'Tis no longer the season to be jolly

The "festive" season is over for another twelve months. Woo hoo!

Possibly the most Christmassy thing I managed to do was go along to the Barbican in London for the "Make the Yuletide Gay" concert by the London Gay Men's Chorus. This is fast becoming an annual event for me. It's full of energy, there's a bit of audience participation, there's always a good crowd and it's a bit of festive fun for those of us who don't usually feel particularly festive. Having once made my home in the halls of residence of a 1960s concrete university, the architecture of the Barbican also feels comfortingly familiar.

Proceedings this year had an extra frisson of celebratory significance as Civil Partnerships had been legalised only a few days earlier. It felt good to share in the sense of liberation that was clearly in the air. Make no mistake, the government was absolutely right to pass the Civil Partnerships Act. From my point of view it makes complete sense and I'm not even gay. My boyfriend and I have been together for almost eight years. On the rare occasions when he gets very sick, or accidentally hurts himself, I worry. If he goes to hospital and they're wondering whether to pull the plug on him or not, I can't help them make that decision. I'm not his next of kin. Technically they don't even have to keep me informed of his condition. We could easily change all of that by getting married (we aren't likely to, but that's another story). It isn't fair that same sex couples haven't had that choice until now, alongside all the other multitude of things that frankly weren't fair and that Civil Partnerships will go some way towards sorting out.

Politics aside, the London Gay Men's Chorus are great. "Well worth coming out for" indeed.