Monday 3 October 2011

Incuriosity As A Museum Piece

The British Establishment quakes as John Lloyd (The King's School, Canterbury and Trinity College, Cambridge) returns to Radio Four only months after picking up his CBE and only days after his sixtieth birthday.

What a load of rubbish was The Museum of Curiosity. The BBC flagrantly breached its Charter by allowing Francesca "Innit Doh" Stavrakopoulou to give free rein to her ludicrous, dated, "gizza telly series" theories, despite the fact that this was radio rather than her more natural medium. She is not well-served when there is no option merely to look at her. She should stick to judging The X-Factor. No, that's unfair. Tulisa Contostavlos is better-spoken. And apparently better-educated.

Contrary to Stavrakopoulou's unchallenged assertion, her principal critic is not Ann Widdecombe. I shall rephrase that: the principal critics of the views that she popularises are in no case Ann Widdecombe, but are often older, male, and altogether less telegenic than Stavrakopoulou, like pretty much everyone who espouses more sophisticated versions of those same views. Was this Radio Four, or BBC Three? Would even BBC Three have broadcast without question someone who suggested that belief in Angels and Saints was incompatible with monotheism, or who first set up and then failed to correct another contributor's suggestion that such belief was peculiar to Catholics?

Bringing us to the ubiquitous Jimmy Carr, a man who, and brace yourself for this, is able to take the views of Richard Dawkins even further downmarket, putting even more "lower" into their "lower middlebrow". Still, at least he owned up to being "a Plastic Paddy", in that he holds an Irish passport despite having been brought up and educated in the Home Counties, with the accent of which he therefore speaks. (He was at Cambridge, too. What are the chances, eh?)

But, to be fair, he was born in Ireland. He is a sort of reverse version of the Islington-born Dana. Pro-life, pro-family, thoroughly devout, a profoundly Eurosceptical ex-MEP, neither a terrorist nor an apologist for pederasty, and natally a West Brit? If I were Irish, then I know where my vote would be going. What about Jimmy Carr's, and why?

9 comments:

  1. Stavrakopoulou is even more shameful for letting Carr off the hook when you consider that she presumably comes from a Greek Orthodox background. But she was only at Oxford, so never learned that the only Old Testament dispute is over the Tetragram, whether it is CTRH or RWLM.

    The twin forces that opposed Dev's Constitution, the Catholic ultras and the Southern Unionists, meet in the person of Dana. Let her lead Ireland to a Second Republic informed by both of those traditions.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That second paragraph is superb. As with what I assume was also your comment on the post about the Israeli Arabs, I wish that I had thought of it in time for inclusion in Confessions of an Old Labour High Tory.

    And unlike that other one, the moment will have gone by the time that another book of mine appears. But if Dana wins, then I shall definitely find a way of working this one into something.

    ReplyDelete
  3. There's only one David Lindsay. There only ever has been. You just don't care, do you? You never did. There'll never be another.

    I recently read a review, you probably saw it, of Tam Dalyell's autobiography. It concluded that "We shall not see his like [in Parliament] again." Every day that you are not in it, that point is sadly proved.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Carr distinctly said that he was born in Ireland, but his Wikipedia entry says he was born in Hounslow. Obviously he is right and Wikipedia is wrong, but people like him keep a close eye on their entries. I wonder why he has never corrected it?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Stavrakopoulou is barking mad. She believes that the Temple Mount was the Garden of Eden and Adam was the king there, with the whole story an allegory of the Fall of Jerusalem. In 597 BC, long after the story was first standardised in written form, never mind first told round a campfire or whatever. Mad. Stark, staring mad. Right up there with that chap who said that all the world's myths, among which he counted the Bible, were about visiting aliens. Is that sort of thing going to get a primetime BBC TV series with no criticism included? Are those people who claim that archaeology supports the Book of Mormon?

    ReplyDelete
  6. And the British Israelites. Don't forget the British Israelites.

    ReplyDelete
  7. British Israelites? We've all forgotten the British Israelites. Are they still around?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Why doesn't the BBC try and find out, with a view to giving them a series? Alternatively, they could have one episode in a series about theories concerning the Lost Tribes of Israel. But each presented utterly uncritically. Of course.

    ReplyDelete
  9. When someone writes an paragraph he/she retains the thought of a user in his/her brain that
    how a user can be aware of it. Therefore that's why this piece of writing is great. Thanks!
    Also see my web site - Lion King Tickets

    ReplyDelete