Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

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.

got the impression he was shooting for some HROish thing but nope, not happening at all

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/poll/2012/mar/15/bill-roache-ken-barlow-1000-women?newsfeed=true

presented without comment. (but i grinned.)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/mar/17/facebook-dark-side-study-aggressive-narcissism

Researchers have established a direct link between the number of friends you have on Facebook and the degree to which you are a "socially disruptive" narcissist, confirming the conclusions of many social media sceptics.

so much horseshit in one sentence

So Stephen Fry is a "socially disruptive" narcissist?

Oh wait they said Facebook, not Twitter.

This is actually satire, right?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/mar/24/indie-music-back-to-2007

I can't actually conceive of this in any other sense but satire.

oh my god

"Cut me and I bleed White Stripes seven-inches," claims lead singer Fred Macpherson

That has got to be a joke, right?

I want to believe

"intelligent house" - die

Come on, that "intelligent house" quip and the "dance music without choruses" thing shortly after was what convinced me it was satire. That couldn't possibly be real.

fairly sure there are people that stupid.

Thanks to Dalston Superstars I assume anything that mentions Dalston is a joke of some kind

"Watching grown men dance in tears to the Futureheads' Hounds Of Love was definitely one of 2011's highlights," he says, before wrapping his lips around the shotgun barrel and squeezing the trigger.

We were wondering tonight why the weekend magazine's Blind Dates never stay out late.

A last tube thing? (They are predominantly London-based). A work night thing? (Restaurants more willing to stump up a free meal Mon-Thurs). Or a fear that staying out late might suggest you want something more than the column's traditional kiss on the cheek?

In fairness, "we stayed out dancing all night then came back to mine for a drunken shag" isn't the easiest thing to admit in a national paper.

I thought this weekend's magazine was one of the better in recent months.

I think the reason they don't "go on somewhere" most of the time is because they don't actually like one another? I love reading the ones where one of them clearly couldn't stand the other, but were trying to be, erm, polite, in a national newspaper.

There was one I loved where they asked if they would see one another again, and the girl said something like "no, I don't think so, he talked about himself so much all night, I have nothing left to learn about him!"

The dude was, of course, oblivious, and thought she was a great listener. Hilarious.

oh that one was AMAZING - http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jul/29/blind-date

That is exactly the one. It remains one of the funniest things I've ever read. She's so... *dry*.

Guardian Open Weekend!

"I didn't expect to learn so many things about someone in one sitting."

class!

I just came here to post that "indie disco in Dalston" article, glad to see ILE has not slept on it.

paul lewis on the orwell prize longlist, presumably for london riots coverage, job listed as "the guardian, twitter". #openjournalism #embarrassing

What did you talk about? Lots… kicking off with work, as we're in the same field, then about writing and my novel, philosophy, free will, determinism, art, neuroscience, quantum physics, dating, travel, tequila and tattoos.

What a guy.

re indie thing: one of spector goes out with my ex, who I lived with last year, and he memorably jumped out of their bedroom window during an argument once. halcyon days.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/mar/25/children-difficult-music

Another meh article on the 'tough' stuff. What next, lunatics?

Nice to see some good names on there - Hugh M and Claudia Molitor.

His confessional lyrics have earned him millions, collaborations with Rihanna and Kanye – and bitterly divided opinion. Some call him 'hip-hop's centre of gravity', others the 'hashtag rapper'. Who is the real Drake?

One thing is certain. In the final weeks of the season, the Anfield skipper will be mustering all his power and knowhow to make strides in the direction of domestic football's greatest prize: the FA Cup.

Will Self: Walking is Political

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/mar/30/will-self-walking-cities-foot

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/7/11/1310398053433/willself.jpg

Think I'll stay off the streets if there's a chance of bumping into him on a dark night. Lol crude facist ad hominem!

Will Self seems like a nice guy but he is unreadable in print and when he speaks he never offers an interesting version of anything (his Question Time appearances are invariably embarrassing). I am for his main point, i.e. I like walking. I also think walking is political. But those who get through the first paragraph of this crap should be amazed by themselves. To me it seems impossible. He is an awful writer.

he's looking p cadaverous there

This is an edited version of Will Self's inaugural lecture as professor of contemporary thought at Brunel University

huh!

We should have a pedestrian equivalent of critical mass - gathering each Friday to block runners and cyclists on the South Bank.

Articles like this really are unhelpful.

The paper's going back to the bad old Left-behind days of the eighties, when the NME could have earnest debates about whether The White Album was a racist title.

It's petty nitpicking that does nothing to address institutionalised racism or actual racism, and as I keep saying, the Left are going to have to do better than thinking it's still 1985 and Kinnock and Red Wedge.