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99 Ways the Private Eye can fuck off

Started by Twit 2, September 08, 2018, 04:36:29 PM

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Chriddof

Quote from: Clive Langham on September 08, 2018, 06:20:41 PM
The other problem is that, as more time goes by, the more hopelessly-silly and outdated the Eye's high-church Anglican/public school/oxbridge/only-an-oik-would-wear-a-puffer-jacket attitude to life is. It was fairly moth-eaten by the early nineties, but it's just ridiculous now.

Quote from: Cuellar on September 09, 2018, 12:10:10 AM
All the cartoons are unmitigated dogshit. What's that one, It's Grim Up North London or something? God almighty.

Ian Hislop once talked (no more than 3 or 4 years ago) about trying to find young cartoonists to work for Private Eye, and not being able to attract any. He seemed quite puzzled at this.

PlanktonSideburns


Mark Steels Stockbroker

Quote from: Twit 2 on September 08, 2018, 04:36:29 PM
Another bug-bear is the book reviews, which are invariably shooting fish in a barrel take-downs of trash like celebrity autobiographies.

The book reviews have changed a great deal. Once upon a time they wouldn't even have looked at trash, it would just be whatever the "serious" arts pages were reviewing, and the counterblast could often be pretty snobbish, sexist, homophobic, whatever ("Women should not look at this book" was a comment about Richard Adams' porn novel back in the 80s). When D.J.Taylor did it he used it as a platform for his angry views on the state of the modern British novel.

As culture in general got less "elitist", and the fancy Arts pages started reviewing trash as much as the latest tomes by Margaret Drabble or Martin Amis, the Eye reviews shifted quite a bit. Pretty much everything they cover now are items they would not have even sniffed at 30 years ago, but then none of the "serious" newspapers would have either.

The thing about Craig Brown's Diary is that it started out as a parody of the Spectator guest diary back in 1990 (using the same logo at the top), and it was indeed a razor-sharp review of the stuff you would see from Paul Johnson, Clive James, various other political or cultural luminaries. But unfortunately he ran out of targets to use around 1992, and had to start using pop culture figures. The problems with that are: (1) those people aren't usually writers and thus have no distinctive style or voice available for parody, so the parodist has to invent one to be speaking clunkily obvious examples of their hypocrisy, venality etc. (2) Brown is hopeless at parodying pop culture figures as he clearly hates them, thinks they're stupid and empty and in fact has no parodic point to make about them apart from that, he can't even be bothered to do the most basic research on people he isn't familiar with. Baddiel& Newman and later Baddiel&Skinner are a case in point: there could be gags to be had about Baddiel's intellectualism (he did start a PhD) and how he is alternately dissatisfied with his work and also precious and pretentious about some of it; but Craig missed that and just saw an oik who got above himself. Dire stuff. The worst ever moment was of course the "Noel Gallagher" parody that featured a picture of Liam; clearly no one who copy-edited the text had the faintest idea whether it was plausible or not. The Spectator itself scrapped the Diary feature long ago.

Mark Steels Stockbroker

I think we've done this thread before. This is definitely not the first time I've said that stuff about Craig Brown; it's been true for at least 20 years.

The other thing I've previously said about the Eye: the quality of the "funny" pages fell off when HIGNFY started, as Hislop didn't have enough material to go round, so Wheen or someone like that had to take it up. They were pretty good back in the late 80s. The early good years of HIGNFY were also pretty much Private Eye TV, giving a platform to run stories that weren't really topical but had been in the magazine (see also the HIGNFY tie-in book).

Mark Steels Stockbroker

Quote from: Clive Langham on September 08, 2018, 07:32:25 PM
Their religiosity is irksome; by all means have a pop at Dawkins when he's being a dildo, but the constant sneering at even the mildest of atheist thinking  is ridiculous in an increasingly-secular UK.

The theme in your posts is that the magazine ought to be aligned with mainstream opinion in the country right now. You couldn't have a strongly left-wing paper on that basis either.

Sebastian Cobb


finnquark

Quote from: Maurice Yeatman on September 08, 2018, 05:48:59 PM
Their end of year reviews at the National Theatre sound right up your street.  https://www.youtube.com/user/ntdiscovertheatre/search?query=private+eye

(Let us know how long you last.)

17 seconds into the 2016 edition, when the bald fraud mentions rail bus replacement services.

Psmith

I used to read it in the sixties when satire was sexy and going to change everything.Haha!
My OH bought me a subscription more recently but she was a bit confused and I got The Spectator.
I did read it but washed my hands afterwards.


Virgo76

I personally think Craig Brown is great and lots of the cartoons are fine too (although generally not the regular ones - Celeb and Yobs etc).
Never read the book reviews though and there is undeniably a snooty air about much of it. Some of the answers in Dumb Britain are often not particularly dumb.
The Cameron/pig story was totally unverified. Hislop was right to be scornful of it, it wasn't a class thing.
I don't think they are unduly tough on Corbyn either although must admit I rarely find the bits piss takes of him very funny in practice.
I have a subscription currently but will probably cancel it soon not because it's bad but because I prefer it as an occasional pleasure. The novelty wears off if you get it every fortnight.


Icehaven

Quote from: Chriddof on September 09, 2018, 05:08:05 AM
Ian Hislop once talked (no more than 3 or 4 years ago) about trying to find young cartoonists to work for Private Eye, and not being able to attract any. He seemed quite puzzled at this.

There was an exhibition of PE cartoons over the years in a gallery in London a few years ago, and in the programme for it Ian Hislop said they receive way more cartoons (the one-off single panel ones, not the regular series ones) than they can publish and he personally selects the ones they do.
The regular series are generally dire though, totally one note, and it's often difficult to decipher what the joke is even supposed to be. Yobs is particularly bad for this, in fact I can think of two recent-ish examples where it's just people saying fairly plausible things to each other, which the cartoonist obviously thinks is just hilariously plebish and oiky. In one a girl rings her parents up to ask them to pick her up from the pub as she's been drinking, and they reply ''sorry love, we've been drinking too!'' - and that's it, that's the joke, ffs.

Anyway I've read the magazine every fortnight for about 10-15 years but just in the last 6 months or so have started largely skimming it, only reading the bits that particularly interest me and doing the crossword. Dunno if it's ennui brought on by reading about the same corruption and scandals etc. for over a decade or just generally getting bored of the repetitive tone and seemingly increasingly unfunny funny bits but I just can't be bothered wading through it all anymore. I'll keep buying it though as although it's far from perfect I like that it exists, it still does some good work exposing that which needs to be exposed, I'm happy to support it, and I still like the crossword (never f****** won it though.)

gilbertharding

This is a bit off topic, but if anyone has the posthumous collection of Alan Coren's writings, there is an (I presume) unintentionally hilarious defence of his work against the Private Eye lot, written by his children. Well worth a read.

According to them, the public school educated likes of Ingram etc were always going to have an axe to grind against the Jewish grammar school upstart from Cricklewood. They briefly examine the hypocrisy of PE's distaste for him and Punch - which Private Eye condemn as being too cosy and establishment.

Later in the same book (published 2008) Vicky and Giles defend their father's 'brilliant' and 'not at all racist' Idi Amin pieces. Gutsy.

gilbertharding

QuoteIan Hislop once talked (no more than 3 or 4 years ago) about trying to find young cartoonists to work for Private Eye, and not being able to attract any. He seemed quite puzzled at this.

I sent in a cartoon once. Rejected.

I should try again, I suppose... perhaps I should tell them I'm under 50.

The Lion King

I've got a little book of 'scenes you seldom see' which I quite like. A lot of it is based around working class people doing typically middle class things though... Builders listening to classic fm etc

Jumblegraws

Quote from: Funcrusher on September 08, 2018, 08:39:40 PM
Could happily not ever again read a piece that begins 'person Y has come out strongly against X. But we seem to recall a certain individual who was heavily involved with something that we can tangentially connect to X - goes on in this vein for ages before concluding 'who could that person be?......PERSON Y!'
Those get on my nerves as well, what's even more annoying (to me) is when they sometimes mix up the formula and single out person Y for conspicuously not talking about subject X at a given point in time.

Rich Uncle Skeleton

Quote from: gilbertharding on September 10, 2018, 02:49:44 PM
I sent in a cartoon once. Rejected.

I should try again, I suppose... perhaps I should tell them I'm under 50.

Sent a whole bunch one summer when in between jobs, not a single bite sadly. Should have written my name and "age 28" in sloppy letters to really nail it home.

H-O-W-L

I've never fully read a Private Eye cover-to-cover but, and it might be because I'm a small-town Southerner born in the nineties from a working-class dirty-fingernails background, but it's always come off to me as pretentious Poxbridge cunt material written by shitcunts who sneer at 'bad boys' at lunch before they go back to a 1:30 meeting with Sir Toffington Fuckpipe of Tossington Hall. Just vitriolic spitting back and forth, with the odd gobbet of phlegm hurled downward too just for good measure. Really venomous cynicism. But, again, it might just be because I'm from a sneering-upward background as it is.

Icehaven

Quote from: Rich Uncle Skeleton on September 10, 2018, 05:45:09 PM
Sent a whole bunch one summer when in between jobs, not a single bite sadly. Should have written my name and "age 28" in sloppy letters to really nail it home.
Quote from: gilbertharding on September 10, 2018, 02:49:44 PM
I sent in a cartoon once. Rejected.

I should try again, I suppose... perhaps I should tell them I'm under 50.

Were they one-off single panel ones or 3 or 4 panel potential series type ones with a title and everything? (Or both?)

Jockice

Another former regular reader. I used to always buy it when I was working, but since I stopped all that nonsense and went on 'the sick' I've probably bought it about four or five times in total. I occasionally see it on a rack and think 'shall I buy it?' (in fact I did in Tesco yesterday evening) but rarely do. I used to like the Street Of Shame and HP Sauce bits but found large parts of it just sneery and dull. I doubt if it has changed that much.

The only magazines I read regularly nowadays are Mojo and Q, and that's cos I have them both on subscription that I can't be bothered to cancel. I enjoy the first when they're not wittering on about The Beatles or sodding Dylan but usually skim the latter in about ten minutes. I'm simply not interested in Wolf Alice or Bastille or whatever. It's an age thing. It comes to us all.

madhair60

Haven't read in a while but this thread has given me an urge to.

Maurice Yeatman


ajsmith2

Quote from: gilbertharding on September 10, 2018, 02:48:40 PM


Later in the same book (published 2008) Vicky and Giles defend their father's 'brilliant' and 'not at all racist' Idi Amin pieces. Gutsy.

For a second there I thought you were talking about the cartoonists Vicky and Giles. I wonder if they were named after them?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Weisz

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Giles

Andy147

Quote from: gilbertharding on September 10, 2018, 02:48:40 PM
This is a bit off topic, but if anyone has the posthumous collection of Alan Coren's writings, there is an (I presume) unintentionally hilarious defence of his work against the Private Eye lot, written by his children. Well worth a read.

According to them, the public school educated likes of Ingram etc were always going to have an axe to grind against the Jewish grammar school upstart from Cricklewood. They briefly examine the hypocrisy of PE's distaste for him and Punch - which Private Eye condemn as being too cosy and establishment.

Later in the same book (published 2008) Vicky and Giles defend their father's 'brilliant' and 'not at all racist' Idi Amin pieces. Gutsy.

If you mean "Chocolate and Cuckoo Clocks", they say *he* wasn't racist (e.g. he went on civil rights marches in the US), not that the Idi Amin pieces weren't, and that they considered leaving them out of the book, but as "The Bulletins of Idi Amin" was his best-selling book they put them in (in an appendix).

greencalx

(Surely it should be 94 Ways the Private Eye can fuck off)

Agree with a lot that is written here. I tend to read the Letters page first (and even these can be somewhat thin), then the bits at the front, skim the "funnies" (as I pretty much know already what they are going to say), and work my way towards In The Back, bailing out before the In the City column.

I have never found the Diary column amusing, and don't understand why Craig Brown is held in such high regard. The "funnies" are deeply repetitive, and could really use a fundamental rethink, greater wit and originality. But all that said, the actual content parts are pretty good (if depressing in the way that things haven't really changed in the 20 years I've been reading it) and I have quite a bit of time for their regular columnists (MD, Ratbiter, Dr Grim, Dr B Ching, Muckspreader, whoever's writing the architecture column these days etc), even if once in a while it would be good to hear a different voice on these topics (for example, Dr B Ching tends to take the view that British Rail is the answer to everything, which it probably isn't, although it might not be a bad place to start). Unusually I rather like the book reviews - they normally make me laugh, and I get the sense that it's a space where the kind of reviews that people want to write but can't get published in the main papers go. (Although it's the same pseudonym and a similar style each week, so maybe it's always the same reviewer).

It also took me a while to 'get' the Scene and Heard strip, but I really like it now. Most of the rest of the cartoons can GTF tho.

Jockice

I'm of the opinion that fake diaries of famous people are the unfunniest comedy device in world history. I could never see the appeal of Craig Brown's ones either but compared with that 'Samantha Cameron' one that used to be in the Guardian they are a work of genius.

a duncandisorderly

viz isn't as good as it used to be either.

Ferris

Quote from: a duncandisorderly on September 15, 2018, 01:17:03 PM
viz isn't as good as it used to be either.

May I draw your attention to the "Sting of the Dump" strip from a few issues back? Absolute cracker from start to finish.

a duncandisorderly

Quote from: FerriswheelBueller on September 15, 2018, 01:19:39 PM
May I draw your attention to the "Sting of the Dump" strip from a few issues back? Absolute cracker from start to finish.

oh, I'm not saying it's rubbish (it is, but), I was merely calling-back their own not-as-good remarks from the early 90s.

my oldest issue of viz is #008.

Jockice

Quote from: Jockice on September 15, 2018, 09:25:33 AM
I'm of the opinion that fake diaries of famous people are the unfunniest comedy device in world history. I could never see the appeal of Craig Brown's ones either but compared with that 'Samantha Cameron' one that used to be in the Guardian they are a work of genius.

Apart from the Hitler diaries of course. They were funny.

Johnny Yesno

Quote from: a duncandisorderly on September 15, 2018, 01:17:03 PM
viz isn't as good as it used to be either.

They do far better parodies of newspaper stories and columns than Private Eye.

mippy

Quote from: Twit 2 on September 08, 2018, 04:36:29 PM
but the latest one, for example, has Will Self for saying he used to have 10 books on the go, but since using an e-reader has 50. I work full time and often have 15 books on the go, as I read a lot of stuff that lends itself to that: poetry, anthologies, short stories, aphorisms, novellas, non-fiction etc. I think it's fair to say 50 books at a time for a wealthy full-time novelist/journalist is about right, especially one who is known for being a voracious reader in the first place. It's basically his job to do that, so if he can't, who can? It just smacks of 'nerdy likes his booky-wooks' jealousy. Fuck off.

This kind of thing is why I never really tell people how many books I read a year, because they think it's just showing off. I probably have about 10 on the go on my Kindle, as I like reading something different now and then.

My least fave is Dumb Britain, which they may as well rename HAHA Proles.  I'm also not keen on people sneering at things that are just not aimed at them - of course you won't get anything out of a Love Island contestant's autobiog if you've never seen the programme. Indeed, the review of said celebrity sex-haver's tome implied that nobody really watched the show, which was bizarre in its wrongness.