Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

This Giddens fellow must be regretting writing this?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/mar/09/comment.libya

Piece is some pretty boneheaded stuff even w/o taking "current events" into account.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/feb/26/darin-strauss-car-crash-kira-cochrane

obv a v tragic event for the writer, but like...who commissioned this? it really is a long winded and conceptually weird article. load of rubbish.

i worry about how classist i am sometimes. i stopped reading when i got to "gleave".

i mean i am middle-class, but i'm from the west of scotland, my da was a refugee, we were poor when i was a wean, etc. fucking "gleave".

tibalt.

like if she met the guy whose car hit her brother, then that'd be one thing. but as it is it's like the author is kinda offering basic human consolation which anyone really could put forward.

also...doing 40mph in a 30mph zone and hitting a child who was on the side of the road at dusk is more in the realms of tragic rather than heinous. it's not like he was drunk or something.

i managed to finish it and aye, it's a horror.

what a fucking mess.

XP Giddens' articles are generally interesting in that they're almost always in line with the positions taken by Tony Blair, whether those positions are articulated in public or not. It does sound like he genuinely believed that Libya was on the path to reform - i wonder whether Blair shared that view.

this sycophantic Strokes article irritated me:

saviours of rock and roll

haha yeah, glad u thought the same way >>

anyone else see this article in The Guardian yesterday and think it's the band we've been waiting for?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/feb/26/darin-strauss-car-crash-kira-cochrane

obv a v tragic event for the writer, but like...who commissioned this? it really is a long winded and conceptually weird article. load of rubbish.

― I see what this is (Local Garda), Sunday, February 27, 2011 11:32 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

Kira Cochrane is the Women's Editor - she probably volunteered to write about it and nobody said no.

i hate to rag on one writer or whatever but almost everything she ever writes is utter rubbish, so narrow.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/mar/03/chocolate-hazelnut-spread-taste-test

i can think of one they're missing. wankers.

It's pieces like that that show quite how far the Guardian has fallen. Back in my day it was all Michael Foot eating Nutella on the West Bank.

guardian is amaze u herbs

imagine paying a tenner for chocolate spread? i am as big a food wanker as anyone but seriously....A TENNER. you could buy a fucking steak for that.

at least you can reuse the jar

Arguably the finest accompaniment for pancakes

if you are a revolting barbarian, or 3

Seriously

£6

http://i8.goodness-direct.co.uk/d/672408b.jpg

what do you guys use? i like jam myself..

never madly into maple syrup

for pancakes? lemon, sugar.

Perhaps you've never had real maple syrup? The stuff pictured isn't actually pure. I still like the diluted stuff though.

I like butter + plain yogurt + maple syrup

or butter and jam

love maple syrup on us pancake, would never put on crepe.

Chocolate spread, honest answer.

Chocolate spread and slices of banana like they give you in PARIS.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2011/mar/03/rupert-murdoch-bskyb-win-damage-coalition

Obviously I'm a Murdoch hata but the first para of this is o_0.

LOL

xps - and what is wrong is lemon and sugar I ask you? GET US OUT OF EUROPE NOW.

yeesh xp

Wanted to buy some maple syrup when home for Xmas but it was superduper expensive - just have to wait for a Canadian friend to bring me some.

lemon or lime and sugar or fo tbh

will settle for Suzette stylings if I'm somewhere froufrou

yeah the pure stuff is always really really pricey (but a little goes a very long way)

xpost

actually I had cherries and rum once that was pretty fucking A

banana fried in rum, and chocolate ice cream

I've got some amazing fig preserves that when 'syruped' with melted butter do OK for pancakes.

You can get first-rate Canadian maple syrup for about £4.75 out of any big Sainsbury’s (and quite a few of the “Local” ones as well). Not cheap but it lasts and pays for itself a dozen times over.

Didn’t know about that “Canada Store” in Covent Garden – I ought to go and investigate but the problem with me is that even after 26 years in the capital I can’t go into Covent Garden without getting lost.

Lay a trail of string behind you (and hi Marcello! btw)

i've been to this place many times due to my uncle's proximity to it -

http://www.sugarshackvt.com

and actually in the scheme of things $35 for a half gallon of 100% pure maple syrup is a pretty good deal! (though you'd have to pay for shipping, erk)

haha and before anyone says i'm off topic i think you'll agree this is possibly the most "guardian" conversation ever

yeah i just buy my maple syrup from the supermarket, it's not that expensive imo

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/mar/05/north-road-london-ec1-review

On my five-degree scale – in descending order, Awesome, Cool, OK, Meh, Pants – several dishes were between OK and Meh

is this seriously the best they can do for a food writer?

I semi-lolled.

John Lanchester is a fantastic writer (I loved his novels Mr Phillips and The Debt to Pleasure, and liked his 'Whoops' book about the financial crisis), but this article is gratuitously slick - with that 'know it all' style of positing a number of propositions as facts, that don't bear up to examination, e.g

-In cooking as in crime writing, the global trend is Scandinavian.

- Broadly speaking, we look south for posh food, east for ethnic food, west for junk food and north for deep-fried Mars bars.

John has great gifts as a writer - his turn of phrase, his use of metaphor. Hope he doesn't squander them in becoming a Craig Brown.

it's not just slick, it's bone lazy.

plus somebody dissects it in the comments in forensic detail and his actual points/logic are all over the place.

I missed the comments - oh dear.

The review actually reminded me a bit of Momus - that kind of inventing a 'new global/cultural trend' or new 'insights' on the differences between Japan and the West out of a few anecdotal and zeitgeist comments.

At least he's not Jay Raynor.