Roland Huntford and the character assassination of Robert Falcon Scott.
Roland Huntford is a biographer and student of polar exploration famous for his character assassination of Robert Falcon Scott in “The Last Place on Earth”.
Yes, Scott failed in his primary ambition of getting to the South Pole first. Yes, he made a number of errors such as relying on pony transportation and hauling sledges by foot in Antarctica rather than Amundsen’s smarter decision to use dogs. Amundsen was more efficient than Scott. Nevertheless, Scott had many attractive qualities. His death was tragic and heroic and it caught the public imagination. Rightly or wrongly, Scott is better remembered for having failed than the efficient and rather dull and inhuman Amundsen who succeeded. Scott’s expedition also undertook important scientific work which Amundsen did not do on his all out dash for the South Pole.
It is legitimate to say that Scott failed and to criticise the British obsession with honourable losers (which I think is a humane quality in the British character). I get Huntford’s point that really the best man won because Amundsen was more professional than the amateurish Scott. But Huntford’s approach to Scott is sneering and downright nasty.
Huntford tarnishes his book by the fanatical, personal hatred he displays towards Scott. Anyone would think that Scott had personally microwaved Huntford’s pet hamster. Huntford calls Scott “muddle headed”, a “bungler” and a naval officer who was the epitome of “regimented mediocrity”. Even positive aspects of Scott’s are seen as proof of his flaws: marrying an interesting woman, for instance, is interpreted as a sign that Scott was a hen-pecked loser.
Huntford denigrated Scott in all sorts of ways. He was not only an autocratic leader but incompetent and depressive. His alleged bullying manner and rigid segregation of officers and men brought some members of the Terra Nova expedition close to mutiny. He falsified his diary of the earlier Discovery expedition. He was jealous of Shackleton and took every opportunity to disparage him. He forced Oates to walk out to his death. His wife was an adulteress and bisexual. None of these criticisms are proven.
Huntford also decided to overlook the importance which Scott attached to scientific research on his expeditions, commenting quite unfairly that the rocks and fossils which Wilson and Bowers were collecting in the final weeks were ‘a pathetic little gesture to salvage something from defeat at the Pole’.
Huntford misses the point. Scott is so empathetic because he was human, and he wore his frailties on his sleeve. Nevertheless, he was heroic and his very human flaws make him more so. As one reviewer said “Huntford appears to worship a particular narrow view of masculinity and ‘proper’ male behaviour……. whereas those who reveal themselves to be too insecure, melancholic or sentimental are reviled”.
The Geographic Journal noted that Huntford’s book is “in keeping with the modern trend of debunking everything which previous generations found of value….deliberately blind to any possible failings in Amundsen” and “the full force of his vitriolic pen falls upon Scott as though he were pursuing a vendetta.” Ranulph Fiennes also noted that Huntford has no experience in the South Pole and displayed a serious misunderstanding of Scott and his objectives and that his book was “immensely inaccurate”. Fiennes also accused Huntford of lying about his background and education.
Huntford is a cunt for the vitriol in his attack on Scott. It all part of the trend of denigrating British heroes from Nelson to Churchill. When will it end?
An iceberg of cuntishness.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Huntford
Nominated by: MMCM
Clearly hates Britain and the British. But at least he’s a stinking foreigner so he’s got an excuse. Fuck off cunt.
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MMCM sounds like Scott was a loser and a prize Cunt.
But he was our Cunt so anyone that criticises him can fuck off .
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Totally agree Fenton. Hands off our national cunts. Scott can be criticised but his heart was in the right place and he was undoubtedly brave.
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Roland Cuntford. There.
Not said on these hallowed pages before, so I thought I should get in quick.
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Yes MMCM,
Scott was undoubtedly brave , i’ll give him that.
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In this day and age a hero is some cunt like Schofield, who “bravely” stabs his missus in the back while admitting he’s been out lifting a few shirts!
True heroes such as Scott, Churchill, Drake, Wellington, Cook et al, have been cancelled and will end up being pariahs
Not even much of a mention for the likes of William Wilberforce either, even though he was white and helped abolish the slave trade.
SJWs like Huntford can gloat and criticise because they’re on safe ground. Might be a different story if someone stuck the boot in writing a book about him though. Just like with so many others – they don’t mind dishing the shite, but become “victims” just as soon as the spotlight is pointing at them.
In the words of Captain Oates “Go fuck yourself!!”
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Funny how the term ‘brave’ has been devalued over the years.
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Not too familiar with polar adventures although I did watch a documentary on the Soviet and Russian Kharkovchankas a few months ago.
Nothing says ‘Soviet engineering’ as much as they do.
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I wonder what pioneering expeditions Cuntford has undertaken or has planned?
No.
Didn’t think so🤔
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Scott was intent on enslaving penguins and keeping Antarctica white. Advanced African explorers had been there in the 10th century but the records were destroyed by Cecil Rhodes. Along with African writing and science. Sorry MMCM but I am with the Guardian on this.
Is there a statue of the fucker?
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Plenty Cunstable. No doubt they will be toppled soon by Penguin Lives Matter.
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Sir Ranulph Fiennes says that Scott was a good lad and who are we to doubt him.
Still, I prefer Ernest ‘Shack-man / Shacka-zulu’ Shackleton*, whom Scott allegedly fucked over so Scott can remain a cunt as far as this cunter is concerned.
(*admittedly also for heroic failure)
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Scotts a hero, period.
Ok he accidentally packed a thousand cornettos instead for rations, and forgot the cold weather socks and underwear packing suntan lotion.
But even heroes make mistakes.
At the end of the day he was brave, had vision and most importantly of all a Englishman.
Fuck hero bashing by some fuckin foreigner!
Wouldn’t say it to his face you bookworm shithouse would you?
He was a hero 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧
Get fucked.
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Here! Here!
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Shack’s brilliance cannot be touched by the likes of Cuntford. When he lost his ship he floated off on an iceberg and when that got boring he told his crew to get in a lifeboat and row as if their lives depended on it (which they probably did).
He only took a bit of food for the boat journey so those he left on land could survive. He could drink Scott under the table and he had the brooding good looks of somebody from Kildare.
Scott was alright if you are into that whole poshboy thing but he does deserve better than Cuntford’s mud slinging.
P.s. Cuntford’s real name was Horowitz so that might explain the motive behind his attempt to besmirch the good name of a heroic goy, I mean guy.
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If I’d been Capt. Oates, I wouldn’t have walked gloriously out to a noble death…I’d have stoved Scott’s head in with my ice-pick and eaten him…serve the old Cunt right for getting me into such a predicament. If any rescuers asked what happened to him,I’d have blamed the Eskimos..blubber-munching,slitty-eyed Cunts.
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poor old Oates.
Teased at school,
“Had your porridge, Oates?”
Makes it into the naval academy
“Dont stand there Quaking Oates”.
Shows hes made of stern stuff and keen for polar exploration in the name of his country.
Get assigned to Scott.
“Well , no food, fuel, no chance of rescue, facing certain death arent we Captain?
And you a virgin, never married,
Your not going to get your Oates.. ”
No wonder he went out to build a snowman and never came back.
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I just googled him, and one of Oates’ middle names was Grace. What this chap endured in school doesn’t bear thinking about, increases my admiration for the chap.
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I second this. I used to wonder what that naughty little gamin Felicity Kendall and her neighbor Penelope Keith could do to each other with a dildo in the absence of their dimwitted probably impotent husbands.
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Scott is a cunt, Churchill is a cunt, Nelson is a cunt, Drake is a cunt.
There is times I would really like to lunch a 5 fingers death punch.
Obviously the greatest figures are Cortez, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, …… a mass Murderers. Fuckem, fuck em all.
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Am just waiting for some cunt to pick on my favourite hero, Felicity Kendall!
Without question the owner of the most pert arse in TV history during the 1970s, and the number of times I “saluted” her in honour of that arse during that time is incalculable!
I demand a statue of Kendal bent over a kitchen table ready for some “good life”
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I used to have a crush on Leyla from Dr Who. She definitely stirred something in my pre-pubescent gonads.
I’d mention Bonnie Langford, but the last time I did I got her dressed in lingerie linked in the replies which I can’t unsee. – DA
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What an excellent nom, and right on the money.
When I was younger, I received a copy of this cunt’s biography of Shackleton. Great present (thanks mum) but I quickly tired of Cuntford’s bashing of Scott. This was accomplished ably by page 4 of the foreword. Every last opportunity to denigrate his achievements was taken, and some.
Thinking this schtick was temporary, I pressed on. Pages of how Shackleton’s planning was superior. Cuntford thinks the reader cannot deduce this for themselves, using clues like Scott’s death and Shackleton’s survival.
Numerous references to Shackleton’s Irish family (I have no problem with that, )they were part of the UK at the time anyhow)), set the tone of the rest of the book.
Oh, and his Captain, Crean was Irish too, and was frequently humming “The Wearing o’the Green” while at the wheel (sure, Cuntford, anything you say). Fair play, the guy sounded harder than a coffin nail, and a bit of a legend, but you could almost read the fapping sounds emanating from Cuntford’s nest when that was written.
Yes, the man wasn’t without flaws, but he was, I believe, a British hero, with many achievements to his name. Cuntford clearly ran out of paper when these were to be discussed.
I have no problem with cunts being called cunts, but to follow a sl@vish and boring vendetta is churlish. Get a column in a newspaper if that’s what you want to do.
Fuchs and Feinnes seem to think that cuntybum is a sham anyway, and I’d listen to them.
I bet the closest the subject of this nom has got to polar exploration was sticking his hands down the front of his wife’s starchy knickers on his wedding day in 1899.
Thanks for reading, cunters
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My feelings exactly, Jamiroqunt. Ever since first reading Huntford in the 90’s, his book left a bad taste in my mouth for its excessive Scott bashing. Unfortunately, Huntford’s thesis has been very influential but at last he’s being challenged in new books on Scott.
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I have seen just enough of the Antarctic, from a relatively safe distance, to be absolutely certain that there is no way I would attempt a 700-mile walk across it. Even with modern technology. And how Shackleton got his men out to S. Georgia via Elephant Island smacks of divine intervention.
De mortuis nil nisi bonum
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You know what Roland Huntfords problem is?
Hes Bi polar.
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Groan! I hate myself for laughing at that.
No I don’t.
Yes I do.
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This is all clearly nonsense as the first individual to achieve this feat must (according to the laws of modern wokedom) have been a man of dark hue……or possibly an early transexual….or maybe a peaceful…..and suffering from the obligatory mental ‘elf condition of course.
Cynical? Me? Nah…..I’m going all woke and ‘right on’ from here on like a good modern cunt.
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Good point, I bet, as true as Bob, someone will cast a s**tskin as our hero in some wokefest in the future.
Actually, no. He would no doubt be cast as a bumbling, overbearing fool with r@cist tendencies, so white he will be.
A more likely punt would be one of his crew members, who would stand up to the obnoxious Englishman and save the day.
Come to think of it, at least they could have seen the cunt in a blizzard. Scott should have taken a few over with the ponies, poor planning after all.
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I hear Netflix have greenlit the ‘true ‘story of a group of Aborigines who made the trek to the south pole on e-scooters 7000 years before the Eurasian man rode a horse.
Starring Riz Ahmed and Pedro Pascal.
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Robert Falcon Scott.
Perfect name for an English adventurer.
Write as many books as you like but you’ve not gone hell for leather for Queen and country.
Just fuck off cunt.
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I’m off to the Pub now. I might be gone for some time.⛄️⛄️⛄️🍺
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He was a product of his time. He totally believed that a man who gives birth is a woman who looks like a man. He swore that only two real genders exist. Fuck me he was doomed before he entered history. Whatever his faults he was a darn sight braver than me.
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Give the cunt a pony and a duffel coat and see if he can do any better.
Those who attempted such things back in the day were incredibly brave. Who the fuck is this cunt anyway?
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Just some fuckin foreigner,
Ignore him.
He’ll get his fuckin head kicked in at the Explorers club.
Ranulph Fiennes said if he saw him hed ‘glass’ the little cunt.
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