The BritBlog Roundup
THE Britblog roundup, as compiled by Redemption Blues: “Welcome to the 158th edition of the Britblog Roundup, which, in affectionate homage to Mr Eugenides, master of the witty title, I shall dub the When Worlds Collide edition. Without further preliminaries let us proceed to the substance.”
Religion
“The twentieth century, with its scores of millions of supernumerary dead, has been called the age of ideology. And the age of ideology, clearly, was a mere hiatus in the age of religion, which shows little sign of expiry. Since it is no longer permissible to disparage any single faith or creed, let us start by disparaging all of them. To be clear: an ideology is a belief system with an inadequate basis in reality; a religion is a belief system with no basis in reality whatsoever. Religious belief is without reason and without dignity, and its record is near-universally dreadful. It is straightforward – and never mind, for now, about plagues and famines: if God existed, and if he cared for humankind, he would never have given us religion” Martin Amis, The Second Plane (
London, Jonathan Cape, 2008, pp13-14)
Over the last fortnight the Archbishop of Canterbury’s lecture has dominated headlines and opinion columns alike (and Matt Wardman has done some truly excellent work in archiving links, creating an indispensable resource for anyone interested in the controversy, listed here by date: 7th February; 8th February; 9th February; 10th February; 11th February; several pieces on 14th February and 20th February).
As someone with no personal experience of the institution whatsoever (a Scottish Protestant by initial indoctrination and unrepentant atheist now), the Church of England had always seemed terribly posh and restrained, the haven and indeed preserve of the upper middle-class, the worthies and dignitaries, the cream of the community, in short, the Establishment. It has always appeared to an outsider such as myself to embody to perfection the “muddling through” compromise approach so beloved of the English, with their marked aversion to fanaticism; all starchy Sunday best and bonnets. So when the venerable Archbishop assumed the role of a bully boy in a frock the result was, unsurprisingly, uproar. He had fallen foul of two fundamental characteristics of Englishness: the staunch refusal to take anything too seriously and anti-intellectualism.
Jeremy Paxman’s astute observations in The English: A Portrait of a People (London, Michael Joseph, 1998) succinctly summarise the English attitude to religion: “There is nothing unique in the belief that a nation has God on its side: the sight of army chaplains on either side of a conflict urging on their troops with the lie that they are doing God’s work is a constant feature of warfare. But what is perhaps most curious about the English experience is the way in which a belief that they had been chosen by God could have produced a version of religion so temporising, pliable and undogmatic. After all, orthodox Judaism, which is built upon the assertion that the Jews are the chosen people, is one of the most demanding, prescriptive religions on earth. But there is scarcely anything prescriptive about the Church of England” (p95).
Paxman quizzed the Bishop of Oxford about what you needed to believe to be a member. The reply he received is telling: “‘The Church of England doesn’t believe in laying down rules,’ he said. ‘It prefers to give people space and freedom. It’s enough to make the effort to attend and take communion. That shows you believe’. This is the sort of woolliness that drives critics of the Church of England to distraction. If required by bureaucracy to declare their religious affiliation on a questionnaire, millions will tick the box marked ‘C of E’. The rest is silence. What kind of an organisation is it that makes itself as available as a local post office and requires virtually nothing of its adherents? The most characteristic English statement about belief is ‘Well, I’m not particularly religious’, faintly embarrassed by the suggestion that there might be something more to life. It sometimes seems the Church of England thinks God is the ultimate ‘good chap’” (op. cit., pp95-6).
Religion occupies a clearly defined niche and the general consensus is that it should not spill over into how we actually lead our lives. In Paxman’s words: “In developing a sense of national identity, the achievement of the Church of England was not so much what it proclaimed but what it made possible. There is a case for saying that the invention of the Church of England was the invention of England. However, this is not to say that the English are a churchy people. They prefer their religion as they used to like their clothing and cars, understated and reasonably reliable, there when you need it” (op. cit., pp97-8, emphasis in original).
And again: “The Church of England is the maddening institution it is because that is how the English like their religion – pragmatic, comfortable and unobtrusive” (op. cit., p98).
Julian Baggini (in Welcome to Everytown: A Journey into the English Mind, London, Granta, 2007) agrees: “Normally religion is kept in a separate compartment. It doesn’t really affect how we live our daily lives. This allows for apparent contradictions such as one teenage boy who I saw wearing both a WWJD (What would Jesus do?) wristband and an AC/DC belt buckle, thus celebrating both the Messiah and the band who joyously sang that they were on a ‘Highway to Hell’. During my six months in S66 [Rotherham], religion was hardly ever mentioned, except in discussions about the trouble of Islam growing in a country which 69% believe has an essentially Christian national identity, and which 72% believe should be based on Christian values” (pp171-2).
This view of religion as something of an irrelevance, comforting in times of bereavement, but otherwise an anachronism, is given further corroboration in Kate Fox’s Watching the English (London, Hodder and Stoughton, 2004). She pinpoints a “benign indifference rule”: “God is all very well, in His place, which is the church. When we are in His house – at weddings and funerals – we make all the right polite noises, as one does in people’s houses, although we find the earnestness of it all faintly ridiculous and a bit uncomfortable. Otherwise, He impinges very little on our lives or our thoughts. Other people are very welcome to worship Him if they choose – it’s a free country – but this is a private matter, and they should keep it to themselves and not bore or embarrass the rest of us by making an unnecessary fuss about it” (p356, emphasis in original).
However: “Our benign indifference remains benign only so long as the religious, of any persuasion, stay in their place and refrain from discomforting the non-practicing, spiritually neutral majority with embarrassing or tedious displays of religious zeal. And any use of the ‘G-word’, unless obviously ironic or just a figure of speech (God forbid, God knows, Godforsaken, etc.) counts as such an improper display. Earnestness of any kind makes us squirm; religious earnestness makes us deeply suspicious and decidedly twitchy” (Fox, op. cit., p357).
To this she adds the “default religion rule”: “(…) we are probably the least religious people on earth. In surveys, up to 88 per cent of English people tick the box saying that they ‘belong’ to one or other of the Christian denominations – usually the Church of England – but in practice only about 15 per cent of these ‘Christians’ actually go to church on a regular basis. The majority only attend for the (…) ‘rites of passage’, and for many of us, our only contact with religion is the last of these rites – at funerals. Most of us are not christened nowadays, and only about half get married in church, but almost all of us have a Christian funeral of some sort. This is not because death suddenly inspires the English to become religious, but because it is the automatic ‘default’ option: not having a Christian funeral requires a determined effort, a clear notion of exactly what one wants to do instead, and a lot of embarrassing fuss and bother. In any case, the Church of England is the least religious church on Earth. It is notoriously woolly-minded, tolerant to a fault and amiably non-prescriptive. To put yourself down as ‘C of E’ (we prefer to use this abbreviation whenever possible, in speech as well as on forms, as the word ‘church’ sounds a bit religious, and ‘England’ might seem a bit patriotic) on a census or application form, as is customary, does not imply any religious observance or beliefs whatsoever – not even a belief in the existence of God” (Fox, op. cit., pp353-4).
Which brings us on to the blogosphere’s response, starting off with Andrew Brown’s We need the Church of England, which echoes the pragmatic, “let’s not get carried away by the thunder from the pulpit” version of religion favoured by the English: “The defenders of a place for religion in public life do not have to suppose that religious belief is true, and many of them don’t – in fact all of them suppose that most religious dogma must be false. The question is not whether irrationality is irrational; it is how best it can be managed”.
Actually, I would contend that the real question is the extent to which religion is harmful. And it certainly is to the half of humanity to which it accords an inferior and subordinated place. Awarding religion privileges and prominence panders to its chauvinism and virulently retrograde vision of women.
Brown argues: “We must produce forms of religion that appear normal, tolerant and tolerable, rather than exclusive. This can certainly be done; it doesn’t require huge formal doctrinal changes. One need only look at the total transformation of the image of Roman Catholicism or Judaism over the last hundred years. All that has happened is that the loony bits have become less salient both within and outside these religions. The fact that the chief rabbi won’t shake hands with a woman journalist is taken as a more or less pardonable eccentricity, rather than evidence that he leads a sect of sinister misogynists, and quite right too”.
Yet that refusal to touch the “contaminated” woman is symbolically potent, providing enduring proof of her lesser worth in the eyes of the religious authority. She remains irredeemably unclean, untouchable. And, unlike Brown, I find this both repellent and offensive, no matter how deeply ingrained in our Judaeo-Christian culture it may be. Here religion functions as a mantle for the kind of intolerance that would be excoriated, and, increasingly, prosecuted, if evinced by a non-believer towards a person of faith. The surface image might have changed, but the underlying gospel of divinely ordained male superiority (and consequently entitlement) has not.
Brown goes on: “If, say, the Economist got its way and the Church of England were disestablished, and replaced by the American model of a confusion of sects all competing for votes, what could stop them responding to the popular demand for a condemnation of Islam? What could give them anything of the Church of England’s woolly, incoherent but essential belief that it has a duty to everyone in this country, no matter what their beliefs are. Can any sane person want a hundred English Paisleys competing against each other for the nationalist Christian congregations, and their money, and at last their votes?”
Is Mr Brown really completely unaware of the existence of Christian fundamentalist congregations? What we are confronted with is merely a matter of degree. What differentiates Britain from the US (apart from our what in this particular context represents a rather appealing refusal to succumb to unseemly fervour, reserving our moralising energies for maintaining and policing class boundaries, an issue to which we will have occasion to return) is the vociferousness of the born-again fundamentalists, the extent of their penetration into the mainstream media. Perhaps disestablishing the C of E would encourage sects to become more aggressive in clamouring for our attention, but it is simply factually incorrect to suggest that they are not already competing for hard cash as well as souls. According to Paxman, Anglicanism’s paramount achievement has been to tame a deep anti-clericalism in the English by knitting the Church into the fabric of the State: “This profound integration of sect and state is seen every afternoon of the parliamentary year, as, just before two-thirty, a little procession totters through the central lobby in the
Palace of Westminster. To the cry of ‘Hats Off, Strangers!’, the policemen remove their helmets as the column passes. First comes a man in funny gaiters, clicking his heels on the tiles, followed by a retired general carrying the gold mace, then the Speaker of the House of Commons in black-and-gold gown, and behind the Speaker, the Speaker’s chaplain. It is like something out of a Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera. Inside the chamber, for the benefit of the handful of MPs who have bothered to turn up, the chaplain recites the prayers that commend the political deliberations, name-calling and point-scoring of the day to God. What, you wonder, has God got to do with it? Yet something similar is going on in every army, navy or air-force unit, and is recognised in the Archbishop of Canterbury’s notional places as the pre-eminent commoner in the land, the man who lays the crown on the monarch’s head at the coronation. The everyday liturgy, with its insistence upon prayers for the monarch and ‘all those set in authority under her’ is the voice of a church that knows its deeply conservative and semi-secular place in English society” (op. cit., pp98-9).
Whilst some within the Church feel distinct discomfort about the elevated position it occupies, others would be unhappy if it were to be dislodged: “The Church is there because it’s there, sensible, adaptable, a comforter of the comfortable. The only sensible conclusion to draw from the uniquely privileged position of the Church of England – its official status, the bishops’ seats in the House of Lords, the Prime Minister’s right to appoint senior clerics and so on – is not that it represents some profound spirituality in the people, but that it suits mutually convenient purposes for state and Church. Many a bishop or dean will tell you privately that it would be better for the Church if it severed its formal links with the state, and became ‘disestablished’. It is often said that it would better reflect the new Britain, where an average Sunday will find more Roman Catholics in church than Anglicans, a country of large numbers of Asian Moslems and Sikhs and Caribbean Pentecostalists, if the Church of England was just another sect. (Privately, many leaders of these other faiths are much less keen on the idea – they like the idea of some spiritual presence near the heart of the constitution, and the woolly old Church of England is better than most, because it worries so much about seeing that other faiths and denominations get a shout)” (op. cit., pp99-100, emphasis in original).
In a thoughtful contribution to the debate, Jonathan Calder of Liberal England’s Antidisestablishmentarianism adopts a stance similar to Brown’s: “(…) the question to ask is not what the ideal relation between church and state would be. Instead, as a good Popperian, I believe that we should ask what problem disestablishing the Church of England would solve. And a little reflection will tell us that it would makes things far worse.
I write this as an atheist, albeit one with a great love of church music and architecture. I suppose I could allow myself to enjoy these while adopting an intellectual faith (rather after the later Wittgenstein) and say that when Christians talk about everlasting life they are really saying something profound and poetic about this life, but that would be dishonest of me. Most Christians mean what they say about the afterlife, and it is not true.
As an atheist, then, I have to recognise that religion can be a hugely destructive force. What I value about the Church of England is that it largely keeps the Christians quiet. I saw a joke in one of Charles Masterman’s books from the Edwardian era to the effect that the established church is the greatest bulwark against the coming of Christ’s Kingdom. That has to be a point in its favour.
Disestablish the church and you will set free the evangelicals and their deeply conservative philosophy. That is the last thing I wish to see. If you doubt this, look at the USA. It has no established church, but the religion has a far greater role in national life”.
By way of a footnote, many congratulations to Jonathan for securing a fortnightly spot in the New Statesman, his latest foray on the Northern Rock nationalisation.
Laura Woodhouse of The F-Word in Blood on their hands, offers a sobering and eloquent testimony to the pernicious effects religion, outside the incense-perfumed sanctuaries, can have on real lives, in this instance in Nicaragua where all abortion, including on medical grounds and where pregnancy has resulted from rape and incest, has been outlawed: “Every single woman in Nicaragua is at risk because of this law. Unsurprisingly, it is male Church leaders and politicians who pushed this law through, and female doctors and healers who are left to pick up the pieces, risking the revocation of their title and many years’ imprisonment – away from their own children – for trying to save the lives and health of women who resort to the backstreets or whose pregnancy is a threat to their existence.
I am ashamed, I am fucking ashamed, that I was christened Catholic, that officially I am a member of this women-hating, patriarchal religion that I have nothing but contempt for. Yes, I’m sure there are Catholics who have done wonderful things for humanity, but the central tenets of this religion pose a threat to women everywhere; according to the current Pope, abortion is intrinsically evil. It is this belief that has led to the anti-abortion law in Nicaragua, that led to the deaths of at least 82 Nicaraguan women in less than a year, and that puts the lives and health of every woman in that country in jeopardy”.
Politics
Pieces lamenting the advent (and, even worse, relentless expansion) of the surveillance society have sadly become something of a staple. What we are witnessing is the application of salami tactics, so beloved of Communist dictators everywhere, a form of attrition, a barely perceptible paring away at our liberties. This Government is completely obsessed with compiling information, prying into every aspect of our lives. Forgive me for the digression, but I would like to dwell on this for a moment or two.
Timothy Gahrton Ash in Our state collects more data than the Stasi ever did. We need to fight back (The Guardian, 31st January) makes the comparison with the discredited regimes of the Eastern bloc explicit: “This has got to stop. Britain’s snooper state is getting completely out of hand. We are sleepwalking into a surveillance society, and we must wake up. When the Stasi started spying on me, as I moved around East Germany 30 years ago, I travelled on the assumption that I was coming from one of the freest countries in the world to one of the least free. I don’t think I was wrong then, but I would certainly be wrong now. Today, the people of East Germany are much less spied upon than the people of Britain. The human rights group Privacy International rates Britain as an ‘endemic surveillance society’, along with China and Russia, whereas Germany scores much better. An official report by Britain’s interception of communications commissioner has just revealed that nearly 800 public bodies are between them making an average of nearly 1,000 requests a day for ‘communications data’, including actual phone taps, mobile phone records, email or web search histories, not to mention old-fashioned snail mail. The Home Office website notes that all communication service providers ‘may be served with a notice by the secretary of state requiring them to maintain a permanent intercept capability. In practice, agreement is always reached by consultation and negotiation’. How reassuring.
The fantastic advance of information and communications technology gives the state – and private companies as well – technical possibilities of which the Stasi could only dream. Most of your life is now mapped electronically, minute by minute, centimetre by centimetre, through your mobile phone calls, your emails, your web searches, your credit card purchases, your involuntary appearances on CCTV, and so on. Had the East German secret police had these snooping super-tools, my Stasi file would have measured at least 3,000 pages, not a mere 325”.
The justifications paraded out never vary: “(…) in the name of fighting terrorism, crime, fraud, child molestation, drugs, religious extremism, racial abuse, tax evasion, speeding, illegal parking, fly-tipping, leaving too many garbage bags outside your home, and any other “risk” that any of those nearly 800 public (busy)bodies feels called upon to “protect” us from. Well, thank you, nanny – but kindly eff off to East Germany. I’d rather stay a bit more free, even if means being a bit less safe”.
Britain’s democratic credentials are left in tatters: “An over-mighty executive, authoritarian busybody instincts at all levels of government, a political culture of ‘commonsense’ bureaucratic judgments, rather than codified rights protected by supreme courts and, until recently, a gung-ho press forever calling for ‘something to be done’: this fateful combination has made Britain a dark outrider among liberal democracies. The birthplace of laissez-faire liberalism has morphed into the database state. We have more CCTV cameras than anyone. We have the largest DNA database anywhere. Plans are far advanced to centralise all our medical records and introduce the most elaborate biometric ID cards in the world. All this from a government which, having collected so much data on us, goes around losing it like a late-night drunk spreading the contents of his pockets down the street. Twenty-five million people’s details mislaid by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs; at least 100,000 more on an awol Royal Navy laptop; and so it goes on”.
He concludes: “If the government were still to be so foolish as to try to introduce the new ID cards before the next election, it could be to Gordon Brown what the poll tax was to Margaret Thatcher. Comprehensive, compulsory ID cards would directly impinge on every single citizen; this is just the kind of thing the British like to get bloody-minded about”.
I truly hope he is right. But what if Labour win? And, regardless of who comes out on top, what about after the elections? Manifesto promises have a habit of being reneged on.
I recently received a bland little e-mail from British Airways with infinitely less bland implications: “Whenever you transfer through London Heathrow Terminal 1 onto a UK domestic flight you will find that there is a new security procedure – Biometrics. This increases security and also means you will be able to use the same superior retail, leisure and dining facilities available airside to international customers at Terminal 1.
Biometrics consists of electronic fingerprinting and a facial digital photograph, which will be taken at the entrance to the departure lounge and checked again at the boarding gate. Afterwards the records are deleted so don’t worry about your details being kept on file”.
Do they seriously think that sugaring the pill with bribery (connection times mean that nine times out of ten I seldom have time to avail myself of the “superior facilities”, even if they did hold any attraction for me, which they certainly do not) will win us over to this appalling encroachment? Frankly, the assumption that I would trade my liberty for a few baubles is an insult to my intelligence, as is the hollow reassurance that the data will be wiped afterwards. Yeah, right.
The ARCH blog, which describes itself as a coalition of families, academics and lawyers concerned about children’s liberties, in particular the effects of government policies and developments in IT on children’s privacy and freedom of movement, tackles the government’s plans for a database to contain the personal details of every child in England in Contactpoint: carry on regardless (surely worthy of the title of the week award for conveying the farcical nature of the Government’s bloody-minded insistence on proceeding in the teeth of growing opposition). The authors painstakingly record the results of an independent study by Deloitte on the security of the database.
Carlotta of Dare to Know, in Avoiding the Surveillance State – Another Reason to Home Educate, informs us that both her and her husband’s medical records have been uploaded onto the NHS Spine (as in send shivers down the…) in spite of their efforts to opt-out. By contrast: “(…) the existence of non-schooled children appears to have thrown several systems into some confusion. Even in our own GP surgery’s database, the children would appear not to exist, though they they were registered there perfectly satisfactorily for a number of years prior to the computerisation! I’m guessing that this is because they aren’t on school databases and the mismatch throws the system into confusion”.
She bolsters her argument further by linking to a masterpiece of evasion, surpassed only by Michael Howard’s performance on Newsnight on Pippa’s blog cataloguing an exchange during Prime Minister’s Question Time. How are we supposed to conclude there is no sinister intent behind such initiatives when the so-called answers to perfectly legitimate queries are so slippery?
By way of a coda on ingenious new technological applications, Stephen Abram of Stephen’s Lighthouse balks at the idea of Tattoo Touch Screens. Enough to make anyone’s skin creep. Powered in appropriately eco-friendly fashion by your blood pumping they are the kind of gadget bureaucrats intent on tracking our every movement would salivate over (oops, hope I haven’t given them any ideas!).
European Parliament insider Trixy of Is there more to life than shoes? pillories MEPs for fiddling their expenses in The Euro elite are panicking, whilst closer to home Ross Lydall and Tim McLoughlin turn their attention to some of the less savoury aspects of the London mayoral election campaign in in Police leave Ken without a fig leaf to cover up the Jasper affair (yuk – what an image to pollute my beleaguered brain with!) and Lee Jasper, the media… respectively.
Graham Harvey of News from the Grass Roots in Our Duty to the Land draws attention to the benefits of dishing up decent meals to patients instead of the usual depressing and flavourless gloop: “Health minister Ben Bradshaw has told the Commons that patients in west country hospitals showed faster recovery rates when offered locally-produced meat, dairy products, fish and vegetables than those given the usual anonymous hospital food. The comments are based on findings in Cornwall where health trusts have made big efforts to cut food miles and support local farmers and growers”.
Always assuming that you are not in the process of being deliberately starved to death as a cheaper alternative to labour-intensive, long-term care in an era of shrinking budgets, and state-sponsored (though not in the strict financial sense) callousness, that is.
Mr Harvey issues a call for action: “Let’s hope other government departments take note of the findings. If fresh, local produce can improve the health of people in hospital, it can bring benefits to the wider community too. Institutions like hospitals, schools and prisons are only the starting point. What this obese and sickly nation needs is a totally new food system based on well-grown, nutrient-rich produce”.
Class and Netiquette
Chris Dillow’s Stumbling and Mumbling picks up on the story of 19-year-old Max Gogarty’s ill-fated travelogue to India and Thailand, whose solitary post attracted the ire of commenters when it emerged that the accolade of a blogging slot in the most web-savvy newspaper in the UK might not have been earned through ability and hard graft alone.
By way of background for those unfamiliar with the saga a good starting point is Caroline Davies of The Observer’s Hate mail hell of a gap-year blogger: “Max, who introduced himself as living ‘on top of a hill in north London…spending any sort of money I earn on food and skinny jeans’, was last night alone in India at the beginning of his trip, while his father accused his detractors of class hatred and envy. ‘It’s the conformity of the comments, the cruelty, the smug self-righteousness and envy. It’s all so bitter and full of bile. The exposure is terrifying,’ said Gogarty Snr. ‘He’s out in India on his own. We were all feeling upset at him going away anyway. But this…this tsunami of hate. We just cannot believe it. Max is a talented and hard-working boy. He is what he is – a middle-class kid who goes to a comprehensive and managed to get four As and is supporting himself by working in a café’. He said his son was invited on to a young writers’ group at
London’s Royal Court Theatre, and from there he began writing for Skins before being offered the travel blog. ‘There is no nepotism. I hardly ever write for the Guardian,’ said Gogarty. ‘He is not an attention seeker. He is just bright and 19 and middle-class – and that’s a crime in Britain.’”.
To say that latter statement it is out of touch with reality is an understatement. Think of all the spiteful articles labelling the working-class as dross, detritus, scum, yobs, etc. Mr Gogarty is white, male, middle-class. The real crime is being female and under-privileged (as I demonstrate below).
The furore assumed such proportions that the Guardian travel section editor was goaded into refuting the charges of nepotism levelled against the paper: “Paul Gogarty may be thrilled (or he may not) to hear that he is now the travel editor of the Guardian website. He is, in fact, a freelance writer who has had the odd piece published in the Guardian, but he also writes for The Telegraph, Sunday Times, Times and Daily Express among others. No one snuck Max through the backdoor. I called him purely on the strength of his track record. On the back of his writing at his comprehensive school, he was invited on to a young writers’ group at the
Royal Court theatre, and since then he has worked as an occasional writer on the TV series Skins. I think that’s pretty impressive for a 19-year-old”.
Yes, but how were you introduced to him? How were you alerted to his existence? There must be thousands of equally talented and bright young writers across the length and breadth of the country who do not have a look in and really, it would be more than disingenuous to claim that Max’s “lucky break” was not at least in part down to his connections. Media circles are renowned for being small and incestuous.
The defence continues: “You had a go at Max for the clichés in his writing. I encouraged him to write in his own voice – he’s 19 years old, and I didn’t expect his writing or his worldview to be polished”.
This somewhat contradicts the previous paragraph about Gogarty Junior’s innate talent.
Before examining Chris Dillow’s In Praise of Class Hatred, I would like to dispel a few myths about classless society and the winners and losers as portrayed by the media. Ferdinand Mount in Mind the Gap (
London, Short Books, 2004) presents a thoughtful analysis of why a tone of sneering and contempt has come to pervade writings about class: “One of the greatest changes of modern society has been the geographical separation of the classes in Britain. The rise of council estates and the bourgeoisie’s flight to suburbia have introduced an unintended social zoning into the cities. Only a handful of the upper-middle classes occupy their old positions in the civic life of the great cities. Most of them live out in their spick-and-span villages beyond the ring road, where they are surrounded by their own kind, while the poorer villagers are clustered in the village council estates. Other occasions of contact between the classes – such as military service or religious worship – happen only to a dedicated minority” (p86).
As a result: “In some senses, the bottom class in England is more socially isolated than ever before in history. The exceptional visitations from the middle classes in a therapeutic role – as doctor or social worker or divorce lawyer – only serve to emphasise that isolation” (p86).
Splitting society into Uppers and Downers, Mount emphasises the lack of either literal or metaphorical common ground between them: “(…) the geographical apartheid which has made it quite hard for the well-to-do to send their children to a really bad comprehensive. This is described, in the no-fault language of modernity, as ‘the post-code lottery’. But there is nothing in the least accidental about the outcome, since the Uppers are ready to pay tens of thousands extra for a house in a neighbourhood where the schools are known to be good” (p102).
This leaves both sides more reliant on representations, as opposed to first-hand experience. These warp perceptions, creating a false impression of uniformity in a detached and disdainful perspective reminiscent of that of Harry Lime on the Prater Wheel with all the compassion such a vantage point implies (“Victims? Don’t be melodramatic. Look down there. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare?”).
Middle-class exposure to the working-class via the media is largely confined to police dramas and soap operas on television: “In these plays we see moral and physical degradation shown with a lurid relish that Dickens might have envied. The women are slags, either scrawny with straggly blonde hair, or grotesquely fat and bulging out of their tracksuit bottoms. The children are surly, whining, spoilt, wolfing down their junk food with no concept of manners and not much grasp of their native language. The men in the regulation get-up – T-shirt, earring, shaven head – are equally surly and incoherent, callous and faithless to their women, sentimental about their children but liable to forget to pick them up at school and prepared to leave home and abandon them if they meet a bit of skirt in the pub. There is never any suggestion that the Downer men might be interested in anything except sex, drink, cars and football” (p89).
Previously, however, not all depictions were so unanimously denigrating: “Their family lives will be revealed as swamps of brutality, neglect and desertion, larded with lachrymose sentimentality. Yet the popular media once represented the lower classes as sturdy, indomitable, responding to misfortune and hardship with a chirpy stoicism – ‘Mustn’t grumble,’ ‘It’s a great life if you don’t weaken,’ ‘Don’t let the buggers get you down’. Now the worst-off are shown as sour, whingeing and defeatist” (p94).
Mount acknowledges that disadvantage consists of more than straightforward financial hardship: “The English working class is, I think, uniquely disinherited, and the most important ways in which it is disinherited are the more crippling because they are largely hidden from us. We are fairly well aware of how little the worst off have had in the way of independent material resources throughout the past two centuries of our history: until recently scarcely any savings to speak of, not much in the way of valuable chattels, and for the most part no financial stake in their own home. But there are other sorts of capital to which they have also had little or no access – social, cultural and spiritual. And it is because the rest of us are so uneasily conscious of this other poverty without being able or willing to articulate it that our attitude towards ‘them’ oscillates between pity and disdain” (pp106-7).
He goes on to review all the snobbery of intellectuals, charting the growth of “cultural condescension” (p225): “What has almost disappeared is deference towards the lower classes. Throughout the two world wars and the decades following both of them, the lower classes were widely revered for their courage in battle and their stoicism in peace. Values such as solidarity, thrift, cleanliness and self-discipline were regularly identified as characteristic of them. That is no longer the case. By a remarkable shift in public discourse, the middle classes have come to regard most of these virtues as characteristic of their own behaviour, indeed as largely confined to themselves. For the ultimate deprivation that the English working class has suffered – in fact the consequence of all the other deprivations – is the deprivation of respect” (pp107-8).
Beverley Skeggs in Class, Self, Culture (London, Routledge, 2004) shows us that representations are not innocent (or disinterested) reflections of reality: “The significance of representations lies in the way in which they become authorised and institutionalised through policy and administration, how they produce the normative, how they designate moral value and how those who are positioned by the negative and pathological representations are both aware and resistant. A daily class-struggle is waged through challenging the values generated through representation, precisely because representation constitutes what can be known as persons. To understand this requires a shift in attention from an analysis that assumes that the meaning of things is a property of the object itself (i.e. the working-class are pathological), rather than the response to, or the relationship to, the object (i.e. how they are being defined through the responses and power of others). If the projection of negative value onto others is established as a central way in which class divisions are drawn, then to read the site of projection as the ‘truth’ of the person or object is to mis-recognise and mis-read one’s self. Attributing negative value to the working-class is a mechanism for attributing value to the middle-class self (such as making oneself tasteful through judging others to be tasteless). So, it is not just a matter of using some aspects of the culture of the working-class to enhance one’s value, but also having the authority to attribute value, which assigns the other as negative, thus maintaining class divisions. What we read as objective class divisions are produced and maintained by the middle-class in the minutiae of everyday practice, as judgements of culture are put into effect. Any judgement of the working-class as negative (waste, excess, vulgar, unmodern, authentic, etc.) is an attempt by the middle-class to accrue value. This is what the representations of the working-class should be seen to be about; they have absolutely nothing to do with the working-class themselves, but are about the middle-class creating value for themselves in a myriad of ways, through distance, denigration and disgust as well as appropriation and affect of attribution. To deny the existence of class, or to deny that one is middle-class, is to abdicate responsibility for the relationships in which one is repeatedly reproducing power” (pp117-8).
Skeggs (again in Class, Self, Culture) also elucidates that it is women who bear the brunt of class hatred: “But there is, I’d argue, a significant moral shift occurring. It is just like the historical respectable/unrespectable divide that was so significant in the ways the working-class were made and made themselves. Certain historically defined ‘vices’ have potential marketability (such as the criminality of black and white masculinity – described in a recent newspaper article as ‘one of the most pernicious media trends of the last decade’), whilst others have no exchange-value whatsoever (such as the fecund young working-class mother). Even in the local context her reproductive use-value is limited and limits her movement. The splitting of ‘vices’ into recoupable (for exchange) and abject, as the constitutive limit for what is valueless (to the nation, for exchange of any kind), is strongly gendered (…) it is white working-class women who are yet again becoming the abject of the nation” (pp22-3, emphasis in original).
Before furnishing two examples, a word on the source publication. Julian Baggini identifies the Daily Mail’s core constituency: “The exception that proves the rule that working-class culture still dominates comes in the shape of the most overtly middle-class institution England has: the Daily Mail. The Mail trumpets its credentials as the defender of the middle classes as often and as loudly as it can. However, if you look at the values it actually promotes, they are remarkably similar to those of the resolutely working-class Sun. You could express it like this: the Sun + money + fear = the Daily Mail. Take the Sun’s values first. It is defiantly patriotic and is keen to defend
Britain’s values and way of life. It is anti-intellectual, anti-liberal, anti-political correctness and anti-immigration. It is also pro-family, which may seem odd when it revels so much in sexual peccadilloes” (Baggini, op. cit., pp 25-6).
The Mail’s primary function, it would seem, is to spew out endless streams of vitriol to reassure its readers that they are not at the bottom of the pile: “The Daily Mail middle classes are not that different. Like Sun readers they are defiantly patriotic, keen to defend Britain’s values and way of life, pro-family, anti-intellectual, anti-liberal, anti-political correctness and anti-immigration. Look at what they stand for and the split between the officially middle-class Mail and the working-class Sun is a schism within the same group. The only real difference is one of anxiety. The Sun, as its name suggests, has an optimistic, up-beat tone, reflecting the attitude of those who are comfortable with who they are and don’t feel their position in society is too threatened. The Mail, however, is virtually paranoid (…) Whereas I found I liked the Sun more than I expected to, I came to loathe the Mail more than I could imagine. Its main purpose seems to be to inspire fear. The reason for this is that it serves a segment of the population that wants to maintain its middle-class status yet is only one step removed from the traditional working-class. No one who was truly secure in their middle-class status would be so anxious to proclaim it so loudly and feel it was under such a threat” (op. cit., pp26-7).
The truly compelling reason to read the Mail or the Sun, is their representativeness: “If we are to really understand the English philosophy, we need to know the values that, together with these facts, produce the folk political philosophy. You can find clues to what these values are by reading the Mail and the Sun (…) The reason for this was that these are far and away the most popular newspapers in the country, and as such reflect the reality of mainstream English opinion more accurately than the others. The Sun sells over three million copies each day, while the Daily Mail alone sells in excess of two million – more than The Times, Telegraph, Guardian and Independent combined. The tabloid press does have the power to shape opinion, but this power is not limitless. The papers that do best are those which reflect the basic values their readers already have. If they fail to strike a chord, they just won’t sell. That’s why, although imperfect, they are more reliable barometers of national opinion than many would lie to think” (op. cit., p62).
Readers’ anxieties about being submerged in a rising tide of squalor, filth, disease and immorality and seeing their modest prosperity swallowed up by the need to subsidise scroungers are catered for in Fay Weldon stunning (in the negative sense) piece of polemic, Why we should sterilise teenage girls…temporarily at least (Daily Mail, 15th February), which I reproduce in extenso: “Last week, an intriguing proposition was mooted by Government minister Dawn Primarolo. Teenage girls, she said, could be steered towards what is described as ‘long-term contraception’.
This is now possible thanks to the development of contraceptive jabs and implants which can last up to five years.
In other words, there is a way of effectively sterilising girls for a lengthy period of time.
At what age? Well, doesn’t 12 until 17 sound rather sensible?
This would have the advantage of bringing down the teenage pregnancy rate, so high in this country it makes us a disgrace among the nations – the worst offenders in
Europe. The abortion rate would fall sharply. And silly young girls could get on with the education that is meant to produce serious, responsible taxpayers, not benefit recipients.
Now, many people will see this modest proposal as little short of horrific – nothing less than state interference in our reproductive lives.
But think about it: it might not be such a bad idea.
We are moving into a science fiction age in which life itself can be created in a test tube, and it seems that, before long, perfect babies could be bred at will, largely free of hereditary disease and illness.
So, in my view, there is little point any more in feeling shock-horror at the idea of mass sterilisation.
Neither do I believe it will encourage ‘promiscuity’ because girls will feel they have nothing to fear in sleeping around. In truth, they seem to be doing that already. I’m afraid we are now in a time when sex is mere recreational pleasure to thousands of young women.
The trouble is that pregnancy no longer holds the fear for teenagers it once did. The social stigma has gone.
Indeed, for many, it seems, a child has actually become a kind of perverse badge of honour.
Obviously, there are millions of sensible young girls, but for many, having a baby seems to be the logical, and even desirable, result of their teenage flings.
If it wasn’t, they’d stir themselves to do something to prevent themselves getting pregnant, like taking the morning-after pill.
But they don’t. Because the benefits of doing nothing to stop it are obvious.
Suddenly, they can give birth to someone who will offer unconditional love in a bleak, busy, money-grubbing world.
The council will offer a free home away from nagging parents. They will have independence, sexual freedom and no more humiliating exams to try to pass – because, more than likely, their education will fall by the wayside.
Nowadays, ask some girls why they want a baby so badly and they will say vaguely: ‘Oh, I want to fulfil myself’.
Once, they would have confidently said of the father: ‘I love him. And I want a bit of me, a bit of him, to go on for all eternity’.
It’s not like that any more. Love is seen as little more than a neurotic dependency to the young.
The fear of pregnancy used to stop girls having sex. To be pregnant and unmarried was a major life disaster (as it is still in some of our ethnic communities.)
You were disgraced, soiled goods: the child was removed, no one would marry you”.
Not that Weldon goes quite so far as to advocate the reintroduction of punitive measures such as locking single mothers up in asylums: “Currently, our teenage pregnancy rate is twice as high as in Germany, three times as high as in France and six times as high as in the Netherlands. Is this because, in this country, getting pregnant while still at school has become a status symbol for the girls, as ASBOs have for the boys?
In spite of all the efforts of the Government’s Teenage Pregnancy Unit, and millions of pounds spent on initiatives to persuade girls that having babies young is a bad, bad thing, the rates stay sky-high.
In 2005, there were 39,804 conceptions by under-18s in
England – a rate of 41.3 per thousand. The trouble for those who would tackle the pregnancy problem is that the very act of warning against pregnancy can be unproductive.
A certain proportion of teenagers like to defy fate – and the more you warn them not to smoke, drink, have sex, stay up late, join gangs, the more they will.
Defying authority, not doing what you’re told, is, for many, part of growing up – the search for your own identity, a necessary preparation for leaving the nest. Persuasion doesn’t work. The instinct to rebel goes too deep.
Boys have always wanted to have sex and notch up ‘scores’ on the bedpost.
The trouble now is that the girls – who once wanted just to be loved by someone, anyone – are under intense peer pressure, don’t want to be outdone or be seen to be ‘square’, and so behave like the boys.
So much for gender equality in the classroom!”
Just in case you were in any doubt that this sterilisation programme might not be class-based, Weldon helpfully adds: “When it comes to receiving welfare, girls of 16 are treated as adults (though legally they can’t vote or drink), and their parents have no legal obligation to house or support them. If they won’t or can’t, then the State must. Putting that age up by a year or two might work wonders.
Then again, the recent law that allows a mother to claim benefits only until her child is six could be repealed because at present it can only encourage her to have another baby in order to keep on claiming benefits. And who wouldn’t?
‘Getting a job’ sounds good – but what kind of local minimum wage job is the unfortunate mother likely to get anyway?”
A second illustration comes from a piece by Will Stewart about a book published by a Russian, Olga Freer, who came to Britain in 2002, when she was 18 and married a year later. She now has British citizenship. The title of the article Greedy, scruffy, lazy and full of size 22 women shaking their haunches…a Russian’s view of Britain 2008 is itself a catalogue of the sins imputed to the working-class (Mail on Sunday, 17th February 2008): “A young Russian woman’s book about the pitfalls of living as an immigrant in Britain has become a surprise best-seller in Moscow … and it paints a distinctly unflattering portrait of the natives. Instead of finding
London the city of her dreams, 23-year-old Olga Freer moans about the shopping hours, the public transport and the bad manners she encounters. In a litany of complaints about her adopted country, in her book The UK For Beginners she claims that Britons: • Habitually scratch their bottoms in public places;
• Never remove the price stickers from the soles of their shoes;
• Fail to iron their clothes; and
• Are obsessed with TV programmes about buying and selling houses.
She says the country is full of ‘prudish, arrogant people who eat healthy food for breakfast – porridge or bacon and eggs. But in reality the nation suffers from obesity’.
Some 60 per cent of the female population wear size 22 clothes, she says. ‘But being overweight doesn’t stop red-faced English women wearing minis and shaking their haunches at discos – some spectacle! It’s a nation with girls, debauched girls to the last degree. The only sacred thing for them is Christmas, for which they wait 364 days a year’.
Olga, who faked her CV to find work as a pizza-leaflet distributor, nightclub hostess and shop assistant in
Oxford Street, is particularly damning about the ‘lazy’ British working class. ‘Every second immigrant achieves much more here than the ordinary Brits,’ she writes.
‘The ordinary Brit, having a choice between education and a job on one hand, and unemployment on the other, would always prefer to live on the dole.
‘Then all they have to do is send £10 notes through the mail as birthday presents for their various children who they don’t see. The greed of these islanders was a real shock to me.’”.
Back to Baggini, who, in noting the reactions of his friends to the news of his departure for a six-month stint in Rotherham, reinforces the point made by Mount at the beginning: “”England is a patchwork of almost hermetically sealed sub-worlds. This was something I felt very acutely moving from one to another. Many professional urbanites regarded my move to Rotherham as though I was going to Outer Mongolia. More than one joked about sending me food parcels, as though it would be impossible to get such staples as balsamic vinegar and buffalo mozzarella in Rotherham, and that life without such things would be intolerable, both of which are ludicrous suggestions (…) They were joking, of course, but the joke depended on the real sense that my journey of a mere 175 miles across my own country would take me into another world. Another was horrified to discover that all the local cafés were closed by 4.30, because most mothers like to have a coffee and cake with their kids after they have picked them up from school. This simply exposed how ignorant those who live in the world of yummy mummies are about how the rest of the country lives. For one thing, around here, cake after 4.30 would be far too close to your tea time (which is your evening meal, not tea and cake). We all like to feel that we’re open-minded people who can be friends with anyone, and we also can probably come up with a few examples of friends who do not match our demographic profile to prove our lack of insularity. We might even be able to pull out that great English get-out-of-alleged-snobbery-free card: a working-class background. But if we are honest, the vast majority live, work and socialise overwhelmingly with people of a similar social type. Demographic maps prove the point. The obsession with school catchment areas, for instance, has the effect of social segregation, as parents of a certain class and their children cluster in enclaves of their own kind” (op. cit., pp64-5).
Caroline Davies quotes Paul Gogarty: “‘You may like or dislike the blog, but the cruelty is shocking, if quintessentially British’”. I agree, and it is usually reserved for those who can’t answer back, whose sole (ineffective) gesture of defiance is the erect middle digit.
There is plenty of class hatred out there and it is mostly from the top down.
The Gogarty case acts as a salutary reminder of folly to all those who cling to the comfortable and comforting illusion (which also – conveniently – absolves them of all responsibility to at least endeavour to combat social injustice) that informal impediments to achievement are a mirage, a mere figment of the paranoid socialist imagination. Think again. That Mr Gogarty was the right place at the right time is no fortuitous coincidence. It is unearned privilege that people find so abhorrent – the blatant seizing and exploiting of advantage. Max was caught out and publicly shamed – an unpleasant experience, certainly one that I would not enjoy going through.
One final prefatory remark is in order: I loathe bullying and derive no pleasure from nasty blog comments (which I have an unfortunate habit of taking too personally), rigorously pursuing a policy of leaving only edifying ones myself – nobody forces you to read a blog after all. If you want to, you can attribute this philosophy to decades of being brainwashed into “girlie niceness”. Not that I avoid engaging forcefully with issues or feel that I have to agree with every pronouncement a given author makes, but I steadfastly refuse to indulge in gratuitous attacks, particularly where there is a risk that they might turn into a personal vendetta.
Now, on to Mr Dillow: “Good. There’s much to be said for class hatred. Just consider some of the advantages a middle-class kid has over his poorer contemporaries. He’s more likely to grow up in a home that promotes learning. His parents give him self-confidence and ambition. He has role models to show that people like him can have successful careers – the importance of which mustn’t be under-estimated. In living in an expensive house, he gets into a good state school. And he benefits from positive peer effects whilst kids from the ghetto suffer adverse ones.
All these advantages, though, were not sufficient for little Maxwell (or is it Maximillian, or Maximus Twattimus?) He had to use nepotism as well”.
And: “When such privilege is rammed down our throats, it’s entirely right that it be vomited back. Better still, this hatred serves two useful functions. One is that it gives the middle-class a tiny payback. It shows them that the costs of living in a class-divided society don’t always fall upon the poor. Of course, little Max can’t help being middle class (though he can help being a pushy ponce with no self-awareness). But nor can the millions of people whose lives are blighted by poverty and bad schooling help being poor. We should save our sympathy for them.
Also, such hatred sends a message. It says to the middle class: “your so-called achievements and talent mean nothing. Any idiot can have ability. What matters is opportunities. And your class has nabbed a disproportionate share of these. This, not “talent”, is the reason for your wealth.”
Above all, though, there’s a third message – if you don’t like our class hatred, there’s a solution – abolish class divisions”.
That latter sentiment, though laudable, is a little too Utopian, I fear. If only some of the prodigious energies that are expended on prole-bashing could be devoted instead to improving their lot and helping them overcome the poverty of ambition that afflicts so many (which in itself is not irrational – if it is constantly relayed to you that you are nothing but a waste of space and a burden on the decent taxpayers of the land your appraisal of your life chances is not likely to be rosy and the evidence around you in the form of peer trajectories is hardly going to inspire you). A return to “knowing one’s place” and doffing the cap is hardly on the cards – thank goodness. Here’s to more impertinent upstarts making good.
Both the comments on the original and Dillow’s follow-up post, Class, skill and inheritance are illuminating in terms of familiarising yourself with the arguments put forward by both sides of the ideological divide.
On a related theme, Benjamin Mathis of Liberal Democrat Voice gives us a measured and balanced appraisal of Britain’s Town centres – Designed for Disorder, a timely corrective to the apocalyptic mutterings of the Daily Mail, whose headlines might have scared him off venturing out after dark for a loaf of bread in streets where he might have been confronted with the unedifying spectacle of lager louts swaying and staggering along the pavements, or – ugh! – semi-conscious girls lolling on benches, half-digested food spilling out of their guts like their breasts out of their skimpy tops: “No, there weren’t clusters of ‘hoodies’ dealing drugs or ladettes urinating in the street or any of the clichés of the tabloid town-centre but there was a very odd atmosphere. Everyone but me seemed to be devoted to the single-minded pursuit of the cheapest available route to drunkenness in the shortest possible time. So far, so Daily Mail, but look around. What else is there to do? Unlike most European countries, British towns and cities provide very few options for the young at night. The shops are shut; you can rarely get a coffee or soft-drink for love or money, still less a table at which to drink it and any meal or snack beyond a Snickers bar is out of the question. Is it any wonder
Britain’s youth are world champion binge-drinkers. There is literally nothing else available”.
Philo of The Select Society reassures us that the Guardian website is not exclusively populated by class warriors seething with pent-up resentment, ready to viciously maul any poor little middle-class waif that strays by in Why we love the Guardian Comment section.
Poons of the eponymous blog uncovers an instance of hypocrisy here. Without wishing to become embroiled in a dispute I have not followed, I have to agree with Tim Ireland of Bloggerheads, who urges us not to hand over ammunition to our numerous detractors: “We have to individually lead by example…and not be afraid to challenge bloggers who present themselves as the leaders of blogging when they set a very poor example. Otherwise no-one will take any of us seriously, and the old media will continue to get away with dismissing personal contributions to the blogosphere while they themselves try to muscle in on the action while following the poorer example themselves. (Take, just for example, the rather self-serving comment moderation policies of most major newspapers)”.
There are attacks on our freedom of speech aplenty, let’s not poison the atmosphere ourselves by threatening each other with libel suits, which simply plays into the hands of those who would take delight in muzzling us.
To conclude, one last contribution on blogging by Will Patterson of the marvellously named J. Arthur McNumpty, who asks Having been resident in the blogosphere for longer than six months, am I qualified to teach blogging in schools?
In a genuinely interesting post, he questions the wisdom of incorporating blogging into the school syllabus (more specifically as part of the English Language course), partly because it might stifle spontaneity, partly because dedicating the resources to public speaking (whatever happened to that great Scottish institution of the school debating society?) would better equip pupils for life: “I speak (and blog) because I have something to say, not because I have to say something. What worries me is that placing bloggery on the curriculum will force people onto that path, the one I don’t take. If bloggery is a task, or a chore, or an exercise, it will fail: the best posts are the off the cuff ones, when you have the energy and the motivation. The worst ones are the ones you feel you have to make. All this move will do is produce a lot of perfunctory blogs, so this is something best left extra-curricular and informal: the school could set up a ‘bloggery’ club under the guise of an IT or English teacher who had the time and inclination to offer practical support to students who want to set up a blog, and produce posts”.
My only reservation here is the use of the term “bloggery” (what’s wrong with the perfectly adequate “blogging”?). To my jaded ears it sounds too close to the kind of practice that is reputed to traumatise public schoolboys…
Culture
Philip Wilkinson of the ever-fascinating English Buildings turns the spotlight on to Mary Ward House, Tavistock Place, London, a gorgeous Arts and Crafts/Art Nouveau hybrid designed by Dunbar Smith and Cecil Brewer: “Mary Ward was known in her lifetime as Mrs Humphry Ward, a prolific Victorian and Edwardian novelist. Ah yes, Mrs Humphry Ward. I’d heard of her. Her novels are not much read now but were successful in their time and tackled the social subjects and issues of faith and doubt that were beloved of the Victorians. She was also, it turns out, a noted philanthropist and social mover and shaker. Her social work was a mixture of progressive and backward-looking initiatives. As one of the founders of the institution that became Somerville College, Oxford, she helped open up university education to women. She promoted the education of the working classes through the ‘settlement’ movement (which settled students in working-class areas where they worked among the poor). Curiously, she also became a leader of the anti-suffragist movement, campaigning against giving women the vote”.
Nobody’s perfect. Although it is perhaps an oxymoron to include celebrities under this rubric, Tim Worstall in his regular Newspaper Watch feature takes the dead tree contingent to task for the rather unfortunate choice of photograph and caption accompanying the announcement that the wrinkly entertainer Bruce Forsyth has reached the ripe old age of 80. I don’t think the poor orang-utan would feel flattered by the comparison…
Olly of Olly’s Onions links directly to an article in the Daily Mail in Nation weeps for ‘heartbroken’ Anthea. He is right in refraining from comment – you might find yourself similarly struck dumb by the overweening arrogance displayed by those who think themselves too important to abide by the rules. Her assiduously polished Little Miss perfect image has been well and truly tarnished.
Meral Hussein Ece of Meral’s Musings – to whom congratulations are in order for having made the shortlist for the Gender Balance Blog Awards under the category of Best Blog by a Female Liberal Democrat – flicks through Grazia magazine where she discovers that Courtney Cox Arquette has shed a few pounds fretting about her career stalling. Enter Jennifer Anniston like a latter-day Fairy Godmother to a spa where she can relax and banish her blues.
Meral’s judicious assessment: “In the scheme of things this is clearly a big celebrity story. Not quite in the Britney league, and rather more important than the feature on Posh’s bunions. But 3 pages on someone who’s lost a bit of weight and is having a mid-life crisis? This is light years away from the women I meet and talk to most days in my ward.
Women who are struggling to bring up their kids on a council estate, whilst ensuring they can pay their bills, and keep their boys away from gangs on their doorstep. Real women and strong women”.
I never bother with those ghastly compilations of misery memoirs in miniature and the endless inanity about celebrities myself. These stars are held up for adoration and empathy one minute before being knocked off their pedestals the next – every blemish relished and exposed for public scrutiny with the compensatory glee of Schadenfreude. Not my scene, yet I have sympathy for those who derive cathartic consolation from seeing the paragons cut down to size.
Light Relief
Relief of another variety being the order of the day as the redoubtable Mr Eugenides exposes yet another act of bureaucratic loo-nacy (sorry, I couldn’t resist) in Spending unnecessary pennies. By including it under this heading, please do not think that I do not consider it a serious issue, which I most certainly do. Apparently pubs and restaurants across the UK are to be subsidised for making their facilities available to non-customers. The British Toilet Association expresses well-founded concern that this is far from enough in pushing local authorities to fulfil their moral duty to put on offer clean, accessible conveniences to the general public.
This nugget of news affords a golden opportunity for Mr E to shower (yes, deliberate choice of words) the powers that be with indignation: “This really is extraordinary. These are the priorities in the Age of Change? Paying businesses out of public funds to let you take a dump? I mean, what? Here’s a suggestion. If you’re passing through
Edinburgh any time soon, drop me an email. For a tenner, I’ll give you Alistair Darling’s address, and if you’re caught short on your way home from the pub, you can piss through his letterbox. He pisses money up against the wall every day, so he’s unlikely to mind”.
Matt of A very clever and exciting place for words to live, in Sex, ponders an article in the Sunday Times Magazine by Lesley White about Suzanne Portnoy, “the new heroine of clit-lit” whose second volume is about to grace window displays up and down the country: “Her books are a rampant picaresque through naturist saunas, swingers’ clubs, fetish joints and online chat rooms where chat is the last thing on the agenda; pornographic and crude, the smells and emissions of copulation are their obsession. If you took away the dirty stuff, no narrative would be left; if you took away the internet, there would be no Portnoy persona at all. Cybersex and its global confluence of niche peccadilloes rescued her life – or ruined it, if you are a moralist – from the sexless invisibility of the middle-aged woman, described and sometimes welcomed by feminist writers such as Germaine Greer, but not by a gal who wants to make trousers strain at the seams”.
Matt beautifully captures the cringe factor when your progenitors get round to broaching the subject of copulation: “When basically your parents have decided you’re old enough to talk like adults together, only not before they’ve said, ‘Now then, Matthew,’ like Jimmy Saville, or as if you’ve done something terrible, like forgetting to put an apple core in the bin, and then they start talking about SEX, like they’ve ACTUALLY had it, and as if to say YOU AREN’T AN ANDROID AFTER ALL”.
He is put on the spot when his Mother asks whether he could bring himself to write about sex. I will leave the reaction as a cliff-hanger – after all the entire purpose of the Roundup is for you to savour the originals.
Next week’s Roundup will be hosted by Susanne Lamido of Suz Blog, so please do send your nominations to the usual address: britblog [at] gmail [dot] com
Posted: 25th, February 2008 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
