Fagburn: From The Sunday Papers

Zionist loon Julie Burchill still likes a drink, gets drunk, admits she's written "a lot of bullshit", but doesn't regret that transphobic article in The Observer one little bit; "I’d do it again, and I’d do it bigger!” • More obligatory TV critics queuing up to give those Vicious old queens a good kicking.    "I really wasn’t prepared for quite how much I would dislike and, by the time the credits rolled, despise this hammy bitches’ dinner" AA Gill, The Sunday Times. "Forget the cast, where are the gags?" IoS etc etc • Obligatory Sunday broadsheet interview with a gay actor - this week Zachary Quinto. So brave etc etc. •  Obligatory Sundays features about The Gays and The Sports. It's the last taboo! etc etc. This week football. The Observer has not one, but two. Over in the Mail, it's cricket's turn • Obligatory article in the Mail On Sunday claiming Ukip's local election successes had something to do with gay marriage, accompanied by obligatory photo of Nigel Farage drinking a pint. Also the subject of a leader in the Sunday Express, who manfully break with tradition and show Nigel talking into a pink (!) mobile phone • Obligatory "heartwarming" lifestyle feature about having gay kids, Sunday Telegraph (Sadly there isn't one about gay people having kids this week) • Obligatory very hastily cobbled together thing explaining who Nigel Evans MP is • Obligatory Nigel Slater recipes Observer Magazine only • Obligatory token and random gay story in the Independent On Sunday that's of absolutely no interest to anyone. This week - the Finnish Eurovision entry! It's the World Cup for gays! etc etc. It's a protest song about gay marriage - except it isn't, really. Zzzz...

Leveson Inquiry: Freedom Of Speech

"She was openly gay… we regarded it as a matter of freedom of speech… we didn't regard it as pejorative. There are gay websites that use that term in a positive way."

John Witherow, Sunday Times' editor, at the Leveson Inquiry, tries to excuse AA Gill calling Clare Balding a "dyke".
In 2010, the Press Complaints Commission upheld Balding's complaint against The Sunday Times - a decision perhaps swayed by Witherow's dismissive reply to her initial complaint to him.

Clare Balding: Face Of 2010

"I hadn't decided what to do until I wrote to John Witherow [the editor of the Sunday Times]. But then he replied and basically said, 'It's no worse than Jeremy Clarkson, the epitome of the heterosexual male, being mocked for his dress sense and some people in gay society should get over the idea that they have special victim status.'
"Now, I've never regarded myself as having special victim status. But a lot of other people don't necessarily have a public voice… and if you're a nurse or teacher or social worker or whatever, you don't deserve to have someone say you're good, or you're not good, and you're a dyke. You're either good. Or you're not good."
"Just review the programme! You can say what you like about my hair, or my fat bum, or my legs or my dress sense. Whatever. That's not going to hurt anyone else. But don't point a finger at me and say I'm a dyke on a bike. Because frankly that's what kids say in the playground. It's not on. Everybody knows it's not on. I was staggered that they didn't just say, 'You know what? I'm really sorry.' And the strange thing is they still haven't said sorry."

The Observer decided that Claire Balding's "very public spat with AA Gill" was one of the news events of the year, and interviewed Balding.
Good for them.

AA Gill: Wittering On About Twitter

Today's restaurant review in The Sunday Times by AA Gill is so off-topic - we don't hear mention of the restaurant until over halfway through - that Fagburn wonders if it is Mr Gill's comment on his official rebuke from the Press Complaints Commission over his "dyke on a bike" Clare Balding TV review?
The first few hundred words can only be described as a rant, but also an exercise in navel-applauding that otherwise is - as they say - apropos of nothing.
I think what he's trying to say is that he doesn't give a fuck if people are offended by what he says.
Fair enough, but what the fuck is he saying here?
Gill starts off writing not about food, but (I think) about Twitter; "I don’t do it, not any of it, but I am aware of it. I just choose to abstain.
"Like all contrarians, I have a smug, holier-than-thou superiority, a sort of pitying demi-interest in you doing it. I watch out of the corner of my eye, but I don’t blog, or tweet..."
You may recall Balding began tweeting to voice her anger over Gill's TV review.
Gill goes on; "There is a contest for who can get to the top of the Twitter ratings. It’s like an argumentative X Factor: you can all join in."
Us plebs, he means.
Sadly, it is hard to discern what on Jupiter Mr Gill means in much of the rest of his rant.
A highlight; "You might start with animals: they’re always good. Pop a penguin in a wheelie bin. Penguins are one of the few animals that can be gay, so pop a gay penguin in a wheelie bin."
Quite.
Fagburn wonders if this "restaurant review" was written after Mr Gill had a particularly good lunch?

Stonewall Awards: All Must Have Prizes

Can there be a more thrilling event in the homosexualist calendar than the Stonewall Awards?
All those famous people from off the telly, posh queens, the fagerati and that - imagine!
Fagburn thinks they are basically A Good Thing, and admires its intent of shining a light on those who have been very, very good or very, very bad to The Gays.
But it sometimes seems a bit like the Caucus race in Alice In Wonderland; "Everybody has won, and all must have prizes."
Last year Boyzone's Stephen Gately won an award.
Presumably for dying.
The awards for writer, journalist and publication of the year in particular are an exercise in plate-spinning, trying to keep everyone and anyone happy so they carry on giving Stonewall good press.
Is there a national lesbian and/or gay publication that hasn't been nominated?
In 2008 they even shortlisted the homophobic and transphobic loon Julie Bindel for the Hero award for fuck's sake.
Today Stonewall announced the shortlists for Bigot of the Year and Hero of the Year.
Their heroes this year? Claire Balding, Kath Gillespie Sells of LGBT disability camapigning group Regard, Dr Jeffrey John (Is it just Fagburn's memory playing tricks or does the Dean of St Albans get nominated every year?), Gareth Thomas, and Joe McElderry.
Though one could argue that whoever outed Joe by hacking into his Twitter account is more deserving of the award.
Bigots? They got 'em. Frederick Forsyth, AA Gill, Chris Grayling, Rev Arthur Roche from adoption agency Catholic Care, and Susanne Wilkinson, a bigoted B&B owner from Berkshire.
Good choices all - though AA Gill isn't really homophobic, he's just a sneering posh git, and sadly he'll most likely wallow in being nominated.
But the really good news is that tickets to the awards ceremony are a snip at just £150!
Some gay people are filthy rich - get over it!

• Frederick Forsyth - a man so right-wing he seems sectionable - was nominated for a predictably shitty Daily Express column written about the gay asylum ruling in July. I'd provide a link to it, but it appears to have been removed from the Express website...

Clare Balding: "Dyke On Bike" Complaint Upheld

"Writer AA Gill has been censured by the press watchdog after he called TV presenter Clare Balding a "dyke on a bike" in his column in the Sunday Times," Media Guardian reports.
The PCC's statement is here: "In this case, the Commission considered that the use of the word “dyke” in the article – whether or not it was intended to be humorous – was a pejorative synonym relating to the complainant’s sexuality. The context was not that the reviewer was seeking positively to “reclaim” the term, but rather to use it to refer to the complainant’s sexuality in a demeaning and gratuitous way. This was an editorial lapse which represented a breach of the Code, and the newspaper should have apologised at the first possible opportunity."
It seems it was The Sunday Times' editor, John Witherow, sniffy reply to a letter from Balding compounding the insult that swayed the PCC's decision.
You may want to compare it to the PCC's ruling on Jan Moir's infamous article about Stephen Gately, brought by his boyfriend Andy Cowles, which was not upheld.
In July, the PCC refused to consider a complaint against The Sun - for calling Louie Spence a "bender" in a headline - as it was brought by third parties.
Do the PCC's rulings seem a bit random?
You betcha!
More on this later...

Clare Balding: "Dyke" Not On Bike - On Warpath

"Some time ago, I made a cheap and frankly unnecessary joke about Clare Balding looking like a big lesbian. And afterwards somebody tugged my sleeve to point out that she is a big lesbian, and I felt foolish and guilty. So I’d like to take this opportunity to apologise. Sorry.
"Now back to the dyke on a bike, puffing up the nooks and crannies at the bottom end of the nation..." AA Gill wrote in The Sunday Times last week.
The feminist blog, the f word, reports that Clare Balding complained to the editor, John Witherow, and received the following reply.
"In my view some members of the gay community need to stop regarding themselves as having a special victim status and behave like any other sensible group that is accepted by society. Not having a privileged status means, of course, one must accept occasionally being the butt of jokes. A person’’s sexuality should not give them a protected status. Jeremy Clarkson, perhaps the epitome of the heterosexual male, is constantly jeered at for his dress sense (lack of), adolescent mind-set and hair style. He puts up with it as a presenter’s lot and in this context I hardly think that AA Gill’’s remarks were particularly “cruel”, especially as he ended by so warmly endorsing you as a presenter."
Fagburn can imagine a PS to this letter reading; "Lighten up love - can't you people take a joke?"
Balding has replied; "When the day comes that people stop resigning from high office, being disowned by their families, getting beaten up and in some instances committing suicide because of their sexuality, you may have a point.
"This is not about me putting up with having the piss taken out of me, something I have been quite able to withstand, it is about you legitimising name calling. ‘Dyke’ is not shouted out in school playgrounds (or as I’ve had it at an airport) as a compliment, believe me.
"It may be your job to defend your writer and your editorial team but if you really think that homophobia does not exist and was not demonstrated beyond being ‘the butt of a joke’ then we have a problem."
Earlier today Balding tweeted that she has reported The Sunday Times to the Press Complaints Commission; "Complaint now registered. There's a first time for everything so here goes."
Good for her.
For the record, Fagburn wuld like to point out that AA Gill is "a friend of Jeremy"
Yes, Jeremy Clarkson.
I can think of no more damning description.