ACOMSDave

Community Journalist

Are Gay Economics Changing?

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Are Gay Economics Changing?

Economic stability or gay rights?

Are gay economics changing – in Northern Ireland, especially when contrasting Belfast with rural areas, spending categories within the £6bn “pink pound” model tend to shift markedly due to differences in urbanisation, income, lifestyle, and access to services.

Key Spending Category Shifts

  • Culture, Leisure, and Recreation: Belfast, as the capital and economic centre, has more vibrant cultural, entertainment, and leisure infrastructures such as theatres, galleries, nightlife, and Pride events. This drives a higher proportion of LGBTQ+ spending on dining out, entertainment, and cultural events compared to rural areas where such options are limited or less diverse.

  • Retail and Shopping: Urban residents in Belfast have greater access to a wider range of retail outlets, including speciality and LGBTQ+ friendly brands and businesses, encouraging more discretionary spending. Rural areas have fewer outlets and less variety, leading to a lower percentage spent in this category.

  • Tourism and Travel: Belfast benefits from tourism infrastructure, so LGBTQ+ consumers may spend more on accommodation, guided tours, and travel experiences locally and regionally. Rural Northern Ireland has less infrastructure and fewer events attracting LGBTQ+ tourists, reducing local spending in this category.

  • Professional and Personal Services: Access to LGBTQ+ affirming health care, counselling, beauty, and other personal services in Belfast is stronger, contributing to higher spending in personal care and wellness sectors. Rural access tends to be more limited, which can suppress spending in these areas.

  • Housing and Accommodation: Belfast presents a wider rental and property market, often with higher costs, affecting housing-related expenses. Rural areas tend to have lower housing costs, leading to lower overall spending in this sector, although ownership patterns may differ substantially.

Income and Economic Context

  • Belfast’s economy supports higher average earnings, employment opportunities, and professional sectors, which encourages higher discretionary income available for non-essential spending categories mentioned above.

  • Rural areas often face lower incomes, fewer job opportunities, and less economic dynamism, constraining consumer spending patterns overall, including within the LGBTQ+ community.

Summary

Spending on culture, leisure, retail, personal services, and travel tends to increase significantly when focusing on Belfast’s urban LGBTQ+ population compared to rural Northern Ireland, driven by greater availability, diversity, and disposable income. Rural areas show more limited discretionary spending opportunities, reflecting economic and infrastructural disparities across the region.

But as an overview, are Gay Economics Changing? – Yes, they are, the pressure from President Trump on organisations is seeing a comprehensive change in spending from business and government, and this will change the spending habits of the LGBTQI+ community.

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Canberra Teen’s Viral TikTok About Being the Token Gay Becomes His Biggest Hit

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Canberra Teen - Jett BlytonJett Blyton’s song about being the token gay goes viral

By ACOMSDave / October 5, 2025

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Canberra’s Jett Blyton didn’t plan to release Apeshit—until 2.5 million people decided otherwise.

“If you said a month ago I’d be releasing a song called Apeshit this year, I wouldn’t have believed you. It didn’t exist yet,” Blyton said.

At the end of July, the Australian alt-pop artist performed the track once on TikTok.

The song exploded.

Over 2.5 million views on TikTok and 300,000+ on Instagram, inspiring 100+ user-generated videos.

With that viral spotlight, Jett had no choice but to officially release it.

‘The only gay dude in a room full of straight guys’

“I wrote this song about being the only gay dude in a room full of straight guys and how tokenistic it can feel,” Blyton explained.

“The fact it resonated with over 2.5 million people now is so insane.”

The Canberra teen has been making waves—featured in Triple J Unearthed High Yearbook for 2023 and 2024, and nominated for Music ACT Music Awards (MAMAs).

His wonky, zany sound is attention-grabbing.

So good for him for capitalising on this moment.

“I took the song to my friend Thomas Porter and said, ‘let’s get this out ASAP,'” Blyton said.

“With some final touches from Aleksiah and Harry O’Brien (from Pacific Avenue), this is my favourite song I’ve ever put out.”

‘Everybody here used to bully me’

Apeshit opens with a girl calling Jett: “I know you said you didn’t wanna come out tonight, but my boyfriend’s thing is on, and I literally don’t know, like, anyone else going.”

Jett sings: “I don’t wanna drink, but there isn’t a choice, they’re dapping me up like I’m one of the boys. And everybody here used to bully me in 8th grade.”

The track captures that universal feeling of being alone in a crowd—drinking through discomfort and struggling with feelings nobody else in the room understands.

The official version brings Jett’s unapologetic honesty to the forefront with electronic alt-pop energy.

Following his recent single Needingabreak, his most supported track on Australian radio, Jett’s earned shoutouts from Sabrina Carpenter and Tove Lo.

His Double Vision (Vol. 2) EP drops in November.

You can listen to Apeshit now.

For more LGBTQ+ music and community stories, visit ACOMSDave.com.

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The Wolfenden Report: A Turning Point for Gay Rights

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Wolfenden ReportWolfenden Report

When the Wolfenden Report was published on 4 September 1957, its dry, academic 155 pages sparked an unexpected firestorm. The first print run of 5,000 copies sold out within hours, and Sir John Wolfenden found himself cursed by religious groups and confronting graffiti outside his home.

A Response to Government Discomfort

Home Secretary Sir David Maxwell Fyfe had commissioned the committee to address two issues troubling the government: the visibility of sex workers on London’s streets and the rising arrests of gay men. Ironically, this increase stemmed from Maxwell Fyfe’s own policy of deliberate police entrapment of homosexual men.

The crackdown had ensnared high-profile figures including codebreaker Alan Turing, actor Sir John Gielgud, and Lord Montagu of Beaulieu. These prosecutions embarrassed the establishment and generated extensive press coverage—exactly what the government hoped to avoid.

“You knew what could happen,” recalled Rex Batten, a gay man living in London at the time. “You knew the cases that had come up, the people who were in jail for a year, two years, three years.”

Groundbreaking Yet Flawed Recommendations

After three years of testimony from police, psychiatrists, religious leaders, and some affected gay men, the committee recommended that consensual homosexual acts between men over 21 in private should no longer be criminal. The report’s philosophy was clear: “We’re concerned primarily with public order and not with private morality,” Sir John told the BBC.

However, the recommendations weren’t pioneering—many European countries, including France, Italy, and the Netherlands, had already decriminalized homosexuality. The report also contradicted itself by condemning homosexuality as “immoral” and “psychologically destructive” while rejecting the idea that it was a mental illness.

Harsh Treatment of Sex Workers

The report’s stance on prostitution was far more punitive. Rather than decriminalisation, it recommended harsher penalties, including three months’ imprisonment for third offences. Sir John justified this by wanting to avoid making detours when walking with his teenage daughter through certain London streets. Notably, the committee never consulted any sex workers.

Public Backlash and Eventual Success

The report faced fierce opposition. The Daily Mail warned that “great nations have fallen and empires decayed because corruption became socially acceptable.” Even Maxwell Fyfe rejected the homosexuality recommendations, though the government quickly adopted the prostitution measures in the 1959 Street Offences Act.

Despite resistance, the report sparked a crucial public debate. The Homosexual Law Reform Society was formed in 1958 to campaign for change. A decade later, the 1967 Sexual Offences Act finally decriminalised consensual homosexual acts in England and Wales, though it took until 1980 for Scotland and 1982 for Northern Ireland to follow.

Legacy

While deeply flawed, the Wolfenden Report opened a conversation about equal rights and the state’s role in private behaviour. As Rex Batten reflected: “We just wanted to be left alone to live our lives.” That simple wish, eventually granted, remains the report’s most important legacy.

 

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Gay Rights: From Revolution to Reflection

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Gay Rights: From Revolution to Reflection Two veteran voices of the British and Northern Irish centre-right – Matthew Parris and Jeff Dudgeon – have spoken almost in concert this September, their arguments converging around the same theme: the gay rights movement has travelled far, but it must now tread carefully.

Parris, writing in The Spectator (26 September), recalls the grim days of the Conservative Group for Homosexual Equality – furtive meetings in basement rooms, warm white wine, and whispered solidarity. He remembers the sniggers at the very word “homosexual” and the political tightrope between not lying and not declaring. Yet his story is also one of rapid transformation: a John Major government lowering the age of consent, an electorate largely indifferent by the 1990s, and today’s Parliament with over 9% of its members openly gay. What was once unthinkable is now embedded in public life.

But Parris insists this victory brings responsibility. He rejects the notion that “anything goes”, warning that the respect so painstakingly won could be fragile. Pride’s inflatable phalluses and a culture of loveless gratification, he argues, risk alienating a wider public that has granted tolerance based on privacy and moderation. He is wary of conflating gay and trans causes, not out of hostility but because, as he puts it, “women have rights too” and because pushing too far risks awakening dormant opposition. History, he reminds us, does not travel in straight lines: “We gays ask for respect. We need to show it, too.”

Jeff Dudgeon, writing separately, strikes a similar but sharper note. A veteran Ulster Unionist and himself a pioneer in the decriminalisation struggle in Northern Ireland, he points out that gay issues no longer command political attention. The sheer representation of LGBT MPs in Westminster – three times their proportion in the population – is itself proof that discrimination has collapsed. But the silence around this fact, he suggests, is telling. If gay men and women are already secure in law and in politics, why the continual expansion of the LGBT+ agenda? For Dudgeon, the trans debate has filled the vacuum, releasing a simmering section of the public “who don’t want homosexuality advanced as their best, as the BBC would like.”

Both men, therefore, issue the same warning in different registers. Gains are real and deep, but they are neither permanent nor beyond challenge. Hubris – whether in sexual libertinism, overreach on identity politics, or the insistence that “history is on our side” – risks provoking a backlash.

Parris couches this as conservatism in its truest sense: respectability, restraint, continuity with the wider moral codes of society. Dudgeon voices it as political realism: if gay people are already integrated, then overstating their marginalisation may exhaust public patience.

Together, they represent a generational shift in tone. The age of pleading for equality is over. The question now is how to live with it – and how not to lose it.

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Flight from Prague – The Making of a Refugee

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A Lunch Time Session at the Linen Hall

Friday 26th September 2025
Flight from Prague – The Making of a Refugee
by Michael Lewis

Flight from Prague – The Making of a RefugeeIt was another ordinary Friday in Belfast, though the Linen Hall Library has a way of turning the ordinary into something more. Its windows gave off their familiar glow onto Donegall Square, drawing people inside from the damp pavements. I was there for a lunchtime session on Flight from Prague – The Making of a Refugee, a book that traces one family’s escape from Czechoslovakia between September 1938 and November 1939, and the lifelong shaping of identity that followed.

The talk took place upstairs, the shelves surrounding us heavy with other stories of flight, exile, and memory. The audience was mixed – familiar library regulars, some younger faces, and others who seemed to carry their own connections to displacement. There was a quietness in the room, a listening quality, as Michael Lewis began to speak.

Flight from Prague is not a political chronicle so much as an intimate testimony – the making of a refugee both as a lived experience and as a historical inevitability. Lewis read aloud from his book, his voice carrying the weight of a son’s inheritance: his father, Harry Lewy and mother Edith became figures not just of survival but of transformation. Hearing their story told this way made it clear that exile does not finish at the border; it travels on, shaping the rest of a life.

The conversation did not slip into nostalgia or sentimentality. Instead, it had the texture of testimony – steady, unsparing, yet humane. Lewis connected his family’s flight with present-day movements of people, the refugees who arrive in Belfast now, escaping wars in our own time. The past and present overlapped in a way that gave the session an immediacy beyond memory.

When questions opened, the tone remained gentle. The audience asked with curiosity, yes, but also with care – as though knowing that stories of loss and survival demand a different kind of listening.

Stepping back outside, into the square and the city beyond, I carried the sense that Flight from Prague is not only a story of 1939, but a mirror held up to our world today. The making of a refugee is not just history; it is still unfolding, here and now.

 

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Oranges [2004] Movie Review

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Oranges (2004) – A Small Story with Lasting Taste

Oranges 2004Oranges, the 2004 Australian short, is striking in its simplicity. Nothing grand happens here, yet everything that matters does. A bicycle accident brings two boys together; one brags about his experiences with girls, though whether it’s truth or bravado is left for us to quietly consider. What unfolds in these ordinary exchanges is less about the words spoken and more about the silences between them—the hesitations, the glances, the fragile reach of teenage bravado colliding with real curiosity.

What gives the film its coherence is the spirit of age—that tender, awkward threshold where innocence meets awareness. Two boys, trying to impress one another, trying to test the edges of possibility, and eventually circling the fascination of a kiss. The moment arrives with a delicacy that feels unforced. It is not spectacle, not melodrama, but something closer to memory itself. For many viewers, it will stir recognition: the taste of first encounters, the fragile intensity of being young and unsure, the imprint of moments that change everything even as they pass quickly.

The casting matters here. Both actors are of the right age, and there is no artifice in their performances. Their willingness to share that kiss without hesitation makes the film feel honest, free from the self-consciousness that often burdens such portrayals. The beauty of Oranges lies in this lack of pretension.

And then, the final image: the orange itself, tied back to the story in a way that lingers. Its taste—sweet, sharp, and fleeting—becomes the memory that covers over the awkwardness of the encounter, leaving behind something strangely whole. Like Proust’s madeleine, it anchors the moment, giving it both poetry and permanence.

Oranges is a lovely short film. Touching, tender, fragile, more than realistic. In its small gestures, it finds truth. In its simplicity, it offers revelation. And like the fruit itself, it lingers—bright, bittersweet, unforgettable

Director:  Kristian Pithie

Writer:     Kristian Pithie

Stars:       Martin Sharpe,  Thomas Blackburne,  Robyn Nethercote

 

Oranges 2004

Oranges 2004

Oranges 2004

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Belfast Mela 2025

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Belfast Mela 2025Belfast Mela 2025 – More Than a Festival, But Still Room to Grow

I visited the Belfast Mela 2025 on the Sunday afternoon, stepping through the gates of Botanic Gardens with ticket in hand and the Ulster Museum standing quietly behind. Almost at once, I felt swept into something bigger than an event—a living mosaic of people, colours, sounds, scents. It’s a festival that doesn’t so much wait for you to explore it as it enfolds you in its rhythm.

I moved slowly, never hurrying. The Mela is not about rushing from one thing to the next; it’s about letting it happen around you. Dancers warmed up on the grass, children left bright smudges of colour on a communal canvas, and under a tree someone tuned what I thought was a sitar, its notes carrying faintly through the early autumn leaves.

The stalls were plentiful, scattered across the park like a trail of curiosities. I stopped at a stand of handmade jewellery influenced by Indian folk designs, beautiful in its detail. And yet, when it came to food, I couldn’t help but notice a limitation. There was plenty on offer—samosas, curries, noodles, churros—but the breadth of cultures represented on stage and in the crowds wasn’t reflected fully in what could be tasted. For a festival whose heartbeat is diversity, I found myself wishing the food matched the same scale of imagination: dishes from Africa, the Middle East, South America, even local fusion from Belfast’s own communities. Food is often the easiest bridge between cultures, and at the Mela, that bridge deserves to be longer, wider, more adventurous.

Later, the stages took over the day. At the World Stage I watched the Filipino dancers—disciplined yet joyful—while behind me a group of teenagers tried to copy their steps, laughing as they stumbled into rhythm. That moment struck me: the Mela isn’t just spectacle, it’s participation. The same could be true of the food—more interactive experiences, tasting, sharing, even cooking demos—ways for visitors not just to consume but to join in.

By the time I reached the Healing Arts tent, the pace had shifted: incense curling, music low, a sense of quiet after the bustle. It reminded me that the Mela isn’t just about celebration—it also makes room for stillness.

Near the rose garden, as evening settled and shadows lengthened, I paused with others simply listening. Not to anything specific—just to the gathering itself, the collective hum. It felt quietly extraordinary, that sense of shared presence.

I won’t attempt to catalogue every performance or every stall. That would miss the point. What I will say is this: Belfast Mela 2025, once again, reminded me that togetherness is not an abstract ideal—it is something you can stand inside of, feel with all your senses. Still, as it continues to grow, I hope the Mela leans further into its own promise, letting food and flavour become as central a language of culture as music and dance already are.

And if you haven’t yet been, go next year. You won’t just see the world—you’ll taste it too, if the organisers are bold enough to let that happen.

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Belfast Maritime Festival 2025

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Belfast Maritime Festival Brings Crowds Despite Torrential Rain

The Belfast Maritime Festival 2025 returned to the city’s quaysides last weekend, drawing thousands of visitors to celebrate the city’s seafaring heritage — despite heavy rain that persisted throughout Sunday afternoon.

The three-day event, which ran from Friday, 12 September, to Sunday, 14 September, featured a few tall ships, naval vessels (including the Irish Lights vessel ILV Granuaile), Belfast Maritime Festival 2025live music, food stalls, and family entertainment across Queen’s Quay and Sailortown. Organisers reported strong attendance across the weekend, with Saturday’s clearer skies drawing the biggest crowds.

By contrast, Sunday was very wet indeed. I visited in the afternoon, and the rain was relentless — at times a mist, and at other times a sharp downpour that soaked through coats and shoes. The quayside was slick with water, umbrellas jostled in the crowd, and yet the festival pressed on with good humour. Families pushed prams wrapped in rain covers, children splashed through puddles, and food stalls sent up steam and savoury smells that carried on the damp air.

There was still plenty to see: open-deck tours of the visiting tall ships, live traditional music that lifted spirits in the rain, and exhibitions marking the 120th anniversary of Belfast’s shipbuilding story. One highlight was the sight of naval vessels moored alongside the quayside, their crews welcoming visitors despite the weather.

Speaking to attendees, the mood was stoic but cheerful. “It wouldn’t be Belfast without the rain,” one visitor said. Another described the festival as “wet, but wonderful,” summing up the mix of soggy clothes and resilient enjoyment.

Organisers declared the event a success. A spokesperson said: “We are delighted to see so many people braving the elements to celebrate Belfast’s maritime story. The rain didn’t dampen the spirit — in fact, it added to the atmosphere.”

The Belfast Maritime Festival has become a fixture in the city’s cultural calendar, and plans are already underway for its 2026 return.

 

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Boys Grammar [2005] – Movie Review

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Boys Grammar – A Harrowing Short Film

Boys GrammarBoys Grammar is a short film that lingers with you long after the screen fades. Directed by Dean Francis and written by Rozlyn Clayton-Vincent, the 2005 award-winning piece pulls no punches in its portrayal of bullying, toxic masculinity, and the silence of institutions that should protect the vulnerable.

The story follows Gareth – or Gary – a student at a prestigious boys’ school. When a magazine with nude male images is found in his possession, he insists it is for art, saying simply, “I like the human form.” But his classmates seize on it as proof of something else, and in moments he is branded a “faggot” and subjected to escalating abuse. What begins with taunts quickly spirals into physical and sexual assault, shot with such raw intensity that it feels less like schoolyard cruelty and more like a descent into horror.

The film’s most chilling turn comes afterwards, not in the violence itself but in its aftermath. Gareth comes home late to a family dinner, only to discover one of his tormentors – Nick – sitting comfortably at the table as a guest. Gareth, still shaken and desperate to leave school, finds no comfort in his father. Mr. Jaeger dismisses his son’s pleas, insisting that these ordeals are part of growing up – “a rite of passage” that will harden him into a man.

The dinner scene is unbearable to watch for its quiet betrayal. While Gareth sits in silence, his father and his abuser bond over the philosophy that “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” The cruelty is not in the words themselves, but in their weight: Gareth’s pain is ignored, his voice erased, while his abuser is validated. When his father offers him a cigar as a token of manhood, it becomes clear that violence has not only been excused but sanctified, passed down as tradition.

Boys Grammar is not an easy film to watch. Its power lies in exposing how cruelty is normalised – at school, at home, in the very structures meant to nurture. The violence in the playground is shocking, but the quiet violence at the dinner table cuts even deeper. It shows how cycles of abuse are sustained, not just by the perpetrators, but by the fathers, teachers, and authority figures who look away or even nod in approval.

This is a film that unsettles because it is so plausible, so close to reality. It reminds us that the harshest lessons are not always taught in classrooms, but in homes where empathy is replaced with a rigid, destructive code of masculinity.

 

Boys Grammar Boys Grammar Boys Grammar

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The Follies

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The FolliesThis was not my first time in the Belfast Opera House, and it was not my first time attending a musical. Still, it was my first time attending a Community Dress Rehearsal for the Follies, and especially in the company of a group from the NI Civil Service LGBT.

It had been a damp, overcast day, indeed, as I waited to receive my ticket outside the main doors, the rain, which had held off for half an hour, started ever so slightly.

But ticket in hand, I climbed the stairs to door C for Seat C5 in the Grand Circle.  Second row back from the front, a clear, uninterrupted view of the stage, and of some of the things taking place on the ground floor.

There were cameras on tripods, and people milling around as the theatre came to life.  Then my eyes were drawn to the boxes facing me, and the almost statuesque vision of a lady in a silver costume with feathers and a silver skullcap.  This was then repeated at Door C, five seats away from me, and in a box to my left and on the ground floor at the left and right of the stage.  Each was unique, with a different costume, but they still tied together – for me, the costumes of these lady statuesque dancers were almost the heyday of musicals -the period from the 1920s to the 1960s.  They shimmered, as did The Follies later.

I was lucky, and I knew it.  In the short time before the musical started, I was able to view the architecture around the stage and boxes – I even attempted to draw part of it.

Then it started, the stage set was right for the musical, not over the top, but scaled back to emphasise the story – that of a group of people who had lived and loved together in the theatre’s heyday, but now meeting for probably the last time to reminisce and try and relive that past.

All I can say about this production is that you must go and see it when you can – the actors covering the young storytellers and the mature actors looking back at themselves and then looking at themselves now, like the theatre, are perfect for their roles.  The singing is real, and you feel the story unfold with its ups and downs. The Follies is wonderful vehicle to transport out of today.

This is not a review, but a glimpse into what you have coming when you go and view a period and a profession which is different for a lot of us to comprehend.

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