Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

I honestly don't know why you all bother reading her week in week out.

It doesn't help that it seems like so much unnecessary effort to me because her prose is like wading through treacle.

wading through treacle is so historically british though

nowadays people wade through semen

Churchill, maiden aunts riding bicycles, cricket on the village green, wading through lakes of treacle.

nowadays people wade through semen

― Local Garda, Tuesday, 7 April 2009 13:54 (21 seconds ago) Bookmark

Or so the gay mafia would have us do.

It would be really thrilling to read something like NickB's or pinefox's LB parodies, in a newspaper? I mean, as writing, not parody?

Churchill, maiden aunts riding bicycles, cricket on the village green, wading through lakes of treacle.

http://upperjames.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/dog.jpg

A+ since revive, folks

Most of the big shore places in Skegness are closed now and there are hardly any lights except the shadowy, moving glow of a fishing boat across the bay. And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old town here that flowered once for sailors' eyes - a fresh, green breast of the old world.

Its vanished teashops and cricket clubs had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of Skegness, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.

And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought "is this 600 words yet?".

^too well written!

I was flicking forlornly through a jumble of long forgotten digital TV channels, taking a simple joy in their oft-ignored wares, when I chanced upon a faded flick from my youth. A dapper Richard Gere strode proudly though Manhattan, his bride to be a hopeless whore. Pretty Woman, oh oh, as Orbison intoned many Christmases ago. This woman, a prostitute by trade, yet bravely sailing against that sea of sin to find a man fit to captain her in marriage. She, at times in leather trousers ressembling chaps and a lurid red rinse, yet never to succumb, and he the dead eyed businessman, never before in such seas, who yet knew the course to plot. As I watched, huddled in a blanket before my time, I reflected on love in an age of finance. We all have our individual ships to sail, and yet we know not, no nae never, whether we head towards hookers or schooners.

:D

>A+ since revive, folks

And across the misty waters of memory I heard a voice, distant at first but then more distinct: it was the voice of ILX past, the voice of The Pinefox, with those words that my made the hair on my neck prickle:

'On The Money'.

The mainly white barkeep who worked The Crow's Nest on Tuesdays and Thursdays - with the occasional Sunday when he hadn't much to do or was feeling the bite of recession - had come to feel that the MOT process in Skegness was becoming a bit of a disaster. Or so he said to this reporter as he vigorously wiped down the bar top with the same cloth he'd just been using on the ashtrays, an endearing custom that appeared - today, at least - to have survived the ravages of central government's neglect. As he continued speaking, using words to express his feelings, words which came from his mouth and went through the air towards me, I let my attention wander to the pansies in the window box. They were brave little pansies, thought I. And how different were they, really, from all the pansies that have ever striven in this corner of Britain to raise their meek faces to a sky that might have once contained the jangling rhythms of a jazz combo, or rained its quaint little raindrops down upon the heads of children who had never even heard of knife crime, let alone participated in it.

Did she talk to anyone except the sweetie man? Did she even go there? Or just google Skegness?

And her summing up?

...Britain has changed immeasurably in those 100 years. The sweets are ruder, the flower beds are newly planted, the song on the radio plays a different tune, but will we still find the Britain we remember?

Who? 100 year old people? No, they will undoubtedly find a different Britain to the one of 1908.

the song on the radio plays a different tune

huh?

hee

Radio was certainly different in 1908, can't quibble with that

alex song was playing the ukelele on radio 2

1909!

Britain has changed immeasurably in those 100 years. The sweets are ruder, the flower beds are newly planted, the song on the radio plays a different tune, but will we still find the Britain we remember?

I don't know, better ask Henry Allingham

http://www.portraits.co.uk/images/henry1.jpg

Radio then consisted of one channel, and the only programme was Marconi reminiscing about his childhood holidays to Skegness.

Visiting the Roman forts built by his ancestor Pansius Marconius

Still, it was better than Chris Moyles at least.

Back in the days before Django lost his fingers toasting a marshmallow penis on a peat fire.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/08/italy-earthquake-survivor-crochet

Last night, rescuers celebrated after a 20-year-old girl was found alive 42 hours after the quake under the rubble of a four-storey building ...

"Wahay, we've rescued a 20 year old girl!"

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v449/wendylady1/Fashion%20Police/Serpentine%20Gallery%20Summer%20Ball%202006/GraysonPerry.jpg

That's where the 'similarity' lies: If it hadn't been for that mobile phone vid, the "Police tried to rescue a man who fell in the crowd and got trampled to death" line would have held.

(xpost) Oops, our mistake, put back into rubble...

Is that normal phraseology in Britain? In America 20-year-old girls are usually called "women", or "young women" if you really want to emphasize how nubile they are.

Mmm, yup that's about it.

Usually with visions of their A-level results...

Seems kinda sexist cos you'd never talk about a 20-year-old boy without thinking of that Peter Pan guy off the internets or something.

"20-year-old woman" sounds kind of odd to me?

mostly her age just seems an unnecessary detail: could they not have said 'young woman' and left it at that?

Age is the ultimate unnecessary detail in most newspaper journalism though.

mentioning the 98-yr-old's age was pertinent.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/styleguide/g
girl
female under 18

Maybe someone who works there should read their styleguide instead of just trying to sell it to readers for some reason.

mostly her age just seems an unnecessary detail: could they not have said 'young woman' and left it at that?

― horses that are on fire (c sharp major), Wednesday, 8 April 2009 09:34 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Well, exactly.

For fuck's sake, people. We hacks don't necessarily have time to consult the style book for every word, especially with breaking news (and I speak as the author of two in-house style guides). In this instance, does it really matter at all? No.

Glad everyone's got so much to occupy their minds this morning. Jesus fucking wept.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v134/tracerhand/12304045985t78.gif

The truth is, though, that most of us in any everyday convo WOULD call a 20-year-old female a girl. I know females a lot older than that who are still happy to be referred to this way.

Radio then consisted of one channel, and the only programme was Marconi reminiscing about his childhood holidays to Skegness.

Stuart Marconi?

Totally yoinking that gif Tracer! haha.

should have mentioned if she has a boyfriend or not

The genius of Tracer's gif (which I'm going to link to, repeatedly) is drawing attention away from "Stuart Marconi". Wonderful.

Simon Jenkins attempts to counter an argument that no one has seriously made since 1963.

:/ He should stick to grandiose indictments of ossified central government, which he does better than anyone else I can think of.

Ditto Marcel Berlins writing about anything other than law, the latter of which I thought was supposed to be his brief, but instead he writes about, I dunno, these crazy milkshakes and iPods they got these days.

the ipod has eliminated the need for all simple pleasures. obviously jenkins must be culled. these are the tenets of modern society.

How this cretin escaped the directorate of hatcheries must be ascertained