express130102

Sunday 13th January 2002

Elton, you are a hero for your Aids work

Last Wednesday, I spent a very emotional evening in the luxurious Dorchester Hotel Ballroom, where the Aids charity Crusaid was presenting Sir Elton John with a Hero of the Year Award for his tireless work and financial support of various Aids charities.
Elton, whom, as you know, I have been critical of in this column, mainly for duetting with Eminem (bad move, sorry), was presented with a strange-looking red velvet trophy that looked like a hat-pin cushion on a stalk. He looked as amused as I was and, after surveying it for a moment, said: "Hey, George, what should I do with it?" I replied: "I daren't say."
His speech on collecting the Triffid/pin cushion was startlingly moving and filled me with guilt for all the bad things I have written about him. There were many speeches from gay men living with Aids but the most moving was a young man of 25 who contracted the virus from a blood transfusion at five and had lived with the awful prejudices through school and losing girlfriends because he chose to be honest about his illness. What was suprising was just how healthy this young man looked, and it proved advances in medical research have made a huge difference to the way people live with HIV and Aids.
Of course, most governments at the height of the epidemic were and still are extremely tight-fisted about providing money for the cause, which is where Elton, who raised millions, has been so important. Elton pointed out that at least 13,000 people are HIV positive in the UK alone, and worldwide the human loss is catastrophic, with 21.8 million deaths in total.
In many respects, kids have all but forgotten about the disease and see it as a gay-only issue. But there were many heterosexuals in the room that night who are living with HIV and Aids, and the numbers are growing daily.
The evening reminded people that this disease is not going away. You could argue that the money Sir Elton John has provided is a drop in the ocean for such a wealthy man, but there are plenty of multi-millionaires who sit on their dosh and forget that wise old saying that you can't take it with you. Elton said: "I'm no hero." Well, to those he had helped, he certainly is, and if I took my hat off in public, which I rarely do, I would have taken it off for him.

Love, we all know, makes us do silly things and clearly Madonna's love for Guy Ritchie is making her lose her marbles. At a recent party, she sat and watched unfunny, rascist, poof-hating comedian Bernard Manning, and was quoted as saying that he was hilarious - despite admitting that she barely understood the humour.
This poof understands it clearly and finds it offensive to the max. Hubby Guy was lapping it up and now they have Manning for a private party. Mad-donna, or McDonna as I call her, ought to remember her status as a gay icon and realise that booking such a man is rather like me doing a duet with Garry Bushell.
I have heard that since marrying Ritchie, Madonna has dropped - or at least frozen out - many of her gay mates. But perhaps she is hell-bent (forgive the pun) on alienating her entire gay audience. The gay community can be ridiculously to Madonna, as it was to George Michael, but at least George has waved a flag in the right direction since getting caught with his trousers down.
Peter Tatchell, on the other hand, is treated like a bad smell by his fellow queers - and he has done more for us than Madonna. If she relishes her gay icon status she ought to rethink her public moves and make them as good as the ones she does with her hips.