This may be riddled with typos as I accidentally snoozed after the yummy sausagey dinner but it caught my (now pink after falling asleep on the sofa with lenses in) eye and I wanted to blog about it tonight…

I started following Clare Balding on Twitter today ( http://twitter.com/clarebalding1) after seeing the latest chapter in trashy ‘journalism’ taking a distinctly unpleasant tone and wanting to follow the story. Brief recap via that nice feminist blog  The F Word (no not that Klingon-foreheaded shouty cookery man):

Friend Of Jeremy and professional word shitter A A Gill said this in the Sunday Times:

Some time ago, I made a cheap and frankly unnecessary joke about Clare Balding looking like a big lesbian. And afterwards somebody tugged my sleeve to point out that she is a big lesbian, and I felt foolish and guilty. So I’d like to take this opportunity to apologise. Sorry. Now back to the dyke on a bike, puffing up the nooks and crannies at the bottom end of the nation.

Clare Balding complained and the paper’s editor John Witherow replied to her with a classic example of making matters worse:

In my view some members of the gay community need to stop regarding themselves as having a special victim status and behave like any other sensible group that is accepted by society. Not having a privileged status means, of course, one must accept occasionally being the butt of jokes . A person’’s sexuality should not give them a protected status. Jeremy Clarkson, perhaps the epitome of the heterosexual male, is constantly jeered at for his dress sense (lack of), adolescent mind-set and hair style. He puts up with it as a presenter’’s lot and in this context I hardly think that AA Gill’’s remarks were particularly “cruel”, especially as he ended by so warmly endorsing you as a presenter.

Massive space between editor and point there. Cue Balding’s response:

When the day comes that people stop resigning from high office, being disowned by their families, getting beaten up and in some instances committing suicide because of their sexuality, you may have a point.This is not about me putting up with having the piss taken out of me, something I have been quite able to withstand, it is about you legitimising name calling. ‘Dyke’ is not shouted out in school playgrounds (or as I’ve had it at an airport) as a compliment, believe me.

It may be your job to defend your writer and your editorial team but if you really think that homophobia does not exist and was not demonstrated beyond being ‘the butt of a joke’ then we have a problem.

Balding 100 – Editor Zero.I bloody love her thoughtful grown-up response which certain ‘journalists’ could learn a lot from.

It continued with talk of a PCC complaint (and we all know how well that particular organisation  works, right?) and various opinions being shared on Twitter, ending with a Guardian article appearing online this evening. So according to its editor the tone and language was perfectly ok but if we used the obvious example of swapping the offensive gay word for a different kind of offensive word for minorities (say skin colour) would it be ok in their eyes? Gill has always been a Clarkson-esque ‘shocking blah blah’ prick so no change there. I hope Balding’s saga of not taking this shit continues to get atttention and ends up with the resolution it deserves.

Talking of minding your blahdy language:

The Sun is also a Murdoch paper and the headline above comes from a piece by the ironically named Gordon Smart. Tabloid Watch wrote a good blog about this sort of thing. Louie Spence’s job  is to basically be a massive whoopsie for the straight people who “wouldn’t let one look after me kids” but that doesn’t excuse such playground taunt language.

Daily Mail scientists must have spent some time discussing the perfect story to set their most dedicated Pavlovian readers’ bells ringing today and they certainly succeeded. With a little sprinkling of selected quotations, a drizzle of context twisting and a heaped tablespoon full of the finest prejudices straight from Middle England they made a rather juicy story which made their ‘silent majority’ readers’ bells go into ding-dong overdrive:

Gay + Asylum Seekers + ridiculous quote = Angry Mail jizz all over the newspaper.

What the heck is that headline about? Well…

Gay men should be free to attend Kylie concerts, drink exotically coloured cocktails and talk about boys with their women friends, a Supreme Court justice said today.
Lord Rodger’s summary of male homosexual life in Britain came in a judgment that overturned a decision to deport two gay asylum seekers.

This already sounds fishy. Surely a Judge dealing with complicated asylum cases would not be so dim and superficial to equate The Gay with Sex & The City?

Both men – one from Cameroon, the other from Iran – had been refused permission to stay in the UK on the grounds that they could avoid ill-treatment by keeping their sexuality secret or behaving discreetly when returned. But in a lengthy written opinion, Lord Rodger said that the normal behaviour of gay people must be guarded as it was for straight people. He added: ‘What is protected is the applicant’s right to live freely and openly as a gay man.’To illustrate the point with trivial stereotypical examples from British society: just as male heterosexuals are free to enjoy themselves playing rugby, drinking beer and talking about girls with their mates, so male homosexuals are to be free to enjoy themselves going to Kylie concerts, drinking exotically coloured cocktails and talking about boys with their straight female mates.’

OK, so he was being flippant and using trivial examples on purpose to illustrate his point, probably alongside more serious examples such as bloody torture, violence and murder in their home countries. Odd that he was not quoted about those things. Hmmm… I wonder why the Mail focused on  this part of his speech?

That enlightened toddler tantrum of a comment came from a man (well I say man, I would not qualify those views as human) who would have read the next part of the article:

One of the men involved in the case – known as ‘T’ – appealed against a decision that he could return to his native Cameroon, despite the fact that he was attacked by a knife-wielding mob after he was seen kissing a male partner. The other, known as ‘J’, from Iran, was told he could be expected to tolerate conditions arising from his homosexual relationship in his home country, and should behave discreetly to avoid reprisals. Punishment for homosexual acts ranges from public flogging to execution in Iran, and in Cameroon jail sentences for homosexuality range from six months to five years.

A load of red arrows for  that. Well it’s only brown poofs in the average reader’s eyes after all. What do the ‘common sense’ people think?

My… brain… hurts.

Yes, I did a typo. I should be hung or maybe at least flogged a dozen times.

And there’s more:

Home Secretary Theresa May said: ‘We have already promised to stop the removal of asylum seekers who have had to leave particular countries because their sexual orientation or gender identification puts them at proven risk of imprisonment, torture or execution. I do not believe it is acceptable to send people home and expect them to hide their sexuality to avoid persecution. From today, asylum decisions will be considered under the new rules and the judgment gives an immediate legal basis for us to reframe our guidance for assessing claims based on sexuality, taking into account relevant country guidance and the merits of each individual case. We will, of course, take any decisions on a case-by-case basis looking at the situation in the country of origin and the merits of individual cases in line with our commitment.’

The Theresa May? The one who mostly voted against gay equality at every opportunity in the past? Really? Bizarro Tory moment there, once again  causing Mail loyalists a headache, along with Cameron  not being an utter cock about that sort of thing. It’s so hard to know who to hate, poor things.

What about an expert’s opionion?
Jill Roberts, chief executive of the charity Refugee Action, said: ‘We are relieved that the Supreme Court has acknowledged that the discretion test is unacceptable and was effectively asking gay people to deny their own identity and live with the daily threat of discovery.The UN Convention clearly states that people have a right to protection who are facing persecution because they belong to a certain social group in their society.’

She’s an expert but in the readers’ eyes she may as well be talking in a series of clicks, chirrups and whirrs. Time for an exotically coloured cocktail methinks and a final thought:

I’m having an “oh FFS” moment so here is a litle story of an odd Tory dig on the Mail site of all places. Well you can’t have the Cameron Brigade being human now can you?

The original article is here.  It appears to have originally been about them  wanting more women bosses (which itself got some great CAPS LOCK negative responses about them wimmin) judging by the URL but then it got updated to this shocker:

A Conservative government would ‘consider’ changing the law to allow gay civil partnerships to be renamed marriages, the party revealed today. The promise came in a ‘contract for equalities’, unveiled by shadow women’s minister Theresa May, which said the Conservatives were ‘committed to a fairer deal for gay people across Britain’.

I just had to leave a comment, which I cannot screen grab because it got removed by the moderators who sent me an email to explain:

Dear Dan Hollingsworth,http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/terms.html

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The offending comment can still be seen as various people replied to it and the debate grew, as it should with these kind of things. Here’s the discussions I had:

Elsie was at least polite about my ‘offending’ comment.

I am genuinely interested in why people don’t get this point. Why do people get married? It’s not hard to understand.

Me and Jamie are just like those two sisters down the road, of course. If they are seriously warped.

I couldn’t let it lie…

Last Sunday me and Jamie went out with my brother and his husband (oh yes I am biased for obvious reasons) and our parents as we often do and it was a pleasant occasion (and they are lifelong Mail readers). I think we’ve been out with them more times since we got married than ever before. Simple family values (but with less lady wives). Not hard to understand, surely?

I am sure some childless couples are actually not that fond of children actually, but that would not fit into the narrow view of ‘proper marriage.’

I declare this a draw. Now when will my comment be deemed fine by the moderators and reinstated, eh?

I can’t escape that part of my brain that spent three years writing essays on aspects of soap operas, films and the gays so when I heard that ‘rural soap’ Emmerdale was doing a coming out story I thought it worth a look. Couldn’t be worse than its rivals’ attempts at gaying it up  i.e. Antony Cotton as Antony Cotton in Coronation Street or that grinning vest-loving John Barrowman Lite in Eastenders in his infinite self-indulgent torment over loving a man who is a Muslim (double Daily Mail points ahoy) who he has no real onscreen chemistry with, or something in Hollyoaks involving fabulous gays who are bloody fabulous no doubt. But then I started watching… blimey! Ignoring most of the other plots (mad stalker woman like something out of a cartoon ends up drug raping local vicar, something about trucks, dimwit and illegal immigrant in a non-romance etc) and focusing purely on this it looks like they put a lot of hard work in on getting decent writing, acting and directing. For a 5 episodes a week (or something) production you’d be forgiven  for thinking there was no quality control but not in this case, oh no. Some might say that in 2010 another plot involving “oh no I am a homo!” is passe but due to the damn good work it ‘s been rather great: having the teenage tearaway character go all violent (again) as the layers of secrecy unravelled around him, not ending up in a happy trip to the YMCA is far more interesting than the usual queen / tormented / saintly gays we get given  by the soaps.

Essential clip from last night’s emotionathon:

It’s not all Gay Pride marches (those banners weigh a ton anyway) and civil parterships for everyone yet and this storyline is a interesting new spin on a soap cliche. I hope it provides food for thought for the people who need their horizons widening. Or a slap. I felt old when remembering my own (rather less violent) dramatic revelations in the nineteen nineties.

I never thought I would write about Emmerdale producing some brilliant drama. Whatever next? Well…

When will this cockernee plot end, eh? Oh the torment! And the funny looks!

Good gay telly:

Why has no UK channel bought United States of Tara? As well as being one of those Showtime series that I love for being a perfect blend of comedy and drama (like its stablemate Nurse Jackie) it has a gay teenage son character who is nice and complex. Series 2 has just started in America and looks like high school diversity politics are going to be a recurring theme. In a fun way, I swear.

Gayest gay telly of all time:

I actually love Pineapple Dance Studios. Sure, it’s all calories with no protein but it makes me smile and the combination of the bunch of deluded grotesques (sexual harrasment gay ‘Artistic Director’ Louie who is really just the man who checks the toilets and fire exits, chavtastic choreographer Mark who is Madonna’s Vogue on Red Bull in a series of baseball caps, and allegedly straight man ‘popstar’ Andrew who is jealous of his backing singer having a better voice) with Michael Buerk’s dry voice over is a joy to watch. I swear it was all edited with an eye for TV Burp clips, which worked rather well. It’s like an extended Victoria Wood As Seen On TV sketch.

Blogfest 2010 became more like Tweetmeet 2010 last night when I met some of my friends for the very first time and then met some more lovely people who were vaguely familiar in a knowing of or knowing the Twitter name of scenario. How very modern that all was!

I look unbothered, apologies, this is just my normal face.

Great stuff including a big geeky Doctor Who chat over caffeinated drinks in a noisy west end location with Mr Pop of Birmingham, taking that influential American muisic blogger bloke to Forbidden Planet for his debut visit (and spending all my paocket money on hardback deluxe graphic novels as per usual) and doing a shit guided tour of all the good places that have closed and been knocked down in the rain on the way to the restaurant. It’s easier to do a list of URLs as we are all linked by our Twitter accounts and blogs, all of which are worth following / reading / nicely stalking:

http://www.carluccios.com/caffes/market-place Lovely cheese and pumpkin tortelloni. Tiny portions!

http://twitter.com/xolondon The link that connected everybody: That man has got me into so much good music over the years.
http://xolondon.blogspot.com/

http://twitter.com/myfizzypop Currently addicted to That Russell T Davies ‘lovely lovely oh dear I have done no writing aarrggh’ book.
http://myfizzypop.blogspot.com/

Currently tune of my day and a very nice man who once did a music video with sock puppets and an Ellie Goulding remix:

http://twitter.com/brightlightx2
http://www.brightlightx2.com/

Special guest star music (and stuff) blogger types, all worth a browse:

http://twitter.com/phileastend
http://worrapolava.blogspot.com/

http://twitter.com/burntoutcar
http://www.burntoutcar.com/

http://twitter.com/roddale

http://twitter.com/richardpchapman

http://twitter.com/Poptastic
http://tmbpop.blogspot.com/

The perfect antidote to the Daily Mail wailing about meeting people off the internet being like well dangerous.

Item! Bleeding obvious from the picture but this is Miles Fisher:

My friend Ben Baker (comedy and pop pimp extraordinaire) pointed him out to me and I must say oh yes rather good etc etc even if the song I like best from his free to donwnload from his website EP is a cover. It has a very good video too.

With boobs.

Item! The Angel comic may well be redeemed with the news that one of my favourite comics people aka Bill ‘Fables’ Willingham is taking over the writing.

“The last thing we’ve found out is that Angel is now known in LA as a vampire and he’s famous. So we’ll see what happens when you’re a hero who’s suddenly so famous that, wherever he goes a crowd develops because he’s famous, but then they start getting panicky because, doesn’t he fight demons wherever he goes?”

That Drusilla Vampiric Look is out soon too, as part of the ongoing series. Co-written by the woman also known as Juliet Landau.

Item! Variety article makes me go “ooh”: Watchmen producer Lloyd Levin has acquired screen rights to Echo, a comicbook series by Terry Moore. Deal was six figures. Echo tells the story of a photographer who is preoccupied with her personal problems until she gets doused by liquid metal from a military experiment gone awry. She discovers she can now harness the power of a nuclear bomb, and soon the military wants its walking weapon.

Terry Moore is bloody great and also created this…

…which should really have been an HBO series by now.

Item! I love a bit of literary culture, what with working in publishing and shit:

Phwoar. I do love a nice natural pretty well-mannered lady writer…

… I believe this is far more accurate.

Item! Codshit ‘Journalism’ Award of the week goes to the Daily Mail again:

Harry Potter boy in exclusive “revealing of big secret” to gaymosexual mag? What could it be? Surely not…?

Nah. It’s this shocker: “I rather like Nick Clegg. At the next election I will almost certainly vote Lib Dem. If all the people who liked them voted for them you could change politics overnight and we could have a proper three party system.”

*Gasp*

To celebrate Gay Considering It Merely One Facet Of My Personality day in London I present a round-up of The Gay Problem courtesy of the last week of Daily Mail news. They’re the reason you nearly got knocked down by an angry man dressed in a Wonder Woman costume on roller skates and dontchoo go forgettin’ it…

Exhibit A:

Yes folks, that grotty child-snatcher and her befuddled lipsynching babysitter could make your middle class daughters go lezzy. But only if they are middle class because that’s the setting on the lesbian kiss ray they use. Phew. Middle class middle class middle middle middle class, er…

Olivia and Lara had their first kiss at their friend Clara’s 15th birthday party. That is, they first kissed each other then. They’d both kissed boys before, and they will do so again, because neither girl considers herself a lesbian. But after a couple of drinks, they thought it would be fun to see how it felt to kiss each other. Both girls come from smart homes with professional parents, are well-spoken and attend a well-respected Inner London day school.

Gasp!

So while there is a generation of young female celebrities trying to shock us (or garner media attention) by sending a message that girls can like girls, and then boys, and then girls again, what’s really disturbing is that this trend is being emulated by many of today’s teenagers… *sniiip!*

Exhibit B:
David Cameron has issued an extraordinary apology on behalf of the Conservative Party for legislation banning the promotion of homosexuality in schools. He said the party had ‘got it wrong’ when it introduced Section 28 in the late 1980s.

Bloody hell, opposition party in Wanting Votes shocker! I wonder how this will do down with the Maily Wailers?

The Conservatives just lost my vote. Pandering to any special interest group is no way to lead a country.
- John, St Albans, 2/7/2009 1:26 Rating 439

Just for that? How very …er… fucking pathetic.

Sorry Mr Cameron you are wrong, Gay or homosexuality should not be promoted in schools.
- hjarta, falkirk stirlingshire, 2/7/2009 1:09 Rating 983

Neither Gay or homosexuality? What about basic poovery?

School children whilst growing do not require the burden of further ‘gender alignment’ by gay rights groups. By all means spread your ‘word’, but certainly not in the classroom, in this predominant heterosexual and Christian Society.
- shergars ghost, London UK, 2/7/2009 0:24 Rating 363

Cue the stock images folder being raided again when searching for a photo to illustrate civil partnerships:

That looks just like the one I had!

Exhibit C:

Mand’s got her kickers in a twist again and her usual format of ‘Attack, “I’m nice, me” , “I got poofy mates” , Illogical conclusion’ is becoming extremely tiresome:

Attack: Judging by the behaviour of Gordon Brown and David Cameron this week, I wonder if the pair of them believe that Sacha Baron Cohen’s gloriously camp new comedy ‘Bruno’ is a serious factual documentary. How else to explain their unedifying efforts to outdo each other in courting the pink vote?
First it was Cameron, hosting a high-profile reception for gay and lesbian Tory candidates on Tuesday night, at which he formally – and gratuitously – apologised for Section 28 – the legislation introduced by Margaret Thatcher’s regime to ban the promotion of homosexuality in schools. Not to be outdone, Gordon Brown was soon signalling his support for the Gay Pride march by telling campaigners that ‘you can’t legislate love’ and boasting about the Labour Party’s gayfriendly policies. His wife is even expected to join the Gay Pride parade today.

“I’m nice, me”: Now let me be unequivocal I believe in a fair and tolerant society in which everyone – regardless of their sexuality – is treated with dignity and equality.

“I got poofy mates”: I have always supported acceptance of different lifestyles and, as regular readers may recall, I am fortunate enough to count among my closest friends a good number of gay men whom I love almost as brothers.

Illogical conclusion: Besides, what does it say about our leaders’ priorities when they’re so desperate to flaunt their gay credentials, yet have so little to say to the 16.5million hard-working middle-England families worst hit by this Government’s criminal mismanagement of the economy.

Meh. She also had this other little piece in the same column:

Dawn’s porky pies
I’m a huge fan of Dawn French, but have often wondered how she can live with herself being so obese. Yesterday, she gave us an answer. She says she has ‘body blindness’, a condition that stops her from seeing herself as she truly is. Nothing to do with eating armfuls of Terry’s Chocolate Orange, then.

I think my sarcasm about Dawn’s size confused the commenters who vehemently disagreed with the previous commenter about gay people being members of families. I of course was made in a laboratory like all of the gaylord species. Also of note: the moderators edited my comment… comment is not free on some newspaper sites.

Happy Pride if that’s your kind of thing. My Pride is to get on with my life as honestly as possible and bore the homophobes into submission with our happy gay married life(style) and “I’m as normal as anyone” flippancy.

Oh what a load of cockin’ arse (missus) …

Someone in a guide to adoption refers to people who are against gay adoption as “retarded homophobes” so the Daily Wail takes offence and calls then “Nazis.” Then the nazis pulled the retarded homophobes’ hair and made a rude joke about their mum. Cue Richard Littlejohn with his crowd-pleasing (retarded is an offensive term but…) ‘satirez’:

We’ve become used to the tiresome bigotry of homosexual fundamentalists smearing anyone remotely opposed to even the wilder excesses of the gay ‘lifestyle’. But the accusation of mental handicap is relatively recent. It marks a new low in the nastiness of what was once a perfectly respectable cause.

Littlejohn has a short memory. Who was it that called Gordon Brown a retard recently? Gordon was up against Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em, on UK Gold. If you want to see some accident-prone retard, 30 years out of date, stumbling from one fiasco to another, Frank Spencer wins hands down. Like the man ‘hilariously’ says every bloody week, you couldn’t make it up.

It’s bad enough that the adoption service has become an instrument of social engineering, obsessed with furthering the new state religion of ‘diversity’. Time and again we read of children being taken away from their families and handed over to gay couples. Why the hell are we bankrolling these fanatical cultural fascists? The next Tory government should immediately stop funding these spiteful gay rights activists and outlaw adoption by same-sex couples.

How many cases have there been exactly? I can only think of the one where the grandparents were turned down and the children (who had been in care for quite some time) were ‘handed over’ to a gay couple. Cue grandparent rebranding, cue the usual suspects, cue the music…

I love the new ‘mark it good or bad’ system where Mail readers can agree or disagree with the comments left on the stories. Take this example:

Minus 21 from someone who was actually in care themselves expressing their own opinion. What clever Mail readers and their “I reckon” opinions.

Tony from Bushey is obviously wrong because he only knows someone with gay parents and didn’t get told what to think by a man who lives in a big house in a gated community in Florida where he gets paid a fortune to churn out shit about how bad this country is.

Amanda Platell got upset later in the week because some nasty gays didn’t like the endless shit-flinging in her columns. She can give it but she obviously cannot take it (no bum fun pun intended):

I was subjected to a vile and filthy campaign of personal abuse from the gay media. In one online forum, a contributor suggested the only reason I held such views was that I obviously ‘wasn’t getting enough’.

It wasn’t me, honest. I just questioned her qualifications for preaching about marriage and parenting when she is a childless spinster.

I know it may seem a cliche to state that ‘some of my best friends are gay’. But in this instance, it just happens to be true.

Uh-oh I can see where this is going…

My best friend, whom I regard as a brother, is gay and a high-profile advocate for gay rights. Several of my close friends have had same-sex civil partnerships. I have lost two dear friends to Aids. I don’t have a homophobic bone in my body. I just happen to believe that vulnerable children face the best possible life-chances when they are adopted by married heterosexual couples – a view backed by an increasing weight of academic evidence*snip!*

I think that’s quite enough of that sort of thing now. What about the readers’ comments?

That’s an awfully big opinion for someone who says they have no opinion. Also: Is it retarded to not know how to turn the CAPS LOCK off?

I have got so used to micro-blogging on Twitter that stringing actual paragraphs together for the blog and Facebook (Nu-Nu-Facebook?) requires actual brain power these days. Inbetween sales conferences, bookshop stockchecks, horrible bus journeys, rubbish comedy for charity and too much Red Riding I managed to find some geeky stuff to waffle about…

Oh Yes, the new Pet Shop Boys album is looking good. Well the sampler I acquired is rather great so I have high hopes. No Mike Leighs were harmed in this record and The Way It Used To Be is one of their best songs.

Attack of the Cybermen is out on DVD! It’s been a long time since I last saw it and it has some good ideas but goes horribly off the rails. The new aliens are bloody awful, I cannot embrace the 80s emotional “Excellent!” Cybermen, but it has some good (but ultimately pointless) guest stars and Telos was just down the road from where we had our wedding reception. Best bit: When Ian Levine claims that contrary to popular belief he actually wrote the story.

Stop! Alans time!

The Daily Mail make a load of fuss and nonsense about Alan Moore while Alan Carr makes me want to stab my eyes and ears out as usual:

Carr is the poofter of choice for Star and Sun readers who find queers funny but wouldn’t want them near the kiddies.

Hurrah for Fridays on the Mail moderation boards:

There’s definitely a method in getting comments published. 50% mock-bumlicking, 50% sarcasm. Folls them every time.

Still not seen the Watchmen film but this helped pass a small amount of time:

Alan might like it.

You might have noticed that is has snowed. A lot. Which is different, interesting, etc. Also: Annoying if you have to go to work and cannot. But hurrah for Working From Home on the world’s slowest remote access which I believe might actually be powered by tiny mice. With asthma.

Obligatory snow photo, using my fancy new camera’s ‘Snow’ setting:

Without ‘Snow’ setting it is a little bit blue. No, not in that way.

Brrr! I fancy a nice cup of coffee…

Oh bugger. Science story in The World’s Greatest Newspaper says no!

Talk About The Passion Singles Club episode 2 is up and I enjoyed taking part, again, but I think I ruined it by sharing the anti-LOLz of this photo of Alan Carr blacked up to be the world’s poofiest Barack Obama impression, ever:

Does not compute! Delete!

Now if Alan wants lessons on how to be rather poofy in a comedy stylee then he is in luck as a certain DVD is released on 16th March:

Now this is more like it!

With Miriam Margolyes AND Michael Sheard alongside John Inman and Rula Lenska? How can I resist? I could cry tears of laughter / horror / shame…

Is Barack Obama the new Tiny Tears? What?

Mail readers have final say on the cold weather:

Don’t smell the coffee! You’ll see dead people! Read the science!

Bonus excellent trailer:

Now THAT is how to edit a Hartnell story (or two in this case) for maximum excitingness!