To paraphrase the world’s most famously dissatisfied customer Mr Praline (played by an eloquently irate Python, John Cleese), I know a dead parrot when I see one and I’m looking at one now. The retrosexual is dead. He has ceased to be. If marketers hadn’t nailed ‘im to the perch ‘e’d be pushing up… Read More »The Death of the Retrosexual
Whitney had it all. The looks, the heritage, and that elemental voice. So where did it all go so wrong? (The Independent, 15 September 2002) I was never a proper fan of Whitney Houston – it wasn’t necessary. Whitney was something that simply happened to you, whether you took notice… Read More »Whitney Houston: The Diva Who Fell To Earth
Why is Britain’s best-selling, sauciest tabloid so unsure of its sexuality? by Mark Simpson, the Guardian (August 24, 2007) The Sun’s TV critic Ally Ross is an unhappy camper. You see, he’s always bitching about TV being ‘too gay’. Which is a rather peculiar thing for a TV critic to… Read More »The Sun Newspaper – How Gay Is It?
Why Elvis the ‘virile degenerate’ refuses to let us rest in peace by Mark Simpson (Independent on Sunday, April 2000) Elvis didn’t want to be black, he wanted to be Tony Curtis. A natural blond, Memphis’ belle boy dyed his hair in imitation of his fifties idol’s shiny black… Read More »Elvis Hasn’t Left the Building
By Mark Simpson (Originally appeared in The Independent on Sunday, 1997, and collected in Sex Terror) Growing up in the 1970s, frustrated and bored with waiting for someone to invent the Internet, I got my teenage kicks at York Central Library. Dropping in on my way home from school, I would… Read More »The Private Lives of Dr Sex: Kinsey Stripped Bare