Pink Sauce

Following this episode and after hearing nothing from the publishers, I visited Little Brown's website (Little Brown is Virago's mother company) and sent an email of complaint to all the directors and head of departments whom I thought could have anything to do with this. In response, I have received the following email: I am writing to introduce myself as Group Marketing Director of Little, Brown Book Group, a job that encompasses the marketing, publicity and design departments. I was shocked by the contents of your email and can only apologise that you received such correspondence from our company. You are right to regard this as poor business practice; it is highly unprofessional and in no way reflects the high standards of business conduct that we seek to achieve. I must further apologise that I am at a loss to explain the circumstance of the email since the person in question left our employment on Friday 29 September. I would like to stress three points: (1) that Clara...

Following up on this post a few weeks ago, the Advertising Standards Agency has ruled that a Gay Police Association ad breached advertising rules An ad placed by The Gay Police Association in the Independent, that used an image of the Bible next to a pool of blood to highlight homophobic attacks, breached decency, truthfulness and substantiation clauses of the advertising code and must never be used again, The ASA ruled this week. [...] Among the 553 complaints to the ad, headlined ‘in the name of the father’, was that it was ‘offensive and derogatory towards Christians’, could ‘incite violence towards people of faith and fuel prejudice, particularly against Christians’ and ‘implied the teachings of the Bible and Christianity were responsible for and condoned violence against homosexuals’. [...] They accepted that the imagery and headline used were primarily Christian, but argued that accompanying text made clear the issues referred to were not exclusive to Christianity. They said i...

The following post is part of the biggest blog in history (an initiative of the British Library) where it was originally posted . 'One Day in History' is a one off opportunity for you to join in a mass blog for the national record. We want as many people as possible to record a 'blog' diary which will be stored by the British Library as a historical record of our national life. Write your diary here reflecting on how history itself impacted on your day - whether it just commuting through an historic environment, discussing family history or watching repeats on TV. More details at History Matters . Today marked another episode of what seem to be the running theme of this week: getting frustrating by other people’s incompetence. First thing on Monday morning, I had to walk into town (about 30min’s walk) to get to the Charing Cross branch of HSBC to try and get back my Debit Card. For some reason, the traffic was very bad and the buses were jammed. My card had been swall...

Catching with the current sex scandal (very complete wikipedia entry there) rocking the (pretenciously named) " God's Own Party " only a few weeks before mid term elections, I have to admit to being slightly confused. Mrk Foley (52, single, apparently more or less openly gay) is basically being accused of having had fairly explicit online conversations with teenagers (about 16 years old) working as pages in the US Congress. Large extracts of the messages have been published in the media (see link above for examples). Apparently no sexual encounter ever took place. This is perhaps not of the highest morality but I can't really see what is actually wrong here. The teenagers are supposed to be chosen from amongst the most clever of the whole country and reading the extracts they very much seem to know what is going on here and they don't really seem fussed about it. Foley is not forcing them to respond to his questions and if they weren't happy with the turn of...

Ireland did it, Scotland did it too, the UK are about to do and Italy have done it... Now it is France's turn to ban smoking in public places. At last! The last time I was there, I almost died in a club: Everybody seemed to be chain smoking. This week, after a five-month governmental inquiry, a parliamentary committee approved a proposal to ban smoking in public areas. Under the measure, cafes, hotels, restaurants, discos and casinos could designate spaces for smoking only if they could be “hermetically sealed areas, furnished with air-extraction systems and subject to extremely rigorous health norms.” [...] France was also in the forefront in the anti-smoking movement in Europe, passing the toughest legislation on the Continent in 1991. Smoking was banned in most public places, including restaurants, except in designated areas. Tobacco products were required to carry health warnings. Cigarette advertising was banned in 1993. But there were loopholes, and application of the law ha...

Religious Rights vs Gay Rights: Should the Gay Police Association be prosecuted for inciting religious hatred ? The Gay & Lesbian Humanist Association ( GALHA ) is hosting a panel discussion around the threats to prosecute the Gay Police Association ( GPA ) following its advert linking religious belief to homophobic incidents. The panellists will consider the issues the advert raises and discuss the rise of religiously-motivated homophobia in general and the increasing clash between religion and gay rights. Date: Friday, 13 October 2006 Time: 7:30 PM Venue: The Library First Floor, Conway Hall 25 Red Lion Square London WC1R 4RL Map Nearest Tube: Holborn ALL WELCOME - Free Admission. Wine/Fruit Juice Available. Tags: London , religion , gay , LGBT , GLBT , lesbian , bisexual , transgender , free speech , GPA , Gay Police Association , Gay & Lesbian Humanist Association , GALHA , homophobia , gay rights .

I like Sarah Waters ' books. I have read two of them so far and have her other two on my shelves for future enjoyment. As moderator of a reading group and co-chair of an LGBT Network, I recently sent a letter to Virago (her publishers) asking that my email be forwarded to her in which I suggested her attending a meeting of the group and an event organised by the Network. I did the same thing at the same time for Jake Arnott (author of The Long Firm trilogy and Johnny Come Home ) at Sceptre. Someone quickly phoned me to tell me that Jake does not have email (something I know to be true) and asking me to send a letter to be forwarded to him. Virago's reply was quite different. I very quickly received an email from one Clara Womersley with the very curt few words: rather sit on hot coals??!! No signature nothing else. I know that Ms Waters has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize (as I am typing this, I am hoping she will be the winner to be announced in a few minutes), w...

Today Slightly is away... He is in Brussels to help the EU select a logo to celebrate its 50th anniversary next year. You can read about it on his blog , of course. What he doesn't know (yet), is that the gay blogosphere is talking about him ... And, yes, this is all my doing... I sent out the press release... I know he is already hating me for that. :O) Tags: fame , European Union , gay .

I was quite pleasantly surprised this morning, as I was trawling my favorite blogs that one of my pictures (posted on my flickr account ) had been given the grand title of "Picture of the Day" for 03 October on the London based and London centric: Londonist... The comment accompanying it ran as follows: Zefrog's simply titled Road starts right in your face and just keeps on going. With so much of London being iconic and often built on a huge scale it's refreshing to find someone not afraid to get down on their hands and knees and take a snap of something we all take for granted. proof ... I am now officially good at "get[ting] down on [my] hands and knees"... Take note, gentlemen! Tags: London , Londonist , Picture , Photography , Road .

Following last week's ill judged attempt by the Lib Dems to fight homophobia by branding it "gay" as in uncool/naff, the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center are following down the same route with a campaign claiming that "HIV is a gay desease". I think there is a tiny but VERY important word missing here: "also". Yes, many sufferers of AIDS happen to be gay and yes, there is a general apathy in the community in regards to prevention but there are also millions of straight people who are ill and this sort of campaign is, I think, only giving credence to that good old right wing religious view that HIV and AIDS are the "gay cancer" and gay people's fault. Tags: gay , LGBT , GLBT , lesbian , bisexual , transgender , homophobia , gay rights .

Following Friday's debacle, Saturday brought four hours of relaxed, companionable wanderings between the Royal Academy of Arts, Wong Key, Any Amount of Books, Caffe Vergnano and St Martin in the Fields. A refreshing change. Ahoj... Tags: London , gay , LGBT , GLBT , gay scene , dating , men .