Middle Class Holes 5 - Otto English

Actually, I think you’ll find …

Otto English is a model of a very particular subgenus of Middle Classhole. What becomes interesting, when confronted by a spray of quite similar people, is to separate and isolate them, to tease out the unique awfulnesses of the individual. (Also, writing entertainingly about a very boring person is a challenging exercise. It’s like wrestling with a devil covered in Velcro.)

Oopsy

Otto English, the alias of Andrew Scott, is famed for telling everybody that St George was Turkish, and that England has no culture of its own, and rolling his eyes about how tedious everyone else is.

He exists chiefly to correct other people. Here is a small random sample of his corrections.

Let’s stop remembering - and start remembering instead

Relevant, in Otto’s mind

They should have ended something that didn’t exist instead

Otto is here to put you right with the facts. He has written two books full of this helpful service - Fake History: Ten Great Lies and How They Shaped the World (2021), and Fake Heroes: Ten False Icons and How They Altered the Course of History (2023).

He is easily confused with Ian Dunt, David Veevers, John Kampfner etc - there is publishing ore to be had for the midwit prospector. Lesser but similar men of this ilk, and it is always men, include ‘Russ In Cheshire’, James Fenton, and Ian Dunt. But Otto is the true original of the movement. (Ian Dunt had the funniest ever bio boast, Political Editor of Erotic Review, which is like saying you set the chess problem in Razzle. I hope this was a self-aware bathetic brag, but given the flatness of the rest of his output it’s impossible to be sure.) They are correctors all.

Actually … There is nothing this kind of feller enjoys more than helpfully piping up to point something out. Oh, you and your gut reactions. ‘Common sense’ eh - big ol’ red flag there. Your little stories - adorable and infantile. But I think you’ll find …

Correcting myths and pinning down facts from a different perspective is interesting, if it is done in a convivial, collegiate spirit, or even in an angry, disruptive spirit. But if it is done in a snide, tribal spirit, and that’s Otto all over, it is unbearable.

A lot of history is contested, and contentious. Many, many now-established scientific discoveries are counter-intuitive. (Quantum entanglement, for example, is so strange it makes me feel quite queasy.)

The very act of observing other people’s assumptions and volunteering to set them straight makes someone sound clever. Among the Middle Classhole Otto-man tribe, things started to be classified as more truthful because they sound counter-intuitive. The process goes something like this - ‘Basic reality, bit suspicious. I’m sure it’s a bit more complicated than that. Common sense is it, eh?’ Which is how you get, after a little time, to ‘Actually, sex is a spectrum. Actually, ‘diversity’ built Britain. Actually, immigration is good for the economy’, etc etc.

That is the genesis of Otto-ism. It is not about establishing truth but about establishing social status. Which you and I understand, of course, but … (shakes head mock-sadly)

In the particular case of Otto, this is made obvious because his corrections are often irrelevant or wrong, or both. You don’t have to take only my word for it.