Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2010/oct/19/indie-professor-guest-pass

That column is total garbage.

A panel debate on web moderation

is rusbridger's daughter still on the job?

all reference to her seems to have disappeared from the guardian's website. wonder if she has a new new name.

that's enough, laurie penny

On a related note, I'm guessing the Evening Standard's fashion churnalist Karen Dacre is Paul Dacre's daughter?

Forgive them almost anything after 'Kicker Conspiracy' being the most visible thing on the front page today.

that definitely made me enjoy being in a train station newsagent about two to five times as much as i would have otherwise

is rusbridger's daughter still on the job?

― former moderator, please give generously (DG), Monday, 25 October 2010 14:00 (2 days ago) Bookmark

http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/user/BellaM for the collected works. i've given up on feeling irritated by the nepotism because forcing rusbridger's daughter to spend her days reading the comments on the guardian website is too perfect an example of "the sins of the father..."

fair point

Linda Norgrove's parents refuse to blame US forces
Last updated five minutes ago
US given credit for admitting aid worker was probably killed by grenade thrown during rescue

what a horribly formed headline

Oi HM, what's your problem with Laurie Penny?

Scabs!

Also not nearly as funny as they think it is.

ok not in the guardian but this is just appalling

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/laurie-penny/2010/11/british-war-poppy-carnage

British children are raised on the mythology of those wars [WWs I & II], in part because, particularly in the case of the Second World War, there were clear moral and practical reasons why conflict was unavoidable, and more to the point, we won.

yeah, it's probably just triumphalism

it should be doubly offensive, then, that almost a century later members of the British administration wear poppies while sending young people to fight and die far from home for causes they barely comprehend.

pretty sure dudes who volunteered for the forces have some idea of why they're in afghanistan-pakistan, but i guess they didn't go to a good college like laurie

It is understandable that friends and relatives of the fallen might wish to find meaning and purpose in the offensive futility of war

s0 unbelievably trite. she finds the 'futility' of war 'offensive'? offensive. really? that's the worst thing she can say about it? while belittling (and i think misunderstanding) the relatives and friends of the dead.

Mayne, you totally have, like, the *BIGGEST* squelching crush in the world on Laurie Penny, don't you?

nope. suzy aksed me to back up my dislike for her with hard stats -- et voila.

is the new statesman worth reading? every time someone here mentions it, it's to rip it to shreds

There are plenty of columnists who irritate or annoy me on a weekly or even daily basis, but you don't see me going and making endless complaints about them on every single thread ever. I think you have the biggest hard-on for Penny Red I've seen since the crush I had on Julian Casablancas when I used to complain about the Strokes on every other thread.

Like, this is the most blatant case of pigtail pulling I've ever seen.

Nick Lezard's column, detailing his ongoing descent into penury, can be funny. Paul Mason writes some dece things there.

Looking forward to History Mayne's Nina Power dossier btw.

sometimes they do a decent book review

politically it's been taken over by a bunch of young-ish, dimwitted tribalists, in the last couple of years -- nominally left-wing, but not hard thinkers

the editor is a complete lightweight, making his way up the ladder

it's always had problems, but was better under john kampfner/martin bright

xpost

oh god nick lezard? really?

you don't see me going and making endless complaints about them on every single thread ever

three threads, i think? two of them in response to other people (not me) posting something by laurie penny

i mean, if you like her work, defend it, but don't lean on some bullshit 'he's being mean about a gurle' line. im mean about all kinds of people.

The best thing in the New Statesman is Will Self reviewing fast food restaurants. Make of that what you may.

yeah exactly -- 1) isn't this kind of sunday supplement? 2) in 1996?

i'm asking mainly because the lovely Emma B is looking for a weekly politics/world affairs magazine that isn't basically right-wing

am totally getting a new left review subscription in the next few weeks fwiw

The Lezard column is funny in a laffing at him rather than with him way, incidentally. I'm sure he is under the impression he is the second coming of Jeffrey Bernard.

The state of the Staggers kind of mirrors that of the soft left and the Labour Party really, relatively callow, doesn't quite know what it stands for. My impression of Cowley is that he's a good magazine editor but not a political heavyweight to put it mildly. This is fine if you have people on the team who can compensate for that, but Mehdi Hassan is the bigger problem. Last time I looked its circulation was rising, which is an achievement in itself, but it's not really setting the agenda in the way it should be, especially now. Then again, neither is the Graun right now.

The Graun's still finding its feet as a Tory paper is why.

the new statesman has dropped out of the ABCs so circulation must be dire, backed up with some freebies maybe. its ownership is the problem, it needs to break free from factional labour politics.

I thought Robinson had sold it? But yeah, it still reads like the house organ of the Labour Party and it really shouldn't.

NLR is pretty good but pretty rarified as well - i know there isn't anything like this, but the ideal thing would a left-wing edition of the Economist

let's start it, I'm going for a nap and I expect a blueprint by 6pm or whenever I wake

Has Ms B tried the Englang edish of Le Monde Diplo?

i suspected all along that history mayne REALLY fancies david thomson

loool

Bizarre Love Quadrangle with Zizek and Eagleton iirc.

ha Stevie she already reads that in French!

most o_O about the staggers is the continuing career of john "Barack Obama is a glossy Uncle Tom" pilger

I thought Robinson had sold it?

you're right, i totally missed that. dunno why it's still so shit then.

I should reread Pilger's Distant Voices and Heroes to work out whether he was this weird when I was massively into him as a teenager or whether he's got worse over the years. I haven't been able to read his NS stuff a while now.

the new statesman has dropped out of the ABCs

What does this mean?

All future editions will be in cyrillic

ABCs are essentially the league table of circulation figures.

i suppose it's never been exactly mass-market

but when the writers have as little inherent authority as james mcintyre or laurie penny, it's hard to justify the way they get their views inflated into significance by other outlets, basically by trading on the name. bbc news progs frequently use them, because the political editor of the new statesman is traditionally someone to reckon with.

though of course the institute of ideas lot are an even more o_O-worthy group in that context.

It's also a symptom of the exhaustion of the centre-left in this country. The previous generation failed, quick invest your hopes heavily in youth.

Is that Claire Fox's lot? She's a piece of work. The institute of challops.

they're a hoot. don't save that drowning man, it would be patronising implying he can't swim