James Felton (1)

Despite the publisher's claims of popularity and a great following on Twitter, I found this work superficial and irritating.

Superficial ? Anybody with a half-decent education (including self-administered learning) and a minimal perception of how the social structures of the world work, and are still working, would find nothing new or astonishing here to read.

Irritating? Ignorance of the world is no failing, but the constant irksome, and lazy use of the the same pronouns and adjectival terms, as if it were a badge of egalitarian hipness, simply made it difficult to wish to continue reading. I have no problem with the words used - words are words - but there was no value to be found in the monotonous repetitions. Perhaps it was because the usage wasn't thought through. I have never forgotten a phrase used by a former workmate who'd dropped his new watch onto a concrete floor. He picked it up, shook it by his ear, and with a look of horror said to me

"The fucking fucker's fucking fucked!".

This was forty years ago, and is still memorable because of the over-repetition, and because he didn't always speak like this.… (meer)