This comic made me feel kind of dirty though, as the article its for is based on a sliiight misunderstanding of a statement made by his googliness, the third grand Mugwump of Britain, Dr(Prof?) David Starkey on Question Time. In the article, the writer attacks his moniker of 'feral children' as symptomatic of his bourgeois elitism and general not so endearing old-fashioned rather wanky bluntness. However, having actually watched the episode in question... Prof Starkey didn't demonise these so-called 'feral' children. He even described the moniker as a horrible one, one that reflects British attitudes to children as much as the state of the yoof today.
Now I'm a huge Starkey fangirl - he's pretty much the white, atheist, gay version of my father and I do love my father, even if he can be an annoying **** sometimes (hey, I'm not hatin'! I got that gene too!) - and I also freely admit that he's just plain wrong about a lot of things (it could all be an act, but as a blue-stocking type feminist, even humorous misogyny is aggravating and as a humanist, the perhaps-ironic mild flavoured middle-class bigotry gets tedious, you know?) but in this case, he actually wasn't as bad as everyone seems to think he was (even on the show, there seemed to be a weird effect where some people jumped on his comments attacking him for saying something... that he didn't. Very odd. Chinese whispers is one thing, but I thought the ability to completely miscontrue something you heard barely a few seconds ago was a talent reserved for philosophers, theologians and Nigerian parents). But then, as he also said, this is part of his background. For all he usually sounds like he's more clued up on the Britain of yore than that of today, he's not completely lacking in compassion.
He's just drawn that way.
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