Comedian Janey Godley gets tough with journalists

I am told Janey Godley is now accusing me in her blog, which I haven't read, of threatening her. So I reproduce here, verbatim and in full, the communications between us. There have been two emails from me to her and one from her to me. We have not spoken.

The story referred to in the first email is a first draft of the one that appears in the previous post. I emailed this draft - which can be read in the Addendum below - to Janey for comment.

The version on the blog has been edited slightly from that draft.

Monday, December 05, 2011 10:00 AM

Hi Janey,

Here's the story I have at the moment.

I'm not happy with the ending.

If you think ending and headline can be changed - to something like "Janey Godley steps in to save struggling children's charity" - please let me know.

Douglas

Monday, December 05, 2011 10:43 AM

I don't want a children's charity to close down as a child who suffered abuse in the past its the last thing I want. I was unaware of any resignations and withdrawal of funding, it certainly wasn't at my request. I have spoken to the women today and am sympathetic to the whole outcome of this issue. I have never put myself up as a role model for children and as far as my comedy goes I can take a bad review as good as the next person, I just never expected one from a kids charity.

I am stunned that a family connection between three charities chose to single me out online and continued to question my feminism and commitment to children. I was even more shocked that people who represent abused and hurt children opted to use registered charity names on twitter to both insult and victimize me. I now accept that the three people were naive to social media, they have sent me a personal apology which I accept. I would do anything in my power not to have the kids lose their charity, I have never denied my strong opinions- When I was wrong online in the past I apologised immediately -I am outspoken and am a strong campaigner for children and will continue doing what I can raising money for them.

Thanks Janey Godley

Monday, December 05, 2011 1:47 PM

Hi Janey,

Thanks for the speedy response and apologies for not getting back sooner. I've been out on a job and am heading out on another one soon.

I note you don’t dispute the facts I report.

I note too your feelings about the ----- Project closing as a direct result of all this. I don’t doubt your sincerity.

As I say in the story, everyone involved is on the side of the underprivileged and disadvantaged - for social justice and against the tossers who got the country in the mess we're in. So it's unfortunate that they are all now tearing lumps out of each other. Personally I think you were pretty patient with the feminist at first and she should probably have taken the hint, before you told her to fuck off and leave you in peace.

I know all these people well. They’ve been friends for years and they're good guys. They are inexperienced with Twitter and they have been naive in using it. But they are smart, hard-working and well-intentioned.

As I said, I don’t like the ending of the story at the moment. But it's the only story I’ve got right now.

I was planning to go out to the ----- Project in the New Year and write it up. I would still like to do that, if it’s there. If Janey Godley has helped in the meantime to keep it afloat – rather than sinking it with all hands – it would make an even better story.

Douglas

PS I gather you've been asking who I am. I'm a full-time freelance journalist, writing mainly about children and education these days. I have written for the Herald, Scotsman, Daily Record, Evening Times, Sunday Herald, Independent, Times and Guardian, as well as many magazines. I was shortlisted for features writer of the year at the annual publishers awards in Edinburgh last week.

Monday, December 05, 2011 5:35 PM

I have yet to receive a reply to this second email but I am told Janey has responded to it on her blog by accusing me of threatening her.

This seems as accurate and honest to me as her characterisation of the charity volunteer's comment - that Janey calling herself a comedian was an "insult to all things funny" - as "horrific personal abuse".

Addendum

Original rough draft sent to Janey for comment

I’ve a sad story for you this morning. It involves a Scottish comedian called Janey Godley and two small children’s charities in one of Scotland’s most deprived areas.

Janey describes herself as “a Scottish Stand up Comic, Actor, Journalist, Playwright and Blogger.” She takes pride in being controversial, referring to herself on Twitter as “The most outspoken female stand-up in Britain”.

Janey is very experienced online. At the time of writing she has no fewer than 43,765 tweets to her name. As you read this there will be many more. Janey tweets every few minutes.

Here are a few recent ones:

"I suggest we take all the guardian APP staff and execute them – that'll show the fuckers"

“A Union Jack in Glasgow means ‘I am mental, I own a dangerous dog and I batter fuck out of my common law wife if Rangers get beat.’”

“McMullan is now telling us anecdotes and 'funny things happened' as if we are his mates- i want the cunts face to fall off”

“So if hunt down Clarkson & shoot the cunt in the face i can say I was influenced by him and just claim insanity? am off (click loads up gun)”

The other protagonists in the story are people who have little online experience but who do good work, some of it paid, a lot of it unpaid, for a couple of charities that help disadvantaged children and their mums.

One of them, a feminist and Twitter follower of Janey, whose outspokenness on social issues appealed, was relaxing one evening when the language Janey was using caught her attention.

So she went on Twitter to ask if the frequency of the word “cunt” in Janey’s tweets – over a hundred times in a couple of days – was a feminist statement. “I said that I was interested, that I thought there might be some ideological reason that the word was being used.”

The two of them had a Twitter chat for an hour or so, before Janey ran out of patience and ended the conversation thus:

“i had boy soldiers in my family who fought for my freedom of speech how fucking dare u assume it needs explaining to u”

At this point, if the charities people had more online experience, they’d have walked away. Instead a colleague and friend of the feminist took umbrage at Janey’s last tweet and tweeted the following to her:

“Calling yourself a comedienne is an insult to all things funny. Call yourself a children's role model? Hope not.”

She made the mistake of tweeting this from the Twitter account of a small charity for single mums and children that she gives up much of her spare time to work for.

Janey’s response was instant and savage. Over the next day or so she tweeted the name of the charity no fewer than 65 times, drawing the attention of her almost 5000 followers - some of them very influential - to what she referred to as “horrific personal abuse”.

That abuse, remember, was to be called “an insult to all things funny”. It would be surprising if Janey hasn't had ten times worse abuse at an average Saturday night gig.

During the course of this Twitter-storm, another worker for a charity for disadvantaged children in the same town stepped in and tweeted as follows to Janey:

“You are a patron of our children's charity. Would you say these words to our young people?”

Again Janey took offence and tweeted this charity's name 15 times to her followers, drawing attention again to the “abuse” she was being subjected to. The second charity worker tweeted twice more as follows:

“We never questioned your motives Janey"

“Sorry you are offended Janey.”

The attempt to smooth ruffled feathers came too late. By this time some of Janey’s followers had taken up the story and were spreading her “horrific personal abuse” version.

Unaware of the full story and unwilling to trawl through the archives, two board members of the second charity, resigned at the weekend. The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations withdrew its support. [THIS WAS AN ERROR ON MY PART. SCVO HAVE NOT BEEN INVOLVED.] Prospective funders have pulled out.

As I said, Janey has influence.

The upshot of all this is that a small charity for disadvantaged children in one of the most deprived areas of Scotland - which was being kept afloat by the dedication, long hours, hopes and prayers of the people who work there - will now be closing after Christmas.

It's a sad story. And one of the saddest aspects is that all the people involved are actually on the same side – the side of the disadvantaged. But instead of being out there attacking the selfish, uncaring and over-privileged, the corrupt politicians and rapacious bankers, they are sitting at home over red-hot computers tearing big lumps out of each other.

And it's the children the charities were helping who will suffer the most.

Again.

Janey Godley bullies children's charities who thought she wasn't funny

I’ve a sad story for you today. It involves a Scottish comedian called Janey Godley and two small children’s charities in one of Scotland’s most deprived areas.

Janey Godley describes herself as “a Scottish Stand up Comic, Actor, Journalist, Playwright and Blogger.” She takes pride in being controversial, referring to herself on Twitter as “The most outspoken female stand-up in Britain”.

Janey Godley is very experienced online. At the time of writing she has no fewer than 43,765 tweets to her name. As you read this there will be many more. She tweets every few minutes.

Here are a few recent tweets to give you a flavour of Janey Godley's humour:

"I suggest we take all the guardian APP staff and execute them – that'll show the fuckers"

“A Union Jack in Glasgow means ‘I am mental, I own a dangerous dog and I batter fuck out of my common law wife if Rangers get beat.’”

“McMullan is now telling us anecdotes and 'funny things happened' as if we are his mates- i want the cunts face to fall off”

“So if hunt down Clarkson & shoot the cunt in the face i can say I was influenced by him and just claim insanity? am off (click loads up gun)”

Children's Charities

The other protagonists in the story are people who have little online experience but who do good work, some of it paid, a lot of it unpaid, for a couple of charities that help disadvantaged children and their mums.

One of them, a feminist and Twitter follower of Janey Godley, whose outspokenness on social issues appealed, was relaxing one evening when the language Janey was using caught her attention.

So she went on Twitter to ask if the frequency of the word “cunt” in Janey Godley's tweets – over a hundred times in a couple of days – was a feminist statement. “I said that I was interested, that I thought there might be some ideological reason that the word was being used.”

The two of them had a Twitter chat for an hour or so, before Janey Godley ran out of patience and ended the conversation thus:

“i had boy soldiers in my family who fought for my freedom of speech how fucking dare u assume it needs explaining to u”

At this point, if the charities people had more online experience, they’d have walked away. Instead a colleague and friend of the feminist took umbrage at Janey Godley's last tweet and tweeted the following to her:

“Calling yourself a comedienne is an insult to all things funny. Call yourself a children's role model? Hope not.”

She made the mistake of tweeting this from the Twitter account of a small charity for single mums and children that she gives up much of her spare time to work for.

Cyber bully

Janey Godley's response was instant and savage. Over the next day or so she tweeted about the charity no fewer than 65 times, drawing the attention of her almost 5000 followers - some of them influential - to what she referred to as “horrific personal abuse”.

That abuse, remember, was to be called “an insult to all things funny”. She has had worse abuse, I am sure.

Janey targeted in particular with her tweets any children's charity funders who follow her.

During this cyber bullying onslaught, a worker for a second charity - for disadvantaged children - came to the defence of her friend and tweeted as follows to Janey Godley:

“You are a patron of our children's charity. Would you say these words to our young people?”

Again Janey Godley took offence and tweeted about this second charity 15 times to her followers, drawing attention again to the “abuse” she was being subjected to. The second charity worker tweeted just twice more as follows:

“We never questioned your motives Janey"

“Sorry you are offended Janey.”

Influence

The attempt to smooth ruffled feathers came too late. By this time some of Janey Godley's followers had taken up the story and were spreading her “horrific personal abuse” version.

Unaware of the true story and unwilling to trawl through the archives to separate fact from heated emotion, two board members of the second charity resigned at the weekend. Prospective funders may well pull out.

Janey Godley might be short on humour and compassion but, as I said, she has some influence.

The upshot of all this is that a small charity for disadvantaged children in one of the most deprived areas of Scotland - which was being kept afloat by the dedication, long hours, hopes and prayers of the people who work there - is likely to close soon after Christmas.

It is a sad story. And one of the saddest aspects is that all the people involved, including Janey Godley, are supposed to be on the same side – the side of the disadvantaged. But instead of attacking the selfish and uncaring - the corrupt politicians and rapacious bankers - they are sitting at home, over their computers, tearing big lumps out of each other.

And it's the children the charities were helping who will suffer the most.

Quis custodiet

Can anyone tell me how a man like Chris Woodhead survived so long as chief inspector of schools in England?

I've interviewed most of the top inspectors and decision-makers in Scottish school education and what they share, to an extent that still surprises me, is something Woodhead manifestly lacks - a powerful and, if you scratch the restrained surface, often passionate concern for social justice and the welfare of every child.

A man like Woodhead, with no interest in at least half the kids in school, or belief in the value of education for them, would not just be out of place in Scotland's school system.

He would be unemployable.

10 problems with skeptics

1. They're all men.
2. They can't spell.
3. They're obsessed with homeopathy.
4. They're predictable.
5. They're confusing. Some skeptics are good guys. Some skeptics are bad guys. I can never remember who is which, and have to read another rant about homeopathy or climate change to remind me.
6. They've upset the nice people at Glasgow Science Festival. Well that was me actually. But it was their fault. I let slip in a moment of weakness that I don't give a toss about homeopathy.
7. They convey none of the wonder of science.
8. They repel the scientifically uninformed but keen to learn.
   
9. They've grasped one half of science - that it's analytic and critical - but not the other - that it's creative and constantly surprising.
10. They point out stupidity wherever they find it. But no one in the history of the world - not since the first great ape stood tall on the savannah and scanned the horizon for food and women - has ever got suddenly smarter by being told how naive, gullible and brainless they really are.
    

Adopted bonobo

What can happen when you tweet about bonobos. Thank you Glasgow Science Festival.

Teach the controversy in science

A few days ago I linked from Twitter to an article in Times Educational Supplement Scotland about first-year university biology students who did not believe in evolution.

The last two paragraphs of that article are quotes from an intelligent design spokesman. So I emailed the editor suggesting that an article on science and education in TESS should not be a platform for "people who peddle propaganda and have no interest in science or education."

She replied as follows: "Alastair Noble is a former HM Inspector, and we thought if it was interesting enough to run in the [Edinburgh] science festival, it was worth reporting on."

Now this seems perfectly reasonable. It's what newspaper and magazine editors routinely do in the interests of fairness, when they seek comment from opposing points of view. It's journalistic balance.

But on the same day I received an email from Glasgow Science Festival, saying "I wonder if we should make more of this. It's one vehicle for getting people discussing it. What do you think, should we try and get it talked about more?"

Here's my reply to GSF:

"The problem with any kind of engagement is that it gives them a platform, which allows them to bring very effective PR techniques into play that were first developed for the tobacco companies then later honed and improved for the climate change deniers.

It's a fight in which they are using weapons that scientists and science communicators largely don't understand.

These people give the appearance of rationality while trying to undermine reason as a way of understanding the world. It's a fundamentally and deliberately dishonest approach. So any attempt to engage honestly and openly with them only strengthens their position in the public mind.

It's all about "teach the controversy" which scientists unintentionally support and collude with, whenever we grant them an opportunity to debate with us in public - as do editors when they aim for journalistic balance, when the two sides of a dispute are anything but balanced."

GSF replied that they agreed with all that, but:

"I wasn't really thinking about a public debate or any GSF content that might be used as a platform like this. You have to fight a corner. We thought about this last year when a prominent climate change denier was offering to come to GSF and take part in an event. We decided not to risk it, as it would be hijacked. That's exactly what happened to Roger's event here.

Still, I think GSF should at least engage in some way. He was an HMI for heavens' sake. There's a lot of people and many scientists who will not have seen this TESS article, not know about Curriculum for Excellence and the Scottish Qualifications Authority and maybe we should do something for them - disseminating information, counter arguments, arming people with facts etc that might help and encourage scientists to wake up a bit and lobby SQA and Learning and Teaching Scotland."

So to summarise: The ID people managed to get a small say at an Edinburgh Science Festival event. As a result TESS, the country's leading educational publication, invited them to comment on new research findings in biology education. My own comment on this led Glasgow Science Festival to start thinking about giving more prominence to ID, if only to help scientists counter their ideas and opinions.

That is Teach the Controversy in action.

St Luke's High School's high achievers

St Luke's High School, East Renfrewshire is the school that's bucking, by a mile, the obvious correlation in the above chart between attainment and socially advantaged catchment area.

Here's how St Luke's High does it.

Why evolution is not mentioned in the new Scottish Curriculum

A spokesperson from Learning and Teaching Scotland, said: "The use of the word 'evolution' was not avoided for religious reasons or to avoid any particular sensitivities.

"Evolution is addressed through the biodiversity and interdependence element in science, which deals with survival of the species and adaptation to the environment. This is complemented by the inheritance line of development which develops an understanding of how organisms develop and pass on genetic information to the next generation."

From Times Educational Supplement Scotland 24 April 2009

Smiling sweetly

We writers don’t get out much and I’ll tell you why. Bad things happen when we do.

As Jean McLeish tucks into a little haggis on a stick, which the waitresses at Edinburgh’s National Gallery keep pushing on us, like they're on commission, I can’t help thinking of all the food this woman snatched from my children’s lips. Or would have done, if they weren’t both well into their twenties at the time.

I’d been writing freelance features for TES Scotland for five years when Jean appeared out of nowhere, with great ideas and well-crafted stories. The first line of hers I ever read sticks in my mind: “Chloe's tooth diamond is a twinkling distraction amid the building site paraphernalia of paint, ladders and hard hats”.

“Hey, that’s great,” I thought. “She’s got to go.”

Five years later Jean is still there, turning out high quality features every week. “Did you enjoy the educational debate,” I smile sweetly and act civilised.

“It was fine,” Jean replies. “Although I’m more interested in people than policy. Did you?”

“Didn’t make it in time,” I tell her. “Got bumped by a bus, detained by the surly, slow-writing driver, then ran round and round the National Gallery for ages, searching for a way in. Finally realised it was down here in the Gardens but the big gate was padlocked. I had to scramble over the railings to get in.”

“Good heavens, how awful,” Jean sympathises and steps back a pace. “I’m surprised you’re not even more sweat-stained and dishevelled.”

An elegant woman in a black dress floats past. “Thanks for coming, Douglas,” says the new editor. “No problem, Gillie,” I lie fluently.

The occasion is the relaunch of TESS as a magazine and the formal handover from Neil Munro, editor for ten years, to Gillie Macdonald. It’s a chance to hear her vision for the future and meet writing colleagues I never see.

Among the tall pillars and vol-au-vents, I hunt down Gregor Steele, whose fortnightly columns are funny and insightful. “Where do you get your ideas?” I ask the former physics teacher, unoriginally. “Life,” he tells me. “And physics, which is full of metaphor.”

I find Julia Belgutay, whose weekly column capturing kids’ talk makes me laugh out loud. For example: “She bought a book because she thought it was about Lance Armstrong, but it was about bike saddles.”

“I get good stuff from young people because inside my head I’m the same age as they are,” Julia tells me.

I meet news reporter Henry Hepburn, tall, slim, friendly and the official TESS tweeter, Jackie Cosh, who manages to write while bringing up four kids, and Chris Small, appointed to the News team from Children in Scotland. We share our liking for Jonathan Sher, their distinguished but genial research director, a committed children’s advocate from North Carolina.

Gillie’s talk gets off to a great start among the two Gaelic speakers at the gathering, when she tells a joke in the language of her father, author Finlay J Macdonald. A quick translation allows us southerners to join in the jollity. Then she gets serious.

The format of TESS might have changed, she says, but it’s still all about up-to-the-minute education news. “We’ve a new four-page focus that looks in detail at one topic a week. We’re taking all the expertise of our education correspondents – there’s no specialist team like it in Scotland – and providing depth now, to go with the range.”

The features section, which highlights good practice around the country, remains. “We see it as a crucial part of our role, particularly when schools don’t have money for CPD.”

Online teaching resources compiled over the years by TES UK will be plundered each week. “There are thousands of them, all free. We will take the best of those and tailor them for our Scottish readers.”

Comment, discussion and debate will be encouraged: “Don’t just read an article and think about it. Write in and tell us. You can have 900, 450 or 300 words, depending where we put it. We want to hear from you.”

Then there’s the most interesting section for many readers. “TESS used to be the place to go for jobs in education. It is again. Classroom teachers, headteachers, independent schools – they’re all there now in one place, at the back of the magazine.”

She recalls recent publishing industry awards: “2008 business and professional magazine of the year: Times Educational Supplement Scotland. 2009 editor of the year: Neil Munro. 2010 features writer of the year: Emma Seith.

“That is a track record we won’t throw away,” Gillie concludes. “I am excited to see what we can do in 2011.”

As distinguished guests and ink-stained scribblers sidestep the haggis-ball pushers and disperse, I say goodnight, find my car, take a look at the damage inflicted by the bus, decide it’s superficial and drive off into the night. It was a lovely evening in the end.

I got to get out more.

Sally Bercow

I like the photograph. But I'd have cropped it much more tightly, like this:

It makes a far better image.

But being less revealing, it's not as effective in sticking two fingers to the fogeys.