Murdoch's Apology

[johnny9fingers]

Well, I don't normally open with a panegyric, and almost never one.....I suppose I'd better explain....

Having returned from a holiday with chums in the North of England I set about getting clothes washed, debating whether to tidy the flat properly now or defer the um, gratification of such pleasurable activity; during course of which I espied my as yet unread double Christmas edition of the Times Literary Supplement.

Some two hours later I returned to the world feeling better informed, refreshed, and recharged. Now that's probably because, as 

megiloth  says, I'm a poncy git liable to such behaviour. But I might still beg to differ, though I am indeed a poncy git. The TLS is, if you like, Murdoch's apology. It makes up for The Sun, The News of the World, and The New York Post. However, not even the TLS could begin to balance the scales of justice were The Fox Network on the other side. But I digress.

So I'll digress some more. I'd imagine that even the most rapacious media Baron (even if fiscally responsible like Murdoch, and unlike Black or Maxwell) has a side that still cultivates critical values. If you sell words by the billion every day, you must have some understanding of their power. In fact, even the fiscally irresponsible, like Black, crave academic and intellectual recognition: sometimes even writing pretty good biographies.

It is impossible to say how well the TLS has kept me informed over the years, and how indebted I have been to the debates taking place within its pages.
In the guise of book reviews it presents more information on more subjects in greater depth by great writers and critics than almost any other publication, though the London Review of Books and The New York Review of Books both deserve honourable mentions, and the LRB has the most amusing adverts by far.

In my Anarcho-Syndicalist youth, I had a list of folk to be saved from the firing squads 'after the revolution'. These folk had all done something that redeemed them from the righteous justice of the proletariat. As we all now know, the revolution will never come, and the list will become even more yellowed with time: but as long as he keeps funding the TLS (because something like that loses money - it is not a profitable operation and must needs be a rich man's indulgence, like an expensive yacht) I suppose Ol' Roops name will be on the list.

 

Comments

anarcho syndicalist youth

[e4q.livejournal.com]

in mine i imagined that all wrongs would be righted if there were a terrible scourge upon the earth and only those who had taken LSD would survive.

probably wouldn't have helped much.

Re: anarcho syndicalist youth

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

True m'dear; I doubt that it would have helped.
For a short time I too thought LSD would be the answer to all our ills. Like religious experiences, hallucinogens can do that to us. It lasted about six months.
Instead, a more rational and older me feels there are no quick fixes, merely good days and bad days: and even bad days have some sunshine in them, or some warmth - and there's always summer....just around the corner....

Re: anarcho syndicalist youth

[e4q.livejournal.com]

bless us with our youthful naivete.

and i can't wait for the blossoms and spring lambs. i go to hackney city farm in the spring time to see them. most convenient, no welly boots required.

Re: anarcho syndicalist youth

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Ah, outdoors.
You're a better man than I am....

Re:outdoors...

[e4q.livejournal.com]

...is awfully good for you, you know!

Re: outdoors...

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Outdoors can be tolerable in Spring, and even agreeable in Summer and early Autumn; but I've rather heard there are 'other people' out there; and I'm not entirely certain my own minor neuroses are up to dealing with such excitement. Besides, for all their intelligence, farmyard animals like pigs (and I have read all the Great Philosopher Wodehouse wrote on the matter) are not great conversationalists: so outdoors only in the company of someone I know. A responsible adult, if you like. And never to farms: Ye Gods, that's almost natural.
I find that I prefer the pastoral in the managed form of Capability Brown's landscaping: and even then there are insects and other arthropoda. And cowpats. And Gods know what else parading under the banner of nature red in tooth and claw.
When once tried with the question as to what was the most dangerous thing I've ever done, I replied 'Bid six no-trumps with two aces missing'. Even if not quite true, I think it speaks well of my attitude to these things.

I think you're very brave.

Re: outdoors...

[e4q.livejournal.com]

one time tom and i had gone down to the river to look at the nature and we were sheltering in a bit with steps down right to the water. for some reason i was lying on my back staring out into the water (cam not thames) and a swan came right up to me. i could see THROUGH his nostrils!

it was very exciting.

also, at HCF http://www.citynoise.org/article/1211 there is the antique (30ish y o) gregory. so named, i presume, because he pecks. this is me with him

he had been pecking at my feet and bum as i crouched to take the picture of the lambs, and was shouting at me for some time. i did tell him that i don't speak goose, so i couldn't help him.
i know someone who has actually PICKED HIM UP!

Re: outdoors...

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Does David Attenborough know about all this?
But I must admit I do love the idea of a goose named after a film star named after a Pope, especially one that picks on women.
It looks sunny in your photo: outdoors is more acceptable in flaming June.

Re: outdoors...

[e4q.livejournal.com]

mid-may. sunny but not really warm, that's a cashmere cardi with a furry collar i have on there.

i have to admit, i do not know if he was named gregory because he pecked, but i like to think so. after my encounter with him i entertained a fantasy that perhaps i could get a goose as a pet, since peabody stipulate 'no dogs' but say nothing about geese. and you wouldn't need a lead, or to train him because he would want to follow you. and it would be a buzz picking him up and taking him on a bus.

anyway, i don't have a goose supplier, and i am not sure how much they poo, but they probably do it wherever, and i have a couple of nice rugs and a bed and so on...

[jimi45.livejournal.com]

So a right winger who has promoted unjust wars (incidentally, i don't include Afghanistan in this estimation) and has done immeasurable damage to human rights and equality worldwide gets a "get out of jail free" card because he's also a opportunist who hedges his bets and attempts to increase his opportunities by occasionally playing both sides?

Murdoch reminds me of a slightly dogmatic version of the old Italian man in Catch 22. I say whack him twice.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

I didn't say the list wouldn't get overruled....by folk with more sense than me too: but the TLS is one of my pet loves (along with BBC Radio 3), and I'm prepared to excuse a lot because of it. Call it bias, I suppose. Mind you, I'm more fond of the BBC (which is almost as anti-Murdoch as Murdoch is anti BBC), and if it came to a straight slugfest, well there'd be no contest.

You have charge of the firing squad, Major.... you know your duty (but for civilisation's sake offer the bastard a cigar, brandy, and blindfold at least).

[jimi45.livejournal.com]

So off Murdoch and take TLS under your own wing! Problem solved! ;P

Agreed that cigar, brandy and blindfold it is. But do I at least get to give him the Haile Selassie treatment and bury him in a latrine?

(Oh, and that's Sergeant, actually--I worked for a living when I was in the Army!)

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Might have been a conflict of interest: when the revolution was going to happen, I wanted the BBC. I doubt the TLS would have been the appropriate house magazine.

The Haile Selassie treatment shouldn't be our way of doing things....Give him a proper military burial, like Che, under some airport runway.

Actually, Roops is in his late seventies now and has a wife more than thirty years his junior: a bullet is surely superfluous?

All armies are run by Sergeants and Adjutants: everyone else just makes more mess.

[jimi45.livejournal.com]

Actually, Roops is in his late seventies now and has a wife more than thirty years his junior: a bullet is surely superfluous?

Touche!

All armies are run by Sergeants and Adjutants: everyone else just makes more mess.

Ah, correct answer (whether you meant it or not)!

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Well, I think some of us are only fit to be Subalterns....or perhaps that's just me specifically.