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I don’t know how much the international community know about the UK miners’ strike between 1984 and 1985. Even in the UK knowledge is a little sketchy and depends on where you live. The south of the country was really not affected, and so they don’t necessarily understand what was actually happening.

I live in an ex-mining area (thanks to the dispute), and feelings still run pretty raw, even after nearly 35 years. I was a child at the time but the Midlands and Yorkshire were pretty much a police state during the strike, with travelling being monitored and challenged.

Yesterday, I watched the play “Wonderland” about the miners’ strike. It brought back memories of the time but was a brilliant and sometimes difficult watch. The first act centred on the miners, their relationships and life underground. It also had some laugh out loud moments. The second act centred on the strike and the effects on the miners and also the politics behind it.

In Nottinghamshire, the strike broke apart communities and even families. Fathers and sons who worked down the mine together were set against each other as one would break the strike to be able to look after their family. Families were given food parcels to survive, but there was no money to pay bills, so they were left with no electricity and had to resort to picking through rubble for scraps of coal to heat their homes. Even the union split and miners wanting/needing to work setting up the UDM (Union of Democratic Mineworkers).

Over thirty years before Brexit, it was the Miners’ Strike of 1984/85 that split the country, communities and families. It was dark times for the country.

And now to lower the tone!

I had no idea when I booked to see the play, but there was a bit of nudity. Miners get pretty dirty, and there was one short scene with them in the shower. Although it was dark, we did get to see everything. The notable view was of Joshua Glenister. Such a nice view. But let that not distract from the fantastic performances of all the actors.

 

Another good reason to love Joe Root. A great cricketer and now a great ambassador for humanity.

During a tense moment of the match, West Indies bowler Shannon Gabriel asks Joe Root, “Why are you smiling? Do you like boys?”

Joe Root retorts, “Don’t use it as an insult. There’s nothing wrong with being gay.”

You’ve just got to love what Joe said in response.

Gabriel’s comments landed him a four-match ban and fined 75% of his pay for the match.

Afterwards, in a statement, Gabriel said, “I know now that it was offensive and for that, I am deeply sorry… To my team-mates and members of the England team, especially their captain Joe Root, I extend an unreserved apology for a comment which in the context of on-the-field rivalry, I assumed was inoffensive sporting banter.”

All this reminds me of a time in the early 2000s when I was training a young woman, and whenever she got frustrated or thought something didn’t work very well, she would say, “That’s so gay.”

It really rankled me, but she kept on saying it. So eventually I had to say something about how I didn’t like her using that word in that manner. Her response was ok, and she understood, but she did say that she had gay friends who used it.

Perhaps it’s just me, being an older gay, not liking the way the youngsters used the term. But associating the word gay with bad things is a retrograde step in my opinion. Gay does not mean bad, or faulty, or crap. Being gay means being human and having the same rights as every other human in the UK.

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For those interested, Shannon Gabriel’s statement, in full.

Sam Smith has posted a picture of himself, shirtless, to reclaim his body. He wrote:

In the past if I have ever done a photo shoot with so much as a t-shirt on, I have starved myself for weeks in advance and then picked and prodded at every picture and then normally taken the picture down. Yesterday I decided to fight the fuck back. Reclaim my body and stop trying to change this chest and these hips and these curves that my mum and dad made and love so unconditionally. Some may take this as narcissistic and showing off but if you knew how much courage it took to do this and the body trauma I have experienced as a kid you wouldn’t think those things. Thank you for helping me celebrate my body AS IT IS @ryanpfluger I have never felt safer than I did with you. I’ll always be at war with this bloody mirror but this shoot and this day was a step in the right fucking direction 👅🤘🏼🍑

I don’t think any of us have the perfect body and we are feeling more pressure to look good. And the pressure is starting when we are young.

There was a 2016 survey of more than 1,000 boys aged between 8 and 18 where 55% said they would consider changing their diet to look better and 23% said they believed there was “a perfect male body to strive for”.

They found that the four biggest sources of pressure on secondary school boys to look good were:

• Friends (68%)
• Social media (57%)
• Advertising (53%)
• Celebrities (49%)

I’m not a person who follows the crowd, but I have always struggled with my body image and hate being seen naked, or even shirtless. I don’t have the perfect body, I am carrying extra weight and, to put it in a nutshell, it makes me feel bad, awkward and embarrassed. People judge you as you walk on the street, especially if you are eating. They judge you when out shopping in the supermarket.

Fat is a self-induced illness and deserves no sympathy! Bullshit!

Fat is a symptom, as a society, we need to find the cause. One of those causes is body shaming which makes normal people feel bad, so they turn to food for comfort.

If you see a man struggling to walk with a cast on his leg, you feel sympathy. That plaster cast is protecting an injury. Just think of fat as a plaster cast we put on our body to protect our mental and emotional injuries.

If you take one thing from this post… Please don’t judge people. Fat, thin, tall, short, loud, quiet; you don’t know their story, and they may be different. Let’s celebrate difference.

I’ve been going to the local gym for over a year now, and you get to see some interesting things in the changing room. I don’t even want to mention a particular old guy that stands in front of the mirror with the hairdryer drying his cock and balls.

But there is one guy I’ve seen a few times, he looks mid-thirties, quite slim and has great muscle definition. But it is two particular muscles that fascinate me; his gluteus maximus. The guy obviously takes care of himself, and he has very little body fat, and it shows.

He seems quite modest as I’ve only seen him from behind, but his buttocks are something to behold. They look so firm and pert, and I swear they don’t touch! That cleft in the middle just looks like a black hole, and I’m sure if the lighting was better I could see his little pucker. I have never seen such a muscular arse in my life.

It’s one of those stories that you’ve always heard about but aren’t quite sure actually happened. They also make great fantasies that you wish happened when you were in school. But the reality would actually mortify most of us.

Now, I had swimming lessons when I was at school and the regulation uniform was black trunks. The thought of actually having to do the class naked would have embarrashed me so much I fear I might have actually died. But it appears that this did happen.

I’ve also heard stories that men would swim naked at the YMCA (where “They have everything For young men to enjoy. You can hang out with all the boys. It’s fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A.”)

I’ve never skinny dipped in the sea, lake, stream or river. About the only time I swam naked was when I had the pool to myself in a hotel I was staying at. I checked there were no CCTV cameras first and I only dared do one length, but at least I did it. I’m sure many of you have had much more adventurous experiences. I would love to hear them, or write them in the comments.

So regulatory nude swimming did happen in high schools and the YMCA in the United States, but did it happen in the UK or anywhere else? Let me know if it did happen, especially if it happened to you.