Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

OK, that’s it. The world doesn’t need any more “bratty 20yr olds who take the piss out of everything.” It needs proper writers who are capable of writing.

But I have to remind myself that this is the same paper which, over the last month, has run “thinkpieces” saying that Uk*p have a point and mass immigration does not, that Rachel Reeves cravenly copying Government policy on migrants is a refreshing addition to the debate, that it’s all right for male politicians to be “a bit creepy” (and that was the paper’s Chief Political Writer talking about the Rennard affair) and that old people are burdens on humanity who need to have their retirement toys taken away.

Also this is the paper which, despite their Christmas Eve letters page being entirely given over to angry readers threatening to take their business away unless the columnist who wrote the last article mentioned above was removed, continue to publish the columnist in question every Monday. What a great advertisement for young wannabe journalists; you want a column in the Guardian? Just break the law, lie to the police, get put in jail and have your old pals at the paper take you back when you come out. Why even bother with going through journalistic training when all the paper clearly wants is not good journalism but what Charlie Brooker correctly termed “yelpy clickbait”?

Then again, if you pay peanuts, you get bratty 20yr olds who take the piss out of everything.

I think it was just a pastiche that begged to be misunderstood, guys. Chill

I think "Proper writers" would be wasted on a review of Sheryl Crow - One.

I think broadsheet newspapers have a duty to inform, educate and entertain the highest common denominator of their readership rather than continually pandering to the lowest. Yes, it's elitist - but so is smugly assuming that your readers are so easily and stupidly pleased if you run nothing but hit-gathering clickbait.

xp Yeah obviously I don't like that review. I wasn't "problematising" your comments though. I made one comment, which was that Ezra's looks were being discussed in that thread more, and more negatively, than Warpaint's were. It's not like I was angry - someone else brought it up.

Now I want you to go back and read the comments about Ezra K and a few jibes about his eyelashes or his haircut or the cut of his casual slacks, and tell me, again, that the discussion between Alfred and I was problematic, or out of order, or even excessive, when compared to what is written up there above, in your own newspaper.

idk 2 wrongs don't make a right, the guardian is terrible but ilx doesn't need to sink to its level

nobody gets paid to post on ilx tbf

*keeps shtum about sponsorship deals*

I know this is getting off the point, but I would have thought Sheryl Crow was too young for 'someone your dad has the hots for' jokes, but then it occurred to me that if this guy is 20yrs old then All I Wanna Do came out within a year of his birth, and now I feel old

depends how old your dad is i suppose?

tbf i have no idea what specific quality one needs to become a queen of dad boners

The guest-writer-reviews-the-singles bit of The Guardian has been consistently terrible for years. I don't know whether it's down to the brevity of the reviews or a reflection on the declining importance of the single as a format but, more often than not, it's just a vehicle for lower-rung bloggers to throw out some lazy, unpleasant zings. Thankfully, the rest of the music section is different.

Not wishing to get into the meat of the complaint but if a good poster has outlined why they're uncomfortable with a particular line being taken in a thread, that's usually a decent reason to think twice - irrespective of how many times worse some clown who writes for Vice may be.

There are plenty of outlets for that kind of drivel w/o the Graun getting in on the party. At least do it somewhere I'm not likely to see it, pls.

Guide single reviews have always been mean-spirited - this isn't a new development.

This is his schtick, he's a bratty 20yr old who takes the piss out of everything cunt

fixed. Or what you said, basically. #bantz

wins and lex otm

I don't think anyone itt is objecting to mean-spiritedness, irreverence etc, just thick lumpheaded #LADBANTZ

The worst Guide revisw I've read was a couple of years ago, for a Tulisa single, where the reviewer saw fit to take the piss out of her allegedly deficient blowjob technique, which he'd watched on the tape that had just been leaked without her consent.

The vibe has always been snark and sometimes it's funny and more often it's cheap shots and strained obnoxiousness. It's been like that as long as I've been reading it.

"Bratty 20yr olds who take the piss out of everything" is a respectable school of writing, or comedy writing, when it's done well.

I recall one that was like 'This, this is what grey-skinned council estate children are listening to' in a singles review for a popular girl band

Also guardian book review section only reviews poetry books from a small list of high-profile uk poetry publishers and they are always puff-pieces, not reviews

think there's probably a stepping-off point between snark and misogyny but maybe i am just trying to score Marc Loi points

http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/the_trust-fund_newspaper.php

Add it all up and GMG would have a nearly $1.9 billion pile of cash or, conservatively, somewhere around $1.6 billion after taxes (UPDATE: if they apply. See above update). Even if that cash were to get zero return and The Guardian isn’t able to cut its $51 million annual loss, it could fund the paper until about 2045.

Charles Foster Kane:
"You're right, I did lose a million dollars last year. I expect to lose a million dollars this year. I expect to lose a million dollars *next* year. You know, Mr. Thatcher, at the rate of a million dollars a year, I'll have to close this place in... 60 years."

the level of quality one would expect of an extended january transfer window deadline day liveblog might not be very high but it's still worse than anything in recent memory on the guardian site including rhiannon lucy coslett's blog about onesies

I refuse to actually read the article but its existence was enough to upset me:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/02/delete-candy-crush-saga-from-phone

let's just agree to never read anything by stuart heritage

The Guardian is excruciating when it acts like yr fuddy parent. Be that wincing about modernity or trying to sell u £300 kitchen scales.

That aspect doesn't annoy me half as much as their half-baked attempts to attract the Younger Readership (see The Guide most weeks). Don't have the precise demographics to hand but I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of their readers are over 50 and don't have a smartphone, let alone know or care what Candy Crush is.

So is candy crush the same as bejewelled

no, bejewelled is a legitimate game.

in all likelihood, an interminable scene two thirds of the way through where the main character gets drugged, then everything goes blurry and he has a tedious epiphany about his childhood.

this was almost funny tbf

bad tidings to whoever put an urbandictionary link to 'eMpTyV' here

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/06/russell-brand-philip-seymour-hoffman-drug-laws

I really can't be arsed to ever read that Russell Brand thing

Russell Brand: "Russell Brand".

he's in an invidious position because he doesn't get to discuss his ideas in the media except by dint of his persona, which inevitably draws the attention of his interviewer. but it might be interesting to draw comparisons with Rob Newman, who was surely once near the same level of celebrity as Brand, and who seems to have chosen to draw different conclusions about his own career from his political beliefs.

Brand's a lot more famous than Newman, but they've both got form WRT 'radical mouth, reactionary penis'.

i'm thinking of Wembley Arena era Newman, tho i guess he never took that level across the Atlantic. you might well be right about their sexual politics. Newman seems to have noticed the disconnect between radical communal politics and cults of personality better than Brand has managed so far.

sexual politics is maybe too prissy a term for "thinking with your dick"

...though it might be that musician/comedian nerd revenge thing where they take out their adolescent lack of action on female peers by playing head games with the grown-up versions of the smart girls who spurned them at school.

Observer and not Guardian but this seems bizarre and badly judged.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/09/woody-allen-dylan-farrow-alleged-sexual-abuse

Couldn't believe that article. What was most revealing to me was the sheer delusional nature of:

I have given this a lot of miserable thought and, I think, found a way through.

As if the world has been waiting for her unique insight and can now make progress on this issue...

to some extent that is the folly of columnists but yeah, bad, bad look

It read like fairly standard fence-sitting until I got to the second half. I presume she was trying to be empathetic but it just comes across as weird voyeuristic speculation.

Bringing up the Ebrahimi murder is bizarre as well, horrific as that story was, afaik no child had actually accused him of abuse.

Truly awful piece, but unsurprisingly the comments manage to outdo it. Christ.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/feb/14/i-hate-shopping-food-supermarket?CMP=fb_gu

Man thinks deli is too expensive, goes to supermarket instead. Has too much choice, wishes such a thing as a deli existed and claims he would travel miles to get to one.

Man goes to shop and buys what he went for cheaper than he could have done somewhere else. Moans about it. World fails to give a fuck.

Valentine's Day is more like a tax than a tribute to love
7 Feb 2014: Tim Lott: Capitalism has hijacked the Valentine tradition and now you can't do it on the cheap without being labelled unromantic
7 comments

Is Is it ever a good idea to apologise?
31 Jan 2014: Tim Lott: I am a profuse apologiser, but my wife tends to take these lightly as they come so easily to me. But what's a 'real' apology anyway?
3 comments

Why I want to be buried not cremated
24 Jan 2014: Tim Lott: I want somewhere for my family and descendants to go and think of me when I am dead. My mother was cremated and so there's nowhere to honour her – I can't even remember where the crematorium was
20 comments

The endangered art of storytelling
Tim Lott 10 Jan 2014: Tim Lott: The new Hobbit film is just one set piece battle after another with a love story tacked on
4 comments