Bit harsh from Hilary Mantel?

And the horsemeat one was ideal distraction from stafford.
I dont think he should take up sikh headgear on a routine basis though, judging by today's photos. I always think he would have looked right in a great big Sam Pepys long wig.
Lengths he will got to do divert attention from the 1 billion underestimate on how much income gov would get from phone contracts.

Talking of horse meat I've a chilli festering in my crockpot.
The meat is from HRH' s duchy of Cornwall so I think it's unlikely to be horse?

Still, if it's festering it's not likely to do you much good if you eat it, Galen!

I think he flogged it to Waitrose didn't he galen? So proabbly they know the name of the bullock.

Festering is a term my neighbour and myself use for slow cooking!
Wonder how many calories on a baked potato and baked beans?

Too many cals. What can Ido for 200 cals?
Pilchards on toast?

Galenb Standard canned baked beans–somewhere between 69 and 84 cals per 100g; baked potato 136 cals per 100g.

Galenb What? Sorry.

Sok! I've had toast with marmite and butter.

No protein! You will be hungry by bedtime.

I'm going to bed in an hour!
Chilli on carne tomorrow with noodles and sour cream!

Going back to the OP, I have just got around to reading Julie Burchill's article and thought she made a good job of unpicking Hilary Mantel's bitchy attack and putting it back into something that made a lot of sense.

night all!

Here is another very good article about what The Mantelpiece actually meant. The writer says newspapers don't do irony. I'd add that they don't do subtle either.

This article could be applied to the Heather Frost story as well. Another place where there is probably a gap (a huge, gaping chasm, more like) between what the meeja tells us and reality.

AND another! from the Indie this time. I'm finding this very encouraging, this evidence that there is still some sanity in our mad meeja world

It's also encouraging to discover that my original view wasn't so way of the mark. I do wonder sometimes, what with all the synthetic outrage that afflicts our society and me just thinking "Eh?"

way off

Agree Bags. The problem is that many in - and outside - the media cannot understand adult discourse.

People like a good Harrumph. It make them feel better about themselves and their lives. It's a bit like schadenfreude.

Love how they're putting their own spin on it!

Err - she meant what she said! #paddingfornewspapers

'synthetic outrage'? Really dear?

I pinched that phrase from an article written by someone else (forgotten where or who), orca, and liked it.

jings, of course she meant what she said! That's exactly what the Indie article writer is saying.

Kelner's last comment "....but it served the rest of us..." (re. plain speaking and honesty) - Well no, Mantel's plain speaking and honesty didn't serve me. What her comments did serve, as far as I was concerned, was to make me think that someone with her extraordinary ability with words and intellect could have been just as honest in her views, but tempered with a little kindness. One can hold both, and I'm sure she is more than capable of doing so, but chose not to. I think she was more concerned with finding that Oh so perfect phrase, rather than caring how it might be received.
That's what pissed me off.

I saw that too, butty, but it didn't piss me off because I reckon that's what she does best and there's something boldly artistic about it that I like.

Don't know if anyone else has said this already, but what also infuriates me is the way people bring H M's personal appearance into the discussion as though she were a jealous schoolgirl envious of Kate's figure.