Re; the points on BBC Radio, I agree that it often and in some ways still does act as an incarnation of the range the BBC used to be so good at.
Unpredictable, challenging, popular, engaging, the whole suite. But then it's also been subjected to much less pre-market-testing of programmes, and less of a market-research-led approach than BBC TV, and left largely much more alone, for structural reasons.
You'd prefer no pre-market testing and less market research. LOL.
I am a socialist not because I love the poor, but because I hate them.
If you aren't available, btw, who would you have choose the programming on the BBC?
I'm not quite sure why you're returning to this ad hominem, Topping, as we've essentially been through the whole discussions, and you'll also note that I myself have not gone down that route, at any stage of them.
A solely market approach does not always work best in broadcasting, and I'm hardly the first ever to raise this, in a topic of wild controversy.
Second cabinet minister to attend the conference. The Nationalkonservative Britische Rentnerpartei have gone mainstream.
Well worth reading their Statement of Principles.
A couple I found particularly funny including:
"Among the causes [of the threats to the wellbeing and sustainability of democratic nations] are an unconstrained individualism that regards children as a burden, while encouraging ever more radical forms of sexual license and experimentation as an alternative to the responsibilities of family and congregational life."
This has religious fundamentalist preacher condemning homosexuality turning out to be gay written all over it.
Reminds me of a tiny number of posters here whom I won't name, but utterly alien and balmy to everyone else.
The Conservatives are at their best way they embrace individualism. Collectivism should be the preserve of the socialists, not the Tories.
Support for family life, marriage and children is not economic collectivism but a core conservative value. That can include homosexuals who are married with children too now of course.
Conservatism is not socialism but nor is it libertarianism either as Liz Truss quickly discovered
"The traditional family, built around a lifelong bond between a man and a woman, and on a lifelong bond between parents and children, is the foundation of all other achievements of our civilization."
Built around, of course as for centuries the family has been built around lifelong bond between man and woman and parents and chidren. Homosexuality was still illegal 100 years ago and divorce, except for the very wealthy who could afford the legal fees, unheard of.
Now the reference to family and marriage can include homosexuals too, note it says 'built around' not 'exclusive to'
Talking of cultural Marxism and the necessity of social equality, I have just been given my own villa on the seafront at Alexandria, courtesy of the Four Seasons hotel
Did you ask them to take the extra place settings away as you will just be the one?
Maybe they expect me to *meet someone*?
It really is exceptionally pleasant. I suspect this is the best hotel room in the entire city. I am getting grade A1 levels of grovelling
People in a free society can choose their nationality ...
If only people like you had the slightest sense of irony or self-awareness ... !
I have both, I'm just not sure what someone as ignorant as you is trying to make as your point.
I've lived in multiple countries and chosen to make this one my home. Its where I was born, but could have settled elsewhere. I have family in multiple nations, who have taken citizenship of the countries they've moved to.
People are free, within reason, to change countries. Nationalism is no more and no less than a belief that the best people to choose who to run a country, is the people of that country. That the best people to choose who to run India is Indians, Polands is Poles etc. Nationalism at its best is an anti-imperialist belief.
Imperialism is a belief that your nation should run other countries, India should be ran by Britain, etc.
The Nazis were anti-Nationalist. They were imperialist. They didn't want Poland ran by Poles, they wanted it ran by Germans. Same as the USSR. Countries like Poland etc were only free of imperialist oversight once they had national self-control via independence, rather than being compelled by force to be subjects of Russia, or Germany, or anyone else.
I suggest one runs from the other.
A Google search for the definition of nationalism throws up 'identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations'.
So if you accept that, I think that then mindset promotes imperialism. Again, Goole throws up as a definition of imperialism as 'a policy of extending a country's power and influence through colonization, use of military force, or other means'.
So, if you are primarily concerned with your nation's interests at the exclusion of those of other nations, it isn't a great leap to persuade yourself that extending your nation's power, wealth, etc, through colonising other countries and building an empire is a good, and justifiable, thing.
I think you would be hard pressed to persuade most informed people that the Nazis were anti-Nationalists. The accepted view I think is that they were extreme nationalists. See the concept of 'Volksgemeinschaft', for example. The party itself emerged from a volatile soup of extreme nationalist groups that had been around in Germany for some time before WW1.
I don't accept "especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations".
Gandhi was a nationalist, he wanted India to be ran by Indians instead of Brits. How was that to the detriment of other nations?
Politically I may agree with Churchill on more than I agree with Gandhi, but on a nationalism basis I agree with Gandhi not Churchill. They should be free to run their own country, not have it ran by us. Just as the Poles should be free to run their own country, not Germans or Russians.
There are plenty of nationalists who are content to remain within their borders. Those that aren't often try to colonise other countries, to build empires. Fight wars for territory or resources.
There are all sorts of justifications humans can use to persuade ourselves that it is right and proper to make our country more powerful, we are very good at that. Doesn't mean it isn't ultimately fuelled by nationalism.
Talking of cultural Marxism and the necessity of social equality, I have just been given my own villa on the seafront at Alexandria, courtesy of the Four Seasons hotel
Did you ask them to take the extra place settings away as you will just be the one?
Maybe they expect me to *meet someone*?
It really is exceptionally pleasant. I suspect this is the best hotel room in the entire city. I am getting grade A1 levels of grovelling
Is the pool yours or shared between you and other bungalows?
Oh, we're doing stations are we. Right (rolls up sleeves). I'm going to leave out places like Salisbury, Exeter, Lancaster, Grimsby, Cleethorpes, Hull, Twyford, Banbury, Leicester because life's too short. But having said that, drum-roll please maestro, from the top.
Scotland
Aberdeen. The station is surprisingly pleasant. The town looks like it's made out of concrete.
Inverness is small but OK. Just like Inverness
Edinburgh and Glasgow are great. Arguably Glasgow wins because it surprises on the upside, although Edinburgh is better
North England
York station is lovely. York is lovely. I want to live there. Can't. (sobs quietly)
Leeds is technically OK and you're straight into the busy town, *but* you have to go thru a low bit first. They got rid of the left luggage lockers
Historically, imperialism has not involved much in the way of nationalism. That's a fairly recent thing.
The Hapsburgs, Ottomans, Moghuls etc. built mighty empires without much in the way of a nationalistic motivation.
Nationalism has both driven, and been driven by, the expansion in the franchise. Ultimately, it works to end empires, because the subject people conclude "why can't we govern ourselves?"
On topic, this For me WH2024 looks set to be the most boring one ever with the WH2020 nominees being the ones who fight it out next year.. assumes Trump will be the nominee.
I still think it quite likely he won't be.
It's become a bit of a niche view on PB but I agree. He's the frontrunner for the nomination right now but I can see quite a few scenarios where it doesn't end up that way.
I dream we get Trump running as an independent against a different Republican nominee, with so much down ballot disruption that the Dems take the presidency, the House and 60 seats in the Senate.
Why would he do that? And how?
I said it was a dream, not a prediction.
In the unlikely event that the Republican Party sees sense and dumps Trump, I can readily imagine Trump doing anything he can to attack the GOP, including running as a third-party candidate where he can.
Those places are few and far between. Most states now have sore-loser rules, where someone who enters a primary race is only allowed to compete in the general election under that party's banner.
I agree that he'd react with fury if he were dumped - but that again is another reason to think he won't be, if he's not actively prevented from running.
The state "sore loser" laws precluding candidates who lose in primaries from running in general elections, generally do NOT apply to presidential elections.
Note that in 1980, John Anderson ran for POTUS in Republican primaries . . . then when he lost GOP nomination to Ronald Reagan, ran as an Independent in the general election. AND was on the ballot in EVERY state and District of Columbia.
SSI - question for you. The scandal that led to Richard Nixon’s resignation is commonly referred to as “Watergate” which means a scandal about water. Why? Should that term not be reserved for some impropriety over sewerage works or similar? Makes no sense.
People in a free society can choose their nationality ...
If only people like you had the slightest sense of irony or self-awareness ... !
I have both, I'm just not sure what someone as ignorant as you is trying to make as your point.
I've lived in multiple countries and chosen to make this one my home. Its where I was born, but could have settled elsewhere. I have family in multiple nations, who have taken citizenship of the countries they've moved to.
People are free, within reason, to change countries. Nationalism is no more and no less than a belief that the best people to choose who to run a country, is the people of that country. That the best people to choose who to run India is Indians, Polands is Poles etc. Nationalism at its best is an anti-imperialist belief.
Imperialism is a belief that your nation should run other countries, India should be ran by Britain, etc.
The Nazis were anti-Nationalist. They were imperialist. They didn't want Poland ran by Poles, they wanted it ran by Germans. Same as the USSR. Countries like Poland etc were only free of imperialist oversight once they had national self-control via independence, rather than being compelled by force to be subjects of Russia, or Germany, or anyone else.
I suggest one runs from the other.
A Google search for the definition of nationalism throws up 'identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations'.
So if you accept that, I think that then mindset promotes imperialism. Again, Goole throws up as a definition of imperialism as 'a policy of extending a country's power and influence through colonization, use of military force, or other means'.
So, if you are primarily concerned with your nation's interests at the exclusion of those of other nations, it isn't a great leap to persuade yourself that extending your nation's power, wealth, etc, through colonising other countries and building an empire is a good, and justifiable, thing.
I think you would be hard pressed to persuade most informed people that the Nazis were anti-Nationalists. The accepted view I think is that they were extreme nationalists. See the concept of 'Volksgemeinschaft', for example. The party itself emerged from a volatile soup of extreme nationalist groups that had been around in Germany for some time before WW1.
I don't accept "especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations".
Gandhi was a nationalist, he wanted India to be ran by Indians instead of Brits. How was that to the detriment of other nations?
Politically I may agree with Churchill on more than I agree with Gandhi, but on a nationalism basis I agree with Gandhi not Churchill. They should be free to run their own country, not have it ran by us. Just as the Poles should be free to run their own country, not Germans or Russians.
There are plenty of nationalists who are content to remain within their borders. Those that aren't often try to colonise other countries, to build empires. Fight wars for territory or resources.
There are all sorts of justifications humans can use to persuade ourselves that it is right and proper to make our country more powerful, we are very good at that. Doesn't mean it isn't ultimately fuelled by nationalism.
Yes it does. The second you step beyond your borders it ceases to be nationalism and starts to be imperialism.
Nationalism can be claimed validly by the defender, not the aggressor. Ukraine is perfectly and entirely within her rights to defend herself from Russian aggression.
Putin, like Hitler or any other imperialistic aggressor before him is not seeking to defend the Russian nation however much he falsely claims it, he's seeking to aggressively expand his own power. Just because an aggressor lies, does not make that lie the truth.
BNS is fine but the platforms are the mines of Moria
Northampton is weird. The redeveloped main hall is good but it's elevated and the design language for the platform is different
Coventry is old-school (woord paneling, aluminium frames) but is being redeveloped thank God.
Milton Keynes. The station is nice in a rectilinear 80's way. Immediately outside the station is some tents where the tramps have pitched tent. Urgh.
That London
London Euston should be brilliant but is instead dossy. the main hall was OK, but they took the Big Board out and replaced it by flatscreens at 10ft. Spoilt it. The aceess walkways and low halls to the platforms are crap and the platforms are grimy. The toilets are at best adequate: reasonably decorated but noisy. Will be better when they redevelop. If they do...
London Victoria is OK but it curves weirdly: it feels like two in one. Approach to tube is partially outside
London Bridge is many platforms, many long and low ceilings and inmmediately outside is the Shard. Go up the Shard, you won't forget it.
London Waterloo is fantastic: it has a bookshop and a place to read said book whilst you wait for the epic delay due to suicide/signal failure to be resolved. Was in Bourne movie. Was better when YoSushi was open. Taxi service is frequent. Short walk to the Thames and that bridge the Daleks crossed and 28 Days Later was filmed. Oh, and Parliament. You can go on the Jubilee line.
Re; the points on BBC Radio, I agree that it often and in some ways still does act as an incarnation of the range the BBC used to be so good at.
Unpredictable, challenging, popular, engaging, the whole suite. But then it's also been subjected to much less pre-market-testing of programmes, and less of a market-research-led approach than BBC TV, and left largely much more alone, for structural reasons.
You'd prefer no pre-market testing and less market research. LOL.
I am a socialist not because I love the poor, but because I hate them.
If you aren't available, btw, who would you have choose the programming on the BBC?
I'm not quite sure why you're returning to this ad hominem, Topping, as we've essentially been through the whole discussions, and you'll also note that I myself have not gone down that road at any stage of them.
est in broadcasting, and I'm hardly the first to raise this concept in a topic of wild controversy.
Yes sorry about that - just I am triggered when it is stated as baldly as "for goodness sake don't ask the people as they'll only get it wrong". Or perhaps you think this is a legitimate approach to take. And perhaps it is.
I think we're doing ok brow-wise wrt the programmes the BBC produces. Yes we have Naked Attraction (BBC?) but we also have thoughtful, provocative programmes that while not quite lecturing in tone, nevertheless educate and inform as per the original mandate.
Historically, imperialism has not involved much in the way of nationalism. That's a fairly recent thing.
The Hapsburgs, Ottomans, Moghuls etc. built mighty empires without much in the way of a nationalistic motivation.
Nationalism has both driven, and been driven by, the expansion in the franchise. Ultimately, it works to end empires, because the subject people conclude "why can't we govern ourselves?"
Exactly, nationalism has been a force for good in the world that has led to democracy and the post-imperial age.
Second cabinet minister to attend the conference. The Nationalkonservative Britische Rentnerpartei have gone mainstream.
Well worth reading their Statement of Principles.
A couple I found particularly funny including:
"Among the causes [of the threats to the wellbeing and sustainability of democratic nations] are an unconstrained individualism that regards children as a burden, while encouraging ever more radical forms of sexual license and experimentation as an alternative to the responsibilities of family and congregational life."
This has religious fundamentalist preacher condemning homosexuality turning out to be gay written all over it.
Reminds me of a tiny number of posters here whom I won't name, but utterly alien and balmy to everyone else.
The Conservatives are at their best way they embrace individualism. Collectivism should be the preserve of the socialists, not the Tories.
Support for family life, marriage and children is not economic collectivism but a core conservative value. That can include homosexuals who are married with children too now of course.
Conservatism is not socialism but nor is it libertarianism either as Liz Truss quickly discovered
"The traditional family, built around a lifelong bond between a man and a woman, and on a lifelong bond between parents and children, is the foundation of all other achievements of our civilization."
Built around, of course as for centuries the family has been built around lifelong bond between man and woman and parents and chidren. Homosexuality was still illegal 100 years ago and divorce, except for the very wealthy who could afford the legal fees, unheard of.
Now the reference to family and marriage can include homosexuals too, note it says 'built around' not 'exclusive to'
The journey out to Southend on Sea is surprisingly pleasant. The journey back is the same but made better by the fact that you are now leaving Southend on Sea, never to return.
East of Brighton
Most of the railways in Kent are just places to stop while the train has a wee. Ashford International is good.
Brighton corridor
Horsham station is OK, but deserves more given Horsham's niceness
Redhill is meh. The town is meh
Crawley is just a couple of platforms. Crawley is odd. It is concrete but I think in 50 years time it'll be fashionable
Portsmouth Harbour is right by the harbour and the big ships. It's sorta quite nice. If the carriers are in it's brilliant. The harbour view is admittedly of Gosport, but nobody's perfect
Portsmouth and Southsea is not bad in itself, although the platforms are elevated. But immediately outside is the old Portsmouth shopping street, which is depressing.
Southampton Central is ~six platforms and not as good as it should be. Two entrances. On one side is brutalist flats and 70's office blocks, which they are sprucing up with a mural. Murals do not work. On the other side is dilapidated ToysRUs sheds with many graffiti. Sad
Basingstoke makes me cry. Badly, badly overdeveloped. Like Woking but much worse. Overlooking flats that are too tall and rotting fast. Good amenities but close early. Staff are very helpful. There's a chip van outside if you're hungry.
Eastleigh. Crap station overlooking a marshalling yard and the choccy machines are dubious. Get caught there late at night and the mournful howls from the marshalling yard will make you question your life choices. If you can't stand it get a taxi, although the rank is not near the station.
South West England
Bournemouth: nice enough but dowdy. Two walls held together by a iron vault. Clever construction (post-war repair?), little amenities.
Weymouth: the train goes down a street in the town which they have to close.
Talking of cultural Marxism and the necessity of social equality, I have just been given my own villa on the seafront at Alexandria, courtesy of the Four Seasons hotel
Did you ask them to take the extra place settings away as you will just be the one?
Maybe they expect me to *meet someone*?
It really is exceptionally pleasant. I suspect this is the best hotel room in the entire city. I am getting grade A1 levels of grovelling
Well presumably in your hands is a goodly chunk of their P&L over the next 12-18 months so who can blame them.
It looks nice enough. I always find it best to eat strawberry fondant chocolates with a knife and fork.
Maidenhead is quite nice and the nearby area is too, although I don't know if that (airquotes) gentleman's bar "The HoneyPot" is still there. SeanT will know, no doubt.
Slough station is like Slough: not as bad as you think, not as good as it should be.
Both Windsor stations are lovely: W&E Riverside is nice if you want to get to Eton, W&E Central is embedded in a nice mini shopping centre, with a cigar shop and a nice French pastry shop. Oh, and near Windsor Castle, which is nice.
Reading is fantastic and damn nearly in its own category with its aerodynamic ceilings. It should be in London. The immediate area is being redeveloped as is Reading generally and if they get it right it'll be brilliant. If they get it wrong it'll be Basingstoke
Swindon. It's OK. A nicer Milton Keynes. I'd like to live there.
Newbury. A little gem. Two platforms, quiet market town with a 125 connection to London. The library is nice. Shh, don't tell anybody. What The South should be.
Bath. Hello, sandstone. Appropriate to the surroundings.
Bristol Parkway. Was a bus stop for trains. Then they build the new Entrance which is very tall. But it's still attached to a bus stop for trains
South Wales
Bristol (I know) and Cardiff. Both massively redeveloped and it's touch and go whether it'll work. Stations have not kept up and it shows
Newport. Weird. It lookes like they've inflated two gray balls. I keep thinking it's a bouncy castle. Newport is crap so don't get off.
Swansea. End of the line. Nice old station too far outside the city centre to be useful
Historically, imperialism has not involved much in the way of nationalism. That's a fairly recent thing.
The Hapsburgs, Ottomans, Moghuls etc. built mighty empires without much in the way of a nationalistic motivation.
Nationalism has both driven, and been driven by, the expansion in the franchise. Ultimately, it works to end empires, because the subject people conclude "why can't we govern ourselves?"
The post WWII nation state is also a rather different beast than its 19th century forbear.
On topic, this For me WH2024 looks set to be the most boring one ever with the WH2020 nominees being the ones who fight it out next year.. assumes Trump will be the nominee.
I still think it quite likely he won't be.
It's become a bit of a niche view on PB but I agree. He's the frontrunner for the nomination right now but I can see quite a few scenarios where it doesn't end up that way.
I dream we get Trump running as an independent against a different Republican nominee, with so much down ballot disruption that the Dems take the presidency, the House and 60 seats in the Senate.
Why would he do that? And how?
I said it was a dream, not a prediction.
In the unlikely event that the Republican Party sees sense and dumps Trump, I can readily imagine Trump doing anything he can to attack the GOP, including running as a third-party candidate where he can.
Those places are few and far between. Most states now have sore-loser rules, where someone who enters a primary race is only allowed to compete in the general election under that party's banner.
I agree that he'd react with fury if he were dumped - but that again is another reason to think he won't be, if he's not actively prevented from running.
The state "sore loser" laws precluding candidates who lose in primaries from running in general elections, generally do NOT apply to presidential elections.
Note that in 1980, John Anderson ran for POTUS in Republican primaries . . . then when he lost GOP nomination to Ronald Reagan, ran as an Independent in the general election. AND was on the ballot in EVERY state and District of Columbia.
SSI - question for you. The scandal that led to Richard Nixon’s resignation is commonly referred to as “Watergate” which means a scandal about water. Why? Should that term not be reserved for some impropriety over sewerage works or similar? Makes no sense.
The North Coast line is split-personality. To your south is the beautiful North Welsh landscape. To your north is a long string of rubbish towns and villages, a gray sea, and wind farms. A very elongated Thurrock. Oh look, a used-car salesman lot with some colourful pennants. Does not help. The archetype of the County Lines drugdealer corridor. I'm not going to describe the stations because you're not getting out. Sorry BigG, but you're in Anglesey which is nicer
I am now going to ruin everything by drinking “Egyptian single malt whisky”
Where are you Leon?
Excuse my prior jibe, but I was only transferring my own experiences. Restaurants and Hotels that master the single traveller experience will in the future coin it, in my view.
Second cabinet minister to attend the conference. The Nationalkonservative Britische Rentnerpartei have gone mainstream.
Well worth reading their Statement of Principles.
A couple I found particularly funny including:
"Among the causes [of the threats to the wellbeing and sustainability of democratic nations] are an unconstrained individualism that regards children as a burden, while encouraging ever more radical forms of sexual license and experimentation as an alternative to the responsibilities of family and congregational life."
This has religious fundamentalist preacher condemning homosexuality turning out to be gay written all over it.
Reminds me of a tiny number of posters here whom I won't name, but utterly alien and balmy to everyone else.
The Conservatives are at their best way they embrace individualism. Collectivism should be the preserve of the socialists, not the Tories.
Support for family life, marriage and children is not economic collectivism but a core conservative value. That can include homosexuals who are married with children too now of course.
Conservatism is not socialism but nor is it libertarianism either as Liz Truss quickly discovered
"The traditional family, built around a lifelong bond between a man and a woman, and on a lifelong bond between parents and children, is the foundation of all other achievements of our civilization."
Built around, of course as for centuries the family has been built around lifelong bond between man and woman and parents and chidren. Homosexuality was still illegal 100 years ago and divorce, except for the very wealthy who could afford the legal fees, unheard of.
Now the reference to family and marriage can include homosexuals too, note it says 'built around' not 'exclusive to'
Was it illegal in Troy?
Homosexual marriage certainly wasn't legal in Troy
Talking of cultural Marxism and the necessity of social equality, I have just been given my own villa on the seafront at Alexandria, courtesy of the Four Seasons hotel
Did you ask them to take the extra place settings away as you will just be the one?
Maybe they expect me to *meet someone*?
It really is exceptionally pleasant. I suspect this is the best hotel room in the entire city. I am getting grade A1 levels of grovelling
Is the pool yours or shared between you and other bungalows?
Second cabinet minister to attend the conference. The Nationalkonservative Britische Rentnerpartei have gone mainstream.
Well worth reading their Statement of Principles.
A couple I found particularly funny including:
"Among the causes [of the threats to the wellbeing and sustainability of democratic nations] are an unconstrained individualism that regards children as a burden, while encouraging ever more radical forms of sexual license and experimentation as an alternative to the responsibilities of family and congregational life."
This has religious fundamentalist preacher condemning homosexuality turning out to be gay written all over it.
Reminds me of a tiny number of posters here whom I won't name, but utterly alien and balmy to everyone else.
The Conservatives are at their best way they embrace individualism. Collectivism should be the preserve of the socialists, not the Tories.
Support for family life, marriage and children is not economic collectivism but a core conservative value. That can include homosexuals who are married with children too now of course.
Conservatism is not socialism but nor is it libertarianism either as Liz Truss quickly discovered
"The traditional family, built around a lifelong bond between a man and a woman, and on a lifelong bond between parents and children, is the foundation of all other achievements of our civilization."
Built around, of course as for centuries the family has been built around lifelong bond between man and woman and parents and chidren. Homosexuality was still illegal 100 years ago and divorce, except for the very wealthy who could afford the legal fees, unheard of.
Now the reference to family and marriage can include homosexuals too, note it says 'built around' not 'exclusive to'
Was it illegal in Troy?
Homosexual marriage certainly wasn't legal in Troy
Re; the points on BBC Radio, I agree that it often and in some ways still does act as an incarnation of the range the BBC used to be so good at.
Unpredictable, challenging, popular, engaging, the whole suite. But then it's also been subjected to much less pre-market-testing of programmes, and less of a market-research-led approach than BBC TV, and left largely much more alone, for structural reasons.
You'd prefer no pre-market testing and less market research. LOL.
I am a socialist not because I love the poor, but because I hate them.
If you aren't available, btw, who would you have choose the programming on the BBC?
I'm not quite sure why you're returning to this ad hominem, Topping, as we've essentially been through the whole discussions, and you'll also note that I myself have not gone down that road at any stage of them.
est in broadcasting, and I'm hardly the first to raise this concept in a topic of wild controversy.
Yes sorry about that - just I am triggered when it is stated as baldly as "for goodness sake don't ask the people as they'll only get it wrong". Or perhaps you think this is a legitimate approach to take. And perhaps it is.
I think we're doing ok brow-wise wrt the programmes the BBC produces. Yes we have Naked Attraction (BBC?) but we also have thoughtful, provocative programmes that while not quite lecturing in tone, nevertheless educate and inform as per the original mandate.
Thanks for the apology ; the thing is, what should one ask people, and what difference does that make ? The BBC's current outlook is somewhat like always asking people if they like something that's always been on, or always checking the ratings, audience profiles, and formulae of programmes that have already been on, as the only means always in order to make the next programmes.
The problem is, many people have no idea whether they will like new things until they see them, or they've been tried. If John Cleese had pre-tested the ideas for Fawlty Towers on an audience without a broadcast, for instance, or tried to squeeze it into the parameters or aesthetic of earlier, and already existing comedies like Love Thy Neighbour , it would never happened. The same applies to the entirety of the output of Monty Python, or Alan Partridge, for instance, both of which were commissioned Pre-Birt, and would not appear on the current BBC2, just through there being too little formulaic or marketing precedent.
Talking of cultural Marxism and the necessity of social equality, I have just been given my own villa on the seafront at Alexandria, courtesy of the Four Seasons hotel
Did you ask them to take the extra place settings away as you will just be the one?
Maybe they expect me to *meet someone*?
It really is exceptionally pleasant. I suspect this is the best hotel room in the entire city. I am getting grade A1 levels of grovelling
Well presumably in your hands is a goodly chunk of their P&L over the next 12-18 months so who can blame them.
It looks nice enough. I always find it best to eat strawberry fondant chocolates with a knife and fork.
I particularly appreciate the provision of the Union Jack pincushion.
I left out East Croydon. Apologies. Good platforms, good disabled access with the sloping walkways, tramstop immediately outside, and a tower made of fifty-pences. https://hidden-london.com/nuggets/50p-building/
I am now going to ruin everything by drinking “Egyptian single malt whisky”
Where are you Leon?
Excuse my prior jibe, but I was only transferring my own experiences. Restaurants and Hotels that master the single traveller experience will in the future coin it, in my view.
Four Seasons San Stefano Alexandria. Beachfront villa with pool
People in a free society can choose their nationality ...
If only people like you had the slightest sense of irony or self-awareness ... !
I have both, I'm just not sure what someone as ignorant as you is trying to make as your point.
I've lived in multiple countries and chosen to make this one my home. Its where I was born, but could have settled elsewhere. I have family in multiple nations, who have taken citizenship of the countries they've moved to.
People are free, within reason, to change countries. Nationalism is no more and no less than a belief that the best people to choose who to run a country, is the people of that country. That the best people to choose who to run India is Indians, Polands is Poles etc. Nationalism at its best is an anti-imperialist belief.
Imperialism is a belief that your nation should run other countries, India should be ran by Britain, etc.
The Nazis were anti-Nationalist. They were imperialist. They didn't want Poland ran by Poles, they wanted it ran by Germans. Same as the USSR. Countries like Poland etc were only free of imperialist oversight once they had national self-control via independence, rather than being compelled by force to be subjects of Russia, or Germany, or anyone else.
I suggest one runs from the other.
A Google search for the definition of nationalism throws up 'identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations'.
So if you accept that, I think that then mindset promotes imperialism. Again, Goole throws up as a definition of imperialism as 'a policy of extending a country's power and influence through colonization, use of military force, or other means'.
So, if you are primarily concerned with your nation's interests at the exclusion of those of other nations, it isn't a great leap to persuade yourself that extending your nation's power, wealth, etc, through colonising other countries and building an empire is a good, and justifiable, thing.
I think you would be hard pressed to persuade most informed people that the Nazis were anti-Nationalists. The accepted view I think is that they were extreme nationalists. See the concept of 'Volksgemeinschaft', for example. The party itself emerged from a volatile soup of extreme nationalist groups that had been around in Germany for some time before WW1.
I don't accept "especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations".
Gandhi was a nationalist, he wanted India to be ran by Indians instead of Brits. How was that to the detriment of other nations?
Politically I may agree with Churchill on more than I agree with Gandhi, but on a nationalism basis I agree with Gandhi not Churchill. They should be free to run their own country, not have it ran by us. Just as the Poles should be free to run their own country, not Germans or Russians.
There are plenty of nationalists who are content to remain within their borders. Those that aren't often try to colonise other countries, to build empires. Fight wars for territory or resources.
There are all sorts of justifications humans can use to persuade ourselves that it is right and proper to make our country more powerful, we are very good at that. Doesn't mean it isn't ultimately fuelled by nationalism.
Yes it does. The second you step beyond your borders it ceases to be nationalism and starts to be imperialism.
Nationalism can be claimed validly by the defender, not the aggressor. Ukraine is perfectly and entirely within her rights to defend herself from Russian aggression.
Putin, like Hitler or any other imperialistic aggressor before him is not seeking to defend the Russian nation however much he falsely claims it, he's seeking to aggressively expand his own power. Just because an aggressor lies, does not make that lie the truth.
'The second you step beyond your borders it ceases to be nationalism and starts to be imperialism'.
So the catalyst for imperialism, the driver, the justification to get to the point where your armies are massed at the border, poised to strike, is nationalism. Why you think that transmogrifies and nationalism as a concept is absolved when a border is crossed is eccentric, I think.
Re Sean F's point that older empires were built 'pre-nationalism', if I can put it that way. As a species we have always been able to persuade ourselves to wage aggressive war to enhance the power and wealth of whatever structure we happen to be in, be that a city state, an empire, whatever. In a modern context that is through a strong identification with the nation state, hence nationalism, but it's an impulse that is as old as time and very human.
Historically, imperialism has not involved much in the way of nationalism. That's a fairly recent thing.
The Hapsburgs, Ottomans, Moghuls etc. built mighty empires without much in the way of a nationalistic motivation.
Nationalism has both driven, and been driven by, the expansion in the franchise. Ultimately, it works to end empires, because the subject people conclude "why can't we govern ourselves?"
Exactly, nationalism has been a force for good in the world that has led to democracy and the post-imperial age.
I think that an empire that is founded upon nationalism, and whose motherland is a democracy, contains the seeds of its own destruction.
Its subjects will study at universities where both democracy and nationalism are disseminated, and bring those ideas back home. Essentially, that's how the British Empire dissolved so rapidly.
This fact was recognised as far back as the Pelopennesian War, when Cleon told the Athenians, that "your empire is exercised over unwilling subjects." Empires based upon loyalty to a religion, like the Islamic Caliphate, or on loyalty to a ruling dynasty, can last far longer.
Second cabinet minister to attend the conference. The Nationalkonservative Britische Rentnerpartei have gone mainstream.
Well worth reading their Statement of Principles.
A couple I found particularly funny including:
"Among the causes [of the threats to the wellbeing and sustainability of democratic nations] are an unconstrained individualism that regards children as a burden, while encouraging ever more radical forms of sexual license and experimentation as an alternative to the responsibilities of family and congregational life."
This has religious fundamentalist preacher condemning homosexuality turning out to be gay written all over it.
Reminds me of a tiny number of posters here whom I won't name, but utterly alien and balmy to everyone else.
The Conservatives are at their best way they embrace individualism. Collectivism should be the preserve of the socialists, not the Tories.
Support for family life, marriage and children is not economic collectivism but a core conservative value. That can include homosexuals who are married with children too now of course.
Conservatism is not socialism but nor is it libertarianism either as Liz Truss quickly discovered
"The traditional family, built around a lifelong bond between a man and a woman, and on a lifelong bond between parents and children, is the foundation of all other achievements of our civilization."
Built around, of course as for centuries the family has been built around lifelong bond between man and woman and parents and chidren. Homosexuality was still illegal 100 years ago and divorce, except for the very wealthy who could afford the legal fees, unheard of.
Now the reference to family and marriage can include homosexuals too, note it says 'built around' not 'exclusive to'
Was it illegal in Troy?
Homosexual marriage certainly wasn't legal in Troy
Now I might have forgotten my Iliad but I don’t remember reading that. What’s your source?
Second cabinet minister to attend the conference. The Nationalkonservative Britische Rentnerpartei have gone mainstream.
Well worth reading their Statement of Principles.
A couple I found particularly funny including:
"Among the causes [of the threats to the wellbeing and sustainability of democratic nations] are an unconstrained individualism that regards children as a burden, while encouraging ever more radical forms of sexual license and experimentation as an alternative to the responsibilities of family and congregational life."
This has religious fundamentalist preacher condemning homosexuality turning out to be gay written all over it.
Reminds me of a tiny number of posters here whom I won't name, but utterly alien and balmy to everyone else.
The Conservatives are at their best way they embrace individualism. Collectivism should be the preserve of the socialists, not the Tories.
Support for family life, marriage and children is not economic collectivism but a core conservative value. That can include homosexuals who are married with children too now of course.
Conservatism is not socialism but nor is it libertarianism either as Liz Truss quickly discovered
"The traditional family, built around a lifelong bond between a man and a woman, and on a lifelong bond between parents and children, is the foundation of all other achievements of our civilization."
Built around, of course as for centuries the family has been built around lifelong bond between man and woman and parents and chidren. Homosexuality was still illegal 100 years ago and divorce, except for the very wealthy who could afford the legal fees, unheard of.
Now the reference to family and marriage can include homosexuals too, note it says 'built around' not 'exclusive to'
Was it illegal in Troy?
Homosexual marriage certainly wasn't legal in Troy
It was in Sparta. And Thebes.
There were instances of homosexuality, not full legal homosexual marriage and Sparta of course was still not Troy
People in a free society can choose their nationality ...
If only people like you had the slightest sense of irony or self-awareness ... !
I have both, I'm just not sure what someone as ignorant as you is trying to make as your point.
I've lived in multiple countries and chosen to make this one my home. Its where I was born, but could have settled elsewhere. I have family in multiple nations, who have taken citizenship of the countries they've moved to.
People are free, within reason, to change countries. Nationalism is no more and no less than a belief that the best people to choose who to run a country, is the people of that country. That the best people to choose who to run India is Indians, Polands is Poles etc. Nationalism at its best is an anti-imperialist belief.
Imperialism is a belief that your nation should run other countries, India should be ran by Britain, etc.
The Nazis were anti-Nationalist. They were imperialist. They didn't want Poland ran by Poles, they wanted it ran by Germans. Same as the USSR. Countries like Poland etc were only free of imperialist oversight once they had national self-control via independence, rather than being compelled by force to be subjects of Russia, or Germany, or anyone else.
I suggest one runs from the other.
A Google search for the definition of nationalism throws up 'identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations'.
So if you accept that, I think that then mindset promotes imperialism. Again, Goole throws up as a definition of imperialism as 'a policy of extending a country's power and influence through colonization, use of military force, or other means'.
So, if you are primarily concerned with your nation's interests at the exclusion of those of other nations, it isn't a great leap to persuade yourself that extending your nation's power, wealth, etc, through colonising other countries and building an empire is a good, and justifiable, thing.
I think you would be hard pressed to persuade most informed people that the Nazis were anti-Nationalists. The accepted view I think is that they were extreme nationalists. See the concept of 'Volksgemeinschaft', for example. The party itself emerged from a volatile soup of extreme nationalist groups that had been around in Germany for some time before WW1.
I don't accept "especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations".
Gandhi was a nationalist, he wanted India to be ran by Indians instead of Brits. How was that to the detriment of other nations?
Politically I may agree with Churchill on more than I agree with Gandhi, but on a nationalism basis I agree with Gandhi not Churchill. They should be free to run their own country, not have it ran by us. Just as the Poles should be free to run their own country, not Germans or Russians.
There are plenty of nationalists who are content to remain within their borders. Those that aren't often try to colonise other countries, to build empires. Fight wars for territory or resources.
There are all sorts of justifications humans can use to persuade ourselves that it is right and proper to make our country more powerful, we are very good at that. Doesn't mean it isn't ultimately fuelled by nationalism.
Yes it does. The second you step beyond your borders it ceases to be nationalism and starts to be imperialism.
Nationalism can be claimed validly by the defender, not the aggressor. Ukraine is perfectly and entirely within her rights to defend herself from Russian aggression.
Putin, like Hitler or any other imperialistic aggressor before him is not seeking to defend the Russian nation however much he falsely claims it, he's seeking to aggressively expand his own power. Just because an aggressor lies, does not make that lie the truth.
'The second you step beyond your borders it ceases to be nationalism and starts to be imperialism'.
So the catalyst for imperialism, the driver, the justification to get to the point where your armies are massed at the border, poised to strike, is nationalism. Why you think that transmogrifies and nationalism as a concept is absolved when a border is crossed is eccentric, I think.
Re Sean F's point that older empires were built 'pre-nationalism', if I can put it that way. As a species we have always been able to persuade ourselves to wage aggressive war to enhance the power and wealth of whatever structure we happen to be in, be that a city state, an empire, whatever. In a modern context that is through a strong identification with the nation state, hence nationalism, but it's an impulse that is as old as time and very human.
Nationalism is an extremely potent ideology, one that trumps religious allegiance, or class solidarity. Communists have only ever been able to defeat nationalists, by adopting nationalism as part of their appeal to the masses.
The North Coast line is split-personality. To your south is the beautiful North Welsh landscape. To your north is a long string of rubbish towns and villages, a gray sea, and wind farms. A very elongated Thurrock. Oh look, a used-car salesman lot with some colourful pennants. Does not help. The archetype of the County Lines drugdealer corridor. I'm not going to describe the stations because you're not getting out. Sorry BigG, but you're in Anglesey which is nicer
So much to answer for
Liverpool. Nice station. I like Liverpool
Manchester. Rubbish station. I hate Manchester
[narrator: in fact they are very similar]
Good afternoon
I recognise your description, but as soon as you drive down the A55 from Llanddulas you enter a beautiful coastline with the newly sanded sweeping beaches of Colwyn Bay to Rhos on Sea then continuing towards Penrhyn Bay with the Little Orme rising in front, the sea to your right and the wonderful mountains to your left
Driving over the Little Orme you immediately see the fantastic Victorian promenade of Llandudno and the magnificent Great Orme behind
This is where we live and have done for 58 years and to be fair it is not Anglesey which is beyond Bangor and across the Menai Straights
So much has changed in the last few years I strongly recommend the drive down the A55 from Llanddulas to Colwyn Bay, then join the promenade through Rhos on Sea to Penrhyn Bay and Llandudno
I left out East Croydon. Apologies. Good platforms, good disabled access with the sloping walkways, tramstop immediately outside, and a tower made of fifty-pences. https://hidden-london.com/nuggets/50p-building/
Lots of good pubs in Croydon. Both to the north of East Croydon station and also to the south west around and beyond the shopping area.
Second cabinet minister to attend the conference. The Nationalkonservative Britische Rentnerpartei have gone mainstream.
Well worth reading their Statement of Principles.
A couple I found particularly funny including:
"Among the causes [of the threats to the wellbeing and sustainability of democratic nations] are an unconstrained individualism that regards children as a burden, while encouraging ever more radical forms of sexual license and experimentation as an alternative to the responsibilities of family and congregational life."
This has religious fundamentalist preacher condemning homosexuality turning out to be gay written all over it.
Reminds me of a tiny number of posters here whom I won't name, but utterly alien and balmy to everyone else.
The Conservatives are at their best way they embrace individualism. Collectivism should be the preserve of the socialists, not the Tories.
Support for family life, marriage and children is not economic collectivism but a core conservative value. That can include homosexuals who are married with children too now of course.
Conservatism is not socialism but nor is it libertarianism either as Liz Truss quickly discovered
"The traditional family, built around a lifelong bond between a man and a woman, and on a lifelong bond between parents and children, is the foundation of all other achievements of our civilization."
Built around, of course as for centuries the family has been built around lifelong bond between man and woman and parents and chidren. Homosexuality was still illegal 100 years ago and divorce, except for the very wealthy who could afford the legal fees, unheard of.
Now the reference to family and marriage can include homosexuals too, note it says 'built around' not 'exclusive to'
Was it illegal in Troy?
Homosexual marriage certainly wasn't legal in Troy
Now I might have forgotten my Iliad but I don’t remember reading that. What’s your source?
Nero and Elagalabus are the only people in the ancient world who underwent same sex marriages, that I can think of. Public opinion was not impressed.
Historically, imperialism has not involved much in the way of nationalism. That's a fairly recent thing.
The Hapsburgs, Ottomans, Moghuls etc. built mighty empires without much in the way of a nationalistic motivation.
Nationalism has both driven, and been driven by, the expansion in the franchise. Ultimately, it works to end empires, because the subject people conclude "why can't we govern ourselves?"
The post WWII nation state is also a rather different beast than its 19th century forbear.
The post WWII nation state was much more ethnically homogeneous. This has only been eroded relatively recently.
I am now going to ruin everything by drinking “Egyptian single malt whisky”
Where are you Leon?
Excuse my prior jibe, but I was only transferring my own experiences. Restaurants and Hotels that master the single traveller experience will in the future coin it, in my view.
Four Seasons San Stefano Alexandria. Beachfront villa with pool
This is seriously premium shit
It does look great. The ocean though... you have to share that?
I think I can safely say that you have added a hotel in a destination to my list. (I may never go though because it's so hot)
People in a free society can choose their nationality ...
If only people like you had the slightest sense of irony or self-awareness ... !
I have both, I'm just not sure what someone as ignorant as you is trying to make as your point.
I've lived in multiple countries and chosen to make this one my home. Its where I was born, but could have settled elsewhere. I have family in multiple nations, who have taken citizenship of the countries they've moved to.
People are free, within reason, to change countries. Nationalism is no more and no less than a belief that the best people to choose who to run a country, is the people of that country. That the best people to choose who to run India is Indians, Polands is Poles etc. Nationalism at its best is an anti-imperialist belief.
Imperialism is a belief that your nation should run other countries, India should be ran by Britain, etc.
The Nazis were anti-Nationalist. They were imperialist. They didn't want Poland ran by Poles, they wanted it ran by Germans. Same as the USSR. Countries like Poland etc were only free of imperialist oversight once they had national self-control via independence, rather than being compelled by force to be subjects of Russia, or Germany, or anyone else.
I suggest one runs from the other.
A Google search for the definition of nationalism throws up 'identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations'.
So if you accept that, I think that then mindset promotes imperialism. Again, Goole throws up as a definition of imperialism as 'a policy of extending a country's power and influence through colonization, use of military force, or other means'.
So, if you are primarily concerned with your nation's interests at the exclusion of those of other nations, it isn't a great leap to persuade yourself that extending your nation's power, wealth, etc, through colonising other countries and building an empire is a good, and justifiable, thing.
I think you would be hard pressed to persuade most informed people that the Nazis were anti-Nationalists. The accepted view I think is that they were extreme nationalists. See the concept of 'Volksgemeinschaft', for example. The party itself emerged from a volatile soup of extreme nationalist groups that had been around in Germany for some time before WW1.
I don't accept "especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations".
Gandhi was a nationalist, he wanted India to be ran by Indians instead of Brits. How was that to the detriment of other nations?
Politically I may agree with Churchill on more than I agree with Gandhi, but on a nationalism basis I agree with Gandhi not Churchill. They should be free to run their own country, not have it ran by us. Just as the Poles should be free to run their own country, not Germans or Russians.
There are plenty of nationalists who are content to remain within their borders. Those that aren't often try to colonise other countries, to build empires. Fight wars for territory or resources.
There are all sorts of justifications humans can use to persuade ourselves that it is right and proper to make our country more powerful, we are very good at that. Doesn't mean it isn't ultimately fuelled by nationalism.
Yes it does. The second you step beyond your borders it ceases to be nationalism and starts to be imperialism.
Nationalism can be claimed validly by the defender, not the aggressor. Ukraine is perfectly and entirely within her rights to defend herself from Russian aggression.
Putin, like Hitler or any other imperialistic aggressor before him is not seeking to defend the Russian nation however much he falsely claims it, he's seeking to aggressively expand his own power. Just because an aggressor lies, does not make that lie the truth.
'The second you step beyond your borders it ceases to be nationalism and starts to be imperialism'.
So the catalyst for imperialism, the driver, the justification to get to the point where your armies are massed at the border, poised to strike, is nationalism. Why you think that transmogrifies and nationalism as a concept is absolved when a border is crossed is eccentric, I think.
Re Sean F's point that older empires were built 'pre-nationalism', if I can put it that way. As a species we have always been able to persuade ourselves to wage aggressive war to enhance the power and wealth of whatever structure we happen to be in, be that a city state, an empire, whatever. In a modern context that is through a strong identification with the nation state, hence nationalism, but it's an impulse that is as old as time and very human.
Nationalism is an extremely potent ideology, one that trumps religious allegiance, or class solidarity. Communists have only ever been able to defeat nationalists, by adopting nationalism as part of their appeal to the masses.
It is! Though does it always trump religious allegiance?
I think we love to belong to a tribe, and we have, and always will be, susceptible to persuasion that our tribe is better than that other tribe, and we are justified to take their stuff. There'll always be an ideology to latch on to.
I am now going to ruin everything by drinking “Egyptian single malt whisky”
Where are you Leon?
Excuse my prior jibe, but I was only transferring my own experiences. Restaurants and Hotels that master the single traveller experience will in the future coin it, in my view.
Four Seasons San Stefano Alexandria. Beachfront villa with pool
This is seriously premium shit
It does look great. The ocean though... you have to share that?
I think I can safely say that you have added a hotel in a destination to my list. (I may never go though because it's so hot)
Having just looked at prices - not that bad and probably way cheaper than a lot of places if you want winter sun.
Second cabinet minister to attend the conference. The Nationalkonservative Britische Rentnerpartei have gone mainstream.
Well worth reading their Statement of Principles.
A couple I found particularly funny including:
"Among the causes [of the threats to the wellbeing and sustainability of democratic nations] are an unconstrained individualism that regards children as a burden, while encouraging ever more radical forms of sexual license and experimentation as an alternative to the responsibilities of family and congregational life."
This has religious fundamentalist preacher condemning homosexuality turning out to be gay written all over it.
Reminds me of a tiny number of posters here whom I won't name, but utterly alien and balmy to everyone else.
The Conservatives are at their best way they embrace individualism. Collectivism should be the preserve of the socialists, not the Tories.
Support for family life, marriage and children is not economic collectivism but a core conservative value. That can include homosexuals who are married with children too now of course.
Conservatism is not socialism but nor is it libertarianism either as Liz Truss quickly discovered
"The traditional family, built around a lifelong bond between a man and a woman, and on a lifelong bond between parents and children, is the foundation of all other achievements of our civilization."
Built around, of course as for centuries the family has been built around lifelong bond between man and woman and parents and chidren. Homosexuality was still illegal 100 years ago and divorce, except for the very wealthy who could afford the legal fees, unheard of.
Now the reference to family and marriage can include homosexuals too, note it says 'built around' not 'exclusive to'
Was it illegal in Troy?
Homosexual marriage certainly wasn't legal in Troy
I left out East Croydon. Apologies. Good platforms, good disabled access with the sloping walkways, tramstop immediately outside, and a tower made of fifty-pences. https://hidden-london.com/nuggets/50p-building/
Lots of good pubs in Croydon. Both to the north of East Croydon station and also to the south west around and beyond the shopping area.
I know. Nice place, and borderline affordable, or was a few years ago: too afraid to look now...
The North Coast line is split-personality. To your south is the beautiful North Welsh landscape. To your north is a long string of rubbish towns and villages, a gray sea, and wind farms. A very elongated Thurrock. Oh look, a used-car salesman lot with some colourful pennants. Does not help. The archetype of the County Lines drugdealer corridor. I'm not going to describe the stations because you're not getting out. Sorry BigG, but you're in Anglesey which is nicer
So much to answer for
Liverpool. Nice station. I like Liverpool
Manchester. Rubbish station. I hate Manchester
[narrator: in fact they are very similar]
Good afternoon
I recognise your description, but as soon as you drive down the A55 from Llanddulas you enter a beautiful coastline with the newly sanded sweeping beaches of Colwyn Bay to Rhos on Sea then continuing towards Penrhyn Bay with the Little Orme rising in front, the sea to your right and the wonderful mountains to your left
Driving over the Little Orme you immediately see the fantastic Victorian promenade of Llandudno and the magnificent Great Orme behind
This is where we live and have done for 58 years and to be fair it is not Anglesey which is beyond Bangor and across the Menai Straights
So much has changed in the last few years I strongly recommend the drive down the A55 from Llanddulas to Colwyn Bay, then join the promenade through Rhos on Sea to Penrhyn Bay and Llandudno
People in a free society can choose their nationality ...
If only people like you had the slightest sense of irony or self-awareness ... !
I have both, I'm just not sure what someone as ignorant as you is trying to make as your point.
I've lived in multiple countries and chosen to make this one my home. Its where I was born, but could have settled elsewhere. I have family in multiple nations, who have taken citizenship of the countries they've moved to.
People are free, within reason, to change countries. Nationalism is no more and no less than a belief that the best people to choose who to run a country, is the people of that country. That the best people to choose who to run India is Indians, Polands is Poles etc. Nationalism at its best is an anti-imperialist belief.
Imperialism is a belief that your nation should run other countries, India should be ran by Britain, etc.
The Nazis were anti-Nationalist. They were imperialist. They didn't want Poland ran by Poles, they wanted it ran by Germans. Same as the USSR. Countries like Poland etc were only free of imperialist oversight once they had national self-control via independence, rather than being compelled by force to be subjects of Russia, or Germany, or anyone else.
I suggest one runs from the other.
A Google search for the definition of nationalism throws up 'identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations'.
So if you accept that, I think that then mindset promotes imperialism. Again, Goole throws up as a definition of imperialism as 'a policy of extending a country's power and influence through colonization, use of military force, or other means'.
So, if you are primarily concerned with your nation's interests at the exclusion of those of other nations, it isn't a great leap to persuade yourself that extending your nation's power, wealth, etc, through colonising other countries and building an empire is a good, and justifiable, thing.
I think you would be hard pressed to persuade most informed people that the Nazis were anti-Nationalists. The accepted view I think is that they were extreme nationalists. See the concept of 'Volksgemeinschaft', for example. The party itself emerged from a volatile soup of extreme nationalist groups that had been around in Germany for some time before WW1.
I don't accept "especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations".
Gandhi was a nationalist, he wanted India to be ran by Indians instead of Brits. How was that to the detriment of other nations?
Politically I may agree with Churchill on more than I agree with Gandhi, but on a nationalism basis I agree with Gandhi not Churchill. They should be free to run their own country, not have it ran by us. Just as the Poles should be free to run their own country, not Germans or Russians.
There are plenty of nationalists who are content to remain within their borders. Those that aren't often try to colonise other countries, to build empires. Fight wars for territory or resources.
There are all sorts of justifications humans can use to persuade ourselves that it is right and proper to make our country more powerful, we are very good at that. Doesn't mean it isn't ultimately fuelled by nationalism.
Yes it does. The second you step beyond your borders it ceases to be nationalism and starts to be imperialism.
Nationalism can be claimed validly by the defender, not the aggressor. Ukraine is perfectly and entirely within her rights to defend herself from Russian aggression.
Putin, like Hitler or any other imperialistic aggressor before him is not seeking to defend the Russian nation however much he falsely claims it, he's seeking to aggressively expand his own power. Just because an aggressor lies, does not make that lie the truth.
'The second you step beyond your borders it ceases to be nationalism and starts to be imperialism'.
So the catalyst for imperialism, the driver, the justification to get to the point where your armies are massed at the border, poised to strike, is nationalism. Why you think that transmogrifies and nationalism as a concept is absolved when a border is crossed is eccentric, I think.
Re Sean F's point that older empires were built 'pre-nationalism', if I can put it that way. As a species we have always been able to persuade ourselves to wage aggressive war to enhance the power and wealth of whatever structure we happen to be in, be that a city state, an empire, whatever. In a modern context that is through a strong identification with the nation state, hence nationalism, but it's an impulse that is as old as time and very human.
Nationalism is an extremely potent ideology, one that trumps religious allegiance, or class solidarity. Communists have only ever been able to defeat nationalists, by adopting nationalism as part of their appeal to the masses.
It is! Though does it always trump religious allegiance?
I think we love to belong to a tribe, and we have, and always will be, susceptible to persuasion that our tribe is better than that other tribe, and we are justified to take their stuff. There'll always be an ideology to latch on to.
There were nationalistic peoples in the past (such as the Romans, and some Greek states. Indeed, I'd say the ancient world likewise shows nationalism is a feature of places that are, at least in part, democratic).
What really turbocharged nationalism in the modern world was the French Revolution.
Pre-Revolution, the upper classes of Germany and Russia spoke French, were versed in French, Italian, and Spanish culture, and used their own tongue only to communicate with servants. They despised literary works written in the vernacular. Post-Revolution, they Germanised and Russified everything.
There was a popular 19th century German song "Where is the German Fatherland?" It concludes that the German Fatherland exists wherever a German is named "freund" and a Frenchman is named "Fiend". Frederick the Great would have been horrified by such an outlook.
If anyone wants to join me I think the villa next door is empty. £900 a night
So having checked that hotel out Booking.com offers other local options.
It's nice to see Egypt are still following the old Turkish trick of building the main road right by the beach so you need to cross a stupidly busy road to get between the hotel and said beach. Now there are probably reasons why you don't want hotel residents going to the beach but even so...
I am now going to ruin everything by drinking “Egyptian single malt whisky”
Where are you Leon?
Excuse my prior jibe, but I was only transferring my own experiences. Restaurants and Hotels that master the single traveller experience will in the future coin it, in my view.
Four Seasons San Stefano Alexandria. Beachfront villa with pool
This is seriously premium shit
It does look great. The ocean though... you have to share that?
I think I can safely say that you have added a hotel in a destination to my list. (I may never go though because it's so hot)
I think Alexandria is something of an acquired taste. Great history but the modern day reality is “challenging”
I wouldn’t come here for more than a couple of days and only then if you’re really into the conceptual Greco-Roman-Arab-Jewish-Franco-British weirdness
The Egyptians have successfully ruined two magnificent cities. Cairo and Alex. The country’s present day population is 106 million which is probably 5 or 6 times what it should be
Alexandria was apparently quite heavenly until about 1920
In the circumstances, this poll is a bit of a relief for the Tories.
This poll and another recently showed an increase in the LDs and a drop in Lab. It might be that is a reflection of awareness of tactical voting after the locals so Lab losing votes to the LDs where it doesn't matter to Lab. If correct this is bad news for the Tories.
I left out East Croydon. Apologies. Good platforms, good disabled access with the sloping walkways, tramstop immediately outside, and a tower made of fifty-pences. https://hidden-london.com/nuggets/50p-building/
Lots of good pubs in Croydon. Both to the north of East Croydon station and also to the south west around and beyond the shopping area.
I know. Nice place, and borderline affordable, or was a few years ago: too afraid to look now...
Ludicrously expensive like virtually everywhere in Greater London!
Second cabinet minister to attend the conference. The Nationalkonservative Britische Rentnerpartei have gone mainstream.
Well worth reading their Statement of Principles.
A couple I found particularly funny including:
"Among the causes [of the threats to the wellbeing and sustainability of democratic nations] are an unconstrained individualism that regards children as a burden, while encouraging ever more radical forms of sexual license and experimentation as an alternative to the responsibilities of family and congregational life."
This has religious fundamentalist preacher condemning homosexuality turning out to be gay written all over it.
Reminds me of a tiny number of posters here whom I won't name, but utterly alien and balmy to everyone else.
The Conservatives are at their best way they embrace individualism. Collectivism should be the preserve of the socialists, not the Tories.
Support for family life, marriage and children is not economic collectivism but a core conservative value. That can include homosexuals who are married with children too now of course.
Conservatism is not socialism but nor is it libertarianism either as Liz Truss quickly discovered
"The traditional family, built around a lifelong bond between a man and a woman, and on a lifelong bond between parents and children, is the foundation of all other achievements of our civilization."
Built around, of course as for centuries the family has been built around lifelong bond between man and woman and parents and chidren. Homosexuality was still illegal 100 years ago and divorce, except for the very wealthy who could afford the legal fees, unheard of.
Now the reference to family and marriage can include homosexuals too, note it says 'built around' not 'exclusive to'
Was it illegal in Troy?
Homosexual marriage certainly wasn't legal in Troy
It was in Sparta. And Thebes.
HYUFD appears to have an access to the laws of Troy as yet undiscovered by mere ancient historians.
Historically, imperialism has not involved much in the way of nationalism. That's a fairly recent thing.
The Hapsburgs, Ottomans, Moghuls etc. built mighty empires without much in the way of a nationalistic motivation.
Nationalism has both driven, and been driven by, the expansion in the franchise. Ultimately, it works to end empires, because the subject people conclude "why can't we govern ourselves?"
The post WWII nation state is also a rather different beast than its 19th century forbear.
The post WWII nation state was much more ethnically homogeneous. This has only been eroded relatively recently.
Only really if you're talking about Europe - and much of that was at Stalin's behest, which had more to do with facilitating control of his empire than any more uplifting principle.
I am now going to ruin everything by drinking “Egyptian single malt whisky”
Where are you Leon?
Excuse my prior jibe, but I was only transferring my own experiences. Restaurants and Hotels that master the single traveller experience will in the future coin it, in my view.
Four Seasons San Stefano Alexandria. Beachfront villa with pool
This is seriously premium shit
It does look great. The ocean though... you have to share that?
I think I can safely say that you have added a hotel in a destination to my list. (I may never go though because it's so hot)
I think Alexandria is something of an acquired taste. Great history but the modern day reality is “challenging”
I wouldn’t come here for more than a couple of days and only then if you’re really into the conceptual Greco-Roman-Arab-Jewish-Franco-British weirdness
The Egyptians have successfully ruined two magnificent cities. Cairo and Alex. The country’s present day population is 106 million which is probably 5 or 6 times what it should be
Alexandria was apparently quite heavenly until about 1920
Lawrence Durrell wrote a lot on Alexandria, including some good poems too, as I remember.
Both Yanis Varoufakis and the neo-classical Greek poet Cavafy are from Alexandrian Greek famiies. Also Demis Roussos.
If anyone wants to join me I think the villa next door is empty. £900 a night
So having checked that hotel out Booking.com offers other local options.
It's nice to see Egypt are still following the old Turkish trick of building the main road right by the beach so you need to cross a stupidly busy road to get between the hotel and said beach. Now there are probably reasons why you don't want hotel residents going to the beach but even so...
Yes. There’s a whacking great motorway along the seafront. What a disaster
My villa is right on the sea BUT I have to get a buggy via “the tunnel” to actually reach the hotel - if I don’t want to get run over
I am now going to ruin everything by drinking “Egyptian single malt whisky”
Where are you Leon?
Excuse my prior jibe, but I was only transferring my own experiences. Restaurants and Hotels that master the single traveller experience will in the future coin it, in my view.
Four Seasons San Stefano Alexandria. Beachfront villa with pool
This is seriously premium shit
It does look great. The ocean though... you have to share that?
I think I can safely say that you have added a hotel in a destination to my list. (I may never go though because it's so hot)
I think Alexandria is something of an acquired taste. Great history but the modern day reality is “challenging”
I wouldn’t come here for more than a couple of days and only then if you’re really into the conceptual Greco-Roman-Arab-Jewish-Franco-British weirdness
The Egyptians have successfully ruined two magnificent cities. Cairo and Alex. The country’s present day population is 106 million which is probably 5 or 6 times what it should be
Alexandria was apparently quite heavenly until about 1920
Evocative names of course. I think that my Grandfather shipped to Alexandria, and then was part of the fighting up into Palestine and Jerusalem towards the end of WW1 - and then possibly shipped off to Italy. He was in the artillery.
My pre-conceptions simply come from the film Lawrence of Arabia.
Talking of cultural Marxism and the necessity of social equality, I have just been given my own villa on the seafront at Alexandria, courtesy of the Four Seasons hotel
Did you ask them to take the extra place settings away as you will just be the one?
Maybe they expect me to *meet someone*?
It really is exceptionally pleasant. I suspect this is the best hotel room in the entire city. I am getting grade A1 levels of grovelling
Is the pool yours or shared between you and other bungalows?
I don't think you could get people to share with @Leon. Indeed, they've probably cordoned off the area to avoid him frightening the other guests with wild tails of his PB exploits.
Second cabinet minister to attend the conference. The Nationalkonservative Britische Rentnerpartei have gone mainstream.
Well worth reading their Statement of Principles.
A couple I found particularly funny including:
"Among the causes [of the threats to the wellbeing and sustainability of democratic nations] are an unconstrained individualism that regards children as a burden, while encouraging ever more radical forms of sexual license and experimentation as an alternative to the responsibilities of family and congregational life."
This has religious fundamentalist preacher condemning homosexuality turning out to be gay written all over it.
Reminds me of a tiny number of posters here whom I won't name, but utterly alien and balmy to everyone else.
The Conservatives are at their best way they embrace individualism. Collectivism should be the preserve of the socialists, not the Tories.
Support for family life, marriage and children is not economic collectivism but a core conservative value. That can include homosexuals who are married with children too now of course.
Conservatism is not socialism but nor is it libertarianism either as Liz Truss quickly discovered
"The traditional family, built around a lifelong bond between a man and a woman, and on a lifelong bond between parents and children, is the foundation of all other achievements of our civilization."
Built around, of course as for centuries the family has been built around lifelong bond between man and woman and parents and chidren. Homosexuality was still illegal 100 years ago and divorce, except for the very wealthy who could afford the legal fees, unheard of.
Now the reference to family and marriage can include homosexuals too, note it says 'built around' not 'exclusive to'
Was it illegal in Troy?
Homosexual marriage certainly wasn't legal in Troy
It was in Sparta. And Thebes.
HYUFD appears to have an access to the laws of Troy as yet undiscovered by mere ancient historians.
Historically, imperialism has not involved much in the way of nationalism. That's a fairly recent thing.
The Hapsburgs, Ottomans, Moghuls etc. built mighty empires without much in the way of a nationalistic motivation.
Nationalism has both driven, and been driven by, the expansion in the franchise. Ultimately, it works to end empires, because the subject people conclude "why can't we govern ourselves?"
The post WWII nation state is also a rather different beast than its 19th century forbear.
The post WWII nation state was much more ethnically homogeneous. This has only been eroded relatively recently.
Only really if you're talking about Europe - and much of that was at Stalin's behest, which had more to do with facilitating control of his empire than any more uplifting principle.
19th Century nationalists tended to be assimilationists. So, the French went to great lengths to Francify the Bretons, Alsatians, Occitans, etc. The Prussians tried to Germanise the Poles. The Russians tried to Russify the Finns, and other nationalities.
Expulsion, or worst of all, extermination, were 20th century ideas.
On the subject of Egypt, very early this morning @Nigelb posted a fabulous article on (a) making desert areas more fertile, (b) ameliorating global warming, (c) generating cheap electricity and (d) doing all this without requiring people to change their lifestyles.
Historically, imperialism has not involved much in the way of nationalism. That's a fairly recent thing.
The Hapsburgs, Ottomans, Moghuls etc. built mighty empires without much in the way of a nationalistic motivation.
Nationalism has both driven, and been driven by, the expansion in the franchise. Ultimately, it works to end empires, because the subject people conclude "why can't we govern ourselves?"
Otoh the British were/are keen on putting the British into the BE.
Weymouth: the train goes down a street in the town which they have to close.
Sadly they've lifted the tracks for that bit now.
Cornwall has some charming little stations
The whole branch line to St Ives. Especially St ives itself above the beach
Some of the tiny stations along the Falmouth Truro line, also the line to Looe
And Penzance! Which really does feel like the end of Britain. The terminus of everything. And a view of St Michael’s Mount in the Bay as you exit
St. Ives also has the most beautifully situated bus stop I have ever come across.
But, you know, it's still a bus stop. The bathos of this image. There's no practical reason why bus shouldn't be a perfectly good means of getting around. Especially in rural areas, in transport planning terms it usually makes much more sense than a train. And yet. The mundanity. The dreary, run-by-the-council joylessness. Even the meanest, graffiti-strewn round-the-back-of-an-industrial-estate one-train-a-week station contains more excitement and promise and romance than this. That's not to say I'd rather BE at Denton Station than this particular bus stop - but the promise of a bus journey just can't stir the soul in the same way.
I am now going to ruin everything by drinking “Egyptian single malt whisky”
Where are you Leon?
Excuse my prior jibe, but I was only transferring my own experiences. Restaurants and Hotels that master the single traveller experience will in the future coin it, in my view.
Four Seasons San Stefano Alexandria. Beachfront villa with pool
This is seriously premium shit
It does look great. The ocean though... you have to share that?
I think I can safely say that you have added a hotel in a destination to my list. (I may never go though because it's so hot)
I think Alexandria is something of an acquired taste. Great history but the modern day reality is “challenging”
I wouldn’t come here for more than a couple of days and only then if you’re really into the conceptual Greco-Roman-Arab-Jewish-Franco-British weirdness
The Egyptians have successfully ruined two magnificent cities. Cairo and Alex. The country’s present day population is 106 million which is probably 5 or 6 times what it should be
Alexandria was apparently quite heavenly until about 1920
Evocative names of course. I think that my Grandfather shipped to Alexandria, and then was part of the fighting up into Palestine and Jerusalem towards the end of WW1 - and then possibly shipped off to Italy. He was in the artillery.
My pre-conceptions simply come from the film Lawrence of Arabia.
The tragedy is that you can see traces of what it was. Crumbling old Greek villas. Italianate houses hidden behind new slums
I’m reading this book which is absolutely brutal on the destruction of Old Alex
Weymouth: the train goes down a street in the town which they have to close.
Sadly they've lifted the tracks for that bit now.
Cornwall has some charming little stations
The whole branch line to St Ives. Especially St ives itself above the beach
Some of the tiny stations along the Falmouth Truro line, also the line to Looe
And Penzance! Which really does feel like the end of Britain. The terminus of everything. And a view of St Michael’s Mount in the Bay as you exit
St. Ives also has the most beautifully situated bus stop I have ever come across.
But, you know, it's still a bus stop. The bathos of this image. There's no practical reason why bus shouldn't be a perfectly good means of getting around. Especially in rural areas, in transport planning terms it usually makes much more sense than a train. And yet. The mundanity. The dreary, run-by-the-council joylessness. Even the meanest, graffiti-strewn round-the-back-of-an-industrial-estate one-train-a-week station contains more excitement and promise and romance than this. That's not to say I'd rather BE at Denton Station than this particular bus stop - but the promise of a bus journey just can't stir the soul in the same way.
People in a free society can choose their nationality ...
If only people like you had the slightest sense of irony or self-awareness ... !
I have both, I'm just not sure what someone as ignorant as you is trying to make as your point.
I've lived in multiple countries and chosen to make this one my home. Its where I was born, but could have settled elsewhere. I have family in multiple nations, who have taken citizenship of the countries they've moved to.
People are free, within reason, to change countries. Nationalism is no more and no less than a belief that the best people to choose who to run a country, is the people of that country. That the best people to choose who to run India is Indians, Polands is Poles etc. Nationalism at its best is an anti-imperialist belief.
Imperialism is a belief that your nation should run other countries, India should be ran by Britain, etc.
The Nazis were anti-Nationalist. They were imperialist. They didn't want Poland ran by Poles, they wanted it ran by Germans. Same as the USSR. Countries like Poland etc were only free of imperialist oversight once they had national self-control via independence, rather than being compelled by force to be subjects of Russia, or Germany, or anyone else.
I suggest one runs from the other.
A Google search for the definition of nationalism throws up 'identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations'.
So if you accept that, I think that then mindset promotes imperialism. Again, Goole throws up as a definition of imperialism as 'a policy of extending a country's power and influence through colonization, use of military force, or other means'.
So, if you are primarily concerned with your nation's interests at the exclusion of those of other nations, it isn't a great leap to persuade yourself that extending your nation's power, wealth, etc, through colonising other countries and building an empire is a good, and justifiable, thing.
I think you would be hard pressed to persuade most informed people that the Nazis were anti-Nationalists. The accepted view I think is that they were extreme nationalists. See the concept of 'Volksgemeinschaft', for example. The party itself emerged from a volatile soup of extreme nationalist groups that had been around in Germany for some time before WW1.
I don't accept "especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations".
Gandhi was a nationalist, he wanted India to be ran by Indians instead of Brits. How was that to the detriment of other nations?
Politically I may agree with Churchill on more than I agree with Gandhi, but on a nationalism basis I agree with Gandhi not Churchill. They should be free to run their own country, not have it ran by us. Just as the Poles should be free to run their own country, not Germans or Russians.
There are plenty of nationalists who are content to remain within their borders. Those that aren't often try to colonise other countries, to build empires. Fight wars for territory or resources.
There are all sorts of justifications humans can use to persuade ourselves that it is right and proper to make our country more powerful, we are very good at that. Doesn't mean it isn't ultimately fuelled by nationalism.
Yes it does. The second you step beyond your borders it ceases to be nationalism and starts to be imperialism.
Nationalism can be claimed validly by the defender, not the aggressor. Ukraine is perfectly and entirely within her rights to defend herself from Russian aggression.
Putin, like Hitler or any other imperialistic aggressor before him is not seeking to defend the Russian nation however much he falsely claims it, he's seeking to aggressively expand his own power. Just because an aggressor lies, does not make that lie the truth.
'The second you step beyond your borders it ceases to be nationalism and starts to be imperialism'.
So the catalyst for imperialism, the driver, the justification to get to the point where your armies are massed at the border, poised to strike, is nationalism. Why you think that transmogrifies and nationalism as a concept is absolved when a border is crossed is eccentric, I think.
Re Sean F's point that older empires were built 'pre-nationalism', if I can put it that way. As a species we have always been able to persuade ourselves to wage aggressive war to enhance the power and wealth of whatever structure we happen to be in, be that a city state, an empire, whatever. In a modern context that is through a strong identification with the nation state, hence nationalism, but it's an impulse that is as old as time and very human.
Nationalism is not remotely the catalyst or driver for imperialism. Imperialism as a concept has existed for thousands of years. Europe has been plagued by Imperialist fighting from the Graeco-Roman age, through the Dark Ages and Charlemagne, to the rise of the Holy Roman Empire, the Spanish, the Portugese, the French and even Dutch empires, and of course the British Empire. The Austro-Hungarian empire, the Prussians, the Ottomans and more. And that's just in Europe, not forgetting the Egyptians, Aztecs, Incas, the Caliphates and other Empires around the globe not centred in Europe.
For thousands of years people who have had power have sought to expand that power and wield it against those who are weaker than themselves and not been able to necessarily unite to defend themselves.
World War One marked the beginning of the end of the Age of Imperialism. Between the wars the Germans attempted to rebound and attempt it again with their Third Reich. World War Two marked the end of the age Age of Imperialism.
We now have a more enlightened age which includes, yes, nationalism. That people who were formerly British subjects around the globe have mostly peacefully and via enlightenment been able to take control of their own destiny. That Ukrainian nationalists are free and able to stand up to aggressors like Putin and say "we are Ukrainian, we are not your subjects, and we will stand up to you".
Imperialism has always existed. Nationalism is a much newer concept historically, and far the better.
Through most of human history if a Putin wanted to invade Ukraine, then they'd have had the force and ability to do so. The sanctity of national borders and that it is so repugnant to use force now to change them is because nationalism has replaced imperialism. That nations respect each others borders now. That is a change for the better.
People in a free society can choose their nationality ...
If only people like you had the slightest sense of irony or self-awareness ... !
I have both, I'm just not sure what someone as ignorant as you is trying to make as your point.
I've lived in multiple countries and chosen to make this one my home. Its where I was born, but could have settled elsewhere. I have family in multiple nations, who have taken citizenship of the countries they've moved to.
People are free, within reason, to change countries. Nationalism is no more and no less than a belief that the best people to choose who to run a country, is the people of that country. That the best people to choose who to run India is Indians, Polands is Poles etc. Nationalism at its best is an anti-imperialist belief.
Imperialism is a belief that your nation should run other countries, India should be ran by Britain, etc.
The Nazis were anti-Nationalist. They were imperialist. They didn't want Poland ran by Poles, they wanted it ran by Germans. Same as the USSR. Countries like Poland etc were only free of imperialist oversight once they had national self-control via independence, rather than being compelled by force to be subjects of Russia, or Germany, or anyone else.
I suggest one runs from the other.
A Google search for the definition of nationalism throws up 'identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations'.
So if you accept that, I think that then mindset promotes imperialism. Again, Goole throws up as a definition of imperialism as 'a policy of extending a country's power and influence through colonization, use of military force, or other means'.
So, if you are primarily concerned with your nation's interests at the exclusion of those of other nations, it isn't a great leap to persuade yourself that extending your nation's power, wealth, etc, through colonising other countries and building an empire is a good, and justifiable, thing.
I think you would be hard pressed to persuade most informed people that the Nazis were anti-Nationalists. The accepted view I think is that they were extreme nationalists. See the concept of 'Volksgemeinschaft', for example. The party itself emerged from a volatile soup of extreme nationalist groups that had been around in Germany for some time before WW1.
I don't accept "especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations".
Gandhi was a nationalist, he wanted India to be ran by Indians instead of Brits. How was that to the detriment of other nations?
Politically I may agree with Churchill on more than I agree with Gandhi, but on a nationalism basis I agree with Gandhi not Churchill. They should be free to run their own country, not have it ran by us. Just as the Poles should be free to run their own country, not Germans or Russians.
There are plenty of nationalists who are content to remain within their borders. Those that aren't often try to colonise other countries, to build empires. Fight wars for territory or resources.
There are all sorts of justifications humans can use to persuade ourselves that it is right and proper to make our country more powerful, we are very good at that. Doesn't mean it isn't ultimately fuelled by nationalism.
Yes it does. The second you step beyond your borders it ceases to be nationalism and starts to be imperialism.
Nationalism can be claimed validly by the defender, not the aggressor. Ukraine is perfectly and entirely within her rights to defend herself from Russian aggression.
Putin, like Hitler or any other imperialistic aggressor before him is not seeking to defend the Russian nation however much he falsely claims it, he's seeking to aggressively expand his own power. Just because an aggressor lies, does not make that lie the truth.
'The second you step beyond your borders it ceases to be nationalism and starts to be imperialism'.
So the catalyst for imperialism, the driver, the justification to get to the point where your armies are massed at the border, poised to strike, is nationalism. Why you think that transmogrifies and nationalism as a concept is absolved when a border is crossed is eccentric, I think.
Re Sean F's point that older empires were built 'pre-nationalism', if I can put it that way. As a species we have always been able to persuade ourselves to wage aggressive war to enhance the power and wealth of whatever structure we happen to be in, be that a city state, an empire, whatever. In a modern context that is through a strong identification with the nation state, hence nationalism, but it's an impulse that is as old as time and very human.
Nationalism is not remotely the catalyst or driver for imperialism. Imperialism as a concept has existed for thousands of years. Europe has been plagued by Imperialist fighting from the Graeco-Roman age, through the Dark Ages and Charlemagne, to the rise of the Holy Roman Empire, the Spanish, the Portugese, the French and even Dutch empires, and of course the British Empire. The Austro-Hungarian empire, the Prussians, the Ottomans and more. And that's just in Europe, not forgetting the Egyptians, Aztecs, Incas, the Caliphates and other Empires around the globe not centred in Europe.
For thousands of years people who have had power have sought to expand that power and wield it against those who are weaker than themselves and not been able to necessarily unite to defend themselves.
World War One marked the beginning of the end of the Age of Imperialism. Between the wars the Germans attempted to rebound and attempt it again with their Third Reich. World War Two marked the end of the age Age of Imperialism.
We now have a more enlightened age which includes, yes, nationalism. That people who were formerly British subjects around the globe have mostly peacefully and via enlightenment been able to take control of their own destiny. That Ukrainian nationalists are free and able to stand up to aggressors like Putin and say "we are Ukrainian, we are not your subjects, and we will stand up to you".
Imperialism has always existed. Nationalism is a much newer concept historically, and far the better.
A nation is “the same people living in the same place”
By that definition Japanese and Han Chinese nationalism has been around for 2000-3000 years at least. The Jews might also like a word. And the English and the French nations go back to 500AD
Weymouth: the train goes down a street in the town which they have to close.
Sadly they've lifted the tracks for that bit now.
Cornwall has some charming little stations
The whole branch line to St Ives. Especially St ives itself above the beach
Some of the tiny stations along the Falmouth Truro line, also the line to Looe
And Penzance! Which really does feel like the end of Britain. The terminus of everything. And a view of St Michael’s Mount in the Bay as you exit
St. Ives also has the most beautifully situated bus stop I have ever come across.
But, you know, it's still a bus stop. The bathos of this image. There's no practical reason why bus shouldn't be a perfectly good means of getting around. Especially in rural areas, in transport planning terms it usually makes much more sense than a train. And yet. The mundanity. The dreary, run-by-the-council joylessness. Even the meanest, graffiti-strewn round-the-back-of-an-industrial-estate one-train-a-week station contains more excitement and promise and romance than this. That's not to say I'd rather BE at Denton Station than this particular bus stop - but the promise of a bus journey just can't stir the soul in the same way.
I raise you..
If you get a bus on Capri you'll be too terrified to notice the views. I suspect they are amazing though!
People in a free society can choose their nationality ...
If only people like you had the slightest sense of irony or self-awareness ... !
I have both, I'm just not sure what someone as ignorant as you is trying to make as your point.
I've lived in multiple countries and chosen to make this one my home. Its where I was born, but could have settled elsewhere. I have family in multiple nations, who have taken citizenship of the countries they've moved to.
People are free, within reason, to change countries. Nationalism is no more and no less than a belief that the best people to choose who to run a country, is the people of that country. That the best people to choose who to run India is Indians, Polands is Poles etc. Nationalism at its best is an anti-imperialist belief.
Imperialism is a belief that your nation should run other countries, India should be ran by Britain, etc.
The Nazis were anti-Nationalist. They were imperialist. They didn't want Poland ran by Poles, they wanted it ran by Germans. Same as the USSR. Countries like Poland etc were only free of imperialist oversight once they had national self-control via independence, rather than being compelled by force to be subjects of Russia, or Germany, or anyone else.
I suggest one runs from the other.
A Google search for the definition of nationalism throws up 'identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations'.
So if you accept that, I think that then mindset promotes imperialism. Again, Goole throws up as a definition of imperialism as 'a policy of extending a country's power and influence through colonization, use of military force, or other means'.
So, if you are primarily concerned with your nation's interests at the exclusion of those of other nations, it isn't a great leap to persuade yourself that extending your nation's power, wealth, etc, through colonising other countries and building an empire is a good, and justifiable, thing.
I think you would be hard pressed to persuade most informed people that the Nazis were anti-Nationalists. The accepted view I think is that they were extreme nationalists. See the concept of 'Volksgemeinschaft', for example. The party itself emerged from a volatile soup of extreme nationalist groups that had been around in Germany for some time before WW1.
I don't accept "especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations".
Gandhi was a nationalist, he wanted India to be ran by Indians instead of Brits. How was that to the detriment of other nations?
Politically I may agree with Churchill on more than I agree with Gandhi, but on a nationalism basis I agree with Gandhi not Churchill. They should be free to run their own country, not have it ran by us. Just as the Poles should be free to run their own country, not Germans or Russians.
There are plenty of nationalists who are content to remain within their borders. Those that aren't often try to colonise other countries, to build empires. Fight wars for territory or resources.
There are all sorts of justifications humans can use to persuade ourselves that it is right and proper to make our country more powerful, we are very good at that. Doesn't mean it isn't ultimately fuelled by nationalism.
Yes it does. The second you step beyond your borders it ceases to be nationalism and starts to be imperialism.
Nationalism can be claimed validly by the defender, not the aggressor. Ukraine is perfectly and entirely within her rights to defend herself from Russian aggression.
Putin, like Hitler or any other imperialistic aggressor before him is not seeking to defend the Russian nation however much he falsely claims it, he's seeking to aggressively expand his own power. Just because an aggressor lies, does not make that lie the truth.
'The second you step beyond your borders it ceases to be nationalism and starts to be imperialism'.
So the catalyst for imperialism, the driver, the justification to get to the point where your armies are massed at the border, poised to strike, is nationalism. Why you think that transmogrifies and nationalism as a concept is absolved when a border is crossed is eccentric, I think.
Re Sean F's point that older empires were built 'pre-nationalism', if I can put it that way. As a species we have always been able to persuade ourselves to wage aggressive war to enhance the power and wealth of whatever structure we happen to be in, be that a city state, an empire, whatever. In a modern context that is through a strong identification with the nation state, hence nationalism, but it's an impulse that is as old as time and very human.
Nationalism is not remotely the catalyst or driver for imperialism. Imperialism as a concept has existed for thousands of years. Europe has been plagued by Imperialist fighting from the Graeco-Roman age, through the Dark Ages and Charlemagne, to the rise of the Holy Roman Empire, the Spanish, the Portugese, the French and even Dutch empires, and of course the British Empire. The Austro-Hungarian empire, the Prussians, the Ottomans and more. And that's just in Europe, not forgetting the Egyptians, Aztecs, Incas, the Caliphates and other Empires around the globe not centred in Europe.
For thousands of years people who have had power have sought to expand that power and wield it against those who are weaker than themselves and not been able to necessarily unite to defend themselves.
World War One marked the beginning of the end of the Age of Imperialism. Between the wars the Germans attempted to rebound and attempt it again with their Third Reich. World War Two marked the end of the age Age of Imperialism.
We now have a more enlightened age which includes, yes, nationalism. That people who were formerly British subjects around the globe have mostly peacefully and via enlightenment been able to take control of their own destiny. That Ukrainian nationalists are free and able to stand up to aggressors like Putin and say "we are Ukrainian, we are not your subjects, and we will stand up to you".
Imperialism has always existed. Nationalism is a much newer concept historically, and far the better.
A nation is “the same people living in the same place”
By that definition Japanese and Han Chinese nationalism has been around for 2000-3000 years at least. The Jews might also like a word. And the English and the French nations go back to 500AD
The nations do, but nationalism and the belief in self-determination and defined national borders do not. That is a much more modern, and enlightened, concept.
Through most of human history if a Putin wanted to invade Ukraine, then they'd have had the force and ability to do so. The sanctity of national borders and that it is so repugnant to use force now to change them is because nationalism has replaced imperialism. That nations respect each others borders now. That is a change for the better.
Weaker nations have always turned to enemies of their enemy for protection. The example of Ukraine is just a continuation of the same paradigm.
In the circumstances, this poll is a bit of a relief for the Tories.
This poll and another recently showed an increase in the LDs and a drop in Lab. It might be that is a reflection of awareness of tactical voting after the locals so Lab losing votes to the LDs where it doesn't matter to Lab. If correct this is bad news for the Tories.
I agree, although at the same time any poll showing the Tories above 30% is arguably better than they might have feared given recent problems they've encountered.
Historically, imperialism has not involved much in the way of nationalism. That's a fairly recent thing.
The Hapsburgs, Ottomans, Moghuls etc. built mighty empires without much in the way of a nationalistic motivation.
Nationalism has both driven, and been driven by, the expansion in the franchise. Ultimately, it works to end empires, because the subject people conclude "why can't we govern ourselves?"
Otoh the British were/are keen on putting the British into the BE.
Well, not really. The British Empire was less British than the Ottoman Empire was Turkish, and less British than the French empire was French. Far more use was made of local bigjobs than in other European empires. And there was certainly very little attempt to make Indians or Nigerians adopt the customs of the home counties (in the mold of assimilationist states above).
People in a free society can choose their nationality ...
If only people like you had the slightest sense of irony or self-awareness ... !
I have both, I'm just not sure what someone as ignorant as you is trying to make as your point.
I've lived in multiple countries and chosen to make this one my home. Its where I was born, but could have settled elsewhere. I have family in multiple nations, who have taken citizenship of the countries they've moved to.
People are free, within reason, to change countries. Nationalism is no more and no less than a belief that the best people to choose who to run a country, is the people of that country. That the best people to choose who to run India is Indians, Polands is Poles etc. Nationalism at its best is an anti-imperialist belief.
Imperialism is a belief that your nation should run other countries, India should be ran by Britain, etc.
The Nazis were anti-Nationalist. They were imperialist. They didn't want Poland ran by Poles, they wanted it ran by Germans. Same as the USSR. Countries like Poland etc were only free of imperialist oversight once they had national self-control via independence, rather than being compelled by force to be subjects of Russia, or Germany, or anyone else.
I suggest one runs from the other.
A Google search for the definition of nationalism throws up 'identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations'.
So if you accept that, I think that then mindset promotes imperialism. Again, Goole throws up as a definition of imperialism as 'a policy of extending a country's power and influence through colonization, use of military force, or other means'.
So, if you are primarily concerned with your nation's interests at the exclusion of those of other nations, it isn't a great leap to persuade yourself that extending your nation's power, wealth, etc, through colonising other countries and building an empire is a good, and justifiable, thing.
I think you would be hard pressed to persuade most informed people that the Nazis were anti-Nationalists. The accepted view I think is that they were extreme nationalists. See the concept of 'Volksgemeinschaft', for example. The party itself emerged from a volatile soup of extreme nationalist groups that had been around in Germany for some time before WW1.
I don't accept "especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations".
Gandhi was a nationalist, he wanted India to be ran by Indians instead of Brits. How was that to the detriment of other nations?
Politically I may agree with Churchill on more than I agree with Gandhi, but on a nationalism basis I agree with Gandhi not Churchill. They should be free to run their own country, not have it ran by us. Just as the Poles should be free to run their own country, not Germans or Russians.
There are plenty of nationalists who are content to remain within their borders. Those that aren't often try to colonise other countries, to build empires. Fight wars for territory or resources.
There are all sorts of justifications humans can use to persuade ourselves that it is right and proper to make our country more powerful, we are very good at that. Doesn't mean it isn't ultimately fuelled by nationalism.
Yes it does. The second you step beyond your borders it ceases to be nationalism and starts to be imperialism.
Nationalism can be claimed validly by the defender, not the aggressor. Ukraine is perfectly and entirely within her rights to defend herself from Russian aggression.
Putin, like Hitler or any other imperialistic aggressor before him is not seeking to defend the Russian nation however much he falsely claims it, he's seeking to aggressively expand his own power. Just because an aggressor lies, does not make that lie the truth.
'The second you step beyond your borders it ceases to be nationalism and starts to be imperialism'.
So the catalyst for imperialism, the driver, the justification to get to the point where your armies are massed at the border, poised to strike, is nationalism. Why you think that transmogrifies and nationalism as a concept is absolved when a border is crossed is eccentric, I think.
Re Sean F's point that older empires were built 'pre-nationalism', if I can put it that way. As a species we have always been able to persuade ourselves to wage aggressive war to enhance the power and wealth of whatever structure we happen to be in, be that a city state, an empire, whatever. In a modern context that is through a strong identification with the nation state, hence nationalism, but it's an impulse that is as old as time and very human.
Nationalism is not remotely the catalyst or driver for imperialism. Imperialism as a concept has existed for thousands of years. Europe has been plagued by Imperialist fighting from the Graeco-Roman age, through the Dark Ages and Charlemagne, to the rise of the Holy Roman Empire, the Spanish, the Portugese, the French and even Dutch empires, and of course the British Empire. The Austro-Hungarian empire, the Prussians, the Ottomans and more. And that's just in Europe, not forgetting the Egyptians, Aztecs, Incas, the Caliphates and other Empires around the globe not centred in Europe.
For thousands of years people who have had power have sought to expand that power and wield it against those who are weaker than themselves and not been able to necessarily unite to defend themselves.
World War One marked the beginning of the end of the Age of Imperialism. Between the wars the Germans attempted to rebound and attempt it again with their Third Reich. World War Two marked the end of the age Age of Imperialism.
We now have a more enlightened age which includes, yes, nationalism. That people who were formerly British subjects around the globe have mostly peacefully and via enlightenment been able to take control of their own destiny. That Ukrainian nationalists are free and able to stand up to aggressors like Putin and say "we are Ukrainian, we are not your subjects, and we will stand up to you".
Imperialism has always existed. Nationalism is a much newer concept historically, and far the better.
A nation is “the same people living in the same place”
By that definition Japanese and Han Chinese nationalism has been around for 2000-3000 years at least. The Jews might also like a word. And the English and the French nations go back to 500AD
The nations do, but nationalism and the belief in self-determination and defined national borders do not. That is a much more modern, and enlightened, concept.
You're a notorious disrespecter of borders when it comes to the migration of people. What does self-determination mean if you treat the population as entirely fungible?
People in a free society can choose their nationality ...
If only people like you had the slightest sense of irony or self-awareness ... !
I have both, I'm just not sure what someone as ignorant as you is trying to make as your point.
I've lived in multiple countries and chosen to make this one my home. Its where I was born, but could have settled elsewhere. I have family in multiple nations, who have taken citizenship of the countries they've moved to.
People are free, within reason, to change countries. Nationalism is no more and no less than a belief that the best people to choose who to run a country, is the people of that country. That the best people to choose who to run India is Indians, Polands is Poles etc. Nationalism at its best is an anti-imperialist belief.
Imperialism is a belief that your nation should run other countries, India should be ran by Britain, etc.
The Nazis were anti-Nationalist. They were imperialist. They didn't want Poland ran by Poles, they wanted it ran by Germans. Same as the USSR. Countries like Poland etc were only free of imperialist oversight once they had national self-control via independence, rather than being compelled by force to be subjects of Russia, or Germany, or anyone else.
I suggest one runs from the other.
A Google search for the definition of nationalism throws up 'identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations'.
So if you accept that, I think that then mindset promotes imperialism. Again, Goole throws up as a definition of imperialism as 'a policy of extending a country's power and influence through colonization, use of military force, or other means'.
So, if you are primarily concerned with your nation's interests at the exclusion of those of other nations, it isn't a great leap to persuade yourself that extending your nation's power, wealth, etc, through colonising other countries and building an empire is a good, and justifiable, thing.
I think you would be hard pressed to persuade most informed people that the Nazis were anti-Nationalists. The accepted view I think is that they were extreme nationalists. See the concept of 'Volksgemeinschaft', for example. The party itself emerged from a volatile soup of extreme nationalist groups that had been around in Germany for some time before WW1.
I don't accept "especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations".
Gandhi was a nationalist, he wanted India to be ran by Indians instead of Brits. How was that to the detriment of other nations?
Politically I may agree with Churchill on more than I agree with Gandhi, but on a nationalism basis I agree with Gandhi not Churchill. They should be free to run their own country, not have it ran by us. Just as the Poles should be free to run their own country, not Germans or Russians.
There are plenty of nationalists who are content to remain within their borders. Those that aren't often try to colonise other countries, to build empires. Fight wars for territory or resources.
There are all sorts of justifications humans can use to persuade ourselves that it is right and proper to make our country more powerful, we are very good at that. Doesn't mean it isn't ultimately fuelled by nationalism.
Yes it does. The second you step beyond your borders it ceases to be nationalism and starts to be imperialism.
Nationalism can be claimed validly by the defender, not the aggressor. Ukraine is perfectly and entirely within her rights to defend herself from Russian aggression.
Putin, like Hitler or any other imperialistic aggressor before him is not seeking to defend the Russian nation however much he falsely claims it, he's seeking to aggressively expand his own power. Just because an aggressor lies, does not make that lie the truth.
'The second you step beyond your borders it ceases to be nationalism and starts to be imperialism'.
So the catalyst for imperialism, the driver, the justification to get to the point where your armies are massed at the border, poised to strike, is nationalism. Why you think that transmogrifies and nationalism as a concept is absolved when a border is crossed is eccentric, I think.
Re Sean F's point that older empires were built 'pre-nationalism', if I can put it that way. As a species we have always been able to persuade ourselves to wage aggressive war to enhance the power and wealth of whatever structure we happen to be in, be that a city state, an empire, whatever. In a modern context that is through a strong identification with the nation state, hence nationalism, but it's an impulse that is as old as time and very human.
Nationalism is not remotely the catalyst or driver for imperialism. Imperialism as a concept has existed for thousands of years. Europe has been plagued by Imperialist fighting from the Graeco-Roman age, through the Dark Ages and Charlemagne, to the rise of the Holy Roman Empire, the Spanish, the Portugese, the French and even Dutch empires, and of course the British Empire. The Austro-Hungarian empire, the Prussians, the Ottomans and more. And that's just in Europe, not forgetting the Egyptians, Aztecs, Incas, the Caliphates and other Empires around the globe not centred in Europe.
For thousands of years people who have had power have sought to expand that power and wield it against those who are weaker than themselves and not been able to necessarily unite to defend themselves.
World War One marked the beginning of the end of the Age of Imperialism. Between the wars the Germans attempted to rebound and attempt it again with their Third Reich. World War Two marked the end of the age Age of Imperialism.
We now have a more enlightened age which includes, yes, nationalism. That people who were formerly British subjects around the globe have mostly peacefully and via enlightenment been able to take control of their own destiny. That Ukrainian nationalists are free and able to stand up to aggressors like Putin and say "we are Ukrainian, we are not your subjects, and we will stand up to you".
Imperialism has always existed. Nationalism is a much newer concept historically, and far the better.
A nation is “the same people living in the same place”
By that definition Japanese and Han Chinese nationalism has been around for 2000-3000 years at least. The Jews might also like a word. And the English and the French nations go back to 500AD
The nations do, but nationalism and the belief in self-determination and defined national borders do not. That is a much more modern, and enlightened, concept.
You really have some quite eccentric and very fixed views on a number of topics. But I’m now into my third beer and my private plunge pool is looking inviting in the sun so I can’t be arsed to argue. As you were
I am now going to ruin everything by drinking “Egyptian single malt whisky”
Where are you Leon?
Excuse my prior jibe, but I was only transferring my own experiences. Restaurants and Hotels that master the single traveller experience will in the future coin it, in my view.
Four Seasons San Stefano Alexandria. Beachfront villa with pool
This is seriously premium shit
It does look great. The ocean though... you have to share that?
I think I can safely say that you have added a hotel in a destination to my list. (I may never go though because it's so hot)
I think Alexandria is something of an acquired taste. Great history but the modern day reality is “challenging”
I wouldn’t come here for more than a couple of days and only then if you’re really into the conceptual Greco-Roman-Arab-Jewish-Franco-British weirdness
The Egyptians have successfully ruined two magnificent cities. Cairo and Alex. The country’s present day population is 106 million which is probably 5 or 6 times what it should be
Alexandria was apparently quite heavenly until about 1920
Evocative names of course. I think that my Grandfather shipped to Alexandria, and then was part of the fighting up into Palestine and Jerusalem towards the end of WW1 - and then possibly shipped off to Italy. He was in the artillery.
My pre-conceptions simply come from the film Lawrence of Arabia.
The tragedy is that you can see traces of what it was. Crumbling old Greek villas. Italianate houses hidden behind new slums
I’m reading this book which is absolutely brutal on the destruction of Old Alex
Ah you disapoint me. I thought you would have been reading The Alexandria Quartet - one of the finest books ever written in the English language
Through most of human history if a Putin wanted to invade Ukraine, then they'd have had the force and ability to do so. The sanctity of national borders and that it is so repugnant to use force now to change them is because nationalism has replaced imperialism. That nations respect each others borders now. That is a change for the better.
Weaker nations have always turned to enemies of their enemy for protection. The example of Ukraine is just a continuation of the same paradigm.
To an extent, but if you look back to before the end of the Age of Imperialism, we had nations forcing changes in borders by use of warfare for hundreds or thousands of years without end.
That the Ukraine War is so exceptional post-WWII and has been so roundly condemned and is looking like being defeated is positive for the age of nationalism that has replaced the age of imperialism. Nation states are far more secure now in their borders which are better changed nowadays with ballots not bullets.
Can you name any period in history more peaceful in Europe than since the defeat of imperialism and rise of nationalism in 1945?
I left out East Croydon. Apologies. Good platforms, good disabled access with the sloping walkways, tramstop immediately outside, and a tower made of fifty-pences. https://hidden-london.com/nuggets/50p-building/
Lots of good pubs in Croydon. Both to the north of East Croydon station and also to the south west around and beyond the shopping area.
I know. Nice place, and borderline affordable, or was a few years ago: too afraid to look now...
Ludicrously expensive like virtually everywhere in Greater London!
I'm not surprised.
If you follow house prices along the railway lines that fan out from London, it's amazing/horrifying how far you have to go to get something affordable near the station. Over the years all the little places that I used to hold close were swallowed up in the big wave of increases. It paused slightly between 2008 (crash) and 2013, but Osborne brought in Help To Buy and it just took off again.
People in a free society can choose their nationality ...
If only people like you had the slightest sense of irony or self-awareness ... !
I have both, I'm just not sure what someone as ignorant as you is trying to make as your point.
I've lived in multiple countries and chosen to make this one my home. Its where I was born, but could have settled elsewhere. I have family in multiple nations, who have taken citizenship of the countries they've moved to.
People are free, within reason, to change countries. Nationalism is no more and no less than a belief that the best people to choose who to run a country, is the people of that country. That the best people to choose who to run India is Indians, Polands is Poles etc. Nationalism at its best is an anti-imperialist belief.
Imperialism is a belief that your nation should run other countries, India should be ran by Britain, etc.
The Nazis were anti-Nationalist. They were imperialist. They didn't want Poland ran by Poles, they wanted it ran by Germans. Same as the USSR. Countries like Poland etc were only free of imperialist oversight once they had national self-control via independence, rather than being compelled by force to be subjects of Russia, or Germany, or anyone else.
I suggest one runs from the other.
A Google search for the definition of nationalism throws up 'identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations'.
So if you accept that, I think that then mindset promotes imperialism. Again, Goole throws up as a definition of imperialism as 'a policy of extending a country's power and influence through colonization, use of military force, or other means'.
So, if you are primarily concerned with your nation's interests at the exclusion of those of other nations, it isn't a great leap to persuade yourself that extending your nation's power, wealth, etc, through colonising other countries and building an empire is a good, and justifiable, thing.
I think you would be hard pressed to persuade most informed people that the Nazis were anti-Nationalists. The accepted view I think is that they were extreme nationalists. See the concept of 'Volksgemeinschaft', for example. The party itself emerged from a volatile soup of extreme nationalist groups that had been around in Germany for some time before WW1.
I don't accept "especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations".
Gandhi was a nationalist, he wanted India to be ran by Indians instead of Brits. How was that to the detriment of other nations?
Politically I may agree with Churchill on more than I agree with Gandhi, but on a nationalism basis I agree with Gandhi not Churchill. They should be free to run their own country, not have it ran by us. Just as the Poles should be free to run their own country, not Germans or Russians.
There are plenty of nationalists who are content to remain within their borders. Those that aren't often try to colonise other countries, to build empires. Fight wars for territory or resources.
There are all sorts of justifications humans can use to persuade ourselves that it is right and proper to make our country more powerful, we are very good at that. Doesn't mean it isn't ultimately fuelled by nationalism.
Yes it does. The second you step beyond your borders it ceases to be nationalism and starts to be imperialism.
Nationalism can be claimed validly by the defender, not the aggressor. Ukraine is perfectly and entirely within her rights to defend herself from Russian aggression.
Putin, like Hitler or any other imperialistic aggressor before him is not seeking to defend the Russian nation however much he falsely claims it, he's seeking to aggressively expand his own power. Just because an aggressor lies, does not make that lie the truth.
'The second you step beyond your borders it ceases to be nationalism and starts to be imperialism'.
So the catalyst for imperialism, the driver, the justification to get to the point where your armies are massed at the border, poised to strike, is nationalism. Why you think that transmogrifies and nationalism as a concept is absolved when a border is crossed is eccentric, I think.
Re Sean F's point that older empires were built 'pre-nationalism', if I can put it that way. As a species we have always been able to persuade ourselves to wage aggressive war to enhance the power and wealth of whatever structure we happen to be in, be that a city state, an empire, whatever. In a modern context that is through a strong identification with the nation state, hence nationalism, but it's an impulse that is as old as time and very human.
Nationalism is not remotely the catalyst or driver for imperialism. Imperialism as a concept has existed for thousands of years. Europe has been plagued by Imperialist fighting from the Graeco-Roman age, through the Dark Ages and Charlemagne, to the rise of the Holy Roman Empire, the Spanish, the Portugese, the French and even Dutch empires, and of course the British Empire. The Austro-Hungarian empire, the Prussians, the Ottomans and more. And that's just in Europe, not forgetting the Egyptians, Aztecs, Incas, the Caliphates and other Empires around the globe not centred in Europe.
For thousands of years people who have had power have sought to expand that power and wield it against those who are weaker than themselves and not been able to necessarily unite to defend themselves.
World War One marked the beginning of the end of the Age of Imperialism. Between the wars the Germans attempted to rebound and attempt it again with their Third Reich. World War Two marked the end of the age Age of Imperialism.
We now have a more enlightened age which includes, yes, nationalism. That people who were formerly British subjects around the globe have mostly peacefully and via enlightenment been able to take control of their own destiny. That Ukrainian nationalists are free and able to stand up to aggressors like Putin and say "we are Ukrainian, we are not your subjects, and we will stand up to you".
Imperialism has always existed. Nationalism is a much newer concept historically, and far the better.
Through most of human history if a Putin wanted to invade Ukraine, then they'd have had the force and ability to do so. The sanctity of national borders and that it is so repugnant to use force now to change them is because nationalism has replaced imperialism. That nations respect each others borders now. That is a change for the better.
People in a free society can choose their nationality ...
If only people like you had the slightest sense of irony or self-awareness ... !
I have both, I'm just not sure what someone as ignorant as you is trying to make as your point.
I've lived in multiple countries and chosen to make this one my home. Its where I was born, but could have settled elsewhere. I have family in multiple nations, who have taken citizenship of the countries they've moved to.
People are free, within reason, to change countries. Nationalism is no more and no less than a belief that the best people to choose who to run a country, is the people of that country. That the best people to choose who to run India is Indians, Polands is Poles etc. Nationalism at its best is an anti-imperialist belief.
Imperialism is a belief that your nation should run other countries, India should be ran by Britain, etc.
The Nazis were anti-Nationalist. They were imperialist. They didn't want Poland ran by Poles, they wanted it ran by Germans. Same as the USSR. Countries like Poland etc were only free of imperialist oversight once they had national self-control via independence, rather than being compelled by force to be subjects of Russia, or Germany, or anyone else.
I suggest one runs from the other.
A Google search for the definition of nationalism throws up 'identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations'.
So if you accept that, I think that then mindset promotes imperialism. Again, Goole throws up as a definition of imperialism as 'a policy of extending a country's power and influence through colonization, use of military force, or other means'.
So, if you are primarily concerned with your nation's interests at the exclusion of those of other nations, it isn't a great leap to persuade yourself that extending your nation's power, wealth, etc, through colonising other countries and building an empire is a good, and justifiable, thing.
I think you would be hard pressed to persuade most informed people that the Nazis were anti-Nationalists. The accepted view I think is that they were extreme nationalists. See the concept of 'Volksgemeinschaft', for example. The party itself emerged from a volatile soup of extreme nationalist groups that had been around in Germany for some time before WW1.
I don't accept "especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations".
Gandhi was a nationalist, he wanted India to be ran by Indians instead of Brits. How was that to the detriment of other nations?
Politically I may agree with Churchill on more than I agree with Gandhi, but on a nationalism basis I agree with Gandhi not Churchill. They should be free to run their own country, not have it ran by us. Just as the Poles should be free to run their own country, not Germans or Russians.
There are plenty of nationalists who are content to remain within their borders. Those that aren't often try to colonise other countries, to build empires. Fight wars for territory or resources.
There are all sorts of justifications humans can use to persuade ourselves that it is right and proper to make our country more powerful, we are very good at that. Doesn't mean it isn't ultimately fuelled by nationalism.
Yes it does. The second you step beyond your borders it ceases to be nationalism and starts to be imperialism.
Nationalism can be claimed validly by the defender, not the aggressor. Ukraine is perfectly and entirely within her rights to defend herself from Russian aggression.
Putin, like Hitler or any other imperialistic aggressor before him is not seeking to defend the Russian nation however much he falsely claims it, he's seeking to aggressively expand his own power. Just because an aggressor lies, does not make that lie the truth.
'The second you step beyond your borders it ceases to be nationalism and starts to be imperialism'.
So the catalyst for imperialism, the driver, the justification to get to the point where your armies are massed at the border, poised to strike, is nationalism. Why you think that transmogrifies and nationalism as a concept is absolved when a border is crossed is eccentric, I think.
Re Sean F's point that older empires were built 'pre-nationalism', if I can put it that way. As a species we have always been able to persuade ourselves to wage aggressive war to enhance the power and wealth of whatever structure we happen to be in, be that a city state, an empire, whatever. In a modern context that is through a strong identification with the nation state, hence nationalism, but it's an impulse that is as old as time and very human.
Can I just say I am very much enjoying reading this discussion. Thanks to everyone taking part.
People in a free society can choose their nationality ...
If only people like you had the slightest sense of irony or self-awareness ... !
I have both, I'm just not sure what someone as ignorant as you is trying to make as your point.
I've lived in multiple countries and chosen to make this one my home. Its where I was born, but could have settled elsewhere. I have family in multiple nations, who have taken citizenship of the countries they've moved to.
People are free, within reason, to change countries. Nationalism is no more and no less than a belief that the best people to choose who to run a country, is the people of that country. That the best people to choose who to run India is Indians, Polands is Poles etc. Nationalism at its best is an anti-imperialist belief.
Imperialism is a belief that your nation should run other countries, India should be ran by Britain, etc.
The Nazis were anti-Nationalist. They were imperialist. They didn't want Poland ran by Poles, they wanted it ran by Germans. Same as the USSR. Countries like Poland etc were only free of imperialist oversight once they had national self-control via independence, rather than being compelled by force to be subjects of Russia, or Germany, or anyone else.
I suggest one runs from the other.
A Google search for the definition of nationalism throws up 'identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations'.
So if you accept that, I think that then mindset promotes imperialism. Again, Goole throws up as a definition of imperialism as 'a policy of extending a country's power and influence through colonization, use of military force, or other means'.
So, if you are primarily concerned with your nation's interests at the exclusion of those of other nations, it isn't a great leap to persuade yourself that extending your nation's power, wealth, etc, through colonising other countries and building an empire is a good, and justifiable, thing.
I think you would be hard pressed to persuade most informed people that the Nazis were anti-Nationalists. The accepted view I think is that they were extreme nationalists. See the concept of 'Volksgemeinschaft', for example. The party itself emerged from a volatile soup of extreme nationalist groups that had been around in Germany for some time before WW1.
I don't accept "especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations".
Gandhi was a nationalist, he wanted India to be ran by Indians instead of Brits. How was that to the detriment of other nations?
Politically I may agree with Churchill on more than I agree with Gandhi, but on a nationalism basis I agree with Gandhi not Churchill. They should be free to run their own country, not have it ran by us. Just as the Poles should be free to run their own country, not Germans or Russians.
There are plenty of nationalists who are content to remain within their borders. Those that aren't often try to colonise other countries, to build empires. Fight wars for territory or resources.
There are all sorts of justifications humans can use to persuade ourselves that it is right and proper to make our country more powerful, we are very good at that. Doesn't mean it isn't ultimately fuelled by nationalism.
Yes it does. The second you step beyond your borders it ceases to be nationalism and starts to be imperialism.
Nationalism can be claimed validly by the defender, not the aggressor. Ukraine is perfectly and entirely within her rights to defend herself from Russian aggression.
Putin, like Hitler or any other imperialistic aggressor before him is not seeking to defend the Russian nation however much he falsely claims it, he's seeking to aggressively expand his own power. Just because an aggressor lies, does not make that lie the truth.
'The second you step beyond your borders it ceases to be nationalism and starts to be imperialism'.
So the catalyst for imperialism, the driver, the justification to get to the point where your armies are massed at the border, poised to strike, is nationalism. Why you think that transmogrifies and nationalism as a concept is absolved when a border is crossed is eccentric, I think.
Re Sean F's point that older empires were built 'pre-nationalism', if I can put it that way. As a species we have always been able to persuade ourselves to wage aggressive war to enhance the power and wealth of whatever structure we happen to be in, be that a city state, an empire, whatever. In a modern context that is through a strong identification with the nation state, hence nationalism, but it's an impulse that is as old as time and very human.
Nationalism is not remotely the catalyst or driver for imperialism. Imperialism as a concept has existed for thousands of years. Europe has been plagued by Imperialist fighting from the Graeco-Roman age, through the Dark Ages and Charlemagne, to the rise of the Holy Roman Empire, the Spanish, the Portugese, the French and even Dutch empires, and of course the British Empire. The Austro-Hungarian empire, the Prussians, the Ottomans and more. And that's just in Europe, not forgetting the Egyptians, Aztecs, Incas, the Caliphates and other Empires around the globe not centred in Europe.
For thousands of years people who have had power have sought to expand that power and wield it against those who are weaker than themselves and not been able to necessarily unite to defend themselves.
World War One marked the beginning of the end of the Age of Imperialism. Between the wars the Germans attempted to rebound and attempt it again with their Third Reich. World War Two marked the end of the age Age of Imperialism.
We now have a more enlightened age which includes, yes, nationalism. That people who were formerly British subjects around the globe have mostly peacefully and via enlightenment been able to take control of their own destiny. That Ukrainian nationalists are free and able to stand up to aggressors like Putin and say "we are Ukrainian, we are not your subjects, and we will stand up to you".
Imperialism has always existed. Nationalism is a much newer concept historically, and far the better.
Through most of human history if a Putin wanted to invade Ukraine, then they'd have had the force and ability to do so. The sanctity of national borders and that it is so repugnant to use force now to change them is because nationalism has replaced imperialism. That nations respect each others borders now. That is a change for the better.
You need to read some proper history books.
I've read plenty thank you, which is why you pick any century and I could name plenty of borders changed via warfare in a way we haven't seen in Europe in the past 78 years since the imperialistic aggressors of Germany and Japan were defeated in WWII and the rise of nationalism saw the ending of the age of Empires - including our own!
On the subject of Egypt, very early this morning @Nigelb posted a fabulous article on (a) making desert areas more fertile, (b) ameliorating global warming, (c) generating cheap electricity and (d) doing all this without requiring people to change their lifestyles.
On the subject of Egypt, very early this morning @Nigelb posted a fabulous article on (a) making desert areas more fertile, (b) ameliorating global warming, (c) generating cheap electricity and (d) doing all this without requiring people to change their lifestyles.
There are details which need exploring, though. Given the likely rates of evaporation, the inland sea would have to be continually 'topped up' from the Med, which would steadily increase salinity over time, without large scale removal of salt.
One interesting idea is to maintain two adjacent lakes, one of much higher salinity, and to have a large scale osmotic power generation plant, in order to provide sufficient power (plus considerable excess) to pump excess saline back to the Med.
I don't know whether any of these ideas have been extensively modelled in recent years, but it would be well worth the investment of some effort now, since all of the enabling technologies have advanced over the last couple of decades.
I think I understand why @Chris is getting so stumped and seeing an apparent contradiction where there is none. He's making the "Incel" mistaken belief that someone else's consent being required is a restriction on your freedoms. It is not.
In a free society you're free to have sex with whoever you choose to have sex with . . . but their consent is still required.
If you want to have sex with Liz Truss @Chris and she says she wants to with you, then the state should not be saying that is forbidden as it would in Iran or Saudi Arabia or other. If on the other hand you hit on her and she says she's not interested, then she's not interested, your rights have not been impeded you were simply rejected.
In a free society you're free to choose, but if your choice requires a third parties consent, then you need the third parties consent. If you get it, then our state should not be getting involved. That is freedom. Demanding others give their consent whether they want to or not, is not freedom.
If you want to have sex with a third party, and they consent, or you want to emigrate to a third party, and they consent, then our state should not be forbidding it. There's no contradiction there, while still allowing people to give or refuse consent.
PB has plenty of wannabe Reply Guys but Barty Bobs is the OG.
People in a free society can choose their nationality ...
If only people like you had the slightest sense of irony or self-awareness ... !
I have both, I'm just not sure what someone as ignorant as you is trying to make as your point.
I've lived in multiple countries and chosen to make this one my home. Its where I was born, but could have settled elsewhere. I have family in multiple nations, who have taken citizenship of the countries they've moved to.
People are free, within reason, to change countries. Nationalism is no more and no less than a belief that the best people to choose who to run a country, is the people of that country. That the best people to choose who to run India is Indians, Polands is Poles etc. Nationalism at its best is an anti-imperialist belief.
Imperialism is a belief that your nation should run other countries, India should be ran by Britain, etc.
The Nazis were anti-Nationalist. They were imperialist. They didn't want Poland ran by Poles, they wanted it ran by Germans. Same as the USSR. Countries like Poland etc were only free of imperialist oversight once they had national self-control via independence, rather than being compelled by force to be subjects of Russia, or Germany, or anyone else.
I suggest one runs from the other.
A Google search for the definition of nationalism throws up 'identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations'.
So if you accept that, I think that then mindset promotes imperialism. Again, Goole throws up as a definition of imperialism as 'a policy of extending a country's power and influence through colonization, use of military force, or other means'.
So, if you are primarily concerned with your nation's interests at the exclusion of those of other nations, it isn't a great leap to persuade yourself that extending your nation's power, wealth, etc, through colonising other countries and building an empire is a good, and justifiable, thing.
I think you would be hard pressed to persuade most informed people that the Nazis were anti-Nationalists. The accepted view I think is that they were extreme nationalists. See the concept of 'Volksgemeinschaft', for example. The party itself emerged from a volatile soup of extreme nationalist groups that had been around in Germany for some time before WW1.
I don't accept "especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations".
Gandhi was a nationalist, he wanted India to be ran by Indians instead of Brits. How was that to the detriment of other nations?
Politically I may agree with Churchill on more than I agree with Gandhi, but on a nationalism basis I agree with Gandhi not Churchill. They should be free to run their own country, not have it ran by us. Just as the Poles should be free to run their own country, not Germans or Russians.
There are plenty of nationalists who are content to remain within their borders. Those that aren't often try to colonise other countries, to build empires. Fight wars for territory or resources.
There are all sorts of justifications humans can use to persuade ourselves that it is right and proper to make our country more powerful, we are very good at that. Doesn't mean it isn't ultimately fuelled by nationalism.
Yes it does. The second you step beyond your borders it ceases to be nationalism and starts to be imperialism.
Nationalism can be claimed validly by the defender, not the aggressor. Ukraine is perfectly and entirely within her rights to defend herself from Russian aggression.
Putin, like Hitler or any other imperialistic aggressor before him is not seeking to defend the Russian nation however much he falsely claims it, he's seeking to aggressively expand his own power. Just because an aggressor lies, does not make that lie the truth.
'The second you step beyond your borders it ceases to be nationalism and starts to be imperialism'.
So the catalyst for imperialism, the driver, the justification to get to the point where your armies are massed at the border, poised to strike, is nationalism. Why you think that transmogrifies and nationalism as a concept is absolved when a border is crossed is eccentric, I think.
Re Sean F's point that older empires were built 'pre-nationalism', if I can put it that way. As a species we have always been able to persuade ourselves to wage aggressive war to enhance the power and wealth of whatever structure we happen to be in, be that a city state, an empire, whatever. In a modern context that is through a strong identification with the nation state, hence nationalism, but it's an impulse that is as old as time and very human.
Nationalism is not remotely the catalyst or driver for imperialism. Imperialism as a concept has existed for thousands of years. Europe has been plagued by Imperialist fighting from the Graeco-Roman age, through the Dark Ages and Charlemagne, to the rise of the Holy Roman Empire, the Spanish, the Portugese, the French and even Dutch empires, and of course the British Empire. The Austro-Hungarian empire, the Prussians, the Ottomans and more. And that's just in Europe, not forgetting the Egyptians, Aztecs, Incas, the Caliphates and other Empires around the globe not centred in Europe.
For thousands of years people who have had power have sought to expand that power and wield it against those who are weaker than themselves and not been able to necessarily unite to defend themselves.
World War One marked the beginning of the end of the Age of Imperialism. Between the wars the Germans attempted to rebound and attempt it again with their Third Reich. World War Two marked the end of the age Age of Imperialism.
We now have a more enlightened age which includes, yes, nationalism. That people who were formerly British subjects around the globe have mostly peacefully and via enlightenment been able to take control of their own destiny. That Ukrainian nationalists are free and able to stand up to aggressors like Putin and say "we are Ukrainian, we are not your subjects, and we will stand up to you".
Imperialism has always existed. Nationalism is a much newer concept historically, and far the better.
A nation is “the same people living in the same place”
By that definition Japanese and Han Chinese nationalism has been around for 2000-3000 years at least. The Jews might also like a word. And the English and the French nations go back to 500AD
The nations do, but nationalism and the belief in self-determination and defined national borders do not. That is a much more modern, and enlightened, concept.
You're a notorious disrespecter of borders when it comes to the migration of people. What does self-determination mean if you treat the population as entirely fungible?
That the citizens of the nations within the borders at any time should vote democratically at regular intervals to determine how their nation proceeds.
Those citizens may have been born there, or chose to make that nation their home, but either way they get an equal say.
And I believe borders can and should change - but democratically. Via ballots, not bullets. The borders aren't fixed permanently, they're only fixed until people vote to change them.
Second cabinet minister to attend the conference. The Nationalkonservative Britische Rentnerpartei have gone mainstream.
Well worth reading their Statement of Principles.
A couple I found particularly funny including:
"Among the causes [of the threats to the wellbeing and sustainability of democratic nations] are an unconstrained individualism that regards children as a burden, while encouraging ever more radical forms of sexual license and experimentation as an alternative to the responsibilities of family and congregational life."
This has religious fundamentalist preacher condemning homosexuality turning out to be gay written all over it.
Reminds me of a tiny number of posters here whom I won't name, but utterly alien and balmy to everyone else.
The Conservatives are at their best way they embrace individualism. Collectivism should be the preserve of the socialists, not the Tories.
Support for family life, marriage and children is not economic collectivism but a core conservative value. That can include homosexuals who are married with children too now of course.
Conservatism is not socialism but nor is it libertarianism either as Liz Truss quickly discovered
"The traditional family, built around a lifelong bond between a man and a woman, and on a lifelong bond between parents and children, is the foundation of all other achievements of our civilization."
Built around, of course as for centuries the family has been built around lifelong bond between man and woman and parents and chidren. Homosexuality was still illegal 100 years ago and divorce, except for the very wealthy who could afford the legal fees, unheard of.
Now the reference to family and marriage can include homosexuals too, note it says 'built around' not 'exclusive to'
Was it illegal in Troy?
Homosexual marriage certainly wasn't legal in Troy
It was in Sparta. And Thebes.
There were instances of homosexuality, not full legal homosexual marriage and Sparta of course was still not Troy
@HYUFD - You could get gay married in the Soke of Peterborough, or Nassaburgh hundred, until the Statute of Kidlington in 1642 during the Civil War, after Cromwell got all upset by it. Peakirk, now a village and civil parish in the Peterborough district, takes its name from "Penis Church", the chapel reserved for gay marrying. It was to gay marriage what Greta Green was to the straights. Sadly lesbians were not given the same dispensation after the sack of Fingringhoe
Through most of human history if a Putin wanted to invade Ukraine, then they'd have had the force and ability to do so. The sanctity of national borders and that it is so repugnant to use force now to change them is because nationalism has replaced imperialism. That nations respect each others borders now. That is a change for the better.
Weaker nations have always turned to enemies of their enemy for protection. The example of Ukraine is just a continuation of the same paradigm.
To an extent, but if you look back to before the end of the Age of Imperialism, we had nations forcing changes in borders by use of warfare for hundreds or thousands of years without end.
That the Ukraine War is so exceptional post-WWII and has been so roundly condemned and is looking like being defeated is positive for the age of nationalism that has replaced the age of imperialism. Nation states are far more secure now in their borders which are better changed nowadays with ballots not bullets.
Can you name any period in history more peaceful in Europe than since the defeat of imperialism and rise of nationalism in 1945?
That’s almost completely due to nuclear weapons making direct hot war between great powers unthinkable. So we had a Cold War instead
And we’ve still managed Yugoslavia and now Ukraine
I am now going to ruin everything by drinking “Egyptian single malt whisky”
Where are you Leon?
Excuse my prior jibe, but I was only transferring my own experiences. Restaurants and Hotels that master the single traveller experience will in the future coin it, in my view.
Four Seasons San Stefano Alexandria. Beachfront villa with pool
This is seriously premium shit
It does look great. The ocean though... you have to share that?
I think I can safely say that you have added a hotel in a destination to my list. (I may never go though because it's so hot)
I think Alexandria is something of an acquired taste. Great history but the modern day reality is “challenging”
I wouldn’t come here for more than a couple of days and only then if you’re really into the conceptual Greco-Roman-Arab-Jewish-Franco-British weirdness
The Egyptians have successfully ruined two magnificent cities. Cairo and Alex. The country’s present day population is 106 million which is probably 5 or 6 times what it should be
Alexandria was apparently quite heavenly until about 1920
Evocative names of course. I think that my Grandfather shipped to Alexandria, and then was part of the fighting up into Palestine and Jerusalem towards the end of WW1 - and then possibly shipped off to Italy. He was in the artillery.
My pre-conceptions simply come from the film Lawrence of Arabia.
The tragedy is that you can see traces of what it was. Crumbling old Greek villas. Italianate houses hidden behind new slums
I’m reading this book which is absolutely brutal on the destruction of Old Alex
Ah you disapoint me. I thought you would have been reading The Alexandria Quartet - one of the finest books ever written in the English language
Has anyone ever read any Egyptian literature beyond the Sugar Street trilogy?
I am now going to ruin everything by drinking “Egyptian single malt whisky”
Where are you Leon?
Excuse my prior jibe, but I was only transferring my own experiences. Restaurants and Hotels that master the single traveller experience will in the future coin it, in my view.
Four Seasons San Stefano Alexandria. Beachfront villa with pool
This is seriously premium shit
It does look great. The ocean though... you have to share that?
I think I can safely say that you have added a hotel in a destination to my list. (I may never go though because it's so hot)
I think Alexandria is something of an acquired taste. Great history but the modern day reality is “challenging”
I wouldn’t come here for more than a couple of days and only then if you’re really into the conceptual Greco-Roman-Arab-Jewish-Franco-British weirdness
The Egyptians have successfully ruined two magnificent cities. Cairo and Alex. The country’s present day population is 106 million which is probably 5 or 6 times what it should be
Alexandria was apparently quite heavenly until about 1920
Evocative names of course. I think that my Grandfather shipped to Alexandria, and then was part of the fighting up into Palestine and Jerusalem towards the end of WW1 - and then possibly shipped off to Italy. He was in the artillery.
My pre-conceptions simply come from the film Lawrence of Arabia.
The tragedy is that you can see traces of what it was. Crumbling old Greek villas. Italianate houses hidden behind new slums
I’m reading this book which is absolutely brutal on the destruction of Old Alex
Ah you disapoint me. I thought you would have been reading The Alexandria Quartet - one of the finest books ever written in the English language
Has anyone ever read any Egyptian literature beyond the Sugar Street trilogy?
I read a bit of Durrell as a young man. Wasn’t keen then and I’m fairly sure I’d be even less keen now
People in a free society can choose their nationality ...
If only people like you had the slightest sense of irony or self-awareness ... !
I have both, I'm just not sure what someone as ignorant as you is trying to make as your point.
I've lived in multiple countries and chosen to make this one my home. Its where I was born, but could have settled elsewhere. I have family in multiple nations, who have taken citizenship of the countries they've moved to.
People are free, within reason, to change countries. Nationalism is no more and no less than a belief that the best people to choose who to run a country, is the people of that country. That the best people to choose who to run India is Indians, Polands is Poles etc. Nationalism at its best is an anti-imperialist belief.
Imperialism is a belief that your nation should run other countries, India should be ran by Britain, etc.
The Nazis were anti-Nationalist. They were imperialist. They didn't want Poland ran by Poles, they wanted it ran by Germans. Same as the USSR. Countries like Poland etc were only free of imperialist oversight once they had national self-control via independence, rather than being compelled by force to be subjects of Russia, or Germany, or anyone else.
I suggest one runs from the other.
A Google search for the definition of nationalism throws up 'identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations'.
So if you accept that, I think that then mindset promotes imperialism. Again, Goole throws up as a definition of imperialism as 'a policy of extending a country's power and influence through colonization, use of military force, or other means'.
So, if you are primarily concerned with your nation's interests at the exclusion of those of other nations, it isn't a great leap to persuade yourself that extending your nation's power, wealth, etc, through colonising other countries and building an empire is a good, and justifiable, thing.
I think you would be hard pressed to persuade most informed people that the Nazis were anti-Nationalists. The accepted view I think is that they were extreme nationalists. See the concept of 'Volksgemeinschaft', for example. The party itself emerged from a volatile soup of extreme nationalist groups that had been around in Germany for some time before WW1.
I don't accept "especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations".
Gandhi was a nationalist, he wanted India to be ran by Indians instead of Brits. How was that to the detriment of other nations?
Politically I may agree with Churchill on more than I agree with Gandhi, but on a nationalism basis I agree with Gandhi not Churchill. They should be free to run their own country, not have it ran by us. Just as the Poles should be free to run their own country, not Germans or Russians.
There are plenty of nationalists who are content to remain within their borders. Those that aren't often try to colonise other countries, to build empires. Fight wars for territory or resources.
There are all sorts of justifications humans can use to persuade ourselves that it is right and proper to make our country more powerful, we are very good at that. Doesn't mean it isn't ultimately fuelled by nationalism.
Yes it does. The second you step beyond your borders it ceases to be nationalism and starts to be imperialism.
Nationalism can be claimed validly by the defender, not the aggressor. Ukraine is perfectly and entirely within her rights to defend herself from Russian aggression.
Putin, like Hitler or any other imperialistic aggressor before him is not seeking to defend the Russian nation however much he falsely claims it, he's seeking to aggressively expand his own power. Just because an aggressor lies, does not make that lie the truth.
'The second you step beyond your borders it ceases to be nationalism and starts to be imperialism'.
So the catalyst for imperialism, the driver, the justification to get to the point where your armies are massed at the border, poised to strike, is nationalism. Why you think that transmogrifies and nationalism as a concept is absolved when a border is crossed is eccentric, I think.
Re Sean F's point that older empires were built 'pre-nationalism', if I can put it that way. As a species we have always been able to persuade ourselves to wage aggressive war to enhance the power and wealth of whatever structure we happen to be in, be that a city state, an empire, whatever. In a modern context that is through a strong identification with the nation state, hence nationalism, but it's an impulse that is as old as time and very human.
Nationalism is not remotely the catalyst or driver for imperialism. Imperialism as a concept has existed for thousands of years. Europe has been plagued by Imperialist fighting from the Graeco-Roman age, through the Dark Ages and Charlemagne, to the rise of the Holy Roman Empire, the Spanish, the Portugese, the French and even Dutch empires, and of course the British Empire. The Austro-Hungarian empire, the Prussians, the Ottomans and more. And that's just in Europe, not forgetting the Egyptians, Aztecs, Incas, the Caliphates and other Empires around the globe not centred in Europe.
For thousands of years people who have had power have sought to expand that power and wield it against those who are weaker than themselves and not been able to necessarily unite to defend themselves.
World War One marked the beginning of the end of the Age of Imperialism. Between the wars the Germans attempted to rebound and attempt it again with their Third Reich. World War Two marked the end of the age Age of Imperialism.
We now have a more enlightened age which includes, yes, nationalism. That people who were formerly British subjects around the globe have mostly peacefully and via enlightenment been able to take control of their own destiny. That Ukrainian nationalists are free and able to stand up to aggressors like Putin and say "we are Ukrainian, we are not your subjects, and we will stand up to you".
Imperialism has always existed. Nationalism is a much newer concept historically, and far the better.
A nation is “the same people living in the same place”
By that definition Japanese and Han Chinese nationalism has been around for 2000-3000 years at least. The Jews might also like a word. And the English and the French nations go back to 500AD
It's quite hard to define a nation except by the rather circular definition of 'a group of people who consider themselves a nation'. But you sort of know one when you see one.
And while the concept of a nation is quite old, its importance is less so. Since the iron age, loyalty has more commonly been to a person than a geographic unit; it wasn't necessarily the case that groups A and B who were united by language and geography would see themselves as a coherent group and see groups C and D as outsiders if groups A and C owed loyalty to one prince and groups B and D to another.
I'm quite interested in the concept of nation building. I think we'd largely agree that there are three nations on this island, but how did this come about? It's not ethnicity - we're all pretty similar, genetically, and there tend to be as many differences within nations as between them - and it's not language, which I would argue has followed rather than led differences between England, Scotland and Wales. And why three nations? Why not one, or two, or four, or nine? All were historically just as possible. It certainly seems the case that 2000 years ago there weren't nations here, and 200 years ago there were. But the process by which this came about is a little opaque.
On the subject of Egypt, very early this morning @Nigelb posted a fabulous article on (a) making desert areas more fertile, (b) ameliorating global warming, (c) generating cheap electricity and (d) doing all this without requiring people to change their lifestyles.
Grand infrastructure projects are always fascinating, and especially when they involve controlling water. In fact mass water works were arguably the basis for the rise of most early civilisations as they required strong central power and control. The Egyptians of course, the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, all involved doing things to channel and control water. The Aswan dam was Nasser's biggest monument. The 3 gorges dam was an announcement that China had arrived as a great power. The Dutch draining the polders, Hong Kong Singapore and Dubai reclaiming land from the sea. Venice creating a regional economic powerhouse on a stagnant lagoon. The failure of the Soviet union's grand irrigation schemes in Central Asia as the region succumbed to salination and the Aral dried up were perhaps a signifier of that civilisation's flaws.
I love these really big ideas. That's why I was always a fan of Boris island despite its promoter, and likewise the tidal barrages we were going to construct all along the West coast. Those could have been our grand waterworks.
Comments
A solely market approach does not always work best in broadcasting, and I'm hardly the first ever to raise this, in a topic of wild controversy.
Now the reference to family and marriage can include homosexuals too, note it says 'built around' not 'exclusive to'
It really is exceptionally pleasant. I suspect this is the best hotel room in the entire city. I am getting grade A1 levels of grovelling
There are all sorts of justifications humans can use to persuade ourselves that it is right and proper to make our country more powerful, we are very good at that. Doesn't mean it isn't ultimately fuelled by nationalism.
Scotland
- Aberdeen. The station is surprisingly pleasant. The town looks like it's made out of concrete.
- Inverness is small but OK. Just like Inverness
- Edinburgh and Glasgow are great. Arguably Glasgow wins because it surprises on the upside, although Edinburgh is better
North EnglandThe Hapsburgs, Ottomans, Moghuls etc. built mighty empires without much in the way of a nationalistic motivation.
Nationalism has both driven, and been driven by, the expansion in the franchise. Ultimately, it works to end empires, because the subject people conclude "why can't we govern ourselves?"
He is often quietly mischievous, in a manner that's sometimes hard to detect.
OTOH, when Truss makes her triumphant return, I might have to revise that opinion.
Nationalism can be claimed validly by the defender, not the aggressor. Ukraine is perfectly and entirely within her rights to defend herself from Russian aggression.
Putin, like Hitler or any other imperialistic aggressor before him is not seeking to defend the Russian nation however much he falsely claims it, he's seeking to aggressively expand his own power. Just because an aggressor lies, does not make that lie the truth.
- BNS is fine but the platforms are the mines of Moria
- Northampton is weird. The redeveloped main hall is good but it's elevated and the design language for the platform is different
- Coventry is old-school (woord paneling, aluminium frames) but is being redeveloped thank God.
- Milton Keynes. The station is nice in a rectilinear 80's way. Immediately outside the station is some tents where the tramps have pitched tent. Urgh.
That LondonI think we're doing ok brow-wise wrt the programmes the BBC produces. Yes we have Naked Attraction (BBC?) but we also have thoughtful, provocative programmes that while not quite lecturing in tone, nevertheless educate and inform as per the original mandate.
- The journey out to Southend on Sea is surprisingly pleasant. The journey back is the same but made better by the fact that you are now leaving Southend on Sea, never to return.
East of Brighton- Most of the railways in Kent are just places to stop while the train has a wee. Ashford International is good.
Brighton corridor- Portsmouth Harbour is right by the harbour and the big ships. It's sorta quite nice. If the carriers are in it's brilliant. The harbour view is admittedly of Gosport, but nobody's perfect
- Portsmouth and Southsea is not bad in itself, although the platforms are elevated. But immediately outside is the old Portsmouth shopping street, which is depressing.
- Southampton Central is ~six platforms and not as good as it should be. Two entrances. On one side is brutalist flats and 70's office blocks, which they are sprucing up with a mural. Murals do not work. On the other side is dilapidated ToysRUs sheds with many graffiti. Sad
- Basingstoke makes me cry. Badly, badly overdeveloped. Like Woking but much worse. Overlooking flats that are too tall and rotting fast. Good amenities but close early. Staff are very helpful. There's a chip van outside if you're hungry.
- Eastleigh. Crap station overlooking a marshalling yard and the choccy machines are dubious. Get caught there late at night and the mournful howls from the marshalling yard will make you question your life choices. If you can't stand it get a taxi, although the rank is not near the station.
South West EnglandIt looks nice enough. I always find it best to eat strawberry fondant chocolates with a knife and fork.
- Maidenhead is quite nice and the nearby area is too, although I don't know if that (airquotes) gentleman's bar "The HoneyPot" is still there. SeanT will know, no doubt.
- Slough station is like Slough: not as bad as you think, not as good as it should be.
- Both Windsor stations are lovely: W&E Riverside is nice if you want to get to Eton, W&E Central is embedded in a nice mini shopping centre, with a cigar shop and a nice French pastry shop. Oh, and near Windsor Castle, which is nice.
- Reading is fantastic and damn nearly in its own category with its aerodynamic ceilings. It should be in London. The immediate area is being redeveloped as is Reading generally and if they get it right it'll be brilliant. If they get it wrong it'll be Basingstoke
- Swindon. It's OK. A nicer Milton Keynes. I'd like to live there.
- Newbury. A little gem. Two platforms, quiet market town with a 125 connection to London. The library is nice. Shh, don't tell anybody. What The South should be.
- Bath. Hello, sandstone. Appropriate to the surroundings.
- Bristol Parkway. Was a bus stop for trains. Then they build the new Entrance which is very tall. But it's still attached to a bus stop for trains
South Wales- The North Coast line is split-personality. To your south is the beautiful North Welsh landscape. To your north is a long string of rubbish towns and villages, a gray sea, and wind farms. A very elongated Thurrock. Oh look, a used-car salesman lot with some colourful pennants. Does not help. The archetype of the County Lines drugdealer corridor. I'm not going to describe the stations because you're not getting out. Sorry BigG, but you're in Anglesey which is nicer
So much to answer forExcuse my prior jibe, but I was only transferring my own experiences. Restaurants and Hotels that master the single traveller experience will in the future coin it, in my view.
The problem is, many people have no idea whether they will like new things until they see them, or they've been tried. If John Cleese had pre-tested the ideas for Fawlty Towers on an audience without a broadcast, for instance, or tried to squeeze it into the parameters or aesthetic of earlier, and already existing comedies like Love Thy Neighbour , it would never happened. The same applies to the entirety of the output of Monty Python, or Alan Partridge, for instance, both of which were commissioned Pre-Birt, and would not appear on the current BBC2, just through there being too little formulaic or marketing precedent.
This is seriously premium shit
So the catalyst for imperialism, the driver, the justification to get to the point where your armies are massed at the border, poised to strike, is nationalism. Why you think that transmogrifies and nationalism as a concept is absolved when a border is crossed is eccentric, I think.
Re Sean F's point that older empires were built 'pre-nationalism', if I can put it that way. As a species we have always been able to persuade ourselves to wage aggressive war to enhance the power and wealth of whatever structure we happen to be in, be that a city state, an empire, whatever. In a modern context that is through a strong identification with the nation state, hence nationalism, but it's an impulse that is as old as time and very human.
Its subjects will study at universities where both democracy and nationalism are disseminated, and bring those ideas back home. Essentially, that's how the British Empire dissolved so rapidly.
This fact was recognised as far back as the Pelopennesian War, when Cleon told the Athenians, that "your empire is exercised over unwilling subjects." Empires based upon loyalty to a religion, like the Islamic Caliphate, or on loyalty to a ruling dynasty, can last far longer.
https://www.neh.gov/article/lovers-and-soldiers
I recognise your description, but as soon as you drive down the A55 from Llanddulas you enter a beautiful coastline with the newly sanded sweeping beaches of Colwyn Bay to Rhos on Sea then continuing towards Penrhyn Bay with the Little Orme rising in front, the sea to your right and the wonderful mountains to your left
Driving over the Little Orme you immediately see the fantastic Victorian promenade of Llandudno and the magnificent Great Orme behind
This is where we live and have done for 58 years and to be fair it is not Anglesey which is beyond Bangor and across the Menai Straights
So much has changed in the last few years I strongly recommend the drive down the A55 from Llanddulas to Colwyn Bay, then join the promenade through Rhos on Sea to Penrhyn Bay and Llandudno
https://www.moreincommon.org.uk/our-work/research/voting-intention-may-2023/
L 42 -2
C 31 +1
LD 13 +3
G 5 -1
R 5
They have also polled on the cost of living.
https://www.moreincommon.org.uk/our-work/research/britons-and-the-cost-of-living-may-2023/
I think I can safely say that you have added a hotel in a destination to my list. (I may never go though because it's so hot)
I think we love to belong to a tribe, and we have, and always will be, susceptible to persuasion that our tribe is better than that other tribe, and we are justified to take their stuff. There'll always be an ideology to latch on to.
The whole branch line to St Ives. Especially St ives itself above the beach
Some of the tiny stations along the Falmouth Truro line, also the line to Looe
And Penzance! Which really does feel like the end of Britain. The terminus of everything. And a view of St Michael’s Mount in the Bay as you exit
My expectation is that the conservatives would pull 3-4 back before the general election, probably mostly at the expense of Reform.
What really turbocharged nationalism in the modern world was the French Revolution.
Pre-Revolution, the upper classes of Germany and Russia spoke French, were versed in French, Italian, and Spanish culture, and used their own tongue only to communicate with servants. They despised literary works written in the vernacular. Post-Revolution, they Germanised and Russified everything.
There was a popular 19th century German song "Where is the German Fatherland?" It concludes that the German Fatherland exists wherever a German is named "freund" and a Frenchman is named "Fiend". Frederick the Great would have been horrified by such an outlook.
It's nice to see Egypt are still following the old Turkish trick of building the main road right by the beach so you need to cross a stupidly busy road to get between the hotel and said beach. Now there are probably reasons why you don't want hotel residents going to the beach but even so...
I wouldn’t come here for more than a couple of days and only then if you’re really into the conceptual Greco-Roman-Arab-Jewish-Franco-British weirdness
The Egyptians have successfully ruined two magnificent cities. Cairo and Alex. The country’s present day population is 106 million which is probably 5 or 6 times what it should be
Alexandria was apparently quite heavenly until about 1920
Both Yanis Varoufakis and the neo-classical Greek poet Cavafy are from Alexandrian Greek famiies. Also Demis Roussos.
My villa is right on the sea BUT I have to get a buggy via “the tunnel” to actually reach the hotel - if I don’t want to get run over
My pre-conceptions simply come from the film Lawrence of Arabia.
Expulsion, or worst of all, extermination, were 20th century ideas.
Well worth a read: https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/seaflooding
Looks a very plausible plan to me.
But, you know, it's still a bus stop. The bathos of this image. There's no practical reason why bus shouldn't be a perfectly good means of getting around. Especially in rural areas, in transport planning terms it usually makes much more sense than a train. And yet. The mundanity. The dreary, run-by-the-council joylessness. Even the meanest, graffiti-strewn round-the-back-of-an-industrial-estate one-train-a-week station contains more excitement and promise and romance than this. That's not to say I'd rather BE at Denton Station than this particular bus stop - but the promise of a bus journey just can't stir the soul in the same way.
I’m reading this book which is absolutely brutal on the destruction of Old Alex
For thousands of years people who have had power have sought to expand that power and wield it against those who are weaker than themselves and not been able to necessarily unite to defend themselves.
World War One marked the beginning of the end of the Age of Imperialism. Between the wars the Germans attempted to rebound and attempt it again with their Third Reich. World War Two marked the end of the age Age of Imperialism.
We now have a more enlightened age which includes, yes, nationalism. That people who were formerly British subjects around the globe have mostly peacefully and via enlightenment been able to take control of their own destiny. That Ukrainian nationalists are free and able to stand up to aggressors like Putin and say "we are Ukrainian, we are not your subjects, and we will stand up to you".
Imperialism has always existed. Nationalism is a much newer concept historically, and far the better.
Through most of human history if a Putin wanted to invade Ukraine, then they'd have had the force and ability to do so. The sanctity of national borders and that it is so repugnant to use force now to change them is because nationalism has replaced imperialism. That nations respect each others borders now. That is a change for the better.
By that definition Japanese and Han Chinese nationalism has been around for 2000-3000 years at least. The Jews might also like a word. And the English and the French nations go back to 500AD
fixed views on a number of topics. But I’m now into my third beer and my private plunge pool is looking inviting in the sun so I can’t be arsed to argue. As you were
That the Ukraine War is so exceptional post-WWII and has been so roundly condemned and is looking like being defeated is positive for the age of nationalism that has replaced the age of imperialism. Nation states are far more secure now in their borders which are better changed nowadays with ballots not bullets.
Can you name any period in history more peaceful in Europe than since the defeat of imperialism and rise of nationalism in 1945?
If you follow house prices along the railway lines that fan out from London, it's amazing/horrifying how far you have to go to get something affordable near the station. Over the years all the little places that I used to hold close were swallowed up in the big wave of increases. It paused slightly between 2008 (crash) and 2013, but Osborne brought in Help To Buy and it just took off again.
Given the likely rates of evaporation, the inland sea would have to be continually 'topped up' from the Med, which would steadily increase salinity over time, without large scale removal of salt.
One interesting idea is to maintain two adjacent lakes, one of much higher salinity, and to have a large scale osmotic power generation plant, in order to provide sufficient power (plus considerable excess) to pump excess saline back to the Med.
I don't know whether any of these ideas have been extensively modelled in recent years, but it would be well worth the investment of some effort now, since all of the enabling technologies have advanced over the last couple of decades.
Those citizens may have been born there, or chose to make that nation their home, but either way they get an equal say.
And I believe borders can and should change - but democratically. Via ballots, not bullets. The borders aren't fixed permanently, they're only fixed until people vote to change them.
And we’ve still managed Yugoslavia and now Ukraine
Anyway Tory MPs are so last week, they're all National Conservatism MPs now.
This new National Conservatism Government is busy undoing the mess created over 78 years by the two old postwar parties. A new broom sweeps clean!
I'd never have voted Conservative but National Conservatism sounds very exciting.
And while the concept of a nation is quite old, its importance is less so. Since the iron age, loyalty has more commonly been to a person than a geographic unit; it wasn't necessarily the case that groups A and B who were united by language and geography would see themselves as a coherent group and see groups C and D as outsiders if groups A and C owed loyalty to one prince and groups B and D to another.
I'm quite interested in the concept of nation building. I think we'd largely agree that there are three nations on this island, but how did this come about? It's not ethnicity - we're all pretty similar, genetically, and there tend to be as many differences within nations as between them - and it's not language, which I would argue has followed rather than led differences between England, Scotland and Wales. And why three nations? Why not one, or two, or four, or nine? All were historically just as possible.
It certainly seems the case that 2000 years ago there weren't nations here, and 200 years ago there were. But the process by which this came about is a little opaque.
I love these really big ideas. That's why I was always a fan of Boris island despite its promoter, and likewise the tidal barrages we were going to construct all along the West coast. Those could have been our grand waterworks.