The things the Daily Mail (and its readers) say...
The problem with my much-acclaimed occasional series about the Daily Mail is that I've already noted that I only read the Mail when I am at the gym, so you can work out that I haven't been to the gym since early December.Anyway I'm back, it's back and as Mail's go it's so-so.
As usual there's lots of stories where the only answer is almost certainly 'no' (the classic a few year's back was 'Did Jesus visit England') such as an article about declining sperm count where the Mail asks 'As sperm counts plummet, is this proof our reliance on gender-bending chemcials will ultimately lead to Man's extinction'.
Most astonishing is the cartoon on p.15, which basically attempts to make fun of pedophilia. It has in bed naked a presumably-teenage girl with her old, ugly male neighbour in an attempt to pretend to be Britney for a few hours (caption: 'Isn't that kind Daddy? Mr Arbuthonot from next door offered to marry me for a few hours so I could feel just like Britney'). Not a paper of family values, whatever it says.
Finally the readers' letters - usually the icing on the cake -- disappoint. Only in 'Out of the Mouths of Babes' do we discern a worrying new trend - it appears children are responding to parental discipline urging tolerance of others by saying 'we didn't have to put up with Saddam Hussein'. Is that the legacy of the Iraq war -- the breakdown in the British family? Oh men can't give birth to pebbles indeed.
posted by Matthew @ 1/06/2004 01:15:00 PM
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