Jason Arday #3

[mumpty]

I haven’t read all of his work, but there is a striking difference in writing style and vocabulary between his academic papers and the book. Obviously they are aimed at different audiences and there was a ghost writer, but still an academic of any standing would want their biography to sound a little more sophisticated than the Diary of Adrian Mole

Also, my main gripe with his PhD thesis is not the plagiarism but the fact that it is in no way PhD level work. I’m not an expert in the area, but not surprised he finished it in 2.5 years as there is barely any research in there. It strikes me that the bare minimum he thought he could get away with was done and beefed up in academic-speak. His analysis of the themes is basic and conclusion is over-reaching.

 

[PurvyPanda]

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).
View attachment 4094912
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.

Kathy Burke found him absolutely bleeping fascinating.

 

[Rosie878]

The relationship with Gif is also odd.

Totally. Very intense.

Also - he didn’t become a professor at Cambridge - Glasgow initially made him a professor. They never seemed to get the same level of scrutiny.

Also the people who directly contacted him telling him to apply for the Cambridge role.

 

[PurvyPanda]

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.

I had a friend at secondary school who was a compulsive liar. She was such a dangerous compulsive liar that whenever she came round to my house to hang out, my mum insisted I go with her when my dad gave her a lift home, because they were worried that she could make something up about my dad. Her mother was similarly inclined, probably where she got it from. She was always off school ‘ill’, and it would be because of some new illness that her mother insisted that she had. My mum, theorised that she had Munchhausen‘s.
Anyway, one day she came into school and claimed that she’d been absent because she had been filming a Christmas advert for PC World, because her grandad owned PC World. When I asked her to elaborate, she just said it was her and a giant Christmas tree. It wasn’t a particularly spectacular embellishment, but I don’t suppose she had contemplated that I was going to ask her to elaborate. Compulsive liars don’t expect you to question them. They just expect you to believe them.

 

[Boxatrix]

It’s in the book, and based on the utterly ludicrous story he weaves around it, including the mean examiners who didn’t make small talk before starting, it seems fairly clear he scraped it by the skin of his teeth and it remained a narc wound for him.View attachment 4094750
That chapter is in the spoiler here. It’s quite a ride.
https://tattle.life/threads/jason-arday.53156/post-25318062

Edit: It’s also odd as duck that a thirty year old adult man with a full-time student-facing academic job at Leeds and holding down multiple other jobs, a family (a father of two by this point), and who’d already attained multiple degrees and had (allegedly) lived in Liverpool, needed his old Sports BTEC mentor ‘father figure’ Sandro to parent chaperone him through the entire viva trip to Liverpool because “I knew couldn’t get through it without him” including Sandro driving him to Liverpool, spending every moment with him, sleeping in the same effing bedroom as him for support (allegedly in case he ‘had a seizure’ after his alleged short-term-memory-loss-causing alleged ‘brain tumor’), coming to the viva with him and sitting outside (getting there early “because Sandro didn’t want us to be late”, bestowing upon him numerous words and platitudes of wisdom throughout the visit, including, according to Arday a mid-viva pep-talk that together with memories of Giff’s words of wisdom saved the day.

Jesus Christ, when he sat his other degrees (presuming he didn't pay someone to take them for him) did the invigilator have a big chat about the price of things these days rather than saying the usual things before an exam like: ' the fire exits are over there. You may begin'. I doubt it. duck sake, these are professionals, at the top of their area (if they're examining PhDs). They have other people to get to - they are there to do their job.
You're right, that whole set - up is weird af.

 

[Carefree]

He was 41. How could he be 41, British and not know about this northern legend?

View attachment 4094765

Mick Johnson… “Yyyyeeeaaaaaaassssssss!”

When he showed up in "The Power of Parker", I was delighted. As a former Brookie obsessive, he was definitely a highlight.

Going back to JA. I'm sorry but the absolutely extraneous comments about his wardrobe whilst Sandro is telling him off is gutting me. Because God forbid we didn't know he was wearing frayed Diesel flares with his Chuck Taylors

His sartorial excellence is one for the ages

 

[nothanksbabes]

I haven’t read all of his work, but there is a striking difference in writing style and vocabulary between his academic papers and the book. Obviously they are aimed at different audiences and there was a ghost writer, but still an academic of any standing would want their biography to sound a little more sophisticated than the Diary of Adrian Mole

Also, my main gripe with his PhD thesis is not the plagiarism but the fact that it is in no way PhD level work. I’m not an expert in the area, but not surprised he finished it in 2.5 years as there is barely any research in there. It strikes me that the bare minimum he thought he could get away with was done and beefed up in academic-speak. His analysis of the themes is basic and conclusion is over-reaching.

Adrian Mole would never.

I so wish Sue Townsend was alive so we could hear her political satire on present day madness delivered via Mole pomposity.

 

[Tabitha D]

Reflecting on the terrible memoir - considering he had chosen an academic career, it’s remarkable how he doesn’t really share any deep thoughts or any sense of purpose in choosing this career. Has he ever thought deeply about education, or sociology, or racism for that matter? Did he feel fired up by the subject matter at all? If so, you’d never guess. It reads that the only reason he wanted a PhD and then to be a Professor was because it would be an “achievement” for himself.

 

[Tabitha D]

When he showed up in "The Power of Parker", I was delighted. As a former Brookie obsessive, he was definitely a highlight.

Going back to JA. I'm sorry but the absolutely extraneous comments about his wardrobe whilst Sandro is telling him off is gutting me. Because God forbid we didn't know he was wearing frayed Diesel flares with his Chuck Taylors

His sartorial excellence is one for the ages

He had to get a reference to the exact tube station in there as well. It definitely matters which precise tube station it was. It adds so much to the narrative.

 

[KatLit]

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).
View attachment 4094912
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.

Sociopath! Unable to form his own feelings and therefore mimics those with whom he comes into contact. Where are these kids? Shouldn't they have piped up by now??

 

[TrashleenMoron]

He had to get a reference to the exact tube station in there as well. It definitely matters which precise tube station it was. It adds so much to the narrative.

It was probably recorded as part of his Roadmap to Excellence.

 

[Daisy Uncle]

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" ?

I really don't know what to think, I do think he was autistic and that could account for all the off seeming things. I do know folk from traditional families still in this day and age not accepting who their children are. I probably shouldn't have posted speculation about it tbh, but his descriptions of Sandro don't come across as mentor or friend, at least not to me.

 

[Boxatrix]

I've never gone to karaoke with a teacher several years older. I thought that was one of the most interesting parts of the book, when he discusses how often he was late to meet people. The first time Sandro arranges for a treat for him in town hes 1.5 hours late and Sandro storms off.

View attachment 4094863View attachment 4094864

FML
"Oh dear, I've been a right bleep and not got away with it", I thought, sipping my Chai latte, with one sweetener. I was devastated. It didn't taste great because I had left the cola chupa chup I quirkily use to stir it my Savile Row suit pocket at home.

 

[ScouseGossip]

Reflecting on the terrible memoir - considering he had chosen an academic career, it’s remarkable how he doesn’t really share any deep thoughts or any sense of purpose in choosing this career. Has he ever thought deeply about education, or sociology, or racism for that matter? Did he feel fired up by the subject matter at all? If so, you’d never guess. It reads that the only reason he wanted a PhD and then to be a Professor was because it would be an “achievement” for himself.

You know what, you're absolutely bloody right! In all those excerpts that a previous poster kindly shared with us, there's no sense that he had any sort of burning passion about inequality in education, or sociological theory etc...
It seems as though he was just racking these qualifications and jobs up as a tick box exercise, a giant duck you to anyone who ever doubted him.
Surely if you devote yourself to PhD level study, you have to really deeply care about the subject? It's hardly a stroll in the park is it, we're talking years and years of research.

 

[Daisy Uncle]

Adrian Mole would never.

I so wish Sue Townsend was alive so we could hear her political satire on present day madness delivered via Mole pomposity.

Sandro is Bert the pensioner.

 

[Carefree]

Sandro is Bert the pensioner.

What is the equivalent for Sabre then? Or Queenie?

 

[nothanksbabes]

It's interesting that he (mis)quoted George Michael (Freedom '90) in the tedious me me memoir, saying 'sometimes the clothes do make the man' after prostetlysing about a Savile Row suit.

Freedom '90 is George writing about authenticity, and trying to escape his fabricated image after leaving Wham!

The lyrics Arday refers to are "I just hope you understand/Sometimes the clothes do not make the man", followed by "All we have to do now/Is to take these lies and make them true somehow"

I'd probably have picked a different song if my entire life was a lie, but what do I know.

Incidentally, George is an excellent comparator to a fantasist like Arday. He was the child of immigrants, he lost his mother to cancer, then his partner to AIDS.

He was subject to a decade and a half of intense press intrusion into his life, was closeted and, when he was outed against his will by an intensely homophobic US police force and international press, he was then was harassed and persecuted by the media for something as innocuous as being gay.

It wasn't until his death that we discovered he had been incredibly generous with his wealth during his life, because, unlike Arday and his ilk, he understood that the things you do when nobody is watching and there to give you a round of applause are the measure of you.

Anyway. Sorry for the George derail. Was just meant to be a flippant comment about Arday's truly tone deaf choice of lyrics which I'm sure he considered as deeply as he did his entire career or what he likes about poor Debs - not at all.

 

[Boxatrix]

You know what, you're absolutely bloody right! In all those excerpts that a previous poster kindly shared with us, there's no sense that he had any sort of burning passion about inequality in education, or sociological theory etc...
It seems as though he was just racking these qualifications and jobs up as a tick box exercise, a giant duck you to anyone who ever doubted him.
Surely if you devote yourself to PhD level study, you have to really deeply care about the subject? It's hardly a stroll in the park is it, we're talking years and years of research.

That's is a great insight. I used to work with an American guy who was doing his PhD at Trinity College, it took him years of traveling up and down the country at his own expense, working part time to cover his rent and bills. He was doing his PhD in the role of the seanchaí in story telling and myth-making.
. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seanchaí
He was very nearly failed outright because he recorded the speakers, rather than research them in the 'usual' way. He pointed out that this is an oral tradition - many rural Irish people were not literate before 1922. He learned Irish* to be able to get a sense of the difference in the telling style/choice of language. After a lot of to-ing and fro-ing he was awarded his PhD. It took 7 and a bit years in total.

*I am Irish born here, both parents were Irish. Like every Irish raised person I was taught Irish for the entirety of my school going days. I am not fluent. Most Irish people aren't.

 

[TrashleenMoron]

That's is a great insight. I used to work with an American guy who was doing his PhD at Trinity College, it took him years of traveling up and down the country at his own expense, working part time to cover his rent and bills. He was doing his PhD in the role of the seanchaí in story telling and myth-making.
. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seanchaí
He was very nearly failed outright because he recorded the speakers, rather than research them in the 'usual' way. He pointed out that this is an oral tradition - many rural Irish people were not literate before 1922. He learned Irish* to be able to get a sense of the difference in the telling style/choice of language. After a lot of to-ing and fro-ing he was awarded his PhD. It took 7 and a bit years in total.

*I am Irish born here, both parents were Irish. Like every Irish raised person I was taught Irish for the entirety of my school going days. I am not fluent. Most Irish people aren't.

Now that's passion in one's subject.

 

[Carefree]

And so, if it appears that a prominent figure – be they black or white – is being less than honest in ways that meet the test of public interest, those black journalists have a right, indeed a duty, to interrogate that. I know well some of those who did so in the case of Prof Arday, carefully and professionally, and are now, amid the anger, confusion and rage, being abused and castigated for it. They were not responsible for what Lord Chris Smith, the Cambridge University chancellor, called the “racist feeding frenzy”. They, in interrogating all the claims in a way we would expect professional, responsible, empathetic journalists to do, just did their jobs. As journalists. Even the bits that made them sad, that were unpalatable. And what if they hadn’t? Was all of the reporting and inquiry to be done by the right, by those who coveted a scalp, by culture warriors?

From: https://www.archive.is/oldest/https...-witch-hunt-jason-arday-legitimate-journalism

@Boxatrix thank you for sharing. I'm half Irish and am slowly learning the language with the hope of staying for a bit in a Gaeltacht, when comfortable enough, for an immersive episode.