What are your plans for the Bank Holiday?
The last word today goes to Owen Jones, who looks forward to the weekend and asks what yours might have in store. Thank you for joining the discussion today!
It’s been quite the turbulent year, to say the least. From deaths of beloved celebrities to the Labour party turning in on itself to Britain leaving the EU, it’s been, um, quite the rollercoaster. So this Bank Holiday is a good chance to try and forget about it all. I’m off to Reading and Leeds Festival where I’ll be mostly wandering around feeling old. What are your plans?
The Guardian Archive on this week in history
We delved into our archive to look at the stories that have made headlines around this time of the year. Here is a selection, tell us what you think below the line.
Brexit is like Boris Johnson’s hair – very messy: tell us your best jokes
With Edinburgh fringe festival nearing its end, we published an article including the great jokes from the Edinburgh fringe – what are your favourite jokes of all time? Share them in the comments.
Brexit is like Boris Johnson’s hair – very messy, but acceptable anywhere outside of London.
Shazia Mirza
I lost my virginity. Well, I didn’t lose it, I gave it away. For charity. It’s the biggest non-tax-deductible donation I’ve made.
Felicity Ward
It all starts innocently, mixing chocolate and Rice Krispies. But before you know it, you’re adding raisins and marshmallows – it’s a rocky road.
Olaf Falafel
Here are some more of your perspectives on the story about marriage and divorce laws from the comments.
It's the marriage laws that need updating - the law should be kept out of marriage and relationships. Divorce has become such a normality that now is just a chance for solicitors to scavange off 2 people going through possibly the most upsetting time of their life.
I remember talking to gay protestors in the late 80s who hated the idea of gay marriage - they thought it as assimilation to society and that it is society who should come round to their marriage-free relationships. I couldn't agree with that more.
I got engaged to my girlfriend on her birthday last year and through planning for a wedding decided to call it off and wait. The amount of pressure applied on young couples to engage in something so antiquated and archaic probably doesn't help in the context of building a life together. We already have a one year old son so we're more tied for life through that than any ceremony we could go through. The whole thing was just an exercise in people trying to rip us off for specially made jam jars to go on 're-conditioned' tables in a room that cost a fortune because we wanted to get married. The whole wedding and marriage industry has become so vulgar and materialistic it's no wonder that divorce has become so common. The causes of divorce need to be investigated further but yes of course divorce laws need overhauling. Why anybody would want to pay 5k for a wedding these days baffles me.
Advice to an aspiring journalist
This week Charlie, 23, from Wiltshire asked for advice on getting into journalism via our form (where we invite you to ask our journalists questions). Here’s the response we got from Polly Curtis, the Guardian’s digital editor, and Will Coldwell, a journalist who works on the travel section. These two journalists, at different points in their career, offer their tips below.
Polly Curtis
1. Work. Sounds simple but take every opportunity, in every context to be busy and learn. Don’t sit still and wait. Be hungry and go for it. You can get work alongside your degree and it will complement it. 2. Listen. The best journalists are thinking about what is being said to them, rather than what their next question is. 3. Put the blinkers up. It’s an incredibly competitive business, but don’t be distracted by that. In my experience of getting into journalism it is actually very meritocratic. Editors are hungry for talent and it tends to shine through in a newsroom.
Will Coldwell
My advice for getting into journalism at this stage is to, well, just do it. Sure, you could write for your student paper, but think beyond the institution – write for blogs, websites, mags and be led by the areas that interest you and the things that you have experience of that others may not.
Even better, while you’re working on getting those first commissions, just make your own publication. I started out making (probably quite crappy) DIY zines with my friends, which gave me an excuse to write about things I liked and interview people I thought were cool, but it was far more motivating than waiting for someone to tell me what I wanted to write was worth something.
Moderators choose a conversation of the week
Our team of moderators highlighted this great discussion under an article on Caster Semenya, the women’s 800m gold medallist who has been the subject of controversy because of speculation surrounding her levels of testosterone.
Silent_sunrise
The cruelty and inhumanity, whether deliberate or not, towards Caster Semenya is upsetting to me so how horrible it must have felt for her at the time doesn’t bear thinking. Seemed so immature of the losers.
KingWizard
Some people seem to have more disdain for Caster Semenya than athletes that have actually taken drugs.
Timmyb
It’s a difficult predicament. Firstly, let’s not pretend the Olympics is just a celebration of sport, it is at its base the most prestigious elite competition. Athletes spend four years of their life building up to it and probably another 10 or 20 learning their trade before they get anywhere near that level. They have a right to feel aggravated if they think someone has such an advantage that means thy will never be able to compete for the top prizes.
You’re still sharing baking successes and failures via GuardianWitness – including some wedding related which really did seem to go well.
Wedding cake
Made by me (dad), for our son's wedding.
First Attempt at Wedding Cakes
My girlfriend and I (who are not professional bakers but had made a well received cake for my dad's birthday a few months before) were asked to make cakes for my brothers wedding. Five in total. I think they went well. So did the children!
And here are are a couple more for anyone who might be celebrating a birthday around now ...
Don't judge a cake by its candles
It looks ridiculous but it wasn't actually all that bad. (Although, I think the sugar blast from the secret lemon curd centre helped - no one could string a sentence together for all the heart palpitations)
Princess castle cake
Not for a child, but a 33 year old colleague!
My son's birthday cake
Rather over estimated my ability to create a caterpillar cake.
Add yours via the blue GuardianWitness buttons or by clicking here.
Wedding day woes: 'the groom made his way to A&E'
Sticking with the marriage theme. Last week we asked you for your wedding day disasters and boy, your stories did not disappoint.
In the comments, more tales of woe ... all of them completely truthful we’re sure:
Attended a wedding when during the evening meal the groom had to be excused as a piece of beef had become lodged in his throat. Groom made his way to local A&E accompanied by his father. Groom returned a few hours later just in time for the first dance. Unfortunately the beef remained lodged in his throat so around 10.30pm the groom and his wife headed back to A&E dressed in their finery not returning until 5.00am the next morning. Going to get them Beefeater vouchers for their 1st anniversary.
My mother made the bridesmaid dresses for my sister's wedding 30 years ago. Lilac satin, cut on the bias and extremely unforgiving. They'd fitted alright before but each of the bridesmaids had filled out a bit. I was the worst and the big fry that morning that my mother insisted would sustain us didn't help. I took my knickers off ( discreetly ) on the lawn of the hotel to avoid VPL and went commando. Small acts of rebellion sustain me still.
We did see quite a few success stories, however ... not all of them popular!
As someone else below has pointed out, there are SO many smug comments on this thread.
Marry or don't, have a big party or a small one, have your family there or elope just the two of you - it really doesn't matter as long as it is what works for your relationship.
I am getting married next year to the absolute love of my life.
I am desperately excited and can't wait for the day to come - not because it will be "the best day of my life" (because as we can all see from these stories, there is so much to go wrong!) or because I get to wear a nice dress. I can't wait because it will be the first day I get to be married to the best human I've ever met.
Updated
Is it time to overhaul the UK's divorce system?
I was cheered to catch up with Jim Halfens, who invented the “divorce hotel” in the Netherlands (for an article published this week), where soon-to-be former couples get a split finalised in a weekend. He’s getting married in a couple of weeks.
He wants to bring his divorce hotel concept to the UK, and thinks we’re in need of overhauling our divorce laws. He’s not the only one. Resolution, the organisation of family lawyers who favour a non-confrontational, mediating approach, has long been calling for the introduction of a no-fault divorce. At present, unless you have been living apart from your spouse for at least two years, the only way to get divorced quickly is by citing adultery or unreasonable behaviour. Often neither have occurred. Other countries have a no-fault system, but MPs seem to have no desire to introduce it here. A no-fault divorce, say those who oppose it, would undermine marriage. Do you agree?
Video of the week – men don't cry
London filmmaker Mollie Mills explores what it is to be a young man in 2016. In a series of beautifully shot sequences, Mills allows today’s young men to talk about what is really going on below the surface.
Her poetic images reflect what one young man says it the only three options open to today’s men: you can either be happy, angry, or strong. It’s because of this rigid idea of masculinity that suicide is the biggest killer of young men under age 45 in this country.
What do you think about this? Am keen to hear thoughts below the line.
Quite the discussion point, this – you’ve been quick to defend some of the ‘worst words’ choices referenced in the news story, but have many of your own nominations ...
I think it a bit harsh to condemn 'hello' as being one of the 'worst' words in the language, 'moist' does have unfortunate connotations particularly when in conjunction with 'gusset'
Someone I went to school with was called Mona Flood, you can probably guess what her unfortunate nickname was
Are 'moist' and 'hello' the worst English words?
Definitely worse if you get a moist hello.
Depends who from I would assume.
I hate portmanteau words, they are just lazy.
emoji in general.
taken 4000 years to get back to hieroglyphics
pointless, but hey... whatever
Unpopluar choice amongst some I'd guess: entitled.
If anyone does things you don't like, you can spring out the word "entitled" to ascribe the worst possible behaviour and motives, without having to prove them or even bother thinking about it too much.
'So' - at the start of every feckin sentence...what's that all about?
Alas we can report that Oxford Dictionaries has halted search for most disliked word after “severe misuse”– for more on the “flood of offensive choices” their website received take a look at our colleague Alison Flood’s piece at the following link:
Updated
Two articles you loved – from wedding rings to disliked words
Our readers wrote in to tell us about the articles they enjoyed this week (via this form here).
- Negative campaign: Votes sought for most disliked English word
- What divorced people do with their wedding rings
What were your highlights?
Updated
Apropos of not much other than what time of day it is, as well as those baking successes and failures readers are sharing what they’ve been eating for lunch ...
Well I'm having a bacon, egg and black pudding sandwich for lunch.
I've got pitta filled with hummus, carrot and cucumber. Swap?
No deal, we reckon. But spare a thought for poor Patrick, who seems to need a dash of stoicism with his soup ...
I've got an Asparagus Cup-a-Soup I found in the cupboard, because I forgot my wallet. It's horrible.
What I am reading this week – by Tash Reith-Banks
I came across a great piece on aeon by physicist Sabine Hossenfelder. Like me, Hossenfelder receives a lot of correspondence from amateur physicists. Usually they claim to have proved Einstein wrong, or that a recent breakthrough is a fraud; sometimes they are reporting a breakthrough of their own. All are frustrated that mainstream academics and media alike are ignoring their work. As someone who, unfortunately, does mostly hit delete, I was fascinated by Hossenfelder’s own decision to stop deleting and start engaging. She has opened a hotline, offering physics consultation, including theory development. There are, of course, arguments to be had about whether charging people to talk science is promoting a different type of insiderism. But it’s an interesting form of engagement and seems to be working – one of her clients is even preparing to publish a bona fide academic paper.
What have you been reading this week? Tell us below the line.
Your comments on Traingate so far
You’ve been following the story with interest below the line – here are some of your views so far, some in response to our question, “was it a fuss over nothing?”
I don't think it was necessarily fuss over nothing - it was caught in an odd crossfire between Silly Season non-story and the Corbyn hype train (no pun intended) meaning that it grew into something more than that non-story while half the people commenting on it complained that it wasn't a story. Erm...are you keeping up?
What I mainly took from traingate was the impression that Jeremy Corbyn's entourage are too incompetent to reserve seats. My late mum travelled the East Coast main line well into her eighties and she never forgot to reserve her seat.
Mind, she knew who Ant & Dec are, too.
A few sulking Blairites are making the Labour party look a shambles. My issue of the week and previous months is - where is the public outrage at what the Conservative Government is doing and saying. A Tory dominated media including the BBC is focussing solely on Jeremy Corbyn and how best to ridicule him and his supporters. The Guardian and C4 seem to be the only media outlets attempting some perspective but it's not enough
Traingate would have been at least a single day news story, or should have been news, if any politician was caught in a dispute with a major company as Corbyn and his team were..
What made it last more than a day were the Confused stories about it from his team, and momentum members.
If A spokesperson of Corbyn's team straight away said "OK there were a few seats, but we wanted to sit together and like other people sat on the floor for part of the journey, apologies for exaggerating slightly with "Ram-packed", but we were attempting to highlight the terrible train service."
Instead there were a load of confused messages from different parts of his team, which helped perpetuate the story overnight, leaving it to Corbyn to come with a different story the day after (which had been explicitly denied the day before).
Sometimes just apologising in some way and moving on kills the story dead, but the utter chaos in his team has no concept of media/crisis management it appears.
Share your thoughts by getting involved in the comments below.
Updated
#Traingate: why I spent the day on the 11am train to Newcastle
I spent Wednesday going from London to York and back, trying to recreate the fateful #traingate trip that Jeremy Corbyn had made. Was it a ridiculous gimmick? Well, of course. Doing it live perhaps added more of an air of ridiculousness to the proceedings than just quietly popping up there and back and interviewing people. But it also generated huge interest. We had over 5,500 comments on the live blog – not all of them calling me an idiot – and after I’d got off the train I settled down into a place with wifi where I could carry on joining in the debate below the line, and also try and reflect some of the discussion that was going on above the line.
It’s a classic political silly season story, but I hoped the train trip would provide a different angle for people to talk about rail policy in the UK, which was, of course, one of Corbyn’s first concrete policy suggestions when he became leader. And, after all, where better to find rail users to ask them what they think about services than on a train.
I met some lovely people, and I do enjoy this kind of reporting. I also spent a night on the London Underground at the weekend meeting people who were using the night tube for the first time. I’m just a bit worried I might be getting typecast as the Guardian’s “this story has a train in it” correspondent.
What do you think of #traingate? Get involved in the discussion below the line.
Readers are sharing their baking successes ... and failures
Alongside our hectic Bake Off live blog this week we asked you to share your baking successes and failures via GuardianWitness. As you’ll see below, the results were, as we’d hoped, mixed ...
Dalek Cake
Made it to celebrate a new series of Doctor Who. It didn't turn out like the picture in the recipe.
This is my Cookie Monster Cake, everyone wanted me to make it for my 50th Birthday!
The yummy Cookie Monster Cake!
Knitting cake
Made for my friend Fiona's birthday. Turned out to be the first of many themed cakes for friends and family.
Jaffacake Cake flop
Our one and only attempt at making a giant jaffacake cake.. Never again..
You can share your creations via the blue GuardianWitness buttons or by clicking here.
Updated
From membership to GuardianWitness: get more involved with the Guardian
Caroline Bannock from our community team writes:
At the Guardian we have dedicated engagement and community teams who work with our readers, involving them in projects and participatory journalism. Two members – Sarah and Matt – are running the Social today. Our readers’ experience enriches our journalism, and can at times have huge impact. One project in our US office, The Counted, has influenced US justice department policy on the reporting of fatal incidents involving police officers. This could not have been achieved without the help of our readers there. Today we’re asking you to help with reporting on NHS cuts.
There are myriad ways to get involved with reader projects at the Guardian. GuardianWitness, for example, is the space for reader photos, videos and stories. If you’re baking – brilliantly or (like me) disastrously – do share with us by clicking on the blue “Contribute” button at the top of this article. You may also know about Ewen MacAskill’s series about Labour and Liverpool for Guardian membership, which was guided by readers.
Of course we’d like to hear your ideas on how to improve engagement further, so please do get in touch via this form.
What are you reading this week?
Among our most-read this week was the tragic news of Italy’s earthquake. GCSE results also featured heavily, with news of a dramatic decline in grades. Elsewhere, the burkini ban in France has got a lot of you talking, as has news of Jeremy Corbyn and #traingate.
Another big hitter was a news story reporting the fact actress Courteney Cox regretted efforts to fight ageing.
What have you been reading this week? Tell us about the stories that have got you thinking ...
Welcome to our weekly social
Hello everyone. Welcome, once again, to our weekly social where we come together to discuss the week’s news and comment, share ideas and projects etc. We will be updating the blog over the course of the afternoon with journalists’ views (including their favourite articles and videos of the week), and encourage you to share your thoughts with us below the line. This is your space, so get in touch to tell us how you want it to evolve (sarah.marsh@theguardian.com). Lots of great stuff lined up today, look forward to getting started.
Marriage is a business relationship from the moment people sign. It is however often the last thing that the two people think about. Divorce is all about that business partnership whether it is cojointly owned property, a shared rental agreement, superannuation, bank accounts, ownership of goods and chattels, life insurance, shared debt liabilities in business arrangements, taxation implications and this does not begin to look at shared parental responsibilities. Looking at the business/financial relationship is something two people in love are unlikely to seriously look at prior to marriage unless they are serious people and good friends to boot. They will probably have a better go at being happier together as it is known that the early romance fades at about 12-18 months - long enough to get through the wedding, to have a first baby and then to settle in to a comfortable oxytocin-infused cohabitation.
Better be good friends, good-humoured and sensible with money and managing and engaging with family and friends from then on.
For many people divorce is not the end-of-the-world though it can seem so at the time. It is usually initiated by one of the couple who has considered it for some long time and announces it when he or she is very psychologically ready. The initiator may have already made alternative arrangements for their own living arrangement. The person being left is the one who faces greatest upheaval and sense of lost control over his/her life and it may be that they are having to genuinely confront lifestyle issues around alcohol, gambling or other addictions. On the other hand they may have nothing of that and it is the other party leaving so as to continue a career of drugs/alcohol or other marriage-incompatible behaviour.
Whatever the complex reasons requiring the two to be held in suspended animation for two years before they can act to finalise a divorce would have serious financial and psychological implications. It is an unnecessarily long time to put people's lives on hold and I could not see how it would prevent the ultimate outcome. I wonder if there have been comparative studies on the level of trauma and subsequent readjustment. Surely there have been.