political commentator * author * publisher * bookseller * radio presenter * blogger * Conservative candidate * former lobbyist * Jack Russell owner * West Ham United fanatic * Email iain AT iaindale DOT com
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
No Fool Like an Old Fool
HERE'S living proof. Well, I assume he's still alive. From the quality of his writing, it's difficult to tell. Could someone please tell me what Keith Waterhouse has on Paul Dacre to enable him to keep his so-called column?
His byline photo looks like a police mugshot of some vagrant arrested for indecent exposure having been found naked from the waist down on a park bench after a night on the piss.
Actually I regret my comment as the man is quite clearly dead and no one has noticed.
Incidentally I've discovered that Peter Hitchens (MoS) is a puppet which accounts for there being more than one of him (someone is working him from behind) He preached a sermon at The Parish Church of St. Michael's Cornhill in London whose sermons are usually preached by the Revd Dr Peter Mullen. PH bangs on about the King James Bible and the 1662 Book of Common prayer (and even the type of music) and guess what? So does this Church, lead by Peter Mullen. PH waxes lyrical about Intelligent Design and shortly beforehand there's a sermon about the subject from... Peter Mullen. PH damns the Conservative Party in a manner that is sweetness and light compared to... Peter Mullen. Etc. etc.
Where's Brian Connelly when you need him: it's a puppet!
I think he may serve the same purpose as the Picture of Dorian Grey. He looks about a million years old and therefore enables Dacre and all the other columnists to freeze their visages at somepoint between mid-life crisis and senility. All the devil's work.
My jaw hit the keyboard when I read this stream of ignorant drivel yesterday. He's a doddering old embittered idiot. Compare the non-columns he churns out with the elegant, thoughtful, informed pieces turned out by William Rees-Mogg, who must be in his eighties now, and Bill Deedes who is well into his 90s and is still eminently readable.
Where do I start? Keith Waterhouse is a great writer. Iain, you may become a significant politician, but on the writing front, you simply aren't in his league. Go to your library; get a copy of "There is a happy land", "Billy Liar", and best of all, "Jubb". Read his memoirs. Two volumes, so far? And be ashamed for taking the piss out of a legend. His crime? He's getting on now and doesn't "get" blogging. Maybe, as a journalist, he feels threatened by all those amateurs out there. Sorry, Iain, but your contribution and the ignorant response left a bad taste in this mouth. Waterhouse has earned more respect than shown here.
Anonymous 10:53 PM said... "Embittered", Verity? Well you should know all about that. Why?
Bebopper - He wasn't a great writer, although he was a very good writer. But he has refused to accept the age we are now living in, and he himself is living in a past where he can only relate blogging - the biggest revolution since the beginning of the internet - to something he can sneer at.
There's a jealousy and a preciousness there. He feels aggrieved and tries to downgrade bloggers, many of whom are now acknowledged to be powerful opinion formers, to ghastly social self-serving round robins.
He is angry that people are encroaching on territory he regards as his.
William Rees-Mogg and Bill Deedes, both older than Simpson, marched right along with the revolution and joined in.
Iain - "Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel? Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?"
A.Pope -----------------------------------
The scene is set ca. 1900 in a London music-hall matinee: Sailor intervening in rough-house chorus of cat-calling during a dreadful soprano solo: 'Oh shut up you f****rs - give the pore tone-deaf old cow a bloody chance, won't you!'
Soprano Soloist: 'Oh thank you, sir - I can see there's at least one gentleman in the audience.'
anon 10.08pm "WF Deedes . . . What elegance , what style , what wisdom."
'What has happened to the question mark on your keyboard? Can't you find it? ' ---------- anon - Question marks aren't used for rhetorical exclamations: and 'what' is here obviously not interrogative but emphatically exclamatory.
Alas, newmania (1.29pm) gives us, not exclamation marks but spaced commas, a punctuation mark not hitherto known to the language.
But I suppose it goes against the grain to use exclamation marks when apostrophising the dear old 'plashy vole' of English journalism.
Unfair, Iain. Waterhouse is way past his best, but his best was the very best. On the old Daily Mirror, he was unmatched. He pulled of the near impossible task of combining high intelligence and humour with tabloid style. Auberon Waugh used to be lost in admiration of his ability to do this - there is no higher praise.This column is poor but, in its way, a perfectly legitimate moan from the old school.
Iain's diary is interesting and amusing, others are well written, some lead the news. Many are for anoraks but there's nothing wrong with special interests, that's the beauty of the net. But most are just rubbish and are lucky if they get 10 hits a month.
I see evidence of Blogger's hubris and intolerance here. Nothing wrong with Waterhouse or his views. Calm down. He can write and has never followed the political correctness path.
I am a great admirer of "Billy Liar", published in 1959, but found Keith Waterhouse's third novel "Jubb" very disappointing and felt Whitehouse had lost it by then. "Jubb" was published in 1963.
His byline photo looks like a police mugshot of some vagrant arrested for indecent exposure having been found naked from the waist down on a park bench after a night on the piss.
ReplyDelete..and yet WF Deedes is still magnificent . What elegance , what style , what wisdom.
ReplyDeleteI responded to this as a letter to the editor and the DM letters editor replied he would publish tomorrow. KW really is an asinine old fool.
ReplyDelete(I also got a comment into the DM website: http://tinyurl.com/y7jyh7 )
Actually I regret my comment as the man is quite clearly dead and no one has noticed.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally I've discovered that Peter Hitchens (MoS) is a puppet which accounts for there being more than one of him (someone is working him from behind) He preached a sermon at The Parish Church of St. Michael's Cornhill in London whose sermons are usually preached by the Revd Dr Peter Mullen. PH bangs on about the King James Bible and the 1662 Book of Common prayer (and even the type of music) and guess what? So does this Church, lead by Peter Mullen. PH waxes lyrical about Intelligent Design and shortly beforehand there's a sermon about the subject from... Peter Mullen. PH damns the Conservative Party in a manner that is sweetness and light compared to... Peter Mullen. Etc. etc.
Where's Brian Connelly when you need him: it's a puppet!
It would appear to be that old problem of hyphen-itis.
ReplyDeleteWaterhouse does not understand blogging if he can only equate it with fatuous "round robins".
ReplyDeleteBlogging is no Samizdat, but it is a maelstrom of emerging truth, which is not only its strength, but its usp.
All that dodgy red plonk he drinks had addled his brain!!
ReplyDeleteIain,
ReplyDeleteThis man just not get it does he ?
We are not all stupid when old. I am 60 plus and getit! Just.I think.Who cares my pensions big!!
I think he may serve the same purpose as the Picture of Dorian Grey. He looks about a million years old and therefore enables Dacre and all the other columnists to freeze their visages at somepoint between mid-life crisis and senility. All the devil's work.
ReplyDeleteDid you notice the " search for a loan" beside the column? I think he needs it.
ReplyDeleteMy jaw hit the keyboard when I read this stream of ignorant drivel yesterday. He's a doddering old embittered idiot. Compare the non-columns he churns out with the elegant, thoughtful, informed pieces turned out by William Rees-Mogg, who must be in his eighties now, and Bill Deedes who is well into his 90s and is still eminently readable.
ReplyDeleteOh my God; was that picture taken before or after his lunch?
ReplyDelete"WF Deedes . . . What elegance , what style , what wisdom."
ReplyDeleteWhat has happened to the question mark on your keyboard? Can't you find it?
Or indeed a young one!
ReplyDeleteAssume Dave will be sending a letter of congratulation to the new chairman of EPP?
That's a shame, he used to have something to say, what a waste of yet more dead trees.
ReplyDelete"Embittered", Verity? Well you should know all about that.
ReplyDeleteWhere do I start? Keith Waterhouse is a great writer. Iain, you may become a significant politician, but on the writing front, you simply aren't in his league. Go to your library; get a copy of "There is a happy land", "Billy Liar", and best of all, "Jubb". Read his memoirs. Two volumes, so far? And be ashamed for taking the piss out of a legend.
ReplyDeleteHis crime? He's getting on now and doesn't "get" blogging. Maybe, as a journalist, he feels threatened by all those amateurs out there.
Sorry, Iain, but your contribution and the ignorant response left a bad taste in this mouth. Waterhouse has earned more respect than shown here.
Agree with every word of this Iain. Have submitted a comment.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 10:53 PM
ReplyDeletesaid... "Embittered", Verity? Well you should know all about that. Why?
Bebopper - He wasn't a great writer, although he was a very good writer. But he has refused to accept the age we are now living in, and he himself is living in a past where he can only relate blogging - the biggest revolution since the beginning of the internet - to something he can sneer at.
There's a jealousy and a preciousness there. He feels aggrieved and tries to downgrade bloggers, many of whom are now acknowledged to be powerful opinion formers, to ghastly social self-serving round robins.
He is angry that people are encroaching on territory he regards as his.
William Rees-Mogg and Bill Deedes, both older than Simpson, marched right along with the revolution and joined in.
Iain -
ReplyDelete"Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel?
Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?"
A.Pope
-----------------------------------
The scene is set ca. 1900 in a London music-hall matinee: Sailor intervening in rough-house chorus of cat-calling during a dreadful soprano solo:
'Oh shut up you f****rs - give the pore tone-deaf old cow a bloody chance, won't you!'
Soprano Soloist: 'Oh thank you, sir - I can see there's at least one gentleman in the audience.'
anon.
anon 10.08pm
ReplyDelete"WF Deedes . . . What elegance , what style , what wisdom."
'What has happened to the question mark on your keyboard? Can't you find it? '
----------
anon -
Question marks aren't used for rhetorical exclamations: and 'what' is here obviously not interrogative but emphatically exclamatory.
Alas, newmania (1.29pm) gives us, not exclamation marks but spaced commas, a punctuation mark not hitherto known to the language.
But I suppose it goes against the grain to use exclamation marks when apostrophising the dear old 'plashy vole' of English journalism.
Oh drat all spring-cleaning.
Unfair, Iain. Waterhouse is way past his best, but his best was the very best. On the old Daily Mirror, he was unmatched. He pulled of the near impossible task of combining high intelligence and humour with tabloid style. Auberon Waugh used to be lost in admiration of his ability to do this - there is no higher praise.This column is poor but, in its way, a perfectly legitimate moan from the old school.
ReplyDeleteAdmit it, most blogs are rubbish.
ReplyDeleteIain's diary is interesting and amusing, others are well written, some lead the news. Many are for anoraks but there's nothing wrong with special interests, that's the beauty of the net. But most are just rubbish and are lucky if they get 10 hits a month.
I see evidence of Blogger's hubris and intolerance here. Nothing wrong with Waterhouse or his views. Calm down. He can write and has never followed the political correctness path.
ReplyDeleteI am a great admirer of "Billy Liar", published in 1959, but found Keith Waterhouse's third novel "Jubb" very disappointing and felt Whitehouse had lost it by then. "Jubb" was published in 1963.
ReplyDeleteKeith Waterhouse would have a higher view of blogging if he viewed Chris Adlam's blog, http://chrisadlam.wordpress.com
ReplyDelete