Gay, said Fred.

Word has reached Idiotica through Sam Heffer’s tiny (but achingly perfect) ears that in the world of the gay scene, on Old Compton Street, almost 90% of the gay villagers there prefer the butcher image when choosing a perfect sex chum.

The brand of bony-bummed mincing and chiselled cheekbone chutzpah made popular by such top-level homos as Julian Clarey, Graham Norton and Michael Barrymore is now officially out of favour. Instead white trilbies, stripey aprons, hairnets and big bloodied choppers are all the gay raging hard-on as London once again leads the world of fashion off on another wild kiss chase.

In the very gayest of London’s gay corners, people can be heard talking in pounds and ounces, in their droves. New bars and clubs are springing up all over Soho with names such as Hot Pot, Liver-little, Offally Good, and Taste My Braun.

Kitchenware stockists in the area say butcher-type equipment sales are at an all time high, with meat cleavers, knife sharpeners, plastic parsley and those funny little paper hats all selling like hot sweetbreads.

So is it all true?

Idiotica went around the corner and down a bit to check out the “out” facts, and make absolutely sure we were getting ours “straight”. Here's what we found.

Craig Fairbrass of Right Said Fred quite rightly said that he’s “deeply dippy” about the idea of being penetrated deeply by anyone who works in the meats trade, in his arse, and admits he often hangs around outside his local butcher’s “just to watch.”

Other less famous gays working in gay newsagents have confirmed that Street butcher John "Fred" Savident is now their customers’ most popular pin-up, and a leather-clad Pat Butcher is expected to be on the cover of Attitude next month.