Glenda Hates Looking In The Mirror

The Mail’s collection of Glendas does not attract much comment from this blog, and that is for one very good reason: much of their conduct is either covered more than adequately elsewhere – pace Jan Moir – or their behaviour is so ridiculous to be beyond parody, which brings us to the self-satirising Liz Jones, who talks to the animals, many of which would rather she desist and find something useful to do.

What do you think of it so far?

“The Stasi paid for the thought police, but trolls do it for free” carps Ms Jones’ headline, which is intended to warn Mail readers of the evils of Twitter, where someone has been terribly rotten to poor Jeremy Clarkson about the death of his pet dog. Someone else was equally rotten to Ms Jones about her pet cat. There can be only one conclusion, and that is that Twitter is full of evil spirits. Or something.

Now, I hate to bring bad news for dear Liz and her idyllic Exmoor location, together with its menagerie and supreme isolation, but I have some issues with the logic underpinning her proposition. Jezza might not like folks making fun of his Labrador shuffling off, but I suspect significant numbers around the West Midlands weren’t too impressed when he joked about Rover closing, with thousands losing their jobs.

And if you insist – as Ms Jones does, not merely ad infinitum but frequently ad nauseam, on parading the minutiae of your life and relationships before the public – then you are by definition inviting them to comment. And the more you whine on at that same public, the more likely it is that their response will be of a singularly negative character. Put simply, you’re asking for it.

You’re also asking for it if you can’t be bothered to do your research (an all too frequent failing at the Dacre empire). So when Liz whines “When I was on the Somali-Kenyan border, working on a story on the famine, the photographer assigned to my story told me someone was pretending to be me, and was tweeting about how awful it was that my Gucci luggage was getting dusty” she misses one detail.

And that is that the “LizJonesSomalia” spoof Twitter account raised around £15,000 for the Disasters Emergency Committee’s East Africa Crisis Appeal. What did you do for the famine, Liz, apart from inspire the creator of the @DMReporter Twitter feed to show the world just how ridiculous it was that someone so appallingly egotistical  and consumption obsessed was being sent to report on a famine?

If you don’t want folks to comment on what you’re up to, don’t keep banging on about beauty treatments, shopping, more shopping, even more shopping, your relationships, your lack of relationships, other people’s relationships, your jealousy of other people’s relationships, dieting, eating, dieting and eating, complaining, complaining about complaining, saying “look at me”, and all the rest.

Shove enough crap into Twitter and some will come back at you. Deal with it.