“I am not really sure you increase tolerance by forcing bigots to give bed and breakfast to gay people.”

Really, how about black people Craig?

Wasp-Box

This isn’t the southern USA. I am not convinced that legislative coercion played an essential role in achieving racial integration in the UK – insofar as we have achieved it.

I think it’s just little boys sadly. One of the worst crimes IMHO. Their lives are ruined and their abusers have gone scot free mostly.

http://www.private-eye.co.uk/covers.php?showme=1259&

Trust P Eye to make a joke of it.

Or they could have hung out a sign saying, ‘In keeping with tradition there is no room at the inn but you can sleep in the stable.’

My understanding is that ‘three days’ (with or without the nights) was a current Jewish idiom which should be interpreted ‘on the third day’. That explains why the Apostles’ Creed has the expression ‘the third day’.

I’m not sure how to answer your question, I think Easter like Christmas were celebrated in Europe long before Christianity.

Christmas being the winter solstice and Easter being the time of the Germanic Goddess of Spring Eostre.

But after European Conversion the dates were kept but the meaning altered.

Early Christians kept all Jewish laws, beliefs and celebrations, with the addition of the Prophet Jesus pbh and rejection of the Talmud.

So Passover maybe another factor in this, where it was kept but its significance, meaning and date altered?

Anyway, I’m not sure I’m allowed to comment on this because my views are biased because Muslims don’t believe in the Crucifixion, so can not believe in the resurrection. But we do fast two days to celebrate passover though, which could have been the origins of Easter. According to the Hijri calender though, so the date would move forward a few days each year.

We believe that Jesus was raised up alive and someone else was made to look like him and crucified. This view was shared by the Early Unitarian churches and mentioned in the Gospel of Barnabas which states that Judas was made to look like Jesus, crucified, and some people stole his body.

Anyway, I think equality laws might just step over their remit when they start telling people who is and is not allowed to share their houses with them?

It was a room in a couple’s house wasn’t it?

Arsalan

I quite like the story that Jesus and Judas swapped places and Judas died on the cross. It makes perfect sense. Jesus escapes a very unpleasant death and Judas avoids being damned for betraying Jesus.

Win-win.

“I think it’s just little boys sadly.”

That’s an odd comment. Would it be less horrendous if it were little girls being abused and raped?

I timely discussion of the absurdity of the central Easter story: Jesus died to save us!

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/04/sunday_sacrilege_the_silliest.php

Also this on that topic:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/sin_trans.htm

The ancient Egyptian man-god Horus did the crucified-then-resurrected thing before Jesus anyway. In fact, Horus did Jesus’ entire life before Jesus.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcpa5d.htm

In my experience as an altar boy, the Blood of Christ tasted more like Sherry than Wine

And never did I get even a hint that any of the Catholic Priests wanted to stick their penises up my bum

Whilst I rejected it all at the age of 15 and left the Catholic priest wanking in the confessional, when I told him all about my fantasies about shagging a girl in my class at school, my family are still really big on the Catholic Church

My nephew is training to be one.

He has got a PhD in Maths from Cambridge, and got bored with designing weapons of mass destruction

So far as I am aware, he has never had a girlfriend, but he is a nice bloke and will probably make a great priest, and its far better than designing bombs.

Tony

dya think when they stole the Pagan dates for there own, if was the first example of copyright/logo theft?

And this is an enlightening discussion of the Trinity and the Easter story:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mII6-IyaT3o

KingofWelshNoir

I’ll find the quote for you:

http://barnabas.net/chapters/264.html?task=view

Barnabas was one of the roughly 300 Gospels banned and destroyed by the emperor Constantine when he adopted trinitarianism Christianity as the official religion of the Roman empire.

“I think they’ll kick, scream, wet themselves and try to buy a few more seconds in the ministerial limousines.”

And if – hopefully when – they lose, they’ll unleash pandemonium via the civil service and their soviet unions.

I’ll declare an interest, I’m gay. But as far as this kind of thing goes, especially as far as real discrimination goes. If you are taking public money, like Catholic Adoption Agencies do, or provide a purely universal public service like a hotel, then you shouldn’t be allowed to turn people away.

But this is a private house, run as a B&B, they should have the right to refuse customers if they wish. What they shouldn’t be allowed to do is to accept a booking and then turn people away at the door because they don’t like them because they’re gay, black, Jewish etc.

If you want to discriminate, make it clear that you’re an old fashioned bigot and say you don’t accept gays, blacks, Jews etc. on the phone beforehand. Before you accept a couple’s deposit, wait till they turn up, refuse them entry, disrupt their plans for the evening and ruin their holiday.

Maybe a discrete ‘We’re bigots’ sign on their advertisements next to the contact details.

Let’s not forget that this B&B had entered into a contract with the couple when they accepted their booking.

Gays in B and B was less the issue when we got to see the two guys.

One of them had a tattoo-that would be grounds enough to bar them for me! What a pair of scruffy bastards they look!

Mind you I wouldn’t be too keen to give a bed to a narrow-minded bigot either.

People’s sexuality seems an object of vicarious fascination in this country.The British are just bloody nosey and many are bigoted too.

Strikes me this case involves two of the worst types of Brits-the scruffs and the bigots.

Bar them!

As for Paisley-aside from his anti-Catholic bigotry isn’t he most remembered for his quoted reaction to the prospect of homosexual equality legislation finally being enacted in N.Ireland?

“IT’S A BUGGERS’ CHARTER!”

Presumably he was referring to the Kincora Boys Home being turned into a B and B!

amk Of course that was not my meaning. You are twisting my words.

It’s not only RC priests. Listen to Trevor Baylis on Broadcasting House recently.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8591534.stm

TREVOR BAYLISS OBE

The inventor Trevor Baylis told us on a recent programme of how sexual abuse in a church has left him with a lifelong hatred of religion. In language that goes further than the euphemism of abuse, he told us that he was the victim of oral rape at the age of five. Whilst the Vatican is dealing with its gravest crisis in many years, Trevor Baylis says his attacker was an Anglican vicar who’s since died. He wants to encourage victims of abuse in any religion to come forward.

Do you know what the advantage of being a Muslim on Easter is?

I get chocolate Easter eggs from my friends and I don’t have to give anyone any because celebrate it!!!!

Mary

I really think the death penalty needs to be brought back for people like that.

I think the key issue is to get people to speak. the only reason why people like that do what they do is they know they will get away with it because no one will speak.

People need to scream and shout.

What is a curate?

Happy Easter, Craig.

“This isn’t the southern USA. I am not convinced that legislative coercion played an essential role in achieving racial integration in the UK – insofar as we have achieved it.”

What a strange non-answer.

Your post suggests that you believe discrimination on the grounds of sexuality is acceptable. Why do you consider discrimination on the grounds of race different?

These people are running a business. Why should the fact that their business is small allow them to ignore, what seem to me to be, reasonable laws?

Yes, it’s well-known that often behaviour follows legislation rather than the other way around. And I’m not sure ‘integration’ is the issue here; it is direct discrimination that is the central question in this case, not integration.

Can anyone deny that if the Race and Sex Discrimination Acts had not been passed, some employers and landlords would still be framing adverts with ‘No Blacks, Please’?

My father, a doctor, was turned away by countless landladies during the late 1950s in Hull because he had a dark complexion, while my mother, who’d gone along to the same place just three hours earlier, had been welcomed in and told there were vacancies – she was white Afghan and wore Western clothes. When she took my dad along, the door was slammed in their faces. Not always, of course, there were very good people as well, but a significant number of times. Nearly everyone form the ‘New Commonwealth’ has similar tales to tell.

Of course, as a whole, attitudes have changed for the better in the past 50 years and legislation alone would not have been enough to have effected that sort of societal change, but it was an absolutely essential part of making it happen.

Lol.. great post Craig.

I reckon people’s expectations are generally too high. They think it is all going to work and be brilliant.

I meanwhile have much lower expectations. I think well, it will probably all fuck up like it usually does.

If it turns out better than that, then I can be happy.

So we had been walking for about 15 minutes, and I felt my pockets and thought

“Oh Fuck”

Have you got any money Love? She thinks she is the Queen and rarely carries any money at all.

I said I have left my wallet at home.

And so we got in. It was Free, as is The Water.

And I go to the bar to try and buy us a drink

And I have ordered the drinks

And I have this funny feeling running down my leg

It was all the coins – all the money I had left….

I suddenly realised, that not only did I have no notes, all my coins had poured down my leg

Cos I now had a hole in my pocket

Great Gig though….

A friend of ours lent us £40.

So I could also put £10 in the pot for the band

I was the First on the Dance Floor

Tony

Arsalan: You celebrate passover? What does anyone who doesn’t consider themselves descended from slaves freed by mass slaughter of innocents get to celebrate about this?

As it happens, my re- and re-reading of these chapters of the Christian Bible made me – a ‘born again’ Christian – abandon my faith, because I realised, with not inconsiderable horror, that this God I was worshipping could not possibly be the God of love.

Why would the first born of all Egyptians have to die, when most if not all were incapable of influencing the decision of the Pharaoh, and why had the Lord ‘hardened the Pharaoh’s heart’, so there could be no peaceful solution ? (Exodus 9:12)

I also wondered why this God of Love had allowed the Egyptians to follow the fleeing Israelites into the opening of the Nile, and then collapsed it on them, drowning the soldiers and horses. Why not simply close it up following after the Israelis?

And a bunch of other things, of course. There is no way this God of the Jews/Christians is a loving or merciful God.

I digress… Arsalan, why the heck would you celebrate Passover?

*

I’m not sure why it’s OK to throw people out of your hotel for being gay any more than one is entitled to because they’re black. Or Welsh, for that matter. For holding objectionable opinions? Hmm. Difficult to say. But I’m surprised that B&B’s of such delicate sensibilities this don’t ask mixed sex couples, “Err… sir and madam, before we confirm the booking, could you please assure us that no anal sex is likely to take place during your stay?”

*

It seems that the choir-boys were indeed the victim of choice for these priests. A combination of the girls being rapped across the knuckles by the nuns and associating with them rather than males, the close association of priests/choir-boys, and that aspiring Good Boys would be guided from a young age into the mission by priests. Studies indicate the abused are more likely to go on to abuse others in turn. It seems true for many cases of physical, sexual and emotional abuse. Perhaps we’re seeing the result of sexual abuse cascade down – it only appears to take one nonce priest to generate scores, maybe hundreds of victims. If just one in a dozen were sufficiently twisted by the experience to abuse themselves, it becomes an endless cycle. Also, nonces might be attracted to a position which gives authority over young boys. The Catholic church values obedience above nearly all else – what could be more attractive to such hideous deviants?

“I also wondered why this God of Love had allowed the Egyptians to follow the fleeing Israelites into the opening of the Nile, and then collapsed it on them, drowning the soldiers and horses. Why not simply close it up following after the Israelis?” Glenn

It makes for a better narrative, to have the baddies punished good ‘n’ proper, for all time-and-a-day.

Anyway, if they’d not been comprehensively drowned, the Egyptians could’ve got boats and sailed across.

And the first-borns are in Heaven, where they are now teenagers with I-pods.

Glenn, these are points which even the most lateral-thinking C of E vicars with hippy hair (are there any of those left?) cannot answer, except by referring to metaphor and simile, analogy and parable and the retrospective ishq (divine love) counterpoint of Yeshva.

Meanwhile, those who believe in the literal meanings of texts, who think that one word can have only one meaning, ever, in any language and in any time and it’s their word and no-one else’s, will affirm that God is merciful but also vengeful and jealous, just like the flawed hero in a soap-opera.

Sorry, I’m being slightly facetious. i just think that soemtimes it’s good to be able to have a sens eof humour about such matters, as did the old wise wanderer, Nasireddin Hodja.

It’s “on the third day”, not after three days, Friday was the first day of the event.

Half of me says that a B&B should have the right to turn people away, however there is that old slippery slope argument, what other reasons would they devise to turn away guests ?

Call me a bigot if you like, Craig. But frankly, I’m not keen on being the next occupant of a room and bed just vacated by male gays. The idea that the State can bully B&B operators into putting up with disagreeable practices in the own home is outrageous.

“Gatha-ka-hinka” is another good insult if anyone’s looking for an armoury: It means, “Donkey who is now part of the past!”

“Gatha ka thoom!”: “Tail of a donkey!”

I have loads of these, in different languages. There must a lexicon somewhere on the web.

“Bad pathur-i-lanat!” means “A curse, doom and all kinds of foreboding on your house!”

Sorry, I can’t stop…!

Woody,

I am curious – so do you refuse to stay in hotels? How do you know who was in the bed before you?

I don’t deny I would have the same feeling, except I presume they change the sheets…

ing.

Good on you, Arsalan!

What a strange song that must have been…

Do you know what I find really confusing about the cloth shop incident?

How is it possible to nick cloth?

I mean you can nick small things by putting them in your pocket. bigger things by sticking them under your clothes.

But how are you meant to steal two meter rolls of cloth?

Where are they meant to stick a two meter roll of cloth that ways about the same as a person?

I’ve been thinking about it for the past couple of years and still haven’t worked it out.

I’ve already ruled out the obvious things, because they cant just cut a bit off and stuff it in their pockets. You’d be surprised how much cloth it takes to make women’s clothes.

you need a good few meters of that two meter roll to make something. How were they meant to do that?

Perhaps the shopkeeper thought that Gypsies carry the Evil Eye around with them, in the back pockets, as it were.

Craig, the two heroes who are trying to put a nice B&B out of business are high profile LibDems in Huntingdon, one is party secretary the other a town councillor. If I were a party activist there I’d be cringeing with embarrassment.

These are your new political playmates, old boy. Do take extra care!

Actually I prefer staying in (nice) B&Bs rather than hotels partly because I know the owners are a bit choosy about their “guests”.

Sorry, so rational adult people would have a problem staying in a hotel room where 2 gay men had stayed? Including, apparently, the owner of this blog (though it’s OK as long as they change the sheets) and someone called ‘Woody’?

What ‘disagreeable’ gay male practices could you be referring to, I wonder, Woody? Rearranging the decor? Marching in support of a victimised minority? Surely you can’t spend time in your straight male life dwelling on what gay men do in bed?

Actually, perhaps you should spend more. There are many, many ways to have loving sex between a same sex couple. How curious that you should find them so distasteful. How bigoted. How wrong.

Course it’s OK as long as they’re women, phnaar phnaar.

Yeah, it’s quite strange trying to fathom the thought processes of Woody and Craig who can’t seem to keep out of their minds what a gay couple must do in bed. Or maybe they’re just worried about “catching gay” from the bedsheets.

Presumably they don’t worry about sleeping in a bed that’s just been vacated by an elderly couple. Or would they prefer B&B owners bar them also to keep their pristine minds clear of any thoughts of geriatric sex.

And I haven’t seen any convincing argument being made for any distinction between barring a couple on the basis of their sexuality and barring a couple based on their ethnicity.

Oh, and you’re a bigot, Woody.

Craig, pissing on Christianity from a great height is the first sign of becoming a Muslim. Be very careful where your thoughts take you. You have been warned.

I think that sexual abuse is primarily about power not sex. Sexuality is a taboo, which makes it difficult to talk about openly. Abused people try to take control of the abuse by re-enacting it experimentally, and sometimes that clears the system and sometimes it doesn’t, in fact the abuse takes over and they become an abuser themselves.

Am I right in thinking that this Catholic abuse is mostly an Irish problem? When I think of Ireland I think of everything lovely. Like a local Uzbekistan. Irish women are soft, intelligent and lovely. Irish men are high-principled, hard-working and ultra witty. I have sworn an oath till my dying day never to believe one word from a Irishman. You feel so stupid at being taken in, you want crawl into a ditch and hide. And Celtic Christianity the closest in its simplicity and reverence for God to Islam.

Maybe there is a clue in the word Uzbekistan. As mentioned above, abuse breeds abuse. So where does this abuse come from? Ireland, being closest to the UK was one of the earliest and worst-hit targets of the UK’s violent colonial history. Being highly religious, like Muslim Asia, all forms of abuse get absorbed into the soul as Divine punishment. Even the Qur’an says that people sometimes attribute difficulties to God’s punishment, when they are coming from human beings.

God is in charge, and permits the abuse, the abuser being less religious than the abused. Does that go unobserved by God? No, it is all on file. The sheep will be divided from the goats one day . Anybody who thinks that UK abusive colonialism began with the Slave Trade, think back again to the crusades. Criminals were freed from prisons to march through Europe to the Holy Land. Does that remind anyone of US troops in Iraq? Vienna refused to open their gates to them. When they got to their destination the blood of the Muslims ran through the streets in rivers. Do you think UK abusive colonialism is going to stop with Afghanistan? Think again. Until the day of Judgement, this is going to go on, unless this country comes to Islam.

Maybe the Catholic sexual abuse is a transposition of colonial ruthless violence onto the weak and defenceless choir-boys. This week, yet another advisor to the government’s committee on drugs resigned. He was a social worker. He said that it was pointless just banning methodrone and then every other dangerous drug that comes along. At some stage you have to sit down and analyse the problem. Why are 14 year olds getting off their heads all the time?

Does New Labour or David Cameron have the humility to abandon their get tough on drugs macho stand? Never. Does the English Church or the Catholic Church have the humility to analyse the problem of sexual abuse of young children? Never. They are part of the hard power establishment which organises and participates in paedophile abuse on an industrial scale. Check out Aangirfan’s blog on the subject.

Why does the Queen employ homosexual staff as eunuchs for the royal household? Abuse = power. So long as we have establishment power controlling this country, sexual abuse will carry on. The Church is part of the aggressive state machine. To maintain that extraordinary two-faced position, as defender of morality and excuser of the aggressor, something has to give. Usually that is the next thing down the food-chain that can’t complain.

I have never pissed on anyone, Christian or otherwise.

I have been pissed on though, while changing nappies.

Being a modern man isn’t easy.

Boys are worse than girls for that. You have to have the reflexes of Alan Knott.

I wish that gay still meant

joyful

carefree

bright and showy

as in Easter bonnets.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay

anno:

“Celtic Christianity the closest in its simplicity and reverence for God to Islam”

Yet Celtic Christianity was in many respects a continuation of Druidism, which itself was based in part on Mosaic law.

“We believe it [the Torah] is the remnants of what was once a revealed book”

Some parts of the Torah, eg the stories of Adam and Eve and the Flood are clearly based on much older mesopotamian writings. The story of Jacob and his brothers, found also in the Koran, is believed to be based on an ancient mesopotamian treatise on astrology.

Forgive my blasphemy, but the relationship betweeen ancient pagan beliefs and the monotheistic faiths is a rather complex one.

Ancient Mesopotamia – modern day Iraq – was of course the home of Abraham and is believed to be the location of the graves of some of the hebrew prophets, including Ezekiel. No wonder perhaps that Zionists consider Iraq to be part of “Greater Israel”, thus bringing ancient history rather abruptly and chillingly up to date with current events.

Re: B&B and bigotry. For me, when you offer a service to the public it seems obvious that you must be able to comply with the law. Compare:

“I want to be a brain surgeon, but my hands shake and I’m not very bright”.

“Tough, mate, but you really need to look for work in a different occupation”.

with:

“I want to be a B&B proprietor, but I don’t want to comply with laws on discrimination”.

“Tough, mate, but you really need to look for work in a different occupation”.

rob: yes but on the other hand shops, clubs, pubs and restaurant all have the legal right in refuse entry to whoever they please. The Daily Mash’s take on this matter is rather well-balanced I feel, as well as being very funny.

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/b%26bs-forced-to-offer-gay-breakfast-201003222578/

‘Some parts of the Torah…..are clearly based on much older mesopotamian writings’

MJ, me old fruit of the loon, like myself. Thank you for reading the Torah, the Flood, the story of Jacob ( Israel ) in historical Egypt a few generations before the persecution of his offspring ( the children of Israel ) by Pharaoh.

One of God’s creations is time, and our existence in time permits successive generations to inhabit this earth consecutively. The books that God sent, The Torah, the Psalms, the Injeel and the Qur’an were not copied from eachother through old manuscripts transmitted through the generations. Our prophet, peace be upon him was illiterate, and although he had travelled to Syria for trade as a young man, he did not derive any part of the Qur’an from the previous Judaic scriptures. I didn’t enjoy yesterday’s toast for breakfast so much that I thought I’d eat it again today. I took out a couple of new slices and made some new toast, almost exactly the same. I particularly like Tesco’s 27p breakfast marmalade, because it is my nearest big supermarket and I particularly like the Holy Qur’an, because it is the most recent revelation. The Qur’an is sufficient for Muslims because ot contains all of the contents of the other three books in similar or better form.

I see the gay mafia are working overtime this Bank Holiday, with technicolor even suggesting we spend more time “dwelling on what gay men do in bed”. No thank you.

Remember that B&B proprietors often have their own families staying in the same rooms when visiting.

Somebody called Neal Lawson from the LibDems has just emailed to urge me to sign a petition to Cameron to sack Chris Grayling. The LibDems should be ashamed of jumping on this grubby bandwagon, and Cameron would do well to treat the fuss with the contempt it deserves.

This argument is not about discrimination on grounds of ethnicity or even sexual orientation – it’s about what conduct is acceptable under one’s own roof and what isn’t.

“I once got sacked as a barman for selling someone who ordered a Talisker and coke to fuck off”.

Well done! That is what I call a stand on principle. And a blow for decency.

MJ:

“but on the other hand shops, clubs, pubs and restaurant all have the legal right in refuse entry to whoever they please.”

Is that really true? Can a shop/club/pub/restaurant owner say – “Sorry I’m not letting you in, you’re the wrong sex/colour/religious persuasion” – I don’t think so. I’m sure they can refuse entry on some grounds (they are drunk, violent, etc), but a blanket ban on the grounds of sex, race etc: no.

Put it like this: someone wants to open a B&B but doesn’t like people with a brown/black/yellow skin and doesn’t want them under their own roof. They do not have the legal right – or in my view the moral right (although of course that’s irrelevant) – to refuse entry on those grounds. They need to consider a different occupation. Tough, but discrimination on those terms is not allowed. Running a B&B and expecting those conditions is not compatible with UK law. The options are limited: runa B&B somewhere where the law alows you to discriminate, or look for another occupation. Simple.

Mary

I agree, some of the ones I have met were real miserable bastards. It seems like an abuse of the English language to call those ones gay?

MJ

What you said didn’t blaspheme against Islam but confirmed it. Monotheism states that their is only one God. If this is the case that one God would be every bodies God, not just ours. It would be the God of people in different times and different places.

So similarities in different scriptures in different times and places is a confirmation of monotheism not a negation of it.

Differences would be the result of deterioration of earlier ones, and mistakes and heresies creeping in over time.

“Is that really true? Can a shop/club/pub/restaurant owner say – “Sorry I’m not letting you in, you’re the wrong sex/colour/religious persuasion”"

Of course. It’s private property. No need to give a reason.

arsalan: Thank you for your generous time in providing me with a very full answer – I am puzzled no longer about why you celebrate Passover.

“but on the other hand shops, clubs, pubs and restaurant all have the legal right in refuse entry to whoever they please.

- Is that really true? Can a shop/club/pub/restaurant owner say – “Sorry I’m not letting you in, you’re the wrong sex/colour/religious persuasion” – I don’t think so. I’m sure they can refuse entry on some grounds (they are drunk, violent, etc), but a blanket ban on the grounds of sex, race etc: no.”

I have been refused service in a shop. A Spar, IIRC. It had a pretty handwritten copperplate sign in the window, “No Hippies Served Here”. I hadn’t eaten all day and wanted to buy some food, so I went in & tried to. The counter-person informed me that I was A Hippy and should therefore leave. I showed that I had some money to pay, but the manager repeated the demand, threatening to call the police. I don’t know whether it was legal, but I definitely didn’t have a good feeling about getting an opinion from the local police. In spite of not being drunk, violent or even etc.

As I wandered hungrily out of town, I fell in with a bunch of longhaired weirdos, who fed me. On milk they’d very likely nicked off someone’s doorstep …

Glastonbury, very early ’70s, before they discovered there was money to be made from festivals.

That’s groovy, Richard, man, truly far-out, bad karma-Spar, Head, that shop was The Man, man. Here, man, have a cup of tea with the tea company…

Are you two OK?

Cheers, Suhayl. Do you remember Gong ? Flying Teapots. Quite mad.

Oh, Arsalan – thanks for the mention of the Gospel of Barnabas, way up top. That looks like the version I’d heard, I wasn’t sure where it came from.

I think it’s unfair to Judas. Because, if the whole thing was any more than gruesome and meaningless, it needed him to make it happen, he must have been part of the plan.

“Do you remember Gong ?”

I saw them only last November. Original line-up. They were great.

Original lineup Gong ? Cor, I didn’t know they were back. Where was that ? Id travel, oooh, at least a few miles to hear them. I was never too clear on their lineups, was that the Camembert Electrique bunch ? The reeds player was clever. (I heard Daevid Allen (sp?) with some pickup bunch, in Leeds a dozen years back, it was rather embarrassingly sad).

“Where was that ?”

Cambridge. Part of a (smallish) national tour. More the ‘classic’ line-up (Angel’s Egg, Flying Teapot) ie Steve Hillage on guitar, Allen, Smyth etc. They were excellent. There are probably some YouTube clips around.

Richard Robinson

“”I think it’s unfair to Judas. Because, if the whole thing was any more than gruesome and meaningless, it needed him to make it happen, he must have been part of the plan.”"

According to the Gospel of Judas, he was!

It is a Gospel written in coptic found in a cave with many other banned Gospels, it was carbon dated to the third century.

But since it was found many pages were sold or damaged due to poor handling.

“According to the Gospel of Judas”

You must understand that the gnostic gospels are not and are not meant to be historical accounts. They are imagined spiritual journeys, for want of a better way of putting it.

Craig

The Creed says that Christ rose again “on the third day”, not “three days later”.

Cheers

James Chater

The Gospel of Thomas is a beauteous one:

“Drink from my mouth…” Cana

Richard: Gong: Daevid Allen: fantastic, a bit like Amon Dull (not Amon Dull II, but the original loose commune Amon Duul)! ‘Feelin, Reelin, Squealin’, the first Soft Machine single: weird and brilliant:

“I play your soft guitaaaaar…”

No Blacks

No Irish

No Dogs

The above sign was fairly common on boarding houses at one time. If such discrimination based on personal prejudice is wrong, (and has rightly been made illegal), why should bigotry about sexual orientation be considered any less offensive and culpable? Sexual orientation is no more a choice than race. Are some forms of equality more equal in your eyes than others Craig? You condemned the insinuations made by Jan Moir in the Mail after Stephen Gately’s death, and the racism of Eugene Terreblanche, so why should the form of discrimination supported by Grayling be thought in any way acceptable? Pink triangle or yellow star, it’s all the same in a concentration camp.

Talisker and coke? You should have been given a pay rise.

“why should bigotry about sexual orientation be considered any less offensive and culpable?”

There never was an answer to this except a bit of handwaving about the Confederate states which didn’t make any sense.

“Talisker and coke? You should have been given a pay rise.”

I know. Everyone knows it should be with ginger ale. No way I’d raise my kids on anything different.

In my concentration camp, Owen, there’s a cooler specially reserved for fascists who target nice little ladies sharing their nice homes with paying guests and bully them into putting up with “disagreeable” conduct under their own roof whether they like it or not.

And fascists who say give a room to male gays or find another way of making a living.

And what’s wrong with ‘no dogs’? Simply avoiding another behaviour problem and protecting other guests.

“I see the gay mafia are working overtime this Bank Holiday.”

The anonymous person who wrote this assumes that anyone opposed to prejudice and discrimination must belong to the group whose oppression they object to. I marched in protest against the invasion of Iraq, but that doesn’t make me an Iraqi. Obviously this person has projected his/her own self-interested view on to others’ motivations.

Anyone surprised that Woody fantasizes about running a concentration camp?

“bully them into putting up with “disagreeable” conduct under their own roof whether they like it or not.”

Well, actually I guess they don’t like it.

Maybe I’m just not keeping up, but … does this arise out of an actual case ? Were any real people turned away from any real B&Bs, to give rise to it at this particular time ? Or is it “don’t you know there’s an election on ?”

Richard, I bet you’re right. If I have time, which I don’t, I’ll try & chase the story down.

Woody, Woody. With a name like Woody, do you really think you should be posting on this subject? It means a ‘hard on’ or a ‘stiffy’, you know. Are you sure you’re real?

Anyway, it’s truly bizarre, all these high-minded, pure people dwelling on and getting exercised about gay sex. Nay, even as Glenn said (sshhh) anal sex. Is there nothing on telly?

Otherwise, Owen, absolutely right. Bad moves, bad vibes, and crass (surely illegal) behaviour making the news as though it was normal, possibly in an attempt, as Richard says, to normalise it. Time to send money to Stonewall, I think.

“Richard, I bet you’re right. If I have time, which I don’t, I’ll try & chase the story down.”

I just found myself taking it for granted something must have happened, but as soon as I noticed that, I realised I hadn’t got a clue what, except that looking for what it was starts from the name of a politician, and doesn’t seem to throw up anything immediately obvious …

But I haven’t spent very long on it, I have other things I should be doing, too.

Ring the House of Commons & ask to talk to the politician? Come on, 5 minutes?

OK, sorry, I will.

Got time to post dumb comments but no time to check the story, eh?

Richard Robinson, you and technicolor seem so excited by the prospect of enforcing gay male high jinks in every B&B in the land that one wonders if you’re an item like the LibDem duo in the story you haven’t time to “chase down”? Try googling.

The lady doth protest too much methinks…

Woody, the story being questioned is the story you are currently swallowing (no pun intended). There is a suspicion, Woody, that your kneejerk reaction is being cold-bloodedly orchestrated for quite evil political purposes, do you see?

The principle, however, remains the same. What matters is if people love each other & behave accordingly. Why don’t you agree?

oh, and also legality, and humanity. and a general distate for mucking about in or judging other people’s private lives. those are the principles too.

Woody, why does my speculating that this story might be merely a bit of whipped-up media froth in the run-up to an election get you so embarrassingly overheated ?

comment approving previous comment as a better comment than previous commenter’s comment (always supposing that no-one else has commented in the meantime)

I dream every night I’m being chased by seamen with oiled torsos and bulging tattooed muscles but just as they catch me I wake up. What can it all mean?

Craig, there are gremlins in the works… How come that last post, which was NOT from me, got through?

Meanwhile, the only thing that’s ‘concerted’ around here is the Technicolor-Robinson duet. The poor darlings don’t understand that you can’t make people love you if you bully them and disgust them.

As for the story, go to Huntingdon and check it out before dismissing it.

Anyway, considering some of the language you’ve been using let’s stop defiling Craig’s website with this, er, disagreeable subject.

I’ve just re-read the original post, which seems to equate paedophiles with gay men. I suppose there’s no hoping for quality debate after that.

What I also find extraordinary is the sight of ‘straight’ men feeling they have any right or need to comment adversely on gay men’s behaviour or love life. What’s ridiculous (and rather touching) is the idea that anyone who objects to this intolerant self-righteous ill-informed prurience must be in some kind of gay cabal.

“What’s ridiculous (and rather touching) is the idea that anyone who objects to this intolerant self-righteous ill-informed prurience must be in some kind of gay cabal.”

It’s time to borrow from Douglas Adams :- Excuse me, but there’s this infinite number of monkeys outside, with a really big pile of absolute gibberish they’d like to take up your time with.

“And what’s wrong with ‘no dogs’?”

Woody

Woof-woof!! Bow-wow!! Grrrr!!!

“Hey, Bulldog. You know ‘ny more?”

A gender analysis of clerical child abuse survivors makes it clear that it was not only little boys.

“Craig, there are gremlins in the works…etc”

THAT post was not from me! Nobody has interpreted my dream, but nevertheless, I’m coming to realize that my obsession with the details of male homosexual behavior, (while not getting worked up about the female equivalent at all), is symptomatic of unresolved psychological issues which I’ve been concealing, even from myself.

There’s seems to be a confusion of identities here, but it’s hardly surprising as we share an extremely common name. By way of illustration, once, after an evening of heavy drinking, I staggered home with a nameless stranger. When I awoke the next morning I was amazed to discover the bald pink head protruding from the sheets was actually that of another Woody.

P.S. If it was you, I apologize for never phoning, Woody.

At least it wasn’t a greyhound, Woody.