Talk:Tom Driberg

message: I once read the following (the words are to the best of my memory): "To write an obituary of Tom Driberg without mentioning homosexuality would be like writing an obituary of Maria Callas without mentioning opera".  Google has proved fruitless in my search for its author.  Can anyone help?  --  JackofOz 08:30, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Got it.  The exact quote is: "To have published an obituary of Tom Driberg without mentioning homosexuality would have been like publishing an obituary of Maria Callas without mentioning opera".  It was in the Times obituary.  --  JackofOz (talk) 00:56, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Quote needed

message: The link to Great Work redirects to Magnum Opus, a multi-concept page.  Should the Alister Crowley section be extended to specify/link to  Thelema or Thelemic mysticism?  Please Note - I write from a position of complete ignorance, as my casual attempt to link and learn ended in confusion. Perhaps ... solemnly pledged himself to the Thelemic mystical concept of the Great Work in the presence of the Beast 666. Autodidactyl (talk) 22:42, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Great Work]]

message: "He is the man who brought pederasty into disrepute" is referenced only to Wikiquote's page on Winston Churchill, and on that page we discover that the quote is listed under the "Unsourced" heading. I can't see that this is a good enough reference, therefore, for a Wikipedia article. 86.143.48.55 (talk) 15:17, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Insufficient referencing? 

message: We say However after his death, it was revealed that he had been ... a [sic] undisclosed homosexual".
:  Well, it was certainly generally known well before he died that he was a homosexual.  Churchill, who died in 1965, said that Driberg gave sodomy a bad name; that was at least 11 years before Driberg died, and probably quite a bit longer than 11 years.   So the word was out there, even if Driberg did not personally ever publicly acknowledge it.  But what does "publicly" even mean?  Gay people when they come out do not put an ad in the Public Notices of newspapers telling all and sundry about their sexual orientation.  They tell their family and friends, and the word spreads.  Just because he didn't have "homosexual" on his resume, doesn't mean it was only disclosed after his death.  --  JackofOz (talk) 23:07, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Homosexuality disclosed before his death

message: I have moved the article title to "Tom Driberg" (from "Tom Driberg, Baron Bradwell). This is  the normal practice in Wikipedia for articles where the subject received a peerage late in life, having been known by their true names through their main years of achievement and noteworthiness. See, for example, Benjamin Britten, Harold Wilson, James Callaghan, Laurence Olivier, Harold Macmillan and many others. The references to Driberg's title in the text and infobox remain unchanged. Brianboulton (talk) 22:29, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, I can't find any reference to him being a Privy Counsellor so I've removed that. Brianboulton (talk) 13:54, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Article title

message: Pearl Harbor was attacked on Sunday 7 December 1941; President Roosevelt's famous speech asking Congress for a declaration of war against Japan and beginning , was on Monday 8 December 1941. The regular (non-special edition) morning newspapers that reported the Dec. 8 speech and declaration of war were dated Tuesday, December 9, 1941; for example a facsimile of The New York Times front page that I have before me. Now it's possible that Tom Driberg was in Washington on Tuesday the 9th but not Monday the 8th; it's also possible that the source cited (Tom Driberg) confused the days of the week (his report of Monday's events was no doubt published on the 9th). But the anomaly needs to be resolved somehow, because to anyone who knows anything about the attack on Pearl Harbor, one of the memorable elements (with a dramatic contrast, used in countless later portrayals, of sudden war with innocent weekend relaxation or worship) is that it happened on a Sunday (U.S. and Hawaiian time). The Sunday newspapers had already been printed and delivered, so Americans first got the startling news either by word of mouth or from radio reports while expecting to hear athletic, religious or musical programming. [The only afternoon paper that day, and thus the only U.S. newspaper to report Pearl Harbor on December 7th, was The Westerly Sun in Rhode Island, published by Seventh-Day Adventists who took Saturday for their Sabbath and treated Sunday as a weekday.] —— Shakescene (talk) 07:40, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: You are absolutely right; the date of Roosevelt's "infamy" speech was clearly 8 December. I have corrected the text, and changed the source to Wheen, who gets it right. Brianboulton (talk) 01:12, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Monday 9 December 1941 

message: jeez I have read some booring articles on here, but this one takes the biscuit as the first choice for the main page. I mean just out of interest I went back to 2009. That short article then told me everything I needed to know. He was a labour MP who was a shameless homosexual who probably betrayed his country for some "rough trade". This article on the other hand is the work of an apologist. The old article hits the tone immediately whereas this one drowns out his scurrilous reputation with narrative that is both verbose and boorish. Very clever! Who ever thinks this is a good article needs their head examined?!!! 
As noted above, someone said he was a well-known gay man who did not care that homosexuality was illegal. Churchill even said Driberg gave sodomy a bad name (whatever that meant!). The bottom line is this that this article far from accurate. Imagine the uproar if an article about Adolf Hitler was written in the same self-serving manner, there would be little room for any mention of anti-Semitism then! 
From the intro down, there is little but dull narrative prose about he did this and he did that, yeah he did plenty of this and that with little care for the consequences, too! This article is piss poor with capitals. There should be tags that could be added to these articles warning all those college plagiarists that they would not be getting an a good grade if they copied this drivel.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.169.90.201 (talk) 15:42, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for your comments. If I may: while I can't comment on the remarkably quick comparison with the article about Adolf Hitler, ;o) I'm sure that there are many experienced Wikipedia editors who would beg to differ with your comments about this article. This article is patently encyclopedic, so it is bound to include material which is considered encyclopedic. As a featured article it will have been subjected to quite rigorous examination, for example concerning bias, by which I mean your description of the article as "the work of an apologist." As well as looking back through older versions of the article, you are free to read only the opening section, or "lead", and skip the rest: in a way, it could be said that this is what the lead is for. You might also wish to make further constructive contributions to Wikipedia as you did here, to match the hard work that has gone into creating this article. Best wishes. Nortonius (talk) 16:26, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

text: Thank you. When I was told the article would be on the main page, I anticipated an explosive rant from someone – Driberg tends to affect people like that, even 36 years after his death. If all we have is the rubbish at the top of this thread, then I think  we've got off lightly. Now I must get busy on my next piece of self-indulgent crap. Brianboulton (talk) 01:28, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Another piece of  self indulgent of crap 

message: "to get off later charges" should be replaced with something NPOV.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.86.117.208 (talk) 09:51, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  "to get off later charges" 

message: I suggest that the reference to "Ena Mary Binfield, née Lyttelton, the common law widow of Joe Binfield" should be changed to "Ena Mary Binfield, née Lyttelton, the former mistress of Joe Binfield". There is no such thing as a common law widow.Royalcourtier (talk) 01:57, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I would avoid the somewhat loaded term "mistress" unless there is multiple WP:RS that uses that term for the relationship (googling I don't see them).  Was Joe Binfield married - the term would certianly be wrong if he wasn't married to another. Rwendland (talk) 12:29, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Common law widow  

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Please explain why "gay sexual orientation" is better than "homosexuality", why "Oxford" (the city) is synonymous to the university in that city and most of all what on earth you mean by "given the retrograde social and political context of the times" and what exactly are the sources for that claim. Thanks. Kleuske (talk) 18:57, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Gay sexual orientation

message: The longstanding lead image, under a fair use rationale, was recently replaced by an image which purported to be "free". If that image is to be used it needs to be demonstrated that it is free in the US, not just in the UK. I have restored the original image until the US copyright status of the proposed replacement is established. Brianboulton (talk) 20:03, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: The lead image was again replaced by Thomas Drieburg.jpg, but I have again restored the former image pending clarification that the latter is free from copyright in the US. Since the IP is unwilling or unable to investigate, I will do so and report accordingly. Brianboulton (talk) 19:11, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, I've  received an informed opinion that the proposed replacement is free fro US copyright law, and can therefore be used here in place of the non-free image. Brianboulton (talk) 09:40, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Lead image

message: The main caption reads "Chairman of the Labour Party", as though this was some form of high dignified public office. It isn't and wasn't: the party chairmanship was awarded yearly, on the basis of Buggins' turn, to whoever had sat on the National Executive the longest. No honour whatever - about 90% of the holders were nonentities, and Driberg was unusual in that many people had actually heard of him. Of course, the pompous jackass tried to pretend to his foreign friends that it was an importsnt office, and some of the Soviets might have believed him... I'm not sure what if anything ought to be done to clarify the position, but it looks annoyingly misleading at the moment. Brianboulton (talk) 20:20, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lead image caption 

message: The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion:
* 
You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 12:55, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion 

message: One of Driberg's main political activities in 1943-1945 was opposing the abuse of Jews in the Polish army in the UK. This led to hearings in parliament, inquiries, and was a factor in the dissolution of the Polish army in the west. This page should at least mention this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Semper honestus (talk • contribs) 03:55, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I concur. A brief statement to that effect would be fine, I think. The first two sentences above, suitably polished and referenced in the form in use in the article would suit the case, I think. Any other views? Tim riley talk 09:54, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I have concerns whether this minor incident is WP:UNDUE. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 14:24, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

text: *Fair enough to cite Hansard and the contemporary press, I 'd say, but let's see if anyone else has views. Tim riley talk 10:35, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  
Opposition to abuse of Jews in the Polish army