The awful trend on Twitter

Good man, David Baddiel.

David Baddiel on Twitter:

Keen to know how a hashtag celebrating the idea of the death of a living woman trended for over a day on this platform devoted apparently to the removal of hate speech.

What I remember being a child was that average people bought the Satanic Verses just to see what the fuss was about. Streisand effect. My working class Tory parents bought it, but didn't get very far in, however years later I read their copy myself, when I was staying at their house and bored with nothing to read. It sat in the bookcase for years

Damn! "he was an articulated, opinion" should be "he was an articulate, opinionated.."

Plus ca change, eh.

No better than the taliban this lot.

Very sharp comment on Janice Turner's twitter feed (not Janice herself, one of the commenters):

"My god. We are this close from the aggressive regressive reactionary fashionable left declaring a Fatwa on a genuinely liberal woman for writing a book they haven’t seen."

More worrying that the Guardian books section appears to believe this!

They don’t believe it at all. They are choosing to not correct this bit of misinformation.

A lot of people on twitter seem to think she wrote & published Troubled Blood in 3 months

More worrying that the Guardian books section appears to believe this!

after months of pain among trans people and their allies.

Never forget the allies!

Im also at the number of people who don’t understand how long it takes to write, edit, re edit, proof, design & launch a book. A lot of people on twitter seem to think she wrote & published Troubled Blood in 3 months

I'm another who would now buy anything she wrote, and who also usually waits for the paperback or for Kindle copy to come down in price. But I pre-ordered this back in July and am now spending my day off cosied up with it.

In summary "The judgement is that comments on Troubled Blood were not based in fact; but on balance Rowling does deserve the scold's bridle for briefly referring to a banned subject.

Comrades are reminded that The Telegraph is a banned publication and separate action will be taken on this matter".

I actually read your first paragraph and thought that it was a direct copy and paste from the Guardian. So low has the Guardian sunk that I just thought 'sounds like what they'd publish'. It wasn't until the second paragraph that I realised you were paraphrasing. The reference to the scolds bridle didn't even sound implausible from the Guardian.

I'm planning lots of Ickabog

Deffo

Just went on Amazon to do a book review because they are only allowing verified purchases to do it.

Thanks littl

I am wedded to JKR now. Whatever she publishes, I will buy. Probably in multiple copies.

I'm planning lots of Ickabog. Donating a copy to school, too. Maybe even to each classroom 🙂

It is, at best, an utterly tone-deaf decision to include an evil man who cross-dresses after months of pain among trans people and their allies.

Alison Flood works in the media - she must know like she knows water is wet that this book will have been written and submitted well upwards of a year ago. JFK did not include this character since she wrote her pro-woman essay earlier in the summer.

(And that is without touching on the universe of wrong that is her implication that JKR must censor her opinions and her storytelling so as not to cause pain to 'trans people and their allies'. Who we know would be happiest if no woman ever did anything that didn't directly service their agenda.)

I am choosing to find the Guardian article funny - the way they contort themselves trying to attack both the Telegraph and JK and end up tripping over their own feet.
I think laughing will cause them more discomfort than anger.

acknowledges that the character isn't trans and there is just a a couple of passing references to him wearing his landlady's coat and a wig

How long before the TRAs go full-on-Leviticus on us, and ask for men wearing women's clothes to be made illegal so that this sort of confusion can't occur . (I have seen an article by a TRA arguing that women who don't perform femininity are letting the side down by making it harder for transwomen to clearly signal their femininity - it was in the Independent a few years back. IIRC the take home message was "Women: dress like proper women so we have something to copy that clearly signals our inner womanliness. But women: do make sure you dress in a dowdy, woman at M&S sort of way, so we have a dull background against which we can shine.")

Apologies if this has been answered but seeing this book is now a bestseller I’m wondering if her previous Galbraith books went to no.1 as quickly? Or is this down to the twitter hate? It’s certainly the first book of hers I’ve ordered so quickly since HP.

The Guardian article is really bad.

In summary "The judgement is that comments on Troubled Blood were not based in fact; but on balance Rowling does deserve the scold's bridle for briefly referring to a banned subject.

Comrades are reminded that The Telegraph is a banned publication and separate action will be taken on this matter".