Ten great things about the Noughties

1) Matches

It seemed like everyone was getting hitched in the noughties, usually leading to lovely weekends in the Cotswolds or in one case, Barbados. I do!

2) Hatches

Babies popped out everywhere and the cute little cherubs were given old-fashioned names like Arthur and Lilly. Awww.

3) Launch of the MINI

Rover (RIP) and BMW reinvented the classic Mini, and with its retro styling,  customisation options and go-kart handling, brought the fun back to motoring. I’m on my fourth.

4) The iPod and iPhone

At the start of the noughties we were only just getting over hissy cassettes and were starting to burn CDs. Then Apple came along with the iPod, and your entire record collection could be taken with you at all times. iTunes store was another godsend to people who couldn’t be bothered to go to the shops. iPhone finally made mobile internet a pleasure after years of cack-handed attempts.

5) The PVR

With the rise of DVD, suddenly no-one could be arsed to set their videos anymore. But then came services such as TiVo, Sky+ and V+ and recording your TV shows for later viewing was back in fashion again. iPlayer and Catch-up TV on Virgin Media made staying in the new going out.

6) President Barack Obama

After 8 years of Dubya (enough said), the USA finally elected a president with an actual brain, and one who amazingly, is African-American, 45 years after Martin Luther King’s famous speech.

7) Broadband

Do you remember connecting to the net via your phone line and surfing through text-only sites written in a terrible Comic Sans font, then going for a cup of tea if a picture was included on the site? Now we’re up to 50MB Broadband. Zoom zoom!

8 ) Social Media

In the 90s the internet was a solitary experience and you conversed with your friends over work email accounts. Now you can catch up with old friends without bothering to leave the house, and when you do meet up you have nothing to talk about because “I saw all your news on Facebook”.

9) A Fairer Society

Yes, Blair’s legacy starts with I, ends in Q and has R and A in the middle, and it’s all gone to pot now. But let us not forget the fact that the Labour government has made great strides to make the United Kingdom a fairer and more equal society, especially with regards to new laws to help prevent sex, age, disability and sexual orientation discrimination.

10) Civil Partnership Act

Finally, gays got the chance to get their friends to spend a fortune on wedding list presents for them. Oh and enter into a life-long commitment of course. Which I did. Hooray!

The Moir hate the Daily Mail prints, the more irrelevant it becomes

Stephen Gately’s windower has complained to the Press Complaints Commission about the infamous Jan Moir article the day before his funeral. Now that the dust has settled, was the Moir firestorm really out of proportion? It was certainly surprising, but only because the Daily Mail has a long tradition of printing homophobic articles which haven’t caused nearly the same level of fuss.

The difference here was that Gately was a star, and they seem to have underestimated the growing tide of resentment from bloggers, commentators  and the general public to the Daily Mail‘s hysterical and often factually incorrect outpourings. Jan Moir poured scorn on the fact that Stephen’s Death was from natural causes even in the face of coroner’s report which clearly stated that it was. In other words, she wrote lies, which makes her extremely vulnerable as far as this complaint is concerned.

More disgusting than the factual inaccuracies were the parallels Moir drew with the death of Matt Lucas’ ex-husband, a completely unrelated incident. “It strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships”, she spewed. No one ever said all civil partnerships would be happy ever after. A year after the first ceremony, law firms began offering their dissolution services in the gay press. But so far, less than 1% of civil partnerships have ended in dissolution. Not bad I’d say, though it is still early days. Has the Daily Mail made headline news of this fact? Of course not.

Moir is just the tip of the iceberg. In particular, the paper seems to love defending religious bigots’ “rights” to discriminate against gay people. The prime example is its sympathetic articles towards Islington registrar, Lillian Ladelle, who has taken her employer to court for the right to refuse to conduct civil partnerships on the grounds of her religious beliefs. Which is odd, as the civil marriages she conducted have nothing to do with religion. God cannot even be mentioned in the ceremony.

Just this weekend, Welsh rugby player Gareth Thomas made the decision to come out. However, as usual, the Mail on Sunday chose to focus on the negative aspects of his coming out in their headline. Instead of summarising his decision as brave and historic, the headline reads “‘It’s ended my marriage and nearly driven me to suicide. Now it’s time to tell the world the truth – I’m gay”. Carefully phrased so you could read that what caused his troubles was gayness itself, not his fears of the reaction to it.

But I believe that the Daily Mail‘s agenda is becoming out of step with society today. Most of the people who complained about the Stephen Gately article were not gay. It’s becoming increasingly hard for so-called middle Englanders to believe the Mail‘s subtext that gay and lesbian people lead lonely and dangerous lives. Or  buy in to rhetoric about a big old gay conspiracy to undermine family values when straight people are the parents, brothers,sisters, cousins, friends, colleagues, constituency members, sports fans – I could go on – of out gay and lesbian people.

The fact that resolutely middle England brands such as Marks and Spencer asked for their advertising not to be displayed alongside the Moir article underlines the fact that other conservative institutions are ahead of the Daily Mail when it comes to gay people, and if it continues on its current editorial tone will start to look increasingly out of step, old-fashioned and needlessly vitriolic, even to its traditional readership. In the meantime, I wish Stephen’s widower Andrew Cowles all the best of luck with his complaint to the Press Complaints Commission, as the chairman of the PCC is Paul Dacre, the editor of the Daily Mail, who made the final decision to print Moir’s poisonous filth in the first place.

BBC thinks murdering gays is a topic for debate

The Ugandan governrment debates despicable proposals to impose the death penalty for gays. In the interests of “balance”, the BBC website turns the issue into a poll entitled “Should homosexuals face execution?” with particularly depressing results. Of the 600 comments on the poll, only 200 were deemed suitable for publication.

The BBC later changed the title of the poll to “Should Uganda debate gay execution?” and then finally closed the poll down after a Twitter firestorm and complaints from gay and lesbian staff at the BBC. The BBC responded by saying the debate reflected differing views on gay issues in Africa.

Not in a million years would the BBC have published a poll asking the question whether a racial or religious group should face execution, but gays it seems are fair game. Added to their tolerance of Chris Moyles using “gay” as an insult, and defence of the low level homophobia of Jeremy Clarkson, and it would seem that the BBC are not taking homophobia seriously at all. Frankly, it’s disgusting.

Earth calling ES Magazine

We all know the Evening Standard is not a paper for London, it’s a paper for City workers to read on the tube as they travel to the confines of their gated luxury apartment blocks. The Standard pays scant regard to the fact that yes, poor people do live in London, but at least makes a (sometimes not very convincing) effort to distance itself from its Daily Mail roots.

What then, is their excuse for ES Magazine? Given away each Friday it comes across as a Tatler weekly in an effort to attract premium advertising from the likes of L’Oreal, Samsonite and Porsche (usually for my favourite Chelsea Tractor/Drug dealer wagon, the Porsche Cayenne). Their target audience seems to be about 10 minor royals and media types with trust funds in Hampstead, and the remaining 6million of us can just watch in bafflement as to what ES Magazine thinks is of interest to Londoners.

A few observations from this week’s issue:

• Why is the “Londoner’s Diary” editorial by a guest writer always written by some double-barrelled media luvvie and why does it nearly always contain the phrase “in my novel, available in all good book shops…”
• Fashion designer Dan Macmillan is apparently Visount McMillan of Ovenden. Who gives a damn about titles these days when Tony Blair hands them out in return for a “loan”.
• We don’t give a stuff about Martha Lane Bloody Fox and her lastminute.com fortune OK? The dotcom boom was over six years ago.
• Who is Harry Hyams and who cares about his £15million burglary? Apparently it’s a terrible tragedy. Clearly much more serious than the war in Iraq, social deprivation and black-on-black crime.
• Poor Nancy Dell’Olio, she has to use a private gym now as she is recognised so much. Ahhh.

The towering achievement of ES magazine, however, has to be its continuing ability to not feature any ethnic minorities whatsoever. And no, the odd picture of Naomi Campbell happy-slapping a photographer does not count.

They should be ashamed of themselves.

Some Of My Best Friends Are Bigots

Lowri Turner and one of her gay friends – possibly

Former prime time TV presenter Lowri Turner reckons that although she “loves her gay friends” we shouldn’t be allowed to run the country because our lifestyles are “too divorced from the norm.” and we “don’t face the challenges associated with having children…I have gay friends whose biggest headache is whether to have a black sofa or a cream one. My gay friends have not sat in Accident & Emergency with a small child…without these experiences at the sharp end of our public services, this makes them completely out of their depth in administering them.”

So just because Lowri is friends with a couple of dizzy queens she thinks she can extrapolate that experience to the rest of the gay population. Yes Lowri, gay people don’t work, are never ill, poor, care for young or old relatives or pay any taxes (hint hint). We just sit around all day, every day, with no responsibilities – we’re just G-to-the-A-to-the-Y all day long.

Of more interest than the musings of a has-been TV presenter is the fact that so many right-wing bigots start their diatribes with “I have many gay friends”, this is of course is swiftly followed with a big “BUT”.

Former Tory Spin Doctor Amanda Platell likened gay men to “animals” for daring to use the internet to meet each other, but apparently that’s ok because her gay friends agree with her. (I bet those gay friends have “gaydar” profiles on the sly) Vitriolic homophobe Richard Littlejohn, apparently, also has gay friends. And if you aren’t familiar with Richard’s work, read this: http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=631

So who are these self-loathing gay people who are friends with all these homophobic writers? Do you know any gay men or lesbians who enjoy a drink – or maybe even a night out at G.A.Y. – with the likes of Richard and Lowri? And how do the dinner parties go – does Amanda lambast you over the foie gras for your animalistic “gaydar” profile while you quiver with self-hatred?

The Gay Times suggests we write and complain to the Western Mail about Lowri’s article. But surely the career freefall from prime-time TV to provincial newspaper is punishment enough.