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Glastonbury’s over for another year. Music writer Pete Paphides has been going there since 1992, and he noticed some important, positive differences this year. He listed them on Twitter, noting things such as the move away from plastic bottles and the provision of extra helpers on-site. But the main difference was diversity. The main thing… [more]
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There’s a great interview with the equally great Ruth Hunt, departing CEO of Stonewall, in Buzzfeed News. Ruth hasn’t just had a hard job. She’s had to deal with constant online abuse, some of it criminal, and has been the target of bigoted pundits in the media too. “Mainstream newspapers running consistently transphobic articles, day… [more]
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As I mentioned yesterday, one of the most common reactions to the news of increasing hate crimes was denial: the crimes are just touchy snowflakes going to the cops about the slightest thing on the internet. To put it mildly, that’s a complete misunderstanding of what hate crime is, and what minority groups experience. Something… [more]
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Yesterday, the BBC reported a massive increase in hate crimes against trans people. The online response was utterly predictable: the anti-trans faux-feminists decided that Stonewall had managed to infiltrate every level of every police force in the UK in order to churn out fake statistics; in slightly less unhinged circles a very worrying number of… [more]
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Allison Pearson, novelist and Telegraph columnist, is a big fan of Boris Johnson – a man who you’ll recall once discussed a conspiracy to have a journalist beaten up. It seems Pearson has come very close to having people beaten up too. When Johnson’s neighbours called the police about what sounded like domestic violence, she… [more]
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BBC News: The number of transgender hate crimes recorded by police forces in England, Scotland and Wales has risen by 81%, latest figures suggest. Data obtained by the BBC showed there were 1,944 crimes across 36 forces in the last financial year compared with 1,073 in 2016-17. The figures here are based on freedom of… [more]
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A few weeks ago, my friend Chris made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. His comedy troupe, Improv Killed My Dog, were going to parody the trailer for the new film Yesterday. Did I fancy doing the music? I did. In the original, the hero wakes up one day and is the only person who… [more]
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I’ve written before about what appears to be a failure of basic journalism standards at The Times and Sunday Times under editor John Witherow. A new report suggests it’s even worse. The report has the rather unwieldy title Andrew Norfolk, The Times Newspaper and Anti-Muslim Reporting – A Case To Answer, and it makes some… [more]
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I mentioned the gap between firms’ embrace of the Pride rainbow and their actual actions the other day. Here’s a great example. I was in a minor car crash on Friday, and over the weekend various companies – my insurer, the repairer and the car hire firm that’s sorting out the courtesy car – all… [more]
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The photo above was shared on social media yesterday; it’s from the Spice Girls gig in Manchester. Apparently there were similar scenes at last night’s Pink concert in Glasgow, where not one but two security guards were posted outside the gents to stop women from using the cubicles. [more]
Read me in books
My debut memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, was a Scotsman book of the year and Damian Barr’s Literary Salon book of the week, and it was shortlisted for the 2023 British Book Awards book of the year in the Discover category.
My latest book, Small Town Joy, is a celebration of queer influences on and queer artists in Scots music and is out now.
I’m also a contributor to the excellent anthology Fierce Salvage, which is also out now.
