Dominic Fox wrote:
> On 10/7/06, Jennifer Compton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> just iot back to poetryetc after 6 months away
>> how has gillian mckeith offended?
>>
>
> By existing. Although her existence were in itself innocuous, or at
> worst mildly nocuous. By being a symptom, then, of a general
> condescension, buttressed by bogus credentials and with sinister
> overtones.
>
> Jimmy Carr, on the telly the other night: "We need a little chlorine
> in the gene pool". Jonathon Ross, that same evening: "Maybe we ought
> to put something in the water to stop some people from reproducing.
> *cough* Council estates! *cough*".
Who are all these people? Do they matter? Do these snotty opinionators
exist outside the telly or the yellow press? Not living in the UK any
more, I really don't know.
>
> This plus a ridiculous, cried-up secular-democratic fervour against
> Muslims. As if there were more than a handful of genuine secular
> democrats to be found anywhere between Land's End and John O'Groats.
> As if even the worst of the Muslims were any worse than the worst of
> the Anglicans.
Well, according to Yeats "the worst are full of passionate intensity",
which may be true of Muslims, but surely not of Anglicans - or do you
know of Anglican dens of passionate iniquity? The anti-Muslim hysteria
exists here in France, too. Mind you, in this village it's the Belgians
that piss them off most. Jews aren't very popular, either.
>
> We seem to be on a mission to rival the Victorians for smug, canting
> hypocrisy. Pity we can't also rival them for industry, social vigour
> or scientific discovery.
Or novel-writing. Poetry would be an interesting moot point.
I can't judge on the scientific discovery question - I would have
thought that the UK was doing fairly well in that department.
emjay
>
> Dominic
>
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