Never mention Harry Potter when attempting a joke
We got a text message yesterday. It said: “Giles Coren has written a shit piece in The Times about Wisden being owned by a new publisher. It’s really, really awful.”
We had to take a look and it doesn’t disappoint. As you perhaps know, The Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack has been bought by Bloomsbury, who publish Harry Potter.
Coren has done some Harry Potter referencing as a pallid, lifeless attempt at humour.
“With the 2009 Ashes series not far away, it is surely now time to reveal that Ricky Ponting is, in fact, Lord Voldemort, the most powerful dark wizard that has ever lived. That the green and gold of the Australians is but a fig-leaf for the green and silver of Slytherin. Surely Voldeponting’s Death Eaters will not be allowed to triumph?”
If you want to be bad at writing, this is how you do it. If you aren’t JK Rowling, you can’t possibly benefit from writing about Harry Potter. Making knowing references to anything to do with the books is weak, unoriginal and quite embarrassing.
Also look out for references to ‘TwentyQuid’ – a cross between cricket and quidditch, ‘the leg-spinner of Azkaban’ and ’snitch-hitting’.
We’ve got to write something for The Wisden Cricketer this evening and we’ve got no ideas whatsoever. However, we’re feeling slightly buoyed by the knowledge that we won’t be producing the absolute worst piece of cricket writing this year. It’s just not possible.
Even if we just write the word ‘cricket’ and then follow it by repeatedly mashing the keyboard with our face, we’ll still okay.
Subscribe to the King Cricket email updates
"It’s not that I’m lazy - it’s that I just don’t care"
I have just read that and then gouged my eyes out in frustration. There are so many bad lines in that i surprised you were able to pick from then.
Phuk-phace.
Giles Coren is a faultless writer, and it is beyond comprehension that you should criticise him. Don’t take my word for it, of course; here’s his.
I am a sub-editor. That piece, SimonC, made me suffer from rage. Fucktard Coren. (thanks again Suave).
I quite like the response:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jul/29/sundaytimes.pressandpublishing
Journalism gets a bad name as a direct result of insufferable miseries like him.
as if we needed confirmation, but what a twat.
All the more depressing and vile because I deeply deeply loved his dad’s writing
I imagine you’ve all seen the Giles Coren Downfall parody:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=DNTaH_QxNVQ
What really made me despise Coren was his response:
“I’m fluent in German, so watching it with subtitles is not quite as funny for me as for everybody else. There was a time when an Englishman could speak fluent French and German, but I suppose the YouTube generation spends its time doing this instead. It would be funny for me if it was in Russian.”
Words fail me. Except for words like ‘pompous’, ‘little’ and ‘cunt’.
“Even if we just write the word ‘cricket’ and then follow it by repeatedly mashing the keyboard with our face, we’ll still okay.”
Dint you do that post sometime ago KC ?
“Even if we just write the word ‘cricket’ and then follow it by repeatedly mashing the keyboard with our face, we’ll still okay.”
Dint you do that post sometime ago KC ?
It would be a pretty close run thing as to whether a face-mashing post that you’d all already read once before would be any worse than Coren’s effort.
Coren is awesome. Its just a shame most people can’t appreciate attitude and eccentricity anymore.