Graham Norton: Novelist

Graham Norton's got a book out - can't wait to not read it.

Pet Shop Boys: Chart

Thankfully it's on the radio etc etc.

Haven't kept up with the interviews in the current media blitz, so don't know if Chris Lowe has come out yet.

PS Each man kills the thing he loves...

Graham Norton: Dear

I’m an 18-year-old boy with a girlfriend – but I’ve fallen for an older boy. I’ve known I was bi for a while, but only recently told a couple of my closest female friends.

Telling them gave me the courage to put myself out a little more, and hence after a fair few “likes” on Instagram pictures a lad messaged me – albeit drunkenly. He picked me up the other day and we went to his place and, well… yeah.

He seems interested purely in the physical aspects, but I am developing feelings for him. I’m also feeling guilty and scared. He is my best mate’s older brother; not only that, my best mate’s girlfriend is my girlfriend’s best friend. I don’t think my mate could forgive me for sleeping with his brother and I worry that if he finds out, I’ll lose him – and all my other mates.

Daily Telegraph. 

Mr Norton's reply is rather good.

I would have told the boy to bang them both.

And nope, I can't quite figure out how he got be the Telegraph's agony aunt, either.

(And I'm pretty sure it's not ghosted).

PS That superimposed rainbow flag a-fluttering dough - LOL!

Edit: Graham Norton crowned chat show king in unscientific poll, Mirror.

Meanwhile in The Guardian...

Best line; 'Or am I just a victim of sod's law?'

Graham Norton: Show

SINGLE star Graham Norton is searching for love on Tinder.

The Irish chat show host, 52, turned to the dating app after splitting from music marketing consultant Andrew Smith in the summer.

Graham at first vowed to live alone for the rest of his life because he has become more fussy with age.

But the BBC presenter’s dating profile — complete with name and age under a shot of his tanned, grey-bearded face — has been popping up repeatedly.

Other snaps show him in full motorbike gear on a chopper, and drinking on holiday.

One picture used a gay pride flag filter...

App users check the photos and decide if they want to try to “match” by swiping left or right.

The funnyman had dated Andrew for five months. In 2013 he split with fashion consultant Trevor Patterson, 32, after two years together — with Trevor claiming Graham was downing up to four bottles of wine a night...

Last night Graham’s spokeswoman declined to comment. Other Tinder stars include singers Katy Perry, 31, Britney Spears, 33, and Lily Allen, 30, and Corrie actor Shayne Ward, 31.

The Sun EXCLUSIVE.

Clearly there's nothing going on in the world right now.

Thought For The Day: Graham Norton

'I’m 52 and I’m single and on some level I feel like I’ve failed because by the time you’re my age, you really should be settled. But then I look at the relationships people around me have and I find myself asking, “Really?! That doesn’t look like winning to me.”

'It seems that the compromises people have to make aren’t ones I’m willing to make. I don’t know the answer. Maybe I’m just suited to being single. Clearly I am. I’ve reached the point that when people ask, “Are you single at the moment?” I say, “Come on, you can drop the ‘at the moment’. I’m single forever.”’

He still dates (‘I mean I’m not ruling it out. Who knows? Maybe I will find someone’) and would like to date someone his own age, but reckons that’s an ambition too far. ‘That’s the weird thing. Gay men my age don’t want to date someone their age.'

Graham Norton, Daily Mail.

Thought For The Day: Graham Norton

“You have your own rules as you get older. I would prefer to live alone for the rest of my life rather than live with towels that were folded incorrectly.

"Petty is important. That’s why marriages break up. Marriages don’t break up because of big things.

“The older you get, the less right you have to be fussy and yet the older you get the fussier you become, so oddly when your standards should be dropping you find them getting higher. You see younger friends starting relationships and you know how that story ends. You just sit there and wait for the end.

“When you’re young if you meet a partner and they’re cheating on someone to be with you but then they go with you, you think: ‘That’s great.’

“But of course as older people we know they then cheat on you.

“So I’m careful. Why do you want to be heartbroken again because if you keep being heartbroken you’re a moron.”

Mirror.

See the happy moron
He doesn't give a damn
I wish I was a moron
My god, perhaps I am!

Dorothy Parker, arguably.

Terry Wogan: Freaks

I suppose in the eyes of the public our closest association would be over the Eurovision Song Contest. I had been presenting the magnificently awful thing since God was a boy for BBC TV and thought it was about time to give the viewing public a break.

The inspired, logical choice for my replacement was Graham. In the book, he tells of the rivalry between himself and Jonathan Ross for what was regarded as a plum role. Actually, every presenter and stand-up comedian in the country would have killed for the gig. Norton says my only advice to him was not to start drinking before song seven. He made it his own from year one – although I’m bound to say that the Bearded Lady who won this year, reducing Graham to tears, might have had a slightly different effect on me. I’ve always seen the Eurovision as a sometimes foolish farce, but not as a freak show...

Terry Wogan reviewing Graham Norton's Better The Devil You Know for the Irish Times.

Readers with long memories may recall Mr Wogan saying when Dana International won in 1998, that Eurovision had been 'taken over by the gay lobby'.

Update: Pink News' editor, Joseph Patrick McCormick, writes on this great scandal for Independent Voices. 

Boy, is he angry!

A reader writes...

Graham Norton: How The Media Works Part 669

You’ve been kissed and told on, I say. “Twice,” Norton says. How was that? “The first time was fine. That was Scott [Michaels]. My agent and I negotiated his deal. He’d been approached by somebody. I said, ‘How much have they offered you? Well, that’s not enough. We’ll get you more than that.’ I didn’t take a cut, but I did have picture approval, so it was all good. The second time was … disappointing.”

[Trevor] Patterson’s story of woe detailed Norton’s heavy boozing and his obsession with his dogs; scurrilous highlights included the time Norton chartered a private jet to fly Madge and Bailey to New York where he was working at that point, because he missed them.

Did you know the story was coming? “Yeah.” How did you react? “I got some stuff taken out. But you know, I could have stopped it. I thought, better not to.” Why? “It’s a … revealing thing to do.” Sell a story on an ex-lover? “Yes. Why hide that?” 

Patterson is not mentioned in Norton’s new book...

The Times - great interview btw.

Shoot credits

Photographed at the Milestone Hotel in London

Styling: Prue White

Grooming: Shukeel Murtaza at Phamous using Bumble and Bumble
Pyjamas, £264, and red dressing gown, £728, both Derek Rose; gold dressing gown, £1,850, New & Lingwood 

Nike the dog from A-Z Animals

Thought For The Day: Graham Norton

'The only thing that makes me sad - and Alan Carr is sort of like this too - is that the most stick you get is from gay people.

'It’s always been the same, that there’s this sort of weird self-loathing in the gay community…

'But it’s heartbreaking, because you hear these people say ‘Oh he’s so camp and terrible', and you’re thinking, 'Oh god, you are completely unaware that you’re camp too!'

'There was a very sweet documentary once, and these little gay boys in Brighton were talking about how much they hated me, and it was heartbreaking because they were me.'

Attitude.

Graham Norton: Doomed By Gayness

On Saturday, he told of his fondness for the bottle. Today, Britain's cheekiest chat show host reveals his doomed love life and why he fears he's destined to be single for ever.

Daily Mail.

Call me 'Nostragaymus', but I did warn you how this serialisation would pan out.

BBC bashing tomorrow, perchance?

Graham Norton: It Must Be Love

If I had to choose between booze and work, I would pick work without hesitation, but what is the point of life if you can’t sometimes release the inner moron? It goes back to the glass of wine I have on my chat show — I know exactly why I’m drinking it, and while I may later end up flailing around a dance floor like a member of the living dead, I like to think that I am in control of the bigger picture.

Of course, I may be wrong.

The big question is: do I have a problem? On one level, I obviously do because I drink far too much. But on the other hand, my rationale would be: where’s the harm? Yes, it makes me fatter than I’d like to be and perhaps I would sleep better if I occasionally went to bed sober, but my work has never suffered because of drinking.

And besides, surely life would seem a little dull with no vices at all.

The Daily Mail - who appear to have bought the serial rights to Graham's memoirs. 

Note how they bashed Stephen Fry recently when he wrote about his lapsed cocaine use, yet this is framed not as a 'battle with the bottle', but a 'love affair'.

Not sure what else is to come, but hopefully the Mail will find a bit in Norton's book where he's slightly disparaging about the BBC. 

That and him on the misery and impossibility of gay love and that.

Mr Norton, pictured recently, after another fun night out.

Update: An alert reader points out the Mail On Sunday published this 'Kiss and piss' a year ago. Thank you 'anon'... x

Graham Norton: Partying With Nigella

PRESENTER Graham Norton was partying with Nigella Lawson at a glitzy showbiz bash just hours before pulling a sickie from his BBC radio show.
Norton, 51, caused chaos when he failed to turn up for his three-hour Saturday morning Radio 2 slot, without telling bosses, forcing frantic colleagues to fill in for him.
His spokesman said he was “unwell overnight”.
But it later transpired he spent Friday evening at a swanky London party thrown by newspaper boss Evgeny Lebedev.
Dressed in a blue jacket and jeans, Norton arrived at the bash with telly chef Nigella...

The Sun. 

'Partying with Nigella', eh Graham? Norty norty...

Graham Norton: Controversy

Graham Norton has lashed the national broadcaster RTÉ for its stance on the homophobia controversy.

Speaking to Hot Press, in an exclusive interview, to be published in the magazine on Thursday, February 20, the Irish-born BBC chat show king talks frankly about the recent Saturday Night Show 'homophobia' controversy, berates RTÉ for settling out of court...

"I'm not registered to vote in Ireland but I do pay the licence fee there and I'm fucking furious that some of my money has gone to these idiots," he asserts. "RTÉ settling wasn't gutless, it was absolutely moronic!"

Norton expresses his disappointment that gay marriage opponents here decided to go the legal route rather than examining why they might be accused - rightly or wrongly - of homophobia...

"This tiny minority can yell all they want, but it's over. It's all done. The Iona Institute, and people like that, are like rats trapped in the corner of a barn. They know the jig is up. That's why they're screaming so loud."

Hot Press.

There is a documentary about Panti Bliss/Rory O'Neill being made by Blinder Films

Graham Norton: Ask

Graham Norton and his production company So Television have been reprimanded by the BBC after he wore a World Aids Day ribbon on air.

The presenter and his guests all sported the charity emblem on his BBC One chat show broadcast on 29 November.

BBC entertainment controller Mark Linsey said, although Norton "cares passionately about" World Aids Day, he was "in breach of BBC guidelines".

Wearing poppies in support of the Royal British Legion is the one exception.

Editorial guidelines state: "The BBC must remain independent and distanced from government initiatives, campaigners, charities and their agendas, no matter how apparently worthy the cause or how much their message appears to be accepted or uncontroversial."

BBC News.

Not arsed really, unless they ban those stupid poppies.
Graham wasn't SLAMMED or BLASTED or even disciplined etc.
The BBC said; "The production company has been contacted and reminded that he cannot do this".
If it's a general policy for the BBC "to remain independent and distanced from government initiatives, campaigners, charities and their agendas” (BBC editorial guidelines 4.4.20!), then this seems quite reasonable.
No exception for Aids or for war, though.
Unless you believe in gay and/or militarist exceptionalism.

PS Comment: How dare the presenter of a TV show that plugs films and albums promote HIV awareness. Ben Cohen, Pink News. A fair point...

PPS It has emerged that BBC presenters are allowed to promote National Christmas Day and Movember but are banned from promoting World AIDS Day. Pink News, who are going big with this.

PPPS More about this on Pink News - Ben Bradshaw speaks out!

PPPPS Even more! Tory vice-chair Michael Fabricant says it's "extraordinary".

Hope this isn't just the latest part of a Daily Mail-style campaign of bashing the "Biased BBC" by Pink News.

Graham Norton: Notes On Camp

Does he think of himself as camp? “Yeah.”

Has he always been? “Yes. But I didn’t always see myself as that. It’s a much harder thing to accept than being gay. Gay is easy. Being camp is difficult in that it comes with judgment all round. That moment when you realise that you are quite fey and quite camp, it’s a difficult one because these are not qualities that are admired by anybody. As you move forward you can own it and camp it up to the hilt or you can try and tone it down.”

When he started doing stand-up he played up to it. Norton remembers seeing a programme where young gay men in Brighton criticised him for not being a very good role model. “Bless these boys, they were so camp and it broke my heart because I kind of thought, 'I was you’. And in a way it’s about self-loathing, the dislike of campness. Because actually the people who dislike it are normally quite camp. And it’s sad that every gay personal ad is all 'straight-acting’. That’s a weird thing for a sexuality to be based on. Something else.”

Graham Norton profiled in the Telegraph.

Compare and contrast to self-styled "masc" gay and all-purpose pouty right-wing shitbag, Michael Lucas writing recently...

Russians love Johnny Weir. He’s their kind of gay: Liberace of the ice. He’s the “fabulous” gay, the mascot, the gay who knows his place and stays in it. (Weir waited until publishing a memoir in 2011 to admit that he was gay at all, which everyone already knew.) The Russians don’t mind token flamers like Weir; what scares them are everyday people who happen to be gay. They’re scared of homosexuality becoming normal, not staying outrageous like Weir.

Oh Michael, who wants to be "normal", if it means being boring and annoying like you?

PS Seriously thinking about starting a new Twitter account, From The Gay Media Message Boards... 

Just seen on Queerty; "WTF so many feminine creatures? Gay=/=woman".

Graham Norton: Exclusive!!!

The Mail On Sunday - always a good friend of The Gays, of course - has published an interview with Trevor Patterson, who went out with Graham Norton.
In this bombshell rim-and-tell article we learn that the "camp comic"© loves his two dogs and likes a drink!!!
Fagburn wonders if Mr Norton's career will ever recover?

PS What kind of a gay cunt sells a story about an ex to the tabloids - let alone the Mail?

PPS In today's other SENSATIONAL gay showbiz news the Sunday People print a photo of the back of George Michael's head!

Graham Norton: How Does She Do It?

Graham Norton: The go-to guy for anything from the Baftas to becoming 'the new Terry Wogan' and hosting the Eurovision Song Contest
He is a sarcastic, breezily insulting and camply subversive gay Irish pixie* who has become the most ubiquitous presenter on TV. How has he managed it?

For Eurovision night, The Independent gives a lengthy profile of the kingly queen of the tellybox. 
So how did he manage it?

"Graham Norton didn’t get where he is today by being polite. He got where he is by being breezily insulting, swishily sarcastic, camply subversive...
"He is the master of the raised eyebrow, the muttered aside, the sharp intake of breath, the I’m-saying-nothing-but-you-know-what-I-mean look to the camera. It has made him the most ubiquitous entertainer on TV...
"Norton strikes a delicate balance between indulgence and mockery... 
"His humour is as camp as a field of bivouacs, but (unlike, say, Alan Carr) he relies more on sharp ad-libs than gay allusions...
"Norton understands conviviality. He knows that humour is about inclusiveness and collusion as much as one-to-one banter..." 

So now you billy-well know!
At least, it's a bit more thoughtful than feeling it's always necessary to call him "the camp..." - as the tabloids invariably do.
Or to call him "the openly gay TV star/host/comic", as the gay news media invariably do.
Presumably for the benefit of all their readers who hadn't cottoned on that Graham Norton was gay.

* Technically, they don't have pixies in Ireland, you're thinking of the aos sí. Thanks. 

Baftas: Tom Daley Joke Of The Day

Baftas host Graham Norton had the ­audience squirming in their seats last night with a series of gags about recent high-profile celebrity arrests.
The cheeky comedian alluded to the post-Savile scandal by claiming that a dream he’d had about Tom Daley in swimming trunks and a dickie bow was “very recent”.
He added: “We’d better crack on before any of our male celebrities get unavoidably detained."

Daily Mirror.

But haven't we all?

Morrissey: Tearoom Trade

From The Daily Star (not online).

Victoria Wood's Nice Cup Of Tea starts on BBC1 next Wednesday at 9pm.
Episode two, next Thursday, features Vicky talking about tea with Morrissey, Matt Smith and Graham Norton.
So probably one for The Gays, then.

PS Thanks to Darren. x

Update: Preview on Saturday Review, John Carey says Morrissey comes across as "obnoxious and egotistical". I find this very hard to believe...

Update2: And here they both are on that YouTube.

Update3: While we're here's Victoria Wood being rather Morrissey-esque on the lovely song Crush.

Graham Norton: TV Times

"There are things we can't say and do on TV or radio that 10 years ago we absolutely could have said or shown.
"I think that's the BBC reading the mood of the audience - the audience don't particularly like cruel jokes, and I think they did."
[Asked whether it was an accurate or paranoid reflection of the audience]: "Probably a bit of both. We'd show a picture that might have had a penis in it, and we can't show that now. The audience really laughed at it, and that's sort of stopped."
"If you think back to some of the shows we watched growing up like I Claudius - that would never be shown now. I wonder would Queer As Folk happen now?... And the big drama hits now are so goody goody. Like you would never see a nipple on Downton Abbey.
"When we were growing up, you'd have thought that by now in EastEnders there could be nudity, but that's not the case."

Radio Times.
As regards the BBC, much of the problem is they keep caving into silly Daily Mail witch hunts and manufactured moral panics, lest the Tories slash their budget further, or privatise them.