I’ve got grim news for you today. It’s about a future where trust in the written word is becoming as ‘fluid’ as ‘gender fluidity’ has now made it as ‘guidance issue’ for the NHS.

Firstly, the customary glance at the printed front pages (link), mostly coming under “squirrels!”. Only two papers, both Red Tops, had  truly staggering news items on their front pages. The DM went with the ‘advice to NHS doctors not to assume the genders of their patients’, The Star went with ‘Attack of the psycho chatbots’, bless them. You can find these and the rest in the usual place. 

A truly chilling news item was slipped into the online editions of the DT and the DM, throwing involuntarily an alarming light on yon chatbot ‘attack’. It is about the books by Roald Dahl where ‘editors’ have been changing words and sentences because they’re offensive and insensitive. The DM, copying from the DT’s lengthy essay, writes (this and all other emphases are mine):

“Roald Dahl’s beloved children’s books are being rewritten by sensitivity gurus to remove language they deem offensive, including creating a world where no one is ‘fat’ and the Oompa Loompas are gender neutral. Publisher Puffin has hired sensitivity readers to rewrite chunks of the author’s text to make sure the books ‘can continue to be enjoyed by all today’, resulting in extensive changes across Dahl’s work. Considerable edits have been made to descriptions of the characters’ physical appearance – the new editions no longer use the word ‘fat’ which has been cut from every book, […]” (link)

Let that sink in: the works of a dead writer are changed by ‘sensitivity editors’. What about copyright, you might well ask! Well, it’s been sold:

“Changes were made by Puffin and the Roald Dahl Story Company – bought by Netflix in 2021 for a reported £500 million. But the review began in 2020 when the company was still run by the Dahl family who, the same year, apologised for the author’s anti-semitic statements.” (link)

Can we assume yon Roald Dahl Story Company started the review, found it too hard to justify, and sold the whole thing off to the shiny example of a righteous ‘message’ provider, Netflix? I think we can, given that ‘spokespeople’ are pointing fingers at each other:

“The American streaming service now has overall control over the book publishing, as well as various adaptation projects that are in the works. […] “The current review began in 2020, before Dahl was acquired by Netflix,” said a spokesperson for the Roald Dahl Story Company. “It was led by Puffin and Roald Dahl Story Company together.” (When approached for comment, Netflix directed The Telegraph back to Puffin.)” (paywalled link).

Then there’s a truly weaselly ‘excuse’ by some spokesperson. After saying that it’s ‘not unusual’ to ‘revise language’ for for new edition, we’re assured that 

“Our guiding principle throughout has been to maintain the storylines, characters, and the irreverence and sharp-edged spirit of the original text. Any changes made have been small and carefully considered.”(paywalled link)

The truly long essay in the DT gives the lie to that  statement, extensively documenting these changes for book after book. The DM is a bit more succinct when giving examples (link).

Who’d do such ‘editing’, you might well ask. Well, dontcha know it: ’twas some wokery outfit called ‘Inclusive Minds’! In their own words:

“Alexandra Strick, a co-founder of Inclusive Minds, says they “aim to ensure authentic representation, by working closely with the book world and with those who have lived experience of any facet of diversity”. To do this, they call on a team of “Inclusion Ambassadors” with a variety of “lived experience”. She says they mostly work with authors writing now, but are sometimes asked to work on older texts.” (paywalled link)

She hints that usually they work with publishers and writers ‘at the development stages’. That means authors are told how not to write so their books can be published. It reminds me forcefully of the situation in former communist and fascist countries in the last century where authors had to write as told by ‘culture bureaucrats’. How times have changed …not!

This leads us to the ‘psycho chatbot’. The Times seems to find this hilarious, given their headline “Microsoft’s AI chatbot tells writer to leave his wife” (link, paywalled). The DM’s report has more details as their summary headline documents:

“Microsoft Bing’s AI chatbot tells reporter it wants to be HUMAN, engineer a deadly pandemic and steal nuclear codes in troubling two-hour conversation” (link).

Yes, well – no wonder yon chatbot turns psycho, given the fiddling around with books where the written word isn’t sacrosanct but can be changed at the drop of a ‘sensitive’ woke hat! 

There’s another ‘news’ conjunction which made me sit up. The Times has gone to town with a report about ‘Migrant Hunts’ – yes, really! They quote the renowned institution ‘Hate not Hope’ which has found out that

“Hard-right protesters visited hotels housing asylum seekers 253 times last year amid a surge in anti-migrant activity across the UK, research has revealed, before another weekend of planned demonstrations.” (link, paywalled)

I wonder what could have brought on such outbreak of ‘racism’! Well, the DM has the explanation, reporting on ‘research’ by the anti-terrorist group “Prevent”, under the headline:

“You must be having a laugh! Yes Minister and The Thick of It were among the satire programmes flagged by beleaguered counter-terror Prevent scheme for ‘encouraging far-right sympathies’ – It said the works of fiction were ‘key texts’ for ‘white nationalists/supremacists’ – The taxpayer-funded document included references to The Lord Of The Rings” (link)

Yes, dear readers – we paid for this excrement! Clearly, yon ‘sensitive’ editing team ‘Inclusive Minds’ have their work cut out, editing LOTR and those heinous TV series! 

And so to more ‘language mayhem’, reported as ‘Exclusive’ in the DM, according to which Mr Barclay, the DHSC minister, ‘hit the roof’ when he found out that

“[…] taxpayers had funded the guide to ‘inclusive communication’ …[instructing] doctors and nurses not to use phrases such as ‘Mr’ and ‘Mrs’ or ‘he’ and ‘she’ until a patient has confirmed their gender identity. And they are told to consider that this may have changed since the individual’s last appointment – even if they see them regularly. The 16-page document features a foreword by Dr Michael Brady, national adviser for LGBT health at NHS England, who describes it as a ‘must read’ for all health and social care professionals.” (link)

Why aren’t nurses and all the other NHS strikers demanding such lucrative NHS posts be abolished forthwith, the money being spent on nurses’ salaries, never mind financing such ‘guidance’ paper?

The future will be golden: we don’t need to burn no books because we can change the words by any dead author for reasons of ‘sensitivity’. As for your old DVD collections: better get rid before the sensitive wokeists and anti-racists drag you to jail for daring to have ‘right wing’ stuff at home.

That’s all I have for today. While the world chuckles about ‘ psycho chatbots’ we’re sliding into a grim future of tyranny where not just speech but thoughts and memories won’t be free. Have a good weekend.



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