In Other News ...

[tamaranth]

"A Christmas special is due to be broadcast at Christmas." Gosh, really? (from BBC News, on Doctor Who: site's too slow tonight for me to check the link.)

The shortlisted poems for the Poetry Society's 'send a poem into space' poll, won by Adrian Mitchell: includes the very fabulous Do You Think We'll Ever Get to See Earth, Sir? by Sheenagh Pugh.

And apparently G P Taylor (author of Shadowmancer) wasn't really asked to curtail a school appearance after calling Harry Potter gay. No, no, it was just 'inappropriate language'. But I have this image of lots of schoolchildren doing a quick websearch, just to check, and finding (eeek) fanfiction.net...

EDIT: my point re the last 'news' item is not what was said, but the fact that Reuters issued a revision of their original story.

Comments

[pigeonhed.livejournal.com]

It appears that what GP Taylor said was that 'Harry Potter is not the only gay in the village' This was deemed homophobic by the school.
Taylor then claims his point was that Harry Potter is not the only book about magic and wizards, for example his own works.

Of course this isn't a homophobic remark, any casual viewing of Little Britain will show that in fact the point is that there are lots of gay people around and it is no big deal.

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

It's worth noting that none of the other schools on his tour had any complaints.