Forget LA – for a certain type of traveller, San Francisco IS California. And by ‘certain type of traveller’, we don’t just mean the gay ones. Consider the top three activities on any respectable San Francisco to-do list: they aren't exactly sexuality-specific.

I'd only been to Portugal once before, and that was an Easter weekend in Lisbon a couple of years ago. On that trip I was traveling with my ex-boyfriend, another of his ex-boyfriends, and his new boyfriend at the time – a strange combination but it worked surprisingly well.

This expedition was to Porto in the country’s north and I was on my own.

Love them or loathe them, ABBA remain one of Sweden’s most successful exports with a special place in the heart of many a dancing queen. And ABBA fans are again beating a path to the new ABBA museum opening in May in Stockholm.

But there is a lot more you can do in what they call ‘the world’s most gay-friendly city’.

Author and comedienne Cleo Rocos claims she smuggled Princess Diana into a gay bar in the 1980s.

‘When we walked in ... we felt she was obviously Princess Diana and would be discovered at any minute,’ said the author.

She described in her book The Power of Positive Drinking how she, Freddy Mercury and gay British comic Kenny Everett took the Princess of Wales to South London’s Royal Vauxhall Tavern one night. 

A gay couple were kicked out of a nightclub, in Nelson, New Zealand after they shared a kiss on the dance floor.

Two men, who wished to remain anonymous, were at Malbas Bar and Nightclub on Saturday night when a bouncer told them to leave, reported the daily New Zealand Herald.

A friend of the couple, Letizia Beyer-Rieger, told the New Zealand Herald how shocked they were when the bouncer approached them.

Tom Hoemig had suggested that we meet at Le Falstaff Cafe on Rue Henri Maus, not far from the Grand-Place.

We seemed to be a bit early for this cafe - it was open but we were the only two there and the heating didn’t seem to have kicked in.

‘I’ve been coming here for years’ said Hoemig. ‘We used to sit here outside for hours on a weekend, 10 to 15 people drinking and having fun. So they know me here.’

Hoemig soon tracked down one of the staff and ordered us some coffee.

I’m not good with early morning flights - I seem to spend most of the night wondering what the time is, worrying that I’ve slept through my alarm.

My Swiss flight was departing from London City - my favorite airport in London. It was a fairly subdued bunch of passengers that scuttled from the shelter of the terminal through the grey, steady rain and onto the small and nifty Avro RJ100 jet.

While the stereotype of American football fans may be loud, homophobic, jock-ish types, Sports Illustrated gave gay fans something to smile about.

Readers of the long-running US magazine saw a more diverse representation of San Francisco 49er fans in the Super Bowl preview issue this week.

The sports magazine, which has an annual ‘swimsuit’ issue, includes a picture taken at ‘Hi Tops’, a new gay sports bar in San Francisco.

I entered the world of romantic mini-breaks many moons ago when I first met my partner, Andrew. Like Bridget Jones, we headed for the British countryside in search of log-burning fires, long walks and romantic meals in quaint pubs.

Our relationship survived and we have long since deleted the memory of the awkward owner of the bijou hotel whose discomfort with us as two gay men was never communicated but clear for us to feel.

I have so many fond memories of Sydney; I lived there for a few years and met my great friends Carlotta and Polly Petrie. Us girls would hang out together all the time at the iconic Albury Hotel.

On this one occasion, one of the many Swedish backpackers who used to frequent the drag shows had made a bet with his Danish friend that I was a man. He drunkenly staggered over to the bar where Polly, Carlotta and I were sipping – well, actually chugging – Long Island iced teas and asked me if I was a man.

From occupier to occupied, rapist to raped. Bohemian to Fascist. Both capitalist and communist, scarred by a wall. Transformed in 21 years to a capital city, under-occupied and devoid of a parasitic financial sector. Berliners are bound by the limits of their talent, rather than mortgages, debt and wage-slave hours.

Twelve men face mutilation and execution for allegedly being gay after being captured by an extremist Libyan Islamist militia.

The twelve men were, apparently, having a private party in Ain Zara, a suburb of Tripoli, the country's capital, when the militia captured them, late on Thursday night (22 November).