Adrian Chiles clickbait drivel

I’m not going to link to his latest guff in the guardian as he doesn’t deserve the extra traffic.

‘ £3,999 for a cargo bike?! How a new kind of class politics arrived on Britain’s streets | Adrian Chiles’

He caught me this time and I actually read it. Why on earth anybody pays this man for churning out this banal nonsense is beyond me.

Funnily enough I’ve just read that too. I usually avoid his nonsense but saw the title. Dick.

I believe binners is a big fan.

I can’t even believe I opened this thread!

His articles in the Guardian are pretty poor. I don’t bother to read them anymore.

Yes! His articles are just so bland and meaningless. I literally can’t believe he gets paid for it.

“I was on a train last week and saw a man” – just utter drivel.

His articles are published because he is married to a Guardian editor.

For those looking for an explanation as why he is paid 21k a year to write the first half formed thought that enters his head … He’s married to the editor
Twitter

Wow, and I keep thinking to myself ‘I really should pay a sub to the guardian’. I don’t feel guilty for freeloading anymore.

The problem with this thread is that it has now made me want to read whatever he has said, despite the consensus being its crap. FOMO etc.

You are not missing out.

The only useful thing in his Guardian column was this article about baking soda bread

https://www.theguardian.com/food/commentisfree/2020/apr/01/shoppers-hoard-yeast-solution-soda-bread

I’m aware they are a laughing stock because of his column (and the cosy arrangement behind it), but I’ve successfully managed not to read it so far.

I did see he was upsetting the rights-of-way lot last week with some apparently ill-informed twaddle about footpaths.

We can add that to the pile of articles that do nothing other than ‘othering’ attitudes towards cyclists, from someone who seems wilfully ignorant of the fact that people like and do things differently to him. No doubt he’s just the Grauniad’s version of Clarkson, but they should know better.

I like that in the recent Alan Partridge podcast series, Alan mentions multiple times that he is close personal friends with Adrian Chiles (they regularly play squash together), and Grant Shapps (‘Shappsy’, or ‘Michael Green’) .

I think of all three as similarly faded characters. The suggestion that someone is a close personal friends Alan Partridge is quite the veiled insult.

I haven’t found it difficult to avoid clicking on his articles.

I’ll go off and read it now. Tbh I like his texts, I won’t glorify them by calling them articles.
They are indeed very short and very basic, but i thought they were all the better for it.

[ had no idea about the spousal connection,]

He wrote an piece last year about the fact that his glasses slip down his nose. Proper journalism that.

“A Toby Jug full of p*ss.”

As A.A. Gill once described him….

I believe binners is a big fan.

That this grunting, pig-ignorant, monosyllabic moron ever managed a career in broadcasting, when he can barely string a coherent sentence together, will forever mystify me. The idea that the Guardian would then print his inane drivel yet further adds to my suspicion that he must have a series of photos of senior media figure in compromising positions with a goat!

“A Toby Jug full of p*ss.”

As A.A. Gill once described him….

There was a hashtag a while back where people described Adrian Chiles face

My favourites were ‘a freezer bag full of porridge’ and ‘a sellotaped bawbag’

Wasn’t he the subject of a documentary a while ago where we were supposed to feel sorry for him cos he was a drunk or something? I don’t mean to be unkind, but he’s a great flabby sack of nothing.

£4k isn’t bad considering all the metal/wood and motors you get for a cargo bike. Given what’s not on my road bike, I think I’ve been ripped off. Cost £2k – 30 years ago, and significantly more than £4k if I bought it today. There is nothing to it !

Well ive just relented and read it.

It’s got to be the most pointless thing ive ever read. I kept scrolling as i felt at least half of it was missing. Like an old man who forgets his point halfway through a story and so quickly ends it in the hope someone else will start talking.

I’m starting to understand Frankie Boyles opinion of him.  I got suckered in earlier and like @robola it justifies my freeloading, I’m not paying for that pish.

Its just such a frustrating non-argument, he’s clearly not spoken to anyone who actually owns or rides one, nor done the tiniest teeniest bit of research or even thinking around the topic.

If he thinks £4K for a mode of transport is obscene bordering on some kind of weird class warfare, you wait until he hears about cars!

I’m not going to link to his latest guff in the guardian as he doesn’t deserve the extra traffic.

The trouble is that even if you *don’t* link the article people are still going to look it out and read it just so they’ve got some context for the point you’re making.

Which leads me nicely to the point AC is making. It felt to me a though the article ended half way through — I was assuming it was on the way to some kind of considered opinion, or argument, or, well, anything other than “crikey, bikes are quite expensive”, when it abruptly ended.

I have literally no idea whether the mild sticker-shock associated with a cargo bike was the sum total of what he was trying to convey or there was supposed to be more to it. Possibly the final paragraph is supposed to be some kind of insightful commentary on society that the reader will dutifully recognize as their cue to sagely stroke their chin, say “Oooh, ah, yes, social inequalities, something, something” and feel they’ve had their money’s worth from the Grauniad today and no mistake.

IDK. Nice work if you can get it I suppose.

I never wrote a regular column in my career as a journo, mostly because I knew it’d be really stressful trying to come up with a new hot take every week.

I suspect he’s just thought “columns about cycling seem to do well, might as well try that”.

I was assuming it was on the way to some kind of considered opinion, or argument, or, well, anything other than “crikey, bikes are quite expensive”, when it abruptly ended.

I gather you’ve never listened to his radio programme then? It’s fair to say he’s not one of the nations most enquiring and incisive minds. It’s like listening to a stream of consciousness, if an item of furniture or a pot plant could talk.

His interviews are absolutely painful to listen to and usually an insult to the intelligence of the interviewee. If the BBC had secured an audience with God and they let Adrian ask one question to the supreme being, faced with the opportunity of finding answers to the great mysteries of life, he would instead ask him/her/they what their favourite biscuit was. Absolutely guaranteed. He’s an absolute simpleton

The trouble is that even if you *don’t* link the article people are still going to look it out and read it just so they’ve got some context for the point you’re making.

I know, I know. Sorry to anybody who has thus far lived in ignorance of his output and has now had the misfortune of reading this tripe.

WTF it’s just a few paragraphs about some uninformed stuff he’s imagined.

The hypocrisy here is amazing. So we’re OK to moan at the hideous price of bikes, even though we know the tech that goes into them. But we pile onto the complete layman when he does the same.

And as for the brevity of his spiels…. that’s the whole point of them

Didn’t know who he was but read it earlier today and was indeed amazed that get got paid actual.money for it.  It serves absolutely no purpose and had zero value. Even DM articles can be well written and designed to elicit a particular response, that article was just poor quality junk.

But we pile onto the complete layman when he does the same.

He isnt a layman though. He is a professional whose job it is to give us an informed opinion of some sort even if we don’t agree with it

Sometimes I think I’m lucky not to be married to a Guardian editor. Imagine if every unfiltered thought that entered my head was automatically recorded and published unedited in a national newspaper.

God, this man really is a pot plant, isn’t he.

I  can’t even believe I opened this thread!

#metoo

The hypocrisy here is amazing. So we’re OK to moan at the hideous price of bikes, even though we know the tech that goes into them. But we pile onto the complete layman when he does the same.

And as for the brevity of his spiels…. that’s the whole point of them

Holy crapballs, have we uncovered an actual Adrian Chiles fan?!!

So we’re OK to moan at the hideous price of bikes, even though we know the tech that goes into them.

You can buy a Honda XL750 Transalp, for less than a than a Spesh Turbo Levo Pro. The Honda has more travel and ABS.

Not tell me that high end bikes aren’t a rip off?

He’s basically Chris Moyles, if Chris Moyles had moved to Islington and tried olives

Am I alone in not knowing who he is? Am I the lucky one?

But we pile onto the complete layman when he does the same.

Yes I loved the part where he analysed and discussed the increasing price of a variety of different bikes, and the issues with supply chains and energy costs.

Not tell me that high end bikes aren’t a rip off?

Most “high end” things are a rip off.