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)

"Do you think anyone else cares?"

the core MOTOR of fashion is YES OF COURSE I THINK OTHER PEOPLE CARE THAT I AM WEARING... WHAT'S "IN". no less dumb than wearing something else that forms part of your identity. so it's just a puerile throw away bit of nonsense. heh. fashion in 'being puerile' shocker.

I gave up caring whether I was too old to wear band t-shirts or whatever a long time ago. Really, if you're getting that worked up about what other people are wearing, the joke's on you, I think. To paraphrase - "Do you think anyone else cares?"

Yesterday I wore an X-Ray Spex t-shirt. I am 31. Oh noes.

If a FAC 51 Hacienda T-shirt counts as a band t-shirt, I am wearing one NOW. I am more than 31.

Unless you buy shirts at arena shows or whatever they cost a tenner or less which is cheaper than t-shirts tend to be (aside from plain ones from Primark or something). I guess it bugs fashiony people cos it's fashion for people who don't give a shit about fashion

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

whoa there, people do this All The Time! witness all the motorhead/def leppard/poison tees on sale at top shop/debenhams/whatever.

What's a putney, Andy?

I bought a Mega City Four t-shirt the other week. I bought it cos I like the band and I like their logo, and out of nostalgia.

witness all the motorhead/def leppard/poison tees on sale at top shop/debenhams/whatever

really? since when do those shops sell (official?) band merchandise?

but how do you know people buying them don't like the band (even if it's 'ironic' or just liking the idea OF liking them, if that makes sense) anyway?

i can imagine some people, not just kids or people buying for kids, buy band t-shirts because of the design and without really knowing about the band but can't be that many really. this is even more of a facile 'want to look cool' statement tho isn't it? that sense of knowing what to buy but not really knowing why...

remember the 'little girls wearing Nico 'Chelsea Girl' t-shirt thing (altho i approved of this ha)

Uhm yeah, there were tons of high street chains selling classic rock tees (I presume they just bought a load wholesale).

i figure these are aimed at and bought mainly by teenagers

really? since when do those shops sell (official?) band merchandise?

since AGES, honestly. i doubt your "average" 14-year-old Miss Selfridge customer would have a clue/give a shit who Def Leppard/insert 80s hair metal band here are. it's just a noisy "cool" design that'll make her look a bit like Peaches Geldof or whoever.

I'm sure I remember even Primark licensing some lame/classic 80s band tee designs recently.

and As Matt DC has admitted, sometimes people buy band tees without even realising that's what they are!

nb this whole discussion is clearly on the wrong thread.

Someone was selling MC5 shirts a good few years ago and it was the only place that you could get MC5 shirts so I know loads of people that bought them as they had been desperate for years to get them.
I got mine online but it was probably the same shirt.

a putney

http://www.vintagesynth.com/misc/vcs3.jpg

so called because they were made in putney (not far from you actually, there's a website that gives the actual address of the place they used to make them, cottage industry style, deodor road, sw15).

http://www.ems-synthi.demon.co.uk/snaps/everynun.jpg

Hang on a second, I went to primary school at 49 Deodar Road!!

Oh, I didn't, it was 95-97 Deodar Road (since moved). My best friend at the time lived at 50 Deodar Road, though.

I've got a Synthi t-shirt but my god, I want a t-shirt with that nun on it.

I am currently wearing a T-ahirt of a band that I saw live but didn't like much. It's a pretty design and the band aren't well known enough for many people to even know it's a band T-shirt.

I have had it on since yesterday so should probably take it off soon.

what's the band?

Skrewdriver

Ha. A Swedish indiepop band called Aerospace.

good name/word for t-shirt

i am wearing my robyn t-shirt today!

message for all youse: "i am a 'top 5' kind of person"

back to the guardian...

has anyone else had problems viewing the site this week? nothing (that i know of) has changed on my computer and suddenly instead of a nice clean page, i have just text and links, all in the same size New York font. (and the Guardian is the only place this is true, so I feel like they must have changed something).

the GUARDIAN is good, second only to the BBC

xpost

yes. chinese hackers innit.

Today's free thing: a cut out and assemble yourself model of the Empire State Building.

So in answer to the question, no, apart from the lower case 'g' on the new masthead.

2pm (now playing: Mark Kozelek moaning about some shit):

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2411/1654704013_f0762c363d.jpg

3.30pm (now playing: Happy End, much better):

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2354/1655585806_e112b84d31.jpg

This is really tedious but I have to finish. It's about to get very fiddly. I need a cup of tea. World's shittiest liveblog.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2354/1655585806_9ee35fe917.jpg

7pm:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2229/1657319085_039a52afe6.jpg

It's like my time has no value to me.

This strikes me as a noble way to pass it, though.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2190/1714521192_2c763aaa31.jpg

I win again!

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ruth_fowler/2008/03/the_antichrist_for_feminists.html

A+++++++++ trolling well done guardian u win

I stood on the edge of that enormous comments thread with a sense of trepidation I haven't felt since standing on the edge of the top diving board at the swimming pool aged nine. And then decided to walk back down the virtual ladder, straight back into the changing room, and back home.

Ruth Fowler was born in 1979 and grew up in the mountains of North Wales. She received a first class BA (Hons) in English Literature from Cambridge University in 2000. She is sure they let her in as the token comprehensive school northerner.

After a year teaching in Buenos Aires and three months in India, she returned to King’s College, Cambridge to complete an MPhil. However, realising that she would rather be living life than reading about it, she finished her thesis on Bollywood films within six months and went to live in Nepal.

Post-Nepal, she travelled the world eking out a living from writing, teaching, sailing, cooking and begging. Ruth lived in Argentina, the South of France, the Alps, Florida, the Caribbean and Central America before finding herself in New York in January 2005, penniless and without a visa.

She has worked as a stripper in Manhattan and London, and her book, No Man's Land - about " the murky territory where eroticism and commerce collide" - is due to be published in the UK in June.

This is a made-up character, right?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/eastenders/images/characters_cast/characters/ruth_f/ruth_fowler_large_1.jpg

"But Mark, we cann'ae afford it!"

Man, Eastenders was my shit back in 98/99.

According to Mark's speech to Sharon in his last episode, he only had sex with Ruth once or maybe twice in the course of their whole marriage. No wonder she played away with that rubbish Irish lothario.

This reminds me of many articles about people who have done all right and would like to justify their wealth to people who haven't done all right. I'm not sure what the purpose of such articles is, unless it is for some form of...validation?

Ruth Fowler: she made a g today, but she made it in a sleazy way.

quality shit:

http://img378.imageshack.us/img378/1603/hadleydv9.png

The article was a bit TL;DR, the bits I read, the writer's style/manner was too annoying to concentrate on what she was on about "working class scouser, me, call a spade a spade, like" seemed to be the gist of it?

My father, a right-wing scouser

AKA scum of the earth

key line:

I started to think of feminism more when what I was doing in life became unconditionally anti-feminist. I was grinding cock for a living in a strip club, getting my tits out - c'mon, there's no way around it. I was even more the antichrist for feminists. And suddenly I was heralded as a Messiah for Modern Women!

by?

also lols at blog: that famous, pre-9/11, NYC skyline...

"working class scouser, me, call a spade a spade, like"

-- Pashmina, Monday, March 31, 2008 9:22 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Julie Birchill RIP

by?

Max Gogarty

It's weird she mentions her father so much because you wouldn't have thought someone who worked in the sex industries would have any issues that way.

Roffle.

I tried to read the entire article, couldn't make it through it, it is really very badly written.

I got the impression that if you met the writer IRL, they'd be really boring and whiny.

Also, I hate this steez "I am really stupid and obnoxious and full of shit, and I'm going to rub your face in it because I think that makes me more "real"/"interesting"/"whatever"(::rollseyes.gif::) than you, little person"

Yes, the Guardian is much worse than it used to be. Kind of like CH4, really.

If you could buy it without G2 or any of the supplements, it might concievably be worth picking up again.

Have you considered just throwing G2 away or burning it or never bothering to ever read it?

Careful there Pash, she'll get her father on to you (xxp)

I don't think there's a newspaper that wouldn't be improved by removing the lifestyle supplements and the columnists. Except The Sun of course, a paper without real talking man of the people Gaunty is like a month without sunshine.

Hey! But then you'd miss out on that excellent crossword!

I only get it on Saturdays, mainly for the Review. And that crossword.

Araucaria's the only real crossword dude on there, the rest of them used to be suck.

(Apologies if this has changed in the last 5 years or however long it's been)

Have you considered just throwing G2 away or burning it or never bothering to ever read it?

-- Matt DC, Monday, 31 March 2008 09:35 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

I think I've mentioned a couple of times, I buy it once or twice a week on the way home, Jill likes to do the crossword. I never read it, it's too boring, too London/Westminster-orientated, too media-covering-the-media-ish, like a lot of former "quality" media - everyone they ever do a vox pop on seems to be a "journalist and a broadcaster" I don't think Jill ever reads it much either, she's a bbc news website addict.

The Age and SMH are Australia's equivalent to the Guardian, and you'll all be pleased to know that they've gone to shit in exactly the same way.

xp I'm not surprised, it's probably the closest thing to proper news outside The Independent.

everyone they ever do a vox pop on seems to be a "journalist and a broadcaster"

This is because what happens is the hack writes a piece, and it's shit because it's something they don't care about like a new dating service that instead of normal speed dating uses chilli cook offs. Then the editor will come back to the hack and say "We need some quotes on this", so the hack goes to their MSN Messenger and asks the first five people online what they think of this. So then you have "Peter Peterson, a freelance journalist, doesn't see the appeal of chili dating: 'What is this rubbish?", he quipped"

'left wing' paper yet again with "I'm All Right Jack" piece. next week, "Let them Eat Cake: Now I make a good living, I don't believe in redistribution of wealth".

Though, to be fair, every 'lifestyle section' of every newspaper is basically "Hello I'm Rich, please be quiet"

Though I guess we're moving into the "Hello I used to be rich, then I realised it was all on credit, please feel sorry for me now" stage

I'm fairly sure you could program a computer to just churn out Laxalt posts at this stage.

Rosie Millard lols

i kind of feel that this chick's editors could be done for soliciting -- anyway hope she's a better 'dancer' than writer.

Surely all responses to all Guardian threads could be automated quite easily

i kind of feel that this chick's editors could be done for soliciting -- anyway hope she's a better 'dancer' than writer.

-- banriquit, Monday, March 31, 2008 9:56 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

Like Perp.

Expect about a years worth of ditzy articles in which the lifestyle columist downsizes, moves to heckmondwyke, bleats in 52 x 1000wd article about IE why oh why does the local supermarket not stay open till 3am, then moves back to London, has some rank soul-crisis about it`which translates into a cover feature in the saturday magazine. TBH I envy lifestyle columnistsSurely all responses to all Guardian threads could be automated quite easily

-- laxalt, Monday, 31 March 2008 09:56 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Well, yes.

iirc 'not linking to guardian articles' was my new year's resolution.

IN 2004!!!1!!

I need to find a Stalinbot jpeg.

http://b3.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/00115/38/39/115689383_s.jpg

anyway hope she's a better 'dancer' than writer.

Maybe cock-grinding is harder than it looks

That article is pretty sharp. It's nice to feel for once that I'm not the one being trolled by the Guardian.

aren't you?

i mean unless you too are a narcissistic, libertarian, alt.sex-worker who grinds commissioning editor cock...

Aren't we all these days?

Tits oot for the commissioning editors!

Cancelled my subscription. If they're so keen on Raefists to read them then they can take their money, not mine.

Incredibly long, dreadfully bad interview, like a parody by 1980s Amis maybe:

http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/celebrity/story/0,,2269466,00.html

not sure what it has to do with 'health'

Wow, terrible!

She has a hangover. So it's about binge drink Britain. Clearly.

I like to turn Freshly Squeezed on in the morning. Two seconds of those smug wankers has me out of bed and running to get to work.

eggs benedict is not healthy, that article made me think

i was stuck in such a deep thought i stopped reading pretty much after that.

i just read further. i don't like how the article described her as "stupidly beautiful". What does that mean? She is beautiful in a stupid way?

Does listening to Roy Orbison make you cool and a hep-cat and whatever-the-fuck Alexa Chung is meant to be*? Really?

* and how cool is someone who serves as a comic foil to Ben Elton? Eh?

Btw, those hepcat party pix are at cobrasnake.com and not .co.uk

Rubbish and pointless hackdom but her favourite book is Revolutionary Road (does that mean she's ever read it?) so that's supposed to make it OK holocaust.

the estuarine straggle of her voice

But she's a posh girl from Hampshire. Also makes me think of that Syd Barrett line:

"She straggled the bridge by the water"

God forbid the Guardian should ever feature working class writers writing about working class people.

i think working class is fine but that article was just beautifully stupid

http://991.com/newGallery/Beyonce-Knowles-Beautiful-Liar-395266.jpg

"I'll never forget the first time I heard the strains of "Beautiful Liar." The strains were emanating from just the other side of the Everest summit, as I sat on the icecap sipping Doritos and munching Django Reinhardt strawberry plectra."

* insert Bobby Gillespie skit here *

"Aw, Django hud his haund stuck in the pencil sharpener an' ah pulled it oot too quick like and wan a' his fingers goat stuck in there and ah goat the belt...no' a bad guitarist, right enough, but ah suggested gettin' in the fiddle the same as ah told LaMonte Young when he wis playin' pies and peas back in Newarthill."

Laura Barton says her favourite book is Yates's RR - I've never read it, but perhaps it squares with her musical Americana tastes (she likes the Boss and J Richman)? Chung says you have to be obsessed with Nabokov to be her friend, but says nothing about what she thinks of VN or what he actually did. Even if she knows the work, I doubt all those friends of hers do.

It really was an unbelievable interview, one for the Max Gogarty era, I thought; though perhaps the Guardian is already beyond belief?

I guess the moment when she says she doesn't have time to read cos she has to read 'scripts' - ie: for gameshows or breakfast TV - was what reminded me of Amisworld.

Does Ms Chung see the spoken word as her tool? And can she get on with prince or pauper?

actually, as someone said above: amazing idea that loving Roy Orbison makes you hepcat / It Girl - if this were the case, then half the counry's grandparents / great-aunts / sentimental 50sth geezers leaning on the bar of Charlton boozers, et al, would be the in crowd. For heaven's sake, is there no limit?

If Robin C were here he could tell us where 'Stranger On The Shore' might fit in to this new cartography of taste.

Sorry, that's been appropriated by Dissensus hauntologists and thing.

"the Max Gogarty era"

chilling, but accurate

seems a million years ago

The RAEF era morelike

What is Raef?

Tool of our times.

there's nothing wrong with loving roy o, surely?

that vanity lair pogramme is hideous, odious, reprehensible.

of course there's nothing wrong with it: I just don't think it makes you hip

it does if you look like alexa chung

this is the interview mentioned in the ... interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzaJoIUV57E

OK, the band seem rubbishy, stupid and complacent, and Chung (without having to do anything) thus comes off slightly better than them - but my goodness, Laura Barton's idea of her impishly 'correcting their grammar' = ... she says 'any', rather than 'either', once. ... That's ... it.

lol insipid

ha, the chung article was the 'most read' on the website yesterday.

why do we even bother

I'm not sure if there's much point in endlessly picking at lifestyle fluff when there's so much worse than gets printed in the main section of this and the Observer. Max Hastings on Boris being the latest offender.

'OMG HERE'S A FEMALE JOURNALIST WRITING ABOUT HER HOLIDAY BURIED ON PAGE 7 OF THE SUPPLEMENT WHAT HAS BECOME OF THIS FINE OLD INSTITUTION?!"

Women shouldn't write

^^^real talk

OK, DC: endlessly pick at other, worse things.

Well, Hastings on Johnson is exactly what anyone would expect him to have written, and nothing more than I would expect from a canting, ranting rightwing rag like the Observer.

Whereas you were expecting maybe Pulitzer prize winning journalism from Laura Barton interviewing Alexa Chung?

Matt's point is a good one.

I haven't read "The Observer" in over a year. I don't know why anybody would read it, it's BORING.

"Dear Mariella" is always v. v. good. Basically because she invariable tells whinging men to pull their socks up and don't be such cunts. She'd sort the boys on this thread out, straight away.

there's fluff and fluff, entertainment journalism and entertainment journalism. an interview with chung is what it is, but laura barton is less good at it -- certainly less guardian-y, if that means anything now -- than she ought to be, given how much she is asked to churn out. maybe that's the real issue, the sheer amount of crap.

which i half-read and link to lol.

xpost

Like she sorted Jobbers out? (xp)

Well we all know how she got where she is today...

The question is why the Guardian should be interviewing a nonentity like Chung in the first place.

the boys on this thread

where?

She likes the boys in this thread/She said that I'm her all-time favourite

Remember, ILxors: Frostrup thinks you're scum.

I don't know, DK - KtS seems interested in them

in a way, Chung (or: the interview with her) maybe does represent something bad - the too-easy victory of looks and (intellectual) laziness. it's one thing for such a person to get gigs on TV, but a long Guardian interview is granting her a kind of credibility or substance that (as it proves) she doesn't have.

she doesn't deserve to be picked on and abused any more than anyone else, but she doesn't deserve to be fawned over, treated as though her opinions are interesting, etc, either.

Alexa Chung is not a nonentity, she co-hosted a highly successful satirical TV show with Sir Ben Elton!

Top Tory comedian!

looking forward to the George "pineahpul onna peetzah yor avin a larf shabbbabaaaa" Lamb interview

Is that a transcription of genuine Estuarine Straggle?

George Lamb - Eustonist With Attitude

xpost No, "we" don't know how Mariella got where she is today. Enlighten us?

BTW I always thought the invective of the andro half of the chattering classes directed at Polly Filla-style columnists or journalists but not their male counterparts was institutionalized sexism, pure and simple. It never suggests to me the critic has a better idea of what to write about. At the very least it's the parcelling off of personal shortcomings onto some blameless working woman, especially where the aspirant hacks among you are concerned. Estimation of writing skills is purely subjective, and when you learn most editors would rather get in copy on time that doesn't need to be vastly subbed, and would rather get it from someone who isn't a social retard and their readers have heard of (or who could help them in their own networking). Also, for the bonus ball, if a zillion butthurt people write in moaning that a writer sucks or whatever, the editors are going to commission again due to Heated Debate Factor.

You. Cannot. Win.

Certainly I can't think of any males writers who attract zingage from ILM or E.

We should bump that 2,000 post "Martin Samuel is always pleasant to read and look at" thread.

People are generally unstinting in their praise of A. Petridis and J. Harris, for instance

http://www.sportsjournalists.co.uk/img/samuel_and_parkinson.jpg

"Are we allowed a croissant?"

In the same way that if I submit a book manuscript for consideration I would rather have someone read it and give me a firm decision about publication and/or appropriate advice regarding editing, style and so forth, rather than someone who takes the manuscript away, sits on it for two years, offers me paltry excuses and drops out.

I. Cannot. Win.

"Dear Mariella" is always v. v. good. Basically because she invariable tells whinging men to pull their socks up and don't be such cunts. She'd sort the boys on this thread out, straight away.

Heh - this is exactly what happened a few years ago when my friend since school wrote in with a '40 years old and gay, what shall I do with the rest of my life?' question - and got short shrift.

He was really offended by the answer which suggested that he had a selfish outlook on life and that he should think about having a child.

"Mariella Frostrup does loads of voiceovers and nothing much else yet she seems to get buy..."

"Beautiful Liar" best thing on this thread so far, tbh.

Certainly I can't think of any males writers who attract zingage from ILM or E.

-- Dom Passantino, Tuesday, April 1, 2008 12:37 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

free passes all round

He might have received a more helpful response from a qualified counsellor rather than some crappy Norwegian waitress who fucked her way towards a position of pseudo-authority.

He was really offended by the answer which suggested that he had a selfish outlook on life and that he should think about having a child.

... with Mariella Frostrup

question is why laura barton is someone "readers have heard of", rather than the other somewhat more off-base gubbins.

Oh, haven't you read Offbase Gubbins' column yet? He's very talented.

Anyway, the only Guardian writers that don't get the ILx gasfaceare Marina Hide, Nancy Banks-Smith, and that one dude that killed that guy.

i've said nice things about marina hyde!

other than "would smash" i mean

I usually like Marina Hyde's column in the sports section, the G2 one can be good as well. Kevin McCarra does alright as well but I suppose we're not really talking about Guardian sports here are we?

Marina Hyde - ex-Mirror gossip columnist who had a thing going with Piers Morgan and she hasn't got over it and she takes it out on everyone she hates, mainly her readers, on a weekly basis.

Nancy Banks-Smith is one of the best writers the Guardian has.

*don't get, ie, the only ones that get any praise on here.

Richard Williams can be a bit of a twunt on occasion. Harry Pearson's a bit up himself.

And Barney Ronay is justification for freeing the Manson Family in and of himself.

Dom: of course they do, but all I am saying is that a man is never dismissed as a shit male writer.

Dingbod, you know you're sooooooo out of order. Just back away from your computer now.

...also we never hear about the career sex men have, why's that?

Sports is crap in the Guardian

"that one dude that killed that guy" Who? Lesley Grantham?

I heart Banks Smith.

"...also we never hear about the career sex men have, why's that?" Dingbod bangs on about thsi every time J Harris is mentioned!

Doesn't really matter Suze, to be honest. The guy at Faber wasn't interested either but at least he told me there and then and gave specific reasons. Means I can go on and approach other people without delay. Self-reliance innit?

...also we never hear about the career sex men have, why's that?

-- suzy, Tuesday, April 1, 2008 11:50 AM (52 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

Incorrect, there was that deleted post in one of the Graun threads about two prominent gay male music writers and a toilet.

And straight male music writers don't have sex.

"...also we never hear about the career sex men have, why's that?" Dingbod bangs on about thsi every time J Harris is mentioned! - fixed

are women dismissed as bad Women writers, rather than bad writers / filler journos / whatever? not by me. maybe by someone else - maybe I've missed it.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51RZZP0V0EL._SS500_.jpg

I've bought three of my last four girlfriends this book.

Worzel UGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH EAT MY LUNCH TWICE

four?

I've bought three of my last four girlfriends this book.

-- Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 1 April 2008 11:55 (1 minute ago)

Pretty sure the girls I date have daddy issues too big to work as hookers.

I've bought three of my last four girlfriends this book candles.

"that one dude that killed that guy" Who? Lesley Grantham?

-- Raw Patrick, Tuesday, April 1, 2008 11:52 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Patrick Kluivert. Takes over Lucy Barton's whimsical pop dribbling column in Music and Film next month.

Yes Dingbod, knowing that you can't really blame others for lack of own progress is probably a good first step, and something certain others should probably take on board themselves.

I hope Suzy is wrong that people criticize women writers for being women - that is wrong and bad, and I would never do it

but then again, there is something a bit distasteful and urine-scented about a thread full of males, all rushing to disagree with one woman about sexism

maybe more Suzy, in Guardian or elsewhere, would be a good thing

All ILX threads about the Guardian end up rather distasteful and urine-scented.

"Patrick Kluivert. Takes over Lucy Barton's whimsical pop dribbling column in Music and Film next month.

-- Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 1 April 2008 12:00 (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Link"

I look forward to his columns about how he likes to listen to 'The Boss' and Jonathan Richman whilst running people over.

True, Alba. Although my perfumier's nose knows piss and vinegar when it smells it.

P/F: soon come, I'm sure, I have other work that is more important right now (and I should be doing it instead of procrastinating) and when you can write Guarn features in three hours with yr eyes shut, it's time to maybe find a challenge, eh?

I don't know about "lack of own progress" though.

You know, the thing's written and has been re-edited.

It's ready to go and it's doing the rounds of the publishers.

But I need someone to sell it for me because I'm clearly useless at doing so myself for reasons well you know damn well what the reasons are.

Even it were published it would mostly get slagged off by idiots.

In any case I've got far more important things to sort out at the moment so we'll just see what happens.

Even it were published it would mostly get slagged off by idiots

http://www.ilxor.com

Quite.

raw patrick deliverin' the goods

Jennifer Celeria taking over Barton's column morelike

The few times I have received 'bad reviews' as such, these were too kneejerk in nature to take seriously and mitigated by higher praise from publications or critics that were more important in the greater scheme of things, both to me and the people commissioning me.

A big part of the irritation with Chung must come from the fact that she is so young and good-looking. It seems unfair.

My predictions:

"pretentious muddle"
"blogs are not BOOKS"
"where is X, Y, Z"
"clever clever for its own sake"
"Mr Biffen must remember that the primary duty of a work of art is to amuse"

she is irritatingly thin

A big part of the irritation with Chung must come from the fact that she is so young and good-looking. It seems unfair.

-- Tracer Hand, Tuesday, April 1, 2008 1:22 PM (1 second ago) Bookmark Link

pretty heavyweight reply -- changing my perspective 180 as i type this.

she is posher than i figured tho. i didn't read the interview beyond 'i had a pony'.

BTW to my knowledge I haven't read a word of Chung nor heard anything by her, ever, but I suspect this irritation would still be there a little -- and possibly even intensified along certain axes? -- were she brilliant and thought-provoking

banriquit when I want you to change your opinion you'll know it!

I saw her at the meeting of Shoreditch High Street/Great Eastern Street but she just looked like everyone else round there so i didn't notice her till my g/f pointed her out. She was wearing a coat that I'd seen her wear on telly.

She's not that good looking, certainly not "stupidly beautiful"

She's crap on Vanity Lair (but who wouldn't be) and neither here-nor-there everywhere else. Dunno why people are trying to make her into a 'style icon'.

i've got nothing against chung, being young and good-looking myself; it was just a shitty article is all, and this is a thread about the guardian being shitty.

I suspect this irritation would still be there a little -- and possibly even intensified along certain axes? -- were she brilliant and thought-provoking

well, um, no, not really: is there any evidence the haters *dislike* things-that-are-brilliant-and-thought-provoking?

she was pretending not to be posh in the interview, in a way, and failing.

Banriquit and Hand's friendly duel there is droll!

Hand's right: it does seem unfair, in a way, that someone can be so attractive, etc. And he's right, too, that if she was talented it could in fact be more irritating.

I've got nothing against Alexa Chung either, it's the crappy article I dislike

She's better than those Shoreditch-post-new-rave types, a skinny boy and a chubby girl that Channel Four are currently trying to push though. They seem like the thickest people evah.

It is sort of amazing that she actually had a pony.

"Deddy, deddy, I wunt a ponee" "OK!"

That's how I imagine she sounds. I think I'm taking the voice from a little girl in a car insurance advertisement I saw in England ca. 1994.

"it does seem unfair, in a way, that someone can be so attractive, etc."

Loads of girls look as good as her. I see them all the time!

I like things that are brilliant and thoughtprovoking, as long as I created them

when they're from other people whom I don't know and whose looks, youth, audience etc exclude me, maybe not.

but some people probably think Chung is tres talented and super bright

it's true, if Chung was just a TV presenter, OK; the article made her out to be much more somehow

I think she's a phenomenon.

I thought it was funny that her stylist came from, of all places, Elle Girl.

I'm not irritated by her, I want to have sex with her, that's much nicer,

I had never heard of Alexa Chung before the piece was linked to upthread, and still have no idea who she is, beyond "TV presenter".

She isn't anything beyond TV presenter! That's it.

Mere TV presenters have, as far as I can tell, been interviewed in broadsheet newspapers and broadsheet newspaper supplements, sometimes at length, for rather a long time.

a skinny boy

^^^is this the camp guy with the haystack haircut? Dude needs to get the fuck off the planet.

matt DC OTM.

the only thing that annoys me about her is that she is boning the dude from arctic monkeys and not the dude from red bull dozers.

a skinny boy

^^^is this the camp guy with the haystack haircut? Dude needs to get the fuck off the planet.

Saw him in the street. Fear he may live near me.

"a skinny boy

^^^is this the camp guy with the haystack haircut? Dude needs to get the fuck off the planet."

Yeah. The two of 'em are afraid to show any enthusiasm for anything in case it turns out to be not cool 5 mins later, but can't sneer properly either, so end up in a weird zone between the two. It's hard to watch.

I think DC and Ken C should get a (bath)room.

Laverne > Oliver > Chung > aforementioned 'chubby girl' whose name i dunno

Nah, Oliver is better than the over-rated Laverne.

Laverne is played out

i don't think the grau of whenever-ago would have given, like, phillipa forrester, this kind of fawning treatment and it's the exact equivalent, only chung is apparently some kind of hipster because eh ah um

she talks of loving Chloë Sevigny and going to see the Larry Clark exhibition and the compilation she recently made for a friend which included "lots of Shangri-las and Ronettes and Shirelles, and bands like that" and of how she "can't stop listening to Roy Orbison at the moment"

tbh og cash sitta pinefox nailed this early on -- it's bollocks.

xpost

yeah laverne fell off

Probably prefer Chung to both Laverne and Oliver.

Laverne is like Queen Bee of the G2 culture boards though.

LOL Culture

I used to see Laverne all the time in Newcastle in early Kenickie days and even after that occasionally. She's funnier in real life.

even with my dark past as a twilight-of-indie kid im not standing up for laverne now, but she is the doyenne of self-satisfied 'alternative' people who-you-would-think-were-ilx-strawmen-but-really-really-exist and listen to xfm.

her weirdly noncommittal 'be sarcastic-ish about EVERYTHING' tone is so so so prevalent. even stuff these people actually like, like the arcade fire and 'little miss sunshine', they still have to make it a quirky 'thing'.

her weirdly noncommittal 'be sarcastic-ish about EVERYTHING' tone is so so so prevalent.

Hate this

It's the -ish that does it innit.

yea they're not like that OH NO WHAT A PERSONAL DISASTER guy -- that's kind of cool if you can pull it off. they come off as a bit distant from stuff they're supposed to be liking. obv im talking about people talking about records or films or whatever -- like i talk about anything else. i blame laverne!

I think this is a logical extension of the "terrified of looking uncool" thing, so you can always fall behind the "nothing's taken that seriously" smokescreen. Lol culture indeed.

Miquita Oliver is worse than any of these people though.

Laverne's a renaissance woman compared to most television presenters.

yeah -- that's why it's disappointing.

it's partly the format of that show + what the beeb think people want.

She's funnier in real life.

that's why i still like her

She's like Gaunty in that respect.

her weirdly noncommittal 'be sarcastic-ish about EVERYTHING' tone is so so so prevalent.

-- banriquit, Tuesday, 1 April 2008 13:22 (14 minutes ago)

I guess it's true that (apart from anything else) she showed she had musical talent and creative spunk, compared to most of them who apparently don't.

But Banriquit is spot-on about her tone, and its general prevalence - he hits on a real cultural malaise here (and not, I trust, a gender-specific one).

Stevie T has also spoken insightfully, in the past, of this kind of tone / milieu and its historical emergence.

If those xfm people never really exist, are you sure Laverne can be their doyenne? ... maybe this is like being married to God (who doesn't exist).

blueski, in what sense do you know Laverne 'in real life'?

Laverne is as good a musician, TV host, and radio presenter as Suggs.

pinefox, i don't kiss and tell

oh but you know what i really really love hearing? what POLITICAL PARTIES these people align themselves with

Pretty sure Laverne is a libertarian.

Suggs was a better musician.

xxpost

Well, Suggs co-wrote a load of cracking pop records. comparison with him sounds like quite a commendation to me.

Omega Three Oilfox

... nope, don't get that one.

*here's* someone who knows how talented he is:
http://music.guardian.co.uk/pop/story/0,,2269827,00.html

LOL Dom, you're kicking uphill here.

Well, Suggs co-wrote a load of cracking pop records.

Did he? Lyrics you mean?

He wrote "Bette Davis Eyes" and "Bound 4 Da Reload"

I thought Mike Love wrote those

Nope, don't know what you're on about.

Madness made a load of good pop records anyway. In the old days of ILM that would have been pretty uncontroversial.

I have just found out who Miquita Oliver is.

--

Born on 25 April 1984 in Paddington, London, her mother is former Rip Rig & Panic singer and television presenter Andrea Oliver and her aunt is Neneh Cherry.

Miquita regularly hosts both Saturday and Sunday mornings T4 coverage and can be seen during the Easter, Summer and Christmas breaks hosting the T4 holiday morning coverage with Steve Jones. She is up-front, gutsy and without doubt wears her heart on her sleeve - don’t be fooled by her innocent appearance! She’s in-touch with her audience and can always be relied upon to tell it how it is.

Miquita was invited by a friend to screen test for a new Channel 4 music show whilst still at school. At just 16 she began co-hosting T4’s Popworld. Now an established face of Channel 4 she has over four years experience behind her.

--

16 !!

"A palsy sufferer, Ian Dury had more to offer on stage than his exemplary bravery."

O that brave spastic.

You're thinking of Mike Love.

Sounds more like Brian Wilson... now

"Among all the million musical moments on YouTube at the moment, Dury singing this amazing song is probably the single most exciting thing. I tune in half a dozen times a day, wondering what I have to do to make my words even half that good"

"approximate rhymes, which are very tricky to do. "I hear that train a-comin'/ It's rollin' round the bend/ And I ain't seen the sunshine/ Since I dunno when". "Bend" and "when" didn't really rhyme, but they did when he sang them, because that's the way he spoke."

very tricky.

So place your hard-earned peanuts in my tin
And thank the Creator you're not in the state I'm in
So long have I been languished on the shelf
I must give all proceedings to myself

I'm spasticus, I'm spasticus
I'm spasticus autisticus
I'm spasticus, I'm spasticus
I'm spasticus autisticus
I'm spasticus, I'm spasticus
I'm spasticus autisticus

The Guardian's coverage of Carla Bruni last week was particularly banal. Worst of it was a front page piece by Katherine Viner (I think) that compared her reading her speech about African women dying in childbirth with Jane Birkin in "Je T'Aime, Moi Non Plus". One of the most jaw droppingly dreadful pieces of journalism I've read in a long time.

I hear it's tricky to rock a rhyme that's right on time. Confirm/deny?

some wag should represent that lyric in graph form

http://cache.eb.com/eb/image?id=69140&rendTypeId=4

I hated all the Bruni crap, ie. OMG she knows how to sit like a prim lady, lol Swiss finishing schools. On a style point, also, the hugely branded Dior flats kind of meh.

It was as if one of those six-page G2 super-spreads lost its way and found itself right up front in Section 1. I half expected to see, in small capital letters near the bottom, "Advertisement paid for by the Republic of France".

wasn't just the guardian drinking the bruni kool-aid, though, was it? there's an identical desperation in editors' offices and conference rooms up and down the land. i know, i'm living and breathing it every fucking day.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n05/lanc01_.html

So we have arrived at a place where ‘the heart of modern journalism’ has become ‘the rapid repackaging of largely unchecked second-hand material, much of it designed to service the political or commercial interests of those who provide it’. In the old days, at this point in the story, it would be time to Name the Guilty Men. They would once have been the evil proprietors, top-hatted cigar-smoking manipulators of public opinion. I don’t agree with the conspiracy theory of the proprietor press, nor does Davies: he thinks that it’s sheer commercial pressure that is to blame. It’s the pressure on costs – to produce more, cheaper copy – that is the ultimate culprit for the state of the modern press.

Flat Earth News breaks down the specific ways in which pressure is exerted on the practice of journalism, on a daily basis. Stories need to be cheap, meaning ‘quick to cover’, ‘safe to publish’; they need to ‘select safe facts’ preferably from official sources; they need to ‘avoid the electric fence’, sources of guaranteed trouble such as the libel laws and the Israel lobby; to be based on ‘safe ideas’ and contradict no loved prevailing wisdoms; to avoid complicated or context-rich problems; and always to ‘give both sides of the story’ (‘balance means never having to say you’re sorry – because you haven’t said anything’). And conversely, there are active pressures to pursue stories that tell people what they want to hear, to give them lots of celebrity and TV-based coverage, and to subscribe to every moral panic. That’s the effect on the texture of journalism, the culture of the newsroom. Of course, the pressure on costs has other, simpler effects too. There is more space to fill – in the British papers, three times as much – but no equivalent expansion of the resources to do the work. Elsewhere, the pressure on resources is just as bad. In 1970, CBS had three full-time correspondents in Rome alone: by 2006, the entire US media, print and broadcast, was supporting only 141 foreign correspondents to cover the whole world.

As the pressures on journalism have increased, so the PR industry has come along with what appears to be a solution. Want news? We’ll give it to you. Britain now has 47,800 PR people to 45,000 journalists. It isn’t the case that PRs just beg for coverage for their clients: they’re much more cunning than that. Once one grows alert to the question, you can see PR influence almost everywhere in the press. The greatly missed Auberon Waugh used to say that behind any claim in any way interesting, striking or surprising in the news, there was either someone demanding more government money or a press release. That is truer than ever, only these days the press release will announce the result of a survey (a favourite PR tactic) or a ‘release’ statement from a phoney pressure group, such as one of the many set up to create uncertainty over the question of climate change. These pressure groups are known as ‘astroturf’ in the PR industry, because their grass-roots are fake, but that doesn’t stop their statements and surveys from getting on the news.

cf this much-loved thread

As far back as I can remember I always wanted to be a churnalist...

The above summation, laxalt's complaint, and many other comments in this thread can be summed up by my friend Mike's deathless retelling of an instruction he received from a higher-up when he was working as a video editor at a production company that was making a documentary about Ludacris. "It needs more lifestyle porn."

What PF has C&P here is annoying but true, especially in anything to do with arts and lifestyle areas. The latest PR trick is to try to see copy you've written before it goes to print, all in the name of 'fact-checking'. I usually explain very patiently that there is a sizable difference - something like 70p a word - between 'journalism' and 'advertorial' and that my agreement with my editor is to provide 'journalism'. We do advertorials too, but not on the cheap. Also that it's nothing personal, but fact-checking has to happen from a neutral, journalistic standpoint and when I have a pertinent question I will call. They really hate this, probably more than a journalist with 20 years of experience hates being micromanaged by some second-rate marketing flack.

I know you guys hate the fuck out of Neil Boorman, but one thing I did take from his book was hilarity at the butthurt Puma PR who didn't appreciate him blogging about preferring Adidas: 'whinge, whinge, I gave your old magazine one hell of an ad spend HOW DARE YOU I WILL RUIN YOU AND CUT YOU OFF'. Oh poor marketing baby, like you didn't get scooby snacks at work for networking a style mag editor. Go fuckin' fish. I wanted to find this woman, beat her up, and steal all her lunch money.

It’s the pressure on costs – to produce more, cheaper copy – that is the ultimate culprit for the state of the modern press

... exacerbated, of course, by the fact that nobody's buying papers any more, meaning display advertising is plummeting ... and who the fuck wants to take out a classified ad in this day and age?

newspapers doomed; journalism as we know it also (although in many ways that's no bad thing); headlines at 11 and indeed every fucking second afterwards, albeit wrong ones produced by work-experiencers working the backshift on their own.

I know you guys hate the fuck out of Neil Boorman

"The Sandman" was OK.

Psyche, comic book nerds are even worse than Shoreditchers.

Never heard of Neil Boorman, Suzy (but perhaps I can hope that this means I'm not part of the collective you refer to). And what are 'scooby snacks'?

You might not have heard of Neil Boorman (neither have I) but you must have heard of Scooby Doo?

NB used to be editor of Sleazenation magazine and wrote a book about giving up brands last year. It was OK but Dave Gorman book about unchained America is much better somehow.

Scooby snacks = praise/kudos.

neil boorman edited a fanzine, which carried advertising for big brands, called, not terribly ironically, 'shoreditch twat'.

he then edited a magazine called 'sleaze nation' (or it may by then have been just 'sleaze') that was largely a vehicle for ads for high-end schmutter.

he has now written a book about how brands are bad yeah? and we should all be individuals yeah?

live and learn

he then edited a magazine called 'sleaze nation' (or it may by then have been just 'sleaze') that was largely a vehicle for ads for high-end schmutter.

Jonatton Yeah? yeah?

One issue of Shoreditch Twat had six pages of kinda proto-LBZC beatdown on Zoe Williams, so credit where it's due.

wow - you know, I thought scooby snacks must mean some kind of Suzy drug! but it makes sense, now, cos Scooby-Doo does get them for doing well, I think.

One issue of Shoreditch Twat had six pages of kinda proto-LBZC beatdown on Zoe Williams, so credit where it's due.

-- Dom Passantino, Tuesday, April 1, 2008 4:52 PM (29 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

he was no johnny cigarettes.

Do not diss the Cigs.

All style mags, including the one I work for, have always needed to sell adverts to survive. HOWEVER it is only relatively recently that the marketing side has become quite so brazen about trying to shout the odds to the editorial side, when in the past the relationship was defined by 'our readers are early adopters and you are paying for access to them, they do not come here to see the new Prada ad.'

Grimly, I understand what you're saying about the 'death of journalism' but the combination of recession tendencies and just plain pendulum antics in culture means good news for people who want to be proper journalists, maybe not just now, but definitely in a year or so.

Define "proper journalists". Because as snappy as they dressed, yr Evelyn Waugh days aren't coming back.

I'm talking about news-focused people, also if you haven't noticed the Waughs of this world still get column inches to play with, you aren't seething over ES magazine of a Friday.

OH SHIT WE HAVE LOST OUR ONCE-YEARLY OPPORTUNITY TO SPAM ES MAG WITH PITCHES ABOUT HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO FIND GOOD HELP THESE DAYS, AND ALSO LONDON'S TOP PARTY HOSTESSES ON WHAT THEIR LAST SERVANTS DIED OF.

Man, the Evening Standard is gonna be mayor of London in 30 days, show it some respect.

Respect must be earned! That goes x 100000 for elected officials.

Speaking of Respect, I'm voting for Lindsey German.

good news for people who want to be proper journalists, maybe not just now, but definitely in a year or so

maybe. maybe not. certainly, a real rain is gonna come and wash a lot of the utter bollocks celebrity drivel off the streets; problem with proper news-focused journalism, especially as it tries to reposition itself in a post-dead-tree era, is it needs the odd resource or two more than most proprietors are willing to chuck at it.

broadly, i guess i agree with you. but i think it'll be a sadly diminished form of "proper" journalism all the same.

Has the Standard drawn any comparisons between Ken Livingstone and Mugabe yet?

... silly question, probably

I don't know much about the Waughs - though I hate Brideshead Revisited - but I doubt any of them was the epitome of a good journalist. Martha Gellhorn & David Lacey to thread.

All the money's in financial journalism now. They're living large, it's like a different universe. I think something like 75% of Reuters revenue comes from it.

vague x-post follow-up to self: there's a work-experiencer sitting behind me as i type, wearing a tank top and reading something that might be the times. FFS, dude, the key is to make yourself indispendable. have ideas. talk to people. LOOK LIKE YOU'RE WORKING ON MORE THAN A SENSE OF 2:1-IN-A-SHITTY-ARTS-DEGREE ENTITLEMENT. we've had a few through here in the last couple of weeks, some -- postgrads, i think! -- barely literate. i sincerely hope the future holds no fucking place for them.

that said: thus has it always been. difference was, there used to be enough jobs for everyone, even the tools.

(i mean, i got one, didn't i?)

Financial journalists are paid so well to stop them doing City Slicker shenanigans. FACT.

Grims, you are literate and a stickler, there is always work for you on a subs' desk even in the worst-case scenario. Also give the WE something really turgid and boring to do, that takes days, you know you want to.

Respect must be RE-earned.

Love today's Standard board headline: KEN 'I WILL STEAL BORIS IDEAS'

If all the UK press made a sudden pact and took all their free content off the www, would their circulation rise again?

Not unless craig's list shut down, too

pinefox: i think it's too late for that now. the GBP has realised newspapers are actually a bit shit ;)

there is always work for you on a subs' desk even in the worst-case scenario

ah, but will there be subs' desks? (clue: no. there will, however, be people doing EXACTLY THE SAME JOB, only they'll be called "content repurposing facilitators" and earn 12p an hour, 0.5p more than the "content originators" with their cameraphones tucked in the side of their trilbies where the "press" cards used to be).

Also give the WE something really turgid and boring to do, that takes days, you know you want to

an old friend of mine -- wouldn't be entirely surprised if you've met him at least once -- actually set a work-experiencer an essay to do, on "the differences between broadsheets and tabloids". poor bastard.

I actually tend to agree with you, GF, though it saddens me to say it. But I don't think I'd feel quite so disdainful and detached if I couldn't now read it all online - this has made its own experiential contribution to the loss of the press's authority or perceived value, somehow.

that is: if papers weren't online, they'd seem better than they are?

It is, worse, again:
http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/privatelives/story/0,,2270160,00.html
'life and health' again

sorry, pinefox: i had thoughts in relation to your last couple of comments, but not the time to get them down. i might get a chance eventually ... don't hold your breath, mind.

short answer: "yes".

that is: if papers weren't online, they'd seem better than they are?

-- the pinefox, Tuesday, 1 April 2008 17:44 (Yesterday)

This is, i think, undoubtedly true. Or at least we would notice less. Online articles don't exist in isolation either, but are linked and relinked, and come under greater scrutiny. If the cultural ephemera and filler that gets criticized was paper copy only it wouldn't even be noticed.

The answer to the sex partners article is, like many thing, "not enough", until it is, "too many"

I think newspapers are dimly becoming aware that online might be a stupendously bad idea, just as they are finally getting around to making it work.

I think it's a great idea since I can just read them online and not have to waste hard earned cash on buying them.

There is a funny sort of thing about the filler of newspapers now living forever online. We tend to think of online as a devalued version of the "real" newspaper, i.e. it's not tangible, and you don't have to pay for it. Yet at the same time, it lasts forever, can be linked to, read, commented upon -- for eternity. Newspapers have traditionally represented exactly the opposite of this.

it's tomorrow's ... (nuclear) fission (silicon) chip paper!

[that was a sentimental tribute to Beano / Dandy / Tomorrow's World / lolly-sticks, etc, c.1979]

I have just seen the caption 'a man skins up a joint' on the relevant Graniaud photograph.

you'd think they'd recognise Cameron by now

Well it's been four years since he won Big Brother.

you can't draw moustaches and make up on pictures of people's faces as easily online than a paper newspaper

or draw comedy sideburns to make Lampard look like star of 1971 show The Comedians.

OTM

or draw comedy sideburns to make Lampard look like star of 1971 show The Comedians

Or like Frank Lampard Snr.

I think it's a great idea since I can just read them online and not have to waste hard earned cash on buying them

... which is fine, as long as you accept that plummeting sales = plummeting ad revenue = cutbacks = (whinging hacks like me being out of work; that's not so much of a problem) = the inevitable downward spiral in which newspapers are caught.

no, i can't actually blame the readers for that; it's a problem of newspapers' making. as stet has pointed out repeatedly: we, the press, have fucked it right up. however: enjoy it while we can, because it sure as fuck ain't a sustainable model.

firefox plugin to doodle spunking cocks and scrawl 'TURMOIL' on the pictures PLZ NAO

surprised more papers aren't doing a subscription version alongside a free version

e.g. subscribe and get music and video downloads + offers

theonion is free innit

Subscription doesn't work online, the FT tried it and fucked it up monumentally. And if ppl aren't willing to pay for a reliable archive of business news they're certainly not going to be willing to pay for anything else. Except porn obviously.

gf I think that was the joek!

but, yeh, people haven't been willing to pay for news since the advent of the radio -- it's all the other trinkets that papers were bought for, but internet has far better, shinier trinketry

i'm not suggesting pay for News but for other things that papers can act as guides/filters for v well. subscription works for certain kinds of content e.g. music, video plus a few other things you'd otherwise have to pay for in print. i wouldn't expect it to work for something like the FT.

i only buy paper to pass the time when i'm on a train and do crosswords.

The worry is that news is the only thing newspapers do even half-well, so could they ever come up with music/video/etc stuff that would compete with here/you tube/4chan -- and compete well enough that people would stump up?

Going by current stabs at "video" I suspect not.

i never buy papers so probably wouldn't pay for any form of online content either ah well there goes my argument (but people do pay for certain podcasts etc.)

That's exactly the sort of thinking I get at the office. "Well, I never pay for anything online [2s pause] so! We're going to monetise online advances in a flexible cross-title way! People might buy mugs branded with their favourite football team's colours from us"

i do pay for music tho, and would pay for video downloads online depending on what they were (not pr0n) and the versatility of format (can i mess around with it in premiere with no fuss? itunes sez no). as usual tho i fear i am in distinct minority.

I think it's the right lines -- papers will need to take the GMG route and use money-making enterprises (auto trader, the radio stations) to prop up a wheezing news beast. Thing is very few people are making big money from website content anywhere, so it's pretty daunting.

Especially for publishers who still grasp the wrong end of a mouse.

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ruth_fowler/2008/04/club_rules.html

^^this broad really is pisspoor.

Haven't we already done this one somewhere else?

I think its a different, althought very similar piece.

I don't think I've seen so many strawmen in one place before. Who on earth are these people?

A month or so ago I phoned up the Guardian and told them that Julie Burchill only had eight weeks to live, and that everyone in the media was frantically trying to find a replacement.

sounds plausible. jules could write, was the thing.

She's not dead yet, don't try and rob her of those precious last four weeks!

I think Ruth Fowler deserves some respect for discovering this exciting new development.

Did you know she went to Cambridge?

I guess what's funnier is the self-flagellation of the Graun for printing her.

Did you know she went to Cambridge.

Cue standard gag re. getting beaten by Kidderminster Harriers 4-1.

Did you know she went to Cambridge.

And yet amazingly she also worked as a stripper!

Gotta top up those grants somehow.

Maybe we should have a few weeks where we pick on a different broadsheet. This shit's embarrasing--like making fun of a retarded kid.

troo.

torygraph?

You've gotta work your way up to that shit, start with the Times.

Damian Thompson's blog looks like a fertile source of OW MY HEAD

Times is even more of a joke than Guardian though?

Interests of balance tho.

That's why The Times is a good starting point. Maybe the Indy as well but yeah political balance and shit. The Torygraph is more solid across the board but when they decide to be ridiculous they top everyone.

I give 'Comment Is Free' about a year, tops. Until the 'ooh blogging, how modern!' thing finally dies down and they realise they're just paying shit journalists for no reason and lacerating their brand in the process.

^^ i really hope so. this will sound ridic and precious, but stuff like the thing i linked to does actively put me off.

i give daily enrique links to the guardian about a year, tops.

I give 'Comment Is Free' about a year, tops. Until the 'ooh blogging, how modern!' thing finally dies down and they realise they're just paying shit journalists for no reason and lacerating their brand in the process.

OTM.

Glad that Times thread has started, let's do that for a few weeks.

it's a game of opinions

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/tv/2008/05/it_was_while_watching_the.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/mar/27/religion

^^ this is guy is a choad.

united states independent music lovers:pitchfork media::british:guardian

i wish there was a last call for internet connections

This picture is eminently punchable
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/site_imagery/george_monbiot_140x140.jpg

What other "militant atheists" support the war in Iraq apart from Christopher Hitchens? That article is strawmannery gone mad.

particularly since iraq was a secular state. the paleo-conservative irony is that the war has created a space for religious nutjobs to win real victories; how anyone could see that as 'progressive' i don't know.

I don't think Milne is terrible, historically - but I think I disagree with him about religion. for those of us who do not believe in god or gods, it would surely seem hypocritical to look to religion for our progressive salvation etc.

I mean, it's a cynical case, in a way? 'I don't agree with these people's most fundamental beliefs but they seem useful right now'?

and that's assuming that they are indeed useful

Today Richard Williams said, of last night's game, "a headed goal for each side" or something to that effect.

Is it really too much to ask for someone to actually have seen the game? Not least when he's their supposed "expert".

^ roffle

Kevin McCarra's an idiot too.

I don't mind McCarra that much, I have to say can't stand Williams tho. Just standard aged meanderings.

Williams gets wheeled out for a whole range of different subjects as well. Manages to be a bore about football, music, art, whatever really.

yeah same views on every single subject

http://timesonline.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/07/09/guardian.jpg

1
2

ability to operate in a sensitive political environment

Lord Dixon Smith better not apply then.

Those BNP jobs are subject to Equal Opportunities legislation.

Only applicants so far...
http://www.londonclasswar.org/images/scumbag.jpg

Might submit a CV that just says "i'm white btw"

I have black friends. I work hard pay my taxes and dont commit crime. I would have hated the Nazis if I had been around in those days. And I vote BNP.

So Mr Smug Liberal journalist, your point is what exactly?

Posted by: Mark Greenwood | 10 Jul 2008 20:48:42

Once again, it's one standard for black people and another standard for fucking idiots like myself. Get a grip, Gordon.

Which scruffy £2.75 per hour 19-year-old basement assistant didn't double check the ad vetting then?

(Prominent ILX poster's name deleted)

That's why The Times is a good starting point. Maybe the Indy as well but yeah political balance and shit. The Torygraph is more solid across the board but when they decide to be ridiculous they top everyone
If you're going to be a bastard at least be straight about it like those darlings at the Metro or The Daily Hate Mail. I've said it before and I'll say it again, at least The Times is upfront about its fuckery. Also I think my hatred spewed over into 'wanting vengence' when they hired Peaches Geldof briefly. I swear my eyes rolled back into my head. That was the end for me.

ability to operate in a sensitive political environment
Lol at 'choice phrasing'

I have black friends. I work hard pay my taxes and dont commit crime. I would have hated the Nazis if I had been around in those days. And I vote BNP.

So Mr Smug Liberal journalist, your point is what exactly?

Posted by: Mark Greenwood | 10 Jul 2008 20:48:42
EXTRA lol. How does he explain that one to his many ethnic friends?

Yeah, if you're going to have right wing keech and tollie then at least the Times is honest right wing keech and tollie.

Sorry, this job has is no longer live. You may be interested in the similar jobs listed on the right.

oh they're on the right alright do you see

http://www.londonclasswar.org/images/scumbag.jpg

Oh that crazy Courtney Love.

shalom auslander is a fanny unless he is being funny in which case I don't get it

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/30/blogging.usa

http://www.miamibookfair.com/2007/author_photo/high_res/Auslander_Shalom.jpg

From this photo I assume "local coffee shop" means "McDonalds next door to Dunkin' Donuts"

Why exactly does the Guardian publish on a Saturday?

the vegetarian recipe and charlie brooker's screen burn. i wanted to cry last week when they replaced vegetarian food for things-chefs-do-with-lamb.

and brooker was off sick last week too. oh these dark times.

i think the thing about the guy in the coffee shop is perfectly okay! the problem with it is the (presumably a sub's fault, or something) headline that suggests it is a criticism of "bloggers" and not "a guy in a coffee shop". sadly that is probably in the top 18%, say, of this week's guardian columnist's efforts

Bring back "Powerblogger" Tony Naylor and Ruth Fowler's Daddy Issues

I believe an anti-blogger clause has recently been inserted into the Guardian's Code of Conduct.

Is that Ruth Fowler facebook group still going?

Ah, there's a different one now. http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=24256040691

HAHAHA, here's a rum thing. I have a mutual friend with her. This mutual friend is the boss of the modelling company who gave me a day as an extra on a Bollywood set. Looks like Ms. F's been doing some saucy stuff on the sly.

A statue of Vishnu is not an "extra", show some respect man

I'm only four degrees of Facebook seperation from RFDI

i know suzy who knows everyone

who is worst columnist in the guardian then? I can't decide if I'd nominate Zoe Williams or Laura Barton. Actually it's prob hard to beat Barton, that "shit poetry" style of music writing is really sickening.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/aug/01/popandrock1

As if on cue. (+ I didn't even see Ronan's post till I'd posted that.)

i know suzy who knows everyone

Par exemple

His (Tom Parker Bowles) sister is nice, but at a party I once told him that something he was saying was the most smug thing I'd heard in a month of Sundays, although I can't remember what it was now (I posted about this party at the time). This is probably because immediately to our right I was spooked by my friend Dan arriving to same party in a group comprising some artphags and David Furnish.

My favourite Suzy quote to date..

They paid her to write that?

who is worst columnist in the guardian then? I can't decide if I'd nominate Zoe Williams or Laura Barton.

i love zoe williams. i don't know what's not to love about her. i think she was at her best documenting pregnancy craziness. i guess that writing about childy family kind of stuff might put her in with the fifty best ecological half term holiday day trip supplement kind of guardian filler stuff, but i think she's entertaining.

that's Independent filler stuff, by definition

For the love of god can they ditch this "we sent our SPORTS journalist out to mow a lawn/drink a beer/have a bath" thing they have going at the moment.

It is so lame and is exposing how bad the writers are. EG the Olympic Sports one with pieces beginning "It was a sunny day in East London" etc...it's woeful!

They had a resident feminist the other day demanding that, at the end of their sentence, released female prisoners should get the same kind of support given to the likes of Barry George

Jesus fucking christ, new depths of unfunny plumbed here

Funny pictures made unfunny by Guardian trying to be hip.

HOW DO I SHOT GUARDIANZ

"lolcats" have never been funny

lolhacks, morelike

When's the Graun gonna get on the Blingee craze is what this observer wants to know.

blingee was funny, unlike lolcats, but that was over a year ago, prob more. i lost my blingee pictures when my laptop died earlier this year but i was awesome in them, paris T-shirt and everything

Has David Cameron got in on lolcats yet?

As a cat owner, I really like lolcats. I do not like lolbush.

One problem with the online edition is that rubbish like that is just one click away from the front page. If that were in the printed edition, it would thankfully be buried somewhere in one of the weekend supplements.

today's student essentials in the pull out guide thing includes a £20 panini press. (which, apparently, is a device for burning stripes onto the tops of sandwiches).

essential

and long-sleeve t-shirts

Um, I have a panini press, and it is fucking fantastic, I must say. £35 from John Lewis, mind.

they've remove the witty comments on the tv-guide, from movies they obviously hate.

I never go out in long-sleeved T-shirts anymore unless they have stripes burned into them.

are panini presses the new toastie machine? every student had one when i was in uni (and those WERE great)

"What would Will Hodgkinson look like if we slammed his face into a panini press and switched it on? We decided to find out..."
(cover story for this Saturday's Weekend...)

or a "breville" as one would call it

xpost

I binned the student guide w/o reading it. There was a decentish article about people using blogs to serve out spam & install malware in the technology section, I thought.

http://politicalbetting.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/guardian-voodoo-poll.jpg

So Guardian readers are much more likely to be Tory voters than the public.

I trust Max Gogarty

I know the Graun website is full of Tory trolls but that has all the hallmarks of a poll that four people have voted in.

Yeah, I'd say it's probably the same four Tory trolls who always turn up on HYS, Labour Home and suchlike.

The cartoon they're currently running on the back of the G2 on a friday is perhaps the most unfunny, ametuerishly drawn strip I've seen in actual print.

The most unfunny strip in print is still Chris Roy Taylor's "The Omnipresent", available in every edition of thelondonpaper. Every single one seems to have been carefully designed to be as completely shit as possible. I mean it actually feels deliberate; that's how bad it is.

(looks at back of G2) god it is crap, isn't it.

(x-post)

Hahaha oh god that sucks.

I've seen many many shitty internet comix that crap all over it.

That Guardian one is beyond bad. Has she even seen a human face before?

is this the "karine frischmann" or whatever one?

it's not just the drawings, the "jokes" are horrendous. each one seems to have no punchline except "I was a weird quirky child!!!" when there's not even anything weird about the stupid stories.

can we get a dom p thought on these?

online link?

thanks for warning me about this dudes

I stopped buying The Guardian, mainly in protest at the dumbing down of their cryptic crossword. Although The Indie's is beginning to fuck me off as well, part of the clue last Saturday contained the phrase "Actress Hatcher". In a cryptic crossword.

I stopped buying The Guardian, mainly because it was shit.

We've totally covered Karine Frischmann (or whatever) before, may or may not have had its own thread

Louis:
http://karriefransman.wordpress.com/

Ah, her.

Those are the most paedo-y eyes in history

FRANSMANN: I ROONED ROO/MADDIE

Next week's strip: "what's the deal with airline peanuts?"

Does Keital Firehose think that all rap is just "talking over records"?

http://karriefransman.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/guardian-published-6-cake-maker.jpg

waht

i don't get why someone would want to draw people like that

srsly waht

what about the pretentious one, made up of bad photography and word labels? it always hints at some cryptic melancholic truism that isn't quite there. it was nice when they were running pbf.

they are abysmal...it's astonishing they go to print. it's easy to be hyperbolic but srsly, that is about the worst thing I've ever seen in a newspaper. there are no punchlines!

"i like cakes and am racist"

In keeping with the Guardian readership then.

They read and look like they've been thought up by a 12 year old girl.

An insult to 12 year old girls shurely.

laurabarton.jpg

lol xxxpost

http://karriefransman.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/guardian-published-airport-van.jpg

This one is the worst.

No, if it were Barton there wouldn't be any drawings at all, just 1500 tedious words about thinking about drawing a picture of Kurt Wagner in his Y-fronts while climbing down the inside of Mount St Helens or wherever else she dreamed she went last night.

oh the lusty hale of the moonlight shone on wagner's buxom bosom....alas the moment passed and I was left alone, like robinson cruesoe in the book of the same name.

lol

Don't forget to paraphrase the book quote twice to reach word count.

I read a Laura Barton piece by mistake once, something about some piece of alt-country toss evoking the Mississippi and making her soul orgasm blah blah blah. Yuk.

thing is....everyone I know thinks she's shit!

I went out for a drink for the first time with someone I barely knew a few months ago, who likes all the music Barton writes about. It turned out she and her friends post the article on Facebook every Friday to rip the piss out of it.

Good to know that others are fighting the good fight as well!