But the non cash register part of the job involved getting boxes of shoes and he couldn't read those either. But luckily Debs immediately notices and compensated for him... Cos that's how jobs work, nobody would notice the shoe getter lad on the shop floor needs to be accompanied to the stock room every time...
Jason Arday #3
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Also, if true, he would have been a proper nuisance to Debs, constantly getting in the way of her doing her job. Not that this seems to have bothered him. Everyone’s just a supporting character, aren’t they.
H&M are coming back to UK. Has MM been pictured with G.A.U.T?
In terms of PR you can imagine that her reaching out to family would be something her team might advise.
In terms of PR you can imagine that her reaching out to family would be something her team might advise.
PLEASE PLEASE Brogan Tate
I've been following the Jason Arday story and the posts on here are a wonderful example of consideration, experience, empathy and sanity compared to the guff from both sides elsewhere.
I was interested in his story because I find fabulists fascinating. Jack Monroe brought me to Tattle after all. I've met a few IRL, none that actually parlayed a lucrative career out of it as Arday (and to a more limited extent Monroe) did.
I well remember the story of Rachel Dolezal, who was globally condemned, castigated and mocked for YEARS for choosing to present herself as Black. That story intrigued me in particular because she didn't seem to have done it to cheat, get rich or grift off people - she seemed to really feel quite sincere about her Black identity, her adopted sons were Black and she raised a lot of money for her local branch of NCAAP - so the money went to actual Black people. Then I watched the NF docu about her and she was talking about the pain and trauma of her childhood and how the Black identity became a way of escaping from that. It was her safe space, where she felt she really belonged.
I then ended up watching a lot of YouTube docus about the clinical psychology of fabulism. That's YT of course, not proper academic psychology, so I admit my relative ignorance but what struck me was many psychologists talking about how pathological fabulism often originates in childhood trauma. The fabulist constructs a new identity to escape the pain of their old one (which I can't lie, got me thinking about FtM trans identities too). Also fabulism apparently can function like an addiction (addiction also being linked with childhood trauma ofc) - when the lie is believed, the fabulist gets a massive dopamine hit. But over time, they get used to that level of dopamine and so have to keep inventing bigger and bigger lies to get the same dopamine hit. I wonder if any of the above applied to Arday.
It's a matter of public interest too because Cambridge is meant to represent UK academic excellence on a global stage. So anything that damages that, as Cambridge's approach to and irresponsible elevation of the unqualified and vulnerable Arday did (not to mention the unforgivable lapse in academic standards which have been the pride of British academia since the Enlightenment) needs to be looked at closely.
I appreciate none of the above may add anything useful but I find it interesting.
Oh yeah, and Jolyon Maugham is clearly officially losing it. What an epic twunt.
I was interested in his story because I find fabulists fascinating. Jack Monroe brought me to Tattle after all. I've met a few IRL, none that actually parlayed a lucrative career out of it as Arday (and to a more limited extent Monroe) did.
I well remember the story of Rachel Dolezal, who was globally condemned, castigated and mocked for YEARS for choosing to present herself as Black. That story intrigued me in particular because she didn't seem to have done it to cheat, get rich or grift off people - she seemed to really feel quite sincere about her Black identity, her adopted sons were Black and she raised a lot of money for her local branch of NCAAP - so the money went to actual Black people. Then I watched the NF docu about her and she was talking about the pain and trauma of her childhood and how the Black identity became a way of escaping from that. It was her safe space, where she felt she really belonged.
I then ended up watching a lot of YouTube docus about the clinical psychology of fabulism. That's YT of course, not proper academic psychology, so I admit my relative ignorance but what struck me was many psychologists talking about how pathological fabulism often originates in childhood trauma. The fabulist constructs a new identity to escape the pain of their old one (which I can't lie, got me thinking about FtM trans identities too). Also fabulism apparently can function like an addiction (addiction also being linked with childhood trauma ofc) - when the lie is believed, the fabulist gets a massive dopamine hit. But over time, they get used to that level of dopamine and so have to keep inventing bigger and bigger lies to get the same dopamine hit. I wonder if any of the above applied to Arday.
It's a matter of public interest too because Cambridge is meant to represent UK academic excellence on a global stage. So anything that damages that, as Cambridge's approach to and irresponsible elevation of the unqualified and vulnerable Arday did (not to mention the unforgivable lapse in academic standards which have been the pride of British academia since the Enlightenment) needs to be looked at closely.
I appreciate none of the above may add anything useful but I find it interesting.
Oh yeah, and Jolyon Maugham is clearly officially losing it. What an epic twunt.
It's quite interesting to me how various guardian angels or evil naysayers pop up in Arday's life story, to predict something or tell him something horrible which he can then triumph over.
There's the soothsaying aid worker in Peru, the evil bullies in academia, the various individuals whose only purpose in life seems to be to pop up in Arday's life story to spot his latent angelic genius or to cruelly taunt and hold him back.
Again, Jack Monroe had a lot of this. There was the teacher who told her she was only good for flipping burgers, the kind unnamed people who would turn up to paint her flat or leave care parcels at her door, the evil ex who said she wasn't butch.
It does seem to be part of the fabulist playbook - to sprinkle in deus ex machina type characters who unfortunately aren't around to confirm the story because they melted out of the fabulist's life as soon as they'd made their prediction / served their purpose.
On the US inspo-over-adversity book market, there's been some pretty big fabulist disasters in the past. A Million Little Pieces in which the author James Frey pretended to be a reformed gangster and bigtime drug kingpin crack addict who was wanted in four states...but turned out to be a middle class frat boy with a mild weed-n-coke issue. Oprah bigged him up and to be fair to her (and him) raked him over the coals in a proper mea culpa interview afterwards.
Dave Pelz, who wrote perhaps the most famous and shocking piece of 'misery lit' ever, A Child Called It, also had his story called into question by his own siblings...I don't know what ended up happening there.
I'm shocked it's actually ghost written, it's so badly written and ridiculous I'd assumed he did it alone
…and how she disappointed doing even that
Public Sector department memos like this really got on my bits. We were not allowed to have a political opinion as individuals but had to grin and bear the grossly simplified political opinions of HR.My public sector workplace sent out a message to everyone talking about the impact of 'racism discrimination and the disproportionate and negative scrutiny that Prof Arday and other black professionals face in organisations in public life' and have set up a support group!
So it doesn't matter that he was a fantasist and a liar then
Other classics included memos about ‘Blue Monday’ (made up by marketers to sell holidays in January) ‘Male Loneliness Epidemic’ not an ‘epidemic’ of men not getting sexual attention that they feel entitled to, and memorials to one particular past genocide rather than collective or current genocides. I’d draft replies but was wary in case there would be a HR backlash? Do you know if it could be a disciplinary?
His writing style doesn’t feel like it’s intended to entertain or to educate. It feels like he is writing his own interview with himself. Sunday supplement tone, journalist describing the mundane details for ages at the start to give the right level of nonchalance, whilst romanticising their influence with iykyk references. If feels like a strange external gaze, like he is thinking about how someone else would perceive his story, rather than him reflecting on his choices?
Listening to the spiked podcast about this and they're mentioning the Phillip S scandal and how people in the media knew the truth 18 months before it came out. Hello??!! People on tattle knew the truth years before and unlike Mumsnet and digital spy it wasn't all deleted as there was extensive evidence.
Tattle is called a gossip forum but actually it's not unfounded made up stuff but usually based on receipts and honest opinion rather than wild speculation with no basis.
If Jason arday had of been bigger on social media or crossed paths with other pathological liars like jack Monroe or not a doctor Jessica Taylor then he would have had a thread years ago
The sooner the truth was widespread the more chance there would have been of this not having such a tragic outcome.
Tattle is called a gossip forum but actually it's not unfounded made up stuff but usually based on receipts and honest opinion rather than wild speculation with no basis.
If Jason arday had of been bigger on social media or crossed paths with other pathological liars like jack Monroe or not a doctor Jessica Taylor then he would have had a thread years ago
The sooner the truth was widespread the more chance there would have been of this not having such a tragic outcome.
That’s just made me remember what it all reminds me of…
Me, aged 8/9, interviewing myself on a tape recorder for Radio Morty.
I think the 'only had five pounds cash in my pocket' is being taken too literally. I didn't understand that to mean he'd *just* been paid, more that the money was precious.
I looked at the Amazon US reviews yesterday and something weird happened where is said something like, it couldn't show any more reviews unless I registered interest and it would email them to me (within 5 days). I've never seen that before!
I looked at the Amazon US reviews yesterday and something weird happened where is said something like, it couldn't show any more reviews unless I registered interest and it would email them to me (within 5 days). I've never seen that before!
I do think that Cambridge should've dealt with it quietly as soon as questions about his work were raised which I believe were shortly after his appointment in 2023.
Instead they seem to've made an effort to put him on as big a public platform as possible and employed Carter Ruck to get heavy as soon as journos start asking questions. Which can't have been good if Arday was indeed a clinical fabulist. Reinforcing the delusions so to speak
The discussion started though because his claim in the book that Debs set up a bank account for him while he was studying would mean he didn’t have one when working at Sports World, so no mechanism to be paid direct deposit unless it was going to someone else’s account. Maybe they paid him by cheque and he went and cashed it at Riley’s snooker hall while playing in his pro-am tournaments?
His stories are preposterous and the book’s painfully written tedious nonsense, so who knows?
ETA: just checked and I can see the reviews just fine, but it might be because of 65 reviews only 4 are from verified purchasers of the book? Both positive and negative reviewers seem to be bombing them with unverified reviews.
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Cambridge didn’t hire Carter duck. Arday did.
There's a piece in the Telegraph from the Cambridge Chancellor. Trying to limit damage but nothing else imo 
Quote: "Cambridge lives or dies as a centre of academic excellence; and protecting those standards of excellence should always be a priority for the university.”
Quote: "Cambridge lives or dies as a centre of academic excellence; and protecting those standards of excellence should always be a priority for the university.”
duck me, I'm not exactly a Cambridge Comms Department PR guru on megabucks but even I can see that this verbiage is a tad unfortunateThere's a piece in the Telegraph from the Cambridge Chancellor. Trying to limit damage but nothing else imo
Quote: "Cambridge lives or dies as a centre of academic excellence; and protecting those standards of excellence should always be a priority for the university.”
Saying that "Cambridge lives or dies as a centre of academic excellence" when one of their most promoted star academics has JUST LITERALLY died, and Cambridge's claim to academic excellence is, if not metaphorically dead, at least taken a huge body blow with major surgery needed to save its life.
Never mind Jason's book - did anyone at Cambridge read Lord Smith's verbal rit before he shat it out into the pages of the Telegraph???
I don't want to sound offensive, but why would the average American care about a British academic?
Surely there are plenty of inspirational memoirs from people they can actually relate to? It just seems like a curious choice to target the US market first, unless they thought there'd be less scrutiny over there.
Surely there are plenty of inspirational memoirs from people they can actually relate to? It just seems like a curious choice to target the US market first, unless they thought there'd be less scrutiny over there.
Is that confirmed tho cos Carter Ruck must be £££££. I know he was rumoured to have a huge book advance but that's not confirmed afaik so how did he afford Carter Ruck on retainer?
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