Piggate: PG Rated

THE “Piers Gav”, as it is known, is now the coolest and most exclusive of Oxford University’s dozens of drinking societies.

It is also the most notorious.

Where the Bullingdon Club is famed for excessive drinking and criminal damage, the Piers Gaveston Society is noted for sexual excesses and, more recently, easy access to hard drugs.

There is no official membership but at the heart of the men-only club are about a dozen undergraduate “officers” devoted to “camp behaviour”, “ostentatious decadence” and a code of secrecy

Founded in 1977, the society is named in honour of the 1st Earl of Cornwall Piers Gaveston, the supposed gay lover of Edward II. 

The Sun. 

PS The society's motto is 'Fane non memini ne audisse unum alterum ita dilixisse^' ['Truly, none remember hearing of a man enjoying another so much'].

PPS I am reliably informed they are known at Oxford for doing shitloads of coke. 

Hugo Rifkind, The Times - a most amusing piece.

Russia: Stephen Fry!

The Times - Snore!

Thought For The Day: Matthew Parris

Amusing on Tuesday to hear Nigel Farage’s principled defence of individual liberty. There should be a room in pubs, he said, for people who want to smoke; nobody who doesn’t like it need go there.
Fair point. Reflecting on UKIP’s ferocious opposition to gay marriage, it strikes me that there could perhaps be a room where same-sex couples could get married; nobody who doesn’t like it need go there. Mr Farage might propose this too. Or am I missing something? 

Matthew Parris in The Times.

His fellow Times' columnist, Hugo Rifkind, wrote on the middle England, little Englander doublethink appeal of Ukip yesterday;

"This party, as the Lemonheads once sang about something quite different, is a Great Big No. They’re against some arguably restrictive things, such as the EU, employment protection and political correctness, but also against gay marriage, building on the green belt, wind farms, immigration, out-of-town supermarkets and travellers concreting over fields. How they square all this with “libertarianism” is anybody’s guess, but I suspect it’s largely done by not reading books...

"What they all do, though, whether they mean to or not, is prioritise the provincial straight white male British experience while ascribing a sort of irritating deviance to everything else. It’s parochialism rather than prejudice, but it’s delivered with a carelessness that can make the distinction hard to spot. That’s the trouble with plain speaking. It could sometimes use a little polish."

Bradley Manning: Remember?

Not sure how I feel about this piece by Hugo Rifkind in The Daily Telegraph.
Anyone here remember Bradley Manning?
Kind of sympatico, but ultimately derogatory.
Many of us still do.
Bradley's sexual identity - although it must be recognised (and I think celebrated) - has fuck-all to do with whether he may or may not have done the right thing.
End of.

Michele Bachmann: Dumb & Dumber

Some people are so rude!
"She once hid in a bush to spy on a gay rights rally. Honestly, I’m not making this up, she really did. There are photos. She has a mortal fear of lesbians, and thinks that watching The Lion King could turn a child gay. When God told her to run for Congress (apparently in person) she and her husband fasted and prayed for three days, to mull it over..."

Hugo Rifkind, The Times.

Thought For The Day 3: A Lib Dem Intern

"It’s not so bad, being a Lib Dem intern. To be honest, when I applied, I expected more sexual pestering than this. Not that I’d have minded. Back then, a year ago, that was pretty much the only reason anybody wanted to be a Lib Dem. “Play your cards right,” they said, at the careers office, “and you could end up as the secret gay lover of a prominent front-bench spokesman, possibly being kept in a dungeon.” It didn’t work out like that. The election happened, and by the time I’d graduated, there was actual work to do. Nobody saw that coming."

Hugo Rifkind in The Times.
This is supposed to be satire by the way.
If I was the son of former Tory Cabinet Minister, Malcolm Rifkind, I'd steer clear of making jokes about internships, social mobility and nepotism, but there you go...