Brian McFatty arriving for funeral

Yesterday Boyzone arrived in Majorca to take Stephen's body home, revealing matching tattoos in his memory. All four have an 'S' for Stephen and the numbers 76 09, the years of his birth and death.  A source said: 'The tattoos were done as a mark of respect for Stephen.'

A Majorcan police statement taken from Bulgarian Giorgio Dochev, 25, who was in their holiday apartment that evening, reveals that Gately had smoked a cannabis joint and that the trio had been 'intimate'.  Giorgio, who also said he had seen Gately smoke a cannabis joint in the flat, claimed he had been invited to the funeral, but he did not attend. Earlier this week Dochev, who is in the third year of a psychology degree, told a Bulgarian radio station he was traumatised by the death - and that he knew his attendance in Dublin might prove controversial.  'I don’t know what the people will tell about me going to the burial, because I know there will be some talking - if I’ve been his lover or not.''I feel bad, I don’t feel good at all. You don’t find a dead man in the house every day . . . Do you understand what I mean?  'I’m a strong man, the time heals everything, my boyfriend is here and with time passing everything will be healed. Everything will be clear when I do the interview for the British press.'

Dochev is in negotiations to sell his story for upwards of 70,000 euros.

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Okay, so it wasn't as bad as Ted Kennedy's parody of a Catholic funeral, but how is a priest to refuse a eulogy for an ordinary punter when this parade of worthies goes on.

And then this constant reference in the press to his "husband" - a pathetic, but alas all too successful, attempt to change the culture by the big lie, safe in the knowledge that only conservative cranks like me will question it in the context of a death.  If you're going to make up new meanings for words, why not "wife" - surely if you want to pretend to be married you can at least use all the words.