Suzanne Harrington: Can we leave the Coldplay couple alone now?

"The spitegeist is schadenfreude on steroids. You’ve slipped on a spectacularly stupid banana skin and we are crowding over you, gurning and hooting like gibbons."

Suzanne Harrington: rallying against the 'spitegeist'. Pic: Andrew Dunsmore

Are you mean? Not with money — although that sucks too — but towards others? 

We live, says author Stuart Jeffries in his brilliant forthcoming book on stupidity, in an age of ‘spitegeist’. That is “where joy in others’ misfortune and in others’ displays of ignorance is addictive”.