Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

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7pm:

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It's like my time has no value to me.

This strikes me as a noble way to pass it, though.

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I win again!

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ruth_fowler/2008/03/the_antichrist_for_feminists.html

A+++++++++ trolling well done guardian u win

I stood on the edge of that enormous comments thread with a sense of trepidation I haven't felt since standing on the edge of the top diving board at the swimming pool aged nine. And then decided to walk back down the virtual ladder, straight back into the changing room, and back home.

Ruth Fowler was born in 1979 and grew up in the mountains of North Wales. She received a first class BA (Hons) in English Literature from Cambridge University in 2000. She is sure they let her in as the token comprehensive school northerner.

After a year teaching in Buenos Aires and three months in India, she returned to King’s College, Cambridge to complete an MPhil. However, realising that she would rather be living life than reading about it, she finished her thesis on Bollywood films within six months and went to live in Nepal.

Post-Nepal, she travelled the world eking out a living from writing, teaching, sailing, cooking and begging. Ruth lived in Argentina, the South of France, the Alps, Florida, the Caribbean and Central America before finding herself in New York in January 2005, penniless and without a visa.

She has worked as a stripper in Manhattan and London, and her book, No Man's Land - about " the murky territory where eroticism and commerce collide" - is due to be published in the UK in June.

This is a made-up character, right?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/eastenders/images/characters_cast/characters/ruth_f/ruth_fowler_large_1.jpg

"But Mark, we cann'ae afford it!"

Man, Eastenders was my shit back in 98/99.

According to Mark's speech to Sharon in his last episode, he only had sex with Ruth once or maybe twice in the course of their whole marriage. No wonder she played away with that rubbish Irish lothario.

This reminds me of many articles about people who have done all right and would like to justify their wealth to people who haven't done all right. I'm not sure what the purpose of such articles is, unless it is for some form of...validation?

Ruth Fowler: she made a g today, but she made it in a sleazy way.

quality shit:

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The article was a bit TL;DR, the bits I read, the writer's style/manner was too annoying to concentrate on what she was on about "working class scouser, me, call a spade a spade, like" seemed to be the gist of it?

My father, a right-wing scouser

AKA scum of the earth

key line:

I started to think of feminism more when what I was doing in life became unconditionally anti-feminist. I was grinding cock for a living in a strip club, getting my tits out - c'mon, there's no way around it. I was even more the antichrist for feminists. And suddenly I was heralded as a Messiah for Modern Women!

by?

also lols at blog: that famous, pre-9/11, NYC skyline...

"working class scouser, me, call a spade a spade, like"

-- Pashmina, Monday, March 31, 2008 9:22 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Julie Birchill RIP

by?

Max Gogarty

It's weird she mentions her father so much because you wouldn't have thought someone who worked in the sex industries would have any issues that way.

Roffle.

I tried to read the entire article, couldn't make it through it, it is really very badly written.

I got the impression that if you met the writer IRL, they'd be really boring and whiny.

Also, I hate this steez "I am really stupid and obnoxious and full of shit, and I'm going to rub your face in it because I think that makes me more "real"/"interesting"/"whatever"(::rollseyes.gif::) than you, little person"

Yes, the Guardian is much worse than it used to be. Kind of like CH4, really.

If you could buy it without G2 or any of the supplements, it might concievably be worth picking up again.

Have you considered just throwing G2 away or burning it or never bothering to ever read it?

Careful there Pash, she'll get her father on to you (xxp)

I don't think there's a newspaper that wouldn't be improved by removing the lifestyle supplements and the columnists. Except The Sun of course, a paper without real talking man of the people Gaunty is like a month without sunshine.

Hey! But then you'd miss out on that excellent crossword!

I only get it on Saturdays, mainly for the Review. And that crossword.

Araucaria's the only real crossword dude on there, the rest of them used to be suck.

(Apologies if this has changed in the last 5 years or however long it's been)

Have you considered just throwing G2 away or burning it or never bothering to ever read it?

-- Matt DC, Monday, 31 March 2008 09:35 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

I think I've mentioned a couple of times, I buy it once or twice a week on the way home, Jill likes to do the crossword. I never read it, it's too boring, too London/Westminster-orientated, too media-covering-the-media-ish, like a lot of former "quality" media - everyone they ever do a vox pop on seems to be a "journalist and a broadcaster" I don't think Jill ever reads it much either, she's a bbc news website addict.

The Age and SMH are Australia's equivalent to the Guardian, and you'll all be pleased to know that they've gone to shit in exactly the same way.

xp I'm not surprised, it's probably the closest thing to proper news outside The Independent.

everyone they ever do a vox pop on seems to be a "journalist and a broadcaster"

This is because what happens is the hack writes a piece, and it's shit because it's something they don't care about like a new dating service that instead of normal speed dating uses chilli cook offs. Then the editor will come back to the hack and say "We need some quotes on this", so the hack goes to their MSN Messenger and asks the first five people online what they think of this. So then you have "Peter Peterson, a freelance journalist, doesn't see the appeal of chili dating: 'What is this rubbish?", he quipped"

'left wing' paper yet again with "I'm All Right Jack" piece. next week, "Let them Eat Cake: Now I make a good living, I don't believe in redistribution of wealth".

Though, to be fair, every 'lifestyle section' of every newspaper is basically "Hello I'm Rich, please be quiet"

Though I guess we're moving into the "Hello I used to be rich, then I realised it was all on credit, please feel sorry for me now" stage

I'm fairly sure you could program a computer to just churn out Laxalt posts at this stage.

Rosie Millard lols

i kind of feel that this chick's editors could be done for soliciting -- anyway hope she's a better 'dancer' than writer.

Surely all responses to all Guardian threads could be automated quite easily

i kind of feel that this chick's editors could be done for soliciting -- anyway hope she's a better 'dancer' than writer.

-- banriquit, Monday, March 31, 2008 9:56 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

Like Perp.

Expect about a years worth of ditzy articles in which the lifestyle columist downsizes, moves to heckmondwyke, bleats in 52 x 1000wd article about IE why oh why does the local supermarket not stay open till 3am, then moves back to London, has some rank soul-crisis about it`which translates into a cover feature in the saturday magazine. TBH I envy lifestyle columnistsSurely all responses to all Guardian threads could be automated quite easily

-- laxalt, Monday, 31 March 2008 09:56 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Well, yes.

iirc 'not linking to guardian articles' was my new year's resolution.

IN 2004!!!1!!

I need to find a Stalinbot jpeg.

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anyway hope she's a better 'dancer' than writer.

Maybe cock-grinding is harder than it looks

That article is pretty sharp. It's nice to feel for once that I'm not the one being trolled by the Guardian.

aren't you?

i mean unless you too are a narcissistic, libertarian, alt.sex-worker who grinds commissioning editor cock...

Aren't we all these days?

Tits oot for the commissioning editors!