Terry Wogan: 1938-2016

Farewell, old fella.
Thank you for the music.
And the top gags.
x

Thatcher: Prude Juice

The former Conservative minister Michael Portillo has said that Margaret Thatcher was more “liberal” about homosexuality than many would imagine.

Speaking on This Week, the ex-deputy Conservative Party leader said: “Many people would have an impression of Margaret Thatcher as a great prude – actually she wasn’t”.

“She was rather liberal on sexual matters. For example, she was surrounded by gay people amongst her advisers.”

After Andrew Neil probed him about whether Baroness Thatcher was conscious of this, Portillo replied: “Oh yes, she knew”. 

Under Baroness Thatcher’s reign, the Conservatives prohibited the ‘promotion’ of homosexuality in schools via the introduction of Section 28 in 1988...

The Independent.

Sake.

John Inman: Probe

The bananas Sunday People has been the main pusher of child abuse fictions about Ted Heath, Harvey Proctor etc etc, usually taken off the mentalist conspiracy website Exaro.

I hope someone sues the fuckers.

BBC: Oh, I Give Up!

Bye.

Elton John: You've Spelt 'Kunt' Wrong

Telegraph.

How: Why?

Independent Voices or a school magazine?

I'll let you, the people, decide.

Gay Marriage: People Who Believe We Are Ruled By A Man In The Sky Now Vaguely Supportive

The Times.

Like I care what they think.

Kanye West: Up West

The Sun.

Surely it's time for straight men to admit that having your prostate massaged will give you a champion orgasm?

Shawn Mendes: Stitches

Congratulations to noted Canadian heterosexual singer Shawn Mendes on his smash hit number one single, Stitches.

Pink News: Exclusively

Oh, I give up!

So tired of this endless shit...

Civil Partnerships: The World's Most Boring Middle Class Couple Vow To Fight On

Zzzz....

PS Note how the right-wing fuckwits at the Express think is important.

Attitude: Why We Love Gus Kenworthy!

Cause you're a bunch of Roedean schoolgirls?

'Come on chaps, let's go skiing!'

Rhodes Must Fall: Student Politics

God, I fucking hate these silly privileged, entitled student wankers, and their cult of victimhood

PS Like many founders of the British empire, Cecil was a big ole queen.

Manchester Pusher: Questions To Which The Answer Is Still No

The Sun.

Man falls into canal every two months!

Sake.

Hillary Clinton: Susan Says

“It’s one thing to be for gay rights and gay marriage once everybody else is for it. That’s not difficult."

Pink News.

Good to see the gay media is finally waking up to the fact that Hillary Clinton is a complete fraud.

But note even the Mail Online article this is taken from, is more radical...

Actress and progressive activist Susan Sarandon lent her star power to Bernie Sanders at an Iowa rally this evening, passing over Hillary Clinton a second time for the nation's top job.

A decider for Sarandon, who has known Sanders for more than two decades, was Clinton's 2002 vote for the Iraq War as a New York senator, a military conflict that Sanders did not support.

'That's where Hillary Clinton lost me,' she told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview, 'because there was plenty of information that even I had that said there was a real problem with the logic involved.'

Clinton went on to be secretary of state and has more experience in the foreign policy realm than Sanders, who has has focused his legislative career on fighting for economic justice.

'But what is experience without judgement,' Sarandon said tonight after a Sanders rally in northern Iowa. 'She's had a job but what has she done that we're bragging about. How has she led?'

Continuing the actress said of Clinton, once the nation's top diplomat, 'She's had that job, and he's had a job, too, and she went overseas, but what I'm saying is the biggest foreign decision that had to be made in terms of foreign policy was whether or not to go into Iraq and go into war, and she failed that test.'

'I'm sorry, but for me, you can't get a bigger decision than that and we've been paying the price ever since. And I think she has to be held accountable for that.'

In 2008 Sarandon got behind Barack Obama at a critical time in the primary. Now, she's hitting the trail for Sanders a week before Iowans cast their ballots - the start of the 2016 election.

'I've come here because for me gender is not what's important. Issues are what's important,' she said as she introduced the U.S. senator at tonight's event in Music Man Square in Mason City Iowa.

Her support for Sanders and the visit to Iowa on his behalf is more than just a response to Clinton's war record...

Tyson Fury: Crime And Punishment

Escapes punishment?

Presumably Pink News thinks anyone who has a stupid opinion about 'gay people' [sic] should be horse-whipped?

Ellen Page: On Acting

Ellen Page has accused Hollywood of double standards on homosexuality, arguing that she should be able to play roles of any sexuality despite having recently come out as gay.*

The Oscar-nominated star of Juno and Hard Candy said she had been asked if she feared becoming pigeonholed after signing up for a number of gay-themed roles over the past two years. However, she also conceded that Hollywood was slowly improving in its attitudes to diversity.

“Zachary Quinto [of Star Trek fame] is out, and he stars in one of the biggest blockbuster franchises,” the 28-year-old Canadian actor told Elle magazine. “I have four projects coming up – all gay roles. People ask if I’m concerned about getting pigeonholed. No one asks: ‘Ellen, you’ve done seven straight roles in a row – shouldn’t you shake it up and do something queer?’ 

“There’s still that double standard. I look at all the things I’ve done in movies: I’ve drugged a guy, tortured someone, become a roller-derby star overnight. But now I’m gay, I can’t play a straight person?” ...

The Guardian.

* Not really her point. 

Holocaust Memorial Day: Remember

During the Holocaust, the Nazis systematically exterminated millions of European Jews.

This was genocide.

During this time, thousands of German men were arrested for homosexual acts, many were sent to prison or labour camps.

About the same number as were imprisoned in, say, the UK.

They were prosecuted under Paragraph 175 - introduced in 1871, this was not a 'Nazi law'.

Unlike Jews, they were not gassed or rounded up and shot.

Many men continued to be interred after the defeat of the Nazis, as were all 'criminals', just as gay men who'd broken the law were not freed in Britain and America after the war.

Note that the Nazis did not criminalise gay sex in countries they occupied where it was legal, such as France.

To suggest an equivalence between what the Nazis did to the Jews, and what happened to gay men, is morally obscene.

Good day.

Update: This was written in anticipation of articles like this by Benjamin Butterworth on the Gay Times' site. It's such an odious crock of shit GT should either have it corrected or take it down.

B&B: A Horror Film

EXCLUSIVE: Creative England backs feature about gay couple who plot revenge against a conservative B&B owner.

UK production outfit Hummingbird Films has begun shooting in Bristol on thriller B&B, the directorial debut of Trance co-writer Joe Ahearne.

Paul McGann (Withnail & I), Tom Bateman (Jekyll & Hyde) and Sean Teale (Reign) star in the story of a gay couple who return to bait the owner of a remote B&B one year after they successfully sued him for not allowing them to share a bed.

However, events take a deadly turn when a guest with even more sinister intentions arrives...

Screen Daily. 

Liking the sound of this.

I'm thinking The Wicker Man meets The League Of Gentlemen meets The Shining meets Psycho meets Carrie.

Yes?

Queerty: Reddit And Wept

Worst Nightmare and Pouch Problems

Queerty has lifted both these stories from Reddit; a site where anyone can post any old nonsense.

Though possible, neither sounds remotely plausible - for reasons, once again, it is left to their less gullible readers to point out.

Gay journalism?  

Beats workin'!

Mr Stretch: Toy Fair Or Chill Out?

You decide!

Owen Jones Watch: Love & Hate

A generous double-helping of our Owen over on Guardian online today.

Firstly, OJ thinks President Putin of Russia is not very nice,

BUT WHY IS NO-ONE ELSE ON THE LEFT SPEAKING OUT?!! *

Next up, a video where you can watch Dr Owen Jones drool all over put on his comedy concerned face as he talks to young Olly Alexander about mental health.

Enjoy!

Update: Gay Twitter reacts...

Can't stop watching this. Owen's death grip vs Olly's awkward shoulder pat. #owly  https://t.co/Y9B3rUkxo9

— Paul Lang (@rudemrlang) January 26, 2016

Rod Liddle: Blunt, And To The Point

A year or so back my friend and colleague Hugo Rifkind wrote a very good piece in which he argued that the issues concerning gay rights should not be resolved simply by an elongated ‘eeeeuw’. In other words, heterosexual distaste at the practices of homosexuals should not determine general policy towards this minority. A good point and well made and I agreed with much of it. But it shouldn’t stop the rest of us going ‘eeeeuw’ from time to time, nonetheless.

So, Crispin Blunt MP feels hurt because laws proscribing amyl nitrate (or ‘poppers’) would criminalise the entire gay community. A jar of poppers and a tube of ‘lube’ are always found in the bedside drawer of a gay man, we are told. I would have thought that the requirement for amyl nitrate to relax the sphincter muscle and lube to accommodate entry was God’s way of telling you that what you’re about to do is unnatural and perverse. Or your body’s way of telling you – your call. So eeeeuw. Amyl nitrate is very bad for you – so ban it. Crispin and others can always use a jemmy instead.

The Specator blog - this is Mr Liddle's post in full, by the way.

Civilisation is man's triumph over nature, Rod.

Update: Government launches review of poppers law after outcry over ban, Pink News.

Robert Mapplethorpe: Picture

EXCLUSIVE: Matt Smith, best known for playing Doctor Who in that iconic BBC series, is taking on another larger-than-life figure. He has landed the lead role as avant-garde photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in a biopic titled Mapplethorpe in the works from writer-director Ondi Timoner, the two-time Sundance-winning director whose 2015 pic Brand: A Second Coming opened SXSW last year. Girls regular Zosia Mamet has been cast to play Patti Smith, Mapplethorpe’s one-time lover and best friend.

Timoner, who won at Sundance for DIG in 2004 and We Live In Public in 2009, is also producing with Sirad Balducci and Eliza Dushku. The project has the backing of the Mapplethorpe Foundation, and a summer production start is in the works. CAA and UTA co-rep the project.

Deadline. 

Blimey.

I know actors act and all that, but casting the sexless Matt Smith as The King Of The Pervs seems most incongruous.

Perhaps the film will change the leather clubs to tweed and corduroy clubs?

PS Presumably this will be based on Patti Smith's acclaimed memoir, Just Kids.

If it only deals with their relationship we could - hilariously - see Mapplethorpe de-gayed and heterosexualised.

PPS Fagburn is rather looking forward to seeing World Of Wonder's documentary, Mapplethorpe: Look At The Pictures!

Brian Paddick: Not A Fucking Faggot Shock

A CABBIE accused of shouting homophobic abuse at gay peer Baron Brian Paddick was cleared yesterday after claiming the retired police chief branded him fat.

Kevin McAnallen, 53, was accused of calling the Lib Dem a "f***ing faggot" after he and his husband, Petter Belsvick, crossed the road in front of his black cab.

Baron Paddick, 57, claimed McAnallen, who has been a taxi driver for 24 years, slammed on the brakes and yelled: "Why don't you look where you are going?"

The life peer allegedly replied: "Why don't you show more patience?"

He told magistrates that when he and his husband of seven years walked away the cabbie pulled up and shouted: "You f***ing faggot."

But McAnallen was cleared of a public order offence after insisting he simply told the failed London Mayoral candidate: "F*** off you mug." ...

McAnallen said: "He came up to me and got very aggressive, but said, 'Why don't you f*** off you fat c***.'...

The Sun.

Although we can't be sure exactly what went on here, Fagburn notes that Brian Paddick is a serial complainer, and would probably accuse an empty crisp packet of calling him 'a f**cking faggot'.

Tweet Of The Day: Gay Mafia

Both #BBC and #ITV are run by gay mafia. Why are we allowing this shit? #justasking

— Alexander Nekrassov (@StirringTrouble) January 25, 2016

A laughable response to the equally laughable Panorama documentary that Putin is secretly MADE OF GOLD!

Oscars: And The Award For Biggest Victim Goes To...

Ian McKellen, the veteran British actor who found global fame through the Lord of the Rings movies, has cautioned that homophobia is as much of an issue among Academy voters as racism. Commenting on Monday on the current row over the lack of diversity among both Oscar voters and this year’s nominees, McKellen suggested prejudice was the reason no publicly out man had ever received an Academy award for best actor.

He expressed sympathy with black actors angry that they were “being ill-treated and underestimated,” but said the issue was a wider one.

“No openly gay man has ever won the Oscar; I wonder if that is prejudice or chance,” he said, with the implication that he felt it tended towards the former.

Tom Hanks, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Sean Penn have all won best actor Oscars for playing gay men. “How clever, how clever,” said McKellen. “What about giving me one for playing a straight man?" ...

Guardian.

It's chance really, isn't it, dear?

Actually, I'm not sure you could even call it 'chance'.

Can you name one out leading gay actor (out of the six) who you could genuinely say was cruelly snubbed?

Maybe the American Academy Of Motion Pictures could just invent special categories every year so no-one feels left out?

Best Old Poove Playing A Wizard etc.

Update: For some reason it looks like every media outlet on Planet Earth has picked up on this interview. I'm not interested enough to do anymore, but Google some combo of 'McKellen gay Hollywood disregarded'.

Winston McKenzie: Watershed

Despite more than 400 complaints about homophobic comments on the programme, Ofcom will not investigate Celebrity Big Brother.

Winston McKenzie, a former UKIP candidate, entered the CBB house early this month, and was shown in his entry video making a ‘joke’ about gay people.

“I could cope with a homosexual in the house. I guess I’ll just have to stand with my back against a brick wall all the time,” he said...

In a statement, the watchdog said: “We are satisfied that Channel 5 broadcast clear and appropriate warnings about the potentially offensive content, and intervened in heated exchanges and situations at appropriate times.

“We have also taken into account the audience’s expectations of this well-established reality format, and that the series is aired after the watershed.” ...

Pink News.

What a terrible blow for all the big gay cry babies who can't handle reality in reality TV.

Some people don't like poofs - get over it!

Laurie Penny: Poor Little Rich Girl

When I was at school in Brighton, nobody spoke about feminism or gay rights, even though just beyond the playground walls was Kemptown, arguably one of the gayest square miles of the British Isles, stuffed with special-interest sex shops and scattered with drag queens glittering up the pavements as we waited for the school bus in our stupid posh-kid uniforms.*

Back then I didn’t have words like “genderqueer” or “non-binary” to describe my spiky tangle of teenage feelings; I only knew that I didn’t feel quite like a boy or a girl, and that I longed to wear a blazer and trousers like the boys, to cut my hair and call myself a different name. When I turned up in a suit and tie at a function to show off the scholarship kids to the governing board, I was told off by my teachers...

The Guardian.

Silly moo.

*I lived near Brighton College for many years and can not ever recall seeing 'drag queens glittering up the pavements'.

Migrants: Respect Our Liberal Values!

The spate of migrant sex attacks has led authorities across Europe to start handing out cartoon strips explaining to refugees why they should not assault women.

The Austrian interior ministry has issued a ‘behaviour guide’, which includes drawings of a man hitting a woman – covered by a giant red cross – and an image of gay kissing, approved with a tick.

Authorities in Lucerne in Switzerland plan to distribute a version of the leaflet at its carnival next month and said the decision was made in the wake of the Cologne sex attacks.

Daily Mail.

Good!

Click to enlarge.

Now let's see what those tolerant Mail Online readers have to say...

send them back to where they come from • That these "men" need to be told how to behave like a normal human being is absurd. Why would we let in scum like that? I don't get it at all. Ban all male refugees from entering Europe, only let in children and women. • A better idea would be handing out maps showing the way back home. • Stop them landing on European soil now! Round up the chancers in Calais and Dunkerque and take them back to whence they came immediately. If this happened, they would stop coming. I am not holding my breath. • It's the end of Europe. If I make to being an old man, I have no idea what this continent will look like. • flight home - tick! • this is how civilization was brought down on its knees by polticial ocrrectness, lefites and liberals • And yet the FemiNazis stay silent  • Why are these people allowed to roam around , abusing and spitting . Get a grip Europe .• These people have witnessed public beheadings from the age of 6. A couple of dumb cartoons is not going to make them understand western culture. The nativity of left wing do gooders is astounding. • Send them back to their home and preserve our own culture and values... etc etc etc

Imaginary Couples: Let's Pretend

A bold and powerful photography project is bringing celebrities together to pose as same-sex couples and families as a way to combat homophobia and provide positive images of recognizable figures engaging in queer relationships.

The series, called "IMAGINARY COUPLES," is the brainchild of French artist and photographer Olivier Ciappa and has been displayed in galleries and cities around the world from Paris to Lima. Featuring Eva Longoria posing with singer Lara Fabian and "Sicario" director Denis Villenueve posing with "Dallas Buyers Club" director Jean-Marc Vallee, Ciappa found inspiration for the project from homophobic attitudes he encountered globally -- particularly following the legalization of same-sex marriage in France.

"The celebrities that I shot are heterosexual, but it was essential to me that you would believe these imaginary couples and families they portray were real," Ciappa told The Huffington Post. "If you couldn’t identify with their love and feel it was real, then I would have failed. And to show that love is love, no matter who [is involved], the exhibition also features real gay families, straight ones, single parents, disabled, people of different skin colors and origins, different religion, young couples, old ones… All of these pictures, imaginary or real, have the same glamorous and warm monochrome style that makes them look not only appealing but timeless." ...

Huffpost Gay Voices.

Take that homophobia!

Thank you so much for this straight celebs! #sobrave etc

Love is love, dick is dick, egg is eggs, sky is sky, platitude is platitude, blah blah blah...

Sorry, but all I get from this is a vague feeling of being patronised.

What next now we've finally got this homophobia thing sorted?

Trump Temptation: The Billionaire & The Bellboy

This is (sadly) a joke.

The Kindle erotic fiction 'novel' exists, but it's a measly 10 pages long, and the author, American comedian Elijah Daniel, says he dashed it off  one drunken evening.

Some of the reviews are almost funny...

Update: This was another of those stories where it's hard to find anyone that didn't cover it.

Coz Trump + Gay Sex = LOL!?

Lord Bramall: Nick Nick

THE anonymous witness who falsely accused the former army chief Lord Bramall of child sex abuse appeared in a television documentary under a different name claiming he was abused by Jimmy Savile.

Bramall’s accuser, known only as “Nick”, sparked the Metropolitan police’s Operation Midland inquiry when he claimed to know about the murders of three boys by a VIP paedophile ring operating in Westminster and involving senior political, military and intelligence figures.

However, at the same time that he was giving police and the media — including the BBC — his lurid accounts of abuse, he also appeared on a small satellite channel calling himself “Stephen” and naming Savile as one of his abusers.

In that interview, broadcast on the Crime and Investigation channel in August 2014, he made no mention of political or military figures. Police raided Bramall’s home in March last year. The case against him was so weak that the Met did not even send a file to the Crown Prosecution Service and he was cleared 10 days ago...

Sunday Times front page.

So will this nutty fantasist now be arrested for wasting police time? 

With Exaro News as accomplices?

Tweet Of The Day: The Guyliner

"Grindr is killing romance." Yes, cottaging was a famously beautiful and romantic experience.

— The Guyliner (@theguyliner) January 24, 2016

Please read comments for some gay dating do's and don'ts...

Cameron Mackintosh: Mr Producer

Cameron Mackintosh is the cover star of FT Weekend magazine.

It features a very long interview about the business of show (literally, this is the Finacial Times).

We hear Cameron is turning 70 this year, and was recently declared a billionaire.

Just a passing mention of his young beau, the Austrian theatre photographer Michael Le Poer Trench, but my - don't they make a cute couple!

Poppers: Want Some More?

Slightly OTT Independent article that looks sounds like it was written after a trip to Prowler Soho and a good Google.

The author quotes academic, Lucy Robinson; “If you trace the bottle of amyl [a type of alkyl nitrite] through late 20th-century history, you trace the legacies of gay culture on popular culture in the 20th century."

Eh?

He also cites Ian Young's The Stonewall Experiment seeingly oblivious to how the book claimed that poppers cause Aids!

PS Independent News also report that police in Birmingham have been siezing poppers and other legal highs from shops and venues before a ban has become law.

Update: The tabloids are going big with this; Elvis Snelson died after taking a legal high at Manchester Pride.

Ronaldo: "Banned"

CRISTIANO RONALDO has been banned from taking his weekly trips to Morocco by Real Madrid supremo Florentino Perez, according to reports in Spain.

The Portuguese superstar, 30, makes flying visits to his kickboxer pal Badr Hari, who it has been claimed he is in a gay relationship with. And the Bernabeu president has finally snapped at Ronaldo’s constant travelling, believing that it is affecting his performances.

Ronaldo takes his £14million private jet over to North Africa after morning training, before returning the same evening.

According to El Espanol, the former Manchester United star has been making this trip every Monday to Thursday — and Perez has had enough.

He’s banned future jaunts and is sensationally counting on his friend the King of Morocco, Mohamed VI, to inform him in Ronaldo visits the country... 

The Sun. 

Please note the use of inverted commas etc.

PS Ironically of course the King Of Morocco is said to be a big ole queen.

Tom Daley: Health & Efficiency

Hope you've all been supporting our Tom by watching his weekly video guides for living a healthy lifestyle.

This week it's sleep!

Last week was coffee - maybe that's why she's having trouble sleeping?

The first was about the importance of drinking lemon juice.

Yes, really - perhaps there's a lemon juice marketing board?

Let's hope this gets Tommy his long longed-for TV presenting gig.

PS Tom is now using this 'Come fuck me' pic as his Grindr profile.

Naked Man: 82

Sidney Wilson told police he was catching the "last of the sun's rays" and testing insect repellent when he was spotted on September 26 last year.

A court heard a probation officer was working with a group of young men in Alvaston Park in Derby when one of them spotted the pensioner naked in the bushes.

Police were called to the scene and when they arrested Wilson officers found pheromone wipes, which enhance men's sex appeal, condoms and kitchen paper in his bag

Wilson, of Alvaston, admitted outraging public decency and was handed a 12-month community order at Derby Crown Court on Thursday...

Daily Star.

82!

As Winston Churchill is said to have said, on hearing that the Tory MP, Ian Harvey, had been arrested having sex wth a guardsman in St James's Park on the coldest night of the year; 'My god man, makes you proud to be British!'

Graham Norton: Dear

I’m an 18-year-old boy with a girlfriend – but I’ve fallen for an older boy. I’ve known I was bi for a while, but only recently told a couple of my closest female friends.

Telling them gave me the courage to put myself out a little more, and hence after a fair few “likes” on Instagram pictures a lad messaged me – albeit drunkenly. He picked me up the other day and we went to his place and, well… yeah.

He seems interested purely in the physical aspects, but I am developing feelings for him. I’m also feeling guilty and scared. He is my best mate’s older brother; not only that, my best mate’s girlfriend is my girlfriend’s best friend. I don’t think my mate could forgive me for sleeping with his brother and I worry that if he finds out, I’ll lose him – and all my other mates.

Daily Telegraph. 

Mr Norton's reply is rather good.

I would have told the boy to bang them both.

And nope, I can't quite figure out how he got be the Telegraph's agony aunt, either.

(And I'm pretty sure it's not ghosted).

PS That superimposed rainbow flag a-fluttering dough - LOL!

Edit: Graham Norton crowned chat show king in unscientific poll, Mirror.

Meanwhile in The Guardian...

Best line; 'Or am I just a victim of sod's law?'

Alexander McQueen: The Movie

EXCLUSIVE: In one of the hottest development titles coming out of the UK film biz, 45 Years director Andrew Haigh has signed on to direct the Alexander McQueen biopic for producer Damian Jones and Pathe. Red hot playwright Chris Urch, whose latest play The Rolling Stone has just debuted in London to ecstatic reviews, is writing the project. Jones had previously optioned Andrew Wilson’s McQueen biography Blood Beneath The Skin, but the film will not be exclusively based on the book; rather it will be part of the research materials available to Urch.

Fashion designer McQueen’s spectacular rise and tragic fall would seem to be fertile material for cinematic adaptation...

Deadline Hollywood. 

Hmm...

Played by Tom Hardy?

Biggins???

Gay Misogyny: Oh No It's Not!

Independent Voices.

Yay! Textbook gay virtue signalling written in stutent gobbledygook.

PS He's talking about the abysmal Gay Men Touch Vaginas For The First Time video, which was made by...  lesbians. The none-too-bright writer says it's 'transphobic'!??

Alexander Litvinenko: Kremlin Paedophile

Here's the article where the rather bizarre Alexander Litvinenko accused Vladimir Putin of being a paedophile.

Obviously anything this man has said should be taken seriously.

NB Polonium had never been used as a poison before, and was not initially found in his body, but apparently turned up some time later, as if by magic, so yeah, obvs killed by those evil Russian Pitinistas. (Though it seems not unlikely the mafia did).

Update: At last! Someone's tracked down the 5 year-old boy Putin kissed in 2006!

Crispin Blunt: The Problem

The problem with wanting politics to be more reflective of real life is that it inevitably leads to a bald, middle-aged man explaining to the House of Commons how party drugs help him to enjoy anal sex.

“I out myself as a popper user,” Crispin Blunt, the chairman of the foreign affairs select committee, declared yesterday.

Fifty years ago such a statement would have indicated an appreciation of modern philosophy. Any politician who confessed to enjoying a hit of Popper was probably referring to one of Sir Karl’s critiques of teleological historicism. Those who were into the heavy stuff would take a snifter of Bertrand Russell as well.

Today, though, poppers are a chemical product popular on the club scene that have, as Keith Vaz explained, “a beneficial ... effect in enabling anal sex”. You learn something new every day. Or I do, anyway, being very innocent. I’m with Lyn Brown, Labour’s drugs spokeswoman, who said that until she took on the brief she thought poppers were “the little things with the string that we had at parties”... 

The Times sketch.

The piece is titled 'Crispin Blunt relaxes into role of raconteur of gay lifestyle'.

Ho ho ho!

Coming Out: Houston, We Don't Have A Problem

Mom's Ad in @HoustonChron Celebrates #Gay Son After #HERO Defeat https://t.co/0TzUhtNZog #txlege @DrakeyWilson pic.twitter.com/BPNDcdlHV5

— Lone Star Q (@lsqnews) January 19, 2016

Though this sentimental hokum which has (predictably) been picked up by most gay media (heart-warming, adorable, amazing etc) appears to possibly be true, the source appears to be as nutty as a Snickers bar...

Poppers: Tee Hee Hee

Wonder how many readers know who Crispin Blunt is and what poppers are?

Blunt must have known much of the media would treat his speech like sniggering schoolboys, so for once we could say someone's been (quite) brave.

Can you think of another politician who's said; 'I take drugs and I enjoy it?'

PS And a defence of poppers on Guardian online - yet to see one article speaking out against the whole legal highs bill.

Lord Bramall: Hear Hear!

Lord Bramall has reacted with soldierly fortitude to the hellish ordeal of a year-long investigation into an allegation of child abuse by the now infamous “Nick”.
 
He does not want an independent inquiry, he says, because such investigations cost too much public money and do very little good. Hear, hear!

Yet we already have the ongoing Lowell Goddard Inquiry into the handling of such allegations in the past and I can only repeat my view that it should be expanded to look at the present handling as well.

There has been much talk of celebrity witch-hunts but we should also remember that similar ordeals are suffered by innocent priests, teachers and other ordinary people. They may not attract headlines but the allegations will receive high local coverage and result in suspension from jobs for months or even years.

It is time for “Nick” to be identified and prosecuted. He is either malicious or mentally unstable but his getting clean away with his ludicrous allegations acts as an incentive to anybody vengeful enough, greedy enough or fantasist enough to make up falsehoods and wreck lives...

Ann Widdecombe leaps to the defence of Lord Bramall in her Express column.

Update: As did the Express's Stephen Pollard on Friday.

And here's an Indepedent editorial on the 'shameful case'.

Charles Moore in The Spectator on the 'demented allegations',

And Boris Johnson in the Sunday Telegraph.

IT IZ A ESTABLISMENT COVERUP!!!

Oh and her's Deborah Orr in Saturday's Guardian; If we changed our attitude to sex crimes, Lord Bramall would not need an apology.

Orr argues that the accused in sex abuse cases should be given immunity from being named.

Of course, but how workable could this be in an age of social media - and when the police leak identities of celebrity arrests to the police.

Spot the queen etc. Mail Online.