The Boorman Kids

The other thing about Excalibur is the Uther-Igrayne shagging scene at the beginning. What with the grinding and tit-sucking and all, as a kid it used to turn me on and freak me out in equal measure. (Dude, this is King Arthur. But I shouldn't be watching this! Etc.) Uther, it just so happens, was played by the aforementioned Gabriel Byrne. But it's only when one bears in mind that the Igrayne in question was actually Boorman's daughter that the real freakiness of the scene starts to emerge.

And just to, er, top that, here's beautiful Charley Boorman (who appears in Excalibur in his undies, being oiled up by Helen Mirren) in The Emerald Forest.

It's a fairly recognisable syndrome - doting dad decides that his kid (female or male) is the most gorgeous thing in the world and gets her or him a plum part in some little remembered movie (or, in the case of Excalibur, in a well remembered one). Danny the Champion of the World, for example, is actually a sweet enough film, but it's still little more than an Irons family home movie.

Boorman's home movies would presumably have been along the lines of not just Hope and Glory (which really is glorious) but also I Dreamt I Woke Up (which is weird and interesting, but not quite so interesting as I wanted it to be). Taken together though, Excalibur and The Emerald Forest make Robby seem positively normal.

Aryan Son

I

He of flax, of lapis lazuli, coral skin,
Leviathan proportion. Adonis of those
Lancastrian hills, a young god that got
Hold of my imagination, and thus a
Replication in acrylics. I was nothing more
Than a magnolia stretch of canvas. And
Yet your expanse is now only a figment,
A stem, a jewel, a piece of sea debris, an
Unwashed brush, kept within the soft wood
Box, locked and secreted.

II

Only in this are you a constant.
Sevenfold winters pass, each less cold
Than the last. Snow falls so seldom now.
In a glass carriage this time, not you, but
The you imagined. It is to him the seven
Years have been kind. Without actual proof
Of your flesh I know not the truth of age.
For you do not age, but look younger,
Handsomer, flaxen-haired and cobalt-
Eyed. At least my heart can still recognise.
You’re a butterfly in casement, formaldehyde
Child in a bell jar, embalmed Egyptian.
You have been pickled by my subconscious.
You sometimes flash, zoetrope image in
A dream, butterfly net over your elusive
Visage. I know the passage in which this
Carriage sits. That place is as forgotten as
Atlantis. I pass you, unseen, my burnt eye
And rusted-hair, an impurity too ugly
For you to look on. A Romany Czech or
A Slovak, a Polack or a Nordic. I have
Too many countries within me. Thus you
Dissolve, a Nazi boot in the throat as I
Wake up, regurgitating black blood and
Things you once said.

[P. Viktor]

Arnold Schwarznegger's First Bodybuilding Competition

This was in 1963. He was 16 at the time. (He didn't officially start his competitive career until the following year.)

The Wandervogel

Although even semi-respectable historians (the BBC's Laurence Rees, for example) try to link the Wanderwogel with the HJs, personally I can't really see the connexion. Apart from both being outdoorsy-type German youth movements, they really have nothing in common. The Wanderwogel were really proto-hippy, young ramblers, who merrily tramped about the beautiful German countryside with their guitars, singing songs about how lovely everything was and how young and handsome they were (or something!). They weren't known for throwing stones at Catholic priests, beating up Jews, informing on their parents or forming teenage SS tank divisions.

In fact the only thing they (probably!) had in common with Hitler's lads was a propensity for a bit of underage boy-on-boy action - and let's face it, adolescent adventures between friends after lights-out don't really compare with having to deal with the attentions of the pervert instructors of the notorious "Homo Youth".

Is this an actual uniform, or are these just normal German student caps?

Nazis with guitars? Now you've heard everything.

So who's first? If you played a stringed instrument you could just stand and watch, presumably.

Prince Oleg Konstantinovich of Russia

Newquay, Cornwall

[Deejohn]

The Spirit of Germany

Actually this picture is only here because it looks like Germany and they look like German youths from a certain era - though of course the whole is also strangely timeless!

Beyond that, I don't really know, who they are, where this is from or when.

Ben Jordan

by Paz Stammler

I really love these Versace pants - not mention the handsome young man wearing them.

The Medusa in the middle is a Versace "thing", apparently!

Cheeky Boy

Big boys and little boys together are always a joy.

The bigger boy revels in his superiority, and yet at the same time here he is allowed, however briefly or vicariously, to enjoy the freedom and irresponsibility of what it was to be a little kid again. And the little boy in his turn looks forward excitedly to when he will be tall and strong and clever, and yet at the same time is himself revelling in this brief opportunity to be cheeky to the older boy and get one over on him.

A brief moment, captured on camera, that will nonetheless probably last no longer than when the camera is lowered again! The two boys will go back to their respective worlds, and a moment of sweetness and boyishness will have passed away.

'Morgan'

by Jacques Sultana

Oh, achingly golden and gorgeous!

I can’t help but chuckle slightly at the thought of what this beautiful blond demi-god might have been like in real life. The sheer “realism” of this picture, right down to the post-modernist touch of having him in the salon in his (only gently bulging) underpants, makes it far more of a fantasy than having him either nude or in any imaginary setting ever could have.

Rich Cole

by Matt Lambert

You can't really see it in this picture, but he's actually very beautiful.

More Adidas

Shorts, this time - and very fetching too!

I think if I were President of the United States I'd have lads like this one smouldering away in every corner of the Oval Office.