What really makes gay people happy?  The coalition goverment has proposed a happiness index, which will assess the general psychological wellbeing of the country. Defining happiness is a very complicated exercise, however, and I’d like to think for a moment about what really makes us as gay people happy.

When Terry Sanderson’s book, How To Be A Happy Homosexual was published in 1986 , it dealt with practical matters and gave encouragement to those feeling oppressed. With the relative liberation past decades have brought us and increased self-belief,  it’s useful to look at what makes us happiest now. Read the rest of this entry »

Edward I, the father of a gay king,  founded the East Yorkshire port of Hull on the Humber Estuary in 1299. His son, the Prince of Wales (Edward II), though married to Queen Isabella, found a guy called Piers Gaveston much more to his liking.  Poor Piers was  executed on crossing the Earl of Warwick, homosexuality then being a capital crime. 

There’s a kind of poetic justice then in the fact that Hull’s post-2004 gay scene has played its own special part in reviving the region’s fortunes after severe job losses amongst seafarers and trawlermen. There’s a subterranean courage here, aptly symbolized by a huge, stylish aquarium (The Deep), that would have made both Edwards proud. Read the rest of this entry »