Snowless in October.

Japan’s Mount Fuji remained snowless on Tuesday, marking the latest date that its slopes have been bare since records began 130 years ago, the country’s weather agency said. The volcano’s snowcap begins forming on 2 October on average, and last year snow was first detected there on 5 October.

But because of warm weather, this year no snowfall had yet been observed on Japan’s highest mountain, said Yutaka Katsuta, a forecaster at Kofu Local Meteorological Office.

…

Japan’s summer this year was the joint hottest on record – equalling the level seen in 2023 – as extreme heatwaves fuelled by climate change engulfed many parts of the globe.

If it’s any comfort, Mount Rainier is never bare naked like that. It rejoices in 35 square miles of permanent ice and snow.

For now.

Get the labels right.

Fascism is a form of authoritarianism, but not all authoritarians are fascists. Fascists have a transformative political project: to create a homogeneous people devoted to a messianic leader and to mobilize society for the sake of violent racial conflict. By contrast, monarchs or technocratic authoritarians – think of military dictatorships in Latin America – can be perfectly self-effacing: Europe’s longest-lasting dictatorship during the 20th century was headed by a decidedly uncharismatic Portuguese economist, António Salazar. Fascists, on the other hand, base their legitimacy on popular acclamation: they celebrate mass rallies and create a spectacle of power.

So far Trump is filling the fascist bill without breaking a sweat.

So far so Trumpist, it would seem: the cult of personality administered at large rallies; the increasingly open racism which singles out Trump’s supporters as “the real people” – an expression Trump used as he incited his fanatical followers at the Ellipse on January 6. But a collective project centered on violence? Not quite. To be sure, Trump couldn’t be prouder of the Proud Boys; add to that the militarization of civilian life, driven by a supreme court endlessly creative in inventing 18th-century traditions to justify the proliferation of arms. What’s more, Kevin Roberts, head of the Heritage Foundation, today’s leading Trumpist thinktank, has promised a “second American revolution” which, Roberts clarified, “will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be” – as clear a threat of violence as one can imagine. Yet all this is still not the same as fascist leaders glorifying mortal combat as the ultimate meaning of life.

Hmm. It doesn’t seem very different from it though. Trump does love violence as long as it doesn’t mean he has to get his “hair” mussed.

Trump is also both product and promoter of a consumer capitalism that seeks to demobilize people politically. It’s hard to see that young people today would find the idea of marching around in uniforms the essence of the good life; Trump’s promise to his “real people” – from the rural folks of the supposed “heartland” to lily-white suburbs – is precisely that they don’t need to make sacrifices. His former chief of staff reports that Trump, visiting Arlington, claimed not to see the point of dying in war. But no real fascist leader would have denied that heroic death in combat had meaning.

Well but what about a real fascist who is also very stupid and very lazy and very chickenshit?

The Jackie Green tweet is from 2018 but it’s still worth noting.

Seems harsh.

What we can expect if he.

Priority numero uno is immigration, where Trump has promised to launch “the largest deportation program in history” and begin a promised legal war against birthright citizenship—the constitutional rule contained in the 14th Amendment that children of immigrants are automatic citizens if born in America.

Both of these are long-term projects. There will be a lengthy legal fight if Trump suddenly declares a constitutional guarantee no longer operable. There will be logistical and legal challenges with attempting to uproot millions of people out of their communities. The first shots in each of these fights, however, will likely come in the form of day-one orders.

But Trump has more urgent business, because he’s a convicted felon who wants to punish/eliminate everyone who can or did have anything to do with his convicted felon status.

Trump told radio host Hugh Hewitt this week, that he would fire Jack Smith, the special counsel currently prosecuting him for a bevy of 2020 election crimes, “within two seconds.”

…

“I don’t think they’ll impeach me if I fire Jack Smith,” Trump told Hewitt. Even if they did, what’s a third impeachment when you’ve already beaten two?

And it’s not like firing Smith would open Trump to any new legal jeopardy: “We got immunity at the Supreme Court,” the former president noted. Whether firing him would be enough is another question: In another recent interview, Trump said that Smith “should be thrown out of the country.”

All very healthy and normal and not a bit putinesque.

It’s anybody’s guess whether Trump would include among his “day one” actions the blanket pardons for January 6th rioters he has been pledging for years. Don’t get me wrong: The pardons are definitely coming. But why rush the logistics on such a joyous occasion?

Imagine it: Trump’s favorite insurrectionists, freed from bondage, invited to the Ellipse to receive their long-overdue thanks for their patriotism. They may not have managed to reinstall Trump in 2020, but wonder of wonders: The American people did it for them just four short years later!

To put it another way, we will be a failed state.

Trump has a particular interest in the post of attorney general, where he is determined to find someone with a particular eye toward his personal interests. His last two, he thinks, were no good—Jeff Sessions failed to protect him from the Mueller investigation, and William Barr failed to help him steal the 2020 election.

Someone who actively helped him try in 2020 will be a good start: perhaps Jeff Clark, who as assistant attorney general for the department’s Civil Division worked harder than anyone to help Trump prevent the transfer of power. Clark has since had an ethics panel recommend his law license be suspended and has been indicted alongside Trump in Georgia. He’s perfect

Very very failed.

No you didn’t.

Former President Donald J. Trump said that Michelle Obama had made a “big mistake” by criticizing him, as he responded on Monday for the first time to her recent searing comments about his mental state.

“I always tried to be so nice and respectful,” said Mr. Trump, who in 2011 spent weeks spreading the lie that Barack Obama, the country’s first Black president, was actually born in Kenya, with the insinuation being that he was therefore illegitimately in office. He added, “She opened up a little bit of a box.”

No, he didn’t always try to be so nice and respectful. He never tried to be that. He doesn’t do nice and respectful. He expects nice and respectful toward him, from everyone, no matter what, but he absolutely does not reciprocate, let alone give away for nothing.

Mr. Trump made the comments at a rally in Atlanta, in response to what Mrs. Obama, the former first lady, said about him while campaigning on Saturday for Vice President Kamala Harris in Michigan. At that event, Mrs. Obama said some voters were ignoring Mr. Trump’s “gross incompetence.” She said Mr. Trump had displayed “erratic behavior” and “obvious mental decline,” and noted that he had been found “liable for sexual abuse” in a civil case and that the former president was now a felon.

Who is more at fault here? Michelle Obama for pointing out the bad things or Donald Trump for the bad things?

I have to go with the second option. I think the problem is the reality of Trump’s very real gross incompetence and erratic behavior and obvious mental decline and his liability for sexual abuse and his felony conviction.

Mediaite reports:

The PAC founded by billionaire Elon Musk in support of Donald Trump dropped a new ad on Sunday labeling Vice President Kamala Harris “a C word” that America “can’t afford.”

Musk founded America PAC, a super PAC in support of Trump, in July of this year. He’s been speaking at rallies for Trump, including Sunday’s Madison Square Garden rally in New York City, and until recently was running a million-dollar-a-day contest for registered voters in swing states who signed a petition put out by the PAC. Those giveaways were suspended after a warning from the DOJ.

But the PAC has continued other activities, including campaign ads like the one shared Friday, which as of Sunday evening had just 155k views on X, formerly Twitter.

It begins with a “warning” that the ad contains “multiple instances of the ‘C word’” on a bright red warning screen, then moves to the main script, where it is “revealed” that the c-word in question is “communist.”

Hurhurhur. He gets two for the price of one that way.

H/t Mike B

They want to have it both ways.

The rally began with Tony Hinchcliffe, a comedian and podcast host, assailing Puerto Rico – in the city that’s home to the largest Puerto Rican population on the US mainland. About 500,000 Puerto Ricans also live in battleground Pennsylvania, where Harris campaigned on Sunday.

“There’s a lot going on, like, I don’t know if you know this but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now,” he said. “I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”

The line was well-received by Trump supporters who filled the historic arena in Midtown Manhattan. Trump has recently taken to calling the US “a garbage can for the world” when he rails against undocumented immigrants.

“These Latinos, they love making babies, too. Just know that they do,” Hinchcliffe continued.

Along with the “joke” about coming inside, which is apparently too smutty for CNN.

After the rally, Trump’s campaign sought to distance itself from Hinchcliffe, who like the other speakers was an invited guest, and his comments about Puerto Rico.

“This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign,” Trump campaign spokesperson Danielle Alvarez said in a statement to CNN.

Oh really? Really????

Yes it does. Of course it does. Few things could reflect his views better. He is the embarrassing old fart propping up the bar or making everyone flee the Christmas dinner table by airing his stale stupid ugly mean venomous shitty views on women and brown people and faggots and dykes and all the rest of it. Of course he is. He’s the drunk guy on the bus raging about immigrants. Trump doesn’t drink, but he doesn’t need to, he’s disinhibited already.

Yes this is what we need – people setting fire to ballot boxes.

Authorities are investigating after at least two ballot boxes were set on fire Monday morning in the Portland, Oregon, area.

Police responded to a call about a fire in Portland about 3:30 a.m. Monday, the Portland Police Bureau said in a statement. An “incendiary device” was placed inside the box and security personnel extinguished the fire, officials said.

A second ballot box was set on fire early Monday morning at a bus station in nearby Vancouver, Washington, according to the Vancouver Police Department. When officers arrived, they found a “suspicious device” next to the box, which was smoking and on fire, police said.

The Clark County Elections Office said hundreds of ballots were damaged at the box in the C-TRAN Park and Ride at Fisher’s Landing Transit Center, CNN affiliate KPTV reported.

First rule of fascism: sow chaos.

The boxes are located about 15 miles apart. The one in Vancouver is in Washington’s 3rd Congressional District, where one of the most competitive races in the country is taking place.

The district is represented by Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, one of five seats held by Democrats in a district former President Donald Trump won in 2020. She is facing a rematch against Republican Joe Kent, a retired Green Beret who had Trump’s endorsement.

Wait a minute let me stop you right there.

Fox bro: “…the mainstream media picked up on the comic’s comments, which were offensive, been denounced by the campaign n everybody else, what went on with that?” Sleazybarbie, talking like a weary mommy adjudicating a squabble between toddlers: “Look, it was a comedian who made a joke in poor taste.” Well ok then. “Obviously that joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or our campaign”

Wait wait wait Sleazybarbie, what do you mean “obviously”? What’s obvious about it? What, exactly, is in any way obvious about your claim that blatant racist “humor” does not reflect Trump’s “views”?

WHAT DO YOU MEAN “OBVIOUSLY”?????

AP headline:

Trump’s Madison Square Garden event features crude and racist insults

Crude, racist, and sexist.

With just over a week before Election Day, speakers at the rally Sunday night labeled Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage,” called Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris “the devil,” and said the woman vying to become the first woman and Black woman president had begun her career as a prostitute.

“I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” said Tony Hinchcliffe, a stand-up comic whose set also included lewd and racist comments about Latinos, Jews and Black people, all key constituencies in the election just nine days away.

And by “lewd” do we mean sexist? I bet we do.

Trump’s childhood friend David Rem referred to Harris as “the Antichrist” and “the devil.” Businessman Grant Cardone told the crowd that Harris ”and her pimp handlers will destroy our country.”

Makes one proud to be a Namerican.

Training medical staff to ignore physical realities:

Women are ‘transphobic’ if they do not want to share a bathroom with a transgender colleague, NHS staff have been told.

As always, the issue is male colleagues, not “transgender” colleagues.

Women’s rights campaigners wrote to NHS chief executive Amanda Pritchard to criticise the ‘partisan and ideological’ training and demand that it be amended earlier this month.

Last night, after being contacted by the Mail, the NHS admitted that it has since withdrawn the training module and that it will be replaced ‘in the next few weeks’. 

…

The training manual, which included five ‘case studies’, required staff to answer ten multiple-choice questions to test whether they are discriminatory.

In one section headed ‘transphobic colleague’, it gives an example of a member of NHS staff who does not wish to share a bathroom with a trans person.

But again, the issue is not trans, the issue is what sex the person is. Women don’t want to share bathrooms with men, for their own safety among other reasons. Men at least don’t have the same safety concerns.

The document states that this is ‘not acceptable’ and that asking whether trans staff can instead use gender-neutral or disabled toilets could constitute ‘illegal harassment’.

It adds: ‘It is always an individual’s choice to use whichever facilities match how they identify.’

Oh really. Then why isn’t it always an individual woman’s choice to use whichever facilities match the sex she is? Why does “how they identify” get to trump “the sex she is”? Why does “identify” matter more than “is”? Please do explain. By explain I don’t mean “utter stale phrases that don’t mean anything”; I mean explain.

In another section of the document it includes ‘pregnancy and maternity’ among a list of protected characteristics, but fails to use the words woman or mother. It reads: ‘People are protected against discrimination on the grounds of pregnancy and maternity during the period of their pregnancy and any statutory maternity leave.’

That’s not a failure, it’s a cold determined insulting refusal.

A friend writes:

Let’s talk about the vice president.

There are memes and arguments going around that Kamala Harris has performed badly (or not at all) as our vice president. The White House and the Democrats have not done much to educate the public about her role and accomplishments.

And that’s probably true of most vice presidents. The only memory I have of Mike Pence is his action to prevent a coup when Donald Trump wanted to stay in power after losing an election. And my recollection of Joe Biden in the Obama administration is almost entirely limited to humor about his friendship with the president.

The Constitution requires only two things of the vice president. They must take on the duties of the presidency if the president dies or is unable to perform those duties. And the vice president must serve as president of the Senate.

Kamala Harris has not been called upon to perform presidential duties. But she has presided over the Senate, breaking more tie votes than any vice president in US history.

The MAGA world calls her the “border czar” and gives her a failing grade for that assignment. But she was never the border czar. Her actual charge by the president was to study the situation in Central American countries like Guatemala to gain a better understanding of the reasons their citizens leave to cross the border — and to offer solutions.

She did that, and she did it well. She held multiple meetings with those countries’ leaders, she talked to experts, she read, she devised solutions. She negotiated with American companies in fields like agribusiness and factory production to invest in Central American countries, and they have kept the first few years of those long-term pledges. She brought in non-profit solutions as well.

Border crossings from those countries did decrease. She completed her assignment and should receive a more-than-passing grade.

[Note that the Trump administration did not complete its border assignment. It built less than 50 miles of new border wall, and it billed us, the taxpayer (not Mexico, as promised) for the construction.]

A lot of what a VP does is behind the scenes, advising and collaborating with the president. Harris played a major role in the selection of Supreme Court Justice K. B. Jackson. She was a leader in negotiating the August 2024 prisoner swap with Russia — the largest such exchange since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

She worked with the president to craft the student loan forgiveness program. She has educated herself about the catastrophic impact of the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v Wade and has become the administration’s voice on the abortion issue (President Biden being in the tough role of pro-choice Catholic).

The fact that Harris’s work hasn’t been promoted or even reported on, in some cases, doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. She has served the American public in diverse and important ways. People who’ve worked with her report that she is deliberate and methodical, asking questions, zeroing in on major points, and holding concise briefings as she addresses an issue.

She is exactly the leader we need in this time of complex problems, misinformation, and social division. She has the intelligence, background, stamina, and empathy to make progress with our issues. She has been, all along.

It’s not a belief though.

Wes Streeting said “something has gone wrong in our society” as he met NHS nurses fighting to keep biological males out of a women’s changing room in their hospital.

The health secretary confirmed his belief that sex is biological, according to the “Darlington Five” nurses, who handed in a 48,000-name petition at No 10. It called for party leaders to “stand up for women” to ensure they had access to single-sex changing rooms and lavatories.

It’s not a belief. Knowing that men are not women [because their “biological sex” is male] is not a belief. Not knowing that men are not women can be a belief (as opposed to just a mistake and/or lack of knowledge), but knowing that they are is just knowing. We don’t call basic everyday accurate knowledge about the world we live in “belief”; we call it knowledge. We know it’s a mistake to step in front of a car going 60, we know birds are not fish, we know rain is wet (I’ve just been for a walk in some, more of it than I was planning for). We don’t need to put in the hard work of believing any of that, we just know it and move on.

The five nurses have filed a claim against County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust with an employment tribunal. They say their employer has failed to protect staff from sexual harassment. The first pretrial hearing is expected next month.

Rose, who works in the operating department, identifies as female. The nurses claim their colleague does not take female hormones, is sexually active and has said they were [he was] trying to get their [his] girlfriend pregnant.

The nurses said the colleague stared at their breasts as they were getting undressed and spent “a long time walking around the female dressing room”, sometimes wearing tight boxers that showed their [his] genitalia.

In other words he’s having a laugh. He’s doing this to harass and humiliate women. He should be fired.

The trust said it is committed to a “safe, secure, and respectful working environment” for all colleagues and had put alternative, private women-only changing facilities in place.

The nurses have argued that the new space opens straight on to a busy corridor and serves only to “further humiliate, degrade and isolate” female staff.

The group has said that 26 nurses wrote to HR and senior management outlining their concerns, but were told via HR that they needed to be “re-educated”, “broaden their mindset” and be more “inclusive”.

Yes, “broaden your mindset” until you believe that snakes are carrots and leeks are goats and trees are bicycles. Broaden your mindset until all words have lost any universal meaning and mean what the individual user decides they mean – just imagine how long conversations take under that system! Broaden your mindset until a man raping a woman is a cookie singing a butterfly.

You know…it occurs to me to wonder what’s “green” about this.

What’s the goal? All kinds of high-tech fiddling with people’s bodies, using lots of resources, for a goal that’s both impossible and the antithesis of letting nature take its course. For what? For a silly fairy tale, for a game of let’s pretend. How is it green to cheer that on when the reasons for it are so flimsy?

It’s a bad fit.

The stink gets even worse.

The multi-billionaire owner of the Washington Post, Jeff Bezos, continued facing criticism throughout the weekend because executives from his aerospace company met with Donald Trump on the same day the newspaper prevented its editorial team from publishing an endorsement of his opponent in the US presidential election.

And that’s not just a matter of Bezos having a busy day.

Senior news and opinion leaders at the Washington Post flew to Miami in late September 2024 to meet with Bezos, who had reservations about the paper issuing an endorsement in the 5 November election, the New York Times reported.

Oh yes? What kind of reservations?

Amazon and the space exploration company Blue Origin are among Bezos-owned businesses that still compete for lucrative federal government contracts.

And the Post on Friday announced it would not endorse a candidate in the 5 November election after its editorial board had already drafted its endorsement of Kamala Harris.

Friday’s announcement did not mention Amazon or Blue Origin. But within hours, high-ranking officials of the latter company briefly met with Trump after a campaign speech in Austin, Texas, as the Republican nominee seeks a second presidency.

Hours after Bezos kneecapped the Post, big noises at one of his other companies met with Trump.

Those reported overtures were eviscerated by Washington Post editor-at-large and longtime columnist Robert Kagan, who resigned on Friday. On Saturday, he argued that the meeting Blue Origin executives had with Trump would not have taken place if the Post had endorsed the Democratic vice-president as it planned.

“Trump waited to make sure that Bezos did what he said he was going to do – and then met with the Blue Origin people,” Kagan told the Daily Beast on Saturday. “Which tells us that there was an actual deal made, meaning that Bezos communicated, or through his people, communicated directly with Trump, and they set up this quid pro quo.”

If that’s true…well. It’s bad. Very very bad.

The Post’s non-endorsement came shortly after the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Times, Patrick Soon-Shiong, refused to allow the editorial board publish an endorsement of Harris.

Many pointed out how the stances from the Post and the LA Times seems to fit the definition of “anticipatory obedience” as spelled out in On Tyranny, Tim Snyder’s bestselling guide to authoritarianism. Snyder defines the term as “giving over your power to the aspiring authoritarian” before the authoritarian is in position to compel that handover.

Thus making it easier for the aspiring authoritarian to become an authoritarian for real. Good thinking!

Target the…community centers?

Pro-Palestine protesters have been filmed “aggressively intimidating” attendees at a Jewish community centre as Metropolitan Police officers were accused of “sitting in their cars”.

A group of anti-Israel demonstrators gathered outside West Hampstead’s JW3 community centre earlier today. Tel Aviv-based newspaper Haaretz was hosting a conference at the JW3 in North London, with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and ex-Palestinian Foreign Minister Dr Nasser Alkidwa in attendance.

…

An eyewitness claimed there was “very little police presence” as only a “handful” of officers actively responding to the protest. They also accused a number of officers of remaining seated in their vehicles nearby rather than confronting the crowd.

Another video heaped more pressure on Scotland Yard after it appeared to show an officer rebuke a dog walker who showed the pro-Palestine protesters the middle finger. Campaign group Stop The Hate UK said: “Yet again, the Metropolitan Police is failing to protect the Jewish community in London.”

Jews are like women. They’re sly, deceitful, manipulative, weak…in short, we hate them.

Well, she’s not wrong.

Michelle Obama stood before a few thousand people at an event center in Kalamazoo on the first day of early voting in Michigan and confessed she was frustrated — and a “little angry” — at some of the things she’s heard about why people are holding back on support for Vice President Harris.

Speaking directly to the stark gender divide that polls show is a feature of this presidential campaign, Obama railed against “the lie that we do not know who Kamala is or what she stands for,” saying too many voters are shrugging off former President Donald Trump’s character and his track record on a wide range of issues.

…

“I hope you’ll forgive me if I’m a little frustrated that some of us are choosing to ignore Donald Trump’s gross incompetence while asking Kamala to dazzle us at every turn,” the former first lady said in her first appearance on the campaign trail with Harris.

“I hope that you will forgive me if I’m a little angry that we are indifferent to his erratic behavior, his obvious mental decline, his history as a convicted felon, a known slum lord, a predator found liable for sexual abuse — all of this while we pick apart Kamala’s answers from interviews that he doesn’t even have the courage to do, y’all,” she said.

Obama described Harris as a “grown up” with a clear set of policies, and said she fears “too many people are willing to write off Trump’s childish, mean spirited antics by saying, ‘Well, Trump’s just being Trump,’ rather than question his horrible behavior. Some folks think he’s funny.”

All that. It’s endlessly depressing and disgusting. Just imagine: once upon a time we didn’t have to think about Trump at all, ever.

It’s never possible to hate women enough. There’s always more to be done.

That’s so Trump.

Trump says his biggest White House mistake was hiring ‘disloyal people’

It’s like those people who say “My biggest fault is being too generous/kind/caring/empathetic.”

Those comments – which also described “neocons”, or neoconservatives who generally aim to promote democracy, as “bad people” – came days after the Trump White House’s former chief of staff John Kelly said the Republican nominee in the 5 November election met the definition of a fascist.

Oh that kind of “disloyal” – disloyal to him personally, in the sense of being aware of his many massive flaws. Loyal to the country, loyal to the people, loyal to his values, but not loyal to The Monster.

Originally a comment by Acolyte of Sagan at Miscellany Room.

Driving home earlier tonight I was listening to Billy Bragg’s Changing Times, a documentary about protest music that originally aired in 2019. Bragg was speaking with the British folk-punk singer, Tom Robinson, about Robinson’s ‘British gay anthem’, (Sing if You’re) Glad to Be Gay.

For those not familiar with the song, here’s a brief précis culled from the song’s Wiki page:

The song was originally written by Tom Robinson [an out gay singer] for a London gay pride parade in 1976.

“Glad to Be Gay” is built on four verses criticising British society’s attitudes towards gay people. The first verse criticises the British police for raiding gay pubs for no reason after the decriminalisation of homosexuality by the 1967 Sexual Offences Act.

The second verse points to the hypocrisy of Gay News being prosecuted for obscenity instead of magazines like Playboy or the tabloid newspaper The Sun, which published photographs of topless girls on Page 3. It also criticises the way homosexual people are portrayed in other parts of the press, especially in the newspapers Daily Telegraph, Sunday People and Sunday Express. The third verse points out the extreme consequences of homophobia, such as violence against gay people.

In the final verse, the song makes a plea for support of the gay cause. This part, originally intended as a bitter attack on complacency of gay people at the Pride march in 1976, became a rallying call for solidarity from people irrespective of their orientation.

So far, so clear. The song was a straightforward protest song about the treatment of and attitudes towards gay men in the 1970s I remember the song well; I even saw it performed live at a Tom Robinson Band gig in 1979/80 and joined in the singing with the rest of the audience. It was a strangely joyous experience being in a throng of spiky-haired punks, young gay men, ‘normies’ like me and a whole lot more disparate groups, all linking arms and belting out the chorus “Sing if you’re glad to be gay, sing if you’re happy that way”. I remember hearing him being interviewed about the song many times on radio and TV and he always explained the song in terms of gay men. And yet for some reason, in the interview with Bragg he said “Of course, back then [the ’70s] ‘gay’ meant something different than it does today. It was an umbrella term covering the whole LGBTQIA+ community.”

I’m a straight male and even to me, hearing this gay man (possibly even a gay icon to a generation of British gay men) who had been so outspoken about gay rights suddenly come out with such an obviously dishonest, revisionist statement was absolutely shocking. I can barely begin to imagine how those gay men who looked to him throughout the dark days of the ’70s and ’80’s must feel. ‘Utterly betrayed’ probably doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Apologies for the length of that rant, but it was six hours ago that I heard it and I still can’t quite get my head around it.