Russell T Davies: Bananas

Davies continued with his first draft of Cucumber. The spark for it had been unexpected: Graham Norton.

“He shamed me into doing it,” Davies hoots. “Shamed me on Radio 2, live on air, while I was doing a promo for Doctor Who. ‘Why don’t you write something proper, about real gay men, again?’ he said. ‘Like Queer as Folk.’ I walked across Manchester’s MediaCity feeling chastised. But he was right. Graham Norton was right, thank God.”

Ten years before, Queer as Folk had been Davies’s calling card to the wider world. Having spent the previous decade writing Children’s Ward, Why Don’t You?, The Grand and Dark Season – which starred a young Kate Winslet – Queer as Folk was clearly in a different league: something so unmistakably from the heart, wildly inventive, joyous, angry, filthy and funny that it changed people’s ideas of “gay drama” overnight. It was genuinely revolutionary.

“Before it went out, everyone thought it was going to be Channel 4’s worthy gay drama,” Davies recalls. “All vegan protesters and Aids. The only gay characters we’d had [on British TV] before were ones dying on EastEnders. People weren’t expecting this.”

Caitlin Moran profiles the mighty RTD in The Sunday Times.

Patrick Smugtwit: No Shit Sherlock!

Have you noticed Holmes and Watson in TV's hit TV show Sherlock are having a "bromance"?

Probably not - but I have!

But what is a "bromance", I hear you ask.

If you Google it you will discover that it is a combination of two words; "bro" and "romance".

ie It is a romance between bros [ie brothers, but not literally].

Now it has come to my attention that some people think this means that TV's Holmes and Watson are gays!

This is yet another example of HOMOPHOBIA!

Imagine if they said they were black people??!!

No, they are just good friends.

There are many other "bromances" in films and TV at the moment, and I will Google them later and add a list.

How far we have come since the 1970s, when Morecambe and Wise lay side-by-side in bed, watched by a nation so green as to fail to see anything blue. 

Even though they did, a sub-editor has added.

And how far we have come since the 1980s, when the homoerotic frisson between the unerringly heterosexual Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer, as Maverick and Iceman in Top Gun, went unacknowledged.

Except by everyone who acknowledged this, you ignoramus, the sub-editor has added.

But what does this all mean?

Well, if you ask me, it shows the times they are a-changing for heterosexual men.

Or as I call them "meterosexuals"!

You could say, it's elementary, my dear Watson!!!
Hahaha!

The ever brilliant and profound Patrick Smugtwit writes.

This thought-provoking piece was written following the virtual controversy when Caitlin Moran asked Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman to read some gaysexy hot Sherlock fanfic at a BFI screening.

Mic Wright responds here.

Twitter: I Say Nothing

Art thing by @BeardedGenius.

"This is the home of the vain! THIS IS THE HOME OF THE VAIN!" - Mark E Smith

Passive activism with a side-order of hypocrisy, please!
Caitlin's use of a term like "bum boy" is clearly ironic - though I'm not sure how many readers of The Times would get this, and her "I love The Gays me!" shtick - though I know she does - just comes across as annoying and patronising.
It's pointless for Fagburn to comment further on this monumental act of folly - you've read everything that has to be said about that on Twitter today already.
Okay, I'll break my own self-imposed boycott to tell you quickly here's my favourite tweet on this crapola by @RichNeville...

"First they came for the communists, 
I remained silent; 
That seemed to teach them a lesson."

Fagburn is trying to think of a way to convince leading gay simpleton Patrick Smugtwit - who's taken to Twitter in the last few days to say he doesn't like sexism... wow, who knew!?? - and other self-important pious bourgeois bores to boycott Twitter forever.
The problem always starts when journalists are more concerned, not with communicating ideas, but with trying to become a minor celebrity.
Some columnists clearly get off on seeing their byline photo published - rather than their actual copy.

Update...

@holysmoke @caitlinmoran I won't be silent: No one makes more jokes about Aids than the friends of mine who nearly died from it.
— Patrick Strudwick (@PatrickStrud) August 5, 2013

The gay hysteric who continually cries "homophobia!" at everything and nothing, and told people to join #TwitterSilence to protest sexism and homophobia, defending a straight journalist who tweets Aids jokes.
Unbelievable.

Caitlin Moran: Only Askin'

Pete Paphides - that's "Mr Moran" to you - responds;

“Cate. I’m going to make a very mild suggestion here. It is that you might be spending slightly too long hanging out with your gay friends. Whatever the multiplicity of positive aspects that gay culture has brought us – and however loath I am to ever make a crass generalisation about an entire disparate demograph of people, all ultimately impossible to unite under a single, notable trope – they do think everyone is secretly gay, and I think that might have crept into your analysis of our 18-year heterosexual marriage, during which I have never once asked you to dress as a soldier, put on a pair of tighty-whities or, in any way, ever, be a man. I’m very, very sorry, but I’m straight.”

The Times.

I can't be arsed to check, but I bet there's a gaggle of silly queens on Twitter who've taken offence at this sweet piece.
"Caitlin Moran? Catty MORON more like!!!" etc etc.

Splash!: The Second Coming

To be fair, however, the atmosphere did seem pretty electric — thanks to a pool-side audience of hysterical Tom Daley fans. If Splash! is anything — and that’s something still very much up for debate — then it is the result of a meeting during the Olympics where someone at ITV1 went, “A lot of people fancy British bronze medallist Tom Daley, don’t they? He’s like Harry Styles, but wet. Can anyone think of a show format in less than a minute which will allow us to put him on prime-time, in clingy trunks?” 

Caitlin Moran in The Times. 
This was one of the kinder reviews.
Also note a rare non-gender-specific description of his fans and who fancies him.

PS Here's a highly selective selection of tweets showing what the great British public make of Tom and the show. "My mum thinks Tom Daley is gay, she can just fuck right of" etc etc.

PPS I heard a rumour that fans of the diving will enjoy the next issue of GT...

Caitlin Moran: Eh?

Caitlin Moran - who's usually interesting and entertaining - has written a piece for The Times today about The Gays and equality and that.
Two slight problems.

1. It's behind the Murdoch paywall, so you probably can't read it.

2. I'm not really sure what she's trying to say.

Anyone?

Edit/update: This became quite a thing on Twitter and on the blogosphere, mainly because of this opening paragraph;

"When I first started being serious about being a bleeding heart pinko liberal lefty right-on lover of women, gays, disableds, mentals, the working class, transsexuals and all the ethnics – apart from the Chinese, obviously. It’s difficult to trust them. They’re a cruel race. Or is that supposed to be the Japanese? I can never remember – I did it because it seemed to be the right thing. The polite thing. The noble thing."

Her use of words like "gays" and "mentals" is clearly ironic - and if you can't see that you're stupid.

Apologies to any members of the stupid community I may have offended.

Others found the whole thing rather patronising and/or offensive.

I just found it rather garbled and a lame, wet liberal non-argument more suited to a school debating society. 

It does seem like Moran must have dashed this one off in a hurry, but it's good to know even she can have her off-days.

Britain In A Day: "Brilliant"

'Another teenage boy: in his bedroom, reflecting on his life. Pyjamas. Duvet. Slight, still half-child — beautiful eyelashes. He’s full of joy. He lists all of his blessings — his parents, his health, his friends, his books. But he just wants one more thing.
“If I find a boyfriend,” he concludes, “I would have someone to share it all with. And then I’m going to be so happy. I’m going to be the happiest person in Britain!”
A boy telling all of Britain he is ready for love — fearless in a way that no gay child could have been even ten years ago. And then it is midnight on November 12, 2011, and then it ends..."

Caitlin Moran reviews BBC2's "brilliant" Britain In A Day in The Times. 
Watch it here.

Caitlin Moran: The First Gay Man On The Moon

"Last week I was compiling a quick-cut YouTube montage of humanity’s greatest moments – what can I say? The kids are 7 and 9 now; weekend activities have moved on from cupcakes and colouring in – and came across an awkward fact: there is no Gay Moon Landing.
"There are single, iconic images for every other blockbuster moment in humanity’s progress: the civil rights movement has Martin Luther King, giving his speech. The suffragette movement has Emily Wilding Davison, trampled by the King’s horse. The triumphs of medical science: the mouse with the ear on its back. And the space race has, of course, the moon landing – Neil Armstrong making the most expensive footprint in history.
"But there is no single, iconic news image for gay rights. There’s no five-second clip you can put in that marks a moment where things started getting better for the LGBT guys. The Stonewall riots in 1969 are an obvious turning point, of course – but footage of it needs captions to explain what’s going on. Otherwise, it just looks like a lot of late-Sixties men of above-average grooming experiencing a very unwelcome fire evacuation from a disco, while a load of policemen hit them. Anyone who went clubbing in the rougher parts of the Midlands, or Essex, at the time will have seen scenes almost identical. It’s not particularly gay..."

Caitlin Moran in The Times. Continues below...