slow train to fogeyville

I am finding this twitter feed irresistable.

Comments

[ejh]

Had my eye on him a long time (see Links)

[Seeds]

"Back to the constituency this weekend where I am taking up watersports at my wife's insistence."

Same old Tories...

[john b]

Is the phrase "fuck him, fuck him to death" inappropriate here?

[bert]

jacobus magnus gallus est

[Charlie]

Quick email to Mogg: some silly sod has opened a twitter account with your name and is tweeting pompous inanities in what he imagines is the style of a Tory MP, as if he'd know ... oh, wait

[bert]

By the way, I didn't double-check that. I very much hope I'm not saying he has a massive cock.

[CharlieMcMenamin]

No, I'm sure he has a gamekeeper on the staff for that sort of thing

[ejh]

Don't knock Agent Rees-Mogg, he's doing a grand job.

[BenSix]

Back to the constituency this weekend where I am taking up watersports at my wife's insistence.

Ooer.

[cian]

Its a bit Hyacinth Bucket, no?

[bert]

I've never had any use for Twitter. But the way it manages to distil this man's mind down to its undiluted essence is really something.

"If the EU merged its military it would have the largest military in the world. A chilling reason to maintain independent UK armed strength."
That's some 100% pure dickhead right there.

[Cian]

Knowing nothing more than who his dad was, I figured he must be 28 maybe.

42!

[bert]

* Lunch a disaster. Bass rendered inedible by chilli. Spices rarely improve fish and are, anyway, generally deemed rather 'new money'.

* Although I admire their 'get on a bike' attitude, 'making money' is invariably common. #apprentice

* Vince Cable always strikes me as being the sort of person whose house has an extension. And possibly a bidet in his 'en suite'.

* Not that I am in any way snobbish. Snobbery is irredeemably common.

[ejh]

That last one reminds me of somebody.

[Barry Freed]

Surely it's a put-on, albeit a very amusing one, and no doubt he'd take this year's prize for upper class twit of the year but: Estne volumen in toga, an solum tibi libet me videre? C'mon.

[bert]

Barry, I assure you it's all too grimly true.
Comes from spending your life in a cocoon.

ejh posted a link to something called an "Eton Leaving Portrait". The painting was apparently displayed at the National Portrait Gallery and the Royal Society of Portrait Painters. He would have been 18 at the time.
He was the same at Oxford, lurching around like a misshapen teenager, dressing exactly like his embalmed corpse of a dad, with a plummy accent and blimpish views. I think he ran the student Tory association at one point.

I don't know if you've seen anything of the current Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. He strikes me as a good deal sharper than Mogg, and shrewder about how things work in the world outside his bubble. But he was Eton, and Oxford, likes to show off with Latin, and in place of a personality does a comic turn.

The Pythons were satire; these guys were who they were satirising.

[chris williams]

I met JRM once, about 21 years ago. Thus, I'm not entirely sure this is a spoof.

[Barry Freed]

Well in that case, wow. Bert, I remember that link, I think this were it.

[bert]

You're lucky you live in a republic, where the dimwitted sons of privilege don't rise to the highest positions in the land.

Don't often, I should say.

I just checked the Wikipedia page he complains about. If you enjoy a good aristocratic car crash, follow the link to the Herveys.

[bert]

To be honest, I think the chances of it being a spoof are pretty high.
But, following the same logic as Chris Williams, its unnervingly plausible.

[bert]

Complaining about Wikipedia fraud in a Twitter fraud would be a nice meta touch.
There you go, you've convinced me.

[ejh]

Knowing nothing more than who his dad was, I figured he must be 28 maybe.

42!

This is very apt, I think, not least because it's another point in favour of my thesis that men with money often don't grow up.

I really don't think these guys do mature beyond the point they're at when they get to Oxbridge.

[ejh]

As for it being a spoof - it may well be, it was my first assumption. But if I were spoofing Rees-Mogg, would I call myself Jake?

On the other hand, can he really be called Jake?

[Cian]

On the other hand, can he really be called Jake?

Yes, he could quite easily.

The thing about Boris, and this may also be true of Rees-Mogg, is that he's over compensating for being not quite of the right class. The more somebody puts on the airs and graces in my experience (and I've had more than I'd like), the further they are from the real thing. Hyacinth Bucket basically.

[Cian]

Having looked at more of the tweets, if it is a spoof, its by somebody who is very good. I mean:

"Quite the oddest thing I've seen since William S took me to see a Jarman film in the early 90's."

or

"'When the chicken is crossing the road - the farmer has a hole in his wire.' Edward de Bono on the importance of detail. Excellent advice."

or

"If only Lewis Carroll were alive today: 'Beware the Googledoodle my son, morzilla fire and fox is fun...'"

[ejh]

I think it's more than likely a spoof, having translated the tagline.

[bert]

Looked at in daylight, his campaign #No2TheNineteenElevenParliamentActSectionOneYes2myamendment was perhaps a red flag, too.

[Cian]

Ah, pity. It is a really good spoof.

[hellblazer]

Looking at who that Twitter account follows: I find it unlikely that the real JRM would follow Tony Parsons and Ben Goldacre, although many other of the names seem plausible.

[bert]

"compensating for being not quite of the right class"
There's truth in that, Cian, I'm sure. Mogg's not quite the right religion also. Boarding school can do irreparable things to a boy.

[Alex]

I really don't think these guys do mature beyond the point they're at when they get to Oxbridge.

EJH channels Cyril Connolly and permanent adolescence. Orwell had some hard things to say about that, but if you read the essay closely it's obvious that he thinks it *shouldn't* be possible but that doesn't exclude the possibility that it *is*.

At least we were spared "Nancy Mogg".

[Barry Freed]

Yeah, It was the tagline that did it for me as I indicated above. Further research into this matter reveals the twitterer to be an Arab lesbian. Just remember this handy rule of thumb when in doubt: It's Arab lesbians all the way down.

[gucci outlet]

Vey interesting.

[des von bladet]

Surely it was also here that some were taken in by Rees-Mogg's lamented (but fake) blog? With (as I recall) exactly the same photo?

[bert]

The wisdom of crowds sorted it out eventually Des. And Mr Outlet found it vey interesting.
Win win.