On the proms, what’s a little odd is the BBC apparently choosing to take sides on the brewing culture wars. Regardless of what people might claim, hardly anyone takes any notice of the proms. But once the spotlight of public attention was shone on this, why didnt the Beeb just say they’d always had plans for a soloist this year? It’s actually extraordinary that the Beeb have not backed down because it’s a trigger issue for the most important chunk of their customer base.
It reminds me a bit of how the over 50s have been trained by covid into ditching complacent businesses for online shopping instead. Same is likely to happen with the bbc. They’re taking their audience for granted, because they think the over 50s will never get themselves over the line to cancel their license and rely on Prime/Netflix/ITV Player/Youtube etc... I wouldn’t be so sure.
The media coverage of the next uk election should be quite tasty, the way the beeb is going it will be an existential one for them.
They haven’t taken sides they have done what they always do, try and reflect both sides of opinion thereby upsetting both. It’s daft that people are arguing about tunes that either started life with No words or different words and who’s meaning were different then as to now, best to play the tunes and let people put their own words to them. I was in a crowd one night in our local town when the Spanish national anthem, which has no (official) words with the people on one side of me singing one version, pro Franco, and on the other singing another.
Was there a debate raging over the proms that the BBC reacted to? If so, I certainly missed it.
According to the newspapers there was.
As per @Luckyguy1983 I am sure the BLM lot watch the proms every year without fail...
It’s nothing to do with BLM the words to the songs are just outdated and irrelevant in today’s world.
What?! A historical song is outdated and irrelevant, why I never. I've always said all songs and media must be relevant for today's world, otherwise they should be junked.
And remarkable people only noticed it for the first time now.
CHB is right to not care about this Proms business, but my word it has been entertaining to watch people bitch at it from each side.
I am not at all given to affecting outrage on other people's behalf, but I can see a little difficulty in being ok about a song proclaiming in 1740 that Britons never shall be slaves, when in the same year the (crown colony of) South Carolina Slave Code prohibited slaves from gathering without white supervision, learning to read and write, and growing their own food, and empowered their owners to whip, mutilate and castrate them on grounds of insubordination and general attitude.
Yes, slavery was awful - and that's why an abolitionist campaign developed in Britain in the late 18th Century (ironically, this song helped as the campaigners were able to point out the inconsistencies) - and then it was ceased, phased out and then stamped out.
The song is a celebration of independent Britishness and freedom that is still relevant today, and I can see it being even more so in future if China becomes ever more powerful in the geopolitical and economic space such that it starts to impinge on our freedoms rather than us supinely surrendering to it.
God help us , now we are going to sing Land of Hope and Glory to the Chinese as they buy up what will be left of the UK or generally tweak our noses and laugh at us. Great idea.
My point was slightly tongue in cheek but also to show how it can be (and could be) a rallying cry for freedom too. Things can go out of fashion (this hasn't by the way) and can also come back into fashion.
Flower of Scotland talks about sending King Edward's army home "tae think again" - do you think that should be stripped out?
I know it was, as was mine. However it is just a crappy old song and the amount of outrage about dropping it from the even crapper last night of the proms is horrific in my eyes.
Surely the SNP would just add Boris instead of Prince Edward to the lyrics of Flower of Scotland and otherwise leave as is?
It's actually far more strongly associated with the Edinburgh middle-upper class rugger b*gg*rs at Murrayfield, in further information for you about Scotland.
On the proms, what’s a little odd is the BBC apparently choosing to take sides on the brewing culture wars. Regardless of what people might claim, hardly anyone takes any notice of the proms. But once the spotlight of public attention was shone on this, why didnt the Beeb just say they’d always had plans for a soloist this year? It’s actually extraordinary that the Beeb have not backed down because it’s a trigger issue for the most important chunk of their customer base.
It reminds me a bit of how the over 50s have been trained by covid into ditching complacent businesses for online shopping instead. Same is likely to happen with the bbc. They’re taking their audience for granted, because they think the over 50s will never get themselves over the line to cancel their license and rely on Prime/Netflix/ITV Player/Youtube etc... I wouldn’t be so sure.
The media coverage of the next uk election should be quite tasty, the way the beeb is going it will be an existential one for them.
They haven’t taken sides they have done what they always do, try and reflect both sides of opinion thereby upsetting both. It’s daft that people are arguing about tunes that either started life with No words or different words and who’s meaning were different then as to now, best to play the tunes and let people put their own words to them. I was in a crowd one night in our local town when the Spanish national anthem, which has no (official) words with the people on one side of me singing one version, pro Franco, and on the other singing another.
Was there a debate raging over the proms that the BBC reacted to? If so, I certainly missed it.
According to the newspapers there was.
As per @Luckyguy1983 I am sure the BLM lot watch the proms every year without fail...
It’s nothing to do with BLM the words to the songs are just outdated and irrelevant in today’s world.
What?! A historical song is outdated and irrelevant, why I never. I've always said all songs and media must be relevant for today's world, otherwise they should be junked.
And remarkable people only noticed it for the first time now.
CHB is right to not care about this Proms business, but my word it has been entertaining to watch people bitch at it from each side.
I am not at all given to affecting outrage on other people's behalf, but I can see a little difficulty in being ok about a song proclaiming in 1740 that Britons never shall be slaves, when in the same year the (crown colony of) South Carolina Slave Code prohibited slaves from gathering without white supervision, learning to read and write, and growing their own food, and empowered their owners to whip, mutilate and castrate them on grounds of insubordination and general attitude.
Yes, slavery was awful - and that's why an abolitionist campaign developed in Britain in the late 18th Century (ironically, this song helped as the campaigners were able to point out the inconsistencies) - and then it was ceased, phased out and then stamped out.
The song is a celebration of independent Britishness and freedom that is still relevant today, and I can see it being even more so in future if China becomes ever more powerful in the geopolitical and economic space such that it starts to impinge on our freedoms rather than us supinely surrendering to it.
God help us , now we are going to sing Land of Hope and Glory to the Chinese as they buy up what will be left of the UK or generally tweak our noses and laugh at us. Great idea.
My point was slightly tongue in cheek but also to show how it can be (and could be) a rallying cry for freedom too. Things can go out of fashion (this hasn't by the way) and can also come back into fashion.
Flower of Scotland talks about sending King Edward's army home "tae think again" - do you think that should be stripped out?
I know it was, as was mine. However it is just a crappy old song and the amount of outrage about dropping it from the even crapper last night of the proms is horrific in my eyes.
Surely the SNP would just add Boris instead of Prince Edward to the lyrics of Flower of Scotland and otherwise leave as is?
It's actually far more strongly associated with the Edinburgh middle-upper class rugger b*gg*rs at Murrayfield, in further information for you about Scotland.
Correct, first sung impromptu as I recall in the 1990 Grand Slam decider. At the time, official anthem was still Scotland the Brave
If Boris does step down in 2021, it must really annoy his detractors that he’d be likely judged by history as one of the more consequential and successful PMs of the post war period.
Conservative Mayor of London twice in a heavily Labour City, oversaw perhaps the most successful Olympic Games of modern times. Won an unwinnable Brexit referendum, the issue he made his name with over two decades as a journalist. Went on to implement the UK’s exit against what seemed impossible odds. Won a famous and unexpectedly large majority that shook the Labour Party out of its dangerous slide towards the hard left. Was then “the covid prime minister”, survived the virus himself before overseeing a v-shaped economic recovery that segued into the post vaccine world.
Most of what excites his detractors on here is chip paper as far as historians will be concerned. Sure, there will be close examination of the Supreme Court fandango but he won the argument at the ballot box. I suspect the inquiry into the covid lockdown will largely exonerate him from blame, and historians will just describe it as a global pandemic where at the end of it, the Uk did little better or worse than anyone else.
He’ll know all this of course and is a politician with an unusual focus on his historical legacy.
So on the Rule Britannia thing I haven't been paying much attention to this one until this thread but I assume the BBC angle was never a realistic prospect and the whole thing was made up to excite excitable people, am I close?
That said, end the license fee.
Just the BBC desperately trying to create publicity for a tarnished bauble that they pathetically regard as a jewel in their crown. The Proms are a patronising anachronism - popular with shouty, beardy beer boors - but avoided by serious music lovers.
(Hurriedly dons noise-reducing headphones and ducks...)
Can't deny it is a brilliant performance. But fast-forward to the end and the recording is delicately curtailed before the loud mouths jump onto their seats, climbing over each other in their haste to demonstrate how much more appreciative they are than the next bloke. The proper response to a Requiem is stunned silence.
If Boris does step down in 2021, it must really annoy his detractors that he’d be likely judged by history as one of the more consequential and successful PMs of the post war period.
Conservative Mayor of London twice in a heavily Labour City, oversaw perhaps the most successful Olympic Games of modern times. Won an unwinnable Brexit referendum, the issue he made his name with over two decades as a journalist. Went on to implement the UK’s exit against what seemed impossible odds. Won a famous and unexpectedly large majority that shook the Labour Party out of its dangerous slide towards the hard left. Was then “the covid prime minister”, survived the virus himself before overseeing a v-shaped economic recovery that segued into the post vaccine world.
Most of what excites his detractors on here is chip paper as far as historians will be concerned. Sure, there will be close examination of the Supreme Court fandango but he won the argument at the ballot box. I suspect the inquiry into the covid lockdown will largely exonerate him from blame, and historians will just describe it as a global pandemic where at the end of it, the Uk did little better or worse than anyone else.
He’ll know all this of course and is a politician with an unusual focus on his historical legacy.
Well is a view
You don’t have to agree with his central policy of Brexit to acknowledge that he was instrumental in winning the historic referendum and won a landslide election to implement the outcome. That you’d rather not see Brexit happen or wished the Uk stayed in the EEA or whatever else is neither here not there. He’d be regarded as very consequential and successful. And then being the PM who survived covid adds a bit of drama that school kids will remember 100 years from now long after everyone has forgotten who Major, Brown and May were.
I don’t particularly have much time for Nicola Sturgeon. But if she won an Indie ref and then oversaw its implementation, I’d have to recognise she was one of the most consequential (and successful as measured by her own benchmark) British politicians of the last century or more. And I’d expect to read a fairly positive summary of her in the school books if my great great grandchildren.
On the proms, what’s a little odd is the BBC apparently choosing to take sides on the brewing culture wars. Regardless of what people might claim, hardly anyone takes any notice of the proms. But once the spotlight of public attention was shone on this, why didnt the Beeb just say they’d always had plans for a soloist this year? It’s actually extraordinary that the Beeb have not backed down because it’s a trigger issue for the most important chunk of their customer base.
It reminds me a bit of how the over 50s have been trained by covid into ditching complacent businesses for online shopping instead. Same is likely to happen with the bbc. They’re taking their audience for granted, because they think the over 50s will never get themselves over the line to cancel their license and rely on Prime/Netflix/ITV Player/Youtube etc... I wouldn’t be so sure.
The media coverage of the next uk election should be quite tasty, the way the beeb is going it will be an existential one for them.
They haven’t taken sides they have done what they always do, try and reflect both sides of opinion thereby upsetting both. It’s daft that people are arguing about tunes that either started life with No words or different words and who’s meaning were different then as to now, best to play the tunes and let people put their own words to them. I was in a crowd one night in our local town when the Spanish national anthem, which has no (official) words with the people on one side of me singing one version, pro Franco, and on the other singing another.
Was there a debate raging over the proms that the BBC reacted to? If so, I certainly missed it.
According to the newspapers there was.
As per @Luckyguy1983 I am sure the BLM lot watch the proms every year without fail...
It’s nothing to do with BLM the words to the songs are just outdated and irrelevant in today’s world.
What?! A historical song is outdated and irrelevant, why I never. I've always said all songs and media must be relevant for today's world, otherwise they should be junked.
And remarkable people only noticed it for the first time now.
CHB is right to not care about this Proms business, but my word it has been entertaining to watch people bitch at it from each side.
I am not at all given to affecting outrage on other people's behalf, but I can see a little difficulty in being ok about a song proclaiming in 1740 that Britons never shall be slaves, when in the same year the (crown colony of) South Carolina Slave Code prohibited slaves from gathering without white supervision, learning to read and write, and growing their own food, and empowered their owners to whip, mutilate and castrate them on grounds of insubordination and general attitude.
Yes, slavery was awful - and that's why an abolitionist campaign developed in Britain in the late 18th Century (ironically, this song helped as the campaigners were able to point out the inconsistencies) - and then it was ceased, phased out and then stamped out.
The song is a celebration of independent Britishness and freedom that is still relevant today, and I can see it being even more so in future if China becomes ever more powerful in the geopolitical and economic space such that it starts to impinge on our freedoms rather than us supinely surrendering to it.
God help us , now we are going to sing Land of Hope and Glory to the Chinese as they buy up what will be left of the UK or generally tweak our noses and laugh at us. Great idea.
My point was slightly tongue in cheek but also to show how it can be (and could be) a rallying cry for freedom too. Things can go out of fashion (this hasn't by the way) and can also come back into fashion.
Flower of Scotland talks about sending King Edward's army home "tae think again" - do you think that should be stripped out?
I know it was, as was mine. However it is just a crappy old song and the amount of outrage about dropping it from the even crapper last night of the proms is horrific in my eyes.
Surely the SNP would just add Boris instead of Prince Edward to the lyrics of Flower of Scotland and otherwise leave as is?
It's actually far more strongly associated with the Edinburgh middle-upper class rugger b*gg*rs at Murrayfield, in further information for you about Scotland.
On the proms, what’s a little odd is the BBC apparently choosing to take sides on the brewing culture wars. Regardless of what people might claim, hardly anyone takes any notice of the proms. But once the spotlight of public attention was shone on this, why didnt the Beeb just say they’d always had plans for a soloist this year? It’s actually extraordinary that the Beeb have not backed down because it’s a trigger issue for the most important chunk of their customer base.
It reminds me a bit of how the over 50s have been trained by covid into ditching complacent businesses for online shopping instead. Same is likely to happen with the bbc. They’re taking their audience for granted, because they think the over 50s will never get themselves over the line to cancel their license and rely on Prime/Netflix/ITV Player/Youtube etc... I wouldn’t be so sure.
The media coverage of the next uk election should be quite tasty, the way the beeb is going it will be an existential one for them.
They haven’t taken sides they have done what they always do, try and reflect both sides of opinion thereby upsetting both. It’s daft that people are arguing about tunes that either started life with No words or different words and who’s meaning were different then as to now, best to play the tunes and let people put their own words to them. I was in a crowd one night in our local town when the Spanish national anthem, which has no (official) words with the people on one side of me singing one version, pro Franco, and on the other singing another.
Was there a debate raging over the proms that the BBC reacted to? If so, I certainly missed it.
According to the newspapers there was.
As per @Luckyguy1983 I am sure the BLM lot watch the proms every year without fail...
It’s nothing to do with BLM the words to the songs are just outdated and irrelevant in today’s world.
What?! A historical song is outdated and irrelevant, why I never. I've always said all songs and media must be relevant for today's world, otherwise they should be junked.
And remarkable people only noticed it for the first time now.
CHB is right to not care about this Proms business, but my word it has been entertaining to watch people bitch at it from each side.
I am not at all given to affecting outrage on other people's behalf, but I can see a little difficulty in being ok about a song proclaiming in 1740 that Britons never shall be slaves, when in the same year the (crown colony of) South Carolina Slave Code prohibited slaves from gathering without white supervision, learning to read and write, and growing their own food, and empowered their owners to whip, mutilate and castrate them on grounds of insubordination and general attitude.
Yes, slavery was awful - and that's why an abolitionist campaign developed in Britain in the late 18th Century (ironically, this song helped as the campaigners were able to point out the inconsistencies) - and then it was ceased, phased out and then stamped out.
The song is a celebration of independent Britishness and freedom that is still relevant today, and I can see it being even more so in future if China becomes ever more powerful in the geopolitical and economic space such that it starts to impinge on our freedoms rather than us supinely surrendering to it.
God help us , now we are going to sing Land of Hope and Glory to the Chinese as they buy up what will be left of the UK or generally tweak our noses and laugh at us. Great idea.
My point was slightly tongue in cheek but also to show how it can be (and could be) a rallying cry for freedom too. Things can go out of fashion (this hasn't by the way) and can also come back into fashion.
Flower of Scotland talks about sending King Edward's army home "tae think again" - do you think that should be stripped out?
I know it was, as was mine. However it is just a crappy old song and the amount of outrage about dropping it from the even crapper last night of the proms is horrific in my eyes.
Surely the SNP would just add Boris instead of Prince Edward to the lyrics of Flower of Scotland and otherwise leave as is?
It's actually far more strongly associated with the Edinburgh middle-upper class rugger b*gg*rs at Murrayfield, in further information for you about Scotland.
Correct, first sung impromptu as I recall in the 1990 Grand Slam decider. At the time, official anthem was still Scotland the Brave
If Boris does step down in 2021, it must really annoy his detractors that he’d be likely judged by history as one of the more consequential and successful PMs of the post war period.
Conservative Mayor of London twice in a heavily Labour City, oversaw perhaps the most successful Olympic Games of modern times. Won an unwinnable Brexit referendum, the issue he made his name with over two decades as a journalist. Went on to implement the UK’s exit against what seemed impossible odds. Won a famous and unexpectedly large majority that shook the Labour Party out of its dangerous slide towards the hard left. Was then “the covid prime minister”, survived the virus himself before overseeing a v-shaped economic recovery that segued into the post vaccine world.
Most of what excites his detractors on here is chip paper as far as historians will be concerned. Sure, there will be close examination of the Supreme Court fandango but he won the argument at the ballot box. I suspect the inquiry into the covid lockdown will largely exonerate him from blame, and historians will just describe it as a global pandemic where at the end of it, the Uk did little better or worse than anyone else.
He’ll know all this of course and is a politician with an unusual focus on his historical legacy.
Well is a view
You don’t have to agree with his central policy of Brexit to acknowledge that he was instrumental in winning the historic referendum and won a landslide election to implement the outcome. That you’d rather not see Brexit happen or wished the Uk stayed in the EEA or whatever else is neither here not there. He’d be regarded as very consequential and successful. And then being the PM who survived covid adds a bit of drama that school kids will remember 100 years from now long after everyone has forgotten who Major, Brown and May were.
I don’t particularly have much time for Nicola Sturgeon. But if she won an Indie ref and then oversaw its implementation, I’d have to recognise she was one of the most consequential (and successful as measured by her own benchmark) British politicians of the last century or more. And I’d expect to read a fairly positive summary of her in the school books if my great great grandchildren.
Consequential and successful are completely different. Clearly he is consequential but to be successful he has to make things better. Not even started on that one and doubt he ever will. Hope to be proved wrong.
On the proms, what’s a little odd is the BBC apparently choosing to take sides on the brewing culture wars. Regardless of what people might claim, hardly anyone takes any notice of the proms. But once the spotlight of public attention was shone on this, why didnt the Beeb just say they’d always had plans for a soloist this year? It’s actually extraordinary that the Beeb have not backed down because it’s a trigger issue for the most important chunk of their customer base.
It reminds me a bit of how the over 50s have been trained by covid into ditching complacent businesses for online shopping instead. Same is likely to happen with the bbc. They’re taking their audience for granted, because they think the over 50s will never get themselves over the line to cancel their license and rely on Prime/Netflix/ITV Player/Youtube etc... I wouldn’t be so sure.
The media coverage of the next uk election should be quite tasty, the way the beeb is going it will be an existential one for them.
The bizarreness to me is that it's the last night of the Proms. One night....
Of course it is the symbolism - bit like the crowd of enthusiastic folk who want the Boat Race cancelled.
Perhaps I should start a campaign to ban all the things I don't like?
The boat race should be the final of an inter university competition in which all universities can take part.
Who are you to demand what “should” be done?
There is already an inter university rowing regatta by the way.
I didn’t demand just suggested that it should be, same with the farcity cricket at Lords and Rugby at Twickenham.
Does the popularity of these events not “suggest” to you that there remains a place for them? What’s with people these days feeling it’s their right to “suggest” to other people how they should and shouldn’t spend their leisure time and money. It’s not like a rowing race or rugby match exploits slaves like at the colosseum. Get over yourself.
Who said anything about slaves? Why should Oxbridge have these privileges over other universities?
They don't, there is nothing to stop any other two universities from challenging each other to an annual rowing match and I imagine the Thames would be made available for the appropriate fee.
On the boat race -
- due to the unique format of the race, taking place over a long, winding course on a tidal river, there is no interest from other universities for taking part. Modern rowing training (like all athletic training) is finely tuned. Everyone else in rowing is training for 2000m, over a straight course, in flat water.
- it would be quite hard to row with a half dozen competitors - despite the width of the Thames, the "good" line is quite narrow. Unlike other rowing, the idea is to get in front of your opponent and block the "good" line. With multiple competitors, collisions would be almost inevitable.
Cambridge itself, with a very narrow river, solves the problem with “the bumps”, whereby all the competing boats start off in line, and you advance position by catching or bumping the boat in front.
Extrapolating, a gaggle of other universities could be allowed to compete by starting off some yards back from Oxford and Cambridge, and if any of them manage to catch the boat in second place, they get to be one of the top two the year following?
There are bump races at Oxford as well - similar issue.
Have you rowed on the tidal bit of the Thames? Doing bumps would be... interesting. In the cave-diving-for-lols category of fun....
No one else has shown interest in taking part, as far as I know.
I have rowed in "bumps" on the Thames. The London Medical schools used to have one.
Comments
For the dramatic catastrophists, note that life and traditions went on when this happened.
I don’t particularly have much time for Nicola Sturgeon. But if she won an Indie ref and then oversaw its implementation, I’d have to recognise she was one of the most consequential (and successful as measured by her own benchmark) British politicians of the last century or more. And I’d expect to read a fairly positive summary of her in the school books if my great great grandchildren.
new thread
https://twitter.com/nickeardleybbc/status/1298233236204793857
https://twitter.com/F1/status/1298215707776364545
More *could* be added but I think not as Abu Dhabi has recently been the last race of a season.