tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5395480011266096789.post137132334714710216..comments2014-09-29T18:40:26.118+01:00Comments on Jennifer Hodgson: On Loving Angels, InsteadJENNIFER HODGSONhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17393046754252807306noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5395480011266096789.post-10002187081795128482009-05-12T14:00:00.000+01:002009-05-12T14:00:00.000+01:00Fnarf: Thanks for the props! My worry here is that...Fnarf: Thanks for the props! My worry here is that the patronising, doublespeaking representations and histronic encouragement of working class sentimentalism in Britain during events like these speaks of something gross and insidious. In the last ten years, whilst the British middle classes have enjoyed the spoils of their ascent into a gratifyingly-spongy sort of liberalism, accompanied by a sort of decadence in strict moderation and taste, the Great Divide has got bigger and bigger. In Britain, it seems it's perfectly okay to jeer, en masse, at the coarse and uncouth habits of those that are poorer than you. Fair enough, any kind of Anglophile knows that the class divide has long been prime theme of British funnies. My concern is with the ever-widening chasm that these jokes issue from...JENNIFER HODGSONhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17393046754252807306noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5395480011266096789.post-79343445522601173402009-05-12T13:01:00.000+01:002009-05-12T13:01:00.000+01:00We've spoken about this before and at length (prob...We've spoken about this before and at length (probably) and I know we both find these outpourings of grief at the deaths people of dubious (or not) importance to those outside their families somewhat nauseating. <br /><br />But why aren't you taking pot shots at the Guardian? This is what I read you for.Lettie Virtuehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07384027412516983579noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5395480011266096789.post-42043583633799308442009-05-11T21:23:00.000+01:002009-05-11T21:23:00.000+01:00This is wonderful.
You know, I'm not that repelle...This is wonderful.<br /><br />You know, I'm not that repelled by the outpouring of lower-class grief over Jade Goody -- the pornography of it, the simulacrum of an apparently real emotion being applied to a celebrity shade, a person who to be honest wasn't particularly interesting or admirable, celebrity culture, yadda yadda. Yes, it's tacky, but like a lot of tacky things it's not really harming me in any way, and if it gives small comfort to people sorely lacking in such comforts, I can't get too worked up over that. Like plastic crucifixes dangling from rear-view mirrors.<br /><br />Your Lady Di, on the other hand, generated a spectacle that to this day makes me physically ill, because it wasn't small comforts, etc., it was, or seemed to be, EVERYBODY, and her death seemed to be a state occasion for the very comfortable indeed.<br /><br />I'm an American, so probably deaf to some of the more complex harmonies at work here, but it seems to me to be a question of people who should know better versus people who obviously don't. And there's the princess angle, too; I don't like princesses.<br /><br />Oh, and I'm a heartless old grump, too. Maybe that's the problem.<br /><br />Nice blog.Fnarfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15022243603033471232noreply@blogger.com