Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

I just mentioned this to my own mother and she's pretty LOL WTF about the whole thing too, says that on Newsnight JM kept on absolving herself by claiming to have never once mentioned him by name. And now she's handed me yesterday's Times where Libby Purves has proffered a hearty response.

I love how this kid's increasing rebelliousness and perversity is entirely blamed on weed.

No, she told us, the cannabis isn't a symptom, it's the cause. That's when we put it together.

"That's when we finally had something outside ourselves to blame all this poor communication on."

"The problem, I suspect, was that Julie Myerson is a compulsive writer and that once lovely phrases begin forming in her head her self-control evaporates. Perhaps it is her equivalent of a really good spliff."

To be fair I do know of people for whom skunk has caused enormous problems. I also know people who smoke it pretty much every day and lead perfectly normal lives.

"The problem, I suspect, was that Julie Myerson is a compulsive writer"

Can we do something to help her to overcome this embarassing compulsion?

buy enough of her books that she never needs to write again

I also know people who smoke it pretty much every day and lead perfectly normal lives.

If frightening hapless codgers and mugging 10 year olds for their mobiles phones is normal, yes

I thought it was 10 year olds who mugged people

but I agree with you, I hate muggers.

I don't like Julie M either and it sounds like her narcissism and carelessness have finally landed her like a beached shark.

"i actually know someone who likes the smell of skunk."
http://marykcarman.blogspot.com/2008/04/hop-on-mexican-train.html

can someone else post nice pictures of skunks? Pictures don't always work for me.

I don't like Julie M either and it sounds like her narcissism and carelessness have finally landed her like a beached shark.

A bleached shark, judging by her hair colour in that old photo

the generalising abt drugs on this thread - abt their effects, the stupidity or o/wise of ppl who take them, their availability in se london etc - seems as bad as a bad guardian writer (eg toynbee)

http://www.heroicfineart.com/catalog/images/ClassicPepe%5B1%5D

from her introduction to the book, explaining to her son why she wrote it: "Don't worry, it's not so much about you - or at least it is - but it's more about me really." lol self-awareness.

More interesting if it had been about the cat

... or is that the sequel?

The cat gets a paint stripe down back. Pepe le Pew falls in love w/it.

Myerson family's ongoing struggle with skunk etc

as a side point.. is kicking your druggy kid onto the street to fend for himself really supposed to be the thing to do and the way to stop him falling into further drugs/crimes/south londonness??

seems counter intuitive to me

oh wait i see that's the whole point of the book?

And it gets worse: Family section Guardian editors have just outed Myerson as author of two-year Living With Teenagers column. Which was written anonymously until the kids cottoned on a year or so ago. Just how much money has she made over her kids'...exploits?

Family section Guardian editors have just outed Myerson as author of two-year Living With Teenagers column

Ho, wow, that makes sense. God, to finally have a focal point for the loathing that column inspired in me is quite bizarre.

Seriously, though, this woman is an unmitigated fucking cock and I intend to spend the rest of my life ignoring her, because she's too absurd to even consider taking seriously.

That's pretty much true.

Surprised anyone has ever read anything in Guardian Family section. I don't have a Family, but don't have time to read it. Does anyone with a Family have time to read it? Then again I don't really like Families.

you are v. strange.

On Myerson, I was surprised but impressed that the Chief Executive of the Royal Society of Arts, former No. 10 head of policy Matthew Taylor, took time out in his latest blog entry to comment:

(by the way, has anyone yet written the inevitable Goody-Myerson comparison: on the one hand the ignorant untalented, lumpen Goody who is enduring media intrusion in her dying hours in order to provide financial security for her children, on the other, the fragrant, highly intelligent, middle-class Myerson who seems to be encouraging media intrusion into her family in order that she can sell more books, sorry that should read ‘expose the scourge of skunk’).

in an unexpected aside from his thinking on Public Service Reform...

Just what does 'fragrant' mean in this context?

Middle class + also hott.

locus classicus being 'the fragrant mary archer'

lumpen?

as in lumpen-proletariat?

I thought it was a cancer ref

next instalment
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/mar/10/family-julie-myerson

Since the identity of the children in Living With Teenagers
is now known, we have removed the columns from the
Guardian website to protect their privacy.

someone was probably canny enough to archive them yesterday when this was dropping

This blog post is OTMFM:

http://potlatch.typepad.com/weblog/2009/03/julie-myerson-vs-hannah-arendt.html

"She's the literary equivalent of a flasher at a cricket match, and she deserves to get rugby tackled by a steward then evicted."

V good.

Hope that happens IRL.

Must stop abbreviating!

i have read a few things about this but am not getting how it is different from other misery-memoir situations. is it that she's saying her son is an abusive bastard, rather than, as is more usual, her father? idk, people writing about their fucked-up family is not a new thing.

they usually wait until the father is dead, plus parents are reckoned to have more responsibility for their kids than vice versa. maybe unfair, but there it is.

plus schadenfreude

i know someone who is writing a misery memoir, parents very much alive, and it is causing grief in her fam. unsure of how her sons -- whom she abandoned at one point -- feel. you gotta pay the rent i guess.

article was such a joke. half the stuff is like they're saying although there's no evidence to prove this, I heard from many friends they're sons are a holy shambles with skunk too.

kid is obviously just a little wanker and there are some family problems or bad communication or something. skunk is not a big enough drug to blame for that, and even if it was, the utter rarity of this kid's situation suggests unusual home/family factors created it.

*their sons of course

Completely off-topic I know, but I noticed they have started running those execrable Wire blogs on the Guardian AGAIN. I am as big a fan of the show as anyone, but they are flogging it to death now. The tendency of the "bloggers" to refer to each other as "hoppies" and talk about episode "re-ups" etc is incredibly aggravating.

Anyway please continue laying the boot into this horrendous Myerson person.

Completely off-topic I know, but I noticed they have started running those execrable Wire blogs on the Guardian AGAIN. I am as big a fan of the show as anyone, but they are flogging it to death now. The tendency of the "bloggers" to refer to each other as "hoppies" and talk about episode "re-ups" etc is incredibly aggravating.

100% otm, wish they would s t f up. no idea what audience they serve. if you watch the show, you don't need someone writing a blog basically summarizing it. if you don't watch the show, despite the embarrassing degree of encouragement laid on by the graun, you will need this service performed even less.

the amount of times I hear "you have to watch the wire" makes me not want to watch it. how can so many people like something without ever being able to make it seem interesting?

linehan, sayle, brooker, ughhhhh

it's a common reaction, and i had it with the sopranos -- didn't get into it till series three. but at least it was still running, and it was on tv so there wasn't that much initial effort.

i really liked the wire when i watched it, which was slightly before the media barrage, but all the hype has made me almost forget what i liked. part of what is good about it is extremely traditional: it is a well-told story.

btw you simply must watch mad men!

xpost