What's the point of being nasty to bad writers?

In Terry Eagleton's  decimation of 'Heartbreak'by Craig Raines
a writer, possibly hapless, is set upon without mercy for some very self-regarding prose indeed.  Here are a few examples of the literary coshing. 


'There is, in short, plenty of stuff to keep Pseuds’ Corner busy for a fair few months: ‘Francesca’s fanny was a glorious irrepressible Afro pompon (“to go with my Botswana bottom”)’ might do for a start', 


There is much rustling of the author’s Things I Saw Today that Look A Bit Like Other Things notebook.


''There are pregnant pronouncements such as ‘the myth of our attractiveness survives its destruction’; in the margin the reader is silently invited to inscribe a large approving tick'


'Another character speaks of ‘some … dump in fucking wind-tormented Ireland. I remember going for a walk in one of those places. Got an amazing headache in seconds from the wind parting my fucking hair in a hundred different places. Every which way. I thought I had a brain tumour. Seriously.’ Nobody actually says ‘wind-tormented’, so the poeticism has to be deflated by that ‘fucking’. The notion of the wind parting one’s hair in a hundred different places is another shamefaced piece of poetry, which must be countered by the sham colloquialism of ‘every which way’. 


I admit, that last section makes one vomit mentally, but what is the attack trying to achieve?  It is published in the LRB so sales won't be hurt, only reputation.  So is it to do down the author's prospects?  Or stop him trying.   The book sounds unreadable, yet in some of the examples given you can sense the writer trying to describe something for the first time, without fear of 'the chill wind from Cambridge'.   What would Walt Whitman have written if he'd lived amongst English LIT CRIT creeps waiting to duff him up then roll off together sniggering from the common room twirling their conkers.  No wonder English writers all try to adopt the same bovver boy manner, Amis and Barnes and Faulks and Banks all set their faces into a turdy glare of negativity to announce that theirs is approved literature.
If you think the job of criticism is to show off  how good you are at criticizing things, you're playing to the same imaginary gallery as the Craig Raine.  Art Criticism is at its most beautiful describing the technical detail of the spectacular, not 'My dog could've done that.' 


 Who put you in charge anyway?

Stop Praising David Laws.

Please.  Why is everybody praising this person as a paragon.

This is conceivably one of the most deceitful and most abusive scandals ever.

He had a secret lover, who he paid with taxpayers' money. 

He could have kept his privacy but chose to give him your money as well.  As a way to cover it up.

Sorry?  

He also gave his lover exorbitant maintenance and council tax payments according to the Telegraph.

Which records show that he reduced when rules were introduced saying that recipts were needed.

This  is proof that his intent was to make petty financial gain.

Yet he persisted.

The expenses scandal must have told him that he was breaking the rules.

His excuse is that he wanted to help his lover buy a flat. - That's not something that taxpayers need to pay a millionaire for to get themselves represented.

Yet he is universally praised.  

He is praised by the leaders of a government who are going to change our broken politics.

Whhhhat??

There has been no witch hunt.  
No one's been calling for his head.  
He went because the most disgusting deceit has been tried on, and found out. 

Oh, and how does 'we weren't even proper partners' excuse him? 

The blind man's labrador's witness

If the electorate were a Labrador, (a big if, if ever there was one) then it is a guide dog, a gentle and patient pilot to a uncertain political class, feeling its way into dark territory strewn with obstacles and quickly moving forces. The labrador represents the dumb yet not stupid electorate, that can only shove mutely and bark once every five years. The blind person however is confident of its superiority to the labrador and wants to change the result of the election in its favour. The electorate decided that there should not be an overall majority for any party, but a hung parliament, one that should regularly be called to account and have to trim its behaviour to the requirements of its neighbours.  Good doggy.But what the blind person wanted was a proper majority, a stable mandate that would mean it could ignore the concerns of others, and the consequences of the doggy's clear-sighted decision. So it changes the decision, by allocating a higher percentage of votes needed to dissolve the parliament resulting in exactly the opposite of what the doggy ordered. An untouchable majority. The trouble is that the doggy needs a shit now and then (I love metaphors. I can run and run with them.) When it does the blind man has to clear up the mess with a little poo sack, or risk standing in it. The dog will do this because it's a dog, and it poos in public. Whereas a blind man is blind, and has trouble locating and dealing with the poo. To find it he will have to bend over and sniff around, at which point he'll be mistaken for a dog with hilarious consequences, if the the guide dog happens to be on heat. And the blind man is wearing no trousers. Meanwhile, we can all watch in horror and amusement as the public repays the blind man in the wide-eyed gaze of the media. No really. Metaphors come true all the time

21st Century Politics. I'm spoofing my own ads.

We're now into the last few weeks of the campaign and I find myself writing ads for both sides. Helping out a Labour friend and candidate in a high profile seat with dispassionate advice and suggestions, while in my professional capacity, like a barrister defending a mad man, I slave over the Tories. The fact that there is so much spoof activity online is getting me into a psychological vortex. As much of my work finally sees the light of day in badly realised versions of their former selves, I find myself sitting in bed last Saturday, corrupting one of my own ads for the other side, then turning to address a hasty call from the office to churn out a crude mockery of another ad that ends up in the next day's Mail on Sunday. And with the most visible ads sometimes being the spoofs, it's now pointless distinguishing between the two. It's spoof-swirl. Luckily I have constructed a chinese wall that neatly bifurcates the professional and personal sides of my ad writing cerebellum so I'm alright for now. Nor do I spill secrets to the other side. Why not? well think about it logically. Take two possible motivations. Not to lose my job and not to act immorally. Both ends of the spectrum favour not being a double agent, therefore all points in between must do so too.

Sorry, Ken Livingstone

I worked on the great newtered Mayor's campaign some years ago - an enjoyable and successful experience. I met him at one of the agency party's that he spoke at in order to raise our collective morale. In those days we didn't need any morale raising - we were awash with money. Throughout his visit Ken kept his contempt for the abject trivialism of advertising hidden behind his hooded eyelids, though when I had a few moments of one-to-one time I fancied he might throw up into his vol-au-vents, so callow were my youthful views. The terrible truth is that I am a huge admirer of his brave, imaginative, open yet relaxed approach to politics, conviction without the hair shirt. His success seems weirdly to be connected to his famous cache of pet lizards in that whether its an incautious epithet or controversial invitation to the IRA he displayed an extraordinary sang-froid. However. He isn't successful anymore. So when I bumped into him, well, saw him at my local Cafe Nero I felt obliged to once again interpose myself between him and his day to remind him of my, let's face it, election winning headlines. (OK. probably electorally irrelevant headlines.) He shook my hand and made a good fist of remembering me. It was a mistake to tell him that I was now forced to work for the other side, but the irony was too hard to resist blurting. So I did, and he shook my hand again with a finality that indicated my audience was over. I suppose ad people will never understand that some people actually have convictions, rather than adopt those of others for money