Never forget that Jackie took the Ireland squad to Harry Ramsdens for a massive fish-eating contest the night before a crucial Euro 96 qualifier. He was a Harry Ramsdens shareholder.
― Matt DC, Tuesday, 14 July 2020 15:21 (three years ago) link
From Niall Quinn's autobiography:
"We all shuffled into Harry Ramsden’s. Jack is a shareholder. Packie or Paul or somebody cut a ribbon and officially opened the place. So the night before the game, after a week of drink, I settled down to fish and chips. Garry Kelly took the Harry Ramsden’s Challenge and ate a fish about a yard long and a mountain of chips and anything else they challenged him with. He thought there’s be a certificate but he got a free desert instead, which he duly ate. Jack herded us out pronto. Twenty minutes later, it’s dusk at Lansdowne Road and we’re all waddling about the pitch, groaning, full of fish and chips and trying to do a training session the night before this must-win game. We’re burping and farting and creased over with laughter. Our main thought was it’s been a happy era and it’s ending soon…Sometimes you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. It was all over for Jack."
― Matt DC, Tuesday, 14 July 2020 15:22 (three years ago) link
"Both of them would have taken an empty symbolic gesture today without thinking" sheesh
― anvil, Tuesday, 14 July 2020 15:23 (three years ago) link
Garry Kelly took the Harry Ramsden’s Challenge and ate a fish about a yard long and a mountain of chips and anything else they challenged him with. He thought there’s be a certificate but he got a free desert instead
not lolled so hard in weeks!
― calzino, Tuesday, 14 July 2020 15:29 (three years ago) link
One of the worst Guardian arts articles in a long time.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jul/14/writer-lockdown-diary-amy-sackville-creative-writing
― the pinefox, Wednesday, 15 July 2020 08:53 (three years ago) link
I'm sure I've read worse, my eyes just sort of glazed over really, I feel like I've read fifty variants on that since lockdown started.
There should be a nationwide ban on the phrase 'sourdough starter' by now, as well as columnists telling people they aren't reading Proust. The overwhelming majority of humanity isn't reading Proust right now.
― Matt DC, Wednesday, 15 July 2020 09:31 (three years ago) link
It's harmless, not actively bad or evil, but we've seen way too many of these flimsy diary-type stories, that's for sure.
― Scampidocio (Le Bateau Ivre), Wednesday, 15 July 2020 09:33 (three years ago) link
pretty sure the broadsheets live for flimsy diary-type stories even when there isn't a pandemic
― Mein Skampf (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 15 July 2020 09:36 (three years ago) link
The 'article' summarized: "I can't write because I'm not reading, but this isn't about writers block, because I'm not even trying to write. But - and here's the kicker you DID NOT see coming - I wrote this, natch!"
― Scampidocio (Le Bateau Ivre), Wednesday, 15 July 2020 09:40 (three years ago) link
oh so 'sourdough starter' isn't a euphemism for going for a dump, well you live and you learn.
― calzino, Wednesday, 15 July 2020 09:45 (three years ago) link
gyac - thanks for that bit of info.
I wonder what a diary of someone who doesn't know whether they'll have a job or be able to make rent looks like.
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 15 July 2020 09:55 (three years ago) link
Don't be daft, who'd want to to read that?
― Mein Skampf (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 15 July 2020 09:59 (three years ago) link
I'm going to do a fictional diary of the internal life I imagine my cleaner lives in, if they were a sentient human being. And include how grateful for my money they are and how much colour I bring into their monochrome joyless life.
― calzino, Wednesday, 15 July 2020 10:04 (three years ago) link
At 10:35 on an early summer's morning, John Lanchester sat down at his study desk, switched on his new Dell computer, opened up the word processing programme that the computer had come with and began
― Matt DC, Wednesday, 15 July 2020 10:07 (three years ago) link
The illustration for that article certainly seems a little...gratuitous?
― fetter, Wednesday, 15 July 2020 10:09 (three years ago) link
The Guardian announces it’ll be laying off 180 people - 70 from editorial - after coronavirus smacks £25m from bottom line. We’re all starting to move on from the furlough, sandbag-period of the crisis. https://t.co/4ooydn7z6Z— Mark Di Stefano (@MarkDiStef) July 15, 2020
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 15 July 2020 10:59 (three years ago) link
Just sack Chiles
― nashwan, Wednesday, 15 July 2020 11:00 (three years ago) link
Saddly it won't be him or the Suzanne Moore types that are going to fuck off.
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 15 July 2020 11:15 (three years ago) link
Fetter: precisely. Ludicrous illustration really.
― the pinefox, Wednesday, 15 July 2020 11:20 (three years ago) link
re the author of the bad diary column: she is paid to be a creative writer by the University of Kent, so it is not great (eg for her colleagues) for her to publish a whimsical article in national media talking about how she's not writing.
It's a bit like a plumber writing an article saying he's not plumbing - not because contracts have dried up during the crisis, but just because he doesn't feel like it.
The University of Kent has just been announced as one of the 10 UK universities in most financial danger of closure.
― the pinefox, Wednesday, 15 July 2020 11:23 (three years ago) link
180 people to leave Guardian -- how many work for it in the first place ?? I mean that must be 25% of its payroll or something?
― the pinefox, Wednesday, 15 July 2020 11:24 (three years ago) link
Would still prefer reading this than what they published now tbh
― Scampidocio (Le Bateau Ivre), Wednesday, 15 July 2020 11:28 (three years ago) link
pinefox & lbi otm
― The Fields o' Fat Henry (Tom D.), Wednesday, 15 July 2020 11:38 (three years ago) link
plumbers invariably have very amusing anecdotes about getting sprayed with human shit, some guardian writers figuratively spray shit at their dwindling audience!
― calzino, Wednesday, 15 July 2020 11:40 (three years ago) link
the guardian financial plan in full:
i: sack yet more subs and fact-checkers ii: crowdsource corrections factual grammatical and lol stylistic to twitter iii: scream non-stop abt "cancel culture" when said corrections roll in
― mark s, Wednesday, 15 July 2020 11:46 (three years ago) link
iv: get more writers in to write about how they're not writingv: add nude pictures to said articlesvi: profit
― Scampidocio (Le Bateau Ivre), Wednesday, 15 July 2020 11:47 (three years ago) link
vii: go tits up anyway
― The Fields o' Fat Henry (Tom D.), Wednesday, 15 July 2020 11:48 (three years ago) link
graunlyfans
― mark s, Wednesday, 15 July 2020 11:52 (three years ago) link
Close the Observer pay spell checkers you cowards!
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 15 July 2020 12:16 (three years ago) link
You could have John Harris ambushing your nan in the high street, or you could have this. It’s not even a choice. pic.twitter.com/5GvoCCL6Se— Elvis Buñuelo (@Mr_Considerate) July 15, 2020
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 15 July 2020 12:56 (three years ago) link
i don’t know alan partridge, how do snails get up to the fourth floor
― THE LEFT (Autumn Almanac), Wednesday, 15 July 2020 13:13 (three years ago) link
come on ppl, they use the ESCARGOLATOR
― mark s, Wednesday, 15 July 2020 13:21 (three years ago) link
give me this man's bad column
― mark s, Wednesday, 15 July 2020 13:22 (three years ago) link
You are not dating the editor.
― Scampo di tutti i Scampi (ShariVari), Wednesday, 15 July 2020 13:29 (three years ago) link
Oh right is that with it is lol
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 15 July 2020 13:30 (three years ago) link
can't wait to read more copied-and-pasted press releases in the news pages of the slimmed-down grauniad
― scampo, foggy and clegg (bizarro gazzara), Wednesday, 15 July 2020 13:33 (three years ago) link
Before tweeting "learn to code" at a journalist worrying about losing their job you should learn basic fucking human decency.— James Ball (@jamesrbuk) July 15, 2020
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 15 July 2020 15:11 (three years ago) link
NEW: The Guardian is to cut 180 jobs, including 70 in editorial. Equates to 12pc of roles across the company. Revenues are expected to be down by "well over £25m" compared with pre-Covid budgets as advertising, recruitment, events and print circulation come under pressure.— Chris Williams (@cg_williams) July 15, 2020
The Guardian’s challenge: 2015 total staff costs were £123.9m. Last year after turnaround plan, hundreds of voluntary redundancies and tens of millions of pounds of restructuring costs: £124.1m. 🤷♂️— Chris Williams (@cg_williams) July 15, 2020
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Wednesday, 15 July 2020 15:12 (three years ago) link
Ah, basic fucking human decency, the hallmark of the journalist's trade
― Mein Skampf (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 15 July 2020 15:19 (three years ago) link
How does Chiles get to 'date' people? It's grotesque.
― the pinefox, Wednesday, 15 July 2020 15:35 (three years ago) link
Would the Guardian cuts not include coders?
― nashwan, Wednesday, 15 July 2020 15:44 (three years ago) link
I wish James Ball would do literally anything other than journalism
― Neil S, Wednesday, 15 July 2020 15:48 (three years ago) link
oof
Update: Saturday edition to bear brunt of Guardian editorial cuts. The Guide, Weekend, Review and Travel print sections all to be closed, replacement TBA. Elsewhere parts of sport and lifestyle depts to be reduced. Plans to introduce “truly digital-first” editorial processes.— Chris Williams (@cg_williams) July 15, 2020
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Wednesday, 15 July 2020 17:11 (three years ago) link
So less reasons to read it. Not that I like it's arts coverage but at least it isn't it's political coverage (which it mirrors but still..)
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 15 July 2020 18:34 (three years ago) link
Lifestyle section only reduced?
― The Fields o' Fat Henry (Tom D.), Wednesday, 15 July 2020 18:40 (three years ago) link
Oof indeed.
― santa clause four (suzy), Wednesday, 15 July 2020 19:07 (three years ago) link
It strikes me that one of the problems faced by left-leaning media not faced by the right is that a lot of the potential readers see it as a betrayal when publications run pieces they disagree with.— Jonn Elledge (@JonnElledge) July 15, 2020
Lol, if only that were true rather than treating left/-leaning people with contempt
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 15 July 2020 20:07 (three years ago) link
Not sure what left-leaning media he's talking about
― Mein Skampf (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 15 July 2020 20:09 (three years ago) link
maybe that one that runs bullshit stories on behalf of GCHQ and ran something like 1600 smear pieces on a centre-left LOTO.
― calzino, Wednesday, 15 July 2020 20:13 (three years ago) link
the Lib Dem newspaper of record? nah it can't be them
― Mein Skampf (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 15 July 2020 20:16 (three years ago) link