Am I being unreasonable in hating these articles by journalists who are just showing off their families?

[ipanemagirl]

articles like this just make me want to chunder. Does her family really want to be paraded about like this? Isn't it just a bit weird?

Sorry but there seem to be all these 30 something 40 something women journalists who can't do anything except write dull lightweight pieces of family journalistic bragging.
Yuck.

the insufferable AA gill came into my friend's shop. she made sure she showed she completely DID NOT recognise him and had to ask his name a couple of times when writing down his details. Each time he said adrian gill she looked completely blank and double checked spelling with him. he was expecting any moment for the penny to drop but she didn't show a glimmer

I am sure that the Living With Teenagers column is pure fiction; I wasn't sure but in the last one the female teen started to exhibit the same behaviours as the mother, writing one of the male teen's CV for him because otherwise it wouldn't get written, so, don't you see, history is repeating itself etc etc.
The column I really hate is that "Green House" one in the Guardian where some vile smugwank maunders on and on about her frigging converted railway carriage in a field, conveniently forgetting that hammering up and down between Hacknington and said railway carriage in giant 4x4 massively outweighs any green points she garners with her fucking titwacking about with sheeps' wool insulation and salvaged timber.

Childless journos write stuff that's equally, if not even more, dull and wanky. Liz Jones being right up there with the worst offenders.

Urgh i can't stand liz jones' pointless & self-indulgent column!

Like Tamum, I was so impressed with the photo of the knitting that the tediousness of the rest of it took time to sink in
And how are the mighty fallen, Giles Smith...from Lost in Music to...knitting in Sussex. Erk
AA Gill and Rosie Millard are outstanding examples I agree, but Rachel Johnson in the Telegraph and Claudia Winkleman (somewhere else) are also rash-inflicting horrors

that article is just really really dull writing. Far more botherd by the lack of straightness in the familys picture hanging skills mind....

must admit, a whole article on knitting, stopping for lunch and to look out the window is almost impressive.

That one must have been a bet

pointy, I would like to add the posturing "iconoclasm" of Nicholas de Jongh and Norman Lebrecht to the list of non-parent pointless writers

CenterParcs article is hilarious, but - I must admit that before I went there i actually thought it was all under some big dome like the Eden Project (or the Biosphere) too...

is centreparks NOT under a dome then??

i'm sure someone told me it was under a dome, UD

Only the "sub-tropical aqua paradise" (glorified leisure centre) bit is under a dome. The rest is "landscaped" countryside and woodland and a sort of Stepford Wives/ Prisoner "village".

hmmmmmm yes, prisoner village.
my father wanted to take me & family & sister & cousins to centreparks. I vetoed whole thing - ungrateful or what....

is it not under a dome? i thought that too!

oh i am so glad i dont read the papers anymore, it was all this kinda pap that made me stop

and so childless journos and journos with children get paid to write dross about their life... its such a big fat yawn...

and agree, it's lazy commissioning, it's all about page filling and there is more of that to fill these days
last time i saw the gruindad it was practically written by the readers..wouldnt be surprised if they, the readers, did the dtp too..

shameful sludgey shit

I can't bear to read the Guardian, it makes me gnash my teeth together uncontrollably but as this thread is about poncey lifestyle family porn . . . Junior magazine deserves a mention for the worst column in the world: The Good life where Sarah Francis shares her chaotic life with her 4 kids and handful of lively pets. Or something like that. All she does is go on about how chaotic her life is whilst smiling out beatifically from the page next to her aga in her Hampstead home and very poncely named kids. You can just imagine her braying at them at the farmers market "Tally! Anouk! -over here darrrling!"

I'm sure one is called Aldi too.

I just can't bear it, but the voices make me read it.

i insisted on an off-season trip to menorca instead, all in SEPARATE apartments, mark you

I LOVE Lost in Music

and yes I agree, it's all very irritating and pseudy, but they ARE comissioned to write this stuff and if I was a journo I'd do it too, even though I know perfectly well that nobody is interested in my children. (I would blardy LOVE to be a journalist actually)

I would expect to be slagged off for it though

motherinferior, I'm not sure your stuff is of the same ilk really; an article on your toddler meeting her baby sister (which I would love to read actually) is a real life event of interest, not like 'barney goes knitting' or 'alan goes to CentreParcs for free'

I quite like Tim Dowling in the Grauniad Weekend. I empathised with that one about his wife hiring tradesmen who he then, as the one working at home, has to deal with! (And his wife getting fed up with his column saying "my wife" so he used "my civil partner, Sean" instead.)

is Sean his wife?

isn't that a boys name?

Vulgar, my perusal of Junior would not be complete without a 15 Minute Hate of that column and everyone in it
I honestly think her remit is to make the rest of the magazine look reasoned and non-poncey in comparison

I don't mind these. I do mind Lowri Turner whenever she does it though. She's so judgemental and snippy.

haven't read the thread, just skimmed but Private Eye calls it Mummy Lit or Mummy for old rope. Quite, in some cases.

I want to write these articles. I want someone to PAY me to have a few days somewhere nice and PAY me to whinge about it afterwards.

How does one go about this?

Lol, me too GGG

I write for a magazine about lots of weird and wonderful things. However, I never leave my desk - I do it fro press releases and websites. Humph [cheated]

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