Stephen fry

Last week James Rhodes won a legal battle to publish his memoir Instrumental: A Memoir of Madness, Medication and Music. This judgement came after his ex-wife took out an injunction through a court appeal to prevent the book from being published over concerns that the pianist's account of the sexual abuse he experienced as a child could harm their son. With the ban lifted, Rhodes appeared at Hay Festival on Saturday night to launch the book during a talk with his friend Stephen Fry. The pair are such good friends, that as well as Fry helping to conduct Rhodes' second wedding, he revealed that he also became named in his friend's legal battle.

In the 1970s, there was a big difference between bullies and cry-babies. Your mum would have preferred you to hang around with the latter, but sometimes the former had a twisted charisma so strong that you found yourself joining in the taunts of ‘Onion Head! ’ at some poor unfortunate creature sporting a cranium of a somewhat allium caste. After a bit, of course, if you had anything about you, you realized what a knob you were being and went off to sample the more solitary, civilized pleasures of shoplifting and reading Oscar Wilde with the bedroom curtains closed. But you could be certain, as you festered in your pilfered Chelsea Girl vest, that bullies were bullies and cry-babies were cry-babies and never the twain would meet.

Odd though it may seem, I think I’m with Stephen Fry on the issue of the Baftas. The grand old poof – I mean that in an affectionate, rather than a disparaging or a prejudiced sense – has been criticised for his performance as compere at this fatuous awards ceremony. Too many expletives. Off colour jokes at the expense of the likes of Stephen Hawking. He even said 'Tom Fucking Cruise', instead of 'Tom Cruise'. Good for him; the Baftas are a ghastly parade of mewing luvvies and deserve to be undermined by calculated unprofessionalism. I think all awards ceremonies are likewise vile, to be honest; smug and self-congratulatory and hugely boring. It astonishes me that anyone should ever schedule them for us all to watch.

Isn’t it about time the English language got itself a gender-neutral pronoun? This was the clarion call from the Guardian last week — and when that particular clarion sounds, we must all stand to attention and cut out the sniggering. I assume the writer of the piece was moved to action having seen photographs of members of Isis pushing gay people from the tops of large buildings — and was deeply worried that each of the victims, tumbling to their deaths, might have been unhappy about being referred to as ‘he’ by wilfully unprogressive western journalists.

A screening of The Imitation Game hosted by the American ambassador Matthew Barzun saw Alan Turing's nephew Sir John Dermot Turing and his great-niece Rachel Barnes welcomed to 24 Grosvenor Square. There Barzun spoke of the progress that both America and Britain have made with gay rights since Turing's day. The wartime code-breaker committed suicide after he was found guilty of gross indecency and given chemical castration treatment as punishment. He was given a pardon for his 'crime' by the Queen in 2013. Now, members of the film's cast have signed an open letter to the British government urging them to to pardon the estimated 49,000 men who were persecuted under the same law that Alan Turing was found guilty of.

Why, do you reckon, was Stephen Fry’s decision to marry another man an item in a BBC radio news bulletin earlier today, right up there with the row over Jim Murphy and the mansion tax? I mean, we’re obviously interested – personally I was completely riveted by the revelation he’s all of 30 years older than his partner - but not as in national interest? I mean it’s one for the papers, in the light celeb stories slot, but not the news... surely? Even those who accept that gay and heterosexual marriages are on a par – which I don’t – must question whether Mr Fry’s status as Twitter king and Well-Known Gay Person entitle him to the kind of reverent reporting as, oh, some minor royal.

After all the fuss, the billions spent, the calls for boycotts and so on, the Sochi Winter Olympics will begin next week. Given the incredibly low expectations, the Russian Games may even be judged a success — as long as the weather stays cold and no terrorist attack takes place. But Vladimir Putin should not be too smug, because his broader campaign against homosexuality has backfired spectacularly. The Russian President’s decision to sign a law prohibiting ‘the propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations to minors’ last summer probably made sense to him at the time.

As Mr Steerpike reported late last night, the gloves were off between Russell Brand and Charles Moore at the GQ Man of the Year awards. But that was not the only fight to split the audience. After American comedian Seth MacFarlane’s disastrous turn at this year’s Oscars, you would have thought that award ceremony hosts might be wary of musical numbers. Yet that did not stop Rob Brydon bursting into song about Stephen Fry’s recent suicide attempt, warbling that the National Treasure could not be left alone with 'vodka and pills'. A shaky start to say the least, which was not helped by a bad Eric Pickles joke that left most of the stellar audience scratching their heads wondering who this Pickles bloke was.

Well, well, well. Nick Cohen's excellent column in this week's mag  has caused a stir today. Sadly, though, Nick's astute argument became another excuse for a boring slanging match between atheists and believers. And of course Stephen Fry waded in: Mary had a little lamb It's fleece was white as snow All you religious dicks Just fuck off and go. No more discussion with dickheads. Sorry. — Stephen Fry (@stephenfry) August 22, 2013 Really? Fry's Twitter cronies lapped that up. They always do. He's so clever and civilised, our Stephen, bless his colourful cotton socks. Unlike those credulous maniacs who believe in God. In 2013! Celebrity atheists always claim the rational high ground: we are calm and normal, the God squad is angry and mad.

This was the best kind of week. It started with a three-hour road trip with my manager/surrogate father/shrink/bodyguard to Monmouth to record album no. 5. Glenn Gould (whom I worship with the fervour of a pre-teen Belieber) talked about the ‘womb-like security of the recording studio’. Which was why, in a somewhat pussy move, he retired from performing in public. And he was spot on. Bless my mum, but my first womb was a Valium- and gin-infested warm place of loveliness, and the recording studio is absolutely the next best thing. Me, the safety net of the retake, a (phenomenal) Steinway, heaters, Kit-Kats, tea and Beethoven can give any pharmaceuticals a run for their money. Even if Gould somewhat greedily chose all that and the pills too.