Just in time for 2011, Henry's true-life identity revealed

It's the potential padeophile, and alleged food critic Giles Coren.

Here's his article... http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/an-ode-to-the-end-of-aussie-macho/story-e6frezz0-1225978162208

It's got so many Trevisms in it that it's spooky.

And here's a response by some Spiv journo... http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/giles-corens-shower-of-spite-from-a-land-where-bathing-is-optional/story-e6frezz0-1225978934176

And for those of you wondering why I called the pommy ponce a potential paedophile, at the start of this year, he twittered thus: Next door have bought their 12-year-old son a drum kit. For f*ck's sake! Do I kill him then burn it? Or do I f*ck him, then kill him then burn it?

Bizarre journalism worthy of the worst cricket fora... both pieces. A bit like responding to someones racism by being a racist yourself.

All you need to know about Giles Coren
http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/all/2189296/im-proud-to-be-famous-for-being-rude.thtml

Just read the first few comments...

Is he Alan Coren's son?

I agree with him about being able shake people up a bit by swearing now and again. The article about the Aussies is rather a bad wind up though.

Yep, he's Alan's son - and a wanquer of the first order if the article is anything to go by.

eowyn wrote:Is he Alan Coren's son?

I agree with him about being able shake people up a bit by swearing now and again. The article about the Aussies is rather a bad wind up though.

I don't think the article is a wind up, he believes that sh!t

He's an attention whore who thinks he's an absolutely brilliant writer.

He is a good writer but not quite as good as he thinks he is.

JKLever wrote:

eowyn wrote:Is he Alan Coren's son?

I agree with him about being able shake people up a bit by swearing now and again. The article about the Aussies is rather a bad wind up though.

I don't think the article is a wind up, he believes that sh!t

I thought it was mildly funny in a presently-deprived-for-funnies-will-take-what-I-get kind of way.

But you're serious that he's serious?

Throw his name into Wiki, Furry...

He has a very f***able sister.

Right. He seems like a twat. Still not sure if he means what he writes or if he writes purely for effect, though.

He's a complete qunt. Here's the email he sent to the Times' sub-editors to which he refers, in case you're not familiar:

Chaps,
I am mightily pissed off. I have addressed this to Owen, Amanda and
Ben because I don't know who i am supposed to be pissed off with (I'm
assuming Owen, but I filed to Amanda and Ben so it's only fair), and
also to Tony, who wasn't here - if he had been I'm guessing it wouldn't
have happened.
I don't really like people tinkering with my copy for the sake of
tinkering.I do not enjoy the suggestion that you have a better ear or
eye for how I want my words to read than I do. Owen, we discussed your
turning three of my long sentences into six short ones in a single
piece, and how that wasn't going to happen anymore, so I'm really
hoping it wasn't you that f ucked up my review on Saturday.
It was the final sentence. Final sentences are very, very important. A
piece builds to them, they are the little jingle that the reader takes
with him into the weekend.
I wrote: "I can't think of a nicer place to sit this spring over a
glass of rosé and watch the boys and girls in the street outside
smiling gaily to each other, and wondering where to go for a nosh."
It appeared as: "I can't think of a nicer place to sit this spring
over a glass of rosé and watch the boys and girls in the street outside
smiling gaily to each other, and wondering where to go for nosh."
There is no length issue. This is someone thinking "I'll just remove
this indefinite article because he is an illiterate c unt and I know
best".
Well, you f ucking don't. This was sh!t, sh!t sub-editing for three
reasons.
1) 'Nosh', as I'm sure you fluent Yiddish speakers know, is a noun
formed from a bastardisation of the German 'naschen'. It is a verb, and
can be construed into two distinct nouns. One, 'nosh', means simply
'food'. You have decided that this is what i meant and removed the 'a'.
I am insulted enough that you think you have a better ear for English
than me. But a better ear for Yiddish? I doubt it. Because the other
noun, 'nosh', means "a session of eating" - in this sense you might
think of its dual valency as being similar to that of 'scoff'. you can
go for a scoff. or you can buy some scoff. the sentence you left me
with is sh!t, and is not what i meant.
Why would you change a sentence so that it meant something i didn't
mean? I don't know, but you risk doing it every time you change
something. And the way you avoid this kind of f uck up is by not
changing a word of my copy without asking me, okay? it's easy. Not. A.
Word. Ever.
2) I will now explain why your error is even more sh!t than it looks.
You see, I was making a joke. I do that sometimes. I have set up the
street as "sexually-charged". I have described the shenanigans across
the road at G.A.Y.. I have used the word 'gaily' as a gentle nudge. And
"looking for a nosh" has a secondary meaning of looking for a blowjob.
Not specifically gay, for this is soho, and there are plenty of girls
there who take money for noshing boys. "looking for nosh" does not have
that ambiguity. the joke is gone.
I only wrote that sodding paragraph to make that joke. And you've
f ucking stripped it out like a pissed Irish plasterer restoring a
renaissance fresco and thinking jesus looks sh!t with a beard so
plastering over it. You might as well have removed the whole paragraph.
I mean, f ucking christ, don't you read the copy?
3) And worst of all. Dumbest, deafest, sh!t* of all, you have
removed the unstressed 'a' so that the stress that should have fallen
on "nosh" is lost, and my piece ends on an unstressed syllable. When
you're winding up a piece of prose, metre is crucial. Can't you hear?
Can't you hear that it is wrong?It's not f ucking rocket science. It's
f ucking pre-GCSE scansion. I have written 350 restaurant reviews for
The Times and I have never ended on an unstressed syllable. F uck. f uck,
f uck, f uck.I am sorry if this looks petty (last time I mailed a Times
sub about the change of a single word I got in all sorts of trouble)
but I care deeply about my work and i hate to have it f ucked up by sh!t
subbing.
I have been away, you've been subbing Joe and Hugo and maybe they just
file and f uck off and think "hey ho, it's tomorrow's fish and chips" -
well, not me.I woke up at three in the morning on sunday and f ucking
lay there, furious, for two hours. weird, maybe. but that's how it is.
It strips me of all confidence in writing for the magazine. No
exaggeration. I've got a review to write this morning and i really
don't feel like doing it, for fear that some nuance is going to be
removed from the final line, the pay-off, and i'm going to have another
weekend ruined for me.
I've been writing for The Times for 15 years and i have never asked
this before - i have never asked it of anyone I have written for - but
I must insist, from now on, that i am sent a proof of every review I
do, in pdf format, so i can check it for f uck-ups. and I must be sent
it in good time in case changes are needed. It is the only way I can
carry on in the job.
And, just out of interest, I'd like whoever made that change to email
me and tell me why. Tell me the exact reasoning which led you to remove
that word from my copy.
Right, Sorry to go on. Anger, real steaming f ucking anger can make a
man verbose

I would love to comment, but I can hardly go c*nting on a c*nt when I am myself a c*nt.

Never stopped you in the past, Gus.

I'm a changed c*nt, Jonty. One could say I've had a c*ntoplasty.

I didn't realise your c*ntriosis was that far advanced, Gus.
I presume you had a c*ntoscopy beforehand?

Incidentally, the sub-editors' reply:

Dear Giles,

Sub-editing is a noble profession. It is also a thankless one -
particularly when your writers call you a "useless c unt".

There was a sharp intake of breath when your e-mail hit the inbox of subs
throughout the industry this week - that was after we'd stopped laughing.
Not that we didn't think you had a point. Yes, tinkering with copy just
for the sake of it and without consultation is wrong. It is disrespectful and
arrogant. And we can see why you'd be furious at the loss even of an
indefinite article.

There is nothing more irritating than a sub-editor who thinks they know
better than a writer, particularly one who cares deeply about his work.
But did you really have to be so rude?

Laura Barton stated in Friday's Guardian that there's "something of a
long-standing tension between writers and sub-editors". Do you wonder why?
Contrary to your belief, we don't "believe we know best when we know f uck
all".

If you could only see the state of some of the raw copy we have to knock
into shape. It's badly structured, poorly spelt, appallingly punctuated,
lazily researched. We're not saying your writing falls into that
category - on the contrary, your journalism is highly accomplished. Never having
worked on your copy, we can only take your word for it that it is beyond
improvement in its pre-published state. Strange as it may seem, many
writers do not possess your grasp of language; indeed it is sometimes difficult to
believe that English is their mother tongue, and they don't give a damn
about what they produce because they know that a good, often highly
educated sub-editor will correct it, check it and turn it into readable prose.

None of this, however, can excuse your nasty, bullying, "know your place,
you insignificant little f uckwit" e-mail. Yes, it's funny, in a way that
pieces that use "f uck", "sh!t" and "c unt" so liberally often can be, but,
please - someone made a mistake. They surely had no intention of
sabotaging your deathless prose. So you don't like what happened to your piece - have a word with your editor. The hapless sub will no doubt already have been
soundly thrashed and had their dictionary privileges removed.

Some years ago, a colleague of ours had a T-shirt printed up with the
legend "xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxx is a c unt" on the front, which he wore every week when having to deal with the writer to whom it referred, because he, like you,
became so disproportionately abusive when his use of language was
questioned. We'd hate that to happen to you, because you can actually
write, and having "Giles Coren is a sanctimonious little twat who needs to get
over himself" could be quite costly in T-shirt lettering. Subs are no more
infallible than writers. So, let's all try a little mutual respect, shall
we?

All the best,

Mia Aimaro Ogden
Joanna Duckworth
Senior sub-editors, The Sunday Times

How did they get into public domain?

I got them from my mate who's a journo at the MEN.

What a tosser. I mean, i like ribbing the aussies as much as the next man but there's a difference between 'ribbing' and 'torrent of baseless vitriol'.

I've been doing an exchange this year in America, and my experience has been that while the brits and the australians are definitely different, we have way more in common than with most other cultures in the world. Especially the superficially very similar americans. While I've been glad to make friends with people of many kinds here, americans included for all you english people who insist on ragging on them to make you feel better about yourselves, I have definitely noticed that when it comes down to it the english and their antupodean cousins will almost always end up on the same side compared to everyone else. Has that been everyone else's experience?

Having said that, all the Melbournians I've met have been qunts.

'All the Melbournians I've met have been qunts'

'We have way more in common than with most other cultures in the world'

Phurt.

Incidentally, I disagree with the premise of this thread. Coren is so much more Rob S, or merlin on a bad day, than 'Henry' ... I had hoped he was just parodying the stereotypical English sanctimonious blowhard just returned to Blighty from the wretched colonies, but the quoted article argues otherwise.

Basil wrote:Yep, he's Alan's son - and a wanquer of the first order if the article is anything to go by.

Absolutely Bas,

Alan was a truly brilliant humourist and satirist. Extremely funny in a very dry, subtle way.

Giles, on the other hand, is nothing but a first degree, top-notch Grade A spurter .....

I hope you don't really think throbber Cohen is typical of us Poms, lardy ......