"i've found the difference in opinions people express about kobe bryant between people whose salaries are paid by the los angeles lakers and .. everywhere else is striking"
― thomp, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 12:33 (twelve years ago) link
I think she's great when she gets indignant and really skewers a deserving target. Less so when it's just generic sarcasm about Katie Price, but her non-LIS comment writing has been excellent.
― Now he's doing horse (DL), Wednesday, 24 August 2011 12:33 (twelve years ago) link
by "everywhere else" i did not just mean "the london media"
― lex pretend, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 12:33 (twelve years ago) link
is she normally this bad a writer?
Of course, while Friedman's seasteads might be in vogue with Valley types or those dreaming of the Tea Party Venice, among the good burghers of what convention already demands we style as riot-scarred England, I fear his laissez-faire ideals would garner short shrift or sarcastic invitations along the lines of: if people wish to live in places unconstrained by the rule of law, perhaps they'd care to try Tottenham.
― caek, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 12:35 (twelve years ago) link
I think she's great when she gets indignant and really skewers a deserving target
Yeah I'd go with this, and the same is true for Alexis Petridis but most of the time I find both borderline unreadable in much the same way. Any actual insight is crowded out by the apprent need to clunkily shoehorn 14 gags into the same sentence. Really cluttered writing.
― Matt DC, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 12:36 (twelve years ago) link
she did it with piers morgan
― some jock-bully out to take down the hipsters (history mayne), Wednesday, 24 August 2011 12:42 (twelve years ago) link
would love to know what caek considers good writing, but as ever when it comes to journalism and ilx, i feel that "good writing" isn't a concept that would be recognised here at all
― lex pretend, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 12:43 (twelve years ago) link
that sentence caek quotes is terrible lex
― mark s, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 12:46 (twelve years ago) link
xp glad you know different, thanks for that.
― Neil S, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 12:46 (twelve years ago) link
i have no idea if that problem is systemic to her work: she doesn't write about stuff i'm interested in, so i don't read her articles. i just opened up her last column to see what the fuss is about.
but come on. i'm not saying everynoe should write with orwell-like clarity and a copy of strunk & white at their side, but that sentence is just utterly awful.
― caek, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 12:47 (twelve years ago) link
it's the only one i ever read by her, so not fair to judge on just that
― mark s, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 12:47 (twelve years ago) link
'the good burghers of' is always a red flag phrase, and google say marina's used it 16 times in the guardian alone
― some jock-bully out to take down the hipsters (history mayne), Wednesday, 24 August 2011 12:49 (twelve years ago) link
She doesn't seem to have any ear for prose rhythm or turn-of-phrase, both of which are pretty important when you're trying to do comedy (or "comedy"). If you read most of her sentences outloud, would they really make people laugh, or would they just lose the thread midway through?
― Matt DC, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 12:52 (twelve years ago) link
tbf i blame the sub for not striking out "the good burghers" -- it was a long-dead faux-comic cliche about the time "mine host" started to grate
― mark s, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 12:54 (twelve years ago) link
giles coren to thread
tbf, i think comic writing in newspapers is spectacularly difficult to do consistently well because of the whole premise of writing "about" the news as it happens.
but a lot of the writers who try make it harder for themselves by taking the approach matt is complaining about, which is to include as many jokes (i.e. stylistic cliches) as possible.
― caek, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 12:56 (twelve years ago) link
― caek, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 12:58 (twelve years ago) link
she's perfectly suited to private-eye style logistical beatdowns so i don't understand why she's mainly doing LIS these days. i loved her guardian diaries, when she did them.
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 24 August 2011 12:59 (twelve years ago) link
Yeah it seems to be a problem that afflicts a lot of comic broadsheet writers. You really notice it when the style leaks over to TV, like when you turn on one of those ropey Friday night C4 shows and there's someone reading one of those torturously long sentences off an autocue in a voice that suggests they were never meant to be on TV in the first place.
― Matt DC, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 12:59 (twelve years ago) link
the disparity between ilx opinion of marina hyde and...basically everywhere else i frequent, is really astonishing
― lex pretend, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 13:27 (26 minutes ago)
this is pretty hilariously purblind
i have repped for her on ilx in the past, i'd guess between 38% and 55% of the smallish coterie of ilx users who have expressed an opinion on her ish have been at least somewhat enthusiastic
― nakhchivan, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 13:01 (twelve years ago) link
xp This is why I don't read many "comic" novels, because they're prone to looking very busy and strained in order to give the emphatic impression that something funny is going on, when something a little calmer would be much more amusing. It's in the same ballpark as the I'm-being-funny-now contortions of James Wood's "hysterical realism". Like Matt says, none of it can be successfully read out loud.
― Now he's doing horse (DL), Wednesday, 24 August 2011 13:02 (twelve years ago) link
aagh on deadline so no time to find more examples but these are two of my fav m hyde columns
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/22/sky-leaders-debate-spin-room-abortion-democracyhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/26/david-cameron-world-of-euphemisms
― lex pretend, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 13:02 (twelve years ago) link
what does "the good burghers of" mean? is that some kind of meat wagon pun?
― Gary Numan, or Gary Fletcher (ken c), Wednesday, 24 August 2011 13:02 (twelve years ago) link
ilx tends to think some pretty unfunny shit counts as great comedy (see: comedy threads passim)
― lex pretend, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 13:03 (twelve years ago) link
do you think marina hyde does great comedy?
― caek, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 13:04 (twelve years ago) link
Enrique (Enrique) wrote this on thread What did I ever see in Zoe Williams? on board I Love Everything on Feb 3, 2004Marina Hyde I like. She does the Diary quite often, which is the only bit of the Groanydad worth reading ('cept for Swells, obviously). Hey Toby, fuck Varsity, right? Right.
:0
― Stevie T, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 13:05 (twelve years ago) link
"what convention already demands we style as riot-scarred England" is a joky revolt against a cliche which immediately goes on to help itself to the effective content of that cliche: are we supposed to be worried about riots or not? marina will happily mock us either way! the anxious-compulsive need for a style-vectored gag almost completely undermines the (actually quite strong) point she's making
― mark s, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 13:06 (twelve years ago) link
i think marginalising ILX and the rest of the world into "us" and "them" is what created this mess in the first place
― Gary Numan, or Gary Fletcher (ken c), Wednesday, 24 August 2011 13:06 (twelve years ago) link
It seems I was the first to rep for MH on ILx, linking to this piece, which is still quite funny: http://www.guardian.co.uk/diary/story/0,3604,1135757,00.html
― Stevie T, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 13:07 (twelve years ago) link
xp Those two examples prove that the more substance MH has to work with the better she is. She comes unstuck when she doesn't have enough to say and fills the space with these tortuously overextended sentences, one of which mark s has just elegantly dissected.
― Now he's doing horse (DL), Wednesday, 24 August 2011 13:08 (twelve years ago) link
i think she's a great writer who is very funny, i wouldn't call it "comedy"
― lex pretend, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 13:08 (twelve years ago) link
Lex, don't you profess to dislike all comedy?
― Neil S, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 13:08 (twelve years ago) link
if you copy and paste some of the post on ILX and read it in notepad it sometimes reads just like marina hyde. the problem is ILX culture taking over normal, rational people you can see it in kids who talk like ILX now.
― Gary Numan, or Gary Fletcher (ken c), Wednesday, 24 August 2011 13:09 (twelve years ago) link
Haha Lex Marina Hyde is totally your acceptable face of things you otherwise claim to hate (comedy, archness, 'tall poppy syndrome' etc).
― Matt DC, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 13:09 (twelve years ago) link
^^^this.
Saying you dislike all of genre x probably disqualifies you from making judgements about the relative merits of individual examples of said genre.
― Neil S, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 13:12 (twelve years ago) link
there's a difference between "being funny" and "comedy" -- the problem with the paragraph quoted is that it's sold its political force out for mannered comic-effect habit
again, i basically blame the subs: they should corenise stuff like this
― mark s, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 13:15 (twelve years ago) link
xp
i don't think that's fair on lex. i think part of the reason most of us don't find her funny is that she's doing something different to "comedy", so it seems reasonable that people who don't like "comedy" could like her.
― caek, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 13:16 (twelve years ago) link
okay fair enough re. Hyde, but the point pertains whne Lex says stuff like this "ilx tends to think some pretty unfunny shit counts as great comedy"
― Neil S, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 13:18 (twelve years ago) link
I can never decide whether this thread is funny or not.
― Alba, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 13:55 (twelve years ago) link
i blame the subs for that too
― mark s, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 13:58 (twelve years ago) link
Libya's Supreme Guide had lost his way. His slogan of 40 years: "God, Muammar, Libya: Enough!" had lost its power. And in the end he is being blown away as surely and as brutally as an unsuspecting airliner climbing gracefully through Scottish skies.
― diouf est le papa du foot galsen merde lè haters (nakhchivan), Wednesday, 24 August 2011 16:08 (twelve years ago) link
no way
― caek, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 16:12 (twelve years ago) link
that's fucking shocking
― Um yeah, hi, that's (onimo), Wednesday, 24 August 2011 16:21 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/23/libya-gaddafi-vicious-despot
― diouf est le papa du foot galsen merde lè haters (nakhchivan), Wednesday, 24 August 2011 16:32 (twelve years ago) link
was that in the print edition?
― caek, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 16:38 (twelve years ago) link
hey simon tisdall, you know that little knot in your stomach as you typed that last line, the one that intensified when you sent it to the subs? pay attention next time
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 24 August 2011 16:40 (twelve years ago) link
lol that as on p6 of a national newspaper
― caek, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 16:42 (twelve years ago) link
Leaving aside the issue of taste it doesn't even work as a simile on a basic level because toppling Gaddafi took six messy months and he's still at large. He'd have had to be assassinated for that to even begin to work.
― Now he's doing horse (DL), Wednesday, 24 August 2011 16:42 (twelve years ago) link
and libya didn't do lockerbie, no lorax.
― joe, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 16:43 (twelve years ago) link
sssh don't tell joe biden
― caek, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 16:45 (twelve years ago) link