Of course Tintin's gay. Ask Snowy

Matthew Parris, in the Times:

Billions of blue blistering barnacles, isn't it staring us in the face? Sometimes a thing's so obvious it's hard to see where the debate could start. What debate can there be when the evidence is so overwhelmingly one-way? A callow, androgynous blonde-quiffed youth in funny trousers and a scarf moving into the country mansion of his best friend, a middle-aged sailor? A sweet-faced lad devoted to a fluffy white toy terrier, whose other closest pals are an inseparable couple of detectives in bowler hats, and whose only serious female friend is an opera diva...

. . . And you're telling me Tintin isn't gay?

The French aren't having it.

Charles Bremner, reporting for the Times in Paris:

Tintin, the eternal boy reporter, marks his 80th birthday today but, for France, the celebrations have been soured by a perfidious claim from across the Channel that the comic strip hero is gay.

An article by Matthew Parris, The Times columnist, on Tintin’s “obvious” homosexuality has triggered an outcry in the media and on the internet.

France Info, the public news radio network, got in on the subject, pointing out that Hergé, who died in 1983, scoffed at the gay Tintin theory after it was aired in the 1970s.

No word yet from the Belgians.

I think it's all just publicity for Tintin's 80th birthday.