Jottings
News from the UK and around the World
. . . the wild, the wacky, the wonderful, the weird and the downright infuriating
Victor Meldrew Moment
Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan’s latest
work, The Comedian, has sold for
$120,000 in Miami Beach. It consists of
a banana fixed to a wall with duct tape.
The owner of the gallery where it has
been on display said, “It looks like a
joke, but step back and look at it again,
and it becomes so much more.”
Er ... nope. Still looks like a banana
stuck to a wall to us ...
Little Miss Snowflake
The stars of this month’s Jottings are
the Mr Men, the series of colourful
characters in books by Roger
Hargreaves which have been popular
with younger children since their first
appearance in 1971. But now Mr Tickle
and his chums have been accused of
sexism. A 24-year-old snowflake ...
sorry, student ... has taken offence at the
book “Mr Men in Scotland” in which Mr
Clever and Little Miss Curious discuss
the Forth Bridge, north of Edinburgh.
The section which triggered snowflake
meltdown goes like this ...
“Mr Clever explained that it was named
after the River Forth. Little Miss
Curious thought for a moment. ‘So
what happened to the River First, the
River Second and the River Third?’ she
asked. Mr Clever sighed. It was going to
be a very long day.”
Shelby Judge claims this is an example
of mansplaining. She wrote on social
media (where else?), “It’s an example of
24
telling them, ‘Girls, you need to be
stupid, and men, it’s your job to explain
things.’” Mrs Judge, who has studied
feminist issues and lives in Glasgow,
also shared a picture of the book with
the caption “Mr Mansplain.”
(At this point, we were going give the
definition of mansplaining as “the
explanation of something by a man,
typically to a woman, in a manner
regarded as condescending or
patronising.” Then we realised that, if
we did, we’d be mansplaining. So we
won’t.)
Hopefully, the next book in the series,
Little Miss Snowflake, will be another
fun educational book for kids, and
will not be assumed by some to be a