Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

No, but he does generalise wildly about vegetarians, vegans, anywahere outside London.

Argh, there is a restaurant in Oxford with a big sign on the window saying "the best Chinese food outside London - Giles Coren", which piqued my curiosity so I read the review online. The first two screenfuls (was going to count the paragraphs but can't look at it any more because of the paywall) were about the old friends he met in Oxford to play cricket with, and then about 5 paragraphs of him almost refusing to eat a meal in Oxford because it isn't London and Mr Coren cannot even imagine anyone not in London being able to cook, and then finally a couple of paragraphs about the food.

Do yr job. Eat a meal. Write about it. Thanks.

Think there might be some good Chinese food in China that Mr Coren might be aware of.

Chinatown

Ah but Giles Coren’s readers don’t really read his restaurant columns for his opinion on restaurants but for his rants/moans, which as they are all wind-up/projection don’t particularly bother me.

Not defending the indefensible Coren here, but Oxford is pretty poor for restaurants. It was a big deal when Jamie Oliver opened his pasta house thing there.

You can't even get decent chelsea buns there anymore.

Oh wait, that's Cambridge. Although probably you can't get decent chelsea buns in Oxford either, way the worlds going, etc.

The single worst restaurant experience I've ever had was the Oxford branch of Freud in, say, 1992. It went like this:

Me, Nick Momus and two of my friends from Brizzle decide to check out Freud.
Wait 20 minutes to be noticed by waiter.
Order. Sandwiches.
20 minutes later, waiter returns with sadface - 'we're out of that, choose something else'
OK, re-order. Nachos.
20 minutes later, waiter returns with sadface - 'we're out of that, choose something else'
Trying not to explode - How the fuck can they be out of something so basic? - hypoglycemia kicking in, BTW where are our coffees? Water, even? Re-order. "Why don't you tell us what's actually NOT OFF, or would that be... difficult?"

It is weird how places full of middle-class/posh people are dead zones for decent food. Exhibit B: Hampstead.

Woof - that's a big fat YES to t c-s - lovely, lovely person and my sub on Saturdays when I can't do veg stall at farmer's market.

posh people like to go to expensive places that are not necessarily good.

or maybe it was because he's a pirate the services wasn't so great? that's why the waiter was late? it was an hour til you ate?

can someone tell the guardian subs or whatever to never ever use "what *name of famous person* did next" as a headline. i've seen it about 10,000 times and it's cringe inducing.

not the grau but why does david mitchell STILL have an observer column? h8 having to see his smug, sententious face every week.

i accidentally read it this week too, cuz on the mobile guardian site it just gives the headline of the piece, not the author. s0 unfunny and uninsightful. we should be burning comedians at the stake, not giving them public platforms for their inability to be funny.

can't stand mitchell.

Picked up the Mitchell and Webb book for a quid last month cos I can't help reading bad comedy books, they interest me as historical artefacts as much as anything. They really aren't very funny at all.

would it be frowned upon to c&p an entire thread to 'first world problems'?

Never read the Observer, don't read newspapers at weekends

This is Mitchell's serious column though: he's not trying for the lols, this week anyway. I thought it was ok - picking up on some of Cameron's messages. It could have ben a bit more insightful e.g. how much Cameron continually borrows from Tony Blair.

I've probably avoided Mitchell fatigue though by not watching 10 o'clock live.

conservative slams into Conservative. great.

"The International Atomic Energy Authority website appears to have suffered a meltdown amid a surge in traffic..."

great work chaps

some kind of web 3 Mile Island presumably?

"Unable to cope with the flood of requests, its server literally died"

when I worked for MLB we were expressly forbidden from using any violent metaphor to describe the action of a game, i.e. "Blue Jays erupt in fifth inning" or "Royals explode for sixteen in Tampa" or "Bucs whip Bosox". It may have been a post-Sep 11 thing or it may have been to avoid unintended juxtapositions like the above. In retrospect I think it's just good practice.

Constantly describing people, sports teams, organisations etc. as "stunned" also falls into that category.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/3/11/1299865906886/Steve-Bells-If-.-.-.-008.jpg

Really classy stuff here.

I get it, he misheard Cameron when Cameron said "go home!" Ha! Ahaha! Hahahaha! Hahahahahahahahahaha!

why is cameron's head a condom?

Steve Bell needs a lie down :(

Judging by many recent headlines I've noticed, perhaps this thread should be called "Are the Guardian worse than they used to be?"

can't stand steve bell...that cartoon is a new low though.

would anyone pay to read the guardian if they decided to drop a paywall?

I'm not sure I wouldn't actually. would the guardian ever do it tho?

I probably would pay. The website loses a huge amount of money at the moment, as far as i am aware, but i'm not sure whether a paywall would generate any more than advertising revenue does.

maybe the website would lose less money if say, they sack all the shit writers from it?

I paid for the app without even thinking about it.

to read articles that were written in a similar way

glad the hackney tourist board is so keen to pony up but i'm not, seem to remember some smug article abt how paywalls are bad

http://www.iwradio.co.uk/newscentre/national-news/wootton-bassett-cartoon-sparks-outrage-15954542

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/3/16/1300318427436/Steve-Bell-17.03.11-001.jpg

I think I get it now.. is cameron's head a condom because he's a dickhead??

Or because Bell can't draw him?

are his eyes not in the condom?

Bell explained it as stemming from Cameron being presented as a 'Safe' Tory.

dreadful

it's because he wants to keep out the jonny foreigners

Not even Bell would use that joke

that's where bell ends and where i begin

Is that a bellend reference?

I think I saw something about it evolving from Bell noticing his curious shiny smoothness when he met him.

Defence Secretary Liam Fox told the Sun: "It's tasteless and offensive. It shows a total lack of respect for our fallen.

"It's cowardly and bad taste which stands in stark contrast to the pride of the people of Royal Wootton Bassett."

i actually agree it's offensive. it also isn't even that cutting, it's a fairly confused message.