alt.guardian.die.die.die

[Capt.Midnight]

Who could forget this classic? "Max, 19, HITS THE ROAD." https://www.theguardian.com/travel/blog/2008/feb/14/skinsblog

The comments appear to have been lost to the sands of time.

[BlodwynPig]

Who could forget this classic? "Max, 19, HITS THE ROAD." https://www.theguardian.com/travel/blog/2008/feb/14/skinsblog

The comments appear to have been lost to the sands of time.

guess where he is now...

nope, not a Junky on the streets of Lahore, worse...the BEEB

https://twitter.com/maxgogs?lang=en

[imitationleather]

To be fair he did direct a pretty good documentary called Chemsex.

[BlodwynPig]

aljazeera.com is pretty good

Russia Today I find extremely relevant

[Famous Mortimer]

Who could forget this classic? "Max, 19, HITS THE ROAD." https://www.theguardian.com/travel/blog/2008/feb/14/skinsblog

The comments appear to have been lost to the sands of time.

That was one of the funnest weeks on the internet.

[Capt.Midnight]

That was one of the funnest weeks on the internet.

Prototype cancel culture. Glad he's doing well anyway, he's probably a nice lad & it wasn't his fault at all really. Still, the tearing to shreds in the comments was absolutely hilarious.

[Jockice]

Who could forget this classic? "Max, 19, HITS THE ROAD." https://www.theguardian.com/travel/blog/2008/feb/14/skinsblog

The comments appear to have been lost to the sands of time.

Nah. They're here. https://www.theguardian.com/travel/blog/2008/feb/14/skinsblog#comments

[king_tubby]

Christ, that was 12 fucking years ago? Seems like only yesterday, my dear.

[poodlefaker]

Adrian Chiles' column has been a particular nadir. Absolute drivel, completely baffling, why on earth would anyone even consider publishing  it?

Turns out he's shagging the editor.

Crosswords are still free on the FT website, by the way, and I think most of them are by the same people as the Guardian's, just under different pseudonyms.

[BlodwynPig]

Nah. They're here. https://www.theguardian.com/travel/blog/2008/feb/14/skinsblog#comments

this guy's son...look at the very last bit of text in the article

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2002/apr/06/bangkok.thailand.familyholidays

[Twonty Gostelow]

Crosswords are still free on the FT website, by the way, and I think most of them are by the same people as the Guardian's, just under different pseudonyms.

I usually prefer the FT ones. The clueing is often just too loose in the Guardian (though not every setter) and the surfaces sometimes seem odd and unwieldy. Even John Halpern (Paul) tightens his clues as Mudd in the FT without losing the wit.

Incidentally, Dave Gorman now sets cryptics professionally for The Independent as 'Bluth'. I think he's done four or five so far.

[BlodwynPig]

diffrn tmes...

http://www.joannageary.com/2008/02/17/max-gogarty-a-warning/

wonder what she thinks of Twitter these days?

[Mister Six]

guess where he is now...

nope, not a Junky on the streets of Lahore, worse...the BEEB

https://twitter.com/maxgogs?lang=en

Yeah, a producer mate of mine who's (obviously) older and infinitely more qualified ended up working under him. My pal didn't have very many nice things to say about the experience, and he thinks that the old boys' club, not Gogarty's actual capabilities, got him the job.

[Ferris]

Delighted to hear the graun is in trouble. 5 years bashing the left only to find *Stewart Lee impersonation* "oh no, I don't have any readers now. ...still I've got this flashy website!"

Going from public knowledge, the Scott Endowment Trust is over $1.6bn. It is incorporated as an Ltd entity which suggests it isn't onshore, but according to the Wikipedia page has a controlling interest in a venture capital LP. The LP designation implies that fund is a US domestic entity (does it report flow through income? It should do), unless it is a cayman LP of course, but I doubt that for boring tax reasons. I'd guess based on the information that is publicly available that they don't pay a penny of UK tax, and I'd be amazed if I was wrong.

Separately...

If you have $1.6bn in a fund, what's a reasonable return? Well going by the market, anywhere from 5-8% would be par for the course. If you are the capital manager, you wouldn't even pay fees on that. That's 50 to 80 million quid a year (and potentially an awful lot more). Every year (at a guess based on the information that is in the public sphere), a fund set up with the express purpose of keeping a newspaper going is able to put that much money into the paper without touching the principle investment sum, and that isn't enough? And they want my $3 to keep funding Toynbee's absurd salary while she bangs out think pieces on why socialism is evil?

I say - and I mean this genuinely - get fucked.

[Zetetic]

Right, but we know that they've been trying to make the GMG break even - and managed it a year or two ago.

They're not in trouble. The cuts are a choice, given the endowment.

[Zetetic]

This references a subsidy of "up to £30 million": https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/aug/07/guardian-broke-even-last-year-parent-company-confirms

Which reinforces that this isn't about it being seriously in trouble. If you didn't give a fuck about the future, you could presumably pay Polly Toynbee, and enough people to keep her columns online, for a very long time out the endowment itself (rather than its returns)[nb]There may be some entirely trivial hurdles in the setup of the Scott Trust Ltd that you'd need overcome, I guess.[/nb].

[Ferris]

They're not in trouble. The cuts are a choice, given the endowment.

Absolutely bang on the money. You made the point much more succinctly than I did.

And that's why I say fuck them.

[peanutbutter]

1. I consider all of my sub going to paying Gary Younges wages - the best journalist they have by a country mile (and if you remember the person that actually went and faced down an actual Nazi rather than sat on their arses in their London flat smearing Corbyn supporters).

Didn't he leave them back in December almost directly after the election?

[H-O-W-L]

If I load a bunch of their pages with adblocker on am I effectively nicking from them? Is it as metal as blaring Judas Priest while baseball-batting American style newspaper stands and stealing all the Grauniads I can get my mitts on? Or is it only a percentage as metal as that?

[Zetetic]

And that's why I say fuck them.

At the same time, your post makes it very clear why it's worth trying to find some way to change the institution rather than just abandon it - that's a tonne of cash that could be put to good use.

[idunnosomename]

If I load a bunch of their pages with adblocker on am I effectively nicking from them? Is it as metal as blaring Judas Priest while baseball-batting American style newspaper stands and stealing all the Grauniads I can get my mitts on? Or is it only a percentage as metal as that?

YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE!!! (when you spend £10 in waitrose on Saturday and all they have left is the Express and the Mail)

[Sebastian Cobb]

If I load a bunch of their pages with adblocker on am I effectively nicking from them? Is it as metal as blaring Judas Priest while baseball-batting American style newspaper stands and stealing all the Grauniads I can get my mitts on? Or is it only a percentage as metal as that?

Yeah but to be full metal you want this script so you can steal paywalled papers.
https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome

[TrenterPercenter]

Didn't he leave them back in December almost directly after the election?

Just been checking this. No he left his position of editor at large (his choice) for a position at Manchester Uni, but still writes for them.

[pancreas]

At the same time, your post makes it very clear why it's worth trying to find some way to change the institution rather than just abandon it - that's a tonne of cash that could be put to good use.

Any ideas?

Esp: for how do we get the institution to care about ALL PEOPLE? Or even, at least, most of them.

I'm blank.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Mm.

Given the source of funding, given the professional connections of the journalists, given the source of advertising and given the largely mutual political agenda...how can we expect it to be reformed? They want donations but want those who donate to have no say in the content. What a great deal. They can do this because they are propped up by their slush fund.

The Guardian should at least be free of the pernicious influence of war mongerers and UK security servicss propaganda, before we move on to the general political positioning. Can anyone chart how we achieve that? (Please don't say strongly worded letters to the editor)

[Zetetic]

Struggling to find a suggestion that doesn't involve wearing someone else's skin to be honest, apologies.

[dannyfc]

Thing is even though the twitter replies are overwhelming derisive for their coverage of Corbyn, the most upvoted BTL comments on these articles are completely at odds to that.

It's all about how the 'hard-left Momentum' and 'student union Corbynistas' were responsible for sinking Labours election chances, so I can see why the Guardian would consider that opinion reflective of their target audience.

Also while i'd agree the Opinion pieces are generally clickbait outrage guff, their proper investigative pieces are still good and I have no faith that any other papers would pick up the slack.  Expect those opinion pieces probably generate the most views, so are a necessary evil to fund the good bits and just need to be ignored. Very much doubt the likes of Toynbee or Suzanne Moore have any influence over public opinion.   

[Thursday]

If there's such a huge market for it, then that lot can save The Guardian. No worries. They are the aspirational middle-classes so they'll have plenty of money.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

They clearly mass distribute received opinion. Given how often I hear their stuff regurgitated by other people mindlessly I think it's rather pointless even trying to argue otherwise.

[dannyfc]

If there's such a huge market for it, then that lot can save The Guardian. No worries. They are the aspirational middle-classes so they'll have plenty of money.

They won't, as despite towing the same economic (neo-liberal) opinions they still resent them for all the identity politics pieces.

Leaves the Guardian in a bit of a no-mans land really as they're effectively managing to piss off everyone from every political sphere.