Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

(sp: "booksellers")

i think you misunderstand me. i think it's great that amazon support new writers, and keep such a large amount of books in "stock". i don't think it's so great that they shouldn't pay taxes on the profits they make.

OK, so you don't want to talk about Amazon's tax avoidance.

Maybe one could talk about their union busting activities (yeah, bog standard for a post globalised world, right) or their appalling record on workers rights, health and safety violations, all of which has been documented pretty extensively in Mother Jones - a paper I'm not aware of having any bookshop of their own or being in direct competition with Amazon...

http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor

... but you know, who gives a shit about workers rights and being treated humanely or even *safely* so long as they stock *your* books, right? Amazon are simply *uncriticisable* so long as I'm alright, Jack. Socialism at its finest there.

This was pretty dire. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/07/copenhagen-really-wonderful-reasons

Jenny Jones is the Green Party candidate for London mayor. That's a Guardian heartland story. That her daughter works at the Guardian was declared in the piece. Do you really think the Guardian should ignore her because her daughter works there? It's hardly Rebekah Brooks going riding with David Cameron, is it?

Of course, if Amazon were to go under (extremely unlikely), that would make life much easier for the online Guardian Bookshop.

?!?

Online Guardian bookshop is a tiny part of Guardian business. Generates about 10 bob, and I'd bet it's run through a partner (might even be Amazon, as with the links to buy CDs on album reviews) - there's no Guardian warehouse full of books. The Guardian's reports about Amazon are not generated by some big commercial push to take over the online book retail market.

We'll see about that.

Meanwhile Potty Toynbee says every UK citizen's tax details should be open to public scrutiny: "when we look back, we will view privacy as the cheat's charter." Also "taxes are the price you pay for civilisation." Eh? Civilisation has to be paid for?

i.e. "the only people who want privacy are those who have something to HIDE."

Murdoch and Syria would love her, and Labour are out of power for 20 years minimum.

We'll see about that.

cynical, or just being honest?

xp, she's talking about privacy with regard to taxation, rather than privacy in the more general sense though, isn't she? That's standard practice in Finland, Sweden and Norway. I'm reasonably sure Assad's elites wouldn't want the rest of the country knowing how much they make.

Marcello continues the great ILE/Guardian crossover:

Letters: From Harley St to Fred the plumber – transparency and tax returns

Aw, I thought it was going to be about the Guardian bookshop's imminent coup against Amazon.

Barbara Ellen

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/03/barbara-ellen-kick-out-stay-at-home-kids

Such a nasty piece to write in the middle of an economic downturn/depression. The Observer should boot her out pronto.

It's 100% true to form, unfortunately. With David Mitchell turning increasingly reactionary in recent weeks, their comment section has been alarmingly close to the Telegraph's at times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79qX7l4y-q4

can't believe Barbara Ellen is the Happy Shopper Julie Burchill

tbf Burchill was saying exactly the same thing back in the NME in '83.

I've never known the Observer not to be a carbuncle of rightwing douchebaggery but Graham Norton did a similar rant on his radio show last week. I suppose it saves having to think about inconvenient things like causes.

(Actually, Norton's a totally reactionary old queen; yesterday he carpeted guest David Baddiel for daring to ask for a relatively obscure track from the BBC archives. He was all "how dare you, that's not what we're about, RIGHT?" Actually, Graham, that IS what it's all about, otherwise Radio 2 might just as well be LBC or Magic FM and take advertising rather than protection money from licence payers, decimating your music library to subsidise Mr Norton's lifestyle)

p bad
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/lostinshowbiz/2012/jun/07/ridiculous-name-jay-electronica?newsfeed=true

serious question: is Tim Dowling the most infuritaingly unfunny 'funny' writer in the UK?

what 'funny' writers are actually funny though?

Marina Hyde obv (though she's not a LOL writer in any case)
Caitlin Moran (though - whisper it - less and less these days)
I guess Grace Dent but I don't care about TV so rarely care about her writing
and uhhhhh

basically there's no excuse for anyone to act like a comedian or a FOOL as they were once known

i really like tim's pieces, tbh. alex, yr nutso!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2012/jun/22/glastonbury-2012-live-coverage?intcmp=ILCMUSTXT9383&CMP=EMCMUSEML1647

a ha hahaha ha ha hah ha ha oh dear.

Lucy Mangan might be twee as hell but I still get a smile more often than not from her writing. Marina Hyde is such a fantastic writer that it seems unfair to compare against her.

I can never understand why people rate Marina Hyde.

Is Barney Ronay strictly sport still? He can do lively-funny writing better than almost anyone there. Dowling the worst of comic hacks.

xp you don't actually rate ANYONE as far as i can tell

i like lots of things, you just assume that anyone who doesn't share your microscopic and demented world view is as hate-filled as you actually are.

Is Barney Ronay strictly sport still? He can do lively-funny writing better than almost anyone there. Dowling the worst of comic hacks.

― woof, Friday, June 22, 2012 3:13 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

Dunno, but his piece on Milner today was v enjoyable.

do u have any opinions about barney ronay

hes alright but he doesnt really understand football very well

oh i'm preparing myself right now for the onslaught of people writing about wimbledon who can turn out good sentences but have no idea about the sport

really good interview with petra kvitova in the grau today...and then right in the middle "surprisingly, she lost in the 1st round at eastbourne"

LITERALLY EVERY TENNIS FAN PREDICTED THAT UPSET AAARRRGHHHH. Kvitova is in mediocre form and Makarova is great on grass/at Eastbourne. "surprisingly" kmt kmt kmt

Haile Gebrselassie set world records – honestly – on Scatman John. Apparently the 1994 novelty techno track, Scatman (Ski Ba Bop Ba Dop Bop), had the exact time signature that the Ethiopian athlete needed to pace his 10,000 metre runs.

Must have spent an age experimenting with 19/4 and 13/8 until he found some solid 4/4 beats.

19/4 is the time signature for power walking IIRC

what exactly are they "Guarding" anyway

Manchester.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/jun/29/a-to-z-of-pop-genres-2012

"Indielectual" eh?

Indiegestible morelike

There is a band called Alt-J ???

I like how it starts off pretending to genuinely help the confused uncles with 'Afrobeats' and then slowly descends into hardcore trolling.

Hardcode Trolling?

What kind of music is that then?

what is EDM?

Epileptic Dance Music

they've been very lucky with the distribution of initial letters there...

Not to mention

Is guitar music on the way out?
Are guitar bands becoming a thing of the past, as dance and rap groups become more popular? Readers share their thoughts

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2012/jun/29/readers-panel-guitar-music

lol

In theory, "Night Bus" would be the most awesome genre in the history of music.

But I always imagined it to sound a bit like drunk girls singing the Specials' Nite Club along to tinny mobile phone beats.

Why give such a great genre name to such terrible music?

they've got Night Bus wrong in fairness

It's a pretty clever way to highlight lots of good new music while simultaneously winding up the kind of people who take these lists too seriously. Hats off.

hmm yeah im sufficiently estranged from what steve lamacq once described as 'new music' to learn something from the guardian