Today:

Part 2 of The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith. Part one (yesterday) was the best episode of Doctor Who in ages (last Christmas and Easter never happened, ok?) and it’s on the funky iPlayer (it’s no chewed up Betamax of The Caves of Androzani, I love the futuristic present) so you have no excuse.

15th November:

The Waters of Mars! On a Sunday! Not live at all from Bowie Base One!

Scary… and wet.

I think my Album Of The Year has just been decided, after playing a certain new release dozens of times since it came through my letter box on Tuesday. I’m not surprised though, as the idea of David McAlmont writing songs to Michael Nyman pieces sounded like the kind of bloody mad but fantastic idea that I would go for. There are a handful of artists who I will buy blindly due them being that good and he has always been on my imaginary list since his first band Thieves fell apart and led to the first lovely solo album back when I was much younger, far less achey and much less happier.

A couple of songs are on the official YouTube channel so here they are:

Take the Money and Run is about runaway bank customers Leo Gao and Cara Young who made off with an enormous amount of money that allegedly appeared in their account by accident.

Excuses, Accusations and Charges is also a crime tale, about the trial of Dorothy Fasola, who I had not heard of until I read the blog about this album’s inspirations.

Other subjects and highlights include Susan Boyle’s experiences with fame on the title track with heartbreaking moments:

I’ve done what you suggested
And the world has paid attention
To my belief but I’m still alone
So millions think I’m ugly now
But it’s the same old story
Until I sing the song and I sense you close

So I’ve done what you suggested
And the world has paid attention to my belief
But I’m still alone.

City of Turin is another standout shiver-inducing track, about human trafficking :

I wave at cars
To get inside
Just to keep warm
I let him treat me like a wife
If I remember just how I have survived
I can take it in, in a car, in the city of Turin

The serious issues do not make this a depressing listen, not at all. This is an essential album for people who like music with depth and feeling. Buy it. It’s that simple!

I wonder who David will do his next project with?

Hmm…

I’m not going to keep on about the two C@nts Of The Week after this… probably. So indulge me?
Question Time was interesting last night, in the way that awful shitbag man showed his true colours (no Cyndi Laupers please) to any doubters. Jack Straw was still an irritating waffler, no change there, and Baroness Warsi started off well but fell apart with her “I love the gays really, honest” bit. Generic Lib Dem Man was yawnsome but Bonnie Greer made my day, week and month with the way she dealt with Griffin. Excellent body language (slightly turned away from him, bored teenager expression) and dismissive put downs by using facts against his sinister twisted version of the world. Watching him squirm and twitch as he tried to deny all the quotes correctly attributed to him and his dodgy pals such as holocaust ‘reclassification’ , his mental idea that Churchill would join the party and dismissing his links with Mr KKK was a treat to watch, with bonus points to the nice lesbian who told him his “feeling of revulsion is mutual.” There’s a little interview with her (Beth Mellington-Pritchard) here.

I am going to spend the weekend being mostly indigenous (What the hell was Griffin on about with his love for that word? I have at least a quarter of ‘foreign’ in me and am far superior to those supremacists) and kissing my man to continue my quest to repulse all big old racist gay-fearing weirdoes. Might even do that in the home town as we have a trip to Essex planned. If every time I kiss him a BNP member tuts I wonder how much damage a kiss and a cuddle can cause? What about a ‘romp’?

Pretty much the only other thing that got a look-in (I am having flashbacks to a Bucks Fizz comic strip now) on Question Time was that other c@nt Jan Moir. She wrote what she saw as an apology in the Hate Mail today but what normal people would call a steaming back-pedalling piece of bullshit.

Here are some of the ‘highlights’ of her ‘apology’:

Absolutely none of this had anything to do with his sexuality. If he had been a heterosexual member of a boy band, I would have written exactly the same article. Yet despite this, many have interpreted my words as a ‘bigoted rant’ and suggested that my motive was to insinuate that Stephen died ‘because he was gay’. Anyone who knows me will vouch that I have never held such poisonous views.

Is she going to use the “some of my best friends are queers, sorry, gay, line?

As for Stephen’s civil partnership, I am on the record as supporting same-sex marriages. The point of my observation that there was a ‘happy ever after myth’ surrounding such unions was that they can be just as problematic as heterosexual marriages. Indeed, I would stress that there was nothing in my article that could not be applied to a heterosexual couple as well as to a homosexual one.

Almost…

To say it was a hysterical overreaction would be putting it mildly, though clearly much of it was an orchestrated campaign by pressure groups and those with agendas of their own.

Was it? Really? Oh come off it, Moir. You must have read some of the press about it and seen the timeline. Balls.

However, I accept that many people – on Twitter and elsewhere – were merely expressing their own personal and heartfelt opinions or grievances. This said, I can’t help wondering: is there a compulsion today to see bigotry and social intolerance where none exists by people who are determined to be outraged? Or was it a failure of communication on my part?

It’s Daily Mail policy to have bigotry and intolerance in everything so maybe she has a point.

Yet as the torrent of abuse continued, most of it anonymous, I also had thousands of supportive emails from readers and well-wishers, many of whom described themselves as ‘the silent majority’. The outcry was not as one-sided as many imagine.

Oh them! The ‘Silent Majority’! The ones who were so silent until Jan decided to fill us all in on their existence.

The other weird and not wonderful newpaper related thing today was this:

The World’s Greatest Newspaper is now also the World’s Most Hypocritical Newspaper.
The Express and the BNP share most of the same opinions (they both hate foreigners, muslims, gay people, immigrants and are batshit mad evil types) but they can’t be seen to support fascists so we get that ridiculous front page instead. What a crock of shit.

I done bought some CDs and so got some blog did about them…

Music Go Music : Expressions
I liked it so much I bought the import! Music Go Music are apparently from LA but their biog doesn’t say which time zone. I suspect the 60s and 70s mostly. They are rather ‘influenced’ by the past but in such a joyful way that the pure poppy goodness which oozes out of my speakers makes it perfectly acceptable. Or something like that, I am a bit tired tonight and might not be making sense. Nice video too.

Fibes Oh Fibes: 1987
I liked it so much I bought the import (again)! And their previous two albums. They are Swedish (oh yeah those musical Swedes), there used to be six of them but they are now a trio, Kim Wilde is on one of the songs, it’s sunny marvellous pop (again) which they say is inspired by the year 1987 hence the album’s title. Great video which I have probably blogged about before but I don’t care.

Saint Etienne: Foxbase Beta
I liked it so much I bought the cassette in 1991, the CD when I got a CD player, the recent double disc deluxe re-release and now this fanclub Richard X remix album. It’s that good. Not your usual mostly dodgy remixes package, oh no, this is the whole classic album tweaked with love and it’s been on repeat quite a lot in my ears. From the extra thrills of a longer Wilson (ooh-er), the extra oomph in She’s The One, the added sparkle and “what you’ve been waiting for…” of Nothing Can Stop Us to the choir-y additions on Like The Swallow, this is all rather marvellous. Not many remix albums can make me this happy.

The fragrant caring sharing Nick Griffin had to try and spin himself out of a (not black) hole to make the BNP being told to accept racists of all colours as party members in order to be allowed a legitimate political party status and he did quite a good job of it* :

Yes it’s the Mail again. Quelle surprise.

There are three different groups of people in this multicultural Britain now. There’s the indigenous Brits, people like you and me;

I am nothing like him. His ugly soul makes his face look pretty.

there’s settled ethnic minorities populations who are here legally and legitimately and they are civically British and we have no problem with them at all; and then we have the third block, the colonists, people wanting to change our country into something completely different. A large number of the settled ethnic minority population, Sikhs, Hindus and so on, are actually very much in favour of the British National Party’s stance about stopping any further immigration.

Is that why he is so visibly thrilled to let these ‘ethnic’ types into his gang? And are they indigenous enough for the party (without a party atmosphere) ?

Of course they are not indigenous. We are saying they are civically British, which is a matter of common sense, also that they are patently not of the ancestral stock of this country.

I wish Griffin could explain just what is so super about being so totally British. With this lot for ambassadors of pure Britishness I am not really excited about it. Damn white supremacists are about as supreme as a P*zz@ H*t Chicken Supreme which is a horrible pizza made with inferior reconstituted semi-poultry meat.**

Griffin went on to clarify his point about the potential new influx into his now totally inclusive party…

It doesn’t make them bad, it just makes them a little bit different.

Awww… how sweet.

*I’m kidding of course. He’s a big old racist holocaust-denying c@nt.

** Well it was when I managed one of their shops back in the day.

I had to make a comment on this shite , as I often do, and felt particularly proud to see it rise to the top of the Worst Rated comments:

Loving how the factual comment about the Black Police Association always being open to members of any colour got almost as thumbed down as mine. Damn those pesky facts.

*Update*

The comment had vanished when I looked there this morning. When I got home from work I found this in my inbox:

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Your comment was removed following a complaint. We welcome user comments and draw your attention to our Terms (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/terms.html) and House Rules (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/house_rules.html).
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I never would have guessed that when I did my usual comment on the most shiteous Daily Mail article of the day (as I do pretty much every day) yesterday morning that it would all go a bit crazy and create an enormous new media loop of backlash and outrage. There had already been several particularly unpleasant articles about the suicide of Matt Lucas’ ex-husband in that most pleasant of papers where its readers got their knickers in a twist about civil partnerships not being the same (i.e. as “real”) as “proper marriages” along with the usual “dangerous gay lifestyle” in with the expected muck raking to make a delicious story full of the filth a certain breed of humanity-lacking human enjoys… Jan Moir’s article on Stephen Gately’s death took the biscuit…

… then it took a whole pack of biscuits and upgraded to a (pretend) family pack of biscuits.

Particularly low lighlights of Ms Moir’s ‘journalism’:

Something is terribly wrong with the way this incident has been shaped and spun into nothing more than an unfortunate mishap on a holiday weekend, like a broken teacup in the rented cottage. Consider the way it has been largely reported, as if Gately had gently keeled over at the age of 90 in the grounds of the Bide-a-Wee rest home while hoeing the sweet pea patch.
The sugar coating on this fatality is so saccharine-thick that it obscures whatever bitter truth lies beneath. Healthy and fit 33-year-old men do not just climb into their pyjamas and go to sleep on the sofa, never to wake up again. Whatever the cause of death is, it is not, by any yardstick, a natural one. Let us be absolutely clear about this.

Moir is the Quincy M.E of the tabloid hack world? I never knew.

Another real sadness about Gately’s death is that it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships. Gay activists are always calling for tolerance and understanding about same-sex relationships, arguing that they are just the same as heterosexual marriages. Not everyone, they say, is like George Michael.

Too right, Jan. We chose the Andrew Ridgeley option on the Wham! tick box when we got married.

Of course, in many cases this may be true. Yet the recent death of Kevin McGee, the former husband of Little Britain star Matt Lucas, and now the dubious events of Gately’s last night raise troubling questions about what happened. It is important that the truth comes out about the exact circumstances of his strange and lonely death. As a gay rights champion, I am sure he would want to set an example to any impressionable young men who may want to emulate what they might see as his glamorous routine.

Two gays who had civil parterships die in tragic circumstances? I blame the marriage!

For once again, under the carapace of glittering, hedonistic celebrity, the ooze of a very different and more dangerous lifestyle has seeped out for all to see.

*SNIIIIP!* I felt dirty after reading all that shit. I checked my husband was still alive then wrote a comment.

Outrage spread through Twitter about this article, and not just from the usual Mailwatch folks.

The headline of the article was changed to ‘A strange, lonely and troubling death…’ but the vileness remained. Maily website idiots still had the full headline just to the right of the main article in their Femail ‘highlights’ column (along with the usual fat cows, thin cows, ugly cows and rich cows judgemental stories about women for women).

Daily Quail did their usual great bit of satire, which confused some of the commenters:

There are millions of household names out there that are ticking timebombs of fatal gay. Their damaging lifestyle choices only lead to one thing – certain death, whether it be of one of those gay diseases you read about like Herpes, or just gay itself (a proven immune system inhibitor).
The post-mortem ‘established’ that Gately died from fluid on the lungs. I’m sure he did, but why is nobody asking the crucial question: ‘How did that fluid get there? Was it from gay?’ Let’s be clear, these are no ‘natural causes’. Normal, heterosexual men of 33 don’t just climb into their pyjamas, curl up and cease to be. First of all, they don’t wear pyjamas because they’re straight. But most importantly, people under the age of 50 just don’t die.

Do you know any straight people under the age of 50 who are dead? I don’t. Well, I used to know this chap, but he died at 29 from cardiac arrest, a distinctly non-gay thing to die of. Anyway, I don’t know him now, so the point is valid.

Lots of people tweeted about complaining to the PCC but considering that A) their big big cheese Paul Dacre is also the big big cheese of the Daily Mail (hmmm…) and B) complaints on stories have to come from people directly affected by them it only served to crash their website, in itself a good way of showing how pissed off people were. Soon after than Jan Moir wrote an unsurprisingly piss poor ‘apology’:

Some people, particularly in the gay community, have been upset by my article about the sad death of Boyzone member Stephen Gately. This was never my intention. Stephen, as I pointed out in the article was a charming and sweet man who entertained millions.

Oh yes, mostly just the gays complained. Really, Jan Moir? Do you really believe that?

However, the point of my column-which, I wonder how many of the people complaining have fully read - was to suggest that, in my honest opinion, his death raises many unanswered questions. That was all. Yes, anyone can die at anytime of anything. However, it seems unlikely to me that what took place in the hours immediately preceding Gately’s death – out all evening at a nightclub, taking illegal substances, bringing a stranger back to the flat, getting intimate with that stranger – did not have a bearing on his death. At the very least, it could have exacerbated an underlying medical condition.

Doctor Moir (unqualified) wonders how many people who complained actually read her article? I imagine the irony of this statement is lost on her newspaper who have a track record of reviewers slating films they have not watched, encouraging their readers to complain about radio shows they have never heard and television shows they never watched.

In writing that ‘it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships’ I was suggesting that civil partnerships – the introduction of which I am on the record in supporting – have proved just to be as problematic as marriages. In what is clearly a heavily orchestrated internet campaign I think it is mischievous in the extreme to suggest that my article has homophobic and bigoted undertones.

Did she read her own article? Also, bonus denial points for the “I do not understand this social networking thing therefore it must be a conspiracy.”

Happily Stupid wrote a good piece about this apology:

You don’t have to be a Boyzone fan, or a gay man or a Guardian reader to find Jan Moir’s column reprehensible old shit. But in order to see the angry response that’s circulated over the last 24 hours as “a heavily orchestrated internet campaign”, someone like Moir would have to have reasoned that the British public is every bit as cynical and cold as she quite clearly is. What today’s events have proven – and this is quite heartening in the end – is that sometimes the public isn’t idiotic and has a sense of decency that journalists can underestimate at their peril.

In the end, Moir can bluster about being misunderstood, but no. Actually, quite a lot of us understood extremely fucking well what she was trying to do: trivialise the death of someone into ignorant copy, before going on to talk about scones and The Nolans’ onstage costumes in exactly the same gushing bitchy syntax. She may think she’s Dorothy Parker. She’s nowhere near Dorothy Squires. There’s no insight there, not even impassioned hatred, but something far worse: careless, icy indifference.

Charlie Brooker summed it up rather nicely too:

On the Mail website, it was headlined: “Why there was nothing ‘natural’ about Stephen Gately’s death.” Since the official postmortem clearly ascribed the singer’s death to natural causes, that headline contains a fairly bold claim. Still, who am I to judge? I’m no expert when it comes to interpreting autopsy findings, unlike Moir. Presumably she’s a leading expert in forensic science, paid huge sums of money to fly around the world lecturing coroners on her latest findings. Or maybe she just wants to gay-bash a dead man? Tragically, the only way to find out is to read the rest of her article.

I wonder if my parents can still justify bringing this crap into their house every day. They’ll be worrrying now that two of their sons have signed up for the sleazy dangerous lifestyle that is a civil partnership (for the gays).

It’s not often that we get to go to a big old famerlee knees up so when my brother announced he was getting married I got rather excited. Bonus points for being asked to do witness duties…

Ten hours of socialising in one great big chunk? Not bad at all. Highlights included a lovely ceremony (they were much more ‘professional’ than me and Jamie with an A4 schedule on every chair. Resisted calling it a Gay Agenda), the bit where I cocked up the witness form in front of everyone by forgetting what a full name meant, meeting lots of nice new people, having just enough white wine (officially “my” drink) , failing the best man’s “gay test” by knowing bugger all about gay bars or gay clubs, and taking literally hundreds of photographs. The photos got ecited down to over 100 and the grooms (and my family) will shortly be receiving a set plus some nice 10x8s of the best shots. Hurrah!

Here are some highlights:

Confetti! But never the film of the same name.

My mum and dad and a lot of sunlight.

With my husband, inbetween getting told I have my brother’s mannerisms. As you would.

I thought getting my sister to use some of her hair to make me a combover wig would be funny.

We had a little rest and a cup of tea inbetween the afternoon meal and evening reception.

I don’t feel like dancing. Ever. But luckily there were others who did.

I bloody love weddings, but will also not give you evils for “living in sin.”

The Keys of Marinus was originally seen on TV in April and May 1964 when I was -9 years old. It’s not one of the best ever stories but it’s damn good fun, especially if you have the info text on when watching the DVD where you can learn all about how it was all very last minute and haphazard and the reason why the Doctor fucks off for a couple of episodes to be replaced by a dashing hero in short shorts and a cape (no not a slaggy Jon Pertwee) which is so Hartnell can have a holiday (Susan then has hers during The Aztecs). It’s one of those old questy serials where the crew (The Doctor: fluffs two lines in the first five minutes, Susan: genius idiot grand daughter channeling Jennifer Marsh from Girls On Top, Barbara: Teacher with great 60s helmet hair and Ian: Dashing young other teacher who wants to lick Barbara’s face) spend most of their time looking for some Keys, hence the title. But will they find them?

Susan spends most of the story being frightened by everything because she is a girl. By this time they have forgotten that she is meant to be a well weird alien boffin.

Barbara gets out of her face on hallucinogenic light effects and has a horrible comedown.

Ian suffers the morning after a fancy dress party, ends up accused of a murdering but gets off (not with Barbara).

Then they all went back to the Tardis and I stopped doing my Wii aerobic step exercises to it because I can and I did. Jolly good fun, my child.

Only a few days later than planned due to my monitor going “poof!” (so I named it Barrowman and replaced it)…

I done bought some records:

Wild Beasts: Two Dancers

In a rare trip into Indie territory for me these days, the Wild Beasts album is pretty stunning and gradually creeped into my head via top notch tracks like Hooting & Howling (one of 2009′s highlights) and All The King’s Men. They have interesting song structures which build up and avoid the usual verse-chorus-etc format, sung by a man with a bit of a range which reminds me in places of Antony Hegarty and Alison Moyet. Yes really. One of the other members of the band does a bit of singing too, in a more Elbow-y style which is also very good indeed. If you like a bit of something different with your guitars then Wild Beasts will not disappoint. It’s the opposite of bloody Oasis.

Paloma Faith: Do You Want The Truth Or Something Beautiful?

Paloma Faith is all big slightly jazzy in places epic noisy funky soulful pop, and if I was lazy I would call her the non-poxy Winehouse. With big old tunes like the single Stone Cold Sober doing that retro thing rather well and quieter moments like the Radio 2 playlisted New York hitting their targets it’s good stuff. The title track is great too and co-written by the not as famous as he should be Ed Harcourt and other highlights include Stargazer which sounds like a slightly corny film soundtrack in a good way.

Zero 7: Yeah Ghost

No Sia this time (shame) but this gives them a chance to refresh their sound with some different styles, a lot of which are far less ‘chillout’ than before. New singer Eska evokes Carleen Anderson on songs like Medicine Man and another new name Binki Shapiro (oddly not credited in the vocals list) brings a more indie folky feel to Swing which goes nicely with its steel drums and Golden Brownesque keyboard riff. Once you get used to the new style this album turns out to be a bloody good solid chunk of modern dance/sit down music.

Records not bought because not good enough: The Big Pink (great single, not so great album), Bananarama (see Big Pink) , Basement Jaxx (some good stuff but not consistent throughout). All of which begin with B for some spooky reason.