has ever seen. There's a huge variety of events on offer at venues across London throughout November.
Circus: Amphitheatre of the Arts 13 Nov 7.30pm Jacksons Lane. £9/£5. Tel. 020 8341 4421. Disability Arts Festival: 020 8340 5226 or : www.xposurefestival.com

Scally lads & LUSTY LEZZIES

'City Secrets' - the latest paperback of 24 lesbian and gay short stories is a new departure for editors PP Hartnett and Cathy Bolton.
'Club scene' photographer and well-known gay journalist/author, PP Hartnett has himself already published a number of sensational novels and edited other anthologies. This time he teams up with Cathy Bolton, from Stoke on Trent, to produce a fun, fresh collection of stories from young lesbian and gay literary writers.
Billed by publishers Crocus Books as 'Sex in the City meets Queer as Folk', the new collection is a refreshing first in gay publishing rather than the usual

tired mish-mash of hackneyed scene or soft porn hacks.
Many of the stories in the book are clearly from great new talent. Standing out are Sean Burn's 'Edgecity' - a fast and furious freeform tale of rent boys in downtown Canal Street (or Anal Street as it's known to the locals); Robin Graham's 'She's coming to tell' - about a young gay health worker coming to terms with the HIV diagnoses of his parents (an interesting reversal of the usual roles in fact and fiction); Mary Lowe's 'Skating', about a young northern lad trying to cope with a recent HIV diagnosis and John Myatt's 'Strip' - a footie-gear loving gay teen fantasy.
Many of the stories could be described as darker northern gothic with a slightly surreal, disturbing

edge to them. If you're not too hung up on reality and are prepared to relish such taboo subjects as paedophilia, jail bait, meat cleavers, football results, juicy vaginas and jazz,