Jay Rayner, the Observer food critic, is researching a feature on genetically modified food. The reason I know this is that he’s written a post on the Guardian’s Word of Mouth blog asking for pointers. It’s the first time I’ve heard of a national newspaper doing such a thing. Rayner describes it as “a different [...]

What I tell them is nine-tenths bullshit and one-tenth selected facts.
- Stephen Carter, recently appointed chief of strategy to Gordon Brown, while chief operating officer of NTL in 2001. Alleged in a class-action lawsuit filed in New York.
This quote appears on page four of today’s Observer. Meanwhile, on page five is another quote from someone [...]

Interesting take in the Independent on the reasons for Roger Alton’s resignation as editor of the Observer. According to the Indy, Alton was the victim of a “power struggle” with sister paper the Guardian, partly as a result of his paper’s support of the Iraq war, in contrast with the position of the Guardian.
The Indy [...]

There’s a nice, unintentionally hilarious interview with Lib Dem leadership candidate Nick Clegg in the Observer today. The author, Jasper Gerard, admits he is a Liberal and “unabashed supporter” of Clegg. All of which becomes abundantly clear quite quickly.
Near the top, for example, there’s a shameless attempt to merge the image of Clegg with that [...]

Yes, you read it right. A character in a fictional children’s story has been outed as gay by the author of said book. For those of us who don’t know what gay is, the Observer helpfully suggests who it thinks are the three most heterosexual men in the world in order to help us visualise.
There [...]