Why the Guardian is going down the pan!

[ska invita]

Came across this - not fussed about the loss of a restaurant critic (sounds like a hard job) but interesting bit here is that the Observer might be getting sold to Tortoise Media

"
Rayner, who has reviewed restaurants for The Observer for 25 years, said last month that he had been shortlisted for columnist of the year in the BSME Awards “in the same month that The Guardian has told me they will terminate all our contracts if they can sell The Observer to Tortoise”.

Tortoise and Guardian News and Media have previously assured Observer staff that their jobs will be safe if the sale goes ahead."

Jay Rayner leaves Observer as departing editor slams planned sale

Observer restaurant critic Jay Rayner is moving to the FT amid his longtime newspaper's contentious sale process.

pressgazette.co.uk

by pure coincidence i just stumbled onto Tortoise Media on youtube < a bit like sunday supplement arts section

Tortoise

Welcome to Tortoise's YouTube channel. We are a different kind of newsroom – what’s different about us is slow news. We don’t do breaking news, but what’s driving the news. We don’t cover every story, but reveal a few. We take the time to see the fuller picture, to make sense of the forces...

www.youtube.com

WIki says
Tortoise Media is a British news website co-founded in 2018 by former BBC News director and The Times editor James Harding and former US ambassador to the United Kingdom Matthew Barzun.[1][2][3]

....which doesn't bode well for a change in Observers closeness to establishment politics, but hope springs eternal it might move the dial a bit

ETA supposedly called Tortoise because "part of the slow journalism movement"

 

[Cerv]

the Observer's loss is the FT's gain.

Rayner's column always a great read, even though I could count on one hand the number of places I've visited off the back of a review. too many outside my price range or outside of London.

 

[May Kasahara]

ska invita Private Eye has been covering the prospective sale to Tortoise, it's contentious to say the least. And sounds like it's being very badly handled on top of that.

 

[lazythursday]

ska invita Private Eye has been covering the prospective sale to Tortoise, it's contentious to say the least. And sounds like it's being very badly handled on top of that.

I hope the sale goes through, because the Observer is consistently further to the right than the Guardian, produces much of the content on the Guardian website that enrages me and I won't miss it at all when it becomes paywalled and driven (further) into the ground by whatever hedge fund wankers are behind Tortoise.

 

[May Kasahara]

I don't pay close enough attention to tell the difference tbh

 

[May Kasahara]

But I sympathise with every employee worried about their working future, especially where they're being kept in the dark/treated like they're of no consequence.

 

[ska invita]

I hope the sale goes through, because the Observer is consistently further to the right than the Guardian, produces much of the content on the Guardian website that enrages me and I won't miss it at all when it becomes paywalled and driven (further) into the ground by whatever hedge fund wankers are behind Tortoise.

Yes exactly that, and beyond that its also been a paper thats been the voice of the secret and military services and very much in the control of the Labour party right. Dont ask me for precise evidence for that but trust me - have seen it over the years

 

[lazythursday]

Yes exactly that, and beyond that its also been a paper thats been the voice of the secret and military services and very much in the control of the Labour party right. Dont ask me for precise evidence for that but trust me - have seen it over the years

Yes - certainly lots of evidence of this pre-Guardian ownership (the secret services connections).

I actually worked for the Guardian /Observer (in a non editorial role) for a year or so shortly after The Observer had been taken over. The whole place was stuffed full of private school establishment wankers to some extent but The Observer was on another level when it came to entitled patrician public school attitudes. The staff had been used to somewhat more salubrious working conditions under their previous ownership (dodgy conglomerate Lonrho / Tiny Rowland) and were deeply unhappy at being subsumed by the Guardian. Some of them were such arseholes. So it's funny to me that everyone behaves now like the two papers intrinsically belong together.

Of course will be an entirety different staff by now! (but probably still 50% privately educated)

 

[ska invita]

Yes - certainly lots of evidence of this pre-Guardian ownership (the secret services connections).

I actually worked for the Guardian /Observer (in a non editorial role) for a year or so shortly after The Observer had been taken over. The whole place was stuffed full of private school establishment wankers to some extent but The Observer was on another level when it came to entitled patrician public school attitudes. The staff had been used to somewhat more salubrious working conditions under their previous ownership (dodgy conglomerate Lonrho / Tiny Rowland) and were deeply unhappy at being subsumed by the Guardian. Some of them were such arseholes. So it's funny to me that everyone behaves now like the two papers intrinsically belong together.

Of course will be an entirety different staff by now! (but probably still 50% privately educated)

thats really interesting...when did it get subsumed into the Guardian?

 

[lazythursday]

thats really interesting...when did it get subsumed into the Guardian?

Mid 1993. I worked there in 1995 I think, but they'd only pretty recently moved into the old Guardian building in Farringdon Road, so the integration must have taken ages.

 

[Sue]

But I sympathise with every employee worried about their working future, especially where they're being kept in the dark/treated like they're of no consequence.

Tbh, that seems to be how it always goes with redundancies/takeovers etc.

 

[hitmouse]

Guardian & Observer journos have voted to strike over this:

Guardian & Observer journalists vote to strike

Journalists at the Guardian & Observer will undertake two 48-hour periods of strike action on 4-5 December and 12-13 December following a resounding ballot result in favour of industrial action.

www.nuj.org.uk

Will be interesting to see who respects it and who makes the leap from scabby commentator to actual scab. I hope my hero Adrian Chiles doesn't turn out to have feet of clay.

 

[Pickman's model]

Guardian & Observer journos have voted to strike over this:

Guardian & Observer journalists vote to strike

Journalists at the Guardian & Observer will undertake two 48-hour periods of strike action on 4-5 December and 12-13 December following a resounding ballot result in favour of industrial action.

www.nuj.org.uk

Will be interesting to see who respects it and who makes the leap from scabby commentator to actual scab. I hope my hero Adrian Chiles doesn't turn out to have feet of clay.

I hope your idol is idle on the strike days

 

[Pickman's model]

I wish he was idle all the other days too

 

[krtek a houby]

Gyms? Squash courts?

I moved to another city – and found an unexpected way to make new friends | Arwa Mahdawi

While self-help books might suggest manifesting new people in your life or cold-water plunges to change your entire personality, the key to finding a community is much simpler, writes Arwa Mahdawi

www.theguardian.com

Friends are overrated

 

[kabbes]

The premise of the article is a good one — it is indeed very difficult to make friends as an adult. But the treatment of the subject is the very most banal, surface-level, unreflective drivel I can imagine

 

[krtek a houby]

The premise of the article is a good one — it is indeed very difficult to make friends as an adult. But the treatment of the subject is the very most banal, surface-level, unreflective drivel I can imagine

Yep.

Not sure I'd want to hang out with her chums.

 

[two sheds]

Yeh it's nonsense, the way to make new friends is what I used to do every time I moved somewhere new. You find a pub you like and go there an evening or two a week.

It takes a while but if you're persistent you'll meet people you get on with. Most of my mates turned out to be alcoholics mind, but that's a small price

Eta: as you will be alerted multiple times below on the thread, this advice is only intended for men. No liability will be accepted for incorrect application.

 

[krtek a houby]

Yeh it's nonsense, the way to make new friends is what I used to do every time I moved somewhere new. You find a pub you like and go there an evening or two a week.

It takes a while but if you're persistent you'll meet people you get on with. Most of my mates turned out to be alcoholics mind, but that's a small price

Possibly. But not everyone is into pub culture, though.

Especially outside of the UK, some find it hard to adjust.

 

[Sue]

Yeh it's nonsense, the way to make new friends is what I used to do every time I moved somewhere new. You find a pub you like and go there an evening or two a week.

It takes a while but if you're persistent you'll meet people you get on with. Most of my mates turned out to be alcoholics mind, but that's a small price

I've had people give me this advice a few times. Always men, btw. Can you see how this really might not work for women..?

 

[Elpenor]

I couldn’t think of anything worse than going to a pub to chat to randoms a few evenings a week!

I get the logic behind the suggestion, but suspect it only works in certain places for certain people

 

[krtek a houby]

I couldn’t think of anything worse than going to a pub to chat to randoms a few evenings a week!

I get the logic behind the suggestion, but suspect it only works in certain places for certain people

It worked for me when I was younger but very different circumstances now.

The idea of a gym or squash is repellent, though.

 

[two sheds]

Yes indeed people, was a bit tongue in cheek. I wouldn't do it now given the same circumstances, although I'm not intending to move again.

When I got to Cornwall I was told people won't accept you for the first 15 years so I didn't really bother for the first 15 years. Aside from neighbours and a few people I've not really bothered since then either.

It was actually quite successful for scoring though, which was essential when moving somewhere new. One pub in Dorchester I went up to a suitable looking hippy and asked which pubs I should avoid if I didn't want to come across any spliff. He said "this one actually". "Ah thank you, and is there anyone here I should particularly avoid?" "well me actually"

 

[two sheds]

I've had people give me this advice a few times. Always men, btw. Can you see how this really might not work for women..?

Yes indeed, as I say it doesn't really work for men either.

 

[xenon]

Yeh it's nonsense, the way to make new friends is what I used to do every time I moved somewhere new. You find a pub you like and go there an evening or two a week.

It takes a while but if you're persistent you'll meet people you get on with. Most of my mates turned out to be alcoholics mind, but that's a small price

Aside those I met at university, this is basically how I made friends in Bristol.

OTOH, The idea of trying to form friendships at the gym is utterly appalling to me. I mean having a chat at the counter when you're finished is one thing but talking to strangers whilst plodding along on the treadmill or red facedly going for that deadlift PB is absurd.

 

[xenon]

These days I'd probably use Meet Up or something to join groups (why don't people in their 40s etc) around a interest. Mainly because I don't want to spend as much time in the pub for financial and health reasons.

 

[two sheds]

... and getting loads of alkies as mates

I say that though, although they were all drinkers most of the people I met were sound, a few incredibly so. There was only really one bloke I got friends with who really descended into alcoholism and eventually would talk incessantly and not listen to a fucking word I said. After several times of pointing this out to him, I cut all contact.

But fair point this indeed isn't going to work at all for women.

 

[Elpenor]

These days I'd probably use Meet Up or something to join groups (why don't people in their 40s etc) around an interest. Mainly because I don't want to spend as much time in the pub for financial and health reasons.

I feel wary of those meet-up things

They don’t seem to be very active or at all in the town I live in, and joining one in Exeter, 15 miles away seems a bit counter productive. But would be good to develop some links around shared interests.

I have heard of a thing called Andy’s man club too but am wary of that as my mind has filed it away, perhaps incorrectly, as a self help group for broken men with historic anger and coke usage issues and I don’t fall into that bracket and don’t need anyone like that in my life

 

[ska invita]

Music is an amazing way of making friends...its like the freemasons

 

[krtek a houby]

Music is an amazing way of making friends...its like the freemasons

Oh, I do miss the old bonding over music lark.