Words Dept.: entry

Sunday Mirror columnist Carole Malone talking about Shannon Matthews, on the One Show tonight:

The media reflects the public mood, and the public just haven’t taken to Shannon’s family as they did to Kate and Gerry McCann.

Yes, it’s the fault of the public – the scum who read newspapers rather than the nice people who write them – that the disappearance of Shannon Matthews has received 1% of the coverage that the disappearance of Madeleine McCann did. How do the media “reflect” the “mood” of “the public”, exactly? Does Malone go out into the street canvassing the opinion of passers by before writing a column?

Kelvin McKenzie, interviewed on the same programme, is a bullying thick-head of the first degree but had the honesty to admit that when he wrote a column defending the McCanns last year, he got a load of e-mails complaining that the papers wouldn’t be so friendly to them if Madeleine came from a single parent family up north. It’s a shame that turned out to be accurate.

Speaking of bullying thick-heads, who or what is Jon “Gaunty” Gaunt, and why does his wide neck and wider, flatter mouth keep appearing before me? He was on This Week (loud), then Newsnight (shouting at a woman like a drunken wedding guest), and then I walked past a local shop the other day and there was a poster on the door advertising his one-man show at the the Plaza in Stockport!

Apparently he writes for the Sun and presents a programme on Talk Sport. As I don’t own a white van, I was blissfully unaware of the man until he began to infiltrate the wider twatosphere.

My early evaluation is that he seems to be the new Richard Littlejohn, without any of the easy charm, good looks, or vocabulary. Watch this space for further news of his movements.

(BTW Gaunty’s website offers fans the chance to phone a premium rate phone number – a mere £1.50 per minute, natch – to “have a rant” at an answering machine. If you admire Jon Gaunt and have visited his website, then bear in mind that this is the level of intelligence he is crediting you with.)