Tuesday, July 29, 2003
Richard Littlejohn, who makes something of a living from, amongst other things, writing an opinion column for The Sun, rarely succeeds in making me angry. It's partly a matter of pride but also it's the fact that some of the stuff he comes out with is so off in the worlds of Izzard-like surrealism that it's actually extremely funny.
Take todays column where his traditional homophobic attack on gays and lesbians everywhere attacks... a bouncy council by the Metropolitan Police's stand at Pride. Apparently this is an insult to Tony Martin, the farmer just released from prison after killing a robber. It is, quite frankly, brilliant. I can't help but suspect that Littlejohn is a closet queen who writes these little articles as Wallace Arnold-like jabs at the stupidity of homophobia.
I think the last time there was any danger of Richard Littlejohn being taken in any way seriously Will Self saw to that...
SELF: [On Littlejohn's book 'To Hell in a Handcart'] It is a 400 page... I've read 200 pages of it and that is a 200 page recruiting leaflet for the BNP.
LITTLEJOHN: Well, you can't comment until you have read the other 200.
SELF: Why? Does it suddenly turn into Tolstoy?
Later on...
LITTLEJOHN: No it doesn't turn into Tolstoy. I don't set out to be Tolstoy. It is a much more complex book than that.
SELF:Than Tolstoy?
Take todays column where his traditional homophobic attack on gays and lesbians everywhere attacks... a bouncy council by the Metropolitan Police's stand at Pride. Apparently this is an insult to Tony Martin, the farmer just released from prison after killing a robber. It is, quite frankly, brilliant. I can't help but suspect that Littlejohn is a closet queen who writes these little articles as Wallace Arnold-like jabs at the stupidity of homophobia.
I think the last time there was any danger of Richard Littlejohn being taken in any way seriously Will Self saw to that...
SELF: [On Littlejohn's book 'To Hell in a Handcart'] It is a 400 page... I've read 200 pages of it and that is a 200 page recruiting leaflet for the BNP.
LITTLEJOHN: Well, you can't comment until you have read the other 200.
SELF: Why? Does it suddenly turn into Tolstoy?
Later on...
LITTLEJOHN: No it doesn't turn into Tolstoy. I don't set out to be Tolstoy. It is a much more complex book than that.
SELF:Than Tolstoy?
