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.

Starting with that there headline. The opening word, ‘Outrage’, is one we’ll come back to as we go, but just trust me for now that it’s out of place and I’ll explain why shortly. The flaw in the headline, though, is actually that The Mail seems to believe that Tesco can only support one event and has, therefore, chosen the gays over those in need of cancer treatment. It’s not an either or decision.

It’s a business decision: Tesco has decided that it will no longer back Race For Life. Tesco has also decided that it will back London’s Pride event. Two entirely unconnected turn of events that The Mail seems desperate to smash together in some hideous car crash of a piece of ‘journalism’.

The biggest reason for me thinking that these two business decisions are completely unconnected is that Tesco’s ending of their Race For Life partnership happened in September, while the announcement of their London Pride sponsorship happened three weeks ago. Seems a bit of an elaborate ploy if there was a connection.

So, on to the first paragraph:

Tesco has triggered outrage by ending its support for the Cancer Research ‘Race for Life’ while deciding to sponsor Britain’s largest gay festival.

Has it? Has it really? Why has it triggered outrage, Daily Mail? As we’re already noted, the two decisions came weeks apart from each other. And who exactly is outraged? The public? Because if they are, this is the first I’ve heard of it and I’ve not exactly been disconnected from the news for the last three weeks.

I daresay you probably mean ‘we think our readers will be outraged by these two totally unconnected events if they had been connected, so we’re going to connect them for you right here’. Though I suppose that’s not quite as snappy.

Some religious commentators and groups have condemned the decision and are calling for a boycott of the supermarket chain.

Ah! There we are. Religious commentators and groups. It’s them who are outraged by these two unrelated incidents. In fact, you’d think it’d be the cancer sufferers and their families who’d have been most outraged, but it seems it’s not. Forgive my cynicism, but this is beginning to feel like it’s not the non-sponsorship of Race For Life that the Mail is upset at. More the fact that the gays are getting a bit of cash to help their push for equality.

But then it gets better. Underneath that part of the story comes a picture. It isn’t any old picture, mind you, it’s one that is of your average homosexual male and one that isn’t at all likely to get the blood pumping in those people who are sick of (spit!) political correctness gone mad. Captioned ‘Courting the pink pound: Tesco have announced they will be sponsoring the Pride London gay festival this year‘, the picture appears as follows:

Well done, Daily Mail. You can almost imagine their readers picking up their papers and slamming them down onto the table in front of some unfortunate passerby and pointing at any one of them men, shouting: “This is what Tesco are funding! They’re not going to help people with cancer, but they’re going to help people who want to get naked in our streets! This country…!”

It goes on:

The chain’s main contribution was support for the annual fundraising Race for Life, the UK’s largest women-only charity event, which has raised more than £400million for the fight against cancer since it began in 1994.

In its ten-year sponsorship of Race For Life, Tesco has helped to raise over £400m for the cancer charity. Over £400m. That’s an average of about £40m per year. Or £109,000 a day.

So, how much is the big company going to be splashing out on this lavish street party where people will be getting naked and having sex IN YOUR FACE? The answer’s buried right at the bottom of the article:

A [Tesco] spokesman said the decision to drop its support ‘is not connected to our £30,000 sponsorship for Pride, which is one of hundreds of community and charitable events that we will be supporting next year’.

Hmm? £30,000? Is that it? A drop in the ocean when it comes to the money that Tesco (a) earns and (b) raised for cancer charities in the last ten years. If you’ve been outraged by that, then you have some issues that probably need to be dealt with.

And, yes, I’ve not forgotten about that outrage. Because it’s at this point in the article where we find what source the Mail has found that hasn’t been at all pleased with Tesco’s unrelated business moves. It is, of course, The Catholic Herald. In fact, it’s more or less a direct lift from their column:

Francis Phillips, a commentator at The Catholic Herald, condemned the shift, saying: ‘Tesco is a supermarket.

‘Its remit has been to sell good-quality food and other items at very reasonable prices, and in this it has been hugely successful.

‘Why has it now aligned itself with an aggressive political organisation such as Pride London?

‘Why has it given up its sponsorship of Cancer Research? Or at least…why hasn’t it taken up with another mainstream charity such as the British Legion or Age UK?

‘There are thousands of ex-servicemen and wounded soldiers needing help in this country, and millions of elderly people in danger of neglect.

‘They are a fundamental part of the fabric of our society – the kind of fabric that Tesco should be reflecting.’

I like the start. Stick with the basics and you can’t go far wrong. Tesco is indeed a supermarket and its remit is indeed to sell goods at reasonable prices. However, why the assumption that they can’t get involved with politics? Should they not endorse green living, as they do with their (admittedly very annoying) Less Co2 (don’t you see – it LOOKS like ‘Tesco’!) adverts and their green clubcard points?

Their work in raising awareness and money for Race For Life for the last ten years has been nothing short of admirable. As is their decision to endorse an event that is looking to promote equality between one section of society and another. Once again, just because Tesco is sponsoring a gay event doesn’t mean they’re not going to help anybody else or any other cause.

David Skinner of the Anglican Mainstream organisation, which supports traditional marriage and family life, has written to complain to Mr Higginson and Tesco chief executive Philip Clarke.

That’s nice of him. The phrase ‘supports traditional marriage and family life’ might as well be re-written to say ‘doesn’t like the idea of two people of the same sex getting it on’. And we know that gays in monogamous relationships don’t exist, while heterosexuals never split up or get divorced once married.

He wrote: ‘For Tesco to sponsor a tiny homosexual minority – according to the Office for National Statistics, that amounts to little more than 1 per cent of the population – will be showing the utmost contempt for a large proportion of British society that still adheres, more or less, to the morality and values of the Ten Commandments.’

Well, where to start?

It might come as a surprise to Mr Skinner, but most people don’t live their lives by the values of what’s written in some book. Don’t get me wrong here, The Bible and other holy texts have some great moral messages in parts, but they also have some fucking stupid ones too.

So, most of the public aren’t gay. Well done on that one. Most of the pubic don’t have cancer. Why were Tesco sponsoring an event to help them for so long? Yeah, that’s right – because it’s not about the number of fucking people involved. It’s about helping a good cause.

And, being honest now, I’m not a even fan of gay pride. It’s not my thing. But I understand the reason it exists and I wouldn’t begrudge anybody else enjoying the event. It represents a push towards equality and a celebration of sexuality in all of its forms, and Tesco is helping towards that, just as they helped the search for cancer cures in the last ten years.

The morality and values of the Ten Commandments bit is complete tosh, too. How many people would be able to list off all ten of the buggers without having to look any up? And just because your book says that marriage is between a man and a woman doesn’t mean that that’s the end of it. There’s a large majority of people who don’t live their lives by what your book says and shouldn’t be forced to, either, much in the same way as there’s a large majority of people who aren’t gay and aren’t forced to sleep with the same gender.

Both Mrs Phillips and Mr Skinner are calling on consumers to boycott Tesco.

‘Let’s send Tesco a message: stick to groceries and stop dabbling in dubious fringe political movements,’ said Mrs Phillips.

Fine. Don’t go into Tesco. See what they care. If everybody connected with the groups that have been opposing the store’s move decided to boycott the chain, I’m willing to bet the dent in their profits would be negligible. At best.

Most likely, unaffected. That’s where my money is.

Catholic campaign website Protect the Pope said Tesco’s decision was ‘a sign of how out of touch they have become from ordinary families’.

Read: ‘straight people’.

For the record, I’ve not met many straight people that have an issue with gays. Each to their own and all that. Though, I’d say Tesco’s decision was actually a sign of how in touch they are.

Cancer Research UK, which gave no sign of disappointment about losing Tesco’s support, is looking for a new partner for the Race for Life.

Emma Gilbert, who organises the event, said the partnership ‘came to a natural end’ for both parties.

But she added: ‘Tesco employees have taken part in events across the UK, raising over £7million for our life-saving research, and we hope they will continue to take part in the events.’

Tesco said it was in talks with the charity to support its work in other ways and would encourage staff to continue taking part in the Race for Life.

So, Tesco aren’t bastards after all. Its employees take part and they’re looking to support Cancer Research UK in other ways. See, Daily Mail – Tesco can choose to help both cancer charities and the push for social equalities.

Again, the cynic in me wonders if the Mail has simply decided to stir up a bit of anti-gay feeling when they saw this opportunity. And it’s somewhat worked, given the state of the comments underneath the article. Here’s my favourite, and not only because of the username of the person who left it:

Why does sexual preference even have to be celebrated in public? It should be a private matter between two consenting adults, not an excuse for a massively expensive public party, and /or a platform to bully people into political and moral acceptance even if they be a minority. Homosexual or straight it should be kept private and in the bedroom and certainly not sponsored. In these times of austerity our British citizens should seek to ensure we keep our dignity and pride, not with a massive public booze up and rave, where drag queens parade naked through the streets, but by helping those who have served to keep our democracy and those who through illness need the financial help our succesful [sic] profit making businesses can provide. We should focus on helping those in need, our veterans and those cancer patients, irrespective of their sexual preferences who need it because their lives are at risk.

- Free Britain from the unelected EU dictators in Brussels

Obviously, having been through all the points raised earlier in this blog post, I don’t need to go over them again. Other than just to point out that Tesco aren’t sponsoring people to have sex, drag queens generally don’t go naked in the streets and the times of austerity have the thin end of arse all to do with Tesco’s decision.

So there you have it. Tesco refuses to help people with cancer, but loves the gays.

Except that’s not true.

I just can’t wait to hear what Melanie Phillips and Richard Littlejohn think about all this.

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.

This week, it’s all been kicking off about a joke that Frankie Boyle made some time ago about Katie Price’s disabled son, Harvey. I don’t wish to offend anybody, but I am going to copy that joke below here because I think it’s important to put the whole argument into context.

On his Channel Four show, Tramadol Nights, Frankie Boyle said:

“Jordan and Peter Andre are still fighting each other over custody of Harvey – eventually one of them will lose and have to keep him. I have a theory about the reason Jordan married a cage fighter – she needed a man strong enough to stop Harvey from fucking her…”

You can see why there has been offence caused. Then, in response, a representative of Katie Price said:

“Harvey Price is a little miracle. Every day he overcomes so many difficulties and has so many battles to win due to his medical problems. I love him and am deeply proud to be his mother. If Mr Boyle had a tenth of his courage and decency, he would know that to suggest, let alone think funny, that Harvey may sexually attack me is vile and deeply unfair. Mr Boyle clearly has serious issues and those that give him a TV platform to say such disgusting things need to look at themselves very honestly.”

While a representative for Peter Andre added:

“We’re all disgusted by these comments. Peter is angry and very upset at Harvey being mocked in this way. Children, especially a disabled youngster, should be off-limits.”

First off, let’s take a look at the joke.

Maybe it’s just me and maybe it’s just that I don’t ‘get’ Frankie Boyle’s style of comedy. People’s tastes differ and I’m prepared to accept that I like some comedians and not others and they’re probably not the same comedians that you like and dislike. That doesn’t make one comic good, because it’s an entirely subjective topic and it always will be. But, no matter how hard I try, I struggle to actually find the jokes in nearly all of what Frankie Boyle says.

When I look at that offending joke, my first instinct was that the idea ‘parents fighting over custody of a child – because they don’t want him’ would make a fairly decent gag. Nothing to do with a disability, nothing to do with anything other than it being a situation you don’t expect to see coming. Maybe I’ll pop it on the pad for that sketch show I keep meaning to write.

But then comes the second bit; the bit about Harvey sexually assaulting his mother. And I read it over and over again and I just can’t find the punch line. I don’t see what’s funny about it – not because it’s offensive, but rather because I can’t see what the joke is. It feels remarkably like a statement intended just to push the audience to the point of going ‘ooh, that’s a bit naughty’. But doing that, in my mind, isn’t funny.

The frustrating thing I find about Frankie Boyle is that I think he can be quite a funny guy. When I’ve seen some of his proper jokes on television – things he’s said that have had a feed line and then a punch line – I’ve found him to be quite witty. But saying offensive things with no joke attached isn’t being witty; it’s being offensive for the sake of it.

Perhaps it’s a gut reaction of the audience to laugh when a man on stage says something horrible about a disabled child or an ethnic minority or victim of paedophilia or someone who’s had cancer. Maybe it’s a way of dealing with the gruesome material. I’m not convinced, though, how that is comedy. It’s just saying offensive things on stage and that, by definition, isn’t funny.

Offensive jokes, on the other hand, is a whole different ball game. When Jimmy Carr, for example, says something racist, it’s pretty clear that the joke isn’t on the ethnic minority, but rather himself for being a racist. It’s not a “haha – these people can’t speak English properly”, rather a “haha – aren’t my views so awful and outdated that they make me look like an idiot”.

I can’t remember who told it to me, but there was a joke I’d heard about Wayne Rooney. It went along the lines of the Manchester United forward being at England training, dribbling the ball past all of the black players in the squad and scoring. Capello would then shout: “No, no, no! I said around the cones!” There, the joke isn’t on the black players; it’s on Rooney, for being stupid enough to (a) believe that his manager would set that training drill and (b) for believing it’s okay to still use an offensive term for black people. The overall message is ‘racism is bad’, yet it’s pretty clear to see why that joke could be considered offensive.

And that’s the point of offensive humour. It makes us look at the world and look at the true nature of all the bad stuff that happens and it makes us laugh at them. Sometimes, laughing at a situation is one of the best ways to deal with it. But, in order to laugh at jokes about disability or cancer or paedophilia, there have to be good jokes. Not simply statements that are gruesome and ugly.

I find it interesting when Peter Andre’s representative said that jokes about “children, especially a disabled youngster, should be off-limits.” I have real sympathy with him in the situation and what was said about Harvey was horrible, but I vehemently disagree with him on this one. No subject, no matter how awful, should ever be off limits for comedy. Comedy should never be censored.

If it were to be censored, then there’s whole issues with who says what you can and can’t joke about? Why is it ok to make jokes about X, but not about Y or Z? And is that line the same for everybody – can a black person make a joke about black people or can a cancer sufferer make a joke about cancer, so long as nobody else does?

I’ve not done the research to this, but, as far as I’m aware, that would make Andre Vincent one of the few comics on the circuit that was able to crack gags about cancer. And he has cracked gags about cancer before and they were bloody funny, too. They weren’t funny, though, because he has had the disease. They were funny because they were good jokes. Other comedians have also cracked good gags about cancer, despite never suffering from it.

And that’s the difference, I find, between Frankie Boyle and other offensive comedians out there. I can see the point to some of the others; the point of challenging those outdated beliefs or the point of becoming comfortable with taboo subjects. And it needs material of a high standard to do that because talking about difficult subjects isn’t a breeze and so the punch line better good. But with Boyle, all I end up seeing is “here is some offensive statement” and then the audience laughing. And I wonder if they heard something I didn’t.

I don’t find Boyle offensive. But I don’t find him funny, either.

Of course, another side to this argument is that Frankie Boyle’s joke has been aired on television. And that presents a whole new problem: You’ll hear far more offensive material used in live, not-for-broadcast, stand-up shows than you will on the tellybox. The simple reason is that, when going to see a live show, you know what you’re getting; you’ve paid for the ticket and you’ve chosen to see a performer. With the TV, though, there’s always the possibility of catching that channel-hopper.

All this being said, though, being offended isn’t a bad thing. It’s ok to be offended by what a comedian has said on stage. It shows you’re alive and it shows that you have feelings, but being offended by something doesn’t mean that it isn’t funny. If you’ve been affected by cancer and you don’t find it funny, then that’s fair enough – but is it then hypocritical to complain based on that if you find jokes about, say, disabilities or paedophilia funny?

When it comes down to it, offensive comedy is important. Without it, taboo subjects would be even rarer talked about and radical viewpoints would be left much more unchallenged. However, I think the biggest lesson we can learn from this debate every time it crops up is that, if you’re a comedian and you’ve got offensive jokes, then they need to be good ones.

Good and offensive jokes will make people think about the subject and laugh. Bad and offensive jokes will make people complain.

And then the BBC will issue an apology anyway.

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.

For a long while, I never bothered to update. But then I started to build up followers as I posted messages, mainly about rubbish, but occasionally about current affairs and having conversations about things that were going on. In fact, I’ve found I update a lot more since buying a smartphone, because I could update on the move, rather than having to text an update to a number and not be able to see the responses until hours later.

Soon, I began to get it. News travels quicker on Twitter than anywhere else. Images and video, too. Not only can you play silly games, but you can discuss important worldly issues with other users, and find out what is going on around the world at the click of a button. Think what happened in Egypt, earlier this year.

Then, I started the BlueMoon Podcast. A few City fans who listened began to follow me and then I began to encourage listeners to follow me (and the official account – clicky) to get more interactivity in the show: answers to audience questions, the occasional competition, letting people know the show actually exists.

And with all this came the occasional mention on the #FollowFriday hashtag. For the non-Twitterers amongst you, this is essentially a follow recommendation from one tweeter about another. On a Friday. And it started out as a great idea: It began as a 140 character plug for somebody you followed, a quick “here’s a person I find writes interesting things, so you might find they write interesting things to”, which worked for the most part.

At the time of writing, I follow 279 people and, a lot of the time, I struggle to keep up with the number of tweets in my timeline. If I haven’t logged in and read them for an hour or so, I tend to not read them, jumping straight to direct messages and @mentions to see if I’ve had any meant purposefully for me. So, when reading my timeline, I would click a user who had been given a #FollowFriday mention and consider following based on their recent tweets.

But it’s now become a pointless chore that makes Twitter almost unusable on a Friday. Singling one user out that you follow as a suggestion for others makes sense – the people that do follow you and receive your tweets can evaluate for themselves. But recently, far too many tweeters are mentioning ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty users that they follow. They post four or five tweets with a list of users as suggestions of people to follow.

And that makes no sense.

Struggling to keep up with tweets already, I’m not going to click on each user in the list and browse their recent posts to see if I’d like to follow them. I’d have to do that twenty times before I’d finished with just one list; if all of the 279 people that I follow did it, my timeline would be an unreadable list of usernames and the #FollowFriday hashtag. I’m far too lazy to search through every single one.

For what that’s worth, it’d probably be easier just to tweet the message “#FollowFriday – everybody that I follow.” Then at least it could be ignored and timely messages about anything else wouldn’t get caught up in a long list of @mentions.

I very rarely do #FollowFriday mentions, these days, simply for that reason. As a tweeter, you should follow people that you find interesting or that you want to hear from; you shouldn’t follow people simply because they follow you. What’s the point? If you follow me simply because I follow you, then you’re going to ignore my messages and that defeats the whole purpose of Twitter. Not following me in return won’t make me any less interested in what you have to say.

As for #FollowFriday, the only time you’ll get more than one from me in any tweet is a week when the BlueMoon Podcast is released. Then you’ll get everybody who is in that episode. Other weeks, if I give somebody a #FollowFriday mention, then I’ll fill up the rest of the tweet with a quick explanation.

Not a list of other users.

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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.

It wasn’t really that important. More important was coming up with excuses for why City had been beaten by Oxford United, or writing interesting stories, or running around the playground play tag. I just didn’t think it was possible for people to have known and understood their sexuality and feelings at such a young age.

To confirm this further, the conscious thought that I might not be straight occurred to me at about age 13 or 14. It took me a while, but by the time I was leaving high school, I was confident of my sexuality and had accepted it. And, off the back of this, I have always rubbished the thought that it was possible to know much earlier than that.

But then, recently, I was reintroduced to a television series I was shown as a child. Whilst in primary school, I, like many other kids, was in a class that would, once a week, sit down and watch a BBC series called Look And Read. The premise behind the show was that it would teach kids Maths and English through story telling: the story would continue until a well placed segment about superlatives or about the past tense or about multiplying by three arrived.

The first story that we watched as a class was called Earth Warp, of which I remember very little. All I could pluck from my mind was that it was about an alien who was living with some kids in their bedroom (I think). But then came along Spywatch, a tale of evacuated children during the war. Again, my memory of the story was sketchy at best, but I did remember liking it more than its predecessor. I don’t particularly remember what happened other than there being a spy in the countryside, a not-very-nice adult, a crashed plane and a bomb.

But then recently I was sent the following two videos – parts one and two of the first episode of Spywatch. It’s probably best you have a quick look than me try and summarise what exactly happened in them (incidentally, you might want to look out for a very young Russell Tovey, who has recently made a name for himself in shows like Rob Brydon’s Annually Retentive and Being Human – you should spot him)

Watching those videos took me back to that classroom of my primary school where I saw the show for the first time. And it was then that something occurred to me, as the main protagonist took to the screen for the first time. I remember being a seven or eight year old child, looking upon the actor and finding him attractive – although I didn’t know what that was at the time. I remember being in front of that television in the mid 1990s and thinking that there was something very appealing about him.

At that time, I didn’t know I was gay. I didn’t even know that what my thoughts were towards that guy on the screen. I didn’t understand the concept of being attracted to some people and not others in any more than a friendship way, but, looking back on that with my 23-year-old brain now, it makes perfect sense. I understand the feelings that I didn’t understand back then.

So, while maybe the first conscious realisation of my sexuality came in my early teens, it would seem entirely plausible that the innate knowledge had always been there subconsciously. And suddenly the idea that people would know their sexuality at such a young age doesn’t seem quite as ridiculous as I had thought – perhaps that was naivety on my part, more than anything else.

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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.

Of course it is. Everybody in the UK right now at this very moment in time is being forced to partake, witness, embrace and behold homosexuality or a homosexual person. Everyone. That includes you. So, turn off your computer and go outside and promote some same sex lovin’ because the gay agenda demands that you do right now.

Except it doesn’t, of course. You’d think those pesky gays would stop wanting to be equal, wouldn’t you? I mean, it’s hardly worth having something like marriage at all if you’re going to allow two people of the same gender to do it as well. And isn’t it such a travesty that you get into trouble for preaching your hateful views to the masses on a soapbox in the city centre? What twats those gay-agenda pushing folk are.

Melanie’s ‘column’ begins in an intriguing fashion, with the webpage headed

Gayness mandatory in schools: Gay victims of prejudice to become new McCarthyites

The first point is an interesting one. In fact, in the opening paragraphs of her wretched monkey vomit coated article, she goes into further detail, commenting:

Here’s a question shortly coming to an examination paper near you. What have mathematics, geography or science to do with homosexuality?

Nothing at all, you say? Zero marks for you, then.

For, mad as this may seem, schoolchildren are to be bombarded with homosexual references in maths, geography and ­science lessons as part of a Government-backed drive to promote the gay agenda.

Except that isn’t quite true, is it, Melanie? As the Daily Mail pointed out earlier this week in their article headlined ‘Gay messages built into school maths lessons for children as young as FOUR’, gay characters will be included in maths problems, social issues – including the role of homosexuals in society – will be added to the Geography curriculum and words like ‘outing’ or ‘pride’ (neither of which have any other meaning, of course) will be used in English FOR CHILDREN AS YOUNG AS FOUR.

Only they won’t be, will they? At four years old, the mathematical problems I was solving in school didn’t involve a scenario. They tended to be more along the lines of learning how to count.

Only when I made it towards the top end of primary school was I introduced to characters like Sophie or Mary or John or Peter, all of whom seemed to be struggling with the number of marbles they had in a bag or the amount of fluid they could get into a container or something. The point is, I was at an age where I already knew and understood what homosexuality was.

And even if such characters are brought in, I can’t see too much of an issue. The relationship between Adam and Simon is irrelevant when calculating how many more blue marbles one has than the other.

Geography: it’s all about movement of people and opinions. It’s hardly surprising that gay people like to move where they are more socially accepted, so it’s a worthy topic of discussion when talking migration habits (another high school-esque topic, rather than something for kids of 48 months), while, at the age of four, I remember focusing on trying to write a full sentence and spell my name in English lessons. I hardly think that will change too drastically either.

When you consider what one teacher, David Watkins, who is involved in developing the scheme, had to say, you can see that it’s got nothing to do with talking about what gays do in the bedroom (pitchfork down, flaming torch out, please, Melanie), but rather simply the semantics of questions. He said:

When you have a maths problem, why does it have to involve a straight family or a boyfriend and girlfriend? Why not two boys or two girls?

It’s not about teaching about gay sex, it is about exposing children to the idea that there are other types of people out there.

While Craig Whittaker, Conservative MP and a member of the educational select committee, clearly couldn’t grasp that, thinking instead that Maths and English will be replaced in the timetable by a new lesson of Gayness, commenting as he did:

We are too far down the national comparative league tables in core subjects. Teachers should concentrate on those again.

Nothing will change in the teaching of any of the core subjects. The only difference might be that gays are given a namecheck. Nothing more, nothing less. There’ll be no talk of trains going in and out of tunnels or anything, there just might be something about two female partners and how far their car will travel on half a tank of petrol.

It’s not a very big deal.

Especially as, when you finally get to the nub of the matter at the rear of the article (suspiciously buried near the bottom, one might say) on which dear Mel is basing her opinion, you see that a Department of Education spokesman said:

These are optional teaching materials.

It is for head and teacher to choose the most appropriate teaching resources to help promote equality and tolerance.

So it’s not even compulsory. And, looking back at the charming Melanie Phillips’s comment piece, that sort of blows a hole into the idea of gayness being mandatory in schools, doesn’t it? Still, let’s not let that get in the way of a good old bigoted rant. I also find it mildly ironic that she chose the phrase ‘Gay victims of prejudice to become new McCarthyites’, given McCarthyism is about unsubstantiated accusations and that is something she has done in the very first sentence of that heading.

She goes on:

Alas, this gay curriculum is no laughing matter. Absurd as it sounds, this is but the latest attempt to brainwash children with propaganda under the camouflage of education. It is an abuse of childhood.

Brainwash children with what exactly? Knowing about homosexuality won’t make these kids gay. Knowing that homosexuals exist might actually make the little chaps more tolerant towards same sex couples, instead of them turning into people like good ol’ Mel, who appears to be terrified that every child will turn out to be a bit fruity.

And it’s all part of the ruthless campaign by the gay rights lobby to destroy the very concept of normal sexual behaviour.

Nice choice of words, Melly Baby. It’s almost as if you’re trying to be antagonistic. What is normal sexual behaviour? Perhaps it’s what two consenting adults choose to do and enjoy doing in their own private situations? Or maybe that only applies to men and women because they can conceive if they do it (ignoring that most relations don’t result in conception because of protection or other sexual interests, obviously, without even considering those who cannot conceive)?

Not so long ago, an epic political battle raged over teaching children that homosexuality was normal. The fight over Section 28, as it became known, resulted in the repeal of the legal requirement on schools not to promote homosexuality.

As the old joke has it, what was once impermissible first becomes tolerated and then becomes mandatory.

Mandatory in an optional sort of way, yes.

The bed and breakfast hoteliers Peter and Hazelmary Bull — who were recently sued for turning away two homosexuals who wished to share a bedroom — were but the latest religious believers to fall foul of the gay inquisition merely for upholding Christian values.

I’ll be honest, I was expecting this story to crop up in enchanting Mel’s column sooner than it did, but I was pleased to see that she didn’t disappoint me in the end. She, like all of the other outraged that commented on this story, have gotten the complete wrong end of the stick. I’ve seen it written so many times that the homosexual couple were turned away because they weren’t married (and the rules of the bed and breakfast, stated on their website, said that only married couples could share a bedroom). Therefore, straight unmarried couples were turned away, too.

Except, the gay couple that were turned away, Steven Preddy and Martin Hall, are as close as damn married as the law allows them to be. They are in a civil union, top of the tree, highest of the pile, summit of the mountain, when it comes to homosexuality and legal marriage. They’re married. Which makes the discrimination about their sexuality, not their marital status.

The couple who owned the bed and breakfast are perfectly well within their rights to uphold Christian values, but if you’re offering a commercial product to the public, whether it is your own home or not, then you cannot exclude people based on skin colour, religion, sexuality. And they did, so that is why they were successfully sued.

Nothing to do with falling foul of the gay inquisition, dear Mel. I reiterate: How dare those homos want to be treated as equals!

She concludes by likening the case to a scene from Animal Farm:

Of course, for people such as the Bulls, George Orwell’s famous observation that some are more equal than others is all too painfully true. Indeed, the obsession with equality has now reached ludicrous, as well as oppressive, proportions.

Wise words, disguised as idiocy. Gays are clearly not more equal than others, and the case of the Bulls’ bed and breakfast shows this. Not the other way round. The homosexual couple was discriminated against in a public business because of their sexuality and that’s why they won the case; it has nothing to do with them being ‘more equal‘ – I’m not sure what makes that such a difficult concept to grasp.

The words Melanie Phillips wrote in that column are bigoted. Though, it is mildly amusing to replace the word ‘gay’ (and subsequent synonyms thereof) with ‘Negro’ and you can see how her opinions are lifted straight from the 50s.

The 1850s.

I would carry on, but I’ve got to go and teach double Gayness to a primary school.

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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.

I watched the day’s events unfold on Sky News. At first, it was pretty much a non-event. The helicopter images showed nothing more than people standing around and generally having a good time while showing the government that they weren’t in support of the tuition fee rise.

However, soon reports began to leak through of small pockets of trouble and, naturally, the cameras gravitated towards them. It’s impossible to fill a day’s airtime simply describing what’s on screen, if what is on screen is some people having a good time. But it’s all to easy to describe what is happening when there are groups of people barging the police or smashing at a police van.

By 5pm, the story had become “violence and disorder in Whitehall” as Jeremy Thomson took over the reporting.

The fact that the violence is what most people will remember this story for is disappointing, but it’s not just the minority of protesters and police that have caused it. The news itself is, at least, partly responsible.

On Sky News today, Kay Burley, on the programme Afternoon Live, had the Education Secretary, Michael Gove, on air in a live interview for roughly 15 minutes. There, he was able to re-affirm the government’s position, state that raising tuition fees will allow more students from poorer families to go to university, and refuse to answer the questions raised by violent protesters.

Not once did Burley as him about any of the issues surrounding why the protest is being held in the first place. She asked him, several times, if he was shocked at the level of violence that had broken out, simply rephrasing that self-same question again and again. Not once did she question any of the government’s policy, not once did she question his position on raising fees being more inclusive, and not once did she ask him to address the concerns of the peaceful majority.

Instead, she allowed him to say that he would not “respond to violence” and that he would only “respond to reasonable debate”. The fact that most of the people that were protesting were asking for reasonable debate was ignored, with Burley choosing to focus on the small pockets of violence and disorder. If Mr Gove won’t respond to the students because of those pockets of violence, then he should respond to reasonable debate from a newscaster.

Surely it’s the role of the media to ask the difficult questions on behalf of the public? Surely it was Kay Burley’s job to then question the rise in tuition fees and the government’s position? Instead, she decided, again, to ask whether Mr Gove was surprised at the level of violence.

By doing so, she has allowed the Education Secretary to condemn one side of the argument and not have to justify his own position. I agree fully with Mr Gove that the violence and disorder is “regrettable”, but that doesn’t invalidate the reason why the protest was originally planned. There are deeply embedded questions that need answers from the government, but these have been buried under a pile of “look how badly these people have been behaving in Whitehall today”.

Part of the problem is that the news took to reporting WHAT was happening and nothing more. With constant live airtime to fill, it’s ever so easy to simply describe the images that are being shown on screen – “It looks like some students are now taking their frustrations out on a police van, it’s been smashed and vandalised, the doors are hanging off, the contents are being looted… It’s a very powerful scene…”. But with a cabinet minister live on the show and the chance to speak to various protesters and protest leaders, it’s too easy to focus on condemning the violence and ignoring the whole WHY of the story.

Why are the students protesting? Why are the students angry? Why is the government increasing tuition fees? Why does the government believe what they are doing is right? Why does the government insist on stating that their policy will allow more students from poorer backgrounds into university? Why have the Liberal Democrats performed such a massive u-turn?

But what we were treated to all day was simply “look at this bad behaviour”.

This type of reporting has allowed the government to wriggle free of any questions that will be difficult for them to answer. They can simply point at the reports and say “look at this: this is despicable behaviour and we can’t condone any of this.”

When, in fact, they should be shifting in their seats and giving stuttered responses to questions about “all being in this together” and elitism and exclusion of the less well-off.

And we have the minority of idiots who smashed a police van and charged the police to thank for giving the news something to focus on. Though, the news is just as much to blame for taking the easy option and ignoring the real issues behind today’s protests.

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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.

With the Labour leadership election’s conclusion this weekend, the folks at TV 2 Norway decided to come to Manchester to cover it. They sent a reporter, Kjetil Iden (whose name translates directly as “kettle”), and a cameraman, Frode Hoff (whose name, I can confirm, does not translate directly as “intelligent and handsome man” as he would have you believe) and they filmed me doing the show, while I spoke to Kjetil on air.

And it was all jolly fun.

For a few minutes, my show, normally about silly things like songs that can be used for dog breeders or bands that might eat a lot of cheese, was about serious things like politics, the relationship between Britain and Norway or the weather.

For the record, Kjetil reckons that we moan about the cold too much because we don’t wrap up warm when the temperature drops. Having seen ladies in miniskirts and men in Hawaiian shirts and shorts out on the town in December, I’m inclined to agree.

So, if you’re from Norway and you’re reading this and you enjoy TV 2 News, then you might well have seen me this evening.

It was quite a difficult show to do, in all honesty. Partly because I was being filmed (and it’s never easy to do the things you’re supposed to with a camera in your face), but mainly because Labour elected the wrong brother.

Sitting on the sofa, I was expected to hear Five Live, in between the football commentary, announce that David Miliband was the new leader. Then it was Ed’s name read out and I had to do some more research than I intended.

While we’re on the subject, can Ed Miliband be a good Labour party leader? Possibly. He’s certainly got the chance to paint himself as who he wants to, because very few people know anything about him. Then again, the Conservatives and Lib Dems have the opportunity to paint him as whatever they want, too, and he’s currently “Red Ed”.

I do think it will spell trouble if David Miliband doesn’t join, if asked to join, his shadow cabinet. The right wing press will have a field day with that one, should it happen.

Oh, and just after Kjetil and Frode had left the studio (and the guy that was filming them film me – don’t ask), I managed to knock the whole station off air for about ten seconds. My tip to you all is, while live on the radio, don’t click a button in the computer program that plays the music to “find out what it does”.

It causes it to crash is what it does.

Then, whilst being on telly in Norway, I show up on BBC 2. Though not for as long as I had hoped after this blog, I managed to get some decent screen time lurking behind people talking to the camera. If you watch the opening of the new series of Genius you won’t hear my idea, but you will see me staring straight into the camera (I was following the autocue, your honour), looking like a crazed killer, as Hazel Irvine opened the show.

And, since it didn’t make the final cut of the show, you all might as well see how my idea – Crazy Snooker – works. You can do that by first clicking here, and then clicking here (both MS Word documents).

Those plans got a fairly good reaction on the night and I’d hoped they’d stayed in because Hazel Irvine was the guest. But they did film about three hours’ worth of material for a half hour show, so it didn’t come as a great surprise that I ended up on the edit room floor – ideas better and funnier than mine did, too.

Maybe I’ll get on next series with the UK-wide tube train. It is do-able.

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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.

The Mail ran with:

Swimmers plunged into dark after council covers swimming pool windows ‘to protect Muslim women’s modesty’

In a stark contrast, The Express decided upon:

SWIMMING POOL BLACKED OUT TO APPEASE MUSLIMS

The Sun opted for:

Pool Blacked Out For Muslim Swim

Those pesky Muslims, making everybody else swim in complete darkness for no real reason whatsoever. It is, of course, quite correct that The Mail and The Express should bring this to our attention. We must stop this Islamification of Britain.

Of course, it’s complete bullshit.

The story that is being reported is this: Muslim women have complained to the council that they aren’t getting enough privacy in the swimming pool and the council have bent over backwards to accommodate their views and resolve the situation. All of the windows were blacked out and now people have to swim in near complete darkness.

What actually happened was this: Several members of the public, some but not all of which were Muslim, asked the council to increase the level of privacy in the pool and the council did so. Some of the windows were tinted with an opaque film that allows natural daylight into the building, but isn’t see-through, and the building is no darker than it was before.

But that second story doesn’t promote either The Mail or The Express‘s agenda that ‘Muslims get what they want, yet non-Muslims get nothing’, so it wasn’t reported as such.

The Express reported:

TOWN hall chiefs were yesterday accused of “political correctness gone stark-raving mad” for forcing pool users to swim in the gloom to protect Muslim women’s modesty.

The bizarre council diktat is the latest example of bureaucrats taking an extreme decision to avoid upsetting a minority group.

Which just simply isn’t true. Users aren’t being forced to swim in the gloom, it’s not Muslim women’s modesty that is being protected, but the modesty of the general public, it wasn’t done to avoid upsetting a minority group and it most certainly isn’t an extreme decision.

But, how did The Mail report it?

A council has sparked anger after officials blacked out windows on a glass-panelled swimming pool to protect the modesty of Muslim women.

Darlaston Leisure Centre in the West Midlands’ town of Walsall, was hailed for its ‘ultra-modern’ design when it opened ten years ago.

But now council staff have covered 250 windows with dark-tinted film following complaints from Muslim swimmers.

But other users say the move has plunged the pool into almost permanent darkness and branded it ‘political correctness gone stark-raving mad’.

Actually, that’s not too dissimilar to how The Sun reported it:

A COUNCIL was slammed today for blacking out the windows of a glass-panelled swimming pool — to protect the modesty of Muslim women.

The leisure centre was hailed for its “ultra modern” design when it opened 10 years ago.

But now the local council has covered all 250 windows at the centre in Darlaston, near Walsall, West Midlands, with dark tinted film to “protect the modesty” of women following complaints from Muslim swimmers.

Other users say the move has plunged the pool into permanent darkness and branded it “political correctness gone stark-raving mad”.

Remarkably similar stories, all of which appear to be based on the exact same story appearing in a local newspaper, The Express and Star. A bold conclusion at this point, but one that becomes immediately obvious when you notice that the retired legal secretary Pauline Poole, who uses the baths in Victoria Road up to four times a week, told The Express and Star:

“I returned to swimming after having a cataracts operation some months ago and was looking forward to looking out on some lovely trees while swimming.

“What I found was a situation that reminded me of how it felt like before my operation, like looking at a horrible cloudy view.

“If it was done for a minority of people, then why was there no vote on it?”

The very same retired legal secretary Pauline Poole, who uses the baths in Victoria Road up to four times a week, told The Daily Mail:

‘I returned to swimming after having a cataracts operation some months ago and was looking forward to looking out on some lovely trees while swimming.

‘What I found was a situation that reminded me of how it felt like before my operation, like looking at a horrible cloudy view.

‘If it was done for a minority of people, then why was there no vote on it?’

Before she went on to speak to The Sun, commenting:

“I returned to swimming after having a cataracts operation some months ago and was looking forward to looking out on some lovely trees while swimming.

“What I found was a situation that reminded me of how it felt like before my operation, like looking at a horrible cloudy view.

“If it was done for a minority of people, then why was there no vote on it?”

She did, however, find the time to ever-so-slightly change what she said when speaking to The Daily Express:

“This has infuriated so many of us because we weren’t consulted.

“I returned to swimming after a cataracts operation and was looking forward to watching the lovely trees outside while swimming.

“But it reminded me of just how it felt before my operation. It was like looking at a horrible cloudy view. I’m so angry.

“If it was done for a minority, it’s totally wrong that we didn’t have a chance to vote on it, or even be notified that a change was going to take place.”

Pauline Pool, however, does raise some important issues. First off, supposing this film that has covered the windows has blocked out all natural light (you know, the natural light that it hasn’t blocked out, but just suppose it has for a moment), does this swimming pool have no artificial lights on the roof?

Second of all, who the hell goes swimming to look at trees? That’s like going parachuting to inspect your roof or going bungee jumping over a river to wash your hair.

Will the retired building surveyor John Ewart, 63, from Walsall go on to make a more sensible comment? I’ll give you a clue – the answer’s not yes. Speaking to The Sun, he said:

“I cannot believe this council has agreed to something so loony.

“The whole thing smacks of political correctness gone stark raving mad.

“A lot of the people who swim are elderly or retired and they now have to swim in the gloom.”

To The Daily Mail, he said:

‘I cannot believe this council has agreed to something so loony.

‘The whole thing smacks of political correctness gone stark raving mad.

‘A lot of the people who swim are elderly or retired and they now have to swim in the gloom.’

While, to The Daily Express, he commented:

“I cannot believe this council has agreed to something so loony. The whole thing smacks of political correctness gone stark raving mad.

“A lot of people who swim are elderly or retired and they now have to swim in the gloom.”

At least he was more concise, if still repetitive, with The Daily Mirror:

“A lot of the people who swim are elderly or retired and they now have to swim in the gloom.”

A member of staff from the leisure centre, who, conveniently, didn’t want to be named when he spoke to all three national newspapers, also commented that “several customers complained it made the pool dark and dingy” but that the staff  “didn’t have a choice” but to change the windows. And that staff member said exactly the same thing in each newspaper, too.

It must be something in the water that makes these people so repetitive. I said, it must be something in the water that makes these people… nevermind.

It is also interesting to note, as the brilliant Tabloid Watch did, that The Daily Mail, The Daily Mirror and The Sun reported all 250 windows were covered, yet The Daily Mail printed this picture showing some windows were still uncovered.

It’s also worth noting that The Express‘s third paragraph says:

Residents are outraged after council chiefs ordered the windows of their glass-panelled swimming pool to be blacked out after complaints were received from Muslim groups.

While, in the very same story, The Express also reports:

Regular users of the pool are furious that the tinted windows, installed a fortnight ago, have plunged the pool into gloom – and all in the name of political correctness.

The windows cannot be both blacked out and tinted, yet The Express seems to have reported that they are. Or perhaps, more likely, these film strips that have been placed on the pool’s windows stop people the swimmers don’t want looking in from looking in.

All of The Daily Mail, The Daily Express and The Sun‘s stories did include a comment from the local authority responsible for the decision at the bottom of the page, by way of balance.

Only towards the bottom of each article does it become clear that these changes were not forced and that the complaints were not solely from the Muslim community.

In response to these newspaper reports (I use the term lightly, of course), Walsall Council issued a statement. In that statement, the council confirmed that 58 windows had been covered, not 250.

Councillor Anthony Harris, a cabinet member for leisure and culture, said in the statement:

“Anyone who will now use the pool will see that it’s not in darkness at all. It’s like cling film, which allows in natural light; so this suggestion that its windows are blacked out are misleading and inaccurate.

“It’s common practice for local authorities to introduce similar screenings at pools to improve the privacy and comfort of swimmers. Such measures will support greater usage from a wide range of the community who may previously have been put off by the glazing, including people who are a little overweight and families with young children; precisely the people we need to be encouraging into our leisure centres.

So the swimming pool isn’t in complete darkness, either.

The best comment in the statement, however, came from Chris Holliday, the head of leisure and culture at Walsall Council. He didn’t just have the cheek to suggest that the new privacy methods were for everybody and not just the Muslim community, but he had the audacity to bowl every argument against the new window coverings with just seven words:

“Not everyone is confident in their Speedos.”

More worrying, however, has been the response in the comment sections in both The Daily Mail and The Sun. The more reasoned opinions – the ones which pointed out that this was a non-story or that it had been blown out of all proportion (probably since Swimming Pool In Privacy Boost doesn’t attract the eye as much as Muslims Force Darkness On Swimmers) – have had hundreds of disapproval ratings, while the ignorant, ill-informed and insulting comments are given hundreds of thumbs up.

Leroy Gibbs of Reading, clearly missing the privacy point, wrote:

Yet another example of this minority imposing their outdated views on the majority.

Tina in Leeds couldn’t grasp the not-actually-swimming-in-darkness point, writing:

Wait until someone sues them for a fall or serious injury caused by trying to swim in the dark!

While Lionel Clarke of Macclesfield, clearly blowing the rest of the comments out of the water on levels of ignorance and offensiveness, wrote:

one would have thought an all purpose burka would have fitted the bill, also what makes people think we would want to ogle their women folk anyway.

Having worked in as a lifeguard leisure centre in the past, I can say from experience that the frosted windows help pool safety. Lifeguards can only do their jobs properly when they can see everywhere in the pool and, without the film on the windows, the direct sunlight reflects off the top of the pool. This makes seeing the bottom of the pool in certain places impossible and the possibility of a casualty increases.

The films also reduce the amount of algae and fungi that grow on the tiles of the pool. This means that the floor tiles are less slippery and, again, reduces the chances of an accident happening.

Of course, that, though, doesn’t pander to the right-wing press’s Muslim-bashing agenda, so that isn’t how it is reported. This article in The Daily Mail, The Daily Express, The Daily Mirror and The Sun is an absolute disgrace to journalism.

It’s a rehashed story from the local press that has made it into the nationals, despite its inaccuracies (which do feel very intentional), that has only gotten where it has because it paints people from one religion in a negative light.

The editors of those papers it appeared in should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

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It was called Fury of the Furries and, when I explain the plot and details later in this post, it’s going to seem like one of strangest games ever conceived.

I can’t remember why exactly, but a group of Tinies had left their home planet for a while – maybe they were on holiday or visiting relatives or something – and, on their return, they discover that it’s been turned into an awful played by The Wicked One.

The Tinies are a group of balloon-like creatures that can take on four different forms. When in the yellow form, the Tiny had control of the element of fire and could use it to shoot enemies. When red, the Tiny had control over the earth and could eat through certain types of rock. When green, the Tiny had control of the air and could summon ropes to swing from certain surfaces. And when blue, the Tiny could swim underwater, blowing bubbles to shoot at enemies.

You play as one of these Tinies, having to travel through eight areas (the desert, lagoon, the forest, pyramids, the mountains, a factory, the village and the castle) of the Tiny world in order to reach The Wicked One. Each stage contained ten levels and, depending on which coloured forms were available at the time, you could switch between yellow, red, green or blue Tiny to complete puzzles and beat enemies.

Each of the stages had a fantastic soundtrack, rare for a platform game of 1993, unique and specially written to represent that area of the Tiny world.

The hazards to beat along the way get more and more difficult as you progress through the game. Spikes and acid remain constant hazards throughout, while the creatures are area specific – for example, scorpions in the desert, deadly fish in the lagoon, bees in the forest, mummies in the pyramids, goats in the mountains, mutants in the factory, Dracula and ghosts in the castle  and… errr… onions in the village.

The game also featured references to popular culture, with a balloon-like Rover that would follow and attempt to pop your Tiny in one level of the village, just like The Village from The Prisoner. Indiana Jones featured in the pyramids, with the large ball trap from the tomb in Raiders of the Lost Ark and the three hazards faced by Dr. Jones as he enters the temple for the Holy Grail in The Last Crusade.

Once The Wicked One has been caught at the end of the castle stage, your Tiny is able to free the king. But, just before the planet is able to return to normal, a final stage appears from the sea. The machine, which is being used to transform Tinies into various other video game characters to do The Wicked One’s evil bidding, must be destroyed.

If I’ve done nothing to help you understand what happens, here’s the entire game being played on YouTube:

I can’t begin to explain why this is one of the best games I’ve ever played, but, should you ever get the opportunity to play it, then I would urge you to. Especially if you can play the Amiga version of the game, though I don’t think that’s going to be too likely.

From my memory, while the graphics weren’t the greatest, it was miles ahead of any other game I owned at the time. The balance between puzzle-solving and enemy killing was perfect and each stage had its own unique look, sound and feel.

I’d quite like to see it re-released to be bought and played on PS3 or xBox consoles, partly because I want to play it again, but mainly because I have it on PC and it’s not the same. The music isn’t as good, while the lack of a joystick means the arrow keys and spacebar are the controls (and they don’t offer the same control). A release on a console would solve this, but, with Kalisto having gone out of business several years ago, I can’t see it happening.

I wonder who now owns the rights to it…

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Or so I thought.

In April, I was doing some prep work for the radio show I do on All FM (96.9FM or online, Mondays 1pm-2pm – shameless plugging) and I checked Twitter once again. Waiting for me was a direct message, telling me to email one of the people behind Genius because they liked my idea.

My first question was… “What was my idea?” It had been that long and that much of a throw-away joke that I had completely forgotten I’d sent it in.

Meg, the lady I was asked to email, sent me my original tweet back and I smiled, as I remembered my oddball thought process that had dreamt it up. I’m not going to write the idea, I wouldn’t want to spoil it for you.

Speaking of which, if you’re somebody who doesn’t want to know anything about the broadcast before it is actually broadcast, now is the time to stop reading because there are spoilers ahead.

The format of the show has changed completely. The first series, broadcast last year, involved four ideas being presented to Dave Gorman plus special guest. There would be five or so minutes of discussion and the idea would be declared genius or not genius and the person who had pitched it would be revolved off the stage through the relevant door. It was quite a camp idea.

The reason for this is because it was the format transferred directly from the radio show, which had run for three series before making the transition to telly.

But, on the radio, Dave Gorman could introduce the next potential genius and the next person to speak would clearly be the next person to pitch their idea. It didn’t matter where the previous contestant had gone.

This is a system that doesn’t work on television – you have to explain where the potential geniuses have come from and where they have gone. And the revolving platform took far too long.

The solution to this is to put the geniuses in the audience. That way, the people watching at home know where they are, where they have come from and where they have gone once they have pitched their idea.

The first series didn’t demonstrate many ideas – thousands of those sent in were discarded and just thirty or so were kept for the series. So, in order to get more ideas into the show, the producers have done away with the trophy and introduced various rounds – a speed round for one liners, a category round, various guessing games for the guests (there are two of them per show this time around) and more. When it comes down to it, it doesn’t actually matter if the idea is genius or not; it just matters that it’s funny.

So now there is a semi-circle of roughly 80 potential geniuses surround Dave Gorman and his two guests, with the audience further behind them. Three or four of these are equipped with a radio mic and will definitely feature in the show; the rest are invited to speak when they have something relevant to say – be it pitching their own idea or commenting on somebody else’s – with the aid of a boom mic.

And that brings me to my trip. I was asked to travel down to BBC Television Centre in London to the first recording of the new series. The guests were Chris Addison and Mel Giedroyc.

I will feature in that episode quite a bit, but I think it’s very unlikely I’ll actually say anything when it’s broadcast. The reason being that I was sitting in the genius audience directly behind the very first person to pitch his idea. And later I was sitting next to a fella who was picked out in a random sweep.

I did get to pitch my idea in the speed round at the end of the show, but I was featured for no more than three seconds. Chris Addison declared it genius, but I expect it will be cut…

…because I was asked to return to pitch the same idea in a later show in the series, to a more relevant guest.

Ironically, before I was asked back to the show, there was the possibility that my father could have been in the episode more than me. Part of the script demanded that Dave Gorman, on introducing the new format, explained that one section of the audience had no ideas and one section was filled with people who thought they were geniuses… And he asked my dad what his idea was, to which he had to reply: “I haven’t got one.”

Nine days after my original visit to Genius, I was back again and back in the audience. I wasn’t given a radio mic. again, but I was sure I was going to pitch my snooker related idea to one of the guests. That was because she was Hazel Irvine, the host of the BBC’s snooker coverage.

Oddly, they had decided to get Hazel Irvine to introduce the show like it was a sports broadcast and, sitting directly behind her during this introduction, was me – though I could read the autocue over her shoulder, so there’s a fair chance I may look a bit special. I couldn’t decide whether to look at her back while she was presenting or the autocue and, as such, straight down the barrel of the lens, so I did a bit of both.

This time, however, I did get the chance to chat with Hazel Irvine, Russell Howard and Dave Gorman about my idea. After the opening ideas, all from people with first names for surnames, and a video idea that left everybody eating the most disgusting ice lollies I’ve ever seen, there was a category round, beginning with sport.

My hand shot into the air and I was first picked. There was some discussion, my blueprints were shown on the screen and one of them got a fairly decent laugh, and I was, once again, declared genius by both the guests.

I also got another decent laugh and a round of applause for a one liner when I commented on somebody else’s idea. So, fingers crossed, I should be quite involved in the broadcast – which will be doubly delightful because both evenings were terrific fun.

Oh – and, for the second recording, my shirt wasn’t suitable for the broadcast and a lovely lady from the costume department had to get me a replacement. I didn’t say anything at the time, but I recognised her from the DVD extras documentaries on my Red Dwarf collection. The lady who sorted out my shirt worked on one of my favourite ever TV shows.

This next series of Genius will be much better than the previous series. All I have to do now is hope that my bits are deemed funny enough to survive the edit.

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