Who writes the Smallweed column in the Guardian? It reads like Ian Aitken sometimes, sometimes like Paul Routledge. But this week contained one of the most perfect pieces of abuse that I have ever read.
The context is the important and useful distinction, which cuts across the familiar division into hawks and doves, between grown-ups and juveniles. There are gorwn-up opponents of the war, and those who think that there are only contemptible reasons for it.
There are Grown-up hawks, like Tony Blair, and then there are the juveniles, like Michael Gove, on the Times:
“The spectacle of this pipsqueak installing himself as the voice of morality, ahead of such people as Rowan Williams, is a matter for wonder and vomiting. I hope if Bush and Blair do go to war they will start by dropping Gove on Baghdad.”
A matter for wonder and vomiting! Isn’t that wonderful?
That’s a fine analysis, which deserves expansion in the NYRB, Prospect or Jack.
I’ve never got Smallweed. It always read like the sort of diary editors give their favoured writers to keep them sweet, rather than writing for readers… but then, it took me a while to tune into Matthew Norman. Perhaps poodling around on the fringes of respectable journalism gives one a rather skewed view.
I’m just back from San Jose and the Intel Developer Forum: high weirdness on many, many levels. I had a bit of spare time, which I spent visiting Fry’s and the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum. The similarities between the two venues were gorgeous, and I feel quite revived.
R
(PS — your “More…” links on the past couple of blog entries are broken)
I know the “more” links are broken. I think it’s something to do with upgrading to MySQL. But when I was trying to fix it yesterday, I could only gt server hangups. I’ll try again today. Honest.
Fixed the bugger! Wasn’t MySQL at all. It was the incomprehensible template system. At least, the new black background may have comprehended it, but the webmaster comprehended it not.