A A Gill-RIP

Sad news RIP

...at least the queue at this years Pearly Gates should be an honour for him.

always read his TV critic column in the Sn Times back when i read newspapers

rip, always enjoyed his restaurant reviews too

Very sad news and a huge loss. I read of his death just as Paul Merson was busy mangling the English language on Soccer Saturday. Mr Gill would have been aghast.

RIP.

Very good writer and not afraid to say what he thought!
Remember him calling Clare Balding a **** on a bike

d y k e on a bike

A genuine original wit. Loved reading his columns whatever he wrote about.
Doubt his family read this forum but sympathies all round.
Used to look out for his stuff and won't be able to anymore. no sad smiley added.

thats dreadful . only 2/3  weeks ago a real upbeat article in the sunday times . his restaurant reviews were a must read , agree with him or not . a stylish man , a thinker, entertaining writer  ...not many left .

Such an outrageously talented wordsmith, made it look so effortless and in a way I think it might have been for him. Didn't agree with a lot of what he wrote, mind, but always had to read it. Faced the end with typical brio and brilliance, a massive void the sunday times will never be able to fill.

sad news

The guy that shot a baboon for fun.

De mortuis nil nisi bonum?  He post-dated my Sunday Times-reading era (pre-Murdoch).  I can only recall Private Eye were sarky about him (signified by a bent umbrella, whatever that means). What has registered is the fawning faux-sincerity of the news channels - even though just a restaurant critic he was 'one of Us', a real media person, not a peasant, like the rest of us.

I remember saying that before he died, bodil, but I was less polite.

Ironic, the truth in a post-truth world.

I remember that story about the baboon and his comments afterwards.
Summed him up for me. Selfish individual.

Another memorial thread trashed

It's normally by you crags

Don't be so stupid

What is it with a few on here who want to twist the facts all the time?

'normally me'... pathetic and totally untrue.

I better apologise, I don't want you and culvin ganging up on me.

^ moronic

You had a bad day? Was yer dinner burnt?

Actually, it often is by you crags. You have a selective memory.

Any evidence?

Can you ****s even name one?

I remember a few where you've actually had a go at peep posting RIP.

Just name one then!

It would probably be more difficult to name one where you hadn't.

Can't be bothered searching for them.

Pair of bastards, and that's me being polite

That reminds me crags, TGM wants to know if you want to take part in a scientific test.

Would you like to name one where you haven't?

That should keep you busy for a while.

Dec 10, 2016 -- 6:47PM, akabula wrote:

Can't be bothered searching for them.

You are the biggest disappoint to me, bodil

Oh, they are all trying to gang up on me now

Cowardly coonts

You drunk? Would explain yer crabbit mood.
My post and you reply to bodil?

On radio 5 now talking about his brother and Alchohol

I don't mean now as in right now ffs

good

remember him killing a baboon just to see what it feels like according to him

fk him

Any news on the memorial threads that I am meant to have trashed yet?

Gill on killing a baboon:

"I took him just below the armpit. He slumped and slid sideways. I'm told they can be tricky to shoot: they run up trees, hang on for grim life. They die hard, baboons. But not this one. A soft-nosed .357 blew his lungs out."

Lung cancer killed Gill

crags 11 Dec 16 12:24
Any news on the memorial threads that I am meant to have trashed yet?

There's the AA Gill one for starters.

Another one who can't read ^

I can read at least 10 comments of you having a ruck with various people on this thread.... mind you now you've got me at it!

Looks like the Baboon ended up with a score draw. Karma is a bitch!

Dec 11, 2016 -- 7:59AM, Clouseau wrote:

I can read at least 10 comments of you having a ruck with various people on this thread.... mind you now you've got me at it!

Don't be so tiresome. The thread was already trashed, it was me who complained about it!

I liked most of the stuff I read from AA Gill - the only stuff I wasnt fussed about was highbrow or restaurant stuff  - disappointed to hear the baboon story but none of us are whiter than white are we - RIP

Talking of baboons:
Twenty five years ago, Gill was a hack working for Rupert Murdoch. Sunday Times sent him to do a hatchet job on Berlin (yes, the anti EU propaganda was at work then). His article - anti Berlin, anti Europe - was prefaced on the Sunday Times magazine cover with a picture of Gill in a "square head" German army helmet. But the worst aspect was his leering countenance, bloodshot eyes staring back at the reader like a crazed lab-monkey working the button connected to the electrical current of a rectal-implant.

But he turned our all right in the end, a passionate Remainer.
Good man.

I didn't know about the baboon!

Dec 11, 2016 -- 3:08PM, Makybe_Diva wrote:

I didn't know about the baboon!

Yes. Been friends with Jeremy Clarkson for years apparently!

FatherMaguire 11 Dec 16 20:28 
I liked most of the stuff I read from AA Gill - the only stuff I wasnt fussed about was highbrow or restaurant stuff  - disappointed to hear the baboon story but none of us are whiter than white are we - RIP

No, but would most of kill an animal for pleasure?

It is sad to lose anyone especially before their time, but I was never a fan of his writing.

I read his article in the sunday times today and even in terminal illness he was not an easy read.  I have been in tears reading the last writings of most famous people but not him.  His style is tediously pompous, i.e. turgid.  It seems because of his background that he had to use three long words when one short one would do just as well.  I think he did this to try to emulate his oxford and cambridge chums.

I also did not like it when he said of mary beardsley that 'she should be kept away from the cameras' and also that she belonged on the program 'the undateables', for people of physical, mental or facial problems.  He was not clever enough to go to university, even a poor one, but felt able to criticise her about her program, when she is a professor of classics at cambridge university.

I think this is the first critical rip that I have ever wrote but I am a quite flabbergasted at the press reports  saying how wonderful he was as a writer and a person.  A nice person would not have wrote about mary beardsley's looks.  Fair enough about her program, but to inflict unnecessary hurt about her looks was beyond the pale.  He was a pr@t.

Good post, Annie. I didn't know any of that.

It is a good post by annie.

A good read Annie. I find most food critics pompous but this one added vile to his cv with those Mary Beardsley comments which tbh I didn't know about.

Thanks, kenny and Makybe Diva.

I wrote it and then considered deleting it as it seemed ungracious but his remarks about mary beardsley and claire balding still rankles.

But then again it is not his fault that he is a man and I have learnt from chit chat that the majority of men think like that

Thanks akabula

Mary Beard

I always found him a difficult read as well

Annie nailed it.

I also did not like it when he said of [i]mary beardsley that 'she should be kept away from the cameras' and also that she belonged on the program 'the undateables', for people of physical, mental or facial problems.  He was not clever enough to go to university, even a poor one, but felt able to criticise her about her program, when she is a professor of classics at cambridge university.
[/i]


Mary Beard is her name. Quite comical to listen to people moralising about him commenting on her and the same people can't even get her name right

Also Mary Beard claimed AA Gill lacked Intellectual rigour due to him not attending university....

Easily as insulting and ignorant as any comment made by AA Gill regarding her looks.

I thought the guy was a troll - he made his name insulting people and places, and was paid a nice wedge for doing so. Dining for free at nice restaurants and watching telly -- what a gig, eh?