Be Excellent To Each Other

This is a thread for people who tire of Fry's bollocks. Have you seen his latest iPad "review"? Listen to his wise words as he prattles on about his free iPad complete with all of the accessories you can possibly get. Oh, and the hour he spent hobnobbing with Steve Jobs.

http://www.time.com/time/business/artic ... 35,00.html (Have a read, if you can fathom the bits that are actually the article and not ridiculously out-of-context text ads and other shite.)

I still like him. Especially his nose.

Any one with my condition that does what he does and hasn't done himself in yet is a hero in my book.

He's a cunt. A big sellout cunt. He has his finger in every pie. How the hell are we supposed to trust him? I don't usually get angry about not being able to trust a celebrity, but it's pretty important when they're projecting themselves into a position that requires trust, such as reviewing a gadget. What a CUNT.

I'm not even going to comment at risk of sounding massively insensitive.

He's a self-proclaimed Apple fanboy and an entertaining writer, not a fucking gadget reviewer.

Right... So why is his review in Time magazine? Why are people saying things on Twitter like "Man, I wasn't going to get an iPad but after reading Fry's review, I'm SO getting one!". Really, have a look on Twitter. You can fanboy all you like on your own blog, but when you're being paid by the word to write in an international publication, it becomes more than an entertainer's gushing thoughts on his favourite bit of kit.

Exactly what mark just said. I didn't "trust" him anyway. He's an entertainer. And defining anyone by the illness they suffer from is ridiculous.

Anything he says about Apple, Douglas Adams would probably be saying if he were still with us. I like Fry for QI, Last Chance to Se and so on, not for some blog post or article in a magazine I don't read.

I can't pick and choose the bits of people that I like. Everything they do defines them, and he's ruined himself for me.

Why?

I couldn't do what he does. I couldn't live my life in the spotlight with millions of people looking at me and staring at me.

Defining someone whom you know has a brain that functions in the same way as yours is a much better bet than some one 'normal' IMO. My friends (real ones) all have something wrong with them. Be it severe depression or anxiety or what not. It's the only way I feel at ease with them and vice versa, they say it helps them to feel on an even keel.

Ridiculous.

Depression has nothing to do with this thread, JC. Sorry man, but I don't see how it's remotely relevant to the discussion (me calling Fry a cunt). I don't think I'd deal with millions of people looking and staring at me either. So what?

Also, if all of your friends have some sort of disorder, that can't be good for you, can it?

I didn't say depression I said Bipolar. And you giving your opinion of him and me giving my opinion of him do have something to do with this thread.

As for my friends. Well, you try finding someone 'normal' to understand me and not walk away within ten fucking minutes. 'cos I'm fucked if I can.

My apologies, bipolar. (No sarcasm, I just didn't know any better.)

Well I'm pretty sure I'm 'normal' and I can tell you where you're going wrong. You talk about bipolar all of the time. If I had cancer I wouldn't be knocking about in the chemo ward talking about cancer all day. And I'm not trying to be a dick here, really, I just think you'd probably be a happier person if you stopped talking about it all of the time and tried to fit in with the 'normals'.

He's an actor with a long history of doing smarmy product endorsements. What did you expect?

Exactly this! I'm just calling him a big cunt for doing it.

Oh fair enough, carry on then!

It's not a review (& I don't think it said it was anywhere in the article). It's an opinion piece & a fairly enjoyable one at that considering I've little interest in the iPad. The man enjoyed a wee holiday, got to play with a toy he's excited about & now he's telling us about his adventures. Where's the problem?

There is however an actual iPad "review" in the same magazine. I could understand if you started on that guy as it's an opinion piece but for some reason they've actually called a review.

Meh, he's a shill.

He's an actor and celebrity. I don't trust him regarding gadget reviews as he's a shrill for Apple and gets load of free gear off of them.

Well, I think we've all established that nobody on this forum would trust one of his shill reviews, but that's hardly the point. I wouldn't expect anyone here to fall for obvious bollocks. But what about the proles? Think of the proles. They look at him as a shining beacon of intelligence, level-headedness and liberal loveliness. THINK OF THE PROLES.

That doesn't work though. I've been trying to flog Penpads for years and nobody wants one:

Yeah, but Douglas Adams had a limp, so his opinion on the iPad is understandable.

Pot, meet kettle

Pff! What am I hawking?

Buy Bad Company 2

Stephen Fry has had a pretty shitty time of it, and has still emerged as a highly intelligent, cultured, open-minded and really rather humble person who, insofar as can be judged from tv appearances and writing, also tries to be a decent human being. Fine, he might push a few arguably biased articles about trivial gadgets - that's a bit crappy. But get a fucking sense of perspective, for christ's sake. There are people in his position who'd be abusing their status to get away with rape or fraud or racist propaganda. Nobody's perfect. If a few gushing articles about a poncey phone that only muppets would be influenced by anyway are the worst thing he does, he's a better man than most, especially when you weigh that against years of good novels and the entertainment and even gentle education of millions of people, all of which will outlive everyone on these boards.

Blackadder
Saturday Live
A Bit of Fry and Laurie
Saturday Night Fry
Jeeves and Wooster
The Hippopotamus
QI

After that lot he can do what he likes as far as I'm concerned.

He's not allowed to be enthusiastic about anything. The limping cunt.

Must as I like The Greatest Living Englishman, I do think that he has crossed the line between fandom and advertising.

I supposed people are disappointed because he ought to know better.

I think you love him. You love him, and the knowledge that you can never have him has made you incredibly bitter.

I forget who it was who said it, but the description of Fry as "a stupid person's idea of what a clever person is" is fucking spot on.

And I loved Bit of Fry and Laurie and the TV adaptation of Jeeves and Wooster.

This thread needs a soupy twist.

It needs the 'Fry's turkish delights' sketch from Viz. Now that was absolutely hilarious.

I really don't see what the big deal is. Famous person advertises things shocker. At least Fry seems genuinely enthusiastic about Apple's products.

I'd be genuinely enthusiastic if I got every machine going for free.

I'd at least be able to seem it.

A fanboy jerking off over Time.com. But still.



*sniff, sniff*

He's like Douglas Adams was though. Or, perhaps a better example, he's like you and Amstrad. Besides which, whilst I obviously can't speak for everyone else, I'm hardly going to buy a gadget because Stephen 'Bloody' Fry say's it's good.

If that's the case why do games journalists, who get the games for free, bore me to fucking tears with their bland characterless word slush?

Fry, unlike most games journalists, is decent at stringing a sentence together.

Well that's some complete bollocks right there.

Except I've slagged off enough of their developments down the years. The ludicrous PC200 for example and how they didn't develop a 16 bit Spectrum or CPC when it was obvious as far back as 1987 that this would be a logical move.

Fry is just a shrill.

Because they are idiots on very low wages writing to ludicrous deadlines. You only need to pick up an old copy of Amstrad Action to read decent "straight" games reviews that were interesting. Something went wrong somewhere.

I blame Edge. Characterless and bland. Writer's names removed from the articles. In the employ of advertisers.

Cunty wanky Edge cunts!

Actually, I'd go back further. I'd blame ACE. And basically Edge is modelled on ACE anyway.

Also remember how dire the quality of reviewing in C+VG became by the early 1990's, not forgetting magazines like Sinclair User. Bad games journalism has always been around.

At last there are some editions of AA online. Sadly few from the issue 60-85 period where the mag was at it's height:

http://www.old-computer-mags.com/magazine/Amstrad%20Action.htm

Only issues 68 and 70 feature from the "Lawton Golden Age" and sadly James Leach had jumped ship to YS and the superb Adam Peters had yet to arrive. So we're stuck with the rather dull Frank O'Conner who shortly after went to work for, er, C+VG.


http://www.old-computer-mags.com/magazine/magazine_index_eng.php?idx=Amstrad%20Action.htm&base=AmstradAction&num=068

True.
The rest of the article was badly written, uninformative fawning shite though. I thought.