Graham Linehan’s Book

[PretzelKnot]

Tough Crowd, due out 12 October. I’m delighted to see this. He is such a good writer and has sacrificed so much in defence of women’s rights and reality itself. Hope it’s a smash hit.

https://x.com/glinner/status/1702078826543448552?s=61&t=NHDSDk1MaF98_GOtcuLi0Q

It's arrived!

Mine arrived too and is signed

Got mind today. Also signed (bought direct from the publishers). Glad I could help him in a small way and hope his book hits the top sellers list.

Isn't it properly released today?

I think today is the general release day, when the likes of Amazon can start sending the book out and it'll go into book shops.

Yes, I've just checked Amazon and some people have already posted reviews.

Including a TRA one star review... though they're not totally obvious about it he's thrown away his career for nothing according to them. Women's rights and child safeguarding not important to that reviewer, apparently.

Do you have to buy the book from Amazon to leave a review? Or can you make it up without reading the book?

Yes you can leave a review of any book, but if you've bought the book it says 'Verified Purchase'. Do the negative reviews show this, somehow I doubt it!

Look at his other one star reviews, and a recent five star one for a fake version of this book (that doesn’t even exist) and it’s very obviously someone who has not read many/any of the books.

Looking at other pics of the signature I think you may be right! Just got confused by the perfect match with the print ink and the previous pic of a signature in blue biro

Thanks for this link. It was an interesting debate but Tim Stanley annoyed me A LOT and was IMO wrong on a lot.

Firstly he said people say 'free speech' is suppressed but they're on GB news. Well, there are a lot of people who'll only be invited on there and not the BBC or other more mainstream media (like Graham) and secondly normal women, and vulnerable people do NOT have a voice anywhere. The woman from KPSS was saying a woman is facing criminal charges in jail due to correctly sexing a man. That's suppression of her free speech surely? It's the first I've heard about this - why? Surely it should be in the news?

For many women - especially women who've spent their lives caring and in low paid jobs without social capital - the only chance to get their voice heard is via Let Women Speak. So many women daren't say what they think in their daily lives for fear of losing their jobs.

Then he was talking about online porn and 'freedom' and totally conflated children and adults - so anti safeguarding. Adults should have a responsibility to protect children, and that's not happening. These men in power who do have a voice on these issues are often so crap on safeguarding, it's irritating because the fact children are different to adults shouldn't take a genius to figure out.

Graham was much better on safeguarding and spoke to that effect, so thank goodness for him. (Not yet got my book yet, looking forward to getting it... ). Matthew Goodwin also seems to understand child safeguarding better. But it's depressing that men with such public platforms don't even give 30seconds thought to this because it's important and society is failing children.

Anyway, thought provoking, but would have been nice to see Helen Joyce there instead of Tim Stanley she would have had interesting and useful things to say 😁

hmmmmmm .... this is strange.

The Times has invited someone who thinks Glinner is doing more harm than good for women's right to review his book.

And guess what, she finds everything she already thought about him in the book. Finishing with:

In 2019 when I blocked him on Twitter, Linehan email me to ask why, and was enraged when I replied it was because he was doing more harm than good and clearly needed help. His wife, friends and many former colleagues have all said the same. But Linehan cannot hear them. Playing to an adoring new audience on social media, he is deafened by their applause and, as odd flashes of this book show, it is a great loss.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tough-crowd-by-graham-linehan-review-memoirs-of-a-monomaniac-q86r3mqh2

Available to read by going to https://archive.ph and pasting in the times web link above.

It's the easy shot someone was bound to make, though, isn't it? But talk's cheap when you haven't invested.

That Times hack job was by Janice Turner. I can't tell you how disappointed I am in her. Gone down massively in my estimation.

It appears that Glinner’s fatal flaw is that he is not a woman, and very possibly not sincere or is hi-jacking what is not his issue for nefarious purposes

Gone down massively in my estimation.

I wasn't surprised, but more surprised that the Times would stoop to such cheap journalism. And she was really stooping into the gutter to include his wife as supporting her opinion.

But also in terms of a review it doesn't work.

Almost better to have got someone from the business section or sports to read it and see if it has an impact, or just leaves someone not aware of the issue, just as baffled.

Got my copy yesterday and stayed up late reading. It's so funny and just carries you along.

That review is a disgrace.

I love Janice Turner but was very disappointed by this review.
The comments are worth a read - as someone pointed out, Janice gets paid to write about her views, whereas Graham only longer gets paid because he spoke out.

She’s entitled to her view as they say. Janice’s articles in the times have been brilliant, measured, thoughtful & at times crackling with cold fury.

But TRA didn't get where they are by screaming bigot at people on Twitter. They got where they are by spending years smoozing the type of people who run the country - who often read The Times - and persuading them that everything they asked for was reasonable. Those people read Janice’s articles and see the reason in them

However you need all sorts in a fight. glinners sheer relentless & refusal to be ‘reasonable’ or calm or polite also has its place. When TRA were screaming and initimidating people into silence or apologising, he wouldn’t be quiet & he wouldn’t apologise

if it hadn’t been for glinner ranting on Twitter I wouldn’t have become aware when I did. It’s his story, he’s put it out there & we can judge for ourselves. I’m sure he’ll live with Janice’s disappointment in his tactics. He’s lived with a lot worse than that

I agree with this.

It's ok to sometimes like what someone writes and sometimes disagree with it. And I mean both Janice and Glinner. Janice has I think been true to her core beliefs in all her articles - she was a poster here years ago. I wouldn't expect anything less from her regarding this.

Started reading it last night, hard to put down. Glad to see he can still produce the giggles!

I think some of Janice's criticism is fair - it's not really helpful to call David Tennant a "groomer", for example. Lots of people who aren't particularly au fait with the debate, but admire Tennant, will dismiss Glinner as being histrionic. More importantly, if they think he represents the GC view, that makes the job of the rest of us harder. Look at people like Maya Forstater, Kathleen Stock, Helen Joyce - they have all been admirably calm on Twitter and don't go round calling people Nazis.

But her comment about him "posting photos of transwomen on lesbian dating sites, even joining up himself in a bad wig to prove any man can" is massively unfair. Those particular activities did a brilliant job of showing how heterosexual men were infiltrating lesbian dating sites, and did so in a humorous way. I'm sure they'll have caused a number of people to reach the peak of Mount Trans.

Just re-read - I mean no longer gets paid

Agree with you.

I don't judge him for his excesses. He's been out on a limb the whole time. He's lost so much. I don't care if he's a bit extra at times. We're all fighting this fight our own way, and demands for ideological or tactical purity are more divisive than anything Glinner could do.