AirmaxUK

So… Train strikes this weekend and engineering work resulting in Marylebone being closed have scuppered my plans for the weekend, Any suggestions for some epic BB fun outside the capital this weekend?

Heading to Luton tomorrow for the Bears day - anyone want to join me?

I've been giiving it some thought and I haven't really come to any firm conclusions. When the time comes I'd be looking at the local NHS trusts and how they perform. Having seen how Buckinghamshire (a fairly affluent area) struggles to cope with my elderly parents needs I *really* wouldn't want to grow older here. My folks have me to help them navigate the NHS and in some cases sort private treatment, but I won't have anyone to look out for me in the same way. A friend of mine thinks we should get a group together and start some kind of gay commune - it's an extreme idea but it has its merits.

Follow up question: where profile names appear around the site, could profile names be tagged (maybe with a sleepy emoji 😴 ) or "greyed out" if the member has not logged in here for more than a year (or some threshold) to indicate they are probably no longer active?

When you search for members and get the list of results, you can sort the list by various means - reputation score, number of posts, date joined. What would be really useful is to sort by "last active" so you can see who remains an active participant and who hasn't logged in for 10 years. Is that possible? Thanks Andy

I believe it is the SOP birthday party this Sunday - however I'm unable to go because of the train disruption from strikes and engineering works - Marylebone is closed.

Sadly I missed out on The Fort - but I did frequent Play Pit in the Caledonian Road. Every time I walk past the old place I get pangs of nostalgia for it. It sounds like much the same sort of place - no attitude - just lots of horny guys doing their thing.

Probably The Bull Bar in Berlin. Famous for being open 24/7 and having one of the most active darkrooms. Close second would be The Underground Club at Central Station London for SOP.

I'm on twitter but only passively so as a consumer, but I do find the noise level quite high. Some guys reel you in with interesting stuff and then retweet political garbage. I don't plan on leaving or using it a great deal. I see that Wicker got bought by Amazon and they're not allowing new consumer accounts from end of 2022 and will discontinue it completely in 2023. They appear to be focusing on enterprise and corporate services going forward. I use WhatsApp mostly and Telegram occasionally.

There's a guy that goes to SOP regularly who has this - and similar graphics - tattooed prominently on him. If you have the graphic, you can get it printed easily. It can be done by an online printer, you can get iron-on print at home transfers - or if you know someone with a Cricut they could make it using transfer film or inpregnating ink.

Less of a seminal moment but more of a culmination of moments... Back when breakdancing was a thing we'd unroll peices of linoleum at break and lunchtime practice and show off moves. I remember one of the lads who was a better dancer came back from holiday to Florida and had a pair of Nike Hitops ho brought there. He claimed they were the reason he could do various moves so well, so one lunchtime I asked him to let me have a try, so I laced on his hitops and unexpecedly, it made me feel so good wearing them. That I think was the initiating moment. I also have incredibly focused intense friendships - probably a autistic spectrum thing - they were innocent - not at all sexual and I think that was also the beginning of the path for me. Time passed and I recall in my mid to late teens I was pushed to go to baptist church sunday school and the teenage 'christian endeavour' group. The way the group worked was everyone took turn to organise an evening's discussion, sutdies, or activities. One particular evening was organised by one of the lads who was in my year at 6th Form - he was one of those boys who was just good at everything they did - I think he was even Head Boy. I recall the evening was a discussion on avoiding teenage temptations - and started as a lecture in abstinance, but then rather quickly he started going on about the sins of being gay and delivered that part of the lecture staring right at me, spewing all kinds of vitriol. Everything fell into place for me at that moment. Hidden feelings, desires, internal conflicts all popped into focus and made sense. Somehow he'd seen through me and I knew what I hadn't figured out yet... and I guessed I'd been sussed out at that point. I never went back figuring I wasn't welcome. Since I was 18 at the time I was soon to leave to go to University, so my disappearance went almost unnoticed. Looking back, I wonder if part of the reason he sussed me so easily was because he saw a reflection of something he recongnised in himself? In parallel to this I was at an all-boys grammar school. It wasn't what you might expect - back in the late 80's early 90's it was a very hostile place to be openly gay. I am not aware anyone was, at the time. There was no support, and people generally supported Thatcher's Section 28. I rememeber we had someone come in to talk to us about HIV/AIDS from Terrance Higgins Trust and he got booed and jeered so much they abandoned it. Looking back a there were five of us that were friends - none of us were open about who we were or what we might feel but it turns out that in later life we all had something in common we didn't realise. The first I bumped into in Balans Soho. He was a waiter there. Others popped up over the years on gaydar.co.uk when that was a thing, and others I've met up at reunions and even job interviews. Strange how we all gravitated together but never revealed our true selves to each other. Oddly I recall we had someone in our year who was very disruptive - punishment didn't work and he was often exluded. He didn't really have any friends and wasn't violent towards other students or staff... just attention seeking, destructive and distruptive. They brought a therapist and as part of his therapy, he had to pick three students who he trusted to observe, feedback and help him. The three guys he picked... all of us it turned out were from that group of five. Looking back it really makes me wonder... Grammar School was very competitive academically and in sport - and there was a strong emphasis on Rugby and Gymnastics. I was far from an athlete and much more at home in the computer science and engineering labs. I remember trying to get out of having to do rugby practice or athletics by 'forgetting' my kit. I figured if you didn't have your kit, you can't play. If you had one of the softer games masters, you'd get sent to the Library. But two out of the three games masters were ex-army and seemd to be sadisic.. Generally their approach was that you had to pick some kit from the lost property box and carry on... It was likely unwashed, and not quite the right size, so it made you stand out and get picked on. So this idea of forgetting kit was not great... but it triggered something. I kinda enjoyed wearing other lad's kit and not knowing who's it was. The humiliation wasn't that good, but at least for a moment I had people's attention. At the time it was negative but I got a kick out of it somehow. The gamechanger for me was when one of the guys I was in engineering class with and had a secret crush on had rugby in the morning and offered to lend me his kit for my afternoon rugby session to avoid the humiliation of wearing lost property. I believe it was totally born out of purely innocent good intentions on his part. Initially at least, he didn't realise the effect on me - and the bonus was at lunchbreak he played in it again, and he took it off moments before giving it to me, so it was warm and filled with his fresh pheromones. I think, in that moment my gearfetish was born. It became a regular thing on Wednesdays that he'd play in the morning and at lunchtime, and in the afternoon I'd borrow his kit and play in it in the afternoon. After a while, he even got a little bit flirtatious sometimes, but never led to anything. What became of him I don't really know: I never bumped into him again but thanks for FriendReunited (remember that?), I understand he got married, had a family, kids, etc. So all this was hidden... and definetly not out in the open. Fast forward a few years and I'm in the final year of my masters degree. Still hiding in plain sight. But then I discovered IRC (Internet Relay Chat - a bit like Discord) and there were a lot of student run channels. In particular #uk-poofs was a very friendly channel - and unlike the social media internet today had one foot in reality. The channel had regular meet-ups and parties. I lurked to start with, then started to engage, met a couple of guys on a 1-1 basis and then and went to my first party in Finchley, north London. Fromt there I made friend who took me to places and I discovered 79CXR, The Anvil, the Sauna in Lavender Hill and Play Pit. And from there it's only gotten more interesting.... So here I am today.

If it's quiet, quite often it needs one or two guys to 'get things going'. I sometimes use these moments to chat to guys and see if I can get something going instead of joining those that endlessly pace around in vain...

Interesting to note your observation, @1hornyjohn I guess it depends when you go as these places can be variable depending on the crowd... I usually go to the Bear Sunday thing on the last Sunday in the month. The last two were really very busy, and I've had some good fun there.

Whatsapp group link is no longer working. Is there a new one?

Planning on travelling up tomorrow for the day - hoping there will be some BZ guys around? Let me know if you're headed there also...

Cadbury's Creme Eggs.

Does this particular pattern/colourscheme have a specific name?

Pretty sure Apple News said next Saturday and Sunday were affected.

You often see items of clothing in military surplus stores with this pattern. Wondering if anyone knows if material with this print pattern can be bought by the meter off a roll? (I have a couple of ideas for a project) Any pointers welcomed. Andy

Are any of you watersports guys going?

I'm planning on a visit tomorrow - likely 3 pm until about 8/9 pm. I figured this would be a good week to go since there's a train strike next week. As always, I'm keen to meet other BZ guys, so if you're coming, send me a message to say hi. Andy

I think there's a chasm between fantasy and reality. For a few of us, we've mentally closed that gap or bridged it. Making the leap from one side to the other isn't an easy step for most guys. Then the internet came along and made it easy for guys on the fantasy side to communicate with the guys on the reality side. Indeed it made it easy for them to vicariously get off on what was going on in the reality side. I think we have to realise when talking to guys online that we can't assume we're all on the same side. Getting someone to cross from the fantasy side to the reality side is hard work - it's very much a journey for them. So - we need to figure out which side the guys are on. In the fetish and bareback communities, there are proportionally more people on the fantasy side and fewer on the reality side. So, I start by assuming guys are on the fantasy side initially and then look for flags that might indicate otherwise: reputation, history, attendance of in-person events or bars/clubs/saunas, and experience that sounds real rather than a plotline from Treasure Island Media. @BBSMKR mentioned his hotel experience. When it comes to a meet like that where there is travel and accommodation involved, for me, the other guy needs to have "skin in the game" - have some kind of commitment to the meet so he has something to lose if he flakes. That might be material, or in a community like this one, it could be reputational. That's not always possible, so it's best to have a Plan B, like a nearby Bar, Club or Sauna where you can still have fun. I don't rely on apps for my Plan B as you usually get more of the same! Hope that helps.

Will be visiting Munich next week, staying near the Messe. Looking for: a. Recommendations of the best cruisey, sleazy places to visit on a weekday evening. b. Any local guys or visitors who want to meet up. Reply here or DM me.

I didn't taken them, just the lube. Actually it was a really disappointing visit on the whole. Normally they insist (and enforce) naked - no towels as well. There were plenty of guys in Jocks and wrapped in towels, which isn't in keeping with the CumUnion ethos. The venue has gone downhill a bit too - about half of the TV screens were displaying "No Input" and you could really tell they turned the heating down. They used to do a nice lunch there too for cumunion, but it was just soup.

Sadly these guys were not at CumUnion in Northwich yesterday. The venue were even handing them out to customers as they arrived. Kinda defeats the point of CumUnion.