BLUF HQ

@bluf.social

1866 Followers 498 Following

Official account representing BLUF, the Breeches & Leather Uniform Fanclub. Posts here may be made by various members of the admin team. See @subdirectory.uk for the former director, Nigel. Find out more at https://bluf.com

EU Store update: New EU customs rules from 1st July will add a charge of €3 per item on tie clips, badges, keyrings & epaulette sliders for members in the EU. Order in the next week if you are in the EU and want to receive items before the new charges come into effect.
And so, it ends. Today marks seventeen years since I took over running BLUF from Leon. It also marks the official end of the transition of BLUF to the new team. The full text of my final post is on the BLUF blog.
What lies beneath When you look at a website like BLUF, as an ordinary user, what you don’t see is just as important. Behind the scenes, there’s a whole other side, for administration, which is almost as important. Nor do you see the dozens of daily emails, reports and other things that make it all happen. And the same is true of clubs, of titleholders, of businesses, and anyone else who serves the community. The events you go to, the people taking the stage, the stores you visit - they are just a part of it all. What lies beneath is often where the hardest work is done.
300, 000. Number of lines of code written for the BLUF websites since 2016.
A man with a beard smokes a cigar
The latest update to our app is now available via auto-update for Android and iOS. This adds an “On BlueSky” option, which will show you all members who have added their BlueSky ID to their profile. Long press on a member in the grid or list views to go directly to their BlueSky profile, so you can follow them. You can also access their BlueSky profile via the link menu (the chain icon) on BLUF profiles. Search “BLUF Navigator” in the Google Play or the App Store.
New in the BLUF Store: stainless steel 500ml water bottle £25 / €30 Get yours at https://store.bluf.com and stay hydrated this summer
A bearded man holds a metal water bottle with the BLUF logo on it
Store update: As part of the BLUF transition, there will be some behind-the-scenes changes to the BLUF UK/worldwide store. You may now see the name SubDirectory appear on your credit/debit card receipt. The EU store is not affected by these changes.
Want to march with BLUF and London Leathermen at Pride? To join us - please follow the link in the event description to sign up. Remember, spaces are limited - first come, first served. And please don't forget to let us know if you can't make it.
This is a test. Nothing to see here. Please move along.
It looks very much as if some sort of shadow-ban has been applied to our automated event posts. The Meta dashboard simply says we’ve been rate limited, for exceeding the number of API calls. It claims we’ve made over 69,000 in 24 hours - which is remarkable for a script that attempts to post only a few times a day! I can only conclude that this is a ban that they don’t want to admit is a ban. You can find our calendar info elsewhere: BlueSky: @events.bluf.social Telegram: @BLUFcalendar Mastodon: @events@bluf.com iCal feed: bluf.com/pages/calendarfeed
A bearded man in a T shirt that says "Amyl. It's the real thing!"
History matters. The lives and experience of queer, kinky people illuminate our past, and help guide our future. “Mama” Vi Johnson founded the Carter/Johnson Leather Library and stepped down as Executive Director and Chair this year, after more than three decades preserving stories and artefacts from the 1700s to the present day. Find out more about the collection at carterjohnsonlibrary.com
A picture of two young cats looking towards the camera. Each is wearing a cone round their head.
A notification from Facebook saying "You're back on track. We're recommending your Page again."
Today, I’ve dropped off some BLUF flags, banners, tie clips, badges and a few other documents, to form the start of a BLUF archive at Bishopsgate. Over coming months, we’ll look at archiving event posters and internal papers. Any additional material we archive will be handed over with due regard to ensuring the privacy of members, and will not be available for open access.
A screenshot displaying the message "Welcome to archive.bluf.com"
An image of a calendar app showing a packed month of leather events
The BLUF logo, and the number 6000, followed by the text of this post
A table covered with BLUF merchandise
A photo of four men in leather behind a desk at Darklands, with the caption "We're open" and the text of the post below the image
Two men in leather stand behind a table in a booth with the BLUF banner
A poster for Fetish Socials United with the BLUF logo
A man stands behind a table with the BLUF flag on the front, and an array of flyers and leaflets
New customs rules come into force in France on Monday 2nd March. This may affect items we post from London, like tie clips and badges. If you can, buy in person at Darklands next week, or wait until we are clearer on whether or not you will have to pay extra fees on delivery.
An image of the March page from the BLUF 2026 calendar, showing a man in full leather leaning against a wall
A pricelist for BLUF sales in Antwerp. Tie clips: €25 Key rings:€15 Embroidered bages: €7 or €7.50 Logo badges: €15 Roundel badge: €12.50
Update on BLUF transition This account will eventually be run by the new BLUF admin team, once we have sorted out all the details of the transition. If you want my personal comments, filth and snark, I have created a separate BlueSky id: Follow @subdirectory.uk
A bearded man wearing a black uniform style shirt with the BLUF logo on the left sleeve
A small round cake with cooked bacon wrapped round the sides
A bearded man stands in leather breeches, next to a Tom of Finland print
“Marriage traditionally was the means by which sexual relations between men and women were regulated, and I think we are suffering from having a totally unregulated sexual economy,” he says. “I’m not interested in your love life, or anything about your personal life – that is your business. But I am interested in the framework in which you make your decisions, and I’d like the framework to be more pro-social. If you want – most people do want – to settle down with one person to have children, we should make that easier.”
Your club needs YOU! We’re looking for a few more volunteers to help out at the BLUF stand for this year’s Beyond Darklands. You’ll need a ticket that gets you into the day festival, and it’s a great chance to meet more club members. We particular need people for Saturday 1300-1500, 1500-1700 and 1700-1900. If you’d like to help, please DM, or -preferably - email darklands@bluf.com
A Tom of Finland print, illuminated, on the wall at the end of a hallway
Leather care products: primer, cleaner filler and touch up paint
A selection of twin slot shelving parts
Store update Due to the uncertainty around tariffs, we are not able to ship certain items – tie clips, badges, epaulette sliders – to the US at the moment. We will aim to resume as soon as anyone has a clue exactly how much they will be. Clothing items, like T shirts and hoodies, are made to order in the US for US orders, and are not affected.
BDSM ‘good practice’ rules were not handed down, set in stone I’m not going to get directly into discourse about that film. But I do have thoughts... I have had some amazing sessions with people, where we haven’t sat down and agreed safe words first. But we have had a connection, and I trusted them: to be human enough to know what a genuine cry of distress sounds like, and to be wise enough to check in and say things like “Can you take a bit more for me, boy?” And I have had disastrous scenes with people who think all they had to do was say “the safe word is pomegranate” and it absolved them from everything: they either finished before I thought it really got going, or I could have been blue in the face and it was all still ok, because I hadn’t remembered their magic word. In kink, one size doesn’t fit all, but generally, communication and connection are the keys to a safe, fun time.
A web page showing a camera view of a bondage chair, and controls for a vibrator and hypnotic audio
A locking pin sticking through a neoprene strap
A massage table with fixing points added
A boot with the polish rubbed through completely
A screenshot of a dialogue box with the text "When I release your right hand, take some poppers, boy" next to a button marked "Say"
A new Pratt and Hart glove, compared to an old D302
A fist clenched in a tight leather glove
A man pinned to his bed by a fluffy cat
The story so far ... It’s 1980. Bookshops are awash with horror stories. At the tender age of 12, your hero picks up “Ghoul” by Mark Ronson. There’s an arab princess, an Israeli spy, a timeless horror. And then, there’s this ...
A silver Citroen DS in front of a row of dockside cranes
A bearded homo takes a couple of puffs of a Monte Cristo no 2 cigar
Screenshot showing an email from November 2004, welcoming me to GearFetish
A photo of the restraint on the arm of the chair, with the magnet sitting in the recess. Caption: The armature drops neatly into the recess on the arms. When energised, the specs for the magnet say it can hold a force of up to 100kg.
A photo of a leather restraint, with a round piece of metal attached. Caption: The armature plate has a metal loop screwed to the back, and that can in turn be padlocked to a set of restraints, like these.
The finished arm mounted on the barber's chair, with a strap towards the rear. Caption: Mounted in place on the barber’s chair. Note the recess for the magnet. This means you can’t slide off, which needs less force than a pull.
A photo of the underside of the arm, showing the electromagnet, arm rest bracket, and a small handle. Caption: 50mm 24 volt electromagnet, and bracket for the chair arm. The small handle is to stop straps being able to slide off the back of the arm wrest.
A photo of two pieces of wood with holes cut in. Caption "Arms custom cut in 18mm ply. In retrospect, I should have ordered the cut-outs a few mm wider, but a bit of sanding fixed that."
A pair of black TCH handcuffs
Two rolls of thick rubber straps