Read this sex scene from Giles Coren’s failed novel!!!

[KentishTowner]

In his latest column in The Times Vile Coren is asserting that there are no successful white male authors any more. Yeah, sure, keep telling yourself that’s why your novel failed so spectacularly and you won The Bad Sex Award, Giles. Then read the actual, totally bizarre sex scene (the bit about the shower head!):

twitter.com/kirstysedgman/status/1454503687460638726?s=21

I can’t believe so many people think this is a serious piece of writing.

@Trixiefirecracker

I can’t believe so many people think this is a serious piece of writing.

I know. He will be chuckling to himself for sure!

I think lots of people struggle with irony and satire. Including the OP.

@Trixiefirecracker, I dont think there is a single person on earth who considers it a serious piece of writing.😂😂😂.

Ah, so the family and supporters of the dead journalist should just get more sophisticated and roll about laughing at good old Giles’ hilarious tweets. What a card he is!! So witty and a master of satire!
No, he really isnt.

This was Dawn Foster’s mother, Trudi’s response after Giles Coren publicly mocked her daughter’s death on Twitter at the age of 33.

twitter.com/mswhippet1/status/1417642766385942528?s=21

I can’t even imagine how appalling it would be for someone with such a huge platform and public persona to celebrate the death of your child. But unlike @Trixiefirecracker maybe I’m not sophisticated enough to understand the subtlety of Giles’ satire. Because when he does something awful it is always retrospectively declared to be only a joke.

For bad writing to be good, it has to be witty and self-aware. Zorren's work is just bad.

And that sex scene is a truly awful piece of writing, ergo just a joke.

@KentishTowner it’s only retrospective for you though, the first time I read it I realised it’s a piss take.

And Just because it’s a joke doesn’t mean it has to be a brilliant piece of writing, I totally agree that’s it’s rubbish but still understood the spirit to which it is intended. It feels like you have a very personal problem with him or are massively o er-invested in trying to take him down. Is there a reason for that? Is he a neighbour who left his bins out too long on your street? 😂

Yep, it was taking the piss out of the publisher.

@Trixiefirecracker

And Just because it’s a joke doesn’t mean it has to be a brilliant piece of writing, I totally agree that’s it’s rubbish but still understood the spirit to which it is intended. It feels like you have a very personal problem with him or are massively o er-invested in trying to take him down. Is there a reason for that? Is he a neighbour who left his bins out too long on your street? 😂

For it to be a joke, it has to be funny, which it isn't.

@AlfonsoTheUnrepentant do you honestly think that everyone finds the same thing funny? I’m sure not everyone finds the The fast Show amusing but it’s still a comedy. Satire is not always ‘laugh out loud’ funny, it’s tongue in cheek and not to be taken seriously. 🙄

[quote Trixiefirecracker]@AlfonsoTheUnrepentant do you honestly think that everyone finds the same thing funny? I’m sure not everyone finds the The fast Show amusing but it’s still a comedy. Satire is not always ‘laugh out loud’ funny, it’s tongue in cheek and not to be taken seriously. 🙄[/quote]
Satire is witty, intelligent and used to make a point of some sort. Usually a mirror held up to a cultural norm or moral stance to show it in a different light. To work it usually has to be done with a deft, light touch. It's some of the absolute hardest writing to do well.

But very, very easy to do so badly that it ends up being nothing close to what it was intended. It's also the go to excuse of bad writers who can't take criticism. "My work isn't bad, it's just a satire too sophisticated for you dumn-dumns to understand!"

I never once said it was done well but it’s pretty easy to tell it’s a piss take.

Well I'm sure wee Giles is delighted to have made so many Mnetters laugh with his woeful witterings.

@trixiefirecracker - I can tell it's a piss take. Of course. It's just not funny to me. I do accept other people might think it's funny. But for the most part, I might then assume they were a bit pathetic, like him. Coren holds people up to ridicule, which is a form of satire, but in the process he makes himself ridiculous, while seemingly refusing to find himself ridiculous. It's not a good combo. He would benefit from a master class from someone like Marina Hyde whose satire is funny (to me) but also sophisticated. Critically, she tends to punch up, not 'down.' If you're wondering why I care, it's because he seems to indicate so much that is wrong with nepotism and class advantage in our society, where more privileged people can fail repeatedly and get away with it, which I think has quite toxic effects. See also for example: Boris Johnson.

@Trixiefirecracker I don’t have an axe to grind and don’t live on the same street as him and have no beef about anything to do with the Corens’ bin etiquette. I think he is a particularly egregious person, and also fascinatingly thin skinned and narcissistic though. I agree with the failing upwards phenomenon if you are a well connected, privileged white male in the media. Boris Johnson is a great example of this. I thought Mumsnet would enjoy critiquing his sex scene after relishing the penis beaker story.

I’m just confused OP

You started your entire thread about a sex scene

And then over the course of a day - it becomes a very serious rant pertaining to inferences of sextuplets feelings for his daughter and the death of a journalist

The tone underwent a seismic shift to say the least

I actually think Coren is a good presenter. I really liked both the Supersize series he did with Sue Perkins and all of the Back in Time For...... series. And not just because I enjoyed the format and the work of Perkins and the families in each series. Or the way they were put together. I enjoyed Coren's contribution too. I assumed his sometimes silly/childish behaviour, especially in Supersizers, was a case of him laughing at himself/at men of his type of wealthy, privileged upbringing and not him actually being a spoiled man-child.

Whereas over the last few years, I've come to feel that, it is genuinely is his personality but he thinks he can indulge in it by pretending that it's a persona used for comic effect. He'd probably have gotten away with that in another era. But in current times the lure of Twitter proved too much and it's there, without talented co-presenters, directors and editors that we see the real him. And the real him is the traits he pretends to mock about himself are, for the most part, the type of person he actually is.

I love the Twitter reenactment

@lentilsforever I’ve never said anything about him having sexual feelings foe his daughter. I think that review he did of going on holiday with her when she was 3 was a spectacularly misjudged and not particularly well executed attempt at a parody of the first night Humbert Humbert spends with Lolita at the Enchanted Hunters. I don’t think Coren is a paedophile. An angry, unpleasant little man certainly. A fool, yes. But not a paedophile.

@trancepants I think your theory is very persuasive and interesting.

Others than certainly insinuated that.

I just find the change in tone from something very lighthearted to an absolute mauling… odd

@lentilsforever An “absolute mauling” of someone who celebrated and gleefully mocked the death of a young woman? Do you think I need to #bekind? Giles Coren seems like such a sensitive and compassionate man. By jove, maybe you’re right and I have been a bit rough on him. The word on the NW10 streets is that he’s a thoroughly nice chap.

Zorro! Jesus. Very funny.