BBC: It's What We're All Asking

Of all the things wrong with the BBC, it would be hard to argue that a shortage of gay people making and presenting programmes is one of them. As Andrew Marr observed a decade ago: ‘The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It’s a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities, and gay people. It has a liberal bias, not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias.’

Why, then, is the government intent on making the BBC even more gay? In one of the less-reported sections of this week’s white paper on the future of the corporation, John Whittingdale lays down a target that 10 per cent of senior leadership roles at the BBC be filled by LGBT staff by 2020...

Spectator blog. 

Does point out that the 'We are 10%' fallacy is now discredited as a gross over-estimate, but that's not really the point here (and the anti-gay right often argues we are a tiny minority with too much influence, bit like the Jews).

It's really about the old right-wing gripe, that BBC stands for Buggers Broadcasting Communism.

QED...

Mail On Sunday.

The Robert Peston Interview Show: (With Eddie Mair)

Blimey, she's lost weight.

Loving your glamorous silver foxy make-over, Ed, what's your secret?

Coming up... in a bit.

Can't wait. x

Evan Davis: Oh, Mr Davis!

Daily Mail.

This wouldn't have happened with that nice Eddie Mair.

PS You could at least spel her name right...

Wednesday's Mail Online - Will this be a regular feature?

Newsnight: Here We Go!

Might get myself a tellybox.

Oh hang on, that might mean our Eddie stops doing PM!

Worst idea EVER!!!

PS Our Eddie on FILTH!

The Gay Right: Whose Side Are You On?

This video has - as they say - gone "viral".
Unfeasibly right-wing gay Neocon Jamie Kirchick goes on Russia Today to talk about Bradley Manning's sentencing; "I'm not really interested in talking about Bradley Manning..."
Who knew? *
So what does our little Homocon want to talk about?
He launches into a hysterical, poorly informed - or rather willfully misinformed - rant about; "The horrific environment of homophobia in Russia right now...."
Zzzzz...
Much of the gay media are declaring him a "hero" - Kirchick that is, not Manning, obviously.
What? For wearing a pair of rainbow braces on TV!
Again, ask yourself why this issue is so animating the gay right - who here literally ignore what a great injustice their own beloved country has done to a gay man like Bradley Manning, to rant about Uncle Sam's mortal enemy, Russia?
Only the deeply indoctrinated could see this right-wing hijack as something to celebrate.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you thought control in a democratic society in action!

Funny! American journalist tried to disrupt @RT_comhttps://twitter.com/RT_com">@RT_com

> saying they lie about USA. And @cnnhttps://twitter.com/CNN">@cnn> does not lie about Russia?!— Nikolai Alexeyev (@n_alexeyev) August">https://twitter.com/n_alexeyev/statuses/370375714690039808">August 22, 2013

* Here Kerching argues the "traitor" Manning should fry in an electric chair. Which is nice.
Here's a panel debate on the boycott from Russia Today.
(Kirchick, laughably, claims RT has ignored this topic).
Against? A man from the Russian LGBT Sports Federation, a British gay journalist who lives in Russia, and two other Russian people who actually know what's happening in, err, Russia.
And for a boycott? Reactionary British lesbigot, Julie Bindel!
You really couldn't make it up.

Update: And finally... Eddie Mair takes on the architect of much of Russia's recent anti-gay laws, Vitaly Milonov. That's the way to do it etc etc. Listen here. 

Eddie Mair: She Wins A Gong!

Sony Awards Speech Broadcaster Of The Year!
Well deserved, sir.
Fagburn sets his day around PM. 
Aha! etc etc.

PS I'm mainly posting this cause if I mention our Eddie I get loads of traffic from people who've Googled "Eddie Mair gay". Was there ever any doubt?

PPS This also works with Tom Daley.

PPPS And James Middleton. 

Eddie Mair: Mo Of The Moment

Never mind all the stuff about what the interview revealed. The photos revealed something very shocking to me.
What in my mind was my discreet but manageable bald spot is in fact the size of a dinner plate.
Only the over-the-shoulder TV camera angle could tell me this and, what's worse, it was then relayed in every newspaper in the land.
As for all the hullabaloo... For the record, I don't want Jeremy's job. Or John's. Or Andrew's. I like mine.
Though my contract is up soon and I haven't heard anything, so if you run a radio or TV station and you think there's a future for a 47-year-old in a bad wig - call my agent.

Eddie Mair writing in his Radio Times column, and quoted in the Daily Mail.
How great it would be to see our Eddie isn't afflicted by the modern sickness of ambition. 

Some highlights from the Mail message board.

"In a political job in the BBC, get the better of a top Tory and does not take long to get to the top" - Mick, East Midlands.

"Another mad Marxist we have to pay for" - Scott, Sunderland.

"Did the aforesaid Mr Mair have a private agenda against Boris that was his real reason for the vitriol ?????? Advert on the side of a bus ring any bells ?????????????????? I just wonder !!" - Jolly Roger, Wales.

Well, it's certainly something to think about...

Boris Johnson: Checkmate With Queen

Here's the full Eddie Mair interview with Boris Johnson from Sunday's The Andrew Marr Show.
Wonderfully woeful stuff.
More importantly than all that guffy stuff about politics and Boris being a complete shit and serial liar, Fagburn is loving our Eddie's new look; the glasses, the hint of a tan, the bona riah, she's lost a few stone etc etc.
Can TV superstardom be far away?

Update: The Daily Mail asks 'Just who is Eddie Mair?' Unfortunately they got leading gay Uncle Tom Andrew Pierce to answer it. A swine on pearls.

Update 2: The subtext to this Guardian profile by Leo Benedictus appears to be "Is he too camp?" 

Newsnight: Just Like Eddie

Checking my blog stats at the close of play yesterday, I noticed a small yet intriguing surge towards this old post about Radio 4's Eddie Mair.
But for why?
Eddie - one of Fagburn's most favourite people - had presented Newsnight for the first time last night.
My hunch is that many people having discovered him for the first time, as you would, Googled three little words; "Eddie Mair Gay?"
Like anyone needs to ask.
His relaxed, affable, non-shouty style went down very well, even the usually anti-gaylord Guido Fawkes approved.
Guido reckons Eddie could be being lined up to take over from Paxman permanently.
Let us hope so.
If you want to see why, Eddie Mair is presenting Newsnight again tonight.
Hurrah!

BBC Radio 1: Sexuality Night

Last night Radio 1's problem programme for the younglings, The Surgery With Aled, was a three hour special, Sexuality Night, given over to "a frank and honest conversation... on a whole range of subjects, like the bond between straight guys, are bisexuals just greedy people, coming out, feeling pressure to conform, what's still out there stopping individuals being who they are, we'll be asking whether anyone is truly 100% gay or straight, and there are only three categories when it comes to sexuality, is this true, and labels, do they help or hinder society when it comes to sexuality..."
Aled (Jones) is Chris Moyles' producer, and a great big gayer to boot - rather surprisingly.
I'll listen to it later, promise - Eddie Mair's not doing PM today. 

Eddie Mair: Newspaper In Not Quite Understanding Camp Humour Shock!

MIAOW... saucer of milk for Radio 4.
A catfight erupted yesterday after one of the BBC’s most senior broadcasters threw a hissy fit live on air.
Business editor Robert Peston – known as Pesto – had just finished a report on Bank of England head Sir Mervyn King for the afternoon news magazine show PM.
Programme host Eddie Mair then told him: “It was lovely to see you.”
Pesto shot back: “Well, it’s lovely to be back again. Why did you cast me out into the wilderness again?”
Mair, 46, replied with a curt: “Well, anyway we have to press on. Thank you.”
Sources say there is “no love lost” between the pair and that their feud had been simmering for some time.

Daily Mirror.
God I love Eddie Mair...

Eddie Mair: Radio On

God, you make me laugh, you daft, dry as sherry dust queen.
When I've stopped laughing I may listen to PM again.