The Future Mrs Tom Daley Keyring: Now Suddenly Reduced!

Thanks to Mike xxxx

PS This blogpost claiming Tom and Dustin will soon be getting gaymarried and having kids is wonderfully bonkers. Run as gospel truth by several tabloids, natch.

PPS Fagburn is not quite sure what point Philip Hensher is trying to make here - but same as it ever was...

• 20 Reasons we always knew Tom Daley liked boys - Queerty.*

4. This.

* Erm Queerty announced Tom was straight in September.

Russia: Putin Speaks

"I've wound up some silly queens in England."
"Hahaha!"

• Some predictable balls in The Independent by leading poshgay Philip Hensher; "Apartheid, Hitler blah blah wibble!"
They've also got one of their boring polls. Whoop!

Naturally the Telegraph also supports a boycott, as "The Russian state encourages hatred of gay people" - a bit like the Telegraph, then.

The Daily Mail has now run at least four (4) articles against an Olympics boycott - here's your actual Gay Uncle Tom, Andrew Pierce.
This may - just possibly - have something to do with Stephen Fry being hated by the Daily Mail.

Here's quite a funny demolition of Fry's nonsense by Adrian Hilton - of course Fry has compared him to someone who appeased Hitler.
Godwin's Law returns to eat its own vomit.

The Observer runs an in-no-way hysterical article asking if the evil Russians will steal gay people's babies (Err... in a word, no).

GScene reports on a press release from Queer Nation - a group that no longer exists except in one gay man's delusional brain.

Gay Star News writes about the protest outside the Russian embassy that I understand no-one from GSN bothered to attend. Uh-huh...

Stupidity reaches new heights as 350,000 click on another completely pointless allout.org online petition. (Ever wondered why these crooks need your email address?)

Some people in Israel protest human rights abuses in another country - no hypocrisy there!

America - The Beautiful...

Maybe this has got so stupid all you can do is take the piss out of it?

Oh fuck it, I'm so bored with this hysterical apolitical crap - so here's a picture of Justin Bieber's bumbum.

Remember: Russia is the only country that treats gay people badly, and that violates human rights. Apart from those other countries Oceania doesn't like at the moment.

And finally, here's Scott Long writing eloquently as usual on The Truth Behind The Gay Torture Images From Russia.

PS Most hilarious and meaningless Russian boycott of the day... The American Kennel Club! Take that Putin!

Cardinal O'Brien: Flaunting It

People are allowed to live their lives however they want. If O’Brien had just decided that he was going to hide the elementary facts of his life from everyone, and if the person he was, it is claimed, in a relationship with had decided that he, too, was going to exercise that degree of concealment, who would care? It was once necessary; for many people, the concealment continued through habit. That is the right of individuals.
But through a familiar quirk of personality, Cardinal O’Brien was drawn to comment on an ineradicable part of his own personality. One can well guess what the process was. Someone hates and fears a forbidden aspect of themselves, and is drawn ineluctably to talk about it, rather than remain silent on the subject. Foucault wrote an interesting series of books about the history of sexuality, in which he proposed that the 19th century placed a prohibition on sexuality, not to silence discussion of it, but so that they could go on talking endlessly about it. Similarly, O’Brien clearly suppressed public knowledge of his own sexuality so that he could go on talking indefinitely about homosexuality. Going on about how awful those gays are – that, I am afraid, counts as “flaunting it”...

Philip Hensher in The Independent.

By far the best and most sensible piece I've see on the archbishop's outing.
I was tempted to post it in full, but I'm sure you can cope with clicking on that link. 
There's a lot to his argument that if someone grew up in a culture of the closet, it's quite a spectacular achievement if anyone manages to break free of that mindset.
Unlike many gay men commenting on this sorry, sad farce, be it in the media, and in the real and virtual worlds, Hensher's article doesn't have the snotty subtext; "Why can't every gay men be as wonderful and perfect as I think I am?"

Philip Hensher: Let's Make Some Noise

Do you think the noise of the gay marriage debate has outweighed its importance?
Oh, yes, gay people are always making too much noise, aren’t they?

Well, yes, many gay people are relatively noisy about gay rights. But others regard marriage as the reverse of freedom.
It’s about freedom of choice. I’m sorry if you think gay people make too much noise. We were forced to be silent until recently, you see. 

Philip Hensher interviewed in The Sunday Times. 

Droll irony lost on stupid interviewer shock!
Well done, sir.

Terence Rattigan: A Drag Of The Typewriter

"There is a reason why Rattigan was so interested in not just the unspoken, but the unspeakable passion. He was himself homosexual, and lived his life in well-understood denial. His nature, which was illegal for most of his life, inflected his work in unpredictable and sometimes heavily revised ways. The crime committed by the major in his play Separate Tables was originally committed against boys rather than girls, as in the performed version. And we have Rattigan's recorded word for it that the illicit passion which drives The Deep Blue Sea, currently regarded as his masterpiece, was based on an unhappy love affair between men...."

Philip Hensher in The Guardian on how gay writers in ye olden days, like Terence Rattigan, would write gay characters but change their sex to female.
He also makes claims for EM Forster, LP Hartley, Francis King, W Somerset Maugham, and Proust.
It's a point that others have argued befoore - it has been said that Tennessee Wiliams was often performing "a drag of the typewriter" - but sometimes a female character is simply a female charcter.

Chris Bryant: Insinnuendo

Insinnuendo, that nudge-nudge wink-wink way of insinuating that something naughty is afoot, with a smidgeon of innuendo is the bane of political life.
It makes the little hairs in my ears go all atwitch. You know how it works. A paper can't prove that someone is having an affair, so they run a story about adultery on the same page as a photo of the celebrity concerned. Or they have heard on the (nearly always inaccurate) rumour mill that someone is gay, so they wait until they can run an accidentally camp-looking photo. Or they use a deliberately ambiguous headline. Or commission a suggestive cartoon. All plausibly deniable in court. And all so blasted cowardly. If you've got something to say, say it. Don't insinuate; don't dissimulate; don't hide behind titter words and double entendre. Publish and be damned.
Sadly, this snigger tendency has been in evidence in some parts of the press this week in relation to Liam Fox and it completely missed the point. Of course Fox had to go, in my view, because while serving as Defence Secretary he had been running his own independent foreign policy and he'd broken the ministerial code of conduct. But for heaven's sake, let's grow up and stop this Carry On up the Division Bell way of doing politics...

Chris Bryant MP, the Independent's new Saturday columnist, on that nasty Liam Fox business.
On Monday Bryant came up with the great line; "I'm perplexed by this smear and innuendo about 'smears and innuendo'."
Itself a bit of innuendo, surely?
Perhaps Bryant was thinking about this profile in The Indy of the "colourful" MP "who loves to party".
The Independent is the Foxiest newspaper today.
We also get; 'The rise and fall of the council estate boy who took up the Thatcherite flame'.
And their other house gay, Philip Hensher, bores for England in 'Werritty had a priceless commodity that others could mine – he had Access'.
I know! Who knew???
Snore.

Hensher Vs Worsthorne: Head To Head

The Spectator attempts to calm - or further inflame - the heated debate between Philip Hensher and Peregrine Worsthorne about the role of bumsexery in the modern novel by getting them to argue the toss.

"Peregrine Worsthorne raised a storm by objecting to a gay orgy in a novel by Philip Hensher. Here, both authors argue their case

"Sir Peregrine Worsthorne... read my novel, and in The Spectator Diary quoted one of the orgy scene’s frankest sentences. He asked, rhetorically, whether a novelist who describes a gay sexual encounter in specific terms risks reawakening homophobic prejudice in his readers. If an innocent homosexual is beaten to death in Trafalgar Square this weekend, I suppose that Sir Peregrine thinks that I bear some responsibility for that, by alerting readers to what some gay men might do, consensually and in private. But should one, as a novelist, tailor one’s invention to the requirements of people who obviously find gay people disgusting and repulsive on every level? Would any depiction of gay characters satisfy such a reader?
...A good novelist will always try to bring specificity to every other part of human behaviour — how a character talks, eats a pizza, grooms himself, walks, dresses, even smells. He now has the freedom to describe him in the bedroom, or in this case, being buggered on a dining-room table. A bad writer will write unevocatively, banally about all these things, bringing his observations from a bank of stock gestures. If a good one does not choose to pass over these subjects altogether, he will write about them with freshness and observation. My personal rules in writing about this subject were two. I would not be euphemistic to spare a reader; and I would not idealise. There is far too much idealising writing about sex, and hardly any accurate observation..."

Philip Hensher.

Then - as if by magic - Mr Worst Horne proceeds to go brilliantly, filthily mad...

"...It is the raw physical sex thing that does it. No straights in their right mind object to same-sex passionate friendships, so long as the physical side is kept private. The Victorians were adept at that. Tennyson’s most intensely emotional poem is about his love for another man. The saintly John Henry Newman adored Hurrell Froude and was himself adored by Ambrose St John. But it was a highly personal romantic love; very much ‘a dressed up’ love. Oscar Wilde would never have got into trouble if he had limited his homosexual life to fellow aesthetes, instead of being tempted to go in for the rough trade. In my youth at school and university (Socrates and Alcibiades) and in the army I too had passionate friendships with other men. We wrote letters and poems to each other, kissed and embraced to the point of orgasm — at Stowe notoriously on a sofa with George Melly — and all went swimmingly until one day in Holland in the war a fellow officer, who tragically went on to have his balls shot off, on a camp bed broke the romantic rule by trying to put his flagstaff-size penis up my bum..."

Thank buggery he didn't get too explicit, eh lads?

Read in full. Please, please do.

Peregrine Worsthorne: Vs Philip Hensher

"Novelist Philip Hensher will provoke a backlash against homosexuals if he keeps writing such graphic gay sex scenes, says the ex-Sunday Telegraph editor Peregrine Worsthorne. A heated exchange between the writers has been running in the letters page of The Spectator since Worsthorne slammed Hensher's latest novel for its "unseemly anatomical accounts" of provincial orgies.
To those who remember Worsthorne's stance on homosexuality in the Eighties, this may come as no surprise. But he insists he is not homophobic, simply that he finds Hensher's sex scenes "hard to believe" and "depressingly impersonal".
"Philip Hensher and Alan Hollinghurst are two of our greatest contemporary writers," he tells me, "and of course I believe in free speech. But reading Hensher's latest novel I was shocked by all the grisly detail. It's completely unnecessary."
Worsthorne adds that far from being anti-gay, he has "spent much of my time in the gay world", and was recently named a gay icon by a magazine. Hensher, meanwhile, doesn't seem to be taking Worsthorne too seriously: "I really don't give a toss," he says.

Via The Independent On Sunday
Here's Worsthorne's Spectator piece that started it all;
"...at a time when we are trying to accept homosexuality as ordinary and even cosy, such efforts to stuff filth up our noses are in danger of awaking prejudices that we hoped had been put to sleep for ever."
Crikey! It's like the Torchwood wars for poshos.
Oh, by the way here's Mrs Worst Horn giving a fairly graphic account of gay sexing at his public school;
"A lot of buggery went on..."
Won't somebody please think of the children?????

The Independent: Why Bother?

Why does The Independent only publish stuff from reactionary right-wing gay posh twats, please?

Kissinggate: Get A Room!

Most of the papers wrote ecstactic coverage about last night's kiss-in at The John Snow pub in Soho - even The Daily Mail applauded the "mass smooch".
Though there is some debate about exactly how far Jonathan Williams and James Bull went - they say the were just kissing on the lips.
And no paper gave the protest the official seal-of-approval of devoting a leader column to it.
The Guardian started a live blog that was so over-excited I kept wondering if it was taking the piss.
And the live blog then shut up shop at 5pm, two hours before the kiss-in started.
The BBC News website even went to the trouble of finding a pub landlord in Barnsley who said he would have thrown the men out - bizarre.
Several gay men I know began to confess being distinctly underwhelmed - one quipped that the protest outside the John Snow looked like any other Friday night in Soho.
Another said that as word of the kiss-in was publicised on Twitter it should be called "Twactivism".
Or was it "Twativisim"?
A sole dissenting voice in the papers was The Independent's gayer Philip Hensher who annnounced snootily; 'Kissing in public is not a universal right'.
Well, it's so terribly vulgar, isn't it Mr Hensher?

• An amusing video of a contretemps between Paul Shetler, who organised the protest, and some Trots. Paul was pretty cool on BBC Breakfast. Brava!

The X Factor: Paint A Vulgar Picture

Professional posh gay Philip Hensher moves from The Independent to The Telegraph today - surely the latter is his spiritual home?
He's writing about The X Factor - 'A Vast Money-Making Machine'.
This isn't a critique of capitalism of course, it's just that Mr Hensher thinks this is all so terribly vulgar.
He notes; "Each rejected act, it appears, is booked to appear at the deathlessly naff London nightclub G-A-Y the following weekend..."
Is Mr Hensher aware that "naff" is polari?
It means he thinks it's "common" - which one may presume is the real problem the likes of the arch snob Philip Hensher have with The X Factor, G-A-Y and their working-class fans.

Philip Hensher: Derogatory Terms

Is it just Fagburn, or does The Independent's gaylord columnist Philip Hensher come across as a monumental snob in this piece?

It was last Thursday, taking a small train from Exeter to the small town where I live part of the time. Two teenage girls sat down opposite me. Both of them had attained the results you get if you ask a Devon hairdresser to try to make you look like Cheryl Cole. From their conversation, I wouldn’t say that they had troubled the educational system for very long. They had clearly spent the afternoon going up and down the high street, and now, from the ziggurat of tat on the floor, they started extracting their purchases for comparison.
The first one got out a pair of shoes. “Look at that,” the other one said. “That’s just so gay.” I looked up, startled. But then the second one got out a belt – I admit, not very lovely – and it was the first one’s turn. “That really is gay,” she said disparagingly.
Should you say something? Say: “Look, even a thick yokel like you should know that it’s not acceptable to use ‘gay’ as a derogatory term?”

ONS Gay Survey: Gaydar Nation

Following the ONS sexuality survey claiming only 725,000 people - or 1.5 percent of British adults - were gay or bisexual, Gaydar were quick to issue a self-promoting press release [reprinted in first comment] pointing out that this sounded rather odd - as there are 2,185,000 Gaydar and Gaydar Girls profiles registered in the UK.
Neil Midgley wrote in The Daily Telegraph; 'Now I'll never find a boyfriend. There aren't enough gays.'
"...these ONS figures are rubbish. And I have figures of my own to back up that claim.
"The gay ‘dating’ website Gaydar has 1.5million profiles in the UK [This is the figure for the mens' site only]. Given that almost all its users are men, that means – if the ONS figures are to be believed – that at least 1.25million heterosexual men in the UK are registered on a site whose principal purpose is to hook men up with each other for casual sex.
"Of course Gaydar is entirely private and a bit naughty, whereas the ONS figures come from a survey where people were asked out of the blue to tell the government their sexuality. Whose figures do you think are likely to be more accurate?"
The Gaydar figures - which I believe are an accurate number of the profiles, and not a PR fantasy figure - were also referred to in articles by Philip Hensher in The Independent, Mark Townsend in The Observer, and on Queerty.
Well, not every gay man - or bisexual man - has a Gaydar profile, so the actual figure could be higher.
Though Fagburn suspects the truth is somewhere between the ONS figure and Gaydar's.
But only Queerty saw that the Gaydar gaystimate was almost certainly just as flawed as ONS's.
Gaydar has being going for over a decade, and how many of us have opened multiple profiles over the years?
You may have one where you're looking for love, another where you're being a slut.
It also seems common practice to close a profile when you get a new boyfriend.
Then maybe open a secret one.
Then start yet anther one once you're single again.
And so on and so one and so on...

Gay Marriage: Things I Learnt Today...

"The UK's civil partnership offers almost all the legal benefits of marriage, apart from the fact that when Stephen Fry gets a knighthood, his partner will have no courtesy title to bandy about."

Philip Hensher writing in The Independent ("The understanding of marriage has altered considerably over time, and across cultures...")

Although Fagburn does not approve of the honours system, he is most concerned that Steven Webb can not be Stephen Fry's Lady boy.

Asylum Ruling: Dial-a-Cliché

Fagburn was a little surprised how few columnists have taken up the gauntlet of the "Kylie and cocktails" ruling from the Supreme Court this week.
In the Telegraph there was Charles Moore's; 'Is Attending Kylie Concerts a Fundamental Human Right?'
Though this appears to be an eye-catching headline given by a sub, as it's not a question he addresses in the article.
A thoroughly modern old fogey, Moore applauds the fact that same-sexing is no longer illegal in the UK; "Anyone who believes in freedom and opposes the state control of private life should rejoice."
Or should have been rejoicing over 40 years ago, Charles.
It's relatively reasonable stuff for him, but then halfway through the bilious cliches - Or is it his whisky? Probably both... - kick in; "But now they've gone too far! Fucking in the streets! No it's not bloody 'normal'! And if you say you think all these perverted pansies should be flogged to with an inch of their lives they call you a 'homeopath'!!!"
Those aren't Mr Moore's exact words, but you get the general idea.
Philip Hensher in The Independent used the "All queens love Kylie" cliche as a hook to map out a broader set of modern gay male stereotypes; the Disco Bunny, the Muscle Mary, The A-Gay, the Old Hand, the Hoxton Bitch, the Country Member, and the Grand Old Gay.
It was surprisingly accurate, funny and neatly drawn, and Hensher acknowledges that we are legion and the number of ways of being gay are many, if not infinite.
"Nevertheless, one thing that gay men like to do is to be recognised by another, and to develop a little sense of belonging. Subject to peer pressure, a gay man will have a tendency to join a number of social groups, often more apparent from the outside to an observer."
Might Fagburn be so bold as to suggest one more gay stereotype, Mr Hensher?
The slightly haughty but ever so cultured old queen.

David Laws: Behind You

Several sympathetic articles on David Laws appeared today; Chris Bryant and Julian Glover in The Guardian, Iain Dale in The Daily Mail, and a rather moving piece by Matthew Parris in The Times (there was also a rather sniffy piece by The Independent's snooty house-fag, Philip Hensher).
All argue that it was his closetry that got him into this pickle.
I'm increasingly sympathetic to this point of view, and am willing to believe that this could just have been one of those fuck-ups that we all occasionally make that then spirals completely out of control.
Poor sod.

PS It's also worth noting how these days even The Daily Mail and The Times can call on regular contributors to write about a subject like this who are out gay men...