The writer of the blog God Save the Queen often features a turn of phrase I find myself wishing I’d come up with myself.
Here are two recent examples. On a post which takes downtown Cardiff as its subject he casually drops a verb into the sentence which brings attention to his poor opinion of twentieth century additions to older buildings without the need to change up a literary gear and spoil the flow of the piece:
Most UK cities have nice bits so long as you remember to look up, since the ground floors were mostly committed in recent decades but the upper storeys have been left Edwardian, Victorian etc.
Understated but undeniably scathing. Nice.
The second phrase that took my eye concerns an anniversary. When someone brings round a colleagues birthday card at work I often find myself dithering over my choice of words; wondering what to write in it that’s sincere but not cliched. It’s the same with blog birthdays: Steve K just picks up the pen and tells it like it is though – no messing. I’ll borrow his words to wish Marxist-org-uk a happy first blogging birthday:
The Marvellous Marxists do a better job of skewering leftish piffle than a mere reactionary ever could.
And before the lurking ultraleftists start their banshee chorus in the comments box – yes it is the job of the Left to skewer its own piffle. And lots more skewering will be neccessary if the Left is to survive as anything other than the lashed together alliance of ivory tower dwellers and post adolescent placard wavers it consists of today.