Tom wrote:
Having seen more than concert from the Release is nothing I'd be proud of. It was rather shoddy....
I know. That's why I've just said that the main reasons for actually travelling to Brussels wasn't that I really had a burning desire to see another Release show at all.
Anyway, part two:
We arrived in Brussels around 11pm on the night of June 25th (actually the birthday of another hairy fairy half-Greek from Hampstead who has sex in places he shouldn't

) and decided to hit the bars almost immediately. I love that culture that that's when people are just heading out, unlike in the UK when most people are staggering home from the pub.
Visited a couple of gay places and had a bit of a snog with a very handsome young guy who told me he worked at a place called Macho Sauna and gave me a flyer for it. He also told me that we'd picked the right week because on the Friday night (28th June) it was the La Demence night at Fuse, universally regarded as the best club in Brussels. La Demence is the roughly once a month gay 'party' night on all four floors of Fuse and people travel from all over Belgium plusparts of Holland, Germany, France and Luxembourg. He said it really was not to be missed.
Walking back down one of the city's main boulevards to the stunning apartment my sister's friend had loaned us, I noticed a small group of student-looking young guys and one of them in particular who kept staring at me.
As I was in a strange place (and I'd only ever passed through Belgium before, never really visiting at all) and not knowing much about the place or the locals, I started to get a little worried. The friend I was there with is not, erm, one of the most masculine men in the world - bless him - and I started to get a little freaked out that we were being targeted by queerbashers, having only been in the city a couple of hours or so.
The guys were all laughing and joking with each other - in French - and I had no idea what they were planning. Eventually they all went their separate ways until the only guy who still seemed to be going the same direction as us was the one who kept turning around and looking at us.
I stopped at a large street map just outside a McDonalds to see what his reaction would be, and, yes, he slowed right down, almost as if he was waiting for us.
After what seemed like an eternity, I decided there was only one way to figure out what was goingf on and took a deep breath and plucked up the courage to approach him and see what his reaction was.
I asked him if he could tell me if we were going in the right direction for the street where we were staying and to point it out on a little map I had with me (I knew roughly where we were anyway). He was as friendly as can be, and as he used his left hand to point to the map, I suddenly found his right hand stroking my back and then when I didn't protest, my behind.
I thought to myself 'bloody hell, this place is great! I can walk down an almost deserted street at 3 in the morning and a fit young handsome guy who I thought might want to bash my brains in wants to touch me up!'
I, erm, responded in kind and he beckoned me over to a shop doorway. It was a photo developing store on the corner of a small shopping centre which was obviously locked at that time.
My friend, who's possibly come to expect this kind of behaviour from me, said absolutely nothing and sat on a street chair as me and this studenty chap started having some fun in a concealed doorway.
Eventually, I asked him how old he was and he replied, with an impish grin "I am young", rather too enigmatically for my liking. "I can see that, but what age are you?" I replied. There was slight pause before he eventually vounteered "I am 16."
As I picked myself up off the floor I got even more excited and just a little bit amazed at my instant good fortune after such a short time in Brussels.
He said "You come back here tomorrow at 12 o clock. We meet here. but only you, not your friend."
"OK, I'd love to." We had some unfinished business, see.
And I must finish the business of the tale of Chris's abs in part three, I'm afraid................