Why I cannot stand Stephen Fry

Yes, I know it’s a minority view. Everybody else adores him. He’s intelligent! He speaks nicely! He’s gay but in a cuddly way, so all the mums like him! He’s … aargh. He’s so pleased to be him while all the time pretending not to be.

My aged dad enjoyed the Book of General Ignorance by UK comedy god John Lloyd and John Mitchison, so on Saturday I bought him the sequel, The Second Book of General Ignorance, which I am reading before passing it on. I recommend it to the max. This link is to Amazon but it would be cheaper – and just better – to buy it from your local bookseller. Retail in NZ is $25.

Both books are great, stuffed full of surprising facts.But this new one has a foreword by Stephen Fry called “Forethought”. He calls it this so he can talk about Prometheus and the gift of fire and how the Greek name “Prometheus” means in English “forethought” and OMG the whole thing is so arch and pretentious and self-regarding that I wanted to hurl the book across the room. But I couldn’t, because it is a present for my dad. 

Anyway, Fry begins with this quote:

Now, what I want is facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything elsc. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!

He continues:

Nothing but a shudder runs up the spine of the sensible man, woman or child as they read these well-known words of Thomas Gradgrind in Dickens’s novel Hard Times.

‘But surely, Stephen,’ you say, in that way of yours, ‘QI and General Ignorance and all that they are or hope to be represent nothing more than the triumphant distillation of Gradgrindery, fact-dweebiness, trivia-hoarding and information-hugging. The world of noble ideas falls before your world of grinding facts. Facts are the abrasive touchstones on which we test the validity of concepts! Surely, Stephen. Surely, surely, surely! I’m right, aren’t I? Aren’t I? Oh do say I am!’

Well now, bless you and shush and oh you dear things. Calm yourselves and sit down in a semicircle on the play mat while we think about this.

No, I cannot calm myself and sit on the play mat while I think about this. Instead, I say, “Fuck off.”

UPDATE: Stephanie says in the comments:

I once stayed in the same hotel as he in Bali: we shared the same pool areas and dining rooms over a few days, and there was something about him I couldn't quite put my finger on, as the saying goes. [. . .] Now I know what it was, that aura of smugness hovering around him despite the humidity.

I have added a photo of him with his mother. (Yes, I spoil you, because you deserve it.) My mother has never gazed up at me quite so adoringly, but then I am not Stephen Fry.