I visited my parents in Northern Ireland last weekend and so haven’t been on the scene. So, instead of leaving the diary for a week, I thought I’d have a bitch through the second issue of GI.

I went into Bon Espresso on Baggott Street on Monday morning to buy my copy. The cute Italian guy behind the counter wanted to know how much tax he had to add on to the magazine’s price, that was until I told him that this glossy, thick mag was actually an Irish creation and no addition was necessary. Somehow, I don’t think he believed me. (Interestingly, I went into the same shop the next day and the 10 or so copies that had been there the previous day were gone — excellent news for publisher John Ryan and his team)

One of the best things about flicking through a magazine is looking at (and bitching about) the pictures. I’d imagine that’s why social diarist at large, Shirley T-B, has been given five pages of editorial to play around with. I wonder what is going on behind those mostly smiling faces? — they’re probably wondering who is this photographer and which publication will be printing a pic of my dazzling sparklers? I just hope that someone didn’t tell Gay Byrne, his missus and Gerry Ryan that they would soon be gracing page 22 of Ireland’s new gay glossy. The reason? Every gay man and woman who sees this pic will have a lot of fuel for a massive bitching session. The state of them! (On a completely different note, how bloody gorgeous is Aidan Quinn!)

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Moving quickly on to the GI Joes section. The young fella taking up half the page is none other than my internet master, Mr Vincent ‘Tongue’ Donnelly. Webmaster of www.gay-ireland.com, Vincent tells GI that the site gets 60-70,000 hits a month. Impressive when you think about it. I’d imagine the site is getting a lot of attention overseas through either word of mouth or search engines. Anyhow, this all brings me to my admirers from afar. I’ll let Vincent explain: “We’ve been getting a lot of fan mail for Tim’s diary, which is a weekly journal by a well-known, but incognito scene queen. He’s even got interest from an American sitcom producer, so I guess we’d better enjoy him while we can.”

Modesty prevails me from commenting on this. Okay, you know me by know, of course modesty doesn’t prevail me from commenting! So here is my comment: ‘Friends’ here I come!

I haven’t read a lot of the articles as yet – hey come on, I’m a busy boy with a life to lead. The Fab Vinnie article looks umm fab – especially since one of the co-authors is the gifted Ger Philpott. And the bum feature (this is not a criticism; it is a feature about bums) by me ole mate Stephen Meyler could be worth dipping into, so to speak.

Back to the pics and I must take my hat off to GI for the fashion shoots. Firstly, they look good (especially the Lord Chatterly’s Lover spread) and secondly, they use Irish models and locations as far as I can tell. As far as I’m concerned, there is nothing worse than seeing a magazine describing itself as ‘Irish’ publishing loads of fashion shots using foreign models, locations and staff (i.e. doing it on the cheap).

And who should I spot hamming it up as Lord Chatterly, but my Newcastle press trip acquaintance Alex (see one of the previous diary entries). You’ll all remember Alex from his appearance in the Smirnoff Ice ‘It’s good to be out’ campaign. (see diary #3) Also worth mentioning is the location for the Girls In The Boys Room shoot. On the first page, the model is actually sitting in the urinal in the toilets in The George! (would you look at that — those bloody toilet references have sneaked into yet another diary!).

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Getting away from all things lavatorial, the Cooking and F**king article towards the back of the mag looked great. I derived great pleasure from congratulating the author, Conor DeLion, on his culinary piece. He told me he hadn’t seen the finished copy and could he have a peek. Well, he was a bit shocked to say the least. The reason for his slight discomfort? Conor’s article, which appears on a left hand side page, has an accompanying visual of an upturned banana. The right hand side page, entitled The Treasure Chest, features a male torso. Some saucy spark at GI had obviously felt the need to position the torso and the banana in such a way as to make the whole package (as it were) seem quite fruity. I’m afraid you’ll have to buy the mag if you don’t understand what I’m going on about.

And finally to Ask Auntie Panti. As you probably know she of the wondrous figure can do no wrong in my eyes. And here she proves that yet again. With a heady mixture of bitchy one-liners, motherly advice and disturbing insights, Miss Panti makes her problem page one of my favourite in the mag.

I was going to leave it there, but I just have to comment on the pic above the headline ‘A Groovy Kind Of Love’. Now, I’m fully aware that the joke is that Phil Collins (well, at least a photo of a model with Phil Collins’ head stuck on) is roaring his head off because he’s being pleasured from behind by a young stud. Now, is it just me or does that young stud bear a rather more than passing resemblance to Russell Crowe? Go check out page 28 now!

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Tim - December 2001
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