Duncan Fallowell, Holly Woodlawn and Marilyn

Veritas - who lost a crown on Rupert Everett's cockring - writes of Holly Woodlawn, Duncan Fallowell and Marilyn ...

Dear Madame
I fear the great Duncan Fallowell is slightly mistaken - it was actually Madisons at Camden Lock where Holly Woodlawn appeared. I know because I worked there as a handsome waiter (with a shiny new tooth) for its entire life and got quite pally with Holly. She was good fun. One night after the show I took her to El Sombrero where no-one had a clue who she was - except the terryifing one-time singer Marylin who looked liked Monroe at the time. They hated each other's guts on sight.

Duncan does remind me though - the truly wonderful (but I fear late?) Christopher Hunter owes me a week's wages from Country Cousins.

Veritas

(Duncan wrote earlier ... I remember seeing Holly Woodlawn on stage at Country Cousins in the 1970s and rushing backstage into her dressing-room after the performance and exclaiming 'Holly, you must stop this! What are you doing to yourself?' I can't remember why I did it but I do recall Ms Woodlawn looking very surprised and asking very nicely for my ejection. Best, Duncan Fallowell)

And in case you're wondering, Marilyn's website.

Molly Parkin - come to her 77th birthday party

Madame Arcati's great friend Molly Parkin celebrates her 77th birthday on Tuesday, February 3, starting 7pm, at the Green Carnation club, 5 Greek St, London. Daughter Sophie says there's Dorian Crook on laughs, Molly Parkin on life, Dean Wilson on poems, Sophie herself on love, Leonardo di Lorenzo on guitar, Grace Andreacchi on words.

Yes, I'll be there. Click here for more about the Green Carnation. I can't decide whether to get her Chanel No 5 or a pair of diamond earstuds.

For more on Molly, click here and follow labels below. To view her art click here.

Ian Fleming biopic: Tilda Swinton perfect as gay author

While I am underwhelmed by Leonardo DiCaprio's latest movie, Revolutionary Road - a juvenile simper at 50s suburban losers by gloating Hollywood winners - I am pleased by the news that the actor's production company Appian Way is working on a biopic of Bond creator Ian Fleming.

No one's cast in the role yet - certainly Leonardo can forget about it straight off, but an Orson Welles biopic would suit him, just as Will Smith was born to play Obama - and that allows me to offer some advice.

First, it's little realised that Fleming was a non-practising homosexual. In Dr No Bond meets Honeychile Rider whose bottom is "almost as firm and rounded as a boy's"; and at Eton, poems he wrote there are signed with what one writer calls the "sexually ambiguous name Cary Anan". So let's not hear anymore nonsense on this topic.

It would be entirely in keeping with Tinseltown lore that a seasoned cock-cunter play the part: if Michael Douglas can play Liberace, Milk star Sean Penn - though possibly too short and too American - could handle Fleming who was a very close pal of gay writer Turbott Wolfe. Colin Firth perhaps, but too dreary out of his britches. Josh Hartnett? Too pretty. Bill Nighy is a tad too old while Matt Damon would be an amusing piece of mischief given he's Bourne.

Actually, I think Fleming should be played by a woman. Cate Blanchett was a most excellent Bob Dylan in I'm Not There. The female who I think could incarnate Fleming most accomplishedly is Tilda Swinton, a wonderful Orlando in Orlando, a perfect complement to Quentin Crisp's convincing Queen Elizabeth I: it's as if The Darnley Portrait had been brought to life by the fabled, rouged cock-cocker - and admirer of Holly Woodlawn.

I can quite imagine Tilda posing as Fleming with the cigarette holder, reading out Paul Verlaine's lesbo poems - as he did - and sauntering in Jamaica with his companion Odo Cross, a former Guards officer who liked to wear his mother's pearls. I suppose Bond would have to come into it somewhere - but perhaps more could be made of 007's mystical, pagan provenance of which I have written before.

In my more whimsical moments, I theorise that super-butch Bond was only invented so Fleming could pretend to be the Bond Girls himself, in a psycho-sexually complex case of cock-cunting-cock. Perhaps in his mind's eye he saw himself as curvaceous Pussy Galore. To get paid lots of money to write in drag is quite a trick, I'd have thought.

I do hope Leonardo finds these suggestions constructive to his purpose.

Gunpowder Magazine and a Wintour/Brûlé orgy

I can't imagine anything more dreadful: an Anna Wintour-Tyler Brûlé sandwich (with ancient old me as the filling) in my canopied four-poster. And yet that is the dread image summoned up as I click through a newish online fashion daily called Gunpowder Magazine.

It confessedly aspires to match the work of the two divinities of Fashion & Style (Fasyle?) - my Wintour/Brûlé body warmers - though I can't help but wonder whether either of them would ever willingly showcase the work of, say, photographer Justin Monroe and his Muscle Mary fisters (almost) or The New InterCourses Cookbook and its Creamy Stuffed Figs, as Gunpowder does. I fear that editor Nick Clarke is dangerously contiguous to Arcatiland and its intermittent preoccupations with cock-cunt permutations. If this is the case then of course I am deeply honoured and welcome the future cross-fertilisation of ideas between Gunpowder and the unreadable and deadening zombielands of Vogue/Monocle/Wallpaper*. Certainly, Anna looks like she could do with a Creamy Stuffed Fig.

Even an Enache Florin-designed Peugeot, "with its lightweight body covered with sexy touch-sensors," is headlined I Touch Myself. Can you imagine Tyler, whose carbon footprint makes him the Yeti of International Travel, touching himself? Actually, I can.

So Gunpowder Magazine gets my ringing endorsement: anything that can sexualise a fig or a Peugeot can't go wrong. The fashionistas are sure to catch on once they've learnt there's life after Ugly Betty and death assured to Anna.

Perhaps these two trends can be hastened in a legally nice way.

Click here to have sex with Gunpowder Magazine.

Pope reinstates Holocaust denier Bishop Williamson

The lifting of the ex-communication decree on British Bishop Richard Williamson is further evidence that Pope Ratzi is unfit for office. Williamson is a Holocaust denier: he says: "Not one Jew was killed in the gas chambers." He thinks 2-300,000 Jews were killed in the Nazi concentration camps but not by gassing. Williamson is a fraud in cleric garb, an anti-Semite who in Germany (where he gave the interview below) would now be in jail.

He claims that there has been a "huge exploitation" of Germany which has paid "millions and millions of euros in compensation" because it has a guilt complex over the gassings he does not think happened: in effect he's saying Germany is the victim of a monumental historical fraud. The evidence for the gas chambers is so overwhelming that his contentions need no detailed reply.

His reinstatement is part of the Pope's wish to bring the ultra-conservative Society of St Pius X back into the Vatican's fold. Ever the scholarly dogmatist, Ratzi cares nothing for the memory of Nazi victims, everything for the unity of his corrupt Church which failed the Jewish people doing the Holocaust.

Listen to Wiliamson yourself. Holocaust Memorial Day is on January 27.

David Kross penis: And the Oscar goes to ....

Kate Winslet is to be congratulated on her Oscar Best Actress nomination for the most excellent The Reader, but what of her young co-star, German actor David Kross who brought so much (out) to his role, much more than Kate did? One feels that the Academy must try to broaden its horizons.

New Statesman bloggers: A bunch of idlers, mainly

Jason Cowley's blighted (no, boring) editorship of the New Statesman is not helped by a herd of mainly lazy bloggers who seem to update only when the mood takes them. Here's the list with latest updates at time of writing:

Arts Blog - December 15, 2008
Ben's Blog (whoever he is) - December 9, 2008
Best of the Political Blogs - January 16, 2009
Bright's Blog - January 22, 2009 (Well done! Trouble is, he has just resigned)
Caroline Lucas (whoever she is) - December 9, 2008
Crip's Column - January 8, 2009
Culture Tech - January 20, 2009
Obsessive Compulsive (AL Kennedy) - January 5, 2009
Richard Herring - January 15, 2009
Science Decoded - October 30, 2008
The Beauty List - January 6, 2009
The Faith Column - November 26, 2008 ("Every week a different believer gives the inside track on their religion or philosophy" - Heart not in it, dearies? Off to your Humanist altars with you)

American Vogue - free advertising at Sundance and beyond

Anna Wintour has triumphantly pulled off a great wheeze and got her title American Vogue potentially millions of pounds of free global advertising. Director RJ Cutler, a corpulent bearded creep by the looks of him, has made fly-on-the-wall docu-movie The September Issue - showcased at Sundance - which records the making of the mag's largest issue of the year. Apparently her legendary 70-something fashion director Grace Coddington steals the show and even threatened to resign if the film went ahead. A likely tale. Just imagine - Wintour on movie hoardings like a film star!

Incidentally, it's OK to swig water from a bottle in public - Anna does.

The Psychic Princess: From horses to angels

My congratulations to Norway's Princess Märtha Louise and her bearded husband writer Ari Behn on the christening of their third child, Emma Tallulah. The Princess is the co-founder of Astarte Education which tutors students in using "angels and [their] own power to create miracles in [their] life." She is a psychic of sorts ...

"I learned to organise my sensory impressions in order to read others. It was through horses that I learned to communicate with animals at a deeper level, and it was while I worked with horses that I came in contact with the angels. I have since come to understand the value of this great gift and am eager to share it with others – perhaps with you?"

I'm not sure what to make of angels but I retain an open mind - the thought of being read by a princess strikes me as exciting. Perhaps the new editor of the Evening Standard should retain her services as a spiritual guru to all its Humanist, young, downwardly mobile readers responsible for the economic downturn as fallen alpha types. I'm quite certain the new editor will be as much a raging snob as I, angels-wise or not.

For more on the angelic princess click here.

The Counting Cock Ring: Perfect Valentine gift

Periodically I feel disengaged from the world - it's my Moon in Pisces, alas - so while I await a reconnection with what passes for reality here's a useful device for those with a mind for statistics ... the Sex Counter Cock Ring.

As I'm not even faintly amused by this I shall quote the blurb: "A stretchy, orgasm-enhancing cock ring that actually counts your BPM - otherwise known as Bonks Per Minute! Slide the cock ring over your penis and enjoy a longer, harder erection as well as the fun of knowing how many times you've thrust per session."

Isn't that just something that would have solved a few problems before Christmas? The perfect prez for Uncle Vern who's into trainspotting at Clapham Junction of a Sunday afternoon. In time, purchasers of this counting cock ring will present a certificate to their spawn recording how many thrusts it took for conception. Kids will hold Thrust Parties and compare notes. Who knows: the Guinness Book of Records might even hold a competition - is it still run by right-wing loons?

Perhaps numerology will embrace this new stat and be used for divinatory purposes: the future is there for the transcribing, dearies. To buy this device click here. £9.99, free delivery.

Holly Woodlawn: 'I have daily milk baths with my pussy'

The legend that is Holly Woodlawn has deigned to send a few words to the world of Madame Arcati. One of Warhol's great Superstars, the reinvented woman who got all the attention in the 1970 movie Trash, she resides in West Hollywood and boasts that her living room is one of the town's great secrets. "I'm coo coo for Coco, bananas for Gabbana, love Lacroix, and I do adore Dior!" she says, as well as going doolally over the delivery boys from the Yummy.com grocery store she can espy out of her window. Her responses are an example of stylised ellipses ...

Q. Holly Woodlawn! I can't believe it. If you could talk to Warhol's spirit through some old bitch medium, what would you like to say to him, and what would you like him to say to you?

ME: "WHERE'S THE TWENTY BUCKS YOU OWE ME?"
HIM: "OH HOLLY, YOU'RE SO GLAMOROUS."

Q. How do you describe yourself on your tax return?

WHAT TAX RETURN?

Q. I understand you live in West Hollywood. Tell us something about your home - for instance, the chairs - is there a colour theme? And your toothpaste - what brand is it? Tell us what and whom you see every day.

MY HOME IS MY TEMPLE. CURRENTLY MY LIVING ROOM THEME IS PUERTO RICAN/EGYPTIAN. MY NORMAL DAY STARTS WITH A MILK BATH WITH SADIE (MY RUSSIAN BLUE CAT). AFTER THAT IT'S MOSTLY EATING CHOCOLATES IN BED.

Q. Lou Reed sang about you in Walk on the Wild Side - he sang (like you need reminding), "Holly came from Miami FLA, hitch-hiked her way across the USA, plucked her eyebrows on the way, shaved her legs, and then he was a she..." What did you feel when you first heard these words?

N/C

Q. Omg! You're a Scorpio. But aren't Scorps quite secretive and intense? Are you, Holly?

WHAT A FOOLISH QUESTION. SECRETIVE? NEVER. INTENSE? ALWAYS.

Q. Holly, now look. Sex. When was the last time? Don't hold back. Tell us what happened if you feel inclined. Alternatively, share a sex fantasy with your public ...

NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.

Q. Is there anyone in your life who talks to you as a mother would, as in, 'Oh Holly, please tidy up' or 'Holly, don't do that, puh-lease!'?

YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING.

Q. Do you read all the Warhol books, like Bob Colacello's Holy Terror book in which you appear a few times?

YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING.

Q. If a young person came to you now and told you they wanted a transgender op, what would you say to them by way of advice?

THE KIDS NOW WHO WANT TO HAVE THE OPERATION HAVE LOTS OF ACCESS TO SUPPORT GROUPS. THEY SHOULD USE THOSE SERVICES. GOD KNOWS I NEVER HAD THAT WHEN I NEEDED IT IN THE 60's.

Q. What's this I hear about a back problem? What's wrong and would you like a Madame Arcati massage?

DARLING, I JUST TURNED 62. WHAT DO YOU EXPECT? I'VE WAITED TABLES...I'VE GO-GO DANCED THE YEARS AWAY...AND FINALLY MY BACK SAID 'FUCK YOU'.

Q. Would you like to attack a public figure, like the Pope or Michael Jackson's mother? If so, whom?

YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING.

Q. And finally, Holly, do you keep in touch with other Superstars or Warholstars like Joe Dallessandro (who is getting a special film award in Germany soon)?

SURE WE DO! IT'S ALWAYS A GOOD TIME.

Thank you so much for your time Holly. You are much adored here in the UK among the cognoscenti and if there's anything else you want to share with us, you know where to put it. MA xx (I wanted to ask about Candy Darling but there are so many questions)

Holly's website here.
And Holly's on MySpace, click here

Holly ... "Charlton Heston beware ... "

Holly, her lesbian husband and Eddie Murphy

The death of John Mortimer

Mortimer's spirit moves to a place he had no belief in: if oblivion is now his lot he'll be none the wiser.

He was one of my first celeb interviewees. I'd written to him as a freelance writer pretending to be working on a collection of starry chats for a book, and he saw me. The interview was my first sold piece to the national UK glossies. Many years later the lackadaisical South African who'd bought the feature mentioned in passing, during a drunken lunch at Joe Allen's, that Mortimer had phoned the magazine shortly after publication to say how much he enjoyed reading the interview. I thought that very generous of him.

I can recall the way he sat, sprawled lazily like a Roman senator at a bacchanalia, giving his sofa the "bean-bag treatment", which is how I think I put it. He was strikingly clear-headed and unsentimental. When I asked him why he did all the lawyering and writing, why he worked so hard, he responded simply, "because one can."

His hostility to censorship, moral nannying, illiberalism was underpinned by his interest in the anarchist writings of Peter Kropotkin. The Russian prince held that humanity is ultimately good and altruistic: even a capitalist state "cannot weed out the feeling of human solidarity, deeply lodged in men's understanding and heart," as Kropotkin put it. Even now this sounds heretical: the assumption of original sin is made not just by the happy-clappies and their faith equivalents but by numberless secular bureaucrats dreaming of biometric nirvana for our own good.

Oddly in a lawyer, Mortimer I think took it for granted that more laws played to our uglier side - his valedictory blasts against the New Labour nannies were a consistent tailing of his life-long work. All this and he fucked for Britain, too.

I shall follow his passage in the spirit world with much interest.

Whatever happened to the Duchess of York's novel?

What's happened to the Duchess of York's historical novel that she apparently co-wrote with Dallas writer Laura Van Wormer? Last July I noted that Hartmoor had changed title to Wingfield and that publication had been delayed to September 4 this year. I even had to tell Amazon to update their records. They didn't.

Now I don't see the novel listed at all for publication. I may have imagined it, but on her blog last year Laura seemed just a little exhausted by it all: she didn't moan, just drew our attention to how much time the novel had taken to write, depriving her other books of her literary attention. Now in a January posting she doesn't mention the book title at all, and as for the Duchess project she has this to say: "The Duchess and I are reconsidering our original publishing plan and are weighing a number of factors and options for the short term and also for the long run. As soon as we come to a decision about which path we are to take, you shall know straight away!"

I have no idea what this means - even whether she's talking about the novel. Laura then goes onto plug upcoming books of her own, especially Riverside Park, due out in the summer. Laura's agent Loretta Barrett Books Inc still lists Hartmoor down for publication in the spring - this can't be right. There's much misinformation on websites: Borders, for example, has Hartmoor down for September 3, 2015! A slip of the key surely. The Macmillan site sheds no clue, and while Amazon.co.uk lists Hartmoor for September 4 I assume this is redundant, because Laura said last year the novel was now Wingfield.

Would someone look into this.

Antony Hegarty: Dolly horror at the Isis and Mickey Rourke

I plan to see Antony And The Johnsons' Antony Hegarty's The Creek exhibition at the London Isis Gallery: a very good interview in the Independent yesterday alerted me to his artwork and environmental concerns. His Ghost self-portrait reactivates my pediophobia (fear of dolls): it's a Gothic photographic nightmare achieved by projecting an image of his late great-grandmother on to his own face. It would make a great movie poster: all it needs is a movie to back it. I also like Julia's Hand, a photographic study of his mentor Dr Julia Yasuda, described as an intersex person, neither male nor female.

The subject of hands reminds me of Mickey Rourke and his freakishly large ones, on display in the excellent The Wrestler. His fingernails are rudimentary curved claws, white as milk. I know I would never get on with Mickey, just because of his hands.

Oh, here's Antony singing Crazy In Love

'My Low Life encounter with High Life Taki'

A noted Arcatiste writes ...

I've only met Taki once and it wasn't a pleasant experience. I had been invited to the launch of his book, High Life, Low Life, by the publisher Jay Landesman (father of Cosmo), an old friend of mine. Taki marched up to me when I was perusing a copy and snatched it out of my hand and demanded to know who invited me. I think he recognised a Low Life when he saw one - which I was happy to be if he was the other! Veritas.

Martin Amis cock-cunts on 9/11

Martin Amis tells US mag Vice that 9/11 was "masculinity in a whole new form". I suppose the Twin Towers - though architecturally phallic - were in this instance a cunt metaphor degraded by the latest incarnations of cock, a Boeing 767-223ER (North Tower) and a Boeing 767-200 (South Tower). An interesting notion, though I should have thought the masculine destruction of things in war a commonplace: certainly 9/11 provided new visuals, a new scale to urban terrorism, with glamorous New York uncharacteristically cast as victim: but a whole new form beyond the obvious? I'll have to think about that. To me 9/11, beyond the tragedy, was a surprise casting, though in a whole new form from the likes of Matt Smith's for Doctor Who.

Empathy Chic at the Golden Globes

That's what they're calling it: Empathy Chic. That's when a star worth, say $100m, attends a glittery film awards wearing little or no jewellery and eschews the priceless goodybags for fear of failing to demonstrate regard for victims of the economic downturn: a show of solidarity with the paupies. Well, it's the thought that counts.

Anna Wintour: Thin cow to the slaughter?

The beef-chewing scarecrow editor of American Vogue is on her way out, according to recent reports. Various reasons are given for Anna Wintour's expected exit : she's knackered, she's bored, she's past it. The Observer - about a month behind on this one - repeated various cliches about Wintour yesterday: her "bobbed, barbed style", her "draconian" rule, etc. I don't know why writers bother: why not just cut and paste other writers' cut-n-pastes and add a courtesy credit in brackets. It's as if the sheer gravitas of the subject cannot be appreciated without haystacking the auto-repeat adjectives and stories and pretending the piece is a self-contained first.

What must pain Wintour the most is the suggestion that she's not with-it anymore. The moment-royalty of bloggers and other commentators have robbed her stale obita dicta of authority - they arrive weeks or months after ignition in redundant glossy pages. Was it only 20 years ago that she muscled her way to the Vogue editorship to the cry that predecessor Grace Mirabella had been old-fashioned in the face of teensy Elle? The poetic justice of Wintour's situation now is exquisitely perfect and just.

I can scarcely believe the story that Wintour will become a Barack Obama ambassador. What to? The meat industry? Anti-bullying organisations - in North Korea perhaps? Articulacy? Long ago she came to resemble a stiff in a pyramid - let the mummy of fashion catalogues rest in peace.

The News of the World: So, what about Coulson?

The News of the World rightly makes a fuss about Prince Harry using racist terms such as "Paki" and "raghead". It's good to see that a newspaper, whose owner Rupert Murdoch thinks Muslims are "inferior", can rise above proprietorial prejudice and nail a social evil.

Now that it has set such a good example, perhaps it would like to turn its attention to another social evil. The Conservative Party's director of communications, Andy Coulson, was recently found by an employment tribunal to have presided over a "culture of bullying" at his previous place of employment. His conduct made one reporter's life a misery. He has not publicly denied misconduct. To date, no anti-bullying organisation, no periodical that I know of (Private Eye aside), and certainly no Tory, has condemned or questioned his behaviour. Coulson would appear to be inviolable. Is it that bullying is not regarded as serious as racism? Are we picking and choosing social evils according to circulation value?

The fact that Coulson's last job was the editorship of the News of the World shouldn't put the paper off.

Holy Hotties: Now do you believe in God?

I am indebted to one mischievous contributor who, carried away by the religious theme of the post just below, has drawn my attention to a site that showcases the Holy Hotties of the Vatican, click here. Perhaps Il Papa knows something we don't. I'd love to see a nunnish equivalent.

Atheist Bus Campaign: God-lovers come over faint

About 60 people have complained to the ASA about the new Atheist Bus Campaign which tells you: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." Some Christians and other monotheists find this statement offensive if only because it's misleading: there's more evidence for God - whichever one we're talking about - through personal experience than not, they say.

Arcatistes will know that I am always amused by the certainties of atheists, such as Christopher Hitchens and so many others (including close friends), but I'm certainly not offended by this campaign's wishful-thinking message. Before Christmas, a humanist on the radio explained that the campaign was designed to reassure people that atheism was respectable now: she claimed that not-believing was still taboo. Really? I should say being religious is taboo in some circles, especially those where literary and philosophical fashion predominates.

What's really happening is that Atheism is itself slowly turning into a religion, as I have explained before. The mistake is to suppose that atheists are unbelievers: but a faith in something need not be of a mystical or supernatural nature. Atheists often believe wholeheartedly in science, in education, money, materialism, intellectualism: they would rather place their faith in empiricism, or what's testable, than in the essential subjectivity of a spiritual belief. The vogue is for a claimed objectivity because personal experience (or testimony) is seen as suspect.

That science is forever correcting itself, and turning theories into faux-facts, is neither here nor there: the altar is ready for service, be worshipful in the presence of Fact. As I have said before, the current cathedral of Atheism is the Large Hadron Collider, presently a little under the weather. But let's wish it well.

If the Bus Campaign comforts a few atheists, then what's the problem? Like the God-lovers, they too need the pastoral care of their priests. Probably.

Taki's Magazine: Despair at Amsterdam's pink ice rinks

The rightwing, 70-something Greek rich boy Taki Theodoracopoulos, whose prejudices are freely displayed in The Spectator each week, has his own online publication, Taki's Magazine. A book advert on the site for Patrick Buchanan's Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War is a clue to the ambient political hue.

Just before Christmas, Flemish journalist Paul Belien wrote a wonderfully unreconstructed piece for Taki on Amsterdam and the "homosexual parody of Christmas" that had descended on the city. The evangelist cock-cunter despaired that the Pink Christmas Festival - with its pink ice rinks and "gay X-mas open-air market” - would become an annual event, a vile slur on the cockless/cunt story of Jeezus.

He feared Amsterdam was turning into the "world’s showpiece of depravity" before blaming Muslim youths (and not Christian) for increasing attacks on gays - if true, we can only hope they're not heartened by Taki's Magazine.

Belien raged at "secularist fundamentalists" who have turned Christmas into "a mockery with two Josephs (or two Marys) amidst pink Christmas trees ... It is time for all men of goodwill to raise their banners and fight: for the family and the right of child (sic) to live and to be raised—like Jesus—by a father and a mother, instead of two fathers or two mothers; for green Christmas trees; for words and concepts like Christmas, bishop, chapel, abbey, monarch and empire; in short, for God, sanity and tradition. "

As I recall, Jesus had two fathers: one in the sky, the other adoptive; Jesus was a feared symbol against empire and priests, and he expressed little interest in royalty. And the call to "fight" sounds suspiciously un-Christian to me. I think Mr Belien and his editor need to have a rethink. Click here to read Belien's piece.

Andy Coulson: Media bullied into silence?

I am delighted to see that Private Eye, the world's second best magazine (there is no first, dearies) , has taken up the cause against Andy Coulson (in its new Jan 9 edition), the bullying former editor of the News of the World who is now the Tories' director of communications (ie spin).

In a previous post I expressed astronishment that the Tories have not invited Coulson to fuck off on the grounds that a future Conservative government might have credibility problems on any bullying policies in retaining his services. Late last year, an employment tribunal found that he had presided over a bullying culture at the newspaper, had waged some sort of vendetta against an unwell sports hack, Matt Driscoll. Coulson didn't turn up to explain himself and media silence followed. So much for concerns about bullying.

The Eye now reveals why. "Tory spinners have been in overdrive since Christmas, warning hacks not to run anything on the damning judgement for fear of antagonising 'the chap who'll run the next government' [Coulson]," the magazine reports. Does this sound like collateral bullying?

It is a disgrace that the Tories and the mainstream media have not made more of this. Is it now the position of the Tory Party that some laws are less important than others? And as the Eye reminds us, the liars and dolts of the News of the World only recently championed an anti-bullying campaign in schools. Of course there are those who do not take bullying seriously for fear of being viewed weak: when I contacted Guido Fawkes about this before Christmas, all that clot could say was that he had been a bully at school and made light of the matter. He thought I was a "snitch".

I also contacted a number of UK anti-bullying organisations: not one has yet responded, though the Christmas hols may account for that. I will continue to draw attention to this case - and of course we await news of the compensation to be awarded to Driscoll.

Doctor Who: Tall, white man gets the part. Again

But I'm sure Matt Smith has the right hair for it.

And Scorpios are good at keeping secrets.

He adores Radiohead, piano music and the poetry of Carol Ann Duffy.

Here's a part of her poem Valentine

I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.

Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,
if you like.
Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.
Click here for the poem.

Andrew Pierce stumbles over Lee's knighthood

The Telegraph's royal editor Andrew Pierce is pleased Bruce Forsyth didn't get a knighthood. He writes: "The sole reason the absurd public campaign was launched to knight Brucie, seemed to be the fact he was still going strong on the small screen at the age of 80. Ridiculous. What about Sir Christopher Lee who, at 86, is still in huge demand as an actor?" Christopher Lee is not a Sir, only a CBE. If Andrew is jesting, I see no hint of it.

"Forsyth is past it," adds Andrew. "He stumbles over his lines, he can't dance, and his pitiful jokes meander on longer than the lines on his face." I hadn't realised that knighthoods are given as a reward for staying lucid in old age: that must explain why the 30-something cyclist Chris Hoy is now a Sir: these sportsmen do age rapidly, don't they?

But look who's talking. Last time I saw Andrew, in The Green Carnation gay club in Greek Street, laughing along to porno jokes by author Rupert Smith, I was struck by the extent of the Martian-like canali beds on his face. And it's not Brucie who stumbles over his facts on celebrity knighthoods: you somehow expect better of a professional royal gossip. Especially one with such a bitch reputation.