Sunday, January 9, 2011

"Ferret-faced"

A.A. Gill, the dyspeptic ranter best known (per Wikipedia) for calling the Welsh "loquacious dissemblers, immoral liars, stunted, bigoted, dark, ugly, pugnacious little trolls," came within the scope of this blog for his remarks on Albanians:

The Sunday Times faces the threat of legal action for inciting racial hatred after a piece by AA Gill branded Albanians "short and ferret-faced".
The feature, headlined "The Land That Time Forgot", was published in the Sunday Times Magazine on 23 July, and detailed Gill's visit to the Balkan state.
He described the country as "a Ruritania of brigands and vendettas" and the people as "short and ferretfaced, with the unisex stumpy, slightly bowed legs of Shetland ponies".
Gill also described the Albanian language as "a ready-made code for criminals", adding: "There are four million Albanian citizens… three million of them live at home, the fourth quarter work abroad, and what they do is mostly illegal."