Month: January 2015

William Hendrys’ English Coursework

Analytical Response to “Our plea to pubs, shops and fans:

Don’t give Gazza drink

Dear Editor, 

I am writing on the subject of one of your journalists, Tom Wells, and how he portrays the issue of alcoholism through the article ‘Don’t give Gazza drink’. I believe Wells is being direspectful towards the issue of alcoholism, as well as Paul gascoigne’s relations concerning alcohol.

The article is an appeal from The Sun to stop bar tenders and off license owners from serving Gascoignes alcohol. However the article overall is shown to be disingenuous, the reason for this is because Wells has chosen to use colloquial language throughout the article. For example “Our plea to pubs” can put across a lack of sincerity which discourages readers from reading the article.

Well’s choice of vocabulary belittles Gascoigne’s alcoholism which makes his article seem unprofessional and insensitive. In Wells’s article he talks of Gascoigne’s alcohol abuse in the week that the article was written. He describes one of Gascoigne’s events involving alcohol abuse to be a “Mammoth booze binge”. This, referring to how large gacsoigne’s alcohol intake was. This is more worrying rather than comedic. The term ‘Mammoth’ would be the incorrect term to use as it sounds like a joke. Addressing such a sensitive issue is unprofessional and insensitive.

Wells inclusion of colloquial language may give the impression that The Sun is trying to send across to the public to be disregarded as it is too informal and insensitive. The use of colloquial language such as “calls on” or “guzzling bottle of gin” is inappropriate as the issue it is discussing has very negative impact on many of the UK’s population. It is because of the presence of colloquial language in an article discussing a very sensitive issue that may encourage people to criticise the article rather than acknowledge the message it puts forward.

Wells presents us with a timeline from 1998 to 2013 of Gascoigne’s alcohol abuse. “FEB 2008: Sectioned after answering hotel room door naked with mad written on his head”. This is an invasion of privacy and is humiliating. “JULY: Nicked for alleged drunken assault on ex-wife Sheryl”. This is very damaging to Gascoigne’s public reputation. You would not want other people to know of your private matters, have personal issues publicised with the result of severely exacerbating the issue. Your newspaper is being read by many across England which means the impact it will have is large. And most likely negative as many people may think of Gascoigne as nothing more than what you have written about him.

The article may also have an impact on Gascoigne’s personal life by openly publicising his friend’s and family’s contribution to preventing Gascoigne from further abusing alcohol. This is because Wells has clearly given details to Ronnie Irani’s views on stopping Gascoigne’s alcoholism “said too many pub staff are willing to sell the tragic star booze”. People finding it hard to rid themselves of an addiction such as alcohol may become increasingly assertive towards other people who encourage them to stop. Because of Wells exposing contributions towards the prevention of Gascoigne’s alcohol abuse relations between Gascoigne’s relatives and friends may deteriorate.

However, going against my own point, this article is helping to raise awareness of how serious alcohol abuse is. It is also helping to lessen the impact that Gascoigne’s alcohol relapse is having on him and his family. By asking shop owner’s, pub owners and fans alike to not supply Gascoigne with a drink “off licence staff to refuse to serve him drink” is protecting him and may help him to prevent going through this again.

To summarise my argument, by using the newspaper to spread the message that Gascoigne’s alcohol relapse will probably help him and notified the public of the issue of alcoholism, however by using inappropriate colloquial language you have made the issue sound like a joke, by using Gascoigne’s personal information you may have further weakened his social reputation. Furthermore making worse his friend’s and family’s relations you will have most likely made him feel insecure as you have also publicised most of Gascoigne’s personal events that have made alcoholism sound more appealing than life threatening and have an overall negative impact on Gascoigne’s life. As a hole this article that Wells has written has more mocked the issue of alcoholism than helped prevent it and also damaged Gascoigne’s reputation publicly.

I hope you will understand from this letter why I regard the article to be insensitive unprofessional despite the message it is try to get across to the readers.

Regards, William Hendry

English Coursework January 2015

Are we being kicked out of London? My point is how can the ordinary people who get the average income of £26,500 yearly be able to afford one of the new “modernist” style apartments which range from around £200,000 for A two bedroom apartment to around £1,000,000!

This is a problem because these new towers of glass and a bit of shabby architecture will be springing up everywhere as part of the governments’ skyline project.  Vauxhall, Hackney, Stratford and Brixton will all be facing renovations. This is most likely where some of your family or friends may reside now because the rest of London for example parts of Pimlico and Kensington are simply too expensive. These areas will be rebuilt to make way for the richer 0.01%.

I may sound like a person whose hung around Russell Brand too much, as my views may come across as quite left-wing. But this is simply because it is obvious from the prices, the honest workers and their families will not be able to stay in London. But is it worth it?

£200,000 will probably get you a small two bedroom flat with just enough space to move about in, and within the ideal world where you are a smart businessman, single, with a lot of time and freedom on his hands this may be perfect for you. However most of us aren’t. So you may have 2 children who you want to provide room to grow in and you’ve got a fairly good paying job. The upshot is, some of these will be pretty small so it may be the case of simply moving out to the suburbs of London.

Well now to balance things up lets go over the upsides. You won’t have to get up so early in the morning to be stuffed into a mobile box of everything unpleasant (train) or a smaller one that sort moves with lots of other ones (car) to get to work on time. Furthermore there will probably be a Tesco just round the corner for you to grab that one thing you know you need/want. Another upside is that you will have more schools to leave your kids and not have to worry about trying to find meticulous ways of delivering them a mile away from where you live and some how also make it to the workplace somewhere far, far away.

To be brutally honest you’re really just paying for the convenience. However it is a HUGE convenience, it’s like the remote control for your TV imagine if you didn’t have this luxury and blessing, think about it. Now that I hope you have done this I am sure you understand what I’m getting at. It may seem quite daunting but you will get used to it in the end.

So, I am quite biased in my argument and perhaps may have exaggerated on some points however, what isn’t an exaggeration is that these flats will be overall un-affordable and impractical convenience. But quite a large convenience at that. And it doesn’t look as if the plan will change any time soon as no one in the cabinet has even talked of remembering that there’s almost 10 million people in London, a majority of which cannot afford these new developments. Well perhaps someone might think of us however don’t count on it and so my advice to you is… Find somewhere else, easier said than done but it may be necessary soon.