Young scallywags

Been tinkering with this all week, but it doesn't quite work in the way I wanted it to. The "joke" is that young trannies, when given an opportunity to dress up, always make a load more effort than they need to.

Either that or they're too afraid to be seen to be making effort and therefore read as a tranny that they avoid getting into the situation completely.

And also I feel like I'm doing halloween to death now.

Meh. Anyway, I like TV's costume. And the gag in the first frame; which no-one will get.

How to make your own Fetish PVC Witch costume

Hello boys and girls!

With Halloween rapidly approaching, you might be stuck for costume ideas. A lot of outfits can be quite expensive, but I’ve got an idea for a great costume that you can make cheaply at home. This outfit would make an ideal present for a tranny in your family, so you might want to make sure that they leave the room before we continue.

Are they gone? Great!



Take a look at this outfit that Becky’s modelling, looks fantastic doesn’t it? You’d expect to pay at least 2 guineas for an outfit that good from a posh PVC shop in Knightsbridge. But would you believe it cost less than 20 pounds? That’s right!

First you need to make your PVC dress. For this I used a standard PVC maid’s uniform, of the kind that everyone has stashed away somewhere! If you’re not sure where there’s one in your house, just ask mummy or daddy!

One you have the PVC maid’s uniform, discard the satin pinny and badly-made lace headband, as it won’t be needed for this costume. You might want to wash off any obvious stains, although these add to the character of the final outfit!

Next, you’ll need to make the underskirt or “petticoats”. For this you will need about 4 metres of gauzy material, which you can get from that shop in town with the faded sewing patterns in the window that’s been going for donkey’s years and seems to keep afloat even though hardly anyone visits apart from little old ladies on market day who go in for bizarrely coloured wool and a natter with the strangely fey elderly gentleman who’s worked there forever.

He’ll also sell you some black ribbon, about 3 metres will do. He’ll also try to show you some pictures of him and his young gentleman friend on holiday in Tuscany, but politely decline and leave the shop swiftly.

You might want to get an assistant (sometimes called a Tranny Wallah) to help you with this part. You need to fold the material twice along it’s whole length, so that you have 4 metres of quadruple-thick gauzy material. Pin the material near the folded edge to keep it in place, and then sew along the whole length about 1 inch away from the folded edge.



Now you can feed the ribbon down along the sewn edge of the material and gather it together. The gathered edge can be adjusted so that it fits neatly around the waist, and then the ribbons tied and cut to length.

Next the hat. Like me you’re probably thinking “there’s bugger all chance of me sourcing a PVC witch’s hat”, but actually I found one in the first costume shop I walked into. Which just goes to show that children today are all going to grow up perverts.



Finally, add a pair of 5-inch heeled shoes that you just know are going to be torture after about 10 minutes, a set of cheap false nails from a joke shop, and a pair of expensive tights that cost extra because some “designer” put extra holes in them, et voila!

As promised...

...to everyone I handed a moo card to last night: here's a link to the photos I took, along with everyone else's, on that fancy Flickr thing I raved about.

Halloween New Road 2007

The photo's of me need to be sent to NASA for intensive image processing. I'll post them when I get them back. ;-)

Witching hour minus one

When I was ickle we used to go swimming on a Sunday, and one day at this time of year we turned up an hour early for the pool. So no Siobhan, I think the clock change has always been on a Sunday. ;-)

But in those halcyon days of youth, it often didn't matter what time it was at the weekend, time was something Grown Ups were concerned with, and the fact that the clocks had changed didn't kick-in until Monday morning and the call for school.

On several occasions as a Grown Up I've actually been denied the pleasure of a lie-in on this day. One of the ancient computer systems at the place where I work isn't clever enough to know the difference between GMT and BST. So it doesn't like it when the time suddedly jumps back an hour, and things appear to be happening before things that have already occured. By "things" I mean stuff like "person feeling a bit peaky" and "person dropping down dead". Paradoxes like that can really screw with a computer's noggin and make it go a bit HAL.

So one of my jobs was to go into work at 1AM and shut down the system, which was a bit like stopping a nuclear power station. Then wait around for a hour for 2AM (when the clocks jump back to 1AM) and wake the whole thing up again. As far as the computer's concerned the clock change never happened, as far as I'm concerned I'm two hour's kip down on a one-hour-extra-in-bed deal.

But these days it's all done with wires and bits of string, so I'm free to go to halloween parties as a PVC witch and awake freshed faced the next morning to blog about it for you.

Which I will do at some point, I promise, I'm just gonna be a bit busy today. I've got to get from Derby to Reading via King's Lynn and March by tea-time.

March the place, not March the month. I've had enough time travel for one day.

Witching hour

It was great fun. Expect full blog post later this week.

Caw!

According to PRBlogger i'm 74 in the UK100 list of influential UK blogs based on Technorati rankings.

It's not exactly the most accurate way of measuring Blog importance of course, Steven Davies admits as much in the post, but that's not going to stop me crowing about it for a bit.

Crow.

Crow.

Crow.

That's it, I'm done. :-)

Practical Parenting

I work with a guy (who I told about Becky earlier in the year) who has 3 young kids, all girls. I really admire some of his parenting methods.

For example, he treats the official age ratings on DVDs and TV shows as guidelines, and prefers to use his own judgement as to what they'd enjoy, and what's not too violent or sexual. He checks out the films himself first, and is usually on-hand to make answer any questions that might arise. As he points out, Terminator was an 18 when it came out, but it would hardly merit a PG these days.

They watched Torchwood as a family earlier in the week, and I was interested to find out what they'd thought of the (tastefully done) sex scene in the club toilets.

'They thought it was "yucky". And when the alien made the guy explode in a cloud of dust at the end, I said "and that's what happens when you have sex".'

Genius. :-)

Actually his kids are growing up with a very healthy attitude to sex and sexuality, because he tries to be honest with them and be open to any questions they might have.

'They already know about stuff like gays and lesbians,' he said to me the other day. 'Even transvestites.'

'Transvestites?' I asked, fearing the worst.

'Of course, I had to explain about you, didn't I?' he said, smiling.

It was a bit shocked, but I should have realised that the spirit of Glasnost would have included stuff like that. Shocked, but pleased. I know he's just trying to instil open-mindedness in his kids for all things.

But apparently I might have to use a false name if I ever meet his kids in the near future, especially as one of them apparently has an enquiring mind and no concept of 'improper questions'!

More Moo freebie goodness

I think everyone's agreed now that Moo are the best thing since cheese met Branston. And now you can get even more freebie cards, courtesy of a brand new promotion with Skype.

Simply go to the Skype page on the Moo site and use the promo code "freebie".

The designs are completely different from the Flickr ones, but pretty funky in their own right.

(Thanks to pajLog for giving me the heads up on this one.)

Almost totally painful

Special bonus extra only available on this web site: The Breadmaker Theme!

Okay, now I'm worried about me. :-/

China Girl

I have a habit of pinning things to the notice board in my kitchen and never taking them down, so that new items get pinned to the strata of old ones.

I had a bit of a clear-out yesterday and re-disovered this little gem...

er...

Some explanation may be necessary.

I was working on multimedia learning package in the late nineties, and we were looking through a set of stock photography for pictures of rabbits. We came across this picture of a bunny lounging on a cushion in what looked liked Chinese boudoir.

The rabbit seemed to have a strangely sultry expression. Someone (probably me) suggested that it looked like high-class porn for bunny fanciers. And from that this spoof magazine cover developed.

Don't look at the close up, whatever you do.

Yeah, I know, it's wrong. I'm not into rabbits. Honest. :-/

Drawing a line

Nazi gold resurfaces in Switzerland.

Okay, so Nazi is too strong. But this is proof, if proof were needed, that not all trannies are raving lefties.

I like Gillian, she's been a friend in an emails-and-forums and occasional chats at clubs kinda way since her difficult birth onto the tranny scene. But, sometimes I realise you don't always agree with your friend's beliefs.

I wish I was better at verbalising my own political beliefs to properly present a counter-argument, but I'm not. So I guess this is me just drawing a symbolic line and then going and standing the other side of it.

I guess Gillian has done the same thing, except her line is the Swiss border.

My name is too long...

... for me to ever become a blockbuster author. To do that you need a snappy name like "Dan Brown". Preferably two syllables, with one word smaller than the other so that it can be made big on the cover.

I saw a book on Tesco's bestseller shelf today by an author called "Sam Bourne". I didn't check out the glowing recommendations on the sleeve but I imagine they'd be something like.

"Sam Bourne is possibly the author with the most similar name to Dan Brown alive today -- The Daily Express"

"Using two different fonts, the cover designer has truly managed to capture that suggestion of modernity mixed with ancient rites and stuff that is the mark of a bandwagon expertly jumped apon -- Angling Times"

PicLens

I've been trying the beta version of PicLens, a groovy little plug-in for Mac Safari browsers. It basically makes photo sites like Flickr a much more immersive experience, allowing you to browse pages of photos in a full-screen slideshow format.

After installing the software, mousing over an image on a site that's supported by PicLens presents you with a small extra icon. Click it and after a few seconds the picture grows smoothly to fill the screen with the high-definition version. PicLens then starts pre-caching the other images that were on that page, and you can navigate through them with an interface similar to an iPhoto slideshow. It makes surfing Flickr a completely different experience as each picture is show at it's best.

Currently it's OSX Safari only, although a PC version is promised. I'm hoping for a version for my current browser of choice, Firefox.

De-Gauss

Holiday '06

That was a fun week. :-)

It started with a Very British Tranny Night down in London. I looked like this:



For about 5 minutes before we went out of the door. Then as usual it all went a bit rough round the edges. The outfit was kinda built around the gold lamé skirt, which I found a couple of weeks ago in Milton Keynes. It sang to me.

Amazingly, I sucessfully recognised and chatted with everyone I was supposed to at Trans-Mission. Including the delegates from Tokyo, Sydney, Finland and All Points Not King's Lynn.

Then a brief Thistle Full English Breakfast and a snooze and it was off to Portugal. The bit at the bottom they call the Algarve.

Which was great. I've never done a "beach" holiday before, normally I like to keep busy and go places where I can point at architecture and say "that's interesting" in a John Major accent. So it was a nice change of gear.

The Algarve during the summer season must be absolutely heaving, judging by the number of bars and restaurants there are to cater for tourists. The great thing was they were all still open despite the lack of customers, so we were spoilt for choice for places to eat and drink. At the same time the weather was still very good, so it seemed like the best of both worlds.

We spent most of the time lounging on the beach. I caught up with some essential work: reading a Pratchett Backlog and finding the entrance to World 4 on Super Mario Brothers. You know, real important stuff that tends to slip if you don't make time for it.

I also took some nice pictures, I'm not going to bore you by showing you them all.

I am going to bore you by showing you some of them.

This was the view from our apartment.



The cars really did whizz past leaving lines like that. But only after the third or fourth glass of Port.

Here's a shot taken on the beach that I'm kinda proud of.



And finally, a shop for Lady's Things.



Oh yeah, that reminds me, I've also been reading the most astonishing piece of transgendered fiction ever commited to paper. I've got no idea how or when I can blog about it though.

Or if anyone's even interested. I always get the feeling after coming back from a blog break that everyone might have wandered off to do Other Things. ;-)

Envéritély

Don't listen to cheesy pop before bedtime

Last night I was told I had a rare genetic condition. Apparently I have lower-case DNA.

I always get weird dreams like that after Trans-mission nights. :-/

That's what I'm talking about

It's not been processed much, basically what came out of the camera with a little contrast adjustment and cropping.

This looks like me, it's not entirely flattering, but it's how I looked last night, and I think I look great. That's a good photograph.

Thanks April. Nice to catch up to. So many old friends, blah blah blah. :-)

Last night was good fun. I might blog about it properly if I get a chance.

About three months

At least I'm not the Paul Gascoigne

Got a busy weekend coming up, so not much time to blog. I've grabbed a few minutes while Jane's in the bath reading my copy of Repartee that came today. She's guffawing at the fact I'm in a feature Gillian edited called "Before They Were Famous".

According to Jane, my level of fame is "The Steve McManaman of the Tranny World". Apparently this is a good thing!

Bizarrely when I looked up who Steve McManaman was (reinforcing Jane's theory that he's only famous enough to be well known by people into football, in the same way only someone with a pretty thorough knowledge of the UK tranny scene would ever have heard of me) I discovered he was born exactly one day before me! There must be something in Horoscopes after all. ;-)

So as I said, this weekend is a busy one. Tomorrow we're off down to London for an old-skool tranny night. I've got a list as long as my arm of people I've got to see, including Shannon and Mini (a small portion of the Derby posse), Katya and Cyanne (from Sydney), Joanna Nicholls, Karol Cross, Tidy (a Flickr contact), Yoko (Flickr too, from Japan), Valerie (Finland), Clarissa Clement, Connie and Tracy...

I've probably forgotten some. :-) And I was gonna link to all their spaces on the web. But, I cannot be arsed.

Feedback to the new January date for Transpocalypse has been a lot more promising. Which is good. Looking forward to seeing a lot of you again, or for the first time!

Then on early on Monday Jane and I are off to the Algarve for a last-minute holiday. Which I'm really looking forward to!

But it does mean that I won't be able to post the second part of the Tranny and TV two-parter, so...

Another flickr faker?

My misguided one-tranny crusade to rid Flickr of fakers who post pictures of real girls and pretend that they're trannies continues.

I've found a corker. It's so good that I'm tempted to describe it as "new media" work of tranny fiction rather than an out-and-out fake.

Her name is "Josephemme", the most interesting pics are the ones she shows only to people on her "friends" list, the ones with the Photoshopped-in "masculine bulge" in her knickers. It's well done, but anyone with a modicum of experience of photo modification can see the tampering. It sticks out like... er... a sore thumb. ;-)

Anyway, this is all just my opinion. Decide for yourself. The profile is worth a read on it's own. :-)

Would be particularly interested in Isobel and Lisa's opinions on the "bulge" pics, as I spotted them on her friends list :-)

Scratch that

Sorry, Transpocalypse on the 4th of November is cancelled. :-(

I didn't realise quite what an effect a Liverpool home game against Reading would have on the hotel availability situation. Basically it's become impossible to get a hotel room anywhere near the centre of town. I didn't like the idea of people finding odd hotel rooms all over the place, especially lone trannies away from home! One of the nice things about last year's event was everything was in walking distance, and I want the next one to be the same.

So...

4th of November: CANCELLED.

New date: 27th of January 2007.


Updated FAQ:

Q: Why so late?
There weren't any good dates in late 2006. Plus this gives people a bit more time to prepare. 27th of January was the first good weekend with nothing major happening in the city. (Yet... you might want to book a hotel room before they decide to hold an FA cup match there or something.)

Q: Where can I stay?
A: I suggest the Travelodge Liverpool Central.

Q: So what's Transpocalypse, then?
A: Transpocalypse is a get-together for people in the Tranniesphere. We had one last year in Birmingham. People seemed to enjoy it. :-)

Q: What's the tranniesphere?
A: It's a word that Siobhan invented to describe the community of tranny blogs. Although in this context it includes non-tranny bloggers on the edge of the tranny scene, who might just link to a tranny site or comment/contribute regularly. And trannies who might not "blog" but do maintain a personal website.

Q: So can I come?
A: If you fit into the categories in the answer above, yes! We'd love to see you.

Q: When is it?
A: The 27th of January. It will probably kick off around about 8.00PM-ish.

Q: Where is it?
A: Liverpool City Centre.

Q: Why Liverpool?
A: Why not? Basically because it's a place I've "trannied" in the past and I know it. I'd toyed with other locations but they would have been a bit of a shot in the dark. Also, there are lots of tranny events down south, so this makes a bit of a change.

Q: But isn't Liverpool a bit, you know, straight? Won't it be dangerous going outside the main tranny "scene"?
A: If you get enough trannies in one place we make a scene. (In more ways than one!) And the parts of liverpool we'll be going will be in and around the gay club areas, so pretty safe. I've been out in Liverpool several times with no troubles.

Q: What will happen on the night?
A: Probably a meal and a chance for a chin-wag, then off to a gay club in Liverpool. Plans are a little open at the moment, it will depend on numbers!

Q: I want to come! What do I do?
A: Email me so I know! Répondez S'il Vous Plaît!!:-)

Schism

After a night's hacking at some already flimsy code, Tranny and TV now have their own section, and you can even subscribe to a feed.

You've never had it so good! ;-)

A properly researched, rounded tranny character... In Hollyoaks??

So I'm doing the washing up with the Simpsons on in the background, which ends and then Hollyoaks comes on. I never watch Hollyoaks. I'm not saying it's crap, it's just not aimed at my age group, but my hands were too soapy to change the channel so I kept it on.

And... there's a tranny in it! Why did no one tell me!?

And what's more, the writer's have actually done their research, judging from the episode I saw. The character, Kris Fisher, has been beaten up for dressing. He talked about keep a stash of clothes when he was young, being discovered by his parents, and not wanting to be a woman, just wanting to wear the clothes. Channel four have even gone to the effort of promoting a link to an article on cross dressing at the end of the program.

Okay, it's not going to be perfect, and I bet there are trannies on forums right now berating Channel 4 for getting it horribly wrong. But I'm very impressed indeed.

From what I've seen it's not being sensationalised, and the character isn't "just" a tranny. He's not effeminate, they've even given him a Northern Irish accent* (officially the most manly accent in the UK). More importantly he's not being presented as a pervert. But perhaps most importantly of all: he's a young man, on a program that's watched by young people.

That's really to be applauded, I can safely say that I never saw anything like that in my teens or twenties, when I really could have used it.

I've long hoped that someday a mainstream British soap would tackle transvestism in this way, I must admit I didn't expect it to be Hollyoaks!

*Makes you wonder what websites the writers studied. ;-)

The iTen Commandmentunes

Ten tunes to live your life by, courtesy of my iPod.

1. Don't give up the fight
2. Don't mug yourself
3. Don't smoke in bed
4. Don't rain on my parade
5. Don't look back in anger
6. Don't bring me down
7. Don't change your plans
8. Don't ask me why
9. Don't let's start
10. Don't cry for me, Argentina

Wise words, I think you'll agree.

Not the definitive list though, it needs your suggestions from your collections! :-)

Brought down from the mount by: 1. The Magic Numbers, 2. The Streets, 3. Nina Simone, 4. Bobby Darin, 5. Oasis, 6. Electric Light Orchestra, 7. Ben Folds Five, 8. The Eurythmics, 9. They Might Be Giants, 10. Me First and the Gimme Gimmies (probably other people too).

Stunningly boring, and yet amazingly gory

That's right T&TV fans! Tune in next week for the exciting conclusion of this tale, including the earth-shattering debut of Microwave, the post-op television!