CHARLIE CONDOU - No.798

C4 DRAMATIC STING!
#DISPATCHES
#DESPICABLEME

sally_lindsay: "Actress gets a prezzie at brand launch" No shit Sherlock not even a story, never mind a crime. Who gives a shite about that?! #dispatches

vodkaboybert: @sally_lindsay my thoughts exactly. Do they think the public are thick?! #confused

Charliecondou: RT @sally_lindsay: "Actress gets a prezzie at brand launch" No shit Sherlock not even a story, never mind a crime. Who gives a shite about that?!

sally_lindsay: ..and the damning,brooding music behind the hidden camera shots like the cast of Towie have been found human trafficking #dispatches

CelebNewsHQ: @sally_lindsay @Charliecondou I don't get the problem, anyone would tweet about a product if they got it for free. Plus think of all the actors that get presents after attending an awards show...so fucking what?!

MartinChurm: @sally_lindsay @Charliecondou couldn't agree more!

Charliecondou: I wonder how @C4Dispatches feel about all the #dispatches tweets they got. Presumably they are perfectly happy with the publicity?

streetworker01: RT @Charliecondou: I wonder how @C4Dispatches feel about all the #dispatches tweets they got. Presumably they are perfectly happy with the publicity?

SVCworldwide: @Charliecondou @C4Dispatches hahahaha

GemmaGilley: @Charliecondou @C4Dispatches I am failing to see the issue with this. What are corrie actors actually doing that is so wrong???

theemattmay: @Charliecondou @C4Dispatches I'd say this online problem is more important. Wouldn't you? #EndAskFM http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/schoolgirl-14-hangs-herself-after-2128742

Charliecondou: RT @theemattmay: @Charliecondou @C4Dispatches I'd say this online problem is more important. Wouldn't you? #EndAskFM http://t.co/pyXjFM6Es3

Richardsmith22: @Charliecondou @C4Dispatches I got free fruit pastilles in the station the other day. I was made up.

Decor_Angels: @Charliecondou @C4Dispatches im just watching on +1 not seen anything shocking yet.... Free gifts followed by thanks for such.  i'd tweet for free stuff & challenge anyone that says otherwise

addict2events: @Charliecondou @C4Dispatches C4 done well I wonder what the Coronation Street bosses make of it all? Not exactly Corries finest hour on TV

Happymummy9: @Charliecondou @C4Dispatches can't see the problem.....Would you not say thank you for gifts# only polite # good manners

bryonywhiting: @Charliecondou @C4Dispatches come on. Don't be so naive.

LOOKING DOWN THE LENS

DerrenLitten: The child actor is so sweet & v good on Corrie but he keeps looking down the camera lens like Oliver Stokes used to when he was his age!

Charliecondou: @DerrenLitten you mean me don't you?

DerrenLitten: @Charliecondou I said sweet AND GOOD.

Charliecondou: @DerrenLitten thank GOD! I've been working really hard at just going cross-eyed whenever my eyeline is close to camera

DerrenLitten: @Charliecondou Your eye line must be close to camera an awful lot..... x

TracyAnnO: @DerrenLitten are you in Beni sweet lady?

DerrenLitten: @TracyAnnO Haha, no but I'm heading in that direction this week. We must speak... I have things to tell you...... *waves restoration fan*

Charliecondou: @DerrenLitten @TracyAnnO you should go to Polpo for lunch one day and I could totally bump into you and join you for pudding!

DerrenLitten: @Charliecondou @TracyAnnO I KNEW I couldnt wave my fan without the Queen of gossip gegging in. Fabulous, lets do it, the 3 of us*.  *not sex

Charliecondou: @DerrenLitten @TracyAnnO *scream* I'm going make up loads of shit about people we all know. It's going to be ACE

TracyAnnO: @Charliecondou @DerrenLitten this one needs to happen. Oh and the @polpo lunch

TracyAnnO: @DerrenLitten ooh forsook Lord Fop! I'm q near you. Wanna a little visit?

DerrenLitten: @TracyAnnO Dondes esta?! Oh what the fuck am I twittering on about, I'll call you...

FANCY BOYS

jodieharsh: I wish it was Thursday already...I'm hosting Room Service London with @CAZWELLnyc @alexisknox and @IssacJones :-) :-) :-)

Charliecondou: @jodieharsh I really fancy @CAZWELLnyc And you too obviously xxxx

jodieharsh: @Charliecondou OMG snap! I fancy you, too! xxx

Charliecondou: @jodieharsh we should totally get off with each other at one of those charity do's!!

jodieharsh: @Charliecondou That would be inappropriate and really fun. Rahaha. My mother would be very proud, she's a big fan as you know!

Charliecondou: @jodieharsh I always imagine your mum to look exactly like you in drag. But with bigger hair

jodieharsh: @Charliecondou You're spot on!

REALLY FINE WITH IT!

Charliecondou: @alanhalsall don't worry about returning my call mate, I'm absolutely fine with it. Really really fine with it

Sarah_Elsie: @Charliecondou @alanhalsall i'll call you instead Charlie WE DONT NEED ALAN

GillCraigie: @Charliecondou @alanhalsall He's busy putting his new @Bugaboo together!

karyndevalle: @Charliecondou @alanhalsall Baby might be on the way:-)

JAMIE OLIVER HAS PROOF

Charliecondou: This is just amazing http://politicalblindspot.org/hamburger-chef-jamie-oliver-proves-mcdonalds-burgers-unfit-for-human-consumption/ @jamieoliver

Hamburger Chef Jamie Oliver Proves McDonald’s Burgers “Unfit for human consumption”

Hamburger chef Jamie Oliver has won his long-fought battle against one of the largest fast food chains in the world – McDonalds. After Oliver showed how McDonald’s hamburgers are made, the franchise finally announced that it will change its recipe.

Oliver repeatedly explained to the public, over several years – in documentaries, television shows and interviews – that the fatty parts of beef are “washed” in ammonium hydroxide and used in the filling of the burger. Before this process, according to the presenter, the food is deemed unfit for human consumption. According to the chef and hamburger enthusiast, Jamie Oliver, who has undertaken a war against the fast food industry, “Basically, we’re taking a product that would be sold in the cheapest way for dogs, and after this process, is being given to human beings.”

Besides the low quality of the meat, the ammonium hydroxide is harmful to health. Oliver famously coined this the “the pink slime process.”

“Why would any sensible human being put meat filled with ammonia in the mouths of their children?” Oliver asked.

In one of his colorful demonstrations, Oliver demonstrates to children how nuggets are made. After selecting the best parts of the chicken, the remains (fat, skin and internal organs) are processed for these fried foods.

In reply to all of the bad press this process has received from Oliver, the company Arcos Dorados, the franchise manager for McDonalds in Latin America, said such a procedure is not practiced in their region. The same, it should be noted, applies to the product in Ireland and the UK, where they use meat from local suppliers.

In the United States, however, Burger King and Taco Bell had already abandoned the use of ammonia in their products. The food industry uses ammonium hydroxide as an anti-microbial agent in meats, which has allowed McDonald’s to use otherwise “inedible meat.”

Most disturbing of all is the horrifying fact that because ammonium hydroxide is considered part of the “component in a production procedure” by the USDA, consumers may not know when the chemical is in their food.

On the official website of McDonald’s, the company claims that their meat is cheap because, while serving many people every day, they are able to buy from their suppliers at a lower price, and offer the best quality products. But if “pink slime” was really the “best quality” that McDonalds can muster in the US, then why were they able do better in Latin America and Europe? More to the point, why can they apparently do better now in the United States?

These questions remains unanswered by the franchise which has denied that the decision to change the recipe is related to Jamie Oliver’s campaign. On the site, McDonald’s has admitted that they have abandoned the beef filler from its burger patties.

Ianhwatkins: @Charliecondou Great article ! Fantastic Work Mr @jamieoliver !!! :0)

DEAR TWITTERVERSE:

BRIEF NOTE FROM CAITLIN MORAN

bengoldacre: A brief note from @caitlinmoran to the worst people in the world. http://tl.gd/n_1rlojgc

emmafreud: This is SO WORTH READING. RT“@bengoldacre: A brief note from @caitlinmoran to the worst people in the world. http://tl.gd/n_1rlojgc”

Charliecondou: RT @emmafreud: This is SO WORTH READING. RT“@bengoldacre: A brief note from @caitlinmoran to the worst people in the world. http://tl.gd/n_1rlojgc

A longer Tweet on addressing how Caitlin Moran is a hypocrite.

Well, look, this is just boring for most people, so - soz. Seriously. If you possibly can, run away and feed the ducks in the park. 

But since I organised the #twittersilence - sum total of "organisation": suggesting it in this post... 

A brief post on tomorrow's #twittersilence, on the 4th August, and why I'm doing it.

So look it's not a HEAVY thing or an ANGRY thing. We don't need to argue over it, or pick teams, or have a go at anyone who doesn't want to do it. Everyone is free to do whatever they like with their Sunday. We should all be eeeeeeeeasy like Sunday morning. In towelling robes, eating toast, and reading the papers. But August the 4th is International Friendship Day, and, personally, I wanted to do something symbolic on that day, in the spirit of international friendship. In the last few weeks, I've seen women on Twitter being run to exhaustion by the volume of anonymous rape and violence tweets they've received - so many that even just blocking them is a full time job. I've seen my friends' Twitter bomb-threats ON THE NEWS. I've seen the messages escalate even AFTER someone's been arrested. AFTER. And, obviously, it's not just women. In the wake of this, we're now talking about the problem of online abuse towards people for their religion, race, sexuality and physicality. Essentially the problems of the most nightmare playground ever have been given a jet-pack and a megaphone through the power of social networking. And it made me sad that this was what people think Twitter is now. Because it's not. Most people on here aren't like this. Most people in the world aren't like this. Most people want to use Twitter like some fabulous, 24/7 on-line Cheers, where you can always walk in and have a couple of people shout 'Norm!' Most people don't think Twitter is a place to go around saying things you would never say at a party, or in an office, or to someone's face. For most people, Twitter is joyous: it's a little group of friends in your pocket; daily surprises; news from places you've never been; an overnight revolution; eyes in the place where tonight's news will be broadcast from. And people spamming www.nyan.cat. I love nyancat. So yes. In the spirit of solidarity - to show what Twitter would be like if the trolls over-run this place, and drive anyone out who IS here in the spirit of glee - a 24 hour silence on Sunday 4th August. Midnight to midnight. The only thing we Tweet is the hashtag #twittersilence, which we leave like Zorro leaves his "Z" carved into the curtains. Or, more prosaically, like we leave a note for the milkman when we go on holiday. Do it if you want to. It's a thing you can do if you like the idea. On the other hand, other people have said, "Why should we be silenced? Let's fill Twitter on that day with love and positivity, instead - spend all day Tweeting happy things." And that's a brilliant idea too. There's LOADS of brilliant ideas in the world. I'm in favour of ALL the ones that are about joy. Everyone can do their thing. This is just the thing I thought of. I just wanted to do a thing. c xxxx

Longer piece I wrote about this here: http://caitlinmoran.co.uk/index.php/category/blog/

...making it clear if you didn't want to join in that was totally cool too, and then taking part in it - there have been several accusations, repeated many times during the Twitter Silence, that I'm a hypocrite. That protesting against threats of rape and death on Twitter is hypocritical, given that I use abusive language myself on Twitter. Because if Twitter is policed, Caitlin Moran will be the first one in jail!!!!! So. The abusive Tweets. I've been on Twitter four years, and have Tweeted 65,189 times. Here are the abusive Tweets I've sent, listed in this Tweet which has been doing the rounds: 

http://storify.com/BethanyBlack/caitlin-moran-champion-of-women-if-you-re-white-ab?awesm=sfy.co_cNgt&utm_campaign=&utm_content=storify-pingback&utm_source=direct-sfy.co&utm_medium=sfy.co-twitter

1) Retard. Before 2010, I used the word "retard" in four Tweets in replying to friends. Yeah. Not proud of that. Not proud at all. The language of my childhood. Not glorious. I used the word "retard" in "How To Be A Woman", too - the sentence "I have all the joyful ebullience of a retard." Wincing a bit as I write that, to be honest. When the book was published, there was, quite rightly, a protest about the word. We immediately removed the word from all subsequent issues, and issued a massive apology. The whole thing was a salutary lesson in checking your language. I don't use that word any more, and it pains me to even mention it now. And this is the first time I have, since 2010. And, again, I'm sorry. Not proud of that at all. 

2) "Tranny." I have used this word three times on Twitter. Before Twitter, I spent ten years on a message board that was pretty much 50/50 straight/gay, and included a gay man in a drag act, and we always used the word "Tranny" to mean "transvestite." I had never thought it meant anything else. The second time I used it on Twitter, in conversation with a friend, someone said "That word now means transsexual, and is very offensive," and I haven't used it since, and never would. 

I want to make this very, very clear: I am nothing but tearfully admiring and supportive of all trans people. I make this clear in the first chapter of "How To Be A Woman" - "Germaine Greer is nuts in her views on transsexuals", a whole chapter in "Moranthology," and in every interview, when asked "Can transsexuals be real women?" I unequivocally state that trans male-to-female have an even greater right to call themselves women than I do. I was just born a woman. They've had to work for it. They've put in pain and suffering. At all times, I have humbly doffed my cap to trans women. And I have never used the word "tranny" since that day on Twitter. I learned a thing that day. It's why I like Twitter.

3) "Mong". Twice. Once in a very elongated pun competition, and the other time in conversation with India Knight, where we were actually boggling over someone using it as a term of abuse in the Gervais case. Neither time used abusively AT ALL. 

4) AIDS jokes. The Telegraph's blog pages are trying to drive up their click-rate, and have done four pieces on me in five days, concluding with today's, about how I make jokes about AIDS. Yes. I do. The disease. Because it terrifies me. I don't make jokes about sufferers - I make jokes about the disease, in the same way I make jokes about cancer and cystitis and vaginal tearing and mastitis and anxiety. I actually can't see any logic in why someone can't make a joke about AIDS, so long as the inference of the joke isn't homophobic. So, conclusion here: will carry on making occasional references to AIDS. Those jokes aren't kicking down at anyone. The butt of all those jokes is me, or a friend.

5) Threatening to cut off @DaftLimmy's cock. Sigh. What a world where I'm writing that sentence at 11.12am on a Monday. 

So, to recap: Daft Limmy is a comedian. Three months ago, my husband wrote a blog about how much he liked the Daft Punk album. For some reason, this really annoyed Limmy, and he Tweeted about this eight times within twenty minutes http://storify.com/ichlugebullets/limmy-and-pete-paphides, @-ing my husband into each Tweet. This had the effect of making all of Limmy's followers pile on to my husband, abusing him, and flooding his blog with abuse. 

I blocked Limmy, my husband blocked Limmy, but, obviously, that didn't stop all the messages coming through from his individual followers. At the end of this odd day - my husband is a peaceable man with a blog, who wears a cardigan - a friend commented on how Limmy's actions over a blog about Daft Punk appeared to be slightly over-wrought, and I replied - and for anyone who knows this line now, having seen it many times during this debate, do please sing along - "I know one thing - if he doesn't stop having a go at my husband, he'll be pissing through a straw."

So yes. I said it. To a friend who has a locked account. And then someone basically snitched, and RT-d it to Limmy. And I have now seen that line, said to a friend, being quoted on Channel 4 News, Newsnight and sundry blogs and columns, being used as a strawman argument against any anti-abuse campaign. "These women say they want Twitter to change, in order to prevent being abused - but then they go around threatening men's penises! Twitter is full of people abusing each other! You can never change it!"

I wouldn't normally bore on about things specifically about me, but it now seems things I have said are being used to try and damage the campaign against ALL prejudicial abuse - not just against women - that shuts down people's voices on Twitter.

And I just want to say one thing: if only people who are completely perfect are allowed to comment on things, or activate, or ask for change, then we're doomed. This world has a billion small problems, and if the only people who can tackle them are the ones who've never said anything a bit rancid to a friend at 2am, then literally nothing will ever get done.

I'm a writer. I've been a writer since I was 16. I'm mainly a humourist - I write about television and celebrities and how I hate Lola from Charlie & Lola. But I also increasingly write about welfare and mental illness and gay rights and, this week, FGM. And, without being too mawkish, I just try to be a good person. I have three pages a week in The Times, and I try to use them to spread either joy, or understanding about subjects other people don't write much about. I don't write columns glorifying cynical apathy, or calling celebrity women slutty for having four babies with four different people, or moaning about not being able to drive my car at 80mph down residential streets. I have, broadly - with wank-breaks for discussing Sherlock - tried to be a decent person.

I would very much hope that saying "retard" to a friend in 2010, and then apologising for it, doesn't mean that, in 2013, I can't protest against women getting anonymous death-threats.

People who are approaching women, anonymously, on Twitter, and threatening them with rape and death are breaking the law. They are committing prosecutable acts. I find it a bit weird that a debate about this is being repeatedly derailed into conversations about what the Times TV critic said to a friend on Twitter in 2010. 

So again - I'm sorry about those bad things I said. I'm learning all the time. I'll keep learning until I die. But if "organising" a campaign - writing a free blog, whilst on holiday - suggesting that anyone who wanted to show solidarity with women who are, still now, getting multiple death and rape threats every day, could quietly and peacefully be silent for a day, is me being, in some way, awful, then I'm sorry again, because I probably won't stop doing things like that. Trying to think of some way to suggest change, and to make things a bit better. Maybe what I suggest WON'T make things better. But I'll keep suggesting things. I'd like EVERYONE to suggest things - rather than shruggingly going "Nah. This is what the world is like, and always will be." Because as I said in the original blog, people who say that usually mean "This is how I want the world to be."

And now I'm off, to write a column about the BBC One's patriotic quiz-show "I Love My Country", in which people have to put, on a blank map of Britain, a Yorkshire pudding where they think Peterborough is. 

cxxxxx

JOJEHARVEY: @caitlinmoran Great piece Caitlin x

caitlinmoran: @JOJEHARVEY thank you, sweetness xxx

boydhilton: @caitlinmoran good job

caitlinmoran: @boydhilton thank you, love xxx

daraobriain: @caitlinmoran You disgust me.

caitlinmoran: @daraobriain Don't worry - I'm wearing a cilice belt AROUND MY HEAD INTO MY EYES, and should be decent again by 2017.

EmmaK67: @caitlinmoran so sorry you're getting this whirlpool of turds Caitlin. Many here are happy to carry you shoulder high out of it

bengoldacre: Fab @caitlinmoran piece says: it was reasonable to take offence at time, but those making hay today are somethng else http://tl.gd/n_1rlojgc

UNFORTUNATE FAMILIES
Charlie's team:

L to R: Jenny, Sam, Charlie, Kathleen and Cameron

jaywalks_: well done to my family on family fortunes, how did you find it @Charliecondou?

Charliecondou: @jaywalks_ your auntie Jen embarrassed herself as usual

danboy1989: @Charliecondou well done with your family fortunes game other day u and ur family did well  :) see u soon x

DebbieCam_: Aw @lane_paula & @Charliecondou & their lovely families on #AllStarFamilyFortunes well done guys x

ParkinMichelle: @Charliecondou hi charlie omg saw u on all star family fortunes well funny :)

Book Now

Saturday 21st September 2013

Grand Connaught Rooms, Covent Garden, London. WC2B 5DA

The Alternative Parenting Show is the original and biggest show of its kind. It provides a one-stop shop, which gives valuable information to same-sex and heterosexual couples and single men and women on how to make the dream of having a family a reality. In today's society families are made up of all different combinations, however this brings the need for fresh information. The show will include advice from leading experts in their field on how to navigate through the minefield of having a child. Topic areas include legal provisions, surrogacy, fertility, co-parenting and fostering and adoption. This one day event provides you with the opportunity to chat in an informal atmosphere to the people who can give you the answers you need. There will also be a series of seminars and focus groups where you can explore the areas that interest you in more detail.

To book for the show click HERE

Charlie Condou

 Charlie Condou is best known for playing Marcus Dent in ITV soap Coronation Street since 2007. As well as being a keen LGBT advocate he has experience as gay parent having two children, Georgia and Hal, in a co-parenting arrangement with his close friend Catherine Kanter. Charlie lives in London with his partner Cameron, who shares responsibility for the children. Charlie has been extremely vocal about his experiences as a gay father; writing a column in The Guardian and also speaking at the 2013 Alternative Parenting Show and on both BBC News and BBC Radio 5 live.

Read Charlie in The Guardian here

Sophie Ward

Sophie Ward is an actor and writer from North London. She has worked in film, television and theatre and writes a regular column for g3 magazine. In 1996, Sophie met her partner Rena, and they came out as a couple. Together, they raised Sophie’s two children from her previous marriage, who were 3 and 7 years old at the time. As a family, they faced the particular challenges, as well as the advantages, of being an alternative family in a small rural community. Sophie is currently studying for her PhD at Goldsmiths and is touring in Agatha Christie’s play, Go Back For Murder

Read Sophie in The Guardian here

ONLY IN AMERICA
Men are you considering running for mayoral office in New York USA?

Here is a set of vote-winning steps for you to follow:

Step 1: tweet pics of your junk to random chicks on the internet

Step 2): convince your wife to be pathetic

See, it's as simple as that...