Pretentious Drivel

Private Eye runs a little section call Pseuds Corner featuring selected drivel from pseudo people in the Mainstream Media. The champions are at The Guardian, Drivelmeisters to the Left Wing. Does this prove that the Graun's readers are crazy mixed up kids, their parents, others old enough to know better or some combination? Pass but the quotes are for real. The Eye has been feeding us this stuff for half a century now; it shows no sign of drying up.

It is fair to say that Ian Hislop, the Eye's editor et al go easy on the Grauniad, apart from spelling its name wrong - a comment of their lack of spell checking. Take it seriously if you want, as proof that the Lunatic Fringe is alive and well. It is thriving this day in August 2020 with extensive rioting after the death of a stupid, vicious black criminal, George Floyd. He is an excuse, no more. The world is a better place without him. BTW The founder of the Graun made his money out of cotton, benefitting from cotton picking niggers, from Slaves. They keep quiet about that detail.

 

He wears short shorts why are men showing more leg - Fashion The Guardian
Does the ubiquity of the short speak to something darker? Could a menline index be at play here: a masculine, inverted version of the hemline index which states that as times get worse, shorts get shorter?

“For me they evoke memories of the Men's Dress Reform Party before the onslaught of world war two, or the last days of disco before the shadow of Aids fell across San Francisco,” says Groves. “They are both optimistic, yet hopelessly pessimistic.”

 

Yotam Ottolenghi's favourite rice recipes - Food The Guardian
Rice is one of my main comforts these days, not least because this special grain transports me wherever I want to go – all from the confines of my own kitchen, of course. The thing about rice is, it has a dynamic wardrobe. Yes, it’s small and unassuming, and it does subtlety really well –plain and buttered? I’ll definitely have that – but leave rice with a choice of costumes and, well, things soon get really colourful. Rice looks just as good dressed in the flavours of the Mediterranean as it does dolled up in Persian cardamom and lime. In fact, it looks good no matter what it has on, and I think it sort of knows it, too.

 

What Does It Mean to Be a Woman? It's Complicated - Time
“woman” remains a useful shorthand for the entanglement of femininity and social status regardless of biology—not as an identity, but as the name for an imagined community that honors the female, enacts the feminine and exceeds the limitations of a sexist society.

 

From rarebit crumpets to prawn buns Yotam Ottolenghi's sandwich recipes - Guardian          
I wish I could say there’s a perfect sandwich ratio – 1:1 bread to filling, or something. But some are preposterously filling-heavy (think big deli sandwich stack), while others lean clearly more towards the casing (see my carrot cake sandwiches below). Some are open-faced, while others do without bread altogether, which begs the question: does a sandwich really need bread at all? It’s a hot debate, and one in which I shall not cast a vote. Focusing on what we can all agree on, however, a sandwich needs a sturdy base of some kind and a topping or filling of some capacity, and the two need to come together in harmonious matrimony.    
PS The writer calls himself Yotam Ottolenghi. Perhaps that explains this rubbish.

 

Meet Damara The Designer Exploring The Relationship Between The Physical Body And Digital Identity HuffPost UK Life.html 
Damara doesn’t call herself a designer; rather, she’s a “fashion media practitioner and curator of extended-reality and interactive experiences” who’s worked across design, styling, theatrical wardrobe and fashion writing, all of which has influenced her creative work today.  
PS The source of this rubbish is a femaloid black weirdo.

 

Digested week Escape from New York, but not from the news US politics The Guardian 
After days spent wading through creeks and long grass, the nightly tick-check is of paramount importance. Ticks like warm areas of the body so the audit isn’t pleasant: armpits, belly buttons, hairlines, creases. On Friday night, I did my five-year-olds then began the long, dismal examination of the self. Standing in front of a mirror, craning over your right shoulder while trying to check your own arse for ticks is a sad affair, unalleviated by the dim but powerful sense that it is somehow a perfect commentary on the times.
PS The Grauniad is inflicting this puerile nonsense on the wonderful people of New York. They might be better off with Kamala Harris running the place. In fact it is what a lot of them want.

 

Simon Amstell How the comedian is peeling away the layers of shame ex BBC  [ PE 1556/37 ]
Acting on the the advice of a moody gorilla he spoke with during one hallucination in the Amazon, Amstell is now trying to "prioritise joy" in his life.

The former agent provocateur of the celebrity circuit - he wasn't asked back for Sky's reboot of Buzzcocks - sees his work these days as being part of a "journey towards healing" - one that begins with him "telling the truth on-stage in a funny way".

"I'm continuing to peel away all these layers of shame and finding more and more freedom and confidence and just being able to joyfully be my actual self, rather than worrying about what anyone thinks," he says.

"And the stand-up is really helpful in getting me there. By saying the thing that I'm most embarrassed about on stage, I end up witnessing the fact that it isn't a problem. People don't usually walk out, when I say the thing that I'm deeply ashamed of... There is this self and group acceptance that seems to happen."
PS Amstell looks  deeply stupid but then he is - much like his Popworld co-conspirator Miquita Oliver.

 

The Abba story is Scandi noir with sequins says The Times  [ PE 1556/37 ]
Classic hits showcased in the Mamma Mia! sequel owe more to Bergman and Strindberg than 1970s pop
Ben Macintyre Mamma Mia! Here we go again. Again. After the sale of more than 380 million records, a stage opera, countless tribute bands, a barnstorming film that grossed $615 million, and now a sequel, it is time to acknowledge Abba as one of the most important cultural influences of all time, the most powerful force to come out of Scandinavia since the Vikings, and the unsung geniuses of Nordic noir.

Because beneath the spangled jumpsuits and jaunty tunes, the Swedish band follows a tradition of bleak Scandinavian melancholia that can be traced back to Swedish and Russian folk music, the works of Jean Sibelius and Edvard Grieg, all the way through to the novels of Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankell, and the dark television of The............
PS Pay money to read the rest of this drivel if you want. I'm not.

 

Virat Kohli caught out again as India captain’s struggles continue India cricket team ex The Guardian  [ PE 1556/37 ]
In Revelation, the poet Robert Frost wrote: “We make ourselves a place apart/Behind light words that tease and flout/But oh, the agitated heart/Till someone find us really out.”

It is too early to say conclusively that Kohli has been found out, but for the moment it does appear that England’s bowlers have a clearer understanding of where the off-stump is than the Indian captain does.

There are two Tests to go and Kohli will no doubt go back to the drawing board with his coaches and colleagues. But for the moment, he is searching – even outside off-stump – rather than seeking, and therein lies India’s biggest problem.

 

Sienna Miller on turning 40 'I'm waiting for an existential crisis... but I feel so calm' ex Telegraph   [ PE 1556/37 ]
Sienna [ Miller ] left boho behind a long time ago. Her style now is sleeker and more minimal, yet still speaks of individuality. She’s the rare woman in the public eye who eschews formulas, looking as at ease in a red-carpet dress as in neutral tailoring, cut-off shorts or a blue-and-white striped shirt and trouser co-ord, like the Ralph Lauren one she wore to Wimbledon this summer. She looks even better now than she did as an ingénue, in a way that can only be called a Siennaissance.
The Telegraph makes a rare entry in the Bullshit Stakes.

 

Bicycles Have Evolved. Have We? The New Yorker 
In the history of the bicycle, ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.
by
Jill Lepore

 

 



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Updated on 23/03/2024 21:29