@Casino_Royale mate this book is right up your street you and the author/protagonist have a lot in common you should get yourself a copy off Amazon pronto.
"And she saw a long Roman candle going up over the trees, up, up, and, in the tense hush, they were all breathless with excitement as it went higher and higher and she had to lean back more and more to look up after it, high, high, almost out of sight, and her face was suffused with a divine, an entrancing blush from straining back and he could see her other things too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that caresses the skin, better than those other pettiwidth, the green, four and eleven, on account of being white and she let him and she saw that he saw and then it went so high it went out of sight a moment and she was trembling in every limb from being bent so far back he had a full view high up above her knee no-one ever not even on the swing or wading and she wasn't ashamed and he wasn't either to look in that immodest way like that because he couldn't resist the sight of the wondrous revealment half offered like those skirtdancers behaving so immodest before gentlemen looking and he kept on looking, looking. She would fain have cried to him chokingly, held out her snowy slender arms to him to come, to feel his lips laid on her white brow the cry of a young girl's love, a little strangled cry, wrung from her, that cry that has rung through the ages. And then a rocket sprang and bang shot blind and O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh of O! and everyone cried O!O! in raptures and it gushed out of it a stream of rain gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were all greeny dewy stars falling with golden, O so lively! O so soft, sweet, soft!"
So.... because my state pension has gone up. The bastards are taking 20 quid a month extra in tax....from my company pension that is also a lot worse than it should be because its in the financial assistance scheme.
Haven't seen the whole of the Speccie piece but taken as is it is an example (we were discussing this yesterday) of why I don't take the magazine any more.
That said no one can dispute the quality of the writing - v funny indeed. Which makes it all the more irritating.
And thinking about it so it's offensive. So what. Are people calling for it to be cancelled? I'm sure Owen Jones will. That would be very bad if we're not allowed to be offensive. Ask Dave Chapelle.
As it objectifies women we are at the intersection of offence and abuse but the bigger the outcry the more minded I am too defend it even though it's the hated Speccie.
But on the third hand I am an old(er) white bloke so perhaps my time as leader of the western world is over.
I do hope the publicity benefits Ypi and boosts sales of her book and increases listenership of her podcast. Her family experience of persecution under Hoxha and the growing pains of the new Albania is a very interesting perspective, she seems to be on the leading edge of new left wing thought.
Jones' actual output not living up to his rep as a crazy leftist culture warrior? Surely not!
Crazy leftist lying culture warrior as per @Isam's post on the "correction" to his article on the UK's defence spending.
I must say though, one of the things I agreed with Corbyn, and Jones, on was the nuclear deterrent. I understand the MAD argument, but I wish we never had them.
We are seeing in Russia/Ukraine the absurdity of humans having nuclear weapons.
What I've learned here is that Russia's nukes are useless because there are no circumstances under which they would use them on the battlefield. But ours are apparently essential. Strange that the deterrent effect only appears to work in one direction.
Nuclear weapons - not much use in an aggressive war, but would prevent you from being invaded. That seems perfectly logical and consistent.
In which case, why do we get so worked up about nuclear proliferation? If they can only be used for defence, why not let everyone have them?
Haven't seen the whole of the Speccie piece but taken as is it is an example (we were discussing this yesterday) of why I don't take the magazine any more.
That said no one can dispute the quality of the writing - v funny indeed. Which makes it all the more irritating.
And thinking about it so it's offensive. So what. Are people calling for it to be cancelled? I'm sure Owen Jones will. That would be very bad if we're not allowed to be offensive. Ask Dave Chapelle.
As it objectifies women we are at the intersection of offence and abuse but the bigger the outcry the more minded I am too defend it even though it's the hated Speccie.
But on the third hand I am an old(er) white bloke so perhaps my time as leader of the western world is over.
I do hope the publicity benefits Ypi and boosts sales of her book and increases listenership of her podcast. Her family experience of persecution under Hoxha and the growing pains of the new Albania is a very interesting perspective, she seems to be on the leading edge of new left wing thought.
"repulsive and a disgrace" sounds to me like a step on the way to getting him sacked.
Listen you and I are both men d'un age certain. Are we saying that no one is allowed to comment on a person's looks any more.
Context is everything.
Well I haven't seen the entire article as it is paywalled. Neither have you, I suspect.
Good for middle aged loaded old lads mag. Unsuitable for a politics, culture and current affairs magazine. Its not exactly rocket science.
The Spectator has ALWAYS been like this. It mixes the high and the low, the sordid and the cerebral, the arts and the heart. And it seeks to surprise as all good magazines should
I very much doubt you subscribe, or ever will, and as it’s paywalled that means you never read it, so why on earth should they care what you think?
And I don't care if they care or not, its very much up to them. Just commenting on here as the topic du jour.
My point is you are acting as if this is some sordid new departure for the Spectator. It really isn’t. I’m old enough to remember when they ran a piece about a guy “wanking himself into hospital” which became mildly celebrated and got quoted in the US Congress and cited in famous books of psychology. So none of this is new
I doubt it shall survive contact with the generation or two below you, it shall have to choose one or the other.
You could be right. It’s not looking good. Here’s their 200 years of sales in a graph
Yes its popular with the posher end of the lads mag readership of the 90s. How did those fare with Gen Z?
That's an important part of it IMO: he chose not to talk about what she was saying aside from a small quote; her only importance to him was as a fantasy figure. What she had to say was unimportant - because she was an attractive woman (he would not talk about a man that way, I guess...)
Unless he was gay. Or unless a woman wrote the article. Is no one allowed to comment on who they think is attractive in print any more.
Indeed. It should also be noted that Lea Ypi really is quite attractive - and, what’s more, she knows it and uses it. There are plenty of photos of her giving lectures and interviews in surprisingly short skirts and dresses for an esteemed academic
I’ve no problem with that. I like beautiful women: good luck to her. But she is undoubtedly using her sexuality to her own ends. And the Spectator piece is a guy admitting that yes, it worked, and he responded to it, as men do
Ah it's that "old school feminism" of yours again. Excellent.
I'm driven to ask why on earth would Iran call it quits. They have already pre-vowed to retaliate if Israel retaliated to their retaliation.
I imagine the back channels are buzzing as we speak.
My guess on why Iran would call it quits is that nothing major, no big civilian centres and nothing high profile were destroyed so Iranian top people can go on tv and laugh “those pathetic Israelis cannot destroy mighty Iran - look at this pathetic attempt. Like a flea on a camel. Please forget our very unsuccessful huge strike.”
Iran also know that the Israelis just showed what they can do so far inland in Iran, near sensitive nuclear sites, in a very limited attack and so “next time” it could be a lot worse.
So honour restored and the phoney war can continue through proxies.
I was thinking much the same. Israel has won these exchanges, Iran will downplay everything for domestic audience but in reality they've been humiliated.
Unfortunately, as Leon alludes, it now gives Israel a free hand to destroy Gaza. No one is now coming to their rescue.
Netanyahu has managed to strengthen his position in the short term. He'll be pleased. But it's a win for him not for Israel. Israel's interests would be best served by ceasefire, de-escalation and diplomacy.
Same thing with Russia, a disconnect between the interests of the warmongering country and those of its political leadership. Inflicting carnage on Ukraine has nothing at all to do with improving the lot of the Russian people.
One of the weirder things is Israel's insistence on not confirming that they're involved in any of the numerous extraterritorial actions that they have in fact taken.
Week preceding: (loudly) We're gonna fuck those mullahs good!!
Today: we can neither confirm or deny..
Must be frustrating for an enthusiastic willy waver like Netanyahu.
Haven't seen the whole of the Speccie piece but taken as is it is an example (we were discussing this yesterday) of why I don't take the magazine any more.
That said no one can dispute the quality of the writing - v funny indeed. Which makes it all the more irritating.
And thinking about it so it's offensive. So what. Are people calling for it to be cancelled? I'm sure Owen Jones will. That would be very bad if we're not allowed to be offensive. Ask Dave Chapelle.
As it objectifies women we are at the intersection of offence and abuse but the bigger the outcry the more minded I am too defend it even though it's the hated Speccie.
But on the third hand I am an old(er) white bloke so perhaps my time as leader of the western world is over.
I do hope the publicity benefits Ypi and boosts sales of her book and increases listenership of her podcast. Her family experience of persecution under Hoxha and the growing pains of the new Albania is a very interesting perspective, she seems to be on the leading edge of new left wing thought.
"repulsive and a disgrace" sounds to me like a step on the way to getting him sacked.
Listen you and I are both men d'un age certain. Are we saying that no one is allowed to comment on a person's looks any more.
Context is everything.
Well I haven't seen the entire article as it is paywalled. Neither have you, I suspect.
Good for middle aged loaded old lads mag. Unsuitable for a politics, culture and current affairs magazine. Its not exactly rocket science.
The Spectator has ALWAYS been like this. It mixes the high and the low, the sordid and the cerebral, the arts and the heart. And it seeks to surprise as all good magazines should
I very much doubt you subscribe, or ever will, and as it’s paywalled that means you never read it, so why on earth should they care what you think?
And I don't care if they care or not, its very much up to them. Just commenting on here as the topic du jour.
My point is you are acting as if this is some sordid new departure for the Spectator. It really isn’t. I’m old enough to remember when they ran a piece about a guy “wanking himself into hospital” which became mildly celebrated and got quoted in the US Congress and cited in famous books of psychology. So none of this is new
I doubt it shall survive contact with the generation or two below you, it shall have to choose one or the other.
You could be right. It’s not looking good. Here’s their 200 years of sales in a graph
Yes its popular with the posher end of the lads mag readership of the 90s. How did those fare with Gen Z?
Yes they must be panicking when they look at that sales chart. Especially when you compare it to every other newspaper and magazine. “What are we going to do about Gen Z??? The Guardian has got all that covered!! All Gen Z wants to read about is wild swimming and trans!”
Haven't seen the whole of the Speccie piece but taken as is it is an example (we were discussing this yesterday) of why I don't take the magazine any more.
That said no one can dispute the quality of the writing - v funny indeed. Which makes it all the more irritating.
And thinking about it so it's offensive. So what. Are people calling for it to be cancelled? I'm sure Owen Jones will. That would be very bad if we're not allowed to be offensive. Ask Dave Chapelle.
As it objectifies women we are at the intersection of offence and abuse but the bigger the outcry the more minded I am too defend it even though it's the hated Speccie.
But on the third hand I am an old(er) white bloke so perhaps my time as leader of the western world is over.
I do hope the publicity benefits Ypi and boosts sales of her book and increases listenership of her podcast. Her family experience of persecution under Hoxha and the growing pains of the new Albania is a very interesting perspective, she seems to be on the leading edge of new left wing thought.
"repulsive and a disgrace" sounds to me like a step on the way to getting him sacked.
Listen you and I are both men d'un age certain. Are we saying that no one is allowed to comment on a person's looks any more.
Context is everything.
Well I haven't seen the entire article as it is paywalled. Neither have you, I suspect.
Good for middle aged loaded old lads mag. Unsuitable for a politics, culture and current affairs magazine. Its not exactly rocket science.
The Spectator has ALWAYS been like this. It mixes the high and the low, the sordid and the cerebral, the arts and the heart. And it seeks to surprise as all good magazines should
I very much doubt you subscribe, or ever will, and as it’s paywalled that means you never read it, so why on earth should they care what you think?
And I don't care if they care or not, its very much up to them. Just commenting on here as the topic du jour.
My point is you are acting as if this is some sordid new departure for the Spectator. It really isn’t. I’m old enough to remember when they ran a piece about a guy “wanking himself into hospital” which became mildly celebrated and got quoted in the US Congress and cited in famous books of psychology. So none of this is new
I doubt it shall survive contact with the generation or two below you, it shall have to choose one or the other.
You could be right. It’s not looking good. Here’s their 200 years of sales in a graph
Yes its popular with the posher end of the lads mag readership of the 90s. How did those fare with Gen Z?
It might do alright with with the Andrew Tate mob. Letchery and misogyny never go completely out of style. It might need to drop the written word in favour of shortform videos though.
Haven't seen the whole of the Speccie piece but taken as is it is an example (we were discussing this yesterday) of why I don't take the magazine any more.
That said no one can dispute the quality of the writing - v funny indeed. Which makes it all the more irritating.
And thinking about it so it's offensive. So what. Are people calling for it to be cancelled? I'm sure Owen Jones will. That would be very bad if we're not allowed to be offensive. Ask Dave Chapelle.
As it objectifies women we are at the intersection of offence and abuse but the bigger the outcry the more minded I am too defend it even though it's the hated Speccie.
But on the third hand I am an old(er) white bloke so perhaps my time as leader of the western world is over.
I do hope the publicity benefits Ypi and boosts sales of her book and increases listenership of her podcast. Her family experience of persecution under Hoxha and the growing pains of the new Albania is a very interesting perspective, she seems to be on the leading edge of new left wing thought.
"repulsive and a disgrace" sounds to me like a step on the way to getting him sacked.
Listen you and I are both men d'un age certain. Are we saying that no one is allowed to comment on a person's looks any more.
Context is everything.
Well I haven't seen the entire article as it is paywalled. Neither have you, I suspect.
Good for middle aged loaded old lads mag. Unsuitable for a politics, culture and current affairs magazine. Its not exactly rocket science.
The Spectator has ALWAYS been like this. It mixes the high and the low, the sordid and the cerebral, the arts and the heart. And it seeks to surprise as all good magazines should
I very much doubt you subscribe, or ever will, and as it’s paywalled that means you never read it, so why on earth should they care what you think?
And I don't care if they care or not, its very much up to them. Just commenting on here as the topic du jour.
My point is you are acting as if this is some sordid new departure for the Spectator. It really isn’t. I’m old enough to remember when they ran a piece about a guy “wanking himself into hospital” which became mildly celebrated and got quoted in the US Congress and cited in famous books of psychology. So none of this is new
I doubt it shall survive contact with the generation or two below you, it shall have to choose one or the other.
You could be right. It’s not looking good. Here’s their 200 years of sales in a graph
Yes its popular with the posher end of the lads mag readership of the 90s. How did those fare with Gen Z?
It might do alright with with the Andrew Tate mob. Letchery and misogyny never go completely out of style. It might need to drop the written word in favour of shortform videos though.
This jibe doesn’t really have the effect intended because it makes you think “Yeah, no, I’d rather read that Spectator article”
I assume the wank/shit article is a vivid and creative metaphor for the last 14 years of Tory government? This other article (and no I haven't read it, one of the nice things about PB is the free summaries of behind the paywall journalism) sounds like another exhibit in the Boomer sex obsession school of writing. The generation who think they invented shagging and still find it a fascinating topic of conversation. I think the divide on this is as much generational as political. Nobody is denying the male libido, people are simply questioning whether there is much interesting to say about it in print. I'd rather have sex than read about it, but perhaps reading about it is what you do when having it is not on the table?
What a load of old wank. To be precise
People like sex and they like reading about sex. And looking at it. And watching it. You can do all of these things even in the same day
Sex is a fundamental part of the human condition and is endlessly fascinating for that and other reasons. See the endless trans debate for evidence
And if there’s a generational divide it is, sadly, that young people are having much less sex, and yet talking about it more. Not the other way round
I'd put sex along with eating in the fun to do, boring to read about category. As for watching it, isn't it all a bit cringe? Although I understand this is very much a minority view, I believe that porn is very much a thing these days.
That's an important part of it IMO: he chose not to talk about what she was saying aside from a small quote; her only importance to him was as a fantasy figure. What she had to say was unimportant - because she was an attractive woman (he would not talk about a man that way, I guess...)
Unless he was gay. Or unless a woman wrote the article. Is no one allowed to comment on who they think is attractive in print any more.
Indeed. It should also be noted that Lea Ypi really is quite attractive - and, what’s more, she knows it and uses it. There are plenty of photos of her giving lectures and interviews in surprisingly short skirts and dresses for an esteemed academic
I’ve no problem with that. I like beautiful women: good luck to her. But she is undoubtedly using her sexuality to her own ends. And the Spectator piece is a guy admitting that yes, it worked, and he responded to it, as men do
Ah it's that "old school feminism" of yours again. Excellent.
Jeepers what is wrong with you. You’re so bad at doing repartee
This is an attractive woman with a nice figure who likes to be looked at and desired. So she wears short skirts and dresses. Good for her - beauty doesn’t last forever and it adds to the gaiety of the nation. She’s not prudish and she enjoys being pretty and sexy. Huzzah
However if you do that then men ARE going to desire you and look at your legs. That’s kind of how it works. How the species procreates
However this woman was unreachable so the sad horny man had to expend his desires elsewhere. That’s it
Haven't seen the whole of the Speccie piece but taken as is it is an example (we were discussing this yesterday) of why I don't take the magazine any more.
That said no one can dispute the quality of the writing - v funny indeed. Which makes it all the more irritating.
And thinking about it so it's offensive. So what. Are people calling for it to be cancelled? I'm sure Owen Jones will. That would be very bad if we're not allowed to be offensive. Ask Dave Chapelle.
As it objectifies women we are at the intersection of offence and abuse but the bigger the outcry the more minded I am too defend it even though it's the hated Speccie.
But on the third hand I am an old(er) white bloke so perhaps my time as leader of the western world is over.
I do hope the publicity benefits Ypi and boosts sales of her book and increases listenership of her podcast. Her family experience of persecution under Hoxha and the growing pains of the new Albania is a very interesting perspective, she seems to be on the leading edge of new left wing thought.
"repulsive and a disgrace" sounds to me like a step on the way to getting him sacked.
Listen you and I are both men d'un age certain. Are we saying that no one is allowed to comment on a person's looks any more.
Context is everything.
Well I haven't seen the entire article as it is paywalled. Neither have you, I suspect.
Good for middle aged loaded old lads mag. Unsuitable for a politics, culture and current affairs magazine. Its not exactly rocket science.
The Spectator has ALWAYS been like this. It mixes the high and the low, the sordid and the cerebral, the arts and the heart. And it seeks to surprise as all good magazines should
I very much doubt you subscribe, or ever will, and as it’s paywalled that means you never read it, so why on earth should they care what you think?
And I don't care if they care or not, its very much up to them. Just commenting on here as the topic du jour.
My point is you are acting as if this is some sordid new departure for the Spectator. It really isn’t. I’m old enough to remember when they ran a piece about a guy “wanking himself into hospital” which became mildly celebrated and got quoted in the US Congress and cited in famous books of psychology. So none of this is new
I doubt it shall survive contact with the generation or two below you, it shall have to choose one or the other.
You could be right. It’s not looking good. Here’s their 200 years of sales in a graph
Yes its popular with the posher end of the lads mag readership of the 90s. How did those fare with Gen Z?
I think it's wrong to attribute this to boomers. It's the old forgotten Gen X again, ignored in the Boomer-Millennial culture wars. Gen X, people from about 45 to 60 now.
My impression is this is the most hedonistic, don't give a shit of all the generations. The late 90s and early noughties when GenX were young were the peak of lad mags but also the celebration of binge drinking and drug taking, popular culture that didn't take itself too seriously, and apolitical comedy from The Office to the Fast Show to Reeves and Mortimer. And the nadir (in the sense of they didn't exist) of the culture wars. Toxic in many ways in both a literal and figurative sense, but also good fun.
I miss all that. I know parts of it were bad and not to be repeated, but I'm a creature of that era and it's hard not to be nostalgic for it.
@Casino_Royale mate this book is right up your street you and the author/protagonist have a lot in common you should get yourself a copy off Amazon pronto.
"And she saw a long Roman candle going up over the trees, up, up, and, in the tense hush, they were all breathless with excitement as it went higher and higher and she had to lean back more and more to look up after it, high, high, almost out of sight, and her face was suffused with a divine, an entrancing blush from straining back and he could see her other things too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that caresses the skin, better than those other pettiwidth, the green, four and eleven, on account of being white and she let him and she saw that he saw and then it went so high it went out of sight a moment and she was trembling in every limb from being bent so far back he had a full view high up above her knee no-one ever not even on the swing or wading and she wasn't ashamed and he wasn't either to look in that immodest way like that because he couldn't resist the sight of the wondrous revealment half offered like those skirtdancers behaving so immodest before gentlemen looking and he kept on looking, looking. She would fain have cried to him chokingly, held out her snowy slender arms to him to come, to feel his lips laid on her white brow the cry of a young girl's love, a little strangled cry, wrung from her, that cry that has rung through the ages. And then a rocket sprang and bang shot blind and O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh of O! and everyone cried O!O! in raptures and it gushed out of it a stream of rain gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were all greeny dewy stars falling with golden, O so lively! O so soft, sweet, soft!"
Haven't seen the whole of the Speccie piece but taken as is it is an example (we were discussing this yesterday) of why I don't take the magazine any more.
That said no one can dispute the quality of the writing - v funny indeed. Which makes it all the more irritating.
And thinking about it so it's offensive. So what. Are people calling for it to be cancelled? I'm sure Owen Jones will. That would be very bad if we're not allowed to be offensive. Ask Dave Chapelle.
As it objectifies women we are at the intersection of offence and abuse but the bigger the outcry the more minded I am too defend it even though it's the hated Speccie.
But on the third hand I am an old(er) white bloke so perhaps my time as leader of the western world is over.
I do hope the publicity benefits Ypi and boosts sales of her book and increases listenership of her podcast. Her family experience of persecution under Hoxha and the growing pains of the new Albania is a very interesting perspective, she seems to be on the leading edge of new left wing thought.
Jones' actual output not living up to his rep as a crazy leftist culture warrior? Surely not!
Crazy leftist lying culture warrior as per @Isam's post on the "correction" to his article on the UK's defence spending.
I must say though, one of the things I agreed with Corbyn, and Jones, on was the nuclear deterrent. I understand the MAD argument, but I wish we never had them.
We are seeing in Russia/Ukraine the absurdity of humans having nuclear weapons.
What I've learned here is that Russia's nukes are useless because there are no circumstances under which they would use them on the battlefield. But ours are apparently essential. Strange that the deterrent effect only appears to work in one direction.
Nuclear weapons - not much use in an aggressive war, but would prevent you from being invaded. That seems perfectly logical and consistent.
In which case, why do we get so worked up about nuclear proliferation? If they can only be used for defence, why not let everyone have them?
Because the more people have them the greater the chance of someone fucking up, or someone having them who is a suicidal nutter convinced they'll receive their reward in the afterlife.
If we could convince the Russians and the Chinese to also get rid of them, the world would be a safer place without them.
It's revealing of his mentality. He believes he is successful because of his own talent and hard work. Those less fortunate are just lazy. Strivers vs skivers.
It's actually nothing new. Quite traditional Toryism, of the sort I encountered frequently in arguments with young fogey types as an undergrad.
The Speccie is the house mag of the red cord type. It provides a reassuring view of the world and even manages to fool readers into pondering truths under the cover, as we are seeing today, of hoorah sentiment. It does this exceedingly well and, with all kinds of hitherto orthodox behaviour for this group now coming under the spotlight (good god man I can't believe it) it provides an outlet.
No coincidence that you will see it on Club tables up and down St. James's. Next to Country Life and the latest magazine of the Scots Guards.
I used to love it but as I said it also indulges (or did) a nasty, Taki/Charles Moore element that is not so self-aware and is simply nasty. But that is to appeal to/keep onside the "too clever by half" element of the readership which sees "literature", homosexuality, and three buttons on your cuff as essentially foreign and beyond the pale.
This jibe doesn’t really have the effect intended because it makes you think “Yeah, no, I’d rather read that Spectator article”
I assume the wank/shit article is a vivid and creative metaphor for the last 14 years of Tory government? This other article (and no I haven't read it, one of the nice things about PB is the free summaries of behind the paywall journalism) sounds like another exhibit in the Boomer sex obsession school of writing. The generation who think they invented shagging and still find it a fascinating topic of conversation. I think the divide on this is as much generational as political. Nobody is denying the male libido, people are simply questioning whether there is much interesting to say about it in print. I'd rather have sex than read about it, but perhaps reading about it is what you do when having it is not on the table?
What a load of old wank. To be precise
People like sex and they like reading about sex. And looking at it. And watching it. You can do all of these things even in the same day
Sex is a fundamental part of the human condition and is endlessly fascinating for that and other reasons. See the endless trans debate for evidence
And if there’s a generational divide it is, sadly, that young people are having much less sex, and yet talking about it more. Not the other way round
I'd put sex along with eating in the fun to do, boring to read about category. As for watching it, isn't it all a bit cringe? Although I understand this is very much a minority view, I believe that porn is very much a thing these days.
Women devour “written porn” - much more than men. Check the Amazon charts. Trillions of titles of erotica all aimed at women, are they being misogynistic or pervy?
Meanwhile yes visual porn has exploded amongst young men, probably to an unhealthy extent
And it’s only going to get worse with A.I. when you’ll be able to order up EXACTLY what you want to see
This jibe doesn’t really have the effect intended because it makes you think “Yeah, no, I’d rather read that Spectator article”
I assume the wank/shit article is a vivid and creative metaphor for the last 14 years of Tory government? This other article (and no I haven't read it, one of the nice things about PB is the free summaries of behind the paywall journalism) sounds like another exhibit in the Boomer sex obsession school of writing. The generation who think they invented shagging and still find it a fascinating topic of conversation. I think the divide on this is as much generational as political. Nobody is denying the male libido, people are simply questioning whether there is much interesting to say about it in print. I'd rather have sex than read about it, but perhaps reading about it is what you do when having it is not on the table?
What a load of old wank. To be precise
People like sex and they like reading about sex. And looking at it. And watching it. You can do all of these things even in the same day
Sex is a fundamental part of the human condition and is endlessly fascinating for that and other reasons. See the endless trans debate for evidence
And if there’s a generational divide it is, sadly, that young people are having much less sex, and yet talking about it more. Not the other way round
I'd put sex along with eating in the fun to do, boring to read about category. As for watching it, isn't it all a bit cringe? Although I understand this is very much a minority view, I believe that porn is very much a thing these days.
From David Lodge's How Far Can You Go,
Death, after all, is the overwhelming question to which sex provides no answer, only a brief respite from thinking about it.
A lot of the madness of the boomer generation comes from them having had a lifetime of broadly getting their own way. In death, they have finally come up against an opponent they cannot beat. And they don't know how to cope.
It's revealing of his mentality. He believes he is successful because of his own talent and hard work. Those less fortunate are just lazy. Strivers vs skivers.
It's actually nothing new. Quite traditional Toryism, of the sort I encountered frequently in arguments with young fogey types as an undergrad.
@Casino_Royale mate this book is right up your street you and the author/protagonist have a lot in common you should get yourself a copy off Amazon pronto.
"And she saw a long Roman candle going up over the trees, up, up, and, in the tense hush, they were all breathless with excitement as it went higher and higher and she had to lean back more and more to look up after it, high, high, almost out of sight, and her face was suffused with a divine, an entrancing blush from straining back and he could see her other things too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that caresses the skin, better than those other pettiwidth, the green, four and eleven, on account of being white and she let him and she saw that he saw and then it went so high it went out of sight a moment and she was trembling in every limb from being bent so far back he had a full view high up above her knee no-one ever not even on the swing or wading and she wasn't ashamed and he wasn't either to look in that immodest way like that because he couldn't resist the sight of the wondrous revealment half offered like those skirtdancers behaving so immodest before gentlemen looking and he kept on looking, looking. She would fain have cried to him chokingly, held out her snowy slender arms to him to come, to feel his lips laid on her white brow the cry of a young girl's love, a little strangled cry, wrung from her, that cry that has rung through the ages. And then a rocket sprang and bang shot blind and O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh of O! and everyone cried O!O! in raptures and it gushed out of it a stream of rain gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were all greeny dewy stars falling with golden, O so lively! O so soft, sweet, soft!"
It's revealing of his mentality. He believes he is successful because of his own talent and hard work. Those less fortunate are just lazy. Strivers vs skivers.
It's actually nothing new. Quite traditional Toryism, of the sort I encountered frequently in arguments with young fogey types as an undergrad.
Also he is driven by spreadsheets. Seems that how he views the world. As a cold, logician.
The spreadsheet tells him a lot more people are off sick than twenty years ago and so there is a problem and he can fix the data by hammering them back to work.
Haven't seen the whole of the Speccie piece but taken as is it is an example (we were discussing this yesterday) of why I don't take the magazine any more.
That said no one can dispute the quality of the writing - v funny indeed. Which makes it all the more irritating.
And thinking about it so it's offensive. So what. Are people calling for it to be cancelled? I'm sure Owen Jones will. That would be very bad if we're not allowed to be offensive. Ask Dave Chapelle.
As it objectifies women we are at the intersection of offence and abuse but the bigger the outcry the more minded I am too defend it even though it's the hated Speccie.
But on the third hand I am an old(er) white bloke so perhaps my time as leader of the western world is over.
I do hope the publicity benefits Ypi and boosts sales of her book and increases listenership of her podcast. Her family experience of persecution under Hoxha and the growing pains of the new Albania is a very interesting perspective, she seems to be on the leading edge of new left wing thought.
"repulsive and a disgrace" sounds to me like a step on the way to getting him sacked.
Listen you and I are both men d'un age certain. Are we saying that no one is allowed to comment on a person's looks any more.
Context is everything.
Well I haven't seen the entire article as it is paywalled. Neither have you, I suspect.
Good for middle aged loaded old lads mag. Unsuitable for a politics, culture and current affairs magazine. Its not exactly rocket science.
The Spectator has ALWAYS been like this. It mixes the high and the low, the sordid and the cerebral, the arts and the heart. And it seeks to surprise as all good magazines should
I very much doubt you subscribe, or ever will, and as it’s paywalled that means you never read it, so why on earth should they care what you think?
And I don't care if they care or not, its very much up to them. Just commenting on here as the topic du jour.
My point is you are acting as if this is some sordid new departure for the Spectator. It really isn’t. I’m old enough to remember when they ran a piece about a guy “wanking himself into hospital” which became mildly celebrated and got quoted in the US Congress and cited in famous books of psychology. So none of this is new
I doubt it shall survive contact with the generation or two below you, it shall have to choose one or the other.
You could be right. It’s not looking good. Here’s their 200 years of sales in a graph
Yes its popular with the posher end of the lads mag readership of the 90s. How did those fare with Gen Z?
I think it's wrong to attribute this to boomers. It's the old forgotten Gen X again, ignored in the Boomer-Millennial culture wars. Gen X, people from about 45 to 60 now.
My impression is this is the most hedonistic, don't give a shit of all the generations. The late 90s and early noughties when GenX were young were the peak of lad mags but also the celebration of binge drinking and drug taking, popular culture that didn't take itself too seriously, and apolitical comedy from The Office to the Fast Show to Reeves and Mortimer. And the nadir of the culture wars. Toxic in many ways in both a literal and figurative sense, but also good fun.
I miss all that. I know parts of it were bad and not to be repeated, but I'm a creature of that era and it's hard not to be nostalgic for it.
I'm 48 and a lot of this rings true, binge drinking, drugs, the Fast Show etc, but I think the sex obsession is more common with people towards the upper end of that age range, plus Boomers. I think the idea of casual sex was so normalised for people my age that it just wasn't a big thing, people just got on with it and didn't feel the urge to go on about it.
Sunak: "On Rwanda, the very simple thing here is that repeatedly, everyone has tried to block us from getting this bill through. And yet again, you saw it this week."
Because it is a shite piece of legislation you gormless twat.
Haven't seen the whole of the Speccie piece but taken as is it is an example (we were discussing this yesterday) of why I don't take the magazine any more.
That said no one can dispute the quality of the writing - v funny indeed. Which makes it all the more irritating.
And thinking about it so it's offensive. So what. Are people calling for it to be cancelled? I'm sure Owen Jones will. That would be very bad if we're not allowed to be offensive. Ask Dave Chapelle.
As it objectifies women we are at the intersection of offence and abuse but the bigger the outcry the more minded I am too defend it even though it's the hated Speccie.
But on the third hand I am an old(er) white bloke so perhaps my time as leader of the western world is over.
I do hope the publicity benefits Ypi and boosts sales of her book and increases listenership of her podcast. Her family experience of persecution under Hoxha and the growing pains of the new Albania is a very interesting perspective, she seems to be on the leading edge of new left wing thought.
"repulsive and a disgrace" sounds to me like a step on the way to getting him sacked.
Listen you and I are both men d'un age certain. Are we saying that no one is allowed to comment on a person's looks any more.
Context is everything.
Well I haven't seen the entire article as it is paywalled. Neither have you, I suspect.
Good for middle aged loaded old lads mag. Unsuitable for a politics, culture and current affairs magazine. Its not exactly rocket science.
The Spectator has ALWAYS been like this. It mixes the high and the low, the sordid and the cerebral, the arts and the heart. And it seeks to surprise as all good magazines should
I very much doubt you subscribe, or ever will, and as it’s paywalled that means you never read it, so why on earth should they care what you think?
And I don't care if they care or not, its very much up to them. Just commenting on here as the topic du jour.
My point is you are acting as if this is some sordid new departure for the Spectator. It really isn’t. I’m old enough to remember when they ran a piece about a guy “wanking himself into hospital” which became mildly celebrated and got quoted in the US Congress and cited in famous books of psychology. So none of this is new
I doubt it shall survive contact with the generation or two below you, it shall have to choose one or the other.
You could be right. It’s not looking good. Here’s their 200 years of sales in a graph
Yes its popular with the posher end of the lads mag readership of the 90s. How did those fare with Gen Z?
I think it's wrong to attribute this to boomers. It's the old forgotten Gen X again, ignored in the Boomer-Millennial culture wars. Gen X, people from about 45 to 60 now.
My impression is this is the most hedonistic, don't give a shit of all the generations. The late 90s and early noughties when GenX were young were the peak of lad mags but also the celebration of binge drinking and drug taking, popular culture that didn't take itself too seriously, and apolitical comedy from The Office to the Fast Show to Reeves and Mortimer. And the nadir of the culture wars. Toxic in many ways in both a literal and figurative sense, but also good fun.
I miss all that. I know parts of it were bad and not to be repeated, but I'm a creature of that era and it's hard not to be nostalgic for it.
I'm 48 and a lot of this rings true, binge drinking, drugs, the Fast Show etc, but I think the sex obsession is more common with people towards the upper end of that age range, plus Boomers. I think the idea of casual sex was so normalised for people my age that it just wasn't a big thing, people just got on with it and didn't feel the urge to go on about it.
Yes probably some truth in that. Less obsession about it. I am a spring chicken compared to you: only 47.
It's revealing of his mentality. He believes he is successful because of his own talent and hard work. Those less fortunate are just lazy. Strivers vs skivers.
It's actually nothing new. Quite traditional Toryism, of the sort I encountered frequently in arguments with young fogey types as an undergrad.
Early Blair decided he had to prove a point by being tough on the social security provided to single mothers. Given that Starmer is slavishly following the Blair handbook, who do we think will be in the crosshairs so that Starmer can establish his tough on the workshy credentials?
@Casino_Royale mate this book is right up your street you and the author/protagonist have a lot in common you should get yourself a copy off Amazon pronto.
"And she saw a long Roman candle going up over the trees, up, up, and, in the tense hush, they were all breathless with excitement as it went higher and higher and she had to lean back more and more to look up after it, high, high, almost out of sight, and her face was suffused with a divine, an entrancing blush from straining back and he could see her other things too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that caresses the skin, better than those other pettiwidth, the green, four and eleven, on account of being white and she let him and she saw that he saw and then it went so high it went out of sight a moment and she was trembling in every limb from being bent so far back he had a full view high up above her knee no-one ever not even on the swing or wading and she wasn't ashamed and he wasn't either to look in that immodest way like that because he couldn't resist the sight of the wondrous revealment half offered like those skirtdancers behaving so immodest before gentlemen looking and he kept on looking, looking. She would fain have cried to him chokingly, held out her snowy slender arms to him to come, to feel his lips laid on her white brow the cry of a young girl's love, a little strangled cry, wrung from her, that cry that has rung through the ages. And then a rocket sprang and bang shot blind and O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh of O! and everyone cried O!O! in raptures and it gushed out of it a stream of rain gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were all greeny dewy stars falling with golden, O so lively! O so soft, sweet, soft!"
Haven't seen the whole of the Speccie piece but taken as is it is an example (we were discussing this yesterday) of why I don't take the magazine any more.
That said no one can dispute the quality of the writing - v funny indeed. Which makes it all the more irritating.
And thinking about it so it's offensive. So what. Are people calling for it to be cancelled? I'm sure Owen Jones will. That would be very bad if we're not allowed to be offensive. Ask Dave Chapelle.
As it objectifies women we are at the intersection of offence and abuse but the bigger the outcry the more minded I am too defend it even though it's the hated Speccie.
But on the third hand I am an old(er) white bloke so perhaps my time as leader of the western world is over.
I do hope the publicity benefits Ypi and boosts sales of her book and increases listenership of her podcast. Her family experience of persecution under Hoxha and the growing pains of the new Albania is a very interesting perspective, she seems to be on the leading edge of new left wing thought.
"repulsive and a disgrace" sounds to me like a step on the way to getting him sacked.
Listen you and I are both men d'un age certain. Are we saying that no one is allowed to comment on a person's looks any more.
Context is everything.
Well I haven't seen the entire article as it is paywalled. Neither have you, I suspect.
Good for middle aged loaded old lads mag. Unsuitable for a politics, culture and current affairs magazine. Its not exactly rocket science.
The Spectator has ALWAYS been like this. It mixes the high and the low, the sordid and the cerebral, the arts and the heart. And it seeks to surprise as all good magazines should
I very much doubt you subscribe, or ever will, and as it’s paywalled that means you never read it, so why on earth should they care what you think?
And I don't care if they care or not, its very much up to them. Just commenting on here as the topic du jour.
My point is you are acting as if this is some sordid new departure for the Spectator. It really isn’t. I’m old enough to remember when they ran a piece about a guy “wanking himself into hospital” which became mildly celebrated and got quoted in the US Congress and cited in famous books of psychology. So none of this is new
I doubt it shall survive contact with the generation or two below you, it shall have to choose one or the other.
You could be right. It’s not looking good. Here’s their 200 years of sales in a graph
Yes its popular with the posher end of the lads mag readership of the 90s. How did those fare with Gen Z?
I think it's wrong to attribute this to boomers. It's the old forgotten Gen X again, ignored in the Boomer-Millennial culture wars. Gen X, people from about 45 to 60 now.
My impression is this is the most hedonistic, don't give a shit of all the generations. The late 90s and early noughties when GenX were young were the peak of lad mags but also the celebration of binge drinking and drug taking, popular culture that didn't take itself too seriously, and apolitical comedy from The Office to the Fast Show to Reeves and Mortimer. And the nadir of the culture wars. Toxic in many ways in both a literal and figurative sense, but also good fun.
I miss all that. I know parts of it were bad and not to be repeated, but I'm a creature of that era and it's hard not to be nostalgic for it.
I'm 48 and a lot of this rings true, binge drinking, drugs, the Fast Show etc, but I think the sex obsession is more common with people towards the upper end of that age range, plus Boomers. I think the idea of casual sex was so normalised for people my age that it just wasn't a big thing, people just got on with it and didn't feel the urge to go on about it.
I'm 42 at the moment, and it's very very clear that were I had to take the choice of being born 3 years earlier or later, I'd take 3 years earlier every day of the week and twice on sundays. Late Xers ceteris paribus hit a real sweetspot tbh.
@Casino_Royale mate this book is right up your street you and the author/protagonist have a lot in common you should get yourself a copy off Amazon pronto.
"And she saw a long Roman candle going up over the trees, up, up, and, in the tense hush, they were all breathless with excitement as it went higher and higher and she had to lean back more and more to look up after it, high, high, almost out of sight, and her face was suffused with a divine, an entrancing blush from straining back and he could see her other things too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that caresses the skin, better than those other pettiwidth, the green, four and eleven, on account of being white and she let him and she saw that he saw and then it went so high it went out of sight a moment and she was trembling in every limb from being bent so far back he had a full view high up above her knee no-one ever not even on the swing or wading and she wasn't ashamed and he wasn't either to look in that immodest way like that because he couldn't resist the sight of the wondrous revealment half offered like those skirtdancers behaving so immodest before gentlemen looking and he kept on looking, looking. She would fain have cried to him chokingly, held out her snowy slender arms to him to come, to feel his lips laid on her white brow the cry of a young girl's love, a little strangled cry, wrung from her, that cry that has rung through the ages. And then a rocket sprang and bang shot blind and O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh of O! and everyone cried O!O! in raptures and it gushed out of it a stream of rain gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were all greeny dewy stars falling with golden, O so lively! O so soft, sweet, soft!"
Haven't seen the whole of the Speccie piece but taken as is it is an example (we were discussing this yesterday) of why I don't take the magazine any more.
That said no one can dispute the quality of the writing - v funny indeed. Which makes it all the more irritating.
And thinking about it so it's offensive. So what. Are people calling for it to be cancelled? I'm sure Owen Jones will. That would be very bad if we're not allowed to be offensive. Ask Dave Chapelle.
As it objectifies women we are at the intersection of offence and abuse but the bigger the outcry the more minded I am too defend it even though it's the hated Speccie.
But on the third hand I am an old(er) white bloke so perhaps my time as leader of the western world is over.
I do hope the publicity benefits Ypi and boosts sales of her book and increases listenership of her podcast. Her family experience of persecution under Hoxha and the growing pains of the new Albania is a very interesting perspective, she seems to be on the leading edge of new left wing thought.
"repulsive and a disgrace" sounds to me like a step on the way to getting him sacked.
Listen you and I are both men d'un age certain. Are we saying that no one is allowed to comment on a person's looks any more.
Context is everything.
Well I haven't seen the entire article as it is paywalled. Neither have you, I suspect.
Good for middle aged loaded old lads mag. Unsuitable for a politics, culture and current affairs magazine. Its not exactly rocket science.
The Spectator has ALWAYS been like this. It mixes the high and the low, the sordid and the cerebral, the arts and the heart. And it seeks to surprise as all good magazines should
I very much doubt you subscribe, or ever will, and as it’s paywalled that means you never read it, so why on earth should they care what you think?
And I don't care if they care or not, its very much up to them. Just commenting on here as the topic du jour.
My point is you are acting as if this is some sordid new departure for the Spectator. It really isn’t. I’m old enough to remember when they ran a piece about a guy “wanking himself into hospital” which became mildly celebrated and got quoted in the US Congress and cited in famous books of psychology. So none of this is new
I doubt it shall survive contact with the generation or two below you, it shall have to choose one or the other.
You could be right. It’s not looking good. Here’s their 200 years of sales in a graph
Yes its popular with the posher end of the lads mag readership of the 90s. How did those fare with Gen Z?
I think it's wrong to attribute this to boomers. It's the old forgotten Gen X again, ignored in the Boomer-Millennial culture wars. Gen X, people from about 45 to 60 now.
My impression is this is the most hedonistic, don't give a shit of all the generations. The late 90s and early noughties when GenX were young were the peak of lad mags but also the celebration of binge drinking and drug taking, popular culture that didn't take itself too seriously, and apolitical comedy from The Office to the Fast Show to Reeves and Mortimer. And the nadir (in the sense of they didn't exist) of the culture wars. Toxic in many ways in both a literal and figurative sense, but also good fun.
I miss all that. I know parts of it were bad and not to be repeated, but I'm a creature of that era and it's hard not to be nostalgic for it.
Sure but no-one has mentioned the boomers until you did and quite happy to replace 90s with late 90s/early noughties. Middle aged and 90s lads mag readers is pretty much the same demographic.
Sunak: "On Rwanda, the very simple thing here is that repeatedly, everyone has tried to block us from getting this bill through. And yet again, you saw it this week."
Because it is a shite piece of legislation you gormless twat.
They're being blocked by the House of Lords. The Tory manifesto in 2019 promised not to reform the House of Lords. If this is the constitutional system you want, Rishi, don't complain when it works as designed.
So.... because my state pension has gone up. The bastards are taking 20 quid a month extra in tax....from my company pension that is also a lot worse than it should be because its in the financial assistance scheme.
I don't understand this post. If you are a basic rate taxpayer (20%) and your taxable income has gone up then obviously you will end up with 80% of the increase in that income.
It's revealing of his mentality. He believes he is successful because of his own talent and hard work. Those less fortunate are just lazy. Strivers vs skivers.
It's actually nothing new. Quite traditional Toryism, of the sort I encountered frequently in arguments with young fogey types as an undergrad.
Isn't the key cutoff between the generations who experienced war directly, and those who only heard the stories?
I mean, I'm glad that I haven't had my life turned upside down in defence of my country, freedom, honour or suchlike. But at a societal level, there's nothing like a war to show how silly the notion that we all get what we deserve is. Often, there's just a bullet with your name on it out there.
The Speccie is the house mag of the red cord type. It provides a reassuring view of the world and even manages to fool readers into pondering truths under the cover, as we are seeing today, of hoorah sentiment. It does this exceedingly well and, with all kinds of hitherto orthodox behaviour for this group now coming under the spotlight (good god man I can't believe it) it provides an outlet.
No coincidence that you will see it on Club tables up and down St. James's. Next to Country Life and the latest magazine of the Scots Guards.
I used to love it but as I said it also indulges (or did) a nasty, Taki/Charles Moore element that is not so self-aware and is simply nasty. But that is to appeal to/keep onside the "too clever by half" element of the readership which sees "literature", homosexuality, and three buttons on your cuff as essentially foreign and beyond the pale.
This is a very outdated view of the Spectator’s readership. And I know whereof I speak - I have friends in that arena, and like all newspapers/mags the Spec regularly surveys its readers so they know exactly who is buying it, and who they should target (advertisers also demand to know this, of course)
What you are describing is the Spectator of the 1980s, when it sold about 20,000 copies. Then its readership was as you say. Now it sells 100,000+ and it is much younger, diverse, nationwide - and global (via digital). It has American and Australian editions, also podcasts, YouTube and Spectator TV. It also has a much more female readership - see how many female writers they employ. They might be a majority on some days, and several senior editors are female
It has widely broadened its appeal hence the rise in sales; hence, also, the clamour to buy it
Haven't seen the whole of the Speccie piece but taken as is it is an example (we were discussing this yesterday) of why I don't take the magazine any more.
That said no one can dispute the quality of the writing - v funny indeed. Which makes it all the more irritating.
And thinking about it so it's offensive. So what. Are people calling for it to be cancelled? I'm sure Owen Jones will. That would be very bad if we're not allowed to be offensive. Ask Dave Chapelle.
As it objectifies women we are at the intersection of offence and abuse but the bigger the outcry the more minded I am too defend it even though it's the hated Speccie.
But on the third hand I am an old(er) white bloke so perhaps my time as leader of the western world is over.
I do hope the publicity benefits Ypi and boosts sales of her book and increases listenership of her podcast. Her family experience of persecution under Hoxha and the growing pains of the new Albania is a very interesting perspective, she seems to be on the leading edge of new left wing thought.
Jones' actual output not living up to his rep as a crazy leftist culture warrior? Surely not!
Crazy leftist lying culture warrior as per @Isam's post on the "correction" to his article on the UK's defence spending.
I must say though, one of the things I agreed with Corbyn, and Jones, on was the nuclear deterrent. I understand the MAD argument, but I wish we never had them.
We are seeing in Russia/Ukraine the absurdity of humans having nuclear weapons.
What I've learned here is that Russia's nukes are useless because there are no circumstances under which they would use them on the battlefield. But ours are apparently essential. Strange that the deterrent effect only appears to work in one direction.
Nuclear weapons - not much use in an aggressive war, but would prevent you from being invaded. That seems perfectly logical and consistent.
In which case, why do we get so worked up about nuclear proliferation? If they can only be used for defence, why not let everyone have them?
You never know when you might fancy invading another country. Letting everyone have nukes stops all that fun.
Sunak: "On Rwanda, the very simple thing here is that repeatedly, everyone has tried to block us from getting this bill through. And yet again, you saw it this week."
Because it is a shite piece of legislation you gormless twat.
The amendment which was passed by the Lords wasn't even intended to block the legislation (it was proposed by a cross bench former Supreme Court judge), and wouldn't have significantly affected its introduction or exercise - other than to provide a check should the situation in Rwanda change massively in the future.
Yes, it's shite, but this was an attempt to make it marginally better, no more than that, and wouldn't have frustrated any of its objectives.
Haven't seen the whole of the Speccie piece but taken as is it is an example (we were discussing this yesterday) of why I don't take the magazine any more.
That said no one can dispute the quality of the writing - v funny indeed. Which makes it all the more irritating.
And thinking about it so it's offensive. So what. Are people calling for it to be cancelled? I'm sure Owen Jones will. That would be very bad if we're not allowed to be offensive. Ask Dave Chapelle.
As it objectifies women we are at the intersection of offence and abuse but the bigger the outcry the more minded I am too defend it even though it's the hated Speccie.
But on the third hand I am an old(er) white bloke so perhaps my time as leader of the western world is over.
I do hope the publicity benefits Ypi and boosts sales of her book and increases listenership of her podcast. Her family experience of persecution under Hoxha and the growing pains of the new Albania is a very interesting perspective, she seems to be on the leading edge of new left wing thought.
"repulsive and a disgrace" sounds to me like a step on the way to getting him sacked.
Listen you and I are both men d'un age certain. Are we saying that no one is allowed to comment on a person's looks any more.
Context is everything.
Well I haven't seen the entire article as it is paywalled. Neither have you, I suspect.
Good for middle aged loaded old lads mag. Unsuitable for a politics, culture and current affairs magazine. Its not exactly rocket science.
The Spectator has ALWAYS been like this. It mixes the high and the low, the sordid and the cerebral, the arts and the heart. And it seeks to surprise as all good magazines should
I very much doubt you subscribe, or ever will, and as it’s paywalled that means you never read it, so why on earth should they care what you think?
And I don't care if they care or not, its very much up to them. Just commenting on here as the topic du jour.
My point is you are acting as if this is some sordid new departure for the Spectator. It really isn’t. I’m old enough to remember when they ran a piece about a guy “wanking himself into hospital” which became mildly celebrated and got quoted in the US Congress and cited in famous books of psychology. So none of this is new
I doubt it shall survive contact with the generation or two below you, it shall have to choose one or the other.
You could be right. It’s not looking good. Here’s their 200 years of sales in a graph
Yes its popular with the posher end of the lads mag readership of the 90s. How did those fare with Gen Z?
I think it's wrong to attribute this to boomers. It's the old forgotten Gen X again, ignored in the Boomer-Millennial culture wars. Gen X, people from about 45 to 60 now.
My impression is this is the most hedonistic, don't give a shit of all the generations. The late 90s and early noughties when GenX were young were the peak of lad mags but also the celebration of binge drinking and drug taking, popular culture that didn't take itself too seriously, and apolitical comedy from The Office to the Fast Show to Reeves and Mortimer. And the nadir of the culture wars. Toxic in many ways in both a literal and figurative sense, but also good fun.
I miss all that. I know parts of it were bad and not to be repeated, but I'm a creature of that era and it's hard not to be nostalgic for it.
I'm 48 and a lot of this rings true, binge drinking, drugs, the Fast Show etc, but I think the sex obsession is more common with people towards the upper end of that age range, plus Boomers. I think the idea of casual sex was so normalised for people my age that it just wasn't a big thing, people just got on with it and didn't feel the urge to go on about it.
I'm 42 at the moment, and it's very very clear that were I had to take the choice of being born 3 years earlier or later, I'd take 3 years earlier every day of the week and twice on sundays. Late Xers ceteris paribus hit a real sweetspot tbh.
Yes we've had it pretty good, although you need to be about five years older than me to have really benefited from the 1990s/early 2000s house price boom.
Haven't seen the whole of the Speccie piece but taken as is it is an example (we were discussing this yesterday) of why I don't take the magazine any more.
That said no one can dispute the quality of the writing - v funny indeed. Which makes it all the more irritating.
And thinking about it so it's offensive. So what. Are people calling for it to be cancelled? I'm sure Owen Jones will. That would be very bad if we're not allowed to be offensive. Ask Dave Chapelle.
As it objectifies women we are at the intersection of offence and abuse but the bigger the outcry the more minded I am too defend it even though it's the hated Speccie.
But on the third hand I am an old(er) white bloke so perhaps my time as leader of the western world is over.
I do hope the publicity benefits Ypi and boosts sales of her book and increases listenership of her podcast. Her family experience of persecution under Hoxha and the growing pains of the new Albania is a very interesting perspective, she seems to be on the leading edge of new left wing thought.
Jones' actual output not living up to his rep as a crazy leftist culture warrior? Surely not!
Crazy leftist lying culture warrior as per @Isam's post on the "correction" to his article on the UK's defence spending.
I must say though, one of the things I agreed with Corbyn, and Jones, on was the nuclear deterrent. I understand the MAD argument, but I wish we never had them.
We are seeing in Russia/Ukraine the absurdity of humans having nuclear weapons.
What I've learned here is that Russia's nukes are useless because there are no circumstances under which they would use them on the battlefield. But ours are apparently essential. Strange that the deterrent effect only appears to work in one direction.
Nuclear weapons - not much use in an aggressive war, but would prevent you from being invaded. That seems perfectly logical and consistent.
In which case, why do we get so worked up about nuclear proliferation? If they can only be used for defence, why not let everyone have them?
Because the more people have them the greater the chance of someone fucking up, or someone having them who is a suicidal nutter convinced they'll receive their reward in the afterlife.
If we could convince the Russians and the Chinese to also get rid of them, the world would be a safer place without them.
But would the world be a safer place without them? It wasn't very safe before them, and given your claim that they can only be used for defence, it would seem logical to allow all countries to have them so long as they not likely to fuck up or be ruled by a suicidal nutter. Given the general agreement that it is inconceivable that Russia would use them in an aggressive war, perhaps that is where the bar should be set. Any country less likely to fuck up or be ruled by a suicidal nutter than Russia should be given nuclear weapons to defend themselves for the sake of world peace.
@Casino_Royale mate this book is right up your street you and the author/protagonist have a lot in common you should get yourself a copy off Amazon pronto.
"And she saw a long Roman candle going up over the trees, up, up, and, in the tense hush, they were all breathless with excitement as it went higher and higher and she had to lean back more and more to look up after it, high, high, almost out of sight, and her face was suffused with a divine, an entrancing blush from straining back and he could see her other things too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that caresses the skin, better than those other pettiwidth, the green, four and eleven, on account of being white and she let him and she saw that he saw and then it went so high it went out of sight a moment and she was trembling in every limb from being bent so far back he had a full view high up above her knee no-one ever not even on the swing or wading and she wasn't ashamed and he wasn't either to look in that immodest way like that because he couldn't resist the sight of the wondrous revealment half offered like those skirtdancers behaving so immodest before gentlemen looking and he kept on looking, looking. She would fain have cried to him chokingly, held out her snowy slender arms to him to come, to feel his lips laid on her white brow the cry of a young girl's love, a little strangled cry, wrung from her, that cry that has rung through the ages. And then a rocket sprang and bang shot blind and O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh of O! and everyone cried O!O! in raptures and it gushed out of it a stream of rain gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were all greeny dewy stars falling with golden, O so lively! O so soft, sweet, soft!"
Sunak really is useless . And by allowing non GPS to issue sick notes we know how this ends . Targets in place of proper fact based decisions.
Just listened to a Labour spokesperson say Sunak is tinkering with this very serious problem and they will act vigorously on this, make what you will on that !!
Changing who signs off sick notes is rather less significant than this "Mr Sunak also said those who were still out of work after 12 months after support from a work coach will have "their benefits removed entirely".
Not even Thatcher or Truss proposed to entirely cut off benefits after a defined period if you have not found work and potentially even if you have been sending regular applications, that would be a clear move in the direction of a more US style welfare system https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68853166
One reason the Conservatives might do worse than uniform swing implies: tactical voting. In BES data, I found that the number of voters considering more than one progressive party is at its highest in recent history
Haven't seen the whole of the Speccie piece but taken as is it is an example (we were discussing this yesterday) of why I don't take the magazine any more.
That said no one can dispute the quality of the writing - v funny indeed. Which makes it all the more irritating.
And thinking about it so it's offensive. So what. Are people calling for it to be cancelled? I'm sure Owen Jones will. That would be very bad if we're not allowed to be offensive. Ask Dave Chapelle.
As it objectifies women we are at the intersection of offence and abuse but the bigger the outcry the more minded I am too defend it even though it's the hated Speccie.
But on the third hand I am an old(er) white bloke so perhaps my time as leader of the western world is over.
I do hope the publicity benefits Ypi and boosts sales of her book and increases listenership of her podcast. Her family experience of persecution under Hoxha and the growing pains of the new Albania is a very interesting perspective, she seems to be on the leading edge of new left wing thought.
"repulsive and a disgrace" sounds to me like a step on the way to getting him sacked.
Listen you and I are both men d'un age certain. Are we saying that no one is allowed to comment on a person's looks any more.
Context is everything.
Well I haven't seen the entire article as it is paywalled. Neither have you, I suspect.
Good for middle aged loaded old lads mag. Unsuitable for a politics, culture and current affairs magazine. Its not exactly rocket science.
The Spectator has ALWAYS been like this. It mixes the high and the low, the sordid and the cerebral, the arts and the heart. And it seeks to surprise as all good magazines should
I very much doubt you subscribe, or ever will, and as it’s paywalled that means you never read it, so why on earth should they care what you think?
And I don't care if they care or not, its very much up to them. Just commenting on here as the topic du jour.
My point is you are acting as if this is some sordid new departure for the Spectator. It really isn’t. I’m old enough to remember when they ran a piece about a guy “wanking himself into hospital” which became mildly celebrated and got quoted in the US Congress and cited in famous books of psychology. So none of this is new
I doubt it shall survive contact with the generation or two below you, it shall have to choose one or the other.
You could be right. It’s not looking good. Here’s their 200 years of sales in a graph
Yes its popular with the posher end of the lads mag readership of the 90s. How did those fare with Gen Z?
I think it's wrong to attribute this to boomers. It's the old forgotten Gen X again, ignored in the Boomer-Millennial culture wars. Gen X, people from about 45 to 60 now.
My impression is this is the most hedonistic, don't give a shit of all the generations. The late 90s and early noughties when GenX were young were the peak of lad mags but also the celebration of binge drinking and drug taking, popular culture that didn't take itself too seriously, and apolitical comedy from The Office to the Fast Show to Reeves and Mortimer. And the nadir of the culture wars. Toxic in many ways in both a literal and figurative sense, but also good fun.
I miss all that. I know parts of it were bad and not to be repeated, but I'm a creature of that era and it's hard not to be nostalgic for it.
I'm 48 and a lot of this rings true, binge drinking, drugs, the Fast Show etc, but I think the sex obsession is more common with people towards the upper end of that age range, plus Boomers. I think the idea of casual sex was so normalised for people my age that it just wasn't a big thing, people just got on with it and didn't feel the urge to go on about it.
I'm 42 at the moment, and it's very very clear that were I had to take the choice of being born 3 years earlier or later, I'd take 3 years earlier every day of the week and twice on sundays. Late Xers ceteris paribus hit a real sweetspot tbh.
The Speccie is the house mag of the red cord type. It provides a reassuring view of the world and even manages to fool readers into pondering truths under the cover, as we are seeing today, of hoorah sentiment. It does this exceedingly well and, with all kinds of hitherto orthodox behaviour for this group now coming under the spotlight (good god man I can't believe it) it provides an outlet.
No coincidence that you will see it on Club tables up and down St. James's. Next to Country Life and the latest magazine of the Scots Guards.
I used to love it but as I said it also indulges (or did) a nasty, Taki/Charles Moore element that is not so self-aware and is simply nasty. But that is to appeal to/keep onside the "too clever by half" element of the readership which sees "literature", homosexuality, and three buttons on your cuff as essentially foreign and beyond the pale.
This is a very outdated view of the Spectator’s readership. And I know whereof I speak - I have friends in that arena, and like all newspapers/mags the Spec regularly surveys its readers so they know exactly who is buying it, and who they should target (advertisers also demand to know this, of course)
What you are describing is the Spectator of the 1980s, when it sold about 20,000 copies. Then its readership was as you say. Now it sells 100,000+ and it is much younger, diverse, nationwide - and global (via digital). It has American and Australian editions, also podcasts, YouTube and Spectator TV. It also has a much more female readership - see how many female writers they employ. They might be a majority on some days, and several senior editors are female
It has widely broadened its appeal hence the rise in sales; hence, also, the clamour to buy it
Yes mine is probably an outdated view as that (well, around 10yrs ago) was when I parted company with it. Then, there was still a toxic Charles Moore piece at the front and an equally toxic Taki piece in High Life. I used to read it cover to cover that said until those two in particular got too much for me. Like at a dinner party when everyone is having a great time and the host says well what about all these **** (insert epithet of choice). You just have to stand up and walk out.
It may well have changed now and at times I see it lying around I do read it and notice (I think?) that Taki and Moore have gone.
@Casino_Royale mate this book is right up your street you and the author/protagonist have a lot in common you should get yourself a copy off Amazon pronto.
"And she saw a long Roman candle going up over the trees, up, up, and, in the tense hush, they were all breathless with excitement as it went higher and higher and she had to lean back more and more to look up after it, high, high, almost out of sight, and her face was suffused with a divine, an entrancing blush from straining back and he could see her other things too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that caresses the skin, better than those other pettiwidth, the green, four and eleven, on account of being white and she let him and she saw that he saw and then it went so high it went out of sight a moment and she was trembling in every limb from being bent so far back he had a full view high up above her knee no-one ever not even on the swing or wading and she wasn't ashamed and he wasn't either to look in that immodest way like that because he couldn't resist the sight of the wondrous revealment half offered like those skirtdancers behaving so immodest before gentlemen looking and he kept on looking, looking. She would fain have cried to him chokingly, held out her snowy slender arms to him to come, to feel his lips laid on her white brow the cry of a young girl's love, a little strangled cry, wrung from her, that cry that has rung through the ages. And then a rocket sprang and bang shot blind and O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh of O! and everyone cried O!O! in raptures and it gushed out of it a stream of rain gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were all greeny dewy stars falling with golden, O so lively! O so soft, sweet, soft!"
The Speccie is the house mag of the red cord type. It provides a reassuring view of the world and even manages to fool readers into pondering truths under the cover, as we are seeing today, of hoorah sentiment. It does this exceedingly well and, with all kinds of hitherto orthodox behaviour for this group now coming under the spotlight (good god man I can't believe it) it provides an outlet.
No coincidence that you will see it on Club tables up and down St. James's. Next to Country Life and the latest magazine of the Scots Guards.
I used to love it but as I said it also indulges (or did) a nasty, Taki/Charles Moore element that is not so self-aware and is simply nasty. But that is to appeal to/keep onside the "too clever by half" element of the readership which sees "literature", homosexuality, and three buttons on your cuff as essentially foreign and beyond the pale.
That's roughly why I stopped taking it a few years ago. I used to get it and the New Statesman as a counterpoint to each other, and to provoke my own thoughts, as neither reflects my own views particularly. But I got fed up with the endless Gammony-type whingeing about how awful the country is from the panoply of mostly privileged Right wing columnists (conveniently forgetting that their class and type had been running it for all but 13 of nearly 40 years then). They had nothing to offer, and got repetitive and annoying eventually. Not enough thoughtful columnists like Matthew Parris. There were some good articles though.
I've kept the Staggers going as I find it does try to maintain a better balance of views on the broad left with occasional conservative voices too.
Sunak really is useless . And by allowing non GPS to issue sick notes we know how this ends . Targets in place of proper fact based decisions.
Absolutely.
The really depressing thing will likely be Starmer's response.
I fear you’re right . And after last nights dreadful response to that very generous EU offer re 18 to 30 year olds I’m fast losing any enthusiasm for Labour .
Thankfully I won’t have to think hard here in Eastbourne about how to vote at the GE . The Lib Dems should take this seat and can rely on my vote .
@Casino_Royale mate this book is right up your street you and the author/protagonist have a lot in common you should get yourself a copy off Amazon pronto.
"And she saw a long Roman candle going up over the trees, up, up, and, in the tense hush, they were all breathless with excitement as it went higher and higher and she had to lean back more and more to look up after it, high, high, almost out of sight, and her face was suffused with a divine, an entrancing blush from straining back and he could see her other things too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that caresses the skin, better than those other pettiwidth, the green, four and eleven, on account of being white and she let him and she saw that he saw and then it went so high it went out of sight a moment and she was trembling in every limb from being bent so far back he had a full view high up above her knee no-one ever not even on the swing or wading and she wasn't ashamed and he wasn't either to look in that immodest way like that because he couldn't resist the sight of the wondrous revealment half offered like those skirtdancers behaving so immodest before gentlemen looking and he kept on looking, looking. She would fain have cried to him chokingly, held out her snowy slender arms to him to come, to feel his lips laid on her white brow the cry of a young girl's love, a little strangled cry, wrung from her, that cry that has rung through the ages. And then a rocket sprang and bang shot blind and O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh of O! and everyone cried O!O! in raptures and it gushed out of it a stream of rain gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were all greeny dewy stars falling with golden, O so lively! O so soft, sweet, soft!"
The Speccie is the house mag of the red cord type. It provides a reassuring view of the world and even manages to fool readers into pondering truths under the cover, as we are seeing today, of hoorah sentiment. It does this exceedingly well and, with all kinds of hitherto orthodox behaviour for this group now coming under the spotlight (good god man I can't believe it) it provides an outlet.
No coincidence that you will see it on Club tables up and down St. James's. Next to Country Life and the latest magazine of the Scots Guards.
I used to love it but as I said it also indulges (or did) a nasty, Taki/Charles Moore element that is not so self-aware and is simply nasty. But that is to appeal to/keep onside the "too clever by half" element of the readership which sees "literature", homosexuality, and three buttons on your cuff as essentially foreign and beyond the pale.
This is a very outdated view of the Spectator’s readership. And I know whereof I speak - I have friends in that arena, and like all newspapers/mags the Spec regularly surveys its readers so they know exactly who is buying it, and who they should target (advertisers also demand to know this, of course)
What you are describing is the Spectator of the 1980s, when it sold about 20,000 copies. Then its readership was as you say. Now it sells 100,000+ and it is much younger, diverse, nationwide - and global (via digital). It has American and Australian editions, also podcasts, YouTube and Spectator TV. It also has a much more female readership - see how many female writers they employ. They might be a majority on some days, and several senior editors are female
It has widely broadened its appeal hence the rise in sales; hence, also, the clamour to buy it
Yes mine is probably an outdated view as that (well, around 10yrs ago) was when I parted company with it. Then, there was still a toxic Charles Moore piece at the front and an equally toxic Taki piece in High Life. I used to read it cover to cover that said until those two in particular got too much for me. Like at a dinner party when everyone is having a great time and the host says well what about all these **** (insert epithet of choice). You just have to stand up and walk out.
It may well have changed now and at times I see it lying around I do read it and notice (I think?) that Taki and Moore have gone.
I was in the audience for Any Questions once, Moore was one of the participants and he seemed really unpleasant.
@Casino_Royale mate this book is right up your street you and the author/protagonist have a lot in common you should get yourself a copy off Amazon pronto.
"And she saw a long Roman candle going up over the trees, up, up, and, in the tense hush, they were all breathless with excitement as it went higher and higher and she had to lean back more and more to look up after it, high, high, almost out of sight, and her face was suffused with a divine, an entrancing blush from straining back and he could see her other things too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that caresses the skin, better than those other pettiwidth, the green, four and eleven, on account of being white and she let him and she saw that he saw and then it went so high it went out of sight a moment and she was trembling in every limb from being bent so far back he had a full view high up above her knee no-one ever not even on the swing or wading and she wasn't ashamed and he wasn't either to look in that immodest way like that because he couldn't resist the sight of the wondrous revealment half offered like those skirtdancers behaving so immodest before gentlemen looking and he kept on looking, looking. She would fain have cried to him chokingly, held out her snowy slender arms to him to come, to feel his lips laid on her white brow the cry of a young girl's love, a little strangled cry, wrung from her, that cry that has rung through the ages. And then a rocket sprang and bang shot blind and O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh of O! and everyone cried O!O! in raptures and it gushed out of it a stream of rain gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were all greeny dewy stars falling with golden, O so lively! O so soft, sweet, soft!"
WTF is that?
Don't you worry your pretty little head about it.
But it is in fact an illustration a) of the failings of AI; and b) that the Speccie piece is nothing new, and that people have been outraged by the male view of the female for centuries.
If you are confused by Sunak and co wittering on about 'fit notes':
"By the way, if you are confused about what is a sicknote and what is a fit note, they are essentially the same thing. Sicknotes were re-branded as fit notes in 2010."
Changing who signs off sick notes is rather less significant than this "Mr Sunak also said those who were still out of work after 12 months after support from a work coach will have "their benefits removed entirely".
Not even Thatcher or Truss proposed to entirely cut off benefits after a defined period if you have not found work and potentially even if you have been sending regular applications, that would be a clear move in the direction of a more US style welfare system https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68853166
Is any of this proposed legislation likely to see the light of day ?
And "changing who signs off sick notes" is pretty damn significant if they were to employ the same characters who assess people for disabled benefit.
The Speccie is the house mag of the red cord type. It provides a reassuring view of the world and even manages to fool readers into pondering truths under the cover, as we are seeing today, of hoorah sentiment. It does this exceedingly well and, with all kinds of hitherto orthodox behaviour for this group now coming under the spotlight (good god man I can't believe it) it provides an outlet.
No coincidence that you will see it on Club tables up and down St. James's. Next to Country Life and the latest magazine of the Scots Guards.
I used to love it but as I said it also indulges (or did) a nasty, Taki/Charles Moore element that is not so self-aware and is simply nasty. But that is to appeal to/keep onside the "too clever by half" element of the readership which sees "literature", homosexuality, and three buttons on your cuff as essentially foreign and beyond the pale.
This is a very outdated view of the Spectator’s readership. And I know whereof I speak - I have friends in that arena, and like all newspapers/mags the Spec regularly surveys its readers so they know exactly who is buying it, and who they should target (advertisers also demand to know this, of course)
What you are describing is the Spectator of the 1980s, when it sold about 20,000 copies. Then its readership was as you say. Now it sells 100,000+ and it is much younger, diverse, nationwide - and global (via digital). It has American and Australian editions, also podcasts, YouTube and Spectator TV. It also has a much more female readership - see how many female writers they employ. They might be a majority on some days, and several senior editors are female
It has widely broadened its appeal hence the rise in sales; hence, also, the clamour to buy it
Yes mine is probably an outdated view as that (well, around 10yrs ago) was when I parted company with it. Then, there was still a toxic Charles Moore piece at the front and an equally toxic Taki piece in High Life. I used to read it cover to cover that said until those two in particular got too much for me. Like at a dinner party when everyone is having a great time and the host says well what about all these **** (insert epithet of choice). You just have to stand up and walk out.
It may well have changed now and at times I see it lying around I do read it and notice (I think?) that Taki and Moore have gone.
I never understood the appeal of Taki. I guess he was rich enough to say what he liked which has some value - but he rarely said it in a witty or clever way
Moore I just find quite predictable. Not offensive. Just meh
You’d be surprised how young and savvy the editors are these days. They’re all about 28
The Speccie is the house mag of the red cord type. It provides a reassuring view of the world and even manages to fool readers into pondering truths under the cover, as we are seeing today, of hoorah sentiment. It does this exceedingly well and, with all kinds of hitherto orthodox behaviour for this group now coming under the spotlight (good god man I can't believe it) it provides an outlet.
No coincidence that you will see it on Club tables up and down St. James's. Next to Country Life and the latest magazine of the Scots Guards.
I used to love it but as I said it also indulges (or did) a nasty, Taki/Charles Moore element that is not so self-aware and is simply nasty. But that is to appeal to/keep onside the "too clever by half" element of the readership which sees "literature", homosexuality, and three buttons on your cuff as essentially foreign and beyond the pale.
This is a very outdated view of the Spectator’s readership. And I know whereof I speak - I have friends in that arena, and like all newspapers/mags the Spec regularly surveys its readers so they know exactly who is buying it, and who they should target (advertisers also demand to know this, of course)
What you are describing is the Spectator of the 1980s, when it sold about 20,000 copies. Then its readership was as you say. Now it sells 100,000+ and it is much younger, diverse, nationwide - and global (via digital). It has American and Australian editions, also podcasts, YouTube and Spectator TV. It also has a much more female readership - see how many female writers they employ. They might be a majority on some days, and several senior editors are female
It has widely broadened its appeal hence the rise in sales; hence, also, the clamour to buy it
Yes mine is probably an outdated view as that (well, around 10yrs ago) was when I parted company with it. Then, there was still a toxic Charles Moore piece at the front and an equally toxic Taki piece in High Life. I used to read it cover to cover that said until those two in particular got too much for me. Like at a dinner party when everyone is having a great time and the host says well what about all these **** (insert epithet of choice). You just have to stand up and walk out.
It may well have changed now and at times I see it lying around I do read it and notice (I think?) that Taki and Moore have gone.
I never understood the appeal of Taki. I guess he was rich enough to say what he liked which has some value - but he rarely said it in a witty or clever way
Moore I just find quite predictable. Not offensive. Just meh
You’d be surprised how young and savvy the editors are these days. They’re all about 28
Sunak really is useless . And by allowing non GPS to issue sick notes we know how this ends . Targets in place of proper fact based decisions.
Absolutely.
The really depressing thing will likely be Starmer's response.
I fear you’re right . And after last nights dreadful response to that very generous EU offer re 18 to 30 year olds I’m fast losing any enthusiasm for Labour .
Thankfully I won’t have to think hard here in Eastbourne about how to vote at the GE . The Lib Dems should take this seat and can rely on my vote .
Was at a dinner last night that included some PhD students, pre-doc research assistants and young post-docs among the older contingent of more established academics. The younger group were hugely unenthusiastic about Starmer on the whole and far from committed to voting at all/likely to vote Green. The older group were pretty committed in getting the government out, which meant Lab votes even without much enthusiasm - but if the younger group do go wasted vote minor party or not vote then the votes for Lab, if not the seats, could be underwhelming.
There's a real and understandable enthusiasm gap out there. I will do my patriotic duty, but without much excitement and a Lib Dem party that actually enthused me could steal my vote in what could be - if there are any! - a reasonably tight Lab-Con seat*
*will be the new Selby seat - the by-election winning Lab incumbent for the old seat seems fairly popular and he's been trying hard popping up in supermarkets etc and willing to listen to anyone, so I suspect he might actually hold quite easily given the national picture
@Casino_Royale mate this book is right up your street you and the author/protagonist have a lot in common you should get yourself a copy off Amazon pronto.
"And she saw a long Roman candle going up over the trees, up, up, and, in the tense hush, they were all breathless with excitement as it went higher and higher and she had to lean back more and more to look up after it, high, high, almost out of sight, and her face was suffused with a divine, an entrancing blush from straining back and he could see her other things too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that caresses the skin, better than those other pettiwidth, the green, four and eleven, on account of being white and she let him and she saw that he saw and then it went so high it went out of sight a moment and she was trembling in every limb from being bent so far back he had a full view high up above her knee no-one ever not even on the swing or wading and she wasn't ashamed and he wasn't either to look in that immodest way like that because he couldn't resist the sight of the wondrous revealment half offered like those skirtdancers behaving so immodest before gentlemen looking and he kept on looking, looking. She would fain have cried to him chokingly, held out her snowy slender arms to him to come, to feel his lips laid on her white brow the cry of a young girl's love, a little strangled cry, wrung from her, that cry that has rung through the ages. And then a rocket sprang and bang shot blind and O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh of O! and everyone cried O!O! in raptures and it gushed out of it a stream of rain gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were all greeny dewy stars falling with golden, O so lively! O so soft, sweet, soft!"
WTF is that?
Dunno, but it sounds completely Ulyssless.
Tldr; Ulyssee ee ee ee eez no one else can do the things you do.
@Casino_Royale mate this book is right up your street you and the author/protagonist have a lot in common you should get yourself a copy off Amazon pronto.
"And she saw a long Roman candle going up over the trees, up, up, and, in the tense hush, they were all breathless with excitement as it went higher and higher and she had to lean back more and more to look up after it, high, high, almost out of sight, and her face was suffused with a divine, an entrancing blush from straining back and he could see her other things too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that caresses the skin, better than those other pettiwidth, the green, four and eleven, on account of being white and she let him and she saw that he saw and then it went so high it went out of sight a moment and she was trembling in every limb from being bent so far back he had a full view high up above her knee no-one ever not even on the swing or wading and she wasn't ashamed and he wasn't either to look in that immodest way like that because he couldn't resist the sight of the wondrous revealment half offered like those skirtdancers behaving so immodest before gentlemen looking and he kept on looking, looking. She would fain have cried to him chokingly, held out her snowy slender arms to him to come, to feel his lips laid on her white brow the cry of a young girl's love, a little strangled cry, wrung from her, that cry that has rung through the ages. And then a rocket sprang and bang shot blind and O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh of O! and everyone cried O!O! in raptures and it gushed out of it a stream of rain gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were all greeny dewy stars falling with golden, O so lively! O so soft, sweet, soft!"
WTF is that?
Don't you worry your pretty little head about it.
But it is in fact an illustration a) of the failings of AI; and b) that the Speccie piece is nothing new, and that people have been outraged by the male view of the female for centuries.
How can supposedly intelligent people on PB not recognise that excerpt? It’s like a reader survey of the site. Not very impressive
Talking of AI - as you did - I had drinks with a photographer friend in Highgate last night. He’s very smart and quite tech literate but still clueless (like 99% of people) about how far A.I. has come
So I sat with him at the pub table and got out my phone and summoned Claude 3 Opus. Then we both fed it a 90,000 word PDF of a novel - simply attached the file.
Wow. I have honestly never seen intellectual shock exhibited so profoundly. Claude (of course) took the book, read it, devoured it, then spooled out a long detailed critique, right down to character arcs and specific plot weaknesses and chapters with poor dialogue. And all forensically accurate
Claude did all this in 50 seconds. From start to finish. Did what an expert editor might do in days, after weeks of delay
My friend was literally speechless. He sat there in silence. Finally he said “fuck”. Then: “this is going to change everything”
So I’ve now learned what you have to do to get people to understand. You have to literally SHOW them. And then they respond like Amazonian Indians seeing their first plane
@Casino_Royale mate this book is right up your street you and the author/protagonist have a lot in common you should get yourself a copy off Amazon pronto.
"And she saw a long Roman candle going up over the trees, up, up, and, in the tense hush, they were all breathless with excitement as it went higher and higher and she had to lean back more and more to look up after it, high, high, almost out of sight, and her face was suffused with a divine, an entrancing blush from straining back and he could see her other things too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that caresses the skin, better than those other pettiwidth, the green, four and eleven, on account of being white and she let him and she saw that he saw and then it went so high it went out of sight a moment and she was trembling in every limb from being bent so far back he had a full view high up above her knee no-one ever not even on the swing or wading and she wasn't ashamed and he wasn't either to look in that immodest way like that because he couldn't resist the sight of the wondrous revealment half offered like those skirtdancers behaving so immodest before gentlemen looking and he kept on looking, looking. She would fain have cried to him chokingly, held out her snowy slender arms to him to come, to feel his lips laid on her white brow the cry of a young girl's love, a little strangled cry, wrung from her, that cry that has rung through the ages. And then a rocket sprang and bang shot blind and O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh of O! and everyone cried O!O! in raptures and it gushed out of it a stream of rain gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were all greeny dewy stars falling with golden, O so lively! O so soft, sweet, soft!"
WTF is that?
Dunno, but it sounds completely Ulyssless.
Tldr; Ulyssee ee ee ee eez no one else can do the things you do.
Sunak really is useless . And by allowing non GPS to issue sick notes we know how this ends . Targets in place of proper fact based decisions.
Just listened to a Labour spokesperson say Sunak is tinkering with this very serious problem and they will act vigorously on this, make what you will on that !!
@Casino_Royale mate this book is right up your street you and the author/protagonist have a lot in common you should get yourself a copy off Amazon pronto.
"And she saw a long Roman candle going up over the trees, up, up, and, in the tense hush, they were all breathless with excitement as it went higher and higher and she had to lean back more and more to look up after it, high, high, almost out of sight, and her face was suffused with a divine, an entrancing blush from straining back and he could see her other things too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that caresses the skin, better than those other pettiwidth, the green, four and eleven, on account of being white and she let him and she saw that he saw and then it went so high it went out of sight a moment and she was trembling in every limb from being bent so far back he had a full view high up above her knee no-one ever not even on the swing or wading and she wasn't ashamed and he wasn't either to look in that immodest way like that because he couldn't resist the sight of the wondrous revealment half offered like those skirtdancers behaving so immodest before gentlemen looking and he kept on looking, looking. She would fain have cried to him chokingly, held out her snowy slender arms to him to come, to feel his lips laid on her white brow the cry of a young girl's love, a little strangled cry, wrung from her, that cry that has rung through the ages. And then a rocket sprang and bang shot blind and O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh of O! and everyone cried O!O! in raptures and it gushed out of it a stream of rain gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were all greeny dewy stars falling with golden, O so lively! O so soft, sweet, soft!"
WTF is that?
Dunno, but it sounds completely Ulyssless.
Tldr; Ulyssee ee ee ee eez no one else can do the things you do.
Britain is in a not dissimilar state to Schofield's career ~ 40 years hence he belted that out in the Broom cupboard with El Gordo.
Sunak really is useless . And by allowing non GPS to issue sick notes we know how this ends . Targets in place of proper fact based decisions.
Absolutely.
The really depressing thing will likely be Starmer's response.
I fear you’re right . And after last nights dreadful response to that very generous EU offer re 18 to 30 year olds I’m fast losing any enthusiasm for Labour .
Thankfully I won’t have to think hard here in Eastbourne about how to vote at the GE . The Lib Dems should take this seat and can rely on my vote .
I’m amazed there isn’t more anger or at least fuss about Labour’s rebuff to the EU
The Speccie is the house mag of the red cord type. It provides a reassuring view of the world and even manages to fool readers into pondering truths under the cover, as we are seeing today, of hoorah sentiment. It does this exceedingly well and, with all kinds of hitherto orthodox behaviour for this group now coming under the spotlight (good god man I can't believe it) it provides an outlet.
No coincidence that you will see it on Club tables up and down St. James's. Next to Country Life and the latest magazine of the Scots Guards.
I used to love it but as I said it also indulges (or did) a nasty, Taki/Charles Moore element that is not so self-aware and is simply nasty. But that is to appeal to/keep onside the "too clever by half" element of the readership which sees "literature", homosexuality, and three buttons on your cuff as essentially foreign and beyond the pale.
This is a very outdated view of the Spectator’s readership. And I know whereof I speak - I have friends in that arena, and like all newspapers/mags the Spec regularly surveys its readers so they know exactly who is buying it, and who they should target (advertisers also demand to know this, of course)
What you are describing is the Spectator of the 1980s, when it sold about 20,000 copies. Then its readership was as you say. Now it sells 100,000+ and it is much younger, diverse, nationwide - and global (via digital). It has American and Australian editions, also podcasts, YouTube and Spectator TV. It also has a much more female readership - see how many female writers they employ. They might be a majority on some days, and several senior editors are female
It has widely broadened its appeal hence the rise in sales; hence, also, the clamour to buy it
Yes mine is probably an outdated view as that (well, around 10yrs ago) was when I parted company with it. Then, there was still a toxic Charles Moore piece at the front and an equally toxic Taki piece in High Life. I used to read it cover to cover that said until those two in particular got too much for me. Like at a dinner party when everyone is having a great time and the host says well what about all these **** (insert epithet of choice). You just have to stand up and walk out.
It may well have changed now and at times I see it lying around I do read it and notice (I think?) that Taki and Moore have gone.
I never understood the appeal of Taki. I guess he was rich enough to say what he liked which has some value - but he rarely said it in a witty or clever way
Moore I just find quite predictable. Not offensive. Just meh
You’d be surprised how young and savvy the editors are these days. They’re all about 28
I might look it out again.
Thanks, I might too - I didn't know Moore had gone. I did know Taki had been - um - required to leave.
Haven't seen the whole of the Speccie piece but taken as is it is an example (we were discussing this yesterday) of why I don't take the magazine any more.
That said no one can dispute the quality of the writing - v funny indeed. Which makes it all the more irritating.
And thinking about it so it's offensive. So what. Are people calling for it to be cancelled? I'm sure Owen Jones will. That would be very bad if we're not allowed to be offensive. Ask Dave Chapelle.
As it objectifies women we are at the intersection of offence and abuse but the bigger the outcry the more minded I am too defend it even though it's the hated Speccie.
But on the third hand I am an old(er) white bloke so perhaps my time as leader of the western world is over.
I do hope the publicity benefits Ypi and boosts sales of her book and increases listenership of her podcast. Her family experience of persecution under Hoxha and the growing pains of the new Albania is a very interesting perspective, she seems to be on the leading edge of new left wing thought.
"repulsive and a disgrace" sounds to me like a step on the way to getting him sacked.
Listen you and I are both men d'un age certain. Are we saying that no one is allowed to comment on a person's looks any more.
Context is everything.
Well I haven't seen the entire article as it is paywalled. Neither have you, I suspect.
Good for middle aged loaded old lads mag. Unsuitable for a politics, culture and current affairs magazine. Its not exactly rocket science.
The Spectator has ALWAYS been like this. It mixes the high and the low, the sordid and the cerebral, the arts and the heart. And it seeks to surprise as all good magazines should
I very much doubt you subscribe, or ever will, and as it’s paywalled that means you never read it, so why on earth should they care what you think?
And I don't care if they care or not, its very much up to them. Just commenting on here as the topic du jour.
My point is you are acting as if this is some sordid new departure for the Spectator. It really isn’t. I’m old enough to remember when they ran a piece about a guy “wanking himself into hospital” which became mildly celebrated and got quoted in the US Congress and cited in famous books of psychology. So none of this is new
I doubt it shall survive contact with the generation or two below you, it shall have to choose one or the other.
You could be right. It’s not looking good. Here’s their 200 years of sales in a graph
Yes its popular with the posher end of the lads mag readership of the 90s. How did those fare with Gen Z?
I think it's wrong to attribute this to boomers. It's the old forgotten Gen X again, ignored in the Boomer-Millennial culture wars. Gen X, people from about 45 to 60 now.
My impression is this is the most hedonistic, don't give a shit of all the generations. The late 90s and early noughties when GenX were young were the peak of lad mags but also the celebration of binge drinking and drug taking, popular culture that didn't take itself too seriously, and apolitical comedy from The Office to the Fast Show to Reeves and Mortimer. And the nadir (in the sense of they didn't exist) of the culture wars. Toxic in many ways in both a literal and figurative sense, but also good fun.
I miss all that. I know parts of it were bad and not to be repeated, but I'm a creature of that era and it's hard not to be nostalgic for it.
They're enjoyable to discuss but tbh I'm not sure how meaningful these "Gens" are. Most of how the world changes happens gradually and continuously rather than by "decade" or by "generation".
Haven't seen the whole of the Speccie piece but taken as is it is an example (we were discussing this yesterday) of why I don't take the magazine any more.
That said no one can dispute the quality of the writing - v funny indeed. Which makes it all the more irritating.
And thinking about it so it's offensive. So what. Are people calling for it to be cancelled? I'm sure Owen Jones will. That would be very bad if we're not allowed to be offensive. Ask Dave Chapelle.
As it objectifies women we are at the intersection of offence and abuse but the bigger the outcry the more minded I am too defend it even though it's the hated Speccie.
But on the third hand I am an old(er) white bloke so perhaps my time as leader of the western world is over.
I do hope the publicity benefits Ypi and boosts sales of her book and increases listenership of her podcast. Her family experience of persecution under Hoxha and the growing pains of the new Albania is a very interesting perspective, she seems to be on the leading edge of new left wing thought.
"repulsive and a disgrace" sounds to me like a step on the way to getting him sacked.
Listen you and I are both men d'un age certain. Are we saying that no one is allowed to comment on a person's looks any more.
Context is everything.
Well I haven't seen the entire article as it is paywalled. Neither have you, I suspect.
Good for middle aged loaded old lads mag. Unsuitable for a politics, culture and current affairs magazine. Its not exactly rocket science.
The Spectator has ALWAYS been like this. It mixes the high and the low, the sordid and the cerebral, the arts and the heart. And it seeks to surprise as all good magazines should
I very much doubt you subscribe, or ever will, and as it’s paywalled that means you never read it, so why on earth should they care what you think?
And I don't care if they care or not, its very much up to them. Just commenting on here as the topic du jour.
My point is you are acting as if this is some sordid new departure for the Spectator. It really isn’t. I’m old enough to remember when they ran a piece about a guy “wanking himself into hospital” which became mildly celebrated and got quoted in the US Congress and cited in famous books of psychology. So none of this is new
I doubt it shall survive contact with the generation or two below you, it shall have to choose one or the other.
You could be right. It’s not looking good. Here’s their 200 years of sales in a graph
Yes its popular with the posher end of the lads mag readership of the 90s. How did those fare with Gen Z?
I think it's wrong to attribute this to boomers. It's the old forgotten Gen X again, ignored in the Boomer-Millennial culture wars. Gen X, people from about 45 to 60 now.
My impression is this is the most hedonistic, don't give a shit of all the generations. The late 90s and early noughties when GenX were young were the peak of lad mags but also the celebration of binge drinking and drug taking, popular culture that didn't take itself too seriously, and apolitical comedy from The Office to the Fast Show to Reeves and Mortimer. And the nadir (in the sense of they didn't exist) of the culture wars. Toxic in many ways in both a literal and figurative sense, but also good fun.
I miss all that. I know parts of it were bad and not to be repeated, but I'm a creature of that era and it's hard not to be nostalgic for it.
They're enjoyable to discuss but tbh I'm not sure how meaningful these "Gens" are. Most of how the world changes happens gradually and continuously rather than by "decade" or by "generation".
Dunno, my brother is just in tail end of gen X (I'm early millennial) and we're chalk and cheese. I'm measured, sensible, avocado on toast kind of guy (until I discovered the environmental impact of avocado and decided to buy a house instead). He's a walking celebration of binge drinking and drug taking, popular culture that didn't take itself too seriously etc. At least, he's a Chartered Accountant, so I assume it follows that all that is true?
Haven't seen the whole of the Speccie piece but taken as is it is an example (we were discussing this yesterday) of why I don't take the magazine any more.
That said no one can dispute the quality of the writing - v funny indeed. Which makes it all the more irritating.
And thinking about it so it's offensive. So what. Are people calling for it to be cancelled? I'm sure Owen Jones will. That would be very bad if we're not allowed to be offensive. Ask Dave Chapelle.
As it objectifies women we are at the intersection of offence and abuse but the bigger the outcry the more minded I am too defend it even though it's the hated Speccie.
But on the third hand I am an old(er) white bloke so perhaps my time as leader of the western world is over.
I do hope the publicity benefits Ypi and boosts sales of her book and increases listenership of her podcast. Her family experience of persecution under Hoxha and the growing pains of the new Albania is a very interesting perspective, she seems to be on the leading edge of new left wing thought.
"repulsive and a disgrace" sounds to me like a step on the way to getting him sacked.
Listen you and I are both men d'un age certain. Are we saying that no one is allowed to comment on a person's looks any more.
Context is everything.
Well I haven't seen the entire article as it is paywalled. Neither have you, I suspect.
Good for middle aged loaded old lads mag. Unsuitable for a politics, culture and current affairs magazine. Its not exactly rocket science.
The Spectator has ALWAYS been like this. It mixes the high and the low, the sordid and the cerebral, the arts and the heart. And it seeks to surprise as all good magazines should
I very much doubt you subscribe, or ever will, and as it’s paywalled that means you never read it, so why on earth should they care what you think?
And I don't care if they care or not, its very much up to them. Just commenting on here as the topic du jour.
My point is you are acting as if this is some sordid new departure for the Spectator. It really isn’t. I’m old enough to remember when they ran a piece about a guy “wanking himself into hospital” which became mildly celebrated and got quoted in the US Congress and cited in famous books of psychology. So none of this is new
I doubt it shall survive contact with the generation or two below you, it shall have to choose one or the other.
You could be right. It’s not looking good. Here’s their 200 years of sales in a graph
Yes its popular with the posher end of the lads mag readership of the 90s. How did those fare with Gen Z?
I think it's wrong to attribute this to boomers. It's the old forgotten Gen X again, ignored in the Boomer-Millennial culture wars. Gen X, people from about 45 to 60 now.
My impression is this is the most hedonistic, don't give a shit of all the generations. The late 90s and early noughties when GenX were young were the peak of lad mags but also the celebration of binge drinking and drug taking, popular culture that didn't take itself too seriously, and apolitical comedy from The Office to the Fast Show to Reeves and Mortimer. And the nadir (in the sense of they didn't exist) of the culture wars. Toxic in many ways in both a literal and figurative sense, but also good fun.
I miss all that. I know parts of it were bad and not to be repeated, but I'm a creature of that era and it's hard not to be nostalgic for it.
They're enjoyable to discuss but tbh I'm not sure how meaningful these "Gens" are. Most of how the world changes happens gradually and continuously rather than by "decade" or by "generation".
Dunno, my brother is just in tail end of gen X (I'm early millennial) and we're chalk and cheese. I'm measured, sensible, avocado on toast kind of guy (until I discovered the environmental impact of avocado and decided to buy a house instead). He's a walking celebration of binge drinking and drug taking, popular culture that didn't take itself too seriously etc. At least, he's a Chartered Accountant, so I assume it follows that all that is true?
Well, it was difficult to go raving when you were in Year 10.
Sunak really is useless . And by allowing non GPS to issue sick notes we know how this ends . Targets in place of proper fact based decisions.
Absolutely.
The really depressing thing will likely be Starmer's response.
I fear you’re right . And after last nights dreadful response to that very generous EU offer re 18 to 30 year olds I’m fast losing any enthusiasm for Labour .
Thankfully I won’t have to think hard here in Eastbourne about how to vote at the GE . The Lib Dems should take this seat and can rely on my vote .
I’m amazed there isn’t more anger or at least fuss about Labour’s rebuff to the EU
@Casino_Royale mate this book is right up your street you and the author/protagonist have a lot in common you should get yourself a copy off Amazon pronto.
"And she saw a long Roman candle going up over the trees, up, up, and, in the tense hush, they were all breathless with excitement as it went higher and higher and she had to lean back more and more to look up after it, high, high, almost out of sight, and her face was suffused with a divine, an entrancing blush from straining back and he could see her other things too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that caresses the skin, better than those other pettiwidth, the green, four and eleven, on account of being white and she let him and she saw that he saw and then it went so high it went out of sight a moment and she was trembling in every limb from being bent so far back he had a full view high up above her knee no-one ever not even on the swing or wading and she wasn't ashamed and he wasn't either to look in that immodest way like that because he couldn't resist the sight of the wondrous revealment half offered like those skirtdancers behaving so immodest before gentlemen looking and he kept on looking, looking. She would fain have cried to him chokingly, held out her snowy slender arms to him to come, to feel his lips laid on her white brow the cry of a young girl's love, a little strangled cry, wrung from her, that cry that has rung through the ages. And then a rocket sprang and bang shot blind and O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh of O! and everyone cried O!O! in raptures and it gushed out of it a stream of rain gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were all greeny dewy stars falling with golden, O so lively! O so soft, sweet, soft!"
WTF is that?
Don't you worry your pretty little head about it.
But it is in fact an illustration a) of the failings of AI; and b) that the Speccie piece is nothing new, and that people have been outraged by the male view of the female for centuries.
How can supposedly intelligent people on PB not recognise that excerpt? It’s like a reader survey of the site. Not very impressive
Talking of AI - as you did - I had drinks with a photographer friend in Highgate last night. He’s very smart and quite tech literate but still clueless (like 99% of people) about how far A.I. has come
So I sat with him at the pub table and got out my phone and summoned Claude 3 Opus. Then we both fed it a 90,000 word PDF of a novel - simply attached the file.
Wow. I have honestly never seen intellectual shock exhibited so profoundly. Claude (of course) took the book, read it, devoured it, then spooled out a long detailed critique, right down to character arcs and specific plot weaknesses and chapters with poor dialogue. And all forensically accurate
Claude did all this in 50 seconds. From start to finish. Did what an expert editor might do in days, after weeks of delay
My friend was literally speechless. He sat there in silence. Finally he said “fuck”. Then: “this is going to change everything”
So I’ve now learned what you have to do to get people to understand. You have to literally SHOW them. And then they respond like Amazonian Indians seeing their first plane
Leon.
When you feel the urge… step away. Let the baubles of sweat on your upper lip out, then wipe them clean. Splash yourself down.
So.... because my state pension has gone up. The bastards are taking 20 quid a month extra in tax....from my company pension that is also a lot worse than it should be because its in the financial assistance scheme.
@Casino_Royale mate this book is right up your street you and the author/protagonist have a lot in common you should get yourself a copy off Amazon pronto.
"And she saw a long Roman candle going up over the trees, up, up, and, in the tense hush, they were all breathless with excitement as it went higher and higher and she had to lean back more and more to look up after it, high, high, almost out of sight, and her face was suffused with a divine, an entrancing blush from straining back and he could see her other things too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that caresses the skin, better than those other pettiwidth, the green, four and eleven, on account of being white and she let him and she saw that he saw and then it went so high it went out of sight a moment and she was trembling in every limb from being bent so far back he had a full view high up above her knee no-one ever not even on the swing or wading and she wasn't ashamed and he wasn't either to look in that immodest way like that because he couldn't resist the sight of the wondrous revealment half offered like those skirtdancers behaving so immodest before gentlemen looking and he kept on looking, looking. She would fain have cried to him chokingly, held out her snowy slender arms to him to come, to feel his lips laid on her white brow the cry of a young girl's love, a little strangled cry, wrung from her, that cry that has rung through the ages. And then a rocket sprang and bang shot blind and O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh of O! and everyone cried O!O! in raptures and it gushed out of it a stream of rain gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were all greeny dewy stars falling with golden, O so lively! O so soft, sweet, soft!"
WTF is that?
Don't you worry your pretty little head about it.
But it is in fact an illustration a) of the failings of AI; and b) that the Speccie piece is nothing new, and that people have been outraged by the male view of the female for centuries.
How can supposedly intelligent people on PB not recognise that excerpt? It’s like a reader survey of the site. Not very impressive
Talking of AI - as you did - I had drinks with a photographer friend in Highgate last night. He’s very smart and quite tech literate but still clueless (like 99% of people) about how far A.I. has come
So I sat with him at the pub table and got out my phone and summoned Claude 3 Opus. Then we both fed it a 90,000 word PDF of a novel - simply attached the file.
Wow. I have honestly never seen intellectual shock exhibited so profoundly. Claude (of course) took the book, read it, devoured it, then spooled out a long detailed critique, right down to character arcs and specific plot weaknesses and chapters with poor dialogue. And all forensically accurate
Claude did all this in 50 seconds. From start to finish. Did what an expert editor might do in days, after weeks of delay
My friend was literally speechless. He sat there in silence. Finally he said “fuck”. Then: “this is going to change everything”
So I’ve now learned what you have to do to get people to understand. You have to literally SHOW them. And then they respond like Amazonian Indians seeing their first plane
Yes it is interesting. But take that passage. It shows an essential truth about humanity that one person describes which reflects their life experiences.
This comes back to the test you did a while back about who could spot the Kandinsky. And no one was 100% successful IIRC. Plus the "a six year old could do that" criticism/comment on some modern art. Or Carl Andre's bricks.
It is the intention that is critical to art works. I don't dispute that AI is a tool for artistic creation, not at all. But in this case it is you and your mate who set the initial conditions. Will it be mistaken for Joyce? Perhaps. Will "AI" have the same insight into the human condition as Joyce had? Never.
Sunak really is useless . And by allowing non GPS to issue sick notes we know how this ends . Targets in place of proper fact based decisions.
Just listened to a Labour spokesperson say Sunak is tinkering with this very serious problem and they will act vigorously on this, make what you will on that !!
You'll be first up for the reopened slate mine at Blaenau Ffestiniog, desperately trying to get through to DWP before the minibus comes round to pick you up.
@Casino_Royale mate this book is right up your street you and the author/protagonist have a lot in common you should get yourself a copy off Amazon pronto.
"And she saw a long Roman candle going up over the trees, up, up, and, in the tense hush, they were all breathless with excitement as it went higher and higher and she had to lean back more and more to look up after it, high, high, almost out of sight, and her face was suffused with a divine, an entrancing blush from straining back and he could see her other things too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that caresses the skin, better than those other pettiwidth, the green, four and eleven, on account of being white and she let him and she saw that he saw and then it went so high it went out of sight a moment and she was trembling in every limb from being bent so far back he had a full view high up above her knee no-one ever not even on the swing or wading and she wasn't ashamed and he wasn't either to look in that immodest way like that because he couldn't resist the sight of the wondrous revealment half offered like those skirtdancers behaving so immodest before gentlemen looking and he kept on looking, looking. She would fain have cried to him chokingly, held out her snowy slender arms to him to come, to feel his lips laid on her white brow the cry of a young girl's love, a little strangled cry, wrung from her, that cry that has rung through the ages. And then a rocket sprang and bang shot blind and O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh of O! and everyone cried O!O! in raptures and it gushed out of it a stream of rain gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were all greeny dewy stars falling with golden, O so lively! O so soft, sweet, soft!"
WTF is that?
Don't you worry your pretty little head about it.
But it is in fact an illustration a) of the failings of AI; and b) that the Speccie piece is nothing new, and that people have been outraged by the male view of the female for centuries.
Oh dear, the Captain is straining to condescend again. Never a pretty sight.
@Casino_Royale mate this book is right up your street you and the author/protagonist have a lot in common you should get yourself a copy off Amazon pronto.
"And she saw a long Roman candle going up over the trees, up, up, and, in the tense hush, they were all breathless with excitement as it went higher and higher and she had to lean back more and more to look up after it, high, high, almost out of sight, and her face was suffused with a divine, an entrancing blush from straining back and he could see her other things too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that caresses the skin, better than those other pettiwidth, the green, four and eleven, on account of being white and she let him and she saw that he saw and then it went so high it went out of sight a moment and she was trembling in every limb from being bent so far back he had a full view high up above her knee no-one ever not even on the swing or wading and she wasn't ashamed and he wasn't either to look in that immodest way like that because he couldn't resist the sight of the wondrous revealment half offered like those skirtdancers behaving so immodest before gentlemen looking and he kept on looking, looking. She would fain have cried to him chokingly, held out her snowy slender arms to him to come, to feel his lips laid on her white brow the cry of a young girl's love, a little strangled cry, wrung from her, that cry that has rung through the ages. And then a rocket sprang and bang shot blind and O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh of O! and everyone cried O!O! in raptures and it gushed out of it a stream of rain gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were all greeny dewy stars falling with golden, O so lively! O so soft, sweet, soft!"
WTF is that?
Don't you worry your pretty little head about it.
But it is in fact an illustration a) of the failings of AI; and b) that the Speccie piece is nothing new, and that people have been outraged by the male view of the female for centuries.
Oh dear, the Captain is straining to condescend again. Never a pretty sight.
You have bought all the trappings of a Hampstead artsy-fartsy intellectual apart from the artsy-fartsy intellectual bit.
@Casino_Royale mate this book is right up your street you and the author/protagonist have a lot in common you should get yourself a copy off Amazon pronto.
"And she saw a long Roman candle going up over the trees, up, up, and, in the tense hush, they were all breathless with excitement as it went higher and higher and she had to lean back more and more to look up after it, high, high, almost out of sight, and her face was suffused with a divine, an entrancing blush from straining back and he could see her other things too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that caresses the skin, better than those other pettiwidth, the green, four and eleven, on account of being white and she let him and she saw that he saw and then it went so high it went out of sight a moment and she was trembling in every limb from being bent so far back he had a full view high up above her knee no-one ever not even on the swing or wading and she wasn't ashamed and he wasn't either to look in that immodest way like that because he couldn't resist the sight of the wondrous revealment half offered like those skirtdancers behaving so immodest before gentlemen looking and he kept on looking, looking. She would fain have cried to him chokingly, held out her snowy slender arms to him to come, to feel his lips laid on her white brow the cry of a young girl's love, a little strangled cry, wrung from her, that cry that has rung through the ages. And then a rocket sprang and bang shot blind and O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh of O! and everyone cried O!O! in raptures and it gushed out of it a stream of rain gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were all greeny dewy stars falling with golden, O so lively! O so soft, sweet, soft!"
WTF is that?
Don't you worry your pretty little head about it.
But it is in fact an illustration a) of the failings of AI; and b) that the Speccie piece is nothing new, and that people have been outraged by the male view of the female for centuries.
How can supposedly intelligent people on PB not recognise that excerpt? It’s like a reader survey of the site. Not very impressive
Talking of AI - as you did - I had drinks with a photographer friend in Highgate last night. He’s very smart and quite tech literate but still clueless (like 99% of people) about how far A.I. has come
So I sat with him at the pub table and got out my phone and summoned Claude 3 Opus. Then we both fed it a 90,000 word PDF of a novel - simply attached the file.
Wow. I have honestly never seen intellectual shock exhibited so profoundly. Claude (of course) took the book, read it, devoured it, then spooled out a long detailed critique, right down to character arcs and specific plot weaknesses and chapters with poor dialogue. And all forensically accurate
Claude did all this in 50 seconds. From start to finish. Did what an expert editor might do in days, after weeks of delay
My friend was literally speechless. He sat there in silence. Finally he said “fuck”. Then: “this is going to change everything”
So I’ve now learned what you have to do to get people to understand. You have to literally SHOW them. And then they respond like Amazonian Indians seeing their first plane
Leon.
When you feel the urge… step away. Let the baubles of sweat on your upper lip out, then wipe them clean. Splash yourself down.
Don’t worry I’m off for oysters at Sheeks in a minute
The tale of Puberty blockers in Scotland - the Sandyford clinic decided a month ago to stop prescribing new patients and prioritised telling patients over politicians - who were left looking even more foolish, having spent days doing “Cass review?” “Never heard of it/doesn’t apply here/trans genocide” after its publication.
@Casino_Royale mate this book is right up your street you and the author/protagonist have a lot in common you should get yourself a copy off Amazon pronto.
"And she saw a long Roman candle going up over the trees, up, up, and, in the tense hush, they were all breathless with excitement as it went higher and higher and she had to lean back more and more to look up after it, high, high, almost out of sight, and her face was suffused with a divine, an entrancing blush from straining back and he could see her other things too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that caresses the skin, better than those other pettiwidth, the green, four and eleven, on account of being white and she let him and she saw that he saw and then it went so high it went out of sight a moment and she was trembling in every limb from being bent so far back he had a full view high up above her knee no-one ever not even on the swing or wading and she wasn't ashamed and he wasn't either to look in that immodest way like that because he couldn't resist the sight of the wondrous revealment half offered like those skirtdancers behaving so immodest before gentlemen looking and he kept on looking, looking. She would fain have cried to him chokingly, held out her snowy slender arms to him to come, to feel his lips laid on her white brow the cry of a young girl's love, a little strangled cry, wrung from her, that cry that has rung through the ages. And then a rocket sprang and bang shot blind and O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh of O! and everyone cried O!O! in raptures and it gushed out of it a stream of rain gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were all greeny dewy stars falling with golden, O so lively! O so soft, sweet, soft!"
WTF is that?
Don't you worry your pretty little head about it.
But it is in fact an illustration a) of the failings of AI; and b) that the Speccie piece is nothing new, and that people have been outraged by the male view of the female for centuries.
How can supposedly intelligent people on PB not recognise that excerpt? It’s like a reader survey of the site. Not very impressive
Talking of AI - as you did - I had drinks with a photographer friend in Highgate last night. He’s very smart and quite tech literate but still clueless (like 99% of people) about how far A.I. has come
So I sat with him at the pub table and got out my phone and summoned Claude 3 Opus. Then we both fed it a 90,000 word PDF of a novel - simply attached the file.
Wow. I have honestly never seen intellectual shock exhibited so profoundly. Claude (of course) took the book, read it, devoured it, then spooled out a long detailed critique, right down to character arcs and specific plot weaknesses and chapters with poor dialogue. And all forensically accurate
Claude did all this in 50 seconds. From start to finish. Did what an expert editor might do in days, after weeks of delay
My friend was literally speechless. He sat there in silence. Finally he said “fuck”. Then: “this is going to change everything”
So I’ve now learned what you have to do to get people to understand. You have to literally SHOW them. And then they respond like Amazonian Indians seeing their first plane
Yes it is interesting. But take that passage. It shows an essential truth about humanity that one person describes which reflects their life experiences.
This comes back to the test you did a while back about who could spot the Kandinsky. And no one was 100% successful IIRC. Plus the "a six year old could do that" criticism/comment on some modern art. Or Carl Andre's bricks.
It is the intention that is critical to art works. I don't dispute that AI is a tool for artistic creation, not at all. But in this case it is you and your mate who set the initial conditions. Will it be mistaken for Joyce? Perhaps. Will "AI" have the same insight into the human condition as Joyce had? Never.
But it doesn’t matter. We won’t be able to tell the difference
Check out udio. It is making music as good as or better than humans, it just needs to up the audio quality and that’s that
Before the moderators ban me for A.I. chat I am off to have oysters any minute! I’m not going to bang on
@Casino_Royale mate this book is right up your street you and the author/protagonist have a lot in common you should get yourself a copy off Amazon pronto.
"And she saw a long Roman candle going up over the trees, up, up, and, in the tense hush, they were all breathless with excitement as it went higher and higher and she had to lean back more and more to look up after it, high, high, almost out of sight, and her face was suffused with a divine, an entrancing blush from straining back and he could see her other things too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that caresses the skin, better than those other pettiwidth, the green, four and eleven, on account of being white and she let him and she saw that he saw and then it went so high it went out of sight a moment and she was trembling in every limb from being bent so far back he had a full view high up above her knee no-one ever not even on the swing or wading and she wasn't ashamed and he wasn't either to look in that immodest way like that because he couldn't resist the sight of the wondrous revealment half offered like those skirtdancers behaving so immodest before gentlemen looking and he kept on looking, looking. She would fain have cried to him chokingly, held out her snowy slender arms to him to come, to feel his lips laid on her white brow the cry of a young girl's love, a little strangled cry, wrung from her, that cry that has rung through the ages. And then a rocket sprang and bang shot blind and O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh of O! and everyone cried O!O! in raptures and it gushed out of it a stream of rain gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were all greeny dewy stars falling with golden, O so lively! O so soft, sweet, soft!"
WTF is that?
Dunno, but it sounds completely Ulyssless.
Ah good news. So I've read it now then. A masterpiece, no question.
@Casino_Royale mate this book is right up your street you and the author/protagonist have a lot in common you should get yourself a copy off Amazon pronto.
"And she saw a long Roman candle going up over the trees, up, up, and, in the tense hush, they were all breathless with excitement as it went higher and higher and she had to lean back more and more to look up after it, high, high, almost out of sight, and her face was suffused with a divine, an entrancing blush from straining back and he could see her other things too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that caresses the skin, better than those other pettiwidth, the green, four and eleven, on account of being white and she let him and she saw that he saw and then it went so high it went out of sight a moment and she was trembling in every limb from being bent so far back he had a full view high up above her knee no-one ever not even on the swing or wading and she wasn't ashamed and he wasn't either to look in that immodest way like that because he couldn't resist the sight of the wondrous revealment half offered like those skirtdancers behaving so immodest before gentlemen looking and he kept on looking, looking. She would fain have cried to him chokingly, held out her snowy slender arms to him to come, to feel his lips laid on her white brow the cry of a young girl's love, a little strangled cry, wrung from her, that cry that has rung through the ages. And then a rocket sprang and bang shot blind and O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh of O! and everyone cried O!O! in raptures and it gushed out of it a stream of rain gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were all greeny dewy stars falling with golden, O so lively! O so soft, sweet, soft!"
WTF is that?
Dunno, but it sounds completely Ulyssless.
Ah good news. So I've read it now then. A masterpiece, no question.
How could you not recognise the absolutely unmistakeable prose style - and one of the most famous passages
@Casino_Royale mate this book is right up your street you and the author/protagonist have a lot in common you should get yourself a copy off Amazon pronto.
"And she saw a long Roman candle going up over the trees, up, up, and, in the tense hush, they were all breathless with excitement as it went higher and higher and she had to lean back more and more to look up after it, high, high, almost out of sight, and her face was suffused with a divine, an entrancing blush from straining back and he could see her other things too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that caresses the skin, better than those other pettiwidth, the green, four and eleven, on account of being white and she let him and she saw that he saw and then it went so high it went out of sight a moment and she was trembling in every limb from being bent so far back he had a full view high up above her knee no-one ever not even on the swing or wading and she wasn't ashamed and he wasn't either to look in that immodest way like that because he couldn't resist the sight of the wondrous revealment half offered like those skirtdancers behaving so immodest before gentlemen looking and he kept on looking, looking. She would fain have cried to him chokingly, held out her snowy slender arms to him to come, to feel his lips laid on her white brow the cry of a young girl's love, a little strangled cry, wrung from her, that cry that has rung through the ages. And then a rocket sprang and bang shot blind and O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh of O! and everyone cried O!O! in raptures and it gushed out of it a stream of rain gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were all greeny dewy stars falling with golden, O so lively! O so soft, sweet, soft!"
WTF is that?
Don't you worry your pretty little head about it.
But it is in fact an illustration a) of the failings of AI; and b) that the Speccie piece is nothing new, and that people have been outraged by the male view of the female for centuries.
How can supposedly intelligent people on PB not recognise that excerpt? It’s like a reader survey of the site. Not very impressive
Talking of AI - as you did - I had drinks with a photographer friend in Highgate last night. He’s very smart and quite tech literate but still clueless (like 99% of people) about how far A.I. has come
So I sat with him at the pub table and got out my phone and summoned Claude 3 Opus. Then we both fed it a 90,000 word PDF of a novel - simply attached the file.
Wow. I have honestly never seen intellectual shock exhibited so profoundly. Claude (of course) took the book, read it, devoured it, then spooled out a long detailed critique, right down to character arcs and specific plot weaknesses and chapters with poor dialogue. And all forensically accurate
Claude did all this in 50 seconds. From start to finish. Did what an expert editor might do in days, after weeks of delay
My friend was literally speechless. He sat there in silence. Finally he said “fuck”. Then: “this is going to change everything”
So I’ve now learned what you have to do to get people to understand. You have to literally SHOW them. And then they respond like Amazonian Indians seeing their first plane
Yes it is interesting. But take that passage. It shows an essential truth about humanity that one person describes which reflects their life experiences.
This comes back to the test you did a while back about who could spot the Kandinsky. And no one was 100% successful IIRC. Plus the "a six year old could do that" criticism/comment on some modern art. Or Carl Andre's bricks.
It is the intention that is critical to art works. I don't dispute that AI is a tool for artistic creation, not at all. But in this case it is you and your mate who set the initial conditions. Will it be mistaken for Joyce? Perhaps. Will "AI" have the same insight into the human condition as Joyce had? Never.
But it doesn’t matter. We won’t be able to tell the difference
Check out udio. It is making music as good as or better than humans, it just needs to up the audio quality and that’s that
Before the moderators ban me for A.I. chat I am off to have oysters any minute! I’m not going to bang on
Enjoy. People have never been able to tell the difference with modern art. It is the artist's intention that is critical.
@Casino_Royale mate this book is right up your street you and the author/protagonist have a lot in common you should get yourself a copy off Amazon pronto.
"And she saw a long Roman candle going up over the trees, up, up, and, in the tense hush, they were all breathless with excitement as it went higher and higher and she had to lean back more and more to look up after it, high, high, almost out of sight, and her face was suffused with a divine, an entrancing blush from straining back and he could see her other things too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that caresses the skin, better than those other pettiwidth, the green, four and eleven, on account of being white and she let him and she saw that he saw and then it went so high it went out of sight a moment and she was trembling in every limb from being bent so far back he had a full view high up above her knee no-one ever not even on the swing or wading and she wasn't ashamed and he wasn't either to look in that immodest way like that because he couldn't resist the sight of the wondrous revealment half offered like those skirtdancers behaving so immodest before gentlemen looking and he kept on looking, looking. She would fain have cried to him chokingly, held out her snowy slender arms to him to come, to feel his lips laid on her white brow the cry of a young girl's love, a little strangled cry, wrung from her, that cry that has rung through the ages. And then a rocket sprang and bang shot blind and O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh of O! and everyone cried O!O! in raptures and it gushed out of it a stream of rain gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were all greeny dewy stars falling with golden, O so lively! O so soft, sweet, soft!"
WTF is that?
Don't you worry your pretty little head about it.
But it is in fact an illustration a) of the failings of AI; and b) that the Speccie piece is nothing new, and that people have been outraged by the male view of the female for centuries.
How can supposedly intelligent people on PB not recognise that excerpt? It’s like a reader survey of the site. Not very impressive
Talking of AI - as you did - I had drinks with a photographer friend in Highgate last night. He’s very smart and quite tech literate but still clueless (like 99% of people) about how far A.I. has come
So I sat with him at the pub table and got out my phone and summoned Claude 3 Opus. Then we both fed it a 90,000 word PDF of a novel - simply attached the file.
Wow. I have honestly never seen intellectual shock exhibited so profoundly. Claude (of course) took the book, read it, devoured it, then spooled out a long detailed critique, right down to character arcs and specific plot weaknesses and chapters with poor dialogue. And all forensically accurate
Claude did all this in 50 seconds. From start to finish. Did what an expert editor might do in days, after weeks of delay
My friend was literally speechless. He sat there in silence. Finally he said “fuck”. Then: “this is going to change everything”
So I’ve now learned what you have to do to get people to understand. You have to literally SHOW them. And then they respond like Amazonian Indians seeing their first plane
Yes it is interesting. But take that passage. It shows an essential truth about humanity that one person describes which reflects their life experiences.
This comes back to the test you did a while back about who could spot the Kandinsky. And no one was 100% successful IIRC. Plus the "a six year old could do that" criticism/comment on some modern art. Or Carl Andre's bricks.
It is the intention that is critical to art works. I don't dispute that AI is a tool for artistic creation, not at all. But in this case it is you and your mate who set the initial conditions. Will it be mistaken for Joyce? Perhaps. Will "AI" have the same insight into the human condition as Joyce had? Never.
Once I knew it was by Joyce it seemed better! But I still find it a bit cringe. It's quite hard (no pun intended) to write well about sex I think. Unless you're Louise Bagshaw.
That's an important part of it IMO: he chose not to talk about what she was saying aside from a small quote; her only importance to him was as a fantasy figure. What she had to say was unimportant - because she was an attractive woman (he would not talk about a man that way, I guess...)
Unless he was gay. Or unless a woman wrote the article. Is no one allowed to comment on who they think is attractive in print any more.
Anyone is perfectly free to comment on who they think is attractive. But when virtually the only thing you can think to say about a talk by an intelligent, attractive woman was the way she made you want to go and visit a brothel, it's a little bit more than that.
I'm sure a good writer could have actually addressed what she said in her talk, either in agreement or disagreement, and expressed her physical appeal at the same time.
Personally I wanted to know more of what she said; not about the sad life of the Spectator prat.
If you actually read the piece - which almost no one on here has - it’s all about the male libido. How it sadly prevails over sensible thought
His subject is himself and male sexuality and it’s interesting and well-written. It’s not remotely about Albanian communism, or anything she said, she’s not the subject
Should he have included the details of the brothel-visit? I don’t know, it’s a tough call - but I can see why. That’s the bit that drives home the desperate and maudlin futility of so much male sexual desire, with a dash of humour
But I think this just goes whoosh over a lot of PB heads
It may well go whoosh but its altitude relative to the many mature and intelligent PB'ers here is overstated
@Casino_Royale mate this book is right up your street you and the author/protagonist have a lot in common you should get yourself a copy off Amazon pronto.
"And she saw a long Roman candle going up over the trees, up, up, and, in the tense hush, they were all breathless with excitement as it went higher and higher and she had to lean back more and more to look up after it, high, high, almost out of sight, and her face was suffused with a divine, an entrancing blush from straining back and he could see her other things too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that caresses the skin, better than those other pettiwidth, the green, four and eleven, on account of being white and she let him and she saw that he saw and then it went so high it went out of sight a moment and she was trembling in every limb from being bent so far back he had a full view high up above her knee no-one ever not even on the swing or wading and she wasn't ashamed and he wasn't either to look in that immodest way like that because he couldn't resist the sight of the wondrous revealment half offered like those skirtdancers behaving so immodest before gentlemen looking and he kept on looking, looking. She would fain have cried to him chokingly, held out her snowy slender arms to him to come, to feel his lips laid on her white brow the cry of a young girl's love, a little strangled cry, wrung from her, that cry that has rung through the ages. And then a rocket sprang and bang shot blind and O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh of O! and everyone cried O!O! in raptures and it gushed out of it a stream of rain gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were all greeny dewy stars falling with golden, O so lively! O so soft, sweet, soft!"
WTF is that?
Dunno, but it sounds completely Ulyssless.
Tldr; Ulyssee ee ee ee eez no one else can do the things you do.
Sunak: "On Rwanda, the very simple thing here is that repeatedly, everyone has tried to block us from getting this bill through. And yet again, you saw it this week."
Because it is a shite piece of legislation you gormless twat.
They're being blocked by the House of Lords. The Tory manifesto in 2019 promised not to reform the House of Lords. If this is the constitutional system you want, Rishi, don't complain when it works as designed.
Quite. It's like monarchists grumblig about the monarch. The whole point is that we don't get to choose.
@Casino_Royale mate this book is right up your street you and the author/protagonist have a lot in common you should get yourself a copy off Amazon pronto.
"And she saw a long Roman candle going up over the trees, up, up, and, in the tense hush, they were all breathless with excitement as it went higher and higher and she had to lean back more and more to look up after it, high, high, almost out of sight, and her face was suffused with a divine, an entrancing blush from straining back and he could see her other things too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that caresses the skin, better than those other pettiwidth, the green, four and eleven, on account of being white and she let him and she saw that he saw and then it went so high it went out of sight a moment and she was trembling in every limb from being bent so far back he had a full view high up above her knee no-one ever not even on the swing or wading and she wasn't ashamed and he wasn't either to look in that immodest way like that because he couldn't resist the sight of the wondrous revealment half offered like those skirtdancers behaving so immodest before gentlemen looking and he kept on looking, looking. She would fain have cried to him chokingly, held out her snowy slender arms to him to come, to feel his lips laid on her white brow the cry of a young girl's love, a little strangled cry, wrung from her, that cry that has rung through the ages. And then a rocket sprang and bang shot blind and O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh of O! and everyone cried O!O! in raptures and it gushed out of it a stream of rain gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were all greeny dewy stars falling with golden, O so lively! O so soft, sweet, soft!"
WTF is that?
Don't you worry your pretty little head about it.
But it is in fact an illustration a) of the failings of AI; and b) that the Speccie piece is nothing new, and that people have been outraged by the male view of the female for centuries.
How can supposedly intelligent people on PB not recognise that excerpt? It’s like a reader survey of the site. Not very impressive
Talking of AI - as you did - I had drinks with a photographer friend in Highgate last night. He’s very smart and quite tech literate but still clueless (like 99% of people) about how far A.I. has come
So I sat with him at the pub table and got out my phone and summoned Claude 3 Opus. Then we both fed it a 90,000 word PDF of a novel - simply attached the file.
Wow. I have honestly never seen intellectual shock exhibited so profoundly. Claude (of course) took the book, read it, devoured it, then spooled out a long detailed critique, right down to character arcs and specific plot weaknesses and chapters with poor dialogue. And all forensically accurate
Claude did all this in 50 seconds. From start to finish. Did what an expert editor might do in days, after weeks of delay
My friend was literally speechless. He sat there in silence. Finally he said “fuck”. Then: “this is going to change everything”
So I’ve now learned what you have to do to get people to understand. You have to literally SHOW them. And then they respond like Amazonian Indians seeing their first plane
Yes it is interesting. But take that passage. It shows an essential truth about humanity that one person describes which reflects their life experiences.
This comes back to the test you did a while back about who could spot the Kandinsky. And no one was 100% successful IIRC. Plus the "a six year old could do that" criticism/comment on some modern art. Or Carl Andre's bricks.
It is the intention that is critical to art works. I don't dispute that AI is a tool for artistic creation, not at all. But in this case it is you and your mate who set the initial conditions. Will it be mistaken for Joyce? Perhaps. Will "AI" have the same insight into the human condition as Joyce had? Never.
Once I knew it was by Joyce it seemed better! But I still find it a bit cringe. It's quite hard (no pun intended) to write well about sex I think. Unless you're Louise Bagshaw.
Which is why Auberon Waugh instigated the Bad Sex in Fiction award those many years ago at the Literary Review. (He also said that he would every week put the word Sex on the cover to bump up circulation although I saw it the other day and I don't think Sex was on the cover.)
@Casino_Royale mate this book is right up your street you and the author/protagonist have a lot in common you should get yourself a copy off Amazon pronto.
"And she saw a long Roman candle going up over the trees, up, up, and, in the tense hush, they were all breathless with excitement as it went higher and higher and she had to lean back more and more to look up after it, high, high, almost out of sight, and her face was suffused with a divine, an entrancing blush from straining back and he could see her other things too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that caresses the skin, better than those other pettiwidth, the green, four and eleven, on account of being white and she let him and she saw that he saw and then it went so high it went out of sight a moment and she was trembling in every limb from being bent so far back he had a full view high up above her knee no-one ever not even on the swing or wading and she wasn't ashamed and he wasn't either to look in that immodest way like that because he couldn't resist the sight of the wondrous revealment half offered like those skirtdancers behaving so immodest before gentlemen looking and he kept on looking, looking. She would fain have cried to him chokingly, held out her snowy slender arms to him to come, to feel his lips laid on her white brow the cry of a young girl's love, a little strangled cry, wrung from her, that cry that has rung through the ages. And then a rocket sprang and bang shot blind and O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh of O! and everyone cried O!O! in raptures and it gushed out of it a stream of rain gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were all greeny dewy stars falling with golden, O so lively! O so soft, sweet, soft!"
WTF is that?
Dunno, but it sounds completely Ulyssless.
Ah good news. So I've read it now then. A masterpiece, no question.
How could you not recognise the absolutely unmistakeable prose style - and one of the most famous passages
Quite a passage, isn't it. That repeated "O", for example. Very unusual.
Better listened to than read, though, I'm thinking?
Comments
"And she saw a long Roman candle going up over the trees, up, up, and, in the tense hush, they were all breathless with excitement as it went higher and higher and she had to lean back more and more to look up after it, high, high, almost out of sight, and her face was suffused with a divine, an entrancing blush from straining back and he could see her other things too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that caresses the skin, better than those other pettiwidth, the green, four and eleven, on account of being white and she let him and she saw that he saw and then it went so high it went out of sight a moment and she was trembling in every limb from being bent so far back he had a full view high up above her knee no-one ever not even on the swing or wading and she wasn't ashamed and he wasn't either to look in that immodest way like that because he couldn't resist the sight of the wondrous revealment half offered like those skirtdancers behaving so immodest before gentlemen looking and he kept on looking, looking. She would fain have cried to him chokingly, held out her snowy slender arms to him to come, to feel his lips laid on her white brow the cry of a young girl's love, a little strangled cry, wrung from her, that cry that has rung through the ages. And then a rocket sprang and bang shot blind and O! then the Roman candle burst and it was like a sigh of O! and everyone cried O!O! in raptures and it gushed out of it a stream of rain gold hair threads and they shed and ah! they were all greeny dewy stars falling with golden, O so lively! O so soft, sweet, soft!"
Week preceding: (loudly) We're gonna fuck those mullahs good!!
Today: we can neither confirm or deny..
Must be frustrating for an enthusiastic willy waver like Netanyahu.
📊NEW POLL: LABOUR & REFORM UP, CONSERVATIVES DOWN
Lab 45% (+1)
Cons 22% (-1)
Lib Dems 9% (-1)
Reform 13% (+1)
Greens 5% (=)
SNP 3% (=)
Others 3% (=)
👥 1640 Surveyed
🔎 Field Work: 17 & 18 April 2024
🗓️ +/- 12th April 2024
🔗 Data: https://bit.ly/3TEoSy9
#UKPolitics
This is an attractive woman with a nice figure who likes to be looked at and desired. So she wears short skirts and dresses. Good for her - beauty doesn’t last forever and it adds to the gaiety of the nation. She’s not prudish and she enjoys being pretty and sexy. Huzzah
However if you do that then men ARE going to desire you and look at your legs. That’s kind of how it works. How the species procreates
However this woman was unreachable so the sad horny man had to expend his desires elsewhere. That’s it
@BestForBritain
I imagine "get better or we cut your support" will work brilliantly for people suffering from debilitating anxiety.
Then again, if you're happy to victimise refugees, why wouldn't you attack sick people, in a quest for - WHAT? Losing 150 seats instead of 170?
Really vile. ~AA
https://twitter.com/i/status/1781251398811738408
My impression is this is the most hedonistic, don't give a shit of all the generations. The late 90s and early noughties when GenX were young were the peak of lad mags but also the celebration of binge drinking and drug taking, popular culture that didn't take itself too seriously, and apolitical comedy from The Office to the Fast Show to Reeves and Mortimer. And the nadir (in the sense of they didn't exist) of the culture wars. Toxic in many ways in both a literal and figurative sense, but also good fun.
I miss all that. I know parts of it were bad and not to be repeated, but I'm a creature of that era and it's hard not to be nostalgic for it.
Oh right this is a full scale assault from the PM on disabled people.
It's somehow all our fault.
That we're not trying hard enough. That employers are all amazing. And that PIP is too generous?!
If we could convince the Russians and the Chinese to also get rid of them, the world would be a safer place without them.
It's actually nothing new. Quite traditional Toryism, of the sort I encountered frequently in arguments with young fogey types as an undergrad.
No coincidence that you will see it on Club tables up and down St. James's. Next to Country Life and the latest magazine of the Scots Guards.
I used to love it but as I said it also indulges (or did) a nasty, Taki/Charles Moore element that is not so self-aware and is simply nasty. But that is to appeal to/keep onside the "too clever by half" element of the readership which sees "literature", homosexuality, and three buttons on your cuff as essentially foreign and beyond the pale.
Meanwhile yes visual porn has exploded amongst young men, probably to an unhealthy extent
And it’s only going to get worse with A.I. when you’ll be able to order up EXACTLY what you want to see
Death, after all, is the overwhelming question to which sex provides no answer, only a brief respite from thinking about it.
A lot of the madness of the boomer generation comes from them having had a lifetime of broadly getting their own way. In death, they have finally come up against an opponent they cannot beat. And they don't know how to cope.
The spreadsheet tells him a lot more people are off sick than twenty years ago and so there is a problem and he can fix the data by hammering them back to work.
Bring back Johnson.
Because it is a shite piece of legislation you gormless twat.
@SkyNews
"We can't allow fraudsters to exploit the natural compassion and generosity of the British people."
PM Rishi Sunak announces there will be a crackdown on fraud as part of his 'moral mission' to reform the welfare system
But no.
I mean, I'm glad that I haven't had my life turned upside down in defence of my country, freedom, honour or suchlike. But at a societal level, there's nothing like a war to show how silly the notion that we all get what we deserve is. Often, there's just a bullet with your name on it out there.
The really depressing thing will likely be Starmer's response.
What you are describing is the Spectator of the 1980s, when it sold about 20,000 copies. Then its readership was as you say. Now it sells 100,000+ and it is much younger, diverse, nationwide - and global (via digital). It has American and Australian editions, also podcasts, YouTube and Spectator TV. It also has a much more female readership - see how many female writers they employ. They might be a majority on some days, and several senior editors are female
It has widely broadened its appeal hence the rise in sales; hence, also, the clamour to buy it
Yes, it's shite, but this was an attempt to make it marginally better, no more than that, and wouldn't have frustrated any of its objectives.
Not even Thatcher or Truss proposed to entirely cut off benefits after a defined period if you have not found work and potentially even if you have been sending regular applications, that would be a clear move in the direction of a more US style welfare system
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68853166
Does this have any etymological link with 'brass monkeys'?
One reason the Conservatives might do worse than uniform swing implies: tactical voting. In BES data, I found that the number of voters considering more than one progressive party is at its highest in recent history
https://x.com/Laird_ofNowhere/status/1781070917822484570?t=sG2iQfK3piSChFP0kdiusg&s=08
Sunak tries to brush off questions about the scandal surrounding alegations against Tory MP Menzies.
VY: Why did you take so long to start an investigation?
RS: The investigation is ongoing now, so I can't tell you.
How is he SO BAD at every aspect of this job? ~AA
It may well have changed now and at times I see it lying around I do read it and notice (I think?) that Taki and Moore have gone.
I've kept the Staggers going as I find it does try to maintain a better balance of views on the broad left with occasional conservative voices too.
Thankfully I won’t have to think hard here in Eastbourne about how to vote at the GE . The Lib Dems should take this seat and can rely on my vote .
But it is in fact an illustration a) of the failings of AI; and b) that the Speccie piece is nothing new, and that people have been outraged by the male view of the female for centuries.
"By the way, if you are confused about what is a sicknote and what is a fit note, they are essentially the same thing. Sicknotes were re-branded as fit notes in 2010."
Guardian
And "changing who signs off sick notes" is pretty damn significant if they were to employ the same characters who assess people for disabled benefit.
Moore I just find quite predictable. Not offensive. Just meh
You’d be surprised how young and savvy the editors are these days. They’re all about 28
There's a real and understandable enthusiasm gap out there. I will do my patriotic duty, but without much excitement and a Lib Dem party that actually enthused me could steal my vote in what could be - if there are any! - a reasonably tight Lab-Con seat*
*will be the new Selby seat - the by-election winning Lab incumbent for the old seat seems fairly popular and he's been trying hard popping up in supermarkets etc and willing to listen to anyone, so I suspect he might actually hold quite easily given the national picture
Talking of AI - as you did - I had drinks with a photographer friend in Highgate last night. He’s very smart and quite tech literate but still clueless (like 99% of people) about how far A.I. has come
So I sat with him at the pub table and got out my phone and summoned Claude 3 Opus. Then we both fed it a 90,000 word PDF of a novel - simply attached the file.
Wow. I have honestly never seen intellectual shock exhibited so profoundly. Claude (of course) took the book, read it, devoured it, then spooled out a long detailed critique, right down to character arcs and specific plot weaknesses and chapters with poor dialogue. And all forensically accurate
Claude did all this in 50 seconds. From start to finish. Did what an expert editor might do in days, after weeks of delay
My friend was literally speechless. He sat there in silence. Finally he said “fuck”. Then: “this is going to change everything”
So I’ve now learned what you have to do to get people to understand. You have to literally SHOW them. And then they respond like Amazonian Indians seeing their first plane
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev1aBt-_Zs4
When you feel the urge… step away. Let the baubles of sweat on your upper lip out, then wipe them clean. Splash yourself down.
This comes back to the test you did a while back about who could spot the Kandinsky. And no one was 100% successful IIRC. Plus the "a six year old could do that" criticism/comment on some modern art. Or Carl Andre's bricks.
It is the intention that is critical to art works. I don't dispute that AI is a tool for artistic creation, not at all. But in this case it is you and your mate who set the initial conditions. Will it be mistaken for Joyce? Perhaps. Will "AI" have the same insight into the human condition as Joyce had? Never.
https://www.holyrood.com/inside-politics/view,puberty-blockers-the-medical-controversy-scotlands-experts-dont-want-to-talk-about
Nice to see one grown up in the room.
Check out udio. It is making music as good as or better than humans, it just needs to up the audio quality and that’s that
Before the moderators ban me for A.I. chat I am off to have oysters any minute! I’m not going to bang on
Better listened to than read, though, I'm thinking?