Tesco’s Queer Decision

Just when you thought it was safe to come out – ha! Come out! Get it? (yes, this is the level of wit you’re dealing with here and I’m afraid I’ve probably just scared a fair few people away) – from behind the sofa, it seems that The Daily Mail have been at it again. Yes, I know I probably should read that wankstain of a ‘newspaper’, but an article was brought to my attention today.

On my birthday, of all days. I really don’t want to answer the question: ‘What did you spend your birthday doing, David?’

Anyway, it seems Tesco has decided that it no longer wants people with cancer to recover and would much rather see people loving each other in the bum and drinking from the furry cup. Their ‘article’, Outrage as Tesco backs gay festival… but drops support for cancer charity event, isn’t so much a piece of journalism, more a series of flaws held together by punctuation.

Pushing The Limits Of Comedy

Every few months or so, a comedian makes a joke somewhere and someone gets offended by it. Fair enough. Fine. Let’s move on from it and all get on with our lives. Although that’s never quite how it happens because it’s (inevitably) someone from the BBC that’s made the joke, The Daily Mail, never one to miss out on a good bit of public outrage, join in the fun and begin the campaign to get somebody hung, drawn and quartered and we have the debate on boundaries in comedy.

And, to be honest, I love it when the debate comes up because it’s exactly what I done this here documentary on and it’s a chance for me to shamelessly plug it again. Y’know, like I just did there.

Why Twitter Is Unusable On A Friday

About three years ago, I was told in a university workshop to join Twitter. I did and I didn’t really get the point of it. I registered with the rather unimaginative username of @DavidMooney, which is, coincidentally, almost exactly the same as my real name. In fact, the only character that’s different is that I have a space between the lowercase d and uppercase M.

Anyway, I followed the person sitting next to me. I followed my flatmate. I followed my friends. I followed everybody I was on the course with. I followed my tutors. And we all spent the first few weeks posting messages about not getting it and not understanding the point of it. Then we were told it would be an idea to follow some other people; people that we didn’t know. People that posted messages about what was happening in the world, or, in other words, journalists and citizen journalists.

A Whole New Perspective On Things

I had a bit of a strange realisation recently. Regular readers (ha!) will know that I have strong opinions about certain things, the main one being homosexuality. It doesn’t take a genius to work out why and I’ve not exactly been quiet about my sexuality. But then again, I also don’t tend to write ‘diary entry’ blogs because I don’t think they’re that interesting; though I do hope this one is slightly different.

I was always sceptical whenever I read in magazines or internet forums or whatever that somebody knew that they were gay at the age of seven or eight. I never understood how that could be possible: from my own personal experience, I knew about homosexuality, but I had no inkling as to who was what, why or when and the like.

Double Gayness Followed By Queer Maths

I’ll be honest here, it’s getting to the stage where I’m beginning to think they’re doing it on purpose. There’s only so much indignation you would think it possible for the Daily Mail to produce, but, just when you think you’ve seen it all, they manage to pull out the trump card of bigotry and slam it down onto the table of destiny, collecting the winnings of outrage.

I am, of course, referring here to the delightful darling that is Melanie Phillips.

Yesterday, the lovely lady accidentally (on purpose) managed to offend several million Brits by claiming that homosexuality is dominating Britain. More specifically, it is her opinion that:

…just about everything in Britain is now run according to the gay agenda.

Student Protests and the News

Today, there have been thousands upon thousands of students protesting in various locations around the UK (mainly London) about the increase in university education fees. It’s a controversial topic that the coalition government has come under heavy criticism for – especially the Liberal Democrat candidates who won student votes in the general election by promising not to increase fees and signing pledges confirming their position.

One u-turn later and, quite rightly, the students who are being asked to pay through the nose for their education aren’t too happy and they took to the streets to make sure their message was heard.

But, thanks to a minority of idiots who decided to cause trouble and a news media that focused entirely on them, that message has become buried beneath a cloud of violence, a trashed police van and high tensions.

Radio Laget Videoen Stjernen

I’m not really sure how (that’s a lie, I am sure how and I’m going to tell you here), but today I was on Norwegian telly. And, having come through a Journalism degree with some experience of telly and radio making, I didn’t think it would be in Norway where my face would be seen first.

As some of you might well know, every Monday I do a radio show (1pm-2pm, 96.9FM or http://www.allfm.org/ – one quick shameless plug never hurt anybody). Well, not so long ago, somebody higher up at the station than me, but someone also called Dave, got an email from Norway.

Whipping Up A Moral Outrage

I do love a good bit of moral outrage. I love it when people wrongly think that they’re (whoever they are) trying to get Christmas to change its name to Winterval or that they’re trying to ban Baa Baa Black Sheep in schools or that they’re going to make it illegal to not teach kids of 18 months about homosexuality.

Newspapers all have their own agenda. You know it, I know it, everybody knows it. There’s a reason why the same story is presented and treated in different ways in different publications. It’s all about what different readers think, what political stance they have and what is most likely to get them riled or angry about whichever issue is being reported.

But, this week, the agenda pushing from The Daily Mail, The Daily Mirror, The Sun and The Daily Express went, without doubt, a step further than I had imagined it ever would.