Pretty Pink Rose...

Ziggy has arranged for pop singer Pink to pop over to help me out with some backing vocals on a new track I'm working on. It needs someone to cover the low notes I can't quite reach these days - plus, being rather on the strapping side, The Pinkster's a pretty useful young lad to have hanging around if you need a Marshall stack or two lugging about the studio - it's as much as I can do to pick up a pack of joss sticks with my lumbago. So I'm a bit confused when a well-put together blonde lady shows up at the door in a halter neck top and side-tied lacy knickerbockers and not much else. "Sorry love, the meter's already been read - last Tuesday. Now hop it before I give the managing director of Eon a stiff talking to. I know Sir Alan Sugar you know - and I was Hilton John's fag at Oxford - or was it Watford? Anyway, that's beside the point, just don't think that because I haven't had a hit since 1976 that I'm not in with the movers and the shakers. One step further and you'll be back on the Jobseekers' Allowance before you can say twenty per cent carbon emmissions reductions from your combi-boiler..."

I'm just about to ring Neighbourhood Watch when she hurriedly fishes a CD out of her tote bag featuring on its cover a scantily clad, pink-haired stevedore who bears an uncanny resemblance to the chappy stood in front of me and I can see that I've just teetered on the brink of making a ghastly mistake. Fortunately, I've just ordered in a box of assorted biscuits which, washed down with a couple of cups of my industrial strength Rosie Lee and a couple of snorts of Bostik - not to mention a strenuous apology from yours truly - help bring her round to seeing that it's all been an awful misunderstanding and pretty soon we're all in the party mood.

"I do like your knickerbockers, young sir," I tell Pink as she's polishing off the last of the pink wafers. "I don't suppose I could try them on could I? I've been looking for a new gimmick in the underwear department ever since the all-in-one-see-through-tube-dress got shrunk in the wash and those babies look like just the ticket..." Pink makes his apologies, would love to help and everything but ....not to put too fine a point on it, he's ...shall we see...*going* *commando*...

Fair play to the lad for being so candid - last thing I need with a headful of adhesives and Peek Freans biscuits is an eyeful of the old pink pepperami. I still have cold sweats in the night from the time I spent a year shacked up with Romi Haag in Berlin. Going to bed every night with a luscious-legged siren only to wake up with an unshaven brute with legs like emery boards can do terrible things to a man's psyche, I can tell you. Played havoc with me 20 deniers too...

I'll post the track up when Eno's finished beggaring about with it. Right-ho - must dash; these post-ironic gothic-mash-up trance anthems don't write themselves you know!

L.U.V. on ya,

Bob

First things first...

Right, the first thing you've noticed is probably the fact that I'm wearing stockings. Which is a shame, because I spent about 120 quid on getting my hair and make-up done and all you lot can do is gawp at me legs - honestly, I don't know... The stockings were six pounds - well, I say stockings - they're actually cut down 70 deniers from Boots (three pairs for six ... never let it be said I don't have an eye for a bargain in the hosiery department. I just wish my stylist Keith could learn a little from the nation's favourite pharmacist when it comes to value for money... and, while I think of it, his personal hygiene leaves rather a lot to be desired. But that's another story...)

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, my clobber. Well, as you can imagine, the question I get asked most often is, "Bob - are you a cross dresser?" To which I invariably reply, "Cross? I'm ruddy livid - have you seen the price of pancake in Superdrug? I'll be reduced to using flour and talcum powder again at this rate - like we used to have to in the 70s..." So I hope that's cleared that one up.

And let's get another thing straight right from the off. I might be dressed like a woman down below in the lingerie department and be wearing enough diamante eye shadow to make Shirley Bassey look like Arnold Schwarzenegger on a particularly manly day, but the rest of me is *all* gentleman, believe me. None of that limp wristed, Julian Clary shenanigans from yours truly - I'm built like a pit prop and hung like a Stevedore if you must know, so none of those Boy George comments when my back is turned, or I'll have you in a half Nelson before you can say "Giant Haystacks is a great big nancy boy with his own personal collection of Barbie Doll memorabilia..."

So, that's the gender confusion cleared up, hopefully. Of course, there's no shame in mincing around like a great tart, reeking of white musk and wearing little more than a camisole and a pair of hold ups (although I'd recommend that you put a couple of extra layers on if you're going to be doing any grouting....that stuff gets everywhere...and takes some shifting...) Besides, there's a great tradition of cross-dressing and female impersonation in this country that stretches right back to the days of music hall. Remember such legendary figures as Rachel Heyhoe-Flint, Ann Widdicombe, Cheryl Cole and George Michael? Well, they have all made laudable attempts to pass themselves off as women at one time or another - indeed, George had me fooled right up until I ran a beautifully manicured nail up the length of his five of clock shadow. Went up like a Swan Vesta it did! But that's another story...

Anyway, I must be off - these eyelashes won't crimp themselves, will they? I'll be updating this site as much as I can over the next few weeks, so hopefully you'll come back often and enjoy your visits as much as I enjoy posting stuff up here.

Have a great week everybody!

L.U.V. on ya,

xxx
Bob

Sexuality...

Hard though this will be for my legion of adoring worshippers to believe, it's a lonely old life being a Glam Icon. Oh sure, there's an almost endless stream of private parties, premieres, weekend retreats to discuss global climate warming with the great and the good. And George W. Bush. An yes, there are the legions of groupies and the hordes of playgirls and the endless lines of well-wishers and under-age teeny boppers offering hand relief on a casual, no strings attached basis now, or guilt-free intercourse the next time in Guildford....but away from the crack of the flash bulb, once the last adoring minion has been patted on the head and despatched to the guest room for a menage a quatorze with the other thirteen stunningly accomodating concubines, the bed feels rather big and empty when you're on your own...

That's how it is though, at the top. You can't have it both ways - and believe me, I've tried. Marriage just didn't suit though - as I'm sure Tony Bastable would concur. We tried, but in the end, neither of us was really cut out for a monogamous relationship based on loyalty and trust in which we only shagged one another and nobody else. Shame, he was *spectacularly* well hung...and very good with filo pastry, it might surprise you to learn. And sadly, the same has proved true of even medium to long-term relationships. Oh, I've given it my best shot with some wonderful ladies who would have made someone a terrific husband (or even a wife), but there's always been that sharp tug at the loins to distract me from my chosen one. How does the song go? "I've had relations with girls from many nations...sexuality, tum-ti-tum-ti-tum-ti tee..." Or something like that...

Yes, the old Swipe little red book could tell a tale or two. Obviously, there's such tremendous interest in my privates that I'd be foolish to give too many of the juicy details here for gratis ahead of the publication of *SHAGGED*!: The lives and loves of a Glam Icon, my salacious kiss and tell autobiography (available from all good bookshops from September. And WH Smiths...) So for now, I'm afraid you'll just have to make do with this little taster; a heavily edited, potted history of my sexual conquests. For the sake of conciseness, I've limited this exctract to those of my former lovers who might reasonably be described as being 'in the public eye'. Oh, and Lily Allen...

One Night Stands:


Twiggy: neurotic toenail clipper. Hates Onions. And Arabs.

Miranda Richardson: bellicose after alcohol. Bi-weekly menstrual cycle (?!)

Caroline Quentin: Flexible. Plymouth Argyle season ticket holder.

Farah Fawcett Majors: feint smell of plywood. Otherwise engaging.

Demis Roussos: Pre - Flippant, post - crying jags.

Angela Rippon: fidgety.

Glenn Close: Hung like a pit pony!

Claire Danes: deceptively vulgar; can burp the word Torremelinos unaided...

Daley Thompson: surprisingly vulnerable. Vegan.

Gloria Hunniford: A dab hand with a ratchet screwdriver. No idea in the sack.

Belinda Carlisle: obsessed with walnuts...

Imelda Marcos: squidgy...

Michael Crawford: haunted.

Kate Winslett: borderline diabetic. Lives on salt & shake....

Gary Rhodes: A connoisseur of the garter belt.

Sherilyn Fenn: card carrying Republican. Disturbing views on eugenics...

Isla St. Clair: vicious and indiscreet purveyor of love bites.

Maddhur Jaffrey: waspish. Has own clamps.

Tanya Beckett: Miss Bossyboots (but not in a good way...)

Paul Nicholas: kleptomaniac.

Paula Abdul: Paula Ab*DULL*

Martha Kearney: pert and wise.

Edna O'Brian: Motormouth. Also talks too much.

Nicholas Soames: Surprisingly naiive for a former rent boy.

Amanda Donohoe: alarming stubble. Legs could do with a shave too...

Sian Williams: only puts out in public libraries...


Disputed paternity suits:


Peaches Geldof

Fearne Cotton ( I would have had to have been 12...)

Mika (has my chin, according to his legal team...)

Jules Wilson (also has my chin, but her mothers thighs and bazoombas...)

Objectum sexual:

The A25
Hole punches
Hilligdon Hospital
Tote bags
Magpie Annual, 1975
Secateurs
Coffee & walnut cakes.
Daniel Corbett
A 2 week old Toblerone

L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

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Crossdressing: a Brief Cultural History...

A question I’m often asked is, “Bob; are you really a cross dresser?” Well, there’s an obvious answer to that: “Cross? I’m bloody livid!” Unfortunately, I can never think of it at the time though - must be all that cocaine - so I usually respond with something like; “What’s it to you, you short-arsed, homophobic Nazi bonehead?!”, or “does Liv Ullman have to put up with shite like this? Or Barry Took??” and other equally puerile and ultimately evasive responses.

Of course, in these enlightened times, there’s no shame in attached to a hairy, big boned man, built like a brick shithouse wanting to feel the delicate sheen of satin camisole on nipple. Is there? In fact, the history of gender transformation is long and noble. As far back as 1822, French artist Marcel Duchamp was parading the streets of Paris in the guise of his female alter-ego, Rrose Selavy. Borrowing the hands of a likeminded Fraulein and the legs from an antique chaisse longue, he was regularly to be seen at flea markets and in pharmacies, haggling over the price of a three-pack stocking and garter set. (This was year’s before Boots’ three for two range, obviously - although a few years after the Franco-Prussian war…) Sadly, his friend and collaborator Man Ray was less progressive in his views on cross-dressing, pronouncing the act of dressing as a lady as being "poovey to the point of perversity", so history was denied the opportunity to gaze longingly upon the well turned ankles of Woman Ray (or Man Rayleen?)


Rose Selavy: Eros C'est la vie? Rose se lavee??

Indeed, Duchamp’s behaviour was astonishingly brave for the time - particularly as he wasn’t officially born until 1887. But he’s just one of many illustrious historical figures to have clad themselves in the garb of a lady. Winston Churchill, Paul Newman, D.H. Lawrence, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Glenn Campbell, Archimedes, Basil Brush, Derek and the Dominoes, Arthur Scargill, John McEnroe, Ferenc Puskas, Brenda Blethyn; they’ve all at some point known blokes who get a kick out of dressing up as a saucy tart in camiknickers and suspenders. Crucially, many momentous historical moments and the making of important political decisions have involved men dressing up as women. Britain was *run* by a man dressed up as a woman between 1979-1990. Not very *well*, but you can't say the lad didn't look stunning in a powder blue twin set, pearls and court shoes.

So, let’s have less of the antagonism for those of us who want to sashay around with our beer bellies spilling out from underneath a tightly pulled blood red corset. If Ricky Gervais or Ian Botham want to go out on the town in a spangly boob tube, 10 denier hold ups and wrap-around satin mini skirt, surely it's their lookout? Such an outstanding contribution to cricket and comedy must count for something, surely? And I'm sure Ricky Gervais has also done something that justifies him slopping around the house in a pair of kitten heeled mules and a feather boa if the fancy takes him that way too...



L.U.V. on y'all,

Bob

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