John Boyne properly nails his colours to the madt

[PretzelKnot]

It’s taken a while but well done John.

”A really smart piece by Brendan O'Neill for
@spikedonline.
The people who are currently trying to destroy @roisinmurphy's life & career for defending vulnerable children are mirror images of those who tried to destroy Sinéad's life & career 30 years ago.

Self-appointed moral arbiters and men's right activists who cannot bear the idea of a woman's voice being heard.

For me, this story is the straw that broke the camel's back.

I am no longer going to stay silent on the way that women are treated.

I will defend women's rights, children's rights, gay rights, and lesbian rights to my dying day. I will also defend trans rights.

But I will not defend the online activists who are neither gay, lesbian or trans but who exploit the lives of LGBT people simply to earn followers in the hope of giving themselves a voice in the world and, in time, monetising that.

If that costs me readers or my career, so be it.

On June 9th 1954, at a Congressional hearing, Joseph Welch said to Senator Joe McCarthy: "You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?"

I would ask the same question of the people who are trying to destroy the life of a woman who has done nothing - NOTHING - but suggest that vulnerable children should be protected.

You have done enough, all of you. Have you no sense of decency?”

https://twitter.com/johnboynebooks/status/1698793743761969267?s=46&t=f8U9xaap9RM6pcBCdpsFIA

It's a nursery rhyme - I Don't Like Thee, Dr Fell.

People have said it already but The heart's invisible furies is a wonderful book.

Just bought it, thank you.

A wee echo of:

I do not like thee, Doctor Fell,
The reason why - I cannot tell.
But this I know, and know full well;
I do not like thee, Doctor Fell.

I've been thinking about this sort of thing. If 80 odd percent of communication is non verbal , then you can understand not liking Mr. Fell, or anyone. When I think of it like this, it feels reasonable and obvious. But then when you frame it in terms of "a wrong 'un", it makes me feel like I'm in the wrong: but it's the same thing!!

That poem is so brilliant. It covers all the bases, demonstrating how well he understand the issues and is a joy to read aloud.

Made me incredibly happy to read it!

wows and wows John Boyne. Very very good and funny and so believable.

Come to think, I don't like O J either (wouldn't even go for a silent beer with him, he isn't particularly pleasing to look on, being petulant and spiteful for decades does bad things to the face).

Boyne is now fully committed to the cause. There’s no going back.

You know when people say stuff like “I voted Remain but now I’m fully on board with Brexit”? There’s no GC/TRA equivalent, is there? You don’t hear anyone saying “I used to think experimental puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for confused children was awful but I’m all for it now”. The journeying and mind-changing goes just one way.

Brilliant John.

i wonder if thee will be any response from OJ?

There are a few - I think tea smith and Beau dyess were previously GC and now no longer, though I could be mistaken.

Lizzie, I expect he's having a mantrum as we type.

I love John Boyne. A history of loneliness is a beautiful read, and Crippen is terrific. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a novel, some love it some hate it but it should never have been used to teach children about the holocaust.
Fair play to Boyne, hopefully other authors, artists, whatever come out of the woodwork too.

I can’t fathom new Twitter/X even though I re-signed up recently because I thought I saw Mick Lynch at my local train station and wanted to find out if he’d been at some event locally. I can’t get back in to my profile so if someone can report back on any notable likes/comments/retweets to either poem or post I’d be interested to hear about them!

it has nearly 3,000 likes as of now

Graham Linehan's memoir is out on October 12th! Tough Crowd: how I made and lost a career in comedy.

I am science teacher from Singapore and I encountered my students using it as a school text many years before. I read the book and my immediate feeling was one of feeling appalled about many things, not least that jews had become side characters in their own tragedy in that book. It was difficult to express my reservations about a book that was so widely acclaimed and I had to scour the internet to find some muted criticism - primarily from jewish people. I am no great scholar of the holocaust but I couldn't take Boyne seriously as a writer after that.

I wonder whether the experience of growing up gay in Ireland at a time when that was still an 'outsider' state has meant that he likes to write about situations through the eyes of outsider or peripheral figures? I haven't read him (because the BITSP premise was so offensive) but that was the complaint about the 'trans child' book as well, and I wonder did he do that in other books where it was interesting rather than problematic.

The GL apology had already made me soften my position, and the OJ poem has earned him a lot more forgiveness.

Well done to him. It's amazing to have someone like him stand up to that little shit.

I was on a London-Plymouth train last month and the bold Mick Lynch was aboard. He got off at Plymouth. So maybe you did see him @DontBeAPrickDarren

I was a fair bit further north but am almost convinced it was him. Wish I’d known for definite as would have liked to say hello. I do like his style.