Pink Sauce

For a number of years people have been warning of the rise of far right ideology in the media and political spheres. We were told that we were over-reacting, that there was nothing to worry about. Well, it turns out there was something to worry about after all. This week, a rising member of the Tory party (Katie Lam MP) explained how she wanted to change the rules for people with Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) to be able to deport us should we earn less than £39,000 a year (the median salary in the UK is £32,000), and/or had "taken from society" by claiming any kind of benefit (anything from jobseekers allowance to maternity leave, or state pension). This would affect about 3.5 million people (what amounts to 5% of the UK population: your friends and partners). Comparisons have been unfavourably made with the, at the time, unprecedented scale of Idi Amin's expulsion of Asians from Uganda in the 70s (less than 30,000 people were in the end affected. Ironically they were ...

It was the Friday before Easter - Good Friday - when everybody is sad but is looking forward to eating lots of chocolate in a couple of days. As he waited for the Easter Bunny to bring him his well-deserved chocolate eggs, little Keir decided to go to church. Because that is what nice people do on that day. No one is sure why he decided to go to that particular church, because it is quite well known that this is not a very nice church; one that didn't like fayries. Perhaps it was because all his posh friends - Theresa, Boris, Charles and Camilla - had visited that church before him and he wanted to be more like his posh friends.  So little Keir decided to go to that church, even though some of his best friends were fayries. And to make sure that everyone knew what a good boy he was, he decided to make a video for his social media. In the video, he explained how he liked what the church people did, and what a wonderful example the church was. You could even see him praying with the ...

Knowing that despite the staggering seven million copies printed, not everyone would have been able to see it, French blogger Antoine Léaument has kindly shared the editorial published by Charlie Hebdo in its issue following the terror attacks last week. With a similar aim of getting as many people as possible to read the piece, I have produced a rough and ready English translation of said editorial that you can read below. I attended two of the gatherings that took place in London (on 07th and 11th January) to show solidarity with the victims. My pictures of the events are here and here . You can make a donation to Charlie Hebdo here . Will there still be "yes, buts"? Charlie Hebdo Editorial, No. 1178 of January 14, 2015 For the past week, Charlie, an atheist newspaper, has performed more miracles than all the saints and prophets combined. What we are most proud of is that you have in your hands the paper we have always made in the company of those who have a...

The following piece appeared in PinkNews.co.uk and was later picked up by i . The Daily Mail, there’s a surprise, is leading the charge against Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg about the supposed “fury” at the use of the word “bigots” in a draft speech to describe opponents of marriage equality. The offending word has now been replaced by “some people”. The new version of the speech was delivered last night at a celebrity-studded event marking the end of the consultation on proposals to extend civil marriage to same-sex couples. Lord Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury, is quoted in the Mail as saying that “many Christians and non-Christians […] will be highly offended to be called bigots” adding that they “should not be treated in such a way”. While he stops short of making his usual deluded claim that Christians are persecuted in the UK, this is clearly the subtext here. He also has the gall to claim that he is “totally for equality” while in the same breath saying that sam...

In a bit to avoid the wall-to-wall coverage of a certain event taking place in Westminster this morning, I had to take refuge in the gym (which was thankfully open). In the afternoon, however things took a more subversive turn. First with an aborted queer zombies flashmob organised by Queer Resistance in Soho Square. The aim was to protest the current budget cuts made by the government and affecting various part of the LGBT community. Unfortunately the police seems to arbitrarily decide that such a gathering would be an inconvenience to the more conventional revelers and gave the handful of peaceful protesters five minutes to leave the Square under threat of being arrested. This really did smack of an abuse of power worthy of the worst police state. Later I joined a group of members of the London Gay Men's Chorus who had dragged up as bride to enjoy a little pub crawl around Soho. This happened without any problem and was met with cheers and many requests for photographs for the c...

My pictures of the second kiss-in which took place on 21 April can be found on flickr here . Don't forget to sign the petition here . (My pics of the first kiss in can be found here .)

You can join us in this by signing the petition on Facebook. (click here if you are not on Facebook) On the evening of Wednesday 13 April 2011, Jonathan Williams, 26, and James Bull, 23, were asked to leave the John Snow public house for kissing while on their first date. A member of staff allegedly described the couple’s behaviour as obscene and evicted them from the establishment. The media have reported several accounts of this incident. The general consensus has been that the couple's behaviour was entirely appropriate for a couple enjoying their first romantic evening together. The strength of feeling that this mistreatment of a gay couple raised in London’s LGBT community was such that in the course of less than 30 hours, a gay kiss-in was organised with several hundred participants at the John Snow on the evening of 15 April 2011. Another kiss-in followed the next week on 21 April 2011. Rather than allow the LGBT protesters into or around the pub, the John Snow closed its ...

Musings on the John Snow pub events - The Events There are of course always two sides to a story and it would be very interesting indeed to hear the management's side of this particular one. The problem is that the management has shown a remarkable lack of PR savvy throughout the whole story. Not only have they consistently refused to answer enquiries from the press or issuing pithy comments like “I have every right to kick people out if I wish.” or “Can you just stop calling this number please, or we’ll have you done for harassment.” but the Samuel Smith Brewery, who owns the pub has been equally silent (although this is apparently normally policy from the company in the face of crisis). What is utterly astounding, and, in the mind of many, further proof of foul play, is that the landlord, cutting his nose to spite his face, should have deemed it preferable to close the pub on a Friday night, on what would no doubt be a very busy and profitable night, rather than let openly and vi...

Last night about 600 people gathered outside a pub at the heart of Soho to protest against homophobia, of all things. On Wednesday night, a young couple was having their first date. After pizza, they went to a favourite pub, the John Snow, and as the night progressed and they enjoyed each other's company, they started kissing. Independent witnesses have assured us that this was all very light stuff. Nothing that should worry anyone in a Soho pub. Yet Jonathan Williams and James Bull (pictured), both in their 20s say they were asked to stop by a customer who identified himself as the landlord and professed himself "bothered". A couple of hours later, as Bull was preparing to leave, he gave, Williams "a peck on the lips". A woman claiming to be the landlady apparently asked them to leave at this point calling their behaviour "obscene"; the earlier customer/landlord allegedly lending her support and grabbing Bull by the lapel of his jacket. The couple lef...

The following email was sent to ken@buckforcolorado.com earlier today with the subject line: "Homosexuality". Dear Mr Buck, I was very interested to hear your recent comments (includes video) about the fact that gay people have a choice. While I would agree that people can accept or refuse to be who they are and decide or not to have same-sex relationships, I am more than a little concerned that you should imply that sexual attraction is a matter of choice. As gay man, this is clearly not my personal experience. I would also find it quite surprising, as you surely will too, that so many people would chose to be gay thus opening themselves to all sort of violence and discrimination (and I am not even mentioning the various countries around the world where such people could be given a death sentence by the state). In any case, if we follow your logic, I think we should all start asking ourselves the question: when did you yourself decide not to be gay? At the end of the day, w...

On Saturday, between 12 and 20000 people gathered in the street of London to protest against the state visit to the UK by Pope Joseph Ratzinger. A demonstration of what Ratzinger had called the day before "aggressive secularism" which looked to me more like a pride parade with a political message. Famous faces spotted on the march included John Waters (above) and Ian McKellen. The speakers at the rally the blocked Whitehall after the march included Richard Dawkins, Johann Hari, Dr Ben Goldacre, an openly gay Catholic priest, among others. My pictures of the event can be found on flickr here . A photopool is available here .

Today the Guardian has published in its Comment is Free section a piece by Nick Herbert, openly gay Tory candidate and shadow justice secretary until the desolution of parliament, entitled The Tories are embracing gay rights , in which he defends his party's stance on gay rights and explains why his much-trumpeted visit to Poland in July is not tokenisitic. Between bouts of laughter, I have penned my own comments which I posted below the article. Since they amount to a blog post, I bring them together below. My first reaction was a follows: "I have to say I am a little confused. For months now the Tories have been telling us that their lovely friends from Poland and Eastern Europe in their new political group are not homophobes. Repeating this till they are blue in the face (see what I did there?) despite all evidence to the contrary. And suddenly two weeks before an election and as the party's support within the LGBT community is melting like snow in the sun (apparently n...

The article/post I could have written, had I taken the time and had I the talent: The BBC is caving in to a Tory media policy dictated by Rupert Murdoch Mark Thompson is jumping from the second storey because he fears a new government may throw him from the roof Jonathan Freedland The Guardian, Tuesday 2 March 2010 I also had that theory at the back of my mind: The BBC's big PR stunt - why 6 Music is the new Wispa It is the ultimate social media PR trick. A company threatens to pull a brand and then sits back and watches as fans start huge Facebook/Twitter/blog campaign to save it. Ashley Norris Posterous, Wednesday 3 March 2010

Due to a misunderstanding, the kiss-in (for the organisation of which I have been called an "extrèmiste sodomite" - article in French on a fundamentalist blog: you've been warned!) did not take place but the protest it was a part of did go on and was indeed much fun. Many friendly and familiar faces were there and it was in the end about 300 people who took to the wintry streets of London (between Westminster Roman Catholic Cathedral and the Italian Embassy in Grosvenor Square) to voice their opposition to the undue influence of the Pope and the Vatican in European and British politics. It was interesting to note that despite the wider purport of the protest, a vast majority of the participants seemed to come from the LGBT community. My pictures of the event can be seen in this set of my flickr account. (Image above: Peter Tatchell speaking against the Pope outside the Italian Embassy)

If you cast your mind to 2008, you may remember that the wife of Northern Ireland's first minister, Iris Robinson, said that homosexuality was "comparable" to paedophilia and a mental illness that could be "cured". Last month, she announced that she was retiring from politics, adding that she indeed knew about mental illness, since she was a sufferer herself. And yesterday, she revealed she tried to kill herself while suffering depression after an extra-marital affair. As Newton Emerson, columnist and satirist for the Irish News, who was discussing this sorry business on Thursday morning (scroll down to 0722) on Radio4's Today, had warned us, there was more to come. The story apparently broke after a BBC investigation on the Robinson couple. The BBC Northern Ireland show, called Spotlight, revealed (iPlayer till 15 january) that Mrs "are you trying to seduce me?" Robinson got sexually involved with a 19 year old man right about the time when sh...

Yesterday and for the second time this week (the first time had to do with Trafigura, and the PR-illiterate law firm Carter-Ruck trying to gag The Guardian and then Parliament (no less) around the publication of the Minton Report), Twitter and other social networking sites flexed their cyber-muscles and ostensibly made a difference in British public life. It all start with a despicable article by Daily Mail hack Jan Moir about the recent death of Stephen Gately. The article was originally titled "Why there was nothing 'natural' about Stephen Gately's death". Within half a day, a Facebook group had been created (counting close to 23,000 members at the time of this update; that's more in three days than in the past five years!), the article was retitled "A strange, lonely and troubling death..." at the same time that all adverts were removed from the page, the Press Complaint Commission's website had crashed from receiving over 21,000 complaints,...

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The California Supreme Court decided on May 26th to uphold Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriage throughout the state. Only one of the 7 Judges voted against the proposition. His dissent, together with the full decision, can be read here (Daily Kos). Strangely (and in my view illogically, a viewed shared by a legal commentator in the LA Times here ), the judges agreed unanimously not to annul the 18,000 same-sex marriages that took place between July and November 2008. Thousands of people have been marching in protest against the decision, across the USA and about 200 people (including religious people) have been arrested. Meanwhile, resistance is getting organised. There are talk of submitting a new proposition annulling Proposition 8 at the 2010 Californian elections and the Advocate explains how Proposition 8 is already about to get challenged at the Federal level, here . Several commentators manage to find the silver lining in today's cloud. Mark Morford in the San Francis...

A (cute and) clever young man... Some of the comments left on the video's page are quite astounding too...

Someone, charmingly called fascist45 and with a rather limited grasp of spelling, has just left (midly abusive) comments on four of my pictures on flickr. The pictures were taken at a recent-ish Stop the BNP demonstration and feature evidence of a gay presence within the ranks of the demonstrator. Visiting my new friend’s profile is fairly amusing (it features picture of “the leader”, Nick Griffin, someone (presumably said new friend) dressed up as a soldier and evincing nostalgia for “nam” and “dad’s army” and a picture of one Kate Garaway (who seems to be a c’leb) putting the emphasis on her “boobs”. However this person’s favorite picture (gleaned around flickr) seem to be the true gateway to their nasty little mind: women in various stages of undress. Someone needs a good shag, methinks. I am midly amused. Interestingly, he did not comment on the picture illustrating this post.