Charles Clarke’s blistering Telegraph interview and, of course, the interview with The Standard’s Associate Editor Anne MacElvoy that brought his entertainingly incendiary views to light in the first place. The Statesman’s interview with David Milliband (the one who looks like Mr Bean) and, from the same issue, Martin Bright’s It’s Already Over.
One of those articles that’s so juicy it makes you go weak at the knees: Robert Harris in The Times compares Gordon Brown to Richard Nixon, not because Brown’s a crook but because they’re both autistic. Trust the Beeb to produce a useful timeline. Meanwhile, back in The Telegraph, word has it, this Sunday, that Brown wants a contest, not a coronation. Nice piece from The The New York Times (from a proper London-based staffer Alan Cowell, not an agency) on the mess and Cowell again, this time providing an Idiot’s Guide to Gordon Brown for one of those lovely NY Times slide shows (you know when you’re really in trouble when the NY Times rolls out a helpful infographic).
I guess I should link to the Beeb’s transcript of Brown’s interview on Andrew Marr’s Sunday morning show (although I really can’t concentrate on what Brown’s saying since my sister-in-law pointed out that his lower jaw does this strange thing at the end of every sentence) and to his other media appearance this weekend, in The News of The World. Happy also to link to Germaine Greer’s Question Time unease with the idea of a Brown premiership from earlier in the Summer (courtesy YouTube).
Couple of whinges: why is it so hard to find articles at the newspapers’ web sites? Even the venerable telegraph.co.uk, the first proper British newspaper web site, back in about 1993, still can’t provide a useful search feature and The Standard’s is worse (try searching for articles by Anne MacElvoy. You could be forgiven for thinking she doesn’t work there at all).
The Statesman on the other hand, a tiddler by any measure, must have the most sophisticated web presence of any UK non-techie periodical. Good search, a mature attitude to free vs. paid-for content and loads of simple ways for bloggers and bookmarkers to chip in. At The Statesman they’ve learnt from the social media phenomenon that you build currency by providing free access to interesting articles: something that’s taking the other mainstream media owners a bit longer to realise.