Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Between the lines

If you think a lot of crap has been talked (on whatever side) about the Damian McBride muckraking, this should impress you. The Times has set a graphologist on Gordon Brown’s letter to Nadine Dorries.

Graphology, whatever its merits (you have no idea how hard I’m restraining myself here), really is much easier when you know who the writer is, exactly what the context of the writing is, and have a huge amount of media amateur psychoanalysis on which to draw.

We can discern from “the ‘t’ bars high on the stem early on in the letter” that Brown “likes to be in charge”; however, “the central cross of the ‘t’ bar farther on in the text” balances this with the revelation that “he also has a sense of responsibility”. Strewth.

Next week: analysis of the Pope’s handwriting suggests that he has Catholic leanings, and inspection of bear faeces, possibly by Dr Gillian McKeith PhD, reveals a liking for woodland habitat.

[Update: I originally made a thinko in this post and said Damian Green rather than Damian McBride. Now corrected.]

2 comments:

Liam Murray said...

Vaguely funny story - my Dad worked with the police over many years and on one occassion came across a graphologist they'd employed in relation to some murders in Glasgow.

My Dad had a bit of a cynical pop at the nature of his craft along similar lines to you

"Not true," retorted the graphologist "the police know next to nothing about the people who wrote the samples they give me"

"What did you tell them" asked my Dad.

"That he/she had trouble controlling their aggression, probably had a poor educational standard and was likely to be in a state of agitation when writing it" he said.

"What note was that?" my Dad asked.

"The one they found in the room where the bodies were..."

My Dad politely excused himself and left....

Tom Freeman said...

Ha! Not that murder's funny, of course. Ahem.