Momentous developments!
Dave agrees that the "North London dinner party" gag is a bit of an old chestnut.
No stop it you churlish bastards. This is good news and we should all be happy about it. Any comments along the lines of:
Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends: But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf
shall be censored with an iron fist in the comments. Meanwhile, blah blah blah privacy - a more or less unobjectionable bit of curmudgeonry with, AFAICT no wider political objections, although the dig at speed cameras and CCTV does rather give the game away that the "human need for privacy" is going to be subject to the well known Aaro benefit of the doubt if it ever comes up against ID cards or some goddamnable database. Btw, the gay Tivo thing has been around for a few years, so I'm guessing Dave's mate has "improved" a story that has rather done the rounds.
No stop it you churlish bastards. This is good news and we should all be happy about it. Any comments along the lines of:
Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends: But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf
shall be censored with an iron fist in the comments. Meanwhile, blah blah blah privacy - a more or less unobjectionable bit of curmudgeonry with, AFAICT no wider political objections, although the dig at speed cameras and CCTV does rather give the game away that the "human need for privacy" is going to be subject to the well known Aaro benefit of the doubt if it ever comes up against ID cards or some goddamnable database. Btw, the gay Tivo thing has been around for a few years, so I'm guessing Dave's mate has "improved" a story that has rather done the rounds.
posted by The Rioja Kid at 7/03/2007 10:30:00 AM
16 Comments:
Surely the suggestion that Aaro's readers can have a swab of Aaro's DNA is a direct nod to Aarowatch? Though it might be a watch to far.
I am waiting until the terror alert level is reduced from "critical" before sending a swab and vial to the Times offices, as to do so at present might be misinterpreted.
hahaha, check out the hitchenswatchers having a bit of fun.
Weren't we Aaro-watchers promised promised a in-depth thing about Rentoul? What's happened to it?
Lazy toss, what next "Facebook, more dangerous than global warming".
Can you be in-depth about someone with no depth?
the trouble is that I wrote the first sentence "Rentoul is the ultimate courtier of Tony Blair", and since writing it, I'm fucked if I can think of anything else to say about the bugger.
This is entirely off-topic and not directly connected to Aaro, but has anyone heard the latest on Chistopher 'Bitchen' Hitchens? Apparently it's emerged, much to his embarrasment, that Hitchens has for many years been inviting David Irving round to his house for dinner. Apparently Hitchens described his "friendship" with Irving in an off-the-record conversation with a journalist at the Financial Times who he used to work with in Washington and the journalist decided to go and make it public. Hitchens says he's an "admirer" of some of Irving's work, but he recently had to break off his "social contacts" with him because he made a "shocking anti-semtitic remark" to him last time he entertained him at Hitchens Towers (as the aforemetioned FT columnist puts it, "An anti-semtitic remark from David Irving? Well I never"), although other sources have apprantly suggested that the real reason Hitchens has stopped inviting him to dinner s because he made an insulting remark to his daughter. Apparently these revelations have past largely without comment in the U.S. press. I find myself wondering what reaction there would be if say, Noam Chomsky or John Pilger were found to have been entertaining David Irving or any other holocaust denying Nazi sympahiser at their homes. Somehow I doubt it would pass without comment and one would expect wild condemnation from the right-wing and from the decentists alike (and rightly so) and it would result in the ruination of their careers. One wonders whether Aaro or Nick Cohen will find the time to comment on Hitchens' friendship with Irving? After all, Hitchens is a hero of the Decents. And after all Nick has said about disgraceful leftists hanging around with unsavoury characters, you think he'd have something to say about Hitchens associating with Britain's best known Holocaust denier. And Aaro couldn't stop accusing the left of anti-semitism a few years ago, surely he'll feel the need to pass comment?
Hitchens' friendship with Irving isn't altogether new. Kissinger cited the fact when he accused 'the Dude' of being a holocaust denier: he backed off sharpish when H. threatened to sue.
I was well awarer of Hitchens' prior associaton with Irving, it's well known that he was in contact with him quite regularly in the early 80's (which was prior, I think, to Irving becoming a full-blown Holocaust denier) and he has referred to him often over the years, but I don't think anybody seriously thought that Hitchens regarded Irving as a 'friend' or that Hitchens would have dreamt of inviting the man round to his house to have dinner with his family. Frankly, who would dream of having Irving over at their place and cooking a meal for him? I wonder if Hitchens keeps a diary: "Friday: Gave a lecture in Washington, told my audience all about how the left is soft on fascism. Saturday: Had my dear friend David Irving over for dinner..."
Incidentally, I recall the Kissinger episode, obviously it was absurd that Kissinger tried to suggest that Hitchens was a Holocaust denier, but if I remember rightly he actually denied being an associate of Irving or admiring his work at all at the time. He also reacted angrily to Alexander Cockburn publicises some of his rather dubious alleged private remarks about the Holocaust, which he denied ever making.
Off topic again but I've just caught a trailer for a new doc on C4 by Richard Littlejohn on Anti-semitism
Guess who puts in an appearance as an interviewee railing against "the left"? you guessed it!
Nick and Littlecock, together at last!
I'm sorry - Richard Littlejohn is presenting a programme on anti-semitism. Good lord.
Littlecock here.
Richard Littlejohn argues that antisemitism, once the preserve of the extreme right, now has a foothold among other sections of society.
AFAIK, anti-Semitism has been a hobgoblin of the left and the non-extreme right as well. Were TS Eliot or Dickens extreme right-wingers? I seem to recall stories that sections of the Tories resented Nigel Lawson in the 80s because of his, er, ancestry. It's not pleasant, but it's always gone beyond the BNP-types. What's so odd is the extent the far right is now embracing Israel - which clearly includes Richard Littlejohn. I'm sure in many cases, it's purely negative: they just hate Arabs more. Not what I'd consider tolerant, progressive, etc.
But he really means 'the left' by 'other sections of society.' Yeah, Harold Pinter is such an anti-Semite.
So Nick Cohen is now appearing on Channel 4 to help bolster the arguments of Richard Littlejohn. And it's still his critics who have moved over to the right, not Nick himself then? The fact that Nick would would actually even consider appearing in a Littlejohn documentary says it all. What's next, teaming up with Simon Heffer to attack the left?
Littlejohn has always been very pro-Israel, it's nothing new. Littlejohn tells us that we have a "responsbility to help Isreal in any way we can" whereas when it comes to whether we should intervene to stop genocide in Africa he reckons that "if the Mumbingo tribe want to wipe out the Mumbongo tribe, as far as I am concerned that is entirely a matter for them." Funny how it's only certain varieties of prejudice that bother Littlejohn as well. How come Littlejohn dosen't do a documentary on the rise of homphobia in Britian? Or anti-gypsy intolerance? Or anti-asylum seeker hysteria? I'd love to see him make a film about one of them. Channel 4 obviously have a wonderful sense of humour commissioning Littlejohn to produce a film about the worrying rise of intolerance in Britain.
it's particularly odd in Nick Cohen's case as he isn't Jewish and has a long record of opposition to the actions of the government of Israel. I presume he's being wheeled on to tell his dinner party story about the Guardian talkboards?
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