There is a wonderful site which exists to enable gay professionals in the City (so largely finance and media types) to meet each other and socialise, do business, that sort of thing.
Of course, while it might be nice to procure business with fellow pink businessmen, the site has recognised that some of its members might prefer to (ahem) get busy. So now there's a dating section.
Yours truly has had a brief chat to someone randomly 'met' on the site about the composer Gesualdo. Talk about a 'niche' interest - within the subset of classical music listeners there are the early music fans, and within those, the fans of late Renaissance latin church music, and within
that set, there are those who might know about Gesualdo.
It's one of the most interesting conversations I've had in my life.
That is probably a little sad, but reinforces the point that in London, Vivaldi will find many characters worth noting in his folio; in Joburg there is not one. I can't think what gay men in Joburg talk about but I haven't found one who knows much about the arts, and certainly nobody - gay or straight - who has so much as heard of Gesualdo.
Ah, the delights of London and the advanced creatures who reside there.
Ah, but the delights of murder! See, Gesualdo is less famous for his work (let's just say it's chromatic in the
extreme, and not always worth the effort it takes to listen) and rather more famous for offing people. Apparently he lost interest in sex with his supposedly gorgeous wife, who had an affair with someone else in the court (if I recall, Gesualdo was of noble birth). G found out, and since infidelity was a punishable crime, decided to kill his wife and her (very handsome, we read) lordly lover. No problem if you're noble and it's the 1500s, nobody's going to ask questions. But it's not
terribly fabulous to have to do the work yourself, so he hired some goons, who caught the pair in flagrante and killed them. There are several reports of the murders, but they're all pretty gruesome, involving variously removal of genitals, disembowelment, torture and slitting of throats. Let's just say that it doesn't seem wifey or lover went quickly or painlessly. There's also a pretty persistent rumour that the priest(s) performing last rites on his wife's body couldn't resist her necrophilic loveliness. Oh, and I believe he also killed his child (himself this time), thinking it couldn't have been his, and, I think, the nanny too.
A few years pass and G marries again - you'd think the girls would steer well clear of him, but there's obviously no accounting for taste. And then Wife II
has an affair too! Talk about asking for trouble. G, clearly too used to being cheated on to get too worked up, had Lover II's throat slit (v. tame) and locked Wife II up in a tower somewhere.
