Mixed Messages
25/03/08 21:55 Filed in: General
Nonsense
It's for the magazine
that I buy the Observer most Sundays. Often the main
part of the paper ends up in the green bin having
been hardly read at all. I enjoy Jay Rayner's
restaurant reviews, particularly the delightfully
bitchy ones; and Tim Atkin is to my mind the best
wine writer in any newspaper across These Islands™
today.
However, the publishers of the Observer sometimes allow one or two conceits to creep in. The first is the themed issue, like The Gardening Issue or The Fashion Issue. The other is the Guest Editor, usually some pompous celeb. Last Sunday, they did both, and Thom Yorke of Radiohead was in the editor's chair for The Climate Change Issue.
Now, I know that climate change is a pressing issue, but self-indulgent nonsense like this just annoys me. Is Thom Yorke a respected climatologist? No, he's a rock musician, and as such has about as much claim to the editorship of the Observer's Climate Change Issue as any other punter with an opinion on the subject. The least they could have done was get someone with a contrarian viewpoint - a climate-change sceptic, or maybe someone that sees the problem but disagrees with how we are combating it.
The one thing I found amusing among all this po-facedness was the fact that thirteen full pages of the magazine were given over to advertising cars, five of which were double page spreads.
However, the publishers of the Observer sometimes allow one or two conceits to creep in. The first is the themed issue, like The Gardening Issue or The Fashion Issue. The other is the Guest Editor, usually some pompous celeb. Last Sunday, they did both, and Thom Yorke of Radiohead was in the editor's chair for The Climate Change Issue.
Now, I know that climate change is a pressing issue, but self-indulgent nonsense like this just annoys me. Is Thom Yorke a respected climatologist? No, he's a rock musician, and as such has about as much claim to the editorship of the Observer's Climate Change Issue as any other punter with an opinion on the subject. The least they could have done was get someone with a contrarian viewpoint - a climate-change sceptic, or maybe someone that sees the problem but disagrees with how we are combating it.
The one thing I found amusing among all this po-facedness was the fact that thirteen full pages of the magazine were given over to advertising cars, five of which were double page spreads.