I was one of the 1million viewers that tuned into Clapham Junction.

Read the news story here.

God knows why. Well actually I do know why, it was thanks to the show’s one redeeming feature - Paul Nicholls’ penis.

I don’t like criticising programmes for showing gay people in a negative light. I think that art should be allowed to reflect all truths. But when a programme markets itself a powerful drama highlighting how far homosexuals have come since decriminalisation - one would have thought it would have avoided cramming in every cliché there ever was.

Let’s have a look at some of those clichés.

1. There are no such thing as lesbians. Perhaps I blinked and missed all the gay women in this gay drama, because - and please correct me if I’m wrong - there didn’t seem to be any there. That’s just stupid. Anyone would think they were as mythical as the unicorn so absent where they from Clapham Junction.
2. All gay men are peadophiles. Hurrah we have a gay man having sex with a 14 year old, smashing.
3. All gay men are promiscuous and incapable of a monogomous relationship. On the day of one character’s civil partnership he’s having it off with one of the waiters in a pantry. And then goes on to confirm -
4. All gay men are drug addled fiends. Everyone seems to be snorting coke. They don’t seem to stop snorting lines.
5. All gay men are sexual risk takers. Despite the excess of sex scenes I didn’t get the glimpse of a single condom anywhere.
6. All homophobes are actually gay. Everyone beating up gay men seemed to be gay men - except for the waiter who gets murdered (I’d kind of turned off by this part) so I’m not sure if they were killing him to rob him or just killing because they were scared of their own inner musical theatre.

This programme sucks because it just seems to suggest that gay mens’ lives are nasty, brutal and short.
Rather than writing this blog, if Clapham Junction is to be believed, I should be out right not on Clapham Common waiting to snort a line before being beaten to death by another gay man once we’ve had no-committal unsafe sex.

Now Queer as Folk contained almost all of the elements Clapham Junction did but I love that show. The difference is that Queer as Folk gave its characters personalities and spread the horror between comedy and banality. It allowed you to believe in the people, and to like some of them.

I found no characters I liked in Clapham Junction and had a hard time recognises any of it as reality and I’m really quite glad of that.