Edinburgh in August continues to be an exciting – yet safe – place for LGBT people, as Paul F Cockburn – born and bred in the Scottish capital – explains. Dandy Darkly isn’t a man who’s ignored. New York City’s finest raconteur specialises in lurid tales of sex and death, and dresses appropriately, adorned with […]
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Money Really Matters
“The diversity profile of the workforce across the professional services industry does not reflect society or our client base. We need to change and I believe a crucial part of achieving a meaningful shift is providing more transparency in the make-up of our current staff against where we would like to be. It means we […]
Queer As (Telefantasy) Folk
For many years LGBT people have found a ‘safe place’ in television science fiction and fantasy fandom. Paul F Cockburn asks why. Back in the late 1980s, I joined a group of Doctor Who fans in Glasgow, a rather anarchic get-together of young men who shared their love of the show not just with fanzines […]
Turing Test
60 years after his death, Paul F Cockburn looks back on the life and legacy of the ‘father of computing’, the gay mathematician Alan Turing. “You have to understand the measure of what Alan Turing did,” former cryptographer Captain Jerry Roberts told BBC News back in September 2009. “In 1940/41 the German U-boats were sinking […]
Doubly Disadvantaged?
Paul F Cockburn asks just how accessible – physically and socially – Britain’s gay scene is for those with physical and sensory impairments. One Friday night last June, Robert Softley Gale and his partner Nathan Gale were in Glasgow. They were in celebratory mood: Nathan works with Scottish LGBT charity the Equality Network, which had […]
Absolutely Queer
Colin MacInnes is nowhere as well known as he ought to be. Perhaps the author–born a century ago this August–would be a more familiar name if Julian Temple’s 1986 musical film adaptation of his 1959 novel Absolute Beginners hadn’t bombed at the box office. Then again, perhaps not: according to US writer Devin McKinney, MacInnes […]
Comic Turns
The 1980s aren’t everyone’s favourite decade but, for theatre producer Nica Burns OBE, there’s at least one thing to look back on with some pride–the comedy. “I was there when ‘Alternative Comedy’ started,” she explains. “The whole point of it was to change things. It had a mission; that jokes that were homophobic, racist or […]
