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)

She was clearly referring to this:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/18911955

Tbf I would've gone with "absolutely fuck everybody who gives a fuck about national fucking character"

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2Ftr5EvZDjUFY%2Fhqdefault.jpg&f=1&ipt=46488c5624bfbf7f1b9378767c5b99364b48478eda5ad967f92ce6904588d302

Would love to know what percentage of the 41% who say they're proud to be British are English. What they really mean is they are also proud to consider others British.

She was clearly referring to this:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/18911955

Good stuff.

Richard Curtis is so fucking dire and a diabolically cliched cunt. Everything he has ever written should be rammed so hard up his fundament that 10 years after he is dead he is still shitting out scripts from his "mildly amusing" peak in the 80's.

oh, I've just noticed that the movie mentioned in the piece is not actually a Richard Curtis screenplay, rather it was mentioned he's just said something complimentary about the movie. Which is still enough reason for me to avoid the movie at least until some who isn't RC recommends it.

It is a quite a good film tbf.

ah right, just from brief glance at plot synopsis I thought it scanned a bit R Curtisesque. I'll keep an open mind on it going forwards.

I saw this last night. Eh. It's fine. Like Radio 2 made flesh. Not really a spoiler to say that the Carey Mulligan character appearing for half-hour and literally making off with a suitcase containing 100 grand in cash is a *bit* on the nose.

Apparently you need to be in the pop mainstream before you can be recognised as a genius

https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2025/jun/14/brian-wilson-was-a-musical-genius-are-there-any-left

I have to admit that I haven't read the article, which might be a masterpiece, but the headline is almost quintessentially The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/ng-interactive/2025/jun/13/my-unexpected-pride-icon-free-willy-helped-me-see-the-radical-power-of-coming-out

My Unexpected Pride Icon: Free Willy Helped me See the Radical Power of Coming Out

It has powerful short-deadline energy, which might explain why it's only 700 words long. At the back of my mind I can't help but wonder if the whole thing is a parody. e.g. if the writer decided it would be hilarious to create an article about a gay man coming out centered around the film Free Willy, with a little anecdote about travelling to Norway to see sperm whales, but no-one at The Guardian noticed that it was a joke because famously lefties don't have a sense of humour. They're so dour, which is why they keep losing elections. Because they pick sensible, boring candidates with policies and platforms instead of charismatic agents of chaos such as Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage.

It also feels as if the writer picked two completely unconnected things and smushed them together in the most perfunctory way. Which is great from the perspective of filling out space, not so good if you want something interesting to read.

Lefties at the Guardian, where?

Truly astonishing, the depths this rag will go to.

After the weaselly reporting of the past couple of years, the Guardian doing a lifestyle section piece on Palestinian brunch is just so very perfectly Guardian pic.twitter.com/MnhqCtEDXu

— Stefan Bielik (@prstskrzkrk) July 2, 2025

fuck off Guardian / neckbeard cunt Henry Hill

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/08/norman-tebbit-working-class-tory-fighter

"Henry Hill is deputy editor of ConservativeHome"

"all my life I've always wanted to be a wanker"

gtfo with this anti air-conditioning shit

let me know when you abjure winter heating and/or blame corporations for climate change instead of poor people

the UK has a deeply anti-AC culture. good article yesterday about this in Londoncentric about this.

I was disappinted that they gave uncritical space to a think tank dedicated to "promoting economic growth" who has a vested interest in ripping up regulations requiring architectural principles that prioritise drafts, but i am interested in the idea of using heat pumps as a low-impact way of cooling (though as noted, the upfront expense is substantial)

https://www.londoncentric.media/p/why-london-homes-dont-have-air-conditioning

This comedy character is getting a bit unrealistic

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/14/ed-miliband-turbine-farm-bronte-country-net-zero-climate-crisis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOZzFXolGJc

I was disappinted that they gave uncritical space to a think tank dedicated to "promoting economic growth" who has a vested interest in ripping up regulations requiring architectural principles that prioritise drafts, but i am interested in the idea of using heat pumps as a low-impact way of cooling (though as noted, the upfront expense is substantial)

https://www.londoncentric.media/p/why-london-homes-dont-have-air-conditioning

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 14 July 2025

This is so much more informative than that pathetic Guardian opinion piece.

requiring architectural principles that prioritise drafts

Drafts or draughts?

checkers

or is it chequers

Most of Europe is anti-AC, hardly just a British thing.

Of course, like Britain, much of Europe didn't used to get weather that demanded AC, and now does.

"Henry Hill is deputy editor of ConservativeHome"

Late to this but sounds like a magazine on how to decorate your home and garden like a Tory.

🗞️Bit of personal news

Very excited to say I'm starting, from today, as the new Scotland Reporter for @Telegraph based in Holyrood

DMs always open and email is in bio if you want to get in touch

— Jacob Freedland (@JacobAD82) July 28, 2025

this young fellow has worked his arse off to land this plum Scotland correspondent role at the Torygraph. Congratulations, young man!

I'm sure he'll do fine once his dad points out where Scotland is on a map.

I just want to see him giving a career talk at some inner city comprehensive school about how anyone can make it in the highly meritocratic world of UK journalism if they have enough grit and determination.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/aug/07/world-leaders-keir-starmer-donald-trump-self-help

"As an overconfident 27-year-old when I took on a director role, I certainly had an urge to control everything. I had to work hard against that tendency in order to lead in a collaborative way. The phrase “holding uncertainty” was useful for me, because it meant I didn’t always trust my first reaction in situations, or the narratives my brain was telling me. It reminded me to take on board different opinions, rather than simply dismiss them. Of course I made mistakes, but I was also open to examining my own controlling and perfectionistic tendencies."

"We need to let go. What have we got to lose?"

Cambridge, a post-doc, then a company director at 27. That's just life for a certain kind of person I guess.

in sheer terms of numbers these people have to be less than the populations of hundreds of little towns which most people have never even heard of, and yet

All the important issues of the day...

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/aug/14/you-be-the-judge-should-my-girlfriend-stop-leaving-so-many-lamps-on-and-use-the-big-light-instead

The Guardian is like this factory that downplays monstrosities.

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2025/sep/03/how-graham-linehan-gender-activism-led-to-comedian-career-and-personal-armageddon

The way they just drop in a brief mention of tweets inciting violence at the end without unpacking at all

Not to mention him going around accusing people of being paedophiles.

“I did it for my wife and daughter, even though we broke up,” he said. “I did it for them and I’d do it again.”

Says it all really.

This is despicable. Fuck calling this is a "peculiar metamorphosis"

Linehan, 57, is also said by prosecutors to have “deliberately whacked” a phone out of Brooks’s hand as she filmed him during a confrontation about the alleged abuse.

He and Brooks met at a Battle of Ideas conference on 19 October when the scriptwriter “approached her with his phone, recording her and calling her a groomer, and asking how many she had groomed”, the prosecution said.

Brooks subsequently called out to Linehan outside the venue and asked him why he had called her a “domestic terrorist”.

Julia Faure Walker, for the prosecution, said: “At this point Mr Linehan could’ve explained why he had called her a domestic terrorist, if indeed he had an explanation, or even ignored her … rather he responded in a way which is indicative of his extreme personal animosity towards her.

“He said ‘go away groomer’, ‘go away you disgusting incel’. He called her a ‘sissy porn-watching scumbag’ … He deliberately whacked the phone out of Ms Brooks’s hand.”

Brooks is 18.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/sep/04/graham-linehan-trans-teenager-court

And was 17 at the time of the incident. Fuck you, Graham.

Be fair, he was just defending his ex-wife and daughter he might or might not have visitation rights to.

“She’s turned the weans against us!”

Funnily enough, he turned Limmy against him.

He and Rowling and this small - yet weirdly influential - handful of hateful people are SO angry and unhinged about trans people - just so far beyond what the vast majority of people give any thinking time to - that I do wonder if there's some sort of Rosebud-like explanation for it lurking in their past. Or if it's just that there's something so primal about the categories of men and women, something so bound up with sex and shame and family relationships, that some people's brain circuitry just seems to fry when presented with evidence that these categories they thought were stable are in fact not stable, or not in the way they thought they were. Or maybe some combination of both. I just wish they could somehow construct an off-ramp for themselves, a way to climb down from these ever more extreme perches they find themselves on. Instead I guess you just keep doubling down until you get arrested.

These cunts have hidden shallows tbh

Or, I should add, instead of getting arrested you pass legislation "defending women", one or the other

xpost lol yes I feel poorer for even having entertained attempting to peer into whatever inner lives are there

the funny thing is, Rowling has studiously ignored Linehan for years while he's ranted obsessively about her. I think she recognised that even by the standards of their "movement" he's completely poisonous

But as soon as the arrest happened, all of a sudden she's right in his corner

The Guardian has retracted the quotes from the anonymous ‘school friend’ of the suspect in the Charlie Kirk case saying he was left-wing after the guy they interviewed clarified that he didn’t remember him well enough to be quoted. Sterling work.

Lol.

Also ran a piece on the 'shock' of Trump refusing to talk about 'unity'. They are so useless.

All liberals know is to sit in their wealthy homes and panic.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/16/us-americans-republic-midterm-elections-democrats

Sometimes they just paste a Reuters article like this
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/08/germany-ends-fast-track-citizenship-mood-migration-shifts

Which includes lines like Attitudes towards immigration have soured dramatically in Germany, partly because of the strain high migration levels have placed on local services. written as tho it were incontrovertible fact.