Mirror: Timeline

Have to say this fing in the Mirror is pretty well done.

Apart from the fucking photo of some more disembodied gay hands at the top.

Makes a nice change from the usual 'hopeless posh straight intern has a quick Google'.

Tom Parry - Fagburn salutes you!

PS See also Ruth Hunt in the Sunday Mirror - apparently now no longer acting CEO of Stonewall - on why there is still much to be done.

Gay Footballer Intrigue: Completely Unrelated Poll

Mirror image.

Today's Daily Mirror.

Mirror Online, March 5th.

It looks like a straight fight for the back-up left-back option for England's World Cup squad between Ashley Cole and Luke Shaw...

Current standing...

Obviously Fagburn is positively GRIPPED by all this...

Press Complaints Commission: "An Extremely Finely Balanced Decision"

The Press Complaints Commission has ruled that an article published by the Daily Mirror headlined "Stuart Hall judge visited gay brothel" did not breach Clause 12 (Discrimination) of the Editors' Code of Practice.

The front-page article reported that Judge Russell, who presided over the sentencing of Stuart Hall, had resigned in 1996 following the publication of allegations that he had visited a "gay brothel." Dr Nicholas Russell complained to the PCC, with the consent of Judge Russell, that the article had implied wrongly that his brother's sexual orientation was relevant to his sentencing of Mr Hall. He argued the coverage was grossly offensive and referred to his brother's sexual orientation in pejorative terms. He also argued that the article intruded into his brother's privacy in breach of Clause 3 (Privacy) of the Code.

The newspaper strongly denied that the article had included details of the Judge's sexual orientation, or that it had referred to his sexual orientation is a pejorative way. The newspaper believed that it was relevant to the debate about a high-profile case concerning sexual misconduct that the Judge who presided over the trial had in the past faced allegations about sexual activities, albeit of a very different kind, which had led to his resignation. The newspaper said that in order to properly recount the circumstances of the resignation, it had been relevant to report that the establishment had openly catered for gay men.

This was an "extremely finely balanced decision" but the Commission ultimately concluded that the newspaper had been entitled to bring to its readers' attention the fact of the Judge's resignation, and that it had not breached Clause 12 (ii) in describing the circumstances. The Commission did, however, express its reservations about the manner in which the material had been presented and made clear that it might have taken a different view had the report included gratuitous details relating to the Judge's sexual orientation.

The Commission also concluded that the article made no "prejudicial or pejorative reference" to the Judge's sexual orientation and there was therefore no breach of Clause 12 (i). It noted that the article had recounted the incident in a factual manner, without ridiculing the Judge's sexuality or employing offensive terms. Lastly, as the coverage contained minimal details about the allegations, which had been previously published, the complaint was not upheld under Clause 3 (Privacy).

ENDS

Notes to editors:

1. To read the adjudication please click here.

2. The Editors' Code of Practice can be read here.

Unbelievable.

Who's business was this, and what bearing did it have on Stuart Hall's trial?
Oh, and Russell was caught in a News Of The World sting, and it was in a sauna not a "gay brothel", by the way.
The highly reputable News Of The World?
Whatever happened to them, eh?

Daily MIrror: NOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Daily Mirror.

So?
Mentioned in passing; he was "caught in a newspaper sting" - actually by the News Of The World!
Anthony Russell has always disputed the paper's versions of events.
The Greenhouse is a sauna, not a brothel.

George Michael Crash: Latest

The Sun says this. The Mirror says that. The Sun says this. The Mirror says that. The Sun says this. The Mirror says that. The Sun says this. The Mirror says that. The Sun says this. The Mirror says that. The Sun says this. The Mirror says that. The Sun says this. The Mirror says that....

The Sun, and their late unlamented sister paper News Of The World, hate George Michael.
The feeling's mutual. 
When the NOTW closed down he declared it "a fantastic day for Britain", and went out to get pissed on Old Compton Street.
But they know you can print pretty much anything about George because he's known on Fleet Street for not suing.
The Mirror is George's pet paper, where he's always done his big interviews etc.
During this latest saga, stories in The Sun have been swiftly contradicted by ones in the Mirror quoting his PR, Connie Filippello.
Obviously, they can't both be right.
Maybe they could both be wrong. 
The new twist comes from someone claiming to have witnessed the accident.
Katherine Fox has some glamour photos of herself posing by the Mini she was driving in the Daily Mail.
Which is what you'd do, right?
Remember when George was hospitalised last last Christmas - the papers contradicted themselves every day. 
I think it's safe to assume we won't know what's really happened here for a while. 
If you read anything in the tabloids about George Michael, please bear in mind it's probably balls.

Mirror: News Drought Misery May Last Til New Year

The Daily Mirror reports that George Michael - that's "the ex-Wham! star", incidentally - has sent a tweet!
I'll type that again and give it some more time to sink in.
George Michael has sent a tweet!!!
Fagburn thinks this is so fucking important it's worth quoting in full.

“Hey everyone. Belated Happy Xmas. Sorry you haven’t heard from your favourite singing greek for so long. You needn’t worry, I’m doing great. Feeling so much better than I was. Must get back to my party, but looking forward to a great 2013, I promise it will be full of great new music, huge Xmas hug to you all.”

Actually, I think this must have been two tweets, but I think you'll agree it's pretty damned exciting whatever, yes?
Or, as Yog might say/sing; "I think it's amazing!"

Daily Mirror: Sex Tips From A Gay Man

In a word... no.

Quite funny piece in the Mirror by Siobhan McNally.

Lots of things are OK – dressing up, sex in a lift, dirty talk, crotchless knickers, handcuffs, edibles, ­Marigolds, Fairy Liquid... oops sorry, that was my shopping list.
But if he suggests anything that involves cutlery or the family hamster, then feel free to say no.
Perhaps even suggest an alternative activity – like finally getting around to mowing the lawn.

PS The book sounds like junk - I predict huge sales. Post 50 Shades Of Grey, it's obvious you can sell any old rubbish about sex. I know - who knew!

One Direction: Louis, Louis

The One Direction boys headed to Alan Carr's chat show set yesterday to pre-record an interview with the Chatty Man. They talked about kissing, they talked about they talked about string theory** and they talked about the homosexuality rumours that have been thrown at Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson ever since the dawn of day the term Larry Stylinson was coined.
Alan put on his serious face for a moment, and questioned Louis quite intently about why he appears to get so upset about the rumours.
“I just think it’s really degrading towards her," Louis said - presumably talking about his girlfriend, Eleanor Calder, and not just getting confused about his bandmate's gender...

The Mirror's ever hilarious 3am Girls. 
Can't think how those rumours got started, girl.

PS Yup, it's another slow news day. Hey, don't kill the messenger.

Daily Mirror: Ask A Nolan

Probably just doing research.

Daily Mirror.

PS Congrats to Coleen Nolan for still filing her brilliant copy when she was in the Celebrity Big Brother house.

Chris Brown: Going Down?

We do love a ridiculous rumour and we do love people getting excited about one too. So, today we’re totally feeling the love, because apparently, according to internet whispers, Chris Brown gave some… um, mouth love, to another man.
Now, for legal reasons we’d like to categorically state that we are not saying this is a fact or indeed that there is any degree of truth in the gossip at all, we are merely reporting what we have seen other users of the World Wide Web chatting about, because that is our job.
It doesn’t mean we’re not allowed to snigger at the same time though...

The Mirror's ever hilarious 3am Girls on top form.
There now appear to be several photos alleging to show Chris Brown at it - all a bit unconvincing, I think (though there have been rumours before).
I won't post any cause this is a family forum, but happy Googling.

Tom Daley: Troll Wars

Aren't there some lovely people in the world?
It actually got even worse than the above suggests.
Looks like the troll's in trouble, though - good.
Happy to have played my little part. 
And I'm more than happy to let all my fancy free speech principles fly out the window on this occasion.
Quite frankly, I think we should bring back hanging just for this jerk, too.
No-one - I repeat no-one - messes with me and my Tommy.
Nighty night.

Mirror: Dear Dierdre

Dear Dierdre, The Sun.
The lad looks positively flummoxed!
Dierdre says; "He may be happily married but that doesn’t stop him from obviously fancying other men...
"I’m emailing you my leaflet about assertiveness techniques to help you get this over to him firmly and clearly."
Wise words.

Thought For The Day: Clive James

'To be the kind of newspaper writer who doctors fiction until it sounds like fact is to work a confidence trick. I admit that everything attributed to me by the Mirror journalist I did actually say in my BBC show, but he shifted the context by leaving out when and in what circumstances I said it. He thus turned one kind of fact into another kind of fact, which means he turned it into a fiction...  
'The journalists for the cheap press are uneasily aware that nobody cares much about what they say. Hence their sad conviction that they can say things any way they like, even if it means staging a man’s funeral for him just because he makes a few down-in-the-mouth remarks. Talk about getting the hearse before the horse.'

Clive James in the Telegraph on the Mirror's premature attempt to file his obituary.
In true tabloid-style, as he has cancer he became "Brave Clive James". 
The now notorious episode of Meeting Myself Coming Back is on Radio 4 tonight at 8pm.

Wham! Reunion: Wham Bam No Thank You Mam!

Daily Mirror.

"Categorically not true", according to George Michael's PR, Connie Filipello.

Bisexuality: No More Research Needed

'A new study published online looked at men who are aroused by women as well as men who have had sexual experience with at least two people of each gender, and a romantic relationship of at least three months with at least one person of each gender.
'Men had to watch videos of male and female same-sex intimacy while genital sensors monitored their erectile responses.
'The study reported that bisexual men responded to both the male and female videos but gay and straight men did not.'
  
The Daily Mirror.

Thanks boffins!

Gareth Williams Inquest: Titter Ye Not!

'The MI6 spy whose body was found in a padlocked holdall in his bath was once discovered tied to his bed in just his boxer shorts by his former landlady, the inquest into his death heard today.
'Describing Gareth Williams as “embarrassed, panicky, and apologetic” when found, Jennifer Elliot’s statement to the inquest detailed how she and her husband heard cries for help from their lodger in the early hours of the morning.
“Approximately three years ago, in bed, we heard Gareth shouting for help,” she said.
“It was about 1.30am, in the winter. We both got up and got the spare key. I called up, ‘are you ok?’, and we went up to find him lying on his bed with both arms and hands tied with a material that was attached to each bobble at the end of the headboard.
“We were both in shock. He was very embarrassed, panicky, and apologetic. He said, ‘I just wanted to see if I could get myself free’.”
'The spy was dressed in boxer shorts, with the bedclothes pulled over his legs, she said.
"He was not aroused and I could not see any sperm near him," Ms Elliot continued.
'She added that the unknown material had cut into Williams’ wrists.
Ms Elliott went on to explain that they believed that the event was probably of a sexual nature rather “than escapology”...
“He apologised and said it would not happen again, and Gareth never caused any situation like it again..."

The Daily Mirror goes into the most detail about what was heard at the Gareth Williams inquest yesterday.
The Sun were kind enough to publish a photo of the actual bed.
I do feel guilty, but it's hard to not find something cruelly amusing in this scenario. 
It appeals to a very English sense of humour - most papers seemed to be sniggering about it today - it sounds like a scene from a Whitehall farce.
It's even funnier if you read out Mrs Elliot's words in the voice of the landlady from Monty Python, I find.
Sorry Gareth.

Update: BBC TV News item Friday 27th, includes man demonstrating getting into a sports holdall. 

Gareth Williams: Daily Mirror Exclusive!

Yes, that's a picture of his bath.
I kinda already had a pretty good idea what a bath looks like, but thanks anyway.

Daily Mirror: Reade Brian And Weep

'I’m in favour of gay marriages on the grounds that those who seek to spoil the happiness of people who are harming no one are bigots who deserve to be beaten.'

Great - I'm with you so far.

'And how the Catholic church dares to moralise about the ­inappropriateness of ­homosexuality after protecting priests who raped young boys is beyond credibility.'

Bit cliched, but back of the net.

'But I mainly want them to happen after learning that if a lord or knight marries, their partner will be given the title “honourable”.'

Where's this going exactly?

'Imagine the outrage if a peer decided to come out and marry a young male prostitute, forcing us to refer to his former rent boy as “the honourable”?'

Umm, no, you've lost me...

'Outrage which would be totally unjustified as virtually every businessman who enters the Lords has prostituted themselves to a political party to gain the title.'

Crap gags make the world go round!
Well done.

The Daily Mirror's columnist Brian Reade.
Stick to the footyball, love.

Gareth Williams: A Worrying Theory

The Daily Mirror has another go at cracking the Gareth Williams' case - well it's been a month since The Sunday Times ran the last one.
'In a throwback to the dark days of the Cold War, a worrying theory has emerged about the death of body-in-the-bag spy Gareth Williams'
After a heck of a lot of the usual blather - Was he gay? A transvestite? Was it a bizarre sex game gone wrong? - we hear from one Crispin Black, "an intelligence analyst and former adviser to the Government [who] says the most likely explanation is that Williams was murdered."
Really?!! Do go on...
“The thing has a professional air – it’s neat, it’s tidy, it’s organised,” he said.
“A bath is where you put things if you don’t want any forensic residue to be left behind – because you know where the body’s been and you can clear up after it.”
The breathless Mirror hack informs us; "The fact the body was found locked in a holdall, with the key inside, provides the strongest indication he was executed by a foreign death squad.
"Investigators believe the team were so expert at their deadly trade, they left no obvious signs of the cause of death."
A-ha!
Wait there's more.
An anonymous "security source" is quoted as saying;
“This has all the hallmarks of a state-sponsored assassination. If you’ve got a problem with your codes being broken, the only solution is to remove the codebreaker.
"They’re incredibly hard to replace because they are recruited for having the sharpest mathematical brains.
"There’s always suspicion about the Russians because in many ways the Cold War never completely ended.”
And this has all the hallmarks of pure speculation. 
Next!

Christopher Jefferies: J'Accuse

"It has become apparent that evidence put before the Leveson Inquiry confirms our earliest concerns about the confidentially with which the arrest and detention of our client was dealt with by those investigating the murder of Joanna Yeates.
"As a result of our attendance at the police station and of our reviewing of the material in the media, it became apparent that information had been deliberately leaked by as yet unidentified individuals in flagrant breach of their duty.
"Our client strongly believes this to be the case, as there was information within the public domain which was only known to those privy to the investigation material. Our client is of the view that this information had been leaked and we share that view.
"There needs to be an independent inquiry into this potentially criminal conduct on the part of officers from Avon and Somerset Police, as well as the Crown Prosecution Service.
"As regards any legal action against Avon and Somerset Police for wrongful arrest, this is a matter which remains under review."

Statement released by Christopher Jefferies' solicitors, The Stokoe Partnership.
Daily Mirror editor, Richard Wallace, today told the Leveson Inquiry his judgement was affected by off-the-record briefings by Avon And Somerset Police where they had appeared confident Jefferies "was their man" in the Joanna Yeates' murder case.
Oops!

Update: Here's the Mirror's lightly edited account of the above.

Update 2: "The Sun has withdrawn a Supreme Court appeal against its contempt of court fine over its Chris Jefferies coverage but tabloid rival the Daily Mirror is pushing ahead with its challenge." Press Gazette January 27th.