KAOS

the destination for the

week's essential news

and pop culture stories,

with a gay bias.

PONDER THIS

||| There are now eighty-three countries where homosexuality is illegal.

> New social media campaign highlights gay refugees and the challenges they face.

||| Marriage equality: one step forward, two steps back. The evolution of marriage continues in England and Wales, but hits a brick wall in India and Australia.

||| Using the word "gay" to mean "crap" is a form of bullying of gay people.

||| Why gay women need more celesbians.

< As a black feminist, I see how the wider movement fails women like my mother.

||| The cutesification of everything makes me want to strangle an elf. "The recent Twitter conversation featuring big brands trying to out-LOL each other is not funny. No, it's part of a trend that will bring about the downfall of society."

< Why we shouldn't hate the woman behind the "world's worst selfie".

||| Christmas cards, like social media, have become all about us.

> Kele Okereke wonders, can Pope Francis, the great reformer, make things better for gay people too? "It looks like Pope Francis is preparing the ground for change in the Catholic church. Let's hope where he leads, others will follow."

||| An atheist utopia? Talk about a nightmare. "Too often aggressive atheists, perhaps rhetorically competing with the most militant religious fanatics, argue that religion is a disease that needs a cure. They are wrong."

||| Is religion based on fear?

||| Why I ditched God for good.

||| Maybe we need to have less "faith in humanity". "Plenty of internet posts try to tell us that humanity is good. But what we really need is to evaluate our own actions and decisions."

< Calling Ian Watkins evil absolves us of the need to try to comprehend what he did. "Trying to understand evil as something of this world locates it dangerously close to all of us as human beings. Ian Watkins from the band Lostprophets – no, I had never heard of them either - pleaded guilty to 13 sexual offences, including two of attempting to rape a baby. The prosecuting barrister told the court that the two women standing beside him in the dock had also 'sexually abused their own children and made them available to Watkins for him to abuse.' Watkins had sent a text to one of the women: 'If you belong to me, so does your baby'. Now, I have no interest in trying to enter into some sort of crass competition over outrage. Or, at least, I wish I didn't. For there is a part of me that now wants to write something like this: "Ian Watkins is a walking advertisement for the death penalty. But, the thing is, I don't believe in the death penalty. Thinking about this level of evil it is easy to be lost for words."

> David Cameron joining "'Team Nigella" moves this wretched trend beyond my endurance. "It is an activity of curtain-twitching smallness, yet those who fancy themselves hipsters relish the chance to self-herd."

||| A fecund bone-yard of gossip, poison and lies. Do not miss Russell Brand's incisive piece about those who head up governments, newspapers and big businesses.

||| When will we acknowledge that asylum seekers are human beings?

U.S. & CANADA NEWS

||| Google online data expert estimates one in twenty American men are gay.

< Meet Taj Patterson. He was attacked by a gang of Hasidic men in Brooklyn, who also verbally abused him with anti-gay slurs.

> Tarence Mitchell, a High school football player, stands trial for allegedly stabbing his male lover, Ronald Taylor, Jr. (far right).

< This is Michael Griffin, a gay teacher at a private all boys, who was fired for marrying his partner.

||| Why the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormon church) recently reneged on its commitment to stay out of the marriage equality fight.

||| The latest Zimmerman arrest is a reminder of just how broken US justice system is. "There's a presumption of white innocence. It reflects a society rife with institutional racism and prejudice against people of color."

||| JFK's assassination wasn't the end of anything, it just felt that way. "Every generation has its Kennedy moments. From 9/11 to Iraq, history moves on."

||| CANADA: Gay Muslims plan to open an affirming mosque in Nova Scotia.

U.K. NEWS

> This is 14-year-old Ayden Keenan-Olson, who committed suicide after enduring a sustained campaign of anti-gay abuse at school. The news comes as a new schools campaign shows 99% of gay teens are subjected to homophobic language.

< What really happened on the night bus? It's an attack by a "gay gang", according to the likes of Gay Star News.

> Don't meet 30-year-old Michael Lawrence. Police allege he's the mastermind behind a string of robberies from gay men, who is "6ft tall and of a muscular build". Lawrence befriends (uh huh) in order to gain access to their homes. Some trade is just take, take, take...

< The secret double life of a gay neo-Nazi.

> Three members of a so-called Muslim Patrol - including Ricardo MacFarlane, left - jailed for London attacks carried out enforcing sharia law.

||| Senior college academic Dr Mark Walcott suspended after secret recording emerges in which he compares "gayism" to Nazism.

||| London Mayor Boris Johnson's philosophy isn't just elitist – it's sinister. "London's mayor opened his mouth and wrote off a whole swath of the populace. Yet he's just spelling out the ideology of the ruling class."

||| Yet Johnson spectacularly failed an IQ test live on the radio.

||| London is a property developers' paradise. And ordinary people are being priced out.

||| How London's East End is being threatened by a "creeping and ghastly greed".

||| NORTHERN IRELAND: Gay adoption ban lifted, following Health Minister Edwin Poots' attempts to keep the ban.

EUROPE NEWS

< RUSSIA: Maxim Marcinkiewicz - the Russian thug who humiliates gay men on film - is now wanted in two countries.

> RUSSIA: Popular Russian TV actor Ivan Okhlobystin wants "faggots" stripped of their human rights, and "put them all alive in the oven."

||| RUSSIA: How gay and human rights are sacrificed for Putin's empire.

||| RUSSIA: Vladimir Putin names journalist who said "gay people's organs should be burned" as media chief.

||| RUSSIA: Putin says his anti-gay laws are "proof" of Russia's morality and conservatism - and after the Olympic show packs up, he'll bring in more anti-gay laws.

||| RUSSIA: New biography claims Putin is gay.

< RUSSIA: A UK ad agency is to send the Kremlin a set of nesting dolls, based on Elton John, Stephen Fry, George Michael, Tom Daley.

> GERMANY: Straight male celebs kiss to fight gay hate for Germany GQ "Gentleman against Homophobia" campaign.

||| SWEDEN: First gay retirement home opens in Stockholm.

||| CROATIA: "Yes" Croatians say to ballot question banning same-sex marriage, in an economic own goal. But Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic "is determined to bring in more rights for gay couples".

||| CROATIA: Why the vote forbidding gay marriage is a sign of the rotten heart of Europe.

LATIN AMERICA NEWS

< PERU: This is gay 18-year-old Joel Molero Sanchez, who was murdered, dismembered and burned in the city of Chachapoyas.

> PERU: Celebrities pose as gay couples for acceptance campaign.

< BRAZIL: Rio de Janeiro hosts world's largest legal gay mass wedding. In pictures.

||| JAMAICA: Tom Daley is gay because his dad died and he is looking for a strong father figure, anti-gay activist claims.

> JAMAICA: Support grows for the gay youths forced to live in New Kingston's sewers after police arrested eight of the boys, and subsequently seized and burned food and clothing donated by concerned citizens. You can help by making a donation to Dwayne's House (named in memory of murdered 16-year-old Dwayne Jones), which seeks to establish a permanent home for the boys.

AFRICA NEWS

||| Why Africans worry about how Africa is portrayed in western media. "The media prefers bad news stories – Africa is not singled out for that, but it does make life harder for those living abroad."

||| How can so many African leaders ignore Mandela's legacy? "Nelson Mandela stood down after five years, but a number of his peers, including Uganda's president Yoweri Museveni, still cling to office."

||| Nelson Mandela: Six things you might not know.

||| SOUTH AFRICA: Mandela championed the decriminalisation of homosexuality, enshrining equality in law. South Africa's constitution states: "Everyone is equal before the law and has the right to equal protection and benefit of the law. Equality includes the full and equal enjoyment of all rights freedoms," and goes on to list "sexual orientation" discrimination as specifically banned by both the state and individuals.

||| SOUTH AFRICA: Mandela has been sanitised by hypocrites and apologists. "The ANC liberation hero has been reinvented as a Kumbaya figure in order to whitewash those who stood behind apartheid."

||| SOUTH AFRICA: Repetition, not veracity, was my gripe with this week's Mandela mourning. "My distrust of being told what to think and feel by the media has made the unrelenting Mandela fest hard to bear."

||| UGANDA: Minster for Ethics and Integrity outraged by plans to roll out a series of HIV clinics targeting the needs of LGBTIs and sex workers.

||| NAMIBIA: Young gay people forced out of their family home "to escape eating from garbage bins".

||| NIGERIA: Seven youths arrested on "suspicion of homosexuality" in Jigawa State.

THE BIG PICTURE: A French soldier speaks to suspected Christian militia member Sincere Banyodi, 32, after he was wounded by machete blows in the Central Africa Republic neighbourhood of Bangui, 9th December 2013.

ASIA NEWS

< INDIA: The Supreme Court sets aside the 2009 Delhi High Court ruling that legalised homosexuality, in a major setback for gay equality. There is a global outcry.

||| INDIA: The Supreme Court argues that it shouldn't uphold the striking down of the country's colonial era anti-sodomy law because it had not been proven that gays are discriminated against in India.

||| INDIA: Leading members of the ruling Congress party say they will fight the Supreme Court's decision to reinstate the country's Section 377 anti-sodomy law.

> INDIA: Thousands of Indians, both straight and gay alike, change their Facebook profile to a picture of them kissing someone of the same gender, as India "goes gay for a day" to protest gay sex ban.

< INDIA: Police give roses to Pune gay pride marchers.

> NORTH KOREA: Inside North Korea's subway system.

||| AUSTRALIA: The High Court annuls the first legal same-sex marriages on Australian soil, striking down the Australian Capital Territory's gay marriage law.

< AUSTRALIA: Gay asylum seekers locked up in refugee detention centres have been told they will be reported to police for having sex.

||| AUSTRALIA: Cruelty? It's part of the Australian experience. "Our treatment of refugees is barbaric in an authentically Australian mode, given our early history of penal settlements. Cruelty is a product of our loyalty to the current political order."

||| AUSTRALIA: Deformed children found in remote farming community after generations of inbreeding.

||| AUSTRALIA: Are men truly "under attack"? "There are real problems facing men, but blaming feminism will not solve them. To the contrary, the men’s rights movement makes these issues worse."

MIDDLE EAST NEWS

||| LEBANON: TV show targets gay drag "perverts" in tabloid sting.

PLANET EARTH

THE BIG PICTURE: A puffin feeds its chick on the Farne Islands.

||| Humans are not smarter than animals - we just don't understand them.

> Don't miss photographer Tim Flach's pictures of horses in the womb.

||| Dogs are a woman's best friend too. "Ben Fogle's article extolling dogs and their affinity with so-called masculine traits bothers me. Women don't just pop puppies into pink handbags."

||| Let pigs eat swill and stop wasting precious resources.

< How the caveish lost its eyes.

||| New York's High Line hit by hardy cockroaches never before seen.

||| Five ways humans can cause earthquakes.

||| The supervolcano beneath Yellowstone National Park is even more colossal than we ever thought.

||| So the universe might be a hologram...

...or be about to collapse (right).

BODY, MIND & SOUL

||| Were you told you were HIV-positive by Brooklyn's Kings County Hospital Center? They might have got it wrong.

||| HIV virus returns in patients thought to have been cured by bone marrow transplants.

||| The eleven biggest HIV and AIDS myths busted.

||| Could cancer treatment could be the key to ending HIV?

||| The US Center for Disease Control reports a 20% jump in unprotected sex among gay and bisexual men since 2005.

||| The graphene condom: a new hope for safe sex.

||| The male pill? Here are some grim side-effects to expect. "Pill-induced emotional outbursts may no longer be the preserve of women if hormonal contraception for men becomes a reality."

||| 40-year-old foetus found in 82-year-old Colombian woman.

||| The age of consent, and the politics of sex.

> How much gay sex is the UK actually having?

||| Is technology stopping us having sex?

||| Why the only shameful thing about sex is justifying outdated views with science. "A study argues evolution is why women are more likely to regret casual sex. It ignores the cultural norms we're enshrouded in."

||| So, men and women's brains are wired differently – but it's not that simple. "Reducing a scientific study about mental illness to pop psychology suggesting men and women are from different planets does us all a disservice."

||| So my mushy head is "hardwired" for girly things, is it? "Why do studies reinforce stereotypes about the male versus female brain, when the truth is that we are not so very different?"

< Smarter people drink more, and there's "a strong correlation between high IQ in young adulthood and preference for wine over beer later in life". Bottoms up!

||| Why Americans are eating more meat.

||| Why dieting is a life sentence. "Fewer than 10% of diets work. That's because diets, in the sense that we know them, imply there is an end to the process. There isn't."

> In Russia, the Giant African Snail facial is all the rage.

||| Why you think you're better than everyone else.

||| Horoscopes "bad for you" say scientists, warning obsession with starsigns can cause indulgent and impulsive behaviour.

||| Contrary to popular opinion, gay and bi singles are individuals, too.

||| And now, the fascinating truth about sphincters...

WORK!

< I've worked at McDonald's for 5 years and have 4 kids. Any questions for me?

||| Walmart, rampant inequality, and detachment from reality. "The Walton family's modern day aristocracy is anything but charming."

||| Poverty wages in the land of plenty. "The holiday season is upon us. Sadly, the big retailers are Scrooges when it comes to paying their workers."

||| Amazon workers face increased risk of mental illness.

> The myths about working retail.

||| Technology didn't kill middle class jobs, public policy did. "The story is that innovation rapidly reduced the need for factory workers and other skilled labor. The data just doesn't support it."

INSIDE THE SPACESHIP

< Twitter explodes with anti-gay hate after Tom Daley comes out.

||| Twitter revises its blocking policy, confuses everyone.

> Chinese gay dating app Blued gets two million users in first year.

||| What human experiences are we missing by adopting new technologies?

||| Amazon to deliver by drone? Don't believe the hype. "Jeff Bezos's 'plan' for drone deliveries is little more than a publicity stunt – timed for the biggest online shopping day of the year."

> Don't cheer online nastiness – even when directed at an annoying person. "For some like Elan Gale, digital rants are akin to slipping into another world without repercussions. But words still matter online."

||| Why the Elan Gale internet hoax sums up all that is rotten about our online lives. "When I was a teenager, I thought it would be great to be an adult and be surrounded by people who weren't mean to each other all day. Enter stage left: the world wide web."

||| Eight ways to protect your privacy online.

||| Why buying technology gadgets on Black Friday usually isn't a great deal.

ART & DESIGN

< Indonesian artist Ferdi Rizkiyanto makes sculptures out of lit candles.

> Indian artist Balbir Krishnan's Bed of Roses exhibition shut down over gay themes.

||| Marvel reveals new gay, gender-bending X-Man Benjamin Deeds, a brand new superhero with the power to shape-shift into any person - man or woman - at will.

< With your eyes, look upon this Hobbit fan art.

||| One entire day in gay America, in pictures:

||| The forty-five most powerful photos of 2013. Right, riot police laugh at bloodied gay equality activists, in St.Petersburg, Russia.

||| Stage critic Mark Shenton claims he was fired over nude gay pics.

WORD!

||| Children's fiction is not great literature. "Kent University was right – the best children's books are better written, but only adult literature confronts the range of human experience."

||| Slate's "minutes to read" feature dumbs down journalism.

< New York magazine scales back, goes biweekly.

> John R. Gordon's writer's diary: fashion in hell. "It’s a perverse aspect of art that things which remain terrible in real life – rape, child-abuse, genocide - get swallowed & shat out as clichés in films, plays, books, dance and song."

> Book review: The Passion Of Gengoroh Tagame: Master Of Gay Erotic Manga, by Gengoroh Tagame. "When I first flipped through this collection of Gengoroh Tagame’s erotic manga, which is obsessed with the domination and torture of burly, hyper-masculine men, all of it depicted in sexual explicitness, my reaction shifted quickly from cringing shock, to fascination, to something like amazement."

< Book review: An Honest Ghost, by Rick Whitaker. "Many readers will find themselves turning back to the best parts, committing them to memory, saying them out loud, arming themselves with pithy, elegant lines to meet the day."

> Book review: Fire Year, by Jason K. Friedman. "The ways in which homosexuality, art, commerce and race intersect in this story adds a lush texture to the narrative and suggest the ways in which art—and, by extension, fiction—can and should change one’s perception of the world."

< Book review: Cutie Pie Must Die, by R. W. Clinger. "A good book that has suffered the injustice of being edited badly, and at some stage the major plot points that lead to a good crime/mystery book have been misaligned, giving the impression of an inept author. Disappointing."

AT THE MOVIES

||| Film directors launch campaign for correct TV settings.

> Forthcoming gay Muslim picture Naz + Maalik explodes stereotypes. "While deciding whether to tell their community about their homosexuality, Naz and Maalik's ambiguous and secretive relationship unknowingly sets an FBI agent on their trail. As the agent grows convinced that the boys are engaged in 'violent radicalism,' her pursuit becomes increasingly menacing and the stakes surrounding the boys' hapless hustling and lies grow." Watch the trailer here.

< Family Secrets, the first Egyptian film about homosexuality, to screen at Dubai International Film Festival.

||| Gay actor Ben Whishaw to star in a new film about the legendary Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, to be directed by Dexter Fletcher (of cult teen drama Press Gang).

> What in the world possessed USA Today to describe The Best Man Holiday as "race-themed"?

||| Bette Midler to play Mae West in new HBO film written by Harvey Fierstein, based on West's book Goodness Had Nothing To Do With It.

< Prop of statuette of the Maltese Falcon - from the 1941 picture of the same name - sells for $US4m.

||| It's a Wonderful Life to get sequel sixty years on. Why?

||| Fortunately, Paramount - who control the rights to the original - will fight the proposed follow-up, scheduled for 2015. And here's three reasons why we shouldn't worry.

> Talking to director Travis Mathews about Interior. Leather Bar, which "saw James Franco having to get serious actors to have real gay sex on screen".

< Nymphomaniac: threesomes, sadomasochism and a penis montage.

||| Film review: Kill Your Darlings. "This is a portrait of the artists as young men with a murder story tagged on a little clumsily, almost as an afterthought. The energy of the performances and Krokidas’ flashy directorial style paper over the cracks in the plotting." (The Independent); "He never quite makes sense of the relationship between the psychological intrigue of the narrative and the characters’ future poetic importance." (So So Gay)

> Film review: Snails In The Rain. "[A] myopic focus somewhat undermines the film."

||| Film review: Geography Club. "After a slew of pretty dark gay teen films that may reflect some of the unhappiest experiences for some LGBT youths, it’s great to have a film that’s fun and sweet, and which suggests there’s always a way through and that while it might sometimes seem lonely, you will indeed find people who think the way you do and accept you for who you are."

||| Boys on Film: why Peccadillo's series is essential.

< DVD review: Boys on Film X. Big Gay Picture Show; "As a collection, it’s the least cohesive yet, but as a summation of what the series represents, it’s an ideal anniversary celebration." (So So Gay)

< DVD review: Tell No One. "A film that’s a little different to your typical coming out movie, as it’s more interested in the internal reasons people stay in the closet than the issues coming from outside that keep them there. It has a few flaws, but mostly it’s an entertaining and nicely observed Italian comedy."

||| DVD review: Leather. "While Leather shows endless potential, it’s a rather frustrating, slightly confused movie, which has its moments but overall is pretty weak." There's an interview with director Travis Mathews here.

> DVD review: Floating Skyscrapers. "The location and filmmaking techniques hold your interest, but the plot... is a bit of a well-worn tale."

||| DVD review: Undressing Israel: Gay Men In The Promised Land. "[It] sets out to challenge stereotypes about gay right in Israel, but does so in a rather basic way, coming across as much as an advert for Tel Aviv as a documentary."

< DVD review: Mr. Angel. "An interesting documentary about an interesting man, however it fails to deal with some of its key issues, partly because it’s so much on Buck’s side it doesn’t even want to properly deal with or argue against possible criticisms of him."

> DVD review: The Falls: Testament Of Love. "Moving, entertaining and sometimes a little sexy, [it] may not be perfect, but thanks to its strong central romance and characters, it’s a successful follow-up to a good gay-themed film."

< DVD review: Interior. Leather Bar. "An interesting experiment and Franco should be applauded for taking the risk, but it’s difficult to escape the feeling this is a film and subject that could have been far deeper and to more profound places than it does. As it stands, [it] has a slight film student self-satisfaction that doesn’t seem to realise it doesn’t really have all that much to say. It relies instead on the audience doing their own work."; (Big Gay Picture Show) "A provocative curiosity that blurs the lines between fiction and documentary, but makes some points a little too bluntly." (So So Gay)

||| The "vast majority" of Hollywood silent films are lost forever, according to a new study by the US Library of Congress..

> Paul Walker, the actor best known for the Fast & Furious movie series, is dead. He was 40.

||| And what he secretly did in 2004 is just now coming out.

||| Watch Jackpot, a short by Adam Baran.

||| Trailers: Family Secrets; and Paul W.S. Anderson's Pompeii, which stars Oz legend Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje.

T.V.

< Glee star Alex Newell calls Fox News anchor Bill O'Reilly out on transphobic slurs; speaks out on people wrongly assuming that he too is transgender (he's actually gay).

||| Gay activists to blame for is MSNBC show's axing, Alec Baldwin claims.

||| Graham Norton warned by BBC for wearing AIDS ribbon.

> Tim Campbell - the first winner of The Apprentice - on his battle with testicular cancer.

> Posh public schoolboy Damian Lewis - currently appearing in U.S. drama Homeland - has been forced to apologise for denigrating Ian McKellen in a newspaper interview. McKellan rebutted the comments, as if swatting a fly.

< Gays of our lives: All the latest gay soap developments from around the world, from Anthony D. Langford. Left, German soap All That Matters.

< Ryan Carnes returns U.S. soap General Hospital as gay Lucas Jones, after nine years away. Carnes has appeared in Doctor Who and the cult film Eating Out.

> EastEnders will finally get a new gay character when the Carter family arrive later this month.

||| Gay actor Charlie Condou to exit Coronation Street in "explosive" storyline.

||| Russell T Davies - who created Queer As Folk and reimagined Doctor Who for the 21st century - has written two new gay drama series, Cucumber and Banana, to be screened in 2014.

||| Gay web series Hunting Season seeks funding for a second season.

||| New York-based web series The 3 Bits teams up with porn studio CockyBoys, who have loaned three of their exclusives (Levi Karter, Max Ryder and Colby Keller) to appear in upcoming episodes.

||| HBO's Looking not a gay Sex and the City or a gay Girls, creators Michael Lannan and Andrew Haigh insist. Trailer:

||| Guy Pearce to guest on Sean Saves the World as a romantic interest for Sean Hayes' single-dad character.

||| Did Sean Hayes' Emmy-winning portrayal of Jack McFarland on Will & Grace do more harm than good?

> Japanese T.V. gives us Orgasm Wars, in a gay man tries to bring a straight man to orgasm against his will.

< The Only Way is Essex star Dan Osborne strips for Cosmopolitan.

||| Do you ever give up on TV shows mid-season?

||| Watch episode three of director Eddie Griffith's new web series KEN.

DOCTOR WHO AT 50

||| Doctor Who at 50: This brilliant interactive graphic shows fifty years of time travel in the TARDIS.

||| Doctor Who at 50: Every Doctor Who story, ranked from best to worst. Predictably, Timelash comes out bottom, and The Caves of Androzani on top.

> Doctor Who at 50: Fifty years of Doctor Who Radio Times covers.

< Doctor Who at 50: The fourteen strangest moments in Doctor Who alt-history.

||| Doctor Who at 50: Google unveils its largest ever doodle to celebrate the 50th anniversary.

||| Doctor Who at 50: How did Doctor Who reflect the real world?

||| Doctor Who at 50: Why does Doctor Who escape modern scepticism in a way the Bible doesn't?

||| Doctor Who at 50: How the Doctor allows us to explore different beliefs and ethical viewpoints.

||| Doctor Who at 50: How once despised series has become a global cash cow.

> Doctor Who at 50: The story of the first Doctor: How illegitimate thief and womaniser William Hartnell became the original Time Lord.

||| Doctor Who at 50: The assistants - where are they now?

< Doctor Who at 50: Louise Jameson saved my life. "Suicide is the number one exit strategy for troubled gay teens. It was nearly mine. Looking back, I know what - and Who - saved my life."

||| Doctor Who at 50: For the love of Dodo! "Everyone has their own favourite Doctor Who companion. But no one, it seems, likes Dodo."

> Doctor Who at 50: The Doctor Who Restoration Team discusses the process used to bring the newly discovered missing episodes back to life.

< Doctor Who at 50: Watch The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot, a humorous look at fifth Doctor Peter Davison (and his fellow former Doctors') attempt to take centre stage for the 50th anniversary.

> Doctor Who at 50: "It'll be very interesting – of course, I won't be here because I'll be otherwise engaged – to see what happens to the 13th." 79-year-old Tom Baker causes disquiet at the Doctor Who official 50th celebration in London. The cosmos without the Doctor scarcely bares thinking about...

||| Doctor Who at 50: I don't like what Steven Moffat has done to with Doctor Who, but thumbs up to him for calling out elite toff Michael Grade over his vendetta against Doctor Who in the 1980s.

< Doctor Who at 50: T.V. review: An Adventure in Space and Time. "I expected lots of magic and nostalgia. But I wasn't prepared for how emotionally intense An Adventure in Space and Time actually is." (Observation Deck); "a triumph. Beautifully shot and edited, visually a treat for the eyes and it is especially effective in recalibrating Hartnell's contribution to the series." (Cathode Ray Tube); "An absolute labour of love that will delight the aficionado whilst also being accessible to the casual viewer. Outstandingly researched, funny and genuinely touching." (So So Gay)

BEATS, RHYMES & LIFE

||| Why Beyoncé makes me want to die. "Beyoncé is not an avatar of perfection; she is a cashed-up diva with a temperature-controlled personal archive and a penchant for making propaganda films (and trampling people in her way). BUT! I listened to Beyoncé with an open mind. I tried. I really did. This is what happened ."

||| Beyoncé wore fur to a vegan restaurant – and there's nothing contradictory about that. "For some wealthy celebrities, veganism is just a lifestyle in which food pickiness goes hand in hand with elitism and vague spirituality."

> Sheryl Lee Ralph on how AIDS affected her career. "I saw my friends literally drop dead. They got sick and they died. There was no dying process... They just got sick and died and it was awful because I saw them die under stigma, shame, and silence. I saw people who could’ve helped turn their backs on AIDS victims and act as if they didn’t know any AIDS victims."

< Brand Nubian's Lord Jamar rants about the "gay agenda" and "alpha males".

||| No, Robbie Williams, you're not 49% gay. But you are 100% stupid. "A gay person would know how maddening all your 'affectionate' stereotyping is – we've had to listen to it all our lives."

||| Britney Spears on her gay fans: "They're somewhat girls".

||| Lady Gaga was "obliterated drunk" on day their friendship ended, says Perez Hilton.

> Madge has let go of Baby Brahim's toddler leash forever.

||| Liberace's ex Scott Thorson is back in jail.

||| E! Online uses picture of Ian "H" Watkins (from camp '90s band Steps) to illustrate story about Lostprophets paedophile Ian Watkins.

||| Could the decline in album sales push pop forward?

< Kele Okereke's new single Down Boy is the first 3D printed vinyl.

||| Videos: The Christmas Song, by DWV (drag trio Willam Belli, Detox, and Vicki Vox); and Burning Up, by Milan Christopher.

SEX

||| The Top 15 U.S. cities by average penis size.

||| How to take flawless phone pictures of your naked body.

> Tate Ryder retires, returns to Oz.

||| So apparently there's a fetish called gut punching. Rogan Richards demonstrates.

< The drama on both sides of the camera at NYC porn powerhouse CockyBoys.

||| Wagner Vittoria reveals the secret of his relationship with porn God Diego Lauzen. "I know his heart is mine; his body I can easily share with others. I have no doubts about his true feelings for me. We keep love and sex separate and that’s the secret to a happy relationship."

< Here's Diego Lauzen in a new scene (with Goran) for Stag Homme Studios.

> And Diego and Wagner are reunited in Madrid, with fellow porn couple Antonio Miracle and Mario Domenech? Nothing like a lil boyfriend swapping on camera to keep a relationship fresh!

< One more behind-the-scenes shot of the boys here (with director Francesco D'Macho), plus the perfect Marco Rubi takes time out from a shoot for a selfie (right).

||| Pictures from some live sex shows around Europe, featuring the likes of Donato Reyes and Damien Crosse.

||| Talking to UK Naked Men's Jonno.

< Here's gallery of pictures from Bel Ami's twenty-four boy orgy. It's the studio's most expensive orgy ever, apparently. There's more (from the pre-sex prep) here, and some great shots from the (wet) finale here.

||| Condoms and porn don't mix. A stupid and unhealthy belief?

||| Condoms aren't sexy. This is how porn stars would fix them.

||| Bareback porn, and testing.

||| Gay Porn Times pays tribute to the male performers and other members of the adult industry community we've lost to AIDS and over the past thirty years. It's a long list. Left, Joe Simmons (died 1995).

||| The eleven most sexually depraved things the Roman emperors ever did.

ARENA

> High school basketball coach Anthony Nicodemo came out to his team. Here's what happened.

||| Out Olympic legend Greg Louganis says Tom Daley is "brave" for coming out, and urges him to focus on diving.

< "It really was love at first sight," Tom Daley says of his new boyfriend. And just how cute do the boys look together?

||| Tom Daley, Dustin Lance Black (unconfirmed) romance cited as proof gay men are sexual predators.

||| Lady Gaga urges Tom Daley to boycott anti-gay countries ahead of Russia Winter Olympics.

||| Why are the media labelling Tom Daley as gay?

> Boxing hunk Orlando Cruz marries José Manuel Colón in New York.

||| Gays aren't asking for special treatment in Sochi: they're asking that the Olympic Charter be enforced.

< NBC Sports Department holiday party hit with protests for ignoring the plight of gays in Russia.

> Coca-Cola refuses to help gay Russians at Olympics.

||| Russia will create "protest zones" at 2014 Sochi Olympics.

||| Watch Swedish wrestlers wrestle naked - covered in frosting - in the name of HIV testing.

||| And now some pictures of six-foot-five Kenyan rugby player Daniel Adongo:

AND WHILST YOU'RE

THINKING ABOUT

THAT, THINK

ABOUT THIS

||| Cheapskate winos rejoice – chardonnay is back.

||| Hey, guys – give up this stupid drop-crotch meggings thing, I beg you. "Not only do these baggy-topped leggings make men look ridiculous, the very word is an abomination."

< This spectacular Lego recreation of Rivendell...

...Is much tinier than the world's biggest sculptures, right.

||| Urban explorer Bradley Garrett's trespassing gallery.

||| And finally, Rogue "Marbie" Scott confesses, "I'm a toneist!" Plus, Walter admits he was wrong about HIV, Andrew's back home and naked, and Martin talks about insecurity.