Ordinary Gweilo

It seems a long time ago that Nury Vittachi was writing the mildly satirical Lai See column in the SCMP.  As you may recall, Nury felt that he had been ‘sacked’ for political reasons, and doubted the official line from the paper that it was simply time for a change.  The problem for the SCMP was that the column was handed over to a succession of hacks who pretty much killed it off until Ben Kwok took it over and made it a moderately entertaining read again.  One of the guilty men was David Evans, who seems to have overcome the minor disadvantage of a distinct lack of talent as a writer to enjoy a long career at the SCMP, churning out rubbish to fill the gaps left between the syndicated features.  

In last week’s Sunday Morning Post, he was at it again.  I read his piece on Christina Noble and her charity, and wondered once again how it was possible for a professional journalist to turn in such a badly constructed piece of writing.  I actually read it a second time to see whether I had somehow missed the point, but I was still just as confused.  It seems I was not alone, and (somewhat bizarrely) the paper published a letter of complaint yesterday:

What’s the point?

The column on Irish philanthropist Christina Noble (Post Magazine, November 12) was so without substance that I was amazed it got published at all, let alone in a prime English publication like the South China Morning Post. The article is muddled in search of a purpose.

The story is related with monotonous simplicity. It begins with Ms Noble having a dream, which is never revealed, followed by a sequence of events as uninformative as they are uninteresting. The first question that pops to mind upon reading it is: what were its author and his editor thinking?

I can live with the fact that the secret was not disclosed. I don’t even mind navigating the flat passages. But I believe part of an unwritten agreement between a writer and a reader is that the reader is entitled to some kind of payoff after investing a certain amount of time reading a story. On finishing this article, the only thing I gathered is that Irish people have a tendency to begin their conversation with “Jesus”.

The story’s headline promises dreams can change your life. It might be right. I think I will find a better way to spend my Sunday mornings than reading stories like this.

JACK TEH, Clear Water Bay

Well, yes indeed.  My feeling was that Evans must have interviewed Christina Noble but either not made very good notes or not quite understood what she had said.  In spite of this he still wrote it up and submitted it, and no-one bothered to check it.  Perhaps it didn’t help that the editor of the Sunday Morning Post was recently sacked, and no replacement appears to have been appointed.

I thought that the funniest part was that the paper should print a letter which was so critical of one of their own journalists.  That, and the SCMP being described as “a prime English publication”…