Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

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)

"Do you think anyone else cares?"

the core MOTOR of fashion is YES OF COURSE I THINK OTHER PEOPLE CARE THAT I AM WEARING... WHAT'S "IN". no less dumb than wearing something else that forms part of your identity. so it's just a puerile throw away bit of nonsense. heh. fashion in 'being puerile' shocker.

I gave up caring whether I was too old to wear band t-shirts or whatever a long time ago. Really, if you're getting that worked up about what other people are wearing, the joke's on you, I think. To paraphrase - "Do you think anyone else cares?"

Yesterday I wore an X-Ray Spex t-shirt. I am 31. Oh noes.

If a FAC 51 Hacienda T-shirt counts as a band t-shirt, I am wearing one NOW. I am more than 31.

Unless you buy shirts at arena shows or whatever they cost a tenner or less which is cheaper than t-shirts tend to be (aside from plain ones from Primark or something). I guess it bugs fashiony people cos it's fashion for people who don't give a shit about fashion

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

whoa there, people do this All The Time! witness all the motorhead/def leppard/poison tees on sale at top shop/debenhams/whatever.

What's a putney, Andy?

I bought a Mega City Four t-shirt the other week. I bought it cos I like the band and I like their logo, and out of nostalgia.

witness all the motorhead/def leppard/poison tees on sale at top shop/debenhams/whatever

really? since when do those shops sell (official?) band merchandise?

but how do you know people buying them don't like the band (even if it's 'ironic' or just liking the idea OF liking them, if that makes sense) anyway?

i can imagine some people, not just kids or people buying for kids, buy band t-shirts because of the design and without really knowing about the band but can't be that many really. this is even more of a facile 'want to look cool' statement tho isn't it? that sense of knowing what to buy but not really knowing why...

remember the 'little girls wearing Nico 'Chelsea Girl' t-shirt thing (altho i approved of this ha)

Uhm yeah, there were tons of high street chains selling classic rock tees (I presume they just bought a load wholesale).

i figure these are aimed at and bought mainly by teenagers

really? since when do those shops sell (official?) band merchandise?

since AGES, honestly. i doubt your "average" 14-year-old Miss Selfridge customer would have a clue/give a shit who Def Leppard/insert 80s hair metal band here are. it's just a noisy "cool" design that'll make her look a bit like Peaches Geldof or whoever.

I'm sure I remember even Primark licensing some lame/classic 80s band tee designs recently.

and As Matt DC has admitted, sometimes people buy band tees without even realising that's what they are!

nb this whole discussion is clearly on the wrong thread.

Someone was selling MC5 shirts a good few years ago and it was the only place that you could get MC5 shirts so I know loads of people that bought them as they had been desperate for years to get them.
I got mine online but it was probably the same shirt.

a putney

http://www.vintagesynth.com/misc/vcs3.jpg

so called because they were made in putney (not far from you actually, there's a website that gives the actual address of the place they used to make them, cottage industry style, deodor road, sw15).

http://www.ems-synthi.demon.co.uk/snaps/everynun.jpg

Hang on a second, I went to primary school at 49 Deodar Road!!

Oh, I didn't, it was 95-97 Deodar Road (since moved). My best friend at the time lived at 50 Deodar Road, though.

I've got a Synthi t-shirt but my god, I want a t-shirt with that nun on it.

I am currently wearing a T-ahirt of a band that I saw live but didn't like much. It's a pretty design and the band aren't well known enough for many people to even know it's a band T-shirt.

I have had it on since yesterday so should probably take it off soon.

jfc what a take so battered and hackneyed that it could actually be improved by AI. Also jfc what a cunt.

In what other field is taking the credit for somebody else’s brilliance so venerated?

Phil Mongredien is joint production editor for Guardian Opinion and Long Reads

I see the rest of UK media's coverage and outrage of the Labour Together journo intimidation scandal is following the Graun template by only reporting on the right wing Murdoch journos who were the victims of it. Poor little smol bean Murdoch journos, boo hoo.

x-post

If the “hill I will die on” article had restricted itself to just complaining about the phenomenon of celebrities becoming DJs, it’d be a better article.

Genuine DJing with turntables, beat matching etc is a skill. Entertaining a lukewarm crowd and getting them onto a dancefloor and keeping them there is also a skill, as is picking out obscure tracks that people haven't heard before and still getting and keeping them there. It is perfectly possible to be drunk, stoned or otherwise under the influence and be a complete wallflower for the entire night (speaking from personal experience) thus refuting one of the fella's (who I assume is hiding behind a pseudonym - it bluddy well sounds like Mondegreen!) main points.
I hope that DJs comment on the buffoon en masse and totally skewer him!

A thing you often get when this pov is dredged up is people assuming doing a pill makes any music sound good, I guess because they like terible music and did a pill once, then felt ashamed that they enjoyed a terrible DJ.

Professional football isn't a job. I saw a guy in a Mr Blobby costume kick a ball and everyone cheered. Anyone can do it.

That 'hill I will die on' column is pure cuntsville.

I love that he defends his position by saying he used to write for dance music magazines, but only mentions David Guetta, Calvin Harris and Paris Hilton as people who "just play other people's records"

It doesn't even make sense given Harris and Guetta make their own records. The hallowed territory of "I made a record" in which everyone is a genius.

Paris Hilton has made at least one record iirc.

Wonder how many issues of the dance music magazines he contributed to prior to being given the heave-ho.

how he worked at these publications without understanding the most fundamental things about dance music is a real head-scratcher

i almost feel bad for him, like did he not realise this is how he was going to come off? the commissioning editor must have known

This is just the most quick and tawdry clickbait, probably scribbled it out on the bus on the way to school that morning, I wouldn't analyse it any deeper than that

Many such cases when it comes to quality journalism.

I wonder who'll be first to just dispense with the pretense of news coverage altogether and go all op ed all the time.

"That 'hill I will die on' column is pure cuntsville"

It confused the heck out of me. The column seemed to appear from nowhere, without any announcement. At first it wasn't obvious that it was a series rather than a one-off. The articles are essentially "toilet rolls should face the wall" or "you're supposed to leave the toothpaste in your mouth" e.g. they radiate contempt.

I was particularly confused by this one, PDAs on the morning commute are never acceptable:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jan/02/pda-morning-commute-never-acceptable-hugging-kissing

It confused me because I recently replayed the STALKER games, and I was reminded of the pre-smartphone period when video games had the player's objectives on a hand-held PDA, despite being set in the future, because the designers hadn't anticipated smartphones, because they were hack frauds. Just like how golden age science fiction stories from the 1940s and 1950s had interstellar travel and talking robots, but computers still had clicky-clicky relays, and they still communicated with printed slips of paper, because the writers were hack frauds. As in Space: 1999, for example, where Main Mission spits out little bits of paper even though paper would logically be very precious on the moon.

I mean, why didn't the writer say "smartphones"? Even when PDAs were a thing, I don't recall people using them on the morning commute. They were too bulky, and there was no point. And then it dawned on me that the article wasn't about PDAs at all. It was about public displays of affection, at which point I lost interest.

The cast of writers seem to be a mixture of unfunny humorists, unfunny stand up comedians, and unfunny comedy writers that I've never heard of, who had one or two pieces published in The Guardian five years ago. Perhaps the newspaper had some money left over at Christmas and wanted to give it to some of the editor's friends.

Technically some of the articles have had lots of engagement - the DJ one has 679 comments from The Guardian's diverse readership of white male pensioners and white male ex-pat pensioners - but they're embarrassing. Behind it all I keep thinking that I could have done a better job. The key would be to pick an incredibly minor, granular complaint, and treat it with the utmost seriousness, and keep hammering away at it. "And now we move on to liars". It would have to drink from a different well, an altogether more interesting well, a well of mad obsession.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/18/hazardous-substances-headphones

Hazardous substances found in all headphones tested by ToxFREE project
Substances include chemicals that can cause cancer, neurodevelopmental problems and the feminisation of males

Putin again?

thank god all keyboards and mice are made from the highest quality PFA-free plastics, eh?

I'm not clicking that link but the quoted bit reads like the Daily Mail. Classic Graun

Such deeply right-wing vibes off the words "the feminisation of males"

it's alright, I personally never use modern headphones as a sauté pan

I spent years trying to find my holy grail, a teflon-free rice cooker. And the one I found was amazingly cheap and I only just found it an hour ago. Can't even be arsed thinking about what goes into headphones.

if they really have new info on a health risk then it would be great if they didn't write it like a daily mail moral panic story

Broke: sissyfied
Woke: sissyfried

Sissyfried Sassoon

Benediction: one of the truly great late period Terence Davies movies

just one threading this in on the basis of a Siegfried Sassoon pun

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HBe6RjNXsAAtCF4?format=jpg&name=large

more hilarious music opinions from these turkeys

Pippa Crerar promoting this story that fails to mention her own central role in Labour Together’s attempt to smear and intimidate journalists is a massive conflict of interest. https://t.co/8WAwkZlVpR

— Karl Hansen (@karl_fh) February 21, 2026

the fucking brass neck of Pippa. Just utterly shameless when if she actually a gram of professional pride she'd doing harakiri. The Graun have been running this story since a few weeks back in a truncated form, completely erasing Paul Holden, the formidable investigative journalist who broke this story back in september. And being completely fucking wilfully oblivious to the part in the scandal played by their roving stenographer/pseudojournalist knobhead Pippa Crerar

Also, Holden says Crerar told him the paper had seen information that he was being investigated by security services. Yet The Guardian now reports there was never any investigation. So did Crerar fail to verify Labour Together’s bogus claim and plan to run the smear anyway??

— Karl Hansen (@karl_fh) February 21, 2026