What do speedo lovers fear the most (aged)

[Torchwatch]

The first time i read Stephen Spender's The Temple was before I had had any kind of gay experience and although I found the book a good read I didn't fully understand it.
The freedom he found in pre war Germany compared to Britain where homosexual acts were banned was extraordinary (I realised when i reread the book). Then he returned to Germany during Hitler's rise to power and found everything changed and frightening.
There was a limited number of gay books because writing them ostracised one from society and could land you in prison.

Alfred Lord Tennyson was gay (at least bi) and wrote In Memoriam at the death of Hallam. Tennyson is Known to have stayed with Lord Conway at Allington Castle and is thought to have written The Brook there. I have found the brook it may be based upon just across the river.
I have even swum in the River Medway there in my Speedos.

Do Speedos and a life jacket look good together?

[Byron]

The Temple was in the coming-of-age genre : the progress of psychological and moral growth from youth to adulthood.

In view of his Jewish background Spender had great conflict in his love of Germany and the rise of fascism. He returned to write there after WW II.

[Byron]

You asked if speedos and a life jacket look good together.

A simple question but it took a lot of finding some detail for readers to judge
(and for me the green speedo guy wins for yumminess).


http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lk...8xn4o1_500.jpg


http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lXXqfcuaWg...s+8-4-11-5.jpg

[Byron]

Most interesting that you were in West Berlin pre-reunification and it must have seemed strange to be living there . surrounded by the DDR (and only BEA permitted to fly the corridor for civil air travel I believe).

I was lucky enough meet an old boy last year who was a pilot assigned to the Berlin Airlift of 1949 in his early RAF service - and totally exhausted in those round-the-clock resupply missions to subvert the communist stranglehold, I learned.

I don't know the reasons for the parting of Auden and Isherwood but can understand a nostalgia for the populace and earlier ambiance of places such as Fire Island and Greenwich Village, about which I have read.

A wise friend once said however "Never visit the scene to relive memories of past enjoyable events - you will only be depressed and disappointed".

I think he's right and I recall Ayia Napa Cyprus - today an overdeveloped brash new mass tourism resort - but a place I discovered many years ago (only by me I thought) as a small and idyllic deserted beach of white sand bordering gently lapping clear blue warm and shallow water to swim in.

[Byron]

Most interesting that you were in West Berlin pre-reunification and it must have seemed strange to be living there . surrounded by the DDR (and only BEA permitted to fly the corridor for civil air travel I believe).

I was lucky enough meet an old boy last year who was a pilot assigned to the Berlin Airlift of 1949 in his early RAF service - and totally exhausted in those round-the-clock resupply missions to subvert the communist stranglehold, I learned.

I don't know the reasons for the parting of Auden and Isherwood but can understand a nostalgia for the populace and earlier ambiance of places such as Fire Island and Greenwich Village, about which I have read.

A wise friend once said however "Never visit the scene to relive memories of past enjoyable events - you will only be depressed and disappointed".

I think he's right and I recall Ayia Napa Cyprus - today an overdeveloped brash new mass tourism resort - but a place I discovered many years ago (only by me I thought) as a small and idyllic deserted beach of white sand bordering gently lapping clear blue warm and shallow water to swim in.

[Crail]

Byron, hot damn, you dun good agin. Delicious eye candy. Thanks

[Byron]

LOL - it was hard (and so was I) - I expected at
least to easily find some water skiiers running the
wake (if that's the right term)(tried it once but never
quite graduated to competency on just the single).

[CalifFitnessSwimmer]

I watched "Chris and Don" for the first time on NetFlix. I loved it and want to watch it again but I'm amazed how many comments were posted about Isherwood's age difference when he took up with Don Baccardy. ( 48 vs 18 ).

Sure it raised eyebrows and maybe Baccardy was kind of naive but I've seen pretty awful, abusive and mean exploitive relationships, both gay and straight
with drugs, alcohol, beatings and all around viciousness both within relationships and from people around them.

In face, after I moved to California from New York I read a lot of Isherwood just to get New York out of my system. New York was kind of like a combination of "Boys in the Band" and "The Women." I've seen so many gay guys try to tear down and destroy other relationships that the "Chris and Don" story struck me as kind of tame!