None Taken
by and published in Edition Three of Pomegranate
This article was catalysed, not by the sparks of scholarly debate or the result of deep inner questioning and rigorous intellectual endeavour, but by an online argument about the NME, which is about as far from poetry as it’s possible to get. I speak specifically of the current legal debacle involving Morrissey, Tim Jonze, the NME editorial staff and, if not the entire immigrant population of Britain, at least the ones who care about The Smiths. Accusations and recriminations have flown back and forth like a thousand vicious paper aeroplanes with really sharp pointy bits at the nose-end, the kind of which parents and teachers love to say ‘you could have someone’s eye out with that’.
The debate centres on one key issue: the magazine claims Morrissey has been making comments that they think make him look like a bit of a crusty old racist, while the Pope of Mope himself insists he isn’t, leading to an amusing if slightly off-topic self-defence rant in the pages of the Guardian Arts blog where he derides the interviewer as a runny-nosed schoolboy and lists all the stuff he likes that’s ‘ethnic’ in order to deflect further criticism, or indeed inquiry. Amongst the general mass hysteria and atavistic e-mud-slinging that serves to represent the steady state of the Internet, there were more than a few perceptive comments, including the lengthy contribution from Kitty3780 which those willing to trawl will eventually fish out at the link included
Richard O'Brien
Richard O’Brien is one of Pomegranate’s two submissions editors. He likes to think of himself as Charlotte Geater’s glamourless assistant.
He was born in Peterborough in 1990 and has returned only for weddings and funerals since starting at Brasenose College Oxford in 2008. He has also returned for holidays.
His first pamphlet, ‘your own devices’, was published by tall-lighthouse press in 2009, and his first play ‘Instead of Beauty’ was the winner of the 2010 OUDS New Writing Festival. He enjoys the humiliation of directing autobiographical musicals. Other interests include travel, museums, travelling to museums, and walks on a long beach.