Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

I think some kind of remainer tactical alliance version of the nose peg thing

it will promote a coalition of the LDs and the Strokes

Kettle was bumming swinson the other day and telling everyone to vote for her, whilst also admitting the libdems brexit stance is idiotic, unworkable and their stance on austerity is unchanged from 2010 - yay go libdems!

Anyone read this today?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/sep/14/alaric-bamping-brexit-party-my-far-left-ex-boyfriend-harriet-sherwood

I suspected it might go one particular way and mention one particular name and was surprised to be dead right

We briefly discussed it in the British politics thread.

did not know that eric hobsbawm's daughter works in PR

Alaric Bamping straight out of the Fighting Baseball roster.

A few days ago The Guardian ran a profile of Constance Wu, from "Crazy Rich Asians":
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/sep/10/constance-wu-interview-hustlers

The article is illustrated with a photo of her in the show - but originally it was a miscaptioned picture of Sonoya Mizuno, her co-star. That must have been an awkward moment in the newspapers editorial offices, given a recent news story about an Australian magazine mixing up a Sudanese-Australian and a Ugandan model:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-49471886

The moderators almost immediately closed the discussion and promoted a couple of neutral "she's fab" messages as the featured comments, so that unless you dig into the comments you might not realise what happened.

Shall we poll this one as well?

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/sep/17/the-best-visual-art-of-the-21st-century

Expected The Clock to be number one. The actual number one sounds annoying but you never know.

It happens to be the only one I've seen of the lot and it was in fact quite good!

lol so tacky "top 20 shows that were in london or at a major bienniale"

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/sep/19/american-airlines-aairpass-golden-ticket

Absolute state of this.

We start with a sympathetic subject.

In 1987, amid a lucrative year as a Bear Stearns stockbroker, my father became one of only a few dozen people on earth to purchase an unlimited, lifetime AAirpass. A quarter of a million dollars gave him access to fly first class anywhere in the world on American for the rest of his life.

For several years, the revenues department at American had been monitoring my father and other AAirpass holders to see how much their golden tickets were costing the airline in lost revenue. After 20 years, it seems, they’d decided the pass wasn’t such a good idea. My father was one of several lifetime, unlimited AAirpass holders American claimed had breached their contracts.

Feel like there might be some clues elsewhere about this

Often he’d leave in the morning for a business trip, fly back, and I hadn’t even known he’d left.

I’m not sure how compelling this is as an argument tbh

A few months later, my father sued American for breaking their deal, and more importantly, taking away something integral to who he was.

I just...am not feeling the loss here.

“Steven got on a plane like most people get on a bus,” says my mom, Nancy Rothstein, who was married to my father for 36 years.

I’m not sure this paints quite the picture of him she’d like

Through it all, he continued flying. Everywhere. Airports and airplanes – they were who Dad was.

So normal!

Ernie Thurmond, a former American employee who handled Dad’s AAirpass contracts, helped with adding some special stipulations. My parents decided early on to take separate planes so that in the unlikely event of a crash, at least one of them would be alive for their three children. So the agreement amendment stated: “If spouse is the companion, the spouse will be allowed to travel separately from Holder, provided that the spouse travels on the flight immediately prior to or just after the flight taken by Holder.” My parents wouldn’t fly on the same plane for at least a decade after that.

I cbf pasting anymore, but seriously.

also being celebrated on the quiddities thread.

'This story originally appeared on the digital storytelling platform Narratively.'

yeah this article is total dogshit - there was a bit of chat about it on the quiddities & agonies of the nyt thread earlier today

just incredible that a sob story about this rich asshole who abused the most environmentally-destructive form of travel is appearing on the same day the grauniad is giving blanket coverage to the climate protests

lol i read quite a lot of that thinking wtf is this. a rambling plea for a stratospherically privileged father who, even on the basis of the article, via the special pleading of his journalist daughter, has clearly fraudulently abused the terms of his ticket. what an utter shitshow.

Outrage is lucrative.

Ty I will look in the quiddities thread!

It’s so tone deaf! Like when she talks about how there’s no difference between economy and first class, or how she was “socialised to fly first class”.

That's exactly why it was published. Not quite clickbait, technically speaking, but…

Same underlying logic as this in some ways:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/sep/20/monogamous-man-in-a-three-way-relationship

There’s even a photo of him in a rickshaw being pulled by another man :-/

Not to defend the piece - not least because it really was a ramble but it was interesting how the abuse of the ticket came this justification via depression and death. It was what kept me for a lot longer than I should have.

"For 20 years, he was one of American’s top fliers, accumulating more than 30 million miles, which he acquired every time he flew, even with the AAirpass."

Does this refer to an AirMiles loyalty reward system kind of thing? Otherwise I don't understand 'which he acquired every time he flew'.

I think so because he was giving the miles to other people.

It's just sad on every level, that poor airline, that poor stockbroker, so many broken lives

That was confusing. Because now if you fly for free you don't accrue miles. They have a thing now where it's based on segments, dollars spent and/or qualifying miles.

meh... I once managed to acquire a 12 month free travel Metro Card when I was working on a contract to fit LED lighting to all the bus stops in w yorkshire #kingofbusmiles

Still reading but "They claimed that his “fraudulent usage” included booking empty seats for his companion feature under “Bag Rothstein” or “Steven Rothstein Jr” (which they had for years condoned, and Mom says was not Dad’s idea), as well as “booking speculative reservations” – ie, flight reservations he was allegedly never planning to actually take."

FFS!

I won't finish reading that, but does it explain anywhere why this retired stockbroker can't just use his fucking money to fly everywhere all the time now?

I couldn't finish it either. It's off the chain.

It's the obvious question, isn't it.

guardian literally ripping off youtuber content now are they

i.e. there was a wendover productions/half as interesting video on this very topic...yesterday? maybe a total coincidence idk

I think the piece was initially published on Narratively in July.

I finally finished this. The guy seems to always have had massive problems that money could hide. So cringey that he would call the reservations number to chat for an hour and then feel compelled to make a reservation to hide it. His entire life was so delusional, thinking you are having authentic experiences while traveling first class, staying first class and buying peoples' gratitude and adulation.

curious as to why they are doing 21st century arts roundups in september of 2019. why now?

I thought the same!

They know something about the Mayans that we don't.

well, most of us

*knowing postapocalyptic nod*

unacceptable that airlines are limiting my right to all the gold tophats tickets i might want

It would've been cheaper for American to just have hired a therapist the reservation number could've routed his calls to.

how many gold tophats does it take to exceed your baggage allowance?

Have you booked a free seat under the name of your fictitious son or not?

it's not hand luggage if it's on yr head tappingtemple.gif

Matt D’Ancona sacked by The Guardian, reportedly for not being sufficiently right-wing.

announce guido

They'll call him back when Ruth Davidson becomes PM

No really, I'd do the gig, for my usual rates.

— Guido Fawkes (@GuidoFawkes) September 22, 2019

He’s like those never trumper columnists in the US. Constituencies of, at most, dozens of people but massively over represented in the op ed section of liberal papers. They allow centrists to feel warm and fuzzy about there being adults in the room on “both sides” and nothing changes. 100% fine with him being fired and replaced with someone whose views are consistent with modern mainstream conservatism (I a headbanger).