Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

you wouldn't actually buy a band t-shirt because you liked the design but not necessarily the band tho...would you?

whoa there, people do this All The Time! witness all the motorhead/def leppard/poison tees on sale at top shop/debenhams/whatever.

What's a putney, Andy?

I bought a Mega City Four t-shirt the other week. I bought it cos I like the band and I like their logo, and out of nostalgia.

witness all the motorhead/def leppard/poison tees on sale at top shop/debenhams/whatever

really? since when do those shops sell (official?) band merchandise?

but how do you know people buying them don't like the band (even if it's 'ironic' or just liking the idea OF liking them, if that makes sense) anyway?

i can imagine some people, not just kids or people buying for kids, buy band t-shirts because of the design and without really knowing about the band but can't be that many really. this is even more of a facile 'want to look cool' statement tho isn't it? that sense of knowing what to buy but not really knowing why...

remember the 'little girls wearing Nico 'Chelsea Girl' t-shirt thing (altho i approved of this ha)

Uhm yeah, there were tons of high street chains selling classic rock tees (I presume they just bought a load wholesale).

i figure these are aimed at and bought mainly by teenagers

really? since when do those shops sell (official?) band merchandise?

since AGES, honestly. i doubt your "average" 14-year-old Miss Selfridge customer would have a clue/give a shit who Def Leppard/insert 80s hair metal band here are. it's just a noisy "cool" design that'll make her look a bit like Peaches Geldof or whoever.

I'm sure I remember even Primark licensing some lame/classic 80s band tee designs recently.

and As Matt DC has admitted, sometimes people buy band tees without even realising that's what they are!

nb this whole discussion is clearly on the wrong thread.

Someone was selling MC5 shirts a good few years ago and it was the only place that you could get MC5 shirts so I know loads of people that bought them as they had been desperate for years to get them.
I got mine online but it was probably the same shirt.

a putney

http://www.vintagesynth.com/misc/vcs3.jpg

so called because they were made in putney (not far from you actually, there's a website that gives the actual address of the place they used to make them, cottage industry style, deodor road, sw15).

http://www.ems-synthi.demon.co.uk/snaps/everynun.jpg

Hang on a second, I went to primary school at 49 Deodar Road!!

Oh, I didn't, it was 95-97 Deodar Road (since moved). My best friend at the time lived at 50 Deodar Road, though.

I've got a Synthi t-shirt but my god, I want a t-shirt with that nun on it.

I am currently wearing a T-ahirt of a band that I saw live but didn't like much. It's a pretty design and the band aren't well known enough for many people to even know it's a band T-shirt.

I have had it on since yesterday so should probably take it off soon.

what's the band?

Skrewdriver

Ha. A Swedish indiepop band called Aerospace.

good name/word for t-shirt

i am wearing my robyn t-shirt today!

message for all youse: "i am a 'top 5' kind of person"

back to the guardian...

has anyone else had problems viewing the site this week? nothing (that i know of) has changed on my computer and suddenly instead of a nice clean page, i have just text and links, all in the same size New York font. (and the Guardian is the only place this is true, so I feel like they must have changed something).

the GUARDIAN is good, second only to the BBC

xpost

yes. chinese hackers innit.

Today's free thing: a cut out and assemble yourself model of the Empire State Building.

So in answer to the question, no, apart from the lower case 'g' on the new masthead.

2pm (now playing: Mark Kozelek moaning about some shit):

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2411/1654704013_f0762c363d.jpg

3.30pm (now playing: Happy End, much better):

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2354/1655585806_e112b84d31.jpg

This is really tedious but I have to finish. It's about to get very fiddly. I need a cup of tea. World's shittiest liveblog.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2354/1655585806_9ee35fe917.jpg

7pm:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2229/1657319085_039a52afe6.jpg

It's like my time has no value to me.

This strikes me as a noble way to pass it, though.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2190/1714521192_2c763aaa31.jpg

I win again!

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ruth_fowler/2008/03/the_antichrist_for_feminists.html

A+++++++++ trolling well done guardian u win

I stood on the edge of that enormous comments thread with a sense of trepidation I haven't felt since standing on the edge of the top diving board at the swimming pool aged nine. And then decided to walk back down the virtual ladder, straight back into the changing room, and back home.

Ruth Fowler was born in 1979 and grew up in the mountains of North Wales. She received a first class BA (Hons) in English Literature from Cambridge University in 2000. She is sure they let her in as the token comprehensive school northerner.

After a year teaching in Buenos Aires and three months in India, she returned to King’s College, Cambridge to complete an MPhil. However, realising that she would rather be living life than reading about it, she finished her thesis on Bollywood films within six months and went to live in Nepal.

Post-Nepal, she travelled the world eking out a living from writing, teaching, sailing, cooking and begging. Ruth lived in Argentina, the South of France, the Alps, Florida, the Caribbean and Central America before finding herself in New York in January 2005, penniless and without a visa.

She has worked as a stripper in Manhattan and London, and her book, No Man's Land - about " the murky territory where eroticism and commerce collide" - is due to be published in the UK in June.

This is a made-up character, right?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/eastenders/images/characters_cast/characters/ruth_f/ruth_fowler_large_1.jpg

"But Mark, we cann'ae afford it!"

Man, Eastenders was my shit back in 98/99.

According to Mark's speech to Sharon in his last episode, he only had sex with Ruth once or maybe twice in the course of their whole marriage. No wonder she played away with that rubbish Irish lothario.

This reminds me of many articles about people who have done all right and would like to justify their wealth to people who haven't done all right. I'm not sure what the purpose of such articles is, unless it is for some form of...validation?

Ruth Fowler: she made a g today, but she made it in a sleazy way.

quality shit:

http://img378.imageshack.us/img378/1603/hadleydv9.png

The article was a bit TL;DR, the bits I read, the writer's style/manner was too annoying to concentrate on what she was on about "working class scouser, me, call a spade a spade, like" seemed to be the gist of it?

My father, a right-wing scouser

AKA scum of the earth

key line:

I started to think of feminism more when what I was doing in life became unconditionally anti-feminist. I was grinding cock for a living in a strip club, getting my tits out - c'mon, there's no way around it. I was even more the antichrist for feminists. And suddenly I was heralded as a Messiah for Modern Women!

by?

also lols at blog: that famous, pre-9/11, NYC skyline...

"working class scouser, me, call a spade a spade, like"

-- Pashmina, Monday, March 31, 2008 9:22 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Julie Birchill RIP

by?

Max Gogarty

It's weird she mentions her father so much because you wouldn't have thought someone who worked in the sex industries would have any issues that way.

Roffle.

I tried to read the entire article, couldn't make it through it, it is really very badly written.

I got the impression that if you met the writer IRL, they'd be really boring and whiny.

Also, I hate this steez "I am really stupid and obnoxious and full of shit, and I'm going to rub your face in it because I think that makes me more "real"/"interesting"/"whatever"(::rollseyes.gif::) than you, little person"

Yes, the Guardian is much worse than it used to be. Kind of like CH4, really.

If you could buy it without G2 or any of the supplements, it might concievably be worth picking up again.

Have you considered just throwing G2 away or burning it or never bothering to ever read it?

Careful there Pash, she'll get her father on to you (xxp)