Too much to do

I just have to learn that I don’t like flying. I find it very difficult to think beyond a flight. I returned to London today, but, until I landed, couldn’t get my head around what that meant, because every time I thought about the future, there was this yawning ten-hour chasm of fear and boredom obliterating any thoughts I might have otherwise been able to formulate! Flying is a necessary evil, however, and I’m nothing like as bad at it as I used to be. I used to write these lengthy and highly dramatic streams of consciousness about how I was feeling. Every bump or bank of turbulence was notated in a panicked, doomsday scrawl. The flight staff with American Airlines, with their sour faces and lack of empathy would have added a whole new layer of hideousness to the experience as they came running down the aisles, launching food like paper darts and rolling their eyes at customers. Twice now on American Airlines flights, I’ve sat next to someone who’s asked for water and been told by a hostess that she’s not sure there’s any spare. Read, “I can’t be arsed to get you any.” On my flight on the way over, as we were waiting to taxi to the runway, the hostess looked down at me and said, “who are you?” When I told her my name, she got on the radio and said, “Till is on the flight. Yeah, he’s here.” She walked away without any further comment. Not a glimmer of a smile touched her lips. Or any explanation! Whilst in LA, I became obsessed with the idea of experiencing an earthquake. Part of me feels like it’s a right of passage. They’re nothing like as rare as you might think in LA. Minor tremors happen there all the time. Despite this, I managed to royally freak out the member of staff standing at the top of one of the tall structures at the water park yesterday by asking if she’d ever been up there during an earthquake. Her face went pale as she admitted that she hadn’t. It turned out that the journey home was a British Airways-staffed flight, which made me very happy. The moment I got on the plane, the experience was entirely different to the American Airlines nonsense. There were smiles. The staff were falling over themselves to help, and be attentive and polite. It makes such a difference. The only issue is the infernal announcements by cabin staff, which include a lengthy spiel about the British Airway’s charity, and way too many incorrect uses of reflexive pronouns. The flight was long and deeply dull. I did quite a lot of work on Brass, and watched a couple of films. I saw The History Boys for the first time, which I thought was excellent and very moving in places, and then got bored rigid by the hugely indulgent Dream Girls. I genuinely thought I loved ALL film musicals. But this was something else. Plot-light. Jeopardy-light. Full of unlikable characters. Full of songs with no purpose. Full of songs written in a style I don’t particularly like. Loads of shrieking and vocal theatrics, which were impressive enough - Jennifer Hudson, in particular, has pipes to die for - but once you’ve heard one mega-bout of belting, your ears start to bleed. The film first made me angry, and then just really bored. So what happens the day you get back to London from LA after not sleeping a wink? You organise to do a shed load of stuff, all of which requires a lot of concentration! I had a meeting with a union, a dental appointment, and a quiz to prep and run! It’s probably the largest quiz I’d ever run. I think there were 36 teams and the sound system was very poor quality. The dentist was another experience altogether, but this might take a bit of explaining... For the past year or so, I have been on the NHS PrEP trial. PrEP is a wonder drug which essentially prevents the HIV virus from entering a body. It’s like a vaccine and it means that if I come into contact with the HIV virus, PrEP will kill it before it takes hold. Thousands of gay men are on the trial and thousands more buy PrEP privately. And the results are staggering. Particularly in London, where HIV is no longer deemed an epidemic and there’s been a 90% drop in new diagnoses. If everyone took PrEP for ten years, HIV would die. I am, however, often staggered by medical professionals’ lack of knowledge about the drug, and indeed all things HIV-related. Today at the dentist’s, I was asked, in the public waiting room, if I was on any medication. I told the dentist I was on PrEP. She instantly got uncomfortable but tried not to show it. Then she actually wrote on my form “patient takes PrEP for AIDS.” Firstly, there’s actually no such thing as AIDS any more. No medical practitioner would use that term. And secondly, I do not have AIDS. I am not HIV positive. In fact, it is very dangerous for an HIV positive person to take PrEP. I do not want to have to educate a medical practitioner in public. For me the whole sordid and excruciatingly embarrassing conversation was a symptom of a far wider problem, which is, for far too long, many straight people have brushed HIV aside as a gay disease. Well, let me tell you something. It’s coming your way! More straight people in the UK are now HIV positive than gay people, and new cases of the disease are still on the rise in the heterosexual world. Time to wake up and smell the coffee. A baby is no longer the worst thing you can catch!