Lost in Showbiz confesses it had never heard of the Middle East Broadcasting Centre before this week, which now seems something of a terrible oversight. It looks at the description of one of its drama series on its English-language website – “the storyline revolves around RIM that suffer from extreme poverty, which drives a pimps for the prosecution in order to work in his favor, and succeed this man in his quest and escape out to Cairo” – and thinks: that sounds absolutely mind-blowing – what else have I missed? Can you get it on Freeview?

Of course, LiS was alerted to the Middle East Broadcasting Centre by its publication this week of what it called the “List of Disgrace: Hollywood Celebrities Who Announced Their Homosexuality”. There’s almost nothing about this story that LiS doesn’t find amazing. There’s the fact that the List of Disgrace contained Cameron Diaz and Daniel Radcliffe, neither of whom actually seem to be homosexual. There’s the fact that it described Ricky Martin as “one of the first to announce their sexuality”, apparently steadfast in the belief that no one had come out before 2010. And there’s the subsequent apology that the Middle East Broadcasting Centre issued: “One of the junior editors of the website published an article offending some of the big Hollywood celebrity names, which by no means was reflective of the site’s editorial policy nor point of view, without prior verification of the facts of the story plagiarized from another official site”. Basically: oops, the rabidly homophobic work experience did it, sorry about that.

But most of all, LiS is impressed by the fact that the List of Disgrace took it upon itself to furnish its readers with the shocking information that Sir Elton John is gay. It likes to imagine readers across the Arab world clasping their hands to their mouths in horror on receipt of this revelation, the scales tumbling from their eyes as the hitherto-concealed truth about pop’s Rocket Man is finally exposed: “Sir Elton John? Oh no! Not him! Surely not him, of all people! And apparently his friend David Furnish is as well! Oh, this changes everything.” It looks forward to further exposés from the same source, indefatigable in its pursuit of truth: Sir Elton John – wears glasses! Sir Elton John – revealed as co-author of Your Song! Sir Elton John – openly suggests Saturday night is “alright” for “fighting”!