AUSTRALIAN Matthew Mitcham last night produced the dive of his life to win a shock gold medal in the men’s 10m platform and end host nation China’s stranglehold on the Beijing Olympic diving competition.

The 20-year-old Sydney diver produced the highest scoring dive in the history of the Olympics with his sixth and final effort to become Australia’s first male Olympic gold medallist in diving since Dick Eve in 1924.

Mitcham finished with an overall score of 537.95 to defeat Zhou (533.15), who had led the final until the final round, to grab Australia’s second diving medal of the Games.

“It’s absolutely surreal. I never thought that this would be possible,” Mitcham said.

“I wasn’t even sure of my medal chances at all. After I did my last dive and I saw I was in first, I thought, “That’s it, it’s a silver medal, I am so happy with this’ and then I won. I can’t believe it, I’m so happy.

“I had some very wise words and some very good advice before coming into the 10m competition, to just enjoy it, have fun and that’s what I thought right from the very first dive in the prelims to the very last dive in the final.

“I was definitely stressing it to myself, just enjoy the moment, there is nothing you can do to change what’s about to happen, so just enjoy it and it worked.”

The result was a major turn-around for Mitcham from his performance in the 3m springboard, in which he failed to make the final after struggling to keep his nerves under control.

“Absoultely everything I have done has been for this,” Mitcham said.

“Coming back and doing everything that I did was to win an Olympic gold medal. That was my aim when I was training every single day, twice a day, 11 sessions a week, 30 hours a week, before every single dive, it was like `I want to win Olympic gold’ and that made me try my hardest in every single training session for the last year and a half.
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Aquatic athletes are as revered in Australia as NFL stars are in the United States, so the news that Matthew Mitcham is gay made headlines throughout Australia. It was The Sydney Morning Herald that broke the story; in the course of profiling the diver as part of its Olympics coverage, a reporter from the paper asked Mitcham whom he lived with.

“I hadn’t planned to do it at all,” Mitcham says today. “It was just a question” — which he answered by saying he lived with his partner of two years, Lachlan — “and it went from there.”

One might think that the fuss would have bothered his fellow divers, but they’re nonchalant about his sexual orientation. “They don’t seem to mind that I’m a big homo,” says Mitcham, who trains six hours a day at the New South Wales Institute of Sport, a facility for elite athletes in 31 sports at Sydney’s Olympic Park. “I make jokes about it all the time. I haven’t made an issue of it, so they just reciprocate that attitude.” Plus, he says, because of its artistry and grace, diving is “such an easy sport to be out in — much easier than football, where you have to be rugged and strong and masculine.”

Mitcham is so focused on Beijing that he hasn’t been out with friends for more than a year and a half. And now that he’s won his ticket to China, he’ll be cheered poolside by Lachlan, courtesy of a $5,000 travel grant from Johnson & Johnson’s Athlete Family Support Program (no, there wasn’t an outcry, as you might expect in the States). His mom may be there too, thanks to some Sydney gay men and lesbians who offered to cover her expenses. “I’m very proud to be part of the gay community,” he says.

Well done Matthew! I am so pleased that in Australia Johnson and Johnson supported Matthew (without any drama) and so proud of Sydneys’ Gay and Lesbian community for sending over mum too! I am supposed to be supporting England but with my dual nationality, I will be supporting you mate.

Source : Advocate
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A new gay version of the Evelyn Waugh novel Brideshead Revisited is set to open in limited release this week.

Set in England at the dawn of the Second World War, the film circles around Charles Ryder (Matthew Goode), a young middle class painter who befriends the charmingly quirky Lord Sebastian Flyte (Ben Whishaw) during their tenure at Oxford. The writers of the film make Sebastian’s interest in Charles overtly sexual, whereas the novel left their “man-love” completely ambiguous. Nevertheless, their budding friendship is challenged once Sebastian brings Charles home to his sprawling estate at Brideshead, where Charles meets the devout Lady Marchmain (Emma Thompson), an expert in Catholic guilt, and Sebastian’s jaded sister Julia (Hayley Atwell). Drawn both to Julia and to the luxury of Brideshead, Charles’ desire to become closer to the family only distances him from Sebastian, who in Charles saw an escape from the oppressive Catholic lifestyle Lady Marchmain demands. As Charles’ decisions send Sebastian into an alcoholic tailspin, he learns just how deep Lady Marchmain’s hold over her children runs.

Brideshead Revisited, according to The Telegraph, “a new film adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited will out Sebastian Flyte as a homosexual and even feature a gay kiss between him and Charles. In one controversial scene in the new £10 million film, which has its world premiere in New York on Tuesday, a love struck Sebastian attempts to kiss Charles on the mouth before his amorous advances are resisted.

The scene has been welcomed by some gay rights campaigners who have already dubbed the film ‘the most overtly’ gay Brideshead ever. But it is set to infuriate purists who insist that the relationship between the two friends has been distorted. Brideshead Revisited tells the story of Charles Ryder and his infatuation with Lord Sebastian Flyte, his aristocratic family and their ancestral home, Brideshead. The two men meet while students at Oxford and Ryder finds Flyte’s decadence and loucheness irresistible.

Although fans of the novel and the 1981 Granada television adaptation which starred Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews have debated the nature of the relationship between the two friends neither the book, which appeared in 1945, or the TV adaptation carry any overt references to homosexual feelings.”

Said screenwriter Andrew Davies: “I think it will probably upset the purists. But one thing we wanted to make clear was that Sebastian was gay and that Charles although terribly fond of him is heading in another direction sexually. Waugh had a very skilful way of skating over the sordid details so we can imagine what we like about them. This ambivalence was probably the result of his own sexual ambivalence.”

Sebastian is played by Ben Whishaw, and Charles by Matthew Goode. Below, Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews in the PBS series which transfixed viewers in 1981.

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Went to see the DE Experience aka Jonathan Hellyer in his new show at the weekend. Jonathan Hellyer’s new alter ego, former porn star Livinia Slutford, lies somewhere between outstanding and outrageous, but definitely ‘out there’.

“Fabulously filthy, with a voice like an angel and the sharpest claws in the business, gorgeously couture-clad Livinia leaves good taste in tatters. X-Factor wannabes are left weeping by her astounding vocal versatility - from Aretha and Frank to Lennox and Winehouse – and, after an hour in her company, you’ll be left wrung out, begging for more.”

Livinia was really great - not as great as the RVT’s DE Experience( possibly because Johnathon had toned down his act in this new character for the Edinburgh fringe audience). Well done Jonathan - good luck in Edinburgh we love you.
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A marriage registrar was harassed for refusing to conduct same-sex ceremonies, a tribunal has ruled.

Lillian Ladele, who said the civil partnership ceremonies went against her Christian faith, hailed the decision as a “victory for religious liberty”.

The tribunal ruled that Miss Ladele was discriminated against on grounds of religious beliefs and was harassed.

Islington council said it was “disappointed” and was considering an appeal against the ruling.

Until December 2007 registrars in Islington effectively worked on a freelance basis and could swap with each other to avoid same-sex ceremonies14 But since then they have been under direct control of the local authority which, it is claimed, has led to far less flexibility about the registrars’ responsibilities.

Miss Ladele said she was being effectively forced to choose between her religion and her £31,000-a-year job as a result.

She said she was picked on, shunned and accused of being homophobic for refusing to carry out civil partnerships.

Miss Ladele said: “I am delighted at this decision.

“It is a victory for religious liberty, not just for myself but for others in a similar position to mine.

“Gay rights should not be used as an excuse to bully and harass people over their religious beliefs,” she said.

Councillor John Gilbert, Islington Council’s Executive Member for Human Resources, said: “We’re clearly disappointed with the result, as we consider our approach was the right one.

“We are now considering the judgment carefully in order to decide whether we should appeal.

This is a disaster for several reasons:

• I’m sorry her religion prohibits her from treating all citizens as equals, but that really is her problem.
• She wasn’t performing same sex marriage, in the UK we still can’t get married.
• When do religious views that require discrimination stop becoming acceptable? I’m not sure a fundamental Muslim would be allowed to refuse service to a woman in the UK solely on the basis if her being a woman.
• She’s not the victim although she has taken on that role very convincingly. New found gay rights in the UK are at risk from this ruling.
• She whines that she was effectively being forced to choose between her job and her religion and YES she was. If her chosen religion restricts her ability to perform her job that is her own choice. Get another job.

Digg it: source : at A gay mens blog

David an I have booked to see Josh “I have the deepest voice in the world” Harnett appearing in London’s West End in new stage version of the 1988 Oscar-winning film “Rain Man”. The show commences at the Apollo Theatre Aug 28 (prior to an official opening Sept 9th)

Sexy Josh Hartnett will play Charlie Babbitt (originally played on screen by Tom Cruise) with British actor Adam Godley as his autistic savant older brother Raymond (originally played by Dustin Hoffman, who won the Best Actor in a Leading Role award).

Other Hollywood stars to appear on the London stage include Nicole Kidman - who caused a stir when she appeared naked in ‘The Blue Room’ - Christian Slater, who enjoyed three stints as R.P. McMurphy in ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’, and Ashlee Simpson, who wowed critics with her performance in ‘Chicago’.

Josh’ bio goes like this:-

Hartnett was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, on July 21, 1978. Following his high school graduation, he attended New York’s SUNY-Purchase, but his time there ended after he was offered a role on the short-lived TV series Cracker. He also did a number of TV commercials and plays, and in 1998 he got his screen break with the plum role of Jamie Lee Curtis’ son in Halloween: H20. Although the film received poor reviews, it did moderately well at the box office, and that same year Harnett’s profile further increased when he starred in The Faculty.

One of a number of films to exploit the current trend in teen horror movies, it featured Hartnett fighting off alien teachers alongside the likes of fellow up-and-comers Elijah Wood and Shawn Hatosy. Although the film didn’t do as well as expected, thanks in part to the fact that the teen horror craze was beginning to lose steam, it in no way interfered with the increasing number of opportunities available to the young actor.

Hartnett could subsequently be seen in a number of diverse films; among his projects in 2000 alone, he played an Iago-like character in O, the teen re-telling of Othello; the son of Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton in the comedy-drama Town and Country; and the paramour of the eldest of the ill-fated Lisbon sisters in Sofia Coppola’s adaptation of The Virgin Suicides.
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Marat Safin blasted past Feliciano Lopez to reach his first Wimbledon semi-final at the ninth attempt and make a mockery of his slow slide down the rankings to his current world number 75. Feliciano Lopez looks better naked though.

Marat Safin is not bad though!

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Three gay rights protesters say they were punched while being forcibly removed yesterday from a conference at which rebel bishops were trying to attract recruits to a network for Anglicans who believe all same-sex relationships should be condemned.

The protest, led by Peter Tatchell, comes as the Anglican communion goes through what is possibly its greatest crisis in 450 years, with many senior clergy predicting that a split in the Church is almost inevitable.

Yesterday’s meeting, at All Souls Church, London, followed a conference in Jerusalem of Anglican bishops from around the world who are defying the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, because they believe he has failed to follow the biblical line on homosexuality.

The General Synod of the Church of England is also in danger of being split this weekend in an equally passionate dispute over whether to permit women bishops.

“We were punched and physically ejected,” Mr Tatchell said yesterday. “We were very polite. We folded up our banners and tried to walk into the conference. They did not say a word to us, they just started punching and shoving.”

After they were turned out, the protesters unfolded banners with slogans saying “Church of Hate! Stop Crucifying Queers!”, “Defend gays, fight Christian bigots” and “Anglicans Repent Your Homophobia”.
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Copyright 2008 Marcus Piggott Mert Alas / Giorgio Armani

Abssssolutely Beckham, indeed!

Golden Balls David beckham has done it again! The sexy soccer stud flexes his killer abs and bulges out in a new black-and-white ad campaign for Emporio Armani Underwear, unveiled today on a giant billboard at Macy’s in San Francisco.

The new David Beckham Emporio Armani pics were shot on Malibu Beach in California by the same photography team, Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, that shot his last campaign. They’ll debut in the August edition of Vanity Fair magazine, and also on www.emporioarmani.com on Monday, June 23.

Doesn’t leave much to the imagination.
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Tom Cullis certainly knows how to coax out the best in a boy! In this case favourite hunk, Benjamin Godfre in his white speedos!

Go Ben go!

Digg it: source : at A gay mens blog

Ah four consecutive days of summer in London. I think its time to get some new Speedos. Inspiration from Benjamin Godfre who is certainly showing some Speedo bulge.

Digg it: source : at A gay mens blog

AfterElton.com gay mens reader’s hot 100 list vote Chris Evans as Number Eight

The handsome 26-year-young actor slipped a few spots from last year (he was riding high on plenty of shirtless Fantastic Four promotion last summer), where he played Johnny Storm, the Human Torch but that doesn’t mean he’s cooled in the least. In fact, the stunner has spent the last year picking projects that seem selected in an attempt to convince us that he’s more than a pretty face: his turn as a gruff scientist in Sunshine and as the romantic lead in The Nanny Diaries allowed him to keep his shirt on more than normal. But we won’t hold it against him.

Chris Evans had small parts on television series such as Boston Public and The Fugitive and a role in the TV series Opposite Sex before landing his first notable role as Jake Wyler in Not Another Teen Movie. The film contained a somewhat notorious spoof of the Varsity Blues movie, where (to attract the attention of a girl) Evans entered the room wearing nothing more than whipped cream and cherries covering his nipples and crotch, and a banana sticking out of his buttocks.

After filming wrapped on Not Another Teen Movie, Evans landed several more lead roles in The Perfect Score and Cellular.

Evans has approximately five projects in various stages of production, so we should be seeing a lot more of him in the year to come … and “see more of him” we certainly hope to do!
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AfterElton.com gay mens reader’s hot 100 list vote Van Hansis as Number Seven

A newcomer to the Hot 100 this year, 26-year-old actor Van Hansis crashed into the top ten without mussing a single hair on his adorable head. Known to audiences worldwide for playing gay teen Luke Snyder on As the World Turns, Van holds the distinction of being one half of the first gay kiss in the history of daytime television. But those who have followed his character’s story from the beginning know that he’s more than just a sensational smooch.

A subtle actor with a great deal of nuance for his age (not to mention the ability to navigate the oft-absurd waters of soaps with impressive ease), Van grew up in a household with no television (he has called his upbringing “nearly Amish”) but is adapting to big city life and stardom like a pro.

His place at the top of the list is a testament to gay viewers’ investment in his character’s story and in his skill in connecting with his audience, and we look forward to what this role and future projects have in store for him. Wait, did we mention that he’s adorable? Yes? Okay, never mind.

When he learned that he made the list, Van said, “Yessss! I’ve never been on a hot people list before, so it’s really exciting … I’m thrilled that so many people have responded so well to Luke and Noah’s story. Thank you! I’m thrilled to be a part of [After Eltons] list.”

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It is hard to separate Gale Harold from Brian Kinney, the character he played so successfully for five years on the American version of Queer as Folk. The character (and by association Harold) has always been a flashpoint with gay men. Some folks loved Queer as Folk’s Brian for his sexiness, intensity and unapologetic hedonism. Others saw the character as essentially amoral and repugnant.

Back in January, Brian Kinney actually topped our list of the most popular gay TV characters of all time, and that fact set off a firestorm of debate. Quite possibly we’ll see a similar debate about Gale Harold’s high ranking on this year’s Hot 100, but it’s worth reminding ourselves that Gale Harold is not Brian Kinney. Whether or not you were a fan of Queer as Folk, there’s no disputing that Gale Harold the actor is one sexy man. And he certainly deserves credit for taking on a prominent gay role (and seeming to relish in the portrayal) at a time when many of his acting peers were reluctant to play gay.

Harold has signed on for the next season of Desperate Housewives. Regrettably, he’ll be playing Susan’s love interest and not Andrew’s, but at least this may allow the actor to finally step out from behind the long shadow of his Queer as Folk character.
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Neil Patrick Harris

It’s difficult to say exactly why 34-year-old Neil Patrick Harris vaulted all the way from #53 in last year’s poll, to #5 this year, but given the number of out actors in the top five, our readers clearly find gay men comfortable in their own skin to be very hot. And that definitely describes this former child star who made the difficult transition to adult actor with a grace and ease few others have managed. No doubt his many gay fans were also pleased when Harris and boyfriend David Burtka appeared together on the red carpet at last year’s Emmy awards, one of the rare times a high profile gay couple has made such an appearance. And the fact Harris seems to have been hitting the gym of late probably didn’t hurt his high ranking either.

Like Torchwood’s John Barrowman and Xanadu’s Cheyenne Jackson, Harris is another out actor who has no trouble finding work. From his Emmy-nominated role on CBS’ How I Met Your Mother to his hilarious performance as a warped version of himself in the Harold & Kumar movies to his frequent appearances on Live with Regis & Kelly and most recently on Million Dollar Password, Harris is a man of diverse talents and interests.

One of those interests is magic, with Harris having performed tricks on Johnny Carson, Jay Leno and most recently Ellen DeGeneres’ show. In fact, Harris sits on the Board of Directors of Hollywood’s Magic Castle. Perhaps Harris can use those magic skills to move even higher on next year’s Hot 100. As he told us when informed about making this year’s Hot 100, “I am honored to be so hot. It is one thing to think kindly of yourself, but to have that feeling validated by the readers of AfterElton.com - well, that’s just fantastical. Here’s hoping that the four men above me (pun sort of unintentional) age rapidly in the next twelve months.”
Digg it: source : at A gay mens blog