Mary Riddell of the Absurder: DESTROY AND ANNIHILATE NOW!!!

The usual exaggeratedly rose-tintedly europhile, neurotically self-hating, writing-the-blindly-obvious-as-though-it-was-a-great-revelation, absurdly excessively Brit-bashing piffle that fills her every column, of course, but this bit of the article struck me as particularly insane:

"Meanwhile in France ... the tactic is to modernise the old" (falls over hysterically, rolls sides) ... "following the booing of the national anthem at a football match, the Jospin government last week sent all schools a techno-dance of the bloodthirsty old battle hymm. Samba and jazz versions of the Marseillaise are already available on CD" (true, but has this occured to you that this might be a deliberate attempt to counter their deserved reputation for fear of cultural / linguistic hybridisation, Mary? Have you *any idea* of the national outcry that greeted Gainsbourg's "Aux Armes Et Cetera"?) ... "Here the converse mood is to mistrust new cultural trends, good or bad, unless they have the reek of the arcane" (BOLLOCKS!!!!! Just look at our music, our arts, our literature, the best of our architecture, the way all kinds of American *and* mainland European influences have found a footing here when most of the world was still indifferent, our absence of a mainstream far-right movement ... people as diverse as the Beatles and Fairport Convention were modernising the old and giving us a worldwide reputation as such when France was still ruled by Gaullism, not known for its tolerance of such influences. Has she ever been outside?)

Hacks like this need to stop navel-gazing and sense the self-confidence within most British people. Even Decca Aitkenhead or Shane Watson might, just, be preferable.

Anyway, who's the most irritating writer on the UK "liberal" press? Is there someone worse than the ones I've mentioned?