AIDS DAY 2022

As I have done every year since 2006 I am posting a blog entry that was written on World AIDS Day in 2005 by Christopher, a self-admitted London party boy. He wrote of his adventures in Everything is Not Real, a long-abandoned blog. When he wrote it the authorities had just begun to admit that this was a disease that was affecting the general population not just a marginalized section of society. Sadly 16 years later there are still people who, and places were, this is denied, ignored, or as it would seem like today in the mainstream media, forgotten.

December 1, 2005

I have lottery fantasies.

I dream about being able to buy fast cars and designer clothes until they come out of my ears. I want houses in London, New York, East Hampton and Rio. I want to be able to travel first class and work out at The Third Space and get reservations at Annabel’s just because of who I am. I want to be able to take hot dates on tours of the National Gallery. When it’s closed. Because I’m one of it’s biggest benefactors.

Needless to say, twice a week, I am disappointed.

This morning, on the way to work on the tube, I was reading a Times article, written by Annie Lennox, about the millions and millions of people in Africa who are suffering with HIV and AIDS, and dying, and how the governments of the richer nations, such as the one I live in, have pledged support over an eight year period. And how they absolutely must stay committed to this goal.

One of the kids she spoke to on a recent trip to Africa was dying of AIDS. But before he got sick he lost his mother, father, brothers, sisters and pretty much everyone else he cared about to the same disease. He was totally alone in the world. With no hope. And certainly no dreams of fast cars or a nice comfortable house, anywhere. And that shit isn’t even near the important stuff.

There are approximately 6,450,000,000 humans on Earth.

Most of them are not 33 year olds who have careers which afford them access to guest lists to the best clubs and bars the city has to offer. They don’t have friends who will stick with them no matter what (and slip them Jil Sander dress shirts every now and then). They don’t have housemates who have Thai cuisine prepared and ready to eat when they arrive home. They don’t have comfortable beds to sleep in at night.

6,450,000,000.

When I think about it I kinda did win the lottery.

Christopher – Everything Is Not Real

 

As always this is in loving memory of those lost: Gary, Brian, Lawrence, Doug, Bill, Andrew, Pierre, Jim, Don, Billy and so many others. And for those who may have lost the lottery but continue to fight the battle with our help, love and hope.

World AIDS Day – 2021

Though it would appear that the media and most people on social sites are largely ignoring it, today is World AIDS Day. In 1988 it was designated, by the WHO, as a day to remember those who died of AIDS, those livings with AIDS and to educate people about AIDS. And though the AIDS pandemic is still infecting, affecting, and killing people it seems to be forgotten by the press and the public. I only wish that I could forget but that would mean forgetting friends who died in those early years and friends who have fought this disease across the last four decades.

Yes it has been four decades since the first known cases of AIDS were reported in the USA – four decades! In that four decades it is estimated that 80 million people have contracted AIDS and 37 million have died.* In 2020 it is estimated that 37,700,000 people were living with AIDS, 680,000 people died from AIDS, and 1,500,000 people contracted AIDS. Yes the numbers are dropping and there are drugs available to make living with AIDS bearable; but there is still no cure or vaccine, and AIDS is still very much a threat. And it is not just a threat to one community, as so many people still stupidly believe, it is a threat to every community.

As I have done every year for the past 15 years I am posting a blog entry that was written on this day in 2005. Christopher, the author, was a self-admitted London party boy who wrote of his adventures in Everything is Not Real, a long ago abandoned blog. When he wrote it the authorities had just begun to admit that this was a disease that was affecting the general population not just a marginalized section of society. Sadly there are people who, and places were, this is still denied, ignored, or like today, forgotten.

December 1, 2005

I have lottery fantasies.

I dream about being able to buy fast cars and designer clothes until they come out of my ears. I want houses in London, New York, East Hampton and Rio. I want to be able to travel first class and work out at The Third Space and get reservations at Annabel’s just because of who I am. I want to be able to take hot dates on tours of the National Gallery. When it’s closed. Because I’m one of it’s biggest benefactors.

Needless to say, twice a week, I am disappointed.

This morning, on the way to work on the tube, I was reading a Times article, written by Annie Lennox, about the millions and millions of people in Africa who are suffering with HIV and AIDS, and dying, and how the governments of the richer nations, such as the one I live in, have pledged support over an eight year period. And how they absolutely must stay committed to this goal.

One of the kids she spoke to on a recent trip to Africa was dying of AIDS. But before he got sick he lost his mother, father, brothers, sisters and pretty much everyone else he cared about to the same disease. He was totally alone in the world. With no hope. And certainly no dreams of fast cars or a nice comfortable house, anywhere. And that shit isn’t even near the important stuff.

There are approximately 6,450,000,000 humans on Earth.

Most of them are not 33 year olds who have careers which afford them access to guest lists to the best clubs and bars the city has to offer. They don’t have friends who will stick with them no matter what (and slip them Jil Sander dress shirts every now and then). They don’t have housemates who have Thai cuisine prepared and ready to eat when they arrive home. They don’t have comfortable beds to sleep in at night.

6,450,000,000.

When I think about it I kinda did win the lottery.

Christopher – Everything Is Not Real

 

As always this is in memory of those loved and lost: Gary, Brian, Lawrence, Doug, Bill, Andrew, Pierre, Jim, Don, Billy and so many others. And for those who have lost the lottery but fight the battle with our help and love. I haven’t forgotten.

World AIDS Day 2020

In the middle of the second great pandemic of my lifetime I am once again posting a blog entry that first appeared here in 2006 – 25 years into that first pandemic. AIDS had been largely ignored during that period. By 2005 the powers that be had begun to pay attention to a virus that had to that point claimed the lives of 20 million people – 1.7 million in the previous year (2004) alone. Now it was being seen in the general population rather than in just a marginalized section of society. Despite progress that pandemic is still going on: in 2019 over 1.7 million people became newly infected with HIV and 690 000 people died from AIDS-related illnesses.

Christopher at Everything is Not Real was a upwardly mobile London party boy – if his posts were to be believed – who wrote frequently about his escapades on the town. Every once in a while he would write a post that cut through the frivolity and hit at the heart. This post did that on December 5, 2005 and continues to do fourteen years later.

December 1, 2005

I have lottery fantasies.

I dream about being able to buy fast cars and designer clothes until they come out of my ears. I want houses in London, New York, East Hampton and Rio. I want to be able to travel first class and work out at The Third Space and get reservations at Annabel’s just because of who I am. I want to be able to take hot dates on tours of the National Gallery. When it’s closed. Because I’m one of it’s biggest benefactors.

Needless to say, twice a week, I am disappointed.

This morning, on the way to work on the tube, I was reading a Times article, written by Annie Lennox, about the millions and millions of people in Africa who are suffering with HIV and AIDS, and dying, and how the governments of the richer nations, such as the one I live in, have pledged support over an eight year period. And how they absolutely must stay committed to this goal.

One of the kids she spoke to on a recent trip to Africa was dying of AIDS. But before he got sick he lost his mother, father, brothers, sisters and pretty much everyone else he cared about to the same disease. He was totally alone in the world. With no hope. And certainly no dreams of fast cars or a nice comfortable house, anywhere. And that shit isn’t even near the important stuff.

There are approximately 6,450,000,000 humans on Earth.

Most of them are not 33 year olds who have careers which afford them access to guest lists to the best clubs and bars the city has to offer. They don’t have friends who will stick with them no matter what (and slip them Jil Sander dress shirts every now and then). They don’t have housemates who have Thai cuisine prepared and ready to eat when they arrive home. They don’t have comfortable beds to sleep in at night.

6,450,000,000.

When I think about it I kinda did win the lottery.

Christopher – Everything Is Not Real

 

Each time I prepare this entry for posting I am reminded of how many of us have won the lottery. And perhaps this year it has an added meaning with this current pandemic. I am relieved to say that I only know two people, out of the many I know around the world, who have contract COVID-19.

I only wish that I could say that of the AIDS pandemic.

In those first bleak years I lost and wept for colleagues, former lovers, friends and friends who were as close as family. Other loved ones contracted the virus but fought and survived, not an easy fight in those early days. Some of those fighters finally lost that fight but other continue their fight and have vowed to live to 100.

I wonder if the world had taken notice or cared then the way they are doing with this new pandemic how different things would have been. But that is idle speculation – past conditional – and perhaps even given the current situation an unfair comparison. What unsettled me today was what seems to be a return to indifference towards the AIDS pandemic. Nowhere on the news today – radio, websites even the Google doodle – could I find a reference to today being World AIDS Day. A day when we should be bringing attention to and education people about a pandemic that has devastated families, communities, and the world for the past 40 years. Yes I received reminders from several AIDS organizations and Broadway Cares but from the mainstream not a word. Have we become so complacent about it that AIDS no longer merits consideration. And yet it continues to spread – there has been an increase in cases of 25% in the last four years in Canada alone. We cannot allow indifference and complacency to diminish the seriousness and impact of a disease that has infected over 57.7 million people and killed upwards of 32.7 million. Because we have won the lottery does not mean we can forget those who lost.

As always this is in memory of those loved and lost: Gary, Brian, Lawrence, Doug, Bill, Andrew, Pierre, Jim, Don, Billy and so many others. And for those who have lost the lottery but fight the battle with our help and love.

The word for December 1st is:
Indifference /inˈdif(ə)rəns/: [noun]
^1.1 Lack of interest, concern, or sympathy.
^1.2 Unimportance.
Late Middle English (in the sense ‘being neither good nor bad’): from Latin indifferentia, from in- ‘not’ + different- ‘differing, deferring’ (from the verb differre ). Extended sense of “apathetic, no more inclined to one thing than to another” first recorded early 15c.; that of “neither good nor bad” is from 1530s, on notion of “neither more nor less advantageous,” but since 17c. it has tended toward “rather bad.”

World AIDS Day 2019

Once again this year I am posting a message written back in 2005 by Christopher, a blogger who lived in London. I often wonder what happened to him and sincerely hope that he is still dreaming his lottery fantasies and has more reasons to feel that he won one of the lotteries in life.

December 1, 2005

I have lottery fantasies.

I dream about being able to buy fast cars and designer clothes until they come out of my ears. I want houses in London, New York, East Hampton and Rio. I want to be able to travel first class and work out at The Third Space and get reservations at Annabel’s just because of who I am. I want to be able to take hot dates on tours of the National Gallery. When it’s closed. Because I’m one of it’s biggest benefactors.

Needless to say, twice a week, I am disappointed.

This morning, on the way to work on the tube, I was reading a Times article, written by Annie Lennox, about the millions and millions of people in Africa who are suffering with HIV and AIDS, and dying, and how the governments of the richer nations, such as the one I live in, have pledged support over an eight year period. And how they absolutely must stay committed to this goal.

One of the kids she spoke to on a recent trip to Africa was dying of AIDS. But before he got sick he lost his mother, father, brothers, sisters and pretty much everyone else he cared about to the same disease. He was totally alone in the world. With no hope. And certainly no dreams of fast cars or a nice comfortable house, anywhere. And that shit isn’t even near the important stuff.

There are approximately 6,450,000,000 humans on Earth.

Most of them are not 33 year olds who have careers which afford them access to guest lists to the best clubs and bars the city has to offer. They don’t have friends who will stick with them no matter what (and slip them Jil Sander dress shirts every now and then). They don’t have housemates who have Thai cuisine prepared and ready to eat when they arrive home. They don’t have comfortable beds to sleep in at night.

6,450,000,000.

When I think about it I kinda did win the lottery.

Christopher – Everything Is Not Real

We have learned much since those frightening days of the 1980s when suddenly friends, colleagues or just familiar faces we saw regularly on the streets began to fade from our lives. So much of what was done, written and acted on in those days was based on ignorance, misconceptions, prejudices, and fears of an unknown. When James W. Bunn and Thomas Netter, two public information officers for the WHO Global Programme on AIDS, proposed the idea of World AIDS Day back in 1987 it was to fight that ignorance, and those misconceptions, prejudices, and fears.

Today we have a better knowledge of how AIDS/HIV is transmitted and how that risk can be minimized. And education has done much to remove the “unknowns” around AIDS and HIV. Sadly the misconceptions, prejudices and fears are often still present in the attitudes of governments, institutions, and religions in many places. But prejudices and fears are the often the hardest enemies to conquer.

But so is complacency. And often it seems the attitudes globally and in communities seems to one of complacency.

Figures indicate that the promises of funding made back in 2005 by developed countries that Annie Lennox spoke about are going by the wayside. This has an impact in low- and middle-income countries where funding for education and treatment are critical and badly needed. And as the developed countries cut their contributions the future outlook of global funding for the international response to HIV remains uncertain. With that uncertainty come an increase in infections and in third world countries certain death.

We have seen advances in medicine that allow a quality of life that was unthinkable when those first cases appeared and a diagnosis amounted to a death sentence. Unfortunately those advances have also led to a sense of complacency in many quarters – no doubt engendered by pharmaceutical ads showing buffed, Palm Beach tanned bodies enjoy a drink by the pool and pornography without protection.

No one in their right mind would want a return to those dark frightening days of the 80s but education is still very much needed. Not to engender fear but to build awareness that, until a cure is found, knowledge and protection are the first defences in the fight against AIDS and HIV. As with any war we should not dwell endlessly on the losses but we must always remember them.

To those we loved and lost and those we loved who fought and survived.

December 1st is World AIDS Day. A day to learn, inform and remember.

World AIDS Day 2018

As I have done every year for the past twelve years I am posting a piece written by Christopher, a former blogger who recorded his adventures as a young upwardly mobile gay man in the London of the first years of the millenium. As with many bloggers of the time he ceased to write and went on, I sincerely hope, to other good things. Though he could be frantic, fey and flippant he could also be thoughtful and compassionate in his quiet moments.

Over the years I have posted this as a tribute to my loved friends who have had to deal with AIDS since it was first recognized nearly 40 years ago. For those whom we loved that were taken from us in those early years; for those dear friends who have bravely dealt with the effects of both HIV and the procedures needed to combat those effects.

This year I post it once again for them but more especially for my dear Gary. He was more than a friend, he was my family in every sense of that word. He died this past summer after dealing with so much over the years. Sometimes bravely, sometimes with anger, sometimes with hurt, but more often with laughter.  I miss our conversations, our visits and being called “sweetheart” but I know now that you are at rest.

December 1, 2005

I have lottery fantasies.

I dream about being able to buy fast cars and designer clothes until they come out of my ears. I want houses in London, New York, East Hampton and Rio. I want to be able to travel first class and work out at The Third Space and get reservations at Annabel’s just because of who I am. I want to be able to take hot dates on tours of the National Gallery. When it’s closed. Because I’m one of it’s biggest benefactors.

Needless to say, twice a week, I am disappointed.

This morning, on the way to work on the tube, I was reading a Times article, written by Annie Lennox, about the millions and millions of people in Africa who are suffering with HIV and AIDS, and dying, and how the governments of the richer nations, such as the one I live in, have pledged support over an eight year period. And how they absolutely must stay committed to this goal.

One of the kids she spoke to on a recent trip to Africa was dying of AIDS. But before he got sick he lost his mother, father, brothers, sisters and pretty much everyone else he cared about to the same disease. He was totally alone in the world. With no hope. And certainly no dreams of fast cars or a nice comfortable house, anywhere. And that shit isn’t even near the important stuff.

There are approximately 6,450,000,000 humans on Earth.

Most of them are not 33 year olds who have careers which afford them access to guest lists to the best clubs and bars the city has to offer. They don’t have friends who will stick with them no matter what (and slip them Jil Sander dress shirts every now and then). They don’t have housemates who have Thai cuisine prepared and ready to eat when they arrive home. They don’t have comfortable beds to sleep in at night.

6,450,000,000.

When I think about it I kinda did win the lottery.

Christopher – Everything Is Not Real

In 2017 (the latest data available)…

• 36.9 million [31.1 million–43.9 million] people globally were living with HIV in 2017.
• 21.7 million [19.1 million–22.6 million] million people were accessing antiretroviral therapy in 2017.
• 1.8 million [1.4 million–2.4 million] people became newly infected with HIV in 2017.
• 940 000 [670 000–1.3 million] people died from AIDS-related illnesses in 2017.
• 77.3 million [59.9 million–100 million] people have become infected with HIV since the start of the epidemic.
• 35.4 million [25.0 million–49.9 million] people have died from AIDS-related illnesses since the start of the epidemic.

UNAIDS Fact Sheet 2018
Complete report available here.

In Memoriam: Brian, Pierre, Don, Lawrence, Jim, Doug, Andrew, Donald, Billy and so many others who we have lost but still hold close in our hearts. And for those who have lost the lottery but fight the battle with our help and love.

On this day in 1640: End of the Iberian Union: Portugal acclaims as King João IV of Portugal, ending 59 years of personal union of the crowns of Portugal and Spain and the end of the rule of the Philippine Dynasty.