The Christmas Letters - anyone else think Simon Hoggart is a sarcastic b*gger and keeps missing the point?

[Kathyate6mincepies]

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!

One further comment.
When people write about all the interesting things they've been doing, he's, like 'ha ha, everyone knows they probably spend most of their time lounging in front of the tv'. And when they put that they spend most of their time lounging in front of the tv he sneers at them for having boring lives.

I love a round robin - never send 'em but find them very pleasurable to read for all sorts of reasons - but I see where you're coming from Kathy

is he on his 3rd edition this year ? a real moneyspinner

It's the last two books put together.

that's a swizz

I think now that Hoggart has drawn attention to them, people are too aware of their potential amusement value and try to include these ironic meta-comments. About 10 years ago they were at their peak, when they were full of genuine naivety and Christmas-tree borders done with the Word 2.0 Symbiols Wingdings menu. We used to get two or three a year that were screamingly funny simply because the senders obviously had no idea that people were laughing at them. No we are lucky if we get one.

imagine what his round-robin says -

'January got off to a bad start as I realised that my last two books have so offended my family and friends that no-one had sent me any new material. Still we had a lovely day out at Hampton Court'

'July - my publishers hit on a cunning wheeze - we would publish my last two books again as an omnibus. Phew - that paid for the relaxing week we spent in Corfu in July - shame about the Jellyfish!

December - Very proud to see more books in the shops and more cash in the Hoggart family coffers'

what a year it's been for Team Hoggart !

Oh God Unquiet, you are so right - I have just been trying to write ours and worrying about whether it is too ironic-meta-comment-heavy

NorthernLurker - ha ha!

PMSL MerryAnn!

I am sad when I get a round-robin letter which slags off the sender's children, because they think that will offset the boasting bits. I don't like the ones which thank every one for coming to a party to which I was not invited, or refer to people or events I've never heard of without explaining who/what they are.

Oh yes - the "Binky is much better now" and "We were so pleased to see Paul and Linda's plands achieve fruition" kind of thing.

And you have no idea if Binky is a hedgehog, aged aunt or public school chum, nor what he/she/it was suffering from. You don't know Paul and Linda from Adam and Eve, and they could be anything from work colleagues to intimate family to the senders' swinger pals.

UQD- what is a meta-comment? Genuninely interested.

It's like a comment "outside" the text, so you comment on the silliness/falseness/vauntingness of what you are writing. Like a marginal note on your own letter.

yes, simon hoggart has made a bit out of them now
and gruinad media types are uber annoying i dont read it now

and agree uqd there is an awareness to them now

we get a corker from bil and sil EVERY year..its so funny cause they ARE just so unaware..

Ah. Thanks for that, never heard that term before.

UQD - were meta-comments invented or just pioneered by John Fowles in The French Lieutenant's Woman? He seems to spend the whole book commenting on his own writing.

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Who is who, Icod?

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No he's a writer.

I got his first book about 3 years ago (the same Christmas that his affair with the woman who had the affair with David Blunkett came out).

It was a hoot.

He writes a bit in the Grauniad every day about parliament, iirc
I remember his round robin columns in the ?Observer from years ago and they were hilarious but I agree, it's all a bit passé now.

Oh crumbs yes he shagged Blunkett's bird, didn't he?
THat was incredible, literally