Blender Fluid by Jeremy Langmead
i’m standing here with a blowtorch in my hand. I would love you to think — in fact, I would love me to think — that it’s because I’m welding the underside of a vintage Ford Capri, or removing stubborn paint from a window frame I’m renovating, but alas it’s neither of those. I’m using my brand new blowtorch to caramelise the surface of the pistachio panettone cake I’ve just made.
Until a few months ago, my culinary repertoire consisted of baked potatoes. Thank you baked potato. I was very good at eating food, not so good at creating it. Food was a side dish that accompanied a main course of wine. In any case, I was far too busy pursuing traditional manly pursuits such as attending fashion shows in Paris and testing tinted moisturisers.
I like to think I was gender stereotype fluid long before it was fashionable. I knew about footballers (if they were handsome or dressed nicely), liked big cars (if they came with a butterscotch leather interior), loved booze (Whispering Angel rosé please), and happily married a woman (and then a man). Basically, a fully paid-up member of the trug-carrying, truck-driving fraternity. On paper I sound like a lesbian.
But being bisexual with bi-hobbies has sometimes made life a little perplexing. And fathering two sons only added to the confusion. Although the boys’ mother and I didn’t force them down any of the traditional stereotype routes by buying them plastic guns and tool kits for Christmas, or decorating their bedrooms in Buzz Lightyear wallpaper, they naturally gravitated towards conventional male hobbies: they supported Manchester United, wanted Fifa games for their PlayStations, and liked visiting the Science Museum. I felt that, as their dad, I should be seen to have a keen interest in all of the above. So I avidly read The Sunday Times sports section each weekend, kept an eye on United’s weekday games, and pretended I loved spending every Saturday afternoon rocking back and forth on the simulated earthquake platform at the museum.
Back then, in the 2000s, I believed boys wanted their dads to be like everyone else’s dad. Even if he worked in fashion not finance. And I will admit that, for a few years, I revelled in the role of dude dad. I liked driving cars that my sons thought looked like the Batmobile, proudly displayed a framed Polaroid of myself posing with David Beckham (I hid the one of me with Posh
Spice), and boasted that the only food I served at supper parties was orange: fish fingers, oven chips and baked beans.
But as the kids grew older, my resolve grew weaker. I couldn’t keep up with their levels on PlayStation, they now knew much more than me about football, and I got so bored watching the endless reruns of Takeshi’s Castle that they were addicted to. So slowly I let my (old) guard down. I would make them watch Gossip Girl or Glee, force them to spend hours staring at houses in estate agents’ windows, take them on trips to The Conran Shop rather than the Dragon Ball Z store, and when we were kindly given an executive box for a charity match at Old Trafford I sat at the back watching Coronation Street on the little telly oblivious to what was happening on the pitch below.
Years later, when I kissed my bi days goodbye and married a bloke, I found it hard to let go of