ONE FLU OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST Just another Corona jab.

    I’m standing outside the Holiday Inn in Wellington. For no reason I can pinpoint, my brain registers the fact that my t-shirt is from Australia, my jeans from England, jacket from Italy, scarf from Copenhagen, socks Bangkok, sunglasses New Zealand. And then, just as I’m about to let my lower lip jut out and nod my head in acknowledgement of my own international groove, I take it all a step further and realise that it’s probably all from China. Every thread, every zip, every little screw. Everything I have on is a celebration of the common denominator. My lip decides to curl up into a smile and I drink my franchise coffee and tell myself it’s a small world after all. I do understand, however, as a draught boldly sweeps through a hole in the gusset of said jeans, that a new pair are in order. I will buy them in Taipei.

    I just bought a pair of jeans at one of the many night markets here in Taipei. They are Valentino Ruby Jeans and they are fashionable. It says so on the waistband label at the rear. “Valentino Ruby - Fashionable Jeans”. They will probably spontaneously disintegrate 3 months from now just as I am finally auditioning for Martin Scorcese and my penis will fall out and my career will not be illuminated by the particular magnesium burst of light that I had hitherto envisaged. They cost 790 Taiwan dollars. About 14 quid. It is their fault if I never make it to Hollywood.
    I have been here for one day. Yesterday I awoke in Auckland at 3am to catch the 5.50 to Sydney (I watch Whatever Works). I then lobbed onto the noonday flight to Hong Kong (Samson and Delilah). Eight hours later I enjoy something like a coffee only weaker with no real aroma and-quite-frankly-how-do-they-get-it-so-wrong in the airport Starbucks before popping onto another jumbo which whisks us across to Taiwan in a jiffy (two episodes of 30 Rock which is perfection on a schtick). During one of these flights I also watched the Sandra Bullock vehicle The Proposal. I cannot recall over which body of water, or if I genuinely liked it. It distracted me from having to slide my legs up my own arse in the pursuit of comfort and, secondly, that I was even higher than the Summit restaurant in the Australia Square building and moving even more quickly than a McDonald’s cow through an abattoir.
    It was a long day. Three time zones, two countries, one Special Administrative Region, and finally the Republic of China no-we-aren’t yes-you-are we’re-so-not I-think-you’ll-find-you-are we-don’t-even-like-red oh-but-you-will. And from Woody Allen’s wacky New York to Australia’s neglected outback and then back to Tina Fey’s wacky New York…it was a heady 24 and a half hours and the kind of day you thank your English doctor for prescribing you flight drugs. Mmm…Diazepam…the way you dissolve in my pancreas is a form of marriage. You know it is. I have four left to get me home.
    Home. I’ll be heading there next Monday. It’s not Taipei. Or New York. Or the outback. It’s Home. The End. Unemployed. No more singing Abba. No more hotels. No more security checks at some airport every other week. No more living out of a suitcase. No more getting blathered with a bunch of turns or gays or gay turns. Speaking of which…
    The last gay club of the tour! This week it’s a club called Funky. Entry cost 150 Taiwan dollars for a guy and 350 Taiwan dollars for a girl. We were not impressed. My dear mate who plays Rosie, and who had decided to have a night out with The Gays, just kept saying “Why?” over and over again, perhaps hoping to wear the door guy down using the ancient art of saying Why? a lot, but he and his Taiwanese upbringing were not going to budge. I have to say, despite having witnessed some of the locals smiling and laughing, they are also very adept at looking grim. That very determined kind of grim from which they will not flinch even if you make fun of your own round eyes. The door guy was of this breed and we ended up forking out 700 shitters for Rosie and Abbie to walk through a door. Bizarre.
    Now we’ve been to lots of gay clubs this year and no matter the country it’s always about mirror balls and Kylie and cruising and having fun. Not so at Funky. The music was all local pop, the dancing was often synchronised routines known to all (which is something I personally find more visually appalling than leprosy on a poodle), and every group seemed to maintain an invisible boundary that precluded all others. It was almost like being at a straight club in Manchester. I was not destined to have one last international fling. All that simultaneous line dancing had lessened my interest considerably. So sadly (or perhaps happily) I have no last, besmirched memories to share.

    Aaaaaand the week is over. The show is over. The tour is over. Two flights and one blog to go…

    Hasta Mañana ’til we meet again.