Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/08/dread-daughter-poos-smaller-girl-conform?INTCMP=SRCH

Am I wrong to be aghast at this? I mean, the central point about girls feeling increasing pressure to be self-effacing as they grow older is a legit and important one- but I can't help a gut reaction of horror when I turn to the op-ed section of the guardian and a third of the page is taken up with a writer describing their daughter's bowel movements. It brings some real 'the modern world is terrible and awful' feelings in me, but i sort of feel like this is some reactionary, Peter Hitchens-ish response that i should try and work past?

I think i reacted to it more strongly because I saw it in the physical copy of the paper, and most of the people I see reading the hard copy of the Guardian are 60+. Like, it's the same reaction I had as a teenager when I was with my grandparents and we would accidentally catch some of a youth tv programme or a rap single or something, that i normally might of enjoyed, but I could tell they were bemused and slightly upset by the whole thing, and I just felt ashamed for my generation and the modern world generally.

Also feel preemptively sorry for this woman's daughter for when one of her classmates discover the article on google in 12 yrs time

not rly into sophie heawood joints but i noticed how the print edition of her editorial content carries the 'sophie is a columnist for vice' disclaimer

if the guardian is going to print v lightweight columns then i'm happy for them to be about 'whopper turds'

Incredible that someone thought that piece was interesting.

The Guardian app has some terrible bugs which they seem to have no desire to fix. Top grumble at the moment is captions in the picture galleries, which are covered in code, presumably fed through from the website where links and bold text actually work.

Rising up the annoyance list: stories written for an Aussie audience randomly popping up in the UK version.

A-grade Photoshop work guys.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/gallery/2013/aug/13/jeremy-paxman-newsnight-beards-media

http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2013/aug/13/hashtag-pilgrimage-abbey-road-beatles

(was already posted in worst music writing thread)

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/aug/15/drenge-drenge-review

This isn't particularly badly written or hateful or anything, but OMG at the gulf between how excited the writer is by this album and the lyrics/song titles/examples of 'middle-fingered ingratitude' cited as justification.

ehdunno

16 August 2013 9:03pm
Recommend
0

All 380 premier league matches live?? If there are 20 teams playing 38 games each, how is that 380? Or does it mean they are only showing 380, but they will all be live?

38 games a season x 10 fixtures?

Lol, my reading comprehension not up to much tonight.

I have spent the last 12 minutes laughing at the comment quoted in Nilmar's post

it is fucking funny it's true. i quite like implied concept of notional solitary football. performance-based points allocation.

Guardian picks

These comments have been chosen by Guardian staff because they contribute to the debate.

http://www.theguardian.com/fashion/video/2013/aug/21/how-to-dress-grownup-grunge-video

Daniel Dos Santos

21 August 2013 8:31pm
Recommend
31

Britain is a long away off from producing good pizzas simply because people in UK have a passion from frozen food. There is no culture of eating well....by the masses.

You may ass well pour oil onto today's edition of Daily Mail , some tomato source, onion , cheese and minced beef in it and no one would be any the wiser.

he said ass..

was quite keen to read the article "a post-race vegan brunch" this weekend until I realised it was about running

lol

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/sep/07/female-genital-mutilation-tradition-somalia

Although Muslim, Jewish and Christian communities carry out FGM, mainstream spiritual leaders from all three religions have denied that the practice stems from religion. Samira believes the desire to control women's sexuality lies behind it.

What's up with that one then, spell out for dummy pls

the impulse to be even-handed is problematic when it starts inventing facts - FGM doesn't exist in the Jewish tradition.

Ah yeah

I also wonder if 'stemming from religion' and 'stemming from a desire to control sexuality' are necessarily two different things

It has been practised in Christian and animist communities too,[74] including by the Christian Copts in Egypt and Sudan.[80] Judaism requires circumcision for boys, but does not allow it for girls.[81] Shaye J. D. Cohen writes that the only Jews known to have practised FGM are the Beta Israel of Ethiopia.[82]

What human faces might look like in 100,000 years

Picture doesn't disappoint.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/sep/18/human-faces-in-the-future

science

It's conjecture, but also more than armchair futurism. It's conjecture, but also more than armchair futurism. It's conjecture, but also more than armchair futurism. It's conjecture, but also more than armchair futurism. It's conjecture, but also more than armchair futurism. It's conjecture, but also more than armchair futurism. It's conjecture, but also more than armchair futurism. It's conjecture, but also more than armchair futurism. It's conjecture, but also more than armchair futurism.

Our eyes will grow to Japanese anime-style proportions in the meantime

that whole tech supplement was awful.

So, in other words, not OTM at all.

I for one welcome our new Loris overlords.

It's a shame other places had this story three months ago:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2013/06/07/how-the-human-face-might-look-in-100000-years/

also a shame it's a spurious load of old bollocks

The media landscape is a vale of shame and old bollocks.

Stephen Fry joins demand to end NSA and GCHQ mass surveillance

lol

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/sep/27/danny-brown-old

As well as trading verses with performers such as southern rap rising stars A$AP and Tech N9ne

Been meaning to come here to say that the Qatar forced labour story is a great piece of investigative journalism.

It is, though the use of similar techniques across the gulf is hardly a secret, it's great to see someone making a big issue of it.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2013/sep/18/how-to-pick-up-women-with-science

Darwin gets a capital letter, Skinner doesn't.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVySc2Qu3WI

I don't think I can even piece together the thought process that led to this being created

SKINNER DOESN'T DESERVE A CAPITAL LETTER

Big rusbridger/graun thing in the NYer: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/10/07/131007fa_fact_auletta?mbid=social_retweet

i enjoyed this ^
there are some perhaps contradictory indications about its paywall but its kinda utopian free-access ideal is pretty nice to read

I know the Guardian would happily liveblog a day in a goldfish bowl, but doing "Later...With Jools Holland" feels like another level of pointlessness altogether.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2013/oct/01/later-jools-holland-franz-ferdinand-live

that "chat and dave" comment particularly missed the point. i watched it this morning and their chat with jools was all about east end culture and music hall and oral tradition and how the songs would be lost otherwise. and skiffle. but, no, he only live-blogged the dull bits.

(chas and dave documentary on bbc4 recently was similarly interesting. not a fan of the music and that gig footage looked like my idea of HELL but... oh, it also contained the factoid that it's one of chas or dave who was sampled on that huge eminem hit)

lol wait he was liveblogging... from home?