Welcome to Hogwarts.

When Mel suggested this week's theme, the actual words that passed her lips were in fact "design your own Homo-Journal palace." Although it may not technically be a palace, my first and only thought to this topic was Hogwarts, just redesigned to suit all our needs: with one or two or twenty personal sex rooms for each of us to accommodate whomsoever we bring back from Hogsmeade.  

Hogsmeade: The nation's newest gay village for wizards, complete with pub and 'sweet' shop.

Let me take you on a guided floor-by-floor guide (audio guide available in various languages on request from some half-decent information kiosks). 

The Dungeons 

Despite their menacing name, the dungeons play an important role in the day-to-day running of Homo-warts palace, since it houses the sleeping quarters for all our personal staff; the cooks, the caretakers, the chauffeurs, the security guards, the technicians, the gardeners and the butlers and all other house-elves. Don't get lost in the dungeons, the deeper you go the more haunted they get. Only venture past the second level of the dungeons with at least two other people, and do be careful of our Basilisk, sometimes it petrifies people.... 

Ground floor 

The first thing you see when you enter Homo-warts is the magnificent marble-lined-with-gold-and-the-bones-of-the-victims-of-Mel's-unsuccessful-scientific-test staircase (please note, we renovated a few years back, staircase may not contain actual bones). Behind it you will find the glass elevator straight out of Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, which will take you to anywhere you want it to take you, when it decides to work.... I'm not convinced it survived crashing through the roof of the Factory, but maybe I'm just not reading the instructions properly. 

Just a small dining room, then....

As you follow the entrance hall round to the left, the first door on the right leads into the Great Hall, where my esteemed colleagues and I lord over our guests during dinner. The first door on the left of the entrance hall leads into our party room, complete with functioning bar (alcohol included), pool table and dance floor. The second and final door on the left of the entrance hall leads into the ground floor bathroom, which in turn leads into our Sauna and Pool area. 

Literally the best swimming pool EVER.

First Floor 

The first floor consists of two wings: east and west. James lives in the west wing (he'd get no sunlight if he lived in the east) and out of all of us, has the shortest path to take when he wants to go and raid the fridge at night, because the Kitchen is directly underneath the West Wing on the Ground Floor. There are a number of disused broom cupboards in the West Wing, many of which no doubt once housed clones of Ezra Miller. Notice the difference in decoration as you pass through the West Wing, in comparison to the decoration of the rest of the palace - no where else will you find a shrine to the notorious Mr Miller, Tom Daley and Irene Adler which spouts Vodka 24/7.  

The east wing comprises of nothing more or less than James's torture chambers, and guests are advised to steer clear of the east wing during and outside of business hours.  

Second Floor 

In the south wing of the second floor lie Rory's chambers, complete with Grand Piano, Four-Poster bed, clones of the Tenth Doctor, Moriarty, Johnlock, and Merlin (not my cat). Within my chambers I have access to every single musical instrument which has ever graced the earth with its presence, and a complete recording studio in which to record them all. It is in here where I spend my time composing and blogging about my compositions.  

The East Wing has a full-size functioning theatre, for use by amateur and professional theatre companies alike, who perform exclusively for us any play we desire. It can also double as a cinema, I'm told it's the only one in the country that gets the finished film before it's been made. Every so often we're kind enough to let the villagers of Hogsmeade watch too, at but a small price.  

Our library begins on the second floor in the north and west wings, and spans eighteen floors.  

While you're passing through the second floor, it is worth visiting the corridor in which stands a scale map of Gallifrey, which was presented as a parting gift to the Homo-Journalists by none other than the Doctor himself. It is a long story which we will no doubt come back to in due course. It stands at the point where he began Regenerating into his twelfth body after - actually no, I won't say, spoilers.  

Unfortunately, the map doesn't tell me how to get there....

Third floor 

This floor used to belong to Eli, but since she moved in with Mel a few months back, it is now largely deserted, save for the library, which, incidentally, houses on this floor the erotic fiction for all sexualities.  

We currently have no plans to rent out the second floor, so don't even ask (unless you have news on season 3 of Sherlock, in which case, you may either email us, or send us an owl).  

Fourth floor 

This is Mel and Eli's floor, and anybody who values their life will be careful not to stray too far from the fourth floor landing, otherwise Mel might just snatch you for her experiments. She lives in the East Wing, which is heavily guarded by pink fluffy bunnies. Nobody quite knows exactly what is in Mel's rooms, because we've never been able to get any sense out of anybody who's come out of there. The north wing is strictly out of bounds to all but Mel's poor test subjects, as this is where her laboratory can be found.  

Mel's security guard, the vicious little bugger...

Eli lives in the south wing of the fourth floor, with interconnecting doors to Mel's room. Prince Poppycock also lives somewhere within, I'm told.... 

The library is only in the west wing of this floor after Mel burnt down the North wing when a chemical experiment went disastrously wrong.  

Fifth floor 

Todostrieb resides in the north wing on days when she's not taking care of the windmill which sits on the edges of Homo-warts grounds. Her estranged significant other hasn't been seen since he moved in, although he may have escaped to Hogsmeade when Todostrieb has been working at the mill. The gallery of all those eclectic items she has collected is certainly well worth a visit, and as long as you don't touch anything, there is a good chance you will survive the experience with your sanity still intact. It's worth noting that the lift doesn't stop in the gallery for security reasons; passengers requiring upward, downward, forward, leftward, backward or rightward services should flag the lift down from the fifth floor landing, although given its origin, you're probably quicker walking.  

We had to move the library to the west and south wings of this floor, incidentally, the south wing houses books on BDSM and the the west wing houses travel guides.  

Sixth floor 

The library takes up the North, South and West wings of the sixth floor, and houses general everyday non-fiction books. The East wing has large private chambers for our Guest slaves, who incidentally, have security clearance for most of the palace. If you would also like security clearance for Homo-warts, you may also wish to consider writing for us.  

The West Wing of the Sixth Floor Library. Pretty cool, huh?

Seventh floor 

The seventh floor is the final floor our grand nearly-marble staircase will take you. Miu lives in the North wing, right next to the Owlery which is located in the East wing.  The only thing which might threaten you up here is the odd rogue owl, or indeed the Howler which that rogue owl failed to deliver to its intended recipient. Other than that, the seventh floor is largely safe, as long as you don't stray into the animal and human hospitals which are both in the south wing. The library, in the west wing, houses all things animals on the seventh floor, before continuing towards the 18th floor, which has so little floor space you could barely swing a cat in it. Incidentally, there aren't many books on the 18th floor either, I'm not quite sure why it's there in the first place... 

We hope you've enjoyed your tour of Homo-warts palace, anybody who strayed off the tour path may be collected from the Lost and Found department on level -3 when Hell next freezes over.  

The World's First Gay Windmill

Don’t laugh; my dream has always been to own a fully operational windmill, and have a small café attached selling assorted cakes, warm drinks and yummy fresh bread. We could have a small pen for animals like tiny baby goats and chickens. Each homo-journalist will be assigned a specific role; I will grind the flour and design our superbly cool LGBTQ themed packaging. Rory can drive the giant tractor because it seems like fun and he isn't technologically challenged, like James. Mel will run the shop along with her girlfriend Eli, who will look awesome in a maid costume. In fact everyone will wear cosplay 100% of the time. Miu will muck out the animals. There, everyone should be ecstatic to be given such an important role in the world’s first LGBTQ windmill. I'd say we should paint it rainbow colours and add glitter, but there's something so elegant and quaint about the traditional off-white windmill colour.

Location: Probably Norfolk

My bedroom will be furnished with a superbly cool burger bed, as seen below. It will also feature an ‘internest’ involving a cool desk, a mac pro, and at least three million books. No one but me will be allowed in my personal space, you will all damage the aura. My numerous conquests will be allowed in the room for short periods but under no circumstances may sleep in the burger bed; they will sleep in the guest room.

As far as interior design goes, my dream palace is a far cry from minimalistic, or even stylish. It will be filled wall to wall with a random assortment of eclectic items I have picked up on my travels. Brightly coloured fabrics, cushy arm chairs, a mountain of teacups, creepy paintings, enough kitchen appliances to assemble into a tank, a room entirely full of pillows, a library of antique books,  a patchwork tiled swimming costume, stained glass, pin cushions, crystals, dried herbs etc…

The guest room. Also where all the others will sleep. Also my playroom. 

While I'm on a role here are the other house rules:

• the pool is reserved for skinny dipping only
• all animals must wear cute hats at all times
• cosplay must be worn by all humanoids at any time
• if you finish someone else’s vodka, that’s what the spanking bench is for
• anyone who wakes me up from my at the very minimum 18 hour sleep will also be spanked
• the body field is where the bodies go, please do not leave evidence, I mean scientific experiments in the fridge or similar

I think that covers everything important,

Todostrieb

Grand Designs

First some stories. While on holiday in the south of France Eli had an allergic reaction to something. 2 hours later, some excellent experiment design and marker pen use later I still hadn't discovered what it was. I could only conclude that she was allergic to me or nothing at all. And, as I couldn't leave her- it was impossible to conduct a fair scientific test... When I was a child I liked making potions and as anyone in my chemistry class can attest to- I never grew out of this stage....I am currently conducting a test to objectively categorise people’s sense of smell, and possible taste in food as well.

This leads me to my actual homojournalist house design. I highly suspect me being left alone with a few other sciencey people will result in....this.

Bluebell!!!

I propose we dedicate a floor to this....

It's so shiny and white- like heaven

I may be getting carried away here, but this is after all my dream house. I will second the other homojournalists motions for us to each have a sex room of our own design. I would however, like to take this one step further and propose that we each design a couple of floors in the mansion. (don’t be afraid to dream a little bigger darhling).  I can have my lab, partly for mad science, partly for kinky white coat related hanky panky. But, I can also have my dungeon and 4 poster princess bed, without worrying about a clash in taste.

This is also completely necessary.

As are these.....

....And of course these....

As you may have understood from previous posts. I am at heart a nerd. Left to my own devices I would not sleep, but build a nest. I would read hundreds of books a week, and only leave my nest to eat, have sex and possibly use the bathroom (I say possibly use the bathroom because dialysis may be a legit option). Thus, the homojournalists need one of the libraries pictured below. Trinty college library is enough to make me regret not going down the Oxbridge route. But, no fear one day I’ll break in and if I can’t read the books, I’ll make do with banging a professor on the desk.

So, sex, books and science- why aren’t I hosting grand designs I here you ask? It may be due to the vodka water dispenser I would also require, and the vast quantities of apple trees I would demand in our orchard. But, I think that this place will one day be a reality- as soon as I win the lottery and my insanity becomes distinguished eccentricity instead of criminal.

Thank-yee for reading pets,

Lots of love Mel

xxx

Living in the lap-dance of luxury.

First and foremost, I wish to have it known that if, for some reason, all of us Homojournalists were ever to live together, the house would have to be:

1. Very large, with at least 7 bedrooms for us, guests etc.
2. Be exquisitely furnished (well, at least my room).
3. Have all the latest mod-cons.
4. Be apocalypse proof.

5. Have a battalion of maids, cleaners, gardeners etc.

You see, I think that if we all lived together, it would be an unmitigated disaster, because last time we did something similar (well, me, Mel and Todostrieb, along with Unimportant-To-The-Story-Friend and Cretzal (who you may remember)), the lights in the living room fused, me and Mel almost got savaged by a dog, everyone but me was horrified by Insidious, Todostrieb threw up in a bowl and then proceeded to tip the bowl all over the floor and me and Cretzal broke up, so it wasn't what you could call 100% successful.

And no, I won't lend credence to the idea that having the other Homojournalists there would've improved matters, because then Mel would've been distracted by Eli, and wouldn't have gone on the walk, leaving me to be mauled to death by the angry dog/any number of cows/sheep/natives, Miu would've criticised my cooking if it had a single molecule of capsaicin in it (which it would've), and Rory, well, Rory would've drunk all my vodka.

I needed my vodka.

So, yes. NEVER, EVER IN MY LIFE.

...but here's the house it would have to be if it happened.

Right, let's get this known right off the bat - this will be there:

Only our blog can say we have a signature lamp.

We'd also need a suitably ostentatious way of having the vodka flowing at all times...

This will do nicely.

Let's face it, we're all absolutely filthy. We don't want a house, we want a temple of debauchery. We want a shrine to Bacchus and Aphrodite. And I'm 100% fine with that. I'm just suggesting we make it a classy den of smut.

This, with more nakedness.

I'm into minimalism, so obviously I want it to be all glass and chrome (think about it guys, wipe-clean is all I'm saying). I don't want actual brick walls, I want walls made out of smart glass like in that episode of CSI Miami where the under-age drinker was stabbed to death in a bathroom. I want spiral staircases made of glass. I want men and women in smart, modern suits, ready to remove them at any notice to give us lap-dances. I want my cat, Skye, as our signature pet.

Tell me this isn't a classy cat.

You know, I'm beginning to warm to this idea. Tell you what, I'll agree to live with you guys. As long as I can stay in my own safe, opaque glass box, with my cat, my penis vodka fountain and anyone I deem attractive.

I might let the cat out occasionally.

Yours tentatively,

James.

I have been using one of Cretzal's socks to scent train Skye, so if she ever meets him she'll attack. Progress is startling.