Gay Star News: Their Immense Gay Fuckwittery Goes On

No, I don't remember it, cause it never happened, you colossal fuckwit.

Princess Di: An Amusing Fiction

It’s 1988 and queer London is partying hard under the spectre of AIDS, the scrutiny of the press and the shadow of Clause 28.

When Princess Diana dreams of a wild night out away from the long lenses of the paparazzi and the ruthless Royals at the Palace, best buddies Freddie Mercury and Kenny Everett know there’s only one place to take her: the Royal Vauxhall Tavern.
 
But getting one of the world’s most famous faces through the front door (and without blowing her cover) is the premise of brand new musical Royal Vauxhall, opening at the infamous venue later this month. We had a chat with one of the show’s leading men, Reuben Kaye, who steps into the shoes of Freddie Mercury, David Bowie and London drag icon Regina Fong…

Attitude.

Seeing as Cleo Rocos forgot to include this anecdote in her 1998 book, Forever Bananas: Kenny Everett and me, but suddenly remembered it when pushing a new edition, Kenny & Me, in 2013, I think it's fair to assume it never really happened.
x

Brian Sewell: Different Times, Different Times...

The journalist Tanya Gold describes realising, in 1999, that she was an alcoholic when she tried to jump Sewell. “I looked across the office,” she wrote, “and saw the art critic, sitting at his desk. I decided to ‘take’ Brian. I lunged, straddled him – and the newsroom gaped. As I was peeled off, a pale Sewell said, ‘If I was ever unsure I’m a homosexual, I’m not now.’”

The funny thing about that story is that it sounds, now, like just about the most improbable thing that could ever happen in an office, but at the time, it seemed no more than 10% out of the ordinary. He certainly wasn’t ruffled – he was always pale – and she was by no means the drunkest person in the office. It was a very different time, for newspapers, when transgressions were deliberate and admired, and kudos was all about effortlessness: expertise imbibed in subtle, imperceptible ways, articles knocked out in 20 minutes, bitchiness executed with total nonchalance but never vulgarity.

Sewell wasn’t the only one capable of that but he was, much like his accent, in a class of his own. Knowing that made him generous even while he pretended, with all the might of his typewriter, to be a bastard.

From a touching tribute, The Day Brian Sewell Picked A Fight With Princess Diana, by Zoe Williams in The Guardian.

PS Here's some of her writing for the Evening Standard.

Princess Di: Oh No She Didn't

Mirror.

Thanks for putting it in inverted commas, but can we put this silly fiction to bed?

If Cleo Rocos went to the Vauxhall Tavern with Kenny Everett, Freddie Mercury and Princess Diana in man-drag, why did she forget to put it in her earlier memoir about her friend Kenny Everett, Bananas Forever?

The Lily Savage 'riot' claim is also a bit stretched.

PS You've spelt 'Freddie' wrong, you thick cock.

Celebrity Big Brother: 'Sake

Daily Star.

But Paul seems quite the hit with Twitter.*

Express.

Metro: LOL!

* NB: Quoting a few tweets may not actually constitute a scientific survey (or journalism).

Royal Vauxhall Tavern: The Movie

A short film about London's oldest gay venue, and the campaign to save it from the property developers.

Warning: Someone mentions the fairy story about Freddie Mercury and Kenny Everett taking Princess Diana dressed in man-drag to the Vauxhall Tavern AS IF IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED!!

George Michael: Isn't It A Shame He Doesn't Like The Ladies?

Mirror.

PS Fagburn was at that George Michael/Princess Di/Take That/Aids fing at Wembley Arena! Friend of the stars! Friend of the fucking stars!!!

Daily Star: Spooky!

Wish me luck today, brothers and sisters.
Fagburn fears today's press pickings could be slimmer than poor uncurvaceous Kate...

Subbing Fail Of The Day: Daily Star

Daily Star On Sunday.

Err...
Unless they mean Paul Burrell?

Fagburn: But I Read It In The Paper!

I never cease to be amazed at the things that people will believe without question.
Princess Diana banned from playing Freddie Mercury at Sochi Olympics!
It depresses the fuck out of me some days.
What is point?
In my darkest moments I start to worry that people just prefer being lied to.
Back tomorrow?

"News": But It's On The Front Page Of The Sun!

How unlike The Sun to end up putting this fairy story on today's front page.
It's not like a British tabloid to run any old rubbish about Princess Di and/or showbiz celebrities. 
They're normally so reliable.
Print the legend - fuck the facts, no-one's gonna sue.

Maybe Cleo Rocos is saving the bit about how Lord Lucan was also with them, and they were all kidnapped by aliens on the way home for her next book? 
Or maybe it's an April Fool? 
Other newspapers have gone with some trivial silly season stuff about how this week sees the Tory Coalition starting apace on dismantling the welfare state.
More fool them, I say!

PS The print-version has an interesting non-detail; "The night out is thought to have taken place in 1988."
Strangely vague, don't you think?
Could this be because the Sun learnt its lesson after its 1987 "exposé" of Elton John attending rent boy and drug-fuelled orgies was exposed as a lie after it was pointed out that Elton John was in New York on the key date mentioned - cue £1million libel payout etc etc.

PPS We also get treated to a MyView by Tris Reid-Smith, editor of Gay Star News; "THIS shows just how forward-thinking Diana really was. The Queen has never even said the word ‘gay’ in public, but the fact Diana was doing things like this so long ago shows how far ahead of the time she was. She won the hearts and minds of all the public, and I think Kate could do something similar."
Fagburn didn't know whether to laugh or cry - or barf. *

• If you're interested in The Sun's 40 year war against truth under Murdoch, please read Stick It Up Your Punter! by Peter Chippindale and Chris Horrie - probably the most illuminating, funny and ultimately depressing book about the sorry state of UK journalism ever written.

* Update: Fagburn hears several other gays-of-note were asked to comment first, and refused to comment beyond; "This story sounds like a load of old tosh."
Good to hear some aren't as supine and/or stupid as Tristram.  

Daily Express: Di! Di! Di!

'RUSSELL GRANT: MY FRIEND DIANA WAS MURDERED'

For The Daily Express it's the story that's got it all; Diana's death - sorry MURDER, Strictly Come Dancing, and some loopy astrology bollocks.
And all they had to do was lift some quotes from an interview in the current Radio Times!
Russell Grant, a "friend" and "confidant" of the fated Princess, said he predicted her death/murder; "I warned her. I said, ‘Don’t go there love. Just don’t go anywhere with him. You’ve got to knock this on the head...'"
So Russell whodunnit???
"Who knows?"
Case closed!
So the Express can finally stop flogging this dead clothes' horse now, eh?

Gareth Williams: The New Diana

The Daily Mail's constant speculation (usually without foundation) on the death of Gareth Williams is threatening to turn him into the new Princess Diana.
He was the people's spook etc etc...
Now you may have to forgive me, for I fear I may be finally losing my sanity, but does today's story - 'Did spy's killer steal state secrets? MI6 agents search for 'missing' laptop or MP3 player after body-in-bag murder case' - resurrect every daft last rumour which The Daily Mail had dismissed in their front page story on the poor man on Saturday?
Yes, the same rumours the Mail had started...