Gok Wan: Go Wank

Probably the most fawning and fatuous thing you'll read this year.

When did you first realise you were a guru to womankind?

Property: Van Not Included

Other 'Hot homes with star connections' for sale and featured in the Independent's Homes And Property section are Michelangelo's Tuscan estate, 'Grimmy's X Factor House' and Gok Wan's old house - 'near Hampstead Heath'.

Sunday: People

Elsewhere in the Sunday papers, it's GAY OK! if you just want to be rich enough to buy a flash car, a husband and kids!

Gok Wan: Baggage

I'm really looking forward to not watching this tonight.

Update: General consensus seems to be it was "atrocious".
Oh Gok, don't let them turn you into a caricature...

Russell Tovey: The Uncrowned King Of BBC3

'A recent survey by Equity found that many gay actors still find their sexuality a hurdle when going up for castings; Tovey was recognised as one of few openly gay actors able to play almost exclusively straight roles.
'Describing himself as one of many “blokey gays” who don’t fit the stereotype of being camp and flamboyant, he says: “You get these guys who are really blokey one day and then six months after they’ve come out, they’re suddenly wearing crop tops and going sibilant. It’sss. All. Like. Thisss,” he says. “I don’t want to go sibilant.”
'In March, Tovey and his Him & Her co-star Sarah Solemani won best comedy performance at the Royal Television Society Awards for their roles. Praised for the on-screen chemistry he shares with Solemani, Tovey is proud to be able to defy expectations.
'Does he think of himself as a role model? “You can’t decide to be a role model. I think just by saying I’m gay and that people in the industry are offering me straight roles and audiences are happy with it, that’s enough for me. By the time I’m 40, I’ll probably play a northern, embittered drag queen.'

Russell Tovey interviewed in The Times - by luck he's just done something for Sky Arts. 
It's certainly an interesting paradox that one of the few out actors is usually cast in straight roles - the Equity survey suggested gay actors feared getting typecast and only being offered gay roles.
But then the adorable Mr Tovey is a "blokey gay". 
"The Uncrowned King of BBC3" is the Times' phrase, not mine, by the way.
He's also asked if it's true he was going out with Gok Wan - he wasn't.
I missed that rumour.

PS Here's a rather curious/amusing comedy thing he did with Rob Brydon that hinges on him being a "straight-acting" gay man".

Ofcom: Fine With Alan Carr, Gok Wan Oral Sex Act

"COMIC Alan Carr's riotous New Year's Eve show will NOT be investigated by Ofcom.

"Fifty-seven viewers complained to the media regulator about the Channel 4 special, which featured full-frontal nudity and swearing.

"During Alan Carr's New Year Specstacular, fashion expert Gok Wan told Carr to "f***" off" and joked that he would not perform oral sex on the comic. Celeb chef Heston Blumenthal spoke about a strap-on sex toy, a nude picture of rapper Dappy was screened and Jonathan Ross commented on the N-Dubz star's manhood.

"But Ofcom said the show had met "generally accepted standards" for a show aired after the 9pm watershed..."

From The Sun.
Sounds a hoot.
This isn't on Ofcom's site yet - will post a link when it appears.

Gok Wan: On Twitter

"I'm completely addicted, I'm constantly on it. Sometimes when I'm a bit lonely it's a great way of saying: 'Let me hear a voice.' But I do get abuse daily. I've spoken to Alan Carr about it, who's a mate, because he receives a lot of abuse as well, they seem to target gay people. We both made a pact to work out how to deal with it. It's one of those weird things that I have to talk about to my circle of friends in showbiz. There's no 'Celebrity School' to go to where you can ask a teacher about this stuff.'

TV Buzz, The Sun.
"I used to Google myself every day..."

Gok's Teens: The Naked Truth - where he gives advice to "troubled teens" - starts on Channel 4 on Tuesday.

BBC News: Partial To Large Plugs

From the BBC News website.
The last line has since been changed to; "British fashion expert Gok Wan is also partial to large wooden ear plug adornments but it is not known if these are being used to stretch his lobe."
But why???

From The Media Blog.

Showbiz Memoirs: A Happy Finish

"An autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful. A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats."

George Orwell

I thought of this beautifully bleak quotation after reading John Harris's account of wading through the latest tranche of celebrity memoirs that have come out for Christmas.
If they write about My Struggle, they still seemed to be happy-go-lucky "tits and teeth" writing - and the fact that they are now a celebrity writing a memoir you are reading is meant to show the lie dream of life having a happy ending.
Here's Harris on Gok Wan's Through Thick and Thin.
"The plotline is simple and affecting enough: raised by a Chinese father and English mother who ran restaurants in Leicester, he feasted on what he calls "deep-fried love", and ended up chronically overweight, and bullied..."
And he's gay as a lorry to boot - should it be filed under showbiz memoir or Misery Lit?
And should every chapter be suffixed with the line; "But look at the bitch now!"?
This is autobiography as a 150 page makeover show.
The only book Harris said was any good was Paul O'Grady's The Devil Rides Out, which Fagburn can well believe.
His first memoir, At My Mother's Knee, was famously the first book in living memory to get a good review in Private Eye.
Though I'm not sure I'm completely at ease with people who are already very talented in one field who can also write extremely well.
Bastards.