Amazingly it is possible to still laugh out loud at this terrible state of affairs!
4 Likes
Yes, indeed it is a terrible state of affairs when a Guardian columnist resorts to engaging in an offensive tirade of personal slurs against Members of Parliament and also has so little command of English that they have to resort to bad language in order to do it.
The fall in standards in journalism is indeed something to be mourned.
1 Like
Bad language?? You have clearly led a very sheltered existence.
Veiled threats on the other hand, are considered hate crime by both UK and French police forces. Just saying.
5 Likes
“Fellowship of the Ringpieces”
Brexit(eers) in a nutshell
Quite the contrary actually. However surely you would agree that the increasing use of foul language in the national press is hardly something that promotes a good image of our nation.
I would have thought that a national newspaper columnist should be a sufficiently skilled wordsmith so as not to have to resort to the type of vulgarity that one would not wish one’s mother to read.
By the way — I have to admit to being rather lost as to why you make mention of veiled threats ?
Do you honestly want me to post your pm to James sent over the weekend? Or would you prefer that I went straight to the police?
1 Like
I’m going to work now and will be mainly internet free for the next 24 hours if anyone else is following this with interest. A suivre as they say…
1 Like
Considering that no threat whatsoever was made, I would be at ease with you doing both things.
Oh come off it, who are you to police your mother’s reading - the older generation are hardly delicate flowers and can make their own minds up about what they read, my Granny read English at St Andrews before WWII and it would take more than Marina Hyde’s article to shock her - just think of Chaucer and Shakespeare, Jacobean drama and Restoration comedy! And that’s before you even consider the ones who are out to shock like Orton and the other angry young men 
6 Likes
There have been few positives to the brexit debacle - but Marina Hyde’s and John Crace’s often hilarious columns in The Guardian have gone some way to lighten the gloom…
3 Likes
Well said Vero.
1 Like
I’ve read it three or four times now and still haven’t seen anything I wouldn’t want my mother to read. I regularly get called worse by people who are supposed to be grateful for the care I am giving them
4 Likes
Nice digs: The government has bought a $15.9m (ÂŁ12m) seven bedroom luxury New York apartment for a senior British civil servant charged with signing fresh trade deals in a post-Brexit world, the Guardian can reveal.
…One of the staff rooms works out at 6.3 sq metres – only slightly larger than the minimum legal size of a prison cell. One of the apartment’s three walk-in wardrobes is larger than both the staff rooms…
I think the Guardian is an excellent organ. I particularly like Marina Hyde and John Crace, they show the appropriate level of respect for the clowns that have brought the UK to this sorry state.
4 Likes
The apartment is bigger than some of the countries Dr. Fox is targeting as key UK growth markets.
3 Likes
Jepp! maybe brexit is no more necessary, now when the winnings are shared by the owners of UK.
Actually I think that we all have a duty to speak out when we see standards slipping in a way that we find objectionable and offensive. The use of vulgarity to make a point is simply not necessary, and in fact often detracts from the value of what a person is trying to say.
For example:- I went to see the film “The Favourite” recently, and although I enjoyed some aspects of the film I was shocked by the repeated use of a particular word to refer to female genitalia, the use of which would certainly get a person thrown out of any decent English pub.
I find it both unpleasant and unnecessary.
We have a beautiful and expressive language and it would be preferable if newspapers used it to enrich their readership rather than to slide into the mire of offensiveness designed to do little other than denigrate and belittle those people with opinions with which they do not agree.
1 Like
That word was probably in acceptable use during the period the film was set Do you think that realism should be sacrificed for your sensitive feelings. I don’t particularly like the c bomb as it is derogatory to women but it’s a word at the end of the day
Actually, that particular word has been classified as vulgar and obscene for at least 600 years, which of course means that it was so classified when Queen Anne acceded to the throne, and was not in acceptable use at that time.
Doesn’t mean it wasn’t used though
2 Likes