Andrew Neil slays the Devil
Thursday, April 15, 2010
The Devil's Knife: The Devil is dead....
The Devil's Kitchen blog became part of my life in recent years. DK's elegant, foul-mouthed rants were often hilarious . He said things I would never say and conjured images I found quite disturbing at times but always with wit and a sense of underlying humanity. It's hard to explain why such foul-mouthed writing was entertaining, when most sweary sorts are obnoxious. I guess he's just really good at it. What a shame he feels he has to stop.
On the other hand, my only reservation about him as leader of the Libertarian Party was that, whenever we had any media coverage, journalists were bound to focus more on the torments he had vividly imagined for the (richly deserving) Polly Toynbee, than the party's policies. I am not sure this will help. The internet is not as ephemeral as it seems, but it's worth a try. What a shame it will go down as a "scalp" for the already full-of-himself Andrew Neil.
DK writes well, thinks clearly and will be worth a read anyway. The only question now is will he still be funny?
DK writes well, thinks clearly and will be worth a read anyway.
Sadly, not the middle one, as has been shown.
Posted by: jameshigham | Thursday, April 15, 2010 at 10:53 PM
In November, you wrote:
"Much as I enjoy his blogging and recognise the wit behind his delicate use of foul language, I worry about the election of Chris Mounsey of Devil's Kitchen fame as the new leader of the Libertarian Party. I know, like and respect Chris, but I feel he has queered his political pitch with his blogging. Not only will we, his readers, now lose the original (and best) swearblog, but his past writings (of which he has every reason to be proud) will give his opponents every excuse selectively to lower the tone of debate even further."
And you have been proved correct.
Having watched the interview, I got the impression Chris didn't see it coming. How naive can one get? He was put on the defensive and actually apologised - which surprised me.
On the other hand, it seems that the interview has actually brought quite a few people into LPUK membership, so perhaps it's not a bad thing.
And if I'm honest, I won't be disappointed if Chris drops the swear-blogging completely. Obviously, tastes differ, but my personal feeling was that the swearing added nothing useful to his blog.
Posted by: Young Mr. Brown | Thursday, April 15, 2010 at 10:01 PM
I was surprised that Chris was, um, surprised by the line Brillo took. It was bound to come up eventually.
I can only hope that the Libertarian message may now get spread even further. By this I mean that even the thin skinned, those rather more averse to strong language and lacking a love of cartoon-esque violence, will find his arguments accessible.
It could happen I s'pose...
Posted by: Carter Magna | Thursday, April 15, 2010 at 08:41 PM
I saw it. Basically if you can't rise above personality when stating differences of view then don't bother writing or opening your gob. The appearance on the drink driving debate on daytime telly was better but still without gravitas. Andrew indeed counted coup on the vented spleen but not at least on substance, which was insubstantial. Could he not have explained the reasons for his emotional outburst at PT so that at least the depth of his convictions would have been established.
Posted by: Amanda | Thursday, April 15, 2010 at 06:03 PM