Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

Next week the band is set to return. Having re-formed and enjoyed a successful reunion tour, they will play a sold-out homecoming gig at the Ricoh Arena. "I'm going!" nods a woman in the tourist office. "I kept phoning and phoning the ticket hotline until I got through!" There seems something timely about the Specials' return to this city as Britain finds itself once more in recession. "No job to be found in this country," they sang in 1981. "Can't go on no more/ The people getting angry."

Time has brought other changes, too. The nightclub Locarno - referenced in Ghost Town's lyrics "Bands won't play no more/too much fighting on the dancefloor"- is now the Central City Library. In the space where people once danced, kissed and watched bands, there are cookery books, biographies and teen romances.

All across the city linger memories of the Specials: the new plaque by the canal that commemorates the 2-Tone trail relating to the band's record label; the couple who own the nearby tattoo parlour, he telling of the customers who come in wanting Specials tattoos, she with her recollections of the band member who was once her babysitter.

A sense of hope permeates the city on this grey midweek afternoon. Against the gloom of pawnbrokers, pound shops and concrete, there's a ferocity of colour: the yellow, maroon, and violet in the floral displays, the glorious stained glass of Holy Trinity Church, and from the bridge, a view of green leaves, and cherry blossom falling on the pavements.

this cherry blossom won't feed my kids

Against the gloom of pawnbrokers, pound shops and concrete

Concrete? You could get away with that sort of thing in the 70s but now?

coventry? i wish they would send her to coventry etc, etc.

In my day it was all nightclubs and supermarkets, now it's libraries and local shops. They'll be turning sex shops into post offices next, last one left please turn out the "energy saving" lights.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/06/amy-winehouse-jean-rhys-addiction

Amy Winehouse turns her black, bewildered eyes towards the cameras and we too are bewildered. Why does she seem to want to kill herself with drugs? Is the source of her pain the source of her genius? We seem to have been asking these questions for years, as she disintegrates yet further, live on Sky News.

I am an alcoholic writer with seven years of abstinence but, when I read Jean Rhys, I want to drink. She takes me into the isolated room, and I just want to drink with her.

Didn't realise that was a quote for a second there. I was a bit O_O

Yes, not only is TG an alcoholic, she's also, apparently, a, a ... a writer.

Talking of writers, I have forgotten to announce that Laura Barton's first novel will be published next year.

Fear I'll have to skip that due to prior reading commitments.

You'd think by now somebody might've noticed that "alcoholics" - a word that's pretty debased anyway - are not especially awesome at offering insights into their condition.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/may/05/dna-database-justice

"I don't think I should be held without charge for more than a couple of weeks."

They should try this out.

But, Jacqui, I'd like you to keep my DNA. For as long as you want.

Fnarr.

Results 1 - 10 of about 158 for "liberal hardman". (0.38 seconds)

myerson should read his own paper:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/feb/28/ukcrime.forensicscience

"I suspect most people imagine that all DNA profiles obtained emanate from blood, semen, or some other clear stain. But often there is no visible stain at all, and the profile is a mixture. Mixtures create the potential for more difficulty. By way of illustration: if I have profile AB and you have profile CD, our mixed cells would have a profile ABCD. However, the same profile could be produced by two people with profiles AC and BD, or AD and BC. If this mixture was found at a crime scene, we now have six "suspect" profiles. If the person with the BD profile is unlucky enough to live in the area where the crime was committed, BD now needs to explain why he has no association with the material found at the scene. In fact, a mixed profile could generate about 60,000 suspects."

now usually i don't do this btut:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/may/05/observe-and-report-rape
You know, people of the UK, I often wonder why you put up with folks from the United States. Think of what you have given us, in terms of entertainment, over the last few years: Lily Allen, Sasha Baron Cohen, Idris Elba, Daniel Craig as James Bond - the list goes on. Yet what has America given you in return?

Add to that list: Ricky Gervais, Hugh Laurie, her off Eastenders in the Bionic Woman. Good luck USA!

Julie Bindel is the new Tanya Gold: She's had a crush on an Avon lady, but Julie Bindel has never been tempted to wear makeup. As the iconic cosmetics company turns 50, she braves a makeover.

Idris Elba

You gave us Ultraviolet, and all we could offer you in return was The Wire! You sure put one over on us, Teh Britain!

for a lifelong feminist it seems that there an awful lot of things she hasn't thought through. If only I'd been in time to offer a 1,000 word comment. :'(

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2009/may/11/contemporary-art-drawing

"Drawing is suddenly everywhere in contemporary art – Damien Hirst and Paul Klee are just two of the artists jumping the bandwagon."

that bandwagon-hopping Klee, when will he stop.

that article about 'observe and report' is SASSY.

the screening i went to people also laughed at the scene when rogen (spoiler) shot a man with the intention of killing him.

xpost lols at yasmin

so it's publishing part of its content in chinese now, in order to facilitate tanya gold zings in two languages. bound to be a censorship row at some point too.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/chinese

really it just reminds me of a former editor of mine who went on to head up a paper in reading and launch an edition in polish. not really a details man - there was a (small) libel payout on a story of mine because he didn't understand the distinction between "sham" and "shambles" in writing the headline - he was then editing a paper without understanding a single word. (it was a success.)

*shoots self*

"Drawing is suddenly everywhere in contemporary art – Damien Hirst and Paul Klee are just two of the artists jumping the bandwagon."

i've just seen this now. What. The. Fuck.

I've heard that Albrecht Durer is very hot in the art drwaing scene right now.

drawing!

Website Q&A gone wrong

skip to the end...

have just had a chat with NYR.

Unfortunately, despite previous assurances that they would be participating in this blog post, I've now been told they 'will not be taking part in the debate'.

Comments are now closed for this entry.

Neals Yard running a mile on that one. Seemed to be quite some vitriol in some of the comments there.

can't really blame Neal's Yard Remedies for running miles at the sight of those comments mentalists xp

wait you're calling the commenters the mentalists? radical switcheroo there. i know people get excited when they get to pick on homeopathy but can y'blame them? also they were fairly well behaved for the most part.

my bus has crashed - I've got a compound fracture in my right leg, the bone is sticking out from under the skin and is wedged into the 'Used Tickets' receptacle, my skull has had a good old thump against the seat in front and is impersonating a boiled egg after the first thump with the teaspoon, and my ribs have been broken into bits like a packet of smokey bacon crisps someone has stood on.

What herbs and aromatic oils would you recommend?

(xp) I dunno, there was quite a display of Dawkinsishness. By which I mean, sure they're right, but telling us once each might've been enough.

But then again NY is not some misunderstood underdog, no, and it is pretty hilarious that this was in the "ethical living" section, and speaking out against profiteering at the expense of public health is obviously a good thing... just please don't ever be in the same pub as me, thanks folks.

We really need a 'Rolling Self-Inflicted PR Clangers For Companies Who Don't Understand The Internet' thread. See also the Telegraph's Budget Twitterfail.

Whatever one thinks of NYR (I'd never even heard of them before today, don't give a shit about them based on the little I have read) the sheer pomposity of a lot of those comments is headache-inducing! Some real "when did you stop beating yr wife" level "debate", eh.

It's a bit like rolling up at Barney the Dinosaur's website and laughing at 4 year-olds for believing he's real.

I think I had some NYR moisturiser that was OK. It smelt of violets.

I was browsing in Neal's Yard once and overheard the sales guy talking to another customer, talking about some non-"natural" products and saying "no wonder there's so much cancer in the world" with a sigh. I never went back in there. Also that stuff with the malaria remedy is indefensible.

agree with the criticisms but these dawkinsist/"i read bad science" people are such fucking ultra-bores.

I ws talking about this w/my wife, she had some vague memory of buying neal's yard organic sultanas from holland & barrett but as it turned out they weren't quite proper organic in some way. the details are vague. iirc they tasted nice, but sultanas usually do.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/02/bnp-far-right-local-elections

Above the former lingerie shop, the curtains are half-drawn and patterned with a Wedgwood pottery design. Next door stands the old Spode Works. Once famed for creamware and pearlware, for bone china and blue underglaze, last year the company went into administration after nearly 250 years. Today the paint is peeling around the windows of the old factory shop; peer through the dusty glass and the room sits dark and quiet, its shelves empty.