The Swill

The Swill is a journalist, of a sort, best known for stuffing his face on an expense account and writing about it. In a long and unvaried career he has managed to offend the Welsh - "loquacious, dissemblers, immoral liars, stunted, bigoted, dark, ugly, pugnacious little trolls", the English - "a lumpen and louty, coarse, unsubtle, beady-eyed, beefy-bummed herd", the Manx - "hopeless, inbred mouth-breathers known as Bennies" and Clare Balding - "a dyke on a bike". Our hero has been married twice (once to a Tory MP), shot a baboon whom he wasn't married to and is an alcoholic. Worryingly, he has also sired four children and, like Hitler, is a failed artist.

Restaurant reviews don't interest me; restaurant reviewers still less, and in the normal way of things the Swill's vapid meanderings would have passed me by, but when a man who makes a small fortune from modest talent has the cheek to call expats in the Gulf  "parasites and sycophants for cash" (this from a man who writes for Murdoch!) I think a response is called for.

The Swill, born into privilege and used to receiving huge cheques for his travelling, stuffing and sneering, probably has little idea of life outside the route from Fulham to the dining room of the Wolseley. I shan't spoil his foie gras by describing it. Perhaps he should note for his next column that travel, real travel, is a good deal more than staying in five star hotels and blasting the local fauna.

I note that the Swill suffers from severe dyslexia: what we council 'ouse kids used to call thick. However I shan't pursue this; it would be unkind to make jokes about those with learning difficulties, now wouldn't it?