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?

ReunitedThorns, I didn’t grow up in that area, but I did grow up in pretty deprived area, and I did marvel at how some people (in primary school) would talk about going to Disneyland or to Jamaica to visit relatives. Some parents had jobs in the local authority- bin men and stuff, and they seemed to be okay financially. I now wonder though, that my impression that ‘everyone went to Disneyland’ was based on one or two people who did and a few liars who said they did but didn’t, and that the majority just kept quiet, wondering how it was possible, like me. Maybe that is the same for JM? A bit of a distortion.

Ah, I do sort of agree that this is beneath KS. But I'm not policing what she can write about. Partly because I've seen extensive questioning/piss-taking of JM for a while now - KS does a good job of marrying gentle piss-taking with raising the real question.

I think JM has shown us there is a real need for a public, articulate, smart voice on what can be a boring subject - poverty, food sense and holding politicians to account on it. This absolutely needs doing, I just don't think she's necessarily the best person to do this any more. If politicians can dismiss her for being unreliable they can dismiss the whole issue.

Simon Hattenstone on that article...
The world has never been so polarised. Everything is black and white. Shades of grey are verboten. Take Jack Monroe. She first emerged 10 years ago with a blog that documented her slide into poverty and showed us how to cook on a shoestring. Jack was widely feted. Here was somebody who had struggled and now wanted to help other struggling people. She was gobby, funny, stylish. A true maverick. At the same time, she was also clearly vulnerable. She talked about her mental health problems, and previous breakdowns. Monroe went on to do exceptionally well with books, newspapers columns (in the Guardian) and TV appearances.
Since then her star has fallen. While she still has many fans, she has also inspired an army of haters. People who hone in on every inconsistency in Monroe’s life to try to prove she’s a charlatan. Public figures are held up to a higher level of scrutiny than the rest of us. Everything we’ve ever said isn’t analysed for contradictions. If it was, we’d be screwed. Our narrative would depend on how we were feeling, who we were talking to, what had happened recently.
Take class, for example. Jack has been called out for flipping between saying she’s working class and middle-class. But loads of us are in class limbo. I grew up thinking I was middle-class – Dad had left school at 14, but now had a clothes shop and was an employer; Mum taught kids with special educational needs. When I started at the Guardian I felt more working class because so many of the people around me had had more privileged upbringings. Similarly with Monroe. But I’ve not been called a liar or hypocrite for it.
One of the most appealing things about Jack when she emerged was that she didn’t fit neatly into any hole. She was cocksure and a bag of nerves; in control, and utterly chaotic. Even the way she identified was confusing – she said she was trans but didn’t want to be a man and was still happy to be referred to by the pronoun “she”. In 2019 she revealed she was an alcoholic, in recovery. This seemed to explain much of her recent erratic behaviour – failing to meet deadlines, not turning up to gigs, taking money from people to fund her on membership platforms such as Patreon but not producing material.
Critics asked whether she was a fake, making a fortune at our expense. But they didn’t seem to consider the more obvious explanation – she was an alcoholic acting like an alcoholic, pissing away her money on drink, then pissing away more money when she was drunk. When she was asked for answers on social media she suggested she was being bullied. It didn’t help matters.
That’s at the heart of today's interview with Jack. I wanted her to explain herself. There’s one moment where she reveals exactly where some of the money went. She tells me about the four successive nights when, drunk, she went online, and bought four sideboards that she didn’t want, let alone need. It made perfect sense. Yes, she had wasted money supporters her given her “to create the work that really drives me”, but she was no fraudster.
I do believe that Monroe’s heart is in the right place; that she does care about poverty and injustice. At the end of a three-hour interview, she said to me she really did believe she was getting her life sorted out. I hope she’s right.

Yes, but she was born and grew up in Scotland in the Scottish school system. I don't know whether she describes herself as Scottish, given that she has spent most of her adult life in England. Interesting point!

Who has a mallet, and not a tin opener? Maybe an impoverished carpenter?

Monroe’s behaviour is much more that of someone with BPD than someone who is neurodivergent. There is treatment available for BPD, but availability on the NHS is limited & people have to be i. willing to engage with it & ii. willing to put in a lot of very difficult work.

The Tramadol is… hard to parse. No mention is made of an actual amount taken - “40 tablets” is meaningless when that could be 50/150/200mg standard release or 50/150/200/300/400mg modified release tablets. Supposedly taking 8 at once - combined with her story being that she was previously opiate naïve - makes me suspect it was 50mg SR ones though, the daily maximum dose for chronic pain being 400mg. Thus she’s claiming to have taken 2000mg Tramadol - ie a potentially lethal amount, particularly given she was mixing it with alcohol. Non-lethal responses start at “just” 500mg, a dose she was apparently quite routinely reaching, but she doesn’t mention having seizures. As a drug choice for arthritis it is… unusual… too. If it’s reached the stage of needing opiates (which is happily unusual now in RA given vastly improved treatments over the last few years) & co-codamol or co-dydramol aren’t working Tramacet rather than Tramadol would be the go-to unless you have a paracetamol allergy; or of course buprenorphine patches, which provide the pain relief without the high. So I have questions. And doubts. (Qubts?)

her recipes are often inedible slop. And often have far too many ingredients in the wrong proportions. It’s the opposite of good budget cooking.

Exactly. She identifies as a poor single mum on benefits with autism/adhd/arthritis etc. so a lot of people seem to think that’s more relevant than the fact she is likely a wealthy weekend parent who likely doesn’t have any of these issues she is claiming. I identify therefore I am.

Well there's always a culture of lying about stuff to look good at school, but from her history (with a mid-ranking fire-fighter father) they would be seen as being quite well-off in the area.

We had a fire-fighter neighbour and they had lots of holidays abroad.

Monroe’s behaviour is much more that of someone with BPD than someone who is neurodivergent.

I thought so too (with all caveats about armchair psychology). Has she ever claimed this? Because it seems plausible.

@SequinsandStilettos Yes that Guardian POV is very interesting, yes compared to the staff at The Guardian she would be very working class and defined as poor, but being from the area she is from she would easily be described as middle-class and affluent.

It helps shed a light on what the Guardian thinks poverty is as opposed what others believe it to be.

She's obviously had a downfall into poverty, and I have seen this in the area with well-off (ish) families and having children that end up on benefits. They would be deemed to be different than those who have had generations in poverty.

Did Simon Hattenstone really use the words "hone in on"?

Still, the Graun does use some illiterate "journalists" these days.

I actually have opened a tin with a knife. My tin opener broke in the middle of making a tuna pasta bake. I had just started opening the first of two tins when it fell apart in a way I couldn't fix. I didn't need a mallet though, just stabbed the knife in and pulled it around the circumference. It was actually super easy.

I have as well, but I wouldn't put it in a book of thrifty housekeeping tips😂

Hammer or mallet is definitely overkill (possibly literally 😂), just adds in more variables for it to go horribly wrong.

Tins were invented quite a few years before tin openers, so opening them with a knife (no mallet) used to be standard practice.

Where did that lengthy Simon Hattenstone quote come from, Sequins?

I imagine the tin opener saved a lot of fingers after it’s invention.

I'm sure they did. Personally I prefer a ring pull, even though in the late 90s, one on tin of strawberries sliced into my finger.

Yeah that was just unnecessary unless trying to drop a giant hint

If it was completely safe and fine, why bother inventing tin openers? Cars never used to have seat-belts either.

I could understand putting it into the book as a tip if she'd gone into detail about a safeR technique for doing it, but it was pretty much a sentence about hammer or mallet, sharp knife you don't care about ruining, and a very steady hand 🙄Just nonsense filler that happens to be pretty irresponsible. Same as the bit of cloth, carabiners, and an s-ring instead of a colander for draining the hot water from food - just what?

If it had been a parody, you'd think they'd gone too far.

corgi
It's from the How We Wrote section of the weekly Guardian email promoting Inside Saturday. You subscribe to it (free) and they send it you each Saturday morning. Just allows me to click through as I'm lazy! Plus I like hearing how the journalist "sells" their article/their thoughts on it.
They will not be responsible for the by-line/title of the email but this one was
Can Jack Monroe explain herself?

Yes, I was thinking about all sorts of other inventions you could get rid of “no flushing toilet? Get a chamber pots and tip it out of your window!”, “No bed? Stack some hay bales and cover it with blankets!”…

Does anyone have any tips for her next book?

Struggling to whip cream? Weld loops of wire coat hangers to a drill bit, reattach to the drill and away you go.

I've never read her books so I don't know if this is accurate.

You may mock, but you have jogged a memory of mine, when I was trying to follow a cake mix as a kid, and my dad did something with a drill. 😂I think it was too fast to mix properly 🤣

How about “can’t afford knickers? Cut two holes in the end of a pillow case and tie it around your waste with shoelaces”

Your dad may be my hero