The esteemed Mr. Fry has posted a blog entry today in which he spells out his thoughts on the upcoming UK election. Now, I realize that many people here won’t care about the election per se, nor should they necessarily, but if you will at least take the time to read through the first couple of pages (and it’s a seven page post, filled with big words, be forewarned), you may find yourself, as I did, surprised and utterly refreshed by the sheer sensibility of what he has to say. He offers, with his usual wit and, well, class, a plea that’s basically just for people to stop being such huge shits to each other. It’s a message that’s badly needed in the world in general these days, and I find it sad and surprising how rare it is to see it anywhere right now.
A very thoughtful article and definitely worth reading, although I’ll be interested to see how much of it makes sense to the American armchair pundits on the boards…
I found it hard to read because I don’t understand Tories versus labour and the way your government is set up. I do agree that voting should be a personal thing and you should not be called on the carpet for your choice. I don’t discuss it for this reason. Well written article.
I’m not sure what school of writing advocates spending half an essay apologizing for writing said essay. My new theory is an overabundance of introspection is why you guys lost the empire.
Anyhoo, I’m an American and I understood most of it. There’s actually been a fair amount of interest and reporting on the British elections, at least on the more high-brow media outlets in the US. Moreso then I remember for any other recent foreign election (OK, moreso then I remember for any recent foreign election in a country we hadn’t recently invaded and didn’t involve widespread rioting afterwords).
That would be the “Stephen Fry Can Do Whatever He Likes Because He’s Just That Brilliant” school of writing, which is a companion school to “Jeremy Clarkson Can Do Whatever He Likes Because He’s Just That Awesome” school of writing.
Hmm. “Awesome” wouldn’t have been the term I’d have expected in a sentence about Clarkson.
This American gets her coverage of that election from Radio 4’s Now Show, including their “Vote Now” special series for the last couple weeks, so I take anything I read/hear about it with a lot of suspicion.
A couple of people seemed to imply that they thought I was British. I’m not - just a fan.
As to the apologizing, well, Stephen Fry has been the subject recently of a fair bit of criticism, which he thinks is unfounded and unfair, about his status as a massively popular tweeter. You know the sort of thing: “He has a million people following him, so all he has to do is say ‘Buy this book’ and his army of unthinking drones will instantly make it a best-seller”, which is just silly. Anyway, he’s talked about that a few times, so I think what you’re seeing as apologizing is an attempt to head off any criticism that he’s abusing his “power” to influence the election.
I guess I don’t understand why that makes him any different from any other famous person. What do they think about Twitter that has any more pull than any other form of mass communication? It sounds like people with conspiracy theories.
I agree. It’s a stupid criticism. I think it’s partially aimed at dismissing Twitter - i.e., it’s only good for listening to Stephen Fry, ahahaha. I don’t know. It’s just that, in the UK at least, Twitter and Fry have become almost synonymous, and he appears to feel a little uncomfortable with that.
