Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

(by which i mean: i rang him out of the blue, and he could very well have gone: "fuck off, son.")

Who here would say 'fuck off, son' if someone rang them at work seeking advice?

*looks round, expectantly*

maybe not the 'son' bit

pinefox: a lot of people working at music magazines would. ET wouldn't (and didn't, to me, over a decade ago) because he is a decent dude. he's also easily one of the best editors I've ever had the good fortune to have worked with, and still one of my favourite writers.

I spend my entire working life phoning up journalists I don't know for contacts and have never been told to fuck off. You'd be surprised how many go beyond the call of duty to help you out.

They're all dead inside, probably searching for someone to save them

DC is surely correct - most people want to be polite.

If someone rang me at work innocently seeking advice and I told them to fuck off, I would expect them to make a complaint and that I would be disciplined. It is just not professional behaviour and should not be tolerated. Do music journalists really behave this way? One of my best friends is a music journalist, and I can't imagine him doing it.

i was told countless times as a student that all journalists, esp music ones, were rude, socially inept backstabbers who'd tell you to fuck off if you even spoke to them, but i think there must have been a bit of ~projection~ going on there cuz most people i've had dealings with are lovely.

lex, you should meet some of my erstwhile colleagues.

personally, i've always tried to go out of my way to help people. but i've worked with hacks (and indeed still do) who wouldn't give a random caller the reek off their arse, let alone precious contact details.

pinefox: you might have noticed, from my posts passim, that i tend to swear a lot. i wouldn't necessarily have expected ET to say, word-for-word, "fuck off, son". however: i'm sure you can appreciate that there are 1001 ways to imply "fuck off, son", even very politely. what i'm getting at -- why in the hell am i actually spelling this out? jesus -- is that i was enormously impressed that one of the most respected music hacks of that time would go out of his way to help me out, given that he didn't have a clue who i was and i was calling him out of the blue at what could well have been his busiest time of day.

whatever line of work we're talking about, that kind of thing deserves respect.

pretty much all the editors i currently work with are sweethearts who reply to emails and are fun to chat with on the telephone. this is because i reached a point a while back when i realised that it just wasn't worth the bother of talking to the ones who were consistently rude or unhelpful. there were plenty of them, believe me.

I think the reason is that journalists just relish any opportunity to sound authoritative about something.

cf: ILM

Maybe I'm dead inside, but I *have* told an-unknown-person-who-called-me-at-work-seeking-advice to 'fuck off'. In my defence, I'd already spent a few minutes racking my brains to get them a number for the right person for their out-of-the-blue, inane query when they started complaining that I wasn't being helpful enough because I couldn't put them through directly

I think that pretty much anyone, in pretty much any line of work, should behave respectfully and politely towards a member of the public who politely and in good faith asks them a question. Perhaps there are exceptions to this rule (spies? bomb disposal experts? racing drivers?), but music journalists are certainly not among them. So no, I don't think that to give a polite and reasonable response deserves any special 'respect'.

Yet it is still possible to go beyond the call of duty (politeness / respect = duty here, I suppose); if a journo responded to a query by saying 'hey, why don't you come into the office one day, I'll take you out to lunch and we'll discuss all this?' - etc - then that would indeed be striking. Perhaps ET's behaviour on this occasion was indeed somehow helpful beyond the call of everyday respectfulness.

i don't think anyone is denying that people "should" be polite to aforementioned members of the public. we are discussing whether or not they "are".

I'll always help someone if I can. What I used to completely hate was TV researchers ringing our office looking for contacts or asking for input that ought to be paid for, and in those circumstances we were told to respectfully say that we were not sure what we could do to help.

Who here would say 'fuck off, son' if someone rang them at work seeking advice?

I would if it were nothing to do with the day job and they weren't willing to pay me for my advice (i.e. rubbish music journalists/PR types).

Or if they were not close family or friends.

What I used to completely hate was TV researchers ringing our office looking for contacts or asking for input that ought to be paid for, and in those circumstances we were told to respectfully say that we were not sure what we could do to help

exactly. and when i rang ET, i was no different, was i? i wasn't "a member of the public", pinefox -- i was a fellow hack who thought, fuckin' 'ell, i want to get hold of so-and-so. here, i bet that dude at melody maker has her number! *ring ring*, etc.

journalists tend to guard their contacts books fiercely, and rightly so. they're also -- no, really -- quite often really fucking busy. so had he said: "sorry, son, i'm really busy now, go away", i certainly wouldn't have complained.

stevie sums it up pretty much perfectly.

Saying you're busy or can't help right now is not the same as telling someone to fuck off.

But I am reviving this thread to say that I am thinking of BUYING the Guardian today!

Wd probably be better off buying a Snickers or sump'n. Happier too.

I'm relying on you to not know what a Snickers is here dude.

It's the new name for Marathon, if that helps.

yes, because of politically correct mandarins we must now refer to The Battle of Snickers.

And none of you meddling kids remember that Marathon was once the new name for Mike Reid's Triffic Bar.

"A peanut and a racist joke in every bite"

"It only ever kills its own eaters"

"mums love it. and it loves its mums."

Guardian front page splash:

It came so close to being remembered as the hockey mom election. But, doggone it, hockey moms will just have to wait another four years. The 2008 US presidential election belongs to just one man: Joe the Plumber. On Saturday Joe Wurzelbacher was, well, an ordinary Joe. Or to use a Sarah Palinism, a Joe Six Pack. Yesterday he woke to find himself transformed into an international phenomenon.

NOT a good start.

Also inside: an audience with Ricky Gervais.

An AUDIENCE?

It came so close to being remembered as the hockey mom election. But, doggone it, hockey moms will just have to wait another four years. The 2008 US presidential election belongs to just one man: Joe the Plumber. On Saturday Joe Wurzelbacher was, well, an ordinary Joe. Or to use a Sarah Palinism, a Joe Six Pack. Yesterday he woke to find himself transformed into an international phenomenon.

Why would anyone actively choose to write like this?

http://www.ianmacleod.com/site/uploads/1175181839.9252.jpg

This from the paper whose Guide last Saturday snarkily referred to "an exclusive interview with the elusive Ricky Gervais" on Jonathan Ross tonight.

You would be hard pushed to find anything snarkier than The Guide. Even N___ who I work with isn't as snarky and he's pretty damn snarky and snide. A perfect example of the non-directional cynicism that passes for thought with cut-rent trendies and is the counterweight to credulousness in the pans of the balance of stupidity.

And breathe.

I still get it for the TV though since it takes up less room than the Radio Times and doesn't have appalling Stuart Maconie column to make me wish for nuclear holocaust in five seconds.

I still get it and I wish to retract what I said about cut-rent trendies as it was absurdly pompous. This is because I am absurdly pompous. I still have to do my spastic ape impression round the room when reading it though, otherwise the levels of RAGE become uncontainable. It's mainly the little tv snippets - you know the sort - the ones that dare to presume they know what you think and what they think is the same as what... Hang on, I'm not putting this very well. Let me go and get a copy - there's bound to be an example -

'In an admirably ambitious series Simon Schama gives etc'
'Slightly misnomic title - as the man profiled here died almost a decade before Dubya's reign of error - but still a great docum... etc'
'De Sautoy wanders extensively across time and geography to demonstrate there's more to it [maths] than multiplication tables.'

Actually none of those quite hit it - but they gesture in the right direction.

'Tonally this takes its cues from Get Shorty and The Rockford Files.' Tonally?

Ah, here's a good one -

'The interest taken by mainstream Australia in the art of its indigenous peoples is a positive, if overdue, development.'

Oooh, aren't we perfect? This sort of right-on man-of-the-people bollocks really gets my dander up.

You would be hard pushed to find anything snarkier than The Guide.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/images/forest-for-the-trees.jpg

We've got a live one here.

I am happy to announce that on this occasion I totally agree with Carrie, Carlin and especially Gamaliel, whose description of non-directional cynicism and hatred of the BS TV previews is utterly spot-on and needs no apology.

Dave Simpson on the blog today literally blowing my head apart with his fresh original insight:

I was listening to Donna Summer's disco version of Macarthur Park the other night - a song that I must have heard a trillion times since its release in 1978 - when it suddenly hit me how silly the lyric is.

Maybe his next column will be about how "Ironic" by Morrisette isn't ironic.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/red/blue_pics/2008/09/11/dave_simpson.jpghttp://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/red/blue_pics/2008/09/11/dave_simpson.jpghttp://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/red/blue_pics/2008/09/11/dave_simpson.jpg

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/red/blue_pics/2008/09/11/dave_simpson.jpghttp://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/red/blue_pics/2008/09/11/dave_simpson.jpg

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/red/blue_pics/2008/09/11/dave_simpson.jpg

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/red/blue_pics/2008/09/11/dave_simpson.jpg http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/red/blue_pics/2008/09/11/dave_simpson.jpg

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/red/blue_pics/2008/09/11/dave_simpson.jpg http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/red/blue_pics/2008/09/11/dave_simpson.jpg http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/red/blue_pics/2008/09/11/dave_simpson.jpg

Maybe his next column will be about how "Ironic" by Morrisette isn't ironic.

That would be ironic, wouldn't it? oh wait...

"I was listening to the Sex Pistols' punk version of God Save The Queen - a song that I must have heard a trillion times since its release in 1978 - when it suddenly hit me how anti-Royalist the lyric is."

DAVE SIMPSON-A NORTHERN MUSIC CRITIC TM

Dave Simpson pictured on his way to sign on, there.

The lyric to Macarthur Park is perfectly understandable, btw.