Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/jan/21/the-clash-paul-simonon-gauche-biker-art-betrayal-punk

bit harsh and borderline personal

Totally Mexico! How the Nathan Barley nightmare came true

Charlie Brooker and Chris Morris’s 2005 TV series was a comedy about a ludicrous ‘self-facilitating media node’ in east London. But 10 years on, it looks more like a documentary about the future

But that's actually a really good piece?

yeah, strapline actually gets the article completely wrong

it's an absolutely shit piece and it fits the strapline. hipsters this hipsters that. it says "haircuts" how many times? gimme 1000 dayglo hipsters over brooker and co encouraging anyone who reads the guardian to stand up and applaud themselves every fucking day for liking 6music and jarvis cocker, and decade old tv shows. honestly - the guardian on culture is like your granddad plus 970 words and minus a sense of humour.

Yes - far too self-congratulatory a piece. ...2005 was already well into Shoreditch/Hoxton era and NB was was actually quite bland and only occasionally hitting the target.

Or the pub that had been bought out by club promoters, but “to confuse people” they’d kept the downstairs bar unaltered and given all the regulars membership. “All the normal people had been turned into these weird props.”

this is so fucking absurd - so they should have just booted out the regulars cos to keep allowing them in was voyeurism by default? you can't win with the "o they're at it again" morons in the guardian. heaven forbid a few people in a big city did some silly things in the name of art - let's all fucking throw a wooly jumper at them and listen to "sorted for es and whizz".

strapline actually gets the article completely wrong

ehh well there's a v long section in the middle abt how it predicted this and that using examples that are cherrypicked to the point of daftness. calling happyslapping a post-Nathan Barley phenomenon... come on now

http://www.theguardian.com/profile/the-guide

was looking for an online copy of the exhibition listings that appears in the guide on saturdays, got the above, which is just an archive of the populist listicles. pah.

Omar El-Hussein, the 22-year-old Danish man shot dead by police after supposedly carrying out the worst attack on Danish soil for decades, was a petty criminal with a past seemingly full of contradictions. He was a smart student but reportedly had a short fuse and was prone to violence. He was a talented kick-boxer and yet appeared to have suffered from anxiety and used cannabis.

he liked to drink coca cola yet sometimes appeared to have purchased lemonade

"and yet appeared to have used cannabis" ffs

Smart but violent? This is unprecedented!

"No one who speaks German could be an evil man."

http://i.imgur.com/HpmOJ57.png

didn't google glass already bomb a few months ago?

that vs http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/the-stereotype-map-of-britain-according-to-north-londoners--g1ES8x4Y3g

(x-post)
Don't knock it till you've watched it! This week's 'watch me date' features one of my friends.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

not watched the dating video yet, but the piece in the weekend mag is generally a highlight

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/architecture-design-blog/2015/mar/04/revealed-boris-johnson-duplicitous-handling-garden-bridge-london

An important story, no doubt, but the picture gave me pause for thought...

http://i.guim.co.uk/static/w-620/h--/q-95/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/3/4/1425506267901/cc654aa1-0e6d-4e52-85df-4d1f755e2218-1020x612.jpeg

saw that earlier and kept thinking of that fan art picture of Macho Man elbowdropping Jesus from heaven

ffs Scotland is full of inbreds according to the guardians cartoonist now. How did this get past the editor? who the hell thought it was ok?
Their sales in Scotland will drop even further now,

http://i.guim.co.uk/static/w-940/h--/q-95/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/3/6/1425656930878/0d4f335a-e056-4cea-bac4-114cf1ff5d70-bestSizeAvailable.jpeg

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2015/mar/09/steve-bells-if-

from the same cunt who did
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cartoon/2014/nov/13/steve-bells-if-nicola-sturgeon-scotland

When did The Guardian turn into the Daily Mail?

Steve Bell is just not funny.

as 'satire' goes it's pretty bad. It may well be a paraphrase of a quote (that no bugger knows) but it's not even funny.

I don't blame anyone for misunderstanding Steve Bell cartoons because they're obtuse and unfunny but you've seriously misunderstood this one if you think he's saying Scotland is full of inbreds and bears any resemblance to the Daily Mail.

Re-make/Re-model - could you please take a moment or two to explain it because if it's not gratuitous mockery of Scottish people then it makes no sense to me whatsoever. I get that "try anything once except incest and morris dancing" is a known expression but other than that I'm at a loss.

I'm guessing Bell is the kind of old school leftie who is actually opposed to the SNP out of a mistrust of nationalist politics (see also: bobby gillespie)

nothing says "firmly opposed to nationalism" like national stereotype jokes

Another funny one!
http://my.mutterings.co.uk/images/politics/repository/scotland-should-itself

I'm not entirely sure what Bell is saying by riffing on the old "try anything once" line but I can't work out what the people who think the cartoon is anti-Scottish think he's saying. Is incest a national stereotype?

It is simply considered to be a general term of abuse.

eg. calling Steve Bell an unfunny motherfucker is not a reference to his national identity.

also "incest" gags frequently levelled at hicks/rubes/yokels take yr pick lol provincial politicians etc

ts: characterizing yokels as incestuous vs zoophiliac

for an allegedly leftist newspaper the guardian in its coverage of scottish politics really has only paid lip-service to the reality that the majority of yes voters were young, urban, leftist internationalists. they mainly point and laugh at the provincials for their perceived petty, small-minded nationalism.

a lot of new labourite content where the columnist tries to explain why labour is the much better choice for the left-wing scot but cannot have recourse to mentioning the policies of the two parties to justify this because obv labour is really awful.

snp prob quite populist and opportunist in a lot of its choices, but the yes movement, and the glut of young people who joined the party post-referendum are going to irrevocably move the party to the left for good.

chose the wrong time to emigrate :/

this wd be the same Graun that backed the Lib Dems at the last election anyway

also lol Mordy gotta be a poll

i had actually forgotten that about the lib dems, fuck me.

clegg did a photo-opportunity outside my old office for the lib dem pledge not to raise VAT (lol). then he performed well in one debate and the press were talking about a 3 party election for a couple seconds. heady days.

and if anything the Lib Dems' trad vote was as rural as SNP iirc?

tbf Steve Bell is probly still on some SWP steez or something

He's riffing on that well-worn Erich Fromm quote, "nationalism is our form of incest, is our idolatry, is our insanity".

lol the Tim Lott CiF piece is so perfect for the Guardian ------> bin

It's perfectly pitched to provoke. It's good to see that his writing skills haven't completely atrophied from writing those 'man about the house' family life articles.

literally listing your boring reactionary beliefs in a rewrite of the same column you've been writing for a decade ≠ writing skills

good to know that if you self-identify as a Good Lefty you can pretty much believe whatever shit you want though

Lol at the Owen Jones/Julie Bindel spat

I think that Tim Lott piece is pretty good tbqh, had me nodding in agreement throughout