Coren's a wrongun

[Phoenix Lazarus]

He is though, isn't he?

https://www.thenational.scot/news/19457975.giles-coren-slammed-sickening-comment-death-journalist-dawn-foster/

[BlodwynPig]

"Sickening" (quotation marks theirs)

Pondered

Fuck up shit ninny journalism

[Icehaven]

Is this the same Giles Coren who once wrote about how his baby daughter might be given oral sex when she was a teenager, and when she was three described going on holiday with her as "sexy"? Because the rest of his family should consider that far more "vile and hurtful" than someone merely pointing out the fact that his father being a successful journalist might have somewhat influenced his career opportunities.

[Emotional Support Peacock]

That's really fucked up. Until now I tended to consider him as an amusing guy and ignored his faults. (Similar to Clarkson perhaps). No longer.

[Blofelds Cat]

[touchingcloth]

There's some proper desolation in that article. One that he wrote two separate drafts of his tweet, and two that both drafts included the phrase "any human death diminishes me".

[shiftwork2]

That both Corens enjoyed a lucrative and successful media career from their mid-twenties onwards kind of suggests there's more than talent at play. It also appears that the boy one is extraordinarily sensitive about it.

[jobotic]

There will be no consequences. Probably another BBC series about food in the seventies.

[checkoutgirl]

when she was three described going on holiday with her as "sexy"

Sexy in what way? What's the context here?

[shiftwork2]

I've got a vague recollection of a Coren being asked in an interview whether they thought their father's influence had helped at all.  The answer was along the lines of 'ok we didn't have to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, but Dad did and that makes it ok' which was some interesting wonky thinking.

I know very little about Alan Coren apart from that 90s Times article reprinted on Tube station walls where he pretended not to know what a futon was.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

It is irrepressibly true that we only know of Coren - apologies, that is too slight - we only have G. Coren thrust upon us like horse ejaculate - because of his family connections. That is truth of a dazzling clarity. Please don the safety equipment provided.

Were it not for that he would just be the next ten a penny brown brogues, leather belt, fancy watch, range rover cunt clogging up gastropubs with his opinions and farts.

He reeks. He reeks of privilege, he reeks of the inner torture of the spoilt boy, swaddled yet entombed.

He is a pail of curdled milk gleaming vaingloriously in the sunshine afront a bequeathed palazzo.

Die! Won't you die sir? Sir, finally, will you not simply die? That is all we ask.

[checkoutgirl]

That both Corens enjoyed a lucrative and successful media career from their mid-twenties onwards kind of suggests there's more than talent at play.

They're both posh and rich and their dad is the 13th Duke of Wimbem or some shit isn't he? I'm guessing Eton, Cambridge, assignment to national newspaper through daddy's connections and here we are. That's how it works amongst the English. To be fair to Vicky she fucked off and became a professional poker player so fair play to her on that at least. I don't think poker pros are letting a Baron's daughter win.

[seepage]

Wikipedia says Alan Coren was "the son of builder and plumber Samuel Coren and his wife Martha, a hairdresser".

[MoreauVasz]

British newspapers are full of people like Coren. People not funny enough to be comedians, not clued-in enough to be political commentators, and not thoughtful enough to be essayists. It's like a niche designed specifically for the idiot children of successful people.

I think if you step back from the bubble that is British newspaper publishing you really struggle to understand why people who are basically nothing more than rubbish bloggers get elevated to national platforms and fed 6 figure salaries. I mean, Coren is bad as the man's a transparently talentless arse but there's also people like Claire Rayner's big hairy son, Glenda Jackson's one-eyed son, and (stepping beyond weird generational sinecures) the likes of Zoe Williams and all of the various lifestyle bloggers that the Guardian employs.

It is really weird that these people have regular columns. I mean, I could understand them being professional writers and selling articles but people like Gia Tolentino fill a similar gap but don't have newspaper columns because I don't think US newspapers insist on having like a half a dozen okayish writers as full time columnists.

[shiftwork2]

Edit: removed some pointlessness.

They're both posh and rich and their dad is the 13th Duke of Wimbem or some shit isn't he? I'm guessing Eton, Cambridge, assignment to national newspaper through daddy's connections and here we are. That's how it works amongst the English. To be fair to Vicky she fucked off and became a professional poker player so fair play to her on that at least. I don't think poker pros are letting a Baron's daughter win.

It's a slightly softer power than that, well connected upper-middle class.

Victoria definitely had a Times column when she was 17 or 18 years old.  The paper her Dad wrote for.  Astonishingly blatant stuff.

[poodlefaker]

They're both posh and rich and their dad is the 13th Duke of Wimbem or some shit isn't he?

No, but he was a famous journalist and editor of Punch and appeared on Call My Bluff and the News Quiz etc. The Ian Hislop of the 70s & 80s. He specialised in "Ho ho gosh, isn't modern life puzzling for folks like me?"-type columns, which his son has tried to continue, except with a nasty, sneering streak to them. He (Giles) got a column on the Times in his early twenties and has been  there ever since.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Also, just to make this a bit personal, his face looks like it stopped developing at age 11 regardless of how much beard he puts on it.  Hence he looks like a spiteful prep school kid at the age of 50.

Good, and yes, this is righteously perceptive.

[checkoutgirl]

appeared on Call My Bluff

Oh yeah, I remember him now. He was bald and freckley with that sort of orange wavy hair and sounded quit posh. There were a few of them on telly, probably still are. The Giles Brandreth type. I can imagine him being your daddy being quite the boon.

It's not just that Giles has the connected parent, it's also because he's an arse of a man as well. Adam Buxton's dad was a wine columnist (I think) and he went to school in that nice London school with Louis Theroux so he's hardly put upon, but I like Adam a lot because he seems okay and does things I like. That counts for a lot.

[Kankurette]

British newspapers are full of people like Coren. People not funny enough to be comedians, not clued-in enough to be political commentators, and not thoughtful enough to be essayists. It's like a niche designed specifically for the idiot children of successful people.

I think if you step back from the bubble that is British newspaper publishing you really struggle to understand why people who are basically nothing more than rubbish bloggers get elevated to national platforms and fed 6 figure salaries. I mean, Coren is bad as the man's a transparently talentless arse but there's also people like Claire Rayner's big hairy son, Glenda Jackson's one-eyed son, and (stepping beyond weird generational sinecures) the likes of Zoe Williams and all of the various lifestyle bloggers that the Guardian employs.

It is really weird that these people have regular columns. I mean, I could understand them being professional writers and selling articles but people like Gia Tolentino fill a similar gap but don't have newspaper columns because I don't think US newspapers insist on having like a half a dozen okayish writers as full time columnists.

One of the very, very few times I've agreed with Julie Burchill was when she wrote about how nepotistic and middle/upper-class the journalism industry is, and how it's not what you know but who you know and who you're related to, and the net result is twats like Coren getting column spaces despite being completely useless.

[Ambient Sheep]

Surprised it took this long for there to be a thread!

Is this the same Giles Coren who once wrote about how his baby daughter might be given oral sex when she was a teenager, and when she was three described going on holiday with her as "sexy"?

Hadn't heard the oral sex bit (and I'd be interested to see a quote), but the "sexy" bit is most definitely true; I wrote this in the Noel Clarke thread two days ago in response to a question:

Has there ever been a celeb who professed a sexual desire for children but never acted on that desire, and still had a career? A non-active nonce?

I'm not calling him a nonce, but there's that horrifying passage from one of Giles Coren's Times articles regarding his 3yo daughter:



(from https://twitter.com/SloaneFragment/status/1417533475075280899)

Also, in the light of the above, this: https://twitter.com/DNicoros/status/1417536622757883907

Didn't Rod Liddle come out with something pretty iffy too?

Neither of these people fall into the exact question being asked, but they're sort of adjacent to it, if only by appearance.

Sexy in what way? What's the context here?

Sexy in THAT way.  In a "slurping Coke through her plump, pursed little lips" way.

[Ambient Sheep]

Also, the rectorofstiffkey had this to say in that thread:

I'm not calling him a nonce, but there's that horrifying passage from one of Giles Coren's Times articles regarding his 3yo daughter:

Giles Coren is a strange man.  He had an article a few years ago about giving up masturbating, which had many unpleasant paragraphs including these ones:

I thought having kids might kill it off for me. I thought the risk of being busted mid-shuffle by someone who might actually be fucked up by the sight of it for life might be enough to shut me down.

Nah.

The thing is, you see, that when I turn on the hot tap in the shower it steams up the door in a trice so if I'm hard at it when a kid comes in shouting, "Daddy! Mummy says it's breakfast!" I have plenty of scope to spin round, get it all out of sight, get the cold on and be out in 10 seconds as if nothing had happened.

It's pathetic. I'm pathetic. To get my eldest to school on time I have to get us out of the house by 8:30am on weekdays. But even when breakfast is running late and I'm still in my pyjamas and unshowered at 8:20am and shouting to my wife to get the kid dressed while I belt upstairs to have a shower, I find myself thinking, as soon as I am alone on the top floor of the house: "I've got 10 minutes. Plenty of time for a wank".

And not just a wank. Because then I think, "I could probably even do three minutes on Brazzers if the iPad is charged".

And when his kids are old enough to google their dad's name, they're not going to find any of that creepy at all, are they?

PS Giles, if you sold that Jaguar you keep moaning about getting nicked, you might be able to afford a lock for your bathroom door.  I hear they're available for a modest price.

[Paul Calf]

Giles Wemmbley-Coren.

[Chedney Honks]

Until that wanking story, I thought this guy was irredeemable sludge.

[checkoutgirl]

Sexy in THAT way.  In a "slurping Coke through her plump, pursed little lips" way.

I thought he might have meant that having a small child with him would be attractive to women, like that study they did where women are more attracted to photos of men holding babies. Now I see the excerpt that's very strange. What was he thinking? If that's what he's expressing in public imagine what he's thinking in private.

If I was being generous I'd say maybe he's expressing a fatherly love for his daughter but just using inappropriate and extremely clumsy language. Even if he was some paedophile I doubt he'd be stupid enough to admit it in a blog or newspaper. Paedophiles tend towards the careful.

[jobotic]

Used to like Call My Bluff as a youth, I even didn't mind the new version in 2003 and, not having a clue who Liddle was back then, I thought he was alright. That'll be when he was cheating on his pregnant wife with a younger woman who he would go on assault when she was pregnant. What a stupid cunt I was.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

And when his kids are old enough to google their dad's name, they're not going to find any of that creepy at all, are they?

True but they might be preoccupied with... All the other more immediate and consuming daily horrible aspects of having Giles Coren as a father.

[Ambient Sheep]

Now I see the excerpt that's very strange. What was he thinking? If that's what he's expressing in public imagine what he's thinking in private.

Well, quite.

If I was being generous I'd say maybe he's expressing a fatherly love for his daughter but just using inappropriate and extremely clumsy language.

Could be, but nonetheless, one can't help thinking that if yer average bloke posted that on Facebook, not oniy would he get flamed alive, but someone would report it to Social Services.


By the way, if anybody has a Times subscription and doesn't mind posting the whole piece here, I'd quite like to see the rest of it, to see if it balances it out or makes it even worse.

[PlanktonSideburns]

Feels like he's a boring little posho doing some sort of out of date out of time Henry Miller inspired transgressive thing with all his ooh I want to fuck my kids what do you think of That?!?! Stuff

[PlanktonSideburns]

At least chiles gives us hilarious staplines about drying his hands on a hot quiche and forgetting to take his clothes off to go swimming

[checkoutgirl]

Could be, but nonetheless, one can't help thinking that if yer average bloke posted that on Facebook, not oniy would he get flamed alive, but someone would report it to Social Services.

Or it could be an attempt at a sort of shock humour? Like when Rhys Ifans of Notting Hill fame went on radio a few years ago and said the reason people want to fuck kids is because they're so fucking sexy, or something like that. Attention seeking.

Or maybe Coren has an undiagnosed psychological condition?