Monday 18 June 2007

Sir Salman Rushdie

What snorting idiot in no. 10 thought it'd be a good idea to knight Salman Rushdie?
1) The man has given grave offence to a large number of citizens of this country.
2) I would be very surprised if this decision does not cost lives.
3) What on earth has he done to merit it? I can think of far better writers.
Oh don't get me wrong: I'm no fan of Islam, and I think tomorrow's concert in Westminster Cathedral (99 names of Allah) is a disgrace, but I don't think this is a well-motivated honour, but a secularist one; he is being honoured because of the offence he gave to Moslems.
In my opinion.

6 comments:

Londiniensis said...

Not ennobled but knighted. So not Lord Rushdie but Sir Salman Rushdie.

Other than that, spot on. He never wrote anything as good as the 1981 Midnight's Children but achieved notoriety and became a literary darling among the chattering classes. It is significant that the most fulsome praise for his K comes from the Grauniad.

Just one more middling individual who has become famous for being famous.

And exactly the sort of literary person whom Tony Blair will empathise with and invite to parties.

Anonymous said...

It is a knighthood, not a peerage, Father.

Fr Justin said...

Thanks for the correction, chaps.

Anonymous said...

and he writes c*** books. Recently attempted 'Shalimar the Clown.' Yawn

Anonymous said...

He'll probably get a Knighhood of St Gregory next.

Paulinus said...

I saw this and thought well, it's just the same old No 10 spin machine giving out gongs to the undeserving. One north London author is much as another. I care not a jot one way or the other as it says nothing but watch a bunch of craven idiots run the country.

Now that the easy-to-offend Islamists of the world have started getting all effigy-burning, the cussedness of my English nature now takes the view that we'll give knighthoods to who we darn well please and if you don't like it, too bad.