Am switching between laughing like a drain at this book and wanting to throw it across the room!
The showy offy ones about children or foreign travel are fair targets, but IMO he just comes over as snide when he sneers at the couple who give a detailed account of their day and then say 'Are we in a rut? Yes I suppose we are but it's a lovely rut.' Anyone else think 'awww bless!' at this point?
He seems to think no-one except himself is capable of irony - surely when someone says the most exciting thing that happened to them recently is that their winter fuel payment was paid into their bank account, they are actually commenting gently on the dullness of their own life and how hard it is to make ends meet as an old person?
And as for the farmers who mention in their letter that supermarkets import beef at 98p/kilo but they need 220p/kilo to be profitable, well, presumably that is the key figure that is affecting their livelihood and future that year. So why shouldn't they put it in their letter? And, you know, maybe the letter wasn't originally meant for Guardian media types?
Grr!