Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

Good things Jan Moir has written

Sometimes as a hand-wringing bleeding heart leftie idiot you find yourself thinking: crumbs, I may have been a bit mean to poor old Jan Moir in the past, calling her a numpty and swearing at her, and so on; perhaps she's not so bad after all. She's a human being, with feelings, and thoughts, and everything like that, at least I'm pretty sure that's the case. Why not look at the positive side of Jan Moir? Surely there must be something she's written that isn't self-harmingly awful?

So that's what I've decided to do. I'm going to focus on her column this week and find something in it that's actually good. Maybe I'll do it every week. Try and sprinkle a bit of happiness around. Prove that bloggers aren't just meanies who try and insult others: we can be kind, generous creatures who are always looking for the best in our fellow writers. What would be so wrong with that?

Now obviously, when looking at this week's Jan Moir outpouring, there is the business of her totally and utterly misguided piece about 'lessons in wifebeating' in which she gets facts wrong, comes to barking mad conclusions, writes badly and generally fucks everything up. To which I say: yes, that's certainly happened, and for a better analysis of that I should point you in the direction of my fellow blogger No Sleep Til Brooklands, who has written an excellent article discussing Moir's litany of failures.

But I'm not here today to look at the bad things in Jan Moir's output. I'm here to show you that there's another side, a witty side, an intelligent side, a fun side; and that it's wrong to portray her as something who gets every single thing wrong that she ever talks about, or is wilfully ignorant of what's going on, or someone who really should be down the JobCentrePlus. All that would be wrong. I'm here to prove that she can do something good.

So here's Jan's nugget of the week. You might say to me: Look, it's like trying to find Maltesers in human shit - but I would reply: no, it's worth doing this. I'm going to find the scraps of good writing in Jan Moir's output, and prove that she isn't all bad. Quite bad, yes. Pretty bad, you could say that. Very bad, well sometimes. But look. Here's the bit I liked:

[Jane Andrews] appeared to have spent most of her time in a muddy graveyard, before checking into a Premier Inn.
Then she was taken away by the police before even having time to enjoy the Freeview TV or the tea and coffee-making facilities.

There we are! See. Reasonable attempt at writing something amusing, there.

(I wouldn't go reading on after that point, mind. Just a friendly warning. You might end up punching your own face or running into a door to try and stop the feelings of revulsion and misery welling up inside you.)

Related posts:

1. PCC & Jan Moir: business as usual?
2. Why there is nothing ‘natural’ about the life of Jan Moir
3. Jan Moir: I’m really a bit of a numpty
4. Fictional story re-written into fiction
5. Real-life trolls