The Guardian, apparently incapable of closing their yaps about the whole Max Gogarty scandal, has made another statement on the incident through their columnist, Rafael Behr.

It’s infuriating reading: Behr directly compares criticism of a banal North London boy’s column on his gap-year vacation to Communist Genocide. Then again, dismissing the mass-murder of millions by comparing it to a nineteen year old boy’s hurt feelings shouldn’t be surprising from the newspaper so clueless that it wrote: “Locked in a time warp since the 1950’s, Cuba is on the verge of change and now is the perfect time to visit before its distinctive character is eroded.” Yeah, that “distinctive character” is 60 years of violent political oppression: don’t miss it!

Anyway, Behr’s piece is worthy of a good Fisking, but I’m not going to bother. I’ve had some fun at Max’s expense here, but it’s just astonishing how the Guardian continues to avoid actually taking any responsibility for what happened, instead casting the entire scandal as an indictment of the ignorance, cowardice and blood-thirstiness of mob rule.

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Meet Max Gogarty, the latest addition to the Guardian’s company of travel bloggers. Don’t let his appearance fool you. Beneath those £400 sunglasses, that meticulously tossed coiffureage and the carefully cultivated stubble perforating his lilly-white androgyne throat throbs the lion’s pulse of an adventurer. The most obvious allusion is to a swarthy Richard Burton, carving away his foreskin with a dirty flint in a cave just outside of Mecca before bravely entering the holy city where white men feared to tread. But more so! This is the face and soul of the adventurer, the hero, the titan.

But like most titans, Max has already found himself the target of a swarm of small, envious Lilliputians. After a few short hours of his introductory post going live, Max has received over 500 outraged comments from the Guardian’s readers: a cacophonous roar of shrill, petty voices from which only the words “twat”, “git” and “wanker” can clearly be discerned. His lithe, twink-like muscles are restrained by the flossy ropes of jealousy. It irritates the gossamer lanugo of his alabaster skin. This incessant biting, of the lesser, lice-like humanoids, sucks the radiance from this Herculean man-of-action.

But what’s the rumpus? Who is this homoerotic love child of Achilles and Adonis? Who is this avatar of colonialist adventure, hearkening back to an age of heroes? Who is Max Gogarty?

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