Lmao.
The superhuman cock-ups of Christopher Booker
The journalist makes so many errors that you would be forgiven for thinking he did it deliberately to waste everyone's time
"Does Christopher Booker exist? Or is he simply a device invented to waste as much of other people's time as possible? Might he in fact be a computer programme randomly generating nonsense in order to keep scientists, environmentalists and public health campaigners so busy refuting it that they can't get on with what they ought to be doing? I ask because it seems almost impossible that one man could make so many superhuman cock-ups.
"Some people claim to have met him, and my friends at Private Eye swear that a man of that name has been working alongside them for 50 years. Veteran journalists assert that there was once a real Christopher Booker, who was capable of intelligent and even penetrating journalism, and that the man who wears his clothes today bears no relationship to the one they once knew. Has he been replaced by a replicant, remotely controlled by an evil genius in a concrete fortress, surrounded by a piranha-stocked moat? Or has he simply been playing to the gallery for so long that he can no longer distinguish between fact and fiction?
"In either case, scarcely a week goes by in which he fails to publish at least one excruciating howler. It doesn't matter what the subject is: whether it is asbestos or the European Union, speeding or the family courts, he makes such a remarkable concatenation of mistakes that, if he didn't take himself so seriously, you could almost swear he was doing it deliberately.
"This time-wasting exercise would be best ignored if it were not for two things: that the Sunday Telegraph continues to give him a platform for this rubbish, and that his cock-ups have consequences.
"Much of his journalism consists of the reckless endangerment of the public. In a long series of articles he has falsely claimed that the danger from white asbestos is insignificant. To support his contention that innocent parents are being harassed by over-zealous officials, he relayed a partisan account which served to minimise and dismiss the serious injuries inflicted on a small baby [see paragraph 185 onwards]. The judge pointed out Booker's "significant factual errors and omissions".
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The superhuman cock-ups of Christopher Booker
The journalist makes so many errors that you would be forgiven for thinking he did it deliberately to waste everyone's time
"Does Christopher Booker exist? Or is he simply a device invented to waste as much of other people's time as possible? Might he in fact be a computer programme randomly generating nonsense in order to keep scientists, environmentalists and public health campaigners so busy refuting it that they can't get on with what they ought to be doing? I ask because it seems almost impossible that one man could make so many superhuman cock-ups.
"Some people claim to have met him, and my friends at Private Eye swear that a man of that name has been working alongside them for 50 years. Veteran journalists assert that there was once a real Christopher Booker, who was capable of intelligent and even penetrating journalism, and that the man who wears his clothes today bears no relationship to the one they once knew. Has he been replaced by a replicant, remotely controlled by an evil genius in a concrete fortress, surrounded by a piranha-stocked moat? Or has he simply been playing to the gallery for so long that he can no longer distinguish between fact and fiction?
"In either case, scarcely a week goes by in which he fails to publish at least one excruciating howler. It doesn't matter what the subject is: whether it is asbestos or the European Union, speeding or the family courts, he makes such a remarkable concatenation of mistakes that, if he didn't take himself so seriously, you could almost swear he was doing it deliberately.
"This time-wasting exercise would be best ignored if it were not for two things: that the Sunday Telegraph continues to give him a platform for this rubbish, and that his cock-ups have consequences.
"Much of his journalism consists of the reckless endangerment of the public. In a long series of articles he has falsely claimed that the danger from white asbestos is insignificant. To support his contention that innocent parents are being harassed by over-zealous officials, he relayed a partisan account which served to minimise and dismiss the serious injuries inflicted on a small baby [see paragraph 185 onwards]. The judge pointed out Booker's "significant factual errors and omissions".
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