Glass is being thrown; I fling myself behind a barrier and scramble on to a ledge for safety. A nonplussed school pupil from south London has had the same idea. He grins, gives me a hand up and offers me a cigarette of which he is at least two years too young to be in possession. I find that my teeth are chattering and not just from cold. \”It\’s scary, isn\’t it?\” I ask. The boy shrugs. \”Yeah,\” he says, \”I suppose it is scary. But frankly…\” He lights up, cradling the contraband fag, \”frankly, it\’s not half as scary as what\’s happening to our future.\”
I\’m sure it happened just like that.
Methinks that this is another appearance of that patron saint of quote hungry journalists: PJ O\’Rourke\’s famous foreign taxi driver being another manifestation.
You know the one: \”The taxi driver from the airport told me this story that I\’m just right now making up to give my piece a tag line\”.
C\’mon FFS. Who, other than Stephen Fry, still uses the word \”frankly\” in conversation?
C’mon FFS. Who, other than Stephen Fry, still uses the word “frankly” in conversation?
What? You mean I shouldn’t be?
This is the Left all over.
She’s made that up to fit her narrative, and, even if she hasn’t made it up, why on earth should we – working, tax-paying adults – give two fucks what a 14 year old boy says, drawing on all the legendary perspective, understanding and sagacity 14 year old boys are renowned for possessing?
She claims she met this kid she didn’t actually meet during the afternoon, so it sounds like he was bunking off school as well as chogging down the fags – two things which are likely to have a substantially greater impacty on his future than the cost of university fees.
“Who, other than Stephen Fry, still uses the word “frankly” in conversation?”
Anyone who is about to tell a lie.
I’m sure the world inside her head is…
…
…actually, pretty empty. On all the evidence before us.
14 year boy bunking off school, smoking, attending demo’s and chatting up journalists. He’s got something about him and will have a good future.
Anyway, why is a 15 year old bunking off school to attend a demo and writing for New Statesman? I thought employing children during school hours, was illegal?
“It’s the terrified exhilaration of a generation that’s finally waking up to its own frantic power…. They are not prepared to be polite and articulate any more. They just want to scream until something changes….A young couple lean over the edge and begin to kiss and cuddle each other, and for a moment it’s beautiful, we are beautiful, we can do anything.”
The way in which she romanticises violence and disorder, and rejoices in the expression of inchoate and self-indulgent rage, suggests to me that she herself is more than a little in need of psychiatric help.
I’ll have you know I am often in the middle of a riot, and I invariably stop what I am doing to use the word “frankly” in a conversation with a journalist who just happens, invariably, to be in the immediate vicinity.
Happens all the time.
Peter Risdon:
No–not quite correct. I NEVER say “frankly” before telling a lie. I ALWAYS say “honestly, either before telling the lie or, sometimes, after.
Honestly!
Its delicious …
Rule Number 3: If you plan to invent dialogue, first cultivate an ear for dialogue.
The Left will always resort to violence against anyone who opposes them. They know they can’t win the argument by using reason. Anyone remember Pym Fortuyn?
“The Right will always resort to violence against anyone who opposes them. They know they can’t win the argument by using reason. Anyone remember Martin Luther King?”
Or, back in the real world, anyone who makes that kind of ludicrous generalisation about their political opponents is a fatuous dickhead.
Diddums, Johnny.
See also.