What amazed me was that a couple of days after McQueen's mother died, according to the photo that was in the Mirror today, was that a couple of days just after his mother had died, he had posted a Tweet saying basically "Life must go on."

Within a couple of days, he kills himself.

Now, I fully understand what it is like to go through the pain and suffering of losing a loved one in your family, and I can tell you it hurts very deeply. But to me, killing yourself after thinking that life must go on - I can't help but think you've got to continue to be strong after something this, regardless of how much excruciating pain you may feel at the news.

I'm sure that his mother would have appreciated the fact that he would continue his life and career just how'd she wanted.

Aye but apparently he had a screw loose too. Not quite a full shilling if you like.

POK, most people who suffer from depression try very hard to get on with life and most manage to. Some don't. Using some shitty social networking service in a positive fashion is hardly proof of anybody's state of mind. Would you have expected to find,"bit pissed off... might top myself" in one of his tweets?

On the moderator issue I'm generally happy to argue over issues in the same way you might in the pub. The problem is that you don't have the restraining influence of talking to real humans when you're online so normally reasonable people can post foul bile and then hide behind the wind up defence. Maybe a wider mix of moderators would help but a bit of thought before posting from everybody would be a better answer. Before anybody feels the need to call me a Guardian reading gaylord who whinges about other people's posts I'd include myself in that too.

I would be interested to hear Ripper's thoughts on the reaction to his post, he has been notable in his absence.

Michael Jackson will make a bee-line for this fukker, he'll keep him well busy. Imagine the clobber he can design for him.

"Pillow Bitter" never heard that expression before. Made me laugh. Don't suppose Ripper had in on his dead head list!!

Has nobody got anything better to do than point fingers at people?? 'OOhh I'm offended.'

How bloody precious are you lot?? Read it or don't read it.

Yours, another Moderator.

I don't give 2 fu-cks what people say or think. It's their opinions, and I don't give 2 f-ucks back what they think of my opinions. I agree with you on this Spender.
Otherwise what's the point in having an opinion if you're not allowed to say it, or are afraid to say it? If the day has come when you can't make a throwaway remark then I might as well cut off my own lips now!!!

Well, we'll just have to go by the majority, I suppose. Freedom of speech, for me, has to be offset by other criteria like considering other people. In my view, parmo does consider other people (at least his posts suggest that, even if he gets a little cross sometimes.)

I think what people are getting at is that Mr Ripper could well have expressed his opinion about celebrity-news without going to those lengths. Of course, if he had just given his opinion about celebrity news, his point of view would have been seen to be absolutely facile, just what other people have said thousands of times before. But, that's Mr Ripper.....

I also think people are sick of having moderators come down on people for trivial offences (eg Spender to Woody the other day), and in the next breath exonerating their friends on the grounds that 'you can read or not read'. That's just school-yard tribalism.

Anyway, I've sent Mr I a donation, but as agree with chip that if things don't change, there'll be no more point posting.

No, no Ma'am. In the case of Woody, I actually have talked to him at length and I'm not entirely convinced that that was the Woody I know that was posting on here that day. He's a much more moderate chap than what I was reading and while I couldn't be sure that it WASN'T him I just had to say that I thought he was out of order. I've never seen or heard the Woody I know spit forth such snarling invective.

In the other case someone famous once said 'I deplore what you say but I'll defend to the death your right to say it,' and that's the line I take.

I am also of the opinion that if we don't use that as the backbone of the board then it'll descend into People's Friend and there would be no point any more. There's extremists and there's moderates, there's them in the middle and that's what makes democracy.

In the case of woody or anyone else, it's still a case of 'read it or don't read it as you wish', tho, Spender. What people are objecting to is double standards.
Anyway, this is going nowhere. I wish I'd known a long time ago that moderators were going to continue doing what they're doing regardless of what anyone said. Perhaps I'm just slow on the uptake. Never mind...put it down to experience.......

Your call. The worlds not perfect.

Where was Barrymore when this fooker died?

I have honestly never heard of the bloke and I'm not remotely interested in his designs or his sex life.
However we appear to have a clash of ideals where being offended is De rigueur, where both appear to think they're 100% correct and beyond reproach.
It would be a boring place where all debate is subject to the sensibilities of the new censorship of the easily offended.
Life is about views, once you stifle views that don't accord with the new acceptable agenda, you've got a boring dictatorship.

Is there no starving kids to worry about rather than all this...it's supposed to be fun y'know.

he imposed a 48 hour ban on himself, as chip has at some point, as muttley did, and as I have done...

Moderators eh?!

That's right Mr Salty, self imposed ban to show that moderators are not above the rules even though the intention wasn't to deliberately offend anybody.

It's just unfortunate that the sentiments of the original post were lost in the outcry over how it was worded, however it's not surprising really as there are some people on here who'd rather moan about how we should all find homosexuality normal than address the issue of the media thinking that the death of a dress designer is a million times more important than the death of a British soldier serving his country.

But I guess that you're not allowed to be annoyed about that in today's society.

yes you are and rightly so, but why did his sexulaity have to come into it? As i said you normal talk a lot of sence and could have made the point without calling anyone a bummer etc, we would have all agreed with you but your argument was lost in the tripe you spouted.

Tripe would imply that it isn't true, but it is true albeit not put across brilliantly. And his sexuality had to come into it due to the fact that the media, and especially the BBC, do everything they can to try and promote gays as normal and seem to give a lot more airtime to a gay than they otherwise would so it was relevant to the point. You can't see that but maybe you've been media brainwashed into thinking that it is normal so there's no point continuing the argument so I'm not going to.