Sometimes you just have to put your hand up and confess your limitations. It's not just my bad spelling and my unnecessarily convoluted grammar, which usually arises from the tangle which represents my thought processes, that marks me down as just a mere blogger. Usually, a good, old-fashioned comparison will do the dirty deed. Take this comment from Simon Carr in The Independent on Clegg and Cameron:
Of course they have their differences, Clegg said – and he might have gone on: "His father was a stockbroker, mine was a banker. He went to Oxford, I went to Cambridge. He has a blue tie, I have a yellow. He looks like Pinky and I look like Perky." You could try and explain the difference between Cameron and Clegg to a Japanese tourist but he'd surely say: "They look the same to me, mate."
I would give my right left arm to write such a neat and deadly summary as that!
Yeah, but Simon Carr is a far, far better writer than the average journalist.
P.S. There is an infelicity of detail: his allusion is presumably to "They all look the same to me, mate", so what he wrote creates a dissonance.
Posted by: dearieme | Friday, 27 January 2012 at 15:55
Exactly, DM, 'dissonance', and there-in lies his skill as a humorous writer
Posted by: David Duff | Friday, 27 January 2012 at 17:44
Don't sell yourself short, DD!
On the topics of lesbian-straighteners and fat black clowns, Carr comes a poor second.
Mind you, that's probably because the Indy has a tame barrister who reminds him what types of comments would imperil his house and life savings!
Posted by: Whyaxye | Friday, 27 January 2012 at 20:45
Crikey! It wasn't me, guv, honest, it was this bloke 'W' impersonating me. I'm like 'Arry Redknapp, I can 'ardly rite'!
Posted by: David Duff | Friday, 27 January 2012 at 21:31