Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Email Manners and Ed Vaizey
I have just received an email from Ed Vaizey, Shadow Minister for the Arts. It asks: 'Where's your post on the death (and rebirth) of newspapers?' Leaving aside the fact that the post is on my blog in plain sight under the pretty much self-explanatory headline The Death of Print?, I want to draw your attention to the form of this Vaizey mail. His question is posed in the subject line. The body of the mail contains only his name, his title and his constituency (Wantage and Didcot, a jaunty pairing to my ear). This, I find, bloody rude. Emails can be fast and casual, but not one from a prominent politician sent to somebody he has never met. It's like being yelled at across the street - 'Oi, you, where's your post....?' etc. So just to say, 'Oi, Vaizey, get your frigging act together.'
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
This is probably a case of simple ignorant rudeness but for others and, who knows, this man also, I think there is an unfortunate confusion in their understanding of these changing times. It is perhaps thought that it is now the done thing to do away with such archaic and embarrassing things as politeness....this is the modern, sophisticated, lean and mean way. What need have us enlightened souls of these relics of the past? I remember a very good example of such a misreading when I, quite recently was a caddie in a very expensive golf-course in Ireland. Two salt of the earth , semi-elderly men were getting on great with the four well to do middle-aged ladies they were to caddie for when one of the men asked the women, "Did ye watch the Late Late last night?(A very prominent tv talk show) "No" amidst much laughter. "Twas all about vaginas." Icy unbroken silence followed for some distance. The poor man had made a fatal misjudgement of modern Ireland. Though in the politician's case, I'd say it's simple ingorance.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry, but "in plain sight"? Where? It is not on the current page, nor in the 'previous posts', and a quick whip through selected articles didn't throw it up. I'm not sure if the archives are in plain sight. Please correct me if I am wrong, but perhaps if you put a search function onto your site your articles might be easy to find.
ReplyDeleteI do however agree that Vaizey comes across as a bore/boar.
Bryan, how does one spell the word 'prat'? Does it have a double t? Thi man you described reminds me of this word. Of course, it comes down to uber-ego. He just thinks he's the bee's knees and that all others are plebs.
ReplyDeleteFollow the link on my post, Matthew, or it now comes up under archive- November. I did try the blogger search facility but it screwed up what I believe is called the 'skin' of my blog.
ReplyDeleteWriting as a naval man, I can only deplore Vaizey's lack of manners. I sincerely hope that you have not/will not reply to him. Ask yourself 'who needs who'? I shall take up the matter of his rudeness to our most eminent cultural commentator with one of the Tory Whips tomorrow. He went to Eton by the way. The mask, not of the trout, falls. Any rats going?
ReplyDeleteEton! Good lord, what do they teach there these days?
ReplyDeleteBetter yet, the friends of Bryan might like to send strap-line emails to Vaizey asking 'what is Tory arts policy?'
ReplyDeleteStone me! I did respond to the original Vaizey mail with a link to the post. He just replied with the following message. 'that;s it'. That is the complete message and the punctuation is accurate. I have no referred him to this post and its comments.
ReplyDeleteAnd now this:
ReplyDelete"whoops!
Anyway, I've been nice about you on my blog."
He is, indeed, very nice on his blog. However, the previous Vaizey post suggests he should absorb some of his own wisdom. I quote:
"Conventions may seem archaic, but they are important. Refer to Members as Members, not by their first name. Address your remarks through the Speaker. Be present at the opening and closing of a debate in which you take part, and for the speech that follows yours. New Labour has already downgraded Parliament. It’s important to keep what remains, which is little more than common courtesy."
Morals and manners will rise or decline with out attention to grammar - A 19th century, American clergyman (I can't think of his name).
ReplyDeleteI think he was keen to read the post but couldn't find it due to it being archived.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, to speak of one's "member" in the U.S. has a completely different meaning! Ask Frank if you don't twig it, Bryan.
ReplyDeleteBTW, will you please do a post on rhyming Cockney if you know what I'm talking about(I'm sure you do)? This is linguistically fascinating to me and yet I can't seem to find anybody who knows much about it. Is it cause none of you Brits on here are Cockney or linguists?
Spanish waiter, darlin'! Zette
Hello again,
ReplyDeleteI don't recommend the blogger search facility. If the blogger template allows you to get a google search box for your blog, that's what you need. It will just search your blog (full text), not whisk you off to Technoarti so you have to stare at Ariana Huffington while you don't get any returns, or simply not work like the blogger search. I installed such a google widget on my blog but that is hosted by Typepad, not sure if you can put in on Blogger. But if you click on my name you'll go to my blog - see sidebar. On that google search box is a link to the site I got that from. Highly recommended.
Second, this emailing thing. Isn't it just marketing? If you are sending a marketing (mass) email, which this presumably is, then the main goal of the marketeer is to get you to open it. ie put something in the subject line that is most likely to make the reipient open it. Then you get the message, which in this case was the name and constituency of the MP concerned, and his payoff is that you've written all that in your blog so more people have heard of him and his constituency.
I don't suppose Mr V cares one way or the other about the death of print and whether you have written about it, or that he himself sent the email, but I am happy to be de-cyniced if you can correct me on either count.
Mr V went to St Paul's. Not Eton.
ReplyDelete