Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

"mums love it. and it loves its mums."

Guardian front page splash:

It came so close to being remembered as the hockey mom election. But, doggone it, hockey moms will just have to wait another four years. The 2008 US presidential election belongs to just one man: Joe the Plumber. On Saturday Joe Wurzelbacher was, well, an ordinary Joe. Or to use a Sarah Palinism, a Joe Six Pack. Yesterday he woke to find himself transformed into an international phenomenon.

NOT a good start.

Also inside: an audience with Ricky Gervais.

An AUDIENCE?

It came so close to being remembered as the hockey mom election. But, doggone it, hockey moms will just have to wait another four years. The 2008 US presidential election belongs to just one man: Joe the Plumber. On Saturday Joe Wurzelbacher was, well, an ordinary Joe. Or to use a Sarah Palinism, a Joe Six Pack. Yesterday he woke to find himself transformed into an international phenomenon.

Why would anyone actively choose to write like this?

http://www.ianmacleod.com/site/uploads/1175181839.9252.jpg

This from the paper whose Guide last Saturday snarkily referred to "an exclusive interview with the elusive Ricky Gervais" on Jonathan Ross tonight.

You would be hard pushed to find anything snarkier than The Guide. Even N___ who I work with isn't as snarky and he's pretty damn snarky and snide. A perfect example of the non-directional cynicism that passes for thought with cut-rent trendies and is the counterweight to credulousness in the pans of the balance of stupidity.

And breathe.

I still get it for the TV though since it takes up less room than the Radio Times and doesn't have appalling Stuart Maconie column to make me wish for nuclear holocaust in five seconds.

I still get it and I wish to retract what I said about cut-rent trendies as it was absurdly pompous. This is because I am absurdly pompous. I still have to do my spastic ape impression round the room when reading it though, otherwise the levels of RAGE become uncontainable. It's mainly the little tv snippets - you know the sort - the ones that dare to presume they know what you think and what they think is the same as what... Hang on, I'm not putting this very well. Let me go and get a copy - there's bound to be an example -

'In an admirably ambitious series Simon Schama gives etc'
'Slightly misnomic title - as the man profiled here died almost a decade before Dubya's reign of error - but still a great docum... etc'
'De Sautoy wanders extensively across time and geography to demonstrate there's more to it [maths] than multiplication tables.'

Actually none of those quite hit it - but they gesture in the right direction.

'Tonally this takes its cues from Get Shorty and The Rockford Files.' Tonally?

Ah, here's a good one -

'The interest taken by mainstream Australia in the art of its indigenous peoples is a positive, if overdue, development.'

Oooh, aren't we perfect? This sort of right-on man-of-the-people bollocks really gets my dander up.

You would be hard pushed to find anything snarkier than The Guide.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/images/forest-for-the-trees.jpg

We've got a live one here.

I am happy to announce that on this occasion I totally agree with Carrie, Carlin and especially Gamaliel, whose description of non-directional cynicism and hatred of the BS TV previews is utterly spot-on and needs no apology.

Dave Simpson on the blog today literally blowing my head apart with his fresh original insight:

I was listening to Donna Summer's disco version of Macarthur Park the other night - a song that I must have heard a trillion times since its release in 1978 - when it suddenly hit me how silly the lyric is.

Maybe his next column will be about how "Ironic" by Morrisette isn't ironic.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/red/blue_pics/2008/09/11/dave_simpson.jpghttp://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/red/blue_pics/2008/09/11/dave_simpson.jpghttp://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/red/blue_pics/2008/09/11/dave_simpson.jpg

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/red/blue_pics/2008/09/11/dave_simpson.jpghttp://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/red/blue_pics/2008/09/11/dave_simpson.jpg

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/red/blue_pics/2008/09/11/dave_simpson.jpg

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/red/blue_pics/2008/09/11/dave_simpson.jpg http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/red/blue_pics/2008/09/11/dave_simpson.jpg

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/red/blue_pics/2008/09/11/dave_simpson.jpg http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/red/blue_pics/2008/09/11/dave_simpson.jpg http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/red/blue_pics/2008/09/11/dave_simpson.jpg

Maybe his next column will be about how "Ironic" by Morrisette isn't ironic.

That would be ironic, wouldn't it? oh wait...

"I was listening to the Sex Pistols' punk version of God Save The Queen - a song that I must have heard a trillion times since its release in 1978 - when it suddenly hit me how anti-Royalist the lyric is."

DAVE SIMPSON-A NORTHERN MUSIC CRITIC TM

Dave Simpson pictured on his way to sign on, there.

The lyric to Macarthur Park is perfectly understandable, btw.

He looks like a supply teacher

"I was listening to the Human League's New Romantic version of Don't You Want Me - a song that I must have heard a trillion times since its release in 1978 - when it suddenly hit me how it's got two singers on it."

"I was listening to Elvis Presley's country and western version of Heartbreak Hotel - a song that I must have heard a trillion times since its release in 1978 - when it suddenly hit me how miserable the lyric is."

He looks like a supply teacher

Supply games teacher who tries to pal around with the kids, then peeps as thy get changed.

I was listening to Jimi Hendrix's proto-metal version of Purple Haze - a song that I must have heard a trillion times since its release in 1978 - when it suddenly hit me how it sounds a little bit like he's saying "Excuse me while I kiss this guy".

Dave Simpson is a Guardian music critic. He once admitted to hating the Beatles.

Toooo controversial.

"I was listening to Elton John's Royalist version of Candle In The Wind '97 - a song that I must have heard a trillion times since its release in 1978 - when it suddenly hit me how the lyric was nothing to do with the famous Two Ronnies 'Four Candles' sketch."

"I was listening to the leaves blowing through the trees - a sound that I must have heard a trillion times since its release in Genesis Book 1 - when it suddenly hit me how me and everyone I know will die one day, and I spent years listening to the Charlatans"

Best if we leave Laura Barton out of this...

Wow, this is good stuff !!!

"I was listening to Dunblane's country and western version of Throw Those Guns Away - a song that I must have heard a trillion times since its release in 1978 - when it suddenly hit me how nobody has actually thrown away their guns. What was the point of that, then? Eh? Eh?"

"I was listening to Michael Jackson's 1991 hit 'Black Or White' - a song that I must have heard a trillion times since its release in 1978 - when it suddenly hit me how it was ironic that he sang 'It doesn't matter if you're black or white', considering that he has changed his own skin, from black, to make himself more white, so it seems to matter, to you, Mr Jackson!!"

I was listening to Michael Jackson's Billie Jean - a song that I must have heard a trillion times since its release in 1983 - when it suddenly hit me that I'd left the oven on."

I was listening to Outkast's "Hey Ya!" - a song that I must have heard a trillion times since I got into Gangsta Rap last week - when it suddenly hit me that it was time for me to go and sign on.

surely you mean 1978

"I was listening to The Beatles' Helter Skelter - a song that I must have heard a trillion times since its release in 1968 - when it suddenly occurred to me I had to kill everyone on this thread."

Beatles jokes stopped being funny 40 years ago.

"I was listening to Lloyd Cole's Argentinian tango version of My Bag - a song that I must have heard a trillion times since its release in 1978 - when the drunk sitting behind me on the bus suddenly cleaved my scalp in twain with an axe after I refused to give him 10p. Luckily we both saw the funny side."

Very strange.

The print version of FILM & MUSIC splashes a Petridis line in big letters. 'AC-DC's sound is like Noel Edmonds' hair - unaltered since 1974'.

Uh? Noel Edmonds' hair is most definitely altered since 1974. As PJ Miller unforgettably put it, he no longer looks like a lion. This is such an utterly misleading, wrong-headed simile, and it has been picked up and enlarged as a Petridis high point.

Guardian blogger on my Facebook friends list was on some "Mr Petridis, I respectfully disagree" ish on his blog. So he should be expecting his P45 in Monday's post.

tiswas! who remembers tiswas? the seventies! spacehoppers and...sweets they don't make anymore and...um...um...kojak!

it were right daft

I remember seeing a picture of him accompanying an interview in the observer- it was after he'd shaved his beard off 'for farmers'. His evil was totally apparent. Nasty little eyes.

This
http://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/010428well.shtml
doesn't quite do it justice, but conveys some of the flavour.

"I have never seen Dad without a beard before and I am quite traumatised by the result"

Charlotte Edmonds

And on April 27, live on the breakfast show GMTV, Noel finally met his 'Mach'.

^^^v good

it was after he'd shaved his beard off 'for farmers'

what, were they moaning about it tickling?

cockfarmers amirite?

http://www.viz.co.uk/picture_viz_library/dir_0/viz_character_17.gif

Petridis shaved off his beard?

The Guardian's London Graduate Fair is a sham and almost a waste of time. I'd like a job or at least some genuine careers advice, not a thinly-veiled excuse for corporations to try and sell me their "essential" courses. All the constructive stuff I can do sitting here on my laptop; the "interactivity" element of these events is transparently fake. And yeah I'd love to go into financial management. Sure thing.

You can take your NCTJ and shove it you know where.

Fortunately in my desperation I took to wandering into the surrounding studios, with (potentially) greater success. And at least I had a decent chat with someone who was eager to meet my expectations with genuine, untempered advice. Down in the main battleground, you needed a pinch of salt for practically every second step you took.