Theodore Dalrymple

Comments

1. 

   January 23, 2004

   mgl

   Mick, “Theodore Dalrymple” is a pseudonym chosen partly, I believe, to convey the air of stuffy fogeyness you complain about. That’s not to say that “Dalrymple” (Anthony Daniels) isn’t entirely serious about his going-to-the-dogs opinions, but I perceive some impishness behind the crusty persona. His essay on tattoos on British youth (from his collection “Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass”) is pretty funny, in that sputtering way of his.
   Daniels has written a number of books under his own name, as well. Most of them are hard-to-find travelogues about journeys in the developing world, but I’ve read his Utopias Elsewhere: Journeys in a Vanishing World–in which he travels through Albania, North Korea, Romania, Vietnam, and Cuba in 1989, just as communism was beginning its collapse–and quite enjoyed it. Daniels and “Dalrymple” (who both write occasional columns for the Telegraph) are pretty obviously the same writer, but the former seems less pompous and more human.

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2. 

   January 23, 2004

   Mick H

   mgl, hmm, interesting, thanks for that. Knowing there is a hint of impishness behind his articles adds some spice, but I’m still curious about his frequent appearances in AL Daily.

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3. 

   February 2, 2004

   David

   Mr D is a great poker of fun at the new British establishment + institutions where there is much material – due to some of the resulting folly of constant schemes that foist PC style social engineering onto unwitting state employees – just tailor-made for satire and downright ridicule.
   He plays up the ‘old-fogey’ aspect in his writings as he is neither ‘old’ nor a ‘fogey’. Many of his articles contain elements of hilarity and he has a brilliant turn of phrase.
   I feel much more sympathy for the ‘good doctor’ (who has spent years working in decrepit inner-city hospitals trying relentlessly to deal with the victims at the bottom of the underclass) than for most moan-at-the-state-of-modern-Britain taloid columnists who would not know a real victim if they fell over one.
   All power to Dr D’s future writings…de La France…!

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4. 

   August 16, 2004

   Amos

   Yeah. Dalrymple = Tha man
   Maybe he just thinks the UK is going to hell beacuse he works in a prison. On the other hand, maybe he is exactly right and the decline is slow enough that you don’t register it, like the frog in the gradualy warming pot of water on the stove.
   I live in Australia and visted the UK last year, a culture shock you might say. Maybe you guys don’t notice any more, but a good segment of the English population behaves like fucking dogs. Like animals.

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