Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

"100% fine with him being fired and replaced with someone whose views are consistent with modern mainstream conservatism (I a headbanger)."

How is this a good thing?

I’m also fine with him fired and not being replaced.

I believe caek’s point is that replacing “moderate conservatives” who have no audience other than hate-readers with actual frothing bigots is at least honest.

Right. If the token conservative is there to “represent the other side” they should at least hold the other side’s views. And the particular views dacona holds are not only representative of almost no one (and wrong), they are also especially comforting and unchallenging to centrists who don’t themselves hold these views.

Fair enough. I think the other side is so deranged on some issues that to even see it argued in respectable pages is to see it normalised. Ancona at least pretended to be socially liberal.

Otm. Guardian is a fucking mess for even caring about publishing more right wing opinions tbh, when most right wing publications will never publish anyone left of Hugo Rifkind.

the "comforting carbon monoxide leak" vibe that center right commentators give off to center left people is a huge practical problem in the US (where i live now). it's perhaps a bit less of a problem in the UK, and the danger of platforming the further right opinions might be more salient in that context.

"comforting carbon monoxide leak"

^ this is in quotes because i said it. sorry i can't write.

the "comforting carbon monoxide leak" vibe that center right commentators give off to center left people is a huge practical problem in the US (where i live now). it's perhaps a bit less of a problem in the UK, and the danger of platforming the further right opinions might be more salient in that context.

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek),

Its a big problem in UK and a major contributory factor in fracture between public and media. Over-representation of "Tory Remainers", or socially liberal / economically conservative, or whatever you call them - inverse of actual centre ground. Illusion of this group being larger than is actually the case, and having to cater to it, this

Its like the creation of a 'palatable opponent' that you can have polite disagreement with, but to what end? what is the point of this? Give us the real deal or don't bother

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EHzWolWXUAIEtbp?format=jpg&name=large

oh lord

I'm never more aware of my working-class origins than when I remember my mother doing a cleaning job whilst heavily pregnant and then getting very ill and having a miscarriage that nearly killed her.

For the Evening Standard, not the Guardian, but Grace Dent wrote the most cringeworthy paragraph of all time. pic.twitter.com/8BUbiHrYcY

— Dril Kafka (sicko mode) (@RuairiWood) October 26, 2019

that's..... incredible.

That's not even the most cringeworthy paragraph in that piece:

I am working class. Oh yes I am. Don’t make me play Working Class Top Trumps with you because I’ll win. I’ve owned a Staffordshire bull terrier (Bess), I’ve holidayed in Tenerife, I have silver fillings. My godfather was a Geordie called Uncle Bob who sold sewing machines. I went to a comprehensive school — OK, when I could be arsed. There was no literature in my home aside from Jackie Collins smut from car-boot sales and a News of the World part-work on the Moors Murderers. In my youth I dated hot boys who lingered in young offenders’ institutions (oh, come on, those were the best ones). My teenage schoolfriends had babies with lads called Teabag, Gozzy and Bello.

you don't reckon grace dent is probably in on the joke here?

what does it mean to be in on a really shitty joke

rly makes u think

it reads differently if it's supposed to be 'in character', i have never got what she's about tbh

people moan about Mao murdering too many people, but at least he worked out that if there ain't no food then all the restaurant critics die as well!

petition to get calzino onto the guardian's writing staff

Morrissey says

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/oct/27/morrissey-performs-in-la-wearing-fuck-the-guardian-t-shirt

Puzzled by the Dominican Republic line. Where is that anyway?

I met Grace Dent once. She was very bad - mendacious, secretive, tricky. Probably not the way her writing seeks to come across.

Lol I read the guardian way more than I would like and have never heard of grace dent before, nor have I noticed a single story about Morrissey except the occasional "great British albums" boring bollocks they do. Certainly not any "anti Morrissey" stories. Also the smiths are really boring.

Oh right she does the restaurant reviews.

Who are the only good restaurant critics, or former ones apart from Meades?

bought £1 pack of Haribo Starmix. Worst weets ever in history of my life, rubbery, tasteless, disgusting. "Happy world of Haribo" Bollocks

— Michael Winner (@MrMichaelWinner) June 24, 2012

that one guy left twitter always retweets

rayner/o'loughlin are rightly lauded but maybe too fbpe for current ilx?

rip

http://www.anorak.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/tumblr_inline_mgzn1gvBZY1r2qscg.gif

Jay Rayner is a mensch, and Marina O’Loughlin is generally spot-on (and -bonus- is a Glaswegian Italian).

I’ve never met Grace Dent and never want to, because she has a big ‘puts on airs’ vibe that may once have been ironic, and is now evinced by Botox and an underbite. Disclosure: my mum, a single parent, hired her older friend Una to come in one morning a week to do the cleaning jobs (floors etc) she couldn’t manage herself after working 60-hour weeks. Una worked full-time as a cleaner and my sister and I did have to tidy before her visits.

i've never ready anything by jay rayner but i know what he looks like and he beat me to a lovely cast iron skillet at a stall in the lambeth the country show and for that I will never forgive him.

Puzzled by the Dominican Republic line. Where is that anyway?

It's half of a Caribbean island. The other half is Haiti.

JR is good mates with a friend of mine from high school, and she invited us out for drinks to meet one another a few years ago. I like him a lot - he reminds me and my school friend of guys our age from our town - sorry he beat you to a good skillet.

it was very unusual and reasonably priced

At an event once I told someone 'Jay Rayner' was a pen name and his real name was 'Ray Jayner' and he overheard me and told the person that it was true. Legend

— JC (@jmsclee) April 25, 2019

Jay Rayner often reviews restaurants local to me (he lives round here) and it’s a very useful service.

Jay Rayner looks like Lawrence Llewellyn-Bowen. If there's one aspect of broadsheet journalism that the internet should have killed off it's restauarant criticism.

this is the first time I've ever heard anyone say they didn't think he was a revolting cunt

He lives locally so I see him walking around -- always seemingly out of breath -- about once a month.

this is the first time I've ever heard anyone say they didn't think he was a revolting cunt

― ogmor, Monday, 28 October 2019 08:38 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

tbf i get the feeling you'd say this about each & every member of a certain media caste, namely the 'flamboyant speaker of one's truth'

which is kind of ironic because

xp
life is tasty, brutish and short for the professional high-class bon-viveur :p

I know a lot of ppl who hate(d) a a gill as well its true

this is some of the worst music in the world.

seems v much of a piece with the more recent wave of post-takoma guitarists who show their cloth-ears by treating the new age copycats & originals as being much of a muchness. sure there's a lot of detail which can be hard to concentrate on, but if you unfocus your ears it all blurs into a sweet mellow vibe. it's utopian in the way a show-home is utopian, bland and featureless.

if ppl's anhedonia has rendered them numb to all but the most cartoonishly saccharine & they retreat into this mush as an act of self-care then they have my sympathies. mb ppl will find the strength to engage more intensely when the political climate improves, or mb it's just indicative of ppl tending to be at their most boringly self-involved and incurious between 30 & 50. in any case I'm managing fine with solids, ta

― Jay Rayner, Monday, 21 May 2018 13:08 (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

if lj thinks i'm flamboyant tho i think it's time to call it quits

This is probably the only Jay Rayner piece worth reading btw.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/sep/06/chinese-restaurant-silk-road-london

Years before Uighurs became more known to the west. It's got that awkwardness that liberals trade in when trying to write about other cultures.

tbc i have time for both JR and ogmor and long may persist their distinct but equally lavish reviewing styles

can you kill me before you go fuck yourself pls darling

^the bracing turn of phrase we all need more of

itt ogmor resists assimilation into the southern private school wordsmithery mafia

A a gill was a cunt, and it's good he's dead

I think the only time i agreed with an a a gill piece was when he said billy connolly is an overrated unfunny cunt, stopped timepieces and all that ...