Sunday, November 01, 2009
It may be a coincidence but the Evening Standard doesn't seem to have published anything by Nirpal Dhaliwal since it went free. One of the last things, so far, he wrote for them is this column, and I can't tell if he's joking or sincere...
Evening Standard: Honesty puts my ex-wife in a league of her own
-August 5, 2009
MY ex-wife, Liz Jones, has a new book out this week, The Exmoor Files: How I Lost a Husband and Found Rural Bliss. In it she gives her version of our marital break-up two years ago, which she documented in her newspaper columns, and her experience of moving to the country afterwards.
It was excruciating to have my dirty linen aired like that but I'd been an appallingly unfaithful husband and to some extent felt it was her prerogative to badmouth me in public. Like the mistakes I made in my marriage, it was an experience I never want to repeat.
I now look back on Liz's work and am awed by the phenomenon she created. She turned the genre of confessional journalism almost into an art form and made a name for herself in the process. Detailing the intimacies of her private and emotional life with brutal frankness, her columns had a pace, turn of phrase and expectancy that any novelist would be proud of.
Uncomfortable as it was to be her subject, I could never fault the quality of her writing.
Others disagree. Last Sunday, one magazine published a disdainful interview describing her as looking "a bit mad", implying that her writing stemmed from a mental disorder.
When we were married, I sometimes called Liz mad too. I now acknowledge that she is, in fact, a genius, a brilliantly effective writer who can provoke 130,000 comments to a newspaper with a single article about her anorexic relationship with food.
Some dismiss her work because much of it focuses on herself, but the same is true of many journalists, diarists, even novelists. And how many other writers have tapped the public nerve so powerfully and consistently? Though her columns concentrated on our marriage, they recorded a unique moment in the history of women as they finally flood through the cracks in glass ceilings in unprecedented numbers. Liz articulated the anxieties of a successful woman who out-earned her husband and sacrificed motherhood for her career yet still felt pressured to conform to idealised notions of beauty and achieve the mythical state of "having it all". Her success reflects the increasing feminisation of our culture, in which women's interests in relationships and domestic life compete equally for attention with male concerns.
On topics such as multiculturalism, female empowerment and the neuroses of consumer society, other columnists pontificate loftily without insight. Liz, however, took readers on a unique journey through the reality of these issues via the nitty-gritty of her mixed-race marriage to a less accomplished younger man me. Her columns were compulsive reading.
Other writers have boosted their careers by penning what poses as the highly confessional while omitting detail to spare themselves ridicule, such as the fact that a husband's affair was actually with another man, or publicising the trauma of giving birth to a sickly child without admitting that booze and fags were enjoyed throughout the pregnancy.
It is Liz's merciless honesty that put her in a league of her own and I readily acknowledge it, even when the honesty hurt me. Like that other great columnist, Julie Burchill, she provokes adoration and hatred for daring to unveil the darker side of the female psyche. Julie confessed she felt nothing for her first child, while Liz admitted that she feels superior to others simply for being thinner.
Like her readers, Liz's critics are overwhelmingly women. But however strange they think she is, they can't deny that she has pioneered new limits for journalism and has the sort of hold on the public imagination particularly of women that most writers can only dream of.
Of course, Nirpal does not mention that he lacks Liz's 'merciless honesty', that he not only called her 'mad' but also 'fatty' and that he still calls her for money.
Evening Standard: Honesty puts my ex-wife in a league of her own
-August 5, 2009
MY ex-wife, Liz Jones, has a new book out this week, The Exmoor Files: How I Lost a Husband and Found Rural Bliss. In it she gives her version of our marital break-up two years ago, which she documented in her newspaper columns, and her experience of moving to the country afterwards.
It was excruciating to have my dirty linen aired like that but I'd been an appallingly unfaithful husband and to some extent felt it was her prerogative to badmouth me in public. Like the mistakes I made in my marriage, it was an experience I never want to repeat.
I now look back on Liz's work and am awed by the phenomenon she created. She turned the genre of confessional journalism almost into an art form and made a name for herself in the process. Detailing the intimacies of her private and emotional life with brutal frankness, her columns had a pace, turn of phrase and expectancy that any novelist would be proud of.
Uncomfortable as it was to be her subject, I could never fault the quality of her writing.
Others disagree. Last Sunday, one magazine published a disdainful interview describing her as looking "a bit mad", implying that her writing stemmed from a mental disorder.
When we were married, I sometimes called Liz mad too. I now acknowledge that she is, in fact, a genius, a brilliantly effective writer who can provoke 130,000 comments to a newspaper with a single article about her anorexic relationship with food.
Some dismiss her work because much of it focuses on herself, but the same is true of many journalists, diarists, even novelists. And how many other writers have tapped the public nerve so powerfully and consistently? Though her columns concentrated on our marriage, they recorded a unique moment in the history of women as they finally flood through the cracks in glass ceilings in unprecedented numbers. Liz articulated the anxieties of a successful woman who out-earned her husband and sacrificed motherhood for her career yet still felt pressured to conform to idealised notions of beauty and achieve the mythical state of "having it all". Her success reflects the increasing feminisation of our culture, in which women's interests in relationships and domestic life compete equally for attention with male concerns.
On topics such as multiculturalism, female empowerment and the neuroses of consumer society, other columnists pontificate loftily without insight. Liz, however, took readers on a unique journey through the reality of these issues via the nitty-gritty of her mixed-race marriage to a less accomplished younger man me. Her columns were compulsive reading.
Other writers have boosted their careers by penning what poses as the highly confessional while omitting detail to spare themselves ridicule, such as the fact that a husband's affair was actually with another man, or publicising the trauma of giving birth to a sickly child without admitting that booze and fags were enjoyed throughout the pregnancy.
It is Liz's merciless honesty that put her in a league of her own and I readily acknowledge it, even when the honesty hurt me. Like that other great columnist, Julie Burchill, she provokes adoration and hatred for daring to unveil the darker side of the female psyche. Julie confessed she felt nothing for her first child, while Liz admitted that she feels superior to others simply for being thinner.
Like her readers, Liz's critics are overwhelmingly women. But however strange they think she is, they can't deny that she has pioneered new limits for journalism and has the sort of hold on the public imagination particularly of women that most writers can only dream of.
Of course, Nirpal does not mention that he lacks Liz's 'merciless honesty', that he not only called her 'mad' but also 'fatty' and that he still calls her for money.
Labels: journalists, Liz Jones, Nirpal Dhaliwal
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
The Spectator, of all magazines, is reporting that the Guardian has been prevented from reporting on a question asked in Parliament, including who asked it, who will answer it, who injuncted the Guardian and why. Never mind, other people not yet having had proceedings taken out against them seem to think it's Carter-Ruck, a collection of lawyers that, as regular Private Eye readers will know, make Wolfram and Hart look like fucking Aslan.
The article reports this as being their best guess at being the offending question.
From Parliament.uk, “Questions for Oral or Written Answer beginning on Tuesday 13 October 2009″
(292409)
61
N Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.
And here is the Guardian article on that Minton report. So yeah, Carter-Ruck seem to have managed to stop a newspaper reporting on business in Government about press freedoms to report when big companies massively fuck-up and then try to hide the evidence. Let everyone know, yeah?
These injunctions-which-include-you-not-being-allowed-to-tell-people-that-there's-an-injunction-against-you are worrying, even if they tend not to work on the Internet. Andrew Marr, the BBC journo, has one which is apparently about him fathering a child with a journalist he had an affair with.
The article reports this as being their best guess at being the offending question.
From Parliament.uk, “Questions for Oral or Written Answer beginning on Tuesday 13 October 2009″
(292409)
61
N Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.
And here is the Guardian article on that Minton report. So yeah, Carter-Ruck seem to have managed to stop a newspaper reporting on business in Government about press freedoms to report when big companies massively fuck-up and then try to hide the evidence. Let everyone know, yeah?
These injunctions-which-include-you-not-being-allowed-to-tell-people-that-there's-an-injunction-against-you are worrying, even if they tend not to work on the Internet. Andrew Marr, the BBC journo, has one which is apparently about him fathering a child with a journalist he had an affair with.
Labels: Government, journalists, lawyers, Parliament, press freedom
Sunday, August 09, 2009
The Daily Mail produce one of their typical hatchet jobs on Harriet Harman for daring to suggest something should be done to try and stop domestic violence against women and Liberal Conspiracy retort with what is probably the best response so far. Mailwatch goes into the detail of the Mail report.
Mail: The Government claims that violence against women is costing Britain an astonishing £40billion. It has emerged they are carrying out five separate reviews into the causes and how women can be better protected. This is despite evidence showing that boys and young men are more than twice as likely to fall victim to violence, and that young women are becoming increasingly aggressive.
Mailwatch: The Mail is trying to destroy the feminist arguement by shouting that boys are a bigger victim than girls and Harriet is just looking after the girls. But just like any comparison, it needs to be like for like and this is not it. Boys and men are victims of domestic violence too, but not in the same numbers as women. It would be good if boys as victims were included in this report too, they may well be, but to try and beat Harman with the feminist stick by making incompatible comparisons between these two levels of victims is wrong.
A quarter of all violent assaults in England and Wales are carried out by women, and it is the most common reason for females to be arrested, recently overtaking theft and handling stolen goods.
So three quarters of all violent assaults are carried out by men.
Liberal Conspiracy: The plans are being rolled out despite evidence showing that boys and young men are more than twice as likely to fall victim to violence, and that it is in fact young women who are becoming increasingly mean: a staggering 25% of all violent assaults in England and Wales are carried out by vicious ladette women, and it is the most common reason for females to be arrested.
The other 75% of violent assaults are thought to be carried out by transvestites and gays, not men.
Mail: The Government claims that violence against women is costing Britain an astonishing £40billion. It has emerged they are carrying out five separate reviews into the causes and how women can be better protected. This is despite evidence showing that boys and young men are more than twice as likely to fall victim to violence, and that young women are becoming increasingly aggressive.
Mailwatch: The Mail is trying to destroy the feminist arguement by shouting that boys are a bigger victim than girls and Harriet is just looking after the girls. But just like any comparison, it needs to be like for like and this is not it. Boys and men are victims of domestic violence too, but not in the same numbers as women. It would be good if boys as victims were included in this report too, they may well be, but to try and beat Harman with the feminist stick by making incompatible comparisons between these two levels of victims is wrong.
A quarter of all violent assaults in England and Wales are carried out by women, and it is the most common reason for females to be arrested, recently overtaking theft and handling stolen goods.
So three quarters of all violent assaults are carried out by men.
Liberal Conspiracy: The plans are being rolled out despite evidence showing that boys and young men are more than twice as likely to fall victim to violence, and that it is in fact young women who are becoming increasingly mean: a staggering 25% of all violent assaults in England and Wales are carried out by vicious ladette women, and it is the most common reason for females to be arrested.
The other 75% of violent assaults are thought to be carried out by transvestites and gays, not men.
Labels: Daily Mail, domestic violence, Government, Harriet Harman, journalists, newspapers, women
Sunday, August 02, 2009
This article is classic Liz Jones, even though it's being written by someone else. There is just that indefinable something about her that, as the details of her sad life are laid out before us once again, just as we start to feel sorry for her there is some hateful detail that derails the whole process. She does it to herself, she does, and that's what really hurts... She has a clutch of emotional issues which, when turned inwards, help sustain her as an anorexic, low self-esteem and a feeling that she is unlovable. But they are also projected outwards into how she views everyone so that there's no real understanding or empathy when she hurts other people (such as calling her sister an 'alcoholic'). If the cliché for comedians is that they are crying inside then the cliché for Liz Jones is that she writes about beauty and beautiful things because inside she's aware of her own ugliness.
Labels: journalists, Liz Jones, Nirpal Dhaliwal
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
I've been thinking for a while of doing a special Nirpal Dhaliwal Watch 'where are they now', just because Liz Jones is still writing crap in the Mail and I can't believe that her ex-husband that she got divorced from so that she no longer need be married to him has actually grown a braincell so must still be being stupid somewhere. Maybe.
Anyway, to tide you over, Liz Jones continues her quest to tell the world how she is no longer married to ex-husband Nirpal Dhaliwal who she is divorced and completely separated from with this article on people who discuss their failing marriages and slag off their partners online. It's worth it for her impressive lack of self-awareness especially when she says things like
...Yet I still wonder why someone is compelled to give so much of themselves to strangers in cyberspace.
(That's Nirpal Dhaliwal Watch, in case you forgot) Liz Jones has a point, why give so much of yourself to strangers in cyberspace where, if you write a column for a newspaper you can make them pay for the privilege?
I think that, instead of a site telling you how to arm yourself both in emotional and legal terms, there should be a site which makes sure you actually want to get married in the first place.
Or translated, 'I wish there was something that had stopped me marrying Nirpal as I'm incapable of evaluating evidence and have a history of judgement predicated towards self-harm because I believe I'm fundamentally worthless and need to be punished'.
how can posting heartbreaking messages like this bring anyone any peace?
And this is why I had to stop doing Nirpal Dhaliwal Watch.
Anyway, to tide you over, Liz Jones continues her quest to tell the world how she is no longer married to ex-husband Nirpal Dhaliwal who she is divorced and completely separated from with this article on people who discuss their failing marriages and slag off their partners online. It's worth it for her impressive lack of self-awareness especially when she says things like
...Yet I still wonder why someone is compelled to give so much of themselves to strangers in cyberspace.
(That's Nirpal Dhaliwal Watch, in case you forgot) Liz Jones has a point, why give so much of yourself to strangers in cyberspace where, if you write a column for a newspaper you can make them pay for the privilege?
I think that, instead of a site telling you how to arm yourself both in emotional and legal terms, there should be a site which makes sure you actually want to get married in the first place.
Or translated, 'I wish there was something that had stopped me marrying Nirpal as I'm incapable of evaluating evidence and have a history of judgement predicated towards self-harm because I believe I'm fundamentally worthless and need to be punished'.
how can posting heartbreaking messages like this bring anyone any peace?
And this is why I had to stop doing Nirpal Dhaliwal Watch.
Labels: journalists, Liz Jones, Nirpal Dhaliwal
Sunday, May 31, 2009
YOU NEED ME TO TELL YOU WHAT TO DO.
Go here and download The Harvey Girls's free EP An Uncloudy Day. LISTEN. You won't regret it as it's between 4 and 4.07 times better than whatever crap you were listening to. [via Fluxblog]
READ. Sleeping with the NME: how the British music press picked up a dose of the crap. The public get the music press that no public could deserve. Though in their defence the gig was up in the late-nineties when the Britpop boom ended, tipping the control away from a music press that could chose who to write about to the PR companies who could now say whether the press could have access to their rosters or not depending on what they wrote. [via Warren Ellis]
READ. Sleeping with the NME: how the British music press picked up a dose of the crap. The public get the music press that no public could deserve. Though in their defence the gig was up in the late-nineties when the Britpop boom ended, tipping the control away from a music press that could chose who to write about to the PR companies who could now say whether the press could have access to their rosters or not depending on what they wrote. [via Warren Ellis]
Labels: Britpop, journalists, music
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Christina Patterson, presumably desperate to fill out her column for a week, launches a vile and unprovoked attack on NHS nurses for their all being huge overweight trolls in the Indy.
I'm sitting reading a book when a gargantuan creature comes lumbering over, and marches me to what might or might not be a scaffold. After a few adjustments... the creature nods.
The creature is, of course, a nurse and yes, my BMI is OK. Hers, however, is not. But we are not here to measure her BMI...
Other normal-sized friends have been told by giant doctors that they are fat... Because it is surreal, I'm afraid, to be lectured on your weight by someone whose mass of accumulated adipose tissue is considerably greater than yours.
No one expects nurses to look like supermodels, or lap dancers, or air hostesses, or even like anything that might ever have inspired an erotic fantasy... but you don't expect them all to look like Hattie Jacques either. And at least Hattie Jacques knew how to smile. You might, however, reasonably expect the custodians of the nation's health not to look as though they were about to consume the GDP of Iceland in medication for diabetes, and you might expect the custodians of the nation's health to at least have glanced at some of the leaflets on obesity they so lugubriously hand out.
Between this, their hysterical about-face on the legalisation of Cannabis and their continued employment of Deborah 'immigrant homosexuals follow me around to have gay sex in front of my children' Orr it does seem this once great paper is now slowly trying to position itself as the broadsheet Daily Mail.
I'm sitting reading a book when a gargantuan creature comes lumbering over, and marches me to what might or might not be a scaffold. After a few adjustments... the creature nods.
The creature is, of course, a nurse and yes, my BMI is OK. Hers, however, is not. But we are not here to measure her BMI...
Other normal-sized friends have been told by giant doctors that they are fat... Because it is surreal, I'm afraid, to be lectured on your weight by someone whose mass of accumulated adipose tissue is considerably greater than yours.
No one expects nurses to look like supermodels, or lap dancers, or air hostesses, or even like anything that might ever have inspired an erotic fantasy... but you don't expect them all to look like Hattie Jacques either. And at least Hattie Jacques knew how to smile. You might, however, reasonably expect the custodians of the nation's health not to look as though they were about to consume the GDP of Iceland in medication for diabetes, and you might expect the custodians of the nation's health to at least have glanced at some of the leaflets on obesity they so lugubriously hand out.
Between this, their hysterical about-face on the legalisation of Cannabis and their continued employment of Deborah 'immigrant homosexuals follow me around to have gay sex in front of my children' Orr it does seem this once great paper is now slowly trying to position itself as the broadsheet Daily Mail.
Labels: fat, fatism, journalists, NHS, The Independent
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
In Shock News, The Daily Mail Lies About Muslims Again, (And Libraries)
Those Muslims eh? They come over here, live perfectly quiet and respectable lives, get jobs, raise families, WHAT ARE THEY UP TO EH? The Daily Mail, in an exercise to allow people who have left this country to complain how bad things are (ie: "I saw a person with dark skin sit down on the bus! This is political correctness gone mad! I'm moving to Spain!!!") regularly prints fictional articles, and today it's about how libraries are supposedly going to be told to put the Koran on their top shelves to avoid offending Muslims. Only, if you note that this guidance is coming from the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council and do the literally seconds of work needed to find the report (PDF file) you'll find that Steve Doughty, the Daily Mail journalist, has lied. The MLA are not telling me, or any of my colleagues, to put the Koran above other things, they are reporting on Leicester City Libraries receiving a few complaints about the Koran not being on the top shelf. It wasn't even a campaign by a group of disgruntled Muslims, the Library Service went out and talked to such a group for their opinion. The report doesn't even mention whether Leicester followed the group's advice.
I suppose that what gets my goat is that when left-leaning journalists (or at least journalists that are defined as left-wing purely because they are not as right-wing as neo-cons and other Far-Right theocons) make a mistake they are rightly pilloried and often hounded out of their jobs, however, when those right-wing ideologues make similar mistakes (and let's face it, they assume their audience is so lazy that it won't take a minute to examine their logical fallacies or evidence) they have normally put their lies and misinformation within such a secure web of protective censorship that they can't be challenged. And they claim the largely non-existent 'left-wing media' doesn't allow for criticism!
I suppose that what gets my goat is that when left-leaning journalists (or at least journalists that are defined as left-wing purely because they are not as right-wing as neo-cons and other Far-Right theocons) make a mistake they are rightly pilloried and often hounded out of their jobs, however, when those right-wing ideologues make similar mistakes (and let's face it, they assume their audience is so lazy that it won't take a minute to examine their logical fallacies or evidence) they have normally put their lies and misinformation within such a secure web of protective censorship that they can't be challenged. And they claim the largely non-existent 'left-wing media' doesn't allow for criticism!
Labels: Conservatives, Daily Mail, Islam, Islamophobia, journalists, Koran, libraries, Museums Libraries and Archives Council, Muslims, religion
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
There are a couple of letters in the Indy about the bollocks of an article Deborah Orr wrote at the weekend. It's a start.
Labels: heteronormativity, homophobia, journalists, Peter Tatchell, The Independent
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Fuck your noise Deborah Orr. Because no heterosexual sex has ever happened outside.
Labels: heteronormativity, homophobia, journalists, stupidity, The Independent
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Guys, here's Tad's top tips for dealing with the women in your life....
Ignore them, bribe them, don't argue with them...
Here we go again.
Ignore them, bribe them, don't argue with them...
Here we go again.
Labels: journalists, misogyny, Tad Safran
Friday, January 11, 2008
When Liz Jones met Tad Safran, it was moider! (Sadly, not in the literal sense.
Labels: journalists, Liz Jones, misogyny, Tad Safran
Monday, December 17, 2007
Tad Safran: I'm never getting laid in the UK again.
With lots of 'I'm sorry... sorry you suck!' language.
What started out as a light-hearted, anecdotal account of my impressions of dating women on both sides of the Atlantic has exploded into a national furore.
Which is a slight exaggeration. Northern Rock collapsing was a national furore. The Government losing people's personal data was a national furore. You just pissed off a bunch of people with access to the Internets.
I was utterly unprepared for the avalanche [of responses], but I stick to my guns: when British women reach the age where looking good is no longer effortless, they seem unwilling or unable to rise to the challenge. And judging by the vitriol of the response, I realise I’ve not only touched a nerve, I’ve reached into the underbelly of a deep, dark insecurity. Nobody gets that defensive about something they don’t care about...
...And God forbid any woman should be motivated by trying to attract a man. Apparently British women have overcome a billion years of biology.
Tad, meet Nirpal. Congratulations on deciding that a)lesbians don't exist (although I suppose we should be thankful you restrained your charming wit from making a 'joke' about them being the fat ladies), b) generalising from your own experience that men only want size 0 girls.
And I can’t help feeling I’ve let British women off lightly. It’s not just the Americans you don’t compare to: British women don’t have the curves of the Italians, the simmering sexuality of the Spanish, the sophistication of the French or the openness of the Scandinavians.
So what do British women have? Top spot in the European obesity table. Top spot in the European teen pregnancy table. And the only spots (besides Denmark) in the chart showing rising alcohol consumption among women in western Europe.
Well done, Britain. If what women are striving for is the ability to get hammered and fall over in the street, Britain is a feminist paradise from coast to coast.
And a last minute invoking of the 'feminist=ugly' myth. That should generate enough heat to keep several old folks homes warm for the winter.
With lots of 'I'm sorry... sorry you suck!' language.
What started out as a light-hearted, anecdotal account of my impressions of dating women on both sides of the Atlantic has exploded into a national furore.
Which is a slight exaggeration. Northern Rock collapsing was a national furore. The Government losing people's personal data was a national furore. You just pissed off a bunch of people with access to the Internets.
I was utterly unprepared for the avalanche [of responses], but I stick to my guns: when British women reach the age where looking good is no longer effortless, they seem unwilling or unable to rise to the challenge. And judging by the vitriol of the response, I realise I’ve not only touched a nerve, I’ve reached into the underbelly of a deep, dark insecurity. Nobody gets that defensive about something they don’t care about...
...And God forbid any woman should be motivated by trying to attract a man. Apparently British women have overcome a billion years of biology.
Tad, meet Nirpal. Congratulations on deciding that a)lesbians don't exist (although I suppose we should be thankful you restrained your charming wit from making a 'joke' about them being the fat ladies), b) generalising from your own experience that men only want size 0 girls.
And I can’t help feeling I’ve let British women off lightly. It’s not just the Americans you don’t compare to: British women don’t have the curves of the Italians, the simmering sexuality of the Spanish, the sophistication of the French or the openness of the Scandinavians.
So what do British women have? Top spot in the European obesity table. Top spot in the European teen pregnancy table. And the only spots (besides Denmark) in the chart showing rising alcohol consumption among women in western Europe.
Well done, Britain. If what women are striving for is the ability to get hammered and fall over in the street, Britain is a feminist paradise from coast to coast.
And a last minute invoking of the 'feminist=ugly' myth. That should generate enough heat to keep several old folks homes warm for the winter.
Labels: beauty, fatism, journalists, misogyny, Tad Safran, women
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Hmmm, in the evening the Daily Mail reports on what we were all talking about this morning. I do like the way they are trying to write this in a way that doesn't look like they just bought a copy of The Times and cribbed from that.
Labels: beauty, Daily Mail, journalists, misogyny, newspapers, Tad Safran, United Kingdom
Painfully single American screenwriter says all British women are fat, frumpy, ugly, not obsessed enough about their appearance, unfriendly and dress like hookers. This being in The Times, most of the comments posted afterwards make Tad Safran appear to be moderate in his opinions.
Labels: beauty, journalists, misogyny, Tad Safran, United Kingdom
Sunday, December 09, 2007
British Journalism, Best in the World
You have either Nick Cohen trying to suggest that the Turner Prize judges supported Saddam Hussein's gassing of the Kurds, or Brendan O'Neill, trying to suggest that Brighton & Hove Council banning the music of homophobic reggae stars is worse than anti-LGB lyrics and violence in Jamaica. O'Neill also tries to create the phrase homophobia-phobia, which is apparently an 'irrational' fear that people who want to beat you up will beat you up.
Labels: homophobia, Iraq, journalists, music, Tate Modern/Britain
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Memo to the McCanns: you're not helping. Yes, almost six months later and someone 'just happens to remember' something that happened at the time of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in which a figure was seen carrying a child wearing the identical nightclothes to Madeleine, but she didn't think it was important at the time and she can't remember what he or she looked like.
This is the biggest pile of shit on the planet since dinosaurs looked up and saw the meteor coming. The number of people genuinely concerned about this poor child's disappearance has, since the start, been massively outnumbered by the vast bulk of the British public who don't care. If the McCanns genuinely worry that public opinion is turning against them and it's not just another ploy to keep their name in the news then they need to stop pulling this crap. I mean, what is it supposed to achieve? Are they trying to annoy the United Kingdom so much that the entire country empties in to Portugal to find the body? The criminal investigation is being conducted in another country. If the McCanns are charged with their daughter's death then they will be on trial in another country where no Brits will be on the jury.
The sad truth is that the disappearance of this little girl is just another soap opera, up there with some stick-thin actresses new diet or Jade Goody's latest racist outburst. If people are less sympathetic it is perhaps because the McCann's mistook their interest in the story for genuine feeling, when in fact the public just want the story to end. After all, J.K. Rowling finished her story eventually, when are the McCann's going to have the grace to do the same? Have they not found their kid yet? That's too bad, shuffle them off the stage, we've got another celebrity sex scandal ready to go. If the McCanns refuse to go quietly well, fuck them. Who do they think they are?
Meanwhile, Charlie Brooker has it about right on the media's shameless behaviour during the summer.
This is the biggest pile of shit on the planet since dinosaurs looked up and saw the meteor coming. The number of people genuinely concerned about this poor child's disappearance has, since the start, been massively outnumbered by the vast bulk of the British public who don't care. If the McCanns genuinely worry that public opinion is turning against them and it's not just another ploy to keep their name in the news then they need to stop pulling this crap. I mean, what is it supposed to achieve? Are they trying to annoy the United Kingdom so much that the entire country empties in to Portugal to find the body? The criminal investigation is being conducted in another country. If the McCanns are charged with their daughter's death then they will be on trial in another country where no Brits will be on the jury.
The sad truth is that the disappearance of this little girl is just another soap opera, up there with some stick-thin actresses new diet or Jade Goody's latest racist outburst. If people are less sympathetic it is perhaps because the McCann's mistook their interest in the story for genuine feeling, when in fact the public just want the story to end. After all, J.K. Rowling finished her story eventually, when are the McCann's going to have the grace to do the same? Have they not found their kid yet? That's too bad, shuffle them off the stage, we've got another celebrity sex scandal ready to go. If the McCanns refuse to go quietly well, fuck them. Who do they think they are?
Meanwhile, Charlie Brooker has it about right on the media's shameless behaviour during the summer.
Labels: journalists, Madeleine McCann, media
Gah, is there anyone in the world who is more evil than Melanie Phillips without being a world dictator or involved with the Jeremy Kyle show? If the facts don't agree with your argument, use different facts. If the prejudice isn't against the Jews, it's okay. However, it's interesting that, at least for now, Phillips' Spectator blog has comments enabled. She disabled them on her website a few years ago when people kept pointing out the inconvenient truths that she left out of her arguments. Time for the children to have some fun methinks.
Labels: journalists, Melanie Phillips
Friday, October 19, 2007
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Nirpal Dhaliwal - Watch Part Sixteen - So it's come to this?
Parts One to Ten, Part Eleven, Part Twelve, Part Thirteen, Part Fourteen, Part Fifteen.
So, I've just watched the last episode of The Sopranos (I'm way behind on all my telly watching) and I'm in a bad mood, but also in the mood for a bit of self-deception and mistaken beliefs as to what makes someone a man in this modern age. But, sadly, there's not much to see there either. Liz'n'Nirps seem to be keeping largely schtum on their private lives and each other, turning out articles on current affairs or fashion. If the terms of the divorce include agreements not to refer to one another in print then we might be facing a sudden blackout on this column too.
There's not much to say on the state of Nirpal in September. Mostly articles about culture, one slamming Boris Johnson as a racist rather than a cheerful eccentric, but there is this on the 7th:
What divorce and Keira told me about England ; For one writer it took the new film of Ian McEwan's novel Atonement to reveal the deeper truth behind English reserve
Evening Standard (London); Sep 7, 2007;
RARELY have I seen a film that's so good it made me rethink my life. But watching Atonement, the film of Ian McEwan's novel, did exactly that. It is a great film about Englishness, that made me reflect on my relationships with the English and made me wonder whether I can truly be one of them.
I've tended to regard English reserve and understatement as a cold and aloof pose of superiority that implied a lack of human concern. Watching James McAvoy play Atonement's hero, Robbie Turner, I saw how this reserve is cultural and, in fact, a language of its own, full of emotional intensity and texture, that when expressed is all the more telling for having leaked through the cracks of self- control.
Readers of the novel will already know the plot but there is a real treat in store at the cinema if, like me, you come to it new. A victim of injustice, prised apart from the woman he loves, Robbie forced lumps into my throat as he stifled tears and measured his temper. His restraint displayed more rage, longing and despair than any character I can remember. He showed that the English are a people seething with passion but who express it in a way that others barely perceive.
Born in England, I am English. But I was raised by Indians in a neighbourhood where most of the people I knew were immigrants or their children. My education in English mores and mannerisms came mostly from TV and schoolteachers. Though I have native English friends and married an English woman, it is only now that I realise how I've misread them.
I was raised around tactile people whose emotional lives were writ large on their faces, who didn't consider, let alone censor their feelings before shooting their mouths off. In McEwan's novel, the only moment in which a character gives full vent to her emotions is when Robbie's working-class mother shrieks and thrashes the police car that is taking away her son for a crime he didn't commit: an exceptional expression of elemental feelings that cannot be withheld.
Re-reading that passage I smiled, remembering how it only took the discovery of a packet of cigarettes under my bed to send my mum into a similar fit. Anyone who thinks that Bollywood films are unfeasibly melodramatic doesn't know Indians and certainly not Punjabis.
My grandparents' generation of Punjabi Sikhs were earthy, peasant stock, and my parents inherited their operatic emotionality. Feelings ran riot in my family: laughter and raging arguments rang through the house in vast and equal measures. I'd be screamed at for minor misbehaviour, but also cuddled, petted and physically cherished. To this day, I hug and kiss my parents and siblings on saying hello and goodbye. My personality contains many ancestral traits, though now expressed in a cockney accent: I am gobby, sentimental, habitually foul-mouthed, and effusive.
For those from more expressive cultures, the English can seem like they exist behind a pane of glass impossible to grasp and connect with. My first real immersion in English life was at university, where I often felt alone and isolated. But much of it was due to my inability to appreciate the warmth that was extended to me, articulated in a muted form that was wholly foreign.
On first meeting, Indians will ask one another intimate questions about their family and marital status, their parents' occupations, and their own hopes and ambitions. The English, however, tiptoe into their relationships, and the seemingly anodyne conversations I heard the other students have about the weather, their schools and pets were in fact a subtle creation of rapport and a gauging of mutual compatibility that assessed social background and values. It was a code I couldn't read.
I regarded it as empty, platitudinous chitchat, and subsequently overlooked many people's good-natured efforts to befriend me.
The only other Asian on my degree course had been to public school. In my company he would be openly warm and expressive, but in a group he'd become restrained and impersonal, while I remained as fulsome as ever.
I thought he did this because he was embarrassed by me and wanted to disassociate himself; but he was simply engaging with the English in their language and making them at ease. My own tempestuous nature and instinctive over-familiarity often unsettled them.
They found it overbearing and intrusive, and I would regard their recoiling from my manner as a personal rejection.
My misunderstanding of Englishness even contributed to the failure of my marriage. I resented my wife for what I saw as detachment and indifference, when her concern was constantly expressed in words and gestures that were below my emotional radar.
For instance, when a close friend of mine died, I was bitter at the lack of emotion she displayed at the funeral. My friend had been black, as were most of the other mourners, and people I hardly knew took me in their arms and comforted me, while my wife stood aside seeming impassive. But she was the daughter of a former army captain, raised to display emotion with discrimination and formality. While I begrudged the absence of a hug from her, I had overlooked the enormous sentiment she had expressed by taking time and exercising her taste to select a beautiful wreath. It was a cultural symbol that had been lost on me.
My marriage failed my decree nisi has just come through and I'd thought I'd be making flippant jokes this week about how my divorce had marked another day of Indian independence.
But having seen Atonement, I have instead contemplated the theme of Englishness and how I've often woefully misjudged it.
I also know it is a subject that I am only just beginning to grasp. Now in my thirties, having experienced some of life's major issues love, death, divorce I've finally acquired the sobriety and evenness to appreciate the understated nuances of the English culture that, until now, have been almost invisible to me.
The essence of the English exists in their silences, in how they load quiet actions with extraordinary content.
McEwan captures this beautifully in a passage in which Robbie briefly meets Cecilia the love of his life after being separated for years. Unable to speak, he takes her hand just before parting. "The gesture had to carry all that had not been said," writes McEwan, "and she answered it with pressure from her own hand." The English are hard on themselves for not making more of an effort to understand other cultures; but it should also be stated just how poorly others understand them.
Meanwhile, Liz Jones writes:
MUST they subsidise motherhood as if it were dormant farmland?
The Mail on Sunday (London); Sep 16, 2007;
WHAT a strange week. First the Government pledges 120 for pregnant women to encourage them to eat more fruit and veg.
Next thing you know, David Cameron distances himself from a Tory Policy Group environmental report, which controversially suggests a ban on free supermarket car parks, saying his priority is to ensure families can still make ends meet.
I can keep quiet no longer.
I am going to say the unsayable.
There is no point fiddling while Rome (or London or Beijing) burns fossil fuels by suggesting we all boil less water in our kettles and switch off our plasma screens at source.
The only way to be really green is not to have children.
Of course, this is a terribly non- PC thing to bring up. Mothers are the last sacred cows in our society, untouchable, beyond reproach. When I was the editor of a woman's magazine, my then fashion director told me she was off on her second maternity leave in two years, to which I responded: 'Oh, that's annoying.' From the looks on the faces of the assembled (female) staff, you'd have thought I'd made a racist remark.
No one is allowed to complain when they are left to pick up the slack as every mum in the office hares out of the door at six on the dot, millions of plastic carrier bags in tow, hell-bent on creating a nappy mountain. No one is allowed to yawn while a new mum, who surely made this particular rod for her own back in the first place, complains about lack of sleep, or time, or affordable child care, or a big enough house.
And while I can understand the need to have one child, or even two, why on Earth have three, or four? No one is allowed to even raise an eyebrow at the Ruth Kellys and Nicola Horlicks of this world; au contraire, they are labelled Superwomen.
And don't try to tell me that men these days are more involved.
You only have to read Alastair Campbell's diaries to realise that children are mere dots on the horizon; good God, what woman, with Campbell's job and offspring, would find time to go swimming and train for a marathon? When I asked a friend of mine with three boys why she was trying for a fourth child, she responded indignantly: 'I just really want a girl.' Why on Earth does the Government subsidise motherhood as if it were dormant farmland, with lump sums of 250 at birth, free IVF, the right to an expensive home birth and help with child care, when in reality it is fuelling a society in which we all think we deserve everything, from a new car to an exotic holiday to an iPhone or a baby of the right sex, no matter the (environmental) cost?
Isn't parenthood just rampant consumerism? Like leaving the tap running while you floss, only a million times worse? A brood is the ultimate badge of goodness, used by everyone from the Blairs to the Camerons to the horrid, high-maintenance mum who lives not far from me, who is always posting 'Do not ring bell, baby sleeping!' signs on her front door, but then takes the wretched child to a fashion show where the decibels surpass rock-concert levels.
The idea that only parents make up the hard-working backbone of Britain, that the singletons of this world are frivolous and selfish, is nonsense.
I have just read Singled Out by Virginia Nicholson, a fascinating book that celebrates women who, having been forced to abandon expectations of becoming wives and mums due to the shortage dormant farmland of men after two world wars, became married to their careers in nursing and teaching instead, and were amazing, inspiring, dedicated.
I know that after 40 years of feminism, we are all supposed to toe the 'having-it-all' line, but I think too often a child is conceived as a status symbol, to prove that you can.
I have a friend who is a very powerful magazine editor, and she told me that when she hit her early 40s she earned more money than she could possibly spend, felt her life lacked meaning and so decided to have a child as 'something to do'. This is worse than catching a plane, surely? OW, I know I will be accused of sour grapes, and I'm the first to admit that while on the outside I might still wear Balenciaga jodhpurs and toe-rings, on the inside my womb is now lined with a doily.
I left motherhood too late not because I was trying to shatter the glass ceiling, but because I never met the right man.
I have ended up child-free not by design but by misfortune, so shouldn't I at least get the 120 towards cat food? Or a special designated parking space right by the door at Waitrose, with 'Barren, likely to die alone' daubed in white paint on the ground as my reward for not contributing to the predicted global population of 7.6 billion by 2020? Probably not, but I can dream.
So, where do we go from here?
So, I've just watched the last episode of The Sopranos (I'm way behind on all my telly watching) and I'm in a bad mood, but also in the mood for a bit of self-deception and mistaken beliefs as to what makes someone a man in this modern age. But, sadly, there's not much to see there either. Liz'n'Nirps seem to be keeping largely schtum on their private lives and each other, turning out articles on current affairs or fashion. If the terms of the divorce include agreements not to refer to one another in print then we might be facing a sudden blackout on this column too.
There's not much to say on the state of Nirpal in September. Mostly articles about culture, one slamming Boris Johnson as a racist rather than a cheerful eccentric, but there is this on the 7th:
What divorce and Keira told me about England ; For one writer it took the new film of Ian McEwan's novel Atonement to reveal the deeper truth behind English reserve
Evening Standard (London); Sep 7, 2007;
RARELY have I seen a film that's so good it made me rethink my life. But watching Atonement, the film of Ian McEwan's novel, did exactly that. It is a great film about Englishness, that made me reflect on my relationships with the English and made me wonder whether I can truly be one of them.
I've tended to regard English reserve and understatement as a cold and aloof pose of superiority that implied a lack of human concern. Watching James McAvoy play Atonement's hero, Robbie Turner, I saw how this reserve is cultural and, in fact, a language of its own, full of emotional intensity and texture, that when expressed is all the more telling for having leaked through the cracks of self- control.
Readers of the novel will already know the plot but there is a real treat in store at the cinema if, like me, you come to it new. A victim of injustice, prised apart from the woman he loves, Robbie forced lumps into my throat as he stifled tears and measured his temper. His restraint displayed more rage, longing and despair than any character I can remember. He showed that the English are a people seething with passion but who express it in a way that others barely perceive.
Born in England, I am English. But I was raised by Indians in a neighbourhood where most of the people I knew were immigrants or their children. My education in English mores and mannerisms came mostly from TV and schoolteachers. Though I have native English friends and married an English woman, it is only now that I realise how I've misread them.
I was raised around tactile people whose emotional lives were writ large on their faces, who didn't consider, let alone censor their feelings before shooting their mouths off. In McEwan's novel, the only moment in which a character gives full vent to her emotions is when Robbie's working-class mother shrieks and thrashes the police car that is taking away her son for a crime he didn't commit: an exceptional expression of elemental feelings that cannot be withheld.
Re-reading that passage I smiled, remembering how it only took the discovery of a packet of cigarettes under my bed to send my mum into a similar fit. Anyone who thinks that Bollywood films are unfeasibly melodramatic doesn't know Indians and certainly not Punjabis.
My grandparents' generation of Punjabi Sikhs were earthy, peasant stock, and my parents inherited their operatic emotionality. Feelings ran riot in my family: laughter and raging arguments rang through the house in vast and equal measures. I'd be screamed at for minor misbehaviour, but also cuddled, petted and physically cherished. To this day, I hug and kiss my parents and siblings on saying hello and goodbye. My personality contains many ancestral traits, though now expressed in a cockney accent: I am gobby, sentimental, habitually foul-mouthed, and effusive.
For those from more expressive cultures, the English can seem like they exist behind a pane of glass impossible to grasp and connect with. My first real immersion in English life was at university, where I often felt alone and isolated. But much of it was due to my inability to appreciate the warmth that was extended to me, articulated in a muted form that was wholly foreign.
On first meeting, Indians will ask one another intimate questions about their family and marital status, their parents' occupations, and their own hopes and ambitions. The English, however, tiptoe into their relationships, and the seemingly anodyne conversations I heard the other students have about the weather, their schools and pets were in fact a subtle creation of rapport and a gauging of mutual compatibility that assessed social background and values. It was a code I couldn't read.
I regarded it as empty, platitudinous chitchat, and subsequently overlooked many people's good-natured efforts to befriend me.
The only other Asian on my degree course had been to public school. In my company he would be openly warm and expressive, but in a group he'd become restrained and impersonal, while I remained as fulsome as ever.
I thought he did this because he was embarrassed by me and wanted to disassociate himself; but he was simply engaging with the English in their language and making them at ease. My own tempestuous nature and instinctive over-familiarity often unsettled them.
They found it overbearing and intrusive, and I would regard their recoiling from my manner as a personal rejection.
My misunderstanding of Englishness even contributed to the failure of my marriage. I resented my wife for what I saw as detachment and indifference, when her concern was constantly expressed in words and gestures that were below my emotional radar.
For instance, when a close friend of mine died, I was bitter at the lack of emotion she displayed at the funeral. My friend had been black, as were most of the other mourners, and people I hardly knew took me in their arms and comforted me, while my wife stood aside seeming impassive. But she was the daughter of a former army captain, raised to display emotion with discrimination and formality. While I begrudged the absence of a hug from her, I had overlooked the enormous sentiment she had expressed by taking time and exercising her taste to select a beautiful wreath. It was a cultural symbol that had been lost on me.
My marriage failed my decree nisi has just come through and I'd thought I'd be making flippant jokes this week about how my divorce had marked another day of Indian independence.
But having seen Atonement, I have instead contemplated the theme of Englishness and how I've often woefully misjudged it.
I also know it is a subject that I am only just beginning to grasp. Now in my thirties, having experienced some of life's major issues love, death, divorce I've finally acquired the sobriety and evenness to appreciate the understated nuances of the English culture that, until now, have been almost invisible to me.
The essence of the English exists in their silences, in how they load quiet actions with extraordinary content.
McEwan captures this beautifully in a passage in which Robbie briefly meets Cecilia the love of his life after being separated for years. Unable to speak, he takes her hand just before parting. "The gesture had to carry all that had not been said," writes McEwan, "and she answered it with pressure from her own hand." The English are hard on themselves for not making more of an effort to understand other cultures; but it should also be stated just how poorly others understand them.
Meanwhile, Liz Jones writes:
MUST they subsidise motherhood as if it were dormant farmland?
The Mail on Sunday (London); Sep 16, 2007;
WHAT a strange week. First the Government pledges 120 for pregnant women to encourage them to eat more fruit and veg.
Next thing you know, David Cameron distances himself from a Tory Policy Group environmental report, which controversially suggests a ban on free supermarket car parks, saying his priority is to ensure families can still make ends meet.
I can keep quiet no longer.
I am going to say the unsayable.
There is no point fiddling while Rome (or London or Beijing) burns fossil fuels by suggesting we all boil less water in our kettles and switch off our plasma screens at source.
The only way to be really green is not to have children.
Of course, this is a terribly non- PC thing to bring up. Mothers are the last sacred cows in our society, untouchable, beyond reproach. When I was the editor of a woman's magazine, my then fashion director told me she was off on her second maternity leave in two years, to which I responded: 'Oh, that's annoying.' From the looks on the faces of the assembled (female) staff, you'd have thought I'd made a racist remark.
No one is allowed to complain when they are left to pick up the slack as every mum in the office hares out of the door at six on the dot, millions of plastic carrier bags in tow, hell-bent on creating a nappy mountain. No one is allowed to yawn while a new mum, who surely made this particular rod for her own back in the first place, complains about lack of sleep, or time, or affordable child care, or a big enough house.
And while I can understand the need to have one child, or even two, why on Earth have three, or four? No one is allowed to even raise an eyebrow at the Ruth Kellys and Nicola Horlicks of this world; au contraire, they are labelled Superwomen.
And don't try to tell me that men these days are more involved.
You only have to read Alastair Campbell's diaries to realise that children are mere dots on the horizon; good God, what woman, with Campbell's job and offspring, would find time to go swimming and train for a marathon? When I asked a friend of mine with three boys why she was trying for a fourth child, she responded indignantly: 'I just really want a girl.' Why on Earth does the Government subsidise motherhood as if it were dormant farmland, with lump sums of 250 at birth, free IVF, the right to an expensive home birth and help with child care, when in reality it is fuelling a society in which we all think we deserve everything, from a new car to an exotic holiday to an iPhone or a baby of the right sex, no matter the (environmental) cost?
Isn't parenthood just rampant consumerism? Like leaving the tap running while you floss, only a million times worse? A brood is the ultimate badge of goodness, used by everyone from the Blairs to the Camerons to the horrid, high-maintenance mum who lives not far from me, who is always posting 'Do not ring bell, baby sleeping!' signs on her front door, but then takes the wretched child to a fashion show where the decibels surpass rock-concert levels.
The idea that only parents make up the hard-working backbone of Britain, that the singletons of this world are frivolous and selfish, is nonsense.
I have just read Singled Out by Virginia Nicholson, a fascinating book that celebrates women who, having been forced to abandon expectations of becoming wives and mums due to the shortage dormant farmland of men after two world wars, became married to their careers in nursing and teaching instead, and were amazing, inspiring, dedicated.
I know that after 40 years of feminism, we are all supposed to toe the 'having-it-all' line, but I think too often a child is conceived as a status symbol, to prove that you can.
I have a friend who is a very powerful magazine editor, and she told me that when she hit her early 40s she earned more money than she could possibly spend, felt her life lacked meaning and so decided to have a child as 'something to do'. This is worse than catching a plane, surely? OW, I know I will be accused of sour grapes, and I'm the first to admit that while on the outside I might still wear Balenciaga jodhpurs and toe-rings, on the inside my womb is now lined with a doily.
I left motherhood too late not because I was trying to shatter the glass ceiling, but because I never met the right man.
I have ended up child-free not by design but by misfortune, so shouldn't I at least get the 120 towards cat food? Or a special designated parking space right by the door at Waitrose, with 'Barren, likely to die alone' daubed in white paint on the ground as my reward for not contributing to the predicted global population of 7.6 billion by 2020? Probably not, but I can dream.
So, where do we go from here?
Labels: journalists, Liz Jones, Nirpal Dhaliwal
