THE WEEK ACCORDING TO GARÇON STUPIDE

*"Then they raped me. It was horrible, physically. I was dizzy. My thoughts just left me." Kazungu Ziwa talks about his gang-rape by soldiers in Congo, described as a 'reservoir of atrocities'; sexual violence against men is being used to 'humiliate and demoralize Congolese communities into submission.'

*Fighting to free those found 'guilty' of homosexuality in Cameroon.

*Bloodbath at gay youth club in Tel Aviv; hundreds of Israelis demonstrate to protest the attack; victims are laid to rest; tens of thousands protest in Tel Aviv on Saturday; the center reopens; video:

*Three quarters of people in Poland oppose gay marriage. That's Catholics for you.

*A Polish woman is banned from using homophobic terminolgy in a landmark court case.

*Photos of Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin's saggy tits translate into gay icon status. Pathetic.

*Speaking of which, Australian MP Dorothy Pratt lives up to her name and denounces homosexuality as abnormal. "Nature intended blah blah blah... man and a woman... blah blah blah." Nature's gifts also include Down's Syndrome, hairlips and conjoined twins.

*Elsewhere on that arid sweatbox, drunk straight men are blighting Sydney Mardi Gras. Gee, I thought all the drunk straight Aussies were in West London.

*Forbidden Fruit: taboos in the SGL community. Weirdly, race isn't mentioned.

*World Outgames 2009: Jack Mackenroth takes eight medals.

*"So many questions today about what 'gay Beirut' is like, I'm just like, 'Wait and see, you'll like it, you'll like it!' "

*Reykjavik Gay Pride 2009, in pictures.

*The smallest gay pride event in the world in the Irish coastal hamlet of Easkey, population 250.

*Manvendra Singh Gohil, India's gay prince, dismisses claims that yoga can cure homosexuality; UK readers may remember Manvendra from BBC Three's Undercover Princes; review; video:

*The American Psychological Association announces that there is no evidence to support claims that sexual orientation can be changed through therapy. In 2007, the APA appointed a six-member committee of experts to examine the subject and have released a 138-page report on their findings.

*GLBTQ Online High School. It does what it says on the tin.

*Remember the 13-year-old who was sexually assaulted by some of his teammates with a hockey stick and broomstick? Of course you do. That case is now in court. The boy says "basically the whole team" was there whilst he was penetrated a dozen times.

*Who's gay and who's not is less clear than it used to be among teens.

*The 60 Greatest Gay Bars! More than half are in the US; 3 are in Blighty.

*That's Gay: Commercials

*President Obama, who's the saviour of gays/the biggest fraud, like, ever (delete as applicable) will honour Harvey Milk and Billie Jean King with the 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom.

*"The US military is investigating claims that US service members were involved in committing atrocities against gays in Iraq".

*The sailor charged with the murder of gay Seaman August Provost commits suicide. He had previously tried to end his life twice while in military custody, it later emerges.

*Civil partnerships down by 18 per cent in the UK. As Peter Tatchell points out, "After civil partnerships were legislated there was a huge surge of couples who had been together for decades who suddenly wished to take advantage of the legal recognition. Now we've settled into a pattern of civil partnership take-up which reflects people who have recently fallen in love for the first time."

*The Royal College of Psychiatrists, the UK's governing body for psychiatry, has been asked to follow the lead of their American counterparts and come out against gay cure therapies.

*Homophobic violence in East London is going unreported; police call for witnesses.

*"Is the boy over 18?" I'd love it if a checkout operator asked this question about me. This lesbian couple were less than impressed. Their experiences at a Milton Keynes Tesco store will resonate with many of us.

*A Liverpool library bans Gay Times magazine after receiving complaints, then backs down.

*Homophobia: merely a propaganda device designed to denigrate and stigmatise those holding conventional opinions. Welcome to the world of David Cameron's modern Torys.

*Celebrity publicist Max Clifford: "To my knowledge there is only one top-flight professional gay footballer who came out - Justin Fashanu. He ended up committing suicide. I have been advising a top premiership star who is bisexual. If it came out that he had gay tendencies, his career would be over in two minutes."

*Gay footballers are one thing, but Blighty could soon have its first openly gay Prime Minister.

*An Australian was behind the Obama Wasn't Born In America conspiracy.

*THAT Obama poster. Some people say it's racist. Er, okay then... Others are just sceptical about the scale of it all. I think it's a pretty cool picture myself. How about one with Harriet Harman as Fanny Craddock?

*"President Obama has done a little worse than nothing to prevent the AIDS epidemic in [Washington DC]."

*Some 30 per cent of households in China are afflicted by domestic violence; the China Association Against Domestic Violence used this inventive campaign to reach the people in those homes.

*Hiroshima, 64 years ago; in pictures.

*Is it time for business, tourists and expats to return to Zimbabwe?

*Why are so many planes falling out of the sky?

*Is this the future of commercial air travel?

*Brazil's government wants its citizens to pee in the shower. However, as Elaine once pointed out, different pipes go to different places:

*Peeing in the shower is something this man would have had some trouble doing.

*Swine flu skivers.

*The organic food controversy.

*Branded goods will struggle against less expensive supermarket own-label.

*Female sexual abuse: The untold story of society's last taboo.

*London: half a month's rain falls in six hours.

*Bus crash.

*The free availability of newspapers online make articles like the one you're reading right now possible. So it really sucks that the "free-for-all in online news" might be over. Old rich guy Rupert Murdoch will charge "for access to all his news websites, including The Times, The Sun and the News of the World, by next summer."

*The cat who downloaded child porn. Allegedly.

*Wikipedia's growth has peaked: what does the future hold?

*25- to 34-year-olds are driving the kids away from Facebook. Like, whatever.

*Too many online friends? Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, director of the Information + Innovation Policy Research Center at the National University of Singapore, believes "the over-abundance of connections through which information travels reduces diversity and keeps radical ideas from taking hold."

*How the moving walkway nearly overtook the Metro.

*Cloud ships that could cancel out the effects of global warming. Not sure what the fish will make of this.

*New El Niño threatens world with weather woe: increased drought in Africa, India and Australia, heavier rainfall in South America and increased extremes in Britain, of warm and cold...

*The Arctic Ocean could be a "stagnant, polluted soup" within sixty years.

*10 Things We Don't Understand About Humans. Starring blushing, pubic hair and altruism.

*One in ten people are highly attractive to mosquitoes - are you?

*Boffins have found the cell that makes you want to itch.

*Redheads possess a gene mutation that influences the body's sensitivity to pain.

*Beetroot juice credited with increasing stamina. Beetroot juice? Couldn't be something that tastes nice, could it...

*Good news! Whisky cures swine flu - and everything else too!

*Boffins in the US have decoded the entire genetic structure of the most common HIV virus; they plan to make tiny changes to the virus and so neutralise it.

*But a new strain of the virus has, for the first time, been passed from gorillas to humans.

*Are modern HIV campaigns failing younger gays?

*Bolivia, of all places, becomes the first country to ban all circus animals (both wild and domestic).

*The innocent love of a giraffe and a goat (don't worry, the Westboro Baptist Church will be there soon - "God hates goats!")

*Speaking of vile, slimey things, here's a revolting sea monster for you (right).

*Male seahorses have short man syndrome and seek out the largest females with which to mate.

*A giant Panda gives birth, video.

*This horse might not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but he's probably significantly smarter than the typically idiotic American newsreaders: "...where Jesus allegedly walked on water." So many things are wrong with that sentence that I'm just going to leave it be...

*Early homosexual visibility in post-war Los Angeles.

*Jesus, Queen of Heaven - a play that portrays Jesus as a transsexual woman - is upsetting fundamentalist Christians. Well I'm surprised.

*Bruce Weber is interviewed by Movieline.

*The rapidly accelerating collapse of the music industry.

*The New York City Gay Men's Chorus has been hit by severe financial problems and is struggling to stay afloat.

*La Roux, Lady Gaga, Mika, Little Boots: the 80s are back.

*Classic album covers as Penguin paperbacks.

*Are these really the worst album covers of all time?

*Is Dizzee Rascal set to appear in EastEnders?

*The only portrait Michael Jackson ever posed for is to be sold.

*"In 1996, Michael asked me if I would give him my sperm and I said yes. It was a gift to him, no money was paid, it was something I was honoured to do. He wanted children so badly." Oliver! star Mark Lester. So, did Michael say, 'Please sir, can I have some more?'

*The Pharaoh of Pop?

*Falcon's UndieSwap.com. A mildly diverting gimmick, at best.

*The most controversial films banned.

*The ten best sci-fi films.

*The Wizard of Oz is 70.

*"Eight years on from the attacks, this amazing film is a genuinely fresh approach to the 9/11 story, using very powerful recordings, some of which have never been heard before. The messages are an incredibly moving testament to the memories of the people who died in the Twin Towers and reveal the dignity, courage, humanity and love shown at the worst of times." 9/11: Phone Calls From The Towers is scheduled to air in September on Channel 4.

*Even the US daytime soaps feature gay kissing now:

*The token gay in the new Melrose Place "smokes cigars, likes the Los Angeles Lakers, collects sports memorabilia, drinks Scotch, likes guys and is not afraid to admit it." Sounds good to me. Looks better (right).

*It's been several weeks since we've had any Plastic Boy Slut news, but our pouty Portugese playboy is back in the headlines where she belongs, with the news that THOSE legs have been insured for $US144 million. And they're worth every cent!

*Renderings for a new Museum Of Image And Sound in Copacabana. Right, the Diller Scofidio + Renfro entry (my personal favourite of the bunch).

*And when building implosions go awry...

*How you'd expect the Moscow United electricity control centre to look.

*The Burden Chair by Apirak Leenharattanarak. Beautiful. I love it.

*This should make you smile: the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck.

*Have you ever had sex on public transport? (Sadly, I haven't, but it's one of my goals in life.)

*Murses. Please. If there's one thing I hate it's men with stupid, faggy handbags. GRRRRR. Glad I got that off my chest.

*Do miracles happen?

*This is the University of Tennessee Volunteers football team (right). The YouTube clip is down but you can still see the video here.


POSTSCRIPT "You know, we might just as well not have bothered to come. The whole thing's been ridiculous."

ISSUE 21