http://media.tumblr.com/7975c8747ad941f9bfb10a135efa4933/tumblr_inline_mhibl5Sqyi1qz4rgp.gif
― lool at the herrlich (wins), Saturday, 11 October 2014 12:35 (nine years ago) link
The field is strong. That the likes of Melvyn Bragg and Dylan Jones can't even break the top five...
― intelligent, expressive males within the greater metropolitan (Bananaman Begins), Saturday, 11 October 2014 12:36 (nine years ago) link
as i said, my suspicion is baddiel, but persuade me
― Ƹ༑Ʒ (imago), Saturday, 11 October 2014 12:36 (nine years ago) link
o wait there's tony parsons
That is horrific, the News of the World was shut down for less. Can I immigrate now?
― Gay Briton (Tom D.), Saturday, 11 October 2014 12:37 (nine years ago) link
Actually Jones might just sneak in at 5. But the champions league places are Amis, Parsons, de Botton, Gill. Not necessarily in that order.
― intelligent, expressive males within the greater metropolitan (Bananaman Begins), Saturday, 11 October 2014 12:38 (nine years ago) link
I don't know who Tom Shone or Damien Barr are tbh. I confess to hating Jon Snow with every fibre of my breakfast.
― Gay Briton (Tom D.), Saturday, 11 October 2014 12:41 (nine years ago) link
Who's the best btw? Owen vs Rowan maybe. You'll all say Will Self :P
― Ƹ༑Ʒ (imago), Saturday, 11 October 2014 12:43 (nine years ago) link
not saying that Baddiel isn't awful but in terms of this list I don't see what makes him worse than distinctly middling.
― Merdeyeux, Saturday, 11 October 2014 12:43 (nine years ago) link
Oh no no, NO-ONE would say Will Self surely?!?!??!
― Gay Briton (Tom D.), Saturday, 11 October 2014 12:44 (nine years ago) link
(xp)
Bragg, Jones, Baddiel duking it out for a Europa league place- but how much do they actually want the resulting fixture pile up the following season?
― intelligent, expressive males within the greater metropolitan (Bananaman Begins), Saturday, 11 October 2014 12:44 (nine years ago) link
Baddiel is the worst sort of snivelling 'liberal' apologist for ladbantz bollocks /xelab
― Ƹ༑Ʒ (imago), Saturday, 11 October 2014 12:45 (nine years ago) link
Can never forgive Bragg for that piece on becoming a lifelong Arsenal fan at the age 40
― Gay Briton (Tom D.), Saturday, 11 October 2014 12:46 (nine years ago) link
Clive James has done great to finish top half here, but lacks the squad depth to really kick on.
― intelligent, expressive males within the greater metropolitan (Bananaman Begins), Saturday, 11 October 2014 12:46 (nine years ago) link
... or forgive Arsenal either
I don't know to what extent it's fair to hate Stephen Fry for what he represents but fairness isn't really what this kind of poll is about is it
― Merdeyeux, Saturday, 11 October 2014 12:48 (nine years ago) link
Parsons wrote the dumbest trolly 'advice' for the issue - basically 'history shows we're awesome so whatever' (NB not read the Amis bit).
― nashwan, Saturday, 11 October 2014 12:50 (nine years ago) link
lol @ actually reading this bog roll
― intelligent, expressive males within the greater metropolitan (Bananaman Begins), Saturday, 11 October 2014 12:53 (nine years ago) link
Surprised at tony parsons xp
C'mon big tone you're better than this
― lool at the herrlich (wins), Saturday, 11 October 2014 12:56 (nine years ago) link
He is?
― ... and a Martin Parr photo essay (Tom D.), Saturday, 11 October 2014 13:02 (nine years ago) link
No
― lool at the herrlich (wins), Saturday, 11 October 2014 13:05 (nine years ago) link
Tom Shone's a great film critic fwiw. His book Blockbuster is brilliant.
Not the biggest Baddiel fan but "snivelling 'liberal' apologist for ladbantz bollocks" was his schtick 20 years ago, not now.
Toss-up between Parsons and Gill - both equally loathsome in different ways.
― Re-Make/Re-Model, Saturday, 11 October 2014 13:13 (nine years ago) link
Parsons, even before the Ukip stuff. There's quite a lot of people I don't know on the list but I can't imagine anyone being worse (among these sort of guys).
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 11 October 2014 13:23 (nine years ago) link
existence of andrew marr's history of the world bothers me
want to vote de botton I think
― ogmor, Saturday, 11 October 2014 13:43 (nine years ago) link
Parsons is right in the sweet spot of dickishness, reprehensible politics and cultural worthlessness, some of the others have at least a sliver of a redeeming feature somewhere, although Matthew Parris is getting off pretty easy so far.
I know next to nothing about Alain de Botton and I'm not about to start changing that now.
― Matt DC, Saturday, 11 October 2014 15:03 (nine years ago) link
alain de botton iirc is a ted talk personified
― Ƹ༑Ʒ (imago), Saturday, 11 October 2014 15:28 (nine years ago) link
don't know if i can be arsed to run thru all these but i have a plentiful bile tank on standby at all times for Robert Webb, Alain de Botton and Tony Parsons. there are others equally deserving i'm sure.
― Chimp Arsons, Saturday, 11 October 2014 15:38 (nine years ago) link
can't think of any Archbishop of Canterbury since the Reformation who hasn't been some shade of cunt
― Chimp Arsons, Saturday, 11 October 2014 15:40 (nine years ago) link
rowan came so close to being rly good
but then fucked it up
― Ƹ༑Ʒ (imago), Saturday, 11 October 2014 15:46 (nine years ago) link
What's wrong with Robert Webb? Are there two famous people with that name(or many more), just like David Mitchell?
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 11 October 2014 16:16 (nine years ago) link
just find Webb & Mitchell unfunny and smug to a degree beyond most of their smug unfunny peers i guess
― Chimp Arsons, Saturday, 11 October 2014 16:58 (nine years ago) link
Rowan Williams was about as good as A of C's get, which might not be saying much, also a big Incredible String Band fan
― ... and a Martin Parr photo essay (Tom D.), Saturday, 11 October 2014 18:20 (nine years ago) link
he's not in my top rank of worstness here by any means, just saying it's a well dodgy institution
― Chimp Arsons, Saturday, 11 October 2014 18:23 (nine years ago) link
Stephen Fry is just the worst.
― boxedjoy, Saturday, 11 October 2014 19:32 (nine years ago) link
How so?
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 11 October 2014 19:40 (nine years ago) link
I can't chose between Gill and Parsons, but i suspect they are the same person.I can recall reading Gill in the ST Culture section, circa 90's after a female supermarket worker made a saucy comment about his daughters' name and his rebuttal was at least she won't end up working in a fucking supermarket. I stopped hate-reading him in the mid 90's but he left an indelible impression, especially when he was bragging about his young model girlfriend and relating how comfortable he was being a dirty old man. Parsons for his laughable, self piteous lone dad shite and that execrable "hateful desert" 9/11 piece he wrote, all his shitty books and for constantly being the most off the money, hectoring cunt on the late show.
― xelab, Saturday, 11 October 2014 19:56 (nine years ago) link
yeah I was split between the chimp parsons and gill the goon who shot a baboon
― john wahey (NickB), Saturday, 11 October 2014 20:08 (nine years ago) link
The sheer amount of odiousness on display is just staggering. I mean, really... ANY OF THESE just for starters
Martin AmisRobert WebbStephen FryTony ParsonsAlain de BottonAA Gill
But I'm kind of circling in on Amis and Gill as the most deeply odious for me personally but it is truly a deep pit of hell (even though I can scrape up tiny modicums of 'well he's not thaaaaaat bad by comparison with the rest of the list' for Owen Jones and Rowan Williams but although I did enjoy a Will Self novel or four, somehow being in this company makes him more odious than I'd normally find him... funny how the mass of them together increases their sheer vileness.)
― Jacques Lacan let me rock u; let me rock u, Jacques Lacan (Branwell with an N), Saturday, 11 October 2014 20:13 (nine years ago) link
I don't know much about Amis, don't know anything about Botton, but what have Amis, Botton, Webb and Fry done to deserve being placed next to Parsons and Gill?
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 11 October 2014 20:20 (nine years ago) link
You could, maybe, I dunno... google them and find out?
― Jacques Lacan let me rock u; let me rock u, Jacques Lacan (Branwell with an N), Saturday, 11 October 2014 20:22 (nine years ago) link
Amis
Let's all interview this cunt and treat him like some demi-god because he just had another appalling novel published and had some very fucking expensive dental work :O=
― xelab, Saturday, 11 October 2014 20:28 (nine years ago) link
Martin Amis and his... ~feeling about Muslims~ let him explain them to U. Stephen Fry and his "I'm gay, how am I supposed to know anything at all about what women feel about sex (but let me shoot my mouth off about it, repeatedly, in really gross misogynistic ways, tee hee, I'm so naughty)" or Alain de Botton and "let me condescend to you, badly, about architecture and morality and ~my feelings about porn~ and how the Pain of Being Bald gives me an insight into the suffering of the marginalised" and ugh Webb and just general smug punchability and gross ugh yuck.
― Jacques Lacan let me rock u; let me rock u, Jacques Lacan (Branwell with an N), Saturday, 11 October 2014 20:28 (nine years ago) link
I mean, if you wanted to get in a good point about unearned, inherited privilege and how only two dozen families control Britain politically and culturally and will do for the rest of our sodding miserable lives then "Amis" was a pretty good name to pick to get the point across.
― Jacques Lacan let me rock u; let me rock u, Jacques Lacan (Branwell with an N), Saturday, 11 October 2014 20:30 (nine years ago) link
I searched them and added the word "controversy" and some of that stuff did come up. Also something about Fry and Poland.
I had been aware of Amis having an English middlebrow king snob reputation.
Webb never came across anymore smug to me than the general bunch of Have I Got News For You regulars, which can be pretty bad but rarely odious enough to get close to Parsons. I thought he seems nice.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 11 October 2014 20:43 (nine years ago) link
thing is i've not thought about 90% of these tosspots in a zillion years. actually thought that clive james was dead tbh
― john wahey (NickB), Saturday, 11 October 2014 20:45 (nine years ago) link
tragically, everybody on this list has their fans.
― Chimp Arsons, Saturday, 11 October 2014 20:49 (nine years ago) link
Clive James cheated on his wife. On a quick search I couldn't find anyone else.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 11 October 2014 20:51 (nine years ago) link
Anything else.
I mean, I guess Webb is kind of a lightweight when compared to the full on tossitude of Parsons and Amis and Gill and Botton and Fry. But give him 20, 30 years and I'm sure he'll get there.
― Jacques Lacan let me rock u; let me rock u, Jacques Lacan (Branwell with an N), Saturday, 11 October 2014 20:52 (nine years ago) link
Christ.
― Fizzles, Wednesday, 15 October 2014 10:51 (nine years ago) link
there's worse, but when he gets to "that’s Beckett skewered for ever" I just can't
― woof, Wednesday, 15 October 2014 11:03 (nine years ago) link
So are you going to tell me a 'meditation on death' doesn't sound pretentious already?
why would that be pretentious? death is something we all have to deal with.
― Treeship, Wednesday, 15 October 2014 11:19 (nine years ago) link
besides mine was better tbh
― local eire man (darraghmac), Wednesday, 15 October 2014 11:31 (nine years ago) link
I don't think it's the "death" bit that's pretentious here, treesh.
problem is death's been approached innumerable times before (because it's both mundane and unique), by many people - you're going to need to bring some chops to justify that title to avoid bathos.
it can make what comes look vapid, as I think this poem is - dull lines, mawkish truisms or just truisms. he wrote one about fading mental capacity and no longer being the centre of attention, which is better I think, tho his line never exactly sings.
― Fizzles, Wednesday, 15 October 2014 11:37 (nine years ago) link
Yes its the 'meditation' that I picked on. Bit allergic to anything deacribed as such.
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 15 October 2014 11:43 (nine years ago) link
i find the james poem pretty staid in its sentimentality. i don't think a ponderous tone equals meaningfulness.
― lex pretend, Wednesday, 15 October 2014 11:51 (nine years ago) link
in terms of recent works by minor white male poets looking at death, I liked Hugo Williams' Dialysis poems more.
― woof, Wednesday, 15 October 2014 11:57 (nine years ago) link
i thought its strength was its willingness to risk cliche for the purpose of honesty. i have some personal associations with the imagery too. it's not the kind of poem designed to blow people away but it feels true.
― Treeship, Wednesday, 15 October 2014 12:42 (nine years ago) link
...
― Ƹ༑Ʒ (imago), Wednesday, 15 October 2014 12:43 (nine years ago) link
ach, fine, it's your aesthetic i guess
― Ƹ༑Ʒ (imago), Wednesday, 15 October 2014 12:44 (nine years ago) link
now a thread in which ilmers review a pome
― local eire man (darraghmac), Wednesday, 15 October 2014 13:09 (nine years ago) link
it's what clive james would have wanted
― woof, Wednesday, 15 October 2014 13:14 (nine years ago) link
i met clive davis back in may. i didn't know it was him at the time.
― Treeship, Wednesday, 15 October 2014 14:59 (nine years ago) link
i sat and watched some Cardinal Burns last night, too tired to go to bed, and now i hate Robert Webb just a shade less
― Chimp Arsons, Wednesday, 15 October 2014 16:34 (nine years ago) link
Clive Davis vs Clive James
― deej loaf (D-40), Wednesday, 15 October 2014 20:22 (nine years ago) link
Arista had an awesome logo
― Terrific ribbon, Moe (stevie), Thursday, 16 October 2014 09:14 (nine years ago) link
James/Davis/Dunn/Tyldesley/of India poll needed
― woof, Thursday, 16 October 2014 09:19 (nine years ago) link
Dunn, obvs
― Terrific ribbon, Moe (stevie), Thursday, 16 October 2014 09:59 (nine years ago) link
Anderson/Sinclair/Owen/Stafford Smith
― john wahey (NickB), Thursday, 16 October 2014 10:12 (nine years ago) link
Still Dunn.
― Terrific ribbon, Moe (stevie), Thursday, 16 October 2014 10:15 (nine years ago) link
sounds like a dunn deal
― john wahey (NickB), Thursday, 16 October 2014 10:25 (nine years ago) link
http://www.cbgxtra.com/blogs/beautiful-balloons/clive-by-mcgill-and-poelsma
― sʌxihɔːl (Ward Fowler), Thursday, 16 October 2014 11:00 (nine years ago) link
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n20/michael-hofmann/splashing-through-the-puddles
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 16 October 2014 11:07 (nine years ago) link
Its a bumper issue of Great White maleness: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n20/owen-hatherley/who-will-stop-them
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 16 October 2014 11:11 (nine years ago) link
Been watching lots of Simon Munnery recently and this is one of many I liked..
"If a million monkeys were given a million typewriters, eventually one of them might produce the complete works of Shakespeare but to reach it would it be worth wading through four hundred copies of "Money" by Martin Amis?"
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 17 October 2014 16:48 (nine years ago) link
man that review of the new amis is really brutal. loled tho cuz i read time's arrow and the gulag one but i had no idea he'd written another fastidious little novel set pompously against the midnight of the century. cmon man.
― difficult listening hour, Friday, 17 October 2014 21:36 (nine years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.
― System, Sunday, 16 November 2014 00:01 (nine years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.
― System, Monday, 17 November 2014 00:01 (nine years ago) link
brilliant results tbh
― lex pretend, Monday, 17 November 2014 09:11 (nine years ago) link
Parsons was robbed.
― Matt DC, Monday, 17 November 2014 10:36 (nine years ago) link
Dylan Jones suffering bigtime from FPTP voting system.
― intelligent, expressive males within the greater metropolitan (Bananaman Begins), Monday, 17 November 2014 10:45 (nine years ago) link
i tried to read the grayson perry lead article (in fairness, i should probably get past the first few 100 words before commenting) but his glee seemed more about the act than the actual message. i.e. i wasnt entirely sure he actually believed what he was trying to say or if he just liked the apparent 'naughtiness' (i was going to say radicalness but naughtiness/outrageousness seems to fit the tone better). but then i just thought that if a white male hadnt written this piece, no one at the NS would probably have cared that much.
― StillAdvance, Monday, 17 November 2014 10:49 (nine years ago) link
AA Gill on the politics of the suit are you fucking kidding me
― paolo, Monday, 17 November 2014 19:15 (nine years ago) link
@georgegallowayDon't miss my show tonight on @talkRADIO with John Pilger Peter Hitchens Peter Oborne and Julian Assange. 7pm. Mother of all Talkshows.
― Matt DC, Friday, 8 July 2016 10:20 (seven years ago) link
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FAei7reXMAkf3NY?format=jpg&name=900x900
couldn't this shit make it up
― calzino, Wednesday, 29 September 2021 21:28 (two years ago) link
he's just thinking bout how he could make the planet earth bald
― calzino, Wednesday, 29 September 2021 21:30 (two years ago) link
― Jacques Lacan let me rock u; let me rock u, Jacques Lacan (Branwell with an N), Saturday, 11 October 2014 21:52 (six years ago) bookmarkflaglink
beat the spread by a good 15 years
― look on my guacs, ye mighty, and dis pear (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 29 September 2021 21:33 (two years ago) link
Only ONE vote for Matthew Parris, ILX I am not angry with you, just very disappointed.
― edited to reflect developments which occurred (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Wednesday, 29 September 2021 21:38 (two years ago) link
anyway this is a great nostalgia trip back to a long bygone age where these threads would attract a host of disingenuous "what's wrong with Scumbag X?" posts
― look on my guacs, ye mighty, and dis pear (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 29 September 2021 21:39 (two years ago) link
"He's got the whole world, in his hands.. he's got the whole world.. in his hands.."
― Andy the Grasshopper, Wednesday, 29 September 2021 21:42 (two years ago) link
"Not the biggest Baddiel fan but "snivelling 'liberal' apologist for ladbantz bollocks" was his schtick 20 years ago, not now."
yes he's somehow been even almost worse than he was then, but he did stop doing blackface tbf
― calzino, Wednesday, 29 September 2021 21:50 (two years ago) link
I'm amused that I didn't even know who Matthew Parris was at the time of this poll. Happier days of ignorant bliss! Bragg is a wanker but I still consider In Our Time a decent program and I guarantee whichever cunt replaces him when he succumbs to dementia will be a thousand times worse than him.
― calzino, Wednesday, 29 September 2021 22:17 (two years ago) link
Was gonna say, Webb and Baddiel would have gotten way more votes this time 'round.
― Daniel_Rf, Thursday, 30 September 2021 10:09 (two years ago) link
And Alain de Botton way less.
― Starmer: "Let the children boogie, let all the children boogie." (Tom D.), Thursday, 30 September 2021 10:30 (two years ago) link
Did everyone forget who Will Self was?
― Mark G, Thursday, 30 September 2021 10:35 (two years ago) link
45 years ago today (4 November 1977), the New Statesman published this article about divisions in the Communist Party of Great Britain. It is the first written use that I have found of the term ‘tankie’ to describe someone who (uncritically) supported the Soviet Union. pic.twitter.com/plCY3gk9Ge— Evan Smith (@evansmithhist) November 4, 2022
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 4 November 2022 12:05 (one year ago) link
This is a very … peculiar framing, but I do wonder where all the Statesman’s sugar daddy money has gone. The magazine’s professional irritants (and Will Lloyd, who commissions the worst of them) can’t be that expensive to run. pic.twitter.com/gLn4cK157g— Elvis Buñuelo (@Mr_Considerate) November 18, 2023
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 18 November 2023 15:14 (six months ago) link