Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

Funnily enough, I quite like the Guide, partly because Joe Queenan and Byron Coley sometimes write for it, partly because it means I no longer have to buy that useless piece of toss Time Out anymore.

1. The simplification of the accusation may just echo what it asserts about the target (just as 'Dumbing Down' is a dumb, dull phrase);

2. If I don't like Triviality, why don't I read nothing but 10-page reports from the former Yugoslavia? It would be hypocritical of me to say that I simply wanted them to be SERIOUS and SOLEMN and RESPONSIBLE all the time. No, that's not it.

What I mean, I suppose, is that too many features, esp. in G2, now look dashed-off - half-hearted, half-baked, unconvincing, just cliché pies really. Today's Lara Croft piece was just the latest of a million examples. It feels (the terms are problematic here, I know) JOURNALISTIC in a bad way - trite, unconsidered, full of crowd- pleasing Received Ideas - rather than JOURNALISTIC in a good way (that is: dogged, resourceful, brave, mentally agile, snappy and what have you).

It's the world of second-hand Lifestyle phrases that bugs me. The way that adults can still write a phrase like "*that* dress" and not hang their heads in shame.

A rider to all my bile, though, is that my previous, more impressed impressions of the Guardian may just reflect youthful impressionability. (Sentence!) Maybe the same kind of crap used to impress me that now feels rubbishy, faux-zeitgeisty and embarrassing? Maybe, but I suspect it's a bit of both.

I agree about Queenan too. But most of all, I agree about Thomson. There's almost no point having a thread about Thomson, because people who know what they think about him already know it all and would just send in superlatives.

What the paper still has going for it: George Monbiot's column, the Diary, Steve Bell, giving review space to Ians Sansom and Penman, and the tv columns of Nancy Banks-Smith. (When N B-S finally pops her clogs I will have to think very hard about buying the paper.)

What is leading the paper ever closer to the abyss: consistently terrible pop coverage (honorable exceptions: Maddy Costa, Betty Clarke); the fatuous new Saturday mag (Zoe Ball on dressing? match the celebrity with the pet? that awful woman talking about words that should be banned??); Charlotte bloody Raven.

I agree with you there. They sucker you in with the G2 front cover (and the masthead of the main paper), but when you get to read the cover story it often appears cobbled together and lightweight. I imagine it must be difficult to fill that space with high quality stories day in day out though.

I actually like Peter Preston's awkward, staccato opinion pieces, come to think of it. But not the pompous ones of Hugo Young. Freedland is sometimes good at summing political issues up, but usually he 'sums up' too much - there's too much glibness in the way he marshals it all. (I admit again, though, that it's easy - even glib - to call someone glib.)

Penman strikes me as a red herring. I can see that he doesn't do that to you, cos you have some kind of investment in his career. I agree about Sansom (great left-back, mean penalty, blah blah) - in fact I think that the whole Saturday book reviews section is quite possibly the best feature of the paper. EXCEPT of course the footy. Heroes? How could I forget David Lacey?

BUT I think that you are wrong about N B-S. It doesn't surprise me that older folk make that judgement about her; it does rather surprise me coming from you. She has skills, I guess, but she's terribly repetitive; uses the same lines on the same topics year in year out. It's all too - yes - glib and easy, while dressed up to look aged and thus wise.

I only read it for the Guide and the job listings. Not that either has been particularly helpful lately... ;-)

There's a lot of irritating stuff, yes. My favourite columnist is George Monbiot, by a mile. Something I like about the Independent when I do get it is that its liberalism is less metropolitan and more about the common good. Needless to say, though, the Guardian's series of articles on public service under that very title were awesome.

Today's G2 seems designed to add fuel to my (f)ire: one page of 'Style' after another, including a column on Why We're So Disappointed That Madonna Employs A Stylist.

Also good in Guardian: John Patterson re. cinema.

oh god, ask hadley today is just... tooth-grinding.

"today"

"At what age is a man too old to wear band T-shirts?"

Martin McCall, by email

"About 15 - that young enough for you, Martin? And to follow one rhetorical question with several more, what in God's name is the point of band T-shirts anyway? To show your allegiance to a band? Do you think anyone else cares? To impress onlookers with your esoteric musical knowledge? See previous reply. To make people stare at your bony chest? Again, I refer you to the first answer. To show that you once attended a live gig? Wow, like, a pair of golden headsets to the guy in the Nirvana '91 T-shirt. In case you happen to bump into the lead singer on the street, he sees that the two of you are kindred souls and therefore invites you to join his band and you then go on the road and have all the manly bonding sessions followed by groupies that your heart could desire? OK, I'll give you that one, although this does suggest that you still harbour the fantasy that you might bump into Joey Ramone in Waterstone's.

"As for ladies in band T-shirts, give me a fricking break. First, gals, a badly cut, poorly made, oversized T-shirt is good for nothing other than wearing to bed and the gym. Second, too often women who wear band T-shirts appear to be going for what we shall call Groupie Chic. It is a style amply modelled by Kate Moss in recent years, and can pretty much be summed up as skinny faded black jeans, ankle boots, a ripped band T-shirt and a cropped fur jacket. In other words, a girlified version of Marc Bolan's or Keith Richards' wardrobe, as though the woman has been so busy, um, sleeping on the band bus she hasn't had time to clean her clothes, so she's now wearing ones belonging to her musical companion. This column has no time for such nonsense."

Yeah, because women have *no* interest in music whatsoever except for sleeping with musicians. What CENTURY is this cretin from?

I think I stopped wearing band T-shirts by the time I was 23. It wasn't necessarily a conscious move tho. I doubt I will ever wear one again tho - I guess it seems lame unless it's an old obscure or overlooked thus hip act (even this I dunno about). I don't notice many people over 20 wearing them. Does Matt DC still have that Save Ferris T?

I only want to sleep with musicians if they are hot as they are (their musical ability is pretty irrelevant in fact).

dear teh grauniad - a long time ago/we used to be friends...

It went downhill after I left.

or were you PUSHED?

http://homepage.mac.com/alexinnyc/.Pictures/Photo%20Album%20Pictures/2007-09-02%2015.37.57%20-0700/Image-D15E03FF59A011DC.jpg

heh. (sorry alex, no harm intended)

http://www.abc.net.au/sport/thesportsdesk/images/200607/20060707henrydive_derblog.jpg

xp

i was being harsh really. i don't care what's on other people's t-shirts that much. just trying to work out why i stopped wearing/wouldn't wear band t-shirts myself.

Any t-shirt which isn't plain white clearly sucks that's why.

i couldn't agree less

I still wear band t-shirts if I like the band. Why not? I don't *define* myself or my personality by my music tastes any more, I haven't done that since I was about 18. But that's not the same thing as wearing a band t-shirt.

I suppose the fashion journalist in discussion cannot fathom the idea that clothes are just something you put on, rather than a definition of or statement about your personality.

This is definitely something that happens as you age - or rather, has happened to me as I aged. There's a subtle difference between Statement Clothes and just things you put on.

Guardian editorial worldview circa 2007:

http://www.astucia.co.uk/images/sce/galibier%20tunnel%20_three.jpg

why else would you buy a band t-shirt if not as a statement or definition of personality?

I didn't know it was a band t-shirt okay?

because you're cold xp

In the past I've usually just bought them as a keepsake of a gig I've enjoyed. The piece tracer quotes is idiotic fluff, obv. I'd be embarrased to admit I'd written that.

Because you like the design? Because you like the music? Because it was given to you (this is where most of mine come from)? Because it was a souvenier?

x-post

you wouldn't actually buy a band t-shirt because you liked the design but not necessarily the band tho...would you?

because you like the music = statement/definition of you/your taste

given to you = not you buying

you wouldn't actually buy a band t-shirt because you liked the design but not necessarily the band tho...would you?

No, plus I've only ever bought them @ gigs.

because you like the music = statement/definition of you/your taste

Probably yeah, but w/smaller bands there's also the knowledge that in buying it, yr helping to supposrt the tour.

i actually bought a comets on fire t-shirt solely because the design was so awesome. (it was at a gig, but they hadn't come on stage yet.) then i heard the music and i liked that too. i suppose if i hadn't liked their music, or thought it was boring, it would have posed a problem.

a friend of mine, who shall remain nameless so that alex in nyc doesn't stalk and kill him, bought a huge iron maiden patch when he was 14 and sewed it across the shoulders of his denim jacket. he had never heard a note of iron maiden, but he wound up becoming the biggest iron maiden fan i know, and even sung in a band later, where his vocal style was almost inseparable from bruce dickinson's.

my take on this: do not read hadley freeman.

this resolution made some time ago, stands as strong today as it ever did.

it's a crass and deliberately invidious piece of writing. such an attitude, if sincerely held, could be turned around on pretty much ANY choice of clothing. so forgeddaboudit

the last band t-shirt i bought - robyn!

alan i can't help myself, i know i'm sick and need help.

is there a thread for best band t-shirts? must see

Taste is something that I have. It does not define me. Clothes are something I wear. The statement I am making is "I don't really care about clothes any more."

If I'm going to make a statement about clothes, I'll wear a bright green paisley jacket to a dronerock festival where everyone else is in leather.

I suppose my Hawkwind t-shirt is a statement, it says "ha ha, I'm wearing a Hawkwind t-shirt, I care nothing for fashion, I am wearing the shirt of a band so deeply uncool you can suck my left one because I love them!" But it's certainly not a statement saying that I want to f*ck any of Hawkwind or that I have a musician boyfriend whose Hawkwind t-shirt I'm borrowing, which is the assumption of that article.

> I don't notice many people over 20 wearing them.

*SOBS*

> you wouldn't actually buy a band t-shirt because you liked the design but not necessarily the band tho...would you?

EAR t-shirt with the putney on the front = great. EAR live = terrible. (EAR on CD = ok, plus pram and stereolab were supporting)

Maybe I would imagine that they all know that each other are bad, and would never *actually bother reading* each other - leaving that for mere Guardian buyers? (A bit like the rank cynicism of the family in the novel WHAT A CARVE UP! (1994)?)

if they don't believe in each other who will

I don't find it hard to believe these people who all go to the same dinner parties genuinely do find each other funny and insightful, after all they never listen to anyone outside the bubble anyway

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/apr/16/experience-ive-had-the-same-supper-for-10-years

i'm not quite this bad wrt routine but i'm definitely feeling this guy. the bit about birdsong made me sad tho.

Ooft, wow. That's both immensely life-affirming and immensely sad somehow. What a great wee piece of writing.

Reading the Mabinogion eating ma big onion

I need to know how he eats the onion

I'm guessing he chews it into a bolus which goes down his oesophagus into his stomach

https://amp.theguardian.com/money/2021/apr/22/burnt-out-is-the-exhausting-cult-of-productivity-finally-over?

Nobody who is "unskilled" interviewed here ofc

I usually pick a single, brilliant sentence when I tweet masterpieces like this from @rafaelbehr. But there are simply too many to choose from. Every line stings like a bee! https://t.co/2TUCvS8V77

— James O'Brien (@mrjamesob) April 28, 2021

One to go alongside Calzino's list of Marina Hyde eulogies.

big 'from our vauxhall office' whiff off this one: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/apr/30/is-russias-covid-vaccine-anything-more-than-a-political-weapon-sputnik-v

Should send a link to this thread as a 'birthday message' to The Guardian

send Marina Hyde back in time to the early 19th century to put those dastardly Salford yeomanry in their place with her rapier wit.

Pretty compelling evidence that it has never been good:

- Argued for martial law during the Irish famine
- Supported the confederacy
- Editorialised for white supremacy and "unfaltering confidence in our right to rule over the native population by virtue of inherent superiority"
- criticised suffragist direct action
- dismissed Palestinian rights in the founding of Israel

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/may/07/guardian-200-what-we-got-wrong-the-guardians-worst-errors-of-judgment-over-200-years

haha i cant be the only person that opened that and crtl+f-ed "iraq"

2 save u time: "no results found"

🤔🤔🤔

i've talked to more than one person who has defended the guardian as not totally irredeemable by citing its strong stance against the war, it's amazing what people remember and how

ctrl+f Starmer "no results found"

The Obs was full tankie while the Graun was neutral/opposed iirc.

this needs to be ten times as long. no mention for example of publishing explicit defences of islamophobia (by name!) at a time of unprecedented state violence against muslims. or the trans eliminationism they've been pushing relentlessly lately which has literally killed people. minor shit like yvette cooper and owen smith and dave miliband is merely embarrasing in comparison. this riskless water under the bridge shit will still be taken for bravery by those who want to believe

how about publishing known sex pests like michael white and nick cohen (tip of the iceberg) while posturing as some kind of feminist publication (in order to attack muslims, black women, sex workers, trans people...) - maybe we'll get a mea culpa for that in 50 years

Don’t forget Hadley Freeman defending Woody Allen on at least two occasions

i read the TERF’s woody allen article so you don’t have to: it’s execrable stuff pic.twitter.com/B1ka1ZJtJE

— wanton dialectic-haver (@sharcoal) May 29, 2020

forgot about that there's so much awful to keep track of. burn it all down

Observer:

It is difficult for a leader of the opposition to be heard so soon after the election of a new prime minister to whom voters delivered a resounding majority and who is broadly considered to be performing well. The expectation that Labour could transform its fortunes just 18 months after its historic 2019 defeat, its worst showing in almost 100 years, was always unrealistic.

Note: "broadly considered to be performing well".

they;re v quiet on the old observer today, but that whole editorial is an amazing exercise in putting your fingers in your ears

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/09/the-observer-view-on-labour-performance-in-the-elections-keir-starmer

There was no position on Brexit that would have avoided losing the party votes.

The Guardian / Observer / John Harris position of attacking JC for Labour failure, till someone else is Labour leader, then blaming long-term trends beyond the leader's control.

Meanwhile:

Internally, in the name of party unity, he has shied away from addressing hard truths with his membership about the need to speak from beyond the activist comfort zone.

These people have not noticed that he has deliberately atttacked and alienated most of his activists, and as a result of his actions there is no-one left to knock on doors, or even send the party a fiver a month.

they have noticed, they just want him to do more!

What activists?

Rawnsley has been well paid to know about these things for over 30 years

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/09/keir-srarmer-act-urgently-rescue-labour-from-plight

Thus, unlike most of us, does not notice that KS's Labour, rather than 'slowly bouncing back', has performed worse than JC's, nor that socialists have locally outperformed KS's Labour.

i think if you consider that rawnsley etc are not really being paid to do analysis but to craft a narrative you can read these columnists with different expectations

lol at them getting his name wrong in url

They just got it wrong in the wrong way!

This adaptation was sadly so bad that I had to turn off after 20 minutes.

Lucy Mangan gives it 5/5.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/may/09/the-pursuit-of-love-review-absolutely-glorious

"comments (666)"

lol i read the first para of Lucy Mangan's review and thought 'no, this will be bad'. glad the pinefox has gone there so others don't need to.

Or maybe, just maybe, Lucy Mangan is right and the pinefox is wrong? Heresy on this thread, I realize.

If we're gonna be spoilsports I'll go straight to the part where art is subjective and thus neither the pinefox nor Lucy Mangan can be "right".

Lucy Mangan has never been right about anything in her life

In my experience there are very few exceptions where Graun critics give stuff 5 stars and it is any fucking cop at all. For me maybe some of the Classical music reviews have been spot on occasionally. See also Peter Badshaw, a film critic who is only slightly better than Commode and occasionally gets the gush over Nolan and other such waste.

This opening in today's @MarinaHyde piece about David Cameron has one of the best end-of-paragraph pay-offs I can remember reading. I've not even read the rest of the article yet, I just wanted to share the joy. pic.twitter.com/yZeTqYlVs2

— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) May 14, 2021

Cmon man, that’s a pretty good joke from 10 years ago

a lame autocorrect joke is a great pay-off? it feels more hitting the bottom of the humour overdraft.

so desperate to get in there first, he posted it before even finishing it off... reading the Hyde column that is.

is david cameron a standup guy? he's certainly a complete comedian

give me her job

sorry Mark but that was very sharp but lacking the thermonuclear brilliance you feel when you've followed Hyde since 2009 and the memory of her comedically using rhymezone to such devastating effect for years has a cumulative hilarity to it.

you also have to do the thing where you say 'when i was at school we used to say...' (even better if you can make it like oh idk something famous from a tv show nobody watches anymore like friends) or some other fatuous setup at the ouset so that you can use an irrelevant pun/metaphor throughout the article. Something about how Cameron, having been shown up, is all skirt and no knickers (as we used to say at school). Commando Cameron if you will. (blah blah blah some stuff about how he hit up all the other little men in his platoon texting them for favours "I'll be there for you, cos your there for me too" - Not this time dave)

That's a good analysis.

Mark S joke quite good too.

"The government seems to be following the lead of the late, lamented Dr Frasier Crane (don't write in about Kelsey Grammer, kids), and wishing the population of Britain 'Good Mental Health'. I suppose after everything else they've tried over the last year, it's worth a go."