Previously, on "GAYS OF OUR LIVES"...   Black Irish Beauty, Gattino, has not seen Andy for a long while, and on the last occasion, when they went to check out DJ Kieron Fox, Gattino had also managed to see personal ad respondent Keith, who was distributing chocolates in the street like he did it for a living.  Which strangely enough he does.  There has been no further contact.  Ben, who is madly in love with a German called Alex, has never met Gattino's friends and is not too fond of his own. The saga continues........ THE UGLY BUG BALL   I don't know what came over me (and it's so often the way), but when Andy said he'd phone me by Saturday afternoon to confirm and arrange going out that night I actually believed him, in spite of all experience.  My faith was so great that I invited Ben and his new love over to Liverpool while I was waiting.  And he was very keen to come.  So to speak. He was to go out on Friday night in Chester to introduce Alex (the fraulein) to the same group of individuals you already know and love, and there - he informed me - he would arrange for one of them to drive them over on Saturday night.   The next morning I got an email.  He couldn't make it, the boyfriend had a "headache", and Ben had locked himself in a darkened room to rub himself down with a damp towel.  He was in social hibernation and could no longer face the world through the shame and embarrassment of the night before.  What had happened?  Had he been arrested for indecency?  Was he involved in a bottle fight with some local thug who'd been making a pass at Ben's bitch??  Had he gone out in shoes that simply didn't go with that belt?!  Well none of these, as it turns out.  The shame and embarrasment came from Alex meeting Phil, Mark and Simon and finding them to be..well...as they always are, as far as I can make out.  You can see the problem.  The conversation and social gaiety failed to materialise.  Ben appears to have been taken by surprise by this.  I think he may have Alzheimers.  Simon with the edible arse was particularly singled out for his seething rage.  Having previously described him as a "social paraplegiac" he's now been promoted to "a dark cloud that hovers over Chester".  Yup.  Nice arse though.  Let's think about that for a minute...   Andy however did call.  The age of Miracles has not passed.  So last night I headed off to his luxury apartment overlooking the ..er..street, to meet up with him, his boyfriend James and no fewer than four other people, none of whom I've met before.  And they were (especially since they may get to read this) all unutterably nice, sweet and a credit to their mothers.  I'd tell you more but before we left the flat I'd had 3 brandy and cokes and abandoned all ideas that the effect of alcohol on me is entirely imaginary.  I couldn't stand straight and certainly can't remember their names.  Or any of their conversation.  I just remember being fascinated with the sight of my own fingers.  And it's a pity because James (Who you previously encounterd when I reported on Attila's visit.  He was the one with friends from Bristol and who informed me how people Attila's age were so different from people "our" age. Some things I don't forget.), like Ben, was keen to supply me with material for this very email (which is a little surreal when you think about it.) At least he made remarks to that effect several times while telling a story whose details escape me entirely.  Essentially the man arrested for the murder of Televison presenter Jill Dando - a deranged individual who had adopted as his own name the one Freddy Mercury had abandoned - lived in the very next flat to the one he, James, used to live in.  I'm sure the tale in it's telling was much more entertaining than that, but all that occured to me is that if they suspected a psycho killer lived in that street my money would have been on James..   But don't misunderstand.  He is an exceptionally wonderful human being and if the conversation didn't flow in his company then one of you would certainly be dead.  But he's a giant of a man (well at least from the perspective of a midget of a man, but let's not dwell on that) and has the eyes of someone not quite sane.  When in that pub with Attila a raving old drunk kept making comments to James about "You must be Scottish, with eyes like that!  Where did you get those eyes?", he replied - as I recall - "My father was a wolf -or so my mother tells me."  And I thought YES! That's it! I'd previously put the hair on the palm of his hands down to masturbation, but now it all make sense.  He has the amusingly (and amused) evil eyes of a werewolf.  I'm not implying he's scarey.  But if you met him in a dark alley, I wouldn't be at all surprised...   And so the 7 of us set off.  We went, as ever, to the Lisbon - an occasion noteworthy soley for the fact that the pub is below street level with the windows near the ceiling inside being at ground level outside - thus we had a worm's eye view of someone in the street  plastering their naked behind to the window and wiggling it about.  A lot.  They may have been making a point about homosexuality, or else were just very, very generous. But, anyway, the next stop was the Curzon.   I've never been there but have heard it's name so often that it's the stuff of myth and legend.  The Curzon.  They whisper it's name only in private, and in dark places away from the glare of decent society.  It has a reputation for...well, actually I could never quite work that out.  I just kept hearing how bad it is.  And how good it is.  And how good it is for being so bad.  How it's sleazy.  Grimey.  A cruisey meat market.  Tacky.  A laugh. Things went on in the toilets.  I don't know - it was all rather non-specific so by the time we got there I was prepared for anything but the truth.   I'd heard and imagined so much that my first thought was it must be grotesque to look at?  No - perfectly ordinary.  There'd be sodomy at the bar?  No - not that I could see.  They'd all be diving on anything that walked in?  Well if they did I was left out!  So what was so bad about the Curzon?!  I couldn't figure it out until I looked ahead.  And then to my left.  And then to my right.  And the veil was lifted from my eyes.  Sweet mother of Jesus!!   Let me say straight away that I've been to Singapore - God's private leper colony and the only country where death and putrification might be advised as a beauty regime.  So I know what ugly is.   And then there's the Curzon.  Old men. Ugly men. Long faces, square faces, ugly faces, faces which weren't sure they were faces, faces that wished they were, squat bodies with long heads and long bodies with squat heads, and heads that deserved to be swotted and disposed of.  I swear to God I've never seen such a collection of human defomities in one place outside of Wales.   Clearly - and it dawned on me that this was the fascination - this is were the ugly ones go to look good because they know everyone else will look worse.  (And not one bugger was looking at me.   Charming.)  One man was wandering around smoking a pipe.  Yes a pipe.  I felt like Tarzan surveying the Elephants Graveyard - at once moved to tears by the sadness of the spectacle and in awe that this mythical place where old queens go to die really did exist.     But how do I do it justice?  Well I could mention the barmen.  There were 2 on duty upstairs.  They wore red Tshits, silky red shorts and baseball caps turned backwards.  Picture it so far?  Imagine you're in Sydney or San Francisco or Amstersdam and the barmen are dressed like that - what do you see?  Square-jawed handsome muscle hunks with pert young nipples protruding - dressed to look funky, sexy and appealing?  Of course you do.  But not here.  These "sexy" get ups were sported by a lanky teenager with a dowager's hump and - just for that added eroticism - the back of his shorts rammed up the crack of his arse to expose his buttocks in their entirety.  (Either that or he was seeking a record for spreading skid marks over the widest possible area of his underwear.) And the second barman, identically dressed - shorts and baseball cap - was (and I will stake my life on this) entitled to a free bus pass and half price haircuts at the Barber's.  He would certainly have some recollection of the last war.  I felt I'd stepped through the looking glass.   But there were more surprises.  I found myself suddenly face to face with Keith - a respondent to my ad who I'd once said hello to briefly in the street and failed to keep contact with.  He gave me an awkward handshake and moved on.  I pointed him out to James who told me he (Keith) had come on to him, telling him he had a "big knob".  Well, a chocolate hob-knob maybe, but the man promotes sweets in the streets so I wouldn't take him at his word.     There were 3 decently attractive people in the place and two of them were me.  The third was indian looking and reminded me a great deal of my sweet beloved Rennie from Australia, so when he bumped into me and made the usual apology  I tried to pull him back and said "no - please - do it again!"  He laughed and left.  That's not the reaction I wanted.  I wanted him to do it again.  Now swaying in several directions at once I decided to say my goodbyes and leave before the clientelle got any prettier.  It may have been the drink, it may have been wishful thinking, or it may just have been a deep and meaningful psychic insight, but as I staggered through the alleyway outside I looked back at the neon sign and I'll be damned if it didn't read "The CURZON -proprietors Barnum & Bailey".   Well I'd pay to see it.  And come to think of it, I did....