Headline Of The Month: The Sun

The Sun.

Peter Allott taught at top public school, St Benedict's.

Noted alumni: Peter Ackroyd, Julian Clary, Matthew Todd.

Sir John Gielgud: Trouser Enthusiast

Sir John Gielgud was one of our best-loved actors, but the Oscar-winner has become involved in a highly controversial production from beyond the grave.

A gay porn film for which the celebrated Shakespearean actor secretly wrote the screenplay has been made.

Trouser Bar, which is set in a menswear shop, features unlikely roles for Eighties heart-throb Nigel Havers, 63, camp comedian Julian Clary, 56, and veteran comic Barry Cryer, 80. ‘It’s very light-hearted,’ Havers tells me.

However, the film has caused an outcry from The Sir John Gielgud Charitable Trust, which administers the affairs of the actor, who died in 2000 aged 96.

‘Earlier this year, the trustees decided not to give their permission for it to be produced because they didn’t think it was appropriate,’ one member, Ian Bradshaw, tells me.

‘They didn’t have to go into detail because they own the copyright.’

Gielgud, perhaps best known as Dudley Moore’s butler in the Hollywood comedy Arthur [!!!], was arrested in 1953 and fined for cruising [sic] in a public lavatory.

According to Trouser Bar’s producer, David McGillivray, Sir John was a keen viewer of such material.

‘Pornography is still a stigma in this country, but Sir John loved porn and, in his letters, he talks about visiting gay cinemas,’ says McGillivray.

Daily Mail.

News of this exciting project was first revealed last year.

Fagburn is ever so pleased they've pulled it off, and hopes this can be resolved amicably.

Strictly: Same-Sex Dancing

Daily Mirror.

Egghead's 'star' CJ de Mooi, no less.

Yes, he's a repeat contestant on the BBC2 tea-time quiz show!

Neither he nor the Mirror have any evidence he was rejected because he said he wanted to dance with another man [The BBC say he was never under consideration].

Though Mooi is boo hoo-hoo crying he's a gayer spurned, it may just possibly be that Eggheads host, Jeremy Vine, was chosen because people have heard of him.

It's not like they've had a cavalcade of queens a-judging and a-dancing or anything.

PS CJ is so well-known Pink News spelt his name wrong [Later corrected, in fact the whole story was rewritten, below is the orginal before they realised it was probably bollocks].

PS Julian Clary wants same-sex couples to compete on Strictly Come Dancing, Mirror. Can't say this is that high on Fagburn's list of priorities. [JC's quotes are lifted from an old interview with OK! btw].

Julian Clary: Stay Classy

The Sun.

Julian Clary: Innuendo No More

'You just go as far as you can with the double entendre and the single entendre and the expectancy of the audience that there’s filth. Maybe I’ve tired of double entendres a bit — who’d have thought? It was a revelation that the audience will go with you if you change direction a bit.'

Julian Clary, The Times.

Mr Clary is promoting his new innuendo-free London cabaret shows.

Its name? For The Love Of Coqs.

Neil Bartlett: Appearance

Neil Bartlett - our finest novelist - has a new book out, The Disappearance Boy.

Set in the tarnished world of 1950s Variety and the backstreets of Brighton,The Disappearance Boy is a masterful and dark tale of love lost and found and the secrets kept hidden away behind the red velvet curtains.

Here's a Soundcloud thing of Nelly talking about it recently at the National Theatre.

Thanks to Steven. x

• Neil will be in conversation with Julian Clary at Brighton's Theatre Royal on Sunday August 31st.

U-Benders: The Press Release As News - A Case Study

The Sun.

I told you it was a slow news day.

And seeing as The Sun quote a tweet from Julian from 2012, it's clearly quite an old news day, too.
Please note, the Daily Mail also thought this was newsworthy.
Reprinting pretty the same press release - but with added faux outrage on someone else's part.
A wonderful Mail Online comments section, with readers fulminating about "The PC Brigade getting offended again!"
Even though no-one appears to have actually been offended.
Text book stuff!

Julian Clary: And On That Bombshell...

The camp comic, 54, reveals on Piers Morgan’s Life Stories, which airs tomorrow on ITV, that the girl had a miscarriage.

He said: “She is unique. The one woman I had that sort of relationship with.”

And that's the Daily Star's story in full. 

PS There's a bit more - about how after making that joke about fisting Norman Lamont at the 1993 British Comedy Awards he was "driven to the brink of suicide" - in the Mirror.

Update via Popbitch...

Julian Clary did Piers Morgan's Life Stories on Friday. There was a slightly odd moment when Morgan sympathised with Clary about the hounding he got after the Comedy Awards in 1993 - when Clary made a joke about fisting Norman Lamont.

The famously kindly Clary somehow managed to smile in response. Perhaps he found something amusing in the fact that the man who was responsible for the coverage was the then showbiz editor of the Sun... Piers Morgan!

Thought For The Day: Julian Clary

We’ve all moved on a bit. People are more open-minded about homosexuality now.
I started out doing Trick Or Treat, an ITV teatime show with me and Mike Smith, and the reviews at the time said, ‘Get this poof off our screens’. It wouldn’t happen now. But that’s what people were thinking at the time.

The Sun.

The lovely - but a bit rude - Julian is a judge on something called Your Face Sounds Familiar, which is on the tellybox on Saturday nights, apparently.

It’s rather daring of them to hire me. I understand the executive nervousness. They were wandering around in the first week telling me I can’t say any innuendos whatsoever!
I said that the whole point of a double meaning is that for those that are easily offended, it can mean another thing!
I think in double entendres half the time anyway!
Cheek is what people want and expect, though it’s a fine line to tread. It goes through phases.
The whole business with Jonathan Ross and all of that has made everyone very nervous about going too far. We’re going through a fairly conservative, cautious phase. But it’s not like it was in 1993 when I said what I said [about fisting the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Norman Lamont] and it caused a fuss.

PS Loving Julian's loving tribute to ye olde drag artiste Douglas Byng on the wireless, Byng Ballads. Listen up, dudes.

Thought For The Day: Julian Clary

I don’t understand how people can be anything other than socialist. Even if I don’t know someone’s politics I can tell if I like them, and those I don’t like tend to be of the rightwing persuasion.

Julian Clary is this week's obligatory gayer in FT Weekend.

Interesting place to place this thought.
Though, like the equally socially liberal The Economist, FT Weekend shows a belief in mammon's magical powers doesn't necessarily mean you have to be a hate-filled bigot in all areas.
Mr Clary also seems pleasingly unambitious ("I’ve never really planned my life or career") and unconcerned with fame; "I’d welcome obscurity. I’ve always missed being anonymous, though there are implications for one’s ego. But it would be nice to waft around being delightfully ordinary."
What a jolly decent fellow he seems. 

Julian Clary: Cool To Be Queer

That's great, thank you.
It's borderline Orientalist - "Those foreigners are at it again..." - and propagates a neo-imperialist hegemonic lie, but you can't have everything. 

PS When I first heard this I thought it was a David Hoyle - of the Divine David fame - production.
But apparently it is not.  
It's a different David.

Thought For The Day: Julian Clary

"Given there are so many gay people in the Catholic church, I thought they’d be all for [Gay marriage]. It’s fear and ignorance masquerading as intelligent opinion.
“They should get their house in order before they tell gay men how to live. It doesn’t really affect them so they should shut up.”

Julian Clary in The Daily Record.

PS Julian knows of which he speaks. He went to St Bendecit's - a private Catholic school, now involved in a child abuse scandal so huge it makes Jimmy Savile look like a lightweight.
If anyone seriously cares about stopping child abuse they should be campaigning for closing down the Catholic church immediately.

CBB: FFS

That's right, The Sun, Julian Clary is a "drag queen".
You really have this new-fangled street parlance down to a tee, don't you?

PS Didn't watch it, as it conflicted with my Bible studies group time-wise, but I liked this line from TV's drag queen, Julian Clary, when he emerged, blinking into the daylight; "I apologise for not being constantly filthy."

Celebrity Big Brother: And This Series' Token Gay Is...

Julian Clary!
Who is absolutely hilarious, since you're asking. 
And a celebrity, unlike the other male contestants.
Apart from Martin Kemp.
Julie Goodyear also appears - who like many of the other female contestants is blonde.
But unlike many of them doesn't have their profession listed as "model".

Marriage: The Queen's Speech

"This Government is promoting a fair society where people respect each other.
"I believe that if a couple love each other and want to commit to a life together, they should have the option of a civil marriage, irrespective of whether they are gay or straight. We are not changing religious marriage, or requiring religious groups to go against their traditions."

Lynne Featherstone, the Equalities Minister and Lib Dem MP, speaking to The Independent.
The paper speculates; "There will now be a furious battle ahead of this spring's Queen's Speech, in which proposals could be announced, with the aim of the first gay weddings taking place by 2015 at the latest."
I wouldn't hold your breath - though it would be fun to see if the Queen mentions gay marriage in her speech.
Featherstone has also written a piece for the Daily Telegraph (who are rather obsessed with this issue); 'This is not gay rights versus religious beliefs'.
"Who owns marriage? It’s an interesting question and a pressing one in the debate around equal civil marriage. It is owned by neither the state nor the church, as the former Archbishop Lord Carey rightly said. So it is owned by the people.
"The fierce debate over the past few weeks has shown people feel very strongly about marriage. Some believe the Government has no right to change it at all; they want to leave tradition alone. I want to challenge that view – it is the Government’s fundamental job to reflect society and to shape the future, not stay silent where it has the power to act and change things for the better..."
NB She mentions no possible timescale.
The Independent also - for reasons best known to themselves - quote Julian Clary; "Lord Carey's comments [opposing gay marriage] are very predictable. All these comments seems to come out of fear. In 10 years, when gay marriage is normal, we'll have forgotten all about this. He should have one of his pills and shut up."
There's a nutty piece by Amanda Patell in the Mail (natch) today on how Lord Carey and the Archbishop of York have been 'Vilified for daring to fight for marriage'.
And she actually points out that some of here best friends are "gays".
"I fear that Mr Cameron’s position is just another typically cynical exercise to try to rebrand the Tory Party.
"He is not driven by belief, but simply by an opportunistic attempt to spin himself as a modern, liberal kind of guy..."
At least she got that bit right - well, Platell did used to be a Tory spin doctor.

PS With its usual duplicity today's Mail also includes a glowing interview with Julian Clary where he talks about having thought about entering a civil partnership.
"Claridge’s would be an ideal setting. But we may change our minds. Sometimes when I think of a reception and speeches and referring to my husband, I don’t think I can face it."

Julian Clary: The Flesh Is Willing

Gay men getting older - it's one of those articles you read all the time but are normally puffed up as though talking about this subject is The Great Gay Taboo.
Yes, yet another one.
Usually they lapse into clapped out cliches; you're only as young as you feel, I've never been happier, I'm going to grow old - hey! - disgracefully etc etc. Zzzz...
Or else you get a fit of barely concealed envy at young gay men, shagging and dancing and drinking and drugging and partying and having fun.
The bastards!
A revival of Manchester's legendary gay rave night Flesh this Sunday prompts Julian Clary to ponder 'Is 51 Too Old For Clubbing?' "What does it mean to be gay and middle-aged?"
It's a lovely liitle piece, big-hearted but unsentimental.
"My own experience is that life has sorted itself out with no particular effort on my part: just when it would be unseemly for me to skulk in the dark corners of nightclubs, I no longer felt the urge to go. It all dovetailed rather neatly. I couldn't put my finger on when exactly this happened – but I remember speaking to my mother one morning after the night before and she commented: "Aren't you a bit old for that sort of thing?"
And what does Julian say about other older gay men who keep on dancing? "Good for them."
Good for him.
"The difference, I conclude, between gays and straights when it comes to mid-life is that gays don't feel bound to fulfil certain roles. Why should we? Having lived our lives on the boundaries of society's norms we feel able to negotiate our way through the experience of ageing. And most of us do not have children to distract us from our self-absorption..."
"The consensus is that middle-aged gays are happier than they were in their youth. And if they're not? I think that on his 40th birthday every gay man should get a letter from his local dog's home inviting him to come and choose the life companion of his choice. It would make a change from crabs."