Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

The garish star rating on images for reviewed media is bad too. Suggests the star rating isn't important enough to retain the space it had before yet more important than showing all of an image. The bigger problem remains pretty much everything getting three or four stars though so could've been a good opportunity to alter that system and save space. Should've gone with emoji imo.

I also hate the lines - I've had a couple discussions at work about the redesign (part of my job is website UX) and they are all variants on "wtf were they thinking with those lines".

The paper is fine, it's just a little sad and boring, kinda easy to mistake for the Times or Evening Standard. Two quid a day seems... untenable.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/18/elena-ferrante-to-become-guardian-weekends-new-columnist

This is an excellent move, seriously.

"Yet, when Hodgson allows himself a second to contemplate, he can acknowledge some would spy romance in last autumn’s return."

The Guardian's typical omission of the word "that" sometimes makes their sentences temporarily confusing for me.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/jan/19/roy-hodgson-interview-crystal-palace-manager

Took me a while to find the guardian this morning - it was hiding with all the other tabloids, not on the broadsheet shelf where it normally is.

Thought the review section looked at but feeble when I picked it out but the smaller size is handy and the paper stock is better.

They've ditched the weekly film recommendations in the TV bit (I think, maybe they've just moved it). That used to be handy.

enjoyed Grace Dent dropping a casual Sylvie Krin-esque mention of her handbag worth the thick end of a grand into her food review today

brands as shorthand or juxtaposition is kind of her thing though, innit. like mentioning Findus Crispy Pancakes at the other end of the spectrum.

Where's Harangue The DJ gone?

new review and feast magazines are nice

fuck sake

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/jan/27/stephen-bush-can-i-cook-like-andy-warhol

le sigh

I have bought it 3 times this week.

got a little echo of the opening of Lady Lazarus there

just think how many 10p mixups you could have bought for the cost of those grauniads

the numbers they use for the clues of the everyman crossword in the observer are worse than they used to be

PDF: https://crosswords-static.guim.co.uk/obs.everyman.20180211.pdf

the 4s and 7s especially

Gary Younge is the only reason to read the Graun:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/02/boris-johnson-white-privilege-black-woman

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/11/why-the-lefts-hellish-vision-is-so-ruinous

I mean

jfc

i wanted to pull a bunch of quotes and take the piss but really just fuck him and fuck the comfortable middle class bubble that formed his fucking technocrat "gradualism"

this mediocrity obv slept through the last the 2 UK elections, or just conveniently excised them from his memory. His students are very fucking lucky people.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/mar/08/how-to-retire-early-frugal-spending

the state of fucking this as well.

xxp

I posted an FT graph onto the rolling UK politics thread t'other say, that showed how under the centrist gradualism of New Labour, regional inequality was still off the charts in comparison to other major EU economies and the US. Whatever sticking plasters they applied to the problem at the time didn't do much good.

the tone of this "we must protect the poor thicko electorate from themselves"

the YouGov says only 6% admit to being lefty so everyone's a Centrist argument is weak as piss. When people vote as a self-interest group they often unwittingly become "lefties".

the art of damage limitation and carrying on when the reasoning behind your latest book is completely blown away by real events.

I'd love to see this cunt trying his patter with the postcode gangs of Sheffield, that used to rob tools out of our vans and try and sell them back to us later. Not that they were necessarily voting types of citizens.

We have a ready made Centrist party in the UK, no need to even contemplate forming a new one. Why doesn't he go and join them?

we have something like 12 by now

if you want your own accommodation in Manchester and you're a wheelchair user then the wait is a mere 114 years. gradualism at its best.

https://www.aspire.org.uk/blog/loneliness

I still think insipid soundbites are way more important than actual disability benefits for the disabled.

Still, it's better than it was in 1872.

It was terrible back then, poor communities didn't even have groups like More In Common dishing out platitudes soup.

"Neoliberalism is a long way from being the all-conquering hegemonic discourse the Corbynite left claims it to be. Indeed, neoliberalism has been pretty much disowned by the leaders of all the largest political parties."

Kindof shocked that a professor of politics in a fairly prestigious university does not have a better understanding of neoliberalism. That is, the way neoliberalims is always self-disavowing, presenting itself as a set of techniques and procedures rather than an ideological, world-making discourse. It is only the last ten years or so that the various crises set in motion by the crash have made it possible to name neoliberalism in a popular sense, prior to that discussion of neoliberalism was more limited to academic/activist/etc. kinds of discussion. Obviously the whole article is riddled with delusional hide-bound-by-class bunker thinking exacerbated by losing-my-edge anxiety but it should be pointed out that there is also a (seriously worrying for his students) cluelessness about the basic characteristics of the phenomena he is describing. This is different from his willful mischaracterisation of "corbynite" views and positions (which I would expect) and, to me, completely unforgivable from an academic point of view.

just felt that was worth noting. Also this kind of bollocks is intimately linked with REF culture and university managements increasing obsession with "impact," a disastrous vehicle for the most craven, showboating academics that rewards this kind of nonsense with professorships.

absolute peak Guardian, this: https://t.co/le13kG4FOG pic.twitter.com/9Ml4SJvks6

— Marie Le Conte (@youngvulgarian) March 28, 2018

£2500 (plus travel) to go and gawk at a failing economy? shut up and take my money

might get meself on one of their "Brexit and inner cities in the North" holidays

if you wanna see a dead child refugee wash up on a beach while you're there it's an extra £500

accompanying mezze platter only £15 tho

get the feeling the marketing people are just flipping thru old "Modern Parents" stories from Viz for their ideas now

these recipes are very bad (mostly)

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/mar/28/six-of-the-best-egg-brunches

My favourite one is at the bottom. Put yoghurt in the microwave for a minute then add two poached eggs on top. The recipe is called "Magic Soup".

might get meself on one of their "Brexit and inner cities in the North" holidays

A full two weeks with John Harris.

xp

the worst type of more equals less type recipes, lets just throw a bit of everything in there and not worry that it looks absolutely minging!

It seems to no longer be called "Magic Soup"? And now it's the OVEN they want you to put the yogurt into? Yes I'm going to put the oven onto 200C, wait for it to come to temperature and then put a small bowl of yogurt in there for 5 minutes. I mean fuckin what??

I am honestly laughing now and cannot stop

"Just pop an oven-proof bowl of yogurt in the oven for 5 minutes and r-"

"OK you're insane, or I'm insane, it's one of the two"

The green eggs one looks absolutely disgusting and that's with a professional food photographer.

way to disrespect white culture everyone xp

my bad it's only 140C that's a totally efficient and normal temperature for HEATING UP YOGURT FOR 5 MINUTES