Abstinence

I’ve been away for a month and I think I’ve discovered the cure for blogging about the BBC. Don’t watch it. 

Coming back after a break, it all seems so petty and superficial. Instead, I’ve been mostly watching Fauda on Netflix.

Now there’s a compelling set of back-to-backs to binge-watch. James Delingpole says it’s popular with the Palestinians as well as the Israelis. 

The BBC should buy it in for their BBC Four foreign language / double episode / Saturday night slot. 

As if!

   It doesn’t have a sanctimonious lefty agenda.

Bear pit

I’ve also been reading Melanie Phillips (£) about being ‘set up’ by the Question Time team, and I’ve heard people discussing the US’s decision to walk away from the UNHRC -  mostly to opine that the right way to deal with this corrupt outfit is to ‘stay and change it’. 

As if!

   UNHRC is like the Eurovision Song Contest. It has as much to do with Human Rights as Eurovision has to do with music. It won't change.

#Jew

I heard Will Self on the radio saying he’s reconsidering his resignation from being a Jew. Now he wants to be a Jew. I’d need to listen again to figure out if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but I don’t know if I can be bothered.

Will Self's Great British Bus Journey

I'm surprised that Will Self's Great British Bus Journey on Radio 4 has the title it has. Given Will's eager recourse to the Thesaurus, you'd have thought that  Will Self's Great British Omnibus Peregrination would have been a much better title. 

The series is presented as his attempt, after Brexit, to find the “real” Britain and its workers. 

I gave it a go and all I can say is that Catherine Nixey in The Times does it full justice:

This was billed as exploration, but it was snobbery, pure and simple. When Self and other middle-class Londoners say “real” Britain, what they really mean is “poor” Britain. And they don’t like it much. That’s why they live in Clapham. This was toe-curling to listen to. Self is patronising, crass and, for all his long words, a fool. It wasn’t quite as embarrassing as when he spent a week touring Cern’s Large Hadron Collider and failed to see the point of all that science. But nearly.

Even our old friend Hugh Sykes noticed the tone, tweeting "Will Self just posited on BBC Radio 4 that the high Leave vote in the West Midlands may have been a reflection of: 'the white working class coming out of the woodwork.' sic". Hugh then spotted the underlying metaphor, adding, "Insects?"

Boris + Q.T. + new words

Sorry for temporarily fallow blog.

The way the media (the BBC and Sky) have been feasting on Boris’s recent outburst of candour was inevitable, because that’s the way things are these days. The media seems to revel in hypocritical moral outrage.

Laura Kuenssberg and Norman Smith were incandescent with malicious glee. Was Theresa May’s mealy-mouthed “not the governments position” really such a severe rebuke? ‘ Will Boris keep his job?’ they wondered delightedly, hoping for a resignation so they could chew on ‘did he jump or was he pushed’ for another week or three.  

A few hours later and various people came out with, well, actually, Boris spoke the truth, and maybe it’s about time  someone said it. 

What could be more hypocritical and unprincipled than moral outrage at Boris’s tactlessness and undiplomatic conduct, when it comes from those who normally consider our dealings with human rights abusers like Saudi to be hypocritical and unprincipled? 

I suppose the official line is that diplomacy means realpolitik. 

Never mind. The BBC will soon be back to discussing sexual abuse in football.

 ********

I propped my eyelids up to watch Question Time last night. 

Practice makes perfect, and Nigel Farage has mastered to perfection the art of laughing off personal insults. ‘Water off a duck’s back?’ He’s got the look off to a tee. 

Of course everyone wanted to see how Will Self and Nigel Farage would interact. Will Self seemed battle-weary after a while. Maybe he’s getting fed up with himself? I was pleasantly surprised to read an empathetic piece by him about his friend Michael Shamash. It was even written in normal language.

Sarah Woollaston even came out with a slightly regretful sounding admission that what Boris said was the truth. 

Maybe everyone is changing their spots?

********

Here are some useful new words. 

Otiose: serving no practical purpose or result.

Bigly: bigly

Coprophagia: eatin’ shit

Ze flashing knobs, ze flashing knobs!!

The man after whom the 'selfie' was named 

In the spirit of Will Self today...

Zut alor!! Wot ze 'eck wos zis veek's From ze Fax to ze Fixion on abart on your BayBayCay Radeeoh Quatre? 

And if you felt any twinge of embarrassment on reading that last sentence then you'll know how I felt listening to Will Self's god-awful Popping Out this evening. My toes are still uncurling themselves.

Radio 4's favourite prolix, opinionated popinjay Will Self wrote it and acted it himself. It was Self, self, self all the way. The only thing he didn't do was sing the theme tune. 

And as one of our English poets (almost) put it, "He do the foreigners in different voices". Embarrassingly. 

The reviews on Twitter are firm but very fair:

Will Self on @BBCRadio4 now, performing an old 'Allo 'Allo script with all the jokes taken out.

That was dire. Was Will Self trying to sound German?

Painful.

Behind it all was an Emma Thompson-style hate letter to the United Kingdom, full of lefty digs. (Nigel Farage was mocked, of course).  

This week's From Fact to Fiction therefore effortless raises our running tally to 6 episodes for the Left, 1 with no obvious agenda (disputed), and a big fat (undisputed) 0 for the Right. 

The pro-left bias continues, seemingly ad infinitum.

Speak for your Self

Will Self is a mock-profound peacock. Every obscure word flaunted is an eye on his fantastical, extravagant tail.

Despite that, BBC Radio 4 intended to set him up as their “writer in residence” - before someone got cold feet. (A shy BBC peahen perhaps).

In some ways it's a shame the channel didn't have the courage of its convictions. Will Self is the embodiment of so much of the underlying spirit of BBC Radio 4 that he would have represented its 'official point of view' splendidly. 

And as proof of that...

His latest 'A Point of View', reacting to the attack on Charlie Hebdo, accorded perfectly with this past week's series of Letters from Europe  - Radio 4's specially-commissioned series reacting to those attacks (see various recent posts). A snugger, more slipper-like fit between the one and the other could scarcely be imagined. 

Will en utilisant des phrases françaises obscure de montrer son plumage extravagant...but, despite that, the thrust of his argument was crystal clear to any English speaker. 

He argued that French secularism is built on quicksand, that it's "a form of imperialism". 

And as for Charlie Hebdo and its "seeming satire", well, he most definitely is not Charlie. 

He thinks Charlie Hebdo published the wrong sort of satire - the kind that "afflicts the already afflicted" [guess who?] and that's "merely offensive or egregiously offensive". It's not "constructive". It doesn't want to make society "more equal, more fair, more just". [Doesn't it, Will? Weren't the murdered cartoonists left-wingers like you, who were into such things?]

Nasty, nasty Charlie Hebdo, forcing poor Will Pecksniff and Radio 4 to have to "re-think" their long-held positions on satire...in order to make them fully conform to their core beliefs - and not offend they-who-must-not-be-offended, or satirise those they think shouldn't be satirised. 

Yes, make that man Radio 4's official writer in residence now!

P.S. In scanning Google Images for an apt image of Will for this post, it becomes as plain as a pike on a pecksniff that Will loves posing for photos. No multinational is as image aware as Will Self. So much so that he should be re-named 'Will Selfie'.

Self Hate

I saw a roadside notice once, which read ‘MARS’ with an arrow pointing skywards. It was in Norway by the way, so it probably had a terrestrial meaning, but to me it was an unforgettable, random signpost to Mars. The metaphysical absurdity of signs like that and the lonely sign that merely says ‘it is illegal to throw stones at this sign’ brings to mind Will Self and his attention-seeking reminder that he had resigned as a Jew in 2006. 

The reminder appeared in a typically nasty review of Julie Burchill’s latest book, which I haven’t read.

I did wonder to whom had he ‘handed in’ this resignation. He obviously thought the mere announcement (in public) would suffice. It begged the following question: 

What would antisemites make of it? 

Very likely the overt, Jew-hating, Jews-to-the-Gas brigade might not fully accept a self serving (inevitable pun) resignation of that kind.  “Still, off to the gas for you!” they’d say.  Or they might just conclude it was typical of the deviousness of the Jew. 

The covert, righteous antisemites would notch it up on the bedstead of ‘another asaJew to bolster our ‘anti-Zionism isn’t antisemitism’ stance.

Anyway, he is well aware of all that; he hints at it here: 

 “But on that occasion, when she (Melanie Philips) had accused me of being an antisemite, I was still able to play my trump card: I’m Jewish.

Maybe his ‘trump card’ is the thing he was ‘sacrificing’ by making this public resignation? Well not really, because by reminding us of his resignation he was at the same time reminding us (who knew?) of his Jewishess, which is tantamount to a surreptitious boast. 

At least it brings assorted literal meanings to the term ‘Self-hating Jew’ with and without a capital S. 

a) Will Self’s ‘posturing’ self-hate; 

b) the pun in the name;

c) by drawing attention to himself in this nasty fashion he probably created a few Jewish ‘Self’ haters from those who were formerly indifferent but will now hate him. 

  

Anyway, Will Self’s critique did make me look kindly upon Julie Burchill’s book. If I ever read it I really hope I like it.

Self, self, self!

Will Self used this week's A Point of View on Radio 4 to launch an attack on George Orwell. 

Yes, George Orwell. 

For Will, Orwell is the "supreme mediocrity", self-geared to serve the needs of large numbers of mediocre English people. He was also an elitist. (Square that if you can).  

Will Self entertained us with a snide impersonation of Orwell at one point, making him sound like a silly 'Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells' type, which was surely intended to provoke, to grate and irritate. 

Will is nothing if not a showman. Even on radio his flair for out-Kenneth Williamsing Kenneth Williams in terms of facial contortions and nostril-stretching comes across loud and clear.

What was he up to in attempting to take down this most sacred of British cows? Being contrarian for sure. 

"What excites me is to disturb the reader's fundamental assumptions," he said of his own writing. "I want to make them feel that certain categories within which they are used to perceiving the world are unstable" - such categories as presuming that George Orwell is a supreme genius whose ideas and novels have reverberated around the world to somewhat great effect than Will Self's. 

And, of course, Will was also surely being Selfish - dissing a writer greater than himself who happened (in one essay) to criticise ways of writing that Will himSelf has made essential facets of his own pleonastic style. 

You had to smile (though with gritted teeth) at his playing of the "Orwell was middle-class" card too - the supremely mediocre irony of a white, middle-aged, middle-class public-school-then-Oxford-educated novelist who turned political and went down and out (for a while) in London (and visiting Paris) before finding fame and working for the BBC proceeding to denounce another white, middle-aged, middle-class public-school-educated novelist who turned political before going down and out in London and Paris, finding fame and working for the BBC, without seeming to spot the obvious biographical similarities. 

What did he use to prove Orwell's 'mediocrity' then? The opening paragraph of a single essay which makes an indisputably duff point about language, giving Will the chance to out-think Orwell on that one point (and drop in some mentions of Chomsky and neuroscience for good measure). 

Now, reading that essay does show that George Orwell could get things very wrong. No great genius is perfect, nor needs to be. Some of the prescriptive passages in that essay do come across as deeply wrong-headed, but - and here's the bit Will Self didn't mention - there's also some highly acute stuff in there about the use of language for political purposes (deliberately dishonest or otherwise), and when it comes to political writing (as opposed to literary writing) I'd say that there's much truth in some of his general points about the need for clarity, concision and the avoidance of jargon and tired phrases. From the sinister abuses of language of tyrants to the robotic mouthings of half-emptied buzzwords from modern party politicians, this under-par essay still gives a lot of food for thought. 

As, for that matter, did Will Self's self-serving talk this week - as you can see.

The reaction on Twitter has been mixed, but mostly hostile, with made a plain English word used to describe Will Self himself by some of the medium's less elitist elements counterpointed by a smaller number of enthusiastic comments by people we should probably call 'Selfies.' A surprising number used the word "brilliant", like that character from The Fast Show. 

New Chair Updated

On Harry’s Place one of everyone’s faves is the blogger with the evocatively Roy Lichtenstein-like handle, Lucy Lips. 

Her (?) latest post about the insufferable Mo Ansar was somewhat highjacked by a torrent of comments about last night’s Question Time. 

Inspired by the Islamophobia theme, “Paul” sparked it off by abruptly asking if anyone watched last nights’ episode from Ilford. He noticed a ‘dead-eyed’ woman in the audience complaining about people linking Nairobi with Islam.

The subject of Will Self interested many commenters. Then I felt an overwhelming need to watch it on iPlayer. Just the bit about Nairobi.

In fact it wasn’t any worse than usual. Par for the course. The audience was quieter than it normally is, and there seemed to be less jeering when a right-wing view was tentatively ventured, and I thought less hysterical applause when a leftwing view was offered.

Michael Gove’s spat with Will Self was quite fun, and I think Gove succeeded in deflating some of Self’s hot-air. He seemed to be slowly deflating afterwards. Like a helium balloon with a slow-puncture he had a sort of shrivelled air.

Now they’re telling me that Will Self is Professor of Contemporary Thought at Brunel University. I don’t know his fiction, but the type of thought he expresses on QT seems distinctly out-dated, like conceptual art. The non-shock of the not-new. Are there any other professors of contemporary thought? No, it’s a new chair.

"Professor Self will be giving a joint talk entitled “Urban Psychosis", in the university’s public lecture series at its campus in Uxbridge, on 29 March 2012."

Don’t forget common or garden psychosis, will you Will.

Also joining Brunel is Feminist Campaigner and Journalist Julie Bindel so they could sit together in the refectory and jointly make contemporary conversation.

Update about an update.

Because the paywall prevented H/P from reproducing David Aaronovitch’s Times article about his experiences of antisemitism I omitted to mention it in the above post. Now there is an update, including no-charge extracts from the piece.

“The Times comment editor, Tim Montgomerie, asked me two questions when I told him about this piece yesterday. The first was if I thought this kind of thing was getting worse. All I could say is that I am far more aware of it now than I was, say, 20 years ago. Some of this is clearly down to social media making it far easier for people to communicate with me and me with them.”

He then takes inspiration  from Simon Schama.

“An Austrian Jewish journalist called Theodore Herzl, attending the show trial in Paris of the framed Captain Alfred Dreyfus, concluded that the Jews were not safe in non-Jewish countries. Herzl is widely regarded as the founder of Zionism. And when it came to most of the countries of Europe, by 1945 his deepest misgivings were discovered to have been hopelessly optimistic.So all the things said about Jews when they were “stateless” is now said about them — about us, about me — in relation to Israel. Only now you say “Zionist” not “Jew”. But you apply it in exactly the same way. Divided loyalties, unwonted use of money and influence (beyond that exerted by any other group, natch).There was an extraordinary moment in Schama’s fourth programme when, sitting in an old synagogue he told the viewers: “I am a Zionist.” Straight out. Just like that. I thought that for many of today’s viewers he might as well have said he was a drinking buddy of Jimmy Savile’s. So many out there these days are anti-Zionist and thus anti-Schama.As for me, I have never been a Zionist. Nor committed to Israel. But I can tell you this. Every time I get one of those comments, or those e-mails, or those tweets or hear those insinuations, I begin to think, why not, David, why not? Why not wear the cap that so many are so keen to fit you out with?”

Indeed. There is a particular feeling one gets in Israel. Of relief. You might be a stranger there, a visitor from England, but you will not be  judged or treated patronisingly “as a Jew”. David Aaronovitch sounds like I used to be in the olden days. Not a Zionist, nor committed to Israel; but I never had to ask myself “Why not?” because it was before the media’s relentless campaign of delegitimising Israel had properly taken hold. 

However  there was plenty of low-level antisemitism around, which was particularly prevalent in provincial areas where there were no Jews, particularly if one happened to be, unbeknownst to ones acquaintances, a Jew. Or a “Jewess” as people would say, and the only Jew in the village to boot. The fewer Jews people knew, the more they casually denigrated them. 

It was only after returning home after a random visit to Israel that I ...**saw the light**.

If David finds himself torn between his Britishness and his Jewishness, he’ll have to start being a Zionist, and proud.