Thursday, July 24, 2008

Being Giles Coren

Guido has the text of a wonderful ranty email sent by Times columnist Giles Coren to his sub editors HERE. And all because they deleted the word 'a' from the final sentence of his erudite column. Just as well this sort of thing never happens at the Telegraph...

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

Find your own bleedin' stories.
Or are you too busy with MSM stuff?

Anonymous said...

Or just nick them from the Guardian like wot Guido does.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jul/23/mediamonkey?gusrc=rss&feed=media

Anonymous said...

And Giles Coren continues his slow transformation into Nathan Barley...

It's a pity, his restaurant reviews used to be quite amusing and readable, until they morphed into pious rants about organic food and tap-water. I tend to stick to reading A A Gill these days.

Anonymous said...

So the Tories are snuggling up to the UU, the DUP next? Must be worried its going to be, no-overall majority at the next GE.

Your campaign to have the term Unionist removed from the Tory Party's name: has it started yet?

Anonymous said...

anonymous(12:44), go nosh yourself!

i wouldn't have read this if Iain hadn't highlighted it.

Anonymous said...

"these sort of things"?! You need a good sub editor for your blog!

Newmania said...

That damned sub editor keeps turning your silvered poesie into an estate agent`s third reminder does he Iain? It was an interesting email actually especially his concern for the cadence of a final sentence.

Matthew Revell said...

Anonymous, you seem to have missed that large part of blogging that's all about flagging up stories of interest on other blogs.

Y'know, memes and all that.

Anonymous said...

Interesting that he mangles his grammar thus :

"I am insulted enough that you think you have a better ear for English than me."

He should have written "than I".

This was clearly not a typographical error; there were several of those, but they are forgiveable. He shoould have concentrated more during his GCSE English, or Latin.

Curbishly said...

Or just nick them from the Guardian like wot Guido does.

And newspapers don't "nick" stories, or spoilers from other papers?


NoSirreeNo,

Anonymous said...

Just as well this sort of thing never happens at The Telegraph...

You must be kidding. So far as I can see The Telegraph has sacked all its subs. I often find paragraphs guillotined in mid-sentence, picture captions with the names transposed, and similar slovenly stuff.

Also, girlie pix all over the place. If I want girlie pix (which I do, sometimes) I can read The Sun.

Anonymous said...

Front page of today's Telegraph:

Mrs Darwin, who he called "despicable" in her deception and a "compulsive liar",

Anonymous said...

Mathew, no kidding. It's so good that someone as wise as you is there to point these things out for us lesser mortals.

My point, of course, was that Guido (almost certainly the author of the first comment) had used this without acknowledgement to the source, and Iain was too lazy to check.

Iain Dale said...

Anonymous 11.10, get over yourself. I linked to my source, which was Guido. Who he links to is up to him. I suppose you think I should have rung him and askled him do you? Jeez, do you actually have a life? it would appear not.

Anonymous said...

Anon. 10:15 AM: Interesting that he mangles his grammar thus :

"I am insulted enough that you think you have a better ear for English than me."

He should have written "than I".


You have a better ear than me.
You have a better ear than I do.

Someone's mangling grammar, but I don't think it's Mr Coren...

Anonymous said...

Wallenstein
"you know your grammar better than me" is ambiguous.

"you know your grammar better than I" is unambiguous and correct.

(probably in both senses!)

He should have written "better than I do" or "better than I have", but probably resisted the unstressed syllable again. Silly twonk.

Anonymous said...

Iain, don't be so precious. I was just pointing out that the Guardian ran this piece at 7pm last night, Guido ran it without acknowledging the source (which is getting more common) and you ran it without checking even whether it was true. As I said a bit lazy, but no biggy, but I did think Mathew was being far too patronising. I don't know why you felt it necessary to be quite so snotty.

Iain Dale said...

Anonymous, read your own comments back to yourself. Snot attracts snot!! :)

Anonymous said...

I do dislike Giles Coren.

Anonymous said...

good grief what a rant indeed.

but you know what? he is COMPLETELY right about the metre. it screams out at me, at least.

adn he has a reasonable point - if they are changing something in his copy, they should check with him first.