Daily Fail

The Daily Mail is a curious creature, both respected and depised depending on the readers knowledge of both politics and journalism. The majority of those who read it seem to be ignorant of the bigoted message that often underlies it's stories (or at least, that's what I'd hope), however sometimes those who participate in it's 'journalism' sometimes find their acerbic views too much to contain.

This seems to be true in the case of Jan Moir, who today wrote a column that seems to assume Stephen Gately couldn't possibly have died from natural causes. He was one of those gay people, you see.

It can't be the case that his death was natural because "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." Well, actually Jan, they do. About 500 people a die from Sudden Adult Death Syndrome (SADS) every year, and their average age is - shock - 32.

The basis of Ms Moir's assumptions (because, frankly, that's the politest thing to call them) seems to be that while not all homosexuals are "like George Michael", the rest of them are. So the young couple couldn't possibly have invited a friend back to their house for a post clubbing cup of tea or similar. It must have been because they wanted to engage in something altogether seedier, something sexually depraved probably involving illegal substances.

The fact of the matter is that Stephen Gateley died from fluid in his lungs, something that affects people who are straight, gay, transgender or bisexual. Whatever killed him was not discriminative, and neither should we be.

It is worrying when even the Daily Mail believes something to be too bigoted - the website headline has now changed to "A strange, lonely and troubling death". It certainly seems to describe Ms Moir's career. Bu- bye.

I'd like to share with you my favourite ever Daily Mail quote. I loved it so much I tore out the article and pinned it up on my notice board: "Government whip Sadiq Khan urges fellow Muslims to abandon their victim mentality and 'step up to the plate'. The Americanism - derived from U.S. baseball - doesn't really work here. The plate Muslims step up to here usually contains chicken tikka biryani."

Brilliant.