Illustration by Fernando Vicente This week, the Great and the Good of the AIDS industry gather in Vienna for the biennial AIDS circus. With delicious irony, the conference, held right next to the barracks of the UN’s Drug Warriors, will focus in part on getting more countries to do the one thing that really works [...]
I have several loyal readers whose comments regularly make me laugh: this, for example. And I almost never refuse a comment unless it’s trying to sell a cure for AIDS or the commentator is too much of a pussy to give an e-mail address. But this one, from a fount of indignation calling Himself “Derrail”, [...]
Christmas in London — what better way to celebrate than carol singing in the streets of Soho with singers from Westmister Abbey and the International Union of Sex Workers? The Rector of St Anne’s parish in Soho swished out in front in long robes and fuschia beret but it was this banner, carried by Nico [...]
The Guardian on Saturday ran a review of The Wisdom of Whores, which is newly out in paperback in the UK. In it, Nicholas Lezard suggests I sound like a fun person to go for a drink with. By conincidence, I spent the weekend with someone who was at university with Nick. He was, aparently, [...]
Off-topic but on memory: 20 years ago today I was in Tiananmen Square, reporting for Reuters on the chaos that was the student movement. It was an odd time — sweaty, rank-smelling but rather jolly. Erica’s photo captures rather well the unbridled hubris and optimism of the students, right up to the last day or [...]
When the New Statesman New Scientist asked me for my idea of God, I described God as a ventriloquist’s dummy, worked by puppeteers in the religious bureaucracies. But in this video Canadian director Patrick Boivin delightfully makes puppets of the puppeteers also: Thanks to Paul Canning for pointing me to Patrick’s work. Readers might want [...]
I’ve just tipped off an 11 hour flight to find the paragraphs below posted on my behalf by my friend, advisor and brother, Mark. I spent the flight preparing for a training about scientific publication; I’ve been making a song and dance in my lectures about both plagiarism (bad) and disclosure (good). And I mulled [...]
An experiment in technology. I happened to be chatting the othernight at the Frontline Club in Paddington. For those who are in London and don’t know it, check it out. A great hang-out for hacks, former hacks and those who just like telling stories, it also gives good restaurant. Graham Holliday, who writes the Frontline [...]
I’ve had lots of fun in recent weeks pontificating in talks and interviews about sex, drugs and the AIDS biz, usually to people who know a lot more about all of the above than I do. (My favourites of recent weeks: sex worker radio XXBN and Sex Goddess radio Susie Bright, not pictured below). But [...]
From June 8th to July 4th I’ll be in the US and Canada. I’ll be visiting New York, Toronto, Washington DC, San Francisco, LA, Seattle and Vancouver. My schedule is here. Or you can see my Google calendar. Please come along to agree, disagree, make me think, change my mind, or entrench me in my [...]
There’s another clutch of reviews of The Wisdom of Whores posted to the “What They’re Saying” page. They include Rachel Holmes in The Times (she thinks I’m a nerd, in the best possible way), Michael Fitzpatrick in The Guardian (who seems vaguely disapproving), Stephanie Merritt in the Observer (who is seduced by the mysteries of [...]
It’s been a busy day on the airwaves. Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking, I managed to hit BBC World TV’s HardTalk interview and be on BBC Radio 4′s Start the Week, both in one day. On HardTalk, Stephen Sackur spent a lot of time quizzing me about my mafia connections. Comments have ranged [...]
