Via Julia, Philip Hensher over at CiF (where else?).
As Julia points out, when reading this dreck, the author doesn’t really put forward a problem that needs solving (because there isn’t one). However, that doesn’t stop him coming up with this little gem:
I have a suggestion to affirm literature at the centre of our national life. Doctors, currently, operate to an official recommendation of no more than 21 units of alcohol (for men) a week, no less than five pieces of fruit or vegetable a day. Why shouldn’t the government encourage the simple question: “Are you reading enough?” An unambitious government recommendation that it is good for you to read 15 books a year whether man, woman or child; that would reflect what we do well, and enhance millions of lives.
Fuck me, don’t we already have enough nannying fussbuckets telling us how to live our lives already? The answer to the question, though is a simple one – it is none of the government’s business how much we read. Just as it is none of the government’s business how much we eat or drink.
Very true, although convincing the sheeple out there that these campaigns have no merit is a struggle, Considering the governments past record on… pretty much anything, you’d think people would wise up to the fact that the government actually don’t know what they are talking about but are instead trying to mould us all into compliant mindless drones.
Next: Compulsory Exercise. Or have we already had that one?
Yes we have. One of the draft proposals of the health lobby is fines for those who do not belong to a gym.
There is nothing too outrageous that these arseholes don’t seriously try to foist upon us. Go on, I dare you, try and think of something so outrageous no one would even contemplate it and I bet that someone, somewhere has.
There is already some kind of NHS-backed gym membership incentive scheme at work in my area.
You sometimes ask where all the fat people are, since they aren’t in your high street; a fair number of them are in the members’ cafe of my local health club, merrily tucking into cappucino and cake after a token ten minutes in the gym.
You can lead a horse to the treadmill…
I went (as a guest) to a gym recently, and found only one machine which suited me.
It was near the entrance, and sold Mars bars & Kit-Kats.
🙂
Oh my dear lord, seriously?
I love reading I read a lot more than 15 books a year, however some people detest it, my youngest son is dyslexic and can’t abide reading, now whilst it is fair to say that as a result his grasp of the English language is not that of his brother or sister’s he is by no means an idiot.
Forcing people to read is like forcing a teetotaler to drink and no one would dream of doing that!
So why would you make someone read.
Madness, this is another of those 5 mins of fame jockeys I do so wish someone would push them all down a deep well and leave them there so that the rest of us can live our lives uninterrupted by such useless and trivial bullcrap.
It becomes tedious in the extreme to keep hearing these little nobodies come out with such balls.
There should be a penalty for every jumped up little self styled parveen who opens their ill informed mouths, i vote for electrocution of the genitals I bet then they would think twice before speaking.
IDIOTS! *pah*
“Yes we have. One of the draft proposals of the health lobby is fines for those who do not belong to a gym.”
I don’t belong to a gym, a gym belongs to me. I have my own gym, are the health lobby still going to fine me anyway? I suspect that if they got their way they probably would, doing things your own way doesn’t suit them at all does it?
Not to mention those who exercise perfectly well without the need for a gym – cycling, swimming, walking and so on.
It’s always struck me as odd that the powers-that-be castigate us all for lying on the sofa and watching endless TV or for sitting at the computer playing games for hours on end, but lying around or sitting reading isn’t mentioned. So this prodnose wants us all to read more (and I read a damn sight more than 15 a year), so is he advocating a sedentary lifestyle while we dip into doubtless improving classics? I thought we should all be ‘on the hockey field breathing deeply’ (to quote Muriel Spark).
Not to mention that the number of books you read is no indication of the amount of educational reading you’re doing. Has the berk not heard of the internet; Wikipedia?
Not to mention all the back checking and verification needed on Wiki articles.
So called “fat” taxes are always being talked about but they already exist – mars bars, kit kats and other things have been made smaller for the same price.
You could for example “force” a teetotaller to drink by increasing taxes on tea and reducing them on alcohol. Highly unlikely of course but this is how it would be done.
It would not matter whether more or less drink was actually consumed because the bansturbators would give themselves grotesquely overpaid jobs (with all the requisite perks unavailable to the rest of us) attention whoring and manufacturing statistics to say whatever they wanted.
These parasites can’t stop, won’t stop because to stop would be an existential threat to their whole world. What would these bansturbators do otherwise? What could they do otherwise?
They could of course fuck off and die, but how do we make them?
That’ll be fun. I don’t drink tea either… 😈
Cheers for link.
Noticeable in that article was the absence of any mention of the other benefits of the ebook technology, namely it’s integration with social media. But then allowing the hoi polloi to recommend, even review books for one another is going to be anathema to his crowd, isn’t it?