The Grauniad Strikes Again...

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You can always rely on The Guardian to fuck things up, from Saturday's gig guide:

Momus - Arch art-pop and witty lyrics from very English singer-songwriter

Errrrrrrrrrrrr, not quite.

― Dadaismus (Dada), Sunday, 11 May 2003 15:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Not nearly as bad as the moron in the Property section of Weekend magazine who raved over a house in Lanark and then put, under "Cons": "next to local authority estate." Oh yes, we can't have these awful unwashed working classes soiling the pages of the supposedly socialist Guardian, can we?

And as for Rusbridger on Britney last week...what a waste of oxygen that man is. Kurt Cobain's obit was shoved in as an afterthought underneath those of Lee Brilleaux and Dan Hartman. Rewriting history isn't going to get you anywhere (except to the Editor's chair obv).

― Marcello Carlin, Sunday, 11 May 2003 15:53 (twenty-two years ago)

Still, at least its not Alexis Petridis, huh?

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Sunday, 11 May 2003 15:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Well, actually, it isn't as bad as if they'd said "English singer-songwriter". I think they possibly meant it as 'factual' rather than 'adjectival' but if you skew your listening to his earlier records the dark pastoralism (of Tender Pervert - note: I've never heard a Momus record except snatches of Folktronica and so am working from smell memory of journalism on Momus). Anyway, if you bend your ear a little, couldn't you conceive of Momus (then) as very English?

(I don't think he's very English now, but I'm not sure what 'Englishness' entails exactly).

― Cozen (Cozen), Sunday, 11 May 2003 15:55 (twenty-two years ago)

I mean: "I think their intent is factual description rather than adjectival but if they so wished it would be a possibly justifiable description."

― Cozen (Cozen), Sunday, 11 May 2003 15:58 (twenty-two years ago)

b-b-but on the rather ace new Momus album there's a tribute to Rikki Fulton!

Ah yes, Alexis Petridish's review of Lou Reed on Friday (?) - oh dear oh dear oh dear.

― Marcello Carlin, Sunday, 11 May 2003 16:01 (twenty-two years ago)

...errrrrrrrrrrrrrr, he's Scottish

― Dadaismus (Dada), Sunday, 11 May 2003 16:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Rikki Fulton? Seriously? I want it from Momus' mouth, himself. (Although you did say in your Uncut review, and Momus has endorsed that, so...) B-b-b-but surely that would some sort of 'Scottishness' (well, not necessarily).

Thread Hijack: Is Momus very Scottish?

― Cozen (Cozen), Sunday, 11 May 2003 16:04 (twenty-two years ago)

I know he's Scottish. But you can still be Scottish and very English. (But be careful how you draft the parameters of your adjectives.)

― Cozen (Cozen), Sunday, 11 May 2003 16:05 (twenty-two years ago)

Ah, right, I suppose so - the Incredible String Band managed it on occasion.

― Dadaismus (Dada), Sunday, 11 May 2003 16:08 (twenty-two years ago)

In today's Herald, all in the course of one article about round the world solo yachtswoman Emma Richards:

"..the 28-year old Emma Richards.."
"Emma Richards was born in 1978.."
"Her major breakthrough came in 1996 when, aged 23..."

― N. (nickdastoor), Sunday, 11 May 2003 16:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Only someone who has a problem with the common usage of the word 'anal' would have spotted that.

― Cozen (Cozen), Sunday, 11 May 2003 16:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Kurt Cobain's obit was shoved in as an afterthought underneath those of Lee Brilleaux and Dan Hartman

Where he belongs I would have thought?

― Dadaismus (Dada), Sunday, 11 May 2003 16:28 (twenty-two years ago)

Music magazines (and journalists generally) seem only to use the word "quintessentially" as a qualifier of "english" -- so often that its use is both redundant and irksome. I lose all interest in any article that says "very Engliish" or "quintessentially English".

― Alan Connor, Jr., Sunday, 11 May 2003 16:28 (twenty-two years ago)

Cozen, when you get to 30 it matters just how much younger overachievers are.

― N. (nickdastoor), Sunday, 11 May 2003 16:30 (twenty-two years ago)

I can't read that rag any more - the news isn't particularly good and generally has a sycophantic New Labour bias, the features are sickeningly smug and self-satisfied (Tim Dowling is also very, very unfunny), and the cultural coverage stinks. If that's not enough, it has Lynskey, Petridis, Charlotte Raven and Decca sodding Aitkenhead writing for it. Any one of them on their own would be enough to make me want to shove pencils up my nose and then slam my face into a table top but all four of them... ugh!

― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Sunday, 11 May 2003 17:00 (twenty-two years ago)

All four of them makes him want to score a gash in his scrotum and rub bees (narky bees) in the open wound.

― Cozen (Cozen), Sunday, 11 May 2003 17:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Cozen... you almost sound like Calum!

― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Sunday, 11 May 2003 17:12 (twenty-two years ago)

Wait! Decca Aitkenhead has only written one thing for the Guardian in the last 12 months and Charlotte Raven's column finished in Feb 2002. Are you sure you do read it, Dave?

― N. (nickdastoor), Sunday, 11 May 2003 17:20 (twenty-two years ago)

I haven't read it for at least a year apart from a cursory flick thru the Friday review just to get myself annoyed so glad to hear about that.... still harbours the Lynskey/Petridis axis of evil, though. ANd Decca sodding Aitkenhead and Charlotte Raven still pitch up all too often in the Observer and I've always pretty much counted them as one paper

― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Sunday, 11 May 2003 17:25 (twenty-two years ago)

What's so bad about Petridis, anyway? The worst I can think to say about him is that his writing style isn't that thrilling. But good god, do you want Tom Cox back or something?

― N. (nickdastoor), Sunday, 11 May 2003 17:29 (twenty-two years ago)

He's shite, boring, has apalling taste and writes like an accountant. No to Tom Cox; give me the job instead - I could do with the money!

― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Sunday, 11 May 2003 17:31 (twenty-two years ago)

Petridis' crimes are numerous. Did you know that Hundred Reasons' album was too revolutionary and uncommercial to be nominated by the Mercury jury?

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Sunday, 11 May 2003 17:39 (twenty-two years ago)

PS. DA has only ever had 3 bylines in the Observer, though they were all quite recent so maybe you're in for more fun. Charlotte Raven (who I *like*) has only written one thing for them since 1999 - a 2002 piece about her depression.

― N. (nickdastoor), Sunday, 11 May 2003 17:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Cherlotte Raven depresses me

― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Sunday, 11 May 2003 17:41 (twenty-two years ago)

Dom, what he actually said was that the Hundred Reasons album was "perhaps too aggressive for the slightly aloof Mercury Prize".

― N. (nickdastoor), Sunday, 11 May 2003 17:45 (twenty-two years ago)

don't understand the petridis hate, as N says he is more dull than bad, he isn't particularly closed minded or set in his ways. maybe crap taste in music but thats not a crime

― Ronan (Ronan), Sunday, 11 May 2003 19:04 (twenty-two years ago)

I think it's because Petridis doesn't give us a good laugh, unlike Mr Cox. Most of us here probably enjoy laughing at bad writers far more than we'll ever let on.

― robin carmody (robin carmody), Sunday, 11 May 2003 19:06 (twenty-two years ago)

That was my Calum parody; the anxiety of influence; Bakhtin; copying can be influence; bah!

― Cozen (Cozen), Sunday, 11 May 2003 19:55 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm with Nick and Ronan on this one, Alexis is OK.

― Tag (Tag), Sunday, 11 May 2003 20:10 (twenty-two years ago)

The biggest (perhaps only) crime to me is ignorance which manifests itself in a forceful way which might reinforce prejudices about genres or artists. Unforgivable. Also flippancy/lack of commitment or interest, I'm not one of the "if you dont care fuck off" fools but it's important to write actually about the music, just because you're bored with (crap at) reviewing doesn't change that.

― Ronan (Ronan), Sunday, 11 May 2003 20:14 (twenty-two years ago)

I find Alex Petridis quite entertaining. Don't always agree with him, but his writing is often fun.

the news isn't particularly good and generally has a sycophantic New Labour bias

Alistair Campbell would probably disagree with you on this, Dave.

― James Ball (James Ball), Monday, 12 May 2003 10:16 (twenty-two years ago)

Well, he prob would but it still toes the line far to much...

― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Monday, 12 May 2003 10:33 (twenty-two years ago)

One of the main problems I have with Petridis is that HE KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT THE SUBJECT ON WHICH HE IS WRITING. Hence, saying "Big Eyed Beans From Venus" was on "Trout Mask Replica" then, two days later, reviewing The Magic Band and getting the whole concert entirely wrong. Hence, in the midst of an interview with the Go-Betweens, saying that Robert Forster's poppiest song was "Streets of Your Town" - that would be because Grant McLennan wrote it. Etcetera etcetera etcetera. He gets PAID for this stuff. Do some research at least, you cretin.

― Dadaismus (Dada), Monday, 12 May 2003 10:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Or just stick to what you know rather than trying to be the defintive voisce on every form of music known to man, which is what i feel he and Lysnkey believe themselves to be. It's arrogant, insulting to the subject at hand and the readership and results in fucking dull ill-informed writing (cf the above post). Personally I could give two shits for Capatin Beefheart and The Magic Band, but some people are big fans of this stuff and want to read about it. At least do them the courtesy of offering them something with some substance and knowledge behind it.

― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Monday, 12 May 2003 11:04 (twenty-two years ago)

apologies for spelling again...

― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Monday, 12 May 2003 11:05 (twenty-two years ago)

MMmmm I don't really understand the Guardian and Petrides hate either. I think when I leave the UK, The Guardian will be one of the things I miss most: Polly Toynbee, Nancy Banks-Smith, the Reader's Editor, the Guide, the new Review section... I don't expect to find a paper one-quarter as good in the US. And Petrides is as close to an ILx representative in the broadsheets as I can think of.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Monday, 12 May 2003 11:17 (twenty-two years ago)

God help us...

― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Monday, 12 May 2003 11:19 (twenty-two years ago)

Polly Toynbee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die! Die!

― Dadaismus (Dada), Monday, 12 May 2003 11:21 (twenty-two years ago)

I like The Guardian more than any other broadsheet. I like Peter Bradshaw and Nancy Banks-Smith. Petridis is OK, but I hate him cos I want his job and would do it better.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Monday, 12 May 2003 11:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Agree with Nick. Peter Bradshaw is a proper film critic in that he mostly gives bad reviews because most films that are released are actually not very good. Nancy Banks-Smith is great too, but she's old school, dude.

― Dadaismus (Dada), Monday, 12 May 2003 11:29 (twenty-two years ago)

As I work at the guardian (in a hilariously minor capacity), I feel honour-bound to defend it -- but frankly, I can't be bolloxed.

― Chuck Tatum (Chuck Tatum), Monday, 12 May 2003 11:35 (twenty-two years ago)

There are writers that I like on the guardian but i just can't bear to read it because the ones i don't, i really loathe and despise... shame... i'm prob missing out on some good stuff, too

― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Monday, 12 May 2003 11:40 (twenty-two years ago)

***gasps in amazement that someone I always respected is still prepared to defend Toynbee even today***

― robin carmody (robin carmody), Monday, 12 May 2003 18:18 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh god, Nancy Banks Smith is a dreadful TV critic. Someone should tell her that TV criticism shouldn't solely consist of saying what happened on the TV last night, and then writing down some unrelated Shakespeare quote at the end.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 12 May 2003 18:35 (twenty-two years ago)

"I don't expect to find a paper one-quarter as good in the US. "

You'll be happily surprised then. US newspapers are generally superior.

― Ben Williams, Monday, 12 May 2003 18:38 (twenty-two years ago)

"You'll be happily surprised then. US newspapers are generally superior."

If by "superior" you mean "mainly car adverts and coupons for Walmart", that is.

― NE Richardson, Monday, 12 May 2003 19:11 (twenty-two years ago)

I guess you've never read the NY Times, Washington Post, Daily News, New York Post, LA Times or USA Today then...

― Ben Williams, Monday, 12 May 2003 19:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Dude. Why did you have to say USA Today?

― NA. (Nick A.), Monday, 12 May 2003 19:44 (twenty-two years ago)

Haha!

I like USA Today! It does what it does very well. And I don't really have anything against what it does.

That said, I only read it when I'm traveling.

― Ben Williams, Monday, 12 May 2003 19:52 (twenty-two years ago)

The NY Times is generally superior in terms of its writing quality to what you will find in Britain, it's just very boring (I like my newspapers with a heavy side order of screamingly obvious bias, not the NY Times' faked 'objectivity')

I read the Guardian and the Times, although I agree with the Guardian more often (Polly Toynbee, it must be said, is my second most hated columnist in the media, after Richard Beezlebubjohn)

― Randall Helms (RPH), Monday, 12 May 2003 20:12 (twenty-two years ago)

* I am Scottish.
* Although the epithet 'very English' is not pleasing to me, there's a big quote on my forthcoming Creation compilation that says 'Momus: England's greatest living artist'. It's a joke. The fact that 'England's greatest living artist' might be a Scot is almost revenge for Culloden.
* 'The Laird of Iversnecky' was written in homage to Harry Gordon, who invented the character. But the song makes a composite of many Scottish vaudevillians, including Rikki Fulton.
* Marcello's review, though faboo, is not without Grauniadisms of its own. For instance the song 'Scottish Lips' is described as 'Scottish Eyes'.

― Momus (Momus), Monday, 12 May 2003 22:56 (twenty-two years ago)

From today's Grauniad:

'Tens of thousands of brains have been removed from adults who have died without family consent, it is claimed.'

― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 13 May 2003 07:03 (twenty-two years ago)

Hey I knew you'd come thru for me in the end Momo baby - no Scotsman likes to be called "very English", whatever the intent behind the statement.

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 13 May 2003 11:31 (twenty-two years ago)

USA Today??? I know the news section has improved in the past year or so, but it's still much closer to a tabloid than it is to a real newspaper.

― Nicole (Nicole), Tuesday, 13 May 2003 11:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Why do people hate Polly Toynbee so much?

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Tuesday, 13 May 2003 12:06 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't. I think she tells it like it is.

Kind of.

Nancy B-S is way overrated. How many times has she written "There was enough said at our Albert's wedding"?

Nipper, when are you leaving UK?

(Also: Nipper: odd to see you worrying about being contained by geographical limits of printed press -- I would have imagined you having a tiny box with 1800 Toynbee articles "in" it, all of them AS YET UNWRITTEN.)

― the pinefox, Tuesday, 13 May 2003 15:11 (twenty-two years ago)

I can't believe people still say "Grauniad".

― Tag (Tag), Tuesday, 13 May 2003 18:07 (twenty-two years ago)

Polly Toynbee rulz! U r all gay.

― TMFTML (TMFTML), Tuesday, 13 May 2003 18:49 (twenty-two years ago)

ha, i was going to say that Tag.

I don't like Polly Toynbee's politics much, though I do agree with quite a lot of what she says, which isn't that surprising seeing as she's from broadly the same side of the political divide as oneself. But when she rubs me up the wrong way, she really does. In the professional dealings I had with her at the Guardian she was very pleasant, and signed my leaving card so she's definitely not all bad. I didn't much enjoy pulling out anti-Afghan war opinion for her to quote and carp about in a dreadful, misguided way after the swift allied victory though.

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 13 May 2003 22:20 (twenty-two years ago)

robin or N - could you expand a little on what The Toynbee Problem is?

iirc robin dislikes will hutton too?

(i find this confusing)

― Snowy Mann (rdmanston), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 13:43 (twenty-two years ago)

I find this a very annoying piece, for example. It comes across as petty 'I am right you were wrong, can't you just admit it?' rhetoric dressed up as a strike against point-scoring. And that paragraph about her own political journey is nauseating. What does she actually concede she was wrong about? Protesting at Vietnam, of all things.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 15:28 (twenty-two years ago)

ok, thanks for that - don't know where i stand on that piece, to be honest, but i can see what you mean
(i think i'll try to check the g's website more regularly - about time i started reading something other than The Brigadooner on a semi-regular basis....)

i hadn't read her since '96 or so - only time i've heard her within the last couple of years is when she's popped up on R4's 'moral maze' panel: from that i can remember that she's an atheist, but not where she stands on various other issues

i used to think of her as the anti-phillips, but i also often got the impression there was an underlying snotty-headmistress tone & phillips-like puritanical streak running through her too, that they share this 'i'm-a-real-hardcase-me' self-image, both loving assertions of a 'facts have to be faced'* nature

(i was going to say that at worst it comes across like they believe the ability to stick on their monitors some bullet-pointed post-it notes summarising other ppls selective social research makes them some kind of fearless truth-seekers....but that is overly harsh....and besides what alternative is there - all we can get is selectivity-balance)

*a tone that annoys in political/social affairs, especially when it comes from non-scientists - but maybe that's my own prejudice

― Snowy Mann (rdmanston), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 16:45 (twenty-two years ago)

By that confusing sentence (v.badly put, I realise), I meant that yeah, as someone who's on the same side of the political fence as me, it's not surprising that I often agree with her when she's attacking conservative elements in society, as she still does.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 18:09 (twenty-two years ago)

oh I don't so much dislike Will Hutton as think him overtly simplistic

― robin carmody (robin carmody), Wednesday, 14 May 2003 22:47 (twenty-two years ago)

ten months pass...

1234567890`10jhigkfdjopijh;LS?HJBoi7BSLKlniuzdgf;l4
654hdilhkj;qwertyuiop[ASDFGHJKL;ZXCVBNM,1234567890-=\789+456123QWERTYUILSDFGHJZXCVBNM,.qwertyuiop{@!@#$%^&*(())_++|qwertyuioooooop{{{asdfghjkl:pp"""sdfghjkl:::::"zxcvbn<>?!@~!@#$%^&*()_+|qwertyuiop{}asdfghjkl:"zxcvbnm<>??1234346567789900-1111234567890-==\\\\

― kjhhoi, Tuesday, 13 April 2004 13:50 (twenty-one years ago)

picnic.

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 13 April 2004 14:16 (twenty-one years ago)

Lion bar.

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Tuesday, 13 April 2004 14:22 (twenty-one years ago)

Toynbee signed N's leaving card!

― the wowfox, Tuesday, 13 April 2004 14:49 (twenty-one years ago)

I think she probably contributed to my digital camera too, wowfox.

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 13 April 2004 15:05 (twenty-one years ago)

packaging

― Snnap Dragon (snnap dragon), Tuesday, 13 April 2004 15:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Ooops, sorry... ignore that!

― Snnap Dragon (snnap dragon), Tuesday, 13 April 2004 15:45 (twenty-one years ago)

That seems fitting.

― El Diablo Robotico (Nicole), Tuesday, 13 April 2004 19:12 (twenty-one years ago)

thirteen years pass...

Wha'ppen?

― Curly Morlocks (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 17 January 2018 03:03 (eight years ago)

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