Genuinely genuine

Okay, so I'm slightly behind the times here, but let's talk about the death of John Peel, the radio 1 DJ and TV presenter. To old gits of my generation, he was a living legend, the king of cool, as we stayed up late in our unheated bedrooms listening to Echo and the Bunnymen on our rubbish non-digital radios in those dim pre-internet days. Pre-internet? - hah! I'm talking pre-home-computers!

But don't let that put you off this week's link. In it, Mark Lawson analyses Tony Blair's response to John Peel's death. He highlights the problem Blair faces in trying to express genuine sadness at someone's death. What words can he possibly use now having been an "over-enthusiastic eulogist" since Diana's death? Lawson offers a close analysis of Blair's repetition of the word "genuine" in his eulogy to John Peel, and draws some interesting conclusions about what Blair communicates about himself and his public image, whatever he may have consciously intended.

It's a fascinating insight and an interesting example of close language analysis. Click on the link below.

Really, truly genuine