In search of Virgínia Quaresma

While working remotely from Lisbon a few months ago, I researched and wrote an article about Virgínia Quaresma, which has just been published. Virgínia Quaresma was Portugal's first female reporter, she was mixed-race and a lesbian.

Virgínia Quaresma, Wikimedia Commons

She lived from 1882 to 1973. There are very few pictures of her, so while working on the article in my hotel, I suddenly thought I could literally go to visit some places connected to her.

I knew there was a street named after her and the address of her last apartment. The street was a bus ride away in Caselas, which felt very suburban, and the apartment was in the centre of Lisbon.

Rua do Salitre 106

The next day, I thought of going to the cemetery where she is buried. That's a bit morbid, but so little exists about her (at least online), I thought it would be nice to pay homage to a remarkable woman.

It took me two attempts to go because of very large rainstorms, but when I arrived, it was a sunny and clear autumn morning.

I went with no plan. Looking around, I realise the cemetery is huge. It would take ages to find anything. 

Then I notice the secretario. In this little office, two ladies were working. They only spoke Portuguese, so I explained in my limited language skills what I was looking for. The office radio was playing Ed Sheeran and Camilo Cabello's song Bam Bam, which was a cheerfully-weird-surreal touch.

One of the women took out a huge book, a volume from 1973 when Virgínia died. 

Scanning page after page, she eventually finds the records for Virgínia Quaresma. Sadly, her grave had been exhumed in 1986. Her last partner, her wife, had died before her. I guess she had no children, and nobody paid for the upkeep. It's pretty sad. 

As the song goes: Así es la vida, sí, Yeah, that's just life, baby. I'm glad I went to find out this information, and was able in my own way to mark the life of Virgínia Quaresma.

Observations on Portugal

• Itinerant Londoner was right - the food in Portugal is disappointing. Try as I might, I did not find mijas on the menu, and instead was left with oily, greasy and largely flavourless food. Once or twice, I did think "yes, it's stodge, but glorious stodge" a la Nigella, but that was rare.
• It struck me that while the high-end restaurants may have brilliant food, more commonplace, everyday cafés and such churned out basic, unadorned food. A bit like the food at an Irish wedding - plain and simple, nothing that'd scare that aunties and uncles.
• Cakes, buns and tarts, however were divine, especially the pasteis de nata and pasteis de Belem (above).
• There are a lot of pharmacies in Portugal. Lisbon seemed to have one at every turn.
• My favourite of Lisbon's gay bars were Setimo Ceu in Barrio Alto - ace music, friendly staff and a cool magazine-collage wall - and Max in Principe Real, unadorned, unpretentious and friendly.
• My favourite Metro stop (in Porto) was Estadio do Dragao - simply for the phlegmatic tongue-twisting way it is pronounced. In Lisbon, I quite liked Marques do Pombal as it sounded like Marques do bumhole. (Mature, I know)
• My very favourite things were: azulejos and seeing Cabo da Roca - more of this later.

Well, I never - aussie bum

Posters advertising ubergay underwear brand AussieBum have begun appearing all over my local London areas, Kennington and Vauxhall (2 particularly gay London areas).

Underwear ads are nothing new - Freddie Ljungberg on a poster, David Beckham's crotch on the side of a bus, and that eye-popping Dolce & Gabbana chap.

But this one caught my eye - oh my, he's got his bum out. Goodness.

No Walk in New York

Protests were staged at New York's St Patrick's Day parade yesterday to highlight, yet again, the parade organisers' refusal to allow Irish and Irish-American gay groups participate in the parade.

In amongst all the shouting and chanting in the US, however, are a much smaller group - the Northern Ireland Gay Rights Association who picket offices and the American Embassy in London.

NIGRA president PA MagLochlainn told reporters, "Gay women and men can take part in St. Patrick's Day Parades in Dublin, Cork and Belfast - but they cannot in New York. This bigoted ban is long since out of date."

Most people see St Patrick's Day as a celebration, but New York's goodwill does not extend to all men and women.

Don't Rain on My Parade

London Pride was something of a washout. It was wet. Still, at least the float blaring out "It's Raining Men!" made sense.

I didn't even get a shot of a buff man bouncing around wearing a mankini. Forshame.

It turned out that there was a Eurovision connection.

Amnesty International used the idea of Eurovision voting to highlight the poor experiences of gays in Eastern Europe where a lot of Pride marches are banned. Thus, nul points for Moldova, Poland, Russia, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia and others.

Read all about it here.

And to make it even better, the Amnesty float was blasting out I Love You, Mi Vida. Oh, if only buff Ony (Antonio to his mum) from D'Nash had turned up with his lovely arms and chest...

Lots of great photographs of the day here.

Eurovision Gay Pride Disco!

This weekend's London Pride will be all kinds of fun. Sadly, unlike Norway, Sweden or Finland, London's Pride doesn't involve any Eurovision shenanigans. Seriously, you'd think Brotherhood of Man would need the gig. And Katrina (sans the Waves) could surely be coaxed onto the Woman's Stage to Shine Her Light.

Not to mention Gina G. There'd be a stampede.

Even if there was something EuroVissi, what would we dance to? Good winners as Lordi and Marija were, they hardly set the dancefloors alight.

There's not been a chance to shake our disco tits since Elena Paparizou.

Never fear! Here are remixes of Hard Rock Hallelujah and Molitva, gay disco-ed up, just perfect for homo-hands in the air, arms-a-waving and plenty of shimmy.

Download Frodo United - Hard Rock Hallelujah mp3

Download Marija Serivofic - Molitva dance remix mp3

Foreign Affairs

aloone.com, a new internet dating site, have undertaken a poll of Londoners' dating habits. Their results on nationalities are intriguing. The poll asked Londoners which nationalities they would date. London men and women are very much interested in British men and British women.

Men would choose to date: British (62%), Australian (37%), Scandinavian (34%), American (33%), Mediterranean (33%), Spanish (33%), Brazilian (30%), French (27%), German (23%) and Eastern European (21%).

Women would choose to date: British (61%), American (30%), Mediterranean (27%), Australian (25%), French (18%), Spanish (18%), Scandinavian (16%), Caribbean (16%), Brazilian (13%) and South African (10%).

My first reaction to this was the 'Mediterranean', 'Scandinavian', 'Eastern European' etc. were not actual nationalities. The definite choice of British as most popular is significant, I think, as it does not reflect how I see dating in London on the gay scene.

All around me, perhaps as a result of being a foreigner in London, I see relationships developing with many nationalities and outside the horizons of Britain. This may be in part due to the large numbers of gay men from foreign countries in London.

Research from a study of gay Londoners shows that a significant minority come from other European countries and the rest of the world, with 23.3% born outside the UK. These figures outnumber official census figures for Greater London which show 21.7% born outside the UK. 6.9% of those in the Census came from other European countries (11.4% in the gay research), only 0.06% from North America (3.6% in gay resarch), and only 0.06% from Australasia (3.2% in gay research).

My boyfriend is Austrian; many of my friends and his friends are in relationships with people from other countries. I find this mixing of nationalities incredible, and now it's not surprising to meet people from all around the world. A quick roll call shows relationships made up of people from:

Ireland & Austria
UK & New Zealand
UK & Australia
UK & Ireland
France & Denmark
Germany & South Africa
Sweden & Brazil
Greece & Basque Country
South Africa & Japan
UK & USA
UK & St Lucia
Ireland & Jamaica (& China & Poland)

While the last one might have been a more fleeting relationship, there certainly are more fluid boundaries in London.