Alex Callinicos/SWP vs Laurie Penny/New Statesman Facebook handbags

[weepiper]

yeah that's a bit libellous tbh

 

[sihhi]

The bloke in the twatty wastcoat looks like a smack dealer who lived down the street from me in Chesterfield. The kid the the foreground looks like he's been sampling his wares.

The waiscoat man is Nick Lezard of 'hovel' fame.
He has given talks (rather fancily called 'salons' at literary clubs such as Peirene (£10 to members and £20 to non-members)

http://www.peirenepress.com/events/salon/2013_salons

One such event in 2011

Peirene Press is an award-winning boutique publishing house with an extra twist, based in London. We are committed to first class European literature in high quality translation. Our books are beautifully designed paperback editions, using only the best paper from sustainable British sources. Affordable, timeless collector items. And because literature - both reading and writing - can be a lonely affair, Peirene hosts a wide range of regular literary events, from informal coffee mornings to exciting literary salons and tailor-made, exclusive events.
Peirene’s Books
Peirene specializes in contemporary European novellas in English translation. All our books are best-sellers and/or award winners in their own countries. We only publish books of less than 200 pages that can be read in the same time it takes to watch a DVD.

As an aside, Peirene is both Lottery-funded and Arts Council-funded (worth remembering like when ages ago an unaccompanied (meaning young) refugees 'art therapy' short-term project was attacked in the press as a disgrace to the principles of the lottery).

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

yeah that's a bit libellous tbh

yeah sorry I meant smack dealer

ETA: and just to be clear it was a reference to the smack dealer in Chesterfield who looks a bit like Lezard not a suggestion that the guardian's best literary critic is involved in the procurement, sale or other distribution of illegal substances

 

[equationgirl]

yeah sorry I meant smack dealer

even in jest, I really wouldn't say that, the site can ill-afford a libel suit.

 

[equationgirl]

See, that's a bit clearer.

 

[sihhi]

Nick Lezard actually uses the term the Hovel - not our cruddy hovel, but "the Hovel"

http://www.newstatesman.com/lifesty...ive-–-and-it-was-my-robust-indifference-shamp

But something, in my case, had to give and what gave was my robust indifference to shampoo. True, a significant part of my decision about which shampoo to buy still resides in how much it looks like it will stand up on its end without leaking so that you don’t have to wait five minutes before the last bits come out of the nozzle; but I have also started looking a bit more carefully at what claims are being made for each bottle.

As it happens, in the Hovel, where two men and two women regularly shower, though not together, there are about 12 bottles of hair things ranged around the bathtub. I shall, for purposes of space, restrict myself to the L’Oréal Elvive products. The Nutri-Gloss shine shampoo contains, we are told, “the secret to glossy shine”. Full Restore, although now mostly full of water, is for “weak, limp, damaged hair”. (I bought this one and I think my hair got a bit offended, and then depressed, by the description.) Then there is Colour Protect “caring conditioner”, but that rather suggests that other conditioners are uncaring, does it not? They give your hair a rushed, distracted condition and then piss off, leaving it feeling cheap and used.

Then there’s the age-defying conditioner, already mentioned, which buys your hair a sports car and gets it a younger girlfriend. Finally, the Damage Care shampoo, which was the only one on the rack at the chemist’s that looked like it had any common ground at all with the age-defying conditioner. It’s got to this point: that I’ve now started worrying whether my conditioner and my shampoo will get on with each other. (My daughter, marvelling at the array of different kinds of shampoo for different hair types in Waitrose the other day, asked, “don’t they make any shampoo for dirty hair?”)

The Hovel-dwellers who shop at Waitrose.

(Cue: Can't ordinary working-class people shop at Waitrose? Why do you have a problem with minorities shopping where they like?)

I think I dislike Nick Lezard more.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Waitrose is practically a workers coop though

 

[smokedout]

Waitrose is a LOT communism

 

[love detective]

Waitrose is like a middle class version of hooters

I'm sure they discriminate on how you look when employing, it's always full of dainty young english rose types

 

[smokedout]

Waitrose is like a middle class version of hooters

I'm sure they discriminate on how you look when employing, it's always full of dainty young english rose types

how do you know?

 

[love detective]

Because I go there to check out all the dainty young english rose types

(sometimes you need a rest from the tesco catford crew!)

 

[sihhi]

Waitrose is a LOT communism

Does he name and implicitly attack Iceland here:

buying vast amounts of vol-au-vents from Iceland is not my idea of what Christmas should be about

specifically to spread the Waitrose Revolution?

Also, where does quoting Christopher Hitchens for truth fit in on the communism scale? A little, too much or just right?

The late Christopher Hitchens once described it as living in a one-party state where you've got images of the dear leader and songs you can't escape from, even in your own home.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/23/christmas-love-or-hate-it-conversation

 

[smokedout]

Because I go there to check out all the dainty young english rose types

racist

 

[love detective]

yeah but not unexamined racism so it can pass

 

[equationgirl]

There's a Waitrose near me but I can only afford to go there for a treat. It is a lot more expensive than other supermarkets.

Usually it's Tesco along the road, or the corner shop.

 

[Favelado]

Well, at least you're not digging out of the bins of Carrefour at night like some of my neighbours.

Cue 4 Yorkshiremen.

 

[equationgirl]

Well, at least you're not digging out of the bins of Carrefour at night like some of my neighbours.

Cue 4 Yorkshiremen.

I don't even want to go to Tesco, given their shitty record on all sorts of things, like supplier exploitation and enthusiasm for workfare, but I need to eat. I can't afford to buy lunch at work everyday.

 

[cesare]

Up early? Experiencing oppression that LP can't provide a salve for?

Well comrades, tune into freeview Yesterday channel 19 for an entertaining documentary on Trotsky getting ice-picked. 6am.

 

[cesare]

That was quite good. Not very long but lots of archive footage, and interesting.

 

[Bakunin]

Yet she keeps winning.

 

[Blagsta]

There's a Waitrose near me but I can only afford to go there for a treat. It is a lot more expensive than other supermarkets.

Usually it's Tesco along the road, or the corner shop.

There aren't any in Birmingham.

 

[lauriepenny]

This is just getting extremely creepy and stalky. Going through everything I do on social media for evidence of my life, my friends, speculating about how my friends live, how I live, my school, where I grew up. Please tell me how this is actually contributing for one second to useful political discourse?

 

[Red Cat]

She seems out of her depth class wise too to me. She doesn't appear to me to have the confidence and unmistakable sense of entitlement of the upper middle class people I've met or those that appear in her photos. I suspect she fears everyone will find out she's a fraud, all this pissing people off and posturing is a smokescreen.

I don't like what she represents but she comes over to me like a vulnerable teenager. If someone gave her a massive advance to write some novels I suspect she'd be quite happy to retreat into a world of fiction.

 

[Red Cat]

This is just getting extremely creepy and stalky. Going through everything I do on social media for evidence of my life, my friends, speculating about how my friends live, how I live, my school, where I grew up. Please tell me how this is actually contributing for one second to useful political discourse?

You pissed a lot of people off here who are considerably older and more experienced than you. You behaved like a manipulative teenager.

ETA: That makes it sound like it's an act of revenge. What I meant was that you can't just attack people in the way that you did and expect no comeback, in fact that's what you wanted IMO. It used to be called shit stirring, a better description than trolling.

 

[Blagsta]

Tbf Laurie, you've put it all out there, written about it, made yourself into a celebrity. Don't claim outrage when other people then read it and comment!

 

[Red Cat]

I found you behaviour really strange actually, odd. I wondered what you gained by doing what you're doing.

 

[olenyok]

@lauriepenny you've publicised exhaustive detail about your life, not just online like people do with fb, but in some of the most public fora going. You've done it in the name of politics which affect us all, and you've got paid for a great deal of it.

It's utterly absurd to pretend that people then discussing it is even remarkable, let alone nefarious. Are you even believing any of it, or is it just a forward momentum which has to be maintained so stuff doesn't fall apart?

 

[Blagsta]

You claim to be some kind of expert on social media and the internet ffs. Didn't you realise that all that stuff you post online about your life is then available for anyone to look at and comment on?

For the "smartest kid in a smart school", you're being a bit...well...thick.

 

[Ronnie Rubashov]

This is just getting extremely creepy and stalky. Going through everything I do on social media for evidence of my life, my friends, speculating about how my friends live, how I live, my school, where I grew up. Please tell me how this is actually contributing for one second to useful political discourse?

I kinda agree here. It is starting to look obsessive and, frankly, a bit like overkill. I was persuaded you're a fraud way back...entirely unsuited and unqualified to speak on behalf of the people you champion.
Maybe it's necessary, however, so that there's a body of evidence attesting to the total disparity between your version of yourself and the reality. Otherwise, what future is there for meaningful reportage...when any public-school radical can reinvent themselves as a campaigning 'left-wing' journalist and waltz about being free and easy with the actualite, completely unchallenged?
Although possibly my obsession with what I like to call the truth is only another degenerate facet of my privilege.

 

[Red Cat]

Are you even believing any of it, or is it just a forward momentum which has to be maintained so stuff doesn't fall apart?

The celebrity's new clothes.