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.

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