NUUURSE! Gerald Warner’s out of his bed! Gushing delirious nonsense in Scotland on Sunday he screeched: "Christ has been supplanted by Mammon and every other horned beast… This country has sunk to unprecedented depths of barbarism and degeneracy". ‘Geraldine’ joined William Hague, capitalising on the murder of 10-year-old Peckham boy, Damilola Taylor for the Tory/religionist cause. "When the West Indians first came to this country, they were among the stoutest pillars of the community. While the indigenous population began its long slide into decadence in the Sixties, corrupted by cynicism and permissiveness, the black population remained idealistic, patriotic and law-abiding". But as one kid told Carlos Alba in the Sunday Times Scotland: "People get stabbed in Wishaw every weekend, but it’s got nothing to do with race. It’s religious - Celtic v Rangers. If you want to see violence come down here after the next Old Firm game".
Not just the comical ‘Geraldine’ had an opinion on this one. There was more from one of Scotland’s least talented writers. (You can’t believe the boring drivel and utter SHITE this man spawns)! The Scottish Daily Mail tries to push ex-Record editor Martin Clarke as, "provocative, fearless and straight-to-the-point". He hit out at Peckham MP Harriet Harman for suggesting the discrimination the black minority face in the workplace contributed to Dammy’s murder and scorned: "So there you are, white racism killed Damilola after all". When I attended Dammy’s school, Oliver Goldsmith’s Primary School in Peckham, the media had not yet had a chance to rubbish gay liberation. Wee softies like me who didn’t fight or support Millwall FC were ostracised, chased, beaten and bullied. Along came gay liberation and suddenly everyone had a name for the passive, the sensitive, the intelligent, the soft, the weak or different. Soft-spoken Dammy was a wee softy who didn’t fight. The bullies taunted him for being gay. And still the bigots don’t want homosexuality discussed in the classroom!
‘Geraldine’s’ questionable obsession with homosexuality had him challenging Prime Minister Tony Blair after an equal age of consent had to be forced through the House of Commons after being blocked by an alliance of militant Christians in the House of Lords. "The Great Charlatan, when seeking election, pledged to defend family values. He has done so by using the Parliament Act - unconstitutionally - to force through legislation permitting buggery of 16-year-old boys and girls. This sodomites’ charter was forced onto the statute book on the eve of World Aids Day - the politically correct Masque of the Red Death which impudently celebrates the triumph of perversion, while futilely seeking means of alleviating its unforgiving consequences. The Scottish parliament is to make its own contribution to the conquest of Aids by legalising group sex among men…" His own contribution has been to inform readers condoms don’t offer protection against the HIV virus! He soon turned his rant on MSPs wee Wendy and Susan Deacon. "Wendy Alexander and Susan Deacon - have done more in one year to undermine the family and debauch young people’s morals than a century of suits on green benches. Repeal of Section 28 and the ironically titled ‘Healthy Respect’ campaign among youngsters are milestones in moral decline". NUUUURSE!
Tom Brown. (Readers of the Scottish Media Monitor will be slapping palms on foreheads). Defending his new position as First Minister, Henry McLeish’s speechwriter, Tom ‘Brigadier’ Brown ignored criticisms of his homophobic rant, widely circulated amongst the press and in Parliament, and focused on a criticism that he was taking up a post that might be compromised by his writing for the Daily Record. In his Holyrood column in the New Statesman he bragged of the "compliments" that were showered upon him: "The Sunday Herald described me as having ‘macho, populist, politically incorrect tabloid credentials…’" Then he sniped: "I find that it is mainly those journalists who slant their reports to suit their proprietors’ right-wing politics who most piously purport to be purveyors of the untainted truth, pretending there is no connection between what they write and what their bosses want". He should know! Didn’t see much in the way of criticism of his former boss, Martin Clarke but he was all out for attack now following Clarke's derisory comments in The Scotsman on journalists who work too closely with politicians. "I had to remind myself that this was the same Clarke (ex-Daily Mail) who, although his politics are somewhere to the right of Norman Tebbit, managed to edit the leftish Daily Record for two years, during which time he continued to employ me and happily relied on my Labour contacts". Meeeeow! Criticising Martin Clarke? He'll be denouncing his homophobia next!
But perhaps my efforts have paid off after all? Tom Brown took to writing on the manufactured outrage of Queercompany.com’s lesbian kiss. The ‘Brigadier’ was now sandwiched between a tolerant editor and an art department that jumping at the chance to blow up a nice pic of two lassies locking tongues. But would you be-lieeeve it! He just coughed and spluttered over ‘them’ lesbian’s "mildly titillating pose" before adding, "but there does come a time when you have to let go, let them live their own lives - and not give a damn what the neighbours think". Well! Kiss-me-tits-and-call-me-Phyllis!
Old Mother Burnie in the Daily Record, or ‘Just Joan’ - which I’m sure she will be if carries on at this rate - waved her stick at a young married woman who had fallen for a female friend and wrote asking where she could meet other bisexuals. Hubbie appeared to know all about this, so either they had a working relationship or we have a lady coming to terms with her sexuality. Old Mother Burnie picked Henbane and Belladonna: "You’re not free to go looking for singles, straight, gay or bisexual… And that, by the way, includes your friend. Leave her alone".
An 18-year-old girl who had also fallen "desperately" in love with a female friend got little comfort from Old Mother Burnie: "It’s a pash", she scoffed. "Everyone gets them at some point in their lives. There’s no need to panic about your sexuality or to worry too much. It will pass. I don’t think for a second she reciprocates your feelings. It’s just wishful thinking on your part and for both your sakes, don’t throw yourself at the woman". That’s what happens to naughty children who write to witches!
Old Mother Burnie was not best pleased at "something called Generation W", a teenage advisory forum that want Scotland following the Netherlands example with better sex education and the age of consent lowered to 12. Given the scandals that have enveloped the Catholic Church, the Catholic Church’s reaction was unsurprising. Father Danny McLoughlin, the Catholic Church’s new Sexfinder General, told Ma Burnie: "The majority of their suggestions clearly illustrate the age group to which they belong". Father McLoughlin clearly illustrated where he was coming from too. From her tightly permed, Doris Day world, Old Mother Burnie wrote: "The majority of girls… don’t have their first sexual experience until they are over 16. They choose to wait and despite what Generation W says, keeping the age of consent as it is, gives many of them an excuse to reject the dubious charms of classroom Romeos". It does nothing of the sort.
But someone was having fun in the Daily Record! They dragged in Old Mother Burnie to comment on the decision by a jury in London that Vincent Bethall had not caused a public nuisance by wandering around naked in public. "Is it rude to go nude?" They asked John Thomson of British Naturism. But whose side was he on? Old Mother Burnie grabbed a towel. "…Not in front of me", she squealed. Basting her excuses in fat, she found just one more reason to be ashamed of your body: "Most bodies are bodies unbeautiful, particularly male bodies. For one thing, 30 per cent are currently classed as obese and I would prefer they kept their excess baggage out of sight".
Scotland’s most repetitive columnist, Linda Watson-Brown announced: "I could launch into a soliloquy about patriarchy and exploitation and misogyny again…" Dutifully obliging, she wrote: "After last week’s launch of an anti-pornography campaign in the capital, considerable media interest had been generated". (I must have missed that)! I felt sorry for the poor car salesperson in Arnold Clark that served her when she popped in to test-drive a Citroën. She was apparently informed: "…If I chose to take a test drive in one of their vehicles, I would be rewarded with a gift voucher for the nation’s most visited pornographic outlet…" With my interest in Citroëns renewed, Watson-Brown snapped: "A young man informed me that I didn’t have to spend the £10 voucher on pornography. He also, helpfully, told me that some people like pornography and that he did not think his boss would be interested in my concerns". Neither are we. With a dreary column by Martin Clarke: Anything else The Scotsman can come up with to send it gurgling down the plughole?
The Scotsman’s full-time anti-porn campaigner - who knows sweet Fanny Adams about male sexuality - spent a page saluting "a men’s magazine that made it without resorting to soft porn": Men’s Health. It turned out to be yet another excuse for her to regurgitate the same nonsense we’ve heard so many times before. Watson-Brown blessed Men’s Health for its clean image otherwise stacked with the sort of homoerotic body fascism that has our boyz pulling it off the shelves every month. Strangely, it’s not in Men’s Health but one of the magazines she spends all her time trashing you find women like Linda Watson-Brown. Ever heard of Reader’s Wives?
The Glaswegian never questioned the prudery of a head teacher of Williamwood Secondary School in Clarkston when he joined the "outrage" over "a gigantic advert featuring a nude model… in full sight of pupils…" Yves Saint Laurent’s Opium advertisement features model Sophi Dahl lying on her back "in the buff wearing only her shoes and jewellery". "I want it removed pronto" one parent snarled for The Glasgwegian. This was too good for Linda Watson-Brown to miss and another page of anti-porn rant poured out of the moribund Scotsman. "…Leaning back, legs open at a ridiculous angle". Dahl was a woman "pretending to enjoy her own body… Her spread-eagled, created pose says more about the sad dupes we are believed to be by the advertising industry… Opiate of the people - pornography is the new religion". The complaints received by the Advertising Standards Authority over this ad fell far short of those received over Books Online’s ad of a naked couple sitting reading a book. Their message? Sex is good, but reading’s better!
The Scotsman’s editorial appeared worried that the sale of emergency contraception (ECP) might become a demand-based provision for those below the age of consent. (At £20 a bash? I don’t think so)! They warned that the BMA "must be prepared for a backlash", adding: "We cannot agree with the suggestion made by the gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, of Outrage, that the age of consent should be lowered for both sexes to 14…" Peter has made perfectly clear his concern for the criminalisation of young people under 16 and remains one of the few human rights campaigners not to sell out to populism. He has emphasised the need for sex assertiveness training in schools and a Swiss-style age parameter that would prevent an older person taking advantage of a much younger person to accompany an age of consent at 14. The Scotsman’s editorial, of course, missed all that.
The Daily Mail’s dogs barked at the heels of the Daily Express in their editorial. "The Mail Group recently sought to buy the Express titles, believing that we had the resources and professionalism to restore them to their former glory thus contributing to the diversity of the British newspaper market". What? Another sexually repressed Christian militant paper? Call that diverse? Were they taking the piss? The Mail explained: "…Newspapers are different. They are part of the fabric of our society, with an immense influence for good or ill. The values they promote do matter". Women were cynically trawled in to promote the Mail’s twisted values. Bel Mooney celebrated WH Smith’s decision not to stock sexy mags and the speed by which Richard Desmond secured the Express: "…As simple as a potential molester selecting one of Mr Desmond’s magazines from the top shelf that seems to be spreading through our newsagents like a disease". The poor love was lost for words. "The difficulty in writing about them here is the lack of decent words to describe the content…" But she tried, bless her! "One photo-set displays an extremely fat, rather plain, sad-looking black woman, over 50, with a white toyboy. Pale, weedy, embarrassed, he looks about 19 and his nakedness is, if anything, more humiliating than hers. The ugly vaguely racist pictures degrade both participants and it is hard to imagine who would find them sexy". Not her, that’s for sure! Leafing through one of Richard Desmond's sexy mags she found an 80-year-old woman : "Someone’s grandmother, I thought - someone who should be treated with respect". And she isn’t? "One or two of the readers’ wives look as if they might be enjoying themselves, but maybe that’s because it hasn’t occurred to them to ask why the men they live with want to spread them across glossy pages for other men to masturbate over. Was this part of the deal when they made their vows, or at least decided to move in. Normal women are shy when they have to see the gynaecologist. Yet these women look normal…" And that was what this was all about. How her idea of 'normality' had just been violated. I want a liberal newspaper in Scotland. When I see it: I will support it. As the publisher of Northern & Shell, Richard Desmond promised me in a recent letter: ‘Watch this space’! I'm watching Richard!
The Scottish Sun took a sudden and unexpected liberal turn when "BLOKES at a TOOL firm… stripped off for a sexy calendar…" They may have "revealed their hardware" for the Scottish Sun photographer, but for readers, the "saucy" lads at Tower Tools and Equipment had to have their "tools" covered by a trolley-load of hardware from B&Q.
The Sunday Mail thinks that for including a picture of a young woman holding up an unrolled condom in a handbook, the Guides Association is "under fire". Famous for their incessant moralising, we already know by whom. Mrs Ann Allen of the Kirk’s ridiculous Board of Social Responsibility told the Sunday Mail that Girl Guides needed "a moral map, not how to use a condom". The Catholic Church issued a warning to parents over the manual and booked an appointment to meet the Guide Association. Scotland’s new ‘Sexfinder General’, Father Danny McLaughlin bemoaned "the diminishing role of religion in the Guides". Religionist leaders in the Guides joined together round the camp fire. Penny Thomson wailed: "The word marriage is nowhere to be found. Nor can I find the word wife. It seems young women the Guides will become partners". Even marriage-mad ex-Record editor Martin Clarke joined in, bemoaning in The Scotsman the absence of marriage in the manual. Sunday Mail reporter Lynn McPherson found a Guide with a nose-ring on the front cover and groups encouraged to invite family planning clinics to meetings "to talk about relationships, discuss prostitution and ask MPs why single-sex marriages are illegal". Her report was accompanied by a saluting Guide in uniform with the caption: "Innocent: The traditional image of Guides". Oh bollocks! What tradition? Jolly hockey-stick days when sweet gals goose-stepped to brass-bands, made jam and kept ponies? And what about the crush on the gym mistress, rubbing yourself off with your best friend after lights out and sucking a Scout’s cock behind the bike sheds? Get real! It happened! With Scotland’s teenage pregnancy rate seven times higher than the Netherlands, the Sunday Mail should have been defending the Guides, not dancing to the tune of a Church press release. Oh dear, is Scotland ever going find its way in the 21st century? Editor, Alan Rennie is a failure. He should get out now!
Talking of editors, Margot Wilson is the new editor of Scotland on Sunday, home of ‘Geraldine’ and Fatima Katie Grant. She launched the Sunday Times Scotland supplement, Funday Times so she will already have had some experience with comics. Frankly, she wouldn’t have to work very hard to be an improvement on former editor John McGurk or The Scotsman’s Rebecca Hardy, both of whom have since been promoted. I wish Margot well and look forward to a more dynamic and liberal Sunday paper. Make my dream come true Margot!
Martin Clarke was back from the dead in his column in The Scotsman reflecting on the past year: "Wendy Alexander was promoted to Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong learning. She didn’t get married. There was a wee stushie about something called Section 28 which the government replaced with guidelines on sex education. They don’t mention marriage". (Please, won’t someone do the decent thing)? The whole affair was a tragic spectacle. The death rattle of a Church estranged from public opinion and trumpeted by its lackey, the Scottish Daily Mail to a largely dismissive audience. The tabloid squealed from the front page: "CHURCHS’ ANGER AS MINISTERS ‘IGNORE’ MARRIAGE". The Executive’s refusal to give in to Church militants by not giving ‘marriage’ special priority in new sex education guidelines was met with the rattling of tambourines and several days of copy faithfully delivered by homophobic Hamish, their Scottish Political Reporter. "Unacceptable… (Catholic Church). Inadequate… (The Kirk). Section 28 continues to haunt the Scottish Executive… (it is) at odds with public opinion… (the Scottish Executive) should be wary - public tolerance is wearing thin… (the Executive) ratted on its commitment to religious groups…(Scottish Daily Mail editorial). "It is not going to pay any heed to such significant voices as the Catholic Church and the Church of Scotland…" (An unnamed spokesman for the Catholic Church). A hand bagged Ann Allen waved "a survey" apparently finding 92 per cent of young people seeing marriage as their ultimate goal. So, of course, the Executive was ‘flying in the face’ of what young people wanted. Tory leader Brian Monteith demanded Jack O’Connell - widely regarded as having supported the mention of marriage in guidelines - to explain himself. Juxtaposed with a piece on why Mustique’s flamboyant Colin Tennant never married Princess Margaret, the editorial asked: "What is wrong with our devolved government that it cannot bring itself to give marriage anything approaching parity with ‘alternative’ lifestyles?" Good job we are all blessed with enough brain cells to bypass the Scottish Daily Mail and make up our own minds! Christian militants were niggled and the Mail did a ‘Geraldine’: "Why is marriage effectively outlawed? Do majorities no longer have any rights?" Without the Daily Record led by the prattish Martin Clarke, the militants were all quietly pissing up a brick wall.
No one should be surprised... Erstwhile homophobic editor of the Scottish Daily Mail Ramsay Smith who did his level best to stir up as much shit as it could during the Section 28 war has moved to Jack Irvine’s Media House as a political consultant.
The Scottish School Boards' Association now has Alan Smith as its president and Ann Hill as chief executive. They both played key roles in the homophobic campaign to prevent proper sex education in schools and weren't slow to jump on the militant bandwagon. Pouncing on the Executive's consultation document, the Guide for Parents and Carers, Smith told The Scotsman: "The promotion of homosexuality is still a fear amongst parents..." A statement from the SSBA had their fingerprints all over it. "It was considered that there was not enough reference to marriage withing the leaflet". They won't give up, will they?
Oh dear! I thought the Sunday Herald was above collecting Church opinion without balancing it with a liberal point of view. Neil Mackay’s report on Temptation Island, a Big Brother type programme where four couples a marooned on an island with 26 drop-dead gorgeous tempters fell down some familiar holes. A "study in adultery… two-week odyssey into sin… Suffice to say it’s pretty tacky". Just like the average wedding video, Neil! He went about collecting outrage like a trained Daily Mail journalist. Mrs Ann Allen called it: "Disney-in-negative - it is lacking in any appeal". Father Danny McLoughlin reckoned: "‘Temptations’ should be avoided". Even the Free Church dropped their two-penn’th worth into the collection box! "This type of morality sounds as if it was inspired by the Scottish Executive", fumed Rev David Meredith.
The religionists were still there for the Sunday Herald's next report on Glasgow city’s Lord Provost, Alex Mosson’s outrage that led to officers raiding Tower Records to relieve them of allegedly blasphemous Cradle of Filth t-shirts depicting a topless ‘nun’ straddled over the words, ‘vestal masturbation’ and on the back, in six-inch letters: ‘Jesus is a ****’. Where was the Lord Provost when Brian Souter plastered homophobic religionist-inspired Keep the Clause posters across the city? Whether he's a cunt or not is a matter of debate! Mrs Allen was "horrified that anyone would want to wear blasphemous material like this". Order me a dozen, will you?
For the Scottish Sun to select letters on the subject of HIV positive nurses working at hospitals was disturbing. We do all know how HIV is transmitted, don't we? "Now that this is out I wonder how many more infected nurses there are around the country. I would not wish for either me or my family to be treated by them..." M Henry, Greenock. "NHS chiefs in Wolverhampton have sunk lower than the Titanic..." D Watson, Alford, Aberdeenshire. "Surely patients deserve better..." Peter Harris, Redding, Falkirk. "I was horrified to read that the NHS are allowing student nurses with HIV to continue their training. Although I do think that HIV carriers should be given job opportunities... It seems HIV is being welcomed with open arms". K Millen, Brechin. "People who are HIV positive should be banned from the medical profession. I'm honest enough to admit that I would not want myself or my children to be treated by someone with the virus". Jenny Thomson, Sighthill, Glasgow. "It's spine chilling..." J Dunne, Hamiltion. The English contributions were no better with only one woman, Diane Mitchell, Aberdeenshire representing the voice of reason and compassion.
Delicious news appeared in the shape of another plunge in Stagecoach’s profits when Brian Souter’s rail subsidiaries lost £2million. Revenues were down a third and Coach USA was hit by driver shortages. Stagecoach has already had to sell Porterbrook rail leasing and Swebus, its Swedish bus operations.
Conservative Justice spokesman Phil Gallie said in The Scotsman: "The liberalisation in Scotland is just moving too quickly". For him!
Wife of Herald editor Mark, Colette Douglas Home wrote in the Scottish Daily Mail: "What about reminding young women that the fashion industry that dictates their body size is run by gay men…"
Snivelling like a baby over the repeal of Section 28 in his Scottish Daily Mail column, Christian crusader, Martin Clarke recalled: "Never has an elected body done less to deserve the title of government than this one. …A year of self-indulgent inactivity under Donald Dewar, punctuated only by the vanity of his Section 28 crusade".
garryotton@scottishmediamonitor.com
A new book by Garry Otton is under preparation.
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© Garry Otton 2001
