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YOU know, public servants say the funniest things.
I was leafing idly through some literature from the government organisation Companies House, slogan ‘We incorporate and dissolve limited companies’, when I happened upon this blog https://companieshouse.blog.gov.uk/2018/02/14/amy-dillwyn-lgbt-history-month/.
In it, ‘digital content designer’ Jason Pawlin marks ‘LGBT History Month’ by recalling the life and times of a cigar-smoking, trilby-wearing female industrialist who was clearly not the marrying kind.
It set me thinking: if such enlightened content is freely available on a government website, perhaps other apparently unlikely sources might be making their own contribution to the LGBT debate.
My first stop was Make ’Em Pay, unofficial fanzine for Inland Revenue staff and their camp followers. Nestling between the adverts for inflatable bowler hats and tax-deductible weekends in Cheam is a blog from ‘Chalkstripe’.
I quote: ‘For the past few months I have grown increasingly attracted to my immediate boss, whom I shall call Mr Smith although his real name is Danvers-Walker. Yesterday I followed him into the unisex lavatories where, to my astonishment, he took off his spectacles, removed his short, centre-parted Brylcreemed wig and shook his head to reveal ravishing blonde tresses. “But Mr Smith,” I gasped. “You’re beautiful!”’ (Remaining paragraphs removed by censors).
Next to Down The Hatch, journal of
forward-thinking undertakers. Its lead item is an account of a corpse which
actually transitions while being prepared for burial, necessitating a deeper
coffin.
Exterminate!, essential reading for pest
controllers everywhere, gives a thoughtful account of an assignment to
eradicate a colony of foxes in an old lady’s back garden. Just about to poison the
mangy invaders, the operative, who thinks he/she might be bisexual, realises that
several of the vulpine community are displaying gay behaviour. In compassion, he
spares their lives but charges the old dear £200 anyway.
Flour Power, for go-ahead bakers, recounts how a
batch of uncooked gingerbread men mysteriously went pink overnight and demanded
to share an oven with the vol-au-vents.
Over at the
sister publication Takeaway Times,
there is an allegorical tale of a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich that comes
to realise it can be happy only with the addition of gherkins.
Back to the
exciting world of number-crunching with Love,
Actuary – for all evaluators of risk and uncertainty. Its blogger, ‘Captain
Dangerous’, details an encounter with an elderly client whose life insurance
policy has to be amended after he begins gender reassignment therapy.
Finally, I had a quick look at Gay Gordons (incorporating Rubber Fetishists’ Fantasies) but found nothing of interest.