Events | 2009.12.12
Hugh Muir's diary
Time for another assault on Gately. No point having boots if you can\'t stick them in
• Like a high-street brawler, dragged from the melee but unable to resist delivering one last sharp kick, the Daily Mail returns to the Stephen Gately issue. You will recall that prior to his funeral, the Mail triggered a flood of complaints and a PCC investigation with a Jan Moir column initially headlined "Why there was nothing \'natural\' about Stephen Gately\'s death". Now Moir\'s colleague Stephen Glover, urbane and yet so handy with the knuckleduster, intervenes. "Her timing may have been insensitive and her tone may have jarred. But in the light of the new revelations, it\'s hard to find fault with what Jan Moir wrote about Stephen Gately\'s sad death," is the headline . It is lengthy enough for you to get the gist. The new revelations, for those who missed them, amount to claims that Gately\'s partner and a man picked up from a nightclub were together in the bedroom while, unknown to them, Gately was dead or dying in an adjoining room. "I suspect that the avalanche of complaints, and most of the abuse directed at Jan, came from a small but vocal minority, some of whom had probably not even read her original article," Glover says. But many, of course, had read it very closely, and whatever the events that night, wondered how the actions of three people could be used to pass judgment on the lives of thousands of others. "Another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships," the Moir article concluded. How so? Glover doesn\'t say. But there were 33,000 of them last year. Some are happy. Others not. That\'s life.
• First it was the theatre critics. Then the crime writers. Now the beer experts are squaring up for some argy-bargy. What\'s wrong with everybody? It starts with the beer writer Roger Protz who, writing in the blog section of his website beer-pages.com , had the temerity to criticise the Scottish brewers at BrewDog , who have launched the world\'s strongest beer at 32% alcohol. "It\'s not even beer at that strength," he said, accusing the BrewDog crew of being mad self-publicists. Then the barrel broke. The blog was inundated with cries of anger from hop heads queueing up to get the beer. "Twaddle" was the least offensive epithet hurled at Protz; he was also called "scum", and a third contributor said he was a commie. The publisher of the website, Tom Cannavan, had to appeal for civility. What they would be like after actually drinking the new uber-beer is anyone\'s guess.
• A bit like Nick Griffin explaining the BNP\'s housing policy, probably. Some time he\'s having, elected an MEP, off to Copenhagen representing the UK. And according to Cambridge student organ the Tab, he\'s also topped the poll for the worst person ever to attend the university. Another day, another first.
• A pretty exact science is direct marketing. But things go wrong, and so it was that the hopeful bods at Life Line Screening, the UK arm of a US medical firm, sent an offer of their controversial services to our friend Pat Arrowsmith , the 79-year-old troublemaker and peace activist. "I was furious," she says. "I rang the number and told the man on the other end that I am a lifelong socialist and I don\'t approve of these private firms undermining our wonderful NHS. He tried to defend it, but I was so angry that he couldn\'t get a word in edgeways. If I say so myself, he got a bit of a bollocking." And this proves that Pat is as she ever was. So as a health test of sorts, it was actually quite useful.
• Finally, to the Victoria and Albert for the opening of their new medieval and renaissance galleries. Kensington society is out in force. And, from an Italian balcony straight out of Romeo and Juliet, congratulations to the V&A from culture secretary Ben Bradshaw (pictured). This is probably the first time I have made a speech from a renaissance balcony, he says. "And probably the last." At least he didn\'t drink from a vial. There\'s still hope and time.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/[...]ugh-muirs-diary-stephen-glover
