Lazy Curmudgeonly Hackery

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1069352/QUENTIN-LETTS-The-50-people-wrecked-Britain.html

I will freely admit that this is astonishing.

19 Topsy and Tim

Twins Topsy and Tim are sister and brother. They are aged five and have remained that age since they first blighted our culture in 1960.

They live in a town and lead lives of blameless, centre-Left orthodoxy. This being the New Era, girls and boys must be considered the same.

So sometimes it is Topsy who cries, sometimes wimpy Tim. Sometimes Topsy kicks a football, sometimes Tim admires a flower. Oh look, a pansy.

This is also true of Topsy and Tim's Mummy and Daddy. They share the household chores. Their bland characters are interchangeable. Mummy never succumbs to a bad mood. Daddy is never distant, or batey, or hungover.

He never has a snort of hard drink in the evenings. Not much of an introduction to modern Britain, is he?

Over the years the soppingly damp stories of Topsy and Tim have, inexplicably, sold more than 21 million copies.

A Britain peopled by disciples of Topsy and Tim would not last long in the world of international terrorism. If we succumb to the worldview of Topsy and Tim, we might as well give up now.

i think -- hope, fervently -- that letts doesn't take any of this seriously at all, and is just seeing how much shit he can get published now. i mean ...

19 Topsy and Tim

Twins Topsy and Tim are sister and brother. They are aged five and have remained that age since they first blighted our culture in 1960.

They live in a town and lead lives of blameless, centre-Left orthodoxy. This being the New Era, girls and boys must be considered the same.

So sometimes it is Topsy who cries, sometimes wimpy Tim. Sometimes Topsy kicks a football, sometimes Tim admires a flower. Oh look, a pansy.

This is also true of Topsy and Tim's Mummy and Daddy. They share the household chores. Their bland characters are interchangeable. Mummy never succumbs to a bad mood. Daddy is never distant, or batey, or hungover.

He never has a snort of hard drink in the evenings. Not much of an introduction to modern Britain, is he?

Over the years the soppingly damp stories of Topsy and Tim have, inexplicably, sold more than 21 million copies.

A Britain peopled by disciples of Topsy and Tim would not last long in the world of international terrorism. If we succumb to the worldview of Topsy and Tim, we might as well give up now.

gah, xpost!

Poll thread when Quentin Letts has done all 50, right?

― The Slash My Father Wrote (DJ Mencap), Thursday, 9 October 2008 09:32 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

This is essentially a large glorified advert for one of those 'Crap Towns' type books that will be adorning cisterns across Britain for the next year or so.

Also serious point about saying everything you need to know about the Daily Mail's confused relationship with the modern Conservative party.

Topsy and Tim? Is that a real thing?

Not round my way, that's where the screwfix catalogue goes.

xpsot

Brilliant Quentin, I almost ruined the laptop with coffee. Alan Titchmarsh was a classic!

- Catherine Mac, SCotland UK, 6/10/2008 5:22

From Amazon; The complete 50 are: Jean and Gareth Adamson; 'Anonymous'; Jeffrey Archer; Kenneth Baker; Ed Balls; Peter Bazalgette; Richard Beeching; John Birt; Frank Blackmore; Tony Blair; David Blunkett; Rhodes Boyson; Gordon Brown; Paul Burrell; James Callaghan; Alastair Campbell; Anthony Crosland; Richard Dawkins and Charles Simonyi; Princess Diana; Andrew Dismore; Greg Dyke; Sir Alex Ferguson; Maurice 'Maus' Gatsonides; Tony Greig; Edward Heath; The Very Rev Ronald Jasper; Graham Kelly; Graham Kendrick; Sir Denys Lasdun; Dame Suzi Leather; John McEnroe; Stephen Marks; Michael Martin; Alun Michael; Rupert Murdoch; John Prescott; Nicholas Ridley; Geoffrey Rippon; Charles Saatchi; Sir Jimmy Savile; John Scarlett; Howard Schultz; Julia Smith; Janet Street-Porter; Margaret Thatcher; Alan Titchmarsh; Harold Walker; and, Helen Willetts. On Princess Diana: 'The woman was a liability, a souffle of false ideas, a super-model with all that that entails. She was the glamorous tool of cleverer men, a plaything for the powerful, a delusion worshipped only by the impressionable'.

Enoch Powell may have made a racist speech but he was five times the man Edward Heath was.

Go fuck yourself Letts.

Should have put Churchill in there for maximum trolling.

should have put himself in there. that would have been superb.

Why are Richard Dawkins and Charles Simonyi together?

I would have put the idiot who thought up the phrase 'Tony BLiar' at the top of the list.
- Ian Logan, Oxford, UK, 6/10/2008 10:10

^^^truthbomb

When Heath became Prime Minister (the surprise election victory killed Powell's political career), he properly accommodated the Asian refugees from Idi Amin's Uganda but did little to address widespread doubts about immigration.

What does this mean? "Of course we should have let the Ugandan Indians in, but it was also the wrong thing to do"

This is essentially a large glorified advert for one of those 'Crap Towns' type books that will be adorning cisterns across Britain for the next year or so.

― Matt DC, Thursday, 9 October 2008 09:36 (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I didn't notice this on first reading, probably best to just roffle and then forget in that case

Why are Richard Dawkins and Charles Simonyi together?

― Any cook should be able to run the country. (Ned Trifle II), Thursday, 9 October 2008 10:46 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Professor Richard Dawkins is the first holder of the newly endowed Charles Simonyi Chair in the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford.

tbh behind Thatcher, Dawkins has probably done more to make British people unbearable to talk to over the past ten years, so I'm with Big Quent on that one.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/10/05/article-1069352-005073D800000258-386_87x119.jpg

Slightly unfair really, I think this dude has got Liverpool off to a good start this season.

Where is Geirband?

five xposts later, heck it wasn't that funny....

I would have put the idiot who thought up the phrase 'Tony BLiar' at the top of the list.

And "Not In My Name"

tbh behind Thatcher, Dawkins has probably done more to make British people unbearable to talk to over the past ten years, so I'm with Big Quent on that one.

Explain?

I don't understand what you mean by that anbd therefore have to disagree.

damn, xpost.

"I call him Tony B-Liar. Because he's a liar. And a bee."

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b9/B-Real_2006.jpg/220px-B-Real_2006.jpg

Explain?

― Tom D asks, "Are we in love like I think we be?" (Tom D.), Thursday, 9 October 2008 10:52 (42 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Fucking sixth form "here is my challenging opinion", "hey they'd be no WAR if it wasn't for religion FACE" crypto-"superior western culture" bullshit spurted out by pretty much 97% of anyone who leaves university with a degree in something other than liberal arts these days.

I never meet these people

lol scotland

I'm in London though!

You wouldn't, they all camp out in Dom's front garden waiting to ambush him.

Abridged extract from FIFTY PEOPLE WHO BUGGERED UP BRITAIN by Quentin Letts, published by Constable & Robinson on Thursday, October 9, at £12.99. Quentin Letts 2008.
To order a copy (p&p free), call *******

people who've just decided they have a strong opinion on something are the fucking worst

a lot of the Will This Do Guardian music thinkpieces smack of this

Man, I wish there was someone in my life who I didn't like or even know particularly well, but was nonetheless obliged to buy a present for.

Constable and Robinson also currently running a "truther" book this xmas:

http://911review.com/disinfo/imgs/911revealed.jpg

Skipped to the last page, turns out the Jews did it.

There's nothing new in people having unformed opinions - you can't blame Dawkins. And his book The Ancesters Tale (especially the beautiful illustrated edition) is a wonder to behold and thuis excludes him from any stupid list.

Unlike my typing which goes from bad to wors(t).

So this ia abridged? Can't wait to read what else he's got against Helen Willetts.

She's a woman, innit?

My nomination:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Alexander_(footballer)

Helen Willetts presented the weather while heavily pregnant, obscuring most of Devon and Cornwall. Ruined his holiday.

I was going to start a 'which writer has been responsible for the most obnoxious students?' poll but it might be shooting fish in a barrel.

I thought this was gonna be a thread of copy and pasted Dom quotes.

She is enormous at the moment. Did Quenty once try to chat her up in the BBC bar and get rebuffed or something? (xxp)

guys come on this is not serious.. look at this line

This is my personal roll call of the people who made our country the ugly, ignorant, beer-ridden and brawling place it is today.

this is from the daily mail, so clearly it's april fools coming early?

xposts

the problem with dawkins is his increasingly hysterica screeching about how GODDAMN FUCKING RIGHT HE IS because it's PROVEN BY SCIENCE starts to look, on many levels, not dissimilar to a belief system in itself.

i used to describe myself, tongue slightly in cheek, as a "devout atheist". now i can't, because dawkins sodding well is one and the joke's lost.

for an atheist, he seems to expect a miracle: ie that the vast weight of religious stupidity that has propelled humankind through the ages is suddenly going to be wiped away in a second because he's richard fucking dawkins, goddammit, and he's JUST RIGHT. it surprises me somewhat that a self-professed expert on evolution hasn't worked out that, er, these things take time ;)

my atheism is a lack of belief, pure and simple. i'm not on a mission to convert. i'd like to believe that each subsequent generation will become a bawhair enlightened. but if i was a confused 16-year-old and i had dawkins turn up at my school and rant at me (qv his recent UK series) about how everything i believed was wrong, i think it might have the opposite effect to the one intended.

er, "hysterical". fuck typing. i'm having a really bastarding bad day.

also lol rant about ranting, etc.

A Bawhair Enlightened - has this got something to do with Buddhism?

5 Diana
The 'People's Princess' was a liability, a souffle of false ideas, a supermodel with all that that entails. She was the glamorous tool of cleverer men, a plaything for the powerful, a delusion worshipped only by the impressionable.
The Princess may have been a loving mother. She may also have been photogenic and able to convey an easy charm. But the sorry truth is that this adored concept, this packaged, airbrushed Diana, weakened our society. She made us more neurotic.

After Diana, it became so easy to emote it was hard to tell if people meant their tears or if they were simply trying them on. Diana robbed us of the stoicism and understatement which had served Britain well.

I thought it was Kevin Keegan leaving newcastle (mark I) that did that?

xpost there was meant to be a "more" in there but i actually like the effect without :)

After Diana, it became so easy to emote it was hard to tell if people meant their tears or if they were simply trying them on. Diana robbed us of the stoicism and understatement which had served Britain well.

He didn't have the balls to mention Soham then?

stoicism and understatement which had served Britain well

What does that even mean? I've got to stop reading this.

stiff upper lip, man! gained us an empire, what? not like these bally women with their skirts and their breasts.

A pedant writes...

...under Alan Titchmarsh, I quote
"Need a man to make suggestive jokes - in an unthreatening sort of way, of course - about giant pumpkins? Alan's yer man."

...under Helen Willetts...
"And then there's Alex Deakin, who has the utterly infuriating habit of closing each broadcast with an over-matey, 'and that's yer weather'. Yer?"

Ned you are one of the most easily wound-up people I have ever encountered.

The worst thing would be if Letts actually believed any of this tiresome muck instead of just rattling it out to order.

How many times was the expression "I was only following orders" uttered at Nuremburg?

or more strictly "Ich war nur folgende Aufträge" I guess...

"We weren't Nawwwwwwwwwwwzeeeeeeees, WE WERE NAZIS!"

Ich bin ein Berliner

Well, put one down for the english version on behalf of Lord Hawhaw

The worst thing would be if Letts actually believed any of this tiresome muck instead of just rattling it out to order

seriously, i think it's the other way round: he writes this stuff now because he knows someone's daft enough to publish it. i sincerely hope he's sitting in his study with a large preprandial snifter of some kind, pissing himself laughing at how fucking stupid everyone is. especially the guy at the mail signing his cheque.

but yeh, fundamental point stands: i don't think he believes any of it.

i mean. he couldn't. could he? no. surely not.

Yes he could. Watching Letts trying to be funny on This Week is almost as bad as watching Andrew Neil trying to be funny on anything

It's possible he believes SOME of it but you'd have to be an idiot to mistake it for a cogent philosophy in its entirety.

dude this is totally not serious

haha i meant 'man, it cannot be serious!' obv!

Ned you are one of the most easily wound-up people I have ever encountered.

Yes, but for the left...so...

"Chalk flew up..." (xp)

lol he actually writes "black rapper".

The Guardian should have to run one of these articles too.

Ich bin ein Berliner

― ILX Systern (ken c), Thursday, October 9, 2008 11:42 AM (38 minutes ago) Bo

Really? You're a doughnut?

Ich bin ein Berliner

― ILX Systern (ken c), Thursday, October 9, 2008 11:42 AM (38 minutes ago)

Really? You're a newspaper format with pages normally measuring about 470 mm × 315 mm (18½ in × 12.4 in)?

I'd forgotten about Topsy and Tim - a bit part of my pre-school reading. Topped up with 1950s-era Ladybird books, so a bit of political balance there.

I can't believe that he attacks Callaghan not for his prime-ministership but for decimalisation! Coin names going back to Anglo-Saxon times? That would be, er, the penny; all the rest are quite a lot newer. Well, the *word* shilling is of a similar age, but the coin isn't. But that's an argument on a par with re-introducing murdrum as a tax (roughly, it's a tax paid per unsolved murder in your community).

Beeching's a bit of a scapegoat too. What about the minister who gave him the job, Ernest Marples, with a huge personal financial commitment to the road-construction industry? Or the other ministers of both parties who signed through all his closures?

Callaghan's biggest crime was sabotaging "In Place of Strife"

Which was truly a crime on a gigantic and disastrous scale

I'm surprised Marples wasn't on his list. Safety belts - crazy health and safety nanny statism! Double yellow lines - a tax on parking! The M1 - a blot on the beautiful county of hertfordshire! Parking meters - see double yellow lines! But I perhap he thought he already had too many tories.

Given the average age of the Mail readership I'd be surprised if they didn't remember Marples.

I guess Beeching is a given?

(checks)

Yup.

If anyone saw Ian Hislop's documentary about the railways recently, they would know that Beeching is indeed a scapegoat.

In other words, yes, what you guys have already said!

i don't think they will accept my 'no Paul Dacre, no credibility' comment

Ian Hislop ought to be on that list with his irreverent, wry debunking of all that we hold dear in Broken Britain as editor of controversial Private Eye magazine instead of declining the job offer, letting the subversive Left-wing scandal sheet drift into oblivion and engaging in the more enterprising and productive work that this feral country needs, for instance gutting kelp.

Surprised by the absence of Roy Jenkins.

Helped destroy the Labour Party and get Thatcher elected, so he's OK