Barometer: Outing of the week

NOW LET'S get a few things straight. Tom Cruise was definitely not outed by The Express on Sunday, because it would be impossible to out someone who isn't in a closet.

Matthew Parris may have thought he was outing Peter Mandelson on Newsnight, but he wasn't, because, as the sources say, "it's an old story".

Many have examined Ron Davies's adventure on Clapham Common, but this one was more of a mystery tour than anything. Not so George Michael's outing in a public lavatory in Los Angeles, about which he has now given his own judgement in an interview in Q magazine: "Running naked down Oxford Street singing `I Am What I Am' would have been a more dignified way to come out." And you wouldn't get mugged.