Lesbians On TV: Is That It?

'It must be a record of sorts. Out of 39 hours of some of the most popular BBC1 shows, just 29 seconds featured lesbians, a study commissioned by the gay charity Stonewall has found. Here's a blow-by-blow account of this quantum of airtime: a homophobic exchange between Eastenders' Roxy, Pat and Bianca; and a "playful" introduction of Jeremy Clarkson by Jonathan Ross in which Ross describes the provocative petrolhead as a man not loved by lesbians. (He got that right. Clarkson repeatedly decries "big, weird dungaree-wearing lesbian parents" or "black lesbian Muslims", while lusting after "the proper ones in stockings that you find on the internet".)'
Jane Czyzselska writing in The Guardian.

Rod Liddle: "As crushingly dull as Brian Paddick, as duplicitous as Mandelson"

Rod Liddle replies - one presumes - to Andrew Pierce's piece about how he "abhors these TV queens" in The Daily Mail this week.

"Homosexuals are tired of being portrayed on television as sexually obsessed, hilariously narcissistic, outrageously dressed queens each carrying a boxed set of Abba CDs — ie, Clary, Norton, Carr and so on.
They want a bit more realism, believing that this sort of stereotypical depiction is hardly better than the Black and White Minstrels, or Al Jolson. Well, maybe. But be careful what you wish for. Inaccurate it may well be, but at least it has been an agreeable stereotype which has probably advanced the cause of homosexual equality.
If we suddenly discover that gay people aren’t always the life and soul of every party but can be as crushingly dull as Brian Paddick, or as duplicitous as Mandelson, then even more bed and breakfast institutions might refuse them entry (“refuse them entry — ooh missus!” etc).
They should talk to the Irish, who know the value of good PR; the whole of Europe loves the Irish for being ineffably good-natured, top o’ the mornin’, fiddle-de-dee, live-and-let-live free spirits, rather than grey-skinned, marsh-dwelling gingers with an insuperable sense of grievance. The truth is somewhere between the two, as it always is.
Stick with the image, boys."

200 words on "the gays" without lapsing into bigotry.
Congratulations would be in order if Fagburn didn't feel the whole point of the piece was really Rod Liddle bitching about Andrew Pierce.
And Brian Paddick.
And Peter Mandelson.
Manbags at dawn!