If you understand that acronym you’re probably under 40. Then again you might not be cos I’m not, as yesterday’s post proved when it brought me a letter inviting me to apply for my pension. I’ve already sussed out how much I’m going to get so in one sense the letter was welcome, though in another, of course… Anyway, AITA stands for the succinct and elegant question, Am I The Asshole? (being an internet thing, we obviously have to use the American spelling.) You can find a whole series of AITAs on the internet and let me tell you, it’s a real self-righteous fest; almost as good as watching Crash Detectives where trained police officers try to figure out what happened in an RTA (there’s another acronym for you: AITA in the RTA?) Replies begin with either YTA (you’re the asshole) or NTA followed by an explanation; from the ones I’ve seen there’s usually a surprising amount of unanimity.
Which brings us to Gary Lineker. As you no doubt know by now, Lineker has found himself in hot water (unlike the poor sods trying to cross the channel who are in very cold water indeed) about remarks he made following Suella Braverman’s announcement of the latest plan to deter small boats. He tweeted that the plan was ‘beyond awful’ and later defended the comment by saying that there was ‘no huge influx’ and that the policy was ‘immeasurably cruel.’ He went on to compare it to those used by Nazi Germany in the ’30’s. The BBC had said it will be speaking to him about impartiality but as he’s freelance and particularly as he has garnered a lot of support (including from Piers Morgan, improbably) he’s unlikely to be dropped from the schedules. I was quite shocked to learn, however, that he earns more than 1.3 million quid for that gig. That’s a heck of a lot of money – but beside the point here.
So is Gary Lineker TA? I would say absolutely NTA and maybe those who bang on about free speech can take note.
What’s your view? Vote below with HTA or NTA but be warned; racist comments will be deleted and the author blocked. Not that any of my lovely followers would be so mean… just saying.
Kirk out
I’m trying some new colours. You like? Of course you have to change the text one block at a time, which is annoying – but then everything about blocks is annoying. I suspect there are a lot of bullshit jobs in WordPress which involve annoying the users in a variety of interesting ways.
Sarada Gray 