up its arse to make it's face look like that.


	Taxis were called to take the 6 of us to our destination and I slumped into the back of our one, presumably giggling or something because the amusingly chatty and delightfully foul mouthed taxi driver - a middle aged bloke with a pony tail - asked the others if I was drunk and exploded in genuine - if bizarre - delight to have it confirmed. "Fuckin' YEESSS!! I love it when one of them's pissed but the others aren't!" he declared. He clearly has an unfulfilling home life, but I took it as a compliment. Discovering where we going - an Aids benefit - and no doubt unfooled by James' masculine facade he then indulged in surprisingly cheerful badinage of a homosexual content. What a nice man. He called some woman driver who pulled in front of him a "Fucking slit-arsed bitch". Slit-arsed? I drew attention to myself with a fit of laughter wondering what other kind of arse there might be and whether I had a medical problem no-one had ever told me about. His fetish for drunkards re-awakened, the driver declared "He's fucking great him, isn't he?? I hope I pick him up later!" I replied "No chance mate - you're not my type." He expressed hurt at an inferred insult and threatened to kick me out and make me walk. I decided to shut up.....


	Now you would think that any effect of alcohol on me would gradually decline from the moment it's gotten into the system, rather than multiply. I'm obviously ignorant, because the rest of the evening was the only proof I'll ever need that I'm not a pretend drunk. Oh deary me. I always wondered if I got pissed enough would I be the type to dance on tables. Well not quite. But all other inhibitions decided to stay in the taxi. I don't know where I got the notion that every female in this hotel was a lesbian or that they'd be charmed by my great wit and sophistication, but it was an idea I was prepared to run with. There was not a single hefty heffer in a 300 yard radius I didn't find myself with my arms around declaring my views on female moustaches, or blurting in their ears a random choice of one of two lines. Either "You're the best drag act I've seen." or "I bet I'm the ugliest lesbian you've ever met." One woman assured me I was anything but ugly. I assured her I'm perfectly aware of the fact. At which point her girlfriend turned up and appeared to tell me to piss off. The next few moments are a blank, I just recall having them behind me and turning round to be confronted by an enormous red balloon which I grabbed hold of - only to find the aforementioned girlfriend on the end of the string, scowling at me. "Sorry love, I thought one of your tits had fallen out..."


	One old doll came and sat next to me and introduced herself as the mother of a woman I'd been bumping into all evening. She and her teeth (which were considerably younger than her - but I suspect not as young as her hair) laughed heartily at every dyke-related commented I made about her daughter. After 10 or 15 minutes of such jollity she assured me she'd mention it to her daughter's husband and 3 kids. Oh. I just assumed woman + fat + here = lesbian. It's a simple equation but one I'd swear by. Another lady of a certain age (she reminded me rather of Yootha Joyce from George and Mildred) seemed to be known to Andy and James and was sat near me on a few occasions so I offered to buy her a drink. She accepted, but refused to hand over the cash for it. Definitely a dyke, since I'd seen her affecting a dance with another woman which seemed to imitate sodomy. I never knew such a thing was possible. When I returned with her bottle she asked for some of my ice (I was on coke by this time) and dipped her hand into my glass. I don't know where that's been! I protested, in response to which she raised her fingers to my nose/mouth. "Oh so it's true - they do smell like fish..." I've abandoned hope of joining the diplomatic service and confirmed my aversion to studying gynaeocology. Not even for a laugh.


	None of these faux pas - however numerous - sound too much like the abandonment of inhibitions which I mentioned. No, that came with the cabaret act. TV comedienne Pauline Daniels (by which I mean she's been on television, not that she's a transvestite.) began by asking if we'd noticed how much weight she'd lost. My solitary bellowing shout of "NOOO!" was thankfully drowned out by the yeses from the rest of the audience, but I did consequently discover what fabulous power I could wield, and proceded to wield it. I noticed that if I shouted an appreciative "WHOOAAHH!" or WEYHEY! at any particular joke then 4 times out of 5 other sections of the crowd would take my anonymous cue and start a ripple effect. I started doing it at purely random moments for my own amusement - which is great fun until they don't join in - which is when you feel grateful for having no shame. Then she started to sing. And so did I. Along with many other people you understand, but the significant part is that I was doing it. At the very top of my voice - with my arms wrapped around the shoulders of several female strangers who happened to be standing nearby. I've never had so much cellulite and stubble in my grubby little hands at one time. They were clearly warming to me, and I felt I was finally indoctrinated into the brotherhood of the clitoris when I appeared to know all the words to "Pearl's a Singer" - which appears to be some kind of secret anthem. In fact all I was doing was mumbling with conviction and then shouting the line "..In a NIGHT-club!" at the top of my voice,and that was enough to fool them and blag my way into honorary lesbianism. I'm now entitled to wear dungarees and keep cats. It's the unshaved armpits I'm looking forward to. Waxing is such a pain.....


	The rest of the evening is a blur of sorts involving a fat leather man in a peaked cap who scowled at me menacingly, as though measuring me up for a harness, when I commented how he was the butchest woman in the place; straddling chairs in imitation of Christine Keeler; and asking a young man in the toilet "Do you come here often - or just take a piss?" What finally became of me is known only to me and my priest but I was last seen by anyone who might remotely care, being pushed out of the front door while struggling to regale a young member of staff waiting for her lift home with a spoken rendition of "I will survive".


	And somehow, unlike my dignity, I did. Go figure.