AIBU that Giles Coren’s back to school tips column that includes “minor sexual abuse” is not funny?

[TulipRevolutionary]

I finally caught up on the weekend papers and Giles Coren wrote a pretty standard (fairly dull) back to school tips listicle column in the Times that was directed at his son who is starting a new secondary school. However, the idea that “minor sexual offenses” committed by teachers within schools are “just a fact of life” is totally wrong. The fact that the teacher who “taught me how to write” also “touched me in unwelcome ways” seems to insinuate that as long as they are a good teacher a bit of light pedophilia isn’t “necessarily anything to be afraid of”. It reminds me of the plot of The History Boys play in which pedophilia is also treated as fairly innocuous/a bit of a joke and something to be tolerated if the teacher is otherwise inspiring and will secure you a place at Oxford. My cousin was abused by a fencing tutor at his Catholic boarding school and although Giles Coren would probably consider it to be “minor” sexual abuse since no penetration ever occurred I think it completely ruined his teenage years and much of his 20s and arguably he is still negatively affected by it.

I agree. I never could stand him. Arrogant, rude, bumptious little twerp. I remember him presenting an art show alongside an art critic. She was lovely, and so were the guests, but he was unbearable. He was clearly uninterested in the paintings and kept making silly, unfunny, rude comments. I don't know what he was doing there.

"Quite minor". If you say so Giles. Minimising and justifying such behaviour does favours to nobody other than the perpetrator whose feelings would not be my first consideration.

(a) Nothing Giles Coren ever wrote is funny.

(b) Why are you reading The Times?

He used to be on TV a lot: the F Word, multiple series of Amazing Hotels and then also various cultural, health and literary documentaries. For the last few years he hasn’t been on TV at all though. I guess maybe he’s considered too toxic for TV and I imagine he might not be great to work with and sneering to runners etc. It’s not surprising he was replaced by Rob Rinder on the latest series of Amazing Hotels.

He's not condoning it he's writing from experience. There probably are still paedos that slip through the net. You are all reading it wrong. He was the one abused don't think it's for us to say how he should speak about that.

I'd add every singe one of us at school in 80's or earlier know of people abused it was so rife!

He doesn’t seem to treat more junior colleagues very well according to this news report.

www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/giles-coren-deletes-twitter-account-22130156?int_source=amp_continue_reading&int_medium=amp&int_campaign=continue_reading_button#amp-readmore-target

I seem to recall that he had a teacher at school was was convicted of some sort of offence involving children, and GC proposed to write his biography. Could never work out whether this was an attempt at humour.

Again, I can’t believe I’m ‘defending’ Giles Coren but I think you’re missing the nuance here.

Paedophiles in school do not come with cloven hooves and devil’s horns. They are not obvious. They may even be popular and effective teachers. They may not be lurking in every school but they are going to be in some — and that’s what’s just a fact of life. You can’t be expected to know, it’s nothing you or your parents have done, but it’s something that’s there.

And remember that Coren is writing in an adult newspaper. His readers are not the children themselves but their parents. He doesn’t need to tell them to tell someone.

He’s not talking about minor offences in the sense that ‘they didn’t do me any harm’ but in the sense that minor offences are still offences.

I’ve just read his piece and he clearly states that ‘if you think a teacher is a paedophile, then he is’. Nowhere does he say that his son should put up with inappropriate touching. Also, in case people hadn’t realised, he always writes tongue in cheek.

I still think he’s a wrong ‘un based on his extensive past history of joking about child rape and pedophiles.

I agree. He has made quite a lot of "jokes" relating to sexualizing children. Every one of them results in him having a petulant tantrum about how stupid/woke /paranoid people are for calling him out on it. And yet he persists.....

I think the BBC is particularly adverse to this kind of behaviour after they were accused of enabling Jimmy Saville to hide in plain sight for so long.

If the BBC are wary about this, why do they keep on wheeling out Tatchell?

As for whether Giles Coren is just being realistic and helpful, this is a man who called his own young DD "sexy" <boak>, in print for the world to read - and for her to see at some point. Why would he himself or anyone publishing him think it's a subject he should go anywhere near? He's the last person I want to hear from on this.

There's funny and then there's Giles Coren. He's like a less talented Auberon Waugh , who was a bit of an arse too.

Auberon Waugh made a living out of the family name, as Giles Coren does.

As an aside to the content, that's astonishingly clumsily written - very poor writing style. If Giles can't write, does he not have an editor who can tidy his articles for him?

Thing is, when you are as inadequate a human being and as mediocre a writer as Giles Coren is, you've got to resort to SOME sort of shock tactics to remind the editor that you're still worth your by-line. The man gets jobs out of respect for his dad, not on his own merits. He's a wet-wipe.

I was looking on some of the other Mumsnet threads about Giles Coren, of which there are many in a similar vein. Does anyone know what this is all about? (The penultimate post about the house in the Cotswolds being taken off the market).

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4943480-i-would-divorce-my-husband-if-he-behaved-like-giles-coren-did?reply=137908380&utm_campaign=reply&utm_medium=share

Have you read the rant he went on when one editor altered one of his articles? He finished it with some puerile reference to oral sex (here we go again). The editor changed it and little Giles went apeshit. It's hilarious.

Taught him how to write in exchange for being minorly assaulted? He was failed on two counts then…

Talentless hack who gets column inches out of writing purile shit. He’s not funny and not interesting. Dawn Foster was right (RIP)

he went to well known private schools, so probably the norm there…

Yet more proof that having a private education really doesn’t equate to having brains, talent, ability or any class…

So was I.