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.
― Dingbod Kesterson, Thursday, 24 July 2008 11:42 (fifteen years ago) link
Also, Why would you change a sentnece aso that it meant something i didn't mean?
― Jamie T Smith, Thursday, 24 July 2008 11:53 (fifteen years ago) link
Short people ain't got no reason to live
― The stickman from the hilarious "xkcd" comics, Thursday, 24 July 2008 11:53 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― The stickman from the hilarious "xkcd" comics, Thursday, 24 July 2008 11:54 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 24 July 2008 11:59 (fifteen years ago) link
http://www.minorlooneytunes.com/pictures/finster003.jpg
Giles Coren, yesterday
― The stickman from the hilarious "xkcd" comics, Thursday, 24 July 2008 12:02 (fifteen years ago) link
He has no idea how stress works in English.
But A+ for use of swearing.
― Jamie T Smith, Thursday, 24 July 2008 12:02 (fifteen years ago) link
What. A. Twat.
would do his sister though.
― Upt0eleven, Thursday, 24 July 2008 12:03 (fifteen years ago) link
I think he has a point.
― Pete W, Thursday, 24 July 2008 12:11 (fifteen years ago) link
FITE
― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 24 July 2008 12:13 (fifteen years ago) link
lol journalism
― DG, Thursday, 24 July 2008 12:17 (fifteen years ago) link
Uot0eleven? Totally
― DJ Mencap, Thursday, 24 July 2008 12:18 (fifteen years ago) link
^^^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?)
― grimly fiendish, Thursday, 24 July 2008 12:24 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― grimly fiendish, Thursday, 24 July 2008 12:25 (fifteen years ago) link
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
― DJ Mencap, Thursday, 24 July 2008 12:27 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― Ned Trifle II, Thursday, 24 July 2008 12:30 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― Forest Pines Mk2, Thursday, 24 July 2008 12:30 (fifteen years ago) link
Dude should come and work with me, two years of our subs and he'll just be grateful they spell his name right.
― Pete W, Thursday, 24 July 2008 12:34 (fifteen years ago) link
It strips me of all confidence in writing for the magazine.
;_;
― DG, Thursday, 24 July 2008 12:40 (fifteen years ago) link
"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.
― Raw Patrick, Thursday, 24 July 2008 12:49 (fifteen years ago) link
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:
bravo!
*three, but... y'know
― CharlieNo4, Thursday, 24 July 2008 12:51 (fifteen years ago) link
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
― MPx4A, Thursday, 24 July 2008 12:53 (fifteen years ago) link
OMG that's changed since this morning!
― CharlieNo4, Thursday, 24 July 2008 12:56 (fifteen years ago) link
His pre-GCSE knowledge of scansion let him down.
(x-p)
― Raw Patrick, Thursday, 24 July 2008 12:57 (fifteen years ago) link
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00153/giles-385_153409g.jpg
am gon' geddum!
― MPx4A, Thursday, 24 July 2008 12:57 (fifteen years ago) link
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v292/aldo_cowpat/giles.gif
― aldo, Thursday, 24 July 2008 12:59 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
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.
― onimo, Thursday, 24 July 2008 13:00 (fifteen years ago) link
xpost haha Coren getting exactly what he needs
― onimo, Thursday, 24 July 2008 13:01 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― Alba, Thursday, 24 July 2008 13:01 (fifteen years ago) link
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."
― MPx4A, Thursday, 24 July 2008 13:03 (fifteen years ago) link
"he scraped a Desmond" would be up there though
― MPx4A, Thursday, 24 July 2008 13:04 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― onimo, Thursday, 24 July 2008 13:04 (fifteen years ago) link
Hands up who actually believes this.
― Matt DC, Thursday, 24 July 2008 13:13 (fifteen years ago) link
" his dick jumped around and rattled on her teeth" <--- rattled? How hard is this guy's cock?
― Raw Patrick, Thursday, 24 July 2008 13:13 (fifteen years ago) link
Hard as a sword. Like Zorro's.
― onimo, Thursday, 24 July 2008 13:15 (fifteen years ago) link
It sounds like it's demonically possessed and ejaculates for minutes at a time, so I guess all bets are off
― MPx4A, Thursday, 24 July 2008 13:16 (fifteen years ago) link
-- Raw Patrick, Thursday, 24 July 2008 14:13 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link
Internet hardman
― The stickman from the hilarious "xkcd" comics, Thursday, 24 July 2008 13:16 (fifteen years ago) link
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jul/11/pressandpublishing
I missed this one. What an arse.
― Pete W, Thursday, 24 July 2008 13:19 (fifteen years ago) link
damn, grimly fiendish went in
― J0rdan S., Thursday, 24 July 2008 13:19 (fifteen years ago) link
That Zorro passage "won" the "Bad Sex In Fiction" award - up against some stiff (oo-er) competition.
The First Casualty by Ben EltonHe 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!"
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!"
― onimo, Thursday, 24 July 2008 13:20 (fifteen years ago) link
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."'
― Pete W, Thursday, 24 July 2008 13:21 (fifteen years ago) link
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b348/linda-u/S-mad-u-crew.jpg
― The stickman from the hilarious "xkcd" comics, Thursday, 24 July 2008 13:22 (fifteen years ago) link
guardian would be way more interesting if they let cam'ron guest copy edit for a week
― J0rdan S., Thursday, 24 July 2008 13:23 (fifteen years ago) link
"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.
― Raw Patrick, Thursday, 24 July 2008 13:24 (fifteen years ago) link
http://www.asiantribune.com/files/images/Death%20to%20America.jpg
― MPx4A, Thursday, 24 July 2008 13:29 (fifteen years ago) link
Totally depends on how thick and luxuriant said bush is. Could be like Karadzic's beard down there. (xpost)
― NickB, Thursday, 24 July 2008 13:31 (fifteen years ago) link
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
― emil.y, Thursday, 24 July 2008 13:31 (fifteen years ago) link
"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.
― Raw Patrick, Thursday, 24 July 2008 13:34 (fifteen years ago) link
Glad to see that despite the letter the subs still didn't bother to change it back for the online version though.
― Zelda Zonk, Thursday, 24 July 2008 13:40 (fifteen years ago) link