Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/blog/2009/dec/29/unnecessary-999-calls

This is almost entirely unremarkable as per the URL but cheap lols can be extracted from the line "Greater Manchester police said it received almost 1.4m calls between Christmas Eve and Boxing Day" and, as suggested below the article,

The BBC reported "Between Christmas Eve and Boxing Day, GMP said it received 1,377 999 calls, but only a fraction were genuine emergencies."

Grauniad Journo reads this as 1,377,999 & rounds it up.

Simples!

cheap lol

It took me embarrassingly long to get that

i read my mother's copy of the mail yesterday - you know, when they excerpted the columnist calling for the death penalty on the front - and, you know, the guardian might be annoying sometimes but, like, they're fine really, you know

Wasn't very impressed with Michael White's thoughts on the China execution

Send him on a philosophy/critical thinking course.

haha i had his immediate reaction: lol brits trying to push heroins on china again.

i haven't followed this story closely, but i was more surprised by the fact this guy was the first to be executed in china in 50 years. i did see one of his friends or family interviewed and they did absolutely appallingly -- he didn't know what he was getting into, etc. it's not a watertight defence anywhere. she should just have said "killing people for drug-smuggling is ott".

Jesus that is woolly. "Black men on death row... um... we executed someone 35 years ago... um... opium wars, on wikipedia, check it out it's rad. Will this do?" xp.

not the most coherent thing one has read no.

she should just have said "killing people for drug-smuggling is ott".

don't think that would have been super effective in terms of saving your family member from death row.

They don't seem very human, Guardian folk - it's like they can't take a view on anything until they've zoomed out to the widest possible perspective

what? idk, the opium wars were literally my immediate reaction. the article seems coherent to me. more so than asking fucking china of all places to pretty please waive its laws just this once.

(i once emailed m-white and he emailed back like a mensch. most successful journalists i've encountered have been up 'emselves. i think he's one of the few guardian writers who isn't barking mad.)

it's not our michael white, is it?

im surprised on this occasion they chose not to take the "nobody would have died if we were prepared to pay a bit more and only bought our fairtrade drugs from waitrose" perspective

French Alarm Clocks are exquisite! Morningwood is partly predicated on one's inability to pee while hard; don't worry.

― Enfonce bien tes ongles et tes doigts délicats dans la jungle de (Michael White), Wednesday, December 30, 2009 8:59 PM (10 minutes ago)

Guardian says 'Sadie Frost is pretty'.

not sure quite what level of profundity you were expecting from a four paragraph blog in the beauty section tbf.

How sycophantic and fawning is this interview/article?

Susan Sarandon: sexy, single and 63

...Although the effect is paradoxically that Sarandon comes over as an unthinking new aged air-head, repeating well-worn stoner accepted 'truths'

"I love mushrooms and I've done those successfully, but I don't like anything chemical. I didn't like LSD, and ecstasy wouldn't agree with me. I like stuff you can smoke."

Mushrooms are 'chemical' ....Presumably she means to say she's an organic doper? Instead of any element of challenge, Chrissy Illey concludes:

It doesn't surprise me that seven minutes into our interview we are discussing chemical versus herbal drugs in detail. Sarandon is curious and open.

Hang on a minute - it was Sarandon who brought up the subject of drugs in the interview directly. It didn't just happen.

I'm very susceptible to drugs of every kind. Coffee, it's great because it gets me very up, but then I crash."

I tell her I find coffee comforting. She surmises authoritatively: "You are probably someone who takes Ritalin to calm them."

illey is always a suck-up -- though more often with male performers.

Come on, you know what she means when she says "chemical". I'm willing to cut her some slack.

You're right though that the interview is fairly sicky.

Yeah - you're right. This is a diversion from the overall sycophantic nature of the article.... I can't quite put my finger on it, but I guess what irritates me is that it's a bit 'Hey, I'm down with the kids, drug-taking and tattooing..keeping up my slightly racy Banger sisters image - but nothing seedy you understand'

-

this is the first thursday in about 15 years when i haven't bought the guardian* - they dropped the technology section. i figured they'd reintroduce the various pieces of it into G2 or the main bit but, aside from one page of games, they haven't. so it's not worth it, to me, to buy a copy.

it also appears to mean that they miss out on adverts from dixons etc

* not quite true - i was abroad some times...

apologies is this is old news, but reading the website though http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian rather than the top-level URL is an effective way of reducing the amount of idiocy. it's effectively just the contents of the print edition (so unfortunately only updated daily)

In our obsession with the economy and celebrity gossip, we are forgetting the deeper questions of human existence

worst standfirst in history of newspapers?

darraghmac

?

(Weirdly, "Gordon Brown is a moron" returns almost 60 million. I don't know what that signifies.)

it signifies lazy journalism and the fact that if you google several words without quotes you'd receive results going to millions? and that parodies of songs incorporating a famous person's name is often popular on the internet? i don't really know what that signifies.

xpost haha yeah noticed that

darraghmac busy this week, what with being the chairman of Peterborough FC as well.

what is it if not profoundly meaningful that googling 'darragh mac is a moron' gives us well over a million results, I ask of ye?

I agree with the fundamental "we should teach philosophy in schools" message there, but it would be nice if it wasn't seated in one of the worst articles ever written.

it's amazing though that gordon brown touches young children gives 113 million results.

113,000,000 for gordon brown touches young children
50,100,000 for tony blair touches young children
56,600,000 for nicolas sarkozy touches young children

597,000 for barack obama touches young children.
6,840 for wen jiabao touches young children

422,000,000 for george bush touches young children.

THAT ISN'T ME

jesus i've been behaving myself lately and everything. i thought all you liberals were big on rehabilitation.

From the Telegraph,Bryony Gordon on 'yuckies'. Includes a nice plug for David Willetts 'fascinating' book.

"Don't call me posh or mad, says the new princess of pop"
"Why we've all fallen for Florence Welch"

So many things about such tired, lazy drivel.....

It seems to have gotten lazier in their journalism and quite reactionary sometimes and kind of remind me of the mum in Mean Girls who is a 'cool mum'

i think the guardian could be better subbed a lot of the time

some of their articles are kinda muddy compared to something like the times

and the middle class-iness of it bugs me

im not sure if thats a kind of classism but hey

it would be nice to see their arts content reflect the arts in the same way their news content reflects the world so diversley but i dont see it happening, just cos of the type of people that work at the company. and i like weekend but its always the same sort of shit in there - columns from tim dowling that are just pointless and bumbling (how do these people get columns?). and the guide seems to be mainly written for tossers in hoxton and is not nearly as funny as it thinks it is with its 'irreverent' features.

i also find it annoying when i see stupid features like 'hideously diverse' britain in g2 considering this is meant to be a liberal paper. yes i know even the guardian should get to take the piss too but then you dont see the sun taking the piss out of its editorial tone do you?

i don't even understand the 'hideously diverse' rubric

(lol -- save this for when it works, but "puts the RUBE into RUBIRC".)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/jan/08/hidesously-diverse-britain-student-islam

like wtf has this to do with diversity?

it doesnt even make sense, i cant tell what the tone of it is, or the point theyre trying to make. i think its meant to be a 'witty satire' on diversity (basically a way for guardian types to get away with taking the piss out of diversity initiatives, or 'embracing diversity', so they basically get to act like theyre all liberal while at the same time being able to 'jokingly' dislike the concept) but half the stuff thats written about doesnt even fit the remit, nor is it mocking. its sort of like a lighter, less scathing, gentler daily mail column, guardian-ised.

the article i linked to wasn't joking at all tho. it was saying, "ignore the scare stories, ucl's islamic society totally doesn't host jihadi speakers."

i don't think it's new that the guardian has an upper-middle class outlook on the world that, though outwardly liberal in certain respects, conceals a strong social prejudice

don't think it's news

basically.

its definitely not new, but when you read stuff like this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainability/blog/diversity-inclusion-corporate-social-responsibility
i just think its all a bit hollow.

it was saying, "ignore the scare stories, ucl's islamic society totally doesn't host jihadi speakers."

I think it was saying the opposite:

The answer from the union emerged this week. Nothing doing. "Of course it is going to be difficult and I am sure we will get some stick, but we are going to defend the Islamic Society and its right to hear from controversial speakers

One member of staff commented in the staff survey that "GNM tries hard as an organisation to be inclusive and encourage diversity but there is a significant challenge due to the highly networked nature of the culture."

Some staff are more cynical. One wrote: "There is a liberal 'façade' presented to the outside world but indoors it feels coldly conservative on this issue (diversity) and it's agonising and very painful to be so unrepresented at senior management in this company."

all seems a bit futile anyway. they get black columnists in to write shit like hideously diverse britain!

not really onimo because hugh muir doesn't call the guy he interviewed on his shit, or interview anyone else. ucl has hosted some right rotters, which would never have happened in the 'no-platform' 1980s.

true that the article is not explicit about how the daily mail and telegraph are wrong to suspect anything. but what do you make of the tone?

"Before long, they were facing a clamour – generated via the web – for the Islamic Society to be closed, or at least reconfigured so as to shield its members from anyone who might conceivably be construed as a radicaliser."

I like the books section, that's always pretty okay the comments section is always amusing but I agree with this
"There is a liberal 'façade' presented to the outside world but indoors it feels coldly conservative on this issue (diversity) and it's agonising and very painful to be so unrepresented at senior management in this company."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/andrew-clark-on-america/2010/mar/03/toyota-automotive-industry

And I wonder how many Japanese toddlers have been crushed under the chassis of a poorly driven Hummer?

- And I wonder how many Japanese toddlers have been crushed under the chassis of a poorly driven Hummer? Ahhhhhhhh.
- No, not "Ahhhhhhhh"!

hahahahaha