Super work, Antony

Antony Cotton probably wasn't as good as last year's Soapstar Superstar winner, Richard Fleeshman, but he did his best and amassed a whopping £200,000 for his chosen charity, the Elton John AIDS Foundation.

With Newsround's prejudice against lgbt people as bad as ever, regrettably it came as no surprise that their website failed to report Antony's victory. It would have been unnecessary and wrong to mention Antony's sexuality, but a gay man playing a gay soap character was too much for Newsround, and the story didn't even get a mention.

Blue Peter is currently running the Shoe Biz appeal for AIDS prevention and it's good to see so many people trying to help. Zoe Salmon's report last week on Blue Peter was very moving account of her visit to a school in Malawi where orphaned children are being cared for.

As for my doubts about another Newsround web report, I'm still waiting for a reply. (see blog on 28 December 2006)