Strictly: Come Twitterstorm!

Strictly bosses say there are no plans for same-sex pairings - because it's a "family show" http://t.co/9JlKKVB5lc pic.twitter.com/V2wmkkn4CX

— Attitude (@AttitudeMag) September 5, 2015

Around noon on Saturday a mini Twitterstorm ERUPTED! over a quote in the Mirror's Strictly story from a BBC spokesbot; 'Strictly Come Dancing is a family show and we’ve chosen the traditional format of mixed-sex couples...'

Not sure if this is from a rather dim-witted and/or clumsy-tongued junior press office.

I've a feeling it's not a direct quotation, but has been 'massaged', possibly after the Mirror asking leading questions.

Quotes in tabloids can be only very loosely based on what was actually said, and are often completely made-up.

Whilst they clearly don't want same-sex couples on (yet), I'd be flabbergasted if this 'because it's a family show ' is Aunty Beeb's official line.

If a press wonk actually said this antedeluvian twoddle I hope they get a good old-fashioned Beeb bollocking.

Whatever, this would hardly be the frst time that a gay Twitterstorm has ERUPTED! over something that didn't actually happen.

Or something that doesn't really matter that much.

PS This Attitude reader is MAD AS HELL!

I'm more than happy to boycott Strictly for this. Purposely excluding same-sex couples is sick http://t.co/OEeYPtGoQG pic.twitter.com/YHUGJpSR0B

— Tim Doble (@BetterThanToday) September 5, 2015

Good luck with your incredibly well thought out 'boycotting a TV show' thing, posh dude.

Daily Mail: Oops! Sorry Bout Dat

Scotland Yard is under pressure to shelve its VIP paedophile murder inquiry after it emerged detectives had ‘grave doubts’ about the testimony of the key witness.

Officers have not found a ‘shred of credible evidence’ to back up claims that a string of senior Establishment figures were responsible for murdering three boys in the 1970s and 1980s.

Many detectives believe the inquiry – which has already cost the taxpayer more than £1million – is doomed and should be wound up.

Senior figures in the separate judge-led public inquiry into historic child sex abuse and in the Crown Prosecution Service have been told informally that there appears to be no substance to the allegations made by a witness known only as ‘Nick’.

Nick is an alleged abuse victim who was described by a senior Met Police detective last year as being ‘credible and true’.

Amid claims that Yard chiefs are ‘too scared’ to pull the plug on the inquiry, 30 officers in the cash-strapped force are probing the astonishing triple-murder allegation, linked to Dolphin Square in Central London.

It can also be revealed that police initially took Nick’s account seriously because he has a respectable managerial job and does ‘not fit the stereotype of a child abuse fantasist’.

But there are now fears he is a ‘Walter Mitty’ who has made up the murder allegations

Police have not been able to identify any of the alleged victims, discover any bodies or find any credible independent witnesses.

Sources say a number of officers have ‘grave doubts’ about Nick’s account but fear that saying this in public could put child-sex victims off contacting police.

Details of the Met’s fears over the allegations have emerged after former Conservative MP Harvey Proctor accused police of a ‘gay witch-hunt’ when he disclosed that he had been questioned over the alleged murders.

Nick says he was abused at depraved sex ‘parties’ from the age of seven, and claims to have witnessed horrific acts at the luxury Dolphin Square estate between 1975 and 1984.

He has described being driven by a chauffeur, along with a terrified 12-year-old boy, to a luxury townhouse where he watched as a Tory MP strangled the other child.

Nick said he saw a second boy being murdered in front of a Tory Cabinet minister in 1981. A third boy died in 1979 after being run over by a member of the gang, he alleges.

In November last year, Nick told the BBC that his abusers ‘created fear that penetrated every part of me, day in day out’.

But the Mail has been told that when Nick is challenged on his version of events, he ‘becomes emotional and the interview is stopped’.

A source said: ‘When he contacted police, he had a well-rehearsed script and initially appeared believable. But when you scratch under the surface of his claims, there is nothing there.

'The notion of an organised paedophile gang of a former prime minister, MPs and Establishment figures is just nonsense.

‘Police have not been able to identify any victims. There is not one shred of credible evidence to support his allegations. The police investigation has been exhaustive but they have drawn a blank.’ ...

Daily Mail.

Quick summary for busy readers: The Mail here is kinda admitting it's been publishing a load of utter errant nonsense about Operation Midland and a supposed 'VIP paedophile ring' for years.

A six year-old could have seen this was all as laughable as an alien abduction story.

And shame on the Sunday People and Tom Watson MP for being such prime colluders in this lunatic - and yes, homophobic - episode.

Advertising: Could You Be More Boring?

Nearly 7,000 people have called on Brewdog, a British craft beer company, to remove a fundraising advert many are considering transphobic.

Thousands have people say they will boycott Brewdog until they remove the video...

[The petition claimed it featured] “offensive caricatures of people, many of whom already suffer discrimination every day [such as] homeless people, trans women and sex workers”...

Gay Star News. 

Here's the ad.

Fagburn loves the idea of boycotting something you weren't buying anyway.

Clicking on an e-petition is quite meaningless.

All this tells us is that there are some very boring and joyless people with access to a computer, and who'll take offence at a pink fondue fancy.


Update; 'Brewdog “cannot and will not guarantee that at some point we will not offend the following groups due to our deep-seated and heartfelt prejudices”. It then went on to list a number of groups including Sepp Blatter; Nazis; overweight cats; diet drinks and people who put lime into lager bottles.

'The company summed up its advertising approach by saying “we sometimes don’t take ourselves too seriously” and asked people to accept the list of groups as full transparency regarding who and what it discriminated against, warning that it may well ridicule them in the future. The statement concluded that anyone believes “we are ridiculing anything other than people or items listed above, you are either misguided, ill-informed or out of your tiny mind".

 Statement quoted in marketing mag, The Drum.

Advertisement: Pot Noodle

Adorable.

Strictly: Same-Sex Dancing

Daily Mirror.

Egghead's 'star' CJ de Mooi, no less.

Yes, he's a repeat contestant on the BBC2 tea-time quiz show!

Neither he nor the Mirror have any evidence he was rejected because he said he wanted to dance with another man [The BBC say he was never under consideration].

Though Mooi is boo hoo-hoo crying he's a gayer spurned, it may just possibly be that Eggheads host, Jeremy Vine, was chosen because people have heard of him.

It's not like they've had a cavalcade of queens a-judging and a-dancing or anything.

PS CJ is so well-known Pink News spelt his name wrong [Later corrected, in fact the whole story was rewritten, below is the orginal before they realised it was probably bollocks].

PS Julian Clary wants same-sex couples to compete on Strictly Come Dancing, Mirror. Can't say this is that high on Fagburn's list of priorities. [JC's quotes are lifted from an old interview with OK! btw].

The Daily Telegraph: In Modern Times

'Showing a little more consideration for the opposite sex and those of a different sexual persuasion could improve war-fighting morale'

The Daily Telegraph.

The opposite sex?

Those of a different persuasion!!!

I mean, where do you even fucking start???

Apart from the 1930s.

Rentboy Raid: 'Blow Jobs, Not No Jobs!'

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Syrian Refugee Crisis: Caring, Sharing...

Send us your selfie to show that you care!

Part of the Independent's achingly sincere, self-serving Refugees Welcome 'campaign' - hideous.

The Indy was the only British newspaper to put the emotional pornography of that photograph showing the dead baby in full on their front page yesterday.

A strong piece by Max Fisher for Vox.

The massed index fingers of social media ain't been this angry and sad since Cecil The Lion!

Now to Tweet, Share and RT...

PS Mirror online have resurrected this story from April; Michael Portillo says desperate Mediterranean refugees should be 'dumped on a Libyan beach. Yes, that's the Michael Portillo whose father was a refugee from the Franco regime. Not the first time she's had a strange sense of recall about her past.

Matthew Parris in his Times' column, Saturday...

There are moments when a shaft of ice should enter the soul. Yes, I too saw the photograph of the dead child. Yes, I too had to brush away a tear. But weeping at pictures is not a policy, and saying “we must do more” is not a policy. Policy seeks remedies, and the remedy for the refugee crisis is no more apparent now that we have seen a picture of a lifeless toddler than it was before it.

What kind of primitives have we become that we need to see a drowned person before we acknowledge to ourselves that people are drowning? Did we not know, had we not read, that migrant children drowned? What happened to the written word? Are newspapers and broadcasters to dispense altogether with report and analysis and offer us only a slide show? “Tragic,” “shaming”, “shocking” — this is politics by adjective. We need some nouns... 
 

NOT EXCLUSIVE: We continue to exploit the drowning of two children by pretending we’d have cared about them if they’d arrived here alive.

— The DM Reporter (@DMReporter) September 5, 2015

Troye Sivian: Wild (Blue Neighbourhood)

Aww...

If only I was young, cute and fuckable I too could be a celebrity 'Vlogger'.

The Krays: That's Showbusiness!

In 1965, David Bailey, already Britain’s most fashionable photographer, took a portrait of the gangster twins Ronnie and Reggie Kray, who looked fiercely well-groomed in suits and narrow ties... The portrait became gangland’s Mona Lisa: copied, pirated and imitated, it was central to their image and their brand... “Their big mistake was posing for me,” Bailey told the BBC last year. “If you’re a real gangster nobody knows who you are.” The Krays, of course, wanted everyone to know who they were... If Bailey’s photo was the first stage in the construction of the Krays’ enduring image, stage two came in 1967, when the Krays approached John Pearson, and asked him to be their biographer, focusing on their clubs, their celebrity chums and their charitable works. (Truman Capote, who had just published In Cold Blood, had been their first choice, but he declined the commission.)... They felt like they were in the big time, even though the bank robbers of the era looked down on them as mere bullies, called them “thieves’ ponces”, and “Gert and Daisy” behind their backs, claiming that they didn’t steal their own money and attracted too many dodgy hangers-on... George Cornell, a gangster from south London, had called Ron a “fat poof” – Ron used to say “I’m homosexual but I’m not a poof”... on 9 March 1966, when he heard that Cornell was in the Blind Beggar pub, which was on the Krays’ patch, he went round and shot him dead in front of shocked witnesses... In May 1968, Ronnie and Reggie Kray were arrested... Ronnie gave a spectacular but crazed performance in the witness box, name-dropping the boxing champions they knew and portraying himself as an innocent East End philanthropist. They were jailed for life... (At his trial, Ron cheerfully told the judge, “If I wasn’t here, I could be having tea with Judy Garland.”)... I was introduced to Ron by a former inmate who had been a friend in his earlier prison days... [he] talked about where he would go if ever released – “Morocco, for the boys”. He added, “Don’t print I’m mad.” ...

From a brilliant essay by Duncan Campbell, The Selling Of The Krays, on Ronnie and Reggie as rubbish gangsters, but great brand managers - part of Guardian online's The Long Read series.

I bet everyone told Ron he was really good at painting.

Breaking: Sledgehammer, Meet Nut

Queerty.

Ridiculous.

Dunno why so many queens are celebrating, this is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard.

'Lock up the non-believer and throw away the key!'

Fagburn say #FreeTheCrazyLady1!

PS That's not to detract from the fact she's such an idiotic bigot you wonder how she got a job in the first place, though.

Fagburn: Needs A Day Off

InfiniteSkye @ DeviantArt.

Jeremy Corbyn: My Part In His Victory

Fagburn is thrilled to announce that his request to become a Labour Party supporter has finally been accepted.

Of course, he will be voting for Islington's Allende, Mr Jeremy Corbyn.

As for deputy leader, he will be voting for anyone but Tom Watson; the publicity-loving known lunatic who's been propagating fairy stories about a supposed 'VIP paedophile ring' led by Ted Heath and Harvey Proctor and Winston Churchill and Norman Tebbit, and whoever else some old drunk told him was in it during a slurred late-night phone call.

PS Illustration comes from the French left-wing paper, Liberation, yesterday.

Cos everyone's seen Private Eye's demolition job - which David Schneider's satire pre-dated.

56 Dean Street: Email Sent

One of Britain’s leading sexual health clinics has apologised after mistakenly revealing the identities of hundreds of HIV-positive patients.

The 56 Dean Street clinic in London sent a newsletter on Tuesday that disclosed the names and email addresses of about 780 recipients. The newsletter is intended for people using its HIV and other sexual health services, and gives details of treatments and support.

The clinic, which is run by the Chelsea and Westminster NHS trust, apologised shortly after sending the email and on Wednesday pledged to investigate how the breach occurred.

Britain’s data protection watchdog is likely to launch an investigation into the privacy breach, thought to be one of the biggest of its kind...

The Guardian.

Yes, this is obviously very, very bad.

But it looks like some poor sod hit the wrong button on their keyboard, so let's not hang them, or 56 Dean Street, out to dry.

The idea that Dean Street could be hit with a massive fine over this cock-up helps no-one, and would harm many. *

We all fuck-up from time to time.

* The much bandied about figure of a maximum fine of £500,000 is a bit like the council saying you could be fined £5,000 for putting your bins out on the wrong day - ie you won't actually be.

PS Fagburn's also not entirely convinced that Sky News' Kay Burley inaccurately calling 56 Dean Street an 'Aids clinic' in what was probably a hastily written tweet was the great crime some are claiming.

Tom Robinson: Eton Rifle

Radio 6 Music should be safe from the government’s attempts to curb the BBC. It was claimed last week that the Downing Street spin team go into hyperdrive whenever Sam Cameron complains about hearing a bad news story on her favourite station. One of 6’s presenters is Tom Robinson, the former punk protest singer, who told a TMS elf about being invited to perform at Eton. “One of the beaks was a fan,” he said. “It was daunting standing in front of 600 sons of the ruling elite, looking at me and thinking ‘who the eff is this?’” He kicked the gig off with his 1978 hit Glad to be Gay, an apt anthem for Eton, since a former headmaster was the first man to be convicted under the 1533 Buggery Act. *

Times Diary.

PS Listen to Tom Robinson's Live At Eton ep on Lastfm.

* Nicholas Udall.

New York: Museum Pieces

William Burroughs' Bowery apartment, 1950s and 2010s, from John Short's collection of 'now and then' photographs, Unforgotten New York.

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).

Brendan O'Neill Watch: Paedophile Panic

Brendan O'Neill, The Spectator.

Fagburn would like to have quoted something from this, but it's difficult as, like so much that O'Neill writes, it's just a series of non sequiturs.

I can confirm though, that the statement made in the title is correct.

PS There's a more coherent piece by Luke Gittos on Spiked, Harvey Proctor Has Got A Point - It is time to end this witch-hunting of old, often homosexual, men.

Kim Davis: Out Come The Pink Pitchforks!

Well, yes, as an elected official Kim Davis should 'do her job' and issue marriage licences to same-sex couples.

But can we not get all gay-hysterical again and turn Rowan County, Kentucky into this month's rainbow Salem.

If she refuses to do it - and is therefore incapable of doing her job - the county should just offer her another position.

End of over-blown story.

Some religious nutters don't like gay marriage - get over it!

Rentboy.com Raid: Staying Alive

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Chelsea Manning: Paper

Your situation is intolerable and beyond reason; you sit in prison for thirty-five years while those who carried out torture, murder and other war crimes walk American streets freely. While many fight to free you, the system is simply stacked against us all. Given these restraints, what are the specific things that we could do or rally around to improve your situation?
 
You can certainly work toward improving my situation by donating to my legal defense fund. We're working on a lot of big issues in my case -- which has the potential to become landmark precedent in the American jurisprudence system -- that affect a lot of people in America. It's so very important that they get help too. Paying the legal bills is the biggest logistical hurdle to that at this point. Ultimately though, keeping me motivated -- because sometimes it can get pretty tough emotionally -- and ensuring that people haven't forgotten just how important this case is for our ensuring that our rights are protected in our society, will certainly work toward that end as well.

From a somewhat odd Q&A in Papermag - where some arty-farty types ask Chelsea some rather pretentious questions.

Thought the above was the most important bit.

You can donate to the Chelsea Manning Defense Fund here.

Illustration: Heather Dewey-Hagborg's forensic DNA phenotype of Chelsea Manning.

Legend: The Verdict

We took former Kray hitman Freddie Foreman, now 83, to see the film, starring Tom Hardy in both lead roles.

Here is his verdict.

TOM HARDY plays both Ronnie and Reggie in the film — and watching him in action on screen was like seeing the twins reincarnated.

His physical likeness to both is uncanny. It was like watching their ghosts looming from 50 years ago.

But one thing the film gets totally wrong is the relationship between Reggie and his wife, Frances Shea. It portrays him to be a Romeo who charms all the birds off the trees, and that could not be more wrong. 

He was gay, just like Ronnie.

The film gives the impression that Frances killed herself because she couldn’t cope with Reggie being a gangster or being drawn into violence by his brother, and all that cobblers.

The truth is that their marriage was never properly consummated and she referred to him as “bacon bonce”, which is Cockney rhyming slang for nonce...

And the film makes Ronnie out to be a psychopathic lunatic, but actually he was a very warm person and capable of great kindness. He also had a very good sense of humour.

 Yes, he did walk into the Blind Beggar pub and shoot George Cornell dead. But in the earlier days, Ron was still not as bad as the film makes out...

The Sun.

Classic.

The last part is positively Pythonesque.

PS Mirror; 9 things you never knew about the notorious Kray twins!!! (Except you probably know at least some of them, unless you're a bit 'McCormick').

Queen: Off With Her Head!

Daily Mail.

Little Miss Controversy strikes again!

This is everywhere - Mail Online has already run TWO correctives.

Property: The Horror! The Horror!

Daily Telegraph.

Warning: Contains the word 'buy-friend'.

Barf.

TV: Double Vision

From An Evening With Harry Enfield And Paul Whitehouse.

Cause you can never have enough Grayson Perrys.

Also enjoyed the new wannabe catchprase; 'Probably a queer.'