Monday, July 23, 2007

Nicholas Lezard may or may not be a cock. I don't know.

I am having an attack of the guilts. Just a smidgen. A few posts ago I made some rather disparaging remarks about a certain Guardian columnist and his views on Harry Potter. I loved writing that post - deploying the words “cock” and “dicksnap” is one of my favourite ways to pass the time. I laughed as I wrote it and I laughed as I read it again. And then someone claiming to be Nicholas Lezard posted a comment (which you can read here).

At first I dismissed it because, you know, the chances that the poster was, far from being Lezard, 15, pimply and/or had his hand down his pants was pretty high. But since then… I don’t know. Lindsay has given me the fear by suggesting it might actually be him. And, on the one hand, I don’t know why I should care because I disagreed very strongly with what he wrote and I still do but on the other hand… well nobody wants to see themselves called a cock online, do they? Plus on a Howard/Bush/bitchy sales manager at work sliding cock scale columnists for The Guardian should come pretty far down the line, right?

But I don’t know. Tell me, dear reader(s) if I should feel as squirmingly guilty as I do? Is it him? If it is should I care? And why am I now frightened to google my name?

UPDATE: My answers in order: Yes. Yes. Probably. For a very good reason. Read the comments.

11 comments:

shiny said...

I'm not sure sweet but I for one vote that the phrase "sliding cock scale" should be used more often.

Lindsay said...

If it is him darling, he's taken it on the chin and I can only have more respect for him (increased from the none I had after reading his article). If not, you have nothing to worry about apart from the freaks posting on your blog under assumed identities.
Take a leaf out of his book - spend more time googling yourself...and calling people dicksnaps.

my name is kate said...

Good call on the "sliding cock scale" comment, observer - though it sounds well more dodgy than was intended. I'd like to see what Dans could do with it.

I fear you might be right, Lindsay. Ah well. There's something endearing about someone who clearly googles himself too, somehow. Someone other than us I mean, obviously.

Unknown said...

Yup, it was me all right. My hands were both free to use the keyboard and I am 44, not 15. My shame is that I have googled myself. Well, it's raining out there. What else am I to do?

Yours

NL

Dave said...

I'm speechless. That's brilliant.

my name is kate said...

I can hear your maniacal laughter all the way from Northbridge, Johnsy.

Judda said...

Add my guffaw to the mix and you have a symphony of hysterical laughter.

Priceless.

Dave said...

At least we don't bad mouth renowned reviewers... :) sorry couldn't resist

Anonymous said...

Dear Yournameiskate,

Just to prove I am who I say I am, here's the opening couple of paras of the blog I've been asked to write for the Guardian after having been asked to read the new Harry Potter. I'm posting 20.19 UK time, it should go up in 12 hours time or some such. Don't know how efficient they are.

Yours

NL

"Last week, as some of you might know, I was asked to write a little something on the subject
of JK Rowling’s writing. So I obliged. Her style, I said, was “toxic”. It would be fine coming
from a nine-year-old, but not from a fully-grown, well-educated adult. I acknowledged that I
was anticipating what her final Potter novel would be like before having read it; but I was
going on past form. “Of course, if she has turned into a first-class writer with her forthcoming
Potter book, I will happily, no, joyously, eat my words.”
This post had generated, the last time I looked, 666 replies. (I think there might be more
now, but I think 666 is rather appropriate, don’t you? It might help to irritate the more simple-
minded Christians out there, and if there’s one thing that’ll make me stand by Rowling, it’s
the way she has got the fundamentalists’ goat.) This is, I gather, a record for an arts blog.
And so I have been invited to follow this up with my reaction to the book itself, which I
read last weekend.
And am I eating my words happily, or even joyously?"

Now read on ... (if you can summon the energy)

PS demon address on previous post is a spam bucket, no longer read

Unknown said...

this is gold kate, pure gold. keeping us well and truly amused in the darker corners of nicaragua. k and j

my name is kate said...

I'm not sure it compares to your seeing a boa constrictor, other kate (are you trying to lure me to South America or scare me off now?) but we have to make our own fun back here in Perth.

Meanwhile I'm interested to see the rest of Lezard's column, if only that I may blog about it and put my sliding cock scale to work...

(Apologies for using the words 'column' and 'sliding cock' in the same sentence. Um, it was unintentional and non-euphemistic... really).