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Even the oldies are now giving Johnson negative ratings – politicalbetting.com

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  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 63,034

    malcolmg said:

    Looks like another MP under investigation

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-61493206

    LOL, G you cannot persuade anyone that that is in any way even remotely as a bad as a Tory, they are real criminals, the guy had a couple of Nurofen in his pocket.
    Agree with you here Malc, this is a squirrel story and actually makes the allegations against 'whomever' starkly worse looking
    Which side of the bed will Big G get out of tomorow? The right? Or the moderate centre right? 🙂
    You can rest assured it will never be the right and anyway you said you loved me ?
    Of course I ❤️ you. You do sound a bit het up by it all today though?

    Was politics in the old days before I came along all about how many investigations you can get you opponents under, or is this a new phase that is a bit, not quite the point of politics really?

    I posted clip of Lady Thatcher at PMQs in recent thread - she’s is just simply explaining the difference in her philosophy and policies in regards theirs. That just made politics simple, explain your point of view.

    And they were all terribly polite and respectful to each other as they done it.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q9vYjqQ5Ek
    To be honest I am not the least het up but as my beloved will affirm I have this tendency to enjoy winding people up and maybe on occasions it shows

    It is fair to say that politics is more tribal and at times just nasty but as far as I am concerned I want Boris to go so I can rejoin the party as I really fear a Starmer led labour party would borrow far too much and I am not convinced they would restrict public sector pay including doctors and nurses as would be necessary
    In the clip of Lady Thatcher, she is explaining very clearly, her socialist opponents concern for the gap between rich and poor results in the sort of Failed Eastern Bloc Poleconomy that by not embracing the power of the free market to innovate, wealth creation, invest, doesn’t grow the economy, doesn’t provide the wealth that improves the services the everyday people rely on. So in effect, they are levelling down.

    Read across to Boris, seamlessly picking up the mantel of Lady Thatcher, placing Levelling Up at the very heart of his philosophy. High skilled, high wage economy, property ownership, no windfall taxes but instead wealth invested to transform and grow the economy.

    What part of that isn’t your own political philosophy?

    You want Boris gone, I believe you, but what part of that philosophy don’t you like?
    Nothing - just lack of implementation and Boris does not do detail
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,433
    Farooq said:

    Taz said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Come on Rangers. Fuck these Scouse c*nts and traitors who BOO BEAUTY. Let Real Madrid hammer them

    But loyal, sober Unionists and royalists? Go, lads

    I am somewhat surprised how personally you have taken Liverpool fans booing at Wembley on Saturday. I truly thought you would love the madness, the anti-establishment chaos and rebellion. The “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” behaviour.

    It’s all part of life’s rich pageant and amazed you are bent out of shape by it.

    I’m a monarchist conservative and it really doesn’t bother me at all - it’s just jolly japes at a football match.

    If they annoyed you by being controversialist then it’s getting very Meta!!

    What next - demanding seats rather than pit at a Metallica concert? Cocoa rather than Cognac before bed? Tsk Tsk.
    No, it makes me puke. Because I know where it comes from

    By all means Boo the National Anthem. Boo Prince William. Hurl your turds at Princess Kate, Whatever, you sad tattoeed fat fucks

    But booing ABIDE WITH ME??

    That is pure vandalism, it is the degradation of the human soul and the hatred of loveliness, in the most ugly way. It is something very Liverpudlian - a diseased city - but it spreads like a fungus. Fuck them all.

    Remember Heysel
    If Liverpool fans are tarred by Heysel then what are you and I tarred with by virtue of being English?
    The evil of the British Empire for one. A scar on us for time immemorial..
    You know the structure of today's free world is largely down to the British Empire, right?

    Where do you think multiracial South African democracy, entrepreneurial Singapore, Hong Kong (try asking them whose rule they prefer), India (the world's largest democracy), America (the world's most powerful democracy) Canada, Australia and New Zealand come from? And how Japan, Taiwan and South Korea chose to imitate them rather than another autocracy.

    Sure the Middle East is a bit of fuck up - although arguably Israel is better than the alternative - and Africa isn't exactly a bed of roses, although bigoted Rhodesia was almost certainly economically better off than the basket case that is modern Zimbabwe - but you can't argue that's representative. It's complex.

    This penchant for equating us to the Nazis and selectively extracting the worst aspects from our history (usually out of context) to damn us for all time is certainly fashionable at the moment but it's also wrong - and just a phase.
    America's democracy is something they had to wrestle us for. The idea that we bestowed it upon them is a hellava a take.
    They literally based their constitution on our Bill of Rights and Magna Carta. Their argument was that as sons of liberty (Englishmen) royal governance had strayed from the true path.

    Try reading some history and thinking for yourself rather than imbibing fashionable contemporary propaganda.

    People will respect you more.
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,759



    (Seriously, I will NEVER NEVER NEVER vote Labour)

    Yes, we've rather gathered that :)
    Why do you NP? Why vote Labour?
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 10,061
    Carnyx said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Come on Rangers. Fuck these Scouse c*nts and traitors who BOO BEAUTY. Let Real Madrid hammer them

    But loyal, sober Unionists and royalists? Go, lads

    I am somewhat surprised how personally you have taken Liverpool fans booing at Wembley on Saturday. I truly thought you would love the madness, the anti-establishment chaos and rebellion. The “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” behaviour.

    It’s all part of life’s rich pageant and amazed you are bent out of shape by it.

    I’m a monarchist conservative and it really doesn’t bother me at all - it’s just jolly japes at a football match.

    If they annoyed you by being controversialist then it’s getting very Meta!!

    What next - demanding seats rather than pit at a Metallica concert? Cocoa rather than Cognac before bed? Tsk Tsk.
    No, it makes me puke. Because I know where it comes from

    By all means Boo the National Anthem. Boo Prince William. Hurl your turds at Princess Kate, Whatever, you sad tattoeed fat fucks

    But booing ABIDE WITH ME??

    That is pure vandalism, it is the degradation of the human soul and the hatred of loveliness, in the most ugly way. It is something very Liverpudlian - a diseased city - but it spreads like a fungus. Fuck them all.

    Remember Heysel
    If Liverpool fans are tarred by Heysel then what are you and I tarred with by virtue of being English?
    Is this even serious?

    We conquered the world. And it was mainly good. We didn’t push over a wall and kill some Italian teens during a football match. Get a grip

    Ok. Fair enough - if we are going simplistic (it wasn’t just Italian teens and it wasn’t just a simple case of some Liverpool fans pushing over a wall out of nothing).

    Amritsar - we just controlled a riot as quickly as possible - naughty Indian teens….

    Thing is you are probably the poster I agree most with on here for my sins but I’m staggered how miffed you have been by booing a pretty rubbish hymn - if it had been “I vow to thee my country” then I would be in my tank towards Anfield Road but really, perspective?
    I hear you.

    Maybe I always had this secret Simon Heffer-esque contempt for ugly, contemptible, obese, do-nothing Liverpool? But I hid it. OK, they booed our 96-year Queen during the year of her Platinum Jubilee, and a year or two after our widowhood. Maybe I could have contained myself, if they had done only that. But booing a beautiful religious hymn with the most profound lyrics ever written about humanity yielding with grace to mortality, WTAF??

    They are monkeys. They are an element in working class British culture - fat, wanky, ugly, dumb, inadequate, Philistine, pathetic and gruesomely proud of it - which I utterly despise. Let them sink into the Irish Sea. Millwall have more nobility
    I get you but you are in danger of going full-Roger…..
    What would Bill Shankly or Ian Paisley have thought of them booing the Queen, or booing the National Anthem, and then booing ABIDE WITH ME?

    I do not think they would have expressed admiration. And their bewildered contempt would be justified. We have regressed as a nation and a culture and Liverpool fans are the pimply, wobbly, nihilistic cutting edge. Well done, lads
    Do you think you might be overreacting to some booing? It's no violence to express an opinion.
    Leon's completely missing the point. The fans are showing a discriminating sense of musical criticism.
    No way hoe zay
    Abide is a beautiful soulful tune that takes you from the very personal sorrow and loneliness of death and the terminal decay of life and soars in crescendo to everlasting love, hope and glory. It's a stunning hymn.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,647
    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Come on Rangers. Fuck these Scouse c*nts and traitors who BOO BEAUTY. Let Real Madrid hammer them

    But loyal, sober Unionists and royalists? Go, lads

    I am somewhat surprised how personally you have taken Liverpool fans booing at Wembley on Saturday. I truly thought you would love the madness, the anti-establishment chaos and rebellion. The “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” behaviour.

    It’s all part of life’s rich pageant and amazed you are bent out of shape by it.

    I’m a monarchist conservative and it really doesn’t bother me at all - it’s just jolly japes at a football match.

    If they annoyed you by being controversialist then it’s getting very Meta!!

    What next - demanding seats rather than pit at a Metallica concert? Cocoa rather than Cognac before bed? Tsk Tsk.
    No, it makes me puke. Because I know where it comes from

    By all means Boo the National Anthem. Boo Prince William. Hurl your turds at Princess Kate, Whatever, you sad tattoeed fat fucks

    But booing ABIDE WITH ME??

    That is pure vandalism, it is the degradation of the human soul and the hatred of loveliness, in the most ugly way. It is something very Liverpudlian - a diseased city - but it spreads like a fungus. Fuck them all.

    Remember Heysel
    If Liverpool fans are tarred by Heysel then what are you and I tarred with by virtue of being English?
    Is this even serious?

    We conquered the world. And it was mainly good. We didn’t push over a wall and kill some Italian teens during a football match. Get a grip

    Ok. Fair enough - if we are going simplistic (it wasn’t just Italian teens and it wasn’t just a simple case of some Liverpool fans pushing over a wall out of nothing).

    Amritsar - we just controlled a riot as quickly as possible - naughty Indian teens….

    Thing is you are probably the poster I agree most with on here for my sins but I’m staggered how miffed you have been by booing a pretty rubbish hymn - if it had been “I vow to thee my country” then I would be in my tank towards Anfield Road but really, perspective?
    I hear you.

    Maybe I always had this secret Simon Heffer-esque contempt for ugly, contemptible, obese, do-nothing Liverpool? But I hid it. OK, they booed our 96-year Queen during the year of her Platinum Jubilee, and a year or two after our widowhood. Maybe I could have contained myself, if they had done only that. But booing a beautiful religious hymn with the most profound lyrics ever written about humanity yielding with grace to mortality, WTAF??

    They are monkeys. They are an element in working class British culture - fat, wanky, ugly, dumb, inadequate, Philistine, pathetic and gruesomely proud of it - which I utterly despise. Let them sink into the Irish Sea. Millwall have more nobility
    I get you but you are in danger of going full-Roger…..
    What would Bill Shankly or Ian Paisley have thought of them booing the Queen, or booing the National Anthem, and then booing ABIDE WITH ME?

    I do not think they would have expressed admiration. And their bewildered contempt would be justified. We have regressed as a nation and a culture and Liverpool fans are the pimply, wobbly, nihilistic cutting edge. Well done, lads
    Chill man!

    There has always been a pantomime element to football chants.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,401
    Taz said:



    dixiedean said:

    Just seen an attempted stabbing. In the middle of the road. At 8 o'clock daylight.
    Summat in the air today.

    In rural Northumberland ?
    Nah. I've moved. But small town Northumberland yes.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 63,034
    This is poor football or maybe City and Liverpool and the premier league have spoilt us
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,835

    Farooq said:

    Taz said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Come on Rangers. Fuck these Scouse c*nts and traitors who BOO BEAUTY. Let Real Madrid hammer them

    But loyal, sober Unionists and royalists? Go, lads

    I am somewhat surprised how personally you have taken Liverpool fans booing at Wembley on Saturday. I truly thought you would love the madness, the anti-establishment chaos and rebellion. The “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” behaviour.

    It’s all part of life’s rich pageant and amazed you are bent out of shape by it.

    I’m a monarchist conservative and it really doesn’t bother me at all - it’s just jolly japes at a football match.

    If they annoyed you by being controversialist then it’s getting very Meta!!

    What next - demanding seats rather than pit at a Metallica concert? Cocoa rather than Cognac before bed? Tsk Tsk.
    No, it makes me puke. Because I know where it comes from

    By all means Boo the National Anthem. Boo Prince William. Hurl your turds at Princess Kate, Whatever, you sad tattoeed fat fucks

    But booing ABIDE WITH ME??

    That is pure vandalism, it is the degradation of the human soul and the hatred of loveliness, in the most ugly way. It is something very Liverpudlian - a diseased city - but it spreads like a fungus. Fuck them all.

    Remember Heysel
    If Liverpool fans are tarred by Heysel then what are you and I tarred with by virtue of being English?
    The evil of the British Empire for one. A scar on us for time immemorial..
    You know the structure of today's free world is largely down to the British Empire, right?

    Where do you think multiracial South African democracy, entrepreneurial Singapore, Hong Kong (try asking them whose rule they prefer), India (the world's largest democracy), America (the world's most powerful democracy) Canada, Australia and New Zealand come from? And how Japan, Taiwan and South Korea chose to imitate them rather than another autocracy.

    Sure the Middle East is a bit of fuck up - although arguably Israel is better than the alternative - and Africa isn't exactly a bed of roses, although bigoted Rhodesia was almost certainly economically better off than the basket case that is modern Zimbabwe - but you can't argue that's representative. It's complex.

    This penchant for equating us to the Nazis and selectively extracting the worst aspects from our history (usually out of context) to damn us for all time is certainly fashionable at the moment but it's also wrong - and just a phase.
    America's democracy is something they had to wrestle us for. The idea that we bestowed it upon them is a hellava a take.
    They literally based their constitution on our Bill of Rights and Magna Carta. Their argument was that as sons of liberty (Englishmen) royal governance had strayed from the true path.

    Try reading some history and thinking for yourself rather than imbibing fashionable contemporary propaganda.

    People will respect you more.
    And the Declaration of Arbroath. Give the Scots some credit, too.

    Though the (then) colonials were dam' right about the English bits too. They were being taxed like Englishmen without being treated like them.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,502
    edited May 2022

    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    Sandpit said:

    malcolmg said:

    Carnyx said:

    algarkirk said:

    Labour can’t win if voters think they will rely on the SNP.

    Keir needs to go all out on them.

    There is a problem here as things stand. If the Tories carry on committing suicide then SKS anti SNP stance may be possible. But assuming some sort of normal can break out in government, Labour will not be able to get to a majority without counting in the SNP in some form. They simply hold too many seats.

    SKS may need us to believe something that he in fact does not. So we might not either.

    Yes, it’s a problem or a paradox.

    This is why I advocate a very public anti-SNP approach from Labour from now until the next election.

    Vote SNP, get Tory.
    That only applies in Scotland. Where Labour is pretty crap at present in MP terms. One almost Tory MP in Morningside of all places. And Labour victories over SNP do nothing to reduce the Tory majority. Plus at the same time, Slab is pretending not to ally with Tories but is doing so all over the country?
    I don’t know why Labour are allying with the Tories in Scotland. It doesn’t make sense to me at all.
    My enemy’s enemy …
    Sort of on subject, how many million Union Jacks have Rangers fans taken to Seville?
    Not all of their Union Jacks. They will have kept a few million at home for Orange Walks.
    So which posters are rooting for Rangers tonight? And which rooting for the German side? Are you suspecting the majority of PBers cheering for Rangers, actually have English accents?

    Since I was named Minister of Sport in PrImeminister TSE first PB cabinet, I’ve been taking my brief at least as seriously as Nadine Doris, my opposite number in government.

    So Rangers Protestant, Celtic Catholic? Any type of Protestant including CoE, or a particular denomination? And then the Union Jacks - so typical Rangers fan so solid unionist does not vote SNP?

    It’s like painting a picture of the Balkan’s 🫢
    That is unadultered pish that only a Little Englander could come out with. Get an education.
    Those are actual questions to get an education. I’m aware football allegiance Spain is very political. The only two things i know of in England remotely like that, people of a certain religious persuasion like, or feel they should support, Tottenham. And enmity between West Ham and Millwall could be something to do with not supporting a dockyard strike?

    The Rangers with Union Jacks. Does that mean they don’t vote SNP? are they hard bitten unionists with no truck for independence, if they happy to drape in that flag?

    If So, does it mean they get fans from far afield, not just Glasgow, on basis it’s the Union team?

    Was it ever that sectarian between the supporters of Celtic and Rangers, or more to do with districts of town grew up in. Or even, historically, are there clear Catholic and Protestant areas of town?

    Genuine questions, possibly better answered on PB than Google.

    By all means educate me.
    Glasgow football is very sectarian, more than anywhere else in GB. The Rangers fans are Protestants and the Celtic fans Catholics.
    Is there any similar thing between the Liverpool sides? Or the Edinburgh teams?
    Weirdly, I was always taught that Liverpool WAS a divided city - like Glasgow - but that Everton was the Catholic side and Liverpool was the Proddy side. I have no idea if this is true. It certainly doesn’t square with their identities now
    This article doesn't explicitly say that's wrong, but implies it with the movements it states following the violence.

    "Sectarian violence in Liverpool

    On 20 June 1909 Liverpool experienced its worst outbreak of sectarian trouble when Catholics and Protestants violently clashed in the streets.

    A proposed march from a local Catholic church ended in riots with police when members of the Protestant community tried to block the route.

    The sectarian violence led to the city being dubbed the 'Belfast of England'.

    snip

    "A Father Fitzgerald gave evidence," Professor Neal says

    "He claimed 3,200 Catholics had to leave Everton and move in to safe areas."

    "The commission also heard that a number of Protestant families had to leave the dock areas".""

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/liverpool/hi/people_and_places/religion_and_ethics/newsid_8241000/8241927.stm
    Traditionally, Everton was the Catholic side.
    In Edinburgh, Hearts and Hibs were also traditionally split Protestant/Catholic.
    Historically, Mancunian Catholics are more likely to support United, though the split in Manchester owes more to geography (note the concentration of Irish descendents in SW Manchester, which is where Old Trafford is).
    I know of no religious or political reasons why one would support one team or other in Bristol, Nottingham, Dundee, Stoke or Falkirk. Nottingham and Dundee are the most interesting of these as the grounds are so close so presumably the geographical impact is slight.
    There was a religious aspect
    Dundee are the Prods and United the Papists.
    Wow. This mini thread is all rather revealing.

    When I asked is this painting a picture something like the Balkans, Malc said get educated 😦

    So where I was going with it, and Malc is right to call me out because I might be wrong, once the badge of sectarian/political affiliation becomes established with a club, it’s the club of that religious or political persuasion ‘wherever they are’? For example, the match kicking off 19:45, the trashed city centre - not necessarily people from the city, they could have come in from all over?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,386

    ydoethur said:

    News from the by-election front line:

    My train is just pulling in to Wakey Westgate. and none of those baling off look like rapid Yorkshire Party supporters to me.

    (Waves out of train window to Mr Herdson!)

    Only really slow ones?
    Autocorrect is the new comedy.
    https://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewziegler/autocorrect-fails-of-the-decade
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,433
    Carnyx said:

    Farooq said:

    Taz said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Come on Rangers. Fuck these Scouse c*nts and traitors who BOO BEAUTY. Let Real Madrid hammer them

    But loyal, sober Unionists and royalists? Go, lads

    I am somewhat surprised how personally you have taken Liverpool fans booing at Wembley on Saturday. I truly thought you would love the madness, the anti-establishment chaos and rebellion. The “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” behaviour.

    It’s all part of life’s rich pageant and amazed you are bent out of shape by it.

    I’m a monarchist conservative and it really doesn’t bother me at all - it’s just jolly japes at a football match.

    If they annoyed you by being controversialist then it’s getting very Meta!!

    What next - demanding seats rather than pit at a Metallica concert? Cocoa rather than Cognac before bed? Tsk Tsk.
    No, it makes me puke. Because I know where it comes from

    By all means Boo the National Anthem. Boo Prince William. Hurl your turds at Princess Kate, Whatever, you sad tattoeed fat fucks

    But booing ABIDE WITH ME??

    That is pure vandalism, it is the degradation of the human soul and the hatred of loveliness, in the most ugly way. It is something very Liverpudlian - a diseased city - but it spreads like a fungus. Fuck them all.

    Remember Heysel
    If Liverpool fans are tarred by Heysel then what are you and I tarred with by virtue of being English?
    The evil of the British Empire for one. A scar on us for time immemorial..
    You know the structure of today's free world is largely down to the British Empire, right?

    Where do you think multiracial South African democracy, entrepreneurial Singapore, Hong Kong (try asking them whose rule they prefer), India (the world's largest democracy), America (the world's most powerful democracy) Canada, Australia and New Zealand come from? And how Japan, Taiwan and South Korea chose to imitate them rather than another autocracy.

    Sure the Middle East is a bit of fuck up - although arguably Israel is better than the alternative - and Africa isn't exactly a bed of roses, although bigoted Rhodesia was almost certainly economically better off than the basket case that is modern Zimbabwe - but you can't argue that's representative. It's complex.

    This penchant for equating us to the Nazis and selectively extracting the worst aspects from our history (usually out of context) to damn us for all time is certainly fashionable at the moment but it's also wrong - and just a phase.
    America's democracy is something they had to wrestle us for. The idea that we bestowed it upon them is a hellava a take.
    They literally based their constitution on our Bill of Rights and Magna Carta. Their argument was that as sons of liberty (Englishmen) royal governance had strayed from the true path.

    Try reading some history and thinking for yourself rather than imbibing fashionable contemporary propaganda.

    People will respect you more.
    And the Declaration of Arbroath. Give the Scots some credit, too.

    Though the (then) colonials were dam' right about the English bits too. They were being taxed like Englishmen without being treated like them.
    Yes, that's fair.
  • pigeonpigeon Posts: 4,839
    Foxy said:

    pigeon said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    Has anyone else tried contacting HMRC recently?
    Tried three times today. Simply say they are too busy. Goodbye.
    Not even the joy of an hour on hold
    They've deducted me money for a tax credit overpayment completely without warning.

    They’re all working from fucking home. We tried to tell you. It’s shit
    You don't need to be sitting in an office to answer a phone.
    That's just an excuse.
    But this is why this shit is happening. It is a disaster for the British economy, if it continues

    As an international flintic dildo maker and salesman, I can say it is clearly impacting my industry (seriously). The people that are back in the office are On their Game, they respond quickly, they do their job. The people who are WFH reply much slower, they are less alert in general, and less aware of industry news and gossip, and they are hard to hear on phone calls (“Oh sorry that’s my husband slapping the dog” - GO BACK TO THE FUCKING OFFICE THEN)

    I reckon we are about to discover there is a reason we have big cities and complex offices, and the cities and offices that function properly will entirely out-compete the people sitting in their stupid gardens. This is not an invention of the Tory party because of its commercial property owning donors
    I moderately agree with this.

    Some sectors are coping well with WFH,
    Others, not. Customer service generally is down, not just in the public sector.
    This should come as a surprise to no-one. Who would want to work in a call centre-type occupation - whether office or home based - if they had a better alternative? And, in a low unemployment environment, better alternatives (consisting of practically every other kind of job imaginable) are easier than usual to come by.

    Then, of course, the harder businesses find it to recruit workers willing to put up with a constant barrage of shouting from enraged customers, the smaller the available pool of call handlers, the worse the service becomes, the more rage the remaining staff have to put up with, and the more likely they are to get out as soon as they can find another minimum wage crap job that's less liable to cause them to have a nervous breakdown.

    It's the sort of vicious cycle that can only be broken by a spike in joblessness that forces workers to endure the misery, for want of anywhere else to go.
    Yes, you have fairly accurately described why our admin booking centre staff and clinic clerks have mostly left. It is rather hampering tackling our outpatient backlogs.
    I have experience, mercifully far in the past, of working in a poorly paid administrative position whilst dealing with frequent angry phone interruptions myself, so I can identify with their plight. If I found myself being obliged to choose between a limited selection of low pay, low status jobs - emptying bins, cleaning, shelf stacking, call centre - call centre would always be the last resort of absolute desperation.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,647
    boulay said:

    boulay said:

    Have been trying to catch a photo of the lightning in a very weird thunderstorm where packs of clouds keep passing throwing out their tricks but failed. Looks suitably moody anyway!



    Edit - sorry it’s the wrong way round.

    That's a Vanilla bug!
    Ok - tried taking a photo in landscape to see if it comes out the right way. Just missed more random lightning sadly.


    Thats quite some thunderstorm brewing.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,083
    edited May 2022
    Farooq said:

    Taz said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Come on Rangers. Fuck these Scouse c*nts and traitors who BOO BEAUTY. Let Real Madrid hammer them

    But loyal, sober Unionists and royalists? Go, lads

    I am somewhat surprised how personally you have taken Liverpool fans booing at Wembley on Saturday. I truly thought you would love the madness, the anti-establishment chaos and rebellion. The “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” behaviour.

    It’s all part of life’s rich pageant and amazed you are bent out of shape by it.

    I’m a monarchist conservative and it really doesn’t bother me at all - it’s just jolly japes at a football match.

    If they annoyed you by being controversialist then it’s getting very Meta!!

    What next - demanding seats rather than pit at a Metallica concert? Cocoa rather than Cognac before bed? Tsk Tsk.
    No, it makes me puke. Because I know where it comes from

    By all means Boo the National Anthem. Boo Prince William. Hurl your turds at Princess Kate, Whatever, you sad tattoeed fat fucks

    But booing ABIDE WITH ME??

    That is pure vandalism, it is the degradation of the human soul and the hatred of loveliness, in the most ugly way. It is something very Liverpudlian - a diseased city - but it spreads like a fungus. Fuck them all.

    Remember Heysel
    If Liverpool fans are tarred by Heysel then what are you and I tarred with by virtue of being English?
    The evil of the British Empire for one. A scar on us for time immemorial..
    You know the structure of today's free world is largely down to the British Empire, right?

    Where do you think multiracial South African democracy, entrepreneurial Singapore, Hong Kong (try asking them whose rule they prefer), India (the world's largest democracy), America (the world's most powerful democracy) Canada, Australia and New Zealand come from? And how Japan, Taiwan and South Korea chose to imitate them rather than another autocracy.

    Sure the Middle East is a bit of fuck up - although arguably Israel is better than the alternative - and Africa isn't exactly a bed of roses, although bigoted Rhodesia was almost certainly economically better off than the basket case that is modern Zimbabwe - but you can't argue that's representative. It's complex.

    This penchant for equating us to the Nazis and selectively extracting the worst aspects from our history (usually out of context) to damn us for all time is certainly fashionable at the moment but it's also wrong - and just a phase.
    America's democracy is something they had to wrestle us for. The idea that we bestowed it upon them is a hellava a take.
    Not completely out there if part of the point was they felt they were not getting the representation and rights that they felt owed, that is they wanted to live up to the democratic tradition they saw (or perceived) in Britain. Bestowed (which I don't think was the word used anyway) doesn't necessarily mean intentionally or willingly bestowed. Indeed, nations might be inspired by what another nation said, even if what that nation did, did not live up to that.

    Obviously it was more complex than that and there were other influences, particularly having cut the cord from us. But the point seemed to be more about the impact on the development of the USA being derived in part from its history with us, not that Britain guided them intentionally down that path, or indeed guided others.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,401
    ping said:

    dixiedean said:

    Just seen an attempted stabbing. In the middle of the road. At 8 o'clock daylight.
    Summat in the air today.

    Horrible. That sort of thing would shake me up. Hope you’re ok.
    Thanks.
    Bloke chased bloke on bikes. Knocked him off, then produced knife and repeatedly tried to stab him on the ground. Fortunately, assailant was superbly weedy and completely off his head.
    Bloke on ground was a hulking sober guy. So no harm done. They left with much shouting. And the intervention of inevitable screaming girl.
    Not much fun.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,557
    Thought-provoking article.

    "Could black African Brits be about to go Tory?
    This socially conservative, upwardly mobile group could cause problems for Labour in big cities.
    Rakib Ehsan"

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/05/18/could-black-african-brits-be-about-to-go-tory/
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,835

    Carnyx said:

    Farooq said:

    Taz said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Come on Rangers. Fuck these Scouse c*nts and traitors who BOO BEAUTY. Let Real Madrid hammer them

    But loyal, sober Unionists and royalists? Go, lads

    I am somewhat surprised how personally you have taken Liverpool fans booing at Wembley on Saturday. I truly thought you would love the madness, the anti-establishment chaos and rebellion. The “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” behaviour.

    It’s all part of life’s rich pageant and amazed you are bent out of shape by it.

    I’m a monarchist conservative and it really doesn’t bother me at all - it’s just jolly japes at a football match.

    If they annoyed you by being controversialist then it’s getting very Meta!!

    What next - demanding seats rather than pit at a Metallica concert? Cocoa rather than Cognac before bed? Tsk Tsk.
    No, it makes me puke. Because I know where it comes from

    By all means Boo the National Anthem. Boo Prince William. Hurl your turds at Princess Kate, Whatever, you sad tattoeed fat fucks

    But booing ABIDE WITH ME??

    That is pure vandalism, it is the degradation of the human soul and the hatred of loveliness, in the most ugly way. It is something very Liverpudlian - a diseased city - but it spreads like a fungus. Fuck them all.

    Remember Heysel
    If Liverpool fans are tarred by Heysel then what are you and I tarred with by virtue of being English?
    The evil of the British Empire for one. A scar on us for time immemorial..
    You know the structure of today's free world is largely down to the British Empire, right?

    Where do you think multiracial South African democracy, entrepreneurial Singapore, Hong Kong (try asking them whose rule they prefer), India (the world's largest democracy), America (the world's most powerful democracy) Canada, Australia and New Zealand come from? And how Japan, Taiwan and South Korea chose to imitate them rather than another autocracy.

    Sure the Middle East is a bit of fuck up - although arguably Israel is better than the alternative - and Africa isn't exactly a bed of roses, although bigoted Rhodesia was almost certainly economically better off than the basket case that is modern Zimbabwe - but you can't argue that's representative. It's complex.

    This penchant for equating us to the Nazis and selectively extracting the worst aspects from our history (usually out of context) to damn us for all time is certainly fashionable at the moment but it's also wrong - and just a phase.
    America's democracy is something they had to wrestle us for. The idea that we bestowed it upon them is a hellava a take.
    They literally based their constitution on our Bill of Rights and Magna Carta. Their argument was that as sons of liberty (Englishmen) royal governance had strayed from the true path.

    Try reading some history and thinking for yourself rather than imbibing fashionable contemporary propaganda.

    People will respect you more.
    And the Declaration of Arbroath. Give the Scots some credit, too.

    Though the (then) colonials were dam' right about the English bits too. They were being taxed like Englishmen without being treated like them.
    Yes, that's fair.
    Absolutely insane of Geo.III and his ministers - just declare Maryland and Jamestown and so on Westminster parliamentary constituencies and bob's your uncle.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,386
    edited May 2022

    Taz said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Come on Rangers. Fuck these Scouse c*nts and traitors who BOO BEAUTY. Let Real Madrid hammer them

    But loyal, sober Unionists and royalists? Go, lads

    I am somewhat surprised how personally you have taken Liverpool fans booing at Wembley on Saturday. I truly thought you would love the madness, the anti-establishment chaos and rebellion. The “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” behaviour.

    It’s all part of life’s rich pageant and amazed you are bent out of shape by it.

    I’m a monarchist conservative and it really doesn’t bother me at all - it’s just jolly japes at a football match.

    If they annoyed you by being controversialist then it’s getting very Meta!!

    What next - demanding seats rather than pit at a Metallica concert? Cocoa rather than Cognac before bed? Tsk Tsk.

    No, it makes me puke. Because I know where it comes from

    By all means Boo the National Anthem. Boo Prince William. Hurl your turds at Princess Kate, Whatever, you sad tattoeed fat fucks

    But booing ABIDE WITH ME??

    That is pure vandalism, it is the degradation of the human soul and the hatred of loveliness, in the most ugly way. It is something very Liverpudlian - a diseased city - but it spreads like a fungus. Fuck them all.

    Remember Heysel
    If Liverpool fans are tarred by Heysel then what are you and I tarred with by virtue of being English?
    The evil of the British Empire for one. A scar on us for time immemorial..
    You know the structure of today's free world is largely down to the British Empire, right?

    Where do you think multiracial South African democracy, entrepreneurial Singapore, Hong Kong (try asking them whose rule they prefer), India (the world's largest democracy), America (the world's most powerful democracy) Canada, Australia and New Zealand come from? And how Japan, Taiwan and South Korea chose to imitate them rather than another autocracy.

    Sure the Middle East is a bit of fuck up - although arguably Israel is better than the alternative - and Africa isn't exactly a bed of roses, although bigoted Rhodesia was almost certainly economically better off than the basket case that is modern Zimbabwe - but you can't argue that's representative. It's complex.

    This penchant for equating us to the Nazis and selectively extracting the worst aspects from our history (usually out of context) to damn us for all time is certainly fashionable at the moment but it's also wrong - and just a phase.
    MBE - does it stand for "Masturbating over the British Empire"?
    Is there a Class 55 called 'The British Empire?' Because if not we can sure you would never do that...
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 10,061
    Abide yes
    I Vow to Thee yes
    For those in peril yes

    Jerusalem. No. No. Not at all. Garbage.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,386
    Carnyx said:

    Farooq said:

    Taz said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Come on Rangers. Fuck these Scouse c*nts and traitors who BOO BEAUTY. Let Real Madrid hammer them

    But loyal, sober Unionists and royalists? Go, lads

    I am somewhat surprised how personally you have taken Liverpool fans booing at Wembley on Saturday. I truly thought you would love the madness, the anti-establishment chaos and rebellion. The “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” behaviour.

    It’s all part of life’s rich pageant and amazed you are bent out of shape by it.

    I’m a monarchist conservative and it really doesn’t bother me at all - it’s just jolly japes at a football match.

    If they annoyed you by being controversialist then it’s getting very Meta!!

    What next - demanding seats rather than pit at a Metallica concert? Cocoa rather than Cognac before bed? Tsk Tsk.
    No, it makes me puke. Because I know where it comes from

    By all means Boo the National Anthem. Boo Prince William. Hurl your turds at Princess Kate, Whatever, you sad tattoeed fat fucks

    But booing ABIDE WITH ME??

    That is pure vandalism, it is the degradation of the human soul and the hatred of loveliness, in the most ugly way. It is something very Liverpudlian - a diseased city - but it spreads like a fungus. Fuck them all.

    Remember Heysel
    If Liverpool fans are tarred by Heysel then what are you and I tarred with by virtue of being English?
    The evil of the British Empire for one. A scar on us for time immemorial..
    You know the structure of today's free world is largely down to the British Empire, right?

    Where do you think multiracial South African democracy, entrepreneurial Singapore, Hong Kong (try asking them whose rule they prefer), India (the world's largest democracy), America (the world's most powerful democracy) Canada, Australia and New Zealand come from? And how Japan, Taiwan and South Korea chose to imitate them rather than another autocracy.

    Sure the Middle East is a bit of fuck up - although arguably Israel is better than the alternative - and Africa isn't exactly a bed of roses, although bigoted Rhodesia was almost certainly economically better off than the basket case that is modern Zimbabwe - but you can't argue that's representative. It's complex.

    This penchant for equating us to the Nazis and selectively extracting the worst aspects from our history (usually out of context) to damn us for all time is certainly fashionable at the moment but it's also wrong - and just a phase.
    America's democracy is something they had to wrestle us for. The idea that we bestowed it upon them is a hellava a take.
    They literally based their constitution on our Bill of Rights and Magna Carta. Their argument was that as sons of liberty (Englishmen) royal governance had strayed from the true path.

    Try reading some history and thinking for yourself rather than imbibing fashionable contemporary propaganda.

    People will respect you more.
    And the Declaration of Arbroath. Give the Scots some credit, too.

    Though the (then) colonials were dam' right about the English bits too. They were being taxed like Englishmen without being treated like them.
    They were hardly taxed at all. They just thought they should literally not be taxed at all.
  • boulayboulay Posts: 5,486
    Foxy said:

    boulay said:

    boulay said:

    Have been trying to catch a photo of the lightning in a very weird thunderstorm where packs of clouds keep passing throwing out their tricks but failed. Looks suitably moody anyway!



    Edit - sorry it’s the wrong way round.

    That's a Vanilla bug!
    Ok - tried taking a photo in landscape to see if it comes out the right way. Just missed more random lightning sadly.


    Thats quite some thunderstorm brewing.
    Sadly it’s mainly passed. Distant rumblings and lightning and the rain a bit pathetic now but was that wonderful hot atmosphere, timpani drums five feet away and Eurovision strobes with stair rod rain just after the photo taken.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,835
    ydoethur said:

    Carnyx said:

    Farooq said:

    Taz said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Come on Rangers. Fuck these Scouse c*nts and traitors who BOO BEAUTY. Let Real Madrid hammer them

    But loyal, sober Unionists and royalists? Go, lads

    I am somewhat surprised how personally you have taken Liverpool fans booing at Wembley on Saturday. I truly thought you would love the madness, the anti-establishment chaos and rebellion. The “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” behaviour.

    It’s all part of life’s rich pageant and amazed you are bent out of shape by it.

    I’m a monarchist conservative and it really doesn’t bother me at all - it’s just jolly japes at a football match.

    If they annoyed you by being controversialist then it’s getting very Meta!!

    What next - demanding seats rather than pit at a Metallica concert? Cocoa rather than Cognac before bed? Tsk Tsk.
    No, it makes me puke. Because I know where it comes from

    By all means Boo the National Anthem. Boo Prince William. Hurl your turds at Princess Kate, Whatever, you sad tattoeed fat fucks

    But booing ABIDE WITH ME??

    That is pure vandalism, it is the degradation of the human soul and the hatred of loveliness, in the most ugly way. It is something very Liverpudlian - a diseased city - but it spreads like a fungus. Fuck them all.

    Remember Heysel
    If Liverpool fans are tarred by Heysel then what are you and I tarred with by virtue of being English?
    The evil of the British Empire for one. A scar on us for time immemorial..
    You know the structure of today's free world is largely down to the British Empire, right?

    Where do you think multiracial South African democracy, entrepreneurial Singapore, Hong Kong (try asking them whose rule they prefer), India (the world's largest democracy), America (the world's most powerful democracy) Canada, Australia and New Zealand come from? And how Japan, Taiwan and South Korea chose to imitate them rather than another autocracy.

    Sure the Middle East is a bit of fuck up - although arguably Israel is better than the alternative - and Africa isn't exactly a bed of roses, although bigoted Rhodesia was almost certainly economically better off than the basket case that is modern Zimbabwe - but you can't argue that's representative. It's complex.

    This penchant for equating us to the Nazis and selectively extracting the worst aspects from our history (usually out of context) to damn us for all time is certainly fashionable at the moment but it's also wrong - and just a phase.
    America's democracy is something they had to wrestle us for. The idea that we bestowed it upon them is a hellava a take.
    They literally based their constitution on our Bill of Rights and Magna Carta. Their argument was that as sons of liberty (Englishmen) royal governance had strayed from the true path.

    Try reading some history and thinking for yourself rather than imbibing fashionable contemporary propaganda.

    People will respect you more.
    And the Declaration of Arbroath. Give the Scots some credit, too.

    Though the (then) colonials were dam' right about the English bits too. They were being taxed like Englishmen without being treated like them.
    They were hardly taxed at all. They just thought they should literally not be taxed at all.
    Geo. III should have given then the vote pronto, and made Boston etc a Westminster constituency, to call their bluff.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277

    This is poor football or maybe City and Liverpool and the premier league have spoilt us

    It’s terrible. Certainly compared to EPL games

    I am close to abandoning my near-40 minute long attachment to Rangers FC
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,647
    dixiedean said:

    ping said:

    dixiedean said:

    Just seen an attempted stabbing. In the middle of the road. At 8 o'clock daylight.
    Summat in the air today.

    Horrible. That sort of thing would shake me up. Hope you’re ok.
    Thanks.
    Bloke chased bloke on bikes. Knocked him off, then produced knife and repeatedly tried to stab him on the ground. Fortunately, assailant was superbly weedy and completely off his head.
    Bloke on ground was a hulking sober guy. So no harm done. They left with much shouting. And the intervention of inevitable screaming girl.
    Not much fun.
    Sounds a bit County Lines.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,386
    Carnyx said:

    ydoethur said:

    Carnyx said:

    Farooq said:

    Taz said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Come on Rangers. Fuck these Scouse c*nts and traitors who BOO BEAUTY. Let Real Madrid hammer them

    But loyal, sober Unionists and royalists? Go, lads

    I am somewhat surprised how personally you have taken Liverpool fans booing at Wembley on Saturday. I truly thought you would love the madness, the anti-establishment chaos and rebellion. The “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” behaviour.

    It’s all part of life’s rich pageant and amazed you are bent out of shape by it.

    I’m a monarchist conservative and it really doesn’t bother me at all - it’s just jolly japes at a football match.

    If they annoyed you by being controversialist then it’s getting very Meta!!

    What next - demanding seats rather than pit at a Metallica concert? Cocoa rather than Cognac before bed? Tsk Tsk.
    No, it makes me puke. Because I know where it comes from

    By all means Boo the National Anthem. Boo Prince William. Hurl your turds at Princess Kate, Whatever, you sad tattoeed fat fucks

    But booing ABIDE WITH ME??

    That is pure vandalism, it is the degradation of the human soul and the hatred of loveliness, in the most ugly way. It is something very Liverpudlian - a diseased city - but it spreads like a fungus. Fuck them all.

    Remember Heysel
    If Liverpool fans are tarred by Heysel then what are you and I tarred with by virtue of being English?
    The evil of the British Empire for one. A scar on us for time immemorial..
    You know the structure of today's free world is largely down to the British Empire, right?

    Where do you think multiracial South African democracy, entrepreneurial Singapore, Hong Kong (try asking them whose rule they prefer), India (the world's largest democracy), America (the world's most powerful democracy) Canada, Australia and New Zealand come from? And how Japan, Taiwan and South Korea chose to imitate them rather than another autocracy.

    Sure the Middle East is a bit of fuck up - although arguably Israel is better than the alternative - and Africa isn't exactly a bed of roses, although bigoted Rhodesia was almost certainly economically better off than the basket case that is modern Zimbabwe - but you can't argue that's representative. It's complex.

    This penchant for equating us to the Nazis and selectively extracting the worst aspects from our history (usually out of context) to damn us for all time is certainly fashionable at the moment but it's also wrong - and just a phase.
    America's democracy is something they had to wrestle us for. The idea that we bestowed it upon them is a hellava a take.
    They literally based their constitution on our Bill of Rights and Magna Carta. Their argument was that as sons of liberty (Englishmen) royal governance had strayed from the true path.

    Try reading some history and thinking for yourself rather than imbibing fashionable contemporary propaganda.

    People will respect you more.
    And the Declaration of Arbroath. Give the Scots some credit, too.

    Though the (then) colonials were dam' right about the English bits too. They were being taxed like Englishmen without being treated like them.
    They were hardly taxed at all. They just thought they should literally not be taxed at all.
    Geo. III should have given then the vote pronto, and made Boston etc a Westminster constituency, to call their bluff.
    Given when that solution was adopted for Scotland and Ireland it involved the suppression of local parliaments I doubt if they would have been terribly happy with that arrangement either.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,502
    dixiedean said:

    ping said:

    dixiedean said:

    Just seen an attempted stabbing. In the middle of the road. At 8 o'clock daylight.
    Summat in the air today.

    Horrible. That sort of thing would shake me up. Hope you’re ok.
    Thanks.
    Bloke chased bloke on bikes. Knocked him off, then produced knife and repeatedly tried to stab him on the ground. Fortunately, assailant was superbly weedy and completely off his head.
    Bloke on ground was a hulking sober guy. So no harm done. They left with much shouting. And the intervention of inevitable screaming girl.
    Not much fun.
    My election campaign right now, reduce crime, and reduce government waste.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277

    Abide yes
    I Vow to Thee yes
    For those in peril yes

    Jerusalem. No. No. Not at all. Garbage.


    This is interesting. Abide With Me is a source of discord in… India


    https://www.classicfm.com/music-news/abide-with-me-scrapped-indian-ceremony/

    for the obvious reasons. It’s colonial but it’s also beautiful
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,585
    edited May 2022
    Andy_JS said:

    Thought-provoking article.

    "Could black African Brits be about to go Tory?
    This socially conservative, upwardly mobile group could cause problems for Labour in big cities.
    Rakib Ehsan"

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/05/18/could-black-african-brits-be-about-to-go-tory/

    Interesting piece. Similar observations have been made in the US, with certain minorities - that have traditionally been left-aligned - railing against identity politics and the wokeism that is now prevalent on the modern Left.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 10,061
    Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes
    Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies
    Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee
    In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me
    Abide with me, abide with me

    The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.

    How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,083
    Farooq said:

    Farooq said:

    Taz said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Come on Rangers. Fuck these Scouse c*nts and traitors who BOO BEAUTY. Let Real Madrid hammer them

    But loyal, sober Unionists and royalists? Go, lads

    I am somewhat surprised how personally you have taken Liverpool fans booing at Wembley on Saturday. I truly thought you would love the madness, the anti-establishment chaos and rebellion. The “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” behaviour.

    It’s all part of life’s rich pageant and amazed you are bent out of shape by it.

    I’m a monarchist conservative and it really doesn’t bother me at all - it’s just jolly japes at a football match.

    If they annoyed you by being controversialist then it’s getting very Meta!!

    What next - demanding seats rather than pit at a Metallica concert? Cocoa rather than Cognac before bed? Tsk Tsk.
    No, it makes me puke. Because I know where it comes from

    By all means Boo the National Anthem. Boo Prince William. Hurl your turds at Princess Kate, Whatever, you sad tattoeed fat fucks

    But booing ABIDE WITH ME??

    That is pure vandalism, it is the degradation of the human soul and the hatred of loveliness, in the most ugly way. It is something very Liverpudlian - a diseased city - but it spreads like a fungus. Fuck them all.

    Remember Heysel
    If Liverpool fans are tarred by Heysel then what are you and I tarred with by virtue of being English?
    The evil of the British Empire for one. A scar on us for time immemorial..
    You know the structure of today's free world is largely down to the British Empire, right?

    Where do you think multiracial South African democracy, entrepreneurial Singapore, Hong Kong (try asking them whose rule they prefer), India (the world's largest democracy), America (the world's most powerful democracy) Canada, Australia and New Zealand come from? And how Japan, Taiwan and South Korea chose to imitate them rather than another autocracy.

    Sure the Middle East is a bit of fuck up - although arguably Israel is better than the alternative - and Africa isn't exactly a bed of roses, although bigoted Rhodesia was almost certainly economically better off than the basket case that is modern Zimbabwe - but you can't argue that's representative. It's complex.

    This penchant for equating us to the Nazis and selectively extracting the worst aspects from our history (usually out of context) to damn us for all time is certainly fashionable at the moment but it's also wrong - and just a phase.
    America's democracy is something they had to wrestle us for. The idea that we bestowed it upon them is a hellava a take.
    They literally based their constitution on our Bill of Rights and Magna Carta. Their argument was that as sons of liberty (Englishmen) royal governance had strayed from the true path.

    Try reading some history and thinking for yourself rather than imbibing fashionable contemporary propaganda.

    People will respect you more.
    Based on, yes. Makes you wonder why we killed so many of them trying to stop them.
    You're debating the point as if we were fighting them about it today, and you need to defeat that. I think most people in the UK today would side with the americans in that conflict. Heck, some people in Britain at the time did as well.

    Leaving aside the morals of how the americans were treated, it doesn't seem controversial to note that quite naturally the development of the american system was heavily influenced by what had come before it, their predecessor and, eventually, oppressor. Not as the only influence, but ideas don't emerge from nothing and as has been noted many of them will have expressed their ideals in terms rooted in British historical terms.

    That doesn't mean we get credit for everything good about the american system, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to note where it did take influence from it. Heck, many would argue they improved upon it considerably.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,835
    ydoethur said:

    Carnyx said:

    ydoethur said:

    Carnyx said:

    Farooq said:

    Taz said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Come on Rangers. Fuck these Scouse c*nts and traitors who BOO BEAUTY. Let Real Madrid hammer them

    But loyal, sober Unionists and royalists? Go, lads

    I am somewhat surprised how personally you have taken Liverpool fans booing at Wembley on Saturday. I truly thought you would love the madness, the anti-establishment chaos and rebellion. The “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” behaviour.

    It’s all part of life’s rich pageant and amazed you are bent out of shape by it.

    I’m a monarchist conservative and it really doesn’t bother me at all - it’s just jolly japes at a football match.

    If they annoyed you by being controversialist then it’s getting very Meta!!

    What next - demanding seats rather than pit at a Metallica concert? Cocoa rather than Cognac before bed? Tsk Tsk.
    No, it makes me puke. Because I know where it comes from

    By all means Boo the National Anthem. Boo Prince William. Hurl your turds at Princess Kate, Whatever, you sad tattoeed fat fucks

    But booing ABIDE WITH ME??

    That is pure vandalism, it is the degradation of the human soul and the hatred of loveliness, in the most ugly way. It is something very Liverpudlian - a diseased city - but it spreads like a fungus. Fuck them all.

    Remember Heysel
    If Liverpool fans are tarred by Heysel then what are you and I tarred with by virtue of being English?
    The evil of the British Empire for one. A scar on us for time immemorial..
    You know the structure of today's free world is largely down to the British Empire, right?

    Where do you think multiracial South African democracy, entrepreneurial Singapore, Hong Kong (try asking them whose rule they prefer), India (the world's largest democracy), America (the world's most powerful democracy) Canada, Australia and New Zealand come from? And how Japan, Taiwan and South Korea chose to imitate them rather than another autocracy.

    Sure the Middle East is a bit of fuck up - although arguably Israel is better than the alternative - and Africa isn't exactly a bed of roses, although bigoted Rhodesia was almost certainly economically better off than the basket case that is modern Zimbabwe - but you can't argue that's representative. It's complex.

    This penchant for equating us to the Nazis and selectively extracting the worst aspects from our history (usually out of context) to damn us for all time is certainly fashionable at the moment but it's also wrong - and just a phase.
    America's democracy is something they had to wrestle us for. The idea that we bestowed it upon them is a hellava a take.
    They literally based their constitution on our Bill of Rights and Magna Carta. Their argument was that as sons of liberty (Englishmen) royal governance had strayed from the true path.

    Try reading some history and thinking for yourself rather than imbibing fashionable contemporary propaganda.

    People will respect you more.
    And the Declaration of Arbroath. Give the Scots some credit, too.

    Though the (then) colonials were dam' right about the English bits too. They were being taxed like Englishmen without being treated like them.
    They were hardly taxed at all. They just thought they should literally not be taxed at all.
    Geo. III should have given then the vote pronto, and made Boston etc a Westminster constituency, to call their bluff.
    Given when that solution was adopted for Scotland and Ireland it involved the suppression of local parliaments I doubt if they would have been terribly happy with that arrangement either.
    Quite, but from his point of view it was the way to go. Though the C of E would have been a tricky point to put it mildly.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,502

    Farooq said:

    Taz said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Come on Rangers. Fuck these Scouse c*nts and traitors who BOO BEAUTY. Let Real Madrid hammer them

    But loyal, sober Unionists and royalists? Go, lads

    I am somewhat surprised how personally you have taken Liverpool fans booing at Wembley on Saturday. I truly thought you would love the madness, the anti-establishment chaos and rebellion. The “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” behaviour.

    It’s all part of life’s rich pageant and amazed you are bent out of shape by it.

    I’m a monarchist conservative and it really doesn’t bother me at all - it’s just jolly japes at a football match.

    If they annoyed you by being controversialist then it’s getting very Meta!!

    What next - demanding seats rather than pit at a Metallica concert? Cocoa rather than Cognac before bed? Tsk Tsk.
    No, it makes me puke. Because I know where it comes from

    By all means Boo the National Anthem. Boo Prince William. Hurl your turds at Princess Kate, Whatever, you sad tattoeed fat fucks

    But booing ABIDE WITH ME??

    That is pure vandalism, it is the degradation of the human soul and the hatred of loveliness, in the most ugly way. It is something very Liverpudlian - a diseased city - but it spreads like a fungus. Fuck them all.

    Remember Heysel
    If Liverpool fans are tarred by Heysel then what are you and I tarred with by virtue of being English?
    The evil of the British Empire for one. A scar on us for time immemorial..
    You know the structure of today's free world is largely down to the British Empire, right?

    Where do you think multiracial South African democracy, entrepreneurial Singapore, Hong Kong (try asking them whose rule they prefer), India (the world's largest democracy), America (the world's most powerful democracy) Canada, Australia and New Zealand come from? And how Japan, Taiwan and South Korea chose to imitate them rather than another autocracy.

    Sure the Middle East is a bit of fuck up - although arguably Israel is better than the alternative - and Africa isn't exactly a bed of roses, although bigoted Rhodesia was almost certainly economically better off than the basket case that is modern Zimbabwe - but you can't argue that's representative. It's complex.

    This penchant for equating us to the Nazis and selectively extracting the worst aspects from our history (usually out of context) to damn us for all time is certainly fashionable at the moment but it's also wrong - and just a phase.
    America's democracy is something they had to wrestle us for. The idea that we bestowed it upon them is a hellava a take.
    They literally based their constitution on our Bill of Rights and Magna Carta. Their argument was that as sons of liberty (Englishmen) royal governance had strayed from the true path.

    Try reading some history and thinking for yourself rather than imbibing fashionable contemporary propaganda.

    People will respect you more.
    Was Magna Carta based or inspired on anything that preceded it, such as further afield in Europe, or from Ancient times? If an original creation, who penned it, do we know the names of authors?
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,401
    Further to my post above. This didn't ever make Liverpool the "Catholic" club. Both were founded out of Saint Domingo's, and a rent schism within. Which, despite it's name was a Methodist Church.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 10,061
    Leon said:

    Abide yes
    I Vow to Thee yes
    For those in peril yes

    Jerusalem. No. No. Not at all. Garbage.


    This is interesting. Abide With Me is a source of discord in… India


    https://www.classicfm.com/music-news/abide-with-me-scrapped-indian-ceremony/

    for the obvious reasons. It’s colonial but it’s also beautiful
    They should totally play what is appropriate for them. It doesn't diminish the beauty of the hymn at all.
    No beauty is universal
    And no lack of universality diminishes any beauty to its beholder.
    There's room for it all under the sky.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,557
    edited May 2022
    Sandpit said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Thought-provoking article.

    "Could black African Brits be about to go Tory?
    This socially conservative, upwardly mobile group could cause problems for Labour in big cities.
    Rakib Ehsan"

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/05/18/could-black-african-brits-be-about-to-go-tory/

    Interesting piece. Similar observations have been made in the US, with certain minorities - that have traditionally been left-aligned - railing against identity politics and the wokeism that is now prevalent on the modern Left.
    Thurrock has a very large black African population, yet it's swung to the Tories in a big way recently. The only conclusion is that a significant percentage of that demographic is supporting the Conservatives.
  • BlancheLivermoreBlancheLivermore Posts: 5,915
    I’m not sure where I got this red wine from, but it comes from Madrid. It’s delicious!

    https://www.jancisrobinson.com/articles/4-monos-cien-lanzas-2018-sierra-de-gredos
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    edited May 2022

    Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes
    Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies
    Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee
    In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me
    Abide with me, abide with me

    The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.

    How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.

    Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him

    By some accounts he finished it the day before he died

    Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,677

    Sandpit said:

    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    Has anyone else tried contacting HMRC recently?
    Tried three times today. Simply say they are too busy. Goodbye.
    Not even the joy of an hour on hold
    They've deducted me money for a tax credit overpayment completely without warning.

    They’re all working from fucking home. We tried to tell you. It’s shit
    You don't need to be sitting in an office to answer a phone.
    That's just an excuse.
    The irony is that a call centre can actually fit really well with both WFH and flexible hours.

    BUT, and it’s a big but, it needs the organisation to be structured differently to an in-person call centre, with processes to match. You need a larger group of both L2 technical agents and supervisors, and the managers need to take a different view of their metrics which requires modern phone and IT systems.

    I get the impression that much of the public sector and quasi-public sector simply went home in March 2020, plugged their desk phone into a router, used their own laptop to connect to a VPN and a Citrix window, but the organisations never specifically set themselves up for WFH.

    A call centre is also a training-heavy environment, and training / teambuilding exercises are best done in person to maintain consistency.
    There were lots of call centres before the pandemic that used staff working from their own homes (with appropriate structures in place). It’s always been a job that is well suited to working from home and to employees wanting different working hours. It’s just we, the consumer, didn’t notice.

    The problem is that private call centres operate on a principle that they need to work effectively or they don't get business so they don't get paid, so they make sure their operations work.

    Public ones - not so much.

    I had a rather worrying encounter a few months ago with the Council for a home I used to live in but moved out of in 2019. I'd paid my Council Tax in full by Direct Debit and had notified them when I moved homes and set up a Direct Debit for my new home but then a few years later got a "final demand" letter for overdue Council Tax for 2020-21. I called them and spoke to someone who was working from home and said that I had moved out before this period so it wasn't me who owed the tax, he told me not to worry, promised to get it resolved and would put a hold on the account until they could figure out what had gone wrong.

    Two months later I got a Court Summons for unpaid Council Tax, with a court date set for what was then 3 weeks time. I tried calling the Council again but after pressing all the relevant options got a message "our queue is full please try again later". That kept happening again and again for two weeks. Tried emailing them, got an autoreply saying they're currently taking an average of 6 weeks to respond to emails, but the Court Summons was for 3 weeks time.

    After a few weeks of calling them every day I eventually got in the queue and through to a human who found my email to them and accepted the proof that I wasn't living at that address for the time in question and the Council had been informed of that. But utterly remarkable that they could take six weeks to respond to an email, but have Court Summons issued for 3 weeks, and the queue 'full'.

    If you call a company like Sky you'll get through to someone probably working from home - but at least you'll get through to someone and they take your issue seriously. At least if you threaten to cancel your contract they do.
    Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,502

    malcolmg said:

    Looks like another MP under investigation

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-61493206

    LOL, G you cannot persuade anyone that that is in any way even remotely as a bad as a Tory, they are real criminals, the guy had a couple of Nurofen in his pocket.
    Agree with you here Malc, this is a squirrel story and actually makes the allegations against 'whomever' starkly worse looking
    Which side of the bed will Big G get out of tomorow? The right? Or the moderate centre right? 🙂
    You can rest assured it will never be the right and anyway you said you loved me ?
    Of course I ❤️ you. You do sound a bit het up by it all today though?

    Was politics in the old days before I came along all about how many investigations you can get you opponents under, or is this a new phase that is a bit, not quite the point of politics really?

    I posted clip of Lady Thatcher at PMQs in recent thread - she’s is just simply explaining the difference in her philosophy and policies in regards theirs. That just made politics simple, explain your point of view.

    And they were all terribly polite and respectful to each other as they done it.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q9vYjqQ5Ek
    To be honest I am not the least het up but as my beloved will affirm I have this tendency to enjoy winding people up and maybe on occasions it shows

    It is fair to say that politics is more tribal and at times just nasty but as far as I am concerned I want Boris to go so I can rejoin the party as I really fear a Starmer led labour party would borrow far too much and I am not convinced they would restrict public sector pay including doctors and nurses as would be necessary
    In the clip of Lady Thatcher, she is explaining very clearly, her socialist opponents concern for the gap between rich and poor results in the sort of Failed Eastern Bloc Poleconomy that by not embracing the power of the free market to innovate, wealth creation, invest, doesn’t grow the economy, doesn’t provide the wealth that improves the services the everyday people rely on. So in effect, they are levelling down.

    Read across to Boris, seamlessly picking up the mantel of Lady Thatcher, placing Levelling Up at the very heart of his philosophy. High skilled, high wage economy, property ownership, no windfall taxes but instead wealth invested to transform and grow the economy.

    What part of that isn’t your own political philosophy?

    You want Boris gone, I believe you, but what part of that philosophy don’t you like?
    Nothing - just lack of implementation and Boris does not do detail
    Good answer. “Bugger off lazy sod, if you can’t do detail and implement Toryism, we’ll try someone who can.”
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    Taz said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Come on Rangers. Fuck these Scouse c*nts and traitors who BOO BEAUTY. Let Real Madrid hammer them

    But loyal, sober Unionists and royalists? Go, lads

    I am somewhat surprised how personally you have taken Liverpool fans booing at Wembley on Saturday. I truly thought you would love the madness, the anti-establishment chaos and rebellion. The “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” behaviour.

    It’s all part of life’s rich pageant and amazed you are bent out of shape by it.

    I’m a monarchist conservative and it really doesn’t bother me at all - it’s just jolly japes at a football match.

    If they annoyed you by being controversialist then it’s getting very Meta!!

    What next - demanding seats rather than pit at a Metallica concert? Cocoa rather than Cognac before bed? Tsk Tsk.

    No, it makes me puke. Because I know where it comes from

    By all means Boo the National Anthem. Boo Prince William. Hurl your turds at Princess Kate, Whatever, you sad tattoeed fat fucks

    But booing ABIDE WITH ME??

    That is pure vandalism, it is the degradation of the human soul and the hatred of loveliness, in the most ugly way. It is something very Liverpudlian - a diseased city - but it spreads like a fungus. Fuck them all.

    Remember Heysel
    If Liverpool fans are tarred by Heysel then what are you and I tarred with by virtue of being English?
    The evil of the British Empire for one. A scar on us for time immemorial..
    You know the structure of today's free world is largely down to the British Empire, right?

    Where do you think multiracial South African democracy, entrepreneurial Singapore, Hong Kong (try asking them whose rule they prefer), India (the world's largest democracy), America (the world's most powerful democracy) Canada, Australia and New Zealand come from? And how Japan, Taiwan and South Korea chose to imitate them rather than another autocracy.

    Sure the Middle East is a bit of fuck up - although arguably Israel is better than the alternative - and Africa isn't exactly a bed of roses, although bigoted Rhodesia was almost certainly economically better off than the basket case that is modern Zimbabwe - but you can't argue that's representative. It's complex.

    This penchant for equating us to the Nazis and selectively extracting the worst aspects from our history (usually out of context) to damn us for all time is certainly fashionable at the moment but it's also wrong - and just a phase.
    MBE - does it stand for "Masturbating over the British Empire"?
    Longing to know how it's wrong to equate the British slave trade with the Nazis given how it outscores the Holocaust on several atrocity measures, and how the holy fuck you take something like that out of context. Not personally complaining mind, some people did ok out of it

    LV426 wasn't us btw.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 10,061
    Leon said:

    Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes
    Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies
    Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee
    In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me
    Abide with me, abide with me

    The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.

    How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.

    Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him

    By some accounts he finished it the day before he died

    Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
    Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

    Liverpool Nil as they are forever known.
  • mwadamsmwadams Posts: 3,593

    Farooq said:

    Taz said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Come on Rangers. Fuck these Scouse c*nts and traitors who BOO BEAUTY. Let Real Madrid hammer them

    But loyal, sober Unionists and royalists? Go, lads

    I am somewhat surprised how personally you have taken Liverpool fans booing at Wembley on Saturday. I truly thought you would love the madness, the anti-establishment chaos and rebellion. The “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” behaviour.

    It’s all part of life’s rich pageant and amazed you are bent out of shape by it.

    I’m a monarchist conservative and it really doesn’t bother me at all - it’s just jolly japes at a football match.

    If they annoyed you by being controversialist then it’s getting very Meta!!

    What next - demanding seats rather than pit at a Metallica concert? Cocoa rather than Cognac before bed? Tsk Tsk.
    No, it makes me puke. Because I know where it comes from

    By all means Boo the National Anthem. Boo Prince William. Hurl your turds at Princess Kate, Whatever, you sad tattoeed fat fucks

    But booing ABIDE WITH ME??

    That is pure vandalism, it is the degradation of the human soul and the hatred of loveliness, in the most ugly way. It is something very Liverpudlian - a diseased city - but it spreads like a fungus. Fuck them all.

    Remember Heysel
    If Liverpool fans are tarred by Heysel then what are you and I tarred with by virtue of being English?
    The evil of the British Empire for one. A scar on us for time immemorial..
    You know the structure of today's free world is largely down to the British Empire, right?

    Where do you think multiracial South African democracy, entrepreneurial Singapore, Hong Kong (try asking them whose rule they prefer), India (the world's largest democracy), America (the world's most powerful democracy) Canada, Australia and New Zealand come from? And how Japan, Taiwan and South Korea chose to imitate them rather than another autocracy.

    Sure the Middle East is a bit of fuck up - although arguably Israel is better than the alternative - and Africa isn't exactly a bed of roses, although bigoted Rhodesia was almost certainly economically better off than the basket case that is modern Zimbabwe - but you can't argue that's representative. It's complex.

    This penchant for equating us to the Nazis and selectively extracting the worst aspects from our history (usually out of context) to damn us for all time is certainly fashionable at the moment but it's also wrong - and just a phase.
    America's democracy is something they had to wrestle us for. The idea that we bestowed it upon them is a hellava a take.
    They literally based their constitution on our Bill of Rights and Magna Carta. Their argument was that as sons of liberty (Englishmen) royal governance had strayed from the true path.

    Try reading some history and thinking for yourself rather than imbibing fashionable contemporary propaganda.

    People will respect you more.
    Was Magna Carta based or inspired on anything that preceded it, such as further afield in Europe, or from Ancient times? If an original creation, who penned it, do we know the names of authors?
    So, the Magna Carta thing is a bit of a myth.

    The thing that became known as Magna Carta was basically a peace treaty drawn up by the Archbish of C. after what amounted to a series of Civil wars between the Angevin kings, and the local powers. It defined and circumscribed the powers of the various parties (including the church) to try to move away from the "might is right" approach of the last 100 years or so.

    It later developed a semi-mythological status as a "rights based" system, which is what 'inspired' those other things; but it wasn't a 'model' for them.

    As to antecedents - at least Henry I had tried to define a similar declaration of/circumscription of rights as means of establishing his power.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,647
    ydoethur said:

    Carnyx said:

    ydoethur said:

    Carnyx said:

    Farooq said:

    Taz said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Come on Rangers. Fuck these Scouse c*nts and traitors who BOO BEAUTY. Let Real Madrid hammer them

    But loyal, sober Unionists and royalists? Go, lads

    I am somewhat surprised how personally you have taken Liverpool fans booing at Wembley on Saturday. I truly thought you would love the madness, the anti-establishment chaos and rebellion. The “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” behaviour.

    It’s all part of life’s rich pageant and amazed you are bent out of shape by it.

    I’m a monarchist conservative and it really doesn’t bother me at all - it’s just jolly japes at a football match.

    If they annoyed you by being controversialist then it’s getting very Meta!!

    What next - demanding seats rather than pit at a Metallica concert? Cocoa rather than Cognac before bed? Tsk Tsk.
    No, it makes me puke. Because I know where it comes from

    By all means Boo the National Anthem. Boo Prince William. Hurl your turds at Princess Kate, Whatever, you sad tattoeed fat fucks

    But booing ABIDE WITH ME??

    That is pure vandalism, it is the degradation of the human soul and the hatred of loveliness, in the most ugly way. It is something very Liverpudlian - a diseased city - but it spreads like a fungus. Fuck them all.

    Remember Heysel
    If Liverpool fans are tarred by Heysel then what are you and I tarred with by virtue of being English?
    The evil of the British Empire for one. A scar on us for time immemorial..
    You know the structure of today's free world is largely down to the British Empire, right?

    Where do you think multiracial South African democracy, entrepreneurial Singapore, Hong Kong (try asking them whose rule they prefer), India (the world's largest democracy), America (the world's most powerful democracy) Canada, Australia and New Zealand come from? And how Japan, Taiwan and South Korea chose to imitate them rather than another autocracy.

    Sure the Middle East is a bit of fuck up - although arguably Israel is better than the alternative - and Africa isn't exactly a bed of roses, although bigoted Rhodesia was almost certainly economically better off than the basket case that is modern Zimbabwe - but you can't argue that's representative. It's complex.

    This penchant for equating us to the Nazis and selectively extracting the worst aspects from our history (usually out of context) to damn us for all time is certainly fashionable at the moment but it's also wrong - and just a phase.
    America's democracy is something they had to wrestle us for. The idea that we bestowed it upon them is a hellava a take.
    They literally based their constitution on our Bill of Rights and Magna Carta. Their argument was that as sons of liberty (Englishmen) royal governance had strayed from the true path.

    Try reading some history and thinking for yourself rather than imbibing fashionable contemporary propaganda.

    People will respect you more.
    And the Declaration of Arbroath. Give the Scots some credit, too.

    Though the (then) colonials were dam' right about the English bits too. They were being taxed like Englishmen without being treated like them.
    They were hardly taxed at all. They just thought they should literally not be taxed at all.
    Geo. III should have given then the vote pronto, and made Boston etc a Westminster constituency, to call their bluff.
    Given when that solution was adopted for Scotland and Ireland it involved the suppression of local parliaments I doubt if they would have been terribly happy with that arrangement either.
    Considering the whole point of Empire is subjecting others to control by the metropolis in order to exploit them, it isn't a realistic proposition. You might as well as pose the idea that the Nazis would have done better if they were not racist, or Stalin if he had not been so keen on exterminating class enemies.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,377

    dixiedean said:

    ping said:

    dixiedean said:

    Just seen an attempted stabbing. In the middle of the road. At 8 o'clock daylight.
    Summat in the air today.

    Horrible. That sort of thing would shake me up. Hope you’re ok.
    Thanks.
    Bloke chased bloke on bikes. Knocked him off, then produced knife and repeatedly tried to stab him on the ground. Fortunately, assailant was superbly weedy and completely off his head.
    Bloke on ground was a hulking sober guy. So no harm done. They left with much shouting. And the intervention of inevitable screaming girl.
    Not much fun.
    My election campaign right now, reduce crime, and reduce government waste.
    Maybe reduce government crime, and reduce waste, would be more apposite?
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 51,821

    malcolmg said:

    Looks like another MP under investigation

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-61493206

    LOL, G you cannot persuade anyone that that is in any way even remotely as a bad as a Tory, they are real criminals, the guy had a couple of Nurofen in his pocket.
    Agree with you here Malc, this is a squirrel story and actually makes the allegations against 'whomever' starkly worse looking
    Which side of the bed will Big G get out of tomorow? The right? Or the moderate centre right? 🙂
    You can rest assured it will never be the right and anyway you said you loved me ?
    Of course I ❤️ you. You do sound a bit het up by it all today though?

    Was politics in the old days before I came along all about how many investigations you can get you opponents under, or is this a new phase that is a bit, not quite the point of politics really?

    I posted clip of Lady Thatcher at PMQs in recent thread - she’s is just simply explaining the difference in her philosophy and policies in regards theirs. That just made politics simple, explain your point of view.

    And they were all terribly polite and respectful to each other as they done it.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q9vYjqQ5Ek
    To be honest I am not the least het up but as my beloved will affirm I have this tendency to enjoy winding people up and maybe on occasions it shows

    It is fair to say that politics is more tribal and at times just nasty but as far as I am concerned I want Boris to go so I can rejoin the party as I really fear a Starmer led labour party would borrow far too much and I am not convinced they would restrict public sector pay including doctors and nurses as would be necessary
    Christ on a bike Big G, the Tories have been running Britain into an early grave consistently for the last 12 years and all you can say is "I'm worried that Labour might give nurses a pay rise"?

    malcolmg said:

    Looks like another MP under investigation

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-61493206

    LOL, G you cannot persuade anyone that that is in any way even remotely as a bad as a Tory, they are real criminals, the guy had a couple of Nurofen in his pocket.
    Agree with you here Malc, this is a squirrel story and actually makes the allegations against 'whomever' starkly worse looking
    Which side of the bed will Big G get out of tomorow? The right? Or the moderate centre right? 🙂
    You can rest assured it will never be the right and anyway you said you loved me ?
    Of course I ❤️ you. You do sound a bit het up by it all today though?

    Was politics in the old days before I came along all about how many investigations you can get you opponents under, or is this a new phase that is a bit, not quite the point of politics really?

    I posted clip of Lady Thatcher at PMQs in recent thread - she’s is just simply explaining the difference in her philosophy and policies in regards theirs. That just made politics simple, explain your point of view.

    And they were all terribly polite and respectful to each other as they done it.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q9vYjqQ5Ek
    To be honest I am not the least het up but as my beloved will affirm I have this tendency to enjoy winding people up and maybe on occasions it shows

    It is fair to say that politics is more tribal and at times just nasty but as far as I am concerned I want Boris to go so I can rejoin the party as I really fear a Starmer led labour party would borrow far too much and I am not convinced they would restrict public sector pay including doctors and nurses as would be necessary
    Christ on a bike Big G, the Tories have been running Britain into an early grave consistently for the last 12 years and all you can say is "I'm worried that Labour might give nurses a pay rise"?
    SKS is still proposing a minimum wage of £10 less than the Tories I think
    Proper fiscal Conservatism. It’s got my vote.

    (Seriously, I will NEVER NEVER NEVER vote Labour)
    :p
    image
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Leon said:

    Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes
    Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies
    Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee
    In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me
    Abide with me, abide with me

    The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.

    How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.

    Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him

    By some accounts he finished it the day before he died

    Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
    I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 13,874

    dixiedean said:

    Thanks.
    Bloke chased bloke on bikes. Knocked him off, then produced knife and repeatedly tried to stab him on the ground. Fortunately, assailant was superbly weedy and completely off his head.
    Bloke on ground was a hulking sober guy. So no harm done. They left with much shouting. And the intervention of inevitable screaming girl.
    Not much fun.

    My election campaign right now, reduce crime, and reduce government waste.
    Meaning what exactly? How do you reduce crime? More Police - the easy answer but they have to be paid for and trained. A former Prime Minister took them off the beat and put them in cars and vans. Unfortunately, the coalition made the stupid decision to close police stations, aided and supported by the current Prime Minister when Mayor of London.

    "Reduce Government Waste" - define this "waste" - yes, you can make some savings such as by ending two-tier local Government perhaps. I suppose you could properly enforce working at home and sell off all that surplus real estate in central London that would be worth millions (perhaps). Perhaps we should forget throwing £13 billion at renovating the Houses of Parliament and look at a proper fit-for-purpose legislative chamber.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    The Frankfurt fans are much more impressively energetic and fervent. What happened to Scottish fans?
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,502
    Carnyx said:

    Sandpit said:

    malcolmg said:

    Carnyx said:

    algarkirk said:

    Labour can’t win if voters think they will rely on the SNP.

    Keir needs to go all out on them.

    There is a problem here as things stand. If the Tories carry on committing suicide then SKS anti SNP stance may be possible. But assuming some sort of normal can break out in government, Labour will not be able to get to a majority without counting in the SNP in some form. They simply hold too many seats.

    SKS may need us to believe something that he in fact does not. So we might not either.

    Yes, it’s a problem or a paradox.

    This is why I advocate a very public anti-SNP approach from Labour from now until the next election.

    Vote SNP, get Tory.
    That only applies in Scotland. Where Labour is pretty crap at present in MP terms. One almost Tory MP in Morningside of all places. And Labour victories over SNP do nothing to reduce the Tory majority. Plus at the same time, Slab is pretending not to ally with Tories but is doing so all over the country?
    I don’t know why Labour are allying with the Tories in Scotland. It doesn’t make sense to me at all.
    My enemy’s enemy …
    Sort of on subject, how many million Union Jacks have Rangers fans taken to Seville?
    Not all of their Union Jacks. They will have kept a few million at home for Orange Walks.
    So which posters are rooting for Rangers tonight? And which rooting for the German side? Are you suspecting the majority of PBers cheering for Rangers, actually have English accents?

    Since I was named Minister of Sport in PrImeminister TSE first PB cabinet, I’ve been taking my brief at least as seriously as Nadine Doris, my opposite number in government.

    So Rangers Protestant, Celtic Catholic? Any type of Protestant including CoE, or a particular denomination? And then the Union Jacks - so typical Rangers fan so solid unionist does not vote SNP?

    It’s like painting a picture of the Balkan’s 🫢
    That is unadultered pish that only a Little Englander could come out with. Get an education.
    Those are actual questions to get an education. I’m aware football allegiance Spain is very political. The only two things i know of in England remotely like that, people of a certain religious persuasion like, or feel they should support, Tottenham. And enmity between West Ham and Millwall could be something to do with not supporting a dockyard strike?

    The Rangers with Union Jacks. Does that mean they don’t vote SNP? are they hard bitten unionists with no truck for independence, if they happy to drape in that flag?

    If So, does it mean they get fans from far afield, not just Glasgow, on basis it’s the Union team?

    Was it ever that sectarian between the supporters of Celtic and Rangers, or more to do with districts of town grew up in. Or even, historically, are there clear Catholic and Protestant areas of town?

    Genuine questions, possibly better answered on PB than Google.

    By all means educate me.
    Glasgow football is very sectarian, more than anywhere else in GB. The Rangers fans are Protestants and the Celtic fans Catholics.
    Is there any similar thing between the Liverpool sides? Or the Edinburgh teams?
    Edinburgh fans generally grew out of that thinking some decades back, compared to Glasgow, though there are traces - if only in the very name and strip of Hibernian FC.

    But originally the sectarianism was rooted in social structure - nativist Protestant Scots vs incoming RC Irish immigrants (though the split is not neat: consider the Irish Presbyterians). The RC Irish got the crap jobs until relatively recently, the decent jobs being kept for Protestant working classes. "What school did you go to?" was an absolute killer question in a job interview.

    The Scottish Tories were originally the Unionist Party - unionist in the Irish sense in politics and attitudes. Labour grew out of a self-defence party for the RC Irish underdogs.

    One of the signs of the end days as far as Slab is concerned is the rapprochement some time ago between the SNP (as itis called now) and the RC hierarchy. That is, yet again, the SNP stealing the birthright of Slab as far as Slab are concerned. It is also very odd, to somone of my age, to see Slab trying to make overtures to the Orange Order, and even offer grants to Orange Walks on at least one occasion (that was very quickly reverse-ferreted, but in the old days ...)

    The reason that most religious schools today in Scotland are RC is because in the old days the default option for ordinary was C of S - but that has withered away in recent decades, leaving the RCs and the odd Episcopalian, but RC rolls are declining, but pressure on budgets is always there ... There was a LA some years back, which pointedly built two new high schools together, RC and non RC, absolute mirror images, the hall on each side and so on separated only by a non-structural wall, easily demolished. Their view was that they couldn't afford the inefficiency much longer and so were dam' well going to prepare for when they had to close down one more RC school.

    Edit: this depended very much on area. West Central Belt, hellish. Others, not so much. Friend of mine came from a Fife coal mining community. Ther was a huge culture shock on both sides when the NCB imported WCB miners from failing pits to help staff the new superpits in Fife. The locals made it very clear to the incomers that down the pit everyone had to look out for each other and there was going to be no room for division in their place.
    Rather than just a like, I feel I should award this A+ of answers 🙏🏻
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,523
    Farooq said:



    You know the structure of today's free world is largely down to the British Empire, right?

    Where do you think multiracial South African democracy, entrepreneurial Singapore, Hong Kong (try asking them whose rule they prefer), India (the world's largest democracy), America (the world's most powerful democracy) Canada, Australia and New Zealand come from? And how Japan, Taiwan and South Korea chose to imitate them rather than another autocracy.

    Sure the Middle East is a bit of fuck up - although arguably Israel is better than the alternative - and Africa isn't exactly a bed of roses, although bigoted Rhodesia was almost certainly economically better off than the basket case that is modern Zimbabwe - but you can't argue that's representative. It's complex.

    This penchant for equating us to the Nazis and selectively extracting the worst aspects from our history (usually out of context) to damn us for all time is certainly fashionable at the moment but it's also wrong - and just a phase.

    America's democracy is something they had to wrestle us for. The idea that we bestowed it upon them is a hellava a take.
    True. Moreover, the Empire had a curious penchant for subdividing countries ethnically rather than promote integration. We tried it in Ireland, in Cyprus, in Palestine and in India, and in every case it led directly to generations of conflict.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 10,061
    edited May 2022
    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes
    Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies
    Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee
    In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me
    Abide with me, abide with me

    The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.

    How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.

    Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him

    By some accounts he finished it the day before he died

    Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
    I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
    Nah it's an affirmation of faith in the face of death.

    I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless
    Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness
    Where is death's sting?
    Where, grave, thy victory?
    I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    The Frankfurt fans are much more impressively energetic and fervent. What happened to Scottish fans?

    There was no Abide With Me before kick off to get the blood racing.
    Seriously tho. The Germans have flares and songs, they jump and down in unison, they all wear white and wave white flags (even if they do sometimes look like Klansmen thereby)

    The Scots fans just stand there. I thought they were famously passionate?
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,502
    stodge said:

    Evening all :)

    News from elsewhere - in Slovenia, as his party hits 44% in the latest poll, Robert Golob looks set to become prime minister of a coalition of Svoboda, Social Democrats and the Left which will have 55 of 96 seats in the new Parliament.

    Interesting polling from France for the legislative election as NUPES advances into a narrow lead. NUPES is basically to France what Golob's coalition is to Slovenia. NUPES is Melenchon's party joined with the Greens , Socialists, Communists and a few others. In the old National Assembly, they had 58 seats between them but could now win 160-185 seats.

    Ensemble! is Macron's LREM party plus a couple of others.

    The latest poll as follows (changes from 2017):

    NUPES: 27.5% (+2.5)
    Ensemble!: 27% (-5)
    National Rally: 21% (+8)
    Les Republicans: 10% (-12)
    Reconquete: 5% (+5)

    Despite that, Ensemble! could win a narrow overall majority with National Rally and NUPES making gains and Les Republicans taking big losses.

    You’ve just called that one. When should we expect the Stodge call on Australia? Or is it too close to call?
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 51,821
    ydoethur said:

    Taz said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Come on Rangers. Fuck these Scouse c*nts and traitors who BOO BEAUTY. Let Real Madrid hammer them

    But loyal, sober Unionists and royalists? Go, lads

    I am somewhat surprised how personally you have taken Liverpool fans booing at Wembley on Saturday. I truly thought you would love the madness, the anti-establishment chaos and rebellion. The “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” behaviour.

    It’s all part of life’s rich pageant and amazed you are bent out of shape by it.

    I’m a monarchist conservative and it really doesn’t bother me at all - it’s just jolly japes at a football match.

    If they annoyed you by being controversialist then it’s getting very Meta!!

    What next - demanding seats rather than pit at a Metallica concert? Cocoa rather than Cognac before bed? Tsk Tsk.

    No, it makes me puke. Because I know where it comes from

    By all means Boo the National Anthem. Boo Prince William. Hurl your turds at Princess Kate, Whatever, you sad tattoeed fat fucks

    But booing ABIDE WITH ME??

    That is pure vandalism, it is the degradation of the human soul and the hatred of loveliness, in the most ugly way. It is something very Liverpudlian - a diseased city - but it spreads like a fungus. Fuck them all.

    Remember Heysel
    If Liverpool fans are tarred by Heysel then what are you and I tarred with by virtue of being English?
    The evil of the British Empire for one. A scar on us for time immemorial..
    You know the structure of today's free world is largely down to the British Empire, right?

    Where do you think multiracial South African democracy, entrepreneurial Singapore, Hong Kong (try asking them whose rule they prefer), India (the world's largest democracy), America (the world's most powerful democracy) Canada, Australia and New Zealand come from? And how Japan, Taiwan and South Korea chose to imitate them rather than another autocracy.

    Sure the Middle East is a bit of fuck up - although arguably Israel is better than the alternative - and Africa isn't exactly a bed of roses, although bigoted Rhodesia was almost certainly economically better off than the basket case that is modern Zimbabwe - but you can't argue that's representative. It's complex.

    This penchant for equating us to the Nazis and selectively extracting the worst aspects from our history (usually out of context) to damn us for all time is certainly fashionable at the moment but it's also wrong - and just a phase.
    MBE - does it stand for "Masturbating over the British Empire"?
    Is there a Class 55 called 'The British Empire?' Because if not we can sure you would never do that...
    Tsk! You should know the Deltics were named for Army Regiments OR race horses!
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,647
    Leon said:

    The Frankfurt fans are much more impressively energetic and fervent. What happened to Scottish fans?

    Foxjr2 went to an Eintracht Frankfurt match while on school German exchange. He rather liked the fervour of their fans. They have been our German team since. They grind out wins.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes
    Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies
    Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee
    In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me
    Abide with me, abide with me

    The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.

    How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.

    Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him

    By some accounts he finished it the day before he died

    Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
    I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
    Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.

    I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless
    Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness
    Where is death's sting?
    Where, grave, thy victory?
    I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
    But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,663
    edited May 2022

    Sandpit said:

    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    Has anyone else tried contacting HMRC recently?
    Tried three times today. Simply say they are too busy. Goodbye.
    Not even the joy of an hour on hold
    They've deducted me money for a tax credit overpayment completely without warning.

    They’re all working from fucking home. We tried to tell you. It’s shit
    You don't need to be sitting in an office to answer a phone.
    That's just an excuse.
    The irony is that a call centre can actually fit really well with both WFH and flexible hours.

    BUT, and it’s a big but, it needs the organisation to be structured differently to an in-person call centre, with processes to match. You need a larger group of both L2 technical agents and supervisors, and the managers need to take a different view of their metrics which requires modern phone and IT systems.

    I get the impression that much of the public sector and quasi-public sector simply went home in March 2020, plugged their desk phone into a router, used their own laptop to connect to a VPN and a Citrix window, but the organisations never specifically set themselves up for WFH.

    A call centre is also a training-heavy environment, and training / teambuilding exercises are best done in person to maintain consistency.
    There were lots of call centres before the pandemic that used staff working from their own homes (with appropriate structures in place). It’s always been a job that is well suited to working from home and to employees wanting different working hours. It’s just we, the consumer, didn’t notice.

    The problem is that private call centres operate on a principle that they need to work effectively or they don't get business so they don't get paid, so they make sure their operations work.

    Public ones - not so much.

    I had a rather worrying encounter a few months ago with the Council for a home I used to live in but moved out of in 2019. I'd paid my Council Tax in full by Direct Debit and had notified them when I moved homes and set up a Direct Debit for my new home but then a few years later got a "final demand" letter for overdue Council Tax for 2020-21. I called them and spoke to someone who was working from home and said that I had moved out before this period so it wasn't me who owed the tax, he told me not to worry, promised to get it resolved and would put a hold on the account until they could figure out what had gone wrong.

    Two months later I got a Court Summons for unpaid Council Tax, with a court date set for what was then 3 weeks time. I tried calling the Council again but after pressing all the relevant options got a message "our queue is full please try again later". That kept happening again and again for two weeks. Tried emailing them, got an autoreply saying they're currently taking an average of 6 weeks to respond to emails, but the Court Summons was for 3 weeks time.

    After a few weeks of calling them every day I eventually got in the queue and through to a human who found my email to them and accepted the proof that I wasn't living at that address for the time in question and the Council had been informed of that. But utterly remarkable that they could take six weeks to respond to an email, but have Court Summons issued for 3 weeks, and the queue 'full'.

    If you call a company like Sky you'll get through to someone probably working from home - but at least you'll get through to someone and they take your issue seriously. At least if you threaten to cancel your contract they do.
    I have had similar challenges contacting the council on behalf of clients. In each case I eventually contacted the client's councillor and sought their help - it worked wonders.

    In fairness to the councils they are starved of funds, mainly due to the ever-increasing social care costs the have to cover.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277

    Farooq said:



    You know the structure of today's free world is largely down to the British Empire, right?

    Where do you think multiracial South African democracy, entrepreneurial Singapore, Hong Kong (try asking them whose rule they prefer), India (the world's largest democracy), America (the world's most powerful democracy) Canada, Australia and New Zealand come from? And how Japan, Taiwan and South Korea chose to imitate them rather than another autocracy.

    Sure the Middle East is a bit of fuck up - although arguably Israel is better than the alternative - and Africa isn't exactly a bed of roses, although bigoted Rhodesia was almost certainly economically better off than the basket case that is modern Zimbabwe - but you can't argue that's representative. It's complex.

    This penchant for equating us to the Nazis and selectively extracting the worst aspects from our history (usually out of context) to damn us for all time is certainly fashionable at the moment but it's also wrong - and just a phase.

    America's democracy is something they had to wrestle us for. The idea that we bestowed it upon them is a hellava a take.
    True. Moreover, the Empire had a curious penchant for subdividing countries ethnically rather than promote integration. We tried it in Ireland, in Cyprus, in Palestine and in India, and in every case it led directly to generations of conflict.

    The historical ignorance here is just off the fucking dial
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    The Frankfurt fans are much more impressively energetic and fervent. What happened to Scottish fans?

    Foxjr2 went to an Eintracht Frankfurt match while on school German exchange. He rather liked the fervour of their fans. They have been our German team since. They grind out wins.

    Really impressive supporters. Bloody terrible football. As bad as Rangers

    Big G is right. We are spoiled with the EPL
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,835

    ydoethur said:

    Taz said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Come on Rangers. Fuck these Scouse c*nts and traitors who BOO BEAUTY. Let Real Madrid hammer them

    But loyal, sober Unionists and royalists? Go, lads

    I am somewhat surprised how personally you have taken Liverpool fans booing at Wembley on Saturday. I truly thought you would love the madness, the anti-establishment chaos and rebellion. The “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” behaviour.

    It’s all part of life’s rich pageant and amazed you are bent out of shape by it.

    I’m a monarchist conservative and it really doesn’t bother me at all - it’s just jolly japes at a football match.

    If they annoyed you by being controversialist then it’s getting very Meta!!

    What next - demanding seats rather than pit at a Metallica concert? Cocoa rather than Cognac before bed? Tsk Tsk.

    No, it makes me puke. Because I know where it comes from

    By all means Boo the National Anthem. Boo Prince William. Hurl your turds at Princess Kate, Whatever, you sad tattoeed fat fucks

    But booing ABIDE WITH ME??

    That is pure vandalism, it is the degradation of the human soul and the hatred of loveliness, in the most ugly way. It is something very Liverpudlian - a diseased city - but it spreads like a fungus. Fuck them all.

    Remember Heysel
    If Liverpool fans are tarred by Heysel then what are you and I tarred with by virtue of being English?
    The evil of the British Empire for one. A scar on us for time immemorial..
    You know the structure of today's free world is largely down to the British Empire, right?

    Where do you think multiracial South African democracy, entrepreneurial Singapore, Hong Kong (try asking them whose rule they prefer), India (the world's largest democracy), America (the world's most powerful democracy) Canada, Australia and New Zealand come from? And how Japan, Taiwan and South Korea chose to imitate them rather than another autocracy.

    Sure the Middle East is a bit of fuck up - although arguably Israel is better than the alternative - and Africa isn't exactly a bed of roses, although bigoted Rhodesia was almost certainly economically better off than the basket case that is modern Zimbabwe - but you can't argue that's representative. It's complex.

    This penchant for equating us to the Nazis and selectively extracting the worst aspects from our history (usually out of context) to damn us for all time is certainly fashionable at the moment but it's also wrong - and just a phase.
    MBE - does it stand for "Masturbating over the British Empire"?
    Is there a Class 55 called 'The British Empire?' Because if not we can sure you would never do that...
    Tsk! You should know the Deltics were named for Army Regiments OR race horses!
    Do you know. I can't find a loco of that name. Very odd. Though I did find these

    https://www.mullocksauctions.co.uk/lot-698589-british_empire_exhibition_1924_wembley_model_locomotive.html
    https://www.brightontoymuseum.co.uk/index/Empire_of_India_locomotive_LNER_4490_(Bassett-Lowke)
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes
    Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies
    Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee
    In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me
    Abide with me, abide with me

    The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.

    How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.

    Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him

    By some accounts he finished it the day before he died

    Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
    I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
    Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.

    I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless
    Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness
    Where is death's sting?
    Where, grave, thy victory?
    I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
    But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
    The genius of the words (and they are genius) is that they can rightly be read both ways
  • boulayboulay Posts: 5,486
    edited May 2022
    Leon said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    The Frankfurt fans are much more impressively energetic and fervent. What happened to Scottish fans?

    There was no Abide With Me before kick off to get the blood racing.
    Seriously tho. The Germans have flares and songs, they jump and down in unison, they all wear white and wave white flags (even if they do sometimes look like Klansmen thereby)

    The Scots fans just stand there. I thought they were famously passionate?
    You haven’t watched that documentary “Braveheart” have you? Massed ranks of crazy Scots have been drilled for generations to stand there quietly until the over-confident foreigner thinks he’s on top and then they go nuts. See the very accurate reconstruction of the Battle of Stirling bridge by the director/renowned historian Mel Gibson for an example.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 10,061
    edited May 2022
    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes
    Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies
    Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee
    In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me
    Abide with me, abide with me

    The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.

    How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.

    Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him

    By some accounts he finished it the day before he died

    Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
    I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
    Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.

    I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless
    Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness
    Where is death's sting?
    Where, grave, thy victory?
    I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
    But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
    'If God be with me, I shall fear no ill. '

    I don't see it as a conditional. It is not for man to demand of God, but to have faith. Hence he affirms his faith in his Saviour and calls to him to take him 'home'. A simple conversation between man and God at the point of death.
    It has all passed, but you are eternal, please take me home.
    Lovely.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,647
    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes
    Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies
    Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee
    In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me
    Abide with me, abide with me

    The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.

    How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.

    Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him

    By some accounts he finished it the day before he died

    Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
    I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
    Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.

    I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless
    Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness
    Where is death's sting?
    Where, grave, thy victory?
    I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
    But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
    Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:

    "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

    Matthew 27:46
  • mwadamsmwadams Posts: 3,593

    Taz said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Come on Rangers. Fuck these Scouse c*nts and traitors who BOO BEAUTY. Let Real Madrid hammer them

    But loyal, sober Unionists and royalists? Go, lads

    I am somewhat surprised how personally you have taken Liverpool fans booing at Wembley on Saturday. I truly thought you would love the madness, the anti-establishment chaos and rebellion. The “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” behaviour.

    It’s all part of life’s rich pageant and amazed you are bent out of shape by it.

    I’m a monarchist conservative and it really doesn’t bother me at all - it’s just jolly japes at a football match.

    If they annoyed you by being controversialist then it’s getting very Meta!!

    What next - demanding seats rather than pit at a Metallica concert? Cocoa rather than Cognac before bed? Tsk Tsk.

    No, it makes me puke. Because I know where it comes from

    By all means Boo the National Anthem. Boo Prince William. Hurl your turds at Princess Kate, Whatever, you sad tattoeed fat fucks

    But booing ABIDE WITH ME??

    That is pure vandalism, it is the degradation of the human soul and the hatred of loveliness, in the most ugly way. It is something very Liverpudlian - a diseased city - but it spreads like a fungus. Fuck them all.

    Remember Heysel
    If Liverpool fans are tarred by Heysel then what are you and I tarred with by virtue of being English?
    The evil of the British Empire for one. A scar on us for time immemorial..
    You know the structure of today's free world is largely down to the British Empire, right?

    Where do you think multiracial South African democracy, entrepreneurial Singapore, Hong Kong (try asking them whose rule they prefer), India (the world's largest democracy), America (the world's most powerful democracy) Canada, Australia and New Zealand come from? And how Japan, Taiwan and South Korea chose to imitate them rather than another autocracy.

    Sure the Middle East is a bit of fuck up - although arguably Israel is better than the alternative - and Africa isn't exactly a bed of roses, although bigoted Rhodesia was almost certainly economically better off than the basket case that is modern Zimbabwe - but you can't argue that's representative. It's complex.

    This penchant for equating us to the Nazis and selectively extracting the worst aspects from our history (usually out of context) to damn us for all time is certainly fashionable at the moment but it's also wrong - and just a phase.
    MBE - does it stand for "Masturbating over the British Empire"?
    Any excuse for a Yes Minister quote.

    Bernard: In the service, CMG stands for “Call Me God”. And KCMG for “Kindly Call Me God”.
    Jim: What does GCMG stand for?
    Bernard: “God Calls Me God”.
  • pingping Posts: 3,805
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-61498367

    I thought John Peel had been cancelled?

    His Wikipedia is rather damning.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,835
    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    The Frankfurt fans are much more impressively energetic and fervent. What happened to Scottish fans?

    There was no Abide With Me before kick off to get the blood racing.
    Seriously tho. The Germans have flares and songs, they jump and down in unison, they all wear white and wave white flags (even if they do sometimes look like Klansmen thereby)

    The Scots fans just stand there. I thought they were famously passionate?
    You haven’t watched that documentary “Braveheart” have you? Massed ranks of crazy Scots have been drilled for generations to stand there quietly until the over-confident foreigner thinks he’s on top and then they go nuts. See the very accurate reconstruction of the Battle of Stirling bridge by the director/renowned historian Mel Gibson for an example.
    Missing the point. The Germans are from too far East of Ibrox to get excited about. Now, 5 or so miles along the M74 ...
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,083
    mwadams said:

    Farooq said:

    Taz said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Come on Rangers. Fuck these Scouse c*nts and traitors who BOO BEAUTY. Let Real Madrid hammer them

    But loyal, sober Unionists and royalists? Go, lads

    I am somewhat surprised how personally you have taken Liverpool fans booing at Wembley on Saturday. I truly thought you would love the madness, the anti-establishment chaos and rebellion. The “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” behaviour.

    It’s all part of life’s rich pageant and amazed you are bent out of shape by it.

    I’m a monarchist conservative and it really doesn’t bother me at all - it’s just jolly japes at a football match.

    If they annoyed you by being controversialist then it’s getting very Meta!!

    What next - demanding seats rather than pit at a Metallica concert? Cocoa rather than Cognac before bed? Tsk Tsk.
    No, it makes me puke. Because I know where it comes from

    By all means Boo the National Anthem. Boo Prince William. Hurl your turds at Princess Kate, Whatever, you sad tattoeed fat fucks

    But booing ABIDE WITH ME??

    That is pure vandalism, it is the degradation of the human soul and the hatred of loveliness, in the most ugly way. It is something very Liverpudlian - a diseased city - but it spreads like a fungus. Fuck them all.

    Remember Heysel
    If Liverpool fans are tarred by Heysel then what are you and I tarred with by virtue of being English?
    The evil of the British Empire for one. A scar on us for time immemorial..
    You know the structure of today's free world is largely down to the British Empire, right?

    Where do you think multiracial South African democracy, entrepreneurial Singapore, Hong Kong (try asking them whose rule they prefer), India (the world's largest democracy), America (the world's most powerful democracy) Canada, Australia and New Zealand come from? And how Japan, Taiwan and South Korea chose to imitate them rather than another autocracy.

    Sure the Middle East is a bit of fuck up - although arguably Israel is better than the alternative - and Africa isn't exactly a bed of roses, although bigoted Rhodesia was almost certainly economically better off than the basket case that is modern Zimbabwe - but you can't argue that's representative. It's complex.

    This penchant for equating us to the Nazis and selectively extracting the worst aspects from our history (usually out of context) to damn us for all time is certainly fashionable at the moment but it's also wrong - and just a phase.
    America's democracy is something they had to wrestle us for. The idea that we bestowed it upon them is a hellava a take.
    They literally based their constitution on our Bill of Rights and Magna Carta. Their argument was that as sons of liberty (Englishmen) royal governance had strayed from the true path.

    Try reading some history and thinking for yourself rather than imbibing fashionable contemporary propaganda.

    People will respect you more.
    Was Magna Carta based or inspired on anything that preceded it, such as further afield in Europe, or from Ancient times? If an original creation, who penned it, do we know the names of authors?
    So, the Magna Carta thing is a bit of a myth.

    The thing that became known as Magna Carta was basically a peace treaty drawn up by the Archbish of C. after what amounted to a series of Civil wars between the Angevin kings, and the local powers. It defined and circumscribed the powers of the various parties (including the church) to try to move away from the "might is right" approach of the last 100 years or so.

    It later developed a semi-mythological status as a "rights based" system, which is what 'inspired' those other things; but it wasn't a 'model' for them.

    As to antecedents - at least Henry I had tried to define a similar declaration of/circumscription of rights as means of establishing his power.
    Magna Carta is a bit of a myth, to say the least, but of course no less powerful for that. Given the initial reaction once the king was able to, one must applaud that it did stick around in memory to be so creatively interpreted later.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,502
    stodge said:

    dixiedean said:

    Thanks.
    Bloke chased bloke on bikes. Knocked him off, then produced knife and repeatedly tried to stab him on the ground. Fortunately, assailant was superbly weedy and completely off his head.
    Bloke on ground was a hulking sober guy. So no harm done. They left with much shouting. And the intervention of inevitable screaming girl.
    Not much fun.

    My election campaign right now, reduce crime, and reduce government waste.
    Meaning what exactly? How do you reduce crime? More Police - the easy answer but they have to be paid for and trained. A former Prime Minister took them off the beat and put them in cars and vans. Unfortunately, the coalition made the stupid decision to close police stations, aided and supported by the current Prime Minister when Mayor of London.

    "Reduce Government Waste" - define this "waste" - yes, you can make some savings such as by ending two-tier local Government perhaps. I suppose you could properly enforce working at home and sell off all that surplus real estate in central London that would be worth millions (perhaps). Perhaps we should forget throwing £13 billion at renovating the Houses of Parliament and look at a proper fit-for-purpose legislative chamber.
    You want granular detail?

    I’ll give you two.

    Firstly we deffo stay in the wonderful gothic Houses of Parliament! £13B over how many years and how long over due, and how much a for a key Landmark? When I was young I wasn’t sure about the green benches, maybe red or gold? But I’m cool with the green now.

    A huge step to reducing crime I reckon comes from focussing on rights of passage. If I was to say National Service how many 🙄 for how right wing is MoonRabbit for supposed Libdem voter? But I serious, and a proper thinker. as a society we need to offer more to teens than let them drift into adulthood the “trainspotting” (book/film not hobby) way. Teens in UK need a second birth into our society and the right norms of behaviour. Remove their lack of direction, their boredom, any grip of idleness. That alone would begin to have a big change on anti social behaviour and crime imo.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 51,821
    Foxy said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes
    Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies
    Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee
    In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me
    Abide with me, abide with me

    The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.

    How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.

    Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him

    By some accounts he finished it the day before he died

    Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
    I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
    Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.

    I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless
    Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness
    Where is death's sting?
    Where, grave, thy victory?
    I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
    But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
    Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:

    "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

    Matthew 27:46
    Because He doesn't exist?
  • boulayboulay Posts: 5,486
    Foxy said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes
    Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies
    Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee
    In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me
    Abide with me, abide with me

    The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.

    How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.

    Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him

    By some accounts he finished it the day before he died

    Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
    I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
    Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.

    I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless
    Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness
    Where is death's sting?
    Where, grave, thy victory?
    I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
    But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
    Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:

    "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

    Matthew 27:46
    Just to add to the sky photos earlier - one of my friends a few miles away just posted this - loving the interesting clouds.


  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,958
    Rangers and their fans restored to Britishness. Not that they doubted it for a minute.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,835

    Rangers and their fans restored to Britishness. Not that they doubted it for a minute.

    By whom did the lapse happen?
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Foxy said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes
    Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies
    Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee
    In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me
    Abide with me, abide with me

    The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.

    How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.

    Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him

    By some accounts he finished it the day before he died

    Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
    I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
    Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.

    I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless
    Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness
    Where is death's sting?
    Where, grave, thy victory?
    I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
    But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
    Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:

    "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

    Matthew 27:46
    Which always sounds to me like "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated"?
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,083

    Farooq said:



    You know the structure of today's free world is largely down to the British Empire, right?

    Where do you think multiracial South African democracy, entrepreneurial Singapore, Hong Kong (try asking them whose rule they prefer), India (the world's largest democracy), America (the world's most powerful democracy) Canada, Australia and New Zealand come from? And how Japan, Taiwan and South Korea chose to imitate them rather than another autocracy.

    Sure the Middle East is a bit of fuck up - although arguably Israel is better than the alternative - and Africa isn't exactly a bed of roses, although bigoted Rhodesia was almost certainly economically better off than the basket case that is modern Zimbabwe - but you can't argue that's representative. It's complex.

    This penchant for equating us to the Nazis and selectively extracting the worst aspects from our history (usually out of context) to damn us for all time is certainly fashionable at the moment but it's also wrong - and just a phase.

    America's democracy is something they had to wrestle us for. The idea that we bestowed it upon them is a hellava a take.
    True. Moreover, the Empire had a curious penchant for subdividing countries ethnically rather than promote integration. We tried it in Ireland, in Cyprus, in Palestine and in India, and in every case it led directly to generations of conflict.
    There was no conflict in any of those places before of course.

    Don't get me wrong, the legacy of empire had definite effects, but your description seems to be of the paternalistic 'all issues are the result of Imperial rule' approach (as often seen toward the middle east), presumably unintentionally.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,502

    malcolmg said:

    Looks like another MP under investigation

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-61493206

    LOL, G you cannot persuade anyone that that is in any way even remotely as a bad as a Tory, they are real criminals, the guy had a couple of Nurofen in his pocket.
    Agree with you here Malc, this is a squirrel story and actually makes the allegations against 'whomever' starkly worse looking
    Which side of the bed will Big G get out of tomorow? The right? Or the moderate centre right? 🙂
    You can rest assured it will never be the right and anyway you said you loved me ?
    Of course I ❤️ you. You do sound a bit het up by it all today though?

    Was politics in the old days before I came along all about how many investigations you can get you opponents under, or is this a new phase that is a bit, not quite the point of politics really?

    I posted clip of Lady Thatcher at PMQs in recent thread - she’s is just simply explaining the difference in her philosophy and policies in regards theirs. That just made politics simple, explain your point of view.

    And they were all terribly polite and respectful to each other as they done it.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q9vYjqQ5Ek
    To be honest I am not the least het up but as my beloved will affirm I have this tendency to enjoy winding people up and maybe on occasions it shows

    It is fair to say that politics is more tribal and at times just nasty but as far as I am concerned I want Boris to go so I can rejoin the party as I really fear a Starmer led labour party would borrow far too much and I am not convinced they would restrict public sector pay including doctors and nurses as would be necessary
    Christ on a bike Big G, the Tories have been running Britain into an early grave consistently for the last 12 years and all you can say is "I'm worried that Labour might give nurses a pay rise"?

    malcolmg said:

    Looks like another MP under investigation

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-61493206

    LOL, G you cannot persuade anyone that that is in any way even remotely as a bad as a Tory, they are real criminals, the guy had a couple of Nurofen in his pocket.
    Agree with you here Malc, this is a squirrel story and actually makes the allegations against 'whomever' starkly worse looking
    Which side of the bed will Big G get out of tomorow? The right? Or the moderate centre right? 🙂
    You can rest assured it will never be the right and anyway you said you loved me ?
    Of course I ❤️ you. You do sound a bit het up by it all today though?

    Was politics in the old days before I came along all about how many investigations you can get you opponents under, or is this a new phase that is a bit, not quite the point of politics really?

    I posted clip of Lady Thatcher at PMQs in recent thread - she’s is just simply explaining the difference in her philosophy and policies in regards theirs. That just made politics simple, explain your point of view.

    And they were all terribly polite and respectful to each other as they done it.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q9vYjqQ5Ek
    To be honest I am not the least het up but as my beloved will affirm I have this tendency to enjoy winding people up and maybe on occasions it shows

    It is fair to say that politics is more tribal and at times just nasty but as far as I am concerned I want Boris to go so I can rejoin the party as I really fear a Starmer led labour party would borrow far too much and I am not convinced they would restrict public sector pay including doctors and nurses as would be necessary
    Christ on a bike Big G, the Tories have been running Britain into an early grave consistently for the last 12 years and all you can say is "I'm worried that Labour might give nurses a pay rise"?
    SKS is still proposing a minimum wage of £10 less than the Tories I think
    Proper fiscal Conservatism. It’s got my vote.

    (Seriously, I will NEVER NEVER NEVER vote Labour)
    :p
    image
    Get in the habit, voting MoonRabbit

    😝
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368
    edited May 2022
    Omnium said:



    (Seriously, I will NEVER NEVER NEVER vote Labour)

    Yes, we've rather gathered that :)
    Why do you NP? Why vote Labour?
    I can't speak for Mr Palmer, but my vote at a General Election has always gone for the "get rid of the Conservatives" candidate. in Leominster it was the Liberals and later the LDs, although ironically the Conservative MP crossed the floor. In Hampstead, Cardiff North and the Vale of Glamorgan, always Labour. My distrust of Conservatism over the years has been confirmed fully with Brexit and the Johnsonian Conservatives.

    I am probably closest now to that cabal of Remainer Tories/ Blairites and LibDems. The antithesis of Johnsonian Populism. Mind you Johnson's fiscal policy is akin to Corbynism.

    The notion of "never say never" is compelling. If the choice were Heathite Conservatives or Corbyn Labour, I'd probably vote for Heath (but I'd never tell anyone). As that is never likely to be an option, I'll continue to vote to kick out the Conservatives.
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 10,061
    edited May 2022

    Foxy said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes
    Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies
    Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee
    In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me
    Abide with me, abide with me

    The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.

    How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.

    Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him

    By some accounts he finished it the day before he died

    Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
    I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
    Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.

    I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless
    Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness
    Where is death's sting?
    Where, grave, thy victory?
    I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
    But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
    Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:

    "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

    Matthew 27:46
    Because He doesn't exist?
    The answer to that is rather the point of all faiths.

    It's obviously not the reason behind this particular parable.
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,385
    ping said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-61498367

    I thought John Peel had been cancelled?

    His Wikipedia is rather damning.

    He’s not been cancelled he’s been excused as people like the fact he used to play obscure music and had the Peel sessions.
  • Jim_MillerJim_Miller Posts: 2,998
    Foxy mentioning Hitler and Stalin as great villains reminded me of one who seldom gets the debits he deserves: Mao
    His policies resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of people in China during his 27-year reign, more than any other 20th-century leader; estimates of the number of people who died under his regime range from 40 million to as many as 80 million,[278][279] done through starvation, persecution, prison labour in laogai, and mass executions.
    source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong#Great_Leap_Forward

    I believe that a large part of the reason for that neglect is that Stalin's regime collapsed, but, so far, Mao's hasn't.

    (Here's a simple way to remember the relative losses due to Stalin and Mao: Stalin was responsible for about as many deaths as World War I, Mao, about as many deaths as World War II. Emphasis on about.)
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,647
    Farooq said:

    Foxy said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes
    Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies
    Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee
    In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me
    Abide with me, abide with me

    The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.

    How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.

    Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him

    By some accounts he finished it the day before he died

    Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
    I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
    Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.

    I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless
    Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness
    Where is death's sting?
    Where, grave, thy victory?
    I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
    But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
    Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:

    "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

    Matthew 27:46
    And, why had he?
    It is one of the most interesting things about The Passion. If Jesus was God Incarnate, how could God abandon him?

    I am not the one to ask about theology, as it is pretty much just later accretions to the Gospels. I differ from many Christians in taking inspiration from what Jesus taught (such as the Sermon on the Mount) rather than how he died.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,631
    Come on Eintrach Frankurt, Rangers need to lose this final.

    If The Rangers win this then all my jokes about the Scottish Premier League is a pub league will be redundant.

    Although it will be quite the fairytale, as The Rangers didn't exist a decade ago, it would be a fairytale to rival Gretna under Brooks Mileson.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    This pathetic Scottish team deserves to lose
  • wooliedyedwooliedyed Posts: 10,061
    IshmaelZ said:

    Foxy said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes
    Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies
    Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee
    In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me
    Abide with me, abide with me

    The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.

    How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.

    Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him

    By some accounts he finished it the day before he died

    Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
    I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
    Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.

    I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless
    Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness
    Where is death's sting?
    Where, grave, thy victory?
    I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
    But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
    Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:

    "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

    Matthew 27:46
    Which always sounds to me like "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated"?
    Nah, it's the expression of the moment that, within Christian belief, Jesus took on the sins of man. God then forsook him so that nobody would be forsaken if they came to him through faith in Christ. That was, in the Christian tradition, the whole point of Jesus life on Earth and death.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,083
    edited May 2022
    Farooq said:

    kle4 said:

    Farooq said:

    Taz said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Come on Rangers. Fuck these Scouse c*nts and traitors who BOO BEAUTY. Let Real Madrid hammer them

    But loyal, sober Unionists and royalists? Go, lads

    I am somewhat surprised how personally you have taken Liverpool fans booing at Wembley on Saturday. I truly thought you would love the madness, the anti-establishment chaos and rebellion. The “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” behaviour.

    It’s all part of life’s rich pageant and amazed you are bent out of shape by it.

    I’m a monarchist conservative and it really doesn’t bother me at all - it’s just jolly japes at a football match.

    If they annoyed you by being controversialist then it’s getting very Meta!!

    What next - demanding seats rather than pit at a Metallica concert? Cocoa rather than Cognac before bed? Tsk Tsk.
    No, it makes me puke. Because I know where it comes from

    By all means Boo the National Anthem. Boo Prince William. Hurl your turds at Princess Kate, Whatever, you sad tattoeed fat fucks

    But booing ABIDE WITH ME??

    That is pure vandalism, it is the degradation of the human soul and the hatred of loveliness, in the most ugly way. It is something very Liverpudlian - a diseased city - but it spreads like a fungus. Fuck them all.

    Remember Heysel
    If Liverpool fans are tarred by Heysel then what are you and I tarred with by virtue of being English?
    The evil of the British Empire for one. A scar on us for time immemorial..
    You know the structure of today's free world is largely down to the British Empire, right?

    Where do you think multiracial South African democracy, entrepreneurial Singapore, Hong Kong (try asking them whose rule they prefer), India (the world's largest democracy), America (the world's most powerful democracy) Canada, Australia and New Zealand come from? And how Japan, Taiwan and South Korea chose to imitate them rather than another autocracy.

    Sure the Middle East is a bit of fuck up - although arguably Israel is better than the alternative - and Africa isn't exactly a bed of roses, although bigoted Rhodesia was almost certainly economically better off than the basket case that is modern Zimbabwe - but you can't argue that's representative. It's complex.

    This penchant for equating us to the Nazis and selectively extracting the worst aspects from our history (usually out of context) to damn us for all time is certainly fashionable at the moment but it's also wrong - and just a phase.
    America's democracy is something they had to wrestle us for. The idea that we bestowed it upon them is a hellava a take.
    Not completely out there if part of the point was they felt they were not getting the representation and rights that they felt owed, that is they wanted to live up to the democratic tradition they saw (or perceived) in Britain. Bestowed (which I don't think was the word used anyway) doesn't necessarily mean intentionally or willingly bestowed. Indeed, nations might be inspired by what another nation said, even if what that nation did, did not live up to that.

    Obviously it was more complex than that and there were other influences, particularly having cut the cord from us.
    Yes, in which case we ought also to acknowledge the contribution to American history that was made by other countries too. The Enlightenment idea of liberty radiating from France can count as a major influence, but even later, post independence influences like the German/central European emigres in the wake of the 1848 revolutions had a major influence.

    The way ideas diffuse through the world is a little different from the specific actions of history, and whilst both are interesting subjects, they can be treated as separate. For example, we tend to think more of the actions of Communist countries over and above its ideological foundations. That it, we think of Moscow more than Trier or London.
    When it comes to actions, blame and praise can be much more precisely placed. We tried to strangle American democracy in its crib, so to award ourselves praise for it "because Magna Carta!!!!one!" is just mad.
    Blame and praise are pointless. None of us were there to make the choices, many of which we wouldn't support now naturally. So I don't see it as a matter of us praising ourserves 'because magna carta', but just as a historical question whether the institutions and ideas developed there, which on balance have been a huge net gain for the world, were significantly influenced by it and other matters.

    The answer is clearly yes it seems, regardless of whether the political authorities of Britain at the time liked it, and even though as noted other countries ideas also definitely influenced them (and so I hear, some native forms of government even, not that that helped them any). I don't think that is a wrong approach, I don't think it wrong that Greece for instance takes pride in the impact of its ancient history, even though even in that region many of those ideas were stamped out relatively quickly.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,631
    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    The Frankfurt fans are much more impressively energetic and fervent. What happened to Scottish fans?

    There was no Abide With Me before kick off to get the blood racing.
    Seriously tho. The Germans have flares and songs, they jump and down in unison, they all wear white and wave white flags (even if they do sometimes look like Klansmen thereby)

    The Scots fans just stand there. I thought they were famously passionate?
    You haven’t watched that documentary “Braveheart” have you? Massed ranks of crazy Scots have been drilled for generations to stand there quietly until the over-confident foreigner thinks he’s on top and then they go nuts. See the very accurate reconstruction of the Battle of Stirling bridge by the director/renowned historian Mel Gibson for an example.
    Gibson is to history what Hitler was to Zionism Boris Johnson is to marital fidelity.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405
    edited May 2022

    Foxy mentioning Hitler and Stalin as great villains reminded me of one who seldom gets the debits he deserves: Mao

    His policies resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of people in China during his 27-year reign, more than any other 20th-century leader; estimates of the number of people who died under his regime range from 40 million to as many as 80 million,[278][279] done through starvation, persecution, prison labour in laogai, and mass executions.
    source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong#Great_Leap_Forward

    I believe that a large part of the reason for that neglect is that Stalin's regime collapsed, but, so far, Mao's hasn't.

    (Here's a simple way to remember the relative losses due to Stalin and Mao: Stalin was responsible for about as many deaths as World War I, Mao, about as many deaths as World War II. Emphasis on about.)

    And this is why I was so offended that John McDonnell thought it acceptable to bring Maos little red book into the chamber of the house. Dickhead.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,647

    Foxy said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes
    Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies
    Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee
    In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me
    Abide with me, abide with me

    The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.

    How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.

    Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him

    By some accounts he finished it the day before he died

    Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
    I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
    Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.

    I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless
    Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness
    Where is death's sting?
    Where, grave, thy victory?
    I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
    But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
    Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:

    "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

    Matthew 27:46
    Because He doesn't exist?
    It doesn't matter if he does or doesn't. The point is to follow the teachings, the rest is just notions.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,502
    mwadams said:

    Farooq said:

    Taz said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Come on Rangers. Fuck these Scouse c*nts and traitors who BOO BEAUTY. Let Real Madrid hammer them

    But loyal, sober Unionists and royalists? Go, lads

    I am somewhat surprised how personally you have taken Liverpool fans booing at Wembley on Saturday. I truly thought you would love the madness, the anti-establishment chaos and rebellion. The “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” behaviour.

    It’s all part of life’s rich pageant and amazed you are bent out of shape by it.

    I’m a monarchist conservative and it really doesn’t bother me at all - it’s just jolly japes at a football match.

    If they annoyed you by being controversialist then it’s getting very Meta!!

    What next - demanding seats rather than pit at a Metallica concert? Cocoa rather than Cognac before bed? Tsk Tsk.
    No, it makes me puke. Because I know where it comes from

    By all means Boo the National Anthem. Boo Prince William. Hurl your turds at Princess Kate, Whatever, you sad tattoeed fat fucks

    But booing ABIDE WITH ME??

    That is pure vandalism, it is the degradation of the human soul and the hatred of loveliness, in the most ugly way. It is something very Liverpudlian - a diseased city - but it spreads like a fungus. Fuck them all.

    Remember Heysel
    If Liverpool fans are tarred by Heysel then what are you and I tarred with by virtue of being English?
    The evil of the British Empire for one. A scar on us for time immemorial..
    You know the structure of today's free world is largely down to the British Empire, right?

    Where do you think multiracial South African democracy, entrepreneurial Singapore, Hong Kong (try asking them whose rule they prefer), India (the world's largest democracy), America (the world's most powerful democracy) Canada, Australia and New Zealand come from? And how Japan, Taiwan and South Korea chose to imitate them rather than another autocracy.

    Sure the Middle East is a bit of fuck up - although arguably Israel is better than the alternative - and Africa isn't exactly a bed of roses, although bigoted Rhodesia was almost certainly economically better off than the basket case that is modern Zimbabwe - but you can't argue that's representative. It's complex.

    This penchant for equating us to the Nazis and selectively extracting the worst aspects from our history (usually out of context) to damn us for all time is certainly fashionable at the moment but it's also wrong - and just a phase.
    America's democracy is something they had to wrestle us for. The idea that we bestowed it upon them is a hellava a take.
    They literally based their constitution on our Bill of Rights and Magna Carta. Their argument was that as sons of liberty (Englishmen) royal governance had strayed from the true path.

    Try reading some history and thinking for yourself rather than imbibing fashionable contemporary propaganda.

    People will respect you more.
    Was Magna Carta based or inspired on anything that preceded it, such as further afield in Europe, or from Ancient times? If an original creation, who penned it, do we know the names of authors?
    So, the Magna Carta thing is a bit of a myth.

    The thing that became known as Magna Carta was basically a peace treaty drawn up by the Archbish of C. after what amounted to a series of Civil wars between the Angevin kings, and the local powers. It defined and circumscribed the powers of the various parties (including the church) to try to move away from the "might is right" approach of the last 100 years or so.

    It later developed a semi-mythological status as a "rights based" system, which is what 'inspired' those other things; but it wasn't a 'model' for them.

    As to antecedents - at least Henry I had tried to define a similar declaration of/circumscription of rights as means of establishing his power.
    ‘ So, the Magna Carta thing is a bit of a myth. ‘

    Wow that’s brilliant. 👍🏻 I’ve never heard that before.

    So not written by the controlling Templars then, who wrote all the laws then my brother reckons.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    IshmaelZ said:

    Foxy said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes
    Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies
    Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee
    In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me
    Abide with me, abide with me

    The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.

    How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.

    Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him

    By some accounts he finished it the day before he died

    Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
    I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
    Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.

    I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless
    Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness
    Where is death's sting?
    Where, grave, thy victory?
    I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
    But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
    Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:

    "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

    Matthew 27:46
    Which always sounds to me like "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated"?
    Or, possibly, there wasn’t anyone actually taking down the words of some guy crucified by the Romans in 33AD and this was inspired invention by the writers of the Gospels (probably in Alexandria in the later 1st, or second century) intuiting deep religious truths and adding a bit of superb scriptwriting, which is, taken together, even more profound for all that
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,083
    Foxy said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes
    Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies
    Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee
    In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me
    Abide with me, abide with me

    The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.

    How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.

    Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him

    By some accounts he finished it the day before he died

    Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
    I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
    Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.

    I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless
    Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness
    Where is death's sting?
    Where, grave, thy victory?
    I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
    But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
    Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:

    "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

    Matthew 27:46
    He didn't hold up well did he? A famous documentary of a contemporary of his reveals most of those up there were happily singing about the bright side of life.
  • boulayboulay Posts: 5,486

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    The Frankfurt fans are much more impressively energetic and fervent. What happened to Scottish fans?

    There was no Abide With Me before kick off to get the blood racing.
    Seriously tho. The Germans have flares and songs, they jump and down in unison, they all wear white and wave white flags (even if they do sometimes look like Klansmen thereby)

    The Scots fans just stand there. I thought they were famously passionate?
    You haven’t watched that documentary “Braveheart” have you? Massed ranks of crazy Scots have been drilled for generations to stand there quietly until the over-confident foreigner thinks he’s on top and then they go nuts. See the very accurate reconstruction of the Battle of Stirling bridge by the director/renowned historian Mel Gibson for an example.
    Gibson is to history what Hitler was to Zionism Boris Johnson is to marital fidelity.
    Exhibit “A”, The Patriot…..
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,083
    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    The Frankfurt fans are much more impressively energetic and fervent. What happened to Scottish fans?

    There was no Abide With Me before kick off to get the blood racing.
    Seriously tho. The Germans have flares and songs, they jump and down in unison, they all wear white and wave white flags (even if they do sometimes look like Klansmen thereby)

    The Scots fans just stand there. I thought they were famously passionate?
    You haven’t watched that documentary “Braveheart” have you? Massed ranks of crazy Scots have been drilled for generations to stand there quietly until the over-confident foreigner thinks he’s on top and then they go nuts. See the very accurate reconstruction of the Battle of Stirling bridge by the director/renowned historian Mel Gibson for an example.
    I love that movie. I want to see a sequel and his take on the end of Edward II.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,083
    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes
    Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies
    Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee
    In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me
    Abide with me, abide with me

    The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.

    How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.

    Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him

    By some accounts he finished it the day before he died

    Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
    I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
    Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.

    I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless
    Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness
    Where is death's sting?
    Where, grave, thy victory?
    I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
    But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
    Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:

    "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

    Matthew 27:46
    Because He doesn't exist?
    It doesn't matter if he does or doesn't.
    If only more had taken your relaxed view on that!
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,631
    boulay said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    The Frankfurt fans are much more impressively energetic and fervent. What happened to Scottish fans?

    There was no Abide With Me before kick off to get the blood racing.
    Seriously tho. The Germans have flares and songs, they jump and down in unison, they all wear white and wave white flags (even if they do sometimes look like Klansmen thereby)

    The Scots fans just stand there. I thought they were famously passionate?
    You haven’t watched that documentary “Braveheart” have you? Massed ranks of crazy Scots have been drilled for generations to stand there quietly until the over-confident foreigner thinks he’s on top and then they go nuts. See the very accurate reconstruction of the Battle of Stirling bridge by the director/renowned historian Mel Gibson for an example.
    Gibson is to history what Hitler was to Zionism Boris Johnson is to marital fidelity.
    Exhibit “A”, The Patriot…..
    Exhibit A should always be Braveheart.

    A friend listed over 150 historical inaccuracies in that film before they gave up.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,647

    IshmaelZ said:

    Foxy said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes
    Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies
    Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee
    In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me
    Abide with me, abide with me

    The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.

    How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.

    Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him

    By some accounts he finished it the day before he died

    Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
    I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
    Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.

    I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless
    Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness
    Where is death's sting?
    Where, grave, thy victory?
    I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
    But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
    Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:

    "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

    Matthew 27:46
    Which always sounds to me like "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated"?
    Nah, it's the expression of the moment that, within Christian belief, Jesus took on the sins of man. God then forsook him so that nobody would be forsaken if they came to him through faith in Christ. That was, in the Christian tradition, the whole point of Jesus life on Earth and death.
    Yeah, but that has never made any sense.

    The point is how he lived amongst us, not how he was born or died.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 51,821

    IshmaelZ said:

    Foxy said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes
    Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies
    Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee
    In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me
    Abide with me, abide with me

    The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.

    How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.

    Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him

    By some accounts he finished it the day before he died

    Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
    I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
    Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.

    I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless
    Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness
    Where is death's sting?
    Where, grave, thy victory?
    I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
    But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
    Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:

    "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

    Matthew 27:46
    Which always sounds to me like "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated"?
    Nah, it's the expression of the moment that, within Christian belief, Jesus took on the sins of man. God then forsook him so that nobody would be forsaken if they came to him through faith in Christ. That was, in the Christian tradition, the whole point of Jesus life on Earth and death.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1xrNaTO1bI
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 17,405
    kle4 said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    The Frankfurt fans are much more impressively energetic and fervent. What happened to Scottish fans?

    There was no Abide With Me before kick off to get the blood racing.
    Seriously tho. The Germans have flares and songs, they jump and down in unison, they all wear white and wave white flags (even if they do sometimes look like Klansmen thereby)

    The Scots fans just stand there. I thought they were famously passionate?
    You haven’t watched that documentary “Braveheart” have you? Massed ranks of crazy Scots have been drilled for generations to stand there quietly until the over-confident foreigner thinks he’s on top and then they go nuts. See the very accurate reconstruction of the Battle of Stirling bridge by the director/renowned historian Mel Gibson for an example.
    I love that movie. I want to see a sequel and his take on the end of Edward II.
    I read a history of Edward II that posits a long retirement in obscurity for him. By all accounts he genuinely enjoyed the company of rustics, and happily engaged in rural crafts such as ditch digging and hedging. I kinda hope it’s true.
  • Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Come on Rangers. Fuck these Scouse c*nts and traitors who BOO BEAUTY. Let Real Madrid hammer them

    But loyal, sober Unionists and royalists? Go, lads

    I am somewhat surprised how personally you have taken Liverpool fans booing at Wembley on Saturday. I truly thought you would love the madness, the anti-establishment chaos and rebellion. The “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” behaviour.

    It’s all part of life’s rich pageant and amazed you are bent out of shape by it.

    I’m a monarchist conservative and it really doesn’t bother me at all - it’s just jolly japes at a football match.

    If they annoyed you by being controversialist then it’s getting very Meta!!

    What next - demanding seats rather than pit at a Metallica concert? Cocoa rather than Cognac before bed? Tsk Tsk.
    No, it makes me puke. Because I know where it comes from

    By all means Boo the National Anthem. Boo Prince William. Hurl your turds at Princess Kate, Whatever, you sad tattoeed fat fucks

    But booing ABIDE WITH ME??

    That is pure vandalism, it is the degradation of the human soul and the hatred of loveliness, in the most ugly way. It is something very Liverpudlian - a diseased city - but it spreads like a fungus. Fuck them all.

    Remember Heysel
    If Liverpool fans are tarred by Heysel then what are you and I tarred with by virtue of being English?
    Is this even serious?

    We conquered the world. And it was mainly good. We didn’t push over a wall and kill some Italian teens during a football match. Get a grip

    Ok. Fair enough - if we are going simplistic (it wasn’t just Italian teens and it wasn’t just a simple case of some Liverpool fans pushing over a wall out of nothing).

    Amritsar - we just controlled a riot as quickly as possible - naughty Indian teens….

    Thing is you are probably the poster I agree most with on here for my sins but I’m staggered how miffed you have been by booing a pretty rubbish hymn - if it had been “I vow to thee my country” then I would be in my tank towards Anfield Road but really, perspective?
    I hear you.

    Maybe I always had this secret Simon Heffer-esque contempt for ugly, contemptible, obese, do-nothing Liverpool? But I hid it. OK, they booed our 96-year Queen during the year of her Platinum Jubilee, and a year or two after our widowhood. Maybe I could have contained myself, if they had done only that. But booing a beautiful religious hymn with the most profound lyrics ever written about humanity yielding with grace to mortality, WTAF??

    They are monkeys. They are an element in working class British culture - fat, wanky, ugly, dumb, inadequate, Philistine, pathetic and gruesomely proud of it - which I utterly despise. Let them sink into the Irish Sea. Millwall have more nobility
    I get you but you are in danger of going full-Roger…..
    What would Bill Shankly or Ian Paisley have thought of them booing the Queen, or booing the National Anthem, and then booing ABIDE WITH ME?

    I do not think they would have expressed admiration. And their bewildered contempt would be justified. We have regressed as a nation and a culture and Liverpool fans are the pimply, wobbly, nihilistic cutting edge. Well done, lads
    Why do you keep shouting abide with me?

    Maybe you should be wondering why the Liverpool fans aren't too keen on symbols of the state, they've had pretty good reason to be frustrated and annoyed.

    If it gets under the skin of muppets like you and gets you frustrated, all the better.

    I wouldn't join in with booing things personally, but I welcome those who feel free to do so. People have a right to free speech and better peaceful protest than violent ones. 👍
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