by Julian Ruck
Did you hear the one about the Welsh education system?
The Estyn Report of 2012 concluded that 40% of Welsh children entering secondary education are going to schools that are barely “adequate.”
Carwyn Jones, admitted that indeed “more work needs to be done”. His education minister, Leighton Andrews, followed this up with an insistence that Wales was not going to follow the English with a new ‘O’ Level type exam that is more rigorous and demanding than the present GCSE.
Can’t have that now can we?
Mustn’t upset the Welsh medium schools with some heinous British deliverance must we? Never mind the fact that Welsh children will be burdened with a third class education, as if their future isn’t grim enough.
Standards? They can go hang. No, the problem is all about money, we are told. It’s all Barnett’s fault. Westminster just isn’t dishing out enough money to Wales, you see.
It’s alright for 10 Welsh poets to enjoy a 10 day little jolly at the Smithsonian in Washington, all expenses paid plus a £100 a day pocket money.
It’s alright to give £4.4m to Welsh publishers to publish 10 books on Welsh place names and DIY manuals on how to fry a Welshcake (I jest not).
It’s alright to give millions of tax-payers’ money to a tiny number of people to write the 100th learned tome on the fanciful Mabinogion, What the hell, there’s no such thing as an ebook in Wales? Stop the tax-payer gravy train? You must be joking!
You may like to know that in this age of austerity, the English arts council has already taken a 21.9% cut with more to come. Some English councils have cut arts funding altogether. What has Wales done? The arts council of Wales has been cut by 2.9%.
“Come on Westminster, Wales needs more money,” is the cry from our devolved government.
The idea of looking at what’s happening across the UK, with moves to raise standards and make exams worth something again, isn’t even on the agenda.
To hell with the future, to hell with Welsh youth, to hell with the fact that entries to Welsh universities are at an all- time low. Who cares that billions of European largesse has gone AWOL, without any kind of scrutiny and accountability?
That’s the sad tale of the Welsh education system: ignoring moves to raise standards and blaming all ills on London while the Welsh administration fritters away valuable public funds on flights of devolved fancy. A true Welsh tragedy.
Julian Ruck is a columnist and author of the Ragged Cliffs Trilogy and recently published legal thriller, the Bent Brief. He has never applied for a tax-payer handout, received a penny from the tax-payer for his novels and neither has his publisher
Tags: Carwyn Jones, Estyn Report, Julian Ruck, Leighton Andrews, Letter from Wales
Can you provide some sources to back up these accusations?
I find it hard to believe the Welsh Government has spent 4.4 mill on books on we Welsh Cakes and Welsh Place names. Is that 4.4 mill per year? Or since devolution?
Have there really been 100 books on the Moribond that are tax-payer funded? Again, I find it hard to believe. Do you have an sources, would be good to read more on this.
But also, surely the Welsh Arts Council has been cut by the same amount as the English one. If 80% of the money comes from Westminster. Or is the Welsh Assembly putting extra money into the Welsh Arts Council to cover the shortfall?
Also, sorry lot of questions, when you say EU money has gone AWOL. Do you mean embezzlement or do you mean it just has not been spent? That’s a pretty major accusation.
What? “His education minister, Leighton Andrews, followed this up with an insistence that Wales was not going to follow the English with a new ‘O’ Level type exam that is more rigorous and demanding than the present GCSE.”
Someone needs to tell Julian that Michael Gove isn’t in fact changing the English system after all, and that this point is simply inaccurate because the English system is staying exactly the same.
This is the only substantive point in this so-called article, and it’s utterly inaccurate.
Oh, and there we go again: in an article about, allegedly, education, this crank is back on his hobbyhorse about publishers who rejected him publishing books by other people.
What on earth is this site doing hosting a plagiarist’s hobbyhorse rants?
The question still hangs Julian re your familiarity with HMP.
Also, one more question. Can you explain how you came up with the figure of 80% of Welsh gov money comming from westminister. Surely its 100% as all tax goes to London and then divided up between Scot, wales, eng, and N.I via the Barrnett Formula. Hoe did you get 80%? And what is the other 20% from?
If possible could you please re-write this in a manner that makes some kind of sense?
So many non-sequitors, so much awkwardly phrased text. It seems to follow a pattern:
Conjecture presented as fact, followed by non-sequitor, followed by rhetorical question relating to a secondary agenda.
Another poster commented on your previous article that you demonstrated no comprehension of the Welsh Government’s primary school foundation phase policy. That kind of ignorance is in evidence here too; you appear to have skimmed a bilious Daily Heil article and replicated the lies and propaganda.
I will be honest; I’m as English as they come but have lived in Wales for some time. I’m happy with devolution; intellectually and economically it is what’s best for all parties. That said, and please do not take this personally, if you are a British Nationalist and not in favour of devolution, it would be best for you to just keep quiet. Your rants and raves make the cause you endorse appear foolish – and that is putting it mildly.
What a pathetic, weak & unsupported pile of drivel. Are you Michael Gove in disguise. That you think the reintroduction of the O-level is a positive education policy prove you really know nothing about education, in Wales or England.
Dear Mr Almond,
You are of course right to ask for greater clarity.
You will find most answers to your questions on my blog julianruck.wordpress.com, more specifically the transcript of the public talk I gave in Cardiff at the end of last year. The title is ‘Welsh Writing Sucks’ – New York Daily News, August 2012. You will find it on the first page.
All the data referred to therein is fully verifiable and sourced. To date not one fact etc has been challenged, I assure you. Indeed many of the details contained in the transcript were already in the public domain, I just happened to highlight them.
In spite of the above, I will add some further clarity which may help:-
1 I don’t think anyone knows exactly the full extent of Welsh writers’ obsession with the Mabinogion or indeed how much the tax-payer has been nobbled for? My remark ‘100 books’ was merely an exercise in facetious satire, nevertheless I have every confidence that any detailed research would reveal that the tax-payer has been positively thrashed for any number of plays, books, poetry et al that you care to mention, where this rather unworthy tome of mythical drivel is concerned.
2 Tax-payer subsidy to the Arts Council of Wales has not been cut by the same amount as its big sister in England. My figures are correct. See WalesOnline, Press reports etc etc
3 There is a plethora of media reporting on the lamentable antics of the Leisure Centre (ie the Welsh Assembly) in Cardiff Bay. As for scrutiny and accountabliity, please look out for further ‘Letters’ on this blog. Billions of Euros have been spent, the trouble is, tax-payers don’t really know on what?
You try getting answers from Carwyn the Druid and his fellow Pagan warriors?? You’ll probably find them on the pleasure boats in Cardiff Bay. I’m told that at the moment, they are deliberating on the mountains of surplus fishy laverbread along with imbibing gallons of Moet ap Chandon!
Best wishes,
JR
1. Education policy runs to 17% of Assembly Budget. Arts is tiny compared to that. (Both is small compared to the NHS behemoth of 39%) So you hardly blame the Arts funding undermining the education in Wales.
Plus there is more fundamental issue in Wales around education, many of the schools serve areas of poverty. Educating children from these background is challenging enough.
Don’t mind you attacking the state education julian, but blaming it on the Arts funding is stupid.
2. I should congratulate this website for running an article attacking a Labour run administration. Good to see open debate though!
Julian – have you ever been in prison?
Julian – is England changing its GCSE system?
The answer is , of course, no.
Your main point is therefore a lie.
Good luck with your BNP fanbase, Julian.
Labour Uncut – what are you doing with this clown?
How many Welsh publishers rejected you , Julian?
I know of two, and there are more.
To Mr Appleby,
You are happy with Devolution and of course you are entitled to your opinion.
I have stated that Devoluton per se is an admirable idea, it is what those in power do with it, that is the problem.
You cannot deny that in Wales since 1997, we have:-
1 A Health Service in free fall – talk to any medical practionaer in Wales to confirm this, never mind the Press and independent sources.
2 An education sysyetm that is failing Welsh youth on grand scale.
3 An economy and ‘government’ that is addicted to tax-payer subsidy – fact. As one gentleman recenty said to me in Oxford, ‘Even Welsh companies are on the dole!’ And before you start attacking the English, he has a company in Wales that employs over 100 people, although sadly he is pulling out ( he is also fed up with the Welsh government trying to throw subsidies at him which he regards as ‘humiliating’.
Finally, I do wish you people of a contrary opinion to my own, would exercise some restraint where personal attack is concerned, albeit that I am patently aware of both the low-grade level of debate in Wales, together with its paucity of intellectual finesse.
JR
PS I am reminded here of AM’s, having to be told how to sit, dress and look at a camera – by their own administrators!
To Mr Williams,
I will respond to your comment but this will be tha last time. Your petty spite and puerile play-ground diversions have become tedious – particularly your relentless stalking of my blog.
Where have I said, that the appalling state of Welsh education is the result of Arts funding? That’s ridiculous.
I am however, reminded of a course at Coleg Sirgar (nothing to to with the ill-fated Shergar, before any of you English race-goers start getting confused!). Apparently, one can ontain a ‘Certificate in Numeracy’ if one is able to count up to twenty, and indeed even a ‘Diploma’ if one doesn’t cheat by removing one’s shoes and socks!
Such is the state of Welsh education, oh and not to mention the other course that the venerable ‘Coleg’ runs ie Hedge-Row Cutting. If one can do this in a straight line I’m told, then one even gets a ‘Diploma’ in ‘Coppice (not codpiece, please note) Management.
True too!
JR
“I don’t think anyone knows exactly the full extent of Welsh writers’ obsession with the Mabinogion or indeed how much the tax-payer has been nobbled for? My remark ’100 books’ was merely an exercise in facetious satire, nevertheless I have every confidence that any detailed research would reveal that the tax-payer has been positively thrashed for any number of plays, books, poetry et al that you care to mention, where this rather unworthy tome of mythical drivel is concerned.”
While Mr Ruck must have his view, I do wonder if a book that inspired one of Alan Garner’s finest novels can be so easily dismissed.
Other writers to be inspired by the Mabinogion include John Cowper Powys and Evangeline Walton, whose quartet of novels based on it won several awards.
To Simon Christopher-Chambers,
You wouldn’t happen to be teacher now would you? My ‘pile of drivel’ is supported by most of the people in this country, and the evidence for the deterioration of standards is plain for all to see.
I myself have trained young lawyers, recruited staff, interviewed, shortlisted, employed interns etc etc. The standard of both undergraduate and post graduate intellectual prowess these days is frankly, abysmal – and this is not the students’ fault, they are constantly being hoodwinked by obsessions of pretty self-esteem and deluded empathy.
Come to that, I have spoken with many teachers who have difficulty composing an articulate sentence, so God knows what they are doing to our young.
JR
PS By the way I’m schizophrenic, a Gove – Miliband split personality I’m afraid. Well, maybe I am, maybe I’m not………
To Ramsey Campbell,
Perhaps you would be so good as to declare to the readers of this blog, that you yourself are a recipient of tax-payers’ money ie the fee you were paid for a forward to the Library of Wales series.
Further, that for some months now you have fully condoned the abuse and insult directed toward me from others.
I still have the comments you made on my blog, from which you have since been blocked.
JR
Dear Julian,
Why would I ‘start attacking the English’? I am English, as I stated in my post.
Points 1 and 2 in your reply are typically nonsensical and read like Daily Heil letters page contributions.
Point 3 is a lie, a construction you have imagined to further your own point. Read it again and consider how absurd it sounds to people reading it.
And may I further point out Mr Campbell, that £350,000 to date of tax-payers’ money has gone in to the Library of Wales book series ie for the re-publication of old Welsh books and writers that few people have heard of let alone read. And that the Welsh Books Council, still stands by its ‘commercial confidentiality’ mantra where releasing actual sales figure into the public domain are concerned?
The Sunday Politics Show (Welsh section) did a piece on the series last December. I was interviewed by BBC Wales (pre-recorded) for it but kept out of the live studio debate – two AM’s discussing the series, neither of whom had any experience or knowledge of the publishing industry let alone God forbid,books.
The BBC omitted to mention that the journalist, one Brian Meechan, who originally interviewed me and obtained a considerable amount of information, some of it confidential, failed to declare that he himself had received £4000 from the tax-payer (through Literature Wales, a side-kick of the Arts Council of Wales) for his own book that very same year.
So much for the BBC’s self-righteous howls of impartiality in all things!
The Library of Wales series Mr Campbell, please? Just another little Literati grant carve up of tax-payers’ hard-earned.
Oh and lest I forget, the BBC also omitted to mention that their star player on the programme in support of the book series, one Jon Gower, was a previous BBC Wales arts correspondent and recipient of £17,500 tax-payer hand-out for his own writings!
Do you want me to go on, because I have plenty more where this came from? All fully verifiable and all incontrovertible.
JR
In which case ‘Mr Appleby’ why would I attack the Welsh. I am Welsh.
And I do wish you would stop calling me a liar. Extremely ungentlemanly, you know
JR
“Perhaps you would be so good as to declare to the readers of this blog, that you yourself are a recipient of tax-payers’ money ie the fee you were paid for a forward to the Library of Wales series.”
What did I forward to it? I’m happy to confirm that I was commissioned to write an introduction to a book by Arthur Machen. I was honoured to convey my enthusiasm for his work – he deserves to be still better known and appreciated.
I’m equally happy to hear that my comments have been reinstated on your blog, since you deleted some of them (which I copied before they vanished). All of them are polite, just like this one, and folk can check if they wish.
Obsessional Ruck claims to write about education (while not knowing anything about it – i.,e. that the English system is NOT in fact changing!), then veers off towards attacking writers in Wales.
Julian has of course omitted to mention that he had his novels rejected by the two leading Welsh publishers. He has lied about this and denied it until he was caught out. Fact. Come on Julian – admit that you sent your book to Seren and Parthian, and that you turned very nasty when they rejected them. Admit also that you lied about never having submitted to them, but were caught out.
I note you are avoiding the question of whether you’ve ever been in prison.
‘To Ramsey Campbell,
Perhaps you would be so good as to declare to the readers of this blog, that you yourself are a recipient of tax-payers’ money ie the fee you were paid for a forward to the Library of Wales series.’
Julian, it is a foreword, not a forward! Silly Julian.
On your last blog post, the one where you lie again about your talk in Cardiff, of which I was present, you have written this gem…
‘AGAIN NO SCRUTINY, NO ACCOUNTABILITY and NO QUALITY CONTROL. WHAT THE HELL IS TH WELSH ASSEMBLY DOING WHAT THE HELL IS THE ARTS COUNCIL OF WALES DOING?????
WHEN DOES NEW AND FRESH TALENT GET A CHANCE? IF YOU’RE NOT IN THE CLIUB BUGGER OFF’
If you write that badly, of course you will not get published by any serious publisher!
Julian, I do not think you are qualified to question literacy in Wales when your own writing would be, at best, B grade at GCSE level.
Another gem from your speech that never was…
‘The Welsh education system we all know is in a parlous if not critical state, is on a par with Czecho etc.’
When writing about countries (I think?), make sure they exist first. That would be bad in a geography GCSE, Julian.
The header to your blog says this…
‘Writer of the best-selling Ragged Cliffs tilogy’
Can you spot the error? Though it has given me much mirth I have decided to point it out to you on a humanitarian basis.
Parthian and Seren sell a lot more individual books than you Julian, admit it. Why do you start an article, if that is what it should be called, on education, and bring it always back to books?
You know nothing about publishing but when it comes to education you are the last person with a valid opinion.
Do you say your previous interns were poor because you messed up your embarrassing e-book festival?
Your books do not sell, your books are payed for by yourself, you use a printers and you lie out of spite for people who are more successful than you? You show terrible naivety at the tiny amount of government expenditure that actually goes toward books, which you argue does not enrich the future of Wales? The point of the library of Wales series Julian is to keep these great books alive and read for the future, but you are so blinkered that you can’t comprehend this. £50,000 a year is a great use of a paltry amount of government money for an outcome so essential.
Are you a writer who hates writing and books? A man who hates culture and people who are allowed with a small amount of help, to hone their craft?
The one thing, and one thing only, that I think you are right about, is that grants to BBC presenters should be stopped, but that is just so that money could be used for more young writers awards.
Julian declare your interest in your personal abuse of Welsh writers and your accusations of corruption: declare that you were turned down by the very publishers you now attack.
Hi Julian,
Thanks for replying to my message, but I am afraid it, and your other posts, lead to more questions.
Mainly that you say in one sentence that all the things you state are facts and fully verifiable and that can’t be challenged, but then also say that some of your remarks, like the ‘100 books’ is satire. Could you maybe give an indication as to which bits of the blog post is fact and which is satire?
For example, You say the Welsh arts council has not been cut by the same extent as the English one and point to Wales Online. That’s a large site and I have tried searching for the figures but not found anything, please point me to the correct page. Also, can you say were you get the figure of 4.4 mill being spent on books on welsh cakes from?
You also say that the first minister is a Druid. Is that true? Or just satire?
Darren,
As I say, please read the trancsript of my talk, all data including the 4.4 million is fully verified and sourced.
For confirmation of the percentage cuts in the Arts Council of Wales funding, feel free to call them direct. I am sure they will will confirm.
Carwyn Jones is a Druid I assure you, the photo of him regaled in blue robes from top to toe is plastered all over the internet. I believe he is presently considering an haute couture fashion show at the Assembly – somthing to do with upstaging Milan, Paris and London apparently.
Indeed, he is also contemplating a Taffy Diktat in respect of the appropriate dress code for AM’s. In future he wants them all to wear tall Welsh black hats when the Senate is in session.
Oh and for the record Betsan Powys (Druidical name Betsi Treganna) of BBC ap Wales is also a Druid, although I hear that of late she has been experiencing technical problems with her Lightsaber – too many ‘ap’s’ in the power pack I believe.
JR
This is a nonsensical article. First of all the author can’t spell and is a shocking example of poor education in himself, and second he appears not to know that Michael Gove decided not – I repeat NOT – change the English qualification system after all. What is this site doing publishing such ill-informed rubbish? And stuff that meets with approval from the BNP no less.
Is this Julian Ruck chap a satirical invention by the editors of Labour Uncut? I have looked him up andc he appears to be a self-published writer of some of the most risibly bad prose I’ve ever come across. As a teacher of English myself, in the home counties state sector, it seems clear that this Ruck chap would struggle with today’s GCSE, let alone the old O Level.
Either way he has no idea what he’s talking about and appears to be driven by hatred of his fellow-Welsh, and of proper writers.
I am puzzled to see him on a site like this.
As it happens, I was reading my newspaper today and found this article
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/boyd-tonkin-whatever-unites-the-uk-it-is-not–and-never-has-been–a-common-language-8629855.html
In which one of Britain’s leading literary critics and book reviewers praises Welsh writing, including writers whom Ruck has personally abused, and recommends books that have been published by Welsh publishers. He does not sneer at Welsh-speakers, and clearly has a better idea of what Britain is, and what the English language means, than the bilious, embittered and semi-literate Ruck.
Now that I’ve checked up Mr Ruck I realise that he is not just a rotten writer, but also a plagiarist. What a nasty character.
Seriously Labour Uncut, did you not check the credentials of this character before you published him? He’s a plagiarist: http://johnabell.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/julian-ruck-plagiarist-by-steve-mosby.html. That’s disgraceful. Shame on you for endorsing him. How can you expect us to take someone seriously who’s tried to pass off a proper writer’s work as his own? You do your website a real disservice by allowing it to be used as a platform by this charlatan.
Mr Ruck: please declare your interest and admit Seren and Parthian rejected you, and that you sent them insulting , badly-written and bitter emails. You’ve lied about this before, now admit it in an open forum where you can’t censor comments.
Also: my question still stands: have you ever been in prison? As you are a documented plagiarist, a thief of others’ words and a fraudulent passer-off of those words as your own, I’d like to know if there’s any more we need to know about you.
A response to Mr Simon Appleby……..
http://mrorigamidotorg.wordpress.com/2013/05/25/simon-appleby-an-honest-person/
To Mr Darren Almond…………..
http://mrorigamidotorg.wordpress.com/2013/05/14/a-letter-of-warning-to-carwyn/
Now that I’ve got the bit between my teeth, let me also point readers to this
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22648328
in which the eminent philosopher, the really world-class thinker John Gray of the LSE, writes for the BBC about how good Arhur Machen is – something explicitly possible now that the LIbrary of Wales, which self-published plagiarist and cyber-bully Julian Ruck derides, have reissued his novels. Good on them, and good on Ramsey Campbell for providing the foreword (which the ludicrous Ruck, in a blog post about ‘literacy’, spells ‘Forward’!). Library of Wales must be doing something right if they are reissuing forgotten classics by Welsh writers which we can all enjoy.
Shame on the poisonous Mr Ruck – no wonder they won’t publish you in Wales. I’m sure we won;t here in England either.
I recommend this wonderful tongue-in-cheek Julian Ruck ‘homage’ site: it had me rolling in the aisles
http://jewelsfromjulian.wordpress.com/
the best of it was that Ruck himself has called the police on it, and the police found there was no case to answer. What did Ruck do? Fulminated about the police! For someone who claims to care about taxpayer’s money, he was in fact found to have wasted police time. It’s hilarious.
Thank you Labour Uncut for introducing me to this buffoon and his antics.
Hang about… the Mabinogion is a ‘rather unworthy tome of mythical drivel’? What? As Ramsey Campbell says… the work that inspired Alan Garner’s astonishing and beautiful The Owl Service? And surely informs the wonderful (and I agree much neglected) output of Arthur Machen?
If the Mabinogion is ‘mythical drivel’ then I guess so is Beowulf, Gilgamesh, the Rayamyana and… well everything really. Except the output of Mr Julian Ruck.
My first thought when reading this odd piece was that it was nothing to do with Welsh education. Though perhaps I’m wrong. Julian… you need one.
Dear Mr Hewson,
For nearly a year now, you have been following my humble scribbling and patently uneducated efforts with a keyboard.
For one to whom you feel such a passionate contempt, I remain utterly mystified as to why you persist in exercising your subversive wit and adorable intellect in my direction?
No accounting for taste, I suppose.
Yours as always,
Julian Ruck
PS A comment or two on the issues I raise would be more helpful, perhaps?
Dear Mr Ruck,
It is wonderful of you to keep coming back for more, you are a real treat. I’ve told many of my friends about you and your hilarious backstory (your rejection by publishers, your plagiarism, your endless and constant spelling and grammar and punctuation errors in ‘articles’ about literacy and education), and you’ll be glad to know that we are starting a Surrey Branch of your fan club.
It has been a real education getting to know you, your work, and your hapless foot in mouth outbursts. Comic gold, no wonder the Welsh want to keep you to themselves, a hidden gem, a one-man assault on the English language.
If, as you keep telling us, there are Welsh-language extremists out there (most of the people who call you to rights are English, so far as I can tell) they must be delighted that you’re doing more to damage English in Wales than anyone else.
You have been challenged yourself here to admit you’ve been turned down by Welsh publishers, and also to state whether or not you’ve been in prison.
How nice, Mr Ruck now boasts of his association with Labour Uncut on his blog site. And he has corrected the hopelessly funny ‘Tilogy’ to ‘Trilogy’. The man may censor his blog, but he’s not above some gentle editing, thanks to fans and friends on this site.
It must be wonderful for Labour Uncut to be associated with such a fine writer and astute commentator; see below:
“JULIAN RUCK – AUTHOR AND COLUMNIST.Julian is the author of the Ragged Cliffs Trilogy and legal thriller The Bent Brief. He is a weekly guest writer for the influential Westminster blog Labour Uncut and writes a weekly column for a regional newspaper.”
What on earth is this drivel doing on Labour-Uncut?
Quality control, please.
‘heinous British deliverance’? Can someone translate this pap from Ruckspeak into English? You can always tell when Ruck isn’t plagiarising: he’s incomprehensible!
(“Akira Origami” is not of course a Japanese person, but an anti-Welsh blogger who blogs anonymously exclusively attacking Welsh and Welsh-speakers. he has no other topic, and is obviously using Ruck to garner attention for his own ill-written junk. He can’t for example spell ‘racism’ – he writes ‘rascism’. He also has a picture of a Japanese man with a ballgag in his mouth as his author picture. Racist or ‘rascist’? You decide. All I know is that when , like Ruck and Origami, you can barely manage to write English, the sight of people managing perfectly well in not one but TWO languages must be galling.
How sad does one have to be to need Julian Ruck to gain attention?
There are some pitiful people out there.
Labour uncut – are your quality control people on sabbatical? This is the worst written most factually inept article I’ve read in ages. Is this the only person you can find to write on Welsh matters? I’d think twice about publishing plagiarists too if I were you.
Mr Ruck. If you will keep inserting my name into your inane posts without reason you really shouldn’t be surprised if from time to time I respond to point out how ridiculous your comments are. For example you managed to mention me in this drivel the other day simply because I share the same surname as someone else you’ve taken against – http://julianruck.wordpress.com/2013/05/21/single-issue-pressure-groups/
And in the same piece you manage to throw in a mention of Steve Mosby. I don’t recall either of us expressing an opinion about the subject of your post, namely, ‘the futile Operation Yewtree prosecution of old men, being undertaken by the police’. Though I do wonder if you’ll be writing on how pointless Yewtree is for Labour Uncut too.
Dear Mr Hewson,
‘Taken against’ one Barbara Hewson? My article supported the barrister’s right to freedom of exprssion. May I suggest that you deign, yet again, to exercise your erstwhile journalistic prowess on one as ‘drivel’ contaminated as my good self and read said article properly?
Churnalism is rather an indolent endeavour, I am sure you will agree?
Your favourite muse,
Julian
PS You really are such a silly-billy, David. Oh and I won’t be responding to you again, I really am rather busy. So do please feel free to vent your captivating frustrations at will.
“PS You really are such a silly-billy, David. Oh and I won’t be responding to you again, I really am rather busy. So do please feel free to vent your captivating frustrations at will.”
OK, I’ll help you Julian by admitting on your behalf that you were rejected by two of the Welsh publishers you’ve attacked, and that you cut up pretty nasty with them when they turned you down. You also denied this and lied about it. In your letters to them you claimed that you agent , which you didn’t have, was touting your book (the same one they rejected) to ‘big London publishers’ who had expressed ‘a lot of interest’. But then you get your book printed (not published) by a West Wales printer.
Enough of this charlatanism, enough of this deceit. Come clean – you’ll feel better for it!
(I still want to know whether you’ve done time – don’t evade the question)
Here’s a test of the Ruck veracity.
In October last year he declared to his local paper that he was abandoning Wales to return to England.
http://www.thisissouthwales.co.uk/Author-s-blast-quits-Wales/story-17025694-detail/story.html#axzz2UfDxWCxW
‘As a writer, small-mindedness is a no-go area and yet in Wales I encounter on a daily basis xenophobic pettiness, institutions hell bent on sending Wales back into a Dark Age that constantly seeks refuge in the deluded dreams of ancient grandeur… It is time for me to move on to a place without separation, to a place with an open-mind and a welcome to all men, a United Kingdom, where all men (and women) are equal.’
And yet… here he is writing a letter FROM Wales. So when you said you were leaving Julian… what happened there?
Then there’s the ludicrous Kidwelly Festival. Last August he told the Bookseller it would happen again this year even though it was a catastrophe which wasted a lot of other people’s time in its first disastrous incarnation. http://www.thebookseller.com/news/e-book-festival-will-run-again.html
Well it’s 2013 now, Julian. When does your festival take place?
And finally Labour Uncut may wish to consider that Julian Ruck is the only man I know whose actually had his self-propagated Wikipedia entry removed on the simple grounds he isn’t what he claims to be – a professional author.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Julian_Ruck
You’re not my favourite muse, Julian. You’re a charlatan trying desperately to raise a little self-publicity through any bandwagon you can hitch a ride on. Everyone seems to have rumbled you except this web site.
Ruck couldn’t spell veracity, let alone abide by it. He employs a PR firm called Palamedes to tout his drivel around the web, though they kept a good distance from him when his plagiarism of Christopher Hitchens came to light.
His passage across the internet is like a skidmark across the pristine Y fronts of truth and literacy.
Which is why I’m baffled that this site hosts his factually inaccurate, bigoted and illiterate ravings.
I love this moment from someone’s experience of the Kidwelly E-Festival:
“This man, however, seemed to be unwilling to take responsibility for his own show and seemed incapable of showing any concern for the disappointments of others. “This is a shambles,” I said, raising my voice. “You’ve lost an author for pities sake” However, he seemed to be talking as though this was a small wisp of cloud in an otherwise clear blue sky.
Well, I demanded my money back and we finally left the venue, wiser for the experience but poorer in terms of time lost in hours of preparation, in rearranging the whole weekend to accommodate this fiasco, and in emotional investment in terms of hopes raised and dashed and the frustration felt in watching a train crash of an event and being unable to do anything about it, not even reason with the organiser.”