Showing posts with label paper review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label paper review. Show all posts

Sunday, 21 February 2010

Paper review: The New Observer: Bad photoshop & Zorro's Beard

Went out for paper this morning which is increasingly rare thing I often seem to read it on line if at all. But out of curiosity I stumped up my 2 quid. The same amount paid for a BLT sarnie, small bottlette of orange juice and a packet of low fat Walker’s ready salted the other day let's see which is the best deal....

Update a few minutes later:

Well I wrote that intro before opening the paper, and I've been sidetracked by an apparent dodgy bit of photoshopping see above (click on th pciture for more detail). In the magazine half way through there seems to a model (or “super model” as people say except, don't most people have to have heard of you in order to get super powers?). Natalia (funny how Natalie sounds sexier in Russia than Walford) Vodianova.

It's a puff piece about her charity work and general gorgeousness on the right-hand side Nat is pictured wrestling with a towel (as only models do) she’s in eyes closed ecstasy or maybe has indigestion. The odd thing though is the towel/shroud seems to have been photoshopped on later. The line along the her chest seems oddly defined and one dimensional and the whole thing looks oddly monochrome (it may just be bad reproduction) or that they simply cutting further corners and knocking out sexy pics of babes but being shy of showing too much skin. This looks like the original shoot by Heidi Slimane where Nat seems at home waving her bits around.

After that I spent some time wondering whether in the next remake of Zorro, Jay Rayner is going to star as. My moneys on him playing Zorro's old school friend who's now a successful but corrupt lawyer and who ends up with lots of z's in his overstuffed upholstery.





As for the rest of it:

Be still my beating heart 8 pages of spoffle from Andrew Rawnsley about Gordon Brown. The shocking news is that a middle aged Scots man is occasionally bad tempered. Rawnsley must the dullest insider politico going, one of those breathless writers who are never far away from writing "it's been a torrid 48 hours for Darling..."

They seem to have culled the Travel section, no loss to me as I could never afford the sort of aspirational Maldives holidays they usually covered. The business and money section seem to have gone to.

We still have the dull New York Times supplement sadly. Not sure how supposedly one of the most exciting cities in the world produces such a dull worthy newspaper. Hold the front page there's a review of Jeff “high ho silver lining “Beck.

Sports pages: like all newspapers (but not all sports fans) the Guardian group is obsessed with Fergy’s every gruff utterance yawn. The winter Olympics meanwhile gets 3/4 page on page 15 and Barnsley’s extensive coverage seems to have fallen out of my copy.
Speaking of things falling out thankfully only a flier of amnesty international in my copy.

Elsewhere Nigel Slater is cooking chicken I know I was shocked too.

Tried to read “the New Review” section but it opened at a picture of Rufus "foghorn Leghorn" Wainwright dressed as a Pierrot clown which is for me is a near perfect depiction of the seventh level of Hell, so much so that I had quickly close it again and make some more tea. The only good thing about RW being in the paper is he isn’t singing.

The rest of “the New Schmoo review” seems like they saved up pieces on the bloke from "the Wire" and that Swedish thriller writer people go on about to tempt us in . So once I've shredded foghorn’s picture I may return. It’s on thicker paper which will make soaking up spilt olive oil much better.

So would I have been better off with a value basic lunch and a sit on bench sadly probably.

Sunday, 24 May 2009

I'll have whatever Pixie Geldof is having.....


A very shallow dish :Observer food monthly
It’s sad fact that the Guardian/Observer are getting more slight, trite and shallow every day they seem to have mistaken an obsession with celebrity, fashion and vain aspirational shopping for what people really want from a newspaper enjoyable, informed, accessible writing.
Take the food monthly, today we have “the 50 coolest places to eat” you’ll note not the best, worst, cheapest, tastiest but coolest.


You can tell how muddle headed this is, of the places on the list I’ve been to they aren’t even the best places to eat of their kind in London. Brindisa is a fairly average tapas bar in everything except the bill, and the rock and soul plaice is jolly (love the mural down stairs) and the fish is good but their chips just aren’t that nice. As for the Vietnamese place in Kingsland road it’s tasty and cheap but so is the one down the road and the one in Camberwell or the one on Deptford high street. Also there’s no Hungarian cool places to eat nor any ones in Leeds or Bromley. They all seem to be near shops that sell clothes.
Of course the media always think cool is an immutable idea that their definition is the only one that counts but they forget that when I was 6 the coolest place to eat was BHS cafe because they had raspberry flavoured pop, that chips are better eaten sat on a cast iron bench fighting off the seagulls on a blustery seafront, that cool doesn’t just mean “whatever Marc Jacobs does”. I’m not sure that sitting four tables away from the bass player of T’arctic monkeys is going to make a kebab taste any better and lastly any paper that asks models for their opinions on where to eat has left the path of wisdom


PS: Oh and in a straight forward good piece about a top Danish restaurant did Jay Rayner really need to tell us what Valhalla is or are we now to assume that the constant waffle about Jade Goody has forced out a working knowledge of Norse mythology (or in deed anything other than the gender of Lindsay Lohan’s current squeeze) out of the heads of educated readers.


Next week Tanya Gold tells us that posh people go to the Chelsea Flower show (sorry it seems she already done that story)

Sunday, 11 May 2008

enough about you let's talk about me

Paper review the Observer magazine
Front cover picture of bold bloke with mobile phone something about bono and Africa

1st page Advert for a garden kids slide for £549.
Contents page picture of crap banksy graph plus funny cartoon about Dr who
Advert for a printer

Kathryn Flett talks about herself sorry Myleen Klaas I saw her (Ms Flett) the other day she was drinking gin and tonic probably.
Barry Humphries because he’s in that extended advert for Oliver on bbc1 plus something about royal girlfriends

Advert from a watch £235 with a potter’s wheel in it
Alan Cummings and his potty mouth x2
Advert for a car £28,985
Long piece about the bald bloke with Bono , Bono is starting to look rough like he’s been on bonfire. Not read the piece good luck to them if they get rid of 3rd world debt.
Ad for Boots half price deal
Advert for camera with picture of Taj Mahal which probably looks good on your camera phone mind
Pretentious kitchen ad no price if you have to ask….
Mobile broad band for £15 a month
Ad for shoes sold by someone I use to know who was a really good bloke who worked with bad lads and hopefully has made a killing from fancy shoes
Ad for Ireland
Ad for off road car £24,305 + £400 metallic paint

Long piece of tedious art by Banksy and mates whoop de doo
In middle of Banksy ad fro Beijing Olympics by credit card main selling point the exquisite body of a beach volley ball player
Some Chelsea donkeys selling a telly
An ad for blond people in Australia
A long piece on food being dead expensive picture makes food look grim
A bed ad no price if you have to ask….
Ad for lemon ice cream

Fashion spread for denim blond model in faded lomoesque polaroidy pics looks at camera in several of them
Multi ad page for sofas and beds, fires and conservatory including the place I got mine from in Camden
The same bloke wearing 5 Macs he looks bored
Ad for lightweight jacket to be worn by people 20 years older than the model who I fancy £14.99

Fashion pages My favourite outfit Erin Mulanney 31 she’s a buying director apparently her first job was strategic consultant how can you consult on something when you’ve never done owt she looks very happy and buys things all the time she’s wearing a white hat that if I wore it would make me look like a out of work wine critic,
James May from top gear’s garage it’s hard not to like some who likes London pride and folding bikes.

Joint ad car polish £12.95 window cleaner £12.95 (use just once a year!)
Feature on 9 decks chairs £43.50 -£3,147
Nigel Slater talks about himself sorry food this week makes a chervil omelette and doesn’t eat it ,eats nettles which I’ve done he likes them more than me.
Picture of cat to sell cat food free
Advert for my favourite brand of yogurt
Jay Rayner talks about himself sorry looks smug and has his dinner with a mate.
Advert for ice cream with unsubtle global warming theme
The usual dull wine page haven’t read it in years
Advert for chinos, floors, sofas and Marquees; what the chuff who wants a marquee I use to put them up and it was shit and a bit scary
Dan Pearson has recruited Nigella and Sarah Brown as his tree planting bitches for a cancer centre garden he’s designed that’ll be talking about himself then.
Ad for folding chairs £24.99
Ad for washing up liquid
Green page Lucy Siegel who dyed her hair brown to look greener; never read this page the worlds problems won’t be solved by shopping.

Car page Polly Vernon continues to talk about herself but always looks uneasy posing in pictures as if she’s not at home drinking and shopping all day. She looks trapped Polly get in the car and drive away you never wanted this life run girl run ,drive back to your granny’s old house back to old house, find your copy of chalet ballet school adventure, write your stories about brainy show jumpers and don’t worry about what the other girls think, drinking isn’t clever….sorry where was I.
Ad for yellow car £29134
Ad for pashmina £39.50 the model looks happy and is 20 years older then the one for jackets early on.
Ad for cushions £23.50!!
Ad for Ladders
Ad Pennine futons now look ‘ere son where I cums from a futon is a direction as in “ ere flower put ya futon on this trailer to stop it running away” that or pallet int back bedroom.
The horoscope: picture of old bloke can’t be bothered to find out who he is, my horoscope says I’m to marry Winona Ryder which is nice.
Dear Mariella talks about herself in the process of helping a deeply messed up person
Ad for Bose clock radio for people who like shopping more than music, I think they are about £300 quid to play tinny mp3 on, they are a bit shit really.
Back page an ad for eBay.
80 pages in total.
here's what sup if you type "observer book of planes" into yahoo picture search, it made me laugh.