What is there to discuss, the fact he's even hearing the other side is nuts
I have to say I had always assumed we didn’t have this shit in this country, and that it would be de facto banned anyway. Is anyone in favour of it? Really? I suppose one can argue that if someone really wants it themselves because of their own beliefs, and there is no compulsion, they should be allowed.
If you can be, ah, "converted" from male to female, or female to male, in principle, why not gay to straight?
Sexuality and gender dysphoria are clean different issues. Indeed, that's part of what makes the whole transgender business so very complicated.
Yes. I also think that in any case those who transition would tend to say they never “converted” but rather were always what they were.
I am not best pleased to receive a letter from the Census Office inviting me to complete the survey online - or to ring a freephone line to request a hard copy. Deeply resent the assumption that people wish to use the Internet for this. Frankly unless the hard copy is provided in the normal way, they can sing for their supper!
Why bother havent done a census ever
You don't see it as a public duty then.
Not in the least no
Although it carries a fine of up to £1k. So I wouldn't broadcast it too widely.
Shrugs yet to be fined and lets face it the whole thing is a joke unless you really think we have half a million jedi's
That's hardly the only information the emerges, and it's a voluntary question anyway, so some useful info may well be gleaned.
I would be interested to know if they ever fine people for not completing the census, as I doubt they expect perfect compliance and as long as they get sufficient compliance for somewhat reliable public policy planning it's likely not worth chasing too hard.
But at least a refusal to fill out the damn thing makes more sense that getting mad on behalf of other people who don't have the internet, even though those people can still fill it out.
As I replied to Kinablu the only thing I would tell them is what they already know so its pointless
I had heard it is considered that in future there won't be censuses for the very reason all the info will be able to be compiled from other sources. Interesting if that is the case.
They said that in 2011 and 2001.
Apart from anything else, the census isn’t terribly accurate. Lots of HMOs housing illegal immigrants that are apparently inhabited by one old woman and her cats, while supermarkets and pressure on local sewage systems all show there are far more people there than officially recorded.
:LOL:
Those claims are, how can I put it, utter shite.
Then you should have told my former line manager at the ONS that, because I’m quoting her.
Got a name? I might have worked with her in 2011.
Truthfully, I can’t remember it. It was a long time ago. She was Australian if that helps.
I knew one Australian whilst I was there, but it probably wasn't them.
I slogged my guts out getting the HMOs right in 2011 and then spent a lot of time working with our field team to make sure we were capturing all the beds in sheds etc.
I even created records for one set of people the police wouldn't let us enumerate. Well, that's not quite true. They told us that it wouldn't be a good idea to try to enumerate them as the situation at the time was delicate.
I spent a great deal of time doing that too.
That’s one reason I am so confident a decade later that they were completely wide of the mark.
You worked on 2001? The worst thing about 2011 was that we were separating communals from the household list. Trying to reduce the overlap without missing anything was not fun.
Trouble is for all those refusing to complete the census or anything else leading to it being discontinued is that they are ruining a vital source of historical information. It is true that the Government can get the information other ways but anyone else cannot. Historians set huge store by the census for social and economic history, for things like house history and for myriad other lines of research. They simply cannot have access to all those other sources of information, many of which are considered private even long after people have died. Whilst it is true that we will not see the post war census returns until probably after I am dead it saddens me that people in the future may not be able to reply on this information.
I am particularly shocked by the response of ydoethur who is, I believe, a history teacher.
And has published research on nineteenth century census data, at that.
But that was then, this is now.
If you are saying it no longer has use then I have along list of professional historians who would beg to differ. Indeed I attended a talk by several of them only last week.
Undoubtedly. Just as you will find long lists of professional historians who bemoan the loss of telephone directories. Or newspapers. Or local libraries. Or national railway timetables. All of which are incredibly valuable in doing historical research.
All of which still exist.... well with the exception of national railway timetables and I happen to know there is a whole loose society of enthusiasts who religiously record those from the various websites on a daily basis. They even have various rail companies providing them with details of cancelled services.
But for most historians the census is pretty much irreplaceable as a snapshot of occupation.
You still get telephone directories in Lincs? I haven’t had one in years. Only once since moving north, I think.
As for local libraries, when it comes to keeping local records they are a very pale shadow of what they once were. Even twenty years ago when I was doing my BA it was perfectly normal to travel to different local libraries to consult several collections of local material. Now, they’re more or less all gone. Cannock is a particular disappointment in that regard.
True, county archives heroically try to gather up the slack, but they’re hopelessly under-resources and pushed for space as it is.
I must be lucky. Both Grantham and Newark libraries have excellent records. And yes I am also a reader at both Lincoln and Nottingham CROs so - before covid at least - spent far too much time poring over old documents. Enclosure maps and Turnpike Acts are my favourites. Oh and Tithe maps.
I’m delighted to hear it, but such libraries are increasingly exceptional, sadly.
I’m particularly sad and angry at what happened to Gloucester’s local collection, which was basically sold off, but even that‘s better than the fate of one of the finest local collections on classical Britain, at Carlisle, which ended up in a skip.
It is one reason why I would urge people these days to think very carefully before donating archaeological artefacts to museums. Far too many of them have decided they can no longer afford to keep the artefacts and have just skipped them. We had a real fight with Newark museum at the time of its conversion to the National Civil War Centre to prevent them dumping large amounts of ceramics and other artefacts dating back to the Roman period.
Well, speaking as someone who has visited and enjoyed Newark museum, we owe you a debt of gratitude for that fight.
But ultimately, it unfortunately comes down much too often to lack of funding. If they haven’t got the money, they make hard choices and very often it’s the historical material that’s of interest to fewer people that gets squeezed out.
That’s even true of uni libraries, although there are others that are infamous for not making sensible choices (apparently Lampeter university library still has an excellent geography section two decades after the geography department closed).
But why would a museum chuck excess artefacts in the bin, as Richard alleges?
Insane. There must be hundreds of kids - in any sizeable town - with a passion for history who would be delighted, enlightened and energised by the outright gift of some Roman pottery shards or medieval glassware and so on. Give these things away.
I've got a collection of two dozen tiny little historic objects in my living room. I found them all myself which adds to their lustre, but I would love them anyway - a flint arrowhead from Gobekli Tepe, a bit of amphora handle from the Valley of the Shadow of Death, some shrapnel from Gallipoli, a Piece of Pol Pot's Patio.
I love these things. Historical objects are history you can touch. Priceless. Never bin them!
I lusted after a Gobekli Tepe arrowhead (there's no shortage of them) but didn't have the bottle to try to smuggle one out - my Turkish phrase book usefully gives the translation for "I am terribly sorry Mr Customs Officer, I had no idea about the savage penalties for unlicensed antiquity exports," and I have watched Midnight Express.
I remember when I found my Gobekli Tepe arrowhead I was almost overcome with excitement. I pocketed it eagerly (and clandestinely). Then I had a big spasm of guilt and looked around, with a mind to putting it back - then I realised I was standing on a hill of flints which was practically all arrowheads and axes. Thousands of them
So I kept it and took it home. And I can see it now as I type. An arrowhead knapped by the same hunter-gatherers who built the world's oldest structure, a veritable temple in Eden, maybe 12,000 years ago.
Marvellous
Arrowheads form a nice thematic thread though this topic, since, according to Herodotus, the Scythian king Ariantas had each of his nomadic subjects contribute an arrowhead to his census - on pain on death - as a simple means of estimating their population. Once these arrowheads were all collected, they were used to manufacture a giant bronze vessel of over 5000 gallons in volume to serve as a monument to his rule. And indeed that's the only reason anyone has ever heard of him...
And our entire nation would be very different if it weren't for the arrow in Harold's eye
The Anglo-Saxons came quite close to winning at Hastings, DESPITE the handicap of having fought and won a brutal battle against the Norse, and King Harald Hardrada, a few days before. Like beating the Springboks then taking on the All Blacks, later that same weekend
If he'd won the 2nd battle, like the first, Harold Godwinsson would now be the greatest hero in English history, instead of a footnote, and an image on a tapestry. Discuss.
And the world would also be very different, shaped by a different Britain - or not shaped at all.
English victory at Hastings is an alternative history favourite, though frankly it's so far back in time and would represent such a significant deviation from established events that its long-term effects can only be vaguely guessed at.
And who is to say the Normans wouldn't have been back another year. They weren't know for just sitting around and enjoying what they had already.
But the Normans would probably have turned west and south rather than north. Invading and conquering England is very hard. Note that no one has succeeded since. The Spanish vowed to try a 2nd time after the failure of the armada, but, in the end, they didn't. Nerves failed.
The Normans, after a failure in England, would have had a go at Brittany, or gone down the French coast to Aquitaine. Much easier.
And of course after winning at Hastings a triumphant and vindicated Harold Godwinsson would 1, have shored up his defences and 2, might have gone on the offensive himself, now rid of any Viking threat from the east
I agree.
But as it stands, 14th October 1066 remains the single day that shaped Britain more than any other.
John Stuart Mill famously disagreed: 'The battle of Marathon, even as an event in English history, is more important than the battle of Hastings...'
Good job it was a long time ago. The battle of Snickers just doesn't have the same ring to it.
Seriously though, I'd like to hear Mill's reasoning. It seems rather implausible to me.
Reckon that JSM's argument, was that the preservation of Greek civilization was of more impact to Brits, than whatever barbarian horde ended up on top, on an obscure island on the fringe of the semi-known world.
Well, speaking as someone who has visited and enjoyed Newark museum, we owe you a debt of gratitude for that fight.
But ultimately, it unfortunately comes down much too often to lack of funding. If they haven’t got the money, they make hard choices and very often it’s the historical material that’s of interest to fewer people that gets squeezed out.
That’s even true of uni libraries, although there are others that are infamous for not making sensible choices (apparently Lampeter university library still has an excellent geography section two decades after the geography department closed).
Your low opinion of university libraries is correct. Once at the University of REDACTED, I attended a sale of surplus items. "A librarian's life is a constant battle against space", I was told.
There was amongst the discarded debris a first edition of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility
Being honest, I remonstrated that this book should be retained in the collection, which it was.
Well, until the next lunatick decides the library is short of space and needs to get rid of surplus stock that students don't need.
On a similar vein, a few years ago I was doing research for a book on the British Interventions in Southern Russia in 1918 at the Brotherton Library in Leeds. I was going through accounts and diaries from WW1 veterans and found a box of a young officer in the Machine Gun Corps who travelled all the way to Baku on the Caspian and won the Military Cross on his first night there.
As I went through the box I found, tucked away in the bottom, the very medal he had won. Knowing they are of some value I took it to the desk but the lady there seemed surprised that it was of any value. To be honest anyone could have walked away with it. I had a chat with the librarians and they said they would do a search of the other boxes to make sure there were no further valuables tucked away.
I see your Baku and raise you a Stalingrad (of sorts!).
British tank crews were involved in the successful capture of Tsaritsyn in 1919 alongside the White Russians under General Denikin. However, the Red Army re-took it within 6 months. Tsaritsyn later became much more famous as Stalingrad of WW2 fame, though it was renamed Volgograd in the 1950s.
Ahhh. But I will see your Stalingard and raise you Charjui on the Amu Darya River in Central Asia - the Oxus of Alexander the Great. British and Indian troops fought against Bolshevik Russians and Austro-Hungarian former prisoners of war in series of battles along the South Central Asian railway in 1918. Quite possibly a contender for the most remote land battle ever fought by British soldiers.
Most of us posting on here (and certainly all those of largely British descent) will have ancestors who fought at the battle of Hastings, even though we don't know their names.
I find that a remarkable thought.
Quite possibly yes. A few people might even know about them. Certainly I seem to recall there being a story in the news a few years ago about two women who placed an "In Memoriam" notice in a newspaper, in tribute to an ancestor who died at the Battle of Maldon in 991. Whether they were able to trace the family tree quite back that far or were filling in some of the details with guesswork or imagination I don't know, but it's quite a romantic notion all the same.
I expect Charles has a few ancestors that fought at Hastings, and knows which local fyrd they commanded
Oh no sir. Our Charles comes from good Norman stock. Part of the ruling elite.
A good point, sir. Although he probably has ancestors on both sides. HMQ manages to be descended from Alfred (and Woden), as Henry I married an English princess.
I was thinking they'd probably get down to about age 45 by Easter. At least getting as far as offering all the fortysomethings an appointment would require such a large increase in supply (especially in light of the increasing requirement to administer the second doses) that it seems too good to be true. However, I have underestimated the speed of the vaccination drive before, so we shall see.
Most of us posting on here (and certainly all those of largely British descent) will have ancestors who fought at the battle of Hastings, even though we don't know their names.
I find that a remarkable thought.
Quite possibly yes. A few people might even know about them. Certainly I seem to recall there being a story in the news a few years ago about two women who placed an "In Memoriam" notice in a newspaper, in tribute to an ancestor who died at the Battle of Maldon in 991. Whether they were able to trace the family tree quite back that far or were filling in some of the details with guesswork or imagination I don't know, but it's quite a romantic notion all the same.
I expect Charles has a few ancestors that fought at Hastings, and knows which local fyrd they commanded
Oh no sir. Our Charles comes from good Norman stock. Part of the ruling elite.
Am quite sure that Charles is prudent enough, to have had progenitors in both camps - the best strategy for familial success.
Is there any other case in history where a nation's defeat in a single battle led to a takeover and total domination by a foreign ruling elite that lasted hundreds of years, and arguably continues to this day, 954 years later?
Most of us posting on here (and certainly all those of largely British descent) will have ancestors who fought at the battle of Hastings, even though we don't know their names.
I find that a remarkable thought.
Quite possibly yes. A few people might even know about them. Certainly I seem to recall there being a story in the news a few years ago about two women who placed an "In Memoriam" notice in a newspaper, in tribute to an ancestor who died at the Battle of Maldon in 991. Whether they were able to trace the family tree quite back that far or were filling in some of the details with guesswork or imagination I don't know, but it's quite a romantic notion all the same.
I expect Charles has a few ancestors that fought at Hastings, and knows which local fyrd they commanded
Oh no sir. Our Charles comes from good Norman stock. Part of the ruling elite.
Am quite sure that Charles is prudent enough, to have had progenitors in both camps - the best strategy for familial success.
After all, both William AND Harold had kinfolk on both sides of the donnybrook.
Most of us posting on here (and certainly all those of largely British descent) will have ancestors who fought at the battle of Hastings, even though we don't know their names.
I find that a remarkable thought.
Quite possibly yes. A few people might even know about them. Certainly I seem to recall there being a story in the news a few years ago about two women who placed an "In Memoriam" notice in a newspaper, in tribute to an ancestor who died at the Battle of Maldon in 991. Whether they were able to trace the family tree quite back that far or were filling in some of the details with guesswork or imagination I don't know, but it's quite a romantic notion all the same.
I expect Charles has a few ancestors that fought at Hastings, and knows which local fyrd they commanded
Oh no sir. Our Charles comes from good Norman stock. Part of the ruling elite.
Am quite sure that Charles is prudent enough, to have had progenitors in both camps - the best strategy for familial success.
Both Harold and William have living decendants, and so (due to the numbers involved over 40 generations) we are all descended from both of them.
At Tameside Magistrates' Court he faced jail after admitting sexual assault but was sent on a sex offender rehabilitation programme after pleading he was a ''the sole earner'' in his family. His lawyer said the attack was ''quite opportunistic.''
I mean that's the sort of stuff people come out with to escape a driving ban after totting up 12 points, not a sexual assault on a night out. Unbelievable sentencing from the magistrate.
Most of us posting on here (and certainly all those of largely British descent) will have ancestors who fought at the battle of Hastings, even though we don't know their names.
I find that a remarkable thought.
Quite possibly yes. A few people might even know about them. Certainly I seem to recall there being a story in the news a few years ago about two women who placed an "In Memoriam" notice in a newspaper, in tribute to an ancestor who died at the Battle of Maldon in 991. Whether they were able to trace the family tree quite back that far or were filling in some of the details with guesswork or imagination I don't know, but it's quite a romantic notion all the same.
I expect Charles has a few ancestors that fought at Hastings, and knows which local fyrd they commanded
Oh no sir. Our Charles comes from good Norman stock. Part of the ruling elite.
Am quite sure that Charles is prudent enough, to have had progenitors in both camps - the best strategy for familial success.
Both Harold and William have living decendants, and so (due to the numbers involved over 40 generations) we are all descended from both of them.
Most of us posting on here (and certainly all those of largely British descent) will have ancestors who fought at the battle of Hastings, even though we don't know their names.
I find that a remarkable thought.
Quite possibly yes. A few people might even know about them. Certainly I seem to recall there being a story in the news a few years ago about two women who placed an "In Memoriam" notice in a newspaper, in tribute to an ancestor who died at the Battle of Maldon in 991. Whether they were able to trace the family tree quite back that far or were filling in some of the details with guesswork or imagination I don't know, but it's quite a romantic notion all the same.
I expect Charles has a few ancestors that fought at Hastings, and knows which local fyrd they commanded
Oh no sir. Our Charles comes from good Norman stock. Part of the ruling elite.
Am quite sure that Charles is prudent enough, to have had progenitors in both camps - the best strategy for familial success.
Both Harold and William have living decendants, and so (due to the numbers involved over 40 generations) we are all descended from both of them.
Yes, but Charles can probably name them (assuming all parentage is accurate, which as has been pointed out across that many generations cannot be certain).
At Tameside Magistrates' Court he faced jail after admitting sexual assault but was sent on a sex offender rehabilitation programme after pleading he was a ''the sole earner'' in his family. His lawyer said the attack was ''quite opportunistic.''
I mean that's the sort of stuff people come out with to escape a driving ban after totting up 12 points, not a sexual assault on a night out. Unbelievable sentencing from the magistrate.
Is there any other case in history where a nation's defeat in a single battle led to a takeover and total domination by a foreign ruling elite that lasted hundreds of years, and arguably continues to this day, 954 years later?
Good question! Only thing that's popped into my head so far, is Fall of Jericho. And the Vikings who founded Rus (Varangians)?
Most of us posting on here (and certainly all those of largely British descent) will have ancestors who fought at the battle of Hastings, even though we don't know their names.
I find that a remarkable thought.
Quite possibly yes. A few people might even know about them. Certainly I seem to recall there being a story in the news a few years ago about two women who placed an "In Memoriam" notice in a newspaper, in tribute to an ancestor who died at the Battle of Maldon in 991. Whether they were able to trace the family tree quite back that far or were filling in some of the details with guesswork or imagination I don't know, but it's quite a romantic notion all the same.
I expect Charles has a few ancestors that fought at Hastings, and knows which local fyrd they commanded
Oh no sir. Our Charles comes from good Norman stock. Part of the ruling elite.
Am quite sure that Charles is prudent enough, to have had progenitors in both camps - the best strategy for familial success.
Both Harold and William have living decendants, and so (due to the numbers involved over 40 generations) we are all descended from both of them.
I am not best pleased to receive a letter from the Census Office inviting me to complete the survey online - or to ring a freephone line to request a hard copy. Deeply resent the assumption that people wish to use the Internet for this. Frankly unless the hard copy is provided in the normal way, they can sing for their supper!
Why bother havent done a census ever
You don't see it as a public duty then.
Not in the least no
Although it carries a fine of up to £1k. So I wouldn't broadcast it too widely.
Shrugs yet to be fined and lets face it the whole thing is a joke unless you really think we have half a million jedi's
That's hardly the only information the emerges, and it's a voluntary question anyway, so some useful info may well be gleaned.
I would be interested to know if they ever fine people for not completing the census, as I doubt they expect perfect compliance and as long as they get sufficient compliance for somewhat reliable public policy planning it's likely not worth chasing too hard.
But at least a refusal to fill out the damn thing makes more sense that getting mad on behalf of other people who don't have the internet, even though those people can still fill it out.
As I replied to Kinablu the only thing I would tell them is what they already know so its pointless
I had heard it is considered that in future there won't be censuses for the very reason all the info will be able to be compiled from other sources. Interesting if that is the case.
They said that in 2011 and 2001.
Apart from anything else, the census isn’t terribly accurate. Lots of HMOs housing illegal immigrants that are apparently inhabited by one old woman and her cats, while supermarkets and pressure on local sewage systems all show there are far more people there than officially recorded.
:LOL:
Those claims are, how can I put it, utter shite.
Then you should have told my former line manager at the ONS that, because I’m quoting her.
Got a name? I might have worked with her in 2011.
Truthfully, I can’t remember it. It was a long time ago. She was Australian if that helps.
I knew one Australian whilst I was there, but it probably wasn't them.
I slogged my guts out getting the HMOs right in 2011 and then spent a lot of time working with our field team to make sure we were capturing all the beds in sheds etc.
I even created records for one set of people the police wouldn't let us enumerate. Well, that's not quite true. They told us that it wouldn't be a good idea to try to enumerate them as the situation at the time was delicate.
I spent a great deal of time doing that too.
That’s one reason I am so confident a decade later that they were completely wide of the mark.
You worked on 2001? The worst thing about 2011 was that we were separating communals from the household list. Trying to reduce the overlap without missing anything was not fun.
Trouble is for all those refusing to complete the census or anything else leading to it being discontinued is that they are ruining a vital source of historical information. It is true that the Government can get the information other ways but anyone else cannot. Historians set huge store by the census for social and economic history, for things like house history and for myriad other lines of research. They simply cannot have access to all those other sources of information, many of which are considered private even long after people have died. Whilst it is true that we will not see the post war census returns until probably after I am dead it saddens me that people in the future may not be able to reply on this information.
I am particularly shocked by the response of ydoethur who is, I believe, a history teacher.
And has published research on nineteenth century census data, at that.
But that was then, this is now.
If you are saying it no longer has use then I have along list of professional historians who would beg to differ. Indeed I attended a talk by several of them only last week.
Undoubtedly. Just as you will find long lists of professional historians who bemoan the loss of telephone directories. Or newspapers. Or local libraries. Or national railway timetables. All of which are incredibly valuable in doing historical research.
All of which still exist.... well with the exception of national railway timetables and I happen to know there is a whole loose society of enthusiasts who religiously record those from the various websites on a daily basis. They even have various rail companies providing them with details of cancelled services.
But for most historians the census is pretty much irreplaceable as a snapshot of occupation.
You still get telephone directories in Lincs? I haven’t had one in years. Only once since moving north, I think.
As for local libraries, when it comes to keeping local records they are a very pale shadow of what they once were. Even twenty years ago when I was doing my BA it was perfectly normal to travel to different local libraries to consult several collections of local material. Now, they’re more or less all gone. Cannock is a particular disappointment in that regard.
True, county archives heroically try to gather up the slack, but they’re hopelessly under-resources and pushed for space as it is.
I must be lucky. Both Grantham and Newark libraries have excellent records. And yes I am also a reader at both Lincoln and Nottingham CROs so - before covid at least - spent far too much time poring over old documents. Enclosure maps and Turnpike Acts are my favourites. Oh and Tithe maps.
I’m delighted to hear it, but such libraries are increasingly exceptional, sadly.
I’m particularly sad and angry at what happened to Gloucester’s local collection, which was basically sold off, but even that‘s better than the fate of one of the finest local collections on classical Britain, at Carlisle, which ended up in a skip.
It is one reason why I would urge people these days to think very carefully before donating archaeological artefacts to museums. Far too many of them have decided they can no longer afford to keep the artefacts and have just skipped them. We had a real fight with Newark museum at the time of its conversion to the National Civil War Centre to prevent them dumping large amounts of ceramics and other artefacts dating back to the Roman period.
Well, speaking as someone who has visited and enjoyed Newark museum, we owe you a debt of gratitude for that fight.
But ultimately, it unfortunately comes down much too often to lack of funding. If they haven’t got the money, they make hard choices and very often it’s the historical material that’s of interest to fewer people that gets squeezed out.
That’s even true of uni libraries, although there are others that are infamous for not making sensible choices (apparently Lampeter university library still has an excellent geography section two decades after the geography department closed).
But why would a museum chuck excess artefacts in the bin, as Richard alleges?
Insane. There must be hundreds of kids - in any sizeable town - with a passion for history who would be delighted, enlightened and energised by the outright gift of some Roman pottery shards or medieval glassware and so on. Give these things away.
I've got a collection of two dozen tiny little historic objects in my living room. I found them all myself which adds to their lustre, but I would love them anyway - a flint arrowhead from Gobekli Tepe, a bit of amphora handle from the Valley of the Shadow of Death, some shrapnel from Gallipoli, a Piece of Pol Pot's Patio.
I love these things. Historical objects are history you can touch. Priceless. Never bin them!
I lusted after a Gobekli Tepe arrowhead (there's no shortage of them) but didn't have the bottle to try to smuggle one out - my Turkish phrase book usefully gives the translation for "I am terribly sorry Mr Customs Officer, I had no idea about the savage penalties for unlicensed antiquity exports," and I have watched Midnight Express.
I remember when I found my Gobekli Tepe arrowhead I was almost overcome with excitement. I pocketed it eagerly (and clandestinely). Then I had a big spasm of guilt and looked around, with a mind to putting it back - then I realised I was standing on a hill of flints which was practically all arrowheads and axes. Thousands of them
So I kept it and took it home. And I can see it now as I type. An arrowhead knapped by the same hunter-gatherers who built the world's oldest structure, a veritable temple in Eden, maybe 12,000 years ago.
Marvellous
Arrowheads form a nice thematic thread though this topic, since, according to Herodotus, the Scythian king Ariantas had each of his nomadic subjects contribute an arrowhead to his census - on pain on death - as a simple means of estimating their population. Once these arrowheads were all collected, they were used to manufacture a giant bronze vessel of over 5000 gallons in volume to serve as a monument to his rule. And indeed that's the only reason anyone has ever heard of him...
And our entire nation would be very different if it weren't for the arrow in Harold's eye
The Anglo-Saxons came quite close to winning at Hastings, DESPITE the handicap of having fought and won a brutal battle against the Norse, and King Harald Hardrada, a few days before. Like beating the Springboks then taking on the All Blacks, later that same weekend
If he'd won the 2nd battle, like the first, Harold Godwinsson would now be the greatest hero in English history, instead of a footnote, and an image on a tapestry. Discuss.
And the world would also be very different, shaped by a different Britain - or not shaped at all.
English victory at Hastings is an alternative history favourite, though frankly it's so far back in time and would represent such a significant deviation from established events that its long-term effects can only be vaguely guessed at.
And who is to say the Normans wouldn't have been back another year. They weren't know for just sitting around and enjoying what they had already.
But the Normans would probably have turned west and south rather than north. Invading and conquering England is very hard. Note that no one has succeeded since. The Spanish vowed to try a 2nd time after the failure of the armada, but, in the end, they didn't. Nerves failed.
The Normans, after a failure in England, would have had a go at Brittany, or gone down the French coast to Aquitaine. Much easier.
And of course after winning at Hastings a triumphant and vindicated Harold Godwinsson would 1, have shored up his defences and 2, might have gone on the offensive himself, now rid of any Viking threat from the east
I agree.
But as it stands, 14th October 1066 remains the single day that shaped Britain more than any other.
John Stuart Mill famously disagreed: 'The battle of Marathon, even as an event in English history, is more important than the battle of Hastings...'
Good job it was a long time ago. The battle of Snickers just doesn't have the same ring to it.
Seriously though, I'd like to hear Mill's reasoning. It seems rather implausible to me.
Essentially that Marathon (and Salamis a decade later) were pivotal battles in world history that determined the independent survival of the Greek city-states and more generally dissuaded the Persian Empire from spilling over into Europe. No independent city-states would have meant no Athenian democracy, and consequently perhaps also stifled the Western development of the genres of philosophy, history, oratory, drama, etc. that exploded in that century. And a Persian Empire with a foothold in Europe and no obvious check on its expansion might have continued West until it met the still-tiny Roman Republic ... and flattened it.
It's just an early bit of counterfactual historical theorizing, but a Europe and a world without classical Greece and Rome would be utterly different from the one that has evolved from them.
(2) The Royal Household needs to orchestrate a campaign of commonwealth leaders, ex commonwealth leaders, and dignitaries, around the world going on the record to say how hard HMQ, Charles and other royals have worked to unite people regardless of race, religion and background, and how generous they've been to them personally
The Empire is over, thankfully, so the queen can't just compel other heads of government to pump out her spin.
(2) The Royal Household needs to orchestrate a campaign of commonwealth leaders, ex commonwealth leaders, and dignitaries, around the world going on the record to say how hard HMQ, Charles and other royals have worked to unite people regardless of race, religion and background, and how generous they've been to them personally
The Empire is over, thankfully, so the queen can't just compel other heads of government to pump out her spin.
What makes you think they would need compelling? People happily, willingly, contribute to spin, true or otherwise, all the time.
However, given you say she cannot compel them to spin, should any now come out and say such things you are presumably implicitly accepting they would be telling the truth, and willingly so.
So if they do do so, presumably you would not find anything to criticise in their accounts.
Also, note that there is a Sussex, an Essex, a Wessex and even a Middlesex.
THEN how come there is no English locality called Nosex? (Too obvious?)
No Saxons in the North.
Indeed they never crossed the River Stour. Hence why anthropologists don’t consider Essex to be part of East Anglia, even though it’s clear part of that that peninsula. The Stour was a ethnic boundary, with Angles to the north and Saxons to the south.
Is there any other case in history where a nation's defeat in a single battle led to a takeover and total domination by a foreign ruling elite that lasted hundreds of years, and arguably continues to this day, 954 years later?
Good question! Only thing that's popped into my head so far, is Fall of Jericho. And the Vikings who founded Rus (Varangians)?
The Battle of Nahavand in 642AD. Known to the Arabs as 'The Victory of Victories'. It saw the destruction of the Sassanid Empire and the permanent conversion of Persia to Islam.
That poll makes sense. A solid 35-40% of Scots are firmly YES/indy. Accords with all we know. There's a large soft middle, 20-30% of the country, who could be persuaded either way. 35-40% are hard NO.
Very close. On the upside, for the Nats, they just have to win over 10% of the country and they could win a Sindyref. On the downside, they don't have to lose many soft votes = they fail to get a majority. Momentum is lost. Sturgeon is in question. More scandals emerge.
This is a critical election for the SNP. If they win it, but don't win it by enough, they could fall apart, at speed
Democracy, SNP version:
“ So let’s have some specifics, four local candidates were interested in the seat. Only one was interviewed, the other three were not even given the courtesy of an interview. The “lucky” local candidate who was granted an interview was advised of this at 10.30 pm on Saturday 6th March and given a time of 2.15 pm on the Sunday 7th March. Needless to say they did not pass, nobody conveyed this to the Constituency Convener and he had to find out from others. HQ did announce at 15.30 pm on the 9th March the two favoured names, the only names, that would be on the ballot paper. The ballot papers were issued at 17.30 the same day.
The two favoured candidates are a Tracy Carragher who was involved in the branch in Coatbridge that was suspended. She is thought to have been involved in that bust up. She works in the office of another SNP MSP. The other approved candidate is Anun Qaiser- Javeed. She is reported to be a close friend of the Justice Minister. The constituency were not offered the possibility of a Zoom hustings. The members know nothing about either candidate other than one side of an A4 sheet that was circulated with the ballot information.”
To me the SNP feels like (forgive the hyperbole) a totalitarian regime in Eastern Europe in about 1988. Seemingly impregnable, will go on and on, normalcy bias says that nothing will change because it hasn't changed in ages
But once the Berlin Wall starts crumbling..... who knows.
Same as happened to Scottish Labour, of course. From total hegemony to near irrelevancy, in 2 or 3 elections. I don't think the SNP will fall that far, the indy cause puts a floor under their support. But I can foresee intense factionalism dividing them for a decade, if they can't get a new referendum or Sturgeon is seen to quail
Which puts a majority Labour Govt. back in play.....
I am not best pleased to receive a letter from the Census Office inviting me to complete the survey online - or to ring a freephone line to request a hard copy. Deeply resent the assumption that people wish to use the Internet for this. Frankly unless the hard copy is provided in the normal way, they can sing for their supper!
Why bother havent done a census ever
You don't see it as a public duty then.
Not in the least no
Although it carries a fine of up to £1k. So I wouldn't broadcast it too widely.
Shrugs yet to be fined and lets face it the whole thing is a joke unless you really think we have half a million jedi's
That's hardly the only information the emerges, and it's a voluntary question anyway, so some useful info may well be gleaned.
I would be interested to know if they ever fine people for not completing the census, as I doubt they expect perfect compliance and as long as they get sufficient compliance for somewhat reliable public policy planning it's likely not worth chasing too hard.
But at least a refusal to fill out the damn thing makes more sense that getting mad on behalf of other people who don't have the internet, even though those people can still fill it out.
As I replied to Kinablu the only thing I would tell them is what they already know so its pointless
I had heard it is considered that in future there won't be censuses for the very reason all the info will be able to be compiled from other sources. Interesting if that is the case.
They said that in 2011 and 2001.
Apart from anything else, the census isn’t terribly accurate. Lots of HMOs housing illegal immigrants that are apparently inhabited by one old woman and her cats, while supermarkets and pressure on local sewage systems all show there are far more people there than officially recorded.
:LOL:
Those claims are, how can I put it, utter shite.
Then you should have told my former line manager at the ONS that, because I’m quoting her.
Got a name? I might have worked with her in 2011.
Truthfully, I can’t remember it. It was a long time ago. She was Australian if that helps.
I knew one Australian whilst I was there, but it probably wasn't them.
I slogged my guts out getting the HMOs right in 2011 and then spent a lot of time working with our field team to make sure we were capturing all the beds in sheds etc.
I even created records for one set of people the police wouldn't let us enumerate. Well, that's not quite true. They told us that it wouldn't be a good idea to try to enumerate them as the situation at the time was delicate.
I spent a great deal of time doing that too.
That’s one reason I am so confident a decade later that they were completely wide of the mark.
You worked on 2001? The worst thing about 2011 was that we were separating communals from the household list. Trying to reduce the overlap without missing anything was not fun.
Trouble is for all those refusing to complete the census or anything else leading to it being discontinued is that they are ruining a vital source of historical information. It is true that the Government can get the information other ways but anyone else cannot. Historians set huge store by the census for social and economic history, for things like house history and for myriad other lines of research. They simply cannot have access to all those other sources of information, many of which are considered private even long after people have died. Whilst it is true that we will not see the post war census returns until probably after I am dead it saddens me that people in the future may not be able to reply on this information.
I am particularly shocked by the response of ydoethur who is, I believe, a history teacher.
And has published research on nineteenth century census data, at that.
But that was then, this is now.
If you are saying it no longer has use then I have along list of professional historians who would beg to differ. Indeed I attended a talk by several of them only last week.
Undoubtedly. Just as you will find long lists of professional historians who bemoan the loss of telephone directories. Or newspapers. Or local libraries. Or national railway timetables. All of which are incredibly valuable in doing historical research.
All of which still exist.... well with the exception of national railway timetables and I happen to know there is a whole loose society of enthusiasts who religiously record those from the various websites on a daily basis. They even have various rail companies providing them with details of cancelled services.
But for most historians the census is pretty much irreplaceable as a snapshot of occupation.
You still get telephone directories in Lincs? I haven’t had one in years. Only once since moving north, I think.
As for local libraries, when it comes to keeping local records they are a very pale shadow of what they once were. Even twenty years ago when I was doing my BA it was perfectly normal to travel to different local libraries to consult several collections of local material. Now, they’re more or less all gone. Cannock is a particular disappointment in that regard.
True, county archives heroically try to gather up the slack, but they’re hopelessly under-resources and pushed for space as it is.
I must be lucky. Both Grantham and Newark libraries have excellent records. And yes I am also a reader at both Lincoln and Nottingham CROs so - before covid at least - spent far too much time poring over old documents. Enclosure maps and Turnpike Acts are my favourites. Oh and Tithe maps.
I’m delighted to hear it, but such libraries are increasingly exceptional, sadly.
I’m particularly sad and angry at what happened to Gloucester’s local collection, which was basically sold off, but even that‘s better than the fate of one of the finest local collections on classical Britain, at Carlisle, which ended up in a skip.
It is one reason why I would urge people these days to think very carefully before donating archaeological artefacts to museums. Far too many of them have decided they can no longer afford to keep the artefacts and have just skipped them. We had a real fight with Newark museum at the time of its conversion to the National Civil War Centre to prevent them dumping large amounts of ceramics and other artefacts dating back to the Roman period.
Well, speaking as someone who has visited and enjoyed Newark museum, we owe you a debt of gratitude for that fight.
But ultimately, it unfortunately comes down much too often to lack of funding. If they haven’t got the money, they make hard choices and very often it’s the historical material that’s of interest to fewer people that gets squeezed out.
That’s even true of uni libraries, although there are others that are infamous for not making sensible choices (apparently Lampeter university library still has an excellent geography section two decades after the geography department closed).
But why would a museum chuck excess artefacts in the bin, as Richard alleges?
Insane. There must be hundreds of kids - in any sizeable town - with a passion for history who would be delighted, enlightened and energised by the outright gift of some Roman pottery shards or medieval glassware and so on. Give these things away.
I've got a collection of two dozen tiny little historic objects in my living room. I found them all myself which adds to their lustre, but I would love them anyway - a flint arrowhead from Gobekli Tepe, a bit of amphora handle from the Valley of the Shadow of Death, some shrapnel from Gallipoli, a Piece of Pol Pot's Patio.
I love these things. Historical objects are history you can touch. Priceless. Never bin them!
I lusted after a Gobekli Tepe arrowhead (there's no shortage of them) but didn't have the bottle to try to smuggle one out - my Turkish phrase book usefully gives the translation for "I am terribly sorry Mr Customs Officer, I had no idea about the savage penalties for unlicensed antiquity exports," and I have watched Midnight Express.
I remember when I found my Gobekli Tepe arrowhead I was almost overcome with excitement. I pocketed it eagerly (and clandestinely). Then I had a big spasm of guilt and looked around, with a mind to putting it back - then I realised I was standing on a hill of flints which was practically all arrowheads and axes. Thousands of them
So I kept it and took it home. And I can see it now as I type. An arrowhead knapped by the same hunter-gatherers who built the world's oldest structure, a veritable temple in Eden, maybe 12,000 years ago.
Marvellous
Arrowheads form a nice thematic thread though this topic, since, according to Herodotus, the Scythian king Ariantas had each of his nomadic subjects contribute an arrowhead to his census - on pain on death - as a simple means of estimating their population. Once these arrowheads were all collected, they were used to manufacture a giant bronze vessel of over 5000 gallons in volume to serve as a monument to his rule. And indeed that's the only reason anyone has ever heard of him...
And our entire nation would be very different if it weren't for the arrow in Harold's eye
The Anglo-Saxons came quite close to winning at Hastings, DESPITE the handicap of having fought and won a brutal battle against the Norse, and King Harald Hardrada, a few days before. Like beating the Springboks then taking on the All Blacks, later that same weekend
If he'd won the 2nd battle, like the first, Harold Godwinsson would now be the greatest hero in English history, instead of a footnote, and an image on a tapestry. Discuss.
And the world would also be very different, shaped by a different Britain - or not shaped at all.
English victory at Hastings is an alternative history favourite, though frankly it's so far back in time and would represent such a significant deviation from established events that its long-term effects can only be vaguely guessed at.
And who is to say the Normans wouldn't have been back another year. They weren't know for just sitting around and enjoying what they had already.
But the Normans would probably have turned west and south rather than north. Invading and conquering England is very hard. Note that no one has succeeded since. The Spanish vowed to try a 2nd time after the failure of the armada, but, in the end, they didn't. Nerves failed.
The Normans, after a failure in England, would have had a go at Brittany, or gone down the French coast to Aquitaine. Much easier.
And of course after winning at Hastings a triumphant and vindicated Harold Godwinsson would 1, have shored up his defences and 2, might have gone on the offensive himself, now rid of any Viking threat from the east
I agree.
But as it stands, 14th October 1066 remains the single day that shaped Britain more than any other.
John Stuart Mill famously disagreed: 'The battle of Marathon, even as an event in English history, is more important than the battle of Hastings...'
Good job it was a long time ago. The battle of Snickers just doesn't have the same ring to it.
Seriously though, I'd like to hear Mill's reasoning. It seems rather implausible to me.
Essentially that Marathon (and Salamis a decade later) were pivotal battles in world history that determined the independent survival of the Greek city-states and more generally dissuaded the Persian Empire from spilling over into Europe. No independent city-states would have meant no Athenian democracy, and consequently perhaps also stifled the Western development of the genres of philosophy, history, oratory, drama, etc. that exploded in that century. And a Persian Empire with a foothold in Europe and no obvious check on its expansion might have continued West until it met the still-tiny Roman Republic ... and flattened it.
It's just an early bit of counterfactual historical theorizing, but a Europe and a world without classical Greece and Rome would be utterly different from the one that has evolved from them.
Classical Persia was a tolerant and multicultural empire. Certainly gets a good write up in the Bible compared to other states.
Is there any other case in history where a nation's defeat in a single battle led to a takeover and total domination by a foreign ruling elite that lasted hundreds of years, and arguably continues to this day, 954 years later?
With any invasion, doesn't the "foreign ruling elite" cease to be a "foreign ruling elite" very quickly indeed? People either assimilate or die in no time at all if that, rather than some more limited form of control (e.g. dominating and extracting rents for a foreign people) is the aim.
Yes, we're not the people we would have been had the Norman Conquest not happened. So what? It doesn't at all mean we've been dominated just that we ARE the assimilation of invaders and indigenous.
It's like Danny Dyer being related to Edward III. Very interesting they traced it, but the correct response is actually "you and 50 million others, mate".
Well, speaking as someone who has visited and enjoyed Newark museum, we owe you a debt of gratitude for that fight.
But ultimately, it unfortunately comes down much too often to lack of funding. If they haven’t got the money, they make hard choices and very often it’s the historical material that’s of interest to fewer people that gets squeezed out.
That’s even true of uni libraries, although there are others that are infamous for not making sensible choices (apparently Lampeter university library still has an excellent geography section two decades after the geography department closed).
Your low opinion of university libraries is correct. Once at the University of REDACTED, I attended a sale of surplus items. "A librarian's life is a constant battle against space", I was told.
There was amongst the discarded debris a first edition of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility
Being honest, I remonstrated that this book should be retained in the collection, which it was.
Well, until the next lunatick decides the library is short of space and needs to get rid of surplus stock that students don't need.
On a similar vein, a few years ago I was doing research for a book on the British Interventions in Southern Russia in 1918 at the Brotherton Library in Leeds. I was going through accounts and diaries from WW1 veterans and found a box of a young officer in the Machine Gun Corps who travelled all the way to Baku on the Caspian and won the Military Cross on his first night there.
As I went through the box I found, tucked away in the bottom, the very medal he had won. Knowing they are of some value I took it to the desk but the lady there seemed surprised that it was of any value. To be honest anyone could have walked away with it. I had a chat with the librarians and they said they would do a search of the other boxes to make sure there were no further valuables tucked away.
My grandfather was at Baku in 1918 with the Worcestershires.
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
I am not best pleased to receive a letter from the Census Office inviting me to complete the survey online - or to ring a freephone line to request a hard copy. Deeply resent the assumption that people wish to use the Internet for this. Frankly unless the hard copy is provided in the normal way, they can sing for their supper!
Why bother havent done a census ever
You don't see it as a public duty then.
Not in the least no
Although it carries a fine of up to £1k. So I wouldn't broadcast it too widely.
Shrugs yet to be fined and lets face it the whole thing is a joke unless you really think we have half a million jedi's
That's hardly the only information the emerges, and it's a voluntary question anyway, so some useful info may well be gleaned.
I would be interested to know if they ever fine people for not completing the census, as I doubt they expect perfect compliance and as long as they get sufficient compliance for somewhat reliable public policy planning it's likely not worth chasing too hard.
But at least a refusal to fill out the damn thing makes more sense that getting mad on behalf of other people who don't have the internet, even though those people can still fill it out.
As I replied to Kinablu the only thing I would tell them is what they already know so its pointless
I had heard it is considered that in future there won't be censuses for the very reason all the info will be able to be compiled from other sources. Interesting if that is the case.
They said that in 2011 and 2001.
Apart from anything else, the census isn’t terribly accurate. Lots of HMOs housing illegal immigrants that are apparently inhabited by one old woman and her cats, while supermarkets and pressure on local sewage systems all show there are far more people there than officially recorded.
:LOL:
Those claims are, how can I put it, utter shite.
Then you should have told my former line manager at the ONS that, because I’m quoting her.
Got a name? I might have worked with her in 2011.
Truthfully, I can’t remember it. It was a long time ago. She was Australian if that helps.
I knew one Australian whilst I was there, but it probably wasn't them.
I slogged my guts out getting the HMOs right in 2011 and then spent a lot of time working with our field team to make sure we were capturing all the beds in sheds etc.
I even created records for one set of people the police wouldn't let us enumerate. Well, that's not quite true. They told us that it wouldn't be a good idea to try to enumerate them as the situation at the time was delicate.
I spent a great deal of time doing that too.
That’s one reason I am so confident a decade later that they were completely wide of the mark.
You worked on 2001? The worst thing about 2011 was that we were separating communals from the household list. Trying to reduce the overlap without missing anything was not fun.
Trouble is for all those refusing to complete the census or anything else leading to it being discontinued is that they are ruining a vital source of historical information. It is true that the Government can get the information other ways but anyone else cannot. Historians set huge store by the census for social and economic history, for things like house history and for myriad other lines of research. They simply cannot have access to all those other sources of information, many of which are considered private even long after people have died. Whilst it is true that we will not see the post war census returns until probably after I am dead it saddens me that people in the future may not be able to reply on this information.
I am particularly shocked by the response of ydoethur who is, I believe, a history teacher.
And has published research on nineteenth century census data, at that.
But that was then, this is now.
If you are saying it no longer has use then I have along list of professional historians who would beg to differ. Indeed I attended a talk by several of them only last week.
Undoubtedly. Just as you will find long lists of professional historians who bemoan the loss of telephone directories. Or newspapers. Or local libraries. Or national railway timetables. All of which are incredibly valuable in doing historical research.
All of which still exist.... well with the exception of national railway timetables and I happen to know there is a whole loose society of enthusiasts who religiously record those from the various websites on a daily basis. They even have various rail companies providing them with details of cancelled services.
But for most historians the census is pretty much irreplaceable as a snapshot of occupation.
You still get telephone directories in Lincs? I haven’t had one in years. Only once since moving north, I think.
As for local libraries, when it comes to keeping local records they are a very pale shadow of what they once were. Even twenty years ago when I was doing my BA it was perfectly normal to travel to different local libraries to consult several collections of local material. Now, they’re more or less all gone. Cannock is a particular disappointment in that regard.
True, county archives heroically try to gather up the slack, but they’re hopelessly under-resources and pushed for space as it is.
I must be lucky. Both Grantham and Newark libraries have excellent records. And yes I am also a reader at both Lincoln and Nottingham CROs so - before covid at least - spent far too much time poring over old documents. Enclosure maps and Turnpike Acts are my favourites. Oh and Tithe maps.
I’m delighted to hear it, but such libraries are increasingly exceptional, sadly.
I’m particularly sad and angry at what happened to Gloucester’s local collection, which was basically sold off, but even that‘s better than the fate of one of the finest local collections on classical Britain, at Carlisle, which ended up in a skip.
It is one reason why I would urge people these days to think very carefully before donating archaeological artefacts to museums. Far too many of them have decided they can no longer afford to keep the artefacts and have just skipped them. We had a real fight with Newark museum at the time of its conversion to the National Civil War Centre to prevent them dumping large amounts of ceramics and other artefacts dating back to the Roman period.
Well, speaking as someone who has visited and enjoyed Newark museum, we owe you a debt of gratitude for that fight.
But ultimately, it unfortunately comes down much too often to lack of funding. If they haven’t got the money, they make hard choices and very often it’s the historical material that’s of interest to fewer people that gets squeezed out.
That’s even true of uni libraries, although there are others that are infamous for not making sensible choices (apparently Lampeter university library still has an excellent geography section two decades after the geography department closed).
But why would a museum chuck excess artefacts in the bin, as Richard alleges?
Insane. There must be hundreds of kids - in any sizeable town - with a passion for history who would be delighted, enlightened and energised by the outright gift of some Roman pottery shards or medieval glassware and so on. Give these things away.
I've got a collection of two dozen tiny little historic objects in my living room. I found them all myself which adds to their lustre, but I would love them anyway - a flint arrowhead from Gobekli Tepe, a bit of amphora handle from the Valley of the Shadow of Death, some shrapnel from Gallipoli, a Piece of Pol Pot's Patio.
I love these things. Historical objects are history you can touch. Priceless. Never bin them!
I lusted after a Gobekli Tepe arrowhead (there's no shortage of them) but didn't have the bottle to try to smuggle one out - my Turkish phrase book usefully gives the translation for "I am terribly sorry Mr Customs Officer, I had no idea about the savage penalties for unlicensed antiquity exports," and I have watched Midnight Express.
I remember when I found my Gobekli Tepe arrowhead I was almost overcome with excitement. I pocketed it eagerly (and clandestinely). Then I had a big spasm of guilt and looked around, with a mind to putting it back - then I realised I was standing on a hill of flints which was practically all arrowheads and axes. Thousands of them
So I kept it and took it home. And I can see it now as I type. An arrowhead knapped by the same hunter-gatherers who built the world's oldest structure, a veritable temple in Eden, maybe 12,000 years ago.
Marvellous
Arrowheads form a nice thematic thread though this topic, since, according to Herodotus, the Scythian king Ariantas had each of his nomadic subjects contribute an arrowhead to his census - on pain on death - as a simple means of estimating their population. Once these arrowheads were all collected, they were used to manufacture a giant bronze vessel of over 5000 gallons in volume to serve as a monument to his rule. And indeed that's the only reason anyone has ever heard of him...
And our entire nation would be very different if it weren't for the arrow in Harold's eye
The Anglo-Saxons came quite close to winning at Hastings, DESPITE the handicap of having fought and won a brutal battle against the Norse, and King Harald Hardrada, a few days before. Like beating the Springboks then taking on the All Blacks, later that same weekend
If he'd won the 2nd battle, like the first, Harold Godwinsson would now be the greatest hero in English history, instead of a footnote, and an image on a tapestry. Discuss.
And the world would also be very different, shaped by a different Britain - or not shaped at all.
English victory at Hastings is an alternative history favourite, though frankly it's so far back in time and would represent such a significant deviation from established events that its long-term effects can only be vaguely guessed at.
And who is to say the Normans wouldn't have been back another year. They weren't know for just sitting around and enjoying what they had already.
But the Normans would probably have turned west and south rather than north. Invading and conquering England is very hard. Note that no one has succeeded since. The Spanish vowed to try a 2nd time after the failure of the armada, but, in the end, they didn't. Nerves failed.
The Normans, after a failure in England, would have had a go at Brittany, or gone down the French coast to Aquitaine. Much easier.
And of course after winning at Hastings a triumphant and vindicated Harold Godwinsson would 1, have shored up his defences and 2, might have gone on the offensive himself, now rid of any Viking threat from the east
I agree.
But as it stands, 14th October 1066 remains the single day that shaped Britain more than any other.
John Stuart Mill famously disagreed: 'The battle of Marathon, even as an event in English history, is more important than the battle of Hastings...'
Good job it was a long time ago. The battle of Snickers just doesn't have the same ring to it.
Seriously though, I'd like to hear Mill's reasoning. It seems rather implausible to me.
Essentially that Marathon (and Salamis a decade later) were pivotal battles in world history that determined the independent survival of the Greek city-states and more generally dissuaded the Persian Empire from spilling over into Europe. No independent city-states would have meant no Athenian democracy, and consequently perhaps also stifled the Western development of the genres of philosophy, history, oratory, drama, etc. that exploded in that century. And a Persian Empire with a foothold in Europe and no obvious check on its expansion might have continued West until it met the still-tiny Roman Republic ... and flattened it.
It's just an early bit of counterfactual historical theorizing, but a Europe and a world without classical Greece and Rome would be utterly different from the one that has evolved from them.
Classical Persia was a tolerant and multicultural empire. Certainly gets a good write up in the Bible compared to other states.
Relatively speaking, yes, but they weren't about to tolerate a democratic Athens under their control, or indeed any Athens at all - the Persian army thoroughly sacked the city in 480-479, so its prospects under your 'tolerant and multicultural' empire wouldn't have been too awesome.
Well, speaking as someone who has visited and enjoyed Newark museum, we owe you a debt of gratitude for that fight.
But ultimately, it unfortunately comes down much too often to lack of funding. If they haven’t got the money, they make hard choices and very often it’s the historical material that’s of interest to fewer people that gets squeezed out.
That’s even true of uni libraries, although there are others that are infamous for not making sensible choices (apparently Lampeter university library still has an excellent geography section two decades after the geography department closed).
Your low opinion of university libraries is correct. Once at the University of REDACTED, I attended a sale of surplus items. "A librarian's life is a constant battle against space", I was told.
There was amongst the discarded debris a first edition of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility
Being honest, I remonstrated that this book should be retained in the collection, which it was.
Well, until the next lunatick decides the library is short of space and needs to get rid of surplus stock that students don't need.
On a similar vein, a few years ago I was doing research for a book on the British Interventions in Southern Russia in 1918 at the Brotherton Library in Leeds. I was going through accounts and diaries from WW1 veterans and found a box of a young officer in the Machine Gun Corps who travelled all the way to Baku on the Caspian and won the Military Cross on his first night there.
As I went through the box I found, tucked away in the bottom, the very medal he had won. Knowing they are of some value I took it to the desk but the lady there seemed surprised that it was of any value. To be honest anyone could have walked away with it. I had a chat with the librarians and they said they would do a search of the other boxes to make sure there were no further valuables tucked away.
My grandfather was at Baku in 1918 with the Worcestershires.
Wow that's brilliant. I have been researching the interventions both by Dunsterforce at Baku and the Malleson Mission in central Asia for the book I am writing. If its okay I might contact you offline at some point about it.
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
Isn't that just a criticism of a lot of satire from all directions?
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
Isn't that just a criticism of a lot of satire from all directions?
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
Some people can do brilliantly funny satire without making it overtly politically one sided. Yes Minister/Prime Minister is the obvious example. Tom Lehrer is another.
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
Isn't that just a criticism of a lot of satire from all directions?
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
Isn't that just a criticism of a lot of satire from all directions?
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
It’s a subjective matter, but some right wing comedy makes me laugh despite knowing I shouldn’t, but the comedians are quite funny. The likes of the mash report don’t even seem like they would be funny if you spent a night in their company. I don’t know. Most of my mates are pretty un PC right wingers, but they are funny as fuck. Left wing comedy just seems like miserable nerdy students moaning
Is there any other case in history where a nation's defeat in a single battle led to a takeover and total domination by a foreign ruling elite that lasted hundreds of years, and arguably continues to this day, 954 years later?
With any invasion, doesn't the "foreign ruling elite" cease to be a "foreign ruling elite" very quickly indeed? People either assimilate or die in no time at all if that, rather than some more limited form of control (e.g. dominating and extracting rents for a foreign people) is the aim.
Yes, we're not the people we would have been had the Norman Conquest not happened. So what? It doesn't at all mean we've been dominated just that we ARE the assimilation of invaders and indigenous.
It's like Danny Dyer being related to Edward III. Very interesting they traced it, but the correct response is actually "you and 50 million others, mate".
Yes - I'm pretty confident (as confident as anyone making an argument that can't be disproved) that a modern England in which the Norman invasion of 1066 had been repelled would be *better*. But I wouldn't be around to enjoy it. We're all Normans, just as we're all Saxons, Angles and Vikings. So it's not a counterfactual I can wish for too strongly.
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
Isn't that just a criticism of a lot of satire from all directions?
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
I don't particularly think a defence sometimes used of 'punching up' has much to recommend it, I think it can be a crutch, though I certainly agree with the part that making a political point, from either left or right, will certainly take priority over the fundamental question of if something is funny. Overtly, political left wing comedy also seems more common, or at least more successful and thus more prominent, though I have no idea why that is. Some very funny stuff can be found there, which is why the unfunny stuff is so aggravating - the people who lean too hard on the 'I hate politics X' to make a chosen audience laugh rather than 'I hate politics X, and will attempt to make a funny point about X in making that clear'.
In defence of Nish Kumar, I would hope he does not think a simple statement that Boris is a liar and racist is biting or funny satire, however true many people think it is. Not that subtlety is necessary, but there's nothing clever or amusing in it, and a simple statement of fact (as he sees it) doesn't seem particularly comedic or satirical either. I'd assume he's just angry at recent events and probably saying it, sincerely, in part because it'll troll the people cheering his recent bad news.
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
Isn't that just a criticism of a lot of satire from all directions?
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
Agreed. There’s plenty of shit unfunny comedy from left, right and middle out there. I have paid to see much of it in my time.
I won’t be mourning the loss of Mash Report, it was crap, much like large amounts of unfunny comedy from everywhere else on the spectrum.
H/T (the reliably funny) Bob Monkhouse: “They used to laugh when I said I was going to be a stand-up comedian. They’re not laughing now.”
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
Isn't that just a criticism of a lot of satire from all directions?
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
It’s a subjective matter, but some right wing comedy makes me laugh despite knowing I shouldn’t, but the comedians are quite funny. The likes of the mash report don’t even seem like they would be funny if you spent a night in their company. I don’t know. Most of my mates are pretty un PC right wingers, but they are funny as fuck. Left wing comedy just seems like miserable nerdy students moaning
Watching the wrong kind. Plenty of legitimate fun to be had with left wing comedy. I think people who prioritise their politics over their comedy are, for one, less funny, and for two, may be less persuasive in their political values precisely because they over do it. A funny comic who comes from a left wing direction but, but does not get all their comedy from the premise that the right wing are awful, is probably better able to make a funny point about right wingers being awful.
I don't know if he counts as left wing in a UK context, but probably does, but I always enjoyed the Colbert report, because even though it was just a single gimmick, simply by virtue of pretending to hold contrary opinions it felt more cutting when he sought to demolish some Republican point.
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
Isn't that just a criticism of a lot of satire from all directions?
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
It’s a subjective matter, but some right wing comedy makes me laugh despite knowing I shouldn’t, but the comedians are quite funny. The likes of the mash report don’t even seem like they would be funny if you spent a night in their company. I don’t know. Most of my mates are pretty un PC right wingers, but they are funny as fuck. Left wing comedy just seems like miserable nerdy students moaning
Which rightwing comics and jokes make you laugh? I quite like what I have seen of Geoff Norcroft. He’s rightwing (apparently) but the stuff I have seen seems largely apolitical, I didn’t find it rightwing in the slightest.
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
Isn't that just a criticism of a lot of satire from all directions?
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
It’s a subjective matter, but some right wing comedy makes me laugh despite knowing I shouldn’t, but the comedians are quite funny. The likes of the mash report don’t even seem like they would be funny if you spent a night in their company. I don’t know. Most of my mates are pretty un PC right wingers, but they are funny as fuck. Left wing comedy just seems like miserable nerdy students moaning
Watching the wrong kind. Plenty of legitimate fun to be had with left wing comedy. I think people who prioritise their politics over their comedy are, for one, less funny, and for two, may be less persuasive in their political values precisely because they over do it. A funny comic who comes from a left wing direction but, but does not get all their comedy from the premise that the right wing are awful, is probably better able to make a funny point about right wingers being awful.
I don't know if he counts as left wing in a UK context, but probably does, but I always enjoyed the Colbert report, because even though it was just a single gimmick, simply by virtue of pretending to hold contrary opinions it felt more cutting when he sought to demolish some Republican point.
Eddie Izzard is of course a well known 'leftie'. But he mostly keeps politics - at least of the party kind - out of his act and is, in my view, one of the finest comedians of our time.
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
Isn't that just a criticism of a lot of satire from all directions?
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
I hope Rachel Parris gets another gig. Her monologues were always the best bit, with their cheery put downs of Nish Kumar. The Mash Report used to try and do some balance by putting the excreable Geoff Norcutt on, but he was never funny.
Launching Michael Spicer was another of the Mash Report credits. Comedy sketch shows have always been patchy. There was plenty of stuff that fell flat in NTNON and Monty Python too.
Still, it makes space for more repeats of Dad's Army and It Ain't Half Hot Mum I suppose. 🙄
I am not best pleased to receive a letter from the Census Office inviting me to complete the survey online - or to ring a freephone line to request a hard copy. Deeply resent the assumption that people wish to use the Internet for this. Frankly unless the hard copy is provided in the normal way, they can sing for their supper!
Why bother havent done a census ever
You don't see it as a public duty then.
Not in the least no
Although it carries a fine of up to £1k. So I wouldn't broadcast it too widely.
Shrugs yet to be fined and lets face it the whole thing is a joke unless you really think we have half a million jedi's
That's hardly the only information the emerges, and it's a voluntary question anyway, so some useful info may well be gleaned.
I would be interested to know if they ever fine people for not completing the census, as I doubt they expect perfect compliance and as long as they get sufficient compliance for somewhat reliable public policy planning it's likely not worth chasing too hard.
But at least a refusal to fill out the damn thing makes more sense that getting mad on behalf of other people who don't have the internet, even though those people can still fill it out.
As I replied to Kinablu the only thing I would tell them is what they already know so its pointless
I had heard it is considered that in future there won't be censuses for the very reason all the info will be able to be compiled from other sources. Interesting if that is the case.
They said that in 2011 and 2001.
Apart from anything else, the census isn’t terribly accurate. Lots of HMOs housing illegal immigrants that are apparently inhabited by one old woman and her cats, while supermarkets and pressure on local sewage systems all show there are far more people there than officially recorded.
:LOL:
Those claims are, how can I put it, utter shite.
Then you should have told my former line manager at the ONS that, because I’m quoting her.
Got a name? I might have worked with her in 2011.
Truthfully, I can’t remember it. It was a long time ago. She was Australian if that helps.
I knew one Australian whilst I was there, but it probably wasn't them.
I slogged my guts out getting the HMOs right in 2011 and then spent a lot of time working with our field team to make sure we were capturing all the beds in sheds etc.
I even created records for one set of people the police wouldn't let us enumerate. Well, that's not quite true. They told us that it wouldn't be a good idea to try to enumerate them as the situation at the time was delicate.
I spent a great deal of time doing that too.
That’s one reason I am so confident a decade later that they were completely wide of the mark.
You worked on 2001? The worst thing about 2011 was that we were separating communals from the household list. Trying to reduce the overlap without missing anything was not fun.
Trouble is for all those refusing to complete the census or anything else leading to it being discontinued is that they are ruining a vital source of historical information. It is true that the Government can get the information other ways but anyone else cannot. Historians set huge store by the census for social and economic history, for things like house history and for myriad other lines of research. They simply cannot have access to all those other sources of information, many of which are considered private even long after people have died. Whilst it is true that we will not see the post war census returns until probably after I am dead it saddens me that people in the future may not be able to reply on this information.
I am particularly shocked by the response of ydoethur who is, I believe, a history teacher.
And has published research on nineteenth century census data, at that.
But that was then, this is now.
If you are saying it no longer has use then I have along list of professional historians who would beg to differ. Indeed I attended a talk by several of them only last week.
Undoubtedly. Just as you will find long lists of professional historians who bemoan the loss of telephone directories. Or newspapers. Or local libraries. Or national railway timetables. All of which are incredibly valuable in doing historical research.
All of which still exist.... well with the exception of national railway timetables and I happen to know there is a whole loose society of enthusiasts who religiously record those from the various websites on a daily basis. They even have various rail companies providing them with details of cancelled services.
But for most historians the census is pretty much irreplaceable as a snapshot of occupation.
You still get telephone directories in Lincs? I haven’t had one in years. Only once since moving north, I think.
As for local libraries, when it comes to keeping local records they are a very pale shadow of what they once were. Even twenty years ago when I was doing my BA it was perfectly normal to travel to different local libraries to consult several collections of local material. Now, they’re more or less all gone. Cannock is a particular disappointment in that regard.
True, county archives heroically try to gather up the slack, but they’re hopelessly under-resources and pushed for space as it is.
I must be lucky. Both Grantham and Newark libraries have excellent records. And yes I am also a reader at both Lincoln and Nottingham CROs so - before covid at least - spent far too much time poring over old documents. Enclosure maps and Turnpike Acts are my favourites. Oh and Tithe maps.
I’m delighted to hear it, but such libraries are increasingly exceptional, sadly.
I’m particularly sad and angry at what happened to Gloucester’s local collection, which was basically sold off, but even that‘s better than the fate of one of the finest local collections on classical Britain, at Carlisle, which ended up in a skip.
It is one reason why I would urge people these days to think very carefully before donating archaeological artefacts to museums. Far too many of them have decided they can no longer afford to keep the artefacts and have just skipped them. We had a real fight with Newark museum at the time of its conversion to the National Civil War Centre to prevent them dumping large amounts of ceramics and other artefacts dating back to the Roman period.
Well, speaking as someone who has visited and enjoyed Newark museum, we owe you a debt of gratitude for that fight.
But ultimately, it unfortunately comes down much too often to lack of funding. If they haven’t got the money, they make hard choices and very often it’s the historical material that’s of interest to fewer people that gets squeezed out.
That’s even true of uni libraries, although there are others that are infamous for not making sensible choices (apparently Lampeter university library still has an excellent geography section two decades after the geography department closed).
But why would a museum chuck excess artefacts in the bin, as Richard alleges?
Insane. There must be hundreds of kids - in any sizeable town - with a passion for history who would be delighted, enlightened and energised by the outright gift of some Roman pottery shards or medieval glassware and so on. Give these things away.
I've got a collection of two dozen tiny little historic objects in my living room. I found them all myself which adds to their lustre, but I would love them anyway - a flint arrowhead from Gobekli Tepe, a bit of amphora handle from the Valley of the Shadow of Death, some shrapnel from Gallipoli, a Piece of Pol Pot's Patio.
I love these things. Historical objects are history you can touch. Priceless. Never bin them!
I lusted after a Gobekli Tepe arrowhead (there's no shortage of them) but didn't have the bottle to try to smuggle one out - my Turkish phrase book usefully gives the translation for "I am terribly sorry Mr Customs Officer, I had no idea about the savage penalties for unlicensed antiquity exports," and I have watched Midnight Express.
I remember when I found my Gobekli Tepe arrowhead I was almost overcome with excitement. I pocketed it eagerly (and clandestinely). Then I had a big spasm of guilt and looked around, with a mind to putting it back - then I realised I was standing on a hill of flints which was practically all arrowheads and axes. Thousands of them
So I kept it and took it home. And I can see it now as I type. An arrowhead knapped by the same hunter-gatherers who built the world's oldest structure, a veritable temple in Eden, maybe 12,000 years ago.
Marvellous
Arrowheads form a nice thematic thread though this topic, since, according to Herodotus, the Scythian king Ariantas had each of his nomadic subjects contribute an arrowhead to his census - on pain on death - as a simple means of estimating their population. Once these arrowheads were all collected, they were used to manufacture a giant bronze vessel of over 5000 gallons in volume to serve as a monument to his rule. And indeed that's the only reason anyone has ever heard of him...
And our entire nation would be very different if it weren't for the arrow in Harold's eye
The Anglo-Saxons came quite close to winning at Hastings, DESPITE the handicap of having fought and won a brutal battle against the Norse, and King Harald Hardrada, a few days before. Like beating the Springboks then taking on the All Blacks, later that same weekend
If he'd won the 2nd battle, like the first, Harold Godwinsson would now be the greatest hero in English history, instead of a footnote, and an image on a tapestry. Discuss.
And the world would also be very different, shaped by a different Britain - or not shaped at all.
English victory at Hastings is an alternative history favourite, though frankly it's so far back in time and would represent such a significant deviation from established events that its long-term effects can only be vaguely guessed at.
Most of us posting on here (and certainly all those of largely British descent) will have ancestors who fought at the battle of Hastings, even though we don't know their names.
I find that a remarkable thought.
I have a direct and provable descent from William himself, the Bastard
I am descended from William too, though I can't show you the descent line. Adam Rutherford's excellent book 'A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived' explains why.
And sorry to piss on your parade but, since it's estimated that 5% of children are not the biological offspring of their familial fathers, your descent line from William over say 40 generations will almost certainly not hold true.
But since we can be pretty certain William does have living descendants, we can rest assured we both are descended from him (as are all the others on here who are of largely British descent).
Of course. But given that I was brought up believing I was of sturdy and hallowed peasant stock, it is still (weirdly) quite satisfying to discover that I have a more colourful and illumined backstory: that there is an actual paper trail from William the Conqueror - and also Alfred the Great and the proto-Nordic God of Frost and Ice - which can be pursued: all the way down to me, myself and I, in 2021.
I understand the genetic logic that most of us are almost certainly descended, in some form, from Charlemagne and Genghis Khan and the rest. But being actively able to follow it back through documents (and these days, via online genealogies) is weirdly exhilarating
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
Isn't that just a criticism of a lot of satire from all directions?
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
Some people can do brilliantly funny satire without making it overtly politically one sided. Yes Minister/Prime Minister is the obvious example. Tom Lehrer is another.
Someone once told me Yes Minister was Conservative propaganda. If it was it was very effective about it. But I shall be grateful to it for giving me my idol - Bernard Wooley.
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
Isn't that just a criticism of a lot of satire from all directions?
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
I hope Rachel Parris gets another gig. Her monologues were always the best bit, with their cheery put downs of Nish Kumar. The Mash Report used to try and do some balance by putting the excreable Geoff Norcutt on, but he was never funny.
Launching Michael Spicer was another of the Mash Report credits. Comedy sketch shows have always been patchy. There was plenty of stuff that fell flat in NTNON and Monty Python too.
Still, it makes space for more repeats of Dad's Army and It Ain't Half Hot Mum I suppose. 🙄
The little I have seen of Norcroft as a stand up, I thought he was quite good. I didn’t find his act rightwing in the slightest. He was quite rubbish on Mash, but it’s a rubbish show. He’s a Tory supporter apparently but so what?
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
Isn't that just a criticism of a lot of satire from all directions?
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
It’s a subjective matter, but some right wing comedy makes me laugh despite knowing I shouldn’t, but the comedians are quite funny. The likes of the mash report don’t even seem like they would be funny if you spent a night in their company. I don’t know. Most of my mates are pretty un PC right wingers, but they are funny as fuck. Left wing comedy just seems like miserable nerdy students moaning
Which rightwing comics and jokes make you laugh? I quite like what I have seen of Geoff Norcroft. He’s rightwing (apparently) but the stuff I have seen seems largely apolitical, I didn’t find it rightwing in the slightest.
Rightwing comedy has to disguise itself, to be acceptable. This is unsurprising, in the arts world, given that being a member of Mumford and Sons and simply "liking" a rightwing journalist's book can get you quasi-cancelled.
Ricky Gervais, Jimmy Carr and Sacha Baron Cohen are, I would humbly suggest, three rightwing comedians busily plying their trade in the political equivalent of drag.
Still, it continues to annoy the French that they can't win their own race.
French and Belgian doping controls are way better than the British, Italian, Dutch, etc.
That's why French and Belgian teams struggle to win Grand Tours but do well in the classics and monuments. Doping has a much bigger effect on long stage races.
Still, it continues to annoy the French that they can't win their own race.
French and Belgian doping controls are way better than the British, Italian, Dutch, etc.
That's why French and Belgian teams struggle to win Grand Tours but do well in the classics and monuments. Doping has a much bigger effect on long stage races.
What makes you think they would need compelling? People happily, willingly, contribute to spin, true or otherwise, all the time.
However, given you say she cannot compel them to spin, should any now come out and say such things you are presumably implicitly accepting they would be telling the truth, and willingly so.
So if they do do so, presumably you would not find anything to criticise in their accounts.
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
Isn't that just a criticism of a lot of satire from all directions?
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
Agreed. There’s plenty of shit unfunny comedy from left, right and middle out there. I have paid to see much of it in my time.
I won’t be mourning the loss of Mash Report, it was crap, much like large amounts of unfunny comedy from everywhere else on the spectrum.
H/T (the reliably funny) Bob Monkhouse: “They used to laugh when I said I was going to be a stand-up comedian. They’re not laughing now.”
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
Isn't that just a criticism of a lot of satire from all directions?
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
It’s a subjective matter, but some right wing comedy makes me laugh despite knowing I shouldn’t, but the comedians are quite funny. The likes of the mash report don’t even seem like they would be funny if you spent a night in their company. I don’t know. Most of my mates are pretty un PC right wingers, but they are funny as fuck. Left wing comedy just seems like miserable nerdy students moaning
Which rightwing comics and jokes make you laugh? I quite like what I have seen of Geoff Norcroft. He’s rightwing (apparently) but the stuff I have seen seems largely apolitical, I didn’t find it rightwing in the slightest.
Bernard Manning makes me laugh. I guess I don’t really like political comedy that much so when I say Right Wing I just mean the sort of thing that lefties complain about rather than politically motivated jokes
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
Isn't that just a criticism of a lot of satire from all directions?
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
It’s a subjective matter, but some right wing comedy makes me laugh despite knowing I shouldn’t, but the comedians are quite funny. The likes of the mash report don’t even seem like they would be funny if you spent a night in their company. I don’t know. Most of my mates are pretty un PC right wingers, but they are funny as fuck. Left wing comedy just seems like miserable nerdy students moaning
Which rightwing comics and jokes make you laugh? I quite like what I have seen of Geoff Norcroft. He’s rightwing (apparently) but the stuff I have seen seems largely apolitical, I didn’t find it rightwing in the slightest.
Rightwing comedy has to disguise itself, to be acceptable. This is unsurprising, in the arts world, given that being a member of Mumford and Sons and simply "liking" a rightwing journalist's book can get you quasi-cancelled.
Ricky Gervais, Jimmy Carr and Sacha Baron Cohen are, I would humbly suggest, three rightwing comedians busily plying their trade in the political equivalent of drag.
Not so. I have no idea about Carr (unfunny) and Cohen, but Gervais is a left-libertarian rationalist and an extremely intelligent man. His main target is superstition.
***
Gervais is a staunch supporter of gay rights and has praised the introduction of same-sex marriage in England and Wales as "a victory for all of us" and stated "anything that promotes equality, promotes progress". He added, "You can't take equality 'too far'."[146]
He is a vegetarian,[147] an atheist[148] and a humanist,[149] and states that he abandoned religion at the age of eight. In December 2010, he wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal defending his atheism.[150] He is an honorary associate of the UK's National Secular Society,[151] and a patron of Humanists UK, a British charity which promotes the humanist worldview and campaigns for a secular state and on human rights issues.[149]
What makes you think they would need compelling? People happily, willingly, contribute to spin, true or otherwise, all the time.
However, given you say she cannot compel them to spin, should any now come out and say such things you are presumably implicitly accepting they would be telling the truth, and willingly so.
So if they do do so, presumably you would not find anything to criticise in their accounts.
That GPT-3 thing gets better every day. Spooky.
If you say so. But it seems a logical reading of your position.
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
Isn't that just a criticism of a lot of satire from all directions?
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
It’s a subjective matter, but some right wing comedy makes me laugh despite knowing I shouldn’t, but the comedians are quite funny. The likes of the mash report don’t even seem like they would be funny if you spent a night in their company. I don’t know. Most of my mates are pretty un PC right wingers, but they are funny as fuck. Left wing comedy just seems like miserable nerdy students moaning
Which rightwing comics and jokes make you laugh? I quite like what I have seen of Geoff Norcroft. He’s rightwing (apparently) but the stuff I have seen seems largely apolitical, I didn’t find it rightwing in the slightest.
Bernard Manning makes me laugh. I guess I don’t really like political comedy that much so when I say Right Wing I just mean the sort of thing that lefties complain about rather than politically motivated jokes
Bernard Manning had immaculate comic timing and a gift for making you just-the-right-amount-of-uncomfortable. A genius, I think.
Quite possibly obnoxious and a genuine racist, as well - I have no idea.
While we are on this theme I recently watched Tommy Cooper on Parkinson. It is brilliant. And it is all in the timing. By many accounts he was an unpleasant man, indeed quite cruel. But, fuck, he could make you laugh
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
Isn't that just a criticism of a lot of satire from all directions?
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
It’s a subjective matter, but some right wing comedy makes me laugh despite knowing I shouldn’t, but the comedians are quite funny. The likes of the mash report don’t even seem like they would be funny if you spent a night in their company. I don’t know. Most of my mates are pretty un PC right wingers, but they are funny as fuck. Left wing comedy just seems like miserable nerdy students moaning
Which rightwing comics and jokes make you laugh? I quite like what I have seen of Geoff Norcroft. He’s rightwing (apparently) but the stuff I have seen seems largely apolitical, I didn’t find it rightwing in the slightest.
Rightwing comedy has to disguise itself, to be acceptable. This is unsurprising, in the arts world, given that being a member of Mumford and Sons and simply "liking" a rightwing journalist's book can get you quasi-cancelled.
Ricky Gervais, Jimmy Carr and Sacha Baron Cohen are, I would humbly suggest, three rightwing comedians busily plying their trade in the political equivalent of drag.
Not so. I have no idea about Carr (unfunny) and Cohen, but Gervais is a left-libertarian rationalist and an extremely intelligent man. His main target is superstition.
***
Gervais is a staunch supporter of gay rights and has praised the introduction of same-sex marriage in England and Wales as "a victory for all of us" and stated "anything that promotes equality, promotes progress". He added, "You can't take equality 'too far'."[146]
He is a vegetarian,[147] an atheist[148] and a humanist,[149] and states that he abandoned religion at the age of eight. In December 2010, he wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal defending his atheism.[150] He is an honorary associate of the UK's National Secular Society,[151] and a patron of Humanists UK, a British charity which promotes the humanist worldview and campaigns for a secular state and on human rights issues.[149]
I was at Uni with Gervais. Trust me, he's on the right. He just keeps it well-hidden (and good luck to him)
(2) The Royal Household needs to orchestrate a campaign of commonwealth leaders, ex commonwealth leaders, and dignitaries, around the world going on the record to say how hard HMQ, Charles and other royals have worked to unite people regardless of race, religion and background, and how generous they've been to them personally
The Empire is over, thankfully, so the queen can't just compel other heads of government to pump out her spin.
What makes you think they would need compelling? People happily, willingly, contribute to spin, true or otherwise, all the time.
However, given you say she cannot compel them to spin, should any now come out and say such things you are presumably implicitly accepting they would be telling the truth, and willingly so.
So if they do do so, presumably you would not find anything to criticise in their accounts.
It was not one of Casino's better ideas in my opinion. It would be quite crass to try and do something so choreographed. Apart from anything else it would prove Boris's attack on the Queen for liking the Commonwealth 'because it provides her with... smiling picanninies' to be oddly prophetic. Best to just get on with the job.
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
Isn't that just a criticism of a lot of satire from all directions?
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
It’s a subjective matter, but some right wing comedy makes me laugh despite knowing I shouldn’t, but the comedians are quite funny. The likes of the mash report don’t even seem like they would be funny if you spent a night in their company. I don’t know. Most of my mates are pretty un PC right wingers, but they are funny as fuck. Left wing comedy just seems like miserable nerdy students moaning
Which rightwing comics and jokes make you laugh? I quite like what I have seen of Geoff Norcroft. He’s rightwing (apparently) but the stuff I have seen seems largely apolitical, I didn’t find it rightwing in the slightest.
Rightwing comedy has to disguise itself, to be acceptable. This is unsurprising, in the arts world, given that being a member of Mumford and Sons and simply "liking" a rightwing journalist's book can get you quasi-cancelled.
Ricky Gervais, Jimmy Carr and Sacha Baron Cohen are, I would humbly suggest, three rightwing comedians busily plying their trade in the political equivalent of drag.
Not so. I have no idea about Carr (unfunny) and Cohen, but Gervais is a left-libertarian rationalist and an extremely intelligent man. His main target is superstition.
***
Gervais is a staunch supporter of gay rights and has praised the introduction of same-sex marriage in England and Wales as "a victory for all of us" and stated "anything that promotes equality, promotes progress". He added, "You can't take equality 'too far'."[146]
He is a vegetarian,[147] an atheist[148] and a humanist,[149] and states that he abandoned religion at the age of eight. In December 2010, he wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal defending his atheism.[150] He is an honorary associate of the UK's National Secular Society,[151] and a patron of Humanists UK, a British charity which promotes the humanist worldview and campaigns for a secular state and on human rights issues.[149]
I was at Uni with Gervais. Trust me, he's on the right. He just keeps it well-hidden (and good luck to him)
He’s constructed an entirely contrary persona as a pure fabrication? I mean, why bother? More likely, he’s just changed his views over time.
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
Isn't that just a criticism of a lot of satire from all directions?
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
It’s a subjective matter, but some right wing comedy makes me laugh despite knowing I shouldn’t, but the comedians are quite funny. The likes of the mash report don’t even seem like they would be funny if you spent a night in their company. I don’t know. Most of my mates are pretty un PC right wingers, but they are funny as fuck. Left wing comedy just seems like miserable nerdy students moaning
Which rightwing comics and jokes make you laugh? I quite like what I have seen of Geoff Norcroft. He’s rightwing (apparently) but the stuff I have seen seems largely apolitical, I didn’t find it rightwing in the slightest.
Rightwing comedy has to disguise itself, to be acceptable. This is unsurprising, in the arts world, given that being a member of Mumford and Sons and simply "liking" a rightwing journalist's book can get you quasi-cancelled.
Ricky Gervais, Jimmy Carr and Sacha Baron Cohen are, I would humbly suggest, three rightwing comedians busily plying their trade in the political equivalent of drag.
Not so. I have no idea about Carr (unfunny) and Cohen, but Gervais is a left-libertarian rationalist and an extremely intelligent man. His main target is superstition.
***
Gervais is a staunch supporter of gay rights and has praised the introduction of same-sex marriage in England and Wales as "a victory for all of us" and stated "anything that promotes equality, promotes progress". He added, "You can't take equality 'too far'."[146]
He is a vegetarian,[147] an atheist[148] and a humanist,[149] and states that he abandoned religion at the age of eight. In December 2010, he wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal defending his atheism.[150] He is an honorary associate of the UK's National Secular Society,[151] and a patron of Humanists UK, a British charity which promotes the humanist worldview and campaigns for a secular state and on human rights issues.[149]
I was at Uni with Gervais. Trust me, he's on the right. He just keeps it well-hidden (and good luck to him)
He’s constructed an entirely contrary persona as a pure fabrication? I mean, why bother? More likely, he’s just changed his views over time.
Some people can do brilliantly funny satire without making it overtly politically one sided. Yes Minister/Prime Minister is the obvious example. Tom Lehrer is another.
Tom Lehrer has anti-war material that seems pretty liberal (in US terms) to me.
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
Isn't that just a criticism of a lot of satire from all directions?
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
It’s a subjective matter, but some right wing comedy makes me laugh despite knowing I shouldn’t, but the comedians are quite funny. The likes of the mash report don’t even seem like they would be funny if you spent a night in their company. I don’t know. Most of my mates are pretty un PC right wingers, but they are funny as fuck. Left wing comedy just seems like miserable nerdy students moaning
Which rightwing comics and jokes make you laugh? I quite like what I have seen of Geoff Norcroft. He’s rightwing (apparently) but the stuff I have seen seems largely apolitical, I didn’t find it rightwing in the slightest.
Rightwing comedy has to disguise itself, to be acceptable. This is unsurprising, in the arts world, given that being a member of Mumford and Sons and simply "liking" a rightwing journalist's book can get you quasi-cancelled.
Ricky Gervais, Jimmy Carr and Sacha Baron Cohen are, I would humbly suggest, three rightwing comedians busily plying their trade in the political equivalent of drag.
Not so. I have no idea about Carr (unfunny) and Cohen, but Gervais is a left-libertarian rationalist and an extremely intelligent man. His main target is superstition.
***
Gervais is a staunch supporter of gay rights and has praised the introduction of same-sex marriage in England and Wales as "a victory for all of us" and stated "anything that promotes equality, promotes progress". He added, "You can't take equality 'too far'."[146]
He is a vegetarian,[147] an atheist[148] and a humanist,[149] and states that he abandoned religion at the age of eight. In December 2010, he wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal defending his atheism.[150] He is an honorary associate of the UK's National Secular Society,[151] and a patron of Humanists UK, a British charity which promotes the humanist worldview and campaigns for a secular state and on human rights issues.[149]
I was at Uni with Gervais. Trust me, he's on the right. He just keeps it well-hidden (and good luck to him)
And I went to uni with Liz Truss. People's views move on, particularly at that age, and it's all fine.
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
Isn't that just a criticism of a lot of satire from all directions?
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
It’s a subjective matter, but some right wing comedy makes me laugh despite knowing I shouldn’t, but the comedians are quite funny. The likes of the mash report don’t even seem like they would be funny if you spent a night in their company. I don’t know. Most of my mates are pretty un PC right wingers, but they are funny as fuck. Left wing comedy just seems like miserable nerdy students moaning
Which rightwing comics and jokes make you laugh? I quite like what I have seen of Geoff Norcroft. He’s rightwing (apparently) but the stuff I have seen seems largely apolitical, I didn’t find it rightwing in the slightest.
Rightwing comedy has to disguise itself, to be acceptable. This is unsurprising, in the arts world, given that being a member of Mumford and Sons and simply "liking" a rightwing journalist's book can get you quasi-cancelled.
Ricky Gervais, Jimmy Carr and Sacha Baron Cohen are, I would humbly suggest, three rightwing comedians busily plying their trade in the political equivalent of drag.
Not so. I have no idea about Carr (unfunny) and Cohen, but Gervais is a left-libertarian rationalist and an extremely intelligent man. His main target is superstition.
***
Gervais is a staunch supporter of gay rights and has praised the introduction of same-sex marriage in England and Wales as "a victory for all of us" and stated "anything that promotes equality, promotes progress". He added, "You can't take equality 'too far'."[146]
He is a vegetarian,[147] an atheist[148] and a humanist,[149] and states that he abandoned religion at the age of eight. In December 2010, he wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal defending his atheism.[150] He is an honorary associate of the UK's National Secular Society,[151] and a patron of Humanists UK, a British charity which promotes the humanist worldview and campaigns for a secular state and on human rights issues.[149]
I was at Uni with Gervais. Trust me, he's on the right. He just keeps it well-hidden (and good luck to him)
He’s constructed an entirely contrary persona as a pure fabrication? I mean, why bother? More likely, he’s just changed his views over time.
I find it interesting that the implication of that comment is that you assume one can’t be right wing and also in favour of gay rights, a vegetarian, and an atheist. I mean vegetarians are just weird but otherwise surely none of that’s a right/left thing?
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
Isn't that just a criticism of a lot of satire from all directions?
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
It’s a subjective matter, but some right wing comedy makes me laugh despite knowing I shouldn’t, but the comedians are quite funny. The likes of the mash report don’t even seem like they would be funny if you spent a night in their company. I don’t know. Most of my mates are pretty un PC right wingers, but they are funny as fuck. Left wing comedy just seems like miserable nerdy students moaning
Which rightwing comics and jokes make you laugh? I quite like what I have seen of Geoff Norcroft. He’s rightwing (apparently) but the stuff I have seen seems largely apolitical, I didn’t find it rightwing in the slightest.
Bernard Manning makes me laugh. I guess I don’t really like political comedy that much so when I say Right Wing I just mean the sort of thing that lefties complain about rather than politically motivated jokes
Bernard Manning makes me laugh. Misogynistic and bigoted jokes, but delivered well.
18 months back I saw Shane Ritchie star in a revival of The Entertainer, reset in the early Eighties, playing an old school comic with sexist, homophobic, even mother in law jokes. To get the character of Archie Rice right, he had to be both dislikeable and funny. The jokes got a laugh from the audience, albeit uncomfortable ones. This is him being interviewed about it:
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
Isn't that just a criticism of a lot of satire from all directions?
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
It’s a subjective matter, but some right wing comedy makes me laugh despite knowing I shouldn’t, but the comedians are quite funny. The likes of the mash report don’t even seem like they would be funny if you spent a night in their company. I don’t know. Most of my mates are pretty un PC right wingers, but they are funny as fuck. Left wing comedy just seems like miserable nerdy students moaning
Which rightwing comics and jokes make you laugh? I quite like what I have seen of Geoff Norcroft. He’s rightwing (apparently) but the stuff I have seen seems largely apolitical, I didn’t find it rightwing in the slightest.
Rightwing comedy has to disguise itself, to be acceptable. This is unsurprising, in the arts world, given that being a member of Mumford and Sons and simply "liking" a rightwing journalist's book can get you quasi-cancelled.
Ricky Gervais, Jimmy Carr and Sacha Baron Cohen are, I would humbly suggest, three rightwing comedians busily plying their trade in the political equivalent of drag.
Not so. I have no idea about Carr (unfunny) and Cohen, but Gervais is a left-libertarian rationalist and an extremely intelligent man. His main target is superstition.
***
Gervais is a staunch supporter of gay rights and has praised the introduction of same-sex marriage in England and Wales as "a victory for all of us" and stated "anything that promotes equality, promotes progress". He added, "You can't take equality 'too far'."[146]
He is a vegetarian,[147] an atheist[148] and a humanist,[149] and states that he abandoned religion at the age of eight. In December 2010, he wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal defending his atheism.[150] He is an honorary associate of the UK's National Secular Society,[151] and a patron of Humanists UK, a British charity which promotes the humanist worldview and campaigns for a secular state and on human rights issues.[149]
I was at Uni with Gervais. Trust me, he's on the right. He just keeps it well-hidden (and good luck to him)
He’s constructed an entirely contrary persona as a pure fabrication? I mean, why bother? More likely, he’s just changed his views over time.
I find it interesting that the implication of that comment is that you assume one can’t be right wing and also in favour of gay rights, a vegetarian, and an atheist. I mean vegetarians are just weird but otherwise surely none of that’s a right/left thing?
People just said Hitler was a vegetarian and environmentalist to make him look bad
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
Isn't that just a criticism of a lot of satire from all directions?
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
It’s a subjective matter, but some right wing comedy makes me laugh despite knowing I shouldn’t, but the comedians are quite funny. The likes of the mash report don’t even seem like they would be funny if you spent a night in their company. I don’t know. Most of my mates are pretty un PC right wingers, but they are funny as fuck. Left wing comedy just seems like miserable nerdy students moaning
Which rightwing comics and jokes make you laugh? I quite like what I have seen of Geoff Norcroft. He’s rightwing (apparently) but the stuff I have seen seems largely apolitical, I didn’t find it rightwing in the slightest.
Rightwing comedy has to disguise itself, to be acceptable. This is unsurprising, in the arts world, given that being a member of Mumford and Sons and simply "liking" a rightwing journalist's book can get you quasi-cancelled.
Ricky Gervais, Jimmy Carr and Sacha Baron Cohen are, I would humbly suggest, three rightwing comedians busily plying their trade in the political equivalent of drag.
Not so. I have no idea about Carr (unfunny) and Cohen, but Gervais is a left-libertarian rationalist and an extremely intelligent man. His main target is superstition.
***
Gervais is a staunch supporter of gay rights and has praised the introduction of same-sex marriage in England and Wales as "a victory for all of us" and stated "anything that promotes equality, promotes progress". He added, "You can't take equality 'too far'."[146]
He is a vegetarian,[147] an atheist[148] and a humanist,[149] and states that he abandoned religion at the age of eight. In December 2010, he wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal defending his atheism.[150] He is an honorary associate of the UK's National Secular Society,[151] and a patron of Humanists UK, a British charity which promotes the humanist worldview and campaigns for a secular state and on human rights issues.[149]
I was at Uni with Gervais. Trust me, he's on the right. He just keeps it well-hidden (and good luck to him)
He’s constructed an entirely contrary persona as a pure fabrication? I mean, why bother? More likely, he’s just changed his views over time.
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
Isn't that just a criticism of a lot of satire from all directions?
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
It’s a subjective matter, but some right wing comedy makes me laugh despite knowing I shouldn’t, but the comedians are quite funny. The likes of the mash report don’t even seem like they would be funny if you spent a night in their company. I don’t know. Most of my mates are pretty un PC right wingers, but they are funny as fuck. Left wing comedy just seems like miserable nerdy students moaning
Which rightwing comics and jokes make you laugh? I quite like what I have seen of Geoff Norcroft. He’s rightwing (apparently) but the stuff I have seen seems largely apolitical, I didn’t find it rightwing in the slightest.
Rightwing comedy has to disguise itself, to be acceptable. This is unsurprising, in the arts world, given that being a member of Mumford and Sons and simply "liking" a rightwing journalist's book can get you quasi-cancelled.
Ricky Gervais, Jimmy Carr and Sacha Baron Cohen are, I would humbly suggest, three rightwing comedians busily plying their trade in the political equivalent of drag.
Not so. I have no idea about Carr (unfunny) and Cohen, but Gervais is a left-libertarian rationalist and an extremely intelligent man. His main target is superstition.
***
Gervais is a staunch supporter of gay rights and has praised the introduction of same-sex marriage in England and Wales as "a victory for all of us" and stated "anything that promotes equality, promotes progress". He added, "You can't take equality 'too far'."[146]
He is a vegetarian,[147] an atheist[148] and a humanist,[149] and states that he abandoned religion at the age of eight. In December 2010, he wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal defending his atheism.[150] He is an honorary associate of the UK's National Secular Society,[151] and a patron of Humanists UK, a British charity which promotes the humanist worldview and campaigns for a secular state and on human rights issues.[149]
I was at Uni with Gervais. Trust me, he's on the right. He just keeps it well-hidden (and good luck to him)
He’s constructed an entirely contrary persona as a pure fabrication? I mean, why bother? More likely, he’s just changed his views over time.
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
Isn't that just a criticism of a lot of satire from all directions?
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
It’s a subjective matter, but some right wing comedy makes me laugh despite knowing I shouldn’t, but the comedians are quite funny. The likes of the mash report don’t even seem like they would be funny if you spent a night in their company. I don’t know. Most of my mates are pretty un PC right wingers, but they are funny as fuck. Left wing comedy just seems like miserable nerdy students moaning
Which rightwing comics and jokes make you laugh? I quite like what I have seen of Geoff Norcroft. He’s rightwing (apparently) but the stuff I have seen seems largely apolitical, I didn’t find it rightwing in the slightest.
Rightwing comedy has to disguise itself, to be acceptable. This is unsurprising, in the arts world, given that being a member of Mumford and Sons and simply "liking" a rightwing journalist's book can get you quasi-cancelled.
Ricky Gervais, Jimmy Carr and Sacha Baron Cohen are, I would humbly suggest, three rightwing comedians busily plying their trade in the political equivalent of drag.
Not so. I have no idea about Carr (unfunny) and Cohen, but Gervais is a left-libertarian rationalist and an extremely intelligent man. His main target is superstition.
***
Gervais is a staunch supporter of gay rights and has praised the introduction of same-sex marriage in England and Wales as "a victory for all of us" and stated "anything that promotes equality, promotes progress". He added, "You can't take equality 'too far'."[146]
He is a vegetarian,[147] an atheist[148] and a humanist,[149] and states that he abandoned religion at the age of eight. In December 2010, he wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal defending his atheism.[150] He is an honorary associate of the UK's National Secular Society,[151] and a patron of Humanists UK, a British charity which promotes the humanist worldview and campaigns for a secular state and on human rights issues.[149]
I was at Uni with Gervais. Trust me, he's on the right. He just keeps it well-hidden (and good luck to him)
He’s constructed an entirely contrary persona as a pure fabrication? I mean, why bother? More likely, he’s just changed his views over time.
It's an act, isn't it?
I’m not talking about his act, or his stand up routine. I’m talking about the extra curricular stuff, the secularism, the animal rights campaigning, the gay rights views. His politics seem similar to mine: left of centre, but very suspicious of censorship and cancel culture. He’s pretty much a standard non-woke rationalist liberal, not his act, his actual life.
Some people can do brilliantly funny satire without making it overtly politically one sided. Yes Minister/Prime Minister is the obvious example. Tom Lehrer is another.
Tom Lehrer has anti-war material that seems pretty liberal (in US terms) to me.
He also said that satire was dead when Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize.
That is also a problem for modern satirists. The modern world of Trump and Johnson is beyond satire too, it is just too absurd already.
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
Isn't that just a criticism of a lot of satire from all directions?
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
It’s a subjective matter, but some right wing comedy makes me laugh despite knowing I shouldn’t, but the comedians are quite funny. The likes of the mash report don’t even seem like they would be funny if you spent a night in their company. I don’t know. Most of my mates are pretty un PC right wingers, but they are funny as fuck. Left wing comedy just seems like miserable nerdy students moaning
Which rightwing comics and jokes make you laugh? I quite like what I have seen of Geoff Norcroft. He’s rightwing (apparently) but the stuff I have seen seems largely apolitical, I didn’t find it rightwing in the slightest.
Rightwing comedy has to disguise itself, to be acceptable. This is unsurprising, in the arts world, given that being a member of Mumford and Sons and simply "liking" a rightwing journalist's book can get you quasi-cancelled.
Ricky Gervais, Jimmy Carr and Sacha Baron Cohen are, I would humbly suggest, three rightwing comedians busily plying their trade in the political equivalent of drag.
Not so. I have no idea about Carr (unfunny) and Cohen, but Gervais is a left-libertarian rationalist and an extremely intelligent man. His main target is superstition.
***
Gervais is a staunch supporter of gay rights and has praised the introduction of same-sex marriage in England and Wales as "a victory for all of us" and stated "anything that promotes equality, promotes progress". He added, "You can't take equality 'too far'."[146]
He is a vegetarian,[147] an atheist[148] and a humanist,[149] and states that he abandoned religion at the age of eight. In December 2010, he wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal defending his atheism.[150] He is an honorary associate of the UK's National Secular Society,[151] and a patron of Humanists UK, a British charity which promotes the humanist worldview and campaigns for a secular state and on human rights issues.[149]
I was at Uni with Gervais. Trust me, he's on the right. He just keeps it well-hidden (and good luck to him)
He’s constructed an entirely contrary persona as a pure fabrication? I mean, why bother? More likely, he’s just changed his views over time.
I find it interesting that the implication of that comment is that you assume one can’t be right wing and also in favour of gay rights, a vegetarian, and an atheist. I mean vegetarians are just weird but otherwise surely none of that’s a right/left thing?
It's not determinative but is reasonably predictive. There are plenty of Labour supporting cricket fans who read the Telegraph as it has good cricket coverage. But if you saw someone carrying a copy of the Telegraph and had to guess their voting plans...
Nightly chatted with Albany-based New York Playbook writer Anna Gronewold over Slack about what happens next.
What stood out to you about Cuomo’s press conference today?
I was struck, but not entirely surprised, by how energetic he sounded after weeks of devastating news coverage, especially damning new reports in The New York Times and New York Magazine about a culture of fear, harassment and intimidation in his office.
Cuomo came out ready to fight, even throwing slight shade at more than a dozen New York Democrats in Congress who announced in tandem this morning that they wanted him to resign.
I didn’t expect him to resign today — I think the poetry of resigning the same day Eliot Spitzer did in 2008 would be almost too much for anyone to bear.
But his commitment to waiting until the results of at least two investigations comes out, and the matter-of-fact manner that he stated Covid-19 stats at the beginning of the press conference were a pretty clear stance that he’s not going to let anyone, even broad coalitions of his former political allies, take him out without a fight.
Do you think there’s anything that would lead him to resign?
So far I’ve been wrong whenever I’ve answered that question, so please don’t put any of your hard-earned money on my answer. But I think if Cuomo decides to step down of his own accord, it would be because he saw definitive numbers that he had lost the majority of voters. Despite the intense coverage, a lot of this is swirling around Twitter, journalists and the political sphere. We'll get new polling soon (and I assume that the Cuomo admin has its own internal numbers) that would show how many average New Yorkers want him to resign. Last numbers we had on that, 55 percent said he should stay in office (March 4).
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
Isn't that just a criticism of a lot of satire from all directions?
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
It’s a subjective matter, but some right wing comedy makes me laugh despite knowing I shouldn’t, but the comedians are quite funny. The likes of the mash report don’t even seem like they would be funny if you spent a night in their company. I don’t know. Most of my mates are pretty un PC right wingers, but they are funny as fuck. Left wing comedy just seems like miserable nerdy students moaning
Which rightwing comics and jokes make you laugh? I quite like what I have seen of Geoff Norcroft. He’s rightwing (apparently) but the stuff I have seen seems largely apolitical, I didn’t find it rightwing in the slightest.
Rightwing comedy has to disguise itself, to be acceptable. This is unsurprising, in the arts world, given that being a member of Mumford and Sons and simply "liking" a rightwing journalist's book can get you quasi-cancelled.
Ricky Gervais, Jimmy Carr and Sacha Baron Cohen are, I would humbly suggest, three rightwing comedians busily plying their trade in the political equivalent of drag.
Not so. I have no idea about Carr (unfunny) and Cohen, but Gervais is a left-libertarian rationalist and an extremely intelligent man. His main target is superstition.
***
Gervais is a staunch supporter of gay rights and has praised the introduction of same-sex marriage in England and Wales as "a victory for all of us" and stated "anything that promotes equality, promotes progress". He added, "You can't take equality 'too far'."[146]
He is a vegetarian,[147] an atheist[148] and a humanist,[149] and states that he abandoned religion at the age of eight. In December 2010, he wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal defending his atheism.[150] He is an honorary associate of the UK's National Secular Society,[151] and a patron of Humanists UK, a British charity which promotes the humanist worldview and campaigns for a secular state and on human rights issues.[149]
I was at Uni with Gervais. Trust me, he's on the right. He just keeps it well-hidden (and good luck to him)
He’s constructed an entirely contrary persona as a pure fabrication? I mean, why bother? More likely, he’s just changed his views over time.
I find it interesting that the implication of that comment is that you assume one can’t be right wing and also in favour of gay rights, a vegetarian, and an atheist. I mean vegetarians are just weird but otherwise surely none of that’s a right/left thing?
It's not determinative but is reasonably predictive. There are plenty of Labour supporting cricket fans who read the Telegraph as it has good cricket coverage. But if you saw someone carrying a copy of the Telegraph and had to guess their voting plans...
Maybe it’s an age thing but I just assume everyone sensible believes in gay rights and animal rights (albeit to different extents - e.g. I want it well treated up until the point I eat it). I also assume religion is separate from politics.
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
Isn't that just a criticism of a lot of satire from all directions?
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
It’s a subjective matter, but some right wing comedy makes me laugh despite knowing I shouldn’t, but the comedians are quite funny. The likes of the mash report don’t even seem like they would be funny if you spent a night in their company. I don’t know. Most of my mates are pretty un PC right wingers, but they are funny as fuck. Left wing comedy just seems like miserable nerdy students moaning
Which rightwing comics and jokes make you laugh? I quite like what I have seen of Geoff Norcroft. He’s rightwing (apparently) but the stuff I have seen seems largely apolitical, I didn’t find it rightwing in the slightest.
Rightwing comedy has to disguise itself, to be acceptable. This is unsurprising, in the arts world, given that being a member of Mumford and Sons and simply "liking" a rightwing journalist's book can get you quasi-cancelled.
Ricky Gervais, Jimmy Carr and Sacha Baron Cohen are, I would humbly suggest, three rightwing comedians busily plying their trade in the political equivalent of drag.
Not so. I have no idea about Carr (unfunny) and Cohen, but Gervais is a left-libertarian rationalist and an extremely intelligent man. His main target is superstition.
***
Gervais is a staunch supporter of gay rights and has praised the introduction of same-sex marriage in England and Wales as "a victory for all of us" and stated "anything that promotes equality, promotes progress". He added, "You can't take equality 'too far'."[146]
He is a vegetarian,[147] an atheist[148] and a humanist,[149] and states that he abandoned religion at the age of eight. In December 2010, he wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal defending his atheism.[150] He is an honorary associate of the UK's National Secular Society,[151] and a patron of Humanists UK, a British charity which promotes the humanist worldview and campaigns for a secular state and on human rights issues.[149]
I was at Uni with Gervais. Trust me, he's on the right. He just keeps it well-hidden (and good luck to him)
He’s constructed an entirely contrary persona as a pure fabrication? I mean, why bother? More likely, he’s just changed his views over time.
Not contrary, just in a bit of make-up. And it’s worked. And, good luck to him. He is superbly talented
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
Isn't that just a criticism of a lot of satire from all directions?
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
It’s a subjective matter, but some right wing comedy makes me laugh despite knowing I shouldn’t, but the comedians are quite funny. The likes of the mash report don’t even seem like they would be funny if you spent a night in their company. I don’t know. Most of my mates are pretty un PC right wingers, but they are funny as fuck. Left wing comedy just seems like miserable nerdy students moaning
Which rightwing comics and jokes make you laugh? I quite like what I have seen of Geoff Norcroft. He’s rightwing (apparently) but the stuff I have seen seems largely apolitical, I didn’t find it rightwing in the slightest.
Rightwing comedy has to disguise itself, to be acceptable. This is unsurprising, in the arts world, given that being a member of Mumford and Sons and simply "liking" a rightwing journalist's book can get you quasi-cancelled.
Ricky Gervais, Jimmy Carr and Sacha Baron Cohen are, I would humbly suggest, three rightwing comedians busily plying their trade in the political equivalent of drag.
Not so. I have no idea about Carr (unfunny) and Cohen, but Gervais is a left-libertarian rationalist and an extremely intelligent man. His main target is superstition.
***
Gervais is a staunch supporter of gay rights and has praised the introduction of same-sex marriage in England and Wales as "a victory for all of us" and stated "anything that promotes equality, promotes progress". He added, "You can't take equality 'too far'."[146]
He is a vegetarian,[147] an atheist[148] and a humanist,[149] and states that he abandoned religion at the age of eight. In December 2010, he wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal defending his atheism.[150] He is an honorary associate of the UK's National Secular Society,[151] and a patron of Humanists UK, a British charity which promotes the humanist worldview and campaigns for a secular state and on human rights issues.[149]
I was at Uni with Gervais. Trust me, he's on the right. He just keeps it well-hidden (and good luck to him)
He’s constructed an entirely contrary persona as a pure fabrication? I mean, why bother? More likely, he’s just changed his views over time.
It's an act, isn't it?
I’m not talking about his act, or his stand up routine. I’m talking about the extra curricular stuff, the secularism, the animal rights campaigning, the gay rights views. His politics seem similar to mine: left of centre, but very suspicious of censorship and cancel culture. He’s pretty much a standard non-woke rationalist liberal, not his act, his actual life.
Based on those criteria, you'd place someone like Brigitte Bardot on the left.
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
Isn't that just a criticism of a lot of satire from all directions?
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
It’s a subjective matter, but some right wing comedy makes me laugh despite knowing I shouldn’t, but the comedians are quite funny. The likes of the mash report don’t even seem like they would be funny if you spent a night in their company. I don’t know. Most of my mates are pretty un PC right wingers, but they are funny as fuck. Left wing comedy just seems like miserable nerdy students moaning
Which rightwing comics and jokes make you laugh? I quite like what I have seen of Geoff Norcroft. He’s rightwing (apparently) but the stuff I have seen seems largely apolitical, I didn’t find it rightwing in the slightest.
Rightwing comedy has to disguise itself, to be acceptable. This is unsurprising, in the arts world, given that being a member of Mumford and Sons and simply "liking" a rightwing journalist's book can get you quasi-cancelled.
Ricky Gervais, Jimmy Carr and Sacha Baron Cohen are, I would humbly suggest, three rightwing comedians busily plying their trade in the political equivalent of drag.
Not so. I have no idea about Carr (unfunny) and Cohen, but Gervais is a left-libertarian rationalist and an extremely intelligent man. His main target is superstition.
***
Gervais is a staunch supporter of gay rights and has praised the introduction of same-sex marriage in England and Wales as "a victory for all of us" and stated "anything that promotes equality, promotes progress". He added, "You can't take equality 'too far'."[146]
He is a vegetarian,[147] an atheist[148] and a humanist,[149] and states that he abandoned religion at the age of eight. In December 2010, he wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal defending his atheism.[150] He is an honorary associate of the UK's National Secular Society,[151] and a patron of Humanists UK, a British charity which promotes the humanist worldview and campaigns for a secular state and on human rights issues.[149]
I was at Uni with Gervais. Trust me, he's on the right. He just keeps it well-hidden (and good luck to him)
He’s constructed an entirely contrary persona as a pure fabrication? I mean, why bother? More likely, he’s just changed his views over time.
I find it interesting that the implication of that comment is that you assume one can’t be right wing and also in favour of gay rights, a vegetarian, and an atheist. I mean vegetarians are just weird but otherwise surely none of that’s a right/left thing?
It's not determinative but is reasonably predictive. There are plenty of Labour supporting cricket fans who read the Telegraph as it has good cricket coverage. But if you saw someone carrying a copy of the Telegraph and had to guess their voting plans...
Worth noting that Hitler was an atheist, vegetarian, eco-sensitive gender-queer. Who adored dogs
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
Isn't that just a criticism of a lot of satire from all directions?
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
It’s a subjective matter, but some right wing comedy makes me laugh despite knowing I shouldn’t, but the comedians are quite funny. The likes of the mash report don’t even seem like they would be funny if you spent a night in their company. I don’t know. Most of my mates are pretty un PC right wingers, but they are funny as fuck. Left wing comedy just seems like miserable nerdy students moaning
Which rightwing comics and jokes make you laugh? I quite like what I have seen of Geoff Norcroft. He’s rightwing (apparently) but the stuff I have seen seems largely apolitical, I didn’t find it rightwing in the slightest.
Rightwing comedy has to disguise itself, to be acceptable. This is unsurprising, in the arts world, given that being a member of Mumford and Sons and simply "liking" a rightwing journalist's book can get you quasi-cancelled.
Ricky Gervais, Jimmy Carr and Sacha Baron Cohen are, I would humbly suggest, three rightwing comedians busily plying their trade in the political equivalent of drag.
Not so. I have no idea about Carr (unfunny) and Cohen, but Gervais is a left-libertarian rationalist and an extremely intelligent man. His main target is superstition.
***
Gervais is a staunch supporter of gay rights and has praised the introduction of same-sex marriage in England and Wales as "a victory for all of us" and stated "anything that promotes equality, promotes progress". He added, "You can't take equality 'too far'."[146]
He is a vegetarian,[147] an atheist[148] and a humanist,[149] and states that he abandoned religion at the age of eight. In December 2010, he wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal defending his atheism.[150] He is an honorary associate of the UK's National Secular Society,[151] and a patron of Humanists UK, a British charity which promotes the humanist worldview and campaigns for a secular state and on human rights issues.[149]
I was at Uni with Gervais. Trust me, he's on the right. He just keeps it well-hidden (and good luck to him)
He’s constructed an entirely contrary persona as a pure fabrication? I mean, why bother? More likely, he’s just changed his views over time.
I find it interesting that the implication of that comment is that you assume one can’t be right wing and also in favour of gay rights, a vegetarian, and an atheist. I mean vegetarians are just weird but otherwise surely none of that’s a right/left thing?
Sure, in the same way I frequently argue on here that my being in favour of putting more money in working people’s pockets via lower taxes cannot be rightwing. It’s labels, innit?
But then why cast me, Gervais or anyone else as left or rightwing at all? The only time I have heard Gervais say who he voted for was in 2017, when he voted for Corbyn. Does that make him leftwing? Dunno. But he doesn’t strike me as rightwing, which was Leon’s original contention.
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
Isn't that just a criticism of a lot of satire from all directions?
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
It’s a subjective matter, but some right wing comedy makes me laugh despite knowing I shouldn’t, but the comedians are quite funny. The likes of the mash report don’t even seem like they would be funny if you spent a night in their company. I don’t know. Most of my mates are pretty un PC right wingers, but they are funny as fuck. Left wing comedy just seems like miserable nerdy students moaning
Which rightwing comics and jokes make you laugh? I quite like what I have seen of Geoff Norcroft. He’s rightwing (apparently) but the stuff I have seen seems largely apolitical, I didn’t find it rightwing in the slightest.
Rightwing comedy has to disguise itself, to be acceptable. This is unsurprising, in the arts world, given that being a member of Mumford and Sons and simply "liking" a rightwing journalist's book can get you quasi-cancelled.
Ricky Gervais, Jimmy Carr and Sacha Baron Cohen are, I would humbly suggest, three rightwing comedians busily plying their trade in the political equivalent of drag.
Not so. I have no idea about Carr (unfunny) and Cohen, but Gervais is a left-libertarian rationalist and an extremely intelligent man. His main target is superstition.
***
Gervais is a staunch supporter of gay rights and has praised the introduction of same-sex marriage in England and Wales as "a victory for all of us" and stated "anything that promotes equality, promotes progress". He added, "You can't take equality 'too far'."[146]
He is a vegetarian,[147] an atheist[148] and a humanist,[149] and states that he abandoned religion at the age of eight. In December 2010, he wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal defending his atheism.[150] He is an honorary associate of the UK's National Secular Society,[151] and a patron of Humanists UK, a British charity which promotes the humanist worldview and campaigns for a secular state and on human rights issues.[149]
I was at Uni with Gervais. Trust me, he's on the right. He just keeps it well-hidden (and good luck to him)
He’s constructed an entirely contrary persona as a pure fabrication? I mean, why bother? More likely, he’s just changed his views over time.
I find it interesting that the implication of that comment is that you assume one can’t be right wing and also in favour of gay rights, a vegetarian, and an atheist. I mean vegetarians are just weird but otherwise surely none of that’s a right/left thing?
It's not determinative but is reasonably predictive. There are plenty of Labour supporting cricket fans who read the Telegraph as it has good cricket coverage. But if you saw someone carrying a copy of the Telegraph and had to guess their voting plans...
Worth noting that Hitler was an atheist, vegetarian, eco-sensitive gender-queer. Who adored dogs
He also liked putting mounds on whipped cream on his desserts. Also possibly on Eva B.
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
Isn't that just a criticism of a lot of satire from all directions?
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
It’s a subjective matter, but some right wing comedy makes me laugh despite knowing I shouldn’t, but the comedians are quite funny. The likes of the mash report don’t even seem like they would be funny if you spent a night in their company. I don’t know. Most of my mates are pretty un PC right wingers, but they are funny as fuck. Left wing comedy just seems like miserable nerdy students moaning
Which rightwing comics and jokes make you laugh? I quite like what I have seen of Geoff Norcroft. He’s rightwing (apparently) but the stuff I have seen seems largely apolitical, I didn’t find it rightwing in the slightest.
Rightwing comedy has to disguise itself, to be acceptable. This is unsurprising, in the arts world, given that being a member of Mumford and Sons and simply "liking" a rightwing journalist's book can get you quasi-cancelled.
Ricky Gervais, Jimmy Carr and Sacha Baron Cohen are, I would humbly suggest, three rightwing comedians busily plying their trade in the political equivalent of drag.
Not so. I have no idea about Carr (unfunny) and Cohen, but Gervais is a left-libertarian rationalist and an extremely intelligent man. His main target is superstition.
***
Gervais is a staunch supporter of gay rights and has praised the introduction of same-sex marriage in England and Wales as "a victory for all of us" and stated "anything that promotes equality, promotes progress". He added, "You can't take equality 'too far'."[146]
He is a vegetarian,[147] an atheist[148] and a humanist,[149] and states that he abandoned religion at the age of eight. In December 2010, he wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal defending his atheism.[150] He is an honorary associate of the UK's National Secular Society,[151] and a patron of Humanists UK, a British charity which promotes the humanist worldview and campaigns for a secular state and on human rights issues.[149]
I was at Uni with Gervais. Trust me, he's on the right. He just keeps it well-hidden (and good luck to him)
He’s constructed an entirely contrary persona as a pure fabrication? I mean, why bother? More likely, he’s just changed his views over time.
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
Isn't that just a criticism of a lot of satire from all directions?
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
It’s a subjective matter, but some right wing comedy makes me laugh despite knowing I shouldn’t, but the comedians are quite funny. The likes of the mash report don’t even seem like they would be funny if you spent a night in their company. I don’t know. Most of my mates are pretty un PC right wingers, but they are funny as fuck. Left wing comedy just seems like miserable nerdy students moaning
Which rightwing comics and jokes make you laugh? I quite like what I have seen of Geoff Norcroft. He’s rightwing (apparently) but the stuff I have seen seems largely apolitical, I didn’t find it rightwing in the slightest.
Rightwing comedy has to disguise itself, to be acceptable. This is unsurprising, in the arts world, given that being a member of Mumford and Sons and simply "liking" a rightwing journalist's book can get you quasi-cancelled.
Ricky Gervais, Jimmy Carr and Sacha Baron Cohen are, I would humbly suggest, three rightwing comedians busily plying their trade in the political equivalent of drag.
Not so. I have no idea about Carr (unfunny) and Cohen, but Gervais is a left-libertarian rationalist and an extremely intelligent man. His main target is superstition.
***
Gervais is a staunch supporter of gay rights and has praised the introduction of same-sex marriage in England and Wales as "a victory for all of us" and stated "anything that promotes equality, promotes progress". He added, "You can't take equality 'too far'."[146]
He is a vegetarian,[147] an atheist[148] and a humanist,[149] and states that he abandoned religion at the age of eight. In December 2010, he wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal defending his atheism.[150] He is an honorary associate of the UK's National Secular Society,[151] and a patron of Humanists UK, a British charity which promotes the humanist worldview and campaigns for a secular state and on human rights issues.[149]
I was at Uni with Gervais. Trust me, he's on the right. He just keeps it well-hidden (and good luck to him)
He’s constructed an entirely contrary persona as a pure fabrication? I mean, why bother? More likely, he’s just changed his views over time.
Boris is a liar and a racist. Is that what counts for comedy these days?
The beauty of that kind of left wing comedy is that anyone can do it - being funny is not a requirement. So people missing The Mash Report can just get their mates to say ‘Isn’t Jacob Rees-Mogg an out of touch posh arrogant throwback” (whilst looking disgusted) to get their fix
Isn't that just a criticism of a lot of satire from all directions?
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
It’s a subjective matter, but some right wing comedy makes me laugh despite knowing I shouldn’t, but the comedians are quite funny. The likes of the mash report don’t even seem like they would be funny if you spent a night in their company. I don’t know. Most of my mates are pretty un PC right wingers, but they are funny as fuck. Left wing comedy just seems like miserable nerdy students moaning
Which rightwing comics and jokes make you laugh? I quite like what I have seen of Geoff Norcroft. He’s rightwing (apparently) but the stuff I have seen seems largely apolitical, I didn’t find it rightwing in the slightest.
Rightwing comedy has to disguise itself, to be acceptable. This is unsurprising, in the arts world, given that being a member of Mumford and Sons and simply "liking" a rightwing journalist's book can get you quasi-cancelled.
Ricky Gervais, Jimmy Carr and Sacha Baron Cohen are, I would humbly suggest, three rightwing comedians busily plying their trade in the political equivalent of drag.
Not so. I have no idea about Carr (unfunny) and Cohen, but Gervais is a left-libertarian rationalist and an extremely intelligent man. His main target is superstition.
***
Gervais is a staunch supporter of gay rights and has praised the introduction of same-sex marriage in England and Wales as "a victory for all of us" and stated "anything that promotes equality, promotes progress". He added, "You can't take equality 'too far'."[146]
He is a vegetarian,[147] an atheist[148] and a humanist,[149] and states that he abandoned religion at the age of eight. In December 2010, he wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal defending his atheism.[150] He is an honorary associate of the UK's National Secular Society,[151] and a patron of Humanists UK, a British charity which promotes the humanist worldview and campaigns for a secular state and on human rights issues.[149]
I was at Uni with Gervais. Trust me, he's on the right. He just keeps it well-hidden (and good luck to him)
He’s constructed an entirely contrary persona as a pure fabrication? I mean, why bother? More likely, he’s just changed his views over time.
It's an act, isn't it?
I’m not talking about his act, or his stand up routine. I’m talking about the extra curricular stuff, the secularism, the animal rights campaigning, the gay rights views. His politics seem similar to mine: left of centre, but very suspicious of censorship and cancel culture. He’s pretty much a standard non-woke rationalist liberal, not his act, his actual life.
Nah, I don't think the Left in any way have the monopoly on any of those beliefs. I am a humanist, strongly pro gay/womens rights and oppose animal cruelty, racism and bigotry in general. I am not vegetarian but otherwise I am extremely socially liberal. But I am also what I would consider to be right of centre. Certainly economically and also with regard to being anti-statist. I have never voted left of centre in my life. It is perfectly possible to be socially liberal and economically right of centre. There are a fair few on here who fall into that category.
Politico.eu - Another German conservative MP quits as scandals mount Resignation adds to woes for Merkel’s camp ahead of regional elections.
A member of the German parliament from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) resigned on Thursday amid allegations about payments from Azerbaijan.
The MP, Mark Hauptmann, told newspaper Die Welt that he did nothing wrong but decided to step down to protect his fiancée and children from public harassment.
Hauptmann’s resignation follows scandals surrounding two other German conservative MPs, accused of taking payments to help broker face mask procurement deals. They both quit the conservative group in the Bundestag in response to the allegations.
The resignations come at a politically delicate time for the CDU — just ahead of two important regional elections on Sunday, which are expected to influence the race to succeed Merkel in a general election in September.
CBC.com - Corey Hurren sentenced to 6 years in prison for breaching Rideau Hall gates while armed
A judge has sentenced Corey Hurren — who stormed the gates of Rideau Hall last summer with loaded firearms and multiple rounds of ammunition — to six years in prison, minus a year served.
Justice Robert Wadden delivered his decision this afternoon.
"This was an armed aggression against the government which must be denounced in the strongest terms," he told the court over a Zoom link.
"Corey Hurren committed a politically motivated, armed assault intended to intimidate Canada's elected government."
Hurren, a 46-year-old Canadian Armed Forces reservist, pleaded guilty earlier this month to seven weapons-related charges, including possessing guns for "a purpose dangerous to the public peace."
He also pleaded guilty to one charge of mischief for wilfully causing $100,000 worth of damage to the Rideau Hall gate on July 2.
Comments
Is there any other case in history where a nation's defeat in a single battle led to a takeover and total domination by a foreign ruling elite that lasted hundreds of years, and arguably continues to this day, 954 years later?
At Tameside Magistrates' Court he faced jail after admitting sexual assault but was sent on a sex offender rehabilitation programme after pleading he was a ''the sole earner'' in his family.
His lawyer said the attack was ''quite opportunistic.''
I mean that's the sort of stuff people come out with to escape a driving ban after totting up 12 points, not a sexual assault on a night out. Unbelievable sentencing from the magistrate.
It's just an early bit of counterfactual historical theorizing, but a Europe and a world without classical Greece and Rome would be utterly different from the one that has evolved from them.
Baptists and Quakers too. Although they are devolved enough to be advisory only.
As for Camilla, she must be thinking, what the hell did MY numbers take a dive? Just for jollies?
However, given you say she cannot compel them to spin, should any now come out and say such things you are presumably implicitly accepting they would be telling the truth, and willingly so.
So if they do do so, presumably you would not find anything to criticise in their accounts.
Yes, we're not the people we would have been had the Norman Conquest not happened. So what? It doesn't at all mean we've been dominated just that we ARE the assimilation of invaders and indigenous.
It's like Danny Dyer being related to Edward III. Very interesting they traced it, but the correct response is actually "you and 50 million others, mate".
But with Corbyn and Leanord gone, I can see them getting 7+ seats and building from there
I do kind of agree that there's a risk that the political point takes priority over the fundamental question "but is it funny?" There are satires which don't fall into that, but quite a lot that do.
But that isn't only true of left wing comedy. A lot of right wing comedy is like that, but with the added disadvantage of tending to punch down (attacking Rees-Mogg for being posh suffers for not being interesting or funny... for attacking recent immigrants it's both those things plus nastier).
Just need that free NHS money we were promised Tom and we're over half of the way there, do you think it will come soon Tom?
But I wouldn't be around to enjoy it. We're all Normans, just as we're all Saxons, Angles and Vikings.
So it's not a counterfactual I can wish for too strongly.
In defence of Nish Kumar, I would hope he does not think a simple statement that Boris is a liar and racist is biting or funny satire, however true many people think it is. Not that subtlety is necessary, but there's nothing clever or amusing in it, and a simple statement of fact (as he sees it) doesn't seem particularly comedic or satirical either. I'd assume he's just angry at recent events and probably saying it, sincerely, in part because it'll troll the people cheering his recent bad news.
I won’t be mourning the loss of Mash Report, it was crap, much like large amounts of unfunny comedy from everywhere else on the spectrum.
H/T (the reliably funny) Bob Monkhouse: “They used to laugh when I said I was going to be a stand-up comedian. They’re not laughing now.”
I don't know if he counts as left wing in a UK context, but probably does, but I always enjoyed the Colbert report, because even though it was just a single gimmick, simply by virtue of pretending to hold contrary opinions it felt more cutting when he sought to demolish some Republican point.
Launching Michael Spicer was another of the Mash Report credits. Comedy sketch shows have always been patchy. There was plenty of stuff that fell flat in NTNON and Monty Python too.
Still, it makes space for more repeats of Dad's Army and It Ain't Half Hot Mum I suppose. 🙄
I understand the genetic logic that most of us are almost certainly descended, in some form, from Charlemagne and Genghis Khan and the rest. But being actively able to follow it back through documents (and these days, via online genealogies) is weirdly exhilarating
Ricky Gervais, Jimmy Carr and Sacha Baron Cohen are, I would humbly suggest, three rightwing comedians busily plying their trade in the political equivalent of drag.
That's why French and Belgian teams struggle to win Grand Tours but do well in the classics and monuments. Doping has a much bigger effect on long stage races.
***
Gervais is a staunch supporter of gay rights and has praised the introduction of same-sex marriage in England and Wales as "a victory for all of us" and stated "anything that promotes equality, promotes progress". He added, "You can't take equality 'too far'."[146]
He is a vegetarian,[147] an atheist[148] and a humanist,[149] and states that he abandoned religion at the age of eight. In December 2010, he wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal defending his atheism.[150] He is an honorary associate of the UK's National Secular Society,[151] and a patron of Humanists UK, a British charity which promotes the humanist worldview and campaigns for a secular state and on human rights issues.[149]
Quite possibly obnoxious and a genuine racist, as well - I have no idea.
While we are on this theme I recently watched Tommy Cooper on Parkinson. It is brilliant. And it is all in the timing. By many accounts he was an unpleasant man, indeed quite cruel. But, fuck, he could make you laugh
https://twitter.com/asfarasdelgados/status/1370527321980076032?s=21
18 months back I saw Shane Ritchie star in a revival of The Entertainer, reset in the early Eighties, playing an old school comic with sexist, homophobic, even mother in law jokes. To get the character of Archie Rice right, he had to be both dislikeable and funny. The jokes got a laugh from the audience, albeit uncomfortable ones. This is him being interviewed about it:
https://m.facebook.com/CURVEtheatreLeicester/videos/948882082117774/
That is also a problem for modern satirists. The modern world of Trump and Johnson is beyond satire too, it is just too absurd already.
Nightly chatted with Albany-based New York Playbook writer Anna Gronewold over Slack about what happens next.
What stood out to you about Cuomo’s press conference today?
I was struck, but not entirely surprised, by how energetic he sounded after weeks of devastating news coverage, especially damning new reports in The New York Times and New York Magazine about a culture of fear, harassment and intimidation in his office.
Cuomo came out ready to fight, even throwing slight shade at more than a dozen New York Democrats in Congress who announced in tandem this morning that they wanted him to resign.
I didn’t expect him to resign today — I think the poetry of resigning the same day Eliot Spitzer did in 2008 would be almost too much for anyone to bear.
But his commitment to waiting until the results of at least two investigations comes out, and the matter-of-fact manner that he stated Covid-19 stats at the beginning of the press conference were a pretty clear stance that he’s not going to let anyone, even broad coalitions of his former political allies, take him out without a fight.
Do you think there’s anything that would lead him to resign?
So far I’ve been wrong whenever I’ve answered that question, so please don’t put any of your hard-earned money on my answer. But I think if Cuomo decides to step down of his own accord, it would be because he saw definitive numbers that he had lost the majority of voters. Despite the intense coverage, a lot of this is swirling around Twitter, journalists and the political sphere. We'll get new polling soon (and I assume that the Cuomo admin has its own internal numbers) that would show how many average New Yorkers want him to resign. Last numbers we had on that, 55 percent said he should stay in office (March 4).
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly/2021/03/12/new-york-dems-to-cuomo-drop-dead-492082
But then why cast me, Gervais or anyone else as left or rightwing at all? The only time I have heard Gervais say who he voted for was in 2017, when he voted for Corbyn. Does that make him leftwing? Dunno. But he doesn’t strike me as rightwing, which was Leon’s original contention.
We will "spring forward" to coin a phrase.
We just won't make (any more of) a fuss about it!
And you've already made a fuss about it!
Funniest of all, Mark Twain really WAS a Republican.
Sir, have you no shame?
Resignation adds to woes for Merkel’s camp ahead of regional elections.
A member of the German parliament from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) resigned on Thursday amid allegations about payments from Azerbaijan.
The MP, Mark Hauptmann, told newspaper Die Welt that he did nothing wrong but decided to step down to protect his fiancée and children from public harassment.
Hauptmann’s resignation follows scandals surrounding two other German conservative MPs, accused of taking payments to help broker face mask procurement deals. They both quit the conservative group in the Bundestag in response to the allegations.
The resignations come at a politically delicate time for the CDU — just ahead of two important regional elections on Sunday, which are expected to influence the race to succeed Merkel in a general election in September.
https://www.politico.eu/article/another-german-conservative-cdu-mp-quits-scandals-mount/
CBC.com - Corey Hurren sentenced to 6 years in prison for breaching Rideau Hall gates while armed
A judge has sentenced Corey Hurren — who stormed the gates of Rideau Hall last summer with loaded firearms and multiple rounds of ammunition — to six years in prison, minus a year served.
Justice Robert Wadden delivered his decision this afternoon.
"This was an armed aggression against the government which must be denounced in the strongest terms," he told the court over a Zoom link.
"Corey Hurren committed a politically motivated, armed assault intended to intimidate Canada's elected government."
Hurren, a 46-year-old Canadian Armed Forces reservist, pleaded guilty earlier this month to seven weapons-related charges, including possessing guns for "a purpose dangerous to the public peace."
He also pleaded guilty to one charge of mischief for wilfully causing $100,000 worth of damage to the Rideau Hall gate on July 2.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/corey-hurren-rideau-hall-sentencing-decision-1.5943612