When someone gives their opinion on a subject it is exactly that and can’t really be wrong. Giles Coren, a writer for The Times however, is a twat and his opinion is wrong. Let me explain myself.

I was rather enjoying reading The Times on saturday afternoon despite, as most of you know, having an appalling day. So when I reached the opinion section I began to feel increasingly irritated and also insulted by the rubbish being spurted out by the afore mentioned writer. His general contention was that in times of economic downturn where the population is suffering from heavy financial concerns, they should not look to television shows such as Strictly Come Dancing as a means of escapism.

A practise which he further labels as an illusion, blaming it for the current recession, as people have been spending money they don’t have on credit cards to distract themselves from the problems in their lives. I contend that the last part may be true, but that does not mean that people don’t have the right to tune into entertainment shows or buy a new handbag to help them feel a little better. He obviously doesn’t understand that people have different methods of cheering themselves up. If they want to watch tv, bloody well let them.

I occasionally watch the show and do find it entertaining, however the point is not whether these programmes stand up as decent television, it is that Coren pretentiously condemns the viewers to be scum of the lowest order, despite showing his own ignorance as to which nation former contestant John Sergeant’s partner comes from.

Again, he states in reference to I’m a Celebrity… that he is “as easily distracted by a big artificial rack on a dim-witted WAG as the next man,” and we’re supposed to eat up his argument? It hardly stands up when he ruins himself in such a way. So when he later comments that; “If you had atleast read a bit of Tolstoy…” I cannot be blamed for wondering if he has ever even read any Tolstoy in his life or listened to any Mozart, or did he just choose two random names to make himself look a little less chauvinistic?

What really gets me though is the way he attacks dancing as a whole. He names it a “moronic activity at the best of times,” but by the looks of the picture set above the article, he has never danced a day in his life, so what the hell would he know? I myself have been dancing since I was six years old. Primarily I have taken up Ballet, but also have experience in Jazz and Funk as well as a bit of tap, so if anyone should get a say, it’s me.

Finally, I struggle with the urge to seriously hunt this man down and belt him in the face, as in reference to the public wanting their money back over voting for John Sergeant on SCD, he assaults in text “anyone to whom a single pound represents a significant, useful amount of money” by claiming that they should have their “children taken into care. And they should have their credit cards melted and moulded into a stick with which they should be flogged until they bleed.” To a student, a pound can make a difference, it may not be much at all but it can go a long way. So in essence this guy is the moron who does not so much know how to write good journalism, as spew his over-inflated ego onto a page.

For anyone who would like to have a look at the article I still have a copy, or it might be on The Times website, I’m not sure.