Thread. I have always loved Fairytale of New York. Time hasn't withered its appeal and for me it will always bring back the memory that in 1987 the PSBs and this song combined to keep an anodyne Rick Astley cover off the top.

What it isn't is a Christmas carol. It's a raucous antidote, a feral drunken declaration of love with language appropriate to the task. And one of the words used is a word that has been used to politically subjugate gay men.

It's not inappropriate. It's a term of abuse that you imagine might be screamed. But at one stroke it renders the song post watershed. In the same way that you wouldnt follow Frozen with Django Unchained on XMas afternoon.

I've sung along to the song unconditionally. I enjoy playing it on my piano. But in the company of adults. I dont believe that "faggot" is part of the mainstream daytime vernacular. But then what would I know, being one.

The reason things have changed since 1987, is that more people have realised gay men are people too. You dont just use the word "faggot" and not ponder the circumstances and context. And the context here is despite what Fox and his army of cry babies shit out...there is no ban.

It has been shifted to the evening. And quite right too. It's a song by adults about adults and for adults. People pretending otherwise presumably are ok with kids at the turkey singing "You're a bum you're a punk you're an old slut on junk". Because the irony is..

If the plot of the song had been dramatised and shown before the Queens speech, the same right wingers would be frothing about the BBC destroying Christmas.

Also inferring that the quality of anyone's Christmas might be altered by Radio 1 is wilfully out of touch.