Thou Shalt Not Fail To Take This Seriously!

As a television comedy character Little Britain’s Daffyd Thomas was determined to cause a stir with his garish outfits and his claims to be the “only gay in the village”.

Now a hotelier has caused kerfuffle in his own New Forest community with controversial gay slogans scrawled on a blackboard outside his business.

Oooh! Such as..?

Tourism bosses and some village leaders have criticised hotelier Mark Saqui, who wrote “Poofters Welcome Here” on a publicity A-board in outside the premises in Lyndhurst.

Heh! It was, of course, in response to the infamous boarding house case.

Last month he also came under fire again after the sign read: “There’s more than one gay in the village”.

He really must have expected the Legion of Offence Takers to get involved, though.

And of course, they did:

A VisitEngland official admitted that the sign could have caused offence and said it would approach the hotel if it received any complaints.

Approach away! Mr Saqui seems quite sanguine about the whole thing, having already been visited by the police:

A police spokesman said an officer visited the hotel and “offered advice” but was not taking the matter any further.

Because there’s nothing to take action over, perhaps? Because the police are finally starting to wise up and realise that taking action of these things is more trouble than it's worth?

However, Mr Saqui’s decision to refer to homosexuals as “poofters” was condemned at a meeting of Lyndhurst Parish Council.

Chairman Mark Rolle said: “The realms of decency were overstepped – we could be branded a village of bigots.”

So you’d rather be branded a village of humourless popinjays instead?