Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Dear Grauniad
Dear Editors
I should like to enquire about the possibility of employment at the Grauniad as a 'lifestyle' columnist.
I have noticed that you employ several airheaded, half-educated morons whose job appears to be to produce the occasional self-regarding, chattering column about nothing very much. Lucy Mangan and Tim Dowling in particular seem, to me, the finest examples here - surpassing even the Indie's Janet Street-Porter in the business of bashing out feebleminded, middle-of-the-road, platitudinous, self-satisfied pap.
I realise that such columns are essential in most newspapers - since you must often find yourself with awkward gaps left to fill after all the intelligent stuff has been placed. I wonder, however, if it is necessary for you to employ filler spewers at the rate of pay you currently dish out to them. I would be more than happy to produce banal drivel for you at a fraction of the salary you currently pay to Mangan and Dowling.
If you would like to look at my website [supplied], you will see that I am quite capable of churning out meaningless and mildly amusing shite to rival anything Mangan has ever written - and, what is more, I currently produce this stuff without any financial incentive. Think about what I might be capable of if salaried and given my own office and other Grauniad employee perks. I refer you, in particular, to my recent piece about trouser shopping - a piece which, I'm sure you'll agree, would not look at all out of place on one of the back pages of G2.
I am quite willing to learn about house prices, expensive restaurants and to pretend that I have posh friend in PR named Trinny, so that I can produce amusing anecdotes about her singleton thirty-something search for romance in the big city.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Yours sincerely,
E R
I should like to enquire about the possibility of employment at the Grauniad as a 'lifestyle' columnist.
I have noticed that you employ several airheaded, half-educated morons whose job appears to be to produce the occasional self-regarding, chattering column about nothing very much. Lucy Mangan and Tim Dowling in particular seem, to me, the finest examples here - surpassing even the Indie's Janet Street-Porter in the business of bashing out feebleminded, middle-of-the-road, platitudinous, self-satisfied pap.
I realise that such columns are essential in most newspapers - since you must often find yourself with awkward gaps left to fill after all the intelligent stuff has been placed. I wonder, however, if it is necessary for you to employ filler spewers at the rate of pay you currently dish out to them. I would be more than happy to produce banal drivel for you at a fraction of the salary you currently pay to Mangan and Dowling.
If you would like to look at my website [supplied], you will see that I am quite capable of churning out meaningless and mildly amusing shite to rival anything Mangan has ever written - and, what is more, I currently produce this stuff without any financial incentive. Think about what I might be capable of if salaried and given my own office and other Grauniad employee perks. I refer you, in particular, to my recent piece about trouser shopping - a piece which, I'm sure you'll agree, would not look at all out of place on one of the back pages of G2.
I am quite willing to learn about house prices, expensive restaurants and to pretend that I have posh friend in PR named Trinny, so that I can produce amusing anecdotes about her singleton thirty-something search for romance in the big city.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Yours sincerely,
E R
