As for you, Larry… dagnabbit! You saw through my ploy, and just when I thought I was being so clever! Actually, when I initially wrote the line, I honestly wasn’t thinking of it in that light, but of course I immediately saw the disguised boast within it and grinned a wry grin as I published. I thought it would be Merrick who pulled me up on it, or maybe John B (given the contrary comments I’ve been posting to his blog), but I can’t say I’m all that surprised it was you.

Rochenko… just like Jherad, I’ve been thinking about getting that book for a wee while and your comment was the final nudge I needed. It’s on the way as I write (though, like Jherad, god only knows when I’ll get round to actually reading it; right now it’s a steady diet of Lacan, Freud and Zizek followed by Jung, Hillman and Edinger for dessert).

That’s not a shameful confession – you talented bastard – it’s a cleverly disguised boast. And you would have got away with it too, if it wasn’t for my X-Ray specs.

For about fifty or sixty pages, I confess, I took the bait, and did my best to work myself into a lather. By page 200–there are 405 pages of actual text–offense was beside the point, and I was mentally imploring the author to get it over with. By page 300, I was bored out of my skull. And by the time I made it to the final pages, I was wishing that I had been invited instead to review a multi-volume history of farm subsidies.

Because the reviewer “made it all the way to the end”. Some people take time before forming an opinion and others don’t. Only one of these is worth reading.

Sure, Freddie Starr may well have not eaten that hamster on that particular occasion – but apparently, hamster-eating by that demographic is on the rise.

I’d say the biggest difference between the tabloids and the broadsheets is in the ratio of opinion to information.

>I’ve taken Mr Wells at his own word. I didn’t need to read more than the first two paragraphs to know that he is a talentless cock whose views on music are utterly worthless.

And don’t even get me started on travel “journalism”. Or do, but in the pub…

As a proud and long time member of the Jim Bliss Fifty (a name for a popular beat combo if ever there was one), can I just say that if that’s the case, your non-blogging writing must be something to behold indeed.

first, I’m goosed by our simultaneous posting on the same topic. I’m sure that, if either of us had a readership of any size, someone would suggest we were the same person.

secondly, with you on the Steven Wells stuff. Lazy take the money and run bollocks.

thirdly, I’m with Voyou on the tabloids thing. When I worked on a farm with redneck meatheads, they didn’t care about their paper’s politics. they were sussed enough to treat the Sun and Mirror as comics to read during the teabreak. They were all labour voters, yet most read the then-tory Sun.

I remember seeing a poll in the late 80s or early 90s about peoples politics, the paper they read and how much they trust the editorial line. The closest matches were the Guardian and the Telegraph. Given that their writer lie and fabricate as much as the Sun’s do, it makes the Guardian and the Telegraph far more dangerous newspapers. At least Sun readers don’t believe the bollocks served up to them.