David Baddiel - dumb article in Times at weekend

David Baddiel was droning on in The Times about how 'high literature' doesnt have laugh out loud funny moments. I thought this was utter nonsense. Evelyn Waugh's books contain many such moments and his work is certainly 'high literature'. I thought Zadie Smith's latest On Beauty also had such a moment. Mrs Elton in Jane Austen's Emma also used to make me laugh out loud.

It is just so fashionable to decry 'high literature' at the moment. Its all this sinister cultural relativism which I detest. Everything tawdry like the Spice Girls , Big Brother etc. must be made to seem significant and comparable with the finest that the human mind can produce. Of course its complete rubbish and such people and shows will be quickly forgotten while Tolstoy and Proust etc go sailing on always cherished and remembered