Headline Of The Day: A Camp Classic

Arkansas Online.

A New York Boy Scouts' council has broken new ground by hiring an openly gay man as a leader - Advocate.com

PS Think this one needs a bit more work, USA Today.

Thought For The Day: John Waters

I am 68 and I’ll see a picture of myself in a magazine and think, “Oh my God, you are 68.” But I am a realist. I have always said I collect contemporary art but I don’t want to be in it, and when people ask what photographer I would like to have photograph me, I always say, whoever has the biggest retouch budget!

How I Get Ready, Guardian Weekend.

Hardy broadsheet weekend magazine perennial JW was in sister paper, The Observer, only last Sunday.

Fagburn ain't complaining.

• Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America is published in paperback by Corsair, at £8.99 blah blah blah.

Poldark: 'Hunky'

Textbook stuff from the sexless, pious fart machine that is Independent Voices.

STOP FANCYING GOOD LOOKING PEOPLE, PEOPLE!!!

And how priggish would you have to be to use the word 'hunky', Alice?

Michael Portillo: State Secrets

So camp...

Porn Panic: Addicted To Nonsense

At the beginning of the week, an unsettling headline swept across news sites. A tenth of the UK's 12 to 13-year-olds are, apparently, ADDICTED to porn. The BBC led the charge, rehashing a press release sent out by the NSPCC, which is launching a campaign with Childline – Fight Against Porn Zombies (FAPZ) – to highlight the effects of too much exposure to porn.

Other news outlets followed suit and each story stuck to the same format: scary headline about children unable to stop watching porn, a couple more stats and a quote from Esther Rantzen. No one was questioning the findings themselves.

The aims of the NSPCC campaign are admirable: children are undoubtedly seeing more porn than ever before, and considering the dire state of sex-ed in British schools it's clearly a good thing that the charity is doing what it can to address the issue. But the idea of porn "addiction" is highly contested among academics and medics, so why did so many children put their guilty hands up?

Such inflammatory findings, when published by a respected national charity, would usually be accompanied by a full report of the study. Not in this case. All the NSPCC would offer was an extended press release with some more quotes from concerned parties.

It turns out the study was conducted by a "creative market research" group called OnePoll. "Generate content and news angles with a OnePoll PR survey, and secure exposure for your brand," reads the company's blurb. "Our PR survey team can help draft questions, find news angles, design infographics, write and distribute your story."

The company is super popular on MoneySavingExpert.com, where users are encouraged to sign up and make a few quid. Here's what that website says: "Mega-popular for its speedy surveys, OnePoll runs polls for the press, meaning fun questions about celebs and your love life."

So the company behind these stats about porn addiction are known for their quick and easy surveys and promise to generate headline-grabbing stats. An unusual choice, perhaps, for such a sensitive subject...

Frankie Mullen, Vice

'If a statistic seems wrong or unbelievable, it probably is...' - Someone's Law (forgotten whose).

Edit:It's Twyman's law.

And as the author points out,anyone who says people can get 'addicted to porn' is an idiot (slight paraphrase).

Update: But don't let that stop you...

'A shocking ten per cent of 12 and 13-year-olds believe they are already addicted to watching porn' etc etc.

PS More on bad data churnalism and dodgy polls.

Ukip: Wake Up Sheeple!

Via Craig McVegas. x

James Franco: Definitely Maybe

There are many things in life today that can bring a Proustian whiff of the 1990s flooding back to one’s cultural nostrils. The Groucho Club. A Gallagher brother arguing ferociously about an immutable truth with an inanimate object. Cargo pants for girls. But nothing brings the decade back in such a heady rush as a man playing at being gay because it makes him look cool. Which brings us to the actor James Franco, who has had various long-term girlfriends, but who has now revealed that he is actually “gay until the point of intercourse”. One cannot help but be reminded of Brett Anderson, frontman of Suede, who once said he was “a bisexual who had never had a homosexual experience”. To be fair to Brett, we all said some dickish things 20 years ago, but Franco has really taken that posturing gauntlet and run with it...
The Guardian.

Refers to an article, The Straight James Franco Talks To The Gay James Franco, in 429, a poncey online magazine for gay professionals (Barf).

An amusing conceit or a load of pretentious art wank?

I'll let you, the public, decide.

Soho: 1944/1999

Air raid on Old Compton Street, 1944.

Admiral Duncan bombing, Old Compton Street, 1999.

From a gallery of photographs from The Soho Society's collection on the Standard online.

PS There's another great gallery of old photos at ibtimes.

Fast & Furious 7: Women Or Cars Or...

A while ago, in an unscientific social media poll, I asked Telegraph readers what they enjoyed most about the series; one of the most popular answers was its gay subtext.

“The Rock and Vin Diesel, and the chance they might start rolling around in engine oil and kissing” was a typically vivid response, and while there’s nothing in the Fast & Furious films to quite match that image, yet, it’s currently rare for a mainstream studio picture to openly explore the possibility that its heroes could be bisexual. At one point in the fourth film, a typically pneumatic female asks Toretto if he prefers women or cars. “I appreciate a fine body regardless of the make,” he shoots back.

In the fifth, Diesel and Johnson mount one another in a ludicrous tussle in a shed; in the sixth, Michelle Rodriguez and Gina Carano, the strapping female mixed martial artist, clash on the London Underground in a brawl that’s basically frottage. The seventh will add a poignant note to this: as the last film completed by Paul Walker before his death in November last year, the relationship between O’Conner and Toretto – the interracial bromance that started the ball rolling in 2001 – will necessarily come to an end.

It all makes you wish the films themselves were better, although if they’re doing the heavy lifting, perhaps that’s enough.

Telegraph.

#MassDebate: A New Low

Who will rid of us this ridiculous bigoted angry dwarf?

The Myth Of HIV Health Tourism - National Aids Trust.

I am not sure the woman signing for the deaf was totally impartial #leadersdebate pic.twitter.com/xQcjj1hBgV
— connor (@conuary) April 2, 2015

PS And finally, today's media studies lesson...

Chelsea Manning: TwitterLeaks

Chelsea Manning, the US soldier serving 35 years in military prison for leaking state secrets to WikiLeaks, has joined the social media site Twitter.

The army private has secured the handle @xychelsea and will begin posting tweets from noon ET on Friday. Given the conditions of her custody – which do not extend to internet access – she will dictate comments by phone to supporters who will then post on her behalf.

The new Twitter feed had by 5.30pm ET on Thursday already attracted more than 1,000 followers, even before the soldier had uttered a word or followed any other accounts. Her page includes a drawing of her as she would like to be seen, with long hair – even though the military authorities have consistently refused to allow her to grow out her hair.

Manning was arrested at the Forward Operating Base Hammer outside Baghdad in Iraq where she was working as an intelligence analyst. After a prolonged trial, she was convicted of charges arising from having passed a massive stash of US state secrets to the open-information organization WikiLeaks.

After she was convicted, Manning revealed that she wanted to transition from her male birth gender to begin living as a woman. After months of legal struggle, theUS military agreed to approve her gender-reassignment hormone therapy – the first such treatment ever approved for an active member of the armed forces.

Since being incarcerated, Manning has developed her voice as a perceptive and questioning observer of international affairs as a columnist for the Guardian. She has written on issues ranging from President Obama’s “war on whistleblowers” to the CIA’s torture techniques and transgender politics.

The Chelsea Manning support team are encouraging people to follow the soldier on Twitter through a #FF campaign. They promise that the tweets posted on her feed will be “her own candid thoughts and comments”...

Guardian.

I think her tweets will therefore begin at 5pm BST.

Update: that first tweet in full!

This is my new twitter account =P
— Chelsea Manning (@xychelsea) April 3, 2015

From Indiana To Iran: Only Connect

CNN - links to video interview.

Tom Cotton: Opponents Of Anti-gay Law Need 'Perspective'

I’m starting to long for the good old days, just weeks ago, when nobody had to think about Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas.

Mr. Cotton, you will remember, was the primary author of the constitutionally outrageous and substantively mindless letter from Republican senators telling the leaders of Iran that they shouldn’t negotiate on nuclear weapons with President Obama. Now, he is adding his voice to those who are telling gay Americans that they shouldn’t get too pushy about their civil rights.

Mr. Cotton was asked by Wolf Blitzer on CNN yesterday about a law passed by legislators in his home state that is clearly intended to permit businesses and individuals to discriminate against people on the basis of their sexual orientation.

“In Arkansas,” he began, “we believe in religious freedom.” Mr. Blitzer, to his credit, pointed out that “everybody believes in religious freedom.”

Mr. Cotton countered with the irrelevant fact that President Clinton signed a federal law on which the current assault on gay rights is based. (The comically named Religious Freedom Restoration Act). That’s true. He also signed the Defense of Marriage Act, an outrageous infringement on the constitutional rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Americans. And he signed the bill that turned military policy against gays and lesbians serving openly in the armed forces into the moronic law known as “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

So Mr. Clinton was lousy on this civil rights issue. What’s Mr. Cotton’s point?

“It’s important that we have a sense of perspective about our priorities,” he said. “In Iran they hang you for the crime of being gay.”

So, let’s not worry about civil rights in this country, which Mr. Cotton and other lawmakers can actually protect, but rather in Iran. Why Iran?

I’m so glad you asked — because Mr. Cotton wanted to turn the conversation to his current propaganda campaign about Iran. “We should focus on the most important priorities facing our country, right now,” he said, adding that the prospect of a “nuclear-armed Iran” is one such priority.

So why is Mr. Cotton trying so hard to scuttle the talks in Switzerland that could actually lead to limits on Iran’s nuclear programs?

Andrew Rosenthal, New York Times.

But you don't get hanged in Iran 'just for being gay'.

Though this politically convenient fiction has been repeated so often it's become almost impossible to argue against.

But that's hegemony for you.

You might want to ponder why the US right - usually otherwise vehemently anti-gay - has kept pushing this myth.

And why a Neo-Con like Cotton is exhuming it now.

Gramsci would have wept.

PS And of course there was also the inevitable, Republican senator compares Iran deal to Nazi appeasement.

Telegraph: For Shame

So why has the Telegraph illustrated this article with some gay-shaming disembodied hands?
Can they not show gay men's faces?
Further down, but of course, you get the classic photo of some same-sex cake toppers.
Let me know when it's ok to come out of the shadows.

Ed Miliband: Boo Hoo Squish Squish

‘The last thing I cried at was Pride. Pride is about this lesbian and gay community in London who go and help the miners in Wales and Justine and I watched it recently. I blubbed.’

Part of an Absolute Radio interview earlier today where Mr Ed tries to show his human side, quoted in Mail Online.

Pride was set a generation ago - taking sides in this celluloid fantasy is about as meaningful as saying who you'd root for in the English Civil War.

Funny how Miliband supports the Tories' war against the poor today.

Update: An alternative view...

LOLZ!

Competition Time: Spot The Hetero

Stellar line-up for episode one of The Clare Balding Show on BT Sports 1 tonight.

Lewis looks a bit awkward, doesn't he?

But why???

Maybe cause his nanty blouse clashes with Charlotte's.

PS It's also on BBC2 tomorrow!

Wouldn't they make a cute couple?

The Independent: Hold The Front Page!

She already has two maids, an Instagram account and enjoys First Class travel. But Karl Lagerfeld’s cat is worth her weight in Whiskas after earning more than £2m from a couple of days modelling work.

Even supermodel Cara Delevigne is struggling to match the earning power of the Siamese, believed to be the world’s most pampered feline.

Lagerfeld, the Chanel and Fendi creative director, revealed that Choupette raked in £2,172,625 from just two jobs – a collaboration with cosmetics brand Shu Uemura, which produced the Shupette collection, and a session posing for a Vauxhall Corsa car calendar...

The Independent.

Don't know about you, but sometimes Fagburn worries the world is fucked beyond saving.

Mind you, although these figures seem ridiculous, they also seem unbelievable.

I wonder what he told le tax office - that's if cats have to file tax returns in France.

PS Quick vox pop over at The Onion...

Daily Star: Thunderbirds Are Gay!

The five brothers – Scott, Virgil, Alan, Gordon and John – from the iconic 1960s puppet series have had a computerised makeover for their return to ITV this Saturday.

But the bulges in their futuristic spacesuits have raised eyebrows among the gay community.

Gay Times said: “Well. What can we say? The hotly-anticipated reboot of Thunderbirds has got us a little bit hot under the collar.

“Take a look at the all-new Tracy brothers. Is it just us or is Scott packing some?”

Daily Star.

Is this news!!? etc etc.

USA Today: Boycott AmeriKKKa!

Noam Chomsky: On Everything

A two and a half hour Origins Project Dialogue with Lawrence Krauss.

Foyles, Charing Cross Road, marks four reprints in Pluto Press's Chomsky Perspectives series.

Peter Ackroyd: On Hitchcock

Something that surprised Ackroyd in his trawl through the films was Hitchcock's effeminacy. "I had no idea he was like that. You occasionally get little snatches of documentary film, in which he's behaving – not outrageously, but in a rather camp way. I think it was a component of his personality, but of course he was too scared and undemonstrative to allow it to take over." In the book, he says: "It would be an interesting parlour game to name any [of Hitchcock's] leading characters who were not intimated to be bisexual." Seriously? What, Richard Hannay in The 39 Steps? "Well, OK, not him," Ackroyd says, smiling. "But they all seem a bit… funny, don't they? Michael Redgrave in The Lady Vanishes? Cary Grant in North by Northwest? The two men in Strangers on a Train? They're all fey and unserious and camp. And he treated his heroines as more masculine than the men."

Peter Ackroyd in The Independent on the titular subject of his latest biography, Alfred Hitchcock,

Update: Peter develops his theme in The Sunday Times...

He was inspired to begin his newest book, a well- received biography of Alfred Hitchcock published last week, after discovering the director was “camp” and “really rather a screamer” with a “funny mincing step”, which Ackroyd demonstrates by walking his index and middle fingers along his desk in a prissy sort of fashion and doing a little pout. Might Hitchcock have been bisexual, I ask.

“Well, he said he had ‘poofy’ moments when he was reading Vogue. But if that qualified you as a homosexual, half the population would be condemned.”

Rupert Everett: How The Fallen Have Fallen!

Not owning a tellybox, Fagburn was blissfully unaware that Rupert Everett had made a series of ads for Young's Seafood where he voices a green-eyed hungry cat.
Apparently they've been running since January - here is the latest instalment.
Mind you I asked some TV owners and they had at best but vague recollections.
Anyway, enjoy!

PS Read about them in the new Private Eye, which alleges the concept is a bit of a rip-off.

Peter Tatchell: If I Were Prime Minister

If I were Prime Minister, I’d dump austerity and cut the deficit, without damaging public services, by five simple measures.

First, I'd axe Trident, which would save £100 billion. Then I'd close corporate tax avoidance loopholes (raising £20+ billion pa) and end pension tax relief on people earning more than £100,000 (raising £20+ billion pa). I’d also introduce a financial transaction tax of 0.05% on currency, share, bond and commodity transactions (raising £50+ billion pa) and a one-off average 20% wealth tax on the assets of the richest 5%, with the least rich of the rich paying 2% and the most rich 25% (raising £400 billion).

Total: £600 billion raised! ...

The Independent.

Great stuff, Peter - more of this sort of thing. x

PS And here he is on London Live today, My Manifesto For London. Hmmm...

Vote Ukip: Get A Homophobic Racist

Via Hope Not Hate.

Though their delve through his Twitter account reveals the charming Mr Harris is far more concerned about 'fucking Muslims'.

Update: He later told The Independent; "I’m absolutely disgusted. My account has been hacked – again. You know what Facebook is like.

"I wouldn’t say anything about gay people because I have a gay son. I’ve got lots of Asian friends. I never said any of this."

It's not unpossible.

Sam Smith: April Fool

Guys I have some news... I'm straight
— SAM SMITH (@samsmithworld) April 1, 2015

April Fools always fill Fagburn with such hysterical mirth, he fears he may not able to post again today.

I mean, just look at this one. Fucking hilarious!

And in other papers; 'Jeremy Clarkson is going to do something incongruous'. LOLZ!!!

Thought For The Gay Day: Matthew Parris

From Miss Matthew's Times' column.