The Mansfield letter contains a lot of sense, but I fancy she lets herself down rather by laying the blame on an 'insular' (i.e. mildly racist?) quality in the English character. I say, why don't you just knock Tomalin and Broughton and be done with it, you mean-spirited impossible Vancouverian outsider.
You do both yourself and Ms. Mallinson a gross disservice suggesting the blame-laying quality may be described as "mildly racist," a judgment which, if you were familiar with Jean's work, you would immediately and aghastively retract. Now, if you had said, Ms. Mallinson practises admirable restraint by not calling a spade a shovel of shit, I might discover some merit in your objection to her lexical choices (since, it seems to me, the word you actually might wish to consider, from your high pulpit, may be "pomposity").
What do I know? I really don't know. Do you require a list?
'Mildly racist' (originally appended, I might add, by a humble question mark) referred not to Mallinson's attitude, but to that of the English, as described by Mallinson. I was, as such, defending that pure unpompous race, albeit in pseudo-ironic terms, as is my wont. As for the rest of Ms Mallinson's work, you are correct in surmising that I am unfamiliar with it, but then - like most people - I am not one to be crippled by unfamiliarity (if I were, you might enjoy the resulting silence).
Nice; but, no explosive cigar, Georgy: I am well aware you wrote, "laying the blame on an 'insular' (i.e. mildly racist?) quality in the English character."
Thus, I called you on that because the quality isn't mildly racist, it's rather an open secret that English quality is one of stifling pomposity, a quality (if that's, indeedly, what it is), you seem to demonstrate in spades in your attempt to denigrate one of them upstart Colonials, a Vancouverite, BTW, who has the temerity to take poor biographical scholarship to task by your ad feminam attack on the letter writer's personal attributes; or, in your glorified opinion of all things British, inferior act of being born a Canadian. (I won't even bring New Zealand into this non-yawn-debate with you.)
Does it get any clearer or do you need a magnifying glass to see the Pot-Kettle-Blackitude of your offensive attitude? p.s. If you cannot comprehend what I have written, Georgy, how is it you managed to discover the flies in the oinkment in Mallinson's well-presented and logically supported epistolary argument? (Or did it just bug your bum a Canadian might actually know something about Mansfield a Brit might wish to overlook, given the Brititude that often borders, IMO, on one glaringly rash and pignaciously rude superior attitude towards all things not falling in line with your country's self-gloritude?) p.p.s. TNT; I don't require a list of what you know; I can obviously build my own when it comes to that: 1.
Did the Earl of Hertfordshire jilt you at the altar again? I say, what a rotter! These Englishmen... Ah, but we mustn't let the behaviour of one grain of rice spoil everyone's curry must we?
Meanwhile, you seem to be sheltering under a great umbrella of misunderstandings. Since when have I shown a 'glorified opinion of all things British'? Though I mostly reside in London these days, I am in fact German by birth (a quick glance at my name might have told you this). What is more, my own work, whilst claiming to serve European culture as a whole, has always tended away from the British Isles, towards more Eastern parts. Indeed, I can barely remember the last time I wrote at length on a British writer. I am not, therefore, an apologist for the British empire; nor have I ever (save one day in 1974 when I drank too much) had a reputation for knocking Canadians (Why bother when the US have turned it into such an art form?)
Incidentally, thanks for neglecting to pass on the explosive cigar. I trust it hasn't since blown up in your face
Georgy, I read your profile; and, Frank will back me on this: I am the dame who recommended your blog to him as one he ought to investigate because I thought it was a cut-above. How wrong I guess I was; nothing new there, though, eh? Not only am I a Canuck, I'm also a dame; third time unlucky? With you, that would seem to be true.
As far as Americans slagging this country goes; put your proof on the table, particularly since Canadians virtually *own* the American arts-and-culture scene, in case you haven't noticed, from SNL to the very beginnings of American arts and culture, especially in film, literature, art, and comedy. Prove otherwise. (Good luck with that.)
No, at bottom (and, as Malvina Reynolds sings, There's always a bottom below that bottom), you're either glibly demonstrating incredible disingenuousness pretending not to know the point I am so vociferously and explosively making, that is, you attack the person, not the substance of what she wrote; that's unforgivable, particularly since you're doing so when it comes to a letter in the TLS, the greatest literary publication in the universe (and, for that matter, the only one to which I subscribe). Go figure; but, don't tax that brain cell; you may need it at some point in the past-perfect where you seem to be residing.
Ad feminam attack doesn't become you; but, then again, what does? And, you heap the same form of attack on me. You can shovel the shit; but, you can't take it when it's turfed backatcha with a direct hit. Is that it?
I'd like to stay and play; but, I'm very busy right now, trying to do something that actually vaguely interests me, if you don't mind (and, given the contents of yours, I'm not sure why you would).
So, you may continue to come back with your sub-par bon mots; but, in my country, MOTS means More Of The Same, Same Ol' Shame Hole, yadda-yadda-yawn.
Plus, as a matter of fact, I have an abiding and deep respect for all things British, particularly since the family of my deeply loved adopted mother (R.I.P.) IS British (and her maiden name IS, in fact, very British, ROBERTS).
Have a nice life and an even nicer afterlife, Georgy; my opinion of you, since you've stooped to conquer rather than risen to communicate, just went up a tad; now, you're simply no longer beneath my contempt (and, believe you me, that's an improvement).
IOW? Bait. Fish. Hook. Over and out on you, Georgy; don't you have anything better to do than try to out-best the 'Net's well-known dame du flame? I sure hope so; and, you might consider counting the horseshoes on your arse I've been kinda sorta nice to you. Yeesh. The line forms on the right; but, come back when you have something to say that begins and ends with polite, K? K. For now, then? Bite off, Dirtball.
Your latest reply seems hardly worth responding to: I fancy you're enjoying this far more than you ought to be. I, on the other hand, take no pleasure in attacking people for the mere fun of it, preferring to criticise where criticism is due. I am, of course, sometimes inclined to a spot of irony as well - perhaps this was my undoing on this occasion? (re-read the initial comment and the winds of comprehension may begin to blow your way at last). Needless to say, when I start by writing that something 'contains a lot of sense', it signals a compliment - and not an attack. Mallinson's letter is, I repeat, for the most part a exceedingly good one. As for the sweeter side of your message, I wonder what is expected of me - am I to bow in thanks for your having recommended my blog, or hang my head in shame now that you have decided - based on this one, mildly misjudged comment - that you were wrong to do so? For the sake of politeness (I am, essentially, a kindly soul) I will go with the former. My thanks, therefore. And may I say that agree with you in reference to the greatness of the TLS, especially its letters page, which I have always dreamed would be expanded one day into an animated show, to be shown weekly, on BBC4.
(insert your own wicked send-off here, should you be missing one. Otherwise, I send my best wishes, to you and all Brit-respecting Canadians)
Ah, Georgy, I can see the point I had so hoped I'd made had registered with you did not; tragically, given your assertion you retain the right, "as with all friends, to disagree at will," you've de facto demonstrated that entire exercise was a massive waste of both our precious time and valuable energy.
Perhaps, I suppose I can only hope and pray, somehow, sometime, some where, some day, you shall see the true extent of your profoundly offensive egregiosity.
Until then, although we may remain non-enemies, a friendship doesn't really seem to be in the cards for you and me, does it? And, to get down to brass facts, that's truly saddening as far as I can see, particularly since you've otherwise shown yourself to be a fair and enlightened individual to others and me; but, here, now?
You've done nothing more than reiterated you shall continue with your xenophobic and sexist pedantry.
Friends, it is, Georgy; but, without benefitz which, given your blindness, is exactly what, ISTM, you prefer to see. Friends in silence, IOW; and, sadly, that's the way it shall always be. Horrifyingly, that really seems to be the devastating reality that shall follow you for all eternity.
Take care, Georgy; and, say a prayer occasionally for those among us who willfully refuse to be just, fair, egalitarian, and free.
I have no desire to quibble with your strange concepts of friendship and lack the ability, I fear, to untangle all of your points. My request was, I thought, a perfectly fair one - though the words 'at will' may, perhaps, have been a little strongly put, suggesting a cavalier approach to arguments which, in fact, I do not claim to have. Believe me, I will only argue with you when I truly think that an argument is necessary. To let friendship get in the way of what one believes is right would be a churlish and pointless practice.
I must take the time, furthermore, to repudiate your reference to what you call my 'xenophobic and sexist pedantry'. Any racial slurs I have made were, as I have already established, ironic in tone - and pale, I think, in comparison to your own description of the English as a stiflingly pompous and self-obsessed race. 'Sexist pedantry' is, so far as I can see, a pure invention on your part - and I resent this accusation deeply, as any one would. As for your talk of 'eternity', this reeks of melodrama. Yours respectfully,
Why did you not leave your comment on the website where it belongs; that is, the TLS one?
Allow yours truly to answer for you: Readers of such a comment would have been all over you like white on rice in a nano-slap (and, you know it, Georgy). It's completely unacceptable in context (and, out of context, even more so).
Readers here do not know the context of your seemingly hateful and terribly hurtful statement (nor, for that matter, are they required to do so).
IOW, they take it at face value (since, as you know, not everyone reading BITE or any blog will click on the L'Inq.; they're interested in the comments, more often than not, a fact of Bloggadociotic existence, one that makes its world go 'round, as you all-too-well know).
I fully expected you would respond with a variation of, "Oh, I was only joking," "I was just being ironic," "I was simply having fun," and yadda-yadda-yawn.
How do you think Ms. Mallinson would feel reading your insulting comment out of context? How do you think other readers of your comment would respond without the contextualising framework in which you were writing?
LOOK AT WHAT YOU TIPPY-TAPPED — without providing full context for it in *your* comment — look at the insulting and devastating comment you left here hard and long, Georgy:
I say, why don't you just knock Tomalin and Broughton and be done with it, you mean-spirited impossible Vancouverian outsider.
How could any reader who did not click on the L'inq. Frank provided possibly know to what you were referring? And, for that matter, how could any reader know that I was merely giving you as good as you were trying to fob off on Ms. Mallinson who clearly did not deserve that vicious ad feminam attack?
For someone who considers himself to be a master of irony (or so you seem to be suggesting), why did my ironic response Concord right over your head, then?
When you can, in good faith, answer these questions (if only for yourself), you may understand my objection to the xenophobic and sexist attack on Ms. Mallinson you launched HERE for no gawd-damned good reason I can see.
Pukifying; and, the fact you're trying to justify the unjustifiable says everything for you I ever needed to hear. You can't stop. You continue to argue you're not out of line in leaving that comment here. That's incredible. End of story.
Ms. Mallinson deserves an apology; and, until one is tendered, I see no reason to try to reason with you.
Yeah, I'm tempted to tell you to go fuck yourself with a chainsaw; but, you know what? That wouldn't do. Why? It'd simply provide you with another loophole for you to slither and sleazily wriggle through.
I maintain that your response is out of proportion with the original comment - and, considering we seemed to have dealt with that yesterday, it seems rather unfair that you should be so keen to be on the offensive again today, especially after my attempts to make peace. Really, I can't see why you are so desperate to blow this whole thing up. If you are truly worried about offending Ms Mallinson, I will gladly offer the necessary (and honest) apologies that are due to her. This wasn't intended as a personal attack, as I am sure she would realise. The original comment uses (and maybe, I confess, perverts) Mallinson's remark about the perceived insularity of the English character to hint at the hypocrisy of knocking a nation for being mildly racist (which is, is it not, a mildly racist practice in itself?) Having done this, I sought to undue my own, or let my own self down, with further hypocrisy. Therein lies the point. The comment was intended to draw attention to the issue of national stereotypes - and the difficulty of transcending them. It was not intended as a treatise - and shouldn't be attacked as though it were one. You yourself have admitted to answering my irony with some of your own, with which I was quite happy, up until the point at which the boundaries got blurred - and the comments became increasingly personal and (in parts) irrational.
Clearly, this comment would have made no sense as a letter to the TLS; but then blogs, I believe, ought to allow a certain leeway. I thought that Frank's link was far enough removed from the original article to be able to make such points freely. I cannot be held accountable for the behaviour of bloggers who ignore the context in favour of the comment. Providing the full context every time you make a comment would be tiresome, would it not?
There, I am all done. I suggest that, if you really think that our discussion could be considered in any way hurtful to Ms Mallinson - or if you continue to doubt the ability of the average blogger to understand it in the spirit in which it was made - you should delete all the comments in this post. At this stage in proceedings, such an action may do the both of us good.
The Mansfield letter contains a lot of sense, but I fancy she lets herself down rather by laying the blame on an 'insular' (i.e. mildly racist?) quality in the English character. I say, why don't you just knock Tomalin and Broughton and be done with it, you mean-spirited impossible Vancouverian outsider.
ReplyDeleteSir:
ReplyDeleteYou do both yourself and Ms. Mallinson a gross disservice suggesting the blame-laying quality may be described as "mildly racist," a judgment which, if you were familiar with Jean's work, you would immediately and aghastively retract. Now, if you had said, Ms. Mallinson practises admirable restraint by not calling a spade a shovel of shit, I might discover some merit in your objection to her lexical choices (since, it seems to me, the word you actually might wish to consider, from your high pulpit, may be "pomposity").
But, then, what do you know?
What do I know?
ReplyDeleteI really don't know. Do you require a list?
'Mildly racist' (originally appended, I might add, by a humble question mark) referred not to Mallinson's attitude, but to that of the English, as described by Mallinson. I was, as such, defending that pure unpompous race, albeit in pseudo-ironic terms, as is my wont. As for the rest of Ms Mallinson's work, you are correct in surmising that I am unfamiliar with it, but then - like most people - I am not one to be crippled by unfamiliarity (if I were, you might enjoy the resulting silence).
Nice; but, no explosive cigar, Georgy: I am well aware you wrote, "laying the blame on an 'insular' (i.e. mildly racist?) quality in the English character."
ReplyDeleteThus, I called you on that because the quality isn't mildly racist, it's rather an open secret that English quality is one of stifling pomposity, a quality (if that's, indeedly, what it is), you seem to demonstrate in spades in your attempt to denigrate one of them upstart Colonials, a Vancouverite, BTW, who has the temerity to take poor biographical scholarship to task by your ad feminam attack on the letter writer's personal attributes; or, in your glorified opinion of all things British, inferior act of being born a Canadian. (I won't even bring New Zealand into this non-yawn-debate with you.)
Does it get any clearer or do you need a magnifying glass to see the Pot-Kettle-Blackitude of your offensive attitude?
p.s. If you cannot comprehend what I have written, Georgy, how is it you managed to discover the flies in the oinkment in Mallinson's well-presented and logically supported epistolary argument? (Or did it just bug your bum a Canadian might actually know something about Mansfield a Brit might wish to overlook, given the Brititude that often borders, IMO, on one glaringly rash and pignaciously rude superior attitude towards all things not falling in line with your country's self-gloritude?)
p.p.s. TNT; I don't require a list of what you know; I can obviously build my own when it comes to that:
1.
Did the Earl of Hertfordshire jilt you at the altar again? I say, what a rotter! These Englishmen... Ah, but we mustn't let the behaviour of one grain of rice spoil everyone's curry must we?
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, you seem to be sheltering under a great umbrella of misunderstandings. Since when have I shown a 'glorified opinion of all things British'? Though I mostly reside in London these days, I am in fact German by birth (a quick glance at my name might have told you this). What is more, my own work, whilst claiming to serve European culture as a whole, has always tended away from the British Isles, towards more Eastern parts. Indeed, I can barely remember the last time I wrote at length on a British writer.
I am not, therefore, an apologist for the British empire; nor have I ever (save one day in 1974 when I drank too much) had a reputation for knocking Canadians (Why bother when the US have turned it into such an art form?)
Incidentally, thanks for neglecting to pass on the explosive cigar. I trust it hasn't since blown up in your face
Georgy, I read your profile; and, Frank will back me on this: I am the dame who recommended your blog to him as one he ought to investigate because I thought it was a cut-above. How wrong I guess I was; nothing new there, though, eh? Not only am I a Canuck, I'm also a dame; third time unlucky? With you, that would seem to be true.
ReplyDeleteAs far as Americans slagging this country goes; put your proof on the table, particularly since Canadians virtually *own* the American arts-and-culture scene, in case you haven't noticed, from SNL to the very beginnings of American arts and culture, especially in film, literature, art, and comedy. Prove otherwise. (Good luck with that.)
No, at bottom (and, as Malvina Reynolds sings, There's always a bottom below that bottom), you're either glibly demonstrating incredible disingenuousness pretending not to know the point I am so vociferously and explosively making, that is, you attack the person, not the substance of what she wrote; that's unforgivable, particularly since you're doing so when it comes to a letter in the TLS, the greatest literary publication in the universe (and, for that matter, the only one to which I subscribe). Go figure; but, don't tax that brain cell; you may need it at some point in the past-perfect where you seem to be residing.
Ad feminam attack doesn't become you; but, then again, what does? And, you heap the same form of attack on me. You can shovel the shit; but, you can't take it when it's turfed backatcha with a direct hit. Is that it?
I'd like to stay and play; but, I'm very busy right now, trying to do something that actually vaguely interests me, if you don't mind (and, given the contents of yours, I'm not sure why you would).
So, you may continue to come back with your sub-par bon mots; but, in my country, MOTS means More Of The Same, Same Ol' Shame Hole, yadda-yadda-yawn.
Plus, as a matter of fact, I have an abiding and deep respect for all things British, particularly since the family of my deeply loved adopted mother (R.I.P.) IS British (and her maiden name IS, in fact, very British, ROBERTS).
Have a nice life and an even nicer afterlife, Georgy; my opinion of you, since you've stooped to conquer rather than risen to communicate, just went up a tad; now, you're simply no longer beneath my contempt (and, believe you me, that's an improvement).
IOW? Bait. Fish. Hook. Over and out on you, Georgy; don't you have anything better to do than try to out-best the 'Net's well-known dame du flame? I sure hope so; and, you might consider counting the horseshoes on your arse I've been kinda sorta nice to you. Yeesh. The line forms on the right; but, come back when you have something to say that begins and ends with polite, K? K. For now, then? Bite off, Dirtball.
Your latest reply seems hardly worth responding to: I fancy you're enjoying this far more than you ought to be. I, on the other hand, take no pleasure in attacking people for the mere fun of it, preferring to criticise where criticism is due. I am, of course, sometimes inclined to a spot of irony as well - perhaps this was my undoing on this occasion? (re-read the initial comment and the winds of comprehension may begin to blow your way at last). Needless to say, when I start by writing that something 'contains a lot of sense', it signals a compliment - and not an attack. Mallinson's letter is, I repeat, for the most part a exceedingly good one.
ReplyDeleteAs for the sweeter side of your message, I wonder what is expected of me - am I to bow in thanks for your having recommended my blog, or hang my head in shame now that you have decided - based on this one, mildly misjudged comment - that you were wrong to do so?
For the sake of politeness (I am, essentially, a kindly soul) I will go with the former. My thanks, therefore. And may I say that agree with you in reference to the greatness of the TLS, especially its letters page, which I have always dreamed would be expanded one day into an animated show, to be shown weekly, on BBC4.
(insert your own wicked send-off here, should you be missing one. Otherwise, I send my best wishes, to you and all Brit-respecting Canadians)
Friends, Georgy?
ReplyDeleteBut of course... Though I retain the right, as with all friends, to disagree at will
ReplyDeleteAh, Georgy, I can see the point I had so hoped I'd made had registered with you did not; tragically, given your assertion you retain the right, "as with all friends, to disagree at will," you've de facto demonstrated that entire exercise was a massive waste of both our precious time and valuable energy.
ReplyDeletePerhaps, I suppose I can only hope and pray, somehow, sometime, some where, some day, you shall see the true extent of your profoundly offensive egregiosity.
Until then, although we may remain non-enemies, a friendship doesn't really seem to be in the cards for you and me, does it? And, to get down to brass facts, that's truly saddening as far as I can see, particularly since you've otherwise shown yourself to be a fair and enlightened individual to others and me; but, here, now?
You've done nothing more than reiterated you shall continue with your xenophobic and sexist pedantry.
Friends, it is, Georgy; but, without benefitz which, given your blindness, is exactly what, ISTM, you prefer to see. Friends in silence, IOW; and, sadly, that's the way it shall always be. Horrifyingly, that really seems to be the devastating reality that shall follow you for all eternity.
Take care, Georgy; and, say a prayer occasionally for those among us who willfully refuse to be just, fair, egalitarian, and free.
I have no desire to quibble with your strange concepts of friendship and lack the ability, I fear, to untangle all of your points. My request was, I thought, a perfectly fair one - though the words 'at will' may, perhaps, have been a little strongly put, suggesting a cavalier approach to arguments which, in fact, I do not claim to have. Believe me, I will only argue with you when I truly think that an argument is necessary. To let friendship get in the way of what one believes is right would be a churlish and pointless practice.
ReplyDeleteI must take the time, furthermore, to repudiate your reference to what you call my 'xenophobic and sexist pedantry'. Any racial slurs I have made were, as I have already established, ironic in tone - and pale, I think, in comparison to your own description of the English as a stiflingly pompous and self-obsessed race. 'Sexist pedantry' is, so far as I can see, a pure invention on your part - and I resent this accusation deeply, as any one would.
As for your talk of 'eternity', this reeks of melodrama.
Yours respectfully,
Georgy Riecke
Bullshit on toast.
ReplyDeleteWhy did you not leave your comment on the website where it belongs; that is, the TLS one?
Allow yours truly to answer for you: Readers of such a comment would have been all over you like white on rice in a nano-slap (and, you know it, Georgy). It's completely unacceptable in context (and, out of context, even more so).
Readers here do not know the context of your seemingly hateful and terribly hurtful statement (nor, for that matter, are they required to do so).
IOW, they take it at face value (since, as you know, not everyone reading BITE or any blog will click on the L'Inq.; they're interested in the comments, more often than not, a fact of Bloggadociotic existence, one that makes its world go 'round, as you all-too-well know).
I fully expected you would respond with a variation of, "Oh, I was only joking," "I was just being ironic," "I was simply having fun," and yadda-yadda-yawn.
How do you think Ms. Mallinson would feel reading your insulting comment out of context? How do you think other readers of your comment would respond without the contextualising framework in which you were writing?
LOOK AT WHAT YOU TIPPY-TAPPED — without providing full context for it in *your* comment — look at the insulting and devastating comment you left here hard and long, Georgy:
I say, why don't you just knock Tomalin and Broughton and be done with it, you mean-spirited impossible Vancouverian outsider.
How could any reader who did not click on the L'inq. Frank provided possibly know to what you were referring? And, for that matter, how could any reader know that I was merely giving you as good as you were trying to fob off on Ms. Mallinson who clearly did not deserve that vicious ad feminam attack?
For someone who considers himself to be a master of irony (or so you seem to be suggesting), why did my ironic response Concord right over your head, then?
When you can, in good faith, answer these questions (if only for yourself), you may understand my objection to the xenophobic and sexist attack on Ms. Mallinson you launched HERE for no gawd-damned good reason I can see.
Pukifying; and, the fact you're trying to justify the unjustifiable says everything for you I ever needed to hear. You can't stop. You continue to argue you're not out of line in leaving that comment here. That's incredible. End of story.
Ms. Mallinson deserves an apology; and, until one is tendered, I see no reason to try to reason with you.
Yeah, I'm tempted to tell you to go fuck yourself with a chainsaw; but, you know what? That wouldn't do. Why? It'd simply provide you with another loophole for you to slither and sleazily wriggle through.
I maintain that your response is out of proportion with the original comment - and, considering we seemed to have dealt with that yesterday, it seems rather unfair that you should be so keen to be on the offensive again today, especially after my attempts to make peace.
ReplyDeleteReally, I can't see why you are so desperate to blow this whole thing up. If you are truly worried about offending Ms Mallinson, I will gladly offer the necessary (and honest) apologies that are due to her. This wasn't intended as a personal attack, as I am sure she would realise. The original comment uses (and maybe, I confess, perverts) Mallinson's remark about the perceived insularity of the English character to hint at the hypocrisy of knocking a nation for being mildly racist (which is, is it not, a mildly racist practice in itself?) Having done this, I sought to undue my own, or let my own self down, with further hypocrisy. Therein lies the point. The comment was intended to draw attention to the issue of national stereotypes - and the difficulty of transcending them. It was not intended as a treatise - and shouldn't be attacked as though it were one. You yourself have admitted to answering my irony with some of your own, with which I was quite happy, up until the point at which the boundaries got blurred - and the comments became increasingly personal and (in parts) irrational.
Clearly, this comment would have made no sense as a letter to the TLS; but then blogs, I believe, ought to allow a certain leeway. I thought that Frank's link was far enough removed from the original article to be able to make such points freely. I cannot be held accountable for the behaviour of bloggers who ignore the context in favour of the comment. Providing the full context every time you make a comment would be tiresome, would it not?
There, I am all done. I suggest that, if you really think that our discussion could be considered in any way hurtful to Ms Mallinson - or if you continue to doubt the ability of the average blogger to understand it in the spirit in which it was made - you should delete all the comments in this post. At this stage in proceedings, such an action may do the both of us good.