From: MORD@VNGNG.IZ.COR   
      
   ...says AA Gill.   
      
      
    The Sunday Times published an extract today from AA Gill's new book on The   
   English. He loudly announced that he hates the English. Like John Carey,   
   whose book on the arts I keep meaning to read, his publishing contract and   
   book sales depend on controversial statements.   
     He rattles off what you expect from a privileged member of society of his   
   age and background: the English are ghastly racists, atavistic and   
   repressing murderous rage with an obsession with rules, regulations and   
   queuing.   
     Of course, under the occasionally witty barbs, it's all the same de haut   
   en bas sniping that Gill probably despised in Daddy's generation.   
    Orwell, who also transmogrified his potty training into geopolitical   
   loathing, was so much better about the English. Gill - at least in the   
   extract in the Times - doesn't seem to have noticed any other side of the   
   English except the one that he wishes to exaggerate. You won't find here   
   anything about the English that spends so much on flowers and seeks to   
   protect birds and animals, that abolished slavery and invented cricket. This   
   is Martin Amis-ville: rich kid hangs out with the working class, 'gets' them   
   and then takes the piss out of them.   
     He rather foolishly uses the crowd at a football match as a sort of   
   snapshot of the English at play. This of course is woefully inadequate. He   
   also asserts that young men laughing cruelly at each other pubs is unique to   
   England. He is a world class traveler where I have never been anywhere much,   
   but I find it hard to believe.   
    According to the set of dislikes laid down in the extract, I am everything   
   Gill hates: I use humour as an offensive and defensive weapon, laugh loudly   
   and look at mainland Europe derisively. I also get angry about a lot of   
   things. By the way, he has a bloody cheek saying the British are obsessed   
   with rules and regs -  the British simply cannot compete with the Europeans   
   for official paperwork and documents.   
     In the end, you only have to think of how the world would be if the   
   English were more like Somalians or Italians to stick Gill's thesis in the   
   bin. He brushes off the tyranny and insanity of political correctness by   
   saying he makes jokes about the Welsh but defends his hypocrisy in leaving   
   Jews and other minorities out his piss taking by saying they have had enough   
   thrown at them. Maybe so. Who decides when they can become funny again?   
      
   ROBBIE   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)