George Michael: Last Christmas

So sad. x

Let the salacious rumours begin!

Jan Moir you got your laptop out yet?

PS The right-wing press are now mourning the death of a gay icon they vilified for so long, Lee Williscroft-Ferris, Independent Voices.

Fagburn hopes to be blogging regularly again in the new year. x

Jan Moir Watch: Oh Mr Sheen!

Daily Mail, natch.

Didn't see this coming!

From the woman who brought you; Stephen Gately: A Strange, Lonely And Troubling Death.

Stephen Gately: The Wages Of Sin

THE ex-male model who shared Stephen Gately’s final night has claimed that cops failed to quiz the Boyzone star’s husband about sex and drug-taking that took place.

Bulgarian Georgi Dochev, 30, said that vital information never emerged due to an “amateurish” Spanish police inquiry...

Georgi alleged that Andrew did not go into details about sex and drugs on the fatal night in October 2009 “as he knew Stephen was famous and probably did not want to embarrass his family”...

Georgi broke his silence after Stephen’s family told The Sun on Sunday they wanted a new probe into the singer’s death.

The waiter, who first met Stephen and Andrew hours before the tragedy, told for the first time how the three men headed to the Black Cat club in Majorca after meeting at a gay bar at 1am.

He said: “There are things that have never been made public about the night Stephen died like the fact I saw him going into a toilet cubicle at the Black Cat with three well-known local drug dealers.“I also saw him go into a room we called the ‘Dark Room’ where you could get up to anything you wanted.” 

The three then went to Stephen’s apartment at 5am where the star rolled and smoked a cannabis joint...

The ever-reliable The Sun On Sunday.

Giorgi: Hope they paid you well. 

Now, whilst Fagburn is not a forensic pathology expert, like that Amanda Burton off the telly, he is pretty sure you can't die from your boyfriend allegedly visting a back room, or from you smoking cannabis.

Nor can these be contributing factors to anything ever.

Still, it's this whole sordid gay lifestyle that surely caused this strange, lonely and troubling death, eh?

Stephen Gately: A Strange And Troubling Estate

BOYZONE star Stephen Gately’s family are to hire a private investigator for a fresh probe into his death.

The move comes as they battle his husband Andrew Cowles over the singer’s £1.5million estate.

Stephen, 33, died five years ago in Majorca.

His brother Tony, 32, told The Sun on Sunday they still have unanswered questions five years after the tragedy.

They are also embroiled in a dispute over how the star’s £1.5million estate is divided up.

Stephen was discovered slumped on a sofa while on holiday in Majorca with husband Andrew Cowles, 36.

Officials ruled that Gately had been killed by an undetected heart condition.

But bus driver Tony said: “Only two people really know what went on the night he died.

“They are his husband Andrew and a Bulgarian guy, Georgi, who was invited to their apartment. Neither of them have fully explained to me what happened.

“We are looking at getting a private investigator once his estate is settled.” ...

The Sun Sunday.

Only at the end do readers learn; 'Andrew could not be reached for comment at the time of going to press.'

Might it not have been an idea to wait until he had been?

Might be an idea for the Mail to keep out of this.

Honeymooners: Know Before You Go Go

The Daily Mail's handy summary of the Foreign Office's 'Know Before You Go' advice for honeymooning gay couples.

At the risk of sounding a bit Jan Moir, might I advise not visiting cruising areas or chat rooms during your honeymoon?

It doesn't bode well.

Core: Still Rotten

Gay and lesbian rights activists are seeking to be the new “moral enforcers” and it is Christian religious conservatives who now need protection to be allowed to dissent against “the new orthodoxy”, it was claimed.

Core Issues Trust, a Christian charity, is challenging a ban on its London bus advertisement reading: “Not Gay! Ex-Gay, Post-Gay and Proud. Get over it!” It was a response to a bus poster campaign by gay rights group Stonewall carrying the message: “Some people are gay. Get over it!”

Paul Diamond, for the charity, told appeal judges that at the heart of the case was the “ironical” situation in modern British society where ancient Biblical scriptures, which played an important role in forming the nation’s morals, were now in danger of containing views which could no longer be expressed “in a land with a reputation for free speech”.

Mr Diamond said Christian scriptures only permitted sexual relationships between one man and one woman in marriage and people should be entitled to express that view. He said the case raised the question: “Is the belief that homosexuality is a sin worthy of respect in a democratic society?”

The charity accuses the Mayor of London Boris Johnson of unlawfully using his position as chairman of Transport for London (TfL) to obtain the ban in order to secure the gay vote and advance his 2012 re-election campaign...

Daily Telegraph.

Core is a non-profit Christian ministry supporting men and women with homosexual issues who voluntarily seek change in sexual preference and expression. It respects the rights of individuals who identify as 'gay' who do not seek change, and supports dignity for LGBT persons. It does not support gay "marriage" - usually considered an "equality" issue, premised on the belief that being gay is "biological" and is therefore unchangeable.

PS Christians - The only people you can insult at Christmas  The Daily Mail's Jan Moir is fuming!

Tom Daley: Jan Moir Writes!

Can there be a more sordid sign of the seedy homosexual underworld - or the so-called "gay community" - than that Tom Daley has only just "come out"...

Daily Mail.

Lou Reed: He Wasn't Too Keen On Journalists...

Apparently the last portrait, taken earlier this month by Jean Baptiste Mondino.

Only saw two queer-specific articles about Lou in the British media, which seems rather odd considering his stunning impact on your actual gay culture, but doesn't really surprise me.
Here's Paris Lees on the Channel 4 News website on what he meant to trans people.
And Tom Robinson wrote for The Independent on his "implied bisexuality"...

Perhaps it was our own hunger for affirmation that led my generation to try and cast such a complex – and downright ornery – individual as Lou Reed in the role of Gay Figurehead. If ever an artist saw sexuality as a vast, diverse landscape with many bright wonders and dark private places – and if there was ever an artist unlikely to identify himself publicly with just one corner of that territory – it was Sister Lou.

An Independent reader replies...

And let's not forget the Daily Mail's moving eulogy to Uncle Lou...

A VERY debauched walk on the wild side: He did more than any other rock star to give drugs a false and dangerous glamor. Now, after a liver transplant in May, Lou Reed's own excesses have finally caught up with him

Remember, the life of this rapacious, proselytizing drug-taking pervert was cruelly cut short at the age of just 71.

Just say no, kids!

Update: In Wednesday's Mail Jan Moir writes on Lou Reed and our "dysfunctional relationship with celebrity death."
Yes, that's the same Jan Moir who infamously wrote about Stephen Gately's Strange, Lonely And Troubling Death!

Porn Wars: A Tidal Wave Of Filth

Hilariously hysterical article in the Daily Mail by Jan Moir.

Why DO the Left sneer at Cameron's bid to block porn?
Well, I am on Cameron's side. As he said himself, it is not going to be easy. Mistakes will be made, problems abound - but we have got to start somewhere.
How on earth did it happen that a river of pornography merrily flows into every house in the country via a laptop? When did hard core become so . . . normalised? I didn't sign up to a national porn programme. Did you? 
Yet porn seepage has crept up on all of us - a rising flood water of vile and violent imagery that seemed unstoppable, until now....

Sadly, I can't think of one commentator from the left who's spoken out about this nonsense.
The Guardian - the supposed voice of the liberal left - has printed endless boring joyless prudish articles against "pornification".
Including this classic where readers who were concerned about "sexualised images in the high street" were asked to take photos and send them in - so The Guardian could reprint them.
You really could not make it up.
Ban wanking!
BAN EVERYTHING!!!

Update: Adults shouldn't be lectured about private enjoyment of porn, says Tory minister, Nicholas Boles, Telegraph.

Thought For The Day: Delia Smith

‘It is a difficult one [the gay marriage debate for a Catholic], but I can answer it only in one way.
'Everything I have been taught, everything I know and understand about belief is that the highest thing on Earth is love between two people, and the rest doesn’t even get near it.
'So, yes, you have the arguments, you can say what it should be, but if two people love one another then they are in God and God is in them, and there is no way anyone can say other.’

Delia Smith interviewed in the Daily Mail.
By Jan Moir - eek!
God bless you, Dame Delia, in a similarly somewhat mealy-mouthed way.
Mind you, imagine the loss of earnings if some silly gaybores called for a boycott of her cookery books.

PCC: How Not To Make A Complaint

The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) is to launch an inquiry into the Observer’s decision to publish a transphobic article by Julie Burchill.
The commission acted after receiving 800 complaints from members of the public in relation to the article, which was eventually removed from guardian.co.uk, the website of the Observer’s sister paper.
In a piece headed “Transsexuals should cut it out”, Burchill described trans people as “shims”, “shemales” and “bed-wetters in bad wigs”...

Pink News.

Good.
I'm not sure anything will actually come of this "investigation", but good.
The PCC can’t and won’t do anything here.
They only consider complaints from individuals who've been directly mentioned/affected, not social groups, or people who feel angry, aggrieved or insulted.*
The PCC received a record-breaking 25,000 complaints over Jan Moir’s article in the Mail about the death of Boyzone's Stephen Gately.
They only considered one - from Stephen’s partner, Andrew Cowles.
And even that was ultimately rejected by them.

I think the Gately/Moir row made a real and important difference to press behaviour by showing the depth of people's outrage and anger, and I hope this will, too, and that it marks a turning point in how the British media treat trans people.
But it’s naive to think the PCC will act on these complaints.
Post-Leveson Report nothing will change.
Though I'm not sure what they're meant to do; say newspapers can't publish nasty things?
Those angered by this awful episode are right to concentrate on shaming The Observer over their decision to publish Julie Burchill's shitty little piece in the first place.

* See the PCC Editor's Code of Practice.

PS Statement from The Observer readers' editor, Stephen Pritchard. Summary: "We really fucked up on this one." You may want to compare it to the Guardian's grovelling apology for publishing a transphobic piece by Julie Bindel in 2004...

PPS The Unholy Trinity: Burchill, Bindel and Moore, Christopher Bryant, Polari magazine.
Great piece. 
The image above has been shamelessly stolen from Polari's site.

Daily Mail: Compare And Contrast

Interesting infographic on The Media Blog.
Comparing the number of complaints to the Press Complaints Commission about Jan Moir's article about Stephen Gately in the Mail with the number of complaints to Ofcom about Channel 4's Big Fat Quiz Of The Year - which has driven the Daily Mail into a predictable bat shit frenzy of manufactured outrage.
When the Mail decided this was front page news - Outrage after drunken British comedians guzzle wine and trade obscene jokes about Obama, the Queen and Susan Boyle - Ofcom had been deluged with five complaints. 
For more on this hypocritical silliness go here.

Leveson Inquiry: Stephen Gately

'Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre has admitted that the timing of Jan Moir’s Daily Mail column about the death of singer Stephen Gately was regrettable.

'But he said he would “die in a ditch” to defend her right to express her opinion.

'The Moir piece attracted a record 25,000 complaints to the Press Complaints Commission and was later cleared of breaching the Editors’ Code. *

'The piece appeared in the Mail on 16 October 2009 and was headed: "Why there was nothing ‘natural' about Stephen Gately's death". It suggested there was something "sleazy" about the tragedy and also said the truth had yet to emerge about the exact circumstances of Gately's "strange and lonely death".

'Under questioning about the piece, Dacre said: “My view is that perhaps the timing was a little regrettable, I think the column could have benefitted from a little judicious sub-editing. But I would die in a ditch to defend a columnist’s right to have her views." He added: "There isn’t a homophobic bone in Jan Moir’s body.”

'On the huge number of complaints about the piece, Dacre said: “These were online complaints and an example of how twittering can create a firestorm…Most people complaining admitted that they hadn’t read the piece.”

'Dacre did admit that there were certain words he would have removed from the piece. He said that usually he doesn’t leave the office before 10pm, but he said that on the night in question when the Moir piece went to press he was on a rare night off taking his wife on a birthday trip to the opera.'

Press Gazette.

This was followed by a story filed later; Paul Dacre: Bad journalists should be 'struck off'
You couldn't make it up.

Here's an amusing/depressing account of Dacre's appearance on The Media Blog.
Best line: When asked whether the Mail preys upon its readers' "fears and prejudices":
"Anxieties" rather than "prejudices", is the word I'd use..."

* And the chair of the Press Complaints Commission Code Committee is... Paul Dacre!

The Daily Mail: From The Message Boards

"I think Ms/Miss/Mrs Moir is a very clever woman and one who is worthy of an award for services to humankind. May the Lord smile sweetly pon her. I didn't really read what she wrote but from her photo ALONE, I believe she is a blessed national figure. All the billy best!"

- Robin Cooper , London, England, 25/11/2011 11:11

I think you've spoken for us all there, Robin.

Fagburn Awards 25: Bigot Enablers Of The Year

The Daily Mail for their sinister ongoing campaign of backing homophobic bigots and demonising equality legislation in the name of what they have hilariously dubbed "Christian discrimination".
They also employ Richard Littlejohn, Jan Moir and Andrew Pierce.
Fucking hopeless.

Daily Mail: Matt Lucas - An Apology

An article (March 1) ‘How Matt Lucas learned to laugh again’ caused great upset to Mr Lucas which we did not intend and regret.
The article on Mr Lucas’ return to public life following the tragic death of Kevin McGee suggested he had ignored Kevin’s calls, became a virtual recluse, and hosted a birthday party to ‘move on’.
We accept this was not the case and apologise to Mr Lucas.
From The Daily Mail today.

This isn't much of an apology - barely 70 words long, it's hidden away on page 20, a left-hand page.
Matt Lucas was also awarded "substantial" undisclosed damages from the Mail.
He sued for invasion of privacy over an article which appeared in March – five months after the suicide of his former civil partner Kevin McGee.
Matt Lucas said in a statement;
"This has been and continues to be a very difficult time for me and all those who loved Kevin.
"My deep pain and sorrow have been made even greater by the intrusive and defamatory stories made about my private life in the Daily Mail.
"I had no choice but to bring these proceedings to protect my private life and my right to grieve in peace.
"I'd like to add that I take no pleasure or sense of triumph in this settlement. I am just relieved that this case has been resolved and I sincerely hope this sort of intrusive reporting will now end."
One year on from Jan Moir's disgraceful attack on Stephen Gately, The Daily Mail has clearly learned nothing - not even basic tact, or how disgusting it is to dance on a man's fresh grave, even if he's a gay man.
The article has been cached here; 'How Matt Lucas learnt to laugh again; He's lost three stone and still blames himself for his partner's suicide. But now the Little Britain star's stepping back into the limelight.'
Lucas won damages from The Daily Star in May for invasion of privacy over a story they had run following Kevin McGee's suicide.
In 2008 Lucas and David Walliams won damages from the Star after it claimed Little Britain USA had angered an American gay group - which didn't actually exist.

Julie Burchill: Hating Stephen Fry

It was perhaps inevitable that Julie Burchill would wade in and use her piss-poor column in The Independent to turn her guns on Stephen Fry.
'Gay man lays into women, fine. But when it's the other way around...'
She then promptly proceeds to lay into various gay men.
Poor Julie - verily she is the stupid person's idea of a newspaper columnist.
She's always all over the place, as per.
Is she a homophile or a homophobe, lesbian or straight, Stalinist or Thatcherite, Jew or non-believer?
Why, it's almost as if La Burchill is making it all up as she goes along.
Or drunk.
Or she gets someone else to write chunks of it.
So what is Julie saying today?
I'm damned if I know - why not have a go yourself?
Blah blah blah. Graham Norton is "hideous". Gok Wan is "vile".
But for why? "Gay men seem to think that because they sometimes call each other 'she', they are honorary women and thus can chuck the gynophobic abuse around like there's no tomorrow.
"But let one woman – the real kind, not the pretendy drag-queen kind – pass a comment on gay male sexuality, as the journalist Jan Moir did on the death of Stephen Gately, and seven sorts of hell break loose. Indeed, Fry himself spat: 'I gather a repulsive nobody writing in a paper no one of any decency would be seen dead with has written something loathsome and inhumane.'
"I quip, he bitches, she makes a full-on hate-attack upon a persecuted minority and I'm going to report you to the Press Complaints Commission, so there! This seems to be the current attitude of a certain section of gay men to the tricky business of name-calling, and I can't begin to express what half-witted hypocrites it makes them look. A word of warning, boyz – you're still men, even though you're gay. If you insist on telling women what they are or what they want, be prepared to be judged right back in return by us. BTW, this wasn't an attack – think of it as a warning nip. If you can't stand the heat, get out of the bitching."
Silly old cow.

Stephen Fry: Hated By The Daily Mail

Not that they're obsessed or anything, but The Daily Mail have splashed the Stephen Fry story across their front page today.
It's rather odd as they haven't really got anything new to add - but seem so keen to bash him they're pushing a reprint of Yasmin Alibhai-Brown's unbelievably shitty article from The Independent.
This has been re-titled for emphasis; 'Your problem, Stephen Fry, is that you just don't understand women (or like them very much)'.
It's one of three (!) articles, a second is a rehash by Rosie Boycott, who was quoted at length in The Observer article that kickstarted this Hate Week, asking 'So Is Sex Less Important To Women?'
It's not, in case you were wondering.
And Charlotte Metcalf writes a piece that's actually in agreement with what Stephen Fry actually said in the Attitude interview; "Women are driven by a ­different imperative, not by our libidos, to the extent that we’re willing to make fools of ourselves to satisfy men, which I think is the point Stephen Fry was trying to make."
Quite.
It must be hard for The Daily Mail to know how to treat Stephen Fry.
Many of their readers adore Fry the "National Treasure"; the witty posh clever clogs from the middle England comfort zones of QI, Jeeves & Wooster and the Twining tea ads.
And any friend of Charles and Camilla...
But he's also a naughty little bugger - who is quite vocal about hating The Daily Mail and all it stands for.
He was last on the front page of the Mail in September; 'What An Unholy Welcome To Britain - As Pope flies in for historic visit, Vatican aide brands UK a Third World country fuelling atheist hate campaign led by Stephen Fry'.
Fry blogged at the time; "Today’s headline and the leader inside however actually made me genuinely guffaw and wriggle with delight. It is the final proof, if proof were needed, that the Daily Mail is not just actually wicked (intentionally, knowingly lying) but actually now quite, quite mad. In the name (it must suppose) of morality, spirituality, goodness, kindness, sweetness and honesty it intentionally, knowingly twists, distorts, misrepresents, smears and calumniates. Will their editor and subeditors go to heaven? Is god pleased with them? Have they done a good deed? Is this their advertisement for the religious way? To lie?"
And - lest we forget - a year ago it was Fry who spearheaded the campaign against Jan Moir's odious Daily Mail column about the death of Stephen Gately.
He memorably tweeted; "I gather a repulsive nobody writing in a paper no one of any decency would be seen dead with has written something loathsome and inhumane."
Is it any wonder they're giving Mr Fry such a damned good kicking over this?

Clare Balding: "Dyke On Bike" Complaint Upheld

"Writer AA Gill has been censured by the press watchdog after he called TV presenter Clare Balding a "dyke on a bike" in his column in the Sunday Times," Media Guardian reports.
The PCC's statement is here: "In this case, the Commission considered that the use of the word “dyke” in the article – whether or not it was intended to be humorous – was a pejorative synonym relating to the complainant’s sexuality. The context was not that the reviewer was seeking positively to “reclaim” the term, but rather to use it to refer to the complainant’s sexuality in a demeaning and gratuitous way. This was an editorial lapse which represented a breach of the Code, and the newspaper should have apologised at the first possible opportunity."
It seems it was The Sunday Times' editor, John Witherow, sniffy reply to a letter from Balding compounding the insult that swayed the PCC's decision.
You may want to compare it to the PCC's ruling on Jan Moir's infamous article about Stephen Gately, brought by his boyfriend Andy Cowles, which was not upheld.
In July, the PCC refused to consider a complaint against The Sun - for calling Louie Spence a "bender" in a headline - as it was brought by third parties.
Do the PCC's rulings seem a bit random?
You betcha!
More on this later...

Gareth Williams Murder: Secret Agent Man

The Sun was first out of the box with the speculation that the murder of MI6 employee Gareth Williams could be connected to the fact that he was gay.
They were also the first to mention the fact that Williams was gay.
Or is it just speculation?
Like all the earlier speculation that Williams had been assassinated in some John Le Carre-style Cold War hit by al-Qaeda or someone.
The Sun's tasteful headline: 'Murdered Spook Was A Cross Dresser'.
And that's not all; "Murdered MI6 worker Gareth Williams was a secret transvestite who may have been killed by a gay lover, detectives said yesterday."
For why? "Cops found women's clothing that would fit him at his Pimlico flat in central London... And Mr Williams, 31 - found murdered at his central London home - was known to meet men in the capital's gay mecca of Vauxhall Cross and Soho in the West End."
Blimey. Although having some womens' clothes in your flat isn't quite the same as being "a secret transvestite".
"Senior Government figures were concerned that anyone with a private life as sensitive as his could hold a post in which he could be vulnerable to blackmail."
Were they? Which ones? And why would they be?
This isn't the 1950s, the buggers are legal now.
MI6 lifted its ban on gay staff in 2007.
Its sister secret service, MI5 has worked with Stonewall to recruit lesbians and gay men.
The other paper's initially all missed the possible gay angle.
Though The Daily Mail mused; "Officers from Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad, with assistance from their counter-terrorist and security service colleagues, are delving into the private life of Mr Williams, seeking to discover whether he had relationship or money problems."
"Another possibility is that he was the victim of a dangerous sex game gone wrong."
Well, people do say "anything is possible..."
The Mail also interviewed "his landlady for a decade", Jenny Elliott; "yesterday [she] recalled how the 31-year-old bachelor lived without a TV in the annexe of her home."
No TV, eh? What a spooky spook he sounds.
"Mrs Elliott said she did not remember him ever bringing a girlfriend back to the self-contained flat, comprising a bathroom, bedroom and kitchen, above her garage."
"That’s not to say he didn’t meet girls. But if he did, he certainly didn’t talk about them to me.
"Gareth occasionally said he was meeting some of the guys from work for a quiet drink but he wouldn’t tell me who they were or where they were going and I never pried."
Good for you, landlady lady.
The Daily Telegraph thundered; 'Murdered British Spy "May Have Been Killed By Jealous Lover".'
"Gareth Williams, 31, had been working for MI6 on a one-year posting but was due to return to his regular job at the GCHQ listening station in Cheltenham at the start of next month.
"Detectives believe Mr Williams, whose body lay undiscovered for up to two weeks in the bathroom of his top floor flat, might have had a violent row with a lover over his decision to return to Gloucestershire."
The Telegraph quoted one of those handy anonymous sources; "Inquiries are focusing on his lifestyle."
As indeed now are the media.
Maybe one of the newspaper's professional information gatherers will eventually discover another photo of Gareth Williams besides the one of him cycling above.