Ten things the Archbishop of Canterbury could say to build up his profile:
- Britain should be a republic
- The church will sell advertising space on dog collars
- Hymn tunes are to be speeded up
- Tea is a class A drug
- Prayer is the same as shopping
- Wolff Olins is to design a new CofE logo
- Christian men should wear beards
- The bible is a fairytale
- Love your neighbour
- Sharia law for EU too
February 8th, 2008
I had John Lloyd down as Luther but Simon Jenkins in today’s Guardian thinks he is our Savonarola - Luther’s precursor and instigator of the original “bonfire of the vanities” in 15th century Florence, a literal bonfire consisting of a vast heap of burning mirrors, cosmetics, lewd pictures, pagan books and immoral sculptures (and perhaps the odd Italian tabloid newspaper).
It is a good piece by Jenkins. I commend it. The two most annoying cliches doing the rounds these days are that print is dead and that newspaper are rotten and corrupt. Jenkins is writing about the latter.
So next time anyone says our newspapers are rotten, remind them
- there never was a golden age in the 50s and 60s - newspapers were dreadful then, full of handouts and PR
- there was no decent investigative journalism until Harry Evans and thalidomide
- there are still nine daily national papers in the UK and all of them are bigger and better than ever before
- current owners have tripled pagination and poured money into new presses
- among other notable exposes of recent times have been the Stephen Lawrence killers, the Tory treasury scandal, cash for honours, the court of Ken Livingstone, the Saudi arms deal
- there is more foreign news
- columnists have more space to analyse and opine and there are many more of them
- there is much more coverage of arts and books
- the British press is the most independent, irreverent, entertaining, funny and intrusive (good) in the world
February 8th, 2008
