For what it's worth I had exactly the same treatment from MacSweeney and
Pickard - I was told I was a middle class Southern poof, yuppie wanker etc,
when in reality I grew up in a council flat, my father was a car mechanic and
so on. They were a pair of macho poseurs alright - I strongly suspect them of
being middle-class themselves, like so many Northern culture operatives who
trade on working-class identity. Having said that, I always liked their poetry
and what they stood for in that sense, and was prepared to treat the rest of
it as a joke or a misunderstanding.
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