Why the Guardian is going down the pan!

[scifisam]

The Guardian continues to show its true blue colours by having an article on how difficult it is to make money as a comedian, using an interview with possibly one of the most privileged people in the entire comedy circuit. Her Dad is a senior economist and an advisor to Boris Johnson, and her Edinburgh act was about a boarding school matron. So unsurprisingly she's clearly so lacking in self awareness that she doesn't realise she's a shit person to be talking about poverty as a comedian.

The article is from 2019. Somehow I suspect she's still not broke.

It's the comedy economy, stupid! Elf Lyons on the true cost of standup

After a Franglais Swan Lake, the comic explains economics with sex dolls in ChiffChaff. She talks about loving horror, how guinea pigs helped her through illness and standing up for comedians

www.theguardian.com

 

[Idris2002]

Le con massif

Noilly prat

 

[metalguru]

Naomi Campbell: ‘It’s time to reset’

The world’s greatest supermodel has been a fearless champion of diversity in fashion for decades. Now she’s relishing a moment of change

www.theguardian.com

This fawning Naomi Campbell article gets off to a bad start with its sub heading:

"The world’s greatest supermodel has been a fearless champion of diversity in fashion for decades. Now she’s relishing a moment of change

and gets worse....

She has a history of unacceptable obnoxious celeb behaviour and should have been called out on it properly and told to fuck off long ago.

 

[metalguru]

Twenty minutes into waiting for her to join our call, a message pops up from a representative apologising that she’d be a few minutes late. Another 20 minutes and I’m told she’s “just working out how to sign in”. I’ve been expecting the wait, comparatively tame compared to the tales of four-hour stake-outs I’d heard from other journalists.

And then, suddenly, she enters, and the atmosphere changes even in a virtual room, international accent first and then the face that launched 1,000 covers; skin dewy and glowy, goddess-like; impossibly high cheekbones and honey-blonde highlights. “Hi,” she says coyly. Polite but unapologetic. It’s fascinating to witness in real time this acute awareness of her own mythology; an unspoken agreement with anyone she encounters that she will be operating according to her own time zone.

This is hideous sycophancy - not journalism...

 

[two sheds]

Naomi Campbell: ‘It’s time to reset’

The world’s greatest supermodel has been a fearless champion of diversity in fashion for decades. Now she’s relishing a moment of change

www.theguardian.com

This fawning Naomi Campbell article gets off to a bad start with its sub heading:

The world’s greatest supermodel has been a fearless champion of diversity in fashion for decades. Now she’s relishing a moment of change

and gets worse....

She has a history of unacceptable obnoxious celeb behaviour and should have been called out on it properly and told to fuck off long ago.

I thought your last sentence was what the Guardian article continued with: a rare sentence of truth I thought, briefly.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Person earning six figure salary in human resources forced by own shit money management to claim UC like everyone else. There'll not be a dry eye in the house reading this one.

'My world came crashing down': how 2020 took me from a six-figure salary to universal credit

When I was made redundant, I thought I would easily get another great job. Then the pandemic hit …

www.theguardian.com

 

[scifisam]

Person earning six figure salary in human resources forced by own shit money management to claim UC like everyone else. There'll not be a dry eye in the house reading this one.

'My world came crashing down': how 2020 took me from a six-figure salary to universal credit

When I was made redundant, I thought I would easily get another great job. Then the pandemic hit …

www.theguardian.com

I dunno. It was badly written, a bit too woe-is-me, but her actual situation is one most people should be able to sympathise with. She's broke due to a long period of illness and still paying off the debts from that time, and can't meet her outgoings under UC, with no mention of wanting to shop at Waitrose or being unable to pay the cleaner like these articles usually include.

If we only reserve our sympathies for people in the UK sleeping on the street, then we should stop being sympathetic to them too because at least they're not in a dinghy on the channel.

 

[metalguru]

It's going to be a very familiar story as we move into autumn....

I do feel sympathy for her situation.

 

[brogdale]

 

[T & P]

View attachment 227490

Here's hoping football hooligans will adopt this, just like they did with the baseball caps a couple of decades ago which almost resulted in Burberry's ruination.

 

[Pickman's model]

Here's hoping football hooligans will adopt this, just like they did with the baseball caps a couple of decades ago which almost resulted in Burberry's ruination.

when there are cheaper knock-offs then it may. but not at £90 a mask.

 

[Pickman's model]

It's going to be a very familiar story as we move into autumn....

oh i do hope so, the more managers from hr who find out the organisation can actually do without them the better.

 

[Flavour]

 

[PTK]

Person earning six figure salary in human resources forced by own shit money management to claim UC like everyone else. There'll not be a dry eye in the house reading this one.

'My world came crashing down': how 2020 took me from a six-figure salary to universal credit

When I was made redundant, I thought I would easily get another great job. Then the pandemic hit …

www.theguardian.com

I have not read the article, but surely the person concerned would not qualify for UC on account of being over the savings limit?

 

[scifisam]

I have not read the article, but surely the person concerned would not qualify for UC on account of being over the savings limit?

She says she had no savings and she used up the redundancy payment during several months of no work and having to make some debt repayments. Even a six figure salary won't give you a huge redundancy payment if you haven't been working there long.

You could have just read the article - it's hardly War and Peace.

 

[PTK]

She says she had no savings and she used up the redundancy payment during several months of no work and having to make some debt repayments. Even a six figure salary won't give you a huge redundancy payment if you haven't been working there long.

You could have just read the article - it's hardly War and Peace.

You are right, I was being lazy. I have now read the article, and I feel sympathy for her. We tend to live up to our salaries, and it is very hard to adjust to being jobless. I hope that people in well-paid jobs who read this article will realise that it could happen to them, and will support those campaigning to reverse benefit cuts.

 

[equationgirl]

I have not read the article, but surely the person concerned would not qualify for UC on account of being over the savings limit?

No savings, asa long period of illness wiped them out.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

It's not so much the events in themselves that gives the HR-manager-on-the-dole piece a nasty taste for me. I mean that's actually not too far away from my own life - I was made redundant last year (not voluntarily, and not from anywhere near a six figure salary job, but I got a good payoff), I didn't have much in the way of extra savings due to illness, a job I was going to start in March was put on hold, no furlough or self-employment payout available, and I had to sign on which I've never had to before, which wouldn't have paid my way for long because it doesn't for anyone. It wasn't a lot of fun even if I eventually did get the job. Oh and I rent too.

On the other hand the attitude in the actual piece just makes me grit my teeth. It's all super self-indulgent and self-pitying - the shit you have to do for UC is no laughs but it's like she'd never considered this before, that this was regular life for a great number of people, and in fact her experience was much better than it was for them. It's only at the end that anyone else is mentioned, and I don't hold out much hope for the "process of re-evaluating my treatment of others while working in HR"; as soon as she gets a job she'll be fucking workers over like before with probably even greater enthusiasm (wouldn't want to lose the job after all).

 

[scifisam]

You are right, I was being lazy. I have now read the article, and I feel sympathy for her. We tend to live up to our salaries, and it is very hard to adjust to being jobless. I hope that people in well-paid jobs who read this article will realise that it could happen to them, and will support those campaigning to reverse benefit cuts.

Yup. Some of them might think "well, why is she still renting" (being 45 and from a working class background and having a history of illness explains it, I guess, despite the salary she had for a while), but they might also recognise their friends or colleagues in it. The Guardian got it right for once.

 

[equationgirl]

It is a self indulgent piece to a certain extent, it's still written from a certain privilege of position, like the bit where she said she hadn't considered how being made redundant makes one feel, that she'll try (try!) to remember to be more compassionate next time.

I've struggled with long periods of I'll health and an unsympathetic employer, leading to debt and a lack of savings. And I've never had a six figure salary or am I likely to, in my career. I am sympathetic to her situation, because it's been shit for lots of people, but equally she's being quite self indulgent, in that she has designer goods she can sell and most people don't.

I wouldn't say the Guardian have got it spot on but it's better than most pieces.

 

[scifisam]

It is a self indulgent piece to a certain extent, it's still written from a certain privilege of position, like the bit where she said she hadn't considered how being made redundant makes one feel, that she'll try (try!) to remember to be more compassionate next time.

I've struggled with long periods of I'll health and an unsympathetic employer, leading to debt and a lack of savings. And I've never had a six figure salary or am I likely to, in my career. I am sympathetic to her situation, because it's been shit for lots of people, but equally she's being quite self indulgent, in that she has designer goods she can sell and most people don't.

I wouldn't say the Guardian have got it spot on but it's better than most pieces.

I think they got it spot on in terms of appealing to people who hadn't really connected UC with themselves before, without, unlike a lot of Guardian articles, assuming that everyone - even poor people - owns a home and has family help to fall back on, and being poor means not going on holiday twice a year. At least this was a renter who is actually broke.

Plus, some people do like the woe-is-me style of writing - I don't, but it can work. Probably difficult to write such a short article about your own situation without focusing on yourself above all else.

 

[Brainaddict]

Just going wtf at this headline:

'Eat out to help out' fuels UK economic recovery in August

Without any evidence presented, and admitting a few lines later that there has been a general rebound due to pent up consumer spending.

Doing Johnson's work for him.

 

[Doodler]

Just going wtf at this headline:

'Eat out to help out' fuels UK economic recovery in August

Without any evidence presented, and admitting a few lines later that there has been a general rebound due to pent up consumer spending.

Doing Johnson's work for him.

Would guess the main beneficiaries of the scheme by a long way have been cheap to mid-market chains like Pizza Hut, Bella Italia, Five Guys etc.

 

[brogdale]

kinnel.

 

[equationgirl]

kinnel.

View attachment 228266

Such largesse. Such generosity.

Also assumes people have cars.

 

[Flavour]

jesus christ that is fucking fantastic. like even from the first two words, "rival bank", we know we're in the territory of the enemy, but with every word the paragraph gets better and better. it's like we've come full circle with satire and people say "it's impossible to do satire now!" ... but it's not true! the key is to do it so subtley, as in this case, that it's entirely plausible that the writer was taking the piss, but leaves you in doubt.

e2a: also love the implication that only "senior bankers" go on holidays while the "junior staff" are forced to plough through a boring august at the office, public transport be damned

 

[agricola]

reality:



grauniad:

Labour urges UK government not to hire Tony Abbott as trade envoy

Australian ex-PM’s views on women and equal marriage make him ‘wrong person for job’

www.theguardian.com

 

[killer b]

Such largesse. Such generosity.

Also assumes people have cars.

I don't imagine the 'more junior' staff being offered the spare parking spaces are the post room staff or the cleaners tbf. It's probably a reasonable assumption for JP Morgan to make about the not senior but actually still quite senior staff they're offering the spaces to.

 

[Pickman's model]

kinnel.

View attachment 228266

so rather than having some sort of easy system by which vacant spots can be distributed, an app must be commissioned and introduced so people lounging on their yachts or in their third (or fourth) homes can if they please donate their parking spot.

 

[8ball]

kinnel.

View attachment 228266

Two of those happened at my office - the parking was because the company felt public transport carried too much risk of someone picking up the virus and bringing it into the office, and the 'free food' was due to stuff in the canteen getting to its sell-by date so it got given away. This was a few months ago, though, and before they started trying to get people back in the office.