Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

I gave up booze for almost the entirety of the lockdown and I can honestly say it made absolutely no difference to my health and wellbeing whatsoever. Should I write an article about it for the Guardian?

― Maggot Bairn (Tom D.), Friday, February 10, 2023 11:47 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

This could work if you also took up wild swimming?

Thank you to those who are reading and commenting on this thread. I've been working on this for over a year and, unless stuff gets reported, I am going to start naming names. https://t.co/EyalJxcKMR

— Jo Maugham (@JolyonMaugham) February 12, 2023

good luck to maugham in his quest to destroy the entire rotten media establishment

I don't agree with his fox killing policy, but I doooo agree with his Nik Cohen killing policy

how is Cohen's health? He resigned from GMG on 'health grounds' yet still seems to be knocking out substacks (wtf they are!) and Spectator articles at a fair rate. Another example of how shite "cancel culture" is at actually cancelling confirmed miscreants.

i'm just boggled that people are so starved of spiteful centre right horseshit that they feel the need to pay for extra shovelfuls

Windmill on a mission is a tune we can all dance to tho

Bit bemused about the column in yesterday's Feast about what to do with leftover wine.

making ice-pops with it for the next heatwave?

wtf is leftover wine?

Well, exactly.

Such a stupid column. Man U being owned by the weird American Glazers was utterly dysfunctional too. But Americans respect human rights, apparently, so that's ok?

The fact that the fans won't care if Man U win the title again under Qatar or whoever isn't actually dealt with.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2023/feb/17/qatar-buying-manchester-united-would-be-a-disaster-just-look-at-the-state-of-psg

my experience of football fan Twitter is there's a vocal contingent of fans who wouldn't care if their club was owned by Nazis if they bought players and won stuff

Also Paris is not a one city club, as my recent visit to Red Star FC's ground to buy one of their beanie hats proves. I would have gone to a game but they're playing behind closed doors at the moment due to fan "misbehaviour".

Actually, what is a one-city club?

A one-club city

my experience of football fan Twitter is there's a vocal contingent of fans who wouldn't care if their club was owned by Nazis if they bought players and won stuff

― satori enabler (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 18 February 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Yes, I see a spectrum in twitter or outside from: a resignation to an acceptance that this is how it is, to the attitude you describe.

And I think Gulf states using 'soft power' tactics could be argued as being similar to how the West used this tactic in the cold war tbh. Does need more thinking about than Ronay is capable of.

(xp) He says one-city club in the article.

Football fans as a cohort generally pretty awful though. Got a rapist on the team? Who cares if he’s clapped, just tweet your little 🐐 emojis and shout down everyone who’s got a problem with it. Homophobia, HAHAHAHA FUCK YOU THE GAME’S ON.

speaking of 'phobia, I thought this being front-page (for me) was pretty rich: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/17/new-york-times-contributors-open-letter-protest-anti-trans-coverage

Tom D: FWIW Paris used to have Racing Club Paris, who were renamed Matra Racing Paris after their sponsors in the 1980s. I went to see them. Maxime Bossis, Enzo Francescoli and I think even Pierre Littbarski played for them for a while. They were very much PSG's local rivals at the time. They played in the Parc des Princes. But perhaps that club is now vanished.

Actually Racing Club still exist though they're based in Colombes, which is a suburb of Paris... but then there's Paris FC who do play in Paris. Any way you look at it, one-city club or one-club city, he's talking out his arse.

Ah ok lol, missed that on my skim of the piece.

There's also fourth-tier US Créteil-Lusitanos in the south-east of Paris, although their attendances aren't that high.

speaking of 'phobia, I thought this being front-page (for me) was pretty rich: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/17/new-york-times-contributors-open-letter-protest-anti-trans-coverage

this is just the classic issue of the us guardian being much better than the uk parent

Personally I'm going to be devastated if Qatar buys United. Sure the Glazers are likely hateful people with terrible opinions and no doubt enthusiastic supporters of the worst excesses of capitalism, and yes the US has a shameful record for human rights (as does the UK) but c'mon... Been a man u fan for ~47 years and I see no real option other than to just walk away from it all if the sale goes through. The thought of supporting another club just doesn't feel right at all, my heart would just not be in it. The worst of it is that foorball-wise the club seems to have turned the corner at last and it's been an absolute joy seeing Marcus flourishing again. Fucking bollocks.

"but c'mon..."

Go on...My reaction was to Ronay's piece. I'm interested to know why does this cross the line.

it's the link between the buyers and the qatari state and their policy of persecuting gay and trans people. I mean would fucking live it if I could dismiss this somehow but I just can't do it with a good conscience. I dunno. Was there a big outcry when the UAE sponsored arsenals stadium? Or is there a weaker link between the airline and the state?

love not live obv

Personally I'm going to be devastated if Qatar buys United. Sure the Glazers are likely hateful people with terrible opinions and no doubt enthusiastic supporters of the worst excesses of capitalism, and yes the US has a shameful record for human rights (as does the UK) but c'mon... Been a man u fan for ~47 years and I see no real option other than to just walk away from it all if the sale goes through. The thought of supporting another club just doesn't feel right at all, my heart would just not be in it. The worst of it is that foorball-wise the club seems to have turned the corner at last and it's been an absolute joy seeing Marcus flourishing again. Fucking bollocks.

Fair enough, Nick. It is the reason Ronay passed by to talk about the Qataris as bad managers, based on PSG.

I just find the debate around sports washing to be somewhat hypocritical. Things have gone down a hole at most big clubs and leagues. ofc Arsenal was criticised for the Rwanda deal but life (or more likely death) has always gone on.

I guess I react because the point of descent has been reached long ago and yet a lot of journalists are reacting now without any kind of acknowledgement because it's yesterday's news xp

I have watched little football over the last few years partly bcz it got less important for me (though the thing being eaten alive by money didn't help) but I still devoured the last World Cup like I was 13 again because in the end there is still magic in people kicking a ball about.

Yeah that wasn't a good moment and it was a huge relief to be shot of him after a mercifully brief period. Maybe I was a massive hypocrite to continue supporting the team while not endorsing an individual player? I'd have to accept that criticism. Tbh I didn't really take time to learn about Ronaldo's history, I don't really know the particulars of that case. I know more about Greenwood and if he ever ayed for them again, that would be unforgivable. xps

Things have gone down a hole at most big clubs and leagues.

Indeed.

I guess I react because the point of descent has been reached long ago and yet a lot of journalists are reacting now without any kind of acknowledgement because it's yesterday's news xp

This is v true and i do feel complicit in partially ignoring it

I ignored it for a long time as well. Always going to be a level of complicity, which I don't see it written about (well or otherwise).

Yeah Nick not having a pop - had this own argument with close ones many times. Speaking in general terms, away from that particular situation, it’s fucking hard to always be that person pointing this stuff out. I was actually kind of taken aback that you described it as complicity because that kind of awareness seems so rare nowadays - and also as everyone has said so well, the whole structure seems absolutely filthy, what’s a little more. Difficult to know what to do. But I draw a strong line between people who are at least feeling conflicted and those who are actively revelling in it.

The Observer.

It’s not “anti-democracy” to prevent Labour members from imposing a man who presided over institutional antisemitism on voters.

Why Starmer was absolutely right to make clear there’s no space for Corbyn as a Labour MP.https://t.co/BCm508lUNq

— Sonia Sodha (@soniasodha) February 19, 2023

One of the vilest people in UK media, and that's saying something.

an institutional problem that you can solve by swapping the guy on top and then it's over

these people either don't understand their own words or they don't believe them, presumably the latter, for whatever reasons (branding? self-image?) they need their conservatism to look like something else, it's pretty fucking obvious the reasons they care about this have never been the reasons they give for caring about it

Imposing someone on voters? She doesn't appear to understand how voting works.

We have Ed Miliband to thank for her prominence. If he hadn’t employed her, we wouldn’t be reading her shitty opinions. Related: Ayesha Hazarika having the audacity to criticise anyone on the left side of Labour when her intervention - the Ed Stone - probably cost Miliband the 2015 election.

at least she got a nice job on a right-wing talk radio station as a reward for turning Ed into a laughing stock, well she is allegedly a comedian after all.

Suzy is right. Both are dire.

Tom D is right. The argument is clearly utterly anti-democratic, as well as being based on corruption and falsehood.

It's a hilariously petulant argument: British democracy works through choosing one of these two parties and so it is the responsibility of party members to vote in people Sonia's gang of bigots find acceptable, otherwise they're Spoiling It For Everyone.

And hooray, my birthday is forever clouded by being CHUK day, the farcical reiteration of the tragedy of the SDP.

The clue’s in the six-figure sinecures doled out to each and every CHUK and right-wing Labour splitter.

if Corbyn stands as an independent presumably that is also the Wrong Kind of Democracy

you can't have democracy that is populist (a word these people spit out as a slur) it's got be so self-perpetuating + depressing that large blocks of people stop participating, it's got to be in support of corrupt bigots and the options on the ballot have to be all the fucking same shit!

so depressing*