Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

Amia didn't even link to it on her twitter so perhaps a mistake on her part. She would've known what The Observer are like.

Was very dispiriting reading people like Richard Williams linking to this yesterday.

You have to wait and work for ⁦@MsRachelCooke⁩’s payoff in this absorbing and beautifully written piece, but it’s worth it. https://t.co/AMmt63dJ6m

— Richard Williams (@rwilliams1947) August 8, 2021

I like Richard a lot but his politics are melty and I got that sense from him when I followed. Was one tweet out of a thousand and he was never aggressively pushing it. He is wise to butt out of it most of the time and concentrate on his beat.

It would've been great if most of his music writing pals had done the same.

I almost unfollowed him over some melty and plain wrong bullshit he posted about Sturgeon. But yeah he is basically a very nice guy and not one of the idiot aggro-melts and a decent music writer.

I know plenty of melts who still have no patience for terfdom tho. I guess you could argue he doesn't realise why this piece qualifies?

a lot of people just read the "oh my god disagreement is a dying luxury" bit and it tickles their melt pleasure centres so much they mayn't read the "also trans people shouldn't exist debate me"

can't read that Williams Tweet as anything but solidarity with terfdom tho tbh

That para did include guff about 'equality', generalising about others, stuff that if you weren't aware of how this debate operates on twitter you'd lamely like the look of.

I don't think Williams has a toilet obsession, is how I break it down.

Oh god, that’s lovely of you. Thank you. I hope others are as patient

— Rachel Cooke (@MsRachelCooke) August 8, 2021

Ugh.

does green heart white heart purple heart emoji mean "I'm a terf" ?

sorry I guess it means gEnDeR cRiTiCaL rmde

yes it's from the suffragette flag colours lol

Green - Give
White - Women
Violet - Votes

They aren’t allowed to used suffragette colours for terfiness, I ban them from it.

Sometimes they have an avi with a heart featuring the suffragette colours in stripes.

trans women are women

Problem is I've seen plenty of "not transphobic but not involved in trans liberation" feminists with those colours up too. They've co-opted what was a positive symbol, and there will be people who don't know about the co-option. Definitely worth double-checking if you see it, though.

yeah i've seen that and its all v confusing

anyway these people (terfs) are such weirdos. who knows what they're on about most of the time. They start talking in weird tones about 'sex classes' and lesbians being attracted to vaginas (i had thought sexual attraction was at least somewhat more nuanced than that) and 'male-bodied' people. i would definitely say 'dud'.

I lurk on Mum$n3t sometimes to my eternal shame, the feminism sub-board is basically wall-to-wall ranting about either changing rooms access or public figures who must be regarded as traitors if they haven't expressed searing hatred for anyone not espousing binary gender opinions. All very odd.

There does seem to be something slightly unhinged about transphobia.

Readers and fellow authors had been critical on Goodreads and Twitter of descriptions in the memoir, including the use of racial tropes such as “chocolate-coloured skin” and “almond-shaped eyes”, and references to one student as “African Jonathon” and another being “so small and square and Afghan with his big nose and premature moustache”.

Another passage was highlighted for the inclusion of ableist descriptions, in which Clanchy, a poet and teacher, refers to two autistic children as “unselfconsciously odd” and “jarring company”, and writes “probably, more than an hour a week” in their company “would irritate me, too, but for that hour I like them very much”.

kudos to the Orwell Prize jury for awarding one to this Kate Clanchy book and Picador for publishing this racist/disablist garbage.

earlier clanchychat: Literary Clusterfucks 2013

ah yes the failure of the publishers to either not gaf or not notice what kind of content they are putting out is understandable in this era. The Orwell Prize jury on the other hand, they allegedly read this and considered it a prizeworthy book. Oh and of course now Lionel Shriver has waded in to defend this trash.

failure the wrong word there but u know what I mean

you could be forgiven for wondering if Clanchy has even read her own book here

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/16/i-used-to-tut-at-people-who-need-glasses-to-read-a-menu-then-i-joined-them-

I used to be a twat completely lacking in empathy! It's a Chiles format headline but he'd never be so crass.

that's psychotic

Yes, it's appalling.

Meanwhile:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/17/talibans-victory-afghanistan-laid-bare-western-hubris

In the shadow of New York’s burning twin towers, I was one swept along on that “something must be done” tide, that drumbeat for a war to stop terror and liberate oppressed people.

It's curious that history has repeatedly proven Jeremy Corbyn MP right, prudent and sensible about things, and the same people who were wrong get to go on calling him an irresponsible extremist.

xxp just saw on Twitter that Zoe Williams also used to believe hayfever didn't exist.

jay raynor's latest observer review made me chuckle, though i have zero sympathy for people who eat at such a place tbh

oh it was of 'polo lounge' in london.

jay rayner increasingly enraged as every dish arrives covered in polos

"A £38 bowl of rigatoni bolognese has a grimly sweet and cloying sauce that tastes mostly of tomato ketchup and profit."

Paying £38 for a bowl of bolognese is about boasting about the price you paid for it and nothing else. It's very clickbaity to write about it in the first place.

Probably a liveblogging artifact but this paragraph is something:

Besides the US, the 227 nations in the EU and the UK, the statement was co-signed by Albania, Argentina and Australia, as well as Brazil, Canada and Chile. Colombia, Costa Rica and Ecuador were also signatories, as were El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. Added to them were North Macedonia, New Zealand and Norway, as well as Paraguay, Senegal and Switzerland.

love to liveblog on amphetamines

lol

This is pathetic even by Guardian middle-class whinge standards

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2021/aug/14/there-is-holiday-hell-and-then-there-is-self-catering

Holiday Hell = having to provide your own condiments and travelling 20 mins to the nearest Tesco. Jesus

"Needless to say, the nearest Tesco is 20 minutes’ drive"

sympathy rating zero

shit it used to be a half hour walk to the nearest Tescos in Newquay, but it was a fun walk - because you are on holiday!

and bringing lots of wine, beer and horrible readymeals back to the caravan feels good.

the worst thing for me about this for me is (and I suspect many others) that I haven't had a holiday since 2010 and really don't want to see performative whinging by smug m-c pricks.

"20 minutes’ drive"

They have a car! Incredible.

if it's all about convenience then just stay at home, or get an air B n B that is in a flat above a Onestop.

and bringing lots of wine, beer and horrible readymeals back to the caravan feels good.

the guardian published some really shitty sentences about afghanistan over the last couple of weeks, though i suppose everyone else did, too

Suzy on the politics thread pointed out a Guardian interview with Apsana Begum MP. I've now seen it.

I don't have a general view on the case, but Suzy was entirely correct to note how the interviewer spends a lot of time harassing ms Begum for living in a council house.

This is very bad as:
a) it fails to understand principles and benefits of universal provision (one of which is that policymakers should live in council housing and then might care about it more)
b) the interview is about how ms Begum was harassed about her home, and proceeds to ... harass her about how she should leave her home!

It's outrageous.

Leftwing outsider Sharon Graham elected as Unite union leader
Keir Starmer likely to be pleased with union’s choice of successor to Len McCluskey

Sure, Graun

hah hah trying in vain to distance Kieth from the stench of defeat

It's Orwellian, somebody should write a book