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Columns from the inimitable Marina Hyde from 2016-2022: if you haven't read her, feast your eyes on quotations below and rest assured, there's plenty more of this sardonic commentary. In the interests of our sanity. Hyde is the daughter of Sir Alastair Edgcumbe James Dudley-Williams, 2nd Baronet, and his wife, the former Diana Elizabeth Jane Duncan. Through her father, she is the granddaughter of aviation pioneer and Conservative politician Sir Rolf Dudley-Williams, 1st Baronet. She attended Downe House School, near Newbury in Berkshire, [1] and read English at Christ Church, Oxford. [2] The Sun [ edit ]
It was a real sandbox,” she says. “I could do what I wanted with it—I definitely wouldn’t be writing about politics in the way I do if I hadn’t done that.” It is her ability to draw from popular culture and sport, alongside history and politics, that make Hyde’s columns so appealing. “Most people don’t know all these obscure political references, but everyone likes [Taylor Swift’s] ‘Blank Space,’” she reasons. “I get very annoyed by people who will pretend not to know who Kim Kardashian is,” she groans. “Nobody ever says, ‘Who’s Cristiano Ronaldo?’” Surprisingly few ever complain though. But then, “it’s a terrible show of weakness to have read [the column]”, she says with a laugh. “Johnson always when I’ve seen him has gone –” she looks down and gruffly shakes her head. “I think that’s absolutely ridiculous. What he should really do is pretend that he’s never seen it at all.” As settings go, it feels a little on-the-nose for a meeting with, arguably, this country’s foremost living satirist, one who – through Brexit, four Tory prime ministers, Trump and a global pandemic, via narcissistic celebrities, evil billionaires, disgraced princes, and, of course, spineless politicians – has become the chief chronicler of our stranger-than-fiction times.Morgan, Piers (30 June 2012). The Insider: The Private Diaries of a Scandalous Decade. Random House. ISBN 978-1-4464-9168-3.
Since 2000, Hyde has worked for The Guardian, at first writing the newspaper's Diary column. She contributes three columns a week: one on sport, one on celebrity, and one which is typically about politics. Her sport column appears on Thursday; her celebrity column is entitled Lost in Showbiz and appears in the G2 supplement each Friday. She has a regular serious column in the main section of The Guardian on Saturday, as well as a column in the "Weekend" supplement, in which she parodies a celebrity diary entry. This is entitled A Peek at the Diary of..., which ends in the sign-off, "As seen by Marina Hyde". Hyde was nominated as Columnist of the Year in the 2010 British Press Awards. For all the abject absurdity of 2022, so too is there much rage and terror. On the precipice of fuel poverty and looming recession, with a government mostly obsessed by its own machinations, how does Hyde stop the bleakness edging in? Greenslade, Roy (24 December 2011). "Caseby's squalid note to the Guardian editor shows News International's true face". The Guardian.
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What about legal restrictions? “There’s almost always a way around… a way that means that the reader will understand exactly the same thing from [a joke], but somehow I am not going to court for it. I really try and get as close as possible to that line. It’s been my life’s work!” Verbally abused An infinite number of gag-writers, working all day in a gag factory, couldn't come up with any of the perfectly-formed one-liners that populate Marina Hyde's hilarious writing . . . But behind the wit lurks real anger, argument, exasperation and intelligence. Her writing is more than a gentle poke in the ribs: it's a well-wrought and deftly aimed smash in the teeth.' Marina Hyde is a brilliantly funny satirist with an ingenius ability to describe this situation. Her intimate knowledge of the British political landscape makes the commentary reach a level of granularity that I honestly found a little tough going at times, but at other times hilarious. While Brexit was a regrettable thing to us Irish, for me, following its ins and outs that closely hasn't really been a priority. To those more familiar with the subject, these portions of the book may be more rewarding. Certain other articles rang stunningly true, such as 'Britons want a bit of drama from their leaders - and Keir Starmer isn't serving it'. It seems to be a truism that the nuttier the Prime Minister is as an ideologue, the longer they last in the U.K. There is of course one exception to this: Liz Truss. Hyde's book was published before her 'tenure', but I mean, Truss does at least have the distinction of overturning this rule of thumb.
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