The tabloid newspaper, The Sun is both the best-selling daily newspaper in Britain and (perhaps because of this fact) the most despised among that class of people commonly referred to as the ‘liberal elite’.
The Sun’s peculiar brand of kitchen-table, down-to-earth, working-class, mercifully unnuanced tub-thumping has earned it the nickname of the ‘Daily Red Neck’. To be fair, it is an image that the proprietors of The Sun have never sought to discourage.
But, while its more cerebral counterparts devote acres of print to torturous hand-wringing about the effects of globalisation on the native tribal peoples of the Amazon basin (or something) The Sun is prepared to get its boots dirty and go out and actually perform a public service:
LYING crook Brendon Fearon has been seen by The Sun effortlessly riding a mountain bike — even though he claims he was crippled by freed farmer Tony Martin.
The superfit burglar, who insists he cannot work because of leg injuries caused when Martin shot him, pedalled through streets at high speed.
And that’s not all.
STRIDING along the street with no sign of a limp; DARTING up the three stone steps to his home; STEPPING off pavements with confidence and WALKING his dog without a hint of difficulty.
Yes they actually sent in a surveillance team to follow this urchin around and record the results. I wonder how Mr.Fearon intends to explain this to the Judge (assuming he gets that far).
Once again, The Sun tells it like it is.
Three Cheers and a Pint of Bass for The Sun!
I dislike tabloids for the most part, except when they do something that is so obviously right and proper.
And I never peek at the girls on Page 3.
(Would I lie to you?)
The Sun ran a “We are behind our boys all the way” line on the war in Iraq (unlike the traditionally pro-Labour Mirror, which took a strongly anti-war position). One of the more intriguing things I saw in the lead up to the war was Christopher Hitchens writing for the Sun. Hitchens was arguing that Saddam Hussein was a viscious brutal dictator who needed to be removed from power, he was happy to write something to this effect for the Sun and the Sun was happy to publish it. Talk about peculiar ideological bedfellows.
Redneck limeys?
You can’t carry, you don’t qualify.
I would say that the Daily Mail is the most despised among the liberal elite (and those who fancy themselves the liberal elite). Hatred of the Mail has reached such hysterical heights that I think I’m going to start carrying a copy round with me just to annoy people.
Yep. Winston Churchill paid his bill during the ‘Wildernes Years’ by writing article on “The Daily Mail”.
I was first introduced to the screed of ‘The Sun’ via a paper left in San Jose International Airport. Yep, they really have a way with their words.
Too bad Murdock can’t seemed to impart ‘The Sun’ magic on New York Post.
He’s not crippled. I say send Mr. Martin back in to do a proper job this time.
Jackie D – I already do that! Do it on the train to London. You’ll get grins from some, and looks like you’re a piece of dog-dirt from others (usually they have a Guardian with them).
(Don’t worry, I do balance out my news intake elsewhere!)
But full respect to the Sun for doing this – I might even have to stop mocking my younger brother for his choice of newspaper!
It would be a bit like carrying the Star or National Enquirer on an American bus or subwa‚™, wouldn’t it?
Don’t know if I could handle that.
I once broke up with a girl because she read that silly thing (Enquirer).
News from the Fens:
You’ll all be heartened to know that our BBC local news programme had a short piece about The Sun’s story tonight.
Its most prominent feature was an interview with a lawyer chappie who proclaimed that the publication of The Sun’s surveillance operation would be of benefit to Fearon in any forthcoming legal action.
The reasoning escaped me, but great to see the good old Beeb (and its friend the lawyer) telling us plebs to stop misbehaving.
The licence fee really isn’t high enough to maintain this level of public service, you know.
And how may an American donate to the SUN’s fund for Mr. Martin?
If they take PayPal or otherwise allow the use of credit cards, I’ve got some spare money Mr. Martin is welcome to use for his legal fees.
Yes. this post was much more interesting and exciting than the prior missive.
If you’ve ever been too drunk to fish, you just might be a redneck. This holds true even if it was fly fishing for brook trout.
As for the actual news story, I’m thrilled to see this come out. Has anyone else in the mainstream picked up on it?
August heat & holiday low turnout may account for the fact that -as all newspapers do- the theme selected here for discussion is a non-issue: “Can Mars Be Inhabited By Human Beings?”, “The Damage Caused By The Reintroduction Of The Wolf In The Alps”, “Bush Spends His Holidays In Crawford”, “Berlusconi & Murdoch To Launch Shit-TV In Italy” & “The Sun Is Both The Best-Selling…”.
I can’t wait for September (yaaaaaaaaawn).
The British haven’t a clue why rednecks are called rednecks and have misappropriated the phrase. It didn’t spring from their culture. Another phrase they don’t understand and have misappropriated, feeling frightfully trendy nevertheless, is “trailer park trash”. But, not understanding the context, they call it “trailer trash”, thereby losing the entire point.
The routine is always to at first use the phrase (nine times out of 10 having not got it quite right) with a sneer, as in, “To use that dreadful American phrase”. (BBC commentators have never heard an American phrase they didn’t find sneerworthy.) Then it gradually makes its way into the language and people begin, including BBC commentators, to feel rather hip when they use it.
Although they are legion, one that drives me particularly bonkers is: “He’s not a happy bunny.” Now surely they should realise they misheard this. What exemplifies sheer happiness and joie de vivre more than anything else in the world? It’s so obvious it hurts: A happy puppy. An unhappy puppy exemplifies the nadir of sentient misery. A bunny is neither happy or sad. A bunny is zen. Why do they persist with this?
This aside, Fearon is clearly not involved in the human evolutionary chain. Oh, I wonder where he got the mountain bike?
Jackie D is correct: it’s the Mail that they hate. Last night I made my thirteenth visit to the Edinburgh Book Festival. At every event there is some leftist nutter in the audience going on about “typical Daily Mail readers” and “Thatcherite agendas.” About half of the speakers are similarly inclined although not Peter Hichens – of the Mail on Sunday! George Monbiot, Will Hutton and Polly Toynbee are on later this week……
The British haven’t a clue why rednecks are called rednecks
Interestingly the British are called rednecks by South African’s, especially those of Africanner ancestry (as opposed to English).
Roi necks is what the British armed forces were called during the Boer War because, naturally, they were sun burnt.
The English version of Trailer park trash (TPTs) is the CHT or Council House Trash.
We know what TPTs are ‘cos we see the way they live in tornado alley in a house made of glider spares.
Anyone got Linux installed and selected redneck as the “language” gr8 fun.
I see that Fearon’s solicitor is continuing to advise him that despite the mountain bike and leaping up and down steps film, he still has a good chance of winning his case. And he won’t have to pay back his £5,000 in legal aid. Well, we know that, because how on earth would Fearon get his hands on £5,000? Ooops!
PS – Speaking of The Sun, did anyone read Richard Littlejohn today? Phwoaah! Wottah scorcher!
You don’t have to belong to the “liberal elite” to despise The Daily Mail – it really is a trashy paper, which idolised Margaret Thatcher only because General Pinochet wasn’t available. It’s not the vulgarity that gets me, it’s the dimwit authoritarianism. Similarly with The Sun, even if it does occasionally do something useful like this Fearon exposure. Mind you, those Page Three girls have the best tits in the business.
You mean this one, Posie?
Hmmm.
i’ve always thought of the sun as a sort of strange agglomeration of the new york post and the national enquirer (or maybe the weekly world news). and now that there are several british people reading this, could you please tell all of us ignorant yanks just what a quango is?
Forget newspapers, all you stupid limeys have these wacky accents. “Yeah, oi think thats oi fish poy (pie), innit?”