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Argh - I'M in the news - the Daily Mail Online!!!

75 replies

DillyTante · 28/12/2012 10:41

So, a couple of months ago I did a short phone interview on Radio 4, about my yarn bombing.

I didn't realise until today that the Daily Mail Online have basically cribbed the interview and made it seem like I spoke to them!!! Ok, so they've linked to my blog so I should be grateful, but doesn't this seem like cheap journalism? Plus, I don't endorse the Daily Mail at all.

I want to show you all but don't want to link. Isn't there a way that you can link to a site without it showing on their stats?

OP posts:
claig · 01/01/2013 12:34

Which is undoubtedly not the case for some other unmentionable "newspapers" which incomprehensibly receive such blind support, devotion and adulation from certain pseudo-intellectuals, chatterati, litterati etc.etc.

claig · 01/01/2013 12:53

I am certainly no anti-intellectual, which is why I carefully study Daily Mail articles by Peter Hitchens, Melanie Phillips and Richard Littlejohn.

I'm just not too keen on journalism of the '50 days to save the planet' ilk. There are 50 tried and tested ways to fool the public, but not one of them will be found in the pages of the Daily Mail.

www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2012/sep/30/50-months-climate-change

50 easy ways to save the planet

And if the public grows weary of the good old 50, then increase it to 100

'We have only 100 months to avoid disaster.'

www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/01/climatechange.carbonemissions

The yarnbombers story was a good light piece to bring a bit of cheer, so let's not jeer and let's not create fear with the old 50 days lie that the world is going to die.

claig · 01/01/2013 13:02

It starts with 50, then it's 100. It seems like the old game of double or bust, and like a reckless gambler's desperate wagers, the whole story will inevitably crumble to dust. So don't up the ante, don't to the Mail be anti and all praise to the illustrious yarnbomber, DillyTante!

claig · 01/01/2013 13:19

It is a new year in the season of cheer, so banish all your fear and pack up your Guardians in your old kit bag, don't allow your spirits to sag, hoist up a new flag and set sail and above all let your compass be the Daily Mail.

TheMonster · 01/01/2013 13:26

What happens when the woolly stuff gets all soggy and dirty? And do people steal it?
I've been thinking about this too much.

SDTGisAChristmassyWolefGenius · 01/01/2013 13:59

I have never yarn bombed, but maybe I should try it this year.....

Snorbs · 01/01/2013 20:50

Aargh, claig, you got me and you got me good! For ages I thought you really were a serious Daily Mail fan. It's only now that you've implied you regard Richard "Worthless Reactionary Columnist For People Who Find Jeremy Clarkson Too Difficult" Littlejohn as an intellectual that I twigged that you're being satirical.

Top marks for keeping this finely crafted bit of subterfuge going for so long, but I think you pushed it with the Littlejohn thing and made it far too obvious. Nevertheless, bravo!

claig · 02/01/2013 00:01

Grin There is no more serious Daily Mail fan than myself. I regard it as an oracle. But I do like to have a bit of a laugh about it.

Littlejohn may not be an intellectual, but he is a very clever man capable of writing very funny pieces. He has a very rare gift of seeing through pomposity and hypocrisy and expressing it in down-to-earth, amusing language. His analysis of the New Labour years has gone down in history as a classic and a must-read for all serious commentators, and I read somewhere that Dacre pays him about £1 million per year to keep it coming.

Even if you don't agree with his views, there is no doubt that he is a very funny writer. Jeremy Clarkson is a mere child compared to a real master like Littlejohn.

claig · 02/01/2013 00:10

There was a time when Julie Burchill also wrote for the Mail. I don't agree with lots of her views, but I do agree with her on the greens and other issues, but there is no doubt that she is an outstanding writer - a rare talent. She was worth every penny they paid her, just as Littlejohn is too. Writers like those two only appear rarely in a generation. Clarkson is not in the same league.

ChippingInLovesChristmasLights · 02/01/2013 00:11

It's the Daily Mail... hardly their worst crime!

Well done you for yarn bombing though - lovely to cheer the place up a bit :)

I am such a sentimental tit I couldn't bear to tie to them to a lampost and leave them there! Blush

funnyperson · 02/01/2013 09:06

Love the knitting. Whoever does it is really talented and imaginative.

CaptainNancy · 02/01/2013 09:31

yay! Now I realise who you are Dilly Smile we have met, quite a while ago now... yarn bombing is a great thing to do! My colleague admitted his SIL does it, and he was v impressed I knew what it was (I think she was also featured in the R4 programme).

Another MNer (not I, really) featured in an article in her local paper, that she specified was for that publication only, only to find it lifted wholesale into the mail, who completely fabricated quotes from her (I read both articles) and in fact they changed her name half way through to that of an extremely well known actress, albeit with the same forename Confused such are the high standards in writing and editing at the mail!

FirstPersonPlural · 02/01/2013 09:49

I didn't realise yarn-bombing was such a new phenomenon in the UK. It's been going on for several decades in the US. There have been some really lovely pieces created. And some truly controversial ones, too. Real feminist radicalism, not just cutesy fun pieces.

That said, I would like to walk by a horse statue wearing rainbow legwarmers...it would absolutely put a smile on my face!

Delalakis · 03/01/2013 18:46

Claig, are you talking about the Littlejohn who wrote, in relation to the prostitutes murdered in Ipswich: "in the scheme of things the deaths of these five women is no great loss"? And "Does anyone really give a monkey?s about what happens in Rwanda? If the Mbongo tribe wants to wipe out the Mbingo tribe then as far as I am concerned that is entirely a matter for them." And, in relation to the Chilean miners, "I don?t know any of these people. Nor does anyone else in Britain. So why invest so much time and emotional energy in the fate of total strangers?"

None of that strikes me as the mark of either a clever or a funny writer. Except when his notorious total absence of research skills leads to magnificent bloopers like the time he took at face value a birth announcement for quins which everyone but him knew related to five puppies.

The man's been past it for years. All he does is churn out the same tired articles over and over again. He needs to be put out to grass.

claig · 03/01/2013 19:14

Delalakis, some good points there. I agree those things you quoted were not funny, and I didn't know about them.

However, I have read some of his pieces and even where I didn't agree with all of them, I did think he was very funny - so he has written some perceptive and amusing things.

You may be right that he is now repetitive - I don't read him regularly so can't comment on that.

I forgot to mention another writer who is very funny and uniquely perceptive and that is Mark Steel. He is excellent too.

Ponders · 03/01/2013 22:28

Mark Steel is indeed a gem.

I wasn't aware that he writes for the Mail though Hmm

claig · 03/01/2013 22:52

Not every talent writes for the Mail, but every Mail writer is a talent.

Mark Steel is brilliant. I remember reading one of his articles many years ago. He wrote a few lines that were so funny and so perceptive, and a few days later the paper sacked him, if I remember rightly. I think his words had the power to change the course of events and that is why he was removed. I don't know if that is the case, but it seemed like the only reason for sacking such a great talent. It shows the power of words and the power of a great mind that can see the crap and cant and hypocrisy, and of course, needless to say, this was in the time of New Labour.

I've just looked through a few of Littlejohn's recent articles and while they are not as rip-roaringly funny as when he single-handedly took New Labour hypocrisy apart, when the New Labour elite used to fear receiving their copy of the Daily Mail on the days that Littlejohn was published, he still has some great turns of phrase that the Daily Mail reader recognises and concurs with.

His use of the term 'Minister for Windmills' says it all. The Daily Mail reader appreciates someone, just one single person, who cuts through the media spin and sanctimonious proclamations of too many politicians to give voice to what the people really think.

funnyperson · 03/01/2013 22:55

I would love to walk past some railing or other and see a funny knitted thingy even if rainsoggy. The nearest I have got is a) wool wound round trees in Oxfords Botanic garden done by students of Ruskin College and b) ordering in enough wool from Sirri yarn company in the Faroe Islands to make a Sara Lund jumper.
I can't knit. I can't write. I am not funny or witty. My mumsnet name is only wishful thinking. I have not been in the Daily Mail. I. Am. A. Failure.

edam · 03/01/2013 22:57

Claig, have you noticed that the Mail website is a. very different to the paper - striking contrast to the moral stance of the printed Mail and b. guilty of lifting material without credit? Have a look around TV and books, large sections lifted from the Beeb. Beeb bashing is practically a religion in the print Mail but online they can't resist nicking huge chunks of content...

funnyperson · 03/01/2013 22:57

claig do you write for the Daily Mail?

claig · 03/01/2013 23:00

funnyperson, I like your posts. What you write makes sense which is much more than can be said of the majority of New Labour politicians. You are no failure, but they certainly were and that is why the public rejoiced when they kicked them out.

claig · 03/01/2013 23:04

'claig do you write for the Daily Mail?'

I am not worthy of such an honour. Many are called, but few are chosen. We are talking about the pinnacle of British journalism, we are talking about erudition and education of the highest degreee. We are talking about minds that shape a generation, stars that shine and light the path that the entire nation follows - we are talking Richard Littlejohn, Melanie Philips, Peter Hitchens - thinkers that dare to think!

ChristmasIsForPlutocrats · 03/01/2013 23:05

Contact Radio 4 marketing to get them to demand attribution? Spam the comments board of the DM article, pointing out you never spoke to them and don't endorse them the cheap bastards ?

claig · 03/01/2013 23:10

edam, I agree that the Mail is not perfect, but it is the voice of the people, it says what millions really think of the cant, hypocrisy and lies that we are fed by the powerful elites in their ivory towers. It pricks their bubble and makes teh public laugh. That's why Littlejohn is reputedly paid about £1 million per year, because he is capable of giving voice to what the people really think on the gritty ground below, way beneath the gleaming ivory towers paid for by the people.

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