So Farewell Then Giles Coren

He has trousered an unfeasibly large amount of money from his efforts in both print and broadcast journalism. He also secured for himself an obscenely well paid position at the new Murdoch flop-in-waiting Times Radio. He no doubt ranks as high as any in Rome. But for Giles Coren, there was still a need to be universally liked, in the way his late father Alan was, but he has never been. He had tried so hard to achieve this.

Not funny, and now not on Twitter, either

Sad to say, Giles had tried a little too hard, and for him, the moment of reality came after Josie Long delivered a broadside at the new Times Radio line-up. “Giles Coren has been repeatedly called out for racist content in columns, Stig Abell was managing editor of the Sun when it published K Hopkins saying refugees should be greeted w gunships, Tom Newton Dunn republished an ‘aryan nation’ conspiracy, never apologised”.

At which point Saima Ferdows joined the discussion, and ensured that this was a campaign destined to develop not necessarily to Coren’s advantage. “When I worked with Giles he said I was only there because of BBC tick boxing”. Ms Long took a dim view. “How fucking dare he”. Coren at first feigned detached ignorance, but Ms Ferdows’ memory soon caught up with him, despite the deflection.

“I’m amazed you didn’t make a formal complaint. I would never have worked again”. Ms Ferdows did make a complaint. By now, Coren was back-pedalling in no style at all: “I just remember you being really good at your job”. What’s that phrase Coren uses a lot, the one beginning with F? Ah yes. FUCK OFF. What a total creep.

Zoe Gardner observed “Renowned shitbag Coren was called out for being a shitbag perhaps once too often at last”. And it comes on the back of several other highly unfortunate episodes, such as the time when Coren created a fake “Polish” Twitter account to send out anti-Semitic material. Or the time when he said of journalist Mira Bar Hillel “Who is this mentalist? Can’t we have her killed?” And it gets worse.

Coren once made a suggestion about former Guardian sage Michael White which will not be repeated here - not least because it has a very strong chance of being 100% bullshit - and in the subsequent Twitter exchange White, who had spoken well of Coren’s late father, failed to lose his cool. So Coren did it for him: “You fucking bastard. I am going to find you and I am going to beat you TO A FUCKING PULP”. After he sobered up, once more.

The only imponderable about Coren encountering White would be the length of the grovelling apology. It does seem that there is a resigned mood of acceptance when it comes to Coren’s Olympic-standard wobbler-throwing: Mira Bar Hillel simply responded to his death threat with “I knew his father, the lovely Alan Coren, who managed to be hysterically funny without using filthy language”. She isn’t the only one saying that.

It will come as no surprise at all to learn in conclusion that Giles Coren has now deleted his Twitter account, to the relief of many who wished it had happened rather earlier. That relief, of course, is tempered by the knowledge that he will be back, and may in the meantime be working one or more anonymous sock puppets. Just for kicks.

Meanwhile, Times Radio has made its choice. It has chosen … poorly.

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