Daisy Waugh in Today's Sunday Times

[Tinuts]

Oh dear. Another journalist "fantasising" (her words) about mowing cyclists down. Her exact text, regarding "bikeathons" (as she insists on calling just about any group of cyclists out on the road):

".....when I see those wretched bikes swarming over the horizon, as I do on an almost weekly basis round where I live, it's all I can do not to jump into my car and mow the lot of them into the pavement" and then "I don't actually do it, reader. I only ever fantasise about it. So far."

Sunday Times Magazine 17/07/11 p5 para 3. Waugh Zone


Nice one, Sunday Times!

 

[wheres_my_beard]

She sees bikes "almost" weekly and feels tempted to commit genocide?

Interesting.

I think she may spontaneously combust if she ever visited Cambridge. Hopefully.

 

[colly]

What can you expect? One of Murdoch's.

Just alter the word 'cyclist' to any other group you care to name ..........Jews.............Muslims...........Blacks........etc etc

 

[slowmotion]

My best guess is that a dignified silence might be the best policy. We all know where this crap goes if we don't, surely?


Poor Daisy is off to her house in Tuscany shortly and needs to keep her profile ,in front of the editor, high during her holiday. Bless.

 

[Tinuts]

What can you expect? One of Murdoch's.

Just alter the word 'cyclist' to any other group you care to name ..........Jews.............Muslims...........Blacks........etc etc

I was just about to add that but you beat me to it!

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

Who ARE these idiots, I mean honestly!

 

[Rhythm Thief]

Why do any of you pay the smallest attention to this shoot? I haven't bought or read a newspaper in years, if ever, and I'm none the worse for it. Why anyone needs to read a paper to find out that some people don't like cyclists much, and then post that on the forum, is beyond me. Just let it go; tomorrow everyone will have forgotten about this woman, whoever she is.

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

Why do any of you pay the smallest attention to this shoot?

Normally I'd agree, most of it is usually just self indulgent waffle, but with this sort of thing, it only takes one total f*ckwit to read it and think to themselves

'Yeah, that's a GREAT idea she's right!'.


Also, she is condoning violence and even killing a group of people. I wonder how far she'd get if she said that about Blacks or Jews or whatever else.

 

[swee'pea99]

To take that a step further...it's not just about the possibility of one nutter blowing a fuse, it's about giving a little 'that's right' nudge to all the drivers who will be out on the roads making potentially dangerous 'go or no' decisions when they're around cyclists, which genuinely could lead to tragedy. It *is* comparable with racism, homophobia and the like - it's de-humanising a defined sub-group, thereby putting them at real risk. It's the worst kind of irresponsible journalism, and while you may not read papers, millions of people do.

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

Yeah but of course, according to RT and someone else earlier, we should just ignore it and it will all magically go away.

Well, it isn't.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

It won't go away if we all ignore it, but it will lose a lot of its appeal. The more people stamp their feet about such things on fora like this one, the more people will think "hey, this gets a reaction" and continue to write similar pieces. Those who take it seriously and believe driving into cyclists is suddenly legitimised, are the sort of people who don't need such things to be legitimised before doing them, if you see what I mean. Making a fuss will not stop people writing this stuff, quite the opposite.

 

[slowmotion]

Hold your fire, troops. No reaction .

 

[Rhythm Thief]

My best guess is that a dignified silence might be the best policy. We all know where this crap goes if we don't, surely?


Poor Daisy is off to her house in Tuscany shortly and needs to keep her profile ,in front of the editor, high during her holiday. Bless.

I missed this post earlier, but I quite agree.

 

[John the Monkey]

[quote name='swee'pea99' timestamp='1310943437' post='1755662']
To take that a step further...it's not just about the possibility of one nutter blowing a fuse, it's about giving a little 'that's right' nudge to all the drivers who will be out on the roads making potentially dangerous 'go or no' decisions when they're around cyclists, which genuinely could lead to tragedy. [/quote]True.

It *is* comparable with racism, homophobia and the like - it's de-humanising a defined sub-group, thereby putting them at real risk. It's the worst kind of irresponsible journalism, and while you may not read papers, millions of people do.

One of the interesting things is that the discourse can be *very* similar.

Chatting to people who'll tell you how "cyclists" go through red lights, should have insurance &c, when I point out that I dont, and do respectively, they'll say something along the lines of me being "one of the good ones".

Sadly I'd not heard of this Daisy person prior to this thread, and now I have. I can't help feeling that that means she's won, somehow.

 

[Becs]

I doubt her grandfather (Evelyn) would be particularly proud of her! It's such a shame that someone with a supposedly great literary pedigree has resorted to writing utter crap - even when she's not fantasising about killing cyclists she's usually being nasty about something/someone.