Kathleen Stock article about Jack Monroe

[AnonWeeMouse]

Kathleen Stock writes:

unherd.com/2023/01/jack-monroe-the-acceptable-face-of-poverty/

Monroe responds by blaming these critical points on Kathleen Stocks GC views.

I don't think that's fair. I think Monroe is using that as an excuse to try and avoid criticism.

Her publisher has had to release a statement about the dangerous tips in Monroe's New Book and Trussel Trust are refusing to hand it out over safety fears.

I don't think it's right or fair for Monroe to try and hide behind being Non binary or trans etc. She hasn't claimed those identities for ages has she?

I think it's safer for vodka than wine, as vodka doesn't freeze.

That is a very good article. I have a lot in common with Jack Monroe (or some of the things she claims to be) but since she first came about have found her advice very frustrating and unrealistic. I enjoy her writing style, and some of her recipes are hilarious, just like Nigella doing Asda that's a perfect description! And I have done that myself when eating cheap nasty food made my own audio descriptions to make it seem nicer or to Cheer myself up. But now more and more I can't read anything she writes because it just seems to be contradictory or untrue, and I think that's a shame given the platform she has to potentially help people, and instead she seems to be making a mockery out of people who really are in dire circumstances.

It's pretty easy to open a tin with a knife though, no hammers or mallets or sandpaper involved just careful perseverance with a small sharp knife. And if you want perfectly round eggs, just cut them once they are cooked. No drama. I can't imagine risking getting metal dust in my eggs when I can just eat them oddly shaped though. And that's the thing wi to JM she seems to miss that a lot of working class people, single parents, those on the breadline, are time poor too. So scrambled eggs in the microwave is much easier than mucking about with fried eggs anyway.

I think it casts doubt on her claim of being clean/sober now. If you can't remember what you said from one day to the next and sleep through everything like that, it doesn't say natural sleep to me.

Very pithily put.

And that's the truth of the matter, isn't it? She isn't poor: the only reason she has had times without money is because she is an alcoholic. People who have donated to her Patreon because they want to support her efforts to help poorer families have simply been feeding her alcohol habit.

Even in her brief period of genuine poverty, her parents came round with loads of food for her as soon as they found out what was going on. Guess what? That doesn't happen to most people who are poor.

I don't really understand - did she think that wouldn't make it into the article, or does she think people who use Twitter don't read the Guardian?

I won't link it, because it was the subject of another JM thread, but there is a website where tons of these contradictions are collated (all from JM's own claims). This is just one example of many.

I think it casts doubt on her claim of being clean/sober now. If you can't remember what you said from one day to the next and sleep through everything like that, it doesn't say natural sleep to me.

Yes - that's a very good point. Normal people with ordinary lives don't sleep in past 2pm. I wonder where her son was?

With his dad, I imagine.

I think leaving everyone standing around and waiting for her points very directly to a narcissistic tendancy. That would have cost a lot of money to leave everyone hanging around.

Hell, I might even accuse her of doing it on purpose to get the response she got. Everyone fretting about her... Even her ex.. and she didn't hear the phone? What if her son had hurt himself at school? Bet she'd hear the phone quick smart then.

I felt sorry for her as she seemed to attract so much ire on Twitter/Katie Hopkins etc. But then followed her and… there are inconsistencies.
She has (and I don’t think they use they/them) been vegan, an alcoholic with such a bad addiction that her teeth were ruined and is now so paranoid about alcohol that she checks mince pie labels but recommends rolling pins of wine bottles and cooking tinned meat in wine, non binary, engaged, not engaged, not vegan, currently has such crippling arthritis that she can’t get up the stairs of her self described “three bedroom bungalow”…. ??? She’s just ODD.

But the safety issue is worth the risk for ice cold vodka.

I realise that’s something an alcoholic would say, but I’m not, I promise!

I think including how nasal she sounds is a pointer that the drug use included something else.

Twitterers seem to have really taken issue with the purchase of furniture aspect of the Guardian article. Which is understandable.

😂😃

I also thought this was an incredibly pointed implication that she's on the toot at least.

I think it's safer for vodka than wine, as vodka doesn't freeze.

The danger comes from the expansion of water when it freezes. It's one of the most "expandy" substances going. The more water there is, the more the expansion and thus pressure, and so the greater the risk.

But the safety issue is worth the risk for ice cold vodka.

I think storing it in the freezer is recommended for many spirits, in a way it isn't for wine, and I agree with you, maybe will get a nice bottle of voddy for the freezer.

Mumsnet’s algorithm has added a video on Halloween themed severed finger biscuits (?) to this thread!

😂😂

Boggling that the opening tins with a knife & hammer got through to publication without someone saying "oh hang on..."

Yes. Also, self-diagnosed as on the autistic spectrum; poor kid at grammar school, yet her grandfather owned rental properties all over town and left an estate valued at over £3m, from memory; claims to have been called in as some sort of expert after the Grenfell fire, but her actual job was a call handler for the Fire Brigade, not a firefighter.

Also, re her son, I believe there is evidence online that he spends almost all his time with his father, and thank goodness for that, in the light of all the issues his mother seems to have.

I have no idea what the people behind Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and all the other social media sites expected users to do on their sites, but we've got years and years of evidence now that it's provided a platform for exhibitionists, narcissists, extremists and obsessives to foregather and collect followers, and this has not been a good result for society as a whole. I don't have any realistic expectation that this can be reversed, or even contained. The genie is out of the bottle. But in cases where family and friends can see that someone is making their mental health much worse by their use of social media, it must be very frustrating that it's so difficult to get them to stop.

I think a new golden age of piss-taking would help to stem the tide.

More memes please.

Generation Alpha rediscover humour please!

With JM though, I think there’s a chance of some neurodiversity there. Even the binge-drinking and everything. Trying to create a false persona to operate socially, etc.

I think it’s a shame that she has painted herself into a corner, being the voice of poverty. I hope she finds a way back to her mojo at some point. Maybe she could write about the dangers of trying to live up to your persona to the point you aren’t ‘feeling it’, so you publicly half-arse it and turn yourself into a subject of ridicule. There’s probably a lot of material there she could use.

It says in the article she was diagnosed with autism at school. But who knows if that’s true?

I think Hattenstone makes it very very clear that you can't believe much of what comes out of her mouth in that interview.

Hoist by her own petard.