Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

I didn’t expect to read such a powerful piece in the Guardian of all places, but here’s Eva Wiseman

Appreciate her criticising the phoneys behind antisemitism.org (enjoy your march today with Douglas Murray and Yaxley-Lennon) and hope for more.

tbf Yaxley-Lennon has just been physically removed from the march by the police because the organizers didn't want him there.

Captain-Save-The Nazis Murray is still there of course, I assume.

Wearing a blue shirt and dark raincoat, Boris Johnson was spotted talking to demonstrators who had come together in the UK's capital.

He joined other celebrities who attended on Sunday, including Tracy-Ann Oberman, Rachel Riley and Robert Rinder .

the only anti-racism march that Boris Johnson attends

Twitter might die and I know many of you will celebrate but I am not looking to consuming this rubbish.

Ah, Howard Jacobson returns. Let's look back on his interview with Spike Lee pic.twitter.com/IwOZaajyzQ

— Ashley Clark (@_Ash_Clark) December 3, 2023

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/dec/09/diana-rigg-assisted-dying-rachael-stirling-mother-cancer

There were a few bits of this that felt like being punched in the gut, but I'm glad I read it

xp I remember there being a decade or so between my becoming aware of Jacobson and assuming he was some sort of important public intellectual and my actually reading something he'd written

he had regular R4 short slot called a point of view, where he'd say things like: Woman that talk about and critique the patriarchy, whether they like it or not, it just sound like naive student politics to me and they need to grow up. That kind of public intellectual.

A Point Of View is an interesting mix of commentators, some good, some bad, some appalling, some tedious.

yeah I seem to have forgot it wasn't his show and he was just a frequently returning host

as we're on the guardian thread, did you see this today?

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/10/its-chaos-ruined-plans-lost-hours-at-uks-worst-station-for-cancelled-trains

wow they are rebuilding the dilapidated Ravensthorpe station - that is about 30 years too late! I used to have to commute on the transpennine express route, it's not just Hudds travellers that are long suffering. Even 15 years ago on many occasions I'd be sat on the platform for 45 minutes as a train got delayed and delayed, the running late minutes getting even later updates every 10 minutes. And then I'd end up losing a day's work after arriving at the station at 5.50 am.

there is a large newbuild homes site on a field just across the road from Ravensthorpe station, which is probably one reason why they've found some funding to make it a station. It was always quite ridic there wasn't an extra 2 platforms because the Wakefield line runs right next to it.

I used to see Brabin at Hudds station on the regular and she'd get on the same clunky pacer train towards Batley as me. This was when she used to be "her that used to be on Corrie" rather than a Labour Party melt/metropolitan mayor.

the one time I got the train to Huddersfield I was astonished at how clunky and old and slow the train was, and this was the spring of 1999.

the pacer train from Sheffield to Hudds takes longer than Leeds to London, well I haven't checked this tbh - but it certainly feels longer!

it really does. drags itself between stations.

but of course you are sitting on a bus on rails.

at least when it was dragging along it was actually moving, a few times I've been on one that had to stop and wait for something like 10 mins in some dark 19th century zone, until an express train had passed. Which was probably the express train to Leeds flying past you, the one you should have boarded but decided not to wait another half hour at Sheffield station for. Because waiting longer for a quicker train is a gamble that can go wrong!

The weird thing is that The Guardian are so nuts about remain still it's inconsistent for them. Few people would bang on about Brexit because it's already a year's past event that few mourn.

Fuck off, Guardian. pic.twitter.com/kkuzo67Zcz

— Ally Fogg (@AllyFogg) December 30, 2023

I, eh, don't think it's the remain clause there that's the reason for the tweet.

*leave

Not what I was trying to say. The guardian constantly write about Brexit now. A lot of it's own writers wouldn't accept leave-voting friends.

Zoe Williams, sorted for E's and wizz.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/02/how-can-keir-starmer-win-big-this-year-by-leading-with-love-and-ambition

ok she's been on the crackpipe with Toynbee, but jfc

Has a weird sideline writing about Health & Fitness as well.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GD54mbYWkAAXj80?format=jpg&name=large

Zoe Williams, still on drugs

conservative hq taping that to the office bulletin board

not like the Graun to employ tendentious pronouns in a headline

The long read on Algs and coffee shops was just so boring I couldn't get v far with it basically bcz I was thinking "er, old skool greasy cafes had the same look in the 70s" or "ppl have been complaining about homogeneity forever"

New article by Phil Space.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/jan/18/ben-whishaw-as-nick-cave-score-some-leftfield-music-biopic-ideas-here

how to bring the worst movie genre to new depths of cringe, took me 5 minutes.

The words in the link are enough for me cheers

It's a shocker.

Ian Watkins biopic

Suggested star: Nick Cave Suggested director: Gaspar Noe

Farrelly Brothers my preference

A textbook example of Brexit Derangement Syndrome.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/24/keir-starmer-donald-trump-special-relationship

"It’s hard to imagine the vindictive despot and the former human rights lawyer enjoying a ‘special relationship’"

And if Keith ignores him then so what?

quite amusingly, Kieth refused to publicly endorse genocide Joe in 2020

I know Starmer agrees with bombing Yemen, not sure if Trump does. Possible conflict there

Trump seems way less bomby than Kieth in general

Https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/26/my-big-move-leaving-sydney-for-glasgow-suddenly-i-was-an-old-school-migrant-again

As one might expect of someone whose knowledge of Glasgow came entirely from Belle & Sebastian, this article seems fairly inoffensive and twee. Until, that is, we get to this howler:

Glasgow may be the most diverse city in Scotland but 88.3% of the population are Anglo-Saxon

... if it had been Edinburgh, fair enough.

Hmmmnnnyeah, if we're doing serious race science, lowland Scotland was settled by Saxons, and the language Scots is a branch of proto-English

But clearly much admixture with Picts and Gaels to form what eventually became the kingdom of Scotland.

<click>

Now, in this slide, observe the measurements of the half-breed Ibero-Celt/Saxon brain pan

The west of Scotland was not settled by Saxons.

... if we're going to be pedantic about it.

this is why I sent my DNA to a lab in Texas, I needed some scientific validation that says I'm NOT a fucking Anglo-Saxon!

I think you can take the author meaning Anglo-Saxon as "white" in this case