Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

Funnily enough, I quite like the Guide, partly because Joe Queenan and Byron Coley sometimes write for it, partly because it means I no longer have to buy that useless piece of toss Time Out anymore.

1. The simplification of the accusation may just echo what it asserts about the target (just as 'Dumbing Down' is a dumb, dull phrase);

2. If I don't like Triviality, why don't I read nothing but 10-page reports from the former Yugoslavia? It would be hypocritical of me to say that I simply wanted them to be SERIOUS and SOLEMN and RESPONSIBLE all the time. No, that's not it.

What I mean, I suppose, is that too many features, esp. in G2, now look dashed-off - half-hearted, half-baked, unconvincing, just cliché pies really. Today's Lara Croft piece was just the latest of a million examples. It feels (the terms are problematic here, I know) JOURNALISTIC in a bad way - trite, unconsidered, full of crowd- pleasing Received Ideas - rather than JOURNALISTIC in a good way (that is: dogged, resourceful, brave, mentally agile, snappy and what have you).

It's the world of second-hand Lifestyle phrases that bugs me. The way that adults can still write a phrase like "*that* dress" and not hang their heads in shame.

A rider to all my bile, though, is that my previous, more impressed impressions of the Guardian may just reflect youthful impressionability. (Sentence!) Maybe the same kind of crap used to impress me that now feels rubbishy, faux-zeitgeisty and embarrassing? Maybe, but I suspect it's a bit of both.

I agree about Queenan too. But most of all, I agree about Thomson. There's almost no point having a thread about Thomson, because people who know what they think about him already know it all and would just send in superlatives.

What the paper still has going for it: George Monbiot's column, the Diary, Steve Bell, giving review space to Ians Sansom and Penman, and the tv columns of Nancy Banks-Smith. (When N B-S finally pops her clogs I will have to think very hard about buying the paper.)

What is leading the paper ever closer to the abyss: consistently terrible pop coverage (honorable exceptions: Maddy Costa, Betty Clarke); the fatuous new Saturday mag (Zoe Ball on dressing? match the celebrity with the pet? that awful woman talking about words that should be banned??); Charlotte bloody Raven.

I agree with you there. They sucker you in with the G2 front cover (and the masthead of the main paper), but when you get to read the cover story it often appears cobbled together and lightweight. I imagine it must be difficult to fill that space with high quality stories day in day out though.

I actually like Peter Preston's awkward, staccato opinion pieces, come to think of it. But not the pompous ones of Hugo Young. Freedland is sometimes good at summing political issues up, but usually he 'sums up' too much - there's too much glibness in the way he marshals it all. (I admit again, though, that it's easy - even glib - to call someone glib.)

Penman strikes me as a red herring. I can see that he doesn't do that to you, cos you have some kind of investment in his career. I agree about Sansom (great left-back, mean penalty, blah blah) - in fact I think that the whole Saturday book reviews section is quite possibly the best feature of the paper. EXCEPT of course the footy. Heroes? How could I forget David Lacey?

BUT I think that you are wrong about N B-S. It doesn't surprise me that older folk make that judgement about her; it does rather surprise me coming from you. She has skills, I guess, but she's terribly repetitive; uses the same lines on the same topics year in year out. It's all too - yes - glib and easy, while dressed up to look aged and thus wise.

I only read it for the Guide and the job listings. Not that either has been particularly helpful lately... ;-)

There's a lot of irritating stuff, yes. My favourite columnist is George Monbiot, by a mile. Something I like about the Independent when I do get it is that its liberalism is less metropolitan and more about the common good. Needless to say, though, the Guardian's series of articles on public service under that very title were awesome.

Today's G2 seems designed to add fuel to my (f)ire: one page of 'Style' after another, including a column on Why We're So Disappointed That Madonna Employs A Stylist.

Also good in Guardian: John Patterson re. cinema.

oh god, ask hadley today is just... tooth-grinding.

"today"

"At what age is a man too old to wear band T-shirts?"

Martin McCall, by email

"About 15 - that young enough for you, Martin? And to follow one rhetorical question with several more, what in God's name is the point of band T-shirts anyway? To show your allegiance to a band? Do you think anyone else cares? To impress onlookers with your esoteric musical knowledge? See previous reply. To make people stare at your bony chest? Again, I refer you to the first answer. To show that you once attended a live gig? Wow, like, a pair of golden headsets to the guy in the Nirvana '91 T-shirt. In case you happen to bump into the lead singer on the street, he sees that the two of you are kindred souls and therefore invites you to join his band and you then go on the road and have all the manly bonding sessions followed by groupies that your heart could desire? OK, I'll give you that one, although this does suggest that you still harbour the fantasy that you might bump into Joey Ramone in Waterstone's.

"As for ladies in band T-shirts, give me a fricking break. First, gals, a badly cut, poorly made, oversized T-shirt is good for nothing other than wearing to bed and the gym. Second, too often women who wear band T-shirts appear to be going for what we shall call Groupie Chic. It is a style amply modelled by Kate Moss in recent years, and can pretty much be summed up as skinny faded black jeans, ankle boots, a ripped band T-shirt and a cropped fur jacket. In other words, a girlified version of Marc Bolan's or Keith Richards' wardrobe, as though the woman has been so busy, um, sleeping on the band bus she hasn't had time to clean her clothes, so she's now wearing ones belonging to her musical companion. This column has no time for such nonsense."

Yeah, because women have *no* interest in music whatsoever except for sleeping with musicians. What CENTURY is this cretin from?

I think I stopped wearing band T-shirts by the time I was 23. It wasn't necessarily a conscious move tho. I doubt I will ever wear one again tho - I guess it seems lame unless it's an old obscure or overlooked thus hip act (even this I dunno about). I don't notice many people over 20 wearing them. Does Matt DC still have that Save Ferris T?

I only want to sleep with musicians if they are hot as they are (their musical ability is pretty irrelevant in fact).

dear teh grauniad - a long time ago/we used to be friends...

It went downhill after I left.

or were you PUSHED?

http://homepage.mac.com/alexinnyc/.Pictures/Photo%20Album%20Pictures/2007-09-02%2015.37.57%20-0700/Image-D15E03FF59A011DC.jpg

heh. (sorry alex, no harm intended)

http://www.abc.net.au/sport/thesportsdesk/images/200607/20060707henrydive_derblog.jpg

xp

i was being harsh really. i don't care what's on other people's t-shirts that much. just trying to work out why i stopped wearing/wouldn't wear band t-shirts myself.

Any t-shirt which isn't plain white clearly sucks that's why.

i couldn't agree less

I still wear band t-shirts if I like the band. Why not? I don't *define* myself or my personality by my music tastes any more, I haven't done that since I was about 18. But that's not the same thing as wearing a band t-shirt.

I suppose the fashion journalist in discussion cannot fathom the idea that clothes are just something you put on, rather than a definition of or statement about your personality.

This is definitely something that happens as you age - or rather, has happened to me as I aged. There's a subtle difference between Statement Clothes and just things you put on.

Guardian editorial worldview circa 2007:

http://www.astucia.co.uk/images/sce/galibier%20tunnel%20_three.jpg

why else would you buy a band t-shirt if not as a statement or definition of personality?

I didn't know it was a band t-shirt okay?

because you're cold xp

In the past I've usually just bought them as a keepsake of a gig I've enjoyed. The piece tracer quotes is idiotic fluff, obv. I'd be embarrased to admit I'd written that.

Because you like the design? Because you like the music? Because it was given to you (this is where most of mine come from)? Because it was a souvenier?

x-post

you wouldn't actually buy a band t-shirt because you liked the design but not necessarily the band tho...would you?

because you like the music = statement/definition of you/your taste

given to you = not you buying

you wouldn't actually buy a band t-shirt because you liked the design but not necessarily the band tho...would you?

No, plus I've only ever bought them @ gigs.

because you like the music = statement/definition of you/your taste

Probably yeah, but w/smaller bands there's also the knowledge that in buying it, yr helping to supposrt the tour.

i actually bought a comets on fire t-shirt solely because the design was so awesome. (it was at a gig, but they hadn't come on stage yet.) then i heard the music and i liked that too. i suppose if i hadn't liked their music, or thought it was boring, it would have posed a problem.

a friend of mine, who shall remain nameless so that alex in nyc doesn't stalk and kill him, bought a huge iron maiden patch when he was 14 and sewed it across the shoulders of his denim jacket. he had never heard a note of iron maiden, but he wound up becoming the biggest iron maiden fan i know, and even sung in a band later, where his vocal style was almost inseparable from bruce dickinson's.

my take on this: do not read hadley freeman.

this resolution made some time ago, stands as strong today as it ever did.

it's a crass and deliberately invidious piece of writing. such an attitude, if sincerely held, could be turned around on pretty much ANY choice of clothing. so forgeddaboudit

the last band t-shirt i bought - robyn!

alan i can't help myself, i know i'm sick and need help.

is there a thread for best band t-shirts? must see

Taste is something that I have. It does not define me. Clothes are something I wear. The statement I am making is "I don't really care about clothes any more."

If I'm going to make a statement about clothes, I'll wear a bright green paisley jacket to a dronerock festival where everyone else is in leather.

I suppose my Hawkwind t-shirt is a statement, it says "ha ha, I'm wearing a Hawkwind t-shirt, I care nothing for fashion, I am wearing the shirt of a band so deeply uncool you can suck my left one because I love them!" But it's certainly not a statement saying that I want to f*ck any of Hawkwind or that I have a musician boyfriend whose Hawkwind t-shirt I'm borrowing, which is the assumption of that article.

> I don't notice many people over 20 wearing them.

*SOBS*

> you wouldn't actually buy a band t-shirt because you liked the design but not necessarily the band tho...would you?

EAR t-shirt with the putney on the front = great. EAR live = terrible. (EAR on CD = ok, plus pram and stereolab were supporting)

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/sep/17/robert-peston-inequality-identity-politics-how-to-heal-britain-itv

"Two seconds earlier, it had been sheet rain and squally winds at the street festival in north London, but as Robert Peston took the stage with his band, Centrist Dad,..." sorry I'm going to have to stop you there

Look if anybody knows how to heal Britain it's a bunch of comfortable middle class white dudes

I carried on reading until I saw "Ed Balls on drums..." Zany guys, but I do genuinely hope they all die very painfully, very soon.

The very words “effing crisis” cast us inexorably back to the financial crisis of 2007-2008, when Peston’s was the only voice you wanted to hear.

This is terrible, Zoe.

Is she another terf? She sounds like one:

I go in for a bit more detail on “identity politics”, since it could mean anything currently from a white supremacist to someone who prefers they/them pronouns.

Definitely not.

It was days ago but I'm still really perplexed by what accepting defeat would look like. To Freeman, it's 'deny the legitimacy of a trans person's experience & say they're probs autistic or anxious'. But I wonder whether that would be enough? Or would we have to also shun them? pic.twitter.com/zNhqNfW3PD

— @zoesqwilliams.bsky.social (@zoesqwilliams) July 23, 2024

yup terfs hate her, particularly because by the UK media form book she should be one of them.

(she's a friend fwiw)

Lol is there beauty left in this world? Maybe...maybe there is.

BREAKING: Guardian Media Group in talks to sell The Observer to Tortoise Mediahttps://t.co/EhbKyoYtQz.

— Sky News (@SkyNews) September 17, 2024

lol

Terf Towers

Is Tortoise terfy? Because when I interviewed Juno Dawson for it in 2019, nobody I dealt with there was a transphobe.

Zoe Williams is a trans ally for sure.

"It is a grotesque irony that we have become so cavalier about the importance of biological sex at precisely the moment when we need more & better information about it."

Read Matt d'Ancona latest #SlowView

— Tortoise (@tortoise) March 22, 2021

Slow View

Ugh, fucking liberals trying to bothsides trans people.

Lot of biologists around lately

He went to Magdalen College at the University of Oxford, where he took the top First in Modern History for his year in 1989.

this is the worst thing I have ever read: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/sep/18/the-rise-of-britishcore-100-experiences-that-define-and-unite-modern-britons

if that was written by a schoolkid I'd feel embarrassed for them

Looks like the writer stole every single one of those observations from the Very British Problems account.

One or two at most, this feels a different species of evil.

What's weird about it is for parts of it I thought they are trying to do some content for like quite young people or students, but then other references are more for people in their forties.

Either way it is one of the worst things I've ever read.

well the good news is that maybe i'm not british after all

key Britishcore experience = reading the first couple of lines of a Graun lifestyle piece and thinking "you pitiful twat"

Nailed it.

Haven't read the Britishcore article but was irritated by this piece of blatant and shameless whataboutery Here’s the real ‘enigma’ about Charlotte Owen: why we still take sexist gossip so seriously

I'm currently bunging the Guardian £10 a month as a supporter , but being sorely tested.

tbf before everything was online forever there were bad throwaway articles like this all the time even in the august pages of the Guardian Guide it’s just that no one remembers them or can link to them in disgust

I'm shocked at how bad Marina Hyde's Charlotte Owen article is:

Yet not one person has produced a single nano-particle of evidence for their theories, while indications that they’re nonsense pile up. Consider the pictures of Owen at Carrie Johnson’s soirees. Seriously, Carrie’s the final boss of this game. She saw off master strategist Dominic Cummings (Carl von Clownewitz). Pretty sure she’d make light work of Charlotte if there were anything to worry about.

jesus christ I assumed you were all exaggerating about that britcore shite.
"British problems Twitter" reads like Shakespeare compared to this.

it's like 43-year-olds forced themselves to make up "student in-jokes" then explain them

125 quote tweets and like 10 likes on the tweet about it, incredible work and you assume that’s only going to increase as people see it

This is so fucking bad. It’s like one of those Facebook memory lane pages where the content is like 75% fluffy nostalgia about banalities and 25% open white supremacy crossed with, as people have already said, some of the really bad British Twitter accounts. Don’t forget Queen_UK as another peddler of this shite.

24. Getting into a physical fight over which is better: Scampi Fries or Bacon Fries.

26. Having a 10-minute discussion about whether the sound of pigeons cooing is “a banger”.

I actually really like this sequence of three because you can feel the author contemplating the pointlessness of his own existence

66. “I want a kebab!”

67. Wearing “jeans and a nice top” to a funeral.

68. Dressing as the “beast from the east” for Halloween.

78. Knowing the heights, weights and birth signs of your football team’s entire first team squad, but not the date of your own wedding anniversary.

23. Leaving a baby shower, gunning your Fiat Punto down the road, then turning to your mate and saying, “So, not to be catty, but …”

Baby showers are British these days? I don't know anyone with babies so I don't know tbf.

key Britishcore experience = reading the first couple of lines of a Graun lifestyle piece and thinking "you pitiful twat"

― Yuwen Hu's army (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 18 September 2024 06:53 (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

'shit chat on an extremely public scale'

xp
It's not a thing of my generation ime, first I heard it irl was when my younger brother and his gf had one about 15 years ago

Wonder how much of this was auto-generated via AI prompts.

Britain, the only place that enjoys kebabs, football and sarcastic applause over broken glasses.

17. Remembering your school “houses” were all named after either famous colonisers or famous murderers

So did I but we still had houses! Much to everyone's incomprehension. Ours were named after birds - the feathered variety, in case there's any Guardian writers present.

"applause over broken glasses"

this is standard amongst kitchen/waiting staff all over the world iirc

List 5 of the greatest manifestations of Britishcore, in a humorous style that reflects the tone of cheeky British publications like LadBible

ChatGPT said:
ChatGPT
Absolutely! Here are five cheeky manifestations of Britishcore, served with a side of humor:

Tea Time: Forget your fancy lattes! The British know that the true fuel of civilization is a good cuppa. Nothing says “I’m a refined human being” quite like cradling a mug of tea while pretending to care about the weather. Spoiler: It’s always drizzling!

The Royal Family: They’re like the Kardashians but with crowns! Whether you love them or think they’re a bit outdated, you can’t help but tune in for the wedding dramas, baby announcements, and that time Harry decided he fancied a life without the family drama. Cheers to family bonding over fancy hats!

Fish and Chips: The culinary masterpiece that combines deep-frying with... more deep-frying! It’s like the British answer to the question, “How can we make everything better?” Plus, it comes with the side benefit of a heartwarming conversation about how it was “better back in the day” when the fish was actually fresh.

The Weather: Ah, the British obsession with weather! You can always rely on a good chat about rain, sun, or the bizarre phenomenon of “four seasons in one day.” Nothing breaks the ice quite like complaining about the weather—it's practically our national sport!

Pub Culture: The British invented a place where you can sip on a pint while discussing absolutely nothing and everything at once. It’s where “just one drink” turns into an existential crisis over who’s winning the Premier League. Cheers to that, mate!

There you go! Classic Britishcore with a cheeky twist!

List 5 of the greatest manifestations of Britishcore, in a morose, bathetic, deadpan style. One sentence per manifestation.

ChatGPT said:
ChatGPT

The Rain: A perpetual drizzle that serves as a reminder of life’s relentless mediocrity, dampening spirits and umbrellas alike.

The Queue: An orderly line of resigned souls, each silently acknowledging that waiting is perhaps the only true certainty in a chaotic world.

British Comedy: A blend of irony and awkwardness, where laughter often masks the underlying existential dread of daily existence.

The Royal Family: A dynasty steeped in tradition, their gilded lives starkly contrasting the drudgery of everyday struggles for the rest of us.

Fish and Chips: A battered reminder that even comfort food can’t escape the inevitability of grease and regret.

xxxxxp "I want a kebab" is a quote from Peep Show, listed directly after "can quote every episode of Peep Show" (probably the only one of these shameful, shameful afflictions I am guilty of, ha)

Also nobody has to organise a WAHEYYYYY when a glass breaks in a pub; the WAHEYYYYY is spontaneous.

*glass breaks*

"Right, shall we organize a wahey?"
"What?"
"A wahey."
"What for?"
"That glass that was just broken."
"Somebody's already done a wahey."
"Yes, but that wasn't organized was it?"
"What difference does it make?"
"Wahey's have to be organized, that's the British way."
"What?"

*glass breaks"

"Oh bugger, now another one's broken."

Obviously I am (thankfully) not British and we have our own problems with cultural memification but like, who is this for?

Is it too easy to say “the worst cunts”

Yes but it’s true

I did ctrl f 'queue' on this article - I was shocked.

tbf before everything was online forever there were bad throwaway articles like this all the time even in the august pages of the Guardian Guide it’s just that no one remembers them or can link to them in disgust

― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 18 September 2024 08:53 (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

the first thing I thought when I looked at this was that it reminded me of the stuff in g2 and the guide that I'd see when I used to buy the physical paper regularly 10-15 years ago, really feels like something from the Keep Calm And Carry On era

xp lack of pissweak bunting chat also notable but as gyac says there’s obv a whole ecosystem of this shit designed to amuse the lamest people on the planet, this is just weirdly, somehow, even worse than the usual