Indiscreet Pleasures

What a gay time was had by all at Sydney's Seymour centre last night when Bob Downe and Mitzi Macintosh hosted Rupert Everett for a conversation about his scintillating autobiography Red Carpets and other banana skins.

Subjects ranged from the size of Bob Geldorf's cock to Sharon Stone's sexual technique to the new trend among Hollywood female stars to have their genitals injected with collagen to make them look prettily engorged. (Why are we not surprised?) The audience of mostly middle-aged gay men seemed very keen to know if Rupe was a "top" or a "bottom," which he deflected cleverly. There was much camping around on the Ikea set by Bob and Mitzi, fueled by vodka toasts in Swedish style, and the bemused Mr. Everett was an all-round good sport.

Rupert will be marshall of the parade at the gay and lesbian Mardi-Gras next Saturday night. In the meantime, read his book, which is hilarious, bitchy, self-deprecating and unputdownable. Beyond this, he writes like an angel, with breathtaking passages of literary brilliance, especially in his insightful observations of the downside of fame and his relationships with complicated women such as Paula Yates and Beatrice Dalle. As Bob said last night, as a showbiz autobiography "it's right up there with David Niven's The Moon is a Balloon and the Dirk Bogarde books." But methinks it's even better than that.