AS FAR as I know, John Barrowman hasn't appeared on television since the Doctor Who finale three weeks ago. This outrageously lengthy break from our screens was mercifully rectified by John Barrowman: the Making of Me, in which the busiest man in sho
wbiz embarked upon an investigation into whether his homosexuality was a result of nature or nurture.
It seemed like an odd thing for him to do. After all, surely there was no real grounds for an argument here? Does anyone other than the most half-witted bigot really think that homosexuality is something that you can "catch" based upon your environment?
So while Barrowman uncovered some interesting scientific facts along the way, his ultimate findings were hardly surprising.
He was evidently sincere in his desire to discover proof of the existence of a gay gene, in the hope that it would "finally shut up all those people who say it's wrong, you're bad, you're evil".
Probably not, sadly. Homophobes are so irrational in their hatred that they'd no doubt find a way to argue that such a gene was a foul aberration that the host had somehow managed to visit upon themselves.
And while scientists have yet to discover an exact explanation for why someone should be born gay, there appears to be no doubt that it is something that is determined in the womb.
For instance, tests have almost conclusively proved that the amount of elder male siblings a child has affects the likelihood of being born gay.
A womb tends to fight against "alien" male chromosomes if it continues to incubate baby boys, and therefore the chances are high that it will eventually pass on its female chromosomes to one of its male progeny.
I appreciate that I'm simplifying enormously here, but I'm only going by the kind of layman's science featured in the programme. In any case, much of this information was imparted by a seemingly learned scientist with a beard, therefore I see no reason to dispute it.
Barrowman was nothing if not thorough in his research. He underwent an MRI scan and strapped himself into a penile plethysmograph (which is incredibly satisfying to say out loud) to discover whether his brain was innately aroused by male or female erotica.You can guess the results.
He also visited his Scottish parents to ask whether they had done anything to make him gay as a child. They hadn't, of course.
This was undoubtedly the programme's most alarming sequence: why does Barrowman adopt a – admittedly convincing – broad Glasgow accent when he talks to his family? Is he embarrassed by the American accent he's developed? Surely they're used to wee John's Hollywood twang by now?
Whatever the reasons, it was rather embarrassing. His parents may not have determined his sexuality, but they've certainly made him slightly schizophrenic.
In Travellers' Century, plummy adventurer Benedict Allen followed in the footsteps of Eric Newby, author of, among other works, A Short Walk In The Hindu Kush.
The first in a brief series devoted to Britain's restless history of unflappable white men pottering off to see what this bally old world has to offer, it told the charming story of a Savile Row dandy-cum-intrepid explorer who helped to nurture the light-hearted image of the Englishman abroad.
Newby's simple aim in life, it seemed, was "to set his feet where few civilised feet have trod". His sense of cheerfully ironic understatement at least said something of what it "means" to be British.
The full article contains 602 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
