Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

"some sweaty bopping in a Smiley T-shirt to "Ebeneezer Goode" in the 1990s"

has Barbara Ellen always written in that horrible Littlejohn-esque 'one sentence per paragraph' fashion btw

she's always been the Happy Shopper Julie Burchill so yeah

one cliche i wish would die - photographers taking photos of photographers, cameras pointed at cameras.

Azealia Banks – whose sound is reminiscent of 90s rapper Missy Elliott – Azealia Banks – whose sound is reminiscent of 90s rapper Missy Elliott – Azealia Banks – whose sound is reminiscent of 90s rapper Missy Elliott – Azealia Banks – whose sound is reminiscent of 90s rapper Missy Elliott – Azealia Banks – whose sound is reminiscent of 90s rapper Missy Elliott – Azealia Banks – whose sound is reminiscent of 90s rapper Missy Elliott – Azealia Banks – whose sound is reminiscent of 90s rapper Missy Elliott – Azealia Banks – whose sound is reminiscent of 90s rapper Missy Elliott – Azealia Banks – whose sound is reminiscent of 90s rapper Missy Elliott

^ subeditor

Call me a luddite, but just as I like getting my vegetables delivered in a box direct from a farm in Devon, I love knowing that the puppets in War Horse are handmade in a workshop in Cape Town.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/12/revenge-muppets-puppets-kermit-war-horse

"luddite" wdn't be my first choice word

yes, i can think of a few others

Ugh...

Scream, Clueless, films like that were just as sly and arch in their message as new films such as Juno and Superbad, but without the irony.

;/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2012/feb/11/90s-revival-music-culture

In fairness that is a quote.

"For me, the 1990s doesn't seem that long ago"

Maybe cos it's not?

i don't dj much anymore but am pretty much guaranteed to play luchini whenever i do (and always have done).

"For me, the 1990s doesn't seem that long ago"

Maybe cos it's not?

― Number None, Monday, February 13, 2012 2:52 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha i just described 2006 as "basically ancient history" in an email to my editor

lol. every musical comparison in that article is so horrible

Terrible interview with Sophie Kinsella today by the Aitkendickhead - "but my friends have problems with shopping debts!," "but my friends don't see that as feminism" NOTE: OTHER PEOPLE ARE NOT "YOUR FRIENDS" DEAL WITH IT

Keep coming across broken links on the website. Their innocentese-404 page has the title 'Opps'. Never change.

Weird stuff happening on the Guardian home page?

Yeah, and the site was down for me a few minutes ago

Guardian nowbetter than it used to be...

I was bit surprised to get this email from the Guardian:

Guardian investing is a new service for readers of the Guardian and Observer, provided by our specially-chosen partner, Skipton Financial Services (SFS).

SFS is one of the UK's leading financial advisory companies and has been providing professional, impartial advice to thousands of clients nationally - since 1988. They've been carefully selected by the Guardian and Observer due to their expertise and knowledge in the financial services industry and they can assist you with all your financial planning needs - now and in the future....

the Telegraph uses them too

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/26/among-the-asexuals

seems like the way forward

do you think the piece was badly written or that the subject shouldn't be covered in the guardian? because i disagree with you on both counts.

wd have liked to hear from some chill positive asexuals to balance out the sound of axes grinding

Yeah. I know two people who have never had a sexual partner are are likely never to have one and that suits them fine. Of course they're outside the mainstream and they have to deal with that, but they do.

For people who want to be defined by something other than sexual partners or their sexuality it seems like the people profiled in the piece are actually doing the opposite, right? Not that there's uh, anything wrong with that. But actually it sort of seems like they have sex on the brain.

Something about it reminds me of nudists who are like no no, nudism has nothing to do with sex, it's just that your genitalia must be displayed at all times

Attitudes like this might be part of the problem of why asexuals find it so hard to talk about themselves in the first place?

It doesn't remind me of nudists, but Tracer, you are reminding me of people who say "I've got nothing against the Gays, but why they gotta be talking about their homosexuality all the time, can't they just get on with it?"

I've spent quite some time in various asexual communities, for lack of a better word. It's a problem, the same as it's a problem for any marginalised group of people - the world is so set up around the assumption of compulsory sexuality, that it's often problematic for people who think they might be damaged, or wrong, or broken, because they're not even aware that it's not a problem, it's just A Thing.

And it's actually quite a brave thing to come forward and actually say, erm, this is A Thing, can we talk about it? Because you will get invasive questioners (no offense against Rosie Swash) but people asking, why are you like this, are you a repressed gay, were you raped or abused, is there something wrong with your hormones or your genitals? And what looks like "having sex on the brain" is actually *society* having sex on the brain, and all the questions you are being asked, all the time are "why are you not having sex, like everyone else?" so all the answers that get printed are going to make you seem defensive and weird and like you have to justify your asexuality, rather than just get on with it.

The article was better than most, but it did seem fairly superficial, and concentrating on individuals (human interest, I guess) rather than on what is known about asexuality as A Thing. For instance, not mentioning the fact that it's generally considered to be a spectrum, kind of like straight - bi - gay, rather than an on / off dichotomy. And it's problematic to drop a word like "panromantic" into a piece like that without going into the very concept of romantic orientation and what that means - and how it does and doesn't differ from sexual orientation. But again, the article would probably have had to be twice as long if she hadn't left it out.

I didn't have any great problem with the article

I think the idea is interesting

like I say, seems like the way forward

a life in which no one could betray you by having sex with someone else

sounds good

ah - apologies then pinefox, i thought you were linking it in the 'is the graun worse' thread as evidence

no it's just that this is the main Guardian thread really !

I did do a little lol when I misread the name of the researcher in asexuality Mark Carrigan as 'Mark Corrigan'.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/mar/12/london-olympics-security-lockdown-london

The imminent Olympics will take place in a city still recovering from riots that the Guardian-LSE Reading the Riots project showed were partly fuelled by resentment at their lavish cost

I love science.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/mar/12/kenny-dalglish-kit-deals-liverpool

website front page: "Dalglish: kit deals as good as points"
headline: "Kenny Dalglish: 'Kit deals and a happy club are as good as points'"
quote: "There are many ways you can judge a season and the best way is progress at the football club as a whole. I don't think it necessarily relates to trophies or points.

"You can measure it by how the club has progressed and where it is, from the first team to the kids. Off the pitch, especially, the club is a lot stronger than what it was. You go off the pitch and see how much money we are getting through sponsorship and kit deals [the club signed a deal with US-based Warrior Sports in January worth a potential £300m over six years]."

hate that weaselly tabloid shit so much

the british habit of fabricating direct quotes for headlines is so weird

"Tracer Hand: Brits weird."

British Habit of Fabricating Direct Quotes, Facts for Headlines So Weird

lol caek, i find the stilted precision of US headlines pretty weird

The imminent Olympics will take place in a city still recovering from riots that the Guardian-LSE Reading the Riots project showed were partly fuelled by resentment at their lavish cost

ahhhhrg

the olympics were discussed in detail at the pre-riot meetings

I remember seeing a New York Times headline that read something like "Brooklyn fire injures 12 residents, kills one." British equivalent would be "Man dies in Brooklyn blaze." NYT style is so oddly formal.

Rioters: Olympics Can Go Hang

I agree about NYT style (which trickles down to other US newspapers in general, this almost defensive reflex to be "correct", as if they constantly needs to re-prove their intelligence) but to my mind direct quotes are sacrosanct, you just don't put words in people's mouths, and British headlines do it ALL THE TIME.

i've found that formal "correctness" is a hallmark of many americans' writing as well - this emphasis on a measured, rational tone

it's like good romans wrote a very formal latin during the height of the empire

"Former Murdoch Editor Is Said to Be Arrested"

yaaawn

yeah shoulda been GOTCHA

I can't read this, my brain cannot engage with the page. So many quotes and scare quotes and ellipses and dashes and images and short sentences and fragments and whatever point it was making (presumably another lame takedown of Kony2012 viral) is lost on me.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/14/kony-2012-right-now

SamuelSmiles

14 March 2012 9:22AM

"Charlie Skelton is a comedy writer, journalist and olive farmer."

Hope his olives aren't as bad as his writing.