Her name was Tallulah... she lived till she died...

Tallulah, who became the first inductee into the House of Homosexual Culture's Hall of Fame last year, learnt about gay sex from reading toilet walls, sat around the kitchen table with Joe Orton and Kenneth Williams, hung out with Nureyev, worked at Studio 54 and once got whipped by Grace Jones. You could say he'd seen a thing or two.

He saw out the eighties and early nineties, when gay men quietly disappeared from the scene and the shame of death by dirty sex brought steroids into the queer sphere; when cartoonish megamuscles became shrieking emblems of good health, over-flexing, protesting too much. Now, it's safe to be seen as skinny once more - more than that, it's desirable. So safe and desirable we're sticking our fingers down our throats.

God knows life can be tough just keeping one's entourage in glitter week on week, and we've enough on our plates deciding which moisturiser to buy to spend too much time dwelling on this stuff, but just when we're reaching for the mood-enhancers and considering taking the lot, when we feel so shallow we hate ourselves, it doesn't do any harm to remember there are achievements in the madness of our modern lives. A bunch of young gays cheering a dead old queen just for having been there, acknowledging his contribution, all together. There's a little bit of progress in that.

Once upon a time, no one would've known he'd gone till his neighbours noticed bluebottles at the window. He'd have been the eccentric old man who hadn't been seen out much since his mother died. There's something sweet about the fact that the hottest twinks in town blew him kisses from the dancefloor in 'Heaven' when he played there last. There's a little bit of progress in that.