June 2005
Garry Otton and Where The Sun Never Shines
Version: Full article

22 April – 21 May 2005

 

            Scottish Media Monitor

 

It’s hot! Wank fodder. I’m watching lads, hugging, kissing, rolling around together; their muscular legs all-akimbo on my plasma. Mmm… Sky Sports! Shame about the fans though, knocking back the lager; farting into their vinyl sofas. It’s a bit like killing crabs with Clearasil, but the Scottish Executive want to wipe out sectarianism in Scottish football. Come on! Drunken, foul-mouthed, knuckle-scraping, Buckie-drunk, football yobs pouring over Scottish Executive circulars on courtly behaviour at football matches? I don’t think so. A whole host of problems bubble to the surface in the same Petri dish, amongst them, drinking, drugs, violence, sexism, litter, and, dare one say it? Homophobia. Remember ‘out’ gay professional footballer, Justin Fashanu who was publicly referred to as “the bloody poof” by his manager? The Scottish Sun obviously finds homophobia in football very funny. “Training camp” featured a couple of cute Killie boys strolling across the pitch holding hands. SunSport was disgusted from Kinning Park. “First Aberdeen’s Noel Whelan and Russell Anderson are caught in a passionate clinch… now this!” Under a pic of Noel and Russ, tongue-jousting, they quipped: “Who’s a pretty Boyd, then…! Kilmarnock comics Kris Boyd and Freddie Dindeleux make a lovely pair as they stroll hand-in-hand”. Apart from chatting about French chanteuse, Mylene Farmer, I never got the impression my old neighbour, Fred ever kicked for the other side, but who knows? The Sun summoned former Celtic manager “Billy McNeill’s manly verdict” on “one forgettable image that left a football nation shocked”, while The Sun’s Iain King dismissed it as “an isolated moment of madness in the macho world of SPL football”. The Scottish Sun’s “eagle-eyed snapper went to spy on Kilmarnock… at another training CAMP, this time Freddie Dindeleux was gazing at Kris Boyd as they held hands and pranced around the pitch”. Billy McNeill admitted: “Dressing-rooms are vicious environments yet I think in this case Dindeleux and big Boyd have been caught out in a training routine to be fair to them. However, that is not going to stop them being annihilated at Rugby Park this morning when they see this! Sunsport’s picture will be pinned up in the dressing-room – with every caption you can think of beside it”. Summing-up his “manly verdict”, Billy McNeill recalled a better example of footballer’s behaviour to capture: “Dave got fed-up with Billy kicking him and got a fistful of jersey and was ready to thump him – now that’s a true football picture for me!” The Scottish Sun’s Iain King concluded: “So there you have it, conclusive proof from the nation’s most famous captain that this sort of conduct just won’t do. Listen to a legend, listen to a player who grew up when being a man’s man meant something else entirely”. I’m holding up my pink card to you Iain. See, I can be funny too!

 

“CON-DOMS” was a chance for Scottish Sun reporter Kevin Lowry to stoke “fury at Scots prison’s freebies for gay sex”. The only “fury” I want to see should be aimed at those who do nothing to protect the lovers and partners of people who may have participated in risky behaviour in prison. This was a story about The Scottish Sun placing its twisted morality before reality. “Fury erupted last night over plans to dish out free CONDOMS to prisoners. Lags will be given them on request in a bid to encourage safe gay sex behind bars”. It’s a cheap trick, but the media effortlessly orchestrate ‘fury’ from a small gaggle of Scottish religionists and right-wing politicians. In this case, Tory Bill Aitken made the extraordinary assertion that: “The way things are going, quite a section of the population will be queuing up to get into Greenock jail”. An insider told The Sun: “This is just saying to cons. ‘Come in and have a good time’. Most of the cons are off their heads on drugs in here, so these condoms are seen by guards as one last little freebie for them to round off their fun…” The Sun brushed aside qualified advice to insist: “…Politicians across the spectrum claimed Scotland did not need the programme”. They found three. The Sun’s editorial shrieked: “…Handouts of free condoms so prisoners can have safe gay sex? Now that really is a holiday camp option”. This was “liberalism gone mad”. Of course it wasn’t. Nor was it “camp” or an “option”. The Scottish Sun is anything but liberal, but is definitely mad and sometimes camp. But thankfully, reading it will always be an option.

 

Tiresome Tory/Catholic propagandist, Mrs Katie Grant boiled the kettle and rolled up her sleeves to deal with Dundee’s problem of teenage pregnancy in The Sunday Times Scotland: “Nobody shouts at a pregnant 13-year-old. Nobody wants to overload her with homework. She will elicit sympathy rather than condemnation and may even get out of carrying her schoolbag if she complains that it gives her ‘pains’. Being pregnant, so other girls will be reminded every day, makes your life much easier”. Full of answers she decided: “In the UK teenage pregnancy is not frowned upon and is financially rewarded with the taxpayer forking out millions to pay for the young mothers and their offspring, in the form of income support, housing benefit, education and employment training and access to childcare”. So if it’s all about money, what is she doing opening her purse to suggest: “It may be expensive housing pregnant teenagers away from the mainstream and it may not be politically correct. But… it is mad to believe that there is even an option”. Let’s have Catholic orphanages for ‘fallen girls’, eh, Mrs Grant? She used this as an opportunity to trash the Dutch and their splendid ability to reduce teenage pregnancy with a quick plug for Joost van Loon’s book, Deconstructing the Dutch Utopia. This sociologist tried to suggest that the Dutch don’t start sex education at a younger age and neither is it more explicit than British sex education. In a nutshell, he suggests the family unit and lack of state support is responsible for the Netherlands’s success. Oh, and Mrs Grant forgot to mention the publishers of the book: The Family Education Trust. How remiss! Would that be Valerie Riches’ partisan Family and Youth Concern? Oh, so it is! Be it the teen mags they read; access to erotica or discussion in school, take my word for it, the Dutch do start their education earlier and yes it is more explicit! I have to question the usefulness of Aberdeen University’s ‘research’ into “every family planning clinic in Scotland, along with those of 161 GP practices…” feathering The Scottish Daily Mail’s sensational report by the very opinionated Ian Smith on “girls as young as ten… prescribed the Pill”. The Pill had been prescribed to over a thousand under 16s but only 35 aged 13 and only two “shockingly”, aged 10. Given Scotland’s record of sexual ignorance, am I alone in finding these figures remarkably conservative? Much to the satisfaction of The Scottish Daily Mail, Dr James McLay, the clinical pharmacologist who led the study, was on hand to pin his own political opinions on the findings: “One of the worries that we clearly have is that these girls who are under 13 on the oral contraceptive should be reported to social workers because they are being subjected to rape”. Whilst this might well be true since having sex with a girl under 13 is classified as statutory rape in Scotland since she is not deemed old enough to consent, the doctors would have also acted under a duty to care. The Mail quickly ushered in an “absolutely astounded… Shona Robison, health spokesman (sic) for the Scottish National Party” whose quotes sat alongside the knee-jerking Mail rent-a-gob, Valerie Riches of Family and Youth Concern who gushed: “The law of the age of consent has become an absolute mockery”.

 

“Police storm gallery in row over ‘offensive art’,” was an unusually sympathetic story in The Scottish Daily Mail. You’d better believe it! We’ve had police on the Borders raiding a shop window with half-naked Sindy dolls, now Glasgow’s SellBuyArt gallery in the West End has been raided to remove Glasgow artist Lee Stewart’s partially obscured canvas of a nude woman. Strathclyde Police told The Mail: “The painting was attracting a lot of attention from local children and there had been a couple of complaints made”. What! No pictures of someone getting a good kicking? I understand Glasgow’s Burrell Collection is planning to showcase Titian’s naked Venus Rising from the Sea this summer. Anyone informed the local constabulary?

 

Prudes pop up in all sorts of places. Last month we had The Sunday Mail wandering around a gay sauna, moralising in white towels. This month the prudes were hanging about outside a sauna, twitching the nets from the windows of a nearby hotel and wagging fingers from the city chambers. The problem? The Lane Health Club calls itself a health and fitness club. Wha’? Isn’t sex healthy? Perhaps they’d overlooked the fact that if The Lane had GAY SAUNA slapped all over it, I doubt it would be as nearly as attractive to all those closeted married men who pop in to pull a few muscles during happy hour. Let’s not kid ourselves here, this has nothing to do with what The Lane Health Club chooses to call itself: it’s about prudery, pure and simple. Another Scottish paper draped a towel over its privates and gawped. The Herald reported “they also claim the sauna operations are a blight on Glasgow City Council’s strategy to attract new business to its international services district”. Baws! Any internationals business centre worth its salt – think of Frankfurt – needs the sex industry. The Herald’s chief reporter, Iain Wilson, sniffed: “…But the premises consists mainly of 11 cubicles, each with vinyl-covered couch and televisions, said to be for ‘relaxation’ and watching videos. There is also a sauna, changing room, and TV lounge”. Vinyl is easier to wipe. How long have you been a reporter, Iain? Radisson SAS hotel wanted to complain that the premises were not being used for the purpose it was registered. Filled with concern, Philip Mahoney, the hotel general manager told The Herald: “One needs to make sure, without saying neighbours have to be nice, that business operations are as stated. If open, fine. I do not make a moral judgment. It’s the secretive nature that concerns me…” Well they were there first, so you know what you can do with your over-priced hostelry, don’t you, Phil? Alex Mosson, former Glasgow lord provost and ward councillor and chairman of Greater Glasgow and Clyde Valley Tourist Board chose to tell The Herald “of numerous complaints from firms in the area”. (Who are they? And what about the local firms who have no problems with the sauna)? The council ordered a site visit to be carried out. Perhaps they should invite the sauna-loving Sunday Mail, they’re only round the corner!

 

An “ordeal in bed” The Daily Record described it, a “lesbian’s 30-minute sex attack on friend”. Apparently, “the shocked victim lay still throughout the assault because she didn’t know what to do”. Excuse me? She knew so little about it, in fact, that the “victim” went and told a pal all about it saying she hadn’t been comfortable with what had happened before reporting it to the police. Michelle McComb, 22, from Hawick in Roxburghshire, has now been added to Michael Howard’s infamous Sex Offenders Register. Michelle normally slept on the couch when she stopped round her pal’s, but on this occasion, she went upstairs and joined “the victim” in bed. Michelle has learning difficulties and didn’t understand the concept of consent but conceded in court that her pal couldn’t have consented if she was asleep, an important point when considering the legal definition of rape. It is bad enough, with such appalling levels of guilt and shame attached to homosexual expression, that sex takes place in drunken stupors, but there are other ‘excuses’ that allow participants to emerge guilt-free from media-denigrated sexual encounters. One of these is simply to deny you ever gave permission in the first place. In a culture of sexual ‘victims’, have we completely lost our ability to negotiate sex? Drop the charges against Michelle McComb and get her off the Sex Offenders Register at once!

 

Reporting adverts banned by the Advertising Standards Authorities, The Herald explained. “These included an Armani Junior advert which the ASA ruled sexualised a child and a promotion by Ryanair which promoted ‘Fawking Great Offers’ close to Guy Fawkes Night. The watchdog ruled the Dublin-based airline’s advert was offensive because the word ‘Fawking’ was too close to ‘f******’.”  In The Daily Record, they reported: “A boss who branded a worker ‘all t**ts and no brain’ has been ordered to pay her more than £40,000”. Good heavens, what are ‘toots’? Fortunately, ScotsGay doesn’t act the timorous beastie over a few choice words and our editor permits people to use the language they are comfortable with. It’s a pity the rest of the Scottish media wasn’t as inclusive. My colleague, Tivoli, who edits the Aberdeen section in ScotsGay, recently came up against a pathetic piece of censorship with a throwaway comment that Aberdeen Pride (on Saturday, 4 June in Duthie Park) appeared to be “coming at you faster than a pope’s election…” Aberdeen-G-Zone, an msn group edited by a not terribly bright spark called ‘Andi’, thought Tiv was insulting, stamping the old trainers to insist: “I’m not going to argue or debate about it” and censored the offending passage. The Caths are touchy! BBC Scotland’s Off The Ball, presenters Tam Cowan and Stuart Cosgrove had asked listeners what they recommended throwing at failed club managers. E-mail was read out suggesting former Celtic boss Tommy Burns ought to be pelted with communion wafers. The Catholic Church came down on them like a ton of bricks. The Scottish Daily Mail reported: “The pair were yesterday spared an official reprimand after broadcasting watchdog Ofcom ruled that the BBC had ‘addressed the matter’.” Catholic activist Peter Kearney, director of the Catholic Media Office threatened to appeal. Of course, if it were homophobia we were complaining about, the religionist-sodden Scottish media would be up in arms over ‘political correctness gone mad’. The last time I was on radio I was given a stern warning about on-air use of the words ‘wank fodder’. I was probably referring to The Scottish Sun and the likes of “Katie, 19, from Liverpool”, who was, this month, showing off her perky wee pink ‘uns in a garden centre. Real Radio has not asked me back. Well, their music is pants anyway! Where do you go for good radio in Scotland? Certainly not BBC Radio Scotland, that’s for sure! That’s so far up it’s own arse, stick a brush on the end and they could clean their own teeth! The Scottish pop stations are banal. The latest addition is Saga, a station for the brain-dead over-fifties. Oh, please! Get broadband and tune-in on the Internet. One of my favourites is the Netherland’s Radio 538 www.radio538.nl, click on ‘luister live’) for non-stop pop. The other Sunday they were joking about fucking horses and they won’t bleep or cut out the ‘fuck’ word from pop songs either. If you prefer easy listening and want something nice playing in the background whilst sliding naked across the vinyl, stick on Sky Radio www.skyradio.nl, (click on luister (listen to) Sky Radio). If you like Spain, the new place to be, XtraFM www.xtra.fm is good. (Click on the wee face with the headphones then Windows Media Player). Non-stop pure Spanish hits can be found on Los 40 Principales www.los40.com. (Click on ‘player’ to play or choose from another three stations, M80 (top 40); Maxima (dance); and Dial (Spanish). If you enjoy gay icons like the French Canadians Mylene Farmer or Celine Dion, choose Cherie FM, www.cheriefm.fr, (click on ‘ecoutez’ at the top). For German gay icons like Marianne Rosenberg (‘Marlene’) or Vicky Leandros (‘Aprés Toi’, 1972 Edinburgh Eurovision winner), try Antenne 1 www.antenne1.de. For eighties remixes, spoil yourself with Italy’s Megamix FM www.megamix.fm. Or do a Euro search in Virtual Tuner and pick a favourite. How about Radio Cluj www.radiocluj.ro, a Romanian station that is bound to feature the gorgeous O-Zone that took the Euro clubs by storm last summer with ‘Dragostea Din Teï’. (“Ma-i-a hi, ma-i-a hu, ma-i-a ho, ma-i-a ha-ha…, for the initiated)”. If you really must have a British station, try Gaydar www.gaydarradio.com or Pete Waterman’s station, PWL www.pwlradio.com.

 

E-mail: garry@scottishmediamonitor.com

 

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CUT IT OUT…

 

Reporter Kevin Schofield in The Scotsman: “Those on the liberal wing of the Catholic Church have expressed their reservations at the choice of new Pope, pointing out his conservative stance on issues such as homosexuality and contraception. But in a clear attempt to reach out to all of the world’s 1.1 billion Catholics, Pope Benedict said he planned to be guided by God in his new role”. Oh, that’s alright then!

 

Mrs Grant in The Scotsman: “The Catholic Church is not a political party, even if it suits idle commentators to describe it as such”. So what is it then?

 

Mrs Grant in The Scotsman: “Many Conservatives are now on their knees. They have not collapsed from exhaustion. Nor are they mourning the election result. They are on their knees because they are praying hard that the forthcoming leadership contest will not send them right back down the snake, when every step up the ladder has been so painfully won”.  Go To Jail, bitch! Do not pass Go and stay there!

 

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Mark Morford: “And someone should really do a national, once-and-for-all study to back up what everyone already knows – which is, of course, that the more repressed and sanctimonious and uptight you are about sex and love and gender and religion, the more likely you are to be involved in secret kink, in deep perversion, illegal perversion, perversion that crosses the line from healthy and slippery and delicious to degrading and morally reprehensible… Just ask… the Catholic Church”.