I loved the story and the way it developed a real sense of fear. When Carnacki went back into the room for the next night, even though he was the narrating the story and must have survived I was still worried for him as I was wrapped up in the tale.
The reading was excellent and created a great atmosphere, like I was one of Carnacki's dinner guests.
As for the whole "queer" discussion. I'm quite surprised to hear Dave say that if the word queer is used like in this story in its original meaning it would make the story G rated. Context is everything, surely and it would be good for kids to know how queer came to be used as a slur because of its original meaning of strange or deviant. ( As an aside I was fascinated to find that Wikipedia suggests "queer" was being used in its second sense by 1904 before this story was written
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer. I guess WHH and the readers of
The Idler moved in more enlightened circles.)
In a sort of reverse analogue of how queer came to be used the word "gay" which originally only meant happy or carefree has unfortunately, in the UK at least, started to become slang for things that are bad. School kids will say someones trainers are "gay" or someone failing to score a goal is "so gay" even where there isn't any obvious link to the stereotype of effeminacy . This has even been used on TV in this context by comedians and no-one seems to take them to task for making the word have negative connotations though if they claimed something was "so asian" or "so black" there would be an outcry.