Grumps who lack a Muppet touch (From York Press)

Grumps who lack a Muppet touch

9:25am Thursday 2nd February 2012 in Columnists By Julian Cole

DO YOU remember Statler and Waldorf, the disagreeable old gents from The Muppet Show? They used to deliver a running commentary on the show from their position on high in a box.

A typical exchange would run like this:

Waldorf: “They aren’t half bad.”
Statler: “Nope, they’re ALL bad.”

Here is another putdown:

Statler: “This is a very moving moment.”
Waldorf: “Yeah, I wish they’d move it to Pittsburgh!”

These grumblers were easily the best thing about the Muppets. Everyone likes a good moaner. My reason for mentioning them now lies in wondering what should be done about those other grumps who comment endlessly, are rarely satisfied and for whom the milk of human kindness has gone a little sour.

Unlike Statler and Waldorf, these snipping snipers often prefer to remain anonymous. Yes, they are the hecklers who haunt the internet version of this and every other newspaper. Is it fair to say they do not seem to share the same scriptwriters as Statler and Waldorf?

I am not about to plead a special case for columnists or anything. Columnists have to put up with an occasional barracking. It is part of the job. Anyone foolish enough to pontificate in public should be able to shrug off whatever comes their way.

But the anonymity of the accusers can rankle. A columnist has their name and picture at the top of their work, while most reports or features carry the name of the writer. The words of such writers are tagged and traceable: if you want to know who said it, there they are. Unlike the surly crew who spit half-chewed acid drops at what other people, including their fellow anonymous commentators, have to say. Indeed, sometimes the worst abuse arises when members of the nameless chorus pick on each other.

Newspapers do not in general print letters without names or with pseudonyms, although sometimes letters are published with “name and address supplied”.

Yet newspaper websites do allow contributions under made-up names, thanks to the different conventions that operate on the internet (although extreme abuse can be ‘moderated’, which is to say removed).

In many senses, the comment facility is an exciting, democratising development. It is good people can comment; just a shame so many have to be so mean-spirited about it.

Since the arrival of the internet, this column has generated a fair number of responses. Some have been rude, others tart; and some have been kind. The best take the argument onwards from whatever has been written.

Vainer about these things than I might care to admit, I have read them all. The other week someone suggested I had been touting for a free oven. Er, no. A broken oven had given rise to foolish dreams of owning a wood-fired oven like the one Jamie Oliver uses on TV – a desire unlikely to be achieved this side of a lottery win.

As for this column being half-baked, let me just say that my bread is always fully baked. I tap the upturned loaf on the bottom just to make sure. This is harder to do with a column.

Funnily enough, one insult that sticks in my mind came years ago on sweetly old-fashioned notepaper. The nice handwriting suggested I was a ‘sewer rat’ for remarks made about the then Prime Minister. Incidentally, the writer is still very much around and probably knows who they are.

Anyway, back to Statler and Waldorf, with apologies to the original scriptwriters. What would they say today… …about David Cameron’s premiership:

Waldorf: “Bravo, bravo!”
Statler: “Why are you saying bravo? Are you telling me you like this awful Prime Minister?”
Waldorf: “God, no. A friend of mine, Bob Bravo, is sitting in the front row. Bravo!”

…or Ed Miliband during Prime Minister’s Question Time:

Statler: “Wake up you old fool. You slept through the whole thing.”
Waldorf: “Who’s the fool? You watched it.”

…and on being dragooned into a column for supposed comic effect:

Statler: “Do you believe in life after death?”
Waldorf: “Every time I get to the end of that column.”