THERE’S only one thing worse than being talked about and that’s not being talked about, as Oscar Wilde once noted.
The great writer never dealt in cliché. Instead, he coined phrases which ring down through the generations – about how some of us are looking at the stars and about the way the unspeakable pursue the uneatable.
Wilde’s advice on not being talked about popped into my head last week when I opened my fortnightly copy of the satirical magazine Private Eye.
For those unfamiliar with this fine organ, I should explain that it combines the two noble arts of investigative reporting and relentless mockery.
Always on the lookout for journalistic cliché, the Eye decided to devote a box on Page 6 of this fortnight’s edition to some examples of hacks using the hackneyed phrase “Thatcher’s children” following the former prime minister’s demise.
And blow me down if little old me didn’t get a mention, thanks to my noting in this column two weeks ago that I was born in May 1979, making me one of the first of Thatcher’s children.
What an honour it was to be among the nine people singled out by the Eye for deploying this cliché, my words rubbing shoulders with those of an MP, various local and national journalists, and – less impressively – Russell Brand, pictured.
It’s good to know that someone at Britain’s leading satirical magazine is taking the time to read my missives.
