Even as
a toddler that’s beginning to get more confident with walking and
cramming Lego cubes into its mouth, there’s still much to marvel at
about the new dinky Grauniad. The centre page photo spread continues to
amaze, the larger G3s are growing into their expanded format and even
the initially much-maligned G2 fanzine is beginning to sit in the
pocket a lot easier.
The best thing for me is the new Saturday
magazine, which has the look of the New York Times Magazine, and that
the editors have been brave enough to retain some old favourites – The
Guide remains practically the same, with Charlie Brooker’s effortlessly
scabrous copy still inducing gasps of “You can’t say that”. His
description of Britain’s fattest man as looking like “he’d eaten a
sofa. A deep-fried sofa with cheese pillows,” (24 September)n was
vicious genius.
For sheer weight of research, Martin Scorsese’s No Direction Home was a tour de force (26 and 27 September).
Unearthing
original live performances from some of 1950s Greenwich Village’s
finest finger-in-the-ear-singing folkies, and following up with
interviews gave this cracking documentary the feel of a well-researched
magazine special.As debatable as the tabloid pack pursuit of the
slightly shop-soiled Ms Moss has been, it’s been great fun tracking the
“exclusives” that the redtops have been claiming. The Mirror can feel
aggrieved that its genuine scoop of the video tape was then trumped by
The Sun’s upgrading of “Cocaine Kate” to “Crack Kate”, which was
probably why they ended up with the puzzling “Horse Drug Kate” splash.
Bet Kate wishes she was still “High Court Kate”.
But Graydon
Carter’s editorial in the latest Vanity Fair took the legal biscuit,
helpfully dredging up the sordid details of Roman Polanski’s 1977 rape
charge for the benefit of jurors at his magazine’s recent libel case.
Still smarting from the £50,000 plus costs awarded against VF, Carter
displays remarkable venom against Polanski and the British legal
system. That must have hurt.
Seth Jacobson is group editor at Ramp Industry
Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog
