Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

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.