Tom Daley: Against Empire

Our Tom is in Russia right now.

Here he is pictured in the Kremlin with Chris Mears and the other one (Jack?).

This is a clear two-fingers to Nato and American empire, and all the right-wing gayers (and anti-gayers!) who've called for a boycott of Russia.

Well done Tom.
x

PS And here she is outside St Basil's cathedral (clearly mocking the dimwitted Tilda Swinton).

Hey, Dustin's not with you, Tom, I see. Hmm...

Tom returns to the Motherland in July to compete in the FINA World Championships in Kazan. *

Good luck, babes! x

* But can he be??? Fagburn seems to remember reading last year Tom was boycotting Russia cos anti-gay fascism.

Update: Tom, Russia, Gays and Stupidity, a great piece by Eruestan Brethil.

Tilda Swinton: Fuck Off

"Well, I think there’s something that gay people have. It is true that to pass through the transitions that gay people have to in order to come out to themselves, to their families when they’re quite young, it’s a grow-bag, isn’t it? And I think that very often, heterosexual people miss out on that. There’s a feeling of development and sometimes, heterosexual people have never had to go through that self-examination and just knowing themselves, and that sense of coming out, coming to your own defense, and being your own best advocate, and going, “No! I’m going to stand by myself and say this is who I am and you can all fuck off.” That is a wonderful transition to go through, and I suppose a lot of straight people miss out on that, and then maybe their relationship choices are potentially less examined. They could be lazier or less thoroughly thought-through."

The bafflingly thick patronising uber-posh barf-machine, Tilda Swinton speaking at SXSW, via IndieWire.

Oh do fuck off.

Russia: How To Make Sure Putin Pays Attention

Independence Square, Kiev, February 2013.

And how not to...

Red Square, Moscow, July 2013.

Everything's not all about The Gays, The Gays!

Russia: Why The Independent Is A Complete Joke (Part Of An Ongoing Series)

Can you just NOT!

PS Of course The Independent's anti-Putinism has nothing to do with the billionaire Lebedev's who are bankrolling them.

And in no way is Evgeny Lebedev a big closet case.

Fagburn: The First Worsts

Fagburn's Inaugural First Worsts Gay Media Watch 2013 Awards Ceremony...

Worst newspaper in the world.

The Independent. Unbelievably patronising dim-witted gay coverage, all seemingly written by posh straight interns who know fuck all about The Gays, and whose idea of research is typing 'gay' into Google News. Actually chose the "inventor" of a pink Union Jack as the tenth most important gayer in Britain! And don't even get me started on Tilda fucking Swinton and her stupid rainbow flag.

Worst journalist.

Patrick Strudwick. Pearl-clutching bed-wetting liberal idiot. Would accuse a pencil-case of being 'homophobic'. Literally incapable of writing an interesting sentence. Seems to think the main point of journalism is publishing photos of his grinning face (Sad "Boo-hoo squish squish sad face" also available).

Worst journalist in the world of gay.

They are both called Joe. This seems to be "a thing".

Worst journalist in the world of lesbian.

Nancy Goldstein. Actually clinically bonkers.

Worst straight journalist writing about something she knows fuck all about.

Gemma Aldridge for her fantastically ignorant Sunday People article saying "bug chasing" is "a thing".

Worst straight media gay cliché.

Gay dads. Arggggghhhh!

Worst pop star.

Lady Gaga - an absolute five star patronising idiot.

Worst article of the year.

Pink News declares the late Margaret Thatcher a "gay icon". FFS! [See also that Tory winker Damian Barr's Maggie & Me].

Worst website.

Huffington Post Gay Voices. Could you be a bit less boring and worthy, please?

Worst website in the proud to be a gay American world.

Americabloggay. 'Russia bad. America good. Must serve empire! Ugh!' Could you be any more servile to American power? [No].

Worst article about The Gays and The Sports.

Too many to mention, but apparently it is still "the last taboo."

Worst decision.

The conviction of Chelsea Manning.

Worst gay Uncle Tom.

The Daily Mail's Andrew Pierce. 'And I say this as a self-loathing gay Tory myself...' [Fifth year running].

Worst gay hypocrite.

Cardinal Keith O'Brien. Hahahahahahahaha!

Worst liar.

Waitress in anti-gay receipt scam. Astounded people still print junk like this story unquestioned.

Worst hoax.

Kenny Everett and Freddie Mercury took Princess Diana in man drag to the Vauxhall Tavern. Yeah, that happened.

Worst transphobes.

Julie Burchill, Julie Bindel et al.

Worst television programme ever made.

Vicious. FFS!

Worst not coming out.

"Unfortunately, I am not homosexual. In technical fact, I am humasexual. I am attracted to humans. But, of course ... not many". Morrissey. 

You are even gayer than me and Tom Daley's gay lovechild, dear.

Worst gay news site.

Gay Star News. Just unbelievably embarrassing business-rimming naff shit. Literally turning your brain into apolitical mushy peas. Any gay publication will bear the imprint of its editor, so that's why GSN is as dull as saggy old arseholes. Thanks Little Lord Tristram Double-Barrelled Name! Can you just not? Fagburn hates!

Worst gay message board.

Pink News. It really is the gay Mail Online. Do only members of LGBTory read this?

Worst gay campaign group.

Queer Nation NY. Cause why protest about queer homelessness, poverty, misery and homophobia in New York, when you can organise a photo-op of you pouring Russian [Latvian?] vodka down a drain?

Worst gay tizzyfit.

A famous person said they're not that keen on gay marriage. He must die!! Bet he eats that gay-hate Barilla pasta!

Worst gay meme.

By Stonewall. Oh do shut up.

Worst LGBT campaigner.

Saint Peter Tatchell. Egomaniac and fantasist who confuses a movement with himself, thus destroying any real potential for a left-wing grassroots gay movement. Last seen harassing an old man who's said he doesn't support anti-gay laws. No wonder the Daily Mail thinks Pete is a "national treasure".

Worst blogger.

Fagburn. Solipsistic sanctimonious embittered joyless moaning twat.

Russia: So Brave!

A picture of an Italian journalist holding up a flag saying 'Love Is Love' in Russia has gone viral.

In late October, Enrico Procentese, an Italian photographer and travel blogger, was in Russia on behalf of Conde Nast Traveller.

He was inspired by British actress Tilda Swinton, who held up a gay pride flag in front of St Basil’s Cathedral in Red Square in July 2013.

'I believe promoting awareness through messages like "Love Is Love" is the only way to change this attitude in Russia as well as in other countries of the world,' he said to the Moscow Times.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed in a law banning ‘gay propaganda’ in June, supposedly a measure to protect traditional Russian values.

Since then it has been strongly enforced. Even a small display such as Procentese’s can be punished by deportation from the country, a fine, and 15 days in prison.

'Taking the photograph was not easy, since the police immediately stopped me and asked me to give them the flag I was carrying,' Procentese said...

Gay Star News.

Take that Putin!

See Enrico's banal non-specific slogan on a tea-towel and tremble!

It does seem rather odd though that his companion appears to have neglected to take a photograph of the police intervening, don't you think?
And, presuming this really happened and they could read English, how would the police have known this was a gay protest?

And if even "a small display such as Procentese’s can be punished by deportation from the country, a fine, and 15 days in prison", then why didn't the police charge him?

And why isn't Moscow Times in trouble with the authorities for publishing this photo and article?

It's all so very confusing.
One might think you could publish any old bollocks about the GAYS in Russia and get away with it.

"Taxi for Ms Swinton!"

Update: This nonsense even made it into The Independent, famed for having the lamest gay coverage of any broadsheet and for electing Tilda Swinton Number One Friend To LGBT People in the Pink List 2013!!!

Pink List 2013: The Mourning After...

Now that the near palpable excitement has abated a little here are some elementary remarks on The Independent On Sunday's Pink List 2013...

1. This list of 101 LGBT people in the UK who have "made a difference" looks completely random, ridiculous and silly.

2. Newspapers and magazines love lists.
They fill space with hardly any effort; you get the readers to vote, just possibly massage the results a little bit, then get an intern to fill in the gaps via Google and/or Wikipedia.
Unfortunately, if you do it like this you usually end up with a shit list.
QED.

3. Lists - of top gayers or top albums or top pizza toppings or whatever - are guaranteed to "start a conversation".
Or better generate controversy.
Fagburn lives in a rarified world admittedly, but all I've heard people saying (okay, technically, tweeting) is that this Pink List is a complete joke.

4. Just looking at the top ten, whilst all the people listed have done good work, do they all warrant a placing over others?
The only two choices that sound solid and uncontroversial are Paris Lees and Peter Tatchell.

5. An illustrative example; Owen Jones is a very good journalist, he's out and proud, and an all round good egg of the left, but, as I'm sure he'll readily admit, he hardly ever writes about gay issues (as is his perfect right), so should he be here over other writers?
Mind you, by coincidence, Owen is the Indy's hot star columnist.

Similarly, why Out4Marriage not Coalition For Equal Marriage etc etc...

6. Filleting out almost all older people with more established reputations into a quick list of 40something "National Treasures" (BARF! Last year there were Lifetime Achievement Awards) only makes the actual Pink List 2013 look even more random and inconsequential.
Galloping through them and dismissing them with often just a one-word summary ("Writer", "Musician") is, again, insulting.

7. To repeat: The most telling entry is number 16 - the man who thought of dying a Union Jack flag pink, and selling them FFS! - and he got in there with 62 votes!

8. If the IoS don't ditch this list next year, I hope people will realise it'll be easy to rig it and nominate themselves - and why not, you deserve it as much as anyone, ordinary gay person - or propose spoiler/joke candidates.
Fagburn would love to see Dennis Nilsen at number one.

9. There is no gentle or polite way of putting this but many inclusions and placings in the Pink List seem based on tokenism.
This is insulting and patronising to both them and us.
Several entries read like a particularly cruel Private Eye pastiche/pisstake of a painfully "worthy"poll such as this.

10. Take a look at the judges - including a panel from the Independent itself - and see if you can detect any possible "conflict of interest"/favouritism in the Pink List 2013.
No, me neither...

11. The Ones To Watch list appears to resemble many other publications' Ones To Watch lists; how many are chums - or crushes - of someone at The Independent or of a judge?

12. Regular viewers may know that as a general rule Fagburn thinks politicians should be taken out and shot, but the Politicians' Pink Sublist is unbelievably slapdash, and looks like it was thrown together and written by a spectacularly ignorant intern in a panic.

13: Tilda fucking Swinton?????!!!

That is all for now on this IoS Shit List.

Fagburn could rave about some people that I think were glaring omissions.
Or rant about some people who really should not have been included.
But this would be pointless when the Pink List 2013 is so debased, and has now completely negated itself as being any meaningful marker of British LGBT people who have "made a difference".

And finally...
There is an accompanying article to all this pink palaver by Will "Nice-But-Dim" Young; Note to society: We're not G*Y – we're GAY!
I've been struggling with what to say about it, but it's even beyond satire.
Young Tom put it best; "Will Young writes like a 15 year-old school newspaper editor."

Pink List 2013: Friends To LGBT People

Well, who else could it be at number one?

Fagburn assures you this is not a joke.

She waved one of those stupid sodding rainbow flags about for a bit in Red Square, then got her PR to tweet a photo of her doing it.
You may want to read that line again while its full import sinks in.
Truly Tilda, you are our Oskar Schindler.
Thank you!

#sobrave etc etc.

Oh FFS!

David Bowie: Top Of The Pops

"I was a gay 12 year-old just starting to take an interest in pop music and I was knocked out.
"I was watching with my mother who said, Oh he looks like Glenda Jackson playing Elizabeth I - which in retrospect was quite perceptive.
"And then came the famous moment on the show when David Bowie slung his arm around guitarist Mick Ronson - which was simultaneously blokey but also a bit gay. It may not sound like much now but in 1972 it was a revolution.
"A few months before the TOTP appearance, Bowie said on the record in the Melody Maker that he was gay - or at least bisexual. 
"Looking back now, the statement was ambiguous but at the time it was a brave thing to say - it was only five years since homosexual acts had been legalised in Britain.
"I didn't find David Bowie at all attractive in any physical way. But I loved what he stood for.
"He clearly knew his way around gay culture in terms of its writing and music and visual art. "More than anyone else, he blasted the closet-door off its hinges. So for that I'll always love him - but his position on the politics of sexuality is a conflicted one. If, like me, you're a big Bowie fan you just have to accept that.
"At the very least in the '70s he was a pioneer of sexual openness in Britain. It was a long time before anyone came along in music who was unambiguously gay. Arguably in Britain, that title goes to Jimmy Somerville but Bowie paved the way."

Rupert Smith quoted in a BBC News magazine feature David Bowie: Did He Change Attitudes To Sexuality?
I've compiled them together and left out all the other bits in the article using Bryon Gysin and William Burrough's cut-up technique - as a tribute to the enduring cultural legacy of David Bowie.
I don't care about you, but I'm a bit over-stuffed with reading everyone saying how wonderful Bowie is right now, but I liked this.

PS I also liked Tilda Swinton's tribute to the Dame at the opening of David Bowie Is.