Is it just me or is The Observer a load of shite these days?

[moondog]

I refer in particular to irritating posed photos in 'Food' magazine,the tripe that is rehashed endlessly in the 'Woman' one and their fixation into turning their journalists into 'personalities' (ie Mariella Frostybum,Kathryn Phlegm,Polyfilla
Vernon and that irritating Scot-Euan O'Fergusan-Doonray wotsit.)

Yaaaawn.....

Polly Vernon makes me want to chew my own arm off, the vapid, pointless, anorexic tart.

But I'm quite fond of Kathryn Flett.

But gah,when you've been reading it as long as I have,you realise that it is little more than a personal journal.

The smugness of these 40 something women who have babies!
I used to glance at her tv column every week (not that I watch tv) just to check how many times she would mention her (totally irrelevant) pregnancy.

I think KF has something approaching a sense of humour, though, whilst all PV seems interested in is how thin she is this week.

I've stopped buying it, anyway

I have started getting the Independant instead (but still occaisionally read Mam and Dads)
I thought it was getting too many articles about Sex lives and too many 'personal life columns'

I'm stopping too I reckon.
From today.
Feel a bit sad.Me and the Observer..well,we were like that.

So what do I buy?
How is the Independent on Sundays??

Yes Nikkie that is it.
Too much crap like that.Even the Telegraph does it.
Some idiot 'life coach' called Nina Grunsfeld talking twaddle about self esteem and 'issues' every Saturday.

How about the Mail on Sunday?

I feel the same as Snafu about Polly Vernon but quite like Kathryn Flett. Think Mariella Frostrup is completely unqualified to offer relationship advice, find her agony page highly irritating. Have only skimmed through the main paper and the business pages so far though, haven't read the rest.

Liz Jones makes me want to puke.

Ah yes PV.
What an unattractive character she is.

'Cocktail Girl'. I mean, really.

'This week, I went to XXX soul-less, pretentious, overpriced London venue and my hipbones were jutting out XXX inches.'

Gaaah.

Polly Vernon - irritating beyond belief - I can't believe they pay her to spout the tripe she writes. Katheryn Flett - awful; loathe her even more than PV if that's poosible - anybody would think she is the only person to ever have a baby, be left by her partner, watch television etc etc.

Still quite enjoy the Food monthly but we probably only buy the paper once a month at most, whereas it used to be every week. Shocking waste of trees most of the time now.

poosible?? Ha!

I like mariella frosytrups agony page, she's been around a bit, and it shows

polly vernon though her 'women all hate me beacuse I'm thin' stance is reason enough noy to buy the paper.

No Polly we hate you because you TALK about being thin all the time. Not the same thing.

better than Liz Jones though. I can't relate to her at all. crap huband and cat obsession?? Why would you share that? I don't think she's very bright.

I only buy it for the food supplement and I haven't read the whole thing yet today but I was actually thinking how lightweight it was becomming. Some of the best articles ever written about food appeared in that supplement. It is/was one of the only publications that deals with the subject as a whole and not just recipes. But yes am a bit dissappointed with it recently.

Independant is Ok thnk its abit drier than the observer, quite like the Times too but it seems a bit straight laced IYKWIM

read it all now, yes it's shite.

Oh the Times is much worse.

I think bits of The Observer leave a bit to be desirde. But I reckon it's still the best of the lot.

I buy The Independent, just for Robert Fisk's articles.

The 'woman' supplement is the WORST. Makes me helplessly enraged in the same way as the Sunday Times. Is there any intelligent, non-bitchy interesting journalim by/about women out there? Or should I just shoot off to the Mumsnet Wimmins page?

it is hard

The Times is appalling drivel
The Sindy is ok but rather dull

i'm sure years ago we had a paper called the correspondent which was very good, or am i imagining it?

The Observer was uniteligable 20 years ago. It is sooooo smug these days. I don't get it any more. Why are the Sunday papers such crap?

I think Nigel Slater is the only reason am still buying Observer.
Yes Jane,precisely why I loathe Kathryn Flett.
There have been some ridiculously posed photos of her reclining on chaise longue,hand on belly. God,I hate that.
She is also paying an inordinate amount of attention to everything above neck level,in manner of that annoying person on Women's Hour as women do when they let everything below neck level go to seed.

No rational reason to dislike her I know but it'll do me.

..and I've gone off it even more now I read that their former columnist the 'Barefoot Doctor' (who I always suspected of being a bit of a charlatan) has been shagging his patients.