Birmingham Pride will not have its traditional march and parade this year as a result of a lack of agreement over traffic restrictions. Some see this as a cynical effort to allay the fears of residents as the gay village is turned into a posh housing estate. Some see it as another nail in the coffin for the notion of Pride as a political event.The University of Birmingham LGBTQ Association believe “Birmingham Pride” and its parade to be the most important event of the Birmingham LGBT calendar. They see Pride as a protest. The LGBT community do face social ...

I have reported about the Bear Essential Mixes in a recent pod cast and I want to mention it again.For those who haven't subscribed it's a great free pod cast which features dance mixes from the South Coast Bears group here in Bournemouth in the UK.The latest show is 3 and a half hours long and has taken me the best part of two days to listen to it (between commutes) - this isn't a negative comment, I think the show is brilliant. Espeically with the current spell of hot weather in the UK.There are no ...

Peter Nicholas is 22 year old student currently living in London. He's a summer boy at heart and love chillin' on the beach or in the park with friends. You can check out more on Peter's Myspace Page. ...

• Jaysus. My car in the highest pre-2006 tax band available. £212 down to HM Gov. And a good arse rape on petrol duty too. #

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For the sake of clarity, there are a few issues at stake here that should be separated out:1. The evidence for reducing the week limit for abortion is far from compelling; if anything, the most recent research demonstrates that advance in neonatal care have only impacted on premature births after 24 weeks (i.e. the existing limit.) A convincing case for further restrictions has not been made.2. Nadine Dorries has been incredibly dishonest in her attempt to campaign for a reduction in the week limit. She has smeared opponents, distorted evidence and occasionally outright lied. Whatever else, she cannot be ...

Following a successful run in March 2007, Moj of the Antarctic returns to Oval House Theatre for one week only to launch the production’s British Council-sponsored tour of southern Africa in June/July 2008.Moj of the Antarctic is inspired by the wonderful true life story of Ellen Craft, a 19th century African-American slave woman who escaped to freedom by disguising herself as a white man. Ellen’s amazing story of race and cross-dressing is one of the forgotten gems of black and trans histories. Moj of the Antarctic extends Ellen’s life story into a flight of theatrical fantasy where upon arrival ...

This is, at least, an approaching coherent approach to reforming abortion law:Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, told MPs on Monday he would seek to make it easier for women to have an abortion at an early stage, while lowering the time limit for late procedures.The relaxing of rules refers to support for the lifting of the requirement for the signatures of two doctors. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out across the political right - where, as has been demonstrated at length, the desire to reduce the week limit is part of an agenda towards the ...

• Domestic sell all kinds of weird and awesome vynil stickers and stuff to put on walls I think we're going to try and get some of these for the Brickhouse office to design it up a bit. The more it feels like a teenager's bedroom, the more creative we'll be. (tags: design designers vynil)

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A fresh supply of MMR stupid:The proposal to exclude children from school unless they have been vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella is another exercise in forcing the combined MMR jab on worried parents.The reason vaccination rates have fallen and incidence of these diseases has risen is that the Government will not allow the vaccines to be administered separately, despite fears of a possible link between the triple jab and autism.They should reverse this policy without delay.Well, given that the policy doesn't exist it would probably be a waste of time reversing it.Anyone notice how the Mail managed to ...

Golly, is it that long since I last posted? Whoops. I’ve been quite busy over at TV Today, as well as implementing quite a few technology infrastructure changes at The Stage which nobody else will notice (other than a substantially faster web server with — touch wood — no regular outages). And lots of other stuff which I can’t talk about for various reasons. Any way, I just wanted to post that the most depressing thing I read this morning was in an otherwise enlightening interview with Stephen Daldry in this mornings Guardian: Sydney Pollack is seriously ill. Terribly sad ...

In yet another list of politically-hot-or-not from The Telegraph, there's this entry to the 50 most influential Conservatives in the UK:36) Shami Chakrabarti, Director, LibertyIt is a measure of Shami Chakrabarti’s growing influence that she is the only person to be featured both on this list and the left wing equivalent. And if there were a Lib Dem list she’d be on that too.She, more than anyone, has influenced Conservative civil liberties policies. If there’s a Home Office you can be sure her advice will be sought by both David Davis and Nick Clegg. She is a huge influence ...

And The Times joins the latest round of MMR stupidity:Children will be banned from starting school until they receive the MMR jab, under new Labour party proposals.Parents will have to provide proof their offspring have had a full range of vaccinations when they put in applications for primary schools.The plan, designed to increase the take-up of the measles, mumps and rubella triple jab, has been drawn up by Mary Creagh, the Labour MP in charge of the party’s health manifesto for the next general election.NO. It's not party policy, it's a position paper being published in a think-tank journal.Next! ...

For context, let's take a brief look at the organisations which support Nadine Dorries' campaign to reduce the upper week limit on abortion to 20 weeks.The Alive and Kicking Campaign state "our near-term objective is to halve the yearly abortions." Given that only a few percent of abortions take place after week 20, the group clearly supports far more stringent restrictions on abortion. Though a strong majority of the public support abortion on demand, Alive and Kicking seek "a prohibition of abortions for social convenience." They also support a "Charter of Informed Consent," which in reality would take the ...

We seek them out so you don't have to. This is our weekly non-exhaustive round up of upcoming LGBT programmes on the radio and television. Inclusion of a programme is not a recommendation.Enjoy!RadioSome of the programmes listed below will remain available for listen again from the BBC's website.Sat 10th BBC Radio4 – 11.30pm: The Josephine Hart Poetry Programme – W H Auden’s life and work examined.Sun 11thBBC Radio3 – 10.20pm: Words and Music – including pieces by Walt Whitman and Arthur C Clarke.Tues 13thBBC Radio2 – 10.30pm: Icons Revisited – Dusty Springfield. TelevisionFilmsSat 10thSky Movies Classics – ...

Only a few days before the 140th anniversary of his birth (14 May), the city of Berlin honoured the memory of Magnus Hirshfeld. A promenade located along the Spree river, right in the political centre of the German state, was re-baptised the Magnus-Hirschfeld-Ufer by the German Justice Minister on 6 may after the pioneering physician, sexologist and gay rights advocate who was persecuted by the Nazi. The chairwoman of the Berlin Jewish community, the sexologist Martin Dannecker, representatives of the City also joined members of the gay community in the event which happened at the initiative the Gay ...