What transvestism is like for me

Well, that was a busy start to the new year, blog-wise. I kicked off the poll to find the Best Tranny Movie in the World, Ever (results are still being worked on, if you haven't sent a reply to the email I sent you, do so soon!); had a go at generating a blog campaign to help knock Transformation off the top-spot for "transvestite" on Google; courted controversy by publicly outing a fraudster; and nearly accidentally outed myself at work by being a bit over-zealous with my blogging!

Why, there's been hardly been any time left to dress up as a girl!

Oh wait... I haven't dressed up this month.

Not once, even at home. Nary a slip has passed my ankles. That's kinda strange.

It's times like this, when I realise that I haven't dressed for a while and haven't really felt the need to either, that the self-doubt starts to set it. I start to wonder if I'll actually need to ever dress again. And what that really means for my health, wealth and wellbeing.

Transvestism is like Vitamin C.

I need Vitamin C. So everyone tells me. If I didn't keep eating it in fruit and stuff I'd get scurvy, like sailors in the old days. That's what my teacher taught me.

I've never had scurvy, and neither has anyone I've ever met. I don't get a kick every time I eat an orange that tells me that Vitamin C has saved me from scurvy. I believe that it's true, but the only way for me to really prove it would be to stop eating Vitamin C.

Openly cross-dressing is a great buzz for a transvestite, when you first do it. It releases built-up tensions and reveals a whole load of possibilities. Then you keep doing it and the buzz starts to fade. You don't get a kick everytime you're dressed, it's just something you do, like eating things with vitamin C in them. The accepted wisdom is that if you stop it becomes unhealthy, but the only way to know if it's actually unhealthy is to actually stop.

Scrap that. Transvestism's nothing like Vitamin C. That's a crap analogy.

Transvestism is like scaffolding.

Scaffolding is stuff you put up to support other things. It enables huge buildings to be created, but when they're finished it's no longer needed. The scaffolding comes down but the building stays up.

I've built a lot of things around my transvestism. A large group of friends, an interesting social life, a feeling of worth and recognition amongst my peers, and of course this website and blog.

The strange thing is now I've built this elaborate edifice around me cross-dressing, I don't actually need to keep cross-dressing to keep it all upright. It's self supporting. My friends won't stop being friends if I don't cross-dress. My website will still get updated with bollocks like this, and the pictures will always be there as a memorial to the "good old days" of Becky en-femme. I can dress up now and then for special occasions and maintaining friends (the equivalent of the scaffolding going back up to re-point the brickwork), but I wouldn't be doing it because I have to.

But I want to. Maybe scaffolding is a bad analogy.

Transvestism is like bingo.

My Nan used to play bingo a lot at her local community centre. She rarely won, and when she did the prizes were pretty shit. A basket of mixed veg, 10 tins of spam, that kind of thing. But she loved it. It got her out of the house, she socialized with people and got all the village gossip, and when she was stuck for conversation she could always fall back on What Happened at Bingo.

My transvestism gets me out of the house. The rewards are sometimes pretty shit, but I love it. When I'm stuck for conversation I can always fall back on What Happened at Angelic.

That's bollocks too. Transvestism is nothing like bingo.

I don't need to justify why I do it. I don't need to justify when I stop doing it.

I guess I'm looking for a chapter heading on my life: "When Becky Stopped Dressing", but real lives don't fall into neat chapters. Perhaps it will fade away, perhaps it will return with a vengeance. I'm just going to have to find out for myself.

Oh, are you still waiting for a definitive analogy of what my transvestism is like?

Transvestism is like a story without chapters about a man playing bingo whilst hanging from the scaffolding inside the Sagrada Familia and eating an orange.

That will have to do.

Sky rant

Apologies in advance - this is going to be a good, old-fashioned rant at Sky's abysmal customer service department.

A couple of years ago I upgraded my Sky to Sky Plus, which gave me a whizzo satellite reciever/hard-drive combo with the ability to pause and rewind live telly, record entire series at the touch of the button, and all kinds of other cool things.

First let me say I've always been very impressed by Sky Plus, the user interface is incredibly well-written, powerful and easy-to-use. After a while I got very reliant on the ability to pause stuff when the phone rang, or record things on the off-chance I wanted to watch it.

Late last year I realised I was hardly watching any of the Sky channels I was paying for, and started to begrudge paying more than 25 quid for telly I just wasn't watching. As my contract was a over a year old, I decided to cancel it. Now I just get the "free to air" satellite channels like BBC1 to 4, ITV 1 to 4, Channel 4, CBBC etc.

Because I'd also stopped paying the £10 a month for Sky Plus, Sky turned all of the Sky+ functionality too. This is bloody annoying, I could understand them charging a tenner a month extra during my contract, they needed to recoup the value of the hard-disk powered set-top box. But why I need to keep paying me £10 a month forever, just to keep the extra functionality? I still have all the hardware sitting useless in the box, and I still get the Electronic Programme Guide which the box uses to plan it's recording. All that is missing is a little flag on the box that says "yes you can record."

The simple answer of course, is that Sky can charge for it, so they do.

That was annoyance number one.

After a while I was so annoyed at the lack of Sky+ functionality I was seriously considering re-subscribing to a Sky package just to get it back. Then after a little research on the net I found out I didn't have to: If I asked Sky nicely they'd turn on just the Sky Plus functionality. For a £10 a month fee, of course.

The Sky website makes no mention of this, that I can find. I suppose it's in their interest to make people think they have to have an expensive Sky channels package to get Sky Plus.

That's annoyance number two.

So I rang Sky's customer service.

Cue the Longest and Most Annoying Phone Menu System In The History of Mankind.

"If you want to order a movie... press 1. If you wan't to complain about the volume of the adverts... press 2. If you've poured tea over the remote... press 3. If your brain has started leaking out your ears... press 4."

I've made so many calls to Sky that I've memorized the menu buttons to get through to a human voice: it's 4, 5, 1, 6. So, that's four different list of options, all bar one of which you have to wait until the last option until they say the one you want. Annoyance number 3.

Then they ask you to key in your telephone number "so that your equiry can be dealt with more effectively."

Then the pleasant female voice says "Thank you. Your call will be dealt with shortly," a ringing tone... then another voice says "Your call is in a queue and will be dealt with in... Fifty. Four. Minutes."

In what dictionary is "shortly" defined as fifty four minutes? Annoyance number four.

If you decide to wait for that amount of time, you finally get through to a human voice. This is where the fun really starts.

"Hello, you're through to Sky Customer Services. Can I have your telephone number please?"

This is the telephone number I keyed into the system to "more effectively deal with my equiry" 50 minutes ago. Any reasonable person would expect it to held in the call-centre system and appear on the screen, wouldn't they? Annoyance four and a half.

A lot of housekeeping to confirm I am who I say I am, and not wasting the customer services person's valuable time (God forbid), I'm allowed to ask my question:

"Hello. I'd like to turn on just the Sky+ function on my box and pay £10 a month please."

"Certainly Sir, I'll turn that on for you now."

"Thank you! Goodbye!"

Well, that was easy, wasn't it?

Oh look, there's a lot more writing below here isn't there? Ho-hum.

The next day it's still not working, so I ring up again, navigate the menu system again, wait in the queue again...

"Hello, I was told yesterday my Sky+ functionality would be turned on, and it isn't."

"Oh yes, because you left Sky we have to send you a new card. It's in the post."

"Oh, the lady I spoke to didn't tell me that. Never mind. Thanks!"

Annoyance number 5: not being given full information.

Over few days later. No card turns up. I ring again, navigate the menu system again, wait in the queue again...

"If it's not turned up within a week we'll cancel that card and send you another card."

"Okay.. thanks."

Over a week later. No card turns up. I ring again, navigate the menu system again, wait in the queue again...

"We say wait five working days for delivery."

"Let me count on my calender... it's been eight working days since you said you'd sent it."

"It might be in tomorrows post."

"I don't care... send me another card."

"If I send you another card, and your first one turns up, you won't be able to use it."

"Look... in my experience if things haven't turned up after 8 days in the post they're never going to turn up. I'll take my chances and say that that card's gone AWOL, so send me another card!"

"Okay sir. That's done."

"What happens if this one doesn't turn up?"

"We'll send you one out special delivery. But it's unlikely."

Over a week later. No card turns up. I ring again, navigate the menu system again, wait in the queue again...

"No card. Lost count of annoyances. Send one special delivery. Then I won't kill you."

"Okay sir. That's been sent out today and will be with you on Monday."

"Wibble."

Today. No card with this morning's post. I ring again, navigate the menu system again, wait in the queue again...

It seems to be a foreign call centre. Now, don't get me wrong. Market forces and all that, if the Indians can do it cheaper then fair enough.

But I do expect the person I speak to on a Sky TV customer services to understand the meaning of phrases such as "what is the number of the special delivery item so I can track it?", "I want to speak to your manager" and "manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsiblity".

Finally I got put through to a manager. He's read through my file, he's so sorry that my card hasn't come yet. He'll send another card. It will be in my hands tomorrow.

He doesn't understand that I don't want the card any more!

Well I do, but that's not important. I need closure. I want to know what happened to all the other cards I was supposed to have been sent. I want to feel that I'm not just being fobbed off each time I ring up by people who don't care if I have a card or not, and just want to get me off the phone. I want to know why Sky have the most fucked-up customer services experience in the history of the World.

So my card's coming tomorrow. Please. Please. If not this might be the next thing I hear on a phone:

"Welcome to the Samaritans. Press 1 if you've bought a bottle of pills and you can't get the lid off. Press 2 if you're looking for a good random sniper vantage points in your area..."

After-burns

I went to a Burn's Supper with Jane last night. I hadn't really expected to enjoy it, it all sounded a bit too stuffy and formal for me. A "proper" sit-down do with fancy cutlery and everything. Jane drilled some of the rules into me during the taxi ride:

• Don't sit down before the top table.
• Don't start eating a course before the top table.
• You can't get up and go for a pee until the "admin break", which is about 3 hours after the meal starts.

Woah, next you'll be telling me no burping contests!

But at some point in the evening I began to realise just what fun it was...

... i think it was around the time that I looked down at the table in front of me and realised that as well as the array of cutlery I had four different alcholic drinks on the go. A glass of some rather fine whisky, two glasses of wine (one red, one white, both very passable), and a glass of port. The rest of the port and whisky were in big bottles on the table, and people kept coming around topping up the wine! w00t! :-)

To be fair, the freely-flowing drink wasn't the only thing that made it fun. At some point the drone of the pipes, the fine highland accents of the poetry readers and the warm 12-year-old single malt coursing though my veins combined to ignite some latent Calendonian passions I never knew I had! By the end of the night I was almost tempted to research the McVerite tartan*.

God bless the Scots! Every last haggis-eating, poetry-spouting, alcohol-dependent one of them!



*I'm hoping it's pink. And finishes well above the knee.

Burns

These are superb. Primal. Tribal. Scottish soul music.

Too close to home

Something happened yesterday that gave me a feeling I'd not experienced in a long time: fear of discovery.

First, some background. I'm not "out" at work. My work colleagues are some of my few friends who don't know about Becky. Every tranny, when deciding who to tell, works through a complex formula, which includes such variables as:

• the general cool-and-grooviness of the person they're thinking of telling


• how likely they are to find out anyway


• the possible consequences of them knowing


• the possible consequences of them not knowing


• how likely they are to tell other people


• the possible consequences of them telling other people


• last, and not least: how much fun it will be to tell them

I'd run through this fuzzy-logic algorithm in my head and decided that, despite it being an excellent jape to tell everyone that I'd scored 9.6 as Becky on Hot or Not, when the office average was a paltry 4.5, the potential for ribbing and general manly piss-taking forrr-eeeeehhh-verrrrr, just didn't seem to make it worth it.

Actually, I did tell one office colleague. Let's call him X. X doesn't work in the same department as me at the moment, but he used to. About 2 years ago we went on a course together that involved an overnight stay, and I ended up telling him about Becky. I mainly did it to discover if there'd been much gossip about me in the office since I'd started my extra-curricular activity. He reassured me that there wasn't much gossip, and people were pretty much clueless. And he was generally pretty cool about it, in a "whatever floats your boat" kinda way.

So. Anyway.

I was just about to go to bed last night when I picked up my mobile to read my messages. I tend to put my mobile on silent all day, then forget to turn the speaker on again when I get home. So often there's a queue of messages waiting for me.

There was a missed call and a text message from X. "Just finished a frantic call from Y. He was surfing the net to find out more about the sex-change at our place and came across Becky's Site. I don't know if he'll say anything but thought you should have a heads-up."

Shit. Y worked a few yards away from me, and if he'd told X, who else had he told?

Nothing like getting a text like that just before you go to bed to guarantee a sound night's sleep.

Not.

The next morning eventually rolled around and I got into work, determined to make the first move. Y was a good chap, and I was pretty sure that he'd not blab around work, but there was a niggling doubt in the back of my mind that he would. By daybreak i'd decided it wouldn't be the end of the world if everyone knew (at 3AM I'd convinced myself that the townsfolk were going to fire me out of a cannon into the Wash), but I still wanted to be the person to tell them. If it came to that. I hoped it wouldn't.

First thing on arrival next morning I fired off a message to Y saying "Hi! I know that you know... X told me because X knew. Wanna chat at lunchtime?"

The rest of the morning at work was the usual mix of panic, boredom, and de-motivational team meetings. And then we went for the chat...

The cannon firing is booked for the town square on Monday. Chantelle off of Big Brother is booked to light the fuse.

...high speed rewind noise...

And then we went for the chat...

Of course he was cool about it. He'd actually had just as sleepless night as me. Partly from the shock, I think, and partly from trying to think of a way of telling me that he'd found out about it. It was actually his wife who'd been searching the net for info on a TS who's been in the news from our workplace. She'd seen my site and worked out pretty soon that I must work in the same department as her husband.

He offered, without being asked, to keep schtum in the office, which is great.

Life is good. Phew.

But I've learnt not to publish blog entries which make it too obvious in one page who I am and where I work. I've taken down the old blog entry (called Close to Home), which basically said "I work with Person Z in this capacity". Not a good idea if Person Z is in the news, and your site is fairly high in Google's search for him! I've also learnt to trust people to be cool a bit more.

Thanks for being cool Y! Oh, and Mrs. Y! :-)

If you ever fancy coming out and meeting Becky one night, let me know! G'wan, you know you want to give that new car a good run! ;-)

Stephanie’s Blog

If you'd like a different take on what it means to be a t-girl, I suggest you take a look at Stephanie’s Blog. She's only been blogging for a short time, but what she's said so far is well worth reading.

Hatred

This has been probably been blogged to death, if so apologies but it's new to me.

Sometimes I come across a site that's so scary that I pray it's a hoax. Unfortunately God Hates Fags isn't one of those sites. It's real. These guys really do hate homosexuals, because they believe God hates homosexuals, and apparently that's the cause of every recent disaster in US history.

According to the Wesboro Baptist Church (the people behind the site), the mine collapse that killed all those people in West Virginia was god's retribution for the US's stance on gays and gay rights, because God hates fags. According to the WBC, every US soldier that's killed in Iraq (gay or not) has been struck down by a vengeful fag-hating Lord.

This wouldn't be so bad, if it was just the sad website of a few crackpot individuals, but these guys turn up and picket the funerals of US soldiers, and West-Virginian miners, carrying banners with catchy slogans such as "AIDS CURES FAGS", "THANK GOD FOR AIDS" and of course "GOD HATES FAGS". Imagine trying to mourn the death of a loved one with a picket like that going on outside the gates.

Here's some other choice tidbits from the website:

"Fag Fact: Depending on the city, 39-59% of fags are infected with intestinal parasites like worms, flukes and amoebae, which is common in filthy third world countries."

"God Hates Fag! & Fag Enablers! and those that threaten his Messengers with bloody violence and death for preaching God's Word to them. Ergo, God hates West Virginia."

It's hard to know what to say, without sounding trite.

Looking through that site made me very angry, and feel a little impotent against the depths of hatred that are fostered under the banner of Christianity (whether "Christianity" likes it or not).

I know that what these people are preaching is against what the vast majority of Christians believe, I don't need to be told that.

I don't really know what I want to be told.

Someone to say "yes but... no-one's listening to these guys," I guess. But the scary thing is, I know people are.

Why?

A47 Kings Lynn - a photoset on Flickr

Wow, someone really likes the A47 Flyover in King's Lynn. If you get bored of the pictures of a muddy roundabout with some cones, you might want to check out Vibeone's photoset of the M40 at Cherwall Valley. Inspired!

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face

It's that time of year when the Scots gather to eat haggis and celebrate the life of their great poet, Robert Burns.

Wait a minute... organs stuffed with unspeakable nastiness... bloke called Burns....

Is anyone else getting deja-vu?

Scotland Yard moves with the times

Those blighters over at met.police.uk have pinged me for a meme! Ho hum, suppose I'd better do it.

Meme commences 10:00AM 25 January 2006. Those present: Officer Steve Harris, Becky "Smiler" EnVérité.

Where were you on the night of 13th December, 2005?

At home, with my friends. Ask them!

You expect us to believe that?

You got something speffic to ask, officer?

Name four places you've visited during the last week.

The pub, the shops, the betting shop, the pub.

So you weren't outside Barclays Bank at 4.00PM in a brown Ford escort?

Not me, no guv. Probably someone else. It's this wig you see, very common. I get mistaken for other people all the time.

Oh come on, EnVérité! We've got your friend Nodger over in the next blog, he's singin' like a canary! You're goin' down, sunshine!!

You can't prove nuffin'!

Would you like a cup of tea?

Yes. No, wait! Don't try that nice-meme, nasty-meme stuff of me!

Name four things you'd like to see in your lifetime.

The Taj Mahal, the Earth from Space, peace in the Middle East, my solicitor.

Is there anything else you'd like to add in your defence?

:-P

[sigh] For the record, the suspect wrote a "sticky out tongue" smiley.

Um, I'm not sure I like these modern policing methods.

What you like don't enter into it my, er, son. Now... name four other people you'd like to finger for this job take part in this meme.

I'm not saying nothing else until I see the Taj Mahal!

334400

Human brains are designed to find patterns. They please us. We get a little kick of endorphins when we see a face in a combination of tree branches, or a sailing ship in a passing cloud.

Or, like me today, finding that the telephone number for one of your suppliers (when keyed into a touch-tone phone) sounds exactly like the first bars of The Underground Bit from Super Mario Bros.

Try it, pick up a touch-tone and listen to the reciever as you dial 334400. For bonus points, say to the person who answers "did you know your number is the Super Mario number?"

R/18 - May contain fiction

My manager, who usually sits opposite me, is off on a course this week. This means I haven't got my usual outlet for early-morning rants at the stories in the news. So you might find that my normally blissfully non-ranty blog is a bit more topical this week. ;-)

This section in a BBC story about the film adaptation of the Da Vinci Code caught my eye this morning:

Last week Catholic group Opus Dei called for the unrated movie to be given an adult rating, saying children should be protected from what it called "insidious" lies about Catholicism.

Opus Dei spokesman Marc Carroggio said: "Any adult can distinguish reality from fiction. But you cannot expect a child to make proper judgements."

I agree, a lot of the time young children do have problems distguishing fact from fiction. Though it does seem a mite hypocritical for someone in the Catholic church to be using this as a reason for banning a film being shown to minors.

What the test was

So yeah, so now my blog is serving pages in ASP format. For those unfamiliar with ASP: it's like PHP but better. If you don't know what PHP is, imagine a duck wearing a beanie. It's nothing like that.

ASP is better than PHP for two reasons.

1) It costs money. ASP is expensive. PHP is free. Expensive things are better. Stands to reason.

2) I can write for ASP and I don't know PHP. Things that I know how to do are better. Stands to reason.

Still confused?

Okay, basically ASP will let me do funkier, more dynamic, stuff with my blog. I've already been tinkering with adding dynamic backlinks, a-la this entry. Now if another blog links to me, a short summary of their blog entry appears at the bottom of my blog entry, together with a link to their blog. Clever huh?

I've got to work on the styling a bit, but in principal it works and I'm happy with it.

And for all of the people for whom that went entirely over their heads, here's a picture of me looking pretty:



Yay me! :-)

Test Post

Oooh, test post! Becky doesn't do those very often, I wonder what she's up to?

Does that say .ASP at the end of the file name up there? Oooh, so it does! I wonder what it could all mean!?

Move along, there's nothing to see here! ;-)

Booking badminton

Me: I'd like to book a badminton court for next thursday please.
Woman at Sports Centre: Sorry, I can't take any bookings until 9:00 AM.
Me: But it is 9:00.
Woman: My wall clock says it's 8:57 and I have to go by that.
Me: But there are spaces right? You say on your site that you can't book slots earlier than 9:00 AM the week before?
Woman: Oh yes, there's slots.
Me: Okay, I'll phone back in 3 minutes.

Five minutes later.

Me: Hello, I'd like to book a badminton court please.
Woman: Sorry, they're all booked.
Me: Oh fiddlesticks! Some enterprising chaps have got in during the last few seconds and managed to book the whole 8 courts. Ho hum, I guess I'll just have to be quicker next time. Cheerio!

/me hops into time machine and goes back to three minutes earlier

Me: I'd like to book a badminton court please.
Woman at Sports Centre: Sorry, I can't take any bookings until 9:00 AM.
Me: That's okay, I'll hold.

...

I swear that all happened. Except the stuff with the time machine. Oh, and I didn't say "fiddlesticks".

Explaining my actions

I wasn't going to blog about this, but I decided I should explain why I outed Lana as a fraud on my Flickr stream. In some ways I feel guilty for doing it, but I can't deny a huge sense of satisfaction at the same time.

I might have outed her less publicly if she hadn't once written in her blog:

"[I hate] people who look at your online photos and ask 'Is that really you?'----well hello, why would anyone bother promoting someone else's photos and not their own.Asking this question only shows how insecure or jealous the Enquirer is anyway."

That comment was probably aimed at me. I'd contacted her via messenger just before, and asked some pointed questions along the lines of "how do you manage to look so good, when you say you're not a model?"

The blog has gone now, it disappeared last night along with her MSN space and Flickr stream. So if you're unsure what pictures I'm talking about, you're too late to find out!

There was something far too-good-to-be true about Lana's pics. They were almost all expertly lit and photographed, wearing fab clothes with perfect makeup. Even the "grungy" ones had a knowing, staged quality. Every new picture posted to Flickr was greeted with a flood of comments from other trannies praising her beauty and style, which she was all too happy to accept. But I started getting more and more trannies in my neck of the online woods privately asking "is Lana for real?".

It was difficult to prove, because the person (or people) Lana chose as her "avatar" wasn't a well-known model. I scoured loads of sites showcasing fashion models (I freely admit that I got a bit obsessive about it) but nothing turned up. Then, weeks after I'd posted it, someone replied to an message I'd left on a fashion forum, asking if the pictures on Lana's stream were of a known model. They included a link to the profile of a model called Amanda Jo. Jackpot! Once I knew the name, it was quite easy to find other pics of the same model to confirm the profile's validity.

I realise that this sounds like crowing. I suppose it is. Let me try and explain why I got so obsessed by it.

The thing that galled me about what Lana was doing was the fact that she was, perhaps unwittingly, making a lot of trannies feel in some way inadequate.

It took me a great deal of time, money and effort to get to the point where I got pictures I'm pretty proud of. And then I'd look at some pictures of other t-girls and think "boy, if only I could look like that", knowing deep-down that I didn't have the figure/face/budget to ever pull it off. That's the luck of the draw. I envy the t-girls who do it better than me, but at the same time respect them, because I know that it doesn't happen by accident. You might have a feminine face or figure, but you'll still look like a guy if you don't work hard to emphasize it.

I also respect the t-girls who'd are even less blessed in the face and figure department than me, if they've obviously made the effort. Other trannies will say the same thing, I think: no matter how you look, if you've made the effort you're welcome in the club.

Actually, that's probably the ultimate answer to the dumb question I'm sometimes asked: "how do I become a transvestite?"... Make the effort.

When someone decides to skip all the hard work, find some pictures of a person (or persons) they'd like to look like, and publishes them as their own; that's wrong. It's mocking me, and it's mocking every other t-girl who dared to put a real picture of themselves en-femme online and say "this is me".

The nominations have closed...

... and now it's time to vote for your favorite tranny movies of all time!

Voting is open to everyone, and you can vote for up to 10 films from the listed nominations. If it was nominated on the official form, and it was film that appears on the IMDB database, then I listed it on the long-list. So no complaining that your favorite film isn't there, or that the films that are there are rubbish! ;-)

Please click here to vote, and get your friends to vote too, so that the result is as definitive as possible. Thanks!

Apologies in advance

Oasis have announced a year-long tour playing every cut-price supermarket in the UK. When asked how they would complete such a gargantuan task, singer Liam said: "Lidl by Lidl".

©2006 Becky EnVérité

It shouldn't happen to an announcer

I pity the Channel 4 announcer tonight who, at the end of Richard Dawkin's anti-religious diatribe "The Root of All Evil", was required to say:

"... and the religious debate continues on More4, where Historian Michael Burliegh argues that the modern world's rejection of faith has led to the collapse of the fabric of society. Next on Channel 4: Celebrity Big Brother."

Quite.

Thou shalt not flounce

That single-handed Vicars and Tarts party that is Selina's blog has a fascinating and provocative piece on transvestism and the Bible today. Go lookie! :-)

Birds

Oooh... I love Look Around You sooooo much!

The first series expertly parodied the "science for schools" television programs of the seventies. It was a heady mix of nostalgia and surreal comedy. I remember sitting semi-patiently in a darkened assembly hall as the blue-and-white spotted clock on the screen counted down to zero, and then marveling as the narrator explained the uses of sulfuric acid in hushed tones.

The latest Pizza Hut adverts are an unfunny version attempt to copy the style.

The second series was studio-based and parodied populist science magazine shows like "Tomorrow's World". The episodes were longer, but not quite as funny as the first series, in my opinion.

I've had the Series 1 DVD in my collection for a while, and series two is now out. The extras include this superb film, which returns in many ways to the style of Series 1...



Very grateful to Kim for finding this.

Thanks Kim.

Thkim.

How not to email me

You remember that "how to be a tranny" email I got the other day which I selflessly, tirelessly, and with a great deal of humility (one of my many fine attributes) replied to? I sent a long reply because a) the person had written a nice letter and b) they flattered the hell out of me.

I wanted to give you an example of the other end of the spectrum. Got this email a few days ago, presented here in full, with only the address changed.

hi i would like how i can become a tranny please email me back at alazytimewaster@hotmail.com with all the info thanks.

"With all the info"?? I thought about getting Evil Becky to send a suitably pithy reply, but even she couldn't be arsed.

More fun in today's paper

Reading further into the Independent I came across this article on Yindies; apparently a new class of half-yuppy half-indie types. It includes a silly quiz to ascertain whether you're a Yindie or not, with this question which caught my eye:

7. If you could only read one thing, it would be:

a) Heat.

b) A scurrilous blog by an anonymous cross-dressing lifestyle columnist.

c) Horse and Hound.

Now, do I count as a "lifestyle columnist"? If so, yay me! I'm a Yindie icon!

Or, do you actually have to write in a newspaper to be a columnist?

If so, does this blog exist? Is it one of the blogs I already read?? Come on, own up, which one of you is a lifestyle columnist in real life?!

Blame Dionysus

On a whim, I picked up a copy of The Independent this morning, and was rewarded with an interesting article on the history of cross-dressing in entertainment.

It feeds into the poll I'm conducting to find the Best Tranny Movie, but it also makes an interesting comparison between cross-dressing in the context of the theatre and screen, and the cross-dressing that transvestites partake in:

The distinction between transvestite and theatrical cross-dresser is an important one, however. Essentially a 20th-century medical definition, many transvestites say their choice of dress is designed to please them alone. Grayson Perry, the cross-dressing potter and Turner Prize winner, says: "The perfect transvestite experience would be traipsing along the street with someone holding a gigantic mirror in front of me so that I could see myself the whole time. As I can't, wearing crippling shoes or being a tad cold reminds me I'm in the wrong clothes."

On the stage, screen or television, it is about pleasing the audience. And it's been doing that for more than 2,000 years.

MacEarth

Finally! Google have released a Mac version of Google Earth. To my Mac friends: I suggest you go download it now, and then get lost!

(...in a fantastically detailed interactive satellite map of the planet.)

An open letter to newbies

I get a lot of emails from new trannies wanting to know various things about how to get started with boobs, hair, etc. If the sender has gone to the effort of writing a polite letter and used joined-up words and stuff, I usually get round to sending a reply. I sat down today and churned out a reply to a particularly long set of questions from a girl called Kate and realised "hey, maybe it would be more efficient in the long term if I blogged this stuff."

So I have.

Over to you, Kate.

Your website is the greatest and you look just fabulous.

That kind of opener earns you a full reply. :-D

What do you do to your facial hair so it isn't noticed? Do you use some special type of makeup?

I shave really well, which helps! All the makeup in the world won't cover a full beard. ;-)

Other than that I tend to use a good pan-stick foundation that matches my skin tone. I use one called "TV paint stick" which you can buy from tranny makeup shops and theatrical makeup specialists. I've flirted with "proper" foundations but I just can't get on with them. Rule One with makeup: experiment as much as you like, but when you're in a hurry fall back on the things that you know will work. And when I'm getting ready for a night out I'm always in a hurry!

What about the hair on the chest and stomach area, any
special product to remove it?

Not for me, just a trusty razor. I use a Gillette Venus because I found men's razors cut me too much. Don't bother with shaving creams or foams, just buy cheap-ish cream bubble bath, and have a good soak in the bubbles before you attempt to shave.

I noticed a ad link for the padded panty, do you use that for your female curves?

Nope, I'm wide enough as it is! So when I need a bit more curvature I tend to take away rather than add. I sometimes use a good basic corset to trim the tummy and present a more feminine figure. Another good purchase is a stout pair of plain ladies control knickers, they might not be the more feminine of undergarments but they do the job when it comes to controlling your shape, especially "between the legs".

As an aside, I never endorse any of the products that appear in my Google Ads zone on my pages. They're simply there to pay for the hosting of the site.

What do you us for breasts?

Trained kittens. Although since the RSPCA crack-down I've invested in a pair of silicone ones from Doreen Fashions. I visited the shop itself, rather than buy online, as it really helps to "try before you buy" to get the right size. They're a little expensive, but last for ages if you look after them. Heck, they'll even last for a fair while if you piss about with them, like I tend to.

Do you use any type of special face creams or hand creams to make them look and
feel softer?

Nope, not regularly. Everything I try just gives me spots. I do some basic things: I never use regular soap, and I try not to do the washing up without gloves on.

I take it that you pluck your eye brows. When your in male attire does anyone make comments about your eye brows?

I did it gradually, so most people didn't seem to notice. People probably have noticed, but they haven't said anything to my face, so I don't worry about it.

If so, what do you tell them?

I have a disease where if my eyebrow hairs are allowed to grow for too long they burrow into my brain and make me go crazy. More crazy.

Do you do anything about the hair on your arms?

Yep, I shave them now and then. A lot of trannies I know don't bother. Then again, neither does the pretty check-out girl that served in Tesco's last night. She had arms like Robin Williams. So it's a personal preference thing.

Can you think of anything else I should know about cross dressing that would help me in my appearance?

Spend more than you think you need to. Don't cut corners. Don't be put off by early failures. Remember when "putting on a face", it's the law that you start looking worse before you start looking better. Always remember that it's not about how cross-dressing makes you look it's about how it makes you feel.

And above all, enjoy it!

The Worst...?

Something that Katya asked about the nominations for the Best Tranny Movie ever:

"Could you do a worst Trans* movie in the world ever too, with the most cliched and damaging portrayal of Trans characters ranked? The list would be endless."

I've thought about it, and it depends how you define "worst". Yes, there are some terrible examples of cliched portrayals of trannies as psychopathic killers (where the cross-dressing nature of the murderer is used as short-hand for their "weirdness") or sexual deviants or worse.

The Silence of the Lambs is a prime example of the "tranny = weird loner" cliche, but at the same time I'd argue that it's a good film. It's genuinely scary, tense and disturbing; and I enjoyed it a lot when it came out. The fact that the killer is a "transsexual" didn't detract from the film for me. I don't think it coloured my opinion of transsexuals. Even when I first saw it I realised that Buffallo Bill was no more a true representation of a TS than Bugs Bunny is a true representation of a rabbit.

Alternatively there are films like "Just Like a Woman", which by most yardsticks is pretty bad. Plodding plot, bad acting and the most tacked-on action ending ever. But simply because it was the first mainstream film I ever saw about "normal" British transvestites makes it an influential film from my childhood.

Films with trannies in serve multiple purposes. For "new" TG's they provide role-models, and good old-fashioned tranny jollies. For "educated" TGs, they're a talking point and maybe in rare cases offer an insight into their own "Tranny Condition". The most recent movie that "spoke" to me as a TV was Hedwig and the Angry Inch, with it's powerful idea that "putting on the wig" was a way for Hedwig to protect herself from the real world, even if in the end she realised she didn't really need it.

So I know that the results of the poll won't really be a definitive list of truly great films about transgenderism. Some of them will be box-office clangers, and others will feature hopelessly cliched TG portrayals. What I'm hoping is when I publish the list people will talk about what the films represent to them, and that might just tell us all a little bit more about what being a tranny means.

There's still time to nominate, if you'd like to take part!

The Best ...

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the initial stage of the first ever poll to find...



This is the nominations stage. I want to find out what you think are the top tranny films. And "tranny" is used in the broadest sense of the word: it could be any film that features a male character dressing as a girl, or just a film that trannies really love.

But you don't have to be a tranny to enter, nominations can come from anyone and everyone, as many as possible! You just have to enjoy films.

Once I've compiled a long-list of nominations I'll ask you all to vote on your favorites, and then use that information to compile the more-or-less-definitive list of the best tranny movies, ever!

So I urge you to nominate your choices now, please!

Knock them off

I'm backing the campaign to get Transformation off the top spot for Google searches with the Anti-Transformation Google Bomb!

The idea is to "Google Bomb" the Wikipedia entry for transvestite with links labeled simply with the word "transvestite". Google should hopefully see all the links for that word pointing to Wikipedia and count it as a more authoritative source of information. We're not sure how many links it will take, although a conservative estimate is 30.

If you have a blog or a web site, and you support the campaign, please copy and paste the code in the box below into your blog. You'll be doing trannies of the UK and around the world a favour!

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transvestite" title="transvestite">transvestite</a>

If you'd like to use this entire message in your own blog to help promote the Google-Bomb, you can download it here. But please edit the message a little to personalize it to yourself, as Google will spot duplicated text and not count the link.

Perspective

I'm basically agreeing with what everyone's saying. :-)

I know everyone's had their go at Transformations, but I hadn't put it from my point of view. So I did. That's all. Maybe someone will visit my site and read that before they go to the Transformation site, in which case I've done some good.

And I do promote other services. I link to them on my site and I advise trannies daily via email. So I'm doing my bit.

I could do more, if I had the time and inclination. But I could also do more to fight world poverty, or global warming, or childhood leukaemia, or AIDs awareness. There's a lot of things I could be doing. But I can't be arsed, for a given level of "being arsed".

When you put things in that kind of perspective, a few thousand men being fleeced by a little company in the UK seems a little small-fry. Important, but small-fry.

My point is that we all have a finite amount of time to dedicate to "other people", and we all make a personal moral decision about how much time/effort/money to spend, and who to spend it on. Some people dedicate their entire lives to the betterment of others. People like me and I suspect most of you, are more selective in their charitable works.

My concern about Transformation runs out at about "having a good rant", I'm not going to do much more than that. Apart from wholeheartedly lend moral support and publicity to anyone that does, of course. :-)

In prosecution of Transformation

Responding to Siobhan's post today.

I hate Transformation with a passion. And it's not because they sell overpriced, shoddy products. Not that they prey on transvestites and generally treat us like an brainless market niche that's there to be bled dry. I hate them because they've deliberately made themselves a dead end in the tranny community.

By some clever marketing over the years, Transformation have managed to position themselves at the forefront of the companies providing services for trannies in the UK. Ask nearly any British tranny the first tranny shop they heard of, and it will be Transformation. Somehow they're even the top hit on Google for the word "transvestite".

That's fair enough. As Siobhan rightly points out, they're a company and companies are there to make money. If they're savvy enough to make the name of their company ubiquitous to the market they're aiming at, then they deserve all the profits they make from doing it.

I too was one of the many British trannies for whom stepping into a Transformation shop was the first time they'd publicly shown their hand as a tranny, ever.

In my case it was the shop by Euston Station in London, I was a wet-behind-the-ears Civil Engineering student up at Hatfield Poly. I took the train down one day, walked up and down the street about 15 times until it was as empty as a London street ever gets on a weekday, and went through the door.

Two hours later I emerged, clutching my purchases (a really shoddy maids outfit made of black satin that was basically a rectangle with holes cut for the head and arms, and a couple of "TV interest magazines"), and over two hundred pounds lighter of pocket.

The magazines were basically selling Transformation's other services. The snake-oil creams and the "changeaways". And that's part of my problem. They only sell their own services in Transformations.

Take a trip to many a tranny venue in the UK and somewhere on a counter or side-table you'll see neat piles of fliers for other tranny venues and services. To some degree there's healthy rivalry, for example tranny and gay clubs don't exactly go out of their way to promote their rivals, but mostly you'll find information about all kinds of services available to you in the wider community.

Not so with Transformation. They want to keep you in the dark. Only tell you about their products and services. It may have changed, but I know that the Transformation shop in London wouldn't even stock copies of the Way Out Guide (the nearest thing to a Rough Guide to British trannying there is), for fear that trannies discover that there's Another Way.

Take a look at the links page on the Transformation web-site. A first glances it appears to be an altruistic offering by the company, pointing trannies at alternate places to buy their wigs, shoes, etc. With my consumer detective hat on, I went searching the WHOIS databases...

Yep, every single site is owned by the same company... Mapleleaf Holdings Ltd. The same company that owns Transformation.

If Transformation had set themselves up to be a friendly, welcoming first port of call for transvestites and transsexuals finding their feet in the community, I'd have no problem with that at all. But all that Transformation have done is set themselves up to be the friendly, welcoming introduction to their products and services.

They don't want to make trannies feel comfortable and open about who they are, they don't want them to be part of a "community", they just want to keep them thinking that the only people who think trannies are "okay" are the ones with the rictus grins and free cups of tea at a Transformation shop. Then once they have them corralled in their comfortable stable of services, milk them for every penny they can.

Emergency blog entry: Celebrity Big Brother

Good to see that Channel 4 have remembered the vital ingredient for a great Big Brother: gender-bending!

And why have one practitioner for Celebrity Big Brother when you can have two? Pete Burns and Dennis Rodman in the same house!

I have a feeling this is going to be car-crash television. :-D

Classy

Seems to be a bit of a theme amongst King's Lynn photographers to take snaps of the backs of Norfolk Green buses. This one was spotted by my fellow Lynn Flickr-ite, Davido.

Check out the camera being used by the model. Cutting edge fashion!

The best ____ in the world, ever!

Okay, it's January. It's miserable. We all need cheering up.

I have an idea. It's probably a dumb idea and it will more-than-likely bomb. But bear with me.

You know those Top 100 things they have on over Christmas? In the UK they're usually on Channel Four, and have subjects like "The Top 100 Best Family Films". They get the public to vote, compile a top 100, and then wheel out a bunch of celebrities to talk about the results.

It's telly-by-the-yard, and an no-brainer way for TV companies to fill barren bank-holiday schedules, but I actually quite enjoy them. Especially with a bottle of wine and someone to talk about the results with. As long as there's not too much Jimmy Carr involved.

So yeah, my idea: reproduce this in blog form! And instead of celebrities use hamsters trannies! Not just trannies, basically anyone who has a modicum of taste, and a appreciation for this genderism we call Trans (i.e. anyone who reads my blog).

The process will have several steps:

Step the first: I decide on a topic. Something with a tranny flavour.

Step two: I get you to email me with your nominations.

Step π: I produce a long list of the nominations.

Step delta: You all vote on your favorites.

Step E: I compile the top 10/20/50/100 whatever.

Step vi: I email out the toplist (in random order) to everyone who's taken part and ask them to provide witty comments and memories about items on the list.

Step 7: I compile a final version of the toplist, ordered correctly and including the best of everyone's comments, and publish an all-singing, all-dancing version on my website.

Step the last: Everyone is overcome by a wave of feel-good nostaligia which sweeps the world, solving the Middle East conflict and eventually bringing about World Peace.

Sound good?

I'm still working on the nitty-gritty. All I need from you now is a show of hands as to whether this is a Good Idea.

Thanks. :-)

Fun with forums

I don't know why it is. I never fail to get a kick out of doing this kind of thing. :-)

Happiness is...

...finally catching up with all of the blogs you stopped reading just before Christmas. My aggrator's unread tally is finally back to zero, that's such a nice feeling.

I don't suppose the next time I take a break from reading blogs you could all do me a favour and stop endlessly banging on about nothing, until I come back again? Thanks so much! ;-)