Galliarseholegate: With Friends Like These

Today's front page of The Guardian tests the limits of censorship by featuring a photograph of a giant prick.
"A man outside the Rodin museum in Paris disagrees with the departure of John Galliano, fired by Dior for alleged [sic] antisemitic remarks..."
Oh do fuck off.

Karl Lagerfeld: A Horrible Image For Fashion

Now I don't care about you, but me and the rest of the entire world have been waiting with bad breath to find out what Karl Lagerfeld has to say about John Galliarsehole's racist outburst.
Good news! M. Lagerfeld is quoted on WWD.com;
“I’m furious, if you want to know. I’m furious that it could happen, because the question is no longer even whether he really said it. The image has gone around the world. It’s a horrible image for fashion, because they think that every designer and everything in fashion is like this. This is what makes me crazy in that story..."
Thanks for clearing that up.
Fashion fact! Karl Lagerfeld is the only man in the world who dresses even worse than John Galliarsehole.

Julie Burchill: Change The Record, Love

Julie Burchill's weekly column really has become a stuck record.
Today we get her two centimes on racist scumbag John Galliano;
"If John Galliano had confined himself to insulting the Jews, he could probably have got away with it after a period of contrition. Mel Gibson, after all, had his defenders when he said that Jews start all the wars in the world, such as the writer Andrew O'Hagan. But then Gibson had to throw the N-word into the mix, as Galliano did with Asians; their gooses were cooked when they contravened the PCP rules on who it's ok to hate these days."
This is errant nonsense. Galliano's goose was cooked when that video emerged of his anti-semitic tirade. And he was already good and stuffed.
As she's got another few hundred words to file she then moves briskly onto gay marriage (a week or so late, natch);
"So the Archbishop of Canterbury has drawn a line in the sand, and sworn that Adam and Steve will never become husband and husband in one of "his" buildings. Still sucking up to Islam, are we, Ro-Wi?"
To which the only possible response is... Eh?
Both these choices of subject today are of course mere springboards to enable Ms Burchill to bellyflop into two of her favourite subjects; Israel is wonderful, Islam is evil.
Two subjects that she returns to in The Independent week after week after week ad nauseum.
Pass the sickbag, Julie.

Pink Pound: We are all bourgeois now (apparently)

I don't care about you, but I got bored sensible by last night's Prime Ministerial TV Debate about ten minutes in, and dutifully gave up at 9pm and started watching Have I Got News for You.
Interesting how often the Conservatives confusion over whether they actually support gay equality has become a recurring riff in commentary on this general election campaign. We got "another chance to see" Cameron fluffing then forgetting his lines on that GT YouTube interview (to my knowledge no-one has questioned why the new GT sent an ex Tory party worker to interview him, but there you go), then a return to this month's gay storm in a teacup, Grayling on bed and breakfasts. Posh comedian and panelist Marcus Brigstocke recalled with delight a recent letter to The Guardian, which read; "As a gay man, could someone explain to me what sort of a gay couple would choose to stay at a B&B instead of a boutique hotel?" [April 6th, 2010].
This drew much laughter from the audience - I just thought of the obvious answer; the countless gay men who can't afford to stay in boutique hotels.
On April 12th, The Guardian published this letter from one "Mary Lloyd"; "The abrupt addition of same-sex civil partnerships to David Cameron's categories of those select couples who would gain tax advantages under any future Tory administration reveals a cynical last-ditch effort to offset the damage caused by the shadow home secretary's homophobic remarks.
"So, rather than devoting the scarce resources of the state (in this recession) to the welfare of poor and needy children and families, the Conservatives prefer to shower tax advantages on couples with no dependents, enjoying double salaries, often able to afford the self-indulgent privileges of city-centre life. Some of these people will, I suspect, not be too happy to find that their ability to purchase yet another opera seat is being funded at the expense of youngsters from impoverished families just across the road, often in the same borough.
"This latest idiocy from Tory HQ is the clearest demonstration yet of the real values of the Old Etonians who hope to rule us all from May this year."
Of course, of course - this is how some see gay men. No small wonder, despite all evidence to the contrary, this lie has been pushed with equal fervour by both anti-gay evangelists and much of the gay press: "We are all bourgeois now".
It's also clear that for some sneering at gay men with the smear that we are all wealthy makes their homophobia somehow okay.
And why not? Such a tactic worked so well against the Jews in Germany in the 30s, didn't it?
Myths about "the Pink Pound" are the same ones that led to Yellow Stars.