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/film/2025/mar/20/readers-on-their-feelgood-movies

Readers talking about their feelgood movies except I get the distinct impression this reader is trolling the Guardian and they're too dim to realize:

In a Year With 13 Moons
It’s a truly heartwarming movie about personal transformational change.

salo or gtfo

Film about the madcap adventures of some young people in a picturesque lakeside Italian town. Never fails to bring a smile to my face.

The slaughterhouse soliloquy in …13 Moons is excerpted in “That’s Entertainment” right after Gene Kelly’s “Make ‘em
laugh” number.

La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (Dreyer, 1928), a truly arse-warming movie about personal conflagrational change

> Scandinavian Airlines SAS said it has been affected by Heathrow’s closure.

> “All our 12 round trips are so far cancelled to and from London Heathrow as the airport is currently closed,” it said, as reported by Reuters.

> This post was amended at 7.38am GMT. An earlier version incorrectly said the initialism SAS referred to the “Special Air Service”.

a throwback! most Grauniad Moments now are like 'whoops we slipped and let a terf write an opinion piece'

sadly, this Heathrow closure is not the beginning of a military coup against Starmer

right after Gene Kelly’s “Make ‘em laugh” number.

Hey now, cool it with the Donald O'Connor erasure :/

The inevitable Trump pivot: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/27/donald-trump-moving-fast-breaking-things-better-us

The depths of idiocy in that centrist apologia are hardly worth probing. Has that guy ever been right about anything?

Just about everything said about Marx in this article is factually inaccurate. Fwiw the terms “dialectical materialism” & “base and superstructure” do not appear in Capital and the quote given is from Marx’s Critique of Hegel’s Phil of Right https://t.co/FmnLrsUE3x pic.twitter.com/nOtAcnFP6n

— Robert Lucas Scott (@_rob_scott) April 2, 2025

This guy has written two books? Clinging on to the fact that his grandparents were working class - and yet went to university and became teachers - seems especially risible.

It's funny cos as I remember The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists has a few bits about liberal journalists doing these authoritative-sounding takedowns of Marx based on bullshit misattributions and that's over a hundred years ago - game doesn't change

Just the other day on STV news a reporter referred to The Community Manifesto by Karl Marx (it was a story about rare books turning up at Oxfam).

6 seasons and a worker's uprising

observer has just hired some rw ghoul from the times I see. how will they accommodate a transphobic right winger on staff

The right-wing ghoul is married to the Graun’s diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour.

6 seasons and a worker's uprising

I remember skimming through that piece on class, but not feeling any desire to read it in detail. Why? Because it doesn't have atomic fire.

Have you ever seen Shin Godzilla? Neither have I, but there's a great sequence near the end where Godzilla breathes atomic fire. It's awesome and terrifying at the same time. Awesome because it's atomic fire. Terrifying ditto. It's even emotionally affecting, because there's an implication that Godzilla is in extreme pain and can't help himself. There's a fantastic shot of Godzilla standing in the burning ruins of Tokyo that approaches the sublime, at 51 seconds:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzldtg1wqhM

As mentioned passim I'm thoroughly working-class, absolutely and 100% working-class. And yet I managed to spend several years working as a writer, living in London, surrounded by middle-class people who holidayed in Cuba. I was for a brief period a spy in the house of love. I wasn't paid a great deal, but I also had freelancing work on the side, so I survived. It would probably be untenable nowadays, but this was the turn of the millennium, and I could survive on just two bottles of red wine and noodle sandwiches mixed in with painkillers and the occasional battered sausage.

Obviously being middle and upper-middle-class helps enormously to get your foot in the door in the creative workplace. And I pity any working-class people who want to work in the special effects industry. Or any field where mastery of a bunch of arcane software packages is a pre-requisite. Writing on the other hand requires only a good brain and free time. You also have to be witty, entertaining, informative, with a strong work ethic, muscular thighs etc, huge narcissist, but I have all of those things.

I think it was the mention of Marx that put me off. There was a potentially interesting idea underneath that article. How did this utter failure of a man - this slovenly-looking waste of space, this over-educated incompetent who can't source quotes properly, who doesn't appear to have a sense of humour, etc - how did this man get a job as a writer for a leading former broadsheet? If it wasn't class that swung it, what did? Were the mentions of Marx and Ken Loach a left-wing equivalent of those stories that are written in order to shove in TikTok tags? Such as this piece about Glee, which also raises the question of whether I can use formatting tags inside a URL.

Did he literally write a letter to the editor that said "I can write good, Marx is the best, ITV faked the Serbian so-called concentration camps, NATO is evil"? Is that literally all it takes? Is The Guardian that simple?

At some point earlier this afternoon I had a point. I was going to make a point about something. It's gone now.

Have you ever seen Shin Godzilla?

Of course, what do you take me for?

Did he literally write a letter to the editor that said "I can write good, Marx is the best, ITV faked the Serbian so-called concentration camps, NATO is evil"? Is that literally all it takes? Is The Guardian that simple?

No,because the article's slant is that Marx is shit, but this seems to be the second time you mistake the at best liberal-centrist Guardian as some sort of leftist publication.

At some point earlier this afternoon I had a point. I was going to make a point about something. It's gone now.

We noticed.

The Guardian have now edited the line formerly quoted by a Labour MP.

Previously their article referred to "the mentally unwell network" rather than "the network".

It refers to MPs who have raised the alarm on the impact of benefit cuts on the disabled. pic.twitter.com/WujMnlVt6z

— Angus Satow (@AngusSatow) April 17, 2025

This is very odd. There is currently no acknowledgement on the article that an edit has taken place. If it has been edited they need to explain themselves - do they accept that they initially misquoted the MP or what?

(is there anyway for someone who does not have access to the Guardian's systems to check if it definitely has been edited? I don't know who this Angus Satow person is, I guess he could have theoretically faked the screenshot in his earlier tweet that shows the "mentally-unwell network" quote, but that would be pretty shameless. Or possibly he could have been taken in by a fake someone else made?)

here's the story, as I said there's currently no acknowledgement that an edit has been made or why, which is the Guardian would normally do as far as I can tell

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/apr/17/ministers-avoid-labour-rebellion-disability-cuts

As mentioned passim this is where Google's cache used to be handy - it archived pages really quickly. The internet archive only has the revised version of the page:
https://web.archive.org/web/20250417201838/https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/apr/17/ministers-avoid-labour-rebellion-disability-cuts

In context my assumption is that the quoted MP wanted to say "the network of people who advocate for the mentally unwell", rather than "the network, who are mentally unwell" and perhaps they asked for a retraction. Who knows.

Yeah, hard to believe the Graun would platform a right wing coward using ableist slurs

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/apr/27/the-settlers-review-this-vital-film-forces-louis-theroux-to-do-something-hes-never-done-before

As with everything, you wish certain aspects of the situation could be explored more. Most notably, the peripheral glimpses of Israeli activists who protest against the settlements probably need more airtime, if only to demonstrate that this is a problem of individuals rather than an entire nation.

The paragraph goes so against the grain of the piece that you have to wonder what process led to it being inserted there.

Not just the headline, the entire article doesn't mention the word 'Israel' once. Literally!

Can't make this up... pic.twitter.com/1wqSrd7YaM

— Muhammad Shehada (@muhammadshehad2) May 24, 2025

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/06/britain-national-character-ballad-of-wallis-island

We dwell with relish not just on our individual failings but on our glorious national defeats, memorialising all the football tournaments we ever lost on penalties and weaving heroic disasters – Scott dying in the Antarctic, the retreat from Dunkirk – into our national story.

... errr, Britain's never lost a football tournament on penalties.

2020 euros?

"Euro 2020 final: England’s 55 years of hurt continue as three missed penalties hand Euros victory to Italy"

https://inews.co.uk/sport/football/euro-2020-final-england-missed-penalties-italy-gianluigi-donnarumma-1098466

England, not Britain

*sigh*

oh koogspaws

tbf Tom could just have said "Britain doesn't have a football team"

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