Who hasn’t spent an evening stumbling out of The Joiners’ Arms, which was once described as ‘Britain’s trendiest gay dive’? Due to its late night opening the bar had a reputation as a ‘last chance saloon’, and was often where people would head to instead of home when everything else had closed.
I spoke to Mark Walton – a fantastic poet, and founder of social enterprise Shared Assets – about some of his fondest memories of frequenting the bar after he moved to London in the mid-00s.
Mark 0:02
We ended up going back to some of these flats, not his there was some weirdness where I think the people whose flat we went back to one of them and thought that they were gonna hook up with him. And then I end up being the person who had sort of like be his excuse to
K Anderson 0:16
the K Anderson and you are listening to lost spaces, a podcast that mourns the death of queer nightlife. Every episode I talk to a different person about a venue from their past, the memories they created there, and the people that they used to know. This week, I spoke to mark Walton, who is not only a dashing poet, but he’s also the founder and director of shared assets, a social enterprise that is making land work for everyone. We got together to talk about the joiners arms, and LGBT pub and nightclub that stood on Hackney road in East London, between 1997 and 2050.
Whenever you talk to anyone about the joiners, arms, they get very nostalgic and very excited. And it seems to hold a different place in people’s hearts than other types of venues. Why do you think that is?
Mark 1:31
I think that in a way is because it wasn’t a particular type of place. Like it wasn’t a bear bar, or it wasn’t like a sort of fashionable West End wine bar or, you know. And so in a way, it could be anybody’s anything, so people could just go and be in the joiners arms, which is in itself liberating. And the sheer sort of diversity of people there, partly because of that, I think kind of made it what it was. And for me, it was almost like a supercharged version of a provincial gay bar, because it’s like, influential gay bar is the only place in town. So everybody is there. And you haven’t got the opportunity to sort of break into your tribes and your little subgroups and divide by identity, you just kind of turn up to the gay bar. And so you’ve got like, absolutely everybody loving along. And so I think it’s that I think, is that, yeah, that that sense that you could just take whatever felt important to you there. Rather than fit into somebody else’s idea of who should be or what sort of a place it was.
K Anderson 2:48
Can we circle back then you’ve just mentioned a provincial gay bar, which has sparked in me questions about your background. Okay. And so I’m assuming that you’ve that you’re looking stylistically back at provincial gay bars.
Mark 3:03
Yeah, it’s probably a bit of provincial gay by nostalgia. So I grew up in Cornwall. I didn’t come out. in Cornwall. I came out in Birmingham. When I was like, in my early 20s,
K Anderson 3:16
was the intonation on. Well, I realize it’s not a provincial town. Where
Mark 3:28
certainly, it’s changed a lot, but certainly in the early 90s. Yeah, it was not that much different. It was a big city, but felt like a town. So places that I went out, kind of, yeah, I moved to Lancaster and there was a couple of bars in Lancaster. And then I moved back down to Cornwall, and so went to gay places in Truro and Plymouth and Penzance. So proper, provincial gay bars, and in some cases, that sort of once a month on a third Sunday kind of thing. So that’s definitely sparked nostalgia in me for those sorts of places. Yeah.
K Anderson 4:04
And that time before everyone was on the internet, and that was your one chance to see people.
Mark 4:11
Yeah, definitely, you would have everybody. So just coming out kind of star VI. It’s kind of like young 20 gay boys plus 80 year old blokes and drag queens and a bunch of Butch dykes. And it was, you know, it was like a whole mixture of people. And yeah, this was just your place, and you kind of had to somehow make something work out of that. But it was a Saturday night. And so it was both Yeah, where you met people where friendships were forged, but also were like identities were forged a lot. And it was something about being an outsiders club, in a way.
K Anderson 4:48
She first came out in Birmingham in the 90s. Yeah. When did you arrive in London.
Mark 4:55
I lived in London in this way in late 2006. So I’ve got a 37 point. I’ve been living in Bristol for about six years. And I came to London, partly for work. And partly, I’ve been in a relationship with somebody, and it’d been kind of his decision to come. And then we split up. And I was like, timeout, I’m going anyway. So I sort of arrived, newly single having fallen out of quite difficult
K Anderson 5:26
relationship, and ready to make the boys ready
Mark 5:29
to meet the boys. And kind of a little, like, I never wanted to come to London. Like it was my big dream. I was I had a slight disdain for I always loved coming to visit and go out, but I never wanted to live live here. And partly, I think, yeah, that was done. I was gonna say that.
K Anderson 5:49
But no, no, no. So why why do you think that is? Why did you never want to come to London?
Mark 5:55
What is kiss, I used to come visit for work, and stay over go out, partly the thing of, you know, is busy. People have random public transport to get to and from work, like what you see of London, when you think not when you come for the weekend and go out. But like when you come to work in the week is not that appealing. You’re sort of in a bit of a grim blind, it’s expensive. And I think culturally, my sense of looking in from the outside was very much that it was it was a mediated culture. So like you go to shows no professional actors and singers and people performing for you, or go to gigs, but not not a sense of like a duty self culture, or kind of a participant of culture. So that was my set of perceptions of it. One thing that struck me actually kind of repeatedly, in the first few years I was in London was once I’d been offered the job, and I was kind of making my decision as to whether or not to come. I went out safe with a friend and we went out. And he was he said that it’s very different when you live here. It’s like there’s a whole other world of like how people live and you do you meet people and you can make stuff happen is not, you know, it’s not this very atomized, very lonely, very expensive, very mediated city, which is what it appeared to be to me from the outside.
K Anderson 7:21
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think I really agree with you in terms of like, it’s really hard to be a freak in London. And I think so I grew up in Adelaide, and, you know, it’s my lips trembling. And it’s not that exciting a city, let’s say that, but you’re not ironed out by the expectations of everything around you, which I think does happen in London, I think that that is one of the hardest things about it to say you kind of have to get on the treadmill to survive. You can’t just go off and do your own thing.
Mark 7:54
Yeah, I think that very real risk, I think of kind of just feeling like you’re going to be assimilated.
Mark 8:01
And they would then be a set of expectations. And I think those particularly worried about the gay scene and like a gay life in London, that seemed, again, to be very materialistic focus to be about what you wore, where you learned, what you you know what you had. And so kind of going, I don’t, I just don’t want to be part of any part of that. So in a way, I think part of my, because I moved to London, I spent six months in a flat, and then I bought a boat, and now a boat. And I think part of that was like almost like pushing myself as far away from that set of expectations as I could get. So it’s like, okay, push yourself out of it. And then and then work out what how you’re going to live here. What you’re going to do here. It wasn’t a conscious decision. But I think that was definitely part of what was playing out in that decision about moving moving somewhere and sort of wanting to kind of keep a distance from it. Yeah,
K Anderson 8:57
it’s really interesting, isn’t it? All of that pressure is pressure that you put on yourself. That’s a very similar experience for lots of queer people in that sphere. There’s something about I want to belong, but I don’t want to belong. Yeah. And I don’t know why that is. But like, for me, there was so much in my teen years after I knew I was gay. And I knew that that was, you know, that was it for me. I don’t know where I was going with that sentence. But so I knew, I knew I was gay. I knew I didn’t fit in a school. And so for me, it was always like, well, it’s fine. I don’t fit in here because as soon as I leave school and come out, start going out into the gay scene. I’ll be accepted straightaway, and I’ll fit in and I’ll have friends and it will be fine. And then that didn’t happen. Yeah, like the one gay bar in Adelaide. went here and was like, Here I am everyone like, love me. And then yeah, I just didn’t connect with those people. And then part That was like he had anything in common with you. Yeah. That were that were gay. Yeah, figuring that out and then rebelling, took quite a few years to get on my system. Anyway, sorry, this isn’t about me. This is about you. So we’ve talked about like, you never wanted to come to London, and then your partner at the time floated the idea. Then you broke up. Sorry to bring that up. And then you decided to come anyway. So what what was that shift?
Mark 10:30
I think partly, it was definitely a like, fuck it. Why would I stay? whilst we had both been talking about moving to London, I had started looking at jobs and applied for something and was beginning to be in the process of thinking I might get it. And then I was like, Oh, actually, you might have to think about this. And it just felt like it just felt right. So this was what 2000, late 2006 2005 I’ve been diagnosed HIV positive. The relationship broken up sort of, in the nine months following that. I was kind of definitely in a sort of like a bonfire of the old life scenarios. So the only way I can see is the old story, moved to London, start a new do something else. And I had the opportunity provided what the job so I was like, Okay, first off, I might make a different life.
K Anderson 11:18
And so did he come with you? Did he say,
Mark 11:21
he went? Yeah, he came to London with me. So we came Saturday, and we saw Yeah, we’d see each other around.
K Anderson 11:27
There wasn’t like we’re gonna stay friends kind of thing. It was. If I see you, I’ll nod. Yeah, that’s it. Yeah.
Mark 11:35
We were going out like a couple of times to places together but no, we weren’t
K Anderson 11:39
friends. And so did you have any friends in London when you got here?
Mark 11:43
I did. I had a friend who, who I knew from my days in Plymouth. So from when I was living in Cornwall. And as it turned out, this was not planned. When I moved into my flat up in like, near hobby corner, I messaged Pete on whatever message thing we were using which gaydar or something. And, and he’s like, where’s where’s you actually living? And I told him, he’s like, look at your kitchen window. I can see in his flat.
K Anderson 12:08
Oh, wow. This is the friend you knew from.
Mark 12:13
So that was really nice. So I had someone like literally just across the street. So I had Yeah, and I had other friends, people I knew. But yeah, not not a massive amount of people. I wouldn’t say I know, people I was like massively close to ready other than p probably.
K Anderson 12:27
So that that’s useful context. So you get to London, enter 20,006 nearly single, definitely ready to mingle. Oh, yeah. And you go out on the gay scene? What were your first impressions?
Mark 12:41
Hmm, good question. Um, I think I was very lucky. In a way. I very quickly met somebody, like literally met someone online on gaydar and did a like a dislike people within whatever, two kilometers of view or Converse video or something, and told his profile with poker. I just like, like the look of him and his, his profile. And so I contacted him and was just like, Hey, I’m new to the neighborhood. You seem like a nice person. Tell me some things. Where should I go? What should I do? And he said, Oh, I’m meeting a bunch of mates next Saturday night. docky at the wall Vauxhall tavern, why don’t you come along and meet some people. And that was great. Because immediately, it was both the right place for me, like I loved it. I loved the RVT. And it’s had quite a big part of my life in London. And that was the first time I’ve been there. And it’s an all time out, like, a nice bunch of off people very quickly. And so I had a very soft landing, I think in in London in that sense. I mean, you know, other places on on the scene. There was, yeah, a few places around Soho, and I’m trying to think of the name even. It’s gone. For me, it’s highly.
K Anderson 14:02
So okay, so you don’t have any horror stories about terrible places and so hard? Not really.
Mark 14:07
I mean, they were Yeah, I’ve had a few like, there was only like one place that was still open after midnight. I can’t remember the name of that was either. And so we kind of had a few sort of random, you know, after the pop shots, and you’re like, shit, I’m in the middle of London, everything’s now shot. And so you just end up in weird random places, with very odd people. But that was kind of fun. That didn’t have any particular horror stories around it. I mean, definitely, like, trying out all kinds of places and kind of going yet and they don’t fit here. You know, Street and things like that. And just going and no, I don’t ever want to.
K Anderson 14:45
Yeah, I guess, you know, picking up on what you said before about. There’s the London that you experience as a commuter or as a tourist and then there’s the other London. Yeah, by this time. Do you have an insect’s that kind of East London same was developing and join his arms is in was in East London. And so had that is Was that something that you’d been exposed to before? You got here?
Mark 15:12
Not at all. So yeah, that was that was all new. And yeah, it was kind of a huge relief in a way of kind of going Oh, no, there’s another. There’s another type of a gay London voxel is probably as peak in terms of like the big, like, super clubby type places. At that point. People are still going to Seoul is Yeah, that was places like Yeah, whatever. phyo and area and all that kind of stuff was there. So. So all of the you know, the big guy on Friday night don’t come out again. Yeah, don’t leave Oxford again till Monday morning. With your face chewed off was kind of all very much in kind of full swing. Really? And did you know did bit that? Yeah. The these London things like, Oh, actually, these are places that I might want to be before I might want to be with.
K Anderson 16:08
And so then that brings us to the jury’s out. Do you remember your first time going there? Do you remember the first time? Um,
Mark 16:18
I have a really terrible memory for like, time and sequences of things. So. So yeah, I’m an unreliable narrator have that kind of history. But my first recollection certainly is actually in the daytime, I had a friend staying who is now my husband. But we weren’t dating or anything at that point. But he was visiting from the States. I wanted to introduce him to my new friends. And they suggested me off the joiners arms for like, it could be like a Saturday afternoon, sort of drink. So my first introduction is to join up I think was probably like a really, um, salubrious one, which is the joint times in the daytime, which is just somewhere you really don’t want to be
K Anderson 17:12
in the day.
Mark 17:14
Yeah, I mean, it was just like, no natural light, really quite surreal. So that there was like the seat, the vase, settee seats in the front window. So there was some natural light to the slip lines. Yeah, so everything was grimy, had that smell of kind of, you know, toilets and disinfectant.
K Anderson 17:35
And as any good
Mark 17:37
as any good. And yet, bleach behind the bar? Yeah, just a little bit dodgy, like, What? What is this place? And, and who are these people coming in and out? So that I think was my first introduction, and might have gone back very soon after first I think I’d probably with with the same people and and whether to meet a bunch of friends there, you know, sort of all of those sorts of things merge into one. But definitely that sense of it sort of changing as the night went on, and sort of so going in, and it being this sort of fairly nondescript space. I just like filling up and then suddenly tipping into that mad energy that comes up after midnight on Saturday night when everyone else has turned out and it starts filling up. I was just like, oh, oh, I like this place.
K Anderson 18:25
Yeah. And so yeah, in my extensive research, before this interview, which was looking on Wikipedia, it talks about the joiners arms as Britain’s trendiest gay dive, and then went on to say that because it was one of the only bars that had late night opening in the area, it was seen as a last chance. So building on what you’ve just talked about, was it a place that only really got going after everyone was checked out of everywhere else?
Mark 18:59
Yeah, really. So it would be after 11. So once the pub started to kick out, or people started to leave pubs, but certainly after midnight, it would start to get really busy. But yeah, if you went out 10 o’clock, it was no much better than it was a two o’clock on that Saturday afternoon, when I first encountered it, it was, yeah, really thin. So it’s definitely it’s definitely an after party. And it definitely had that after party vibe to it as well, which I think it’s that kind of glorious mix where, because it’s the only place that’s open because everyone’s already had a bit of a night. So it kind of tracks all kinds of different people in all kinds of different states. And they want more of whatever it is that they’ve just had. So it’s kind of the time to get the drugs if you get to drugs or my it’s like the time to kind of keep on drinking, if you’ve been drinking and don’t wanna stop. It’s Yeah, the time to meet someone if you’ve not met someone already. And it’s that sort of like, you were on your way home, but actually there’s a light over there and maybe we’ll go and check that place out. And so I kind of people have never been before. So it’s that kind of mad mashup that you get as sort of an after party when like no one went out to go to the joints, arms that wasn’t like where you set out to go. But it’s where you ended up.
K Anderson 20:05
I mean, to me that connotation of last chance saloon makes it sound like everyone was just there to. I didn’t pick anyone up in the first venue, but I never got that vibe from it.
Mark 20:15
No, I mean, there was a lot of there’s a lot of sex and a lot of craziness. But no, no desperation, not like Yeah, not like kicking out time at two o’clock in old East Isley nightclub, definitely much more kind of like, joyous and abandon and happenstance than people being like, I’m here on a mission. And so
K Anderson 20:34
whilst we’re talking about working out, are there any interesting stories?
Mark 20:40
I have a few. I’m not sure that I want to tell Eddie and all of them. Oh, come on. But I definitely met a good few people and the joiners arms for my the other.
K Anderson 20:56
I should have eased into these questions, shouldn’t I? Yeah,
Mark 20:58
you definitely should, some of whom were more long lasting. And others, let’s say so I think on that first Saturday afternoon, actually, I met someone who I went out with for a good few months.
K Anderson 21:15
Wait to on that day when you were with your future husband to just tell
Mark 21:21
a story that’s really complicated and might be a subject for another podcast. But yeah, there were definitely plenty of like random hookup nights in the joiners arms, either on or off the premises, or they would go there with friends. And definitely I was definitely like a sort of like, lone cruiser. So I would like go off and like leave my friends. And like, find sexy men enjoying his arms and go flirt with him has quite a lot of people where they’re looking for sex and looking to hook up. That was never a very difficult thing to do at all. And also because it was like so crowded. So you literally have to sort of like go like, I’m going on a mission across this like crazy sea of humanity, which was great, because you would like just squeeze past someone that you fancied. Or kind of like, see someone’s or being in the cloud, like, okay, I’ll make a beeline for that person. Can I squeeze by catch them? I start the conversation, kiss him immediately. He’s like, that was all a possibility. So
K Anderson 22:28
that was going to be my follow up question about your your style of flirting, because I struggled in spaces where it’s packed, because I get terrible. And then I can’t hear anyone until I’m just like, I don’t know what you’re saying. really terrible conversationalist right now. But your approach is just a joke,
Mark 22:48
depending on the circumstances, but yeah, yeah, definitely. And it’s a funny thing, because I don’t necessarily think of myself in that way at all. But it is definitely it definitely is in those circumstances that are like, Oh, you’re nice. And yeah, I’m not beyond. Yeah, a bit of sliding past a sweaty body and stopping.
K Anderson 23:14
But the vibe of the venue, and the way that it’s set out, always helps that confidence, doesn’t it?
Mark 23:20
Yeah, definitely. And that I think is part of the thing with the joiners was was because it was so rammed and so hot. And so sweaty is that thing of like, you didn’t have to be there with people to start talking to them, like you would forced into a conversation because you they were like sliding under your armpit. So also dancing next year or whatever. It’s just like, actually, all of those walls break down. So if you are shy, or if you are kind of like uncertain about making that move, then actually is cut the wolf that’s gone. So like it lists all of those inhibitions off everybody at the same time, which kind of makes it again, this kind of glorious, open space ready, like it was small. So you don’t kind of break into groupings within it or anything. You’re just all there in that sort of mosh pit of people for a couple of hours.
K Anderson 24:04
And so this might be where my foggy memory gets in the way. But I have a memory of every time I went to the toilet, there was security in there. Yeah, that because of all the drugs,
Mark 24:25
make sure the drugs and sex because actually, again, the toilets changed at some point. But it had like the worst kind of toilet provision for the number of people in there of any place I’ve ever known. So that toilet cues would be absolutely enormous anyway, just because the sheer number of people, but then people will be in there taking drugs and having sex which meant that the cubicle of which there was only like a very small number, and two or three would be busy. And so they just had to manage that queue, but like literally you would like he would make friends in the queue, you might not police on
K Anderson 25:06
the way Yeah, okay.
Mark 25:09
But yeah, so security. Certainly they started having security come in partly just to keep it all moving. I don’t think they were ever that bothered about what it was you were actually doing
K Anderson 25:18
as long as you do too quick, as long as you get quick. Okay, I have a thing just about keeping away from authority, so I just stopped going to the toilet.
Mark 25:30
It’s fair enough. I think I did actually get yanked out at one point by security
K Anderson 25:36
because you were having sex in the cubicle? Yes. Do you want to tell me about his really good sex? Did you get to finish it? No. But it turned out that he was a total Nutter. I use stigma, stigmatizing language, but I know where you’re going. So it turns out he was more erratic than you.
Mark 26:00
It turned out that he had yet some history and was actually what he was as a con artist. So had done over a few people going back to their houses
K Anderson 26:11
with them.
Mark 26:13
So I only found out afterwards, uh, maybe the bouncer gave me a lucky escape.
K Anderson 26:18
Did you not then say let’s go back to mind when you got kicked out of the toilet? Maybe the bouncer was in on it. But um, No, it didn’t. It’s what numbers? There’s also Yeah, it was great sex. That was the worst thing about her. Yeah. Yeah, I know. I’m sorry. That was more. It was fine. Well, joint Tell me about that. I have a poem about it. Do you remember hearing about it closing?
Mark 26:55
Yes, very much. So. I hadn’t been for quite a few years. So I probably hadn’t been since like, at least like 2009 10, certainly 2010. So I had a couple of years where I kind of was there a lot. But I do I do remember hearing about it closing and hearing about sort of campaign to keep it open? And so what were your initial thoughts when you heard, I think it’s always really sad when you lose places that you have an attachment to both from a nostalgia point of view, a sense of loss of a time of your life, that will no longer be there. And a sense of loss of a community facility that know that other people won’t have that opportunity to experience that. I’m not sure that for me, that experience is already gone. So other people will experience it differently. Anyway, always always sadness, kind of losing losing spaces, I think it’s not the only one. So it’s also part of a pattern of loss of loss of spaces.
K Anderson 27:50
But yeah, there’s been interesting developments in terms of community asset stuff you’ve been involved in at all
Mark 27:59
professionally involved with doing my work in community assets. So I’ve kind of taken an interest in it from that perspective, but I’ve not been personally involved at all, there is no there is a successful, or least ongoing fans of the joiners arms group they’ve successfully campaigned to have a registers is a set of community value, and also to put planning restrictions on the site to ensure that there is a clear venue there. I think for at least 12 years after its develops. So yeah, so that, you know, they’ve done some good work in that in kind of getting those things put in place.
K Anderson 28:39
Just for people listening that don’t know about this. And because I also don’t know that much about it, how close because the building that it’s in is going to be demolished, you’re going to build, throw out some new build, as is the way in London at the moment. And the Friends of the joys arms have campaigned. And as part of the planning permission that developers have, they must include a queer venue. And I I’ve kind of mixed feelings about it. I feel like it’s kind of weird.
Mark 29:12
Me too. I have really mixed feelings about these things. And I think it’s really important that we retained spaces for communities, not just the queer community, but no loss of all kinds of community spaces, because of the craziness of the land and housing market in in London means that anything that can go for residential flats is going through essential flats and the value of it or the cost of a lease on a central London venue is going to be going to be higher on the market rate. So the market does its thing and what we all lose out on cheap and free spaces and spaces to me in spaces that aren’t kind of like madly commercialized. And so I think it’s really important that the principle of maintaining and keeping spaces is held For for what I am less sure about is that you can put conditions on something to go, that will be a queer space, and it will be run as a bar, and it will have these kinds of licensing hours. And some poor buggers got to run that thing and make it work. And one of the reasons that these places closed is because of the insatiable commodification of land and housing. The other one is that we don’t go out to these places anymore, and so they’re not profitable, they’re not profitable. And people’s expectations of things change and the meaning of those things, and the need for them as queer spaces also has changed, you know, the worlds different to how it was, you know, you said earlier about growing up pre internet and, and we talked about the the provincial gay bar, and we need those spaces anymore. You know, I was struck when I was going there and kind of meeting much younger I was in my late 30s, people in their mid 20s, didn’t have the same relationship with the gay space that I had, it was just like one of the places that they might go out, but it wasn’t a necessary place for them. They were out there in East London, most places were queer ish. And so the need for dedicated quiet space felt less important
K Anderson 31:15
to them. And referring back to what you were saying before about what we were both saying before, sorry about potential buyers and things is that that was the place where you were able to form your identity, and to test your boundaries and to figure yourself out, and now people can do that online.
Mark 31:31
Yeah, very much. I think have more lice? I don’t know. We’re gonna have more licenses do that in in their lives anyway, I think to test their identities and, and how they present to the world
K Anderson 31:44
without being shut down. But
Mark 31:45
yeah, only in some places, and not an intern for some cultures. But with that proviso, I also think that there’s something distinctive a cultural moment, right. So and they exist within their specific context. So you said the joiners kind of was an after hours place, because it was the only place in like that end of Hackney mode that you could go to that time of night. Well, that’s all changed. So you can’t recreate something. And there’s something again, which is
Mark 32:15
necessary about
Mark 32:16
these kinds of cultures, and particularly subcultures. And outside of cultures, which is about the spaces they occupy, shifting, like it being a moment in time. So you kind of go, Oh, you were such and such in that day, that that no longer exists. It doesn’t exist. Like it doesn’t exist as a place. It doesn’t exist as a social thing anymore. It doesn’t really exist as a culture anymore. It exists in our Yeah, it exists in all of our memories. And that’s it. And there’s something about that, which I think is necessary in that type of sock sock cultural life exists in those spaces that aren’t set.
K Anderson 32:55
Yeah, I think I think that’s probably that kind of overlaps with why I’m slightly I don’t, obviously, I don’t have all the detail. But I’m slightly confused about the being protected as a queer space, in that culture is something that needs to evolve naturally. And for that to be kind of put upon a space. That to me, just seems a bit odd.
Mark 33:21
Yeah. And I have a real fear that they’re kind of combination of planning conditions, and developers financial requirements, and the need for residents to get good night’s sleep, and all of those things will just, you know, will constrain you in such a way that there’s not that much space for that kind of creativity to go to go, Oh, well, let’s make this happen in this space, actually, what you get left with is a shitty space that is compromised in so many different ways that maybe will be better being something else. Yeah. So it’s like, it’s not how that stuff works. And so there’s part of me that really thinks that there’s a principle around ensuring that developers have to create spaces for people that aren’t coffee shops and places you have to kind of pay to be in. But I’m not sure that this is the right solution to that, and all power to the people that are doing it. And I hope that they get a result out of it. I think the fact that they the principles that they’re kind of setting are in many ways, good ones, and need to be fought for. And I hope that what comes out of it in the end is something that is a usable space for that community and doesn’t just become a problem to be solved by another group of people who who come to take it on.
K Anderson 34:42
what’s what’s the one word that you would use to describe the joiners arms? Wow. I’m gonna really struggle with that question. Okay. What are the five
I scuzzy sweaty, joyous, sticky. Yeah. And yeah, yeah. Did you ever go to the joint exams? Do you have your own stories or photos that you want to share? Let’s connect on social media. You can find me on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, all under the username K Anderson music. And you can find out more about mark on his Twitter account twitter.com. forward slash Mark C. Walton. Last basis is not only a podcast, but a concept record. As much as I hate the use of that term. I’ve been writing songs about queer spaces and the people who’ve lived their lives there. And we’ll be releasing the songs periodically whenever I can over the next year. You can hear the first single, well groomed boys, which is also the theme song for this episode. Now on all good platforms, and even some of the bad ones. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode, then please subscribe to the podcast so you can find out when new episodes are released. It would also make a huge difference if you could leave a review or post something on social media or just tell a friend that you think might enjoy this episode. Thank you very much for listening. I’m K Anderson. And this is law spaces.