Daily Mail: Compare And Contrast

Interesting infographic on The Media Blog.
Comparing the number of complaints to the Press Complaints Commission about Jan Moir's article about Stephen Gately in the Mail with the number of complaints to Ofcom about Channel 4's Big Fat Quiz Of The Year - which has driven the Daily Mail into a predictable bat shit frenzy of manufactured outrage.
When the Mail decided this was front page news - Outrage after drunken British comedians guzzle wine and trade obscene jokes about Obama, the Queen and Susan Boyle - Ofcom had been deluged with five complaints. 
For more on this hypocritical silliness go here.

The Independent: Spot The Difference

The Independent (and Independent On Sunday) continues its record-breakingly hopeless gay coverage - illustrated, but of course, with the same photo of a faceless gay couple.
Did Stockphoto offer them a two-for-one deal?
The "satirical" article about gay bishops is painfully unfunny.
I never cease to be astounded that a supposedly liberal and progressive national newspaper can get away with this half-arsed patronising crud.

PS By the powers of magick, the first illustration has now been changed. 

Rupert Everett: Stalking

“You were told [at school] that if you got a hard-on, you should turn over and say a Hail Mary. You somehow make it work for yourself, but it gives you lots of bubbles inside. I wanted to tear everything down, and the way I found to do it was sex.” With whom? “They didn’t necessarily have to be attractive. It depends how the lights are hitting you and how the drinks are hitting you.” Was it, I ask, self-hating? “Guilty, certainly,” he says. “My whole life was about sex, really, in one sense or another.” Aids terrified him: there was death everywhere in the 1980s, and the backlash was vicious. “People were really turning against gays — they had been so popular in the 1970s. Being black was rather popular in the 1970s, too.” This is a typical of Everett; just when you think he is sensitive and clever, he says something so fashion-stupid, I want to thump him.

We then have an absurd conversation about Ian McKellen, which demonstrates his ambivalence about his early life. When he was young, in London, he stalked McKellen, which is fairly normal for teenagers who find their backgrounds uncomfortable or dreary. According to his memoir Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins, he told a friend: “I am shagging Ian McKellen, I swear!” Since he is usually so talkative about his promiscuity, I ask him if it’s true. “No,” he says calmly. “I was friends with Ian McKellen.” But it’s in the book, I say, and I repeat the anecdote. “I did sleep with Ian McKellen,” he says eventually, and I feel unkind that I even asked. “I loved stalking people,” he says. “Now it’s illegal, such a shame. Such fun.”

Rupert Everett profiled in The Sunday Times.
Mr Everett has won much praise for his portrayal of Oscar Wilde in The Judas Kiss.
It transfers to the West End on Wednesday.
As it stars Rupert my chances of seeing it are less than zero.

Update: Rupert The Bore was also on The Andrew Marr Show on Sunday, sitting next to one David Cameron, who was enthusing about gay marriage.
Rupert said bluntly; "I can't stand marriage..."
Thus making "Dave" look rather silly. 

Barbara Ellen: No Sex Please, You're Gay

The Church of England has decreed that gay clergy in civil partnerships can become bishops but only if they are celibate. Is this a long-lost Monty Python sketch?

...perhaps we should also look at wider society, at ourselves – accept that this "be gay, but not remotely sexual" attitude may be part of a wider national malaise. Heterosexual British people have a history of "tolerating" gay culture (nice of us!), but we also tend not to consider gay men and women actually having sex or being sexual beings.

Even today, prominent gay people are often camp and cuddly, at most – smutty rather than sexual. At least that is the perception. Gay characters in films generally appear as shoulders for their fag-hag friends to cry on, rather than people who wouldn't mind a shag themselves. Part of George Michael's courage (and he is courageous) is not only being open about his sexuality, but also about the fact of his active sex life.

This goes against all the unwritten laws of mainstream (acceptable) homosexuality, which is openly gay, but also neutered, inactive, tamed. Which, when you think about it, is not a million miles away from what the C of E is suggesting.

This isn't about latent homophobia bubbling up among the masses. True homophobes tend to be out and proud – unfortunately. This is about nicer people and their naivety, squeamishness and discomfort, all those grey areas that are allowed to remain grey. This is about a climate where gay people are welcomed out into the mainstream, while gay sex remains locked in the closet.

While evidence of rampant heterosexuality is everywhere, to saturation point, this is still not true of homosexuality. In Britain, gay men are almost perceived to want their own chat show more than actual gay sex. In this way, weird as it seems, the church's position could be a crass exaggeration, or magnification, of the true British stance, rather than an aberration. If the church prefers the idea of chaste, unthreatening homosexuality, which keeps its clothes firmly on, then perhaps so do a lot of British people. They just don't care to admit it, even to themselves...

Barbara Ellen in The Observer. 

The point's been made before, but it's worth repeating.
One of the few columnists who can write about The Gays and not make me want to punch myself in the face - Fagburn loves you, Miss Babs.

David Cameron: Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood

The Prime Minister also conceded that the Government’s introduction of same-sex marriage could have been better communicated. “One of things we haven’t got across properly is this is what is going to happen in the registry office,” he said.
“This is about what the state does, this is the civil part of marriage. We’re not changing what happens in church or synagogue or mosque.”
Many Christians fear that churches may be forced to hold homosexual ceremonies after a challenge to the European Court of Human Rights. Mr Cameron maintains there are adequate safeguards to stop this happening.
However, Mr Cameron said understood the concerns of Tory supporters who feel he should be going further and faster on boosting the economy, controlling immigration or curbing the welfare state.
“When people temporarily leave you for another party I don’t think, well that’s that,” he added. “I think I understand why you’re frustrated and I want to try and win you back.” 

Interview in the Sunday Telegraph. 
Ugh.
Admittedly it must get annoying if you keep repeating something ad nauseum but bigots deliberately go; "La la la can't hear you!" 
Gentle reminder: Nothing in politics is certain until it actually happens.

Tom Daley: Let's Get Wet

7.15pm ITV1.

Update: The backlash begins. 
Now he's a proper TV star the whispers about our Tom could get deafening.
Fagburn wonders which newspaper will be the first to refer to him as "camp"? *

Update 2: "Splash! makes Dancing on Ice and Celebrity Big Brother feel like cerebral workouts of the highest order. Yes, it is clear it was meant to be in some way “knowing”, but Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway-meets-Banzai this 'aint. The producers missed the target on every level, and although they might still (with another month to run and 5 million plus watching episode one) think it's a Total Wipeout killer for a “post-ironic” generation... I think most will remember it more simply as Total Crap." Radio Times online.
(Edit: Most reviews on Monday, like the Mirror, described it as a "bellyflop", and despite good ratings said it was "a new low" for TV. Your correspondent is, as ever, right behind Tommy).
Poor Tom. : (

Update 3: "I've got no time for girls..." EntertainmentWise. Uh-huh.

* See Photo 10b on heatworld.com.
Could this be the start of something?

Waiting For Godot: 60

"They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more."

PS Waiting For Godot was first performed in Paris in your actual French sixty years ago today. Not sure when we started celebrating 60th anniversaries, but what the hey, I love Samuel Beckett - the joyless fuck.

PPS I have this picture in my bathroom - to remind me of the absolute misery of human existence while having a poo.

Eddie Redmayne: Gay?

Is it easier to film gay rather than straight sex scenes, I ask. Redmayne, who is straight, has been cast in enough gay roles to make “Eddie Redmayne gay?” the second most popular Google search term for him. “No,” he says. “I mean, always, always embarrassing.” Gay, straight, incestuous, whatever? “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Always awkward. Just imagine you had to do one. That’s exactly it! That is what it is. It’s not like [actors] know what we’re doing more.” 

Eddie Redmayne profiled in The Times. 
At the time of typing it's third - after "Eddie Redmayne girlfriend".
While Googling Eddie I stumbled on a website called gay-or-straight.com.
Not sure how reliable it is as they've spelt Tom Daley's surname wrong.
"Tom Daly" though is off the Gay-o-meter scale, apparently.
I know - who knew!?

Liberace: "Too Gay"

Oscar winner Steven Soderbergh says his upcoming film about Liberace is airing on HBO instead of getting a theatrical release because studios thought it was "too gay."
The upcoming "Behind the Candelabra" has Michael Douglas in a compulsively watchable performance as the celebrated pianist, Matt Damon as his young lover and Soderbergh directing. It comes, in other words, from a trio of A-listers. So why isn't it a theatrical release?
"Nobody would make it. We went to everybody in town," the "Traffic" and "Ocean's 11" director told TheWrap on Friday, at the Television Critics Association winter press tour. "We needed $5 million. Nobody would do it."
Wait a minute, we said. Let us get this straight: No studio would budget $5 million for a movie with Damon and Douglas?
"They said it was too gay. Everybody. This was after 'Brokeback Mountain,' by the way. Which is not as funny as this movie. I was stunned. It made no sense to any of us..."

TheWrap.
There's no way of checking this, but I have to say I doubt it.

Update: This story became a big thing in both the straight and gay media.
As above, there's no way of checking its veracity, but - here's an idea - journalists might question it.
If I said I was the first gay man on the moon, would you obediently reprint that?

Trey Parker & Matt Stone: Gay Marriage And Guns

Parker and Stone are on no one's side. In the 15 years South Park has been on cable TV, it has been accused of being too conservative, too liberal, too amoral, too moral, too sophisticated and too crude. It is also, repeatedly, cited as one of the greatest television shows of all time and has won a prestigious Peabody award. It has been criticised by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (Glaad) for its use of the word "fag" ("They missed the point," Stone grumbles), and nominated for a Glaad award for outstanding TV for its episode titled Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride.

"Everyone likes you when you're beating up on someone else, then when you turn on them they're like, 'What the fuck?'" laughs Parker...

"The big lie of our whole career is that rightwing fundamentalists are always trying to shut us down," Stone says. "It has literally never happened. The Mormons haven't, the Christians haven't – OK, the Scientologists did, but they don't count. But when we make fun of liberal people, they're like, 'What?!' I think religious conservatives are more used to taking a beating." And as if to antagonise their long-suffering liberal fans even more, Parker announces that the two causes he and Stone believe in are "gay marriage and guns. We're for both of those." [This interview was conducted before the recent shootings in Sandy Hook].

"We're from Colorado, and look at the way Colorado's gone politically in the last few elections," adds Stone, "it's now gay-friendly, weed-friendly, gun-friendly. There's an element of Colorado that I think is in us." Parker nods stoutly.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone interviewed in The Guardian. 
Although I haven't see it I hereby declare The Book Of Mormon to be a work of genius.
It opens in London on February 25th.
Feel free to give me a free ticket, boys.

Church Of England: No Bumming!

Reminder: It's 2013.

This is how they've illustrated it online.
Another gay man beheaded.
Yay!

Footyball: Two Russian Gayers (Maybe)

Два русских футболиста, выступающих в ведущих клубах российского чемпионата, вызвали гнев многих футбольных болельщиков России после серии весьма откровенных фото. Теперь многие полагают, что 24-летний полузащитник московского ЦСКА Павел Мамаев и 21-летний форвард московского «Динамо» Александр Кокорин являются представителями нетрадиционной сексуальной ориентации.

Thanks to our footyball correspondent Callum.
Callum writes; "They're big players, not no-marks like hysen. alexander kokorin is the cute twinky one, pavel mavaev the other.
"also play for rival clubs, Dinamo Moscow and CSKA Moscow respectively. kokorin is pretty much the biggest prospect in Russia."
Thanks Callum.

PS Kokorin? *sniggers*

Samuel Beckett: On Godot On 60

So, Samuel Beckett, it's...

Feck off.

Gaydar Radio: Bye

Gaydar Radio owner QSoft Consulting is quitting the radio business, blaming the cost of investing in digital for holding back its other business interests.
QSoft's two digital audio broadcasting (DAB) radio licences will be transferred to Manchester-based broadcaster Gaydio on Monday, 7 January, marking the end of the 11-year-old Gaydar Radio brand.
Gaydar Radio broadcasts will switch from QSoft's Twickenham HQ in west London to Gaydio's Manchester base.
QSoft said Gaydar had a total of around 750,000 listeners per month via DAB, online and mobile. As part of the agreement between Gaydio and QSoft, Gaydar's dating brand will feature heavily in on-air editorial programming and advertising support...

Guardian Media.

I guess that's why Scott Roberts left.
But where will "750,000" (don't laugh, it's on a press release) fans of shit dance music go now?

PS Like the foxy dude above I always listened to Gaydar Radio with headphones and nekkid!

David Walliams: Not Gay

"I've always been camp. A lot of people can't make the distinction between someone who's camp and someone who's gay.
"It's a thing people really fear in themselves and I think everyone who's homophobic probably has gay thoughts and feelings."

Esquire.

1. No they don't.
2. No they don't.

Mark Pritchard: Bigot Is As Bigot Does

...The government could also do more to reduce Britain’s high numbers of migrants and immigrants. Whilst not exclusively, it is invariably Britain’s ethnic minorities, living in crowded urban areas, who often feel the first impact of Britain’s open borders. It is they, along with their white-British working neighbours, who compete for housing, school places, local health services, and a seat on the bus. Government action to extend border controls preventing a new wave of migration from Romania and Bulgaria in 2014 would be as welcomed by Britain’s ethnic minorities as it would by everyone else.

The Party could also shelve its misconceived same-sex marriage plans. Apart from antagonising the Tory grassroots and traditional Conservative voters, Number 10’s decision to press ahead with a Bill is likely to alienate large parts of the very same ethnic and religious groups the Party says it needs to attract to win the next general election. The Bill is self-defeating, divisive, and could inadvertently breed intolerance. To proceed regardless would show the Conservative Party as out of touch with many in the Muslim, Jewish, Sikh, Hindu and Christian communities – many of whom are Asian and Afro-Caribbean.

The political thinking in Number 10 might be that any political fallout from the Bill will be conveniently neutralised given Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg also support same-sex marriage. This would be a miscalculation. There is only one Prime Minister, not three, and it is he alone, a Conservative Prime Minister, who will be seen as the chief architect of the Bill. It is the Conservative Party who will reap the political consequences...

Mark Pritchard, a Tory MP - on PoliticsHome - can you see the flaw in his argument?
And here he is on PoliticsHome being a bit racist, presumably in the interest of balance.

Update: 'Dropping Tory support for gay marriage to win the ethnic minority vote would be crass moral relativism' Tom Chivers on Telegraph blogs - yes, the Telegraph.

Attitude: Taboo

West Ham United winger Matt Jarvis has become only the third footballer to feature on the cover of the UK's bestselling gay magazine in an effort to break one of the game's biggest remaining taboos. The footballer, who is married, follows David Beckham, who appeared on the cover of Attitude in 2002, and Freddie Ljungberg in 2006. The magazine has been published since 1994.

The Guardian.

It's still "taboo" if you think it's worth mentioning he's married, you thick fuck.
Wow.
A sportsman isn't homophobic - well woop de fucking woo!
Please wake me up when this is no longer newsworthy.

Update: Daily Mail below.
Yes, he's married, and deffo not gay, we get it.

Father Ray: More Gay, Vicar?

Meeting me at the church door, the man known to his parishioners as "Father Ray" greets me with a warm handshake and an affectionate arm-squeeze. As the interview begins, we are interrupted by Andrews' mobile going off, blaring out the first few bars of Abba's "Dancing Queen". When I compliment him on a brilliant ring-tone he replies drily “it is very gay, though...".

New Statesman meets Father Ray, apropos of nothing. 
You can still watch the documentary Father Ray Comes Out, on 4OD.

Scott Mills: Being Boring

Radio 1 DJ Scott Mills has ruled out returning to Uganda in order to make a follow-up programme about him being monumentally boring.
The programme showed Mills interviewing David Bahati, the Ugandan MP responsible for the proposed Anti-Boringness Bill.
Mills, who writes a column for GT (Gay Times) no-one reads, said: “Two years on I would actually like to go back to make another show about what the mood is like there, and how the boring people feel about what could happen to them. “
"However, I’ve been told that it would be too much of a security risk. I guess I haven’t given them the best publicity.”
The thick Orientalist and rather creepy, but in no way racist, DJ added: “It’s just hard to sit back and watch all this happen. Surely the West can do more?”

Uganda: Great Lies Of Our Time

Be interesting to talk to this fellow when he gets back to the UK and ask him if he made all this up.
First rule of Fagburn: The further away something happens, the less likely it is to be true.
Second rule: Never trust a posh twat.

The Guardian: Letters Of the Year

• Gill Barker is right about the pervasive use of the Americanism "you guys" when addressing mixed gender groups (Letters, 31 December). Let's start using "you girls" and see what the reaction is.
Iain Macniven
Glasgow

• Perhaps we should revert to the more inclusive "guys and gals" made popular by that wonderful TV personality...
Dennis Michael
Pretoria, South Africa

Came the reply...

• What's the matter with "people"?
Cherry Lavell
Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

The Guardian.

Chris Colfer: Typecast, Moi?

How bizarre.

Miley Cyrus: She Loves The Gays

''My favourite place to perform is London, because I have never seen more gay people in my whole life.''When I go to London that's what it is. I feel like they are so much more open, much more than here in the US when they're feeling trapped, where it's like, 'Can I even say I believe in gay marriage? Can I say that my favourite fans are my gay fans? Am I allowed to say that, because half of America is still against it?'
''It's like, I just feel like when I go to Europe, I feel very free with my fan base.''

Quoted on Bang Showbiz.

Please kill me.

Dear Deirdre: Oh Dear

MY boyfriend wants to have sex with me really badly. I don’t want to but I’m scared he’ll take advantage of me by getting me drunk.

He’s 24 and I’m 16. He’s had lots of one-night stands while he’s been with me and he calls me useless. He hit me once really hard in the face and it made me bleed.
We made up after that and I love him but everyone is upset about the way he treats me and says I could do so much better.
My best friend tells me to dump him but I refuse. I wish everyone around me would stop giving me a hard time about him.
My best friend is 16 and is clearly gay and hugs me and kisses my cheek all the time. My boyfriend thinks I’m sleeping with him and gets so jealous. He once pushed my friend into the road as a car was coming but it missed him. I don’t care about my boyfriend’s one-night stands but I just want him to stop hurting my friend.
The thing is, my boyfriend is right – I did have sex with my gay friend and I think I’m pregnant. But I don’t want to lose my best friend or my boyfriend.
If I definitely am pregnant, I want the baby but right now I feel lost. I just want my boyfriend to love me.

Well?

Fagburn: Happy New Year

I hope it brings you as much joy as this song always brings me.

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