A beautiful example of how newspapers nuture great writing, and then turn promptly great writers into bad ones, in today's Guardian.

Ed Jones, whom I've never heard of, produces a harrowing account of his life in a run-down estate in Salford, Manchester, demonstrating one of the trickiest truths about Modern Britain - you get the neighbours you pay for. His house in Salford cost around twice the national average annual income - a sane proportion, roughly what it was when my Dad bought his first house - but today that secured him a life of grime and crime.

And a few pages on, one of the most talented writers of her generation, Julie Burchill, has frittered out a rant about fellow jounalists she hates (specifically targetting, if not naming, Liz Jones, and obliquely attacking colleague Marina Hyde, which is a bit harsh), with, um, no research. She might have watched a film, once. As Ms Burchill loves to tell interviewers, "writing my column only takes half an hour a week... All right, make it an hour. " We all have to do our fair share of hack-work (please refer to the upcoming FHM Travel Handbook for yet another of my finest hours), but the shame is, it's the filla, not the fibre, that get's celebrated. Well, not here! The 100 visitors I've had so far are getting the good stuff!