Mark Simpson's Blog

When Her Majesty’s Customs & Excise still protected us from penis My old mucker and The Queen is Dead correspondent/co-author, US-based Steven Zeeland, recently unearthed a copy of this historic document in his archives. Originally sent to me by HM Customs & Excise in 1998, two years before the twentieth century sputtered to an end, it advised me… Read More »Officially Indecent Correspondence

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An old pop crush finally requited – thirty years late Back in 1996, I took a shine to a jangly, wryly melancholic, lyrical single by Texas indie band Deep Blue Something which managed to be grungey and Smithsy in a way that I hadn’t thought possible – or indeed needed. But once heard, made perfect,… Read More »Saint Morrissey – A Love Story

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Oh LOOK! A big, lavishly illustrated article in last Sunday’s Daily Mail on my work! ‘Meet the “Spornosexuals”: Male body trend is back for 2025’, announces the headline. Yep, that pesky spornosexual ‘male body trend’ that actually never went away. But the article doesn’t credit me. And it is wildly inaccurate, getting the metrosexual-spornosexual timeline hopelessly confused.… Read More »Spornosexual Shocker: Daily Mail Caught With Its Compression Pants Down

The post Spornosexual Shocker: Daily...

Oh LOOK! A big, lavishly illustrated article in last Sunday’s Daily Mail on my work! ‘Meet the “Spornosexuals”: Male body trend is back for 2025’, announces the headline. Yep, that pesky spornosexual ‘male body trend’ that actually never went away. But the article doesn’t credit me. And it is wildly inaccurate, getting the metrosexual-spornosexual timeline hopelessly confused.… Read More »Spornosexual Shocker: Daily Mail Caught With it’s Compression Pants Down

The post Spornosexual Shocker: Dail...

I recently wrote about Trump’s favourite band, the Village People. Since LGBTQIA+++ History Month is upon us again, I thought I would expand on the background to their famous moustachioed “macho man” look, inspired by/appropriated from the late 1970s gay male street styles of Manhattan’s West Village. And how those styles themselves were appropriated. Prior to the most successful… Read More »Full-Flavoured Fags – How The Marlboro Man Changed Gay Men

The post Full-Flavoured Fags – How The Marlbor...

I stayed at the YMCA. I was a bit short on my dough, and the rates were seriously competitive for early noughties Manhattan, which I was visiting, so I put my pride on the shelf. But in truth, I mostly stayed at NYC’s West Side YMCA, (on t’other side of Central Park from Trump Tower),… Read More »The Camp Paradox of The Village People, Trump – & the USA

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I stayed at the YMCA. I was a bit short on my dough, and the rates were seriously competitive for early noughties Manhattan, which I was visiting, so I put my pride on the shelf. But in truth, I mostly stayed at NYC’s West Side YMCA, (on t’other side of Central Park from Trump Tower),… Read More »The Camp Paradox of The Village People, Trump – & the US

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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. The economy was only just… Read More »The Metrosexual at Thirty

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Notes on Leni Riefenstahl’s ‘Triumph of the Will’‘ “[Hitler] wanted a film showing the Congress through a non-expert eye, selecting just what was most artistically satisfying – in terms of spectacle…. He wanted a film which would move, appeal to, impress an audience which was not necessarily interested in politics.”• Leni Riefenstahl Hitler: “What you… Read More »The Leni Gaze

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YouGov’s young LGBTQ+ sleb ‘helpers’ I’m officially ancient. Possibly clinically dead. I only recognised three of these slebs – and forgot that Gaga was officially bisexual. Though given her dating history, that’s something she may be prone to herself. It’s also questionable just how recognised or influential any of these ‘LGBTQ+’ public figures are with ‘young… Read More »Rolling Your Own

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