All the news that's fit to print
A brief note to confirm that I succeeded in reassuming human form in time for this morning’s ‘The Wright Stuff’ on Channel 5, where I plugged my sports show, summarised the news and gave some surprisingly forthright opinions on the relative dangers of alcohol and other drugs. In brief, I support David Nutt’s new report saying that booze is the most harmful drug currently used in Britain, not because it actually IS more harmful than heroin, but because it causes a hell of lot more actual injuries and illnesses and deaths at the moment, and we should be dealing with what actually happens at the moment, not what WOULD happen if other drugs were decriminalised. Yeah, it wasn’t so brief. And Matthew Wright was his mischievous self and kept claiming not to understand anyone’s point of view.
(I’m passionate about this because I love drinking and support liberal alcohol laws but, nearly every day of my life, I see people who can’t cope with those laws and wish that, as a nation, we could handle a drink a bit better. And feel it’s odd that as a society we talk about ‘drugs’ like they’re some silent menace we will never personally meet, yet cheerfully watch people go through the stages of alcohol poisoning on the streets all the time.)
Hmm. Anyway.
Mr S Fry was at the party last night and, that very day, he had of course been involved in a scandal having supposedly said some ill-advised things about female sexuality. He had, by the time of the party, successfully used Twitter to explain that he’d been misquoted, and most people seemed to have accepted it. Not sure about the ins and outs of it – I’ve not had time to read the original article – but his explanation was certainly good enough that we ended up not talking about the story on the Wright Stuff, as had been planned…
But today’s papers were still full of angry pieces by females and feminist thinkers in response to Fry. It made me sort of wonder a bit about the future of newspapers. Twitter and so on have made people like Fry enormously powerful and immediate mass communicators, who can easily outstrip the one-a-day pamphlets that are meant to describe their deeds.
People have been saying for a while that books might be ‘replaced’ by virtual reading device thingies, but we’re all sentimentally attached to books, and they don’t rely on immediacy in the way the news media does. Newspapers are all about ‘the here and now’ but their idea of the here and now is not as here-and-now as the internet, where it’s – you know. Actually here and now.
I’ve not got time to round off these thoughts, but there we go, I never do round anything off on this blog. I more start balls rolling and see what happens.
Posted by Aphra on November 4, 2010
Stephen Fry may be beloved (and arguably for good reason), but he isn’t immune to saying stupid things on occasion, as the rest of us are. I’m not saying I agree with his comments – misquoted or not – but I will give him the room to be suitably embarrassed before the world moves on and cares about something a little more pressing.
Posted by Laura on November 3, 2010
I have always loved Mr Fry, but have been going off him at late; this started with a recent episode of QI where they were discussing the moon landings. He really did come across as an absolute pompous arsehole.
Posted by Tom Beasley on November 2, 2010
There will always be a place for one-a-day newspapers/publications of some kind (even if that ends up being online) as not everyone can be there on Twitter or a news site when important stuff is happening and so there has to be an easy way for those kind of people to catch up on everything in one easy-to-find publication.
Posted by Tracey on November 2, 2010
Hi Mark. Regarding technology”virtual reading devices” will never replace books for me and I remember the great days of vinyl when you rushed out to buy the coloured vinyl version, picture sleeve etc before they’d all sold out. I accept that ipods are convenient but I agree with someone who said that you can bequeathe your vinyl collection in your will but leaving someone your hard drive is pretty soulless.We read the papers online but whereas I get through them in about ten minutes, my husband will take two hours. I normally admire Stephen Fry but I think there’s a limit on the number of times you can plead being misquoted. I think he’s come out with similar views before. Not too sure how he professes to know so much about it but perhaps he can be allowed a lapse occasionally.Take care, Tracey x
Posted by Madeleine on November 2, 2010
I think that alchohol is definatly more insidious and widespread exspecially with young people, although I guess you can’t really have a “casual” heroin addiction, and many people seem to be able to manage to drink in moderation. At least crack and heroin still have a bad image, whereas most teenagers I know see no problem getting completely plastered out of their minds every weekend.
I haven’t read the Fry article or seen the video, because I put my heros on a pedestal and can’t take dissapointment. But it does sound like it would be hard to be misquoted in a video and he didn’t actually explain what he meant by the quotes on twitter, just swore about bad journalists. He’s earned the benefit of the doubt from me at least.
Posted by Aislinn on November 1, 2010
I enjoy the last line of this blog. And that’s not even in a ‘ha ha, you done gone got a word wrong!’ way but in an ‘I genuinely enjoy saying that sentence’ way.
People occasionally ask why I don’t drink, and what my opinions are, and I’ll often come out with something similar to what you’ve said about people being able to enjoy it but many others not seeming capable of drinking in moderation. This then comes across to many people as ‘I don’t drink; people who do can’t do so sensibly and are all inferior to me.’ I do not like this. That is all.
I love your blogs.
Posted by Clembear on November 1, 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A211L382EVI
Here’s the video. He might well have been misquoted from the article, but this certainly sounds like him bemoaning the dreadful lot of having a penis. Poor darling.
(He says the sex comment and the prostitution bits towards the beginning)
Posted by Clembear on November 1, 2010
I don’t think we’ve quite worked out whether we’re in favour of intoxication by any means or not. I blame the protestant work ethic. I think some use it as a way to manage unhappiness or pain which is a sad way to live. And really good drugs make that bearable.
Caffeine’s another interesting one – to work the hours we do and live the busy lives we do, we have to take drugs to stay awake.
The internet is much faster but there’s a commonality and shared audience of newspapers. Stories about Stephen Fry tend to travel very quickly among my friends and in the environments I inhabit but I don’t know how far they go outside that network. I think travelling certain sites on the net, you can inhabit an echo chamber where the same stories reverberate, but only going in circles and not escaping.
I’m not sure I accept he’s been misquoted – there’s a video doing the rounds from a year or so back of him stating pretty much the same views. And a novel of his. A novelist doesn’t always agree with what he writes but I have a hunch Fry does, from the four I’ve read.
Posted by Helen on November 1, 2010
Good point on the alcohol thing, well said. As for Mr Fry, I do feel for him. I think, in light of the fact that he says it’s a misquote, it’s a bit nasty of people to send him their rather blunt and horrid opinions over twitter. I know people have a right to express their views but sometimes I think twitter gives people an excuse to disregard any notion of general respect for someone who, at the end of the day, they don’t know. It seems to of all got a bit over-blown, is all.
I must say though, I don’t want to be all anti-twitter, on the whole I think it’s quite a good thing. I’ll stop now, I’ll probably post this, read it back and feel like an idiot for writing something so stupid. I know I’m not very good at putting a good point across, sorry.
Posted by Rachael on November 1, 2010
That was more or less my reaction to the alcohol thing too, and people do seem to forget that it is still a drug.
Posted by Misha on November 1, 2010
It’s certainatly an interesting thought. The only paper we get at home now is the sunday paper because it has the TV listings. The problem is that standard journalism is really quite slow and dull and we.d rather hear things asap.
For example the Michael Jackson thing. I found out about that soon after it had happened because of the internet. Whilst I don’t think dedicated news sources will ever die off completely I wouldn’t be surprised if papers did. Whilst we remain sentimental as a race about them it’s all practicality. We don.t write on vellum any more after all. There is little sense to retaining physical newspapers with the way the world is going. And it would save paper. Thats my thoughts at least.
And In the spirit of technology I read this on my phone.
Posted by MusicalLottie on November 1, 2010
I agree that alcohol, under the current circumstances (cheap, readily accessible, etc.) is by far the most dangerous drug available. I’m not convinced that humans will ever solve the problem of drunkenness as it’s been around for thousands of year – probably since alcohol was first discovered!
As for Mr Fry, he does seem to be misquoted awfully often. I’m not really sure what newspapers hope to gain from it as those who are interested in the truth of his comments will find out for themselves, and those who aren’t interested in doing so probably shouldn’t bother him anyway. One would have thought the press would know by now that their false assertions on the internet will be countered before they can even be printed.
I’m not sure that newspapers will become redundant any time soon; the demand may decrease – significantly, perhaps – but heck, even LPs are still being sold to those who particularly want them, despite all of the transition through cassettes to CDs to mp3 etc.
Posted by Lydia on November 1, 2010
I agree with you on the alcohol thing. It’s one of those issues that I can’t see being resolved though. Just because people have been told it’s more dangerous doesn’t mean they’ll stop doing it, or change how they do it or whatever. I guess everyone just needs someone to realise it’s going to get out of hand before it does.
I’ve never actually watched The Wright Stuff. I’m probably usually at school or something.
Posted by Natalie-Helen on November 1, 2010
I feel for Mr fry. I absolutely love him so might be biased but it seems to me like this is snowballing horribly. And what effect will that have on a man well known for having mental health problems.
Not only is the woman and sex thing everywhere but the newspapers are making him seem evil for taking a photo on the set of Harry Potter.
Its ridiculous, just because he is apparently flavour of the month to have a go at now.
In the mean time, what was he dressed as?
As for alcohol, it annoys me that people can’t handle it sometimes. Everyone has a few disasters which helps you to gauge what you can take but some people carry on regardless. It kind of ruins it for everryone else then. Not sure what the answer is but I do see that it causes the most amount of damage as a drug, not just in the NHS, but property damage and policing and court costs etc.
^_^
Posted by Dawn on November 1, 2010
I’ve stopped watching “The Wright Stuff” because Matthew Wright is too full of his own opinions and doesn’t give his guests chance to air theirs:(