Sub-editors: how can I avoid killing them?

It's been one of those days.

[red mist descends]

the fact you're too scared to post your real name says everything.

i'll agree that a bad sub is a thing of horror. but i have saved so many writers' sorry asses that i've lost fucking count.

i have a mutually respectful and beneficial working relationship with 99% of the writers i deal with now. if you want to e-mail me off board - use the webmail link - then we can discuss a few things in a lot more detail than i'm willing to go into here. use the webmail link, ok?

i'm being serious. you need to learn a few things.

(btw, i also sub so i understand both disciplines. i've saved a few writers in my time and been saved, too.)

Seriously, does anyone actually aspire to this position in life? Who are these people? WHY DO THEY HATE ME???

OK, rant over. Just had to get that out of my system.

x-post - Some people really do care about checking the details. You get constant work and a reasonably interesting working atmosphere - it's not such a bad life.

as a chief sub - particularly in my previous job - i have often wanted to kill other subs, and have doled out the beatz in no uncertain terms. there are many subs out there who could, given enough time, reduce a beautifully written article to a sheet of smeared toilet paper.

but what i really, really resent here is the original poster's tone; this notion that we're glorified spell-checkers who "occasionally" have to worry about style etc, and that we're basically a hindrance. if you're genuinely unhappy with the way something's been subbed, speak to the chief sub. if, on the other hand, you're just a bit pissy because some "clever" piece of sub-sixth-form scribbling has been hacked out and chucked in the bin where it belongs ... don't waste their time. unless you like bite marks in the top of your head.

Anyway, without them you'd probably end up looking stupid 95% of the time when they rescue your copy, rather than 5% of the time when they screw it up.

i'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt here. was your entire post at 4.31pm a slightly tongue-in-cheek affair, motivated entirely by a sense of perceived injustice at one piece of sloppy subbing?

x-post: the amount of sense being talked by everyone else on this thread is a thing of joy. on behalf of subs everywhere: thank you!

i would be tempted to deliberately fuck up your work after that. also if you ctually speak to subs like that, don't be surprised if your commissioning editor gets a bit cool with you - they can quite easily drop it into conversatiuon that you're a pompous, obnoxious ass. the answer to why people sub-edit is that it's a good job, regular money and isn't that hard to do if you don't have to deal with morons. 3 people on my desk are widely published and respected writers in our own rights (this is often the case on national papers). a bad sub is a bad thing, true. however, when you're working on big-ass publications like i do, bad subs don't tend to stay employed for very long, so the likelihood is that they know what they're doing. NRQ is also spot on the money re editors.

write them lots of emails with all sorts of grammar errors. AND HAHA USE TWO SPACES AFTER A FULLSTOP!

also see: Put Me In Coach, I'm Ready To Play

roffle.

ken, grr :)

"a"

WORD DOCS? what are these "word docs" of which you speak?

we use an antiquated version of QPS, which logs every revision anyone makes. then, using cutting-edge technology, it locates the one that will reveal just who fucked something up really badly and deletes it.

(btw, i'm pretty sure you don't want to work with me - sounds like you have a good job already)

stelfox, you come and work with ME :) :) :)

slightly lax capitalization?

that's an oxford zed, bitches.

So spelling things correctly on ILX would be something of busman's holiday?

ok, i see; that sounds pretty cool

but we subs are brane-ded, remember? :)

i did once save 200 revisions of a feature, in order to try to force it to delete the one on which my colleague had written the headline: "THIS IS FUCKING PISH WRITTEN BY A DICK."

Tracer, re: track changes: the NYT does this. You can track through a story and see every change, who it was made by and when. It's a good thing.

There is one star writer on the publication I sometimes sub for who is fond of these and she is unfortunately the one whose copy we are apparently not allowed to touch cause she goes mental. Making her pieces look badly subbed. It makes me a bit cross.

i did this once. she went absolutely fucking mental at me. made no difference, but DAMN i felt better about it.

I have this on my clipboard:
A sub-editor's job is to check spellings, facts and libels, and sometimes polish up house style or cut something carefully to length.
But I see Grimly's already taken you to task for exactly the same things I was going to. Apart from the fact that it's "spelling" you want.

You're wrong about the role of subs, and you're very wrong about their motivations. Harold Evans says it better than me:
" Journalists who choose editing as their craft will have less obvious excitement than the reporter: not for them the thrill of detection or the fast plane to Beirut. Their satisfaction lies in the skills of the crafty, in communicating. And there are some excitements which reporting cannot match. There are nights of big news, the late-night flash in the Gulf War crisis, when text editors feel they are standing at the very centre of events. There is nothing to touch the fascination of seeing the news develop second by second and projecting a piece of history."

They're not failed reporters either: Evans goes on to talk about a Sir William Haley, who was "painfully shy" for reporting, but after switching to subbing became editor of the Times.

Spell checkers, hmph. Why do they hate you? Because you appear to believe that they're automatons who stand between your precious words and the public, a hindrance to be worked around; if you tried working with them you'd probably find them hugely pleased about it, and far less likely to fuck with your copy without asking you. Best advice though: email Grimly, go on.

xposts: Alba, what you should do is what I did: just lop the last par off her drivel. If you tell Grimly, he goes this funny colour and does all these comedy hand gestures. Or he did that time.

There is a lot of shitty writing out there, someone has to clean it up! It can be kind of fun esp. if you appreciate clarity and precision in language. (Often I read articles & just want to ask.. what do you mean! Be clear! I don't know, maybe it was that analytic philosophy course that got to me..)

hahaha STET

that was me trying to stop myself ripping your head off.

and subby mcsub: respect ;)

x-post: gypsy mothra, even more respect. beautifully put.

anyway, i need to get on with the goddamn fucking fashion pages, or my drinking time will be severely curtailed.

Oh god, if I ever had to work with Grimly again ...

I've worked on both sides of the desk, and now that I write more than I edit I find it terrifying to send in work without a proper review process in place; it's like wirewalking without a net.

The only really annoying editor I've worked with was the one who inserted lewd jokes into the copy, ostensibly for my amusement. Even that might've been okay if they'd been funny.

Mad props for tomorrow's actually-sexy-for-once fashion spread, by the way. I told the girls it was your job to touch up the nipples in Photoshop.

Actually, that might improve the pages :)

and alba, i've never touched up a nipple in my life :p

*bangs head on brick wall for ever*

oh, and i've given up on the fashion until monday, when i can maybe - just maybe - effect some form of fucking communication between the fashion stylist and the picture editor.

the original poster was right? who would aspire to this? apart from a pedant with a god complex.

oh, hang on.

1) i hate how brits call copy editors "sub-editors." copy editors do a very different job than story editors, department editors, editors-in-chief. we're not sub-anything. we have our own job to do. (i say "we" because i've paid the bills this way for much of my adult life.)

2) everyone who said "if you don't want your piece butchered, brush up on whatever style or reference guides the publication uses, be aware of how long your piece should be and exceed that so that with the dead wood being cut out your best stuff is likelier to stay in, and no matter how much it pains you, get used to writing the kind of writing that editors like to publish, and if that bothers you go home and start a blog" OTM OTM OTM.

3) i've never butchered a strong piece. i've never had to. yes, you absolutely should take it personally. sorry.

Also, the most brilliant person I've ever known, the most brilliant person on ILX in my view, and its most dazzlingly good writer (all one person) is a sub-editor.

Ailsa, does anyone generally copy-edit job ads?

Ailsa: it has no subs! All those sections make me weep (I'm on the daily, btw)
xposts ahoy

that's the thing! if your writing truly does show originality and flair, that'll shine through no matter what the red pen does to it. trust me, a couple of word substitutions and deleted repetitions are not going to scratch the gleam off the hope diamond.

The job -- and the term -- comes from being literally the substitute for the editor

gotcha. don't understand why an editor would need a substitute, but i'm satisfied with your answer.

OTM re: flair. I find the ones who sound off the most about having it removed had hardly any to begin with, just high-school gimmery.

xpost: yeh? come and compete nationally with six quality papers and five tabloids for a market of five million readers in a landmass smaller than Oregon. You people don't know you're born!

I have no idea. You'd think, somewhere along the line, someone would, especially if it's in a national publication. The Her4ld is joyous compared to the horror that is the jobc3ntre website. Today I saw an advert for a job that required the applicant to work in a "fast paste environment". OK, "paced" *sounds* like "paste", but still, GET ONE COMMON SENSE!

That was supposed to be Jennifer Aniston in Office Space, wearing "flair" buttons.

"editors as allies" is very true. most editors want to have good working relationships with their writers. they want a stable of talented, reliable, open-minded people to draw from (and then all those fledgling jelus mofos can call it nepotism). you can't do that if you're a bridge-burning asshole.

The ad I answered to get my current job was riddled with mistakes, quite big ones too - a pretty good indicator of how crap our personnel section is, as it turns out - but I think it worked in my favour because I was one of very few people who went for it after realising that the length of the contract was 18 months and not 18 days as stated.

wtf does it mean when it says that, please?

http://homepage.mac.com/mattvant/Pix/TravMatt.jpg
"Aw thanks, Martin!"

one starts as a reporter and works their way up :)

what training do you have, emsk? the NUJ runs subbing courses all over the place: they'd be a good place to start.

also: i fear a large part of PA's subbing operation is now in yorkshire somewhere. (or is it lancashire? no, that's northern and shell. ach: subs please check.)

if you want, drop me an e-mail off board (use the webmail link or i'll not see it for years) and i can give you the benefit of my immense wisdom hem-hem-hem.

No wonder RJG is on the run.

oh, wank. wonder why? goddamn ilx. never mind. i found it (in my spam folder) and shall reply when sober, over the weekend.

(And here's a peeve: That scene in Shattered Glass where the publisher makes the whole editing staff go through the whole magazine circling every comma to make sure that each one has a complementary comma to go with it. Which only makes sense when you're using commas to set off a clause, not if you're breaking up discrete parts of a sentence. It was like, the movie was trying to show these wonky editors hard at wonky work, but it got the details wrong.

Then of course there's the move where Drew Barrymore is a copyeditor at a Chicago newspaper with her own office and personal assistant. Oh how I laughed. And cried.)

you're joking, of course, ronan. but let's just assume that this is a parallel universe and you're not ...

1) i wouldn't trust anyone who uses three dog-dicks to have the first idea what to do with a comma ;)

2) did you ever write a dissertation on commas? 'cos i did. you can read it if you want. no, really. come back ...

anyway. that's not why i came here. i came to say: emsk, did you get my e-mail? any use?

this is my favorite movie ever! her name is JOSIE GROSSIE!

emsk: no worries at all! glad to be of service.

they're both pretty thankless jobs. (well, except drew-as-writer gets to kiss the cute, with-it teacher at the end.)

"n06splash.headline has been assigned to you or your group"

[open]

"DARLING I LOVE YOU. WILL YOU
MARRY ME? AND TO FILL AT 72PT"

x,,,,,,post.

please forgive

(not funny - soz)

seriously, yes, i shall try to dig it out. in a non-PM5 format. i shall e-mail you soon. or hopefully catch up with you IRL ... you missed a heap of tent-related comedy on friday night.

leeeee: yes. you need guns. and butter.

zoe: prizes if you spot the mistakes in GF's epic.

grim f: IRL/email, yes.

i would always advocate the direct approach. what have you got to lose?

not very good ones, i hope. it's fucking riddled with them. aren't most of the x-refs missing?

And the bit in Human Traffic where John Simm pretends to be a Mixmag writer to blag into a club and phones his PA. PA? Oh dear indeed.

"This action has caused the relationship to become detached"

(PS: I meant "no prizes" above there. stupid word-dropping sub. O the shame)

Grimly, I've emailed you a vaguely work related question that I would like answered please. A pint will be your reward :)

Is this the bit where I start by offering a pint of water and he asks for a pint of tequila and we end up compromising on a pint of IPA? I can't believe I'm even bribing people for favours (the excitement of having a sort of expense account is going to my head).

ding ding ding hurrah IPA glug.

Today's Evening Standard, page 43, check the first listing in the second-to-last column.

-- CharlieNo4 (starsandheroe...) (webmail), November 18th, 2005 4:19 PM. (Charlie) (link)

haha life takes some funny turns, dunnit?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jul/23/mediamonkey

lol at vanilla midget getting shook

"I have written 350 restaurant reviews for The Times and i have never ended on an unstressed syllable."

Oh the ironing.

To my mind if he only wrote that last graf in order to make a puerile Carry On joke that likely bypassed 75% of his readership, he's lucky it didn't get chopped off altogether.

This is a prime example of what I was talking about on the Mercury thread yesterday re. newspaper journalists being given ideas above their station. If I were the editor I'd send him packing. I don't care who his dad was or how many extra readers he gets with the Saturday edition. Or send him to Iraq for the next couple of years and get him to do some proper journalism.

Also, Why would you change a sentnece aso that it meant something i didn't mean?

Short people ain't got no reason to live

The fact that anybody would get so stunningly butthurt over a change to their sub-Two Ronnies song routine wordplay is quite frankly a damning indictment of the West.

You'd also think this rant would be more effective if shouted over a telephone. Written out, it's a bit green-inkish. Self-important primadonnas take note.

http://www.minorlooneytunes.com/pictures/finster003.jpg

Giles Coren, yesterday

He has no idea how stress works in English.

But A+ for use of swearing.

What. A. Twat.

would do his sister though.

I think he has a point.

FITE

lol journalism

I think he has a point.

Uot0eleven? Totally

^^^subs correct typo plz

weird: when i clicked on the link i thought, no! the guardian's got hold of that old e-mail coren sent years ago moaning about subbing and thinks it's new.

then i realised, no, it's coren doing it all over again.

listen, you jumped-up little cunt. when you actually have any idea about how to put a newspaper together -- to sweat and toil and draw and redraw and jump to the whims of editors and picture editors and feature editors; to prune and cut and fix and plaster and smooth over the myriad mistakes of soi-disant "writers" who can't tell a misrelated participle from a fucking libel risk -- *then*, and only then, i might fucking consider giving you one trial shift. until then, feel free to suck my root, and that of every other sub in the country, until it fucking bleeds.

also, get one sense of perspective, you little prick. (NB: same goes for me, but i'm not the fud making myself look like the king of the bell-ends in public, am i?)

I think he has a point

you know what? he almost certainly does. but it's the way he's going about it that makes me want to rip his head off.

i've worked with way more talented journalists than giles fucking coren, believe me. some of them have been utter cunts, too. but never -- not quite -- on that level.

Someone who subbed the most recent batch of writing I had printed seems to be under the impression that the first word after the second of two dashes within a sentence - such as this one - Starts with a capital letter.

This actually annoyed me more than the end of a reviews column I wrote mysteriously falling off the page, meaning it made no sense at all

xp
Yeah, it's bizarre because even he recognises he's gone waaaayyyyyy ott and yet still he kept on typing and then actually sent it in.

when i clicked on the link i thought, no! the guardian's got hold of that old e-mail coren sent years ago moaning about subbing and thinks it's new.

At least with that old email (if you mean the one I think you mean) he had more of a point - the subs had changed a quote from the book he was reviewing that was central to the book's plot.

But, like you say, it's how he goes about it.

Dude should come and work with me, two years of our subs and he'll just be grateful they spell his name right.

It strips me of all confidence in writing for the magazine.

;_;

"I can't think of a nicer place to sit this spring over a glass of rosé and watch the boys and girls in the street outside smiling gaily to each other, and wondering where to go for a nosh." <-- the little jingle that that I take with me into the weekend.

I've been sent this link approximately 237* times today, mostly by people whose work I sub. Should I be insulted?

For the record, I think his points regarding metre, innuendo and nuance are entirely valid (irrespective of the dreadfully dull, cliched and ungainly sentence in question), but anyone receiving that email who doesn't reply with the words "Go piss up a rope, you prissy, self-important fucktard" (other swear words are available) is being way too soft on the man.

Also:

listen, you jumped-up little cunt. when you actually have any idea about how to put a newspaper together -- to sweat and toil and draw and redraw and jump to the whims of editors and picture editors and feature editors; to prune and cut and fix and plaster and smooth over the myriad mistakes of soi-disant "writers" who can't tell a misrelated participle from a fucking libel risk -- *then*, and only then, i might fucking consider giving you one trial shift. until then, feel free to suck my root, and that of every other sub in the country, until it fucking bleeds.

bravo!

*three, but... y'know

Coren is the son of the late British writer and humourist Alan Coren, and the brother of journalist Victoria Coren. He was educated at Westminster School before going on to Keble College, Oxford, where he scraped a Desmond in English.

ahahaha

OMG that's changed since this morning!

His pre-GCSE knowledge of scansion let him down.

(x-p)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00153/giles-385_153409g.jpg

am gon' geddum!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v292/aldo_cowpat/giles.gif

Winkler by Giles Coren (Jonathan Cape)

And he came hard in her mouth and his dick jumped around and rattled on her teeth and he blacked out and she took his dick out of her mouth and lifted herself from his face and whipped the pillow away and he gasped and glugged at the air, and he came again so hard that his dick wrenched out of her hand and a shot of it hit him straight in the eye and stung like nothing he'd ever had in there, and he yelled with the pain, but the yell could have been anything, and as she grabbed at his dick, which was leaping around like a shower dropped in an empty bath, she scratched his back deeply with the nails of both hands and he shot three more times, in thick stripes on her chest. Like Zorro.

xpost haha Coren getting exactly what he needs

I think the final sentence is ungainly. Maybe it's just my weary state, but as soon as it gets to the "and watch" it loses me. By the time it gets to "and wondering" I've totally given up. I would expect the subs to do more than drop an indefinite article.

I have short attention span for this kind of thing, though. His email is much more entertaining. Perhaps The Times should publish those each week instead.

Yeah, they basically made his shit sentence slightly less shit by not having a bad double-entendre add to the confusion

that is not the kind of thing I would take into my weekend, nor is "Like Zorro."

"he scraped a Desmond" would be up there though

I think the final sentence is ungainly. Maybe it's just my weary state, but as soon as it gets to the "and watch" it loses me.

Yes, it should lose over a glass of rosé.

It strips me of all confidence in writing for the magazine.

Hands up who actually believes this.

" his dick jumped around and rattled on her teeth" <--- rattled? How hard is this guy's cock?

Hard as a sword. Like Zorro's.

It sounds like it's demonically possessed and ejaculates for minutes at a time, so I guess all bets are off

" his dick jumped around and rattled on her teeth" <--- rattled? How hard is this guy's cock?

-- Raw Patrick, Thursday, 24 July 2008 14:13 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Internet hardman

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jul/11/pressandpublishing

I missed this one. What an arse.

damn, grimly fiendish went in

That Zorro passage "won" the "Bad Sex In Fiction" award - up against some stiff (oo-er) competition.

The First Casualty by Ben Elton

He felt the thick, luxuriant bush of soft wet hair between her legs and in a moment he was buried inside it.

"Ooh-la-la!" she breathed as he smelt the clean aroma of her short bobbed hair and the rain-sodden grass around it. "Oooh-la-jolly well-la!"

And so they made love together in the pouring rain, with Nurse Murray emitting a stream of girlish exclamations which seemed to indicate that she was enjoying herself. "Gosh", "Golly" and, as things moved towards a conclusion, even "Tally ho!"

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/mediamonkey/2008/07/indefinite_article_definite_an.html

'Coren says the email is "ancient" and is puzzled as to why it was surfaced now. "Looking at it - and you have to admit, it's a corker - it occurs to me it can only have been leaked by one of four Times staff. God, they must hate me."'

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/linda-u/S-mad-u-crew.jpg

guardian would be way more interesting if they let cam'ron guest copy edit for a week

"He felt the thick, luxuriant bush of soft wet hair between her legs and in a moment he was buried inside it." <--- this guy must be three inches tall or something. And he doesn't even climb into the pussy. Just the hair.

http://www.asiantribune.com/files/images/Death%20to%20America.jpg

Totally depends on how thick and luxuriant said bush is. Could be like Karadzic's beard down there. (xpost)

Yeah, there's something incredibly ungainly about that sentence anyway - if I'd been subbing it the indefinite article would have been the least of my concerns (and before I read on I assumed that they took it out because to most people reading it would *only* mean a blowjob, and have barely any connotations of food at all).

xposts

"Totally depends on how thick and luxuriant said bush is." No matter how hirstute you still gotta be the size of Ant Man to be buried inside it.

Glad to see that despite the letter the subs still didn't bother to change it back for the online version though.

Chaps,

ok well im super drunk right now after playing bass in an awesome metal show and i have a hot chick waiting for me in my bed so ill say this:

I will now explain why your error is even more shit than it looks. You see, i was making a joke. I do that sometimes. I have set up the street as "sexually-charged". I have described the shenanigans across the road at G.A.Y.. I have used the word 'gaily' as a gentle nudge. And "looking for a nosh" has a secondary meaning of looking for a blowjob. Not specifically gay, for this is soho, and there are plenty of girls there who take money for noshing boys. "looking for nosh" does not have that ambiguity. the joke is gone.

fuck times and its nu style of subbing whatever he wants whenever he wants (sans admin log)

hey.. if i was a dude in his 30's, in a dead end job that never got laid, and had barely any irl friends i would love anonymously subbing restuarant reviews too...

basically: this is the only thing dude has control of in his life.

even when he gets drunk he spends his time subbing reviews. kinda sad.
fine.

you can say 350 restaurant reviews were good today but one of them that was actually totally cool, brought the lols and was a solid article got subbed for no reason was enough for me to say "fuck this shit"

tom millar obviously loves the "this is the thread where i say"
style of pussy ass bullshit posts that make ilx terrible. just see idiot thread board for that bullshit. its basically the same 4 ilxors talking about their bullshit lives that no one asked about plus tom telling us how wasted he is.

its like an episode of sex in the city with tom and ned adding in there 2 cents once in a while. wow what bunch of lols.

im not one to make a big post about leaving but fuck this shit. for reals. im leaving for gershy who is a real bro and "GOD FORBID!!!!" bumped threads that already existed....

this paper is now just a bunch of rich college kids and dumb fat bitches (lets get real.... even the actual rock stars that post here are academic morons.) that wanna talk about the politics of messenger bags and facebook profiles. obviously tom wanted this. you can tell by his "dudes im totally wasted!" posts all over the dumb ass molify lingbert thread. so hay! you got what you wanted, tom!

i hope your life of never getting laid by anyone and being stuck in a dead end job is finally giving you what you wanted in life. everyone hates you btw. but hey as long as you rule who gives a fuck right?

And worst of all. Dumbest, deafest, shittest of all, you have removed the unstressed 'a' so that the stress that should have fallen on "nosh" is lost, and my piece ends on an unstressed syllable. When you're winding up a piece of prose, metre is crucial. Can't you hear? Can't you hear that it is wrong? It's not fucking rocket science. It's fucking pre-GCSE scansion. I have written 350 restaurant reviews for The Times and i have never ended on an unstressed syllable. Fuck. fuck, fuck, fuck.

Right,
Sorry to go on. Anger, real steaming fucking anger can make a man verbose.
All the best
Giles

Like Zorro.

I can't believe you ended the review on an unstressed syllable. That's not like you at all.

Adam Bovary, London,

"I can't think of a nicer place to sit this spring over a glass of rosé and watch the boys and girls in the street outside smiling gaily to each other, and wondering where to go for a nosh."

I mean this is Operation Ore fuel, really, this sentence.

Actually if you read that whole review it's appallingly overcooked! I would have cut about half of it.

And smile when you’re looking for my reservation in the book. Smile like you hope it’s there. Don’t frown and dither as if you’re hoping I’ll die before you find it, saving you the trouble of seating me.

Smile when you offer me a drink. So your dad died last year. Deal with it when you get home.

Smile when my girlfriend complains that the carpaccio is raw or the gazpacho is cold. Smile and say the right thing.

That's not even the full sentence.

H3nry Harr1s is too good for the quality not to keep on rising until he has the simmer he wants, and I can’t think of a nicer place to sit this spring over a glass of rosé and watch the boys and girls in the street outside smiling gaily to each other and wondering where to go for nosh.

59 words (or 60 with his indefinite article) apparently constitute a little jingle that the reader takes with him into the weekend.

He does have a point of sorts with the "smile" business, but unfortunately coming from him it sounds less like "put the customer first" and more like "applaud me for breathing, touch the hem of my garment" and other sixth form prefect mores.

But he definitively spoils it by outing his girlfriend as too dumb to know that carpaccio is raw and gazpacho cold...

this paper is now just a bunch of rich college kids and dumb fat bitches (lets get real.... even the actual rock stars that post here are academic morons.) that wanna talk about the politics of messenger bags and facebook profiles.

Jog my memory, was this about ILX or the Times

ask chaki?

... and another e-mail from a colleague telling me about this :)

But he definitively spoils it by outing his girlfriend as too dumb to know that carpaccio is raw and gazpacho cold...

Nono I think he's saying he - or rather his journalistic persona - knows his girlfriend's stoopid, but is suggesting that it's not the waiter/waitress's job to point that out: it's their job to smile and say the right thing.

nb. said girlfriend (or at least, his current belle) sits next to a friend of mine. she has now seen this thread.

Waiter: Sir, are we ready to order?

Brian: Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on a second. You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?

Tina: Sure I do! Opera's bitchin'! Okay. I guess I'll have the es-car-got and a glass of chab-liss.

Brian: Same here. Es-car-got and the chab-liss.

I doubt that ex-Giles Coren employee Gordon Ramsay would "smile and say the right thing."

correction: Gordon Ramsay, Giles Coren's ex-employer. I don't want him getting any more high falutin' ideas.

Oh man the Brando one is amazing.

Fan Tan by Marlon Brando and Donald Cammell (William Heinemann)

In a moment Annie was on his side, Madame Lai was like a plant growing over him, and her little fist (holding the biggest black pearl) was up his asshole planting the pearl in the most appreciated place.

"Oh, Lord," he cried out. "I'm a-comin'!"

she has now seen this thread

awesome. she can tell him my offer of a shift still stands, assuming he can demonstrate the vaguest knowledge of how production desks work.

which i really, really, really fucking doubt.

but he won't leave any articles end with an unstressed syllable.

'awesome. she can tell him my offer of a shift still stands, assuming he can demonstrate the vaguest knowledge of how production desks work.'

Future T2 cover article right there, guaranteed.

Yeah that is solid gold actually. I doubt he has enough of a sense of humour to actually do it but you never know.

he will probably have enough of a sense of humour to do it before some idiot ruins his genius joke by taking out an a.

heheh, i've just been mulling that over: would he do it? glad to see i'm not the only one.

(ken: that's brilliant, btw.)

Quote from my mum, having read the piece:

"Oooo, Giles Coren, get back in your box AND keep you hair on! What a hilarious rant, I hope that it made him feel better. Jewish smewish or what?"

She seems to have turned into Larry Grayson :-)

And what's the best way to raise this issue with them without resorting to screaming, violence or explaining things in a style not unlike Father Ted explaining perspective to Dougal?
Now we know.

http://twitter.com/gilescoren

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

"Dumbest, deafest, shittest of all..."

Probably one of the ugliest things I've ever read.

people are still sending me this :)

(also: that twitter thing is fucking genius.)

AHAHAHAHA. This is some rapid-cycling mental health disturbance that hits overentitled hacks as karmic payback for advertising frozen food: TWITOSIS.

As I wrote to the friend who sent me this, you have to be seriously oblivious or plain disingenuous to assert that your extremely famous dinner guest isn't going to get both your asses kissed for you at a restaurant six blocks from his own house. DUHHHHHHH.

(that's re: one of his other hiss-e fits sent to rival critic mentioned in the Guardian).

two more e-mails linking to this today. i feel like writing a giles coren-style letter back.

once a sub changed "that's a bold claim" to "them's fightin words" in a review I did. one friend who read it texted me to tell me this as he knew I would never write that.

the wonderful david marsh replies to coren; explains, gently, why subbing matters.

xpost: hahahah what the FUCK? what paper was that for, the cactus valley hollerer?

hot press magazine....never worked for them again.

I you put "them's fighting words" ronan into Google, there are only nine hits and one is from ilx.

one thing I would say, on that note is, if this keeps happening and you're pissed off, or worse, doubting yourself, just stop working for that magazine.

if there's no way to sort out subbing you feel is really gutting your work unnecessarily and leaving you scanning your piece with a fine tooth comb, feeling annoyance rather than joy or a sense of achievement as your piece finally appears in print, then this is INCREDIBLY SHIT.

if you can at all afford it write for somewhere you get along with, it's so much less stressful.

x-post probably all me telling this story

I got 17,400 hits when I just put it through Google.

I admit it, I start every piece with it.

I keep getting into fights by responding to innocuous comments with it.

I dunno if Pipecock's comments are innocuous.

Ding: Results 1 - 9 of 9 for "them's fighting words" ronan

Results 1 - 3 of 3 for pipecock neckbeard. (0.24 seconds)

Your search - "them's fighting words" pipecock - did not match any documents.

Suggestions:
Make sure all words are spelled correctly.
Try different keywords.
Try more general keywords.
Try fewer keywords.

Only 2 results for "them's fighting words" + "Hot Press" and both of those are from the same blog.

erm...are you saying I made this up? you can't search for hot press online because you need to have subscribed.

I bet that's a real moneyspinner.

yeah it's a proven business model

erm...are you saying I made this up? you can't search for hot press online because you need to have subscribed.

-- Ronan, Monday, 28 July 2008 10:54 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

Yeah, wtf?
Fake marcello?

Someone's being overly paranoid here.

"Overly paranoid" is redundant.

No, you're mixing up overly paranoid with the British economy.

q - i have to do a 'subbing test' for a job im applying for. but on the actual document (called subbing test incidentally) with the text it says 'write two listings', not SUB two listings. so im guessing id be wrong to rewrite the entire thing right?

Not sure I understand: do you mean there's some copy to sub, then there's an instruction telling you to write some copy in the style of the stuff you've been subbing?

If so, maybe stating the obvious, but don't just rewrite the stuff you're meant to be subbing. Sub test documents are often there to trip you on fact-checking, house style, consistency & the little things: double spaces, en dashes, date styles etc. It's really an attn to detail test; only rewrite where necessary, and lightly.

Other subs may disagree.

well the document is called 'subbing test' but in the instructions it says to 'write an appetising listing' for two programmes, for which there are 2 bits of blurb, one from a production office, one from a publicity office. the one from the prod office is about the right word count theyre asking me to write a listing for, so not sure whether to really write my own one, or to just try and reword the existing one slightly. if thats the case, theres not much there to change really.

maybe it is there to trip me up, not sure.

Ah, ok. So it does sound a sort of writing test. Ignoring me might be best.

who knows. thanks tho.

i mean, one listing has the title in all caps, the other is sentence case. doesnt even seem to be a house style to stick to!

Sometimes it only takes one.

Having begun working as a sub the last couple of years, I'm astonished, ASTONISHED at the state of some of the copy I have to work on. As a writer, the thought of sending in a piece of copy that hadn't been rewritten and reread enough times to be immaculate is akin to walking around with my balls hanging out of my fly. It appears a lot of writers, however, do not feel this way.

I can see why y'all start blogs. To avoid killing editors.

if any london ilxors know of any part-time sub editor jobs currently available this would be fun and useful (i'm one of the good ones that no one wants to kill) (probably)

based on what a friend told me who worked here, the spec always needs temp sub-editors, and they're informal enough that they could probably be cold-called

(disclaimer: i may be totally misinformed)

ooh that sounds interesting (lol also er challenging), thank you!

I'm not sure how to link to it, mark, but the subs_uk yahoogroup is a good source of work offers

cheers stevie, i will hunt that down on monday :)

i got my gig at heat via the group and now work there pretty much every month!

mark s, Dominic Wells - former Time Out editor - was looking for a London-based sub recently on Facebook. Caveat: I think the work would be on advertorials for The Times and Sunday Times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pp7RDqY1S1o

cheers WF :)

Caveat: I think the work would be on advertorials for The Times and Sunday Times.

doubtless £££s tho

the closest i've ever been to working on a title i was ideologically unsympathetic to was a fill-in week on r3d p3pper when it first started -- and it wasn't the politics, which i was broadly aboard with (otherwise wouldn't have bothered replying to the ad), but the in-office banter abt pop culture: no one present had a clue

also i did a few days at WOUND CARE magazine once, despite myself being WOUND? DON'T CARE

should apply at The Wire for maximum pathos

https://i.imgur.com/mPgfVXT.jpg

:D <3

Just before I moved from London to Glasgow I did a few fill-in shifts subbing The Sun's TV mag. This was at the News International compound in Wapping - have never worked anywhere else with such tight, oppressive security arrangements. It was of course interesting in all sorts of ways, and yeah, the rates were pretty good - the Murdoch shilling basically paid my relocation expenses.

So you're saying when the revolution comes it will be difficult to storm in there and smash up all their computers, which was my revolution plan

I'm sure the security guards will recognise their common revolutionary cause with you and assist with the smashing of the presses.

ok i have applied to join the uk subs and sent an email to dominic wells via his website, which is probably bad etiquette but i couldn't find the relevant facebook post

i will phone up the spectator later in the week perhaps

lol fabled foe of the subs' desk giles coren showing his worthless ass again

stevie i got no joy from the subs_uk yahoogroup -- can you tell if it's currently active from the inside?

(i applied for membership and the application failed 14 days later, i'm assuming bcz the person who makes the decisions didn't spot it -- i will re-apply anyway)

hey! am on hols this week but will reply properly when i get back home x

the blessed return of #theabsolutegrudge :D

(ps and v unrelated: nudging stevie? i never no response from them second time of enquiring either?)

Apologies, Mark - just fired off a message to the list to find out who the admin is

cheers :)

The UK company I work for may have some freelance subbing work going in October, working on a number of different contract-client magazines. It would be short notice when pages are available to work on, and a quick turnaround would be required. You would be subbing for facts, grammar and internal consistency, rather than wholesale rewriting etc (unless the text is particularly disastrous). There might also be client changes/amends to action.

You would need to have InDesign 2020 and might be required to make minor design tweaks to layouts; there could also be subbing work on e-newsletters too, so familiarity with MailChimp and Umbraco would be a plus. The company has offices in London and Glasgow; this would all be for the Glasgow office, although obviously you can be based anywhere in the UK.

The long-term goal is to increase our pool of subbing freelancers, who at present all get fairly frequent work from us. I don't know what daily rates will be on offer - I would guess around £150 a day would be the absolute max.

If anyone is interested, please send me an email, with a very brief resume of your previous subbing work, to Axx✧✧✧.littlefi✧✧✧@thinkpublish✧✧✧.c✧.u✧ (that's 'Andrew' at the start of my email address obv).

Thanks!

LOL ILX seems to automatically censor email addresses (very wise!)

so that's

Andrew.littlefield

at 'think publishing.co.uk'

Ach, I'm booked until the end of October, and then without assignment from thereon in, but if I can be of any use in the future...

Thanks stevie, please feel free to send me over your contact details etc. We're looking at a big deadline crunch in October, and I'm sure there will be similar mad rushes in the future.