Sam Wollaston finally fucks off [split topic]

[mothman]

I have to ask...

She's also consistently dissed Corbz.

Seriously? It's coming to this now? Or will my name go in a list just for asking? Sorry, HZJ, it just strikes me as a bizarre choice of yardstick by which to judge any random person we might find ourselves discussing.

[finnquark]

The most blatant 'out of their depth other than knowing how to kiss arse to quite an extraordinary degree' award goes to Paul MacInnes

Now to be found stinking out the sports coverage. His appearances on the football weekly podcast are hilariously excruciating, so shallow is his understanding and interest in what he talks about.

[holyzombiejesus]

I have to ask...

Seriously? It's coming to this now? Or will my name go in a list just for asking? Sorry, HZJ, it just strikes me as a bizarre choice of yardstick by which to judge any random person we might find ourselves discussing.

As a Socialist, I think it's reasonable to expect The Guardian to be supportive of Labour. The party is constantly under attack from almost every other newspaper so I feel entitled to be disgruntled when a writer from a publication that purports to be left wing takes every available opportunity to undermine the party's leader.

[mothman]

Since we're discussing the sins of Grauniad journos, I thought I'd post this here (rather than in the Bond thread).

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/sep/20/cary-fukunaga-exclusive-interview-new-james-bond-director-netflix-maniac

Guardian interviews director of new TV show to promote said show. Then said director is announced as Bond director. Interviewer rewrites article about interview to shoehorn in lots of musings about how director will "do" Bond. But in a way that makes it obvious he never asked any questions about it. Because he didn't know. But, still...

[kngen]

Eh, they fess up to it in the third par. I've seen far, far, far worse fudgings.

[Twit 2]

Who writes those excruciating pass notes things, in that cloying Q&A format? If it's something some lowly anonymous writer has to churn out to order, I imagine they would be a high risk for being found dead from hanging.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

Sammy W has written today's " Lost In Showbiz " column, in place of Marina Hyde. Innit marvellous?

[kngen]

Who writes those excruciating pass notes things, in that cloying Q&A format? If it's something some lowly anonymous writer has to churn out to order, I imagine they would be a high risk for being found dead from hanging.

I could be wrong, but I think it's had many, many different folk write it over the years. It used to be occasionally quite witty about 20 years ago, but they probably got promoted to the exalted position of wiping down the back seat of Rusbridger's electric car* or - as you say - topped themselves in a sequence of 'forced satire'-related suicides when they saw how much Steve Bell was earning by comparison.

_{*It's entirely coincidental that Rusbridger was elevated out of the public eye before #metoo and Time's Up became a thing, but I'd imagine there's a fair few people in the upper eschelons breathing a sigh of relief that this is the case. It's also a happy accident that Marina Hyde was such a good writer, as it would be hard to argue that it was her portfolio of previous work that got her such high-profile gigs at the Graun. I'll stop now before I get CaB closed down for libel.}

[Geraint]

https://www.theguardian.com/profile/nickcohen

conspicuous November 2017 sized gap in Nick Cohen's Observer work

[Ferris]

Now to be found stinking out the sports coverage. His appearances on the football weekly podcast are hilariously excruciating, so shallow is his understanding and interest in what he talks about.

I contend Ian MacIntosh was worse on football weekly, although both are fucking woeful. MacIntosh in particular would make me delete the podcast as soon as his name was mentioned - terrible twitter anecdotes and "bantz", delivered in a sub-Partridge manner. Awful.

[Stone Cold Steve Austin]

MacInnes is the one who said things like 'Hella' and 'Poch' out loud on FW, right? I think that makes him worse.

MacIntosh, Michael Hann and him are the bottom three regardless

[Brundle-Fly]

God Wollaston is the fucking worst, his TV reviews read like they've been written by a thick child with ADHD. That's not a generic, throwaway insult either, it's a very specific criticism - he writes like a child talks, veering wildly between the topic at hand and literally any other thoughts that come into his head.

"Mark and Jez live in a flat in Kilburn. I used to know someone who lived in Kilburn, must give him a ring some time. Anyway - so Mark and Jez, who are these two geezers? Hurrah! - it's preppy David Mitchell off Would I Lie To You, with his nasal voice and uptight attitude. Wahoo! - it's Robert Webb off, oh um, that film he was in, you remember, the one where he was in the nip. Anyway, so this week they're dealing with Mad Andy - I've got a cat called Andy, but he isn't mad..."

Just absolute trivial dog shit bollocks rubbish.

ha! That really made me laugh. Thanks.

[finnquark]

I contend Ian MacIntosh was worse on football weekly, although both are fucking woeful. MacIntosh in particular would make me delete the podcast as soon as his name was mentioned - terrible twitter anecdotes and "bantz", delivered in a sub-Partridge manner. Awful.

It's interesting how he's been marginalised from presenting the Totally Football Show, and their sister show of the Football League, especially given he set up the company in the first instance. Him and Paul MacInnes are people who think football gives them street cred, nothing more - there is nothing sincere about their discussion of the game, especially MacIntosh. His whole shtick is so tired, he should have been left to his own devices writing about his computer games and we'd never have had to hear people desribe great goals as thunderbastards or whatever.

[Mister Six]

For unintelligible rambling gibberish Zoe Williams was always the worst. She may have improved slightly in recent years.

Funnily enough, I read a Guardian opinion/ents piece for the first time in a decade or more the other day, after reading this thread, and it was by Williams.

It was also, as you say, unintelligible rambling rubbish.

"Highlights":

I know [Captain Marvel] can breathe fire out of her eyes

She does not.

and I can see quite plainly that she is female, the first of her kind, unless you count Wonder Woman, or Lara Croft, which for reasons relating to comic franchises, we do not.

What?

It is astonishing that we got a good way through the 21st century before anyone would consider having a superhero ... or anyone vaguely competent in combat and killing, who was a woman.

What?

And the rest is just a stream-of-conscious nothing.

[Ferris]

It's interesting how he's been marginalised from presenting the Totally Football Show, and their sister show of the Football League, especially given he set up the company in the first instance. Him and Paul MacInnes are people who think football gives them street cred, nothing more - there is nothing sincere about their discussion of the game, especially MacIntosh. His whole shtick is so tired, he should have been left to his own devices writing about his computer games and we'd never have had to hear people desribe great goals as thunderbastards or whatever.

MacIntosh's nadir was passing off a point about Arsene Wenger's defensive setup (or some such) that was transparently lifted directly from twitter. Barry Glendenning called him on it for being trivial nonsense that doesn't stand up to 20 seconds of criticism. Eventually ol' Mac admitted "well... it's what I saw on twitter..." and Glendenning gave him some more shit and eventually got tired of dressing him down and let the silence sit for a bit, before resuming on something interesting.

I got the feeling a lot of the other people on the pod couldn't stand MacIntosh, but I may be projecting my own dislike onto others.


...what were we talking about again?

[Pranet]

Please tell me Vic Marks is a nice guy. I mean, I know he went to Oxford and everything, but I think if I found out he is an arsehole I'd just give up.

[c]

Which one of you is Celia and Andrew?

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/sep/13/a-fond-farewell-to-a-peerless-tv-reviewer-sam-wollaston