Movie Monday: Fat Rant

Stuff the much-hyped "Size Zero Debate" – let's hear it from the fat girls, for a change.

And big up video-maker Joy Nash for her well-made points.

If there were more inspiring women like her on our TV screens, maybe teenaged girls would have something positive to aspire to, instead of Nicole Ritchie thinness.

Movie Monday: Two Fathers!

Aren't little Dutch kids well adjusted?

The annual Kinderen voor Kinderen concert and album features songs written based on ideas submitted by the children who sing them.

And this boy is singing about his two dads. On mainstream TV. And other children are joining in.

Makes yah wanna move there doesn't it?

Flirty Thursday: Donna does dating

If you've got March's DIVA then you've probably already spat your coffee all over your cat reading of Donna McPhail's first adventures in online dating.

Undeterred, I start choosing the option ‘other’, just to be awkward. Suddenly, I’m face to face with one of life’s most complex questions – ‘What are you looking for?’ (Well, unless you’re Decartes that’s where you need the multiple-choice option, surely?) I mumbled something vague like ‘frottage’ (which I thought was something disgusting, but which turns out to be a bit of dry-humping), and then sat back on my largely self-satisfied backside and waited for the messages to come flooding in.

Is it just me, or is it suddenly socially unacceptable, if single, not to have a profile on an internet dating site? Whether it's Pink Sofa or gaydarGirls, true love (or a bit of 'frottage' if you prefer) is only 250 words away. Apparently this is the optimum length for a profile - less says you're hiding something, more suggests you're looking for free therapy. The concept of hanging around in bars waiting to bump into someone who doesn't repel you is seeming like rather hard work ... you can't even screen out the Leos before you start talking.

Wwweird Wednesday: Mother's day gifts

Crikey, there's barely any time left til Mother's day, and what little there is is already earmarked for working, drinking and watching Hollyoaks with a hangover ...

Fear not. DIVAblog has scoured the web to bring you two suitably unsuitable gift options.

Option 1 - If you are officially 'cash poor, time rich' then win extra brownie points with this homemade bouquet of flowers brought to you by tamponcrafts.com.



Option 2 - If a marketing manager would class you as 'cash rich, time poor' then invest for your own future (you'll inherit it one day) with a detailed depiction of the male human form from Queer art gallery howcampisthat.com.

Failing those, there's still time for a forever-friends card and a bunch of wilting carnations from the BP Garage round the corner.

Now That's What We Call A Lesbian Playlist!

Poor Marlene Bielak: after months of bullying at the hands of a colleague who disapproved of her homosexuality, the lesbian shop assistant is in line for more than £120,000. Bielak, 34, suffered months of bullying before she left the Next store in St Helens, Merseyside, traumatized by Katrina Davies. Davies, 27, would constantly play a Morrissey song called All The Lazy Dykes every time Miss Bielak came into the stockroom at the store where they worked. Matters came to a head when an argument broke out between the two women. Mrs Davies, a practising Jehovah's Witness, pushed Miss Bielak and started shouting and swearing at her, calling her a '******* dyke'.

If she’d done her homework, the St Helens zealot could have had some fun with the plethora of Sapphic songs on offer. Instead of the looped daily drone from the original Manchester miserablist, DIVA feels that Mrs Davies missed her opportunity to create the ultimate lesbian compilation: NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL LESBIAN HITS. To this end, we’d like to suggest a few items for the track listing.

The Gossip - Standing in the way of control (listen on iTunes)
Not a track that might immediately come to Katrina’s mind but one she’d do well to study. This pop anthem, destined to become THE protest song of the 21st century (say goodbye to ‘We will overcome’) rants against the homophobia of George Bush’s Republicans.

Janis Ian - Getting Over You (listen on iTunes)
Now that Katrina no longer has Marlene to abuse, she may well soon find herself humming along to the lyrics of Ian’s break-up classic as she croons: ‘And what will I do with my mornings?’

Queen of Japan - I was made for Loving You (listen on iTunes)
What if Katrina was a lady-lover after all? She may realize - with the help of this electro remake of the KISS classic - that her rage was in fact suppressed desire for Marlene.

Kd lang - Dreams of the Everyday Housewife (listen on iTunes)
When kd sang the Glenn Campbell classic about her dream girl she accidentally on purpose forgot to change the pronouns. It’s the perfect lesbian family song, innit? Awww.

Saltpeter - I’m not gay (watch on mySpace)
Salena Godden is the queer Lily Allen. This track by new kid on the block might suit any would-be gays who want to explore their inner gay girl. Ooh we can just picture it down the boozer. Altogether now. ‘We’re not gay but we’ll snog you anyway. We’ve had ten beers and we’re feeling quite queer.’

News Tuesday! Save our gay bookshop!

One of DIVA's favourite news hounds, The Times' Tim Teeman sent us this story today.
Britain's only lesbian and gay bookshop, Gay's The Word, which has been an inspiration to a generation of writers, is under a threat from rising rents and falling sales

GTW is a small bookshop that inspired Sarah Waters to create her best-selling lesbian bodice rippers, which acted as a “lifeline” to the would-be novelist Patrick Gale, and the only place that Jake Arnott and Simon Callow rely on for research for their books.

But now the is fighting closure. Custom at the shop, which opened in 1979 in Bloomsbury, Central London, was badly affected by the 7/7 bombings — the bus bombing and one of the Tube explosions happened around nearby Russell Square.

The effects of book-buying online and the rise of the bookstore chains have also put the shop in peril, said manager Jim MacSweeney. Gay’s The Word needs to raise £20,000 within two months to stay in business and is looking for well-heeled donors or investors - and new customers.

“It’s a case of use us or lose us. We are on the verge of closing. It’s tough trading for all independents,” MacSweeney said. “People came to us when we were the only shop selling gay literature. But times have changed.”

Authers including Sarah Waters, the Man Booker-nominated author of The Night Watch, has said: “I could never have produced fiction of my own if Gay's the Word had not been there first, supplying me with other gay writers’ books. It was not just a bookshop, but the hub and affirmation of a whole community. As a young lesbian new to London I remember arranging to meet people there; drinking coffee there, finding accommodation through its noticeboard.”

The shop, which was founded by bookseller Ernest Hole, sells a range of gay-themed fiction and non-fiction from around the world, and is one of the most enduring symbols of gay life in London. But it has suffered from not being located in the gay centre of the capital, Soho.
In 1984, Customs officials raided the shop during the infamous Operation Tiger. Among the books seized were works by Gore Vidal, Allen Ginsberg, Christopher Isherwood and Tennessee Williams. “Customs thought gay bookshop meant sex shop, dirty macs,” says MacSweeney. “Not what we were about.”

Charges relating to the importation of indecent and obscene material were dropped after a high-profile campaign by civil liberties groups and questions in the House of Commons.
Today, the only homophobia the shop suffers is “a brick through the window once a year and twice a week people spit on the windows,” MacSweeney said.
Store managers are considering whether to turn the bookshop into a charity or community interest company — part private company, part charity. Should it be saved, it may relocate to Soho. “At the moment, lots of gay men, especially younger ones, simply don’t know we’re here,” said MacSweeney.

Famous customers include Man Booker prize winner Alan Hollinghurst, presenter Sandi Toskvig and artists Gilbert and George.

Jeanette Winterson reckons that: "Bookshops have made real progress by including specifically lesbian and gay books on their shelves, both generally and in special sections. On-line stores allow for covert or overt gay browsing, and as far as I am concerned, a good book is a good book, and doesn’t need to target its readers by the sexuality. Gay's the Word was a brilliant shop but the very fact that it is thinking of closing may mean that its work is done."

Personally I like the vibe of the shop, the queerness of it. It's a little homo literary oasis in central london, providing shoppers who are weary of the endless row of clone retail outlets like snappy snaps, tesco, yawn, borders, more yawns. For me its much like going to a lefty bookshop or any kind of individual, one-of-a-kind themed store - it provides us with diversity which seems to be an ever dwindling commodity. What do you think?

Movie Monday: How to shower like a dyke?

Apparently this video has been watched no less than 1.6 million times. Wow. It begs the question though: how do you shower like a dyke? (Tip: you won't find an appropriate answer on google... or youtube ... ahem).

Personally, my bathing routine falls somewhere between straight boy and straight girl. I can accurately hit a bath mat, and I only require one bathing product, which costs less than £2.

Perhaps accurately placing yourself on the butch/femme spectrum no longer requires a complicated range of questions about motorcycle parts and cut of underwear - we could cut it right down to 2 questions: how many items do you require in the shower, and what is the total value of those items?

We don't have a shower usable in the shack at the mo (strictly summer only as it's virtually out-doors and pretty much cold). We have a nice 60s bath though.

This morning's bath routine went something like:

• Make a hot water bottle and wrap bath towel around it to compensate for lack of heating in the shack.
• Run bath.
• Get in bath.
• Swim around being very grateful to be so small and feeling sorry for normal sized people who can't entirely float in a standard size bath.
• Wash with bath stuff (only have one bottle: Tesco bedtime baby bath with lavendar)
• Wonder why there are so many bottles round the bath and remember that a straight girl has moved in.
• Wash hair with same bath stuff - very small amount due to grade 4 buzz cut.
• Shave armpits (every day, can't bear the feeling of not doing it).
• Hear dog scratching at the door to be let in.
• Stand up, grab towel, which is big, and dip one corner in the bath water. Always.
• Dry hair (1 second)
• Wrap towel around me.
• Run to back door to let dog in.
• Follow dog into bedroom, picking up dog-mud on feet as I go.
• Find cat sitting on my laptop watching youTube.
• Take picture on camera phone.
• Send to friend.
• Realise I have dripped all over the bed.
• Get dried.
• Get paranoid about lack of curtains despite living in the middle of nowhere.
• Dress quickly despite not being properly dry.
• Feel stupid for being paranoid. And damp.

Et tu?