"Stroud Green": New journalistic device for right wing simpletons

edited May 2011 in Local discussion
Please update your style guides. From the Telegraph: <http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/edwest/100089532/outrageous-we-cant-have-people-who-disagree-with-the-liberal-consensus-thats-so-victorian/>; *This isn’t about “Victorian” or even “medieval” sexual morality, as the truly idiotic commenters below claim, but a realisation that the current, very expensive sexual health system is not very effective, especially in altering the behaviour of the young and the poor; the problem with contraception, whether it’s the pill or condoms, is that it works great with sensible, responsible people, **ie Guardian-reading teachers from Stroud Green who write letters to Weekend magazine correcting the spelling of some third world city**. It’s vastly less effective with semi-literate 14-year-olds who half-want to get pregnant to fill their lives with some meaning.* Apart from "this is ace", I had a few thoughts. 1. Who has ever heard of Stroud Green? Seriously, most taxi drivers haven't even heard of it. I still have to tell most of them to drop me off just after Finsbury Park. If you're calling people names, then at least call them names other people have heard of. 2. This is gentrification at work. Time was, numpty Telegraph columnists would use Barnsbury or Highbury as their leitmotifs of the wishy-washy liberal left. But because Telegraph-reading investment bankers have pushed all the lentil-eaters out of those areas, it doesn't make sense for numpty Telegraph columnists with stupid facial hair to alienate their core readership. 3. He couldn't have said 'Finsbury Park' in place of Stroud Green because most people outside London would have thought about mosques. Which is a bit race-baity, even for the Telegraph. 4. In your face Crouch End. "Crouch End" would have fit perfectly in that sentence, but he didn't choose it. Stroud Green has totally beaten Crouch End. 5. If he'd taken the trouble to read the thread about the people outside Tesco, he'd find the citizens of Stroud Green have a fairly authoritarian streak when it comes to vulnerable people, so may not be the best example of the point he's trying to make. Whatever that point might be. 6. This is just the start. I won't really be happy until some proper nutbar columnist (e.g. Littlejohn) writes a sentence like "the complacent guardianistas sipping lattes in the Front Room Cafe on Tollington Park". Then we've really made it. 7. The 'blogs' bit is the giveaway. This article is not the real newspaper. It's where they put the silly trolling, baiting articles like 'immigration is horrid' and 'the EU are nazis' designed to get links and comments. So it's best ignored. 8. Except for the bit about Stroud Green. Which I have duly risen to. Happy Tuesday.

Comments

  • edited 4:26AM
    I stopped at the commentary underneath the intro photo. It sayeth "dozens of teenage girls have had three abortions or more". It's unclear whether the Telegraph realise that this isn't a large number in the context of a country of 68 million people...
  • edited 4:26AM
    Ace indeed!
  • edited 4:26AM
    Amazing! We must all now keep a close eye out for mispelled third world cities in the Guardian and write letters correcting them. Although since Stroud Green is the new epicentre of the liberal left, we would obviously use the term "developing world" instead. Maybe now Tesco will start being less erratic with their tofu availability.
  • edited 4:26AM
    Any fule know its Ouagadougou
  • IanIan
    edited 4:26AM
    Best opening comment of a thread in many a while.
  • edited 4:26AM
    Methinks Andy writes for the Guardian and is mucho peeved.
  • edited 4:26AM
    @tallboy - wrong on both counts, but don't let that put you off. It's the taking part that matters.
  • edited 4:26AM
    Excellent opening comment, Andy. I couldn't agree more.
  • edited 4:26AM
    Was there ever a letter from a Stroud Green teacher about the spelling of a foreign place name? I'd like to think there was instead of this journalist manqué (make that wanqué) inventing it out of lazy generic snobbism. The Guardian actually have a policy not to publish letters from Stroud Green. I know this because they never publish mine.
  • Tell you what, I wouldn't be happy if I was the girl in that photo.

    One minute your'e standing waiting for a bus (not a W7, W3 or even 210 in sight) and the next, according to the Telegraph, you've had three abortions or more...

    And I like the jounalist's own biog. Specialising in "low culture"...Says it all...
  • edited 4:26AM
    @ the ginger monkey. I was thinking the same thing. Can't imagine she would be happy / give her consent if she knew.
  • edited 4:26AM
    <i>One minute your'e standing waiting for a bus (not a W7, W3 or even 210 in sight) and the next, according to the Telegraph, you've had three abortions or more...</i>

    You know how it is - you wait ages for an abortion, then three come along at once!
  • edited 4:26AM
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • edited 4:26AM
    That caption is the most half-witted thing I've seen published by a newspaper in a long time - it highlights how the publish everything fast nature of certain online newspapers is rapidly diminishing journalistic quality. Still, on the plus side, as Andy said, 'in your face Crouch End' - I eagerly await our Littlejohn mention.
  • edited 4:26AM
    What a shame, he was just a troll. < Admittedly, a troll with a login to a proper newspaper, but troll nonetheless. When there are no newspapers anymore, Ed West will be one of the things that didn't save them.
  • edited 4:26AM
    @andy

    made my day
  • edited 4:26AM
    @ Jim Pennington,
    The Guardian's ban on SG! is this yet another example of lazy generic snobbism? Hardly surprising given the belief that Stroud Green is a made up place name, as opposed to one that predates Crouch End and Finsbury Park. Perhaps the origins of this attitude stem from the heady years for estate agents of the late '80's-/early '90's or London cabbies? Time Out, that 'bible' of ersatz, once reviewed SGR and the area in an article headlined 'The Stroud Green Riviera' [true!] However we are not entirely overlooked by the media as there is regular acknowledgement on BBC London for Stroud Green on the Robert Elms show which has a regular contributor[s] from here.
Sign In or Register to comment.