Wanker of the Week

 

Bigot extraordinaire

Very occasionally, once in a blue moon in fact, you come across an article of such breathtaking pig ignorance that you have to read it twice in order to check that you didn't imagine what was written, that someone had in fact committed their indescribably appalling opinions to paper for all the world to see and laugh at. And it is for precisely such an article that I nominate Jan Moir of the Daily Mail for the award of Wanker of the Week. The article is truly outstanding, in a car crash sort of way, it's like swimming in a sea of bigotry with little sharks of Victorian foolishness biting at your toes while the Seagull of Prudery flaps along overhead.

This week Stephen Gately, a member of the boyband 'Boyzone' was found dead on the sofa of his holiday apartment in Mallorca and Jan Moir has rather unwisely decided to add her twopenneth worth of opinion on his demise in an article here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1220756/A-strange-lonely-troubling-death–.html . So, what does Ms Moir have to say?

"Robbie, Amy, Kate, Whitney, Britney: We all know who they are. And we are not being ghoulish to anticipate, or to be mentally braced for, their bad end: a long night, a mysterious stranger, an odd set of circumstances that herald a sudden death"  – No Jan, indeed I'm sure everyone would agree that it is not ghoulish at all to spend your time working out which celebrities you think are going to meet an untimely end and it's perfectly normal, once you've worked out your prime suspects, to then spend further minutes pondering what the actual causes of death may be. In fact why don't you add to the fun by popping into Ladbrokes and having a little punt on your guesses. Imagine the excitement you could have on the announcement of the death of Britney Spears, waiting for the coroner to announce whether she did indeed choke on her own vomit after a night on the sauce. Sicko.

"All the official reports point to a natural death with no suspicious circumstances. The Gately family are – perhaps understandably – keen to register their boy's demise on the national consciousness as nothing more than a tragic accident" – Or perhaps, Ms Moir, they have taken the word of the coroner who has seen the autopsy reports. I suspect that their reluctance to start shouting about foul play has less connection to their desire to manipulate the press and more to do with the fact that there is not one tiny shred of evidence to suggest it was anything other than a natural death. And is it not just the tiniest bit disrespectful to a grieving family to suggest that they are more concerned with the attitude of the press than finding the truth about the death of their relative? And are you an expert on forensic analysis? Because if not I am struggling to work out why you think you know better than the coroner.

"But, hang on a minute. Something is terribly wrong with the way this incident has been shaped and spun into nothing more than an unfortunate mishap on a holiday weekend, like a broken teacup in a rented cottage…..Healthy and fit 33 year old men do not just climb into their pyjamas and go to sleep  on the sofa, never to wake up again" Mishap? MISHAP? Woman, are you completely batshit mad? The one and only person in the press to have referred to this tragic death as a 'mishap' is you. you're on your own on this one. No one else has trivialised it to the level of a 'broken teacup'. you insensitive bitch. He might have been a celebrity but everyone else on the planet seems to have realised that he was also a person, a nice person at that, and that his death was a tragedy, not just for him but for his family and friends, who all seem genuinely grief stricken. And you're wrong, very wrong, over a hundred 'fit and healthy young men' a year go to sleep and don't wake up, thanks to undiagnosed heart conditions. 5 minutes research taught me that, had you bothered to look, it could have taught you the same.

"Whatever the cause of death is, it is not, by any yardstick, a natural one. Let us be absolutely clear about this. All that has been established so far is that Stephen Gately was not murdered".  – Jan, at the time this article went to press, what had actually been established and released to the media was that the autopsy results revealed Stephen Gately died of pulmonary oedema, the death was entirely natural and had not been caused by either alcohol or drugs. Still, nice try eh?

"and I think if we're going to be honest, we would have to admit that the circumstances surrounding his death are more than a little sleazy. After a night of clubbing, Cowles and Gately took a young Bulgarian man back to their apartment. It is not disrespectful to assume that a game of Canasta with 25 year old Georgi Dochev was not on the cards" – Well actually Jan, once again you've been slapped soundly round the chops by the Haddock of Incorrectness, it is breathtakingly disrespectful to assume that. You have no idea at all why he was going back there and you never will have. Perhaps Dochev's apartment was over the other side of the town and they offered him a place to kip to save him a taxi fare. Perhaps the party continued at their flat. Maybe he was going to paint a life size mural of the two men. Perhaps he's a plumber and the shower was leaking. Who knows? If we are going to be honest, as you seem to be requesting, then try this for size: the truth is that you're a revolting bigot who has assumed that because this is a young gay couple, they took a guy back to the apartment to bugger him senseless until the sun came up, which says a whole lot more about you than it does about them. And if they did go back for sex (which there is no evidence of) so what? Are you saying that his death is somehow his own fault or unnatural because he might have been engaging in a sexual act that you don't approve of? What consenting adults get up to in their own rooms is their own affair and your Victorian prudery is your problem, not something that should be projected onto Gately or anyone else. Let me put this very, very simply – a threesome does not cause pulmonary oedema. If it did then porn studios would be knee deep in corpses and Ayia Napa would have to increase the size of its forensic pathology department tenfold.   

"His mother is still insisting that her son died from a previously undetected heart condition that has plagued the family" – Not unreasonably, as this assertion is backed up by the medical evidence. What do you suggest the cause of death is then Jan? And do you not think it's just the teensiest bit tactless to be calling Gately's grieving mother a liar in the national press? Probably not, since you appear to have a hide thicker than a baked rhino.

"Another real sadness about Gately's death is that it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships" – Eh? Now you've stumped me. Are you suggesting that civil partnerships can't be happy? That they are destined to end with one half dying in his sleep as fluid slowly fills his lungs? Because if so, may I politely suggest that the Daily Mail get their occupational health specialist in to assess you, as I think you may be entirely insane. If that's not what you mean then that means you are using the sad death of a young man to try and score cheap points against gay partnerships and that would make you a pathetic bigot. So which is it, lunatic or narrow minded village idiot?

"Gay activists are always calling for tolerance and understanding about same sex relationships, arguing that they are just the same as heterosexual marriages. Of course in many cases this may be true yet….the dubious events of Gately's last night raise troubling questions about what happened". – Ah, glad we cleared that one up, you're a narrow minded bigot. For a moment there I was concerned for the safety and welfare of those around you but now I know you're just a pig ignorant fool who has escaped from the 19th century I think we can assume that you're not going to go and bite the ears off the post boy or anything.

"For once again, under the carapace of glittering, hedonistic celebrity, the ooze of a very different and more dangerous lifestyle has seeped out for all to see" – Full marks there for managing to draw a conclusion that actually has no relevance at all to the event mentioned. If going on holiday and then falling asleep on your sofa while 2 other people are in your apartment, one of whom is your long term partner, is showing 'the ooze of a different and dangerous lifestyle' then I'm clearly far more rock and roll than I suspected.

Mark Twain once asked the question "Is it better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt?" and I think in the case of uber-prat Jan Moir, the answer is a resounding yes. In one article she has managed to prove herself to be a gossiping bigot, grossly insult the grieving family of Stephen Gately, insinuate he somehow died of unnatural causes despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, cast despicable aspertions on the relationship between Mr Gately and his civil partner and to draw a conclusion that doesn't have anything to do with the Boyzone singer's death. For this, I award Jan Moir the prestigious title of 'Wanker of the Week'. We'll be requesting that she doesn't make an acceptance speech…. 

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