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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 >