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Wednesday 21 July 2021

Giles Coren And Press Omertà

Whenever Giles Coren performs yet another unfunny act, delivers another not very good column, or brings us the occasional exhibition of Olympic-level wobbler-throwing, those hacks and pundits of A Certain Age shake their heads and recall how Coren’s late father Alan was a genuinely funny man who did not have to indulge in swearing or abuse.

Giles Coren. Claims to be descended from his father

Coren fils hates to be reminded of this, and so I take this opportunity to remind the obnoxious SOB of it at the outset. Equally, he hates the juxtaposition of the idea that he only got where he is because of the family name, with those in journalism who get where they are because they possess actual ability. Which brings us to his latest faux pas.

Last week, writer Dawn Foster died at the shockingly early age of just 33. She had to win a scholarship to study at Warwick University, and wrote later of how she grew up in poverty in an unemployed family. What she did not do was to temper her independent spirit in order to ingratiate herself with the media establishment. She was genuine.

Dawn Foster eye-rolls at a less sensible opponent

Dawn Foster could also spot a poser a satisfyingly long way away, and so Giles Coren found himself rumbled in short order: “Giles Coren a prime example of how the ‘if I’ve heard of yer da, I don’t need to hear from you’ rule holds for almost every man bar Jesus”. Coren took this characteristically badly. Because it was true.

So when Ms Foster died, while others expressed sadness at a life cut short, Coren, who is actually 51 years old, took to his recently restored Twitter account and jeered “When someone dies who has trolled you on Twitter, saying vile and hurtful things about you and your family, is it okay to be like, ‘I am sorry for the people who loved you, and any human death diminishes me, but, you can fuck off on to hell now where you belong’”.


There was a brief respite in the welter of severely adverse comment directed at Coren, as he then deleted that Tweet, only to vomit it out soon afterwards with a different and even less funny ending: “When someone dies who has trolled you on Twitter, saying vile and hurtful things about you and your family, is it okay to be like, ‘I am sorry for the people who loved you, and any human death diminishes me, but, HA HA HA HA HA HA’?

But not even someone of Coren’s obscenely over-inflated ego is of perfect courage, and this Tweet was, like its predecessor, taken down. What has not been taken down, and what will not be taken down, is Coren fils’ status. He will continue to luxuriate in his berth at the Murdoch press and his show on Times Radio. For him, the world remains excellent.


Indeed, there has been no discernible criticism from those out there on the right at his vicious and petulant attack on Ms Foster’s memory. Only those on the left have called out the attacks for what they were: the whinings of another man-baby forever trapped in the shadow of a more famous, and indeed infinitely more talented, father.

What this episode demonstrates is that Giles Coren, like his fellow right-wing nonentities, can look forward to a future of More And Bigger Paycheques For The Benefit Of Themselves Personally Now, unhindered by such trifling inconveniences as the ability to deport oneself in a manner befitting a paid-up member of polite society.

And those looking in from the outside can do nothing about it. No change there, then.


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11 comments:

Andy McDonald said...

Some time, look up his message to a Times sub-editor over a tiny change to an article he wrote. It really is a masterclass in do you know who I am.

Anonymous said...

Funny enough recently there was a bit of a q and a piece in Runners World, you know the thing, the last page filler, have to admit that was the first time i'd encountered him, but in a short piece of print I decided he was clearly a twat

Nigel Stapley said...

Junior falls into that category of what Dr. Spooner would have called 'a canting little runt'. In High Hampstead cemetary, there's a constant high-pitched noise caused by AC rotating at ever-greater velocity.

mirandola said...

Dawn Foster was a great and brave lady who never allowed herself to sell out and happily accepted the consequences of that decision - namely, that she was going to stay in the poverty that she was born into.

She was the voice of those who are voiceless and a great practising Catholic.

Coren is everything a human being shouldn't be.

J said...

Was it Coren who complained that his local Chinese restaurant staff talking in Chinese and making a racist joke about "taka taka" or was that some other over privileged twat who's only claim to fame is their family name?

Seems that Giles Coren being a racist didn't impact his job prospects, so being vile about the death of someone (horror of horrors: on the left no less) is going to make fuck all difference to his job prospects.

Racists living off the family name with no consequences... well allrighty then.

With any luck someone will move his car every day for the next 10 years just to piss off the racist Giles Coren.

Batarde said...

To continue the Spoonerism theme, Coren père was a shining wit.

AndyC said...

What have we done to be plagued by so many deeply repellent figures on the Right these days?

Anonymous said...

Nothing unusual about Coren. He's a standard module far right corporate media propaganda clerk. Not worth a bin full of warm spit.

Arnold said...

"And those looking in from the outside can do nothing about it."... Actually, no.

"Giles Coren's home is daubed with 'Dawn Foster Forever' and dog mess is left on his property"

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9813175/Giles-Corens-home-daubed-Dawn-Foster-Forever-mocked-death-journalist.html

James said...

Giles has officially added himself to list of msm journalists I wouldn't piss on if they were on fire.

Ferdy Fox said...

The Right has always been repellent. They were just better at hiding it.