
The London Evening Standard last week published a polite corrective from the goddess Julie Burchill in response to some nonsense from her second ex-husband and Sunday Times film critic Cosmo Landesman. Alas, the original draft of the letter was somewhat less polite. Here it is:
"I was amused to read my former husband Cosmo Landesman's remark (Londoner's Diary) that I hadn't read a single book for the Jewish Quarterly Wingate literary prize I was recently honoured to be on the judging panel of - because, apparently, I have 'never read a book.'
"If the ignorant tool had not been such a dullard during our decade-long marriage then perhaps I would not have been so eager to finish off the complete works of Patrick Hamilton/Oscar Wilde/Graham Greene during many a numbing night. Didn't he notice? No, but then it took him two months to notice I'd run off with my teenage editorial assistant!
"Oddly unmoving though it is to have my literacy dissed by a man who writes English as though it is his third language, I would have expected him to have had more respect for the talented Jewish writers whose books I so thoroughly loved reading - especially for the late Fred Wander, whose breathtaking, heart-breaking account of the Holocaust, The Seventh Well, was the deserving winner."
"I was amused to read my former husband Cosmo Landesman's remark (Londoner's Diary) that I hadn't read a single book for the Jewish Quarterly Wingate literary prize I was recently honoured to be on the judging panel of - because, apparently, I have 'never read a book.'
"If the ignorant tool had not been such a dullard during our decade-long marriage then perhaps I would not have been so eager to finish off the complete works of Patrick Hamilton/Oscar Wilde/Graham Greene during many a numbing night. Didn't he notice? No, but then it took him two months to notice I'd run off with my teenage editorial assistant!
"Oddly unmoving though it is to have my literacy dissed by a man who writes English as though it is his third language, I would have expected him to have had more respect for the talented Jewish writers whose books I so thoroughly loved reading - especially for the late Fred Wander, whose breathtaking, heart-breaking account of the Holocaust, The Seventh Well, was the deserving winner."
9 comments:
Don't knock Cosmo - he rocks even though he's probably got a contract out on his head from every major Hollywood studio.
I recently asked Cosmo whether he had ever kept an animal as a pet. He said, "No, but I was married to an animal". Oh, I said, did you put the animal down? He replied, "No, she put me down."
I don't know why Julie says Cosmo writes as if English is his third language. I believe in a previous salvo she said "second language". I love his reviews in the Sunday Times and his memoirs were most entertaining, not least about Julie.
People like Julie are necessary in this world to loosen up some tight-arses; still, this is to funny to pass... (BBC2 in 1995)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMEHWiwc5eY
and
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n3snZox-vk&feature=related
Even if posting this doesn't show it...I like Julie...
Isabel Hinton looks quite cunty.
What does cunty mean?
Cunty has a number of meanings but in this instance it denotes someone who talks a bit like the Queen after a Miss Jean Brodie brain transplant.
Oh, like cocky but the other way round
Yes, I couldn't have put it better myself. And didn't.
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