Had my jab Thursday afternoon, passed out in the middle of the night 12 hours later - lucky I didnt hit my head on the way down as I was on my way to the medicine cupboard in the kitchen to get paracetamol. In bed all day Friday, went for a short bike ride Sat and was absolutely knackered, laid on the sofa all day yesterday, and today. In bed w no vino by 10pm, unheard of. Had to get the parents round to look after the toddler.
Just did some keepy uppies in the back garden and was out of breath as if I’d run 5k. Apparently this reaction is good because it means my immune system is functioning, but if that’s the case, wasn’t I unlikely to catch it anyway? Beginning to wish I hadn’t bothered
Might I tentatively wonder whether you have brought this upon yourself a teensy bit?? Sorry for asking.
How’d you mean?
Well you were clearly completely worked-up about the prospect of getting the jab. Verging on the irrational maybe? Just asking.
FPT, I just noticed @Kinablu's well argued post saying why the Right won't win the culture wars. Two things that just wanted to highlight:
1. It's interesting that Kinablu's view is they see a victory for the Right in the culture wars as meaning we get such delights as mandatory statues to slave traders and so on. I can't speak for all but I would see a "victory" as meaning that all are equal and treated equally, and that we are viewed as individuals with our thoughts and ideas, and not that we are pigeon-holed into blocks that are supposed to think the same way, talk the same way etc based on our skin colour, secuality etc.
2. The idea that the advance of "progressive" ideas is always inevitable is also wrong. The best example of that is the promotion of Adult-Child relationships in the 1970s by the likes of PIE and their supporters. For the 1970s, "wokesters", it was the equivalent of the gender identity arguments of today. Needless to say, the former argument doesn't look so great 40+ years on.
I would say that most progressive people would sign up wholeheartedly to your number 1 (maybe not all, but then progressives like conservatives are not a monolith). It's a bit like the Black Lives Matter versus All Lives Matter debate. Progressives say that Black Lives Matter because they think that all lives matter and they want to highlight the injustices that mean that right now some lives matter more than others. They interpret people saying All Lives Matter as an effort to downplay those injustices. Some people who say All Lives Matter may not be doing that, but some certainly are. On 2 I would agree. You only need to compare Weimar and Nazi Germany to see that history is not monotonic. Hopefully progressive ideals will win in the end but only if we fight for them.
Progressive ‘ideals’ really aren’t *winning*. I wish they were in many respects
The West has stopped advancing, for many reasons, just one is the influence of Muslim immigrants on our culture, which is now palpable. Wokeness and Critical Race Theory are not ‘progressive’, their sinister, relentless focus on skin pigmentation, which apparently trumps all else, would delight any Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The progress in sexual freedom is arguably in reverse, as a new Puritanism takes over, meanwhile those who once fought for women’s rights now fight bitterly about a miniature issue, trans rights, in way that speaks firmly of Decadence and Decline
Meanwhile across the world the rising power, and civilisation, is China, anti-democratic, patriarchal, tinged with racial supremacism. It supersedes the West, our values are eclipsed
This is Radio Jeremiad, broadcasting lamentations from my half painted bedroom.
I am trying to think of a Muslim immigrant who exercises a significant cultural influence, positive or negative, and I can't think of one. Boris Johnson was born abroad and has a partly Muslim heritage, I think he's the closest I can come up with. Who do you have in mind? What colour are you painting your room?
As I say below, see our de facto blasphemy law. You cannot mock Islam. Where did that come from?
Anything else? (I have no particular yearning to mock Islam so I don't feel the loss of this particular freedom too keenly, although I share your view that in general people should be able to take a bit of gentle ribbing). The important question is what colour are you painting your room?
So you were wrong. Islam HAS had a big influence. The reintroduction of blasphemy laws, de facto, with a possible death penalty at the end, is no small thing. Yet you just laugh it off. Spineless lefty numbskulls like you are the reason the Enlightenment is in reverse
Bedroom paint: Hague Blue. Bit of a cliche but it really does make wooden furniture, floors, picture frames, look great. I am now tempted to paint all the white emulsion (doors, windows, wardrobe) a rich and scandalous red
"Boris’s great “strength” - as that article points out - is optimism and providing voters with a sense of agency. He conveys a sense of impatience with “process” and a comic subversion of “order” which is construed by voters as a sense of action and an identification with the “people” versus the brahmins."
I think iSam analogy with Del Boy is very fitting. We know he lies, he cheats, he is looking out for number one, but people love him even when they get screwed, he is a bit cheeky, a bit naughty, will make you laugh at his missteps, and no matter what happens, next year will we will be milllionaiiiiiresss bruv.
Yes, the "lovable rogue" syndrome is very apt for Boris; although we never saw Del Boy trying to exercise his power much outside Peckham, did we? Or indeed Nelson Mandela House, an amusingly 'woke' name from some 40 years ago, if I recall correctly. 'Wokeness' isn't that new, is it? He also brings to my mind Falstaff.
Whether we want to be governed by a lovable rogue is, I guess, a matter of taste, but it's clearly an aphrodisiac for many.
It's one of the ways we talk at cross purposes. A government can be objectively bad at governing but highly popular.
There's no question that something like Del Boy's appeal is part of the charm of the current government.
But would you really put the future prosperity of those you love in Del Boy's hands?
Really?
I wouldn't, but the choice at the last election was between Del Boy and Trigger.
FPT, I just noticed @Kinablu's well argued post saying why the Right won't win the culture wars. Two things that just wanted to highlight:
1. It's interesting that Kinablu's view is they see a victory for the Right in the culture wars as meaning we get such delights as mandatory statues to slave traders and so on. I can't speak for all but I would see a "victory" as meaning that all are equal and treated equally, and that we are viewed as individuals with our thoughts and ideas, and not that we are pigeon-holed into blocks that are supposed to think the same way, talk the same way etc based on our skin colour, secuality etc.
2. The idea that the advance of "progressive" ideas is always inevitable is also wrong. The best example of that is the promotion of Adult-Child relationships in the 1970s by the likes of PIE and their supporters. For the 1970s, "wokesters", it was the equivalent of the gender identity arguments of today. Needless to say, the former argument doesn't look so great 40+ years on.
I would say that most progressive people would sign up wholeheartedly to your number 1 (maybe not all, but then progressives like conservatives are not a monolith). It's a bit like the Black Lives Matter versus All Lives Matter debate. Progressives say that Black Lives Matter because they think that all lives matter and they want to highlight the injustices that mean that right now some lives matter more than others. They interpret people saying All Lives Matter as an effort to downplay those injustices. Some people who say All Lives Matter may not be doing that, but some certainly are. On 2 I would agree. You only need to compare Weimar and Nazi Germany to see that history is not monotonic. Hopefully progressive ideals will win in the end but only if we fight for them.
Progressive ‘ideals’ really aren’t *winning*. I wish they were in many respects
The West has stopped advancing, for many reasons, just one is the influence of Muslim immigrants on our culture, which is now palpable. Wokeness and Critical Race Theory are not ‘progressive’, their sinister, relentless focus on skin pigmentation, which apparently trumps all else, would delight any Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The progress in sexual freedom is arguably in reverse, as a new Puritanism takes over, meanwhile those who once fought for women’s rights now fight bitterly about a miniature issue, trans rights, in way that speaks firmly of Decadence and Decline
Meanwhile across the world the rising power, and civilisation, is China, anti-democratic, patriarchal, tinged with racial supremacism. It supersedes the West, our values are eclipsed
This is Radio Jeremiad, broadcasting lamentations from my half painted bedroom.
I am trying to think of a Muslim immigrant who exercises a significant cultural influence, positive or negative, and I can't think of one. Boris Johnson was born abroad and has a partly Muslim heritage, I think he's the closest I can come up with. Who do you have in mind? What colour are you painting your room?
As I say below, see our de facto blasphemy law. You cannot mock Islam. Where did that come from?
Anything else? (I have no particular yearning to mock Islam so I don't feel the loss of this particular freedom too keenly, although I share your view that in general people should be able to take a bit of gentle ribbing). The important question is what colour are you painting your room?
So you were wrong. Islam HAS had a big influence. The reintroduction of blasphemy laws, de facto, with a possible death penalty at the end, is no small thing. Yet you just laugh it off. Spineless lefty numbskulls like you are the reason the Enlightenment is in reverse
Bedroom paint: Hague Blue. Bit of a cliche but it really does make wooden furniture, floors, picture frames, look great. I am now tempted to paint all the white emulsion (doors, windows, wardrobe) a rich and scandalous red
Unless you have just converted a five-storey Bloomsbury house, complete with period fittings and furniture, into a happening and now members' club you have no business going anywhere near Hague Blue.
"Boris’s great “strength” - as that article points out - is optimism and providing voters with a sense of agency. He conveys a sense of impatience with “process” and a comic subversion of “order” which is construed by voters as a sense of action and an identification with the “people” versus the brahmins."
I think iSam analogy with Del Boy is very fitting. We know he lies, he cheats, he is looking out for number one, but people love him even when they get screwed, he is a bit cheeky, a bit naughty, will make you laugh at his missteps, and no matter what happens, next year will we will be milllionaiiiiiresss bruv.
Yes, the "lovable rogue" syndrome is very apt for Boris; although we never saw Del Boy trying to exercise his power much outside Peckham, did we? Or indeed Nelson Mandela House, an amusingly 'woke' name from some 40 years ago, if I recall correctly. 'Wokeness' isn't that new, is it? He also brings to my mind Falstaff.
Whether we want to be governed by a lovable rogue is, I guess, a matter of taste, but it's clearly an aphrodisiac for many.
It's one of the ways we talk at cross purposes. A government can be objectively bad at governing but highly popular.
There's no question that something like Del Boy's appeal is part of the charm of the current government.
But would you really put the future prosperity of those you love in Del Boy's hands?
Really?
I wouldn't, but the choice at the last election was between Del Boy and Trigger.
"Boris’s great “strength” - as that article points out - is optimism and providing voters with a sense of agency. He conveys a sense of impatience with “process” and a comic subversion of “order” which is construed by voters as a sense of action and an identification with the “people” versus the brahmins."
I think iSam analogy with Del Boy is very fitting. We know he lies, he cheats, he is looking out for number one, but people love him even when they get screwed, he is a bit cheeky, a bit naughty, will make you laugh at his missteps, and no matter what happens, next year will we will be milllionaiiiiiresss bruv.
Yes, the "lovable rogue" syndrome is very apt for Boris; although we never saw Del Boy trying to exercise his power much outside Peckham, did we? Or indeed Nelson Mandela House, an amusingly 'woke' name from some 40 years ago, if I recall correctly. 'Wokeness' isn't that new, is it? He also brings to my mind Falstaff.
Whether we want to be governed by a lovable rogue is, I guess, a matter of taste, but it's clearly an aphrodisiac for many.
It's one of the ways we talk at cross purposes. A government can be objectively bad at governing but highly popular.
There's no question that something like Del Boy's appeal is part of the charm of the current government.
But would you really put the future prosperity of those you love in Del Boy's hands?
Really?
I wouldn't, but the choice at the last election was between Del Boy and Trigger.
An angry, rancid Trigger.
Also, from memory, Del Boy’s heart was in the right place, whereas all the evidence we have about Boris is that he is quite content to use and then abandon even his own family.
FPT, I just noticed @Kinablu's well argued post saying why the Right won't win the culture wars. Two things that just wanted to highlight:
1. It's interesting that Kinablu's view is they see a victory for the Right in the culture wars as meaning we get such delights as mandatory statues to slave traders and so on. I can't speak for all but I would see a "victory" as meaning that all are equal and treated equally, and that we are viewed as individuals with our thoughts and ideas, and not that we are pigeon-holed into blocks that are supposed to think the same way, talk the same way etc based on our skin colour, secuality etc.
2. The idea that the advance of "progressive" ideas is always inevitable is also wrong. The best example of that is the promotion of Adult-Child relationships in the 1970s by the likes of PIE and their supporters. For the 1970s, "wokesters", it was the equivalent of the gender identity arguments of today. Needless to say, the former argument doesn't look so great 40+ years on.
Hello there Ed. Thanks for "well argued". Not sure it was really. Rather an impressionistic take. I view things more like a teenage girl does than the typical spocky middle-aged men who make the weather on this site. But there's nobody sharper in this world than a teenage girl, right? So it's adding value.
We are indeed all individuals with our own thoughts and ideas. And people certainly should not be stereotyped based on assumed group level characteristics. Nobody would disagree with this. So given you've put it out there I know for a fact you mean something more interesting, ie something which can be disagreed with. If you tell me what it is, I'll be able to do the disagreement.
The PIE point is the standard riposte to the "Today's Transphobes = Yesterday's Homophobes" argument, isn't it? But it doesn't rebut the argument, it reinforces it. Because inherent in there is the exact view - this yucky unnatural thing is a menace akin to and linked to pedophilia - that informed the suppression of gay people for so long (and still does in places).
I agree with you that ideas about how society should develop don't become certain to prevail merely by being badged "progressive". They have to enthuse enough people - and be accepted or tolerated by many many more - for this to happen. Which is what IS happening on this stuff we're talking about. It's clear that it is. Why else, despite all the Trumps and the Brexits and the Tory landslides, are people on the reactionary right so mad about how things are going?
But in our current politics the most vicious arguments are not between 'teenage girls' and `middle aged men`; they are between the 'progressives' and the 'other progressives'. Though, yes, there are also bits around statutes and no-platforming,
In the Marion Miller case I raised yesterday, feminists (maybe even radical feminists) are being characterised as 'far right', whilst Transgenderist Campaigners are being characterised as basically 'intolerant SNP cnuts' *, as the issue is tied up with the SNP sponsorship of the transgender issue, and more aggressive use of 'hate speech' laws in Scotland.
And now Miller is left charged, to appear in Court in 8 weeks time, and the police have not yet told her which allegedly offensive tweets she has been charged over.
There's something here about police being too ready to intervene, things such as 'causing offence' being too prominent in our laws, and therefore complaining - rather than winning a debate - being incentivised. How do we dis-incentivise involvement of the authorities to close opponents down?
And how do we make move the barriers around our public square a long way back, to increase the debate space?
(*) - Not trying to make this into a Scottish/English issue - but that is a main tenor of debate.
Seven months before taking over the EU’s rotating Council presidency, the French government is mulling plans to revive the declining use and visibility of la langue de Molière.
The French government is earmarking money to offer more French classes to EU civil servants. Officials are contemplating hosting French-language debates featuring the country’s crème de la crème.
And then there are the meetings.
During the country’s presidency, French diplomats said all key meetings of the Council of the EU will be conducted in French (with translations available). Notes and minutes will be French-first. Even preparatory meetings will be conducted in French.
English became the first language of the EU out of convenience for the majority. I am not sure that forcing people against their will to use French is going to have the benefits that they think.
I understand from my friends at the Commission that the shift from French to English only started in 2003 and took until 2008 at least to be in a position where fluent French was not a de facto requirement for much of the senior secretariat
This French initiative will likely backfire. The preservation of French as an official language of the EU already irritates the Italians and the Spanish, who think their languages have just as much right to be “official”. The Italians because they are the cradle of European culture - Latin etc - the Spanish because their language is much bigger in global speakers than French
Had my jab Thursday afternoon, passed out in the middle of the night 12 hours later - lucky I didnt hit my head on the way down as I was on my way to the medicine cupboard in the kitchen to get paracetamol. In bed all day Friday, went for a short bike ride Sat and was absolutely knackered, laid on the sofa all day yesterday, and today. In bed w no vino by 10pm, unheard of. Had to get the parents round to look after the toddler.
Just did some keepy uppies in the back garden and was out of breath as if I’d run 5k. Apparently this reaction is good because it means my immune system is functioning, but if that’s the case, wasn’t I unlikely to catch it anyway? Beginning to wish I hadn’t bothered
Might I tentatively wonder whether you have brought this upon yourself a teensy bit?? Sorry for asking.
How’d you mean?
Well you were clearly completely worked-up about the prospect of getting the jab. Verging on the irrational maybe? Just asking.
Yeah I wasn’t convinced about having it, but surely that doesn’t give you what seems to be the flu? If I’d believed in it more I’d feel better?! This isn’t Brexit!
FPT, I just noticed @Kinablu's well argued post saying why the Right won't win the culture wars. Two things that just wanted to highlight:
1. It's interesting that Kinablu's view is they see a victory for the Right in the culture wars as meaning we get such delights as mandatory statues to slave traders and so on. I can't speak for all but I would see a "victory" as meaning that all are equal and treated equally, and that we are viewed as individuals with our thoughts and ideas, and not that we are pigeon-holed into blocks that are supposed to think the same way, talk the same way etc based on our skin colour, secuality etc.
2. The idea that the advance of "progressive" ideas is always inevitable is also wrong. The best example of that is the promotion of Adult-Child relationships in the 1970s by the likes of PIE and their supporters. For the 1970s, "wokesters", it was the equivalent of the gender identity arguments of today. Needless to say, the former argument doesn't look so great 40+ years on.
I would say that most progressive people would sign up wholeheartedly to your number 1 (maybe not all, but then progressives like conservatives are not a monolith). It's a bit like the Black Lives Matter versus All Lives Matter debate. Progressives say that Black Lives Matter because they think that all lives matter and they want to highlight the injustices that mean that right now some lives matter more than others. They interpret people saying All Lives Matter as an effort to downplay those injustices. Some people who say All Lives Matter may not be doing that, but some certainly are. On 2 I would agree. You only need to compare Weimar and Nazi Germany to see that history is not monotonic. Hopefully progressive ideals will win in the end but only if we fight for them.
Progressive ‘ideals’ really aren’t *winning*. I wish they were in many respects
The West has stopped advancing, for many reasons, just one is the influence of Muslim immigrants on our culture, which is now palpable. Wokeness and Critical Race Theory are not ‘progressive’, their sinister, relentless focus on skin pigmentation, which apparently trumps all else, would delight any Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The progress in sexual freedom is arguably in reverse, as a new Puritanism takes over, meanwhile those who once fought for women’s rights now fight bitterly about a miniature issue, trans rights, in way that speaks firmly of Decadence and Decline
Meanwhile across the world the rising power, and civilisation, is China, anti-democratic, patriarchal, tinged with racial supremacism. It supersedes the West, our values are eclipsed
This is Radio Jeremiad, broadcasting lamentations from my half painted bedroom.
I am trying to think of a Muslim immigrant who exercises a significant cultural influence, positive or negative, and I can't think of one. Boris Johnson was born abroad and has a partly Muslim heritage, I think he's the closest I can come up with. Who do you have in mind? What colour are you painting your room?
As I say below, see our de facto blasphemy law. You cannot mock Islam. Where did that come from?
Anything else? (I have no particular yearning to mock Islam so I don't feel the loss of this particular freedom too keenly, although I share your view that in general people should be able to take a bit of gentle ribbing). The important question is what colour are you painting your room?
So you were wrong. Islam HAS had a big influence. The reintroduction of blasphemy laws, de facto, with a possible death penalty at the end, is no small thing. Yet you just laugh it off. Spineless lefty numbskulls like you are the reason the Enlightenment is in reverse
Bedroom paint: Hague Blue. Bit of a cliche but it really does make wooden furniture, floors, picture frames, look great. I am now tempted to paint all the white emulsion (doors, windows, wardrobe) a rich and scandalous red
Unless you have just converted a five-storey Bloomsbury house, complete with period fittings and furniture, into a happening and now members' club you have no business going anywhere near Hague Blue.
It is time to admit, sheepishly, that my own bedroom is Hague Blue.
However I live in an early Victorian semi, so it’s probably de rigueur in my part of the world.
FPT, I just noticed @Kinablu's well argued post saying why the Right won't win the culture wars. Two things that just wanted to highlight:
1. It's interesting that Kinablu's view is they see a victory for the Right in the culture wars as meaning we get such delights as mandatory statues to slave traders and so on. I can't speak for all but I would see a "victory" as meaning that all are equal and treated equally, and that we are viewed as individuals with our thoughts and ideas, and not that we are pigeon-holed into blocks that are supposed to think the same way, talk the same way etc based on our skin colour, secuality etc.
2. The idea that the advance of "progressive" ideas is always inevitable is also wrong. The best example of that is the promotion of Adult-Child relationships in the 1970s by the likes of PIE and their supporters. For the 1970s, "wokesters", it was the equivalent of the gender identity arguments of today. Needless to say, the former argument doesn't look so great 40+ years on.
I would say that most progressive people would sign up wholeheartedly to your number 1 (maybe not all, but then progressives like conservatives are not a monolith). It's a bit like the Black Lives Matter versus All Lives Matter debate. Progressives say that Black Lives Matter because they think that all lives matter and they want to highlight the injustices that mean that right now some lives matter more than others. They interpret people saying All Lives Matter as an effort to downplay those injustices. Some people who say All Lives Matter may not be doing that, but some certainly are. On 2 I would agree. You only need to compare Weimar and Nazi Germany to see that history is not monotonic. Hopefully progressive ideals will win in the end but only if we fight for them.
Progressive ‘ideals’ really aren’t *winning*. I wish they were in many respects
The West has stopped advancing, for many reasons, just one is the influence of Muslim immigrants on our culture, which is now palpable. Wokeness and Critical Race Theory are not ‘progressive’, their sinister, relentless focus on skin pigmentation, which apparently trumps all else, would delight any Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The progress in sexual freedom is arguably in reverse, as a new Puritanism takes over, meanwhile those who once fought for women’s rights now fight bitterly about a miniature issue, trans rights, in way that speaks firmly of Decadence and Decline
Meanwhile across the world the rising power, and civilisation, is China, anti-democratic, patriarchal, tinged with racial supremacism. It supersedes the West, our values are eclipsed
This is Radio Jeremiad, broadcasting lamentations from my half painted bedroom.
On bad days I feel similarly, but I don’t blame Muslim influence - indeed, I don’t feel any sense of that whatsoever. Nor do I see any reverses in sexual freedom.
No, my issue is an erosion of civil liberties, a reduction in freedom of speech (whether from woke or other reasons), and an undermining of our democratic systems by money.
If we are not prepared to defend our liberties we will lose them, and at the end of the day it’s those liberties and democratic values which distinguish us from China.
Although I'm a capitalist, there is truth in Kruschev's dictum that a capitalist will sell you the rope with which to hang them. A lot of people will abase themselves to China in return for cheap stuff.
FPT, I just noticed @Kinablu's well argued post saying why the Right won't win the culture wars. Two things that just wanted to highlight:
1. It's interesting that Kinablu's view is they see a victory for the Right in the culture wars as meaning we get such delights as mandatory statues to slave traders and so on. I can't speak for all but I would see a "victory" as meaning that all are equal and treated equally, and that we are viewed as individuals with our thoughts and ideas, and not that we are pigeon-holed into blocks that are supposed to think the same way, talk the same way etc based on our skin colour, secuality etc.
2. The idea that the advance of "progressive" ideas is always inevitable is also wrong. The best example of that is the promotion of Adult-Child relationships in the 1970s by the likes of PIE and their supporters. For the 1970s, "wokesters", it was the equivalent of the gender identity arguments of today. Needless to say, the former argument doesn't look so great 40+ years on.
Hello there Ed. Thanks for "well argued". Not sure it was really. Rather an impressionistic take. I view things more like a teenage girl does than the typical spocky middle-aged men who make the weather on this site. But there's nobody sharper in this world than a teenage girl, right? So it's adding value.
We are indeed all individuals with our own thoughts and ideas. And people certainly should not be stereotyped based on assumed group level characteristics. Nobody would disagree with this. So given you've put it out there I know for a fact you mean something more interesting, ie something which can be disagreed with. If you tell me what it is, I'll be able to do the disagreement.
The PIE point is the standard riposte to the "Today's Transphobes = Yesterday's Homophobes" argument, isn't it? But it doesn't rebut the argument, it reinforces it. Because inherent in there is the exact view - this yucky unnatural thing is a menace akin to and linked to pedophilia - that informed the suppression of gay people for so long (and still does in places).
I agree with you that ideas about how society should develop don't become certain to prevail merely by being badged "progressive". They have to enthuse enough people - and be accepted or tolerated by many many more - for this to happen. Which is what IS happening on this stuff we're talking about. It's clear that it is. Why else, despite all the Trumps and the Brexits and the Tory landslides, are people on the reactionary right so mad about how things are going?
But in our current politics the most vicious arguments are not between 'teenage girls' and `middle aged men`; they are between the 'progressives' and the 'other progressives'. Though, yes, there are also bits around statutes and no-platforming,
In the Marion Miller case I raised yesterday, feminists (maybe even radical feminists) are being characterised as 'far right', whilst Transgenderist Campaigners are being characterised as basically 'intolerant SNP cnuts' *, as the issue is tied up with the SNP sponsorship of the transgender issue, and more aggressive use of 'hate speech' laws in Scotland.
And now Miller is left charged, to appear in Court in 8 weeks time, and the police have not yet told her which allegedly offensive tweets she has been charged over.
There's something here about police being too ready to intervene, things such as 'causing offence' being too prominent in our laws, and therefore complaining - rather than winning a debate - being incentivised. How do we dis-incentivise involvement of the authorities to close opponents down?
And how do we make move the barriers around our public square a long way back, to increase the debate space?
(*) - Not trying to make this into a Scottish/English issue - but that is a main tenor of debate.
Like gaslighting I think most people run a country mile from trying to understand anything around transgenderism (-ability?).
The debate has many elements, it seems, and also manages to s&&t on anyone who enters it.
I think at one point @kinabalu had an excellent summary of the issues but I can't find it without a "PB Trawl".
"Boris’s great “strength” - as that article points out - is optimism and providing voters with a sense of agency. He conveys a sense of impatience with “process” and a comic subversion of “order” which is construed by voters as a sense of action and an identification with the “people” versus the brahmins."
I think iSam analogy with Del Boy is very fitting. We know he lies, he cheats, he is looking out for number one, but people love him even when they get screwed, he is a bit cheeky, a bit naughty, will make you laugh at his missteps, and no matter what happens, next year will we will be milllionaiiiiiresss bruv.
Yes, the "lovable rogue" syndrome is very apt for Boris; although we never saw Del Boy trying to exercise his power much outside Peckham, did we? Or indeed Nelson Mandela House, an amusingly 'woke' name from some 40 years ago, if I recall correctly. 'Wokeness' isn't that new, is it? He also brings to my mind Falstaff.
Whether we want to be governed by a lovable rogue is, I guess, a matter of taste, but it's clearly an aphrodisiac for many.
It's one of the ways we talk at cross purposes. A government can be objectively bad at governing but highly popular.
There's no question that something like Del Boy's appeal is part of the charm of the current government.
But would you really put the future prosperity of those you love in Del Boy's hands?
Really?
I wouldn't, but the choice at the last election was between Del Boy and Trigger.
An angry, rancid Trigger.
Also, from memory, Del Boy’s heart was in the right place, whereas all the evidence we have about Boris is that he is quite content to use and then abandon even his own family.
So was Del Boy! He got away with it because he was charming
Had my jab Thursday afternoon, passed out in the middle of the night 12 hours later - lucky I didnt hit my head on the way down as I was on my way to the medicine cupboard in the kitchen to get paracetamol. In bed all day Friday, went for a short bike ride Sat and was absolutely knackered, laid on the sofa all day yesterday, and today. In bed w no vino by 10pm, unheard of. Had to get the parents round to look after the toddler.
Just did some keepy uppies in the back garden and was out of breath as if I’d run 5k. Apparently this reaction is good because it means my immune system is functioning, but if that’s the case, wasn’t I unlikely to catch it anyway? Beginning to wish I hadn’t bothered
Which one did you get
AZ
To be honest it seems like a bit of an extreme reaction. Hot, headache, bit of a funk seems the norm.
"Boris’s great “strength” - as that article points out - is optimism and providing voters with a sense of agency. He conveys a sense of impatience with “process” and a comic subversion of “order” which is construed by voters as a sense of action and an identification with the “people” versus the brahmins."
I think iSam analogy with Del Boy is very fitting. We know he lies, he cheats, he is looking out for number one, but people love him even when they get screwed, he is a bit cheeky, a bit naughty, will make you laugh at his missteps, and no matter what happens, next year will we will be milllionaiiiiiresss bruv.
Yes, the "lovable rogue" syndrome is very apt for Boris; although we never saw Del Boy trying to exercise his power much outside Peckham, did we? Or indeed Nelson Mandela House, an amusingly 'woke' name from some 40 years ago, if I recall correctly. 'Wokeness' isn't that new, is it? He also brings to my mind Falstaff.
Whether we want to be governed by a lovable rogue is, I guess, a matter of taste, but it's clearly an aphrodisiac for many.
It's one of the ways we talk at cross purposes. A government can be objectively bad at governing but highly popular.
There's no question that something like Del Boy's appeal is part of the charm of the current government.
But would you really put the future prosperity of those you love in Del Boy's hands?
Really?
I wouldn't, but the choice at the last election was between Del Boy and Trigger.
Except that, by 2019, it was a Trigger who had been fairly unambiguously revealed as a nasty piece of work. And replacing Nasty Trigger by... oh, I don't know, Jerry Leadbetter (dull but decent) hasn't changed the dynamics.
Hence the problem. As a nation, we quite possibly are giggling into the sea. And, as a nation, a sufficiency of us seem ok with that.
Had my jab Thursday afternoon, passed out in the middle of the night 12 hours later - lucky I didnt hit my head on the way down as I was on my way to the medicine cupboard in the kitchen to get paracetamol. In bed all day Friday, went for a short bike ride Sat and was absolutely knackered, laid on the sofa all day yesterday, and today. In bed w no vino by 10pm, unheard of. Had to get the parents round to look after the toddler.
Just did some keepy uppies in the back garden and was out of breath as if I’d run 5k. Apparently this reaction is good because it means my immune system is functioning, but if that’s the case, wasn’t I unlikely to catch it anyway? Beginning to wish I hadn’t bothered
That's definitely not how it works lol. It's actually probably because you've already had COVID, people who have previously had it tend to have worse side effects than people who haven't. Your booster shot will be relatively painless though. My first Pfizer dose gave me arm deadness for a week which was fine, but also extreme tiredness and shortness of breath for four and a bit days which was not fine. My wife had Moderna with no issues but she hasn't had COVID and I had it last year.
FPT, I just noticed @Kinablu's well argued post saying why the Right won't win the culture wars. Two things that just wanted to highlight:
1. It's interesting that Kinablu's view is they see a victory for the Right in the culture wars as meaning we get such delights as mandatory statues to slave traders and so on. I can't speak for all but I would see a "victory" as meaning that all are equal and treated equally, and that we are viewed as individuals with our thoughts and ideas, and not that we are pigeon-holed into blocks that are supposed to think the same way, talk the same way etc based on our skin colour, secuality etc.
2. The idea that the advance of "progressive" ideas is always inevitable is also wrong. The best example of that is the promotion of Adult-Child relationships in the 1970s by the likes of PIE and their supporters. For the 1970s, "wokesters", it was the equivalent of the gender identity arguments of today. Needless to say, the former argument doesn't look so great 40+ years on.
I would say that most progressive people would sign up wholeheartedly to your number 1 (maybe not all, but then progressives like conservatives are not a monolith). It's a bit like the Black Lives Matter versus All Lives Matter debate. Progressives say that Black Lives Matter because they think that all lives matter and they want to highlight the injustices that mean that right now some lives matter more than others. They interpret people saying All Lives Matter as an effort to downplay those injustices. Some people who say All Lives Matter may not be doing that, but some certainly are. On 2 I would agree. You only need to compare Weimar and Nazi Germany to see that history is not monotonic. Hopefully progressive ideals will win in the end but only if we fight for them.
Progressive ‘ideals’ really aren’t *winning*. I wish they were in many respects
The West has stopped advancing, for many reasons, just one is the influence of Muslim immigrants on our culture, which is now palpable. Wokeness and Critical Race Theory are not ‘progressive’, their sinister, relentless focus on skin pigmentation, which apparently trumps all else, would delight any Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The progress in sexual freedom is arguably in reverse, as a new Puritanism takes over, meanwhile those who once fought for women’s rights now fight bitterly about a miniature issue, trans rights, in way that speaks firmly of Decadence and Decline
Meanwhile across the world the rising power, and civilisation, is China, anti-democratic, patriarchal, tinged with racial supremacism. It supersedes the West, our values are eclipsed
This is Radio Jeremiad, broadcasting lamentations from my half painted bedroom.
I am trying to think of a Muslim immigrant who exercises a significant cultural influence, positive or negative, and I can't think of one. Boris Johnson was born abroad and has a partly Muslim heritage, I think he's the closest I can come up with. Who do you have in mind? What colour are you painting your room?
As I say below, see our de facto blasphemy law. You cannot mock Islam. Where did that come from?
Anything else? (I have no particular yearning to mock Islam so I don't feel the loss of this particular freedom too keenly, although I share your view that in general people should be able to take a bit of gentle ribbing). The important question is what colour are you painting your room?
So you were wrong. Islam HAS had a big influence. The reintroduction of blasphemy laws, de facto, with a possible death penalty at the end, is no small thing. Yet you just laugh it off. Spineless lefty numbskulls like you are the reason the Enlightenment is in reverse
Bedroom paint: Hague Blue. Bit of a cliche but it really does make wooden furniture, floors, picture frames, look great. I am now tempted to paint all the white emulsion (doors, windows, wardrobe) a rich and scandalous red
Unless you have just converted a five-storey Bloomsbury house, complete with period fittings and furniture, into a happening and now members' club you have no business going anywhere near Hague Blue.
It is time to admit, sheepishly, that my own bedroom is Hague Blue.
However I live in an early Victorian semi, so it’s probably de rigueur in my part of the world.
I'll let it go this time. As long as your front door isn't Manor House Grey.
"Boris’s great “strength” - as that article points out - is optimism and providing voters with a sense of agency. He conveys a sense of impatience with “process” and a comic subversion of “order” which is construed by voters as a sense of action and an identification with the “people” versus the brahmins."
I think iSam analogy with Del Boy is very fitting. We know he lies, he cheats, he is looking out for number one, but people love him even when they get screwed, he is a bit cheeky, a bit naughty, will make you laugh at his missteps, and no matter what happens, next year will we will be milllionaiiiiiresss bruv.
Yes, the "lovable rogue" syndrome is very apt for Boris; although we never saw Del Boy trying to exercise his power much outside Peckham, did we? Or indeed Nelson Mandela House, an amusingly 'woke' name from some 40 years ago, if I recall correctly. 'Wokeness' isn't that new, is it? He also brings to my mind Falstaff.
Whether we want to be governed by a lovable rogue is, I guess, a matter of taste, but it's clearly an aphrodisiac for many.
It's one of the ways we talk at cross purposes. A government can be objectively bad at governing but highly popular.
There's no question that something like Del Boy's appeal is part of the charm of the current government.
But would you really put the future prosperity of those you love in Del Boy's hands?
Really?
I wouldn't, but the choice at the last election was between Del Boy and Trigger.
Except that, by 2019, it was a Trigger who had been fairly unambiguously revealed as a nasty piece of work. And replacing Nasty Trigger by... oh, I don't know, Jerry Leadbetter (dull but decent) hasn't changed the dynamics.
Hence the problem. As a nation, we quite possibly are giggling into the sea. And, as a nation, a sufficiency of us seem ok with that.
“Giggling into the Sea” sounds like the title of a great, polemic review of the Boris era.
Had my jab Thursday afternoon, passed out in the middle of the night 12 hours later - lucky I didnt hit my head on the way down as I was on my way to the medicine cupboard in the kitchen to get paracetamol. In bed all day Friday, went for a short bike ride Sat and was absolutely knackered, laid on the sofa all day yesterday, and today. In bed w no vino by 10pm, unheard of. Had to get the parents round to look after the toddler.
Just did some keepy uppies in the back garden and was out of breath as if I’d run 5k. Apparently this reaction is good because it means my immune system is functioning, but if that’s the case, wasn’t I unlikely to catch it anyway? Beginning to wish I hadn’t bothered
Which one did you get
AZ
To be honest it seems like a bit of an extreme reaction. Hot, headache, bit of a funk seems the norm.
Just take it easy I suggest.
Those symptoms are pretty much it I guess. I just don’t get ill much, so this is a weird feeling
FPT, I just noticed @Kinablu's well argued post saying why the Right won't win the culture wars. Two things that just wanted to highlight:
1. It's interesting that Kinablu's view is they see a victory for the Right in the culture wars as meaning we get such delights as mandatory statues to slave traders and so on. I can't speak for all but I would see a "victory" as meaning that all are equal and treated equally, and that we are viewed as individuals with our thoughts and ideas, and not that we are pigeon-holed into blocks that are supposed to think the same way, talk the same way etc based on our skin colour, secuality etc.
2. The idea that the advance of "progressive" ideas is always inevitable is also wrong. The best example of that is the promotion of Adult-Child relationships in the 1970s by the likes of PIE and their supporters. For the 1970s, "wokesters", it was the equivalent of the gender identity arguments of today. Needless to say, the former argument doesn't look so great 40+ years on.
I would say that most progressive people would sign up wholeheartedly to your number 1 (maybe not all, but then progressives like conservatives are not a monolith). It's a bit like the Black Lives Matter versus All Lives Matter debate. Progressives say that Black Lives Matter because they think that all lives matter and they want to highlight the injustices that mean that right now some lives matter more than others. They interpret people saying All Lives Matter as an effort to downplay those injustices. Some people who say All Lives Matter may not be doing that, but some certainly are. On 2 I would agree. You only need to compare Weimar and Nazi Germany to see that history is not monotonic. Hopefully progressive ideals will win in the end but only if we fight for them.
Progressive ‘ideals’ really aren’t *winning*. I wish they were in many respects
The West has stopped advancing, for many reasons, just one is the influence of Muslim immigrants on our culture, which is now palpable. Wokeness and Critical Race Theory are not ‘progressive’, their sinister, relentless focus on skin pigmentation, which apparently trumps all else, would delight any Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The progress in sexual freedom is arguably in reverse, as a new Puritanism takes over, meanwhile those who once fought for women’s rights now fight bitterly about a miniature issue, trans rights, in way that speaks firmly of Decadence and Decline
Meanwhile across the world the rising power, and civilisation, is China, anti-democratic, patriarchal, tinged with racial supremacism. It supersedes the West, our values are eclipsed
This is Radio Jeremiad, broadcasting lamentations from my half painted bedroom.
I am trying to think of a Muslim immigrant who exercises a significant cultural influence, positive or negative, and I can't think of one. Boris Johnson was born abroad and has a partly Muslim heritage, I think he's the closest I can come up with. Who do you have in mind? What colour are you painting your room?
As I say below, see our de facto blasphemy law. You cannot mock Islam. Where did that come from?
Anything else? (I have no particular yearning to mock Islam so I don't feel the loss of this particular freedom too keenly, although I share your view that in general people should be able to take a bit of gentle ribbing). The important question is what colour are you painting your room?
So you were wrong. Islam HAS had a big influence. The reintroduction of blasphemy laws, de facto, with a possible death penalty at the end, is no small thing. Yet you just laugh it off. Spineless lefty numbskulls like you are the reason the Enlightenment is in reverse
Bedroom paint: Hague Blue. Bit of a cliche but it really does make wooden furniture, floors, picture frames, look great. I am now tempted to paint all the white emulsion (doors, windows, wardrobe) a rich and scandalous red
Unless you have just converted a five-storey Bloomsbury house, complete with period fittings and furniture, into a happening and now members' club you have no business going anywhere near Hague Blue.
I’ll paint my room however I fucking like, if it’s all the same to you.
I have big Georgian sash windows. Works a treat
I think I am going for glossy scarlet emulsion. Gulp. Vermeer meets Le Chabanais
Seven months before taking over the EU’s rotating Council presidency, the French government is mulling plans to revive the declining use and visibility of la langue de Molière.
The French government is earmarking money to offer more French classes to EU civil servants. Officials are contemplating hosting French-language debates featuring the country’s crème de la crème.
And then there are the meetings.
During the country’s presidency, French diplomats said all key meetings of the Council of the EU will be conducted in French (with translations available). Notes and minutes will be French-first. Even preparatory meetings will be conducted in French.
We’re out of it now, so it’s none of our business. Frankly I respect the French for defending and promoting their culture.
TBF the article is quite sardonic if you read it :-) .
I disagree with "we are out of it". One corollary of leaving that was extensively explained was that relations would be a continuing permanent negotiation (ask the Swiss), as enshrined in review of agreements every few years. It's not as if the UK has much less of an impact; EU (as opposed to European) media seems fixated; so much that they keep telling themselves they don't care about 6 times a day.
Had my jab Thursday afternoon, passed out in the middle of the night 12 hours later - lucky I didnt hit my head on the way down as I was on my way to the medicine cupboard in the kitchen to get paracetamol. In bed all day Friday, went for a short bike ride Sat and was absolutely knackered, laid on the sofa all day yesterday, and today. In bed w no vino by 10pm, unheard of. Had to get the parents round to look after the toddler.
Just did some keepy uppies in the back garden and was out of breath as if I’d run 5k. Apparently this reaction is good because it means my immune system is functioning, but if that’s the case, wasn’t I unlikely to catch it anyway? Beginning to wish I hadn’t bothered
Might I tentatively wonder whether you have brought this upon yourself a teensy bit?? Sorry for asking.
How’d you mean?
Well you were clearly completely worked-up about the prospect of getting the jab. Verging on the irrational maybe? Just asking.
Yeah I wasn’t convinced about having it, but surely that doesn’t give you what seems to be the flu? If I’d believed in it more I’d feel better?! This isn’t Brexit!
Ha, ha. Well, some illnesses are psychosomatic aren't they? I was just teasing - no wish to cause offence.
FPT, I just noticed @Kinablu's well argued post saying why the Right won't win the culture wars. Two things that just wanted to highlight:
1. It's interesting that Kinablu's view is they see a victory for the Right in the culture wars as meaning we get such delights as mandatory statues to slave traders and so on. I can't speak for all but I would see a "victory" as meaning that all are equal and treated equally, and that we are viewed as individuals with our thoughts and ideas, and not that we are pigeon-holed into blocks that are supposed to think the same way, talk the same way etc based on our skin colour, secuality etc.
2. The idea that the advance of "progressive" ideas is always inevitable is also wrong. The best example of that is the promotion of Adult-Child relationships in the 1970s by the likes of PIE and their supporters. For the 1970s, "wokesters", it was the equivalent of the gender identity arguments of today. Needless to say, the former argument doesn't look so great 40+ years on.
I would say that most progressive people would sign up wholeheartedly to your number 1 (maybe not all, but then progressives like conservatives are not a monolith). It's a bit like the Black Lives Matter versus All Lives Matter debate. Progressives say that Black Lives Matter because they think that all lives matter and they want to highlight the injustices that mean that right now some lives matter more than others. They interpret people saying All Lives Matter as an effort to downplay those injustices. Some people who say All Lives Matter may not be doing that, but some certainly are. On 2 I would agree. You only need to compare Weimar and Nazi Germany to see that history is not monotonic. Hopefully progressive ideals will win in the end but only if we fight for them.
Progressive ‘ideals’ really aren’t *winning*. I wish they were in many respects
The West has stopped advancing, for many reasons, just one is the influence of Muslim immigrants on our culture, which is now palpable. Wokeness and Critical Race Theory are not ‘progressive’, their sinister, relentless focus on skin pigmentation, which apparently trumps all else, would delight any Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The progress in sexual freedom is arguably in reverse, as a new Puritanism takes over, meanwhile those who once fought for women’s rights now fight bitterly about a miniature issue, trans rights, in way that speaks firmly of Decadence and Decline
Meanwhile across the world the rising power, and civilisation, is China, anti-democratic, patriarchal, tinged with racial supremacism. It supersedes the West, our values are eclipsed
This is Radio Jeremiad, broadcasting lamentations from my half painted bedroom.
I am trying to think of a Muslim immigrant who exercises a significant cultural influence, positive or negative, and I can't think of one. Boris Johnson was born abroad and has a partly Muslim heritage, I think he's the closest I can come up with. Who do you have in mind? What colour are you painting your room?
As I say below, see our de facto blasphemy law. You cannot mock Islam. Where did that come from?
Anything else? (I have no particular yearning to mock Islam so I don't feel the loss of this particular freedom too keenly, although I share your view that in general people should be able to take a bit of gentle ribbing). The important question is what colour are you painting your room?
So you were wrong. Islam HAS had a big influence. The reintroduction of blasphemy laws, de facto, with a possible death penalty at the end, is no small thing. Yet you just laugh it off. Spineless lefty numbskulls like you are the reason the Enlightenment is in reverse
Bedroom paint: Hague Blue. Bit of a cliche but it really does make wooden furniture, floors, picture frames, look great. I am now tempted to paint all the white emulsion (doors, windows, wardrobe) a rich and scandalous red
Unless you have just converted a five-storey Bloomsbury house, complete with period fittings and furniture, into a happening and now members' club you have no business going anywhere near Hague Blue.
It is time to admit, sheepishly, that my own bedroom is Hague Blue.
However I live in an early Victorian semi, so it’s probably de rigueur in my part of the world.
I'll let it go this time. As long as your front door isn't Manor House Grey.
I fought a long (and successful) battle with Mrs Walker in order to avoid that particular hue.
FPT, I just noticed @Kinablu's well argued post saying why the Right won't win the culture wars. Two things that just wanted to highlight:
1. It's interesting that Kinablu's view is they see a victory for the Right in the culture wars as meaning we get such delights as mandatory statues to slave traders and so on. I can't speak for all but I would see a "victory" as meaning that all are equal and treated equally, and that we are viewed as individuals with our thoughts and ideas, and not that we are pigeon-holed into blocks that are supposed to think the same way, talk the same way etc based on our skin colour, secuality etc.
2. The idea that the advance of "progressive" ideas is always inevitable is also wrong. The best example of that is the promotion of Adult-Child relationships in the 1970s by the likes of PIE and their supporters. For the 1970s, "wokesters", it was the equivalent of the gender identity arguments of today. Needless to say, the former argument doesn't look so great 40+ years on.
I would say that most progressive people would sign up wholeheartedly to your number 1 (maybe not all, but then progressives like conservatives are not a monolith). It's a bit like the Black Lives Matter versus All Lives Matter debate. Progressives say that Black Lives Matter because they think that all lives matter and they want to highlight the injustices that mean that right now some lives matter more than others. They interpret people saying All Lives Matter as an effort to downplay those injustices. Some people who say All Lives Matter may not be doing that, but some certainly are. On 2 I would agree. You only need to compare Weimar and Nazi Germany to see that history is not monotonic. Hopefully progressive ideals will win in the end but only if we fight for them.
Progressive ‘ideals’ really aren’t *winning*. I wish they were in many respects
The West has stopped advancing, for many reasons, just one is the influence of Muslim immigrants on our culture, which is now palpable. Wokeness and Critical Race Theory are not ‘progressive’, their sinister, relentless focus on skin pigmentation, which apparently trumps all else, would delight any Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The progress in sexual freedom is arguably in reverse, as a new Puritanism takes over, meanwhile those who once fought for women’s rights now fight bitterly about a miniature issue, trans rights, in way that speaks firmly of Decadence and Decline
Meanwhile across the world the rising power, and civilisation, is China, anti-democratic, patriarchal, tinged with racial supremacism. It supersedes the West, our values are eclipsed
This is Radio Jeremiad, broadcasting lamentations from my half painted bedroom.
I am trying to think of a Muslim immigrant who exercises a significant cultural influence, positive or negative, and I can't think of one. Boris Johnson was born abroad and has a partly Muslim heritage, I think he's the closest I can come up with. Who do you have in mind? What colour are you painting your room?
As I say below, see our de facto blasphemy law. You cannot mock Islam. Where did that come from?
Anything else? (I have no particular yearning to mock Islam so I don't feel the loss of this particular freedom too keenly, although I share your view that in general people should be able to take a bit of gentle ribbing). The important question is what colour are you painting your room?
So you were wrong. Islam HAS had a big influence. The reintroduction of blasphemy laws, de facto, with a possible death penalty at the end, is no small thing. Yet you just laugh it off. Spineless lefty numbskulls like you are the reason the Enlightenment is in reverse
Bedroom paint: Hague Blue. Bit of a cliche but it really does make wooden furniture, floors, picture frames, look great. I am now tempted to paint all the white emulsion (doors, windows, wardrobe) a rich and scandalous red
Unless you have just converted a five-storey Bloomsbury house, complete with period fittings and furniture, into a happening and now members' club you have no business going anywhere near Hague Blue.
Our kitchen is Hague Blue. We don't run a private members' club, though.
FPT, I just noticed @Kinablu's well argued post saying why the Right won't win the culture wars. Two things that just wanted to highlight:
1. It's interesting that Kinablu's view is they see a victory for the Right in the culture wars as meaning we get such delights as mandatory statues to slave traders and so on. I can't speak for all but I would see a "victory" as meaning that all are equal and treated equally, and that we are viewed as individuals with our thoughts and ideas, and not that we are pigeon-holed into blocks that are supposed to think the same way, talk the same way etc based on our skin colour, secuality etc.
2. The idea that the advance of "progressive" ideas is always inevitable is also wrong. The best example of that is the promotion of Adult-Child relationships in the 1970s by the likes of PIE and their supporters. For the 1970s, "wokesters", it was the equivalent of the gender identity arguments of today. Needless to say, the former argument doesn't look so great 40+ years on.
I would say that most progressive people would sign up wholeheartedly to your number 1 (maybe not all, but then progressives like conservatives are not a monolith). It's a bit like the Black Lives Matter versus All Lives Matter debate. Progressives say that Black Lives Matter because they think that all lives matter and they want to highlight the injustices that mean that right now some lives matter more than others. They interpret people saying All Lives Matter as an effort to downplay those injustices. Some people who say All Lives Matter may not be doing that, but some certainly are. On 2 I would agree. You only need to compare Weimar and Nazi Germany to see that history is not monotonic. Hopefully progressive ideals will win in the end but only if we fight for them.
Progressive ‘ideals’ really aren’t *winning*. I wish they were in many respects
The West has stopped advancing, for many reasons, just one is the influence of Muslim immigrants on our culture, which is now palpable. Wokeness and Critical Race Theory are not ‘progressive’, their sinister, relentless focus on skin pigmentation, which apparently trumps all else, would delight any Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The progress in sexual freedom is arguably in reverse, as a new Puritanism takes over, meanwhile those who once fought for women’s rights now fight bitterly about a miniature issue, trans rights, in way that speaks firmly of Decadence and Decline
Meanwhile across the world the rising power, and civilisation, is China, anti-democratic, patriarchal, tinged with racial supremacism. It supersedes the West, our values are eclipsed
This is Radio Jeremiad, broadcasting lamentations from my half painted bedroom.
I am trying to think of a Muslim immigrant who exercises a significant cultural influence, positive or negative, and I can't think of one. Boris Johnson was born abroad and has a partly Muslim heritage, I think he's the closest I can come up with. Who do you have in mind? What colour are you painting your room?
As I say below, see our de facto blasphemy law. You cannot mock Islam. Where did that come from?
Anything else? (I have no particular yearning to mock Islam so I don't feel the loss of this particular freedom too keenly, although I share your view that in general people should be able to take a bit of gentle ribbing). The important question is what colour are you painting your room?
So you were wrong. Islam HAS had a big influence. The reintroduction of blasphemy laws, de facto, with a possible death penalty at the end, is no small thing. Yet you just laugh it off. Spineless lefty numbskulls like you are the reason the Enlightenment is in reverse
Bedroom paint: Hague Blue. Bit of a cliche but it really does make wooden furniture, floors, picture frames, look great. I am now tempted to paint all the white emulsion (doors, windows, wardrobe) a rich and scandalous red
A bit rude! Have you been inhaling paint fumes? Hague Blue is nice and very in right now. We have the similar Inchyra Blue on a couple of the walls of our kitchen, and just had the living room done in Breakfast Room Green and Sulking Room Pink (it's a double room). Slipper Satin above the dado rail. We got a cheaper paint brand to match the f&b colour though. I'm troubled by how much I like the f&b colours given their inherently reactionary stylings.
FPT, I just noticed @Kinablu's well argued post saying why the Right won't win the culture wars. Two things that just wanted to highlight:
1. It's interesting that Kinablu's view is they see a victory for the Right in the culture wars as meaning we get such delights as mandatory statues to slave traders and so on. I can't speak for all but I would see a "victory" as meaning that all are equal and treated equally, and that we are viewed as individuals with our thoughts and ideas, and not that we are pigeon-holed into blocks that are supposed to think the same way, talk the same way etc based on our skin colour, secuality etc.
2. The idea that the advance of "progressive" ideas is always inevitable is also wrong. The best example of that is the promotion of Adult-Child relationships in the 1970s by the likes of PIE and their supporters. For the 1970s, "wokesters", it was the equivalent of the gender identity arguments of today. Needless to say, the former argument doesn't look so great 40+ years on.
I would say that most progressive people would sign up wholeheartedly to your number 1 (maybe not all, but then progressives like conservatives are not a monolith). It's a bit like the Black Lives Matter versus All Lives Matter debate. Progressives say that Black Lives Matter because they think that all lives matter and they want to highlight the injustices that mean that right now some lives matter more than others. They interpret people saying All Lives Matter as an effort to downplay those injustices. Some people who say All Lives Matter may not be doing that, but some certainly are. On 2 I would agree. You only need to compare Weimar and Nazi Germany to see that history is not monotonic. Hopefully progressive ideals will win in the end but only if we fight for them.
Progressive ‘ideals’ really aren’t *winning*. I wish they were in many respects
The West has stopped advancing, for many reasons, just one is the influence of Muslim immigrants on our culture, which is now palpable. Wokeness and Critical Race Theory are not ‘progressive’, their sinister, relentless focus on skin pigmentation, which apparently trumps all else, would delight any Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The progress in sexual freedom is arguably in reverse, as a new Puritanism takes over, meanwhile those who once fought for women’s rights now fight bitterly about a miniature issue, trans rights, in way that speaks firmly of Decadence and Decline
Meanwhile across the world the rising power, and civilisation, is China, anti-democratic, patriarchal, tinged with racial supremacism. It supersedes the West, our values are eclipsed
This is Radio Jeremiad, broadcasting lamentations from my half painted bedroom.
I am trying to think of a Muslim immigrant who exercises a significant cultural influence, positive or negative, and I can't think of one. Boris Johnson was born abroad and has a partly Muslim heritage, I think he's the closest I can come up with. Who do you have in mind? What colour are you painting your room?
As I say below, see our de facto blasphemy law. You cannot mock Islam. Where did that come from?
Anything else? (I have no particular yearning to mock Islam so I don't feel the loss of this particular freedom too keenly, although I share your view that in general people should be able to take a bit of gentle ribbing). The important question is what colour are you painting your room?
So you were wrong. Islam HAS had a big influence. The reintroduction of blasphemy laws, de facto, with a possible death penalty at the end, is no small thing. Yet you just laugh it off. Spineless lefty numbskulls like you are the reason the Enlightenment is in reverse
Bedroom paint: Hague Blue. Bit of a cliche but it really does make wooden furniture, floors, picture frames, look great. I am now tempted to paint all the white emulsion (doors, windows, wardrobe) a rich and scandalous red
Unless you have just converted a five-storey Bloomsbury house, complete with period fittings and furniture, into a happening and now members' club you have no business going anywhere near Hague Blue.
I’ll paint my room however I fucking like, if it’s all the same to you.
I have big Georgian sash windows. Works a treat
I think I am going for glossy scarlet emulsion. Gulp. Vermeer meets Le Chabanais
No @Leon you won't. You will get yourself down to Homebase and pick up something eye-catching by Dulux.
Had my jab Thursday afternoon, passed out in the middle of the night 12 hours later - lucky I didnt hit my head on the way down as I was on my way to the medicine cupboard in the kitchen to get paracetamol. In bed all day Friday, went for a short bike ride Sat and was absolutely knackered, laid on the sofa all day yesterday, and today. In bed w no vino by 10pm, unheard of. Had to get the parents round to look after the toddler.
Just did some keepy uppies in the back garden and was out of breath as if I’d run 5k. Apparently this reaction is good because it means my immune system is functioning, but if that’s the case, wasn’t I unlikely to catch it anyway? Beginning to wish I hadn’t bothered
Which one did you get
AZ
To be honest it seems like a bit of an extreme reaction. Hot, headache, bit of a funk seems the norm.
Just take it easy I suggest.
Those symptoms are pretty much it I guess. I just don’t get ill much, so this is a weird feeling
It’s your own immune system reacting that makes the weird feeling. It should settle down by about now.
FPT, I just noticed @Kinablu's well argued post saying why the Right won't win the culture wars. Two things that just wanted to highlight:
1. It's interesting that Kinablu's view is they see a victory for the Right in the culture wars as meaning we get such delights as mandatory statues to slave traders and so on. I can't speak for all but I would see a "victory" as meaning that all are equal and treated equally, and that we are viewed as individuals with our thoughts and ideas, and not that we are pigeon-holed into blocks that are supposed to think the same way, talk the same way etc based on our skin colour, secuality etc.
2. The idea that the advance of "progressive" ideas is always inevitable is also wrong. The best example of that is the promotion of Adult-Child relationships in the 1970s by the likes of PIE and their supporters. For the 1970s, "wokesters", it was the equivalent of the gender identity arguments of today. Needless to say, the former argument doesn't look so great 40+ years on.
I would say that most progressive people would sign up wholeheartedly to your number 1 (maybe not all, but then progressives like conservatives are not a monolith). It's a bit like the Black Lives Matter versus All Lives Matter debate. Progressives say that Black Lives Matter because they think that all lives matter and they want to highlight the injustices that mean that right now some lives matter more than others. They interpret people saying All Lives Matter as an effort to downplay those injustices. Some people who say All Lives Matter may not be doing that, but some certainly are. On 2 I would agree. You only need to compare Weimar and Nazi Germany to see that history is not monotonic. Hopefully progressive ideals will win in the end but only if we fight for them.
Progressive ‘ideals’ really aren’t *winning*. I wish they were in many respects
The West has stopped advancing, for many reasons, just one is the influence of Muslim immigrants on our culture, which is now palpable. Wokeness and Critical Race Theory are not ‘progressive’, their sinister, relentless focus on skin pigmentation, which apparently trumps all else, would delight any Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The progress in sexual freedom is arguably in reverse, as a new Puritanism takes over, meanwhile those who once fought for women’s rights now fight bitterly about a miniature issue, trans rights, in way that speaks firmly of Decadence and Decline
Meanwhile across the world the rising power, and civilisation, is China, anti-democratic, patriarchal, tinged with racial supremacism. It supersedes the West, our values are eclipsed
This is Radio Jeremiad, broadcasting lamentations from my half painted bedroom.
I am trying to think of a Muslim immigrant who exercises a significant cultural influence, positive or negative, and I can't think of one. Boris Johnson was born abroad and has a partly Muslim heritage, I think he's the closest I can come up with. Who do you have in mind? What colour are you painting your room?
As I say below, see our de facto blasphemy law. You cannot mock Islam. Where did that come from?
Anything else? (I have no particular yearning to mock Islam so I don't feel the loss of this particular freedom too keenly, although I share your view that in general people should be able to take a bit of gentle ribbing). The important question is what colour are you painting your room?
So you were wrong. Islam HAS had a big influence. The reintroduction of blasphemy laws, de facto, with a possible death penalty at the end, is no small thing. Yet you just laugh it off. Spineless lefty numbskulls like you are the reason the Enlightenment is in reverse
Bedroom paint: Hague Blue. Bit of a cliche but it really does make wooden furniture, floors, picture frames, look great. I am now tempted to paint all the white emulsion (doors, windows, wardrobe) a rich and scandalous red
Unless you have just converted a five-storey Bloomsbury house, complete with period fittings and furniture, into a happening and now members' club you have no business going anywhere near Hague Blue.
I’ll paint my room however I fucking like, if it’s all the same to you.
I have big Georgian sash windows. Works a treat
I think I am going for glossy scarlet emulsion. Gulp. Vermeer meets Le Chabanais
No @Leon you won't. You will get yourself down to Homebase and pick up something eye-catching by Dulux.
Nothing worse than an uppity bedroom painter.
You were born in St John’s Wood. North of the park
Had my jab Thursday afternoon, passed out in the middle of the night 12 hours later - lucky I didnt hit my head on the way down as I was on my way to the medicine cupboard in the kitchen to get paracetamol. In bed all day Friday, went for a short bike ride Sat and was absolutely knackered, laid on the sofa all day yesterday, and today. In bed w no vino by 10pm, unheard of. Had to get the parents round to look after the toddler.
Just did some keepy uppies in the back garden and was out of breath as if I’d run 5k. Apparently this reaction is good because it means my immune system is functioning, but if that’s the case, wasn’t I unlikely to catch it anyway? Beginning to wish I hadn’t bothered
That's definitely not how it works lol. It's actually probably because you've already had COVID, people who have previously had it tend to have worse side effects than people who haven't. Your booster shot will be relatively painless though. My first Pfizer dose gave me arm deadness for a week which was fine, but also extreme tiredness and shortness of breath for four and a bit days which was not fine. My wife had Moderna with no issues but she hasn't had COVID and I had it last year.
Yeah a doctor who lives opposite my parents said that, and a couple of mates who tested positive but had no symptoms have suffered with the jab - maybe I had it with no symptoms too at some stage.
Also my mates and I go for six pints and they get up and go to work/take the kids out next morning whilst I’d prob lock myself in a room for two days. So just a lightweight.
FPT, I just noticed @Kinablu's well argued post saying why the Right won't win the culture wars. Two things that just wanted to highlight:
1. It's interesting that Kinablu's view is they see a victory for the Right in the culture wars as meaning we get such delights as mandatory statues to slave traders and so on. I can't speak for all but I would see a "victory" as meaning that all are equal and treated equally, and that we are viewed as individuals with our thoughts and ideas, and not that we are pigeon-holed into blocks that are supposed to think the same way, talk the same way etc based on our skin colour, secuality etc.
2. The idea that the advance of "progressive" ideas is always inevitable is also wrong. The best example of that is the promotion of Adult-Child relationships in the 1970s by the likes of PIE and their supporters. For the 1970s, "wokesters", it was the equivalent of the gender identity arguments of today. Needless to say, the former argument doesn't look so great 40+ years on.
I would say that most progressive people would sign up wholeheartedly to your number 1 (maybe not all, but then progressives like conservatives are not a monolith). It's a bit like the Black Lives Matter versus All Lives Matter debate. Progressives say that Black Lives Matter because they think that all lives matter and they want to highlight the injustices that mean that right now some lives matter more than others. They interpret people saying All Lives Matter as an effort to downplay those injustices. Some people who say All Lives Matter may not be doing that, but some certainly are. On 2 I would agree. You only need to compare Weimar and Nazi Germany to see that history is not monotonic. Hopefully progressive ideals will win in the end but only if we fight for them.
Progressive ‘ideals’ really aren’t *winning*. I wish they were in many respects
The West has stopped advancing, for many reasons, just one is the influence of Muslim immigrants on our culture, which is now palpable. Wokeness and Critical Race Theory are not ‘progressive’, their sinister, relentless focus on skin pigmentation, which apparently trumps all else, would delight any Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The progress in sexual freedom is arguably in reverse, as a new Puritanism takes over, meanwhile those who once fought for women’s rights now fight bitterly about a miniature issue, trans rights, in way that speaks firmly of Decadence and Decline
Meanwhile across the world the rising power, and civilisation, is China, anti-democratic, patriarchal, tinged with racial supremacism. It supersedes the West, our values are eclipsed
This is Radio Jeremiad, broadcasting lamentations from my half painted bedroom.
I am trying to think of a Muslim immigrant who exercises a significant cultural influence, positive or negative, and I can't think of one. Boris Johnson was born abroad and has a partly Muslim heritage, I think he's the closest I can come up with. Who do you have in mind? What colour are you painting your room?
As I say below, see our de facto blasphemy law. You cannot mock Islam. Where did that come from?
Anything else? (I have no particular yearning to mock Islam so I don't feel the loss of this particular freedom too keenly, although I share your view that in general people should be able to take a bit of gentle ribbing). The important question is what colour are you painting your room?
So you were wrong. Islam HAS had a big influence. The reintroduction of blasphemy laws, de facto, with a possible death penalty at the end, is no small thing. Yet you just laugh it off. Spineless lefty numbskulls like you are the reason the Enlightenment is in reverse
Bedroom paint: Hague Blue. Bit of a cliche but it really does make wooden furniture, floors, picture frames, look great. I am now tempted to paint all the white emulsion (doors, windows, wardrobe) a rich and scandalous red
Unless you have just converted a five-storey Bloomsbury house, complete with period fittings and furniture, into a happening and now members' club you have no business going anywhere near Hague Blue.
Our kitchen is Hague Blue. We don't run a private members' club, though.
I bet 80% of PB has a bit of Hague Blue somewhere. I believe it is the most popular paint colour in the UK. As I said, something of a cliche
"Boris’s great “strength” - as that article points out - is optimism and providing voters with a sense of agency. He conveys a sense of impatience with “process” and a comic subversion of “order” which is construed by voters as a sense of action and an identification with the “people” versus the brahmins."
I think iSam analogy with Del Boy is very fitting. We know he lies, he cheats, he is looking out for number one, but people love him even when they get screwed, he is a bit cheeky, a bit naughty, will make you laugh at his missteps, and no matter what happens, next year will we will be milllionaiiiiiresss bruv.
Yes, the "lovable rogue" syndrome is very apt for Boris; although we never saw Del Boy trying to exercise his power much outside Peckham, did we? Or indeed Nelson Mandela House, an amusingly 'woke' name from some 40 years ago, if I recall correctly. 'Wokeness' isn't that new, is it? He also brings to my mind Falstaff.
Whether we want to be governed by a lovable rogue is, I guess, a matter of taste, but it's clearly an aphrodisiac for many.
It's one of the ways we talk at cross purposes. A government can be objectively bad at governing but highly popular.
There's no question that something like Del Boy's appeal is part of the charm of the current government.
But would you really put the future prosperity of those you love in Del Boy's hands?
Really?
I wouldn't, but the choice at the last election was between Del Boy and Trigger.
Except that, by 2019, it was a Trigger who had been fairly unambiguously revealed as a nasty piece of work. And replacing Nasty Trigger by... oh, I don't know, Jerry Leadbetter (dull but decent) hasn't changed the dynamics.
Hence the problem. As a nation, we quite possibly are giggling into the sea. And, as a nation, a sufficiency of us seem ok with that.
“Giggling into the Sea” sounds like the title of a great, polemic review of the Boris era.
FPT, I just noticed @Kinablu's well argued post saying why the Right won't win the culture wars. Two things that just wanted to highlight:
1. It's interesting that Kinablu's view is they see a victory for the Right in the culture wars as meaning we get such delights as mandatory statues to slave traders and so on. I can't speak for all but I would see a "victory" as meaning that all are equal and treated equally, and that we are viewed as individuals with our thoughts and ideas, and not that we are pigeon-holed into blocks that are supposed to think the same way, talk the same way etc based on our skin colour, secuality etc.
2. The idea that the advance of "progressive" ideas is always inevitable is also wrong. The best example of that is the promotion of Adult-Child relationships in the 1970s by the likes of PIE and their supporters. For the 1970s, "wokesters", it was the equivalent of the gender identity arguments of today. Needless to say, the former argument doesn't look so great 40+ years on.
I would say that most progressive people would sign up wholeheartedly to your number 1 (maybe not all, but then progressives like conservatives are not a monolith). It's a bit like the Black Lives Matter versus All Lives Matter debate. Progressives say that Black Lives Matter because they think that all lives matter and they want to highlight the injustices that mean that right now some lives matter more than others. They interpret people saying All Lives Matter as an effort to downplay those injustices. Some people who say All Lives Matter may not be doing that, but some certainly are. On 2 I would agree. You only need to compare Weimar and Nazi Germany to see that history is not monotonic. Hopefully progressive ideals will win in the end but only if we fight for them.
Progressive ‘ideals’ really aren’t *winning*. I wish they were in many respects
The West has stopped advancing, for many reasons, just one is the influence of Muslim immigrants on our culture, which is now palpable. Wokeness and Critical Race Theory are not ‘progressive’, their sinister, relentless focus on skin pigmentation, which apparently trumps all else, would delight any Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The progress in sexual freedom is arguably in reverse, as a new Puritanism takes over, meanwhile those who once fought for women’s rights now fight bitterly about a miniature issue, trans rights, in way that speaks firmly of Decadence and Decline
Meanwhile across the world the rising power, and civilisation, is China, anti-democratic, patriarchal, tinged with racial supremacism. It supersedes the West, our values are eclipsed
This is Radio Jeremiad, broadcasting lamentations from my half painted bedroom.
I am trying to think of a Muslim immigrant who exercises a significant cultural influence, positive or negative, and I can't think of one. Boris Johnson was born abroad and has a partly Muslim heritage, I think he's the closest I can come up with. Who do you have in mind? What colour are you painting your room?
As I say below, see our de facto blasphemy law. You cannot mock Islam. Where did that come from?
Anything else? (I have no particular yearning to mock Islam so I don't feel the loss of this particular freedom too keenly, although I share your view that in general people should be able to take a bit of gentle ribbing). The important question is what colour are you painting your room?
So you were wrong. Islam HAS had a big influence. The reintroduction of blasphemy laws, de facto, with a possible death penalty at the end, is no small thing. Yet you just laugh it off. Spineless lefty numbskulls like you are the reason the Enlightenment is in reverse
Bedroom paint: Hague Blue. Bit of a cliche but it really does make wooden furniture, floors, picture frames, look great. I am now tempted to paint all the white emulsion (doors, windows, wardrobe) a rich and scandalous red
Unless you have just converted a five-storey Bloomsbury house, complete with period fittings and furniture, into a happening and now members' club you have no business going anywhere near Hague Blue.
I’ll paint my room however I fucking like, if it’s all the same to you.
I have big Georgian sash windows. Works a treat
I think I am going for glossy scarlet emulsion. Gulp. Vermeer meets Le Chabanais
No @Leon you won't. You will get yourself down to Homebase and pick up something eye-catching by Dulux.
Nothing worse than an uppity bedroom painter.
You were born in St John’s Wood. North of the park
UGH
If it helps I moved out as soon as I realised the error. To Bolton Gardens, if you're counting.
It'll be surprising if the Con majority with the new boundaries isn't at least 100 seats, which would require an increase of at least 10. 15-20 is possible.
Had my jab Thursday afternoon, passed out in the middle of the night 12 hours later - lucky I didnt hit my head on the way down as I was on my way to the medicine cupboard in the kitchen to get paracetamol. In bed all day Friday, went for a short bike ride Sat and was absolutely knackered, laid on the sofa all day yesterday, and today. In bed w no vino by 10pm, unheard of. Had to get the parents round to look after the toddler.
Just did some keepy uppies in the back garden and was out of breath as if I’d run 5k. Apparently this reaction is good because it means my immune system is functioning, but if that’s the case, wasn’t I unlikely to catch it anyway? Beginning to wish I hadn’t bothered
Might I tentatively wonder whether you have brought this upon yourself a teensy bit?? Sorry for asking.
How’d you mean?
Well you were clearly completely worked-up about the prospect of getting the jab. Verging on the irrational maybe? Just asking.
Yeah I wasn’t convinced about having it, but surely that doesn’t give you what seems to be the flu? If I’d believed in it more I’d feel better?! This isn’t Brexit!
Ha, ha. Well, some illnesses are psychosomatic aren't they? I was just teasing - no wish to cause offence.
Seven months before taking over the EU’s rotating Council presidency, the French government is mulling plans to revive the declining use and visibility of la langue de Molière.
The French government is earmarking money to offer more French classes to EU civil servants. Officials are contemplating hosting French-language debates featuring the country’s crème de la crème.
And then there are the meetings.
During the country’s presidency, French diplomats said all key meetings of the Council of the EU will be conducted in French (with translations available). Notes and minutes will be French-first. Even preparatory meetings will be conducted in French.
English became the first language of the EU out of convenience for the majority. I am not sure that forcing people against their will to use French is going to have the benefits that they think.
I understand from my friends at the Commission that the shift from French to English only started in 2003 and took until 2008 at least to be in a position where fluent French was not a de facto requirement for much of the senior secretariat
This French initiative will likely backfire. The preservation of French as an official language of the EU already irritates the Italians and the Spanish, who think their languages have just as much right to be “official”. The Italians because they are the cradle of European culture - Latin etc - the Spanish because their language is much bigger in global speakers than French
Italian is also a better language than French, IMO. Helps that I'm learning the latter, ofc.
Had my jab Thursday afternoon, passed out in the middle of the night 12 hours later - lucky I didnt hit my head on the way down as I was on my way to the medicine cupboard in the kitchen to get paracetamol. In bed all day Friday, went for a short bike ride Sat and was absolutely knackered, laid on the sofa all day yesterday, and today. In bed w no vino by 10pm, unheard of. Had to get the parents round to look after the toddler.
Just did some keepy uppies in the back garden and was out of breath as if I’d run 5k. Apparently this reaction is good because it means my immune system is functioning, but if that’s the case, wasn’t I unlikely to catch it anyway? Beginning to wish I hadn’t bothered
Which one did you get
AZ
To be honest it seems like a bit of an extreme reaction. Hot, headache, bit of a funk seems the norm.
Just take it easy I suggest.
Those symptoms are pretty much it I guess. I just don’t get ill much, so this is a weird feeling
It’s your own immune system reacting that makes the weird feeling. It should settle down by about now.
FPT, I just noticed @Kinablu's well argued post saying why the Right won't win the culture wars. Two things that just wanted to highlight:
1. It's interesting that Kinablu's view is they see a victory for the Right in the culture wars as meaning we get such delights as mandatory statues to slave traders and so on. I can't speak for all but I would see a "victory" as meaning that all are equal and treated equally, and that we are viewed as individuals with our thoughts and ideas, and not that we are pigeon-holed into blocks that are supposed to think the same way, talk the same way etc based on our skin colour, secuality etc.
2. The idea that the advance of "progressive" ideas is always inevitable is also wrong. The best example of that is the promotion of Adult-Child relationships in the 1970s by the likes of PIE and their supporters. For the 1970s, "wokesters", it was the equivalent of the gender identity arguments of today. Needless to say, the former argument doesn't look so great 40+ years on.
I would say that most progressive people would sign up wholeheartedly to your number 1 (maybe not all, but then progressives like conservatives are not a monolith). It's a bit like the Black Lives Matter versus All Lives Matter debate. Progressives say that Black Lives Matter because they think that all lives matter and they want to highlight the injustices that mean that right now some lives matter more than others. They interpret people saying All Lives Matter as an effort to downplay those injustices. Some people who say All Lives Matter may not be doing that, but some certainly are. On 2 I would agree. You only need to compare Weimar and Nazi Germany to see that history is not monotonic. Hopefully progressive ideals will win in the end but only if we fight for them.
Progressive ‘ideals’ really aren’t *winning*. I wish they were in many respects
The West has stopped advancing, for many reasons, just one is the influence of Muslim immigrants on our culture, which is now palpable. Wokeness and Critical Race Theory are not ‘progressive’, their sinister, relentless focus on skin pigmentation, which apparently trumps all else, would delight any Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The progress in sexual freedom is arguably in reverse, as a new Puritanism takes over, meanwhile those who once fought for women’s rights now fight bitterly about a miniature issue, trans rights, in way that speaks firmly of Decadence and Decline
Meanwhile across the world the rising power, and civilisation, is China, anti-democratic, patriarchal, tinged with racial supremacism. It supersedes the West, our values are eclipsed
This is Radio Jeremiad, broadcasting lamentations from my half painted bedroom.
I am trying to think of a Muslim immigrant who exercises a significant cultural influence, positive or negative, and I can't think of one. Boris Johnson was born abroad and has a partly Muslim heritage, I think he's the closest I can come up with. Who do you have in mind? What colour are you painting your room?
As I say below, see our de facto blasphemy law. You cannot mock Islam. Where did that come from?
Anything else? (I have no particular yearning to mock Islam so I don't feel the loss of this particular freedom too keenly, although I share your view that in general people should be able to take a bit of gentle ribbing). The important question is what colour are you painting your room?
So you were wrong. Islam HAS had a big influence. The reintroduction of blasphemy laws, de facto, with a possible death penalty at the end, is no small thing. Yet you just laugh it off. Spineless lefty numbskulls like you are the reason the Enlightenment is in reverse
Bedroom paint: Hague Blue. Bit of a cliche but it really does make wooden furniture, floors, picture frames, look great. I am now tempted to paint all the white emulsion (doors, windows, wardrobe) a rich and scandalous red
Unless you have just converted a five-storey Bloomsbury house, complete with period fittings and furniture, into a happening and now members' club you have no business going anywhere near Hague Blue.
I’ll paint my room however I fucking like, if it’s all the same to you.
I have big Georgian sash windows. Works a treat
I think I am going for glossy scarlet emulsion. Gulp. Vermeer meets Le Chabanais
No @Leon you won't. You will get yourself down to Homebase and pick up something eye-catching by Dulux.
Nothing worse than an uppity bedroom painter.
You were born in St John’s Wood. North of the park
UGH
If it helps I moved out as soon as I realised the error. To Bolton Gardens, if you're counting.
Too far West, maybe. Almost south of the river!
I am ashamed to admit I have lived south of the river. But only once. And I do have an excuse. I was incarcerated in Brixton Jail, so it’s not like I had much choice
"Boris’s great “strength” - as that article points out - is optimism and providing voters with a sense of agency. He conveys a sense of impatience with “process” and a comic subversion of “order” which is construed by voters as a sense of action and an identification with the “people” versus the brahmins."
I think iSam analogy with Del Boy is very fitting. We know he lies, he cheats, he is looking out for number one, but people love him even when they get screwed, he is a bit cheeky, a bit naughty, will make you laugh at his missteps, and no matter what happens, next year will we will be milllionaiiiiiresss bruv.
Yes, the "lovable rogue" syndrome is very apt for Boris; although we never saw Del Boy trying to exercise his power much outside Peckham, did we? Or indeed Nelson Mandela House, an amusingly 'woke' name from some 40 years ago, if I recall correctly. 'Wokeness' isn't that new, is it? He also brings to my mind Falstaff.
Whether we want to be governed by a lovable rogue is, I guess, a matter of taste, but it's clearly an aphrodisiac for many.
It's one of the ways we talk at cross purposes. A government can be objectively bad at governing but highly popular.
There's no question that something like Del Boy's appeal is part of the charm of the current government.
But would you really put the future prosperity of those you love in Del Boy's hands?
Really?
I wouldn't, but the choice at the last election was between Del Boy and Trigger.
Except that, by 2019, it was a Trigger who had been fairly unambiguously revealed as a nasty piece of work. And replacing Nasty Trigger by... oh, I don't know, Jerry Leadbetter (dull but decent) hasn't changed the dynamics.
Hence the problem. As a nation, we quite possibly are giggling into the sea. And, as a nation, a sufficiency of us seem ok with that.
I think we will only be able to properly and objectively judge the time we are currently in for a good few years. Probably around the time of the next GE. I don't particularly want a Labour government, but I always think a genuine prospect of one should lead to better governance. Tories are massively complacent at the moment. They think Johnson is massively popular, and though I can't see the appeal, maybe they are right, but I think this may well be largely a result of the apparent success of the vaccine roll-out and furlough.
Popularity comes and goes and is a fickle mistress. Johnson doesn't really have much experience of real life, but he has had plenty of experience of mistresses, so maybe everything will be fine.
FPT, I just noticed @Kinablu's well argued post saying why the Right won't win the culture wars. Two things that just wanted to highlight:
1. It's interesting that Kinablu's view is they see a victory for the Right in the culture wars as meaning we get such delights as mandatory statues to slave traders and so on. I can't speak for all but I would see a "victory" as meaning that all are equal and treated equally, and that we are viewed as individuals with our thoughts and ideas, and not that we are pigeon-holed into blocks that are supposed to think the same way, talk the same way etc based on our skin colour, secuality etc.
2. The idea that the advance of "progressive" ideas is always inevitable is also wrong. The best example of that is the promotion of Adult-Child relationships in the 1970s by the likes of PIE and their supporters. For the 1970s, "wokesters", it was the equivalent of the gender identity arguments of today. Needless to say, the former argument doesn't look so great 40+ years on.
I would say that most progressive people would sign up wholeheartedly to your number 1 (maybe not all, but then progressives like conservatives are not a monolith). It's a bit like the Black Lives Matter versus All Lives Matter debate. Progressives say that Black Lives Matter because they think that all lives matter and they want to highlight the injustices that mean that right now some lives matter more than others. They interpret people saying All Lives Matter as an effort to downplay those injustices. Some people who say All Lives Matter may not be doing that, but some certainly are. On 2 I would agree. You only need to compare Weimar and Nazi Germany to see that history is not monotonic. Hopefully progressive ideals will win in the end but only if we fight for them.
Progressive ‘ideals’ really aren’t *winning*. I wish they were in many respects
The West has stopped advancing, for many reasons, just one is the influence of Muslim immigrants on our culture, which is now palpable. Wokeness and Critical Race Theory are not ‘progressive’, their sinister, relentless focus on skin pigmentation, which apparently trumps all else, would delight any Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The progress in sexual freedom is arguably in reverse, as a new Puritanism takes over, meanwhile those who once fought for women’s rights now fight bitterly about a miniature issue, trans rights, in way that speaks firmly of Decadence and Decline
Meanwhile across the world the rising power, and civilisation, is China, anti-democratic, patriarchal, tinged with racial supremacism. It supersedes the West, our values are eclipsed
This is Radio Jeremiad, broadcasting lamentations from my half painted bedroom.
I am trying to think of a Muslim immigrant who exercises a significant cultural influence, positive or negative, and I can't think of one. Boris Johnson was born abroad and has a partly Muslim heritage, I think he's the closest I can come up with. Who do you have in mind? What colour are you painting your room?
As I say below, see our de facto blasphemy law. You cannot mock Islam. Where did that come from?
Anything else? (I have no particular yearning to mock Islam so I don't feel the loss of this particular freedom too keenly, although I share your view that in general people should be able to take a bit of gentle ribbing). The important question is what colour are you painting your room?
So you were wrong. Islam HAS had a big influence. The reintroduction of blasphemy laws, de facto, with a possible death penalty at the end, is no small thing. Yet you just laugh it off. Spineless lefty numbskulls like you are the reason the Enlightenment is in reverse
Bedroom paint: Hague Blue. Bit of a cliche but it really does make wooden furniture, floors, picture frames, look great. I am now tempted to paint all the white emulsion (doors, windows, wardrobe) a rich and scandalous red
Unless you have just converted a five-storey Bloomsbury house, complete with period fittings and furniture, into a happening and now members' club you have no business going anywhere near Hague Blue.
I’ll paint my room however I fucking like, if it’s all the same to you.
I have big Georgian sash windows. Works a treat
I think I am going for glossy scarlet emulsion. Gulp. Vermeer meets Le Chabanais
No @Leon you won't. You will get yourself down to Homebase and pick up something eye-catching by Dulux.
Nothing worse than an uppity bedroom painter.
You were born in St John’s Wood. North of the park
UGH
If it helps I moved out as soon as I realised the error. To Bolton Gardens, if you're counting.
Too far West, maybe. Almost south of the river!
I am ashamed to admit I have lived south of the river. But only once. And I do have an excuse. I was incarcerated in Brixton Jail, so it’s not like I had much choice
FPT, I just noticed @Kinablu's well argued post saying why the Right won't win the culture wars. Two things that just wanted to highlight:
1. It's interesting that Kinablu's view is they see a victory for the Right in the culture wars as meaning we get such delights as mandatory statues to slave traders and so on. I can't speak for all but I would see a "victory" as meaning that all are equal and treated equally, and that we are viewed as individuals with our thoughts and ideas, and not that we are pigeon-holed into blocks that are supposed to think the same way, talk the same way etc based on our skin colour, secuality etc.
2. The idea that the advance of "progressive" ideas is always inevitable is also wrong. The best example of that is the promotion of Adult-Child relationships in the 1970s by the likes of PIE and their supporters. For the 1970s, "wokesters", it was the equivalent of the gender identity arguments of today. Needless to say, the former argument doesn't look so great 40+ years on.
I would say that most progressive people would sign up wholeheartedly to your number 1 (maybe not all, but then progressives like conservatives are not a monolith). It's a bit like the Black Lives Matter versus All Lives Matter debate. Progressives say that Black Lives Matter because they think that all lives matter and they want to highlight the injustices that mean that right now some lives matter more than others. They interpret people saying All Lives Matter as an effort to downplay those injustices. Some people who say All Lives Matter may not be doing that, but some certainly are. On 2 I would agree. You only need to compare Weimar and Nazi Germany to see that history is not monotonic. Hopefully progressive ideals will win in the end but only if we fight for them.
Progressive ‘ideals’ really aren’t *winning*. I wish they were in many respects
The West has stopped advancing, for many reasons, just one is the influence of Muslim immigrants on our culture, which is now palpable. Wokeness and Critical Race Theory are not ‘progressive’, their sinister, relentless focus on skin pigmentation, which apparently trumps all else, would delight any Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The progress in sexual freedom is arguably in reverse, as a new Puritanism takes over, meanwhile those who once fought for women’s rights now fight bitterly about a miniature issue, trans rights, in way that speaks firmly of Decadence and Decline
Meanwhile across the world the rising power, and civilisation, is China, anti-democratic, patriarchal, tinged with racial supremacism. It supersedes the West, our values are eclipsed
This is Radio Jeremiad, broadcasting lamentations from my half painted bedroom.
I am trying to think of a Muslim immigrant who exercises a significant cultural influence, positive or negative, and I can't think of one. Boris Johnson was born abroad and has a partly Muslim heritage, I think he's the closest I can come up with. Who do you have in mind? What colour are you painting your room?
As I say below, see our de facto blasphemy law. You cannot mock Islam. Where did that come from?
Anything else? (I have no particular yearning to mock Islam so I don't feel the loss of this particular freedom too keenly, although I share your view that in general people should be able to take a bit of gentle ribbing). The important question is what colour are you painting your room?
So you were wrong. Islam HAS had a big influence. The reintroduction of blasphemy laws, de facto, with a possible death penalty at the end, is no small thing. Yet you just laugh it off. Spineless lefty numbskulls like you are the reason the Enlightenment is in reverse
Bedroom paint: Hague Blue. Bit of a cliche but it really does make wooden furniture, floors, picture frames, look great. I am now tempted to paint all the white emulsion (doors, windows, wardrobe) a rich and scandalous red
A bit rude! Have you been inhaling paint fumes? Hague Blue is nice and very in right now. We have the similar Inchyra Blue on a couple of the walls of our kitchen, and just had the living room done in Breakfast Room Green and Sulking Room Pink (it's a double room). Slipper Satin above the dado rail. We got a cheaper paint brand to match the f&b colour though. I'm troubled by how much I like the f&b colours given their inherently reactionary stylings.
Dulux Denim Drift is nice
I went into our local posh paint shop and asked the SW London type middle class lady if she’d heard of it and she almost threw up like David Walliams racist character in Little Britain when she found out black girls had made the scones. I said ‘you’ve never dipped your toe into the world of Dulux have you?”, and she said no.
I painted my old front room that colour a few years ago anyway
If Boris is populist, what were the Corbynista's, with their declared love of Marx (though they never read him) and their waving of Chairman Mao's Little Red Book to taunt the government of the day - which you can only do in a country where Chairman Mao's Little Red Book is not taken seriously?
Lib Dems going hard on anti-development to try and win Chesham & Amersham by-elex. Quote just out: "Tory plans will allow developers to tarmac over greenbelt sites across the Chilterns without local people having any say, risking irreversible damage to the local environment."
A bit of a mental whiplash thing here, as last week I was listening to complaints about NIMBYism in Hart. The LibDem/Fleet Local coalition have been pushing for an entire new village with 5000-10,000 new houses within 15 minutes walk of the local station, including 4 primary schools, a secondary school, a whole bunch of shops, med centre, etc.
The local Tories have set up a "Stop [new village]" Facebook group; the local Tory MP has joined the fight against it. As he can get to Jenrick easily, locals in favour fear that the entire thing's going to be derailed.
Anyway; not got that much to do with Chesham and Amersham; just a real mental whiplash moment going from seeing some Tories decrying LibDem supported development to seeing other Tories howling about LibDem NIMBYism.
FPT, I just noticed @Kinablu's well argued post saying why the Right won't win the culture wars. Two things that just wanted to highlight:
1. It's interesting that Kinablu's view is they see a victory for the Right in the culture wars as meaning we get such delights as mandatory statues to slave traders and so on. I can't speak for all but I would see a "victory" as meaning that all are equal and treated equally, and that we are viewed as individuals with our thoughts and ideas, and not that we are pigeon-holed into blocks that are supposed to think the same way, talk the same way etc based on our skin colour, secuality etc.
2. The idea that the advance of "progressive" ideas is always inevitable is also wrong. The best example of that is the promotion of Adult-Child relationships in the 1970s by the likes of PIE and their supporters. For the 1970s, "wokesters", it was the equivalent of the gender identity arguments of today. Needless to say, the former argument doesn't look so great 40+ years on.
I would say that most progressive people would sign up wholeheartedly to your number 1 (maybe not all, but then progressives like conservatives are not a monolith). It's a bit like the Black Lives Matter versus All Lives Matter debate. Progressives say that Black Lives Matter because they think that all lives matter and they want to highlight the injustices that mean that right now some lives matter more than others. They interpret people saying All Lives Matter as an effort to downplay those injustices. Some people who say All Lives Matter may not be doing that, but some certainly are. On 2 I would agree. You only need to compare Weimar and Nazi Germany to see that history is not monotonic. Hopefully progressive ideals will win in the end but only if we fight for them.
Progressive ‘ideals’ really aren’t *winning*. I wish they were in many respects
The West has stopped advancing, for many reasons, just one is the influence of Muslim immigrants on our culture, which is now palpable. Wokeness and Critical Race Theory are not ‘progressive’, their sinister, relentless focus on skin pigmentation, which apparently trumps all else, would delight any Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The progress in sexual freedom is arguably in reverse, as a new Puritanism takes over, meanwhile those who once fought for women’s rights now fight bitterly about a miniature issue, trans rights, in way that speaks firmly of Decadence and Decline
Meanwhile across the world the rising power, and civilisation, is China, anti-democratic, patriarchal, tinged with racial supremacism. It supersedes the West, our values are eclipsed
This is Radio Jeremiad, broadcasting lamentations from my half painted bedroom.
I am trying to think of a Muslim immigrant who exercises a significant cultural influence, positive or negative, and I can't think of one. Boris Johnson was born abroad and has a partly Muslim heritage, I think he's the closest I can come up with. Who do you have in mind? What colour are you painting your room?
As I say below, see our de facto blasphemy law. You cannot mock Islam. Where did that come from?
Anything else? (I have no particular yearning to mock Islam so I don't feel the loss of this particular freedom too keenly, although I share your view that in general people should be able to take a bit of gentle ribbing). The important question is what colour are you painting your room?
So you were wrong. Islam HAS had a big influence. The reintroduction of blasphemy laws, de facto, with a possible death penalty at the end, is no small thing. Yet you just laugh it off. Spineless lefty numbskulls like you are the reason the Enlightenment is in reverse
Bedroom paint: Hague Blue. Bit of a cliche but it really does make wooden furniture, floors, picture frames, look great. I am now tempted to paint all the white emulsion (doors, windows, wardrobe) a rich and scandalous red
Unless you have just converted a five-storey Bloomsbury house, complete with period fittings and furniture, into a happening and now members' club you have no business going anywhere near Hague Blue.
I’ll paint my room however I fucking like, if it’s all the same to you.
I have big Georgian sash windows. Works a treat
I think I am going for glossy scarlet emulsion. Gulp. Vermeer meets Le Chabanais
No @Leon you won't. You will get yourself down to Homebase and pick up something eye-catching by Dulux.
Nothing worse than an uppity bedroom painter.
You were born in St John’s Wood. North of the park
UGH
If it helps I moved out as soon as I realised the error. To Bolton Gardens, if you're counting.
Too far West, maybe. Almost south of the river!
I am ashamed to admit I have lived south of the river. But only once. And I do have an excuse. I was incarcerated in Brixton Jail, so it’s not like I had much choice
Still. South of the river. *Shudders*
Bolton Gardens "too far West". LOL.
When I was living on the Old Brompton Road I suggested to a friend of mine we go for a drink near me (The Troubadour, although as a Northie you probably don't know it). He lives in Lowndes Square and demurred, saying it was "so far out".
It'll be surprising if the Con majority with the new boundaries isn't at least 100 seats, which would require an increase of at least 10. 15-20 is possible.
FPT, I just noticed @Kinablu's well argued post saying why the Right won't win the culture wars. Two things that just wanted to highlight:
1. It's interesting that Kinablu's view is they see a victory for the Right in the culture wars as meaning we get such delights as mandatory statues to slave traders and so on. I can't speak for all but I would see a "victory" as meaning that all are equal and treated equally, and that we are viewed as individuals with our thoughts and ideas, and not that we are pigeon-holed into blocks that are supposed to think the same way, talk the same way etc based on our skin colour, secuality etc.
2. The idea that the advance of "progressive" ideas is always inevitable is also wrong. The best example of that is the promotion of Adult-Child relationships in the 1970s by the likes of PIE and their supporters. For the 1970s, "wokesters", it was the equivalent of the gender identity arguments of today. Needless to say, the former argument doesn't look so great 40+ years on.
I would say that most progressive people would sign up wholeheartedly to your number 1 (maybe not all, but then progressives like conservatives are not a monolith). It's a bit like the Black Lives Matter versus All Lives Matter debate. Progressives say that Black Lives Matter because they think that all lives matter and they want to highlight the injustices that mean that right now some lives matter more than others. They interpret people saying All Lives Matter as an effort to downplay those injustices. Some people who say All Lives Matter may not be doing that, but some certainly are. On 2 I would agree. You only need to compare Weimar and Nazi Germany to see that history is not monotonic. Hopefully progressive ideals will win in the end but only if we fight for them.
Progressive ‘ideals’ really aren’t *winning*. I wish they were in many respects
The West has stopped advancing, for many reasons, just one is the influence of Muslim immigrants on our culture, which is now palpable. Wokeness and Critical Race Theory are not ‘progressive’, their sinister, relentless focus on skin pigmentation, which apparently trumps all else, would delight any Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The progress in sexual freedom is arguably in reverse, as a new Puritanism takes over, meanwhile those who once fought for women’s rights now fight bitterly about a miniature issue, trans rights, in way that speaks firmly of Decadence and Decline
Meanwhile across the world the rising power, and civilisation, is China, anti-democratic, patriarchal, tinged with racial supremacism. It supersedes the West, our values are eclipsed
This is Radio Jeremiad, broadcasting lamentations from my half painted bedroom.
I am trying to think of a Muslim immigrant who exercises a significant cultural influence, positive or negative, and I can't think of one. Boris Johnson was born abroad and has a partly Muslim heritage, I think he's the closest I can come up with. Who do you have in mind? What colour are you painting your room?
As I say below, see our de facto blasphemy law. You cannot mock Islam. Where did that come from?
Anything else? (I have no particular yearning to mock Islam so I don't feel the loss of this particular freedom too keenly, although I share your view that in general people should be able to take a bit of gentle ribbing). The important question is what colour are you painting your room?
So you were wrong. Islam HAS had a big influence. The reintroduction of blasphemy laws, de facto, with a possible death penalty at the end, is no small thing. Yet you just laugh it off. Spineless lefty numbskulls like you are the reason the Enlightenment is in reverse
Bedroom paint: Hague Blue. Bit of a cliche but it really does make wooden furniture, floors, picture frames, look great. I am now tempted to paint all the white emulsion (doors, windows, wardrobe) a rich and scandalous red
A bit rude! Have you been inhaling paint fumes? Hague Blue is nice and very in right now. We have the similar Inchyra Blue on a couple of the walls of our kitchen, and just had the living room done in Breakfast Room Green and Sulking Room Pink (it's a double room). Slipper Satin above the dado rail. We got a cheaper paint brand to match the f&b colour though. I'm troubled by how much I like the f&b colours given their inherently reactionary stylings.
Dulux Denim Drift is nice
I went into our local posh paint shop and asked the SW London type middle class lady if she’d heard of it and she almost threw up like David Walliams racist character in Little Britain when she found out black girls had made the scones. I said ‘you’ve never dipped your toe into the world of Dulux have you?”, and she said no.
I painted my old front room that colour a few years ago anyway
Is Dulux naff and non-U? I didn't know.
Is this just the emulsion colours? We've just done our skirting boards in Dulux paint.
FPT, I just noticed @Kinablu's well argued post saying why the Right won't win the culture wars. Two things that just wanted to highlight:
1. It's interesting that Kinablu's view is they see a victory for the Right in the culture wars as meaning we get such delights as mandatory statues to slave traders and so on. I can't speak for all but I would see a "victory" as meaning that all are equal and treated equally, and that we are viewed as individuals with our thoughts and ideas, and not that we are pigeon-holed into blocks that are supposed to think the same way, talk the same way etc based on our skin colour, secuality etc.
2. The idea that the advance of "progressive" ideas is always inevitable is also wrong. The best example of that is the promotion of Adult-Child relationships in the 1970s by the likes of PIE and their supporters. For the 1970s, "wokesters", it was the equivalent of the gender identity arguments of today. Needless to say, the former argument doesn't look so great 40+ years on.
I would say that most progressive people would sign up wholeheartedly to your number 1 (maybe not all, but then progressives like conservatives are not a monolith). It's a bit like the Black Lives Matter versus All Lives Matter debate. Progressives say that Black Lives Matter because they think that all lives matter and they want to highlight the injustices that mean that right now some lives matter more than others. They interpret people saying All Lives Matter as an effort to downplay those injustices. Some people who say All Lives Matter may not be doing that, but some certainly are. On 2 I would agree. You only need to compare Weimar and Nazi Germany to see that history is not monotonic. Hopefully progressive ideals will win in the end but only if we fight for them.
Progressive ‘ideals’ really aren’t *winning*. I wish they were in many respects
The West has stopped advancing, for many reasons, just one is the influence of Muslim immigrants on our culture, which is now palpable. Wokeness and Critical Race Theory are not ‘progressive’, their sinister, relentless focus on skin pigmentation, which apparently trumps all else, would delight any Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The progress in sexual freedom is arguably in reverse, as a new Puritanism takes over, meanwhile those who once fought for women’s rights now fight bitterly about a miniature issue, trans rights, in way that speaks firmly of Decadence and Decline
Meanwhile across the world the rising power, and civilisation, is China, anti-democratic, patriarchal, tinged with racial supremacism. It supersedes the West, our values are eclipsed
This is Radio Jeremiad, broadcasting lamentations from my half painted bedroom.
I am trying to think of a Muslim immigrant who exercises a significant cultural influence, positive or negative, and I can't think of one. Boris Johnson was born abroad and has a partly Muslim heritage, I think he's the closest I can come up with. Who do you have in mind? What colour are you painting your room?
As I say below, see our de facto blasphemy law. You cannot mock Islam. Where did that come from?
Anything else? (I have no particular yearning to mock Islam so I don't feel the loss of this particular freedom too keenly, although I share your view that in general people should be able to take a bit of gentle ribbing). The important question is what colour are you painting your room?
So you were wrong. Islam HAS had a big influence. The reintroduction of blasphemy laws, de facto, with a possible death penalty at the end, is no small thing. Yet you just laugh it off. Spineless lefty numbskulls like you are the reason the Enlightenment is in reverse
Bedroom paint: Hague Blue. Bit of a cliche but it really does make wooden furniture, floors, picture frames, look great. I am now tempted to paint all the white emulsion (doors, windows, wardrobe) a rich and scandalous red
Unless you have just converted a five-storey Bloomsbury house, complete with period fittings and furniture, into a happening and now members' club you have no business going anywhere near Hague Blue.
Our kitchen is Hague Blue. We don't run a private members' club, though.
Any thoughts on allowing full attendances at weddings from 21 June? That is the really big one but has hardly been discussed. A bride friend has to pay her final deposit this week and she's still in the dark thanks to the government's vacillation.
Vacillation? Wasn't the plan always to decide three weeks after the previous change had been made?
Yes - it was stated previously that the actual decision on the 21st will be announced on the 14th.
That’s a delay. The weddings industry was promised an update on 24 May. Big problems coming if the government delay…
I'm asking who promised it. I tried searching for it but couldn't find anything, but it might be the keywords I am using.
Anyway, if he said they would be getting 28 days notice in advance, and no notice has been given, that suggests it is unlikely to be given the green light.
It will be an absolute disaster for the industry – and for thousands of brides nationwide, many of whom are now on their third postponement. My friend has no interest in football, as is asking why Euro 2021 can have 22,500 fans at Wembley, but she cannot have 80 guests at her wedding.
Just increase the limit of guests for weddings and receptions to 100 but no more than that from 21st June, no problem.
Or 100 for outside receptions, 50 for indoor receptions
Except - what is the evidence for that? Why not 160 and 80? Or 80 and 40? The problem with so much of this is the pretence at a rationale that is based on science, but in reality is not. At the weekend after cricket, to get a drink we had to don a mask to go to a table, to the sit down and can take mask off, then be served by a lady who went to the bar and came back etc, all so we could then don the masks again to take the drinks outside. This is the nonsense that needs to stop. You can either go into pub and restaurants or you can't, let stop the idea that you can only spread covid whilst walking around, and not when sitting down.
Mr. Isam, I heard from someone elsewhere that they had zero reaction to a first shot but a more noticeable one to the second. Can be the other way round too, so hopefully you'll have an easier time for jab 2.
We aren't seeing any significant expansion of roll out. Very disappointing number of first jabs, which is what we need to be doing lots of as fast as possible to squash the new uptick in cases.
FPT, I just noticed @Kinablu's well argued post saying why the Right won't win the culture wars. Two things that just wanted to highlight:
1. It's interesting that Kinablu's view is they see a victory for the Right in the culture wars as meaning we get such delights as mandatory statues to slave traders and so on. I can't speak for all but I would see a "victory" as meaning that all are equal and treated equally, and that we are viewed as individuals with our thoughts and ideas, and not that we are pigeon-holed into blocks that are supposed to think the same way, talk the same way etc based on our skin colour, secuality etc.
2. The idea that the advance of "progressive" ideas is always inevitable is also wrong. The best example of that is the promotion of Adult-Child relationships in the 1970s by the likes of PIE and their supporters. For the 1970s, "wokesters", it was the equivalent of the gender identity arguments of today. Needless to say, the former argument doesn't look so great 40+ years on.
I would say that most progressive people would sign up wholeheartedly to your number 1 (maybe not all, but then progressives like conservatives are not a monolith). It's a bit like the Black Lives Matter versus All Lives Matter debate. Progressives say that Black Lives Matter because they think that all lives matter and they want to highlight the injustices that mean that right now some lives matter more than others. They interpret people saying All Lives Matter as an effort to downplay those injustices. Some people who say All Lives Matter may not be doing that, but some certainly are. On 2 I would agree. You only need to compare Weimar and Nazi Germany to see that history is not monotonic. Hopefully progressive ideals will win in the end but only if we fight for them.
Progressive ‘ideals’ really aren’t *winning*. I wish they were in many respects
The West has stopped advancing, for many reasons, just one is the influence of Muslim immigrants on our culture, which is now palpable. Wokeness and Critical Race Theory are not ‘progressive’, their sinister, relentless focus on skin pigmentation, which apparently trumps all else, would delight any Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The progress in sexual freedom is arguably in reverse, as a new Puritanism takes over, meanwhile those who once fought for women’s rights now fight bitterly about a miniature issue, trans rights, in way that speaks firmly of Decadence and Decline
Meanwhile across the world the rising power, and civilisation, is China, anti-democratic, patriarchal, tinged with racial supremacism. It supersedes the West, our values are eclipsed
This is Radio Jeremiad, broadcasting lamentations from my half painted bedroom.
I am trying to think of a Muslim immigrant who exercises a significant cultural influence, positive or negative, and I can't think of one. Boris Johnson was born abroad and has a partly Muslim heritage, I think he's the closest I can come up with. Who do you have in mind? What colour are you painting your room?
As I say below, see our de facto blasphemy law. You cannot mock Islam. Where did that come from?
Anything else? (I have no particular yearning to mock Islam so I don't feel the loss of this particular freedom too keenly, although I share your view that in general people should be able to take a bit of gentle ribbing). The important question is what colour are you painting your room?
So you were wrong. Islam HAS had a big influence. The reintroduction of blasphemy laws, de facto, with a possible death penalty at the end, is no small thing. Yet you just laugh it off. Spineless lefty numbskulls like you are the reason the Enlightenment is in reverse
Bedroom paint: Hague Blue. Bit of a cliche but it really does make wooden furniture, floors, picture frames, look great. I am now tempted to paint all the white emulsion (doors, windows, wardrobe) a rich and scandalous red
Unless you have just converted a five-storey Bloomsbury house, complete with period fittings and furniture, into a happening and now members' club you have no business going anywhere near Hague Blue.
Our kitchen is Hague Blue. We don't run a private members' club, though.
Ok (a) had to look it up and (b) its on a computer screen, but isn't that more grey then blue? #thatdress
FPT, I just noticed @Kinablu's well argued post saying why the Right won't win the culture wars. Two things that just wanted to highlight:
1. It's interesting that Kinablu's view is they see a victory for the Right in the culture wars as meaning we get such delights as mandatory statues to slave traders and so on. I can't speak for all but I would see a "victory" as meaning that all are equal and treated equally, and that we are viewed as individuals with our thoughts and ideas, and not that we are pigeon-holed into blocks that are supposed to think the same way, talk the same way etc based on our skin colour, secuality etc.
2. The idea that the advance of "progressive" ideas is always inevitable is also wrong. The best example of that is the promotion of Adult-Child relationships in the 1970s by the likes of PIE and their supporters. For the 1970s, "wokesters", it was the equivalent of the gender identity arguments of today. Needless to say, the former argument doesn't look so great 40+ years on.
I would say that most progressive people would sign up wholeheartedly to your number 1 (maybe not all, but then progressives like conservatives are not a monolith). It's a bit like the Black Lives Matter versus All Lives Matter debate. Progressives say that Black Lives Matter because they think that all lives matter and they want to highlight the injustices that mean that right now some lives matter more than others. They interpret people saying All Lives Matter as an effort to downplay those injustices. Some people who say All Lives Matter may not be doing that, but some certainly are. On 2 I would agree. You only need to compare Weimar and Nazi Germany to see that history is not monotonic. Hopefully progressive ideals will win in the end but only if we fight for them.
Progressive ‘ideals’ really aren’t *winning*. I wish they were in many respects
The West has stopped advancing, for many reasons, just one is the influence of Muslim immigrants on our culture, which is now palpable. Wokeness and Critical Race Theory are not ‘progressive’, their sinister, relentless focus on skin pigmentation, which apparently trumps all else, would delight any Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The progress in sexual freedom is arguably in reverse, as a new Puritanism takes over, meanwhile those who once fought for women’s rights now fight bitterly about a miniature issue, trans rights, in way that speaks firmly of Decadence and Decline
Meanwhile across the world the rising power, and civilisation, is China, anti-democratic, patriarchal, tinged with racial supremacism. It supersedes the West, our values are eclipsed
This is Radio Jeremiad, broadcasting lamentations from my half painted bedroom.
Hpw do you define "woke" ?
To be awake to structural racism, used as a derogatory term against those who are (proponents say) insufficiently awoken to racial injustice.
Woke individuals probably amount to under 1% of the population yet punch well above their weight by using abuse and bullying tactics via social media and by occupying in some cases position of influence and power, especially in the public sector and universities.
Always strongly left wing, often outright socialist (in the proper sense of the word), woke activists see everything – everything - through the lens of structural racism, despite living in a liberal democracy which by definition prevents structural racism. They see it everywhere, like the boy seeing ghosts in The Sixth Sense.
It is a psychological state. A delusion not founded on logic, rationality and fact. It is strongly connected to post-modernism.
It is, in essence, an illiberal movement. An outright attack on the freedoms in a liberal democracy that we take (took) for granted.
It is regrettable IMO that the definition has massively been broadened and distorted to mean "anything left wing" which is not correct and does a disservice to those of us who argue against and are appalled by the original "woke" meaning.
12% of the public consider themselves to be woke according to YouGov. 23% consider themselves not woke. 7% don't know. 59% don't know what woke means. I am in the 12%.
I don't believe you. You are far to nice for that.
Perhaps we interpret the term differently. To me it means that you believe that structural racism and white supremacism are real features of our society that need to be challenged and overcome so that everyone has the same opportunities.
That's not woke. All liberals agree that everyone should have the same opportunities. Woke activists are illiberal.
Liberals do not agree that everyone should have the same opportunities. Firstly the concept is without meaning - there is no broad meaningful description which can capture the idea and make it real.
Secondly liberals in general actively seek to maximise the life chances of those with whom they are closest in at least three ways: by using their wealth to purchase opportunity and experience, by using their background and education to maximise the experience and formation of their family, and by seeking the best available education, school, university for those closest to them.
Wealthier liberals use their wealth to send these possibilities further down the generations.
There is nothing wrong with any of these inevitable inequalities; there is quite a bit wrong with pretending none of this is true. Like most people I am a liberal.
FPT, I just noticed @Kinablu's well argued post saying why the Right won't win the culture wars. Two things that just wanted to highlight:
1. It's interesting that Kinablu's view is they see a victory for the Right in the culture wars as meaning we get such delights as mandatory statues to slave traders and so on. I can't speak for all but I would see a "victory" as meaning that all are equal and treated equally, and that we are viewed as individuals with our thoughts and ideas, and not that we are pigeon-holed into blocks that are supposed to think the same way, talk the same way etc based on our skin colour, secuality etc.
2. The idea that the advance of "progressive" ideas is always inevitable is also wrong. The best example of that is the promotion of Adult-Child relationships in the 1970s by the likes of PIE and their supporters. For the 1970s, "wokesters", it was the equivalent of the gender identity arguments of today. Needless to say, the former argument doesn't look so great 40+ years on.
I would say that most progressive people would sign up wholeheartedly to your number 1 (maybe not all, but then progressives like conservatives are not a monolith). It's a bit like the Black Lives Matter versus All Lives Matter debate. Progressives say that Black Lives Matter because they think that all lives matter and they want to highlight the injustices that mean that right now some lives matter more than others. They interpret people saying All Lives Matter as an effort to downplay those injustices. Some people who say All Lives Matter may not be doing that, but some certainly are. On 2 I would agree. You only need to compare Weimar and Nazi Germany to see that history is not monotonic. Hopefully progressive ideals will win in the end but only if we fight for them.
Progressive ‘ideals’ really aren’t *winning*. I wish they were in many respects
The West has stopped advancing, for many reasons, just one is the influence of Muslim immigrants on our culture, which is now palpable. Wokeness and Critical Race Theory are not ‘progressive’, their sinister, relentless focus on skin pigmentation, which apparently trumps all else, would delight any Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The progress in sexual freedom is arguably in reverse, as a new Puritanism takes over, meanwhile those who once fought for women’s rights now fight bitterly about a miniature issue, trans rights, in way that speaks firmly of Decadence and Decline
Meanwhile across the world the rising power, and civilisation, is China, anti-democratic, patriarchal, tinged with racial supremacism. It supersedes the West, our values are eclipsed
This is Radio Jeremiad, broadcasting lamentations from my half painted bedroom.
I am trying to think of a Muslim immigrant who exercises a significant cultural influence, positive or negative, and I can't think of one. Boris Johnson was born abroad and has a partly Muslim heritage, I think he's the closest I can come up with. Who do you have in mind? What colour are you painting your room?
As I say below, see our de facto blasphemy law. You cannot mock Islam. Where did that come from?
Anything else? (I have no particular yearning to mock Islam so I don't feel the loss of this particular freedom too keenly, although I share your view that in general people should be able to take a bit of gentle ribbing). The important question is what colour are you painting your room?
So you were wrong. Islam HAS had a big influence. The reintroduction of blasphemy laws, de facto, with a possible death penalty at the end, is no small thing. Yet you just laugh it off. Spineless lefty numbskulls like you are the reason the Enlightenment is in reverse
Bedroom paint: Hague Blue. Bit of a cliche but it really does make wooden furniture, floors, picture frames, look great. I am now tempted to paint all the white emulsion (doors, windows, wardrobe) a rich and scandalous red
A bit rude! Have you been inhaling paint fumes? Hague Blue is nice and very in right now. We have the similar Inchyra Blue on a couple of the walls of our kitchen, and just had the living room done in Breakfast Room Green and Sulking Room Pink (it's a double room). Slipper Satin above the dado rail. We got a cheaper paint brand to match the f&b colour though. I'm troubled by how much I like the f&b colours given their inherently reactionary stylings.
Dulux Denim Drift is nice
I went into our local posh paint shop and asked the SW London type middle class lady if she’d heard of it and she almost threw up like David Walliams racist character in Little Britain when she found out black girls had made the scones. I said ‘you’ve never dipped your toe into the world of Dulux have you?”, and she said no.
I painted my old front room that colour a few years ago anyway
Every middle aged middle class London bubble person I know seems to know the Farrow and Ball colour card off by heart, it's scary. We've used Johnstone's paint which is very reasonable but good quality and easy to apply (it's what decorators use), and they can match any F&B colour for about half the price.
FPT, I just noticed @Kinablu's well argued post saying why the Right won't win the culture wars. Two things that just wanted to highlight:
1. It's interesting that Kinablu's view is they see a victory for the Right in the culture wars as meaning we get such delights as mandatory statues to slave traders and so on. I can't speak for all but I would see a "victory" as meaning that all are equal and treated equally, and that we are viewed as individuals with our thoughts and ideas, and not that we are pigeon-holed into blocks that are supposed to think the same way, talk the same way etc based on our skin colour, secuality etc.
2. The idea that the advance of "progressive" ideas is always inevitable is also wrong. The best example of that is the promotion of Adult-Child relationships in the 1970s by the likes of PIE and their supporters. For the 1970s, "wokesters", it was the equivalent of the gender identity arguments of today. Needless to say, the former argument doesn't look so great 40+ years on.
I would say that most progressive people would sign up wholeheartedly to your number 1 (maybe not all, but then progressives like conservatives are not a monolith). It's a bit like the Black Lives Matter versus All Lives Matter debate. Progressives say that Black Lives Matter because they think that all lives matter and they want to highlight the injustices that mean that right now some lives matter more than others. They interpret people saying All Lives Matter as an effort to downplay those injustices. Some people who say All Lives Matter may not be doing that, but some certainly are. On 2 I would agree. You only need to compare Weimar and Nazi Germany to see that history is not monotonic. Hopefully progressive ideals will win in the end but only if we fight for them.
Progressive ‘ideals’ really aren’t *winning*. I wish they were in many respects
The West has stopped advancing, for many reasons, just one is the influence of Muslim immigrants on our culture, which is now palpable. Wokeness and Critical Race Theory are not ‘progressive’, their sinister, relentless focus on skin pigmentation, which apparently trumps all else, would delight any Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The progress in sexual freedom is arguably in reverse, as a new Puritanism takes over, meanwhile those who once fought for women’s rights now fight bitterly about a miniature issue, trans rights, in way that speaks firmly of Decadence and Decline
Meanwhile across the world the rising power, and civilisation, is China, anti-democratic, patriarchal, tinged with racial supremacism. It supersedes the West, our values are eclipsed
This is Radio Jeremiad, broadcasting lamentations from my half painted bedroom.
I am trying to think of a Muslim immigrant who exercises a significant cultural influence, positive or negative, and I can't think of one. Boris Johnson was born abroad and has a partly Muslim heritage, I think he's the closest I can come up with. Who do you have in mind? What colour are you painting your room?
As I say below, see our de facto blasphemy law. You cannot mock Islam. Where did that come from?
Anything else? (I have no particular yearning to mock Islam so I don't feel the loss of this particular freedom too keenly, although I share your view that in general people should be able to take a bit of gentle ribbing). The important question is what colour are you painting your room?
So you were wrong. Islam HAS had a big influence. The reintroduction of blasphemy laws, de facto, with a possible death penalty at the end, is no small thing. Yet you just laugh it off. Spineless lefty numbskulls like you are the reason the Enlightenment is in reverse
Bedroom paint: Hague Blue. Bit of a cliche but it really does make wooden furniture, floors, picture frames, look great. I am now tempted to paint all the white emulsion (doors, windows, wardrobe) a rich and scandalous red
A bit rude! Have you been inhaling paint fumes? Hague Blue is nice and very in right now. We have the similar Inchyra Blue on a couple of the walls of our kitchen, and just had the living room done in Breakfast Room Green and Sulking Room Pink (it's a double room). Slipper Satin above the dado rail. We got a cheaper paint brand to match the f&b colour though. I'm troubled by how much I like the f&b colours given their inherently reactionary stylings.
Dulux Denim Drift is nice
I went into our local posh paint shop and asked the SW London type middle class lady if she’d heard of it and she almost threw up like David Walliams racist character in Little Britain when she found out black girls had made the scones. I said ‘you’ve never dipped your toe into the world of Dulux have you?”, and she said no.
I painted my old front room that colour a few years ago anyway
Is Dulux naff and non-U? I didn't know.
Is this just the emulsion colours? We've just done our skirting boards in Dulux paint.
Just not designer. I think Denim Drift is v similar to Hague Blue and I had it in 2018.
We aren't seeing any significant expansion of roll out. Very disappointing number of first jabs, which is what we need to be doing lots of as fast as possible to squash the new uptick in cases.
We aren't seeing any significant expansion of roll out. Very disappointing number of first jabs, which is what we need to be doing lots of as fast as possible to squash the new uptick in cases.
It's the second highest Sunday on record.
We have stalled. We got to 600k months ago, now just about getting the odd day at nearly 700k. I want million....
We've used Johnstone's paint which is very reasonable but good quality and easy to apply (it's what decorators use), and they can match any F&B colour for about half the price.
Johnstone's exterior gloss is vastly superior to Dulux
We aren't seeing any significant expansion of roll out. Very disappointing number of first jabs, which is what we need to be doing lots of as fast as possible to squash the new uptick in cases.
It's the second highest Sunday on record.
I have these sundays (Monday reporting) as higher ?
Day / Date / 1sts / 2nds / Cum 1sts / Cum 2nds / Day total
Any thoughts on allowing full attendances at weddings from 21 June? That is the really big one but has hardly been discussed. A bride friend has to pay her final deposit this week and she's still in the dark thanks to the government's vacillation.
Vacillation? Wasn't the plan always to decide three weeks after the previous change had been made?
Yes - it was stated previously that the actual decision on the 21st will be announced on the 14th.
That’s a delay. The weddings industry was promised an update on 24 May. Big problems coming if the government delay…
I'm asking who promised it. I tried searching for it but couldn't find anything, but it might be the keywords I am using.
Anyway, if he said they would be getting 28 days notice in advance, and no notice has been given, that suggests it is unlikely to be given the green light.
It will be an absolute disaster for the industry – and for thousands of brides nationwide, many of whom are now on their third postponement. My friend has no interest in football, as is asking why Euro 2021 can have 22,500 fans at Wembley, but she cannot have 80 guests at her wedding.
Just increase the limit of guests for weddings and receptions to 100 but no more than that from 21st June, no problem.
Or 100 for outside receptions, 50 for indoor receptions
Except - what is the evidence for that? Why not 160 and 80? Or 80 and 40? The problem with so much of this is the pretence at a rationale that is based on science, but in reality is not. At the weekend after cricket, to get a drink we had to don a mask to go to a table, to the sit down and can take mask off, then be served by a lady who went to the bar and came back etc, all so we could then don the masks again to take the drinks outside. This is the nonsense that needs to stop. You can either go into pub and restaurants or you can't, let stop the idea that you can only spread covid whilst walking around, and not when sitting down.
Because there have been studies looking at order of magnitude levels: 10, 100, 1000.
So there is some idea of the benefit at each level, although establishing any given one is always going to be necessarily arbitrary.
If 100, why not 101? If 101, why not 102? If 102... etc.
You either set a line or have none. It would probably be simpler and provoke less picking over the specific number if they simply retained the current limit, but that would be rather harsh.
The entire thing on masks at some times and not others is because covid is infectious based on proximity and time. Get people to wear masks for 25% of the time indoors and you'll truncate that time period by 25%. If you require masks for eating and drinking, you can't do it. So select that particular time for not wearing masks and retain them for the rest of it (in addition, when you're moving around is when your more likely to expose larger numbers of people you're walking alongside).
The entire obsession with binary thinking (all or nothing, yes or no, 100% or 0%) is one reason that it was so difficult to bring down rising covid infections in this country short of a binary on/off lockdown. All the fucking "scotch egging" looking for edge cases and "if you can do this, then why not the other?"
So, yeah, we could simply ban bars and restaurants until the point where they're comfortable about unlimited internal occupancy with no masking or any measures at all. Or we could move partially towards these things whenever we can and use some common sense rather than unthinking binaries.
FPT, I just noticed @Kinablu's well argued post saying why the Right won't win the culture wars. Two things that just wanted to highlight:
1. It's interesting that Kinablu's view is they see a victory for the Right in the culture wars as meaning we get such delights as mandatory statues to slave traders and so on. I can't speak for all but I would see a "victory" as meaning that all are equal and treated equally, and that we are viewed as individuals with our thoughts and ideas, and not that we are pigeon-holed into blocks that are supposed to think the same way, talk the same way etc based on our skin colour, secuality etc.
2. The idea that the advance of "progressive" ideas is always inevitable is also wrong. The best example of that is the promotion of Adult-Child relationships in the 1970s by the likes of PIE and their supporters. For the 1970s, "wokesters", it was the equivalent of the gender identity arguments of today. Needless to say, the former argument doesn't look so great 40+ years on.
I would say that most progressive people would sign up wholeheartedly to your number 1 (maybe not all, but then progressives like conservatives are not a monolith). It's a bit like the Black Lives Matter versus All Lives Matter debate. Progressives say that Black Lives Matter because they think that all lives matter and they want to highlight the injustices that mean that right now some lives matter more than others. They interpret people saying All Lives Matter as an effort to downplay those injustices. Some people who say All Lives Matter may not be doing that, but some certainly are. On 2 I would agree. You only need to compare Weimar and Nazi Germany to see that history is not monotonic. Hopefully progressive ideals will win in the end but only if we fight for them.
Progressive ‘ideals’ really aren’t *winning*. I wish they were in many respects
The West has stopped advancing, for many reasons, just one is the influence of Muslim immigrants on our culture, which is now palpable. Wokeness and Critical Race Theory are not ‘progressive’, their sinister, relentless focus on skin pigmentation, which apparently trumps all else, would delight any Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The progress in sexual freedom is arguably in reverse, as a new Puritanism takes over, meanwhile those who once fought for women’s rights now fight bitterly about a miniature issue, trans rights, in way that speaks firmly of Decadence and Decline
Meanwhile across the world the rising power, and civilisation, is China, anti-democratic, patriarchal, tinged with racial supremacism. It supersedes the West, our values are eclipsed
This is Radio Jeremiad, broadcasting lamentations from my half painted bedroom.
I am trying to think of a Muslim immigrant who exercises a significant cultural influence, positive or negative, and I can't think of one. Boris Johnson was born abroad and has a partly Muslim heritage, I think he's the closest I can come up with. Who do you have in mind? What colour are you painting your room?
As I say below, see our de facto blasphemy law. You cannot mock Islam. Where did that come from?
Anything else? (I have no particular yearning to mock Islam so I don't feel the loss of this particular freedom too keenly, although I share your view that in general people should be able to take a bit of gentle ribbing). The important question is what colour are you painting your room?
So you were wrong. Islam HAS had a big influence. The reintroduction of blasphemy laws, de facto, with a possible death penalty at the end, is no small thing. Yet you just laugh it off. Spineless lefty numbskulls like you are the reason the Enlightenment is in reverse
Bedroom paint: Hague Blue. Bit of a cliche but it really does make wooden furniture, floors, picture frames, look great. I am now tempted to paint all the white emulsion (doors, windows, wardrobe) a rich and scandalous red
A bit rude! Have you been inhaling paint fumes? Hague Blue is nice and very in right now. We have the similar Inchyra Blue on a couple of the walls of our kitchen, and just had the living room done in Breakfast Room Green and Sulking Room Pink (it's a double room). Slipper Satin above the dado rail. We got a cheaper paint brand to match the f&b colour though. I'm troubled by how much I like the f&b colours given their inherently reactionary stylings.
Dulux Denim Drift is nice
I went into our local posh paint shop and asked the SW London type middle class lady if she’d heard of it and she almost threw up like David Walliams racist character in Little Britain when she found out black girls had made the scones. I said ‘you’ve never dipped your toe into the world of Dulux have you?”, and she said no.
I painted my old front room that colour a few years ago anyway
Every middle aged middle class London bubble person I know seems to know the Farrow and Ball colour card off by heart, it's scary. We've used Johnstone's paint which is very reasonable but good quality and easy to apply (it's what decorators use), and they can match any F&B colour for about half the price.
Ask any professional decorator and they will tell you F&B is shite....
FPT, I just noticed @Kinablu's well argued post saying why the Right won't win the culture wars. Two things that just wanted to highlight:
1. It's interesting that Kinablu's view is they see a victory for the Right in the culture wars as meaning we get such delights as mandatory statues to slave traders and so on. I can't speak for all but I would see a "victory" as meaning that all are equal and treated equally, and that we are viewed as individuals with our thoughts and ideas, and not that we are pigeon-holed into blocks that are supposed to think the same way, talk the same way etc based on our skin colour, secuality etc.
2. The idea that the advance of "progressive" ideas is always inevitable is also wrong. The best example of that is the promotion of Adult-Child relationships in the 1970s by the likes of PIE and their supporters. For the 1970s, "wokesters", it was the equivalent of the gender identity arguments of today. Needless to say, the former argument doesn't look so great 40+ years on.
I would say that most progressive people would sign up wholeheartedly to your number 1 (maybe not all, but then progressives like conservatives are not a monolith). It's a bit like the Black Lives Matter versus All Lives Matter debate. Progressives say that Black Lives Matter because they think that all lives matter and they want to highlight the injustices that mean that right now some lives matter more than others. They interpret people saying All Lives Matter as an effort to downplay those injustices. Some people who say All Lives Matter may not be doing that, but some certainly are. On 2 I would agree. You only need to compare Weimar and Nazi Germany to see that history is not monotonic. Hopefully progressive ideals will win in the end but only if we fight for them.
Progressive ‘ideals’ really aren’t *winning*. I wish they were in many respects
The West has stopped advancing, for many reasons, just one is the influence of Muslim immigrants on our culture, which is now palpable. Wokeness and Critical Race Theory are not ‘progressive’, their sinister, relentless focus on skin pigmentation, which apparently trumps all else, would delight any Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The progress in sexual freedom is arguably in reverse, as a new Puritanism takes over, meanwhile those who once fought for women’s rights now fight bitterly about a miniature issue, trans rights, in way that speaks firmly of Decadence and Decline
Meanwhile across the world the rising power, and civilisation, is China, anti-democratic, patriarchal, tinged with racial supremacism. It supersedes the West, our values are eclipsed
This is Radio Jeremiad, broadcasting lamentations from my half painted bedroom.
I am trying to think of a Muslim immigrant who exercises a significant cultural influence, positive or negative, and I can't think of one. Boris Johnson was born abroad and has a partly Muslim heritage, I think he's the closest I can come up with. Who do you have in mind? What colour are you painting your room?
As I say below, see our de facto blasphemy law. You cannot mock Islam. Where did that come from?
Anything else? (I have no particular yearning to mock Islam so I don't feel the loss of this particular freedom too keenly, although I share your view that in general people should be able to take a bit of gentle ribbing). The important question is what colour are you painting your room?
So you were wrong. Islam HAS had a big influence. The reintroduction of blasphemy laws, de facto, with a possible death penalty at the end, is no small thing. Yet you just laugh it off. Spineless lefty numbskulls like you are the reason the Enlightenment is in reverse
Bedroom paint: Hague Blue. Bit of a cliche but it really does make wooden furniture, floors, picture frames, look great. I am now tempted to paint all the white emulsion (doors, windows, wardrobe) a rich and scandalous red
A bit rude! Have you been inhaling paint fumes? Hague Blue is nice and very in right now. We have the similar Inchyra Blue on a couple of the walls of our kitchen, and just had the living room done in Breakfast Room Green and Sulking Room Pink (it's a double room). Slipper Satin above the dado rail. We got a cheaper paint brand to match the f&b colour though. I'm troubled by how much I like the f&b colours given their inherently reactionary stylings.
Dulux Denim Drift is nice
I went into our local posh paint shop and asked the SW London type middle class lady if she’d heard of it and she almost threw up like David Walliams racist character in Little Britain when she found out black girls had made the scones. I said ‘you’ve never dipped your toe into the world of Dulux have you?”, and she said no.
I painted my old front room that colour a few years ago anyway
Every middle aged middle class London bubble person I know seems to know the Farrow and Ball colour card off by heart, it's scary. We've used Johnstone's paint which is very reasonable but good quality and easy to apply (it's what decorators use), and they can match any F&B colour for about half the price.
Ask any professional decorator and they will tell you F&B is shite....
It is not well-wearing for sure. But the depth of colour is definitely superior.
We aren't seeing any significant expansion of roll out. Very disappointing number of first jabs, which is what we need to be doing lots of as fast as possible to squash the new uptick in cases.
It's the second highest Sunday on record.
I have these sundays (Monday reporting) as higher ?
Day / Date / 1sts / 2nds / Cum 1sts / Cum 2nds / Day total
If Boris is populist, what were the Corbynista's, with their declared love of Marx (though they never read him) and their waving of Chairman Mao's Little Red Book to taunt the government of the day - which you can only do in a country where Chairman Mao's Little Red Book is not taken seriously?
They were/are left wing populists. Their position is just as disingenuous as the right wing version. If we take definition of populism as follows: "a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups" (just got that form t'internet), then one can see how the choice at the last GE between Johnson the populist and Corbyn the populist were so ludicrous.
On the one hand you have Johnson: Conservative Party (elite group), MP (elite group), quite rich (elite group), Eton (v elite), Oxford (v elite)...etc, etc.
Then, Corbyn: MP (elite), private prep school (elite), went to a top grammar school (elite), brought up in a manor house (elite), son of lefty intellectuals (elite). The only non-elite thing about Corbyn is that he didn't go to university, which was not because he tried to avoid it but because he was as thick as a plank.
Populism as a political approach, whether left or right, is essentially about conning people. This is one thing that Johnson is good at, and was considerably better at it than Corbyn.
For the first time since Covid began there were zero deaths recorded in English Hospitals yesterday from Covid.
I thought there was a zero day last week?
There was!
No, different metric. Today's zero is the NHS England hospital deaths measure, which is different from the reported UK Covid deaths number. So we had a zero last week on the latter but this is the first zero since last spring on the former.
For the first time since Covid began there were zero deaths recorded in English Hospitals yesterday from Covid.
I thought there was a zero day last week?
There was!
No, different metric. Today's zero is the NHS England hospital deaths measure, which is different from the reported UK Covid deaths number. So we had a zero last week on the latter but this is the first zero since last spring on the former.
How is possible to get zero deaths in the latter but not the former?
FPT, I just noticed @Kinablu's well argued post saying why the Right won't win the culture wars. Two things that just wanted to highlight:
1. It's interesting that Kinablu's view is they see a victory for the Right in the culture wars as meaning we get such delights as mandatory statues to slave traders and so on. I can't speak for all but I would see a "victory" as meaning that all are equal and treated equally, and that we are viewed as individuals with our thoughts and ideas, and not that we are pigeon-holed into blocks that are supposed to think the same way, talk the same way etc based on our skin colour, secuality etc.
2. The idea that the advance of "progressive" ideas is always inevitable is also wrong. The best example of that is the promotion of Adult-Child relationships in the 1970s by the likes of PIE and their supporters. For the 1970s, "wokesters", it was the equivalent of the gender identity arguments of today. Needless to say, the former argument doesn't look so great 40+ years on.
I would say that most progressive people would sign up wholeheartedly to your number 1 (maybe not all, but then progressives like conservatives are not a monolith). It's a bit like the Black Lives Matter versus All Lives Matter debate. Progressives say that Black Lives Matter because they think that all lives matter and they want to highlight the injustices that mean that right now some lives matter more than others. They interpret people saying All Lives Matter as an effort to downplay those injustices. Some people who say All Lives Matter may not be doing that, but some certainly are. On 2 I would agree. You only need to compare Weimar and Nazi Germany to see that history is not monotonic. Hopefully progressive ideals will win in the end but only if we fight for them.
Progressive ‘ideals’ really aren’t *winning*. I wish they were in many respects
The West has stopped advancing, for many reasons, just one is the influence of Muslim immigrants on our culture, which is now palpable. Wokeness and Critical Race Theory are not ‘progressive’, their sinister, relentless focus on skin pigmentation, which apparently trumps all else, would delight any Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The progress in sexual freedom is arguably in reverse, as a new Puritanism takes over, meanwhile those who once fought for women’s rights now fight bitterly about a miniature issue, trans rights, in way that speaks firmly of Decadence and Decline
Meanwhile across the world the rising power, and civilisation, is China, anti-democratic, patriarchal, tinged with racial supremacism. It supersedes the West, our values are eclipsed
This is Radio Jeremiad, broadcasting lamentations from my half painted bedroom.
I am trying to think of a Muslim immigrant who exercises a significant cultural influence, positive or negative, and I can't think of one. Boris Johnson was born abroad and has a partly Muslim heritage, I think he's the closest I can come up with. Who do you have in mind? What colour are you painting your room?
As I say below, see our de facto blasphemy law. You cannot mock Islam. Where did that come from?
Anything else? (I have no particular yearning to mock Islam so I don't feel the loss of this particular freedom too keenly, although I share your view that in general people should be able to take a bit of gentle ribbing). The important question is what colour are you painting your room?
So you were wrong. Islam HAS had a big influence. The reintroduction of blasphemy laws, de facto, with a possible death penalty at the end, is no small thing. Yet you just laugh it off. Spineless lefty numbskulls like you are the reason the Enlightenment is in reverse
Bedroom paint: Hague Blue. Bit of a cliche but it really does make wooden furniture, floors, picture frames, look great. I am now tempted to paint all the white emulsion (doors, windows, wardrobe) a rich and scandalous red
Unless you have just converted a five-storey Bloomsbury house, complete with period fittings and furniture, into a happening and now members' club you have no business going anywhere near Hague Blue.
I’ll paint my room however I fucking like, if it’s all the same to you.
I have big Georgian sash windows. Works a treat
I think I am going for glossy scarlet emulsion. Gulp. Vermeer meets Le Chabanais
No @Leon you won't. You will get yourself down to Homebase and pick up something eye-catching by Dulux.
Nothing worse than an uppity bedroom painter.
You were born in St John’s Wood. North of the park
UGH
If it helps I moved out as soon as I realised the error. To Bolton Gardens, if you're counting.
Too far West, maybe. Almost south of the river!
I am ashamed to admit I have lived south of the river. But only once. And I do have an excuse. I was incarcerated in Brixton Jail, so it’s not like I had much choice
Still. South of the river. *Shudders*
Bolton Gardens "too far West". LOL.
When I was living on the Old Brompton Road I suggested to a friend of mine we go for a drink near me (The Troubadour, although as a Northie you probably don't know it). He lives in Lowndes Square and demurred, saying it was "so far out".
To be semi serious, for me the definition of the right location in London (setting class aside) is that you must be a few minutes from serious greenery, and you must be able to walk to the West End
I’ve never understood the popularity of Notting Hill, for that reason alone. Way too far out, practically Shepherd’s Bush. Nice houses tho
Any thoughts on allowing full attendances at weddings from 21 June? That is the really big one but has hardly been discussed. A bride friend has to pay her final deposit this week and she's still in the dark thanks to the government's vacillation.
Vacillation? Wasn't the plan always to decide three weeks after the previous change had been made?
Yes - it was stated previously that the actual decision on the 21st will be announced on the 14th.
That’s a delay. The weddings industry was promised an update on 24 May. Big problems coming if the government delay…
I'm asking who promised it. I tried searching for it but couldn't find anything, but it might be the keywords I am using.
Anyway, if he said they would be getting 28 days notice in advance, and no notice has been given, that suggests it is unlikely to be given the green light.
It will be an absolute disaster for the industry – and for thousands of brides nationwide, many of whom are now on their third postponement. My friend has no interest in football, as is asking why Euro 2021 can have 22,500 fans at Wembley, but she cannot have 80 guests at her wedding.
Just increase the limit of guests for weddings and receptions to 100 but no more than that from 21st June, no problem.
Or 100 for outside receptions, 50 for indoor receptions
Except - what is the evidence for that? Why not 160 and 80? Or 80 and 40? The problem with so much of this is the pretence at a rationale that is based on science, but in reality is not. At the weekend after cricket, to get a drink we had to don a mask to go to a table, to the sit down and can take mask off, then be served by a lady who went to the bar and came back etc, all so we could then don the masks again to take the drinks outside. This is the nonsense that needs to stop. You can either go into pub and restaurants or you can't, let stop the idea that you can only spread covid whilst walking around, and not when sitting down.
Because there have been studies looking at order of magnitude levels: 10, 100, 1000.
So there is some idea of the benefit at each level, although establishing any given one is always going to be necessarily arbitrary.
If 100, why not 101? If 101, why not 102? If 102... etc.
You either set a line or have none. It would probably be simpler and provoke less picking over the specific number if they simply retained the current limit, but that would be rather harsh.
The entire thing on masks at some times and not others is because covid is infectious based on proximity and time. Get people to wear masks for 25% of the time indoors and you'll truncate that time period by 25%. If you require masks for eating and drinking, you can't do it. So select that particular time for not wearing masks and retain them for the rest of it (in addition, when you're moving around is when your more likely to expose larger numbers of people you're walking alongside).
The entire obsession with binary thinking (all or nothing, yes or no, 100% or 0%) is one reason that it was so difficult to bring down rising covid infections in this country short of a binary on/off lockdown. All the fucking "scotch egging" looking for edge cases and "if you can do this, then why not the other?"
So, yeah, we could simply ban bars and restaurants until the point where they're comfortable about unlimited internal occupancy with no masking or any measures at all. Or we could move partially towards these things whenever we can and use some common sense rather than unthinking binaries.
When moving you are unlikely to infect someone (or less likely at least) as it should always be remembered as proximity AND time. Passing someone on the way to the pub for a few seconds? Vs laughing loudly at a table.
I understand that this is difficult for government, but I really do think around masks the evidence in many settings is not clear cut. People use is not the same as clinical use.
I also think their time has come to an end with the vaccination programme.
FPT, I just noticed @Kinablu's well argued post saying why the Right won't win the culture wars. Two things that just wanted to highlight:
1. It's interesting that Kinablu's view is they see a victory for the Right in the culture wars as meaning we get such delights as mandatory statues to slave traders and so on. I can't speak for all but I would see a "victory" as meaning that all are equal and treated equally, and that we are viewed as individuals with our thoughts and ideas, and not that we are pigeon-holed into blocks that are supposed to think the same way, talk the same way etc based on our skin colour, secuality etc.
2. The idea that the advance of "progressive" ideas is always inevitable is also wrong. The best example of that is the promotion of Adult-Child relationships in the 1970s by the likes of PIE and their supporters. For the 1970s, "wokesters", it was the equivalent of the gender identity arguments of today. Needless to say, the former argument doesn't look so great 40+ years on.
I would say that most progressive people would sign up wholeheartedly to your number 1 (maybe not all, but then progressives like conservatives are not a monolith). It's a bit like the Black Lives Matter versus All Lives Matter debate. Progressives say that Black Lives Matter because they think that all lives matter and they want to highlight the injustices that mean that right now some lives matter more than others. They interpret people saying All Lives Matter as an effort to downplay those injustices. Some people who say All Lives Matter may not be doing that, but some certainly are. On 2 I would agree. You only need to compare Weimar and Nazi Germany to see that history is not monotonic. Hopefully progressive ideals will win in the end but only if we fight for them.
Progressive ‘ideals’ really aren’t *winning*. I wish they were in many respects
The West has stopped advancing, for many reasons, just one is the influence of Muslim immigrants on our culture, which is now palpable. Wokeness and Critical Race Theory are not ‘progressive’, their sinister, relentless focus on skin pigmentation, which apparently trumps all else, would delight any Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The progress in sexual freedom is arguably in reverse, as a new Puritanism takes over, meanwhile those who once fought for women’s rights now fight bitterly about a miniature issue, trans rights, in way that speaks firmly of Decadence and Decline
Meanwhile across the world the rising power, and civilisation, is China, anti-democratic, patriarchal, tinged with racial supremacism. It supersedes the West, our values are eclipsed
This is Radio Jeremiad, broadcasting lamentations from my half painted bedroom.
I am trying to think of a Muslim immigrant who exercises a significant cultural influence, positive or negative, and I can't think of one. Boris Johnson was born abroad and has a partly Muslim heritage, I think he's the closest I can come up with. Who do you have in mind? What colour are you painting your room?
I can't be sure on 'immigrant' and I suspect in large measure that generation has passed, but I think it depends what you mean by Muslim and what you mean by significant cultural influence (eg just religious culture, or what cultural contribution - and how wide you will go). It may be that many would not be noticed. Just working on influential Muslims I have noticed.
Salman Rushdie for one, I would also include in politics people like Baroness Manzoor, Yahya Birt, Ghayasuddin Siddiqui and others. What about Amir Khan? Mo Farah? Suspect there are plenty of philanthropists and business people too. Nadia Bukhari (had to look that one up) is a high-flying academic. Babar Bhatti the actor?
Apparently this reaction is good because it means my immune system is functioning, but if that’s the case, wasn’t I unlikely to catch it anyway? Beginning to wish I hadn’t bothered
Ummm, I don't think that's how vaccines work...
Cowpox inoculates someone against Smallpox. I don't think an adverse reaction to Cowpox means you would have been fine with Smallpox...
No I meant the ‘means your immune system is really good’ line
When I pushed on this, all the "this means you'd have had a bad reaction to covid" or "this means your immune system is great against covid" turned out to be pretty much varied depending on who you asked.
From what I have been able to glean, the immediate side-effects are based around your innate (indiscriminate) immune system reaction to an invasion; the acquired (targeted) immune system reaction wouldn't have happened yet.
A very strong innate immune system reaction may indicate that you'd have had a similar initial level to the actual virus, but what that may have meant longer term would depend on how quickly and well your acquired immune system (the bit that takes time to spin up the antibodies and T-cells that directly target the virus) would have responded, which (as I understand it) won't be signalled by this.
It seems plausible that a lot of the really bad illnesses happen when the innate immune response is high and the acquired immune response is low - so your body (and especially lungs) remains a battleground between the virus trying to grow exponentially inside of you and your own innate immune system pouring indiscriminate firepower on that same area in an attempt to prevent it growing still further.
So - not really possible to say how you'd have been against the virus, although maybe it's a hint you'd not have been asymptomatic if your innate immune system went straight to this level on reaction to the vaccine.
Seven months before taking over the EU’s rotating Council presidency, the French government is mulling plans to revive the declining use and visibility of la langue de Molière.
The French government is earmarking money to offer more French classes to EU civil servants. Officials are contemplating hosting French-language debates featuring the country’s crème de la crème.
And then there are the meetings.
During the country’s presidency, French diplomats said all key meetings of the Council of the EU will be conducted in French (with translations available). Notes and minutes will be French-first. Even preparatory meetings will be conducted in French.
There’s a hidden hypocrisy in France’s forlorn and doomed attempt to regain linguistic supremacy. They say they are fighting English ‘for the sake of all the other languages’, ‘to preserve multilingualism, the linguistic diversity of the world’, yada yada. But when other countries with other languages say, in response, ‘great, can we have more official languages in the EU, not just English French and German’, or ‘how about having several working languages in the ECJ, not just French’, the French respond with horror. ‘No, French is a truly great language’, it’s unique status must be preserved’.
This has actually happened. eg Italy made these points, and then expressed deep irritation at the French
Macron went around Africa telling them that if they had more belief, French could become the global language.
It’s been said that in the next few decades there will only be two languages spoken in the world - English and Chinese. I think Spanish deserves an honourable mention though, and Russian will be not far behind it.
We've used Johnstone's paint which is very reasonable but good quality and easy to apply (it's what decorators use), and they can match any F&B colour for about half the price.
Johnstone's exterior gloss is vastly superior to Dulux
Is that similar to Johnson's exterior gloss? Slap it on good and proper and hope no-one notices what's underneath?
Black lives don't matter so much to other blacks - if they get in the way of a drug deal going down....
Compare and contrast with the number of statements and pieces of footage on YouTube if she had been shot by a white cop. Just sayin'....
Thats why I hate the Black Lives Matter nonsense. When a black person kills another black person which in this Country is a 1000 times more likely than a black person getting killed by a Police Officer it does not matter. There were huge protests about police brutality last year and the taking the knee stuff goes on. Why are there no protests about black kids killing other black kids? That seems to be ok. I just don't get it.
On woke vs non-woke, this is indeed just the new name for PC. And just like PC it's turned something about sensible awareness of others into a cartoon binary. You're either a cave dwelling racist or an ultra-woke Stalinist, both extremes being defined and caricatured of course by the other extreme.
As someone commented recently most of us are civilians caught in the culture war crossfire. Most of us are also, I think, within its original and proper meaning, woke or at least partially so.
On vaccine numbers, it's interesting that the media don't seem to be talking about them whatsoever. When they talk about data not dates, they're obsessed with the virus case numbers, when actually they should be just as interested in how many jabs have been administered.
If the government decide to delay the next stage on the basis that the number of jabs isn't what they want it to be, then I'd be fine with that. If they said once we hit x number of 1st/2nd doses (maybe plus three weeks or whatever), then we can open everything up, then that would seem sensible.
Black lives don't matter so much to other blacks - if they get in the way of a drug deal going down....
Compare and contrast with the number of statements and pieces of footage on YouTube if she had been shot by a white cop. Just sayin'....
Thats why I hate the Black Lives Matter nonsense. When a black person kills another black person which in this Country is a 1000 times more likely than a black person getting killed by a Police Officer it does not matter. There were huge protests about police brutality last year and the taking the knee stuff goes on. Why are there no protests about black kids killing other black kids? That seems to be ok. I just don't get it.
We aren't seeing any significant expansion of roll out. Very disappointing number of first jabs, which is what we need to be doing lots of as fast as possible to squash the new uptick in cases.
It's the second highest Sunday on record.
I have these sundays (Monday reporting) as higher ?
Day / Date / 1sts / 2nds / Cum 1sts / Cum 2nds / Day total
Black lives don't matter so much to other blacks - if they get in the way of a drug deal going down....
Compare and contrast with the number of statements and pieces of footage on YouTube if she had been shot by a white cop. Just sayin'....
Thats why I hate the Black Lives Matter nonsense. When a black person kills another black person which in this Country is a 1000 times more likely than a black person getting killed by a Police Officer it does not matter. There were huge protests about police brutality last year and the taking the knee stuff goes on. Why are there no protests about black kids killing other black kids? That seems to be ok. I just don't get it.
Seven months before taking over the EU’s rotating Council presidency, the French government is mulling plans to revive the declining use and visibility of la langue de Molière.
The French government is earmarking money to offer more French classes to EU civil servants. Officials are contemplating hosting French-language debates featuring the country’s crème de la crème.
And then there are the meetings.
During the country’s presidency, French diplomats said all key meetings of the Council of the EU will be conducted in French (with translations available). Notes and minutes will be French-first. Even preparatory meetings will be conducted in French.
There’s a hidden hypocrisy in France’s forlorn and doomed attempt to regain linguistic supremacy. They say they are fighting English ‘for the sake of all the other languages’, ‘to preserve multilingualism, the linguistic diversity of the world’, yada yada. But when other countries with other languages say, in response, ‘great, can we have more official languages in the EU, not just English French and German’, or ‘how about having several working languages in the ECJ, not just French’, the French respond with horror. ‘No, French is a truly great language’, it’s unique status must be preserved’.
This has actually happened. eg Italy made these points, and then expressed deep irritation at the French
Macron went around Africa telling them that if they had more belief, French could become the global language.
It’s been said that in the next few decades there will only be two languages spoken in the world - English and Chinese. I think Spanish deserves an honourable mention though, and Russian will be not far behind it.
I don't see it with Chinese. Russian is a proper lingua franca, not just in the former Soviet republics but across all other Slavic countries. Chinese doesn't seem ever to have taken off as a lingua franca unless you count Mandarin within China itself. Spanish is the Lingua Franca for an entire continent. Arabic is the lingua franca for an entire religion, like Latin used to be for Christianity.
Black lives don't matter so much to other blacks - if they get in the way of a drug deal going down....
Compare and contrast with the number of statements and pieces of footage on YouTube if she had been shot by a white cop. Just sayin'....
Thats why I hate the Black Lives Matter nonsense. When a black person kills another black person which in this Country is a 1000 times more likely than a black person getting killed by a Police Officer it does not matter. There were huge protests about police brutality last year and the taking the knee stuff goes on. Why are there no protests about black kids killing other black kids? That seems to be ok. I just don't get it.
What a ludicrous post. There are plenty of movements, charities, etc, about inner-city violence.
The other is a protest against the literal state (in the US) disproportionately killing those of a particular race.
For the first time since Covid began there were zero deaths recorded in English Hospitals yesterday from Covid.
I thought there was a zero day last week?
There was!
No, different metric. Today's zero is the NHS England hospital deaths measure, which is different from the reported UK Covid deaths number. So we had a zero last week on the latter but this is the first zero since last spring on the former.
How is possible to get zero deaths in the latter but not the former?
Different reporting on different days.
The UK Covid data is reported, typically by reporting day, not actual day of death. The England Hospital stats are reported, typically by both reporting data and actual day of death.
If you go by reporting day, two sets of numbers will never line up.
We aren't seeing any significant expansion of roll out. Very disappointing number of first jabs, which is what we need to be doing lots of as fast as possible to squash the new uptick in cases.
It's the second highest Sunday on record.
I have these sundays (Monday reporting) as higher ?
Day / Date / 1sts / 2nds / Cum 1sts / Cum 2nds / Day total
Seven months before taking over the EU’s rotating Council presidency, the French government is mulling plans to revive the declining use and visibility of la langue de Molière.
The French government is earmarking money to offer more French classes to EU civil servants. Officials are contemplating hosting French-language debates featuring the country’s crème de la crème.
And then there are the meetings.
During the country’s presidency, French diplomats said all key meetings of the Council of the EU will be conducted in French (with translations available). Notes and minutes will be French-first. Even preparatory meetings will be conducted in French.
There’s a hidden hypocrisy in France’s forlorn and doomed attempt to regain linguistic supremacy. They say they are fighting English ‘for the sake of all the other languages’, ‘to preserve multilingualism, the linguistic diversity of the world’, yada yada. But when other countries with other languages say, in response, ‘great, can we have more official languages in the EU, not just English French and German’, or ‘how about having several working languages in the ECJ, not just French’, the French respond with horror. ‘No, French is a truly great language’, it’s unique status must be preserved’.
This has actually happened. eg Italy made these points, and then expressed deep irritation at the French
Macron went around Africa telling them that if they had more belief, French could become the global language.
It’s been said that in the next few decades there will only be two languages spoken in the world - English and Chinese. I think Spanish deserves an honourable mention though, and Russian will be not far behind it.
It is possible there may still be hundreds of languages and you will not need to learn a different one because there will be auto-translate apps that are so good you just need to think of what you need to say and your phone will say it in Mandarin or Swahili or whatever, and you will hear it back in your own language, like the Babel fish in Hitchhiker's Guide...It is already happening
Black lives don't matter so much to other blacks - if they get in the way of a drug deal going down....
Compare and contrast with the number of statements and pieces of footage on YouTube if she had been shot by a white cop. Just sayin'....
Thats why I hate the Black Lives Matter nonsense. When a black person kills another black person which in this Country is a 1000 times more likely than a black person getting killed by a Police Officer it does not matter. There were huge protests about police brutality last year and the taking the knee stuff goes on. Why are there no protests about black kids killing other black kids? That seems to be ok. I just don't get it.
Comments
Bedroom paint: Hague Blue. Bit of a cliche but it really does make wooden furniture, floors, picture frames, look great. I am now tempted to paint all the white emulsion (doors, windows, wardrobe) a rich and scandalous red
It was between Del Boy and the Big Bad Wolf.
Also, from memory, Del Boy’s heart was in the right place, whereas all the evidence we have about Boris is that he is quite content to use and then abandon even his own family.
In the Marion Miller case I raised yesterday, feminists (maybe even radical feminists) are being characterised as 'far right', whilst Transgenderist Campaigners are being characterised as basically 'intolerant SNP cnuts' *, as the issue is tied up with the SNP sponsorship of the transgender issue, and more aggressive use of 'hate speech' laws in Scotland.
And now Miller is left charged, to appear in Court in 8 weeks time, and the police have not yet told her which allegedly offensive tweets she has been charged over.
There's something here about police being too ready to intervene, things such as 'causing offence' being too prominent in our laws, and therefore complaining - rather than winning a debate - being incentivised. How do we dis-incentivise involvement of the authorities to close opponents down?
And how do we make move the barriers around our public square a long way back, to increase the debate space?
(*) - Not trying to make this into a Scottish/English issue - but that is a main tenor of debate.
However I live in an early Victorian semi, so it’s probably de rigueur in my part of the world.
The debate has many elements, it seems, and also manages to s&&t on anyone who enters it.
I think at one point @kinabalu had an excellent summary of the issues but I can't find it without a "PB Trawl".
Just take it easy I suggest.
Hence the problem. As a nation, we quite possibly are giggling into the sea. And, as a nation, a sufficiency of us seem ok with that.
https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/june-2021/no-babies-no-more-nazis/
I have big Georgian sash windows. Works a treat
I think I am going for glossy scarlet emulsion. Gulp. Vermeer meets Le Chabanais
I disagree with "we are out of it". One corollary of leaving that was extensively explained was that relations would be a continuing permanent negotiation (ask the Swiss), as enshrined in review of agreements every few years. It's not as if the UK has much less of an impact; EU (as opposed to European) media seems fixated; so much that they keep telling themselves they don't care about 6 times a day.
Hague Blue is nice and very in right now. We have the similar Inchyra Blue on a couple of the walls of our kitchen, and just had the living room done in Breakfast Room Green and Sulking Room Pink (it's a double room). Slipper Satin above the dado rail. We got a cheaper paint brand to match the f&b colour though.
I'm troubled by how much I like the f&b colours given their inherently reactionary stylings.
Nothing worse than an uppity bedroom painter.
How about ache in the receiving arm?
UGH
Also my mates and I go for six pints and they get up and go to work/take the kids out next morning whilst I’d prob lock myself in a room for two days. So just a lightweight.
But it really WORKS
I just want to say though that, Hague Blue will probably be outdated in only two years or so.
Interior design is having a “maximalist” moment.
By all that is holy.
Just it be clear, I have not personally succumbed.
I am ashamed to admit I have lived south of the river. But only once. And I do have an excuse. I was incarcerated in Brixton Jail, so it’s not like I had much choice
Still. South of the river. *Shudders*
387,286 vaccinations in 🇬🇧 yesterday
🏴 99,621 1st doses / 217,491 2nd doses
🏴 20,542 / 23,766
🏴 3,625 / 12,145
NI 3,557 / 6,539
Popularity comes and goes and is a fickle mistress. Johnson doesn't really have much experience of real life, but he has had plenty of experience of mistresses, so maybe everything will be fine.
https://twitter.com/standardnews/status/1401877579057991690?s=20
I went into our local posh paint shop and asked the SW London type middle class lady if she’d heard of it and she almost threw up like David Walliams racist character in Little Britain when she found out black girls had made the scones. I said ‘you’ve never dipped your toe into the world of Dulux have you?”, and she said no.
I painted my old front room that colour a few years ago anyway
Compare and contrast with the number of statements and pieces of footage on YouTube if she had been shot by a white cop. Just sayin'....
The LibDem/Fleet Local coalition have been pushing for an entire new village with 5000-10,000 new houses within 15 minutes walk of the local station, including 4 primary schools, a secondary school, a whole bunch of shops, med centre, etc.
The local Tories have set up a "Stop [new village]" Facebook group; the local Tory MP has joined the fight against it. As he can get to Jenrick easily, locals in favour fear that the entire thing's going to be derailed.
Anyway; not got that much to do with Chesham and Amersham; just a real mental whiplash moment going from seeing some Tories decrying LibDem supported development to seeing other Tories howling about LibDem NIMBYism.
When I was living on the Old Brompton Road I suggested to a friend of mine we go for a drink near me (The Troubadour, although as a Northie you probably don't know it). He lives in Lowndes Square and demurred, saying it was "so far out".
Is this just the emulsion colours? We've just done our skirting boards in Dulux paint.
This is the nonsense that needs to stop. You can either go into pub and restaurants or you can't, let stop the idea that you can only spread covid whilst walking around, and not when sitting down.
We aren't seeing any significant expansion of roll out. Very disappointing number of first jabs, which is what we need to be doing lots of as fast as possible to squash the new uptick in cases.
Secondly liberals in general actively seek to maximise the life chances of those with whom they are closest in at least three ways: by using their wealth to purchase opportunity and experience, by using their background and education to maximise the experience and formation of their family, and by seeking the best available education, school, university for those closest to them.
Wealthier liberals use their wealth to send these possibilities further down the generations.
There is nothing wrong with any of these inevitable inequalities; there is quite a bit wrong with pretending none of this is true. Like most people I am a liberal.
We've used Johnstone's paint which is very reasonable but good quality and easy to apply (it's what decorators use), and they can match any F&B colour for about half the price.
Day / Date / 1sts / 2nds / Cum 1sts / Cum 2nds / Day total
Monday 24-05-2021 126,357 252,139 38,070,038 22,895,556 378,496
Monday 26-04-2021 86,247 310,007 33,752,885 12,897,123 396,254
Monday 29-03-2021 293,542 146,785 30,444,829 3,674,266 440,327
Monday 22-03-2021 367,006 52,612 27,997,976 2,281,384 419,618
Monday 07-06-2021 109,345 259,941 40,442,576 27,921,294 369,286
So there is some idea of the benefit at each level, although establishing any given one is always going to be necessarily arbitrary.
If 100, why not 101? If 101, why not 102? If 102... etc.
You either set a line or have none. It would probably be simpler and provoke less picking over the specific number if they simply retained the current limit, but that would be rather harsh.
The entire thing on masks at some times and not others is because covid is infectious based on proximity and time. Get people to wear masks for 25% of the time indoors and you'll truncate that time period by 25%. If you require masks for eating and drinking, you can't do it. So select that particular time for not wearing masks and retain them for the rest of it (in addition, when you're moving around is when your more likely to expose larger numbers of people you're walking alongside).
The entire obsession with binary thinking (all or nothing, yes or no, 100% or 0%) is one reason that it was so difficult to bring down rising covid infections in this country short of a binary on/off lockdown. All the fucking "scotch egging" looking for edge cases and "if you can do this, then why not the other?"
So, yeah, we could simply ban bars and restaurants until the point where they're comfortable about unlimited internal occupancy with no masking or any measures at all. Or we could move partially towards these things whenever we can and use some common sense rather than unthinking binaries.
Francis is quite right.
Sub 100k first doses in England is pisspoor, whatever day of the week it is.
Remember we are supposed to be surging?
In truth, the much-vaunted vaccine surge simply hasn't materialised.
But the depth of colour is definitely superior.
On the one hand you have Johnson: Conservative Party (elite group), MP (elite group), quite rich (elite group), Eton (v elite), Oxford (v elite)...etc, etc.
Then, Corbyn: MP (elite), private prep school (elite), went to a top grammar school (elite), brought up in a manor house (elite), son of lefty intellectuals (elite). The only non-elite thing about Corbyn is that he didn't go to university, which was not because he tried to avoid it but because he was as thick as a plank.
Populism as a political approach, whether left or right, is essentially about conning people. This is one thing that Johnson is good at, and was considerably better at it than Corbyn.
I’ve never understood the popularity of Notting Hill, for that reason alone. Way too far out, practically Shepherd’s Bush. Nice houses tho
I understand that this is difficult for government, but I really do think around masks the evidence in many settings is not clear cut. People use is not the same as clinical use.
I also think their time has come to an end with the vaccination programme.
Salman Rushdie for one, I would also include in politics people like Baroness Manzoor, Yahya Birt, Ghayasuddin Siddiqui and others. What about Amir Khan? Mo Farah? Suspect there are plenty of philanthropists and business people too. Nadia Bukhari (had to look that one up) is a high-flying academic. Babar Bhatti the actor?
From what I have been able to glean, the immediate side-effects are based around your innate (indiscriminate) immune system reaction to an invasion; the acquired (targeted) immune system reaction wouldn't have happened yet.
A very strong innate immune system reaction may indicate that you'd have had a similar initial level to the actual virus, but what that may have meant longer term would depend on how quickly and well your acquired immune system (the bit that takes time to spin up the antibodies and T-cells that directly target the virus) would have responded, which (as I understand it) won't be signalled by this.
It seems plausible that a lot of the really bad illnesses happen when the innate immune response is high and the acquired immune response is low - so your body (and especially lungs) remains a battleground between the virus trying to grow exponentially inside of you and your own innate immune system pouring indiscriminate firepower on that same area in an attempt to prevent it growing still further.
So - not really possible to say how you'd have been against the virus, although maybe it's a hint you'd not have been asymptomatic if your innate immune system went straight to this level on reaction to the vaccine.
There were huge protests about police brutality last year and the taking the knee stuff goes on. Why are there no protests about black kids killing other black kids? That seems to be ok. I just don't get it.
As someone commented recently most of us are civilians caught in the culture war crossfire. Most of us are also, I think, within its original and proper meaning, woke or at least partially so.
If the government decide to delay the next stage on the basis that the number of jabs isn't what they want it to be, then I'd be fine with that. If they said once we hit x number of 1st/2nd doses (maybe plus three weeks or whatever), then we can open everything up, then that would seem sensible.
The other is a protest against the literal state (in the US) disproportionately killing those of a particular race.
If you can't see a difference, well...
The UK Covid data is reported, typically by reporting day, not actual day of death.
The England Hospital stats are reported, typically by both reporting data and actual day of death.
If you go by reporting day, two sets of numbers will never line up.
Which is why I use day of death -