Jason Arday #3

[minimaz]

Thank (carter-)duck for the Eye and bringing a bit of sanity to the situation.

The newsagents podcast was mad. Claiming he was a normal person going about his normal life, trying to make out his mistakes were limited to lying on a CV and said "he might have been fantasist" - might have been? . They dedicated a whole show to it.

In fairness, Private Eye did cover him in their podcast the week before so if they took the attitude of no one should have touched this story with a barge pole they would have been massive hypocrites

 

[Ilovemusic]

I’m impressed by your ability to type a whole sentence whilst being high on skag and scotch, and operating the bagpipes. Now get back in your bothy and boil me a haggis. Like you do.

I hope I can make this joke if I caveat it by saying my great granny was from loon.

loon the town and not a "loon".

(Used to go to loon lido when we could enjoy one sunny day a year!)

ETA: Pity Arday didn't commit to ink his verbatim recollections on his deep and meaningful conversations with the Glasgow taxi driver.

 

[PurvyPanda]

It’s interesting that his PhD wasn’t about race at all but about peer mentoring in student teaching . Of the 4 students he interviewed, only one was BAME (so I assume the other 3 were white).

But at some point after that (his PhD is dated 2015), he pivoted towards race. He rode the crest of the BLM wave, moved into sociology (where he had zero experience or formal education and the jobs, accolades (5 honorary doctorates) and speaking engagements flooded in.

You’re not suggesting it was a…… hustle?

 

[KatLit]

Liverpool. Commuted. Glasgow. Commuted. Cambridge. Commuted. He never assimilated into anything, anywhere, as far as I can tell. No friends mentioned, and weird bloody relationships with those who are mentioned.
Have any of them said anything, even after he carked it? Bizarre.

 

[ScouseGossip]

Exactly! How can you go to Liverpool and never visit Fazakerley?!!
View attachment 4094865

Now if he mentioned he'd enjoyed weekends perusing Greatie market, or mooching round Crocky, or strolling the charming streets of Norris Green, I'd have been far more inclined to believe him
Seriously though, I'm amazed he didn't at least mention Lark Lane, beloved of all middle class, displaced southerners and also local coke heads (no offence to anyone who enjoys Lark Lane of course ).

 

[nothanksbabes]

He also refers to the head of Student Support at St Mary’s as his mum.

These types are professional glommers in my experience. A* clingers. They blow smoke up your a publicly so you feel like a right bleep when you have to tell them to do one for taking the piss.

The sense of entitlement to your time at the expense of your own life, work, relationships, whatever, is obscene. That's where all the health scares come in. You couldn't possibly prioritise anyone above them (in my case not even my dad with dementia and my mum having a stroke) when there's always a mental health crisis, suicide attempt, suspected cancer, cancer, chronic illness, any illness (covid was a good one for this), being a victim of some horrific yet unverifiable abuse etc. ad bleeping infinitum.

That's the vibe I get from the way he talks about Sandro and every other poor (enabling) fucker in his book anyway.

 

[bottlewrapper]

Liverpool. Commuted. Glasgow. Commuted. Cambridge. Commuted. He never assimilated into anything, anywhere, as far as I can tell. No friends mentioned, and weird bloody relationships with those who are mentioned.

It's my experience that people who lie or exaggerate a lot don't tend to have real friends, just acquaintances, and they all have to be kept separate (no friendship groups), so that no one knows them well enough to challenge the lies, or is able to compare the story with other friends. So it's a very lonely life, being a liar. He had no support network because his lies stopped him being able to build one.

 

[Warpaint]

There was a really good Storyville that's about the freedom of speech on campuses, crictial race theroy and DEI employment. It's all about how it goes terribly wrong at times, and how people are crucified for speaking out. Mainly focuses on the US but features UK unis too.

Storyville - Speechless: 1. The New Campus Revolution

A Storyville documentary that delves into the heart of the culture wars and freedom of speech conversations that have exploded on US campuses over the last ten years.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[PineappleQueen19]

The audio of him blowing smoke up James O’Brien’s bum hole and James lapping it up is telling. It’s such OTT, vague gibberish. He lays it on thick because he knows it works on those types.

 

[HotesTilaire]

Now if he mentioned he'd enjoyed weekends perusing Greatie market, or mooching round Crocky, or strolling the charming streets of Norris Green, I'd have been far more inclined to believe him
Seriously though, I'm amazed he didn't at least mention Lark Lane, beloved of all middle class, displaced southerners and also local coke heads (no offence to anyone who enjoys Lark Lane of course ).

Well apparently he didn’t manage to grace Toxteth, Lodge Lane, Granby or Kensington with his presence, not even to visit the Nelson Mandela gate or the African food and good shops…he could have taken some festivals home to Gif!
I’d be surprised if he visited Norris Green that is more the kind of place the locals would be surprised to see a black person. They’d hardly call the police though,

 

[Serene Serena]

Liverpool. Commuted. Glasgow. Commuted. Cambridge. Commuted. He never assimilated into anything, anywhere, as far as I can tell. No friends mentioned, and weird bloody relationships with those who are mentioned.
Have any of them said anything, even after he carked it? Bizarre.

He was an extremely odd individual, and he lived his life as if it was a film and he was the main character. Everyone else had walk on parts. Some of them had speaking parts. I doubt he had genuine, warm friendships with anyone.

I wonder, when his book is out, will those people eulogising him, actually read it, and realise he was a complete and utter fantasist?

 

[Valiofthedolls]

His relationship with Sandro, it comes across as way more than a mentor thing.

The extracts from his book aren’t particularly challenging to read. I would say a reading age of approx. 13 could read that, and I am being generous! I have not read any of his work or watched an interview of his which shows he has the intellectual capacity for a professorship or advanced public speaking. It’s a shame he felt he had no other option but to take extreme lengths to make it end, but I honestly believe he is a narc fantasist and it was only a matter of time before he got found out.

Honestly, his entire book reads like it was written by and about an adolescent boy. There’s nothing ‘adult’ in there beyond adult rites of passage like weddings, jobs, children (all of which are alluded to in passing only), to suggest any sort of functional or mature adult.

The entire book is all about fantasizing he’s in Rocky or playing in major some sporting event that happened a decade before, the tv he likes, the music he likes, the junk food he eats, the clothes he wears, the buses he gets in and off, how great he is at everything, all the people who’ve told him how wonderful he is/will be, all the people who’ve tried to take him down a peg or two (in Jack Monroe speak), all the words of wisdom of great sages Sandro, Giff etc.

I think the former (about his mentor) is a function of that. He writes about himself as if he’s a kid who (back then as a kid/teen) needed his Mum, his brothers, and his teenage peers like his two school mates and Debs to do everything for him/protect him from the real world and since then (and still at the time of writing) needs all these other adults around him to protect him from the real world.

None of these people have any agency or any existence outside of what sets they’re in at school, what they do for him and what they look like. His ‘half-Mauritian’ and ‘strawberry blonde’ besties from secondary school just exist to stop him and his Hendrix Afro getting on the wrong bus when his brother is busy. (They’re never mentioned again).

Also, I haven’t screenshot these parts because they’re in a load of other effing tedium, but at his Sports World job after he left school, Deb (who he met there) helped him conceal the fact he couldn’t read and write while allegedly teaching him to do so, because (he’d decided) if they knew he’d get fired. During his degree, for several years he and everyone around him hid from the Uni the fact he’d become a father because (he’d decided) if they knew, the mean white lady tutor would kick him off the course. His entire adult life he’s had people around him complicit in protecting him, parenting him, and lying for him because of consequences imaginary or real.

He’s the main character, but only if the main character is stuck in arrested development on the cusp of a not particularly precocious or interesting 13, with pedestrian tastes in...everything, but finds himself endlessly bleeping fascinating and unique. Honestly, it’s like finding some kid’s Bebo or MySpace page. And nothing in any vid of him anywhere, or hearing him speak about anything, even after his appointment to Cambridge, disabuses me of that notion.

 

[TrashleenMoron]

I'm not sure how to put this, I don't want to come across as being a witch about aspects of his appearance and leaping to conclusions, but... His relationship with Sandro, it comes across as way more than a mentor thing.

Hmmm.

If Jason was anywhere in the LGBT rainbow, don't you think he'd weaponise it at every criticism, and mention it among his "other achievements" ?

 

[VeniVidiVicki]

This is long so if you’re not interesting in education for kids with additional needs, please feels free to skip.

One thing I keep forgetting to say but which pisses me off (because my autistic child has really struggled at times in mainstream (MS) education) is his assertion that Giff’s insistence on him and JJ being in MS education was Central in his achievements. That said, he never states exactly how and in fact that extract above where he says he was pretty much ignored completely contradicts that.

Anyway, the point is that for many kids with additional needs, specialist settings with smaller class sizes and tailored programmes are essential to helping those kids flourish. Many of them simply flounder in MS education. The rate of school refusal is stratospheric. Getting an EHCP (used to be called a statement of special educational needs and is the only way of accessing specialist education) is becoming increasingly difficult with many authorities saying no to every initial application in the hope that families will simply give up at the first hurdle. It’s a fight to access and working class parents often fail to get their children in because they don’t have the confidence or education to challenge the system. So there are thousands of kids who aren’t in specialist settings who should be.

Local authorities are doing everything they can to slash specialist education still further because it’s so bleeping expensive but long term in the sense of helping kids with additional needs become functioning and contributing members of society, it pays huge dividends. But of course those are different pots of cash so there is duck all impetus to support children with additional needs to thrive long term.

So in summary, his POV is absolutely a Reform wet dream. A non verbal and illiterate kid can do just fine in cheap as chips MS education so why do we need special schools for the ones who can talk? It infuriates me that he’s never been challenged on this but then he’s never challenged on anything really is he? Moral Maze just once and then he never went back because he can’t defend his arguments.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

 

[Valiofthedolls]

He was an extremely odd individual, and he lived his life as if it was a film and he was the main character. Everyone else had walk on parts. Some of them had speaking parts. I doubt he had genuine, warm friendships with anyone.

I wonder, when his book is out, will those people eulogising him, actually read it, and realise he was a complete and utter fantasist?

Or it’ll all be Eve the ghostwriter’s fault.

 

[PurvyPanda]

He was an extremely odd individual, and he lived his life as if it was a film and he was the main character. Everyone else had walk on parts. Some of them had speaking parts. I doubt he had genuine, warm friendships with anyone.

I wonder, when his book is out, will those people eulogising him, actually read it, and realise he was a complete and utter fantasist?

Privately, I suspect they also find him odd and similarly to (sorry to mention her again) Meghan Markle, were disappointed that this lauded black person had let them down. Fact of the matter is, both are fantasists that overstated their claims, were compulsive liars, telling unsophisticated lies that were easily disproven, and lived/live their life as if they were in a movie, and everyone around them were just props. Both have treated people, especially all the black people and white apologists that supported them, appallingly.

 

[Boxatrix]

FYI - It was highlighted and punctuated in my comment as I copied and pasted it from Google AI Overview. I had to look it up as I have no idea how a PhD is marked, I don’t have one.

I thought it was highlighted for emphasis.
I don't have one either, I've just seen the sweaty brows and ashen faces of those who have
The more I think of the unlikelihood of JA being successful in Viva (or any other exam, tbh) the more I think he pulled some Jedi mindtrick

 

[Tabitha D]

Having known a few fantasists myself (I’m sure we all have), I think you do tend to distance yourself from them - because you can’t believe the bull and so you never really trust them. They are frustrating people to be around, and tend to be fun sponges / energy vampires too, because there always has to be some mega drama about them going on. There’s no time for anyone else in their lives.

I know some people on X are trying to retro-validate some of his ridiculous claims - but really, if there were proof, he would have easily been able to provide it himself. Family or friends could have come out and said, yes, he did do that thing, or yes, he did have that diagnosis. The fact that they didn’t (and they wouldn’t have had to go on TV or anything, a simple statement would have covered it) speaks volumes IMO. It suggests that even his family and friends knew he was a buller and were not prepared to perjure themselves to prop him up.

 

[Boxatrix]

FYI - It was highlighted and punctuated in my comment as I copied and pasted it from Google AI Overview. I had to look it up as I have no idea how a PhD is marked, I don’t have one.

I thought it was highlighted for emphasis.
I don't have one either, I've just seen the sweaty brows and ashen faces of those who have
The more I think of the unlikelihood of JA being successful in Viva (or any other exam, tbh) the more I think he pulled some Jedi mindtrick

 

[ChastityDingle]

finds himself endlessly bleeping fascinating and unique.

Exactly this. No wonder the book is so tedious - in addition to being badly written.