The Old Hack

I don’t want this blog to turn into an antidote to the Daily Mail, as much as I generally dislike that particular publication.  I feel I must, however, add my voice to the critics of the latest homophobic rant by the Mail’s Jan Moir.  In the unlikely event that you haven’t heard about or read her diatribe, she blames the cult of “hedonistic celebrity” and a “dangerous lifestyle” for the sudden and tragic death of Boyzone’s Stephen Gately.

 Does she back this statement up with any evidence?  No.  She makes play of the fact that Gately and his partner, Andrew Coles, had invited a Bulgarian student back to their hotel and infers, without saying so directly, that the purpose of this invitation was sexual in nature, Cowles and the Bulgarian sharing a bedroom while Gately retired to a sofa in another room.

 Whether there is truth in this allegation or not is irrelevant, for whatever activity may or may not have taken place it would seem that Gately was not a part of it.  As a writer I have a fairly broad knowledge base and a pretty vivid imagination, but try as I may I cannot find any correlation between the death of a man alone on a sofa and the activities (of whatever nature) of two men in another room.

 It seems to me that Jan Moir has exploited the tragic death of a young man to vent her own poisonous prejudices.  It is quite possible that the full detail of Gately’s untimely death were, as Moir says, “sugar coated” – do we really want or need to know the nature of any private activity in the hours leading up to the death?  Unless she can come up with a well-argued and substantial case that some specific activity or other was or could have been directly responsible for the pulmonary oedema which killed Gately, she should keep her nose out of other people’s private lives, and particularly their bedrooms.

 But then again, Moir has antecedents for prevaricating on the sex lives of others.  She ranted against Manchester Council for publishing a guide about sex for the over 50s – or - (Daily Torygraph 2008) on Lord Snowdon’s past sexual activity  claiming, “Lord Snowdon is a thoroughly unpleasant little man.”  She even seemed to criticise Joan Bakewell over her past affair with playwright Harold Pinter in a past interview for the Mail.

 Maybe it’s jealousy.  Maybe Moir doesn’t have a sex life of her own.  I could speculate – but no, that would be cruel!