I am no stranger to writing a review that people get a little miffed about, but it is one thing to criticise a band for whatever reason. It is another thing altogether to say something negative about a national treasure like Ken Dodd. My review of his Sunday night appearance at the Theatre Royal appeared in print today so I braced myself for a backlash that never came. It occurred to me that the reason for this is that Ken Dodd's key audience aren't exactly social media savvy and a lot of them possibly aren't even, to use a 1990s expression, on email. Although the review was online from Monday, Doddy's elderly audience would have had to wait until the good old fashioned newspaper came out to read it. I had read one comment on the online version that totally contradicted my view that the show was less than great, but I can't argue with that as a review is only one person's opinion.
When I picked up a copy of today's Nottingham Post (no free copy for contributors? I hear you ask, alas no), I turned to the entertainments page to see what changes had been made, they usually hack the good bits out and stop bits of it from making sense although to give them credit, they haven't done this recently. As far as I could see they had only made one change, they had published Rachel Gorman's name as the author of the piece instead of me. If only they had done that on other occasions, then again I love a good social media fight with fans of shit bands, it's like having a battle of wits with unarmed opponents.
Maybe the outside of Rachel's house this morning resembled a scene from Cocoon with angry pensioners laying siege and demanding retraction. Armed with feather dusters ready to tickle her to death, I would get away with this totally unscathed and could go about my business in safety while Rachel sits behind her double locked front door screaming every time someone pushed a cucumber through the letterbox and shouted "The martians have landed".
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