No idea if Geoffrey boycott was as terrible at cricket as this

Anyone who invokes "winning two world wars" in support of no deal Brexit should be court martialled and shot tbh.

It does suggest a good record of kicking Johnny Foreigner's butt tbf, although I accept that past performance is no indication etc.

But listen: we won two world wars – and by the time you get to the age of 78, you’re going to be one of those weirdo subclinical nostalgics who somehow reckons they actually fought in them. Let’s have a bit of flair! Let’s have a bit of fuck-this-for-a-game-of-soldiers! Let’s have a sense of adventure and hang the consequences! I’m sure you can see the long-term folly of thinking everything through as much as you do …”

HEH @ this.

Why do all Guardian writers write so badly? 

it so much like a shit 6th form essay competitor . 


Given that they don't charge for access to the website, wibble, there may be a good reason for that.

At least they can use words of more than two syllables (unlike the Sun), apostrophes (unlike the Daily Mail) and produce text which doesn't scream "of course I've always voted Conservative, just like mummy and daddy" (unlike the Torygraph).

Marina Hyde is the best columnist out there. On any subject.

Fair play to him attempting to flirt with La Reid tho. you'd absolutely have to.

She's typical of the overprivileged Leftie-liberal columnist, only given a platform through nepotism, and with a sneering, prolix style of writing. I'd imagine she's Emily Thornberry's favourite journo. 

Leaving aside the comment on the quality of her writing (on which you are wrong by the way), I wonder if you can help us out with the ‘nepotism’ comment?

Daughter of some Tory politician, grandaughter of a baronet blah blah. But you know all that. So why don't you convince me that she got the job on talent?

Talking of sub clinical nostalgics, the author of that pulp was seven years old when Boycott last played cricket for England.

I'm not at all convinced that she supported cricket so fanatically back then as to wish  that Boycott approached playing the same way he approaches Brexit

Pretty funny I imagine her father Sir Alastair Edgcumbe James Dudley-Williams watched a fair bit of Boycott at Lords back in the day before he sprogged a whinging little sponger

Because her family were big in aviation not news?

Because she has worked her way up from being a secretary at a newspaper rather than being parachuted in?

Because she writes knowledgeably and regularly about a wide range of subjects over many years?

If you can show the slightest element of nepotism rather than talent I would be delighted to see it.

Arise Sir Strutter, white knight by order of the proverbial bicycle

Except it isn’t really whiteknighting if the person isn’t around is it?

Just stating the facts for a notorious lackwit.

Isn't this what Brad and Hotnow like to call an ad hominem attack (when it's other people doing it, of course)? 

I totes would flirt with la Reid but I detest boycott so I’m not sure where this leaves me.

To be fair I thought it was a funny article I'd be more bothered if I was a Brexit fan like dux as it's a re-do of the pale male and stale ageist and sexist tripe with an overlay of Brexit bashing and equating it with domestic violence  - not exactly high brow but quite funny

I suppose what I wrote could be ad hominem if a writer's words now can't be distinguished from their person.

You weren't attacking her words, you were attacking her age and hotnow was attacking her ancestry. 

Although on the age point, I'd be perfectly happy to concede that Marina Hyde should not be opining about Geoff Boycott's cricketing days, as long as we all agree that no one who was under 18 on VE day should be banging on about how "we" won the war.  

 was attacking her ancestry

you don't think that writing a column  in the guardian next to all the columns excoriating "privilege" when literally all their staff come from the upper middle classes is worth commenting on? 

They are hypocrites and that detracts from their credibility. It's relevant. 

What are they supposed to do, all go and work in ASDA? 

Don't get me wrong it's a nice gravy train I'm well jell that my grandad didn't own a factory and my dad wasn't a prominent politician - I sure as hell wouldn't be pumping legal advice for coins if they were. 800 words on some sub-batchelors level woke BS I could knock that out in 20 mins

Gravy train implies earning a lot of money for doing not very much work. Marina Hyde appears to be doing a lot of work (and rather well) for what is probably a lot of money to a shelf stacker at ASDA but not a lot of money to someone like you.

If course if these jobs are poorly paid then there is a valid argument that the comparatively low salary is a barrier to entry to brilliant candidates who don't have parents who can support them financially at the beginning of their careers.

But "gravy train" would appear to be entirely the wrong expression. 

PS - I wouldn't be rating your own ability as a would-be Guardian columnist. You can't even spell "bachelor's". 

"Batchelor's" is a brand of tinned soup. 

Also you just posted a takedown of my post which ended up making an argument for my post. No wonder they call you facepalm 

You're the only person who calls me face-palm, and no, I pointed out that gravy train doesn't mean what you appear to think it means. 

I havent "attacked her age" at all. All i have said is that i find in entirely unconvincing that someone halfway through 2019 has regrets about the way Geoffrey Boycott was playing cricket when they were aged 0 to 7.

Is it? You're a identikit fuckwits to me. Literally can't tell you apart. 

Perhaps she remembers his cricket career about as well as he remembers the war, and that's the point 

She was born in 1974. Of course she knows how boring Boycott was, it was part of the herd consciousness for children of that era. Her baronet grandpa probably talked of little else.

Amazing how the small dicked right wing incels who couldn't hold down a job writing for the parish newsletter happen to be the ones who all pile in. It can't just be because she writes (brilliantly) for a left wing paper.

Wasn’t he the one who beat up his girlfriend?

Is GMB having Stan Collymore on tomorrow to discuss the Tory leadership election?

Spurious we've already done the 'small dicked' thing it's sexist and not 2019 do keep up or u will be cancelled at the next meeting of the wokerati

Oh did he touch a nerve? 

You might as well enjoy it, it doesn't seem likely that anyone wants to touch your penis. 

Oh grow up. It has nothing to do with her sex and everything to do with the cozy, cliquey way these sons and daughters of the gentry find themselves cushy jobs in positions of enormous influence. Ironically it's those on the Left who continually bang on about how the rest of us must create "social mobility" who are the worst culprits!  

Here's a wild idea. Why don't we judge journalists on the quality of their writing? 

On that basis, Marina Hyde would not exactly be first for the firing squad. 

Because churning out copy for a daily rag is not such a prize skill that it can be judged like that. It's not proper literature. I'm sure she does just as good a job as many people. The question is, can she really be better than the hundreds of other aspirant journalists? 

I'm sure many aspiring lawyers who read this board have asked the same question about you over the years. 

There's no need to be rude. Maybe they do although, as Delphi is always very keen to point out, I'm firmly lower middle class, so I'm not sure what strings I'm supposed to have pulled. 

It really is pitiful to see you scrabbling here dux.

The fact of the matter is that marina hyde is one of the best (and best regarded) journalists now working. 

She wrote something that disagrees with your world view and so you made up something about nepotism. 

When challenged on this you could provide no evidence beyond a vague declaration that it must have happened because her family are vaguely well known.

It is really difficult to write multiple columns of a high quality on the subjects of sport, politics and popular culture on a regular basis. To do so consistently well over more than a decade is a stunning personal achievement and something that you could not hope to emulate.

To suggest that this is achieved on a liberal leaning newspaper because your dad was a conservative mp is not only bizarre but insulting.  

Please come back when you have an apology or a proper argument that is founded on something beyond prejudice.

Yeugh Anna please don't think about me or my bits in a sexual way you sad creepy pervert. 

Sorry to disappoint you but I don't find pity a turn on. 

Never heard of this lady, but she totally popped strutter's cherry at university

He bothered me not two hours ago if you must know.

"Please come back when you have an apology"

No! Don't be ridiculous. As you rightly pointed out just now, she's not here. So who would I make an "apology" to anyway??

It's got nothing to do with her politics. I'd say the same thing (as many have done) about any number of journalists: the Telegraph's Celia Walden, for example, who just happens to be the daughter of a Tory MP, or the ITN's James Mates, who just happens to be the son of a Tory MP, or Sarah Smith, who just happens to be the daughter of a Labour MP, or Isabel Oakeshott (whom I admire) who just happens to be the niece of a Liberal MP, or dear old Dimbers, who just happens to be the son of the most famous broadcasters in British history. Clearly all of these people were just jolly talented eh? Extraordinary coincidence.


Yeah and if you hadn't had every educational advantage known to man in order to attempt to make some sort of silk purse out of you, you'd be flipping burgers in McDonald's, so perhaps people in glass houses should not throw stones.

I'm not always the biggest fan of Johnny Mercer MP, but it seems apposite to quote him here. Following Marina Hyde's sneering about his military background:

"Apologies for having a career before politics that I refer back to occasionally. Perhaps I should have done something worthy with my life and become a left wing gobshite masquerading as a serious journalist."

Or Winston Churchill, who just happened to be the nephew of the duke of Marlborough. 

It's an absurd argument. Obviously being well connected *can* convey an advantage in getting started in life but it doesn't necessarily, nor does it refute the point that marina Hyde is hugely talented. 

And what are his views on right wing actual gobshites such as Katie Hopkins, Julia Hartley-Brewer, Isabel Oakeshott, Sarah Vine, Jan Moir etc? Or are they OK as long as they continue to push a Tory agenda?

Yes that quote from Johnny mercer is somewhat undermined by the fact that argument took place in the context of him cheer leading the leadership skills of a gob shite journalist, Boris Johnson. 

Hyde absolutely schooled mercer it was almost embarrassing to watch 

Yes, I'm lucky to have received a decent education. I think it's unlikely that I got a job as a result of the school I attended, but I admit it's possible. I'm sure that takes us much further forward though, except to prove my point that some industries operate a cliquey method of recruitment.

Yuk you're so gross Anna keep your fantasy sex life to yourself 

Oh yes and Sarah Vine, who just happens to be married to a Tory MP.


It's a hell of a lot more likely than someone as thick as you being able to get a decent job if you'd had to muddle through at the local comp.


Good quote, thanks. I'll bring this up next time some tede mentions how many Etonians there are in the Cabinet.

Given that my local comp was the second best State school in the country, and my public school was notoriously unacademic, I'm almost certain that's not true.

I don't think people would mind so much about the Cabinet being stuffed full of Old Etonians if they weren't so completely fucking incompetent and self-serving.

Ok I'm sure that whoever you quote it to will be hugely influenced by what I think 

Why all the vitriol anyway? I manage not to personally insult you.

"Or Winston Churchill, who just happened to be the nephew of the duke of Marlborough"

Well, quite. A point that Mr Attlee made on repeated occasions.


I think I just find it a bit difficult to stomach when someone who has had all the advantages you've had complains about other people having got where they are through nepotism. Particularly when it's someone who wouldn't be where they are without a great deal of talent and hard work, regardless of who their father is.

Actual lol at Anna's shitposting here an impassioned defence of nepotism and the aristocracy. Chapeau 

Nor sure I have any advantages, beyond being born into a fairly ordinary middle middle class (or lower middle class, as Delphi would have it) background and sent to a half-decent school. However, if I had enjoyed family connections, or family wealth, I'd happily admit it! And, were that the case, I certainly wouldn't devote a large chunk of my professional life to criticising the concept of privilege or inherited wealth.

You've got no clue though, have you? You claim to be a defender of working class people despite probably never having met one, and supporting a crash out Brexit which will plunge even more people into poverty. Easy to say from your comfortable, cushy life.


Do you have any comment to make on the actual article? If not, why are you here?

Yeah, sorry for having a comfortable life. I'll see if I can change that.

Dux has met at least one working class person tbf, he's met me 

Loathe as I am to spring to dux's defence, I refute with all possible vigour the assertion that he has been blessed with all life's advantages.  The man has been cursed since birth with the affliction of being an unmitigated cvnt.  As Vimes required 2 shots of Bearhugger's just to get to the level of normal people so Dux has to paddle four times as hard as his peers just to be able to breathe and see at the same time.  Has the fact that his mother once saw the Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire at a Womens Institute jam meeting helped him overcome his woes?  I suggest not.

Now, let us return to the subject of when and how Struttwr was penily proximate to this journo lady.

dux has a point - no-one would view his limited education as a reason to hire or promote him, it’s probably an active hindrance


dux m7 - to be clear i did not say u were lower middle class (u might be), rather that u are a social climber which is typically a trait of the lmc