In terms of core issues around maximal engagement with keyly committed core components of the counter-cultural community, one of the saddest, sorriest and sighfullest sights among them is that of the talented lad from the wrong side of the tracks who betrays his class by turning himself into a Guardian-reader, in terms of core cultural assumptions and behaviour.

Northampton’s Alan Moore has done it.

London’s Stewart Home has done it.

Huddersfield’s John Coulthart has done it.

How do I know?

[Readers’ Advisory: If you are easily disturbed, distressed and/or disgusted, please stop reading NOW.]

I know because

[I mean it. Stop reading or you may well regret it.]

I know because each of these talented lads from the wrong side of the tracks now bears the Mark of the Beast, metaphorically speaking.

[Last chance.]

Each of them has, on multiple occasions and without the minimalest micro-metric of shame or irony, deployed the key Guardianista phrase “in terms of”.

• For proof of Alan Moore’s deplorable delinquency, please see here.
• For proof of Stewart Home’s dep-del, please see here.
• For proof of John Coulthart’s dep-del, please see in the same place as you possibly saw or are-about-to-see Stewart Home’s, i.e. here.

So. After seeing and lamenting those horrific examples of class-betrayal, I thought I was hermeneutically hardened and would never again experience sadness, sorrow or sighfullness at the sight of a talented lad etc.

I was wrong.

As I learned when I read this interview in The Mail on Sunday:

There was a lot of negativity in terms of my mum getting frustrated with us as kids, messing around all the time, smashing things in the house and my nan lived in the same road, a few houses down. […] In terms of therapy, I have spoken to a few different people. I have never done a period of time where I have done two years with someone and it has been ongoing. […] Everything I am asking of those players in terms of hard work, honesty, trust, commitment…if I was just to turn round and say “I have had an offer, I’m off”, I honestly couldn’t do that to the players and the staff. — Wayne Rooney reveals his secret two-day drinking binges etc

Oh, Wayne, Wayne, Wayne. How could you do it? But I think we can easily guess where he was infected: it was during his therapy-sessions.

Elsewhere other-accessible

• Ex-Term-In-Ate! — interrogating issues around why “in terms of” is so teratographically toxic…
• All posts interrogating issues around “in terms of”…
• All posts interrogating issues around the Guardian-reading community and its affiliates…